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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Winter Evening Tales, by Amelia Edith
+Huddleston Barr
+
+
+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: Winter Evening Tales
+       "Cash," a Problem of Profit and Loss;
+       Franz Müller's Wife;
+       The Voice at Midnight;
+       Six and Half-a-Dozen;
+       The Story of David Morrison;
+       Tom Duffan's Daughter;
+       The Harvest of the Wind;
+       The Seven Wise Men of Preston;
+       Margaret Sinclair's Silent Money;
+       Just What He Deserved;
+       An Only Offer;
+       Two Fair Deceivers;
+       The Two Mr. Smiths;
+       The Story of Mary Neil;
+       The Heiress of Kurston Chace;
+       Only This Once;
+       Petralto's Love Story
+
+Author: Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
+
+Release Date: July 6, 2005  [eBook #16222]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WINTER EVENING TALES***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Louise Pryor, and the
+Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+(https://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+WINTER EVENING TALES
+
+by
+
+AMELIA E. BARR
+
+Author of "A Bow of Orange Ribbon," "Jan Vedder's Wife,"
+"Friend Olivia," etc., etc.
+
+Published by
+The Christian Herald
+Louis Klopsch, Proprietor,
+Bible House, New York.
+
+1896
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+In these "Winter Evening Tales," Mrs. Barr has spread before her readers
+a feast that will afford the rarest enjoyment for many a leisure hour.
+There are few writers of the present day whose genius has such a
+luminous quality, and the spell of whose fancy carries us along so
+delightfully on its magic current. In these "Tales"--each a perfect gem
+of romance, in an artistic setting--the author has touched many phases
+of human nature. Some of the stories in the collection sparkle with the
+spirit of mirth; others give glimpses of the sadder side of life.
+Throughout all, there are found that broad sympathy and intense humanity
+that characterize every page that comes from her pen. Her men and women
+are creatures of real flesh and blood, not deftly-handled puppets; they
+move, act and speak spontaneously, with the full vigor of life and the
+strong purpose of persons who are participating in a real drama, and not
+a make-believe.
+
+Mrs. Barr has the rare gift of writing from heart to heart. She
+unconsciously infuses into her readers a liberal share of the enthusiasm
+that moves the people of her creative imagination. One cannot read any
+of her books without feeling more than a spectator's interest; we are,
+for the moment, actual sharers in the joys and the sorrows, the
+misfortunes and the triumphs of the men and women to whom she introduces
+us. Our sympathy, our love, our admiration, are kindled by their noble
+and attractive qualities; our mirth is excited by the absurd and
+incongruous aspects of some characters, and our hearts are thrilled by
+the frequent revelation of such goodness and true human feeling as can
+only come from pure and noble souls.
+
+In these "Tales," as in many of her other works, humble life has held a
+strong attraction for Mrs. Barr's pen. Her mind and heart naturally turn
+in this direction; and although her wonderful talent, within its wide
+range, deals with all stations and conditions of life, she has but
+little relish for the gilded artificialities of society, and a strong
+love for those whose condition makes life for them something real and
+earnest and definite of purpose. For this reason, among many others, the
+Christian people of America have a hearty admiration for Mrs. Barr and
+her work, knowing it to be not only of surpassing human interest, but
+spiritually helpful and inspiring, with an influence that makes for
+morality and good living, in the highest sense in which a Christian
+understands the term.
+
+G.H. SANDISON.
+
+_New York, 1896._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+"Cash;" a Problem of Profit and Loss
+Franz Müller's Wife
+The Voice at Midnight
+Six and Half-a-Dozen
+The Story of David Morrison
+Tom Duffan's Daughter
+The Harvest of the Wind
+The Seven Wise Men of Preston
+Margaret Sinclair's Silent Money
+Just What He Deserved
+An Only Offer
+Two Fair Deceivers
+The Two Mr. Smiths
+The Story of Mary Neil
+The Heiress of Kurston Chace
+Only This Once
+Petralto's Love Story
+
+
+
+
+Winter Evening Tales.
+
+
+
+
+CASH.
+
+A PROBLEM OF PROFIT AND LOSS, WORKED BY DAVID LOCKERBY.
+
+
+PART I.
+
+     "Gold may be dear bought."
+
+A narrow street with dreadful "wynds" and "vennels" running back from it
+was the High street of Glasgow at the time my story opens. And yet,
+though dirty, noisy and overcrowded with sin and suffering, a flavor of
+old time royalty and romance lingered amid its vulgar surroundings; and
+midway of its squalid length a quaint brown frontage kept behind it
+noble halls of learning, and pleasant old courts full of the "air of
+still delightful studies."
+
+From this building came out two young men in academic costume. One of
+them set his face dourly against the clammy fog and drizzling rain,
+breathing it boldly, as if it was the balmiest oxygen; the other,
+shuddering, drew his scarlet toga around him and said, mournfully,
+"Ech, Davie, the High street is an ill furlong on the de'il's road! I
+never tread it, but I think o' the weary, weary miles atween it and
+Eden."
+
+"There is no road without its bad league, Willie, and the High street
+has its compensations; its prison for ill-doers, its learned college,
+and its holy High Kirk. I am one of St. Mungo's bairns, and I'm not
+above preaching for my saint."
+
+"And St. Mungo will be proud of your birthday yet, Davie. With such a
+head and such a tongue, with knowledge behind, and wit to the fore,
+there is a broad road and an open door for David Lockerby. You may come
+even to be the Lord Rector o' Glasgow College yet."
+
+"Wisdom is praised and starves; I am thinking it would set me better to
+be Lord Provost of Glasgow city."
+
+"The man who buried his one talent did not go scatheless, Davie; and
+what now if he had had ten?"
+
+"You are aye preaching, Willie, and whiles it is very untimeous. Are you
+going to Mary Moir's to-night?"
+
+"Why should I? The only victory over love is through running away."
+
+David looked sharply at his companion but as they were at the Trongate
+there was no time for further remark. Willie Caird turned eastward
+toward Glasgow Green, David hailed a passing omnibus and was soon set
+down before a handsome house on the Sauchiehall Road. He went in by the
+back door, winning from old Janet, in spite of herself, the grimmest
+shadow of a smile.
+
+"Are my father and mother at home, Janet?"
+
+"Deed are they, the mair by token that they hae been quarreling anent
+you till the peacefu' folks like mysel' could hae wished them mair
+sense, or further away."
+
+"Why should they quarrel about me?"
+
+"Why, indeed, since they'll no win past your ain makin' or marring? But
+the mistress is some kin to Zebedee's wife, I'm thinking, and she wad
+fain set you up in a pu'pit and gie you the keys o' St. Peter; while
+maister is for haeing you it a bank or twa in your pouch, and add
+Ellenmount to Lockerby, and--"
+
+"And if I could, Janet?"
+
+"Tut, tut, lad! If it werna for 'if' you might put auld Scotland in a
+bottle."
+
+"But what was the upshot, Janet?"
+
+"I canna tell. God alone understan's quarreling folk."
+
+Then David went upstairs to his own room, and when he came down again
+his face was set as dourly against the coming interview as it had been
+against the mist and rain. The point at issue was quite familiar to
+him; his mother wished him to continue his studies and prepare for the
+ministry. In her opinion the greatest of all men were the servants of
+the King, and a part of the spiritual power and social influence which
+they enjoyed in St. Mungo's ancient city she earnestly coveted for her
+son. "Didn't the Bailies and the Lord Provost wait for them? And were
+not even the landed gentry and nobles obligated to walk behind a
+minister in his gown and bands?"
+
+Old Andrew Lockerby thought the honor good enough, but money was better.
+All the twenty years that his wife had been dreaming of David ruling his
+flock from the very throne of a pulpit, Andrew had been dreaming of him
+becoming a great merchant or banker, and winning back the fair lands of
+Ellenmount, once the patrimonial estate of the house of Lockerby. During
+these twenty years both husband and wife had clung tenaciously to their
+several intentions.
+
+Now David's teachers--without any knowledge of these diverse
+influences--had urged on him the duty of cultivating the unusual talents
+confided to him, and of consecrating them to some noble service of God
+and humanity. But David was ruled by many opposite feelings, and had
+with all his book-learning the very smallest intimate acquaintance with
+himself. He knew neither his strong points nor his weak ones, and had
+not even a suspicion of the mighty potency of that mysterious love for
+gold which really was the ruling passion in his breast.
+
+The argument so long pending he knew was now to be finally settled, and
+he was by no means unprepared for the discussion. He came slowly down
+stairs, counting the points he wished to make on his fingers, and quite
+resolved neither to be coaxed nor bullied out of his own individual
+opinion. He was a handsome, stalwart fellow, as Scotchmen of
+two-and-twenty go, for it takes about thirty-five years to fill up and
+perfect the massive frames of "the men of old Gaul." About his
+thirty-fifth year David would doubtless be a man of noble presence; but
+even now there was a sense of youth and power about him that was very
+attractive, as with a grave smile he lifted a book, and comfortably
+disposed himself in an easy chair by the window. For David knew better
+than begin the conversation; any advantages the defendant might have he
+determined to retain.
+
+After a few minutes' silence his father said, "What are you reading,
+Davie? It ought to be a guid book that puts guid company in the
+background."
+
+David leisurely turned to the title page. "'Selections from the Latin
+Poets,' father."
+
+"A fool is never a great fool until he kens Latin. Adam Smith or some
+book o' commercial economics wad set ye better, Davie."
+
+"Adam Smith is good company for them that are going his way, father: but
+there is no way a man may take and not find the humanities good
+road-fellows."
+
+"Dinna beat around the bush, guidman; tell Davie at once that you want
+him to go 'prentice to Mammon. He kens well enough whether he can serve
+him or no."
+
+"I want Davie to go 'prentice to your ain brither, guid wife--it's nane
+o' my doing if you ca' your ain kin ill names--and, Davie, your uncle
+maks you a fair offer, an' you'll just be a born fool to refuse it."
+
+"What is it, father?"
+
+"Twa years you are to serve him for £200 a year; and at the end, if both
+are satisfied, he will gie you sich a share in the business as I can buy
+you--and, Davie, I'se no be scrimping for such an end. It's the auldest
+bank in Soho, an' there's nane atween you and the head o' it. Dinna
+fling awa' good fortune--dinna do it, Davie, my dear lad. I hae look it
+to you for twenty years to finish what I hae begun--for twenty years I
+hae been telling mysel' 'my Davie will win again the bonnie braes o'
+Ellenmount.'"
+
+There were tears in old Andrew's eyes, and David's heart thrilled and
+warmed to the old man's words; in that one flash of sympathy they came
+nearer to each other than they had ever done before.
+
+And then spoke his mother: "Davie, my son, you'll no listen to ony sich
+temptation. My brither is my brither, and there are few folk o' the
+Gordon line a'thegither wrang, but Alexander Gordon is a dour man, and I
+trow weel you'll serve hard for ony share in his money bags. You'll just
+gang your ways back to college and tak' up your Greek and Hebrew and
+serve in the Lord's temple instead of Alexander Gordon's Soho Bank; and,
+Davie, if you'll do right in this matter you'll win my blessing and
+every plack and bawbee o' my money." Then, seeing no change in David's
+face, she made her last, great concession--"And, Davie, you may marry
+Mary Moir, an' it please you, and I'll like the lassie as weel as may
+be."
+
+"Your mither, like a' women, has sought you wi' a bribe in her hand,
+Davie. You ken whether she has bid your price or not. When you hae
+served your twa years I'se buy you a £20,000 share in the Gordon Bank,
+and a man wi' £20,000 can pick and choose the wife he likes best. But
+I'm aboon bribing you--a fair offer isna a bribe."
+
+The concession as to Mary Moir was the one which Davie had resolved to
+make his turning point, and now both father and mother had virtually
+granted it. He had told himself that no lot in life would be worth
+having without Mary, and that with her any lot would be happy. Now that
+he had been left free in this matter he knew his own mind as little as
+ever.
+
+"The first step binds to the next," he answered, thoughtfully. "Mary may
+have something to say. Night brings counsel. I will e'en think over
+things until the morn."
+
+A little later he was talking both offers over with Mary Moir, and
+though it took four hours to discuss them they did not find the subject
+tedious. It was very late when he returned home, but he knew by the
+light in the house-place that Janet was waiting up for him. Coming out
+of the wet, dark night, it was pleasant to see the blazing ingle, the
+white-sanded floor, and the little round table holding some cold
+moor-cock and the pastry that he particularly liked.
+
+"Love is but cauldrife cheer, my lad," said Janet, "an' the breast o' a
+bird an' a raspberry tartlet will be nane out o' the way." David was of
+the same opinion. He was very willing to enjoy Janet's good things and
+the pleasant light and warmth. Besides, Janet was his oldest confidant
+and friend--a friend that had never failed him in any of his boyish
+troubles or youthful scrapes.
+
+It gave her pleasure enough for a while to watch him eat, but when he
+pushed aside the bird and stretched out his hand for the raspberry
+dainties, she said, "Now talk a bit, my lad. If others hae wared money
+on you, I hae wared love, an' I want to ken whether you are going to
+college, or whether you are going to Lunnon amang the proud, fause
+Englishers?"
+
+"I am going to London, Janet."
+
+"Whatna for?"
+
+"I am not sure that I have any call to be a minister, Janet--it is a
+solemn charge."
+
+"Then why not ask for a sure call? There is nae key to God's council
+chamber that I ken of."
+
+"Mary wants me to go to London."
+
+"Ech, sirs! Sets Deacon Moir's dochter to send a lad a wrang road. I
+wouldna hae thocht wi' her bringing up she could hae swithered for a
+moment--but it's the auld, auld story; where the deil canna go by
+himsel' he sends a woman. And David Lockerby will tyne his inheritance
+for a pair o' blue e'en and a handfu' o' gowden curls. Waly! waly! but
+the children o' Esau live for ever."
+
+"Mary said,"--
+
+"I dinna want to hear what Mary said. It would hae been nae loss if
+she'd ne'er spoken on the matter; but if you think makin' money, an'
+hoarding money is the measure o' your capacity you ken yousel', sir,
+dootless. Howsomever you'll go to your ain room now; I'm no going to
+keep my auld e'en waking just for a common business body."
+
+Thus in spite of his father's support, David did not find his road to
+London as fair and straight as he could have wished. Janet was deeply
+offended at him, and she made him feel it in a score of little ways very
+annoying to a man fond of creature comforts and human sympathy. His
+mother went about the necessary preparations in a tearful mood that was
+a constant reproach, and his friend Willie did not scruple to tell him
+that "he was clean out o' the way o' duty."
+
+"God has given you a measure o' St. Paul's power o' argument, Davie, and
+the verra tongue o' Apollos--weapons wherewith to reason against all
+unrighteousness and to win the souls o' men."
+
+"Special pleading, Willie."
+
+"Not at all. Every man's life bears its inscription if he will take the
+trouble to read it. There was James Grahame, born, as you may say, wi' a
+sword in his hand, and Bauldy Strang wi' a spade, and Andrew Semple took
+to the balances and the 'rithmetic as a duck takes to the water. Do you
+not mind the day you spoke anent the African missions to the young men
+in St. Andrews' Ha'? Your words flew like arrows--every ane o' them to
+its mark; and your heart burned and your e'en glowed, till we were a' on
+fire with you, and there wasna a lad there that wouldna hae followed you
+to the vera Equator. I wouldna dare to bury such a power for good,
+Davie, no, not though I buried it fathoms deep in gold."
+
+From such interviews as these Davie went home very miserable. If it had
+not been for Mary Moir he would certainly have gone back to his old seat
+by Willie Caird in the Theological Hall. But Mary had such splendid
+dreams of their life in London, and she looked in her hope and beauty so
+bewitching, that he could not bear to hint a disappointment to her.
+Besides, he doubted whether she was really fit for a minister's wife,
+even if he should take up the cross laid down before him--and as for
+giving up Mary, he would not admit to himself that there could be a
+possible duty in such a contingency.
+
+But that even his father had doubts and hesitations was proven to David
+by the contradictory nature of his advice and charges. Thus on the
+morning he left Glasgow, and as they were riding together to the
+Caledonian station, the old man said, "Your uncle has given you a seat
+in his bank, Davie, and you'll mak' room for yoursel' to lie down, I'se
+warrant. But you'll no forget that when a guid man thrives a' should
+thrive i' him; and giving for God's sake never lessens the purse."
+
+"I am but one in a world full, father. I hope I shall never forget to
+give according to my prosperings."
+
+"Tak the world as it is, my lad, and no' as it ought to be; and never
+forget that money is money's brither--an' you put two pennies in a purse
+they'll creep thegither.
+
+"But then Davie, I am free to say gold won't buy everything, and though
+rich men hae long hands, they won't reach to heaven. So, though you'll
+tak guid care o' yoursel', you will also gie to God the things that are
+God's."
+
+"I have been brought up in the fear of God and the love of mankind,
+father. It would be an ill thing for me to slink out of life and leave
+the world no better for my living."
+
+"God bless you, lad; and the £20,000 will be to the fore when it is
+called for, and you shall make it £60,000, and I'll see again Ellenmount
+in the Lockerby's keeping. But you'll walk in the ways o' your fathers,
+and gie without grudging of your increase."
+
+David nodded rather impatiently. He could hardly understand the
+struggle going on in his father's heart--the wish to say something that
+might quiet his own conscience, and yet not make David's unnecessarily
+tender. It is hard serving God and Mammon, and Andrew Lockerby was
+miserable and ashamed that morning in the service.
+
+And yet he was not selfish in the matter--that much in his favor must be
+admitted. He would rather have had the fine, handsome lad he loved so
+dearly going in and out his own house. He could have taken great
+interest in all his further studies, and very great pride in seeing him
+a successful "placed minister;" but there are few Scotsmen in whom pride
+of lineage and the good of the family does not strike deeper than
+individual pleasure. Andrew really believed that David's first duty was
+to the house of Lockerby.
+
+He had sacrificed a great deal toward this end all his own life, nor
+were his sacrifices complete with the resignation of his only child to
+the same purpose. To a man of more than sixty years of age it is a great
+trial to have an unusual and unhappy atmosphere in his home; and though
+Mrs. Lockerby was now tearful and patient under her disappointment,
+everyone knows that tears and patience may be a miserable kind of
+comfort. Then, though Janet had as yet preserved a dour and angry
+silence, he knew that sooner or later she would begin a guerilla warfare
+of sharp words, which he feared he would have mainly to bear, for Janet,
+though his housekeeper, was also "a far-awa cousin," had been forty
+years in his house, and was not accustomed to withhold her opinions on
+any subject.
+
+Fortunately for Andrew Lockerby, Janet finally selected Mary Moir as the
+Eve specially to blame in this transgression. "A proud up-head lassie,"
+she asserted, "that cam o' a family wha would sell their share o' the
+sunshine for pounds sterling!"
+
+From such texts as this the two women in the Lockerby house preached
+little daily sermons to each other, until comfort grew out of the very
+stem of their sorrow, and they began to congratulate each other that
+"puir Davie was at ony rate outside the glamour o' Mary Moir's
+temptations."
+
+"For she just bewitched the laddie," said Janet, angrily; and,
+doubtless, if the old laws regarding witches had been in Janet's
+administration it would have gone hardly with pretty Mary Moir.
+
+
+PART II.
+
+"God's work is soon done."
+
+It is a weary day when the youth first discovers that after all he will
+only become a man; and this discovery came with a depressing weight one
+morning to David, after he had been counting bank notes for three hours.
+It was noon, but the gas was lit, and in the heavy air a dozen men sat
+silent as statues, adding up figures and making entries. He thought of
+the college courts, and the college green, of the crowded halls, and the
+symposia, where both mind and body had equal refection. There had been
+days when he had a part in these things, and when to "strive with things
+impossible," or "to pluck honor from the pale-faced moon," had not been
+unreasonable or rash; but now it almost seemed as if Mr. Buckle's dreary
+gospel was a reality, and men were machines, and life was an affair to
+be tabulated in averages.
+
+He had just had a letter from Willie Caird, too, and it had irritated
+him. The wounds of a friend may be faithful, but they are not always
+welcome. David determined to drop the correspondence. Willie was going
+one way and he another. They might never see each other again; and--
+
+          If they should meet one day,
+          If _both_ should not forget
+    They could clasp hands the accustomed way.
+
+For by simply going with the current in which in great measure, subject
+yet to early influences, he found himself, David Lockerby had drifted in
+one twelve months far enough away from the traditions and feelings of
+his home and native land. Not that he had broken loose into any flagrant
+sin, or in any manner cast a shadow on the perfect respectability of his
+name. The set in which Alexander Gordon and his nephew lived sanctioned
+nothing of the kind. They belonged to the best society, and were of
+those well-dressed, well-behaved people whom Canon Kingsley described as
+"the sitters in pews."
+
+In their very proper company David had gone to ball and party, to opera
+and theatre. On wet Sundays they sat together in St. George's Church; on
+fine Sundays they had sailed quietly down the Thames, and eaten their
+dinner at Richmond. Now, sin is sin beyond all controversy, but there
+were none of David's companions to whom these things were sins in the
+same degree as they were to David.
+
+To none of them had the holy Sabbath ever been the day it had been to
+him; to none of them was it so richly freighted with memories of
+wonderful sermons and solemn sacraments that were foretastes of heaven.
+Coming with a party of gentlemanly fellows slowly rowing up the Thames
+and humming some passionate recitative from an opera, he alone could
+recall the charmful stillness of a Scotch Sabbath, the worshiping
+crowds, and the evening psalm ascending from so many thousand
+hearthstones:
+
+    O God of Bethel, by whose hand
+      Thy people still are led.
+
+He alone, as the oars kept time to "aria" or "chorus," heard above the
+witching melody the solemn minor of "St. Mary's," or the tearful
+tenderness of "Communion."
+
+To most of his companions opera and theatre had come as a matter of
+course, as a part of their daily life and education. David had been
+obliged to stifle conscience, to disobey his father's counsels and his
+mother's pleadings, before he could enjoy them. He had had, in fact, to
+cultivate a taste for the sin before the sin was pleasant to him; and he
+frankly told himself that night, in thinking it all over, that it was
+harder work getting to hell than to heaven.
+
+But then in another year he would become a partner, marry Mary, and
+begin a new life. Suddenly it struck him with a new force that he had
+not heard from Mary for nearly three weeks. A fear seized him that
+while he had been dancing and making merry Mary had been ill and
+suffering. He was amazed at his own heartlessness, for surely nothing
+but sickness would have made Mary forget him.
+
+The next morning as he went to the bank he posted a long letter to her,
+full of affection and contrition and rose-colored pictures of their
+future life. He had risen an hour earlier to write it, and he did not
+fail to notice what a healthy natural pleasure even this small effort of
+self-denial gave him. He determined that he would that very night write
+long letters to his mother and Janet, and even to his father. "There was
+a good deal he wanted to say to him about money matters, and his
+marriage, and fore-talk always saved after-talk, besides it would keep
+the influence of the old and better life around him to be in closer
+communion with it."
+
+Thus thinking, he opened the door of his uncle's private room, and said
+cheerily, "Good morning, uncle."
+
+"Good morning, Davie. Your father is here."
+
+Then Andrew Lockerby came forward, and his son met him with outstretched
+hands and paling cheeks. "What is it, father? Mother? Mary? Is she
+dead?"
+
+"'Deed, no, my lad. There's naething wrang but will turn to right. Mary
+Moir was married three days syne, and I thocht you wad rather hear the
+news from are that loved you. That's a', Davie; and indeed it's a loss
+that's a great gain."
+
+"Who did she marry?"
+
+"Just a bit wizened body frae the East Indies, a'most as yellow as his
+gold, an' as auld as her father. But the Deacon is greatly set up wi'
+the match--or the settlements--and Mary comes o' a gripping kind.
+There's her brother Gavin, he'd sell the ears aff his head, an' they
+werena fastened on."
+
+Then David went away with his father, and after half-an-hour's talk on
+the subject together it was never mentioned more between them. But it
+was a blow that killed effectually all David's eager yearnings for a
+loftier and purer life. And it not only did this, but it also caused to
+spring up into active existence a passion which was to rule him
+absolutely--a passion for gold. Love had failed him, friendship had
+proved an annoyance, company, music, feasting, amusements of all kinds
+were a weariness now to think of. There seemed nothing better for him
+than to become a rich man.
+
+"I'll buy so many acres of old Scotland and call them by the Lockerby's
+name; and I'll have nobles and great men come bowing and becking to
+David Lockerby as they do to Alexander Gordon. Love is refused, and
+wisdom is scorned, but everybody is glad to take money; then money is
+best of all things."
+
+Thus David reasoned, and his father said nothing against his arguments.
+Indeed, they had never understood one another so well. David, for the
+first time, asked all about the lands of Ellenmount, and pledged
+himself, if he lived and prospered, to fulfill his father's hope.
+Indeed, Andrew was altogether so pleased with his son that he told his
+brother-in-law that the £20,000 would be forthcoming as soon as ever he
+choose to advance David in the firm.
+
+"I was only waiting, Lockerby, till Davie got through wi' his playtime.
+The lad's myself o'er again, an' I ken weel he'll ne'er be contented
+until he settles cannily doon to his interest tables."
+
+So before Andrew Lockerby went back to Glasgow David was one of the firm
+of Gordon & Co., sat in the directors' room, and began to feel some of
+the pleasant power of having money to lend. After this he was rarely
+seen among men of his own age--women he never mingled with. He removed
+to his uncle's stately house in Baker street, and assimilated his life
+very much to that of the older money maker. Occasionally he took a run
+northward to Glasgow, or a month's vacation on the Continent, but
+nearly all such journeys were associated with some profitable loan or
+investment. People began to speak of him as a most admirable young man,
+and indeed in some respects he merited the praise. No son ever more
+affectionately honored his father and mother, and Janet had been made an
+independent woman by his grateful consideration.
+
+He was so admirable that he ceased to interest people, and every time he
+visited Glasgow fewer and fewer of his old acquaintances came to see
+him. A little more than ten years after his admission to the firm of
+Gordon & Co. he came home at the new year, and presented his father with
+the title-deeds of Ellenmount and Netherby. The next day old Andrew was
+welcomed on the City Exchange as "Lockerby of Ellenmount, gentleman." "I
+hae lived lang enough to hae seen this day," he said, with happy tears;
+and David felt a joy in his father's joy that he did not know again for
+many years. For while a man works for another there is an ennobling
+element in his labor, but when he works simply for himself he has become
+the greatest of all slaves. This slavery David now willingly assumed;
+the accumulation of money became his business, his pleasure, the sum of
+his daily life.
+
+Ten years later both his uncle and father were dead, and both had left
+David every shilling they possessed. Then he went on working more
+eagerly than ever, turning his tens of thousands into hundreds of
+thousands and adding acre to acre, and farm to farm, until Lockerby was
+the richest estate in Annandale. When he was forty-five years of age
+fortune seemed to have given him every good gift except wife and
+children, and his mother, who had nothing else to fret about, worried
+Janet continually on this subject.
+
+"Wife an' bairns, indeed!" said Janet; "vera uncertain comforts, ma'am,
+an' vera certain cares. Our Master Davie likes aye to be sure o' his
+bargains."
+
+"Weel, Janet, it's a great cross to me--an' him sae honored, an' guid
+an' rich, wi' no a shilling ill-saved to shame him."
+
+"Tut, tut, ma'am! The river doesna' swell wi' clean water. Naebody's
+charged him wi' wrangdoing--that's enough. There's nae need to set him
+up for a saint."
+
+"An' you wanted him to be a minister, Janet."
+
+"I was that blind--ance."
+
+"We are blind creatures, Janet."
+
+"Wi' _excepts_, ma'am; but they'll ne'er be found amang mithers."
+
+This conversation took place one lovely Sabbath evening, and just at the
+same time David was standing thoughtfully on Princes street, Edinburgh,
+wondering to which church he had better turn his steps. For a sudden
+crisis in the affairs of a bank in that city had brought him hurriedly
+to Scotland, and he was not only a prudent man who considered public
+opinion, but was also in a mood to conciliate that opinion so long as
+the outward conditions were favorable. Whatever he might do in London,
+in Scotland he always went to morning and evening service.
+
+He was also one of those self-dependent men who dislike to ask questions
+or advice from anyone. Though a comparative stranger he would not have
+allowed himself to think that anyone could direct him better than he
+could choose for himself. He looked up and down the street, and finally
+followed a company which increased continually until they entered an old
+church in the Canongate.
+
+Its plain wooden pews and old-fashioned elevated pulpit rather pleased
+than offended David, and the air of antiquity about the place
+consecrated it in his eyes. Men like whatever reminds them of their
+purest and best days, and David had been once in the old Relief Church
+on the Doo Hill in Glasgow--just such a large, bare, solemn-looking
+house of worship. The still, earnest men and women, the droning of the
+precentor, the antiquated singing pleased and soothed him. He did not
+notice much the thin little fair man who conducted the services; for he
+was holding a session with his own soul.
+
+A peculiar movement among the congregation announced that the sermon was
+beginning, and David, looking up, saw that the officiating minister had
+been changed. This man was swarthy and tall, and looked like some old
+Jewish prophet, as he lifted his rapt face and cried, like one crying in
+the wilderness, "Friends! I have a question to ask you to-night: '_What
+shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own
+soul_?'"
+
+For twenty-three years David had silenced that voice, but it had found
+him out again--it was Willie Caird's. At first interested and curious,
+David soon became profoundly moved as Willie, in clear, solemn,
+thrilling sentences, reasoned of life and death and judgment to come.
+Not that he followed his arguments, or was more than dimly conscious of
+the moving eloquence that stirred the crowd as a mighty wind stirs the
+trees in the forest: for that dreadful question smote, and smote, and
+smote upon his heart as if determined to have an answer.
+
+_What shall it profit? What shall it profit? What shall it profit_?
+David was quick enough at counting material loss and profit, but here
+was a question beyond his computation. He went silently out of the
+church, and wandered away by Holyrood Palace and St. Anthony's Chapel to
+the pathless, lonely beauty of Salisbury Crags. There was no answer in
+nature for him. The stars were silent above, the earth silent beneath.
+Weariness brought him no rest; if he slept, he woke with the start of a
+hunted soul, and found him asking that same dreadful question. When he
+looked in the mirror his own face queried of him, "What profit?" and he
+was compelled to make a decided effort to prevent his tongue uttering
+the ever present thought.
+
+But at noon he would meet the defaulting bank committee, "and doubtless
+his lawful business would take its proper share of his thought!" He told
+himself that it was the voice and face of his old friend that had
+affected him so vividly, and that if he went and chatted over old times
+with Willie, he would get rid of the disagreeable influence.
+
+The influence, however, went with him into the creditors' committee
+room. The embarrassed officials had dreaded greatly the interview. No
+one hoped for more than bare justice from David Lockerby. "Clemency,
+help, sympathy! You'll get blood out o' a stane first, gentlemen," said
+the old cashier, with a dour, hopeless face.
+
+And yet that morning David Lockerby amazed no one so much as himself.
+He went to the meeting quite determined to have his own--only his
+own--but something asked him, "_What shall it profit_?" and he gave up
+his lawful increase and even offered help. He went determined to speak
+his mind very plainly about mismanagement and the folly of having
+losses; and something asked him, "_What shall it profit_?" and he gave
+such sympathy with his help that the money came with a blessing in its
+hand.
+
+The feeling of satisfaction was so new to him that it embarrassed and
+almost made him ashamed. He slipped ungraciously away from the thanks
+that ought to have been pleasant, and found himself, almost
+unconsciously, looking up Willie's name in the clerical directory, "Dr.
+William Caird, 22 Moray place." David knew enough of Edinburgh to know
+that Moray place contained the handsomest residences in the city, and
+therefore he was not astonished at the richness and splendor of Willie's
+library; but he was astonished to see him surrounded by five beautiful
+boys and girls, and evidently as much interested in their lessons and
+sports as if he was one of them.
+
+"Ech! Davie man! but I'm glad to see you!" That was all of Willie's
+greeting, but his eyes filled, and as the friends held each other's
+hands Davie came very near touching for a moment a David Lockerby no one
+had seen for many long years. But he said nothing during his visit of
+Willie's sermon, nor indeed in several subsequent ones. Scotsmen are
+reticent on all matters, and especially reticent about spiritual
+experience; and though Davie lingered in Edinburgh a week, he was
+neither able to speak to Willie about his soul, nor yet in all their
+conversations get rid of that haunting, uncomfortable influence Willie
+had raised.
+
+But as they stood before the Queen's Hotel at midnight bidding each
+other an affectionate farewell, David suddenly turned Willie round and
+opened up his whole heart to him. And as he talked he found himself able
+to define what had been only hitherto a vague, restless sense of want.
+
+"I am the poorest rich man and the most miserable failure, Willie Caird,
+that ever you asked yon fearsome question of--and I know it. I have
+achieved millions, and I am a conscious bankrupt to my own soul. I have
+wasted my youth, neglected my talents and opportunities, and whatever
+the world may call me I am a wretched breakdown. I have made
+money--plenty of it--and it does not pay me. What am I to do?"
+
+"You ken, Davie, my dear, dear lad, what advice the Lord Jesus gave to
+the rich man--'distribute unto the poor--and come, follow me!'"
+
+Then up and down Princes street, and away under the shadow of the Castle
+Hill, Willie and David walked and talked, till the first sunbeams
+touched St. Leonard's Crags. If it was a long walk a grand work was laid
+out in it.
+
+"You shall be more blessed than your namesake," said Willie, "for though
+David gathered the gold, and the wood, and the stone, Solomon builded
+therewith. Now, an' it please God, you shall do your ain work, and see
+the topstone brought on with rejoicing."
+
+Then at David's command, workmen gathered in companies, and some of the
+worst "vennels" in old Glasgow were torn down; and the sunshine flooded
+"wynds" it had scarcely touched for centuries, and a noble building
+arose that was to be a home for children that had no home. And the farms
+of Ellenmount fed them, and the fleeces of Lockerby clothed them, and
+into every young hand was put a trade that would win it honest bread.
+
+In a short time even this undertaking began to be too small for David's
+energies and resources, and he joined hands with Willie in many other
+good works, and gave not only freely of his gold, but also of his time
+and labor. The old eloquence that stirred his classmates in St. Andrew's
+Hall, "till they would have followed him to the equator" began to stir
+the cautious Glasgow traders to the bottom of their hearts, and their
+pocketbooks; and men who didn't want to help in a crusade against
+drunkenness, or in a crusade for the spread of the Gospel, stopped away
+from Glasgow City Hall when David Lockerby filled the chair at a public
+meeting and started a subscription list with £1000 down on the table.
+
+But there were two old ladies that never stopped away, though one of
+them always declared "Master Davie had fleeched her last bawbee out o'
+her pouch;" and the other generally had her little whimper about Davie
+"waring his substance upon ither folks' bairns."
+
+"There's bonnie Bessie Lament, Janet; an' he would marry her we might
+live to see his ain sons and daughters in the old house."
+
+"'Deed, then, ma'am, our Davie has gotten him a name better than that o'
+sons an' dochters; and though I am sair disappointed in him--"
+
+"You shouldn't say that, Janet; he made a gran' speech the day."
+
+"A speech isna' a sermon, ma'am; though I'll ne'er belittle a speech wi'
+a £1000 argument."
+
+"And there was Deacon Moir, Janet, who didna approve o' the scheme, and
+who would therefore gie nothing at a'."
+
+"The Deacon is sae godly that God doesna get a chance to improve his
+condition, ma'am. But for a' o' Deacon Moir's disapproval I'se count on
+the good work going on."
+
+"'Deed yes, Janet, and though our Davie should ne'er marry at a'--"
+
+"There'll be generations o' lads an' lasses, ma'am, that will rise up in
+auld Scotland an' go up an' down through a' the warld a' ca' David
+Lockerby 'blessed.'"
+
+
+
+
+FRANZ MÜLLER'S WIFE.
+
+
+"Franz, good morning. Whose philosophy is it now? Hegel, Spinosa, Kant
+or Dugald Stewart?"
+
+"None of them. I am reading _Faust_."
+
+"Worse and worse. Better wrestle with philosophies than lose yourself in
+the clouds. At any rate, if the poets are to send the philosophers to
+the right about, stick to Shakespeare."
+
+"He is too material. He can't get rid of men and women."
+
+"They are a little better, I should think, than Mephisto. Come, Franz,
+condescend to cravats and kid gloves, and let us go and see my cousin
+Christine Stromberg."
+
+"I do not know the young lady."
+
+"Of course not. She has just returned from a Munich school. Her brother
+Max was at the Lyndons' great party, you remember?"
+
+"I don't remember, Louis. In white cravats and black coats all men look
+alike."
+
+"But you will go?"
+
+"If you wish it, yes. There are some uncut reviews on the table: amuse
+yourself while I dress."
+
+"Thanks, I have my cigar case. I will take a smoke and think of
+Christine."
+
+For some reason quite beyond analysis, Franz did not like this speech.
+He had never seen Christine Stromberg, but yet he half resented the
+careless use of her name. It fell upon some soul consciousness like a
+familiar and personal name, and yet he vainly recalled every phase of
+his life for any clew to this familiarity.
+
+He was a handsome fellow, with large, clearly-cut features and gray,
+thoughtful eyes. In a conversation that interested him his face lighted
+up with a singularly beautiful animation, but usually it was as still
+and passionless as if the soul was away on a dream or a visit. Even the
+regulation cravat and coat could not destroy his individuality, and
+Louis looked admiringly at him, and said, "You are still Franz Müller.
+No one is just like you. I should think Cousin Christine will fall in
+love with you."
+
+Again Franz's heart resented this speech. It had been waiting for love
+for many a year, but he could not jest or speculate about it. No one but
+the thoughtless, favored Louis ever dared to do it before Franz, and no
+one ever spoke lightly of women before him, for the worst of men are
+sensitive to the presence of a pure and lofty nature, and are generally
+willing to respect it.
+
+Franz dreamed of women, but only of noble women, and even for those who
+fell below his ideal he had a thousand apologies and a world of pity. It
+was strange that such a man should have lived thirty years, and never
+have really loved any mortal woman. But his hour had come at last. As
+soon as he saw Christine Stromberg he loved her. A strange exaltation
+possessed him; his face was radiant; he talked and sung with a
+brilliancy that amazed even those most familiar with his rare
+exhibitions of such moods. And Christine seemed fascinated by his beauty
+and wit. The hours passed like moments; and when the girl stood watching
+him down the moon-lit avenue, she almost trembled to remember what
+questions Franz's eyes had asked her and how strangely familiar the
+clasp of his hand and the sound of his voice had seemed to her.
+
+"I wonder where I have seen him before," she murmured--"I wonder where
+it was?" and to this thought she slowly took off one by one her jewels,
+and brushed out her long black hair; nay, when she fell asleep, it was
+only to take it up again in dreams.
+
+As for Franz, he was in far too ecstatic a mood to think of sleep. "One
+has too few of such godlike moments to steep them in unconsciousness,"
+he said to himself. And so he sat smoking and thinking and watching the
+waning moon sink lower and lower, until it was no longer night, but
+dawning day.
+
+"In a few hours now I can go and see Christine." At this point in his
+love he had no other thought. He was too happy to speculate on any
+probability as yet. It was sufficient at present to know that he had
+found his love, that she lived at a definite number on a definite
+avenue, and that in six or seven hours more he might see her again.
+
+He chose the earlier number. It was just eleven o'clock when he rung Mr.
+Stromberg's bell. Mrs. Stromberg passed through the hall as he entered,
+and greeted him pleasantly. "Christine and I are just going to have
+breakfast," she said, in her jolly, hearty way. "Come in Mr. Müller, and
+have a cup of coffee with us."
+
+Nothing could have delighted Franz so much. Christine was pouring it out
+as he entered the pretty breakfast parlor. How beautiful she looked in
+her long loose morning dress! How, bewitching were its numerous bows of
+pale ribbon! He had a sense of hunger immediately, and he knew that he
+made an excellent breakfast; but of what he ate or what he drank he had
+not the slightest conception.
+
+A cup of coffee passing through Christine's, hands necessarily suffered
+some wonderful change. It could not, and it did not, taste like
+ordinary coffee. In the same mysterious way chicken, eggs and rolls
+became sublimated. So they ate and laughed and chatted, and I am quite
+sure that Milton never imagined a meal in Eden half so delightful as
+that breakfast on the avenue.
+
+When it was over, it came into Franz's heart to offer Christine a ride.
+They were standing together among the flowers in the bay window, and the
+trees outside were in their first tender green, and the spring skies and
+the spring airs were full of happiness and hope. Christine was arranging
+and watering her lilies and pansies, and somehow in helping her Franz's
+hands and hers had lingered happily together. So now love gave to this
+mortal an immortal's confidence. He never thought of sighing and fearing
+and trembling. His soul had claimed Christine, and he firmly believed
+that sooner or later she would hear and understand what he had to say to
+her.
+
+"Shall we ride?" he said, just touching her fingers, and looking at her
+with eyes and face glowing with a wonderful happiness.
+
+Alas, Christine could think of mamma, and of morning calls and of what
+people would say. But Franz overruled every scruple; he conquered mamma,
+and laughed at society; and before Christine had decided which of her
+costumes was most becoming, Franz was waiting at the door.
+
+How they rattled up the avenue and through the park! How the green
+branches waved in triumph, and how the birds sang and gossiped about
+them! By the time they arrived at Mount St. Vincent they had forgotten
+they were mortal. Then the rest in the shady gallery, and the subsidence
+of love's exaltation into love's silent tender melancholy, were just as
+blissful.
+
+They came slowly home, speaking only in glances and monosyllables, but
+just before they parted Franz said, "I have been waiting thirty years
+for you, Christine; to-day my life has blossomed."
+
+And though Christine did not make any audible answer, he thought her
+blush sufficient; besides, she took the lilies from her throat and gave
+them to him.
+
+Such a dream of love is given only to the few whom the gods favor. Franz
+must have stood high in their grace, for it lasted through many sweet
+weeks and months for him. He followed the Strombergs to Newport, and
+laid his whole life down at Christine's feet. There was no definite
+engagement between them, but every one understood that would come as
+surely as the end of the season.
+
+Money matters and housekeeping must eventually intrude themselves, but
+the romance and charm of this one summer of life should be untouched.
+And Franz was not anxious at all on this score. His father, a shrewd
+business man, had early seen that his son was a poet and a dreamer. "It
+is not the boy's fault," he said to his partner, "he gets it from his
+grandfather, who was always more out of this world than in it."
+
+So he wisely allowed Franz to follow his natural tastes, and contented
+himself with carefully investing his fortune in such real estate and
+securities as he believed would insure a safe, if a slow increase. He
+had bought wisely, and Franz's income was a certain and handsome one,
+with a tendency rather to increase than decrease, and quite sufficient
+to maintain Christine in all the luxury to which she had been
+accustomed.
+
+So when he returned to the city he intended to speak to Mr. Stromberg.
+All he had should be Christine's and her father should settle the matter
+just as he thought best for his daughter. In a general way this was
+understood by all parties, and everyone seemed inclined to sympathize
+with the happy feeling which led the lovers to deprecate during these
+enchanted days any allusion which tended to dispel the exquisite charm
+of their young lives' idyl.
+
+Perhaps it would have been better if they had remembered the ancient
+superstition and themselves done something to mar their perfect
+happiness. Polycrates offered his ring to avert the calamity sure to
+follow unmitigated pleasure or success, and Franz ought, perhaps, to
+have also made an effort to propitiate his envious Fate.
+
+But he did not, and toward the very end of the season, when the October
+days had thrown a kind of still melancholy over the world that had been
+so green and gay, Franz's dream was rudely broken--broken by a Mr. James
+Barker Clarke, a blustering, vulgar man of fifty, worth _three
+millions_. In some way or other he seemed to have a great deal of
+influence over Mr. Stromberg, who paid him unqualified respect, and over
+Mrs. Stromberg, who seemed to fear him.
+
+Mr. Stromberg's "private ledger" alone knew the whole secret; for of
+course money was at the foundation. Indeed, in these days, in all public
+and private troubles, it is proper to ask, not "Who is she?" but "How
+much is it?" Franz Müller and James Barker Clarke hated each other on
+sight. Still Franz had no idea at first that this ugly, uncouth man
+could ever be a rival to his own handsome person and passionate
+affection.
+
+In a few days, however, he was compelled to actually consider the
+possibility of such a thing. Mr. Stromberg had assumed an attitude of
+such extreme politeness, and Mrs. Stromberg avoided him if possible, and
+if not possible, was constrained and unhappy in the familiar relations
+that she had accepted so happily all summer. As for Christine, she had
+constant headaches, and her eyes were often swollen and red with
+weeping.
+
+At length, without notice, the family left Newport, and went to stay a
+month with some relative near Boston. A pitiful little note from
+Christine informed him of this fact; but as he received no information
+as to the locality of her relative's house, and no invitation to call,
+he was compelled for the present to do as Christine asked him--wait
+patiently for their return.
+
+At first he got a few short tender notes, but they were evidently
+written in such sorrow that he was almost beside himself with grief and
+anger. When these ceased he went to Boston, and without difficulty found
+the house where Christine was staying. He was received at first very
+shyly by Mrs. Stromberg, but when Franz poured out his love and misery,
+the poor old lady wept bitterly, and moaned out that she could not help
+it, and Christine could not help it, and that they were all very
+miserable.
+
+Finally she was persuaded to let him see Christine, "just for five
+minutes." The poor girl came to him, a shadow of her gay self, and,
+weeping in his arms, told him he must bid her good-by forever. The five
+minutes were lengthened into a long, terrible hour, and Franz went back
+to New York with the knowledge that in that hour his life had been
+broken in two for this life.
+
+One night toward the close of November his friend Louis called. "Franz,"
+he said, "have you heard that Christine Stromberg is to marry old
+Clarke?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"No one can trust a woman. It is a shame of Christine."
+
+"Louis, speak of what you know. Christine is an angel. If a woman
+appears to do wrong, there is probably some brute of a man behind her
+forcing her to do it."
+
+"I thought she was to be your wife."
+
+"She is my wife in soul and feeling. No one, thank God, can help that.
+If I was Clarke, I would as willingly marry a corpse as Christine
+Stromberg. Do not speak of her again, Louis. The poor innocent child!
+God bless her!" And he burst into a passion of weeping that alarmed his
+friend for his reason, but which was probably its salvation.
+
+In a week Franz had left for Europe, and the next Christmas, Christine
+and James Barker Clarke were married, and began housekeeping in a style
+of extravagant splendor. People wondered and exclaimed at Christine's
+reckless expenditure, her parents advised, her husband scolded; but
+though she never disputed them, she quietly ignored all their
+suggestions. She went to Paris, and lived like a princess; Rome, Vienna
+and London wondered over her beauty and her splendor; and wherever she
+went Franz followed her quietly, haunting her magnificent salons like a
+wretched spectre.
+
+They rarely or never spoke. Beyond a grave inclination of the head, or a
+look whose profound misery he only understood, she gave him no
+recognition. The world held her name above reproach, and considered that
+she had done very well to herself.
+
+Ten years passed away, but the changes they brought were such as the
+world regards as natural and inevitable. Christine's mother died and her
+father married again; and Christine had a son and a daughter. Franz
+watched anxiously to see if this new love would break up the icy
+coldness of her manners. Sometimes he was conscious of feeling angrily
+jealous of the children, but he always crushed down the wretched
+passion. "If Christine loved a flower, would I not love it also?" he
+asked himself; "and these little ones, what have they done?" So at last
+he got to separate them entirely from every one but Christine, and to
+regard them as part and portion of his love.
+
+But at the end of ten years a change came, neither natural nor expected.
+Franz was walking moodily about his library one night, when Louis came
+to tell him of it, Louis was no longer young, and was married now, for
+he had found out that the beaten track is the safest.
+
+"Franz," he said, "have you heard about Clarke? His affairs are
+frightfully wrong, and he shot himself an hour ago."
+
+"And Christine? Does she know? Who has gone to her?"
+
+"My wife is with her. Clarke shot himself in his own room. Christine was
+the first to reach him. He left a letter saying he was absolutely
+ruined."
+
+"Where will Christine and the children go?"
+
+"I suppose to her father's. Not a pleasant place for her now.
+Christine's step-mother dislikes both her and the children."
+
+Franz said no more, and Louis went away with a feeling of
+disappointment. "I thought he would have done something for her," he
+said to his wife. "Poor Christine will be very poor and dependent."
+
+Ten days after he came home with a different story. "There never was a
+woman as lucky about money as Cousin Christine," he said. "Hardy & Hall
+sent her notice to-day that the property at Ryebeach settled on her
+before her marriage by Mr. Clarke was now at her disposal. It seems the
+old gentleman anticipated the result of his wild speculations, and in
+order to provide for his wife, quietly bought and placed in Hardy's
+charge two beautifully furnished cottages. There is something like an
+accumulation of sixteen thousand dollars of rentage; and as one is
+luckily empty, Christine and the children are going there at once. I
+always thought the property was Hardy's own before. Very thoughtful in
+Clarke."
+
+"It is not Clarke one bit. I don't believe he ever did it. It is some
+arrangement of Franz Müller's."
+
+"For goodness' sake don't hint such a thing, Lizzie! Christine would not
+go, and we should have her here very soon. Besides, I don't believe it.
+Franz took the news very coolly, and he has kept out of my way since."
+
+The next day Louis was more than ever of his wife's opinion. "What do
+you think, Lizzie?" he said. "Franz came to me to-day and asked if
+Clarke did not once loan me two thousand dollars. I told him Clarke gave
+me two thousand about the time we were married."
+
+"'Say _loaned_, Louis,' he answered, 'to oblige me. Here is two
+thousand and the interest for six years. Go and pay it to Christine; she
+must need money.' So I went."
+
+"Is she settled comfortably?"
+
+"Oh, very. Go and see her often. Franz is sure to marry her, and he is
+growing richer every day."
+
+It seemed as if Louis's prediction would come true. Franz began to drive
+out every afternoon to Ryebeach. At first he contented himself with just
+passing Christine's gate. But he soon began to stop for the children,
+and having taken them a drive, to rest a while on the lawn, or in the
+parlor, while Christine made him a cup of tea.
+
+For Franz tired very easily now, and Christine saw what few others
+noticed: he had become pale and emaciated, and the least exertion left
+him weary and breathless. She knew in her heart that it was, the last
+summer he would be with her. Alas! what a pitiful shadow of their first
+one! It was hard to contrast the ardent, handsome lover of ten years ago
+with the white, silently happy man who, when October came, had only
+strength to sit and hold her hand, and gaze with eager, loving eyes into
+her face.
+
+One day his physician met Louis on Broadway. "Mr. Curtin," he said,
+"your friend Müller is very ill. I consider his life measured by days,
+perhaps hours. He has long had organic disease of the heart. It is near
+the last."
+
+"Does he know it?"
+
+"Yes, he has known it long. Better see him at once."
+
+So Louis went at once. He found Franz calmly making his last
+preparations for the great event. "I am glad you are come, Louis," he
+said; "I was going to send for you. See this cabinet full of letters. I
+have not strength left to destroy them; burn them for me when--when I am
+gone.
+
+"This small packet is Christine's dear little notes: bury them with me:
+there are ten of them, every one ten years old."
+
+"Is that all, dear Franz?"
+
+"Yes; my will has long been made. Except a legacy to yourself, all goes
+to Christine--dear, dear Christine!"
+
+"You love her yet, then, Franz?"
+
+"What do you mean? I have loved her for ages. I shall love her forever.
+She is the other half of my soul. In some lives I have missed her
+altogether let me be thankful that she has come so near me in this one."
+
+"Do you know what you are saying, Franz?"
+
+"Very clearly, Louis. I have always believed with the oldest
+philosophers that souls were created in pairs, and that it is permitted
+them in their toilsome journey back to purity and heaven sometimes to
+meet and comfort each other. Do you think I saw Christine for the first
+time in your uncle's parlor? Louis, I have fairer and grander memories
+of her than any linked to this life. I must leave her now for a little.
+God knows when and where we meet again; but _He does know_; that is my
+hope and consolation."
+
+Whatever were Louis's private opinions about Franz's theology it was
+impossible to dissent at that hour, and he took his friend's last
+instructions and farewell with such gentle, solemn feelings as had long
+been strange to his-heart.
+
+In the afternoon Franz was driven out to Christine's. It was the last
+physical effort he was capable of. No one saw the parting of those two
+souls. He went with Christine's arms around him, and her lips whispering
+tender, hopeful farewells. It was noticed however, that after Franz's
+death a strange change came over Christine--a beautiful nobility and
+calmness of character, and a gentle setting of her life to the loftiest
+aims.
+
+Louis said she had been wonderfully moved by the papers Franz left. The
+ten letters she had written during the spring-time of their love went to
+the grave with him, but the rest were of such an extraordinary nature
+that Louis could not refrain from showing them to his cousin, and then
+at her request leaving them for her to dispose of. They were indeed
+letters written to herself under every circumstance of her life, and
+directed to every place in which she had sojourned. In all of them she
+was addressed as "Beloved Wife of my Soul," and in this way the poor
+fellow had consoled his breaking, longing heart.
+
+To some of them he had written imaginary answers, but as these all
+referred to a financial secret known only to the parties concerned in
+Christine's and his own sacrifice, it was proof positive that he had
+written only for his own comfort. But it was perhaps well they fell into
+Christine's hands: she could not but be a better woman for reading the
+simple records of a strife which set perfect unselfishness and
+child-like submission as the goal of its duties.
+
+Seven years after Franz's death Christine and her daughter died together
+of the Roman fever, and James Barker Clarke, junior, was left sole
+inheritor of Franz's wealth.
+
+"A German dreamer!"
+
+Ah, well, there are dreamers and dreamers. And perchance he that seeks
+fame, and he that seeks gold, and he that seeks power, may all alike,
+when this shadowy existence is over, look back upon life "as a dream
+when one awaketh."
+
+
+
+
+THE VOICE AT MIDNIGHT.
+
+
+"It is the King's highway that we are in; and know this, His messengers
+are on it. They who have ears to hear will hear; and He opens the eyes
+of some, and they see things not to be lightly spoken of."
+
+It was John Balmuto who said these words to me. John was a Shetlander,
+and for forty years he had gone to the Arctic seas with the whale boats.
+Then there had come to him a wonderful experience. He had been four days
+and nights alone with God upon the sea, among mountains of ice reeling
+together in perilous madness, and with little light but the angry flush
+of the aurora. Then, undoubtedly, was born that strong faith in the
+Unseen which made him an active character in the facts I am going to
+relate.
+
+After his marvelous salvation, he devoted his life to the service of God
+by entering that remarkable body of lay evangelists attached to the
+Presbyterian Church in Highland parishes, called "The Men," and he
+became noted throughout the Hebrides for his labors, and for his
+knowledge of the Scriptures.
+
+Circumstances, that summer, had thrown us together; I, a young woman,
+just entering an apparently fortunate life; he, an aged saint, standing
+on the borderland of eternity. And we were sitting together, in the gray
+summer gloaming, when he said to me, "Thou art silent to-night. What
+hast thou, then, on thy mind?"
+
+"I had a strange dream. I cannot shake off its influence. Of course it
+is folly, and I don't believe in dreams at all." And it was then he said
+to me, "It is the King's highway that we are in, and know this, His
+messengers are on it."
+
+"But it was only a dream."
+
+"Well, God speaks to His children 'in dreams, and by the oracles that
+come in darkness.'"
+
+"He used to do so."
+
+"Wilt thou then say that He has ceased so to speak to men? Now, I will
+tell thee a thing that happened; I will tell thee just the bare facts; I
+will put nothing to, nor take anything away from them.
+
+"'Tis, five years ago the first day of last June. I was in Stornoway in
+the Lews, and I was going to the Gairloch Preachings. It was rough,
+cheerless weather, and all the fishing fleet were at anchor for the
+night, with no prospect of a fishing. The fishers were sitting together
+talking over the bad weather, but, indeed, without that bitterness that
+I have heard from landsmen when it would be the same trouble with them.
+So I gathered them into Donald Brae's cottage, and we had a very good
+hour. I noticed a stranger in the corner of the room, and some one told
+me he was one of those men who paint pictures, and I saw that he was
+busy with a pencil and paper even while we were at the service. But the
+next day I left for the Preachings, and I thought no more of him, good
+or bad.
+
+"On the first of September I was in Oban. I had walked far and was very
+tired, but I went to John MacNab's cottage, and, after I had eat my
+kippered herring and drank my tea, I felt better. Then I talked with
+John about the resurrection of the body, for he was in a tribulation of
+thoughts and doubts as to whether our Lord had a permanent humanity or
+not.
+
+"And I said to him, John, Christ redeemed our whole nature, and it is
+this way: the body being ransomed, as well as the spirit, by no less a
+price than the body of Christ, shall be equally cleansed and glorified.
+Now, then, after I had gone to my room, I was sitting thinking of these
+things, and of no other things whatever. There was not a sound but that
+of the waves breaking among the rocks, and drawing the tinkling pebbles
+down the beach after them. Then the ears of my spiritual body were
+opened, and I heard these words, _'I will go with thee to Glasgow!'_
+Instead of saying to the heavenly message, 'I am ready!' I began to
+argue with myself thus: 'Whatever for should I go to Glasgow? I know not
+anyone there. No one knows me. I have duties at Portsee not to be left.
+I have no money for such a journey--'
+
+"I fell asleep to such thoughts. Then I dreamed of--or I saw--a woman
+fair as the daughters of God, and she said, _'I will go with thee to
+Glasgow!'_ With a strange feeling of being hurried and pressed I
+awoke--wide awake, and without any conscious will of my own, I answered,
+'I am ready. I am ready now.'
+
+"As I left the cottage it was striking twelve, and I wondered what means
+of reaching Glasgow I should find at midnight. But I walked straight to
+the pier, and there was a small steamer with her steam up. She was
+blowing her whistle impatiently, and when the skipper saw me coming, he
+called to me, in a passion, 'Well, then, is it all night I shall wait
+for thee?'
+
+"I soon perceived that there was a mistake, and that it was not John
+Balmuto he had been instructed to wait for. But I heeded not that; I was
+under orders I durst not disobey. She was a trading steamer, with a
+perishable cargo of game and lobsters, and so she touched at no place
+whatever till we reached Glasgow. One of her passengers was David
+MacPherson of Harris, a very good man, who had known me in my
+visitations. He was going to Glasgow as a witness in a case to be tried
+between the Harris fishers and their commission house in Glasgow.
+
+"As we walked together from the steamer, he said to me, 'Let us go round
+by the court house, John, and I'll find out when I'll be required.' That
+was to my mind; I did not feel as if I could go astray, whatever road
+was taken, and I turned with him the way he desired to go. He found the
+lawyer who needed him in the court house, and while they talked together
+I went forward and listened to the case that was in hand.
+
+"It was a trial for murder, and I could not keep my eyes off the young
+man who was charged with the crime. He seemed to be quite broken down
+with shame and sorrow. Before MacPherson called me the court closed and
+the constables took him away. As he passed me our eyes met, and my heart
+dirled and burned, and I could not make out whatever would be the matter
+with me. All night his face haunted me. I was sure I had seen it some
+place; and besides it would blend itself with the dream which had
+brought me to Glasgow.
+
+"In the morning I was early at the court house and I saw the prisoner
+brought in. There was the most marvelous change in his looks. He walked
+like a man who has lost fear, and his face was quite calm. But now it
+troubled me more than ever. Whatever had I to do with the young man? Yet
+I could not bear to leave him.
+
+"I listened and found out that he was accused of murdering his uncle.
+They had been traveling together and were known to have been at Ullapool
+on the thirtieth of May. On the first of June the elder man was found in
+a lonely place near Oban, dead, and, without doubt, from violence. The
+chain of circumstantial evidence against his nephew was very strong. To
+judge by it I would have said myself to him, 'Thou art certainly
+guilty.'
+
+"On the other side the young man declared that he had quarreled with his
+uncle at Ullapool and left him clandestinely. He had then taken passage
+in a Manx fishing smack which was going to the Lews, but he had
+forgotten the name of the smack. He was not even certain if the boat was
+Manx. The landlord of the inn, at which he said he stayed when in the
+Lews, did not remember him. 'A thing not to be expected,' he told the
+jury, 'for in the summer months, what with visitors, and what with the
+fishers, a face in Stornoway was like a face on a crowded street. The
+young man might have been there'--
+
+"The word _Stornoway_ made the whole thing clear to me. The prisoner was
+the man I had noticed with a pencil and paper among the fishers in
+Donald Brae's cottage. Yes, indeed he was! I knew then why I had been
+sent to Glasgow. I walked quickly to the bar, and lifting my bonnet from
+my head, I said to the judge, 'My lord, the prisoner _was_ in Stornoway
+on the first of June. I saw him there!'
+
+"He gave a great cry of joy and turned to me; and in a moment he called
+out: 'You are the man who read the Bible to the fishers. I remember you.
+I have your likeness among my drawings.' And I said, 'I am the man.'
+
+"Then my lord, the judge, made them swear me, and he said they would
+hear my evidence. For one moment I was a coward. I thought I would hide
+God's share in the deliverance, lest men should doubt my whole
+testimony. The next, I was telling the true story: how I had been called
+at midnight--twice called; how I had found Evan Conochie's boat waiting
+for me; how on the boat I had met David MacPherson, and been brought to
+the court house by him, having no intention or plan of my own in the
+matter.
+
+"And there was a great awe in the room as I spoke. Every one believed
+what I said, and my lord asked for the names of the fishers who were
+present in Donald Brae's cottage on the night of the first of June. Very
+well, then, I could give many of them, and they were sent for, and the
+lad was saved, thank God Almighty!"
+
+"How do you explain it, John?"
+
+"No, I will not try to explain it; for it is not to be hoped that anyone
+can explain by human reason the things surpassing human reason."
+
+"Do you know what became of the young man?"
+
+"I will tell thee about him. He is a very rich young man, and the only
+child of a widow, known like Dorcas of old for her great goodness to the
+Lord's poor. But when his mother died it did not go well and peaceably
+between him and his uncle; and it is true that he left him at Ullapool
+without a word. Well, then, he fell into this sore strait, and it seemed
+as if all hope of proving his innocence was over.
+
+"But that very night on which I saw him first, he dreamed that his
+mother came to him in his cell and she comforted him and told him,
+'To-morrow, surely, thy deliverer shall speak for thee.' He never
+doubted the heavenly vision. 'How could I?' he asked me. 'My mother
+never deceived me in life; would she come to me, even in a dream, to
+tell me a lie? Ah, no!'"
+
+"Is he still alive?"
+
+"God preserve him for many a year yet! I'll only require to speak his
+name"--and when he had done so, I knew the secret spring of thankfulness
+that fed the never-ceasing charity of one great, good man.
+
+"And yet, John," I urged, "how can spirit speak with spirit?"
+
+"'_How?_' I will tell thee, that word 'how' has no business in the mouth
+of a child of God. When I was a boy, who had dreamed 'how' men in London
+might speak with men in Edinburgh through the air, invisible and
+unheard? That is a matter of trade now. Can thou imagine what subtle
+secret lines there may be between the spiritual world and this world?"
+
+"But dreams, John?"
+
+"Well, then, dreams. Take the dream life out of thy Bible and, oh, how
+much thou wilt lose! All through it this side of the spiritual world
+presses close on the human side. I thank God for it. Yes, indeed! Many
+things I hear and see which say to me that Christians now have a kind of
+shame in what is mystical or supernatural. But thou be sure of this--the
+supernaturalism of the Bible, and of every Christian life is not one of
+the difficulties of our faith, _it is the foundation of our faith_. The
+Bible is a supernatural book, the law of a supernatural religion; and to
+part with this element is to lose out of it the flavor of heaven, and
+the hope of immortality. Yes, indeed!"
+
+This conversation occurred thirty years ago. Two years since, I met the
+man who had experienced such a deliverance, and he told me again the
+wonderful story, and showed me the pencil sketch which he had made of
+John Balmuto in Donald Brae's cottage. He had painted from it a grand
+picture of his deliverer, wearing the long black camlet cloak and
+head-kerchief of the order of evangelists to which he belonged. I stood
+reverently before the commanding figure, with its inspired eyes and rapt
+expression; for, during those thirty years, I also had learned that it
+was only those
+
+    Who ne'er the mournful midnight hours
+    Weeping upon their bed have sate,
+    Who know you not, Ye Heavenly Powers.
+
+
+
+
+SIX, AND HALF-A-DOZEN.
+
+
+Slain in the battle of life. Wounded and fallen, trampled in the mire
+and mud of the conflict, then the ranks closed again and left no place
+for her. So she crawled aside to die. With a past whose black despair
+was as the shadow of a starless night, a future which her early
+religious training lit up with the lurid light of hell, and the strong
+bands of a pitiless death dragging her to the grave--still she craved,
+as the awful hour drew near, to see once more the home of her innocent
+childhood. Not that she thought to die in its shelter--any one who knew
+David Todd knew also that was a hopeless dream; but if, IF her
+father should say one pardoning word, then she thought it would help her
+to understand the love of God, and give her some strength to trust in
+it.
+
+Early in the evening, just as the sun was setting and the cows were
+coming lowing up the little lane, scented with the bursting lilac
+bushes, she stood humbly at the gate her father must pass in order to go
+to the hillside fold to shelter the ewes and lambs. Very soon she saw
+him coming, his Scotch bonnet pulled over his brows, his steps steadied
+by his shepherd's staff. His lips were firmly closed, and his eyes
+looked far over the hills; for David was a mystic in his own way, and
+they were to him temples not made with hands in which he had seen and
+heard wonderful things. Here the storehouses of hail and lightning had
+been opened in his sight, and he had watched in the sunshine the tempest
+bursting beneath his feet. He had trod upon rainbows and been waited
+upon by spectral mists. The voices of winds and waters were in his
+heart, and he passionately believed in God. But it was the God of his
+own creed--jealous, just and awful in that inconceivable holiness which
+charges his angels with folly and detects impurity in the sinless
+heavens. So, when he approached the gate he saw, but would not see, the
+dying girl who leaned against it. Whatever he felt he made no sign. He
+closed it without hurry, and then passed on the other side.
+
+"Father! O, father! speak one word to me."
+
+Then he turned and looked at her, sternly and awfully.
+
+"Thou art nane o' my bairn. I ken naught o' thee."
+
+Without another glance at the white, despairing face, he walked rapidly
+on; for the spring nights were chilly, and he must gather his lambs into
+the fold, though this poor sheep of his own household was left to
+perish.
+
+But, if her father knew her no more, the large sheep-dog at his side was
+not so cruel. No theological dogmas measured Rover's love; the stain on
+the spotless name of his master's house, which hurt the old man like a
+wound, had not shadowed his memory. He licked her hands and face, and
+tried with a hospitality and pity which made him so much nearer the
+angels than his master to pull her toward her home. But she shook her
+head and moaned pitifully; then throwing her arms round the poor brute
+she kissed him with those passionate kisses of repentance and love which
+should have fallen on her father's neck. The dog (dumb to all but God)
+pleaded with sorrowful eyes and half-frantic gestures; but she turned
+wearily away toward a great circle of immense rocks--relics of a
+religion scarcely more cruel than that which had neither pity nor
+forgiveness at the mouth of the grave. Within their shadow she could die
+unseen; and there next morning a wagoner, attracted by the plaintive
+howling of a dog, found her on the ground, dead.
+
+There are set awful hours between every soul and heaven. Who knows what
+passed between Lettice Todd and her God in that dim forsaken temple of a
+buried faith? Death closes tenderly even the eyes full of tears, and
+her face was beautiful with a strange peace, though its loveliness was
+marred and its youth "seared with the autumn of strange suffering."
+
+At the inquest which followed, her stern old father neither blamed nor
+excused himself. He accepted without apology the verdict of society
+against him; only remarking that its reproof was "a guid example o'
+Satan correcting sin."
+
+Scant pity and less ceremony was given to her burial. Death, which draws
+under the mantle of Charity the pride, cruelty and ambition of men,
+covering them with those two narrow words _Hic jacet_! gives also to the
+woman who has been a sinner all she asks--oblivion. In no other way can
+she obtain from man toleration. The example of the whitest, purest soul
+that ever breathed on earth, in this respect, is ignored in the church
+He founded. The tenderest of human hearts, "when lovely woman stooped to
+folly," found no way of escape for her but to "die;" and those closet
+moralists, with filthy fancies and soiled souls, who abound in every
+community, regard her with that sort of scorn which a Turk expresses
+when he says "Dog of a Christian." Poor Lettice! She had procured this
+doom--first by sacrificing herself to a blind and cruel love, and then
+to the importunate demands of hunger, "oldest and strongest of
+passions." Ah! if there was no pity in Heaven, no justice beyond the
+grave, what a cruel irony this life would be! For, while the sexton
+shoveled hastily over the rude coffin the obliterating earth, there
+passed the graveyard another woman equally fallen from all the apostle
+calls "lovely and of good report." One whose youth and hopes and
+marvelous beauty had been sold for houses and lands and a few thousand
+pounds a year. But, though her life was a living lie, the world praised
+her, because she "had done well unto herself." Yet, at the last end, the
+same seed brought forth the same fruit, and the Lady of Hawksworth Hall
+learned, with bitter rapidity, that riches are too poor to buy love.
+Scarcely had she taken possession of her splendid home before she longed
+for the placid happiness of her mother's cottage, and those evening
+walks under the beech-trees, whose very memory was now a sin. Over her
+beautiful face there crept a pathetic shadow, which irritated the rude
+and noisy squire like a reproach. He had always had what he wanted. Not
+even the beauty of all the border counties had been beyond his means to
+buy but somehow he felt as if in this bargain he had been overreached.
+Her better part eluded his possession, and he felt dissatisfied and
+angry. Expostulations grew into cruel words; cruel words came to cruder
+blows. _Yes, blows_. English gentlemen thirty years ago knew their
+privileges; and that was one of them. She was as much and as lawfully
+his as the horses in his stables or the hounds in his kennels. He beat
+them, too, when they did not obey him. Her beauty had betrayed her into
+the hands of misery. She had wedded it, and there was no escape for her.
+One day, when her despair and suffering was very great, some tempting
+devil brought her a glass of brandy, and she drank it. It gave her back
+for a few hours her departed sceptre; but at what a price! Her slave
+soon became her master. Stimulus and stupefaction, physical exhaustion
+and mental horrors, the abandonment of friends and the brutality of a
+coarse and cruel husband, brought her at last to the day of reckoning.
+She died, seven years after her marriage, in the delirium of opium.
+There were physicians and servants around her, and an unloving husband
+waiting for the news of his release. I think I would rather have died
+where Lettice did--under the sky, with the solemn mountains lifting
+their heads in a perpetual prayer around me, and that faithful dog
+licking my hands, and mourning my wasted life.
+
+Now, wherein did these two women differ? One sinned through an intense
+and self-sacrificing love, and in obedience to the strongest calls of
+want. Her sin, though it was beyond the pale of the world's toleration,
+was yet one _according to Nature_. The other, in a cold spirit of
+barter, voluntarily and deliberately exchanged her youth and beauty, the
+hopes of her own and another's life, for carriages, jewels, fine
+clothing and a luxurious table. She loathed the price she had to pay,
+and her sin was an unnatural one. For this kind of prostitution, which
+religion blesses and society praises, there seems to be no redress; but
+for that which results as the almost inevitable sequence of one lapse of
+chastity _we_, the pious, the virtuous, the irreproachable, are all to
+blame. Who or what make it impossible for them to retrace their steps?
+Do they ever have reason to hope that the family hearth will be open to
+them if they go back? Prodigal sons may return, and are welcomed with
+tears of joy and clasped by helping hands; but alas! how few parents
+would go to meet a sinning daughter. Forgetting our Master's precepts,
+forgetting our human frailty, forgetting our own weakness, we turn
+scornfully from the weeping Magdalen, and leave her "alone with the
+irreparable." Marriage is a holy and a necessary rite. We would
+deprecate _any_ loosening of this great house-band of society; but we
+do say that where it is the _only distinction_ between two women, one of
+whom is an honored matron, and the other a Pariah and an outcast, there
+is "something in the world amiss"--something beyond the cure of law or
+legislation, and that they can only be reached by the authority of a
+Christian press and the influence of Christian example.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF DAVID MORRISON.
+
+
+I think it is very likely that many New Yorkers were familiar with the
+face of David Morrison. It was a peculiarly guileless, kind face for a
+man of sixty years of age; a face that looked into the world's face with
+something of the confidence of a child. It had round it a little fringe
+of soft, light hair, and above that a big blue Scotch bonnet of the Rob
+Roryson fashion.
+
+The bonnet had come with him from the little Highland clachan, where he
+and his brother Sandy had scrambled through a hard, happy boyhood
+together. It had sometimes been laid aside for a more pretentious
+headgear, but it had never been lost; and in his old age and poverty had
+been cheerfully--almost affectionately--resumed.
+
+"Sandy had one just like it," he would say. "We bought them thegither in
+Aberdeen. Twa braw lads were we then. I'm wonderin' where poor Sandy is
+the day!"
+
+So, if anybody remembers the little spare man, with the child-like,
+candid face and the big blue bonnet, let them recall him kindly. It is
+his true history I am telling to-day.
+
+Davie had, as I said before, a hard boyhood. He knew what cold, hunger
+and long hours meant as soon as he knew anything; but it was glorified
+in his memory by the two central figures in it--a good mother, for whom
+he toiled and suffered cheerfully, and a big brother who helped him
+bravely over all the bits of life that were too hard for his young feet.
+
+When the mother died, the lads sailed together for America. They had a
+"far-awa'" cousin in New York, who, report said, had done well in the
+plastering business, and Sandy never doubted but that one Morrison would
+help another Morrison the wide world over. With this faith in their
+hearts and a few shillings in their pockets, the two lads landed. The
+American Morrison had not degenerated. He took kindly to his kith and
+kin, and offered to teach them his own craft.
+
+For some time the brothers were well content; but Sandy was of an
+ambitious, adventurous temper, and was really only waiting until he felt
+sure that wee Davie could take care of himself. Nothing but the Great
+West could satisfy Sandy's hopes; but he never dreamt of exposing his
+brother to its dangers and privations.
+
+"You're nothing stronger than a bit lassie, Davie," he said, "and you're
+no to fret if I don't take you wi' me. I'm going to make a big fortune,
+and when I have gotten the gold safe, I'se come back to you, and we'll
+spend it thegither dollar for dollar, my wee lad."
+
+"Sure as death! You'll come back to me?"
+
+"Sure as death, I'll come back to you, Davie!" and Sandy thought it no
+shame to cry on his little brother's neck, and to look back, with a
+loving, hopeful smile at Davie's sad, wistful face, just as long as he
+could see it.
+
+It was Davie's nature to believe and to trust. With a pitiful confidence
+and constancy he looked for the redemption of his brother's promise.
+After twenty years of absolute silence, he used to sit in the evenings
+after his work was over, and wonder "how Sandy and he had lost each
+other." For the possibility of Sandy forgetting him never once entered
+his loyal heart.
+
+He could find plenty of excuses for Sandy's silence. In the long years
+of their separation many changes had occurred even in a life so humble
+as Davie's. First, his cousin Morrison died, and the old business was
+scattered and forgotten. Then Davie had to move his residence very
+frequently; had even to follow lengthy jobs into various country places,
+so that his old address soon became a very blind clew to him.
+
+Then seven years after Sandy's departure the very house in which they
+had dwelt was pulled down; an iron factory was built on its site, and
+probably a few months afterward no one in the neighborhood could have
+told anything at all about Davie Morrison. Thus, unless Sandy should
+come himself to find his brother, every year made the probability of a
+letter reaching him less and less likely.
+
+Perhaps, as the years went by, the prospect of a reunion became more of
+a dream than an expectation. Davie had married very happily, a simple
+little body, not unlike himself, both in person and disposition. They
+had one son, who, of course, had been called Alexander, and in whom
+Davie fondly insisted, the lost Sandy's beauty and merits were
+faithfully reproduced.
+
+It is needless to say the boy was extravagantly loved and spoiled.
+Whatever Davie's youth had missed, he strove to procure for "Little
+Sandy." Many an extra hour he worked for this unselfish end. Life itself
+became to him only an implement with which to toil for his boy's
+pleasure and advantage. It was a common-place existence enough, and yet
+through it ran one golden thread of romance.
+
+In the summer evenings, when they walked together on the Battery, and in
+winter nights, when they sat together by the stove, Davie talked to his
+wife and child of that wonderful brother, who had gone to look for
+fortune in the great West. The simplicity of the elder two and the
+enthusiasm of the youth equally accepted the tale.
+
+Somehow, through many a year, a belief in his return invested life with
+a glorious possibility. Any night they might come home and find Uncle
+Sandy sitting by the fire, with his pockets full of gold eagles, and no
+end of them in some safe bank, besides.
+
+But when the youth had finished his schooldays, had learned a trade and
+began to go sweethearting, more tangible hopes and dreams agitated all
+their hearts; for young Sandy Morrison opened a carpenter's shop in his
+own name, and began to talk of taking a wife and furnishing a home.
+
+He did not take just the wife that pleased his father and mother. There
+was nothing, indeed, about Sallie Barker of which they could complain.
+She was bright and capable, but they _felt_ a want they were not able to
+analyze; the want was that pure unselfishness which was the ruling
+spirit of their own lives.
+
+This want never could be supplied in Sallie's nature. She did right
+because it was her duty to do right, not because it gave her pleasure to
+do it. When they had been married three years the war broke out, and
+soon afterward Alexander Morrison was drafted for the army. Sallie, who
+was daily expecting her second child, refused all consolation; and,
+indeed, their case looked hard enough.
+
+At first the possibility of a substitute had suggested itself; but a
+family consultation soon showed that this was impossible without
+hopelessly straitening both houses. Everyone knows that dreary silence
+which follows a long discussion, that has only confirmed the fear of an
+irremediable misfortune. Davie broke it in this case in a very
+unexpected manner.
+
+"Let me go in your place, Sandy. I'd like to do it, my lad. Maybe I'd
+find your uncle. Who knows? What do you say, old wife? We've had more
+than twenty years together. It is pretty hard for Sandy and Sallie, now,
+isn't it?"
+
+He spoke with a bright face and in a cheerful voice, as if he really was
+asking a favor for himself; and, though he did not try to put his offer
+into fine, heroic words, nothing could have been finer or more heroic
+than the perfect self-abnegation of his manner.
+
+The poor old wife shed a few bitter tears; but she also had been
+practicing self-denial for a lifetime, and the end of it was that Davie
+went to weary marches and lonely watches, and Sandy staid at home.
+
+This was the break-up of Davie's life. His wife went to live with Sandy
+and Sallie, and the furniture was mostly sold.
+
+Few people could have taken these events as Davie did. He even affected
+to be rather smitten with the military fever, and, when the parting
+came, left wife and son and home with a cheerful bravery that was sad
+enough to the one old heart who had counted its cost.
+
+In Davie's loving, simple nature there was doubtless a strong vein of
+romance. He was really in hopes that he might come across his long-lost
+brother. He had no very clear idea as to localities and distances, and
+he had read so many marvelous war stories that all things seemed
+possible in its atmosphere. But reality and romance are wide enough
+apart.
+
+Davie's military experience was a very dull and weary one. He grew
+poorer and poorer, lost heart and hope, and could only find comfort for
+all his sacrifices in the thought that "at least he had spared poor
+Sandy."
+
+Neither was his home-coming what he had pictured it in many a reverie.
+There was no wife to meet him--she had been three months in the grave
+when he got back to New York--and going to his daughter-in-law's home
+was not--well, it was not like going to his own house.
+
+Sallie was not cross or cruel, and she was grateful to Davie, but she
+did not _love_ the old man.
+
+He soon found that the attempt to take up again his trade was hopeless.
+He had grown very old with three years' exposure and hard duty. Other
+men could do twice the work he could, and do it better. He must step out
+from the ranks of skilled mechanics and take such humble positions as
+his failing strength permitted him to fill.
+
+Sandy objected strongly to this at first. "He could work for both," he
+said, "and he thought father had deserved his rest."
+
+But Davie shook his head--"he must earn his own loaf, and he must earn
+it now, just as he could. Any honest way was honorable enough." He was
+still cheerful and hopeful, but it was noticeable that he never spoke of
+his brother Sandy now; he had buried that golden expectation with many
+others. Then began for Davie Morrison the darkest period of his life. I
+am not going to write its history.
+
+It is not pleasant to tell of a family sinking lower and lower in spite
+of its brave and almost desperate efforts to keep its place--not
+pleasant to tell of the steps that gradually brought it to that pass,
+when the struggle was despairingly abandoned, and the conflict narrowed
+down to a fight with actual cold and hunger.
+
+It is not pleasant, mainly, because in such a struggle many a lonely
+claim is pitilessly set aside. In the daily shifts of bare life, the
+tender words that bring tender acts are forgotten. Gaunt looks,
+threadbare clothes, hard day-labor, sharp endurance of their children's
+wants, made Sandy and Sallie Morrison often very hard to those to whom
+they once were very tender.
+
+David had noticed it for many months. He could see that Sallie counted
+grudgingly the few pennies he occasionally required. His little
+newspaper business had been declining for some years; people took fewer
+papers, and some did not pay for those they did take. He made little
+losses that were great ones to him, and Sallie had long been saying it
+would "be far better for father to give up the business to Jamie; he is
+now sixteen and bright enough to look after his own."
+
+This alternative David could not bear to think of; and yet all through
+the summer the fear had constantly been before him. He knew how Sallie's
+plans always ended; Sandy was sure to give into them sooner or later,
+and he wondered if into their minds had ever come the terrible thought
+which haunted his own--_would they commit him, then, to the care of
+public charities?_
+
+"We have no time to love each other," he muttered, sadly, "and my bite
+and sup is hard to spare when there is not enough to go round. I'll
+speak to Sandy myself about it--poor lad! It will come hard on him to
+say the first word."
+
+The thought once realized began to take shape in his mind, and that
+night, contrary to his usual custom, he could not go to sleep. Sandy
+came in early, and the children went wearily off to bed. Then Sallie
+began to talk on the very subject which lay so heavy on his own heart,
+and he could tell from the tone of the conversation that it was one that
+had been discussed many times before.
+
+"He only made bare expenses last week and there's a loss of seventy
+cents this week already. Oh, Sandy, Sandy! there is no use putting off
+what is sure to come. Little Davie had to do without a drink of coffee
+to-night, and _his_ bread, you know, comes off theirs at every meal. It
+is very hard on us all!"
+
+"I don't think the children mind it, Sallie. Every one of them loves the
+old man--God bless him! He was a good father to me."
+
+"I would love him, too, Sandy, if I did not see him eating my children's
+bread. And neither he nor they get enough. Sandy, do take him down
+to-morrow, and tell him as you go the strait we are in. He will be
+better off; he will get better food and every other comfort. You must do
+it, Sandy; I can bear this no longer."
+
+"It's getting near Christmas, Sallie. Maybe he'll get New Year's
+presents enough to put things straight. Last year they were nearly
+eighteen dollars, you know."
+
+"Don't you see that Jamie could get that just as well? Jamie can take
+the business and make something of it. Father is letting it get worse
+and worse every week. We should have one less to feed, and Jamie's
+earnings besides. Sandy, _it has got to be_! Do it while we can make
+something by the step."
+
+"It is a mean, dastardly step, Sallie. God will never forgive me if I
+take it," and David could hear that his son's voice trembled.
+
+In fact, great tears were silently dropping from Sandy's eyes, and his
+father knew it, and pitied him, and thanked God that the lad's heart was
+yet so tender. And after this he felt strangely calm, and dropped into a
+happy sleep.
+
+In the morning he remembered all. He had not heard the end of the
+argument, but he knew that Sallie would succeed; and he was neither
+astonished nor dismayed when Sandy came home in the middle of the day
+and asked him to "go down the avenue a bit."
+
+He had determined to speak first and spare Sandy the shame and the
+sorrow of it; but something would not let him do it. In the first
+place, a singular lightness of heart came over him; he noticed all the
+gay preparations for Christmas, and the cries and bustle of the streets
+gave him a new sense of exhilaration. Sandy fell almost unconsciously
+into his humor. He had a few cents in his pocket, and he suddenly
+determined to go into a cheap restaurant and have a good warm meal with
+his father.
+
+Davie was delighted at the proposal and gay as a child; old memories of
+days long past crowded into both men's minds, and they ate and drank,
+and then wandered on almost happily. Davie knew very well where they
+were going, but he determined now to put off saying a word until the
+last moment. He had Sandy all to himself for this hour; they might never
+have such another; Davie was determined to take all the sweetness of it.
+
+As they got lower down the avenue, Sandy became more and more silent;
+his eyes looked straight before him, but they were brimful of tears, and
+the smile with which he answered Davie's pleasant prattle was almost
+more pitiful than tears.
+
+At length they came in sight of a certain building, and Sandy gave a
+start and shook himself like a man waking out of a sleep. His words were
+sharp, his voice almost like that of a man in mortal danger, as he
+turned Davie quickly round, and said:
+
+"We must go back now, father. I will not go another step this road--no,
+by heaven! though I die for it!"
+
+"Just a little further, Sandy."
+
+And Davie's thin, childlike face had an inquiry in it that Sandy very
+well understood.
+
+"No, no, father, no further on this road, please God!"
+
+Then he hailed a passing car, and put the old man tenderly in it, and
+resolutely turned his back upon the hated point to which he had been
+going.
+
+Of course he thought of Sallie as they rode home, and the children and
+the trouble there was likely to be. But somehow it seemed a light thing
+to him. He could not helping nodding cheerfully now and then to the
+father whom he had so nearly lost; and, perhaps, never in all their
+lives had they been so precious to each other as when, hand-in-hand,
+they climbed the dark tenement stair together.
+
+Before thy reached the door they heard Sallie push a chair aside
+hastily, and come to meet them. She had been crying, too, and her very
+first words were, "Oh, father!' I am so glad!--so glad!"
+
+She did not say what for, but Davie took her words very gratefully, and
+he made no remark, though he knew she went into debt at the grocery for
+the little extras with which she celebrated his return at supper. He
+understood, however, that the danger was passed, and he went to sleep
+that night thanking God for the love that had stood so hard a trial and
+come out conqueror.
+
+The next day life took up its dreary tasks again, but in Davie's heart
+there was a strange presentiment of change, and it almost angered the
+poor, troubled, taxed wife to see him so thoughtlessly playing with the
+children. But the memory of the wrong she had nursed against him still
+softened and humbled her, and when he came home after carrying round his
+papers, she made room for him at the stove, and brought him a cup of
+coffee and a bit of bread and bacon.
+
+Davie's eyes filled, and Sallie went away to avoid seeing them. So then
+he took out a paper that he had left and began to read it as he ate and
+drank.
+
+In a few minutes a sudden sharp cry escaped him. He put the paper in his
+pocket, and, hastily resuming his old army cloak and Scotch bonnet, went
+out without a word to anyone.
+
+The truth was that he had read a personal notice which greatly disturbed
+him. It was to the effect that, "If David Morrison, who left Aberdeen in
+18--, was still alive, and would apply to Messrs. Morgan & Black, Wall
+street, he would hear of something to his advantage."
+
+His long-lost brother was the one thought in his heart. He was going
+now to hear something about Sandy.
+
+"He said 'sure as death,' and he would mind that promise at the last
+hour, if he forgot it before; so, if he could not come, he'd doubtless
+send, and this will be his message. Poor Sandy! there was never a lad
+like him!"
+
+When he reached Messrs. Morgan & Black's, he was allowed to stand
+unnoticed by the stove a few minutes, and during them his spirits sank
+to their usual placid level. At length some one said:
+
+"Well, old man, what do _you_ want?"
+
+"I am David Morrison, and I just came to see what _you_ wanted."
+
+"Oh, you are David Morrison! Good! Go forward--I think you will find
+out, then, what we want."
+
+He was not frightened, but the man's manner displeased him, and, without
+answering, he walked toward the door indicated, and quietly opened it.
+
+An old gentleman was standing with his back to the door, looking into
+the fire, and one rather younger, was writing steadily away at a desk.
+The former never moved; the latter simply raised his head with an
+annoyed look, and motioned to Davie to close the door.
+
+"I am David Morrison, sir."
+
+"Oh, Davie! Davie! And the old blue bonnet, too! Oh, Davie! Davie,
+lad!"
+
+As for Davie, he was quite overcome. With a cry of joy so keen that it
+was like a sob of pain, he fell fainting to the floor. When he became
+conscious again he knew that he had been very ill, for there were two
+physicians by his side, and Sandy's face was full of anguish and
+anxiety.
+
+"He will do now, sir. It was only the effect of a severe shock on a
+system too impoverished to bear it. Give him a good meal and a glass of
+wine."
+
+Sandy was not long in following out this prescription, and during it
+what a confiding session these two hearts held! Davie told his sad
+history in his own unselfish way, making little of all his sacrifices,
+and saying a great deal about his son Sandy, and Sandy's girls and boys.
+
+But the light in his brother's eyes, and the tender glow of admiration
+with which he regarded the unconscious hero, showed that he understood
+pretty clearly the part that Davie had always taken.
+
+"However, I am o'erpaid for every grief I ever had, Sandy," said Davie,
+in conclusion, "since I have seen your face again, and you're just
+handsomer than ever, and you eight years older than me, too."
+
+Yes, it was undeniable that Alexander Morrison was still a very
+handsome, hale old gentleman; but yet there was many a trace of labor
+and sorrow on his face; and he had known both.
+
+For many years after he had left Davie, life had been a very hard battle
+to him. During the first twenty years of their separation, indeed, Davie
+had perhaps been the better off, and the happier of the two.
+
+When the war broke out, Sandy had enlisted early, and, like Davie,
+carried through all its chances and changes the hope of finding his
+brother. Both of them had returned to their homes after the struggle
+equally hopeless and poor.
+
+But during the last eleven years fortune had smiled on Sandy. Some call
+of friendship for a dead comrade led him to a little Pennsylvania
+village, and while there he made a small speculation in oil, which was
+successful. He resolved to stay there, rented his little Western farm,
+and went into the oil business.
+
+"And I have saved thirty thousand dollars, hard cash, Davie. Half of it
+is yours, and half mine. See! Fifteen thousand has been entered from
+time to time in your name. I told you, Davie, that when I came back we
+would share dollar for dollar, and I would not touch a cent of your
+share no more than I would rob the United States Treasury."
+
+It was a part of Davie's simple nature that he accepted it without any
+further protestation. Instinctively he felt that it was the highest
+compliment he could pay his brother. It was as if he said: "I firmly
+believed the promise you made me more than forty years ago, and I firmly
+believe in the love and sincerity which this day redeems it." So Davie
+looked with a curious joyfulness at the vouchers which testified to
+fifteen thousand dollars lying in the Chemical Bank, New York, to the
+credit of David Morrison; and then he said, with almost the delight of a
+schoolboy:
+
+"And what will you do wi' yours, Sandy?"
+
+"I am going to buy a farm in New Jersey, Davie. I was talking with Mr.
+Black about it this morning. It will cost twelve thousand dollars, but
+the gentleman says it will be worth double that in a very few years. I
+think that myself, Davie, for I went yesterday to take a good look at
+it. It is never well to trust to other folks' eyes, you know."
+
+"Then, Sandy, I'll go shares wi' you. We'll buy the farm together and
+we'll live together--that is, if you would like it."
+
+"What would I like better?"
+
+"Maybe you have a wife, and then--"
+
+"No, I have no wife, Davie. She died nearly thirty years ago. I have no
+one but you."
+
+"And we will grow small fruits, and raise chickens and have the finest
+dairy in the State, Sandy."
+
+"That is just my idea, Davie."
+
+Thus they talked until the winter evening began to close in upon them,
+and then Davie recollected that his boy, Sandy, would be more than
+uneasy about him.
+
+"I'll not ask you there to-night, brother; I want them all to myself
+to-night. 'Deed, I've been selfish enough to keep this good news from
+them so long."
+
+So, with a hand-shake that said what no words could say, the brothers
+parted, and Davie made haste to catch the next up-town car. He thought
+they never had traveled so slowly; he was half inclined several times to
+get out and run home.
+
+When he arrived there the little kitchen was dark, but there was a fire
+in the stove and wee Davie--his namesake--was sitting, half crying,
+before it.
+
+The child lifted his little sorrowful face to his grandfather's, and
+tried to smile as he made room for him in the warmest place.
+
+"What's the matter, Davie?"
+
+"I have had a bad day, grandfather. I did not sell my papers, and Jack
+Dacey gave me a beating besides; and--and I really do think my toes are
+frozen off."
+
+Then Davie pulled the lad on to his knee, and whispered
+
+"Oh, my wee man, you shall sell no more papers. You shall have braw new
+clothes, and go to school every day of your life. Whist! yonder comes
+mammy."
+
+Sallie came in with a worried look, which changed to one of reproach
+when she saw Davie.
+
+"Oh, father, how could you stay abroad this way? Sandy is fair daft
+about you, and is gone to the police stations, and I don't know where--"
+
+Then she stopped, for Davie had come toward her, and there was such a
+new, strange look on his face that it terrified her, and she could only
+say: "Father! father! what is it?"
+
+"It is good news, Sallie. My brother Sandy is come, and he has just
+given me fifteen thousand dollars; and there is a ten-dollar bill, dear
+lass, for we'll have a grand supper to-night, please God."
+
+By and by they heard poor Sandy's weary footsteps on the stair, and
+Sallie said:
+
+"Not a word, children. Let grandfather tell your father."
+
+Davie went to meet him, and, before he spoke, Sandy saw, as Sallie had
+seen, that his father's countenance was changed, and that something
+wonderful had happened.
+
+"What is the matter, father?"
+
+"Fifteen thousand dollars is the matter, my boy; and peace and comfort
+and plenty, and decent clothes and school for the children, and a happy
+home for us all in some nice country place."
+
+When Sandy heard this he kissed his father, and then covering his face
+with his hands, sobbed out:
+
+"Thank God! thank God!"
+
+It was late that night before either the children or the elders could go
+to sleep. Davie told them first of the farm that Sandy and he were going
+to buy together, and then he said to his son:
+
+"Now, my dear lad, what think you is best for Sallie and the children?"
+
+"You say, father, that the village where you are going is likely to grow
+fast."
+
+"It is sure to grow. Two lines of railroad will pass through it in a
+month."
+
+"Then I would like to open a carpenter's shop there. There will soon be
+work enough; and we will rent some nice little cottage, and the children
+can go to school, and it will be a new life for us all. I have often
+dreamed of such a chance, but I never believed it would come true."
+
+But the dream came more than true. In a few weeks Davie and his brother
+were settled in their new home, and in the adjoining village Alexander
+Morrison, junior, had opened a good carpenter and builder's shop, and
+had begun to do very well.
+
+Not far from it was the coziest of old stone houses, and over it Sallie
+presided. It stood among great trees, and was surrounded by a fine fruit
+garden, and was prettily furnished throughout; besides which, and best
+of all, _it was their own_--a New Year's gift from the kindest of
+grandfathers and uncles. People now have got well used to seeing the
+Brothers Morrison.
+
+They are rarely met apart. They go to market and to the city together.
+What they buy they buy in unison, and every bill of sale they give bears
+both their names. Sandy is the ruling spirit, but Davie never suspects,
+for Sandy invariably says to all propositions, "If my brother David
+agrees, I do," or, "If brother David is satisfied, I have no more to
+say," etc.
+
+Some of the villagers have tried to persuade them that they must be
+lonely, but they know better than that. Old men love a great deal of
+quiet and of gentle meandering retrospection; and David and Sandy have
+each of them forty years' history to tell the other. Then they are both
+very fond of young Sandy and the children.
+
+Sandy's projects and plans and building contracts are always well talked
+over at the farm before they are signed, and the children's lessons and
+holidays, and even their new clothes, interest the two old men almost as
+much as they do Sallie.
+
+As for Sallie, you would scarcely know her. She is no longer cross with
+care and quarrelsome with hunger. I always did believe that prosperity
+was good for the human soul, and Sallie Morrison proves the theory. She
+has grown sweet tempered in its sunshine, is gentle and forbearing to
+her children, loving and grateful to her father-in-law, and her
+husband's heart trusts in her.
+
+Therefore let all those fortunate ones who are in prosperity give
+cheerfully to those who ask of them. It will bring a ten-fold blessing
+on what remains, and the piece of silver sent out on its pleasant errand
+may happily touch the hand that shall bring the giver good fortune
+through all the years of life.
+
+
+
+
+TOM DUFFAN'S DAUGHTER.
+
+
+Tom Duffan's cabinet-pictures are charming bits of painting; but you
+would cease to wonder how he caught such delicate home touches if you
+saw the room he painted in; for Tom has a habit of turning his wife's
+parlor into a studio, and both parlor and pictures are the better for
+the habit.
+
+One bright morning in the winter of 1872 he had got his easel into a
+comfortable light between the blazing fire and the window, and was
+busily painting. His cheery little wife--pretty enough in spite of her
+thirty-seven years--was reading the interesting items in the morning
+papers to him, and between them he sung softly to himself the favorite
+tenor song of his favorite opera. But the singing always stopped when
+the reading began; and so politics and personals, murders and music,
+dramas and divorces kept continually interrupting the musical despair of
+"Ah! che la morte ognora."
+
+But even a morning paper is not universally interesting, and in the very
+middle of an elaborate criticism on tragedy and Edwin Booth, the parlor
+door partially opened, and a lovelier picture than ever Tom Duffan
+painted stood in the aperture--a piquant, brown-eyed girl, in a morning
+gown of scarlet opera flannel, and a perfect cloud of wavy black hair
+falling around her.
+
+"Mamma, if anything on earth can interest you that is not in a
+newspaper, I should like to know whether crimps or curls are most
+becoming with my new seal-skin set."
+
+"Ask papa."
+
+"If I was a picture, of course papa would know; but seeing I am only a
+poor live girl, it does not interest him."
+
+"Because, Kitty, you never will dress artistically."
+
+"Because, papa, I must dress fashionably. It is not my fault if artists
+don't know the fashions. Can't I have mamma for about half an hour?"
+
+"When she has finished this criticism of Edwin Booth. Come in, Kitty; it
+will do you good to hear it."
+
+"Thank you, no, papa; I am going to Booth's myself to-night, and I
+prefer to do my own criticism." Then Kitty disappeared, Mrs. Duffan
+skipped a good deal of criticism, and Tom got back to his "Ah! che la
+morte ognora" much quicker than the column of printed matter warranted.
+
+"Well, Kitty child, what do you want?"
+
+"See here."
+
+"Tickets for Booth's?"
+
+"Parquette seats, middle aisle; I know them. Jack always does get just
+about the same numbers."
+
+"Jack? You don't mean to say that Jack Warner sent them?"
+
+Kitty nodded and laughed in a way that implied half a dozen different
+things.
+
+"But I thought that you had positively refused him, Kitty?"
+
+"Of course I did mamma--I told him in the nicest kind of way that we
+must only be dear friends, and so on."
+
+"Then why did he send these tickets?"
+
+"Why do moths fly round a candle? It is my opinion both moths and men
+enjoy burning."
+
+"Well, Kitty, I don't pretend to understand this new-fashioned way of
+being 'off' and 'on' with a lover at the same time. Did you take me from
+papa simply to tell me this?"
+
+"No; I thought perhaps you might like to devote a few moments to papa's
+daughter. Papa has no hair to crimp and no braids to make. Here are all
+the hair-pins ready, mamma, and I will tell you about Sarah Cooper's
+engagement and the ridiculous new dress she is getting."
+
+It is to be supposed the bribe proved attractive enough, for Mrs. Duffan
+took in hand the long tresses, and Kitty rattled away about wedding
+dresses and traveling suits and bridal gifts with as much interest as if
+they were the genuine news of life, and newspaper intelligence a kind of
+grown-up fairy lore.
+
+But anyone who saw the hair taken out of crimps would have said it was
+worth the trouble of putting it in; and the face was worth the hair, and
+the hair was worth the exquisite hat and the rich seal-skins and the
+tantalizing effects of glancing silk and beautiful colors. Depend upon
+it, Kitty Duffan was just as bright and bewitching a life-sized picture
+as anyone could desire to see; and Tom Duff an thought so, as she
+tripped up to the great chair in which he was smoking and planning
+subjects, for a "good-by" kiss.
+
+"I declare, Kitty! Turn round, will you? Yes, I declare you are dressed
+in excellent taste. All the effects are good. I wouldn't have believed
+it."
+
+"Complimentary, papa. But 'I told you so.' You just quit the antique,
+and take to studying _Harper's Bazar_ for effects; then your women will
+look a little more natural."
+
+"Natural? Jehoshaphat! Go way, you little fraud!"
+
+"I appeal to Jack. Jack, just look at the women in that picture of
+papa's, with the white sheets draped about them. What do they look
+like?"
+
+"Frights, Miss Kitty."
+
+"Of course they do. Now, papa."
+
+"You two young barbarians!" shouted Tom, in a fit of laughter; for Jack
+and Kitty were out in the clear frosty air by this time, with the fresh
+wind at their backs, and their faces steadily set toward the busy bustle
+and light of Broadway. They had not gone far when Jack said, anxiously,
+"You haven't thought any better of your decision last Friday night,
+Kitty, I am afraid."
+
+"Why, no, Jack. I don't see how I can, unless you could become an Indian
+Commissioner or a clerk of the Treasury, or something of that kind. You
+know I won't marry a literary man under any possible circumstances. I'm
+clear on that subject, Jack."
+
+"I know all about farming, Kitty, if that would do."
+
+"But I suppose if you were a farmer, we should have to live in the
+country. I am sure that would not do."
+
+Jack did not see how the city and farm could be brought to terms; so he
+sighed, and was silent.
+
+Kitty answered the sigh. "No use in bothering about me, Jack. You ought
+to be very glad I have been so honest. Some girls would have 'risked
+you, and in a week, you'd have been just as miserable!"
+
+"You don't dislike me, Kitty?"
+
+"Not at all. I think you are first-rate."
+
+"It is my profession, then?"
+
+"Exactly."
+
+"Now, what has it ever done to offend you?"
+
+"Nothing yet, and I don't mean it ever shall. You see, I know Will
+Hutton's wife: and what that woman endures! Its just dreadful."
+
+"Now, Kitty!"
+
+"It is Jack. Will reads all his fine articles to her, wakes her up at
+nights to listen to some new poem, rushes away from the dinner table to
+jot down what he calls 'an idea,' is always pointing out 'splendid
+passages' to her, and keeps her working just like a slave copying his
+manuscripts and cutting newspapers to pieces. Oh, it is just dreadful!"
+
+"But she thoroughly enjoys it."
+
+"Yes, that is such a shame. Will has quite spoiled her. Lucy used to be
+real nice, a jolly, stylish girl. Before she was married she was
+splendid company; now, you might just as well mope round with a book."
+
+"Kitty, I'd promise upon my honor--at the altar, if you like--never to
+bother you with anything I write; never to say a word about my
+profession."
+
+"No, no, sir! Then you would soon be finding some one else to bother,
+perhaps some blonde, sentimental, intellectual 'friend.' What is the use
+of turning a good-natured little thing like me into a hateful dog in the
+manger? I am not naturally able to appreciate you, but if you were
+_mine_, I should snarl and bark and bite at any other woman who was."
+
+Jack liked this unchristian sentiment very much indeed. He squeezed
+Kitty's hand and looked so gratefully into her bright face that she was
+forced to pretend he had ruined her glove.
+
+"I'll buy you boxes full, Kitty; and, darling, I am not very poor; I am
+quite sure I could make plenty of money for you."
+
+"Jack, I did not want to speak about money; because, if a girl does not
+go into raptures about being willing to live on crusts and dress in
+calicos for love, people say she's mercenary. Well, then, I am
+mercenary. I want silk dresses and decent dinners and matinees, and I'm
+fond of having things regular; it's a habit of mine to like them all the
+time. Now I know literary people have spasms of riches, and then spasms
+of poverty. Artists are just the same. I have tried poverty
+occasionally, and found its uses less desirable than some people tell us
+they are."
+
+"Have you decided yet whom and what you will marry, Kitty?"
+
+"No sarcasm, Jack. I shall marry the first good honest fellow that
+loves me and has a steady business, and who will not take me every
+summer to see views."
+
+"To see views?"
+
+"Yes. I am sick to death of fine scenery and mountains, 'scarped and
+jagged and rifted,' and all other kinds. I've seen so many grand
+landscapes, I never want to see another. I want to stay at the Branch or
+the Springs, and have nice dresses and a hop every night. And you know
+papa _will_ go to some lonely place, where all my toilettes are thrown
+away, and where there is not a soul to speak to but famous men of one
+kind or another."
+
+Jack couldn't help laughing; but they were now among the little crush
+that generally gathers in the vestibule of a theatre, and whatever he
+meant to say was cut in two by a downright hearty salutation from some
+third party.
+
+"Why, Max, when did you get home?"
+
+"To-day's steamer." Then there were introductions and a jingle of merry
+words and smiles that blended in Kitty's ears with the dreamy music, the
+rustle of dresses, and perfume of flowers, and the new-comer was gone.
+
+But that three minutes' interview was a wonderful event to Kitty Duffan,
+though she did not yet realize it. The stranger had touched her as she
+had never been touched before. His magnetic voice called something into
+being that was altogether new to her; his keen, searching gray eyes
+claimed what she could neither understand nor withhold. She became
+suddenly silent and thoughtful; and Jack, who was learned in love lore,
+saw in a moment that Kitty had fallen in love with his friend Max
+Raymond.
+
+It gave him a moment's bitter pang; but if Kitty was not for him, then
+he sincerely hoped Max might win her. Yet he could not have told whether
+he was most pleased or angry when he saw Max Raymond coolly negotiate a
+change of seats with the gentleman on Kitty's right hand, and take
+possession of Kitty's eyes and ears and heart. But there is a great deal
+of human nature in man, and Jack behaved, upon the whole, better than
+might have been expected.
+
+For once Kitty did not do all the talking. Max talked, and she listened;
+Max gave opinions, and she indorsed them; Max decided, and she
+submitted. It was not Jack's Kitty at all. He was quite relieved when
+she turned round in her old piquant way and snubbed him.
+
+But to Kitty it was a wonderful evening--those grand old Romans walking
+on and off the stage, the music playing, the people applauding and the
+calm, stately man on her right hand explaining this and that, and
+looking into her eyes in such a delicious, perplexing way that past and
+present were all mingled like the waving shadows of a wonderful dream.
+
+She was in love's land for about three hours; then she had to come back
+into the cold frosty air, the veritable streets, and the unmistakable
+stone houses. But it was hardest of all to come back and be the old
+radiant, careless Kitty.
+
+"Well, pussy, what of the play?" asked Tom Duffan; "you cut ----'s
+criticism short this morning. Now, what is yours?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know papa. The play was Shakespeare's, and Booth and
+Barrett backed him up handsomely."
+
+"Very fine criticism indeed, Kitty. I wish Booth and Barrett could hear
+it."
+
+"I wish they could; but I am tired to death now. Good night, papa; good
+night, mamma. I'll talk for twenty in the morning."
+
+"What's the matter with Kitty, mother?"
+
+"Jack Warner, I expect."
+
+"Hum! I don't think so."
+
+"Men don't know everything, Tom."
+
+"They don't know anything about women; their best efforts in that line
+are only guesses at truth."
+
+"Go to bed, Tom Duffan; you are getting prosy and ridiculous. Kitty will
+explain herself in the morning."
+
+But Kitty did not explain herself, and she daily grew more and more
+inexplicable. She began to read: Max brought the books, and she read
+them. She began to practice: Max liked music, and wanted to sing with
+her. She stopped crimping her hair: Max said it was unnatural and
+inartistic. She went to scientific lectures and astronomical lectures
+and literary societies: Max took her.
+
+Tom Duffan did not quite like the change, for Tom was of that order of
+men who love to put their hearts and necks under a pretty woman's foot.
+He had been so long used to Kitty dominant, to Kitty sarcastic, to Kitty
+willful, to Kitty absolute, that he could not understand the new Kitty.
+
+"I do not think our little girl is quite well, mother," he said one day,
+after studying his daughter reading the _Endymion_ without a yawn.
+
+"Tom, if you can't 'think' to better purpose, you had better go on
+painting. Kitty is in love."
+
+"First time I ever saw love make a woman studious and sensible."
+
+"They are uncommon symptoms; nevertheless, Kitty's in love. Poor child!"
+
+"With whom?"
+
+"Max Raymond;" and the mother dropped her eyes upon the ruffle she was
+pleating for Kitty's dress, while Tom Duffan accompanied the new-born
+thought with his favorite melody.
+
+Thus the winter passed quickly and happily away. Greatly to Kitty's
+delight, before its close Jack found the "blonde, sentimental,
+intellectual friend," who could appreciate both him and his writings;
+and the two went to housekeeping in what Kitty called "a large dry-goods
+box." The merry little wedding was the last event of a late spring, and
+when it was over the summer quarters were an imperative question.
+
+"I really don't know what to do, mother," said Tom. "Kitty vowed she
+would not go to the Peak this year, and I scarcely know how to get along
+without it."
+
+"Oh, Kitty will go. Max Raymond has quarters at the hotel lower down."
+
+"Oh, oh! I'll tease the little puss."
+
+"You will do nothing of the kind, Tom, unless you want to go to Cape May
+or the Branch. They both imagine their motives undiscovered; but you
+just let Kitty know that you even suspect them, and she won't stir a
+step in your direction."
+
+Here Kitty, entering the room, stopped the conversation. She had a
+pretty lawn suit on, and a Japanese fan in her hand. "Lawn and fans,
+Kitty," said Tom: "time to leave the city. Shall we go to the Branch, or
+Saratoga?"
+
+"Now, papa, you know you are joking; you always go to the Peak."
+
+"But I am going with you to the seaside this summer, Kitty. I wish my
+little daughter to have her whim for once."
+
+"You are better than there is any occasion for, papa. I don't want
+either the Branch or Saratoga this year. Sarah Cooper is at the Branch
+with her snobby little husband and her extravagant toilettes; I'm not
+going to be patronized by her. And Jack and his learned lady are at
+Saratoga. I don't want to make Mrs. Warner jealous, but I'm afraid I
+couldn't help it. I think you had better keep me out of temptation."
+
+"Where must we go, then?"
+
+"Well, I suppose we might as well go to the Peak. I shall not want many
+new dresses there; and then, papa, you are so good to me all the time,
+you deserve your own way about your holiday."
+
+And Tom Duffan said, "_Thank you, Kitty_," in such a peculiar way that
+Kitty lost all her wits, blushed crimson, dropped her fan, and finally
+left the room with the lamest of excuses. And then Mrs. Duffan said,
+"Tom, you ought to be ashamed of yourself! If men know a thing past
+ordinary, they must blab it, either with a look or a word or a letter; I
+shouldn't wonder if Kitty told you to-night she was going to the
+Branch, and asked you for a $500 check--serve you right, too."
+
+But if Kitty had any such intentions, Max Raymond changed them. Kitty
+went very sweetly to the Peak, and two days afterward Max Raymond,
+straying up the hills with his fishing rod, strayed upon Tom Duffan,
+sketching. Max did a great deal of fishing that summer, and at the end
+of it Tom Duffan's pretty daughter was inextricably caught. She had no
+will but Max's will, and no way but his way. She had promised him never
+to marry any one but him; she had vowed she would love him, and only
+him, to the end of her life.
+
+All these obligations without a shadow or a doubt from the prudent
+little body. Yet she knew nothing of Max's family or antecedents; she
+had taken his appearance and manners, and her father's and mother's
+respectful admission of his friendship, as guarantee sufficient. She
+remembered that Jack, that first night in the theatre, had said
+something about studying law together; and with these items, and the
+satisfactory fact that he always had plenty of money, Kitty had given
+her whole heart, without conditions and without hostages.
+
+Nor would she mar the placid measure of her content by questioning; it
+was enough that her father and mother were satisfied with her choice.
+When they returned to the city, congratulations, presents and
+preparations filled every hour. Kitty's importance gave her back a great
+deal of her old dictatorial way. In the matter of toilettes she would
+not suffer even Max to interfere. "Results were all men had to do with,"
+she said; "everything was inartistic to them but a few yards of linen
+and a straight petticoat."
+
+Max sighed over the flounces and flutings and lace and ribbons, and
+talked about "unadorned beauty;" and then, when Kitty exhibited results,
+went into rhapsodies of wonder and admiration. Kitty was very triumphant
+in those days, but a little drop of mortification was in store for her.
+She was exhibiting all her pretty things one day to a friend, whose
+congratulations found their climax in the following statement:
+
+"Really, Kitty, a most beautiful wardrobe! and such an extraordinary
+piece of luck for such a little scatter-brain as you! Why, they do say
+that Mr. Raymond's last book is just wonderful."
+
+"_Mr. Raymond's last book_!" And Kitty let the satin-lined morocco case,
+with all its ruby treasures, fall from her hand.
+
+"Why, haven't you read it, dear? So clever, and all that, dear."
+
+Kitty had tact enough to turn the conversation; but just as soon as her
+visitor had gone, she faced her mother, with blazing eyes and cheeks,
+and said, "What is Max's business--a lawyer?"
+
+"Gracious, Kitty! What's the matter? He is a scientist, a professor, and
+a great--"
+
+"_Writer?_"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Writes books and magazine articles and things?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Kitty thought profoundly for a few moments, and then said, "_I thought
+so._ I wish Jack Warner was at home."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Only a little matter I should like to have out with him; but it will
+keep."
+
+Jack, however, went South without visiting New York, and when he
+returned, pretty Kitty Duffan had been Mrs. Max Raymond for two years.
+His first visit was to Tom Duffan's parlor-studio. He was painting and
+singing and chatting to his wife as usual. It was so like old times that
+Jack's eyes filled at the memory when he asked where and how was Mrs.
+Raymond.
+
+"Oh, the professor had bought a beautiful place eight miles from the
+city. Kitty and he preferred the country. Would he go and see them?"
+
+Certainly Jack would go. To tell the truth, he was curious to see what
+other miracles matrimony had wrought upon Kitty. So he went, and came
+back wondering.
+
+"Really, dear," says Mrs. Jack Warner, the next day, "how does the
+professor get along with that foolish, ignorant little wife of his?"
+
+"Get along with her? Why, he couldn't get along without her! She sorts
+his papers, makes his notes and quotations, answers his letters, copies
+his manuscripts, swears by all he thinks and says and does, through
+thick and thin, by day and night. It's wonderful, by Jove! I felt
+spiteful enough to remind her that she had once vowed that nothing on
+earth should ever induce her to marry a writer."
+
+"What did she say?"
+
+"She turned round in her old saucy manner, and answered, 'Jack Warner,
+you are as dark as ever. I did not marry the writer, I married _the
+man_.' Then I said, 'I suppose all this study and reading and writing is
+your offering toward the advancement of science and social
+regeneration?'"
+
+"What then?"
+
+"She laughed in a very provoking way, and said, 'Dark again, Jack; _it
+is a labor of love_.'"
+
+"Well I never!"
+
+"Nor I either."
+
+
+
+
+THE HARVEST OF THE WIND.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+     "As a city broken down and without walls, so is he that hath no
+     rule over his own spirit."
+
+
+    "My soul! Master Jesus, my soul!
+      My soul!
+    Dar's a little thing lays in my heart,
+    An' de more I dig him de better he spring:
+      My soul!
+    Dar's a little thing lays in my heart
+    An' he sets my soul on fire:
+      My soul!
+    Master Jesus, my soul! my soul!"
+
+The singer was a negro man, with a very, black but very kindly face; and
+he was hoeing corn in the rich bottom lands of the San Gabriel river as
+he chanted his joyful little melody. It was early in the morning, yet he
+rested on his hoe and looked anxiously toward the cypress swamp on his
+left hand.
+
+"I'se mighty weary 'bout Massa Davie; he'll get himself into trouble ef
+he stay dar much longer. Ole massa might be 'long most any time now." He
+communed with himself in this strain for about five minutes, and then
+threw his hoe across his shoulder, and picked a road among the hills of
+growing corn until he passed out of the white dazzling light of the
+field into the grey-green shadows of the swamp. Threading his way among
+the still black bayous, he soon came to a little clearing in the
+cypress.
+
+Here a young man was standing in an attitude of expectancy--a very
+handsome man clothed in the picturesque costume of a ranchero. He leaned
+upon his rifle, but betrayed both anger and impatience in the rapid
+switching to and fro of his riding-whip. "Plato, she has not come!" He
+said it reproachfully, as if the negro was to blame.
+
+"I done tole you, Massa Davie, dat Miss Lulu neber do noffing ob dat
+kind; ole massa 'ticlarly objects to Miss Lulu seeing you at de present
+time."
+
+"My father objects to every one I like."
+
+"Ef Massa Davie jist 'lieve it, ole massa want ebery thing for his
+good."
+
+"You oversize that statement considerably, Plato. Tell my father, if he
+asks you, that I am going with Jim Whaley, and give Miss Lulu this
+letter."
+
+"I done promise ole massa neber to gib Miss Lulu any letter or message
+from you, Massa Davie."
+
+In a moment the youth's handsome face was flaming with ungovernable
+passion, and he lifted his riding-whip to strike.
+
+"For de Lord Jesus' sake don't strike, Massa Davie! Dese arms done
+carry you when you was de littlest little chile. Don't strike me!"
+
+"I should be a brute if I did, Plato;" but the blow descended upon the
+trunk of the tree against which he had been leaning with terrible force.
+Then David Lorimer went striding through the swamp, his great bell spurs
+chiming to his uneven, crashing tread.
+
+Plato looked sorrowfully after him. "Poor Massa Davie! He's got de
+drefful temper; got it each side ob de house--father and mother, bofe. I
+hope de good Massa above will make 'lowances for de young man--got it
+bofe ways, he did." And he went thoughtfully back to his work, murmuring
+hopes and apologies for the man he loved, with all the forgiving
+unselfishness of a prayer in them.
+
+In some respects Plato was right. David Lorimer had inherited, both from
+father and mother, an unruly temper. His father was a Scot, dour and
+self-willed; his mother had been a Spanish woman, of San Antonio--a
+daughter of the grandee family of Yturris. Their marriage had not been a
+happy one, and the fiery emotional Southern woman had fretted her life
+away against the rugged strength of the will which opposed hers. David
+remembered his mother well, and idolized her memory; right or wrong, he
+had always espoused her quarrel, and when she died she left, between
+father and son, a great gulf.
+
+He had been hard to manage then, but at twenty-two he was beyond all
+control, excepting such as his cousin, Lulu Yturri, exercised over him.
+But this love, the most pure and powerful influence he acknowledged, had
+been positively forbidden. The elder Lorimer declared that there had
+been too much Spanish blood in the family; and it is likely his motives
+commended themselves to his own conscience. It was certain that the mere
+exertion of his will in the matter gave him a pleasure he would not
+forego. Yet he was theoretically a religious man, devoted to the special
+creed he approved, and rigidly observing such forms of worship as made
+any part of it. But the law of love had never yet been revealed to him;
+he had feared and trembled at the fiery Mount of Sinai, but he had not
+yet drawn near to the tenderer influences of Calvary.
+
+He was a rich man also. Broad acres waved with his corn and cotton, and
+he counted his cattle on the prairies by tens of thousands; but nothing
+in his mode of life indicated wealth. The log-house, stretching itself
+out under gigantic trees, was of the usual style of Texan
+architecture--broad passages between every room, sweeping from front to
+rear; and low piazzas, festooned with flowery vines, shading it on every
+side. All around it, under the live oaks, were scattered the negro
+cabins, their staring whitewash looking picturesque enough under the
+hanging moss and dark green foliage. But, simple as the house was, it
+was approached by lordly avenues, shaded with black-jack and sweet gum
+and chincapin, interwoven with superb magnolias and gorgeous tulip
+trees.
+
+The Scot in a foreign country, too, often steadily cultivates his
+national peculiarities. James Lorimer was a Scot of this type. As far as
+it was possible to do so in that sunshiny climate, he introduced the
+grey, sombre influence of the land of mists and east winds. His
+household was ruled with stern gravity; his ranch was a model of good
+management; and though few affected his society, he was generally relied
+upon and esteemed; for, though opinionated, egotistical, and austere,
+there was about him a grand honesty and a sense of strength that would
+rise to every occasion.
+
+And so great is the influence of any genuine nature, that David loved
+his father in a certain fashion. The creed he held was a hard one; but
+when he called his family and servants together, and unflinchingly
+taught it, David, even in his worst moods, was impressed with his
+sincerity and solemnity. There was between them plenty of ground on
+which they could have stood hand in hand, and learned to love one
+another; but a passionate authority on the one hand, and a passionate
+independence on the other, kept them far apart.
+
+Shortly before my story opens there had been a more stubborn quarrel
+than usual, and James Lorimer had forbidden his son to enter his house
+until he chose to humble himself to his father's authority. Then David
+joined Jim Whaley, a great cattle drover, and in a week they were on the
+road to New Mexico with a herd of eight thousand.
+
+This news greatly distressed James Lorimer. He loved his son better than
+he was aware of. There was a thousand deaths upon such a road; there was
+a moral danger in the companionship attending such a business, which he
+regarded with positive horror. The drove had left two days when he heard
+of its departure; but such droves travel slowly, and he could overtake
+it if he wished to do so. As he sat in the moonlight that night,
+smoking, he thought the thing over until he convinced himself that he
+ought to overtake it. Even if Davie would not return with him, he could
+tell him of his danger, and urge him to his duty and thus, at any rate,
+relieve his own conscience of a burden.
+
+Arriving at this conclusion, he looked up and saw his niece Lulu
+leaning against one of the white pilasters supporting the piazza. He
+regarded her a moment curiously, as one may look at a lovely picture.
+The pale, sensitive face, the swaying, graceful figure, the flowing
+white robe, the roses at her girdle, were all sharply revealed by the
+bright moonlight, and nothing beautiful in them escaped his notice. He
+was just enough to admit that the temptation to love so fair a woman
+must have been a great one to David. He had himself fallen into just
+such a bewitching snare, and he believed it to be his duty to prevent a
+recurrence of his own married life at any sacrifice.
+
+"Lulu!"
+
+"Yes, uncle."
+
+"Have you spoken with or written to Davie lately?"
+
+"Not since you forbid me."
+
+He said no more. He began wondering if, after all, the girl would not
+have been better than Jim Whaley. In a dim way it struck him that people
+for ever interfering with destiny do not always succeed in their
+intentions. It was an unusual and unpractical vein of thought for James
+Lorimer, and he put it uneasily away. Still over and over came back the
+question, "What if Lulu's influence would have been sufficient to have
+kept David from the wild reckless men with whom he was now consorting?"
+For the first time in his life he consciously admitted to himself that
+he might have made a mistake.
+
+The next morning he was early in the saddle. The sky was blue and clear,
+the air full of the fresh odor of earth and clover and wild flowers. The
+swallows were making a jubilant twitter, the larks singing on the edge
+of the prairie--the glorious prairie, which the giants of the unflooded
+world had cleared off and leveled for the dwelling-place of Liberty. In
+his own way he enjoyed the scene; but he could not, as he usually did,
+let the peace of it sink into his heart. He had suddenly become aware
+that he had an unpleasant duty to perform, and to shirk a duty was a
+thing impossible to him. Until he had obeyed the voice of Conscience,
+all other voices would fail to arrest his interest or attention.
+
+He rode on at a steady pace, keeping the track very easily, and thinking
+of Lulu in a persistent way that was annoying to him. Hitherto he had
+given her very little thought. Half reluctantly he had taken her into
+his household when she was four years of age, and she had grown up there
+with almost as little care as the vines which year by year clambered
+higher over the piazzas. As for her beauty he had thought no more of it
+than he did of the beauty of the magnolias which sheltered his doorstep.
+Mrs. Lorimer had loved her niece, and he had not interfered with the
+affection. They were both Yturris; it was natural that they should
+understand one another.
+
+But his son was of a different race, and the inheritor of his own
+traditions and prejudices. A Scot from his own countryside had recently
+settled in the neighborhood, and at the Sabbath gathering he had seen
+and approved his daughter. To marry his son David to Jessie Kennedy
+appeared to him a most desirable thing, and he had considered its
+advantages until he could not bear to relinquish the idea. But when both
+fathers had settled the matter, David had met the question squarely, and
+declared he would marry no woman but his cousin Lulu. It was on this
+subject father and son had quarrelled and parted; but for all that,
+James Lorimer could not see his only son taking a high road to ruin, and
+not make an effort to save him.
+
+At sundown he rested a little, but the trail was so fresh he determined
+to ride on. He might reach David while they were camping, and then he
+could talk matters over with more ease and freedom. Near midnight the
+great white Texas moon flooded everything with a light wondrously soft,
+but clear as day, and he easily found Whaley's camp--a ten-acre patch of
+grass on the summit of some low hills.
+
+The cattle had all settled for the night, and the "watch" of eight men
+were slowly riding in a circle around them. Lorimer was immediately
+challenged; and he gave his name and asked to see the captain. Whaley
+rose at once, and confronted him with a cool, civil movement of his hand
+to his hat. Then Lorimer observed the man as he had never done before.
+He was evidently not a person to be trifled with. There was a fixed look
+about him, and a deliberate coolness, sufficiently indicating a
+determined character; and a belt around his waist supported a
+six-shooter and revealed the glittering hilt of a bowie knife.
+
+"Captain, good night. I wish to speak with my son, David Lorimer."
+
+"Wall, sir, you can't do it, not by no manner of means, just yet. David
+Lorimer is on watch till midnight."
+
+He was perfectly civil, but there was something particularly irritating
+in the way Whaley named David Lorimer. So the two men sat almost silent
+before the camp fire until midnight. Then Whaley said, "Mr. Lorimer,
+your son is at liberty now. You'll excuse me saying that the shorter you
+make your palaver the better it will suit me."
+
+Lorimer turned angrily, but Whaley was walking carelessly away; and the
+retort that rose to his lips was not one to be shouted after a man of
+Whaley's desperate character with safety. As his son approached him he
+was conscious of a thrill of pleasure in the young man's appearance.
+
+Physically, he was all he could desire. No Lorimer that ever galloped
+through Eskdale had the national peculiarities more distinctively. He
+was the tall, fair Scot, and his father complacently compared his yellow
+hair and blue eyes with the "dark, deil-like beauty" of Whaley.
+
+"Davie," and he held out his hand frankly, "I hae come to tak ye back to
+your ain hame. Let byganes be byganes, and we'll start a new chapter o'
+life, my lad. Ye'll try to be a gude son, and I'll aye be a gude father
+to ye."
+
+It was a great deal for James Lorimer to say; and David quite
+appreciated the concession, but he answered--
+
+"Lulu, father? I cannot give her up."
+
+"Weel, weel, if ye are daft to marry a strange woman, ye must e'en do
+sae. It is an auld sin, and there have aye been daughters o' Heth to
+plague honest houses wi'. But sit down, my lad; I came to talk wi' ye
+anent some decenter way of life than this."
+
+The talk was not altogether a pleasant one; but both yielded something,
+and it was finally agreed that as soon as Whaley could pick up a man to
+fill Davie's place Davie should return home. Lorimer did not linger
+after this decision. Whaley's behavior had offended him and without the
+ceremony of a "good-bye," he turned his horse's head eastward again.
+
+Picking up a man was not easy; they certainly had several offers from
+emigrants going west, and from Mexicans on the route, but Whaley seemed
+determined not to be pleased. He disliked Lorimer and was deeply
+offended at him interfering with his arrangements. Every day that he
+kept David was a kind of triumph to him. "He might as well have asked me
+how I'd like my drivers decoyed away. I like a man to be on the square,"
+he grumbled. And he said these and similar things so often, that David
+began to feel it impossible to restrain his temper.
+
+Anger, fed constantly by spiteful remarks and small injustices, grows
+rapidly; and as they approached the Apache mountains, the men began to
+notice a fixed tightening of the lips, and a stern blaze in the young
+Scot's eyes, which Whaley appeared to delight in intensifying.
+
+"Thar'll be mischief atween them two afore long," remarked an old
+drover; "Lorimer is gittin' to hate the captain with such a vim that
+he's no appetite for his food left."
+
+"It'll be a fair fight, and one or both'll get upped; that's about it."
+
+At length they met a party of returning drovers, and half a dozen men
+among them were willing to take David's place. Whaley had no longer any
+pretence for detaining him. They were at the time between two long, low
+spurs of hills, enclosing a rich narrow valley, deep with ripened grass,
+gilded into flickering gold by the sun and the dewless summer days. All
+the lower ridges were savagely bald and hot--a glen, paved with gold and
+walled with iron. Oh, how the sun did beat and shiver, and shake down
+into the breathless valley!
+
+The cattle were restless, and the men had had a hard day. David was
+weary; his heart was not in the work; he was glad it was his last watch.
+It began at ten o'clock, and would end at midnight. The weather was
+gloomy, and the few stars which shone between the rifts of driving
+clouds just served to outline the mass of sleeping cattle.
+
+The air also was surcharged with electricity, though there had been no
+lightning.
+
+"I wouldn't wonder ef we have a 'run' to-night," said one of the men.
+"I've seen a good many stampedes, and they allays happens on such nights
+as this one."
+
+"Nonsense!" replied David. "If a cayote frightens one in a drove the
+panic Spreads to all. Any night would do for a 'run.'"
+
+"'Taint so, Lorimer. Ef you've a drove of one thousand or of ten
+thousand it's all the same; the panic strikes every beast at the same
+moment. It's somethin' in the air; 'taint my business to know what. But
+you look like a 'run' yourself, restless and hot, and as ef somethin'
+was gitting 'the mad' up in you. I noticed Whaley is 'bout the same. I'd
+keep clear of him, ef I was you."
+
+"No, I won't. He owes me money, and I'll make him pay me!"
+
+"Don't! Thar, I've warned you, David Lorimer, and that let's me out.
+Take your own way now."
+
+For half an hour David pondered this caution, and something in his own
+heart seconded it. But when the trial of his temper came he turned a
+deaf ear to every monition. Whaley went swaggering by him, and as he
+passed issued an unnecessary order in a very insolent manner. David
+asked pointedly, "Were you speaking to me, Captain?"
+
+"I was."
+
+"Then don't you dare to do it again, sir; never, as long as you live!"
+
+Before the words were out of his mouth, every one of the drove of eight
+thousand were on their feet like a flash of lightning; every one of
+them exactly at the same instant. With a rush like a whirlwind leveling
+a forest, they were off in the darkness.
+
+The wild clatter, the crackling of a river of horns, and the thundering
+of hoofs, was deafening. Whaley, seeing eighty thousand dollars' worth
+of cattle running away from him, turned with a fierce imprecation, and
+gave David a passionate order "to ride up to the leaders," and then he
+sprang for his own mule.
+
+David's time was now fully out, and he drew his horse's rein tight and
+stood still.
+
+"Coward!" screamed Whaley; "try and forget for an hour that you have
+Spanish blood in you."
+
+A pistol shot answered the taunt. Whaley staggered a second, then fell
+without a word. The whole scene had not occupied a minute; but it was a
+minute that branded itself on the soul of David Lorimer. He gazed one
+instant on the upturned face of his slain enemy, and then gave himself
+up to the wild passion of the pursuit.
+
+By the spectral starlight he could see the cattle outlined as a black,
+clattering, thundering stream, rushing wildly on, and every instant
+becoming wilder. But David's horse had been trained in the business; he
+knew what the matter was, and scarce needed any guiding. Dashing along
+by the side of the stampede, they soon overtook the leaders and joined
+the men, who were gradually pushing against the foremost cattle on the
+left so as to turn them to the right. When once the leaders were turned
+the rest blindly followed and thus, by constantly turning them to the
+right, the leaders were finally swung clear around, and overtook the fag
+end of the line.
+
+Then they rushed around in a circle, the centre of which soon closed up,
+and they were "milling;" that is, they had formed a solid wheel, and
+were going round and round themselves in the same space of ground. Men
+who had noticed how very little David's heart had been in his work were
+amazed to see the reckless courage he displayed. Round and round the
+mill he flew, keeping the outside stock from flying off at a tangent,
+and soothing and quieting the beasts nearest to him with his voice. The
+"run" was over as suddenly as it commenced, and the men, breathless and
+exhausted, stood around the circle of panting cattle.
+
+"Whar's the Captain?" said one; "he gin'rally soop'rintends a job like
+this himself."
+
+"And likes to do it. Who's seen the Captain? Hev you, Lorimer?"
+
+"He was in camp when I started. My time was up just as the 'run'
+commenced."
+
+No more was said; indeed, there was little opportunity for
+conversation. The cattle were to watch; it was still dark; the men were
+weary with the hard riding and the unnatural pitch to which their voices
+had been raised. David felt that he must get away at once; any moment a
+messenger from the camp might bring the news of Whaley's murder; and he
+knew well that suspicion would at once rest upon him.
+
+He offered to return to camp and report "all right," and the offer was
+accepted; but, at the first turn, he rode away into the darkness of a
+belt of timber. The cayotes howled in the distance; there was a rush of
+unclean night birds above him, and the growling of panther cats in the
+underwood. But in his soul there was a terror and a darkness that made
+all natural terrors of small account. His own hands were hateful to him.
+He moaned out loudly like a man in an agony. He measured in every
+moments' space the height from which he had fallen; the blessings from
+which he must be an outcast, if by any means he might escape the
+shameful punishment of his deed. He remembered at that hour his father's
+love, the love that had so finely asserted itself when the occasion for
+it came. Lulu's tenderness and beauty, the hope of home and children,
+the respect of his fellow-men, all sacrificed for a moment's passionate
+revenge. He stood face to face with himself, and, dropping the reins,
+cowered down full of terror and grief at the future which he had evoked.
+Within hopeless sight of Hope and Love and Home, he was silent for hours
+gazing despairingly after the life which had sailed by him, and not
+daring--
+
+    "--to search through what sad maze,
+    Thenceforth his incommunicable ways
+    Follow the feet of death."
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+     "--and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." James i.
+     15.
+
+Blessed are they who have seen Nature in those rare, ineffable moments
+when she appears to be asleep--when the stars, large and white, bend
+stilly over the dreaming earth, and not a breath of wind stirs leaf or
+flower. On such a night James Lorimer sat upon his south verandah
+smoking; and his niece Lulu, white and motionless as the magnolia
+flowers above her, mused the hour away beside him. There were little
+ebony squads of negroes huddled together around the doors of their
+quarters, but they also were singularly quiet. An angel of silence had
+passed by no one was inclined to disturb the tranquil calm of the
+dreaming earth.
+
+There is nothing good in this life which Time does not improve. In ten
+days the better feelings which had led James Lorimer to seek his son in
+the path of moral and physical danger had grown as Divine seed does
+grow. This very night, in the scented breathless quiet, he was longing
+for David's return, and forming plans through which the future might
+atone for the past. Gradually the weary negroes went into the cabins,
+rolled themselves in their blankets and fell into that sound, dreamless
+sleep which is the compensation of hard labor. Only Lulu watched and
+thought with him.
+
+Suddenly she stood up and listened. There was a footstep in the avenue,
+and she knew it. But why did it linger, and what dreary echo of sorrow
+was there in it?
+
+"That is David's step, uncle; but what is the matter? Is he sick?"
+
+Then they both saw the young man coming slowly through the gloom, and
+the shadow of some calamity came steadily on before him. Lulu went to
+the top of the long flight of white steps, and put out her hands to
+greet him. He motioned her away with a woeful and positive gesture, and
+stood with hopeless yet half defiant attitude before his father.
+
+In a moment all the new tenderness was gone.
+
+In a voice stern and scornful he asked, "Well, sir, what is the matter?
+What hae ye been doing now?"
+
+"I have shot Whaley!"
+
+The words were rather breathed than spoken, but they were distinctly
+audible. The father rose and faced his wretched son.
+
+Lulu drew close to him, and asked, in a shocked whisper, "Dead?"
+
+"Dead!"
+
+"But you had a good reason, David; I know you had. He would have shot
+you?--it was in self-defence?--it was an accident? Speak, dear!"
+
+"He called me a coward, and--"
+
+"You shot him! Then you are a coward, sir!" said Lorimer, sternly; "and
+having made yourself fit for the gallows, you are a double coward to
+come here and force upon me the duty of arresting you. Put down your
+rifle, sir!"
+
+Lulu uttered a long low wail. "Oh, David, my love! why did you come
+here? Did you hope for pity or help in his heart? And what can I do
+Davie, but suffer with you?" But she drew his face down and kissed it
+with a solemn tenderness that taught the wretched man, in one moment,
+all the blessedness of a woman's devotion, and all the misery that the
+indulgence of his ungovernable temper had caused him.
+
+"We will hae no more heroics, Lulu. As a magistrate and a citizen it is
+my duty to arrest a murderer on his ain confession."
+
+"Your duty!" she answered, in a passion of scorn. "Had you done your
+duty to David in the past years, this duty would not have been to do.
+Your duty or anything belonging to yourself, has always been your sole
+care. Wrong Davie, wrong me, slay love outright, but do your duty, and
+stand well with the world and yourself! Uncle, you are a dreadful
+Christian!"
+
+"How dare you judge me, Lulu? Go to your own room at once!"
+
+"David, dearest, farewell! Fly!--you will get no pity here. Fly!"
+
+"Sit down, sir, and do not attempt to move!"
+
+"I am hungry, thirsty, weary and wretched, and at your mercy, father. Do
+as you will with me." And he laid his rifle upon the table.
+
+Lorimer looked at the hopeless figure that almost fell into the chair
+beside him, and his first feeling was one of mingled scorn and pity.
+
+"How did it happen? Tell me the truth. I want neither excuses nor
+deceptions."
+
+"I have no desire to make them. There was a 'run,' just as my time was
+out. Whaley, in an insolent manner, ordered me to help turn the
+leaders. I did not move. He called me a coward, and taunted me with my
+Spanish blood--it was my dear mother's."
+
+"That is it," answered Lorimer, with an anger all the more terrible for
+its restraint; "it is the Spanish blood wi' its gasconade and foolish
+pride."
+
+"Father! You have a right to give me up to the hangman; but you have no
+right to insult me."
+
+The next moment he fell senseless at his father's feet. It was the
+collapse of consciousness under excessive physical exhaustion and mental
+anguish; but Lorimer, who had never seen a man in such extremity,
+believed it to be death. A tumult of emotions rushed over him, but
+assistance was evidently the first duty, and he hastened for it. First
+he sent the housekeeper Cassie to her young master, then he went to the
+quarters to arouse Plato.
+
+When he returned, Lulu and Cassie were kneeling beside the unconscious
+youth. "You have murdered him!" said Lulu, bitterly; and for a moment he
+felt something of the remorseful agony which had driven the criminal at
+his feet into a short oblivion. But very soon there was a slight
+reaction, and the father was the first to see it. "He has only fainted;
+bring some wine here!" Then he remembered the weakness of the voice
+which had said, "I am hungry, and thirsty, and weary and wretched."
+
+When David opened his eyes again his first glance was at his father.
+There was something in that look that smote the angry man to his heart
+of hearts. He turned away, motioning Plato to follow him. But even when
+he had reached his own room and shut his door, he could not free himself
+from the influence evoked by that look of sorrowful reproach.
+
+Plato stood just within the door, nervously dangling his straw hat. He
+was evidently balancing some question in his own mind, and the
+uncertainty gave a queer restlessness to every part of his body.
+
+"Plato, you are to watch the young man down-stairs; he is not to be
+allowed to leave the house."
+
+"Yes, sar."
+
+"He has committed a great crime, and he must abide the consequences."
+
+No answer.
+
+"You understand that, Plato?"
+
+"Dunno, sar. I mighty sinful ole man myself. Dunno bout de
+consequences."
+
+"Go, and do as I bid you!"
+
+When he was alone he rose slowly and locked his door. He wanted to do
+right, but he was like a man in the fury and darkness of a great
+tempest: he could not see any road at all. There was a Bible on his
+dressing-table, and he opened it; but the verses mingled together, and
+the sense of everything seemed to escape him. The hand of the Great
+Father was stretched out to him in the dark, but he could not find it.
+He knew that at the bottom of his heart lay a wish that David would
+escape from justice. He knew that a selfish shame about his own fair
+character mingled with his father's love; his motives and feelings were
+so mixed that he did not dare to bring them, in their pure truthfulness,
+to the feet of God; for as yet he did not understand that "like as a
+father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him;" he
+thought of the Divine Being as one so jealous for His own rights and
+honor that He would have the human heart a void, so that he might reign
+there supremely. So all that terrible night he stood smitten and
+astonished on a threshold he could not pass.
+
+In another room the question was being in a measure solved for him.
+Cassie brought in meat and bread and wine, and David ate, and felt
+refreshed. Then the love of life returned, and the terror of a shameful
+death; and he laid his hand upon his rifle and looked round to see what
+chance of escape his father had left him. Plato stood at the door, Lulu
+sat by his side, holding his hand. On her face there was an expression
+of suffering, at once defiant and despairing--a barren suffering,
+without hope. They had come to that turn on their unhappy road when they
+had to bid each other "Farewell!" It was done very sadly, and with few
+words.
+
+"You must go now, beloved."
+
+He held her close to his heart and kissed her solemnly and silently. The
+next moment she turned on him from the open door a white, anguished
+face. Then he was alone with Plato.
+
+"Plato, I must go now. Will you saddle the brown mare for me?"
+
+"She am waiting, Massa David. I tole Cassie to get her ready, and some
+bread and meat, and _dis_, Massa Davie, if you'll 'blige ole Plato."
+Then he laid down a rude bag of buckskin, holding the savings of his
+lifetime.
+
+"How much is there, Plato?"
+
+"Four hundred dollars, sar. Sorry it am so little."
+
+"It was for your freedom, Plato."
+
+"I done gib dat up, Massa Davie. I'se too ole now to git de rest. Ef you
+git free, dat is all I want."
+
+They went quietly out together. It was not long after midnight. The
+brown mare stood ready saddled in the shadow, and Cassie stood beside
+her with a small bag, holding a change of linen and some cooked food.
+The young man mounted quickly, grasped the kind hands held out to him,
+and then rode away into the darkness. He went softly at first, but when
+he reached the end of the avenue at a speed which indicated his terror
+and his mental suffering.
+
+Cassie and Plato watched him until he became an indistinguishable black
+spot upon the prairie; then they turned wearily towards the cabins. They
+had seen and shared the long sorrow and discontent of the household;
+they hardly expected anything but trouble in some form or other. Both
+were also thinking of the punishment they were likely to receive; for
+James Lorimer never failed to make an example of evil-doers; he would
+hardly be disposed to pass over their disobedience.
+
+Early in the morning Plato was called by his master. There was little
+trace of the night of mental agony the latter had passed. He was one of
+those complete characters who join to perfect physical health a mind
+whose fibres do not easily show the severest strain.
+
+"Tell Master David to come here."
+
+"Massa David, sar! Massa David done gone sar!" The old man's lips were
+trembling, but otherwise his nervous restlessness was over. He looked
+his master calmly in the face.
+
+"Did I not tell you to stop him?"
+
+"Ef de Lord in heaven want him stopped, Massa James, He'll send the
+messenger--Plato could not do it!"
+
+"How did he go?"
+
+"On de little brown mare--his own horse done broke all up."
+
+"How much money did you give him?"
+
+"Money, sar?"
+
+"How much? Tell the truth."
+
+"Four hundred dollars."
+
+"That will do. Tell Cassie I want my breakfast."
+
+At breakfast he glanced at Lulu's empty chair, but said nothing. In the
+house all was as if no great sin and sorrow had darkened its threshold
+and left a stain upon its hearthstone. The churning and cleaning was
+going on as usual. Only Cassie was quieter, and Lulu lay, white and
+motionless, in the little vine-shaded room that looked too cool and
+pretty for grief to enter. The unhappy father sat still all day,
+pondering many things that he had not before thought of. Every footfall
+made his heart turn sick, but the night came, and there was no further
+bad news.
+
+On the second day he went into Lulu's room, hoping to say a word of
+comfort to her. She listened apathetically, and turned her face to the
+wall with a great sob. He began to feel some irritation in the
+atmosphere of misery which surrounded him. It was very hard to be made
+so wretched for another's sin. The thought in an instant became a
+reproach. Was he altogether innocent? The second and third days passed;
+he began to be sure then that David must have reached a point beyond the
+probability of pursuit.
+
+On the fourth day he went to the cotton field. He visited the overseer's
+house, he spent the day in going over accounts and making estimates. He
+tried to forget that _something_ had happened which made life appear a
+different thing. In the grey, chill, misty evening he returned home. The
+negroes were filing down the long lane before him, each bearing their
+last basket of cotton--all of them silent, depressed with their
+weariness, and intensely sensitive to the melancholy influence of the
+autumn twilight.
+
+Lorimer did not care to pass them. He saw them, one by one, leave their
+cotton at the ginhouse, and trail despondingly off to their cabins. Then
+he rode slowly up to his own door. A man sat on the verandah smoking. At
+the sight of him his heart fell fathoms deep.
+
+"Good evening." He tried to give his voice a cheerful welcoming sound,
+but he could not do it; and the visitor's attitude was not encouraging.
+
+"Good evening, Lorimer. I'm right sorry to tell you that you will be
+wanted on some unpleasant business very early to-morrow morning."
+
+He tried to answer, but utterly failed; his tongue was as dumb as his
+soul was heavy. He only drew a chair forward and sat down.
+
+"Fact is your son is in a tighter place than any man would care for. I
+brought him up to Sheriff Gillelands' this afternoon. Perhaps he can
+make it out a case of 'justifiable homicide'--hope he can. He's about as
+likely a young man as I ever saw."
+
+Still no answer.
+
+"Well, Lorimer, I think you're right. Talking won't help things, and may
+make them a sight worse. You'll be over to Judge Lepperts' in the
+morning?--say about ten o'clock."
+
+"Yes. Will you have some supper?"
+
+"No; this is not hungry work. My pipe is more satisfactory under the
+circumstances. I'll have to saddle up, too. There's others to see yet.
+Is there any one particular you'd like on the jury?"
+
+"No. You must do your duty, Sheriff."
+
+He heard him gallop away, and stood still, clasping and unclasping his
+hands in a maze of anguish. David at Sheriff Gillelands'! David to be
+tried for murder in the morning! What could he do? If David had not
+confessed to the shooting of Whaley, would he be compelled to give his
+evidence? Surely, conscience would not require so hard a duty of him.
+
+At length he determined to go and see David before he decided upon the
+course he ought to take. The sheriff's was only about three miles
+distant. He rode over there at once. His son, with travel-stained
+clothes and blood-shot hopeless eyes, looked up to see him enter. His
+heart was full of a great love, but it was wronged, even at that hour,
+by an irritation that would first and foremost assert itself. Instead of
+saying, "My dear, dear lad!" the lament which was in his heart, he said,
+"So this is the end of it, David?"
+
+"Yes. It is the end."
+
+"You ought not to have run away."
+
+"No. I ought to have let you surrender me to justice; that would have
+put you all right."
+
+"I wasna thinking o' that. A man flying from justice is condemned by the
+act."
+
+"It would have made no matter. There is only one verdict and one end
+possible."
+
+"Have you then confessed the murder?"
+
+He awaited the answer in an agony. It came with a terrible distinctness.
+"Whaley lived thirty hours. He told. His brother-in-law has gone on with
+the cattle. Four of the drivers are come back as witnesses. They are in
+the house."
+
+"But you have not yourself confessed?"
+
+"Yes. I told Sheriff Gillelands I shot the man. If I had not done so you
+would; I knew that. I have at least spared you the pain and shame of
+denouncing your own son!"
+
+"Oh, David, David! I would not. My dear lad, I would not! I would hae
+gane to the end o' the world first. Why didna you trust me?"
+
+"How could I, father?"
+
+He let the words drop wearily, and covered his face with his hands.
+After a pause, he said, "Poor Lulu! Don't tell her if you can help it,
+until--all is over. How glad I am this day that my mother is dead!"
+
+The wretched father could endure the scene no longer. He went into the
+outer room to find out what hope of escape remained for his son. The
+sheriff was full of pity, and entered readily into a discussion of
+David's chances. But he was obliged to point out that they were
+extremely small. The jury and the judge were all alike cattle men; their
+sympathies were positively against everything likely to weaken the
+discipline necessary in carrying large herds of cattle safely across the
+continent. In the moment of extremest danger, David had not only
+refused assistance, but had shot his employer.
+
+"He called him a coward, and you'll admit that's a vera aggravating
+name."
+
+The sheriff readily admitted that under any ordinary circumstances in
+Texas that epithet would justify a murder; "but," he added, "most any
+Texan would say he was a coward to stand still and see eight thousand
+head of cattle on the stampede. You'll excuse me, Lorimer, I'd say so
+myself."
+
+He went home again and shut himself in his room to think. But after many
+hours, he was just as far as ever from any coherent decision. Justice!
+Justice! Justice! The whole current of his spiritual and mental
+constitution ran that road. Blood for blood; a life for a life; it was
+meet and right, and he acknowledged it with bleeding heart and streaming
+eyes. But, clear and distinct above the tumult of this current, he heard
+something which made him cry out with an equally unhappy father of old,
+"Oh, Absalom! My son, my son Absalom!"
+
+Then came the accuser and boldly told him that he had neglected his
+duty, and driven his son into the way of sin and death; and that the
+seeds sown in domestic bickering and unkindness had only brought forth
+their natural fruit. The scales fell from his eyes; all the past became
+clear to him. His own righteousness was dreadful in his sight. He cried
+out with his whole soul, "God be merciful! God be merciful!"
+
+The darkest despairs are the most silent. All the night long he was only
+able to utter that one heartbroken cry for pity and help. At the
+earliest daylight he was with his son. He was amazed to find him calm,
+almost cheerful. "The worst is over father," he said. "I have done a
+great wrong; I acknowledge the justice of the punishment, and am willing
+to suffer it."
+
+"But after death! Oh, David, David--afterward!"
+
+"I shall dare to hope--for Christ also has died, the just for the
+unjust."
+
+Then the father, with a solemn earnestness, spoke to his son of that
+eternity whose shores his feet were touching. At this hour he would
+shirk no truth; he would encourage no false hope. And David listened;
+for this side of his father's character he had always had great respect,
+and in those first hours of remorse following the murder, not the least
+part of his suffering had been the fearful looking forward to the Divine
+vengeance which he could never fly from. But there had been _One_ with
+him that night, _One_ who is not very far from us at any time; and
+though David had but tremblingly understood His voice, and almost feared
+to accept its comfort, he was in those desperate circumstances when men
+cannot reason and philosophize, when nothing remains for them but to
+believe.
+
+"Dinna get by the truth, my dear lad; you hae committed a great sin,
+there is nae doubt o' that."
+
+"But God's mercy, I trust, is greater."
+
+"And you hae nothing to bring him from a' the years o' your life! Oh,
+David, David!"
+
+"I know," he answered sadly. "But neither had the dying thief. He only
+believed. Father, this is the sole hope and comfort left me now. Don't
+take it from me."
+
+Lorimer turned away weeping; yes, and praying, too, as men must pray
+when they stand powerless in the stress of terrible sorrows. At noon the
+twelve men summoned dropped in one by one, and the informal court was
+opened. David Lorimer admitted the murder, and explained the long
+irritation and the final taunt which had produced it. The testimony of
+the returned drovers supplemented the tragedy. If there was any excuse
+to be made, it lay in the disgraceful epithet applied to David and the
+scornful mention of his mother's race.
+
+There was, however, an unfavorable feeling from the first. The elder
+Lorimer, with his stern principles and severe manners, was not a popular
+man. David's proud, passionate temper had made him some active enemies;
+and there was not a man on the jury who did not feel as the sheriff had
+honestly expressed himself regarding David's conduct at the moment of
+the stampede. It touched all their prejudices and their interests very
+nearly; not one of them was inclined to blame Whaley for calling a man a
+coward who would not answer the demand for help at such an imperative
+moment.
+
+As to the Spanish element, it had always been an offence to Texans.
+There were men on the jury whose fathers had died fighting it; beside,
+there was that unacknowledged but positive contempt which ever attaches
+itself to a race that has been subjugated. Long before the form of a
+trial was over, David had felt the hopelessness of hope, and had
+accepted his fate. Not so his father. He pleaded with all his soul for
+his son's life. But he touched no heart there. The jury had decided on
+the death-sentence before they left their seats.
+
+And in that locality, and at that time, there was no delay in carrying
+it out. It would be inconvenient to bring together again a sufficient
+number of witnesses, and equally inconvenient to guard a prisoner for
+any length of time. David was to die at sunset.
+
+Three hours yet remained to the miserable father. He threw aside all
+pride and all restraint. Remorse and tenderness wrung his heart. But
+these last hours had a comfort no others in their life ever had. What
+confessions of mutual faults were made! What kisses and forgivenesses
+were exchanged! At last the two poor souls who had dwelt in the chill of
+mistakes and ignorance knew that they loved each other. Sometimes the
+Lord grants such sudden unfoldings to souls long closed. They are of
+those royal compassions which astonish even the angels.
+
+When his time was nearly over, David pushed a piece of paper toward his
+father. "It is my last request," he said, looking into his face with
+eyes whose entreaty was pathetic. "You must grant it, father, hard as it
+is."
+
+Lorimer's hand trembled as he took the paper, but his face turned pale
+as ashes when he read the contents.
+
+"I canna, I canna do it," he whispered.
+
+"Yes, you will, father. It is the last favor I shall ask of you."
+
+The request was indeed a bitter one; so bitter that David had not dared
+to voice it. It was this--
+
+"Father, be my executioner. Do not let me be hung. The rope is all I
+dread in death; ere it touch me, let your rifle end my life."
+
+For a few moments Lorimer sat like a man turned to stone. Then he rose
+and went to the jury. They were sitting together under some mulberry
+trees, smoking. Naturally silent, they had scarcely spoken since their
+verdict. Grave, fierce men, they were far from being cruel; they had no
+pleasure in the act which they believed to be their duty.
+
+Lorimer went from one to the other and made known his son's request. He
+pleaded, "That as David had shot Whaley, justice would be fully
+satisfied in meting out the same death to the murderer as the victim."
+
+But one man, a ranchero of great influence and wealth, answered that he
+must oppose such a request. It was the rope, he thought, made the
+punishment. He hoped no Texan feared a bullet. A clean, honorable death
+like that was for a man who had never wronged his manhood. Every
+rascally horse thief or Mexican assassin would demand a shot if they
+were given a precedent. And arguments that would have been essentially
+false in some localities had a compelling weight in that one. The men
+gravely nodded their heads in assent, and Lorimer knew that any further
+pleading was in vain. Yet when he returned to his son, he clasped his
+hand and looked into his eyes, and David understood that his request
+would be granted.
+
+Just as the sun dropped the sheriff entered the room. He took the
+prisoner's arm and walked quietly out with him. There was a coil of rope
+on his other arm, and David cast his eyes on it with horror and
+abhorrence, and then looked at his father; and the look was returned
+with one of singular steadiness. When they reached the little grove of
+mulberries, the men, one by one, laid down their pipes and slowly rose.
+There was a large live oak at the end of the enclosure, and to it the
+party walked.
+
+Here David was asked "if he was guilty?" and he acknowledged the sin:
+and when further asked "if he thought he had been fairly dealt with, and
+deserved death?" he answered, "that he was quite satisfied, and was
+willing to pay the penalty of his crime."
+
+Oh, how handsome he looked at this moment to his heart-broken father!
+His bare head was just touched by the rays of the setting sun behind
+him; his fine face, calm and composed, wore even a faint air of
+exultation. At this hour the travel-stained garments clothed him with a
+touching and not ignoble pathos. Involuntarily they told of the weary
+days and nights of despairing flight, which after all had been useless.
+
+Lorimer asked if he might pray, and there was a simultaneous though
+silent motion of assent. Every man bared his head, while the wretched
+father repeated the few verses of entreaty and hope which at that awful
+hour were his own strength and comfort. This service occupied but a few
+minutes; just as it ended out of the dead stillness rose suddenly a
+clear, joyful thrilling burst of song from a mocking bird in the
+branches above. David looked up with a wonderful light on his face;
+perhaps it meant more to him than anyone else understood.
+
+The next moment the sheriff was turning back the flannel collar which
+covered the strong, pillar-like throat. In that moment David sought his
+father's eyes once more, smiled faintly, and called "Father! _Now_!" As
+the words reached the father's ears, the bullet reached the son's heart.
+He fell without a moan ere the rope had touched him. It was the father's
+groan which struck every heart like a blow; and there was a grandeur of
+suffering about him which no one thought of resisting.
+
+He walked to his child's side, and kneeling down closed the eyes, and
+wept and prayed over him as a mother over her first-born. They were all
+fathers around him; not one of them but suffered with him. Silently they
+untied their horses and rode away; no one had the heart to say a word of
+dissent. If they had, Lorimer had reached a point far beyond care of
+man's approval or disapproval in the matter; for a great sorrow is
+indifferent to all outside itself.
+
+When he lifted his head he was alone. The sheriff was waiting at the
+house door, Plato stood at a little distance, weeping. He motioned to
+him to approach, and in a few words understood that he had with him a
+companion and a rude bier. They laid the body upon it, and the sheriff
+having satisfied himself that the last penalty had been fully paid,
+Lorimer was permitted to claim his dead. He took him up to his own room
+and laid him on his own bed, and passed the night by his side. The dead
+opened the eyes of the living, and in that solemn companionship he saw
+all that he had been blind to for so many years. Then he understood what
+it must be to sit in the silent halls of eternal despair, and count over
+and over the wasted blessings of love and endure the agony of unavailing
+repentance.
+
+In the morning he knew he must tell Lulu all; and this duty he dreaded.
+But in some way the girl already knew the full misery of the tragedy.
+Part she had divined, and part she had gathered from the servants' faces
+and words. She was quite aware _what_ was in her uncle's lonely room.
+Just as he was thinking of the hard necessity of going to her, she came
+to the door. For the first time in his life he called her "My daughter,"
+and stooped and kissed her. He had a letter for her--David's dying
+message of love. He put it in her hand, and left her alone with the
+dead.
+
+At sunrise a funeral took place. In that climate the necessity was an
+urgent one. Plato had dug the grave under a tree in the little clearing
+in the cypress swamp. It had been a favorite place of resort; there Lulu
+had often brought her work or book, and passed long happy hours with the
+slain youth. She followed his corpse to the grave in a tearless apathy,
+more pitiful than the most frantic grief. Lorimer took her on his arm,
+the servants in long single file, silent and terrified, walked behind
+them. The sun was shining, but the chilly wind blew the withered leaves
+across the still prostrate figure, as it lay upon the ground, where last
+it had stood in all the beauty and unreasoning passion of youth.
+
+When the last rites were over the servants went wailing home again,
+their doleful, monotonous chant seeming to fill the whole spaces of air
+with lamentation. But neither Lorimer nor Lulu spoke a word. The girl
+was white and cold as marble, and absolutely irresponsive to her uncle's
+unusual tenderness. Evidently she had not forgiven him. And as the
+winter went wearily on she gradually drew more and more within her own
+consciousness. Lorimer seldom saw her. She was soon very ill, and kept
+her room entirely. He sent for eminent physicians, he surrounded her
+with marks of thoughtful love and care; but quietly, as a flower fades,
+she died.
+
+One night she sent for him. "Uncle," she said, "I am going away very
+soon, now. If I have been hard and unjust to you, forgive me. And I want
+your promise about my sister's children; will you give me it?"
+
+He winced visibly, and remained silent.
+
+"There are six boys and two girls--they are poor, ignorant and unhappy.
+They are under very bad influences. For David's sake and my sake you
+must see that they are brought up right. There need be no mistakes this
+time; for two wrecked lives you may save eight. You will do it, uncle?"
+
+"I will do my best, dear."
+
+"I know you will. Send Plato to San Antonio for them at once. You will
+need company soon."
+
+"Do you think you are dying, dear?"
+
+"I know I am dying."
+
+"And how is a' wi' you anent what is beyond death?"
+
+She pointed with a bright smile to the New Testament by her side, and
+then closed her eyes wearily. She appeared so exhausted that he could
+press the question no further. And the next morning she had "gone
+away"--gone so silently and peacefully that Aunt Cassie, who was sitting
+by her side, knew not when she departed. He went and looked at her. The
+fair young face had a look austere and sorrowful, as if life had been
+too sore a burden for her. His anguish was great, but it was God's
+doing. What was there for him to say?
+
+The charge that she had left him he faithfully kept--not very cheerfully
+at first, perhaps, and often feeling it to be a very heavy care; but he
+persevered, and the reward came. The children grew and prospered; they
+loved him, and he learned to love them, so much, finally, that he gave
+them his own name, and suffered them to call him father.
+
+As the country settled, and little towns grew up around him, the tragedy
+of his earlier life was forgotten by the world, but it was ever present
+to his own heart; for though love and sorrow mellowed and chastened the
+stern creed in which he believed with all his soul, he had many an hour
+of spiritual agony concerning the beloved ones who had died and made no
+sign. Not till he got almost within the heavenly horizon did he
+understand that the Divine love and mercy is without limitations; and
+that He who could say, "Let there be light," could also say, "Thy sins
+be forgiven thee;" and the pardoned child, or ever he was aware, be come
+to the holy land: for--
+
+    "Down in the valley of death
+      A cross is standing plain;
+    Where strange and awful the shadows sleep,
+      And the ground has a deep red stain.
+    This cross uplifted there
+      Forbids, with voice Divine,
+    Our anguished hearts to break for the dead
+      Who have died and made no sign.
+    As they turned at length from us,
+      Dear eyes that were heavy and dim,
+    May have met his look, who was lifted there,
+      May be sleeping safe in Him."
+
+
+
+
+THE SEVEN WISE MEN OF PRESTON.
+
+
+Let me introduce to our readers seven of the wisest men of the present
+century--the seven drafters and signers of the first teetotal pledge.
+
+The movement originated in the mind of Joseph Livesey, and a short
+consideration of the circumstances and surroundings of his useful career
+will give us the best insight into the necessities and influences which
+gave it birth. He was born near Preston, in Lancashire, in the year
+1795; the beginning of an era in English history which scarcely has a
+parallel for national suffering. The excitement of the French Revolution
+still agitated all classes, and, commercial distress and political
+animosities made still more terrible the universal scarcity of food and
+the prostration of the manufacturing business.
+
+His father and mother died early, and he was left to the charge of his
+grandfather, who, unfortunately, abandoned his farm and became a cotton
+spinner. Lancashire men had not then been whetted by daily attrition
+with steam to their present keen and shrewd character, and the elder
+Livesey lost all he possessed. The records of cotton printing and
+spinning mention with honor the Messrs. Livesey, of Preston, as the
+first who put into practice Bell's invention of cylindrical printing of
+calicoes in 1785; but whether the firms are identical or not I have no
+certain knowledge. It shows, however, that they were a race inclined to
+improvements and ready to test an advance movement.
+
+That Joseph Livesey's youth was a hard and bitter one there is no doubt.
+The price of flour continued for years fabulously high; so much so that
+wealthy people generally pledged themselves to reduce their use of it
+one-third, and puddings or cakes were considered on any table, a sinful
+extravagance. When the government was offering large premiums to farmers
+for raising extra quantities and detailing soldiers to assist in
+threshing it, poor bankrupt spinners must have had a hard struggle for a
+bare existence.
+
+Indeed, education was hardly thought possible, and, though Joseph
+managed, "by hook or crook," to learn how to read, write and count a
+little, it was through difficulties and discouragements that would have
+been fatal to any ordinary intelligence or will.
+
+Until he was twenty-one years of age he worked patiently at his loom,
+which stood in one corner of a cellar, so cold and damp that its walls
+were constantly wet. But he was hopeful, and even in those dark days
+dared to fall in love. On attaining his majority, he received a legacy
+of £30. Then he married the poor girl who had made brighter his hard
+apprenticeship, and lived happily with her for fifty years.
+
+But the troubles that had begun before his birth--and which did not
+lighten until after the passing of the Reform Bill, in June, 1832--had
+then attained a proportion which taxed the utmost energies of both
+private charities and the national government.
+
+The year of Joseph Livesey's marriage saw the passage of the Corn Laws,
+and the first of those famous mass meetings in Peter's Field, near
+Manchester, which undoubtedly molded the future temper and status of the
+English weavers and spinners. From one of these meetings, the following
+year, thousands of starving men started _en masse_ to London. They were
+followed by the military and brought back for punishment or died
+miserably on the road, though 500 of them reached Macclesfield and a
+smaller number Derby.
+
+But Livesey, though probably suffering as keenly as others, joined no
+body of rioters. He borrowed a sovereign and bought two cheeses; then
+cutting them up into small lots, he retailed them on the streets,
+Saturday afternoons, when the men were released from work. The profit
+from this small investment exceeding what it was possible for him to
+make at his loom, he continued the trade, and from this small beginning
+founded a business, and made a fortune which has enabled him to devote a
+long life to public usefulness and benevolence.
+
+But his little craft must have needed skillful piloting, for his family
+increased rapidly during the disastrous years between 1816 and 1832; so
+disastrous that in 1825-26 the Bank of England was obliged to authorize
+the Chamber of Commerce to make loans to individuals carrying on large
+works of from £500 to £10,000. Bankruptcies were enormous, trade was
+everywhere stagnant, £60,000 were subscribed for meal and peas to feed
+the starving, and the government issued 40,000 articles of clothing. The
+quarrels between masters and spinners were more and more bitter, mills
+were everywhere burnt, and at Ashton in one day 30,000 "hands" turned
+out.
+
+During these dreadful years every thoughtful person had noticed how much
+misery and ill-will was caused by the constant thronging to public
+houses, and temperance societies had been at work among the angry men of
+the working classes. Joseph Livesey had been actively engaged in this
+work. But these first efforts of the temperance cause were directed
+entirely against spirits. The use of wine and ale was considered then a
+necessity of life. Brewing was in most families as regular and important
+a duty as baking; the youngest children had their mug of ale; and
+clergymen were spoken of without reproach as "one," "two" or
+"three-bottle men."
+
+But Joseph Livesey soon became satisfied that these half measures were
+doing no good at all, and in 1831 a little circumstance decided him to
+take a stronger position. He had to go to Blackburn to see a person on
+business; and, as a matter of course, whiskey was put on the table.
+Livesey for the first time tasted it, and was very ill in consequence.
+He had then a large family of boys, and both for their sakes and that of
+others, he resolved to halt no longer between two opinions.
+
+He spoke at once in all the temperance meetings of the folly of partial
+reforms, pointed out the hundreds of relapses, and urged upon the
+association the duty of absolute abstinence. His zeal warmed with his
+efforts and he insisted that in the matter of drinking "the golden mean"
+was the very sin for which the Laodicean Church had been cursed.
+
+The disputes were very angry and bitter; far more so than we at this
+day can believe possible, unless we take into account the universal
+national habits and its poetic and domestic associations with every
+phase of English life. But he gradually gained adherents to his views
+though it was not until the following year he was able to take another
+step forward.
+
+It was on Thursday, August 23, 1832, that the first solemn pledge of
+total abstinence was taken. That afternoon Joseph Livesey, pondering the
+matter in his mind, saw John King pass his shop. He asked him to come in
+and talk the subject over with him. Before they parted Livesey asked
+King if he would join him in a pledge to abstain forever from all
+liquors; and King said he would. Livesey then wrote out a form and,
+laying it before King, said: "Thee sign it first, lad." King signed it,
+Livesey followed him, and the two men clasped hands and stood pledged to
+one of the greatest works humanity has ever undertaken.
+
+A special meeting was then called, and after a stormy debate, the main
+part of the audience left, a small number remaining to continue the
+argument. But the end of it was that seven men came forward and drew up
+and signed the following document, which is still preserved:
+
+     "We agree to abstain from all liquors of an intoxicating quality,
+     whether they be ale, porter, wine or ardent spirits, except as
+     medicine.
+
+     "JOHN GRATREX,
+     EDWARD DICKINSON,
+     JOHN BROADBENT,
+     JNO. SMITH,
+     JOSEPH LIVESEY,
+     DAVID ANDERTON,
+     JNO. KING."
+
+All these reformers were virtually _working_ men, though most of them
+rose to positions of respect and affluence. Still the humility of the
+origin of the movement was long a source of contempt, and its members,
+within my own recollection, had the stigma of vulgarity almost in right
+of their convictions.
+
+But God takes hands with good men's efforts, and the cause prospered
+just where it was most needed--among the operatives and "the common
+people." One of these latter, a hawker of fish, called Richard Turner,
+stood, in a very amusing and unexpected way, sponsor for the society.
+Richard was fluent of speech, and, if his language was the broadest
+patois, it was, nevertheless, of the most convincing character. He
+always spoke well, and, if authorized words failed him, readily coined
+what he needed. One night while making a very fervent speech, he said:
+"No half-way measures here. Nothing but the _te-te total_ will do."
+
+Mr. Livesey at once seized the word, and, rising, proposed it as the
+name of the society. The proposition was received with enthusiastic
+cheering, and these "root and branch" temperance men were thenceforward
+known as teetotalers. Richard remained all his life a sturdy advocate of
+the cause, and when he died, in 1846, I made one of the hundreds and
+thousands that crowded the streets of the beautiful town of Preston and
+followed him to his grave. The stone above it chronicles shortly his
+name and death, and the fact that he was the author of a word known now
+wherever Christianity and civilization are known.
+
+
+
+
+MARGARET SINCLAIR'S SILENT MONEY.
+
+
+"It was ma luck, Sinclair, an' I couldna win by it."
+
+"Ha'vers! It was David Vedder's whiskey that turned ma boat
+tapsalteerie, Geordie Twatt."
+
+"Thou had better blame Hacon; he turned the boat _Widdershins_ an' what
+fule doesna ken that it is evil luck to go contrarie to the sun?"
+
+"It is waur luck to have a drunken, superstitious pilot. Twatt, that
+Norse blood i' thy veins is o'er full o' freets. Fear God, an' mind thy
+wark, an' thou needna speir o' the sun what gate to turn the boat."
+
+"My Norse blood willna stand ony Scot stirring it up, Sinclair. I come
+o' a mighty kind--"
+
+"Tush, man! Mules mak' an unco' full about their ancestors having been
+horses. It has come to this, Geordie: thou must be laird o' theesel'
+before I'll trust thee again with ony craft o' mine." Then Peter
+Sinclair lifted his papers, and, looking the discharged sailor steadily
+in the face, bid him "go on his penitentials an' think things o'er a
+bit."
+
+Geordie Twatt went sullenly out, but Peter was rather pleased with
+himself; he believed that he had done his duty in a satisfactory manner.
+And if a man was in a good temper with himself, it was just the kind of
+even to increase his satisfaction. The gray old town of Kirkwall lay in
+supernatural glory, the wondrous beauty of the mellow gloaming blending
+with soft green and rosy-red spears of light that shot from east to
+west, or charged upward to the zenith. The great herring fleet outside
+the harbor was as motionless as "a painted _fleet_ upon a painted
+ocean"--the men were sleeping or smoking upon the piers--not a foot fell
+upon the flagged streets, and the only murmur of sound was round the
+public fountains, where a few women were perched on the bowl's edge,
+knitting and gossiping.
