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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of An Alabaster Box, by
+Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
+
+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: An Alabaster Box
+
+Author: Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
+
+Illustrator: Stockton Mulford
+
+Release Date: April 10, 2006 [EBook #18140]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN ALABASTER BOX ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jeff Kaylin and Andrew Sly
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "Money!" she whispered. "He must have hidden it
+before--before--"]
+
+
+An
+Alabaster Box
+
+By
+
+Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
+and
+Florence Morse Kingsley
+
+Illustrated by
+Stockton Mulford
+
+D. Appleton and Company
+
+New York London
+
+1917
+
+
+......There came a woman, having an alabaster box of ointment, very
+precious; and she broke the box.....
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I
+
+
+"We," said Mrs. Solomon Black with weighty emphasis, "are going to
+get up a church fair and raise that money, and we are going to pay
+your salary. We can't stand it another minute. We had better run in
+debt to the butcher and baker than to the Lord."
+
+Wesley Elliot regarded her gloomily. "I never liked the idea of
+church fairs very well," he returned hesitatingly. "It has always
+seemed to me like sheer beggary."
+
+"Then," said Mrs. Solomon Black, "we will beg."
+
+Mrs. Solomon Black was a woman who had always had her way. There was
+not one line which denoted yielding in her large, still handsome
+face, set about with very elaborate water-waves which she had
+arranged so many years that her black hair needed scarcely any
+attention. It would almost seem as if Mrs. Solomon Black had been
+born with water waves.
+
+She spoke firmly but she smiled, as his mother might have done, at
+the young man, who had preached his innocent best in Brookville for
+months without any emolument.
+
+"Now don't you worry one mite about it," said she. "Church fairs may
+be begging, but they belong to the history of the United States of
+America, and I miss my guess if there would have been much preaching
+of the gospel in a good many places without them. I guess it ain't
+any worse to hold church fairs in this country than it is to have the
+outrageous goings on in the old country. I guess we can cheat a
+little with mats and cakes and things and not stand any more danger
+of hell-fire than all those men putting each other's eyes out and
+killing everybody they can hit, and spending the money for guns and
+awful exploding stuff that ought to go for the good of the world. I
+ain't worried one mite about church fairs when the world is where it
+is now. You just run right into your study, Mr. Elliot, and finish
+your sermon; and there's a pan of hot doughnuts on the kitchen table.
+You go through the kitchen and get some doughnuts. We had breakfast
+early and you hadn't ought to work too hard on an empty stomach. You
+run along. Don't you worry. All this is up to me and Maria Dodge and
+Abby Daggett and a few others. You haven't got one blessed thing to
+do with it. All you've got to do is to preach as well as you can, and
+keep us from a free fight. Almost always there is a fuss when women
+get up a fair. If you can preach the gospel so we are all on speaking
+terms when it is finished, you will earn your money twice over. Run
+along."
+
+Wesley Elliot obeyed. He always obeyed, at least in the literal
+sense, when Mrs. Solomon Black ordered him. There was about her a
+fairly masterly maternity. She loved the young minister as firmly for
+his own good as if he had been her son. She chuckled happily when she
+heard him open the kitchen door. "He'll light into those hot
+doughnuts," she thought. She loved to pet the boy in the man.
+
+Wesley Elliot in his study upstairs--a makeshift of a study--sat
+munching hot doughnuts and reflecting. He had only about one-third of
+his sermon written and it was Saturday, but that did not disturb him.
+He had a quick-moving mind. He sometimes wondered whether it did not
+move too quickly. Wesley was not a conceited man in one sense. He
+never had doubt of his power, but he had grave doubts of the merits
+of his productions. However, today he was glad of the high rate of
+speed of which he was capable, and did not worry as much as he
+sometimes did about his landing at the exact goal. He knew very well
+that he could finish his sermon, easily, eat his doughnuts, and sit
+reflecting as long as he chose. He chose to do so for a long time,
+although his reflections were not particularly happy ones. When he
+had left the theological seminary a year ago, he had had his life
+planned out so exactly that it did not seem possible to him that the
+plans could fail. He had graduated at the head of his class. He had
+had no doubt of a city church. One of the professors, a rich man with
+much influence, had practically promised him one. Wesley went home to
+his doting mother, and told her the news. Wesley's mother believed in
+much more than the city church. She believed her son to be capable of
+anything. "I shall have a large salary, mother," boasted Wesley, "and
+you shall have the best clothes money can buy, and the parsonage is
+sure to be beautiful."
+
+"How will your old mother look in fine feathers, in such a beautiful
+home?" asked Wesley's mother, but she asked as a lovely, much-petted
+woman asks such a question. She had her little conscious smile all
+ready for the rejoinder which she knew her son would not fail to
+give. He was very proud of his mother.
+
+"Why, mother," he said, "as far as that goes, I wouldn't balk at a
+throne for you as queen dowager."
+
+"You are a silly boy," said Mrs. Elliot, but she stole a glance at
+herself in an opposite mirror, and smiled complacently. She did not
+look old enough to be the mother of her son. She was tall and
+slender, and fair-haired, and she knew how to dress well on her very
+small income. She was rosy, and carried herself with a sweet
+serenity. People said Wesley would not need a wife as long as he had
+such a mother. But he did not have her long. Only a month later she
+died, and while the boy was still striving to play the role of hero
+in that calamity, there came news of another. His professor friend
+had a son in the trenches. The son had been wounded, and the father
+had obeyed a hurried call, found his son dead, and himself died of
+the shock on the return voyage. Wesley, mourning the man who had been
+his stanch friend, was guiltily conscious of his thwarted ambition.
+"There goes my city church," he thought, and flung the thought back
+at himself in anger at his own self-seeking. He was forced into
+accepting the first opportunity which offered. His mother had an
+annuity, which he himself had insisted upon for her greater comfort.
+When she died, the son was nearly penniless, except for the house,
+which was old and in need of repair.
+
+He rented that as soon as he received his call to Brookville, after
+preaching a humiliating number of trial sermons in other places.
+Wesley was of the lowly in mind, with no expectation of inheriting
+the earth, when he came to rest in the little village and began
+boarding at Mrs. Solomon Black's. But even then he did not know how
+bad the situation really was. He had rented his house, and the rent
+kept him in decent clothes, but not enough books. He had only a
+little shelf filled with the absolutely necessary volumes, most of
+them relics of his college course. He did not know that there was
+small chance of even his meager salary being paid until June, and he
+had been ordained in February. He had wondered why nobody said
+anything about his reimbursement. He had refrained from mentioning
+it, to even his deacons.
+
+Mrs. Solomon Black had revealed the state of affairs, that morning.
+"You may as well know," said she. "There ain't a cent to pay you, and
+I said when you came that if we couldn't pay for gospel privileges we
+should all take to our closets and pray like Sam Hill, and no charge;
+but they wouldn't listen to me, though I spoke right out in
+conference meeting and it's seldom a woman does that, you know. Folks
+in this place have been hanging onto the ragged edge of nothing so
+long they don't seem to sense it. They thought the money for your
+salary was going to be brought down from heaven by a dove or
+something, when all the time, those wicked flying things are going
+round on the other side of the earth, and there don't seem as if
+there could be a dove left. Well, now that the time's come when you
+ought to be paid, if there's any decency left in the place, they
+comes to me and says, 'Oh, Mrs. Black, what shall we do?'  I said,
+'Why didn't you listen when I spoke out in meeting about our not
+being able to afford luxuries like gospel preaching?' and they said
+they thought matters would have improved by this time. Improved! How,
+I'd like to know? The whole world is sliding down hill faster and
+faster every minute, and folks in Brookville think matters are going
+to improve, when they are sliding right along with the Emperor of
+Germany and the King of England, and all the rest of the big bugs. I
+can't figure it out, but in some queer, outlandish way that war over
+there has made it so folks in Brookville can't pay their minister's
+salary. They didn't have much before, but such a one got a little for
+selling eggs and chickens that has had to eat them, and the street
+railway failed, and the chair factory, that was the only industry
+left here, failed, and folks that had a little to pay had to eat
+their payings. And here you are, and it's got to be the fair. Seems
+queer the war in Europe should be the means of getting up a fair in
+Brookville, but I guess it'll get up more'n that before they're
+through fighting."
+
+All this had been the preliminary to the speech which sent Wesley
+forth for doughnuts, then to his study, ostensibly to finish his
+lovely sermon, but in reality to think thoughts which made his young
+forehead, of almost boyhood, frown, and his pleasant mouth droop,
+then inexplicably smooth and smile. It was a day which no man in the
+flush of youth could resist. That June day fairly rioted in through
+the open windows. Mrs. Black's muslin curtains danced in the June
+breeze like filmy-skirted nymphs. Wesley, whose imagination was
+active, seemed to see forced upon his eager, yet reluctant, eyes,
+radiant maidens, flinging their white draperies about, dancing a
+dance of the innocence which preludes the knowledge of love. Sweet
+scents came in through the windows, almond scents, honey scents, rose
+scents, all mingled into an ineffable bouquet of youth and the quest
+of youth.