+
+Peter Sinclair was, perhaps, not a man inclined to analyze such things,
+but they had their influence over him; for, as he drifted slowly home in
+his skiff, he began to pity Geordie's four motherless babies, and to
+wonder if he had been as patient with him as he might have been. "An'
+yet," he murmured, "there's the loss on the goods, an' the loss o' time,
+and the boat to steek afresh forbye the danger to life! Na, na, I'm no
+called upon to put life i' peril for a glass o' whiskey."
+
+Then he lifted his head, and there, on the white sands, stood his
+daughter Margaret. He was conscious of a great thrill of pride as he
+looked at her, for Margaret Sinclair, even among the beautiful women of
+the Orcades, was most beautiful of all. In a few minutes he had fastened
+his skiff at a little jetty, and was walking with her over the springy
+heath toward a very pretty house of white stone. It was his own house,
+and he was proud of it also, but not half so proud of the house as of
+its tiny garden; for there, with great care and at great cost, he had
+managed to rear a few pansies, snowdrops, lilies of the valley, and
+other hardy English flowers. Margaret and he stooped lovingly over them,
+and it was wonderful to see how Peter's face softened, and how gently
+the great rough hands, that had been all day handling smoked geese and
+fish, touched these frail, trembling blossoms.
+
+"Eh, lassie! I could most greet wi' joy to see the bonnie bit things;
+when I can get time I'se e'en go wi' thee to Edinburgh; I'd like weel to
+see such fields an' gardens an' trees as I hear thee tell on."
+
+Then Margaret began again to describe the greenhouses, the meadows and
+wheat fields, the forests of oaks and beeches she had seen during her
+school days in Edinburgh. Peter listened to her as if she was telling a
+wonderful fairy story, but he liked it, and, as he cut slice after slice
+from his smoked goose, he enjoyed her talk of roses and apple-blossoms,
+and smacked his lips for the thousandth time when she described a peach,
+and said, "It tasted, father, as if it had been grown in the Garden of
+Eden."
+
+After such conversations Peter was always stern and strict. He felt an
+actual anger at Adam and Eve; their transgression became a keenly
+personal affair, for he had a very vivid sense of the loss they had
+entailed upon him. The vague sense of wrong made him try to fix it, and,
+after a short reflection, he said in an injured tone:
+
+"I wonder when Ronald's coming hame again?"
+
+"Ronald is all right, father."
+
+"A' wrong, thou means, lassie. There's three vessels waiting to be
+loaded, an' the books sae far ahint that I kenna whether I'm losing or
+saving. Where is he?"
+
+"Not far away. He will be at the Stones of Stennis this week some time
+with an Englishman he fell in with at Perth."
+
+"I wonder, now, was it for my sins or his ain that the lad has sic auld
+world notions? There isna a pagan altar-stane 'tween John O'Groat's an'
+Lambaness he doesna run after. I wish he were as anxious to serve in
+the Lord's temple--I would build him a kirk an' a manse for it."
+
+"We'll be proud of Ronald yet, father. The Sinclairs have been fighting
+and making money for centuries: it is a sign of grace to have a scholar
+and a poet at last among them."
+
+Peter grumbled. His ideas of poetry were limited by the Scotch psalms,
+and, as for scholarship, he asserted that the books were better kept
+when he used his own method of tallies and crosses. Then he remembered
+Geordie Twatt's misfortune, and had his little grumble out on this
+subject: "Boat and goods might hae been a total loss, no to speak o' the
+lives o' Geordie an' the four lads wi' him; an' a' for the sake o'
+liquor!"
+
+Margaret looked at the brandy bottle standing at her father's elbow,
+and, though she did not speak, the look annoyed Peter.
+
+"You arna to even my glass wi' his, lassie. I ken when to stop--Geordie
+never does."
+
+"It is a common fault in more things than drinking, father. When Magnus
+Hay has struck the first blow he is quite ready to draw his dirk and
+strike the last one; and Paul Snackole, though he has made gold and to
+spare, will just go on making gold until death takes the balances out of
+his hands. There are few folks that in all things offend not."
+
+She looked so noble standing before him, so fair and tall, her hair
+yellow as down, her eyes cool and calm and blue as night; her whole
+attitude so serene, assured and majestic, that Peter rose uneasily, left
+his glass unfinished, and went away with a very confused "good night."
+
+In the morning the first thing he did when he reached his office, was to
+send for the offending sailor.
+
+"Geordie, my Margaret says there are plenty folk as bad as thou art; so,
+thou'lt just see to the steeking o' the boat, an' be ready to sail
+her--or upset her--i' ten days again."
+
+"I'll keep her right side up for Margaret Sinclair's sake--tell her I
+said that, Master."
+
+"I'se do no promising for thee Geordie. Between wording an' working is a
+lang road, but Kirkwall an' Stromness kens thee for an honest lad, an'
+thou wilt mind this--_things promised are things due_."
+
+Insensibly this act of forbearance lightened Peter's whole day; he was
+good-tempered with the world, and the world returned the compliment.
+When night came, and he watched for Margaret on the sands, he was
+delighted to see that Ronald was with her. The lad had come home and
+nothing was now remembered against him. That night it was Ronald told
+him fairy-stories of great cities and universities, of miles of books
+and pictures, of wonderful machinery and steam engines, of delicious
+things to eat and drink. Peter felt as if he must start southward by the
+next mail packet, but in the morning he thought more unselfishly.
+
+"There are forty families depending on me sticking to the shop an' the
+boats, Ronald, an' I canna go pleasuring till there is ane to step into
+my shoes."
+
+Ronald Sinclair had all the fair, stately beauty and noble presence of
+his sister, but yet there was some lack about him easier to feel than to
+define. Perhaps no one was unconscious of this lack except Margaret; but
+women have a grand invention where their idols are concerned, and create
+readily for them every excellency that they lack. Her own two years'
+study in an Edinburgh boarding-school had been very superficial, and she
+knew it; but this wonderful Ronald could read Homer and Horace, could
+play and sketch, and recite Shakespeare and write poetry. If he could
+have done none of these things, if he had been dull and ugly, and
+content to trade in fish and wool, she would still have loved him
+tenderly; how much more then, this handsome Antinous, whom she credited
+with all the accomplishments of Apollo.
+
+Ronald needed all her enthusiastic support. He had left heavy college
+bills, and he had quite made up his mind that he would not be a minister
+and that he would be a lawyer. He could scarcely have decided on two
+things more offensive to his father. Only for the hope of having a
+minister in the family had Peter submitted to his son's continued
+demands for money. For this end he had bought books, and paid for all
+kinds of teachers and tours, and sighed over the cost of Ronald's
+different hobbies. And now he was not only to have a grievous
+disappointment, but also a great offence, for Peter Sinclair shared
+fully in the Arcadean dislike and distrust of lawyers, and would have
+been deeply offended at any one requiring their aid in any business
+transaction with him.
+
+His son's proposal to be a "writer" he took almost as a personal insult.
+He had formed his own opinion of the profession and the opinion of any
+other person who would say a word in favor of a lawyer he considered of
+no value. Margaret had a hard task before her, that she succeeded at all
+was due to her womanly tact. Ronald and his father simply clashed
+against each other and exchanged pointed truths which hurt worse than
+wounds. At length, when the short Arcadean summer was almost over,
+Margaret won a hard and reluctant consent.
+
+"The lad is fit for naething better, I suppose"--and the old man turned
+away to shed the bitterest tears of his whole life. They shocked
+Margaret; she was terrified at her success, and, falling humbly at his
+feet, she besought him to forget and forgive her importunities, and to
+take back a gift baptized with such ominous tears.
+
+But Peter Sinclair, having been compelled to take such a step, was not
+the man to retrace it; he shook his head in a dour, hopeless way: "He
+couldna say 'yes' an' 'no' in a breath, an' Ronald must e'en drink as he
+brewed."
+
+These struggles, so real and sorrowful to his father and sister, Ronald
+had no sympathy with--not that he was heartless, but that he had taught
+himself to believe they were the result of ignorance of the world and
+old-fashioned prejudices. He certainly intended to become a great
+man--perhaps a judge--and, when he was one of "the Lords," he had no
+doubt his father would respect his disobedience. He knew his father as
+little as he knew himself. Peter Sinclair was only Peter Sinclair's
+opinions incorporate; and he could no more have changed them than he
+could have changed the color of his eyes or the shape of his nose; and
+the difference between a common lawyer and a "lord," in his eyes, would
+only have been the difference between a little oppressor and a great
+one.
+
+For the first time in all her life Margaret suspected a flaw in this
+perfect crystal of a brother; his gay debonnaire manner hurt her. Even
+if her father's objections were ignorant prejudices, they were positive
+convictions to him, and she did not like to see them smiled at,
+entertained by the cast of the eye, and the put-by of the turning hand.
+But loving women are the greatest of philistines: knock their idol down
+daily, rob it of every beauty, cut off its hands and head, and they will
+still "set it up in its place," and fall down and worship it.
+
+Undoubtedly Margaret was one of the blindest of these characters, but
+the world may pause before it scorns them too bitterly. It is faith of
+this sublime integrity which, brought down to personal experience,
+believes, endures, hopes, sacrifices and loves on to the end, winning
+finally what never would have been given to a more prudent and
+reasonable devotion. So, if Margaret had her doubts, she put them
+arbitrarily down, and sent her brother away with manifold tokens of her
+love--among them, with a check on the Kirkwall Bank for sixty pounds,
+the whole of her personal savings.
+
+To this frugal Arcadean maid it seemed a large sum, but she hoped by the
+sacrifice to clear off Ronald's college debts, and thus enable him to
+start his new race unweighted. It was but a mouthful to each creditor,
+but it put them off for a time, and Ronald was not a youth inclined to
+"take thought" for their "to-morrow."
+
+He had been entered for four years' study with the firm of Wilkes &
+Brechen, writers and conveyancers, of the city of Glasgow. Her father
+had paid the whole fee down, and placed in the Western Bank to his
+credit four hundred pounds for his four years' support. Whatever Ronald
+thought of the provision, Peter considered it a magnificent income, and
+it had cost him a great struggle to give up at once, and for no evident
+return, so much of his hard-earned gold. To Ronald he said nothing of
+this reluctance; he simply put vouchers for both transactions in his
+hand, and asked him to "try an' spend the siller as weel as it had been
+earned."
+
+But to Margaret he fretted not a little. "Fourteen hun'red pounds a'
+thegither, dawtie," he said in a tearful voice. "I warked early an' late
+through mony a year for it; an' it is gane a' at once, though I hae
+naught but words an' promises for it. I ken, Margaret, that I am an auld
+farrant trader, but I'se aye say that it is a bad well into which are
+must put water."
+
+When Ronald went, the summer went too. It became necessary to remove at
+once to their rock-built house in one of the narrow streets of
+Kirkwall. Margaret was glad of the change; her father could come into
+the little parlor behind the shop any time in the day and smoke his pipe
+beside her. He needed this consolation sorely; his son's conduct had
+grieved him far more deeply than he would allow, and Margaret often saw
+him gazing southward over the stormy Pentland Frith with a very mournful
+face.
+
+But a good heart soon breaks bad fortune and Peter had a good heart,
+sound and sweet and true to his fellow-creatures and full of faith in
+God. It is true that his creed was of the very strictest and sternest;
+but men are always better than their theology and Margaret knew from the
+Scriptures chosen for their household worship that in the depth and
+stillness of his soul his human fatherhood had anchored fast to the
+fatherhood of God.
+
+Arcadean winters are long and dreary, but no one need much pity the
+Arcadeans; they have learned how to make them the very festival of
+social life. And, in spite of her anxiety about Ronald, Margaret
+thoroughly enjoyed this one--perhaps the more because Captain Olave
+Thorkald spent two months of it with them in Kirkwall. There had been a
+long attachment between the young soldier and Margaret; and having
+obtained his commission, he had come to ask also for the public
+recognition of their engagement. Margaret was rarely beautiful and
+rarely happy, and she carried with a charming and kindly grace the full
+cup of her felicity. The Arcadeans love to date from a good year, and
+all her life afterward Margaret reckoned events from this pleasant
+winter.
+
+Peter Sinclair's house being one of the largest in Kirkwall, was a
+favorite gathering place, and Peter took his full share in all the
+home-like, innocent amusements which beguiled the long, dreary nights.
+No one in Orkney or Zetland could recite Ossian with more passion and
+tenderness, and he enjoyed his little triumph over the youngsters who
+emulated him. No one could sing a Scotch song with more humor, and few
+of the lads and lassies could match Peter in a blithe foursome reel or a
+rattling strathspey. Some, indeed, thought that good Dr. Ogilvie had a
+more graceful spring and a longer breath, but Peter always insisted that
+his inferiority to the minister was a voluntary concession to the
+Dominie's superior dignity. It was, however, a rivalry that always ended
+in a firmer grip at parting. These little festivals, in which young and
+old freely mingled, cultivated to perfection the best and kindest
+feelings of both classes. Age mellowed to perfect sweetness in the
+sunshine of youthful gayety, and youth learned from age how at once to
+be merry and wise.
+
+At length June arrived; and though winter lingered in _spates_, the song
+of the skylark and the thrush heralded the spring. When the dream-like
+voice of the cuckoo should be heard once more, Peter and Margaret had
+determined to take a long summer trip. They were to go first to Perth,
+where Captain Thorkald was stationed, and then to Glasgow and see
+Ronald. But God had planned another journey for Peter, even one to a
+"land very far off." A disease, to which he had been subject at
+intervals for many years, suddenly assumed a fatal character and Peter
+needed no one to tell him that his days were numbered.
+
+He set his house in order, and then, going with Margaret to his summer
+dwelling, waited quietly. He said little on the subject, and as long as
+he was able, gave himself up with the delight of a child to watching the
+few flowers in his garden; but still one solemn, waylaying thought made
+these few last weeks of life peculiarly hushed and sacred. Ronald had
+been sent for, and the old man, with the clear prescience that sometimes
+comes before death, divined much and foresaw much he did not care to
+speak about--only that in some subtle way he made Margaret perceive that
+Ronald was to be cared for and watched over, and that to her this
+charge was committed.
+
+Before the summer was quite over Peter Sinclair went away. In his
+tarrying by the eternal shore he became, as it were, purified of the
+body, and one lovely night, when gloaming and dawning mingled, and the
+lark was thrilling the midnight skies, he heard the Master call him, and
+promptly answered, "Here am I." Then "Death, with sweet enlargement, did
+dismiss him hence."
+
+He had been considered a rich man in Orkney, and, therefore, Ronald--who
+had become accustomed to a Glasgow standard of wealth--was much
+disappointed. His whole estate was not worth over six thousand pounds;
+about two thousand pounds of this was in gold, the rest was invested in
+his houses in Kirkwall, and in a little cottage in Stromness, where
+Peter's wife had been born. He gave to Ronald £1800, and to Margaret
+£200 and the life rent of the real property. Ronald had already received
+£1400, and, therefore, had no cause of complaint, but somehow he felt as
+if he had been wronged. He was older than his sister, and the son of the
+house, and use and custom were not in favor of recognizing daughters as
+having equal rights. But he kept such thoughts to himself, and when he
+went back to Glasgow took with him solid proof of his sister's
+devotion.
+
+It was necessary, now, for Margaret to make a great change in her life.
+She determined to remove to Stromness and occupy the little four-roomed
+cottage that had been her mother's. It stood close to that of Geordie
+Twatt, and she felt that in any emergency she was thus sure of one
+faithful friend. "A lone woman" in Margaret's position has in these days
+numberless objects of interest of which Margaret never dreamed. She
+would have thought it a kind of impiety to advise her minister, or
+meddle in church affairs. These simple parents attended themselves to
+the spiritual training of their children--there was no necessity for
+Sunday Schools, and they did not exist. She was not one of those women
+whom their friends call "beings," and who have deep and mysterious
+feelings that interpret themselves in poems and thrilling stories. She
+had no taste for philosophy or history or social science, and had been
+taught to regard novels as dangerously sinful books.
+
+But no one need imagine that she was either wretched or idle. In the
+first place, she took life much more calmly and slowly than we do; a
+very little pleasure or employment went a long way. She read her Bible
+and helped her old servant Helga to keep the house in order. She had
+her flowers to care for,--and her brother and lover to write to. She
+looked after Geordie Twatt's little motherless lads, went to church and
+to see her friends, and very often had her friends to see her. It
+happened to be a very stormy winter, and the mails were often delayed
+for weeks together. This was her only trouble. Ronald's letters were
+more and more unsatisfactory; he was evidently unhappy and dissatisfied
+and heartily tired of his new study. Posts were so irregular that often
+their letters seemed to be playing at cross purposes. She determined as
+soon as spring opened to go and have a straightforward talk with him.
+
+So the following June Geordie Twatt took her in his boat to Thurso,
+where Captain Thorkald was waiting for her. They had not met since Peter
+Sinclair's death, and that event had materially affected their
+prospects. Before it their marriage had been a possible joy in some far
+future; now there was no greater claim on her care and love than the
+captain's, and he urged their early marriage.
+
+Margaret had her two hundred pounds with her, and she promised to buy
+her "plenishing" during her visit to Glasgow. In those days girls made
+their own trousseau, sewing into every garment solemn and tender hopes
+and joys. Margaret thought that proper attention to this dear stitching
+as well as proper respect for her father's memory, asked of her yet at
+least another year's delay; and for the present Captain Thorkald thought
+it best not to urge her further.
+
+Ronald received his sister very joyfully. He had provided lodgings for
+her with their father's old correspondent, Robert Gorie, a tea merchant
+in the Cowcaddens. The Cowcaddens was then a very respectable street,
+and Margaret was quite pleased with her quarters. She was not pleased
+with Ronald, however. He avowed himself thoroughly disgusted with the
+law, and declared his intention of forfeiting his fee and joining his
+friend Walter Cashell in a manufacturing scheme.
+
+Margaret could _feel_ that he was all wrong, but she could not reason
+about a business of which she knew nothing, and Ronald took his own way.
+But changing and bettering are two different things, and, though he was
+always talking of his "good luck" and his "good bargains", Margaret was
+very uneasy. Perhaps Robert Gorie was partly to blame for this; his
+pawky face and shrewd little eyes made visible dissents to all such
+boasts; nor did he scruple to say, "Guid luck needs guid elbowing,
+Ronald, an' it is at the _guid bargains_ I aye pause an' ponder."
+
+The following winter was a restless, unhappy one; Ronald was either
+painfully elated or very dull; and, soon after the New Year, Walter
+Cashell fell into bad health, went to the West Indies, and left Ronald
+with the whole business to manage. He soon now began to come to his
+sister, not only for advice, but for money. Margaret believed at first
+that she was only supplying Walter's sudden loss, but when her cash was
+all gone, and Ronald urged her to mortgage her rents she resolutely shut
+her ears to all his plausible promises, and refused to "throw more good
+money after bad."
+
+It was the first ill-blood between them, and it hurt Margaret sorely.
+She was glad when the fine weather came, and she could escape to her
+island home, for Ronald was cool to her, and said cruel things of
+Captain Thorkald, for whose sake he declared his sister had refused to
+help him.
+
+One day, at the end of the following August, when most of the
+towns-people--men and women--had gone to the moss to cut the winter's
+peat, she saw Geordie Twatt coming toward the house. Something about his
+appearance troubled her, and she went to the open door and stood waiting
+for him.
+
+"What is it, Geordie?"
+
+"I am bidden to tell thee, Margaret Sinclair, to be at the Stanes o'
+Stennis to-night at eleven o'clock."
+
+"Who trysts me there, Geordie, at such an hour?"
+
+"Thy brother; but thou'lt come--yes, thou wilt."
+
+Margaret's very lips turned white as she answered: "I'll be there--see
+thou art, too."
+
+"Sure as death! If naebody spiers after me, thou needna say I was here
+at a', thou needna."
+
+Margaret understood the caution, and nodded her head. She could not
+speak, and all day long she wandered about like a soul in a restless
+dream.
+
+Fortunately, every one was weary at night, and went early to rest, and
+she found little difficulty in getting outside the town without notice;
+and one of the ponies on the common took her speedily across the moor.
+
+Late as it was, twilight lingered over the silent moor, with its old
+Pictish mounds and burial places, giving them an indescribable aspect of
+something weird and eerie. No one could have been insensible to the
+mournful, brooding light and the unearthly stillness, and Margaret was
+trembling with a supernatural terror as she stood amid the solemn circle
+of gray stones and looked over the lake of Stennis and the low, brown
+hills of Harray.
+
+From behind one of these gigantic pillars Ronald came toward
+her--Ronald, and yet not Ronald. He was dressed as a common sailor, and
+otherwise shamefully disguised. There was no time to soften things--he
+told his miserable story in a few plain words:
+
+"His business had become so entangled that he knew not which way to
+turn, and, sick of the whole affair, he had taken a passage for
+Australia, and then forged a note on the Western Bank for £900. He had
+hoped to be far at sea with his ill-gotten money before the fraud was
+discovered, but suspicion had gathered around him so quickly, that he
+had not even dared to claim his passage. Then he fled north, and,
+fortunately, discovering Geordie's boat at Wick, had easily prevailed on
+him to put off at once with him."
+
+What cowards sin makes of us! Margaret had seen this very lad face death
+often, among the sunken rocks and cruel surfs, that he might save the
+life of a ship-wrecked sailor, and now, rather than meet the creditors
+whom he had wronged, he had committed a robbery and was flying from the
+gallows.
+
+She was shocked and stunned, and stood speechless, wringing her hands
+and moaning pitifully. Her brother grew impatient. Often the first
+result of a bitter sense of sin is to make the sinner peevish and
+irritable.
+
+"Margaret," he said, almost angrily, "I came to bid you farewell, and
+to promise you, _by my father's name_! to retrieve all this wrong. If
+you can speak a kind word speak it, for God's sake--if not, I must go
+without it!"
+
+Then she fell upon his neck, and, amid sobs and kisses, said all that
+love so sorely and suddenly tried could say. He could not even soothe
+her anguish by any promise to write, but he did promise to come back to
+her sooner or later with restitution in his hand. All she could do now
+for this dear brother was to call Geordie to her side and put him in his
+care; taking what consolation she could from his assurance that "he
+would keep him out at sea until the search was cold, and if followed
+carry him into some of the dangerous 'races' between the islands." If
+any sailor could keep his boat above water in them, she knew Geordie
+could; _and if not_--she durst follow that thought no further, but,
+putting her hands before her face, stood praying, while the two men
+pulled silently away in the little skiff that had brought them up the
+outlet connecting the lake of Stennis with the sea. Margaret would have
+turned away from Ronald's open grave less heart-broken.
+
+It was midnight now, but her real terror absorbed all imaginary ones;
+she did not even call a pony, but with swift, even steps walked back to
+Stromness. Ere she had reached it, she had decided what was to be done,
+and next day she left Kirkwall in the mail packet for the mainland.
+Thence by night and day she traveled to Glasgow, and a week after her
+interview with Ronald she was standing before the directors of the
+defrauded bank and offering them the entire proceeds of her Kirkwall
+property until the debt was paid.
+
+The bank had thoroughly respected Peter Sinclair, and his daughter's
+earnest, decided offer won their ready sympathy. It was accepted without
+any question of interest, though she could not hope to clear off the
+obligation in less than nine years. She did not go near any of her old
+acquaintances; she had no heart to bear their questions and condolences,
+and she had no money to stay in Glasgow at charges. Winter was coming on
+rapidly, but before it broke over the lonely islands she had reached her
+cottage in Stromness again.
+
+There had been, of course, much talk concerning her hasty journey, but
+no one had suspected its cause. Indeed, the pursuit after Ronald had
+been entirely the bank's affair, had been committed to private
+detectives and had not been nearly so hot as the frightened criminal
+believed. His failure and flight had indeed been noticed in the Glasgow
+newspapers, but this information did not reach Kirkwall until the
+following spring, and then in a very indefinite form.
+
+About a week after her return, Geordie Twatt came into port. Margaret
+frequently went to his cottage with food or clothing for the children,
+and she contrived to meet him there.
+
+"Yon lad is a' right, indeed is he," he said, with an assumption of
+indifference.
+
+"Oh, Geordie! where?"
+
+"A ship going westward took him off the boat."
+
+"Thank God! You will say naught at all, Geordie?"
+
+"I ken naught at a' save that his father's son was i' trouble, an'
+trying to gie thae weary, unchancy lawyers the go-by. I was fain eneuch
+mesel' to balk them."
+
+But Margaret's real trials were all yet to come. The mere fact of doing
+a noble deed does not absolve one often from very mean and petty
+consequences. Before the winter was half over she had found out how
+rapid is the descent from good report. The neighbors were deeply
+offended at her for giving up the social tea parties and evening
+gatherings that had made the house of Sinclair popular for more than one
+generation. She gave still greater offence by becoming a workingwoman,
+and spending her days in braiding straw into the (once) famous Orkney
+Tuscans, and her long evenings in the manufacture of those delicate
+knitted goods peculiar to the country.
+
+It was not alone that they grudged her the money for these labors, as so
+much out of their own pockets--they grudged her also the time; for they
+had been long accustomed to rely on Margaret Sinclair for their
+children's garments, for nursing the sick and for help in weddings,
+funerals and all the other extraordinary occasions of sympathy among a
+primitively social people.
+
+Little by little, all winter, the sentiment of disapproval and dislike
+gathered. Some one soon found out that Margaret's tenants "just sent
+every bawbee o' the rent-siller to the Glasgow Bank;" and this was a
+double offence, as it implied a distrust of her own townsfolk and
+institutions. If from her humble earnings she made a little gift to any
+common object its small amount was a fresh source of anger and contempt;
+for none knew how much she had to deny herself even for such curtailed
+gratuities.
+
+In fact, Margaret Sinclair's sudden stinginess and indifference to her
+townsfolk was the common wonder and talk of every little gathering. Old
+friends began to either pointedly reprove her, or pointedly ignore her;
+and at last even old Helga took the popular tone and said, "Margaret
+Sinclair had got too scrimping for an auld wife like her to bide wi'
+langer."
+
+Through all this Margaret suffered keenly. At first she tried earnestly
+to make her old friends understand that she had good reasons for her
+conduct; but as she would not explain these good reasons, she failed in
+her endeavor. She had imagined that her good conscience would support
+her, and that she could live very well without love and sympathy; she
+soon found out that it is a kind of negative punishment worse than many
+stripes.
+
+At the end of the winter Captain Thorkald again earnestly pressed their
+marriage, saying that, "his regiment was ordered to Chelsea, and any
+longer delay might be a final one." He proposed also, that his father,
+the Udaller Thorkald of Serwick, should have charge of her Orkney
+property, as he understood its value and changes. Margaret wrote and
+frankly told him that her property was not hers for at least seven
+years, but that it was under good care, and he must accept her word
+without explanation. Out of this only grew a very unsatisfactory
+correspondence. Captain Thorkald went south without Margaret, and a very
+decided coolness separated them farther than any number of miles.
+
+Udaller Thorkald was exceedingly angry, and his remarks about Margaret
+Sinclair's refusal "to trust her bit property in as guid hands as her
+own" increased very much the bitter feeling against the poor girl. At
+the end of three years the trial became too great for her; she began to
+think of running away from it.
+
+Throughout these dark days she had purposely and pointedly kept apart
+from her old friend Dr. Ogilvie, for she feared his influence over her
+might tempt her to confidence. Latterly the doctor had humored her
+evident desire, but he had never ceased to watch over and, in a great
+measure, to believe in her; and, when he heard of this determination to
+quit Orkney forever, he came to Stromness with a resolution to spare no
+efforts to win her confidence.
+
+He spoke very solemnly and tenderly to her, reminded her of her father's
+generosity and good gifts to the church and the poor, and said: "O,
+Margaret, dear lass! what good at a' will thy silent money do thee in
+_that Day_? It ought to speak for thee out o' the mouths o' the
+sorrowfu' an' the needy, the widows an' the fatherless--indeed it ought.
+And thou hast gien naught for thy Master's sake these three years! I'm
+fair 'shamed to think thou bears sae kind a name as thy father's."
+
+What could Margaret do? She broke into passionate sobbing, and, when the
+good old man left the cottage an hour afterward there was a strange
+light on his face, and he walked and looked as if he had come from some
+interview that had set him for a little space still nearer to the
+angels. Margaret had now one true friend, and in a few days after this
+she rented her cottage and went to live with the dominie. Nothing could
+have so effectually reinstated her in public opinion; wherever the
+dominie went on a message of help or kindness Margaret went with him.
+She fell gradually into a quieter but still more affectionate
+regard--the aged, the sick and the little children clung to her hands,
+and she was comforted.
+
+Her life seemed, indeed, to have wonderfully narrowed, but when the tide
+is fairly out, it begins to turn again. In the fifth year of her poverty
+there was from various causes, such an increase in the value of real
+estate, that her rents were nearly doubled, and by the end of the
+seventh year she had paid the last shilling of her assumed debt, and was
+again an independent woman.
+
+It might be two years after this that she one day received a letter that
+filled her with joy and amazement. It contained a check for her whole
+nine hundred pounds back again. "The bank had just received from Ronald
+Sinclair, of San Francisco, the whole amount due it, with the most
+satisfactory acknowledgment and interest." It was a few minutes before
+Margaret could take in all the joy this news promised her; but when she
+did, the calm, well-regulated girl had never been so near committing
+extravagances.
+
+She ran wildly upstairs to the dominie, and, throwing herself at his
+knees, cried out, amid tears and smiles: "Father! father! Here is your
+money! Here is the poor's money and the church's money! God has sent it
+back to me! Sent it back with such glad tidings!"--and surely if angels
+rejoice with repenting sinners, they must have felt that day a far
+deeper joy with the happy, justified girl.
+
+She knew now that she also would soon hear from Ronald, and she was not
+disappointed. The very next day the dominie brought home the letter.
+Margaret took it upstairs to read it upon her knees, while the good old
+man walked softly up and down his study praying for her. Presently she
+came to him with a radiant face.
+
+"Is it weel wi' the lad, ma dawtie?"
+
+"Yes, father; it is very well." Then she read him the letter.
+
+Ronald had been in New Orleans and had the fever; he had been in Texas,
+and spent four years in fighting Indians and Mexicans and in herding
+cattle. He had suffered many things, but had worked night and day, and
+always managed to grow a little richer every year. Then, suddenly, the
+word "California!" rung through the world, and he caught the echo even
+on the lonely southwestern prairies. Through incredible hardships he had
+made his way thither, and a sudden and wonderful fortune had crowned his
+labors, first in mining and afterward in speculation and merchandising.
+He said that he was indeed afraid to tell her how rich he was lest to
+her Arcadean views the sum might appear incredible.
+
+Margaret let the letter fall on her lap and clasped her hands above it.
+Her face was beautiful. If the prodigal son had a sister she must have
+looked just as Margaret looked when they brought in her lost brother, in
+the best robe and the gold ring.
+
+The dominie was not so satisfied. A good many things in the letter
+displeased him, but he kissed Margaret tenderly and went away from her.
+"It is a' _I_ did this, an' _I_ did that, an' _I_ suffered you; there is
+nae word o' God's help, or o' what ither folk had to thole. I'll no be
+doing ma duty if I dinna set his sin afore his e'en."
+
+The old man was little used to writing, and the effort was a great one,
+but he bravely made it, and without delay. In a few curt, idiomatic
+sentences he told Ronald Margaret's story of suffering and wrong and
+poverty; her hard work for daily bread; her loss of friends, of her
+good name and her lover, adding: "It is a puir success, ma lad, that ye
+dinna acknowledge God in; an' let me tell thee, thy restitution is o'er
+late for thy credit. I wad hae thought better o' it had thou made it
+when it took the last plack i' thy pouch. Out o' thy great wealth, a few
+hun'red pounds is nae matter to speak aboot."
+
+But people did speak of it. In spite of our chronic abuse of human
+nature it is, after all, a kindly nature, and rejoices in good more than
+in evil. The story of Ronald's restitution is considered honorable to
+it, and it was much made of in the daily papers. Margaret's friends
+flocked round her again, saying, "I'm sorry, Margaret!" as simply and
+honestly as little children, and the dominie did not fail to give them
+the lecture on charity that Margaret neglected.
+
+Whether the Udaller Thorkald wrote to his son anent these transactions,
+or whether the captain read in the papers enough to satisfy him, he
+never explained; but one day he suddenly appeared at Dr. Ogilvie's and
+asked for Margaret. He had probably good excuses for his conduct to
+offer; if not, Margaret was quite ready to invent for him--as she had
+done for Ronald--all the noble qualities he lacked. The captain was
+tired of military life, and anxious to return to Orkney; and, as his
+own and Margaret's property was yearly increasing: in value, he foresaw
+profitable employment for his talents. He had plans for introducing many
+southern improvements--for building a fine modern house, growing some of
+the hardier fruits and for the construction of a grand conservatory for
+Margaret's flowers.
+
+It must be allowed that Captain Thorkald was a very ordinary lord for a
+woman like Margaret Sinclair to "love, honor and obey;" but few men
+would have been worthy of her, and the usual rule which shows us the
+noblest women marrying men manifestly their inferiors is doubtless a
+wise one.
+
+A lofty soul can have no higher mission than to help upward one upon a
+lower plane, and surely Captain Thorkald, being, as the dominie said,
+"_no that bad_," had the fairest opportunities to grow to Margaret's
+stature in Margaret's atmosphere.
+
+While these things were occurring, Ronald got Margaret's letter. It was
+full of love and praise, and had no word of blame or complaint in it. He
+noticed, indeed, that she still signed her name "Sinclair," and that she
+never alluded to Captain Thorkald, and the supposition that the stain on
+his character had caused a rupture did, for a moment, force itself upon
+his notice; but he put it instantly away with the reflection that
+"Thorkald was but a poor fellow, after all, and quite unworthy of his
+sister."
+
+The very next mail-day he received the dominie's letter. He read it
+once, and could hardly take it in; read it again and again, until his
+lips blanched, and his whole countenance changed. In that moment he saw
+Ronald Sinclair for the first time in his life. Without a word, he left
+his business, went to his house and locked himself in his own room.
+
+_Then Margaret's silent money began to speak._ In low upbraidings it
+showed him the lonely girl in that desolate land trying to make her own
+bread, deserted of lover and friends, robbed of her property and good
+name, silently suffering every extremity, never reproaching him once,
+not even thinking it necessary to tell him of her sufferings, or to
+count their cost unto him.
+
+What is this bitterness we call remorse? This agony of the soul in all
+its senses? This sudden flood of intolerable light in the dark places of
+our hearts? This truth-telling voice which leaves us without a particle
+of our self-complacency? For many days Ronald could find no words to
+speak but these, "O, wretched man that I am!"
+
+But at length the Comforter came as swiftly and surely and mysteriously
+as the accuser had come, and once more that miracle of grace was
+renewed--"that day Jesus was guest in the house of one who was a
+sinner."
+
+Margaret's "silent money" now found a thousand tongues. It spoke in many
+a little feeble church that Ronald Sinclair held in his arms until it
+was strong enough to stand alone. It spoke in schools and colleges and
+hospitals, in many a sorrowful home and to many a lonely, struggling
+heart--and at this very day it has echoes that reach from the far West
+to the lonely islands beyond the stormy Pentland Firth, and the
+sea-shattering precipices of Duncansbay Head.
+
+It is not improbable that some of my readers may take a summer's trip to
+the Orkney Islands; let me ask them to wait at Thurso--the old town of
+Thor--for a handsome little steamer that leaves there three times a week
+for Kirkwall. It is the sole property of Captain Geordie Twatt, was a
+gift from an old friend in California, and is called "The Margaret
+Sinclair."
+
+
+
+
+JUST WHAT HE DESERVED.
+
+
+There is not in its own way a more distinctive and interesting bit of
+Scotland than the bleak Lothian country, with its wide views, its brown
+ploughed fields, and its dense swaying plantations of fir. The
+Lammermoor Hills and the Pentlands and the veils of smoke that lie about
+Edinburgh are on its horizon, and within that circle all the large
+quietude of open grain fields, wide turnip lands, where sheep feed, and
+far-stretching pastures where the red and white cows ruminate. The
+patient processes of nature breed patient minds; the gray cold climate
+can be read in the faces of the people, and in their hearts the seasons
+take root and grow; so that they have a grave character, passive, yet
+enduring; strong to feel and strong to act when the time is full ready
+for action.
+
+Of these natural peculiarities Jean Anderson had her share. She was a
+Lothian lassie of many generations, usually undemonstrative, but with
+large possibilities of storm beneath her placid face and gentle manner.
+Her father was the minister of Lambrig and the manse stood in a very
+sequestered corner of the big parish, facing the bleak east winds, and
+the salt showers of the German ocean. It was sheltered by dark fir woods
+on three sides, and in front a little walled-in garden separated it from
+the long, dreary, straight line of turnpike road. But Jean had no
+knowledge of any fairer land; she had read of flowery pastures and rose
+gardens and vineyards, but these places were to her only in books, while
+the fields and fells that filled her eyes were her home, and she loved
+them.
+
+She loved them all the more because the man she loved was going to leave
+them, and if Gavin Burns did well, and was faithful to her, then it was
+like to be that she also would go far away from the blue Lammermuirs,
+and the wide still spaces of the Lothians. She stood at the open door of
+the manse with her lover thinking of these things, but with no real
+sense of what pain or deprivation the thought included. She was tall and
+finely formed, a blooming girl, with warmly-colored cheeks, a mouth
+rather large and a great deal of wavy brown hair. But the best of all
+her beauty was the soul in her face; its vitality, its vivacity and
+immediate response.
+
+However, the time of love had come to her, and though her love had grown
+as naturally as a sapling in a wood, who could tell what changes it
+would make. For Gavin Burns had been educated in the minister's house
+and Jean and he had studied and fished and rambled together all through
+the years in which Jean had grown from childhood into womanhood. Now
+Gavin was going to New York to make his fortune. They stepped through
+the garden and into the long dim road, walking slowly in the calm night,
+with thoughtful faces and clasped hands. There was at this last hour
+little left to say. Every promise known to Love had been given; they had
+exchanged Bibles and broken a piece of silver and vowed an eternal
+fidelity. So, in the cold sunset they walked silently by the river that
+was running in flood like their own hearts. At the little stone bridge
+they stopped, and leaning over the parapet watched the drumly water
+rushing below; and there Jean reiterated her promise to be Gavin's wife
+as soon as he was able to make a home for her.
+
+"And I am not proud, Gavin," she said; "a little house, if it is filled
+with love, will make me happy beyond all."
+
+They were both too hopeful and trustful and too habitually calm to weep
+or make much visible lament over their parting; and yet when Gavin
+vanished into the dark of the lonely road, Jean shut the heavy house
+door very slowly. She felt as if she was shutting part of herself out of
+the old home forever, and she was shocked by this first breaking of the
+continuity of life; this sharp cutting of regular events asunder.
+Gavin's letters were at first frequent and encouraging, but as the
+months went by he wrote more and more seldom. He said "he was kept so
+busy; he was making himself indispensable, and could not afford to be
+less busy. He was weary to death on the Saturday nights, and he could
+not bring his conscience to write anent his own personal and earthly
+happiness on the Sabbath day; but he was sure Jean trusted in him,
+whether he wrote or not; and they were past being bairns, always telling
+each other the love they were both so sure of."
+
+Late in the autumn the minister died of typhoid fever, and Jean,
+heartbroken and physically worn out, was compelled to face for her
+mother and herself, a complete change of life. It had never seemed to
+these two women that anything could happen to the father and head of the
+family; in their loving hearts he had been immortal, and though the
+disease had run its tedious course before their eyes, his death at the
+last was a shock that shook their lives and their home to the very
+centre. A new minister was the first inevitable change, and then a
+removal from the comfortable manse to a little cottage in the village of
+Lambrig.
+
+While this sad removal was in progress they had felt the sorrow of it,
+all that they could bear; and neither had dared to look into the future
+or to speculate as to its necessities. Jean in her heart expected Gavin
+would at once send for them to come to America. He had a fair salary,
+and the sale of their furniture would defray their traveling expenses.
+
+She was indeed so sure of this journey, that she did not regard the
+cottage as more than a temporary shelter during the approaching winter.
+In the spring, no doubt, Gavin would have a little home ready, and they
+would cross the ocean to it. The mother had the same thought. As they
+sat on their new hearthstone, lonely and poor, they talked of this
+event, and if any doubts lurked unconsciously below their love and trust
+they talked them away, while they waited for Gavin's answer to the
+sorrowful letter Jean had sent him on the night of her father's burial.
+
+It was longer in coming than they expected. For a week they saw the
+postman pass their door with an indifference that seemed cruel; for a
+week Jean made new excuses and tried to hold up her mother's heart,
+while her own was sinking lower and lower. Then one morning the
+looked-for answer came. Jean fled to a room apart to read it alone; Mrs.
+Anderson sat down and waited, with dropped eyes and hands tightly
+clasped. She knew, before Jean said a word, that the letter had
+disappointed her. She had remained alone too long. If all had been as
+they hoped the mother was certain Jean would not have deferred the good
+tidings a moment. But a quarter of an hour had passed before Jean came
+to her side, and then when she lifted her eyes she saw that her daughter
+had been weeping.
+
+"It is a disappointment, Jean, I see," she said sadly. "Never mind,
+dearie."
+
+"Yes, mother; Gavin has failed us."
+
+"We have been two foolish women, Jean. Oh, my dear lassie, we should
+have lippened to God, and He would not have disappointed us! What does
+Gavin Burns say?"
+
+"It is what he does _not_ say, that hurts me, mother. I may as well tell
+you the whole truth. When he heard how ill father was, he wrote to me,
+as if he had foreseen what was to happen. He said, 'there will be a new
+minister and a break-up of the old home, and you must come at once to
+your new home here. I am the one to care for you when your father is
+gone away; and what does it matter under what sun or sky if we are but
+together?' So, then, mother, when the worst had come to us I wrote with
+a free heart to Gavin. I said, 'I will come to you gladly, Gavin, but
+you know well that my mother is very dear to me, and where I am there
+she also must be.' And he says, in this letter, that it is me he is
+wanting, and that you have a brother in Glasgow that is unmarried and
+who will be willing, no doubt, to have you keep his house for him. There
+is a wale of fine words about it, mother, but they come to just this,
+and no more--Gavin is willing to care for me, but not for you and I will
+not trust myself with a man that cannot love you for my sake. We will
+stay together, mammy darling! Whatever comes or goes we will stay
+together. The man isna born that can part us two!"
+
+"He is your lover, Jean. A girl must stick to her lover."
+
+"You are my mother. I am bone of your bone, and flesh of your flesh and
+love of your love. May God forsake me when I forsake you!"
+
+She had thrown herself at her mother's knees and was clasping and
+kissing the sad face so dear to her, as she fervently uttered the last
+words. And the mother was profoundly touched by her child's devotion.
+She drew her close to her heart, and said firmly:
+
+"No! No, my dearie! What could we two do for ourselves? And I'm loth to
+part you and Gavin. I simply cannot take the sacrifice, you so lovingly
+offer me. I will write to my brother David. Gavin isna far wrong there;
+David is a very close man, but he willna see his sister suffer, there
+is no fear of that."
+
+"It is Jean that will not see you suffer."
+
+"But the bite and the sup, Jean? How are we to get them?"
+
+"I can make my own dresses and cloaks, so then I can make dresses and
+cloaks for other people. I shall send out a card to the ladies near-by
+and put an advertisement in the Haddington newspaper, and God can make
+my needle sharp enough for the battle. Don't cry, mother! Oh, darling,
+don't cry! We have God and each other, and none can call us desolate."
+
+"But you will break your heart, Jean. You canna help it. And I canna
+take your love and happiness to brighten my old age. It isna right. I'll
+not do it. You must go to Gavin. I will go to my brother David."
+
+"I will not break my heart, mother. I will not shed a tear for the
+false, mean lad, that you were so kind to for fourteen years, when there
+was no one else to love him. Aye, I know he paid for his board and
+schooling, but he never could pay for the mother-love you gave him, just
+because he was motherless. And who has more right to have their life
+brightened by my love than you have? Beside, it is my happiness to
+brighten it, and so, what will you say against it? And I will not go to
+Gavin. Not one step. If he wants me now, he will come for me, and for
+you, too. This is sure as death! Oh, mammy! Mammy, darling, a false lad
+shall not part us! Never! Never! Never!"
+
+"Jean! Jean! What will I say at all"
+
+"What would my father say, if he was here this minute? He would say,
+'you are right, Jean! And God bless you, Jean! And you may be sure that
+it is all for the best, Jean! So take the right road with a glad heart,
+Jean!' That is what father would say. And I will never do anything to
+prevent me looking him straight in the face when we meet again. Even in
+heaven I shall want him to smile into my eyes and say, 'Well done,
+Jean!'"
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+Jean's plans for the future were humble and reasonable enough to insure
+them some measure of success, and the dreaded winter passed not
+uncomfortably away. Then in the summer Uncle David Nicoll came to
+Lambrig and boarded with his sister, paying a pound a week, and giving
+her, on his departure, a five-pound note to help the next winter's
+expenses. This order of things went on without change or intermission
+for five years, and the little cottage gradually gathered in its clean,
+sweet rooms, many articles of simple use and beauty. Mrs. Anderson took
+entire charge of the housekeeping. Jean's needle flew swiftly from
+morning to night, and though the girl had her share of the humiliations
+and annoyances incident to her position, these did not interfere with
+the cheerful affection and mutual help which brightened their lonely
+life.
+
+She heard nothing from Gavin. After some painful correspondence, in
+which neither would retract a step from the stand they had taken, Gavin
+ceased writing, and Jean ceased expecting, though before this calm was
+reached she had many a bitter hour the mother never suspected. But such
+hours were to Jean's soul what the farmer's call "growing weather;" in
+them much rich thought and feeling sprang up insensibly; her nature
+ripened and mellowed and she became a far lovelier woman than her
+twentieth year had promised.
+
+One gray February afternoon, when the rain was falling steadily, Jean
+felt unusually depressed and weary. An apprehension of some unhappiness
+made her sad, and she could not sew for the tears that would dim her
+eyes. Suddenly the door opened and Gavin's sister Mary entered. Jean did
+not know her very well, and she did not like her at all, and she
+wondered what she had come to tell her.
+
+"I am going to New York on Saturday, Jean," she said, "and I thought
+Gavin would like to know how you looked and felt these days."
+
+Jean flushed indignantly. "You can see how I look easy enough, Mary
+Burns," she answered; "but as to how I feel, that is a thing I keep to
+myself these days."
+
+"Gavin has furnished a pretty house at the long last, and I am to be the
+mistress of it. You will have heard, doubtless, that the school where I
+taught so long has been broken up, and so I was on the world, as one may
+say, and Gavin could not bear that. He is a good man, is Gavin, and I'm
+thinking I shall have a happy time with him in America."
+
+"I hope you will, Mary. Give him a kind wish from me; and I will bid you
+'good bye' now, if you please, seeing that I have more sewing to do
+to-night than I can well manage."
+
+This event wounded Jean sorely. She felt sure Mary had only called for
+an unkind purpose, and that she would cruelly misrepresent her
+appearance and condition to Gavin. And no woman likes even a lost lover
+to think scornfully of her. But she brought her sewing beside her mother
+and talked the affair over with her, and so, at the end of the evening,
+went to bed resigned, and even cheerful. Never had they spent a more
+confidential, loving night together, and this fact was destined to be a
+comfort to Jean during all the rest of her life. For in the morning she
+noticed a singular look on her mother's face and at noon she found her
+in her chair fast in that sleep which knows no wakening in this world.
+
+It was a blow which put all other considerations far out of Jean's mind.
+She mourned with a passionate sorrow her loss, and though Uncle David
+came at once to assist her in the necessary arrangements, she suffered
+no hand but her own to do the last kind offices for her dear dead. And
+oh! how empty and lonely was now the little cottage, while the swift
+return to all the ordinary duties of life seemed such a cruel
+effacement. Uncle David watched her silently, but on the evening of the
+third day after the funeral he said, kindly:
+
+"Dry your eyes, Jean. There is naething to weep for. Your mother is far
+beyond tears."
+
+"I cannot bear to forget her a minute, uncle, yet folks go and come and
+never name her; and it is not a week since she had a word and a smile
+for everybody."
+
+    "Death is forgetfulness, Jean;
+                ... 'one lonely way
+    We go: and is she gone?
+    Is all our best friends say.'
+
+"You must come home with me now, Jean. I canna be what your mother has
+been to you, but I'll do the best I can for you, lassie. Sell these bit
+sticks o' furniture and shut the door on the empty house and begin a new
+life. You've had sorrow about a lad; let him go. All o' the past worth
+your keeping you can save in your memory."
+
+"I will be glad to go with you, uncle. I shall be no charge on you. I
+can find my own bread if you will just love me a little."
+
+"I'm no that poor, Jean. You are welcome to share my loaf. Put that
+weary; thimble and needle awa'; I'll no see you take another stitch."
+
+So Jean followed her uncle's advice and went back with him to Glasgow.
+He had never said a word about his home, and Jean knew not what she
+expected--certainly nothing more than a small floor in some of the least
+expensive streets of the great city. It was dark when they reached
+Glasgow, but Jean was sensible of a great change in her uncle's manner
+as soon as they left the railway. He made an imperative motion and a
+carriage instantly answered it; and they were swiftly driven to a large
+dwelling in one of the finest crescents of the West end. He led her into
+a handsome parlor and called a servant, and bid her "show Miss Anderson
+her rooms;" and thus, without a word of preparation, Jean found herself
+surrounded by undreamed of luxury.
+
+Nothing was ever definitely explained to her, but she gradually learned
+to understand the strange old man who assumed the guardianship of her
+life. His great wealth was evident, and it was not long ere she
+discovered that it was largely spent in two directions--scientific
+discovery and the Temperance Crusade. Men whose lives were devoted to
+chemistry or to electrical investigations, or passionate apostles of
+total abstinence from intoxicants were daily at his table; and Jean
+could not help becoming an enthusiastic partisan on such matters. One of
+the savants, a certain Professor Sharp, fell deeply in love with her;
+and she felt it difficult to escape the influence of his wooing, which
+had all the persistent patience of a man accustomed "to seek till he
+found, and so not lose his labor."
+
+Her life was now very happy. Cautious in giving his love, David Nicoll
+gave it freely as soon as he had resolved to adopt his niece. Nor did he
+ever regret the gift. "Jean entered my house and she made it a home," he
+said to his friends. No words could have better explained the position.
+In the winter they entertained with a noble hospitality; in the summer
+they sailed far north to the mystical isles of the Western seas; to
+Orkney and Zetland and once even as far as the North Cape by the light
+of the midnight sun. So the time passed wonderfully away, until Jean was
+thirty-two years old. The simple, unlettered girl had then become a
+woman of great culture and of perfect physical charm. Wise in many ways,
+she yet kept her loving heart, and her uncle delighted in her. "You have
+made my auld age parfectly happy, Jean," he said to her on the last
+solemn night of his life; "and I thank God for the gift o' your honest
+love! Now that I am going the way of all flesh, I have gi'en you every
+bawbee I have. I have put no restrictions on you, and I have left nae
+dead wishes behind me. You will do as you like wi' the land and the
+siller, and you will do right in a' things, I ken that, Jean. If it
+should come into your heart to tak' the love Professor Sharp offers you,
+I'll be pleased, for he'll never spend a shilling that willna be weel
+spent; and he is a clever man, and a good man and he loves you. But it
+is a' in your ain will; do as you like, anent either this or that."
+
+This was the fourth great change in Jean's life. Gavin's going away had
+opened the doors of her destiny; her father's death had sent her to the
+school of self-reliant poverty; her mother's death given her a home of
+love and luxury, and now her uncle put her in a position of vast,
+untrammeled responsibility. But if love is the joy of life, this was not
+the end; the crowning change was yet to come; and now, with both her
+hands full, her heart involuntarily turned to her first lover.
+
+About this time, also, Gavin was led to remember Jean. His sister Mary
+was going to marry, and the circumstance annoyed him. "I'll have to
+store my furniture and pay for the care of it; or I'll have to sell it
+at a loss; or I'll have to hire a servant lass, and be robbed on the
+right hand and the left," he said fretfully. "It was not in the bargain
+that you should marry, and it is very bad behavior in you, Mary."
+
+"Well, Gavin, get married yourself, and the furnishing will not be
+wasted," answered Mary. "There is Annie Riley, just dying for the love
+of you, and no brighter, smarter girl in New York city."
+
+"She isn't in love with me; she is tired of the Remington all day; and
+if I wanted a wife, there is some one better than Annie Riley."
+
+"Jean Anderson?"
+
+"Ay."
+
+"Send for her picture, and you will see what a plain, dowdy old maid she
+is. She is not for the like of you, Gavin--a bit country dressmaker,
+poor, and past liking."
+
+Gavin said no more, but that night he wrote Jean Anderson the following
+letter: "Dear Jean. I wish you would send me a picture of yourself. If
+you will not write me a word, you might let me have your face to look
+at. Mary is getting herself married, and I will be alone in a few days."
+That is enough, he thought; "she will understand that there is a chance
+for her yet, if she is as bonnie as in the old days. Mary is not to be
+trusted. She never liked Jean. I'll see for myself."
+
+Jean got this letter one warm day in spring, and she "understood" it as
+clearly as Gavin intended her to. For a long time she sat thinking it
+over, then she went to a drawer for a photo, taken just before her
+mother's death. It showed her face without any favor, without even
+justice, and the plain merino gown, which was then her best. And with
+this picture she wrote--"Dear Gavin. The enclosed was taken five years
+since, and there has been changes since."
+
+She did not say what the changes were, but Gavin was sure they were
+unfavorable. He gazed at the sad, thoughtful face, the poor plain dress,
+and he was disappointed. A girl like that would do his house no honor;
+he would not care to introduce her to his fellow clerks; they would not
+envy him a bit. Annie Riley was far better looking, and far more
+stylish. He decided in favor of Annie Riley.
+
+Jean was not astonished when no answer came. She had anticipated her
+failure to please her old lover; but she smiled a little sadly at _his_
+failure. Then there came into her mind a suspicion of Mary, an
+uncertainty, a lingering hope that some circumstance, not to be guessed
+at from a distance, was to blame for Gavin's silence and utter want of
+response. It was midsummer, she wanted a breath of the ocean; why should
+she not go to New York and quietly see how things were for herself? The
+idea took possession of her, and she carried it out.
+
+She knew the name of the large dry goods firm that Gavin served, and the
+morning after her arrival in New York she strolled into it for a pair of
+gloves. As they were being fitted on she heard Gavin speak, and moving
+her position slightly, she saw him leaning against a pile of summer
+blankets. He was talking to one of his fellows, and evidently telling a
+funny story, at which both giggled and snickered, ere they walked their
+separate ways. Being midsummer the store was nearly empty, and Jean, by
+varying her purchases, easily kept Gavin in sight. She never for one
+moment found the sight a pleasant one. Gavin had deteriorated in every
+way. He was no longer handsome; the veil of youth had fallen from him,
+and his face, his hands, his figure, his slouching walk, his querulous
+authoritative voice, all revealed a man whom Jean repelled at every
+point. Years had not refined, they had vulgarized him. His clothing
+careless and not quite fresh, offended her taste; in fact, his whole
+appearance was of that shabby genteel character, which is far more mean
+and plebeian than can be given by undisguised working apparel. As Jean
+was taking note of these things a girl, with a flushed, angry face,
+spoke to him. She was evidently making a complaint, and Gavin answered
+her in a manner which made Jean burn from head to feet. The disillusion
+was complete; she never looked at him again, and he never knew she had
+looked at him at all.
+
+But after Mary's marriage he heard news which startled him. Mary, under
+her new name, wrote to an acquaintance in Lambrig, and this acquaintance
+in reply said, "You will have heard that Jean Anderson was left a great
+fortune by her uncle, David Nicoll. She is building a home near Lambrig
+that is finer than Maxwell Castle; and Lord Maxwell has rented the
+castle to her until her new home is finished. You wouldn't ken the looks
+of her now, she is that handsome, but weel-a-way, fine feathers aye make
+fine birds!"
+
+Gavin fairly trembled when he heard this news, and as he had been with
+the firm eleven years and never asked a favor, he resolved to tell them
+he had important business in Scotland, and ask for a month's holiday to
+attend to it. If he was on the ground he never doubted his personal
+influence. "Jean was aye wax in my fingers," he said to Mary.
+
+"There is Annie Riley," answered Mary.
+
+"She will have to give me up. I'll not marry her. I am going to marry
+Jean, and settle myself in Scotland."
+
+"Annie is not the girl to be thrown off that kind of way, Gavin. You
+have promised to marry her."
+
+"I shall marry Jean Anderson, and then what will Annie do about it, I
+would like to know?"
+
+"I think you will find out."
+
+In the fall he obtained permission to go to Scotland for a month, and he
+hastened to Lambrig as fast as steam could carry him. He intended no
+secret visit; he had made every preparation to fill his old townsmen
+with admiration and envy. But things had changed, even in Lambrig. There
+was a new innkeeper, who could answer none of his questions, and who did
+not remember Minister Anderson and his daughter, Jean. He began to fear
+he had come on a fool's errand, and after a leisurely, late breakfast,
+he strolled out to make his own investigations.
+
+There was certainly a building on a magnificent scale going up on a
+neighboring hill, and he walked toward it. When half way there a
+finely-appointed carriage passed him swiftly, but not too swiftly for
+him to see that Jean and a very handsome man were its occupants. "It
+will be her lawyer or architect," he thought; and he walked rapidly
+onward, pleased with himself for having put on his very best walking
+suit. There were many workmen on the building, and he fell into
+conversation with a man who was mixing mortar; but all the time he was
+watching Jean and her escort stepping about the great uncovered spaces
+of the new dwelling-house with such an air of mutual trust and happiness
+that it angered him.
+
+"Who is the lady?" he asked at length; "she seems to have business
+here."
+
+"What for no? The house is her ain. She is Mistress Sharp, and that is
+the professor with her. He is a great gun in the Glasgow University."
+
+"They are married, then?"
+
+"Ay, they are married. What are you saying at all? They were married a
+month syne, and they are as happy as robins in spring, I'm thinking.
+I'll drink their health, sir, if you'll gie me the bit o' siller."
+
+Gavin gave the silver and turned away dazed and sick at heart. His
+business in Scotland was over. The quiet Lothian country sickened him;
+he turned his face to London, and very soon went back to New York. He
+had lost Jean, and he had lost Jean's fortune; and there were no words
+to express his chagrin and disappointment. His sister felt the first
+weight of it. He blamed her entirely. She had lied to him about Jean's
+beauty. He believed he would have liked the photo but for Mary. And all
+for Annie Riley! He hated Annie Riley! He was resolved never to marry
+her, and he let the girl feel his dislike in no equivocal manner.
+
+For a time Annie was tearful and conciliating. Then she wrote him a
+touching letter, and asked him to tell her frankly if he had ceased to
+love her, and was resolved to break their marriage off. And Gavin did
+tell her, with almost brutal frankness, that he no longer loved her, and
+that he had firmly made up his mind not to marry her. He said something
+about his heart being in Scotland, but that was only a bit of sentiment
+that he thought gave a better air to his unfaithfulness.
+
+Annie did not answer his letter, but Messrs. Howe & Hummel did, and
+Gavin soon found himself the centre of a breach of promise trial, with
+damages laid at fifty thousand dollars. All his fine poetical love
+letters were in the newspapers; he was ashamed to look men and women in
+the face; he suffered a constant pillory for weeks; through his vanity,
+his self-consciousness, his egotism he was perpetually wounded. But
+pretty Annie Riley was the object of public pity and interest, and she
+really seemed to enjoy her notoriety. The verdict was righteously enough
+in her favor. The jury gave her ten thousand dollars, and all expenses,
+and Gavin Burns was a ruined man. His eleven years savings only amounted
+to nine thousand dollars, and for the balance he was compelled to sell
+his furniture and give notes payable out of his next year's salary. He
+wept like a child as he signed these miserable vouchers for his folly,
+and for some days was completely prostrated by the evil he had called
+unto himself. Then the necessities of his position compelled him to go
+to work again, though it was with a completely broken spirit.
+
+"I'm getting on to forty," he said to his sister, "and I am beginning
+the world over again! One woman has given me a disappointment that I
+will carry to the grave; and another woman is laughing at me, for she
+has got all my saved siller, and more too; forbye, she is like to marry
+Bob Severs and share it with him. Then I have them weary notes to meet
+beyond all. There never was a man so badly used as I have been!"
+
+No one pitied him much. Whatever his acquaintances said to his face he
+knew right well their private opinion was that he had received _just
+what he deserved_.
+
+
+
+
+AN ONLY OFFER.
+
+
+"Aunt Phoebe, were you ever pretty?"
+
+"When I was sixteen I was considered so. I was very like you then,
+Julia. I am forty-three now, remember."
+
+"Did you ever have an offer--an offer of marriage, I mean, aunt?"
+
+"No. Well, that is not true; I did have one offer."
+
+"And you refused it?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then he died, or went away?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Or deserted you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then you deceived him, I suppose?"
+
+"I did not."
+
+"What ever happened, then? Was he poor, or crippled or something
+dreadful"
+
+"He was rich and handsome."
+
+"Suppose you tell me about him."
+
+"I never talk about him to any one."
+
+"Did it happen at the old place?"
+
+"Yes, Julia. I never left Ryelands until I was thirty. This happened
+when I was sixteen."
+
+"Was he a farmer's son in the neighborhood?"
+
+"He was a fine city gentleman."
+
+"Oh, aunt, how interesting! Put down your embroidery and tell me about
+it; you cannot see to work longer."
+
+Perhaps after so many years of silence a sudden longing for sympathy and
+confidence seized the elder lady, for she let her work fall from her
+hands, and smiling sadly, said:
+
+"Twenty-seven years ago I was standing one afternoon by the gate at
+Ryelands. All the work had been finished early, and my mother and two
+elder sisters had gone to the village to see a friend. I had watched
+them a little way down the hillside, and was turning to go into the
+house, when I saw a stranger on horseback coming up the road. He stopped
+and spoke to mother, and this aroused my curiosity; so I lingered at the
+gate. He stopped when he reached it, fastened his horse, and asked, 'Is
+Mr. Wakefield in?'
+
+"I said, 'father was in the barn, and I could fetch him,' which I
+immediately did.
+
+"He was a dark, unpleasant-looking man, and had a masterful way with
+him, even to father, that I disliked; but after a short, business-like
+talk, apparently satisfactory to both, he went away without entering the
+house. Father put his hands in his pockets and watched him out of sight;
+then, looking at me, he said, 'Put the spare rooms in order, Phoebe.'
+
+"'They are in order, father; but is that man to occupy them?'
+
+"'Yes, he and his patient, a young gentleman of fine family, who is in
+bad health.'
+
+"'Do you know the young gentleman, father?'
+
+"'I know it is young Alfred Compton--that is enough for me.'
+
+"'And the dark man who has just left? I don't like his looks, father.'
+
+"'Nobody wants thee to like his looks. He is Mr. Alfred's physician--a
+Dr. Orman, of Boston. Neither of them are any of thy business, so ask no
+more questions;' and with that he went back to the barn.
+
+"Mother was not at all astonished. She said there had been letters on
+the subject already, and that she had been rather expecting the company.
+'But,' she added, 'they will pay well, and as Melissa is to be married
+at Christmas, ready money will be very needful.'
+
+"About dark a carriage arrived. It contained two gentlemen and several
+large trunks. I had been watching for it behind the lilac trees and I
+saw that our afternoon visitor was now accompanied by a slight, very
+fair-man, dressed with extreme care in the very highest fashion. I saw
+also that he was handsome, and I was quite sure he must be rich, or no
+doctor would wait upon him so subserviently.
+
+"This doctor I had disliked at first sight, and I soon began to imagine
+that I had good cause to hate him. His conduct to his patient I believed
+to be tyrannical and unkind. Some days he insisted that Mr. Compton was
+too ill to go out, though the poor gentleman begged for a walk; and
+again, mother said, he would take from him all his books, though he
+pleaded urgently for them.
+
+"One afternoon the postman brought Dr. Orman a letter, which seemed to
+be important, for he asked father to drive him to the next town, and
+requested mother to see that Mr. Compton did not leave the house. I
+suppose it was not a right thing to do, but this handsome sick stranger,
+so hardly used, and so surrounded with mystery, had roused in me a
+sincere sympathy for his loneliness and suffering, and I walked through
+that part of the garden into which his windows looked. We had been
+politely requested to avoid it, 'because the sight of strangers
+increased Mr. Compton's nervous condition.' I did not believe this, and
+I determined to try the experiment.
+
+"He was leaning out of the window, and a sadder face I never saw. I
+smiled and courtesied, and he immediately leaped the low sill, and came
+toward me. I stooped and began to tie up some fallen carnations; he
+stooped and helped me, saying all the while I know not what, only that
+it seemed to me the most beautiful language I ever heard. Then we walked
+up and down the long peach walk until I heard the rattle of father's
+wagon.
+
+"After this we became quietly, almost secretly, as far as Dr. Orman was
+concerned, very great friends. Mother so thoroughly pitied Alfred, that
+she not only pretended oblivion of our friendship, but even promoted it
+in many ways; and in the course of time Dr. Orman began to recognize its
+value. I was requested to walk past Mr. Compton's windows and say 'Good
+morning' or offer him a flower or some ripe peaches, and finally to
+accompany the gentlemen in their short rambles in the neighborhood.
+
+"I need not tell you how all this restricted intercourse ended. We were
+soon deeply in love with each other, and love ever finds out the way to
+make himself understood. We had many a five minutes' meeting no one knew
+of, and when these were impossible, a rose bush near his window hid for
+me the tenderest little love-letters. In fact, Julia, I found him
+irresistible; he was so handsome and gentle, and though he must have
+been thirty-five years old, yet, to my thinking, he looked handsomer
+than any younger man could have done.
+
+"As the weeks passed on, the doctor seemed to have more confidence in
+us, or else his patient was more completely under control. They had much
+fewer quarrels, and Alfred and I walked in the garden, and even a little
+way up the hill without opposition or remark. I do not know how I
+received the idea, but I certainly did believe that Dr. Orman was
+keeping Alfred sick for some purpose of his own, and I determined to
+take the first opportunity of arousing Alfred's suspicions. So one
+evening, when we were walking alone, I asked him if he did not wish to
+see his relatives.
+
+"He trembled violently, and seemed in the greatest distress, and only by
+the tenderest words could I soothe him, as, half sobbing, he declared
+that they were his bitterest enemies, and that Dr. Orman was the only
+friend he had in the world. Any further efforts I made to get at the
+secret of his life were equally fruitless, and only threw him into
+paroxysms of distress. During the month of August he was very ill, or at
+least Dr. Orman said so. I scarcely saw him, there were no letters in
+the rose bush, and frequently the disputes between the two men rose to a
+pitch which father seriously disliked.
+
+"One hot day in September everyone was in the fields or orchard; only
+the doctor and Alfred and I were in the house. Early in the afternoon a
+boy came from the village with a letter to Dr. Orman, and he seemed very
+much perplexed, and at a loss how to act. At length he said, 'Miss
+Phoebe, I must go to the village for a couple of hours; I think Mr.
+Alfred will sleep until my return, but if not, will you try and amuse
+him?'
+
+"I promised gladly, and Dr. Orman went back to the village with the
+messenger. No sooner was he out of sight than Alfred appeared, and we
+rambled about the garden, as happy as two lovers could be. But the day
+was extremely hot, and as the afternoon advanced, the heat increased. I
+proposed then that we should walk up the hill, where there was generally
+a breeze, and Alfred was delighted at the larger freedom it promised us.
+
+"But in another hour the sky grew dark and lurid, and I noticed that
+Alfred grew strangely restless. His cheeks flushed, his eyes had a wild
+look of terror in them, he trembled and started, and in spite of all my
+efforts to soothe him, grew irritable and gloomy. Yet he had just asked
+me to marry him, and I had promised I would. He had called me 'his
+wife,' and I had told him again my suspicions about Dr. Orman, and
+vowed to nurse him myself back to perfect health. We had talked, too, of
+going to Europe, and in the eagerness and delight of our new plans, had
+wandered quite up to the little pine forest at the top of the hill.
+
+"Then I noticed Alfred's excited condition, and saw also that we were
+going to have a thunder storm. There was an empty log hut not far away,
+and I urged Alfred to try and reach it before the storm, broke. But he
+became suddenly like a child in his terror, and it was only with the
+greatest difficulty I got him within its shelter.
+
+"As peal after peal of thunder crashed above us, Alfred seemed to lose
+all control of himself, and, seriously offended, I left him, nearly
+sobbing, in a corner, and went and stood by myself in the open door. In
+the very height of the storm I saw my father, Dr. Orman and three of our
+workmen coming through the wood. They evidently suspected our
+sheltering-place, for they came directly toward it.
+
+"'Alfred!' shouted Dr. Orman, in the tone of an angry master, 'where are
+you, sir? Come here instantly.'
+
+"My pettedness instantly vanished, and I said: 'Doctor, you have no
+right to speak to Alfred in that way. He is going to be my husband, and
+I shall not permit it any more.'
+
+"'Miss Wakefield,' he answered, 'this is sheer folly. Look here!'
+
+"I turned, and saw Alfred crouching in a corner, completely paralyzed
+with terror; and yet, when Dr. Orman spoke to him, he rose mechanically
+as a dog might follow his master's call.
+
+"'I am sorry, Miss Wakefield, to destroy your fine romance. Mr. Alfred
+Compton is, as you perceive, not fit to marry any lady. In fact, I am
+his--_keeper_.'"
+
+"Oh, Aunt Phoebe! Surely he was not a lunatic!"
+
+"So they said, Julia. His frantic terror was the only sign I saw of it;
+but Dr. Orman told my father that he was at times really dangerous, and
+that he was annually paid a large sum to take charge of him, as he
+became uncontrollable in an asylum."
+
+"Did you see him again?"
+
+"No. I found a little note in the rose bush, saying that he was not mad;
+that he remembered my promise to be his wife, and would surely come some
+day and claim me. But they left in three days, and Melissa,
+whose wedding outfit was curtailed in consequence, twitted me very
+unkindly about my fine crazy lover. It was a little hard on me, for he
+was the only lover I ever had. Melissa and Jane both married, and went
+west with their husbands; I lived on at Ryelands, a faded little old
+maid, until my uncle Joshua sent for me to come to New York and keep
+his fine house for him. You know that he left me all he had when he
+died, nearly two years ago. Then I sent for you. I remembered my own
+lonely youth, and thought I would give you a fair chance, dear."
+
+"Did you ever hear of him again, aunt?"
+
+"Of him, never. His elder brother died more than a year ago. I suppose
+Alfred died many years since; he was very frail and delicate. I thought
+it was refinement and beauty then; I know now it was ill health."
+
+"Poor aunt!"
+
+"Nay, child; I was very happy while my dream lasted; and I never will
+believe but that Alfred in his love for me was quite sane, and perhaps
+more sincere than many wiser men."
+
+After this confidence Miss Phoebe seemed to take a great pleasure in
+speaking of the little romance of her youth. Often the old and the young
+maidens sat in the twilight discussing the probabilities of poor Alfred
+Compton's life and death, and every discussion left them more and more
+positive that he had been the victim of some cruel plot. The subject
+never tired Miss Phoebe, and Julia, in the absence of a lover of her
+own, found in it a charm quite in keeping with her own youthful dreams.
+
+One cold night in the middle of January they had talked over the old
+subject until both felt it to be exhausted--at least for that night.
+Julia drew aside the heavy satin curtains, and looking out said, "It is
+snowing heavily, aunt; to-morrow we can have a sleigh ride. Why, there
+is a sleigh at our door! Who can it be? A gentleman, aunt, and he is
+coming here."
+
+"Close the curtains, child. It is my lawyer, Mr. Howard. He promised to
+call to-night."
+
+"Oh, dear! I was hoping it was some nice strange person."
+
+Miss Phoebe did not answer; her thoughts were far away. In fact, she had
+talked about her old lover until there had sprung up anew in her heart a
+very strong sentimental affection for his memory; and when the servant
+announced a visitor on business, she rose with a sigh from her
+reflections, and went into the reception-room.
+
+In a few minutes Julia heard her voice, in rapid, excited tones, and ere
+she could decide whether to go to her or not, Aunt Phoebe entered the
+room, holding by the hand a gentleman whom she announced as Mr. Alfred
+Compton. Julia was disappointed, to say the least, but she met him with
+enthusiasm. Perhaps Aunt Phoebe had quite unconsciously magnified the
+beauty of the youthful Alfred: certainly this one was not handsome. He
+was sixty, at least, his fair curling locks had vanished, and his fine
+figure was slightly bent. But the clear, sensitive face remained, and he
+was still dressed with scrupulous care.
+
+The two women made much of him. In half an hour Delmonico had furnished
+a delicious little banquet, and Alfred drank his first glass of wine
+with an old-fashioned grace "to his promised wife, Miss Phoebe
+Wakefield, best and loveliest of women."
+
+Miss Phoebe laughed, but she dearly liked it; and hand in hand the two
+old lovers sat, while Alfred told his sad little story of life-long
+wrong and suffering; of an intensely nervous, self-conscious nature,
+driven to extremity by cruel usage and many wrongs. At the mention of
+Dr. Orman Miss Phoebe expressed herself a little bitterly.
+
+"Nay, Phoebe," said Alfred; "whatever he was when my brother put me in
+his care, he became my true friend. To his skill and patience I owe my
+restoration to perfect health; and to his firm advocacy of my right and
+ability to manage my own estate I owe the position I now hold, and my
+ability to come and ask Phoebe to redeem her never-forgotten promise."
+
+Perhaps Julia got a little tired of these old-fashioned lovers, but they
+never tired of each other. Miss Phoebe was not the least abashed by any
+contrast between her ideal and her real Alfred, and Alfred was never
+weary of assuring her that he found her infinitely more delightful and
+womanly than in the days of their first courtship.
+
+She cannot even call them a "silly" or "foolish" couple, or use any
+other relieving phrase of that order, for Miss Phoebe--or rather Mrs.
+Compton--resents any word as applied to Mr. Alfred Compton that would
+imply less than supernatural wisdom and intelligence. "No one but those
+who have known him as long as I have," she continually avers, "can
+possibly estimate the superior information and infallible judgment of my
+husband."
+
+
+
+
+TWO FAIR DECEIVERS.
+
+
+What do young men talk about when they sit at the open windows smoking
+on summer evenings? Do you suppose it is of love? Indeed, I suspect it
+is of money; or, if not of money, then, at least, of something that
+either makes money or spends it.
+
+Cleve Sullivan has been spending his for four years in Europe, and he
+has just been telling his friend John Selden how he spent it. John has
+spent his in New York--he is inclined to think just as profitably. Both
+stories conclude in the same way.
+
+"I have not a thousand dollars left, John."
+
+"Nor I, Cleve."
+
+"I thought your cousin died two years ago; surely you have not spent all
+the old gentleman's money already?"
+
+"I only got $20,000; I owed half of it."
+
+"Only $20,000! What did he do with it?"
+
+"Gave it to his wife. He married a beauty about a year after you went
+away, died in a few months afterward, and left her his whole fortune. I
+had no claim on him. He educated me, gave me a profession, and $20,000.
+That was very well: he was only my mother's cousin."
+
+"And the widow--where is she?"
+
+"Living at his country-seat. I have never seen her. She was one of the
+St. Maurs, of Maryland."
+
+"Good family, and all beauties. Why don't you marry the widow?"
+
+"Why, I never thought of such a thing."
+
+"You can't think of anything better. Write her a little note at once;
+say that you and I will soon be in her neighborhood, and that gratitude
+to your cousin, and all that kind of thing--then beg leave to call and
+pay respects," etc., etc.
+
+John demurred a good deal to the plan, but Cleve was masterful, and the
+note was written, Cleve himself putting it in the post-office.
+
+That was on Monday night. On Wednesday morning the widow Clare found it
+with a dozen others upon her breakfast table. She was a dainty,
+high-bred little lady, with
+
+    "Eyes that drowse with dreamy splendor,
+    Cheeks with rose-leaf tintings tender,
+        Lips like fragrant posy,"
+
+and withal a kind, hospitable temper, well inclined to be happy in the
+happiness of others.
+
+But this letter could not be answered with the usual polite formula. She
+was quite aware that John Selden had regarded himself for many years as
+his cousin's heir, and that her marriage with the late Thomas Clare had
+seriously altered his prospects. Women easily see through the best laid
+plans of men, and this plan was transparent enough to the shrewd little
+widow. John would scarcely have liked the half-contemptuous shrug and
+smile which terminated her private thoughts on the matter.
+
+"Clementine, if you could spare a moment from your fashion paper, I want
+to consult you, dear, about a visitor."
+
+Clementine raised her blue eyes, dropped her paper, and said, "Who is
+it, Fan?"
+
+"It is John Selden. If Mr. Clare had not married me, he would have
+inherited the Clare estate. I think he is coming now in order to see if
+it is worth while asking for, encumbered by his cousin's widow."
+
+"What selfishness! Write and tell him that you are just leaving for the
+Suez Canal, or the Sandwich Islands, or any other inconvenient place."
+
+"No; I have a better plan than that--Clementine, do stop reading a few
+minutes. I will take that pretty cottage at Ryebank for the summer, and
+Mr. Selden and his friend shall visit us there. No one knows us in the
+place, and I will take none of the servants with me."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Then, Clementine, you are to be the widow Clare, and I your poor
+friend and companion."
+
+"Good! very good! 'The Fair Deceivers'--an excellent comedy. How I shall
+snub you, Fan! And for once I shall have the pleasure of outdressing
+you. But has not Mr. Selden seen you?"
+
+"No; I was married in Maryland, and went immediately to Europe. I came
+back a widow two years ago, but Mr. Selden has never remembered me until
+now. I wonder who this friend is that he proposes to bring with him?"
+
+"Oh, men always think in pairs, Fan. They never decide on anything until
+their particular friend approves. I dare say they wrote the letter
+together. What is the gentleman's name?"
+
+The widow examined the note. "'My friend Mr. Cleve Sullivan.' Do you
+know him, Clementine?"
+
+"No; I am quite sure that I never saw Mr. Cleve Sullivan. I don't fall
+in love with the name--do you? But pray accept the offer for both
+gentlemen, Fan, and write this morning, dear." Then Clementine returned
+to the consideration of the lace in _coquilles_ for her new evening
+dress.
+
+The plan so hastily sketched was subsequently thoroughly discussed and
+carried out. The cottage at Ryebank was taken, and one evening at the
+end of June the two ladies took possession of it. The new widow Clare
+had engaged a maid in New York, and fell into her part with charming
+ease and a very pretty assumption of authority; and the real widow, in
+her plain dress and pensive, quiet manners, realized effectively the
+idea of a cultivated but dependent companion. They had two days in which
+to rehearse their parts and get all the household machinery in order,
+and then the gentlemen arrived at Ryebank.
+
+Fan and Clementine were quite ready for their first call; the latter in
+a rich and exquisite morning costume, the former in a simple dress of
+spotted lawn. Clementine went through the introductions with consummate
+ease of manner, and in half an hour they were a very pleasant party.
+John's "cousinship" afforded an excellent basis for informal
+companionship, and Clementine gave it full prominence. Indeed, in a few
+days John began to find the relationship tiresome; it had been "Cousin
+John, do this," and "Cousin John, come here," continually; and one night
+when Cleve and he sat down to smoke their final cigar, he was irritable
+enough to give his objections the form of speech.
+
+"Cleve, to tell you the honest truth, I do not like Mrs. Clare."
+
+"I think she is a very lovely woman, John."
+
+"I say nothing against her beauty, Cleve; I don't like her, and I have
+no mind to occupy the place that beautiful ill-used Miss Marat fills.
+The way Cousin Clare ignores or snubs a woman to whom she is every way
+inferior makes me angry enough, I assure you."
+
+"Don't fall in love with the wrong woman, John."
+
+"Your advice is too late, Cleve; I am in love. There is no use in us
+deceiving ourselves or each other. You seem to like the widow--why not
+marry her? I am quite willing you should."
+
+"Thank you, John; I have already made some advances that way. They have
+been favorably received, I think."
+
+"You are so handsome, a fellow has no chance against you. But we shall
+hardly quarrel, if you do not interfere between lovely little Clement
+and myself."
+
+"I could not afford to smile on her, John; she is too poor. And what on
+earth are you going to do with a poor wife? Nothing added to nothing
+will not make a decent living."
+
+"I am going to ask her to be my wife, and if she does me the honor to
+say 'Yes,' I will make a decent living out of my profession."
+
+From this time forth John devoted himself with some ostentation to his
+supposed cousin's companion. He was determined to let the widow
+perceive that he had made his choice, and that he could not be bought
+with her money. Mr. Selden and Miss Marat were always together, and the
+widow did not interfere between her companion and her cousin. Perhaps
+she was rather glad of their close friendship, for the handsome Cleve
+made a much more delightful attendant. Thus the party fell quite
+naturally into couples, and the two weeks that the gentlemen had first
+fixed as the limit of their stay lengthened into two months.
+
+It was noticeable that as the ladies became more confidential with their
+lovers, they had less to say to each other; and it began at last to be
+quite evident to the real widow that the play must end for the present,
+or the _dénouement_ would come prematurely. Circumstances favored her
+determination. One night Clementine, with a radiant face, came into her
+friend's room, and said, "Fan, I have something to tell you. Cleve has
+asked me to marry him."
+
+"Now, Clement, you have told him all; I know you have."
+
+"Not a word, Fan. He still believes me the widow Clare."
+
+"Did you accept him?"
+
+"Conditionally. I am to give him a final answer when we go to the city
+in October. You are going to New York this winter, are you not?"
+
+"Yes. Our little play progresses finely. John Selden asked me to be his
+wife to-night."
+
+"I told you men think and act in pairs."
+
+"John is a noble fellow. I pretended to think that his cousin had
+ill-used him, and he defended him until I was ashamed of myself;
+absolutely said, Clement, that _you_ were a sufficient excuse for Mr.
+Clare's will. Then he blamed his own past idleness so much, and promised
+if I would only try and endure 'the slings and arrows' of your
+outrageous temper, Clement, for two years longer, he would have made a
+home for me in which I could be happy. Yes, Clement, I should marry John
+Selden if we had not a five-dollar bill between us."
+
+"I wish Cleve had been a little more explicit about his money affairs.
+However, there is time enough yet. When they leave to-morrow, what shall
+we do?"
+
+"We will remain here another month; Levine will have the house ready for
+me by that time. I have written to him about refurnishing the parlors."
+
+So next day the lovers parted, with many promises of constant letters
+and future happy days together. The interval was long and dull enough;
+but it passed, and one morning both gentlemen received notes of
+invitation to a small dinner party at the widow Clare's mansion in ----
+street. There was a good deal of dressing for this party. Cleve wished
+to make his entrance into his future home as became the prospective
+master of a million and a half of money, and John was desirous of not
+suffering in Clement's eyes by any comparison with the other gentlemen
+who would probably be there.
+
+Scarcely had they entered the drawing-room when the ladies appeared, the
+true widow Clare no longer in the unassuming toilet she had hitherto
+worn, but magnificent in white crêpe lisse and satin, her arms and
+throat and pretty head flashing with sapphires and diamonds. Her
+companion had assumed now the rôle of simplicity, and Cleve was
+disappointed with the first glance at her plain white Chambéry gauze
+dress.
+
+John had seen nothing but the bright face of the girl he loved and the
+love-light in her eyes. Before she could speak he had taken both her
+hands and whispered, "Dearest and best and loveliest Clement."
+
+Her smile answered him first. Then she said: "Pardon me, Mr. Selden, but
+we have been in masquerade all summer, and now we must unmask before
+real life begins. My name is not Clementine Marat, but Fanny Clare.
+_Cousin John_, I hope you are not disappointed." Then she put her hand
+into John's, and they wandered off into the conservatory to finish their
+explanation.
+
+Mr. Cleve Sullivan found himself at that moment in the most trying
+circumstance of his life. The real Clementine Marat stood looking down
+at a flower on the carpet, and evidently expecting him to resume the
+tender attitude he had been accustomed to bear toward her. He was a man
+of quick decisions where his own interests were concerned, and it did
+not take him half a minute to review his position and determine what to
+do. This plain blonde girl without fortune was not the girl he could
+marry; she had deceived him, too--he had a sudden and severe spasm of
+morality; his confidence was broken; he thought it was very poor sport
+to play with a man's most sacred feelings; he had been deeply
+disappointed and grieved, etc., etc.
+
+Clementine stood perfectly still, with her eyes fixed on the carpet and
+her cheeks gradually flushing, as Cleve made his awkward accusations.
+She gave him no help and she made no defence, and it soon becomes
+embarrassing for a man to stand in the middle of a large drawing-room
+and talk to himself about any girl. Cleve felt it so.
+
+"Have you done, sir?" at length she asked, lifting to his face a pair of
+blue eyes, scintillating with scorn and anger. "I promised you my final
+answer to your suit when we met in New York. You have spared me that
+trouble. Good evening, sir."
+
+Clementine showed to no one her disappointment, and she probably soon
+recovered from it. Her life was full of many other pleasant plans and
+hopes, and she could well afford to let a selfish lover pass out of it.
+She remained with her friend until after the marriage between her and
+John Selden had been consummated; and then Cleve saw her name among the
+list of passengers sailing on one particular day for Europe. As John and
+his bride left on the same steamer Cleve supposed, of course, she had
+gone in their company.
+
+"Nice thing it would have been for Cleve Sullivan to marry John Selden's
+wife's maid, or something or other? John always was a lucky fellow. Some
+fellows are always unlucky in love affairs--I always am."
+
+Half a year afterward he reiterated this statement with a great deal of
+unnecessary emphasis. He was just buttoning his gloves preparatory to
+starting for his afternoon drive, when an old acquaintance hailed him.
+
+"Oh, it's that fool Belmar," he muttered; "I shall have to offer him a
+ride. I thought he was in Paris. Hello, Belmar, when did you get back?
+Have a ride?"
+
+"No, thank you. I have promised my wife to ride with her this
+afternoon."
+
+"Your wife! When were you married?"
+
+"Last month, in Paris."
+
+"And the happy lady was--"
+
+"Why, I thought you knew; everyone is talking about my good fortune.
+Mrs. Belmar is old Paul Marat's only child."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Miss Clementine Marat. She brings me nearly $3,000,000 in money and
+real estate, and a heart beyond all price."
+
+"How on earth did you meet her?"
+
+"She was traveling with Mr. and Mrs. Selden--you know John Selden. She
+has lived with Mrs. Selden ever since she left school; they were friends
+when they were girls together."
+
+Cleve gathered up his reins, and nodding to Mr. Frank Belmar, drove at a
+finable rate up the avenue and through the park. He could not trust
+himself to speak to any one, and when he did, the remark which he made
+to himself in strict confidence was not flattering. For once Mr. Cleve
+Sullivan told Mr. Cleve Sullivan that he had been badly punished, and
+that he well deserved it.
+
+
+
+
+THE TWO MR. SMITHS.
+
+
+"It is not either her money or her position that dashes me, Carrol; it
+is my own name. Think of asking Eleanor Bethune to become Mrs. William
+Smith! If it had been Alexander Smith--"
+
+"Or Hyacinth Smith."
+
+"Yes, Hyacinth Smith would have done; but plain William Smith!"
+
+"Well, as far as I can see, you are not to blame. Apologize to the lady
+for the blunder of your godfathers and godmothers. Stupid old parties!
+They ought to have thought of Hyacinth;" and Carrol threw his cigar into
+the fire and began to buckle on his spurs.
+
+"Come with me, Carrol."
+
+"No, thank you. It is against my principles to like anyone better than
+myself, and Alice Fontaine is a temptation to do so."
+
+"_I_ don't like Alice's style at all."
+
+"Of course not. Alice's beauty, as compared with Mrs. Bethune's settled
+income, is skin-deep."
+
+If sarcasm was intended, Smith did not perceive it. He took the
+criticism at its face value, and answered, "Yes, Eleanor's income is
+satisfactory; and besides that, she has all kinds of good qualities,
+and several accomplishments. If I only could offer her, with myself, a
+suitable name for them!"
+
+"Could you not, in taking Mrs. Bethune and her money, take her name
+also?"
+
+"N-n-no. A man does not like to lose all his individuality in his
+wife's, Carrol."
+
+"Well, then, I have no other suggestion, and I am going to ride."
+
+So Carrol went to the park, and Smith went to his mirror. The occupation
+gave him the courage he wanted. He was undoubtedly a very handsome man,
+and he had, also, very fine manners; indeed, he would have been a very
+great man if the world had only been a drawing-room, for, polished and
+fastidious, he dreaded nothing so much as an indecorum, and had the air
+of being uncomfortable unless his hands were in kid gloves.
+
+Smith had a standing invitation to Mrs. Bethune's five-o'clock teas, and
+he was always considered an acquisition. He was also very fond of going
+to them; for under no circumstances was Mrs. Bethune so charming. To see
+her in this hour of perfect relaxation was to understand how great and
+beautiful is the art of idleness. Her ease and grace, her charming
+aimlessness, her indescribable air of inaction, were all so many proofs
+of her having been born in the purple of wealth and fashion; no parvenu
+could ever hope to imitate them.
+
+Alice Fontaine never tried. She had been taken from a life of polite
+shifts and struggles by her cousin, Mrs. Bethune, two years before; and
+the circumstances that were to the one the mere accidents of her
+position were to the other a real holiday-making.
+
+Alice met Mr. Smith with _empressement_, fluttered about the tea-tray
+like a butterfly, wasted her bonmots and the sugar recklessly, and was
+as full of pretty animation as her cousin Bethune was of elegant repose.
+
+"I am glad you are come, Mr. Smith," said Mrs. Bethune. "Alice has been
+trying to spur me into a fight. I don't want to throw a lance in. Now
+you can be my substitute."
+
+"Mr. Smith," said Alice impetuously, "don't you think that women ought
+to have the same rights as men?"
+
+"Really, Miss Alice, I--I don't know. When women have got what they call
+their 'rights,' do they expect to keep what they call their 'privileges'
+also?"
+
+"Certainly they do. When they have driven the men to emigrate, to scrub
+floors, and to jump into the East River, they will still expect the
+corner seat, the clean side of the road, the front place, and the pick
+of everything."
+
+"Ah, indeed! And when all the public and private business of the
+country is in their hands, will they still expect to find time for
+five-o'clock teas?"
+
+"Yes, sir. They will conduct the affairs of this regenerated country,
+and not neglect either their music or their pets, their dress or their
+drawing-room. They will be perfectly able to do the one, and not leave
+the other undone."
+
+"Glorious creatures! Then they will accomplish what men have been trying
+to do ever since the world began. They will get two days' work out of
+one day."
+
+"Of course they will."
+
+"But how?"
+
+"Oh, machines and management. It will be done."
+
+"But your answer is illogical, Miss Alice."
+
+"Of course. Men always take refuge in their logic; and yet, with all
+their boasted skill, they have never mastered the useful and elementary
+proposition, 'It will be, because it will be.'"
+
+Mr. Smith was very much annoyed at the tone Alice was giving to the
+conversation. She was treating him as a joke, and he felt how impossible
+it was going to be to get Mrs. Bethune to treat him seriously. Indeed,
+before he could restore the usual placid, tender tone of their
+_tete-à-tete_ tea, two or three ladies joined the party, and the hour
+was up, and the opportunity lost.
+
+However, he was not without consolation: Eleanor's hand had rested a
+moment very tenderly in his; he had seen her white cheek flush and her
+eyelids droop, and he felt almost sure that he was beloved. And as he
+had determined that night to test his fortune, he was not inclined to
+let himself be disappointed. Consequently he decided on writing to her,
+for he was rather proud of his letters; and, indeed, it must be
+confessed that he had an elegant and eloquent way of putting any case in
+which he was personally interested.
+
+Eleanor Bethune thought so. She received his proposal on her return from
+a very stupid party, and as soon as she saw his writing she began to
+consider how much more delightful the evening would have been if Mr.
+Smith had been present. His glowing eulogies on her beauty, and his
+passionate descriptions of his own affection, his hopes and his
+despairs, chimed in with her mood exactly. Already his fine person and
+manners had made a great impression on her; she had been very near
+loving him; nothing, indeed, had been needed but that touch of
+electricity conveyed in the knowledge that she was beloved.
+
+Such proposals seldom or never take women unawares. Eleanor had been
+expecting it, and had already decided on her answer. So, after a short,
+happy reflection, she opened her desk and wrote Mr. Smith a few lines
+which she believed would make him supremely happy.
+
+Then she went to Alice's room and woke her out of her first sleep. "Oh,
+you lazy girl; why did you not crimp your hair? Get up again, Alice
+dear; I have a secret to tell you. I am--going--to--marry--Mr.--Smith."
+
+"I knew some catastrophe was impending, Eleanor; I have felt it all day.
+Poor Eleanor!"
+
+"Now, Alice, be reasonable. What do you think of him--honestly, you
+know?"
+
+"The man has excellent qualities; for instance, a perfect taste in
+cravats and an irreproachable propriety. Nobody ever saw him in any
+position out of the proper centre of gravity. Now, there is Carrol,
+always sitting round on tables or easels, or if on a chair, on the back
+or arms, or any way but as other Christians sit. Then Mr. Smith is
+handsome; very much so."
+
+"Oh, you do admit that?"
+
+"Yes; but I don't myself like men of the hairdresser style of beauty."
+
+"Alice, what makes you dislike him so much?"
+
+"Indeed, I don't, Eleanor. I think he is very 'nice,' and very
+respectable. Every one will say, 'What a suitable match!' and I dare say
+you will be very happy. He will do everything you tell him to do,
+Eleanor; and--oh dear me!--how I should hate a husband of that kind!"
+
+"You little hypocrite!--with your talk of woman's 'rights' and woman's
+supremacy.'"
+
+"No, Eleanor love, don't call it hypocrisy, please; say
+_many-sidedness_--it is a more womanly definition. But if it is really
+to be so, then I wish you joy, cousin. And what are you going to wear?"
+
+This subject proved sufficiently attractive to keep Alice awake a couple
+of hours. She even crimped her hair in honor of the bridal shopping; and
+before matters had been satisfactorily arranged she was so full of
+anticipated pleasures that she felt really grateful to the author of
+them, and permitted herself to speak with enthusiasm of the bridegroom.
+
+"He'll be a sight to see, Eleanor, on his marriage day. There won't be a
+handsomer man, nor a better dressed man, in America, and his clothes
+will all come from Paris, I dare say."
+
+"I think we will go to Paris first." Then Eleanor went into a graphic
+description of the glories and pleasures of Paris, as she had
+experienced them during her first bridal tour. "It is the most
+fascinating city in the world, Alice."
+
+"I dare say, but it is a ridiculous shame having it in such an
+out-of-the-way place. What is the use of having a Paris, when one has to
+sail three thousand miles to get at it? Eleanor, I feel that I shall
+have to go."
+
+"So you shall, dear; I won't go without you."
+
+"Oh, no, darling; not with Mr. Smith: I really could not. I shall have
+to try and manage matters with Mr. Carrol. We shall quarrel all the way
+across, of course, but then--"
+
+"Why don't you adopt his opinions, Alice?"
+
+"I intend to--for a little while; but it is impossible to go on with the
+same set of opinions forever. Just think how dull conversation would
+become!"
+
+"Well, dear, you may go to sleep now, for mind, I shall want you down to
+breakfast before eleven. I have given 'Somebody' permission to call at
+five o'clock to-morrow--or rather to-day--and we shall have a
+_tete-à-tete_ tea."
+
+Alice determined that it should be strictly _tete-à-tete._ She went to
+spend the afternoon with Carrol's sisters, and stayed until she thought
+the lovers had had ample time to make their vows and arrange their
+wedding.
+
+There was a little pout on her lips as she left Carrol outside the
+door, and slowly bent her steps to Eleanor's private parlor. She was
+trying to make up her mind to be civil to her cousin's new
+husband-elect, and the temptation to be anything else was very strong.
+
+"I shall be dreadfully in the way--_his way_, I mean--and he will want
+to send me out of the room, and I shall not go--no, not if I fall asleep
+on a chair looking at him."
+
+With this decision, the most amiable she could reach, Alice entered the
+parlor. Eleanor was alone, and there was a pale, angry look on her face
+Alice could not understand.
+
+"Shut the door, dear."
+
+"Alone?"
+
+"I have been so all evening."
+
+"Have you quarreled with Mr. Smith?"
+
+"Mr. Smith did not call."
+
+"Not come!"
+
+"Nor yet sent any apology."
+
+The two women sat looking into each other's faces a few moments, both
+white and silent.
+
+"What will you do, Eleanor?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"But he may be sick, or he may not have got your letter. Such queer
+mistakes do happen."
+
+"Parker took it to his hotel; the clerk said he was still in his room;
+it was sent to him in Parker's sight and hearing. There is not any doubt
+but that he received it."
+
+"Well, suppose he did not. Still, if he really cares for you, he is
+hardly likely to take your supposed silence for an absolute refusal. I
+have said 'No' to Carrol a dozen times, and he won't stay 'noed.' Mr.
+Smith will be sure to ask for a personal interview."
+
+Eleanor answered drearily: "I suppose he will pay me that respect;" but
+through this little effort at assertion it was easy to detect the white
+feather of mistrust. She half suspected the touchy self-esteem of Mr.
+Smith. If she had merely been guilty of a breach of good manners toward
+him, she knew that he would deeply resent it; how, then, when she
+had--however innocently--given him the keenest personal slight?
+
+Still she wished to accept Alice's cheerful view of the affair, and what
+is heartily wished is half accomplished. Ere she fell asleep she had
+quite decided that her lover would call the following day, and her
+thoughts were busy with the pleasant amends she would make him for any
+anxiety he might have suffered.
+
+But Mr. Smith did not call the following day, nor on many following
+ones, and a casual lady visitor destroyed Eleanor's last hope that he
+would ever call again, for, after a little desultory gossip, she said,
+"You will miss Mr. Smith very much at your receptions, and brother Sam
+says he is to be away two years."
+
+"So long?" asked Eleanor, with perfect calmness.
+
+"I believe so. I thought the move very sudden, but Sam says he has been
+talking about the trip for six months."
+
+"Really!--Alice, dear, won't you bring that piece of Burslam pottery for
+Mrs. Hollis to look at?"
+
+So the wonderful cup and saucer were brought, and they caused a
+diversion so complete that Mr. Smith and his eccentric move were not
+named again during the visit. Nor, indeed, much after it. "What is the
+use of discussing a hopelessly disagreeable subject?" said Eleanor to
+Alice's first offer of sympathy. To tell the truth, the mere mention of
+the subject made her cross, for young women of the finest fortunes do
+not necessarily possess the finest tempers.
+
+Carrol's next visit was looked for with a good deal of interest.
+Naturally it was thought that he would know all about his friend's
+singular conduct. But he professed to be as much puzzled as Alice. "He
+supposed it was something about Mrs. Bethune; he had always told Smith
+not to take a pretty, rich woman like her into his calculations. For
+his part, if he had been desirous of marrying an heiress, and felt that
+he had a gift that way, he should have looked out a rich German girl;
+they had less nonsense about them," etc.
+
+That was how the affair ended as far as Eleanor was concerned. Of course
+she suffered, but she was not of that generation of women who parade
+their suffering. Beautiful and self-respecting, she was, above all,
+endowed with physical self-control. Even Alice was spared the hysterical
+sobbings and faintings and other signs of pathological distress common
+to weak women.
+
+Perhaps she was more silent and more irritable than usual, but Eleanor
+Bethune's heartache for love never led her to the smallest social
+impropriety. Whatever she suffered, she did not refuse the proper
+mixture of colors in her hat, or neglect her tithe of the mint, anise
+and cummin due to her position.
+
+Eleanor's reticence, however, had this good effect--it compelled Alice
+to talk Smith's singular behavior over with Carrol; and somehow, in
+discussing Smith, they got to understand each other; so that, after all,
+it was Alice's and not Eleanor's bridal shopping that was to do. And
+there is something very assuaging to grief in this occupation. Before
+it was completed, Eleanor had quite recovered her placid, sunshiny
+temper.
+
+"Consolation, thy name is satin and lace!" said Alice, thankfully, to
+herself, as she saw Eleanor so tired and happy about the wedding finery.
+
+At first Alice had been quite sure that she would go to Paris, and
+nowhere else; but Eleanor noticed that in less than a week Carrol's
+influence was paramount. "We have got a better idea, Eleanor--quite a
+novel one," she said, one morning. "We are going to make our bridal trip
+in Carrol's yacht!"
+
+"Whose idea is that?"
+
+"Carrol's and _mine too_, of course. Carrol says it is the jolliest
+life. You leave all your cares and bills on shore behind you. You issue
+your own sailing orders, and sail away into space with an easy
+conscience"
+
+"But I thought you were bent on a European trip?"
+
+"The yacht will be ever so much nicer. Think of the nuisance of
+ticket-offices and waiting-rooms and second-class hotels and troublesome
+letters waiting for you at your banker's, and disagreeable paragraphs in
+the newspapers. I think Carrol's idea is splendid."
+
+So the marriage took place at the end of the season, and Alice and
+Carrol sailed happily away into the unknown. Eleanor was at a loss what
+to do with herself. She wanted to go to Europe; but Mr. Smith had gone
+there, and she felt sure that some unlucky accident would throw them
+together. It was not her nature to court embarrassments; so Europe was
+out of the question.
+
+While she was hesitating she called one day on Celeste Reid--a beautiful
+girl who had been a great belle, but was now a confirmed invalid. "I am
+going to try the air of Colorado, Mrs. Bethune," she said. "Papa has
+heard wonderful stories about it. Come with our party. We shall have a
+special car, and the trip will at least have the charm of novelty."
+
+"And I love the mountains, Celeste. I will join you with pleasure. I was
+dreading the old routine in the old places; but this will be
+delightful."
+
+Thus it happened that one evening in the following August Mrs. Bethune
+found herself slowly strolling down the principal street in Denver. It
+was a splendid sunset, and in its glory the Rocky Mountains rose like
+Titanic palaces built of amethyst, gold and silver. Suddenly the look of
+intense pleasure on her face was changed for one of wonder and
+annoyance. It had become her duty in a moment to do a very disagreeable
+thing; but duty was a kind of religion to Eleanor Bethune; she never
+thought of shirking it.
+
+So she immediately inquired her way to the telegraph office, and even
+quickened her steps into as fast a walk as she ever permitted herself.
+The message she had to send was a peculiar and not a pleasant one. At
+first she thought it would hardly be possible for her to frame it in
+such words as she would care to dictate to strangers; but she firmly
+settled on the following form:
+
+"_Messrs. Locke & Lord_:
+
+"Tell brother Edward that Bloom is in Denver. No delay. The matter is of
+the greatest importance."
+
+When she had dictated the message, the clerk said, "Two dollars, madam."
+But greatly to Eleanor's annoyance her purse was not in her pocket, and
+she could not remember whether she had put it there or not. The man
+stood looking at her in an expectant way; she felt that any delay about
+the message might be fatal to its worth; perplexity and uncertainty
+ruled her absolutely. She was about to explain her dilemma, and return
+to her hotel for money, when a gentleman, who had heard and watched the
+whole proceeding, said:
+
+"Madam, I perceive that time is of great importance to you, and that you
+have lost your purse; allow me to pay for the message. You can return
+the money if you wish. My name is William Smith. I am staying at the
+'American.'"
+
+"Thank you, sir. The message is of the gravest importance to my brother.
+I gratefully accept your offer."
+
+Further knowledge proved Mr. William Smith to be a New York capitalist
+who was slightly known to three of the gentlemen in Eleanor's party; so
+that the acquaintance began so informally was very speedily afterward
+inaugurated with all the forms and ceremonies good society demands. It
+was soon possible, too, for Eleanor to explain the circumstances which,
+even in her code of strict etiquette, made a stranger's offer of money
+for the hour a thing to be gratefully accepted. She had seen in the door
+of the post-office a runaway cashier of her brother's, and his speedy
+arrest involved a matter of at least forty thousand dollars.
+
+This Mr. William Smith was a totally different man to Eleanor's last
+lover--a bright, energetic, alert business man, decidedly handsome and
+gentlemanly. Though his name was greatly against him in Eleanor's
+prejudices, she found herself quite unable to resist the cheery,
+pleasant influence he carried with him. And it was evident from the very
+first day of their acquaintance that Mr. William Smith had but one
+thought--the winning of Eleanor Bethune.
+
+When she returned to New York in the autumn she ventured to cast up her
+accounts with life, and she was rather amazed at the result. For she was
+quite aware that she was in love with this William Smith in a way that
+she had never been with the other. The first had been a sentimental
+ideal; the second was a genuine case of sincere and passionate
+affection. She felt that the desertion of this lover would be a grief
+far beyond the power of satin and lace to cure.
+
+But her new lover had never a disloyal thought to his mistress, and his
+love transplanted to the pleasant places of New York life, seemed to
+find its native air. It enveloped Eleanor now like a glad and heavenly
+atmosphere; she was so happy that she dreaded any change; it seemed to
+her that no change could make her happier.
+
+But if good is good, still better carries the day, and Mr. Smith thought
+marriage would be a great deal better than lovemaking. Eleanor and he
+were sitting in the fire-lit parlor, very still and very happy, when he
+whispered this opinion to her.
+
+"It is only four months since we met, dear."
+
+"Only four months, darling; but I had been dreaming about you four
+months before that. Let me hold your hands, sweet, while I tell you. On
+the 20th of last April I was on the point of leaving for Colorado to
+look after the Silver Cliff Mine. My carriage was ordered, and I was
+waiting at my hotel for it. A servant brought me a letter--the dearest,
+sweetest little letter--see, here it is!" and this William Smith
+absolutely laid before Eleanor her own pretty, loving reply to the first
+William Smith's offer.
+
+Eleanor looked queerly at it, and smiled.
+
+"What did you think, dear?"
+
+"That it was just the pleasantest thing that had ever happened to me. It
+was directed to Mr. W. Smith, and had been given into my hands. I was
+not going to seek up any other W. Smith."
+
+"But you must have been sure that it was not intended for you, and you
+did not know 'Eleanor Bethune.'"
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon, sweetheart; it _was intended_ for me. I can
+imagine destiny standing sarcastically by your side, and watching you
+send the letter to one W. Smith when she intended it for another W.
+Smith. Eleanor Bethune I meant to know just as soon as possible. I was
+coming back to New York to look for you."
+
+"And, instead, she went to you in Colorado."
+
+"Only think of that! Why, love, when that blessed telegraph clerk said,
+'Who sends this message?' and you said, 'Mrs. Eleanor Bethune,' I wanted
+to fling my hat to the sky. I did not lose my head as badly when they
+found that new lead in the Silver Cliff."
+
+"Won't you give me that letter, and let me destroy it, William? It was
+written to the wrong Smith."
+
+"It was written to the wrong Smith, but it was given to the right Smith.
+Still, Eleanor, if you will say one little word to me, you may do what
+you like with the letter."
+
+Then Eleanor whispered the word, and the blaze of the burning letter
+made a little illumination in honor of their betrothal kiss.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF MARY NEIL.
+
+
+Poverty has not only many learned disciples, but also many hidden saints
+and martyrs. There are humble tenements that are tabernacles, and
+desolate, wretched rooms that are the quarries of the Almighty--where
+with toil and weariness and suffering the souls He loves are being
+prepared for the heavenly temple.
+
+This is the light that relieves the deep shadow of that awful cloud of
+poverty which ever hangs over this rich and prosperous city. I have been
+within that cloud, wet with its rain of tears, chilled with its gloomy
+darkness, "made free" of its innermost recesses; therefore I speak with
+authority when I say that even here a little child may walk and not
+stumble, if Jesus lead the way or hold the hand.
+
+Nay, but children walk where strong men fall down, and young maidens
+enter the kingdom while yet their parents are stumbling where no light
+from the Golden City and "the Land very far off" reaches them. Last
+winter I became very much interested in such a case. I was going to
+write "Poor Mary Neil!" but that would have been the strangest misnomer.
+Happy Mary Neil! rises impetuously from my heart to contradict my pen.
+
+And yet when I first became acquainted with her condition, she was
+"poor" in every bitter sense of the word.
+
+A drunkard's eldest daughter, "the child of misery baptized with tears,"
+what had her seventeen years been but sad and evil ones? Cold and
+hunger, cares and labors far beyond her strength sowed the seeds of
+early death. For two years she struggled amid such suffering as dying
+lungs entail to help her mother and younger brothers and sisters, but at
+last she was compelled to make her bed amid sorrow and suffering which
+she could no longer assuage by her helpful hands and gentle words.
+
+Her religious education had not been quite neglected, and she dimly
+comprehended that through the narrow valley which lay between Time and
+Eternity she would need a surer and more infallible guide than her own
+sadly precocious intellect. Then God sent her just the help she
+needed--a tender, pitiful, hopeful woman full of the love of Jesus.
+
+Souls ripen quickly in the atmosphere of the Border Land, and very soon
+Mary had learned how to walk without fearing any evil. Certain passages
+of Scripture burned with a supernatural glory, and made the darkness
+light; and there were also a few hymns which struck the finest chords
+in her heart, and
+
+    "'Mid days of keenest anguish
+      And nights devoid of ease,
+    Filled all her soul with music
+      Of wondrous melodies."
+
+As she neared the deeper darkness of death, this was especially
+remarkable of that extraordinary hymn called "The Light of Death," by
+Dr. Faber. From the first it had fascinated her. "Has he been _here_
+that he knows just how it feels?" she asked, wonderingly, and then
+solemnly repeated:
+
+    "Saviour, what means this breadth of death,
+      This space before me lying;
+    These deeps where life so lingereth,
+      This difficulty of dying?
+    So many turns abrupt and rude,
+      Such ever-shifting grounds,
+    Such strangely peopled solitudes,
+      Such strangely silent sounds?'"
+
+Her sufferings were very great, and sometimes the physical depression
+exerted a definable influence on her spiritual state. Still she never
+lost her consciousness of the presence of her Guide and Saviour, and
+once, in the exhaustion of a severe paroxysm, she murmured two lines
+from the same grand hymn:
+
+    "Deeper! dark, dark, but yet I follow:
+      Tighten, dear Lord, thy clasp."
+
+Ah! there was something touching and noble beyond all words, in this
+complete reliance and perfect trust; and it never again wavered.
+
+"Is it _very_ dark, Mary dear?" her friend said one morning, the _last_
+for her on earth.
+
+"Too dark to see," she whispered, "but I can go on if Christ will hold
+my hand."
+
+After this a great solemnity shaded her face; she lost all consciousness
+of this world. The frail, shadowy little body lay gray and passive,
+while that greatest of all struggles was going on--the struggle of the
+Eternal out of Time; but her lips moved incessantly, and occasionally
+some speech of earth told the anxious watchers how hard the conflict
+was. For instance, toward sundown she said in a voice strangely solemn
+and anxious:
+
+    "Who are we trying to avoid?
+      From whom, Lord, must we hide?
+    Oh! can the dying be decoyed,
+      With the Saviour by his side?"
+
+"Loose sands and all things sinking!" "Are we near eternity?" "Can I
+fall from Thee even now?" and ejaculations of similar kind, showed that
+the spiritual struggle was a very palpable one to her; but it ended in a
+great calm. For two hours she lay in a peace that passeth understanding,
+and you would have said that she was dead but for a vague look of
+expectancy in the happy, restful face. Then suddenly there was a
+lightening of the whole countenance; she stretched out her arms to meet
+the messenger of the King, and entered heaven with this prayer on her
+lips:
+
+    "_Both hands_, dear Lord, _both hands_.'"
+
+Don't doubt but she got them; their mighty strength lifted her over the
+dark river almost dry shod.
+
+    "Rests she not well whose pilgrim staff and shoon
+      Lie in her tent--for on the golden street
+    She walks and stumbles not on roads star strewn
+      With her unsandalled feet."
+
+
+
+
+THE HEIRESS OF KURSTON CHACE.
+
+
+Into the usual stillness of Kurston Chace a strange bustle and
+excitement had come--the master was returning with a young bride, whom
+report spoke of as "bewitchingly beautiful." It was easy to believe
+report in this case, for there must have been some strong inducement to
+make Frederick Kurston wed in his sixtieth year a woman barely twenty.
+It was not money; Mr. Kurston had plenty of money, and he was neither
+ambitious nor avaricious; besides, the woman he had chosen was both poor
+and extravagant.
+
+For once report was correct. Clementina Gray, in tarlatans and flowers,
+had been a great beauty; and Clementina Kurston, in silks and diamonds,
+was a woman dedicated, by Nature for conquest.
+
+It was Clementina's beauty that had prevailed over the love-hardened
+heart of the gay old gallant, who had escaped the dangers of forty
+seasons of flirtation. He was entangled in the meshes of her golden
+hair, fascinated by the spell of her love-languid eyes, her mouth like a
+sad, heavy rose, her faultless form and her superb manners. He was blind
+to all her faults; deaf to all his friends--in the glamour of her
+enchantments he submitted to her implicitly, even while both his reason
+and his sense of other obligations pleaded for recognition.
+
+Clementina had not won him very easily; the summer was quite over,
+nearly all the visitors at the stylish little watering-place had
+departed, the mornings and evenings were chilly, every day Mr. Kurston
+spoke of his departure, and she herself was watching her maid pack her
+trunks, and in no very amiable temper contemplating defeat, when the
+reward of her seductive attentions came.
+
+"Mr. Kurston entreated the favor of an interview."
+
+She gladly accorded it; she robed herself with subtle skill; she made
+herself marvelous.
+
+"Mother," she said, as she left her dressing-room, "you will have a
+headache. I shall excuse you. I can manage this business best alone."
+
+In an hour she came back triumphant. She put her feet on the fender, and
+sat down before the cheerful blaze to "talk it over."
+
+"It is all right, mother. Good-by to our miserable shifts and
+shabby-genteel lodgings and turned dresses. He will settle Kurston Chace
+and all he has upon me, and we are to be married next month."
+
+"Impossible, Tina! No _modiste_ in the world could get the things that
+are absolutely necessary ready in that time."
+
+"Everything is possible in New York--if you have money--and Uncle Gray
+will be ready enough to buy my marriage clothes. Besides, I am going to
+run no risks. If he should die, nothing on earth could console me for
+the trouble I have had with him, but the fact of being his widow. There
+is no sentiment in the affair, and the sooner one gets to ordering
+dinners and running up bills, the better."
+
+"Poor Philip Lee!"
+
+"Mother, why did you mention him? Of course he will be angry, and call
+me all kinds of unpleasant names; but if he has a particle of common
+sense he must see that it was impossible for me to marry a poor
+lawyer--especially when I had such a much better offer. I suppose he
+will be here to-night. You must see him, mother, and explain things as
+pleasantly as possible. It would scarcely be proper for me, as Mr.
+Kurston's affianced wife, to listen to all the ravings and protestations
+he is sure to indulge in."
+
+In this supposition Clementina was mistaken. Philip Lee took the news of
+her engagement to his wealthy rival with blank calmness and a civil wish
+for her happiness. He made a stay of conventional propriety, and said
+all the usual polite platitudes, and then went away without any evidence
+of the deep suffering and mortification he felt.
+
+This was Clementina's first drop of bitterness in her cup of success.
+She questioned her mother closely as to how he looked, and what he said.
+It did not please her that, instead of bemoaning his own loss, he should
+be feeling a contempt for her duplicity--that he should use her to cure
+his passion, when she meant to wound him still deeper. She felt at
+moments as if she could give up for Philip Lee the wealth and position
+she had so hardly won, only she knew him well enough to understand that
+henceforward she could not easily deceive him again.
+
+It was pleasant to return to New York this fall; the news of the
+engagement opened everyone's heart and home. Congratulations came from
+every quarter; even Uncle Gray praised the girl who had done so well for
+herself, and signified his approval by a handsome check.
+
+The course of this love ran smooth enough, and one fine morning in
+October, Grace Church saw a splendid wedding. Henceforward Clementina
+Kurston was a woman to be courted instead of patronized, and many a
+woman who had spoken lightly of her beauty and qualities, was made to
+acknowledge with an envious pang that she had distanced them.
+
+This was her first reward, and she did not stint herself in extorting
+it. To tell the truth, Clementina had many a bitter score of this kind
+to pay off; for, as she said in extenuation, it was impossible for her
+to allow herself to be in debt to her self-respect.
+
+Well, the wedding was over. She had abundantly gratified her taste for
+splendor; she had smiled on those on whom she willed to smile; she had
+treated herself extravagantly to the dangerous pleasure of social
+revenge; she was now anxious to go and take possession of her home,
+which had the reputation of being one of the oldest and handsomest in
+the country.
+
+Mr. Kurston, hitherto, had been intoxicated with love, and not a little
+flattered by the brilliant position which his wife had at once claimed.
+Now that she was his wife, it amused him to see her order and patronize
+and dispense with all that royal prerogative which belongs to beauty,
+supported by wealth and position.
+
+Into his great happiness he had suffered no doubt, no fear of the
+future, to come; but, as the day approached for their departure for
+Kurston Chace, he grew singularly restless and uneasy.
+
+For, much as he loved and obeyed the woman whom he called "wife," there
+was another woman at Kurston whom he called "daughter," that he loved
+quite as dearly, in a different way. In fact, of his daughter, Athel
+Kurston, he stood just a little bit in fear, and she had ruled the
+household at the Chace for many years as absolute mistress.
+
+No one knew anything of her mother; he had brought her to her present
+home when only five years old, after a long stay on the Continent. A
+strange woman, wearing the dress of a Sclavonic peasant, came with the
+child as nurse; but she had never learnt to speak English, and had now
+been many years dead.
+
+Athel knew nothing of her mother, and her early attempts to question her
+father concerning her had been so peremptorily rebuffed that she had
+long ago ceased to indulge in any curiosity regarding her.
+However--though she knew it not--no one regarded her as Mr. Kurston's
+heir; indeed, nothing in her father's conduct sanctioned such a
+conclusion. True, he loved her dearly, and had spared no pains in her
+education; but he never took her with him into the world, and, except in
+the neighborhood of the Chace, her very existence was not known of.
+
+She was as old as his new wife, willful, proud, accustomed to rule, not
+likely to obey. He had said nothing to Clementina of her existence; he
+had said nothing to his daughter of his marriage; and now both facts
+could no longer be concealed.
+
+But Frederick Kurston had all his life trusted to circumstances, and he
+was rather disposed, in this matter, to let the women settle affairs
+between them without troubling himself to enter into explanations with
+either of them. So, to Athel he wrote a tender little note, assuming
+that she would be delighted to hear of his marriage, as it promised her
+a pleasant companion, and directing her to have all possible
+arrangements made to add to the beauty and comfort of the house.
+
+To Mrs. Kurston he said nothing. The elegantly dressed young lady who
+met her with a curious and rather constrained welcome was to her a
+genuine surprise. Her air of authority and rich dress precluded the idea
+of a dependent; Mr. Kurston had kissed her lovingly, the servants obeyed
+her. But she was far too prudent to make inquiries on unknown ground;
+she disappeared, with her maid, on the plea of weariness, and from the
+vantage-ground of her retirement sent Félicité to take observations.
+
+The little French maid found no difficulty in arriving at the truth, and
+Mrs. Kurston, not unjustly angry, entered the drawing-room fully
+prepared to defend her rights.
+
+"Who was that young person, Frederick, dear, that I saw when we
+arrived?"
+
+This question in the very sweetest tone, and with that caressing manner
+she had always found omnipotent.
+
+"That young person is Miss Athel Kurston, Clementina."
+
+This answer in the very decided, and yet nervous, manner people on the
+defensive generally assume.
+
+"Miss Kurston? Your sister, Frederick?"
+
+"No; my daughter, Clementina."
+
+"But you were never married before?"
+
+"So people say."
+
+"Then, do you really expect me to live in the same house with a person
+of--"
+
+"I see no reason why you should not--that is, if you live in the same
+house with me."
+
+A passionate burst of tears, an utter abandonment of distress, and the
+infatuated husband was willing to promise anything--everything--that his
+charmer demanded--that is, for the time; for Athel Kurston's influence
+was really stronger than her step-mother's, and the promises extorted
+from his lower passions were indefinitely postponed by his nobler
+feelings.
+
+A divided household is always a miserable one; but the chief sufferer
+here was Mr. Kurston, and Athel, who loved him with a sincere and
+profound affection, determined to submit to circumstances for his sake.
+
+One morning, he found on his table a letter from her stating that, to
+procure him peace, she had left a home that would be ever dear to her,
+assuring him that she had secured a comfortable and respectable asylum;
+but earnestly entreating that he would make no inquiries about her, as
+she had changed her name, and would not be discovered without causing a
+degree of gossip and evil-speaking injurious to both himself and her.
+
+This letter completely broke the power of Clementina over her husband.
+He asserted at once his authority, and insisted on returning immediately
+to New York, where he thought it likely Athel had gone, and where, at
+any rate, he could find suitable persons to aid him in his search for
+her--a search which was henceforth the chief object of his life.
+
+A splendid house was taken, and Mrs. Kurston at once assumed the
+position of a leader in the world of fashion. Greatly to her
+satisfaction, Philip Lee was a favorite in the exclusive circle in which
+she moved, and she speedily began the pretty, penitent, dejected rôle
+which she judged would be most effective with him. But, though she would
+not see it, Philip Lee was proof against all her blandishments. He was
+not the man to be deluded twice by the same false woman; he was a man of
+honor, and detested the social ethics which scoffed at humanity's
+holiest tie; and he was deeply in love with a woman who was the very
+antipodes of the married siren.
+
+Yet he visited frequently at the Kurston mansion, and became a great
+favorite, and finally the friend and confidant of its master. Gradually,
+as month after month passed, the business of the Kurston estate came
+into his hands, and he could have told, to the fraction of a dollar, the
+exact sum for which Clementina Gray sold herself.
+
+Two years passed away. There was no longer on Clementina's part, any
+pretence of affection for her husband; she went her own way, and devoted
+herself to her own interests and amusements. He wearied with a hopeless
+search and anxiety that found no relief, aged very rapidly, and became
+subject to serious attacks of illness, any one of which might deprive
+him of life.
+
+His wife now regretted that she had married so hastily; the settlements
+promised had been delayed; she had trusted to her influence to obtain
+more as his wife than as his betrothed. She had not known of a
+counter-influence, and she had not calculated that the effort of a
+life-long deception might be too much for her. Quarrels had arisen in
+the very beginning of their life at Kurston, the disappearance of Athel
+had never been forgiven, and now Mrs. Kurston became violently angry if
+the settlement and disposing of his property was named.
+
+One night, in the middle of the third winter after Athel's
+disappearance, Philip Lee called with an important lease for Mr. Kurston
+to sign. He found him alone, and strangely moved and sorrowful. He
+signed the papers as Philip directed him, and then requested him to lock
+the door and sit down.
+
+"I am going," he said, "to confide to you, Philip Lee, a sacred trust. I
+do not think I shall live long, and I leave a duty unfulfilled that
+makes to me the bitterness of death. I have a daughter--the lawful
+heiress of the Kurston lands--whom my wife drove, by subtle and
+persistent cruelty, from her home. By no means have I been able to
+discover her; but you must continue the search, and see her put in
+possession of her rights."
+
+"But what proofs, sir, can you give me in order to establish them?"
+
+"They are all in this box--everything that is necessary. Take it with
+you to your office to-night. Her mother--ah, me, how I loved her--was a
+Polish lady of good family; but I have neither time nor inclination now
+to explain to you, or to excuse myself for the paltry vanities which
+induced me to conceal my marriage. In those days I cared so much for
+what society said that I never listened to the voice of my heart or my
+conscience. I hope, I trust, I may still right both the dead and the
+living!"
+
+Mr. Kurston's presentiment of death was no delusive one; he sank
+gradually during the following week, and died--his last word,
+"Remember!" being addressed, with all the strong beseeching of a dying
+injunction, to Philip Lee.
+
+A free woman, and a rich one, Mrs. Kurston turned with all the ardor of
+a sentimental woman to her first and--as she chose to consider it--her
+only true affection. She was now in a position to woo the poor lawyer,
+dependent in a great measure on her continuing to him the management of
+the Kurston property.
+
+Business brought them continually together, and it was neither possible
+nor prudent for him to always reject the attentions she offered. The
+world began to freely connect their names, and it was with much
+difficulty that he could convince even his most intimate friends of his
+indifference to the rich and beautiful widow.
+
+He found himself, indeed, becoming gradually entangled in a net of
+circumstances it would soon be difficult to get honorably out of.
+
+The widow received him at every visit more like a lover, and less like a
+lawyer; men congratulated or envied him, women tacitly assumed his
+engagement. There was but one way to free himself from the toils the
+artful widow was encompassing him with--he must marry some one else.
+
+But whom? The only girl he loved was poor, and had already refused him;
+yet he was sure she loved him, and something bid him try again. He had
+half a mind to do so, and "half a mind" in love is quite enough to begin
+with.
+
+So he put on his hat and went to his sister's house. He knew she was out
+driving--had seen her pass five minutes before on her way to the park.
+Then what did he go there for? Because he judged from experience, that
+at this hour lovely Pauline Alexes, governess to his sister's daughters,
+was at home and alone.
+
+He was not wrong; she came into the parlor by one door as he entered it
+by the other. The coincidence was auspicious, and he warmly pressed his
+suit, pouring into Pauline's ears such a confused account of his
+feelings and his affairs as only love could disentangle and understand.
+
+"But, Philip," said Pauline, "do you mean to say that this Mrs. Kurston
+makes love to you? Is she not a married woman, and her husband your best
+friend and patron?"
+
+"Mr. Kurston, Pauline darling, is dead!"
+
+"Dead! dead! Oh, Philip! Oh, my father! my father!" And the poor girl
+threw herself, with passionate sobbings, among the cushions of the sofa.
+
+This was a revelation. Here, in Pauline Alexes, the girl he had fondly
+loved for nearly three years, Philip found the long-sought heiress of
+Kurston Chace!
+
+Bitter, indeed, was her grief when she learned how sorrowfully her
+father had sought her; but she was scarcely to be blamed for not knowing
+of, and responding to, his late repentance of the life-long wrong he had
+done her. For Philip's sister moved far outside the narrow and supreme
+circle of the Kurstons.
+
+She had hidden her identity in her mother's maiden name--the only thing
+she knew of her mother. She had never seen her father since her flight
+from her home but in public, accompanied by his wife; she had no reason
+to suppose the influence of that wife any weaker; she had been made, by
+cruel innuendoes, to doubt both the right and the inclination of her
+father to protect her.
+
+It now became Philip's duty to acquaint the second Mrs. Kurston with
+her true position, and to take the necessary steps to reinstate Athel
+Kurston in her rights.
+
+Of course, he had to bear many unkind suspicions--even his friends
+believed him to have been cognizant all the time of the identity of
+Pauline Alexes with Athel Kurston--and he was complimented on his
+cleverness in securing the property, with the daughter, instead of the
+widow, for an incumbrance. But those may laugh who win, and these things
+scarcely touched the happiness of Philip and Athel.
+
+As for Mrs. Kurston she made a still more brilliant marriage, and gave
+up the Kurston estate with an ostentatious indifference. "She was glad
+to get rid of it; it had brought her nothing but sorrow and
+disappointment," etc.
+
+But from the heights of her social autocracy, clothed in Worth's
+greatest inspirations, wearing priceless lace and jewels, dwelling in
+unrivalled splendor, she looked with regret on the man whom she had
+rejected for his poverty.
+
+She saw him grow to be the pride of his State and the honor of his
+country. Loveless and childless, she saw his boys and girls cling to the
+woman she hated as their "mother," and knew that they filled with light
+and love the grand old home for which she had first of all sacrificed
+her affection and her womanhood.
+
+
+
+
+"ONLY THIS ONCE."
+
+
+Over the solemn mountains and the misty moorlands the chill spring night
+was falling. David Scott, master shepherd for MacAllister, of Allister,
+thought of his ewes and lambs, pulled his Scotch bonnet over his brows,
+and taking his staff in his hand, turned his face to the hills.
+
+David Scott was a mystic in his own way; the mountains were to him
+"temples not made with hands," and in them he had seen and heard
+wonderful things. Years of silent communion with nature had made him
+love her in all her moods, and he passionately believed in God.
+
+The fold was far up the mountains, but the sheep knew the shepherd's
+voice, and the peculiar bark of his dog; they answered them gladly, and
+were soon safely and warmly housed. Then David and Keeper slowly took
+their way homeward, for the steep, rocky hills were not easy walking for
+an old man in the late gloaming.
+
+Passing a wild cairn of immense stones, Keeper suddenly began to bark
+furiously, and a tall, slight figure leaped from their shelter, raised a
+stick, and would have struck the dog if David had not called out,
+"Never strie a sheep-dog, mon! The bestie willna harm ye."
+
+The stranger then came forward; asked David if there was any cottage
+near where he could rest all night, said that he had come out for a
+day's fishing, had got separated from his companions, lost his way and
+was hungry and worn out.
+
+David looked him steadily in the face and read aright the nervous manner
+and assumed indifference. However, hospitality is a sacred tradition
+among Scotch mountaineers, whoever, or whatever the young man was, David
+acknowledged his weariness and hunger as sufficient claim upon his oaten
+cake and his embers.
+
+It was evident in a few moments that Mr. Semple was not used to the
+hills. David's long, firm walk was beyond the young man's efforts; he
+stumbled frequently in the descent, the springy step necessary when they
+came to the heather distressed him; he was almost afraid of the gullies
+David took without a thought. These things the old man noted, and they
+weighed far more with him than all the boastful tongue could say.
+
+The cottage was soon reached--a very humble one--only "a but and a ben,"
+with small windows, and a thatched roof; but Scotland has reared great
+men in such cottages, and no one could say that it was not clean and
+cheerful. The fire burnt brightly upon the white hearthstone, and a
+little round deal table stood before it. Upon this table were oaten
+cakes and Ayreshire cheese and new milk, and by its side sat a young man
+reading.
+
+"Archie, here is a strange _gentleman_ I found up at Donald's cairn."
+
+The two youths exchanged looks and disliked each other. Yet Archie Scott
+rose, laid aside his book, and courteously offered his seat by the fire.
+The stranger took it, eat heartily of the simple meal, joined decently
+in their solemn worship, and was soon fast asleep in Archie's bed. Then
+the old man and his son sat down and curtly exchanged their opinions.
+
+"I don't like yon lad, fayther, and I more than distrust his being aught
+o' a gentleman."
+
+David smoked steadily a few minutes ere he replied:
+
+"He's eat and drank and knelt wi' us, Archie, and it's nane o' our duty
+to judge him."
+
+When Archie spoke again it was of other matters.
+
+"Fayther, I'm sore troubled wi' MacAllister's accounts; what wi' the
+sheep bills and the timber and the kelp, things look in a mess like.
+There is a right way and a wrong way to keep tally of them and I can't
+find it out."
+
+"The right way is to keep the facts all correct and honest to a straw's
+worth--then the figures are bound to come right, I should say."
+
+It was an old trouble that Archie complained about. He was MacAllister's
+steward, appointed by virtue of his sterling character and known worth;
+but struggling constantly with ignorance of the methods by which even
+the most honest business can alone satisfactorily prove its honest
+condition.
+
+When Mr. Semple awoke next morning, Archie had disappeared, and David
+was standing in the door, smoking. David liked his guest less in the
+morning than he had done at night.
+
+"Ye dinna seem to relish your parritch, sir," said David rather grimly.
+
+Mr. Semple said he really had never been accustomed to anything but
+strong tea and hot rolls, with a little kippered salmon or marmalade; he
+had never tasted porridge before.
+
+"More's the pity, my lad. Maybe if you had been brought up on decent
+oatmeal you would hae thankit God for your food;" for Mr. Semple's
+omission of grace, either before or after his meat, greatly displeased
+the old man.
+
+The youth yawned, sauntered to the door, and looked out. There was a
+fresh wind, bringing with it flying showers and damp, chilling
+mists--wet heather under foot, and no sunshine above. David saw
+something in the anxious, wretched face that aroused keen suspicion. He
+looked steadily into Mr. Semple's pale, blue eyes, and said:
+
+"Wha are you rinnin awa from, my lad?"
+
+"Sir!"
+
+There was a moment's angry silence. Suddenly David raised his hand,
+shaded his eyes and peered keenly down the hills. Mr. Semple followed
+this movement with great interest.
+
+"What are you looking at, Mr. Scott? Oh! I see. Two men coming up this
+way. Do you know who they are?"
+
+"They may be gangers or they may be strangers, or they may be
+policemen--I dinna ken them mysel'."
+
+"Mr. Scott! For God's sake, Mr. Scott! Don't give me up, and I will tell
+you the whole truth."
+
+"I thought so!" said David, sternly. "Well, come up the hills wi' me;
+yon men will be here in ten minutes, whoever they are."
+
+There were numerous places of partial shelter known to the shepherd, and
+he soon led the way to a kind of cave, pretty well concealed by
+overhanging rocks and trailing, briery stems.
+
+The two sat down on a rude granite bowlder, and the elder having waited
+until his companion had regained his breath, said:
+
+"You'll fare best wi' me, lad, if you tell the truth in as few words as
+may be; I dinna like fine speeches."
+
+"Mr. Scott, I am Duncan Nevin's bookkeeper and cashier. He's a tea
+dealer in the Gallowgate of Glasgow. I'm short in my cash, and he's a
+hard man, so I run away."
+
+"Sortie, lad! Your cash dinna gang wrang o' itself. If you werna ashamed
+to steal it, ye needna be ashamed to confess it. Begin at the
+beginning."
+
+The young man told his shameful story. He had got into gay, dissipated
+ways, and to meet a sudden demand had taken three pounds from his
+employer _for just once_. But the three pounds had swollen into sixteen,
+and finding it impossible to replace it, he had taken ten more and fled,
+hoping to hide in the hills till he could get rowed off to some passing
+ship and escape to America. He had no friends, and neither father nor
+mother. At mention of this fact, David's face relaxed.
+
+"Puir lad!" he muttered. "Nae father, and nae mother, 'specially; that's
+a awfu' drawback."
+
+"You may give me up if you like, Mr. Scott. I don't care much; I've
+been a wretched fellow for many a week; I am most broken-hearted
+to-day."
+
+"It's not David Scott that will make himself hard to a broken heart,
+when God in heaven has promised to listen to it. I'll tell you what I
+will do. You shall gie me all the money you have, every shilling; it's
+nane o' yours, ye ken that weel; and I'll take it to your master, and
+get him to pass by the ither till you can earn it. I've got a son, a
+decent, hard-working lad, who's daft to learn your trade--bookkeeping.
+Ye sail stay wi' me till he kens a' the ins and outs o' it, then I'll
+gie ye twenty pounds. I ken weel this is a big sum, and it will make a
+big hole in my little book at the Ayr Bank, but it will set Archie up.
+
+"Then when ye have earned it, ye can pay back all you have stolen,
+forbye having four pounds left for a nest-egg to start again wi'. I
+dinna often treat mysel' to such a bit o' charity as this, and, 'deed,
+if I get na mair thanks fra heaven, than I seem like to get fra you,
+there 'ud be meikle use in it," for Alexander Semple had heard the
+proposal with a dour and thankless face, far from encouraging to the
+good man who made it. It did not suit that youth to work all summer in
+order to pay back what he had come to regard as "off his mind;" to
+denude himself of every shilling, and be entirely dependent on the
+sternly just man before him. Yet what could he do? He was fully in
+David's power; so he signified his assent, and sullenly enough gave up
+the £9 14s. 2d. in his possession.
+
+"I'm a good bookkeeper, Mr. Scott," he said; "the bargain is fair enough
+for you."
+
+"I ken Donald Nevin; he's a Campletown man, and I ken you wouldna hae
+keepit his books if you hadna had your business at your finger-ends."
+
+The next day David went to Glasgow, and saw Mr. Semple's master. The £9
+odd was lost money found, and predisposed him to the arrangement
+proposed. David got little encouragement from Mr. Nevin, however; he
+acknowledged the clerk's skill in accounts, but he was conceited of his
+appearance, ambitious of being a fashionable man, had weak principles
+and was intensely selfish. David almost repented him of his kindness,
+and counted grudgingly the shillings that the journey and the carriage
+of Mr. Semple's trunks cost him.
+
+Indeed it was a week or two before things settled pleasantly in the hill
+cottage; the plain living, pious habits and early hours of the shepherd
+and his son did not at all suit the city youth. But Archie, though
+ignorant of the reasons which kept such a dandy in their humble home,
+soon perceived clearly the benefit he could derive from him. And once
+Archie got an inkling of the meaning of "double entry" he was never
+weary of applying it to his own particular business; so that in a few
+weeks Alexander Semple was perfectly familiar with MacAllister's
+affairs.
+
+Still, Archie cordially disliked his teacher, and about the middle of
+summer it became evident that a very serious cause of quarrel was
+complicating the offence. Coming up from MacAllister's one lovely summer
+gloaming Archie met Semple with Katie Morrison, the little girl whom he
+had loved and courted since ever he carried her dinner and slate to
+school for her. How they had come to know each other he could not tell;
+he had exercised all his tact and prudence to prevent it, evidently
+without avail. He passed the couple with ill-concealed anger; Katie
+looked down, Semple nodded in what Archie believed to be an insolent
+manner.
+
+That night David Scott heard from his son such an outburst of anger as
+the lad had never before exhibited. In a few days Mr. Semple went to
+Greenock for a day or two. Soon it was discovered that Katie had been in
+Greenock two days at her married sister's. Then they heard that the
+couple had married and were to sail for America. They then discovered
+that Archie's desk had been opened and £46 in notes and gold taken.
+Neither of the men had any doubt as to the thief; and therefore Archie
+was angry and astonished to find his father doubt and waver and seem
+averse to pursue him. At last he acknowledged all, told Archie that if
+he made known his loss, _he also_ must confess that he had knowingly
+harbored an acknowledged thief, and tacitly given him the opportunity of
+wronging his employer. He doubted very much whether anyone would give
+him credit for the better feelings which had led him to this course of
+conduct.
+
+Archie's anger cooled at once; he saw the dilemma; to these simple
+people a good name was better than gold. It took nearly half the savings
+of a long life, but the old man went to Ayr and drew sufficient to
+replace the stolen money. He needed to make no inquiries about Semple.
+On Tuesday it was known by everyone in the village that Katie Morrison
+and Alexander Semple had been married the previous Friday, and sailed
+for America the next day. After this certainty father and son never
+named the subject but once more. It was on one calm, spring evening,
+some ten years after, and David lay within an hour of the grave.
+
+"Archie!" he said, suddenly, "I don't regret to-night what I did ten
+years ago. Virtuous actions sometimes fail, but virtuous lives--never!
+Perhaps I had a thought o' self in my good intent, and that spoiled all.
+If thou hast ever a chance, do better than I did."
+
+"I will, father."
+
+During these ten years there had been occasional news from the exiles.
+Mrs. Morrison stopped Archie at intervals, as he passed her door, and
+said there had been a letter from Katie. At first they came frequently,
+and were tinged with brightest hopes. Alexander had a fine place, and
+their baby was the most beautiful in the world. The next news was that
+Alexander was in business for himself and making money rapidly. Handsome
+presents, that were the wonder of the village, then came occasionally,
+and also remittances of money that made the poor mother hold her head
+proudly about "our Katie" and her "splendid house and carriage."
+
+But suddenly all letters stopped, and the mother thought for long they
+must be coming to see her, but this hope and many another faded, and the
+fair morning of Katie's marriage was shrouded in impenetrable gloom and
+mystery.
+
+Archie got bravely over his trouble, and a while after his father's
+death married a good little woman, not quite without "the bit of
+siller." Soon after he took his savings to Edinburgh and joined his
+wife's brother in business there. Things prospered with him, slowly but
+surely, and he became known for a steady, prosperous merchant, and a
+douce pious householder, the father of a fine lot of sons and daughters.
+
+One night, twenty years after the beginning of my story, he was passing
+through the old town of Edinburgh, when a wild cry of "Fire! Fire!
+Fire!" arose on every side of him.
+
+"Where?" he asked of the shrieking women pouring from all the filthy,
+narrow wynds around.
+
+"In Gordon's Wynd."
+
+He was there almost the first of any efficient aid, striving to make his
+way up the smoke-filled stairs, but this was impossible. The house was
+one of those ancient ones, piled story upon story; so old that it was
+almost tinder. But those on the opposite side were so close that not
+unfrequently a plank or two flung across from opposite windows made a
+bridge for the benefit of those seeking to elude justice.
+
+By means of such a bridge all the inhabitants of the burning house were
+removed, and no one was more energetic in carrying the women and
+children across the dangerous planks than Archie Scott; for his mountain
+training had made such a feat one of no extraordinary danger to him.
+Satisfied at length that all life was out of risk, he was turning to go
+home, when a white, terrible face looked out of the top-most floor,
+showing itself amid the gusts of smoke like the dream of a corpse, and
+screaming for help in agonizing tones. Archie knew that face only too
+well. But he remembered, in the same instant, what his father had said
+in dying, and, swift as a mountain deer, he was quickly on the top floor
+of the opposite house again.
+
+In a few moments the planks bridged the distance between death and
+safety; but no entreaties could make the man risk the dangerous passage.
+Setting tight his lips, Archie went for the shrieking coward, and
+carried him into the opposite house. Then the saved man recognized his
+preserver.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Scott!" he said, "for God's sake, my wife and my child! The
+last of seven!"
+
+"You scoundrel! Do you mean to say you saved yourself before Katie and
+your child!"
+
+Archie did not wait for the answer; again he was at the window of the
+burning room. Too late! The flames were already devouring what the smoke
+had smothered; their wretched pallet was a funeral pyre. He had hardly
+time to save his own life.
+
+"They are dead, Semple!"
+
+Then the poor creature burst into a paroxysm of grief, moaned and
+cried, and begged a few shillings, and vowed he was the most miserable
+creature on earth.
+
+After this Archie Scott strove for two years to do without taint of
+selfishness what his father had begun twenty years before. But there was
+not much now left to work upon--health, honor, self-respect were all
+gone. Poor Semple was content to eat the bread of dependence, and then
+make boastful speeches of his former wealth and position. To tell of his
+wonderful schemes, and to abuse his luck and his false friends, and
+everything and everybody, but the real cause of his misfortune.
+
+Archie gave him some trifling post, with a salary sufficient for every
+decent want, and never heeded, though he knew Semple constantly spoke
+ill of him behind his back.
+
+However the trial of Archie's patience and promise did not last very
+long. It was a cold, snowy night in mid-winter that Archie was called
+upon to exercise for the last time his charity and forbearance toward
+him; and the parting scene paid for all. For, in the shadow of the
+grave, the poor, struggling soul dropped all pretences, acknowledged all
+its shortcomings, thanked the forbearance and charity which had been
+extended so many years, and humbly repented of its lost and wasted
+opportunities.
+
+"Draw close to me, Archie Scott," he said, "and tell your four brave
+boys what my dying words to them were: Never to yield to temptation for
+_only this once_. To be quite sure that all the gear and gold that
+_comes with sin_ will _go with sorrow_. And never to doubt that to every
+_evil doer_ will certainly come his _evil day_."
+
+
+
+
+PETRALTO'S LOVE STORY.
+
+
+I am addicted to making strange friendships, to liking people whom I
+have no conventional authority to like--people out of "my set," and not
+always of my own nationality. I do not say that I have always been
+fortunate in these ventures; but I have had sufficient splendid
+exceptions to excuse the social aberration, and make me think that all
+of us might oftener trust our own instincts, oftener accept the friends
+that circumstance and opportunity offer us, with advantage. At any rate,
+the peradventure in chance associations has always been very attractive
+to me.
+
+In some irregular way I became acquainted with Petralto Garcia. I
+believe I owed the introduction to my beautiful hound, Lutha; but, at
+any rate, our first conversation was quite as sensible as if we had gone
+through the legitimate initiation. I know it was in the mountains, and
+that within an hour our tastes and sympathies had touched each other at
+twenty different points.
+
+Lutha walked beside us, showing in his mien something of the proud
+satisfaction which follows a conviction of having done a good thing. He
+looked first at me and then at Petralto, elevating and depressing his
+ears at our argument, as if he understood all about it. Perhaps he did;
+human beings don't know everything.
+
+People have so much time in the country that it is little wonder that
+our acquaintance ripened into friendship during the holidays, and that
+one of my first visits when I had got settled for the winter was to
+Petralto's rooms. Their locality might have cooled some people, but not
+me. It does not take much of an education in New York life to find out
+that the pleasantest, loftiest, handsomest rooms are to be found in the
+streets not very far "up town;" comfortably contiguous to the best
+hotels, stores, theatres, picture galleries, and all the other
+necessaries of a pleasant existence.
+
+He was just leaving the door for a ride in the park, and we went
+together. I had refused the park twice within an hour, and had told
+myself that nothing should induce me to follow that treadmill procession
+again, yet when he said, in his quiet way, "You had better take half an
+hour's ride, Jack," I felt like going, and I went.
+
+Now just as we got to the Fifth Avenue entrance, a singular thing
+happened. Petralto's pale olive face flushed a bright crimson, his eyes
+flashed and dropped; he whipped the horse into a furious gallop, as if
+he would escape something; then became preternaturally calm, drew
+suddenly up, and stood waiting for a handsome equipage which was
+approaching. Its occupants were bending forward to speak to him. I had
+no eyes for the gentleman, the girl at his side was so radiantly
+beautiful.
+
+I heard Petralto promise to call on them, and we passed on; but there
+was a look on his face which bespoke both sympathy and silence. He soon
+complained of the cold, said the park pace irritated him, but still
+passed and repassed the couple who had caused him such evident
+suffering, as if he was determined to inure himself to the pain of
+meeting them. During this interval I had time to notice the caressing,
+lover-like attitude of the beauty's companion, and I said, as they
+entered a stately house together, "Are they married?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He seems devotedly in love with her."
+
+"He loved her two years before he saw her."
+
+"Impossible."
+
+"Not at all. I have a mind to tell you the story."
+
+"Do. Come home with me, and we will have a quiet dinner together."
+
+"No. I need to be alone an hour or two. Call on me about nine o'clock."
+
+Petralto's rooms were a little astonishment to me. They were luxurious
+in the extreme, with just that excess of ornament which suggests
+under-civilization; and yet I found him smoking in a studio destitute of
+everything but a sleepy-looking sofa, two or three capacious lounging
+chairs, and the ordinary furniture of an artist's atelier. There was a
+bright fire in the grate, a flood of light from the numerous gas jets,
+and an atmosphere heavy with the seductive, fragrant vapor of Havana.
+
+I lit my own cigar, made myself comfortable, and waited until it was
+Petralto's pleasure to begin. After a while he said, "Jack, turn that
+easel so that you can see the picture on it."
+
+I did so.
+
+"Now, look at it well, and tell me what you see; first, the
+locality--describe it."
+
+"A dim old wood, with sunlight sifting through thick foliage, and long
+streamers of weird grey moss. The ground is covered with soft short
+grass of an intense green, and there are wonderful flowers of wonderful
+colors."
+
+"Right. It is an opening in the forest of the Upper Guadalupe. Now, what
+else do you see?"
+
+"A small pony, saddled and bridled, feeding quietly, and a young girl
+standing on tip-toe, pulling down a vine loaded with golden-colored
+flowers."
+
+"Describe the girl to me."
+
+I turned and looked at my querist. He was smoking, with shut eyes, and
+waiting calmly for my answer. "Well, she has--Petralto, what makes you
+ask me? You might paint, but it is impossible to describe _light_; and
+the girl is nothing else. If I had met her in such a wood, I should have
+thought she was an angel, and been afraid of her."
+
+"No angel, Jack, but a most exquisite, perfect flower of maidenhood.
+When I first saw her, she stood just so, with her open palms full of
+yellow jasmine. I laid my heart into them, too, my whole heart, my whole
+life, and every joy and hope it contained."
+
+"What were you doing in Texas?"
+
+"What are you doing in New York? I was born in Texas. My family, an old
+Spanish one, have been settled there since they helped to build San
+Antonio in 1730. I grew up pretty much as Texan youths do--half my time
+in the saddle, familiar with the worst side of life and the best side of
+nature. I should have been a thorough Ishmaelite if I had not been an
+artist; but the artistic instinct conquered the nomadic and in my
+twentieth year I went to Rome to study.
+
+"I can pass the next five years. I do not pretend to regret them,
+though, perhaps, you would say I simply wasted time and opportunity. I
+enjoyed them, and it seems to me I was the person most concerned in the
+matter. I had a fresh, full capacity then for enjoyment of every kind. I
+loved nature and I loved art. I warmed both hands at the glowing fire of
+life. Time may do his worst. I have been happy, and I can throw those
+five careless, jovial years, in his face to my last hour.
+
+"But one must awake out of every pleasant dream, and one day I got a
+letter urging my immediate return home. My father had got himself
+involved in a lawsuit, and was failing rapidly in health. My younger
+brother was away with a ranger company, and the affairs of the ranch
+needed authoritative overlooking. I was never so fond of art as to be
+indifferent to our family prosperity, and I lost no time in hurrying
+West.
+
+"Still, when I arrived at home, there was no one to welcome me! The
+noble, gracious Garcia slept with his ancestors in the old Alamo Church;
+somewhere on the llano my brother was ranging, still with his wild,
+company; and the house, in spite of the family servants and Mexican
+peons, was sufficiently lonely. Yet I was astonished, to find how easily
+I went back to my old life, and spent whole days in the saddle
+investigating the affairs of the Garcia ranch.
+
+"I had been riding one day for ten hours, and was so fatigued that I
+determined to spend the night with one of my herdsmen. He had a little
+shelter under some fine pecan trees on the Guadalupe, and after a cup of
+coffee and a meal of dried beef, I sauntered with my cigar down the
+river bank. Then the cool, dusky shadows of the wood tempted me. I
+entered it. It was an enchanted wood, for there stood Jessy Lorimer,
+just as I had painted her.
+
+"I did not move nor speak. I watched her, spell-bound. I had not even
+the power, when she had mounted her pony and was coming toward me, to
+assume another attitude. She saw that I had been watching her, and a
+look, half reproachful and half angry, came for a moment into her face.
+But she inclined her head to me as she passed, and then went off at a
+rapid gallop before I could collect my senses.
+
+"Some people, Jack, walk into love with their eyes open, calculating
+every step. I tumbled in over head, lost my feet, lost my senses,
+narrowed in one moment the whole world down to one bewitching woman. I
+did not know her, of course; but I soon should. I was well aware she
+could not live very far away, and that my herd must be able to give me
+some information. I was so deeply in love that this poor ignorant
+fellow, knowing something about this girl, seemed to me to be a person
+to be respected, and even envied.
+
+"I gave him immediately a plentiful supply of cigars, and sitting down
+beside him opened the conversation with horses, but drifted speedily
+into the subject of new settlers.
+
+"'Were there any since I had left?'
+
+"'Two or three, no 'count travelers, one likely family.'
+
+"'Much of a family?'
+
+"'You may bet on that, sir.'
+
+"'Any pleasant young men?'
+
+"'Reckon so. Mighty likely young gal.'
+
+"So, bit by bit, I found that Mr. Lorimer, my beauty's father, was a
+Scotchman, who had bought the ranch which had formerly belonged to the
+old Spanish family of the Yturris. Then I remembered pretty Inez and
+Dolores Yturri, with their black eyes, olive skins and soft, lazy
+_embonpoint_; and thought of golden-haired Jessy Lorimer in their dark,
+latticed rooms.
+
+"Jack, turn the picture to me. Beautiful Jessy! How I loved her in those
+happy days that followed. How I humored her grave, stern father and
+courted her brothers for her sake! I was a slave to the whole family,
+so that I might gain an hour with or a smile from Jessy. Do I regret it
+now? Not one moment. Such delicious hours as we had together were worth
+any price. I would throw all my future to old Time, Jack, only to live
+them over again."
+
+"That is a great deal to say, Petralto."
+
+"Perhaps; and yet I will not recall it. In those few months everything
+that was good in me prospered and grew. Jessy brought out nothing but
+the best part of my character. I was always at my best with her. No
+thought of selfish pleasure mingled in my love for her. If it delighted
+me to touch her hand, to feel her soft hair against my cheek, to meet
+her earnest, subduing gaze, it also made me careful by no word or look
+to soil the dainty purity of my white lily.
+
+"I feared to tell her that I loved her. But I did do it, I scarcely know
+how. The softest whisper seemed too loud against her glowing cheek. She
+trembled from head to foot. I was faint and silent with rapture when she
+first put her little hand in mine, and suffered me to draw her to my
+heart. Ah! I am sick with joy yet when I think of it. I--I first, I
+alone, woke that sweet young heart to life. She is lost, lost to me, but
+no one else can ever be to her what I have been."
+
+And here Petralto, giving full sway to his impassioned Southern nature,
+covered his face with his hands and wept hot, regretful tears.
+
+Tears come like blood from men of cold, strong temperaments, but they
+were the natural relief of Petralto's. I let him weep. In a few minutes
+he leaped up, and began pacing the room rapidly as he went on:
+
+"Mr. Lorimer received my proposal with a dour, stiff refusal that left
+me no hope of any relenting. 'He had reasons, more than one,' he said;
+'he was not saying anything against either my Spanish blood or my
+religion; but it was no fault in a Scotsman to mate his daughter with
+people of her own kith.'
+
+"There was no quarrel, and no discourtesy; but I saw I could bend an
+iron bar with my pleadings just as soon as his determination. Jessy
+received orders not to meet me or speak to me alone; and the possibility
+of disobeying her father's command never suggested itself to her. Even I
+struggled long with my misery before I dared to ask her to practice her
+first deceit.
+
+"She would not meet me alone, but she persuaded her mother to come once
+with her to our usual tryst in the wood. Mrs. Lorimer spoke kindly but
+hopelessly, and covered her own face to weep while Jessy and I took of
+each other a passionate farewell. I promised her then never to marry
+anyone else; and she!--I thought her heart would break as I laid her
+almost fainting in her mother's arms.
+
+"Yet I did not know how much Jessy really was to me until I suddenly
+found out that her father had sent her back to Scotland, under the
+pretence of finishing her education. I had been so honorably considerate
+of Jessy's Puritan principles that I felt this hasty, secret movement
+exceedingly unkind and unjust. Guadalupe became hateful to me, the
+duties of the ranch distracting; and my brother Felix returning about
+this time, we made a division of the estate. He remained at the Garcia
+mansion, I rented out my possessions, and went, first to New Orleans,
+and afterward to New York.
+
+"In New York I opened a studio, and one day a young gentleman called and
+asked me to draw a picture from some crude, imperfect sketch which a
+friend had made. During the progress of the picture he frequently called
+in. For some reason or other--probably because we were each other's
+antipodes in tastes and temperament--he became my enthusiastic admirer,
+and interested himself greatly to secure me a lucrative patronage.
+
+"Yet some subtle instinct, which I cannot pretend to divine or explain,
+constantly warned me to beware of this man. But I was ashamed and angry
+at myself for linking even imaginary evil with so frank and generous a
+nature. I defied destiny, turned a deaf ear to the whisperings of my
+good genius, and continued the one-sided friendship--for I never even
+pretended to myself that I had any genuine liking for the man.
+
+"One day, when we had become very familiar, he ran up to see me about
+something, I forget what, and not finding me in the outer apartments,
+penetrated to my private room. There, upon that easel, Will Lennox first
+saw the woman you saw with him to-night--the picture which you are now
+looking at--and he fell as desperately in love with it, in his way, as I
+had done in the Guadalupe woods with the reality. I cannot tell you how
+much it cost me to restrain my anger. He, however, never noticed I was
+angry. He had but one object now--to gain from me the name and residence
+of the original.
+
+"It was no use to tell him it was a fancy picture, that he was sighing
+for an imagination. He never believed it for a moment. I would not sell
+it, I would not copy it, I would not say where I had painted it; I kept
+it to my most sacred privacy. He was sure that the girl existed, and
+that I knew where she lived. He was very rich, without an occupation or
+an object, and Jessy's pure, lovely face haunted him day and night, and
+supplied him with a purpose.
+
+"He came to me one day and offering me a large sum of money, asked me
+finally to reveal at least the locality of which I had painted the
+picture. His free, frank unembarrassed manner compels me to believe that
+he had no idea of the intolerable insult he was perpetrating. He had
+always been accustomed to consider more or less money an equivalent for
+all things under the sun. But you, Jack, will easily understand that the
+offer was followed by some very angry words, and that his threat to hunt
+the world over to find my beauty was not without fear to me.
+
+"I heard soon after that Will Lennox had gone to the South. I had
+neither hidden nor talked about my former life and I was ignorant of how
+much he knew or did not know of it. He could trace me easily to New
+Orleans; how much further would depend upon his tact and perseverance.
+Whether he reached Guadalupe or no, I am uncertain, but my heart fell
+with a strange presentment of sorrow when I saw his name, a few weeks
+afterward, among the European departures.
+
+"The next thing I knew of Will Lennox was his marriage to some famous
+Scotch beauty. Jack, do you not perceive the rest? The Scotch beauty was
+Jessy Lorimer. I feared it at the first. I knew it this afternoon."
+
+"Will you call there?"
+
+"I have no power to resist it. Did you not notice how eagerly she
+pressed the invitation?"
+
+"Do not accept it, Petralto."
+
+He shook his head, and remained silent. The next afternoon I was
+astonished on going up to his rooms to find Will Lennox, sitting there.
+He was talking in that loud, happy, demonstrative way so natural to men
+accustomed to have the whole world minister unto them.
+
+He did not see how nervous and angry Petralto was under his easy,
+boastful conversation. He did not notice the ashy face, the blazing
+eyes, the set lips, the trembling hands, of the passionate Spanish
+nature, until Petralto blazed out in a torrent of unreasonable words and
+taunts, and ordered Lennox out of his presence.
+
+Even then the stupid, good-natured, purse-proud man could not see his
+danger. He began to apologize to me for Petralto's rudeness, and excuse
+"anything in a fellow whom he had cut out so badly."
+
+"Liar!" Petralto retorted. "She loved me first; you can never have her
+whole heart. Begone! If I had you on the Guadalupe, where Jessy and I
+lived and loved, I would--"
+
+The sentence was not finished. Lennox struck Petralto to the ground,
+and before I raised him, I persuaded the angry bridegroom to retire. I
+stayed with Petralto that night, although I was not altogether pleased
+with him. He was sulky and silent at first, but after a quiet rest and a
+few consoling Havanas he was willing to talk the affair over.
+
+"Lennox tortured me," he said, passionately. "How could he be so
+unfeeling, so mad, as to suppose I should care to learn what chain of
+circumstances led him to find out my love and then steal her? Everything
+he said tortured me but one fact--Jessy was alone and thoroughly
+miserable. Poor little pet! She thought I had forgotten her, and so she
+married him--not for love; I won't believe it."
+
+"But," I said, "Petralto, you have no right to hug such a delusion; and
+seeing that you had made no attempt to follow Jessy and marry her, she
+had every right to suppose you really had forgotten her. Besides, I
+think it very likely that she should love a young, rich, good-looking
+fellow like Will Lennox."
+
+"In not pursuing her I was following Jessy's own request and obeying my
+own plighted promise. It was understood between us that I should wait
+patiently until Jessy was twenty-one. Even Scotch customs would then
+have regarded her as her own mistress and acknowledged her right to
+marry as she desired; and if I did not write, she has not wanted
+constant tokens of my remembrance. I have trusted her," he said,
+mournfully, "without a sign from her."
+
+That winter the beauty of Mrs. Lennox and the devotion of her husband
+were on every tongue. But married is not mated, and the best part of
+Jessy Lorimer's beauty had never touched Will Lennox. Her pure, simple,
+poetic temperament he had never understood, and he felt in a dim,
+uncertain way that the noblest part of his wife escaped him.
+
+He could not enter into her feelings, and her spiritual superiority
+unconsciously irritated him. Jessy had set her love's first music to the
+broad, artistic heart of Petralto; she could not, without wronging
+herself, decline to a lower range of feelings and a narrower heart. This
+reserve of herself was not a conscious one. She was not one of those
+self-involved women always studying their own emotions; she was simply
+true to the light within her. But her way was not Will Lennox's way, her
+finer fancies and lighter thoughts were mysteries to his grosser nature.
+
+So the thing happened which always has and always will happen in such
+cases; when the magic and the enchantment of Jessy's great personal
+beauty had lost their first novelty and power, she gradually became to
+her husband--"Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his
+horse."
+
+I did not much blame Will Lennox. It is very hard to love what we do not
+comprehend. A wife who could have sympathized in his pursuits, talked
+over the chances of his "Favorite," or gone to sea with him in his
+yacht, would always have found Will an indulgent and attentive husband.
+But fast horses did not interest Jessy, and going to sea made her ill;
+so gradually these two fell much further apart than they ought to have
+done.
+
+Now, if Petralto had been wicked and Jessy weak, he might have revenged
+himself on the man and woman who had wrought him so much suffering. But
+he had set his love far too high to sully her white name; and Jessy, in
+that serenity which comes of lofty and assured principles, had no idea
+of the possibility of her injuring her husband by a wrong thought. Yet
+instinctively they both sought to keep apart; and if by chance they met,
+the grave courtesy of the one and the sweet dignity of the other left
+nothing for evil hopes or thoughts to feed upon. One morning, two years
+after Jessy's marriage, I received a note from Petralto, asking me to
+call upon him immediately. To my amazement, his rooms were dismantled,
+his effects packed up, and he was on the point of leaving New York.
+
+"Whither bound?" I asked. "To Rome?"
+
+"No; to the Guadalupe. I want to try what nature can do for me. Art,
+society, even friendship, fail at times to comfort me for my lost love.
+I will go back to nature, the great, sweet mother and lover of men."
+
+So Petralto went out of New York; and the world that had known him
+forgot him--forgot even to wonder about, much less to regret, him.
+
+I was no more faithful than others. I fell in with a wonderful German
+philosopher, and got into the "entities" and "non-entities," forgot
+Petralto in Hegel, and felt rather ashamed of the days when I lounged
+and trifled in the artist's pleasant rooms. I was "enamored of divine
+philosophy," took no more interest in polite gossip, and did not waste
+my time reading newspapers. In fact, with Kant and Fichte before me, I
+did not feel that I had the time lawfully to spare.
+
+Therefore, anyone may imagine my astonishment when, about three years
+after Petralto's departure from New York, he one morning suddenly
+entered my study, handsome as Apollo and happy as a bridegroom. I have
+used the word "groom" very happily, for I found out in a few minutes
+that Petralto's radiant condition was, in fact, the condition of a
+bridegroom.
+
+Of course, under the circumstances, I could not avoid feeling
+congratulatory; and my affection for the handsome, loving fellow came
+back so strongly that I resolved to break my late habits of seclusion,
+and go to the Brevoort House and see his bride.
+
+I acknowledge that in this decision there was some curiosity. I wondered
+what rare woman had taken the beautiful Jessy Lorimer's place; and I
+rather enjoyed the prospect of twitting him with his protestations of
+eternal fidelity to his first love.
+
+I did not do it. I had no opportunity. Madame Petralto Garcia was, in
+fact, Jessy Lorimer Lennox. Of course I understood at once that Will
+must be dead; but I did not learn the particulars until the next day,
+when Petralto dropped in for a quiet smoke and chat. Not unwillingly I
+shut my book and lit my cigar.
+
+"'All's well that ends well,' my dear fellow," I said, when we had both
+smoked silently for a few moments; "but I never heard of Will Lennox's
+death. I hope he did not come to the Guadalupe and get shot."
+
+Petralto shook his head and replied: "I was always sorry for that
+threat. Will never meant to injure me. No. He was drowned at sea two
+years ago. His yacht was caught in a storm, he ventured too near the
+shore, and all on board perished."
+
+"I did not hear of it at the time."
+
+"Nor I either. I will tell you how I heard. About a year ago I went, as
+was my frequent custom, to the little open glade in the forest where I
+had first seen Jessy. As I lay dreaming on the warm soft grass I saw a
+beautiful woman, clothed in black, walk slowly toward the very same
+jasmine vine, and standing as of old on tip-toe, pull down a loaded
+branch. Can you guess how my heart beat, how I leaped to my feet and
+cried out before I knew what I was doing, 'Jessy! darling Jessy!' She
+stood quite still, looking toward me. Oh, how beautiful she was! And
+when at length we clasped hands, and I gazed into her eyes, I knew
+without a word that my love had come to me."
+
+"She had waited a whole year?"
+
+"True; I liked her the better for that. After Will's death she went to
+Scotland--put both herself and me out of temptation. She owed this much
+to the memory of a man who had loved her as well as he was capable of
+doing. But I know how happy were the steps that brought her back to the
+Guadalupe, and that warm spring afternoon under the jasmine vine paid
+for all. I am the happiest man in all the wide world."
+
+
+
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+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Winter Evening Tales, by Amelia Edith
+Huddleston Barr</h1>
+<pre>
+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 <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: Winter Evening Tales</p>
+<p>       "Cash," a Problem of Profit and Loss; Franz M�ller's Wife; The Voice at Midnight; Six and Half-a-Dozen; The Story of David Morrison; Tom Duffan's Daughter; The Harvest of the Wind; The Seven Wise Men of Preston; Margaret Sinclair's Silent Money; Just What He Deserved; An Only Offer; Two Fair Deceivers; The Two Mr. Smiths; The Story of Mary Neil; The Heiress of Kurston Chace; Only This Once; Petralto's Love Story</p>
+<p>Author: Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr</p>
+<p>Release Date: July 6, 2005  [eBook #16222]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WINTER EVENING TALES***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h4>E-text prepared by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Louise Pryor,<br />
+    and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (https://www.pgdp.net)</h4>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h1><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a>WINTER EVENING TALES.</h1>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/p001.jpg" width="500" height="362" alt="Family sitting together" title="Family sitting together" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">BY</p>
+
+<p class="center bigger">AMELIA E. BARR,</p>
+
+<p class="center little">Author of "A Bow of Orange Ribbon,"
+"Jan Vedder's Wife," <br />
+"Friend Olivia," etc., etc.</p>
+
+<hr class="mini" />
+
+<p class="center little">PUBLISHED BY</p>
+
+<p class="center">THE CHRISTIAN HERALD</p>
+
+<p class="center little"><span class="smcap">Louis Klopsch</span>, Proprietor, <br />
+BIBLE HOUSE, NEW YORK.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h4>1896</h4>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width:20em; margin-bottom:5em; margin-top: 0em;" />
+
+
+<h2><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>In these "Winter Evening Tales," Mrs. Barr has spread before her readers
+a feast that will afford the rarest enjoyment for many a leisure hour.
+There are few writers of the present day whose genius has such a
+luminous quality, and the spell of whose fancy carries us along so
+delightfully on its magic current. In these "Tales"&mdash;each a perfect gem
+of romance, in an artistic setting&mdash;the author has touched many phases
+of human nature. Some of the stories in the collection sparkle with the
+spirit of mirth; others give glimpses of the sadder side of life.
+Throughout all, there are found that broad sympathy and intense humanity
+that characterize every page that comes from her pen. Her men and women
+are creatures of real flesh and blood, not deftly-handled puppets; they
+move, act and speak spontaneously, with the full vigor of life and the
+strong purpose of persons who are participating in a real drama, and not
+a make-believe.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Barr has the rare gift of writing from heart to heart. She
+unconsciously infuses into her readers a liberal share of the enthusiasm
+that moves the people of her creative imagination. One cannot read any
+of her books without feeling more than a spectator's interest; we are,
+for the moment, actual sharers in the joys and the sorrows, the
+misfortunes and the triumphs of the men and women to whom she introduces
+us. Our sympathy, our love, our admiration, are kindled by their noble
+and attractive qualities; our mirth is excited <a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a>by the absurd and
+incongruous aspects of some characters, and our hearts are thrilled by
+the frequent revelation of such goodness and true human feeling as can
+only come from pure and noble souls.</p>
+
+<p>In these "Tales," as in many of her other works, humble life has held a
+strong attraction for Mrs. Barr's pen. Her mind and heart naturally turn
+in this direction; and although her wonderful talent, within its wide
+range, deals with all stations and conditions of life, she has but
+little relish for the gilded artificialities of society, and a strong
+love for those whose condition makes life for them something real and
+earnest and definite of purpose. For this reason, among many others, the
+Christian people of America have a hearty admiration for Mrs. Barr and
+her work, knowing it to be not only of surpassing human interest, but
+spiritually helpful and inspiring, with an influence that makes for
+morality and good living, in the highest sense in which a Christian
+understands the term.</p>
+
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">G.H. Sandison.</span></p>
+
+<p><i>New York, 1896.</i></p>
+
+
+
+<hr  /><p><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+
+
+<ul>
+<li class="contents">"Cash;" a Problem of Profit and Loss,&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#Page_7">7</a></li>
+<li class="contents">Franz M&uuml;ller's Wife,&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#Page_37">37</a></li>
+<li class="contents">The Voice at Midnight,&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#Page_54">54</a></li>
+<li class="contents">Six and Half-a-Dozen,&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#Page_64">64</a></li>
+<li class="contents">The Story of David Morrison,&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#Page_72">72</a></li>
+<li class="contents">Tom Duffan's Daughter,&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#Page_95">95</a></li>
+<li class="contents">The Harvest of the Wind,&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#Page_112">112</a></li>
+<li class="contents">The Seven Wise Men of Preston,&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#Page_156">156</a></li>
+<li class="contents">Margaret Sinclair's Silent Money,&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#Page_164">164</a></li>
+<li class="contents">Just What He Deserved,&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>
+<li class="contents">An Only Offer,&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#Page_222">222</a></li>
+<li class="contents">Two Fair Deceivers,&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#Page_235">235</a></li>
+<li class="contents">The Two Mr. Smiths,&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#Page_247">247</a></li>
+<li class="contents">The Story of Mary Neil,&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#Page_266">266</a></li>
+<li class="contents">The Heiress of Kurston Chace,&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#Page_271">271</a></li>
+<li class="contents">Only This Once,&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#Page_286">286</a></li>
+<li class="contents">Petralto's Love Story,&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#Page_301">301</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+
+<hr  /><p><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"></a></p>
+<p class="center biggest"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></a><a name="Winter_Evening_Tales" id="Winter_Evening_Tales"></a><b>Winter Evening Tales.</b></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CASH" id="CASH"></a>CASH.</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">A problem of profit and loss, worked by David Lockerby</span>.</p>
+<hr class="mini" />
+<h3>Part I.</h3>
+
+<p class="center little" style="margin-bottom:2em;">"Gold may be dear bought."</p>
+
+
+<p>A narrow street with dreadful "wynds" and "vennels" running back from it
+was the High street of Glasgow at the time my story opens. And yet,
+though dirty, noisy and overcrowded with sin and suffering, a flavor of
+old time royalty and romance lingered amid its vulgar surroundings; and
+midway of its squalid length a quaint brown frontage kept behind it
+noble halls of learning, and pleasant old courts full of the "air of
+still delightful studies."</p>
+
+<p>From this building came out two young men in academic costume. One of
+them set his face dourly against the clammy fog and drizzling rain,
+breathing it boldly, as if it was the balmiest oxygen; the other,
+shuddering, drew his scarlet toga around <a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></a>him and said, mournfully,
+"Ech, Davie, the High street is an ill furlong on the de'il's road! I
+never tread it, but I think o' the weary, weary miles atween it and
+Eden."</p>
+
+<p>"There is no road without its bad league, Willie, and the High street
+has its compensations; its prison for ill-doers, its learned college,
+and its holy High Kirk. I am one of St. Mungo's bairns, and I'm not
+above preaching for my saint."</p>
+
+<p>"And St. Mungo will be proud of your birthday yet, Davie. With such a
+head and such a tongue, with knowledge behind, and wit to the fore,
+there is a broad road and an open door for David Lockerby. You may come
+even to be the Lord Rector o' Glasgow College yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Wisdom is praised and starves; I am thinking it would set me better to
+be Lord Provost of Glasgow city."</p>
+
+<p>"The man who buried his one talent did not go scatheless, Davie; and
+what now if he had had ten?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are aye preaching, Willie, and whiles it is very untimeous. Are you
+going to Mary Moir's to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I? The only victory over love is through running away."</p>
+
+<p>David looked sharply at his companion but as they were at the Trongate
+there was no time for further remark. Willie Caird <a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></a>turned eastward
+toward Glasgow Green, David hailed a passing omnibus and was soon set
+down before a handsome house on the Sauchiehall Road. He went in by the
+back door, winning from old Janet, in spite of herself, the grimmest
+shadow of a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Are my father and mother at home, Janet?"</p>
+
+<p>"Deed are they, the mair by token that they hae been quarreling anent
+you till the peacefu' folks like mysel' could hae wished them mair
+sense, or further away."</p>
+
+<p>"Why should they quarrel about me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, indeed, since they'll no win past your ain makin' or marring? But
+the mistress is some kin to Zebedee's wife, I'm thinking, and she wad
+fain set you up in a pu'pit and gie you the keys o' St. Peter; while
+maister is for haeing you it a bank or twa in your pouch, and add
+Ellenmount to Lockerby, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And if I could, Janet?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tut, tut, lad! If it werna for 'if' you might put auld Scotland in a
+bottle."</p>
+
+<p>"But what was the upshot, Janet?"</p>
+
+<p>"I canna tell. God alone understan's quarreling folk."</p>
+
+<p>Then David went upstairs to his own room, and when he came down again
+his face was set as dourly against the coming interview as it had been
+against the mist and rain. The point at issue was quite <a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"></a>familiar to
+him; his mother wished him to continue his studies and prepare for the
+ministry. In her opinion the greatest of all men were the servants of
+the King, and a part of the spiritual power and social influence which
+they enjoyed in St. Mungo's ancient city she earnestly coveted for her
+son. "Didn't the Bailies and the Lord Provost wait for them? And were
+not even the landed gentry and nobles obligated to walk behind a
+minister in his gown and bands?"</p>
+
+<p>Old Andrew Lockerby thought the honor good enough, but money was better.