+
+Wesley rose stealthily; he got his hat; he tiptoed across the room.
+Heavens! how thankful he was for access to the back stairs. Mrs.
+Black was sweeping the parlor, and the rear of the house was
+deserted. Down the precipitous back stairs crept the young minister,
+listening to the sound of the broom on Mrs. Black's parlor carpet. As
+long as that regular swish continued he was safe. Through the kitchen
+he passed, feeling guilty as he smelled new peas cooking for his
+delectation on Mrs. Black's stove. Out of the kitchen door, under the
+green hood of the back porch, and he was afield, and the day had him
+fast. He did not belong any more to his aspirations, to his high and
+noble ambitions, to his steadfast purpose in life. He belonged to the
+spring of the planet from which his animal life had sprung. Young
+Wesley Elliot became one with June, with eternal youth, with joy
+which escapes care, with the present which has nothing to do with the
+past or the future, with that day sufficient unto itself, that day
+dangerous for those whose feet are held fast by the toils of the
+years.
+
+Wesley sped across a field which was like a field of green glory. He
+saw a hollow like a nest, blue with violets, and all his thoughts
+leaped with irresponsive joy. He crossed a brook on rocky stones, as
+if he were crossing a song. A bird sang in perfect tune with his
+mood. He was bound for a place which had a romantic interest for him:
+the unoccupied parsonage, which he could occupy were he supplied with
+a salary and had a wife. He loved to sit on the back veranda and
+dream. Sometimes he had company. Brookville was a hot little village,
+with a long line of hills cutting off the south wind, but on that
+back veranda of the old parsonage there was always a breeze.
+Sometimes it seemed mysterious to Wesley, that breeze. It never
+failed in the hottest days. Now that the parsonage was vacant, women
+often came there with their needlework of an afternoon, and sat and
+sewed and chatted. Wesley knew of the custom, and had made them
+welcome. But sometimes of a morning a girl came. Wesley wondered if
+she would be there that morning. After he had left the field, he
+plunged knee-deep through the weedage of his predecessor's garden,
+and heart-deep into luxuriant ranks of dewy vegetables which he, in
+the intervals of his mental labors, should raise for his own table.
+Wesley had an inherent love of gardening which he had never been in a
+position to gratify. Wesley was, in fancy, eating his own green peas
+and squashes and things when he came in sight of the back veranda. It
+was vacant, and his fancy sank in his mind like a plummet of lead.
+However, he approached, and the breeze of blessing greeted him like a
+presence.
+
+The parsonage was a gray old shadow of a building. Its walls were
+stained with past rains, the roof showed depressions, the veranda
+steps were unsteady, in fact one was gone. Wesley mounted and seated
+himself in one of the gnarled old rustic chairs which defied weather.
+From where he sat he could see a pink and white plumage of blossoms
+over an orchard; even the weedy garden showed lovely lights under the
+triumphant June sun. Butterflies skimmed over it, always in pairs,
+now and then a dew-light like a jewel gleamed out, and gave a
+delectable thrill of mystery. Wesley wished the girl were there. Then
+she came. He saw a flutter of blue in the garden, then a face like a
+rose overtopped the weeds. The sunlight glanced from a dark head,
+giving it high-lights of gold.
+
+The girl approached. When she saw the minister, she started, but not
+as if with surprise; rather as if she had made ready to start. She
+stood at the foot of the steps, glowing with blushes, but still not
+confused. She smiled with friendly confidence. She was very pretty
+and she wore a delicious gown, if one were not a woman, to observe
+the lack of fashion and the faded streaks, and she carried a little
+silk work-bag.
+
+Wesley rose. He also blushed, and looked more confused than the girl.
+"Good morning, Miss Dodge," he said. His hands twitched a little.
+
+Fanny Dodge noted his confusion quite calmly. "Are you busy?" said
+she.
+
+"You are laughing at me, Miss Dodge. What on earth am I busy about?"
+
+"Oh," said the girl. "Of course I have eyes, and I can see that you
+are not writing; but I can't see your mind, or your thoughts. For all
+I know, they may be simply grinding out a sermon, and today is
+Saturday. I don't want to break up the meeting."  She laughed.
+
+"Come on up here," said Wesley with camaraderie. "You know I am not
+doing a blessed thing. I can finish my sermon in an hour after
+dinner. Come on up. The breeze is heavenly. What have you got in that
+bag?"
+
+"I," stated Fanny Dodge, mounting the steps, "have my work in my bag.
+I am embroidering a center-piece which is to be sold for at least
+twice its value--for I can't embroider worth a cent--at the fair."
+She sat down beside him, and fished out of the bag a square of white
+linen and some colored silks.
+
+"Mrs. Black has just told me about that fair," said Wesley. "Say, do
+you know, I loathe the idea of it?"
+
+"Why? A fair is no end of fun. We always have them."
+
+"Beggary."
+
+"Nonsense!"
+
+"Yes, it is. I might just as well put on some black glasses, get a
+little dog with a string, and a basket, and done with it."
+
+The girl giggled. "I know what you mean," said she, "but your salary
+has to be paid, and folks have to be cajoled into handing out the
+money."  Suddenly she looked troubled. "If there is any to hand," she
+added.
+
+"I want you to tell me something and be quite frank about it."
+
+Fanny shot a glance at him. Her lashes were long, and she could look
+through them with liquid fire of dark eyes.
+
+"Well?" said she. She threaded a needle with pink silk.
+
+"Is Brookville a very poor village?"
+
+Fanny inserted her pink-threaded needle into the square of linen.
+
+"What," she inquired with gravity, "is the past tense of bust?"
+
+"I am in earnest."
+
+"So am I. But I know a minister is never supposed to know about such
+a word as bust, even if he is bust two-thirds of is life. I'll tell
+you. First Brookville was bust, now it's busted."
+
+Wesley stared at her.
+
+"Fact," said Fanny, calmly, starting a rose on the linen in a career
+of bloom. "First, years ago, when I was nothing but a kid, Andrew
+Bolton--you have heard of Andrew Bolton?"
+
+"I have heard him mentioned. I have never understood why everybody
+was so down on him, though he is serving a term in prison, I believe.
+Nobody seems to like to explain."
+
+"The reason for that is plain enough," stated Fanny. "Nobody likes to
+admit he's been made a fool of. The man who takes the gold brick
+always tries to hide it if he can't blame it off on his wife or
+sister or aunt. Andrew Bolton must have made perfectly awful fools of
+everybody in Brookville. They must have thought of him as a little
+tin god on wheels till he wrecked the bank and the silk factory, and
+ran off with a lot of money belonging to his disciples, and got
+caught by the hand of the law, and landed in State's Prison. That's
+why they don't tell. Reckon my poor father, if he were alive,
+wouldn't tell. I didn't have anything to do with it, so I am telling.
+When Andrew Bolton embezzled the town went bust. Now the war in
+Europe, through the grinding of wheels which I can't comprehend, has
+bankrupted the street railway and the chair factory, and the town is
+busted."
+
+"But, as you say, if there is no money, why a fair?" Wesley had paled
+a little.
+
+"Oh," replied the girl, "there is always the hoarding instinct to be
+taken into account. There are still a lot of stockings and feather
+beds and teapots in Brookville. We still have faith that a fair can
+mine a little gold out of them for you. Of course we don't know, but
+this is a Yankee village, and Yankees never do spend the last cent. I
+admit you may get somebody's funeral expenses out of the teapot."
+
+"Good Lord!" groaned Wesley.
+
+"That," remarked the girl, "is almost swearing. I am surprised, and
+you a minister."
+
+"But it is an awful state of things."
+
+"Well," said Fanny, "Mrs. B. H. Slocum may come over from Grenoble.
+She used to live here, and has never lost her interest in Brookville.
+She is rich. She can buy a lot, and she is very good-natured about
+being cheated for the gospel's sake. Then, too, Brookville has never
+lost its guardian angels."
+
+"What on earth do you mean?"
+
+"What I say. The faith of the people here in guardian angels is a
+wonderful thing. Sometimes it seems to me as if all Brookville
+considered itself under special guardianship, sort of a
+hen-and-chicken arrangement, you know. Anyhow, they do go ahead and
+undertake the craziest things, and come out somehow."
+
+"I think," said Wesley Elliot soberly, "that I ought to resign."
+
+Then the girl paled, and bent closer over her work. "Resign!" she
+gasped.
+
+"Yes, resign. I admit I haven't enough money to live without a
+salary, though I would like to stay here forever."  Wesley spoke with
+fervor, his eyes on the girl.
+
+"Oh, no, you wouldn't."