+All the twenty years that his wife had been dreaming of David ruling his
+flock from the very throne of a pulpit, Andrew had been dreaming of him
+becoming a great merchant or banker, and winning back the fair lands of
+Ellenmount, once the patrimonial estate of the house of Lockerby. During
+these twenty years both husband and wife had clung tenaciously to their
+several intentions.</p>
+
+<p>Now David's teachers&mdash;without any knowledge of these diverse
+influences&mdash;had urged on him the duty of cultivating the unusual talents
+confided to him, and of consecrating them to some noble service of God
+and humanity. But David was ruled by many opposite feelings, and had
+with all his book-learning the very smallest <a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"></a>intimate acquaintance with
+himself. He knew neither his strong points nor his weak ones, and had
+not even a suspicion of the mighty potency of that mysterious love for
+gold which really was the ruling passion in his breast.</p>
+
+<p>The argument so long pending he knew was now to be finally settled, and
+he was by no means unprepared for the discussion. He came slowly down
+stairs, counting the points he wished to make on his fingers, and quite
+resolved neither to be coaxed nor bullied out of his own individual
+opinion. He was a handsome, stalwart fellow, as Scotchmen of
+two-and-twenty go, for it takes about thirty-five years to fill up and
+perfect the massive frames of "the men of old Gaul." About his
+thirty-fifth year David would doubtless be a man of noble presence; but
+even now there was a sense of youth and power about him that was very
+attractive, as with a grave smile he lifted a book, and comfortably
+disposed himself in an easy chair by the window. For David knew better
+than begin the conversation; any advantages the defendant might have he
+determined to retain.</p>
+
+<p>After a few minutes' silence his father said, "What are you reading,
+Davie? It ought to be a guid book that puts guid company in the
+background."</p>
+
+<p>David leisurely turned to the title <a name="Page_12" id="Page_12"></a>page. "'Selections from the Latin
+Poets,' father."</p>
+
+<p>"A fool is never a great fool until he kens Latin. Adam Smith or some
+book o' commercial economics wad set ye better, Davie."</p>
+
+<p>"Adam Smith is good company for them that are going his way, father: but
+there is no way a man may take and not find the humanities good
+road-fellows."</p>
+
+<p>"Dinna beat around the bush, guidman; tell Davie at once that you want
+him to go 'prentice to Mammon. He kens well enough whether he can serve
+him or no."</p>
+
+<p>"I want Davie to go 'prentice to your ain brither, guid wife&mdash;it's nane
+o' my doing if you ca' your ain kin ill names&mdash;and, Davie, your uncle
+maks you a fair offer, an' you'll just be a born fool to refuse it."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, father?"</p>
+
+<p>"Twa years you are to serve him for &pound;200 a year; and at the end, if both
+are satisfied, he will gie you sich a share in the business as I can buy
+you&mdash;and, Davie, I'se no be scrimping for such an end. It's the auldest
+bank in Soho, an' there's nane atween you and the head o' it. Dinna
+fling awa' good fortune&mdash;dinna do it, Davie, my dear lad. I hae look it
+to you for twenty years to finish what I hae begun&mdash;for twenty years I
+hae been telling mysel' 'my<a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a> Davie will win again the bonnie braes o'
+Ellenmount.'"</p>
+
+<p>There were tears in old Andrew's eyes, and David's heart thrilled and
+warmed to the old man's words; in that one flash of sympathy they came
+nearer to each other than they had ever done before.</p>
+
+<p>And then spoke his mother: "Davie, my son, you'll no listen to ony sich
+temptation. My brither is my brither, and there are few folk o' the
+Gordon line a'thegither wrang, but Alexander Gordon is a dour man, and I
+trow weel you'll serve hard for ony share in his money bags. You'll just
+gang your ways back to college and tak' up your Greek and Hebrew and
+serve in the Lord's temple instead of Alexander Gordon's Soho Bank; and,
+Davie, if you'll do right in this matter you'll win my blessing and
+every plack and bawbee o' my money." Then, seeing no change in David's
+face, she made her last, great concession&mdash;"And, Davie, you may marry
+Mary Moir, an' it please you, and I'll like the lassie as weel as may
+be."</p>
+
+<p>"Your mither, like a' women, has sought you wi' a bribe in her hand,
+Davie. You ken whether she has bid your price or not. When you hae
+served your twa years I'se buy you a &pound;20,000 share in the Gordon Bank,
+and a man wi' &pound;20,000 can pick and choose the wife he likes best. But
+I'm aboon bribing you&mdash;a fair offer isna a bribe."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"></a>The concession as to Mary Moir was the one which Davie had resolved to
+make his turning point, and now both father and mother had virtually
+granted it. He had told himself that no lot in life would be worth
+having without Mary, and that with her any lot would be happy. Now that
+he had been left free in this matter he knew his own mind as little as
+ever.</p>
+
+<p>"The first step binds to the next," he answered, thoughtfully. "Mary may
+have something to say. Night brings counsel. I will e'en think over
+things until the morn."</p>
+
+<p>A little later he was talking both offers over with Mary Moir, and
+though it took four hours to discuss them they did not find the subject
+tedious. It was very late when he returned home, but he knew by the
+light in the house-place that Janet was waiting up for him. Coming out
+of the wet, dark night, it was pleasant to see the blazing ingle, the
+white-sanded floor, and the little round table holding some cold
+moor-cock and the pastry that he particularly liked.</p>
+
+<p>"Love is but cauldrife cheer, my lad," said Janet, "an' the breast o' a
+bird an' a raspberry tartlet will be nane out o' the way." David was of
+the same opinion. He was very willing to enjoy Janet's good things and
+the pleasant light and warmth. Besides, Janet was his oldest confidant
+and <a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"></a>friend&mdash;a friend that had never failed him in any of his boyish
+troubles or youthful scrapes.</p>
+
+<p>It gave her pleasure enough for a while to watch him eat, but when he
+pushed aside the bird and stretched out his hand for the raspberry
+dainties, she said, "Now talk a bit, my lad. If others hae wared money
+on you, I hae wared love, an' I want to ken whether you are going to
+college, or whether you are going to Lunnon amang the proud, fause
+Englishers?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to London, Janet."</p>
+
+<p>"Whatna for?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not sure that I have any call to be a minister, Janet&mdash;it is a
+solemn charge."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why not ask for a sure call? There is nae key to God's council
+chamber that I ken of."</p>
+
+<p>"Mary wants me to go to London."</p>
+
+<p>"Ech, sirs! Sets Deacon Moir's dochter to send a lad a wrang road. I
+wouldna hae thocht wi' her bringing up she could hae swithered for a
+moment&mdash;but it's the auld, auld story; where the deil canna go by
+himsel' he sends a woman. And David Lockerby will tyne his inheritance
+for a pair o' blue e'en and a handfu' o' gowden curls. Waly! waly! but
+the children o' Esau live for ever."</p>
+
+<p>"Mary said,"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I dinna want to hear what Mary said.<a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a> It would hae been nae loss if
+she'd ne'er spoken on the matter; but if you think makin' money, an'
+hoarding money is the measure o' your capacity you ken yousel', sir,
+dootless. Howsomever you'll go to your ain room now; I'm no going to
+keep my auld e'en waking just for a common business body."</p>
+
+<p>Thus in spite of his father's support, David did not find his road to
+London as fair and straight as he could have wished. Janet was deeply
+offended at him, and she made him feel it in a score of little ways very
+annoying to a man fond of creature comforts and human sympathy. His
+mother went about the necessary preparations in a tearful mood that was
+a constant reproach, and his friend Willie did not scruple to tell him
+that "he was clean out o' the way o' duty."</p>
+
+<p>"God has given you a measure o' St. Paul's power o' argument, Davie, and
+the verra tongue o' Apollos&mdash;weapons wherewith to reason against all
+unrighteousness and to win the souls o' men."</p>
+
+<p>"Special pleading, Willie."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all. Every man's life bears its inscription if he will take the
+trouble to read it. There was James Grahame, born, as you may say, wi' a
+sword in his hand, and Bauldy Strang wi' a spade, and Andrew Semple took
+to the balances and the<a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"></a> 'rithmetic as a duck takes to the water. Do you
+not mind the day you spoke anent the African missions to the young men
+in St. Andrews' Ha'? Your words flew like arrows&mdash;every ane o' them to
+its mark; and your heart burned and your e'en glowed, till we were a' on
+fire with you, and there wasna a lad there that wouldna hae followed you
+to the vera Equator. I wouldna dare to bury such a power for good,
+Davie, no, not though I buried it fathoms deep in gold."</p>
+
+<p>From such interviews as these Davie went home very miserable. If it had
+not been for Mary Moir he would certainly have gone back to his old seat
+by Willie Caird in the Theological Hall. But Mary had such splendid
+dreams of their life in London, and she looked in her hope and beauty so
+bewitching, that he could not bear to hint a disappointment to her.
+Besides, he doubted whether she was really fit for a minister's wife,
+even if he should take up the cross laid down before him&mdash;and as for
+giving up Mary, he would not admit to himself that there could be a
+possible duty in such a contingency.</p>
+
+<p>But that even his father had doubts and hesitations was proven to David
+by the contradictory nature of his advice and charges. Thus on the
+morning he left Glasgow, and as they were riding together <a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"></a>to the
+Caledonian station, the old man said, "Your uncle has given you a seat
+in his bank, Davie, and you'll mak' room for yoursel' to lie down, I'se
+warrant. But you'll no forget that when a guid man thrives a' should
+thrive i' him; and giving for God's sake never lessens the purse."</p>
+
+<p>"I am but one in a world full, father. I hope I shall never forget to
+give according to my prosperings."</p>
+
+<p>"Tak the world as it is, my lad, and no' as it ought to be; and never
+forget that money is money's brither&mdash;an' you put two pennies in a purse
+they'll creep thegither.</p>
+
+<p>"But then Davie, I am free to say gold won't buy everything, and though
+rich men hae long hands, they won't reach to heaven. So, though you'll
+tak guid care o' yoursel', you will also gie to God the things that are
+God's."</p>
+
+<p>"I have been brought up in the fear of God and the love of mankind,
+father. It would be an ill thing for me to slink out of life and leave
+the world no better for my living."</p>
+
+<p>"God bless you, lad; and the &pound;20,000 will be to the fore when it is
+called for, and you shall make it &pound;60,000, and I'll see again Ellenmount
+in the Lockerby's keeping. But you'll walk in the ways o' your fathers,
+and gie without grudging of your increase."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"></a>David nodded rather impatiently. He could hardly understand the
+struggle going on in his father's heart&mdash;the wish to say something that
+might quiet his own conscience, and yet not make David's unnecessarily
+tender. It is hard serving God and Mammon, and Andrew Lockerby was
+miserable and ashamed that morning in the service.</p>
+
+<p>And yet he was not selfish in the matter&mdash;that much in his favor must be
+admitted. He would rather have had the fine, handsome lad he loved so
+dearly going in and out his own house. He could have taken great
+interest in all his further studies, and very great pride in seeing him
+a successful "placed minister;" but there are few Scotsmen in whom pride
+of lineage and the good of the family does not strike deeper than
+individual pleasure. Andrew really believed that David's first duty was
+to the house of Lockerby.</p>
+
+<p>He had sacrificed a great deal toward this end all his own life, nor
+were his sacrifices complete with the resignation of his only child to
+the same purpose. To a man of more than sixty years of age it is a great
+trial to have an unusual and unhappy atmosphere in his home; and though
+Mrs. Lockerby was now tearful and patient under her disappointment,
+everyone knows that tears and patience may be a miserable kind <a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a>of
+comfort. Then, though Janet had as yet preserved a dour and angry
+silence, he knew that sooner or later she would begin a guerilla warfare
+of sharp words, which he feared he would have mainly to bear, for Janet,
+though his housekeeper, was also "a far-awa cousin," had been forty
+years in his house, and was not accustomed to withhold her opinions on
+any subject.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately for Andrew Lockerby, Janet finally selected Mary Moir as the
+Eve specially to blame in this transgression. "A proud up-head lassie,"
+she asserted, "that cam o' a family wha would sell their share o' the
+sunshine for pounds sterling!"</p>
+
+<p>From such texts as this the two women in the Lockerby house preached
+little daily sermons to each other, until comfort grew out of the very
+stem of their sorrow, and they began to congratulate each other that
+"puir Davie was at ony rate outside the glamour o' Mary Moir's
+temptations."</p>
+
+<p>"For she just bewitched the laddie," said Janet, angrily; and,
+doubtless, if the old laws regarding witches had been in Janet's
+administration it would have gone hardly with pretty Mary Moir.</p><p><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"></a></p>
+
+<hr class="mini" />
+
+<h3>Part II.</h3>
+
+<p class="center little" style="margin-bottom:2em;">"God's work is soon done."</p>
+
+<p>It is a weary day when the youth first discovers that after all he will
+only become a man; and this discovery came with a depressing weight one
+morning to David, after he had been counting bank notes for three hours.
+It was noon, but the gas was lit, and in the heavy air a dozen men sat
+silent as statues, adding up figures and making entries. He thought of
+the college courts, and the college green, of the crowded halls, and the
+symposia, where both mind and body had equal refection. There had been
+days when he had a part in these things, and when to "strive with things
+impossible," or "to pluck honor from the pale-faced moon," had not been
+unreasonable or rash; but now it almost seemed as if Mr. Buckle's dreary
+gospel was a reality, and men were machines, and life was an affair to
+be tabulated in averages.</p>
+
+<p>He had just had a letter from Willie Caird, too, and it had irritated
+him. The wounds of a friend may be faithful, but they are not always
+welcome. David determined to drop the correspondence. Willie was going
+one way and he another. They might never see each other again; and&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><p><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"></a></p>
+<span class="i4">If they should meet one day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">If <i>both</i> should not forget<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They could clasp hands the accustomed way.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>For by simply going with the current in which in great measure, subject
+yet to early influences, he found himself, David Lockerby had drifted in
+one twelve months far enough away from the traditions and feelings of
+his home and native land. Not that he had broken loose into any flagrant
+sin, or in any manner cast a shadow on the perfect respectability of his
+name. The set in which Alexander Gordon and his nephew lived sanctioned
+nothing of the kind. They belonged to the best society, and were of
+those well-dressed, well-behaved people whom Canon Kingsley described as
+"the sitters in pews."</p>
+
+<p>In their very proper company David had gone to ball and party, to opera
+and theatre. On wet Sundays they sat together in St. George's Church; on
+fine Sundays they had sailed quietly down the Thames, and eaten their
+dinner at Richmond. Now, sin is sin beyond all controversy, but there
+were none of David's companions to whom these things were sins in the
+same degree as they were to David.</p>
+
+<p>To none of them had the holy Sabbath ever been the day it had been to
+him; to none of them was it so richly freighted with memories of
+wonderful sermons and solemn <a name="Page_23" id="Page_23"></a>sacraments that were foretastes of heaven.
+Coming with a party of gentlemanly fellows slowly rowing up the Thames
+and humming some passionate recitative from an opera, he alone could
+recall the charmful stillness of a Scotch Sabbath, the worshiping
+crowds, and the evening psalm ascending from so many thousand
+hearthstones:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O God of Bethel, by whose hand<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Thy people still are led.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>He alone, as the oars kept time to "aria" or "chorus," heard above the
+witching melody the solemn minor of "St. Mary's," or the tearful
+tenderness of "Communion."</p>
+
+<p>To most of his companions opera and theatre had come as a matter of
+course, as a part of their daily life and education. David had been
+obliged to stifle conscience, to disobey his father's counsels and his
+mother's pleadings, before he could enjoy them. He had had, in fact, to
+cultivate a taste for the sin before the sin was pleasant to him; and he
+frankly told himself that night, in thinking it all over, that it was
+harder work getting to hell than to heaven.</p>
+
+<p>But then in another year he would become a partner, marry Mary, and
+begin a new life. Suddenly it struck him with a new force that he had
+not heard from Mary <a name="Page_24" id="Page_24"></a>for nearly three weeks. A fear seized him that
+while he had been dancing and making merry Mary had been ill and
+suffering. He was amazed at his own heartlessness, for surely nothing
+but sickness would have made Mary forget him.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning as he went to the bank he posted a long letter to her,
+full of affection and contrition and rose-colored pictures of their
+future life. He had risen an hour earlier to write it, and he did not
+fail to notice what a healthy natural pleasure even this small effort of
+self-denial gave him. He determined that he would that very night write
+long letters to his mother and Janet, and even to his father. "There was
+a good deal he wanted to say to him about money matters, and his
+marriage, and fore-talk always saved after-talk, besides it would keep
+the influence of the old and better life around him to be in closer
+communion with it."</p>
+
+<p>Thus thinking, he opened the door of his uncle's private room, and said
+cheerily, "Good morning, uncle."</p>
+
+<p>"Good morning, Davie. Your father is here."</p>
+
+<p>Then Andrew Lockerby came forward, and his son met him with outstretched
+hands and paling cheeks. "What is it, father? Mother? Mary? Is she
+dead?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Deed, no, my lad. There's naething <a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a>wrang but will turn to right. Mary
+Moir was married three days syne, and I thocht you wad rather hear the
+news from are that loved you. That's a', Davie; and indeed it's a loss
+that's a great gain."</p>
+
+<p>"Who did she marry?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just a bit wizened body frae the East Indies, a'most as yellow as his
+gold, an' as auld as her father. But the Deacon is greatly set up wi'
+the match&mdash;or the settlements&mdash;and Mary comes o' a gripping kind.
+There's her brother Gavin, he'd sell the ears aff his head, an' they
+werena fastened on."</p>
+
+<p>Then David went away with his father, and after half-an-hour's talk on
+the subject together it was never mentioned more between them. But it
+was a blow that killed effectually all David's eager yearnings for a
+loftier and purer life. And it not only did this, but it also caused to
+spring up into active existence a passion which was to rule him
+absolutely&mdash;a passion for gold. Love had failed him, friendship had
+proved an annoyance, company, music, feasting, amusements of all kinds
+were a weariness now to think of. There seemed nothing better for him
+than to become a rich man.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll buy so many acres of old Scotland and call them by the Lockerby's
+name; and I'll have nobles and great men come bowing and becking to
+David Lockerby as they <a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></a>do to Alexander Gordon. Love is refused, and
+wisdom is scorned, but everybody is glad to take money; then money is
+best of all things."</p>
+
+<p>Thus David reasoned, and his father said nothing against his arguments.
+Indeed, they had never understood one another so well. David, for the
+first time, asked all about the lands of Ellenmount, and pledged
+himself, if he lived and prospered, to fulfill his father's hope.
+Indeed, Andrew was altogether so pleased with his son that he told his
+brother-in-law that the &pound;20,000 would be forthcoming as soon as ever he
+choose to advance David in the firm.</p>
+
+<p>"I was only waiting, Lockerby, till Davie got through wi' his playtime.
+The lad's myself o'er again, an' I ken weel he'll ne'er be contented
+until he settles cannily doon to his interest tables."</p>
+
+<p>So before Andrew Lockerby went back to Glasgow David was one of the firm
+of Gordon &amp; Co., sat in the directors' room, and began to feel some of
+the pleasant power of having money to lend. After this he was rarely
+seen among men of his own age&mdash;women he never mingled with. He removed
+to his uncle's stately house in Baker street, and assimilated his life
+very much to that of the older money maker. Occasionally he took a run
+northward to Glasgow, or a month's vacation on the<a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></a> Continent, but
+nearly all such journeys were associated with some profitable loan or
+investment. People began to speak of him as a most admirable young man,
+and indeed in some respects he merited the praise. No son ever more
+affectionately honored his father and mother, and Janet had been made an
+independent woman by his grateful consideration.</p>
+
+<p>He was so admirable that he ceased to interest people, and every time he
+visited Glasgow fewer and fewer of his old acquaintances came to see
+him. A little more than ten years after his admission to the firm of
+Gordon &amp; Co. he came home at the new year, and presented his father with
+the title-deeds of Ellenmount and Netherby. The next day old Andrew was
+welcomed on the City Exchange as "Lockerby of Ellenmount, gentleman." "I
+hae lived lang enough to hae seen this day," he said, with happy tears;
+and David felt a joy in his father's joy that he did not know again for
+many years. For while a man works for another there is an ennobling
+element in his labor, but when he works simply for himself he has become
+the greatest of all slaves. This slavery David now willingly assumed;
+the accumulation of money became his business, his pleasure, the sum of
+his daily life.</p>
+
+<p>Ten years later both his uncle and father <a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a>were dead, and both had left
+David every shilling they possessed. Then he went on working more
+eagerly than ever, turning his tens of thousands into hundreds of
+thousands and adding acre to acre, and farm to farm, until Lockerby was
+the richest estate in Annandale. When he was forty-five years of age
+fortune seemed to have given him every good gift except wife and
+children, and his mother, who had nothing else to fret about, worried
+Janet continually on this subject.</p>
+
+<p>"Wife an' bairns, indeed!" said Janet; "vera uncertain comforts, ma'am,
+an' vera certain cares. Our Master Davie likes aye to be sure o' his
+bargains."</p>
+
+<p>"Weel, Janet, it's a great cross to me&mdash;an' him sae honored, an' guid
+an' rich, wi' no a shilling ill-saved to shame him."</p>
+
+<p>"Tut, tut, ma'am! The river doesna' swell wi' clean water. Naebody's
+charged him wi' wrangdoing&mdash;that's enough. There's nae need to set him
+up for a saint."</p>
+
+<p>"An' you wanted him to be a minister, Janet."</p>
+
+<p>"I was that blind&mdash;ance."</p>
+
+<p>"We are blind creatures, Janet."</p>
+
+<p>"Wi' <i>excepts</i>, ma'am; but they'll ne'er be found amang mithers."</p>
+
+<p>This conversation took place one lovely Sabbath evening, and just at the
+same time<a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"></a> David was standing thoughtfully on Princes street, Edinburgh,
+wondering to which church he had better turn his steps. For a sudden
+crisis in the affairs of a bank in that city had brought him hurriedly
+to Scotland, and he was not only a prudent man who considered public
+opinion, but was also in a mood to conciliate that opinion so long as
+the outward conditions were favorable. Whatever he might do in London,
+in Scotland he always went to morning and evening service.</p>
+
+<p>He was also one of those self-dependent men who dislike to ask questions
+or advice from anyone. Though a comparative stranger he would not have
+allowed himself to think that anyone could direct him better than he
+could choose for himself. He looked up and down the street, and finally
+followed a company which increased continually until they entered an old
+church in the Canongate.</p>
+
+<p>Its plain wooden pews and old-fashioned elevated pulpit rather pleased
+than offended David, and the air of antiquity about the place
+consecrated it in his eyes. Men like whatever reminds them of their
+purest and best days, and David had been once in the old Relief Church
+on the Doo Hill in Glasgow&mdash;just such a large, bare, solemn-looking
+house of worship. The still, earnest men and women, the droning of the
+precentor, <a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a>the antiquated singing pleased and soothed him. He did not
+notice much the thin little fair man who conducted the services; for he
+was holding a session with his own soul.</p>
+
+<p>A peculiar movement among the congregation announced that the sermon was
+beginning, and David, looking up, saw that the officiating minister had
+been changed. This man was swarthy and tall, and looked like some old
+Jewish prophet, as he lifted his rapt face and cried, like one crying in
+the wilderness, "Friends! I have a question to ask you to-night: '<i>What
+shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own
+soul</i>?'"</p>
+
+<p>For twenty-three years David had silenced that voice, but it had found
+him out again&mdash;it was Willie Caird's. At first interested and curious,
+David soon became profoundly moved as Willie, in clear, solemn,
+thrilling sentences, reasoned of life and death and judgment to come.
+Not that he followed his arguments, or was more than dimly conscious of
+the moving eloquence that stirred the crowd as a mighty wind stirs the
+trees in the forest: for that dreadful question smote, and smote, and
+smote upon his heart as if determined to have an answer.</p>
+
+<p><i>What shall it profit? What shall it profit? What shall it profit</i>?
+David was <a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"></a>quick enough at counting material loss and profit, but here
+was a question beyond his computation. He went silently out of the
+church, and wandered away by Holyrood Palace and St. Anthony's Chapel to
+the pathless, lonely beauty of Salisbury Crags. There was no answer in
+nature for him. The stars were silent above, the earth silent beneath.
+Weariness brought him no rest; if he slept, he woke with the start of a
+hunted soul, and found him asking that same dreadful question. When he
+looked in the mirror his own face queried of him, "What profit?" and he
+was compelled to make a decided effort to prevent his tongue uttering
+the ever present thought.</p>
+
+<p>But at noon he would meet the defaulting bank committee, "and doubtless
+his lawful business would take its proper share of his thought!" He told
+himself that it was the voice and face of his old friend that had
+affected him so vividly, and that if he went and chatted over old times
+with Willie, he would get rid of the disagreeable influence.</p>
+
+<p>The influence, however, went with him into the creditors' committee
+room. The embarrassed officials had dreaded greatly the interview. No
+one hoped for more than bare justice from David Lockerby. "Clemency,
+help, sympathy! You'll get blood out o' a stane first, gentlemen," said
+the old cashier, with a dour, hopeless face.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a>And yet that morning David Lockerby amazed no one so much as himself.
+He went to the meeting quite determined to have his own&mdash;only his
+own&mdash;but something asked him, "<i>What shall it profit</i>?" and he gave up
+his lawful increase and even offered help. He went determined to speak
+his mind very plainly about mismanagement and the folly of having
+losses; and something asked him, "<i>What shall it profit</i>?" and he gave
+such sympathy with his help that the money came with a blessing in its
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>The feeling of satisfaction was so new to him that it embarrassed and
+almost made him ashamed. He slipped ungraciously away from the thanks
+that ought to have been pleasant, and found himself, almost
+unconsciously, looking up Willie's name in the clerical directory, "Dr.
+William Caird, 22 Moray place." David knew enough of Edinburgh to know
+that Moray place contained the handsomest residences in the city, and
+therefore he was not astonished at the richness and splendor of Willie's
+library; but he was astonished to see him surrounded by five beautiful
+boys and girls, and evidently as much interested in their lessons and
+sports as if he was one of them.</p>
+
+<p>"Ech! Davie man! but I'm glad to see you!" That was all of Willie's
+greeting, but his eyes filled, and as the friends held <a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"></a>each other's
+hands Davie came very near touching for a moment a David Lockerby no one
+had seen for many long years. But he said nothing during his visit of
+Willie's sermon, nor indeed in several subsequent ones. Scotsmen are
+reticent on all matters, and especially reticent about spiritual
+experience; and though Davie lingered in Edinburgh a week, he was
+neither able to speak to Willie about his soul, nor yet in all their
+conversations get rid of that haunting, uncomfortable influence Willie
+had raised.</p>
+
+<p>But as they stood before the Queen's Hotel at midnight bidding each
+other an affectionate farewell, David suddenly turned Willie round and
+opened up his whole heart to him. And as he talked he found himself able
+to define what had been only hitherto a vague, restless sense of want.</p>
+
+<p>"I am the poorest rich man and the most miserable failure, Willie Caird,
+that ever you asked yon fearsome question of&mdash;and I know it. I have
+achieved millions, and I am a conscious bankrupt to my own soul. I have
+wasted my youth, neglected my talents and opportunities, and whatever
+the world may call me I am a wretched breakdown. I have made
+money&mdash;plenty of it&mdash;and it does not pay me. What am I to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"You ken, Davie, my dear, dear lad, what <a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"></a>advice the Lord Jesus gave to
+the rich man&mdash;'distribute unto the poor&mdash;and come, follow me!'"</p>
+
+<p>Then up and down Princes street, and away under the shadow of the Castle
+Hill, Willie and David walked and talked, till the first sunbeams
+touched St. Leonard's Crags. If it was a long walk a grand work was laid
+out in it.</p>
+
+<p>"You shall be more blessed than your namesake," said Willie, "for though
+David gathered the gold, and the wood, and the stone, Solomon builded
+therewith. Now, an' it please God, you shall do your ain work, and see
+the topstone brought on with rejoicing."</p>
+
+<p>Then at David's command, workmen gathered in companies, and some of the
+worst "vennels" in old Glasgow were torn down; and the sunshine flooded
+"wynds" it had scarcely touched for centuries, and a noble building
+arose that was to be a home for children that had no home. And the farms
+of Ellenmount fed them, and the fleeces of Lockerby clothed them, and
+into every young hand was put a trade that would win it honest bread.</p>
+
+<p>In a short time even this undertaking began to be too small for David's
+energies and resources, and he joined hands with Willie in many other
+good works, and gave not only freely of his gold, but also of his <a name="Page_35" id="Page_35"></a>time
+and labor. The old eloquence that stirred his classmates in St. Andrew's
+Hall, "till they would have followed him to the equator" began to stir
+the cautious Glasgow traders to the bottom of their hearts, and their
+pocketbooks; and men who didn't want to help in a crusade against
+drunkenness, or in a crusade for the spread of the Gospel, stopped away
+from Glasgow City Hall when David Lockerby filled the chair at a public
+meeting and started a subscription list with &pound;1000 down on the table.</p>
+
+<p>But there were two old ladies that never stopped away, though one of
+them always declared "Master Davie had fleeched her last bawbee out o'
+her pouch;" and the other generally had her little whimper about Davie
+"waring his substance upon ither folks' bairns."</p>
+
+<p>"There's bonnie Bessie Lament, Janet; an' he would marry her we might
+live to see his ain sons and daughters in the old house."</p>
+
+<p>"'Deed, then, ma'am, our Davie has gotten him a name better than that o'
+sons an' dochters; and though I am sair disappointed in him&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You shouldn't say that, Janet; he made a gran' speech the day."</p>
+
+<p>"A speech isna' a sermon, ma'am; though I'll ne'er belittle a speech wi'
+a &pound;1000 argument."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"></a>"And there was Deacon Moir, Janet, who didna approve o' the scheme, and
+who would therefore gie nothing at a'."</p>
+
+<p>"The Deacon is sae godly that God doesna get a chance to improve his
+condition, ma'am. But for a' o' Deacon Moir's disapproval I'se count on
+the good work going on."</p>
+
+<p>"'Deed yes, Janet, and though our Davie should ne'er marry at a'&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There'll be generations o' lads an' lasses, ma'am, that will rise up in
+auld Scotland an' go up an' down through a' the warld a' ca' David
+Lockerby 'blessed.'"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="FRANZ_MULLERS_WIFE" id="FRANZ_MULLERS_WIFE"></a>FRANZ M&Uuml;LLER'S WIFE.</h2>
+
+<p>"Franz, good morning. Whose philosophy is it now? Hegel, Spinosa, Kant
+or Dugald Stewart?"</p>
+
+<p>"None of them. I am reading <i>Faust</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Worse and worse. Better wrestle with philosophies than lose yourself in
+the clouds. At any rate, if the poets are to send the philosophers to
+the right about, stick to Shakespeare."</p>
+
+<p>"He is too material. He can't get rid of men and women."</p>
+
+<p>"They are a little better, I should think, than Mephisto. Come, Franz,
+condescend to cravats and kid gloves, and let us go and see my cousin
+Christine Stromberg."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know the young lady."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not. She has just returned from a Munich school. Her brother
+Max was at the Lyndons' great party, you remember?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't remember, Louis. In white cravats and black coats all men look
+alike."</p>
+
+<p>"But you will go?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you wish it, yes. There are some uncut reviews on the table: amuse
+yourself while I dress."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a>"Thanks, I have my cigar case. I will take a smoke and think of
+Christine."</p>
+
+<p>For some reason quite beyond analysis, Franz did not like this speech.
+He had never seen Christine Stromberg, but yet he half resented the
+careless use of her name. It fell upon some soul consciousness like a
+familiar and personal name, and yet he vainly recalled every phase of
+his life for any clew to this familiarity.</p>
+
+<p>He was a handsome fellow, with large, clearly-cut features and gray,
+thoughtful eyes. In a conversation that interested him his face lighted
+up with a singularly beautiful animation, but usually it was as still
+and passionless as if the soul was away on a dream or a visit. Even the
+regulation cravat and coat could not destroy his individuality, and
+Louis looked admiringly at him, and said, "You are still Franz M&uuml;ller.
+No one is just like you. I should think Cousin Christine will fall in
+love with you."</p>
+
+<p>Again Franz's heart resented this speech. It had been waiting for love
+for many a year, but he could not jest or speculate about it. No one but
+the thoughtless, favored Louis ever dared to do it before Franz, and no
+one ever spoke lightly of women before him, for the worst of men are
+sensitive to the presence of a pure and lofty nature, and are generally
+willing to respect it.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a>Franz dreamed of women, but only of noble women, and even for those who
+fell below his ideal he had a thousand apologies and a world of pity. It
+was strange that such a man should have lived thirty years, and never
+have really loved any mortal woman. But his hour had come at last. As
+soon as he saw Christine Stromberg he loved her. A strange exaltation
+possessed him; his face was radiant; he talked and sung with a
+brilliancy that amazed even those most familiar with his rare
+exhibitions of such moods. And Christine seemed fascinated by his beauty
+and wit. The hours passed like moments; and when the girl stood watching
+him down the moon-lit avenue, she almost trembled to remember what
+questions Franz's eyes had asked her and how strangely familiar the
+clasp of his hand and the sound of his voice had seemed to her.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder where I have seen him before," she murmured&mdash;"I wonder where
+it was?" and to this thought she slowly took off one by one her jewels,
+and brushed out her long black hair; nay, when she fell asleep, it was
+only to take it up again in dreams.</p>
+
+<p>As for Franz, he was in far too ecstatic a mood to think of sleep. "One
+has too few of such godlike moments to steep them in unconsciousness,"
+he said to himself. And <a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"></a>so he sat smoking and thinking and watching the
+waning moon sink lower and lower, until it was no longer night, but
+dawning day.</p>
+
+<p>"In a few hours now I can go and see Christine." At this point in his
+love he had no other thought. He was too happy to speculate on any
+probability as yet. It was sufficient at present to know that he had
+found his love, that she lived at a definite number on a definite
+avenue, and that in six or seven hours more he might see her again.</p>
+
+<p>He chose the earlier number. It was just eleven o'clock when he rung Mr.
+Stromberg's bell. Mrs. Stromberg passed through the hall as he entered,
+and greeted him pleasantly. "Christine and I are just going to have
+breakfast," she said, in her jolly, hearty way. "Come in Mr. M&uuml;ller, and
+have a cup of coffee with us."</p>
+
+<p>Nothing could have delighted Franz so much. Christine was pouring it out
+as he entered the pretty breakfast parlor. How beautiful she looked in
+her long loose morning dress! How, bewitching were its numerous bows of
+pale ribbon! He had a sense of hunger immediately, and he knew that he
+made an excellent breakfast; but of what he ate or what he drank he had
+not the slightest conception.</p>
+
+<p>A cup of coffee passing through Christine's, hands necessarily suffered
+some <a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"></a>wonderful change. It could not, and it did not, taste like
+ordinary coffee. In the same mysterious way chicken, eggs and rolls
+became sublimated. So they ate and laughed and chatted, and I am quite
+sure that Milton never imagined a meal in Eden half so delightful as
+that breakfast on the avenue.</p>
+
+<p>When it was over, it came into Franz's heart to offer Christine a ride.
+They were standing together among the flowers in the bay window, and the
+trees outside were in their first tender green, and the spring skies and
+the spring airs were full of happiness and hope. Christine was arranging
+and watering her lilies and pansies, and somehow in helping her Franz's
+hands and hers had lingered happily together. So now love gave to this
+mortal an immortal's confidence. He never thought of sighing and fearing
+and trembling. His soul had claimed Christine, and he firmly believed
+that sooner or later she would hear and understand what he had to say to
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we ride?" he said, just touching her fingers, and looking at her
+with eyes and face glowing with a wonderful happiness.</p>
+
+<p>Alas, Christine could think of mamma, and of morning calls and of what
+people would say. But Franz overruled every scruple; he conquered mamma,
+and laughed at society; and before Christine had <a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"></a>decided which of her
+costumes was most becoming, Franz was waiting at the door.</p>
+
+<p>How they rattled up the avenue and through the park! How the green
+branches waved in triumph, and how the birds sang and gossiped about
+them! By the time they arrived at Mount St. Vincent they had forgotten
+they were mortal. Then the rest in the shady gallery, and the subsidence
+of love's exaltation into love's silent tender melancholy, were just as
+blissful.</p>
+
+<p>They came slowly home, speaking only in glances and monosyllables, but
+just before they parted Franz said, "I have been waiting thirty years
+for you, Christine; to-day my life has blossomed."</p>
+
+<p>And though Christine did not make any audible answer, he thought her
+blush sufficient; besides, she took the lilies from her throat and gave
+them to him.</p>
+
+<p>Such a dream of love is given only to the few whom the gods favor. Franz
+must have stood high in their grace, for it lasted through many sweet
+weeks and months for him. He followed the Strombergs to Newport, and
+laid his whole life down at Christine's feet. There was no definite
+engagement between them, but every one understood that would come as
+surely as the end of the season.</p>
+
+<p>Money matters and housekeeping must <a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"></a>eventually intrude themselves, but
+the romance and charm of this one summer of life should be untouched.
+And Franz was not anxious at all on this score. His father, a shrewd
+business man, had early seen that his son was a poet and a dreamer. "It
+is not the boy's fault," he said to his partner, "he gets it from his
+grandfather, who was always more out of this world than in it."</p>
+
+<p>So he wisely allowed Franz to follow his natural tastes, and contented
+himself with carefully investing his fortune in such real estate and
+securities as he believed would insure a safe, if a slow increase. He
+had bought wisely, and Franz's income was a certain and handsome one,
+with a tendency rather to increase than decrease, and quite sufficient
+to maintain Christine in all the luxury to which she had been
+accustomed.</p>
+
+<p>So when he returned to the city he intended to speak to Mr. Stromberg.
+All he had should be Christine's and her father should settle the matter
+just as he thought best for his daughter. In a general way this was
+understood by all parties, and everyone seemed inclined to sympathize
+with the happy feeling which led the lovers to deprecate during these
+enchanted days any allusion which tended to dispel the exquisite charm
+of their young lives' idyl.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps it would have been better if they <a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"></a>had remembered the ancient
+superstition and themselves done something to mar their perfect
+happiness. Polycrates offered his ring to avert the calamity sure to
+follow unmitigated pleasure or success, and Franz ought, perhaps, to
+have also made an effort to propitiate his envious Fate.</p>
+
+<p>But he did not, and toward the very end of the season, when the October
+days had thrown a kind of still melancholy over the world that had been
+so green and gay, Franz's dream was rudely broken&mdash;broken by a Mr. James
+Barker Clarke, a blustering, vulgar man of fifty, worth <i>three
+millions</i>. In some way or other he seemed to have a great deal of
+influence over Mr. Stromberg, who paid him unqualified respect, and over
+Mrs. Stromberg, who seemed to fear him.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Stromberg's "private ledger" alone knew the whole secret; for of
+course money was at the foundation. Indeed, in these days, in all public
+and private troubles, it is proper to ask, not "Who is she?" but "How
+much is it?" Franz M&uuml;ller and James Barker Clarke hated each other on
+sight. Still Franz had no idea at first that this ugly, uncouth man
+could ever be a rival to his own handsome person and passionate
+affection.</p>
+
+<p>In a few days, however, he was compelled to actually consider the
+possibility of <a name="Page_45" id="Page_45"></a>such a thing. Mr. Stromberg had assumed an attitude of
+such extreme politeness, and Mrs. Stromberg avoided him if possible, and
+if not possible, was constrained and unhappy in the familiar relations
+that she had accepted so happily all summer. As for Christine, she had
+constant headaches, and her eyes were often swollen and red with
+weeping.</p>
+
+<p>At length, without notice, the family left Newport, and went to stay a
+month with some relative near Boston. A pitiful little note from
+Christine informed him of this fact; but as he received no information
+as to the locality of her relative's house, and no invitation to call,
+he was compelled for the present to do as Christine asked him&mdash;wait
+patiently for their return.</p>
+
+<p>At first he got a few short tender notes, but they were evidently
+written in such sorrow that he was almost beside himself with grief and
+anger. When these ceased he went to Boston, and without difficulty found
+the house where Christine was staying. He was received at first very
+shyly by Mrs. Stromberg, but when Franz poured out his love and misery,
+the poor old lady wept bitterly, and moaned out that she could not help
+it, and Christine could not help it, and that they were all very
+miserable.</p>
+
+<p>Finally she was persuaded to let him see<a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"></a> Christine, "just for five
+minutes." The poor girl came to him, a shadow of her gay self, and,
+weeping in his arms, told him he must bid her good-by forever. The five
+minutes were lengthened into a long, terrible hour, and Franz went back
+to New York with the knowledge that in that hour his life had been
+broken in two for this life.</p>
+
+<p>One night toward the close of November his friend Louis called. "Franz,"
+he said, "have you heard that Christine Stromberg is to marry old
+Clarke?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"No one can trust a woman. It is a shame of Christine."</p>
+
+<p>"Louis, speak of what you know. Christine is an angel. If a woman
+appears to do wrong, there is probably some brute of a man behind her
+forcing her to do it."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought she was to be your wife."</p>
+
+<p>"She is my wife in soul and feeling. No one, thank God, can help that.
+If I was Clarke, I would as willingly marry a corpse as Christine
+Stromberg. Do not speak of her again, Louis. The poor innocent child!
+God bless her!" And he burst into a passion of weeping that alarmed his
+friend for his reason, but which was probably its salvation.</p>
+
+<p>In a week Franz had left for Europe, and the next Christmas, Christine
+and James Barker Clarke were married, and <a name="Page_47" id="Page_47"></a>began housekeeping in a style
+of extravagant splendor. People wondered and exclaimed at Christine's
+reckless expenditure, her parents advised, her husband scolded; but
+though she never disputed them, she quietly ignored all their
+suggestions. She went to Paris, and lived like a princess; Rome, Vienna
+and London wondered over her beauty and her splendor; and wherever she
+went Franz followed her quietly, haunting her magnificent salons like a
+wretched spectre.</p>
+
+<p>They rarely or never spoke. Beyond a grave inclination of the head, or a
+look whose profound misery he only understood, she gave him no
+recognition. The world held her name above reproach, and considered that
+she had done very well to herself.</p>
+
+<p>Ten years passed away, but the changes they brought were such as the
+world regards as natural and inevitable. Christine's mother died and her
+father married again; and Christine had a son and a daughter. Franz
+watched anxiously to see if this new love would break up the icy
+coldness of her manners. Sometimes he was conscious of feeling angrily
+jealous of the children, but he always crushed down the wretched
+passion. "If Christine loved a flower, would I not love it also?" he
+asked himself; "and these little ones, what have <a name="Page_48" id="Page_48"></a>they done?" So at last
+he got to separate them entirely from every one but Christine, and to
+regard them as part and portion of his love.</p>
+
+<p>But at the end of ten years a change came, neither natural nor expected.
+Franz was walking moodily about his library one night, when Louis came
+to tell him of it, Louis was no longer young, and was married now, for
+he had found out that the beaten track is the safest.</p>
+
+<p>"Franz," he said, "have you heard about Clarke? His affairs are
+frightfully wrong, and he shot himself an hour ago."</p>
+
+<p>"And Christine? Does she know? Who has gone to her?"</p>
+
+<p>"My wife is with her. Clarke shot himself in his own room. Christine was
+the first to reach him. He left a letter saying he was absolutely
+ruined."</p>
+
+<p>"Where will Christine and the children go?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose to her father's. Not a pleasant place for her now.
+Christine's step-mother dislikes both her and the children."</p>
+
+<p>Franz said no more, and Louis went away with a feeling of
+disappointment. "I thought he would have done something for her," he
+said to his wife. "Poor Christine will be very poor and dependent."</p>
+
+<p>Ten days after he came home with a different story. "There never was a
+<a name="Page_49" id="Page_49"></a>woman as lucky about money as Cousin Christine," he said. "Hardy &amp; Hall
+sent her notice to-day that the property at Ryebeach settled on her
+before her marriage by Mr. Clarke was now at her disposal. It seems the
+old gentleman anticipated the result of his wild speculations, and in
+order to provide for his wife, quietly bought and placed in Hardy's
+charge two beautifully furnished cottages. There is something like an
+accumulation of sixteen thousand dollars of rentage; and as one is
+luckily empty, Christine and the children are going there at once. I
+always thought the property was Hardy's own before. Very thoughtful in
+Clarke."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not Clarke one bit. I don't believe he ever did it. It is some
+arrangement of Franz M&uuml;ller's."</p>
+
+<p>"For goodness' sake don't hint such a thing, Lizzie! Christine would not
+go, and we should have her here very soon. Besides, I don't believe it.
+Franz took the news very coolly, and he has kept out of my way since."</p>
+
+<p>The next day Louis was more than ever of his wife's opinion. "What do
+you think, Lizzie?" he said. "Franz came to me to-day and asked if
+Clarke did not once loan me two thousand dollars. I told him Clarke gave
+me two thousand about the time we were married."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50"></a>"'Say <i>loaned</i>, Louis,' he answered, 'to oblige me. Here is two
+thousand and the interest for six years. Go and pay it to Christine; she
+must need money.' So I went."</p>
+
+<p>"Is she settled comfortably?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, very. Go and see her often. Franz is sure to marry her, and he is
+growing richer every day."</p>
+
+<p>It seemed as if Louis's prediction would come true. Franz began to drive
+out every afternoon to Ryebeach. At first he contented himself with just
+passing Christine's gate. But he soon began to stop for the children,
+and having taken them a drive, to rest a while on the lawn, or in the
+parlor, while Christine made him a cup of tea.</p>
+
+<p>For Franz tired very easily now, and Christine saw what few others
+noticed: he had become pale and emaciated, and the least exertion left
+him weary and breathless. She knew in her heart that it was, the last
+summer he would be with her. Alas! what a pitiful shadow of their first
+one! It was hard to contrast the ardent, handsome lover of ten years ago
+with the white, silently happy man who, when October came, had only
+strength to sit and hold her hand, and gaze with eager, loving eyes into
+her face.</p>
+
+<p>One day his physician met Louis on Broadway. "Mr. Curtin," he said,
+"your <a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></a>friend M&uuml;ller is very ill. I consider his life measured by days,
+perhaps hours. He has long had organic disease of the heart. It is near
+the last."</p>
+
+<p>"Does he know it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he has known it long. Better see him at once."</p>
+
+<p>So Louis went at once. He found Franz calmly making his last
+preparations for the great event. "I am glad you are come, Louis," he
+said; "I was going to send for you. See this cabinet full of letters. I
+have not strength left to destroy them; burn them for me when&mdash;when I am
+gone.</p>
+
+<p>"This small packet is Christine's dear little notes: bury them with me:
+there are ten of them, every one ten years old."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that all, dear Franz?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; my will has long been made. Except a legacy to yourself, all goes
+to Christine&mdash;dear, dear Christine!"</p>
+
+<p>"You love her yet, then, Franz?"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean? I have loved her for ages. I shall love her forever.
+She is the other half of my soul. In some lives I have missed her
+altogether let me be thankful that she has come so near me in this one."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know what you are saying, Franz?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very clearly, Louis. I have always believed with the oldest
+philosophers that souls were created in pairs, and that it is <a name="Page_52" id="Page_52"></a>permitted
+them in their toilsome journey back to purity and heaven sometimes to
+meet and comfort each other. Do you think I saw Christine for the first
+time in your uncle's parlor? Louis, I have fairer and grander memories
+of her than any linked to this life. I must leave her now for a little.
+God knows when and where we meet again; but <i>He does know</i>; that is my
+hope and consolation."</p>
+
+<p>Whatever were Louis's private opinions about Franz's theology it was
+impossible to dissent at that hour, and he took his friend's last
+instructions and farewell with such gentle, solemn feelings as had long
+been strange to his-heart.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon Franz was driven out to Christine's. It was the last
+physical effort he was capable of. No one saw the parting of those two
+souls. He went with Christine's arms around him, and her lips whispering
+tender, hopeful farewells. It was noticed however, that after Franz's
+death a strange change came over Christine&mdash;a beautiful nobility and
+calmness of character, and a gentle setting of her life to the loftiest
+aims.</p>
+
+<p>Louis said she had been wonderfully moved by the papers Franz left. The
+ten letters she had written during the spring-time of their love went to
+the grave with him, but the rest were of such an <a name="Page_53" id="Page_53"></a>extraordinary nature
+that Louis could not refrain from showing them to his cousin, and then
+at her request leaving them for her to dispose of. They were indeed
+letters written to herself under every circumstance of her life, and
+directed to every place in which she had sojourned. In all of them she
+was addressed as "Beloved Wife of my Soul," and in this way the poor
+fellow had consoled his breaking, longing heart.</p>
+
+<p>To some of them he had written imaginary answers, but as these all
+referred to a financial secret known only to the parties concerned in
+Christine's and his own sacrifice, it was proof positive that he had
+written only for his own comfort. But it was perhaps well they fell into
+Christine's hands: she could not but be a better woman for reading the
+simple records of a strife which set perfect unselfishness and
+child-like submission as the goal of its duties.</p>
+
+<p>Seven years after Franz's death Christine and her daughter died together
+of the Roman fever, and James Barker Clarke, junior, was left sole
+inheritor of Franz's wealth.</p>
+
+<p>"A German dreamer!"</p>
+
+<p>Ah, well, there are dreamers and dreamers. And perchance he that seeks
+fame, and he that seeks gold, and he that seeks power, may all alike,
+when this shadowy existence is over, look back upon life "as a dream
+when one awaketh."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_VOICE_AT_MIDNIGHT" id="THE_VOICE_AT_MIDNIGHT"></a>THE VOICE AT MIDNIGHT.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"It is the King's highway that we are in; and know this, His messengers
+are on it. They who have ears to hear will hear; and He opens the eyes
+of some, and they see things not to be lightly spoken of."</p>
+
+<p>It was John Balmuto who said these words to me. John was a Shetlander,
+and for forty years he had gone to the Arctic seas with the whale boats.
+Then there had come to him a wonderful experience. He had been four days
+and nights alone with God upon the sea, among mountains of ice reeling
+together in perilous madness, and with little light but the angry flush
+of the aurora. Then, undoubtedly, was born that strong faith in the
+Unseen which made him an active character in the facts I am going to
+relate.</p>
+
+<p>After his marvelous salvation, he devoted his life to the service of God
+by entering that remarkable body of lay evangelists attached to the
+Presbyterian Church in Highland parishes, called "The Men," and he
+became noted throughout the Hebrides for his labors, and for his
+knowledge of the Scriptures.</p>
+
+<p>Circumstances, that summer, had thrown <a name="Page_55" id="Page_55"></a>us together; I, a young woman,
+just entering an apparently fortunate life; he, an aged saint, standing
+on the borderland of eternity. And we were sitting together, in the gray
+summer gloaming, when he said to me, "Thou art silent to-night. What
+hast thou, then, on thy mind?"</p>
+
+<p>"I had a strange dream. I cannot shake off its influence. Of course it
+is folly, and I don't believe in dreams at all." And it was then he said
+to me, "It is the King's highway that we are in, and know this, His
+messengers are on it."</p>
+
+<p>"But it was only a dream."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, God speaks to His children 'in dreams, and by the oracles that
+come in darkness.'"</p>
+
+<p>"He used to do so."</p>
+
+<p>"Wilt thou then say that He has ceased so to speak to men? Now, I will
+tell thee a thing that happened; I will tell thee just the bare facts; I
+will put nothing to, nor take anything away from them.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis, five years ago the first day of last June. I was in Stornoway in
+the Lews, and I was going to the Gairloch Preachings. It was rough,
+cheerless weather, and all the fishing fleet were at anchor for the
+night, with no prospect of a fishing. The fishers were sitting together
+talking over the bad weather, but, indeed, without that bitterness that
+I have heard from landsmen <a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></a>when it would be the same trouble with them.
+So I gathered them into Donald Brae's cottage, and we had a very good
+hour. I noticed a stranger in the corner of the room, and some one told
+me he was one of those men who paint pictures, and I saw that he was
+busy with a pencil and paper even while we were at the service. But the
+next day I left for the Preachings, and I thought no more of him, good
+or bad.</p>
+
+<p>"On the first of September I was in Oban. I had walked far and was very
+tired, but I went to John MacNab's cottage, and, after I had eat my
+kippered herring and drank my tea, I felt better. Then I talked with
+John about the resurrection of the body, for he was in a tribulation of
+thoughts and doubts as to whether our Lord had a permanent humanity or
+not.</p>
+
+<p>"And I said to him, John, Christ redeemed our whole nature, and it is
+this way: the body being ransomed, as well as the spirit, by no less a
+price than the body of Christ, shall be equally cleansed and glorified.
+Now, then, after I had gone to my room, I was sitting thinking of these
+things, and of no other things whatever. There was not a sound but that
+of the waves breaking among the rocks, and drawing the tinkling pebbles
+down the beach after them. Then the ears of my spiritual body were
+opened, and I heard <a name="Page_57" id="Page_57"></a>these words, <i>'I will go with thee to Glasgow!'</i>
+Instead of saying to the heavenly message, 'I am ready!' I began to
+argue with myself thus: 'Whatever for should I go to Glasgow? I know not
+anyone there. No one knows me. I have duties at Portsee not to be left.
+I have no money for such a journey&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"I fell asleep to such thoughts. Then I dreamed of&mdash;or I saw&mdash;a woman
+fair as the daughters of God, and she said, <i>'I will go with thee to
+Glasgow!'</i> With a strange feeling of being hurried and pressed I
+awoke&mdash;wide awake, and without any conscious will of my own, I answered,
+'I am ready. I am ready now.'</p>
+
+<p>"As I left the cottage it was striking twelve, and I wondered what means
+of reaching Glasgow I should find at midnight. But I walked straight to
+the pier, and there was a small steamer with her steam up. She was
+blowing her whistle impatiently, and when the skipper saw me coming, he
+called to me, in a passion, 'Well, then, is it all night I shall wait
+for thee?'</p>
+
+<p>"I soon perceived that there was a mistake, and that it was not John
+Balmuto he had been instructed to wait for. But I heeded not that; I was
+under orders I durst not disobey. She was a trading steamer, with a
+perishable cargo of game and lobsters, <a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></a>and so she touched at no place
+whatever till we reached Glasgow. One of her passengers was David
+MacPherson of Harris, a very good man, who had known me in my
+visitations. He was going to Glasgow as a witness in a case to be tried
+between the Harris fishers and their commission house in Glasgow.</p>
+
+<p>"As we walked together from the steamer, he said to me, 'Let us go round
+by the court house, John, and I'll find out when I'll be required.' That
+was to my mind; I did not feel as if I could go astray, whatever road
+was taken, and I turned with him the way he desired to go. He found the
+lawyer who needed him in the court house, and while they talked together
+I went forward and listened to the case that was in hand.</p>
+
+<p>"It was a trial for murder, and I could not keep my eyes off the young
+man who was charged with the crime. He seemed to be quite broken down
+with shame and sorrow. Before MacPherson called me the court closed and
+the constables took him away. As he passed me our eyes met, and my heart
+dirled and burned, and I could not make out whatever would be the matter
+with me. All night his face haunted me. I was sure I had seen it some
+place; and besides it would blend itself with the dream which had
+brought me to Glasgow.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59"></a>"In the morning I was early at the court house and I saw the prisoner
+brought in. There was the most marvelous change in his looks. He walked
+like a man who has lost fear, and his face was quite calm. But now it
+troubled me more than ever. Whatever had I to do with the young man? Yet
+I could not bear to leave him.</p>
+
+<p>"I listened and found out that he was accused of murdering his uncle.
+They had been traveling together and were known to have been at Ullapool
+on the thirtieth of May. On the first of June the elder man was found in
+a lonely place near Oban, dead, and, without doubt, from violence. The
+chain of circumstantial evidence against his nephew was very strong. To
+judge by it I would have said myself to him, 'Thou art certainly
+guilty.'</p>
+
+<p>"On the other side the young man declared that he had quarreled with his
+uncle at Ullapool and left him clandestinely. He had then taken passage
+in a Manx fishing smack which was going to the Lews, but he had
+forgotten the name of the smack. He was not even certain if the boat was
+Manx. The landlord of the inn, at which he said he stayed when in the
+Lews, did not remember him. 'A thing not to be expected,' he told the
+jury, 'for in the summer months, what with visitors, and what with the
+fishers, a face in Stornoway was <a name="Page_60" id="Page_60"></a>like a face on a crowded street. The
+young man might have been there'&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The word <i>Stornoway</i> made the whole thing clear to me. The prisoner was
+the man I had noticed with a pencil and paper among the fishers in
+Donald Brae's cottage. Yes, indeed he was! I knew then why I had been
+sent to Glasgow. I walked quickly to the bar, and lifting my bonnet from
+my head, I said to the judge, 'My lord, the prisoner <i>was</i> in Stornoway
+on the first of June. I saw him there!'</p>
+
+<p>"He gave a great cry of joy and turned to me; and in a moment he called
+out: 'You are the man who read the Bible to the fishers. I remember you.
+I have your likeness among my drawings.' And I said, 'I am the man.'</p>
+
+<p>"Then my lord, the judge, made them swear me, and he said they would
+hear my evidence. For one moment I was a coward. I thought I would hide
+God's share in the deliverance, lest men should doubt my whole
+testimony. The next, I was telling the true story: how I had been called
+at midnight&mdash;twice called; how I had found Evan Conochie's boat waiting
+for me; how on the boat I had met David MacPherson, and been brought to
+the court house by him, having no intention or plan of my own in the
+matter.</p>
+
+<p>"And there was a great awe in the room <a name="Page_61" id="Page_61"></a>as I spoke. Every one believed
+what I said, and my lord asked for the names of the fishers who were
+present in Donald Brae's cottage on the night of the first of June. Very
+well, then, I could give many of them, and they were sent for, and the
+lad was saved, thank God Almighty!"</p>
+
+<p>"How do you explain it, John?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I will not try to explain it; for it is not to be hoped that anyone
+can explain by human reason the things surpassing human reason."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know what became of the young man?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will tell thee about him. He is a very rich young man, and the only
+child of a widow, known like Dorcas of old for her great goodness to the
+Lord's poor. But when his mother died it did not go well and peaceably
+between him and his uncle; and it is true that he left him at Ullapool
+without a word. Well, then, he fell into this sore strait, and it seemed
+as if all hope of proving his innocence was over.</p>
+
+<p>"But that very night on which I saw him first, he dreamed that his
+mother came to him in his cell and she comforted him and told him,
+'To-morrow, surely, thy deliverer shall speak for thee.' He never
+doubted the heavenly vision. 'How could I?' he asked me. 'My mother
+never deceived me in life; would she come to me, even in a dream, to
+tell me a lie? Ah, no!'"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62"></a>"Is he still alive?"</p>
+
+<p>"God preserve him for many a year yet! I'll only require to speak his
+name"&mdash;and when he had done so, I knew the secret spring of thankfulness
+that fed the never-ceasing charity of one great, good man.</p>
+
+<p>"And yet, John," I urged, "how can spirit speak with spirit?"</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>How?</i>' I will tell thee, that word 'how' has no business in the mouth
+of a child of God. When I was a boy, who had dreamed 'how' men in London
+might speak with men in Edinburgh through the air, invisible and
+unheard? That is a matter of trade now. Can thou imagine what subtle
+secret lines there may be between the spiritual world and this world?"</p>
+
+<p>"But dreams, John?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, dreams. Take the dream life out of thy Bible and, oh, how
+much thou wilt lose! All through it this side of the spiritual world
+presses close on the human side. I thank God for it. Yes, indeed! Many
+things I hear and see which say to me that Christians now have a kind of
+shame in what is mystical or supernatural. But thou be sure of this&mdash;the
+supernaturalism of the Bible, and of every Christian life is not one of
+the difficulties of our faith, <i>it is the foundation of our faith</i>. The
+Bible is a supernatural book, the law of a supernatural religion; and to
+part with <a name="Page_63" id="Page_63"></a>this element is to lose out of it the flavor of heaven, and
+the hope of immortality. Yes, indeed!"</p>
+
+<p>This conversation occurred thirty years ago. Two years since, I met the
+man who had experienced such a deliverance, and he told me again the
+wonderful story, and showed me the pencil sketch which he had made of
+John Balmuto in Donald Brae's cottage. He had painted from it a grand
+picture of his deliverer, wearing the long black camlet cloak and
+head-kerchief of the order of evangelists to which he belonged. I stood
+reverently before the commanding figure, with its inspired eyes and rapt
+expression; for, during those thirty years, I also had learned that it
+was only those</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Who ne'er the mournful midnight hours<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Weeping upon their bed have sate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who know you not, Ye Heavenly Powers.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="SIX_AND_HALF-A-DOZEN" id="SIX_AND_HALF-A-DOZEN"></a>SIX, AND HALF-A-DOZEN.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Slain in the battle of life. Wounded and fallen, trampled in the mire
+and mud of the conflict, then the ranks closed again and left no place
+for her. So she crawled aside to die. With a past whose black despair
+was as the shadow of a starless night, a future which her early
+religious training lit up with the lurid light of hell, and the strong
+bands of a pitiless death dragging her to the grave&mdash;still she craved,
+as the awful hour drew near, to see once more the home of her innocent
+childhood. Not that she thought to die in its shelter&mdash;any one who knew
+David Todd knew also that was a hopeless dream; but if, <span class="smcap">if</span> her
+father should say one pardoning word, then she thought it would help her
+to understand the love of God, and give her some strength to trust in
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Early in the evening, just as the sun was setting and the cows were
+coming lowing up the little lane, scented with the bursting lilac
+bushes, she stood humbly at the gate her father must pass in order to go
+to the hillside fold to shelter the ewes and lambs. Very soon she saw
+him coming, his Scotch bonnet pulled over his brows, his steps <a name="Page_65" id="Page_65"></a>steadied
+by his shepherd's staff. His lips were firmly closed, and his eyes
+looked far over the hills; for David was a mystic in his own way, and
+they were to him temples not made with hands in which he had seen and
+heard wonderful things. Here the storehouses of hail and lightning had
+been opened in his sight, and he had watched in the sunshine the tempest
+bursting beneath his feet. He had trod upon rainbows and been waited
+upon by spectral mists. The voices of winds and waters were in his
+heart, and he passionately believed in God. But it was the God of his
+own creed&mdash;jealous, just and awful in that inconceivable holiness which
+charges his angels with folly and detects impurity in the sinless
+heavens. So, when he approached the gate he saw, but would not see, the
+dying girl who leaned against it. Whatever he felt he made no sign. He
+closed it without hurry, and then passed on the other side.</p>
+
+<p>"Father! O, father! speak one word to me."</p>
+
+<p>Then he turned and looked at her, sternly and awfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Thou art nane o' my bairn. I ken naught o' thee."</p>
+
+<p>Without another glance at the white, despairing face, he walked rapidly
+on; for the spring nights were chilly, and he must gather his lambs into
+the fold, though this <a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></a>poor sheep of his own household was left to
+perish.</p>
+
+<p>But, if her father knew her no more, the large sheep-dog at his side was
+not so cruel. No theological dogmas measured Rover's love; the stain on
+the spotless name of his master's house, which hurt the old man like a
+wound, had not shadowed his memory. He licked her hands and face, and
+tried with a hospitality and pity which made him so much nearer the
+angels than his master to pull her toward her home. But she shook her
+head and moaned pitifully; then throwing her arms round the poor brute
+she kissed him with those passionate kisses of repentance and love which
+should have fallen on her father's neck. The dog (dumb to all but God)
+pleaded with sorrowful eyes and half-frantic gestures; but she turned
+wearily away toward a great circle of immense rocks&mdash;relics of a
+religion scarcely more cruel than that which had neither pity nor
+forgiveness at the mouth of the grave. Within their shadow she could die
+unseen; and there next morning a wagoner, attracted by the plaintive
+howling of a dog, found her on the ground, dead.</p>
+
+<p>There are set awful hours between every soul and heaven. Who knows what
+passed between Lettice Todd and her God in that dim forsaken temple of a
+buried faith?<a name="Page_67" id="Page_67"></a> Death closes tenderly even the eyes full of tears, and
+her face was beautiful with a strange peace, though its loveliness was
+marred and its youth "seared with the autumn of strange suffering."</p>
+
+<p>At the inquest which followed, her stern old father neither blamed nor
+excused himself. He accepted without apology the verdict of society
+against him; only remarking that its reproof was "a guid example o'
+Satan correcting sin."</p>
+
+<p>Scant pity and less ceremony was given to her burial. Death, which draws
+under the mantle of Charity the pride, cruelty and ambition of men,
+covering them with those two narrow words <i>Hic jacet</i>! gives also to the
+woman who has been a sinner all she asks&mdash;oblivion. In no other way can
+she obtain from man toleration. The example of the whitest, purest soul
+that ever breathed on earth, in this respect, is ignored in the church
+He founded. The tenderest of human hearts, "when lovely woman stooped to
+folly," found no way of escape for her but to "die;" and those closet
+moralists, with filthy fancies and soiled souls, who abound in every
+community, regard her with that sort of scorn which a Turk expresses
+when he says "Dog of a Christian." Poor Lettice! She had procured this
+doom&mdash;first by sacrificing herself to a blind and cruel love, and then
+<a name="Page_68" id="Page_68"></a>to the importunate demands of hunger, "oldest and strongest of
+passions." Ah! if there was no pity in Heaven, no justice beyond the
+grave, what a cruel irony this life would be! For, while the sexton
+shoveled hastily over the rude coffin the obliterating earth, there
+passed the graveyard another woman equally fallen from all the apostle
+calls "lovely and of good report." One whose youth and hopes and
+marvelous beauty had been sold for houses and lands and a few thousand
+pounds a year. But, though her life was a living lie, the world praised
+her, because she "had done well unto herself." Yet, at the last end, the
+same seed brought forth the same fruit, and the Lady of Hawksworth Hall
+learned, with bitter rapidity, that riches are too poor to buy love.
+Scarcely had she taken possession of her splendid home before she longed
+for the placid happiness of her mother's cottage, and those evening
+walks under the beech-trees, whose very memory was now a sin. Over her
+beautiful face there crept a pathetic shadow, which irritated the rude
+and noisy squire like a reproach. He had always had what he wanted. Not
+even the beauty of all the border counties had been beyond his means to
+buy but somehow he felt as if in this bargain he had been overreached.
+Her better part eluded his possession, and he <a name="Page_69" id="Page_69"></a>felt dissatisfied and
+angry. Expostulations grew into cruel words; cruel words came to cruder
+blows. <i>Yes, blows</i>. English gentlemen thirty years ago knew their
+privileges; and that was one of them. She was as much and as lawfully
+his as the horses in his stables or the hounds in his kennels. He beat
+them, too, when they did not obey him. Her beauty had betrayed her into
+the hands of misery. She had wedded it, and there was no escape for her.
+One day, when her despair and suffering was very great, some tempting
+devil brought her a glass of brandy, and she drank it. It gave her back
+for a few hours her departed sceptre; but at what a price! Her slave
+soon became her master. Stimulus and stupefaction, physical exhaustion
+and mental horrors, the abandonment of friends and the brutality of a
+coarse and cruel husband, brought her at last to the day of reckoning.
+She died, seven years after her marriage, in the delirium of opium.
+There were physicians and servants around her, and an unloving husband
+waiting for the news of his release. I think I would rather have died
+where Lettice did&mdash;under the sky, with the solemn mountains lifting
+their heads in a perpetual prayer around me, and that faithful dog
+licking my hands, and mourning my wasted life.</p>
+
+<p>Now, wherein did these two women <a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"></a>differ? One sinned through an intense
+and self-sacrificing love, and in obedience to the strongest calls of
+want. Her sin, though it was beyond the pale of the world's toleration,
+was yet one <i>according to Nature</i>. The other, in a cold spirit of
+barter, voluntarily and deliberately exchanged her youth and beauty, the
+hopes of her own and another's life, for carriages, jewels, fine
+clothing and a luxurious table. She loathed the price she had to pay,
+and her sin was an unnatural one. For this kind of prostitution, which
+religion blesses and society praises, there seems to be no redress; but
+for that which results as the almost inevitable sequence of one lapse of
+chastity <i>we</i>, the pious, the virtuous, the irreproachable, are all to
+blame. Who or what make it impossible for them to retrace their steps?
+Do they ever have reason to hope that the family hearth will be open to
+them if they go back? Prodigal sons may return, and are welcomed with
+tears of joy and clasped by helping hands; but alas! how few parents
+would go to meet a sinning daughter. Forgetting our Master's precepts,
+forgetting our human frailty, forgetting our own weakness, we turn
+scornfully from the weeping Magdalen, and leave her "alone with the
+irreparable." Marriage is a holy and a necessary rite. We would
+deprecate <i>any</i> loosening of this <a name="Page_71" id="Page_71"></a>great house-band of society; but we
+do say that where it is the <i>only distinction</i> between two women, one of
+whom is an honored matron, and the other a Pariah and an outcast, there
+is "something in the world amiss"&mdash;something beyond the cure of law or
+legislation, and that they can only be reached by the authority of a
+Christian press and the influence of Christian example.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_STORY_OF_DAVID_MORRISON" id="THE_STORY_OF_DAVID_MORRISON"></a>THE STORY OF DAVID MORRISON.</h2>
+
+
+<p>I think it is very likely that many New Yorkers were familiar with the
+face of David Morrison. It was a peculiarly guileless, kind face for a
+man of sixty years of age; a face that looked into the world's face with
+something of the confidence of a child. It had round it a little fringe
+of soft, light hair, and above that a big blue Scotch bonnet of the Rob
+Roryson fashion.</p>
+
+<p>The bonnet had come with him from the little Highland clachan, where he
+and his brother Sandy had scrambled through a hard, happy boyhood
+together. It had sometimes been laid aside for a more pretentious
+headgear, but it had never been lost; and in his old age and poverty had
+been cheerfully&mdash;almost affectionately&mdash;resumed.</p>
+
+<p>"Sandy had one just like it," he would say. "We bought them thegither in
+Aberdeen. Twa braw lads were we then. I'm wonderin' where poor Sandy is
+the day!"</p>
+
+<p>So, if anybody remembers the little spare man, with the child-like,
+candid face and the big blue bonnet, let them recall him kindly. It is
+his true history I am telling to-day.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73"></a>Davie had, as I said before, a hard boyhood. He knew what cold, hunger
+and long hours meant as soon as he knew anything; but it was glorified
+in his memory by the two central figures in it&mdash;a good mother, for whom
+he toiled and suffered cheerfully, and a big brother who helped him
+bravely over all the bits of life that were too hard for his young feet.</p>
+
+<p>When the mother died, the lads sailed together for America. They had a
+"far-awa'" cousin in New York, who, report said, had done well in the
+plastering business, and Sandy never doubted but that one Morrison would
+help another Morrison the wide world over. With this faith in their
+hearts and a few shillings in their pockets, the two lads landed. The
+American Morrison had not degenerated. He took kindly to his kith and
+kin, and offered to teach them his own craft.</p>
+
+<p>For some time the brothers were well content; but Sandy was of an
+ambitious, adventurous temper, and was really only waiting until he felt
+sure that wee Davie could take care of himself. Nothing but the Great
+West could satisfy Sandy's hopes; but he never dreamt of exposing his
+brother to its dangers and privations.</p>
+
+<p>"You're nothing stronger than a bit lassie, Davie," he said, "and you're
+no to fret if I don't take you wi' me. I'm going <a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"></a>to make a big fortune,
+and when I have gotten the gold safe, I'se come back to you, and we'll
+spend it thegither dollar for dollar, my wee lad."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure as death! You'll come back to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure as death, I'll come back to you, Davie!" and Sandy thought it no
+shame to cry on his little brother's neck, and to look back, with a
+loving, hopeful smile at Davie's sad, wistful face, just as long as he
+could see it.</p>
+
+<p>It was Davie's nature to believe and to trust. With a pitiful confidence
+and constancy he looked for the redemption of his brother's promise.
+After twenty years of absolute silence, he used to sit in the evenings
+after his work was over, and wonder "how Sandy and he had lost each
+other." For the possibility of Sandy forgetting him never once entered
+his loyal heart.</p>
+
+<p>He could find plenty of excuses for Sandy's silence. In the long years
+of their separation many changes had occurred even in a life so humble
+as Davie's. First, his cousin Morrison died, and the old business was
+scattered and forgotten. Then Davie had to move his residence very
+frequently; had even to follow lengthy jobs into various country places,
+so that his old address soon became a very blind clew to him.</p>
+
+<p>Then seven years after Sandy's departure <a name="Page_75" id="Page_75"></a>the very house in which they
+had dwelt was pulled down; an iron factory was built on its site, and
+probably a few months afterward no one in the neighborhood could have
+told anything at all about Davie Morrison. Thus, unless Sandy should
+come himself to find his brother, every year made the probability of a
+letter reaching him less and less likely.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps, as the years went by, the prospect of a reunion became more of
+a dream than an expectation. Davie had married very happily, a simple
+little body, not unlike himself, both in person and disposition. They
+had one son, who, of course, had been called Alexander, and in whom
+Davie fondly insisted, the lost Sandy's beauty and merits were
+faithfully reproduced.</p>
+
+<p>It is needless to say the boy was extravagantly loved and spoiled.
+Whatever Davie's youth had missed, he strove to procure for "Little
+Sandy." Many an extra hour he worked for this unselfish end. Life itself
+became to him only an implement with which to toil for his boy's
+pleasure and advantage. It was a common-place existence enough, and yet
+through it ran one golden thread of romance.</p>
+
+<p>In the summer evenings, when they walked together on the Battery, and in
+winter nights, when they sat together by the stove, Davie talked to his
+wife and <a name="Page_76" id="Page_76"></a>child of that wonderful brother, who had gone to look for
+fortune in the great West. The simplicity of the elder two and the
+enthusiasm of the youth equally accepted the tale.</p>
+
+<p>Somehow, through many a year, a belief in his return invested life with
+a glorious possibility. Any night they might come home and find Uncle
+Sandy sitting by the fire, with his pockets full of gold eagles, and no
+end of them in some safe bank, besides.</p>
+
+<p>But when the youth had finished his schooldays, had learned a trade and
+began to go sweethearting, more tangible hopes and dreams agitated all
+their hearts; for young Sandy Morrison opened a carpenter's shop in his
+own name, and began to talk of taking a wife and furnishing a home.</p>
+
+<p>He did not take just the wife that pleased his father and mother. There
+was nothing, indeed, about Sallie Barker of which they could complain.
+She was bright and capable, but they <i>felt</i> a want they were not able to
+analyze; the want was that pure unselfishness which was the ruling
+spirit of their own lives.</p>
+
+<p>This want never could be supplied in Sallie's nature. She did right
+because it was her duty to do right, not because it gave her pleasure to
+do it. When they had been married three years the war broke <a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"></a>out, and
+soon afterward Alexander Morrison was drafted for the army. Sallie, who
+was daily expecting her second child, refused all consolation; and,
+indeed, their case looked hard enough.</p>
+
+<p>At first the possibility of a substitute had suggested itself; but a
+family consultation soon showed that this was impossible without
+hopelessly straitening both houses. Everyone knows that dreary silence
+which follows a long discussion, that has only confirmed the fear of an
+irremediable misfortune. Davie broke it in this case in a very
+unexpected manner.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me go in your place, Sandy. I'd like to do it, my lad. Maybe I'd
+find your uncle. Who knows? What do you say, old wife? We've had more
+than twenty years together. It is pretty hard for Sandy and Sallie, now,
+isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>He spoke with a bright face and in a cheerful voice, as if he really was
+asking a favor for himself; and, though he did not try to put his offer
+into fine, heroic words, nothing could have been finer or more heroic
+than the perfect self-abnegation of his manner.</p>
+
+<p>The poor old wife shed a few bitter tears; but she also had been
+practicing self-denial for a lifetime, and the end of it was that Davie
+went to weary marches and lonely watches, and Sandy staid at home.</p>
+
+<p>This was the break-up of Davie's life.<a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></a> His wife went to live with Sandy
+and Sallie, and the furniture was mostly sold.</p>
+
+<p>Few people could have taken these events as Davie did. He even affected
+to be rather smitten with the military fever, and, when the parting
+came, left wife and son and home with a cheerful bravery that was sad
+enough to the one old heart who had counted its cost.</p>
+
+<p>In Davie's loving, simple nature there was doubtless a strong vein of
+romance. He was really in hopes that he might come across his long-lost
+brother. He had no very clear idea as to localities and distances, and
+he had read so many marvelous war stories that all things seemed
+possible in its atmosphere. But reality and romance are wide enough
+apart.</p>
+
+<p>Davie's military experience was a very dull and weary one. He grew
+poorer and poorer, lost heart and hope, and could only find comfort for
+all his sacrifices in the thought that "at least he had spared poor
+Sandy."</p>
+
+<p>Neither was his home-coming what he had pictured it in many a reverie.
+There was no wife to meet him&mdash;she had been three months in the grave
+when he got back to New York&mdash;and going to his daughter-in-law's home
+was not&mdash;well, it was not like going to his own house.</p>
+
+<p>Sallie was not cross or cruel, and she <a name="Page_79" id="Page_79"></a>was grateful to Davie, but she
+did not <i>love</i> the old man.</p>
+
+<p>He soon found that the attempt to take up again his trade was hopeless.
+He had grown very old with three years' exposure and hard duty. Other
+men could do twice the work he could, and do it better. He must step out
+from the ranks of skilled mechanics and take such humble positions as
+his failing strength permitted him to fill.</p>
+
+<p>Sandy objected strongly to this at first. "He could work for both," he
+said, "and he thought father had deserved his rest."</p>
+
+<p>But Davie shook his head&mdash;"he must earn his own loaf, and he must earn
+it now, just as he could. Any honest way was honorable enough." He was
+still cheerful and hopeful, but it was noticeable that he never spoke of
+his brother Sandy now; he had buried that golden expectation with many
+others. Then began for Davie Morrison the darkest period of his life. I
+am not going to write its history.</p>
+
+<p>It is not pleasant to tell of a family sinking lower and lower in spite
+of its brave and almost desperate efforts to keep its place&mdash;not
+pleasant to tell of the steps that gradually brought it to that pass,
+when the struggle was despairingly abandoned, and the conflict narrowed
+down to a fight with actual cold and hunger.</p>
+
+<p>It is not pleasant, mainly, because in <a name="Page_80" id="Page_80"></a>such a struggle many a lonely
+claim is pitilessly set aside. In the daily shifts of bare life, the
+tender words that bring tender acts are forgotten. Gaunt looks,
+threadbare clothes, hard day-labor, sharp endurance of their children's
+wants, made Sandy and Sallie Morrison often very hard to those to whom
+they once were very tender.</p>
+
+<p>David had noticed it for many months. He could see that Sallie counted
+grudgingly the few pennies he occasionally required. His little
+newspaper business had been declining for some years; people took fewer
+papers, and some did not pay for those they did take. He made little
+losses that were great ones to him, and Sallie had long been saying it
+would "be far better for father to give up the business to Jamie; he is
+now sixteen and bright enough to look after his own."</p>
+
+<p>This alternative David could not bear to think of; and yet all through
+the summer the fear had constantly been before him. He knew how Sallie's
+plans always ended; Sandy was sure to give into them sooner or later,
+and he wondered if into their minds had ever come the terrible thought
+which haunted his own&mdash;<i>would they commit him, then, to the care of
+public charities?</i></p>
+
+<p>"We have no time to love each other," he muttered, sadly, "and my bite
+and sup is hard to spare when there is not enough to go round. I'll
+speak to Sandy myself <a name="Page_81" id="Page_81"></a>about it&mdash;poor lad! It will come hard on him to
+say the first word."</p>
+
+<p>The thought once realized began to take shape in his mind, and that
+night, contrary to his usual custom, he could not go to sleep. Sandy
+came in early, and the children went wearily off to bed. Then Sallie
+began to talk on the very subject which lay so heavy on his own heart,
+and he could tell from the tone of the conversation that it was one that
+had been discussed many times before.</p>
+
+<p>"He only made bare expenses last week and there's a loss of seventy
+cents this week already. Oh, Sandy, Sandy! there is no use putting off
+what is sure to come. Little Davie had to do without a drink of coffee
+to-night, and <i>his</i> bread, you know, comes off theirs at every meal. It
+is very hard on us all!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think the children mind it, Sallie. Every one of them loves the
+old man&mdash;God bless him! He was a good father to me."</p>
+
+<p>"I would love him, too, Sandy, if I did not see him eating my children's
+bread. And neither he nor they get enough. Sandy, do take him down
+to-morrow, and tell him as you go the strait we are in. He will be
+better off; he will get better food and every other comfort. You must do
+it, Sandy; I can bear this no longer."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"></a>"It's getting near Christmas, Sallie. Maybe he'll get New Year's
+presents enough to put things straight. Last year they were nearly
+eighteen dollars, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you see that Jamie could get that just as well? Jamie can take
+the business and make something of it. Father is letting it get worse
+and worse every week. We should have one less to feed, and Jamie's
+earnings besides. Sandy, <i>it has got to be</i>! Do it while we can make
+something by the step."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a mean, dastardly step, Sallie. God will never forgive me if I
+take it," and David could hear that his son's voice trembled.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, great tears were silently dropping from Sandy's eyes, and his
+father knew it, and pitied him, and thanked God that the lad's heart was
+yet so tender. And after this he felt strangely calm, and dropped into a
+happy sleep.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning he remembered all. He had not heard the end of the
+argument, but he knew that Sallie would succeed; and he was neither
+astonished nor dismayed when Sandy came home in the middle of the day
+and asked him to "go down the avenue a bit."</p>
+
+<p>He had determined to speak first and spare Sandy the shame and the
+sorrow of it; but something would not let him do it.<a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"></a> In the first
+place, a singular lightness of heart came over him; he noticed all the
+gay preparations for Christmas, and the cries and bustle of the streets
+gave him a new sense of exhilaration. Sandy fell almost unconsciously
+into his humor. He had a few cents in his pocket, and he suddenly
+determined to go into a cheap restaurant and have a good warm meal with
+his father.</p>
+
+<p>Davie was delighted at the proposal and gay as a child; old memories of
+days long past crowded into both men's minds, and they ate and drank,
+and then wandered on almost happily. Davie knew very well where they
+were going, but he determined now to put off saying a word until the
+last moment. He had Sandy all to himself for this hour; they might never
+have such another; Davie was determined to take all the sweetness of it.</p>
+
+<p>As they got lower down the avenue, Sandy became more and more silent;
+his eyes looked straight before him, but they were brimful of tears, and
+the smile with which he answered Davie's pleasant prattle was almost
+more pitiful than tears.</p>
+
+<p>At length they came in sight of a certain building, and Sandy gave a
+start and shook himself like a man waking out of a sleep. His words were
+sharp, his voice almost like that of a man in mortal danger, as he
+turned Davie quickly round, and said:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84"></a>"We must go back now, father. I will not go another step this road&mdash;no,
+by heaven! though I die for it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Just a little further, Sandy."</p>
+
+<p>And Davie's thin, childlike face had an inquiry in it that Sandy very
+well understood.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, father, no further on this road, please God!"</p>
+
+<p>Then he hailed a passing car, and put the old man tenderly in it, and
+resolutely turned his back upon the hated point to which he had been
+going.</p>
+
+<p>Of course he thought of Sallie as they rode home, and the children and
+the trouble there was likely to be. But somehow it seemed a light thing
+to him. He could not helping nodding cheerfully now and then to the
+father whom he had so nearly lost; and, perhaps, never in all their
+lives had they been so precious to each other as when, hand-in-hand,
+they climbed the dark tenement stair together.</p>
+
+<p>Before thy reached the door they heard Sallie push a chair aside
+hastily, and come to meet them. She had been crying, too, and her very
+first words were, "Oh, father!' I am so glad!&mdash;so glad!"</p>
+
+<p>She did not say what for, but Davie took her words very gratefully, and
+he made no remark, though he knew she went into debt at the grocery for
+the little extras with<a name="Page_85" id="Page_85"></a> which she celebrated his return at supper. He
+understood, however, that the danger was passed, and he went to sleep
+that night thanking God for the love that had stood so hard a trial and
+come out conqueror.</p>
+
+<p>The next day life took up its dreary tasks again, but in Davie's heart
+there was a strange presentiment of change, and it almost angered the
+poor, troubled, taxed wife to see him so thoughtlessly playing with the
+children. But the memory of the wrong she had nursed against him still
+softened and humbled her, and when he came home after carrying round his
+papers, she made room for him at the stove, and brought him a cup of
+coffee and a bit of bread and bacon.</p>
+
+<p>Davie's eyes filled, and Sallie went away to avoid seeing them. So then
+he took out a paper that he had left and began to read it as he ate and
+drank.</p>
+
+<p>In a few minutes a sudden sharp cry escaped him. He put the paper in his
+pocket, and, hastily resuming his old army cloak and Scotch bonnet, went
+out without a word to anyone.</p>
+
+<p>The truth was that he had read a personal notice which greatly disturbed
+him. It was to the effect that, "If David Morrison, who left Aberdeen in
+18&mdash;, was still alive, and would apply to Messrs. Morgan &amp; Black, Wall
+street, he would hear of something to his advantage."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86"></a>His long-lost brother was the one thought in his heart. He was going
+now to hear something about Sandy.</p>
+
+<p>"He said 'sure as death,' and he would mind that promise at the last
+hour, if he forgot it before; so, if he could not come, he'd doubtless
+send, and this will be his message. Poor Sandy! there was never a lad
+like him!"</p>
+
+<p>When he reached Messrs. Morgan &amp; Black's, he was allowed to stand
+unnoticed by the stove a few minutes, and during them his spirits sank
+to their usual placid level. At length some one said:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, old man, what do <i>you</i> want?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am David Morrison, and I just came to see what <i>you</i> wanted."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you are David Morrison! Good! Go forward&mdash;I think you will find
+out, then, what we want."</p>
+
+<p>He was not frightened, but the man's manner displeased him, and, without
+answering, he walked toward the door indicated, and quietly opened it.</p>
+
+<p>An old gentleman was standing with his back to the door, looking into
+the fire, and one rather younger, was writing steadily away at a desk.
+The former never moved; the latter simply raised his head with an
+annoyed look, and motioned to Davie to close the door.</p>
+
+<p>"I am David Morrison, sir."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87"></a>"Oh, Davie! Davie! And the old blue bonnet, too! Oh, Davie! Davie,
+lad!"</p>
+
+<p>As for Davie, he was quite overcome. With a cry of joy so keen that it
+was like a sob of pain, he fell fainting to the floor. When he became
+conscious again he knew that he had been very ill, for there were two
+physicians by his side, and Sandy's face was full of anguish and
+anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>"He will do now, sir. It was only the effect of a severe shock on a
+system too impoverished to bear it. Give him a good meal and a glass of
+wine."</p>
+
+<p>Sandy was not long in following out this prescription, and during it
+what a confiding session these two hearts held! Davie told his sad
+history in his own unselfish way, making little of all his sacrifices,
+and saying a great deal about his son Sandy, and Sandy's girls and boys.</p>
+
+<p>But the light in his brother's eyes, and the tender glow of admiration
+with which he regarded the unconscious hero, showed that he understood
+pretty clearly the part that Davie had always taken.</p>
+
+<p>"However, I am o'erpaid for every grief I ever had, Sandy," said Davie,
+in conclusion, "since I have seen your face again, and you're just
+handsomer than ever, and you eight years older than me, too."</p>
+
+<p>Yes, it was undeniable that Alexander<a name="Page_88" id="Page_88"></a> Morrison was still a very
+handsome, hale old gentleman; but yet there was many a trace of labor
+and sorrow on his face; and he had known both.</p>
+
+<p>For many years after he had left Davie, life had been a very hard battle
+to him. During the first twenty years of their separation, indeed, Davie
+had perhaps been the better off, and the happier of the two.</p>
+
+<p>When the war broke out, Sandy had enlisted early, and, like Davie,
+carried through all its chances and changes the hope of finding his
+brother. Both of them had returned to their homes after the struggle
+equally hopeless and poor.</p>
+
+<p>But during the last eleven years fortune had smiled on Sandy. Some call
+of friendship for a dead comrade led him to a little Pennsylvania
+village, and while there he made a small speculation in oil, which was
+successful. He resolved to stay there, rented his little Western farm,
+and went into the oil business.</p>
+
+<p>"And I have saved thirty thousand dollars, hard cash, Davie. Half of it
+is yours, and half mine. See! Fifteen thousand has been entered from
+time to time in your name. I told you, Davie, that when I came back we
+would share dollar for dollar, and I would not touch a cent of your
+share no more than I would rob the United States Treasury."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89"></a>It was a part of Davie's simple nature that he accepted it without any
+further protestation. Instinctively he felt that it was the highest
+compliment he could pay his brother. It was as if he said: "I firmly
+believed the promise you made me more than forty years ago, and I firmly
+believe in the love and sincerity which this day redeems it." So Davie
+looked with a curious joyfulness at the vouchers which testified to
+fifteen thousand dollars lying in the Chemical Bank, New York, to the
+credit of David Morrison; and then he said, with almost the delight of a
+schoolboy:</p>
+
+<p>"And what will you do wi' yours, Sandy?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to buy a farm in New Jersey, Davie. I was talking with Mr.
+Black about it this morning. It will cost twelve thousand dollars, but
+the gentleman says it will be worth double that in a very few years. I
+think that myself, Davie, for I went yesterday to take a good look at
+it. It is never well to trust to other folks' eyes, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, Sandy, I'll go shares wi' you. We'll buy the farm together and
+we'll live together&mdash;that is, if you would like it."</p>
+
+<p>"What would I like better?"</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe you have a wife, and then&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I have no wife, Davie. She died <a name="Page_90" id="Page_90"></a>nearly thirty years ago. I have no
+one but you."</p>
+
+<p>"And we will grow small fruits, and raise chickens and have the finest
+dairy in the State, Sandy."</p>
+
+<p>"That is just my idea, Davie."</p>
+
+<p>Thus they talked until the winter evening began to close in upon them,
+and then Davie recollected that his boy, Sandy, would be more than
+uneasy about him.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll not ask you there to-night, brother; I want them all to myself
+to-night. 'Deed, I've been selfish enough to keep this good news from
+them so long."</p>
+
+<p>So, with a hand-shake that said what no words could say, the brothers
+parted, and Davie made haste to catch the next up-town car. He thought
+they never had traveled so slowly; he was half inclined several times to
+get out and run home.</p>
+
+<p>When he arrived there the little kitchen was dark, but there was a fire
+in the stove and wee Davie&mdash;his namesake&mdash;was sitting, half crying,
+before it.</p>
+
+<p>The child lifted his little sorrowful face to his grandfather's, and
+tried to smile as he made room for him in the warmest place.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter, Davie?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have had a bad day, grandfather. I did not sell my papers, and Jack
+Dacey gave me a beating besides; and&mdash;and I really do think my toes are
+frozen off."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91"></a>Then Davie pulled the lad on to his knee, and whispered</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my wee man, you shall sell no more papers. You shall have braw new
+clothes, and go to school every day of your life. Whist! yonder comes
+mammy."</p>
+
+<p>Sallie came in with a worried look, which changed to one of reproach
+when she saw Davie.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, father, how could you stay abroad this way? Sandy is fair daft
+about you, and is gone to the police stations, and I don't know where&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Then she stopped, for Davie had come toward her, and there was such a
+new, strange look on his face that it terrified her, and she could only
+say: "Father! father! what is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is good news, Sallie. My brother Sandy is come, and he has just
+given me fifteen thousand dollars; and there is a ten-dollar bill, dear
+lass, for we'll have a grand supper to-night, please God."</p>
+
+<p>By and by they heard poor Sandy's weary footsteps on the stair, and
+Sallie said:</p>
+
+<p>"Not a word, children. Let grandfather tell your father."</p>
+
+<p>Davie went to meet him, and, before he spoke, Sandy saw, as Sallie had
+seen, that his father's countenance was changed, and that something
+wonderful had happened.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter, father?"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92"></a>"Fifteen thousand dollars is the matter, my boy; and peace and comfort
+and plenty, and decent clothes and school for the children, and a happy
+home for us all in some nice country place."</p>
+
+<p>When Sandy heard this he kissed his father, and then covering his face
+with his hands, sobbed out:</p>
+
+<p>"Thank God! thank God!"</p>
+
+<p>It was late that night before either the children or the elders could go
+to sleep. Davie told them first of the farm that Sandy and he were going
+to buy together, and then he said to his son:</p>
+
+<p>"Now, my dear lad, what think you is best for Sallie and the children?"</p>
+
+<p>"You say, father, that the village where you are going is likely to grow
+fast."</p>
+
+<p>"It is sure to grow. Two lines of railroad will pass through it in a
+month."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I would like to open a carpenter's shop there. There will soon be
+work enough; and we will rent some nice little cottage, and the children
+can go to school, and it will be a new life for us all. I have often
+dreamed of such a chance, but I never believed it would come true."</p>
+
+<p>But the dream came more than true. In a few weeks Davie and his brother
+were settled in their new home, and in the adjoining village Alexander
+Morrison, junior, had opened a good carpenter and builder's shop, and
+had begun to do very well.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93"></a>Not far from it was the coziest of old stone houses, and over it Sallie
+presided. It stood among great trees, and was surrounded by a fine fruit
+garden, and was prettily furnished throughout; besides which, and best
+of all, <i>it was their own</i>&mdash;a New Year's gift from the kindest of
+grandfathers and uncles. People now have got well used to seeing the
+Brothers Morrison.</p>
+
+<p>They are rarely met apart. They go to market and to the city together.
+What they buy they buy in unison, and every bill of sale they give bears
+both their names. Sandy is the ruling spirit, but Davie never suspects,
+for Sandy invariably says to all propositions, "If my brother David
+agrees, I do," or, "If brother David is satisfied, I have no more to
+say," etc.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the villagers have tried to persuade them that they must be
+lonely, but they know better than that. Old men love a great deal of
+quiet and of gentle meandering retrospection; and David and Sandy have
+each of them forty years' history to tell the other. Then they are both
+very fond of young Sandy and the children.</p>
+
+<p>Sandy's projects and plans and building contracts are always well talked
+over at the farm before they are signed, and the children's lessons and
+holidays, and even their new clothes, interest the two old men almost as
+much as they do Sallie.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94"></a>As for Sallie, you would scarcely know her. She is no longer cross with
+care and quarrelsome with hunger. I always did believe that prosperity
+was good for the human soul, and Sallie Morrison proves the theory. She
+has grown sweet tempered in its sunshine, is gentle and forbearing to
+her children, loving and grateful to her father-in-law, and her
+husband's heart trusts in her.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore let all those fortunate ones who are in prosperity give
+cheerfully to those who ask of them. It will bring a ten-fold blessing
+on what remains, and the piece of silver sent out on its pleasant errand
+may happily touch the hand that shall bring the giver good fortune
+through all the years of life.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="TOM_DUFFANS_DAUGHTER" id="TOM_DUFFANS_DAUGHTER"></a>TOM DUFFAN'S DAUGHTER.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Tom Duffan's cabinet-pictures are charming bits of painting; but you
+would cease to wonder how he caught such delicate home touches if you
+saw the room he painted in; for Tom has a habit of turning his wife's
+parlor into a studio, and both parlor and pictures are the better for
+the habit.</p>
+
+<p>One bright morning in the winter of 1872 he had got his easel into a
+comfortable light between the blazing fire and the window, and was
+busily painting. His cheery little wife&mdash;pretty enough in spite of her
+thirty-seven years&mdash;was reading the interesting items in the morning
+papers to him, and between them he sung softly to himself the favorite
+tenor song of his favorite opera. But the singing always stopped when
+the reading began; and so politics and personals, murders and music,
+dramas and divorces kept continually interrupting the musical despair of
+"Ah! che la morte ognora."</p>
+
+<p>But even a morning paper is not universally interesting, and in the very
+middle of an elaborate criticism on tragedy and Edwin Booth, the parlor
+door partially <a name="Page_96" id="Page_96"></a>opened, and a lovelier picture than ever Tom Duffan
+painted stood in the aperture&mdash;a piquant, brown-eyed girl, in a morning
+gown of scarlet opera flannel, and a perfect cloud of wavy black hair
+falling around her.</p>
+
+<p>"Mamma, if anything on earth can interest you that is not in a
+newspaper, I should like to know whether crimps or curls are most
+becoming with my new seal-skin set."</p>
+
+<p>"Ask papa."</p>
+
+<p>"If I was a picture, of course papa would know; but seeing I am only a
+poor live girl, it does not interest him."</p>
+
+<p>"Because, Kitty, you never will dress artistically."</p>
+
+<p>"Because, papa, I must dress fashionably. It is not my fault if artists
+don't know the fashions. Can't I have mamma for about half an hour?"</p>
+
+<p>"When she has finished this criticism of Edwin Booth. Come in, Kitty; it
+will do you good to hear it."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, no, papa; I am going to Booth's myself to-night, and I
+prefer to do my own criticism." Then Kitty disappeared, Mrs. Duffan
+skipped a good deal of criticism, and Tom got back to his "Ah! che la
+morte ognora" much quicker than the column of printed matter warranted.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Kitty child, what do you want?"</p>
+
+<p>"See here."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97"></a>"Tickets for Booth's?"</p>
+
+<p>"Parquette seats, middle aisle; I know them. Jack always does get just
+about the same numbers."</p>
+
+<p>"Jack? You don't mean to say that Jack Warner sent them?"</p>
+
+<p>Kitty nodded and laughed in a way that implied half a dozen different
+things.</p>
+
+<p>"But I thought that you had positively refused him, Kitty?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I did mamma&mdash;I told him in the nicest kind of way that we
+must only be dear friends, and so on."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why did he send these tickets?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why do moths fly round a candle? It is my opinion both moths and men
+enjoy burning."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Kitty, I don't pretend to understand this new-fashioned way of
+being 'off' and 'on' with a lover at the same time. Did you take me from
+papa simply to tell me this?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I thought perhaps you might like to devote a few moments to papa's
+daughter. Papa has no hair to crimp and no braids to make. Here are all
+the hair-pins ready, mamma, and I will tell you about Sarah Cooper's
+engagement and the ridiculous new dress she is getting."</p>
+
+<p>It is to be supposed the bribe proved attractive enough, for Mrs. Duffan
+took in hand the long tresses, and Kitty rattled <a name="Page_98" id="Page_98"></a>away about wedding
+dresses and traveling suits and bridal gifts with as much interest as if
+they were the genuine news of life, and newspaper intelligence a kind of
+grown-up fairy lore.</p>
+
+<p>But anyone who saw the hair taken out of crimps would have said it was
+worth the trouble of putting it in; and the face was worth the hair, and
+the hair was worth the exquisite hat and the rich seal-skins and the
+tantalizing effects of glancing silk and beautiful colors. Depend upon
+it, Kitty Duffan was just as bright and bewitching a life-sized picture
+as anyone could desire to see; and Tom Duff an thought so, as she
+tripped up to the great chair in which he was smoking and planning
+subjects, for a "good-by" kiss.</p>
+
+<p>"I declare, Kitty! Turn round, will you? Yes, I declare you are dressed
+in excellent taste. All the effects are good. I wouldn't have believed
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Complimentary, papa. But 'I told you so.' You just quit the antique,
+and take to studying <i>Harper's Bazar</i> for effects; then your women will
+look a little more natural."</p>
+
+<p>"Natural? Jehoshaphat! Go way, you little fraud!"</p>
+
+<p>"I appeal to Jack. Jack, just look at the women in that picture of
+papa's, with the white sheets draped about them. What do they look
+like?"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99"></a>"Frights, Miss Kitty."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course they do. Now, papa."</p>
+
+<p>"You two young barbarians!" shouted Tom, in a fit of laughter; for Jack
+and Kitty were out in the clear frosty air by this time, with the fresh
+wind at their backs, and their faces steadily set toward the busy bustle
+and light of Broadway. They had not gone far when Jack said, anxiously,
+"You haven't thought any better of your decision last Friday night,
+Kitty, I am afraid."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, no, Jack. I don't see how I can, unless you could become an Indian
+Commissioner or a clerk of the Treasury, or something of that kind. You
+know I won't marry a literary man under any possible circumstances. I'm
+clear on that subject, Jack."</p>
+
+<p>"I know all about farming, Kitty, if that would do."</p>
+
+<p>"But I suppose if you were a farmer, we should have to live in the
+country. I am sure that would not do."</p>
+
+<p>Jack did not see how the city and farm could be brought to terms; so he
+sighed, and was silent.</p>
+
+<p>Kitty answered the sigh. "No use in bothering about me, Jack. You ought
+to be very glad I have been so honest. Some girls would have 'risked
+you, and in a week, you'd have been just as miserable!"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100"></a>"You don't dislike me, Kitty?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all. I think you are first-rate."</p>
+
+<p>"It is my profession, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, what has it ever done to offend you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing yet, and I don't mean it ever shall. You see, I know Will
+Hutton's wife: and what that woman endures! Its just dreadful."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Kitty!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is Jack. Will reads all his fine articles to her, wakes her up at
+nights to listen to some new poem, rushes away from the dinner table to
+jot down what he calls 'an idea,' is always pointing out 'splendid
+passages' to her, and keeps her working just like a slave copying his
+manuscripts and cutting newspapers to pieces. Oh, it is just dreadful!"</p>
+
+<p>"But she thoroughly enjoys it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that is such a shame. Will has quite spoiled her. Lucy used to be
+real nice, a jolly, stylish girl. Before she was married she was
+splendid company; now, you might just as well mope round with a book."</p>
+
+<p>"Kitty, I'd promise upon my honor&mdash;at the altar, if you like&mdash;never to
+bother you with anything I write; never to say a word about my
+profession."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, sir! Then you would soon be <a name="Page_101" id="Page_101"></a>finding some one else to bother,
+perhaps some blonde, sentimental, intellectual 'friend.' What is the use
+of turning a good-natured little thing like me into a hateful dog in the
+manger? I am not naturally able to appreciate you, but if you were
+<i>mine</i>, I should snarl and bark and bite at any other woman who was."</p>
+
+<p>Jack liked this unchristian sentiment very much indeed. He squeezed
+Kitty's hand and looked so gratefully into her bright face that she was
+forced to pretend he had ruined her glove.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll buy you boxes full, Kitty; and, darling, I am not very poor; I am
+quite sure I could make plenty of money for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Jack, I did not want to speak about money; because, if a girl does not
+go into raptures about being willing to live on crusts and dress in
+calicos for love, people say she's mercenary. Well, then, I am
+mercenary. I want silk dresses and decent dinners and matinees, and I'm
+fond of having things regular; it's a habit of mine to like them all the
+time. Now I know literary people have spasms of riches, and then spasms
+of poverty. Artists are just the same. I have tried poverty
+occasionally, and found its uses less desirable than some people tell us
+they are."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you decided yet whom and what you will marry, Kitty?"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"></a>"No sarcasm, Jack. I shall marry the first good honest fellow that
+loves me and has a steady business, and who will not take me every
+summer to see views."</p>
+
+<p>"To see views?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I am sick to death of fine scenery and mountains, 'scarped and
+jagged and rifted,' and all other kinds. I've seen so many grand
+landscapes, I never want to see another. I want to stay at the Branch or
+the Springs, and have nice dresses and a hop every night. And you know
+papa <i>will</i> go to some lonely place, where all my toilettes are thrown
+away, and where there is not a soul to speak to but famous men of one
+kind or another."</p>
+
+<p>Jack couldn't help laughing; but they were now among the little crush
+that generally gathers in the vestibule of a theatre, and whatever he
+meant to say was cut in two by a downright hearty salutation from some
+third party.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Max, when did you get home?"</p>
+
+<p>"To-day's steamer." Then there were introductions and a jingle of merry
+words and smiles that blended in Kitty's ears with the dreamy music, the
+rustle of dresses, and perfume of flowers, and the new-comer was gone.</p>
+
+<p>But that three minutes' interview was a wonderful event to Kitty Duffan,
+though she did not yet realize it. The stranger had <a name="Page_103" id="Page_103"></a>touched her as she
+had never been touched before. His magnetic voice called something into
+being that was altogether new to her; his keen, searching gray eyes
+claimed what she could neither understand nor withhold. She became
+suddenly silent and thoughtful; and Jack, who was learned in love lore,
+saw in a moment that Kitty had fallen in love with his friend Max
+Raymond.</p>
+
+<p>It gave him a moment's bitter pang; but if Kitty was not for him, then
+he sincerely hoped Max might win her. Yet he could not have told whether
+he was most pleased or angry when he saw Max Raymond coolly negotiate a
+change of seats with the gentleman on Kitty's right hand, and take
+possession of Kitty's eyes and ears and heart. But there is a great deal
+of human nature in man, and Jack behaved, upon the whole, better than
+might have been expected.</p>
+
+<p>For once Kitty did not do all the talking. Max talked, and she listened;
+Max gave opinions, and she indorsed them; Max decided, and she
+submitted. It was not Jack's Kitty at all. He was quite relieved when
+she turned round in her old piquant way and snubbed him.</p>
+
+<p>But to Kitty it was a wonderful evening&mdash;those grand old Romans walking
+on and off the stage, the music playing, the people applauding and the
+calm, stately man on her right hand explaining this and that, <a name="Page_104" id="Page_104"></a>and
+looking into her eyes in such a delicious, perplexing way that past and
+present were all mingled like the waving shadows of a wonderful dream.</p>
+
+<p>She was in love's land for about three hours; then she had to come back
+into the cold frosty air, the veritable streets, and the unmistakable
+stone houses. But it was hardest of all to come back and be the old
+radiant, careless Kitty.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, pussy, what of the play?" asked Tom Duffan; "you cut &mdash;&mdash;'s
+criticism short this morning. Now, what is yours?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't know papa. The play was Shakespeare's, and Booth and
+Barrett backed him up handsomely."</p>
+
+<p>"Very fine criticism indeed, Kitty. I wish Booth and Barrett could hear
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish they could; but I am tired to death now. Good night, papa; good
+night, mamma. I'll talk for twenty in the morning."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter with Kitty, mother?"</p>
+
+<p>"Jack Warner, I expect."</p>
+
+<p>"Hum! I don't think so."</p>
+
+<p>"Men don't know everything, Tom."</p>
+
+<p>"They don't know anything about women; their best efforts in that line
+are only guesses at truth."</p>
+
+<p>"Go to bed, Tom Duffan; you are getting prosy and ridiculous. Kitty will
+explain herself in the morning."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105"></a>But Kitty did not explain herself, and she daily grew more and more
+inexplicable. She began to read: Max brought the books, and she read
+them. She began to practice: Max liked music, and wanted to sing with
+her. She stopped crimping her hair: Max said it was unnatural and
+inartistic. She went to scientific lectures and astronomical lectures
+and literary societies: Max took her.</p>
+
+<p>Tom Duffan did not quite like the change, for Tom was of that order of
+men who love to put their hearts and necks under a pretty woman's foot.
+He had been so long used to Kitty dominant, to Kitty sarcastic, to Kitty
+willful, to Kitty absolute, that he could not understand the new Kitty.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not think our little girl is quite well, mother," he said one day,
+after studying his daughter reading the <i>Endymion</i> without a yawn.</p>
+
+<p>"Tom, if you can't 'think' to better purpose, you had better go on
+painting. Kitty is in love."</p>
+
+<p>"First time I ever saw love make a woman studious and sensible."</p>
+
+<p>"They are uncommon symptoms; nevertheless, Kitty's in love. Poor child!"</p>
+
+<p>"With whom?"</p>
+
+<p>"Max Raymond;" and the mother dropped her eyes upon the ruffle she was
+<a name="Page_106" id="Page_106"></a>pleating for Kitty's dress, while Tom Duffan accompanied the new-born
+thought with his favorite melody.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the winter passed quickly and happily away. Greatly to Kitty's
+delight, before its close Jack found the "blonde, sentimental,
+intellectual friend," who could appreciate both him and his writings;
+and the two went to housekeeping in what Kitty called "a large dry-goods
+box." The merry little wedding was the last event of a late spring, and
+when it was over the summer quarters were an imperative question.</p>
+
+<p>"I really don't know what to do, mother," said Tom. "Kitty vowed she
+would not go to the Peak this year, and I scarcely know how to get along
+without it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Kitty will go. Max Raymond has quarters at the hotel lower down."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, oh! I'll tease the little puss."</p>
+
+<p>"You will do nothing of the kind, Tom, unless you want to go to Cape May
+or the Branch. They both imagine their motives undiscovered; but you
+just let Kitty know that you even suspect them, and she won't stir a
+step in your direction."</p>
+
+<p>Here Kitty, entering the room, stopped the conversation. She had a
+pretty lawn suit on, and a Japanese fan in her hand. "Lawn and fans,
+Kitty," said Tom: "time to leave the city. Shall we go to the Branch, or
+Saratoga?"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107"></a>"Now, papa, you know you are joking; you always go to the Peak."</p>
+
+<p>"But I am going with you to the seaside this summer, Kitty. I wish my
+little daughter to have her whim for once."</p>
+
+<p>"You are better than there is any occasion for, papa. I don't want
+either the Branch or Saratoga this year. Sarah Cooper is at the Branch
+with her snobby little husband and her extravagant toilettes; I'm not
+going to be patronized by her. And Jack and his learned lady are at
+Saratoga. I don't want to make Mrs. Warner jealous, but I'm afraid I
+couldn't help it. I think you had better keep me out of temptation."</p>
+
+<p>"Where must we go, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I suppose we might as well go to the Peak. I shall not want many
+new dresses there; and then, papa, you are so good to me all the time,
+you deserve your own way about your holiday."</p>
+
+<p>And Tom Duffan said, "<i>Thank you, Kitty</i>," in such a peculiar way that
+Kitty lost all her wits, blushed crimson, dropped her fan, and finally
+left the room with the lamest of excuses. And then Mrs. Duffan said,
+"Tom, you ought to be ashamed of yourself! If men know a thing past
+ordinary, they must blab it, either with a look or a word or a letter; I
+shouldn't wonder if Kitty told you to-night she was going to <a name="Page_108" id="Page_108"></a>the
+Branch, and asked you for a $500 check&mdash;serve you right, too."</p>
+
+<p>But if Kitty had any such intentions, Max Raymond changed them. Kitty
+went very sweetly to the Peak, and two days afterward Max Raymond,
+straying up the hills with his fishing rod, strayed upon Tom Duffan,
+sketching. Max did a great deal of fishing that summer, and at the end
+of it Tom Duffan's pretty daughter was inextricably caught. She had no
+will but Max's will, and no way but his way. She had promised him never
+to marry any one but him; she had vowed she would love him, and only
+him, to the end of her life.</p>
+
+<p>All these obligations without a shadow or a doubt from the prudent
+little body. Yet she knew nothing of Max's family or antecedents; she
+had taken his appearance and manners, and her father's and mother's
+respectful admission of his friendship, as guarantee sufficient. She
+remembered that Jack, that first night in the theatre, had said
+something about studying law together; and with these items, and the
+satisfactory fact that he always had plenty of money, Kitty had given
+her whole heart, without conditions and without hostages.</p>
+
+<p>Nor would she mar the placid measure of her content by questioning; it
+was enough that her father and mother were satisfied with her choice.
+When they returned to <a name="Page_109" id="Page_109"></a>the city, congratulations, presents and
+preparations filled every hour. Kitty's importance gave her back a great
+deal of her old dictatorial way. In the matter of toilettes she would
+not suffer even Max to interfere. "Results were all men had to do with,"
+she said; "everything was inartistic to them but a few yards of linen
+and a straight petticoat."</p>
+
+<p>Max sighed over the flounces and flutings and lace and ribbons, and
+talked about "unadorned beauty;" and then, when Kitty exhibited results,
+went into rhapsodies of wonder and admiration. Kitty was very triumphant
+in those days, but a little drop of mortification was in store for her.
+She was exhibiting all her pretty things one day to a friend, whose
+congratulations found their climax in the following statement:</p>
+
+<p>"Really, Kitty, a most beautiful wardrobe! and such an extraordinary
+piece of luck for such a little scatter-brain as you! Why, they do say
+that Mr. Raymond's last book is just wonderful."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Mr. Raymond's last book</i>!" And Kitty let the satin-lined morocco case,
+with all its ruby treasures, fall from her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, haven't you read it, dear? So clever, and all that, dear."</p>
+
+<p>Kitty had tact enough to turn the conversation; but just as soon as her
+visitor <a name="Page_110" id="Page_110"></a>had gone, she faced her mother, with blazing eyes and cheeks,
+and said, "What is Max's business&mdash;a lawyer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Gracious, Kitty! What's the matter? He is a scientist, a professor, and
+a great&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Writer?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Writes books and magazine articles and things?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>Kitty thought profoundly for a few moments, and then said, "<i>I thought
+so.</i> I wish Jack Warner was at home."</p>
+
+<p>"What for?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only a little matter I should like to have out with him; but it will
+keep."</p>
+
+<p>Jack, however, went South without visiting New York, and when he
+returned, pretty Kitty Duffan had been Mrs. Max Raymond for two years.
+His first visit was to Tom Duffan's parlor-studio. He was painting and
+singing and chatting to his wife as usual. It was so like old times that
+Jack's eyes filled at the memory when he asked where and how was Mrs.
+Raymond.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the professor had bought a beautiful place eight miles from the
+city. Kitty and he preferred the country. Would he go and see them?"</p>
+
+<p>Certainly Jack would go. To tell the truth, he was curious to see what
+other miracles matrimony had wrought upon<a name="Page_111" id="Page_111"></a> Kitty. So he went, and came
+back wondering.</p>
+
+<p>"Really, dear," says Mrs. Jack Warner, the next day, "how does the
+professor get along with that foolish, ignorant little wife of his?"</p>
+
+<p>"Get along with her? Why, he couldn't get along without her! She sorts
+his papers, makes his notes and quotations, answers his letters, copies
+his manuscripts, swears by all he thinks and says and does, through
+thick and thin, by day and night. It's wonderful, by Jove! I felt
+spiteful enough to remind her that she had once vowed that nothing on
+earth should ever induce her to marry a writer."</p>
+
+<p>"What did she say?"</p>
+
+<p>"She turned round in her old saucy manner, and answered, 'Jack Warner,
+you are as dark as ever. I did not marry the writer, I married <i>the
+man</i>.' Then I said, 'I suppose all this study and reading and writing is
+your offering toward the advancement of science and social
+regeneration?'"</p>
+
+<p>"What then?"</p>
+
+<p>"She laughed in a very provoking way, and said, 'Dark again, Jack; <i>it
+is a labor of love</i>.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Well I never!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nor I either."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_HARVEST_OF_THE_WIND" id="THE_HARVEST_OF_THE_WIND"></a>THE HARVEST OF THE WIND.</h2>
+<hr class="mini" />
+
+<h3>Chapter I.</h3>
+
+<p class="center little">"As a city broken down and without walls, so is he that hath no
+rule over his own spirit."</p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"My soul! Master Jesus, my soul!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">My soul!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dar's a little thing lays in my heart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' de more I dig him de better he spring:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">My soul!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dar's a little thing lays in my heart<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' he sets my soul on fire:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">My soul!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Master Jesus, my soul! my soul!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The singer was a negro man, with a very, black but very kindly face; and
+he was hoeing corn in the rich bottom lands of the San Gabriel river as
+he chanted his joyful little melody. It was early in the morning, yet he
+rested on his hoe and looked anxiously toward the cypress swamp on his
+left hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I'se mighty weary 'bout Massa Davie; he'll get himself into trouble ef
+he stay dar much longer. Ole massa might be 'long most any time now." He
+communed with himself in this strain for about five minutes, and then
+threw his hoe across his <a name="Page_113" id="Page_113"></a>shoulder, and picked a road among the hills of
+growing corn until he passed out of the white dazzling light of the
+field into the grey-green shadows of the swamp. Threading his way among
+the still black bayous, he soon came to a little clearing in the
+cypress.</p>
+
+<p>Here a young man was standing in an attitude of expectancy&mdash;a very
+handsome man clothed in the picturesque costume of a ranchero. He leaned
+upon his rifle, but betrayed both anger and impatience in the rapid
+switching to and fro of his riding-whip. "Plato, she has not come!" He
+said it reproachfully, as if the negro was to blame.</p>
+
+<p>"I done tole you, Massa Davie, dat Miss Lulu neber do noffing ob dat
+kind; ole massa 'ticlarly objects to Miss Lulu seeing you at de present
+time."</p>
+
+<p>"My father objects to every one I like."</p>
+
+<p>"Ef Massa Davie jist 'lieve it, ole massa want ebery thing for his
+good."</p>
+
+<p>"You oversize that statement considerably, Plato. Tell my father, if he
+asks you, that I am going with Jim Whaley, and give Miss Lulu this
+letter."</p>
+
+<p>"I done promise ole massa neber to gib Miss Lulu any letter or message
+from you, Massa Davie."</p>
+
+<p>In a moment the youth's handsome face was flaming with ungovernable
+passion, and he lifted his riding-whip to strike.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114"></a>"For de Lord Jesus' sake don't strike, Massa Davie! Dese arms done
+carry you when you was de littlest little chile. Don't strike me!"</p>
+
+<p>"I should be a brute if I did, Plato;" but the blow descended upon the
+trunk of the tree against which he had been leaning with terrible force.
+Then David Lorimer went striding through the swamp, his great bell spurs
+chiming to his uneven, crashing tread.</p>
+
+<p>Plato looked sorrowfully after him. "Poor Massa Davie! He's got de
+drefful temper; got it each side ob de house&mdash;father and mother, bofe. I
+hope de good Massa above will make 'lowances for de young man&mdash;got it
+bofe ways, he did." And he went thoughtfully back to his work, murmuring
+hopes and apologies for the man he loved, with all the forgiving
+unselfishness of a prayer in them.</p>
+
+<p>In some respects Plato was right. David Lorimer had inherited, both from
+father and mother, an unruly temper. His father was a Scot, dour and
+self-willed; his mother had been a Spanish woman, of San Antonio&mdash;a
+daughter of the grandee family of Yturris. Their marriage had not been a
+happy one, and the fiery emotional Southern woman had fretted her life
+away against the rugged strength of the will which opposed hers. David
+remembered his mother <a name="Page_115" id="Page_115"></a>well, and idolized her memory; right or wrong, he
+had always espoused her quarrel, and when she died she left, between
+father and son, a great gulf.</p>
+
+<p>He had been hard to manage then, but at twenty-two he was beyond all
+control, excepting such as his cousin, Lulu Yturri, exercised over him.
+But this love, the most pure and powerful influence he acknowledged, had
+been positively forbidden. The elder Lorimer declared that there had
+been too much Spanish blood in the family; and it is likely his motives
+commended themselves to his own conscience. It was certain that the mere
+exertion of his will in the matter gave him a pleasure he would not
+forego. Yet he was theoretically a religious man, devoted to the special
+creed he approved, and rigidly observing such forms of worship as made
+any part of it. But the law of love had never yet been revealed to him;
+he had feared and trembled at the fiery Mount of Sinai, but he had not
+yet drawn near to the tenderer influences of Calvary.</p>
+
+<p>He was a rich man also. Broad acres waved with his corn and cotton, and
+he counted his cattle on the prairies by tens of thousands; but nothing
+in his mode of life indicated wealth. The log-house, stretching itself
+out under gigantic trees, was of the usual style of Texan
+architecture&mdash;<a name="Page_116" id="Page_116"></a>broad passages between every room, sweeping from front to
+rear; and low piazzas, festooned with flowery vines, shading it on every
+side. All around it, under the live oaks, were scattered the negro
+cabins, their staring whitewash looking picturesque enough under the
+hanging moss and dark green foliage. But, simple as the house was, it
+was approached by lordly avenues, shaded with black-jack and sweet gum
+and chincapin, interwoven with superb magnolias and gorgeous tulip
+trees.</p>
+
+<p>The Scot in a foreign country, too, often steadily cultivates his
+national peculiarities. James Lorimer was a Scot of this type. As far as
+it was possible to do so in that sunshiny climate, he introduced the
+grey, sombre influence of the land of mists and east winds. His
+household was ruled with stern gravity; his ranch was a model of good
+management; and though few affected his society, he was generally relied
+upon and esteemed; for, though opinionated, egotistical, and austere,
+there was about him a grand honesty and a sense of strength that would
+rise to every occasion.</p>
+
+<p>And so great is the influence of any genuine nature, that David loved
+his father in a certain fashion. The creed he held was a hard one; but
+when he called his family and servants together, and unflinchingly
+taught it, David, even in his worst <a name="Page_117" id="Page_117"></a>moods, was impressed with his
+sincerity and solemnity. There was between them plenty of ground on
+which they could have stood hand in hand, and learned to love one
+another; but a passionate authority on the one hand, and a passionate
+independence on the other, kept them far apart.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly before my story opens there had been a more stubborn quarrel
+than usual, and James Lorimer had forbidden his son to enter his house
+until he chose to humble himself to his father's authority. Then David
+joined Jim Whaley, a great cattle drover, and in a week they were on the
+road to New Mexico with a herd of eight thousand.</p>
+
+<p>This news greatly distressed James Lorimer. He loved his son better than
+he was aware of. There was a thousand deaths upon such a road; there was
+a moral danger in the companionship attending such a business, which he
+regarded with positive horror. The drove had left two days when he heard
+of its departure; but such droves travel slowly, and he could overtake
+it if he wished to do so. As he sat in the moonlight that night,
+smoking, he thought the thing over until he convinced himself that he
+ought to overtake it. Even if Davie would not return with him, he could
+tell him of his danger, and urge him to his duty and thus, at any rate,
+relieve his own conscience of a burden.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118"></a>Arriving at this conclusion, he looked up and saw his niece Lulu
+leaning against one of the white pilasters supporting the piazza. He
+regarded her a moment curiously, as one may look at a lovely picture.
+The pale, sensitive face, the swaying, graceful figure, the flowing
+white robe, the roses at her girdle, were all sharply revealed by the
+bright moonlight, and nothing beautiful in them escaped his notice. He
+was just enough to admit that the temptation to love so fair a woman
+must have been a great one to David. He had himself fallen into just
+such a bewitching snare, and he believed it to be his duty to prevent a
+recurrence of his own married life at any sacrifice.</p>
+
+<p>"Lulu!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, uncle."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you spoken with or written to Davie lately?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not since you forbid me."</p>
+
+<p>He said no more. He began wondering if, after all, the girl would not
+have been better than Jim Whaley. In a dim way it struck him that people
+for ever interfering with destiny do not always succeed in their
+intentions. It was an unusual and unpractical vein of thought for James
+Lorimer, and he put it uneasily away. Still over and over came back the
+question, "What if Lulu's influence would have been <a name="Page_119" id="Page_119"></a>sufficient to have
+kept David from the wild reckless men with whom he was now consorting?"
+For the first time in his life he consciously admitted to himself that
+he might have made a mistake.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning he was early in the saddle. The sky was blue and clear,
+the air full of the fresh odor of earth and clover and wild flowers. The
+swallows were making a jubilant twitter, the larks singing on the edge
+of the prairie&mdash;the glorious prairie, which the giants of the unflooded
+world had cleared off and leveled for the dwelling-place of Liberty. In
+his own way he enjoyed the scene; but he could not, as he usually did,
+let the peace of it sink into his heart. He had suddenly become aware
+that he had an unpleasant duty to perform, and to shirk a duty was a
+thing impossible to him. Until he had obeyed the voice of Conscience,
+all other voices would fail to arrest his interest or attention.</p>
+
+<p>He rode on at a steady pace, keeping the track very easily, and thinking
+of Lulu in a persistent way that was annoying to him. Hitherto he had
+given her very little thought. Half reluctantly he had taken her into
+his household when she was four years of age, and she had grown up there
+with almost as little care as the vines which year by year clambered
+higher over the piazzas. As for her beauty he had thought <a name="Page_120" id="Page_120"></a>no more of it
+than he did of the beauty of the magnolias which sheltered his doorstep.
+Mrs. Lorimer had loved her niece, and he had not interfered with the
+affection. They were both Yturris; it was natural that they should
+understand one another.</p>
+
+<p>But his son was of a different race, and the inheritor of his own
+traditions and prejudices. A Scot from his own countryside had recently
+settled in the neighborhood, and at the Sabbath gathering he had seen
+and approved his daughter. To marry his son David to Jessie Kennedy
+appeared to him a most desirable thing, and he had considered its
+advantages until he could not bear to relinquish the idea. But when both
+fathers had settled the matter, David had met the question squarely, and
+declared he would marry no woman but his cousin Lulu. It was on this
+subject father and son had quarrelled and parted; but for all that,
+James Lorimer could not see his only son taking a high road to ruin, and
+not make an effort to save him.</p>
+
+<p>At sundown he rested a little, but the trail was so fresh he determined
+to ride on. He might reach David while they were camping, and then he
+could talk matters over with more ease and freedom. Near midnight the
+great white Texas moon flooded everything with a light wondrously <a name="Page_121" id="Page_121"></a>soft,
+but clear as day, and he easily found Whaley's camp&mdash;a ten-acre patch of
+grass on the summit of some low hills.</p>
+
+<p>The cattle had all settled for the night, and the "watch" of eight men
+were slowly riding in a circle around them. Lorimer was immediately
+challenged; and he gave his name and asked to see the captain. Whaley
+rose at once, and confronted him with a cool, civil movement of his hand
+to his hat. Then Lorimer observed the man as he had never done before.
+He was evidently not a person to be trifled with. There was a fixed look
+about him, and a deliberate coolness, sufficiently indicating a
+determined character; and a belt around his waist supported a
+six-shooter and revealed the glittering hilt of a bowie knife.</p>
+
+<p>"Captain, good night. I wish to speak with my son, David Lorimer."</p>
+
+<p>"Wall, sir, you can't do it, not by no manner of means, just yet. David
+Lorimer is on watch till midnight."</p>
+
+<p>He was perfectly civil, but there was something particularly irritating
+in the way Whaley named David Lorimer. So the two men sat almost silent
+before the camp fire until midnight. Then Whaley said, "Mr. Lorimer,
+your son is at liberty now. You'll excuse me saying that the shorter you
+make your palaver the better it will suit me."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122"></a>Lorimer turned angrily, but Whaley was walking carelessly away; and the
+retort that rose to his lips was not one to be shouted after a man of
+Whaley's desperate character with safety. As his son approached him he
+was conscious of a thrill of pleasure in the young man's appearance.</p>
+
+<p>Physically, he was all he could desire. No Lorimer that ever galloped
+through Eskdale had the national peculiarities more distinctively. He
+was the tall, fair Scot, and his father complacently compared his yellow
+hair and blue eyes with the "dark, deil-like beauty" of Whaley.</p>
+
+<p>"Davie," and he held out his hand frankly, "I hae come to tak ye back to
+your ain hame. Let byganes be byganes, and we'll start a new chapter o'
+life, my lad. Ye'll try to be a gude son, and I'll aye be a gude father
+to ye."</p>
+
+<p>It was a great deal for James Lorimer to say; and David quite
+appreciated the concession, but he answered&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Lulu, father? I cannot give her up."</p>
+
+<p>"Weel, weel, if ye are daft to marry a strange woman, ye must e'en do
+sae. It is an auld sin, and there have aye been daughters o' Heth to
+plague honest houses wi'. But sit down, my lad; I came to talk wi' ye
+anent some decenter way of life than this."</p>
+
+<p>The talk was not altogether a pleasant <a name="Page_123" id="Page_123"></a>one; but both yielded something,
+and it was finally agreed that as soon as Whaley could pick up a man to
+fill Davie's place Davie should return home. Lorimer did not linger
+after this decision. Whaley's behavior had offended him and without the
+ceremony of a "good-bye," he turned his horse's head eastward again.</p>
+
+<p>Picking up a man was not easy; they certainly had several offers from
+emigrants going west, and from Mexicans on the route, but Whaley seemed
+determined not to be pleased. He disliked Lorimer and was deeply
+offended at him interfering with his arrangements. Every day that he
+kept David was a kind of triumph to him. "He might as well have asked me
+how I'd like my drivers decoyed away. I like a man to be on the square,"
+he grumbled. And he said these and similar things so often, that David
+began to feel it impossible to restrain his temper.</p>
+
+<p>Anger, fed constantly by spiteful remarks and small injustices, grows
+rapidly; and as they approached the Apache mountains, the men began to
+notice a fixed tightening of the lips, and a stern blaze in the young
+Scot's eyes, which Whaley appeared to delight in intensifying.</p>
+
+<p>"Thar'll be mischief atween them two afore long," remarked an old
+drover; "Lorimer is gittin' to hate the captain with <a name="Page_124" id="Page_124"></a>such a vim that
+he's no appetite for his food left."</p>
+
+<p>"It'll be a fair fight, and one or both'll get upped; that's about it."</p>
+
+<p>At length they met a party of returning drovers, and half a dozen men
+among them were willing to take David's place. Whaley had no longer any
+pretence for detaining him. They were at the time between two long, low
+spurs of hills, enclosing a rich narrow valley, deep with ripened grass,
+gilded into flickering gold by the sun and the dewless summer days. All
+the lower ridges were savagely bald and hot&mdash;a glen, paved with gold and
+walled with iron. Oh, how the sun did beat and shiver, and shake down
+into the breathless valley!</p>
+
+<p>The cattle were restless, and the men had had a hard day. David was
+weary; his heart was not in the work; he was glad it was his last watch.
+It began at ten o'clock, and would end at midnight. The weather was
+gloomy, and the few stars which shone between the rifts of driving
+clouds just served to outline the mass of sleeping cattle.</p>
+
+<p>The air also was surcharged with electricity, though there had been no
+lightning.</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't wonder ef we have a 'run' to-night," said one of the men.
+"I've seen a good many stampedes, and they allays happens on such nights
+as this one."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!" replied David. "If a <a name="Page_125" id="Page_125"></a>cayote frightens one in a drove the
+panic Spreads to all. Any night would do for a 'run.'"</p>
+
+<p>"'Taint so, Lorimer. Ef you've a drove of one thousand or of ten
+thousand it's all the same; the panic strikes every beast at the same
+moment. It's somethin' in the air; 'taint my business to know what. But
+you look like a 'run' yourself, restless and hot, and as ef somethin'
+was gitting 'the mad' up in you. I noticed Whaley is 'bout the same. I'd
+keep clear of him, ef I was you."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I won't. He owes me money, and I'll make him pay me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't! Thar, I've warned you, David Lorimer, and that let's me out.
+Take your own way now."</p>
+
+<p>For half an hour David pondered this caution, and something in his own
+heart seconded it. But when the trial of his temper came he turned a
+deaf ear to every monition. Whaley went swaggering by him, and as he
+passed issued an unnecessary order in a very insolent manner. David
+asked pointedly, "Were you speaking to me, Captain?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was."</p>
+
+<p>"Then don't you dare to do it again, sir; never, as long as you live!"</p>
+
+<p>Before the words were out of his mouth, every one of the drove of eight
+thousand <a name="Page_126" id="Page_126"></a>were on their feet like a flash of lightning; every one of
+them exactly at the same instant. With a rush like a whirlwind leveling
+a forest, they were off in the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>The wild clatter, the crackling of a river of horns, and the thundering
+of hoofs, was deafening. Whaley, seeing eighty thousand dollars' worth
+of cattle running away from him, turned with a fierce imprecation, and
+gave David a passionate order "to ride up to the leaders," and then he
+sprang for his own mule.</p>
+
+<p>David's time was now fully out, and he drew his horse's rein tight and
+stood still.</p>
+
+<p>"Coward!" screamed Whaley; "try and forget for an hour that you have
+Spanish blood in you."</p>
+
+<p>A pistol shot answered the taunt. Whaley staggered a second, then fell
+without a word. The whole scene had not occupied a minute; but it was a
+minute that branded itself on the soul of David Lorimer. He gazed one
+instant on the upturned face of his slain enemy, and then gave himself
+up to the wild passion of the pursuit.</p>
+
+<p>By the spectral starlight he could see the cattle outlined as a black,
+clattering, thundering stream, rushing wildly on, and every instant
+becoming wilder. But David's horse had been trained in the business; he
+knew what the matter was, and scarce needed any guiding. Dashing along
+by <a name="Page_127" id="Page_127"></a>the side of the stampede, they soon overtook the leaders and joined
+the men, who were gradually pushing against the foremost cattle on the
+left so as to turn them to the right. When once the leaders were turned
+the rest blindly followed and thus, by constantly turning them to the
+right, the leaders were finally swung clear around, and overtook the fag
+end of the line.</p>
+
+<p>Then they rushed around in a circle, the centre of which soon closed up,
+and they were "milling;" that is, they had formed a solid wheel, and
+were going round and round themselves in the same space of ground. Men
+who had noticed how very little David's heart had been in his work were
+amazed to see the reckless courage he displayed. Round and round the
+mill he flew, keeping the outside stock from flying off at a tangent,
+and soothing and quieting the beasts nearest to him with his voice. The
+"run" was over as suddenly as it commenced, and the men, breathless and
+exhausted, stood around the circle of panting cattle.</p>
+
+<p>"Whar's the Captain?" said one; "he gin'rally soop'rintends a job like
+this himself."</p>
+
+<p>"And likes to do it. Who's seen the Captain? Hev you, Lorimer?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was in camp when I started. My time was up just as the 'run'
+commenced."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128"></a>No more was said; indeed, there was little opportunity for
+conversation. The cattle were to watch; it was still dark; the men were
+weary with the hard riding and the unnatural pitch to which their voices
+had been raised. David felt that he must get away at once; any moment a
+messenger from the camp might bring the news of Whaley's murder; and he
+knew well that suspicion would at once rest upon him.</p>
+
+<p>He offered to return to camp and report "all right," and the offer was
+accepted; but, at the first turn, he rode away into the darkness of a
+belt of timber. The cayotes howled in the distance; there was a rush of
+unclean night birds above him, and the growling of panther cats in the
+underwood. But in his soul there was a terror and a darkness that made
+all natural terrors of small account. His own hands were hateful to him.
+He moaned out loudly like a man in an agony. He measured in every
+moments' space the height from which he had fallen; the blessings from
+which he must be an outcast, if by any means he might escape the
+shameful punishment of his deed. He remembered at that hour his father's
+love, the love that had so finely asserted itself when the occasion for
+it came. Lulu's tenderness and beauty, the hope of home and children,
+the respect of his fellow-men, all sacrificed for a moment's <a name="Page_129" id="Page_129"></a>passionate
+revenge. He stood face to face with himself, and, dropping the reins,
+cowered down full of terror and grief at the future which he had evoked.
+Within hopeless sight of Hope and Love and Home, he was silent for hours
+gazing despairingly after the life which had sailed by him, and not
+daring&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"&mdash;to search through what sad maze,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thenceforth his incommunicable ways<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Follow the feet of death."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="mini" />
+
+<h3>Chapter II.</h3>
+
+<p class="center little">"&mdash;and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." James i.
+15.</p>
+
+<p>Blessed are they who have seen Nature in those rare, ineffable moments
+when she appears to be asleep&mdash;when the stars, large and white, bend
+stilly over the dreaming earth, and not a breath of wind stirs leaf or
+flower. On such a night James Lorimer sat upon his south verandah
+smoking; and his niece Lulu, white and motionless as the magnolia
+flowers above her, mused the hour away beside him. There were little
+ebony squads of negroes huddled together around the doors of their
+quarters, but they also were singularly quiet. An angel of silence had
+passed by no one was inclined to <a name="Page_130" id="Page_130"></a>disturb the tranquil calm of the
+dreaming earth.</p>
+
+<p>There is nothing good in this life which Time does not improve. In ten
+days the better feelings which had led James Lorimer to seek his son in
+the path of moral and physical danger had grown as Divine seed does
+grow. This very night, in the scented breathless quiet, he was longing
+for David's return, and forming plans through which the future might
+atone for the past. Gradually the weary negroes went into the cabins,
+rolled themselves in their blankets and fell into that sound, dreamless
+sleep which is the compensation of hard labor. Only Lulu watched and
+thought with him.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly she stood up and listened. There was a footstep in the avenue,
+and she knew it. But why did it linger, and what dreary echo of sorrow
+was there in it?</p>
+
+<p>"That is David's step, uncle; but what is the matter? Is he sick?"</p>
+
+<p>Then they both saw the young man coming slowly through the gloom, and
+the shadow of some calamity came steadily on before him. Lulu went to
+the top of the long flight of white steps, and put out her hands to
+greet him. He motioned her away with a woeful and positive gesture, and
+stood with hopeless yet half defiant attitude before his father.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131"></a>In a moment all the new tenderness was gone.</p>
+
+<p>In a voice stern and scornful he asked, "Well, sir, what is the matter?
+What hae ye been doing now?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have shot Whaley!"</p>
+
+<p>The words were rather breathed than spoken, but they were distinctly
+audible. The father rose and faced his wretched son.</p>
+
+<p>Lulu drew close to him, and asked, in a shocked whisper, "Dead?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dead!"</p>
+
+<p>"But you had a good reason, David; I know you had. He would have shot
+you?&mdash;it was in self-defence?&mdash;it was an accident? Speak, dear!"</p>
+
+<p>"He called me a coward, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You shot him! Then you are a coward, sir!" said Lorimer, sternly; "and
+having made yourself fit for the gallows, you are a double coward to
+come here and force upon me the duty of arresting you. Put down your
+rifle, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>Lulu uttered a long low wail. "Oh, David, my love! why did you come
+here? Did you hope for pity or help in his heart? And what can I do
+Davie, but suffer with you?" But she drew his face down and kissed it
+with a solemn tenderness that taught the wretched man, in one moment,
+all the blessedness of a woman's devotion, and all the misery that the
+indulgence <a name="Page_132" id="Page_132"></a>of his ungovernable temper had caused him.</p>
+
+<p>"We will hae no more heroics, Lulu. As a magistrate and a citizen it is
+my duty to arrest a murderer on his ain confession."</p>
+
+<p>"Your duty!" she answered, in a passion of scorn. "Had you done your
+duty to David in the past years, this duty would not have been to do.
+Your duty or anything belonging to yourself, has always been your sole
+care. Wrong Davie, wrong me, slay love outright, but do your duty, and
+stand well with the world and yourself! Uncle, you are a dreadful
+Christian!"</p>
+
+<p>"How dare you judge me, Lulu? Go to your own room at once!"</p>
+
+<p>"David, dearest, farewell! Fly!&mdash;you will get no pity here. Fly!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down, sir, and do not attempt to move!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am hungry, thirsty, weary and wretched, and at your mercy, father. Do
+as you will with me." And he laid his rifle upon the table.</p>
+
+<p>Lorimer looked at the hopeless figure that almost fell into the chair
+beside him, and his first feeling was one of mingled scorn and pity.</p>
+
+<p>"How did it happen? Tell me the truth. I want neither excuses nor
+deceptions."</p>
+
+<p>"I have no desire to make them. There was a 'run,' just as my time was
+out.<a name="Page_133" id="Page_133"></a> Whaley, in an insolent manner, ordered me to help turn the
+leaders. I did not move. He called me a coward, and taunted me with my
+Spanish blood&mdash;it was my dear mother's."</p>
+
+<p>"That is it," answered Lorimer, with an anger all the more terrible for
+its restraint; "it is the Spanish blood wi' its gasconade and foolish
+pride."</p>
+
+<p>"Father! You have a right to give me up to the hangman; but you have no
+right to insult me."</p>
+
+<p>The next moment he fell senseless at his father's feet. It was the
+collapse of consciousness under excessive physical exhaustion and mental
+anguish; but Lorimer, who had never seen a man in such extremity,
+believed it to be death. A tumult of emotions rushed over him, but
+assistance was evidently the first duty, and he hastened for it. First
+he sent the housekeeper Cassie to her young master, then he went to the
+quarters to arouse Plato.</p>
+
+<p>When he returned, Lulu and Cassie were kneeling beside the unconscious
+youth. "You have murdered him!" said Lulu, bitterly; and for a moment he
+felt something of the remorseful agony which had driven the criminal at
+his feet into a short oblivion. But very soon there was a slight
+reaction, and the father was the first to see it. "He has only fainted;
+bring some wine here!" <a name="Page_134" id="Page_134"></a>Then he remembered the weakness of the voice
+which had said, "I am hungry, and thirsty, and weary and wretched."</p>
+
+<p>When David opened his eyes again his first glance was at his father.
+There was something in that look that smote the angry man to his heart
+of hearts. He turned away, motioning Plato to follow him. But even when
+he had reached his own room and shut his door, he could not free himself
+from the influence evoked by that look of sorrowful reproach.</p>
+
+<p>Plato stood just within the door, nervously dangling his straw hat. He
+was evidently balancing some question in his own mind, and the
+uncertainty gave a queer restlessness to every part of his body.</p>
+
+<p>"Plato, you are to watch the young man down-stairs; he is not to be
+allowed to leave the house."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sar."</p>
+
+<p>"He has committed a great crime, and he must abide the consequences."</p>
+
+<p>No answer.</p>
+
+<p>"You understand that, Plato?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dunno, sar. I mighty sinful ole man myself. Dunno bout de
+consequences."</p>
+
+<p>"Go, and do as I bid you!"</p>
+
+<p>When he was alone he rose slowly and locked his door. He wanted to do
+right, but he was like a man in the fury and darkness of a great
+tempest: he could not <a name="Page_135" id="Page_135"></a>see any road at all. There was a Bible on his
+dressing-table, and he opened it; but the verses mingled together, and
+the sense of everything seemed to escape him. The hand of the Great
+Father was stretched out to him in the dark, but he could not find it.
+He knew that at the bottom of his heart lay a wish that David would
+escape from justice. He knew that a selfish shame about his own fair
+character mingled with his father's love; his motives and feelings were
+so mixed that he did not dare to bring them, in their pure truthfulness,
+to the feet of God; for as yet he did not understand that "like as a
+father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him;" he
+thought of the Divine Being as one so jealous for His own rights and
+honor that He would have the human heart a void, so that he might reign
+there supremely. So all that terrible night he stood smitten and
+astonished on a threshold he could not pass.</p>
+
+<p>In another room the question was being in a measure solved for him.
+Cassie brought in meat and bread and wine, and David ate, and felt
+refreshed. Then the love of life returned, and the terror of a shameful
+death; and he laid his hand upon his rifle and looked round to see what
+chance of escape his father had left him. Plato stood at the door, Lulu
+sat by his <a name="Page_136" id="Page_136"></a>side, holding his hand. On her face there was an expression
+of suffering, at once defiant and despairing&mdash;a barren suffering,
+without hope. They had come to that turn on their unhappy road when they
+had to bid each other "Farewell!" It was done very sadly, and with few
+words.</p>
+
+<p>"You must go now, beloved."</p>
+
+<p>He held her close to his heart and kissed her solemnly and silently. The
+next moment she turned on him from the open door a white, anguished
+face. Then he was alone with Plato.</p>
+
+<p>"Plato, I must go now. Will you saddle the brown mare for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"She am waiting, Massa David. I tole Cassie to get her ready, and some
+bread and meat, and <i>dis</i>, Massa Davie, if you'll 'blige ole Plato."
+Then he laid down a rude bag of buckskin, holding the savings of his
+lifetime.</p>
+
+<p>"How much is there, Plato?"</p>
+
+<p>"Four hundred dollars, sar. Sorry it am so little."</p>
+
+<p>"It was for your freedom, Plato."</p>
+
+<p>"I done gib dat up, Massa Davie. I'se too ole now to git de rest. Ef you
+git free, dat is all I want."</p>
+
+<p>They went quietly out together. It was not long after midnight. The
+brown mare stood ready saddled in the shadow, and Cassie stood beside
+her with a small bag, <a name="Page_137" id="Page_137"></a>holding a change of linen and some cooked food.
+The young man mounted quickly, grasped the kind hands held out to him,
+and then rode away into the darkness. He went softly at first, but when
+he reached the end of the avenue at a speed which indicated his terror
+and his mental suffering.</p>
+
+<p>Cassie and Plato watched him until he became an indistinguishable black
+spot upon the prairie; then they turned wearily towards the cabins. They
+had seen and shared the long sorrow and discontent of the household;
+they hardly expected anything but trouble in some form or other. Both
+were also thinking of the punishment they were likely to receive; for
+James Lorimer never failed to make an example of evil-doers; he would
+hardly be disposed to pass over their disobedience.</p>
+
+<p>Early in the morning Plato was called by his master. There was little
+trace of the night of mental agony the latter had passed. He was one of
+those complete characters who join to perfect physical health a mind
+whose fibres do not easily show the severest strain.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell Master David to come here."</p>
+
+<p>"Massa David, sar! Massa David done gone sar!" The old man's lips were
+trembling, but otherwise his nervous restlessness was over. He looked
+his master calmly in the face.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138"></a>"Did I not tell you to stop him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ef de Lord in heaven want him stopped, Massa James, He'll send the
+messenger&mdash;Plato could not do it!"</p>
+
+<p>"How did he go?"</p>
+
+<p>"On de little brown mare&mdash;his own horse done broke all up."</p>
+
+<p>"How much money did you give him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Money, sar?"</p>
+
+<p>"How much? Tell the truth."</p>
+
+<p>"Four hundred dollars."</p>
+
+<p>"That will do. Tell Cassie I want my breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>At breakfast he glanced at Lulu's empty chair, but said nothing. In the
+house all was as if no great sin and sorrow had darkened its threshold
+and left a stain upon its hearthstone. The churning and cleaning was
+going on as usual. Only Cassie was quieter, and Lulu lay, white and
+motionless, in the little vine-shaded room that looked too cool and
+pretty for grief to enter. The unhappy father sat still all day,
+pondering many things that he had not before thought of. Every footfall
+made his heart turn sick, but the night came, and there was no further
+bad news.</p>
+
+<p>On the second day he went into Lulu's room, hoping to say a word of
+comfort to her. She listened apathetically, and turned her face to the
+wall with a great sob. He began to feel some irritation in <a name="Page_139" id="Page_139"></a>the
+atmosphere of misery which surrounded him. It was very hard to be made
+so wretched for another's sin. The thought in an instant became a
+reproach. Was he altogether innocent? The second and third days passed;
+he began to be sure then that David must have reached a point beyond the
+probability of pursuit.</p>
+
+<p>On the fourth day he went to the cotton field. He visited the overseer's
+house, he spent the day in going over accounts and making estimates. He
+tried to forget that <i>something</i> had happened which made life appear a
+different thing. In the grey, chill, misty evening he returned home. The
+negroes were filing down the long lane before him, each bearing their
+last basket of cotton&mdash;all of them silent, depressed with their
+weariness, and intensely sensitive to the melancholy influence of the
+autumn twilight.</p>
+
+<p>Lorimer did not care to pass them. He saw them, one by one, leave their
+cotton at the ginhouse, and trail despondingly off to their cabins. Then
+he rode slowly up to his own door. A man sat on the verandah smoking. At
+the sight of him his heart fell fathoms deep.</p>
+
+<p>"Good evening." He tried to give his voice a cheerful welcoming sound,
+but he could not do it; and the visitor's attitude was not encouraging.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140"></a>"Good evening, Lorimer. I'm right sorry to tell you that you will be
+wanted on some unpleasant business very early to-morrow morning."</p>
+
+<p>He tried to answer, but utterly failed; his tongue was as dumb as his
+soul was heavy. He only drew a chair forward and sat down.</p>
+
+<p>"Fact is your son is in a tighter place than any man would care for. I
+brought him up to Sheriff Gillelands' this afternoon. Perhaps he can
+make it out a case of 'justifiable homicide'&mdash;hope he can. He's about as
+likely a young man as I ever saw."</p>
+
+<p>Still no answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Lorimer, I think you're right. Talking won't help things, and may
+make them a sight worse. You'll be over to Judge Lepperts' in the
+morning?&mdash;say about ten o'clock."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Will you have some supper?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; this is not hungry work. My pipe is more satisfactory under the
+circumstances. I'll have to saddle up, too. There's others to see yet.
+Is there any one particular you'd like on the jury?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. You must do your duty, Sheriff."</p>
+
+<p>He heard him gallop away, and stood still, clasping and unclasping his
+hands in a maze of anguish. David at Sheriff Gillelands'! David to be
+tried for murder in <a name="Page_141" id="Page_141"></a>the morning! What could he do? If David had not
+confessed to the shooting of Whaley, would he be compelled to give his
+evidence? Surely, conscience would not require so hard a duty of him.</p>
+
+<p>At length he determined to go and see David before he decided upon the
+course he ought to take. The sheriff's was only about three miles
+distant. He rode over there at once. His son, with travel-stained
+clothes and blood-shot hopeless eyes, looked up to see him enter. His
+heart was full of a great love, but it was wronged, even at that hour,
+by an irritation that would first and foremost assert itself. Instead of
+saying, "My dear, dear lad!" the lament which was in his heart, he said,
+"So this is the end of it, David?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. It is the end."</p>
+
+<p>"You ought not to have run away."</p>
+
+<p>"No. I ought to have let you surrender me to justice; that would have
+put you all right."</p>
+
+<p>"I wasna thinking o' that. A man flying from justice is condemned by the
+act."</p>
+
+<p>"It would have made no matter. There is only one verdict and one end
+possible."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you then confessed the murder?"</p>
+
+<p>He awaited the answer in an agony. It came with a terrible distinctness.
+"Whaley lived thirty hours. He told. His brother-in-law has gone on with
+the cattle. Four <a name="Page_142" id="Page_142"></a>of the drivers are come back as witnesses. They are in
+the house."</p>
+
+<p>"But you have not yourself confessed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I told Sheriff Gillelands I shot the man. If I had not done so you
+would; I knew that. I have at least spared you the pain and shame of
+denouncing your own son!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, David, David! I would not. My dear lad, I would not! I would hae
+gane to the end o' the world first. Why didna you trust me?"</p>
+
+<p>"How could I, father?"</p>
+
+<p>He let the words drop wearily, and covered his face with his hands.
+After a pause, he said, "Poor Lulu! Don't tell her if you can help it,
+until&mdash;all is over. How glad I am this day that my mother is dead!"</p>
+
+<p>The wretched father could endure the scene no longer. He went into the
+outer room to find out what hope of escape remained for his son. The
+sheriff was full of pity, and entered readily into a discussion of
+David's chances. But he was obliged to point out that they were
+extremely small. The jury and the judge were all alike cattle men; their
+sympathies were positively against everything likely to weaken the
+discipline necessary in carrying large herds of cattle safely across the
+continent. In the moment of extremest <a name="Page_143" id="Page_143"></a>danger, David had not only
+refused assistance, but had shot his employer.</p>
+
+<p>"He called him a coward, and you'll admit that's a vera aggravating
+name."</p>
+
+<p>The sheriff readily admitted that under any ordinary circumstances in
+Texas that epithet would justify a murder; "but," he added, "most any
+Texan would say he was a coward to stand still and see eight thousand
+head of cattle on the stampede. You'll excuse me, Lorimer, I'd say so
+myself."</p>
+
+<p>He went home again and shut himself in his room to think. But after many
+hours, he was just as far as ever from any coherent decision. Justice!
+Justice! Justice! The whole current of his spiritual and mental
+constitution ran that road. Blood for blood; a life for a life; it was
+meet and right, and he acknowledged it with bleeding heart and streaming
+eyes. But, clear and distinct above the tumult of this current, he heard
+something which made him cry out with an equally unhappy father of old,
+"Oh, Absalom! My son, my son Absalom!"</p>
+
+<p>Then came the accuser and boldly told him that he had neglected his
+duty, and driven his son into the way of sin and death; and that the
+seeds sown in domestic bickering and unkindness had only brought forth
+their natural fruit. The scales fell from his eyes; all the past became
+clear to <a name="Page_144" id="Page_144"></a>him. His own righteousness was dreadful in his sight. He cried
+out with his whole soul, "God be merciful! God be merciful!"</p>
+
+<p>The darkest despairs are the most silent. All the night long he was only
+able to utter that one heartbroken cry for pity and help. At the
+earliest daylight he was with his son. He was amazed to find him calm,
+almost cheerful. "The worst is over father," he said. "I have done a
+great wrong; I acknowledge the justice of the punishment, and am willing
+to suffer it."</p>
+
+<p>"But after death! Oh, David, David&mdash;afterward!"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall dare to hope&mdash;for Christ also has died, the just for the
+unjust."</p>
+
+<p>Then the father, with a solemn earnestness, spoke to his son of that
+eternity whose shores his feet were touching. At this hour he would
+shirk no truth; he would encourage no false hope. And David listened;
+for this side of his father's character he had always had great respect,
+and in those first hours of remorse following the murder, not the least
+part of his suffering had been the fearful looking forward to the Divine
+vengeance which he could never fly from. But there had been <i>One</i> with
+him that night, <i>One</i> who is not very far from us at any time; and
+though David had but tremblingly understood His voice, and almost feared
+to accept its comfort, he was <a name="Page_145" id="Page_145"></a>in those desperate circumstances when men
+cannot reason and philosophize, when nothing remains for them but to
+believe.</p>
+
+<p>"Dinna get by the truth, my dear lad; you hae committed a great sin,
+there is nae doubt o' that."</p>
+
+<p>"But God's mercy, I trust, is greater."</p>
+
+<p>"And you hae nothing to bring him from a' the years o' your life! Oh,
+David, David!"</p>
+
+<p>"I know," he answered sadly. "But neither had the dying thief. He only
+believed. Father, this is the sole hope and comfort left me now. Don't
+take it from me."</p>
+
+<p>Lorimer turned away weeping; yes, and praying, too, as men must pray
+when they stand powerless in the stress of terrible sorrows. At noon the
+twelve men summoned dropped in one by one, and the informal court was
+opened. David Lorimer admitted the murder, and explained the long
+irritation and the final taunt which had produced it. The testimony of
+the returned drovers supplemented the tragedy. If there was any excuse
+to be made, it lay in the disgraceful epithet applied to David and the
+scornful mention of his mother's race.</p>
+
+<p>There was, however, an unfavorable feeling from the first. The elder
+Lorimer, with his stern principles and severe manners, was not a popular
+man. David's <a name="Page_146" id="Page_146"></a>proud, passionate temper had made him some active enemies;
+and there was not a man on the jury who did not feel as the sheriff had
+honestly expressed himself regarding David's conduct at the moment of
+the stampede. It touched all their prejudices and their interests very
+nearly; not one of them was inclined to blame Whaley for calling a man a
+coward who would not answer the demand for help at such an imperative
+moment.</p>
+
+<p>As to the Spanish element, it had always been an offence to Texans.
+There were men on the jury whose fathers had died fighting it; beside,
+there was that unacknowledged but positive contempt which ever attaches
+itself to a race that has been subjugated. Long before the form of a
+trial was over, David had felt the hopelessness of hope, and had
+accepted his fate. Not so his father. He pleaded with all his soul for
+his son's life. But he touched no heart there. The jury had decided on
+the death-sentence before they left their seats.</p>
+
+<p>And in that locality, and at that time, there was no delay in carrying
+it out. It would be inconvenient to bring together again a sufficient
+number of witnesses, and equally inconvenient to guard a prisoner for
+any length of time. David was to die at sunset.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147"></a>Three hours yet remained to the miserable father. He threw aside all
+pride and all restraint. Remorse and tenderness wrung his heart. But
+these last hours had a comfort no others in their life ever had. What
+confessions of mutual faults were made! What kisses and forgivenesses
+were exchanged! At last the two poor souls who had dwelt in the chill of
+mistakes and ignorance knew that they loved each other. Sometimes the
+Lord grants such sudden unfoldings to souls long closed. They are of
+those royal compassions which astonish even the angels.</p>
+
+<p>When his time was nearly over, David pushed a piece of paper toward his
+father. "It is my last request," he said, looking into his face with
+eyes whose entreaty was pathetic. "You must grant it, father, hard as it
+is."</p>
+
+<p>Lorimer's hand trembled as he took the paper, but his face turned pale
+as ashes when he read the contents.</p>
+
+<p>"I canna, I canna do it," he whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you will, father. It is the last favor I shall ask of you."</p>
+
+<p>The request was indeed a bitter one; so bitter that David had not dared
+to voice it. It was this&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Father, be my executioner. Do not let me be hung. The rope is all I
+dread in death; ere it touch me, let your rifle end my life."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"></a>For a few moments Lorimer sat like a man turned to stone. Then he rose
+and went to the jury. They were sitting together under some mulberry
+trees, smoking. Naturally silent, they had scarcely spoken since their
+verdict. Grave, fierce men, they were far from being cruel; they had no
+pleasure in the act which they believed to be their duty.</p>
+
+<p>Lorimer went from one to the other and made known his son's request. He
+pleaded, "That as David had shot Whaley, justice would be fully
+satisfied in meting out the same death to the murderer as the victim."</p>
+
+<p>But one man, a ranchero of great influence and wealth, answered that he
+must oppose such a request. It was the rope, he thought, made the
+punishment. He hoped no Texan feared a bullet. A clean, honorable death
+like that was for a man who had never wronged his manhood. Every
+rascally horse thief or Mexican assassin would demand a shot if they
+were given a precedent. And arguments that would have been essentially
+false in some localities had a compelling weight in that one. The men
+gravely nodded their heads in assent, and Lorimer knew that any further
+pleading was in vain. Yet when he returned to his son, he clasped his
+hand and looked into his eyes, and David understood that his request
+would be granted.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149"></a>Just as the sun dropped the sheriff entered the room. He took the
+prisoner's arm and walked quietly out with him. There was a coil of rope
+on his other arm, and David cast his eyes on it with horror and
+abhorrence, and then looked at his father; and the look was returned
+with one of singular steadiness. When they reached the little grove of
+mulberries, the men, one by one, laid down their pipes and slowly rose.
+There was a large live oak at the end of the enclosure, and to it the
+party walked.</p>
+
+<p>Here David was asked "if he was guilty?" and he acknowledged the sin:
+and when further asked "if he thought he had been fairly dealt with, and
+deserved death?" he answered, "that he was quite satisfied, and was
+willing to pay the penalty of his crime."</p>
+
+<p>Oh, how handsome he looked at this moment to his heart-broken father!
+His bare head was just touched by the rays of the setting sun behind
+him; his fine face, calm and composed, wore even a faint air of
+exultation. At this hour the travel-stained garments clothed him with a
+touching and not ignoble pathos. Involuntarily they told of the weary
+days and nights of despairing flight, which after all had been useless.</p>
+
+<p>Lorimer asked if he might pray, and there was a simultaneous though
+silent <a name="Page_150" id="Page_150"></a>motion of assent. Every man bared his head, while the wretched
+father repeated the few verses of entreaty and hope which at that awful
+hour were his own strength and comfort. This service occupied but a few
+minutes; just as it ended out of the dead stillness rose suddenly a
+clear, joyful thrilling burst of song from a mocking bird in the
+branches above. David looked up with a wonderful light on his face;
+perhaps it meant more to him than anyone else understood.</p>
+
+<p>The next moment the sheriff was turning back the flannel collar which
+covered the strong, pillar-like throat. In that moment David sought his
+father's eyes once more, smiled faintly, and called "Father! <i>Now</i>!" As
+the words reached the father's ears, the bullet reached the son's heart.
+He fell without a moan ere the rope had touched him. It was the father's
+groan which struck every heart like a blow; and there was a grandeur of
+suffering about him which no one thought of resisting.</p>
+
+<p>He walked to his child's side, and kneeling down closed the eyes, and
+wept and prayed over him as a mother over her first-born. They were all
+fathers around him; not one of them but suffered with him. Silently they
+untied their horses and rode away; no one had the heart to say a word of
+dissent. If they had, Lorimer had <a name="Page_151" id="Page_151"></a>reached a point far beyond care of
+man's approval or disapproval in the matter; for a great sorrow is
+indifferent to all outside itself.</p>
+
+<p>When he lifted his head he was alone. The sheriff was waiting at the
+house door, Plato stood at a little distance, weeping. He motioned to
+him to approach, and in a few words understood that he had with him a
+companion and a rude bier. They laid the body upon it, and the sheriff
+having satisfied himself that the last penalty had been fully paid,
+Lorimer was permitted to claim his dead. He took him up to his own room
+and laid him on his own bed, and passed the night by his side. The dead
+opened the eyes of the living, and in that solemn companionship he saw
+all that he had been blind to for so many years. Then he understood what
+it must be to sit in the silent halls of eternal despair, and count over
+and over the wasted blessings of love and endure the agony of unavailing
+repentance.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning he knew he must tell Lulu all; and this duty he dreaded.
+But in some way the girl already knew the full misery of the tragedy.
+Part she had divined, and part she had gathered from the servants' faces
+and words. She was quite aware <i>what</i> was in her uncle's lonely room.
+Just as he was thinking of the hard <a name="Page_152" id="Page_152"></a>necessity of going to her, she came
+to the door. For the first time in his life he called her "My daughter,"
+and stooped and kissed her. He had a letter for her&mdash;David's dying
+message of love. He put it in her hand, and left her alone with the
+dead.</p>
+
+<p>At sunrise a funeral took place. In that climate the necessity was an
+urgent one. Plato had dug the grave under a tree in the little clearing
+in the cypress swamp. It had been a favorite place of resort; there Lulu
+had often brought her work or book, and passed long happy hours with the
+slain youth. She followed his corpse to the grave in a tearless apathy,
+more pitiful than the most frantic grief. Lorimer took her on his arm,
+the servants in long single file, silent and terrified, walked behind
+them. The sun was shining, but the chilly wind blew the withered leaves
+across the still prostrate figure, as it lay upon the ground, where last
+it had stood in all the beauty and unreasoning passion of youth.</p>
+
+<p>When the last rites were over the servants went wailing home again,
+their doleful, monotonous chant seeming to fill the whole spaces of air
+with lamentation. But neither Lorimer nor Lulu spoke a word. The girl
+was white and cold as marble, and absolutely irresponsive to her uncle's
+unusual tenderness. Evidently she had not forgiven him. And as the
+winter went <a name="Page_153" id="Page_153"></a>wearily on she gradually drew more and more within her own
+consciousness. Lorimer seldom saw her. She was soon very ill, and kept
+her room entirely. He sent for eminent physicians, he surrounded her
+with marks of thoughtful love and care; but quietly, as a flower fades,
+she died.</p>
+
+<p>One night she sent for him. "Uncle," she said, "I am going away very
+soon, now. If I have been hard and unjust to you, forgive me. And I want
+your promise about my sister's children; will you give me it?"</p>
+
+<p>He winced visibly, and remained silent.</p>
+
+<p>"There are six boys and two girls&mdash;they are poor, ignorant and unhappy.
+They are under very bad influences. For David's sake and my sake you
+must see that they are brought up right. There need be no mistakes this
+time; for two wrecked lives you may save eight. You will do it, uncle?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will do my best, dear."</p>
+
+<p>"I know you will. Send Plato to San Antonio for them at once. You will
+need company soon."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think you are dying, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know I am dying."</p>
+
+<p>"And how is a' wi' you anent what is beyond death?"</p>
+
+<p>She pointed with a bright smile to the New Testament by her side, and
+then closed her eyes wearily. She appeared so <a name="Page_154" id="Page_154"></a>exhausted that he could
+press the question no further. And the next morning she had "gone
+away"&mdash;gone so silently and peacefully that Aunt Cassie, who was sitting
+by her side, knew not when she departed. He went and looked at her. The
+fair young face had a look austere and sorrowful, as if life had been
+too sore a burden for her. His anguish was great, but it was God's
+doing. What was there for him to say?</p>
+
+<p>The charge that she had left him he faithfully kept&mdash;not very cheerfully
+at first, perhaps, and often feeling it to be a very heavy care; but he
+persevered, and the reward came. The children grew and prospered; they
+loved him, and he learned to love them, so much, finally, that he gave
+them his own name, and suffered them to call him father.</p>
+
+<p>As the country settled, and little towns grew up around him, the tragedy
+of his earlier life was forgotten by the world, but it was ever present
+to his own heart; for though love and sorrow mellowed and chastened the
+stern creed in which he believed with all his soul, he had many an hour
+of spiritual agony concerning the beloved ones who had died and made no
+sign. Not till he got almost within the heavenly horizon did he
+understand that the Divine love and mercy is without limitations; and
+that He who could say, "Let there be <a name="Page_155" id="Page_155"></a>light," could also say, "Thy sins
+be forgiven thee;" and the pardoned child, or ever he was aware, be come
+to the holy land: for&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Down in the valley of death<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A cross is standing plain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where strange and awful the shadows sleep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the ground has a deep red stain.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This cross uplifted there<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Forbids, with voice Divine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our anguished hearts to break for the dead<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who have died and made no sign.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As they turned at length from us,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Dear eyes that were heavy and dim,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May have met his look, who was lifted there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">May be sleeping safe in Him."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_SEVEN_WISE_MEN_OF_PRESTON" id="THE_SEVEN_WISE_MEN_OF_PRESTON"></a>THE SEVEN WISE MEN OF PRESTON.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Let me introduce to our readers seven of the wisest men of the present
+century&mdash;the seven drafters and signers of the first teetotal pledge.</p>
+
+<p>The movement originated in the mind of Joseph Livesey, and a short
+consideration of the circumstances and surroundings of his useful career
+will give us the best insight into the necessities and influences which
+gave it birth. He was born near Preston, in Lancashire, in the year
+1795; the beginning of an era in English history which scarcely has a
+parallel for national suffering. The excitement of the French Revolution
+still agitated all classes, and, commercial distress and political
+animosities made still more terrible the universal scarcity of food and
+the prostration of the manufacturing business.</p>
+
+<p>His father and mother died early, and he was left to the charge of his
+grandfather, who, unfortunately, abandoned his farm and became a cotton
+spinner. Lancashire men had not then been whetted by daily attrition
+with steam to their present keen and shrewd character, and the elder
+Livesey <a name="Page_157" id="Page_157"></a>lost all he possessed. The records of cotton printing and
+spinning mention with honor the Messrs. Livesey, of Preston, as the
+first who put into practice Bell's invention of cylindrical printing of
+calicoes in 1785; but whether the firms are identical or not I have no
+certain knowledge. It shows, however, that they were a race inclined to
+improvements and ready to test an advance movement.</p>
+
+<p>That Joseph Livesey's youth was a hard and bitter one there is no doubt.
+The price of flour continued for years fabulously high; so much so that
+wealthy people generally pledged themselves to reduce their use of it
+one-third, and puddings or cakes were considered on any table, a sinful
+extravagance. When the government was offering large premiums to farmers
+for raising extra quantities and detailing soldiers to assist in
+threshing it, poor bankrupt spinners must have had a hard struggle for a
+bare existence.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, education was hardly thought possible, and, though Joseph
+managed, "by hook or crook," to learn how to read, write and count a
+little, it was through difficulties and discouragements that would have
+been fatal to any ordinary intelligence or will.</p>
+
+<p>Until he was twenty-one years of age he worked patiently at his loom,
+which stood in one corner of a cellar, so cold and damp <a name="Page_158" id="Page_158"></a>that its walls
+were constantly wet. But he was hopeful, and even in those dark days
+dared to fall in love. On attaining his majority, he received a legacy
+of &pound;30. Then he married the poor girl who had made brighter his hard
+apprenticeship, and lived happily with her for fifty years.</p>
+
+<p>But the troubles that had begun before his birth&mdash;and which did not
+lighten until after the passing of the Reform Bill, in June, 1832&mdash;had
+then attained a proportion which taxed the utmost energies of both
+private charities and the national government.</p>
+
+<p>The year of Joseph Livesey's marriage saw the passage of the Corn Laws,
+and the first of those famous mass meetings in Peter's Field, near
+Manchester, which undoubtedly molded the future temper and status of the
+English weavers and spinners. From one of these meetings, the following
+year, thousands of starving men started <i>en masse</i> to London. They were
+followed by the military and brought back for punishment or died
+miserably on the road, though 500 of them reached Macclesfield and a
+smaller number Derby.</p>
+
+<p>But Livesey, though probably suffering as keenly as others, joined no
+body of rioters. He borrowed a sovereign and bought two cheeses; then
+cutting them up into small lots, he retailed them on the streets,<a name="Page_159" id="Page_159"></a>
+Saturday afternoons, when the men were released from work. The profit
+from this small investment exceeding what it was possible for him to
+make at his loom, he continued the trade, and from this small beginning
+founded a business, and made a fortune which has enabled him to devote a
+long life to public usefulness and benevolence.</p>
+
+<p>But his little craft must have needed skillful piloting, for his family
+increased rapidly during the disastrous years between 1816 and 1832; so
+disastrous that in 1825-26 the Bank of England was obliged to authorize
+the Chamber of Commerce to make loans to individuals carrying on large
+works of from &pound;500 to &pound;10,000. Bankruptcies were enormous, trade was
+everywhere stagnant, &pound;60,000 were subscribed for meal and peas to feed
+the starving, and the government issued 40,000 articles of clothing. The
+quarrels between masters and spinners were more and more bitter, mills
+were everywhere burnt, and at Ashton in one day 30,000 "hands" turned
+out.</p>
+
+<p>During these dreadful years every thoughtful person had noticed how much
+misery and ill-will was caused by the constant thronging to public
+houses, and temperance societies had been at work among the angry men of
+the working classes. Joseph Livesey had been actively engaged <a name="Page_160" id="Page_160"></a>in this
+work. But these first efforts of the temperance cause were directed
+entirely against spirits. The use of wine and ale was considered then a
+necessity of life. Brewing was in most families as regular and important
+a duty as baking; the youngest children had their mug of ale; and
+clergymen were spoken of without reproach as "one," "two" or
+"three-bottle men."</p>
+
+<p>But Joseph Livesey soon became satisfied that these half measures were
+doing no good at all, and in 1831 a little circumstance decided him to
+take a stronger position. He had to go to Blackburn to see a person on
+business; and, as a matter of course, whiskey was put on the table.
+Livesey for the first time tasted it, and was very ill in consequence.
+He had then a large family of boys, and both for their sakes and that of
+others, he resolved to halt no longer between two opinions.</p>
+
+<p>He spoke at once in all the temperance meetings of the folly of partial
+reforms, pointed out the hundreds of relapses, and urged upon the
+association the duty of absolute abstinence. His zeal warmed with his
+efforts and he insisted that in the matter of drinking "the golden mean"
+was the very sin for which the Laodicean Church had been cursed.</p>
+
+<p>The disputes were very angry and bitter; <a name="Page_161" id="Page_161"></a>far more so than we at this
+day can believe possible, unless we take into account the universal
+national habits and its poetic and domestic associations with every
+phase of English life. But he gradually gained adherents to his views
+though it was not until the following year he was able to take another
+step forward.</p>
+
+<p>It was on Thursday, August 23, 1832, that the first solemn pledge of
+total abstinence was taken. That afternoon Joseph Livesey, pondering the
+matter in his mind, saw John King pass his shop. He asked him to come in
+and talk the subject over with him. Before they parted Livesey asked
+King if he would join him in a pledge to abstain forever from all
+liquors; and King said he would. Livesey then wrote out a form and,
+laying it before King, said: "Thee sign it first, lad." King signed it,
+Livesey followed him, and the two men clasped hands and stood pledged to
+one of the greatest works humanity has ever undertaken.</p>
+
+<p>A special meeting was then called, and after a stormy debate, the main
+part of the audience left, a small number remaining to continue the
+argument. But the end of it was that seven men came forward and drew up
+and signed the following document, which is still preserved:</p>
+<p><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162"></a></p>
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"We agree to abstain from all liquors of an intoxicating quality,
+whether they be ale, porter, wine or ardent spirits, except as
+medicine.</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left:66%;">
+<span class="smcap">"John Gratrex,<br />
+Edward Dickinson,<br />
+John Broadbent,<br />
+Jno. Smith,<br />
+Joseph Livesey,<br />
+David Anderton,<br />
+Jno. King."</span><br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>All these reformers were virtually <i>working</i> men, though most of them
+rose to positions of respect and affluence. Still the humility of the
+origin of the movement was long a source of contempt, and its members,
+within my own recollection, had the stigma of vulgarity almost in right
+of their convictions.</p>
+
+<p>But God takes hands with good men's efforts, and the cause prospered
+just where it was most needed&mdash;among the operatives and "the common
+people." One of these latter, a hawker of fish, called Richard Turner,
+stood, in a very amusing and unexpected way, sponsor for the society.
+Richard was fluent of speech, and, if his language was the broadest
+patois, it was, nevertheless, of the most convincing character. He
+always spoke well, and, if authorized words failed him, readily coined
+what he needed. One night while making a very fervent speech, he said:
+"No half-way <a name="Page_163" id="Page_163"></a>measures here. Nothing but the <i>te-te total</i> will do."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Livesey at once seized the word, and, rising, proposed it as the
+name of the society. The proposition was received with enthusiastic
+cheering, and these "root and branch" temperance men were thenceforward
+known as teetotalers. Richard remained all his life a sturdy advocate of
+the cause, and when he died, in 1846, I made one of the hundreds and
+thousands that crowded the streets of the beautiful town of Preston and
+followed him to his grave. The stone above it chronicles shortly his
+name and death, and the fact that he was the author of a word known now
+wherever Christianity and civilization are known.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="MARGARET_SINCLAIRS_SILENT_MONEY" id="MARGARET_SINCLAIRS_SILENT_MONEY"></a>MARGARET SINCLAIR'S SILENT MONEY.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"It was ma luck, Sinclair, an' I couldna win by it."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha'vers! It was David Vedder's whiskey that turned ma boat
+tapsalteerie, Geordie Twatt."</p>
+
+<p>"Thou had better blame Hacon; he turned the boat <i>Widdershins</i> an' what
+fule doesna ken that it is evil luck to go contrarie to the sun?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is waur luck to have a drunken, superstitious pilot. Twatt, that
+Norse blood i' thy veins is o'er full o' freets. Fear God, an' mind thy
+wark, an' thou needna speir o' the sun what gate to turn the boat."</p>
+
+<p>"My Norse blood willna stand ony Scot stirring it up, Sinclair. I come
+o' a mighty kind&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Tush, man! Mules mak' an unco' full about their ancestors having been
+horses. It has come to this, Geordie: thou must be laird o' theesel'
+before I'll trust thee again with ony craft o' mine." Then Peter
+Sinclair lifted his papers, and, looking the discharged sailor steadily
+in the face, bid <a name="Page_165" id="Page_165"></a>him "go on his penitentials an' think things o'er a
+bit."</p>
+
+<p>Geordie Twatt went sullenly out, but Peter was rather pleased with
+himself; he believed that he had done his duty in a satisfactory manner.
+And if a man was in a good temper with himself, it was just the kind of
+even to increase his satisfaction. The gray old town of Kirkwall lay in
+supernatural glory, the wondrous beauty of the mellow gloaming blending
+with soft green and rosy-red spears of light that shot from east to
+west, or charged upward to the zenith. The great herring fleet outside
+the harbor was as motionless as "a painted <i>fleet</i> upon a painted
+ocean"&mdash;the men were sleeping or smoking upon the piers&mdash;not a foot fell
+upon the flagged streets, and the only murmur of sound was round the
+public fountains, where a few women were perched on the bowl's edge,
+knitting and gossiping.</p>
+
+<p>Peter Sinclair was, perhaps, not a man inclined to analyze such things,
+but they had their influence over him; for, as he drifted slowly home in
+his skiff, he began to pity Geordie's four motherless babies, and to
+wonder if he had been as patient with him as he might have been. "An'
+yet," he murmured, "there's the loss on the goods, an' the loss o' time,
+and the boat to steek afresh forbye the danger to <a name="Page_166" id="Page_166"></a>life! Na, na, I'm no
+called upon to put life i' peril for a glass o' whiskey."</p>
+
+<p>Then he lifted his head, and there, on the white sands, stood his
+daughter Margaret. He was conscious of a great thrill of pride as he
+looked at her, for Margaret Sinclair, even among the beautiful women of
+the Orcades, was most beautiful of all. In a few minutes he had fastened
+his skiff at a little jetty, and was walking with her over the springy
+heath toward a very pretty house of white stone. It was his own house,
+and he was proud of it also, but not half so proud of the house as of
+its tiny garden; for there, with great care and at great cost, he had
+managed to rear a few pansies, snowdrops, lilies of the valley, and
+other hardy English flowers. Margaret and he stooped lovingly over them,
+and it was wonderful to see how Peter's face softened, and how gently
+the great rough hands, that had been all day handling smoked geese and
+fish, touched these frail, trembling blossoms.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh, lassie! I could most greet wi' joy to see the bonnie bit things;
+when I can get time I'se e'en go wi' thee to Edinburgh; I'd like weel to
+see such fields an' gardens an' trees as I hear thee tell on."</p>
+
+<p>Then Margaret began again to describe the greenhouses, the meadows and
+wheat fields, the forests of oaks and beeches she <a name="Page_167" id="Page_167"></a>had seen during her
+school days in Edinburgh. Peter listened to her as if she was telling a
+wonderful fairy story, but he liked it, and, as he cut slice after slice
+from his smoked goose, he enjoyed her talk of roses and apple-blossoms,
+and smacked his lips for the thousandth time when she described a peach,
+and said, "It tasted, father, as if it had been grown in the Garden of
+Eden."</p>
+
+<p>After such conversations Peter was always stern and strict. He felt an
+actual anger at Adam and Eve; their transgression became a keenly
+personal affair, for he had a very vivid sense of the loss they had
+entailed upon him. The vague sense of wrong made him try to fix it, and,
+after a short reflection, he said in an injured tone:</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder when Ronald's coming hame again?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ronald is all right, father."</p>
+
+<p>"A' wrong, thou means, lassie. There's three vessels waiting to be
+loaded, an' the books sae far ahint that I kenna whether I'm losing or
+saving. Where is he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not far away. He will be at the Stones of Stennis this week some time
+with an Englishman he fell in with at Perth."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder, now, was it for my sins or his ain that the lad has sic auld
+world notions? There isna a pagan altar-stane 'tween John O'Groat's an'
+Lambaness he doesna run after. I wish he were as <a name="Page_168" id="Page_168"></a>anxious to serve in
+the Lord's temple&mdash;I would build him a kirk an' a manse for it."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll be proud of Ronald yet, father. The Sinclairs have been fighting
+and making money for centuries: it is a sign of grace to have a scholar
+and a poet at last among them."</p>
+
+<p>Peter grumbled. His ideas of poetry were limited by the Scotch psalms,
+and, as for scholarship, he asserted that the books were better kept
+when he used his own method of tallies and crosses. Then he remembered
+Geordie Twatt's misfortune, and had his little grumble out on this
+subject: "Boat and goods might hae been a total loss, no to speak o' the
+lives o' Geordie an' the four lads wi' him; an' a' for the sake o'
+liquor!"</p>
+
+<p>Margaret looked at the brandy bottle standing at her father's elbow,
+and, though she did not speak, the look annoyed Peter.</p>
+
+<p>"You arna to even my glass wi' his, lassie. I ken when to stop&mdash;Geordie
+never does."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a common fault in more things than drinking, father. When Magnus
+Hay has struck the first blow he is quite ready to draw his dirk and
+strike the last one; and Paul Snackole, though he has made gold and to
+spare, will just go on making gold until death takes the balances out of
+his hands. There are few folks that in all things offend not."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169"></a>She looked so noble standing before him, so fair and tall, her hair
+yellow as down, her eyes cool and calm and blue as night; her whole
+attitude so serene, assured and majestic, that Peter rose uneasily, left
+his glass unfinished, and went away with a very confused "good night."</p>
+
+<p>In the morning the first thing he did when he reached his office, was to
+send for the offending sailor.</p>
+
+<p>"Geordie, my Margaret says there are plenty folk as bad as thou art; so,
+thou'lt just see to the steeking o' the boat, an' be ready to sail
+her&mdash;or upset her&mdash;i' ten days again."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll keep her right side up for Margaret Sinclair's sake&mdash;tell her I
+said that, Master."</p>
+
+<p>"I'se do no promising for thee Geordie. Between wording an' working is a
+lang road, but Kirkwall an' Stromness kens thee for an honest lad, an'
+thou wilt mind this&mdash;<i>things promised are things due</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Insensibly this act of forbearance lightened Peter's whole day; he was
+good-tempered with the world, and the world returned the compliment.
+When night came, and he watched for Margaret on the sands, he was
+delighted to see that Ronald was with her. The lad had come home and
+nothing was now remembered against him. That night it was Ronald told
+him <a name="Page_170" id="Page_170"></a>fairy-stories of great cities and universities, of miles of books
+and pictures, of wonderful machinery and steam engines, of delicious
+things to eat and drink. Peter felt as if he must start southward by the
+next mail packet, but in the morning he thought more unselfishly.</p>
+
+<p>"There are forty families depending on me sticking to the shop an' the
+boats, Ronald, an' I canna go pleasuring till there is ane to step into
+my shoes."</p>
+
+<p>Ronald Sinclair had all the fair, stately beauty and noble presence of
+his sister, but yet there was some lack about him easier to feel than to
+define. Perhaps no one was unconscious of this lack except Margaret; but
+women have a grand invention where their idols are concerned, and create
+readily for them every excellency that they lack. Her own two years'
+study in an Edinburgh boarding-school had been very superficial, and she
+knew it; but this wonderful Ronald could read Homer and Horace, could
+play and sketch, and recite Shakespeare and write poetry. If he could
+have done none of these things, if he had been dull and ugly, and
+content to trade in fish and wool, she would still have loved him
+tenderly; how much more then, this handsome Antinous, whom she credited
+with all the accomplishments of Apollo.</p>
+
+<p>Ronald needed all her enthusiastic <a name="Page_171" id="Page_171"></a>support. He had left heavy college
+bills, and he had quite made up his mind that he would not be a minister
+and that he would be a lawyer. He could scarcely have decided on two
+things more offensive to his father. Only for the hope of having a
+minister in the family had Peter submitted to his son's continued
+demands for money. For this end he had bought books, and paid for all
+kinds of teachers and tours, and sighed over the cost of Ronald's
+different hobbies. And now he was not only to have a grievous
+disappointment, but also a great offence, for Peter Sinclair shared
+fully in the Arcadean dislike and distrust of lawyers, and would have
+been deeply offended at any one requiring their aid in any business
+transaction with him.</p>
+
+<p>His son's proposal to be a "writer" he took almost as a personal insult.
+He had formed his own opinion of the profession and the opinion of any
+other person who would say a word in favor of a lawyer he considered of
+no value. Margaret had a hard task before her, that she succeeded at all
+was due to her womanly tact. Ronald and his father simply clashed
+against each other and exchanged pointed truths which hurt worse than
+wounds. At length, when the short Arcadean summer was almost over,
+Margaret won a hard and reluctant consent.</p>
+
+<p>"The lad is fit for naething better, I <a name="Page_172" id="Page_172"></a>suppose"&mdash;and the old man turned
+away to shed the bitterest tears of his whole life. They shocked
+Margaret; she was terrified at her success, and, falling humbly at his
+feet, she besought him to forget and forgive her importunities, and to
+take back a gift baptized with such ominous tears.</p>
+
+<p>But Peter Sinclair, having been compelled to take such a step, was not
+the man to retrace it; he shook his head in a dour, hopeless way: "He
+couldna say 'yes' an' 'no' in a breath, an' Ronald must e'en drink as he
+brewed."</p>
+
+<p>These struggles, so real and sorrowful to his father and sister, Ronald
+had no sympathy with&mdash;not that he was heartless, but that he had taught
+himself to believe they were the result of ignorance of the world and
+old-fashioned prejudices. He certainly intended to become a great
+man&mdash;perhaps a judge&mdash;and, when he was one of "the Lords," he had no
+doubt his father would respect his disobedience. He knew his father as
+little as he knew himself. Peter Sinclair was only Peter Sinclair's
+opinions incorporate; and he could no more have changed them than he
+could have changed the color of his eyes or the shape of his nose; and
+the difference between a common lawyer and a "lord," in his eyes, would
+only have been the difference between a little oppressor and a great
+one.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173"></a>For the first time in all her life Margaret suspected a flaw in this
+perfect crystal of a brother; his gay debonnaire manner hurt her. Even
+if her father's objections were ignorant prejudices, they were positive
+convictions to him, and she did not like to see them smiled at,
+entertained by the cast of the eye, and the put-by of the turning hand.
+But loving women are the greatest of philistines: knock their idol down
+daily, rob it of every beauty, cut off its hands and head, and they will
+still "set it up in its place," and fall down and worship it.</p>
+
+<p>Undoubtedly Margaret was one of the blindest of these characters, but
+the world may pause before it scorns them too bitterly. It is faith of
+this sublime integrity which, brought down to personal experience,
+believes, endures, hopes, sacrifices and loves on to the end, winning
+finally what never would have been given to a more prudent and
+reasonable devotion. So, if Margaret had her doubts, she put them
+arbitrarily down, and sent her brother away with manifold tokens of her
+love&mdash;among them, with a check on the Kirkwall Bank for sixty pounds,
+the whole of her personal savings.</p>
+
+<p>To this frugal Arcadean maid it seemed a large sum, but she hoped by the
+sacrifice to clear off Ronald's college debts, and thus enable him to
+start his new race unweighted.<a name="Page_174" id="Page_174"></a> It was but a mouthful to each creditor,
+but it put them off for a time, and Ronald was not a youth inclined to
+"take thought" for their "to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>He had been entered for four years' study with the firm of Wilkes &amp;
+Brechen, writers and conveyancers, of the city of Glasgow. Her father
+had paid the whole fee down, and placed in the Western Bank to his
+credit four hundred pounds for his four years' support. Whatever Ronald
+thought of the provision, Peter considered it a magnificent income, and
+it had cost him a great struggle to give up at once, and for no evident
+return, so much of his hard-earned gold. To Ronald he said nothing of
+this reluctance; he simply put vouchers for both transactions in his
+hand, and asked him to "try an' spend the siller as weel as it had been
+earned."</p>
+
+<p>But to Margaret he fretted not a little. "Fourteen hun'red pounds a'
+thegither, dawtie," he said in a tearful voice. "I warked early an' late
+through mony a year for it; an' it is gane a' at once, though I hae
+naught but words an' promises for it. I ken, Margaret, that I am an auld
+farrant trader, but I'se aye say that it is a bad well into which are
+must put water."</p>
+
+<p>When Ronald went, the summer went too. It became necessary to remove at
+once to their rock-built house in one of the <a name="Page_175" id="Page_175"></a>narrow streets of
+Kirkwall. Margaret was glad of the change; her father could come into
+the little parlor behind the shop any time in the day and smoke his pipe
+beside her. He needed this consolation sorely; his son's conduct had
+grieved him far more deeply than he would allow, and Margaret often saw
+him gazing southward over the stormy Pentland Frith with a very mournful
+face.</p>
+
+<p>But a good heart soon breaks bad fortune and Peter had a good heart,
+sound and sweet and true to his fellow-creatures and full of faith in
+God. It is true that his creed was of the very strictest and sternest;
+but men are always better than their theology and Margaret knew from the
+Scriptures chosen for their household worship that in the depth and
+stillness of his soul his human fatherhood had anchored fast to the
+fatherhood of God.</p>
+
+<p>Arcadean winters are long and dreary, but no one need much pity the
+Arcadeans; they have learned how to make them the very festival of
+social life. And, in spite of her anxiety about Ronald, Margaret
+thoroughly enjoyed this one&mdash;perhaps the more because Captain Olave
+Thorkald spent two months of it with them in Kirkwall. There had been a
+long attachment between the young soldier and Margaret; and having
+obtained his commission, he <a name="Page_176" id="Page_176"></a>had come to ask also for the public
+recognition of their engagement. Margaret was rarely beautiful and
+rarely happy, and she carried with a charming and kindly grace the full
+cup of her felicity. The Arcadeans love to date from a good year, and
+all her life afterward Margaret reckoned events from this pleasant
+winter.</p>
+
+<p>Peter Sinclair's house being one of the largest in Kirkwall, was a
+favorite gathering place, and Peter took his full share in all the
+home-like, innocent amusements which beguiled the long, dreary nights.
+No one in Orkney or Zetland could recite Ossian with more passion and
+tenderness, and he enjoyed his little triumph over the youngsters who
+emulated him. No one could sing a Scotch song with more humor, and few
+of the lads and lassies could match Peter in a blithe foursome reel or a
+rattling strathspey. Some, indeed, thought that good Dr. Ogilvie had a
+more graceful spring and a longer breath, but Peter always insisted that
+his inferiority to the minister was a voluntary concession to the
+Dominie's superior dignity. It was, however, a rivalry that always ended
+in a firmer grip at parting. These little festivals, in which young and
+old freely mingled, cultivated to perfection the best and kindest
+feelings of both classes. Age mellowed to perfect sweetness in the
+<a name="Page_177" id="Page_177"></a>sunshine of youthful gayety, and youth learned from age how at once to
+be merry and wise.</p>
+
+<p>At length June arrived; and though winter lingered in <i>spates</i>, the song
+of the skylark and the thrush heralded the spring. When the dream-like
+voice of the cuckoo should be heard once more, Peter and Margaret had
+determined to take a long summer trip. They were to go first to Perth,
+where Captain Thorkald was stationed, and then to Glasgow and see
+Ronald. But God had planned another journey for Peter, even one to a
+"land very far off." A disease, to which he had been subject at
+intervals for many years, suddenly assumed a fatal character and Peter
+needed no one to tell him that his days were numbered.</p>
+
+<p>He set his house in order, and then, going with Margaret to his summer
+dwelling, waited quietly. He said little on the subject, and as long as
+he was able, gave himself up with the delight of a child to watching the
+few flowers in his garden; but still one solemn, waylaying thought made
+these few last weeks of life peculiarly hushed and sacred. Ronald had
+been sent for, and the old man, with the clear prescience that sometimes
+comes before death, divined much and foresaw much he did not care to
+speak about&mdash;only that in some subtle way he made Margaret perceive that
+<a name="Page_178" id="Page_178"></a>Ronald was to be cared for and watched over, and that to her this
+charge was committed.</p>
+
+<p>Before the summer was quite over Peter Sinclair went away. In his
+tarrying by the eternal shore he became, as it were, purified of the
+body, and one lovely night, when gloaming and dawning mingled, and the
+lark was thrilling the midnight skies, he heard the Master call him, and
+promptly answered, "Here am I." Then "Death, with sweet enlargement, did
+dismiss him hence."</p>
+
+<p>He had been considered a rich man in Orkney, and, therefore, Ronald&mdash;who
+had become accustomed to a Glasgow standard of wealth&mdash;was much
+disappointed. His whole estate was not worth over six thousand pounds;
+about two thousand pounds of this was in gold, the rest was invested in
+his houses in Kirkwall, and in a little cottage in Stromness, where
+Peter's wife had been born. He gave to Ronald &pound;1800, and to Margaret
+&pound;200 and the life rent of the real property. Ronald had already received
+&pound;1400, and, therefore, had no cause of complaint, but somehow he felt as
+if he had been wronged. He was older than his sister, and the son of the
+house, and use and custom were not in favor of recognizing daughters as
+having equal rights. But he kept such thoughts to himself, and when he
+<a name="Page_179" id="Page_179"></a>went back to Glasgow took with him solid proof of his sister's
+devotion.</p>
+
+<p>It was necessary, now, for Margaret to make a great change in her life.
+She determined to remove to Stromness and occupy the little four-roomed
+cottage that had been her mother's. It stood close to that of Geordie
+Twatt, and she felt that in any emergency she was thus sure of one
+faithful friend. "A lone woman" in Margaret's position has in these days
+numberless objects of interest of which Margaret never dreamed. She
+would have thought it a kind of impiety to advise her minister, or
+meddle in church affairs. These simple parents attended themselves to
+the spiritual training of their children&mdash;there was no necessity for
+Sunday Schools, and they did not exist. She was not one of those women
+whom their friends call "beings," and who have deep and mysterious
+feelings that interpret themselves in poems and thrilling stories. She
+had no taste for philosophy or history or social science, and had been
+taught to regard novels as dangerously sinful books.</p>
+
+<p>But no one need imagine that she was either wretched or idle. In the
+first place, she took life much more calmly and slowly than we do; a
+very little pleasure or employment went a long way. She read her Bible
+and helped her old servant Helga to <a name="Page_180" id="Page_180"></a>keep the house in order. She had
+her flowers to care for,&mdash;and her brother and lover to write to. She
+looked after Geordie Twatt's little motherless lads, went to church and
+to see her friends, and very often had her friends to see her. It
+happened to be a very stormy winter, and the mails were often delayed
+for weeks together. This was her only trouble. Ronald's letters were
+more and more unsatisfactory; he was evidently unhappy and dissatisfied
+and heartily tired of his new study. Posts were so irregular that often
+their letters seemed to be playing at cross purposes. She determined as
+soon as spring opened to go and have a straightforward talk with him.</p>
+
+<p>So the following June Geordie Twatt took her in his boat to Thurso,
+where Captain Thorkald was waiting for her. They had not met since Peter
+Sinclair's death, and that event had materially affected their
+prospects. Before it their marriage had been a possible joy in some far
+future; now there was no greater claim on her care and love than the
+captain's, and he urged their early marriage.</p>
+
+<p>Margaret had her two hundred pounds with her, and she promised to buy
+her "plenishing" during her visit to Glasgow. In those days girls made
+their own trousseau, sewing into every garment solemn and tender hopes
+and joys. Margaret thought <a name="Page_181" id="Page_181"></a>that proper attention to this dear stitching
+as well as proper respect for her father's memory, asked of her yet at
+least another year's delay; and for the present Captain Thorkald thought
+it best not to urge her further.</p>
+
+<p>Ronald received his sister very joyfully. He had provided lodgings for
+her with their father's old correspondent, Robert Gorie, a tea merchant
+in the Cowcaddens. The Cowcaddens was then a very respectable street,
+and Margaret was quite pleased with her quarters. She was not pleased
+with Ronald, however. He avowed himself thoroughly disgusted with the
+law, and declared his intention of forfeiting his fee and joining his
+friend Walter Cashell in a manufacturing scheme.</p>
+
+<p>Margaret could <i>feel</i> that he was all wrong, but she could not reason
+about a business of which she knew nothing, and Ronald took his own way.
+But changing and bettering are two different things, and, though he was
+always talking of his "good luck" and his "good bargains", Margaret was
+very uneasy. Perhaps Robert Gorie was partly to blame for this; his
+pawky face and shrewd little eyes made visible dissents to all such
+boasts; nor did he scruple to say, "Guid luck needs guid elbowing,
+Ronald, an' it is at the <i>guid bargains</i> I aye pause an' ponder."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182"></a>The following winter was a restless, unhappy one; Ronald was either
+painfully elated or very dull; and, soon after the New Year, Walter
+Cashell fell into bad health, went to the West Indies, and left Ronald
+with the whole business to manage. He soon now began to come to his
+sister, not only for advice, but for money. Margaret believed at first
+that she was only supplying Walter's sudden loss, but when her cash was
+all gone, and Ronald urged her to mortgage her rents she resolutely shut
+her ears to all his plausible promises, and refused to "throw more good
+money after bad."</p>
+
+<p>It was the first ill-blood between them, and it hurt Margaret sorely.
+She was glad when the fine weather came, and she could escape to her
+island home, for Ronald was cool to her, and said cruel things of
+Captain Thorkald, for whose sake he declared his sister had refused to
+help him.</p>
+
+<p>One day, at the end of the following August, when most of the
+towns-people&mdash;men and women&mdash;had gone to the moss to cut the winter's
+peat, she saw Geordie Twatt coming toward the house. Something about his
+appearance troubled her, and she went to the open door and stood waiting
+for him.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, Geordie?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am bidden to tell thee, Margaret<a name="Page_183" id="Page_183"></a> Sinclair, to be at the Stanes o'
+Stennis to-night at eleven o'clock."</p>
+
+<p>"Who trysts me there, Geordie, at such an hour?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thy brother; but thou'lt come&mdash;yes, thou wilt."</p>
+
+<p>Margaret's very lips turned white as she answered: "I'll be there&mdash;see
+thou art, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure as death! If naebody spiers after me, thou needna say I was here
+at a', thou needna."</p>
+
+<p>Margaret understood the caution, and nodded her head. She could not
+speak, and all day long she wandered about like a soul in a restless
+dream.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately, every one was weary at night, and went early to rest, and
+she found little difficulty in getting outside the town without notice;
+and one of the ponies on the common took her speedily across the moor.</p>
+
+<p>Late as it was, twilight lingered over the silent moor, with its old
+Pictish mounds and burial places, giving them an indescribable aspect of
+something weird and eerie. No one could have been insensible to the
+mournful, brooding light and the unearthly stillness, and Margaret was
+trembling with a supernatural terror as she stood amid the solemn circle
+of gray stones and looked over the lake of Stennis and the low, brown
+hills of Harray.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184"></a>From behind one of these gigantic pillars Ronald came toward
+her&mdash;Ronald, and yet not Ronald. He was dressed as a common sailor, and
+otherwise shamefully disguised. There was no time to soften things&mdash;he
+told his miserable story in a few plain words:</p>
+
+<p>"His business had become so entangled that he knew not which way to
+turn, and, sick of the whole affair, he had taken a passage for
+Australia, and then forged a note on the Western Bank for &pound;900. He had
+hoped to be far at sea with his ill-gotten money before the fraud was
+discovered, but suspicion had gathered around him so quickly, that he
+had not even dared to claim his passage. Then he fled north, and,
+fortunately, discovering Geordie's boat at Wick, had easily prevailed on
+him to put off at once with him."</p>
+
+<p>What cowards sin makes of us! Margaret had seen this very lad face death
+often, among the sunken rocks and cruel surfs, that he might save the
+life of a ship-wrecked sailor, and now, rather than meet the creditors
+whom he had wronged, he had committed a robbery and was flying from the
+gallows.</p>
+
+<p>She was shocked and stunned, and stood speechless, wringing her hands
+and moaning pitifully. Her brother grew impatient. Often the first
+result of a bitter sense of sin is to make the sinner peevish and
+irritable.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185"></a>"Margaret," he said, almost angrily, "I came to bid you farewell, and
+to promise you, <i>by my father's name</i>! to retrieve all this wrong. If
+you can speak a kind word speak it, for God's sake&mdash;if not, I must go
+without it!"</p>
+
+<p>Then she fell upon his neck, and, amid sobs and kisses, said all that
+love so sorely and suddenly tried could say. He could not even soothe
+her anguish by any promise to write, but he did promise to come back to
+her sooner or later with restitution in his hand. All she could do now
+for this dear brother was to call Geordie to her side and put him in his
+care; taking what consolation she could from his assurance that "he
+would keep him out at sea until the search was cold, and if followed
+carry him into some of the dangerous 'races' between the islands." If
+any sailor could keep his boat above water in them, she knew Geordie
+could; <i>and if not</i>&mdash;she durst follow that thought no further, but,
+putting her hands before her face, stood praying, while the two men
+pulled silently away in the little skiff that had brought them up the
+outlet connecting the lake of Stennis with the sea. Margaret would have
+turned away from Ronald's open grave less heart-broken.</p>
+
+<p>It was midnight now, but her real terror absorbed all imaginary ones;
+she did not even call a pony, but with swift, even steps <a name="Page_186" id="Page_186"></a>walked back to
+Stromness. Ere she had reached it, she had decided what was to be done,
+and next day she left Kirkwall in the mail packet for the mainland.
+Thence by night and day she traveled to Glasgow, and a week after her
+interview with Ronald she was standing before the directors of the
+defrauded bank and offering them the entire proceeds of her Kirkwall
+property until the debt was paid.</p>
+
+<p>The bank had thoroughly respected Peter Sinclair, and his daughter's
+earnest, decided offer won their ready sympathy. It was accepted without
+any question of interest, though she could not hope to clear off the
+obligation in less than nine years. She did not go near any of her old
+acquaintances; she had no heart to bear their questions and condolences,
+and she had no money to stay in Glasgow at charges. Winter was coming on
+rapidly, but before it broke over the lonely islands she had reached her
+cottage in Stromness again.</p>
+
+<p>There had been, of course, much talk concerning her hasty journey, but
+no one had suspected its cause. Indeed, the pursuit after Ronald had
+been entirely the bank's affair, had been committed to private
+detectives and had not been nearly so hot as the frightened criminal
+believed. His failure and flight had indeed been noticed in the Glasgow
+newspapers, but this <a name="Page_187" id="Page_187"></a>information did not reach Kirkwall until the
+following spring, and then in a very indefinite form.</p>
+
+<p>About a week after her return, Geordie Twatt came into port. Margaret
+frequently went to his cottage with food or clothing for the children,
+and she contrived to meet him there.</p>
+
+<p>"Yon lad is a' right, indeed is he," he said, with an assumption of
+indifference.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Geordie! where?"</p>
+
+<p>"A ship going westward took him off the boat."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank God! You will say naught at all, Geordie?"</p>
+
+<p>"I ken naught at a' save that his father's son was i' trouble, an'
+trying to gie thae weary, unchancy lawyers the go-by. I was fain eneuch
+mesel' to balk them."</p>
+
+<p>But Margaret's real trials were all yet to come. The mere fact of doing
+a noble deed does not absolve one often from very mean and petty
+consequences. Before the winter was half over she had found out how
+rapid is the descent from good report. The neighbors were deeply
+offended at her for giving up the social tea parties and evening
+gatherings that had made the house of Sinclair popular for more than one
+generation. She gave still greater offence by becoming a workingwoman,
+and spending her days in braiding straw into the<a name="Page_188" id="Page_188"></a> (once) famous Orkney
+Tuscans, and her long evenings in the manufacture of those delicate
+knitted goods peculiar to the country.</p>
+
+<p>It was not alone that they grudged her the money for these labors, as so
+much out of their own pockets&mdash;they grudged her also the time; for they
+had been long accustomed to rely on Margaret Sinclair for their
+children's garments, for nursing the sick and for help in weddings,
+funerals and all the other extraordinary occasions of sympathy among a
+primitively social people.</p>
+
+<p>Little by little, all winter, the sentiment of disapproval and dislike
+gathered. Some one soon found out that Margaret's tenants "just sent
+every bawbee o' the rent-siller to the Glasgow Bank;" and this was a
+double offence, as it implied a distrust of her own townsfolk and
+institutions. If from her humble earnings she made a little gift to any
+common object its small amount was a fresh source of anger and contempt;
+for none knew how much she had to deny herself even for such curtailed
+gratuities.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, Margaret Sinclair's sudden stinginess and indifference to her
+townsfolk was the common wonder and talk of every little gathering. Old
+friends began to either pointedly reprove her, or pointedly ignore her;
+and at last even old Helga took the popular tone and said, "Margaret<a name="Page_189" id="Page_189"></a>
+Sinclair had got too scrimping for an auld wife like her to bide wi'
+langer."</p>
+
+<p>Through all this Margaret suffered keenly. At first she tried earnestly
+to make her old friends understand that she had good reasons for her
+conduct; but as she would not explain these good reasons, she failed in
+her endeavor. She had imagined that her good conscience would support
+her, and that she could live very well without love and sympathy; she
+soon found out that it is a kind of negative punishment worse than many
+stripes.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the winter Captain Thorkald again earnestly pressed their
+marriage, saying that, "his regiment was ordered to Chelsea, and any
+longer delay might be a final one." He proposed also, that his father,
+the Udaller Thorkald of Serwick, should have charge of her Orkney
+property, as he understood its value and changes. Margaret wrote and
+frankly told him that her property was not hers for at least seven
+years, but that it was under good care, and he must accept her word
+without explanation. Out of this only grew a very unsatisfactory
+correspondence. Captain Thorkald went south without Margaret, and a very
+decided coolness separated them farther than any number of miles.</p>
+
+<p>Udaller Thorkald was exceedingly angry, and his remarks about Margaret
+Sinclair's <a name="Page_190" id="Page_190"></a>refusal "to trust her bit property in as guid hands as her
+own" increased very much the bitter feeling against the poor girl. At
+the end of three years the trial became too great for her; she began to
+think of running away from it.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout these dark days she had purposely and pointedly kept apart
+from her old friend Dr. Ogilvie, for she feared his influence over her
+might tempt her to confidence. Latterly the doctor had humored her
+evident desire, but he had never ceased to watch over and, in a great
+measure, to believe in her; and, when he heard of this determination to
+quit Orkney forever, he came to Stromness with a resolution to spare no
+efforts to win her confidence.</p>
+
+<p>He spoke very solemnly and tenderly to her, reminded her of her father's
+generosity and good gifts to the church and the poor, and said: "O,
+Margaret, dear lass! what good at a' will thy silent money do thee in
+<i>that Day</i>? It ought to speak for thee out o' the mouths o' the
+sorrowfu' an' the needy, the widows an' the fatherless&mdash;indeed it ought.
+And thou hast gien naught for thy Master's sake these three years! I'm
+fair 'shamed to think thou bears sae kind a name as thy father's."</p>
+
+<p>What could Margaret do? She broke into passionate sobbing, and, when the
+good old man left the cottage an hour afterward <a name="Page_191" id="Page_191"></a>there was a strange
+light on his face, and he walked and looked as if he had come from some
+interview that had set him for a little space still nearer to the
+angels. Margaret had now one true friend, and in a few days after this
+she rented her cottage and went to live with the dominie. Nothing could
+have so effectually reinstated her in public opinion; wherever the
+dominie went on a message of help or kindness Margaret went with him.
+She fell gradually into a quieter but still more affectionate
+regard&mdash;the aged, the sick and the little children clung to her hands,
+and she was comforted.</p>
+
+<p>Her life seemed, indeed, to have wonderfully narrowed, but when the tide
+is fairly out, it begins to turn again. In the fifth year of her poverty
+there was from various causes, such an increase in the value of real
+estate, that her rents were nearly doubled, and by the end of the
+seventh year she had paid the last shilling of her assumed debt, and was
+again an independent woman.</p>
+
+<p>It might be two years after this that she one day received a letter that
+filled her with joy and amazement. It contained a check for her whole
+nine hundred pounds back again. "The bank had just received from Ronald
+Sinclair, of San Francisco, the whole amount due it, with the most
+satisfactory acknowledgment and interest."<a name="Page_192" id="Page_192"></a> It was a few minutes before
+Margaret could take in all the joy this news promised her; but when she
+did, the calm, well-regulated girl had never been so near committing
+extravagances.</p>
+
+<p>She ran wildly upstairs to the dominie, and, throwing herself at his
+knees, cried out, amid tears and smiles: "Father! father! Here is your
+money! Here is the poor's money and the church's money! God has sent it
+back to me! Sent it back with such glad tidings!"&mdash;and surely if angels
+rejoice with repenting sinners, they must have felt that day a far
+deeper joy with the happy, justified girl.</p>
+
+<p>She knew now that she also would soon hear from Ronald, and she was not
+disappointed. The very next day the dominie brought home the letter.
+Margaret took it upstairs to read it upon her knees, while the good old
+man walked softly up and down his study praying for her. Presently she
+came to him with a radiant face.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it weel wi' the lad, ma dawtie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, father; it is very well." Then she read him the letter.</p>
+
+<p>Ronald had been in New Orleans and had the fever; he had been in Texas,
+and spent four years in fighting Indians and Mexicans and in herding
+cattle. He had suffered many things, but had worked night and day, and
+always managed to <a name="Page_193" id="Page_193"></a>grow a little richer every year. Then, suddenly, the
+word "California!" rung through the world, and he caught the echo even
+on the lonely southwestern prairies. Through incredible hardships he had
+made his way thither, and a sudden and wonderful fortune had crowned his
+labors, first in mining and afterward in speculation and merchandising.
+He said that he was indeed afraid to tell her how rich he was lest to
+her Arcadean views the sum might appear incredible.</p>
+
+<p>Margaret let the letter fall on her lap and clasped her hands above it.
+Her face was beautiful. If the prodigal son had a sister she must have
+looked just as Margaret looked when they brought in her lost brother, in
+the best robe and the gold ring.</p>
+
+<p>The dominie was not so satisfied. A good many things in the letter
+displeased him, but he kissed Margaret tenderly and went away from her.
+"It is a' <i>I</i> did this, an' <i>I</i> did that, an' <i>I</i> suffered you; there is
+nae word o' God's help, or o' what ither folk had to thole. I'll no be
+doing ma duty if I dinna set his sin afore his e'en."</p>
+
+<p>The old man was little used to writing, and the effort was a great one,
+but he bravely made it, and without delay. In a few curt, idiomatic
+sentences he told Ronald Margaret's story of suffering and wrong and
+poverty; her hard work for daily bread; <a name="Page_194" id="Page_194"></a>her loss of friends, of her
+good name and her lover, adding: "It is a puir success, ma lad, that ye
+dinna acknowledge God in; an' let me tell thee, thy restitution is o'er
+late for thy credit. I wad hae thought better o' it had thou made it
+when it took the last plack i' thy pouch. Out o' thy great wealth, a few
+hun'red pounds is nae matter to speak aboot."</p>
+
+<p>But people did speak of it. In spite of our chronic abuse of human
+nature it is, after all, a kindly nature, and rejoices in good more than
+in evil. The story of Ronald's restitution is considered honorable to
+it, and it was much made of in the daily papers. Margaret's friends
+flocked round her again, saying, "I'm sorry, Margaret!" as simply and
+honestly as little children, and the dominie did not fail to give them
+the lecture on charity that Margaret neglected.</p>
+
+<p>Whether the Udaller Thorkald wrote to his son anent these transactions,
+or whether the captain read in the papers enough to satisfy him, he
+never explained; but one day he suddenly appeared at Dr. Ogilvie's and
+asked for Margaret. He had probably good excuses for his conduct to
+offer; if not, Margaret was quite ready to invent for him&mdash;as she had
+done for Ronald&mdash;all the noble qualities he lacked. The captain was
+tired of military life, and anxious to <a name="Page_195" id="Page_195"></a>return to Orkney; and, as his
+own and Margaret's property was yearly increasing: in value, he foresaw
+profitable employment for his talents. He had plans for introducing many
+southern improvements&mdash;for building a fine modern house, growing some of
+the hardier fruits and for the construction of a grand conservatory for
+Margaret's flowers.</p>
+
+<p>It must be allowed that Captain Thorkald was a very ordinary lord for a
+woman like Margaret Sinclair to "love, honor and obey;" but few men
+would have been worthy of her, and the usual rule which shows us the
+noblest women marrying men manifestly their inferiors is doubtless a
+wise one.</p>
+
+<p>A lofty soul can have no higher mission than to help upward one upon a
+lower plane, and surely Captain Thorkald, being, as the dominie said,
+"<i>no that bad</i>," had the fairest opportunities to grow to Margaret's
+stature in Margaret's atmosphere.</p>
+
+<p>While these things were occurring, Ronald got Margaret's letter. It was
+full of love and praise, and had no word of blame or complaint in it. He
+noticed, indeed, that she still signed her name "Sinclair," and that she
+never alluded to Captain Thorkald, and the supposition that the stain on
+his character had caused a rupture did, for a moment, force itself upon
+his notice; but <a name="Page_196" id="Page_196"></a>he put it instantly away with the reflection that
+"Thorkald was but a poor fellow, after all, and quite unworthy of his
+sister."</p>
+
+<p>The very next mail-day he received the dominie's letter. He read it
+once, and could hardly take it in; read it again and again, until his
+lips blanched, and his whole countenance changed. In that moment he saw
+Ronald Sinclair for the first time in his life. Without a word, he left
+his business, went to his house and locked himself in his own room.</p>
+
+<p><i>Then Margaret's silent money began to speak.</i> In low upbraidings it
+showed him the lonely girl in that desolate land trying to make her own
+bread, deserted of lover and friends, robbed of her property and good
+name, silently suffering every extremity, never reproaching him once,
+not even thinking it necessary to tell him of her sufferings, or to
+count their cost unto him.</p>
+
+<p>What is this bitterness we call remorse? This agony of the soul in all
+its senses? This sudden flood of intolerable light in the dark places of
+our hearts? This truth-telling voice which leaves us without a particle
+of our self-complacency? For many days Ronald could find no words to
+speak but these, "O, wretched man that I am!"</p>
+
+<p>But at length the Comforter came as <a name="Page_197" id="Page_197"></a>swiftly and surely and mysteriously
+as the accuser had come, and once more that miracle of grace was
+renewed&mdash;"that day Jesus was guest in the house of one who was a
+sinner."</p>
+
+<p>Margaret's "silent money" now found a thousand tongues. It spoke in many
+a little feeble church that Ronald Sinclair held in his arms until it
+was strong enough to stand alone. It spoke in schools and colleges and
+hospitals, in many a sorrowful home and to many a lonely, struggling
+heart&mdash;and at this very day it has echoes that reach from the far West
+to the lonely islands beyond the stormy Pentland Firth, and the
+sea-shattering precipices of Duncansbay Head.</p>
+
+<p>It is not improbable that some of my readers may take a summer's trip to
+the Orkney Islands; let me ask them to wait at Thurso&mdash;the old town of
+Thor&mdash;for a handsome little steamer that leaves there three times a week
+for Kirkwall. It is the sole property of Captain Geordie Twatt, was a
+gift from an old friend in California, and is called "The Margaret
+Sinclair."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="JUST_WHAT_HE_DESERVED" id="JUST_WHAT_HE_DESERVED"></a>JUST WHAT HE DESERVED.</h2>
+
+
+<p>There is not in its own way a more distinctive and interesting bit of
+Scotland than the bleak Lothian country, with its wide views, its brown
+ploughed fields, and its dense swaying plantations of fir. The
+Lammermoor Hills and the Pentlands and the veils of smoke that lie about
+Edinburgh are on its horizon, and within that circle all the large
+quietude of open grain fields, wide turnip lands, where sheep feed, and
+far-stretching pastures where the red and white cows ruminate. The
+patient processes of nature breed patient minds; the gray cold climate
+can be read in the faces of the people, and in their hearts the seasons
+take root and grow; so that they have a grave character, passive, yet
+enduring; strong to feel and strong to act when the time is full ready
+for action.</p>
+
+<p>Of these natural peculiarities Jean Anderson had her share. She was a
+Lothian lassie of many generations, usually undemonstrative, but with
+large possibilities of storm beneath her placid face and gentle manner.
+Her father was the minister of Lambrig and the manse stood in a very
+sequestered corner of the big parish, facing <a name="Page_199" id="Page_199"></a>the bleak east winds, and
+the salt showers of the German ocean. It was sheltered by dark fir woods
+on three sides, and in front a little walled-in garden separated it from
+the long, dreary, straight line of turnpike road. But Jean had no
+knowledge of any fairer land; she had read of flowery pastures and rose
+gardens and vineyards, but these places were to her only in books, while
+the fields and fells that filled her eyes were her home, and she loved
+them.</p>
+
+<p>She loved them all the more because the man she loved was going to leave
+them, and if Gavin Burns did well, and was faithful to her, then it was
+like to be that she also would go far away from the blue Lammermuirs,
+and the wide still spaces of the Lothians. She stood at the open door of
+the manse with her lover thinking of these things, but with no real
+sense of what pain or deprivation the thought included. She was tall and
+finely formed, a blooming girl, with warmly-colored cheeks, a mouth
+rather large and a great deal of wavy brown hair. But the best of all
+her beauty was the soul in her face; its vitality, its vivacity and
+immediate response.</p>
+
+<p>However, the time of love had come to her, and though her love had grown
+as naturally as a sapling in a wood, who could tell what changes it
+would make. For Gavin Burns had been educated in the <a name="Page_200" id="Page_200"></a>minister's house
+and Jean and he had studied and fished and rambled together all through
+the years in which Jean had grown from childhood into womanhood. Now
+Gavin was going to New York to make his fortune. They stepped through
+the garden and into the long dim road, walking slowly in the calm night,
+with thoughtful faces and clasped hands. There was at this last hour
+little left to say. Every promise known to Love had been given; they had
+exchanged Bibles and broken a piece of silver and vowed an eternal
+fidelity. So, in the cold sunset they walked silently by the river that
+was running in flood like their own hearts. At the little stone bridge
+they stopped, and leaning over the parapet watched the drumly water
+rushing below; and there Jean reiterated her promise to be Gavin's wife
+as soon as he was able to make a home for her.</p>
+
+<p>"And I am not proud, Gavin," she said; "a little house, if it is filled
+with love, will make me happy beyond all."</p>
+
+<p>They were both too hopeful and trustful and too habitually calm to weep
+or make much visible lament over their parting; and yet when Gavin
+vanished into the dark of the lonely road, Jean shut the heavy house
+door very slowly. She felt as if she was shutting part of herself out of
+the old home forever, and she was shocked by this first <a name="Page_201" id="Page_201"></a>breaking of the
+continuity of life; this sharp cutting of regular events asunder.
+Gavin's letters were at first frequent and encouraging, but as the
+months went by he wrote more and more seldom. He said "he was kept so
+busy; he was making himself indispensable, and could not afford to be
+less busy. He was weary to death on the Saturday nights, and he could
+not bring his conscience to write anent his own personal and earthly
+happiness on the Sabbath day; but he was sure Jean trusted in him,
+whether he wrote or not; and they were past being bairns, always telling
+each other the love they were both so sure of."</p>
+
+<p>Late in the autumn the minister died of typhoid fever, and Jean,
+heartbroken and physically worn out, was compelled to face for her
+mother and herself, a complete change of life. It had never seemed to
+these two women that anything could happen to the father and head of the
+family; in their loving hearts he had been immortal, and though the
+disease had run its tedious course before their eyes, his death at the
+last was a shock that shook their lives and their home to the very
+centre. A new minister was the first inevitable change, and then a
+removal from the comfortable manse to a little cottage in the village of
+Lambrig.</p>
+
+<p>While this sad removal was in progress <a name="Page_202" id="Page_202"></a>they had felt the sorrow of it,
+all that they could bear; and neither had dared to look into the future
+or to speculate as to its necessities. Jean in her heart expected Gavin
+would at once send for them to come to America. He had a fair salary,
+and the sale of their furniture would defray their traveling expenses.</p>
+
+<p>She was indeed so sure of this journey, that she did not regard the
+cottage as more than a temporary shelter during the approaching winter.
+In the spring, no doubt, Gavin would have a little home ready, and they
+would cross the ocean to it. The mother had the same thought. As they
+sat on their new hearthstone, lonely and poor, they talked of this
+event, and if any doubts lurked unconsciously below their love and trust
+they talked them away, while they waited for Gavin's answer to the
+sorrowful letter Jean had sent him on the night of her father's burial.</p>
+
+<p>It was longer in coming than they expected. For a week they saw the
+postman pass their door with an indifference that seemed cruel; for a
+week Jean made new excuses and tried to hold up her mother's heart,
+while her own was sinking lower and lower. Then one morning the
+looked-for answer came. Jean fled to a room apart to read it alone; Mrs.
+Anderson sat down and waited, with dropped eyes and hands <a name="Page_203" id="Page_203"></a>tightly
+clasped. She knew, before Jean said a word, that the letter had
+disappointed her. She had remained alone too long. If all had been as
+they hoped the mother was certain Jean would not have deferred the good
+tidings a moment. But a quarter of an hour had passed before Jean came
+to her side, and then when she lifted her eyes she saw that her daughter
+had been weeping.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a disappointment, Jean, I see," she said sadly. "Never mind,
+dearie."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, mother; Gavin has failed us."</p>
+
+<p>"We have been two foolish women, Jean. Oh, my dear lassie, we should
+have lippened to God, and He would not have disappointed us! What does
+Gavin Burns say?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is what he does <i>not</i> say, that hurts me, mother. I may as well tell
+you the whole truth. When he heard how ill father was, he wrote to me,
+as if he had foreseen what was to happen. He said, 'there will be a new
+minister and a break-up of the old home, and you must come at once to
+your new home here. I am the one to care for you when your father is
+gone away; and what does it matter under what sun or sky if we are but
+together?' So, then, mother, when the worst had come to us I wrote with
+a free heart to Gavin. I said, 'I will come to you gladly, Gavin, but
+you know well that my mother is very dear to me, and where I am there
+she also must be.'<a name="Page_204" id="Page_204"></a> And he says, in this letter, that it is me he is
+wanting, and that you have a brother in Glasgow that is unmarried and
+who will be willing, no doubt, to have you keep his house for him. There
+is a wale of fine words about it, mother, but they come to just this,
+and no more&mdash;Gavin is willing to care for me, but not for you and I will
+not trust myself with a man that cannot love you for my sake. We will
+stay together, mammy darling! Whatever comes or goes we will stay
+together. The man isna born that can part us two!"</p>
+
+<p>"He is your lover, Jean. A girl must stick to her lover."</p>
+
+<p>"You are my mother. I am bone of your bone, and flesh of your flesh and
+love of your love. May God forsake me when I forsake you!"</p>
+
+<p>She had thrown herself at her mother's knees and was clasping and
+kissing the sad face so dear to her, as she fervently uttered the last
+words. And the mother was profoundly touched by her child's devotion.
+She drew her close to her heart, and said firmly:</p>
+
+<p>"No! No, my dearie! What could we two do for ourselves? And I'm loth to
+part you and Gavin. I simply cannot take the sacrifice, you so lovingly
+offer me. I will write to my brother David. Gavin isna far wrong there;
+David is a very close <a name="Page_205" id="Page_205"></a>man, but he willna see his sister suffer, there
+is no fear of that."</p>
+
+<p>"It is Jean that will not see you suffer."</p>
+
+<p>"But the bite and the sup, Jean? How are we to get them?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can make my own dresses and cloaks, so then I can make dresses and
+cloaks for other people. I shall send out a card to the ladies near-by
+and put an advertisement in the Haddington newspaper, and God can make
+my needle sharp enough for the battle. Don't cry, mother! Oh, darling,
+don't cry! We have God and each other, and none can call us desolate."</p>
+
+<p>"But you will break your heart, Jean. You canna help it. And I canna
+take your love and happiness to brighten my old age. It isna right. I'll
+not do it. You must go to Gavin. I will go to my brother David."</p>
+
+<p>"I will not break my heart, mother. I will not shed a tear for the
+false, mean lad, that you were so kind to for fourteen years, when there
+was no one else to love him. Aye, I know he paid for his board and
+schooling, but he never could pay for the mother-love you gave him, just
+because he was motherless. And who has more right to have their life
+brightened by my love than you have? Beside, it is my happiness to
+brighten it, and so, what will you say against it? And I will not go to
+Gavin.<a name="Page_206" id="Page_206"></a> Not one step. If he wants me now, he will come for me, and for
+you, too. This is sure as death! Oh, mammy! Mammy, darling, a false lad
+shall not part us! Never! Never! Never!"</p>
+
+<p>"Jean! Jean! What will I say at all"</p>
+
+<p>"What would my father say, if he was here this minute? He would say,
+'you are right, Jean! And God bless you, Jean! And you may be sure that
+it is all for the best, Jean! So take the right road with a glad heart,
+Jean!' That is what father would say. And I will never do anything to
+prevent me looking him straight in the face when we meet again. Even in
+heaven I shall want him to smile into my eyes and say, 'Well done,
+Jean!'"</p>
+
+<hr class="mini" />
+
+<h3>Chapter II.</h3>
+
+<p>Jean's plans for the future were humble and reasonable enough to insure
+them some measure of success, and the dreaded winter passed not
+uncomfortably away. Then in the summer Uncle David Nicoll came to
+Lambrig and boarded with his sister, paying a pound a week, and giving
+her, on his departure, a five-pound note to help the next winter's
+expenses. This order of things went on without change or intermission
+for five years, and the little cottage gradually <a name="Page_207" id="Page_207"></a>gathered in its clean,
+sweet rooms, many articles of simple use and beauty. Mrs. Anderson took
+entire charge of the housekeeping. Jean's needle flew swiftly from
+morning to night, and though the girl had her share of the humiliations
+and annoyances incident to her position, these did not interfere with
+the cheerful affection and mutual help which brightened their lonely
+life.</p>
+
+<p>She heard nothing from Gavin. After some painful correspondence, in
+which neither would retract a step from the stand they had taken, Gavin
+ceased writing, and Jean ceased expecting, though before this calm was
+reached she had many a bitter hour the mother never suspected. But such
+hours were to Jean's soul what the farmer's call "growing weather;" in
+them much rich thought and feeling sprang up insensibly; her nature
+ripened and mellowed and she became a far lovelier woman than her
+twentieth year had promised.</p>
+
+<p>One gray February afternoon, when the rain was falling steadily, Jean
+felt unusually depressed and weary. An apprehension of some unhappiness
+made her sad, and she could not sew for the tears that would dim her
+eyes. Suddenly the door opened and Gavin's sister Mary entered. Jean did
+not know her very well, and she did not like her at all, and she
+wondered what she had come to tell her.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208"></a>"I am going to New York on Saturday, Jean," she said, "and I thought
+Gavin would like to know how you looked and felt these days."</p>
+
+<p>Jean flushed indignantly. "You can see how I look easy enough, Mary
+Burns," she answered; "but as to how I feel, that is a thing I keep to
+myself these days."</p>
+
+<p>"Gavin has furnished a pretty house at the long last, and I am to be the
+mistress of it. You will have heard, doubtless, that the school where I
+taught so long has been broken up, and so I was on the world, as one may
+say, and Gavin could not bear that. He is a good man, is Gavin, and I'm
+thinking I shall have a happy time with him in America."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you will, Mary. Give him a kind wish from me; and I will bid you
+'good bye' now, if you please, seeing that I have more sewing to do
+to-night than I can well manage."</p>
+
+<p>This event wounded Jean sorely. She felt sure Mary had only called for
+an unkind purpose, and that she would cruelly misrepresent her
+appearance and condition to Gavin. And no woman likes even a lost lover
+to think scornfully of her. But she brought her sewing beside her mother
+and talked the affair over with her, and so, at the end of the evening,
+went to bed resigned, and even cheerful. Never had they <a name="Page_209" id="Page_209"></a>spent a more
+confidential, loving night together, and this fact was destined to be a
+comfort to Jean during all the rest of her life. For in the morning she
+noticed a singular look on her mother's face and at noon she found her
+in her chair fast in that sleep which knows no wakening in this world.</p>
+
+<p>It was a blow which put all other considerations far out of Jean's mind.
+She mourned with a passionate sorrow her loss, and though Uncle David
+came at once to assist her in the necessary arrangements, she suffered
+no hand but her own to do the last kind offices for her dear dead. And
+oh! how empty and lonely was now the little cottage, while the swift
+return to all the ordinary duties of life seemed such a cruel
+effacement. Uncle David watched her silently, but on the evening of the
+third day after the funeral he said, kindly:</p>
+
+<p>"Dry your eyes, Jean. There is naething to weep for. Your mother is far
+beyond tears."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot bear to forget her a minute, uncle, yet folks go and come and
+never name her; and it is not a week since she had a word and a smile
+for everybody."</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Death is forgetfulness, Jean;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">... 'one lonely way<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We go: and is she gone?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is all our best friends say.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210"></a>"You must come home with me now, Jean. I canna be what your mother has
+been to you, but I'll do the best I can for you, lassie. Sell these bit
+sticks o' furniture and shut the door on the empty house and begin a new
+life. You've had sorrow about a lad; let him go. All o' the past worth
+your keeping you can save in your memory."</p>
+
+<p>"I will be glad to go with you, uncle. I shall be no charge on you. I
+can find my own bread if you will just love me a little."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm no that poor, Jean. You are welcome to share my loaf. Put that
+weary; thimble and needle awa'; I'll no see you take another stitch."</p>
+
+<p>So Jean followed her uncle's advice and went back with him to Glasgow.
+He had never said a word about his home, and Jean knew not what she
+expected&mdash;certainly nothing more than a small floor in some of the least
+expensive streets of the great city. It was dark when they reached
+Glasgow, but Jean was sensible of a great change in her uncle's manner
+as soon as they left the railway. He made an imperative motion and a
+carriage instantly answered it; and they were swiftly driven to a large
+dwelling in one of the finest crescents of the West end. He led her into
+a handsome parlor and called a servant, and bid her "show Miss Anderson
+her <a name="Page_211" id="Page_211"></a>rooms;" and thus, without a word of preparation, Jean found herself
+surrounded by undreamed of luxury.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing was ever definitely explained to her, but she gradually learned
+to understand the strange old man who assumed the guardianship of her
+life. His great wealth was evident, and it was not long ere she
+discovered that it was largely spent in two directions&mdash;scientific
+discovery and the Temperance Crusade. Men whose lives were devoted to
+chemistry or to electrical investigations, or passionate apostles of
+total abstinence from intoxicants were daily at his table; and Jean
+could not help becoming an enthusiastic partisan on such matters. One of
+the savants, a certain Professor Sharp, fell deeply in love with her;
+and she felt it difficult to escape the influence of his wooing, which
+had all the persistent patience of a man accustomed "to seek till he
+found, and so not lose his labor."</p>
+
+<p>Her life was now very happy. Cautious in giving his love, David Nicoll
+gave it freely as soon as he had resolved to adopt his niece. Nor did he
+ever regret the gift. "Jean entered my house and she made it a home," he
+said to his friends. No words could have better explained the position.
+In the winter they entertained with a noble hospitality; in the summer
+they sailed far <a name="Page_212" id="Page_212"></a>north to the mystical isles of the Western seas; to
+Orkney and Zetland and once even as far as the North Cape by the light
+of the midnight sun. So the time passed wonderfully away, until Jean was
+thirty-two years old. The simple, unlettered girl had then become a
+woman of great culture and of perfect physical charm. Wise in many ways,
+she yet kept her loving heart, and her uncle delighted in her. "You have
+made my auld age parfectly happy, Jean," he said to her on the last
+solemn night of his life; "and I thank God for the gift o' your honest
+love! Now that I am going the way of all flesh, I have gi'en you every
+bawbee I have. I have put no restrictions on you, and I have left nae
+dead wishes behind me. You will do as you like wi' the land and the
+siller, and you will do right in a' things, I ken that, Jean. If it
+should come into your heart to tak' the love Professor Sharp offers you,
+I'll be pleased, for he'll never spend a shilling that willna be weel
+spent; and he is a clever man, and a good man and he loves you. But it
+is a' in your ain will; do as you like, anent either this or that."</p>
+
+<p>This was the fourth great change in Jean's life. Gavin's going away had
+opened the doors of her destiny; her father's death had sent her to the
+school of self-reliant poverty; her mother's death given her a <a name="Page_213" id="Page_213"></a>home of
+love and luxury, and now her uncle put her in a position of vast,
+untrammeled responsibility. But if love is the joy of life, this was not
+the end; the crowning change was yet to come; and now, with both her
+hands full, her heart involuntarily turned to her first lover.</p>
+
+<p>About this time, also, Gavin was led to remember Jean. His sister Mary
+was going to marry, and the circumstance annoyed him. "I'll have to
+store my furniture and pay for the care of it; or I'll have to sell it
+at a loss; or I'll have to hire a servant lass, and be robbed on the
+right hand and the left," he said fretfully. "It was not in the bargain
+that you should marry, and it is very bad behavior in you, Mary."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Gavin, get married yourself, and the furnishing will not be
+wasted," answered Mary. "There is Annie Riley, just dying for the love
+of you, and no brighter, smarter girl in New York city."</p>
+
+<p>"She isn't in love with me; she is tired of the Remington all day; and
+if I wanted a wife, there is some one better than Annie Riley."</p>
+
+<p>"Jean Anderson?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay."</p>
+
+<p>"Send for her picture, and you will see what a plain, dowdy old maid she
+is. She is not for the like of you, Gavin&mdash;a bit country dressmaker,
+poor, and past liking."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214"></a>Gavin said no more, but that night he wrote Jean Anderson the following
+letter: "Dear Jean. I wish you would send me a picture of yourself. If
+you will not write me a word, you might let me have your face to look
+at. Mary is getting herself married, and I will be alone in a few days."
+That is enough, he thought; "she will understand that there is a chance
+for her yet, if she is as bonnie as in the old days. Mary is not to be
+trusted. She never liked Jean. I'll see for myself."</p>
+
+<p>Jean got this letter one warm day in spring, and she "understood" it as
+clearly as Gavin intended her to. For a long time she sat thinking it
+over, then she went to a drawer for a photo, taken just before her
+mother's death. It showed her face without any favor, without even
+justice, and the plain merino gown, which was then her best. And with
+this picture she wrote&mdash;"Dear Gavin. The enclosed was taken five years
+since, and there has been changes since."</p>
+
+<p>She did not say what the changes were, but Gavin was sure they were
+unfavorable. He gazed at the sad, thoughtful face, the poor plain dress,
+and he was disappointed. A girl like that would do his house no honor;
+he would not care to introduce her to his fellow clerks; they would not
+envy him a bit. Annie Riley was far better <a name="Page_215" id="Page_215"></a>looking, and far more
+stylish. He decided in favor of Annie Riley.</p>
+
+<p>Jean was not astonished when no answer came. She had anticipated her
+failure to please her old lover; but she smiled a little sadly at <i>his</i>
+failure. Then there came into her mind a suspicion of Mary, an
+uncertainty, a lingering hope that some circumstance, not to be guessed
+at from a distance, was to blame for Gavin's silence and utter want of
+response. It was midsummer, she wanted a breath of the ocean; why should
+she not go to New York and quietly see how things were for herself? The
+idea took possession of her, and she carried it out.</p>
+
+<p>She knew the name of the large dry goods firm that Gavin served, and the
+morning after her arrival in New York she strolled into it for a pair of
+gloves. As they were being fitted on she heard Gavin speak, and moving
+her position slightly, she saw him leaning against a pile of summer
+blankets. He was talking to one of his fellows, and evidently telling a
+funny story, at which both giggled and snickered, ere they walked their
+separate ways. Being midsummer the store was nearly empty, and Jean, by
+varying her purchases, easily kept Gavin in sight. She never for one
+moment found the sight a pleasant one. Gavin had deteriorated in every
+way. He was no longer <a name="Page_216" id="Page_216"></a>handsome; the veil of youth had fallen from him,
+and his face, his hands, his figure, his slouching walk, his querulous
+authoritative voice, all revealed a man whom Jean repelled at every
+point. Years had not refined, they had vulgarized him. His clothing
+careless and not quite fresh, offended her taste; in fact, his whole
+appearance was of that shabby genteel character, which is far more mean
+and plebeian than can be given by undisguised working apparel. As Jean
+was taking note of these things a girl, with a flushed, angry face,
+spoke to him. She was evidently making a complaint, and Gavin answered
+her in a manner which made Jean burn from head to feet. The disillusion
+was complete; she never looked at him again, and he never knew she had
+looked at him at all.</p>
+
+<p>But after Mary's marriage he heard news which startled him. Mary, under
+her new name, wrote to an acquaintance in Lambrig, and this acquaintance
+in reply said, "You will have heard that Jean Anderson was left a great
+fortune by her uncle, David Nicoll. She is building a home near Lambrig
+that is finer than Maxwell Castle; and Lord Maxwell has rented the
+castle to her until her new home is finished. You wouldn't ken the looks
+of her now, she is that handsome, but weel-a-way, fine feathers aye make
+fine birds!"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217"></a>Gavin fairly trembled when he heard this news, and as he had been with
+the firm eleven years and never asked a favor, he resolved to tell them
+he had important business in Scotland, and ask for a month's holiday to
+attend to it. If he was on the ground he never doubted his personal
+influence. "Jean was aye wax in my fingers," he said to Mary.</p>
+
+<p>"There is Annie Riley," answered Mary.</p>
+
+<p>"She will have to give me up. I'll not marry her. I am going to marry
+Jean, and settle myself in Scotland."</p>
+
+<p>"Annie is not the girl to be thrown off that kind of way, Gavin. You
+have promised to marry her."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall marry Jean Anderson, and then what will Annie do about it, I
+would like to know?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think you will find out."</p>
+
+<p>In the fall he obtained permission to go to Scotland for a month, and he
+hastened to Lambrig as fast as steam could carry him. He intended no
+secret visit; he had made every preparation to fill his old townsmen
+with admiration and envy. But things had changed, even in Lambrig. There
+was a new innkeeper, who could answer none of his questions, and who did
+not remember Minister Anderson and his daughter, Jean. He began to fear
+he had <a name="Page_218" id="Page_218"></a>come on a fool's errand, and after a leisurely, late breakfast,
+he strolled out to make his own investigations.</p>
+
+<p>There was certainly a building on a magnificent scale going up on a
+neighboring hill, and he walked toward it. When half way there a
+finely-appointed carriage passed him swiftly, but not too swiftly for
+him to see that Jean and a very handsome man were its occupants. "It
+will be her lawyer or architect," he thought; and he walked rapidly
+onward, pleased with himself for having put on his very best walking
+suit. There were many workmen on the building, and he fell into
+conversation with a man who was mixing mortar; but all the time he was
+watching Jean and her escort stepping about the great uncovered spaces
+of the new dwelling-house with such an air of mutual trust and happiness
+that it angered him.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is the lady?" he asked at length; "she seems to have business
+here."</p>
+
+<p>"What for no? The house is her ain. She is Mistress Sharp, and that is
+the professor with her. He is a great gun in the Glasgow University."</p>
+
+<p>"They are married, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, they are married. What are you saying at all? They were married a
+month syne, and they are as happy as robins in spring, I'm thinking.
+I'll drink their <a name="Page_219" id="Page_219"></a>health, sir, if you'll gie me the bit o' siller."</p>
+
+<p>Gavin gave the silver and turned away dazed and sick at heart. His
+business in Scotland was over. The quiet Lothian country sickened him;
+he turned his face to London, and very soon went back to New York. He
+had lost Jean, and he had lost Jean's fortune; and there were no words
+to express his chagrin and disappointment. His sister felt the first
+weight of it. He blamed her entirely. She had lied to him about Jean's
+beauty. He believed he would have liked the photo but for Mary. And all
+for Annie Riley! He hated Annie Riley! He was resolved never to marry
+her, and he let the girl feel his dislike in no equivocal manner.</p>
+
+<p>For a time Annie was tearful and conciliating. Then she wrote him a
+touching letter, and asked him to tell her frankly if he had ceased to
+love her, and was resolved to break their marriage off. And Gavin did
+tell her, with almost brutal frankness, that he no longer loved her, and
+that he had firmly made up his mind not to marry her. He said something
+about his heart being in Scotland, but that was only a bit of sentiment
+that he thought gave a better air to his unfaithfulness.</p>
+
+<p>Annie did not answer his letter, but Messrs. Howe &amp; Hummel did, and
+Gavin <a name="Page_220" id="Page_220"></a>soon found himself the centre of a breach of promise trial, with
+damages laid at fifty thousand dollars. All his fine poetical love
+letters were in the newspapers; he was ashamed to look men and women in
+the face; he suffered a constant pillory for weeks; through his vanity,
+his self-consciousness, his egotism he was perpetually wounded. But
+pretty Annie Riley was the object of public pity and interest, and she
+really seemed to enjoy her notoriety. The verdict was righteously enough
+in her favor. The jury gave her ten thousand dollars, and all expenses,
+and Gavin Burns was a ruined man. His eleven years savings only amounted
+to nine thousand dollars, and for the balance he was compelled to sell
+his furniture and give notes payable out of his next year's salary. He
+wept like a child as he signed these miserable vouchers for his folly,
+and for some days was completely prostrated by the evil he had called
+unto himself. Then the necessities of his position compelled him to go
+to work again, though it was with a completely broken spirit.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm getting on to forty," he said to his sister, "and I am beginning
+the world over again! One woman has given me a disappointment that I
+will carry to the grave; and another woman is laughing at me, for she
+has got all my saved siller, and more <a name="Page_221" id="Page_221"></a>too; forbye, she is like to marry
+Bob Severs and share it with him. Then I have them weary notes to meet
+beyond all. There never was a man so badly used as I have been!"</p>
+
+<p>No one pitied him much. Whatever his acquaintances said to his face he
+knew right well their private opinion was that he had received <i>just
+what he deserved</i>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="AN_ONLY_OFFER" id="AN_ONLY_OFFER"></a>AN ONLY OFFER.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Aunt Phoebe, were you ever pretty?"</p>
+
+<p>"When I was sixteen I was considered so. I was very like you then,
+Julia. I am forty-three now, remember."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever have an offer&mdash;an offer of marriage, I mean, aunt?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Well, that is not true; I did have one offer."</p>
+
+<p>"And you refused it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Then he died, or went away?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Or deserted you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you deceived him, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did not."</p>
+
+<p>"What ever happened, then? Was he poor, or crippled or something
+dreadful"</p>
+
+<p>"He was rich and handsome."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose you tell me about him."</p>
+
+<p>"I never talk about him to any one."</p>
+
+<p>"Did it happen at the old place?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Julia. I never left Ryelands until I was thirty. This happened
+when I was sixteen."</p>
+
+<p>"Was he a farmer's son in the neighborhood?"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223"></a>"He was a fine city gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, aunt, how interesting! Put down your embroidery and tell me about
+it; you cannot see to work longer."</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps after so many years of silence a sudden longing for sympathy and
+confidence seized the elder lady, for she let her work fall from her
+hands, and smiling sadly, said:</p>
+
+<p>"Twenty-seven years ago I was standing one afternoon by the gate at
+Ryelands. All the work had been finished early, and my mother and two
+elder sisters had gone to the village to see a friend. I had watched
+them a little way down the hillside, and was turning to go into the
+house, when I saw a stranger on horseback coming up the road. He stopped
+and spoke to mother, and this aroused my curiosity; so I lingered at the
+gate. He stopped when he reached it, fastened his horse, and asked, 'Is
+Mr. Wakefield in?'</p>
+
+<p>"I said, 'father was in the barn, and I could fetch him,' which I
+immediately did.</p>
+
+<p>"He was a dark, unpleasant-looking man, and had a masterful way with
+him, even to father, that I disliked; but after a short, business-like
+talk, apparently satisfactory to both, he went away without entering the
+house. Father put his hands in his pockets and watched him out of sight;
+<a name="Page_224" id="Page_224"></a>then, looking at me, he said, 'Put the spare rooms in order, Phoebe.'</p>
+
+<p>"'They are in order, father; but is that man to occupy them?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, he and his patient, a young gentleman of fine family, who is in
+bad health.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Do you know the young gentleman, father?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I know it is young Alfred Compton&mdash;that is enough for me.'</p>
+
+<p>"'And the dark man who has just left? I don't like his looks, father.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Nobody wants thee to like his looks. He is Mr. Alfred's physician&mdash;a
+Dr. Orman, of Boston. Neither of them are any of thy business, so ask no
+more questions;' and with that he went back to the barn.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother was not at all astonished. She said there had been letters on
+the subject already, and that she had been rather expecting the company.
+'But,' she added, 'they will pay well, and as Melissa is to be married
+at Christmas, ready money will be very needful.'</p>
+
+<p>"About dark a carriage arrived. It contained two gentlemen and several
+large trunks. I had been watching for it behind the lilac trees and I
+saw that our afternoon visitor was now accompanied by a slight, very
+fair-man, dressed with extreme care in <a name="Page_225" id="Page_225"></a>the very highest fashion. I saw
+also that he was handsome, and I was quite sure he must be rich, or no
+doctor would wait upon him so subserviently.</p>
+
+<p>"This doctor I had disliked at first sight, and I soon began to imagine
+that I had good cause to hate him. His conduct to his patient I believed
+to be tyrannical and unkind. Some days he insisted that Mr. Compton was
+too ill to go out, though the poor gentleman begged for a walk; and
+again, mother said, he would take from him all his books, though he
+pleaded urgently for them.</p>
+
+<p>"One afternoon the postman brought Dr. Orman a letter, which seemed to
+be important, for he asked father to drive him to the next town, and
+requested mother to see that Mr. Compton did not leave the house. I
+suppose it was not a right thing to do, but this handsome sick stranger,
+so hardly used, and so surrounded with mystery, had roused in me a
+sincere sympathy for his loneliness and suffering, and I walked through
+that part of the garden into which his windows looked. We had been
+politely requested to avoid it, 'because the sight of strangers
+increased Mr. Compton's nervous condition.' I did not believe this, and
+I determined to try the experiment.</p>
+
+<p>"He was leaning out of the window, and a sadder face I never saw. I
+smiled and <a name="Page_226" id="Page_226"></a>courtesied, and he immediately leaped the low sill, and came
+toward me. I stooped and began to tie up some fallen carnations; he
+stooped and helped me, saying all the while I know not what, only that
+it seemed to me the most beautiful language I ever heard. Then we walked
+up and down the long peach walk until I heard the rattle of father's
+wagon.</p>
+
+<p>"After this we became quietly, almost secretly, as far as Dr. Orman was
+concerned, very great friends. Mother so thoroughly pitied Alfred, that
+she not only pretended oblivion of our friendship, but even promoted it
+in many ways; and in the course of time Dr. Orman began to recognize its
+value. I was requested to walk past Mr. Compton's windows and say 'Good
+morning' or offer him a flower or some ripe peaches, and finally to
+accompany the gentlemen in their short rambles in the neighborhood.</p>
+
+<p>"I need not tell you how all this restricted intercourse ended. We were
+soon deeply in love with each other, and love ever finds out the way to
+make himself understood. We had many a five minutes' meeting no one knew
+of, and when these were impossible, a rose bush near his window hid for
+me the tenderest little love-letters. In fact, Julia, I found him
+irresistible; he was so handsome and gentle, and though he must <a name="Page_227" id="Page_227"></a>have
+been thirty-five years old, yet, to my thinking, he looked handsomer
+than any younger man could have done.</p>
+
+<p>"As the weeks passed on, the doctor seemed to have more confidence in
+us, or else his patient was more completely under control. They had much
+fewer quarrels, and Alfred and I walked in the garden, and even a little
+way up the hill without opposition or remark. I do not know how I
+received the idea, but I certainly did believe that Dr. Orman was
+keeping Alfred sick for some purpose of his own, and I determined to
+take the first opportunity of arousing Alfred's suspicions. So one
+evening, when we were walking alone, I asked him if he did not wish to
+see his relatives.</p>
+
+<p>"He trembled violently, and seemed in the greatest distress, and only by
+the tenderest words could I soothe him, as, half sobbing, he declared
+that they were his bitterest enemies, and that Dr. Orman was the only
+friend he had in the world. Any further efforts I made to get at the
+secret of his life were equally fruitless, and only threw him into
+paroxysms of distress. During the month of August he was very ill, or at
+least Dr. Orman said so. I scarcely saw him, there were no letters in
+the rose bush, and frequently the disputes between the two men rose to a
+pitch which father seriously disliked.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228"></a>"One hot day in September everyone was in the fields or orchard; only
+the doctor and Alfred and I were in the house. Early in the afternoon a
+boy came from the village with a letter to Dr. Orman, and he seemed very
+much perplexed, and at a loss how to act. At length he said, 'Miss
+Phoebe, I must go to the village for a couple of hours; I think Mr.
+Alfred will sleep until my return, but if not, will you try and amuse
+him?'</p>
+
+<p>"I promised gladly, and Dr. Orman went back to the village with the
+messenger. No sooner was he out of sight than Alfred appeared, and we
+rambled about the garden, as happy as two lovers could be. But the day
+was extremely hot, and as the afternoon advanced, the heat increased. I
+proposed then that we should walk up the hill, where there was generally
+a breeze, and Alfred was delighted at the larger freedom it promised us.</p>
+
+<p>"But in another hour the sky grew dark and lurid, and I noticed that
+Alfred grew strangely restless. His cheeks flushed, his eyes had a wild
+look of terror in them, he trembled and started, and in spite of all my
+efforts to soothe him, grew irritable and gloomy. Yet he had just asked
+me to marry him, and I had promised I would. He had called me 'his
+wife,' and I had told him again my suspicions about Dr. Orman, <a name="Page_229" id="Page_229"></a>and
+vowed to nurse him myself back to perfect health. We had talked, too, of
+going to Europe, and in the eagerness and delight of our new plans, had
+wandered quite up to the little pine forest at the top of the hill.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I noticed Alfred's excited condition, and saw also that we were
+going to have a thunder storm. There was an empty log hut not far away,
+and I urged Alfred to try and reach it before the storm, broke. But he
+became suddenly like a child in his terror, and it was only with the
+greatest difficulty I got him within its shelter.</p>
+
+<p>"As peal after peal of thunder crashed above us, Alfred seemed to lose
+all control of himself, and, seriously offended, I left him, nearly
+sobbing, in a corner, and went and stood by myself in the open door. In
+the very height of the storm I saw my father, Dr. Orman and three of our
+workmen coming through the wood. They evidently suspected our
+sheltering-place, for they came directly toward it.</p>
+
+<p>"'Alfred!' shouted Dr. Orman, in the tone of an angry master, 'where are
+you, sir? Come here instantly.'</p>
+
+<p>"My pettedness instantly vanished, and I said: 'Doctor, you have no
+right to speak to Alfred in that way. He is going to be my husband, and
+I shall not permit it any more.'</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230"></a>"'Miss Wakefield,' he answered, 'this is sheer folly. Look here!'</p>
+
+<p>"I turned, and saw Alfred crouching in a corner, completely paralyzed
+with terror; and yet, when Dr. Orman spoke to him, he rose mechanically
+as a dog might follow his master's call.</p>
+
+<p>"'I am sorry, Miss Wakefield, to destroy your fine romance. Mr. Alfred
+Compton is, as you perceive, not fit to marry any lady. In fact, I am
+his&mdash;<i>keeper</i>.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Aunt Phoebe! Surely he was not a lunatic!"</p>
+
+<p>"So they said, Julia. His frantic terror was the only sign I saw of it;
+but Dr. Orman told my father that he was at times really dangerous, and
+that he was annually paid a large sum to take charge of him, as he
+became uncontrollable in an asylum."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you see him again?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. I found a little note in the rose bush, saying that he was not mad;
+that he remembered my promise to be his wife, and would surely come some
+day and claim me. But they left in three days, and Melissa,
+whose wedding outfit was curtailed in consequence, twitted me very
+unkindly about my fine crazy lover. It was a little hard on me, for he
+was the only lover I ever had. Melissa and Jane both married, and went
+west with their husbands; I lived on at Ryelands, a faded little old
+maid, until my <a name="Page_231" id="Page_231"></a>uncle Joshua sent for me to come to New York and keep
+his fine house for him. You know that he left me all he had when he
+died, nearly two years ago. Then I sent for you. I remembered my own
+lonely youth, and thought I would give you a fair chance, dear."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever hear of him again, aunt?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of him, never. His elder brother died more than a year ago. I suppose
+Alfred died many years since; he was very frail and delicate. I thought
+it was refinement and beauty then; I know now it was ill health."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor aunt!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, child; I was very happy while my dream lasted; and I never will
+believe but that Alfred in his love for me was quite sane, and perhaps
+more sincere than many wiser men."</p>
+
+<p>After this confidence Miss Phoebe seemed to take a great pleasure in
+speaking of the little romance of her youth. Often the old and the young
+maidens sat in the twilight discussing the probabilities of poor Alfred
+Compton's life and death, and every discussion left them more and more
+positive that he had been the victim of some cruel plot. The subject
+never tired Miss Phoebe, and Julia, in the absence of a lover of her
+own, found in it a charm quite in keeping with her own youthful dreams.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232"></a>One cold night in the middle of January they had talked over the old
+subject until both felt it to be exhausted&mdash;at least for that night.
+Julia drew aside the heavy satin curtains, and looking out said, "It is
+snowing heavily, aunt; to-morrow we can have a sleigh ride. Why, there
+is a sleigh at our door! Who can it be? A gentleman, aunt, and he is
+coming here."</p>
+
+<p>"Close the curtains, child. It is my lawyer, Mr. Howard. He promised to
+call to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear! I was hoping it was some nice strange person."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Phoebe did not answer; her thoughts were far away. In fact, she had
+talked about her old lover until there had sprung up anew in her heart a
+very strong sentimental affection for his memory; and when the servant
+announced a visitor on business, she rose with a sigh from her
+reflections, and went into the reception-room.</p>
+
+<p>In a few minutes Julia heard her voice, in rapid, excited tones, and ere
+she could decide whether to go to her or not, Aunt Phoebe entered the
+room, holding by the hand a gentleman whom she announced as Mr. Alfred
+Compton. Julia was disappointed, to say the least, but she met him with
+enthusiasm. Perhaps Aunt Phoebe had quite unconsciously magnified the
+beauty of the youthful Alfred: certainly <a name="Page_233" id="Page_233"></a>this one was not handsome. He
+was sixty, at least, his fair curling locks had vanished, and his fine
+figure was slightly bent. But the clear, sensitive face remained, and he
+was still dressed with scrupulous care.</p>
+
+<p>The two women made much of him. In half an hour Delmonico had furnished
+a delicious little banquet, and Alfred drank his first glass of wine
+with an old-fashioned grace "to his promised wife, Miss Phoebe
+Wakefield, best and loveliest of women."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Phoebe laughed, but she dearly liked it; and hand in hand the two
+old lovers sat, while Alfred told his sad little story of life-long
+wrong and suffering; of an intensely nervous, self-conscious nature,
+driven to extremity by cruel usage and many wrongs. At the mention of
+Dr. Orman Miss Phoebe expressed herself a little bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Phoebe," said Alfred; "whatever he was when my brother put me in
+his care, he became my true friend. To his skill and patience I owe my
+restoration to perfect health; and to his firm advocacy of my right and
+ability to manage my own estate I owe the position I now hold, and my
+ability to come and ask Phoebe to redeem her never-forgotten promise."</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps Julia got a little tired of these old-fashioned lovers, but they
+never tired of each other. Miss Phoebe was not the <a name="Page_234" id="Page_234"></a>least abashed by any
+contrast between her ideal and her real Alfred, and Alfred was never
+weary of assuring her that he found her infinitely more delightful and
+womanly than in the days of their first courtship.</p>
+
+<p>She cannot even call them a "silly" or "foolish" couple, or use any
+other relieving phrase of that order, for Miss Phoebe&mdash;or rather Mrs.
+Compton&mdash;resents any word as applied to Mr. Alfred Compton that would
+imply less than supernatural wisdom and intelligence. "No one but those
+who have known him as long as I have," she continually avers, "can
+possibly estimate the superior information and infallible judgment of my
+husband."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="TWO_FAIR_DECEIVERS" id="TWO_FAIR_DECEIVERS"></a>TWO FAIR DECEIVERS.</h2>
+
+
+<p>What do young men talk about when they sit at the open windows smoking
+on summer evenings? Do you suppose it is of love? Indeed, I suspect it
+is of money; or, if not of money, then, at least, of something that
+either makes money or spends it.</p>
+
+<p>Cleve Sullivan has been spending his for four years in Europe, and he
+has just been telling his friend John Selden how he spent it. John has
+spent his in New York&mdash;he is inclined to think just as profitably. Both
+stories conclude in the same way.</p>
+
+<p>"I have not a thousand dollars left, John."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor I, Cleve."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought your cousin died two years ago; surely you have not spent all
+the old gentleman's money already?"</p>
+
+<p>"I only got $20,000; I owed half of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Only $20,000! What did he do with it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Gave it to his wife. He married a beauty about a year after you went
+away, died in a few months afterward, and left her his whole fortune. I
+had no claim on him. He educated me, gave me a profession, and $20,000.
+That was very well: he was only my mother's cousin."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236"></a>"And the widow&mdash;where is she?"</p>
+
+<p>"Living at his country-seat. I have never seen her. She was one of the
+St. Maurs, of Maryland."</p>
+
+<p>"Good family, and all beauties. Why don't you marry the widow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I never thought of such a thing."</p>
+
+<p>"You can't think of anything better. Write her a little note at once;
+say that you and I will soon be in her neighborhood, and that gratitude
+to your cousin, and all that kind of thing&mdash;then beg leave to call and
+pay respects," etc., etc.</p>
+
+<p>John demurred a good deal to the plan, but Cleve was masterful, and the
+note was written, Cleve himself putting it in the post-office.</p>
+
+<p>That was on Monday night. On Wednesday morning the widow Clare found it
+with a dozen others upon her breakfast table. She was a dainty,
+high-bred little lady, with</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Eyes that drowse with dreamy splendor,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cheeks with rose-leaf tintings tender,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Lips like fragrant posy,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and withal a kind, hospitable temper, well inclined to be happy in the
+happiness of others.</p>
+
+<p>But this letter could not be answered with the usual polite formula. She
+was quite aware that John Selden had regarded <a name="Page_237" id="Page_237"></a>himself for many years as
+his cousin's heir, and that her marriage with the late Thomas Clare had
+seriously altered his prospects. Women easily see through the best laid
+plans of men, and this plan was transparent enough to the shrewd little
+widow. John would scarcely have liked the half-contemptuous shrug and
+smile which terminated her private thoughts on the matter.</p>
+
+<p>"Clementine, if you could spare a moment from your fashion paper, I want
+to consult you, dear, about a visitor."</p>
+
+<p>Clementine raised her blue eyes, dropped her paper, and said, "Who is
+it, Fan?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is John Selden. If Mr. Clare had not married me, he would have
+inherited the Clare estate. I think he is coming now in order to see if
+it is worth while asking for, encumbered by his cousin's widow."</p>
+
+<p>"What selfishness! Write and tell him that you are just leaving for the
+Suez Canal, or the Sandwich Islands, or any other inconvenient place."</p>
+
+<p>"No; I have a better plan than that&mdash;Clementine, do stop reading a few
+minutes. I will take that pretty cottage at Ryebank for the summer, and
+Mr. Selden and his friend shall visit us there. No one knows us in the
+place, and I will take none of the servants with me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238"></a>"Then, Clementine, you are to be the widow Clare, and I your poor
+friend and companion."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! very good! 'The Fair Deceivers'&mdash;an excellent comedy. How I shall
+snub you, Fan! And for once I shall have the pleasure of outdressing
+you. But has not Mr. Selden seen you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I was married in Maryland, and went immediately to Europe. I came
+back a widow two years ago, but Mr. Selden has never remembered me until
+now. I wonder who this friend is that he proposes to bring with him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, men always think in pairs, Fan. They never decide on anything until
+their particular friend approves. I dare say they wrote the letter
+together. What is the gentleman's name?"</p>
+
+<p>The widow examined the note. "'My friend Mr. Cleve Sullivan.' Do you
+know him, Clementine?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I am quite sure that I never saw Mr. Cleve Sullivan. I don't fall
+in love with the name&mdash;do you? But pray accept the offer for both
+gentlemen, Fan, and write this morning, dear." Then Clementine returned
+to the consideration of the lace in <i>coquilles</i> for her new evening
+dress.</p>
+
+<p>The plan so hastily sketched was subsequently thoroughly discussed and
+carried out. The cottage at Ryebank was taken, <a name="Page_239" id="Page_239"></a>and one evening at the
+end of June the two ladies took possession of it. The new widow Clare
+had engaged a maid in New York, and fell into her part with charming
+ease and a very pretty assumption of authority; and the real widow, in
+her plain dress and pensive, quiet manners, realized effectively the
+idea of a cultivated but dependent companion. They had two days in which
+to rehearse their parts and get all the household machinery in order,
+and then the gentlemen arrived at Ryebank.</p>
+
+<p>Fan and Clementine were quite ready for their first call; the latter in
+a rich and exquisite morning costume, the former in a simple dress of
+spotted lawn. Clementine went through the introductions with consummate
+ease of manner, and in half an hour they were a very pleasant party.
+John's "cousinship" afforded an excellent basis for informal
+companionship, and Clementine gave it full prominence. Indeed, in a few
+days John began to find the relationship tiresome; it had been "Cousin
+John, do this," and "Cousin John, come here," continually; and one night
+when Cleve and he sat down to smoke their final cigar, he was irritable
+enough to give his objections the form of speech.</p>
+
+<p>"Cleve, to tell you the honest truth, I do not like Mrs. Clare."</p>
+
+<p>"I think she is a very lovely woman, John."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240"></a>"I say nothing against her beauty, Cleve; I don't like her, and I have
+no mind to occupy the place that beautiful ill-used Miss Marat fills.
+The way Cousin Clare ignores or snubs a woman to whom she is every way
+inferior makes me angry enough, I assure you."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't fall in love with the wrong woman, John."</p>
+
+<p>"Your advice is too late, Cleve; I am in love. There is no use in us
+deceiving ourselves or each other. You seem to like the widow&mdash;why not
+marry her? I am quite willing you should."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, John; I have already made some advances that way. They have
+been favorably received, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"You are so handsome, a fellow has no chance against you. But we shall
+hardly quarrel, if you do not interfere between lovely little Clement
+and myself."</p>
+
+<p>"I could not afford to smile on her, John; she is too poor. And what on
+earth are you going to do with a poor wife? Nothing added to nothing
+will not make a decent living."</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to ask her to be my wife, and if she does me the honor to
+say 'Yes,' I will make a decent living out of my profession."</p>
+
+<p>From this time forth John devoted himself with some ostentation to his
+supposed <a name="Page_241" id="Page_241"></a>cousin's companion. He was determined to let the widow
+perceive that he had made his choice, and that he could not be bought
+with her money. Mr. Selden and Miss Marat were always together, and the
+widow did not interfere between her companion and her cousin. Perhaps
+she was rather glad of their close friendship, for the handsome Cleve
+made a much more delightful attendant. Thus the party fell quite
+naturally into couples, and the two weeks that the gentlemen had first
+fixed as the limit of their stay lengthened into two months.</p>
+
+<p>It was noticeable that as the ladies became more confidential with their
+lovers, they had less to say to each other; and it began at last to be
+quite evident to the real widow that the play must end for the present,
+or the <i>d&eacute;nouement</i> would come prematurely. Circumstances favored her
+determination. One night Clementine, with a radiant face, came into her
+friend's room, and said, "Fan, I have something to tell you. Cleve has
+asked me to marry him."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Clement, you have told him all; I know you have."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a word, Fan. He still believes me the widow Clare."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you accept him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Conditionally. I am to give him a final answer when we go to the city
+in October.<a name="Page_242" id="Page_242"></a> You are going to New York this winter, are you not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Our little play progresses finely. John Selden asked me to be his
+wife to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"I told you men think and act in pairs."</p>
+
+<p>"John is a noble fellow. I pretended to think that his cousin had
+ill-used him, and he defended him until I was ashamed of myself;
+absolutely said, Clement, that <i>you</i> were a sufficient excuse for Mr.
+Clare's will. Then he blamed his own past idleness so much, and promised
+if I would only try and endure 'the slings and arrows' of your
+outrageous temper, Clement, for two years longer, he would have made a
+home for me in which I could be happy. Yes, Clement, I should marry John
+Selden if we had not a five-dollar bill between us."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish Cleve had been a little more explicit about his money affairs.
+However, there is time enough yet. When they leave to-morrow, what shall
+we do?"</p>
+
+<p>"We will remain here another month; Levine will have the house ready for
+me by that time. I have written to him about refurnishing the parlors."</p>
+
+<p>So next day the lovers parted, with many promises of constant letters
+and future happy days together. The interval was long and dull enough;
+but it passed, and one morning both gentlemen received notes <a name="Page_243" id="Page_243"></a>of
+invitation to a small dinner party at the widow Clare's mansion in &mdash;&mdash;
+street. There was a good deal of dressing for this party. Cleve wished
+to make his entrance into his future home as became the prospective
+master of a million and a half of money, and John was desirous of not
+suffering in Clement's eyes by any comparison with the other gentlemen
+who would probably be there.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely had they entered the drawing-room when the ladies appeared, the
+true widow Clare no longer in the unassuming toilet she had hitherto
+worn, but magnificent in white cr&ecirc;pe lisse and satin, her arms and
+throat and pretty head flashing with sapphires and diamonds. Her
+companion had assumed now the r&ocirc;le of simplicity, and Cleve was
+disappointed with the first glance at her plain white Chamb&eacute;ry gauze
+dress.</p>
+
+<p>John had seen nothing but the bright face of the girl he loved and the
+love-light in her eyes. Before she could speak he had taken both her
+hands and whispered, "Dearest and best and loveliest Clement."</p>
+
+<p>Her smile answered him first. Then she said: "Pardon me, Mr. Selden, but
+we have been in masquerade all summer, and now we must unmask before
+real life begins. My name is not Clementine Marat, but Fanny Clare.
+<i>Cousin John</i>, I hope you are not disappointed." Then she put her <a name="Page_244" id="Page_244"></a>hand
+into John's, and they wandered off into the conservatory to finish their
+explanation.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Cleve Sullivan found himself at that moment in the most trying
+circumstance of his life. The real Clementine Marat stood looking down
+at a flower on the carpet, and evidently expecting him to resume the
+tender attitude he had been accustomed to bear toward her. He was a man
+of quick decisions where his own interests were concerned, and it did
+not take him half a minute to review his position and determine what to
+do. This plain blonde girl without fortune was not the girl he could
+marry; she had deceived him, too&mdash;he had a sudden and severe spasm of
+morality; his confidence was broken; he thought it was very poor sport
+to play with a man's most sacred feelings; he had been deeply
+disappointed and grieved, etc., etc.</p>
+
+<p>Clementine stood perfectly still, with her eyes fixed on the carpet and
+her cheeks gradually flushing, as Cleve made his awkward accusations.
+She gave him no help and she made no defence, and it soon becomes
+embarrassing for a man to stand in the middle of a large drawing-room
+and talk to himself about any girl. Cleve felt it so.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you done, sir?" at length she asked, lifting to his face a pair of
+blue eyes, scintillating with scorn and anger. "I <a name="Page_245" id="Page_245"></a>promised you my final
+answer to your suit when we met in New York. You have spared me that
+trouble. Good evening, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Clementine showed to no one her disappointment, and she probably soon
+recovered from it. Her life was full of many other pleasant plans and
+hopes, and she could well afford to let a selfish lover pass out of it.
+She remained with her friend until after the marriage between her and
+John Selden had been consummated; and then Cleve saw her name among the
+list of passengers sailing on one particular day for Europe. As John and
+his bride left on the same steamer Cleve supposed, of course, she had
+gone in their company.</p>
+
+<p>"Nice thing it would have been for Cleve Sullivan to marry John Selden's
+wife's maid, or something or other? John always was a lucky fellow. Some
+fellows are always unlucky in love affairs&mdash;I always am."</p>
+
+<p>Half a year afterward he reiterated this statement with a great deal of
+unnecessary emphasis. He was just buttoning his gloves preparatory to
+starting for his afternoon drive, when an old acquaintance hailed him.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it's that fool Belmar," he muttered; "I shall have to offer him a
+ride. I thought he was in Paris. Hello, Belmar, when did you get back?
+Have a ride?"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246"></a>"No, thank you. I have promised my wife to ride with her this
+afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"Your wife! When were you married?"</p>
+
+<p>"Last month, in Paris."</p>
+
+<p>"And the happy lady was&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I thought you knew; everyone is talking about my good fortune.
+Mrs. Belmar is old Paul Marat's only child."</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Clementine Marat. She brings me nearly $3,000,000 in money and
+real estate, and a heart beyond all price."</p>
+
+<p>"How on earth did you meet her?"</p>
+
+<p>"She was traveling with Mr. and Mrs. Selden&mdash;you know John Selden. She
+has lived with Mrs. Selden ever since she left school; they were friends
+when they were girls together."</p>
+
+<p>Cleve gathered up his reins, and nodding to Mr. Frank Belmar, drove at a
+finable rate up the avenue and through the park. He could not trust
+himself to speak to any one, and when he did, the remark which he made
+to himself in strict confidence was not flattering. For once Mr. Cleve
+Sullivan told Mr. Cleve Sullivan that he had been badly punished, and
+that he well deserved it.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_TWO_MR_SMITHS" id="THE_TWO_MR_SMITHS"></a>THE TWO MR. SMITHS.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"It is not either her money or her position that dashes me, Carrol; it
+is my own name. Think of asking Eleanor Bethune to become Mrs. William
+Smith! If it had been Alexander Smith&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Or Hyacinth Smith."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Hyacinth Smith would have done; but plain William Smith!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, as far as I can see, you are not to blame. Apologize to the lady
+for the blunder of your godfathers and godmothers. Stupid old parties!
+They ought to have thought of Hyacinth;" and Carrol threw his cigar into
+the fire and began to buckle on his spurs.</p>
+
+<p>"Come with me, Carrol."</p>
+
+<p>"No, thank you. It is against my principles to like anyone better than
+myself, and Alice Fontaine is a temptation to do so."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>I</i> don't like Alice's style at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not. Alice's beauty, as compared with Mrs. Bethune's settled
+income, is skin-deep."</p>
+
+<p>If sarcasm was intended, Smith did not perceive it. He took the
+criticism at its face value, and answered, "Yes, Eleanor's income is
+satisfactory; and besides that, she <a name="Page_248" id="Page_248"></a>has all kinds of good qualities,
+and several accomplishments. If I only could offer her, with myself, a
+suitable name for them!"</p>
+
+<p>"Could you not, in taking Mrs. Bethune and her money, take her name
+also?"</p>
+
+<p>"N-n-no. A man does not like to lose all his individuality in his
+wife's, Carrol."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, I have no other suggestion, and I am going to ride."</p>
+
+<p>So Carrol went to the park, and Smith went to his mirror. The occupation
+gave him the courage he wanted. He was undoubtedly a very handsome man,
+and he had, also, very fine manners; indeed, he would have been a very
+great man if the world had only been a drawing-room, for, polished and
+fastidious, he dreaded nothing so much as an indecorum, and had the air
+of being uncomfortable unless his hands were in kid gloves.</p>
+
+<p>Smith had a standing invitation to Mrs. Bethune's five-o'clock teas, and
+he was always considered an acquisition. He was also very fond of going
+to them; for under no circumstances was Mrs. Bethune so charming. To see
+her in this hour of perfect relaxation was to understand how great and
+beautiful is the art of idleness. Her ease and grace, her charming
+aimlessness, her indescribable air of inaction, were all so many proofs
+of her having been born in the <a name="Page_249" id="Page_249"></a>purple of wealth and fashion; no parvenu
+could ever hope to imitate them.</p>
+
+<p>Alice Fontaine never tried. She had been taken from a life of polite
+shifts and struggles by her cousin, Mrs. Bethune, two years before; and
+the circumstances that were to the one the mere accidents of her
+position were to the other a real holiday-making.</p>
+
+<p>Alice met Mr. Smith with <i>empressement</i>, fluttered about the tea-tray
+like a butterfly, wasted her bonmots and the sugar recklessly, and was
+as full of pretty animation as her cousin Bethune was of elegant repose.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad you are come, Mr. Smith," said Mrs. Bethune. "Alice has been
+trying to spur me into a fight. I don't want to throw a lance in. Now
+you can be my substitute."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Smith," said Alice impetuously, "don't you think that women ought
+to have the same rights as men?"</p>
+
+<p>"Really, Miss Alice, I&mdash;I don't know. When women have got what they call
+their 'rights,' do they expect to keep what they call their 'privileges'
+also?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly they do. When they have driven the men to emigrate, to scrub
+floors, and to jump into the East River, they will still expect the
+corner seat, the clean side of the road, the front place, and the pick
+of everything."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250"></a>"Ah, indeed! And when all the public and private business of the
+country is in their hands, will they still expect to find time for
+five-o'clock teas?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. They will conduct the affairs of this regenerated country,
+and not neglect either their music or their pets, their dress or their
+drawing-room. They will be perfectly able to do the one, and not leave
+the other undone."</p>
+
+<p>"Glorious creatures! Then they will accomplish what men have been trying
+to do ever since the world began. They will get two days' work out of
+one day."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course they will."</p>
+
+<p>"But how?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, machines and management. It will be done."</p>
+
+<p>"But your answer is illogical, Miss Alice."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course. Men always take refuge in their logic; and yet, with all
+their boasted skill, they have never mastered the useful and elementary
+proposition, 'It will be, because it will be.'"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Smith was very much annoyed at the tone Alice was giving to the
+conversation. She was treating him as a joke, and he felt how impossible
+it was going to be to get Mrs. Bethune to treat him seriously. Indeed,
+before he could restore the usual placid, tender tone of their
+<i>tete-&agrave;-tete</i> tea, <a name="Page_251" id="Page_251"></a>two or three ladies joined the party, and the hour
+was up, and the opportunity lost.</p>
+
+<p>However, he was not without consolation: Eleanor's hand had rested a
+moment very tenderly in his; he had seen her white cheek flush and her
+eyelids droop, and he felt almost sure that he was beloved. And as he
+had determined that night to test his fortune, he was not inclined to
+let himself be disappointed. Consequently he decided on writing to her,
+for he was rather proud of his letters; and, indeed, it must be
+confessed that he had an elegant and eloquent way of putting any case in
+which he was personally interested.</p>
+
+<p>Eleanor Bethune thought so. She received his proposal on her return from
+a very stupid party, and as soon as she saw his writing she began to
+consider how much more delightful the evening would have been if Mr.
+Smith had been present. His glowing eulogies on her beauty, and his
+passionate descriptions of his own affection, his hopes and his
+despairs, chimed in with her mood exactly. Already his fine person and
+manners had made a great impression on her; she had been very near
+loving him; nothing, indeed, had been needed but that touch of
+electricity conveyed in the knowledge that she was beloved.</p>
+
+<p>Such proposals seldom or never take <a name="Page_252" id="Page_252"></a>women unawares. Eleanor had been
+expecting it, and had already decided on her answer. So, after a short,
+happy reflection, she opened her desk and wrote Mr. Smith a few lines
+which she believed would make him supremely happy.</p>
+
+<p>Then she went to Alice's room and woke her out of her first sleep. "Oh,
+you lazy girl; why did you not crimp your hair? Get up again, Alice
+dear; I have a secret to tell you. I am&mdash;going&mdash;to&mdash;marry&mdash;Mr.&mdash;Smith."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew some catastrophe was impending, Eleanor; I have felt it all day.
+Poor Eleanor!"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Alice, be reasonable. What do you think of him&mdash;honestly, you
+know?"</p>
+
+<p>"The man has excellent qualities; for instance, a perfect taste in
+cravats and an irreproachable propriety. Nobody ever saw him in any
+position out of the proper centre of gravity. Now, there is Carrol,
+always sitting round on tables or easels, or if on a chair, on the back
+or arms, or any way but as other Christians sit. Then Mr. Smith is
+handsome; very much so."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you do admit that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but I don't myself like men of the hairdresser style of beauty."</p>
+
+<p>"Alice, what makes you dislike him so much?"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, I don't, Eleanor. I think he <a name="Page_253" id="Page_253"></a>is very 'nice,' and very
+respectable. Every one will say, 'What a suitable match!' and I dare say
+you will be very happy. He will do everything you tell him to do,
+Eleanor; and&mdash;oh dear me!&mdash;how I should hate a husband of that kind!"</p>
+
+<p>"You little hypocrite!&mdash;with your talk of woman's 'rights' and woman's
+supremacy.'"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Eleanor love, don't call it hypocrisy, please; say
+<i>many-sidedness</i>&mdash;it is a more womanly definition. But if it is really
+to be so, then I wish you joy, cousin. And what are you going to wear?"</p>
+
+<p>This subject proved sufficiently attractive to keep Alice awake a couple
+of hours. She even crimped her hair in honor of the bridal shopping; and
+before matters had been satisfactorily arranged she was so full of
+anticipated pleasures that she felt really grateful to the author of
+them, and permitted herself to speak with enthusiasm of the bridegroom.</p>
+
+<p>"He'll be a sight to see, Eleanor, on his marriage day. There won't be a
+handsomer man, nor a better dressed man, in America, and his clothes
+will all come from Paris, I dare say."</p>
+
+<p>"I think we will go to Paris first." Then Eleanor went into a graphic
+description of the glories and pleasures of Paris, as she had
+experienced them during her <a name="Page_254" id="Page_254"></a>first bridal tour. "It is the most
+fascinating city in the world, Alice."</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say, but it is a ridiculous shame having it in such an
+out-of-the-way place. What is the use of having a Paris, when one has to
+sail three thousand miles to get at it? Eleanor, I feel that I shall
+have to go."</p>
+
+<p>"So you shall, dear; I won't go without you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, darling; not with Mr. Smith: I really could not. I shall have
+to try and manage matters with Mr. Carrol. We shall quarrel all the way
+across, of course, but then&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you adopt his opinions, Alice?"</p>
+
+<p>"I intend to&mdash;for a little while; but it is impossible to go on with the
+same set of opinions forever. Just think how dull conversation would
+become!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, dear, you may go to sleep now, for mind, I shall want you down to
+breakfast before eleven. I have given 'Somebody' permission to call at
+five o'clock to-morrow&mdash;or rather to-day&mdash;and we shall have a
+<i>tete-&agrave;-tete</i> tea."</p>
+
+<p>Alice determined that it should be strictly <i>tete-&agrave;-tete.</i> She went to
+spend the afternoon with Carrol's sisters, and stayed until she thought
+the lovers had had ample time to make their vows and arrange their
+wedding.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255"></a>There was a little pout on her lips as she left Carrol outside the
+door, and slowly bent her steps to Eleanor's private parlor. She was
+trying to make up her mind to be civil to her cousin's new
+husband-elect, and the temptation to be anything else was very strong.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be dreadfully in the way&mdash;<i>his way</i>, I mean&mdash;and he will want
+to send me out of the room, and I shall not go&mdash;no, not if I fall asleep
+on a chair looking at him."</p>
+
+<p>With this decision, the most amiable she could reach, Alice entered the
+parlor. Eleanor was alone, and there was a pale, angry look on her face
+Alice could not understand.</p>
+
+<p>"Shut the door, dear."</p>
+
+<p>"Alone?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have been so all evening."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you quarreled with Mr. Smith?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Smith did not call."</p>
+
+<p>"Not come!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nor yet sent any apology."</p>
+
+<p>The two women sat looking into each other's faces a few moments, both
+white and silent.</p>
+
+<p>"What will you do, Eleanor?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"But he may be sick, or he may not have got your letter. Such queer
+mistakes do happen."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256"></a>"Parker took it to his hotel; the clerk said he was still in his room;
+it was sent to him in Parker's sight and hearing. There is not any doubt
+but that he received it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, suppose he did not. Still, if he really cares for you, he is
+hardly likely to take your supposed silence for an absolute refusal. I
+have said 'No' to Carrol a dozen times, and he won't stay 'noed.' Mr.
+Smith will be sure to ask for a personal interview."</p>
+
+<p>Eleanor answered drearily: "I suppose he will pay me that respect;" but
+through this little effort at assertion it was easy to detect the white
+feather of mistrust. She half suspected the touchy self-esteem of Mr.
+Smith. If she had merely been guilty of a breach of good manners toward
+him, she knew that he would deeply resent it; how, then, when she
+had&mdash;however innocently&mdash;given him the keenest personal slight?</p>
+
+<p>Still she wished to accept Alice's cheerful view of the affair, and what
+is heartily wished is half accomplished. Ere she fell asleep she had
+quite decided that her lover would call the following day, and her
+thoughts were busy with the pleasant amends she would make him for any
+anxiety he might have suffered.</p>
+
+<p>But Mr. Smith did not call the following day, nor on many following
+ones, and a casual lady visitor destroyed Eleanor's last <a name="Page_257" id="Page_257"></a>hope that he
+would ever call again, for, after a little desultory gossip, she said,
+"You will miss Mr. Smith very much at your receptions, and brother Sam
+says he is to be away two years."</p>
+
+<p>"So long?" asked Eleanor, with perfect calmness.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe so. I thought the move very sudden, but Sam says he has been
+talking about the trip for six months."</p>
+
+<p>"Really!&mdash;Alice, dear, won't you bring that piece of Burslam pottery for
+Mrs. Hollis to look at?"</p>
+
+<p>So the wonderful cup and saucer were brought, and they caused a
+diversion so complete that Mr. Smith and his eccentric move were not
+named again during the visit. Nor, indeed, much after it. "What is the
+use of discussing a hopelessly disagreeable subject?" said Eleanor to
+Alice's first offer of sympathy. To tell the truth, the mere mention of
+the subject made her cross, for young women of the finest fortunes do
+not necessarily possess the finest tempers.</p>
+
+<p>Carrol's next visit was looked for with a good deal of interest.
+Naturally it was thought that he would know all about his friend's
+singular conduct. But he professed to be as much puzzled as Alice. "He
+supposed it was something about Mrs. Bethune; he had always told Smith
+not to take a pretty, rich <a name="Page_258" id="Page_258"></a>woman like her into his calculations. For
+his part, if he had been desirous of marrying an heiress, and felt that
+he had a gift that way, he should have looked out a rich German girl;
+they had less nonsense about them," etc.</p>
+
+<p>That was how the affair ended as far as Eleanor was concerned. Of course
+she suffered, but she was not of that generation of women who parade
+their suffering. Beautiful and self-respecting, she was, above all,
+endowed with physical self-control. Even Alice was spared the hysterical
+sobbings and faintings and other signs of pathological distress common
+to weak women.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps she was more silent and more irritable than usual, but Eleanor
+Bethune's heartache for love never led her to the smallest social
+impropriety. Whatever she suffered, she did not refuse the proper
+mixture of colors in her hat, or neglect her tithe of the mint, anise
+and cummin due to her position.</p>
+
+<p>Eleanor's reticence, however, had this good effect&mdash;it compelled Alice
+to talk Smith's singular behavior over with Carrol; and somehow, in
+discussing Smith, they got to understand each other; so that, after all,
+it was Alice's and not Eleanor's bridal shopping that was to do. And
+there is something very assuaging to grief in this <a name="Page_259" id="Page_259"></a>occupation. Before
+it was completed, Eleanor had quite recovered her placid, sunshiny
+temper.</p>
+
+<p>"Consolation, thy name is satin and lace!" said Alice, thankfully, to
+herself, as she saw Eleanor so tired and happy about the wedding finery.</p>
+
+<p>At first Alice had been quite sure that she would go to Paris, and
+nowhere else; but Eleanor noticed that in less than a week Carrol's
+influence was paramount. "We have got a better idea, Eleanor&mdash;quite a
+novel one," she said, one morning. "We are going to make our bridal trip
+in Carrol's yacht!"</p>
+
+<p>"Whose idea is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Carrol's and <i>mine too</i>, of course. Carrol says it is the jolliest
+life. You leave all your cares and bills on shore behind you. You issue
+your own sailing orders, and sail away into space with an easy
+conscience"</p>
+
+<p>"But I thought you were bent on a European trip?"</p>
+
+<p>"The yacht will be ever so much nicer. Think of the nuisance of
+ticket-offices and waiting-rooms and second-class hotels and troublesome
+letters waiting for you at your banker's, and disagreeable paragraphs in
+the newspapers. I think Carrol's idea is splendid."</p>
+
+<p>So the marriage took place at the end of <a name="Page_260" id="Page_260"></a>the season, and Alice and
+Carrol sailed happily away into the unknown. Eleanor was at a loss what
+to do with herself. She wanted to go to Europe; but Mr. Smith had gone
+there, and she felt sure that some unlucky accident would throw them
+together. It was not her nature to court embarrassments; so Europe was
+out of the question.</p>
+
+<p>While she was hesitating she called one day on Celeste Reid&mdash;a beautiful
+girl who had been a great belle, but was now a confirmed invalid. "I am
+going to try the air of Colorado, Mrs. Bethune," she said. "Papa has
+heard wonderful stories about it. Come with our party. We shall have a
+special car, and the trip will at least have the charm of novelty."</p>
+
+<p>"And I love the mountains, Celeste. I will join you with pleasure. I was
+dreading the old routine in the old places; but this will be
+delightful."</p>
+
+<p>Thus it happened that one evening in the following August Mrs. Bethune
+found herself slowly strolling down the principal street in Denver. It
+was a splendid sunset, and in its glory the Rocky Mountains rose like
+Titanic palaces built of amethyst, gold and silver. Suddenly the look of
+intense pleasure on her face was changed for one of wonder and
+annoyance. It had become her duty in a moment to do a very disagreeable
+<a name="Page_261" id="Page_261"></a>thing; but duty was a kind of religion to Eleanor Bethune; she never
+thought of shirking it.</p>
+
+<p>So she immediately inquired her way to the telegraph office, and even
+quickened her steps into as fast a walk as she ever permitted herself.
+The message she had to send was a peculiar and not a pleasant one. At
+first she thought it would hardly be possible for her to frame it in
+such words as she would care to dictate to strangers; but she firmly
+settled on the following form:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"<i>Messrs. Locke &amp; Lord</i>:</p>
+
+<p>"Tell brother Edward that Bloom is in Denver. No delay. The matter is of
+the greatest importance."</p></div>
+
+<p>When she had dictated the message, the clerk said, "Two dollars, madam."
+But greatly to Eleanor's annoyance her purse was not in her pocket, and
+she could not remember whether she had put it there or not. The man
+stood looking at her in an expectant way; she felt that any delay about
+the message might be fatal to its worth; perplexity and uncertainty
+ruled her absolutely. She was about to explain her dilemma, and return
+to her hotel for money, when a gentleman, who had heard and watched the
+whole proceeding, said:</p>
+
+<p>"Madam, I perceive that time is of great importance to you, and that you
+have lost <a name="Page_262" id="Page_262"></a>your purse; allow me to pay for the message. You can return
+the money if you wish. My name is William Smith. I am staying at the
+'American.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, sir. The message is of the gravest importance to my brother.
+I gratefully accept your offer."</p>
+
+<p>Further knowledge proved Mr. William Smith to be a New York capitalist
+who was slightly known to three of the gentlemen in Eleanor's party; so
+that the acquaintance began so informally was very speedily afterward
+inaugurated with all the forms and ceremonies good society demands. It
+was soon possible, too, for Eleanor to explain the circumstances which,
+even in her code of strict etiquette, made a stranger's offer of money
+for the hour a thing to be gratefully accepted. She had seen in the door
+of the post-office a runaway cashier of her brother's, and his speedy
+arrest involved a matter of at least forty thousand dollars.</p>
+
+<p>This Mr. William Smith was a totally different man to Eleanor's last
+lover&mdash;a bright, energetic, alert business man, decidedly handsome and
+gentlemanly. Though his name was greatly against him in Eleanor's
+prejudices, she found herself quite unable to resist the cheery,
+pleasant influence he carried with him. And it was evident from the very
+first day of their <a name="Page_263" id="Page_263"></a>acquaintance that Mr. William Smith had but one
+thought&mdash;the winning of Eleanor Bethune.</p>
+
+<p>When she returned to New York in the autumn she ventured to cast up her
+accounts with life, and she was rather amazed at the result. For she was
+quite aware that she was in love with this William Smith in a way that
+she had never been with the other. The first had been a sentimental
+ideal; the second was a genuine case of sincere and passionate
+affection. She felt that the desertion of this lover would be a grief
+far beyond the power of satin and lace to cure.</p>
+
+<p>But her new lover had never a disloyal thought to his mistress, and his
+love transplanted to the pleasant places of New York life, seemed to
+find its native air. It enveloped Eleanor now like a glad and heavenly
+atmosphere; she was so happy that she dreaded any change; it seemed to
+her that no change could make her happier.</p>
+
+<p>But if good is good, still better carries the day, and Mr. Smith thought
+marriage would be a great deal better than lovemaking. Eleanor and he
+were sitting in the fire-lit parlor, very still and very happy, when he
+whispered this opinion to her.</p>
+
+<p>"It is only four months since we met, dear."</p>
+
+<p>"Only four months, darling; but I had been dreaming about you four
+months <a name="Page_264" id="Page_264"></a>before that. Let me hold your hands, sweet, while I tell you. On
+the 20th of last April I was on the point of leaving for Colorado to
+look after the Silver Cliff Mine. My carriage was ordered, and I was
+waiting at my hotel for it. A servant brought me a letter&mdash;the dearest,
+sweetest little letter&mdash;see, here it is!" and this William Smith
+absolutely laid before Eleanor her own pretty, loving reply to the first
+William Smith's offer.</p>
+
+<p>Eleanor looked queerly at it, and smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"What did you think, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"That it was just the pleasantest thing that had ever happened to me. It
+was directed to Mr. W. Smith, and had been given into my hands. I was
+not going to seek up any other W. Smith."</p>
+
+<p>"But you must have been sure that it was not intended for you, and you
+did not know 'Eleanor Bethune.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I beg your pardon, sweetheart; it <i>was intended</i> for me. I can
+imagine destiny standing sarcastically by your side, and watching you
+send the letter to one W. Smith when she intended it for another W.
+Smith. Eleanor Bethune I meant to know just as soon as possible. I was
+coming back to New York to look for you."</p>
+
+<p>"And, instead, she went to you in Colorado."</p>
+
+<p>"Only think of that! Why, love, when <a name="Page_265" id="Page_265"></a>that blessed telegraph clerk said,
+'Who sends this message?' and you said, 'Mrs. Eleanor Bethune,' I wanted
+to fling my hat to the sky. I did not lose my head as badly when they
+found that new lead in the Silver Cliff."</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you give me that letter, and let me destroy it, William? It was
+written to the wrong Smith."</p>
+
+<p>"It was written to the wrong Smith, but it was given to the right Smith.
+Still, Eleanor, if you will say one little word to me, you may do what
+you like with the letter."</p>
+
+<p>Then Eleanor whispered the word, and the blaze of the burning letter
+made a little illumination in honor of their betrothal kiss.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_STORY_OF_MARY_NEIL" id="THE_STORY_OF_MARY_NEIL"></a>THE STORY OF MARY NEIL.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Poverty has not only many learned disciples, but also many hidden saints
+and martyrs. There are humble tenements that are tabernacles, and
+desolate, wretched rooms that are the quarries of the Almighty&mdash;where
+with toil and weariness and suffering the souls He loves are being
+prepared for the heavenly temple.</p>
+
+<p>This is the light that relieves the deep shadow of that awful cloud of
+poverty which ever hangs over this rich and prosperous city. I have been
+within that cloud, wet with its rain of tears, chilled with its gloomy
+darkness, "made free" of its innermost recesses; therefore I speak with
+authority when I say that even here a little child may walk and not
+stumble, if Jesus lead the way or hold the hand.</p>
+
+<p>Nay, but children walk where strong men fall down, and young maidens
+enter the kingdom while yet their parents are stumbling where no light
+from the Golden City and "the Land very far off" reaches them. Last
+winter I became very much interested in such a case. I was going to
+write "Poor Mary Neil!" but that would have been the strangest misnomer.
+Happy Mary<a name="Page_267" id="Page_267"></a> Neil! rises impetuously from my heart to contradict my pen.</p>
+
+<p>And yet when I first became acquainted with her condition, she was
+"poor" in every bitter sense of the word.</p>
+
+<p>A drunkard's eldest daughter, "the child of misery baptized with tears,"
+what had her seventeen years been but sad and evil ones? Cold and
+hunger, cares and labors far beyond her strength sowed the seeds of
+early death. For two years she struggled amid such suffering as dying
+lungs entail to help her mother and younger brothers and sisters, but at
+last she was compelled to make her bed amid sorrow and suffering which
+she could no longer assuage by her helpful hands and gentle words.</p>
+
+<p>Her religious education had not been quite neglected, and she dimly
+comprehended that through the narrow valley which lay between Time and
+Eternity she would need a surer and more infallible guide than her own
+sadly precocious intellect. Then God sent her just the help she
+needed&mdash;a tender, pitiful, hopeful woman full of the love of Jesus.</p>
+
+<p>Souls ripen quickly in the atmosphere of the Border Land, and very soon
+Mary had learned how to walk without fearing any evil. Certain passages
+of Scripture burned with a supernatural glory, and made the darkness
+light; and there were also a few <a name="Page_268" id="Page_268"></a>hymns which struck the finest chords
+in her heart, and</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'Mid days of keenest anguish<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And nights devoid of ease,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Filled all her soul with music<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of wondrous melodies."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>As she neared the deeper darkness of death, this was especially
+remarkable of that extraordinary hymn called "The Light of Death," by
+Dr. Faber. From the first it had fascinated her. "Has he been <i>here</i>
+that he knows just how it feels?" she asked, wonderingly, and then
+solemnly repeated:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Saviour, what means this breadth of death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">This space before me lying;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">These deeps where life so lingereth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">This difficulty of dying?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So many turns abrupt and rude,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Such ever-shifting grounds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Such strangely peopled solitudes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Such strangely silent sounds?'"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Her sufferings were very great, and sometimes the physical depression
+exerted a definable influence on her spiritual state. Still she never
+lost her consciousness of the presence of her Guide and Saviour, and
+once, in the exhaustion of a severe paroxysm, she murmured two lines
+from the same grand hymn:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Deeper! dark, dark, but yet I follow:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Tighten, dear Lord, thy clasp."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269"></a>Ah! there was something touching and noble beyond all words, in this
+complete reliance and perfect trust; and it never again wavered.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it <i>very</i> dark, Mary dear?" her friend said one morning, the <i>last</i>
+for her on earth.</p>
+
+<p>"Too dark to see," she whispered, "but I can go on if Christ will hold
+my hand."</p>
+
+<p>After this a great solemnity shaded her face; she lost all consciousness
+of this world. The frail, shadowy little body lay gray and passive,
+while that greatest of all struggles was going on&mdash;the struggle of the
+Eternal out of Time; but her lips moved incessantly, and occasionally
+some speech of earth told the anxious watchers how hard the conflict
+was. For instance, toward sundown she said in a voice strangely solemn
+and anxious:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Who are we trying to avoid?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From whom, Lord, must we hide?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh! can the dying be decoyed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With the Saviour by his side?"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Loose sands and all things sinking!" "Are we near eternity?" "Can I
+fall from Thee even now?" and ejaculations of similar kind, showed that
+the spiritual struggle was a very palpable one to her; but it ended in a
+great calm. For two hours she lay in a peace that passeth understanding,
+and you would have said that she was dead but <a name="Page_270" id="Page_270"></a>for a vague look of
+expectancy in the happy, restful face. Then suddenly there was a
+lightening of the whole countenance; she stretched out her arms to meet
+the messenger of the King, and entered heaven with this prayer on her
+lips:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<i>Both hands</i>, dear Lord, <i>both hands</i>.'"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Don't doubt but she got them; their mighty strength lifted her over the
+dark river almost dry shod.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Rests she not well whose pilgrim staff and shoon<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Lie in her tent&mdash;for on the golden street<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She walks and stumbles not on roads star strewn<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With her unsandalled feet."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="HEIRESS_OF_KURSTON_CHACE" id="HEIRESS_OF_KURSTON_CHACE"></a>THE HEIRESS OF KURSTON CHACE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Into the usual stillness of Kurston Chace a strange bustle and
+excitement had come&mdash;the master was returning with a young bride, whom
+report spoke of as "bewitchingly beautiful." It was easy to believe
+report in this case, for there must have been some strong inducement to
+make Frederick Kurston wed in his sixtieth year a woman barely twenty.
+It was not money; Mr. Kurston had plenty of money, and he was neither
+ambitious nor avaricious; besides, the woman he had chosen was both poor
+and extravagant.</p>
+
+<p>For once report was correct. Clementina Gray, in tarlatans and flowers,
+had been a great beauty; and Clementina Kurston, in silks and diamonds,
+was a woman dedicated, by Nature for conquest.</p>
+
+<p>It was Clementina's beauty that had prevailed over the love-hardened
+heart of the gay old gallant, who had escaped the dangers of forty
+seasons of flirtation. He was entangled in the meshes of her golden
+hair, fascinated by the spell of her love-languid eyes, her mouth like a
+sad, heavy rose, her faultless form and her superb manners. He was blind
+to all her faults; deaf to all <a name="Page_272" id="Page_272"></a>his friends&mdash;in the glamour of her
+enchantments he submitted to her implicitly, even while both his reason
+and his sense of other obligations pleaded for recognition.</p>
+
+<p>Clementina had not won him very easily; the summer was quite over,
+nearly all the visitors at the stylish little watering-place had
+departed, the mornings and evenings were chilly, every day Mr. Kurston
+spoke of his departure, and she herself was watching her maid pack her
+trunks, and in no very amiable temper contemplating defeat, when the
+reward of her seductive attentions came.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Kurston entreated the favor of an interview."</p>
+
+<p>She gladly accorded it; she robed herself with subtle skill; she made
+herself marvelous.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother," she said, as she left her dressing-room, "you will have a
+headache. I shall excuse you. I can manage this business best alone."</p>
+
+<p>In an hour she came back triumphant. She put her feet on the fender, and
+sat down before the cheerful blaze to "talk it over."</p>
+
+<p>"It is all right, mother. Good-by to our miserable shifts and
+shabby-genteel lodgings and turned dresses. He will settle Kurston Chace
+and all he has upon me, and we are to be married next month."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273"></a>"Impossible, Tina! No <i>modiste</i> in the world could get the things that
+are absolutely necessary ready in that time."</p>
+
+<p>"Everything is possible in New York&mdash;if you have money&mdash;and Uncle Gray
+will be ready enough to buy my marriage clothes. Besides, I am going to
+run no risks. If he should die, nothing on earth could console me for
+the trouble I have had with him, but the fact of being his widow. There
+is no sentiment in the affair, and the sooner one gets to ordering
+dinners and running up bills, the better."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Philip Lee!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mother, why did you mention him? Of course he will be angry, and call
+me all kinds of unpleasant names; but if he has a particle of common
+sense he must see that it was impossible for me to marry a poor
+lawyer&mdash;especially when I had such a much better offer. I suppose he
+will be here to-night. You must see him, mother, and explain things as
+pleasantly as possible. It would scarcely be proper for me, as Mr.
+Kurston's affianced wife, to listen to all the ravings and protestations
+he is sure to indulge in."</p>
+
+<p>In this supposition Clementina was mistaken. Philip Lee took the news of
+her engagement to his wealthy rival with blank calmness and a civil wish
+for her happiness. He made a stay of conventional <a name="Page_274" id="Page_274"></a>propriety, and said
+all the usual polite platitudes, and then went away without any evidence
+of the deep suffering and mortification he felt.</p>
+
+<p>This was Clementina's first drop of bitterness in her cup of success.
+She questioned her mother closely as to how he looked, and what he said.
+It did not please her that, instead of bemoaning his own loss, he should
+be feeling a contempt for her duplicity&mdash;that he should use her to cure
+his passion, when she meant to wound him still deeper. She felt at
+moments as if she could give up for Philip Lee the wealth and position
+she had so hardly won, only she knew him well enough to understand that
+henceforward she could not easily deceive him again.</p>
+
+<p>It was pleasant to return to New York this fall; the news of the
+engagement opened everyone's heart and home. Congratulations came from
+every quarter; even Uncle Gray praised the girl who had done so well for
+herself, and signified his approval by a handsome check.</p>
+
+<p>The course of this love ran smooth enough, and one fine morning in
+October, Grace Church saw a splendid wedding. Henceforward Clementina
+Kurston was a woman to be courted instead of patronized, and many a
+woman who had spoken lightly of her beauty and qualities, was made to
+<a name="Page_275" id="Page_275"></a>acknowledge with an envious pang that she had distanced them.</p>
+
+<p>This was her first reward, and she did not stint herself in extorting
+it. To tell the truth, Clementina had many a bitter score of this kind
+to pay off; for, as she said in extenuation, it was impossible for her
+to allow herself to be in debt to her self-respect.</p>
+
+<p>Well, the wedding was over. She had abundantly gratified her taste for
+splendor; she had smiled on those on whom she willed to smile; she had
+treated herself extravagantly to the dangerous pleasure of social
+revenge; she was now anxious to go and take possession of her home,
+which had the reputation of being one of the oldest and handsomest in
+the country.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Kurston, hitherto, had been intoxicated with love, and not a little
+flattered by the brilliant position which his wife had at once claimed.
+Now that she was his wife, it amused him to see her order and patronize
+and dispense with all that royal prerogative which belongs to beauty,
+supported by wealth and position.</p>
+
+<p>Into his great happiness he had suffered no doubt, no fear of the
+future, to come; but, as the day approached for their departure for
+Kurston Chace, he grew singularly restless and uneasy.</p>
+
+<p>For, much as he loved and obeyed the <a name="Page_276" id="Page_276"></a>woman whom he called "wife," there
+was another woman at Kurston whom he called "daughter," that he loved
+quite as dearly, in a different way. In fact, of his daughter, Athel
+Kurston, he stood just a little bit in fear, and she had ruled the
+household at the Chace for many years as absolute mistress.</p>
+
+<p>No one knew anything of her mother; he had brought her to her present
+home when only five years old, after a long stay on the Continent. A
+strange woman, wearing the dress of a Sclavonic peasant, came with the
+child as nurse; but she had never learnt to speak English, and had now
+been many years dead.</p>
+
+<p>Athel knew nothing of her mother, and her early attempts to question her
+father concerning her had been so peremptorily rebuffed that she had
+long ago ceased to indulge in any curiosity regarding her.
+However&mdash;though she knew it not&mdash;no one regarded her as Mr. Kurston's
+heir; indeed, nothing in her father's conduct sanctioned such a
+conclusion. True, he loved her dearly, and had spared no pains in her
+education; but he never took her with him into the world, and, except in
+the neighborhood of the Chace, her very existence was not known of.</p>
+
+<p>She was as old as his new wife, willful, proud, accustomed to rule, not
+likely to <a name="Page_277" id="Page_277"></a>obey. He had said nothing to Clementina of her existence; he
+had said nothing to his daughter of his marriage; and now both facts
+could no longer be concealed.</p>
+
+<p>But Frederick Kurston had all his life trusted to circumstances, and he
+was rather disposed, in this matter, to let the women settle affairs
+between them without troubling himself to enter into explanations with
+either of them. So, to Athel he wrote a tender little note, assuming
+that she would be delighted to hear of his marriage, as it promised her
+a pleasant companion, and directing her to have all possible
+arrangements made to add to the beauty and comfort of the house.</p>
+
+<p>To Mrs. Kurston he said nothing. The elegantly dressed young lady who
+met her with a curious and rather constrained welcome was to her a
+genuine surprise. Her air of authority and rich dress precluded the idea
+of a dependent; Mr. Kurston had kissed her lovingly, the servants obeyed
+her. But she was far too prudent to make inquiries on unknown ground;
+she disappeared, with her maid, on the plea of weariness, and from the
+vantage-ground of her retirement sent F&eacute;licit&eacute; to take observations.</p>
+
+<p>The little French maid found no difficulty in arriving at the truth, and
+Mrs. Kurston, not unjustly angry, entered the <a name="Page_278" id="Page_278"></a>drawing-room fully
+prepared to defend her rights.</p>
+
+<p>"Who was that young person, Frederick, dear, that I saw when we
+arrived?"</p>
+
+<p>This question in the very sweetest tone, and with that caressing manner
+she had always found omnipotent.</p>
+
+<p>"That young person is Miss Athel Kurston, Clementina."</p>
+
+<p>This answer in the very decided, and yet nervous, manner people on the
+defensive generally assume.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Kurston? Your sister, Frederick?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; my daughter, Clementina."</p>
+
+<p>"But you were never married before?"</p>
+
+<p>"So people say."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, do you really expect me to live in the same house with a person
+of&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I see no reason why you should not&mdash;that is, if you live in the same
+house with me."</p>
+
+<p>A passionate burst of tears, an utter abandonment of distress, and the
+infatuated husband was willing to promise anything&mdash;everything&mdash;that his
+charmer demanded&mdash;that is, for the time; for Athel Kurston's influence
+was really stronger than her step-mother's, and the promises extorted
+from his lower passions were indefinitely postponed by his nobler
+feelings.</p>
+
+<p>A divided household is always a miserable one; but the chief sufferer
+here was<a name="Page_279" id="Page_279"></a> Mr. Kurston, and Athel, who loved him with a sincere and
+profound affection, determined to submit to circumstances for his sake.</p>
+
+<p>One morning, he found on his table a letter from her stating that, to
+procure him peace, she had left a home that would be ever dear to her,
+assuring him that she had secured a comfortable and respectable asylum;
+but earnestly entreating that he would make no inquiries about her, as
+she had changed her name, and would not be discovered without causing a
+degree of gossip and evil-speaking injurious to both himself and her.</p>
+
+<p>This letter completely broke the power of Clementina over her husband.
+He asserted at once his authority, and insisted on returning immediately
+to New York, where he thought it likely Athel had gone, and where, at
+any rate, he could find suitable persons to aid him in his search for
+her&mdash;a search which was henceforth the chief object of his life.</p>
+
+<p>A splendid house was taken, and Mrs. Kurston at once assumed the
+position of a leader in the world of fashion. Greatly to her
+satisfaction, Philip Lee was a favorite in the exclusive circle in which
+she moved, and she speedily began the pretty, penitent, dejected r&ocirc;le
+which she judged would be most effective with him. But, though she would
+<a name="Page_280" id="Page_280"></a>not see it, Philip Lee was proof against all her blandishments. He was
+not the man to be deluded twice by the same false woman; he was a man of
+honor, and detested the social ethics which scoffed at humanity's
+holiest tie; and he was deeply in love with a woman who was the very
+antipodes of the married siren.</p>
+
+<p>Yet he visited frequently at the Kurston mansion, and became a great
+favorite, and finally the friend and confidant of its master. Gradually,
+as month after month passed, the business of the Kurston estate came
+into his hands, and he could have told, to the fraction of a dollar, the
+exact sum for which Clementina Gray sold herself.</p>
+
+<p>Two years passed away. There was no longer on Clementina's part, any
+pretence of affection for her husband; she went her own way, and devoted
+herself to her own interests and amusements. He wearied with a hopeless
+search and anxiety that found no relief, aged very rapidly, and became
+subject to serious attacks of illness, any one of which might deprive
+him of life.</p>
+
+<p>His wife now regretted that she had married so hastily; the settlements
+promised had been delayed; she had trusted to her influence to obtain
+more as his wife than as his betrothed. She had not known of a
+counter-influence, and she had not <a name="Page_281" id="Page_281"></a>calculated that the effort of a
+life-long deception might be too much for her. Quarrels had arisen in
+the very beginning of their life at Kurston, the disappearance of Athel
+had never been forgiven, and now Mrs. Kurston became violently angry if
+the settlement and disposing of his property was named.</p>
+
+<p>One night, in the middle of the third winter after Athel's
+disappearance, Philip Lee called with an important lease for Mr. Kurston
+to sign. He found him alone, and strangely moved and sorrowful. He
+signed the papers as Philip directed him, and then requested him to lock
+the door and sit down.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going," he said, "to confide to you, Philip Lee, a sacred trust. I
+do not think I shall live long, and I leave a duty unfulfilled that
+makes to me the bitterness of death. I have a daughter&mdash;the lawful
+heiress of the Kurston lands&mdash;whom my wife drove, by subtle and
+persistent cruelty, from her home. By no means have I been able to
+discover her; but you must continue the search, and see her put in
+possession of her rights."</p>
+
+<p>"But what proofs, sir, can you give me in order to establish them?"</p>
+
+<p>"They are all in this box&mdash;everything that is necessary. Take it with
+you to your office to-night. Her mother&mdash;ah, me, how I loved her&mdash;was a
+Polish lady of good <a name="Page_282" id="Page_282"></a>family; but I have neither time nor inclination now
+to explain to you, or to excuse myself for the paltry vanities which
+induced me to conceal my marriage. In those days I cared so much for
+what society said that I never listened to the voice of my heart or my
+conscience. I hope, I trust, I may still right both the dead and the
+living!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Kurston's presentiment of death was no delusive one; he sank
+gradually during the following week, and died&mdash;his last word,
+"Remember!" being addressed, with all the strong beseeching of a dying
+injunction, to Philip Lee.</p>
+
+<p>A free woman, and a rich one, Mrs. Kurston turned with all the ardor of
+a sentimental woman to her first and&mdash;as she chose to consider it&mdash;her
+only true affection. She was now in a position to woo the poor lawyer,
+dependent in a great measure on her continuing to him the management of
+the Kurston property.</p>
+
+<p>Business brought them continually together, and it was neither possible
+nor prudent for him to always reject the attentions she offered. The
+world began to freely connect their names, and it was with much
+difficulty that he could convince even his most intimate friends of his
+indifference to the rich and beautiful widow.</p>
+
+<p>He found himself, indeed, becoming <a name="Page_283" id="Page_283"></a>gradually entangled in a net of
+circumstances it would soon be difficult to get honorably out of.</p>
+
+<p>The widow received him at every visit more like a lover, and less like a
+lawyer; men congratulated or envied him, women tacitly assumed his
+engagement. There was but one way to free himself from the toils the
+artful widow was encompassing him with&mdash;he must marry some one else.</p>
+
+<p>But whom? The only girl he loved was poor, and had already refused him;
+yet he was sure she loved him, and something bid him try again. He had
+half a mind to do so, and "half a mind" in love is quite enough to begin
+with.</p>
+
+<p>So he put on his hat and went to his sister's house. He knew she was out
+driving&mdash;had seen her pass five minutes before on her way to the park.
+Then what did he go there for? Because he judged from experience, that
+at this hour lovely Pauline Alexes, governess to his sister's daughters,
+was at home and alone.</p>
+
+<p>He was not wrong; she came into the parlor by one door as he entered it
+by the other. The coincidence was auspicious, and he warmly pressed his
+suit, pouring into Pauline's ears such a confused account of his
+feelings and his affairs as only love could disentangle and understand.</p>
+
+<p>"But, Philip," said Pauline, "do you <a name="Page_284" id="Page_284"></a>mean to say that this Mrs. Kurston
+makes love to you? Is she not a married woman, and her husband your best
+friend and patron?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Kurston, Pauline darling, is dead!"</p>
+
+<p>"Dead! dead! Oh, Philip! Oh, my father! my father!" And the poor girl
+threw herself, with passionate sobbings, among the cushions of the sofa.</p>
+
+<p>This was a revelation. Here, in Pauline Alexes, the girl he had fondly
+loved for nearly three years, Philip found the long-sought heiress of
+Kurston Chace!</p>
+
+<p>Bitter, indeed, was her grief when she learned how sorrowfully her
+father had sought her; but she was scarcely to be blamed for not knowing
+of, and responding to, his late repentance of the life-long wrong he had
+done her. For Philip's sister moved far outside the narrow and supreme
+circle of the Kurstons.</p>
+
+<p>She had hidden her identity in her mother's maiden name&mdash;the only thing
+she knew of her mother. She had never seen her father since her flight
+from her home but in public, accompanied by his wife; she had no reason
+to suppose the influence of that wife any weaker; she had been made, by
+cruel innuendoes, to doubt both the right and the inclination of her
+father to protect her.</p>
+
+<p>It now became Philip's duty to acquaint <a name="Page_285" id="Page_285"></a>the second Mrs. Kurston with
+her true position, and to take the necessary steps to reinstate Athel
+Kurston in her rights.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, he had to bear many unkind suspicions&mdash;even his friends
+believed him to have been cognizant all the time of the identity of
+Pauline Alexes with Athel Kurston&mdash;and he was complimented on his
+cleverness in securing the property, with the daughter, instead of the
+widow, for an incumbrance. But those may laugh who win, and these things
+scarcely touched the happiness of Philip and Athel.</p>
+
+<p>As for Mrs. Kurston she made a still more brilliant marriage, and gave
+up the Kurston estate with an ostentatious indifference. "She was glad
+to get rid of it; it had brought her nothing but sorrow and
+disappointment," etc.</p>
+
+<p>But from the heights of her social autocracy, clothed in Worth's
+greatest inspirations, wearing priceless lace and jewels, dwelling in
+unrivalled splendor, she looked with regret on the man whom she had
+rejected for his poverty.</p>
+
+<p>She saw him grow to be the pride of his State and the honor of his
+country. Loveless and childless, she saw his boys and girls cling to the
+woman she hated as their "mother," and knew that they filled with light
+and love the grand old home for which she had first of all sacrificed
+her affection and her womanhood.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="ONLY_THIS_ONCE" id="ONLY_THIS_ONCE"></a>"ONLY THIS ONCE."</h2>
+
+
+<p>Over the solemn mountains and the misty moorlands the chill spring night
+was falling. David Scott, master shepherd for MacAllister, of Allister,
+thought of his ewes and lambs, pulled his Scotch bonnet over his brows,
+and taking his staff in his hand, turned his face to the hills.</p>
+
+<p>David Scott was a mystic in his own way; the mountains were to him
+"temples not made with hands," and in them he had seen and heard
+wonderful things. Years of silent communion with nature had made him
+love her in all her moods, and he passionately believed in God.</p>
+
+<p>The fold was far up the mountains, but the sheep knew the shepherd's
+voice, and the peculiar bark of his dog; they answered them gladly, and
+were soon safely and warmly housed. Then David and Keeper slowly took
+their way homeward, for the steep, rocky hills were not easy walking for
+an old man in the late gloaming.</p>
+
+<p>Passing a wild cairn of immense stones, Keeper suddenly began to bark
+furiously, and a tall, slight figure leaped from their shelter, raised a
+stick, and would have struck the dog if David had not called out,<a name="Page_287" id="Page_287"></a>
+"Never strie a sheep-dog, mon! The bestie willna harm ye."</p>
+
+<p>The stranger then came forward; asked David if there was any cottage
+near where he could rest all night, said that he had come out for a
+day's fishing, had got separated from his companions, lost his way and
+was hungry and worn out.</p>
+
+<p>David looked him steadily in the face and read aright the nervous manner
+and assumed indifference. However, hospitality is a sacred tradition
+among Scotch mountaineers, whoever, or whatever the young man was, David
+acknowledged his weariness and hunger as sufficient claim upon his oaten
+cake and his embers.</p>
+
+<p>It was evident in a few moments that Mr. Semple was not used to the
+hills. David's long, firm walk was beyond the young man's efforts; he
+stumbled frequently in the descent, the springy step necessary when they
+came to the heather distressed him; he was almost afraid of the gullies
+David took without a thought. These things the old man noted, and they
+weighed far more with him than all the boastful tongue could say.</p>
+
+<p>The cottage was soon reached&mdash;a very humble one&mdash;only "a but and a ben,"
+with small windows, and a thatched roof; but Scotland has reared great
+men in such cottages, and no one could say that it was not <a name="Page_288" id="Page_288"></a>clean and
+cheerful. The fire burnt brightly upon the white hearthstone, and a
+little round deal table stood before it. Upon this table were oaten
+cakes and Ayreshire cheese and new milk, and by its side sat a young man
+reading.</p>
+
+<p>"Archie, here is a strange <i>gentleman</i> I found up at Donald's cairn."</p>
+
+<p>The two youths exchanged looks and disliked each other. Yet Archie Scott
+rose, laid aside his book, and courteously offered his seat by the fire.
+The stranger took it, eat heartily of the simple meal, joined decently
+in their solemn worship, and was soon fast asleep in Archie's bed. Then
+the old man and his son sat down and curtly exchanged their opinions.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't like yon lad, fayther, and I more than distrust his being aught
+o' a gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>David smoked steadily a few minutes ere he replied:</p>
+
+<p>"He's eat and drank and knelt wi' us, Archie, and it's nane o' our duty
+to judge him."</p>
+
+<p>When Archie spoke again it was of other matters.</p>
+
+<p>"Fayther, I'm sore troubled wi' MacAllister's accounts; what wi' the
+sheep bills and the timber and the kelp, things look in a mess like.
+There is a right way and a wrong way to keep tally of them and I can't
+find it out."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289"></a>"The right way is to keep the facts all correct and honest to a straw's
+worth&mdash;then the figures are bound to come right, I should say."</p>
+
+<p>It was an old trouble that Archie complained about. He was MacAllister's
+steward, appointed by virtue of his sterling character and known worth;
+but struggling constantly with ignorance of the methods by which even
+the most honest business can alone satisfactorily prove its honest
+condition.</p>
+
+<p>When Mr. Semple awoke next morning, Archie had disappeared, and David
+was standing in the door, smoking. David liked his guest less in the
+morning than he had done at night.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye dinna seem to relish your parritch, sir," said David rather grimly.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Semple said he really had never been accustomed to anything but
+strong tea and hot rolls, with a little kippered salmon or marmalade; he
+had never tasted porridge before.</p>
+
+<p>"More's the pity, my lad. Maybe if you had been brought up on decent
+oatmeal you would hae thankit God for your food;" for Mr. Semple's
+omission of grace, either before or after his meat, greatly displeased
+the old man.</p>
+
+<p>The youth yawned, sauntered to the door, and looked out. There was a
+fresh wind, <a name="Page_290" id="Page_290"></a>bringing with it flying showers and damp, chilling
+mists&mdash;wet heather under foot, and no sunshine above. David saw
+something in the anxious, wretched face that aroused keen suspicion. He
+looked steadily into Mr. Semple's pale, blue eyes, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Wha are you rinnin awa from, my lad?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sir!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's angry silence. Suddenly David raised his hand,
+shaded his eyes and peered keenly down the hills. Mr. Semple followed
+this movement with great interest.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you looking at, Mr. Scott? Oh! I see. Two men coming up this
+way. Do you know who they are?"</p>
+
+<p>"They may be gangers or they may be strangers, or they may be
+policemen&mdash;I dinna ken them mysel'."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Scott! For God's sake, Mr. Scott! Don't give me up, and I will tell
+you the whole truth."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought so!" said David, sternly. "Well, come up the hills wi' me;
+yon men will be here in ten minutes, whoever they are."</p>
+
+<p>There were numerous places of partial shelter known to the shepherd, and
+he soon led the way to a kind of cave, pretty well concealed by
+overhanging rocks and trailing, briery stems.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291"></a>The two sat down on a rude granite bowlder, and the elder having waited
+until his companion had regained his breath, said:</p>
+
+<p>"You'll fare best wi' me, lad, if you tell the truth in as few words as
+may be; I dinna like fine speeches."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Scott, I am Duncan Nevin's bookkeeper and cashier. He's a tea
+dealer in the Gallowgate of Glasgow. I'm short in my cash, and he's a
+hard man, so I run away."</p>
+
+<p>"Sortie, lad! Your cash dinna gang wrang o' itself. If you werna ashamed
+to steal it, ye needna be ashamed to confess it. Begin at the
+beginning."</p>
+
+<p>The young man told his shameful story. He had got into gay, dissipated
+ways, and to meet a sudden demand had taken three pounds from his
+employer <i>for just once</i>. But the three pounds had swollen into sixteen,
+and finding it impossible to replace it, he had taken ten more and fled,
+hoping to hide in the hills till he could get rowed off to some passing
+ship and escape to America. He had no friends, and neither father nor
+mother. At mention of this fact, David's face relaxed.</p>
+
+<p>"Puir lad!" he muttered. "Nae father, and nae mother, 'specially; that's
+a awfu' drawback."</p>
+
+<p>"You may give me up if you like, Mr.<a name="Page_292" id="Page_292"></a> Scott. I don't care much; I've
+been a wretched fellow for many a week; I am most broken-hearted
+to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"It's not David Scott that will make himself hard to a broken heart,
+when God in heaven has promised to listen to it. I'll tell you what I
+will do. You shall gie me all the money you have, every shilling; it's
+nane o' yours, ye ken that weel; and I'll take it to your master, and
+get him to pass by the ither till you can earn it. I've got a son, a
+decent, hard-working lad, who's daft to learn your trade&mdash;bookkeeping.
+Ye sail stay wi' me till he kens a' the ins and outs o' it, then I'll
+gie ye twenty pounds. I ken weel this is a big sum, and it will make a
+big hole in my little book at the Ayr Bank, but it will set Archie up.</p>
+
+<p>"Then when ye have earned it, ye can pay back all you have stolen,
+forbye having four pounds left for a nest-egg to start again wi'. I
+dinna often treat mysel' to such a bit o' charity as this, and, 'deed,
+if I get na mair thanks fra heaven, than I seem like to get fra you,
+there 'ud be meikle use in it," for Alexander Semple had heard the
+proposal with a dour and thankless face, far from encouraging to the
+good man who made it. It did not suit that youth to work all summer in
+order to pay back what he had come to regard as "off his mind;" to
+denude himself of every shilling, and be <a name="Page_293" id="Page_293"></a>entirely dependent on the
+sternly just man before him. Yet what could he do? He was fully in
+David's power; so he signified his assent, and sullenly enough gave up
+the &pound;9 14s. 2d. in his possession.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm a good bookkeeper, Mr. Scott," he said; "the bargain is fair enough
+for you."</p>
+
+<p>"I ken Donald Nevin; he's a Campletown man, and I ken you wouldna hae
+keepit his books if you hadna had your business at your finger-ends."</p>
+
+<p>The next day David went to Glasgow, and saw Mr. Semple's master. The &pound;9
+odd was lost money found, and predisposed him to the arrangement
+proposed. David got little encouragement from Mr. Nevin, however; he
+acknowledged the clerk's skill in accounts, but he was conceited of his
+appearance, ambitious of being a fashionable man, had weak principles
+and was intensely selfish. David almost repented him of his kindness,
+and counted grudgingly the shillings that the journey and the carriage
+of Mr. Semple's trunks cost him.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed it was a week or two before things settled pleasantly in the hill
+cottage; the plain living, pious habits and early hours of the shepherd
+and his son did not at all suit the city youth. But Archie, though
+ignorant of the reasons which kept such a dandy in their humble home,
+soon perceived clearly the benefit he could derive <a name="Page_294" id="Page_294"></a>from him. And once
+Archie got an inkling of the meaning of "double entry" he was never
+weary of applying it to his own particular business; so that in a few
+weeks Alexander Semple was perfectly familiar with MacAllister's
+affairs.</p>
+
+<p>Still, Archie cordially disliked his teacher, and about the middle of
+summer it became evident that a very serious cause of quarrel was
+complicating the offence. Coming up from MacAllister's one lovely summer
+gloaming Archie met Semple with Katie Morrison, the little girl whom he
+had loved and courted since ever he carried her dinner and slate to
+school for her. How they had come to know each other he could not tell;
+he had exercised all his tact and prudence to prevent it, evidently
+without avail. He passed the couple with ill-concealed anger; Katie
+looked down, Semple nodded in what Archie believed to be an insolent
+manner.</p>
+
+<p>That night David Scott heard from his son such an outburst of anger as
+the lad had never before exhibited. In a few days Mr. Semple went to
+Greenock for a day or two. Soon it was discovered that Katie had been in
+Greenock two days at her married sister's. Then they heard that the
+couple had married and were to sail for America. They then discovered
+that Archie's desk had been opened and &pound;46 in <a name="Page_295" id="Page_295"></a>notes and gold taken.
+Neither of the men had any doubt as to the thief; and therefore Archie
+was angry and astonished to find his father doubt and waver and seem
+averse to pursue him. At last he acknowledged all, told Archie that if
+he made known his loss, <i>he also</i> must confess that he had knowingly
+harbored an acknowledged thief, and tacitly given him the opportunity of
+wronging his employer. He doubted very much whether anyone would give
+him credit for the better feelings which had led him to this course of
+conduct.</p>
+
+<p>Archie's anger cooled at once; he saw the dilemma; to these simple
+people a good name was better than gold. It took nearly half the savings
+of a long life, but the old man went to Ayr and drew sufficient to
+replace the stolen money. He needed to make no inquiries about Semple.
+On Tuesday it was known by everyone in the village that Katie Morrison
+and Alexander Semple had been married the previous Friday, and sailed
+for America the next day. After this certainty father and son never
+named the subject but once more. It was on one calm, spring evening,
+some ten years after, and David lay within an hour of the grave.</p>
+
+<p>"Archie!" he said, suddenly, "I don't regret to-night what I did ten
+years ago. Virtuous actions sometimes fail, but virtuous <a name="Page_296" id="Page_296"></a>lives&mdash;never!
+Perhaps I had a thought o' self in my good intent, and that spoiled all.
+If thou hast ever a chance, do better than I did."</p>
+
+<p>"I will, father."</p>
+
+<p>During these ten years there had been occasional news from the exiles.
+Mrs. Morrison stopped Archie at intervals, as he passed her door, and
+said there had been a letter from Katie. At first they came frequently,
+and were tinged with brightest hopes. Alexander had a fine place, and
+their baby was the most beautiful in the world. The next news was that
+Alexander was in business for himself and making money rapidly. Handsome
+presents, that were the wonder of the village, then came occasionally,
+and also remittances of money that made the poor mother hold her head
+proudly about "our Katie" and her "splendid house and carriage."</p>
+
+<p>But suddenly all letters stopped, and the mother thought for long they
+must be coming to see her, but this hope and many another faded, and the
+fair morning of Katie's marriage was shrouded in impenetrable gloom and
+mystery.</p>
+
+<p>Archie got bravely over his trouble, and a while after his father's
+death married a good little woman, not quite without "the bit of
+siller." Soon after he took his savings to Edinburgh and joined his
+wife's <a name="Page_297" id="Page_297"></a>brother in business there. Things prospered with him, slowly but
+surely, and he became known for a steady, prosperous merchant, and a
+douce pious householder, the father of a fine lot of sons and daughters.</p>
+
+<p>One night, twenty years after the beginning of my story, he was passing
+through the old town of Edinburgh, when a wild cry of "Fire! Fire!
+Fire!" arose on every side of him.</p>
+
+<p>"Where?" he asked of the shrieking women pouring from all the filthy,
+narrow wynds around.</p>
+
+<p>"In Gordon's Wynd."</p>
+
+<p>He was there almost the first of any efficient aid, striving to make his
+way up the smoke-filled stairs, but this was impossible. The house was
+one of those ancient ones, piled story upon story; so old that it was
+almost tinder. But those on the opposite side were so close that not
+unfrequently a plank or two flung across from opposite windows made a
+bridge for the benefit of those seeking to elude justice.</p>
+
+<p>By means of such a bridge all the inhabitants of the burning house were
+removed, and no one was more energetic in carrying the women and
+children across the dangerous planks than Archie Scott; for his mountain
+training had made such a feat one of no extraordinary danger to him.<a name="Page_298" id="Page_298"></a>
+Satisfied at length that all life was out of risk, he was turning to go
+home, when a white, terrible face looked out of the top-most floor,
+showing itself amid the gusts of smoke like the dream of a corpse, and
+screaming for help in agonizing tones. Archie knew that face only too
+well. But he remembered, in the same instant, what his father had said
+in dying, and, swift as a mountain deer, he was quickly on the top floor
+of the opposite house again.</p>
+
+<p>In a few moments the planks bridged the distance between death and
+safety; but no entreaties could make the man risk the dangerous passage.
+Setting tight his lips, Archie went for the shrieking coward, and
+carried him into the opposite house. Then the saved man recognized his
+preserver.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mr. Scott!" he said, "for God's sake, my wife and my child! The
+last of seven!"</p>
+
+<p>"You scoundrel! Do you mean to say you saved yourself before Katie and
+your child!"</p>
+
+<p>Archie did not wait for the answer; again he was at the window of the
+burning room. Too late! The flames were already devouring what the smoke
+had smothered; their wretched pallet was a funeral pyre. He had hardly
+time to save his own life.</p>
+
+<p>"They are dead, Semple!"</p>
+
+<p>Then the poor creature burst into a <a name="Page_299" id="Page_299"></a>paroxysm of grief, moaned and
+cried, and begged a few shillings, and vowed he was the most miserable
+creature on earth.</p>
+
+<p>After this Archie Scott strove for two years to do without taint of
+selfishness what his father had begun twenty years before. But there was
+not much now left to work upon&mdash;health, honor, self-respect were all
+gone. Poor Semple was content to eat the bread of dependence, and then
+make boastful speeches of his former wealth and position. To tell of his
+wonderful schemes, and to abuse his luck and his false friends, and
+everything and everybody, but the real cause of his misfortune.</p>
+
+<p>Archie gave him some trifling post, with a salary sufficient for every
+decent want, and never heeded, though he knew Semple constantly spoke
+ill of him behind his back.</p>
+
+<p>However the trial of Archie's patience and promise did not last very
+long. It was a cold, snowy night in mid-winter that Archie was called
+upon to exercise for the last time his charity and forbearance toward
+him; and the parting scene paid for all. For, in the shadow of the
+grave, the poor, struggling soul dropped all pretences, acknowledged all
+its shortcomings, thanked the forbearance and charity which had been
+extended so many years, and humbly repented of its lost and wasted
+opportunities.</p>
+
+<p>"Draw close to me, Archie Scott," he <a name="Page_300" id="Page_300"></a>said, "and tell your four brave
+boys what my dying words to them were: Never to yield to temptation for
+<i>only this once</i>. To be quite sure that all the gear and gold that
+<i>comes with sin</i> will <i>go with sorrow</i>. And never to doubt that to every
+<i>evil doer</i> will certainly come his <i>evil day</i>."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="PETRALTOS_LOVE_STORY" id="PETRALTOS_LOVE_STORY"></a>PETRALTO'S LOVE STORY.</h2>
+
+
+<p>I am addicted to making strange friendships, to liking people whom I
+have no conventional authority to like&mdash;people out of "my set," and not
+always of my own nationality. I do not say that I have always been
+fortunate in these ventures; but I have had sufficient splendid
+exceptions to excuse the social aberration, and make me think that all
+of us might oftener trust our own instincts, oftener accept the friends
+that circumstance and opportunity offer us, with advantage. At any rate,
+the peradventure in chance associations has always been very attractive
+to me.</p>
+
+<p>In some irregular way I became acquainted with Petralto Garcia. I
+believe I owed the introduction to my beautiful hound, Lutha; but, at
+any rate, our first conversation was quite as sensible as if we had gone
+through the legitimate initiation. I know it was in the mountains, and
+that within an hour our tastes and sympathies had touched each other at
+twenty different points.</p>
+
+<p>Lutha walked beside us, showing in his mien something of the proud
+satisfaction which follows a conviction of having done <a name="Page_302" id="Page_302"></a>a good thing. He
+looked first at me and then at Petralto, elevating and depressing his
+ears at our argument, as if he understood all about it. Perhaps he did;
+human beings don't know everything.</p>
+
+<p>People have so much time in the country that it is little wonder that
+our acquaintance ripened into friendship during the holidays, and that
+one of my first visits when I had got settled for the winter was to
+Petralto's rooms. Their locality might have cooled some people, but not
+me. It does not take much of an education in New York life to find out
+that the pleasantest, loftiest, handsomest rooms are to be found in the
+streets not very far "up town;" comfortably contiguous to the best
+hotels, stores, theatres, picture galleries, and all the other
+necessaries of a pleasant existence.</p>
+
+<p>He was just leaving the door for a ride in the park, and we went
+together. I had refused the park twice within an hour, and had told
+myself that nothing should induce me to follow that treadmill procession
+again, yet when he said, in his quiet way, "You had better take half an
+hour's ride, Jack," I felt like going, and I went.</p>
+
+<p>Now just as we got to the Fifth Avenue entrance, a singular thing
+happened. Petralto's pale olive face flushed a bright crimson, his eyes
+flashed and dropped; he <a name="Page_303" id="Page_303"></a>whipped the horse into a furious gallop, as if
+he would escape something; then became preternaturally calm, drew
+suddenly up, and stood waiting for a handsome equipage which was
+approaching. Its occupants were bending forward to speak to him. I had
+no eyes for the gentleman, the girl at his side was so radiantly
+beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>I heard Petralto promise to call on them, and we passed on; but there
+was a look on his face which bespoke both sympathy and silence. He soon
+complained of the cold, said the park pace irritated him, but still
+passed and repassed the couple who had caused him such evident
+suffering, as if he was determined to inure himself to the pain of
+meeting them. During this interval I had time to notice the caressing,
+lover-like attitude of the beauty's companion, and I said, as they
+entered a stately house together, "Are they married?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"He seems devotedly in love with her."</p>
+
+<p>"He loved her two years before he saw her."</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all. I have a mind to tell you the story."</p>
+
+<p>"Do. Come home with me, and we will have a quiet dinner together."</p>
+
+<p>"No. I need to be alone an hour or two. Call on me about nine o'clock."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304"></a>Petralto's rooms were a little astonishment to me. They were luxurious
+in the extreme, with just that excess of ornament which suggests
+under-civilization; and yet I found him smoking in a studio destitute of
+everything but a sleepy-looking sofa, two or three capacious lounging
+chairs, and the ordinary furniture of an artist's atelier. There was a
+bright fire in the grate, a flood of light from the numerous gas jets,
+and an atmosphere heavy with the seductive, fragrant vapor of Havana.</p>
+
+<p>I lit my own cigar, made myself comfortable, and waited until it was
+Petralto's pleasure to begin. After a while he said, "Jack, turn that
+easel so that you can see the picture on it."</p>
+
+<p>I did so.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, look at it well, and tell me what you see; first, the
+locality&mdash;describe it."</p>
+
+<p>"A dim old wood, with sunlight sifting through thick foliage, and long
+streamers of weird grey moss. The ground is covered with soft short
+grass of an intense green, and there are wonderful flowers of wonderful
+colors."</p>
+
+<p>"Right. It is an opening in the forest of the Upper Guadalupe. Now, what
+else do you see?"</p>
+
+<p>"A small pony, saddled and bridled, feeding quietly, and a young girl
+standing <a name="Page_305" id="Page_305"></a>on tip-toe, pulling down a vine loaded with golden-colored
+flowers."</p>
+
+<p>"Describe the girl to me."</p>
+
+<p>I turned and looked at my querist. He was smoking, with shut eyes, and
+waiting calmly for my answer. "Well, she has&mdash;Petralto, what makes you
+ask me? You might paint, but it is impossible to describe <i>light</i>; and
+the girl is nothing else. If I had met her in such a wood, I should have
+thought she was an angel, and been afraid of her."</p>
+
+<p>"No angel, Jack, but a most exquisite, perfect flower of maidenhood.
+When I first saw her, she stood just so, with her open palms full of
+yellow jasmine. I laid my heart into them, too, my whole heart, my whole
+life, and every joy and hope it contained."</p>
+
+<p>"What were you doing in Texas?"</p>
+
+<p>"What are you doing in New York? I was born in Texas. My family, an old
+Spanish one, have been settled there since they helped to build San
+Antonio in 1730. I grew up pretty much as Texan youths do&mdash;half my time
+in the saddle, familiar with the worst side of life and the best side of
+nature. I should have been a thorough Ishmaelite if I had not been an
+artist; but the artistic instinct conquered the nomadic and in my
+twentieth year I went to Rome to study.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306"></a>"I can pass the next five years. I do not pretend to regret them,
+though, perhaps, you would say I simply wasted time and opportunity. I
+enjoyed them, and it seems to me I was the person most concerned in the
+matter. I had a fresh, full capacity then for enjoyment of every kind. I
+loved nature and I loved art. I warmed both hands at the glowing fire of
+life. Time may do his worst. I have been happy, and I can throw those
+five careless, jovial years, in his face to my last hour.</p>
+
+<p>"But one must awake out of every pleasant dream, and one day I got a
+letter urging my immediate return home. My father had got himself
+involved in a lawsuit, and was failing rapidly in health. My younger
+brother was away with a ranger company, and the affairs of the ranch
+needed authoritative overlooking. I was never so fond of art as to be
+indifferent to our family prosperity, and I lost no time in hurrying
+West.</p>
+
+<p>"Still, when I arrived at home, there was no one to welcome me! The
+noble, gracious Garcia slept with his ancestors in the old Alamo Church;
+somewhere on the llano my brother was ranging, still with his wild,
+company; and the house, in spite of the family servants and Mexican
+peons, was sufficiently lonely. Yet I was astonished, to find how easily
+I went back to my old <a name="Page_307" id="Page_307"></a>life, and spent whole days in the saddle
+investigating the affairs of the Garcia ranch.</p>
+
+<p>"I had been riding one day for ten hours, and was so fatigued that I
+determined to spend the night with one of my herdsmen. He had a little
+shelter under some fine pecan trees on the Guadalupe, and after a cup of
+coffee and a meal of dried beef, I sauntered with my cigar down the
+river bank. Then the cool, dusky shadows of the wood tempted me. I
+entered it. It was an enchanted wood, for there stood Jessy Lorimer,
+just as I had painted her.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not move nor speak. I watched her, spell-bound. I had not even
+the power, when she had mounted her pony and was coming toward me, to
+assume another attitude. She saw that I had been watching her, and a
+look, half reproachful and half angry, came for a moment into her face.