+
+"I most certainly would, but I can't run in debt, and--I want to
+marry some day--like other young men--and I must earn."
+
+The girl bent her head lower. "Why don't you resign and go away, and
+get--married, if you want to?"
+
+"Fanny!"
+
+He bent over her. His lips touched her hair. "You know," he
+began--then came a voice like the legendary sword which divides
+lovers for their best temporal and spiritual good.
+
+"Dinner is ready and the peas are getting cold," said Mrs. Solomon
+Black.
+
+Then it happened that Wesley Elliot, although a man and a clergyman,
+followed like a little boy the large woman with the water-waves
+through the weedage of the pastoral garden, and the girl sat weeping
+awhile from mixed emotions of anger and grief. Then she took a little
+puff from her bag, powdered her nose, straightened her hair and,
+also, went home, bag in hand, to her own noon dinner.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II
+
+
+A church fair is one of the purely feminine functions which will be
+the last to disappear when the balance between the sexes is more
+evenly adjusted. It is almost a pity to assume that it will finally,
+in the nature of things, disappear, for it is charming; it is
+innocent with the innocence of very good, simple women; it is at the
+same time subtle with that inimitable subtlety which only such women
+can achieve. It is petty finance on such a moral height that even the
+sufferers by its code must look up to it. Before even woman, showing
+anything except a timid face of discovery at the sights of New York
+under male escort, invaded Wall Street, the church fair was in full
+tide, and the managers thereof might have put financiers to shame by
+the cunning, if not magnitude, of their operations. Good Christian
+women, mothers of families, would sell a tidy of no use except to
+wear to a frayed edge the masculine nerves, and hand-painted plates
+of such bad art that it verged on immorality, for prices so above all
+reason, that a broker would have been taken aback. And it was all for
+worthy objects, these pretty functions graced by girls and matrons in
+their best attire, with the products of their little hands offered,
+or even forced, upon the outsider who was held up for the ticket.
+They gambled shamelessly to buy a new carpet for the church. There
+was plain and brazen raffling for dreadful lamps and patent rockers
+and dolls which did not look fit to be owned by nice little
+girl-mothers, and all for the church organ, the minister's salary and
+such like. Of this description was the church fair held in Brookville
+to raise money to pay the Reverend Wesley Elliot. He came early, and
+haunted the place like a morbid spirit. He was both angry and shamed
+that such means must be employed to pay his just dues, but since it
+had to be he could not absent himself.
+
+There was no parlor in the church, and not long after the infamous
+exit of Andrew Bolton the town hall had been destroyed by fire.
+Therefore all such functions were held in a place which otherwise was
+a source of sad humiliation to its owner: Mrs. Amos Whittle, the
+deacon's wife's unfurnished best parlor. It was a very large room,
+and poor Mrs. Whittle had always dreamed of a fine tapestry carpet,
+furniture upholstered with plush, a piano, and lace curtains.
+
+Her dreams had never been realized. The old tragedy of the little
+village had cropped dreams, like a species of celestial foliage,
+close to their roots. Poor Mrs. Whittle, although she did not realize
+it, missed her dreams more than she would have missed the furniture
+of that best parlor, had she ever possessed and lost it. She had come
+to think of it as a room in one of the "many mansions," although she
+would have been horrified had she known that she did so. She was one
+who kept her religion and her daily life chemically differentiated.
+She endeavored to maintain her soul on a high level of orthodoxy,
+while her large, flat feet trod her round of household tasks. It was
+only when her best parlor, great empty room, was in demand for some
+social function like the church fair, that she felt her old dreams
+return and stimulate her as with some wine of youth.
+
+The room was very prettily decorated with blossoming boughs, and
+Japanese lanterns, and set about with long tables covered with white,
+which contained the articles for sale. In the center of the room was
+the flower-booth, and that was lovely. It was a circle of green, with
+oval openings to frame young girl-faces, and on the circular shelf
+were heaped flowers in brilliant masses. At seven o'clock the fair
+was in full swing, as far as the wares and saleswomen were concerned.
+At the flower-booth were four pretty girls: Fanny Dodge, Ellen Dix,
+Joyce Fulsom and Ethel Mixter. Each stood looking out of her frame of
+green, and beamed with happiness in her own youth and beauty. They
+did not, could not share the anxiety of the older women. The more
+anxious gathered about the cake table. Four pathetically bedizened
+middle-aged creatures, three too stout, one too thin, put their heads
+together in conference. One woman was Mrs. Maria Dodge, Fanny's
+mother, one was Mrs. Amos Dix, one was Mrs. Deacon Whittle, and one
+was unmarried.
+
+She was the stoutest of the four, tightly laced in an ancient silk,
+with frizzed hair standing erect from bulging temples. She was Lois
+Daggett, and a tragedy. She loved the young minister, Wesley Elliot,
+with all her heart and soul and strength. She had fastened, to
+attract his admiration, a little bunch of rose geranium leaves and
+heliotrope in her tightly frizzed hair. That little posy had, all
+unrecognized, a touching pathos. It was as the aigrette, the splendid
+curves of waving plumage which birds adopt in the desire for love.
+Lois had never had a lover. She had never been pretty, or attractive,
+but always in her heart had been the hunger for love. The young
+minister seemed the ideal of all the dreams of her life. He was as a
+god to her. She trembled under his occasional glances, his casual
+address caused vibrations in every nerve. She cherished no illusions.
+She knew he was not for her, but she loved and worshipped, and she
+tucked on an absurd little bow of ribbon, and she frizzed tightly her
+thin hair, and she wore little posies, following out the primitive
+instinct of her sex, even while her reason lagged behind. If once
+Wesley should look at that pitiful little floral ornament, should
+think it pretty, it would have meant as much to that starved virgin
+soul as a kiss--to do her justice, as a spiritual kiss. There was in
+reality only pathos and tragedy in her adoration. It was not in the
+least earthy, or ridiculous, but it needed a saint to understand
+that. Even while she conferred with her friends, she never lost sight
+of the young man, always hoped for that one fleeting glance of
+approbation.
+
+When her sister-in-law, Mrs. Daggett, appeared, she restrained her
+wandering eyes. All four women conferred anxiously. They, with Mrs.
+Solomon Black, had engineered the fair. Mrs. Black had not yet
+appeared and they all wondered why. Abby Daggett, who had the
+expression of a saint--a fleshy saint, in old purple muslin--gazed
+about her with admiration.
+
+"Don't it look perfectly lovely!" she exclaimed.
+
+Mrs. Whittle fairly snapped at her, like an angry old dog. "Lovely!"
+said she with a fine edge of sarcasm in her tone, "perfectly lovely!
+Yes it does. But I think we are a set of fools, the whole of us. Here
+we've got a fair all ready, and worked our fingers to the bone (I
+don't know but I'll have a felon on account of that drawn-in rug
+there) and we've used up all our butter and eggs, and I don't see,
+for one, who is going to buy anything. I ain't got any money t'
+spend. I don't believe Mrs. Slocum will come over from Grenoble, and
+if she does, she can't buy everything."
+
+"Well, what made us get up the fair?" asked Mrs. Dodge.
+
+"I suppose we all thought somebody might have some money," ventured
+Abby Daggett.
+
+"I'd like to know who? Not one of us four has, and I don't believe
+Mrs. Solomon Black has, unless she turns in her egg-money, and if she
+does I don't see how she is going to feed the minister. Where is
+Phoebe Black?"
+
+"She is awfully late," said Lois. She looked at the door, and, so
+doing, got a chance to observe the minister, who was standing beside
+the flower-table talking to Ellen Dix. Fanny Dodge was busily
+arranging some flowers, with her face averted. Ellen Dix was very
+pretty, with an odd prettiness for a New England girl. Her pale olive
+skin was flawless and fine of texture. Her mouth was intensely red,
+and her eyes very dark and heavily shaded by long lashes. She wore at
+the throat of her white dress a beautiful coral brooch. It had been
+one of her mother's girlhood treasures. The Dix family had been
+really almost opulent once, before the Andrew Bolton cataclysm had
+involved the village, and there were still left in the family little
+reminiscences of former splendor. Mrs. Dix wore a superb old lace
+scarf over her ancient black silk, and a diamond sparkled at her
+throat. The other women considered the lace much too old and yellow
+to be worn, but Mrs. Dix was proud both of the lace and her own
+superior sense of values. If the lace had been admired she would not
+have cared so much for it.
+
+Suddenly a little woman came hurrying up, her face sharp with news.
+"What do you think?" she said to the others. "What do you think?"
+
+They stared at her. "What do you mean, Mrs. Fulsom?" asked Mrs.
+Whittle acidly.
+
+The little woman tossed her head importantly. "Oh, nothing much,"
+said she, "only I thought the rest of you might not know. Mrs.
+Solomon Black has got another boarder. That's what's making her late.
+She had to get something for her to eat."
+
+"Another boarder!" said Mrs. Whittle.
+
+"Yes," said the little woman, "a young lady, and Mrs. Solomon Black
+is on her way here now."
+
+"With _her_?" gasped the others.
+
+"Yes, she's coming, and she looks to me as if she might have money."
+
+"Who is she?" asked Mrs. Whittle.
+
+"How do I know? Mrs. Mixter's Tommy told my Sam, and he told me, and
+I saw Mrs. Black and the boarder coming out of her yard, when I went
+out of mine, and I hurried so's to get here first. Hush! Here they
+come now."
+
+While the women were conferring many people had entered the room,
+although none had purchased the wares. Now there was stark silence
+and a concentrated fire of attention as Mrs. Black entered with a
+strange young woman. Mrs. Black looked doubtfully important. She, as
+a matter of fact, was far from sure of her wisdom in the course she
+was taking. She was even a little pale, and her lips moved nervously
+as she introduced the girl to one and another. "Miss Orr," she said;
+sometimes "Miss Lydia Orr."
+
+As for the girl, she looked timid, yet determined. She was pretty,
+perhaps a beauty, had she made the most of her personal advantages
+instead of apparently ignoring them. Her beautiful fair hair, which
+had red-gold lights, should have shaded her forehead, which was too
+high. Instead it was drawn smoothly back, and fastened in a mat of
+compact flat braids at the back of her head. She was dressed very
+simply, in black, and her costume was not of the latest mode.
+
+"I don't see anything about her to have made Mrs. Fulsom think she
+was rich," Mrs. Whittle whispered to Mrs. Daggett, who made an
+unexpectedly shrewd retort: "I can see. She don't look as if she
+cared what anybody thought of her clothes; as if she had so much
+she's never minded."
+
+Mrs. Whittle failed to understand. She grunted non-assent. "I don't
+see," said she. "Her sleeves are way out of date."
+
+For awhile there was a loud buzz of conversation all over the room.
+Then it ceased, for things were happening, amazing things. The
+strange young lady was buying and she was paying cash down. Some of
+the women examined the bank notes suspiciously and handed them to
+their husbands to verify. The girl saw, and flushed, but she
+continued. She went from table to table, and she bought everything,
+from quilts and hideous drawn-in rugs to frosted cakes. She bought in
+the midst of that ominous hush of suspicion. Once she even heard a
+woman hiss to another, "She's crazy. She got out of an insane
+asylum."
+
+However nobody of all the stunned throng refused to sell. Her first
+failure came in the case of a young man. He was Jim Dodge, Fanny's
+brother. Jim Dodge was a sort of Ishmael in the village estimation,
+and yet he was liked. He was a handsome young fellow with a wild
+freedom of carriage. He had worked in the chair factory to support
+his mother and sister, before it closed. He haunted the woods, and
+made a little by selling skins. He had brought as his contribution to
+the fair a beautiful fox skin, and when the young woman essayed to
+buy that he strode forward. "That is not for sale," said he. "I beg
+you to accept that as a gift, Miss Orr."
+
+The young fellow blushed a little before the girl's blue eyes,
+although he held himself proudly. "I won't have this sold to a young
+lady who is buying as much as you are," he continued.
+
+The girl hesitated. Then she took the skin. "Thank you, it is
+beautiful," she said.
+
+Jim's mother sidled close to him. "You did just right, Jim," she
+whispered. "I don't know who she is, but I feel ashamed of my life.
+She can't really want all that truck. She's buying to help. I feel as
+if we were a parcel of beggars."
+
+"Well, she won't buy that fox skin to help!" Jim whispered back
+fiercely.
+
+The whole did not take very long. Finally the girl talked in a low
+voice to Mrs. Black who then became her spokeswoman. Mrs. Black now
+looked confident, even triumphant. "Miss Orr says of course she can't
+possibly use all the cake and pies and jelly," she said, "and she
+wants you to take away all you care for. And she wants to know if
+Mrs. Whittle will let the other things stay here till she's got a
+place to put them in. I tell her there's no room in my house."
+
+"I s'pose so," said Mrs. Whittle in a thick voice. She and many
+others looked fairly pale and shocked.
+
+Mrs. Solomon Black, the girl and the minister went out.
+
+The hush continued for a few seconds. Then Mrs. Whittle spoke.
+"There's something wrong about that girl," said she. Other women
+echoed her. The room seemed full of feminine snarls.
+
+Jim Dodge turned on them, and his voice rang out. "You are a lot of
+cats," said he. "Come on home, mother and Fanny, I am mortal shamed
+for the whole of it. That girl's buying to help, when she can't want
+the things, and all you women turning on her for it!"
+
+After the Dodges had gone there was another hush. Then it was broken
+by a man's voice, an old man's voice with a cackle of derision and
+shrewd amusement in it. "By gosh!" said this voice, resounding
+through the whole room, "that strange young woman has bought the
+whole church fair!"
+
+"There's something wrong," said Mrs. Whittle again.
+
+"Ain't you got the money?" queried the man's voice.
+
+"Yes, but--"
+
+"Then for God's sake hang onto it!"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III
+
+
+After Jim Dodge had taken his mother and sister home, he stole off by
+himself for a solitary walk. The night was wonderful, and the young
+man, who was in a whirl of undefined emotion, unconsciously felt the
+need of a lesson of eternal peace. The advent of the strange girl,
+and her unprecedented conduct had caused in him a sort of masculine
+vertigo over the whole situation. Why in the name of common sense was
+that girl in Brookville, and why should she have done such a thing?
+He admired her; he was angry with her; he was puzzled by her.
+
+He did not like the minister. He did not wonder that Elliot should
+wish for emolument enough to pay his way, but he had a little
+contempt for him, for his assumption of such superior wisdom that he
+could teach his fellow men spiritual knowledge and claim from them
+financial reward. Aside from keeping those he loved in comfort, Jim
+had no wish for money. He had all the beauty of nature for the
+taking. He listened, as he strolled along, to the mysterious high
+notes of insects and night-birds; he saw the lovely shadows of the
+trees, and he honestly wondered within himself why Brookville people
+considered themselves so wronged by an occurrence of years ago, for
+which the perpetrator had paid so dearly. At the same time he
+experienced a sense of angry humiliation at the poverty of the place
+which had caused such an occurrence as that church fair.
+
+When he reached Mrs. Solomon Black's house, he stared up at its
+glossy whiteness, reflecting the moonlight like something infinitely
+more precious than paint, and he seemed to perceive again a delicate,
+elusive fragrance which he had noticed about the girl's raiment when
+she thanked him for his fox skin.
+
+"She smelled like a new kind of flower," Jim told himself as he swung
+down the road. The expression was not elegant, but it was sincere. He
+thought of the girl as he might have thought of an entirely new
+species of blossom, with a strictly individual fragrance which he had
+encountered in an expedition afield.
+
+After he had left the Black house, there was only a half mile before
+he reached the old Andrew Bolton place. The house had been very
+pretentious in an ugly architectural period. There were truncated
+towers, a mansard roof, hideous dormers, and a reckless outbreak of
+perfectly useless bay windows. The house, which was large, stood
+aloof from the road, with a small plantation of evergreen trees
+before it. It had not been painted for years, and loomed up like the
+vaguest shadow of a dwelling even in the brilliant moonlight.
+Suddenly Jim caught sight of a tiny swinging gleam of light. It
+bobbed along at the height of a man's knee. It was a lantern, which
+seemed rather an odd article to be used on such a night. Then Jim
+came face to face with the man who carried the lantern, and saw who
+he was--Deacon Amos Whittle. To Jim's mind, the man resembled a fox,
+skulking along the road, although Deacon Amos Whittle was not
+predatory. He was a small, thin, wiry man with a queer swirl of white
+whisker, and hopping gait.
+
+He seemed somewhat blinded by his lantern, for he ran full tilt into
+Jim, who stood the shock with such firmness that the older man
+staggered back, and danced uncertainly to recover his balance. Deacon
+Amos Whittle stuttered uncertain remarks, as was his wont when
+startled. "It is only Jim Dodge," said Jim. "Guess your lantern sort
+of blinded you, Deacon."
+
+Then the lantern almost blinded Jim, for Whittle swung it higher
+until it came on a level with Jim's eyes. Over it peered Whittle's
+little keen ones, spectacled under a gray shag of eyebrows. "Oh it is
+you!" said the man with a somewhat contemptuous accent. He held Jim
+in slight esteem.
+
+Jim laughed lightly. Unless he cared for people, their opinion of him
+always seemed a perfectly negligible matter, and he did not care at
+all for Amos Whittle.
+
+Suddenly, to his amazement, Amos took hold of his coat. "Look a'
+here, Jim," said he.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Do you know anything about that strange woman that's boardin' to
+Mis' Solomon Black's?"
+
+"How in creation should I know anything about her?"