+But she inclined her head to me as she passed, and then went off at a
+rapid gallop before I could collect my senses.</p>
+
+<p>"Some people, Jack, walk into love with their eyes open, calculating
+every step. I tumbled in over head, lost my feet, lost my senses,
+narrowed in one moment the whole world down to one bewitching woman. I
+did not know her, of course; but I soon should. I was well aware she
+could not live very far away, and that my herd must <a name="Page_308" id="Page_308"></a>be able to give me
+some information. I was so deeply in love that this poor ignorant
+fellow, knowing something about this girl, seemed to me to be a person
+to be respected, and even envied.</p>
+
+<p>"I gave him immediately a plentiful supply of cigars, and sitting down
+beside him opened the conversation with horses, but drifted speedily
+into the subject of new settlers.</p>
+
+<p>"'Were there any since I had left?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Two or three, no 'count travelers, one likely family.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Much of a family?'</p>
+
+<p>"'You may bet on that, sir.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Any pleasant young men?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Reckon so. Mighty likely young gal.'</p>
+
+<p>"So, bit by bit, I found that Mr. Lorimer, my beauty's father, was a
+Scotchman, who had bought the ranch which had formerly belonged to the
+old Spanish family of the Yturris. Then I remembered pretty Inez and
+Dolores Yturri, with their black eyes, olive skins and soft, lazy
+<i>embonpoint</i>; and thought of golden-haired Jessy Lorimer in their dark,
+latticed rooms.</p>
+
+<p>"Jack, turn the picture to me. Beautiful Jessy! How I loved her in those
+happy days that followed. How I humored her grave, stern father and
+courted her brothers for her sake! I was a slave to the whole <a name="Page_309" id="Page_309"></a>family,
+so that I might gain an hour with or a smile from Jessy. Do I regret it
+now? Not one moment. Such delicious hours as we had together were worth
+any price. I would throw all my future to old Time, Jack, only to live
+them over again."</p>
+
+<p>"That is a great deal to say, Petralto."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps; and yet I will not recall it. In those few months everything
+that was good in me prospered and grew. Jessy brought out nothing but
+the best part of my character. I was always at my best with her. No
+thought of selfish pleasure mingled in my love for her. If it delighted
+me to touch her hand, to feel her soft hair against my cheek, to meet
+her earnest, subduing gaze, it also made me careful by no word or look
+to soil the dainty purity of my white lily.</p>
+
+<p>"I feared to tell her that I loved her. But I did do it, I scarcely know
+how. The softest whisper seemed too loud against her glowing cheek. She
+trembled from head to foot. I was faint and silent with rapture when she
+first put her little hand in mine, and suffered me to draw her to my
+heart. Ah! I am sick with joy yet when I think of it. I&mdash;I first, I
+alone, woke that sweet young heart to life. She is lost, lost to me, but
+no one else can ever be to her what I have been."</p>
+
+<p>And here Petralto, giving full sway to his <a name="Page_310" id="Page_310"></a>impassioned Southern nature,
+covered his face with his hands and wept hot, regretful tears.</p>
+
+<p>Tears come like blood from men of cold, strong temperaments, but they
+were the natural relief of Petralto's. I let him weep. In a few minutes
+he leaped up, and began pacing the room rapidly as he went on:</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Lorimer received my proposal with a dour, stiff refusal that left
+me no hope of any relenting. 'He had reasons, more than one,' he said;
+'he was not saying anything against either my Spanish blood or my
+religion; but it was no fault in a Scotsman to mate his daughter with
+people of her own kith.'</p>
+
+<p>"There was no quarrel, and no discourtesy; but I saw I could bend an
+iron bar with my pleadings just as soon as his determination. Jessy
+received orders not to meet me or speak to me alone; and the possibility
+of disobeying her father's command never suggested itself to her. Even I
+struggled long with my misery before I dared to ask her to practice her
+first deceit.</p>
+
+<p>"She would not meet me alone, but she persuaded her mother to come once
+with her to our usual tryst in the wood. Mrs. Lorimer spoke kindly but
+hopelessly, and covered her own face to weep while Jessy and I took of
+each other a passionate <a name="Page_311" id="Page_311"></a>farewell. I promised her then never to marry
+anyone else; and she!&mdash;I thought her heart would break as I laid her
+almost fainting in her mother's arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Yet I did not know how much Jessy really was to me until I suddenly
+found out that her father had sent her back to Scotland, under the
+pretence of finishing her education. I had been so honorably considerate
+of Jessy's Puritan principles that I felt this hasty, secret movement
+exceedingly unkind and unjust. Guadalupe became hateful to me, the
+duties of the ranch distracting; and my brother Felix returning about
+this time, we made a division of the estate. He remained at the Garcia
+mansion, I rented out my possessions, and went, first to New Orleans,
+and afterward to New York.</p>
+
+<p>"In New York I opened a studio, and one day a young gentleman called and
+asked me to draw a picture from some crude, imperfect sketch which a
+friend had made. During the progress of the picture he frequently called
+in. For some reason or other&mdash;probably because we were each other's
+antipodes in tastes and temperament&mdash;he became my enthusiastic admirer,
+and interested himself greatly to secure me a lucrative patronage.</p>
+
+<p>"Yet some subtle instinct, which I cannot pretend to divine or explain,
+constantly <a name="Page_312" id="Page_312"></a>warned me to beware of this man. But I was ashamed and angry
+at myself for linking even imaginary evil with so frank and generous a
+nature. I defied destiny, turned a deaf ear to the whisperings of my
+good genius, and continued the one-sided friendship&mdash;for I never even
+pretended to myself that I had any genuine liking for the man.</p>
+
+<p>"One day, when we had become very familiar, he ran up to see me about
+something, I forget what, and not finding me in the outer apartments,
+penetrated to my private room. There, upon that easel, Will Lennox first
+saw the woman you saw with him to-night&mdash;the picture which you are now
+looking at&mdash;and he fell as desperately in love with it, in his way, as I
+had done in the Guadalupe woods with the reality. I cannot tell you how
+much it cost me to restrain my anger. He, however, never noticed I was
+angry. He had but one object now&mdash;to gain from me the name and residence
+of the original.</p>
+
+<p>"It was no use to tell him it was a fancy picture, that he was sighing
+for an imagination. He never believed it for a moment. I would not sell
+it, I would not copy it, I would not say where I had painted it; I kept
+it to my most sacred privacy. He was sure that the girl existed, and
+that I knew where she lived. He was very rich, without an occupation or
+an object, and Jessy's <a name="Page_313" id="Page_313"></a>pure, lovely face haunted him day and night, and
+supplied him with a purpose.</p>
+
+<p>"He came to me one day and offering me a large sum of money, asked me
+finally to reveal at least the locality of which I had painted the
+picture. His free, frank unembarrassed manner compels me to believe that
+he had no idea of the intolerable insult he was perpetrating. He had
+always been accustomed to consider more or less money an equivalent for
+all things under the sun. But you, Jack, will easily understand that the
+offer was followed by some very angry words, and that his threat to hunt
+the world over to find my beauty was not without fear to me.</p>
+
+<p>"I heard soon after that Will Lennox had gone to the South. I had
+neither hidden nor talked about my former life and I was ignorant of how
+much he knew or did not know of it. He could trace me easily to New
+Orleans; how much further would depend upon his tact and perseverance.
+Whether he reached Guadalupe or no, I am uncertain, but my heart fell
+with a strange presentment of sorrow when I saw his name, a few weeks
+afterward, among the European departures.</p>
+
+<p>"The next thing I knew of Will Lennox was his marriage to some famous
+Scotch beauty. Jack, do you not perceive the rest? The Scotch beauty was
+Jessy Lorimer. I <a name="Page_314" id="Page_314"></a>feared it at the first. I knew it this afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you call there?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have no power to resist it. Did you not notice how eagerly she
+pressed the invitation?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do not accept it, Petralto."</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head, and remained silent. The next afternoon I was
+astonished on going up to his rooms to find Will Lennox, sitting there.
+He was talking in that loud, happy, demonstrative way so natural to men
+accustomed to have the whole world minister unto them.</p>
+
+<p>He did not see how nervous and angry Petralto was under his easy,
+boastful conversation. He did not notice the ashy face, the blazing
+eyes, the set lips, the trembling hands, of the passionate Spanish
+nature, until Petralto blazed out in a torrent of unreasonable words and
+taunts, and ordered Lennox out of his presence.</p>
+
+<p>Even then the stupid, good-natured, purse-proud man could not see his
+danger. He began to apologize to me for Petralto's rudeness, and excuse
+"anything in a fellow whom he had cut out so badly."</p>
+
+<p>"Liar!" Petralto retorted. "She loved me first; you can never have her
+whole heart. Begone! If I had you on the Guadalupe, where Jessy and I
+lived and loved, I would&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315"></a>The sentence was not finished. Lennox struck Petralto to the ground,
+and before I raised him, I persuaded the angry bridegroom to retire. I
+stayed with Petralto that night, although I was not altogether pleased
+with him. He was sulky and silent at first, but after a quiet rest and a
+few consoling Havanas he was willing to talk the affair over.</p>
+
+<p>"Lennox tortured me," he said, passionately. "How could he be so
+unfeeling, so mad, as to suppose I should care to learn what chain of
+circumstances led him to find out my love and then steal her? Everything
+he said tortured me but one fact&mdash;Jessy was alone and thoroughly
+miserable. Poor little pet! She thought I had forgotten her, and so she
+married him&mdash;not for love; I won't believe it."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I said, "Petralto, you have no right to hug such a delusion; and
+seeing that you had made no attempt to follow Jessy and marry her, she
+had every right to suppose you really had forgotten her. Besides, I
+think it very likely that she should love a young, rich, good-looking
+fellow like Will Lennox."</p>
+
+<p>"In not pursuing her I was following Jessy's own request and obeying my
+own plighted promise. It was understood between us that I should wait
+patiently until Jessy was twenty-one. Even Scotch customs <a name="Page_316" id="Page_316"></a>would then
+have regarded her as her own mistress and acknowledged her right to
+marry as she desired; and if I did not write, she has not wanted
+constant tokens of my remembrance. I have trusted her," he said,
+mournfully, "without a sign from her."</p>
+
+<p>That winter the beauty of Mrs. Lennox and the devotion of her husband
+were on every tongue. But married is not mated, and the best part of
+Jessy Lorimer's beauty had never touched Will Lennox. Her pure, simple,
+poetic temperament he had never understood, and he felt in a dim,
+uncertain way that the noblest part of his wife escaped him.</p>
+
+<p>He could not enter into her feelings, and her spiritual superiority
+unconsciously irritated him. Jessy had set her love's first music to the
+broad, artistic heart of Petralto; she could not, without wronging
+herself, decline to a lower range of feelings and a narrower heart. This
+reserve of herself was not a conscious one. She was not one of those
+self-involved women always studying their own emotions; she was simply
+true to the light within her. But her way was not Will Lennox's way, her
+finer fancies and lighter thoughts were mysteries to his grosser nature.</p>
+
+<p>So the thing happened which always has and always will happen in such
+cases; when <a name="Page_317" id="Page_317"></a>the magic and the enchantment of Jessy's great personal
+beauty had lost their first novelty and power, she gradually became to
+her husband&mdash;"Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his
+horse."</p>
+
+<p>I did not much blame Will Lennox. It is very hard to love what we do not
+comprehend. A wife who could have sympathized in his pursuits, talked
+over the chances of his "Favorite," or gone to sea with him in his
+yacht, would always have found Will an indulgent and attentive husband.
+But fast horses did not interest Jessy, and going to sea made her ill;
+so gradually these two fell much further apart than they ought to have
+done.</p>
+
+<p>Now, if Petralto had been wicked and Jessy weak, he might have revenged
+himself on the man and woman who had wrought him so much suffering. But
+he had set his love far too high to sully her white name; and Jessy, in
+that serenity which comes of lofty and assured principles, had no idea
+of the possibility of her injuring her husband by a wrong thought. Yet
+instinctively they both sought to keep apart; and if by chance they met,
+the grave courtesy of the one and the sweet dignity of the other left
+nothing for evil hopes or thoughts to feed upon. One morning, two years
+after Jessy's marriage, I received a note from Petralto, asking me to
+call upon him <a name="Page_318" id="Page_318"></a>immediately. To my amazement, his rooms were dismantled,
+his effects packed up, and he was on the point of leaving New York.</p>
+
+<p>"Whither bound?" I asked. "To Rome?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; to the Guadalupe. I want to try what nature can do for me. Art,
+society, even friendship, fail at times to comfort me for my lost love.
+I will go back to nature, the great, sweet mother and lover of men."</p>
+
+<p>So Petralto went out of New York; and the world that had known him
+forgot him&mdash;forgot even to wonder about, much less to regret, him.</p>
+
+<p>I was no more faithful than others. I fell in with a wonderful German
+philosopher, and got into the "entities" and "non-entities," forgot
+Petralto in Hegel, and felt rather ashamed of the days when I lounged
+and trifled in the artist's pleasant rooms. I was "enamored of divine
+philosophy," took no more interest in polite gossip, and did not waste
+my time reading newspapers. In fact, with Kant and Fichte before me, I
+did not feel that I had the time lawfully to spare.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, anyone may imagine my astonishment when, about three years
+after Petralto's departure from New York, he one morning suddenly
+entered my study, handsome as Apollo and happy as a bridegroom. I have
+used the word<a name="Page_319" id="Page_319"></a> "groom" very happily, for I found out in a few minutes
+that Petralto's radiant condition was, in fact, the condition of a
+bridegroom.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, under the circumstances, I could not avoid feeling
+congratulatory; and my affection for the handsome, loving fellow came
+back so strongly that I resolved to break my late habits of seclusion,
+and go to the Brevoort House and see his bride.</p>
+
+<p>I acknowledge that in this decision there was some curiosity. I wondered
+what rare woman had taken the beautiful Jessy Lorimer's place; and I
+rather enjoyed the prospect of twitting him with his protestations of
+eternal fidelity to his first love.</p>
+
+<p>I did not do it. I had no opportunity. Madame Petralto Garcia was, in
+fact, Jessy Lorimer Lennox. Of course I understood at once that Will
+must be dead; but I did not learn the particulars until the next day,
+when Petralto dropped in for a quiet smoke and chat. Not unwillingly I
+shut my book and lit my cigar.</p>
+
+<p>"'All's well that ends well,' my dear fellow," I said, when we had both
+smoked silently for a few moments; "but I never heard of Will Lennox's
+death. I hope he did not come to the Guadalupe and get shot."</p>
+
+<p>Petralto shook his head and replied: "I was always sorry for that
+threat. Will never meant to injure me. No. He was <a name="Page_320" id="Page_320"></a>drowned at sea two
+years ago. His yacht was caught in a storm, he ventured too near the
+shore, and all on board perished."</p>
+
+<p>"I did not hear of it at the time."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor I either. I will tell you how I heard. About a year ago I went, as
+was my frequent custom, to the little open glade in the forest where I
+had first seen Jessy. As I lay dreaming on the warm soft grass I saw a
+beautiful woman, clothed in black, walk slowly toward the very same
+jasmine vine, and standing as of old on tip-toe, pull down a loaded
+branch. Can you guess how my heart beat, how I leaped to my feet and
+cried out before I knew what I was doing, 'Jessy! darling Jessy!' She
+stood quite still, looking toward me. Oh, how beautiful she was! And
+when at length we clasped hands, and I gazed into her eyes, I knew
+without a word that my love had come to me."</p>
+
+<p>"She had waited a whole year?"</p>
+
+<p>"True; I liked her the better for that. After Will's death she went to
+Scotland&mdash;put both herself and me out of temptation. She owed this much
+to the memory of a man who had loved her as well as he was capable of
+doing. But I know how happy were the steps that brought her back to the
+Guadalupe, and that warm spring afternoon under the jasmine vine paid
+for all. I am the happiest man in all the wide world."</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #16222 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16222)
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Winter Evening Tales, by Amelia Edith
+Huddleston Barr
+
+
+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: Winter Evening Tales
+       "Cash," a Problem of Profit and Loss; Franz M�ller's Wife; The Voice at Midnight; Six and Half-a-Dozen; The Story of David Morrison; Tom Duffan's Daughter; The Harvest of the Wind; The Seven Wise Men of Preston; Margaret Sinclair's Silent Money; Just What He Deserved; An Only Offer; Two Fair Deceivers; The Two Mr. Smiths; The Story of Mary Neil; The Heiress of Kurston Chace; Only This Once; Petralto's Love Story
+
+
+Author: Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
+
+
+
+Release Date: July 6, 2005  [eBook #16222]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WINTER EVENING TALES***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Louise Pryor, and the
+Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+(https://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+WINTER EVENING TALES
+
+by
+
+AMELIA E. BARR
+
+Author of "A Bow of Orange Ribbon," "Jan Vedder's Wife,"
+"Friend Olivia," etc., etc.
+
+Published by
+The Christian Herald
+Louis Klopsch, Proprietor,
+Bible House, New York.
+
+1896
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+In these "Winter Evening Tales," Mrs. Barr has spread before her readers
+a feast that will afford the rarest enjoyment for many a leisure hour.
+There are few writers of the present day whose genius has such a
+luminous quality, and the spell of whose fancy carries us along so
+delightfully on its magic current. In these "Tales"--each a perfect gem
+of romance, in an artistic setting--the author has touched many phases
+of human nature. Some of the stories in the collection sparkle with the
+spirit of mirth; others give glimpses of the sadder side of life.
+Throughout all, there are found that broad sympathy and intense humanity
+that characterize every page that comes from her pen. Her men and women
+are creatures of real flesh and blood, not deftly-handled puppets; they
+move, act and speak spontaneously, with the full vigor of life and the
+strong purpose of persons who are participating in a real drama, and not
+a make-believe.
+
+Mrs. Barr has the rare gift of writing from heart to heart. She
+unconsciously infuses into her readers a liberal share of the enthusiasm
+that moves the people of her creative imagination. One cannot read any
+of her books without feeling more than a spectator's interest; we are,
+for the moment, actual sharers in the joys and the sorrows, the
+misfortunes and the triumphs of the men and women to whom she introduces
+us. Our sympathy, our love, our admiration, are kindled by their noble
+and attractive qualities; our mirth is excited by the absurd and
+incongruous aspects of some characters, and our hearts are thrilled by
+the frequent revelation of such goodness and true human feeling as can
+only come from pure and noble souls.
+
+In these "Tales," as in many of her other works, humble life has held a
+strong attraction for Mrs. Barr's pen. Her mind and heart naturally turn
+in this direction; and although her wonderful talent, within its wide
+range, deals with all stations and conditions of life, she has but
+little relish for the gilded artificialities of society, and a strong
+love for those whose condition makes life for them something real and
+earnest and definite of purpose. For this reason, among many others, the
+Christian people of America have a hearty admiration for Mrs. Barr and
+her work, knowing it to be not only of surpassing human interest, but
+spiritually helpful and inspiring, with an influence that makes for
+morality and good living, in the highest sense in which a Christian
+understands the term.
+
+G.H. SANDISON.
+
+_New York, 1896._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+"Cash;" a Problem of Profit and Loss
+Franz M�ller's Wife
+The Voice at Midnight
+Six and Half-a-Dozen
+The Story of David Morrison
+Tom Duffan's Daughter
+The Harvest of the Wind
+The Seven Wise Men of Preston
+Margaret Sinclair's Silent Money
+Just What He Deserved
+An Only Offer
+Two Fair Deceivers
+The Two Mr. Smiths
+The Story of Mary Neil
+The Heiress of Kurston Chace
+Only This Once
+Petralto's Love Story
+
+
+
+
+Winter Evening Tales.
+
+
+
+
+CASH.
+
+A PROBLEM OF PROFIT AND LOSS, WORKED BY DAVID LOCKERBY.
+
+
+PART I.
+
+     "Gold may be dear bought."
+
+A narrow street with dreadful "wynds" and "vennels" running back from it
+was the High street of Glasgow at the time my story opens. And yet,
+though dirty, noisy and overcrowded with sin and suffering, a flavor of
+old time royalty and romance lingered amid its vulgar surroundings; and
+midway of its squalid length a quaint brown frontage kept behind it
+noble halls of learning, and pleasant old courts full of the "air of
+still delightful studies."
+
+From this building came out two young men in academic costume. One of
+them set his face dourly against the clammy fog and drizzling rain,
+breathing it boldly, as if it was the balmiest oxygen; the other,
+shuddering, drew his scarlet toga around him and said, mournfully,
+"Ech, Davie, the High street is an ill furlong on the de'il's road! I
+never tread it, but I think o' the weary, weary miles atween it and
+Eden."
+
+"There is no road without its bad league, Willie, and the High street
+has its compensations; its prison for ill-doers, its learned college,
+and its holy High Kirk. I am one of St. Mungo's bairns, and I'm not
+above preaching for my saint."
+
+"And St. Mungo will be proud of your birthday yet, Davie. With such a
+head and such a tongue, with knowledge behind, and wit to the fore,
+there is a broad road and an open door for David Lockerby. You may come
+even to be the Lord Rector o' Glasgow College yet."
+
+"Wisdom is praised and starves; I am thinking it would set me better to
+be Lord Provost of Glasgow city."
+
+"The man who buried his one talent did not go scatheless, Davie; and
+what now if he had had ten?"
+
+"You are aye preaching, Willie, and whiles it is very untimeous. Are you
+going to Mary Moir's to-night?"
+
+"Why should I? The only victory over love is through running away."
+
+David looked sharply at his companion but as they were at the Trongate
+there was no time for further remark. Willie Caird turned eastward
+toward Glasgow Green, David hailed a passing omnibus and was soon set
+down before a handsome house on the Sauchiehall Road. He went in by the
+back door, winning from old Janet, in spite of herself, the grimmest
+shadow of a smile.
+
+"Are my father and mother at home, Janet?"
+
+"Deed are they, the mair by token that they hae been quarreling anent
+you till the peacefu' folks like mysel' could hae wished them mair
+sense, or further away."
+
+"Why should they quarrel about me?"
+
+"Why, indeed, since they'll no win past your ain makin' or marring? But
+the mistress is some kin to Zebedee's wife, I'm thinking, and she wad
+fain set you up in a pu'pit and gie you the keys o' St. Peter; while
+maister is for haeing you it a bank or twa in your pouch, and add
+Ellenmount to Lockerby, and--"
+
+"And if I could, Janet?"
+
+"Tut, tut, lad! If it werna for 'if' you might put auld Scotland in a
+bottle."
+
+"But what was the upshot, Janet?"
+
+"I canna tell. God alone understan's quarreling folk."
+
+Then David went upstairs to his own room, and when he came down again
+his face was set as dourly against the coming interview as it had been
+against the mist and rain. The point at issue was quite familiar to
+him; his mother wished him to continue his studies and prepare for the
+ministry. In her opinion the greatest of all men were the servants of
+the King, and a part of the spiritual power and social influence which
+they enjoyed in St. Mungo's ancient city she earnestly coveted for her
+son. "Didn't the Bailies and the Lord Provost wait for them? And were
+not even the landed gentry and nobles obligated to walk behind a
+minister in his gown and bands?"
+
+Old Andrew Lockerby thought the honor good enough, but money was better.
+All the twenty years that his wife had been dreaming of David ruling his
+flock from the very throne of a pulpit, Andrew had been dreaming of him
+becoming a great merchant or banker, and winning back the fair lands of
+Ellenmount, once the patrimonial estate of the house of Lockerby. During
+these twenty years both husband and wife had clung tenaciously to their
+several intentions.
+
+Now David's teachers--without any knowledge of these diverse
+influences--had urged on him the duty of cultivating the unusual talents
+confided to him, and of consecrating them to some noble service of God
+and humanity. But David was ruled by many opposite feelings, and had
+with all his book-learning the very smallest intimate acquaintance with
+himself. He knew neither his strong points nor his weak ones, and had
+not even a suspicion of the mighty potency of that mysterious love for
+gold which really was the ruling passion in his breast.
+
+The argument so long pending he knew was now to be finally settled, and
+he was by no means unprepared for the discussion. He came slowly down
+stairs, counting the points he wished to make on his fingers, and quite
+resolved neither to be coaxed nor bullied out of his own individual
+opinion. He was a handsome, stalwart fellow, as Scotchmen of
+two-and-twenty go, for it takes about thirty-five years to fill up and
+perfect the massive frames of "the men of old Gaul." About his
+thirty-fifth year David would doubtless be a man of noble presence; but
+even now there was a sense of youth and power about him that was very
+attractive, as with a grave smile he lifted a book, and comfortably
+disposed himself in an easy chair by the window. For David knew better
+than begin the conversation; any advantages the defendant might have he
+determined to retain.
+
+After a few minutes' silence his father said, "What are you reading,
+Davie? It ought to be a guid book that puts guid company in the
+background."
+
+David leisurely turned to the title page. "'Selections from the Latin
+Poets,' father."
+
+"A fool is never a great fool until he kens Latin. Adam Smith or some
+book o' commercial economics wad set ye better, Davie."
+
+"Adam Smith is good company for them that are going his way, father: but
+there is no way a man may take and not find the humanities good
+road-fellows."
+
+"Dinna beat around the bush, guidman; tell Davie at once that you want
+him to go 'prentice to Mammon. He kens well enough whether he can serve
+him or no."
+
+"I want Davie to go 'prentice to your ain brither, guid wife--it's nane
+o' my doing if you ca' your ain kin ill names--and, Davie, your uncle
+maks you a fair offer, an' you'll just be a born fool to refuse it."
+
+"What is it, father?"
+
+"Twa years you are to serve him for �200 a year; and at the end, if both
+are satisfied, he will gie you sich a share in the business as I can buy
+you--and, Davie, I'se no be scrimping for such an end. It's the auldest
+bank in Soho, an' there's nane atween you and the head o' it. Dinna
+fling awa' good fortune--dinna do it, Davie, my dear lad. I hae look it
+to you for twenty years to finish what I hae begun--for twenty years I
+hae been telling mysel' 'my Davie will win again the bonnie braes o'
+Ellenmount.'"
+
+There were tears in old Andrew's eyes, and David's heart thrilled and
+warmed to the old man's words; in that one flash of sympathy they came
+nearer to each other than they had ever done before.
+
+And then spoke his mother: "Davie, my son, you'll no listen to ony sich
+temptation. My brither is my brither, and there are few folk o' the
+Gordon line a'thegither wrang, but Alexander Gordon is a dour man, and I
+trow weel you'll serve hard for ony share in his money bags. You'll just
+gang your ways back to college and tak' up your Greek and Hebrew and
+serve in the Lord's temple instead of Alexander Gordon's Soho Bank; and,
+Davie, if you'll do right in this matter you'll win my blessing and
+every plack and bawbee o' my money." Then, seeing no change in David's
+face, she made her last, great concession--"And, Davie, you may marry
+Mary Moir, an' it please you, and I'll like the lassie as weel as may
+be."
+
+"Your mither, like a' women, has sought you wi' a bribe in her hand,
+Davie. You ken whether she has bid your price or not. When you hae
+served your twa years I'se buy you a �20,000 share in the Gordon Bank,
+and a man wi' �20,000 can pick and choose the wife he likes best. But
+I'm aboon bribing you--a fair offer isna a bribe."
+
+The concession as to Mary Moir was the one which Davie had resolved to
+make his turning point, and now both father and mother had virtually
+granted it. He had told himself that no lot in life would be worth
+having without Mary, and that with her any lot would be happy. Now that
+he had been left free in this matter he knew his own mind as little as
+ever.
+
+"The first step binds to the next," he answered, thoughtfully. "Mary may
+have something to say. Night brings counsel. I will e'en think over
+things until the morn."
+
+A little later he was talking both offers over with Mary Moir, and
+though it took four hours to discuss them they did not find the subject
+tedious. It was very late when he returned home, but he knew by the
+light in the house-place that Janet was waiting up for him. Coming out
+of the wet, dark night, it was pleasant to see the blazing ingle, the
+white-sanded floor, and the little round table holding some cold
+moor-cock and the pastry that he particularly liked.
+
+"Love is but cauldrife cheer, my lad," said Janet, "an' the breast o' a
+bird an' a raspberry tartlet will be nane out o' the way." David was of
+the same opinion. He was very willing to enjoy Janet's good things and
+the pleasant light and warmth. Besides, Janet was his oldest confidant
+and friend--a friend that had never failed him in any of his boyish
+troubles or youthful scrapes.
+
+It gave her pleasure enough for a while to watch him eat, but when he
+pushed aside the bird and stretched out his hand for the raspberry
+dainties, she said, "Now talk a bit, my lad. If others hae wared money
+on you, I hae wared love, an' I want to ken whether you are going to
+college, or whether you are going to Lunnon amang the proud, fause
+Englishers?"
+
+"I am going to London, Janet."
+
+"Whatna for?"
+
+"I am not sure that I have any call to be a minister, Janet--it is a
+solemn charge."
+
+"Then why not ask for a sure call? There is nae key to God's council
+chamber that I ken of."
+
+"Mary wants me to go to London."
+
+"Ech, sirs! Sets Deacon Moir's dochter to send a lad a wrang road. I
+wouldna hae thocht wi' her bringing up she could hae swithered for a
+moment--but it's the auld, auld story; where the deil canna go by
+himsel' he sends a woman. And David Lockerby will tyne his inheritance
+for a pair o' blue e'en and a handfu' o' gowden curls. Waly! waly! but
+the children o' Esau live for ever."
+
+"Mary said,"--
+
+"I dinna want to hear what Mary said. It would hae been nae loss if
+she'd ne'er spoken on the matter; but if you think makin' money, an'
+hoarding money is the measure o' your capacity you ken yousel', sir,
+dootless. Howsomever you'll go to your ain room now; I'm no going to
+keep my auld e'en waking just for a common business body."
+
+Thus in spite of his father's support, David did not find his road to
+London as fair and straight as he could have wished. Janet was deeply
+offended at him, and she made him feel it in a score of little ways very
+annoying to a man fond of creature comforts and human sympathy. His
+mother went about the necessary preparations in a tearful mood that was
+a constant reproach, and his friend Willie did not scruple to tell him
+that "he was clean out o' the way o' duty."
+
+"God has given you a measure o' St. Paul's power o' argument, Davie, and
+the verra tongue o' Apollos--weapons wherewith to reason against all
+unrighteousness and to win the souls o' men."
+
+"Special pleading, Willie."
+
+"Not at all. Every man's life bears its inscription if he will take the
+trouble to read it. There was James Grahame, born, as you may say, wi' a
+sword in his hand, and Bauldy Strang wi' a spade, and Andrew Semple took
+to the balances and the 'rithmetic as a duck takes to the water. Do you
+not mind the day you spoke anent the African missions to the young men
+in St. Andrews' Ha'? Your words flew like arrows--every ane o' them to
+its mark; and your heart burned and your e'en glowed, till we were a' on
+fire with you, and there wasna a lad there that wouldna hae followed you
+to the vera Equator. I wouldna dare to bury such a power for good,
+Davie, no, not though I buried it fathoms deep in gold."
+
+From such interviews as these Davie went home very miserable. If it had
+not been for Mary Moir he would certainly have gone back to his old seat
+by Willie Caird in the Theological Hall. But Mary had such splendid
+dreams of their life in London, and she looked in her hope and beauty so
+bewitching, that he could not bear to hint a disappointment to her.
+Besides, he doubted whether she was really fit for a minister's wife,
+even if he should take up the cross laid down before him--and as for
+giving up Mary, he would not admit to himself that there could be a
+possible duty in such a contingency.
+
+But that even his father had doubts and hesitations was proven to David
+by the contradictory nature of his advice and charges. Thus on the
+morning he left Glasgow, and as they were riding together to the
+Caledonian station, the old man said, "Your uncle has given you a seat
+in his bank, Davie, and you'll mak' room for yoursel' to lie down, I'se
+warrant. But you'll no forget that when a guid man thrives a' should
+thrive i' him; and giving for God's sake never lessens the purse."
+
+"I am but one in a world full, father. I hope I shall never forget to
+give according to my prosperings."
+
+"Tak the world as it is, my lad, and no' as it ought to be; and never
+forget that money is money's brither--an' you put two pennies in a purse
+they'll creep thegither.
+
+"But then Davie, I am free to say gold won't buy everything, and though
+rich men hae long hands, they won't reach to heaven. So, though you'll
+tak guid care o' yoursel', you will also gie to God the things that are
+God's."
+
+"I have been brought up in the fear of God and the love of mankind,
+father. It would be an ill thing for me to slink out of life and leave
+the world no better for my living."
+
+"God bless you, lad; and the �20,000 will be to the fore when it is
+called for, and you shall make it �60,000, and I'll see again Ellenmount
+in the Lockerby's keeping. But you'll walk in the ways o' your fathers,
+and gie without grudging of your increase."
+
+David nodded rather impatiently. He could hardly understand the
+struggle going on in his father's heart--the wish to say something that
+might quiet his own conscience, and yet not make David's unnecessarily
+tender. It is hard serving God and Mammon, and Andrew Lockerby was
+miserable and ashamed that morning in the service.
+
+And yet he was not selfish in the matter--that much in his favor must be
+admitted. He would rather have had the fine, handsome lad he loved so
+dearly going in and out his own house. He could have taken great
+interest in all his further studies, and very great pride in seeing him
+a successful "placed minister;" but there are few Scotsmen in whom pride
+of lineage and the good of the family does not strike deeper than
+individual pleasure. Andrew really believed that David's first duty was
+to the house of Lockerby.
+
+He had sacrificed a great deal toward this end all his own life, nor
+were his sacrifices complete with the resignation of his only child to
+the same purpose. To a man of more than sixty years of age it is a great
+trial to have an unusual and unhappy atmosphere in his home; and though
+Mrs. Lockerby was now tearful and patient under her disappointment,
+everyone knows that tears and patience may be a miserable kind of
+comfort. Then, though Janet had as yet preserved a dour and angry
+silence, he knew that sooner or later she would begin a guerilla warfare
+of sharp words, which he feared he would have mainly to bear, for Janet,
+though his housekeeper, was also "a far-awa cousin," had been forty
+years in his house, and was not accustomed to withhold her opinions on
+any subject.
+
+Fortunately for Andrew Lockerby, Janet finally selected Mary Moir as the
+Eve specially to blame in this transgression. "A proud up-head lassie,"
+she asserted, "that cam o' a family wha would sell their share o' the
+sunshine for pounds sterling!"
+
+From such texts as this the two women in the Lockerby house preached
+little daily sermons to each other, until comfort grew out of the very
+stem of their sorrow, and they began to congratulate each other that
+"puir Davie was at ony rate outside the glamour o' Mary Moir's
+temptations."
+
+"For she just bewitched the laddie," said Janet, angrily; and,
+doubtless, if the old laws regarding witches had been in Janet's
+administration it would have gone hardly with pretty Mary Moir.
+
+
+PART II.
+
+"God's work is soon done."
+
+It is a weary day when the youth first discovers that after all he will
+only become a man; and this discovery came with a depressing weight one
+morning to David, after he had been counting bank notes for three hours.
+It was noon, but the gas was lit, and in the heavy air a dozen men sat
+silent as statues, adding up figures and making entries. He thought of
+the college courts, and the college green, of the crowded halls, and the
+symposia, where both mind and body had equal refection. There had been
+days when he had a part in these things, and when to "strive with things
+impossible," or "to pluck honor from the pale-faced moon," had not been
+unreasonable or rash; but now it almost seemed as if Mr. Buckle's dreary
+gospel was a reality, and men were machines, and life was an affair to
+be tabulated in averages.
+
+He had just had a letter from Willie Caird, too, and it had irritated
+him. The wounds of a friend may be faithful, but they are not always
+welcome. David determined to drop the correspondence. Willie was going
+one way and he another. They might never see each other again; and--
+
+          If they should meet one day,
+          If _both_ should not forget
+    They could clasp hands the accustomed way.
+
+For by simply going with the current in which in great measure, subject
+yet to early influences, he found himself, David Lockerby had drifted in
+one twelve months far enough away from the traditions and feelings of
+his home and native land. Not that he had broken loose into any flagrant
+sin, or in any manner cast a shadow on the perfect respectability of his
+name. The set in which Alexander Gordon and his nephew lived sanctioned
+nothing of the kind. They belonged to the best society, and were of
+those well-dressed, well-behaved people whom Canon Kingsley described as
+"the sitters in pews."
+
+In their very proper company David had gone to ball and party, to opera
+and theatre. On wet Sundays they sat together in St. George's Church; on
+fine Sundays they had sailed quietly down the Thames, and eaten their
+dinner at Richmond. Now, sin is sin beyond all controversy, but there
+were none of David's companions to whom these things were sins in the
+same degree as they were to David.
+
+To none of them had the holy Sabbath ever been the day it had been to
+him; to none of them was it so richly freighted with memories of
+wonderful sermons and solemn sacraments that were foretastes of heaven.
+Coming with a party of gentlemanly fellows slowly rowing up the Thames
+and humming some passionate recitative from an opera, he alone could
+recall the charmful stillness of a Scotch Sabbath, the worshiping
+crowds, and the evening psalm ascending from so many thousand
+hearthstones:
+
+    O God of Bethel, by whose hand
+      Thy people still are led.
+
+He alone, as the oars kept time to "aria" or "chorus," heard above the
+witching melody the solemn minor of "St. Mary's," or the tearful
+tenderness of "Communion."
+
+To most of his companions opera and theatre had come as a matter of
+course, as a part of their daily life and education. David had been
+obliged to stifle conscience, to disobey his father's counsels and his
+mother's pleadings, before he could enjoy them. He had had, in fact, to
+cultivate a taste for the sin before the sin was pleasant to him; and he
+frankly told himself that night, in thinking it all over, that it was
+harder work getting to hell than to heaven.
+
+But then in another year he would become a partner, marry Mary, and
+begin a new life. Suddenly it struck him with a new force that he had
+not heard from Mary for nearly three weeks. A fear seized him that
+while he had been dancing and making merry Mary had been ill and
+suffering. He was amazed at his own heartlessness, for surely nothing
+but sickness would have made Mary forget him.
+
+The next morning as he went to the bank he posted a long letter to her,
+full of affection and contrition and rose-colored pictures of their
+future life. He had risen an hour earlier to write it, and he did not
+fail to notice what a healthy natural pleasure even this small effort of
+self-denial gave him. He determined that he would that very night write
+long letters to his mother and Janet, and even to his father. "There was
+a good deal he wanted to say to him about money matters, and his
+marriage, and fore-talk always saved after-talk, besides it would keep
+the influence of the old and better life around him to be in closer
+communion with it."
+
+Thus thinking, he opened the door of his uncle's private room, and said
+cheerily, "Good morning, uncle."
+
+"Good morning, Davie. Your father is here."
+
+Then Andrew Lockerby came forward, and his son met him with outstretched
+hands and paling cheeks. "What is it, father? Mother? Mary? Is she
+dead?"
+
+"'Deed, no, my lad. There's naething wrang but will turn to right. Mary
+Moir was married three days syne, and I thocht you wad rather hear the
+news from are that loved you. That's a', Davie; and indeed it's a loss
+that's a great gain."
+
+"Who did she marry?"
+
+"Just a bit wizened body frae the East Indies, a'most as yellow as his
+gold, an' as auld as her father. But the Deacon is greatly set up wi'
+the match--or the settlements--and Mary comes o' a gripping kind.
+There's her brother Gavin, he'd sell the ears aff his head, an' they
+werena fastened on."
+
+Then David went away with his father, and after half-an-hour's talk on
+the subject together it was never mentioned more between them. But it
+was a blow that killed effectually all David's eager yearnings for a
+loftier and purer life. And it not only did this, but it also caused to
+spring up into active existence a passion which was to rule him
+absolutely--a passion for gold. Love had failed him, friendship had
+proved an annoyance, company, music, feasting, amusements of all kinds
+were a weariness now to think of. There seemed nothing better for him
+than to become a rich man.
+
+"I'll buy so many acres of old Scotland and call them by the Lockerby's
+name; and I'll have nobles and great men come bowing and becking to
+David Lockerby as they do to Alexander Gordon. Love is refused, and
+wisdom is scorned, but everybody is glad to take money; then money is
+best of all things."
+
+Thus David reasoned, and his father said nothing against his arguments.
+Indeed, they had never understood one another so well. David, for the
+first time, asked all about the lands of Ellenmount, and pledged
+himself, if he lived and prospered, to fulfill his father's hope.
+Indeed, Andrew was altogether so pleased with his son that he told his
+brother-in-law that the �20,000 would be forthcoming as soon as ever he
+choose to advance David in the firm.
+
+"I was only waiting, Lockerby, till Davie got through wi' his playtime.
+The lad's myself o'er again, an' I ken weel he'll ne'er be contented
+until he settles cannily doon to his interest tables."
+
+So before Andrew Lockerby went back to Glasgow David was one of the firm
+of Gordon & Co., sat in the directors' room, and began to feel some of
+the pleasant power of having money to lend. After this he was rarely
+seen among men of his own age--women he never mingled with. He removed
+to his uncle's stately house in Baker street, and assimilated his life
+very much to that of the older money maker. Occasionally he took a run
+northward to Glasgow, or a month's vacation on the Continent, but
+nearly all such journeys were associated with some profitable loan or
+investment. People began to speak of him as a most admirable young man,
+and indeed in some respects he merited the praise. No son ever more
+affectionately honored his father and mother, and Janet had been made an
+independent woman by his grateful consideration.
+
+He was so admirable that he ceased to interest people, and every time he
+visited Glasgow fewer and fewer of his old acquaintances came to see
+him. A little more than ten years after his admission to the firm of
+Gordon & Co. he came home at the new year, and presented his father with
+the title-deeds of Ellenmount and Netherby. The next day old Andrew was
+welcomed on the City Exchange as "Lockerby of Ellenmount, gentleman." "I
+hae lived lang enough to hae seen this day," he said, with happy tears;
+and David felt a joy in his father's joy that he did not know again for
+many years. For while a man works for another there is an ennobling
+element in his labor, but when he works simply for himself he has become
+the greatest of all slaves. This slavery David now willingly assumed;
+the accumulation of money became his business, his pleasure, the sum of
+his daily life.
+
+Ten years later both his uncle and father were dead, and both had left
+David every shilling they possessed. Then he went on working more
+eagerly than ever, turning his tens of thousands into hundreds of
+thousands and adding acre to acre, and farm to farm, until Lockerby was
+the richest estate in Annandale. When he was forty-five years of age
+fortune seemed to have given him every good gift except wife and
+children, and his mother, who had nothing else to fret about, worried
+Janet continually on this subject.
+
+"Wife an' bairns, indeed!" said Janet; "vera uncertain comforts, ma'am,
+an' vera certain cares. Our Master Davie likes aye to be sure o' his
+bargains."
+
+"Weel, Janet, it's a great cross to me--an' him sae honored, an' guid
+an' rich, wi' no a shilling ill-saved to shame him."
+
+"Tut, tut, ma'am! The river doesna' swell wi' clean water. Naebody's
+charged him wi' wrangdoing--that's enough. There's nae need to set him
+up for a saint."
+
+"An' you wanted him to be a minister, Janet."
+
+"I was that blind--ance."
+
+"We are blind creatures, Janet."
+
+"Wi' _excepts_, ma'am; but they'll ne'er be found amang mithers."
+
+This conversation took place one lovely Sabbath evening, and just at the
+same time David was standing thoughtfully on Princes street, Edinburgh,
+wondering to which church he had better turn his steps. For a sudden
+crisis in the affairs of a bank in that city had brought him hurriedly
+to Scotland, and he was not only a prudent man who considered public
+opinion, but was also in a mood to conciliate that opinion so long as
+the outward conditions were favorable. Whatever he might do in London,
+in Scotland he always went to morning and evening service.
+
+He was also one of those self-dependent men who dislike to ask questions
+or advice from anyone. Though a comparative stranger he would not have
+allowed himself to think that anyone could direct him better than he
+could choose for himself. He looked up and down the street, and finally
+followed a company which increased continually until they entered an old
+church in the Canongate.
+
+Its plain wooden pews and old-fashioned elevated pulpit rather pleased
+than offended David, and the air of antiquity about the place
+consecrated it in his eyes. Men like whatever reminds them of their
+purest and best days, and David had been once in the old Relief Church
+on the Doo Hill in Glasgow--just such a large, bare, solemn-looking
+house of worship. The still, earnest men and women, the droning of the
+precentor, the antiquated singing pleased and soothed him. He did not
+notice much the thin little fair man who conducted the services; for he
+was holding a session with his own soul.
+
+A peculiar movement among the congregation announced that the sermon was
+beginning, and David, looking up, saw that the officiating minister had
+been changed. This man was swarthy and tall, and looked like some old
+Jewish prophet, as he lifted his rapt face and cried, like one crying in
+the wilderness, "Friends! I have a question to ask you to-night: '_What
+shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own
+soul_?'"
+
+For twenty-three years David had silenced that voice, but it had found
+him out again--it was Willie Caird's. At first interested and curious,
+David soon became profoundly moved as Willie, in clear, solemn,
+thrilling sentences, reasoned of life and death and judgment to come.
+Not that he followed his arguments, or was more than dimly conscious of
+the moving eloquence that stirred the crowd as a mighty wind stirs the
+trees in the forest: for that dreadful question smote, and smote, and
+smote upon his heart as if determined to have an answer.
+
+_What shall it profit? What shall it profit? What shall it profit_?
+David was quick enough at counting material loss and profit, but here
+was a question beyond his computation. He went silently out of the
+church, and wandered away by Holyrood Palace and St. Anthony's Chapel to
+the pathless, lonely beauty of Salisbury Crags. There was no answer in
+nature for him. The stars were silent above, the earth silent beneath.
+Weariness brought him no rest; if he slept, he woke with the start of a
+hunted soul, and found him asking that same dreadful question. When he
+looked in the mirror his own face queried of him, "What profit?" and he
+was compelled to make a decided effort to prevent his tongue uttering
+the ever present thought.
+
+But at noon he would meet the defaulting bank committee, "and doubtless
+his lawful business would take its proper share of his thought!" He told
+himself that it was the voice and face of his old friend that had
+affected him so vividly, and that if he went and chatted over old times
+with Willie, he would get rid of the disagreeable influence.
+
+The influence, however, went with him into the creditors' committee
+room. The embarrassed officials had dreaded greatly the interview. No
+one hoped for more than bare justice from David Lockerby. "Clemency,
+help, sympathy! You'll get blood out o' a stane first, gentlemen," said
+the old cashier, with a dour, hopeless face.
+
+And yet that morning David Lockerby amazed no one so much as himself.
+He went to the meeting quite determined to have his own--only his
+own--but something asked him, "_What shall it profit_?" and he gave up
+his lawful increase and even offered help. He went determined to speak
+his mind very plainly about mismanagement and the folly of having
+losses; and something asked him, "_What shall it profit_?" and he gave
+such sympathy with his help that the money came with a blessing in its
+hand.
+
+The feeling of satisfaction was so new to him that it embarrassed and
+almost made him ashamed. He slipped ungraciously away from the thanks
+that ought to have been pleasant, and found himself, almost
+unconsciously, looking up Willie's name in the clerical directory, "Dr.
+William Caird, 22 Moray place." David knew enough of Edinburgh to know
+that Moray place contained the handsomest residences in the city, and
+therefore he was not astonished at the richness and splendor of Willie's
+library; but he was astonished to see him surrounded by five beautiful
+boys and girls, and evidently as much interested in their lessons and
+sports as if he was one of them.
+
+"Ech! Davie man! but I'm glad to see you!" That was all of Willie's
+greeting, but his eyes filled, and as the friends held each other's
+hands Davie came very near touching for a moment a David Lockerby no one
+had seen for many long years. But he said nothing during his visit of
+Willie's sermon, nor indeed in several subsequent ones. Scotsmen are
+reticent on all matters, and especially reticent about spiritual
+experience; and though Davie lingered in Edinburgh a week, he was
+neither able to speak to Willie about his soul, nor yet in all their
+conversations get rid of that haunting, uncomfortable influence Willie
+had raised.
+
+But as they stood before the Queen's Hotel at midnight bidding each
+other an affectionate farewell, David suddenly turned Willie round and
+opened up his whole heart to him. And as he talked he found himself able
+to define what had been only hitherto a vague, restless sense of want.
+
+"I am the poorest rich man and the most miserable failure, Willie Caird,
+that ever you asked yon fearsome question of--and I know it. I have
+achieved millions, and I am a conscious bankrupt to my own soul. I have
+wasted my youth, neglected my talents and opportunities, and whatever
+the world may call me I am a wretched breakdown. I have made
+money--plenty of it--and it does not pay me. What am I to do?"
+
+"You ken, Davie, my dear, dear lad, what advice the Lord Jesus gave to
+the rich man--'distribute unto the poor--and come, follow me!'"
+
+Then up and down Princes street, and away under the shadow of the Castle
+Hill, Willie and David walked and talked, till the first sunbeams
+touched St. Leonard's Crags. If it was a long walk a grand work was laid
+out in it.
+
+"You shall be more blessed than your namesake," said Willie, "for though
+David gathered the gold, and the wood, and the stone, Solomon builded
+therewith. Now, an' it please God, you shall do your ain work, and see
+the topstone brought on with rejoicing."
+
+Then at David's command, workmen gathered in companies, and some of the
+worst "vennels" in old Glasgow were torn down; and the sunshine flooded
+"wynds" it had scarcely touched for centuries, and a noble building
+arose that was to be a home for children that had no home. And the farms
+of Ellenmount fed them, and the fleeces of Lockerby clothed them, and
+into every young hand was put a trade that would win it honest bread.
+
+In a short time even this undertaking began to be too small for David's
+energies and resources, and he joined hands with Willie in many other
+good works, and gave not only freely of his gold, but also of his time
+and labor. The old eloquence that stirred his classmates in St. Andrew's
+Hall, "till they would have followed him to the equator" began to stir
+the cautious Glasgow traders to the bottom of their hearts, and their
+pocketbooks; and men who didn't want to help in a crusade against
+drunkenness, or in a crusade for the spread of the Gospel, stopped away
+from Glasgow City Hall when David Lockerby filled the chair at a public
+meeting and started a subscription list with �1000 down on the table.
+
+But there were two old ladies that never stopped away, though one of
+them always declared "Master Davie had fleeched her last bawbee out o'
+her pouch;" and the other generally had her little whimper about Davie
+"waring his substance upon ither folks' bairns."
+
+"There's bonnie Bessie Lament, Janet; an' he would marry her we might
+live to see his ain sons and daughters in the old house."
+
+"'Deed, then, ma'am, our Davie has gotten him a name better than that o'
+sons an' dochters; and though I am sair disappointed in him--"
+
+"You shouldn't say that, Janet; he made a gran' speech the day."
+
+"A speech isna' a sermon, ma'am; though I'll ne'er belittle a speech wi'
+a �1000 argument."
+
+"And there was Deacon Moir, Janet, who didna approve o' the scheme, and
+who would therefore gie nothing at a'."
+
+"The Deacon is sae godly that God doesna get a chance to improve his
+condition, ma'am. But for a' o' Deacon Moir's disapproval I'se count on
+the good work going on."
+
+"'Deed yes, Janet, and though our Davie should ne'er marry at a'--"
+
+"There'll be generations o' lads an' lasses, ma'am, that will rise up in
+auld Scotland an' go up an' down through a' the warld a' ca' David
+Lockerby 'blessed.'"
+
+
+
+
+FRANZ M�LLER'S WIFE.
+
+
+"Franz, good morning. Whose philosophy is it now? Hegel, Spinosa, Kant
+or Dugald Stewart?"
+
+"None of them. I am reading _Faust_."
+
+"Worse and worse. Better wrestle with philosophies than lose yourself in
+the clouds. At any rate, if the poets are to send the philosophers to
+the right about, stick to Shakespeare."
+
+"He is too material. He can't get rid of men and women."
+
+"They are a little better, I should think, than Mephisto. Come, Franz,
+condescend to cravats and kid gloves, and let us go and see my cousin
+Christine Stromberg."
+
+"I do not know the young lady."
+
+"Of course not. She has just returned from a Munich school. Her brother
+Max was at the Lyndons' great party, you remember?"
+
+"I don't remember, Louis. In white cravats and black coats all men look
+alike."
+
+"But you will go?"
+
+"If you wish it, yes. There are some uncut reviews on the table: amuse
+yourself while I dress."
+
+"Thanks, I have my cigar case. I will take a smoke and think of
+Christine."
+
+For some reason quite beyond analysis, Franz did not like this speech.
+He had never seen Christine Stromberg, but yet he half resented the
+careless use of her name. It fell upon some soul consciousness like a
+familiar and personal name, and yet he vainly recalled every phase of
+his life for any clew to this familiarity.
+
+He was a handsome fellow, with large, clearly-cut features and gray,
+thoughtful eyes. In a conversation that interested him his face lighted
+up with a singularly beautiful animation, but usually it was as still
+and passionless as if the soul was away on a dream or a visit. Even the
+regulation cravat and coat could not destroy his individuality, and
+Louis looked admiringly at him, and said, "You are still Franz M�ller.
+No one is just like you. I should think Cousin Christine will fall in
+love with you."
+
+Again Franz's heart resented this speech. It had been waiting for love
+for many a year, but he could not jest or speculate about it. No one but
+the thoughtless, favored Louis ever dared to do it before Franz, and no
+one ever spoke lightly of women before him, for the worst of men are
+sensitive to the presence of a pure and lofty nature, and are generally
+willing to respect it.
+
+Franz dreamed of women, but only of noble women, and even for those who
+fell below his ideal he had a thousand apologies and a world of pity. It
+was strange that such a man should have lived thirty years, and never
+have really loved any mortal woman. But his hour had come at last. As
+soon as he saw Christine Stromberg he loved her. A strange exaltation
+possessed him; his face was radiant; he talked and sung with a
+brilliancy that amazed even those most familiar with his rare
+exhibitions of such moods. And Christine seemed fascinated by his beauty
+and wit. The hours passed like moments; and when the girl stood watching
+him down the moon-lit avenue, she almost trembled to remember what
+questions Franz's eyes had asked her and how strangely familiar the
+clasp of his hand and the sound of his voice had seemed to her.
+
+"I wonder where I have seen him before," she murmured--"I wonder where
+it was?" and to this thought she slowly took off one by one her jewels,
+and brushed out her long black hair; nay, when she fell asleep, it was
+only to take it up again in dreams.
+
+As for Franz, he was in far too ecstatic a mood to think of sleep. "One
+has too few of such godlike moments to steep them in unconsciousness,"
+he said to himself. And so he sat smoking and thinking and watching the
+waning moon sink lower and lower, until it was no longer night, but
+dawning day.
+
+"In a few hours now I can go and see Christine." At this point in his
+love he had no other thought. He was too happy to speculate on any
+probability as yet. It was sufficient at present to know that he had
+found his love, that she lived at a definite number on a definite
+avenue, and that in six or seven hours more he might see her again.
+
+He chose the earlier number. It was just eleven o'clock when he rung Mr.
+Stromberg's bell. Mrs. Stromberg passed through the hall as he entered,
+and greeted him pleasantly. "Christine and I are just going to have
+breakfast," she said, in her jolly, hearty way. "Come in Mr. M�ller, and
+have a cup of coffee with us."
+
+Nothing could have delighted Franz so much. Christine was pouring it out
+as he entered the pretty breakfast parlor. How beautiful she looked in
+her long loose morning dress! How, bewitching were its numerous bows of
+pale ribbon! He had a sense of hunger immediately, and he knew that he
+made an excellent breakfast; but of what he ate or what he drank he had
+not the slightest conception.
+
+A cup of coffee passing through Christine's, hands necessarily suffered
+some wonderful change. It could not, and it did not, taste like
+ordinary coffee. In the same mysterious way chicken, eggs and rolls
+became sublimated. So they ate and laughed and chatted, and I am quite
+sure that Milton never imagined a meal in Eden half so delightful as
+that breakfast on the avenue.
+
+When it was over, it came into Franz's heart to offer Christine a ride.
+They were standing together among the flowers in the bay window, and the
+trees outside were in their first tender green, and the spring skies and
+the spring airs were full of happiness and hope. Christine was arranging
+and watering her lilies and pansies, and somehow in helping her Franz's
+hands and hers had lingered happily together. So now love gave to this
+mortal an immortal's confidence. He never thought of sighing and fearing
+and trembling. His soul had claimed Christine, and he firmly believed
+that sooner or later she would hear and understand what he had to say to
+her.
+
+"Shall we ride?" he said, just touching her fingers, and looking at her
+with eyes and face glowing with a wonderful happiness.
+
+Alas, Christine could think of mamma, and of morning calls and of what
+people would say. But Franz overruled every scruple; he conquered mamma,
+and laughed at society; and before Christine had decided which of her
+costumes was most becoming, Franz was waiting at the door.
+
+How they rattled up the avenue and through the park! How the green
+branches waved in triumph, and how the birds sang and gossiped about
+them! By the time they arrived at Mount St. Vincent they had forgotten
+they were mortal. Then the rest in the shady gallery, and the subsidence
+of love's exaltation into love's silent tender melancholy, were just as
+blissful.
+
+They came slowly home, speaking only in glances and monosyllables, but
+just before they parted Franz said, "I have been waiting thirty years
+for you, Christine; to-day my life has blossomed."
+
+And though Christine did not make any audible answer, he thought her
+blush sufficient; besides, she took the lilies from her throat and gave
+them to him.
+
+Such a dream of love is given only to the few whom the gods favor. Franz
+must have stood high in their grace, for it lasted through many sweet
+weeks and months for him. He followed the Strombergs to Newport, and
+laid his whole life down at Christine's feet. There was no definite
+engagement between them, but every one understood that would come as
+surely as the end of the season.
+
+Money matters and housekeeping must eventually intrude themselves, but
+the romance and charm of this one summer of life should be untouched.
+And Franz was not anxious at all on this score. His father, a shrewd
+business man, had early seen that his son was a poet and a dreamer. "It
+is not the boy's fault," he said to his partner, "he gets it from his
+grandfather, who was always more out of this world than in it."
+
+So he wisely allowed Franz to follow his natural tastes, and contented
+himself with carefully investing his fortune in such real estate and
+securities as he believed would insure a safe, if a slow increase. He
+had bought wisely, and Franz's income was a certain and handsome one,
+with a tendency rather to increase than decrease, and quite sufficient
+to maintain Christine in all the luxury to which she had been
+accustomed.
+
+So when he returned to the city he intended to speak to Mr. Stromberg.
+All he had should be Christine's and her father should settle the matter
+just as he thought best for his daughter. In a general way this was
+understood by all parties, and everyone seemed inclined to sympathize
+with the happy feeling which led the lovers to deprecate during these
+enchanted days any allusion which tended to dispel the exquisite charm
+of their young lives' idyl.
+
+Perhaps it would have been better if they had remembered the ancient
+superstition and themselves done something to mar their perfect
+happiness. Polycrates offered his ring to avert the calamity sure to
+follow unmitigated pleasure or success, and Franz ought, perhaps, to
+have also made an effort to propitiate his envious Fate.
+
+But he did not, and toward the very end of the season, when the October
+days had thrown a kind of still melancholy over the world that had been
+so green and gay, Franz's dream was rudely broken--broken by a Mr. James
+Barker Clarke, a blustering, vulgar man of fifty, worth _three
+millions_. In some way or other he seemed to have a great deal of
+influence over Mr. Stromberg, who paid him unqualified respect, and over
+Mrs. Stromberg, who seemed to fear him.
+
+Mr. Stromberg's "private ledger" alone knew the whole secret; for of
+course money was at the foundation. Indeed, in these days, in all public
+and private troubles, it is proper to ask, not "Who is she?" but "How
+much is it?" Franz M�ller and James Barker Clarke hated each other on
+sight. Still Franz had no idea at first that this ugly, uncouth man
+could ever be a rival to his own handsome person and passionate
+affection.
+
+In a few days, however, he was compelled to actually consider the
+possibility of such a thing. Mr. Stromberg had assumed an attitude of
+such extreme politeness, and Mrs. Stromberg avoided him if possible, and
+if not possible, was constrained and unhappy in the familiar relations
+that she had accepted so happily all summer. As for Christine, she had
+constant headaches, and her eyes were often swollen and red with
+weeping.
+
+At length, without notice, the family left Newport, and went to stay a
+month with some relative near Boston. A pitiful little note from
+Christine informed him of this fact; but as he received no information
+as to the locality of her relative's house, and no invitation to call,
+he was compelled for the present to do as Christine asked him--wait
+patiently for their return.
+
+At first he got a few short tender notes, but they were evidently
+written in such sorrow that he was almost beside himself with grief and
+anger. When these ceased he went to Boston, and without difficulty found
+the house where Christine was staying. He was received at first very
+shyly by Mrs. Stromberg, but when Franz poured out his love and misery,
+the poor old lady wept bitterly, and moaned out that she could not help
+it, and Christine could not help it, and that they were all very
+miserable.
+
+Finally she was persuaded to let him see Christine, "just for five
+minutes." The poor girl came to him, a shadow of her gay self, and,
+weeping in his arms, told him he must bid her good-by forever. The five
+minutes were lengthened into a long, terrible hour, and Franz went back
+to New York with the knowledge that in that hour his life had been
+broken in two for this life.
+
+One night toward the close of November his friend Louis called. "Franz,"
+he said, "have you heard that Christine Stromberg is to marry old
+Clarke?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"No one can trust a woman. It is a shame of Christine."
+
+"Louis, speak of what you know. Christine is an angel. If a woman
+appears to do wrong, there is probably some brute of a man behind her
+forcing her to do it."
+
+"I thought she was to be your wife."
+
+"She is my wife in soul and feeling. No one, thank God, can help that.
+If I was Clarke, I would as willingly marry a corpse as Christine
+Stromberg. Do not speak of her again, Louis. The poor innocent child!
+God bless her!" And he burst into a passion of weeping that alarmed his
+friend for his reason, but which was probably its salvation.
+
+In a week Franz had left for Europe, and the next Christmas, Christine
+and James Barker Clarke were married, and began housekeeping in a style
+of extravagant splendor. People wondered and exclaimed at Christine's
+reckless expenditure, her parents advised, her husband scolded; but
+though she never disputed them, she quietly ignored all their
+suggestions. She went to Paris, and lived like a princess; Rome, Vienna
+and London wondered over her beauty and her splendor; and wherever she
+went Franz followed her quietly, haunting her magnificent salons like a
+wretched spectre.
+
+They rarely or never spoke. Beyond a grave inclination of the head, or a
+look whose profound misery he only understood, she gave him no
+recognition. The world held her name above reproach, and considered that
+she had done very well to herself.
+
+Ten years passed away, but the changes they brought were such as the
+world regards as natural and inevitable. Christine's mother died and her
+father married again; and Christine had a son and a daughter. Franz
+watched anxiously to see if this new love would break up the icy
+coldness of her manners. Sometimes he was conscious of feeling angrily
+jealous of the children, but he always crushed down the wretched
+passion. "If Christine loved a flower, would I not love it also?" he
+asked himself; "and these little ones, what have they done?" So at last
+he got to separate them entirely from every one but Christine, and to
+regard them as part and portion of his love.
+
+But at the end of ten years a change came, neither natural nor expected.
+Franz was walking moodily about his library one night, when Louis came
+to tell him of it, Louis was no longer young, and was married now, for
+he had found out that the beaten track is the safest.
+
+"Franz," he said, "have you heard about Clarke? His affairs are
+frightfully wrong, and he shot himself an hour ago."
+
+"And Christine? Does she know? Who has gone to her?"
+
+"My wife is with her. Clarke shot himself in his own room. Christine was
+the first to reach him. He left a letter saying he was absolutely
+ruined."
+
+"Where will Christine and the children go?"
+
+"I suppose to her father's. Not a pleasant place for her now.
+Christine's step-mother dislikes both her and the children."
+
+Franz said no more, and Louis went away with a feeling of
+disappointment. "I thought he would have done something for her," he
+said to his wife. "Poor Christine will be very poor and dependent."
+
+Ten days after he came home with a different story. "There never was a
+woman as lucky about money as Cousin Christine," he said. "Hardy & Hall
+sent her notice to-day that the property at Ryebeach settled on her
+before her marriage by Mr. Clarke was now at her disposal. It seems the
+old gentleman anticipated the result of his wild speculations, and in
+order to provide for his wife, quietly bought and placed in Hardy's
+charge two beautifully furnished cottages. There is something like an
+accumulation of sixteen thousand dollars of rentage; and as one is
+luckily empty, Christine and the children are going there at once. I
+always thought the property was Hardy's own before. Very thoughtful in
+Clarke."
+
+"It is not Clarke one bit. I don't believe he ever did it. It is some
+arrangement of Franz M�ller's."
+
+"For goodness' sake don't hint such a thing, Lizzie! Christine would not
+go, and we should have her here very soon. Besides, I don't believe it.
+Franz took the news very coolly, and he has kept out of my way since."
+
+The next day Louis was more than ever of his wife's opinion. "What do
+you think, Lizzie?" he said. "Franz came to me to-day and asked if
+Clarke did not once loan me two thousand dollars. I told him Clarke gave
+me two thousand about the time we were married."
+
+"'Say _loaned_, Louis,' he answered, 'to oblige me. Here is two
+thousand and the interest for six years. Go and pay it to Christine; she
+must need money.' So I went."
+
+"Is she settled comfortably?"
+
+"Oh, very. Go and see her often. Franz is sure to marry her, and he is
+growing richer every day."
+
+It seemed as if Louis's prediction would come true. Franz began to drive
+out every afternoon to Ryebeach. At first he contented himself with just
+passing Christine's gate. But he soon began to stop for the children,
+and having taken them a drive, to rest a while on the lawn, or in the
+parlor, while Christine made him a cup of tea.
+
+For Franz tired very easily now, and Christine saw what few others
+noticed: he had become pale and emaciated, and the least exertion left
+him weary and breathless. She knew in her heart that it was, the last
+summer he would be with her. Alas! what a pitiful shadow of their first
+one! It was hard to contrast the ardent, handsome lover of ten years ago
+with the white, silently happy man who, when October came, had only
+strength to sit and hold her hand, and gaze with eager, loving eyes into
+her face.
+
+One day his physician met Louis on Broadway. "Mr. Curtin," he said,
+"your friend M�ller is very ill. I consider his life measured by days,
+perhaps hours. He has long had organic disease of the heart. It is near
+the last."
+
+"Does he know it?"
+
+"Yes, he has known it long. Better see him at once."
+
+So Louis went at once. He found Franz calmly making his last
+preparations for the great event. "I am glad you are come, Louis," he
+said; "I was going to send for you. See this cabinet full of letters. I
+have not strength left to destroy them; burn them for me when--when I am
+gone.
+
+"This small packet is Christine's dear little notes: bury them with me:
+there are ten of them, every one ten years old."
+
+"Is that all, dear Franz?"
+
+"Yes; my will has long been made. Except a legacy to yourself, all goes
+to Christine--dear, dear Christine!"
+
+"You love her yet, then, Franz?"
+
+"What do you mean? I have loved her for ages. I shall love her forever.
+She is the other half of my soul. In some lives I have missed her
+altogether let me be thankful that she has come so near me in this one."
+
+"Do you know what you are saying, Franz?"
+
+"Very clearly, Louis. I have always believed with the oldest
+philosophers that souls were created in pairs, and that it is permitted
+them in their toilsome journey back to purity and heaven sometimes to
+meet and comfort each other. Do you think I saw Christine for the first
+time in your uncle's parlor? Louis, I have fairer and grander memories
+of her than any linked to this life. I must leave her now for a little.
+God knows when and where we meet again; but _He does know_; that is my
+hope and consolation."
+
+Whatever were Louis's private opinions about Franz's theology it was
+impossible to dissent at that hour, and he took his friend's last
+instructions and farewell with such gentle, solemn feelings as had long
+been strange to his-heart.
+
+In the afternoon Franz was driven out to Christine's. It was the last
+physical effort he was capable of. No one saw the parting of those two
+souls. He went with Christine's arms around him, and her lips whispering
+tender, hopeful farewells. It was noticed however, that after Franz's
+death a strange change came over Christine--a beautiful nobility and
+calmness of character, and a gentle setting of her life to the loftiest
+aims.
+
+Louis said she had been wonderfully moved by the papers Franz left. The
+ten letters she had written during the spring-time of their love went to
+the grave with him, but the rest were of such an extraordinary nature
+that Louis could not refrain from showing them to his cousin, and then
+at her request leaving them for her to dispose of. They were indeed
+letters written to herself under every circumstance of her life, and
+directed to every place in which she had sojourned. In all of them she
+was addressed as "Beloved Wife of my Soul," and in this way the poor
+fellow had consoled his breaking, longing heart.
+
+To some of them he had written imaginary answers, but as these all
+referred to a financial secret known only to the parties concerned in
+Christine's and his own sacrifice, it was proof positive that he had
+written only for his own comfort. But it was perhaps well they fell into
+Christine's hands: she could not but be a better woman for reading the
+simple records of a strife which set perfect unselfishness and
+child-like submission as the goal of its duties.
+
+Seven years after Franz's death Christine and her daughter died together
+of the Roman fever, and James Barker Clarke, junior, was left sole
+inheritor of Franz's wealth.
+
+"A German dreamer!"
+
+Ah, well, there are dreamers and dreamers. And perchance he that seeks
+fame, and he that seeks gold, and he that seeks power, may all alike,
+when this shadowy existence is over, look back upon life "as a dream
+when one awaketh."
+
+
+
+
+THE VOICE AT MIDNIGHT.
+
+
+"It is the King's highway that we are in; and know this, His messengers
+are on it. They who have ears to hear will hear; and He opens the eyes
+of some, and they see things not to be lightly spoken of."
+
+It was John Balmuto who said these words to me. John was a Shetlander,
+and for forty years he had gone to the Arctic seas with the whale boats.
+Then there had come to him a wonderful experience. He had been four days
+and nights alone with God upon the sea, among mountains of ice reeling
+together in perilous madness, and with little light but the angry flush
+of the aurora. Then, undoubtedly, was born that strong faith in the
+Unseen which made him an active character in the facts I am going to
+relate.
+
+After his marvelous salvation, he devoted his life to the service of God
+by entering that remarkable body of lay evangelists attached to the
+Presbyterian Church in Highland parishes, called "The Men," and he
+became noted throughout the Hebrides for his labors, and for his
+knowledge of the Scriptures.
+
+Circumstances, that summer, had thrown us together; I, a young woman,
+just entering an apparently fortunate life; he, an aged saint, standing
+on the borderland of eternity. And we were sitting together, in the gray
+summer gloaming, when he said to me, "Thou art silent to-night. What
+hast thou, then, on thy mind?"
+
+"I had a strange dream. I cannot shake off its influence. Of course it
+is folly, and I don't believe in dreams at all." And it was then he said
+to me, "It is the King's highway that we are in, and know this, His
+messengers are on it."
+
+"But it was only a dream."
+
+"Well, God speaks to His children 'in dreams, and by the oracles that
+come in darkness.'"
+
+"He used to do so."
+
+"Wilt thou then say that He has ceased so to speak to men? Now, I will
+tell thee a thing that happened; I will tell thee just the bare facts; I
+will put nothing to, nor take anything away from them.
+
+"'Tis, five years ago the first day of last June. I was in Stornoway in
+the Lews, and I was going to the Gairloch Preachings. It was rough,
+cheerless weather, and all the fishing fleet were at anchor for the
+night, with no prospect of a fishing. The fishers were sitting together
+talking over the bad weather, but, indeed, without that bitterness that
+I have heard from landsmen when it would be the same trouble with them.
+So I gathered them into Donald Brae's cottage, and we had a very good
+hour. I noticed a stranger in the corner of the room, and some one told
+me he was one of those men who paint pictures, and I saw that he was
+busy with a pencil and paper even while we were at the service. But the
+next day I left for the Preachings, and I thought no more of him, good
+or bad.
+
+"On the first of September I was in Oban. I had walked far and was very
+tired, but I went to John MacNab's cottage, and, after I had eat my
+kippered herring and drank my tea, I felt better. Then I talked with
+John about the resurrection of the body, for he was in a tribulation of
+thoughts and doubts as to whether our Lord had a permanent humanity or
+not.
+
+"And I said to him, John, Christ redeemed our whole nature, and it is
+this way: the body being ransomed, as well as the spirit, by no less a
+price than the body of Christ, shall be equally cleansed and glorified.
+Now, then, after I had gone to my room, I was sitting thinking of these
+things, and of no other things whatever. There was not a sound but that
+of the waves breaking among the rocks, and drawing the tinkling pebbles
+down the beach after them. Then the ears of my spiritual body were
+opened, and I heard these words, _'I will go with thee to Glasgow!'_
+Instead of saying to the heavenly message, 'I am ready!' I began to
+argue with myself thus: 'Whatever for should I go to Glasgow? I know not
+anyone there. No one knows me. I have duties at Portsee not to be left.
+I have no money for such a journey--'
+
+"I fell asleep to such thoughts. Then I dreamed of--or I saw--a woman
+fair as the daughters of God, and she said, _'I will go with thee to
+Glasgow!'_ With a strange feeling of being hurried and pressed I
+awoke--wide awake, and without any conscious will of my own, I answered,
+'I am ready. I am ready now.'
+
+"As I left the cottage it was striking twelve, and I wondered what means
+of reaching Glasgow I should find at midnight. But I walked straight to
+the pier, and there was a small steamer with her steam up. She was
+blowing her whistle impatiently, and when the skipper saw me coming, he
+called to me, in a passion, 'Well, then, is it all night I shall wait
+for thee?'
+
+"I soon perceived that there was a mistake, and that it was not John
+Balmuto he had been instructed to wait for. But I heeded not that; I was
+under orders I durst not disobey. She was a trading steamer, with a
+perishable cargo of game and lobsters, and so she touched at no place
+whatever till we reached Glasgow. One of her passengers was David
+MacPherson of Harris, a very good man, who had known me in my
+visitations. He was going to Glasgow as a witness in a case to be tried
+between the Harris fishers and their commission house in Glasgow.
+
+"As we walked together from the steamer, he said to me, 'Let us go round
+by the court house, John, and I'll find out when I'll be required.' That
+was to my mind; I did not feel as if I could go astray, whatever road
+was taken, and I turned with him the way he desired to go. He found the
+lawyer who needed him in the court house, and while they talked together
+I went forward and listened to the case that was in hand.
+
+"It was a trial for murder, and I could not keep my eyes off the young
+man who was charged with the crime. He seemed to be quite broken down
+with shame and sorrow. Before MacPherson called me the court closed and
+the constables took him away. As he passed me our eyes met, and my heart
+dirled and burned, and I could not make out whatever would be the matter
+with me. All night his face haunted me. I was sure I had seen it some
+place; and besides it would blend itself with the dream which had
+brought me to Glasgow.
+
+"In the morning I was early at the court house and I saw the prisoner
+brought in. There was the most marvelous change in his looks. He walked
+like a man who has lost fear, and his face was quite calm. But now it
+troubled me more than ever. Whatever had I to do with the young man? Yet
+I could not bear to leave him.
+
+"I listened and found out that he was accused of murdering his uncle.
+They had been traveling together and were known to have been at Ullapool
+on the thirtieth of May. On the first of June the elder man was found in
+a lonely place near Oban, dead, and, without doubt, from violence. The
+chain of circumstantial evidence against his nephew was very strong. To
+judge by it I would have said myself to him, 'Thou art certainly
+guilty.'
+
+"On the other side the young man declared that he had quarreled with his
+uncle at Ullapool and left him clandestinely. He had then taken passage
+in a Manx fishing smack which was going to the Lews, but he had
+forgotten the name of the smack. He was not even certain if the boat was
+Manx. The landlord of the inn, at which he said he stayed when in the
+Lews, did not remember him. 'A thing not to be expected,' he told the
+jury, 'for in the summer months, what with visitors, and what with the
+fishers, a face in Stornoway was like a face on a crowded street. The
+young man might have been there'--
+
+"The word _Stornoway_ made the whole thing clear to me. The prisoner was
+the man I had noticed with a pencil and paper among the fishers in
+Donald Brae's cottage. Yes, indeed he was! I knew then why I had been
+sent to Glasgow. I walked quickly to the bar, and lifting my bonnet from
+my head, I said to the judge, 'My lord, the prisoner _was_ in Stornoway
+on the first of June. I saw him there!'
+
+"He gave a great cry of joy and turned to me; and in a moment he called
+out: 'You are the man who read the Bible to the fishers. I remember you.
+I have your likeness among my drawings.' And I said, 'I am the man.'
+
+"Then my lord, the judge, made them swear me, and he said they would
+hear my evidence. For one moment I was a coward. I thought I would hide
+God's share in the deliverance, lest men should doubt my whole
+testimony. The next, I was telling the true story: how I had been called
+at midnight--twice called; how I had found Evan Conochie's boat waiting
+for me; how on the boat I had met David MacPherson, and been brought to
+the court house by him, having no intention or plan of my own in the
+matter.
+
+"And there was a great awe in the room as I spoke. Every one believed
+what I said, and my lord asked for the names of the fishers who were
+present in Donald Brae's cottage on the night of the first of June. Very
+well, then, I could give many of them, and they were sent for, and the
+lad was saved, thank God Almighty!"
+
+"How do you explain it, John?"
+
+"No, I will not try to explain it; for it is not to be hoped that anyone
+can explain by human reason the things surpassing human reason."
+
+"Do you know what became of the young man?"
+
+"I will tell thee about him. He is a very rich young man, and the only
+child of a widow, known like Dorcas of old for her great goodness to the
+Lord's poor. But when his mother died it did not go well and peaceably
+between him and his uncle; and it is true that he left him at Ullapool
+without a word. Well, then, he fell into this sore strait, and it seemed
+as if all hope of proving his innocence was over.
+
+"But that very night on which I saw him first, he dreamed that his
+mother came to him in his cell and she comforted him and told him,
+'To-morrow, surely, thy deliverer shall speak for thee.' He never
+doubted the heavenly vision. 'How could I?' he asked me. 'My mother
+never deceived me in life; would she come to me, even in a dream, to
+tell me a lie? Ah, no!'"
+
+"Is he still alive?"
+
+"God preserve him for many a year yet! I'll only require to speak his
+name"--and when he had done so, I knew the secret spring of thankfulness
+that fed the never-ceasing charity of one great, good man.
+
+"And yet, John," I urged, "how can spirit speak with spirit?"
+
+"'_How?_' I will tell thee, that word 'how' has no business in the mouth
+of a child of God. When I was a boy, who had dreamed 'how' men in London
+might speak with men in Edinburgh through the air, invisible and
+unheard? That is a matter of trade now. Can thou imagine what subtle
+secret lines there may be between the spiritual world and this world?"
+
+"But dreams, John?"
+
+"Well, then, dreams. Take the dream life out of thy Bible and, oh, how
+much thou wilt lose! All through it this side of the spiritual world
+presses close on the human side. I thank God for it. Yes, indeed! Many
+things I hear and see which say to me that Christians now have a kind of
+shame in what is mystical or supernatural. But thou be sure of this--the
+supernaturalism of the Bible, and of every Christian life is not one of
+the difficulties of our faith, _it is the foundation of our faith_. The
+Bible is a supernatural book, the law of a supernatural religion; and to
+part with this element is to lose out of it the flavor of heaven, and
+the hope of immortality. Yes, indeed!"
+
+This conversation occurred thirty years ago. Two years since, I met the
+man who had experienced such a deliverance, and he told me again the
+wonderful story, and showed me the pencil sketch which he had made of
+John Balmuto in Donald Brae's cottage. He had painted from it a grand
+picture of his deliverer, wearing the long black camlet cloak and
+head-kerchief of the order of evangelists to which he belonged. I stood
+reverently before the commanding figure, with its inspired eyes and rapt
+expression; for, during those thirty years, I also had learned that it
+was only those
+
+    Who ne'er the mournful midnight hours
+    Weeping upon their bed have sate,
+    Who know you not, Ye Heavenly Powers.
+
+
+
+
+SIX, AND HALF-A-DOZEN.
+
+
+Slain in the battle of life. Wounded and fallen, trampled in the mire
+and mud of the conflict, then the ranks closed again and left no place
+for her. So she crawled aside to die. With a past whose black despair
+was as the shadow of a starless night, a future which her early
+religious training lit up with the lurid light of hell, and the strong
+bands of a pitiless death dragging her to the grave--still she craved,
+as the awful hour drew near, to see once more the home of her innocent
+childhood. Not that she thought to die in its shelter--any one who knew
+David Todd knew also that was a hopeless dream; but if, IF her
+father should say one pardoning word, then she thought it would help her
+to understand the love of God, and give her some strength to trust in
+it.
+
+Early in the evening, just as the sun was setting and the cows were
+coming lowing up the little lane, scented with the bursting lilac
+bushes, she stood humbly at the gate her father must pass in order to go
+to the hillside fold to shelter the ewes and lambs. Very soon she saw
+him coming, his Scotch bonnet pulled over his brows, his steps steadied
+by his shepherd's staff. His lips were firmly closed, and his eyes
+looked far over the hills; for David was a mystic in his own way, and
+they were to him temples not made with hands in which he had seen and
+heard wonderful things. Here the storehouses of hail and lightning had
+been opened in his sight, and he had watched in the sunshine the tempest
+bursting beneath his feet. He had trod upon rainbows and been waited
+upon by spectral mists. The voices of winds and waters were in his
+heart, and he passionately believed in God. But it was the God of his
+own creed--jealous, just and awful in that inconceivable holiness which
+charges his angels with folly and detects impurity in the sinless
+heavens. So, when he approached the gate he saw, but would not see, the
+dying girl who leaned against it. Whatever he felt he made no sign. He
+closed it without hurry, and then passed on the other side.
+
+"Father! O, father! speak one word to me."
+
+Then he turned and looked at her, sternly and awfully.
+
+"Thou art nane o' my bairn. I ken naught o' thee."
+
+Without another glance at the white, despairing face, he walked rapidly
+on; for the spring nights were chilly, and he must gather his lambs into
+the fold, though this poor sheep of his own household was left to
+perish.
+
+But, if her father knew her no more, the large sheep-dog at his side was
+not so cruel. No theological dogmas measured Rover's love; the stain on
+the spotless name of his master's house, which hurt the old man like a
+wound, had not shadowed his memory. He licked her hands and face, and
+tried with a hospitality and pity which made him so much nearer the
+angels than his master to pull her toward her home. But she shook her
+head and moaned pitifully; then throwing her arms round the poor brute
+she kissed him with those passionate kisses of repentance and love which
+should have fallen on her father's neck. The dog (dumb to all but God)
+pleaded with sorrowful eyes and half-frantic gestures; but she turned
+wearily away toward a great circle of immense rocks--relics of a
+religion scarcely more cruel than that which had neither pity nor
+forgiveness at the mouth of the grave. Within their shadow she could die
+unseen; and there next morning a wagoner, attracted by the plaintive
+howling of a dog, found her on the ground, dead.
+
+There are set awful hours between every soul and heaven. Who knows what
+passed between Lettice Todd and her God in that dim forsaken temple of a
+buried faith? Death closes tenderly even the eyes full of tears, and
+her face was beautiful with a strange peace, though its loveliness was
+marred and its youth "seared with the autumn of strange suffering."
+
+At the inquest which followed, her stern old father neither blamed nor
+excused himself. He accepted without apology the verdict of society
+against him; only remarking that its reproof was "a guid example o'
+Satan correcting sin."
+
+Scant pity and less ceremony was given to her burial. Death, which draws
+under the mantle of Charity the pride, cruelty and ambition of men,
+covering them with those two narrow words _Hic jacet_! gives also to the
+woman who has been a sinner all she asks--oblivion. In no other way can
+she obtain from man toleration. The example of the whitest, purest soul
+that ever breathed on earth, in this respect, is ignored in the church
+He founded. The tenderest of human hearts, "when lovely woman stooped to
+folly," found no way of escape for her but to "die;" and those closet
+moralists, with filthy fancies and soiled souls, who abound in every
+community, regard her with that sort of scorn which a Turk expresses
+when he says "Dog of a Christian." Poor Lettice! She had procured this
+doom--first by sacrificing herself to a blind and cruel love, and then
+to the importunate demands of hunger, "oldest and strongest of
+passions." Ah! if there was no pity in Heaven, no justice beyond the
+grave, what a cruel irony this life would be! For, while the sexton
+shoveled hastily over the rude coffin the obliterating earth, there
+passed the graveyard another woman equally fallen from all the apostle
+calls "lovely and of good report." One whose youth and hopes and
+marvelous beauty had been sold for houses and lands and a few thousand
+pounds a year. But, though her life was a living lie, the world praised
+her, because she "had done well unto herself." Yet, at the last end, the
+same seed brought forth the same fruit, and the Lady of Hawksworth Hall
+learned, with bitter rapidity, that riches are too poor to buy love.
+Scarcely had she taken possession of her splendid home before she longed
+for the placid happiness of her mother's cottage, and those evening
+walks under the beech-trees, whose very memory was now a sin. Over her
+beautiful face there crept a pathetic shadow, which irritated the rude
+and noisy squire like a reproach. He had always had what he wanted. Not
+even the beauty of all the border counties had been beyond his means to
+buy but somehow he felt as if in this bargain he had been overreached.
+Her better part eluded his possession, and he felt dissatisfied and
+angry. Expostulations grew into cruel words; cruel words came to cruder
+blows. _Yes, blows_. English gentlemen thirty years ago knew their
+privileges; and that was one of them. She was as much and as lawfully
+his as the horses in his stables or the hounds in his kennels. He beat
+them, too, when they did not obey him. Her beauty had betrayed her into
+the hands of misery. She had wedded it, and there was no escape for her.
+One day, when her despair and suffering was very great, some tempting
+devil brought her a glass of brandy, and she drank it. It gave her back
+for a few hours her departed sceptre; but at what a price! Her slave
+soon became her master. Stimulus and stupefaction, physical exhaustion
+and mental horrors, the abandonment of friends and the brutality of a
+coarse and cruel husband, brought her at last to the day of reckoning.
+She died, seven years after her marriage, in the delirium of opium.
+There were physicians and servants around her, and an unloving husband
+waiting for the news of his release. I think I would rather have died
+where Lettice did--under the sky, with the solemn mountains lifting
+their heads in a perpetual prayer around me, and that faithful dog
+licking my hands, and mourning my wasted life.
+
+Now, wherein did these two women differ? One sinned through an intense
+and self-sacrificing love, and in obedience to the strongest calls of
+want. Her sin, though it was beyond the pale of the world's toleration,
+was yet one _according to Nature_. The other, in a cold spirit of
+barter, voluntarily and deliberately exchanged her youth and beauty, the
+hopes of her own and another's life, for carriages, jewels, fine
+clothing and a luxurious table. She loathed the price she had to pay,
+and her sin was an unnatural one. For this kind of prostitution, which
+religion blesses and society praises, there seems to be no redress; but
+for that which results as the almost inevitable sequence of one lapse of
+chastity _we_, the pious, the virtuous, the irreproachable, are all to
+blame. Who or what make it impossible for them to retrace their steps?
+Do they ever have reason to hope that the family hearth will be open to
+them if they go back? Prodigal sons may return, and are welcomed with
+tears of joy and clasped by helping hands; but alas! how few parents
+would go to meet a sinning daughter. Forgetting our Master's precepts,
+forgetting our human frailty, forgetting our own weakness, we turn
+scornfully from the weeping Magdalen, and leave her "alone with the
+irreparable." Marriage is a holy and a necessary rite. We would
+deprecate _any_ loosening of this great house-band of society; but we
+do say that where it is the _only distinction_ between two women, one of
+whom is an honored matron, and the other a Pariah and an outcast, there
+is "something in the world amiss"--something beyond the cure of law or
+legislation, and that they can only be reached by the authority of a
+Christian press and the influence of Christian example.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF DAVID MORRISON.
+
+
+I think it is very likely that many New Yorkers were familiar with the
+face of David Morrison. It was a peculiarly guileless, kind face for a
+man of sixty years of age; a face that looked into the world's face with
+something of the confidence of a child. It had round it a little fringe
+of soft, light hair, and above that a big blue Scotch bonnet of the Rob
+Roryson fashion.
+
+The bonnet had come with him from the little Highland clachan, where he
+and his brother Sandy had scrambled through a hard, happy boyhood
+together. It had sometimes been laid aside for a more pretentious
+headgear, but it had never been lost; and in his old age and poverty had
+been cheerfully--almost affectionately--resumed.
+
+"Sandy had one just like it," he would say. "We bought them thegither in
+Aberdeen. Twa braw lads were we then. I'm wonderin' where poor Sandy is
+the day!"
+
+So, if anybody remembers the little spare man, with the child-like,
+candid face and the big blue bonnet, let them recall him kindly. It is
+his true history I am telling to-day.
+
+Davie had, as I said before, a hard boyhood. He knew what cold, hunger
+and long hours meant as soon as he knew anything; but it was glorified
+in his memory by the two central figures in it--a good mother, for whom
+he toiled and suffered cheerfully, and a big brother who helped him
+bravely over all the bits of life that were too hard for his young feet.
+
+When the mother died, the lads sailed together for America. They had a
+"far-awa'" cousin in New York, who, report said, had done well in the
+plastering business, and Sandy never doubted but that one Morrison would
+help another Morrison the wide world over. With this faith in their
+hearts and a few shillings in their pockets, the two lads landed. The
+American Morrison had not degenerated. He took kindly to his kith and
+kin, and offered to teach them his own craft.
+
+For some time the brothers were well content; but Sandy was of an
+ambitious, adventurous temper, and was really only waiting until he felt
+sure that wee Davie could take care of himself. Nothing but the Great
+West could satisfy Sandy's hopes; but he never dreamt of exposing his
+brother to its dangers and privations.
+
+"You're nothing stronger than a bit lassie, Davie," he said, "and you're
+no to fret if I don't take you wi' me. I'm going to make a big fortune,
+and when I have gotten the gold safe, I'se come back to you, and we'll
+spend it thegither dollar for dollar, my wee lad."
+
+"Sure as death! You'll come back to me?"
+
+"Sure as death, I'll come back to you, Davie!" and Sandy thought it no
+shame to cry on his little brother's neck, and to look back, with a
+loving, hopeful smile at Davie's sad, wistful face, just as long as he
+could see it.
+
+It was Davie's nature to believe and to trust. With a pitiful confidence
+and constancy he looked for the redemption of his brother's promise.
+After twenty years of absolute silence, he used to sit in the evenings
+after his work was over, and wonder "how Sandy and he had lost each
+other." For the possibility of Sandy forgetting him never once entered
+his loyal heart.
+
+He could find plenty of excuses for Sandy's silence. In the long years
+of their separation many changes had occurred even in a life so humble
+as Davie's. First, his cousin Morrison died, and the old business was
+scattered and forgotten. Then Davie had to move his residence very
+frequently; had even to follow lengthy jobs into various country places,
+so that his old address soon became a very blind clew to him.
+
+Then seven years after Sandy's departure the very house in which they
+had dwelt was pulled down; an iron factory was built on its site, and
+probably a few months afterward no one in the neighborhood could have
+told anything at all about Davie Morrison. Thus, unless Sandy should
+come himself to find his brother, every year made the probability of a
+letter reaching him less and less likely.
+
+Perhaps, as the years went by, the prospect of a reunion became more of
+a dream than an expectation. Davie had married very happily, a simple
+little body, not unlike himself, both in person and disposition. They
+had one son, who, of course, had been called Alexander, and in whom
+Davie fondly insisted, the lost Sandy's beauty and merits were
+faithfully reproduced.
+
+It is needless to say the boy was extravagantly loved and spoiled.
+Whatever Davie's youth had missed, he strove to procure for "Little
+Sandy." Many an extra hour he worked for this unselfish end. Life itself
+became to him only an implement with which to toil for his boy's
+pleasure and advantage. It was a common-place existence enough, and yet
+through it ran one golden thread of romance.
+
+In the summer evenings, when they walked together on the Battery, and in
+winter nights, when they sat together by the stove, Davie talked to his
+wife and child of that wonderful brother, who had gone to look for
+fortune in the great West. The simplicity of the elder two and the
+enthusiasm of the youth equally accepted the tale.
+
+Somehow, through many a year, a belief in his return invested life with
+a glorious possibility. Any night they might come home and find Uncle
+Sandy sitting by the fire, with his pockets full of gold eagles, and no
+end of them in some safe bank, besides.
+
+But when the youth had finished his schooldays, had learned a trade and
+began to go sweethearting, more tangible hopes and dreams agitated all
+their hearts; for young Sandy Morrison opened a carpenter's shop in his
+own name, and began to talk of taking a wife and furnishing a home.
+
+He did not take just the wife that pleased his father and mother. There
+was nothing, indeed, about Sallie Barker of which they could complain.
+She was bright and capable, but they _felt_ a want they were not able to
+analyze; the want was that pure unselfishness which was the ruling
+spirit of their own lives.
+
+This want never could be supplied in Sallie's nature. She did right
+because it was her duty to do right, not because it gave her pleasure to
+do it. When they had been married three years the war broke out, and
+soon afterward Alexander Morrison was drafted for the army. Sallie, who
+was daily expecting her second child, refused all consolation; and,
+indeed, their case looked hard enough.
+
+At first the possibility of a substitute had suggested itself; but a
+family consultation soon showed that this was impossible without
+hopelessly straitening both houses. Everyone knows that dreary silence
+which follows a long discussion, that has only confirmed the fear of an
+irremediable misfortune. Davie broke it in this case in a very
+unexpected manner.
+
+"Let me go in your place, Sandy. I'd like to do it, my lad. Maybe I'd
+find your uncle. Who knows? What do you say, old wife? We've had more
+than twenty years together. It is pretty hard for Sandy and Sallie, now,
+isn't it?"
+
+He spoke with a bright face and in a cheerful voice, as if he really was
+asking a favor for himself; and, though he did not try to put his offer
+into fine, heroic words, nothing could have been finer or more heroic
+than the perfect self-abnegation of his manner.
+
+The poor old wife shed a few bitter tears; but she also had been
+practicing self-denial for a lifetime, and the end of it was that Davie
+went to weary marches and lonely watches, and Sandy staid at home.
+
+This was the break-up of Davie's life. His wife went to live with Sandy
+and Sallie, and the furniture was mostly sold.
+
+Few people could have taken these events as Davie did. He even affected
+to be rather smitten with the military fever, and, when the parting
+came, left wife and son and home with a cheerful bravery that was sad
+enough to the one old heart who had counted its cost.
+
+In Davie's loving, simple nature there was doubtless a strong vein of
+romance. He was really in hopes that he might come across his long-lost
+brother. He had no very clear idea as to localities and distances, and
+he had read so many marvelous war stories that all things seemed
+possible in its atmosphere. But reality and romance are wide enough
+apart.
+
+Davie's military experience was a very dull and weary one. He grew
+poorer and poorer, lost heart and hope, and could only find comfort for
+all his sacrifices in the thought that "at least he had spared poor
+Sandy."
+
+Neither was his home-coming what he had pictured it in many a reverie.
+There was no wife to meet him--she had been three months in the grave
+when he got back to New York--and going to his daughter-in-law's home
+was not--well, it was not like going to his own house.
+
+Sallie was not cross or cruel, and she was grateful to Davie, but she
+did not _love_ the old man.
+
+He soon found that the attempt to take up again his trade was hopeless.
+He had grown very old with three years' exposure and hard duty. Other
+men could do twice the work he could, and do it better. He must step out
+from the ranks of skilled mechanics and take such humble positions as
+his failing strength permitted him to fill.
+
+Sandy objected strongly to this at first. "He could work for both," he
+said, "and he thought father had deserved his rest."
+
+But Davie shook his head--"he must earn his own loaf, and he must earn
+it now, just as he could. Any honest way was honorable enough." He was
+still cheerful and hopeful, but it was noticeable that he never spoke of
+his brother Sandy now; he had buried that golden expectation with many
+others. Then began for Davie Morrison the darkest period of his life. I
+am not going to write its history.
+
+It is not pleasant to tell of a family sinking lower and lower in spite
+of its brave and almost desperate efforts to keep its place--not
+pleasant to tell of the steps that gradually brought it to that pass,
+when the struggle was despairingly abandoned, and the conflict narrowed
+down to a fight with actual cold and hunger.
+
+It is not pleasant, mainly, because in such a struggle many a lonely
+claim is pitilessly set aside. In the daily shifts of bare life, the
+tender words that bring tender acts are forgotten. Gaunt looks,
+threadbare clothes, hard day-labor, sharp endurance of their children's
+wants, made Sandy and Sallie Morrison often very hard to those to whom
+they once were very tender.
+
+David had noticed it for many months. He could see that Sallie counted
+grudgingly the few pennies he occasionally required. His little
+newspaper business had been declining for some years; people took fewer
+papers, and some did not pay for those they did take. He made little
+losses that were great ones to him, and Sallie had long been saying it
+would "be far better for father to give up the business to Jamie; he is
+now sixteen and bright enough to look after his own."
+
+This alternative David could not bear to think of; and yet all through
+the summer the fear had constantly been before him. He knew how Sallie's
+plans always ended; Sandy was sure to give into them sooner or later,
+and he wondered if into their minds had ever come the terrible thought
+which haunted his own--_would they commit him, then, to the care of
+public charities?_
+
+"We have no time to love each other," he muttered, sadly, "and my bite
+and sup is hard to spare when there is not enough to go round. I'll
+speak to Sandy myself about it--poor lad! It will come hard on him to
+say the first word."
+
+The thought once realized began to take shape in his mind, and that
+night, contrary to his usual custom, he could not go to sleep. Sandy
+came in early, and the children went wearily off to bed. Then Sallie
+began to talk on the very subject which lay so heavy on his own heart,
+and he could tell from the tone of the conversation that it was one that
+had been discussed many times before.
+
+"He only made bare expenses last week and there's a loss of seventy
+cents this week already. Oh, Sandy, Sandy! there is no use putting off
+what is sure to come. Little Davie had to do without a drink of coffee
+to-night, and _his_ bread, you know, comes off theirs at every meal. It
+is very hard on us all!"
+
+"I don't think the children mind it, Sallie. Every one of them loves the
+old man--God bless him! He was a good father to me."
+
+"I would love him, too, Sandy, if I did not see him eating my children's
+bread. And neither he nor they get enough. Sandy, do take him down
+to-morrow, and tell him as you go the strait we are in. He will be
+better off; he will get better food and every other comfort. You must do
+it, Sandy; I can bear this no longer."
+
+"It's getting near Christmas, Sallie. Maybe he'll get New Year's
+presents enough to put things straight. Last year they were nearly
+eighteen dollars, you know."
+
+"Don't you see that Jamie could get that just as well? Jamie can take
+the business and make something of it. Father is letting it get worse
+and worse every week. We should have one less to feed, and Jamie's
+earnings besides. Sandy, _it has got to be_! Do it while we can make
+something by the step."
+
+"It is a mean, dastardly step, Sallie. God will never forgive me if I
+take it," and David could hear that his son's voice trembled.
+
+In fact, great tears were silently dropping from Sandy's eyes, and his
+father knew it, and pitied him, and thanked God that the lad's heart was
+yet so tender. And after this he felt strangely calm, and dropped into a
+happy sleep.
+
+In the morning he remembered all. He had not heard the end of the
+argument, but he knew that Sallie would succeed; and he was neither
+astonished nor dismayed when Sandy came home in the middle of the day
+and asked him to "go down the avenue a bit."
+
+He had determined to speak first and spare Sandy the shame and the
+sorrow of it; but something would not let him do it. In the first
+place, a singular lightness of heart came over him; he noticed all the
+gay preparations for Christmas, and the cries and bustle of the streets
+gave him a new sense of exhilaration. Sandy fell almost unconsciously
+into his humor. He had a few cents in his pocket, and he suddenly
+determined to go into a cheap restaurant and have a good warm meal with
+his father.
+
+Davie was delighted at the proposal and gay as a child; old memories of
+days long past crowded into both men's minds, and they ate and drank,
+and then wandered on almost happily. Davie knew very well where they
+were going, but he determined now to put off saying a word until the
+last moment. He had Sandy all to himself for this hour; they might never
+have such another; Davie was determined to take all the sweetness of it.
+
+As they got lower down the avenue, Sandy became more and more silent;
+his eyes looked straight before him, but they were brimful of tears, and
+the smile with which he answered Davie's pleasant prattle was almost
+more pitiful than tears.
+
+At length they came in sight of a certain building, and Sandy gave a
+start and shook himself like a man waking out of a sleep. His words were
+sharp, his voice almost like that of a man in mortal danger, as he
+turned Davie quickly round, and said:
+
+"We must go back now, father. I will not go another step this road--no,
+by heaven! though I die for it!"
+
+"Just a little further, Sandy."
+
+And Davie's thin, childlike face had an inquiry in it that Sandy very
+well understood.
+
+"No, no, father, no further on this road, please God!"
+
+Then he hailed a passing car, and put the old man tenderly in it, and
+resolutely turned his back upon the hated point to which he had been
+going.
+
+Of course he thought of Sallie as they rode home, and the children and
+the trouble there was likely to be. But somehow it seemed a light thing
+to him. He could not helping nodding cheerfully now and then to the
+father whom he had so nearly lost; and, perhaps, never in all their
+lives had they been so precious to each other as when, hand-in-hand,
+they climbed the dark tenement stair together.
+
+Before thy reached the door they heard Sallie push a chair aside
+hastily, and come to meet them. She had been crying, too, and her very
+first words were, "Oh, father!' I am so glad!--so glad!"
+
+She did not say what for, but Davie took her words very gratefully, and
+he made no remark, though he knew she went into debt at the grocery for
+the little extras with which she celebrated his return at supper. He
+understood, however, that the danger was passed, and he went to sleep
+that night thanking God for the love that had stood so hard a trial and
+come out conqueror.
+
+The next day life took up its dreary tasks again, but in Davie's heart
+there was a strange presentiment of change, and it almost angered the
+poor, troubled, taxed wife to see him so thoughtlessly playing with the
+children. But the memory of the wrong she had nursed against him still
+softened and humbled her, and when he came home after carrying round his
+papers, she made room for him at the stove, and brought him a cup of
+coffee and a bit of bread and bacon.
+
+Davie's eyes filled, and Sallie went away to avoid seeing them. So then
+he took out a paper that he had left and began to read it as he ate and
+drank.
+
+In a few minutes a sudden sharp cry escaped him. He put the paper in his
+pocket, and, hastily resuming his old army cloak and Scotch bonnet, went
+out without a word to anyone.
+
+The truth was that he had read a personal notice which greatly disturbed
+him. It was to the effect that, "If David Morrison, who left Aberdeen in
+18--, was still alive, and would apply to Messrs. Morgan & Black, Wall
+street, he would hear of something to his advantage."
+
+His long-lost brother was the one thought in his heart. He was going
+now to hear something about Sandy.
+
+"He said 'sure as death,' and he would mind that promise at the last
+hour, if he forgot it before; so, if he could not come, he'd doubtless
+send, and this will be his message. Poor Sandy! there was never a lad
+like him!"
+
+When he reached Messrs. Morgan & Black's, he was allowed to stand
+unnoticed by the stove a few minutes, and during them his spirits sank
+to their usual placid level. At length some one said:
+
+"Well, old man, what do _you_ want?"
+
+"I am David Morrison, and I just came to see what _you_ wanted."
+
+"Oh, you are David Morrison! Good! Go forward--I think you will find
+out, then, what we want."
+
+He was not frightened, but the man's manner displeased him, and, without
+answering, he walked toward the door indicated, and quietly opened it.
+
+An old gentleman was standing with his back to the door, looking into
+the fire, and one rather younger, was writing steadily away at a desk.
+The former never moved; the latter simply raised his head with an
+annoyed look, and motioned to Davie to close the door.
+
+"I am David Morrison, sir."
+
+"Oh, Davie! Davie! And the old blue bonnet, too! Oh, Davie! Davie,
+lad!"
+
+As for Davie, he was quite overcome. With a cry of joy so keen that it
+was like a sob of pain, he fell fainting to the floor. When he became
+conscious again he knew that he had been very ill, for there were two
+physicians by his side, and Sandy's face was full of anguish and
+anxiety.
+
+"He will do now, sir. It was only the effect of a severe shock on a
+system too impoverished to bear it. Give him a good meal and a glass of
+wine."
+
+Sandy was not long in following out this prescription, and during it
+what a confiding session these two hearts held! Davie told his sad
+history in his own unselfish way, making little of all his sacrifices,
+and saying a great deal about his son Sandy, and Sandy's girls and boys.
+
+But the light in his brother's eyes, and the tender glow of admiration
+with which he regarded the unconscious hero, showed that he understood
+pretty clearly the part that Davie had always taken.
+
+"However, I am o'erpaid for every grief I ever had, Sandy," said Davie,
+in conclusion, "since I have seen your face again, and you're just
+handsomer than ever, and you eight years older than me, too."
+
+Yes, it was undeniable that Alexander Morrison was still a very
+handsome, hale old gentleman; but yet there was many a trace of labor
+and sorrow on his face; and he had known both.
+
+For many years after he had left Davie, life had been a very hard battle
+to him. During the first twenty years of their separation, indeed, Davie
+had perhaps been the better off, and the happier of the two.
+
+When the war broke out, Sandy had enlisted early, and, like Davie,
+carried through all its chances and changes the hope of finding his
+brother. Both of them had returned to their homes after the struggle
+equally hopeless and poor.
+
+But during the last eleven years fortune had smiled on Sandy. Some call
+of friendship for a dead comrade led him to a little Pennsylvania
+village, and while there he made a small speculation in oil, which was
+successful. He resolved to stay there, rented his little Western farm,
+and went into the oil business.
+
+"And I have saved thirty thousand dollars, hard cash, Davie. Half of it
+is yours, and half mine. See! Fifteen thousand has been entered from
+time to time in your name. I told you, Davie, that when I came back we
+would share dollar for dollar, and I would not touch a cent of your
+share no more than I would rob the United States Treasury."
+
+It was a part of Davie's simple nature that he accepted it without any
+further protestation. Instinctively he felt that it was the highest
+compliment he could pay his brother. It was as if he said: "I firmly
+believed the promise you made me more than forty years ago, and I firmly
+believe in the love and sincerity which this day redeems it." So Davie
+looked with a curious joyfulness at the vouchers which testified to
+fifteen thousand dollars lying in the Chemical Bank, New York, to the
+credit of David Morrison; and then he said, with almost the delight of a
+schoolboy:
+
+"And what will you do wi' yours, Sandy?"
+
+"I am going to buy a farm in New Jersey, Davie. I was talking with Mr.
+Black about it this morning. It will cost twelve thousand dollars, but
+the gentleman says it will be worth double that in a very few years. I
+think that myself, Davie, for I went yesterday to take a good look at
+it. It is never well to trust to other folks' eyes, you know."
+
+"Then, Sandy, I'll go shares wi' you. We'll buy the farm together and
+we'll live together--that is, if you would like it."
+
+"What would I like better?"
+
+"Maybe you have a wife, and then--"
+
+"No, I have no wife, Davie. She died nearly thirty years ago. I have no
+one but you."
+
+"And we will grow small fruits, and raise chickens and have the finest
+dairy in the State, Sandy."
+
+"That is just my idea, Davie."
+
+Thus they talked until the winter evening began to close in upon them,
+and then Davie recollected that his boy, Sandy, would be more than
+uneasy about him.
+
+"I'll not ask you there to-night, brother; I want them all to myself
+to-night. 'Deed, I've been selfish enough to keep this good news from
+them so long."
+
+So, with a hand-shake that said what no words could say, the brothers
+parted, and Davie made haste to catch the next up-town car. He thought
+they never had traveled so slowly; he was half inclined several times to
+get out and run home.
+
+When he arrived there the little kitchen was dark, but there was a fire
+in the stove and wee Davie--his namesake--was sitting, half crying,
+before it.
+
+The child lifted his little sorrowful face to his grandfather's, and
+tried to smile as he made room for him in the warmest place.
+
+"What's the matter, Davie?"
+
+"I have had a bad day, grandfather. I did not sell my papers, and Jack
+Dacey gave me a beating besides; and--and I really do think my toes are
+frozen off."
+
+Then Davie pulled the lad on to his knee, and whispered
+
+"Oh, my wee man, you shall sell no more papers. You shall have braw new
+clothes, and go to school every day of your life. Whist! yonder comes
+mammy."
+
+Sallie came in with a worried look, which changed to one of reproach
+when she saw Davie.
+
+"Oh, father, how could you stay abroad this way? Sandy is fair daft
+about you, and is gone to the police stations, and I don't know where--"
+
+Then she stopped, for Davie had come toward her, and there was such a
+new, strange look on his face that it terrified her, and she could only
+say: "Father! father! what is it?"
+
+"It is good news, Sallie. My brother Sandy is come, and he has just
+given me fifteen thousand dollars; and there is a ten-dollar bill, dear
+lass, for we'll have a grand supper to-night, please God."
+
+By and by they heard poor Sandy's weary footsteps on the stair, and
+Sallie said:
+
+"Not a word, children. Let grandfather tell your father."
+
+Davie went to meet him, and, before he spoke, Sandy saw, as Sallie had
+seen, that his father's countenance was changed, and that something
+wonderful had happened.
+
+"What is the matter, father?"
+
+"Fifteen thousand dollars is the matter, my boy; and peace and comfort
+and plenty, and decent clothes and school for the children, and a happy
+home for us all in some nice country place."
+
+When Sandy heard this he kissed his father, and then covering his face
+with his hands, sobbed out:
+
+"Thank God! thank God!"
+
+It was late that night before either the children or the elders could go
+to sleep. Davie told them first of the farm that Sandy and he were going
+to buy together, and then he said to his son:
+
+"Now, my dear lad, what think you is best for Sallie and the children?"
+
+"You say, father, that the village where you are going is likely to grow
+fast."
+
+"It is sure to grow. Two lines of railroad will pass through it in a
+month."
+
+"Then I would like to open a carpenter's shop there. There will soon be
+work enough; and we will rent some nice little cottage, and the children
+can go to school, and it will be a new life for us all. I have often
+dreamed of such a chance, but I never believed it would come true."
+
+But the dream came more than true. In a few weeks Davie and his brother
+were settled in their new home, and in the adjoining village Alexander
+Morrison, junior, had opened a good carpenter and builder's shop, and
+had begun to do very well.
+
+Not far from it was the coziest of old stone houses, and over it Sallie
+presided. It stood among great trees, and was surrounded by a fine fruit
+garden, and was prettily furnished throughout; besides which, and best
+of all, _it was their own_--a New Year's gift from the kindest of
+grandfathers and uncles. People now have got well used to seeing the
+Brothers Morrison.
+
+They are rarely met apart. They go to market and to the city together.
+What they buy they buy in unison, and every bill of sale they give bears
+both their names. Sandy is the ruling spirit, but Davie never suspects,
+for Sandy invariably says to all propositions, "If my brother David
+agrees, I do," or, "If brother David is satisfied, I have no more to
+say," etc.
+
+Some of the villagers have tried to persuade them that they must be
+lonely, but they know better than that. Old men love a great deal of
+quiet and of gentle meandering retrospection; and David and Sandy have
+each of them forty years' history to tell the other. Then they are both
+very fond of young Sandy and the children.
+
+Sandy's projects and plans and building contracts are always well talked
+over at the farm before they are signed, and the children's lessons and
+holidays, and even their new clothes, interest the two old men almost as
+much as they do Sallie.
+
+As for Sallie, you would scarcely know her. She is no longer cross with
+care and quarrelsome with hunger. I always did believe that prosperity
+was good for the human soul, and Sallie Morrison proves the theory. She
+has grown sweet tempered in its sunshine, is gentle and forbearing to
+her children, loving and grateful to her father-in-law, and her
+husband's heart trusts in her.
+
+Therefore let all those fortunate ones who are in prosperity give
+cheerfully to those who ask of them. It will bring a ten-fold blessing
+on what remains, and the piece of silver sent out on its pleasant errand
+may happily touch the hand that shall bring the giver good fortune
+through all the years of life.
+
+
+
+
+TOM DUFFAN'S DAUGHTER.
+
+
+Tom Duffan's cabinet-pictures are charming bits of painting; but you
+would cease to wonder how he caught such delicate home touches if you
+saw the room he painted in; for Tom has a habit of turning his wife's
+parlor into a studio, and both parlor and pictures are the better for
+the habit.
+
+One bright morning in the winter of 1872 he had got his easel into a
+comfortable light between the blazing fire and the window, and was
+busily painting. His cheery little wife--pretty enough in spite of her
+thirty-seven years--was reading the interesting items in the morning
+papers to him, and between them he sung softly to himself the favorite
+tenor song of his favorite opera. But the singing always stopped when
+the reading began; and so politics and personals, murders and music,
+dramas and divorces kept continually interrupting the musical despair of
+"Ah! che la morte ognora."
+
+But even a morning paper is not universally interesting, and in the very
+middle of an elaborate criticism on tragedy and Edwin Booth, the parlor
+door partially opened, and a lovelier picture than ever Tom Duffan
+painted stood in the aperture--a piquant, brown-eyed girl, in a morning
+gown of scarlet opera flannel, and a perfect cloud of wavy black hair
+falling around her.
+
+"Mamma, if anything on earth can interest you that is not in a
+newspaper, I should like to know whether crimps or curls are most
+becoming with my new seal-skin set."
+
+"Ask papa."
+
+"If I was a picture, of course papa would know; but seeing I am only a
+poor live girl, it does not interest him."
+
+"Because, Kitty, you never will dress artistically."
+
+"Because, papa, I must dress fashionably. It is not my fault if artists
+don't know the fashions. Can't I have mamma for about half an hour?"
+
+"When she has finished this criticism of Edwin Booth. Come in, Kitty; it
+will do you good to hear it."
+
+"Thank you, no, papa; I am going to Booth's myself to-night, and I
+prefer to do my own criticism." Then Kitty disappeared, Mrs. Duffan
+skipped a good deal of criticism, and Tom got back to his "Ah! che la
+morte ognora" much quicker than the column of printed matter warranted.
+
+"Well, Kitty child, what do you want?"
+
+"See here."
+
+"Tickets for Booth's?"
+
+"Parquette seats, middle aisle; I know them. Jack always does get just
+about the same numbers."
+
+"Jack? You don't mean to say that Jack Warner sent them?"
+
+Kitty nodded and laughed in a way that implied half a dozen different
+things.
+
+"But I thought that you had positively refused him, Kitty?"
+
+"Of course I did mamma--I told him in the nicest kind of way that we
+must only be dear friends, and so on."
+
+"Then why did he send these tickets?"
+
+"Why do moths fly round a candle? It is my opinion both moths and men
+enjoy burning."
+
+"Well, Kitty, I don't pretend to understand this new-fashioned way of
+being 'off' and 'on' with a lover at the same time. Did you take me from
+papa simply to tell me this?"
+
+"No; I thought perhaps you might like to devote a few moments to papa's
+daughter. Papa has no hair to crimp and no braids to make. Here are all
+the hair-pins ready, mamma, and I will tell you about Sarah Cooper's
+engagement and the ridiculous new dress she is getting."
+
+It is to be supposed the bribe proved attractive enough, for Mrs. Duffan
+took in hand the long tresses, and Kitty rattled away about wedding
+dresses and traveling suits and bridal gifts with as much interest as if
+they were the genuine news of life, and newspaper intelligence a kind of
+grown-up fairy lore.
+
+But anyone who saw the hair taken out of crimps would have said it was
+worth the trouble of putting it in; and the face was worth the hair, and
+the hair was worth the exquisite hat and the rich seal-skins and the
+tantalizing effects of glancing silk and beautiful colors. Depend upon
+it, Kitty Duffan was just as bright and bewitching a life-sized picture
+as anyone could desire to see; and Tom Duff an thought so, as she
+tripped up to the great chair in which he was smoking and planning
+subjects, for a "good-by" kiss.
+
+"I declare, Kitty! Turn round, will you? Yes, I declare you are dressed
+in excellent taste. All the effects are good. I wouldn't have believed
+it."
+
+"Complimentary, papa. But 'I told you so.' You just quit the antique,
+and take to studying _Harper's Bazar_ for effects; then your women will
+look a little more natural."
+
+"Natural? Jehoshaphat! Go way, you little fraud!"
+
+"I appeal to Jack. Jack, just look at the women in that picture of
+papa's, with the white sheets draped about them. What do they look
+like?"
+
+"Frights, Miss Kitty."
+
+"Of course they do. Now, papa."
+
+"You two young barbarians!" shouted Tom, in a fit of laughter; for Jack
+and Kitty were out in the clear frosty air by this time, with the fresh
+wind at their backs, and their faces steadily set toward the busy bustle
+and light of Broadway. They had not gone far when Jack said, anxiously,
+"You haven't thought any better of your decision last Friday night,
+Kitty, I am afraid."
+
+"Why, no, Jack. I don't see how I can, unless you could become an Indian
+Commissioner or a clerk of the Treasury, or something of that kind. You
+know I won't marry a literary man under any possible circumstances. I'm
+clear on that subject, Jack."
+
+"I know all about farming, Kitty, if that would do."
+
+"But I suppose if you were a farmer, we should have to live in the
+country. I am sure that would not do."
+
+Jack did not see how the city and farm could be brought to terms; so he
+sighed, and was silent.
+
+Kitty answered the sigh. "No use in bothering about me, Jack. You ought
+to be very glad I have been so honest. Some girls would have 'risked
+you, and in a week, you'd have been just as miserable!"
+
+"You don't dislike me, Kitty?"
+
+"Not at all. I think you are first-rate."
+
+"It is my profession, then?"
+
+"Exactly."
+
+"Now, what has it ever done to offend you?"
+
+"Nothing yet, and I don't mean it ever shall. You see, I know Will
+Hutton's wife: and what that woman endures! Its just dreadful."
+
+"Now, Kitty!"
+
+"It is Jack. Will reads all his fine articles to her, wakes her up at
+nights to listen to some new poem, rushes away from the dinner table to
+jot down what he calls 'an idea,' is always pointing out 'splendid
+passages' to her, and keeps her working just like a slave copying his
+manuscripts and cutting newspapers to pieces. Oh, it is just dreadful!"
+
+"But she thoroughly enjoys it."
+
+"Yes, that is such a shame. Will has quite spoiled her. Lucy used to be
+real nice, a jolly, stylish girl. Before she was married she was
+splendid company; now, you might just as well mope round with a book."
+
+"Kitty, I'd promise upon my honor--at the altar, if you like--never to
+bother you with anything I write; never to say a word about my
+profession."
+
+"No, no, sir! Then you would soon be finding some one else to bother,
+perhaps some blonde, sentimental, intellectual 'friend.' What is the use
+of turning a good-natured little thing like me into a hateful dog in the
+manger? I am not naturally able to appreciate you, but if you were
+_mine_, I should snarl and bark and bite at any other woman who was."
+
+Jack liked this unchristian sentiment very much indeed. He squeezed
+Kitty's hand and looked so gratefully into her bright face that she was
+forced to pretend he had ruined her glove.
+
+"I'll buy you boxes full, Kitty; and, darling, I am not very poor; I am
+quite sure I could make plenty of money for you."
+
+"Jack, I did not want to speak about money; because, if a girl does not
+go into raptures about being willing to live on crusts and dress in
+calicos for love, people say she's mercenary. Well, then, I am
+mercenary. I want silk dresses and decent dinners and matinees, and I'm
+fond of having things regular; it's a habit of mine to like them all the
+time. Now I know literary people have spasms of riches, and then spasms
+of poverty. Artists are just the same. I have tried poverty
+occasionally, and found its uses less desirable than some people tell us
+they are."
+
+"Have you decided yet whom and what you will marry, Kitty?"
+
+"No sarcasm, Jack. I shall marry the first good honest fellow that
+loves me and has a steady business, and who will not take me every
+summer to see views."
+
+"To see views?"
+
+"Yes. I am sick to death of fine scenery and mountains, 'scarped and
+jagged and rifted,' and all other kinds. I've seen so many grand
+landscapes, I never want to see another. I want to stay at the Branch or
+the Springs, and have nice dresses and a hop every night. And you know
+papa _will_ go to some lonely place, where all my toilettes are thrown
+away, and where there is not a soul to speak to but famous men of one
+kind or another."
+
+Jack couldn't help laughing; but they were now among the little crush
+that generally gathers in the vestibule of a theatre, and whatever he
+meant to say was cut in two by a downright hearty salutation from some
+third party.
+
+"Why, Max, when did you get home?"
+
+"To-day's steamer." Then there were introductions and a jingle of merry
+words and smiles that blended in Kitty's ears with the dreamy music, the
+rustle of dresses, and perfume of flowers, and the new-comer was gone.
+
+But that three minutes' interview was a wonderful event to Kitty Duffan,
+though she did not yet realize it. The stranger had touched her as she
+had never been touched before. His magnetic voice called something into
+being that was altogether new to her; his keen, searching gray eyes
+claimed what she could neither understand nor withhold. She became
+suddenly silent and thoughtful; and Jack, who was learned in love lore,
+saw in a moment that Kitty had fallen in love with his friend Max
+Raymond.
+
+It gave him a moment's bitter pang; but if Kitty was not for him, then
+he sincerely hoped Max might win her. Yet he could not have told whether
+he was most pleased or angry when he saw Max Raymond coolly negotiate a
+change of seats with the gentleman on Kitty's right hand, and take
+possession of Kitty's eyes and ears and heart. But there is a great deal
+of human nature in man, and Jack behaved, upon the whole, better than
+might have been expected.
+
+For once Kitty did not do all the talking. Max talked, and she listened;
+Max gave opinions, and she indorsed them; Max decided, and she
+submitted. It was not Jack's Kitty at all. He was quite relieved when
+she turned round in her old piquant way and snubbed him.
+
+But to Kitty it was a wonderful evening--those grand old Romans walking
+on and off the stage, the music playing, the people applauding and the
+calm, stately man on her right hand explaining this and that, and
+looking into her eyes in such a delicious, perplexing way that past and
+present were all mingled like the waving shadows of a wonderful dream.
+
+She was in love's land for about three hours; then she had to come back
+into the cold frosty air, the veritable streets, and the unmistakable
+stone houses. But it was hardest of all to come back and be the old
+radiant, careless Kitty.
+
+"Well, pussy, what of the play?" asked Tom Duffan; "you cut ----'s
+criticism short this morning. Now, what is yours?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know papa. The play was Shakespeare's, and Booth and
+Barrett backed him up handsomely."
+
+"Very fine criticism indeed, Kitty. I wish Booth and Barrett could hear
+it."
+
+"I wish they could; but I am tired to death now. Good night, papa; good
+night, mamma. I'll talk for twenty in the morning."
+
+"What's the matter with Kitty, mother?"
+
+"Jack Warner, I expect."
+
+"Hum! I don't think so."
+
+"Men don't know everything, Tom."
+
+"They don't know anything about women; their best efforts in that line
+are only guesses at truth."
+
+"Go to bed, Tom Duffan; you are getting prosy and ridiculous. Kitty will
+explain herself in the morning."
+
+But Kitty did not explain herself, and she daily grew more and more
+inexplicable. She began to read: Max brought the books, and she read
+them. She began to practice: Max liked music, and wanted to sing with
+her. She stopped crimping her hair: Max said it was unnatural and
+inartistic. She went to scientific lectures and astronomical lectures
+and literary societies: Max took her.
+
+Tom Duffan did not quite like the change, for Tom was of that order of
+men who love to put their hearts and necks under a pretty woman's foot.
+He had been so long used to Kitty dominant, to Kitty sarcastic, to Kitty
+willful, to Kitty absolute, that he could not understand the new Kitty.
+
+"I do not think our little girl is quite well, mother," he said one day,
+after studying his daughter reading the _Endymion_ without a yawn.
+
+"Tom, if you can't 'think' to better purpose, you had better go on
+painting. Kitty is in love."
+
+"First time I ever saw love make a woman studious and sensible."
+
+"They are uncommon symptoms; nevertheless, Kitty's in love. Poor child!"
+
+"With whom?"
+
+"Max Raymond;" and the mother dropped her eyes upon the ruffle she was
+pleating for Kitty's dress, while Tom Duffan accompanied the new-born
+thought with his favorite melody.
+
+Thus the winter passed quickly and happily away. Greatly to Kitty's
+delight, before its close Jack found the "blonde, sentimental,
+intellectual friend," who could appreciate both him and his writings;
+and the two went to housekeeping in what Kitty called "a large dry-goods
+box." The merry little wedding was the last event of a late spring, and
+when it was over the summer quarters were an imperative question.
+
+"I really don't know what to do, mother," said Tom. "Kitty vowed she
+would not go to the Peak this year, and I scarcely know how to get along
+without it."
+
+"Oh, Kitty will go. Max Raymond has quarters at the hotel lower down."
+
+"Oh, oh! I'll tease the little puss."
+
+"You will do nothing of the kind, Tom, unless you want to go to Cape May
+or the Branch. They both imagine their motives undiscovered; but you
+just let Kitty know that you even suspect them, and she won't stir a
+step in your direction."
+
+Here Kitty, entering the room, stopped the conversation. She had a
+pretty lawn suit on, and a Japanese fan in her hand. "Lawn and fans,
+Kitty," said Tom: "time to leave the city. Shall we go to the Branch, or
+Saratoga?"
+
+"Now, papa, you know you are joking; you always go to the Peak."
+
+"But I am going with you to the seaside this summer, Kitty. I wish my
+little daughter to have her whim for once."
+
+"You are better than there is any occasion for, papa. I don't want
+either the Branch or Saratoga this year. Sarah Cooper is at the Branch
+with her snobby little husband and her extravagant toilettes; I'm not
+going to be patronized by her. And Jack and his learned lady are at
+Saratoga. I don't want to make Mrs. Warner jealous, but I'm afraid I
+couldn't help it. I think you had better keep me out of temptation."
+
+"Where must we go, then?"
+
+"Well, I suppose we might as well go to the Peak. I shall not want many
+new dresses there; and then, papa, you are so good to me all the time,
+you deserve your own way about your holiday."
+
+And Tom Duffan said, "_Thank you, Kitty_," in such a peculiar way that
+Kitty lost all her wits, blushed crimson, dropped her fan, and finally
+left the room with the lamest of excuses. And then Mrs. Duffan said,
+"Tom, you ought to be ashamed of yourself! If men know a thing past
+ordinary, they must blab it, either with a look or a word or a letter; I
+shouldn't wonder if Kitty told you to-night she was going to the
+Branch, and asked you for a $500 check--serve you right, too."
+
+But if Kitty had any such intentions, Max Raymond changed them. Kitty
+went very sweetly to the Peak, and two days afterward Max Raymond,
+straying up the hills with his fishing rod, strayed upon Tom Duffan,
+sketching. Max did a great deal of fishing that summer, and at the end
+of it Tom Duffan's pretty daughter was inextricably caught. She had no
+will but Max's will, and no way but his way. She had promised him never
+to marry any one but him; she had vowed she would love him, and only
+him, to the end of her life.
+
+All these obligations without a shadow or a doubt from the prudent
+little body. Yet she knew nothing of Max's family or antecedents; she
+had taken his appearance and manners, and her father's and mother's
+respectful admission of his friendship, as guarantee sufficient. She
+remembered that Jack, that first night in the theatre, had said
+something about studying law together; and with these items, and the
+satisfactory fact that he always had plenty of money, Kitty had given
+her whole heart, without conditions and without hostages.
+
+Nor would she mar the placid measure of her content by questioning; it
+was enough that her father and mother were satisfied with her choice.
+When they returned to the city, congratulations, presents and
+preparations filled every hour. Kitty's importance gave her back a great
+deal of her old dictatorial way. In the matter of toilettes she would
+not suffer even Max to interfere. "Results were all men had to do with,"
+she said; "everything was inartistic to them but a few yards of linen
+and a straight petticoat."
+
+Max sighed over the flounces and flutings and lace and ribbons, and
+talked about "unadorned beauty;" and then, when Kitty exhibited results,
+went into rhapsodies of wonder and admiration. Kitty was very triumphant
+in those days, but a little drop of mortification was in store for her.
+She was exhibiting all her pretty things one day to a friend, whose
+congratulations found their climax in the following statement:
+
+"Really, Kitty, a most beautiful wardrobe! and such an extraordinary
+piece of luck for such a little scatter-brain as you! Why, they do say
+that Mr. Raymond's last book is just wonderful."
+
+"_Mr. Raymond's last book_!" And Kitty let the satin-lined morocco case,
+with all its ruby treasures, fall from her hand.
+
+"Why, haven't you read it, dear? So clever, and all that, dear."
+
+Kitty had tact enough to turn the conversation; but just as soon as her
+visitor had gone, she faced her mother, with blazing eyes and cheeks,
+and said, "What is Max's business--a lawyer?"
+
+"Gracious, Kitty! What's the matter? He is a scientist, a professor, and
+a great--"
+
+"_Writer?_"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Writes books and magazine articles and things?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Kitty thought profoundly for a few moments, and then said, "_I thought
+so._ I wish Jack Warner was at home."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Only a little matter I should like to have out with him; but it will
+keep."
+
+Jack, however, went South without visiting New York, and when he
+returned, pretty Kitty Duffan had been Mrs. Max Raymond for two years.
+His first visit was to Tom Duffan's parlor-studio. He was painting and
+singing and chatting to his wife as usual. It was so like old times that
+Jack's eyes filled at the memory when he asked where and how was Mrs.
+Raymond.
+
+"Oh, the professor had bought a beautiful place eight miles from the
+city. Kitty and he preferred the country. Would he go and see them?"
+
+Certainly Jack would go. To tell the truth, he was curious to see what
+other miracles matrimony had wrought upon Kitty. So he went, and came
+back wondering.
+
+"Really, dear," says Mrs. Jack Warner, the next day, "how does the
+professor get along with that foolish, ignorant little wife of his?"
+
+"Get along with her? Why, he couldn't get along without her! She sorts
+his papers, makes his notes and quotations, answers his letters, copies
+his manuscripts, swears by all he thinks and says and does, through
+thick and thin, by day and night. It's wonderful, by Jove! I felt
+spiteful enough to remind her that she had once vowed that nothing on
+earth should ever induce her to marry a writer."
+
+"What did she say?"
+
+"She turned round in her old saucy manner, and answered, 'Jack Warner,
+you are as dark as ever. I did not marry the writer, I married _the
+man_.' Then I said, 'I suppose all this study and reading and writing is
+your offering toward the advancement of science and social
+regeneration?'"
+
+"What then?"
+
+"She laughed in a very provoking way, and said, 'Dark again, Jack; _it
+is a labor of love_.'"
+
+"Well I never!"
+
+"Nor I either."
+
+
+
+
+THE HARVEST OF THE WIND.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+     "As a city broken down and without walls, so is he that hath no
+     rule over his own spirit."
+
+
+    "My soul! Master Jesus, my soul!
+      My soul!
+    Dar's a little thing lays in my heart,
+    An' de more I dig him de better he spring:
+      My soul!
+    Dar's a little thing lays in my heart
+    An' he sets my soul on fire:
+      My soul!
+    Master Jesus, my soul! my soul!"
+
+The singer was a negro man, with a very, black but very kindly face; and
+he was hoeing corn in the rich bottom lands of the San Gabriel river as
+he chanted his joyful little melody. It was early in the morning, yet he
+rested on his hoe and looked anxiously toward the cypress swamp on his
+left hand.
+
+"I'se mighty weary 'bout Massa Davie; he'll get himself into trouble ef
+he stay dar much longer. Ole massa might be 'long most any time now." He
+communed with himself in this strain for about five minutes, and then
+threw his hoe across his shoulder, and picked a road among the hills of
+growing corn until he passed out of the white dazzling light of the
+field into the grey-green shadows of the swamp. Threading his way among
+the still black bayous, he soon came to a little clearing in the
+cypress.
+
+Here a young man was standing in an attitude of expectancy--a very
+handsome man clothed in the picturesque costume of a ranchero. He leaned
+upon his rifle, but betrayed both anger and impatience in the rapid
+switching to and fro of his riding-whip. "Plato, she has not come!" He
+said it reproachfully, as if the negro was to blame.
+
+"I done tole you, Massa Davie, dat Miss Lulu neber do noffing ob dat
+kind; ole massa 'ticlarly objects to Miss Lulu seeing you at de present
+time."
+
+"My father objects to every one I like."
+
+"Ef Massa Davie jist 'lieve it, ole massa want ebery thing for his
+good."
+
+"You oversize that statement considerably, Plato. Tell my father, if he
+asks you, that I am going with Jim Whaley, and give Miss Lulu this
+letter."
+
+"I done promise ole massa neber to gib Miss Lulu any letter or message
+from you, Massa Davie."
+
+In a moment the youth's handsome face was flaming with ungovernable
+passion, and he lifted his riding-whip to strike.
+
+"For de Lord Jesus' sake don't strike, Massa Davie! Dese arms done
+carry you when you was de littlest little chile. Don't strike me!"
+
+"I should be a brute if I did, Plato;" but the blow descended upon the
+trunk of the tree against which he had been leaning with terrible force.
+Then David Lorimer went striding through the swamp, his great bell spurs
+chiming to his uneven, crashing tread.
+
+Plato looked sorrowfully after him. "Poor Massa Davie! He's got de
+drefful temper; got it each side ob de house--father and mother, bofe. I
+hope de good Massa above will make 'lowances for de young man--got it
+bofe ways, he did." And he went thoughtfully back to his work, murmuring
+hopes and apologies for the man he loved, with all the forgiving
+unselfishness of a prayer in them.
+
+In some respects Plato was right. David Lorimer had inherited, both from
+father and mother, an unruly temper. His father was a Scot, dour and
+self-willed; his mother had been a Spanish woman, of San Antonio--a
+daughter of the grandee family of Yturris. Their marriage had not been a
+happy one, and the fiery emotional Southern woman had fretted her life
+away against the rugged strength of the will which opposed hers. David
+remembered his mother well, and idolized her memory; right or wrong, he
+had always espoused her quarrel, and when she died she left, between
+father and son, a great gulf.
+
+He had been hard to manage then, but at twenty-two he was beyond all
+control, excepting such as his cousin, Lulu Yturri, exercised over him.
+But this love, the most pure and powerful influence he acknowledged, had
+been positively forbidden. The elder Lorimer declared that there had
+been too much Spanish blood in the family; and it is likely his motives
+commended themselves to his own conscience. It was certain that the mere
+exertion of his will in the matter gave him a pleasure he would not
+forego. Yet he was theoretically a religious man, devoted to the special
+creed he approved, and rigidly observing such forms of worship as made
+any part of it. But the law of love had never yet been revealed to him;
+he had feared and trembled at the fiery Mount of Sinai, but he had not
+yet drawn near to the tenderer influences of Calvary.
+
+He was a rich man also. Broad acres waved with his corn and cotton, and
+he counted his cattle on the prairies by tens of thousands; but nothing
+in his mode of life indicated wealth. The log-house, stretching itself
+out under gigantic trees, was of the usual style of Texan
+architecture--broad passages between every room, sweeping from front to
+rear; and low piazzas, festooned with flowery vines, shading it on every
+side. All around it, under the live oaks, were scattered the negro
+cabins, their staring whitewash looking picturesque enough under the
+hanging moss and dark green foliage. But, simple as the house was, it
+was approached by lordly avenues, shaded with black-jack and sweet gum
+and chincapin, interwoven with superb magnolias and gorgeous tulip
+trees.
+
+The Scot in a foreign country, too, often steadily cultivates his
+national peculiarities. James Lorimer was a Scot of this type. As far as
+it was possible to do so in that sunshiny climate, he introduced the
+grey, sombre influence of the land of mists and east winds. His
+household was ruled with stern gravity; his ranch was a model of good
+management; and though few affected his society, he was generally relied
+upon and esteemed; for, though opinionated, egotistical, and austere,
+there was about him a grand honesty and a sense of strength that would
+rise to every occasion.
+
+And so great is the influence of any genuine nature, that David loved
+his father in a certain fashion. The creed he held was a hard one; but
+when he called his family and servants together, and unflinchingly
+taught it, David, even in his worst moods, was impressed with his
+sincerity and solemnity. There was between them plenty of ground on
+which they could have stood hand in hand, and learned to love one
+another; but a passionate authority on the one hand, and a passionate
+independence on the other, kept them far apart.
+
+Shortly before my story opens there had been a more stubborn quarrel
+than usual, and James Lorimer had forbidden his son to enter his house
+until he chose to humble himself to his father's authority. Then David
+joined Jim Whaley, a great cattle drover, and in a week they were on the
+road to New Mexico with a herd of eight thousand.
+
+This news greatly distressed James Lorimer. He loved his son better than
+he was aware of. There was a thousand deaths upon such a road; there was
+a moral danger in the companionship attending such a business, which he
+regarded with positive horror. The drove had left two days when he heard
+of its departure; but such droves travel slowly, and he could overtake
+it if he wished to do so. As he sat in the moonlight that night,
+smoking, he thought the thing over until he convinced himself that he
+ought to overtake it. Even if Davie would not return with him, he could
+tell him of his danger, and urge him to his duty and thus, at any rate,
+relieve his own conscience of a burden.
+
+Arriving at this conclusion, he looked up and saw his niece Lulu
+leaning against one of the white pilasters supporting the piazza. He
+regarded her a moment curiously, as one may look at a lovely picture.
+The pale, sensitive face, the swaying, graceful figure, the flowing
+white robe, the roses at her girdle, were all sharply revealed by the
+bright moonlight, and nothing beautiful in them escaped his notice. He
+was just enough to admit that the temptation to love so fair a woman
+must have been a great one to David. He had himself fallen into just
+such a bewitching snare, and he believed it to be his duty to prevent a
+recurrence of his own married life at any sacrifice.
+
+"Lulu!"
+
+"Yes, uncle."
+
+"Have you spoken with or written to Davie lately?"
+
+"Not since you forbid me."
+
+He said no more. He began wondering if, after all, the girl would not
+have been better than Jim Whaley. In a dim way it struck him that people
+for ever interfering with destiny do not always succeed in their
+intentions. It was an unusual and unpractical vein of thought for James
+Lorimer, and he put it uneasily away. Still over and over came back the
+question, "What if Lulu's influence would have been sufficient to have
+kept David from the wild reckless men with whom he was now consorting?"
+For the first time in his life he consciously admitted to himself that
+he might have made a mistake.
+
+The next morning he was early in the saddle. The sky was blue and clear,
+the air full of the fresh odor of earth and clover and wild flowers. The
+swallows were making a jubilant twitter, the larks singing on the edge
+of the prairie--the glorious prairie, which the giants of the unflooded
+world had cleared off and leveled for the dwelling-place of Liberty. In
+his own way he enjoyed the scene; but he could not, as he usually did,
+let the peace of it sink into his heart. He had suddenly become aware
+that he had an unpleasant duty to perform, and to shirk a duty was a
+thing impossible to him. Until he had obeyed the voice of Conscience,
+all other voices would fail to arrest his interest or attention.
+
+He rode on at a steady pace, keeping the track very easily, and thinking
+of Lulu in a persistent way that was annoying to him. Hitherto he had
+given her very little thought. Half reluctantly he had taken her into
+his household when she was four years of age, and she had grown up there
+with almost as little care as the vines which year by year clambered
+higher over the piazzas. As for her beauty he had thought no more of it
+than he did of the beauty of the magnolias which sheltered his doorstep.
+Mrs. Lorimer had loved her niece, and he had not interfered with the
+affection. They were both Yturris; it was natural that they should
+understand one another.
+
+But his son was of a different race, and the inheritor of his own
+traditions and prejudices. A Scot from his own countryside had recently
+settled in the neighborhood, and at the Sabbath gathering he had seen
+and approved his daughter. To marry his son David to Jessie Kennedy
+appeared to him a most desirable thing, and he had considered its
+advantages until he could not bear to relinquish the idea. But when both
+fathers had settled the matter, David had met the question squarely, and
+declared he would marry no woman but his cousin Lulu. It was on this
+subject father and son had quarrelled and parted; but for all that,
+James Lorimer could not see his only son taking a high road to ruin, and
+not make an effort to save him.
+
+At sundown he rested a little, but the trail was so fresh he determined
+to ride on. He might reach David while they were camping, and then he
+could talk matters over with more ease and freedom. Near midnight the
+great white Texas moon flooded everything with a light wondrously soft,
+but clear as day, and he easily found Whaley's camp--a ten-acre patch of
+grass on the summit of some low hills.
+
+The cattle had all settled for the night, and the "watch" of eight men
+were slowly riding in a circle around them. Lorimer was immediately
+challenged; and he gave his name and asked to see the captain. Whaley
+rose at once, and confronted him with a cool, civil movement of his hand
+to his hat. Then Lorimer observed the man as he had never done before.
+He was evidently not a person to be trifled with. There was a fixed look
+about him, and a deliberate coolness, sufficiently indicating a
+determined character; and a belt around his waist supported a
+six-shooter and revealed the glittering hilt of a bowie knife.
+
+"Captain, good night. I wish to speak with my son, David Lorimer."
+
+"Wall, sir, you can't do it, not by no manner of means, just yet. David
+Lorimer is on watch till midnight."
+
+He was perfectly civil, but there was something particularly irritating
+in the way Whaley named David Lorimer. So the two men sat almost silent
+before the camp fire until midnight. Then Whaley said, "Mr. Lorimer,
+your son is at liberty now. You'll excuse me saying that the shorter you
+make your palaver the better it will suit me."
+
+Lorimer turned angrily, but Whaley was walking carelessly away; and the
+retort that rose to his lips was not one to be shouted after a man of
+Whaley's desperate character with safety. As his son approached him he
+was conscious of a thrill of pleasure in the young man's appearance.
+
+Physically, he was all he could desire. No Lorimer that ever galloped
+through Eskdale had the national peculiarities more distinctively. He
+was the tall, fair Scot, and his father complacently compared his yellow
+hair and blue eyes with the "dark, deil-like beauty" of Whaley.
+
+"Davie," and he held out his hand frankly, "I hae come to tak ye back to
+your ain hame. Let byganes be byganes, and we'll start a new chapter o'
+life, my lad. Ye'll try to be a gude son, and I'll aye be a gude father
+to ye."
+
+It was a great deal for James Lorimer to say; and David quite
+appreciated the concession, but he answered--
+
+"Lulu, father? I cannot give her up."
+
+"Weel, weel, if ye are daft to marry a strange woman, ye must e'en do
+sae. It is an auld sin, and there have aye been daughters o' Heth to
+plague honest houses wi'. But sit down, my lad; I came to talk wi' ye
+anent some decenter way of life than this."
+
+The talk was not altogether a pleasant one; but both yielded something,
+and it was finally agreed that as soon as Whaley could pick up a man to
+fill Davie's place Davie should return home. Lorimer did not linger
+after this decision. Whaley's behavior had offended him and without the
+ceremony of a "good-bye," he turned his horse's head eastward again.
+
+Picking up a man was not easy; they certainly had several offers from
+emigrants going west, and from Mexicans on the route, but Whaley seemed
+determined not to be pleased. He disliked Lorimer and was deeply
+offended at him interfering with his arrangements. Every day that he
+kept David was a kind of triumph to him. "He might as well have asked me
+how I'd like my drivers decoyed away. I like a man to be on the square,"
+he grumbled. And he said these and similar things so often, that David
+began to feel it impossible to restrain his temper.
+
+Anger, fed constantly by spiteful remarks and small injustices, grows
+rapidly; and as they approached the Apache mountains, the men began to
+notice a fixed tightening of the lips, and a stern blaze in the young
+Scot's eyes, which Whaley appeared to delight in intensifying.
+
+"Thar'll be mischief atween them two afore long," remarked an old
+drover; "Lorimer is gittin' to hate the captain with such a vim that
+he's no appetite for his food left."
+
+"It'll be a fair fight, and one or both'll get upped; that's about it."
+
+At length they met a party of returning drovers, and half a dozen men
+among them were willing to take David's place. Whaley had no longer any
+pretence for detaining him. They were at the time between two long, low
+spurs of hills, enclosing a rich narrow valley, deep with ripened grass,
+gilded into flickering gold by the sun and the dewless summer days. All
+the lower ridges were savagely bald and hot--a glen, paved with gold and
+walled with iron. Oh, how the sun did beat and shiver, and shake down
+into the breathless valley!
+
+The cattle were restless, and the men had had a hard day. David was
+weary; his heart was not in the work; he was glad it was his last watch.
+It began at ten o'clock, and would end at midnight. The weather was
+gloomy, and the few stars which shone between the rifts of driving
+clouds just served to outline the mass of sleeping cattle.
+
+The air also was surcharged with electricity, though there had been no
+lightning.
+
+"I wouldn't wonder ef we have a 'run' to-night," said one of the men.
+"I've seen a good many stampedes, and they allays happens on such nights
+as this one."
+
+"Nonsense!" replied David. "If a cayote frightens one in a drove the
+panic Spreads to all. Any night would do for a 'run.'"
+
+"'Taint so, Lorimer. Ef you've a drove of one thousand or of ten
+thousand it's all the same; the panic strikes every beast at the same
+moment. It's somethin' in the air; 'taint my business to know what. But
+you look like a 'run' yourself, restless and hot, and as ef somethin'
+was gitting 'the mad' up in you. I noticed Whaley is 'bout the same. I'd
+keep clear of him, ef I was you."
+
+"No, I won't. He owes me money, and I'll make him pay me!"
+
+"Don't! Thar, I've warned you, David Lorimer, and that let's me out.
+Take your own way now."
+
+For half an hour David pondered this caution, and something in his own
+heart seconded it. But when the trial of his temper came he turned a
+deaf ear to every monition. Whaley went swaggering by him, and as he
+passed issued an unnecessary order in a very insolent manner. David
+asked pointedly, "Were you speaking to me, Captain?"
+
+"I was."
+
+"Then don't you dare to do it again, sir; never, as long as you live!"
+
+Before the words were out of his mouth, every one of the drove of eight
+thousand were on their feet like a flash of lightning; every one of
+them exactly at the same instant. With a rush like a whirlwind leveling
+a forest, they were off in the darkness.
+
+The wild clatter, the crackling of a river of horns, and the thundering
+of hoofs, was deafening. Whaley, seeing eighty thousand dollars' worth
+of cattle running away from him, turned with a fierce imprecation, and
+gave David a passionate order "to ride up to the leaders," and then he
+sprang for his own mule.
+
+David's time was now fully out, and he drew his horse's rein tight and
+stood still.
+
+"Coward!" screamed Whaley; "try and forget for an hour that you have
+Spanish blood in you."
+
+A pistol shot answered the taunt. Whaley staggered a second, then fell
+without a word. The whole scene had not occupied a minute; but it was a
+minute that branded itself on the soul of David Lorimer. He gazed one
+instant on the upturned face of his slain enemy, and then gave himself
+up to the wild passion of the pursuit.
+
+By the spectral starlight he could see the cattle outlined as a black,
+clattering, thundering stream, rushing wildly on, and every instant
+becoming wilder. But David's horse had been trained in the business; he
+knew what the matter was, and scarce needed any guiding. Dashing along
+by the side of the stampede, they soon overtook the leaders and joined
+the men, who were gradually pushing against the foremost cattle on the
+left so as to turn them to the right. When once the leaders were turned
+the rest blindly followed and thus, by constantly turning them to the
+right, the leaders were finally swung clear around, and overtook the fag
+end of the line.
+
+Then they rushed around in a circle, the centre of which soon closed up,
+and they were "milling;" that is, they had formed a solid wheel, and
+were going round and round themselves in the same space of ground. Men
+who had noticed how very little David's heart had been in his work were
+amazed to see the reckless courage he displayed. Round and round the
+mill he flew, keeping the outside stock from flying off at a tangent,
+and soothing and quieting the beasts nearest to him with his voice. The
+"run" was over as suddenly as it commenced, and the men, breathless and
+exhausted, stood around the circle of panting cattle.
+
+"Whar's the Captain?" said one; "he gin'rally soop'rintends a job like
+this himself."
+
+"And likes to do it. Who's seen the Captain? Hev you, Lorimer?"
+
+"He was in camp when I started. My time was up just as the 'run'
+commenced."
+
+No more was said; indeed, there was little opportunity for
+conversation. The cattle were to watch; it was still dark; the men were
+weary with the hard riding and the unnatural pitch to which their voices
+had been raised. David felt that he must get away at once; any moment a
+messenger from the camp might bring the news of Whaley's murder; and he
+knew well that suspicion would at once rest upon him.
+
+He offered to return to camp and report "all right," and the offer was
+accepted; but, at the first turn, he rode away into the darkness of a
+belt of timber. The cayotes howled in the distance; there was a rush of
+unclean night birds above him, and the growling of panther cats in the
+underwood. But in his soul there was a terror and a darkness that made
+all natural terrors of small account. His own hands were hateful to him.
+He moaned out loudly like a man in an agony. He measured in every
+moments' space the height from which he had fallen; the blessings from
+which he must be an outcast, if by any means he might escape the
+shameful punishment of his deed. He remembered at that hour his father's
+love, the love that had so finely asserted itself when the occasion for
+it came. Lulu's tenderness and beauty, the hope of home and children,
+the respect of his fellow-men, all sacrificed for a moment's passionate
+revenge. He stood face to face with himself, and, dropping the reins,
+cowered down full of terror and grief at the future which he had evoked.
+Within hopeless sight of Hope and Love and Home, he was silent for hours
+gazing despairingly after the life which had sailed by him, and not
+daring--
+
+    "--to search through what sad maze,
+    Thenceforth his incommunicable ways
+    Follow the feet of death."
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+     "--and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." James i.
+     15.
+
+Blessed are they who have seen Nature in those rare, ineffable moments
+when she appears to be asleep--when the stars, large and white, bend
+stilly over the dreaming earth, and not a breath of wind stirs leaf or
+flower. On such a night James Lorimer sat upon his south verandah
+smoking; and his niece Lulu, white and motionless as the magnolia
+flowers above her, mused the hour away beside him. There were little
+ebony squads of negroes huddled together around the doors of their
+quarters, but they also were singularly quiet. An angel of silence had
+passed by no one was inclined to disturb the tranquil calm of the
+dreaming earth.
+
+There is nothing good in this life which Time does not improve. In ten
+days the better feelings which had led James Lorimer to seek his son in
+the path of moral and physical danger had grown as Divine seed does
+grow. This very night, in the scented breathless quiet, he was longing
+for David's return, and forming plans through which the future might
+atone for the past. Gradually the weary negroes went into the cabins,
+rolled themselves in their blankets and fell into that sound, dreamless
+sleep which is the compensation of hard labor. Only Lulu watched and
+thought with him.
+
+Suddenly she stood up and listened. There was a footstep in the avenue,
+and she knew it. But why did it linger, and what dreary echo of sorrow
+was there in it?
+
+"That is David's step, uncle; but what is the matter? Is he sick?"
+
+Then they both saw the young man coming slowly through the gloom, and
+the shadow of some calamity came steadily on before him. Lulu went to
+the top of the long flight of white steps, and put out her hands to
+greet him. He motioned her away with a woeful and positive gesture, and
+stood with hopeless yet half defiant attitude before his father.
+
+In a moment all the new tenderness was gone.
+
+In a voice stern and scornful he asked, "Well, sir, what is the matter?
+What hae ye been doing now?"
+
+"I have shot Whaley!"
+
+The words were rather breathed than spoken, but they were distinctly
+audible. The father rose and faced his wretched son.
+
+Lulu drew close to him, and asked, in a shocked whisper, "Dead?"
+
+"Dead!"
+
+"But you had a good reason, David; I know you had. He would have shot
+you?--it was in self-defence?--it was an accident? Speak, dear!"
+
+"He called me a coward, and--"
+
+"You shot him! Then you are a coward, sir!" said Lorimer, sternly; "and
+having made yourself fit for the gallows, you are a double coward to
+come here and force upon me the duty of arresting you. Put down your
+rifle, sir!"
+
+Lulu uttered a long low wail. "Oh, David, my love! why did you come
+here? Did you hope for pity or help in his heart? And what can I do
+Davie, but suffer with you?" But she drew his face down and kissed it
+with a solemn tenderness that taught the wretched man, in one moment,
+all the blessedness of a woman's devotion, and all the misery that the
+indulgence of his ungovernable temper had caused him.
+
+"We will hae no more heroics, Lulu. As a magistrate and a citizen it is
+my duty to arrest a murderer on his ain confession."
+
+"Your duty!" she answered, in a passion of scorn. "Had you done your
+duty to David in the past years, this duty would not have been to do.
+Your duty or anything belonging to yourself, has always been your sole
+care. Wrong Davie, wrong me, slay love outright, but do your duty, and
+stand well with the world and yourself! Uncle, you are a dreadful
+Christian!"
+
+"How dare you judge me, Lulu? Go to your own room at once!"
+
+"David, dearest, farewell! Fly!--you will get no pity here. Fly!"
+
+"Sit down, sir, and do not attempt to move!"
+
+"I am hungry, thirsty, weary and wretched, and at your mercy, father. Do
+as you will with me." And he laid his rifle upon the table.
+
+Lorimer looked at the hopeless figure that almost fell into the chair
+beside him, and his first feeling was one of mingled scorn and pity.
+
+"How did it happen? Tell me the truth. I want neither excuses nor
+deceptions."
+
+"I have no desire to make them. There was a 'run,' just as my time was
+out. Whaley, in an insolent manner, ordered me to help turn the
+leaders. I did not move. He called me a coward, and taunted me with my
+Spanish blood--it was my dear mother's."
+
+"That is it," answered Lorimer, with an anger all the more terrible for
+its restraint; "it is the Spanish blood wi' its gasconade and foolish
+pride."
+
+"Father! You have a right to give me up to the hangman; but you have no
+right to insult me."
+
+The next moment he fell senseless at his father's feet. It was the
+collapse of consciousness under excessive physical exhaustion and mental
+anguish; but Lorimer, who had never seen a man in such extremity,
+believed it to be death. A tumult of emotions rushed over him, but
+assistance was evidently the first duty, and he hastened for it. First
+he sent the housekeeper Cassie to her young master, then he went to the
+quarters to arouse Plato.
+
+When he returned, Lulu and Cassie were kneeling beside the unconscious
+youth. "You have murdered him!" said Lulu, bitterly; and for a moment he
+felt something of the remorseful agony which had driven the criminal at
+his feet into a short oblivion. But very soon there was a slight
+reaction, and the father was the first to see it. "He has only fainted;
+bring some wine here!" Then he remembered the weakness of the voice
+which had said, "I am hungry, and thirsty, and weary and wretched."
+
+When David opened his eyes again his first glance was at his father.
+There was something in that look that smote the angry man to his heart
+of hearts. He turned away, motioning Plato to follow him. But even when
+he had reached his own room and shut his door, he could not free himself
+from the influence evoked by that look of sorrowful reproach.
+
+Plato stood just within the door, nervously dangling his straw hat. He
+was evidently balancing some question in his own mind, and the
+uncertainty gave a queer restlessness to every part of his body.
+
+"Plato, you are to watch the young man down-stairs; he is not to be
+allowed to leave the house."
+
+"Yes, sar."
+
+"He has committed a great crime, and he must abide the consequences."
+
+No answer.
+
+"You understand that, Plato?"
+
+"Dunno, sar. I mighty sinful ole man myself. Dunno bout de
+consequences."
+
+"Go, and do as I bid you!"
+
+When he was alone he rose slowly and locked his door. He wanted to do
+right, but he was like a man in the fury and darkness of a great
+tempest: he could not see any road at all. There was a Bible on his
+dressing-table, and he opened it; but the verses mingled together, and
+the sense of everything seemed to escape him. The hand of the Great
+Father was stretched out to him in the dark, but he could not find it.
+He knew that at the bottom of his heart lay a wish that David would
+escape from justice. He knew that a selfish shame about his own fair
+character mingled with his father's love; his motives and feelings were
+so mixed that he did not dare to bring them, in their pure truthfulness,
+to the feet of God; for as yet he did not understand that "like as a
+father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him;" he
+thought of the Divine Being as one so jealous for His own rights and
+honor that He would have the human heart a void, so that he might reign
+there supremely. So all that terrible night he stood smitten and
+astonished on a threshold he could not pass.
+
+In another room the question was being in a measure solved for him.
+Cassie brought in meat and bread and wine, and David ate, and felt
+refreshed. Then the love of life returned, and the terror of a shameful
+death; and he laid his hand upon his rifle and looked round to see what
+chance of escape his father had left him. Plato stood at the door, Lulu
+sat by his side, holding his hand. On her face there was an expression
+of suffering, at once defiant and despairing--a barren suffering,
+without hope. They had come to that turn on their unhappy road when they
+had to bid each other "Farewell!" It was done very sadly, and with few
+words.
+
+"You must go now, beloved."
+
+He held her close to his heart and kissed her solemnly and silently. The
+next moment she turned on him from the open door a white, anguished
+face. Then he was alone with Plato.
+
+"Plato, I must go now. Will you saddle the brown mare for me?"
+
+"She am waiting, Massa David. I tole Cassie to get her ready, and some
+bread and meat, and _dis_, Massa Davie, if you'll 'blige ole Plato."
+Then he laid down a rude bag of buckskin, holding the savings of his
+lifetime.
+
+"How much is there, Plato?"
+
+"Four hundred dollars, sar. Sorry it am so little."
+
+"It was for your freedom, Plato."
+
+"I done gib dat up, Massa Davie. I'se too ole now to git de rest. Ef you
+git free, dat is all I want."
+
+They went quietly out together. It was not long after midnight. The
+brown mare stood ready saddled in the shadow, and Cassie stood beside
+her with a small bag, holding a change of linen and some cooked food.
+The young man mounted quickly, grasped the kind hands held out to him,
+and then rode away into the darkness. He went softly at first, but when
+he reached the end of the avenue at a speed which indicated his terror
+and his mental suffering.
+
+Cassie and Plato watched him until he became an indistinguishable black
+spot upon the prairie; then they turned wearily towards the cabins. They
+had seen and shared the long sorrow and discontent of the household;
+they hardly expected anything but trouble in some form or other. Both
+were also thinking of the punishment they were likely to receive; for
+James Lorimer never failed to make an example of evil-doers; he would
+hardly be disposed to pass over their disobedience.
+
+Early in the morning Plato was called by his master. There was little
+trace of the night of mental agony the latter had passed. He was one of
+those complete characters who join to perfect physical health a mind
+whose fibres do not easily show the severest strain.
+
+"Tell Master David to come here."
+
+"Massa David, sar! Massa David done gone sar!" The old man's lips were
+trembling, but otherwise his nervous restlessness was over. He looked
+his master calmly in the face.
+
+"Did I not tell you to stop him?"
+
+"Ef de Lord in heaven want him stopped, Massa James, He'll send the
+messenger--Plato could not do it!"
+
+"How did he go?"
+
+"On de little brown mare--his own horse done broke all up."
+
+"How much money did you give him?"
+
+"Money, sar?"
+
+"How much? Tell the truth."
+
+"Four hundred dollars."
+
+"That will do. Tell Cassie I want my breakfast."
+
+At breakfast he glanced at Lulu's empty chair, but said nothing. In the
+house all was as if no great sin and sorrow had darkened its threshold
+and left a stain upon its hearthstone. The churning and cleaning was
+going on as usual. Only Cassie was quieter, and Lulu lay, white and
+motionless, in the little vine-shaded room that looked too cool and
+pretty for grief to enter. The unhappy father sat still all day,
+pondering many things that he had not before thought of. Every footfall
+made his heart turn sick, but the night came, and there was no further
+bad news.
+
+On the second day he went into Lulu's room, hoping to say a word of
+comfort to her. She listened apathetically, and turned her face to the
+wall with a great sob. He began to feel some irritation in the
+atmosphere of misery which surrounded him. It was very hard to be made
+so wretched for another's sin. The thought in an instant became a
+reproach. Was he altogether innocent? The second and third days passed;
+he began to be sure then that David must have reached a point beyond the
+probability of pursuit.
+
+On the fourth day he went to the cotton field. He visited the overseer's
+house, he spent the day in going over accounts and making estimates. He
+tried to forget that _something_ had happened which made life appear a
+different thing. In the grey, chill, misty evening he returned home. The
+negroes were filing down the long lane before him, each bearing their
+last basket of cotton--all of them silent, depressed with their
+weariness, and intensely sensitive to the melancholy influence of the
+autumn twilight.
+
+Lorimer did not care to pass them. He saw them, one by one, leave their
+cotton at the ginhouse, and trail despondingly off to their cabins. Then
+he rode slowly up to his own door. A man sat on the verandah smoking. At
+the sight of him his heart fell fathoms deep.
+
+"Good evening." He tried to give his voice a cheerful welcoming sound,
+but he could not do it; and the visitor's attitude was not encouraging.
+
+"Good evening, Lorimer. I'm right sorry to tell you that you will be
+wanted on some unpleasant business very early to-morrow morning."
+
+He tried to answer, but utterly failed; his tongue was as dumb as his
+soul was heavy. He only drew a chair forward and sat down.
+
+"Fact is your son is in a tighter place than any man would care for. I
+brought him up to Sheriff Gillelands' this afternoon. Perhaps he can
+make it out a case of 'justifiable homicide'--hope he can. He's about as
+likely a young man as I ever saw."
+
+Still no answer.
+
+"Well, Lorimer, I think you're right. Talking won't help things, and may
+make them a sight worse. You'll be over to Judge Lepperts' in the
+morning?--say about ten o'clock."
+
+"Yes. Will you have some supper?"
+
+"No; this is not hungry work. My pipe is more satisfactory under the
+circumstances. I'll have to saddle up, too. There's others to see yet.
+Is there any one particular you'd like on the jury?"
+
+"No. You must do your duty, Sheriff."
+
+He heard him gallop away, and stood still, clasping and unclasping his
+hands in a maze of anguish. David at Sheriff Gillelands'! David to be
+tried for murder in the morning! What could he do? If David had not
+confessed to the shooting of Whaley, would he be compelled to give his
+evidence? Surely, conscience would not require so hard a duty of him.
+
+At length he determined to go and see David before he decided upon the
+course he ought to take. The sheriff's was only about three miles
+distant. He rode over there at once. His son, with travel-stained
+clothes and blood-shot hopeless eyes, looked up to see him enter. His
+heart was full of a great love, but it was wronged, even at that hour,
+by an irritation that would first and foremost assert itself. Instead of
+saying, "My dear, dear lad!" the lament which was in his heart, he said,
+"So this is the end of it, David?"
+
+"Yes. It is the end."
+
+"You ought not to have run away."
+
+"No. I ought to have let you surrender me to justice; that would have
+put you all right."
+
+"I wasna thinking o' that. A man flying from justice is condemned by the
+act."
+
+"It would have made no matter. There is only one verdict and one end
+possible."
+
+"Have you then confessed the murder?"
+
+He awaited the answer in an agony. It came with a terrible distinctness.
+"Whaley lived thirty hours. He told. His brother-in-law has gone on with
+the cattle. Four of the drivers are come back as witnesses. They are in
+the house."
+
+"But you have not yourself confessed?"
+
+"Yes. I told Sheriff Gillelands I shot the man. If I had not done so you
+would; I knew that. I have at least spared you the pain and shame of
+denouncing your own son!"
+
+"Oh, David, David! I would not. My dear lad, I would not! I would hae
+gane to the end o' the world first. Why didna you trust me?"
+
+"How could I, father?"
+
+He let the words drop wearily, and covered his face with his hands.
+After a pause, he said, "Poor Lulu! Don't tell her if you can help it,
+until--all is over. How glad I am this day that my mother is dead!"
+
+The wretched father could endure the scene no longer. He went into the
+outer room to find out what hope of escape remained for his son. The
+sheriff was full of pity, and entered readily into a discussion of
+David's chances. But he was obliged to point out that they were
+extremely small. The jury and the judge were all alike cattle men; their
+sympathies were positively against everything likely to weaken the
+discipline necessary in carrying large herds of cattle safely across the
+continent. In the moment of extremest danger, David had not only
+refused assistance, but had shot his employer.
+
+"He called him a coward, and you'll admit that's a vera aggravating
+name."
+
+The sheriff readily admitted that under any ordinary circumstances in
+Texas that epithet would justify a murder; "but," he added, "most any
+Texan would say he was a coward to stand still and see eight thousand
+head of cattle on the stampede. You'll excuse me, Lorimer, I'd say so
+myself."
+
+He went home again and shut himself in his room to think. But after many
+hours, he was just as far as ever from any coherent decision. Justice!
+Justice! Justice! The whole current of his spiritual and mental
+constitution ran that road. Blood for blood; a life for a life; it was
+meet and right, and he acknowledged it with bleeding heart and streaming
+eyes. But, clear and distinct above the tumult of this current, he heard
+something which made him cry out with an equally unhappy father of old,
+"Oh, Absalom! My son, my son Absalom!"
+
+Then came the accuser and boldly told him that he had neglected his
+duty, and driven his son into the way of sin and death; and that the
+seeds sown in domestic bickering and unkindness had only brought forth
+their natural fruit. The scales fell from his eyes; all the past became
+clear to him. His own righteousness was dreadful in his sight. He cried
+out with his whole soul, "God be merciful! God be merciful!"
+
+The darkest despairs are the most silent. All the night long he was only
+able to utter that one heartbroken cry for pity and help. At the
+earliest daylight he was with his son. He was amazed to find him calm,
+almost cheerful. "The worst is over father," he said. "I have done a
+great wrong; I acknowledge the justice of the punishment, and am willing
+to suffer it."
+
+"But after death! Oh, David, David--afterward!"
+
+"I shall dare to hope--for Christ also has died, the just for the
+unjust."
+
+Then the father, with a solemn earnestness, spoke to his son of that
+eternity whose shores his feet were touching. At this hour he would
+shirk no truth; he would encourage no false hope. And David listened;
+for this side of his father's character he had always had great respect,
+and in those first hours of remorse following the murder, not the least
+part of his suffering had been the fearful looking forward to the Divine
+vengeance which he could never fly from. But there had been _One_ with
+him that night, _One_ who is not very far from us at any time; and
+though David had but tremblingly understood His voice, and almost feared
+to accept its comfort, he was in those desperate circumstances when men
+cannot reason and philosophize, when nothing remains for them but to
+believe.
+
+"Dinna get by the truth, my dear lad; you hae committed a great sin,
+there is nae doubt o' that."
+
+"But God's mercy, I trust, is greater."
+
+"And you hae nothing to bring him from a' the years o' your life! Oh,
+David, David!"
+
+"I know," he answered sadly. "But neither had the dying thief. He only
+believed. Father, this is the sole hope and comfort left me now. Don't
+take it from me."
+
+Lorimer turned away weeping; yes, and praying, too, as men must pray
+when they stand powerless in the stress of terrible sorrows. At noon the
+twelve men summoned dropped in one by one, and the informal court was
+opened. David Lorimer admitted the murder, and explained the long
+irritation and the final taunt which had produced it. The testimony of
+the returned drovers supplemented the tragedy. If there was any excuse
+to be made, it lay in the disgraceful epithet applied to David and the
+scornful mention of his mother's race.
+
+There was, however, an unfavorable feeling from the first. The elder
+Lorimer, with his stern principles and severe manners, was not a popular
+man. David's proud, passionate temper had made him some active enemies;
+and there was not a man on the jury who did not feel as the sheriff had
+honestly expressed himself regarding David's conduct at the moment of
+the stampede. It touched all their prejudices and their interests very
+nearly; not one of them was inclined to blame Whaley for calling a man a
+coward who would not answer the demand for help at such an imperative
+moment.
+
+As to the Spanish element, it had always been an offence to Texans.
+There were men on the jury whose fathers had died fighting it; beside,
+there was that unacknowledged but positive contempt which ever attaches
+itself to a race that has been subjugated. Long before the form of a
+trial was over, David had felt the hopelessness of hope, and had
+accepted his fate. Not so his father. He pleaded with all his soul for
+his son's life. But he touched no heart there. The jury had decided on
+the death-sentence before they left their seats.
+
+And in that locality, and at that time, there was no delay in carrying
+it out. It would be inconvenient to bring together again a sufficient
+number of witnesses, and equally inconvenient to guard a prisoner for
+any length of time. David was to die at sunset.
+
+Three hours yet remained to the miserable father. He threw aside all
+pride and all restraint. Remorse and tenderness wrung his heart. But
+these last hours had a comfort no others in their life ever had. What
+confessions of mutual faults were made! What kisses and forgivenesses
+were exchanged! At last the two poor souls who had dwelt in the chill of
+mistakes and ignorance knew that they loved each other. Sometimes the
+Lord grants such sudden unfoldings to souls long closed. They are of
+those royal compassions which astonish even the angels.
+
+When his time was nearly over, David pushed a piece of paper toward his
+father. "It is my last request," he said, looking into his face with
+eyes whose entreaty was pathetic. "You must grant it, father, hard as it
+is."
+
+Lorimer's hand trembled as he took the paper, but his face turned pale
+as ashes when he read the contents.
+
+"I canna, I canna do it," he whispered.
+
+"Yes, you will, father. It is the last favor I shall ask of you."
+
+The request was indeed a bitter one; so bitter that David had not dared
+to voice it. It was this--
+
+"Father, be my executioner. Do not let me be hung. The rope is all I
+dread in death; ere it touch me, let your rifle end my life."
+
+For a few moments Lorimer sat like a man turned to stone. Then he rose
+and went to the jury. They were sitting together under some mulberry
+trees, smoking. Naturally silent, they had scarcely spoken since their
+verdict. Grave, fierce men, they were far from being cruel; they had no
+pleasure in the act which they believed to be their duty.
+
+Lorimer went from one to the other and made known his son's request. He
+pleaded, "That as David had shot Whaley, justice would be fully
+satisfied in meting out the same death to the murderer as the victim."
+
+But one man, a ranchero of great influence and wealth, answered that he
+must oppose such a request. It was the rope, he thought, made the
+punishment. He hoped no Texan feared a bullet. A clean, honorable death
+like that was for a man who had never wronged his manhood. Every
+rascally horse thief or Mexican assassin would demand a shot if they
+were given a precedent. And arguments that would have been essentially
+false in some localities had a compelling weight in that one. The men
+gravely nodded their heads in assent, and Lorimer knew that any further
+pleading was in vain. Yet when he returned to his son, he clasped his
+hand and looked into his eyes, and David understood that his request
+would be granted.
+
+Just as the sun dropped the sheriff entered the room. He took the
+prisoner's arm and walked quietly out with him. There was a coil of rope
+on his other arm, and David cast his eyes on it with horror and
+abhorrence, and then looked at his father; and the look was returned
+with one of singular steadiness. When they reached the little grove of
+mulberries, the men, one by one, laid down their pipes and slowly rose.
+There was a large live oak at the end of the enclosure, and to it the
+party walked.
+
+Here David was asked "if he was guilty?" and he acknowledged the sin:
+and when further asked "if he thought he had been fairly dealt with, and
+deserved death?" he answered, "that he was quite satisfied, and was
+willing to pay the penalty of his crime."
+
+Oh, how handsome he looked at this moment to his heart-broken father!
+His bare head was just touched by the rays of the setting sun behind
+him; his fine face, calm and composed, wore even a faint air of
+exultation. At this hour the travel-stained garments clothed him with a
+touching and not ignoble pathos. Involuntarily they told of the weary
+days and nights of despairing flight, which after all had been useless.
+
+Lorimer asked if he might pray, and there was a simultaneous though
+silent motion of assent. Every man bared his head, while the wretched
+father repeated the few verses of entreaty and hope which at that awful
+hour were his own strength and comfort. This service occupied but a few
+minutes; just as it ended out of the dead stillness rose suddenly a
+clear, joyful thrilling burst of song from a mocking bird in the
+branches above. David looked up with a wonderful light on his face;
+perhaps it meant more to him than anyone else understood.
+
+The next moment the sheriff was turning back the flannel collar which
+covered the strong, pillar-like throat. In that moment David sought his
+father's eyes once more, smiled faintly, and called "Father! _Now_!" As
+the words reached the father's ears, the bullet reached the son's heart.
+He fell without a moan ere the rope had touched him. It was the father's
+groan which struck every heart like a blow; and there was a grandeur of
+suffering about him which no one thought of resisting.
+
+He walked to his child's side, and kneeling down closed the eyes, and
+wept and prayed over him as a mother over her first-born. They were all
+fathers around him; not one of them but suffered with him. Silently they
+untied their horses and rode away; no one had the heart to say a word of
+dissent. If they had, Lorimer had reached a point far beyond care of
+man's approval or disapproval in the matter; for a great sorrow is
+indifferent to all outside itself.
+
+When he lifted his head he was alone. The sheriff was waiting at the
+house door, Plato stood at a little distance, weeping. He motioned to
+him to approach, and in a few words understood that he had with him a
+companion and a rude bier. They laid the body upon it, and the sheriff
+having satisfied himself that the last penalty had been fully paid,
+Lorimer was permitted to claim his dead. He took him up to his own room
+and laid him on his own bed, and passed the night by his side. The dead
+opened the eyes of the living, and in that solemn companionship he saw
+all that he had been blind to for so many years. Then he understood what
+it must be to sit in the silent halls of eternal despair, and count over
+and over the wasted blessings of love and endure the agony of unavailing
+repentance.
+
+In the morning he knew he must tell Lulu all; and this duty he dreaded.
+But in some way the girl already knew the full misery of the tragedy.
+Part she had divined, and part she had gathered from the servants' faces
+and words. She was quite aware _what_ was in her uncle's lonely room.
+Just as he was thinking of the hard necessity of going to her, she came
+to the door. For the first time in his life he called her "My daughter,"
+and stooped and kissed her. He had a letter for her--David's dying
+message of love. He put it in her hand, and left her alone with the
+dead.
+
+At sunrise a funeral took place. In that climate the necessity was an
+urgent one. Plato had dug the grave under a tree in the little clearing
+in the cypress swamp. It had been a favorite place of resort; there Lulu
+had often brought her work or book, and passed long happy hours with the
+slain youth. She followed his corpse to the grave in a tearless apathy,
+more pitiful than the most frantic grief. Lorimer took her on his arm,
+the servants in long single file, silent and terrified, walked behind
+them. The sun was shining, but the chilly wind blew the withered leaves
+across the still prostrate figure, as it lay upon the ground, where last
+it had stood in all the beauty and unreasoning passion of youth.
+
+When the last rites were over the servants went wailing home again,
+their doleful, monotonous chant seeming to fill the whole spaces of air
+with lamentation. But neither Lorimer nor Lulu spoke a word. The girl
+was white and cold as marble, and absolutely irresponsive to her uncle's
+unusual tenderness. Evidently she had not forgiven him. And as the
+winter went wearily on she gradually drew more and more within her own
+consciousness. Lorimer seldom saw her. She was soon very ill, and kept
+her room entirely. He sent for eminent physicians, he surrounded her
+with marks of thoughtful love and care; but quietly, as a flower fades,
+she died.
+
+One night she sent for him. "Uncle," she said, "I am going away very
+soon, now. If I have been hard and unjust to you, forgive me. And I want
+your promise about my sister's children; will you give me it?"
+
+He winced visibly, and remained silent.
+
+"There are six boys and two girls--they are poor, ignorant and unhappy.
+They are under very bad influences. For David's sake and my sake you
+must see that they are brought up right. There need be no mistakes this
+time; for two wrecked lives you may save eight. You will do it, uncle?"
+
+"I will do my best, dear."
+
+"I know you will. Send Plato to San Antonio for them at once. You will
+need company soon."
+
+"Do you think you are dying, dear?"
+
+"I know I am dying."
+
+"And how is a' wi' you anent what is beyond death?"
+
+She pointed with a bright smile to the New Testament by her side, and
+then closed her eyes wearily. She appeared so exhausted that he could
+press the question no further. And the next morning she had "gone
+away"--gone so silently and peacefully that Aunt Cassie, who was sitting
+by her side, knew not when she departed. He went and looked at her. The
+fair young face had a look austere and sorrowful, as if life had been
+too sore a burden for her. His anguish was great, but it was God's
+doing. What was there for him to say?
+
+The charge that she had left him he faithfully kept--not very cheerfully
+at first, perhaps, and often feeling it to be a very heavy care; but he
+persevered, and the reward came. The children grew and prospered; they
+loved him, and he learned to love them, so much, finally, that he gave
+them his own name, and suffered them to call him father.
+
+As the country settled, and little towns grew up around him, the tragedy
+of his earlier life was forgotten by the world, but it was ever present
+to his own heart; for though love and sorrow mellowed and chastened the
+stern creed in which he believed with all his soul, he had many an hour
+of spiritual agony concerning the beloved ones who had died and made no
+sign. Not till he got almost within the heavenly horizon did he
+understand that the Divine love and mercy is without limitations; and
+that He who could say, "Let there be light," could also say, "Thy sins
+be forgiven thee;" and the pardoned child, or ever he was aware, be come
+to the holy land: for--
+
+    "Down in the valley of death
+      A cross is standing plain;
+    Where strange and awful the shadows sleep,
+      And the ground has a deep red stain.
+    This cross uplifted there
+      Forbids, with voice Divine,
+    Our anguished hearts to break for the dead
+      Who have died and made no sign.
+    As they turned at length from us,
+      Dear eyes that were heavy and dim,
+    May have met his look, who was lifted there,
+      May be sleeping safe in Him."
+
+
+
+
+THE SEVEN WISE MEN OF PRESTON.
+
+
+Let me introduce to our readers seven of the wisest men of the present
+century--the seven drafters and signers of the first teetotal pledge.
+
+The movement originated in the mind of Joseph Livesey, and a short
+consideration of the circumstances and surroundings of his useful career
+will give us the best insight into the necessities and influences which
+gave it birth. He was born near Preston, in Lancashire, in the year
+1795; the beginning of an era in English history which scarcely has a
+parallel for national suffering. The excitement of the French Revolution
+still agitated all classes, and, commercial distress and political
+animosities made still more terrible the universal scarcity of food and
+the prostration of the manufacturing business.
+
+His father and mother died early, and he was left to the charge of his
+grandfather, who, unfortunately, abandoned his farm and became a cotton
+spinner. Lancashire men had not then been whetted by daily attrition
+with steam to their present keen and shrewd character, and the elder
+Livesey lost all he possessed. The records of cotton printing and
+spinning mention with honor the Messrs. Livesey, of Preston, as the
+first who put into practice Bell's invention of cylindrical printing of
+calicoes in 1785; but whether the firms are identical or not I have no
+certain knowledge. It shows, however, that they were a race inclined to
+improvements and ready to test an advance movement.
+
+That Joseph Livesey's youth was a hard and bitter one there is no doubt.
+The price of flour continued for years fabulously high; so much so that
+wealthy people generally pledged themselves to reduce their use of it
+one-third, and puddings or cakes were considered on any table, a sinful
+extravagance. When the government was offering large premiums to farmers
+for raising extra quantities and detailing soldiers to assist in
+threshing it, poor bankrupt spinners must have had a hard struggle for a
+bare existence.
+
+Indeed, education was hardly thought possible, and, though Joseph
+managed, "by hook or crook," to learn how to read, write and count a
+little, it was through difficulties and discouragements that would have
+been fatal to any ordinary intelligence or will.
+
+Until he was twenty-one years of age he worked patiently at his loom,
+which stood in one corner of a cellar, so cold and damp that its walls
+were constantly wet. But he was hopeful, and even in those dark days
+dared to fall in love. On attaining his majority, he received a legacy
+of �30. Then he married the poor girl who had made brighter his hard
+apprenticeship, and lived happily with her for fifty years.
+
+But the troubles that had begun before his birth--and which did not
+lighten until after the passing of the Reform Bill, in June, 1832--had
+then attained a proportion which taxed the utmost energies of both
+private charities and the national government.
+
+The year of Joseph Livesey's marriage saw the passage of the Corn Laws,
+and the first of those famous mass meetings in Peter's Field, near
+Manchester, which undoubtedly molded the future temper and status of the
+English weavers and spinners. From one of these meetings, the following
+year, thousands of starving men started _en masse_ to London. They were
+followed by the military and brought back for punishment or died
+miserably on the road, though 500 of them reached Macclesfield and a
+smaller number Derby.
+
+But Livesey, though probably suffering as keenly as others, joined no
+body of rioters. He borrowed a sovereign and bought two cheeses; then
+cutting them up into small lots, he retailed them on the streets,
+Saturday afternoons, when the men were released from work. The profit
+from this small investment exceeding what it was possible for him to
+make at his loom, he continued the trade, and from this small beginning
+founded a business, and made a fortune which has enabled him to devote a
+long life to public usefulness and benevolence.
+
+But his little craft must have needed skillful piloting, for his family
+increased rapidly during the disastrous years between 1816 and 1832; so
+disastrous that in 1825-26 the Bank of England was obliged to authorize
+the Chamber of Commerce to make loans to individuals carrying on large
+works of from �500 to �10,000. Bankruptcies were enormous, trade was
+everywhere stagnant, �60,000 were subscribed for meal and peas to feed
+the starving, and the government issued 40,000 articles of clothing. The
+quarrels between masters and spinners were more and more bitter, mills
+were everywhere burnt, and at Ashton in one day 30,000 "hands" turned
+out.
+
+During these dreadful years every thoughtful person had noticed how much
+misery and ill-will was caused by the constant thronging to public
+houses, and temperance societies had been at work among the angry men of
+the working classes. Joseph Livesey had been actively engaged in this
+work. But these first efforts of the temperance cause were directed
+entirely against spirits. The use of wine and ale was considered then a
+necessity of life. Brewing was in most families as regular and important
+a duty as baking; the youngest children had their mug of ale; and
+clergymen were spoken of without reproach as "one," "two" or
+"three-bottle men."
+
+But Joseph Livesey soon became satisfied that these half measures were
+doing no good at all, and in 1831 a little circumstance decided him to
+take a stronger position. He had to go to Blackburn to see a person on
+business; and, as a matter of course, whiskey was put on the table.
+Livesey for the first time tasted it, and was very ill in consequence.
+He had then a large family of boys, and both for their sakes and that of
+others, he resolved to halt no longer between two opinions.
+
+He spoke at once in all the temperance meetings of the folly of partial
+reforms, pointed out the hundreds of relapses, and urged upon the
+association the duty of absolute abstinence. His zeal warmed with his
+efforts and he insisted that in the matter of drinking "the golden mean"
+was the very sin for which the Laodicean Church had been cursed.
+
+The disputes were very angry and bitter; far more so than we at this
+day can believe possible, unless we take into account the universal
+national habits and its poetic and domestic associations with every
+phase of English life. But he gradually gained adherents to his views
+though it was not until the following year he was able to take another
+step forward.
+
+It was on Thursday, August 23, 1832, that the first solemn pledge of
+total abstinence was taken. That afternoon Joseph Livesey, pondering the
+matter in his mind, saw John King pass his shop. He asked him to come in
+and talk the subject over with him. Before they parted Livesey asked
+King if he would join him in a pledge to abstain forever from all
+liquors; and King said he would. Livesey then wrote out a form and,
+laying it before King, said: "Thee sign it first, lad." King signed it,
+Livesey followed him, and the two men clasped hands and stood pledged to
+one of the greatest works humanity has ever undertaken.
+
+A special meeting was then called, and after a stormy debate, the main
+part of the audience left, a small number remaining to continue the
+argument. But the end of it was that seven men came forward and drew up
+and signed the following document, which is still preserved:
+
+     "We agree to abstain from all liquors of an intoxicating quality,
+     whether they be ale, porter, wine or ardent spirits, except as
+     medicine.
+
+     "JOHN GRATREX,
+     EDWARD DICKINSON,
+     JOHN BROADBENT,
+     JNO. SMITH,
+     JOSEPH LIVESEY,
+     DAVID ANDERTON,
+     JNO. KING."
+
+All these reformers were virtually _working_ men, though most of them
+rose to positions of respect and affluence. Still the humility of the
+origin of the movement was long a source of contempt, and its members,
+within my own recollection, had the stigma of vulgarity almost in right
+of their convictions.
+
+But God takes hands with good men's efforts, and the cause prospered
+just where it was most needed--among the operatives and "the common
+people." One of these latter, a hawker of fish, called Richard Turner,
+stood, in a very amusing and unexpected way, sponsor for the society.
+Richard was fluent of speech, and, if his language was the broadest
+patois, it was, nevertheless, of the most convincing character. He
+always spoke well, and, if authorized words failed him, readily coined
+what he needed. One night while making a very fervent speech, he said:
+"No half-way measures here. Nothing but the _te-te total_ will do."
+
+Mr. Livesey at once seized the word, and, rising, proposed it as the
+name of the society. The proposition was received with enthusiastic
+cheering, and these "root and branch" temperance men were thenceforward
+known as teetotalers. Richard remained all his life a sturdy advocate of
+the cause, and when he died, in 1846, I made one of the hundreds and
+thousands that crowded the streets of the beautiful town of Preston and
+followed him to his grave. The stone above it chronicles shortly his
+name and death, and the fact that he was the author of a word known now
+wherever Christianity and civilization are known.
+
+
+
+
+MARGARET SINCLAIR'S SILENT MONEY.
+
+
+"It was ma luck, Sinclair, an' I couldna win by it."
+
+"Ha'vers! It was David Vedder's whiskey that turned ma boat
+tapsalteerie, Geordie Twatt."
+
+"Thou had better blame Hacon; he turned the boat _Widdershins_ an' what
+fule doesna ken that it is evil luck to go contrarie to the sun?"
+
+"It is waur luck to have a drunken, superstitious pilot. Twatt, that
+Norse blood i' thy veins is o'er full o' freets. Fear God, an' mind thy
+wark, an' thou needna speir o' the sun what gate to turn the boat."
+
+"My Norse blood willna stand ony Scot stirring it up, Sinclair. I come
+o' a mighty kind--"
+
+"Tush, man! Mules mak' an unco' full about their ancestors having been
+horses. It has come to this, Geordie: thou must be laird o' theesel'
+before I'll trust thee again with ony craft o' mine." Then Peter
+Sinclair lifted his papers, and, looking the discharged sailor steadily
+in the face, bid him "go on his penitentials an' think things o'er a
+bit."
+
+Geordie Twatt went sullenly out, but Peter was rather pleased with
+himself; he believed that he had done his duty in a satisfactory manner.
+And if a man was in a good temper with himself, it was just the kind of
+even to increase his satisfaction. The gray old town of Kirkwall lay in
+supernatural glory, the wondrous beauty of the mellow gloaming blending
+with soft green and rosy-red spears of light that shot from east to
+west, or charged upward to the zenith. The great herring fleet outside
+the harbor was as motionless as "a painted _fleet_ upon a painted
+ocean"--the men were sleeping or smoking upon the piers--not a foot fell
+upon the flagged streets, and the only murmur of sound was round the
+public fountains, where a few women were perched on the bowl's edge,
+knitting and gossiping.
+
+Peter Sinclair was, perhaps, not a man inclined to analyze such things,
+but they had their influence over him; for, as he drifted slowly home in
+his skiff, he began to pity Geordie's four motherless babies, and to
+wonder if he had been as patient with him as he might have been. "An'
+yet," he murmured, "there's the loss on the goods, an' the loss o' time,
+and the boat to steek afresh forbye the danger to life! Na, na, I'm no
+called upon to put life i' peril for a glass o' whiskey."
+
+Then he lifted his head, and there, on the white sands, stood his
+daughter Margaret. He was conscious of a great thrill of pride as he
+looked at her, for Margaret Sinclair, even among the beautiful women of
+the Orcades, was most beautiful of all. In a few minutes he had fastened
+his skiff at a little jetty, and was walking with her over the springy
+heath toward a very pretty house of white stone. It was his own house,
+and he was proud of it also, but not half so proud of the house as of
+its tiny garden; for there, with great care and at great cost, he had
+managed to rear a few pansies, snowdrops, lilies of the valley, and
+other hardy English flowers. Margaret and he stooped lovingly over them,
+and it was wonderful to see how Peter's face softened, and how gently
+the great rough hands, that had been all day handling smoked geese and
+fish, touched these frail, trembling blossoms.
+
+"Eh, lassie! I could most greet wi' joy to see the bonnie bit things;
+when I can get time I'se e'en go wi' thee to Edinburgh; I'd like weel to
+see such fields an' gardens an' trees as I hear thee tell on."
+
+Then Margaret began again to describe the greenhouses, the meadows and
+wheat fields, the forests of oaks and beeches she had seen during her
+school days in Edinburgh. Peter listened to her as if she was telling a
+wonderful fairy story, but he liked it, and, as he cut slice after slice
+from his smoked goose, he enjoyed her talk of roses and apple-blossoms,
+and smacked his lips for the thousandth time when she described a peach,
+and said, "It tasted, father, as if it had been grown in the Garden of
+Eden."
+
+After such conversations Peter was always stern and strict. He felt an
+actual anger at Adam and Eve; their transgression became a keenly
+personal affair, for he had a very vivid sense of the loss they had
+entailed upon him. The vague sense of wrong made him try to fix it, and,
+after a short reflection, he said in an injured tone:
+
+"I wonder when Ronald's coming hame again?"
+
+"Ronald is all right, father."
+
+"A' wrong, thou means, lassie. There's three vessels waiting to be
+loaded, an' the books sae far ahint that I kenna whether I'm losing or
+saving. Where is he?"
+
+"Not far away. He will be at the Stones of Stennis this week some time
+with an Englishman he fell in with at Perth."
+
+"I wonder, now, was it for my sins or his ain that the lad has sic auld
+world notions? There isna a pagan altar-stane 'tween John O'Groat's an'
+Lambaness he doesna run after. I wish he were as anxious to serve in
+the Lord's temple--I would build him a kirk an' a manse for it."
+
+"We'll be proud of Ronald yet, father. The Sinclairs have been fighting
+and making money for centuries: it is a sign of grace to have a scholar
+and a poet at last among them."
+
+Peter grumbled. His ideas of poetry were limited by the Scotch psalms,
+and, as for scholarship, he asserted that the books were better kept
+when he used his own method of tallies and crosses. Then he remembered
+Geordie Twatt's misfortune, and had his little grumble out on this
+subject: "Boat and goods might hae been a total loss, no to speak o' the
+lives o' Geordie an' the four lads wi' him; an' a' for the sake o'
+liquor!"
+
+Margaret looked at the brandy bottle standing at her father's elbow,
+and, though she did not speak, the look annoyed Peter.
+
+"You arna to even my glass wi' his, lassie. I ken when to stop--Geordie
+never does."
+
+"It is a common fault in more things than drinking, father. When Magnus
+Hay has struck the first blow he is quite ready to draw his dirk and
+strike the last one; and Paul Snackole, though he has made gold and to
+spare, will just go on making gold until death takes the balances out of
+his hands. There are few folks that in all things offend not."
+
+She looked so noble standing before him, so fair and tall, her hair
+yellow as down, her eyes cool and calm and blue as night; her whole
+attitude so serene, assured and majestic, that Peter rose uneasily, left
+his glass unfinished, and went away with a very confused "good night."
+
+In the morning the first thing he did when he reached his office, was to
+send for the offending sailor.
+
+"Geordie, my Margaret says there are plenty folk as bad as thou art; so,
+thou'lt just see to the steeking o' the boat, an' be ready to sail
+her--or upset her--i' ten days again."
+
+"I'll keep her right side up for Margaret Sinclair's sake--tell her I
+said that, Master."
+
+"I'se do no promising for thee Geordie. Between wording an' working is a
+lang road, but Kirkwall an' Stromness kens thee for an honest lad, an'
+thou wilt mind this--_things promised are things due_."
+
+Insensibly this act of forbearance lightened Peter's whole day; he was
+good-tempered with the world, and the world returned the compliment.
+When night came, and he watched for Margaret on the sands, he was
+delighted to see that Ronald was with her. The lad had come home and
+nothing was now remembered against him. That night it was Ronald told
+him fairy-stories of great cities and universities, of miles of books
+and pictures, of wonderful machinery and steam engines, of delicious
+things to eat and drink. Peter felt as if he must start southward by the
+next mail packet, but in the morning he thought more unselfishly.
+
+"There are forty families depending on me sticking to the shop an' the
+boats, Ronald, an' I canna go pleasuring till there is ane to step into
+my shoes."
+
+Ronald Sinclair had all the fair, stately beauty and noble presence of
+his sister, but yet there was some lack about him easier to feel than to
+define. Perhaps no one was unconscious of this lack except Margaret; but
+women have a grand invention where their idols are concerned, and create
+readily for them every excellency that they lack. Her own two years'
+study in an Edinburgh boarding-school had been very superficial, and she
+knew it; but this wonderful Ronald could read Homer and Horace, could
+play and sketch, and recite Shakespeare and write poetry. If he could
+have done none of these things, if he had been dull and ugly, and
+content to trade in fish and wool, she would still have loved him
+tenderly; how much more then, this handsome Antinous, whom she credited
+with all the accomplishments of Apollo.
+
+Ronald needed all her enthusiastic support. He had left heavy college
+bills, and he had quite made up his mind that he would not be a minister
+and that he would be a lawyer. He could scarcely have decided on two
+things more offensive to his father. Only for the hope of having a
+minister in the family had Peter submitted to his son's continued
+demands for money. For this end he had bought books, and paid for all
+kinds of teachers and tours, and sighed over the cost of Ronald's
+different hobbies. And now he was not only to have a grievous
+disappointment, but also a great offence, for Peter Sinclair shared
+fully in the Arcadean dislike and distrust of lawyers, and would have
+been deeply offended at any one requiring their aid in any business
+transaction with him.
+
+His son's proposal to be a "writer" he took almost as a personal insult.
+He had formed his own opinion of the profession and the opinion of any
+other person who would say a word in favor of a lawyer he considered of
+no value. Margaret had a hard task before her, that she succeeded at all
+was due to her womanly tact. Ronald and his father simply clashed
+against each other and exchanged pointed truths which hurt worse than
+wounds. At length, when the short Arcadean summer was almost over,
+Margaret won a hard and reluctant consent.
+
+"The lad is fit for naething better, I suppose"--and the old man turned
+away to shed the bitterest tears of his whole life. They shocked
+Margaret; she was terrified at her success, and, falling humbly at his
+feet, she besought him to forget and forgive her importunities, and to
+take back a gift baptized with such ominous tears.
+
+But Peter Sinclair, having been compelled to take such a step, was not
+the man to retrace it; he shook his head in a dour, hopeless way: "He
+couldna say 'yes' an' 'no' in a breath, an' Ronald must e'en drink as he
+brewed."
+
+These struggles, so real and sorrowful to his father and sister, Ronald
+had no sympathy with--not that he was heartless, but that he had taught
+himself to believe they were the result of ignorance of the world and
+old-fashioned prejudices. He certainly intended to become a great
+man--perhaps a judge--and, when he was one of "the Lords," he had no
+doubt his father would respect his disobedience. He knew his father as
+little as he knew himself. Peter Sinclair was only Peter Sinclair's
+opinions incorporate; and he could no more have changed them than he
+could have changed the color of his eyes or the shape of his nose; and
+the difference between a common lawyer and a "lord," in his eyes, would
+only have been the difference between a little oppressor and a great
+one.
+
+For the first time in all her life Margaret suspected a flaw in this
+perfect crystal of a brother; his gay debonnaire manner hurt her. Even
+if her father's objections were ignorant prejudices, they were positive
+convictions to him, and she did not like to see them smiled at,
+entertained by the cast of the eye, and the put-by of the turning hand.
+But loving women are the greatest of philistines: knock their idol down
+daily, rob it of every beauty, cut off its hands and head, and they will
+still "set it up in its place," and fall down and worship it.
+
+Undoubtedly Margaret was one of the blindest of these characters, but
+the world may pause before it scorns them too bitterly. It is faith of
+this sublime integrity which, brought down to personal experience,
+believes, endures, hopes, sacrifices and loves on to the end, winning
+finally what never would have been given to a more prudent and
+reasonable devotion. So, if Margaret had her doubts, she put them
+arbitrarily down, and sent her brother away with manifold tokens of her
+love--among them, with a check on the Kirkwall Bank for sixty pounds,
+the whole of her personal savings.
+
+To this frugal Arcadean maid it seemed a large sum, but she hoped by the
+sacrifice to clear off Ronald's college debts, and thus enable him to
+start his new race unweighted. It was but a mouthful to each creditor,
+but it put them off for a time, and Ronald was not a youth inclined to
+"take thought" for their "to-morrow."
+
+He had been entered for four years' study with the firm of Wilkes &
+Brechen, writers and conveyancers, of the city of Glasgow. Her father
+had paid the whole fee down, and placed in the Western Bank to his
+credit four hundred pounds for his four years' support. Whatever Ronald
+thought of the provision, Peter considered it a magnificent income, and
+it had cost him a great struggle to give up at once, and for no evident
+return, so much of his hard-earned gold. To Ronald he said nothing of
+this reluctance; he simply put vouchers for both transactions in his
+hand, and asked him to "try an' spend the siller as weel as it had been
+earned."
+
+But to Margaret he fretted not a little. "Fourteen hun'red pounds a'
+thegither, dawtie," he said in a tearful voice. "I warked early an' late
+through mony a year for it; an' it is gane a' at once, though I hae
+naught but words an' promises for it. I ken, Margaret, that I am an auld
+farrant trader, but I'se aye say that it is a bad well into which are
+must put water."
+
+When Ronald went, the summer went too. It became necessary to remove at
+once to their rock-built house in one of the narrow streets of
+Kirkwall. Margaret was glad of the change; her father could come into
+the little parlor behind the shop any time in the day and smoke his pipe
+beside her. He needed this consolation sorely; his son's conduct had
+grieved him far more deeply than he would allow, and Margaret often saw
+him gazing southward over the stormy Pentland Frith with a very mournful
+face.
+
+But a good heart soon breaks bad fortune and Peter had a good heart,
+sound and sweet and true to his fellow-creatures and full of faith in
+God. It is true that his creed was of the very strictest and sternest;
+but men are always better than their theology and Margaret knew from the
+Scriptures chosen for their household worship that in the depth and
+stillness of his soul his human fatherhood had anchored fast to the
+fatherhood of God.
+
+Arcadean winters are long and dreary, but no one need much pity the
+Arcadeans; they have learned how to make them the very festival of
+social life. And, in spite of her anxiety about Ronald, Margaret
+thoroughly enjoyed this one--perhaps the more because Captain Olave
+Thorkald spent two months of it with them in Kirkwall. There had been a
+long attachment between the young soldier and Margaret; and having
+obtained his commission, he had come to ask also for the public
+recognition of their engagement. Margaret was rarely beautiful and
+rarely happy, and she carried with a charming and kindly grace the full
+cup of her felicity. The Arcadeans love to date from a good year, and
+all her life afterward Margaret reckoned events from this pleasant
+winter.
+
+Peter Sinclair's house being one of the largest in Kirkwall, was a
+favorite gathering place, and Peter took his full share in all the
+home-like, innocent amusements which beguiled the long, dreary nights.
+No one in Orkney or Zetland could recite Ossian with more passion and
+tenderness, and he enjoyed his little triumph over the youngsters who
+emulated him. No one could sing a Scotch song with more humor, and few
+of the lads and lassies could match Peter in a blithe foursome reel or a
+rattling strathspey. Some, indeed, thought that good Dr. Ogilvie had a
+more graceful spring and a longer breath, but Peter always insisted that
+his inferiority to the minister was a voluntary concession to the
+Dominie's superior dignity. It was, however, a rivalry that always ended
+in a firmer grip at parting. These little festivals, in which young and
+old freely mingled, cultivated to perfection the best and kindest
+feelings of both classes. Age mellowed to perfect sweetness in the
+sunshine of youthful gayety, and youth learned from age how at once to
+be merry and wise.
+
+At length June arrived; and though winter lingered in _spates_, the song
+of the skylark and the thrush heralded the spring. When the dream-like
+voice of the cuckoo should be heard once more, Peter and Margaret had
+determined to take a long summer trip. They were to go first to Perth,
+where Captain Thorkald was stationed, and then to Glasgow and see
+Ronald. But God had planned another journey for Peter, even one to a
+"land very far off." A disease, to which he had been subject at
+intervals for many years, suddenly assumed a fatal character and Peter
+needed no one to tell him that his days were numbered.
+
+He set his house in order, and then, going with Margaret to his summer
+dwelling, waited quietly. He said little on the subject, and as long as
+he was able, gave himself up with the delight of a child to watching the
+few flowers in his garden; but still one solemn, waylaying thought made
+these few last weeks of life peculiarly hushed and sacred. Ronald had
+been sent for, and the old man, with the clear prescience that sometimes
+comes before death, divined much and foresaw much he did not care to
+speak about--only that in some subtle way he made Margaret perceive that
+Ronald was to be cared for and watched over, and that to her this
+charge was committed.
+
+Before the summer was quite over Peter Sinclair went away. In his
+tarrying by the eternal shore he became, as it were, purified of the
+body, and one lovely night, when gloaming and dawning mingled, and the
+lark was thrilling the midnight skies, he heard the Master call him, and
+promptly answered, "Here am I." Then "Death, with sweet enlargement, did
+dismiss him hence."
+
+He had been considered a rich man in Orkney, and, therefore, Ronald--who
+had become accustomed to a Glasgow standard of wealth--was much
+disappointed. His whole estate was not worth over six thousand pounds;
+about two thousand pounds of this was in gold, the rest was invested in
+his houses in Kirkwall, and in a little cottage in Stromness, where
+Peter's wife had been born. He gave to Ronald �1800, and to Margaret
+�200 and the life rent of the real property. Ronald had already received
+�1400, and, therefore, had no cause of complaint, but somehow he felt as
+if he had been wronged. He was older than his sister, and the son of the
+house, and use and custom were not in favor of recognizing daughters as
+having equal rights. But he kept such thoughts to himself, and when he
+went back to Glasgow took with him solid proof of his sister's
+devotion.
+
+It was necessary, now, for Margaret to make a great change in her life.
+She determined to remove to Stromness and occupy the little four-roomed
+cottage that had been her mother's. It stood close to that of Geordie
+Twatt, and she felt that in any emergency she was thus sure of one
+faithful friend. "A lone woman" in Margaret's position has in these days
+numberless objects of interest of which Margaret never dreamed. She
+would have thought it a kind of impiety to advise her minister, or
+meddle in church affairs. These simple parents attended themselves to
+the spiritual training of their children--there was no necessity for
+Sunday Schools, and they did not exist. She was not one of those women
+whom their friends call "beings," and who have deep and mysterious
+feelings that interpret themselves in poems and thrilling stories. She
+had no taste for philosophy or history or social science, and had been
+taught to regard novels as dangerously sinful books.
+
+But no one need imagine that she was either wretched or idle. In the
+first place, she took life much more calmly and slowly than we do; a
+very little pleasure or employment went a long way. She read her Bible
+and helped her old servant Helga to keep the house in order. She had
+her flowers to care for,--and her brother and lover to write to. She
+looked after Geordie Twatt's little motherless lads, went to church and
+to see her friends, and very often had her friends to see her. It
+happened to be a very stormy winter, and the mails were often delayed
+for weeks together. This was her only trouble. Ronald's letters were
+more and more unsatisfactory; he was evidently unhappy and dissatisfied
+and heartily tired of his new study. Posts were so irregular that often
+their letters seemed to be playing at cross purposes. She determined as
+soon as spring opened to go and have a straightforward talk with him.
+
+So the following June Geordie Twatt took her in his boat to Thurso,
+where Captain Thorkald was waiting for her. They had not met since Peter
+Sinclair's death, and that event had materially affected their
+prospects. Before it their marriage had been a possible joy in some far
+future; now there was no greater claim on her care and love than the
+captain's, and he urged their early marriage.
+
+Margaret had her two hundred pounds with her, and she promised to buy
+her "plenishing" during her visit to Glasgow. In those days girls made
+their own trousseau, sewing into every garment solemn and tender hopes
+and joys. Margaret thought that proper attention to this dear stitching
+as well as proper respect for her father's memory, asked of her yet at
+least another year's delay; and for the present Captain Thorkald thought
+it best not to urge her further.
+
+Ronald received his sister very joyfully. He had provided lodgings for
+her with their father's old correspondent, Robert Gorie, a tea merchant
+in the Cowcaddens. The Cowcaddens was then a very respectable street,
+and Margaret was quite pleased with her quarters. She was not pleased
+with Ronald, however. He avowed himself thoroughly disgusted with the
+law, and declared his intention of forfeiting his fee and joining his
+friend Walter Cashell in a manufacturing scheme.
+
+Margaret could _feel_ that he was all wrong, but she could not reason
+about a business of which she knew nothing, and Ronald took his own way.
+But changing and bettering are two different things, and, though he was
+always talking of his "good luck" and his "good bargains", Margaret was
+very uneasy. Perhaps Robert Gorie was partly to blame for this; his
+pawky face and shrewd little eyes made visible dissents to all such
+boasts; nor did he scruple to say, "Guid luck needs guid elbowing,
+Ronald, an' it is at the _guid bargains_ I aye pause an' ponder."
+
+The following winter was a restless, unhappy one; Ronald was either
+painfully elated or very dull; and, soon after the New Year, Walter
+Cashell fell into bad health, went to the West Indies, and left Ronald
+with the whole business to manage. He soon now began to come to his
+sister, not only for advice, but for money. Margaret believed at first
+that she was only supplying Walter's sudden loss, but when her cash was
+all gone, and Ronald urged her to mortgage her rents she resolutely shut
+her ears to all his plausible promises, and refused to "throw more good
+money after bad."
+
+It was the first ill-blood between them, and it hurt Margaret sorely.
+She was glad when the fine weather came, and she could escape to her
+island home, for Ronald was cool to her, and said cruel things of
+Captain Thorkald, for whose sake he declared his sister had refused to
+help him.
+
+One day, at the end of the following August, when most of the
+towns-people--men and women--had gone to the moss to cut the winter's
+peat, she saw Geordie Twatt coming toward the house. Something about his
+appearance troubled her, and she went to the open door and stood waiting
+for him.
+
+"What is it, Geordie?"
+
+"I am bidden to tell thee, Margaret Sinclair, to be at the Stanes o'
+Stennis to-night at eleven o'clock."
+
+"Who trysts me there, Geordie, at such an hour?"
+
+"Thy brother; but thou'lt come--yes, thou wilt."
+
+Margaret's very lips turned white as she answered: "I'll be there--see
+thou art, too."
+
+"Sure as death! If naebody spiers after me, thou needna say I was here
+at a', thou needna."
+
+Margaret understood the caution, and nodded her head. She could not
+speak, and all day long she wandered about like a soul in a restless
+dream.
+
+Fortunately, every one was weary at night, and went early to rest, and
+she found little difficulty in getting outside the town without notice;
+and one of the ponies on the common took her speedily across the moor.
+
+Late as it was, twilight lingered over the silent moor, with its old
+Pictish mounds and burial places, giving them an indescribable aspect of
+something weird and eerie. No one could have been insensible to the
+mournful, brooding light and the unearthly stillness, and Margaret was
+trembling with a supernatural terror as she stood amid the solemn circle
+of gray stones and looked over the lake of Stennis and the low, brown
+hills of Harray.
+
+From behind one of these gigantic pillars Ronald came toward
+her--Ronald, and yet not Ronald. He was dressed as a common sailor, and
+otherwise shamefully disguised. There was no time to soften things--he
+told his miserable story in a few plain words:
+
+"His business had become so entangled that he knew not which way to
+turn, and, sick of the whole affair, he had taken a passage for
+Australia, and then forged a note on the Western Bank for �900. He had
+hoped to be far at sea with his ill-gotten money before the fraud was
+discovered, but suspicion had gathered around him so quickly, that he
+had not even dared to claim his passage. Then he fled north, and,
+fortunately, discovering Geordie's boat at Wick, had easily prevailed on
+him to put off at once with him."
+
+What cowards sin makes of us! Margaret had seen this very lad face death
+often, among the sunken rocks and cruel surfs, that he might save the
+life of a ship-wrecked sailor, and now, rather than meet the creditors
+whom he had wronged, he had committed a robbery and was flying from the
+gallows.
+
+She was shocked and stunned, and stood speechless, wringing her hands
+and moaning pitifully. Her brother grew impatient. Often the first
+result of a bitter sense of sin is to make the sinner peevish and
+irritable.
+
+"Margaret," he said, almost angrily, "I came to bid you farewell, and
+to promise you, _by my father's name_! to retrieve all this wrong. If
+you can speak a kind word speak it, for God's sake--if not, I must go
+without it!"
+
+Then she fell upon his neck, and, amid sobs and kisses, said all that
+love so sorely and suddenly tried could say. He could not even soothe
+her anguish by any promise to write, but he did promise to come back to
+her sooner or later with restitution in his hand. All she could do now
+for this dear brother was to call Geordie to her side and put him in his
+care; taking what consolation she could from his assurance that "he
+would keep him out at sea until the search was cold, and if followed
+carry him into some of the dangerous 'races' between the islands." If
+any sailor could keep his boat above water in them, she knew Geordie
+could; _and if not_--she durst follow that thought no further, but,
+putting her hands before her face, stood praying, while the two men
+pulled silently away in the little skiff that had brought them up the
+outlet connecting the lake of Stennis with the sea. Margaret would have
+turned away from Ronald's open grave less heart-broken.
+
+It was midnight now, but her real terror absorbed all imaginary ones;
+she did not even call a pony, but with swift, even steps walked back to
+Stromness. Ere she had reached it, she had decided what was to be done,
+and next day she left Kirkwall in the mail packet for the mainland.
+Thence by night and day she traveled to Glasgow, and a week after her
+interview with Ronald she was standing before the directors of the
+defrauded bank and offering them the entire proceeds of her Kirkwall
+property until the debt was paid.
+
+The bank had thoroughly respected Peter Sinclair, and his daughter's
+earnest, decided offer won their ready sympathy. It was accepted without
+any question of interest, though she could not hope to clear off the
+obligation in less than nine years. She did not go near any of her old
+acquaintances; she had no heart to bear their questions and condolences,
+and she had no money to stay in Glasgow at charges. Winter was coming on
+rapidly, but before it broke over the lonely islands she had reached her
+cottage in Stromness again.
+
+There had been, of course, much talk concerning her hasty journey, but
+no one had suspected its cause. Indeed, the pursuit after Ronald had
+been entirely the bank's affair, had been committed to private
+detectives and had not been nearly so hot as the frightened criminal
+believed. His failure and flight had indeed been noticed in the Glasgow
+newspapers, but this information did not reach Kirkwall until the
+following spring, and then in a very indefinite form.
+
+About a week after her return, Geordie Twatt came into port. Margaret
+frequently went to his cottage with food or clothing for the children,
+and she contrived to meet him there.
+
+"Yon lad is a' right, indeed is he," he said, with an assumption of
+indifference.
+
+"Oh, Geordie! where?"
+
+"A ship going westward took him off the boat."
+
+"Thank God! You will say naught at all, Geordie?"
+
+"I ken naught at a' save that his father's son was i' trouble, an'
+trying to gie thae weary, unchancy lawyers the go-by. I was fain eneuch
+mesel' to balk them."
+
+But Margaret's real trials were all yet to come. The mere fact of doing
+a noble deed does not absolve one often from very mean and petty
+consequences. Before the winter was half over she had found out how
+rapid is the descent from good report. The neighbors were deeply
+offended at her for giving up the social tea parties and evening
+gatherings that had made the house of Sinclair popular for more than one
+generation. She gave still greater offence by becoming a workingwoman,
+and spending her days in braiding straw into the (once) famous Orkney
+Tuscans, and her long evenings in the manufacture of those delicate
+knitted goods peculiar to the country.
+
+It was not alone that they grudged her the money for these labors, as so
+much out of their own pockets--they grudged her also the time; for they
+had been long accustomed to rely on Margaret Sinclair for their
+children's garments, for nursing the sick and for help in weddings,
+funerals and all the other extraordinary occasions of sympathy among a
+primitively social people.
+
+Little by little, all winter, the sentiment of disapproval and dislike
+gathered. Some one soon found out that Margaret's tenants "just sent
+every bawbee o' the rent-siller to the Glasgow Bank;" and this was a
+double offence, as it implied a distrust of her own townsfolk and
+institutions. If from her humble earnings she made a little gift to any
+common object its small amount was a fresh source of anger and contempt;
+for none knew how much she had to deny herself even for such curtailed
+gratuities.
+
+In fact, Margaret Sinclair's sudden stinginess and indifference to her
+townsfolk was the common wonder and talk of every little gathering. Old
+friends began to either pointedly reprove her, or pointedly ignore her;
+and at last even old Helga took the popular tone and said, "Margaret
+Sinclair had got too scrimping for an auld wife like her to bide wi'
+langer."
+
+Through all this Margaret suffered keenly. At first she tried earnestly
+to make her old friends understand that she had good reasons for her
+conduct; but as she would not explain these good reasons, she failed in
+her endeavor. She had imagined that her good conscience would support
+her, and that she could live very well without love and sympathy; she
+soon found out that it is a kind of negative punishment worse than many
+stripes.
+
+At the end of the winter Captain Thorkald again earnestly pressed their
+marriage, saying that, "his regiment was ordered to Chelsea, and any
+longer delay might be a final one." He proposed also, that his father,
+the Udaller Thorkald of Serwick, should have charge of her Orkney
+property, as he understood its value and changes. Margaret wrote and
+frankly told him that her property was not hers for at least seven
+years, but that it was under good care, and he must accept her word
+without explanation. Out of this only grew a very unsatisfactory
+correspondence. Captain Thorkald went south without Margaret, and a very
+decided coolness separated them farther than any number of miles.
+
+Udaller Thorkald was exceedingly angry, and his remarks about Margaret
+Sinclair's refusal "to trust her bit property in as guid hands as her
+own" increased very much the bitter feeling against the poor girl. At
+the end of three years the trial became too great for her; she began to
+think of running away from it.
+
+Throughout these dark days she had purposely and pointedly kept apart
+from her old friend Dr. Ogilvie, for she feared his influence over her
+might tempt her to confidence. Latterly the doctor had humored her
+evident desire, but he had never ceased to watch over and, in a great
+measure, to believe in her; and, when he heard of this determination to
+quit Orkney forever, he came to Stromness with a resolution to spare no
+efforts to win her confidence.
+
+He spoke very solemnly and tenderly to her, reminded her of her father's
+generosity and good gifts to the church and the poor, and said: "O,
+Margaret, dear lass! what good at a' will thy silent money do thee in
+_that Day_? It ought to speak for thee out o' the mouths o' the
+sorrowfu' an' the needy, the widows an' the fatherless--indeed it ought.
+And thou hast gien naught for thy Master's sake these three years! I'm
+fair 'shamed to think thou bears sae kind a name as thy father's."
+
+What could Margaret do? She broke into passionate sobbing, and, when the
+good old man left the cottage an hour afterward there was a strange
+light on his face, and he walked and looked as if he had come from some
+interview that had set him for a little space still nearer to the
+angels. Margaret had now one true friend, and in a few days after this
+she rented her cottage and went to live with the dominie. Nothing could
+have so effectually reinstated her in public opinion; wherever the
+dominie went on a message of help or kindness Margaret went with him.
+She fell gradually into a quieter but still more affectionate
+regard--the aged, the sick and the little children clung to her hands,
+and she was comforted.
+
+Her life seemed, indeed, to have wonderfully narrowed, but when the tide
+is fairly out, it begins to turn again. In the fifth year of her poverty
+there was from various causes, such an increase in the value of real
+estate, that her rents were nearly doubled, and by the end of the
+seventh year she had paid the last shilling of her assumed debt, and was
+again an independent woman.
+
+It might be two years after this that she one day received a letter that
+filled her with joy and amazement. It contained a check for her whole
+nine hundred pounds back again. "The bank had just received from Ronald
+Sinclair, of San Francisco, the whole amount due it, with the most
+satisfactory acknowledgment and interest." It was a few minutes before
+Margaret could take in all the joy this news promised her; but when she
+did, the calm, well-regulated girl had never been so near committing
+extravagances.
+
+She ran wildly upstairs to the dominie, and, throwing herself at his
+knees, cried out, amid tears and smiles: "Father! father! Here is your
+money! Here is the poor's money and the church's money! God has sent it
+back to me! Sent it back with such glad tidings!"--and surely if angels
+rejoice with repenting sinners, they must have felt that day a far
+deeper joy with the happy, justified girl.
+
+She knew now that she also would soon hear from Ronald, and she was not
+disappointed. The very next day the dominie brought home the letter.
+Margaret took it upstairs to read it upon her knees, while the good old
+man walked softly up and down his study praying for her. Presently she
+came to him with a radiant face.
+
+"Is it weel wi' the lad, ma dawtie?"
+
+"Yes, father; it is very well." Then she read him the letter.
+
+Ronald had been in New Orleans and had the fever; he had been in Texas,
+and spent four years in fighting Indians and Mexicans and in herding
+cattle. He had suffered many things, but had worked night and day, and
+always managed to grow a little richer every year. Then, suddenly, the
+word "California!" rung through the world, and he caught the echo even
+on the lonely southwestern prairies. Through incredible hardships he had
+made his way thither, and a sudden and wonderful fortune had crowned his
+labors, first in mining and afterward in speculation and merchandising.
+He said that he was indeed afraid to tell her how rich he was lest to
+her Arcadean views the sum might appear incredible.
+
+Margaret let the letter fall on her lap and clasped her hands above it.
+Her face was beautiful. If the prodigal son had a sister she must have
+looked just as Margaret looked when they brought in her lost brother, in
+the best robe and the gold ring.
+
+The dominie was not so satisfied. A good many things in the letter
+displeased him, but he kissed Margaret tenderly and went away from her.
+"It is a' _I_ did this, an' _I_ did that, an' _I_ suffered you; there is
+nae word o' God's help, or o' what ither folk had to thole. I'll no be
+doing ma duty if I dinna set his sin afore his e'en."
+
+The old man was little used to writing, and the effort was a great one,
+but he bravely made it, and without delay. In a few curt, idiomatic
+sentences he told Ronald Margaret's story of suffering and wrong and
+poverty; her hard work for daily bread; her loss of friends, of her
+good name and her lover, adding: "It is a puir success, ma lad, that ye
+dinna acknowledge God in; an' let me tell thee, thy restitution is o'er
+late for thy credit. I wad hae thought better o' it had thou made it
+when it took the last plack i' thy pouch. Out o' thy great wealth, a few
+hun'red pounds is nae matter to speak aboot."
+
+But people did speak of it. In spite of our chronic abuse of human
+nature it is, after all, a kindly nature, and rejoices in good more than
+in evil. The story of Ronald's restitution is considered honorable to
+it, and it was much made of in the daily papers. Margaret's friends
+flocked round her again, saying, "I'm sorry, Margaret!" as simply and
+honestly as little children, and the dominie did not fail to give them
+the lecture on charity that Margaret neglected.
+
+Whether the Udaller Thorkald wrote to his son anent these transactions,
+or whether the captain read in the papers enough to satisfy him, he
+never explained; but one day he suddenly appeared at Dr. Ogilvie's and
+asked for Margaret. He had probably good excuses for his conduct to
+offer; if not, Margaret was quite ready to invent for him--as she had
+done for Ronald--all the noble qualities he lacked. The captain was
+tired of military life, and anxious to return to Orkney; and, as his
+own and Margaret's property was yearly increasing: in value, he foresaw
+profitable employment for his talents. He had plans for introducing many
+southern improvements--for building a fine modern house, growing some of
+the hardier fruits and for the construction of a grand conservatory for
+Margaret's flowers.
+
+It must be allowed that Captain Thorkald was a very ordinary lord for a
+woman like Margaret Sinclair to "love, honor and obey;" but few men
+would have been worthy of her, and the usual rule which shows us the
+noblest women marrying men manifestly their inferiors is doubtless a
+wise one.
+
+A lofty soul can have no higher mission than to help upward one upon a
+lower plane, and surely Captain Thorkald, being, as the dominie said,
+"_no that bad_," had the fairest opportunities to grow to Margaret's
+stature in Margaret's atmosphere.
+
+While these things were occurring, Ronald got Margaret's letter. It was
+full of love and praise, and had no word of blame or complaint in it. He
+noticed, indeed, that she still signed her name "Sinclair," and that she
+never alluded to Captain Thorkald, and the supposition that the stain on
+his character had caused a rupture did, for a moment, force itself upon
+his notice; but he put it instantly away with the reflection that
+"Thorkald was but a poor fellow, after all, and quite unworthy of his
+sister."
+
+The very next mail-day he received the dominie's letter. He read it
+once, and could hardly take it in; read it again and again, until his
+lips blanched, and his whole countenance changed. In that moment he saw
+Ronald Sinclair for the first time in his life. Without a word, he left
+his business, went to his house and locked himself in his own room.
+
+_Then Margaret's silent money began to speak._ In low upbraidings it
+showed him the lonely girl in that desolate land trying to make her own
+bread, deserted of lover and friends, robbed of her property and good
+name, silently suffering every extremity, never reproaching him once,
+not even thinking it necessary to tell him of her sufferings, or to
+count their cost unto him.
+
+What is this bitterness we call remorse? This agony of the soul in all
+its senses? This sudden flood of intolerable light in the dark places of
+our hearts? This truth-telling voice which leaves us without a particle
+of our self-complacency? For many days Ronald could find no words to
+speak but these, "O, wretched man that I am!"
+
+But at length the Comforter came as swiftly and surely and mysteriously
+as the accuser had come, and once more that miracle of grace was
+renewed--"that day Jesus was guest in the house of one who was a
+sinner."
+
+Margaret's "silent money" now found a thousand tongues. It spoke in many
+a little feeble church that Ronald Sinclair held in his arms until it
+was strong enough to stand alone. It spoke in schools and colleges and
+hospitals, in many a sorrowful home and to many a lonely, struggling
+heart--and at this very day it has echoes that reach from the far West
+to the lonely islands beyond the stormy Pentland Firth, and the
+sea-shattering precipices of Duncansbay Head.
+
+It is not improbable that some of my readers may take a summer's trip to
+the Orkney Islands; let me ask them to wait at Thurso--the old town of
+Thor--for a handsome little steamer that leaves there three times a week
+for Kirkwall. It is the sole property of Captain Geordie Twatt, was a
+gift from an old friend in California, and is called "The Margaret
+Sinclair."
+
+
+
+
+JUST WHAT HE DESERVED.
+
+
+There is not in its own way a more distinctive and interesting bit of
+Scotland than the bleak Lothian country, with its wide views, its brown
+ploughed fields, and its dense swaying plantations of fir. The
+Lammermoor Hills and the Pentlands and the veils of smoke that lie about
+Edinburgh are on its horizon, and within that circle all the large
+quietude of open grain fields, wide turnip lands, where sheep feed, and
+far-stretching pastures where the red and white cows ruminate. The
+patient processes of nature breed patient minds; the gray cold climate
+can be read in the faces of the people, and in their hearts the seasons
+take root and grow; so that they have a grave character, passive, yet
+enduring; strong to feel and strong to act when the time is full ready
+for action.
+
+Of these natural peculiarities Jean Anderson had her share. She was a
+Lothian lassie of many generations, usually undemonstrative, but with
+large possibilities of storm beneath her placid face and gentle manner.
+Her father was the minister of Lambrig and the manse stood in a very
+sequestered corner of the big parish, facing the bleak east winds, and
+the salt showers of the German ocean. It was sheltered by dark fir woods
+on three sides, and in front a little walled-in garden separated it from
+the long, dreary, straight line of turnpike road. But Jean had no
+knowledge of any fairer land; she had read of flowery pastures and rose
+gardens and vineyards, but these places were to her only in books, while
+the fields and fells that filled her eyes were her home, and she loved
+them.
+
+She loved them all the more because the man she loved was going to leave
+them, and if Gavin Burns did well, and was faithful to her, then it was
+like to be that she also would go far away from the blue Lammermuirs,
+and the wide still spaces of the Lothians. She stood at the open door of
+the manse with her lover thinking of these things, but with no real
+sense of what pain or deprivation the thought included. She was tall and
+finely formed, a blooming girl, with warmly-colored cheeks, a mouth
+rather large and a great deal of wavy brown hair. But the best of all
+her beauty was the soul in her face; its vitality, its vivacity and
+immediate response.
+
+However, the time of love had come to her, and though her love had grown
+as naturally as a sapling in a wood, who could tell what changes it
+would make. For Gavin Burns had been educated in the minister's house
+and Jean and he had studied and fished and rambled together all through
+the years in which Jean had grown from childhood into womanhood. Now
+Gavin was going to New York to make his fortune. They stepped through
+the garden and into the long dim road, walking slowly in the calm night,
+with thoughtful faces and clasped hands. There was at this last hour
+little left to say. Every promise known to Love had been given; they had
+exchanged Bibles and broken a piece of silver and vowed an eternal
+fidelity. So, in the cold sunset they walked silently by the river that
+was running in flood like their own hearts. At the little stone bridge
+they stopped, and leaning over the parapet watched the drumly water
+rushing below; and there Jean reiterated her promise to be Gavin's wife
+as soon as he was able to make a home for her.
+
+"And I am not proud, Gavin," she said; "a little house, if it is filled
+with love, will make me happy beyond all."
+
+They were both too hopeful and trustful and too habitually calm to weep
+or make much visible lament over their parting; and yet when Gavin
+vanished into the dark of the lonely road, Jean shut the heavy house
+door very slowly. She felt as if she was shutting part of herself out of
+the old home forever, and she was shocked by this first breaking of the
+continuity of life; this sharp cutting of regular events asunder.
+Gavin's letters were at first frequent and encouraging, but as the
+months went by he wrote more and more seldom. He said "he was kept so
+busy; he was making himself indispensable, and could not afford to be
+less busy. He was weary to death on the Saturday nights, and he could
+not bring his conscience to write anent his own personal and earthly
+happiness on the Sabbath day; but he was sure Jean trusted in him,
+whether he wrote or not; and they were past being bairns, always telling
+each other the love they were both so sure of."
+
+Late in the autumn the minister died of typhoid fever, and Jean,
+heartbroken and physically worn out, was compelled to face for her
+mother and herself, a complete change of life. It had never seemed to
+these two women that anything could happen to the father and head of the
+family; in their loving hearts he had been immortal, and though the
+disease had run its tedious course before their eyes, his death at the
+last was a shock that shook their lives and their home to the very
+centre. A new minister was the first inevitable change, and then a
+removal from the comfortable manse to a little cottage in the village of
+Lambrig.
+
+While this sad removal was in progress they had felt the sorrow of it,
+all that they could bear; and neither had dared to look into the future
+or to speculate as to its necessities. Jean in her heart expected Gavin
+would at once send for them to come to America. He had a fair salary,
+and the sale of their furniture would defray their traveling expenses.
+
+She was indeed so sure of this journey, that she did not regard the
+cottage as more than a temporary shelter during the approaching winter.
+In the spring, no doubt, Gavin would have a little home ready, and they
+would cross the ocean to it. The mother had the same thought. As they
+sat on their new hearthstone, lonely and poor, they talked of this
+event, and if any doubts lurked unconsciously below their love and trust
+they talked them away, while they waited for Gavin's answer to the
+sorrowful letter Jean had sent him on the night of her father's burial.
+
+It was longer in coming than they expected. For a week they saw the
+postman pass their door with an indifference that seemed cruel; for a
+week Jean made new excuses and tried to hold up her mother's heart,
+while her own was sinking lower and lower. Then one morning the
+looked-for answer came. Jean fled to a room apart to read it alone; Mrs.
+Anderson sat down and waited, with dropped eyes and hands tightly
+clasped. She knew, before Jean said a word, that the letter had
+disappointed her. She had remained alone too long. If all had been as
+they hoped the mother was certain Jean would not have deferred the good
+tidings a moment. But a quarter of an hour had passed before Jean came
+to her side, and then when she lifted her eyes she saw that her daughter
+had been weeping.
+
+"It is a disappointment, Jean, I see," she said sadly. "Never mind,
+dearie."
+
+"Yes, mother; Gavin has failed us."
+
+"We have been two foolish women, Jean. Oh, my dear lassie, we should
+have lippened to God, and He would not have disappointed us! What does
+Gavin Burns say?"
+
+"It is what he does _not_ say, that hurts me, mother. I may as well tell
+you the whole truth. When he heard how ill father was, he wrote to me,
+as if he had foreseen what was to happen. He said, 'there will be a new
+minister and a break-up of the old home, and you must come at once to
+your new home here. I am the one to care for you when your father is
+gone away; and what does it matter under what sun or sky if we are but
+together?' So, then, mother, when the worst had come to us I wrote with
+a free heart to Gavin. I said, 'I will come to you gladly, Gavin, but
+you know well that my mother is very dear to me, and where I am there
+she also must be.' And he says, in this letter, that it is me he is
+wanting, and that you have a brother in Glasgow that is unmarried and
+who will be willing, no doubt, to have you keep his house for him. There
+is a wale of fine words about it, mother, but they come to just this,
+and no more--Gavin is willing to care for me, but not for you and I will
+not trust myself with a man that cannot love you for my sake. We will
+stay together, mammy darling! Whatever comes or goes we will stay
+together. The man isna born that can part us two!"
+
+"He is your lover, Jean. A girl must stick to her lover."
+
+"You are my mother. I am bone of your bone, and flesh of your flesh and
+love of your love. May God forsake me when I forsake you!"
+
+She had thrown herself at her mother's knees and was clasping and
+kissing the sad face so dear to her, as she fervently uttered the last
+words. And the mother was profoundly touched by her child's devotion.
+She drew her close to her heart, and said firmly:
+
+"No! No, my dearie! What could we two do for ourselves? And I'm loth to
+part you and Gavin. I simply cannot take the sacrifice, you so lovingly
+offer me. I will write to my brother David. Gavin isna far wrong there;
+David is a very close man, but he willna see his sister suffer, there
+is no fear of that."
+
+"It is Jean that will not see you suffer."
+
+"But the bite and the sup, Jean? How are we to get them?"
+
+"I can make my own dresses and cloaks, so then I can make dresses and
+cloaks for other people. I shall send out a card to the ladies near-by
+and put an advertisement in the Haddington newspaper, and God can make
+my needle sharp enough for the battle. Don't cry, mother! Oh, darling,
+don't cry! We have God and each other, and none can call us desolate."
+
+"But you will break your heart, Jean. You canna help it. And I canna
+take your love and happiness to brighten my old age. It isna right. I'll
+not do it. You must go to Gavin. I will go to my brother David."
+
+"I will not break my heart, mother. I will not shed a tear for the
+false, mean lad, that you were so kind to for fourteen years, when there
+was no one else to love him. Aye, I know he paid for his board and
+schooling, but he never could pay for the mother-love you gave him, just
+because he was motherless. And who has more right to have their life
+brightened by my love than you have? Beside, it is my happiness to
+brighten it, and so, what will you say against it? And I will not go to
+Gavin. Not one step. If he wants me now, he will come for me, and for
+you, too. This is sure as death! Oh, mammy! Mammy, darling, a false lad
+shall not part us! Never! Never! Never!"
+
+"Jean! Jean! What will I say at all"
+
+"What would my father say, if he was here this minute? He would say,
+'you are right, Jean! And God bless you, Jean! And you may be sure that
+it is all for the best, Jean! So take the right road with a glad heart,
+Jean!' That is what father would say. And I will never do anything to
+prevent me looking him straight in the face when we meet again. Even in
+heaven I shall want him to smile into my eyes and say, 'Well done,
+Jean!'"
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+Jean's plans for the future were humble and reasonable enough to insure
+them some measure of success, and the dreaded winter passed not
+uncomfortably away. Then in the summer Uncle David Nicoll came to
+Lambrig and boarded with his sister, paying a pound a week, and giving
+her, on his departure, a five-pound note to help the next winter's
+expenses. This order of things went on without change or intermission
+for five years, and the little cottage gradually gathered in its clean,
+sweet rooms, many articles of simple use and beauty. Mrs. Anderson took
+entire charge of the housekeeping. Jean's needle flew swiftly from
+morning to night, and though the girl had her share of the humiliations
+and annoyances incident to her position, these did not interfere with
+the cheerful affection and mutual help which brightened their lonely
+life.
+
+She heard nothing from Gavin. After some painful correspondence, in
+which neither would retract a step from the stand they had taken, Gavin
+ceased writing, and Jean ceased expecting, though before this calm was
+reached she had many a bitter hour the mother never suspected. But such
+hours were to Jean's soul what the farmer's call "growing weather;" in
+them much rich thought and feeling sprang up insensibly; her nature
+ripened and mellowed and she became a far lovelier woman than her
+twentieth year had promised.
+
+One gray February afternoon, when the rain was falling steadily, Jean
+felt unusually depressed and weary. An apprehension of some unhappiness
+made her sad, and she could not sew for the tears that would dim her
+eyes. Suddenly the door opened and Gavin's sister Mary entered. Jean did
+not know her very well, and she did not like her at all, and she
+wondered what she had come to tell her.
+
+"I am going to New York on Saturday, Jean," she said, "and I thought
+Gavin would like to know how you looked and felt these days."
+
+Jean flushed indignantly. "You can see how I look easy enough, Mary
+Burns," she answered; "but as to how I feel, that is a thing I keep to
+myself these days."
+
+"Gavin has furnished a pretty house at the long last, and I am to be the
+mistress of it. You will have heard, doubtless, that the school where I
+taught so long has been broken up, and so I was on the world, as one may
+say, and Gavin could not bear that. He is a good man, is Gavin, and I'm
+thinking I shall have a happy time with him in America."
+
+"I hope you will, Mary. Give him a kind wish from me; and I will bid you
+'good bye' now, if you please, seeing that I have more sewing to do
+to-night than I can well manage."
+
+This event wounded Jean sorely. She felt sure Mary had only called for
+an unkind purpose, and that she would cruelly misrepresent her
+appearance and condition to Gavin. And no woman likes even a lost lover
+to think scornfully of her. But she brought her sewing beside her mother
+and talked the affair over with her, and so, at the end of the evening,
+went to bed resigned, and even cheerful. Never had they spent a more
+confidential, loving night together, and this fact was destined to be a
+comfort to Jean during all the rest of her life. For in the morning she
+noticed a singular look on her mother's face and at noon she found her
+in her chair fast in that sleep which knows no wakening in this world.
+
+It was a blow which put all other considerations far out of Jean's mind.
+She mourned with a passionate sorrow her loss, and though Uncle David
+came at once to assist her in the necessary arrangements, she suffered
+no hand but her own to do the last kind offices for her dear dead. And
+oh! how empty and lonely was now the little cottage, while the swift
+return to all the ordinary duties of life seemed such a cruel
+effacement. Uncle David watched her silently, but on the evening of the
+third day after the funeral he said, kindly:
+
+"Dry your eyes, Jean. There is naething to weep for. Your mother is far
+beyond tears."
+
+"I cannot bear to forget her a minute, uncle, yet folks go and come and
+never name her; and it is not a week since she had a word and a smile
+for everybody."
+
+    "Death is forgetfulness, Jean;
+                ... 'one lonely way
+    We go: and is she gone?
+    Is all our best friends say.'
+
+"You must come home with me now, Jean. I canna be what your mother has
+been to you, but I'll do the best I can for you, lassie. Sell these bit
+sticks o' furniture and shut the door on the empty house and begin a new
+life. You've had sorrow about a lad; let him go. All o' the past worth
+your keeping you can save in your memory."
+
+"I will be glad to go with you, uncle. I shall be no charge on you. I
+can find my own bread if you will just love me a little."
+
+"I'm no that poor, Jean. You are welcome to share my loaf. Put that
+weary; thimble and needle awa'; I'll no see you take another stitch."
+
+So Jean followed her uncle's advice and went back with him to Glasgow.
+He had never said a word about his home, and Jean knew not what she
+expected--certainly nothing more than a small floor in some of the least
+expensive streets of the great city. It was dark when they reached
+Glasgow, but Jean was sensible of a great change in her uncle's manner
+as soon as they left the railway. He made an imperative motion and a
+carriage instantly answered it; and they were swiftly driven to a large
+dwelling in one of the finest crescents of the West end. He led her into
+a handsome parlor and called a servant, and bid her "show Miss Anderson
+her rooms;" and thus, without a word of preparation, Jean found herself
+surrounded by undreamed of luxury.
+
+Nothing was ever definitely explained to her, but she gradually learned
+to understand the strange old man who assumed the guardianship of her
+life. His great wealth was evident, and it was not long ere she
+discovered that it was largely spent in two directions--scientific
+discovery and the Temperance Crusade. Men whose lives were devoted to
+chemistry or to electrical investigations, or passionate apostles of
+total abstinence from intoxicants were daily at his table; and Jean
+could not help becoming an enthusiastic partisan on such matters. One of
+the savants, a certain Professor Sharp, fell deeply in love with her;
+and she felt it difficult to escape the influence of his wooing, which
+had all the persistent patience of a man accustomed "to seek till he
+found, and so not lose his labor."
+
+Her life was now very happy. Cautious in giving his love, David Nicoll
+gave it freely as soon as he had resolved to adopt his niece. Nor did he
+ever regret the gift. "Jean entered my house and she made it a home," he
+said to his friends. No words could have better explained the position.
+In the winter they entertained with a noble hospitality; in the summer
+they sailed far north to the mystical isles of the Western seas; to
+Orkney and Zetland and once even as far as the North Cape by the light
+of the midnight sun. So the time passed wonderfully away, until Jean was
+thirty-two years old. The simple, unlettered girl had then become a
+woman of great culture and of perfect physical charm. Wise in many ways,
+she yet kept her loving heart, and her uncle delighted in her. "You have
+made my auld age parfectly happy, Jean," he said to her on the last
+solemn night of his life; "and I thank God for the gift o' your honest
+love! Now that I am going the way of all flesh, I have gi'en you every
+bawbee I have. I have put no restrictions on you, and I have left nae
+dead wishes behind me. You will do as you like wi' the land and the
+siller, and you will do right in a' things, I ken that, Jean. If it
+should come into your heart to tak' the love Professor Sharp offers you,
+I'll be pleased, for he'll never spend a shilling that willna be weel
+spent; and he is a clever man, and a good man and he loves you. But it
+is a' in your ain will; do as you like, anent either this or that."
+
+This was the fourth great change in Jean's life. Gavin's going away had
+opened the doors of her destiny; her father's death had sent her to the
+school of self-reliant poverty; her mother's death given her a home of
+love and luxury, and now her uncle put her in a position of vast,
+untrammeled responsibility. But if love is the joy of life, this was not
+the end; the crowning change was yet to come; and now, with both her
+hands full, her heart involuntarily turned to her first lover.
+
+About this time, also, Gavin was led to remember Jean. His sister Mary
+was going to marry, and the circumstance annoyed him. "I'll have to
+store my furniture and pay for the care of it; or I'll have to sell it
+at a loss; or I'll have to hire a servant lass, and be robbed on the
+right hand and the left," he said fretfully. "It was not in the bargain
+that you should marry, and it is very bad behavior in you, Mary."
+
+"Well, Gavin, get married yourself, and the furnishing will not be
+wasted," answered Mary. "There is Annie Riley, just dying for the love
+of you, and no brighter, smarter girl in New York city."
+
+"She isn't in love with me; she is tired of the Remington all day; and
+if I wanted a wife, there is some one better than Annie Riley."
+
+"Jean Anderson?"
+
+"Ay."
+
+"Send for her picture, and you will see what a plain, dowdy old maid she
+is. She is not for the like of you, Gavin--a bit country dressmaker,
+poor, and past liking."
+
+Gavin said no more, but that night he wrote Jean Anderson the following
+letter: "Dear Jean. I wish you would send me a picture of yourself. If
+you will not write me a word, you might let me have your face to look
+at. Mary is getting herself married, and I will be alone in a few days."
+That is enough, he thought; "she will understand that there is a chance
+for her yet, if she is as bonnie as in the old days. Mary is not to be
+trusted. She never liked Jean. I'll see for myself."
+
+Jean got this letter one warm day in spring, and she "understood" it as
+clearly as Gavin intended her to. For a long time she sat thinking it
+over, then she went to a drawer for a photo, taken just before her
+mother's death. It showed her face without any favor, without even
+justice, and the plain merino gown, which was then her best. And with
+this picture she wrote--"Dear Gavin. The enclosed was taken five years
+since, and there has been changes since."
+
+She did not say what the changes were, but Gavin was sure they were
+unfavorable. He gazed at the sad, thoughtful face, the poor plain dress,
+and he was disappointed. A girl like that would do his house no honor;
+he would not care to introduce her to his fellow clerks; they would not
+envy him a bit. Annie Riley was far better looking, and far more
+stylish. He decided in favor of Annie Riley.
+
+Jean was not astonished when no answer came. She had anticipated her
+failure to please her old lover; but she smiled a little sadly at _his_
+failure. Then there came into her mind a suspicion of Mary, an
+uncertainty, a lingering hope that some circumstance, not to be guessed
+at from a distance, was to blame for Gavin's silence and utter want of
+response. It was midsummer, she wanted a breath of the ocean; why should
+she not go to New York and quietly see how things were for herself? The
+idea took possession of her, and she carried it out.
+
+She knew the name of the large dry goods firm that Gavin served, and the
+morning after her arrival in New York she strolled into it for a pair of
+gloves. As they were being fitted on she heard Gavin speak, and moving
+her position slightly, she saw him leaning against a pile of summer
+blankets. He was talking to one of his fellows, and evidently telling a
+funny story, at which both giggled and snickered, ere they walked their
+separate ways. Being midsummer the store was nearly empty, and Jean, by
+varying her purchases, easily kept Gavin in sight. She never for one
+moment found the sight a pleasant one. Gavin had deteriorated in every
+way. He was no longer handsome; the veil of youth had fallen from him,
+and his face, his hands, his figure, his slouching walk, his querulous
+authoritative voice, all revealed a man whom Jean repelled at every
+point. Years had not refined, they had vulgarized him. His clothing
+careless and not quite fresh, offended her taste; in fact, his whole
+appearance was of that shabby genteel character, which is far more mean
+and plebeian than can be given by undisguised working apparel. As Jean
+was taking note of these things a girl, with a flushed, angry face,
+spoke to him. She was evidently making a complaint, and Gavin answered
+her in a manner which made Jean burn from head to feet. The disillusion
+was complete; she never looked at him again, and he never knew she had
+looked at him at all.
+
+But after Mary's marriage he heard news which startled him. Mary, under
+her new name, wrote to an acquaintance in Lambrig, and this acquaintance
+in reply said, "You will have heard that Jean Anderson was left a great
+fortune by her uncle, David Nicoll. She is building a home near Lambrig
+that is finer than Maxwell Castle; and Lord Maxwell has rented the
+castle to her until her new home is finished. You wouldn't ken the looks
+of her now, she is that handsome, but weel-a-way, fine feathers aye make
+fine birds!"
+
+Gavin fairly trembled when he heard this news, and as he had been with
+the firm eleven years and never asked a favor, he resolved to tell them
+he had important business in Scotland, and ask for a month's holiday to
+attend to it. If he was on the ground he never doubted his personal
+influence. "Jean was aye wax in my fingers," he said to Mary.
+
+"There is Annie Riley," answered Mary.
+
+"She will have to give me up. I'll not marry her. I am going to marry
+Jean, and settle myself in Scotland."
+
+"Annie is not the girl to be thrown off that kind of way, Gavin. You
+have promised to marry her."
+
+"I shall marry Jean Anderson, and then what will Annie do about it, I
+would like to know?"
+
+"I think you will find out."
+
+In the fall he obtained permission to go to Scotland for a month, and he
+hastened to Lambrig as fast as steam could carry him. He intended no
+secret visit; he had made every preparation to fill his old townsmen
+with admiration and envy. But things had changed, even in Lambrig. There
+was a new innkeeper, who could answer none of his questions, and who did
+not remember Minister Anderson and his daughter, Jean. He began to fear
+he had come on a fool's errand, and after a leisurely, late breakfast,
+he strolled out to make his own investigations.
+
+There was certainly a building on a magnificent scale going up on a
+neighboring hill, and he walked toward it. When half way there a
+finely-appointed carriage passed him swiftly, but not too swiftly for
+him to see that Jean and a very handsome man were its occupants. "It
+will be her lawyer or architect," he thought; and he walked rapidly
+onward, pleased with himself for having put on his very best walking
+suit. There were many workmen on the building, and he fell into
+conversation with a man who was mixing mortar; but all the time he was
+watching Jean and her escort stepping about the great uncovered spaces
+of the new dwelling-house with such an air of mutual trust and happiness
+that it angered him.
+
+"Who is the lady?" he asked at length; "she seems to have business
+here."
+
+"What for no? The house is her ain. She is Mistress Sharp, and that is
+the professor with her. He is a great gun in the Glasgow University."
+
+"They are married, then?"
+
+"Ay, they are married. What are you saying at all? They were married a
+month syne, and they are as happy as robins in spring, I'm thinking.
+I'll drink their health, sir, if you'll gie me the bit o' siller."
+
+Gavin gave the silver and turned away dazed and sick at heart. His
+business in Scotland was over. The quiet Lothian country sickened him;
+he turned his face to London, and very soon went back to New York. He
+had lost Jean, and he had lost Jean's fortune; and there were no words
+to express his chagrin and disappointment. His sister felt the first
+weight of it. He blamed her entirely. She had lied to him about Jean's
+beauty. He believed he would have liked the photo but for Mary. And all
+for Annie Riley! He hated Annie Riley! He was resolved never to marry
+her, and he let the girl feel his dislike in no equivocal manner.
+
+For a time Annie was tearful and conciliating. Then she wrote him a
+touching letter, and asked him to tell her frankly if he had ceased to
+love her, and was resolved to break their marriage off. And Gavin did
+tell her, with almost brutal frankness, that he no longer loved her, and
+that he had firmly made up his mind not to marry her. He said something
+about his heart being in Scotland, but that was only a bit of sentiment
+that he thought gave a better air to his unfaithfulness.
+
+Annie did not answer his letter, but Messrs. Howe & Hummel did, and
+Gavin soon found himself the centre of a breach of promise trial, with
+damages laid at fifty thousand dollars. All his fine poetical love
+letters were in the newspapers; he was ashamed to look men and women in
+the face; he suffered a constant pillory for weeks; through his vanity,
+his self-consciousness, his egotism he was perpetually wounded. But
+pretty Annie Riley was the object of public pity and interest, and she
+really seemed to enjoy her notoriety. The verdict was righteously enough
+in her favor. The jury gave her ten thousand dollars, and all expenses,
+and Gavin Burns was a ruined man. His eleven years savings only amounted
+to nine thousand dollars, and for the balance he was compelled to sell
+his furniture and give notes payable out of his next year's salary. He
+wept like a child as he signed these miserable vouchers for his folly,
+and for some days was completely prostrated by the evil he had called
+unto himself. Then the necessities of his position compelled him to go
+to work again, though it was with a completely broken spirit.
+
+"I'm getting on to forty," he said to his sister, "and I am beginning
+the world over again! One woman has given me a disappointment that I
+will carry to the grave; and another woman is laughing at me, for she
+has got all my saved siller, and more too; forbye, she is like to marry
+Bob Severs and share it with him. Then I have them weary notes to meet
+beyond all. There never was a man so badly used as I have been!"
+
+No one pitied him much. Whatever his acquaintances said to his face he
+knew right well their private opinion was that he had received _just
+what he deserved_.
+
+
+
+
+AN ONLY OFFER.
+
+
+"Aunt Phoebe, were you ever pretty?"
+
+"When I was sixteen I was considered so. I was very like you then,
+Julia. I am forty-three now, remember."
+
+"Did you ever have an offer--an offer of marriage, I mean, aunt?"
+
+"No. Well, that is not true; I did have one offer."
+
+"And you refused it?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then he died, or went away?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Or deserted you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then you deceived him, I suppose?"
+
+"I did not."
+
+"What ever happened, then? Was he poor, or crippled or something
+dreadful"
+
+"He was rich and handsome."
+
+"Suppose you tell me about him."
+
+"I never talk about him to any one."
+
+"Did it happen at the old place?"
+
+"Yes, Julia. I never left Ryelands until I was thirty. This happened
+when I was sixteen."
+
+"Was he a farmer's son in the neighborhood?"
+
+"He was a fine city gentleman."
+
+"Oh, aunt, how interesting! Put down your embroidery and tell me about
+it; you cannot see to work longer."
+
+Perhaps after so many years of silence a sudden longing for sympathy and
+confidence seized the elder lady, for she let her work fall from her
+hands, and smiling sadly, said:
+
+"Twenty-seven years ago I was standing one afternoon by the gate at
+Ryelands. All the work had been finished early, and my mother and two
+elder sisters had gone to the village to see a friend. I had watched
+them a little way down the hillside, and was turning to go into the
+house, when I saw a stranger on horseback coming up the road. He stopped
+and spoke to mother, and this aroused my curiosity; so I lingered at the
+gate. He stopped when he reached it, fastened his horse, and asked, 'Is
+Mr. Wakefield in?'
+
+"I said, 'father was in the barn, and I could fetch him,' which I
+immediately did.
+
+"He was a dark, unpleasant-looking man, and had a masterful way with
+him, even to father, that I disliked; but after a short, business-like
+talk, apparently satisfactory to both, he went away without entering the
+house. Father put his hands in his pockets and watched him out of sight;
+then, looking at me, he said, 'Put the spare rooms in order, Phoebe.'
+
+"'They are in order, father; but is that man to occupy them?'
+
+"'Yes, he and his patient, a young gentleman of fine family, who is in
+bad health.'
+
+"'Do you know the young gentleman, father?'
+
+"'I know it is young Alfred Compton--that is enough for me.'
+
+"'And the dark man who has just left? I don't like his looks, father.'
+
+"'Nobody wants thee to like his looks. He is Mr. Alfred's physician--a
+Dr. Orman, of Boston. Neither of them are any of thy business, so ask no
+more questions;' and with that he went back to the barn.
+
+"Mother was not at all astonished. She said there had been letters on
+the subject already, and that she had been rather expecting the company.
+'But,' she added, 'they will pay well, and as Melissa is to be married
+at Christmas, ready money will be very needful.'
+
+"About dark a carriage arrived. It contained two gentlemen and several
+large trunks. I had been watching for it behind the lilac trees and I
+saw that our afternoon visitor was now accompanied by a slight, very
+fair-man, dressed with extreme care in the very highest fashion. I saw
+also that he was handsome, and I was quite sure he must be rich, or no
+doctor would wait upon him so subserviently.
+
+"This doctor I had disliked at first sight, and I soon began to imagine
+that I had good cause to hate him. His conduct to his patient I believed
+to be tyrannical and unkind. Some days he insisted that Mr. Compton was
+too ill to go out, though the poor gentleman begged for a walk; and
+again, mother said, he would take from him all his books, though he
+pleaded urgently for them.
+
+"One afternoon the postman brought Dr. Orman a letter, which seemed to
+be important, for he asked father to drive him to the next town, and
+requested mother to see that Mr. Compton did not leave the house. I
+suppose it was not a right thing to do, but this handsome sick stranger,
+so hardly used, and so surrounded with mystery, had roused in me a
+sincere sympathy for his loneliness and suffering, and I walked through
+that part of the garden into which his windows looked. We had been
+politely requested to avoid it, 'because the sight of strangers
+increased Mr. Compton's nervous condition.' I did not believe this, and
+I determined to try the experiment.
+
+"He was leaning out of the window, and a sadder face I never saw. I
+smiled and courtesied, and he immediately leaped the low sill, and came
+toward me. I stooped and began to tie up some fallen carnations; he
+stooped and helped me, saying all the while I know not what, only that
+it seemed to me the most beautiful language I ever heard. Then we walked
+up and down the long peach walk until I heard the rattle of father's
+wagon.
+
+"After this we became quietly, almost secretly, as far as Dr. Orman was
+concerned, very great friends. Mother so thoroughly pitied Alfred, that
+she not only pretended oblivion of our friendship, but even promoted it
+in many ways; and in the course of time Dr. Orman began to recognize its
+value. I was requested to walk past Mr. Compton's windows and say 'Good
+morning' or offer him a flower or some ripe peaches, and finally to
+accompany the gentlemen in their short rambles in the neighborhood.
+
+"I need not tell you how all this restricted intercourse ended. We were
+soon deeply in love with each other, and love ever finds out the way to
+make himself understood. We had many a five minutes' meeting no one knew
+of, and when these were impossible, a rose bush near his window hid for
+me the tenderest little love-letters. In fact, Julia, I found him
+irresistible; he was so handsome and gentle, and though he must have
+been thirty-five years old, yet, to my thinking, he looked handsomer
+than any younger man could have done.
+
+"As the weeks passed on, the doctor seemed to have more confidence in
+us, or else his patient was more completely under control. They had much
+fewer quarrels, and Alfred and I walked in the garden, and even a little
+way up the hill without opposition or remark. I do not know how I
+received the idea, but I certainly did believe that Dr. Orman was
+keeping Alfred sick for some purpose of his own, and I determined to
+take the first opportunity of arousing Alfred's suspicions. So one
+evening, when we were walking alone, I asked him if he did not wish to
+see his relatives.
+
+"He trembled violently, and seemed in the greatest distress, and only by
+the tenderest words could I soothe him, as, half sobbing, he declared
+that they were his bitterest enemies, and that Dr. Orman was the only
+friend he had in the world. Any further efforts I made to get at the
+secret of his life were equally fruitless, and only threw him into
+paroxysms of distress. During the month of August he was very ill, or at
+least Dr. Orman said so. I scarcely saw him, there were no letters in
+the rose bush, and frequently the disputes between the two men rose to a
+pitch which father seriously disliked.
+
+"One hot day in September everyone was in the fields or orchard; only
+the doctor and Alfred and I were in the house. Early in the afternoon a
+boy came from the village with a letter to Dr. Orman, and he seemed very
+much perplexed, and at a loss how to act. At length he said, 'Miss
+Phoebe, I must go to the village for a couple of hours; I think Mr.
+Alfred will sleep until my return, but if not, will you try and amuse
+him?'
+
+"I promised gladly, and Dr. Orman went back to the village with the
+messenger. No sooner was he out of sight than Alfred appeared, and we
+rambled about the garden, as happy as two lovers could be. But the day
+was extremely hot, and as the afternoon advanced, the heat increased. I
+proposed then that we should walk up the hill, where there was generally
+a breeze, and Alfred was delighted at the larger freedom it promised us.
+
+"But in another hour the sky grew dark and lurid, and I noticed that
+Alfred grew strangely restless. His cheeks flushed, his eyes had a wild
+look of terror in them, he trembled and started, and in spite of all my
+efforts to soothe him, grew irritable and gloomy. Yet he had just asked
+me to marry him, and I had promised I would. He had called me 'his
+wife,' and I had told him again my suspicions about Dr. Orman, and
+vowed to nurse him myself back to perfect health. We had talked, too, of
+going to Europe, and in the eagerness and delight of our new plans, had
+wandered quite up to the little pine forest at the top of the hill.
+
+"Then I noticed Alfred's excited condition, and saw also that we were
+going to have a thunder storm. There was an empty log hut not far away,
+and I urged Alfred to try and reach it before the storm, broke. But he
+became suddenly like a child in his terror, and it was only with the
+greatest difficulty I got him within its shelter.
+
+"As peal after peal of thunder crashed above us, Alfred seemed to lose
+all control of himself, and, seriously offended, I left him, nearly
+sobbing, in a corner, and went and stood by myself in the open door. In
+the very height of the storm I saw my father, Dr. Orman and three of our
+workmen coming through the wood. They evidently suspected our
+sheltering-place, for they came directly toward it.
+
+"'Alfred!' shouted Dr. Orman, in the tone of an angry master, 'where are
+you, sir? Come here instantly.'
+
+"My pettedness instantly vanished, and I said: 'Doctor, you have no
+right to speak to Alfred in that way. He is going to be my husband, and
+I shall not permit it any more.'
+
+"'Miss Wakefield,' he answered, 'this is sheer folly. Look here!'
+
+"I turned, and saw Alfred crouching in a corner, completely paralyzed
+with terror; and yet, when Dr. Orman spoke to him, he rose mechanically
+as a dog might follow his master's call.
+
+"'I am sorry, Miss Wakefield, to destroy your fine romance. Mr. Alfred
+Compton is, as you perceive, not fit to marry any lady. In fact, I am
+his--_keeper_.'"
+
+"Oh, Aunt Phoebe! Surely he was not a lunatic!"
+
+"So they said, Julia. His frantic terror was the only sign I saw of it;
+but Dr. Orman told my father that he was at times really dangerous, and
+that he was annually paid a large sum to take charge of him, as he
+became uncontrollable in an asylum."
+
+"Did you see him again?"
+
+"No. I found a little note in the rose bush, saying that he was not mad;
+that he remembered my promise to be his wife, and would surely come some
+day and claim me. But they left in three days, and Melissa,
+whose wedding outfit was curtailed in consequence, twitted me very
+unkindly about my fine crazy lover. It was a little hard on me, for he
+was the only lover I ever had. Melissa and Jane both married, and went
+west with their husbands; I lived on at Ryelands, a faded little old
+maid, until my uncle Joshua sent for me to come to New York and keep
+his fine house for him. You know that he left me all he had when he
+died, nearly two years ago. Then I sent for you. I remembered my own
+lonely youth, and thought I would give you a fair chance, dear."
+
+"Did you ever hear of him again, aunt?"
+
+"Of him, never. His elder brother died more than a year ago. I suppose
+Alfred died many years since; he was very frail and delicate. I thought
+it was refinement and beauty then; I know now it was ill health."
+
+"Poor aunt!"
+
+"Nay, child; I was very happy while my dream lasted; and I never will
+believe but that Alfred in his love for me was quite sane, and perhaps
+more sincere than many wiser men."
+
+After this confidence Miss Phoebe seemed to take a great pleasure in
+speaking of the little romance of her youth. Often the old and the young
+maidens sat in the twilight discussing the probabilities of poor Alfred
+Compton's life and death, and every discussion left them more and more
+positive that he had been the victim of some cruel plot. The subject
+never tired Miss Phoebe, and Julia, in the absence of a lover of her
+own, found in it a charm quite in keeping with her own youthful dreams.
+
+One cold night in the middle of January they had talked over the old
+subject until both felt it to be exhausted--at least for that night.
+Julia drew aside the heavy satin curtains, and looking out said, "It is
+snowing heavily, aunt; to-morrow we can have a sleigh ride. Why, there
+is a sleigh at our door! Who can it be? A gentleman, aunt, and he is
+coming here."
+
+"Close the curtains, child. It is my lawyer, Mr. Howard. He promised to
+call to-night."
+
+"Oh, dear! I was hoping it was some nice strange person."
+
+Miss Phoebe did not answer; her thoughts were far away. In fact, she had
+talked about her old lover until there had sprung up anew in her heart a
+very strong sentimental affection for his memory; and when the servant
+announced a visitor on business, she rose with a sigh from her
+reflections, and went into the reception-room.
+
+In a few minutes Julia heard her voice, in rapid, excited tones, and ere
+she could decide whether to go to her or not, Aunt Phoebe entered the
+room, holding by the hand a gentleman whom she announced as Mr. Alfred
+Compton. Julia was disappointed, to say the least, but she met him with
+enthusiasm. Perhaps Aunt Phoebe had quite unconsciously magnified the
+beauty of the youthful Alfred: certainly this one was not handsome. He
+was sixty, at least, his fair curling locks had vanished, and his fine
+figure was slightly bent. But the clear, sensitive face remained, and he
+was still dressed with scrupulous care.
+
+The two women made much of him. In half an hour Delmonico had furnished
+a delicious little banquet, and Alfred drank his first glass of wine
+with an old-fashioned grace "to his promised wife, Miss Phoebe
+Wakefield, best and loveliest of women."
+
+Miss Phoebe laughed, but she dearly liked it; and hand in hand the two
+old lovers sat, while Alfred told his sad little story of life-long
+wrong and suffering; of an intensely nervous, self-conscious nature,
+driven to extremity by cruel usage and many wrongs. At the mention of
+Dr. Orman Miss Phoebe expressed herself a little bitterly.
+
+"Nay, Phoebe," said Alfred; "whatever he was when my brother put me in
+his care, he became my true friend. To his skill and patience I owe my
+restoration to perfect health; and to his firm advocacy of my right and
+ability to manage my own estate I owe the position I now hold, and my
+ability to come and ask Phoebe to redeem her never-forgotten promise."
+
+Perhaps Julia got a little tired of these old-fashioned lovers, but they
+never tired of each other. Miss Phoebe was not the least abashed by any
+contrast between her ideal and her real Alfred, and Alfred was never
+weary of assuring her that he found her infinitely more delightful and
+womanly than in the days of their first courtship.
+
+She cannot even call them a "silly" or "foolish" couple, or use any
+other relieving phrase of that order, for Miss Phoebe--or rather Mrs.
+Compton--resents any word as applied to Mr. Alfred Compton that would
+imply less than supernatural wisdom and intelligence. "No one but those
+who have known him as long as I have," she continually avers, "can
+possibly estimate the superior information and infallible judgment of my
+husband."
+
+
+
+
+TWO FAIR DECEIVERS.
+
+
+What do young men talk about when they sit at the open windows smoking
+on summer evenings? Do you suppose it is of love? Indeed, I suspect it
+is of money; or, if not of money, then, at least, of something that
+either makes money or spends it.
+
+Cleve Sullivan has been spending his for four years in Europe, and he
+has just been telling his friend John Selden how he spent it. John has
+spent his in New York--he is inclined to think just as profitably. Both
+stories conclude in the same way.
+
+"I have not a thousand dollars left, John."
+
+"Nor I, Cleve."
+
+"I thought your cousin died two years ago; surely you have not spent all
+the old gentleman's money already?"
+
+"I only got $20,000; I owed half of it."
+
+"Only $20,000! What did he do with it?"
+
+"Gave it to his wife. He married a beauty about a year after you went
+away, died in a few months afterward, and left her his whole fortune. I
+had no claim on him. He educated me, gave me a profession, and $20,000.
+That was very well: he was only my mother's cousin."
+
+"And the widow--where is she?"
+
+"Living at his country-seat. I have never seen her. She was one of the
+St. Maurs, of Maryland."
+
+"Good family, and all beauties. Why don't you marry the widow?"
+
+"Why, I never thought of such a thing."
+
+"You can't think of anything better. Write her a little note at once;
+say that you and I will soon be in her neighborhood, and that gratitude
+to your cousin, and all that kind of thing--then beg leave to call and
+pay respects," etc., etc.
+
+John demurred a good deal to the plan, but Cleve was masterful, and the
+note was written, Cleve himself putting it in the post-office.
+
+That was on Monday night. On Wednesday morning the widow Clare found it
+with a dozen others upon her breakfast table. She was a dainty,
+high-bred little lady, with
+
+    "Eyes that drowse with dreamy splendor,
+    Cheeks with rose-leaf tintings tender,
+        Lips like fragrant posy,"
+
+and withal a kind, hospitable temper, well inclined to be happy in the
+happiness of others.
+
+But this letter could not be answered with the usual polite formula. She
+was quite aware that John Selden had regarded himself for many years as
+his cousin's heir, and that her marriage with the late Thomas Clare had
+seriously altered his prospects. Women easily see through the best laid
+plans of men, and this plan was transparent enough to the shrewd little
+widow. John would scarcely have liked the half-contemptuous shrug and
+smile which terminated her private thoughts on the matter.
+
+"Clementine, if you could spare a moment from your fashion paper, I want
+to consult you, dear, about a visitor."
+
+Clementine raised her blue eyes, dropped her paper, and said, "Who is
+it, Fan?"
+
+"It is John Selden. If Mr. Clare had not married me, he would have
+inherited the Clare estate. I think he is coming now in order to see if
+it is worth while asking for, encumbered by his cousin's widow."
+
+"What selfishness! Write and tell him that you are just leaving for the
+Suez Canal, or the Sandwich Islands, or any other inconvenient place."
+
+"No; I have a better plan than that--Clementine, do stop reading a few
+minutes. I will take that pretty cottage at Ryebank for the summer, and
+Mr. Selden and his friend shall visit us there. No one knows us in the
+place, and I will take none of the servants with me."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Then, Clementine, you are to be the widow Clare, and I your poor
+friend and companion."
+
+"Good! very good! 'The Fair Deceivers'--an excellent comedy. How I shall
+snub you, Fan! And for once I shall have the pleasure of outdressing
+you. But has not Mr. Selden seen you?"
+
+"No; I was married in Maryland, and went immediately to Europe. I came
+back a widow two years ago, but Mr. Selden has never remembered me until
+now. I wonder who this friend is that he proposes to bring with him?"
+
+"Oh, men always think in pairs, Fan. They never decide on anything until
+their particular friend approves. I dare say they wrote the letter
+together. What is the gentleman's name?"
+
+The widow examined the note. "'My friend Mr. Cleve Sullivan.' Do you
+know him, Clementine?"
+
+"No; I am quite sure that I never saw Mr. Cleve Sullivan. I don't fall
+in love with the name--do you? But pray accept the offer for both
+gentlemen, Fan, and write this morning, dear." Then Clementine returned
+to the consideration of the lace in _coquilles_ for her new evening
+dress.
+
+The plan so hastily sketched was subsequently thoroughly discussed and
+carried out. The cottage at Ryebank was taken, and one evening at the
+end of June the two ladies took possession of it. The new widow Clare
+had engaged a maid in New York, and fell into her part with charming
+ease and a very pretty assumption of authority; and the real widow, in
+her plain dress and pensive, quiet manners, realized effectively the
+idea of a cultivated but dependent companion. They had two days in which
+to rehearse their parts and get all the household machinery in order,
+and then the gentlemen arrived at Ryebank.
+
+Fan and Clementine were quite ready for their first call; the latter in
+a rich and exquisite morning costume, the former in a simple dress of
+spotted lawn. Clementine went through the introductions with consummate
+ease of manner, and in half an hour they were a very pleasant party.
+John's "cousinship" afforded an excellent basis for informal
+companionship, and Clementine gave it full prominence. Indeed, in a few
+days John began to find the relationship tiresome; it had been "Cousin
+John, do this," and "Cousin John, come here," continually; and one night
+when Cleve and he sat down to smoke their final cigar, he was irritable
+enough to give his objections the form of speech.
+
+"Cleve, to tell you the honest truth, I do not like Mrs. Clare."
+
+"I think she is a very lovely woman, John."
+
+"I say nothing against her beauty, Cleve; I don't like her, and I have
+no mind to occupy the place that beautiful ill-used Miss Marat fills.
+The way Cousin Clare ignores or snubs a woman to whom she is every way
+inferior makes me angry enough, I assure you."
+
+"Don't fall in love with the wrong woman, John."
+
+"Your advice is too late, Cleve; I am in love. There is no use in us
+deceiving ourselves or each other. You seem to like the widow--why not
+marry her? I am quite willing you should."
+
+"Thank you, John; I have already made some advances that way. They have
+been favorably received, I think."
+
+"You are so handsome, a fellow has no chance against you. But we shall
+hardly quarrel, if you do not interfere between lovely little Clement
+and myself."
+
+"I could not afford to smile on her, John; she is too poor. And what on
+earth are you going to do with a poor wife? Nothing added to nothing
+will not make a decent living."
+
+"I am going to ask her to be my wife, and if she does me the honor to
+say 'Yes,' I will make a decent living out of my profession."
+
+From this time forth John devoted himself with some ostentation to his
+supposed cousin's companion. He was determined to let the widow
+perceive that he had made his choice, and that he could not be bought
+with her money. Mr. Selden and Miss Marat were always together, and the
+widow did not interfere between her companion and her cousin. Perhaps
+she was rather glad of their close friendship, for the handsome Cleve
+made a much more delightful attendant. Thus the party fell quite
+naturally into couples, and the two weeks that the gentlemen had first
+fixed as the limit of their stay lengthened into two months.
+
+It was noticeable that as the ladies became more confidential with their
+lovers, they had less to say to each other; and it began at last to be
+quite evident to the real widow that the play must end for the present,
+or the _d�nouement_ would come prematurely. Circumstances favored her
+determination. One night Clementine, with a radiant face, came into her
+friend's room, and said, "Fan, I have something to tell you. Cleve has
+asked me to marry him."
+
+"Now, Clement, you have told him all; I know you have."
+
+"Not a word, Fan. He still believes me the widow Clare."
+
+"Did you accept him?"
+
+"Conditionally. I am to give him a final answer when we go to the city
+in October. You are going to New York this winter, are you not?"
+
+"Yes. Our little play progresses finely. John Selden asked me to be his
+wife to-night."
+
+"I told you men think and act in pairs."
+
+"John is a noble fellow. I pretended to think that his cousin had
+ill-used him, and he defended him until I was ashamed of myself;
+absolutely said, Clement, that _you_ were a sufficient excuse for Mr.
+Clare's will. Then he blamed his own past idleness so much, and promised
+if I would only try and endure 'the slings and arrows' of your
+outrageous temper, Clement, for two years longer, he would have made a
+home for me in which I could be happy. Yes, Clement, I should marry John
+Selden if we had not a five-dollar bill between us."
+
+"I wish Cleve had been a little more explicit about his money affairs.
+However, there is time enough yet. When they leave to-morrow, what shall
+we do?"
+
+"We will remain here another month; Levine will have the house ready for
+me by that time. I have written to him about refurnishing the parlors."
+
+So next day the lovers parted, with many promises of constant letters
+and future happy days together. The interval was long and dull enough;
+but it passed, and one morning both gentlemen received notes of
+invitation to a small dinner party at the widow Clare's mansion in ----
+street. There was a good deal of dressing for this party. Cleve wished
+to make his entrance into his future home as became the prospective
+master of a million and a half of money, and John was desirous of not
+suffering in Clement's eyes by any comparison with the other gentlemen
+who would probably be there.
+
+Scarcely had they entered the drawing-room when the ladies appeared, the
+true widow Clare no longer in the unassuming toilet she had hitherto
+worn, but magnificent in white cr�pe lisse and satin, her arms and
+throat and pretty head flashing with sapphires and diamonds. Her
+companion had assumed now the r�le of simplicity, and Cleve was
+disappointed with the first glance at her plain white Chamb�ry gauze
+dress.
+
+John had seen nothing but the bright face of the girl he loved and the
+love-light in her eyes. Before she could speak he had taken both her
+hands and whispered, "Dearest and best and loveliest Clement."
+
+Her smile answered him first. Then she said: "Pardon me, Mr. Selden, but
+we have been in masquerade all summer, and now we must unmask before
+real life begins. My name is not Clementine Marat, but Fanny Clare.
+_Cousin John_, I hope you are not disappointed." Then she put her hand
+into John's, and they wandered off into the conservatory to finish their
+explanation.
+
+Mr. Cleve Sullivan found himself at that moment in the most trying
+circumstance of his life. The real Clementine Marat stood looking down
+at a flower on the carpet, and evidently expecting him to resume the
+tender attitude he had been accustomed to bear toward her. He was a man
+of quick decisions where his own interests were concerned, and it did
+not take him half a minute to review his position and determine what to
+do. This plain blonde girl without fortune was not the girl he could
+marry; she had deceived him, too--he had a sudden and severe spasm of
+morality; his confidence was broken; he thought it was very poor sport
+to play with a man's most sacred feelings; he had been deeply
+disappointed and grieved, etc., etc.
+
+Clementine stood perfectly still, with her eyes fixed on the carpet and
+her cheeks gradually flushing, as Cleve made his awkward accusations.
+She gave him no help and she made no defence, and it soon becomes
+embarrassing for a man to stand in the middle of a large drawing-room
+and talk to himself about any girl. Cleve felt it so.
+
+"Have you done, sir?" at length she asked, lifting to his face a pair of
+blue eyes, scintillating with scorn and anger. "I promised you my final
+answer to your suit when we met in New York. You have spared me that
+trouble. Good evening, sir."
+
+Clementine showed to no one her disappointment, and she probably soon
+recovered from it. Her life was full of many other pleasant plans and
+hopes, and she could well afford to let a selfish lover pass out of it.
+She remained with her friend until after the marriage between her and
+John Selden had been consummated; and then Cleve saw her name among the
+list of passengers sailing on one particular day for Europe. As John and
+his bride left on the same steamer Cleve supposed, of course, she had
+gone in their company.
+
+"Nice thing it would have been for Cleve Sullivan to marry John Selden's
+wife's maid, or something or other? John always was a lucky fellow. Some
+fellows are always unlucky in love affairs--I always am."
+
+Half a year afterward he reiterated this statement with a great deal of
+unnecessary emphasis. He was just buttoning his gloves preparatory to
+starting for his afternoon drive, when an old acquaintance hailed him.
+
+"Oh, it's that fool Belmar," he muttered; "I shall have to offer him a
+ride. I thought he was in Paris. Hello, Belmar, when did you get back?
+Have a ride?"
+
+"No, thank you. I have promised my wife to ride with her this
+afternoon."
+
+"Your wife! When were you married?"
+
+"Last month, in Paris."
+
+"And the happy lady was--"
+
+"Why, I thought you knew; everyone is talking about my good fortune.
+Mrs. Belmar is old Paul Marat's only child."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Miss Clementine Marat. She brings me nearly $3,000,000 in money and
+real estate, and a heart beyond all price."
+
+"How on earth did you meet her?"
+
+"She was traveling with Mr. and Mrs. Selden--you know John Selden. She
+has lived with Mrs. Selden ever since she left school; they were friends
+when they were girls together."
+
+Cleve gathered up his reins, and nodding to Mr. Frank Belmar, drove at a
+finable rate up the avenue and through the park. He could not trust
+himself to speak to any one, and when he did, the remark which he made
+to himself in strict confidence was not flattering. For once Mr. Cleve
+Sullivan told Mr. Cleve Sullivan that he had been badly punished, and
+that he well deserved it.
+
+
+
+
+THE TWO MR. SMITHS.
+
+
+"It is not either her money or her position that dashes me, Carrol; it
+is my own name. Think of asking Eleanor Bethune to become Mrs. William
+Smith! If it had been Alexander Smith--"
+
+"Or Hyacinth Smith."
+
+"Yes, Hyacinth Smith would have done; but plain William Smith!"
+
+"Well, as far as I can see, you are not to blame. Apologize to the lady
+for the blunder of your godfathers and godmothers. Stupid old parties!
+They ought to have thought of Hyacinth;" and Carrol threw his cigar into
+the fire and began to buckle on his spurs.
+
+"Come with me, Carrol."
+
+"No, thank you. It is against my principles to like anyone better than
+myself, and Alice Fontaine is a temptation to do so."
+
+"_I_ don't like Alice's style at all."
+
+"Of course not. Alice's beauty, as compared with Mrs. Bethune's settled
+income, is skin-deep."
+
+If sarcasm was intended, Smith did not perceive it. He took the
+criticism at its face value, and answered, "Yes, Eleanor's income is
+satisfactory; and besides that, she has all kinds of good qualities,
+and several accomplishments. If I only could offer her, with myself, a
+suitable name for them!"
+
+"Could you not, in taking Mrs. Bethune and her money, take her name
+also?"
+
+"N-n-no. A man does not like to lose all his individuality in his
+wife's, Carrol."
+
+"Well, then, I have no other suggestion, and I am going to ride."
+
+So Carrol went to the park, and Smith went to his mirror. The occupation
+gave him the courage he wanted. He was undoubtedly a very handsome man,
+and he had, also, very fine manners; indeed, he would have been a very
+great man if the world had only been a drawing-room, for, polished and
+fastidious, he dreaded nothing so much as an indecorum, and had the air
+of being uncomfortable unless his hands were in kid gloves.
+
+Smith had a standing invitation to Mrs. Bethune's five-o'clock teas, and
+he was always considered an acquisition. He was also very fond of going
+to them; for under no circumstances was Mrs. Bethune so charming. To see
+her in this hour of perfect relaxation was to understand how great and
+beautiful is the art of idleness. Her ease and grace, her charming
+aimlessness, her indescribable air of inaction, were all so many proofs
+of her having been born in the purple of wealth and fashion; no parvenu
+could ever hope to imitate them.
+
+Alice Fontaine never tried. She had been taken from a life of polite
+shifts and struggles by her cousin, Mrs. Bethune, two years before; and
+the circumstances that were to the one the mere accidents of her
+position were to the other a real holiday-making.
+
+Alice met Mr. Smith with _empressement_, fluttered about the tea-tray
+like a butterfly, wasted her bonmots and the sugar recklessly, and was
+as full of pretty animation as her cousin Bethune was of elegant repose.
+
+"I am glad you are come, Mr. Smith," said Mrs. Bethune. "Alice has been
+trying to spur me into a fight. I don't want to throw a lance in. Now
+you can be my substitute."
+
+"Mr. Smith," said Alice impetuously, "don't you think that women ought
+to have the same rights as men?"
+
+"Really, Miss Alice, I--I don't know. When women have got what they call
+their 'rights,' do they expect to keep what they call their 'privileges'
+also?"
+
+"Certainly they do. When they have driven the men to emigrate, to scrub
+floors, and to jump into the East River, they will still expect the
+corner seat, the clean side of the road, the front place, and the pick
+of everything."
+
+"Ah, indeed! And when all the public and private business of the
+country is in their hands, will they still expect to find time for
+five-o'clock teas?"
+
+"Yes, sir. They will conduct the affairs of this regenerated country,
+and not neglect either their music or their pets, their dress or their
+drawing-room. They will be perfectly able to do the one, and not leave
+the other undone."
+
+"Glorious creatures! Then they will accomplish what men have been trying
+to do ever since the world began. They will get two days' work out of
+one day."
+
+"Of course they will."
+
+"But how?"
+
+"Oh, machines and management. It will be done."
+
+"But your answer is illogical, Miss Alice."
+
+"Of course. Men always take refuge in their logic; and yet, with all
+their boasted skill, they have never mastered the useful and elementary
+proposition, 'It will be, because it will be.'"
+
+Mr. Smith was very much annoyed at the tone Alice was giving to the
+conversation. She was treating him as a joke, and he felt how impossible
+it was going to be to get Mrs. Bethune to treat him seriously. Indeed,
+before he could restore the usual placid, tender tone of their
+_tete-�-tete_ tea, two or three ladies joined the party, and the hour
+was up, and the opportunity lost.
+
+However, he was not without consolation: Eleanor's hand had rested a
+moment very tenderly in his; he had seen her white cheek flush and her
+eyelids droop, and he felt almost sure that he was beloved. And as he
+had determined that night to test his fortune, he was not inclined to
+let himself be disappointed. Consequently he decided on writing to her,
+for he was rather proud of his letters; and, indeed, it must be
+confessed that he had an elegant and eloquent way of putting any case in
+which he was personally interested.
+
+Eleanor Bethune thought so. She received his proposal on her return from
+a very stupid party, and as soon as she saw his writing she began to
+consider how much more delightful the evening would have been if Mr.
+Smith had been present. His glowing eulogies on her beauty, and his
+passionate descriptions of his own affection, his hopes and his
+despairs, chimed in with her mood exactly. Already his fine person and
+manners had made a great impression on her; she had been very near
+loving him; nothing, indeed, had been needed but that touch of
+electricity conveyed in the knowledge that she was beloved.
+
+Such proposals seldom or never take women unawares. Eleanor had been
+expecting it, and had already decided on her answer. So, after a short,
+happy reflection, she opened her desk and wrote Mr. Smith a few lines
+which she believed would make him supremely happy.
+
+Then she went to Alice's room and woke her out of her first sleep. "Oh,
+you lazy girl; why did you not crimp your hair? Get up again, Alice
+dear; I have a secret to tell you. I am--going--to--marry--Mr.--Smith."
+
+"I knew some catastrophe was impending, Eleanor; I have felt it all day.
+Poor Eleanor!"
+
+"Now, Alice, be reasonable. What do you think of him--honestly, you
+know?"
+
+"The man has excellent qualities; for instance, a perfect taste in
+cravats and an irreproachable propriety. Nobody ever saw him in any
+position out of the proper centre of gravity. Now, there is Carrol,
+always sitting round on tables or easels, or if on a chair, on the back
+or arms, or any way but as other Christians sit. Then Mr. Smith is
+handsome; very much so."
+
+"Oh, you do admit that?"
+
+"Yes; but I don't myself like men of the hairdresser style of beauty."
+
+"Alice, what makes you dislike him so much?"
+
+"Indeed, I don't, Eleanor. I think he is very 'nice,' and very
+respectable. Every one will say, 'What a suitable match!' and I dare say
+you will be very happy. He will do everything you tell him to do,
+Eleanor; and--oh dear me!--how I should hate a husband of that kind!"
+
+"You little hypocrite!--with your talk of woman's 'rights' and woman's
+supremacy.'"
+
+"No, Eleanor love, don't call it hypocrisy, please; say
+_many-sidedness_--it is a more womanly definition. But if it is really
+to be so, then I wish you joy, cousin. And what are you going to wear?"
+
+This subject proved sufficiently attractive to keep Alice awake a couple
+of hours. She even crimped her hair in honor of the bridal shopping; and
+before matters had been satisfactorily arranged she was so full of
+anticipated pleasures that she felt really grateful to the author of
+them, and permitted herself to speak with enthusiasm of the bridegroom.
+
+"He'll be a sight to see, Eleanor, on his marriage day. There won't be a
+handsomer man, nor a better dressed man, in America, and his clothes
+will all come from Paris, I dare say."
+
+"I think we will go to Paris first." Then Eleanor went into a graphic
+description of the glories and pleasures of Paris, as she had
+experienced them during her first bridal tour. "It is the most
+fascinating city in the world, Alice."
+
+"I dare say, but it is a ridiculous shame having it in such an
+out-of-the-way place. What is the use of having a Paris, when one has to
+sail three thousand miles to get at it? Eleanor, I feel that I shall
+have to go."
+
+"So you shall, dear; I won't go without you."
+
+"Oh, no, darling; not with Mr. Smith: I really could not. I shall have
+to try and manage matters with Mr. Carrol. We shall quarrel all the way
+across, of course, but then--"
+
+"Why don't you adopt his opinions, Alice?"
+
+"I intend to--for a little while; but it is impossible to go on with the
+same set of opinions forever. Just think how dull conversation would
+become!"
+
+"Well, dear, you may go to sleep now, for mind, I shall want you down to
+breakfast before eleven. I have given 'Somebody' permission to call at
+five o'clock to-morrow--or rather to-day--and we shall have a
+_tete-�-tete_ tea."
+
+Alice determined that it should be strictly _tete-�-tete._ She went to
+spend the afternoon with Carrol's sisters, and stayed until she thought
+the lovers had had ample time to make their vows and arrange their
+wedding.
+
+There was a little pout on her lips as she left Carrol outside the
+door, and slowly bent her steps to Eleanor's private parlor. She was
+trying to make up her mind to be civil to her cousin's new
+husband-elect, and the temptation to be anything else was very strong.
+
+"I shall be dreadfully in the way--_his way_, I mean--and he will want
+to send me out of the room, and I shall not go--no, not if I fall asleep
+on a chair looking at him."
+
+With this decision, the most amiable she could reach, Alice entered the
+parlor. Eleanor was alone, and there was a pale, angry look on her face
+Alice could not understand.
+
+"Shut the door, dear."
+
+"Alone?"
+
+"I have been so all evening."
+
+"Have you quarreled with Mr. Smith?"
+
+"Mr. Smith did not call."
+
+"Not come!"
+
+"Nor yet sent any apology."
+
+The two women sat looking into each other's faces a few moments, both
+white and silent.
+
+"What will you do, Eleanor?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"But he may be sick, or he may not have got your letter. Such queer
+mistakes do happen."
+
+"Parker took it to his hotel; the clerk said he was still in his room;
+it was sent to him in Parker's sight and hearing. There is not any doubt
+but that he received it."
+
+"Well, suppose he did not. Still, if he really cares for you, he is
+hardly likely to take your supposed silence for an absolute refusal. I
+have said 'No' to Carrol a dozen times, and he won't stay 'noed.' Mr.
+Smith will be sure to ask for a personal interview."
+
+Eleanor answered drearily: "I suppose he will pay me that respect;" but
+through this little effort at assertion it was easy to detect the white
+feather of mistrust. She half suspected the touchy self-esteem of Mr.
+Smith. If she had merely been guilty of a breach of good manners toward
+him, she knew that he would deeply resent it; how, then, when she
+had--however innocently--given him the keenest personal slight?
+
+Still she wished to accept Alice's cheerful view of the affair, and what
+is heartily wished is half accomplished. Ere she fell asleep she had
+quite decided that her lover would call the following day, and her
+thoughts were busy with the pleasant amends she would make him for any
+anxiety he might have suffered.
+
+But Mr. Smith did not call the following day, nor on many following
+ones, and a casual lady visitor destroyed Eleanor's last hope that he
+would ever call again, for, after a little desultory gossip, she said,
+"You will miss Mr. Smith very much at your receptions, and brother Sam
+says he is to be away two years."
+
+"So long?" asked Eleanor, with perfect calmness.
+
+"I believe so. I thought the move very sudden, but Sam says he has been
+talking about the trip for six months."
+
+"Really!--Alice, dear, won't you bring that piece of Burslam pottery for
+Mrs. Hollis to look at?"
+
+So the wonderful cup and saucer were brought, and they caused a
+diversion so complete that Mr. Smith and his eccentric move were not
+named again during the visit. Nor, indeed, much after it. "What is the
+use of discussing a hopelessly disagreeable subject?" said Eleanor to
+Alice's first offer of sympathy. To tell the truth, the mere mention of
+the subject made her cross, for young women of the finest fortunes do
+not necessarily possess the finest tempers.
+
+Carrol's next visit was looked for with a good deal of interest.
+Naturally it was thought that he would know all about his friend's
+singular conduct. But he professed to be as much puzzled as Alice. "He
+supposed it was something about Mrs. Bethune; he had always told Smith
+not to take a pretty, rich woman like her into his calculations. For
+his part, if he had been desirous of marrying an heiress, and felt that
+he had a gift that way, he should have looked out a rich German girl;
+they had less nonsense about them," etc.
+
+That was how the affair ended as far as Eleanor was concerned. Of course
+she suffered, but she was not of that generation of women who parade
+their suffering. Beautiful and self-respecting, she was, above all,
+endowed with physical self-control. Even Alice was spared the hysterical
+sobbings and faintings and other signs of pathological distress common
+to weak women.
+
+Perhaps she was more silent and more irritable than usual, but Eleanor
+Bethune's heartache for love never led her to the smallest social
+impropriety. Whatever she suffered, she did not refuse the proper
+mixture of colors in her hat, or neglect her tithe of the mint, anise
+and cummin due to her position.
+
+Eleanor's reticence, however, had this good effect--it compelled Alice
+to talk Smith's singular behavior over with Carrol; and somehow, in
+discussing Smith, they got to understand each other; so that, after all,
+it was Alice's and not Eleanor's bridal shopping that was to do. And
+there is something very assuaging to grief in this occupation. Before
+it was completed, Eleanor had quite recovered her placid, sunshiny
+temper.
+
+"Consolation, thy name is satin and lace!" said Alice, thankfully, to
+herself, as she saw Eleanor so tired and happy about the wedding finery.
+
+At first Alice had been quite sure that she would go to Paris, and
+nowhere else; but Eleanor noticed that in less than a week Carrol's
+influence was paramount. "We have got a better idea, Eleanor--quite a
+novel one," she said, one morning. "We are going to make our bridal trip
+in Carrol's yacht!"
+
+"Whose idea is that?"
+
+"Carrol's and _mine too_, of course. Carrol says it is the jolliest
+life. You leave all your cares and bills on shore behind you. You issue
+your own sailing orders, and sail away into space with an easy
+conscience"
+
+"But I thought you were bent on a European trip?"
+
+"The yacht will be ever so much nicer. Think of the nuisance of
+ticket-offices and waiting-rooms and second-class hotels and troublesome
+letters waiting for you at your banker's, and disagreeable paragraphs in
+the newspapers. I think Carrol's idea is splendid."
+
+So the marriage took place at the end of the season, and Alice and
+Carrol sailed happily away into the unknown. Eleanor was at a loss what
+to do with herself. She wanted to go to Europe; but Mr. Smith had gone
+there, and she felt sure that some unlucky accident would throw them
+together. It was not her nature to court embarrassments; so Europe was
+out of the question.
+
+While she was hesitating she called one day on Celeste Reid--a beautiful
+girl who had been a great belle, but was now a confirmed invalid. "I am
+going to try the air of Colorado, Mrs. Bethune," she said. "Papa has
+heard wonderful stories about it. Come with our party. We shall have a
+special car, and the trip will at least have the charm of novelty."
+
+"And I love the mountains, Celeste. I will join you with pleasure. I was
+dreading the old routine in the old places; but this will be
+delightful."
+
+Thus it happened that one evening in the following August Mrs. Bethune
+found herself slowly strolling down the principal street in Denver. It
+was a splendid sunset, and in its glory the Rocky Mountains rose like
+Titanic palaces built of amethyst, gold and silver. Suddenly the look of
+intense pleasure on her face was changed for one of wonder and
+annoyance. It had become her duty in a moment to do a very disagreeable
+thing; but duty was a kind of religion to Eleanor Bethune; she never
+thought of shirking it.
+
+So she immediately inquired her way to the telegraph office, and even
+quickened her steps into as fast a walk as she ever permitted herself.
+The message she had to send was a peculiar and not a pleasant one. At
+first she thought it would hardly be possible for her to frame it in
+such words as she would care to dictate to strangers; but she firmly
+settled on the following form:
+
+"_Messrs. Locke & Lord_:
+
+"Tell brother Edward that Bloom is in Denver. No delay. The matter is of
+the greatest importance."
+
+When she had dictated the message, the clerk said, "Two dollars, madam."
+But greatly to Eleanor's annoyance her purse was not in her pocket, and
+she could not remember whether she had put it there or not. The man
+stood looking at her in an expectant way; she felt that any delay about
+the message might be fatal to its worth; perplexity and uncertainty
+ruled her absolutely. She was about to explain her dilemma, and return
+to her hotel for money, when a gentleman, who had heard and watched the
+whole proceeding, said:
+
+"Madam, I perceive that time is of great importance to you, and that you
+have lost your purse; allow me to pay for the message. You can return
+the money if you wish. My name is William Smith. I am staying at the
+'American.'"
+
+"Thank you, sir. The message is of the gravest importance to my brother.
+I gratefully accept your offer."
+
+Further knowledge proved Mr. William Smith to be a New York capitalist
+who was slightly known to three of the gentlemen in Eleanor's party; so
+that the acquaintance began so informally was very speedily afterward
+inaugurated with all the forms and ceremonies good society demands. It
+was soon possible, too, for Eleanor to explain the circumstances which,
+even in her code of strict etiquette, made a stranger's offer of money
+for the hour a thing to be gratefully accepted. She had seen in the door
+of the post-office a runaway cashier of her brother's, and his speedy
+arrest involved a matter of at least forty thousand dollars.
+
+This Mr. William Smith was a totally different man to Eleanor's last
+lover--a bright, energetic, alert business man, decidedly handsome and
+gentlemanly. Though his name was greatly against him in Eleanor's
+prejudices, she found herself quite unable to resist the cheery,
+pleasant influence he carried with him. And it was evident from the very
+first day of their acquaintance that Mr. William Smith had but one
+thought--the winning of Eleanor Bethune.
+
+When she returned to New York in the autumn she ventured to cast up her
+accounts with life, and she was rather amazed at the result. For she was
+quite aware that she was in love with this William Smith in a way that
+she had never been with the other. The first had been a sentimental
+ideal; the second was a genuine case of sincere and passionate
+affection. She felt that the desertion of this lover would be a grief
+far beyond the power of satin and lace to cure.
+
+But her new lover had never a disloyal thought to his mistress, and his
+love transplanted to the pleasant places of New York life, seemed to
+find its native air. It enveloped Eleanor now like a glad and heavenly
+atmosphere; she was so happy that she dreaded any change; it seemed to
+her that no change could make her happier.
+
+But if good is good, still better carries the day, and Mr. Smith thought
+marriage would be a great deal better than lovemaking. Eleanor and he
+were sitting in the fire-lit parlor, very still and very happy, when he
+whispered this opinion to her.
+
+"It is only four months since we met, dear."
+
+"Only four months, darling; but I had been dreaming about you four
+months before that. Let me hold your hands, sweet, while I tell you. On
+the 20th of last April I was on the point of leaving for Colorado to
+look after the Silver Cliff Mine. My carriage was ordered, and I was
+waiting at my hotel for it. A servant brought me a letter--the dearest,
+sweetest little letter--see, here it is!" and this William Smith
+absolutely laid before Eleanor her own pretty, loving reply to the first
+William Smith's offer.
+
+Eleanor looked queerly at it, and smiled.
+
+"What did you think, dear?"
+
+"That it was just the pleasantest thing that had ever happened to me. It
+was directed to Mr. W. Smith, and had been given into my hands. I was
+not going to seek up any other W. Smith."
+
+"But you must have been sure that it was not intended for you, and you
+did not know 'Eleanor Bethune.'"
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon, sweetheart; it _was intended_ for me. I can
+imagine destiny standing sarcastically by your side, and watching you
+send the letter to one W. Smith when she intended it for another W.
+Smith. Eleanor Bethune I meant to know just as soon as possible. I was
+coming back to New York to look for you."
+
+"And, instead, she went to you in Colorado."
+
+"Only think of that! Why, love, when that blessed telegraph clerk said,
+'Who sends this message?' and you said, 'Mrs. Eleanor Bethune,' I wanted
+to fling my hat to the sky. I did not lose my head as badly when they
+found that new lead in the Silver Cliff."
+
+"Won't you give me that letter, and let me destroy it, William? It was
+written to the wrong Smith."
+
+"It was written to the wrong Smith, but it was given to the right Smith.
+Still, Eleanor, if you will say one little word to me, you may do what
+you like with the letter."
+
+Then Eleanor whispered the word, and the blaze of the burning letter
+made a little illumination in honor of their betrothal kiss.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF MARY NEIL.
+
+
+Poverty has not only many learned disciples, but also many hidden saints
+and martyrs. There are humble tenements that are tabernacles, and
+desolate, wretched rooms that are the quarries of the Almighty--where
+with toil and weariness and suffering the souls He loves are being
+prepared for the heavenly temple.
+
+This is the light that relieves the deep shadow of that awful cloud of
+poverty which ever hangs over this rich and prosperous city. I have been
+within that cloud, wet with its rain of tears, chilled with its gloomy
+darkness, "made free" of its innermost recesses; therefore I speak with
+authority when I say that even here a little child may walk and not
+stumble, if Jesus lead the way or hold the hand.
+
+Nay, but children walk where strong men fall down, and young maidens
+enter the kingdom while yet their parents are stumbling where no light
+from the Golden City and "the Land very far off" reaches them. Last
+winter I became very much interested in such a case. I was going to
+write "Poor Mary Neil!" but that would have been the strangest misnomer.
+Happy Mary Neil! rises impetuously from my heart to contradict my pen.
+
+And yet when I first became acquainted with her condition, she was
+"poor" in every bitter sense of the word.
+
+A drunkard's eldest daughter, "the child of misery baptized with tears,"
+what had her seventeen years been but sad and evil ones? Cold and
+hunger, cares and labors far beyond her strength sowed the seeds of
+early death. For two years she struggled amid such suffering as dying
+lungs entail to help her mother and younger brothers and sisters, but at
+last she was compelled to make her bed amid sorrow and suffering which
+she could no longer assuage by her helpful hands and gentle words.
+
+Her religious education had not been quite neglected, and she dimly
+comprehended that through the narrow valley which lay between Time and
+Eternity she would need a surer and more infallible guide than her own
+sadly precocious intellect. Then God sent her just the help she
+needed--a tender, pitiful, hopeful woman full of the love of Jesus.
+
+Souls ripen quickly in the atmosphere of the Border Land, and very soon
+Mary had learned how to walk without fearing any evil. Certain passages
+of Scripture burned with a supernatural glory, and made the darkness
+light; and there were also a few hymns which struck the finest chords
+in her heart, and
+
+    "'Mid days of keenest anguish
+      And nights devoid of ease,
+    Filled all her soul with music
+      Of wondrous melodies."
+
+As she neared the deeper darkness of death, this was especially
+remarkable of that extraordinary hymn called "The Light of Death," by
+Dr. Faber. From the first it had fascinated her. "Has he been _here_
+that he knows just how it feels?" she asked, wonderingly, and then
+solemnly repeated:
+
+    "Saviour, what means this breadth of death,
+      This space before me lying;
+    These deeps where life so lingereth,
+      This difficulty of dying?
+    So many turns abrupt and rude,
+      Such ever-shifting grounds,
+    Such strangely peopled solitudes,
+      Such strangely silent sounds?'"
+
+Her sufferings were very great, and sometimes the physical depression
+exerted a definable influence on her spiritual state. Still she never
+lost her consciousness of the presence of her Guide and Saviour, and
+once, in the exhaustion of a severe paroxysm, she murmured two lines
+from the same grand hymn:
+
+    "Deeper! dark, dark, but yet I follow:
+      Tighten, dear Lord, thy clasp."
+
+Ah! there was something touching and noble beyond all words, in this
+complete reliance and perfect trust; and it never again wavered.
+
+"Is it _very_ dark, Mary dear?" her friend said one morning, the _last_
+for her on earth.
+
+"Too dark to see," she whispered, "but I can go on if Christ will hold
+my hand."
+
+After this a great solemnity shaded her face; she lost all consciousness
+of this world. The frail, shadowy little body lay gray and passive,
+while that greatest of all struggles was going on--the struggle of the
+Eternal out of Time; but her lips moved incessantly, and occasionally
+some speech of earth told the anxious watchers how hard the conflict
+was. For instance, toward sundown she said in a voice strangely solemn
+and anxious:
+
+    "Who are we trying to avoid?
+      From whom, Lord, must we hide?
+    Oh! can the dying be decoyed,
+      With the Saviour by his side?"
+
+"Loose sands and all things sinking!" "Are we near eternity?" "Can I
+fall from Thee even now?" and ejaculations of similar kind, showed that
+the spiritual struggle was a very palpable one to her; but it ended in a
+great calm. For two hours she lay in a peace that passeth understanding,
+and you would have said that she was dead but for a vague look of
+expectancy in the happy, restful face. Then suddenly there was a
+lightening of the whole countenance; she stretched out her arms to meet
+the messenger of the King, and entered heaven with this prayer on her
+lips:
+
+    "_Both hands_, dear Lord, _both hands_.'"
+
+Don't doubt but she got them; their mighty strength lifted her over the
+dark river almost dry shod.
+
+    "Rests she not well whose pilgrim staff and shoon
+      Lie in her tent--for on the golden street
+    She walks and stumbles not on roads star strewn
+      With her unsandalled feet."
+
+
+
+
+THE HEIRESS OF KURSTON CHACE.
+
+
+Into the usual stillness of Kurston Chace a strange bustle and
+excitement had come--the master was returning with a young bride, whom
+report spoke of as "bewitchingly beautiful." It was easy to believe
+report in this case, for there must have been some strong inducement to
+make Frederick Kurston wed in his sixtieth year a woman barely twenty.
+It was not money; Mr. Kurston had plenty of money, and he was neither
+ambitious nor avaricious; besides, the woman he had chosen was both poor
+and extravagant.
+
+For once report was correct. Clementina Gray, in tarlatans and flowers,
+had been a great beauty; and Clementina Kurston, in silks and diamonds,
+was a woman dedicated, by Nature for conquest.
+
+It was Clementina's beauty that had prevailed over the love-hardened
+heart of the gay old gallant, who had escaped the dangers of forty
+seasons of flirtation. He was entangled in the meshes of her golden
+hair, fascinated by the spell of her love-languid eyes, her mouth like a
+sad, heavy rose, her faultless form and her superb manners. He was blind
+to all her faults; deaf to all his friends--in the glamour of her
+enchantments he submitted to her implicitly, even while both his reason
+and his sense of other obligations pleaded for recognition.
+
+Clementina had not won him very easily; the summer was quite over,
+nearly all the visitors at the stylish little watering-place had
+departed, the mornings and evenings were chilly, every day Mr. Kurston
+spoke of his departure, and she herself was watching her maid pack her
+trunks, and in no very amiable temper contemplating defeat, when the
+reward of her seductive attentions came.
+
+"Mr. Kurston entreated the favor of an interview."
+
+She gladly accorded it; she robed herself with subtle skill; she made
+herself marvelous.
+
+"Mother," she said, as she left her dressing-room, "you will have a
+headache. I shall excuse you. I can manage this business best alone."
+
+In an hour she came back triumphant. She put her feet on the fender, and
+sat down before the cheerful blaze to "talk it over."
+
+"It is all right, mother. Good-by to our miserable shifts and
+shabby-genteel lodgings and turned dresses. He will settle Kurston Chace
+and all he has upon me, and we are to be married next month."
+
+"Impossible, Tina! No _modiste_ in the world could get the things that
+are absolutely necessary ready in that time."
+
+"Everything is possible in New York--if you have money--and Uncle Gray
+will be ready enough to buy my marriage clothes. Besides, I am going to
+run no risks. If he should die, nothing on earth could console me for
+the trouble I have had with him, but the fact of being his widow. There
+is no sentiment in the affair, and the sooner one gets to ordering
+dinners and running up bills, the better."
+
+"Poor Philip Lee!"
+
+"Mother, why did you mention him? Of course he will be angry, and call
+me all kinds of unpleasant names; but if he has a particle of common
+sense he must see that it was impossible for me to marry a poor
+lawyer--especially when I had such a much better offer. I suppose he
+will be here to-night. You must see him, mother, and explain things as
+pleasantly as possible. It would scarcely be proper for me, as Mr.
+Kurston's affianced wife, to listen to all the ravings and protestations
+he is sure to indulge in."
+
+In this supposition Clementina was mistaken. Philip Lee took the news of
+her engagement to his wealthy rival with blank calmness and a civil wish
+for her happiness. He made a stay of conventional propriety, and said
+all the usual polite platitudes, and then went away without any evidence
+of the deep suffering and mortification he felt.
+
+This was Clementina's first drop of bitterness in her cup of success.
+She questioned her mother closely as to how he looked, and what he said.
+It did not please her that, instead of bemoaning his own loss, he should
+be feeling a contempt for her duplicity--that he should use her to cure
+his passion, when she meant to wound him still deeper. She felt at
+moments as if she could give up for Philip Lee the wealth and position
+she had so hardly won, only she knew him well enough to understand that
+henceforward she could not easily deceive him again.
+
+It was pleasant to return to New York this fall; the news of the
+engagement opened everyone's heart and home. Congratulations came from
+every quarter; even Uncle Gray praised the girl who had done so well for
+herself, and signified his approval by a handsome check.
+
+The course of this love ran smooth enough, and one fine morning in
+October, Grace Church saw a splendid wedding. Henceforward Clementina
+Kurston was a woman to be courted instead of patronized, and many a
+woman who had spoken lightly of her beauty and qualities, was made to
+acknowledge with an envious pang that she had distanced them.
+
+This was her first reward, and she did not stint herself in extorting
+it. To tell the truth, Clementina had many a bitter score of this kind
+to pay off; for, as she said in extenuation, it was impossible for her
+to allow herself to be in debt to her self-respect.
+
+Well, the wedding was over. She had abundantly gratified her taste for
+splendor; she had smiled on those on whom she willed to smile; she had
+treated herself extravagantly to the dangerous pleasure of social
+revenge; she was now anxious to go and take possession of her home,
+which had the reputation of being one of the oldest and handsomest in
+the country.
+
+Mr. Kurston, hitherto, had been intoxicated with love, and not a little
+flattered by the brilliant position which his wife had at once claimed.
+Now that she was his wife, it amused him to see her order and patronize
+and dispense with all that royal prerogative which belongs to beauty,
+supported by wealth and position.
+
+Into his great happiness he had suffered no doubt, no fear of the
+future, to come; but, as the day approached for their departure for
+Kurston Chace, he grew singularly restless and uneasy.
+
+For, much as he loved and obeyed the woman whom he called "wife," there
+was another woman at Kurston whom he called "daughter," that he loved
+quite as dearly, in a different way. In fact, of his daughter, Athel
+Kurston, he stood just a little bit in fear, and she had ruled the
+household at the Chace for many years as absolute mistress.
+
+No one knew anything of her mother; he had brought her to her present
+home when only five years old, after a long stay on the Continent. A
+strange woman, wearing the dress of a Sclavonic peasant, came with the
+child as nurse; but she had never learnt to speak English, and had now
+been many years dead.
+
+Athel knew nothing of her mother, and her early attempts to question her
+father concerning her had been so peremptorily rebuffed that she had
+long ago ceased to indulge in any curiosity regarding her.
+However--though she knew it not--no one regarded her as Mr. Kurston's
+heir; indeed, nothing in her father's conduct sanctioned such a
+conclusion. True, he loved her dearly, and had spared no pains in her
+education; but he never took her with him into the world, and, except in
+the neighborhood of the Chace, her very existence was not known of.
+
+She was as old as his new wife, willful, proud, accustomed to rule, not
+likely to obey. He had said nothing to Clementina of her existence; he
+had said nothing to his daughter of his marriage; and now both facts
+could no longer be concealed.
+
+But Frederick Kurston had all his life trusted to circumstances, and he
+was rather disposed, in this matter, to let the women settle affairs
+between them without troubling himself to enter into explanations with
+either of them. So, to Athel he wrote a tender little note, assuming
+that she would be delighted to hear of his marriage, as it promised her
+a pleasant companion, and directing her to have all possible
+arrangements made to add to the beauty and comfort of the house.
+
+To Mrs. Kurston he said nothing. The elegantly dressed young lady who
+met her with a curious and rather constrained welcome was to her a
+genuine surprise. Her air of authority and rich dress precluded the idea
+of a dependent; Mr. Kurston had kissed her lovingly, the servants obeyed
+her. But she was far too prudent to make inquiries on unknown ground;
+she disappeared, with her maid, on the plea of weariness, and from the
+vantage-ground of her retirement sent F�licit� to take observations.
+
+The little French maid found no difficulty in arriving at the truth, and
+Mrs. Kurston, not unjustly angry, entered the drawing-room fully
+prepared to defend her rights.
+
+"Who was that young person, Frederick, dear, that I saw when we
+arrived?"
+
+This question in the very sweetest tone, and with that caressing manner
+she had always found omnipotent.
+
+"That young person is Miss Athel Kurston, Clementina."
+
+This answer in the very decided, and yet nervous, manner people on the
+defensive generally assume.
+
+"Miss Kurston? Your sister, Frederick?"
+
+"No; my daughter, Clementina."
+
+"But you were never married before?"
+
+"So people say."
+
+"Then, do you really expect me to live in the same house with a person
+of--"
+
+"I see no reason why you should not--that is, if you live in the same
+house with me."
+
+A passionate burst of tears, an utter abandonment of distress, and the
+infatuated husband was willing to promise anything--everything--that his
+charmer demanded--that is, for the time; for Athel Kurston's influence
+was really stronger than her step-mother's, and the promises extorted
+from his lower passions were indefinitely postponed by his nobler
+feelings.
+
+A divided household is always a miserable one; but the chief sufferer
+here was Mr. Kurston, and Athel, who loved him with a sincere and
+profound affection, determined to submit to circumstances for his sake.
+
+One morning, he found on his table a letter from her stating that, to
+procure him peace, she had left a home that would be ever dear to her,
+assuring him that she had secured a comfortable and respectable asylum;
+but earnestly entreating that he would make no inquiries about her, as
+she had changed her name, and would not be discovered without causing a
+degree of gossip and evil-speaking injurious to both himself and her.
+
+This letter completely broke the power of Clementina over her husband.
+He asserted at once his authority, and insisted on returning immediately
+to New York, where he thought it likely Athel had gone, and where, at
+any rate, he could find suitable persons to aid him in his search for
+her--a search which was henceforth the chief object of his life.
+
+A splendid house was taken, and Mrs. Kurston at once assumed the
+position of a leader in the world of fashion. Greatly to her
+satisfaction, Philip Lee was a favorite in the exclusive circle in which
+she moved, and she speedily began the pretty, penitent, dejected r�le
+which she judged would be most effective with him. But, though she would
+not see it, Philip Lee was proof against all her blandishments. He was
+not the man to be deluded twice by the same false woman; he was a man of
+honor, and detested the social ethics which scoffed at humanity's
+holiest tie; and he was deeply in love with a woman who was the very
+antipodes of the married siren.
+
+Yet he visited frequently at the Kurston mansion, and became a great
+favorite, and finally the friend and confidant of its master. Gradually,
+as month after month passed, the business of the Kurston estate came
+into his hands, and he could have told, to the fraction of a dollar, the
+exact sum for which Clementina Gray sold herself.
+
+Two years passed away. There was no longer on Clementina's part, any
+pretence of affection for her husband; she went her own way, and devoted
+herself to her own interests and amusements. He wearied with a hopeless
+search and anxiety that found no relief, aged very rapidly, and became
+subject to serious attacks of illness, any one of which might deprive
+him of life.
+
+His wife now regretted that she had married so hastily; the settlements
+promised had been delayed; she had trusted to her influence to obtain
+more as his wife than as his betrothed. She had not known of a
+counter-influence, and she had not calculated that the effort of a
+life-long deception might be too much for her. Quarrels had arisen in
+the very beginning of their life at Kurston, the disappearance of Athel
+had never been forgiven, and now Mrs. Kurston became violently angry if
+the settlement and disposing of his property was named.
+
+One night, in the middle of the third winter after Athel's
+disappearance, Philip Lee called with an important lease for Mr. Kurston
+to sign. He found him alone, and strangely moved and sorrowful. He
+signed the papers as Philip directed him, and then requested him to lock
+the door and sit down.
+
+"I am going," he said, "to confide to you, Philip Lee, a sacred trust. I
+do not think I shall live long, and I leave a duty unfulfilled that
+makes to me the bitterness of death. I have a daughter--the lawful
+heiress of the Kurston lands--whom my wife drove, by subtle and
+persistent cruelty, from her home. By no means have I been able to
+discover her; but you must continue the search, and see her put in
+possession of her rights."
+
+"But what proofs, sir, can you give me in order to establish them?"
+
+"They are all in this box--everything that is necessary. Take it with
+you to your office to-night. Her mother--ah, me, how I loved her--was a
+Polish lady of good family; but I have neither time nor inclination now
+to explain to you, or to excuse myself for the paltry vanities which
+induced me to conceal my marriage. In those days I cared so much for
+what society said that I never listened to the voice of my heart or my
+conscience. I hope, I trust, I may still right both the dead and the
+living!"
+
+Mr. Kurston's presentiment of death was no delusive one; he sank
+gradually during the following week, and died--his last word,
+"Remember!" being addressed, with all the strong beseeching of a dying
+injunction, to Philip Lee.
+
+A free woman, and a rich one, Mrs. Kurston turned with all the ardor of
+a sentimental woman to her first and--as she chose to consider it--her
+only true affection. She was now in a position to woo the poor lawyer,
+dependent in a great measure on her continuing to him the management of
+the Kurston property.
+
+Business brought them continually together, and it was neither possible
+nor prudent for him to always reject the attentions she offered. The
+world began to freely connect their names, and it was with much
+difficulty that he could convince even his most intimate friends of his
+indifference to the rich and beautiful widow.
+
+He found himself, indeed, becoming gradually entangled in a net of
+circumstances it would soon be difficult to get honorably out of.
+
+The widow received him at every visit more like a lover, and less like a
+lawyer; men congratulated or envied him, women tacitly assumed his
+engagement. There was but one way to free himself from the toils the
+artful widow was encompassing him with--he must marry some one else.
+
+But whom? The only girl he loved was poor, and had already refused him;
+yet he was sure she loved him, and something bid him try again. He had
+half a mind to do so, and "half a mind" in love is quite enough to begin
+with.
+
+So he put on his hat and went to his sister's house. He knew she was out
+driving--had seen her pass five minutes before on her way to the park.
+Then what did he go there for? Because he judged from experience, that
+at this hour lovely Pauline Alexes, governess to his sister's daughters,
+was at home and alone.
+
+He was not wrong; she came into the parlor by one door as he entered it
+by the other. The coincidence was auspicious, and he warmly pressed his
+suit, pouring into Pauline's ears such a confused account of his
+feelings and his affairs as only love could disentangle and understand.
+
+"But, Philip," said Pauline, "do you mean to say that this Mrs. Kurston
+makes love to you? Is she not a married woman, and her husband your best
+friend and patron?"
+
+"Mr. Kurston, Pauline darling, is dead!"
+
+"Dead! dead! Oh, Philip! Oh, my father! my father!" And the poor girl
+threw herself, with passionate sobbings, among the cushions of the sofa.
+
+This was a revelation. Here, in Pauline Alexes, the girl he had fondly
+loved for nearly three years, Philip found the long-sought heiress of
+Kurston Chace!
+
+Bitter, indeed, was her grief when she learned how sorrowfully her
+father had sought her; but she was scarcely to be blamed for not knowing
+of, and responding to, his late repentance of the life-long wrong he had
+done her. For Philip's sister moved far outside the narrow and supreme
+circle of the Kurstons.
+
+She had hidden her identity in her mother's maiden name--the only thing
+she knew of her mother. She had never seen her father since her flight
+from her home but in public, accompanied by his wife; she had no reason
+to suppose the influence of that wife any weaker; she had been made, by
+cruel innuendoes, to doubt both the right and the inclination of her
+father to protect her.
+
+It now became Philip's duty to acquaint the second Mrs. Kurston with
+her true position, and to take the necessary steps to reinstate Athel
+Kurston in her rights.
+
+Of course, he had to bear many unkind suspicions--even his friends
+believed him to have been cognizant all the time of the identity of
+Pauline Alexes with Athel Kurston--and he was complimented on his
+cleverness in securing the property, with the daughter, instead of the
+widow, for an incumbrance. But those may laugh who win, and these things
+scarcely touched the happiness of Philip and Athel.
+
+As for Mrs. Kurston she made a still more brilliant marriage, and gave
+up the Kurston estate with an ostentatious indifference. "She was glad
+to get rid of it; it had brought her nothing but sorrow and
+disappointment," etc.
+
+But from the heights of her social autocracy, clothed in Worth's
+greatest inspirations, wearing priceless lace and jewels, dwelling in
+unrivalled splendor, she looked with regret on the man whom she had
+rejected for his poverty.
+
+She saw him grow to be the pride of his State and the honor of his
+country. Loveless and childless, she saw his boys and girls cling to the
+woman she hated as their "mother," and knew that they filled with light
+and love the grand old home for which she had first of all sacrificed
+her affection and her womanhood.
+
+
+
+
+"ONLY THIS ONCE."
+
+
+Over the solemn mountains and the misty moorlands the chill spring night
+was falling. David Scott, master shepherd for MacAllister, of Allister,
+thought of his ewes and lambs, pulled his Scotch bonnet over his brows,
+and taking his staff in his hand, turned his face to the hills.
+
+David Scott was a mystic in his own way; the mountains were to him
+"temples not made with hands," and in them he had seen and heard
+wonderful things. Years of silent communion with nature had made him
+love her in all her moods, and he passionately believed in God.
+
+The fold was far up the mountains, but the sheep knew the shepherd's
+voice, and the peculiar bark of his dog; they answered them gladly, and
+were soon safely and warmly housed. Then David and Keeper slowly took
+their way homeward, for the steep, rocky hills were not easy walking for
+an old man in the late gloaming.
+
+Passing a wild cairn of immense stones, Keeper suddenly began to bark
+furiously, and a tall, slight figure leaped from their shelter, raised a
+stick, and would have struck the dog if David had not called out,
+"Never strie a sheep-dog, mon! The bestie willna harm ye."
+
+The stranger then came forward; asked David if there was any cottage
+near where he could rest all night, said that he had come out for a
+day's fishing, had got separated from his companions, lost his way and
+was hungry and worn out.
+
+David looked him steadily in the face and read aright the nervous manner
+and assumed indifference. However, hospitality is a sacred tradition
+among Scotch mountaineers, whoever, or whatever the young man was, David
+acknowledged his weariness and hunger as sufficient claim upon his oaten
+cake and his embers.
+
+It was evident in a few moments that Mr. Semple was not used to the
+hills. David's long, firm walk was beyond the young man's efforts; he
+stumbled frequently in the descent, the springy step necessary when they
+came to the heather distressed him; he was almost afraid of the gullies
+David took without a thought. These things the old man noted, and they
+weighed far more with him than all the boastful tongue could say.
+
+The cottage was soon reached--a very humble one--only "a but and a ben,"
+with small windows, and a thatched roof; but Scotland has reared great
+men in such cottages, and no one could say that it was not clean and
+cheerful. The fire burnt brightly upon the white hearthstone, and a
+little round deal table stood before it. Upon this table were oaten
+cakes and Ayreshire cheese and new milk, and by its side sat a young man
+reading.
+
+"Archie, here is a strange _gentleman_ I found up at Donald's cairn."
+
+The two youths exchanged looks and disliked each other. Yet Archie Scott
+rose, laid aside his book, and courteously offered his seat by the fire.
+The stranger took it, eat heartily of the simple meal, joined decently
+in their solemn worship, and was soon fast asleep in Archie's bed. Then
+the old man and his son sat down and curtly exchanged their opinions.
+
+"I don't like yon lad, fayther, and I more than distrust his being aught
+o' a gentleman."
+
+David smoked steadily a few minutes ere he replied:
+
+"He's eat and drank and knelt wi' us, Archie, and it's nane o' our duty
+to judge him."
+
+When Archie spoke again it was of other matters.
+
+"Fayther, I'm sore troubled wi' MacAllister's accounts; what wi' the
+sheep bills and the timber and the kelp, things look in a mess like.
+There is a right way and a wrong way to keep tally of them and I can't
+find it out."
+
+"The right way is to keep the facts all correct and honest to a straw's
+worth--then the figures are bound to come right, I should say."
+
+It was an old trouble that Archie complained about. He was MacAllister's
+steward, appointed by virtue of his sterling character and known worth;
+but struggling constantly with ignorance of the methods by which even
+the most honest business can alone satisfactorily prove its honest
+condition.
+
+When Mr. Semple awoke next morning, Archie had disappeared, and David
+was standing in the door, smoking. David liked his guest less in the
+morning than he had done at night.
+
+"Ye dinna seem to relish your parritch, sir," said David rather grimly.
+
+Mr. Semple said he really had never been accustomed to anything but
+strong tea and hot rolls, with a little kippered salmon or marmalade; he
+had never tasted porridge before.
+
+"More's the pity, my lad. Maybe if you had been brought up on decent
+oatmeal you would hae thankit God for your food;" for Mr. Semple's
+omission of grace, either before or after his meat, greatly displeased
+the old man.
+
+The youth yawned, sauntered to the door, and looked out. There was a
+fresh wind, bringing with it flying showers and damp, chilling
+mists--wet heather under foot, and no sunshine above. David saw
+something in the anxious, wretched face that aroused keen suspicion. He
+looked steadily into Mr. Semple's pale, blue eyes, and said:
+
+"Wha are you rinnin awa from, my lad?"
+
+"Sir!"
+
+There was a moment's angry silence. Suddenly David raised his hand,
+shaded his eyes and peered keenly down the hills. Mr. Semple followed
+this movement with great interest.
+
+"What are you looking at, Mr. Scott? Oh! I see. Two men coming up this
+way. Do you know who they are?"
+
+"They may be gangers or they may be strangers, or they may be
+policemen--I dinna ken them mysel'."
+
+"Mr. Scott! For God's sake, Mr. Scott! Don't give me up, and I will tell
+you the whole truth."
+
+"I thought so!" said David, sternly. "Well, come up the hills wi' me;
+yon men will be here in ten minutes, whoever they are."
+
+There were numerous places of partial shelter known to the shepherd, and
+he soon led the way to a kind of cave, pretty well concealed by
+overhanging rocks and trailing, briery stems.
+
+The two sat down on a rude granite bowlder, and the elder having waited
+until his companion had regained his breath, said:
+
+"You'll fare best wi' me, lad, if you tell the truth in as few words as
+may be; I dinna like fine speeches."
+
+"Mr. Scott, I am Duncan Nevin's bookkeeper and cashier. He's a tea
+dealer in the Gallowgate of Glasgow. I'm short in my cash, and he's a
+hard man, so I run away."
+
+"Sortie, lad! Your cash dinna gang wrang o' itself. If you werna ashamed
+to steal it, ye needna be ashamed to confess it. Begin at the
+beginning."
+
+The young man told his shameful story. He had got into gay, dissipated
+ways, and to meet a sudden demand had taken three pounds from his
+employer _for just once_. But the three pounds had swollen into sixteen,
+and finding it impossible to replace it, he had taken ten more and fled,
+hoping to hide in the hills till he could get rowed off to some passing
+ship and escape to America. He had no friends, and neither father nor
+mother. At mention of this fact, David's face relaxed.
+
+"Puir lad!" he muttered. "Nae father, and nae mother, 'specially; that's
+a awfu' drawback."
+
+"You may give me up if you like, Mr. Scott. I don't care much; I've
+been a wretched fellow for many a week; I am most broken-hearted
+to-day."
+
+"It's not David Scott that will make himself hard to a broken heart,
+when God in heaven has promised to listen to it. I'll tell you what I
+will do. You shall gie me all the money you have, every shilling; it's
+nane o' yours, ye ken that weel; and I'll take it to your master, and
+get him to pass by the ither till you can earn it. I've got a son, a
+decent, hard-working lad, who's daft to learn your trade--bookkeeping.
+Ye sail stay wi' me till he kens a' the ins and outs o' it, then I'll
+gie ye twenty pounds. I ken weel this is a big sum, and it will make a
+big hole in my little book at the Ayr Bank, but it will set Archie up.
+
+"Then when ye have earned it, ye can pay back all you have stolen,
+forbye having four pounds left for a nest-egg to start again wi'. I
+dinna often treat mysel' to such a bit o' charity as this, and, 'deed,
+if I get na mair thanks fra heaven, than I seem like to get fra you,
+there 'ud be meikle use in it," for Alexander Semple had heard the
+proposal with a dour and thankless face, far from encouraging to the
+good man who made it. It did not suit that youth to work all summer in
+order to pay back what he had come to regard as "off his mind;" to
+denude himself of every shilling, and be entirely dependent on the
+sternly just man before him. Yet what could he do? He was fully in
+David's power; so he signified his assent, and sullenly enough gave up
+the �9 14s. 2d. in his possession.
+
+"I'm a good bookkeeper, Mr. Scott," he said; "the bargain is fair enough
+for you."
+
+"I ken Donald Nevin; he's a Campletown man, and I ken you wouldna hae
+keepit his books if you hadna had your business at your finger-ends."
+
+The next day David went to Glasgow, and saw Mr. Semple's master. The �9
+odd was lost money found, and predisposed him to the arrangement
+proposed. David got little encouragement from Mr. Nevin, however; he
+acknowledged the clerk's skill in accounts, but he was conceited of his
+appearance, ambitious of being a fashionable man, had weak principles
+and was intensely selfish. David almost repented him of his kindness,
+and counted grudgingly the shillings that the journey and the carriage
+of Mr. Semple's trunks cost him.
+
+Indeed it was a week or two before things settled pleasantly in the hill
+cottage; the plain living, pious habits and early hours of the shepherd
+and his son did not at all suit the city youth. But Archie, though
+ignorant of the reasons which kept such a dandy in their humble home,
+soon perceived clearly the benefit he could derive from him. And once
+Archie got an inkling of the meaning of "double entry" he was never
+weary of applying it to his own particular business; so that in a few
+weeks Alexander Semple was perfectly familiar with MacAllister's
+affairs.
+
+Still, Archie cordially disliked his teacher, and about the middle of
+summer it became evident that a very serious cause of quarrel was
+complicating the offence. Coming up from MacAllister's one lovely summer
+gloaming Archie met Semple with Katie Morrison, the little girl whom he
+had loved and courted since ever he carried her dinner and slate to
+school for her. How they had come to know each other he could not tell;
+he had exercised all his tact and prudence to prevent it, evidently
+without avail. He passed the couple with ill-concealed anger; Katie
+looked down, Semple nodded in what Archie believed to be an insolent
+manner.
+
+That night David Scott heard from his son such an outburst of anger as
+the lad had never before exhibited. In a few days Mr. Semple went to
+Greenock for a day or two. Soon it was discovered that Katie had been in
+Greenock two days at her married sister's. Then they heard that the
+couple had married and were to sail for America. They then discovered
+that Archie's desk had been opened and �46 in notes and gold taken.
+Neither of the men had any doubt as to the thief; and therefore Archie
+was angry and astonished to find his father doubt and waver and seem
+averse to pursue him. At last he acknowledged all, told Archie that if
+he made known his loss, _he also_ must confess that he had knowingly
+harbored an acknowledged thief, and tacitly given him the opportunity of
+wronging his employer. He doubted very much whether anyone would give
+him credit for the better feelings which had led him to this course of
+conduct.
+
+Archie's anger cooled at once; he saw the dilemma; to these simple
+people a good name was better than gold. It took nearly half the savings
+of a long life, but the old man went to Ayr and drew sufficient to
+replace the stolen money. He needed to make no inquiries about Semple.
+On Tuesday it was known by everyone in the village that Katie Morrison
+and Alexander Semple had been married the previous Friday, and sailed
+for America the next day. After this certainty father and son never
+named the subject but once more. It was on one calm, spring evening,
+some ten years after, and David lay within an hour of the grave.
+
+"Archie!" he said, suddenly, "I don't regret to-night what I did ten
+years ago. Virtuous actions sometimes fail, but virtuous lives--never!
+Perhaps I had a thought o' self in my good intent, and that spoiled all.
+If thou hast ever a chance, do better than I did."
+
+"I will, father."
+
+During these ten years there had been occasional news from the exiles.
+Mrs. Morrison stopped Archie at intervals, as he passed her door, and
+said there had been a letter from Katie. At first they came frequently,
+and were tinged with brightest hopes. Alexander had a fine place, and
+their baby was the most beautiful in the world. The next news was that
+Alexander was in business for himself and making money rapidly. Handsome
+presents, that were the wonder of the village, then came occasionally,
+and also remittances of money that made the poor mother hold her head
+proudly about "our Katie" and her "splendid house and carriage."
+
+But suddenly all letters stopped, and the mother thought for long they
+must be coming to see her, but this hope and many another faded, and the
+fair morning of Katie's marriage was shrouded in impenetrable gloom and
+mystery.
+
+Archie got bravely over his trouble, and a while after his father's
+death married a good little woman, not quite without "the bit of
+siller." Soon after he took his savings to Edinburgh and joined his
+wife's brother in business there. Things prospered with him, slowly but
+surely, and he became known for a steady, prosperous merchant, and a
+douce pious householder, the father of a fine lot of sons and daughters.
+
+One night, twenty years after the beginning of my story, he was passing
+through the old town of Edinburgh, when a wild cry of "Fire! Fire!
+Fire!" arose on every side of him.
+
+"Where?" he asked of the shrieking women pouring from all the filthy,
+narrow wynds around.
+
+"In Gordon's Wynd."
+
+He was there almost the first of any efficient aid, striving to make his
+way up the smoke-filled stairs, but this was impossible. The house was
+one of those ancient ones, piled story upon story; so old that it was
+almost tinder. But those on the opposite side were so close that not
+unfrequently a plank or two flung across from opposite windows made a
+bridge for the benefit of those seeking to elude justice.
+
+By means of such a bridge all the inhabitants of the burning house were
+removed, and no one was more energetic in carrying the women and
+children across the dangerous planks than Archie Scott; for his mountain
+training had made such a feat one of no extraordinary danger to him.
+Satisfied at length that all life was out of risk, he was turning to go
+home, when a white, terrible face looked out of the top-most floor,
+showing itself amid the gusts of smoke like the dream of a corpse, and
+screaming for help in agonizing tones. Archie knew that face only too
+well. But he remembered, in the same instant, what his father had said
+in dying, and, swift as a mountain deer, he was quickly on the top floor
+of the opposite house again.
+
+In a few moments the planks bridged the distance between death and
+safety; but no entreaties could make the man risk the dangerous passage.
+Setting tight his lips, Archie went for the shrieking coward, and
+carried him into the opposite house. Then the saved man recognized his
+preserver.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Scott!" he said, "for God's sake, my wife and my child! The
+last of seven!"
+
+"You scoundrel! Do you mean to say you saved yourself before Katie and
+your child!"
+
+Archie did not wait for the answer; again he was at the window of the
+burning room. Too late! The flames were already devouring what the smoke
+had smothered; their wretched pallet was a funeral pyre. He had hardly
+time to save his own life.
+
+"They are dead, Semple!"
+
+Then the poor creature burst into a paroxysm of grief, moaned and
+cried, and begged a few shillings, and vowed he was the most miserable
+creature on earth.
+
+After this Archie Scott strove for two years to do without taint of
+selfishness what his father had begun twenty years before. But there was
+not much now left to work upon--health, honor, self-respect were all
+gone. Poor Semple was content to eat the bread of dependence, and then
+make boastful speeches of his former wealth and position. To tell of his
+wonderful schemes, and to abuse his luck and his false friends, and
+everything and everybody, but the real cause of his misfortune.
+
+Archie gave him some trifling post, with a salary sufficient for every
+decent want, and never heeded, though he knew Semple constantly spoke
+ill of him behind his back.
+
+However the trial of Archie's patience and promise did not last very
+long. It was a cold, snowy night in mid-winter that Archie was called
+upon to exercise for the last time his charity and forbearance toward
+him; and the parting scene paid for all. For, in the shadow of the
+grave, the poor, struggling soul dropped all pretences, acknowledged all
+its shortcomings, thanked the forbearance and charity which had been
+extended so many years, and humbly repented of its lost and wasted
+opportunities.
+
+"Draw close to me, Archie Scott," he said, "and tell your four brave
+boys what my dying words to them were: Never to yield to temptation for
+_only this once_. To be quite sure that all the gear and gold that
+_comes with sin_ will _go with sorrow_. And never to doubt that to every
+_evil doer_ will certainly come his _evil day_."
+
+
+
+
+PETRALTO'S LOVE STORY.
+
+
+I am addicted to making strange friendships, to liking people whom I
+have no conventional authority to like--people out of "my set," and not
+always of my own nationality. I do not say that I have always been
+fortunate in these ventures; but I have had sufficient splendid
+exceptions to excuse the social aberration, and make me think that all
+of us might oftener trust our own instincts, oftener accept the friends
+that circumstance and opportunity offer us, with advantage. At any rate,
+the peradventure in chance associations has always been very attractive
+to me.
+
+In some irregular way I became acquainted with Petralto Garcia. I
+believe I owed the introduction to my beautiful hound, Lutha; but, at
+any rate, our first conversation was quite as sensible as if we had gone
+through the legitimate initiation. I know it was in the mountains, and
+that within an hour our tastes and sympathies had touched each other at
+twenty different points.
+
+Lutha walked beside us, showing in his mien something of the proud
+satisfaction which follows a conviction of having done a good thing. He
+looked first at me and then at Petralto, elevating and depressing his
+ears at our argument, as if he understood all about it. Perhaps he did;
+human beings don't know everything.
+
+People have so much time in the country that it is little wonder that
+our acquaintance ripened into friendship during the holidays, and that
+one of my first visits when I had got settled for the winter was to
+Petralto's rooms. Their locality might have cooled some people, but not
+me. It does not take much of an education in New York life to find out
+that the pleasantest, loftiest, handsomest rooms are to be found in the
+streets not very far "up town;" comfortably contiguous to the best
+hotels, stores, theatres, picture galleries, and all the other
+necessaries of a pleasant existence.
+
+He was just leaving the door for a ride in the park, and we went
+together. I had refused the park twice within an hour, and had told
+myself that nothing should induce me to follow that treadmill procession
+again, yet when he said, in his quiet way, "You had better take half an
+hour's ride, Jack," I felt like going, and I went.
+
+Now just as we got to the Fifth Avenue entrance, a singular thing
+happened. Petralto's pale olive face flushed a bright crimson, his eyes
+flashed and dropped; he whipped the horse into a furious gallop, as if
+he would escape something; then became preternaturally calm, drew
+suddenly up, and stood waiting for a handsome equipage which was
+approaching. Its occupants were bending forward to speak to him. I had
+no eyes for the gentleman, the girl at his side was so radiantly
+beautiful.
+
+I heard Petralto promise to call on them, and we passed on; but there
+was a look on his face which bespoke both sympathy and silence. He soon
+complained of the cold, said the park pace irritated him, but still
+passed and repassed the couple who had caused him such evident
+suffering, as if he was determined to inure himself to the pain of
+meeting them. During this interval I had time to notice the caressing,
+lover-like attitude of the beauty's companion, and I said, as they
+entered a stately house together, "Are they married?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He seems devotedly in love with her."
+
+"He loved her two years before he saw her."
+
+"Impossible."
+
+"Not at all. I have a mind to tell you the story."
+
+"Do. Come home with me, and we will have a quiet dinner together."
+
+"No. I need to be alone an hour or two. Call on me about nine o'clock."
+
+Petralto's rooms were a little astonishment to me. They were luxurious
+in the extreme, with just that excess of ornament which suggests
+under-civilization; and yet I found him smoking in a studio destitute of
+everything but a sleepy-looking sofa, two or three capacious lounging
+chairs, and the ordinary furniture of an artist's atelier. There was a
+bright fire in the grate, a flood of light from the numerous gas jets,
+and an atmosphere heavy with the seductive, fragrant vapor of Havana.
+
+I lit my own cigar, made myself comfortable, and waited until it was
+Petralto's pleasure to begin. After a while he said, "Jack, turn that
+easel so that you can see the picture on it."
+
+I did so.
+
+"Now, look at it well, and tell me what you see; first, the
+locality--describe it."
+
+"A dim old wood, with sunlight sifting through thick foliage, and long
+streamers of weird grey moss. The ground is covered with soft short
+grass of an intense green, and there are wonderful flowers of wonderful
+colors."
+
+"Right. It is an opening in the forest of the Upper Guadalupe. Now, what
+else do you see?"
+
+"A small pony, saddled and bridled, feeding quietly, and a young girl
+standing on tip-toe, pulling down a vine loaded with golden-colored
+flowers."
+
+"Describe the girl to me."
+
+I turned and looked at my querist. He was smoking, with shut eyes, and
+waiting calmly for my answer. "Well, she has--Petralto, what makes you
+ask me? You might paint, but it is impossible to describe _light_; and
+the girl is nothing else. If I had met her in such a wood, I should have
+thought she was an angel, and been afraid of her."
+
+"No angel, Jack, but a most exquisite, perfect flower of maidenhood.
+When I first saw her, she stood just so, with her open palms full of
+yellow jasmine. I laid my heart into them, too, my whole heart, my whole
+life, and every joy and hope it contained."
+
+"What were you doing in Texas?"
+
+"What are you doing in New York? I was born in Texas. My family, an old
+Spanish one, have been settled there since they helped to build San
+Antonio in 1730. I grew up pretty much as Texan youths do--half my time
+in the saddle, familiar with the worst side of life and the best side of
+nature. I should have been a thorough Ishmaelite if I had not been an
+artist; but the artistic instinct conquered the nomadic and in my
+twentieth year I went to Rome to study.
+
+"I can pass the next five years. I do not pretend to regret them,
+though, perhaps, you would say I simply wasted time and opportunity. I
+enjoyed them, and it seems to me I was the person most concerned in the
+matter. I had a fresh, full capacity then for enjoyment of every kind. I
+loved nature and I loved art. I warmed both hands at the glowing fire of
+life. Time may do his worst. I have been happy, and I can throw those
+five careless, jovial years, in his face to my last hour.
+
+"But one must awake out of every pleasant dream, and one day I got a
+letter urging my immediate return home. My father had got himself
+involved in a lawsuit, and was failing rapidly in health. My younger
+brother was away with a ranger company, and the affairs of the ranch
+needed authoritative overlooking. I was never so fond of art as to be
+indifferent to our family prosperity, and I lost no time in hurrying
+West.
+
+"Still, when I arrived at home, there was no one to welcome me! The
+noble, gracious Garcia slept with his ancestors in the old Alamo Church;
+somewhere on the llano my brother was ranging, still with his wild,
+company; and the house, in spite of the family servants and Mexican
+peons, was sufficiently lonely. Yet I was astonished, to find how easily
+I went back to my old life, and spent whole days in the saddle
+investigating the affairs of the Garcia ranch.
+
+"I had been riding one day for ten hours, and was so fatigued that I
+determined to spend the night with one of my herdsmen. He had a little
+shelter under some fine pecan trees on the Guadalupe, and after a cup of
+coffee and a meal of dried beef, I sauntered with my cigar down the
+river bank. Then the cool, dusky shadows of the wood tempted me. I
+entered it. It was an enchanted wood, for there stood Jessy Lorimer,
+just as I had painted her.
+
+"I did not move nor speak. I watched her, spell-bound. I had not even
+the power, when she had mounted her pony and was coming toward me, to
+assume another attitude. She saw that I had been watching her, and a
+look, half reproachful and half angry, came for a moment into her face.
+But she inclined her head to me as she passed, and then went off at a
+rapid gallop before I could collect my senses.
+
+"Some people, Jack, walk into love with their eyes open, calculating
+every step. I tumbled in over head, lost my feet, lost my senses,
+narrowed in one moment the whole world down to one bewitching woman. I
+did not know her, of course; but I soon should. I was well aware she
+could not live very far away, and that my herd must be able to give me
+some information. I was so deeply in love that this poor ignorant
+fellow, knowing something about this girl, seemed to me to be a person
+to be respected, and even envied.
+
+"I gave him immediately a plentiful supply of cigars, and sitting down
+beside him opened the conversation with horses, but drifted speedily
+into the subject of new settlers.
+
+"'Were there any since I had left?'
+
+"'Two or three, no 'count travelers, one likely family.'
+
+"'Much of a family?'
+
+"'You may bet on that, sir.'
+
+"'Any pleasant young men?'
+
+"'Reckon so. Mighty likely young gal.'
+
+"So, bit by bit, I found that Mr. Lorimer, my beauty's father, was a
+Scotchman, who had bought the ranch which had formerly belonged to the
+old Spanish family of the Yturris. Then I remembered pretty Inez and
+Dolores Yturri, with their black eyes, olive skins and soft, lazy
+_embonpoint_; and thought of golden-haired Jessy Lorimer in their dark,
+latticed rooms.
+
+"Jack, turn the picture to me. Beautiful Jessy! How I loved her in those
+happy days that followed. How I humored her grave, stern father and
+courted her brothers for her sake! I was a slave to the whole family,
+so that I might gain an hour with or a smile from Jessy. Do I regret it
+now? Not one moment. Such delicious hours as we had together were worth
+any price. I would throw all my future to old Time, Jack, only to live
+them over again."
+
+"That is a great deal to say, Petralto."
+
+"Perhaps; and yet I will not recall it. In those few months everything
+that was good in me prospered and grew. Jessy brought out nothing but
+the best part of my character. I was always at my best with her. No
+thought of selfish pleasure mingled in my love for her. If it delighted
+me to touch her hand, to feel her soft hair against my cheek, to meet
+her earnest, subduing gaze, it also made me careful by no word or look
+to soil the dainty purity of my white lily.
+
+"I feared to tell her that I loved her. But I did do it, I scarcely know
+how. The softest whisper seemed too loud against her glowing cheek. She
+trembled from head to foot. I was faint and silent with rapture when she
+first put her little hand in mine, and suffered me to draw her to my
+heart. Ah! I am sick with joy yet when I think of it. I--I first, I
+alone, woke that sweet young heart to life. She is lost, lost to me, but
+no one else can ever be to her what I have been."
+
+And here Petralto, giving full sway to his impassioned Southern nature,
+covered his face with his hands and wept hot, regretful tears.
+
+Tears come like blood from men of cold, strong temperaments, but they
+were the natural relief of Petralto's. I let him weep. In a few minutes
+he leaped up, and began pacing the room rapidly as he went on:
+
+"Mr. Lorimer received my proposal with a dour, stiff refusal that left
+me no hope of any relenting. 'He had reasons, more than one,' he said;
+'he was not saying anything against either my Spanish blood or my
+religion; but it was no fault in a Scotsman to mate his daughter with
+people of her own kith.'
+
+"There was no quarrel, and no discourtesy; but I saw I could bend an
+iron bar with my pleadings just as soon as his determination. Jessy
+received orders not to meet me or speak to me alone; and the possibility
+of disobeying her father's command never suggested itself to her. Even I
+struggled long with my misery before I dared to ask her to practice her
+first deceit.
+
+"She would not meet me alone, but she persuaded her mother to come once
+with her to our usual tryst in the wood. Mrs. Lorimer spoke kindly but
+hopelessly, and covered her own face to weep while Jessy and I took of
+each other a passionate farewell. I promised her then never to marry
+anyone else; and she!--I thought her heart would break as I laid her
+almost fainting in her mother's arms.
+
+"Yet I did not know how much Jessy really was to me until I suddenly
+found out that her father had sent her back to Scotland, under the
+pretence of finishing her education. I had been so honorably considerate
+of Jessy's Puritan principles that I felt this hasty, secret movement
+exceedingly unkind and unjust. Guadalupe became hateful to me, the
+duties of the ranch distracting; and my brother Felix returning about
+this time, we made a division of the estate. He remained at the Garcia
+mansion, I rented out my possessions, and went, first to New Orleans,
+and afterward to New York.
+
+"In New York I opened a studio, and one day a young gentleman called and
+asked me to draw a picture from some crude, imperfect sketch which a
+friend had made. During the progress of the picture he frequently called
+in. For some reason or other--probably because we were each other's
+antipodes in tastes and temperament--he became my enthusiastic admirer,
+and interested himself greatly to secure me a lucrative patronage.
+
+"Yet some subtle instinct, which I cannot pretend to divine or explain,
+constantly warned me to beware of this man. But I was ashamed and angry
+at myself for linking even imaginary evil with so frank and generous a
+nature. I defied destiny, turned a deaf ear to the whisperings of my
+good genius, and continued the one-sided friendship--for I never even
+pretended to myself that I had any genuine liking for the man.
+
+"One day, when we had become very familiar, he ran up to see me about
+something, I forget what, and not finding me in the outer apartments,
+penetrated to my private room. There, upon that easel, Will Lennox first
+saw the woman you saw with him to-night--the picture which you are now
+looking at--and he fell as desperately in love with it, in his way, as I
+had done in the Guadalupe woods with the reality. I cannot tell you how
+much it cost me to restrain my anger. He, however, never noticed I was
+angry. He had but one object now--to gain from me the name and residence
+of the original.
+
+"It was no use to tell him it was a fancy picture, that he was sighing
+for an imagination. He never believed it for a moment. I would not sell
+it, I would not copy it, I would not say where I had painted it; I kept
+it to my most sacred privacy. He was sure that the girl existed, and
+that I knew where she lived. He was very rich, without an occupation or
+an object, and Jessy's pure, lovely face haunted him day and night, and
+supplied him with a purpose.
+
+"He came to me one day and offering me a large sum of money, asked me
+finally to reveal at least the locality of which I had painted the
+picture. His free, frank unembarrassed manner compels me to believe that
+he had no idea of the intolerable insult he was perpetrating. He had
+always been accustomed to consider more or less money an equivalent for
+all things under the sun. But you, Jack, will easily understand that the
+offer was followed by some very angry words, and that his threat to hunt
+the world over to find my beauty was not without fear to me.
+
+"I heard soon after that Will Lennox had gone to the South. I had
+neither hidden nor talked about my former life and I was ignorant of how
+much he knew or did not know of it. He could trace me easily to New
+Orleans; how much further would depend upon his tact and perseverance.
+Whether he reached Guadalupe or no, I am uncertain, but my heart fell
+with a strange presentment of sorrow when I saw his name, a few weeks
+afterward, among the European departures.
+
+"The next thing I knew of Will Lennox was his marriage to some famous
+Scotch beauty. Jack, do you not perceive the rest? The Scotch beauty was
+Jessy Lorimer. I feared it at the first. I knew it this afternoon."
+
+"Will you call there?"
+
+"I have no power to resist it. Did you not notice how eagerly she
+pressed the invitation?"
+
+"Do not accept it, Petralto."
+
+He shook his head, and remained silent. The next afternoon I was
+astonished on going up to his rooms to find Will Lennox, sitting there.
+He was talking in that loud, happy, demonstrative way so natural to men
+accustomed to have the whole world minister unto them.
+
+He did not see how nervous and angry Petralto was under his easy,
+boastful conversation. He did not notice the ashy face, the blazing
+eyes, the set lips, the trembling hands, of the passionate Spanish
+nature, until Petralto blazed out in a torrent of unreasonable words and
+taunts, and ordered Lennox out of his presence.
+
+Even then the stupid, good-natured, purse-proud man could not see his
+danger. He began to apologize to me for Petralto's rudeness, and excuse
+"anything in a fellow whom he had cut out so badly."
+
+"Liar!" Petralto retorted. "She loved me first; you can never have her
+whole heart. Begone! If I had you on the Guadalupe, where Jessy and I
+lived and loved, I would--"
+
+The sentence was not finished. Lennox struck Petralto to the ground,
+and before I raised him, I persuaded the angry bridegroom to retire. I
+stayed with Petralto that night, although I was not altogether pleased
+with him. He was sulky and silent at first, but after a quiet rest and a
+few consoling Havanas he was willing to talk the affair over.
+
+"Lennox tortured me," he said, passionately. "How could he be so
+unfeeling, so mad, as to suppose I should care to learn what chain of
+circumstances led him to find out my love and then steal her? Everything
+he said tortured me but one fact--Jessy was alone and thoroughly
+miserable. Poor little pet! She thought I had forgotten her, and so she
+married him--not for love; I won't believe it."