+
+"Hev you seen her?"
+
+"I saw her at the fair tonight."
+
+"The fair at my house?"
+
+"Don't know of any other fair."
+
+"Well, what do you think of her?"
+
+"Don't think of her."
+
+Jim tried to pass, but the old man danced before him with his
+swinging lantern.
+
+"I must be going along," said Jim.
+
+"Wait a minute. Do you know she bought the whole fair?"
+
+"Yes, I do. You are blinding me with that lantern, Deacon Whittle."
+
+"And she paid good money down. I seen it."
+
+"All right. I've got to get past you."
+
+"Wait a minute. Do you s'pose that young woman is all right?"
+
+"I don't see why not. Nothing against the law of the land for her to
+buy out a church fair, that I know of."
+
+"Don't you think it looks sort of suspicious?"
+
+"It's none of my business. I confess I don't see why it's suspicious,
+unless somebody wants to make her out a fool. I don't understand what
+any sane person wants with all that truck; but I don't pretend to
+understand women."
+
+Whittle shook his head slowly. "I dunno," he said.
+
+"Well, I don't know who does, or cares either. They've got the money.
+I suppose that was what they were after."  Jim again tried to pass.
+
+"Wait just a minute. Say, Jim, I'm going to tell you something. Don't
+you speak of it till it gets out."
+
+"Fire away. I'm in a hurry."
+
+"She wants to buy this old Bolton place here."
+
+Jim whistled.
+
+"You know the assignees of the Bolton estate had to take the house,
+and it's been running down all these years, and a lot of money has
+got to be spent on it or it'll tumble down. Now, this young woman has
+offered to pay a good round sum for it, and take it just as it is.
+S'pose it's all right?"
+
+"How in creation should I know? If I held it, and wanted to sell it,
+I'd know darn well whether it was all right or not. I wouldn't go
+around asking other folks."
+
+"But you see it don't seem natural. Folks don't do things like that.
+She's offering to pay more than the place is worth. She'll have to
+spend thousands on it to make it fit to live in. She says she'll pay
+cash, too."
+
+"Well, I suppose you'll know cash when you see it. I've got to go."
+
+"But cash! Lord A'mighty! We dunno what to do."
+
+"I suppose you know whether you want to sell or not."
+
+"Want to sell! If we didn't want to sell this old shebang we'd be
+dumb idiots."
+
+"Then, why in the name of common sense don't you sell?"
+
+"Because, somehow it don't look natural to me."
+
+"Well, I must confess that to throw away much money on an old shell
+like that doesn't look any too natural to me."
+
+"Come now, Jim, that was a real nice house when it was built."
+
+Jim laughed sarcastically. "Running up your wares now, are you?"
+
+"That house cost Andrew Bolton a pile of money. And now, if it's
+fixed up, it'll be the best house in Brookville."
+
+"That isn't saying much. See here, you've got to let me pass. If you
+want to sell--I should think you would--I don't see what you are
+worrying about. I don't suppose you are worrying for fear you may
+cheat the girl."
+
+"We ain't goin' to cheat the girl, but--I dunno."  Whittle stood
+aside, shaking his head, and Jim passed on. He loitered along the
+shaggy hedge which bordered the old Bolton estate, and a little
+farther, then turned back. He had reached the house again when he
+started. In front of the gate stood a shadowy figure, a woman, by the
+outlines of the dress. Jim continued hesitatingly. He feared to
+startle her. But he did not. When he came abreast of her, she turned
+and looked full in his face, and he recognized Miss Orr. He took off
+his hat, but was so astonished he could scarcely utter a greeting.
+The girl was so shy that she stammered a little, but she laughed too,
+like a child caught in some mischief.
+
+"Oh, I am so glad it is you!" she said.
+
+"Well, taking all things into consideration, so am I," said Jim.
+
+"You mean--?"
+
+"I mean it is pretty late for you to be out alone, and I'm as good as
+a Sunday School picnic, with the superintendent and the minister
+thrown in, for you to meet. I'll see you home."
+
+"Goodness! There's nothing to be afraid of in this little place,"
+said the girl. "I have lived in New York."
+
+"Where there are policemen."
+
+"Oh, yes, but one never counts on that. One never counts on anything
+in New York. You can't, you know. Its mathematics are as high as its
+buildings, too high to take chances. But here--why, I saw pretty near
+the whole village at that funny fair, didn't I?"
+
+"Well, yes, but Brookville is not a walled town. People not so
+desirable as those you saw at the fair have free entrance and egress.
+It is pretty late."
+
+"I am not in the least afraid," said the girl.
+
+"You have no reason to be, now."
+
+"You mean because you have happened along. Well, I am glad you did. I
+begun to think it was rather late myself for me to be prowling
+around, but you will simply have to leave me before I get to my
+boarding house. That Mrs. Black is as kind as can be, but she doesn't
+know what to make of me, and on the whole I think I would rather take
+my chances stealing in alone than to have her spy you."
+
+"If you wanted to come out, why didn't you ask the minister to come
+with you?" Jim asked bluntly.
+
+"The minister! Oh, I don't like ministers when they are young. They
+are much better when all the doctrines they have learned at their
+theological seminaries have settled in their minds, and have stopped
+bubbling. However, this minister here seems rather nice, very young,
+but he doesn't give the impression of taking himself so seriously
+that he is a nervous wreck on account of his convictions. I wouldn't
+have asked him for the world. In the first place, Mrs. Black would
+have thought it very queer, and in the second place he was so hopping
+mad about that fair, and having me buy it, that he wouldn't have been
+agreeable. I don't blame him. I would feel just so in his place. It
+must be frightful to be a poor minister."
+
+"None too pleasant, anyway."
+
+"You are right, it certainly is not. I have been poor myself, and I
+know. I went to my room, and looked out of the window, and it was so
+perfectly beautiful outdoors, and I did want to see how this place
+looked by moonlight, so I just went down the back stairs and came
+alone. I hope nobody will break in while I am gone. I left the door
+unlocked."
+
+"No burglars live in Brookville," said Jim. "Mighty good reasons for
+none to come in, too."
+
+"What reasons?"
+
+"Not a blessed thing to burgle. Never has been for years."
+
+There was a silence. The girl spoke in a hushed voice.
+"I--understand," said she, "that the people here hold the man who
+used to live in this house responsible for that."
+
+"Why, yes, I suppose he was. Brookville never would have been a
+Tuxedo under any circumstances, but I reckon it would have fared a
+little better if Mr. Bolton hadn't failed to see the difference
+between mine and thine. I was nothing but a kid, but I have heard a
+good deal about it. Some of the older people are pretty bitter, and
+some of the younger ones have it in their veins. I suppose the poor
+man did start us down hill."
+
+"You say 'poor man'; why?" asked the girl and her voice trembled.
+
+"Lord, yes. I'm like a hound sneaking round back doors for bones, on
+account of Mr. Bolton, myself. My father lost more than 'most
+anybody, but I wouldn't change places with the man. Say, do you know
+he has been in State's Prison for years?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Of course any man who does wrong is a poor man, even if he doesn't
+get caught. I'm mighty glad I wasn't born bitter as some of the
+people here were. My sister Fanny isn't either. She doesn't have
+much, poor girl, but I've never heard her say one word, and mother
+never blames it on Mr. Bolton, either. Mother says he is getting his
+punishment, and it isn't for any of us to add to it."
+
+"Your sister was that pretty girl at the flower table?"
+
+"Yes--I suppose you would call her pretty. I don't really know. A
+fellow never does know, when the girl is his sister. She may look the
+best of the bunch to him, but he's never sure."
+
+"She is lovely," said Lydia Orr. She pointed to the shadowy house.
+"That must have been a nice place once."
+
+"Best in the village; show place. Say, what in the name of common
+sense do you want to buy it for?"
+
+"Who told you?"
+
+"Oh, I met old Whittle just before I met you. He told me. The place
+must be terribly run down. It will cost a mint of money to get it in
+shape."
+
+"I have considerable money," stated the girl quite simply.
+
+"Well, it's none of my business, but you will have to sink
+considerable in that place, and perhaps when you are through it won't
+be satisfactory."
+
+"I have taken a notion to it," said the girl. She spoke very shyly.
+Her curiously timid, almost apologetic manner returned suddenly. "I
+suppose it does look strange," she added.
+
+"Nobody's business how it looks," said Jim, "but I think you ought to
+know the truth about it, and I think I am more likely to give you
+information than Whittle. Of course he has an ax to grind. Perhaps if
+I had an ax to grind, you couldn't trust me."
+
+"Yes, I could," returned the girl with conviction. "I knew that the
+minute I looked at you. I always know the people I can trust. I know
+I could not trust Deacon Whittle. I made allowances, the way one does
+for a clock that runs too fast or too slow. I think one always has to
+be doing addition or subtraction with people, to understand them."