+
+"But," I said, "Petralto, you have no right to hug such a delusion; and
+seeing that you had made no attempt to follow Jessy and marry her, she
+had every right to suppose you really had forgotten her. Besides, I
+think it very likely that she should love a young, rich, good-looking
+fellow like Will Lennox."
+
+"In not pursuing her I was following Jessy's own request and obeying my
+own plighted promise. It was understood between us that I should wait
+patiently until Jessy was twenty-one. Even Scotch customs would then
+have regarded her as her own mistress and acknowledged her right to
+marry as she desired; and if I did not write, she has not wanted
+constant tokens of my remembrance. I have trusted her," he said,
+mournfully, "without a sign from her."
+
+That winter the beauty of Mrs. Lennox and the devotion of her husband
+were on every tongue. But married is not mated, and the best part of
+Jessy Lorimer's beauty had never touched Will Lennox. Her pure, simple,
+poetic temperament he had never understood, and he felt in a dim,
+uncertain way that the noblest part of his wife escaped him.
+
+He could not enter into her feelings, and her spiritual superiority
+unconsciously irritated him. Jessy had set her love's first music to the
+broad, artistic heart of Petralto; she could not, without wronging
+herself, decline to a lower range of feelings and a narrower heart. This
+reserve of herself was not a conscious one. She was not one of those
+self-involved women always studying their own emotions; she was simply
+true to the light within her. But her way was not Will Lennox's way, her
+finer fancies and lighter thoughts were mysteries to his grosser nature.
+
+So the thing happened which always has and always will happen in such
+cases; when the magic and the enchantment of Jessy's great personal
+beauty had lost their first novelty and power, she gradually became to
+her husband--"Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his
+horse."
+
+I did not much blame Will Lennox. It is very hard to love what we do not
+comprehend. A wife who could have sympathized in his pursuits, talked
+over the chances of his "Favorite," or gone to sea with him in his
+yacht, would always have found Will an indulgent and attentive husband.
+But fast horses did not interest Jessy, and going to sea made her ill;
+so gradually these two fell much further apart than they ought to have
+done.
+
+Now, if Petralto had been wicked and Jessy weak, he might have revenged
+himself on the man and woman who had wrought him so much suffering. But
+he had set his love far too high to sully her white name; and Jessy, in
+that serenity which comes of lofty and assured principles, had no idea
+of the possibility of her injuring her husband by a wrong thought. Yet
+instinctively they both sought to keep apart; and if by chance they met,
+the grave courtesy of the one and the sweet dignity of the other left
+nothing for evil hopes or thoughts to feed upon. One morning, two years
+after Jessy's marriage, I received a note from Petralto, asking me to
+call upon him immediately. To my amazement, his rooms were dismantled,
+his effects packed up, and he was on the point of leaving New York.
+
+"Whither bound?" I asked. "To Rome?"
+
+"No; to the Guadalupe. I want to try what nature can do for me. Art,
+society, even friendship, fail at times to comfort me for my lost love.
+I will go back to nature, the great, sweet mother and lover of men."
+
+So Petralto went out of New York; and the world that had known him
+forgot him--forgot even to wonder about, much less to regret, him.
+
+I was no more faithful than others. I fell in with a wonderful German
+philosopher, and got into the "entities" and "non-entities," forgot
+Petralto in Hegel, and felt rather ashamed of the days when I lounged
+and trifled in the artist's pleasant rooms. I was "enamored of divine
+philosophy," took no more interest in polite gossip, and did not waste
+my time reading newspapers. In fact, with Kant and Fichte before me, I
+did not feel that I had the time lawfully to spare.
+
+Therefore, anyone may imagine my astonishment when, about three years
+after Petralto's departure from New York, he one morning suddenly
+entered my study, handsome as Apollo and happy as a bridegroom. I have
+used the word "groom" very happily, for I found out in a few minutes
+that Petralto's radiant condition was, in fact, the condition of a
+bridegroom.
+
+Of course, under the circumstances, I could not avoid feeling
+congratulatory; and my affection for the handsome, loving fellow came
+back so strongly that I resolved to break my late habits of seclusion,
+and go to the Brevoort House and see his bride.
+
+I acknowledge that in this decision there was some curiosity. I wondered
+what rare woman had taken the beautiful Jessy Lorimer's place; and I
+rather enjoyed the prospect of twitting him with his protestations of
+eternal fidelity to his first love.
+
+I did not do it. I had no opportunity. Madame Petralto Garcia was, in
+fact, Jessy Lorimer Lennox. Of course I understood at once that Will
+must be dead; but I did not learn the particulars until the next day,
+when Petralto dropped in for a quiet smoke and chat. Not unwillingly I
+shut my book and lit my cigar.
+
+"'All's well that ends well,' my dear fellow," I said, when we had both
+smoked silently for a few moments; "but I never heard of Will Lennox's
+death. I hope he did not come to the Guadalupe and get shot."
+
+Petralto shook his head and replied: "I was always sorry for that
+threat. Will never meant to injure me. No. He was drowned at sea two
+years ago. His yacht was caught in a storm, he ventured too near the
+shore, and all on board perished."
+
+"I did not hear of it at the time."
+
+"Nor I either. I will tell you how I heard. About a year ago I went, as
+was my frequent custom, to the little open glade in the forest where I
+had first seen Jessy. As I lay dreaming on the warm soft grass I saw a
+beautiful woman, clothed in black, walk slowly toward the very same
+jasmine vine, and standing as of old on tip-toe, pull down a loaded
+branch. Can you guess how my heart beat, how I leaped to my feet and
+cried out before I knew what I was doing, 'Jessy! darling Jessy!' She
+stood quite still, looking toward me. Oh, how beautiful she was! And
+when at length we clasped hands, and I gazed into her eyes, I knew
+without a word that my love had come to me."
+
+"She had waited a whole year?"
+
+"True; I liked her the better for that. After Will's death she went to
+Scotland--put both herself and me out of temptation. She owed this much
+to the memory of a man who had loved her as well as he was capable of
+doing. But I know how happy were the steps that brought her back to the
+Guadalupe, and that warm spring afternoon under the jasmine vine paid
+for all. I am the happiest man in all the wide world."
+
+
+
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diff --git a/old/16222.txt b/old/16222.txt
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+++ b/old/16222.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Winter Evening Tales, by Amelia Edith
+Huddleston Barr
+
+
+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: Winter Evening Tales
+       "Cash," a Problem of Profit and Loss; Franz M�ller's Wife; The Voice at Midnight; Six and Half-a-Dozen; The Story of David Morrison; Tom Duffan's Daughter; The Harvest of the Wind; The Seven Wise Men of Preston; Margaret Sinclair's Silent Money; Just What He Deserved; An Only Offer; Two Fair Deceivers; The Two Mr. Smiths; The Story of Mary Neil; The Heiress of Kurston Chace; Only This Once; Petralto's Love Story
+
+
+Author: Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
+
+
+
+Release Date: July 6, 2005  [eBook #16222]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WINTER EVENING TALES***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Louise Pryor, and the
+Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+(https://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+WINTER EVENING TALES
+
+by
+
+AMELIA E. BARR
+
+Author of "A Bow of Orange Ribbon," "Jan Vedder's Wife,"
+"Friend Olivia," etc., etc.
+
+Published by
+The Christian Herald
+Louis Klopsch, Proprietor,
+Bible House, New York.
+
+1896
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+In these "Winter Evening Tales," Mrs. Barr has spread before her readers
+a feast that will afford the rarest enjoyment for many a leisure hour.
+There are few writers of the present day whose genius has such a
+luminous quality, and the spell of whose fancy carries us along so
+delightfully on its magic current. In these "Tales"--each a perfect gem
+of romance, in an artistic setting--the author has touched many phases
+of human nature. Some of the stories in the collection sparkle with the
+spirit of mirth; others give glimpses of the sadder side of life.
+Throughout all, there are found that broad sympathy and intense humanity
+that characterize every page that comes from her pen. Her men and women
+are creatures of real flesh and blood, not deftly-handled puppets; they
+move, act and speak spontaneously, with the full vigor of life and the
+strong purpose of persons who are participating in a real drama, and not
+a make-believe.
+
+Mrs. Barr has the rare gift of writing from heart to heart. She
+unconsciously infuses into her readers a liberal share of the enthusiasm
+that moves the people of her creative imagination. One cannot read any
+of her books without feeling more than a spectator's interest; we are,
+for the moment, actual sharers in the joys and the sorrows, the
+misfortunes and the triumphs of the men and women to whom she introduces
+us. Our sympathy, our love, our admiration, are kindled by their noble
+and attractive qualities; our mirth is excited by the absurd and
+incongruous aspects of some characters, and our hearts are thrilled by
+the frequent revelation of such goodness and true human feeling as can
+only come from pure and noble souls.
+
+In these "Tales," as in many of her other works, humble life has held a
+strong attraction for Mrs. Barr's pen. Her mind and heart naturally turn
+in this direction; and although her wonderful talent, within its wide
+range, deals with all stations and conditions of life, she has but
+little relish for the gilded artificialities of society, and a strong
+love for those whose condition makes life for them something real and
+earnest and definite of purpose. For this reason, among many others, the
+Christian people of America have a hearty admiration for Mrs. Barr and
+her work, knowing it to be not only of surpassing human interest, but
+spiritually helpful and inspiring, with an influence that makes for
+morality and good living, in the highest sense in which a Christian
+understands the term.
+
+G.H. SANDISON.
+
+_New York, 1896._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+"Cash;" a Problem of Profit and Loss
+Franz Mueller's Wife
+The Voice at Midnight
+Six and Half-a-Dozen
+The Story of David Morrison
+Tom Duffan's Daughter
+The Harvest of the Wind
+The Seven Wise Men of Preston
+Margaret Sinclair's Silent Money
+Just What He Deserved
+An Only Offer
+Two Fair Deceivers
+The Two Mr. Smiths
+The Story of Mary Neil
+The Heiress of Kurston Chace
+Only This Once
+Petralto's Love Story
+
+
+
+
+Winter Evening Tales.
+
+
+
+
+CASH.
+
+A PROBLEM OF PROFIT AND LOSS, WORKED BY DAVID LOCKERBY.
+
+
+PART I.
+
+     "Gold may be dear bought."
+
+A narrow street with dreadful "wynds" and "vennels" running back from it
+was the High street of Glasgow at the time my story opens. And yet,
+though dirty, noisy and overcrowded with sin and suffering, a flavor of
+old time royalty and romance lingered amid its vulgar surroundings; and
+midway of its squalid length a quaint brown frontage kept behind it
+noble halls of learning, and pleasant old courts full of the "air of
+still delightful studies."
+
+From this building came out two young men in academic costume. One of
+them set his face dourly against the clammy fog and drizzling rain,
+breathing it boldly, as if it was the balmiest oxygen; the other,
+shuddering, drew his scarlet toga around him and said, mournfully,
+"Ech, Davie, the High street is an ill furlong on the de'il's road! I
+never tread it, but I think o' the weary, weary miles atween it and
+Eden."
+
+"There is no road without its bad league, Willie, and the High street
+has its compensations; its prison for ill-doers, its learned college,
+and its holy High Kirk. I am one of St. Mungo's bairns, and I'm not
+above preaching for my saint."
+
+"And St. Mungo will be proud of your birthday yet, Davie. With such a
+head and such a tongue, with knowledge behind, and wit to the fore,
+there is a broad road and an open door for David Lockerby. You may come
+even to be the Lord Rector o' Glasgow College yet."
+
+"Wisdom is praised and starves; I am thinking it would set me better to
+be Lord Provost of Glasgow city."
+
+"The man who buried his one talent did not go scatheless, Davie; and
+what now if he had had ten?"
+
+"You are aye preaching, Willie, and whiles it is very untimeous. Are you
+going to Mary Moir's to-night?"
+
+"Why should I? The only victory over love is through running away."
+
+David looked sharply at his companion but as they were at the Trongate
+there was no time for further remark. Willie Caird turned eastward
+toward Glasgow Green, David hailed a passing omnibus and was soon set
+down before a handsome house on the Sauchiehall Road. He went in by the
+back door, winning from old Janet, in spite of herself, the grimmest
+shadow of a smile.
+
+"Are my father and mother at home, Janet?"
+
+"Deed are they, the mair by token that they hae been quarreling anent
+you till the peacefu' folks like mysel' could hae wished them mair
+sense, or further away."
+
+"Why should they quarrel about me?"
+
+"Why, indeed, since they'll no win past your ain makin' or marring? But
+the mistress is some kin to Zebedee's wife, I'm thinking, and she wad
+fain set you up in a pu'pit and gie you the keys o' St. Peter; while
+maister is for haeing you it a bank or twa in your pouch, and add
+Ellenmount to Lockerby, and--"
+
+"And if I could, Janet?"
+
+"Tut, tut, lad! If it werna for 'if' you might put auld Scotland in a
+bottle."
+
+"But what was the upshot, Janet?"
+
+"I canna tell. God alone understan's quarreling folk."
+
+Then David went upstairs to his own room, and when he came down again
+his face was set as dourly against the coming interview as it had been
+against the mist and rain. The point at issue was quite familiar to
+him; his mother wished him to continue his studies and prepare for the
+ministry. In her opinion the greatest of all men were the servants of
+the King, and a part of the spiritual power and social influence which
+they enjoyed in St. Mungo's ancient city she earnestly coveted for her
+son. "Didn't the Bailies and the Lord Provost wait for them? And were
+not even the landed gentry and nobles obligated to walk behind a
+minister in his gown and bands?"
+
+Old Andrew Lockerby thought the honor good enough, but money was better.
+All the twenty years that his wife had been dreaming of David ruling his
+flock from the very throne of a pulpit, Andrew had been dreaming of him
+becoming a great merchant or banker, and winning back the fair lands of
+Ellenmount, once the patrimonial estate of the house of Lockerby. During
+these twenty years both husband and wife had clung tenaciously to their
+several intentions.
+
+Now David's teachers--without any knowledge of these diverse
+influences--had urged on him the duty of cultivating the unusual talents
+confided to him, and of consecrating them to some noble service of God
+and humanity. But David was ruled by many opposite feelings, and had
+with all his book-learning the very smallest intimate acquaintance with
+himself. He knew neither his strong points nor his weak ones, and had
+not even a suspicion of the mighty potency of that mysterious love for
+gold which really was the ruling passion in his breast.
+
+The argument so long pending he knew was now to be finally settled, and
+he was by no means unprepared for the discussion. He came slowly down
+stairs, counting the points he wished to make on his fingers, and quite
+resolved neither to be coaxed nor bullied out of his own individual
+opinion. He was a handsome, stalwart fellow, as Scotchmen of
+two-and-twenty go, for it takes about thirty-five years to fill up and
+perfect the massive frames of "the men of old Gaul." About his
+thirty-fifth year David would doubtless be a man of noble presence; but
+even now there was a sense of youth and power about him that was very
+attractive, as with a grave smile he lifted a book, and comfortably
+disposed himself in an easy chair by the window. For David knew better
+than begin the conversation; any advantages the defendant might have he
+determined to retain.
+
+After a few minutes' silence his father said, "What are you reading,
+Davie? It ought to be a guid book that puts guid company in the
+background."
+
+David leisurely turned to the title page. "'Selections from the Latin
+Poets,' father."
+
+"A fool is never a great fool until he kens Latin. Adam Smith or some
+book o' commercial economics wad set ye better, Davie."
+
+"Adam Smith is good company for them that are going his way, father: but
+there is no way a man may take and not find the humanities good
+road-fellows."
+
+"Dinna beat around the bush, guidman; tell Davie at once that you want
+him to go 'prentice to Mammon. He kens well enough whether he can serve
+him or no."
+
+"I want Davie to go 'prentice to your ain brither, guid wife--it's nane
+o' my doing if you ca' your ain kin ill names--and, Davie, your uncle
+maks you a fair offer, an' you'll just be a born fool to refuse it."
+
+"What is it, father?"
+
+"Twa years you are to serve him for L200 a year; and at the end, if both
+are satisfied, he will gie you sich a share in the business as I can buy
+you--and, Davie, I'se no be scrimping for such an end. It's the auldest
+bank in Soho, an' there's nane atween you and the head o' it. Dinna
+fling awa' good fortune--dinna do it, Davie, my dear lad. I hae look it
+to you for twenty years to finish what I hae begun--for twenty years I
+hae been telling mysel' 'my Davie will win again the bonnie braes o'
+Ellenmount.'"
+
+There were tears in old Andrew's eyes, and David's heart thrilled and
+warmed to the old man's words; in that one flash of sympathy they came
+nearer to each other than they had ever done before.
+
+And then spoke his mother: "Davie, my son, you'll no listen to ony sich
+temptation. My brither is my brither, and there are few folk o' the
+Gordon line a'thegither wrang, but Alexander Gordon is a dour man, and I
+trow weel you'll serve hard for ony share in his money bags. You'll just
+gang your ways back to college and tak' up your Greek and Hebrew and
+serve in the Lord's temple instead of Alexander Gordon's Soho Bank; and,
+Davie, if you'll do right in this matter you'll win my blessing and
+every plack and bawbee o' my money." Then, seeing no change in David's
+face, she made her last, great concession--"And, Davie, you may marry
+Mary Moir, an' it please you, and I'll like the lassie as weel as may
+be."
+
+"Your mither, like a' women, has sought you wi' a bribe in her hand,
+Davie. You ken whether she has bid your price or not. When you hae
+served your twa years I'se buy you a L20,000 share in the Gordon Bank,
+and a man wi' L20,000 can pick and choose the wife he likes best. But
+I'm aboon bribing you--a fair offer isna a bribe."
+
+The concession as to Mary Moir was the one which Davie had resolved to
+make his turning point, and now both father and mother had virtually
+granted it. He had told himself that no lot in life would be worth
+having without Mary, and that with her any lot would be happy. Now that
+he had been left free in this matter he knew his own mind as little as
+ever.
+
+"The first step binds to the next," he answered, thoughtfully. "Mary may
+have something to say. Night brings counsel. I will e'en think over
+things until the morn."
+
+A little later he was talking both offers over with Mary Moir, and
+though it took four hours to discuss them they did not find the subject
+tedious. It was very late when he returned home, but he knew by the
+light in the house-place that Janet was waiting up for him. Coming out
+of the wet, dark night, it was pleasant to see the blazing ingle, the
+white-sanded floor, and the little round table holding some cold
+moor-cock and the pastry that he particularly liked.
+
+"Love is but cauldrife cheer, my lad," said Janet, "an' the breast o' a
+bird an' a raspberry tartlet will be nane out o' the way." David was of
+the same opinion. He was very willing to enjoy Janet's good things and
+the pleasant light and warmth. Besides, Janet was his oldest confidant
+and friend--a friend that had never failed him in any of his boyish
+troubles or youthful scrapes.
+
+It gave her pleasure enough for a while to watch him eat, but when he
+pushed aside the bird and stretched out his hand for the raspberry
+dainties, she said, "Now talk a bit, my lad. If others hae wared money
+on you, I hae wared love, an' I want to ken whether you are going to
+college, or whether you are going to Lunnon amang the proud, fause
+Englishers?"
+
+"I am going to London, Janet."
+
+"Whatna for?"
+
+"I am not sure that I have any call to be a minister, Janet--it is a
+solemn charge."
+
+"Then why not ask for a sure call? There is nae key to God's council
+chamber that I ken of."
+
+"Mary wants me to go to London."
+
+"Ech, sirs! Sets Deacon Moir's dochter to send a lad a wrang road. I
+wouldna hae thocht wi' her bringing up she could hae swithered for a
+moment--but it's the auld, auld story; where the deil canna go by
+himsel' he sends a woman. And David Lockerby will tyne his inheritance
+for a pair o' blue e'en and a handfu' o' gowden curls. Waly! waly! but
+the children o' Esau live for ever."
+
+"Mary said,"--
+
+"I dinna want to hear what Mary said. It would hae been nae loss if
+she'd ne'er spoken on the matter; but if you think makin' money, an'
+hoarding money is the measure o' your capacity you ken yousel', sir,
+dootless. Howsomever you'll go to your ain room now; I'm no going to
+keep my auld e'en waking just for a common business body."
+
+Thus in spite of his father's support, David did not find his road to
+London as fair and straight as he could have wished. Janet was deeply
+offended at him, and she made him feel it in a score of little ways very
+annoying to a man fond of creature comforts and human sympathy. His
+mother went about the necessary preparations in a tearful mood that was
+a constant reproach, and his friend Willie did not scruple to tell him
+that "he was clean out o' the way o' duty."
+
+"God has given you a measure o' St. Paul's power o' argument, Davie, and
+the verra tongue o' Apollos--weapons wherewith to reason against all
+unrighteousness and to win the souls o' men."
+
+"Special pleading, Willie."
+
+"Not at all. Every man's life bears its inscription if he will take the
+trouble to read it. There was James Grahame, born, as you may say, wi' a
+sword in his hand, and Bauldy Strang wi' a spade, and Andrew Semple took
+to the balances and the 'rithmetic as a duck takes to the water. Do you
+not mind the day you spoke anent the African missions to the young men
+in St. Andrews' Ha'? Your words flew like arrows--every ane o' them to
+its mark; and your heart burned and your e'en glowed, till we were a' on
+fire with you, and there wasna a lad there that wouldna hae followed you
+to the vera Equator. I wouldna dare to bury such a power for good,
+Davie, no, not though I buried it fathoms deep in gold."
+
+From such interviews as these Davie went home very miserable. If it had
+not been for Mary Moir he would certainly have gone back to his old seat
+by Willie Caird in the Theological Hall. But Mary had such splendid
+dreams of their life in London, and she looked in her hope and beauty so
+bewitching, that he could not bear to hint a disappointment to her.
+Besides, he doubted whether she was really fit for a minister's wife,
+even if he should take up the cross laid down before him--and as for
+giving up Mary, he would not admit to himself that there could be a
+possible duty in such a contingency.
+
+But that even his father had doubts and hesitations was proven to David
+by the contradictory nature of his advice and charges. Thus on the
+morning he left Glasgow, and as they were riding together to the
+Caledonian station, the old man said, "Your uncle has given you a seat
+in his bank, Davie, and you'll mak' room for yoursel' to lie down, I'se
+warrant. But you'll no forget that when a guid man thrives a' should
+thrive i' him; and giving for God's sake never lessens the purse."
+
+"I am but one in a world full, father. I hope I shall never forget to
+give according to my prosperings."
+
+"Tak the world as it is, my lad, and no' as it ought to be; and never
+forget that money is money's brither--an' you put two pennies in a purse
+they'll creep thegither.
+
+"But then Davie, I am free to say gold won't buy everything, and though
+rich men hae long hands, they won't reach to heaven. So, though you'll
+tak guid care o' yoursel', you will also gie to God the things that are
+God's."
+
+"I have been brought up in the fear of God and the love of mankind,
+father. It would be an ill thing for me to slink out of life and leave
+the world no better for my living."
+
+"God bless you, lad; and the L20,000 will be to the fore when it is
+called for, and you shall make it L60,000, and I'll see again Ellenmount
+in the Lockerby's keeping. But you'll walk in the ways o' your fathers,
+and gie without grudging of your increase."
+
+David nodded rather impatiently. He could hardly understand the
+struggle going on in his father's heart--the wish to say something that
+might quiet his own conscience, and yet not make David's unnecessarily
+tender. It is hard serving God and Mammon, and Andrew Lockerby was
+miserable and ashamed that morning in the service.
+
+And yet he was not selfish in the matter--that much in his favor must be
+admitted. He would rather have had the fine, handsome lad he loved so
+dearly going in and out his own house. He could have taken great
+interest in all his further studies, and very great pride in seeing him
+a successful "placed minister;" but there are few Scotsmen in whom pride
+of lineage and the good of the family does not strike deeper than
+individual pleasure. Andrew really believed that David's first duty was
+to the house of Lockerby.
+
+He had sacrificed a great deal toward this end all his own life, nor
+were his sacrifices complete with the resignation of his only child to
+the same purpose. To a man of more than sixty years of age it is a great
+trial to have an unusual and unhappy atmosphere in his home; and though
+Mrs. Lockerby was now tearful and patient under her disappointment,
+everyone knows that tears and patience may be a miserable kind of
+comfort. Then, though Janet had as yet preserved a dour and angry
+silence, he knew that sooner or later she would begin a guerilla warfare
+of sharp words, which he feared he would have mainly to bear, for Janet,
+though his housekeeper, was also "a far-awa cousin," had been forty
+years in his house, and was not accustomed to withhold her opinions on
+any subject.
+
+Fortunately for Andrew Lockerby, Janet finally selected Mary Moir as the
+Eve specially to blame in this transgression. "A proud up-head lassie,"
+she asserted, "that cam o' a family wha would sell their share o' the
+sunshine for pounds sterling!"
+
+From such texts as this the two women in the Lockerby house preached
+little daily sermons to each other, until comfort grew out of the very
+stem of their sorrow, and they began to congratulate each other that
+"puir Davie was at ony rate outside the glamour o' Mary Moir's
+temptations."
+
+"For she just bewitched the laddie," said Janet, angrily; and,
+doubtless, if the old laws regarding witches had been in Janet's
+administration it would have gone hardly with pretty Mary Moir.
+
+
+PART II.
+
+"God's work is soon done."
+
+It is a weary day when the youth first discovers that after all he will
+only become a man; and this discovery came with a depressing weight one
+morning to David, after he had been counting bank notes for three hours.
+It was noon, but the gas was lit, and in the heavy air a dozen men sat
+silent as statues, adding up figures and making entries. He thought of
+the college courts, and the college green, of the crowded halls, and the
+symposia, where both mind and body had equal refection. There had been
+days when he had a part in these things, and when to "strive with things
+impossible," or "to pluck honor from the pale-faced moon," had not been
+unreasonable or rash; but now it almost seemed as if Mr. Buckle's dreary
+gospel was a reality, and men were machines, and life was an affair to
+be tabulated in averages.
+
+He had just had a letter from Willie Caird, too, and it had irritated
+him. The wounds of a friend may be faithful, but they are not always
+welcome. David determined to drop the correspondence. Willie was going
+one way and he another. They might never see each other again; and--
+
+          If they should meet one day,
+          If _both_ should not forget
+    They could clasp hands the accustomed way.
+
+For by simply going with the current in which in great measure, subject
+yet to early influences, he found himself, David Lockerby had drifted in
+one twelve months far enough away from the traditions and feelings of
+his home and native land. Not that he had broken loose into any flagrant
+sin, or in any manner cast a shadow on the perfect respectability of his
+name. The set in which Alexander Gordon and his nephew lived sanctioned
+nothing of the kind. They belonged to the best society, and were of
+those well-dressed, well-behaved people whom Canon Kingsley described as
+"the sitters in pews."
+
+In their very proper company David had gone to ball and party, to opera
+and theatre. On wet Sundays they sat together in St. George's Church; on
+fine Sundays they had sailed quietly down the Thames, and eaten their
+dinner at Richmond. Now, sin is sin beyond all controversy, but there
+were none of David's companions to whom these things were sins in the
+same degree as they were to David.
+
+To none of them had the holy Sabbath ever been the day it had been to
+him; to none of them was it so richly freighted with memories of
+wonderful sermons and solemn sacraments that were foretastes of heaven.
+Coming with a party of gentlemanly fellows slowly rowing up the Thames
+and humming some passionate recitative from an opera, he alone could
+recall the charmful stillness of a Scotch Sabbath, the worshiping
+crowds, and the evening psalm ascending from so many thousand
+hearthstones:
+
+    O God of Bethel, by whose hand
+      Thy people still are led.
+
+He alone, as the oars kept time to "aria" or "chorus," heard above the
+witching melody the solemn minor of "St. Mary's," or the tearful
+tenderness of "Communion."
+
+To most of his companions opera and theatre had come as a matter of
+course, as a part of their daily life and education. David had been
+obliged to stifle conscience, to disobey his father's counsels and his
+mother's pleadings, before he could enjoy them. He had had, in fact, to
+cultivate a taste for the sin before the sin was pleasant to him; and he
+frankly told himself that night, in thinking it all over, that it was
+harder work getting to hell than to heaven.
+
+But then in another year he would become a partner, marry Mary, and
+begin a new life. Suddenly it struck him with a new force that he had
+not heard from Mary for nearly three weeks. A fear seized him that
+while he had been dancing and making merry Mary had been ill and
+suffering. He was amazed at his own heartlessness, for surely nothing
+but sickness would have made Mary forget him.
+
+The next morning as he went to the bank he posted a long letter to her,
+full of affection and contrition and rose-colored pictures of their
+future life. He had risen an hour earlier to write it, and he did not
+fail to notice what a healthy natural pleasure even this small effort of
+self-denial gave him. He determined that he would that very night write
+long letters to his mother and Janet, and even to his father. "There was
+a good deal he wanted to say to him about money matters, and his
+marriage, and fore-talk always saved after-talk, besides it would keep
+the influence of the old and better life around him to be in closer
+communion with it."
+
+Thus thinking, he opened the door of his uncle's private room, and said
+cheerily, "Good morning, uncle."
+
+"Good morning, Davie. Your father is here."
+
+Then Andrew Lockerby came forward, and his son met him with outstretched
+hands and paling cheeks. "What is it, father? Mother? Mary? Is she
+dead?"
+
+"'Deed, no, my lad. There's naething wrang but will turn to right. Mary
+Moir was married three days syne, and I thocht you wad rather hear the
+news from are that loved you. That's a', Davie; and indeed it's a loss
+that's a great gain."
+
+"Who did she marry?"
+
+"Just a bit wizened body frae the East Indies, a'most as yellow as his
+gold, an' as auld as her father. But the Deacon is greatly set up wi'
+the match--or the settlements--and Mary comes o' a gripping kind.
+There's her brother Gavin, he'd sell the ears aff his head, an' they
+werena fastened on."
+
+Then David went away with his father, and after half-an-hour's talk on
+the subject together it was never mentioned more between them. But it
+was a blow that killed effectually all David's eager yearnings for a
+loftier and purer life. And it not only did this, but it also caused to
+spring up into active existence a passion which was to rule him
+absolutely--a passion for gold. Love had failed him, friendship had
+proved an annoyance, company, music, feasting, amusements of all kinds
+were a weariness now to think of. There seemed nothing better for him
+than to become a rich man.
+
+"I'll buy so many acres of old Scotland and call them by the Lockerby's
+name; and I'll have nobles and great men come bowing and becking to
+David Lockerby as they do to Alexander Gordon. Love is refused, and
+wisdom is scorned, but everybody is glad to take money; then money is
+best of all things."
+
+Thus David reasoned, and his father said nothing against his arguments.
+Indeed, they had never understood one another so well. David, for the
+first time, asked all about the lands of Ellenmount, and pledged
+himself, if he lived and prospered, to fulfill his father's hope.
+Indeed, Andrew was altogether so pleased with his son that he told his
+brother-in-law that the L20,000 would be forthcoming as soon as ever he
+choose to advance David in the firm.
+
+"I was only waiting, Lockerby, till Davie got through wi' his playtime.
+The lad's myself o'er again, an' I ken weel he'll ne'er be contented
+until he settles cannily doon to his interest tables."
+
+So before Andrew Lockerby went back to Glasgow David was one of the firm
+of Gordon & Co., sat in the directors' room, and began to feel some of
+the pleasant power of having money to lend. After this he was rarely
+seen among men of his own age--women he never mingled with. He removed
+to his uncle's stately house in Baker street, and assimilated his life
+very much to that of the older money maker. Occasionally he took a run
+northward to Glasgow, or a month's vacation on the Continent, but
+nearly all such journeys were associated with some profitable loan or
+investment. People began to speak of him as a most admirable young man,
+and indeed in some respects he merited the praise. No son ever more
+affectionately honored his father and mother, and Janet had been made an
+independent woman by his grateful consideration.
+
+He was so admirable that he ceased to interest people, and every time he
+visited Glasgow fewer and fewer of his old acquaintances came to see
+him. A little more than ten years after his admission to the firm of
+Gordon & Co. he came home at the new year, and presented his father with
+the title-deeds of Ellenmount and Netherby. The next day old Andrew was
+welcomed on the City Exchange as "Lockerby of Ellenmount, gentleman." "I
+hae lived lang enough to hae seen this day," he said, with happy tears;
+and David felt a joy in his father's joy that he did not know again for
+many years. For while a man works for another there is an ennobling
+element in his labor, but when he works simply for himself he has become
+the greatest of all slaves. This slavery David now willingly assumed;
+the accumulation of money became his business, his pleasure, the sum of
+his daily life.
+
+Ten years later both his uncle and father were dead, and both had left
+David every shilling they possessed. Then he went on working more
+eagerly than ever, turning his tens of thousands into hundreds of
+thousands and adding acre to acre, and farm to farm, until Lockerby was
+the richest estate in Annandale. When he was forty-five years of age
+fortune seemed to have given him every good gift except wife and
+children, and his mother, who had nothing else to fret about, worried
+Janet continually on this subject.
+
+"Wife an' bairns, indeed!" said Janet; "vera uncertain comforts, ma'am,
+an' vera certain cares. Our Master Davie likes aye to be sure o' his
+bargains."
+
+"Weel, Janet, it's a great cross to me--an' him sae honored, an' guid
+an' rich, wi' no a shilling ill-saved to shame him."
+
+"Tut, tut, ma'am! The river doesna' swell wi' clean water. Naebody's
+charged him wi' wrangdoing--that's enough. There's nae need to set him
+up for a saint."
+
+"An' you wanted him to be a minister, Janet."
+
+"I was that blind--ance."
+
+"We are blind creatures, Janet."
+
+"Wi' _excepts_, ma'am; but they'll ne'er be found amang mithers."
+
+This conversation took place one lovely Sabbath evening, and just at the
+same time David was standing thoughtfully on Princes street, Edinburgh,
+wondering to which church he had better turn his steps. For a sudden
+crisis in the affairs of a bank in that city had brought him hurriedly
+to Scotland, and he was not only a prudent man who considered public
+opinion, but was also in a mood to conciliate that opinion so long as
+the outward conditions were favorable. Whatever he might do in London,
+in Scotland he always went to morning and evening service.
+
+He was also one of those self-dependent men who dislike to ask questions
+or advice from anyone. Though a comparative stranger he would not have
+allowed himself to think that anyone could direct him better than he
+could choose for himself. He looked up and down the street, and finally
+followed a company which increased continually until they entered an old
+church in the Canongate.
+
+Its plain wooden pews and old-fashioned elevated pulpit rather pleased
+than offended David, and the air of antiquity about the place
+consecrated it in his eyes. Men like whatever reminds them of their
+purest and best days, and David had been once in the old Relief Church
+on the Doo Hill in Glasgow--just such a large, bare, solemn-looking
+house of worship. The still, earnest men and women, the droning of the
+precentor, the antiquated singing pleased and soothed him. He did not
+notice much the thin little fair man who conducted the services; for he
+was holding a session with his own soul.
+
+A peculiar movement among the congregation announced that the sermon was
+beginning, and David, looking up, saw that the officiating minister had
+been changed. This man was swarthy and tall, and looked like some old
+Jewish prophet, as he lifted his rapt face and cried, like one crying in
+the wilderness, "Friends! I have a question to ask you to-night: '_What
+shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own
+soul_?'"
+
+For twenty-three years David had silenced that voice, but it had found
+him out again--it was Willie Caird's. At first interested and curious,
+David soon became profoundly moved as Willie, in clear, solemn,
+thrilling sentences, reasoned of life and death and judgment to come.
+Not that he followed his arguments, or was more than dimly conscious of
+the moving eloquence that stirred the crowd as a mighty wind stirs the
+trees in the forest: for that dreadful question smote, and smote, and
+smote upon his heart as if determined to have an answer.
+
+_What shall it profit? What shall it profit? What shall it profit_?
+David was quick enough at counting material loss and profit, but here
+was a question beyond his computation. He went silently out of the
+church, and wandered away by Holyrood Palace and St. Anthony's Chapel to
+the pathless, lonely beauty of Salisbury Crags. There was no answer in
+nature for him. The stars were silent above, the earth silent beneath.
+Weariness brought him no rest; if he slept, he woke with the start of a
+hunted soul, and found him asking that same dreadful question. When he
+looked in the mirror his own face queried of him, "What profit?" and he
+was compelled to make a decided effort to prevent his tongue uttering
+the ever present thought.
+
+But at noon he would meet the defaulting bank committee, "and doubtless
+his lawful business would take its proper share of his thought!" He told
+himself that it was the voice and face of his old friend that had
+affected him so vividly, and that if he went and chatted over old times
+with Willie, he would get rid of the disagreeable influence.
+
+The influence, however, went with him into the creditors' committee
+room. The embarrassed officials had dreaded greatly the interview. No
+one hoped for more than bare justice from David Lockerby. "Clemency,
+help, sympathy! You'll get blood out o' a stane first, gentlemen," said
+the old cashier, with a dour, hopeless face.
+
+And yet that morning David Lockerby amazed no one so much as himself.
+He went to the meeting quite determined to have his own--only his
+own--but something asked him, "_What shall it profit_?" and he gave up
+his lawful increase and even offered help. He went determined to speak
+his mind very plainly about mismanagement and the folly of having
+losses; and something asked him, "_What shall it profit_?" and he gave
+such sympathy with his help that the money came with a blessing in its
+hand.
+
+The feeling of satisfaction was so new to him that it embarrassed and
+almost made him ashamed. He slipped ungraciously away from the thanks
+that ought to have been pleasant, and found himself, almost
+unconsciously, looking up Willie's name in the clerical directory, "Dr.
+William Caird, 22 Moray place." David knew enough of Edinburgh to know
+that Moray place contained the handsomest residences in the city, and
+therefore he was not astonished at the richness and splendor of Willie's
+library; but he was astonished to see him surrounded by five beautiful
+boys and girls, and evidently as much interested in their lessons and
+sports as if he was one of them.
+
+"Ech! Davie man! but I'm glad to see you!" That was all of Willie's
+greeting, but his eyes filled, and as the friends held each other's
+hands Davie came very near touching for a moment a David Lockerby no one
+had seen for many long years. But he said nothing during his visit of
+Willie's sermon, nor indeed in several subsequent ones. Scotsmen are
+reticent on all matters, and especially reticent about spiritual
+experience; and though Davie lingered in Edinburgh a week, he was
+neither able to speak to Willie about his soul, nor yet in all their
+conversations get rid of that haunting, uncomfortable influence Willie
+had raised.
+
+But as they stood before the Queen's Hotel at midnight bidding each
+other an affectionate farewell, David suddenly turned Willie round and
+opened up his whole heart to him. And as he talked he found himself able
+to define what had been only hitherto a vague, restless sense of want.
+
+"I am the poorest rich man and the most miserable failure, Willie Caird,
+that ever you asked yon fearsome question of--and I know it. I have
+achieved millions, and I am a conscious bankrupt to my own soul. I have
+wasted my youth, neglected my talents and opportunities, and whatever
+the world may call me I am a wretched breakdown. I have made
+money--plenty of it--and it does not pay me. What am I to do?"
+
+"You ken, Davie, my dear, dear lad, what advice the Lord Jesus gave to
+the rich man--'distribute unto the poor--and come, follow me!'"
+
+Then up and down Princes street, and away under the shadow of the Castle
+Hill, Willie and David walked and talked, till the first sunbeams
+touched St. Leonard's Crags. If it was a long walk a grand work was laid
+out in it.
+
+"You shall be more blessed than your namesake," said Willie, "for though
+David gathered the gold, and the wood, and the stone, Solomon builded
+therewith. Now, an' it please God, you shall do your ain work, and see
+the topstone brought on with rejoicing."
+
+Then at David's command, workmen gathered in companies, and some of the
+worst "vennels" in old Glasgow were torn down; and the sunshine flooded
+"wynds" it had scarcely touched for centuries, and a noble building
+arose that was to be a home for children that had no home. And the farms
+of Ellenmount fed them, and the fleeces of Lockerby clothed them, and
+into every young hand was put a trade that would win it honest bread.
+
+In a short time even this undertaking began to be too small for David's
+energies and resources, and he joined hands with Willie in many other
+good works, and gave not only freely of his gold, but also of his time
+and labor. The old eloquence that stirred his classmates in St. Andrew's
+Hall, "till they would have followed him to the equator" began to stir
+the cautious Glasgow traders to the bottom of their hearts, and their
+pocketbooks; and men who didn't want to help in a crusade against
+drunkenness, or in a crusade for the spread of the Gospel, stopped away
+from Glasgow City Hall when David Lockerby filled the chair at a public
+meeting and started a subscription list with L1000 down on the table.
+
+But there were two old ladies that never stopped away, though one of
+them always declared "Master Davie had fleeched her last bawbee out o'
+her pouch;" and the other generally had her little whimper about Davie
+"waring his substance upon ither folks' bairns."
+
+"There's bonnie Bessie Lament, Janet; an' he would marry her we might
+live to see his ain sons and daughters in the old house."
+
+"'Deed, then, ma'am, our Davie has gotten him a name better than that o'
+sons an' dochters; and though I am sair disappointed in him--"
+
+"You shouldn't say that, Janet; he made a gran' speech the day."
+
+"A speech isna' a sermon, ma'am; though I'll ne'er belittle a speech wi'
+a L1000 argument."
+
+"And there was Deacon Moir, Janet, who didna approve o' the scheme, and
+who would therefore gie nothing at a'."
+
+"The Deacon is sae godly that God doesna get a chance to improve his
+condition, ma'am. But for a' o' Deacon Moir's disapproval I'se count on
+the good work going on."
+
+"'Deed yes, Janet, and though our Davie should ne'er marry at a'--"
+
+"There'll be generations o' lads an' lasses, ma'am, that will rise up in
+auld Scotland an' go up an' down through a' the warld a' ca' David
+Lockerby 'blessed.'"
+
+
+
+
+FRANZ MUeLLER'S WIFE.
+
+
+"Franz, good morning. Whose philosophy is it now? Hegel, Spinosa, Kant
+or Dugald Stewart?"
+
+"None of them. I am reading _Faust_."
+
+"Worse and worse. Better wrestle with philosophies than lose yourself in
+the clouds. At any rate, if the poets are to send the philosophers to
+the right about, stick to Shakespeare."
+
+"He is too material. He can't get rid of men and women."
+
+"They are a little better, I should think, than Mephisto. Come, Franz,
+condescend to cravats and kid gloves, and let us go and see my cousin
+Christine Stromberg."
+
+"I do not know the young lady."
+
+"Of course not. She has just returned from a Munich school. Her brother
+Max was at the Lyndons' great party, you remember?"
+
+"I don't remember, Louis. In white cravats and black coats all men look
+alike."
+
+"But you will go?"
+
+"If you wish it, yes. There are some uncut reviews on the table: amuse
+yourself while I dress."
+
+"Thanks, I have my cigar case. I will take a smoke and think of
+Christine."
+
+For some reason quite beyond analysis, Franz did not like this speech.
+He had never seen Christine Stromberg, but yet he half resented the
+careless use of her name. It fell upon some soul consciousness like a
+familiar and personal name, and yet he vainly recalled every phase of
+his life for any clew to this familiarity.
+
+He was a handsome fellow, with large, clearly-cut features and gray,
+thoughtful eyes. In a conversation that interested him his face lighted
+up with a singularly beautiful animation, but usually it was as still
+and passionless as if the soul was away on a dream or a visit. Even the
+regulation cravat and coat could not destroy his individuality, and
+Louis looked admiringly at him, and said, "You are still Franz Mueller.
+No one is just like you. I should think Cousin Christine will fall in
+love with you."
+
+Again Franz's heart resented this speech. It had been waiting for love
+for many a year, but he could not jest or speculate about it. No one but
+the thoughtless, favored Louis ever dared to do it before Franz, and no
+one ever spoke lightly of women before him, for the worst of men are
+sensitive to the presence of a pure and lofty nature, and are generally
+willing to respect it.
+
+Franz dreamed of women, but only of noble women, and even for those who
+fell below his ideal he had a thousand apologies and a world of pity. It
+was strange that such a man should have lived thirty years, and never
+have really loved any mortal woman. But his hour had come at last. As
+soon as he saw Christine Stromberg he loved her. A strange exaltation
+possessed him; his face was radiant; he talked and sung with a
+brilliancy that amazed even those most familiar with his rare
+exhibitions of such moods. And Christine seemed fascinated by his beauty
+and wit. The hours passed like moments; and when the girl stood watching
+him down the moon-lit avenue, she almost trembled to remember what
+questions Franz's eyes had asked her and how strangely familiar the
+clasp of his hand and the sound of his voice had seemed to her.
+
+"I wonder where I have seen him before," she murmured--"I wonder where
+it was?" and to this thought she slowly took off one by one her jewels,
+and brushed out her long black hair; nay, when she fell asleep, it was
+only to take it up again in dreams.
+
+As for Franz, he was in far too ecstatic a mood to think of sleep. "One
+has too few of such godlike moments to steep them in unconsciousness,"
+he said to himself. And so he sat smoking and thinking and watching the
+waning moon sink lower and lower, until it was no longer night, but
+dawning day.
+
+"In a few hours now I can go and see Christine." At this point in his
+love he had no other thought. He was too happy to speculate on any
+probability as yet. It was sufficient at present to know that he had
+found his love, that she lived at a definite number on a definite
+avenue, and that in six or seven hours more he might see her again.
+
+He chose the earlier number. It was just eleven o'clock when he rung Mr.
+Stromberg's bell. Mrs. Stromberg passed through the hall as he entered,
+and greeted him pleasantly. "Christine and I are just going to have
+breakfast," she said, in her jolly, hearty way. "Come in Mr. Mueller, and
+have a cup of coffee with us."
+
+Nothing could have delighted Franz so much. Christine was pouring it out
+as he entered the pretty breakfast parlor. How beautiful she looked in
+her long loose morning dress! How, bewitching were its numerous bows of
+pale ribbon! He had a sense of hunger immediately, and he knew that he
+made an excellent breakfast; but of what he ate or what he drank he had
+not the slightest conception.
+
+A cup of coffee passing through Christine's, hands necessarily suffered
+some wonderful change. It could not, and it did not, taste like
+ordinary coffee. In the same mysterious way chicken, eggs and rolls
+became sublimated. So they ate and laughed and chatted, and I am quite
+sure that Milton never imagined a meal in Eden half so delightful as
+that breakfast on the avenue.
+
+When it was over, it came into Franz's heart to offer Christine a ride.
+They were standing together among the flowers in the bay window, and the
+trees outside were in their first tender green, and the spring skies and
+the spring airs were full of happiness and hope. Christine was arranging
+and watering her lilies and pansies, and somehow in helping her Franz's
+hands and hers had lingered happily together. So now love gave to this
+mortal an immortal's confidence. He never thought of sighing and fearing
+and trembling. His soul had claimed Christine, and he firmly believed
+that sooner or later she would hear and understand what he had to say to
+her.
+
+"Shall we ride?" he said, just touching her fingers, and looking at her
+with eyes and face glowing with a wonderful happiness.
+
+Alas, Christine could think of mamma, and of morning calls and of what
+people would say. But Franz overruled every scruple; he conquered mamma,
+and laughed at society; and before Christine had decided which of her
+costumes was most becoming, Franz was waiting at the door.
+
+How they rattled up the avenue and through the park! How the green
+branches waved in triumph, and how the birds sang and gossiped about
+them! By the time they arrived at Mount St. Vincent they had forgotten
+they were mortal. Then the rest in the shady gallery, and the subsidence
+of love's exaltation into love's silent tender melancholy, were just as
+blissful.
+
+They came slowly home, speaking only in glances and monosyllables, but
+just before they parted Franz said, "I have been waiting thirty years
+for you, Christine; to-day my life has blossomed."
+
+And though Christine did not make any audible answer, he thought her
+blush sufficient; besides, she took the lilies from her throat and gave
+them to him.
+
+Such a dream of love is given only to the few whom the gods favor. Franz
+must have stood high in their grace, for it lasted through many sweet
+weeks and months for him. He followed the Strombergs to Newport, and
+laid his whole life down at Christine's feet. There was no definite
+engagement between them, but every one understood that would come as
+surely as the end of the season.
+
+Money matters and housekeeping must eventually intrude themselves, but
+the romance and charm of this one summer of life should be untouched.
+And Franz was not anxious at all on this score. His father, a shrewd
+business man, had early seen that his son was a poet and a dreamer. "It
+is not the boy's fault," he said to his partner, "he gets it from his
+grandfather, who was always more out of this world than in it."
+
+So he wisely allowed Franz to follow his natural tastes, and contented
+himself with carefully investing his fortune in such real estate and
+securities as he believed would insure a safe, if a slow increase. He
+had bought wisely, and Franz's income was a certain and handsome one,
+with a tendency rather to increase than decrease, and quite sufficient
+to maintain Christine in all the luxury to which she had been
+accustomed.
+
+So when he returned to the city he intended to speak to Mr. Stromberg.
+All he had should be Christine's and her father should settle the matter
+just as he thought best for his daughter. In a general way this was
+understood by all parties, and everyone seemed inclined to sympathize
+with the happy feeling which led the lovers to deprecate during these
+enchanted days any allusion which tended to dispel the exquisite charm
+of their young lives' idyl.
+
+Perhaps it would have been better if they had remembered the ancient
+superstition and themselves done something to mar their perfect
+happiness. Polycrates offered his ring to avert the calamity sure to
+follow unmitigated pleasure or success, and Franz ought, perhaps, to
+have also made an effort to propitiate his envious Fate.
+
+But he did not, and toward the very end of the season, when the October
+days had thrown a kind of still melancholy over the world that had been
+so green and gay, Franz's dream was rudely broken--broken by a Mr. James
+Barker Clarke, a blustering, vulgar man of fifty, worth _three
+millions_. In some way or other he seemed to have a great deal of
+influence over Mr. Stromberg, who paid him unqualified respect, and over
+Mrs. Stromberg, who seemed to fear him.
+
+Mr. Stromberg's "private ledger" alone knew the whole secret; for of
+course money was at the foundation. Indeed, in these days, in all public
+and private troubles, it is proper to ask, not "Who is she?" but "How
+much is it?" Franz Mueller and James Barker Clarke hated each other on
+sight. Still Franz had no idea at first that this ugly, uncouth man
+could ever be a rival to his own handsome person and passionate
+affection.
+
+In a few days, however, he was compelled to actually consider the
+possibility of such a thing. Mr. Stromberg had assumed an attitude of
+such extreme politeness, and Mrs. Stromberg avoided him if possible, and
+if not possible, was constrained and unhappy in the familiar relations
+that she had accepted so happily all summer. As for Christine, she had
+constant headaches, and her eyes were often swollen and red with
+weeping.
+
+At length, without notice, the family left Newport, and went to stay a
+month with some relative near Boston. A pitiful little note from
+Christine informed him of this fact; but as he received no information
+as to the locality of her relative's house, and no invitation to call,
+he was compelled for the present to do as Christine asked him--wait
+patiently for their return.
+
+At first he got a few short tender notes, but they were evidently
+written in such sorrow that he was almost beside himself with grief and
+anger. When these ceased he went to Boston, and without difficulty found
+the house where Christine was staying. He was received at first very
+shyly by Mrs. Stromberg, but when Franz poured out his love and misery,
+the poor old lady wept bitterly, and moaned out that she could not help
+it, and Christine could not help it, and that they were all very
+miserable.
+
+Finally she was persuaded to let him see Christine, "just for five
+minutes." The poor girl came to him, a shadow of her gay self, and,
+weeping in his arms, told him he must bid her good-by forever. The five
+minutes were lengthened into a long, terrible hour, and Franz went back
+to New York with the knowledge that in that hour his life had been
+broken in two for this life.
+
+One night toward the close of November his friend Louis called. "Franz,"
+he said, "have you heard that Christine Stromberg is to marry old
+Clarke?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"No one can trust a woman. It is a shame of Christine."
+
+"Louis, speak of what you know. Christine is an angel. If a woman
+appears to do wrong, there is probably some brute of a man behind her
+forcing her to do it."
+
+"I thought she was to be your wife."
+
+"She is my wife in soul and feeling. No one, thank God, can help that.
+If I was Clarke, I would as willingly marry a corpse as Christine
+Stromberg. Do not speak of her again, Louis. The poor innocent child!
+God bless her!" And he burst into a passion of weeping that alarmed his
+friend for his reason, but which was probably its salvation.
+
+In a week Franz had left for Europe, and the next Christmas, Christine
+and James Barker Clarke were married, and began housekeeping in a style
+of extravagant splendor. People wondered and exclaimed at Christine's
+reckless expenditure, her parents advised, her husband scolded; but
+though she never disputed them, she quietly ignored all their
+suggestions. She went to Paris, and lived like a princess; Rome, Vienna
+and London wondered over her beauty and her splendor; and wherever she
+went Franz followed her quietly, haunting her magnificent salons like a
+wretched spectre.
+
+They rarely or never spoke. Beyond a grave inclination of the head, or a
+look whose profound misery he only understood, she gave him no
+recognition. The world held her name above reproach, and considered that
+she had done very well to herself.
+
+Ten years passed away, but the changes they brought were such as the
+world regards as natural and inevitable. Christine's mother died and her
+father married again; and Christine had a son and a daughter. Franz
+watched anxiously to see if this new love would break up the icy
+coldness of her manners. Sometimes he was conscious of feeling angrily
+jealous of the children, but he always crushed down the wretched
+passion. "If Christine loved a flower, would I not love it also?" he
+asked himself; "and these little ones, what have they done?" So at last
+he got to separate them entirely from every one but Christine, and to
+regard them as part and portion of his love.
+
+But at the end of ten years a change came, neither natural nor expected.
+Franz was walking moodily about his library one night, when Louis came
+to tell him of it, Louis was no longer young, and was married now, for
+he had found out that the beaten track is the safest.
+
+"Franz," he said, "have you heard about Clarke? His affairs are
+frightfully wrong, and he shot himself an hour ago."
+
+"And Christine? Does she know? Who has gone to her?"
+
+"My wife is with her. Clarke shot himself in his own room. Christine was
+the first to reach him. He left a letter saying he was absolutely
+ruined."
+
+"Where will Christine and the children go?"
+
+"I suppose to her father's. Not a pleasant place for her now.
+Christine's step-mother dislikes both her and the children."
+
+Franz said no more, and Louis went away with a feeling of
+disappointment. "I thought he would have done something for her," he
+said to his wife. "Poor Christine will be very poor and dependent."
+
+Ten days after he came home with a different story. "There never was a
+woman as lucky about money as Cousin Christine," he said. "Hardy & Hall
+sent her notice to-day that the property at Ryebeach settled on her
+before her marriage by Mr. Clarke was now at her disposal. It seems the
+old gentleman anticipated the result of his wild speculations, and in
+order to provide for his wife, quietly bought and placed in Hardy's
+charge two beautifully furnished cottages. There is something like an
+accumulation of sixteen thousand dollars of rentage; and as one is
+luckily empty, Christine and the children are going there at once. I
+always thought the property was Hardy's own before. Very thoughtful in
+Clarke."
+
+"It is not Clarke one bit. I don't believe he ever did it. It is some
+arrangement of Franz Mueller's."
+
+"For goodness' sake don't hint such a thing, Lizzie! Christine would not
+go, and we should have her here very soon. Besides, I don't believe it.
+Franz took the news very coolly, and he has kept out of my way since."
+
+The next day Louis was more than ever of his wife's opinion. "What do
+you think, Lizzie?" he said. "Franz came to me to-day and asked if
+Clarke did not once loan me two thousand dollars. I told him Clarke gave
+me two thousand about the time we were married."
+
+"'Say _loaned_, Louis,' he answered, 'to oblige me. Here is two
+thousand and the interest for six years. Go and pay it to Christine; she
+must need money.' So I went."
+
+"Is she settled comfortably?"
+
+"Oh, very. Go and see her often. Franz is sure to marry her, and he is
+growing richer every day."
+
+It seemed as if Louis's prediction would come true. Franz began to drive
+out every afternoon to Ryebeach. At first he contented himself with just
+passing Christine's gate. But he soon began to stop for the children,
+and having taken them a drive, to rest a while on the lawn, or in the
+parlor, while Christine made him a cup of tea.
+
+For Franz tired very easily now, and Christine saw what few others
+noticed: he had become pale and emaciated, and the least exertion left
+him weary and breathless. She knew in her heart that it was, the last
+summer he would be with her. Alas! what a pitiful shadow of their first
+one! It was hard to contrast the ardent, handsome lover of ten years ago
+with the white, silently happy man who, when October came, had only
+strength to sit and hold her hand, and gaze with eager, loving eyes into
+her face.
+
+One day his physician met Louis on Broadway. "Mr. Curtin," he said,
+"your friend Mueller is very ill. I consider his life measured by days,
+perhaps hours. He has long had organic disease of the heart. It is near
+the last."
+
+"Does he know it?"
+
+"Yes, he has known it long. Better see him at once."
+
+So Louis went at once. He found Franz calmly making his last
+preparations for the great event. "I am glad you are come, Louis," he
+said; "I was going to send for you. See this cabinet full of letters. I
+have not strength left to destroy them; burn them for me when--when I am
+gone.
+
+"This small packet is Christine's dear little notes: bury them with me:
+there are ten of them, every one ten years old."
+
+"Is that all, dear Franz?"
+
+"Yes; my will has long been made. Except a legacy to yourself, all goes
+to Christine--dear, dear Christine!"
+
+"You love her yet, then, Franz?"
+
+"What do you mean? I have loved her for ages. I shall love her forever.
+She is the other half of my soul. In some lives I have missed her
+altogether let me be thankful that she has come so near me in this one."
+
+"Do you know what you are saying, Franz?"
+
+"Very clearly, Louis. I have always believed with the oldest
+philosophers that souls were created in pairs, and that it is permitted
+them in their toilsome journey back to purity and heaven sometimes to
+meet and comfort each other. Do you think I saw Christine for the first
+time in your uncle's parlor? Louis, I have fairer and grander memories
+of her than any linked to this life. I must leave her now for a little.
+God knows when and where we meet again; but _He does know_; that is my
+hope and consolation."
+
+Whatever were Louis's private opinions about Franz's theology it was
+impossible to dissent at that hour, and he took his friend's last
+instructions and farewell with such gentle, solemn feelings as had long
+been strange to his-heart.
+
+In the afternoon Franz was driven out to Christine's. It was the last
+physical effort he was capable of. No one saw the parting of those two
+souls. He went with Christine's arms around him, and her lips whispering
+tender, hopeful farewells. It was noticed however, that after Franz's
+death a strange change came over Christine--a beautiful nobility and
+calmness of character, and a gentle setting of her life to the loftiest
+aims.
+
+Louis said she had been wonderfully moved by the papers Franz left. The
+ten letters she had written during the spring-time of their love went to
+the grave with him, but the rest were of such an extraordinary nature
+that Louis could not refrain from showing them to his cousin, and then
+at her request leaving them for her to dispose of. They were indeed
+letters written to herself under every circumstance of her life, and
+directed to every place in which she had sojourned. In all of them she
+was addressed as "Beloved Wife of my Soul," and in this way the poor
+fellow had consoled his breaking, longing heart.
+
+To some of them he had written imaginary answers, but as these all
+referred to a financial secret known only to the parties concerned in
+Christine's and his own sacrifice, it was proof positive that he had
+written only for his own comfort. But it was perhaps well they fell into
+Christine's hands: she could not but be a better woman for reading the
+simple records of a strife which set perfect unselfishness and
+child-like submission as the goal of its duties.
+
+Seven years after Franz's death Christine and her daughter died together
+of the Roman fever, and James Barker Clarke, junior, was left sole
+inheritor of Franz's wealth.
+
+"A German dreamer!"
+
+Ah, well, there are dreamers and dreamers. And perchance he that seeks
+fame, and he that seeks gold, and he that seeks power, may all alike,
+when this shadowy existence is over, look back upon life "as a dream
+when one awaketh."
+
+
+
+
+THE VOICE AT MIDNIGHT.
+
+
+"It is the King's highway that we are in; and know this, His messengers
+are on it. They who have ears to hear will hear; and He opens the eyes
+of some, and they see things not to be lightly spoken of."
+
+It was John Balmuto who said these words to me. John was a Shetlander,
+and for forty years he had gone to the Arctic seas with the whale boats.
+Then there had come to him a wonderful experience. He had been four days
+and nights alone with God upon the sea, among mountains of ice reeling
+together in perilous madness, and with little light but the angry flush
+of the aurora. Then, undoubtedly, was born that strong faith in the
+Unseen which made him an active character in the facts I am going to
+relate.
+
+After his marvelous salvation, he devoted his life to the service of God
+by entering that remarkable body of lay evangelists attached to the
+Presbyterian Church in Highland parishes, called "The Men," and he
+became noted throughout the Hebrides for his labors, and for his
+knowledge of the Scriptures.
+
+Circumstances, that summer, had thrown us together; I, a young woman,
+just entering an apparently fortunate life; he, an aged saint, standing
+on the borderland of eternity. And we were sitting together, in the gray
+summer gloaming, when he said to me, "Thou art silent to-night. What
+hast thou, then, on thy mind?"
+
+"I had a strange dream. I cannot shake off its influence. Of course it
+is folly, and I don't believe in dreams at all." And it was then he said
+to me, "It is the King's highway that we are in, and know this, His
+messengers are on it."
+
+"But it was only a dream."
+
+"Well, God speaks to His children 'in dreams, and by the oracles that
+come in darkness.'"
+
+"He used to do so."
+
+"Wilt thou then say that He has ceased so to speak to men? Now, I will
+tell thee a thing that happened; I will tell thee just the bare facts; I
+will put nothing to, nor take anything away from them.
+
+"'Tis, five years ago the first day of last June. I was in Stornoway in
+the Lews, and I was going to the Gairloch Preachings. It was rough,
+cheerless weather, and all the fishing fleet were at anchor for the
+night, with no prospect of a fishing. The fishers were sitting together
+talking over the bad weather, but, indeed, without that bitterness that
+I have heard from landsmen when it would be the same trouble with them.
+So I gathered them into Donald Brae's cottage, and we had a very good
+hour. I noticed a stranger in the corner of the room, and some one told
+me he was one of those men who paint pictures, and I saw that he was
+busy with a pencil and paper even while we were at the service. But the
+next day I left for the Preachings, and I thought no more of him, good
+or bad.
+
+"On the first of September I was in Oban. I had walked far and was very
+tired, but I went to John MacNab's cottage, and, after I had eat my
+kippered herring and drank my tea, I felt better. Then I talked with
+John about the resurrection of the body, for he was in a tribulation of
+thoughts and doubts as to whether our Lord had a permanent humanity or
+not.
+
+"And I said to him, John, Christ redeemed our whole nature, and it is
+this way: the body being ransomed, as well as the spirit, by no less a
+price than the body of Christ, shall be equally cleansed and glorified.
+Now, then, after I had gone to my room, I was sitting thinking of these
+things, and of no other things whatever. There was not a sound but that
+of the waves breaking among the rocks, and drawing the tinkling pebbles
+down the beach after them. Then the ears of my spiritual body were
+opened, and I heard these words, _'I will go with thee to Glasgow!'_
+Instead of saying to the heavenly message, 'I am ready!' I began to
+argue with myself thus: 'Whatever for should I go to Glasgow? I know not
+anyone there. No one knows me. I have duties at Portsee not to be left.
+I have no money for such a journey--'
+
+"I fell asleep to such thoughts. Then I dreamed of--or I saw--a woman
+fair as the daughters of God, and she said, _'I will go with thee to
+Glasgow!'_ With a strange feeling of being hurried and pressed I
+awoke--wide awake, and without any conscious will of my own, I answered,
+'I am ready. I am ready now.'
+
+"As I left the cottage it was striking twelve, and I wondered what means
+of reaching Glasgow I should find at midnight. But I walked straight to
+the pier, and there was a small steamer with her steam up. She was
+blowing her whistle impatiently, and when the skipper saw me coming, he
+called to me, in a passion, 'Well, then, is it all night I shall wait
+for thee?'
+
+"I soon perceived that there was a mistake, and that it was not John
+Balmuto he had been instructed to wait for. But I heeded not that; I was
+under orders I durst not disobey. She was a trading steamer, with a
+perishable cargo of game and lobsters, and so she touched at no place
+whatever till we reached Glasgow. One of her passengers was David
+MacPherson of Harris, a very good man, who had known me in my
+visitations. He was going to Glasgow as a witness in a case to be tried
+between the Harris fishers and their commission house in Glasgow.
+
+"As we walked together from the steamer, he said to me, 'Let us go round
+by the court house, John, and I'll find out when I'll be required.' That
+was to my mind; I did not feel as if I could go astray, whatever road
+was taken, and I turned with him the way he desired to go. He found the
+lawyer who needed him in the court house, and while they talked together
+I went forward and listened to the case that was in hand.
+
+"It was a trial for murder, and I could not keep my eyes off the young
+man who was charged with the crime. He seemed to be quite broken down
+with shame and sorrow. Before MacPherson called me the court closed and
+the constables took him away. As he passed me our eyes met, and my heart
+dirled and burned, and I could not make out whatever would be the matter
+with me. All night his face haunted me. I was sure I had seen it some
+place; and besides it would blend itself with the dream which had
+brought me to Glasgow.
+
+"In the morning I was early at the court house and I saw the prisoner
+brought in. There was the most marvelous change in his looks. He walked
+like a man who has lost fear, and his face was quite calm. But now it
+troubled me more than ever. Whatever had I to do with the young man? Yet
+I could not bear to leave him.
+
+"I listened and found out that he was accused of murdering his uncle.
+They had been traveling together and were known to have been at Ullapool
+on the thirtieth of May. On the first of June the elder man was found in
+a lonely place near Oban, dead, and, without doubt, from violence. The
+chain of circumstantial evidence against his nephew was very strong. To
+judge by it I would have said myself to him, 'Thou art certainly
+guilty.'
+
+"On the other side the young man declared that he had quarreled with his
+uncle at Ullapool and left him clandestinely. He had then taken passage
+in a Manx fishing smack which was going to the Lews, but he had
+forgotten the name of the smack. He was not even certain if the boat was
+Manx. The landlord of the inn, at which he said he stayed when in the
+Lews, did not remember him. 'A thing not to be expected,' he told the
+jury, 'for in the summer months, what with visitors, and what with the
+fishers, a face in Stornoway was like a face on a crowded street. The
+young man might have been there'--
+
+"The word _Stornoway_ made the whole thing clear to me. The prisoner was
+the man I had noticed with a pencil and paper among the fishers in
+Donald Brae's cottage. Yes, indeed he was! I knew then why I had been
+sent to Glasgow. I walked quickly to the bar, and lifting my bonnet from
+my head, I said to the judge, 'My lord, the prisoner _was_ in Stornoway
+on the first of June. I saw him there!'
+
+"He gave a great cry of joy and turned to me; and in a moment he called
+out: 'You are the man who read the Bible to the fishers. I remember you.
+I have your likeness among my drawings.' And I said, 'I am the man.'
+
+"Then my lord, the judge, made them swear me, and he said they would
+hear my evidence. For one moment I was a coward. I thought I would hide
+God's share in the deliverance, lest men should doubt my whole
+testimony. The next, I was telling the true story: how I had been called
+at midnight--twice called; how I had found Evan Conochie's boat waiting
+for me; how on the boat I had met David MacPherson, and been brought to
+the court house by him, having no intention or plan of my own in the
+matter.
+
+"And there was a great awe in the room as I spoke. Every one believed
+what I said, and my lord asked for the names of the fishers who were
+present in Donald Brae's cottage on the night of the first of June. Very
+well, then, I could give many of them, and they were sent for, and the
+lad was saved, thank God Almighty!"
+
+"How do you explain it, John?"
+
+"No, I will not try to explain it; for it is not to be hoped that anyone
+can explain by human reason the things surpassing human reason."
+
+"Do you know what became of the young man?"
+
+"I will tell thee about him. He is a very rich young man, and the only
+child of a widow, known like Dorcas of old for her great goodness to the
+Lord's poor. But when his mother died it did not go well and peaceably
+between him and his uncle; and it is true that he left him at Ullapool
+without a word. Well, then, he fell into this sore strait, and it seemed
+as if all hope of proving his innocence was over.
+
+"But that very night on which I saw him first, he dreamed that his
+mother came to him in his cell and she comforted him and told him,
+'To-morrow, surely, thy deliverer shall speak for thee.' He never
+doubted the heavenly vision. 'How could I?' he asked me. 'My mother
+never deceived me in life; would she come to me, even in a dream, to
+tell me a lie? Ah, no!'"
+
+"Is he still alive?"
+
+"God preserve him for many a year yet! I'll only require to speak his
+name"--and when he had done so, I knew the secret spring of thankfulness
+that fed the never-ceasing charity of one great, good man.
+
+"And yet, John," I urged, "how can spirit speak with spirit?"
+
+"'_How?_' I will tell thee, that word 'how' has no business in the mouth
+of a child of God. When I was a boy, who had dreamed 'how' men in London
+might speak with men in Edinburgh through the air, invisible and
+unheard? That is a matter of trade now. Can thou imagine what subtle
+secret lines there may be between the spiritual world and this world?"
+
+"But dreams, John?"
+
+"Well, then, dreams. Take the dream life out of thy Bible and, oh, how
+much thou wilt lose! All through it this side of the spiritual world
+presses close on the human side. I thank God for it. Yes, indeed! Many
+things I hear and see which say to me that Christians now have a kind of
+shame in what is mystical or supernatural. But thou be sure of this--the
+supernaturalism of the Bible, and of every Christian life is not one of
+the difficulties of our faith, _it is the foundation of our faith_. The
+Bible is a supernatural book, the law of a supernatural religion; and to
+part with this element is to lose out of it the flavor of heaven, and
+the hope of immortality. Yes, indeed!"
+
+This conversation occurred thirty years ago. Two years since, I met the
+man who had experienced such a deliverance, and he told me again the
+wonderful story, and showed me the pencil sketch which he had made of
+John Balmuto in Donald Brae's cottage. He had painted from it a grand
+picture of his deliverer, wearing the long black camlet cloak and
+head-kerchief of the order of evangelists to which he belonged. I stood
+reverently before the commanding figure, with its inspired eyes and rapt
+expression; for, during those thirty years, I also had learned that it
+was only those
+
+    Who ne'er the mournful midnight hours
+    Weeping upon their bed have sate,
+    Who know you not, Ye Heavenly Powers.
+
+
+
+
+SIX, AND HALF-A-DOZEN.
+
+
+Slain in the battle of life. Wounded and fallen, trampled in the mire
+and mud of the conflict, then the ranks closed again and left no place
+for her. So she crawled aside to die. With a past whose black despair
+was as the shadow of a starless night, a future which her early
+religious training lit up with the lurid light of hell, and the strong
+bands of a pitiless death dragging her to the grave--still she craved,
+as the awful hour drew near, to see once more the home of her innocent
+childhood. Not that she thought to die in its shelter--any one who knew
+David Todd knew also that was a hopeless dream; but if, IF her
+father should say one pardoning word, then she thought it would help her
+to understand the love of God, and give her some strength to trust in
+it.
+
+Early in the evening, just as the sun was setting and the cows were
+coming lowing up the little lane, scented with the bursting lilac
+bushes, she stood humbly at the gate her father must pass in order to go
+to the hillside fold to shelter the ewes and lambs. Very soon she saw
+him coming, his Scotch bonnet pulled over his brows, his steps steadied
+by his shepherd's staff. His lips were firmly closed, and his eyes
+looked far over the hills; for David was a mystic in his own way, and
+they were to him temples not made with hands in which he had seen and
+heard wonderful things. Here the storehouses of hail and lightning had
+been opened in his sight, and he had watched in the sunshine the tempest
+bursting beneath his feet. He had trod upon rainbows and been waited
+upon by spectral mists. The voices of winds and waters were in his
+heart, and he passionately believed in God. But it was the God of his
+own creed--jealous, just and awful in that inconceivable holiness which
+charges his angels with folly and detects impurity in the sinless
+heavens. So, when he approached the gate he saw, but would not see, the
+dying girl who leaned against it. Whatever he felt he made no sign. He
+closed it without hurry, and then passed on the other side.
+
+"Father! O, father! speak one word to me."
+
+Then he turned and looked at her, sternly and awfully.
+
+"Thou art nane o' my bairn. I ken naught o' thee."
+
+Without another glance at the white, despairing face, he walked rapidly
+on; for the spring nights were chilly, and he must gather his lambs into
+the fold, though this poor sheep of his own household was left to
+perish.
+
+But, if her father knew her no more, the large sheep-dog at his side was
+not so cruel. No theological dogmas measured Rover's love; the stain on
+the spotless name of his master's house, which hurt the old man like a
+wound, had not shadowed his memory. He licked her hands and face, and
+tried with a hospitality and pity which made him so much nearer the
+angels than his master to pull her toward her home. But she shook her
+head and moaned pitifully; then throwing her arms round the poor brute
+she kissed him with those passionate kisses of repentance and love which
+should have fallen on her father's neck. The dog (dumb to all but God)
+pleaded with sorrowful eyes and half-frantic gestures; but she turned
+wearily away toward a great circle of immense rocks--relics of a
+religion scarcely more cruel than that which had neither pity nor
+forgiveness at the mouth of the grave. Within their shadow she could die
+unseen; and there next morning a wagoner, attracted by the plaintive
+howling of a dog, found her on the ground, dead.
+
+There are set awful hours between every soul and heaven. Who knows what
+passed between Lettice Todd and her God in that dim forsaken temple of a
+buried faith? Death closes tenderly even the eyes full of tears, and
+her face was beautiful with a strange peace, though its loveliness was
+marred and its youth "seared with the autumn of strange suffering."
+
+At the inquest which followed, her stern old father neither blamed nor
+excused himself. He accepted without apology the verdict of society
+against him; only remarking that its reproof was "a guid example o'
+Satan correcting sin."
+
+Scant pity and less ceremony was given to her burial. Death, which draws
+under the mantle of Charity the pride, cruelty and ambition of men,
+covering them with those two narrow words _Hic jacet_! gives also to the
+woman who has been a sinner all she asks--oblivion. In no other way can
+she obtain from man toleration. The example of the whitest, purest soul
+that ever breathed on earth, in this respect, is ignored in the church
+He founded. The tenderest of human hearts, "when lovely woman stooped to
+folly," found no way of escape for her but to "die;" and those closet
+moralists, with filthy fancies and soiled souls, who abound in every
+community, regard her with that sort of scorn which a Turk expresses
+when he says "Dog of a Christian." Poor Lettice! She had procured this
+doom--first by sacrificing herself to a blind and cruel love, and then
+to the importunate demands of hunger, "oldest and strongest of
+passions." Ah! if there was no pity in Heaven, no justice beyond the
+grave, what a cruel irony this life would be! For, while the sexton
+shoveled hastily over the rude coffin the obliterating earth, there
+passed the graveyard another woman equally fallen from all the apostle
+calls "lovely and of good report." One whose youth and hopes and
+marvelous beauty had been sold for houses and lands and a few thousand
+pounds a year. But, though her life was a living lie, the world praised
+her, because she "had done well unto herself." Yet, at the last end, the
+same seed brought forth the same fruit, and the Lady of Hawksworth Hall
+learned, with bitter rapidity, that riches are too poor to buy love.
+Scarcely had she taken possession of her splendid home before she longed
+for the placid happiness of her mother's cottage, and those evening
+walks under the beech-trees, whose very memory was now a sin. Over her
+beautiful face there crept a pathetic shadow, which irritated the rude
+and noisy squire like a reproach. He had always had what he wanted. Not
+even the beauty of all the border counties had been beyond his means to
+buy but somehow he felt as if in this bargain he had been overreached.
+Her better part eluded his possession, and he felt dissatisfied and
+angry. Expostulations grew into cruel words; cruel words came to cruder
+blows. _Yes, blows_. English gentlemen thirty years ago knew their
+privileges; and that was one of them. She was as much and as lawfully
+his as the horses in his stables or the hounds in his kennels. He beat
+them, too, when they did not obey him. Her beauty had betrayed her into
+the hands of misery. She had wedded it, and there was no escape for her.
+One day, when her despair and suffering was very great, some tempting
+devil brought her a glass of brandy, and she drank it. It gave her back
+for a few hours her departed sceptre; but at what a price! Her slave
+soon became her master. Stimulus and stupefaction, physical exhaustion
+and mental horrors, the abandonment of friends and the brutality of a
+coarse and cruel husband, brought her at last to the day of reckoning.
+She died, seven years after her marriage, in the delirium of opium.
+There were physicians and servants around her, and an unloving husband
+waiting for the news of his release. I think I would rather have died
+where Lettice did--under the sky, with the solemn mountains lifting
+their heads in a perpetual prayer around me, and that faithful dog
+licking my hands, and mourning my wasted life.
+
+Now, wherein did these two women differ? One sinned through an intense
+and self-sacrificing love, and in obedience to the strongest calls of
+want. Her sin, though it was beyond the pale of the world's toleration,
+was yet one _according to Nature_. The other, in a cold spirit of
+barter, voluntarily and deliberately exchanged her youth and beauty, the
+hopes of her own and another's life, for carriages, jewels, fine
+clothing and a luxurious table. She loathed the price she had to pay,
+and her sin was an unnatural one. For this kind of prostitution, which
+religion blesses and society praises, there seems to be no redress; but
+for that which results as the almost inevitable sequence of one lapse of
+chastity _we_, the pious, the virtuous, the irreproachable, are all to
+blame. Who or what make it impossible for them to retrace their steps?
+Do they ever have reason to hope that the family hearth will be open to
+them if they go back? Prodigal sons may return, and are welcomed with
+tears of joy and clasped by helping hands; but alas! how few parents
+would go to meet a sinning daughter. Forgetting our Master's precepts,
+forgetting our human frailty, forgetting our own weakness, we turn
+scornfully from the weeping Magdalen, and leave her "alone with the
+irreparable." Marriage is a holy and a necessary rite. We would
+deprecate _any_ loosening of this great house-band of society; but we
+do say that where it is the _only distinction_ between two women, one of
+whom is an honored matron, and the other a Pariah and an outcast, there
+is "something in the world amiss"--something beyond the cure of law or
+legislation, and that they can only be reached by the authority of a
+Christian press and the influence of Christian example.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF DAVID MORRISON.
+
+
+I think it is very likely that many New Yorkers were familiar with the
+face of David Morrison. It was a peculiarly guileless, kind face for a
+man of sixty years of age; a face that looked into the world's face with
+something of the confidence of a child. It had round it a little fringe
+of soft, light hair, and above that a big blue Scotch bonnet of the Rob
+Roryson fashion.
+
+The bonnet had come with him from the little Highland clachan, where he
+and his brother Sandy had scrambled through a hard, happy boyhood
+together. It had sometimes been laid aside for a more pretentious
+headgear, but it had never been lost; and in his old age and poverty had
+been cheerfully--almost affectionately--resumed.
+
+"Sandy had one just like it," he would say. "We bought them thegither in
+Aberdeen. Twa braw lads were we then. I'm wonderin' where poor Sandy is
+the day!"
+
+So, if anybody remembers the little spare man, with the child-like,
+candid face and the big blue bonnet, let them recall him kindly. It is
+his true history I am telling to-day.
+
+Davie had, as I said before, a hard boyhood. He knew what cold, hunger
+and long hours meant as soon as he knew anything; but it was glorified
+in his memory by the two central figures in it--a good mother, for whom
+he toiled and suffered cheerfully, and a big brother who helped him
+bravely over all the bits of life that were too hard for his young feet.
+
+When the mother died, the lads sailed together for America. They had a
+"far-awa'" cousin in New York, who, report said, had done well in the
+plastering business, and Sandy never doubted but that one Morrison would
+help another Morrison the wide world over. With this faith in their
+hearts and a few shillings in their pockets, the two lads landed. The
+American Morrison had not degenerated. He took kindly to his kith and
+kin, and offered to teach them his own craft.
+
+For some time the brothers were well content; but Sandy was of an
+ambitious, adventurous temper, and was really only waiting until he felt
+sure that wee Davie could take care of himself. Nothing but the Great
+West could satisfy Sandy's hopes; but he never dreamt of exposing his
+brother to its dangers and privations.
+
+"You're nothing stronger than a bit lassie, Davie," he said, "and you're
+no to fret if I don't take you wi' me. I'm going to make a big fortune,
+and when I have gotten the gold safe, I'se come back to you, and we'll
+spend it thegither dollar for dollar, my wee lad."
+
+"Sure as death! You'll come back to me?"
+
+"Sure as death, I'll come back to you, Davie!" and Sandy thought it no
+shame to cry on his little brother's neck, and to look back, with a
+loving, hopeful smile at Davie's sad, wistful face, just as long as he
+could see it.
+
+It was Davie's nature to believe and to trust. With a pitiful confidence
+and constancy he looked for the redemption of his brother's promise.
+After twenty years of absolute silence, he used to sit in the evenings
+after his work was over, and wonder "how Sandy and he had lost each
+other." For the possibility of Sandy forgetting him never once entered
+his loyal heart.
+
+He could find plenty of excuses for Sandy's silence. In the long years
+of their separation many changes had occurred even in a life so humble
+as Davie's. First, his cousin Morrison died, and the old business was
+scattered and forgotten. Then Davie had to move his residence very
+frequently; had even to follow lengthy jobs into various country places,
+so that his old address soon became a very blind clew to him.
+
+Then seven years after Sandy's departure the very house in which they
+had dwelt was pulled down; an iron factory was built on its site, and
+probably a few months afterward no one in the neighborhood could have
+told anything at all about Davie Morrison. Thus, unless Sandy should
+come himself to find his brother, every year made the probability of a
+letter reaching him less and less likely.
+
+Perhaps, as the years went by, the prospect of a reunion became more of
+a dream than an expectation. Davie had married very happily, a simple
+little body, not unlike himself, both in person and disposition. They
+had one son, who, of course, had been called Alexander, and in whom
+Davie fondly insisted, the lost Sandy's beauty and merits were
+faithfully reproduced.
+
+It is needless to say the boy was extravagantly loved and spoiled.
+Whatever Davie's youth had missed, he strove to procure for "Little
+Sandy." Many an extra hour he worked for this unselfish end. Life itself
+became to him only an implement with which to toil for his boy's
+pleasure and advantage. It was a common-place existence enough, and yet
+through it ran one golden thread of romance.
+
+In the summer evenings, when they walked together on the Battery, and in
+winter nights, when they sat together by the stove, Davie talked to his
+wife and child of that wonderful brother, who had gone to look for
+fortune in the great West. The simplicity of the elder two and the
+enthusiasm of the youth equally accepted the tale.
+
+Somehow, through many a year, a belief in his return invested life with
+a glorious possibility. Any night they might come home and find Uncle
+Sandy sitting by the fire, with his pockets full of gold eagles, and no
+end of them in some safe bank, besides.
+
+But when the youth had finished his schooldays, had learned a trade and
+began to go sweethearting, more tangible hopes and dreams agitated all
+their hearts; for young Sandy Morrison opened a carpenter's shop in his
+own name, and began to talk of taking a wife and furnishing a home.
+
+He did not take just the wife that pleased his father and mother. There
+was nothing, indeed, about Sallie Barker of which they could complain.
+She was bright and capable, but they _felt_ a want they were not able to
+analyze; the want was that pure unselfishness which was the ruling
+spirit of their own lives.
+
+This want never could be supplied in Sallie's nature. She did right
+because it was her duty to do right, not because it gave her pleasure to
+do it. When they had been married three years the war broke out, and
+soon afterward Alexander Morrison was drafted for the army. Sallie, who
+was daily expecting her second child, refused all consolation; and,
+indeed, their case looked hard enough.
+
+At first the possibility of a substitute had suggested itself; but a
+family consultation soon showed that this was impossible without
+hopelessly straitening both houses. Everyone knows that dreary silence
+which follows a long discussion, that has only confirmed the fear of an
+irremediable misfortune. Davie broke it in this case in a very
+unexpected manner.
+
+"Let me go in your place, Sandy. I'd like to do it, my lad. Maybe I'd
+find your uncle. Who knows? What do you say, old wife? We've had more
+than twenty years together. It is pretty hard for Sandy and Sallie, now,
+isn't it?"
+
+He spoke with a bright face and in a cheerful voice, as if he really was
+asking a favor for himself; and, though he did not try to put his offer
+into fine, heroic words, nothing could have been finer or more heroic
+than the perfect self-abnegation of his manner.
+
+The poor old wife shed a few bitter tears; but she also had been
+practicing self-denial for a lifetime, and the end of it was that Davie
+went to weary marches and lonely watches, and Sandy staid at home.
+
+This was the break-up of Davie's life. His wife went to live with Sandy
+and Sallie, and the furniture was mostly sold.
+
+Few people could have taken these events as Davie did. He even affected
+to be rather smitten with the military fever, and, when the parting
+came, left wife and son and home with a cheerful bravery that was sad
+enough to the one old heart who had counted its cost.
+
+In Davie's loving, simple nature there was doubtless a strong vein of
+romance. He was really in hopes that he might come across his long-lost
+brother. He had no very clear idea as to localities and distances, and
+he had read so many marvelous war stories that all things seemed
+possible in its atmosphere. But reality and romance are wide enough
+apart.
+
+Davie's military experience was a very dull and weary one. He grew
+poorer and poorer, lost heart and hope, and could only find comfort for
+all his sacrifices in the thought that "at least he had spared poor
+Sandy."
+
+Neither was his home-coming what he had pictured it in many a reverie.
+There was no wife to meet him--she had been three months in the grave
+when he got back to New York--and going to his daughter-in-law's home
+was not--well, it was not like going to his own house.
+
+Sallie was not cross or cruel, and she was grateful to Davie, but she
+did not _love_ the old man.
+
+He soon found that the attempt to take up again his trade was hopeless.
+He had grown very old with three years' exposure and hard duty. Other
+men could do twice the work he could, and do it better. He must step out
+from the ranks of skilled mechanics and take such humble positions as
+his failing strength permitted him to fill.
+
+Sandy objected strongly to this at first. "He could work for both," he
+said, "and he thought father had deserved his rest."
+
+But Davie shook his head--"he must earn his own loaf, and he must earn
+it now, just as he could. Any honest way was honorable enough." He was
+still cheerful and hopeful, but it was noticeable that he never spoke of
+his brother Sandy now; he had buried that golden expectation with many
+others. Then began for Davie Morrison the darkest period of his life. I
+am not going to write its history.
+
+It is not pleasant to tell of a family sinking lower and lower in spite
+of its brave and almost desperate efforts to keep its place--not
+pleasant to tell of the steps that gradually brought it to that pass,
+when the struggle was despairingly abandoned, and the conflict narrowed
+down to a fight with actual cold and hunger.
+
+It is not pleasant, mainly, because in such a struggle many a lonely
+claim is pitilessly set aside. In the daily shifts of bare life, the
+tender words that bring tender acts are forgotten. Gaunt looks,
+threadbare clothes, hard day-labor, sharp endurance of their children's
+wants, made Sandy and Sallie Morrison often very hard to those to whom
+they once were very tender.
+
+David had noticed it for many months. He could see that Sallie counted
+grudgingly the few pennies he occasionally required. His little
+newspaper business had been declining for some years; people took fewer
+papers, and some did not pay for those they did take. He made little
+losses that were great ones to him, and Sallie had long been saying it
+would "be far better for father to give up the business to Jamie; he is
+now sixteen and bright enough to look after his own."
+
+This alternative David could not bear to think of; and yet all through
+the summer the fear had constantly been before him. He knew how Sallie's
+plans always ended; Sandy was sure to give into them sooner or later,
+and he wondered if into their minds had ever come the terrible thought
+which haunted his own--_would they commit him, then, to the care of
+public charities?_
+
+"We have no time to love each other," he muttered, sadly, "and my bite
+and sup is hard to spare when there is not enough to go round. I'll
+speak to Sandy myself about it--poor lad! It will come hard on him to
+say the first word."
+
+The thought once realized began to take shape in his mind, and that
+night, contrary to his usual custom, he could not go to sleep. Sandy
+came in early, and the children went wearily off to bed. Then Sallie
+began to talk on the very subject which lay so heavy on his own heart,
+and he could tell from the tone of the conversation that it was one that
+had been discussed many times before.
+
+"He only made bare expenses last week and there's a loss of seventy
+cents this week already. Oh, Sandy, Sandy! there is no use putting off
+what is sure to come. Little Davie had to do without a drink of coffee
+to-night, and _his_ bread, you know, comes off theirs at every meal. It
+is very hard on us all!"
+
+"I don't think the children mind it, Sallie. Every one of them loves the
+old man--God bless him! He was a good father to me."
+
+"I would love him, too, Sandy, if I did not see him eating my children's
+bread. And neither he nor they get enough. Sandy, do take him down
+to-morrow, and tell him as you go the strait we are in. He will be
+better off; he will get better food and every other comfort. You must do
+it, Sandy; I can bear this no longer."
+
+"It's getting near Christmas, Sallie. Maybe he'll get New Year's
+presents enough to put things straight. Last year they were nearly
+eighteen dollars, you know."
+
+"Don't you see that Jamie could get that just as well? Jamie can take
+the business and make something of it. Father is letting it get worse
+and worse every week. We should have one less to feed, and Jamie's
+earnings besides. Sandy, _it has got to be_! Do it while we can make
+something by the step."
+
+"It is a mean, dastardly step, Sallie. God will never forgive me if I
+take it," and David could hear that his son's voice trembled.
+
+In fact, great tears were silently dropping from Sandy's eyes, and his
+father knew it, and pitied him, and thanked God that the lad's heart was
+yet so tender. And after this he felt strangely calm, and dropped into a
+happy sleep.
+
+In the morning he remembered all. He had not heard the end of the
+argument, but he knew that Sallie would succeed; and he was neither
+astonished nor dismayed when Sandy came home in the middle of the day
+and asked him to "go down the avenue a bit."
+
+He had determined to speak first and spare Sandy the shame and the
+sorrow of it; but something would not let him do it. In the first
+place, a singular lightness of heart came over him; he noticed all the
+gay preparations for Christmas, and the cries and bustle of the streets
+gave him a new sense of exhilaration. Sandy fell almost unconsciously
+into his humor. He had a few cents in his pocket, and he suddenly
+determined to go into a cheap restaurant and have a good warm meal with
+his father.
+
+Davie was delighted at the proposal and gay as a child; old memories of
+days long past crowded into both men's minds, and they ate and drank,
+and then wandered on almost happily. Davie knew very well where they
+were going, but he determined now to put off saying a word until the
+last moment. He had Sandy all to himself for this hour; they might never
+have such another; Davie was determined to take all the sweetness of it.
+
+As they got lower down the avenue, Sandy became more and more silent;
+his eyes looked straight before him, but they were brimful of tears, and
+the smile with which he answered Davie's pleasant prattle was almost
+more pitiful than tears.
+
+At length they came in sight of a certain building, and Sandy gave a
+start and shook himself like a man waking out of a sleep. His words were
+sharp, his voice almost like that of a man in mortal danger, as he
+turned Davie quickly round, and said:
+
+"We must go back now, father. I will not go another step this road--no,
+by heaven! though I die for it!"
+
+"Just a little further, Sandy."
+
+And Davie's thin, childlike face had an inquiry in it that Sandy very
+well understood.
+
+"No, no, father, no further on this road, please God!"
+
+Then he hailed a passing car, and put the old man tenderly in it, and
+resolutely turned his back upon the hated point to which he had been
+going.
+
+Of course he thought of Sallie as they rode home, and the children and
+the trouble there was likely to be. But somehow it seemed a light thing
+to him. He could not helping nodding cheerfully now and then to the
+father whom he had so nearly lost; and, perhaps, never in all their
+lives had they been so precious to each other as when, hand-in-hand,
+they climbed the dark tenement stair together.
+
+Before thy reached the door they heard Sallie push a chair aside
+hastily, and come to meet them. She had been crying, too, and her very
+first words were, "Oh, father!' I am so glad!--so glad!"
+
+She did not say what for, but Davie took her words very gratefully, and
+he made no remark, though he knew she went into debt at the grocery for
+the little extras with which she celebrated his return at supper. He
+understood, however, that the danger was passed, and he went to sleep
+that night thanking God for the love that had stood so hard a trial and
+come out conqueror.
+
+The next day life took up its dreary tasks again, but in Davie's heart
+there was a strange presentiment of change, and it almost angered the
+poor, troubled, taxed wife to see him so thoughtlessly playing with the
+children. But the memory of the wrong she had nursed against him still
+softened and humbled her, and when he came home after carrying round his
+papers, she made room for him at the stove, and brought him a cup of
+coffee and a bit of bread and bacon.
+
+Davie's eyes filled, and Sallie went away to avoid seeing them. So then
+he took out a paper that he had left and began to read it as he ate and
+drank.
+
+In a few minutes a sudden sharp cry escaped him. He put the paper in his
+pocket, and, hastily resuming his old army cloak and Scotch bonnet, went
+out without a word to anyone.
+
+The truth was that he had read a personal notice which greatly disturbed
+him. It was to the effect that, "If David Morrison, who left Aberdeen in
+18--, was still alive, and would apply to Messrs. Morgan & Black, Wall
+street, he would hear of something to his advantage."
+
+His long-lost brother was the one thought in his heart. He was going
+now to hear something about Sandy.
+
+"He said 'sure as death,' and he would mind that promise at the last
+hour, if he forgot it before; so, if he could not come, he'd doubtless
+send, and this will be his message. Poor Sandy! there was never a lad
+like him!"
+
+When he reached Messrs. Morgan & Black's, he was allowed to stand
+unnoticed by the stove a few minutes, and during them his spirits sank
+to their usual placid level. At length some one said:
+
+"Well, old man, what do _you_ want?"
+
+"I am David Morrison, and I just came to see what _you_ wanted."
+
+"Oh, you are David Morrison! Good! Go forward--I think you will find
+out, then, what we want."
+
+He was not frightened, but the man's manner displeased him, and, without
+answering, he walked toward the door indicated, and quietly opened it.
+
+An old gentleman was standing with his back to the door, looking into
+the fire, and one rather younger, was writing steadily away at a desk.
+The former never moved; the latter simply raised his head with an
+annoyed look, and motioned to Davie to close the door.
+
+"I am David Morrison, sir."
+
+"Oh, Davie! Davie! And the old blue bonnet, too! Oh, Davie! Davie,
+lad!"
+
+As for Davie, he was quite overcome. With a cry of joy so keen that it
+was like a sob of pain, he fell fainting to the floor. When he became
+conscious again he knew that he had been very ill, for there were two
+physicians by his side, and Sandy's face was full of anguish and
+anxiety.
+
+"He will do now, sir. It was only the effect of a severe shock on a
+system too impoverished to bear it. Give him a good meal and a glass of
+wine."
+
+Sandy was not long in following out this prescription, and during it
+what a confiding session these two hearts held! Davie told his sad
+history in his own unselfish way, making little of all his sacrifices,
+and saying a great deal about his son Sandy, and Sandy's girls and boys.
+
+But the light in his brother's eyes, and the tender glow of admiration
+with which he regarded the unconscious hero, showed that he understood
+pretty clearly the part that Davie had always taken.
+
+"However, I am o'erpaid for every grief I ever had, Sandy," said Davie,
+in conclusion, "since I have seen your face again, and you're just
+handsomer than ever, and you eight years older than me, too."
+
+Yes, it was undeniable that Alexander Morrison was still a very
+handsome, hale old gentleman; but yet there was many a trace of labor
+and sorrow on his face; and he had known both.
+
+For many years after he had left Davie, life had been a very hard battle
+to him. During the first twenty years of their separation, indeed, Davie
+had perhaps been the better off, and the happier of the two.
+
+When the war broke out, Sandy had enlisted early, and, like Davie,
+carried through all its chances and changes the hope of finding his
+brother. Both of them had returned to their homes after the struggle
+equally hopeless and poor.
+
+But during the last eleven years fortune had smiled on Sandy. Some call
+of friendship for a dead comrade led him to a little Pennsylvania
+village, and while there he made a small speculation in oil, which was
+successful. He resolved to stay there, rented his little Western farm,
+and went into the oil business.
+
+"And I have saved thirty thousand dollars, hard cash, Davie. Half of it
+is yours, and half mine. See! Fifteen thousand has been entered from
+time to time in your name. I told you, Davie, that when I came back we
+would share dollar for dollar, and I would not touch a cent of your
+share no more than I would rob the United States Treasury."
+
+It was a part of Davie's simple nature that he accepted it without any
+further protestation. Instinctively he felt that it was the highest
+compliment he could pay his brother. It was as if he said: "I firmly
+believed the promise you made me more than forty years ago, and I firmly
+believe in the love and sincerity which this day redeems it." So Davie
+looked with a curious joyfulness at the vouchers which testified to
+fifteen thousand dollars lying in the Chemical Bank, New York, to the
+credit of David Morrison; and then he said, with almost the delight of a
+schoolboy:
+
+"And what will you do wi' yours, Sandy?"
+
+"I am going to buy a farm in New Jersey, Davie. I was talking with Mr.
+Black about it this morning. It will cost twelve thousand dollars, but
+the gentleman says it will be worth double that in a very few years. I
+think that myself, Davie, for I went yesterday to take a good look at
+it. It is never well to trust to other folks' eyes, you know."
+
+"Then, Sandy, I'll go shares wi' you. We'll buy the farm together and
+we'll live together--that is, if you would like it."
+
+"What would I like better?"
+
+"Maybe you have a wife, and then--"
+
+"No, I have no wife, Davie. She died nearly thirty years ago. I have no
+one but you."
+
+"And we will grow small fruits, and raise chickens and have the finest
+dairy in the State, Sandy."
+
+"That is just my idea, Davie."
+
+Thus they talked until the winter evening began to close in upon them,
+and then Davie recollected that his boy, Sandy, would be more than
+uneasy about him.
+
+"I'll not ask you there to-night, brother; I want them all to myself
+to-night. 'Deed, I've been selfish enough to keep this good news from
+them so long."
+
+So, with a hand-shake that said what no words could say, the brothers
+parted, and Davie made haste to catch the next up-town car. He thought
+they never had traveled so slowly; he was half inclined several times to
+get out and run home.
+
+When he arrived there the little kitchen was dark, but there was a fire
+in the stove and wee Davie--his namesake--was sitting, half crying,
+before it.
+
+The child lifted his little sorrowful face to his grandfather's, and
+tried to smile as he made room for him in the warmest place.
+
+"What's the matter, Davie?"
+
+"I have had a bad day, grandfather. I did not sell my papers, and Jack
+Dacey gave me a beating besides; and--and I really do think my toes are
+frozen off."
+
+Then Davie pulled the lad on to his knee, and whispered
+
+"Oh, my wee man, you shall sell no more papers. You shall have braw new
+clothes, and go to school every day of your life. Whist! yonder comes
+mammy."
+
+Sallie came in with a worried look, which changed to one of reproach
+when she saw Davie.
+
+"Oh, father, how could you stay abroad this way? Sandy is fair daft
+about you, and is gone to the police stations, and I don't know where--"
+
+Then she stopped, for Davie had come toward her, and there was such a
+new, strange look on his face that it terrified her, and she could only
+say: "Father! father! what is it?"
+
+"It is good news, Sallie. My brother Sandy is come, and he has just
+given me fifteen thousand dollars; and there is a ten-dollar bill, dear
+lass, for we'll have a grand supper to-night, please God."
+
+By and by they heard poor Sandy's weary footsteps on the stair, and
+Sallie said:
+
+"Not a word, children. Let grandfather tell your father."
+
+Davie went to meet him, and, before he spoke, Sandy saw, as Sallie had
+seen, that his father's countenance was changed, and that something
+wonderful had happened.
+
+"What is the matter, father?"
+
+"Fifteen thousand dollars is the matter, my boy; and peace and comfort
+and plenty, and decent clothes and school for the children, and a happy
+home for us all in some nice country place."
+
+When Sandy heard this he kissed his father, and then covering his face
+with his hands, sobbed out:
+
+"Thank God! thank God!"
+
+It was late that night before either the children or the elders could go
+to sleep. Davie told them first of the farm that Sandy and he were going
+to buy together, and then he said to his son:
+
+"Now, my dear lad, what think you is best for Sallie and the children?"
+
+"You say, father, that the village where you are going is likely to grow
+fast."
+
+"It is sure to grow. Two lines of railroad will pass through it in a
+month."
+
+"Then I would like to open a carpenter's shop there. There will soon be
+work enough; and we will rent some nice little cottage, and the children
+can go to school, and it will be a new life for us all. I have often
+dreamed of such a chance, but I never believed it would come true."
+
+But the dream came more than true. In a few weeks Davie and his brother
+were settled in their new home, and in the adjoining village Alexander
+Morrison, junior, had opened a good carpenter and builder's shop, and
+had begun to do very well.
+
+Not far from it was the coziest of old stone houses, and over it Sallie
+presided. It stood among great trees, and was surrounded by a fine fruit
+garden, and was prettily furnished throughout; besides which, and best
+of all, _it was their own_--a New Year's gift from the kindest of
+grandfathers and uncles. People now have got well used to seeing the
+Brothers Morrison.
+
+They are rarely met apart. They go to market and to the city together.
+What they buy they buy in unison, and every bill of sale they give bears
+both their names. Sandy is the ruling spirit, but Davie never suspects,
+for Sandy invariably says to all propositions, "If my brother David
+agrees, I do," or, "If brother David is satisfied, I have no more to
+say," etc.
+
+Some of the villagers have tried to persuade them that they must be
+lonely, but they know better than that. Old men love a great deal of
+quiet and of gentle meandering retrospection; and David and Sandy have
+each of them forty years' history to tell the other. Then they are both
+very fond of young Sandy and the children.
+
+Sandy's projects and plans and building contracts are always well talked
+over at the farm before they are signed, and the children's lessons and
+holidays, and even their new clothes, interest the two old men almost as
+much as they do Sallie.
+
+As for Sallie, you would scarcely know her. She is no longer cross with
+care and quarrelsome with hunger. I always did believe that prosperity
+was good for the human soul, and Sallie Morrison proves the theory. She
+has grown sweet tempered in its sunshine, is gentle and forbearing to
+her children, loving and grateful to her father-in-law, and her
+husband's heart trusts in her.
+
+Therefore let all those fortunate ones who are in prosperity give
+cheerfully to those who ask of them. It will bring a ten-fold blessing
+on what remains, and the piece of silver sent out on its pleasant errand
+may happily touch the hand that shall bring the giver good fortune
+through all the years of life.
+
+
+
+
+TOM DUFFAN'S DAUGHTER.
+
+
+Tom Duffan's cabinet-pictures are charming bits of painting; but you
+would cease to wonder how he caught such delicate home touches if you
+saw the room he painted in; for Tom has a habit of turning his wife's
+parlor into a studio, and both parlor and pictures are the better for
+the habit.
+
+One bright morning in the winter of 1872 he had got his easel into a
+comfortable light between the blazing fire and the window, and was
+busily painting. His cheery little wife--pretty enough in spite of her
+thirty-seven years--was reading the interesting items in the morning
+papers to him, and between them he sung softly to himself the favorite
+tenor song of his favorite opera. But the singing always stopped when
+the reading began; and so politics and personals, murders and music,
+dramas and divorces kept continually interrupting the musical despair of
+"Ah! che la morte ognora."
+
+But even a morning paper is not universally interesting, and in the very
+middle of an elaborate criticism on tragedy and Edwin Booth, the parlor
+door partially opened, and a lovelier picture than ever Tom Duffan
+painted stood in the aperture--a piquant, brown-eyed girl, in a morning
+gown of scarlet opera flannel, and a perfect cloud of wavy black hair
+falling around her.
+
+"Mamma, if anything on earth can interest you that is not in a
+newspaper, I should like to know whether crimps or curls are most
+becoming with my new seal-skin set."
+
+"Ask papa."
+
+"If I was a picture, of course papa would know; but seeing I am only a
+poor live girl, it does not interest him."
+
+"Because, Kitty, you never will dress artistically."
+
+"Because, papa, I must dress fashionably. It is not my fault if artists
+don't know the fashions. Can't I have mamma for about half an hour?"
+
+"When she has finished this criticism of Edwin Booth. Come in, Kitty; it
+will do you good to hear it."
+
+"Thank you, no, papa; I am going to Booth's myself to-night, and I
+prefer to do my own criticism." Then Kitty disappeared, Mrs. Duffan
+skipped a good deal of criticism, and Tom got back to his "Ah! che la
+morte ognora" much quicker than the column of printed matter warranted.
+
+"Well, Kitty child, what do you want?"
+
+"See here."
+
+"Tickets for Booth's?"
+
+"Parquette seats, middle aisle; I know them. Jack always does get just
+about the same numbers."
+
+"Jack? You don't mean to say that Jack Warner sent them?"
+
+Kitty nodded and laughed in a way that implied half a dozen different
+things.
+
+"But I thought that you had positively refused him, Kitty?"
+
+"Of course I did mamma--I told him in the nicest kind of way that we
+must only be dear friends, and so on."
+
+"Then why did he send these tickets?"
+
+"Why do moths fly round a candle? It is my opinion both moths and men
+enjoy burning."
+
+"Well, Kitty, I don't pretend to understand this new-fashioned way of
+being 'off' and 'on' with a lover at the same time. Did you take me from
+papa simply to tell me this?"
+
+"No; I thought perhaps you might like to devote a few moments to papa's
+daughter. Papa has no hair to crimp and no braids to make. Here are all
+the hair-pins ready, mamma, and I will tell you about Sarah Cooper's
+engagement and the ridiculous new dress she is getting."
+
+It is to be supposed the bribe proved attractive enough, for Mrs. Duffan
+took in hand the long tresses, and Kitty rattled away about wedding
+dresses and traveling suits and bridal gifts with as much interest as if
+they were the genuine news of life, and newspaper intelligence a kind of
+grown-up fairy lore.
+
+But anyone who saw the hair taken out of crimps would have said it was
+worth the trouble of putting it in; and the face was worth the hair, and
+the hair was worth the exquisite hat and the rich seal-skins and the
+tantalizing effects of glancing silk and beautiful colors. Depend upon
+it, Kitty Duffan was just as bright and bewitching a life-sized picture
+as anyone could desire to see; and Tom Duff an thought so, as she
+tripped up to the great chair in which he was smoking and planning
+subjects, for a "good-by" kiss.
+
+"I declare, Kitty! Turn round, will you? Yes, I declare you are dressed
+in excellent taste. All the effects are good. I wouldn't have believed
+it."
+
+"Complimentary, papa. But 'I told you so.' You just quit the antique,
+and take to studying _Harper's Bazar_ for effects; then your women will
+look a little more natural."
+
+"Natural? Jehoshaphat! Go way, you little fraud!"
+
+"I appeal to Jack. Jack, just look at the women in that picture of
+papa's, with the white sheets draped about them. What do they look
+like?"
+
+"Frights, Miss Kitty."
+
+"Of course they do. Now, papa."
+
+"You two young barbarians!" shouted Tom, in a fit of laughter; for Jack
+and Kitty were out in the clear frosty air by this time, with the fresh
+wind at their backs, and their faces steadily set toward the busy bustle
+and light of Broadway. They had not gone far when Jack said, anxiously,
+"You haven't thought any better of your decision last Friday night,
+Kitty, I am afraid."
+
+"Why, no, Jack. I don't see how I can, unless you could become an Indian
+Commissioner or a clerk of the Treasury, or something of that kind. You
+know I won't marry a literary man under any possible circumstances. I'm
+clear on that subject, Jack."
+
+"I know all about farming, Kitty, if that would do."
+
+"But I suppose if you were a farmer, we should have to live in the
+country. I am sure that would not do."
+
+Jack did not see how the city and farm could be brought to terms; so he
+sighed, and was silent.
+
+Kitty answered the sigh. "No use in bothering about me, Jack. You ought
+to be very glad I have been so honest. Some girls would have 'risked
+you, and in a week, you'd have been just as miserable!"
+
+"You don't dislike me, Kitty?"
+
+"Not at all. I think you are first-rate."
+
+"It is my profession, then?"
+
+"Exactly."
+
+"Now, what has it ever done to offend you?"
+
+"Nothing yet, and I don't mean it ever shall. You see, I know Will
+Hutton's wife: and what that woman endures! Its just dreadful."
+
+"Now, Kitty!"
+
+"It is Jack. Will reads all his fine articles to her, wakes her up at
+nights to listen to some new poem, rushes away from the dinner table to
+jot down what he calls 'an idea,' is always pointing out 'splendid
+passages' to her, and keeps her working just like a slave copying his
+manuscripts and cutting newspapers to pieces. Oh, it is just dreadful!"
+
+"But she thoroughly enjoys it."
+
+"Yes, that is such a shame. Will has quite spoiled her. Lucy used to be
+real nice, a jolly, stylish girl. Before she was married she was
+splendid company; now, you might just as well mope round with a book."
+
+"Kitty, I'd promise upon my honor--at the altar, if you like--never to
+bother you with anything I write; never to say a word about my
+profession."
+
+"No, no, sir! Then you would soon be finding some one else to bother,
+perhaps some blonde, sentimental, intellectual 'friend.' What is the use
+of turning a good-natured little thing like me into a hateful dog in the
+manger? I am not naturally able to appreciate you, but if you were
+_mine_, I should snarl and bark and bite at any other woman who was."
+
+Jack liked this unchristian sentiment very much indeed. He squeezed
+Kitty's hand and looked so gratefully into her bright face that she was
+forced to pretend he had ruined her glove.
+
+"I'll buy you boxes full, Kitty; and, darling, I am not very poor; I am
+quite sure I could make plenty of money for you."
+
+"Jack, I did not want to speak about money; because, if a girl does not
+go into raptures about being willing to live on crusts and dress in
+calicos for love, people say she's mercenary. Well, then, I am
+mercenary. I want silk dresses and decent dinners and matinees, and I'm
+fond of having things regular; it's a habit of mine to like them all the
+time. Now I know literary people have spasms of riches, and then spasms
+of poverty. Artists are just the same. I have tried poverty
+occasionally, and found its uses less desirable than some people tell us
+they are."
+
+"Have you decided yet whom and what you will marry, Kitty?"
+
+"No sarcasm, Jack. I shall marry the first good honest fellow that
+loves me and has a steady business, and who will not take me every
+summer to see views."
+
+"To see views?"
+
+"Yes. I am sick to death of fine scenery and mountains, 'scarped and
+jagged and rifted,' and all other kinds. I've seen so many grand
+landscapes, I never want to see another. I want to stay at the Branch or
+the Springs, and have nice dresses and a hop every night. And you know
+papa _will_ go to some lonely place, where all my toilettes are thrown
+away, and where there is not a soul to speak to but famous men of one
+kind or another."
+
+Jack couldn't help laughing; but they were now among the little crush
+that generally gathers in the vestibule of a theatre, and whatever he
+meant to say was cut in two by a downright hearty salutation from some
+third party.
+
+"Why, Max, when did you get home?"
+
+"To-day's steamer." Then there were introductions and a jingle of merry
+words and smiles that blended in Kitty's ears with the dreamy music, the
+rustle of dresses, and perfume of flowers, and the new-comer was gone.
+
+But that three minutes' interview was a wonderful event to Kitty Duffan,
+though she did not yet realize it. The stranger had touched her as she
+had never been touched before. His magnetic voice called something into
+being that was altogether new to her; his keen, searching gray eyes
+claimed what she could neither understand nor withhold. She became
+suddenly silent and thoughtful; and Jack, who was learned in love lore,
+saw in a moment that Kitty had fallen in love with his friend Max
+Raymond.
+
+It gave him a moment's bitter pang; but if Kitty was not for him, then
+he sincerely hoped Max might win her. Yet he could not have told whether
+he was most pleased or angry when he saw Max Raymond coolly negotiate a
+change of seats with the gentleman on Kitty's right hand, and take
+possession of Kitty's eyes and ears and heart. But there is a great deal
+of human nature in man, and Jack behaved, upon the whole, better than
+might have been expected.
+
+For once Kitty did not do all the talking. Max talked, and she listened;
+Max gave opinions, and she indorsed them; Max decided, and she
+submitted. It was not Jack's Kitty at all. He was quite relieved when
+she turned round in her old piquant way and snubbed him.
+
+But to Kitty it was a wonderful evening--those grand old Romans walking
+on and off the stage, the music playing, the people applauding and the
+calm, stately man on her right hand explaining this and that, and
+looking into her eyes in such a delicious, perplexing way that past and
+present were all mingled like the waving shadows of a wonderful dream.
+
+She was in love's land for about three hours; then she had to come back
+into the cold frosty air, the veritable streets, and the unmistakable
+stone houses. But it was hardest of all to come back and be the old
+radiant, careless Kitty.
+
+"Well, pussy, what of the play?" asked Tom Duffan; "you cut ----'s
+criticism short this morning. Now, what is yours?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know papa. The play was Shakespeare's, and Booth and
+Barrett backed him up handsomely."
+
+"Very fine criticism indeed, Kitty. I wish Booth and Barrett could hear
+it."
+
+"I wish they could; but I am tired to death now. Good night, papa; good
+night, mamma. I'll talk for twenty in the morning."
+
+"What's the matter with Kitty, mother?"
+
+"Jack Warner, I expect."
+
+"Hum! I don't think so."
+
+"Men don't know everything, Tom."
+
+"They don't know anything about women; their best efforts in that line
+are only guesses at truth."
+
+"Go to bed, Tom Duffan; you are getting prosy and ridiculous. Kitty will
+explain herself in the morning."
+
+But Kitty did not explain herself, and she daily grew more and more
+inexplicable. She began to read: Max brought the books, and she read
+them. She began to practice: Max liked music, and wanted to sing with
+her. She stopped crimping her hair: Max said it was unnatural and
+inartistic. She went to scientific lectures and astronomical lectures
+and literary societies: Max took her.
+
+Tom Duffan did not quite like the change, for Tom was of that order of
+men who love to put their hearts and necks under a pretty woman's foot.
+He had been so long used to Kitty dominant, to Kitty sarcastic, to Kitty
+willful, to Kitty absolute, that he could not understand the new Kitty.
+
+"I do not think our little girl is quite well, mother," he said one day,
+after studying his daughter reading the _Endymion_ without a yawn.
+
+"Tom, if you can't 'think' to better purpose, you had better go on
+painting. Kitty is in love."
+
+"First time I ever saw love make a woman studious and sensible."
+
+"They are uncommon symptoms; nevertheless, Kitty's in love. Poor child!"
+
+"With whom?"
+
+"Max Raymond;" and the mother dropped her eyes upon the ruffle she was
+pleating for Kitty's dress, while Tom Duffan accompanied the new-born
+thought with his favorite melody.
+
+Thus the winter passed quickly and happily away. Greatly to Kitty's
+delight, before its close Jack found the "blonde, sentimental,
+intellectual friend," who could appreciate both him and his writings;
+and the two went to housekeeping in what Kitty called "a large dry-goods
+box." The merry little wedding was the last event of a late spring, and
+when it was over the summer quarters were an imperative question.
+
+"I really don't know what to do, mother," said Tom. "Kitty vowed she
+would not go to the Peak this year, and I scarcely know how to get along
+without it."
+
+"Oh, Kitty will go. Max Raymond has quarters at the hotel lower down."
+
+"Oh, oh! I'll tease the little puss."
+
+"You will do nothing of the kind, Tom, unless you want to go to Cape May
+or the Branch. They both imagine their motives undiscovered; but you
+just let Kitty know that you even suspect them, and she won't stir a
+step in your direction."
+
+Here Kitty, entering the room, stopped the conversation. She had a
+pretty lawn suit on, and a Japanese fan in her hand. "Lawn and fans,
+Kitty," said Tom: "time to leave the city. Shall we go to the Branch, or
+Saratoga?"
+
+"Now, papa, you know you are joking; you always go to the Peak."
+
+"But I am going with you to the seaside this summer, Kitty. I wish my
+little daughter to have her whim for once."
+
+"You are better than there is any occasion for, papa. I don't want
+either the Branch or Saratoga this year. Sarah Cooper is at the Branch
+with her snobby little husband and her extravagant toilettes; I'm not
+going to be patronized by her. And Jack and his learned lady are at
+Saratoga. I don't want to make Mrs. Warner jealous, but I'm afraid I
+couldn't help it. I think you had better keep me out of temptation."
+
+"Where must we go, then?"
+
+"Well, I suppose we might as well go to the Peak. I shall not want many
+new dresses there; and then, papa, you are so good to me all the time,
+you deserve your own way about your holiday."
+
+And Tom Duffan said, "_Thank you, Kitty_," in such a peculiar way that
+Kitty lost all her wits, blushed crimson, dropped her fan, and finally
+left the room with the lamest of excuses. And then Mrs. Duffan said,
+"Tom, you ought to be ashamed of yourself! If men know a thing past
+ordinary, they must blab it, either with a look or a word or a letter; I
+shouldn't wonder if Kitty told you to-night she was going to the
+Branch, and asked you for a $500 check--serve you right, too."
+
+But if Kitty had any such intentions, Max Raymond changed them. Kitty
+went very sweetly to the Peak, and two days afterward Max Raymond,
+straying up the hills with his fishing rod, strayed upon Tom Duffan,
+sketching. Max did a great deal of fishing that summer, and at the end
+of it Tom Duffan's pretty daughter was inextricably caught. She had no
+will but Max's will, and no way but his way. She had promised him never
+to marry any one but him; she had vowed she would love him, and only
+him, to the end of her life.
+
+All these obligations without a shadow or a doubt from the prudent
+little body. Yet she knew nothing of Max's family or antecedents; she
+had taken his appearance and manners, and her father's and mother's
+respectful admission of his friendship, as guarantee sufficient. She
+remembered that Jack, that first night in the theatre, had said
+something about studying law together; and with these items, and the
+satisfactory fact that he always had plenty of money, Kitty had given
+her whole heart, without conditions and without hostages.
+
+Nor would she mar the placid measure of her content by questioning; it
+was enough that her father and mother were satisfied with her choice.
+When they returned to the city, congratulations, presents and
+preparations filled every hour. Kitty's importance gave her back a great
+deal of her old dictatorial way. In the matter of toilettes she would
+not suffer even Max to interfere. "Results were all men had to do with,"
+she said; "everything was inartistic to them but a few yards of linen
+and a straight petticoat."
+
+Max sighed over the flounces and flutings and lace and ribbons, and
+talked about "unadorned beauty;" and then, when Kitty exhibited results,
+went into rhapsodies of wonder and admiration. Kitty was very triumphant
+in those days, but a little drop of mortification was in store for her.
+She was exhibiting all her pretty things one day to a friend, whose
+congratulations found their climax in the following statement:
+
+"Really, Kitty, a most beautiful wardrobe! and such an extraordinary
+piece of luck for such a little scatter-brain as you! Why, they do say
+that Mr. Raymond's last book is just wonderful."
+
+"_Mr. Raymond's last book_!" And Kitty let the satin-lined morocco case,
+with all its ruby treasures, fall from her hand.
+
+"Why, haven't you read it, dear? So clever, and all that, dear."
+
+Kitty had tact enough to turn the conversation; but just as soon as her
+visitor had gone, she faced her mother, with blazing eyes and cheeks,
+and said, "What is Max's business--a lawyer?"
+
+"Gracious, Kitty! What's the matter? He is a scientist, a professor, and
+a great--"
+
+"_Writer?_"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Writes books and magazine articles and things?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Kitty thought profoundly for a few moments, and then said, "_I thought
+so._ I wish Jack Warner was at home."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Only a little matter I should like to have out with him; but it will
+keep."
+
+Jack, however, went South without visiting New York, and when he
+returned, pretty Kitty Duffan had been Mrs. Max Raymond for two years.
+His first visit was to Tom Duffan's parlor-studio. He was painting and
+singing and chatting to his wife as usual. It was so like old times that
+Jack's eyes filled at the memory when he asked where and how was Mrs.
+Raymond.
+
+"Oh, the professor had bought a beautiful place eight miles from the
+city. Kitty and he preferred the country. Would he go and see them?"
+
+Certainly Jack would go. To tell the truth, he was curious to see what
+other miracles matrimony had wrought upon Kitty. So he went, and came
+back wondering.
+
+"Really, dear," says Mrs. Jack Warner, the next day, "how does the
+professor get along with that foolish, ignorant little wife of his?"
+
+"Get along with her? Why, he couldn't get along without her! She sorts
+his papers, makes his notes and quotations, answers his letters, copies
+his manuscripts, swears by all he thinks and says and does, through
+thick and thin, by day and night. It's wonderful, by Jove! I felt
+spiteful enough to remind her that she had once vowed that nothing on
+earth should ever induce her to marry a writer."
+
+"What did she say?"
+
+"She turned round in her old saucy manner, and answered, 'Jack Warner,
+you are as dark as ever. I did not marry the writer, I married _the
+man_.' Then I said, 'I suppose all this study and reading and writing is
+your offering toward the advancement of science and social
+regeneration?'"
+
+"What then?"
+
+"She laughed in a very provoking way, and said, 'Dark again, Jack; _it
+is a labor of love_.'"
+
+"Well I never!"
+
+"Nor I either."
+
+
+
+
+THE HARVEST OF THE WIND.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+     "As a city broken down and without walls, so is he that hath no
+     rule over his own spirit."
+
+
+    "My soul! Master Jesus, my soul!
+      My soul!
+    Dar's a little thing lays in my heart,
+    An' de more I dig him de better he spring:
+      My soul!
+    Dar's a little thing lays in my heart
+    An' he sets my soul on fire:
+      My soul!
+    Master Jesus, my soul! my soul!"
+
+The singer was a negro man, with a very, black but very kindly face; and
+he was hoeing corn in the rich bottom lands of the San Gabriel river as
+he chanted his joyful little melody. It was early in the morning, yet he
+rested on his hoe and looked anxiously toward the cypress swamp on his
+left hand.
+
+"I'se mighty weary 'bout Massa Davie; he'll get himself into trouble ef
+he stay dar much longer. Ole massa might be 'long most any time now." He
+communed with himself in this strain for about five minutes, and then
+threw his hoe across his shoulder, and picked a road among the hills of
+growing corn until he passed out of the white dazzling light of the
+field into the grey-green shadows of the swamp. Threading his way among
+the still black bayous, he soon came to a little clearing in the
+cypress.
+
+Here a young man was standing in an attitude of expectancy--a very
+handsome man clothed in the picturesque costume of a ranchero. He leaned
+upon his rifle, but betrayed both anger and impatience in the rapid
+switching to and fro of his riding-whip. "Plato, she has not come!" He
+said it reproachfully, as if the negro was to blame.
+
+"I done tole you, Massa Davie, dat Miss Lulu neber do noffing ob dat
+kind; ole massa 'ticlarly objects to Miss Lulu seeing you at de present
+time."
+
+"My father objects to every one I like."
+
+"Ef Massa Davie jist 'lieve it, ole massa want ebery thing for his
+good."
+
+"You oversize that statement considerably, Plato. Tell my father, if he
+asks you, that I am going with Jim Whaley, and give Miss Lulu this
+letter."
+
+"I done promise ole massa neber to gib Miss Lulu any letter or message
+from you, Massa Davie."
+
+In a moment the youth's handsome face was flaming with ungovernable
+passion, and he lifted his riding-whip to strike.
+
+"For de Lord Jesus' sake don't strike, Massa Davie! Dese arms done
+carry you when you was de littlest little chile. Don't strike me!"
+
+"I should be a brute if I did, Plato;" but the blow descended upon the
+trunk of the tree against which he had been leaning with terrible force.
+Then David Lorimer went striding through the swamp, his great bell spurs
+chiming to his uneven, crashing tread.
+
+Plato looked sorrowfully after him. "Poor Massa Davie! He's got de
+drefful temper; got it each side ob de house--father and mother, bofe. I
+hope de good Massa above will make 'lowances for de young man--got it
+bofe ways, he did." And he went thoughtfully back to his work, murmuring
+hopes and apologies for the man he loved, with all the forgiving
+unselfishness of a prayer in them.
+
+In some respects Plato was right. David Lorimer had inherited, both from
+father and mother, an unruly temper. His father was a Scot, dour and
+self-willed; his mother had been a Spanish woman, of San Antonio--a
+daughter of the grandee family of Yturris. Their marriage had not been a
+happy one, and the fiery emotional Southern woman had fretted her life
+away against the rugged strength of the will which opposed hers. David
+remembered his mother well, and idolized her memory; right or wrong, he
+had always espoused her quarrel, and when she died she left, between
+father and son, a great gulf.
+
+He had been hard to manage then, but at twenty-two he was beyond all
+control, excepting such as his cousin, Lulu Yturri, exercised over him.
+But this love, the most pure and powerful influence he acknowledged, had
+been positively forbidden. The elder Lorimer declared that there had
+been too much Spanish blood in the family; and it is likely his motives
+commended themselves to his own conscience. It was certain that the mere
+exertion of his will in the matter gave him a pleasure he would not
+forego. Yet he was theoretically a religious man, devoted to the special
+creed he approved, and rigidly observing such forms of worship as made
+any part of it. But the law of love had never yet been revealed to him;
+he had feared and trembled at the fiery Mount of Sinai, but he had not
+yet drawn near to the tenderer influences of Calvary.
+
+He was a rich man also. Broad acres waved with his corn and cotton, and
+he counted his cattle on the prairies by tens of thousands; but nothing
+in his mode of life indicated wealth. The log-house, stretching itself
+out under gigantic trees, was of the usual style of Texan
+architecture--broad passages between every room, sweeping from front to
+rear; and low piazzas, festooned with flowery vines, shading it on every
+side. All around it, under the live oaks, were scattered the negro
+cabins, their staring whitewash looking picturesque enough under the
+hanging moss and dark green foliage. But, simple as the house was, it
+was approached by lordly avenues, shaded with black-jack and sweet gum
+and chincapin, interwoven with superb magnolias and gorgeous tulip
+trees.
+
+The Scot in a foreign country, too, often steadily cultivates his
+national peculiarities. James Lorimer was a Scot of this type. As far as
+it was possible to do so in that sunshiny climate, he introduced the
+grey, sombre influence of the land of mists and east winds. His
+household was ruled with stern gravity; his ranch was a model of good
+management; and though few affected his society, he was generally relied
+upon and esteemed; for, though opinionated, egotistical, and austere,
+there was about him a grand honesty and a sense of strength that would
+rise to every occasion.
+
+And so great is the influence of any genuine nature, that David loved
+his father in a certain fashion. The creed he held was a hard one; but
+when he called his family and servants together, and unflinchingly
+taught it, David, even in his worst moods, was impressed with his
+sincerity and solemnity. There was between them plenty of ground on
+which they could have stood hand in hand, and learned to love one
+another; but a passionate authority on the one hand, and a passionate
+independence on the other, kept them far apart.
+
+Shortly before my story opens there had been a more stubborn quarrel
+than usual, and James Lorimer had forbidden his son to enter his house
+until he chose to humble himself to his father's authority. Then David
+joined Jim Whaley, a great cattle drover, and in a week they were on the
+road to New Mexico with a herd of eight thousand.
+
+This news greatly distressed James Lorimer. He loved his son better than
+he was aware of. There was a thousand deaths upon such a road; there was
+a moral danger in the companionship attending such a business, which he
+regarded with positive horror. The drove had left two days when he heard
+of its departure; but such droves travel slowly, and he could overtake
+it if he wished to do so. As he sat in the moonlight that night,
+smoking, he thought the thing over until he convinced himself that he
+ought to overtake it. Even if Davie would not return with him, he could
+tell him of his danger, and urge him to his duty and thus, at any rate,
+relieve his own conscience of a burden.
+
+Arriving at this conclusion, he looked up and saw his niece Lulu
+leaning against one of the white pilasters supporting the piazza. He
+regarded her a moment curiously, as one may look at a lovely picture.
+The pale, sensitive face, the swaying, graceful figure, the flowing
+white robe, the roses at her girdle, were all sharply revealed by the
+bright moonlight, and nothing beautiful in them escaped his notice. He
+was just enough to admit that the temptation to love so fair a woman
+must have been a great one to David. He had himself fallen into just
+such a bewitching snare, and he believed it to be his duty to prevent a
+recurrence of his own married life at any sacrifice.
+
+"Lulu!"
+
+"Yes, uncle."
+
+"Have you spoken with or written to Davie lately?"
+
+"Not since you forbid me."
+
+He said no more. He began wondering if, after all, the girl would not
+have been better than Jim Whaley. In a dim way it struck him that people
+for ever interfering with destiny do not always succeed in their
+intentions. It was an unusual and unpractical vein of thought for James
+Lorimer, and he put it uneasily away. Still over and over came back the
+question, "What if Lulu's influence would have been sufficient to have
+kept David from the wild reckless men with whom he was now consorting?"
+For the first time in his life he consciously admitted to himself that
+he might have made a mistake.
+
+The next morning he was early in the saddle. The sky was blue and clear,
+the air full of the fresh odor of earth and clover and wild flowers. The
+swallows were making a jubilant twitter, the larks singing on the edge
+of the prairie--the glorious prairie, which the giants of the unflooded
+world had cleared off and leveled for the dwelling-place of Liberty. In
+his own way he enjoyed the scene; but he could not, as he usually did,
+let the peace of it sink into his heart. He had suddenly become aware
+that he had an unpleasant duty to perform, and to shirk a duty was a
+thing impossible to him. Until he had obeyed the voice of Conscience,
+all other voices would fail to arrest his interest or attention.
+
+He rode on at a steady pace, keeping the track very easily, and thinking
+of Lulu in a persistent way that was annoying to him. Hitherto he had
+given her very little thought. Half reluctantly he had taken her into
+his household when she was four years of age, and she had grown up there
+with almost as little care as the vines which year by year clambered
+higher over the piazzas. As for her beauty he had thought no more of it
+than he did of the beauty of the magnolias which sheltered his doorstep.
+Mrs. Lorimer had loved her niece, and he had not interfered with the
+affection. They were both Yturris; it was natural that they should
+understand one another.
+
+But his son was of a different race, and the inheritor of his own
+traditions and prejudices. A Scot from his own countryside had recently
+settled in the neighborhood, and at the Sabbath gathering he had seen
+and approved his daughter. To marry his son David to Jessie Kennedy
+appeared to him a most desirable thing, and he had considered its
+advantages until he could not bear to relinquish the idea. But when both
+fathers had settled the matter, David had met the question squarely, and
+declared he would marry no woman but his cousin Lulu. It was on this
+subject father and son had quarrelled and parted; but for all that,
+James Lorimer could not see his only son taking a high road to ruin, and
+not make an effort to save him.
+
+At sundown he rested a little, but the trail was so fresh he determined
+to ride on. He might reach David while they were camping, and then he
+could talk matters over with more ease and freedom. Near midnight the
+great white Texas moon flooded everything with a light wondrously soft,
+but clear as day, and he easily found Whaley's camp--a ten-acre patch of
+grass on the summit of some low hills.
+
+The cattle had all settled for the night, and the "watch" of eight men
+were slowly riding in a circle around them. Lorimer was immediately
+challenged; and he gave his name and asked to see the captain. Whaley
+rose at once, and confronted him with a cool, civil movement of his hand
+to his hat. Then Lorimer observed the man as he had never done before.
+He was evidently not a person to be trifled with. There was a fixed look
+about him, and a deliberate coolness, sufficiently indicating a
+determined character; and a belt around his waist supported a
+six-shooter and revealed the glittering hilt of a bowie knife.
+
+"Captain, good night. I wish to speak with my son, David Lorimer."
+
+"Wall, sir, you can't do it, not by no manner of means, just yet. David
+Lorimer is on watch till midnight."
+
+He was perfectly civil, but there was something particularly irritating
+in the way Whaley named David Lorimer. So the two men sat almost silent
+before the camp fire until midnight. Then Whaley said, "Mr. Lorimer,
+your son is at liberty now. You'll excuse me saying that the shorter you
+make your palaver the better it will suit me."
+
+Lorimer turned angrily, but Whaley was walking carelessly away; and the
+retort that rose to his lips was not one to be shouted after a man of
+Whaley's desperate character with safety. As his son approached him he
+was conscious of a thrill of pleasure in the young man's appearance.
+
+Physically, he was all he could desire. No Lorimer that ever galloped
+through Eskdale had the national peculiarities more distinctively. He
+was the tall, fair Scot, and his father complacently compared his yellow
+hair and blue eyes with the "dark, deil-like beauty" of Whaley.
+
+"Davie," and he held out his hand frankly, "I hae come to tak ye back to
+your ain hame. Let byganes be byganes, and we'll start a new chapter o'
+life, my lad. Ye'll try to be a gude son, and I'll aye be a gude father
+to ye."
+
+It was a great deal for James Lorimer to say; and David quite
+appreciated the concession, but he answered--
+
+"Lulu, father? I cannot give her up."
+
+"Weel, weel, if ye are daft to marry a strange woman, ye must e'en do
+sae. It is an auld sin, and there have aye been daughters o' Heth to
+plague honest houses wi'. But sit down, my lad; I came to talk wi' ye
+anent some decenter way of life than this."
+
+The talk was not altogether a pleasant one; but both yielded something,
+and it was finally agreed that as soon as Whaley could pick up a man to
+fill Davie's place Davie should return home. Lorimer did not linger
+after this decision. Whaley's behavior had offended him and without the
+ceremony of a "good-bye," he turned his horse's head eastward again.
+
+Picking up a man was not easy; they certainly had several offers from
+emigrants going west, and from Mexicans on the route, but Whaley seemed
+determined not to be pleased. He disliked Lorimer and was deeply
+offended at him interfering with his arrangements. Every day that he
+kept David was a kind of triumph to him. "He might as well have asked me
+how I'd like my drivers decoyed away. I like a man to be on the square,"
+he grumbled. And he said these and similar things so often, that David
+began to feel it impossible to restrain his temper.
+
+Anger, fed constantly by spiteful remarks and small injustices, grows
+rapidly; and as they approached the Apache mountains, the men began to
+notice a fixed tightening of the lips, and a stern blaze in the young
+Scot's eyes, which Whaley appeared to delight in intensifying.
+
+"Thar'll be mischief atween them two afore long," remarked an old
+drover; "Lorimer is gittin' to hate the captain with such a vim that
+he's no appetite for his food left."
+
+"It'll be a fair fight, and one or both'll get upped; that's about it."
+
+At length they met a party of returning drovers, and half a dozen men
+among them were willing to take David's place. Whaley had no longer any
+pretence for detaining him. They were at the time between two long, low
+spurs of hills, enclosing a rich narrow valley, deep with ripened grass,
+gilded into flickering gold by the sun and the dewless summer days. All
+the lower ridges were savagely bald and hot--a glen, paved with gold and
+walled with iron. Oh, how the sun did beat and shiver, and shake down
+into the breathless valley!
+
+The cattle were restless, and the men had had a hard day. David was
+weary; his heart was not in the work; he was glad it was his last watch.
+It began at ten o'clock, and would end at midnight. The weather was
+gloomy, and the few stars which shone between the rifts of driving
+clouds just served to outline the mass of sleeping cattle.
+
+The air also was surcharged with electricity, though there had been no
+lightning.
+
+"I wouldn't wonder ef we have a 'run' to-night," said one of the men.
+"I've seen a good many stampedes, and they allays happens on such nights
+as this one."
+
+"Nonsense!" replied David. "If a cayote frightens one in a drove the
+panic Spreads to all. Any night would do for a 'run.'"
+
+"'Taint so, Lorimer. Ef you've a drove of one thousand or of ten
+thousand it's all the same; the panic strikes every beast at the same
+moment. It's somethin' in the air; 'taint my business to know what. But
+you look like a 'run' yourself, restless and hot, and as ef somethin'
+was gitting 'the mad' up in you. I noticed Whaley is 'bout the same. I'd
+keep clear of him, ef I was you."
+
+"No, I won't. He owes me money, and I'll make him pay me!"
+
+"Don't! Thar, I've warned you, David Lorimer, and that let's me out.
+Take your own way now."
+
+For half an hour David pondered this caution, and something in his own
+heart seconded it. But when the trial of his temper came he turned a
+deaf ear to every monition. Whaley went swaggering by him, and as he
+passed issued an unnecessary order in a very insolent manner. David
+asked pointedly, "Were you speaking to me, Captain?"
+
+"I was."
+
+"Then don't you dare to do it again, sir; never, as long as you live!"
+
+Before the words were out of his mouth, every one of the drove of eight
+thousand were on their feet like a flash of lightning; every one of
+them exactly at the same instant. With a rush like a whirlwind leveling
+a forest, they were off in the darkness.
+
+The wild clatter, the crackling of a river of horns, and the thundering
+of hoofs, was deafening. Whaley, seeing eighty thousand dollars' worth
+of cattle running away from him, turned with a fierce imprecation, and
+gave David a passionate order "to ride up to the leaders," and then he
+sprang for his own mule.
+
+David's time was now fully out, and he drew his horse's rein tight and
+stood still.
+
+"Coward!" screamed Whaley; "try and forget for an hour that you have
+Spanish blood in you."
+
+A pistol shot answered the taunt. Whaley staggered a second, then fell
+without a word. The whole scene had not occupied a minute; but it was a
+minute that branded itself on the soul of David Lorimer. He gazed one
+instant on the upturned face of his slain enemy, and then gave himself
+up to the wild passion of the pursuit.
+
+By the spectral starlight he could see the cattle outlined as a black,
+clattering, thundering stream, rushing wildly on, and every instant
+becoming wilder. But David's horse had been trained in the business; he
+knew what the matter was, and scarce needed any guiding. Dashing along
+by the side of the stampede, they soon overtook the leaders and joined
+the men, who were gradually pushing against the foremost cattle on the
+left so as to turn them to the right. When once the leaders were turned
+the rest blindly followed and thus, by constantly turning them to the
+right, the leaders were finally swung clear around, and overtook the fag
+end of the line.
+
+Then they rushed around in a circle, the centre of which soon closed up,
+and they were "milling;" that is, they had formed a solid wheel, and
+were going round and round themselves in the same space of ground. Men
+who had noticed how very little David's heart had been in his work were
+amazed to see the reckless courage he displayed. Round and round the
+mill he flew, keeping the outside stock from flying off at a tangent,
+and soothing and quieting the beasts nearest to him with his voice. The
+"run" was over as suddenly as it commenced, and the men, breathless and
+exhausted, stood around the circle of panting cattle.
+
+"Whar's the Captain?" said one; "he gin'rally soop'rintends a job like
+this himself."
+
+"And likes to do it. Who's seen the Captain? Hev you, Lorimer?"
+
+"He was in camp when I started. My time was up just as the 'run'
+commenced."
+
+No more was said; indeed, there was little opportunity for
+conversation. The cattle were to watch; it was still dark; the men were
+weary with the hard riding and the unnatural pitch to which their voices
+had been raised. David felt that he must get away at once; any moment a
+messenger from the camp might bring the news of Whaley's murder; and he
+knew well that suspicion would at once rest upon him.
+
+He offered to return to camp and report "all right," and the offer was
+accepted; but, at the first turn, he rode away into the darkness of a
+belt of timber. The cayotes howled in the distance; there was a rush of
+unclean night birds above him, and the growling of panther cats in the
+underwood. But in his soul there was a terror and a darkness that made
+all natural terrors of small account. His own hands were hateful to him.
+He moaned out loudly like a man in an agony. He measured in every
+moments' space the height from which he had fallen; the blessings from
+which he must be an outcast, if by any means he might escape the
+shameful punishment of his deed. He remembered at that hour his father's
+love, the love that had so finely asserted itself when the occasion for
+it came. Lulu's tenderness and beauty, the hope of home and children,
+the respect of his fellow-men, all sacrificed for a moment's passionate
+revenge. He stood face to face with himself, and, dropping the reins,
+cowered down full of terror and grief at the future which he had evoked.
+Within hopeless sight of Hope and Love and Home, he was silent for hours
+gazing despairingly after the life which had sailed by him, and not
+daring--
+
+    "--to search through what sad maze,
+    Thenceforth his incommunicable ways
+    Follow the feet of death."
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+     "--and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." James i.
+     15.
+
+Blessed are they who have seen Nature in those rare, ineffable moments
+when she appears to be asleep--when the stars, large and white, bend
+stilly over the dreaming earth, and not a breath of wind stirs leaf or
+flower. On such a night James Lorimer sat upon his south verandah
+smoking; and his niece Lulu, white and motionless as the magnolia
+flowers above her, mused the hour away beside him. There were little
+ebony squads of negroes huddled together around the doors of their
+quarters, but they also were singularly quiet. An angel of silence had
+passed by no one was inclined to disturb the tranquil calm of the
+dreaming earth.
+
+There is nothing good in this life which Time does not improve. In ten
+days the better feelings which had led James Lorimer to seek his son in
+the path of moral and physical danger had grown as Divine seed does
+grow. This very night, in the scented breathless quiet, he was longing
+for David's return, and forming plans through which the future might
+atone for the past. Gradually the weary negroes went into the cabins,
+rolled themselves in their blankets and fell into that sound, dreamless
+sleep which is the compensation of hard labor. Only Lulu watched and
+thought with him.
+
+Suddenly she stood up and listened. There was a footstep in the avenue,
+and she knew it. But why did it linger, and what dreary echo of sorrow
+was there in it?
+
+"That is David's step, uncle; but what is the matter? Is he sick?"
+
+Then they both saw the young man coming slowly through the gloom, and
+the shadow of some calamity came steadily on before him. Lulu went to
+the top of the long flight of white steps, and put out her hands to
+greet him. He motioned her away with a woeful and positive gesture, and
+stood with hopeless yet half defiant attitude before his father.
+
+In a moment all the new tenderness was gone.
+
+In a voice stern and scornful he asked, "Well, sir, what is the matter?
+What hae ye been doing now?"
+
+"I have shot Whaley!"
+
+The words were rather breathed than spoken, but they were distinctly
+audible. The father rose and faced his wretched son.
+
+Lulu drew close to him, and asked, in a shocked whisper, "Dead?"
+
+"Dead!"
+
+"But you had a good reason, David; I know you had. He would have shot
+you?--it was in self-defence?--it was an accident? Speak, dear!"
+
+"He called me a coward, and--"
+
+"You shot him! Then you are a coward, sir!" said Lorimer, sternly; "and
+having made yourself fit for the gallows, you are a double coward to
+come here and force upon me the duty of arresting you. Put down your
+rifle, sir!"
+
+Lulu uttered a long low wail. "Oh, David, my love! why did you come
+here? Did you hope for pity or help in his heart? And what can I do
+Davie, but suffer with you?" But she drew his face down and kissed it
+with a solemn tenderness that taught the wretched man, in one moment,
+all the blessedness of a woman's devotion, and all the misery that the
+indulgence of his ungovernable temper had caused him.
+
+"We will hae no more heroics, Lulu. As a magistrate and a citizen it is
+my duty to arrest a murderer on his ain confession."
+
+"Your duty!" she answered, in a passion of scorn. "Had you done your
+duty to David in the past years, this duty would not have been to do.
+Your duty or anything belonging to yourself, has always been your sole
+care. Wrong Davie, wrong me, slay love outright, but do your duty, and
+stand well with the world and yourself! Uncle, you are a dreadful
+Christian!"
+
+"How dare you judge me, Lulu? Go to your own room at once!"
+
+"David, dearest, farewell! Fly!--you will get no pity here. Fly!"
+
+"Sit down, sir, and do not attempt to move!"
+
+"I am hungry, thirsty, weary and wretched, and at your mercy, father. Do
+as you will with me." And he laid his rifle upon the table.
+
+Lorimer looked at the hopeless figure that almost fell into the chair
+beside him, and his first feeling was one of mingled scorn and pity.
+
+"How did it happen? Tell me the truth. I want neither excuses nor
+deceptions."
+
+"I have no desire to make them. There was a 'run,' just as my time was
+out. Whaley, in an insolent manner, ordered me to help turn the
+leaders. I did not move. He called me a coward, and taunted me with my
+Spanish blood--it was my dear mother's."
+
+"That is it," answered Lorimer, with an anger all the more terrible for
+its restraint; "it is the Spanish blood wi' its gasconade and foolish
+pride."
+
+"Father! You have a right to give me up to the hangman; but you have no
+right to insult me."
+
+The next moment he fell senseless at his father's feet. It was the
+collapse of consciousness under excessive physical exhaustion and mental
+anguish; but Lorimer, who had never seen a man in such extremity,
+believed it to be death. A tumult of emotions rushed over him, but
+assistance was evidently the first duty, and he hastened for it. First
+he sent the housekeeper Cassie to her young master, then he went to the
+quarters to arouse Plato.
+
+When he returned, Lulu and Cassie were kneeling beside the unconscious
+youth. "You have murdered him!" said Lulu, bitterly; and for a moment he
+felt something of the remorseful agony which had driven the criminal at
+his feet into a short oblivion. But very soon there was a slight
+reaction, and the father was the first to see it. "He has only fainted;
+bring some wine here!" Then he remembered the weakness of the voice
+which had said, "I am hungry, and thirsty, and weary and wretched."
+
+When David opened his eyes again his first glance was at his father.
+There was something in that look that smote the angry man to his heart
+of hearts. He turned away, motioning Plato to follow him. But even when
+he had reached his own room and shut his door, he could not free himself
+from the influence evoked by that look of sorrowful reproach.
+
+Plato stood just within the door, nervously dangling his straw hat. He
+was evidently balancing some question in his own mind, and the
+uncertainty gave a queer restlessness to every part of his body.
+
+"Plato, you are to watch the young man down-stairs; he is not to be
+allowed to leave the house."
+
+"Yes, sar."
+
+"He has committed a great crime, and he must abide the consequences."
+
+No answer.
+
+"You understand that, Plato?"
+
+"Dunno, sar. I mighty sinful ole man myself. Dunno bout de
+consequences."
+
+"Go, and do as I bid you!"
+
+When he was alone he rose slowly and locked his door. He wanted to do
+right, but he was like a man in the fury and darkness of a great
+tempest: he could not see any road at all. There was a Bible on his
+dressing-table, and he opened it; but the verses mingled together, and
+the sense of everything seemed to escape him. The hand of the Great
+Father was stretched out to him in the dark, but he could not find it.
+He knew that at the bottom of his heart lay a wish that David would
+escape from justice. He knew that a selfish shame about his own fair
+character mingled with his father's love; his motives and feelings were
+so mixed that he did not dare to bring them, in their pure truthfulness,
+to the feet of God; for as yet he did not understand that "like as a
+father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him;" he
+thought of the Divine Being as one so jealous for His own rights and
+honor that He would have the human heart a void, so that he might reign
+there supremely. So all that terrible night he stood smitten and
+astonished on a threshold he could not pass.
+
+In another room the question was being in a measure solved for him.
+Cassie brought in meat and bread and wine, and David ate, and felt
+refreshed. Then the love of life returned, and the terror of a shameful
+death; and he laid his hand upon his rifle and looked round to see what
+chance of escape his father had left him. Plato stood at the door, Lulu
+sat by his side, holding his hand. On her face there was an expression
+of suffering, at once defiant and despairing--a barren suffering,
+without hope. They had come to that turn on their unhappy road when they
+had to bid each other "Farewell!" It was done very sadly, and with few
+words.
+
+"You must go now, beloved."
+
+He held her close to his heart and kissed her solemnly and silently. The
+next moment she turned on him from the open door a white, anguished
+face. Then he was alone with Plato.
+
+"Plato, I must go now. Will you saddle the brown mare for me?"
+
+"She am waiting, Massa David. I tole Cassie to get her ready, and some
+bread and meat, and _dis_, Massa Davie, if you'll 'blige ole Plato."
+Then he laid down a rude bag of buckskin, holding the savings of his
+lifetime.
+
+"How much is there, Plato?"
+
+"Four hundred dollars, sar. Sorry it am so little."
+
+"It was for your freedom, Plato."
+
+"I done gib dat up, Massa Davie. I'se too ole now to git de rest. Ef you
+git free, dat is all I want."
+
+They went quietly out together. It was not long after midnight. The
+brown mare stood ready saddled in the shadow, and Cassie stood beside
+her with a small bag, holding a change of linen and some cooked food.
+The young man mounted quickly, grasped the kind hands held out to him,
+and then rode away into the darkness. He went softly at first, but when
+he reached the end of the avenue at a speed which indicated his terror
+and his mental suffering.
+
+Cassie and Plato watched him until he became an indistinguishable black
+spot upon the prairie; then they turned wearily towards the cabins. They
+had seen and shared the long sorrow and discontent of the household;
+they hardly expected anything but trouble in some form or other. Both
+were also thinking of the punishment they were likely to receive; for
+James Lorimer never failed to make an example of evil-doers; he would
+hardly be disposed to pass over their disobedience.
+
+Early in the morning Plato was called by his master. There was little
+trace of the night of mental agony the latter had passed. He was one of
+those complete characters who join to perfect physical health a mind
+whose fibres do not easily show the severest strain.
+
+"Tell Master David to come here."
+
+"Massa David, sar! Massa David done gone sar!" The old man's lips were
+trembling, but otherwise his nervous restlessness was over. He looked
+his master calmly in the face.
+
+"Did I not tell you to stop him?"
+
+"Ef de Lord in heaven want him stopped, Massa James, He'll send the
+messenger--Plato could not do it!"
+
+"How did he go?"
+
+"On de little brown mare--his own horse done broke all up."
+
+"How much money did you give him?"
+
+"Money, sar?"
+
+"How much? Tell the truth."
+
+"Four hundred dollars."
+
+"That will do. Tell Cassie I want my breakfast."
+
+At breakfast he glanced at Lulu's empty chair, but said nothing. In the
+house all was as if no great sin and sorrow had darkened its threshold
+and left a stain upon its hearthstone. The churning and cleaning was
+going on as usual. Only Cassie was quieter, and Lulu lay, white and
+motionless, in the little vine-shaded room that looked too cool and
+pretty for grief to enter. The unhappy father sat still all day,
+pondering many things that he had not before thought of. Every footfall
+made his heart turn sick, but the night came, and there was no further
+bad news.
+
+On the second day he went into Lulu's room, hoping to say a word of
+comfort to her. She listened apathetically, and turned her face to the
+wall with a great sob. He began to feel some irritation in the
+atmosphere of misery which surrounded him. It was very hard to be made
+so wretched for another's sin. The thought in an instant became a
+reproach. Was he altogether innocent? The second and third days passed;
+he began to be sure then that David must have reached a point beyond the
+probability of pursuit.
+
+On the fourth day he went to the cotton field. He visited the overseer's
+house, he spent the day in going over accounts and making estimates. He
+tried to forget that _something_ had happened which made life appear a
+different thing. In the grey, chill, misty evening he returned home. The
+negroes were filing down the long lane before him, each bearing their
+last basket of cotton--all of them silent, depressed with their
+weariness, and intensely sensitive to the melancholy influence of the
+autumn twilight.
+
+Lorimer did not care to pass them. He saw them, one by one, leave their
+cotton at the ginhouse, and trail despondingly off to their cabins. Then
+he rode slowly up to his own door. A man sat on the verandah smoking. At
+the sight of him his heart fell fathoms deep.
+
+"Good evening." He tried to give his voice a cheerful welcoming sound,
+but he could not do it; and the visitor's attitude was not encouraging.
+
+"Good evening, Lorimer. I'm right sorry to tell you that you will be
+wanted on some unpleasant business very early to-morrow morning."
+
+He tried to answer, but utterly failed; his tongue was as dumb as his
+soul was heavy. He only drew a chair forward and sat down.
+
+"Fact is your son is in a tighter place than any man would care for. I
+brought him up to Sheriff Gillelands' this afternoon. Perhaps he can
+make it out a case of 'justifiable homicide'--hope he can. He's about as
+likely a young man as I ever saw."
+
+Still no answer.
+
+"Well, Lorimer, I think you're right. Talking won't help things, and may
+make them a sight worse. You'll be over to Judge Lepperts' in the
+morning?--say about ten o'clock."
+
+"Yes. Will you have some supper?"
+
+"No; this is not hungry work. My pipe is more satisfactory under the
+circumstances. I'll have to saddle up, too. There's others to see yet.
+Is there any one particular you'd like on the jury?"
+
+"No. You must do your duty, Sheriff."
+
+He heard him gallop away, and stood still, clasping and unclasping his
+hands in a maze of anguish. David at Sheriff Gillelands'! David to be
+tried for murder in the morning! What could he do? If David had not
+confessed to the shooting of Whaley, would he be compelled to give his
+evidence? Surely, conscience would not require so hard a duty of him.
+
+At length he determined to go and see David before he decided upon the
+course he ought to take. The sheriff's was only about three miles
+distant. He rode over there at once. His son, with travel-stained
+clothes and blood-shot hopeless eyes, looked up to see him enter. His
+heart was full of a great love, but it was wronged, even at that hour,
+by an irritation that would first and foremost assert itself. Instead of
+saying, "My dear, dear lad!" the lament which was in his heart, he said,
+"So this is the end of it, David?"
+
+"Yes. It is the end."
+
+"You ought not to have run away."
+
+"No. I ought to have let you surrender me to justice; that would have
+put you all right."
+
+"I wasna thinking o' that. A man flying from justice is condemned by the
+act."
+
+"It would have made no matter. There is only one verdict and one end
+possible."
+
+"Have you then confessed the murder?"
+
+He awaited the answer in an agony. It came with a terrible distinctness.
+"Whaley lived thirty hours. He told. His brother-in-law has gone on with
+the cattle. Four of the drivers are come back as witnesses. They are in
+the house."
+
+"But you have not yourself confessed?"
+
+"Yes. I told Sheriff Gillelands I shot the man. If I had not done so you
+would; I knew that. I have at least spared you the pain and shame of
+denouncing your own son!"
+
+"Oh, David, David! I would not. My dear lad, I would not! I would hae
+gane to the end o' the world first. Why didna you trust me?"
+
+"How could I, father?"
+
+He let the words drop wearily, and covered his face with his hands.
+After a pause, he said, "Poor Lulu! Don't tell her if you can help it,
+until--all is over. How glad I am this day that my mother is dead!"
+
+The wretched father could endure the scene no longer. He went into the
+outer room to find out what hope of escape remained for his son. The
+sheriff was full of pity, and entered readily into a discussion of
+David's chances. But he was obliged to point out that they were
+extremely small. The jury and the judge were all alike cattle men; their
+sympathies were positively against everything likely to weaken the
+discipline necessary in carrying large herds of cattle safely across the
+continent. In the moment of extremest danger, David had not only
+refused assistance, but had shot his employer.
+
+"He called him a coward, and you'll admit that's a vera aggravating
+name."
+
+The sheriff readily admitted that under any ordinary circumstances in
+Texas that epithet would justify a murder; "but," he added, "most any
+Texan would say he was a coward to stand still and see eight thousand
+head of cattle on the stampede. You'll excuse me, Lorimer, I'd say so
+myself."
+
+He went home again and shut himself in his room to think. But after many
+hours, he was just as far as ever from any coherent decision. Justice!
+Justice! Justice! The whole current of his spiritual and mental
+constitution ran that road. Blood for blood; a life for a life; it was
+meet and right, and he acknowledged it with bleeding heart and streaming
+eyes. But, clear and distinct above the tumult of this current, he heard
+something which made him cry out with an equally unhappy father of old,
+"Oh, Absalom! My son, my son Absalom!"
+
+Then came the accuser and boldly told him that he had neglected his
+duty, and driven his son into the way of sin and death; and that the
+seeds sown in domestic bickering and unkindness had only brought forth
+their natural fruit. The scales fell from his eyes; all the past became
+clear to him. His own righteousness was dreadful in his sight. He cried
+out with his whole soul, "God be merciful! God be merciful!"
+
+The darkest despairs are the most silent. All the night long he was only
+able to utter that one heartbroken cry for pity and help. At the
+earliest daylight he was with his son. He was amazed to find him calm,
+almost cheerful. "The worst is over father," he said. "I have done a
+great wrong; I acknowledge the justice of the punishment, and am willing
+to suffer it."
+
+"But after death! Oh, David, David--afterward!"
+
+"I shall dare to hope--for Christ also has died, the just for the
+unjust."
+
+Then the father, with a solemn earnestness, spoke to his son of that
+eternity whose shores his feet were touching. At this hour he would
+shirk no truth; he would encourage no false hope. And David listened;
+for this side of his father's character he had always had great respect,
+and in those first hours of remorse following the murder, not the least
+part of his suffering had been the fearful looking forward to the Divine
+vengeance which he could never fly from. But there had been _One_ with
+him that night, _One_ who is not very far from us at any time; and
+though David had but tremblingly understood His voice, and almost feared
+to accept its comfort, he was in those desperate circumstances when men
+cannot reason and philosophize, when nothing remains for them but to
+believe.
+
+"Dinna get by the truth, my dear lad; you hae committed a great sin,
+there is nae doubt o' that."
+
+"But God's mercy, I trust, is greater."
+
+"And you hae nothing to bring him from a' the years o' your life! Oh,
+David, David!"
+
+"I know," he answered sadly. "But neither had the dying thief. He only
+believed. Father, this is the sole hope and comfort left me now. Don't
+take it from me."
+
+Lorimer turned away weeping; yes, and praying, too, as men must pray
+when they stand powerless in the stress of terrible sorrows. At noon the
+twelve men summoned dropped in one by one, and the informal court was
+opened. David Lorimer admitted the murder, and explained the long
+irritation and the final taunt which had produced it. The testimony of
+the returned drovers supplemented the tragedy. If there was any excuse
+to be made, it lay in the disgraceful epithet applied to David and the
+scornful mention of his mother's race.
+
+There was, however, an unfavorable feeling from the first. The elder
+Lorimer, with his stern principles and severe manners, was not a popular
+man. David's proud, passionate temper had made him some active enemies;
+and there was not a man on the jury who did not feel as the sheriff had
+honestly expressed himself regarding David's conduct at the moment of
+the stampede. It touched all their prejudices and their interests very
+nearly; not one of them was inclined to blame Whaley for calling a man a
+coward who would not answer the demand for help at such an imperative
+moment.
+
+As to the Spanish element, it had always been an offence to Texans.
+There were men on the jury whose fathers had died fighting it; beside,
+there was that unacknowledged but positive contempt which ever attaches
+itself to a race that has been subjugated. Long before the form of a
+trial was over, David had felt the hopelessness of hope, and had
+accepted his fate. Not so his father. He pleaded with all his soul for
+his son's life. But he touched no heart there. The jury had decided on
+the death-sentence before they left their seats.
+
+And in that locality, and at that time, there was no delay in carrying
+it out. It would be inconvenient to bring together again a sufficient
+number of witnesses, and equally inconvenient to guard a prisoner for
+any length of time. David was to die at sunset.
+
+Three hours yet remained to the miserable father. He threw aside all
+pride and all restraint. Remorse and tenderness wrung his heart. But
+these last hours had a comfort no others in their life ever had. What
+confessions of mutual faults were made! What kisses and forgivenesses
+were exchanged! At last the two poor souls who had dwelt in the chill of
+mistakes and ignorance knew that they loved each other. Sometimes the
+Lord grants such sudden unfoldings to souls long closed. They are of
+those royal compassions which astonish even the angels.
+
+When his time was nearly over, David pushed a piece of paper toward his
+father. "It is my last request," he said, looking into his face with
+eyes whose entreaty was pathetic. "You must grant it, father, hard as it
+is."
+
+Lorimer's hand trembled as he took the paper, but his face turned pale
+as ashes when he read the contents.
+
+"I canna, I canna do it," he whispered.
+
+"Yes, you will, father. It is the last favor I shall ask of you."
+
+The request was indeed a bitter one; so bitter that David had not dared
+to voice it. It was this--
+
+"Father, be my executioner. Do not let me be hung. The rope is all I
+dread in death; ere it touch me, let your rifle end my life."
+
+For a few moments Lorimer sat like a man turned to stone. Then he rose
+and went to the jury. They were sitting together under some mulberry
+trees, smoking. Naturally silent, they had scarcely spoken since their
+verdict. Grave, fierce men, they were far from being cruel; they had no
+pleasure in the act which they believed to be their duty.
+
+Lorimer went from one to the other and made known his son's request. He
+pleaded, "That as David had shot Whaley, justice would be fully
+satisfied in meting out the same death to the murderer as the victim."
+
+But one man, a ranchero of great influence and wealth, answered that he
+must oppose such a request. It was the rope, he thought, made the
+punishment. He hoped no Texan feared a bullet. A clean, honorable death
+like that was for a man who had never wronged his manhood. Every
+rascally horse thief or Mexican assassin would demand a shot if they
+were given a precedent. And arguments that would have been essentially
+false in some localities had a compelling weight in that one. The men
+gravely nodded their heads in assent, and Lorimer knew that any further
+pleading was in vain. Yet when he returned to his son, he clasped his
+hand and looked into his eyes, and David understood that his request
+would be granted.
+
+Just as the sun dropped the sheriff entered the room. He took the
+prisoner's arm and walked quietly out with him. There was a coil of rope
+on his other arm, and David cast his eyes on it with horror and
+abhorrence, and then looked at his father; and the look was returned
+with one of singular steadiness. When they reached the little grove of
+mulberries, the men, one by one, laid down their pipes and slowly rose.
+There was a large live oak at the end of the enclosure, and to it the
+party walked.
+
+Here David was asked "if he was guilty?" and he acknowledged the sin:
+and when further asked "if he thought he had been fairly dealt with, and
+deserved death?" he answered, "that he was quite satisfied, and was
+willing to pay the penalty of his crime."
+
+Oh, how handsome he looked at this moment to his heart-broken father!
+His bare head was just touched by the rays of the setting sun behind
+him; his fine face, calm and composed, wore even a faint air of
+exultation. At this hour the travel-stained garments clothed him with a
+touching and not ignoble pathos. Involuntarily they told of the weary
+days and nights of despairing flight, which after all had been useless.
+
+Lorimer asked if he might pray, and there was a simultaneous though
+silent motion of assent. Every man bared his head, while the wretched
+father repeated the few verses of entreaty and hope which at that awful
+hour were his own strength and comfort. This service occupied but a few
+minutes; just as it ended out of the dead stillness rose suddenly a
+clear, joyful thrilling burst of song from a mocking bird in the
+branches above. David looked up with a wonderful light on his face;
+perhaps it meant more to him than anyone else understood.
+
+The next moment the sheriff was turning back the flannel collar which
+covered the strong, pillar-like throat. In that moment David sought his
+father's eyes once more, smiled faintly, and called "Father! _Now_!" As
+the words reached the father's ears, the bullet reached the son's heart.
+He fell without a moan ere the rope had touched him. It was the father's
+groan which struck every heart like a blow; and there was a grandeur of
+suffering about him which no one thought of resisting.
+
+He walked to his child's side, and kneeling down closed the eyes, and
+wept and prayed over him as a mother over her first-born. They were all
+fathers around him; not one of them but suffered with him. Silently they
+untied their horses and rode away; no one had the heart to say a word of
+dissent. If they had, Lorimer had reached a point far beyond care of
+man's approval or disapproval in the matter; for a great sorrow is
+indifferent to all outside itself.
+
+When he lifted his head he was alone. The sheriff was waiting at the
+house door, Plato stood at a little distance, weeping. He motioned to
+him to approach, and in a few words understood that he had with him a
+companion and a rude bier. They laid the body upon it, and the sheriff
+having satisfied himself that the last penalty had been fully paid,
+Lorimer was permitted to claim his dead. He took him up to his own room
+and laid him on his own bed, and passed the night by his side. The dead
+opened the eyes of the living, and in that solemn companionship he saw
+all that he had been blind to for so many years. Then he understood what
+it must be to sit in the silent halls of eternal despair, and count over
+and over the wasted blessings of love and endure the agony of unavailing
+repentance.
+
+In the morning he knew he must tell Lulu all; and this duty he dreaded.
+But in some way the girl already knew the full misery of the tragedy.
+Part she had divined, and part she had gathered from the servants' faces
+and words. She was quite aware _what_ was in her uncle's lonely room.
+Just as he was thinking of the hard necessity of going to her, she came
+to the door. For the first time in his life he called her "My daughter,"
+and stooped and kissed her. He had a letter for her--David's dying
+message of love. He put it in her hand, and left her alone with the
+dead.
+
+At sunrise a funeral took place. In that climate the necessity was an
+urgent one. Plato had dug the grave under a tree in the little clearing
+in the cypress swamp. It had been a favorite place of resort; there Lulu
+had often brought her work or book, and passed long happy hours with the
+slain youth. She followed his corpse to the grave in a tearless apathy,
+more pitiful than the most frantic grief. Lorimer took her on his arm,
+the servants in long single file, silent and terrified, walked behind
+them. The sun was shining, but the chilly wind blew the withered leaves
+across the still prostrate figure, as it lay upon the ground, where last
+it had stood in all the beauty and unreasoning passion of youth.
+
+When the last rites were over the servants went wailing home again,
+their doleful, monotonous chant seeming to fill the whole spaces of air
+with lamentation. But neither Lorimer nor Lulu spoke a word. The girl
+was white and cold as marble, and absolutely irresponsive to her uncle's
+unusual tenderness. Evidently she had not forgiven him. And as the
+winter went wearily on she gradually drew more and more within her own
+consciousness. Lorimer seldom saw her. She was soon very ill, and kept
+her room entirely. He sent for eminent physicians, he surrounded her
+with marks of thoughtful love and care; but quietly, as a flower fades,
+she died.
+
+One night she sent for him. "Uncle," she said, "I am going away very
+soon, now. If I have been hard and unjust to you, forgive me. And I want
+your promise about my sister's children; will you give me it?"
+
+He winced visibly, and remained silent.
+
+"There are six boys and two girls--they are poor, ignorant and unhappy.
+They are under very bad influences. For David's sake and my sake you
+must see that they are brought up right. There need be no mistakes this
+time; for two wrecked lives you may save eight. You will do it, uncle?"
+
+"I will do my best, dear."
+
+"I know you will. Send Plato to San Antonio for them at once. You will
+need company soon."
+
+"Do you think you are dying, dear?"
+
+"I know I am dying."
+
+"And how is a' wi' you anent what is beyond death?"
+
+She pointed with a bright smile to the New Testament by her side, and
+then closed her eyes wearily. She appeared so exhausted that he could
+press the question no further. And the next morning she had "gone
+away"--gone so silently and peacefully that Aunt Cassie, who was sitting
+by her side, knew not when she departed. He went and looked at her. The
+fair young face had a look austere and sorrowful, as if life had been
+too sore a burden for her. His anguish was great, but it was God's
+doing. What was there for him to say?
+
+The charge that she had left him he faithfully kept--not very cheerfully
+at first, perhaps, and often feeling it to be a very heavy care; but he
+persevered, and the reward came. The children grew and prospered; they
+loved him, and he learned to love them, so much, finally, that he gave
+them his own name, and suffered them to call him father.
+
+As the country settled, and little towns grew up around him, the tragedy
+of his earlier life was forgotten by the world, but it was ever present
+to his own heart; for though love and sorrow mellowed and chastened the
+stern creed in which he believed with all his soul, he had many an hour
+of spiritual agony concerning the beloved ones who had died and made no
+sign. Not till he got almost within the heavenly horizon did he
+understand that the Divine love and mercy is without limitations; and
+that He who could say, "Let there be light," could also say, "Thy sins
+be forgiven thee;" and the pardoned child, or ever he was aware, be come
+to the holy land: for--
+
+    "Down in the valley of death
+      A cross is standing plain;
+    Where strange and awful the shadows sleep,
+      And the ground has a deep red stain.
+    This cross uplifted there
+      Forbids, with voice Divine,
+    Our anguished hearts to break for the dead
+      Who have died and made no sign.
+    As they turned at length from us,
+      Dear eyes that were heavy and dim,
+    May have met his look, who was lifted there,
+      May be sleeping safe in Him."
+
+
+
+
+THE SEVEN WISE MEN OF PRESTON.
+
+
+Let me introduce to our readers seven of the wisest men of the present
+century--the seven drafters and signers of the first teetotal pledge.
+
+The movement originated in the mind of Joseph Livesey, and a short
+consideration of the circumstances and surroundings of his useful career
+will give us the best insight into the necessities and influences which
+gave it birth. He was born near Preston, in Lancashire, in the year
+1795; the beginning of an era in English history which scarcely has a
+parallel for national suffering. The excitement of the French Revolution
+still agitated all classes, and, commercial distress and political
+animosities made still more terrible the universal scarcity of food and
+the prostration of the manufacturing business.
+
+His father and mother died early, and he was left to the charge of his
+grandfather, who, unfortunately, abandoned his farm and became a cotton
+spinner. Lancashire men had not then been whetted by daily attrition
+with steam to their present keen and shrewd character, and the elder
+Livesey lost all he possessed. The records of cotton printing and
+spinning mention with honor the Messrs. Livesey, of Preston, as the
+first who put into practice Bell's invention of cylindrical printing of
+calicoes in 1785; but whether the firms are identical or not I have no
+certain knowledge. It shows, however, that they were a race inclined to
+improvements and ready to test an advance movement.
+
+That Joseph Livesey's youth was a hard and bitter one there is no doubt.
+The price of flour continued for years fabulously high; so much so that
+wealthy people generally pledged themselves to reduce their use of it
+one-third, and puddings or cakes were considered on any table, a sinful
+extravagance. When the government was offering large premiums to farmers
+for raising extra quantities and detailing soldiers to assist in
+threshing it, poor bankrupt spinners must have had a hard struggle for a
+bare existence.
+
+Indeed, education was hardly thought possible, and, though Joseph
+managed, "by hook or crook," to learn how to read, write and count a
+little, it was through difficulties and discouragements that would have
+been fatal to any ordinary intelligence or will.
+
+Until he was twenty-one years of age he worked patiently at his loom,
+which stood in one corner of a cellar, so cold and damp that its walls
+were constantly wet. But he was hopeful, and even in those dark days
+dared to fall in love. On attaining his majority, he received a legacy
+of L30. Then he married the poor girl who had made brighter his hard
+apprenticeship, and lived happily with her for fifty years.
+
+But the troubles that had begun before his birth--and which did not
+lighten until after the passing of the Reform Bill, in June, 1832--had
+then attained a proportion which taxed the utmost energies of both
+private charities and the national government.
+
+The year of Joseph Livesey's marriage saw the passage of the Corn Laws,
+and the first of those famous mass meetings in Peter's Field, near
+Manchester, which undoubtedly molded the future temper and status of the
+English weavers and spinners. From one of these meetings, the following
+year, thousands of starving men started _en masse_ to London. They were
+followed by the military and brought back for punishment or died
+miserably on the road, though 500 of them reached Macclesfield and a
+smaller number Derby.
+
+But Livesey, though probably suffering as keenly as others, joined no
+body of rioters. He borrowed a sovereign and bought two cheeses; then
+cutting them up into small lots, he retailed them on the streets,
+Saturday afternoons, when the men were released from work. The profit
+from this small investment exceeding what it was possible for him to
+make at his loom, he continued the trade, and from this small beginning
+founded a business, and made a fortune which has enabled him to devote a
+long life to public usefulness and benevolence.