+
+"Well, you had better try a little subtraction with me."
+
+"I don't have to. I didn't mean with everybody. Of course there are
+exceptions. That was a beautiful skin you gave me. I didn't half
+thank you."
+
+"Nonsense. I was glad to give it."
+
+"Do you hunt much?"
+
+"About all I am good for except to run our little farm and do odd
+jobs. I used to work in the chair factory."
+
+"I shouldn't think you would have liked that."
+
+"Didn't; had to do what I could."
+
+"What would you like to do?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know. I never had any choice, so I never gave it any
+thought. Something that would keep me out of doors, I reckon."
+
+"Do you know much about plants and trees?"
+
+"I don't know whether I know much; I love them, that's all."
+
+"You could do some landscape gardening for a place like this, I
+should think."
+
+Jim stared at her, and drew himself up haughtily. "It really is late,
+Miss Orr," he said. "I think, if you will allow me, I will take you
+home."
+
+"What are you angry about?"
+
+"I am not angry."
+
+"Yes, you are. You are angry because I said that about landscape
+gardening."
+
+"I am not a beggar or a man who undertakes a job he is not competent
+to perform, if I am poor."
+
+"Will you undertake setting those grounds to rights, if I buy the
+place?"
+
+"Why don't you hire a regular landscape man if you have so much
+money?" asked Jim rudely.
+
+"I would rather have you. I want somebody I can work with. I have my
+own ideas. I want to hire you to work with me. Will you?"
+
+"Time enough to settle that when you've bought the place. You must go
+home now. Here, take my arm. This sidewalk is an apology for one."
+
+Lydia took the young man's arm obediently, and they began walking.
+
+"What on earth are you going to do with all that truck you bought?"
+asked Jim.
+
+Lydia laughed. "To tell you the truth, I haven't the slightest idea,"
+said she. "Pretty awful, most of it, isn't it?"
+
+"I wouldn't give it house room."
+
+"I won't either. I bought it, but I won't have it."
+
+"You must take us for a pretty set of paupers, to throw away money
+like that."
+
+"Now, don't you get mad again. I did want to buy it. I never wanted
+to buy things so much in my life."
+
+"I never saw such a queer girl."
+
+"You will know I am not queer some time, and I would tell you why
+now, but--"
+
+"Don't you tell me a thing you don't want to."
+
+"I think I had better wait just a little. But I don't know about all
+those things."
+
+"Say, why don't you send them to missionaries out West?"
+
+"Oh, could I?"
+
+"Of course you can. What's to hinder?"
+
+"When I buy that place will you help me?"
+
+"Of course I will. Now you are talking! I'm glad to do anything like
+that. I think I'd be nutty if I had to live in the same house as that
+fair."
+
+The girl burst into a lovely peal of laughter. "Exactly what I
+thought all the time," said she. "I wanted to buy them; you don't
+know how much; but it was like buying rabbits, and white elephants,
+and--oh, I don't know! a perfect menagerie of things I couldn't bear
+to live with, and I didn't see how I could give them away, and I
+couldn't think of a place to throw them away."  She laughed again.
+
+Jim stopped suddenly. "Say."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Why, it will be an awful piece of work to pack off all those
+contraptions, and it strikes me it is pretty hard on the
+missionaries. There's a gravel pit down back of the Bolton place, and
+if you buy it--"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Well, bury the fair there."
+
+Lydia stopped short, and laughed till she cried. "You don't suppose
+they would ever find out?"
+
+"Trust me. You just have the whole lot moved into the house, and
+we'll fix it up."
+
+"Oh, I can't tell you how thankful I am to you," said Lydia
+fervently. "I felt like a nightmare with all those things. Some of
+them can be used of course, but some--oh, those picture throws, and
+those postage stamp plates!"
+
+"They are funny, but sort of pitiful, too," said Jim. "Women are sort
+of pitiful, lots of them. I'm glad I am a man."
+
+"I should think you would be," said the girl. She looked up in his
+face with an expression which he did not see. He was regarding women
+in the abstract; she was suddenly regarding men in the individual.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV
+
+
+Elliot slept later than usual the morning after the fair. Generally
+he slept the beautiful, undisturbed sleep of the young and healthy;
+that night, for some reason, he did not. Possibly the strange break
+which the buying of the fair had made in the course of his everyday
+life caused one also between his conscious and unconscious state,
+which his brain refused to bridge readily. Wesley had not been
+brought face to face, many times in his life, with the unprecedented.
+He had been brought before it, although in a limited fashion, at the
+church fair. The unprecedented is more or less shattering, partaking
+of the nature of a spiritual bomb. Lydia Orr's mad purchase of that
+collection of things called a fair disturbed his sense of values. He
+asked himself over and over who was this girl? More earnestly he
+asked himself what her motives could be.
+
+But the question which most agitated him was his relations with the
+girl, Fanny Dodge. He realized that recently he had approached the
+verge of an emotional crisis. If Mrs. Black whom he had at the time
+fairly cursed in his heart, in spite of his profession, had not
+appeared with her notice of dinner, he would be in a most unpleasant
+predicament. Only the girl's innate good sense could have served as a
+refuge, and he reflected with the utmost tenderness that he might
+confidently rely upon that. He was almost sure that the poor girl
+loved him. He was quite sure that he loved her. But he was also sure,
+with a strong sense of pride in her, that she would have refused him,
+not on mercenary grounds, for Fanny he knew would have shared a crust
+and hovel with the man she loved; but Fanny would love the man too
+well to consent to the crust and the hovel, on his own account. She
+would not have said in so many words, "What! marry you, a minister so
+poor that a begging fair has to be held to pay his salary?"  She
+would have not refused him her love and sympathy, but she would have
+let him down so gently from the high prospect of matrimony that he
+would have suffered no jolt.
+
+Elliot was a good fellow. It was on the girl's account that he
+suffered. He suffered, as a matter of course. He wanted Fanny badly,
+but he realized himself something of a cad. He discounted his own
+suffering; perhaps, as he told himself with sudden suspicion of
+self-conceit, he overestimated hers. Still, he was sure that the girl
+would suffer more than he wished. He blamed himself immeasurably. He
+tried to construct air castles which would not fall, even before the
+impact of his own thoughts, in which he could marry this girl and
+live with her happily ever after, but the man had too much common
+sense. He did not for a moment now consider the possibility of
+stepping, without influence, into a fat pastorate. He was sure that
+he could count confidently upon nothing better than this.
+
+The next morning he looked about his room wearily, and a plan which
+he had often considered grew upon him. He got the keys of the
+unoccupied parsonage next door, from Mrs. Black, and went over the
+house after breakfast. It was rather a spacious house, old, but in
+tolerable preservation. There was a southeast room of one story in
+height, obviously an architectural afterthought, which immediately
+appealed to him. It was practically empty except for charming
+possibilities, but it contained a few essentials, and probably the
+former incumbent had used it as a study. There was a wood stove, a
+standing desk fixed to the wall, some shelves, an old table, and a
+couple of armchairs. Wesley at once resolved to carry out his plan.
+He would move his small store of books from his bedroom at Mrs.
+Black's, arrange them on the shelves, and set up his study there. He
+was reasonably sure of obtaining wood enough for a fire to heat the
+room when the weather was cold.
+
+He returned and told Mrs. Black, who agreed with him that the plan
+was a good one. "A minister ought to have his study," said she, "and
+of course the parsonage is at your disposal. The parish can't rent
+it. That room used to be the study, and you will have offers of all
+the wood you want to heat it. There's plenty of cut wood that folks
+are glad to donate. They've always sent loads of wood to heat the
+minister's study. Maybe they thought they'd stand less chance of hell
+fire if they heated up the gospel in this life."
+
+"Then I'll move my books and writing materials right over there,"
+said Elliot with a most boyish glee.
+
+Mrs. Black nodded approvingly. "So I would."  She hesitated a moment,
+then she spoke again. "I was just a little bit doubtful about taking
+that young woman in yesterday," said she.
+
+Elliot regarded her curiously. "Then you never had met her before?"
+
+"No, she just landed here with her trunk. The garage man brought her,
+and she said he told her I took boarders, and she asked me to take
+her. I don't know but I was kind of weak to give in, but the poor
+little thing looked sort of nice, and her manners were pretty, so I
+took her. I thought I would ask you how you felt about it this
+morning, but there ain't any reason to, perhaps, for she ain't going
+to stay here very long, anyway. She says she's going to buy the old
+Bolton place and have it fixed up and settle down there as soon as
+she can. She told me after you had gone out. She's gone now to look
+at it. Mr. Whittle was going to meet her there. Queer, ain't it?"
+
+"It does look extraordinary, rather," agreed Elliot, "but Miss Orr
+may be older than she looks."
+
+"Oh, she ain't old, but she's of age. She told me that, and I guess
+she's got plenty of money."
+
+"Well," said Elliot, "that is rather a fine old place. She may be
+connected with the Bolton family."
+
+"That's exactly what I think, and if she was she wouldn't mention it,
+of course. I think she's getting the house in some sort of a business
+way. Andrew Bolton may have died in prison by this time, and she may
+be an heir. I think she is going to be married and have the house
+fixed up to live in."
+
+"That sounds very probable."
+
+"Yes, it does; but what gets me is her buying that fair. I own I felt
+a little scared, and wondered if she had all her buttons, but when
+she told me about the house I knew of course she could use the things
+for furnishing, all except the cake and candy, and I suppose if she's
+got a lot of money she thought she'd like to buy to help. I feel glad
+she's coming. She may be a real help in the church. Now don't color
+up. Ministers have to take help. It's part of their discipline."
+
+Sometimes Mrs. Solomon Black said a wise and consoling thing. Elliot,
+moving his effects to the old parsonage, considered that she had done
+so then. "She is right. I have no business to be proud in the
+profession calling for the lowly-hearted of the whole world," he told
+himself.
+
+After he had his books arranged he sat down in an armchair beside a
+front window, and felt rather happy and at home. He reproached
+himself for his content when he read the morning paper, and
+considered the horrors going on in Europe. Why should he, an
+able-bodied man, sit securely in a room and gaze out at a peaceful
+village street? he asked himself as he had scores of times before.
+Then the imperial individual, which obtrudes even when conscience
+cries out against it, occupied his mind. Pretty Fanny Dodge in her
+blue linen was passing. She never once glanced at the parsonage.
+Forgetting his own scruples and resolves, he thought unreasonably
+that she might at least glance up, if she had the day before at all
+in her mind. Suddenly the unwelcome reflection that he might not be
+as desirable as he had thought himself came over him.
+
+He got up, put on his hat, and walked rapidly in the direction of the
+old Bolton house. Satisfying his curiosity might serve as a
+palliative to his sudden depression with regard to his love affair.
+It is very much more comfortable to consider oneself a cad, and
+acknowledge to oneself love for a girl, and be sure of her
+unfortunate love for you, than to consider oneself the dupe of the
+girl. Fanny had a keen sense of humor. Suppose she had been making
+fun of him. Suppose she had her own aspirations in other quarters. He
+walked on until he reached the old Bolton house. The door stood open,
+askew upon rusty hinges. Wesley Elliot entered and glanced about him
+with growing curiosity. The room was obviously a kitchen, one side
+being occupied by a huge brick chimney inclosing a built-in range
+half devoured with rust; wall cupboards, a sink and a decrepit table
+showed gray and ugly in the greenish light of two tall windows,
+completely blocked on the outside with over-grown shrubs. An
+indescribable odor of decaying plaster, chimney-soot and mildew hung
+in the heavy air.
+
+A door to the right, also half open, led the investigator further.
+Here the floor shook ominously under foot, suggesting rotten beams
+and unsteady sills. The minister walked cautiously, noting in passing
+a portrait defaced with cobwebs over the marble mantelpiece and the
+great circular window opening upon an expanse of tangled grass and
+weeds, through which the sun streamed hot and yellow. Voices came
+from an adjoining room; he could hear Deacon Whittle's nasal tones
+upraised in fervid assertion.
+
+"Yes, ma'am!" he was saying, "this house is a little out of repair,
+you can see that fer yourself; but it's well built; couldn't be
+better. A few hundred dollars expended here an' there'll make it as
+good as new; in fact, I'll say better'n new! They don't put no such
+material in houses nowadays. Why, this woodwork--doors, windows,
+floors and all--is clear, white pine. You can't buy it today for no
+price. Costs as much as m'hogany, come to figure it out. Yes,
+_ma'am!_ the woodwork alone in this house is worth the price of one
+of them little new shacks a builder'll run up in a couple of months.
+And look at them mantelpieces, pure tombstone marble; and all carved
+like you see. Yes, ma'am! there's as many as seven of 'em in the
+house. Where'll you find anything like that, I'd like to know!"
+
+"I--think the house might be made to look very pleasant, Mr.
+Whittle," Lydia replied, in a hesitating voice.
+
+Wesley Elliot fancied he could detect a slight tremor in its even
+flow. He pushed open the door and walked boldly in.
+
+"Good-morning, Miss Orr," he exclaimed, advancing with outstretched
+hand. "Good-morning, Deacon! ...Well, well! what a melancholy old
+ruin this is, to be sure. I never chanced to see the interior
+before."
+
+Deacon Whittle regarded his pastor sourly from under puckered brows.
+
+"Some s'prised to see _you_, dominie," said he. "Thought you was
+generally occupied at your desk of a Friday morning."
+
+The minister included Lydia Orr in the genial warmth of his smile as
+he replied:
+
+"I had a special call into the country this morning, and seeing your
+conveyance hitched to the trees outside, Deacon, I thought I'd step
+in. I'm not sure it's altogether safe for all of us to be standing in
+the middle of this big room, though. Sills pretty well rotted
+out--eh, Deacon?"
+
+"Sound as an oak," snarled the Deacon. "As I was telling th' young
+lady, there ain't no better built house anywheres 'round than this
+one. Andrew Bolton didn't spare other folks' money when he built
+it--no, _sir!_  It's good for a hundred years yet, with trifling
+repairs."
+
+"Who owns the house now?" asked Lydia unexpectedly. She had walked
+over to one of the long windows opening on a rickety balcony and
+stood looking out.
+
+"Who owns it?" echoed Deacon Whittle. "Well, now, we can give you a
+clear title, ma'am, when it comes to that; sound an' clear. You don't
+have to worry none about that. You see it was this way; dunno as
+anybody's mentioned it in your hearing since you come to Brookville;
+but we use to have a bank here in Brookville, about eighteen years
+ago, and--"
+
+"Yes, Ellen Dix told me," interrupted Lydia Orr, without turning her
+head. "Has nobody lived here since?"
+
+Deacon Whittle cast an impatient glance at Wesley Elliot, who stood
+with his eyes fixed broodingly on the dusty floor.
+
+"Wal," said he. "There'd have been plenty of folks glad enough to
+live here; but the house wa'n't really suited to our kind o' folks.
+It wa'n't a farm--there being only twenty acres going with it. And
+you see the house is different to what folks in moderate
+circumstances could handle. Nobody had the cash to buy it, an' ain't
+had, all these years. It's a pity to see a fine old property like
+this a-going down, all for the lack of a few hundreds. But if you was
+to buy it, ma'am, I could put it in shape fer you, equal to the best,
+and at a figure-- Wall; I tell ye, it won't cost ye what some folks'd
+think."
+
+"Didn't that man--the banker who stole--everybody's money, I
+mean--didn't he have any family?" asked Lydia, still without turning
+her head. "I suppose he--he died a long time ago?"
+
+"I see the matter of th' title's worrying you, ma'am," said Deacon
+Whittle briskly. "I like to see a female cautious in a business way:
+I do, indeed. And 'tain't often you see it, neither. Now, I'll tell
+_you_--"
+
+"Wouldn't it be well to show Miss Orr some more desirable property,
+Deacon?" interposed Wesley Elliot. "It seems to me--"
+
+"Oh, I shall buy the house," said the girl at the window, quickly.
+
+She turned and faced the two men, her delicate head thrown back, a
+clear color staining her pale cheeks.
+
+"I shall buy it," she repeated. "I--I like it very much. It is just
+what I wanted--in--in every way."
+
+Deacon Whittle gave vent to a snort of astonishment.
+
+"There was another party looking at the place a spell back," he said,
+rubbing his dry old hands. "I dunno's I exac'ly give him an option on
+it; but I was sort of looking for him to turn up 'most any day.
+Course I'd have to give him the first chance, if it comes to a--"
+
+"What is an option?" asked Lydia.
+
+"An option is a--now, let me see if I can make a legal term plain to
+the female mind: An option, my dear young lady, is--"
+
+The minister crossed the floor to where the girl was standing, a
+slight, delicate figure in her black dress, her small face under the
+shadowy brim of her wide had looking unnaturally pale in the greenish
+light from without.
+
+"An option," he interposed hurriedly, "must be bought with money;
+should you change your mind later you lose whatever you have paid.
+Let me advise you--"
+
+Deacon Whittle cleared his throat with an angry, rasping sound.
+
+"Me an' this young lady came here this morning for the purpose of
+transacting a little business, mutually advantageous," he snarled.
+"If it was anybody but the dominie, I should say he was butting in
+without cause."
+
+"Oh, don't, please!" begged the girl. "Mr. Elliot meant it kindly,
+I'm sure. I--I want an option, if you please. You'll let me have it,
+won't you? I want it--now."
+
+Deacon Whittle blinked and drew back a pace or two, as if her
+eagerness actually frightened him.