+
+But his little craft must have needed skillful piloting, for his family
+increased rapidly during the disastrous years between 1816 and 1832; so
+disastrous that in 1825-26 the Bank of England was obliged to authorize
+the Chamber of Commerce to make loans to individuals carrying on large
+works of from L500 to L10,000. Bankruptcies were enormous, trade was
+everywhere stagnant, L60,000 were subscribed for meal and peas to feed
+the starving, and the government issued 40,000 articles of clothing. The
+quarrels between masters and spinners were more and more bitter, mills
+were everywhere burnt, and at Ashton in one day 30,000 "hands" turned
+out.
+
+During these dreadful years every thoughtful person had noticed how much
+misery and ill-will was caused by the constant thronging to public
+houses, and temperance societies had been at work among the angry men of
+the working classes. Joseph Livesey had been actively engaged in this
+work. But these first efforts of the temperance cause were directed
+entirely against spirits. The use of wine and ale was considered then a
+necessity of life. Brewing was in most families as regular and important
+a duty as baking; the youngest children had their mug of ale; and
+clergymen were spoken of without reproach as "one," "two" or
+"three-bottle men."
+
+But Joseph Livesey soon became satisfied that these half measures were
+doing no good at all, and in 1831 a little circumstance decided him to
+take a stronger position. He had to go to Blackburn to see a person on
+business; and, as a matter of course, whiskey was put on the table.
+Livesey for the first time tasted it, and was very ill in consequence.
+He had then a large family of boys, and both for their sakes and that of
+others, he resolved to halt no longer between two opinions.
+
+He spoke at once in all the temperance meetings of the folly of partial
+reforms, pointed out the hundreds of relapses, and urged upon the
+association the duty of absolute abstinence. His zeal warmed with his
+efforts and he insisted that in the matter of drinking "the golden mean"
+was the very sin for which the Laodicean Church had been cursed.
+
+The disputes were very angry and bitter; far more so than we at this
+day can believe possible, unless we take into account the universal
+national habits and its poetic and domestic associations with every
+phase of English life. But he gradually gained adherents to his views
+though it was not until the following year he was able to take another
+step forward.
+
+It was on Thursday, August 23, 1832, that the first solemn pledge of
+total abstinence was taken. That afternoon Joseph Livesey, pondering the
+matter in his mind, saw John King pass his shop. He asked him to come in
+and talk the subject over with him. Before they parted Livesey asked
+King if he would join him in a pledge to abstain forever from all
+liquors; and King said he would. Livesey then wrote out a form and,
+laying it before King, said: "Thee sign it first, lad." King signed it,
+Livesey followed him, and the two men clasped hands and stood pledged to
+one of the greatest works humanity has ever undertaken.
+
+A special meeting was then called, and after a stormy debate, the main
+part of the audience left, a small number remaining to continue the
+argument. But the end of it was that seven men came forward and drew up
+and signed the following document, which is still preserved:
+
+     "We agree to abstain from all liquors of an intoxicating quality,
+     whether they be ale, porter, wine or ardent spirits, except as
+     medicine.
+
+     "JOHN GRATREX,
+     EDWARD DICKINSON,
+     JOHN BROADBENT,
+     JNO. SMITH,
+     JOSEPH LIVESEY,
+     DAVID ANDERTON,
+     JNO. KING."
+
+All these reformers were virtually _working_ men, though most of them
+rose to positions of respect and affluence. Still the humility of the
+origin of the movement was long a source of contempt, and its members,
+within my own recollection, had the stigma of vulgarity almost in right
+of their convictions.
+
+But God takes hands with good men's efforts, and the cause prospered
+just where it was most needed--among the operatives and "the common
+people." One of these latter, a hawker of fish, called Richard Turner,
+stood, in a very amusing and unexpected way, sponsor for the society.
+Richard was fluent of speech, and, if his language was the broadest
+patois, it was, nevertheless, of the most convincing character. He
+always spoke well, and, if authorized words failed him, readily coined
+what he needed. One night while making a very fervent speech, he said:
+"No half-way measures here. Nothing but the _te-te total_ will do."
+
+Mr. Livesey at once seized the word, and, rising, proposed it as the
+name of the society. The proposition was received with enthusiastic
+cheering, and these "root and branch" temperance men were thenceforward
+known as teetotalers. Richard remained all his life a sturdy advocate of
+the cause, and when he died, in 1846, I made one of the hundreds and
+thousands that crowded the streets of the beautiful town of Preston and
+followed him to his grave. The stone above it chronicles shortly his
+name and death, and the fact that he was the author of a word known now
+wherever Christianity and civilization are known.
+
+
+
+
+MARGARET SINCLAIR'S SILENT MONEY.
+
+
+"It was ma luck, Sinclair, an' I couldna win by it."
+
+"Ha'vers! It was David Vedder's whiskey that turned ma boat
+tapsalteerie, Geordie Twatt."
+
+"Thou had better blame Hacon; he turned the boat _Widdershins_ an' what
+fule doesna ken that it is evil luck to go contrarie to the sun?"
+
+"It is waur luck to have a drunken, superstitious pilot. Twatt, that
+Norse blood i' thy veins is o'er full o' freets. Fear God, an' mind thy
+wark, an' thou needna speir o' the sun what gate to turn the boat."
+
+"My Norse blood willna stand ony Scot stirring it up, Sinclair. I come
+o' a mighty kind--"
+
+"Tush, man! Mules mak' an unco' full about their ancestors having been
+horses. It has come to this, Geordie: thou must be laird o' theesel'
+before I'll trust thee again with ony craft o' mine." Then Peter
+Sinclair lifted his papers, and, looking the discharged sailor steadily
+in the face, bid him "go on his penitentials an' think things o'er a
+bit."
+
+Geordie Twatt went sullenly out, but Peter was rather pleased with
+himself; he believed that he had done his duty in a satisfactory manner.
+And if a man was in a good temper with himself, it was just the kind of
+even to increase his satisfaction. The gray old town of Kirkwall lay in
+supernatural glory, the wondrous beauty of the mellow gloaming blending
+with soft green and rosy-red spears of light that shot from east to
+west, or charged upward to the zenith. The great herring fleet outside
+the harbor was as motionless as "a painted _fleet_ upon a painted
+ocean"--the men were sleeping or smoking upon the piers--not a foot fell
+upon the flagged streets, and the only murmur of sound was round the
+public fountains, where a few women were perched on the bowl's edge,
+knitting and gossiping.
+
+Peter Sinclair was, perhaps, not a man inclined to analyze such things,
+but they had their influence over him; for, as he drifted slowly home in
+his skiff, he began to pity Geordie's four motherless babies, and to
+wonder if he had been as patient with him as he might have been. "An'
+yet," he murmured, "there's the loss on the goods, an' the loss o' time,
+and the boat to steek afresh forbye the danger to life! Na, na, I'm no
+called upon to put life i' peril for a glass o' whiskey."
+
+Then he lifted his head, and there, on the white sands, stood his
+daughter Margaret. He was conscious of a great thrill of pride as he
+looked at her, for Margaret Sinclair, even among the beautiful women of
+the Orcades, was most beautiful of all. In a few minutes he had fastened
+his skiff at a little jetty, and was walking with her over the springy
+heath toward a very pretty house of white stone. It was his own house,
+and he was proud of it also, but not half so proud of the house as of
+its tiny garden; for there, with great care and at great cost, he had
+managed to rear a few pansies, snowdrops, lilies of the valley, and
+other hardy English flowers. Margaret and he stooped lovingly over them,
+and it was wonderful to see how Peter's face softened, and how gently
+the great rough hands, that had been all day handling smoked geese and
+fish, touched these frail, trembling blossoms.
+
+"Eh, lassie! I could most greet wi' joy to see the bonnie bit things;
+when I can get time I'se e'en go wi' thee to Edinburgh; I'd like weel to
+see such fields an' gardens an' trees as I hear thee tell on."
+
+Then Margaret began again to describe the greenhouses, the meadows and
+wheat fields, the forests of oaks and beeches she had seen during her
+school days in Edinburgh. Peter listened to her as if she was telling a
+wonderful fairy story, but he liked it, and, as he cut slice after slice
+from his smoked goose, he enjoyed her talk of roses and apple-blossoms,
+and smacked his lips for the thousandth time when she described a peach,
+and said, "It tasted, father, as if it had been grown in the Garden of
+Eden."
+
+After such conversations Peter was always stern and strict. He felt an
+actual anger at Adam and Eve; their transgression became a keenly
+personal affair, for he had a very vivid sense of the loss they had
+entailed upon him. The vague sense of wrong made him try to fix it, and,
+after a short reflection, he said in an injured tone:
+
+"I wonder when Ronald's coming hame again?"
+
+"Ronald is all right, father."
+
+"A' wrong, thou means, lassie. There's three vessels waiting to be
+loaded, an' the books sae far ahint that I kenna whether I'm losing or
+saving. Where is he?"
+
+"Not far away. He will be at the Stones of Stennis this week some time
+with an Englishman he fell in with at Perth."
+
+"I wonder, now, was it for my sins or his ain that the lad has sic auld
+world notions? There isna a pagan altar-stane 'tween John O'Groat's an'
+Lambaness he doesna run after. I wish he were as anxious to serve in
+the Lord's temple--I would build him a kirk an' a manse for it."
+
+"We'll be proud of Ronald yet, father. The Sinclairs have been fighting
+and making money for centuries: it is a sign of grace to have a scholar
+and a poet at last among them."
+
+Peter grumbled. His ideas of poetry were limited by the Scotch psalms,
+and, as for scholarship, he asserted that the books were better kept
+when he used his own method of tallies and crosses. Then he remembered
+Geordie Twatt's misfortune, and had his little grumble out on this
+subject: "Boat and goods might hae been a total loss, no to speak o' the
+lives o' Geordie an' the four lads wi' him; an' a' for the sake o'
+liquor!"
+
+Margaret looked at the brandy bottle standing at her father's elbow,
+and, though she did not speak, the look annoyed Peter.
+
+"You arna to even my glass wi' his, lassie. I ken when to stop--Geordie
+never does."
+
+"It is a common fault in more things than drinking, father. When Magnus
+Hay has struck the first blow he is quite ready to draw his dirk and
+strike the last one; and Paul Snackole, though he has made gold and to
+spare, will just go on making gold until death takes the balances out of
+his hands. There are few folks that in all things offend not."
+
+She looked so noble standing before him, so fair and tall, her hair
+yellow as down, her eyes cool and calm and blue as night; her whole
+attitude so serene, assured and majestic, that Peter rose uneasily, left
+his glass unfinished, and went away with a very confused "good night."
+
+In the morning the first thing he did when he reached his office, was to
+send for the offending sailor.
+
+"Geordie, my Margaret says there are plenty folk as bad as thou art; so,
+thou'lt just see to the steeking o' the boat, an' be ready to sail
+her--or upset her--i' ten days again."
+
+"I'll keep her right side up for Margaret Sinclair's sake--tell her I
+said that, Master."
+
+"I'se do no promising for thee Geordie. Between wording an' working is a
+lang road, but Kirkwall an' Stromness kens thee for an honest lad, an'
+thou wilt mind this--_things promised are things due_."
+
+Insensibly this act of forbearance lightened Peter's whole day; he was
+good-tempered with the world, and the world returned the compliment.
+When night came, and he watched for Margaret on the sands, he was
+delighted to see that Ronald was with her. The lad had come home and
+nothing was now remembered against him. That night it was Ronald told
+him fairy-stories of great cities and universities, of miles of books
+and pictures, of wonderful machinery and steam engines, of delicious
+things to eat and drink. Peter felt as if he must start southward by the
+next mail packet, but in the morning he thought more unselfishly.
+
+"There are forty families depending on me sticking to the shop an' the
+boats, Ronald, an' I canna go pleasuring till there is ane to step into
+my shoes."
+
+Ronald Sinclair had all the fair, stately beauty and noble presence of
+his sister, but yet there was some lack about him easier to feel than to
+define. Perhaps no one was unconscious of this lack except Margaret; but
+women have a grand invention where their idols are concerned, and create
+readily for them every excellency that they lack. Her own two years'
+study in an Edinburgh boarding-school had been very superficial, and she
+knew it; but this wonderful Ronald could read Homer and Horace, could
+play and sketch, and recite Shakespeare and write poetry. If he could
+have done none of these things, if he had been dull and ugly, and
+content to trade in fish and wool, she would still have loved him
+tenderly; how much more then, this handsome Antinous, whom she credited
+with all the accomplishments of Apollo.
+
+Ronald needed all her enthusiastic support. He had left heavy college
+bills, and he had quite made up his mind that he would not be a minister
+and that he would be a lawyer. He could scarcely have decided on two
+things more offensive to his father. Only for the hope of having a
+minister in the family had Peter submitted to his son's continued
+demands for money. For this end he had bought books, and paid for all
+kinds of teachers and tours, and sighed over the cost of Ronald's
+different hobbies. And now he was not only to have a grievous
+disappointment, but also a great offence, for Peter Sinclair shared
+fully in the Arcadean dislike and distrust of lawyers, and would have
+been deeply offended at any one requiring their aid in any business
+transaction with him.
+
+His son's proposal to be a "writer" he took almost as a personal insult.
+He had formed his own opinion of the profession and the opinion of any
+other person who would say a word in favor of a lawyer he considered of
+no value. Margaret had a hard task before her, that she succeeded at all
+was due to her womanly tact. Ronald and his father simply clashed
+against each other and exchanged pointed truths which hurt worse than
+wounds. At length, when the short Arcadean summer was almost over,
+Margaret won a hard and reluctant consent.
+
+"The lad is fit for naething better, I suppose"--and the old man turned
+away to shed the bitterest tears of his whole life. They shocked
+Margaret; she was terrified at her success, and, falling humbly at his
+feet, she besought him to forget and forgive her importunities, and to
+take back a gift baptized with such ominous tears.
+
+But Peter Sinclair, having been compelled to take such a step, was not
+the man to retrace it; he shook his head in a dour, hopeless way: "He
+couldna say 'yes' an' 'no' in a breath, an' Ronald must e'en drink as he
+brewed."
+
+These struggles, so real and sorrowful to his father and sister, Ronald
+had no sympathy with--not that he was heartless, but that he had taught
+himself to believe they were the result of ignorance of the world and
+old-fashioned prejudices. He certainly intended to become a great
+man--perhaps a judge--and, when he was one of "the Lords," he had no
+doubt his father would respect his disobedience. He knew his father as
+little as he knew himself. Peter Sinclair was only Peter Sinclair's
+opinions incorporate; and he could no more have changed them than he
+could have changed the color of his eyes or the shape of his nose; and
+the difference between a common lawyer and a "lord," in his eyes, would
+only have been the difference between a little oppressor and a great
+one.
+
+For the first time in all her life Margaret suspected a flaw in this
+perfect crystal of a brother; his gay debonnaire manner hurt her. Even
+if her father's objections were ignorant prejudices, they were positive
+convictions to him, and she did not like to see them smiled at,
+entertained by the cast of the eye, and the put-by of the turning hand.
+But loving women are the greatest of philistines: knock their idol down
+daily, rob it of every beauty, cut off its hands and head, and they will
+still "set it up in its place," and fall down and worship it.
+
+Undoubtedly Margaret was one of the blindest of these characters, but
+the world may pause before it scorns them too bitterly. It is faith of
+this sublime integrity which, brought down to personal experience,
+believes, endures, hopes, sacrifices and loves on to the end, winning
+finally what never would have been given to a more prudent and
+reasonable devotion. So, if Margaret had her doubts, she put them
+arbitrarily down, and sent her brother away with manifold tokens of her
+love--among them, with a check on the Kirkwall Bank for sixty pounds,
+the whole of her personal savings.
+
+To this frugal Arcadean maid it seemed a large sum, but she hoped by the
+sacrifice to clear off Ronald's college debts, and thus enable him to
+start his new race unweighted. It was but a mouthful to each creditor,
+but it put them off for a time, and Ronald was not a youth inclined to
+"take thought" for their "to-morrow."
+
+He had been entered for four years' study with the firm of Wilkes &
+Brechen, writers and conveyancers, of the city of Glasgow. Her father
+had paid the whole fee down, and placed in the Western Bank to his
+credit four hundred pounds for his four years' support. Whatever Ronald
+thought of the provision, Peter considered it a magnificent income, and
+it had cost him a great struggle to give up at once, and for no evident
+return, so much of his hard-earned gold. To Ronald he said nothing of
+this reluctance; he simply put vouchers for both transactions in his
+hand, and asked him to "try an' spend the siller as weel as it had been
+earned."
+
+But to Margaret he fretted not a little. "Fourteen hun'red pounds a'
+thegither, dawtie," he said in a tearful voice. "I warked early an' late
+through mony a year for it; an' it is gane a' at once, though I hae
+naught but words an' promises for it. I ken, Margaret, that I am an auld
+farrant trader, but I'se aye say that it is a bad well into which are
+must put water."
+
+When Ronald went, the summer went too. It became necessary to remove at
+once to their rock-built house in one of the narrow streets of
+Kirkwall. Margaret was glad of the change; her father could come into
+the little parlor behind the shop any time in the day and smoke his pipe
+beside her. He needed this consolation sorely; his son's conduct had
+grieved him far more deeply than he would allow, and Margaret often saw
+him gazing southward over the stormy Pentland Frith with a very mournful
+face.
+
+But a good heart soon breaks bad fortune and Peter had a good heart,
+sound and sweet and true to his fellow-creatures and full of faith in
+God. It is true that his creed was of the very strictest and sternest;
+but men are always better than their theology and Margaret knew from the
+Scriptures chosen for their household worship that in the depth and
+stillness of his soul his human fatherhood had anchored fast to the
+fatherhood of God.
+
+Arcadean winters are long and dreary, but no one need much pity the
+Arcadeans; they have learned how to make them the very festival of
+social life. And, in spite of her anxiety about Ronald, Margaret
+thoroughly enjoyed this one--perhaps the more because Captain Olave
+Thorkald spent two months of it with them in Kirkwall. There had been a
+long attachment between the young soldier and Margaret; and having
+obtained his commission, he had come to ask also for the public
+recognition of their engagement. Margaret was rarely beautiful and
+rarely happy, and she carried with a charming and kindly grace the full
+cup of her felicity. The Arcadeans love to date from a good year, and
+all her life afterward Margaret reckoned events from this pleasant
+winter.
+
+Peter Sinclair's house being one of the largest in Kirkwall, was a
+favorite gathering place, and Peter took his full share in all the
+home-like, innocent amusements which beguiled the long, dreary nights.
+No one in Orkney or Zetland could recite Ossian with more passion and
+tenderness, and he enjoyed his little triumph over the youngsters who
+emulated him. No one could sing a Scotch song with more humor, and few
+of the lads and lassies could match Peter in a blithe foursome reel or a
+rattling strathspey. Some, indeed, thought that good Dr. Ogilvie had a
+more graceful spring and a longer breath, but Peter always insisted that
+his inferiority to the minister was a voluntary concession to the
+Dominie's superior dignity. It was, however, a rivalry that always ended
+in a firmer grip at parting. These little festivals, in which young and
+old freely mingled, cultivated to perfection the best and kindest
+feelings of both classes. Age mellowed to perfect sweetness in the
+sunshine of youthful gayety, and youth learned from age how at once to
+be merry and wise.
+
+At length June arrived; and though winter lingered in _spates_, the song
+of the skylark and the thrush heralded the spring. When the dream-like
+voice of the cuckoo should be heard once more, Peter and Margaret had
+determined to take a long summer trip. They were to go first to Perth,
+where Captain Thorkald was stationed, and then to Glasgow and see
+Ronald. But God had planned another journey for Peter, even one to a
+"land very far off." A disease, to which he had been subject at
+intervals for many years, suddenly assumed a fatal character and Peter
+needed no one to tell him that his days were numbered.
+
+He set his house in order, and then, going with Margaret to his summer
+dwelling, waited quietly. He said little on the subject, and as long as
+he was able, gave himself up with the delight of a child to watching the
+few flowers in his garden; but still one solemn, waylaying thought made
+these few last weeks of life peculiarly hushed and sacred. Ronald had
+been sent for, and the old man, with the clear prescience that sometimes
+comes before death, divined much and foresaw much he did not care to
+speak about--only that in some subtle way he made Margaret perceive that
+Ronald was to be cared for and watched over, and that to her this
+charge was committed.
+
+Before the summer was quite over Peter Sinclair went away. In his
+tarrying by the eternal shore he became, as it were, purified of the
+body, and one lovely night, when gloaming and dawning mingled, and the
+lark was thrilling the midnight skies, he heard the Master call him, and
+promptly answered, "Here am I." Then "Death, with sweet enlargement, did
+dismiss him hence."
+
+He had been considered a rich man in Orkney, and, therefore, Ronald--who
+had become accustomed to a Glasgow standard of wealth--was much
+disappointed. His whole estate was not worth over six thousand pounds;
+about two thousand pounds of this was in gold, the rest was invested in
+his houses in Kirkwall, and in a little cottage in Stromness, where
+Peter's wife had been born. He gave to Ronald L1800, and to Margaret
+L200 and the life rent of the real property. Ronald had already received
+L1400, and, therefore, had no cause of complaint, but somehow he felt as
+if he had been wronged. He was older than his sister, and the son of the
+house, and use and custom were not in favor of recognizing daughters as
+having equal rights. But he kept such thoughts to himself, and when he
+went back to Glasgow took with him solid proof of his sister's
+devotion.
+
+It was necessary, now, for Margaret to make a great change in her life.
+She determined to remove to Stromness and occupy the little four-roomed
+cottage that had been her mother's. It stood close to that of Geordie
+Twatt, and she felt that in any emergency she was thus sure of one
+faithful friend. "A lone woman" in Margaret's position has in these days
+numberless objects of interest of which Margaret never dreamed. She
+would have thought it a kind of impiety to advise her minister, or
+meddle in church affairs. These simple parents attended themselves to
+the spiritual training of their children--there was no necessity for
+Sunday Schools, and they did not exist. She was not one of those women
+whom their friends call "beings," and who have deep and mysterious
+feelings that interpret themselves in poems and thrilling stories. She
+had no taste for philosophy or history or social science, and had been
+taught to regard novels as dangerously sinful books.
+
+But no one need imagine that she was either wretched or idle. In the
+first place, she took life much more calmly and slowly than we do; a
+very little pleasure or employment went a long way. She read her Bible
+and helped her old servant Helga to keep the house in order. She had
+her flowers to care for,--and her brother and lover to write to. She
+looked after Geordie Twatt's little motherless lads, went to church and
+to see her friends, and very often had her friends to see her. It
+happened to be a very stormy winter, and the mails were often delayed
+for weeks together. This was her only trouble. Ronald's letters were
+more and more unsatisfactory; he was evidently unhappy and dissatisfied
+and heartily tired of his new study. Posts were so irregular that often
+their letters seemed to be playing at cross purposes. She determined as
+soon as spring opened to go and have a straightforward talk with him.
+
+So the following June Geordie Twatt took her in his boat to Thurso,
+where Captain Thorkald was waiting for her. They had not met since Peter
+Sinclair's death, and that event had materially affected their
+prospects. Before it their marriage had been a possible joy in some far
+future; now there was no greater claim on her care and love than the
+captain's, and he urged their early marriage.
+
+Margaret had her two hundred pounds with her, and she promised to buy
+her "plenishing" during her visit to Glasgow. In those days girls made
+their own trousseau, sewing into every garment solemn and tender hopes
+and joys. Margaret thought that proper attention to this dear stitching
+as well as proper respect for her father's memory, asked of her yet at
+least another year's delay; and for the present Captain Thorkald thought
+it best not to urge her further.
+
+Ronald received his sister very joyfully. He had provided lodgings for
+her with their father's old correspondent, Robert Gorie, a tea merchant
+in the Cowcaddens. The Cowcaddens was then a very respectable street,
+and Margaret was quite pleased with her quarters. She was not pleased
+with Ronald, however. He avowed himself thoroughly disgusted with the
+law, and declared his intention of forfeiting his fee and joining his
+friend Walter Cashell in a manufacturing scheme.
+
+Margaret could _feel_ that he was all wrong, but she could not reason
+about a business of which she knew nothing, and Ronald took his own way.
+But changing and bettering are two different things, and, though he was
+always talking of his "good luck" and his "good bargains", Margaret was
+very uneasy. Perhaps Robert Gorie was partly to blame for this; his
+pawky face and shrewd little eyes made visible dissents to all such
+boasts; nor did he scruple to say, "Guid luck needs guid elbowing,
+Ronald, an' it is at the _guid bargains_ I aye pause an' ponder."
+
+The following winter was a restless, unhappy one; Ronald was either
+painfully elated or very dull; and, soon after the New Year, Walter
+Cashell fell into bad health, went to the West Indies, and left Ronald
+with the whole business to manage. He soon now began to come to his
+sister, not only for advice, but for money. Margaret believed at first
+that she was only supplying Walter's sudden loss, but when her cash was
+all gone, and Ronald urged her to mortgage her rents she resolutely shut
+her ears to all his plausible promises, and refused to "throw more good
+money after bad."
+
+It was the first ill-blood between them, and it hurt Margaret sorely.
+She was glad when the fine weather came, and she could escape to her
+island home, for Ronald was cool to her, and said cruel things of
+Captain Thorkald, for whose sake he declared his sister had refused to
+help him.
+
+One day, at the end of the following August, when most of the
+towns-people--men and women--had gone to the moss to cut the winter's
+peat, she saw Geordie Twatt coming toward the house. Something about his
+appearance troubled her, and she went to the open door and stood waiting
+for him.
+
+"What is it, Geordie?"
+
+"I am bidden to tell thee, Margaret Sinclair, to be at the Stanes o'
+Stennis to-night at eleven o'clock."
+
+"Who trysts me there, Geordie, at such an hour?"
+
+"Thy brother; but thou'lt come--yes, thou wilt."
+
+Margaret's very lips turned white as she answered: "I'll be there--see
+thou art, too."
+
+"Sure as death! If naebody spiers after me, thou needna say I was here
+at a', thou needna."
+
+Margaret understood the caution, and nodded her head. She could not
+speak, and all day long she wandered about like a soul in a restless
+dream.
+
+Fortunately, every one was weary at night, and went early to rest, and
+she found little difficulty in getting outside the town without notice;
+and one of the ponies on the common took her speedily across the moor.
+
+Late as it was, twilight lingered over the silent moor, with its old
+Pictish mounds and burial places, giving them an indescribable aspect of
+something weird and eerie. No one could have been insensible to the
+mournful, brooding light and the unearthly stillness, and Margaret was
+trembling with a supernatural terror as she stood amid the solemn circle
+of gray stones and looked over the lake of Stennis and the low, brown
+hills of Harray.
+
+From behind one of these gigantic pillars Ronald came toward
+her--Ronald, and yet not Ronald. He was dressed as a common sailor, and
+otherwise shamefully disguised. There was no time to soften things--he
+told his miserable story in a few plain words:
+
+"His business had become so entangled that he knew not which way to
+turn, and, sick of the whole affair, he had taken a passage for
+Australia, and then forged a note on the Western Bank for L900. He had
+hoped to be far at sea with his ill-gotten money before the fraud was
+discovered, but suspicion had gathered around him so quickly, that he
+had not even dared to claim his passage. Then he fled north, and,
+fortunately, discovering Geordie's boat at Wick, had easily prevailed on
+him to put off at once with him."
+
+What cowards sin makes of us! Margaret had seen this very lad face death
+often, among the sunken rocks and cruel surfs, that he might save the
+life of a ship-wrecked sailor, and now, rather than meet the creditors
+whom he had wronged, he had committed a robbery and was flying from the
+gallows.
+
+She was shocked and stunned, and stood speechless, wringing her hands
+and moaning pitifully. Her brother grew impatient. Often the first
+result of a bitter sense of sin is to make the sinner peevish and
+irritable.
+
+"Margaret," he said, almost angrily, "I came to bid you farewell, and
+to promise you, _by my father's name_! to retrieve all this wrong. If
+you can speak a kind word speak it, for God's sake--if not, I must go
+without it!"
+
+Then she fell upon his neck, and, amid sobs and kisses, said all that
+love so sorely and suddenly tried could say. He could not even soothe
+her anguish by any promise to write, but he did promise to come back to
+her sooner or later with restitution in his hand. All she could do now
+for this dear brother was to call Geordie to her side and put him in his
+care; taking what consolation she could from his assurance that "he
+would keep him out at sea until the search was cold, and if followed
+carry him into some of the dangerous 'races' between the islands." If
+any sailor could keep his boat above water in them, she knew Geordie
+could; _and if not_--she durst follow that thought no further, but,
+putting her hands before her face, stood praying, while the two men
+pulled silently away in the little skiff that had brought them up the
+outlet connecting the lake of Stennis with the sea. Margaret would have
+turned away from Ronald's open grave less heart-broken.
+
+It was midnight now, but her real terror absorbed all imaginary ones;
+she did not even call a pony, but with swift, even steps walked back to
+Stromness. Ere she had reached it, she had decided what was to be done,
+and next day she left Kirkwall in the mail packet for the mainland.
+Thence by night and day she traveled to Glasgow, and a week after her
+interview with Ronald she was standing before the directors of the
+defrauded bank and offering them the entire proceeds of her Kirkwall
+property until the debt was paid.
+
+The bank had thoroughly respected Peter Sinclair, and his daughter's
+earnest, decided offer won their ready sympathy. It was accepted without
+any question of interest, though she could not hope to clear off the
+obligation in less than nine years. She did not go near any of her old
+acquaintances; she had no heart to bear their questions and condolences,
+and she had no money to stay in Glasgow at charges. Winter was coming on
+rapidly, but before it broke over the lonely islands she had reached her
+cottage in Stromness again.
+
+There had been, of course, much talk concerning her hasty journey, but
+no one had suspected its cause. Indeed, the pursuit after Ronald had
+been entirely the bank's affair, had been committed to private
+detectives and had not been nearly so hot as the frightened criminal
+believed. His failure and flight had indeed been noticed in the Glasgow
+newspapers, but this information did not reach Kirkwall until the
+following spring, and then in a very indefinite form.
+
+About a week after her return, Geordie Twatt came into port. Margaret
+frequently went to his cottage with food or clothing for the children,
+and she contrived to meet him there.
+
+"Yon lad is a' right, indeed is he," he said, with an assumption of
+indifference.
+
+"Oh, Geordie! where?"
+
+"A ship going westward took him off the boat."
+
+"Thank God! You will say naught at all, Geordie?"
+
+"I ken naught at a' save that his father's son was i' trouble, an'
+trying to gie thae weary, unchancy lawyers the go-by. I was fain eneuch
+mesel' to balk them."
+
+But Margaret's real trials were all yet to come. The mere fact of doing
+a noble deed does not absolve one often from very mean and petty
+consequences. Before the winter was half over she had found out how
+rapid is the descent from good report. The neighbors were deeply
+offended at her for giving up the social tea parties and evening
+gatherings that had made the house of Sinclair popular for more than one
+generation. She gave still greater offence by becoming a workingwoman,
+and spending her days in braiding straw into the (once) famous Orkney
+Tuscans, and her long evenings in the manufacture of those delicate
+knitted goods peculiar to the country.
+
+It was not alone that they grudged her the money for these labors, as so
+much out of their own pockets--they grudged her also the time; for they
+had been long accustomed to rely on Margaret Sinclair for their
+children's garments, for nursing the sick and for help in weddings,
+funerals and all the other extraordinary occasions of sympathy among a
+primitively social people.
+
+Little by little, all winter, the sentiment of disapproval and dislike
+gathered. Some one soon found out that Margaret's tenants "just sent
+every bawbee o' the rent-siller to the Glasgow Bank;" and this was a
+double offence, as it implied a distrust of her own townsfolk and
+institutions. If from her humble earnings she made a little gift to any
+common object its small amount was a fresh source of anger and contempt;
+for none knew how much she had to deny herself even for such curtailed
+gratuities.
+
+In fact, Margaret Sinclair's sudden stinginess and indifference to her
+townsfolk was the common wonder and talk of every little gathering. Old
+friends began to either pointedly reprove her, or pointedly ignore her;
+and at last even old Helga took the popular tone and said, "Margaret
+Sinclair had got too scrimping for an auld wife like her to bide wi'
+langer."
+
+Through all this Margaret suffered keenly. At first she tried earnestly
+to make her old friends understand that she had good reasons for her
+conduct; but as she would not explain these good reasons, she failed in
+her endeavor. She had imagined that her good conscience would support
+her, and that she could live very well without love and sympathy; she
+soon found out that it is a kind of negative punishment worse than many
+stripes.
+
+At the end of the winter Captain Thorkald again earnestly pressed their
+marriage, saying that, "his regiment was ordered to Chelsea, and any
+longer delay might be a final one." He proposed also, that his father,
+the Udaller Thorkald of Serwick, should have charge of her Orkney
+property, as he understood its value and changes. Margaret wrote and
+frankly told him that her property was not hers for at least seven
+years, but that it was under good care, and he must accept her word
+without explanation. Out of this only grew a very unsatisfactory
+correspondence. Captain Thorkald went south without Margaret, and a very
+decided coolness separated them farther than any number of miles.
+
+Udaller Thorkald was exceedingly angry, and his remarks about Margaret
+Sinclair's refusal "to trust her bit property in as guid hands as her
+own" increased very much the bitter feeling against the poor girl. At
+the end of three years the trial became too great for her; she began to
+think of running away from it.
+
+Throughout these dark days she had purposely and pointedly kept apart
+from her old friend Dr. Ogilvie, for she feared his influence over her
+might tempt her to confidence. Latterly the doctor had humored her
+evident desire, but he had never ceased to watch over and, in a great
+measure, to believe in her; and, when he heard of this determination to
+quit Orkney forever, he came to Stromness with a resolution to spare no
+efforts to win her confidence.
+
+He spoke very solemnly and tenderly to her, reminded her of her father's
+generosity and good gifts to the church and the poor, and said: "O,
+Margaret, dear lass! what good at a' will thy silent money do thee in
+_that Day_? It ought to speak for thee out o' the mouths o' the
+sorrowfu' an' the needy, the widows an' the fatherless--indeed it ought.
+And thou hast gien naught for thy Master's sake these three years! I'm
+fair 'shamed to think thou bears sae kind a name as thy father's."
+
+What could Margaret do? She broke into passionate sobbing, and, when the
+good old man left the cottage an hour afterward there was a strange
+light on his face, and he walked and looked as if he had come from some
+interview that had set him for a little space still nearer to the
+angels. Margaret had now one true friend, and in a few days after this
+she rented her cottage and went to live with the dominie. Nothing could
+have so effectually reinstated her in public opinion; wherever the
+dominie went on a message of help or kindness Margaret went with him.
+She fell gradually into a quieter but still more affectionate
+regard--the aged, the sick and the little children clung to her hands,
+and she was comforted.
+
+Her life seemed, indeed, to have wonderfully narrowed, but when the tide
+is fairly out, it begins to turn again. In the fifth year of her poverty
+there was from various causes, such an increase in the value of real
+estate, that her rents were nearly doubled, and by the end of the
+seventh year she had paid the last shilling of her assumed debt, and was
+again an independent woman.
+
+It might be two years after this that she one day received a letter that
+filled her with joy and amazement. It contained a check for her whole
+nine hundred pounds back again. "The bank had just received from Ronald
+Sinclair, of San Francisco, the whole amount due it, with the most
+satisfactory acknowledgment and interest." It was a few minutes before
+Margaret could take in all the joy this news promised her; but when she
+did, the calm, well-regulated girl had never been so near committing
+extravagances.
+
+She ran wildly upstairs to the dominie, and, throwing herself at his
+knees, cried out, amid tears and smiles: "Father! father! Here is your
+money! Here is the poor's money and the church's money! God has sent it
+back to me! Sent it back with such glad tidings!"--and surely if angels
+rejoice with repenting sinners, they must have felt that day a far
+deeper joy with the happy, justified girl.
+
+She knew now that she also would soon hear from Ronald, and she was not
+disappointed. The very next day the dominie brought home the letter.
+Margaret took it upstairs to read it upon her knees, while the good old
+man walked softly up and down his study praying for her. Presently she
+came to him with a radiant face.
+
+"Is it weel wi' the lad, ma dawtie?"
+
+"Yes, father; it is very well." Then she read him the letter.
+
+Ronald had been in New Orleans and had the fever; he had been in Texas,
+and spent four years in fighting Indians and Mexicans and in herding
+cattle. He had suffered many things, but had worked night and day, and
+always managed to grow a little richer every year. Then, suddenly, the
+word "California!" rung through the world, and he caught the echo even
+on the lonely southwestern prairies. Through incredible hardships he had
+made his way thither, and a sudden and wonderful fortune had crowned his
+labors, first in mining and afterward in speculation and merchandising.
+He said that he was indeed afraid to tell her how rich he was lest to
+her Arcadean views the sum might appear incredible.
+
+Margaret let the letter fall on her lap and clasped her hands above it.
+Her face was beautiful. If the prodigal son had a sister she must have
+looked just as Margaret looked when they brought in her lost brother, in
+the best robe and the gold ring.
+
+The dominie was not so satisfied. A good many things in the letter
+displeased him, but he kissed Margaret tenderly and went away from her.
+"It is a' _I_ did this, an' _I_ did that, an' _I_ suffered you; there is
+nae word o' God's help, or o' what ither folk had to thole. I'll no be
+doing ma duty if I dinna set his sin afore his e'en."
+
+The old man was little used to writing, and the effort was a great one,
+but he bravely made it, and without delay. In a few curt, idiomatic
+sentences he told Ronald Margaret's story of suffering and wrong and
+poverty; her hard work for daily bread; her loss of friends, of her
+good name and her lover, adding: "It is a puir success, ma lad, that ye
+dinna acknowledge God in; an' let me tell thee, thy restitution is o'er
+late for thy credit. I wad hae thought better o' it had thou made it
+when it took the last plack i' thy pouch. Out o' thy great wealth, a few
+hun'red pounds is nae matter to speak aboot."
+
+But people did speak of it. In spite of our chronic abuse of human
+nature it is, after all, a kindly nature, and rejoices in good more than
+in evil. The story of Ronald's restitution is considered honorable to
+it, and it was much made of in the daily papers. Margaret's friends
+flocked round her again, saying, "I'm sorry, Margaret!" as simply and
+honestly as little children, and the dominie did not fail to give them
+the lecture on charity that Margaret neglected.
+
+Whether the Udaller Thorkald wrote to his son anent these transactions,
+or whether the captain read in the papers enough to satisfy him, he
+never explained; but one day he suddenly appeared at Dr. Ogilvie's and
+asked for Margaret. He had probably good excuses for his conduct to
+offer; if not, Margaret was quite ready to invent for him--as she had
+done for Ronald--all the noble qualities he lacked. The captain was
+tired of military life, and anxious to return to Orkney; and, as his
+own and Margaret's property was yearly increasing: in value, he foresaw
+profitable employment for his talents. He had plans for introducing many
+southern improvements--for building a fine modern house, growing some of
+the hardier fruits and for the construction of a grand conservatory for
+Margaret's flowers.
+
+It must be allowed that Captain Thorkald was a very ordinary lord for a
+woman like Margaret Sinclair to "love, honor and obey;" but few men
+would have been worthy of her, and the usual rule which shows us the
+noblest women marrying men manifestly their inferiors is doubtless a
+wise one.
+
+A lofty soul can have no higher mission than to help upward one upon a
+lower plane, and surely Captain Thorkald, being, as the dominie said,
+"_no that bad_," had the fairest opportunities to grow to Margaret's
+stature in Margaret's atmosphere.
+
+While these things were occurring, Ronald got Margaret's letter. It was
+full of love and praise, and had no word of blame or complaint in it. He
+noticed, indeed, that she still signed her name "Sinclair," and that she
+never alluded to Captain Thorkald, and the supposition that the stain on
+his character had caused a rupture did, for a moment, force itself upon
+his notice; but he put it instantly away with the reflection that
+"Thorkald was but a poor fellow, after all, and quite unworthy of his
+sister."
+
+The very next mail-day he received the dominie's letter. He read it
+once, and could hardly take it in; read it again and again, until his
+lips blanched, and his whole countenance changed. In that moment he saw
+Ronald Sinclair for the first time in his life. Without a word, he left
+his business, went to his house and locked himself in his own room.
+
+_Then Margaret's silent money began to speak._ In low upbraidings it
+showed him the lonely girl in that desolate land trying to make her own
+bread, deserted of lover and friends, robbed of her property and good
+name, silently suffering every extremity, never reproaching him once,
+not even thinking it necessary to tell him of her sufferings, or to
+count their cost unto him.
+
+What is this bitterness we call remorse? This agony of the soul in all
+its senses? This sudden flood of intolerable light in the dark places of
+our hearts? This truth-telling voice which leaves us without a particle
+of our self-complacency? For many days Ronald could find no words to
+speak but these, "O, wretched man that I am!"
+
+But at length the Comforter came as swiftly and surely and mysteriously
+as the accuser had come, and once more that miracle of grace was
+renewed--"that day Jesus was guest in the house of one who was a
+sinner."
+
+Margaret's "silent money" now found a thousand tongues. It spoke in many
+a little feeble church that Ronald Sinclair held in his arms until it
+was strong enough to stand alone. It spoke in schools and colleges and
+hospitals, in many a sorrowful home and to many a lonely, struggling
+heart--and at this very day it has echoes that reach from the far West
+to the lonely islands beyond the stormy Pentland Firth, and the
+sea-shattering precipices of Duncansbay Head.
+
+It is not improbable that some of my readers may take a summer's trip to
+the Orkney Islands; let me ask them to wait at Thurso--the old town of
+Thor--for a handsome little steamer that leaves there three times a week
+for Kirkwall. It is the sole property of Captain Geordie Twatt, was a
+gift from an old friend in California, and is called "The Margaret
+Sinclair."
+
+
+
+
+JUST WHAT HE DESERVED.
+
+
+There is not in its own way a more distinctive and interesting bit of
+Scotland than the bleak Lothian country, with its wide views, its brown
+ploughed fields, and its dense swaying plantations of fir. The
+Lammermoor Hills and the Pentlands and the veils of smoke that lie about
+Edinburgh are on its horizon, and within that circle all the large
+quietude of open grain fields, wide turnip lands, where sheep feed, and
+far-stretching pastures where the red and white cows ruminate. The
+patient processes of nature breed patient minds; the gray cold climate
+can be read in the faces of the people, and in their hearts the seasons
+take root and grow; so that they have a grave character, passive, yet
+enduring; strong to feel and strong to act when the time is full ready
+for action.
+
+Of these natural peculiarities Jean Anderson had her share. She was a
+Lothian lassie of many generations, usually undemonstrative, but with
+large possibilities of storm beneath her placid face and gentle manner.
+Her father was the minister of Lambrig and the manse stood in a very
+sequestered corner of the big parish, facing the bleak east winds, and
+the salt showers of the German ocean. It was sheltered by dark fir woods
+on three sides, and in front a little walled-in garden separated it from
+the long, dreary, straight line of turnpike road. But Jean had no
+knowledge of any fairer land; she had read of flowery pastures and rose
+gardens and vineyards, but these places were to her only in books, while
+the fields and fells that filled her eyes were her home, and she loved
+them.
+
+She loved them all the more because the man she loved was going to leave
+them, and if Gavin Burns did well, and was faithful to her, then it was
+like to be that she also would go far away from the blue Lammermuirs,
+and the wide still spaces of the Lothians. She stood at the open door of
+the manse with her lover thinking of these things, but with no real
+sense of what pain or deprivation the thought included. She was tall and
+finely formed, a blooming girl, with warmly-colored cheeks, a mouth
+rather large and a great deal of wavy brown hair. But the best of all
+her beauty was the soul in her face; its vitality, its vivacity and
+immediate response.
+
+However, the time of love had come to her, and though her love had grown
+as naturally as a sapling in a wood, who could tell what changes it
+would make. For Gavin Burns had been educated in the minister's house
+and Jean and he had studied and fished and rambled together all through
+the years in which Jean had grown from childhood into womanhood. Now
+Gavin was going to New York to make his fortune. They stepped through
+the garden and into the long dim road, walking slowly in the calm night,
+with thoughtful faces and clasped hands. There was at this last hour
+little left to say. Every promise known to Love had been given; they had
+exchanged Bibles and broken a piece of silver and vowed an eternal
+fidelity. So, in the cold sunset they walked silently by the river that
+was running in flood like their own hearts. At the little stone bridge
+they stopped, and leaning over the parapet watched the drumly water
+rushing below; and there Jean reiterated her promise to be Gavin's wife
+as soon as he was able to make a home for her.
+
+"And I am not proud, Gavin," she said; "a little house, if it is filled
+with love, will make me happy beyond all."
+
+They were both too hopeful and trustful and too habitually calm to weep
+or make much visible lament over their parting; and yet when Gavin
+vanished into the dark of the lonely road, Jean shut the heavy house
+door very slowly. She felt as if she was shutting part of herself out of
+the old home forever, and she was shocked by this first breaking of the
+continuity of life; this sharp cutting of regular events asunder.
+Gavin's letters were at first frequent and encouraging, but as the
+months went by he wrote more and more seldom. He said "he was kept so
+busy; he was making himself indispensable, and could not afford to be
+less busy. He was weary to death on the Saturday nights, and he could
+not bring his conscience to write anent his own personal and earthly
+happiness on the Sabbath day; but he was sure Jean trusted in him,
+whether he wrote or not; and they were past being bairns, always telling
+each other the love they were both so sure of."
+
+Late in the autumn the minister died of typhoid fever, and Jean,
+heartbroken and physically worn out, was compelled to face for her
+mother and herself, a complete change of life. It had never seemed to
+these two women that anything could happen to the father and head of the
+family; in their loving hearts he had been immortal, and though the
+disease had run its tedious course before their eyes, his death at the
+last was a shock that shook their lives and their home to the very
+centre. A new minister was the first inevitable change, and then a
+removal from the comfortable manse to a little cottage in the village of
+Lambrig.
+
+While this sad removal was in progress they had felt the sorrow of it,
+all that they could bear; and neither had dared to look into the future
+or to speculate as to its necessities. Jean in her heart expected Gavin
+would at once send for them to come to America. He had a fair salary,
+and the sale of their furniture would defray their traveling expenses.
+
+She was indeed so sure of this journey, that she did not regard the
+cottage as more than a temporary shelter during the approaching winter.
+In the spring, no doubt, Gavin would have a little home ready, and they
+would cross the ocean to it. The mother had the same thought. As they
+sat on their new hearthstone, lonely and poor, they talked of this
+event, and if any doubts lurked unconsciously below their love and trust
+they talked them away, while they waited for Gavin's answer to the
+sorrowful letter Jean had sent him on the night of her father's burial.
+
+It was longer in coming than they expected. For a week they saw the
+postman pass their door with an indifference that seemed cruel; for a
+week Jean made new excuses and tried to hold up her mother's heart,
+while her own was sinking lower and lower. Then one morning the
+looked-for answer came. Jean fled to a room apart to read it alone; Mrs.
+Anderson sat down and waited, with dropped eyes and hands tightly
+clasped. She knew, before Jean said a word, that the letter had
+disappointed her. She had remained alone too long. If all had been as
+they hoped the mother was certain Jean would not have deferred the good
+tidings a moment. But a quarter of an hour had passed before Jean came
+to her side, and then when she lifted her eyes she saw that her daughter
+had been weeping.
+
+"It is a disappointment, Jean, I see," she said sadly. "Never mind,
+dearie."
+
+"Yes, mother; Gavin has failed us."
+
+"We have been two foolish women, Jean. Oh, my dear lassie, we should
+have lippened to God, and He would not have disappointed us! What does
+Gavin Burns say?"
+
+"It is what he does _not_ say, that hurts me, mother. I may as well tell
+you the whole truth. When he heard how ill father was, he wrote to me,
+as if he had foreseen what was to happen. He said, 'there will be a new
+minister and a break-up of the old home, and you must come at once to
+your new home here. I am the one to care for you when your father is
+gone away; and what does it matter under what sun or sky if we are but
+together?' So, then, mother, when the worst had come to us I wrote with
+a free heart to Gavin. I said, 'I will come to you gladly, Gavin, but
+you know well that my mother is very dear to me, and where I am there
+she also must be.' And he says, in this letter, that it is me he is
+wanting, and that you have a brother in Glasgow that is unmarried and
+who will be willing, no doubt, to have you keep his house for him. There
+is a wale of fine words about it, mother, but they come to just this,
+and no more--Gavin is willing to care for me, but not for you and I will
+not trust myself with a man that cannot love you for my sake. We will
+stay together, mammy darling! Whatever comes or goes we will stay
+together. The man isna born that can part us two!"
+
+"He is your lover, Jean. A girl must stick to her lover."
+
+"You are my mother. I am bone of your bone, and flesh of your flesh and
+love of your love. May God forsake me when I forsake you!"
+
+She had thrown herself at her mother's knees and was clasping and
+kissing the sad face so dear to her, as she fervently uttered the last
+words. And the mother was profoundly touched by her child's devotion.
+She drew her close to her heart, and said firmly:
+
+"No! No, my dearie! What could we two do for ourselves? And I'm loth to
+part you and Gavin. I simply cannot take the sacrifice, you so lovingly
+offer me. I will write to my brother David. Gavin isna far wrong there;
+David is a very close man, but he willna see his sister suffer, there
+is no fear of that."
+
+"It is Jean that will not see you suffer."
+
+"But the bite and the sup, Jean? How are we to get them?"
+
+"I can make my own dresses and cloaks, so then I can make dresses and
+cloaks for other people. I shall send out a card to the ladies near-by
+and put an advertisement in the Haddington newspaper, and God can make
+my needle sharp enough for the battle. Don't cry, mother! Oh, darling,
+don't cry! We have God and each other, and none can call us desolate."
+
+"But you will break your heart, Jean. You canna help it. And I canna
+take your love and happiness to brighten my old age. It isna right. I'll
+not do it. You must go to Gavin. I will go to my brother David."
+
+"I will not break my heart, mother. I will not shed a tear for the
+false, mean lad, that you were so kind to for fourteen years, when there
+was no one else to love him. Aye, I know he paid for his board and
+schooling, but he never could pay for the mother-love you gave him, just
+because he was motherless. And who has more right to have their life
+brightened by my love than you have? Beside, it is my happiness to
+brighten it, and so, what will you say against it? And I will not go to
+Gavin. Not one step. If he wants me now, he will come for me, and for
+you, too. This is sure as death! Oh, mammy! Mammy, darling, a false lad
+shall not part us! Never! Never! Never!"
+
+"Jean! Jean! What will I say at all"
+
+"What would my father say, if he was here this minute? He would say,
+'you are right, Jean! And God bless you, Jean! And you may be sure that
+it is all for the best, Jean! So take the right road with a glad heart,
+Jean!' That is what father would say. And I will never do anything to
+prevent me looking him straight in the face when we meet again. Even in
+heaven I shall want him to smile into my eyes and say, 'Well done,
+Jean!'"
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+Jean's plans for the future were humble and reasonable enough to insure
+them some measure of success, and the dreaded winter passed not
+uncomfortably away. Then in the summer Uncle David Nicoll came to
+Lambrig and boarded with his sister, paying a pound a week, and giving
+her, on his departure, a five-pound note to help the next winter's
+expenses. This order of things went on without change or intermission
+for five years, and the little cottage gradually gathered in its clean,
+sweet rooms, many articles of simple use and beauty. Mrs. Anderson took
+entire charge of the housekeeping. Jean's needle flew swiftly from
+morning to night, and though the girl had her share of the humiliations
+and annoyances incident to her position, these did not interfere with
+the cheerful affection and mutual help which brightened their lonely
+life.
+
+She heard nothing from Gavin. After some painful correspondence, in
+which neither would retract a step from the stand they had taken, Gavin
+ceased writing, and Jean ceased expecting, though before this calm was
+reached she had many a bitter hour the mother never suspected. But such
+hours were to Jean's soul what the farmer's call "growing weather;" in
+them much rich thought and feeling sprang up insensibly; her nature
+ripened and mellowed and she became a far lovelier woman than her
+twentieth year had promised.
+
+One gray February afternoon, when the rain was falling steadily, Jean
+felt unusually depressed and weary. An apprehension of some unhappiness
+made her sad, and she could not sew for the tears that would dim her
+eyes. Suddenly the door opened and Gavin's sister Mary entered. Jean did
+not know her very well, and she did not like her at all, and she
+wondered what she had come to tell her.
+
+"I am going to New York on Saturday, Jean," she said, "and I thought
+Gavin would like to know how you looked and felt these days."
+
+Jean flushed indignantly. "You can see how I look easy enough, Mary
+Burns," she answered; "but as to how I feel, that is a thing I keep to
+myself these days."
+
+"Gavin has furnished a pretty house at the long last, and I am to be the
+mistress of it. You will have heard, doubtless, that the school where I
+taught so long has been broken up, and so I was on the world, as one may
+say, and Gavin could not bear that. He is a good man, is Gavin, and I'm
+thinking I shall have a happy time with him in America."
+
+"I hope you will, Mary. Give him a kind wish from me; and I will bid you
+'good bye' now, if you please, seeing that I have more sewing to do
+to-night than I can well manage."
+
+This event wounded Jean sorely. She felt sure Mary had only called for
+an unkind purpose, and that she would cruelly misrepresent her
+appearance and condition to Gavin. And no woman likes even a lost lover
+to think scornfully of her. But she brought her sewing beside her mother
+and talked the affair over with her, and so, at the end of the evening,
+went to bed resigned, and even cheerful. Never had they spent a more
+confidential, loving night together, and this fact was destined to be a
+comfort to Jean during all the rest of her life. For in the morning she
+noticed a singular look on her mother's face and at noon she found her
+in her chair fast in that sleep which knows no wakening in this world.
+
+It was a blow which put all other considerations far out of Jean's mind.
+She mourned with a passionate sorrow her loss, and though Uncle David
+came at once to assist her in the necessary arrangements, she suffered
+no hand but her own to do the last kind offices for her dear dead. And
+oh! how empty and lonely was now the little cottage, while the swift
+return to all the ordinary duties of life seemed such a cruel
+effacement. Uncle David watched her silently, but on the evening of the
+third day after the funeral he said, kindly:
+
+"Dry your eyes, Jean. There is naething to weep for. Your mother is far
+beyond tears."
+
+"I cannot bear to forget her a minute, uncle, yet folks go and come and
+never name her; and it is not a week since she had a word and a smile
+for everybody."
+
+    "Death is forgetfulness, Jean;
+                ... 'one lonely way
+    We go: and is she gone?
+    Is all our best friends say.'
+
+"You must come home with me now, Jean. I canna be what your mother has
+been to you, but I'll do the best I can for you, lassie. Sell these bit
+sticks o' furniture and shut the door on the empty house and begin a new
+life. You've had sorrow about a lad; let him go. All o' the past worth
+your keeping you can save in your memory."
+
+"I will be glad to go with you, uncle. I shall be no charge on you. I
+can find my own bread if you will just love me a little."
+
+"I'm no that poor, Jean. You are welcome to share my loaf. Put that
+weary; thimble and needle awa'; I'll no see you take another stitch."
+
+So Jean followed her uncle's advice and went back with him to Glasgow.
+He had never said a word about his home, and Jean knew not what she
+expected--certainly nothing more than a small floor in some of the least
+expensive streets of the great city. It was dark when they reached
+Glasgow, but Jean was sensible of a great change in her uncle's manner
+as soon as they left the railway. He made an imperative motion and a
+carriage instantly answered it; and they were swiftly driven to a large
+dwelling in one of the finest crescents of the West end. He led her into
+a handsome parlor and called a servant, and bid her "show Miss Anderson
+her rooms;" and thus, without a word of preparation, Jean found herself
+surrounded by undreamed of luxury.
+
+Nothing was ever definitely explained to her, but she gradually learned
+to understand the strange old man who assumed the guardianship of her
+life. His great wealth was evident, and it was not long ere she
+discovered that it was largely spent in two directions--scientific
+discovery and the Temperance Crusade. Men whose lives were devoted to
+chemistry or to electrical investigations, or passionate apostles of
+total abstinence from intoxicants were daily at his table; and Jean
+could not help becoming an enthusiastic partisan on such matters. One of
+the savants, a certain Professor Sharp, fell deeply in love with her;
+and she felt it difficult to escape the influence of his wooing, which
+had all the persistent patience of a man accustomed "to seek till he
+found, and so not lose his labor."
+
+Her life was now very happy. Cautious in giving his love, David Nicoll
+gave it freely as soon as he had resolved to adopt his niece. Nor did he
+ever regret the gift. "Jean entered my house and she made it a home," he
+said to his friends. No words could have better explained the position.
+In the winter they entertained with a noble hospitality; in the summer
+they sailed far north to the mystical isles of the Western seas; to
+Orkney and Zetland and once even as far as the North Cape by the light
+of the midnight sun. So the time passed wonderfully away, until Jean was
+thirty-two years old. The simple, unlettered girl had then become a
+woman of great culture and of perfect physical charm. Wise in many ways,
+she yet kept her loving heart, and her uncle delighted in her. "You have
+made my auld age parfectly happy, Jean," he said to her on the last
+solemn night of his life; "and I thank God for the gift o' your honest
+love! Now that I am going the way of all flesh, I have gi'en you every
+bawbee I have. I have put no restrictions on you, and I have left nae
+dead wishes behind me. You will do as you like wi' the land and the
+siller, and you will do right in a' things, I ken that, Jean. If it
+should come into your heart to tak' the love Professor Sharp offers you,
+I'll be pleased, for he'll never spend a shilling that willna be weel
+spent; and he is a clever man, and a good man and he loves you. But it
+is a' in your ain will; do as you like, anent either this or that."
+
+This was the fourth great change in Jean's life. Gavin's going away had
+opened the doors of her destiny; her father's death had sent her to the
+school of self-reliant poverty; her mother's death given her a home of
+love and luxury, and now her uncle put her in a position of vast,
+untrammeled responsibility. But if love is the joy of life, this was not
+the end; the crowning change was yet to come; and now, with both her
+hands full, her heart involuntarily turned to her first lover.
+
+About this time, also, Gavin was led to remember Jean. His sister Mary
+was going to marry, and the circumstance annoyed him. "I'll have to
+store my furniture and pay for the care of it; or I'll have to sell it
+at a loss; or I'll have to hire a servant lass, and be robbed on the
+right hand and the left," he said fretfully. "It was not in the bargain
+that you should marry, and it is very bad behavior in you, Mary."
+
+"Well, Gavin, get married yourself, and the furnishing will not be
+wasted," answered Mary. "There is Annie Riley, just dying for the love
+of you, and no brighter, smarter girl in New York city."
+
+"She isn't in love with me; she is tired of the Remington all day; and
+if I wanted a wife, there is some one better than Annie Riley."
+
+"Jean Anderson?"
+
+"Ay."
+
+"Send for her picture, and you will see what a plain, dowdy old maid she
+is. She is not for the like of you, Gavin--a bit country dressmaker,
+poor, and past liking."
+
+Gavin said no more, but that night he wrote Jean Anderson the following
+letter: "Dear Jean. I wish you would send me a picture of yourself. If
+you will not write me a word, you might let me have your face to look
+at. Mary is getting herself married, and I will be alone in a few days."
+That is enough, he thought; "she will understand that there is a chance
+for her yet, if she is as bonnie as in the old days. Mary is not to be
+trusted. She never liked Jean. I'll see for myself."
+
+Jean got this letter one warm day in spring, and she "understood" it as
+clearly as Gavin intended her to. For a long time she sat thinking it
+over, then she went to a drawer for a photo, taken just before her
+mother's death. It showed her face without any favor, without even
+justice, and the plain merino gown, which was then her best. And with
+this picture she wrote--"Dear Gavin. The enclosed was taken five years
+since, and there has been changes since."
+
+She did not say what the changes were, but Gavin was sure they were
+unfavorable. He gazed at the sad, thoughtful face, the poor plain dress,
+and he was disappointed. A girl like that would do his house no honor;
+he would not care to introduce her to his fellow clerks; they would not
+envy him a bit. Annie Riley was far better looking, and far more
+stylish. He decided in favor of Annie Riley.
+
+Jean was not astonished when no answer came. She had anticipated her
+failure to please her old lover; but she smiled a little sadly at _his_
+failure. Then there came into her mind a suspicion of Mary, an
+uncertainty, a lingering hope that some circumstance, not to be guessed
+at from a distance, was to blame for Gavin's silence and utter want of
+response. It was midsummer, she wanted a breath of the ocean; why should
+she not go to New York and quietly see how things were for herself? The
+idea took possession of her, and she carried it out.
+
+She knew the name of the large dry goods firm that Gavin served, and the
+morning after her arrival in New York she strolled into it for a pair of
+gloves. As they were being fitted on she heard Gavin speak, and moving
+her position slightly, she saw him leaning against a pile of summer
+blankets. He was talking to one of his fellows, and evidently telling a
+funny story, at which both giggled and snickered, ere they walked their
+separate ways. Being midsummer the store was nearly empty, and Jean, by
+varying her purchases, easily kept Gavin in sight. She never for one
+moment found the sight a pleasant one. Gavin had deteriorated in every
+way. He was no longer handsome; the veil of youth had fallen from him,
+and his face, his hands, his figure, his slouching walk, his querulous
+authoritative voice, all revealed a man whom Jean repelled at every
+point. Years had not refined, they had vulgarized him. His clothing
+careless and not quite fresh, offended her taste; in fact, his whole
+appearance was of that shabby genteel character, which is far more mean
+and plebeian than can be given by undisguised working apparel. As Jean
+was taking note of these things a girl, with a flushed, angry face,
+spoke to him. She was evidently making a complaint, and Gavin answered
+her in a manner which made Jean burn from head to feet. The disillusion
+was complete; she never looked at him again, and he never knew she had
+looked at him at all.
+
+But after Mary's marriage he heard news which startled him. Mary, under
+her new name, wrote to an acquaintance in Lambrig, and this acquaintance
+in reply said, "You will have heard that Jean Anderson was left a great
+fortune by her uncle, David Nicoll. She is building a home near Lambrig
+that is finer than Maxwell Castle; and Lord Maxwell has rented the
+castle to her until her new home is finished. You wouldn't ken the looks
+of her now, she is that handsome, but weel-a-way, fine feathers aye make
+fine birds!"
+
+Gavin fairly trembled when he heard this news, and as he had been with
+the firm eleven years and never asked a favor, he resolved to tell them
+he had important business in Scotland, and ask for a month's holiday to
+attend to it. If he was on the ground he never doubted his personal
+influence. "Jean was aye wax in my fingers," he said to Mary.
+
+"There is Annie Riley," answered Mary.
+
+"She will have to give me up. I'll not marry her. I am going to marry
+Jean, and settle myself in Scotland."
+
+"Annie is not the girl to be thrown off that kind of way, Gavin. You
+have promised to marry her."
+
+"I shall marry Jean Anderson, and then what will Annie do about it, I
+would like to know?"
+
+"I think you will find out."
+
+In the fall he obtained permission to go to Scotland for a month, and he
+hastened to Lambrig as fast as steam could carry him. He intended no
+secret visit; he had made every preparation to fill his old townsmen
+with admiration and envy. But things had changed, even in Lambrig. There
+was a new innkeeper, who could answer none of his questions, and who did
+not remember Minister Anderson and his daughter, Jean. He began to fear
+he had come on a fool's errand, and after a leisurely, late breakfast,
+he strolled out to make his own investigations.
+
+There was certainly a building on a magnificent scale going up on a
+neighboring hill, and he walked toward it. When half way there a
+finely-appointed carriage passed him swiftly, but not too swiftly for
+him to see that Jean and a very handsome man were its occupants. "It
+will be her lawyer or architect," he thought; and he walked rapidly
+onward, pleased with himself for having put on his very best walking
+suit. There were many workmen on the building, and he fell into
+conversation with a man who was mixing mortar; but all the time he was
+watching Jean and her escort stepping about the great uncovered spaces
+of the new dwelling-house with such an air of mutual trust and happiness
+that it angered him.
+
+"Who is the lady?" he asked at length; "she seems to have business
+here."
+
+"What for no? The house is her ain. She is Mistress Sharp, and that is
+the professor with her. He is a great gun in the Glasgow University."
+
+"They are married, then?"
+
+"Ay, they are married. What are you saying at all? They were married a
+month syne, and they are as happy as robins in spring, I'm thinking.
+I'll drink their health, sir, if you'll gie me the bit o' siller."
+
+Gavin gave the silver and turned away dazed and sick at heart. His
+business in Scotland was over. The quiet Lothian country sickened him;
+he turned his face to London, and very soon went back to New York. He
+had lost Jean, and he had lost Jean's fortune; and there were no words
+to express his chagrin and disappointment. His sister felt the first
+weight of it. He blamed her entirely. She had lied to him about Jean's
+beauty. He believed he would have liked the photo but for Mary. And all
+for Annie Riley! He hated Annie Riley! He was resolved never to marry
+her, and he let the girl feel his dislike in no equivocal manner.
+
+For a time Annie was tearful and conciliating. Then she wrote him a
+touching letter, and asked him to tell her frankly if he had ceased to
+love her, and was resolved to break their marriage off. And Gavin did
+tell her, with almost brutal frankness, that he no longer loved her, and
+that he had firmly made up his mind not to marry her. He said something
+about his heart being in Scotland, but that was only a bit of sentiment
+that he thought gave a better air to his unfaithfulness.
+
+Annie did not answer his letter, but Messrs. Howe & Hummel did, and
+Gavin soon found himself the centre of a breach of promise trial, with
+damages laid at fifty thousand dollars. All his fine poetical love
+letters were in the newspapers; he was ashamed to look men and women in
+the face; he suffered a constant pillory for weeks; through his vanity,
+his self-consciousness, his egotism he was perpetually wounded. But
+pretty Annie Riley was the object of public pity and interest, and she
+really seemed to enjoy her notoriety. The verdict was righteously enough
+in her favor. The jury gave her ten thousand dollars, and all expenses,
+and Gavin Burns was a ruined man. His eleven years savings only amounted
+to nine thousand dollars, and for the balance he was compelled to sell
+his furniture and give notes payable out of his next year's salary. He
+wept like a child as he signed these miserable vouchers for his folly,
+and for some days was completely prostrated by the evil he had called
+unto himself. Then the necessities of his position compelled him to go
+to work again, though it was with a completely broken spirit.
+
+"I'm getting on to forty," he said to his sister, "and I am beginning
+the world over again! One woman has given me a disappointment that I
+will carry to the grave; and another woman is laughing at me, for she
+has got all my saved siller, and more too; forbye, she is like to marry
+Bob Severs and share it with him. Then I have them weary notes to meet
+beyond all. There never was a man so badly used as I have been!"
+
+No one pitied him much. Whatever his acquaintances said to his face he
+knew right well their private opinion was that he had received _just
+what he deserved_.
+
+
+
+
+AN ONLY OFFER.
+
+
+"Aunt Phoebe, were you ever pretty?"
+
+"When I was sixteen I was considered so. I was very like you then,
+Julia. I am forty-three now, remember."
+
+"Did you ever have an offer--an offer of marriage, I mean, aunt?"
+
+"No. Well, that is not true; I did have one offer."
+
+"And you refused it?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then he died, or went away?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Or deserted you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then you deceived him, I suppose?"
+
+"I did not."
+
+"What ever happened, then? Was he poor, or crippled or something
+dreadful"
+
+"He was rich and handsome."
+
+"Suppose you tell me about him."
+
+"I never talk about him to any one."
+
+"Did it happen at the old place?"
+
+"Yes, Julia. I never left Ryelands until I was thirty. This happened
+when I was sixteen."
+
+"Was he a farmer's son in the neighborhood?"
+
+"He was a fine city gentleman."
+
+"Oh, aunt, how interesting! Put down your embroidery and tell me about
+it; you cannot see to work longer."
+
+Perhaps after so many years of silence a sudden longing for sympathy and
+confidence seized the elder lady, for she let her work fall from her
+hands, and smiling sadly, said:
+
+"Twenty-seven years ago I was standing one afternoon by the gate at
+Ryelands. All the work had been finished early, and my mother and two
+elder sisters had gone to the village to see a friend. I had watched
+them a little way down the hillside, and was turning to go into the
+house, when I saw a stranger on horseback coming up the road. He stopped
+and spoke to mother, and this aroused my curiosity; so I lingered at the
+gate. He stopped when he reached it, fastened his horse, and asked, 'Is
+Mr. Wakefield in?'
+
+"I said, 'father was in the barn, and I could fetch him,' which I
+immediately did.
+
+"He was a dark, unpleasant-looking man, and had a masterful way with
+him, even to father, that I disliked; but after a short, business-like
+talk, apparently satisfactory to both, he went away without entering the
+house. Father put his hands in his pockets and watched him out of sight;
+then, looking at me, he said, 'Put the spare rooms in order, Phoebe.'
+
+"'They are in order, father; but is that man to occupy them?'
+
+"'Yes, he and his patient, a young gentleman of fine family, who is in
+bad health.'
+
+"'Do you know the young gentleman, father?'
+
+"'I know it is young Alfred Compton--that is enough for me.'
+
+"'And the dark man who has just left? I don't like his looks, father.'
+
+"'Nobody wants thee to like his looks. He is Mr. Alfred's physician--a
+Dr. Orman, of Boston. Neither of them are any of thy business, so ask no
+more questions;' and with that he went back to the barn.
+
+"Mother was not at all astonished. She said there had been letters on
+the subject already, and that she had been rather expecting the company.
+'But,' she added, 'they will pay well, and as Melissa is to be married
+at Christmas, ready money will be very needful.'
+
+"About dark a carriage arrived. It contained two gentlemen and several
+large trunks. I had been watching for it behind the lilac trees and I
+saw that our afternoon visitor was now accompanied by a slight, very
+fair-man, dressed with extreme care in the very highest fashion. I saw
+also that he was handsome, and I was quite sure he must be rich, or no
+doctor would wait upon him so subserviently.
+
+"This doctor I had disliked at first sight, and I soon began to imagine
+that I had good cause to hate him. His conduct to his patient I believed
+to be tyrannical and unkind. Some days he insisted that Mr. Compton was
+too ill to go out, though the poor gentleman begged for a walk; and
+again, mother said, he would take from him all his books, though he
+pleaded urgently for them.
+
+"One afternoon the postman brought Dr. Orman a letter, which seemed to
+be important, for he asked father to drive him to the next town, and
+requested mother to see that Mr. Compton did not leave the house. I
+suppose it was not a right thing to do, but this handsome sick stranger,
+so hardly used, and so surrounded with mystery, had roused in me a
+sincere sympathy for his loneliness and suffering, and I walked through
+that part of the garden into which his windows looked. We had been
+politely requested to avoid it, 'because the sight of strangers
+increased Mr. Compton's nervous condition.' I did not believe this, and
+I determined to try the experiment.
+
+"He was leaning out of the window, and a sadder face I never saw. I
+smiled and courtesied, and he immediately leaped the low sill, and came
+toward me. I stooped and began to tie up some fallen carnations; he
+stooped and helped me, saying all the while I know not what, only that
+it seemed to me the most beautiful language I ever heard. Then we walked
+up and down the long peach walk until I heard the rattle of father's
+wagon.
+
+"After this we became quietly, almost secretly, as far as Dr. Orman was
+concerned, very great friends. Mother so thoroughly pitied Alfred, that
+she not only pretended oblivion of our friendship, but even promoted it
+in many ways; and in the course of time Dr. Orman began to recognize its
+value. I was requested to walk past Mr. Compton's windows and say 'Good
+morning' or offer him a flower or some ripe peaches, and finally to
+accompany the gentlemen in their short rambles in the neighborhood.
+
+"I need not tell you how all this restricted intercourse ended. We were
+soon deeply in love with each other, and love ever finds out the way to
+make himself understood. We had many a five minutes' meeting no one knew
+of, and when these were impossible, a rose bush near his window hid for
+me the tenderest little love-letters. In fact, Julia, I found him
+irresistible; he was so handsome and gentle, and though he must have
+been thirty-five years old, yet, to my thinking, he looked handsomer
+than any younger man could have done.
+
+"As the weeks passed on, the doctor seemed to have more confidence in
+us, or else his patient was more completely under control. They had much
+fewer quarrels, and Alfred and I walked in the garden, and even a little
+way up the hill without opposition or remark. I do not know how I
+received the idea, but I certainly did believe that Dr. Orman was
+keeping Alfred sick for some purpose of his own, and I determined to
+take the first opportunity of arousing Alfred's suspicions. So one
+evening, when we were walking alone, I asked him if he did not wish to
+see his relatives.
+
+"He trembled violently, and seemed in the greatest distress, and only by
+the tenderest words could I soothe him, as, half sobbing, he declared
+that they were his bitterest enemies, and that Dr. Orman was the only
+friend he had in the world. Any further efforts I made to get at the
+secret of his life were equally fruitless, and only threw him into
+paroxysms of distress. During the month of August he was very ill, or at
+least Dr. Orman said so. I scarcely saw him, there were no letters in
+the rose bush, and frequently the disputes between the two men rose to a
+pitch which father seriously disliked.
+
+"One hot day in September everyone was in the fields or orchard; only
+the doctor and Alfred and I were in the house. Early in the afternoon a
+boy came from the village with a letter to Dr. Orman, and he seemed very
+much perplexed, and at a loss how to act. At length he said, 'Miss
+Phoebe, I must go to the village for a couple of hours; I think Mr.
+Alfred will sleep until my return, but if not, will you try and amuse
+him?'
+
+"I promised gladly, and Dr. Orman went back to the village with the
+messenger. No sooner was he out of sight than Alfred appeared, and we
+rambled about the garden, as happy as two lovers could be. But the day
+was extremely hot, and as the afternoon advanced, the heat increased. I
+proposed then that we should walk up the hill, where there was generally
+a breeze, and Alfred was delighted at the larger freedom it promised us.
+
+"But in another hour the sky grew dark and lurid, and I noticed that
+Alfred grew strangely restless. His cheeks flushed, his eyes had a wild
+look of terror in them, he trembled and started, and in spite of all my
+efforts to soothe him, grew irritable and gloomy. Yet he had just asked
+me to marry him, and I had promised I would. He had called me 'his
+wife,' and I had told him again my suspicions about Dr. Orman, and
+vowed to nurse him myself back to perfect health. We had talked, too, of
+going to Europe, and in the eagerness and delight of our new plans, had
+wandered quite up to the little pine forest at the top of the hill.
+
+"Then I noticed Alfred's excited condition, and saw also that we were
+going to have a thunder storm. There was an empty log hut not far away,
+and I urged Alfred to try and reach it before the storm, broke. But he
+became suddenly like a child in his terror, and it was only with the
+greatest difficulty I got him within its shelter.
+
+"As peal after peal of thunder crashed above us, Alfred seemed to lose
+all control of himself, and, seriously offended, I left him, nearly
+sobbing, in a corner, and went and stood by myself in the open door. In
+the very height of the storm I saw my father, Dr. Orman and three of our
+workmen coming through the wood. They evidently suspected our
+sheltering-place, for they came directly toward it.
+
+"'Alfred!' shouted Dr. Orman, in the tone of an angry master, 'where are
+you, sir? Come here instantly.'
+
+"My pettedness instantly vanished, and I said: 'Doctor, you have no
+right to speak to Alfred in that way. He is going to be my husband, and
+I shall not permit it any more.'
+
+"'Miss Wakefield,' he answered, 'this is sheer folly. Look here!'
+
+"I turned, and saw Alfred crouching in a corner, completely paralyzed
+with terror; and yet, when Dr. Orman spoke to him, he rose mechanically
+as a dog might follow his master's call.
+
+"'I am sorry, Miss Wakefield, to destroy your fine romance. Mr. Alfred
+Compton is, as you perceive, not fit to marry any lady. In fact, I am
+his--_keeper_.'"
+
+"Oh, Aunt Phoebe! Surely he was not a lunatic!"
+
+"So they said, Julia. His frantic terror was the only sign I saw of it;
+but Dr. Orman told my father that he was at times really dangerous, and
+that he was annually paid a large sum to take charge of him, as he
+became uncontrollable in an asylum."
+
+"Did you see him again?"
+
+"No. I found a little note in the rose bush, saying that he was not mad;
+that he remembered my promise to be his wife, and would surely come some
+day and claim me. But they left in three days, and Melissa,
+whose wedding outfit was curtailed in consequence, twitted me very
+unkindly about my fine crazy lover. It was a little hard on me, for he
+was the only lover I ever had. Melissa and Jane both married, and went
+west with their husbands; I lived on at Ryelands, a faded little old
+maid, until my uncle Joshua sent for me to come to New York and keep
+his fine house for him. You know that he left me all he had when he
+died, nearly two years ago. Then I sent for you. I remembered my own
+lonely youth, and thought I would give you a fair chance, dear."
+
+"Did you ever hear of him again, aunt?"
+
+"Of him, never. His elder brother died more than a year ago. I suppose
+Alfred died many years since; he was very frail and delicate. I thought
+it was refinement and beauty then; I know now it was ill health."
+
+"Poor aunt!"
+
+"Nay, child; I was very happy while my dream lasted; and I never will
+believe but that Alfred in his love for me was quite sane, and perhaps
+more sincere than many wiser men."
+
+After this confidence Miss Phoebe seemed to take a great pleasure in
+speaking of the little romance of her youth. Often the old and the young
+maidens sat in the twilight discussing the probabilities of poor Alfred
+Compton's life and death, and every discussion left them more and more
+positive that he had been the victim of some cruel plot. The subject
+never tired Miss Phoebe, and Julia, in the absence of a lover of her
+own, found in it a charm quite in keeping with her own youthful dreams.
+
+One cold night in the middle of January they had talked over the old
+subject until both felt it to be exhausted--at least for that night.
+Julia drew aside the heavy satin curtains, and looking out said, "It is
+snowing heavily, aunt; to-morrow we can have a sleigh ride. Why, there
+is a sleigh at our door! Who can it be? A gentleman, aunt, and he is
+coming here."
+
+"Close the curtains, child. It is my lawyer, Mr. Howard. He promised to
+call to-night."
+
+"Oh, dear! I was hoping it was some nice strange person."
+
+Miss Phoebe did not answer; her thoughts were far away. In fact, she had
+talked about her old lover until there had sprung up anew in her heart a
+very strong sentimental affection for his memory; and when the servant
+announced a visitor on business, she rose with a sigh from her
+reflections, and went into the reception-room.
+
+In a few minutes Julia heard her voice, in rapid, excited tones, and ere
+she could decide whether to go to her or not, Aunt Phoebe entered the
+room, holding by the hand a gentleman whom she announced as Mr. Alfred
+Compton. Julia was disappointed, to say the least, but she met him with
+enthusiasm. Perhaps Aunt Phoebe had quite unconsciously magnified the
+beauty of the youthful Alfred: certainly this one was not handsome. He
+was sixty, at least, his fair curling locks had vanished, and his fine
+figure was slightly bent. But the clear, sensitive face remained, and he
+was still dressed with scrupulous care.
+
+The two women made much of him. In half an hour Delmonico had furnished
+a delicious little banquet, and Alfred drank his first glass of wine
+with an old-fashioned grace "to his promised wife, Miss Phoebe
+Wakefield, best and loveliest of women."
+
+Miss Phoebe laughed, but she dearly liked it; and hand in hand the two
+old lovers sat, while Alfred told his sad little story of life-long
+wrong and suffering; of an intensely nervous, self-conscious nature,
+driven to extremity by cruel usage and many wrongs. At the mention of
+Dr. Orman Miss Phoebe expressed herself a little bitterly.
+
+"Nay, Phoebe," said Alfred; "whatever he was when my brother put me in
+his care, he became my true friend. To his skill and patience I owe my
+restoration to perfect health; and to his firm advocacy of my right and
+ability to manage my own estate I owe the position I now hold, and my
+ability to come and ask Phoebe to redeem her never-forgotten promise."
+
+Perhaps Julia got a little tired of these old-fashioned lovers, but they
+never tired of each other. Miss Phoebe was not the least abashed by any
+contrast between her ideal and her real Alfred, and Alfred was never
+weary of assuring her that he found her infinitely more delightful and
+womanly than in the days of their first courtship.
+
+She cannot even call them a "silly" or "foolish" couple, or use any
+other relieving phrase of that order, for Miss Phoebe--or rather Mrs.
+Compton--resents any word as applied to Mr. Alfred Compton that would
+imply less than supernatural wisdom and intelligence. "No one but those
+who have known him as long as I have," she continually avers, "can
+possibly estimate the superior information and infallible judgment of my
+husband."
+
+
+
+
+TWO FAIR DECEIVERS.
+
+
+What do young men talk about when they sit at the open windows smoking
+on summer evenings? Do you suppose it is of love? Indeed, I suspect it
+is of money; or, if not of money, then, at least, of something that
+either makes money or spends it.
+
+Cleve Sullivan has been spending his for four years in Europe, and he
+has just been telling his friend John Selden how he spent it. John has
+spent his in New York--he is inclined to think just as profitably. Both
+stories conclude in the same way.
+
+"I have not a thousand dollars left, John."
+
+"Nor I, Cleve."
+
+"I thought your cousin died two years ago; surely you have not spent all
+the old gentleman's money already?"
+
+"I only got $20,000; I owed half of it."
+
+"Only $20,000! What did he do with it?"
+
+"Gave it to his wife. He married a beauty about a year after you went
+away, died in a few months afterward, and left her his whole fortune. I
+had no claim on him. He educated me, gave me a profession, and $20,000.
+That was very well: he was only my mother's cousin."
+
+"And the widow--where is she?"
+
+"Living at his country-seat. I have never seen her. She was one of the
+St. Maurs, of Maryland."
+
+"Good family, and all beauties. Why don't you marry the widow?"
+
+"Why, I never thought of such a thing."
+
+"You can't think of anything better. Write her a little note at once;
+say that you and I will soon be in her neighborhood, and that gratitude
+to your cousin, and all that kind of thing--then beg leave to call and
+pay respects," etc., etc.
+
+John demurred a good deal to the plan, but Cleve was masterful, and the
+note was written, Cleve himself putting it in the post-office.
+
+That was on Monday night. On Wednesday morning the widow Clare found it
+with a dozen others upon her breakfast table. She was a dainty,
+high-bred little lady, with
+
+    "Eyes that drowse with dreamy splendor,
+    Cheeks with rose-leaf tintings tender,
+        Lips like fragrant posy,"
+
+and withal a kind, hospitable temper, well inclined to be happy in the
+happiness of others.
+
+But this letter could not be answered with the usual polite formula. She
+was quite aware that John Selden had regarded himself for many years as
+his cousin's heir, and that her marriage with the late Thomas Clare had
+seriously altered his prospects. Women easily see through the best laid
+plans of men, and this plan was transparent enough to the shrewd little
+widow. John would scarcely have liked the half-contemptuous shrug and
+smile which terminated her private thoughts on the matter.
+
+"Clementine, if you could spare a moment from your fashion paper, I want
+to consult you, dear, about a visitor."
+
+Clementine raised her blue eyes, dropped her paper, and said, "Who is
+it, Fan?"
+
+"It is John Selden. If Mr. Clare had not married me, he would have
+inherited the Clare estate. I think he is coming now in order to see if
+it is worth while asking for, encumbered by his cousin's widow."
+
+"What selfishness! Write and tell him that you are just leaving for the
+Suez Canal, or the Sandwich Islands, or any other inconvenient place."
+
+"No; I have a better plan than that--Clementine, do stop reading a few
+minutes. I will take that pretty cottage at Ryebank for the summer, and
+Mr. Selden and his friend shall visit us there. No one knows us in the
+place, and I will take none of the servants with me."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Then, Clementine, you are to be the widow Clare, and I your poor
+friend and companion."
+
+"Good! very good! 'The Fair Deceivers'--an excellent comedy. How I shall
+snub you, Fan! And for once I shall have the pleasure of outdressing
+you. But has not Mr. Selden seen you?"
+
+"No; I was married in Maryland, and went immediately to Europe. I came
+back a widow two years ago, but Mr. Selden has never remembered me until
+now. I wonder who this friend is that he proposes to bring with him?"
+
+"Oh, men always think in pairs, Fan. They never decide on anything until
+their particular friend approves. I dare say they wrote the letter
+together. What is the gentleman's name?"
+
+The widow examined the note. "'My friend Mr. Cleve Sullivan.' Do you
+know him, Clementine?"
+
+"No; I am quite sure that I never saw Mr. Cleve Sullivan. I don't fall
+in love with the name--do you? But pray accept the offer for both
+gentlemen, Fan, and write this morning, dear." Then Clementine returned
+to the consideration of the lace in _coquilles_ for her new evening
+dress.
+
+The plan so hastily sketched was subsequently thoroughly discussed and
+carried out. The cottage at Ryebank was taken, and one evening at the
+end of June the two ladies took possession of it. The new widow Clare
+had engaged a maid in New York, and fell into her part with charming
+ease and a very pretty assumption of authority; and the real widow, in
+her plain dress and pensive, quiet manners, realized effectively the
+idea of a cultivated but dependent companion. They had two days in which
+to rehearse their parts and get all the household machinery in order,
+and then the gentlemen arrived at Ryebank.
+
+Fan and Clementine were quite ready for their first call; the latter in
+a rich and exquisite morning costume, the former in a simple dress of
+spotted lawn. Clementine went through the introductions with consummate
+ease of manner, and in half an hour they were a very pleasant party.
+John's "cousinship" afforded an excellent basis for informal
+companionship, and Clementine gave it full prominence. Indeed, in a few
+days John began to find the relationship tiresome; it had been "Cousin
+John, do this," and "Cousin John, come here," continually; and one night
+when Cleve and he sat down to smoke their final cigar, he was irritable
+enough to give his objections the form of speech.
+
+"Cleve, to tell you the honest truth, I do not like Mrs. Clare."
+
+"I think she is a very lovely woman, John."
+
+"I say nothing against her beauty, Cleve; I don't like her, and I have
+no mind to occupy the place that beautiful ill-used Miss Marat fills.
+The way Cousin Clare ignores or snubs a woman to whom she is every way
+inferior makes me angry enough, I assure you."
+
+"Don't fall in love with the wrong woman, John."
+
+"Your advice is too late, Cleve; I am in love. There is no use in us
+deceiving ourselves or each other. You seem to like the widow--why not
+marry her? I am quite willing you should."
+
+"Thank you, John; I have already made some advances that way. They have
+been favorably received, I think."
+
+"You are so handsome, a fellow has no chance against you. But we shall
+hardly quarrel, if you do not interfere between lovely little Clement
+and myself."
+
+"I could not afford to smile on her, John; she is too poor. And what on
+earth are you going to do with a poor wife? Nothing added to nothing
+will not make a decent living."
+
+"I am going to ask her to be my wife, and if she does me the honor to
+say 'Yes,' I will make a decent living out of my profession."
+
+From this time forth John devoted himself with some ostentation to his
+supposed cousin's companion. He was determined to let the widow
+perceive that he had made his choice, and that he could not be bought
+with her money. Mr. Selden and Miss Marat were always together, and the
+widow did not interfere between her companion and her cousin. Perhaps
+she was rather glad of their close friendship, for the handsome Cleve
+made a much more delightful attendant. Thus the party fell quite
+naturally into couples, and the two weeks that the gentlemen had first
+fixed as the limit of their stay lengthened into two months.
+
+It was noticeable that as the ladies became more confidential with their
+lovers, they had less to say to each other; and it began at last to be
+quite evident to the real widow that the play must end for the present,
+or the _denouement_ would come prematurely. Circumstances favored her
+determination. One night Clementine, with a radiant face, came into her
+friend's room, and said, "Fan, I have something to tell you. Cleve has
+asked me to marry him."
+
+"Now, Clement, you have told him all; I know you have."
+
+"Not a word, Fan. He still believes me the widow Clare."
+
+"Did you accept him?"
+
+"Conditionally. I am to give him a final answer when we go to the city
+in October. You are going to New York this winter, are you not?"
+
+"Yes. Our little play progresses finely. John Selden asked me to be his
+wife to-night."
+
+"I told you men think and act in pairs."
+
+"John is a noble fellow. I pretended to think that his cousin had
+ill-used him, and he defended him until I was ashamed of myself;
+absolutely said, Clement, that _you_ were a sufficient excuse for Mr.
+Clare's will. Then he blamed his own past idleness so much, and promised
+if I would only try and endure 'the slings and arrows' of your
+outrageous temper, Clement, for two years longer, he would have made a
+home for me in which I could be happy. Yes, Clement, I should marry John
+Selden if we had not a five-dollar bill between us."
+
+"I wish Cleve had been a little more explicit about his money affairs.
+However, there is time enough yet. When they leave to-morrow, what shall
+we do?"
+
+"We will remain here another month; Levine will have the house ready for
+me by that time. I have written to him about refurnishing the parlors."
+
+So next day the lovers parted, with many promises of constant letters
+and future happy days together. The interval was long and dull enough;
+but it passed, and one morning both gentlemen received notes of
+invitation to a small dinner party at the widow Clare's mansion in ----
+street. There was a good deal of dressing for this party. Cleve wished
+to make his entrance into his future home as became the prospective
+master of a million and a half of money, and John was desirous of not
+suffering in Clement's eyes by any comparison with the other gentlemen
+who would probably be there.
+
+Scarcely had they entered the drawing-room when the ladies appeared, the
+true widow Clare no longer in the unassuming toilet she had hitherto
+worn, but magnificent in white crepe lisse and satin, her arms and
+throat and pretty head flashing with sapphires and diamonds. Her
+companion had assumed now the role of simplicity, and Cleve was
+disappointed with the first glance at her plain white Chambery gauze
+dress.
+
+John had seen nothing but the bright face of the girl he loved and the
+love-light in her eyes. Before she could speak he had taken both her
+hands and whispered, "Dearest and best and loveliest Clement."
+
+Her smile answered him first. Then she said: "Pardon me, Mr. Selden, but
+we have been in masquerade all summer, and now we must unmask before
+real life begins. My name is not Clementine Marat, but Fanny Clare.
+_Cousin John_, I hope you are not disappointed." Then she put her hand
+into John's, and they wandered off into the conservatory to finish their
+explanation.
+
+Mr. Cleve Sullivan found himself at that moment in the most trying
+circumstance of his life. The real Clementine Marat stood looking down
+at a flower on the carpet, and evidently expecting him to resume the
+tender attitude he had been accustomed to bear toward her. He was a man
+of quick decisions where his own interests were concerned, and it did
+not take him half a minute to review his position and determine what to
+do. This plain blonde girl without fortune was not the girl he could
+marry; she had deceived him, too--he had a sudden and severe spasm of
+morality; his confidence was broken; he thought it was very poor sport
+to play with a man's most sacred feelings; he had been deeply
+disappointed and grieved, etc., etc.
+
+Clementine stood perfectly still, with her eyes fixed on the carpet and
+her cheeks gradually flushing, as Cleve made his awkward accusations.
+She gave him no help and she made no defence, and it soon becomes
+embarrassing for a man to stand in the middle of a large drawing-room
+and talk to himself about any girl. Cleve felt it so.
+
+"Have you done, sir?" at length she asked, lifting to his face a pair of
+blue eyes, scintillating with scorn and anger. "I promised you my final
+answer to your suit when we met in New York. You have spared me that
+trouble. Good evening, sir."
+
+Clementine showed to no one her disappointment, and she probably soon
+recovered from it. Her life was full of many other pleasant plans and
+hopes, and she could well afford to let a selfish lover pass out of it.
+She remained with her friend until after the marriage between her and
+John Selden had been consummated; and then Cleve saw her name among the
+list of passengers sailing on one particular day for Europe. As John and
+his bride left on the same steamer Cleve supposed, of course, she had
+gone in their company.
+
+"Nice thing it would have been for Cleve Sullivan to marry John Selden's
+wife's maid, or something or other? John always was a lucky fellow. Some
+fellows are always unlucky in love affairs--I always am."
+
+Half a year afterward he reiterated this statement with a great deal of
+unnecessary emphasis. He was just buttoning his gloves preparatory to
+starting for his afternoon drive, when an old acquaintance hailed him.
+
+"Oh, it's that fool Belmar," he muttered; "I shall have to offer him a
+ride. I thought he was in Paris. Hello, Belmar, when did you get back?
+Have a ride?"
+
+"No, thank you. I have promised my wife to ride with her this
+afternoon."
+
+"Your wife! When were you married?"
+
+"Last month, in Paris."
+
+"And the happy lady was--"
+
+"Why, I thought you knew; everyone is talking about my good fortune.
+Mrs. Belmar is old Paul Marat's only child."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Miss Clementine Marat. She brings me nearly $3,000,000 in money and
+real estate, and a heart beyond all price."
+
+"How on earth did you meet her?"
+
+"She was traveling with Mr. and Mrs. Selden--you know John Selden. She
+has lived with Mrs. Selden ever since she left school; they were friends
+when they were girls together."
+
+Cleve gathered up his reins, and nodding to Mr. Frank Belmar, drove at a
+finable rate up the avenue and through the park. He could not trust
+himself to speak to any one, and when he did, the remark which he made
+to himself in strict confidence was not flattering. For once Mr. Cleve
+Sullivan told Mr. Cleve Sullivan that he had been badly punished, and
+that he well deserved it.
+
+
+
+
+THE TWO MR. SMITHS.
+
+
+"It is not either her money or her position that dashes me, Carrol; it
+is my own name. Think of asking Eleanor Bethune to become Mrs. William
+Smith! If it had been Alexander Smith--"
+
+"Or Hyacinth Smith."
+
+"Yes, Hyacinth Smith would have done; but plain William Smith!"
+
+"Well, as far as I can see, you are not to blame. Apologize to the lady
+for the blunder of your godfathers and godmothers. Stupid old parties!
+They ought to have thought of Hyacinth;" and Carrol threw his cigar into
+the fire and began to buckle on his spurs.
+
+"Come with me, Carrol."
+
+"No, thank you. It is against my principles to like anyone better than
+myself, and Alice Fontaine is a temptation to do so."
+
+"_I_ don't like Alice's style at all."
+
+"Of course not. Alice's beauty, as compared with Mrs. Bethune's settled
+income, is skin-deep."
+
+If sarcasm was intended, Smith did not perceive it. He took the
+criticism at its face value, and answered, "Yes, Eleanor's income is
+satisfactory; and besides that, she has all kinds of good qualities,
+and several accomplishments. If I only could offer her, with myself, a
+suitable name for them!"
+
+"Could you not, in taking Mrs. Bethune and her money, take her name
+also?"
+
+"N-n-no. A man does not like to lose all his individuality in his
+wife's, Carrol."
+
+"Well, then, I have no other suggestion, and I am going to ride."
+
+So Carrol went to the park, and Smith went to his mirror. The occupation
+gave him the courage he wanted. He was undoubtedly a very handsome man,
+and he had, also, very fine manners; indeed, he would have been a very
+great man if the world had only been a drawing-room, for, polished and
+fastidious, he dreaded nothing so much as an indecorum, and had the air
+of being uncomfortable unless his hands were in kid gloves.
+
+Smith had a standing invitation to Mrs. Bethune's five-o'clock teas, and
+he was always considered an acquisition. He was also very fond of going
+to them; for under no circumstances was Mrs. Bethune so charming. To see
+her in this hour of perfect relaxation was to understand how great and
+beautiful is the art of idleness. Her ease and grace, her charming
+aimlessness, her indescribable air of inaction, were all so many proofs
+of her having been born in the purple of wealth and fashion; no parvenu
+could ever hope to imitate them.
+
+Alice Fontaine never tried. She had been taken from a life of polite
+shifts and struggles by her cousin, Mrs. Bethune, two years before; and
+the circumstances that were to the one the mere accidents of her
+position were to the other a real holiday-making.
+
+Alice met Mr. Smith with _empressement_, fluttered about the tea-tray
+like a butterfly, wasted her bonmots and the sugar recklessly, and was
+as full of pretty animation as her cousin Bethune was of elegant repose.
+
+"I am glad you are come, Mr. Smith," said Mrs. Bethune. "Alice has been
+trying to spur me into a fight. I don't want to throw a lance in. Now
+you can be my substitute."
+
+"Mr. Smith," said Alice impetuously, "don't you think that women ought
+to have the same rights as men?"
+
+"Really, Miss Alice, I--I don't know. When women have got what they call
+their 'rights,' do they expect to keep what they call their 'privileges'
+also?"
+
+"Certainly they do. When they have driven the men to emigrate, to scrub
+floors, and to jump into the East River, they will still expect the
+corner seat, the clean side of the road, the front place, and the pick
+of everything."
+
+"Ah, indeed! And when all the public and private business of the
+country is in their hands, will they still expect to find time for
+five-o'clock teas?"
+
+"Yes, sir. They will conduct the affairs of this regenerated country,
+and not neglect either their music or their pets, their dress or their
+drawing-room. They will be perfectly able to do the one, and not leave
+the other undone."
+
+"Glorious creatures! Then they will accomplish what men have been trying
+to do ever since the world began. They will get two days' work out of
+one day."
+
+"Of course they will."
+
+"But how?"
+
+"Oh, machines and management. It will be done."
+
+"But your answer is illogical, Miss Alice."
+
+"Of course. Men always take refuge in their logic; and yet, with all
+their boasted skill, they have never mastered the useful and elementary
+proposition, 'It will be, because it will be.'"
+
+Mr. Smith was very much annoyed at the tone Alice was giving to the
+conversation. She was treating him as a joke, and he felt how impossible
+it was going to be to get Mrs. Bethune to treat him seriously. Indeed,
+before he could restore the usual placid, tender tone of their
+_tete-a-tete_ tea, two or three ladies joined the party, and the hour
+was up, and the opportunity lost.
+
+However, he was not without consolation: Eleanor's hand had rested a
+moment very tenderly in his; he had seen her white cheek flush and her
+eyelids droop, and he felt almost sure that he was beloved. And as he
+had determined that night to test his fortune, he was not inclined to
+let himself be disappointed. Consequently he decided on writing to her,
+for he was rather proud of his letters; and, indeed, it must be
+confessed that he had an elegant and eloquent way of putting any case in
+which he was personally interested.
+
+Eleanor Bethune thought so. She received his proposal on her return from
+a very stupid party, and as soon as she saw his writing she began to
+consider how much more delightful the evening would have been if Mr.
+Smith had been present. His glowing eulogies on her beauty, and his
+passionate descriptions of his own affection, his hopes and his
+despairs, chimed in with her mood exactly. Already his fine person and
+manners had made a great impression on her; she had been very near
+loving him; nothing, indeed, had been needed but that touch of
+electricity conveyed in the knowledge that she was beloved.
+
+Such proposals seldom or never take women unawares. Eleanor had been
+expecting it, and had already decided on her answer. So, after a short,
+happy reflection, she opened her desk and wrote Mr. Smith a few lines
+which she believed would make him supremely happy.
+
+Then she went to Alice's room and woke her out of her first sleep. "Oh,
+you lazy girl; why did you not crimp your hair? Get up again, Alice
+dear; I have a secret to tell you. I am--going--to--marry--Mr.--Smith."
+
+"I knew some catastrophe was impending, Eleanor; I have felt it all day.
+Poor Eleanor!"
+
+"Now, Alice, be reasonable. What do you think of him--honestly, you
+know?"
+
+"The man has excellent qualities; for instance, a perfect taste in
+cravats and an irreproachable propriety. Nobody ever saw him in any
+position out of the proper centre of gravity. Now, there is Carrol,
+always sitting round on tables or easels, or if on a chair, on the back
+or arms, or any way but as other Christians sit. Then Mr. Smith is
+handsome; very much so."
+
+"Oh, you do admit that?"
+
+"Yes; but I don't myself like men of the hairdresser style of beauty."
+
+"Alice, what makes you dislike him so much?"
+
+"Indeed, I don't, Eleanor. I think he is very 'nice,' and very
+respectable. Every one will say, 'What a suitable match!' and I dare say
+you will be very happy. He will do everything you tell him to do,
+Eleanor; and--oh dear me!--how I should hate a husband of that kind!"
+
+"You little hypocrite!--with your talk of woman's 'rights' and woman's
+supremacy.'"
+
+"No, Eleanor love, don't call it hypocrisy, please; say
+_many-sidedness_--it is a more womanly definition. But if it is really
+to be so, then I wish you joy, cousin. And what are you going to wear?"
+
+This subject proved sufficiently attractive to keep Alice awake a couple
+of hours. She even crimped her hair in honor of the bridal shopping; and
+before matters had been satisfactorily arranged she was so full of
+anticipated pleasures that she felt really grateful to the author of
+them, and permitted herself to speak with enthusiasm of the bridegroom.
+
+"He'll be a sight to see, Eleanor, on his marriage day. There won't be a
+handsomer man, nor a better dressed man, in America, and his clothes
+will all come from Paris, I dare say."
+
+"I think we will go to Paris first." Then Eleanor went into a graphic
+description of the glories and pleasures of Paris, as she had
+experienced them during her first bridal tour. "It is the most
+fascinating city in the world, Alice."
+
+"I dare say, but it is a ridiculous shame having it in such an
+out-of-the-way place. What is the use of having a Paris, when one has to
+sail three thousand miles to get at it? Eleanor, I feel that I shall
+have to go."
+
+"So you shall, dear; I won't go without you."
+
+"Oh, no, darling; not with Mr. Smith: I really could not. I shall have
+to try and manage matters with Mr. Carrol. We shall quarrel all the way
+across, of course, but then--"
+
+"Why don't you adopt his opinions, Alice?"
+
+"I intend to--for a little while; but it is impossible to go on with the
+same set of opinions forever. Just think how dull conversation would
+become!"
+
+"Well, dear, you may go to sleep now, for mind, I shall want you down to
+breakfast before eleven. I have given 'Somebody' permission to call at
+five o'clock to-morrow--or rather to-day--and we shall have a
+_tete-a-tete_ tea."
+
+Alice determined that it should be strictly _tete-a-tete._ She went to
+spend the afternoon with Carrol's sisters, and stayed until she thought
+the lovers had had ample time to make their vows and arrange their
+wedding.
+
+There was a little pout on her lips as she left Carrol outside the
+door, and slowly bent her steps to Eleanor's private parlor. She was
+trying to make up her mind to be civil to her cousin's new
+husband-elect, and the temptation to be anything else was very strong.
+
+"I shall be dreadfully in the way--_his way_, I mean--and he will want
+to send me out of the room, and I shall not go--no, not if I fall asleep
+on a chair looking at him."
+
+With this decision, the most amiable she could reach, Alice entered the
+parlor. Eleanor was alone, and there was a pale, angry look on her face
+Alice could not understand.
+
+"Shut the door, dear."
+
+"Alone?"
+
+"I have been so all evening."
+
+"Have you quarreled with Mr. Smith?"
+
+"Mr. Smith did not call."
+
+"Not come!"
+
+"Nor yet sent any apology."
+
+The two women sat looking into each other's faces a few moments, both
+white and silent.
+
+"What will you do, Eleanor?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"But he may be sick, or he may not have got your letter. Such queer
+mistakes do happen."
+
+"Parker took it to his hotel; the clerk said he was still in his room;
+it was sent to him in Parker's sight and hearing. There is not any doubt
+but that he received it."
+
+"Well, suppose he did not. Still, if he really cares for you, he is
+hardly likely to take your supposed silence for an absolute refusal. I
+have said 'No' to Carrol a dozen times, and he won't stay 'noed.' Mr.
+Smith will be sure to ask for a personal interview."
+
+Eleanor answered drearily: "I suppose he will pay me that respect;" but
+through this little effort at assertion it was easy to detect the white
+feather of mistrust. She half suspected the touchy self-esteem of Mr.
+Smith. If she had merely been guilty of a breach of good manners toward
+him, she knew that he would deeply resent it; how, then, when she
+had--however innocently--given him the keenest personal slight?
+
+Still she wished to accept Alice's cheerful view of the affair, and what
+is heartily wished is half accomplished. Ere she fell asleep she had
+quite decided that her lover would call the following day, and her
+thoughts were busy with the pleasant amends she would make him for any
+anxiety he might have suffered.
+
+But Mr. Smith did not call the following day, nor on many following
+ones, and a casual lady visitor destroyed Eleanor's last hope that he
+would ever call again, for, after a little desultory gossip, she said,
+"You will miss Mr. Smith very much at your receptions, and brother Sam
+says he is to be away two years."
+
+"So long?" asked Eleanor, with perfect calmness.
+
+"I believe so. I thought the move very sudden, but Sam says he has been
+talking about the trip for six months."
+
+"Really!--Alice, dear, won't you bring that piece of Burslam pottery for
+Mrs. Hollis to look at?"
+
+So the wonderful cup and saucer were brought, and they caused a
+diversion so complete that Mr. Smith and his eccentric move were not
+named again during the visit. Nor, indeed, much after it. "What is the
+use of discussing a hopelessly disagreeable subject?" said Eleanor to
+Alice's first offer of sympathy. To tell the truth, the mere mention of
+the subject made her cross, for young women of the finest fortunes do
+not necessarily possess the finest tempers.
+
+Carrol's next visit was looked for with a good deal of interest.
+Naturally it was thought that he would know all about his friend's
+singular conduct. But he professed to be as much puzzled as Alice. "He
+supposed it was something about Mrs. Bethune; he had always told Smith
+not to take a pretty, rich woman like her into his calculations. For
+his part, if he had been desirous of marrying an heiress, and felt that
+he had a gift that way, he should have looked out a rich German girl;
+they had less nonsense about them," etc.
+
+That was how the affair ended as far as Eleanor was concerned. Of course
+she suffered, but she was not of that generation of women who parade
+their suffering. Beautiful and self-respecting, she was, above all,
+endowed with physical self-control. Even Alice was spared the hysterical
+sobbings and faintings and other signs of pathological distress common
+to weak women.
+
+Perhaps she was more silent and more irritable than usual, but Eleanor
+Bethune's heartache for love never led her to the smallest social
+impropriety. Whatever she suffered, she did not refuse the proper
+mixture of colors in her hat, or neglect her tithe of the mint, anise
+and cummin due to her position.
+
+Eleanor's reticence, however, had this good effect--it compelled Alice
+to talk Smith's singular behavior over with Carrol; and somehow, in
+discussing Smith, they got to understand each other; so that, after all,
+it was Alice's and not Eleanor's bridal shopping that was to do. And
+there is something very assuaging to grief in this occupation. Before
+it was completed, Eleanor had quite recovered her placid, sunshiny
+temper.
+
+"Consolation, thy name is satin and lace!" said Alice, thankfully, to
+herself, as she saw Eleanor so tired and happy about the wedding finery.
+
+At first Alice had been quite sure that she would go to Paris, and
+nowhere else; but Eleanor noticed that in less than a week Carrol's
+influence was paramount. "We have got a better idea, Eleanor--quite a
+novel one," she said, one morning. "We are going to make our bridal trip
+in Carrol's yacht!"
+
+"Whose idea is that?"
+
+"Carrol's and _mine too_, of course. Carrol says it is the jolliest
+life. You leave all your cares and bills on shore behind you. You issue
+your own sailing orders, and sail away into space with an easy
+conscience"
+
+"But I thought you were bent on a European trip?"
+
+"The yacht will be ever so much nicer. Think of the nuisance of
+ticket-offices and waiting-rooms and second-class hotels and troublesome
+letters waiting for you at your banker's, and disagreeable paragraphs in
+the newspapers. I think Carrol's idea is splendid."
+
+So the marriage took place at the end of the season, and Alice and
+Carrol sailed happily away into the unknown. Eleanor was at a loss what
+to do with herself. She wanted to go to Europe; but Mr. Smith had gone
+there, and she felt sure that some unlucky accident would throw them
+together. It was not her nature to court embarrassments; so Europe was
+out of the question.
+
+While she was hesitating she called one day on Celeste Reid--a beautiful
+girl who had been a great belle, but was now a confirmed invalid. "I am
+going to try the air of Colorado, Mrs. Bethune," she said. "Papa has
+heard wonderful stories about it. Come with our party. We shall have a
+special car, and the trip will at least have the charm of novelty."
+
+"And I love the mountains, Celeste. I will join you with pleasure. I was
+dreading the old routine in the old places; but this will be
+delightful."
+
+Thus it happened that one evening in the following August Mrs. Bethune
+found herself slowly strolling down the principal street in Denver. It
+was a splendid sunset, and in its glory the Rocky Mountains rose like
+Titanic palaces built of amethyst, gold and silver. Suddenly the look of
+intense pleasure on her face was changed for one of wonder and
+annoyance. It had become her duty in a moment to do a very disagreeable
+thing; but duty was a kind of religion to Eleanor Bethune; she never
+thought of shirking it.
+
+So she immediately inquired her way to the telegraph office, and even
+quickened her steps into as fast a walk as she ever permitted herself.
+The message she had to send was a peculiar and not a pleasant one. At
+first she thought it would hardly be possible for her to frame it in
+such words as she would care to dictate to strangers; but she firmly
+settled on the following form:
+
+"_Messrs. Locke & Lord_:
+
+"Tell brother Edward that Bloom is in Denver. No delay. The matter is of
+the greatest importance."
+
+When she had dictated the message, the clerk said, "Two dollars, madam."
+But greatly to Eleanor's annoyance her purse was not in her pocket, and
+she could not remember whether she had put it there or not. The man
+stood looking at her in an expectant way; she felt that any delay about
+the message might be fatal to its worth; perplexity and uncertainty
+ruled her absolutely. She was about to explain her dilemma, and return
+to her hotel for money, when a gentleman, who had heard and watched the
+whole proceeding, said:
+
+"Madam, I perceive that time is of great importance to you, and that you
+have lost your purse; allow me to pay for the message. You can return
+the money if you wish. My name is William Smith. I am staying at the
+'American.'"
+
+"Thank you, sir. The message is of the gravest importance to my brother.
+I gratefully accept your offer."
+
+Further knowledge proved Mr. William Smith to be a New York capitalist
+who was slightly known to three of the gentlemen in Eleanor's party; so
+that the acquaintance began so informally was very speedily afterward
+inaugurated with all the forms and ceremonies good society demands. It
+was soon possible, too, for Eleanor to explain the circumstances which,
+even in her code of strict etiquette, made a stranger's offer of money
+for the hour a thing to be gratefully accepted. She had seen in the door
+of the post-office a runaway cashier of her brother's, and his speedy
+arrest involved a matter of at least forty thousand dollars.
+
+This Mr. William Smith was a totally different man to Eleanor's last
+lover--a bright, energetic, alert business man, decidedly handsome and
+gentlemanly. Though his name was greatly against him in Eleanor's
+prejudices, she found herself quite unable to resist the cheery,
+pleasant influence he carried with him. And it was evident from the very
+first day of their acquaintance that Mr. William Smith had but one
+thought--the winning of Eleanor Bethune.
+
+When she returned to New York in the autumn she ventured to cast up her
+accounts with life, and she was rather amazed at the result. For she was
+quite aware that she was in love with this William Smith in a way that
+she had never been with the other. The first had been a sentimental
+ideal; the second was a genuine case of sincere and passionate
+affection. She felt that the desertion of this lover would be a grief
+far beyond the power of satin and lace to cure.
+
+But her new lover had never a disloyal thought to his mistress, and his
+love transplanted to the pleasant places of New York life, seemed to
+find its native air. It enveloped Eleanor now like a glad and heavenly
+atmosphere; she was so happy that she dreaded any change; it seemed to
+her that no change could make her happier.
+
+But if good is good, still better carries the day, and Mr. Smith thought
+marriage would be a great deal better than lovemaking. Eleanor and he
+were sitting in the fire-lit parlor, very still and very happy, when he
+whispered this opinion to her.
+
+"It is only four months since we met, dear."
+
+"Only four months, darling; but I had been dreaming about you four
+months before that. Let me hold your hands, sweet, while I tell you. On
+the 20th of last April I was on the point of leaving for Colorado to
+look after the Silver Cliff Mine. My carriage was ordered, and I was
+waiting at my hotel for it. A servant brought me a letter--the dearest,
+sweetest little letter--see, here it is!" and this William Smith
+absolutely laid before Eleanor her own pretty, loving reply to the first
+William Smith's offer.
+
+Eleanor looked queerly at it, and smiled.
+
+"What did you think, dear?"
+
+"That it was just the pleasantest thing that had ever happened to me. It
+was directed to Mr. W. Smith, and had been given into my hands. I was
+not going to seek up any other W. Smith."
+
+"But you must have been sure that it was not intended for you, and you
+did not know 'Eleanor Bethune.'"
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon, sweetheart; it _was intended_ for me. I can
+imagine destiny standing sarcastically by your side, and watching you
+send the letter to one W. Smith when she intended it for another W.
+Smith. Eleanor Bethune I meant to know just as soon as possible. I was
+coming back to New York to look for you."
+
+"And, instead, she went to you in Colorado."
+
+"Only think of that! Why, love, when that blessed telegraph clerk said,
+'Who sends this message?' and you said, 'Mrs. Eleanor Bethune,' I wanted
+to fling my hat to the sky. I did not lose my head as badly when they
+found that new lead in the Silver Cliff."
+
+"Won't you give me that letter, and let me destroy it, William? It was
+written to the wrong Smith."
+
+"It was written to the wrong Smith, but it was given to the right Smith.
+Still, Eleanor, if you will say one little word to me, you may do what
+you like with the letter."
+
+Then Eleanor whispered the word, and the blaze of the burning letter
+made a little illumination in honor of their betrothal kiss.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF MARY NEIL.
+
+
+Poverty has not only many learned disciples, but also many hidden saints
+and martyrs. There are humble tenements that are tabernacles, and
+desolate, wretched rooms that are the quarries of the Almighty--where
+with toil and weariness and suffering the souls He loves are being
+prepared for the heavenly temple.
+
+This is the light that relieves the deep shadow of that awful cloud of
+poverty which ever hangs over this rich and prosperous city. I have been
+within that cloud, wet with its rain of tears, chilled with its gloomy
+darkness, "made free" of its innermost recesses; therefore I speak with
+authority when I say that even here a little child may walk and not
+stumble, if Jesus lead the way or hold the hand.
+
+Nay, but children walk where strong men fall down, and young maidens
+enter the kingdom while yet their parents are stumbling where no light
+from the Golden City and "the Land very far off" reaches them. Last
+winter I became very much interested in such a case. I was going to
+write "Poor Mary Neil!" but that would have been the strangest misnomer.
+Happy Mary Neil! rises impetuously from my heart to contradict my pen.
+
+And yet when I first became acquainted with her condition, she was
+"poor" in every bitter sense of the word.
+
+A drunkard's eldest daughter, "the child of misery baptized with tears,"
+what had her seventeen years been but sad and evil ones? Cold and
+hunger, cares and labors far beyond her strength sowed the seeds of
+early death. For two years she struggled amid such suffering as dying
+lungs entail to help her mother and younger brothers and sisters, but at
+last she was compelled to make her bed amid sorrow and suffering which
+she could no longer assuage by her helpful hands and gentle words.
+
+Her religious education had not been quite neglected, and she dimly
+comprehended that through the narrow valley which lay between Time and
+Eternity she would need a surer and more infallible guide than her own
+sadly precocious intellect. Then God sent her just the help she
+needed--a tender, pitiful, hopeful woman full of the love of Jesus.
+
+Souls ripen quickly in the atmosphere of the Border Land, and very soon
+Mary had learned how to walk without fearing any evil. Certain passages
+of Scripture burned with a supernatural glory, and made the darkness
+light; and there were also a few hymns which struck the finest chords
+in her heart, and
+
+    "'Mid days of keenest anguish
+      And nights devoid of ease,
+    Filled all her soul with music
+      Of wondrous melodies."
+
+As she neared the deeper darkness of death, this was especially
+remarkable of that extraordinary hymn called "The Light of Death," by
+Dr. Faber. From the first it had fascinated her. "Has he been _here_
+that he knows just how it feels?" she asked, wonderingly, and then
+solemnly repeated:
+
+    "Saviour, what means this breadth of death,
+      This space before me lying;
+    These deeps where life so lingereth,
+      This difficulty of dying?
+    So many turns abrupt and rude,
+      Such ever-shifting grounds,
+    Such strangely peopled solitudes,
+      Such strangely silent sounds?'"
+
+Her sufferings were very great, and sometimes the physical depression
+exerted a definable influence on her spiritual state. Still she never
+lost her consciousness of the presence of her Guide and Saviour, and
+once, in the exhaustion of a severe paroxysm, she murmured two lines
+from the same grand hymn:
+
+    "Deeper! dark, dark, but yet I follow:
+      Tighten, dear Lord, thy clasp."
+
+Ah! there was something touching and noble beyond all words, in this
+complete reliance and perfect trust; and it never again wavered.
+
+"Is it _very_ dark, Mary dear?" her friend said one morning, the _last_
+for her on earth.
+
+"Too dark to see," she whispered, "but I can go on if Christ will hold
+my hand."
+
+After this a great solemnity shaded her face; she lost all consciousness
+of this world. The frail, shadowy little body lay gray and passive,
+while that greatest of all struggles was going on--the struggle of the
+Eternal out of Time; but her lips moved incessantly, and occasionally
+some speech of earth told the anxious watchers how hard the conflict
+was. For instance, toward sundown she said in a voice strangely solemn
+and anxious:
+
+    "Who are we trying to avoid?
+      From whom, Lord, must we hide?
+    Oh! can the dying be decoyed,
+      With the Saviour by his side?"
+
+"Loose sands and all things sinking!" "Are we near eternity?" "Can I
+fall from Thee even now?" and ejaculations of similar kind, showed that
+the spiritual struggle was a very palpable one to her; but it ended in a
+great calm. For two hours she lay in a peace that passeth understanding,
+and you would have said that she was dead but for a vague look of
+expectancy in the happy, restful face. Then suddenly there was a
+lightening of the whole countenance; she stretched out her arms to meet
+the messenger of the King, and entered heaven with this prayer on her
+lips:
+
+    "_Both hands_, dear Lord, _both hands_.'"
+
+Don't doubt but she got them; their mighty strength lifted her over the
+dark river almost dry shod.
+
+    "Rests she not well whose pilgrim staff and shoon
+      Lie in her tent--for on the golden street
+    She walks and stumbles not on roads star strewn
+      With her unsandalled feet."
+
+
+
+
+THE HEIRESS OF KURSTON CHACE.
+
+
+Into the usual stillness of Kurston Chace a strange bustle and
+excitement had come--the master was returning with a young bride, whom
+report spoke of as "bewitchingly beautiful." It was easy to believe
+report in this case, for there must have been some strong inducement to
+make Frederick Kurston wed in his sixtieth year a woman barely twenty.
+It was not money; Mr. Kurston had plenty of money, and he was neither
+ambitious nor avaricious; besides, the woman he had chosen was both poor
+and extravagant.
+
+For once report was correct. Clementina Gray, in tarlatans and flowers,
+had been a great beauty; and Clementina Kurston, in silks and diamonds,
+was a woman dedicated, by Nature for conquest.
+
+It was Clementina's beauty that had prevailed over the love-hardened
+heart of the gay old gallant, who had escaped the dangers of forty
+seasons of flirtation. He was entangled in the meshes of her golden
+hair, fascinated by the spell of her love-languid eyes, her mouth like a
+sad, heavy rose, her faultless form and her superb manners. He was blind
+to all her faults; deaf to all his friends--in the glamour of her
+enchantments he submitted to her implicitly, even while both his reason
+and his sense of other obligations pleaded for recognition.
+
+Clementina had not won him very easily; the summer was quite over,
+nearly all the visitors at the stylish little watering-place had
+departed, the mornings and evenings were chilly, every day Mr. Kurston
+spoke of his departure, and she herself was watching her maid pack her
+trunks, and in no very amiable temper contemplating defeat, when the
+reward of her seductive attentions came.
+
+"Mr. Kurston entreated the favor of an interview."
+
+She gladly accorded it; she robed herself with subtle skill; she made
+herself marvelous.
+
+"Mother," she said, as she left her dressing-room, "you will have a
+headache. I shall excuse you. I can manage this business best alone."
+
+In an hour she came back triumphant. She put her feet on the fender, and
+sat down before the cheerful blaze to "talk it over."
+
+"It is all right, mother. Good-by to our miserable shifts and
+shabby-genteel lodgings and turned dresses. He will settle Kurston Chace
+and all he has upon me, and we are to be married next month."
+
+"Impossible, Tina! No _modiste_ in the world could get the things that
+are absolutely necessary ready in that time."
+
+"Everything is possible in New York--if you have money--and Uncle Gray
+will be ready enough to buy my marriage clothes. Besides, I am going to
+run no risks. If he should die, nothing on earth could console me for
+the trouble I have had with him, but the fact of being his widow. There
+is no sentiment in the affair, and the sooner one gets to ordering
+dinners and running up bills, the better."
+
+"Poor Philip Lee!"
+
+"Mother, why did you mention him? Of course he will be angry, and call
+me all kinds of unpleasant names; but if he has a particle of common
+sense he must see that it was impossible for me to marry a poor
+lawyer--especially when I had such a much better offer. I suppose he
+will be here to-night. You must see him, mother, and explain things as
+pleasantly as possible. It would scarcely be proper for me, as Mr.
+Kurston's affianced wife, to listen to all the ravings and protestations
+he is sure to indulge in."
+
+In this supposition Clementina was mistaken. Philip Lee took the news of
+her engagement to his wealthy rival with blank calmness and a civil wish
+for her happiness. He made a stay of conventional propriety, and said
+all the usual polite platitudes, and then went away without any evidence
+of the deep suffering and mortification he felt.
+
+This was Clementina's first drop of bitterness in her cup of success.
+She questioned her mother closely as to how he looked, and what he said.
+It did not please her that, instead of bemoaning his own loss, he should
+be feeling a contempt for her duplicity--that he should use her to cure
+his passion, when she meant to wound him still deeper. She felt at
+moments as if she could give up for Philip Lee the wealth and position
+she had so hardly won, only she knew him well enough to understand that
+henceforward she could not easily deceive him again.
+
+It was pleasant to return to New York this fall; the news of the
+engagement opened everyone's heart and home. Congratulations came from
+every quarter; even Uncle Gray praised the girl who had done so well for
+herself, and signified his approval by a handsome check.
+
+The course of this love ran smooth enough, and one fine morning in
+October, Grace Church saw a splendid wedding. Henceforward Clementina
+Kurston was a woman to be courted instead of patronized, and many a
+woman who had spoken lightly of her beauty and qualities, was made to
+acknowledge with an envious pang that she had distanced them.
+
+This was her first reward, and she did not stint herself in extorting
+it. To tell the truth, Clementina had many a bitter score of this kind
+to pay off; for, as she said in extenuation, it was impossible for her
+to allow herself to be in debt to her self-respect.
+
+Well, the wedding was over. She had abundantly gratified her taste for
+splendor; she had smiled on those on whom she willed to smile; she had
+treated herself extravagantly to the dangerous pleasure of social
+revenge; she was now anxious to go and take possession of her home,
+which had the reputation of being one of the oldest and handsomest in
+the country.
+
+Mr. Kurston, hitherto, had been intoxicated with love, and not a little
+flattered by the brilliant position which his wife had at once claimed.
+Now that she was his wife, it amused him to see her order and patronize
+and dispense with all that royal prerogative which belongs to beauty,
+supported by wealth and position.
+
+Into his great happiness he had suffered no doubt, no fear of the
+future, to come; but, as the day approached for their departure for
+Kurston Chace, he grew singularly restless and uneasy.
+
+For, much as he loved and obeyed the woman whom he called "wife," there
+was another woman at Kurston whom he called "daughter," that he loved
+quite as dearly, in a different way. In fact, of his daughter, Athel
+Kurston, he stood just a little bit in fear, and she had ruled the
+household at the Chace for many years as absolute mistress.
+
+No one knew anything of her mother; he had brought her to her present
+home when only five years old, after a long stay on the Continent. A
+strange woman, wearing the dress of a Sclavonic peasant, came with the
+child as nurse; but she had never learnt to speak English, and had now
+been many years dead.
+
+Athel knew nothing of her mother, and her early attempts to question her
+father concerning her had been so peremptorily rebuffed that she had
+long ago ceased to indulge in any curiosity regarding her.
+However--though she knew it not--no one regarded her as Mr. Kurston's
+heir; indeed, nothing in her father's conduct sanctioned such a
+conclusion. True, he loved her dearly, and had spared no pains in her
+education; but he never took her with him into the world, and, except in
+the neighborhood of the Chace, her very existence was not known of.
+
+She was as old as his new wife, willful, proud, accustomed to rule, not
+likely to obey. He had said nothing to Clementina of her existence; he
+had said nothing to his daughter of his marriage; and now both facts
+could no longer be concealed.
+
+But Frederick Kurston had all his life trusted to circumstances, and he
+was rather disposed, in this matter, to let the women settle affairs
+between them without troubling himself to enter into explanations with
+either of them. So, to Athel he wrote a tender little note, assuming
+that she would be delighted to hear of his marriage, as it promised her
+a pleasant companion, and directing her to have all possible
+arrangements made to add to the beauty and comfort of the house.
+
+To Mrs. Kurston he said nothing. The elegantly dressed young lady who
+met her with a curious and rather constrained welcome was to her a
+genuine surprise. Her air of authority and rich dress precluded the idea
+of a dependent; Mr. Kurston had kissed her lovingly, the servants obeyed
+her. But she was far too prudent to make inquiries on unknown ground;
+she disappeared, with her maid, on the plea of weariness, and from the
+vantage-ground of her retirement sent Felicite to take observations.
+
+The little French maid found no difficulty in arriving at the truth, and
+Mrs. Kurston, not unjustly angry, entered the drawing-room fully
+prepared to defend her rights.
+
+"Who was that young person, Frederick, dear, that I saw when we
+arrived?"
+
+This question in the very sweetest tone, and with that caressing manner
+she had always found omnipotent.
+
+"That young person is Miss Athel Kurston, Clementina."
+
+This answer in the very decided, and yet nervous, manner people on the
+defensive generally assume.
+
+"Miss Kurston? Your sister, Frederick?"
+
+"No; my daughter, Clementina."
+
+"But you were never married before?"
+
+"So people say."
+
+"Then, do you really expect me to live in the same house with a person
+of--"
+
+"I see no reason why you should not--that is, if you live in the same
+house with me."
+
+A passionate burst of tears, an utter abandonment of distress, and the
+infatuated husband was willing to promise anything--everything--that his
+charmer demanded--that is, for the time; for Athel Kurston's influence
+was really stronger than her step-mother's, and the promises extorted
+from his lower passions were indefinitely postponed by his nobler
+feelings.
+
+A divided household is always a miserable one; but the chief sufferer
+here was Mr. Kurston, and Athel, who loved him with a sincere and
+profound affection, determined to submit to circumstances for his sake.
+
+One morning, he found on his table a letter from her stating that, to
+procure him peace, she had left a home that would be ever dear to her,
+assuring him that she had secured a comfortable and respectable asylum;
+but earnestly entreating that he would make no inquiries about her, as
+she had changed her name, and would not be discovered without causing a
+degree of gossip and evil-speaking injurious to both himself and her.
+
+This letter completely broke the power of Clementina over her husband.
+He asserted at once his authority, and insisted on returning immediately
+to New York, where he thought it likely Athel had gone, and where, at
+any rate, he could find suitable persons to aid him in his search for
+her--a search which was henceforth the chief object of his life.
+
+A splendid house was taken, and Mrs. Kurston at once assumed the
+position of a leader in the world of fashion. Greatly to her
+satisfaction, Philip Lee was a favorite in the exclusive circle in which
+she moved, and she speedily began the pretty, penitent, dejected role
+which she judged would be most effective with him. But, though she would
+not see it, Philip Lee was proof against all her blandishments. He was
+not the man to be deluded twice by the same false woman; he was a man of
+honor, and detested the social ethics which scoffed at humanity's
+holiest tie; and he was deeply in love with a woman who was the very
+antipodes of the married siren.
+
+Yet he visited frequently at the Kurston mansion, and became a great
+favorite, and finally the friend and confidant of its master. Gradually,
+as month after month passed, the business of the Kurston estate came
+into his hands, and he could have told, to the fraction of a dollar, the
+exact sum for which Clementina Gray sold herself.
+
+Two years passed away. There was no longer on Clementina's part, any
+pretence of affection for her husband; she went her own way, and devoted
+herself to her own interests and amusements. He wearied with a hopeless
+search and anxiety that found no relief, aged very rapidly, and became
+subject to serious attacks of illness, any one of which might deprive
+him of life.
+
+His wife now regretted that she had married so hastily; the settlements
+promised had been delayed; she had trusted to her influence to obtain
+more as his wife than as his betrothed. She had not known of a
+counter-influence, and she had not calculated that the effort of a
+life-long deception might be too much for her. Quarrels had arisen in
+the very beginning of their life at Kurston, the disappearance of Athel
+had never been forgiven, and now Mrs. Kurston became violently angry if
+the settlement and disposing of his property was named.
+
+One night, in the middle of the third winter after Athel's
+disappearance, Philip Lee called with an important lease for Mr. Kurston
+to sign. He found him alone, and strangely moved and sorrowful. He
+signed the papers as Philip directed him, and then requested him to lock
+the door and sit down.
+
+"I am going," he said, "to confide to you, Philip Lee, a sacred trust. I
+do not think I shall live long, and I leave a duty unfulfilled that
+makes to me the bitterness of death. I have a daughter--the lawful
+heiress of the Kurston lands--whom my wife drove, by subtle and
+persistent cruelty, from her home. By no means have I been able to
+discover her; but you must continue the search, and see her put in
+possession of her rights."
+
+"But what proofs, sir, can you give me in order to establish them?"
+
+"They are all in this box--everything that is necessary. Take it with
+you to your office to-night. Her mother--ah, me, how I loved her--was a
+Polish lady of good family; but I have neither time nor inclination now
+to explain to you, or to excuse myself for the paltry vanities which
+induced me to conceal my marriage. In those days I cared so much for
+what society said that I never listened to the voice of my heart or my
+conscience. I hope, I trust, I may still right both the dead and the
+living!"
+
+Mr. Kurston's presentiment of death was no delusive one; he sank
+gradually during the following week, and died--his last word,
+"Remember!" being addressed, with all the strong beseeching of a dying
+injunction, to Philip Lee.
+
+A free woman, and a rich one, Mrs. Kurston turned with all the ardor of
+a sentimental woman to her first and--as she chose to consider it--her
+only true affection. She was now in a position to woo the poor lawyer,
+dependent in a great measure on her continuing to him the management of
+the Kurston property.
+
+Business brought them continually together, and it was neither possible
+nor prudent for him to always reject the attentions she offered. The
+world began to freely connect their names, and it was with much
+difficulty that he could convince even his most intimate friends of his
+indifference to the rich and beautiful widow.
+
+He found himself, indeed, becoming gradually entangled in a net of
+circumstances it would soon be difficult to get honorably out of.
+
+The widow received him at every visit more like a lover, and less like a
+lawyer; men congratulated or envied him, women tacitly assumed his
+engagement. There was but one way to free himself from the toils the
+artful widow was encompassing him with--he must marry some one else.
+
+But whom? The only girl he loved was poor, and had already refused him;
+yet he was sure she loved him, and something bid him try again. He had
+half a mind to do so, and "half a mind" in love is quite enough to begin
+with.
+
+So he put on his hat and went to his sister's house. He knew she was out
+driving--had seen her pass five minutes before on her way to the park.
+Then what did he go there for? Because he judged from experience, that
+at this hour lovely Pauline Alexes, governess to his sister's daughters,
+was at home and alone.
+
+He was not wrong; she came into the parlor by one door as he entered it
+by the other. The coincidence was auspicious, and he warmly pressed his
+suit, pouring into Pauline's ears such a confused account of his
+feelings and his affairs as only love could disentangle and understand.
+
+"But, Philip," said Pauline, "do you mean to say that this Mrs. Kurston
+makes love to you? Is she not a married woman, and her husband your best
+friend and patron?"
+
+"Mr. Kurston, Pauline darling, is dead!"
+
+"Dead! dead! Oh, Philip! Oh, my father! my father!" And the poor girl
+threw herself, with passionate sobbings, among the cushions of the sofa.
+
+This was a revelation. Here, in Pauline Alexes, the girl he had fondly
+loved for nearly three years, Philip found the long-sought heiress of
+Kurston Chace!
+
+Bitter, indeed, was her grief when she learned how sorrowfully her
+father had sought her; but she was scarcely to be blamed for not knowing
+of, and responding to, his late repentance of the life-long wrong he had
+done her. For Philip's sister moved far outside the narrow and supreme
+circle of the Kurstons.
+
+She had hidden her identity in her mother's maiden name--the only thing
+she knew of her mother. She had never seen her father since her flight
+from her home but in public, accompanied by his wife; she had no reason
+to suppose the influence of that wife any weaker; she had been made, by
+cruel innuendoes, to doubt both the right and the inclination of her
+father to protect her.
+
+It now became Philip's duty to acquaint the second Mrs. Kurston with
+her true position, and to take the necessary steps to reinstate Athel
+Kurston in her rights.
+
+Of course, he had to bear many unkind suspicions--even his friends
+believed him to have been cognizant all the time of the identity of
+Pauline Alexes with Athel Kurston--and he was complimented on his
+cleverness in securing the property, with the daughter, instead of the
+widow, for an incumbrance. But those may laugh who win, and these things
+scarcely touched the happiness of Philip and Athel.
+
+As for Mrs. Kurston she made a still more brilliant marriage, and gave
+up the Kurston estate with an ostentatious indifference. "She was glad
+to get rid of it; it had brought her nothing but sorrow and
+disappointment," etc.
+
+But from the heights of her social autocracy, clothed in Worth's
+greatest inspirations, wearing priceless lace and jewels, dwelling in
+unrivalled splendor, she looked with regret on the man whom she had
+rejected for his poverty.
+
+She saw him grow to be the pride of his State and the honor of his
+country. Loveless and childless, she saw his boys and girls cling to the
+woman she hated as their "mother," and knew that they filled with light
+and love the grand old home for which she had first of all sacrificed
+her affection and her womanhood.
+
+
+
+
+"ONLY THIS ONCE."
+
+
+Over the solemn mountains and the misty moorlands the chill spring night
+was falling. David Scott, master shepherd for MacAllister, of Allister,
+thought of his ewes and lambs, pulled his Scotch bonnet over his brows,
+and taking his staff in his hand, turned his face to the hills.
+
+David Scott was a mystic in his own way; the mountains were to him
+"temples not made with hands," and in them he had seen and heard
+wonderful things. Years of silent communion with nature had made him
+love her in all her moods, and he passionately believed in God.
+
+The fold was far up the mountains, but the sheep knew the shepherd's
+voice, and the peculiar bark of his dog; they answered them gladly, and
+were soon safely and warmly housed. Then David and Keeper slowly took
+their way homeward, for the steep, rocky hills were not easy walking for
+an old man in the late gloaming.
+
+Passing a wild cairn of immense stones, Keeper suddenly began to bark
+furiously, and a tall, slight figure leaped from their shelter, raised a
+stick, and would have struck the dog if David had not called out,
+"Never strie a sheep-dog, mon! The bestie willna harm ye."
+
+The stranger then came forward; asked David if there was any cottage
+near where he could rest all night, said that he had come out for a
+day's fishing, had got separated from his companions, lost his way and
+was hungry and worn out.
+
+David looked him steadily in the face and read aright the nervous manner
+and assumed indifference. However, hospitality is a sacred tradition
+among Scotch mountaineers, whoever, or whatever the young man was, David
+acknowledged his weariness and hunger as sufficient claim upon his oaten
+cake and his embers.
+
+It was evident in a few moments that Mr. Semple was not used to the
+hills. David's long, firm walk was beyond the young man's efforts; he
+stumbled frequently in the descent, the springy step necessary when they
+came to the heather distressed him; he was almost afraid of the gullies
+David took without a thought. These things the old man noted, and they
+weighed far more with him than all the boastful tongue could say.
+
+The cottage was soon reached--a very humble one--only "a but and a ben,"
+with small windows, and a thatched roof; but Scotland has reared great
+men in such cottages, and no one could say that it was not clean and
+cheerful. The fire burnt brightly upon the white hearthstone, and a
+little round deal table stood before it. Upon this table were oaten
+cakes and Ayreshire cheese and new milk, and by its side sat a young man
+reading.
+
+"Archie, here is a strange _gentleman_ I found up at Donald's cairn."
+
+The two youths exchanged looks and disliked each other. Yet Archie Scott
+rose, laid aside his book, and courteously offered his seat by the fire.
+The stranger took it, eat heartily of the simple meal, joined decently
+in their solemn worship, and was soon fast asleep in Archie's bed. Then
+the old man and his son sat down and curtly exchanged their opinions.
+
+"I don't like yon lad, fayther, and I more than distrust his being aught
+o' a gentleman."
+
+David smoked steadily a few minutes ere he replied:
+
+"He's eat and drank and knelt wi' us, Archie, and it's nane o' our duty
+to judge him."
+
+When Archie spoke again it was of other matters.
+
+"Fayther, I'm sore troubled wi' MacAllister's accounts; what wi' the
+sheep bills and the timber and the kelp, things look in a mess like.
+There is a right way and a wrong way to keep tally of them and I can't
+find it out."
+
+"The right way is to keep the facts all correct and honest to a straw's
+worth--then the figures are bound to come right, I should say."
+
+It was an old trouble that Archie complained about. He was MacAllister's
+steward, appointed by virtue of his sterling character and known worth;
+but struggling constantly with ignorance of the methods by which even
+the most honest business can alone satisfactorily prove its honest
+condition.
+
+When Mr. Semple awoke next morning, Archie had disappeared, and David
+was standing in the door, smoking. David liked his guest less in the
+morning than he had done at night.
+
+"Ye dinna seem to relish your parritch, sir," said David rather grimly.
+
+Mr. Semple said he really had never been accustomed to anything but
+strong tea and hot rolls, with a little kippered salmon or marmalade; he
+had never tasted porridge before.
+
+"More's the pity, my lad. Maybe if you had been brought up on decent
+oatmeal you would hae thankit God for your food;" for Mr. Semple's
+omission of grace, either before or after his meat, greatly displeased
+the old man.
+
+The youth yawned, sauntered to the door, and looked out. There was a
+fresh wind, bringing with it flying showers and damp, chilling
+mists--wet heather under foot, and no sunshine above. David saw
+something in the anxious, wretched face that aroused keen suspicion. He
+looked steadily into Mr. Semple's pale, blue eyes, and said:
+
+"Wha are you rinnin awa from, my lad?"
+
+"Sir!"
+
+There was a moment's angry silence. Suddenly David raised his hand,
+shaded his eyes and peered keenly down the hills. Mr. Semple followed
+this movement with great interest.
+
+"What are you looking at, Mr. Scott? Oh! I see. Two men coming up this
+way. Do you know who they are?"
+
+"They may be gangers or they may be strangers, or they may be
+policemen--I dinna ken them mysel'."
+
+"Mr. Scott! For God's sake, Mr. Scott! Don't give me up, and I will tell
+you the whole truth."
+
+"I thought so!" said David, sternly. "Well, come up the hills wi' me;
+yon men will be here in ten minutes, whoever they are."
+
+There were numerous places of partial shelter known to the shepherd, and
+he soon led the way to a kind of cave, pretty well concealed by
+overhanging rocks and trailing, briery stems.
+
+The two sat down on a rude granite bowlder, and the elder having waited
+until his companion had regained his breath, said:
+
+"You'll fare best wi' me, lad, if you tell the truth in as few words as
+may be; I dinna like fine speeches."
+
+"Mr. Scott, I am Duncan Nevin's bookkeeper and cashier. He's a tea
+dealer in the Gallowgate of Glasgow. I'm short in my cash, and he's a
+hard man, so I run away."
+
+"Sortie, lad! Your cash dinna gang wrang o' itself. If you werna ashamed
+to steal it, ye needna be ashamed to confess it. Begin at the
+beginning."
+
+The young man told his shameful story. He had got into gay, dissipated
+ways, and to meet a sudden demand had taken three pounds from his
+employer _for just once_. But the three pounds had swollen into sixteen,
+and finding it impossible to replace it, he had taken ten more and fled,
+hoping to hide in the hills till he could get rowed off to some passing
+ship and escape to America. He had no friends, and neither father nor
+mother. At mention of this fact, David's face relaxed.
+
+"Puir lad!" he muttered. "Nae father, and nae mother, 'specially; that's
+a awfu' drawback."
+
+"You may give me up if you like, Mr. Scott. I don't care much; I've
+been a wretched fellow for many a week; I am most broken-hearted
+to-day."
+
+"It's not David Scott that will make himself hard to a broken heart,
+when God in heaven has promised to listen to it. I'll tell you what I
+will do. You shall gie me all the money you have, every shilling; it's
+nane o' yours, ye ken that weel; and I'll take it to your master, and
+get him to pass by the ither till you can earn it. I've got a son, a
+decent, hard-working lad, who's daft to learn your trade--bookkeeping.
+Ye sail stay wi' me till he kens a' the ins and outs o' it, then I'll
+gie ye twenty pounds. I ken weel this is a big sum, and it will make a
+big hole in my little book at the Ayr Bank, but it will set Archie up.
+
+"Then when ye have earned it, ye can pay back all you have stolen,
+forbye having four pounds left for a nest-egg to start again wi'. I
+dinna often treat mysel' to such a bit o' charity as this, and, 'deed,
+if I get na mair thanks fra heaven, than I seem like to get fra you,
+there 'ud be meikle use in it," for Alexander Semple had heard the
+proposal with a dour and thankless face, far from encouraging to the
+good man who made it. It did not suit that youth to work all summer in
+order to pay back what he had come to regard as "off his mind;" to
+denude himself of every shilling, and be entirely dependent on the
+sternly just man before him. Yet what could he do? He was fully in
+David's power; so he signified his assent, and sullenly enough gave up
+the L9 14s. 2d. in his possession.
+
+"I'm a good bookkeeper, Mr. Scott," he said; "the bargain is fair enough
+for you."
+
+"I ken Donald Nevin; he's a Campletown man, and I ken you wouldna hae
+keepit his books if you hadna had your business at your finger-ends."
+
+The next day David went to Glasgow, and saw Mr. Semple's master. The L9
+odd was lost money found, and predisposed him to the arrangement
+proposed. David got little encouragement from Mr. Nevin, however; he
+acknowledged the clerk's skill in accounts, but he was conceited of his
+appearance, ambitious of being a fashionable man, had weak principles
+and was intensely selfish. David almost repented him of his kindness,
+and counted grudgingly the shillings that the journey and the carriage
+of Mr. Semple's trunks cost him.
+
+Indeed it was a week or two before things settled pleasantly in the hill
+cottage; the plain living, pious habits and early hours of the shepherd
+and his son did not at all suit the city youth. But Archie, though
+ignorant of the reasons which kept such a dandy in their humble home,
+soon perceived clearly the benefit he could derive from him. And once
+Archie got an inkling of the meaning of "double entry" he was never
+weary of applying it to his own particular business; so that in a few
+weeks Alexander Semple was perfectly familiar with MacAllister's
+affairs.
+
+Still, Archie cordially disliked his teacher, and about the middle of
+summer it became evident that a very serious cause of quarrel was
+complicating the offence. Coming up from MacAllister's one lovely summer
+gloaming Archie met Semple with Katie Morrison, the little girl whom he
+had loved and courted since ever he carried her dinner and slate to
+school for her. How they had come to know each other he could not tell;
+he had exercised all his tact and prudence to prevent it, evidently
+without avail. He passed the couple with ill-concealed anger; Katie
+looked down, Semple nodded in what Archie believed to be an insolent
+manner.
+
+That night David Scott heard from his son such an outburst of anger as
+the lad had never before exhibited. In a few days Mr. Semple went to
+Greenock for a day or two. Soon it was discovered that Katie had been in
+Greenock two days at her married sister's. Then they heard that the
+couple had married and were to sail for America. They then discovered
+that Archie's desk had been opened and L46 in notes and gold taken.
+Neither of the men had any doubt as to the thief; and therefore Archie
+was angry and astonished to find his father doubt and waver and seem
+averse to pursue him. At last he acknowledged all, told Archie that if
+he made known his loss, _he also_ must confess that he had knowingly
+harbored an acknowledged thief, and tacitly given him the opportunity of
+wronging his employer. He doubted very much whether anyone would give
+him credit for the better feelings which had led him to this course of
+conduct.
+
+Archie's anger cooled at once; he saw the dilemma; to these simple
+people a good name was better than gold. It took nearly half the savings
+of a long life, but the old man went to Ayr and drew sufficient to
+replace the stolen money. He needed to make no inquiries about Semple.
+On Tuesday it was known by everyone in the village that Katie Morrison
+and Alexander Semple had been married the previous Friday, and sailed
+for America the next day. After this certainty father and son never
+named the subject but once more. It was on one calm, spring evening,
+some ten years after, and David lay within an hour of the grave.
+
+"Archie!" he said, suddenly, "I don't regret to-night what I did ten
+years ago. Virtuous actions sometimes fail, but virtuous lives--never!
+Perhaps I had a thought o' self in my good intent, and that spoiled all.
+If thou hast ever a chance, do better than I did."
+
+"I will, father."
+
+During these ten years there had been occasional news from the exiles.
+Mrs. Morrison stopped Archie at intervals, as he passed her door, and
+said there had been a letter from Katie. At first they came frequently,
+and were tinged with brightest hopes. Alexander had a fine place, and
+their baby was the most beautiful in the world. The next news was that
+Alexander was in business for himself and making money rapidly. Handsome
+presents, that were the wonder of the village, then came occasionally,
+and also remittances of money that made the poor mother hold her head
+proudly about "our Katie" and her "splendid house and carriage."
+
+But suddenly all letters stopped, and the mother thought for long they
+must be coming to see her, but this hope and many another faded, and the
+fair morning of Katie's marriage was shrouded in impenetrable gloom and
+mystery.
+
+Archie got bravely over his trouble, and a while after his father's
+death married a good little woman, not quite without "the bit of
+siller." Soon after he took his savings to Edinburgh and joined his
+wife's brother in business there. Things prospered with him, slowly but
+surely, and he became known for a steady, prosperous merchant, and a
+douce pious householder, the father of a fine lot of sons and daughters.
+
+One night, twenty years after the beginning of my story, he was passing
+through the old town of Edinburgh, when a wild cry of "Fire! Fire!
+Fire!" arose on every side of him.
+
+"Where?" he asked of the shrieking women pouring from all the filthy,
+narrow wynds around.
+
+"In Gordon's Wynd."
+
+He was there almost the first of any efficient aid, striving to make his
+way up the smoke-filled stairs, but this was impossible. The house was
+one of those ancient ones, piled story upon story; so old that it was
+almost tinder. But those on the opposite side were so close that not
+unfrequently a plank or two flung across from opposite windows made a
+bridge for the benefit of those seeking to elude justice.
+
+By means of such a bridge all the inhabitants of the burning house were
+removed, and no one was more energetic in carrying the women and
+children across the dangerous planks than Archie Scott; for his mountain
+training had made such a feat one of no extraordinary danger to him.
+Satisfied at length that all life was out of risk, he was turning to go
+home, when a white, terrible face looked out of the top-most floor,
+showing itself amid the gusts of smoke like the dream of a corpse, and
+screaming for help in agonizing tones. Archie knew that face only too
+well. But he remembered, in the same instant, what his father had said
+in dying, and, swift as a mountain deer, he was quickly on the top floor
+of the opposite house again.
+
+In a few moments the planks bridged the distance between death and
+safety; but no entreaties could make the man risk the dangerous passage.
+Setting tight his lips, Archie went for the shrieking coward, and
+carried him into the opposite house. Then the saved man recognized his
+preserver.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Scott!" he said, "for God's sake, my wife and my child! The
+last of seven!"
+
+"You scoundrel! Do you mean to say you saved yourself before Katie and
+your child!"
+
+Archie did not wait for the answer; again he was at the window of the
+burning room. Too late! The flames were already devouring what the smoke
+had smothered; their wretched pallet was a funeral pyre. He had hardly
+time to save his own life.
+
+"They are dead, Semple!"
+
+Then the poor creature burst into a paroxysm of grief, moaned and
+cried, and begged a few shillings, and vowed he was the most miserable
+creature on earth.
+
+After this Archie Scott strove for two years to do without taint of
+selfishness what his father had begun twenty years before. But there was
+not much now left to work upon--health, honor, self-respect were all
+gone. Poor Semple was content to eat the bread of dependence, and then
+make boastful speeches of his former wealth and position. To tell of his
+wonderful schemes, and to abuse his luck and his false friends, and
+everything and everybody, but the real cause of his misfortune.
+
+Archie gave him some trifling post, with a salary sufficient for every
+decent want, and never heeded, though he knew Semple constantly spoke
+ill of him behind his back.
+
+However the trial of Archie's patience and promise did not last very
+long. It was a cold, snowy night in mid-winter that Archie was called
+upon to exercise for the last time his charity and forbearance toward
+him; and the parting scene paid for all. For, in the shadow of the
+grave, the poor, struggling soul dropped all pretences, acknowledged all
+its shortcomings, thanked the forbearance and charity which had been
+extended so many years, and humbly repented of its lost and wasted
+opportunities.
+
+"Draw close to me, Archie Scott," he said, "and tell your four brave
+boys what my dying words to them were: Never to yield to temptation for
+_only this once_. To be quite sure that all the gear and gold that
+_comes with sin_ will _go with sorrow_. And never to doubt that to every
+_evil doer_ will certainly come his _evil day_."
+
+
+
+
+PETRALTO'S LOVE STORY.
+
+
+I am addicted to making strange friendships, to liking people whom I
+have no conventional authority to like--people out of "my set," and not
+always of my own nationality. I do not say that I have always been
+fortunate in these ventures; but I have had sufficient splendid
+exceptions to excuse the social aberration, and make me think that all
+of us might oftener trust our own instincts, oftener accept the friends
+that circumstance and opportunity offer us, with advantage. At any rate,
+the peradventure in chance associations has always been very attractive
+to me.
+
+In some irregular way I became acquainted with Petralto Garcia. I
+believe I owed the introduction to my beautiful hound, Lutha; but, at
+any rate, our first conversation was quite as sensible as if we had gone
+through the legitimate initiation. I know it was in the mountains, and
+that within an hour our tastes and sympathies had touched each other at
+twenty different points.
+
+Lutha walked beside us, showing in his mien something of the proud
+satisfaction which follows a conviction of having done a good thing. He
+looked first at me and then at Petralto, elevating and depressing his
+ears at our argument, as if he understood all about it. Perhaps he did;
+human beings don't know everything.
+
+People have so much time in the country that it is little wonder that
+our acquaintance ripened into friendship during the holidays, and that
+one of my first visits when I had got settled for the winter was to
+Petralto's rooms. Their locality might have cooled some people, but not
+me. It does not take much of an education in New York life to find out
+that the pleasantest, loftiest, handsomest rooms are to be found in the
+streets not very far "up town;" comfortably contiguous to the best
+hotels, stores, theatres, picture galleries, and all the other
+necessaries of a pleasant existence.
+
+He was just leaving the door for a ride in the park, and we went
+together. I had refused the park twice within an hour, and had told
+myself that nothing should induce me to follow that treadmill procession
+again, yet when he said, in his quiet way, "You had better take half an
+hour's ride, Jack," I felt like going, and I went.
+
+Now just as we got to the Fifth Avenue entrance, a singular thing
+happened. Petralto's pale olive face flushed a bright crimson, his eyes
+flashed and dropped; he whipped the horse into a furious gallop, as if
+he would escape something; then became preternaturally calm, drew
+suddenly up, and stood waiting for a handsome equipage which was
+approaching. Its occupants were bending forward to speak to him. I had
+no eyes for the gentleman, the girl at his side was so radiantly
+beautiful.
+
+I heard Petralto promise to call on them, and we passed on; but there
+was a look on his face which bespoke both sympathy and silence. He soon
+complained of the cold, said the park pace irritated him, but still
+passed and repassed the couple who had caused him such evident
+suffering, as if he was determined to inure himself to the pain of
+meeting them. During this interval I had time to notice the caressing,
+lover-like attitude of the beauty's companion, and I said, as they
+entered a stately house together, "Are they married?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He seems devotedly in love with her."
+
+"He loved her two years before he saw her."
+
+"Impossible."
+
+"Not at all. I have a mind to tell you the story."
+
+"Do. Come home with me, and we will have a quiet dinner together."
+
+"No. I need to be alone an hour or two. Call on me about nine o'clock."
+
+Petralto's rooms were a little astonishment to me. They were luxurious
+in the extreme, with just that excess of ornament which suggests
+under-civilization; and yet I found him smoking in a studio destitute of
+everything but a sleepy-looking sofa, two or three capacious lounging
+chairs, and the ordinary furniture of an artist's atelier. There was a
+bright fire in the grate, a flood of light from the numerous gas jets,
+and an atmosphere heavy with the seductive, fragrant vapor of Havana.
+
+I lit my own cigar, made myself comfortable, and waited until it was
+Petralto's pleasure to begin. After a while he said, "Jack, turn that
+easel so that you can see the picture on it."
+
+I did so.
+
+"Now, look at it well, and tell me what you see; first, the
+locality--describe it."
+
+"A dim old wood, with sunlight sifting through thick foliage, and long
+streamers of weird grey moss. The ground is covered with soft short
+grass of an intense green, and there are wonderful flowers of wonderful
+colors."
+
+"Right. It is an opening in the forest of the Upper Guadalupe. Now, what
+else do you see?"
+
+"A small pony, saddled and bridled, feeding quietly, and a young girl
+standing on tip-toe, pulling down a vine loaded with golden-colored
+flowers."
+
+"Describe the girl to me."
+
+I turned and looked at my querist. He was smoking, with shut eyes, and
+waiting calmly for my answer. "Well, she has--Petralto, what makes you
+ask me? You might paint, but it is impossible to describe _light_; and
+the girl is nothing else. If I had met her in such a wood, I should have
+thought she was an angel, and been afraid of her."
+
+"No angel, Jack, but a most exquisite, perfect flower of maidenhood.
+When I first saw her, she stood just so, with her open palms full of
+yellow jasmine. I laid my heart into them, too, my whole heart, my whole
+life, and every joy and hope it contained."
+
+"What were you doing in Texas?"
+
+"What are you doing in New York? I was born in Texas. My family, an old
+Spanish one, have been settled there since they helped to build San
+Antonio in 1730. I grew up pretty much as Texan youths do--half my time
+in the saddle, familiar with the worst side of life and the best side of
+nature. I should have been a thorough Ishmaelite if I had not been an
+artist; but the artistic instinct conquered the nomadic and in my
+twentieth year I went to Rome to study.
+
+"I can pass the next five years. I do not pretend to regret them,
+though, perhaps, you would say I simply wasted time and opportunity. I
+enjoyed them, and it seems to me I was the person most concerned in the
+matter. I had a fresh, full capacity then for enjoyment of every kind. I
+loved nature and I loved art. I warmed both hands at the glowing fire of
+life. Time may do his worst. I have been happy, and I can throw those
+five careless, jovial years, in his face to my last hour.
+
+"But one must awake out of every pleasant dream, and one day I got a
+letter urging my immediate return home. My father had got himself
+involved in a lawsuit, and was failing rapidly in health. My younger
+brother was away with a ranger company, and the affairs of the ranch
+needed authoritative overlooking. I was never so fond of art as to be
+indifferent to our family prosperity, and I lost no time in hurrying
+West.
+
+"Still, when I arrived at home, there was no one to welcome me! The
+noble, gracious Garcia slept with his ancestors in the old Alamo Church;
+somewhere on the llano my brother was ranging, still with his wild,
+company; and the house, in spite of the family servants and Mexican
+peons, was sufficiently lonely. Yet I was astonished, to find how easily
+I went back to my old life, and spent whole days in the saddle
+investigating the affairs of the Garcia ranch.
+
+"I had been riding one day for ten hours, and was so fatigued that I
+determined to spend the night with one of my herdsmen. He had a little
+shelter under some fine pecan trees on the Guadalupe, and after a cup of
+coffee and a meal of dried beef, I sauntered with my cigar down the
+river bank. Then the cool, dusky shadows of the wood tempted me. I
+entered it. It was an enchanted wood, for there stood Jessy Lorimer,
+just as I had painted her.
+
+"I did not move nor speak. I watched her, spell-bound. I had not even
+the power, when she had mounted her pony and was coming toward me, to
+assume another attitude. She saw that I had been watching her, and a
+look, half reproachful and half angry, came for a moment into her face.
+But she inclined her head to me as she passed, and then went off at a
+rapid gallop before I could collect my senses.
+
+"Some people, Jack, walk into love with their eyes open, calculating
+every step. I tumbled in over head, lost my feet, lost my senses,
+narrowed in one moment the whole world down to one bewitching woman. I
+did not know her, of course; but I soon should. I was well aware she
+could not live very far away, and that my herd must be able to give me
+some information. I was so deeply in love that this poor ignorant
+fellow, knowing something about this girl, seemed to me to be a person
+to be respected, and even envied.
+
+"I gave him immediately a plentiful supply of cigars, and sitting down
+beside him opened the conversation with horses, but drifted speedily
+into the subject of new settlers.
+
+"'Were there any since I had left?'
+
+"'Two or three, no 'count travelers, one likely family.'
+
+"'Much of a family?'
+
+"'You may bet on that, sir.'
+
+"'Any pleasant young men?'
+
+"'Reckon so. Mighty likely young gal.'
+
+"So, bit by bit, I found that Mr. Lorimer, my beauty's father, was a
+Scotchman, who had bought the ranch which had formerly belonged to the
+old Spanish family of the Yturris. Then I remembered pretty Inez and
+Dolores Yturri, with their black eyes, olive skins and soft, lazy
+_embonpoint_; and thought of golden-haired Jessy Lorimer in their dark,
+latticed rooms.
+
+"Jack, turn the picture to me. Beautiful Jessy! How I loved her in those
+happy days that followed. How I humored her grave, stern father and
+courted her brothers for her sake! I was a slave to the whole family,
+so that I might gain an hour with or a smile from Jessy. Do I regret it
+now? Not one moment. Such delicious hours as we had together were worth
+any price. I would throw all my future to old Time, Jack, only to live
+them over again."
+
+"That is a great deal to say, Petralto."
+
+"Perhaps; and yet I will not recall it. In those few months everything
+that was good in me prospered and grew. Jessy brought out nothing but
+the best part of my character. I was always at my best with her. No
+thought of selfish pleasure mingled in my love for her. If it delighted
+me to touch her hand, to feel her soft hair against my cheek, to meet
+her earnest, subduing gaze, it also made me careful by no word or look
+to soil the dainty purity of my white lily.
+
+"I feared to tell her that I loved her. But I did do it, I scarcely know
+how. The softest whisper seemed too loud against her glowing cheek. She
+trembled from head to foot. I was faint and silent with rapture when she
+first put her little hand in mine, and suffered me to draw her to my
+heart. Ah! I am sick with joy yet when I think of it. I--I first, I
+alone, woke that sweet young heart to life. She is lost, lost to me, but
+no one else can ever be to her what I have been."
+
+And here Petralto, giving full sway to his impassioned Southern nature,
+covered his face with his hands and wept hot, regretful tears.
+
+Tears come like blood from men of cold, strong temperaments, but they
+were the natural relief of Petralto's. I let him weep. In a few minutes
+he leaped up, and began pacing the room rapidly as he went on:
+
+"Mr. Lorimer received my proposal with a dour, stiff refusal that left
+me no hope of any relenting. 'He had reasons, more than one,' he said;
+'he was not saying anything against either my Spanish blood or my
+religion; but it was no fault in a Scotsman to mate his daughter with
+people of her own kith.'
+
+"There was no quarrel, and no discourtesy; but I saw I could bend an
+iron bar with my pleadings just as soon as his determination. Jessy
+received orders not to meet me or speak to me alone; and the possibility
+of disobeying her father's command never suggested itself to her. Even I
+struggled long with my misery before I dared to ask her to practice her
+first deceit.
+
+"She would not meet me alone, but she persuaded her mother to come once
+with her to our usual tryst in the wood. Mrs. Lorimer spoke kindly but
+hopelessly, and covered her own face to weep while Jessy and I took of
+each other a passionate farewell. I promised her then never to marry
+anyone else; and she!--I thought her heart would break as I laid her
+almost fainting in her mother's arms.
+
+"Yet I did not know how much Jessy really was to me until I suddenly
+found out that her father had sent her back to Scotland, under the
+pretence of finishing her education. I had been so honorably considerate
+of Jessy's Puritan principles that I felt this hasty, secret movement
+exceedingly unkind and unjust. Guadalupe became hateful to me, the
+duties of the ranch distracting; and my brother Felix returning about
+this time, we made a division of the estate. He remained at the Garcia
+mansion, I rented out my possessions, and went, first to New Orleans,
+and afterward to New York.
+
+"In New York I opened a studio, and one day a young gentleman called and
+asked me to draw a picture from some crude, imperfect sketch which a
+friend had made. During the progress of the picture he frequently called
+in. For some reason or other--probably because we were each other's
+antipodes in tastes and temperament--he became my enthusiastic admirer,
+and interested himself greatly to secure me a lucrative patronage.
+
+"Yet some subtle instinct, which I cannot pretend to divine or explain,
+constantly warned me to beware of this man. But I was ashamed and angry
+at myself for linking even imaginary evil with so frank and generous a
+nature. I defied destiny, turned a deaf ear to the whisperings of my
+good genius, and continued the one-sided friendship--for I never even
+pretended to myself that I had any genuine liking for the man.
+
+"One day, when we had become very familiar, he ran up to see me about
+something, I forget what, and not finding me in the outer apartments,
+penetrated to my private room. There, upon that easel, Will Lennox first
+saw the woman you saw with him to-night--the picture which you are now
+looking at--and he fell as desperately in love with it, in his way, as I
+had done in the Guadalupe woods with the reality. I cannot tell you how
+much it cost me to restrain my anger. He, however, never noticed I was
+angry. He had but one object now--to gain from me the name and residence
+of the original.
+
+"It was no use to tell him it was a fancy picture, that he was sighing
+for an imagination. He never believed it for a moment. I would not sell
+it, I would not copy it, I would not say where I had painted it; I kept
+it to my most sacred privacy. He was sure that the girl existed, and
+that I knew where she lived. He was very rich, without an occupation or
+an object, and Jessy's pure, lovely face haunted him day and night, and
+supplied him with a purpose.
+
+"He came to me one day and offering me a large sum of money, asked me
+finally to reveal at least the locality of which I had painted the
+picture. His free, frank unembarrassed manner compels me to believe that
+he had no idea of the intolerable insult he was perpetrating. He had
+always been accustomed to consider more or less money an equivalent for
+all things under the sun. But you, Jack, will easily understand that the
+offer was followed by some very angry words, and that his threat to hunt
+the world over to find my beauty was not without fear to me.
+
+"I heard soon after that Will Lennox had gone to the South. I had
+neither hidden nor talked about my former life and I was ignorant of how
+much he knew or did not know of it. He could trace me easily to New
+Orleans; how much further would depend upon his tact and perseverance.
+Whether he reached Guadalupe or no, I am uncertain, but my heart fell
+with a strange presentment of sorrow when I saw his name, a few weeks
+afterward, among the European departures.
+
+"The next thing I knew of Will Lennox was his marriage to some famous
+Scotch beauty. Jack, do you not perceive the rest? The Scotch beauty was
+Jessy Lorimer. I feared it at the first. I knew it this afternoon."
+
+"Will you call there?"
+
+"I have no power to resist it. Did you not notice how eagerly she
+pressed the invitation?"
+
+"Do not accept it, Petralto."
+
+He shook his head, and remained silent. The next afternoon I was
+astonished on going up to his rooms to find Will Lennox, sitting there.
+He was talking in that loud, happy, demonstrative way so natural to men
+accustomed to have the whole world minister unto them.
+
+He did not see how nervous and angry Petralto was under his easy,
+boastful conversation. He did not notice the ashy face, the blazing
+eyes, the set lips, the trembling hands, of the passionate Spanish
+nature, until Petralto blazed out in a torrent of unreasonable words and
+taunts, and ordered Lennox out of his presence.
+
+Even then the stupid, good-natured, purse-proud man could not see his
+danger. He began to apologize to me for Petralto's rudeness, and excuse
+"anything in a fellow whom he had cut out so badly."
+
+"Liar!" Petralto retorted. "She loved me first; you can never have her
+whole heart. Begone! If I had you on the Guadalupe, where Jessy and I
+lived and loved, I would--"
+
+The sentence was not finished. Lennox struck Petralto to the ground,
+and before I raised him, I persuaded the angry bridegroom to retire. I
+stayed with Petralto that night, although I was not altogether pleased
+with him. He was sulky and silent at first, but after a quiet rest and a
+few consoling Havanas he was willing to talk the affair over.
+
+"Lennox tortured me," he said, passionately. "How could he be so
+unfeeling, so mad, as to suppose I should care to learn what chain of
+circumstances led him to find out my love and then steal her? Everything
+he said tortured me but one fact--Jessy was alone and thoroughly
+miserable. Poor little pet! She thought I had forgotten her, and so she
+married him--not for love; I won't believe it."
+
+"But," I said, "Petralto, you have no right to hug such a delusion; and
+seeing that you had made no attempt to follow Jessy and marry her, she
+had every right to suppose you really had forgotten her. Besides, I
+think it very likely that she should love a young, rich, good-looking
+fellow like Will Lennox."
+
+"In not pursuing her I was following Jessy's own request and obeying my
+own plighted promise. It was understood between us that I should wait
+patiently until Jessy was twenty-one. Even Scotch customs would then
+have regarded her as her own mistress and acknowledged her right to
+marry as she desired; and if I did not write, she has not wanted
+constant tokens of my remembrance. I have trusted her," he said,
+mournfully, "without a sign from her."
+
+That winter the beauty of Mrs. Lennox and the devotion of her husband
+were on every tongue. But married is not mated, and the best part of
+Jessy Lorimer's beauty had never touched Will Lennox. Her pure, simple,
+poetic temperament he had never understood, and he felt in a dim,
+uncertain way that the noblest part of his wife escaped him.
+
+He could not enter into her feelings, and her spiritual superiority
+unconsciously irritated him. Jessy had set her love's first music to the
+broad, artistic heart of Petralto; she could not, without wronging
+herself, decline to a lower range of feelings and a narrower heart. This
+reserve of herself was not a conscious one. She was not one of those
+self-involved women always studying their own emotions; she was simply
+true to the light within her. But her way was not Will Lennox's way, her
+finer fancies and lighter thoughts were mysteries to his grosser nature.
+
+So the thing happened which always has and always will happen in such
+cases; when the magic and the enchantment of Jessy's great personal
+beauty had lost their first novelty and power, she gradually became to
+her husband--"Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his
+horse."
+
+I did not much blame Will Lennox. It is very hard to love what we do not
+comprehend. A wife who could have sympathized in his pursuits, talked
+over the chances of his "Favorite," or gone to sea with him in his
+yacht, would always have found Will an indulgent and attentive husband.
+But fast horses did not interest Jessy, and going to sea made her ill;
+so gradually these two fell much further apart than they ought to have
+done.
+
+Now, if Petralto had been wicked and Jessy weak, he might have revenged
+himself on the man and woman who had wrought him so much suffering. But
+he had set his love far too high to sully her white name; and Jessy, in
+that serenity which comes of lofty and assured principles, had no idea
+of the possibility of her injuring her husband by a wrong thought. Yet
+instinctively they both sought to keep apart; and if by chance they met,
+the grave courtesy of the one and the sweet dignity of the other left
+nothing for evil hopes or thoughts to feed upon. One morning, two years
+after Jessy's marriage, I received a note from Petralto, asking me to
+call upon him immediately. To my amazement, his rooms were dismantled,
+his effects packed up, and he was on the point of leaving New York.
+
+"Whither bound?" I asked. "To Rome?"
+
+"No; to the Guadalupe. I want to try what nature can do for me. Art,
+society, even friendship, fail at times to comfort me for my lost love.
+I will go back to nature, the great, sweet mother and lover of men."
+
+So Petralto went out of New York; and the world that had known him
+forgot him--forgot even to wonder about, much less to regret, him.
+
+I was no more faithful than others. I fell in with a wonderful German
+philosopher, and got into the "entities" and "non-entities," forgot
+Petralto in Hegel, and felt rather ashamed of the days when I lounged
+and trifled in the artist's pleasant rooms. I was "enamored of divine
+philosophy," took no more interest in polite gossip, and did not waste
+my time reading newspapers. In fact, with Kant and Fichte before me, I
+did not feel that I had the time lawfully to spare.
+
+Therefore, anyone may imagine my astonishment when, about three years
+after Petralto's departure from New York, he one morning suddenly
+entered my study, handsome as Apollo and happy as a bridegroom. I have
+used the word "groom" very happily, for I found out in a few minutes
+that Petralto's radiant condition was, in fact, the condition of a
+bridegroom.
+
+Of course, under the circumstances, I could not avoid feeling
+congratulatory; and my affection for the handsome, loving fellow came
+back so strongly that I resolved to break my late habits of seclusion,
+and go to the Brevoort House and see his bride.
+
+I acknowledge that in this decision there was some curiosity. I wondered
+what rare woman had taken the beautiful Jessy Lorimer's place; and I
+rather enjoyed the prospect of twitting him with his protestations of
+eternal fidelity to his first love.
+
+I did not do it. I had no opportunity. Madame Petralto Garcia was, in
+fact, Jessy Lorimer Lennox. Of course I understood at once that Will
+must be dead; but I did not learn the particulars until the next day,
+when Petralto dropped in for a quiet smoke and chat. Not unwillingly I
+shut my book and lit my cigar.
+
+"'All's well that ends well,' my dear fellow," I said, when we had both
+smoked silently for a few moments; "but I never heard of Will Lennox's
+death. I hope he did not come to the Guadalupe and get shot."
+
+Petralto shook his head and replied: "I was always sorry for that
+threat. Will never meant to injure me. No. He was drowned at sea two
+years ago. His yacht was caught in a storm, he ventured too near the
+shore, and all on board perished."
+
+"I did not hear of it at the time."
+
+"Nor I either. I will tell you how I heard. About a year ago I went, as
+was my frequent custom, to the little open glade in the forest where I
+had first seen Jessy. As I lay dreaming on the warm soft grass I saw a
+beautiful woman, clothed in black, walk slowly toward the very same
+jasmine vine, and standing as of old on tip-toe, pull down a loaded
+branch. Can you guess how my heart beat, how I leaped to my feet and
+cried out before I knew what I was doing, 'Jessy! darling Jessy!' She
+stood quite still, looking toward me. Oh, how beautiful she was! And
+when at length we clasped hands, and I gazed into her eyes, I knew
+without a word that my love had come to me."
+
+"She had waited a whole year?"
+
+"True; I liked her the better for that. After Will's death she went to
+Scotland--put both herself and me out of temptation. She owed this much
+to the memory of a man who had loved her as well as he was capable of
+doing. But I know how happy were the steps that brought her back to the
+Guadalupe, and that warm spring afternoon under the jasmine vine paid
+for all. I am the happiest man in all the wide world."
+
+
+
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author	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-15 04:48:24 -0700
committer	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-15 04:48:24 -0700
commit	aa45934a028048cad6b6ee70c86271f99bb8fa97 (patch)
tree	95b1a624388e25679b77820b19cd4deac0654c44