+
+"I--I guess I can accommodate ye," he stuttered; "but--there'll be
+some preliminaries--I wa'n't exactly prepared-- There's the price of
+the property and the terms-- S'pose likely you'll want a
+mortgage--eh?"
+
+He rubbed his bristly chin dubiously.
+
+"I want to buy the house," Lydia said. "I want to be sure--"
+
+"Have you seen the rooms upstairs?" asked the minister, turning his
+back upon his senior deacon.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Well, then, why not--"
+
+Wesley Elliot took a step or two toward the winding stair, dimly seen
+through the gloom of the hall.
+
+"Hold on, dominie, them stairs ain't safe!" warned the Deacon.
+"They'll mebbe want a little shoring up, before-- Say, I wish--"
+
+"I don't care to go up now, really," protested the girl. "It--it's
+the location I like and--"
+
+She glanced about the desolate place with a shiver. The air of the
+long-closed rooms was chilly, despite the warmth of the June day
+outside.
+
+"I'll tell you what," said the deacon briskly. "You come right along
+down to the village with me, Miss Orr. It's kind of close in here;
+the house is built so tight, there can't no air git in. I tell you,
+them walls--"
+
+He smote the one nearest him with a jocular palm. There followed the
+hollow sound of dropping plaster from behind the lath.
+
+"Guess we'd better fix things up between us, so you won't be noways
+disappointed in case that other party--" he added, with a crafty
+glance at the minister. "You see, he might turn up 'most any day."
+
+"Oh, yes!" exclaimed the girl, walking hurriedly to the door. "I--I
+should like to go at once."
+
+She turned and held out her hand to the minister with a smile.
+
+"Thank you for coming," she said. "I wanted you to see the house as
+it is now."
+
+He looked down into her upturned face with its almost childish appeal
+of utter candor, frowning slightly.
+
+"Have you no one--that is, no near relative to advise you in the
+matter?" he asked. "The purchase of a large property, such as this,
+ought to be carefully considered, I should say."
+
+Deacon Whittle coughed in an exasperated manner.
+
+"I guess we'd better be gitting along," said he, "if we want to catch
+Jedge Fulsom in his office before he goes to dinner."
+
+Lydia turned obediently.
+
+"I'm coming," she said.
+
+Then to Elliot: "No; there is no one to--to advise me. I am obliged
+to decide for myself."
+
+Wesley Elliot returned to Brookville and his unfinished sermon by a
+long detour which led him over the shoulder of a hill overlooking the
+valley. He did not choose to examine his motive for avoiding the road
+along which Fanny Dodge would presently return. But as the path,
+increasingly rough and stony as it climbed the steep ascent, led him
+at length to a point from whence he could look down upon a toy
+village, arranged in stiff rows about a toy church, with its tiny
+pointing steeple piercing the vivid green of many trees, he sat down
+with a sigh of relief and something very like gratitude.
+
+As far back as he could remember Wesley Elliot had cherished a firm,
+though somewhat undefined, belief in a quasi-omnipotent power to be
+reckoned as either hostile or friendly to the purposes of man,
+showing now a smiling, now a frowning face. In short, that
+unquestioned, wholly uncontrollable influence outside of a man's
+life, which appears to rule his destiny. In this role "Providence,"
+as he had been taught to call it, had heretofore smiled rather
+evasively upon Wesley Elliot. He had been permitted to make sure his
+sacred calling; but he had not secured the earnestly coveted city
+pulpit. On the other hand, he had just been saved--or so he told
+himself, as the fragrant June breeze fanned his heated forehead--by a
+distinct intervention of "Providence" from making a fool of himself.
+His subsequent musings, interrupted at length by the shrieking
+whistle of the noon train as it came to a standstill at the toy
+railway station, might be termed important, since they were to
+influence the immediate future of a number of persons, thus affording
+a fresh illustration of the mysterious workings of "Providence,"
+sometimes called "Divine."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V
+
+
+There existed in Brookville two separate and distinct forums for the
+discussion of topics of public and private interest. These were the
+barroom of the village tavern, known as the Brookville House, and
+Henry Daggett's General Store, located on the corner opposite the old
+Bolton Bank Building. Mr. Daggett, besides being Brookville's leading
+merchant, was also postmaster, and twice each day withdrew to the
+official privacy of the office for the transaction of United States
+business. The post office was conveniently located in one corner of
+Mr. Daggett's store and presented to the inquiring eye a small glass
+window, which could be raised and lowered at will by the person
+behind the partition, a few numbered boxes and a slit, marked
+"Letters."
+
+In the evening of the day on which Miss Lydia Orr had visited the old
+Bolton house in company with Deacon Whittle, both forums were in full
+blast. The wagon-shed behind the Brookville House sheltered an
+unusual number of "rigs," whose owners, after partaking of liquid
+refreshment dispensed by the oily young man behind the bar, by common
+consent strolled out to the veranda where a row of battered wooden
+armchairs invited to reposeful consideration of the surprising events
+of the past few days.
+
+The central chair supported the large presence of "Judge" Fulsom, who
+was dispensing both information and tobacco juice.
+
+"The practice of the legal profession," said the Judge, after a brief
+period devoted to the ruminative processes, "is full of surprises."
+
+Having spoken, Judge Fulsom folded his fat hands across the somewhat
+soiled expanse of his white waistcoat and relapsed into a weighty
+silence.
+
+"They was sayin' over to the post office this evening that the young
+woman that cleaned up the church fair has bought the old Bolton
+place. How about it, Jedge?"
+
+Judge Fulsom grunted, as he leveled a displeased stare upon the
+speaker, a young farmer with a bibulous eye and slight swagger of
+defiance. At the proper moment, with the right audience, the Judge
+was willing to impart information with lavish generosity. But any
+attempt to force his hand was looked upon as a distinct infringement
+of his privilege.
+
+"You want to keep your face shut, Lute, till th' Jedge gets ready to
+talk," counseled a middle-aged man who sat tilted back in the next
+chair. "Set down, son, and cool off."
+
+"Well, you see I got to hurry along," objected the young farmer
+impatiently, "and I wanted to know if there was anything in it. Our
+folks had money in the old bank, an' we'd give up getting anything
+more out the smash years ago. But if the Bolton place has actually
+been sold--"
+
+He finished with a prolonged whistle.
+
+The greatness in the middle chair emitted a grunt.
+
+"Humph!" he muttered, and again, "Hr-m-m-ph!"
+
+"It would be surprising," conceded the middle-aged man, "after all
+these years."
+
+"Considerable many of th' creditors has died since," piped up a lean
+youth who was smoking a very large cigar. "I s'pose th' children of
+all such would come in for their share--eh, Judge?"
+
+Judge Fulsom frowned and pursed his lips thoughtfully.
+
+"The proceedings has not yet reached the point you mention, Henry,"
+he said. "You're going a little too fast."
+
+Nobody spoke, but the growing excitement took the form of a shuffling
+of feet. The Judge deliberately lighted his pipe, a token of mental
+relaxation. Then from out the haze of blue smoke, like the voice of
+an oracle from the seclusion of a shrine, issued the familiar
+recitative tone for which everybody had been waiting.
+
+"Well, boys, I'll tell you how 'twas: Along about ten minutes of
+twelve I had my hat on my head, and was just drawing on my linen
+duster with the idea of going home to dinner, when I happened to look
+out of my office window, and there was Deacon Whittle--and the girl,
+just coming up th' steps. In five minutes more I'd have been gone,
+most likely for the day."
+
+"Gosh!" breathed the excitable young farmer.
+
+The middle-aged man sternly motioned him to keep silence.
+
+"I s'pose most of you boys saw her at the fair last night," proceeded
+the Judge, ignoring the interruption. "She's a nice appearing young
+female; but nobody'd think to look at her--"
+
+He paused to ram down the tobacco in the glowing bowl of his pipe.
+
+"Well, as I was saying, she'd been over to the Bolton house with the
+Deacon. Guess we'll have to set the Deacon down for a right smart
+real-estate boomer. We didn't none of us give him credit for it. He'd
+got the girl all worked up to th' point of bein' afraid another
+party'd be right along to buy the place. She wanted an option on it."
+
+"Shucks!" again interrupted the young farmer disgustedly. "Them
+options ain't no good. I had one once on five acres of timber, and--"
+
+"Shut up, Lute!" came in low chorus from the spell-bound audience.
+
+"Wanted an option," repeated Judge Fulsom loudly, "just till I could
+fix up the paper. 'And, if you please,' said she, 'I'd like t' pay
+five thousand dollars for the option, then I'd feel more sure.'  And
+before I had a chance to open my mouth, she whips out a check-book."
+
+"Gr-reat jumping Judas!" cried the irrepressible Lute, whose other
+name was Parsons. "Five thousand dollars! Why, the old place ain't
+worth no five thousand dollars!"
+
+Judge Fulsom removed his pipe from his mouth, knocked out the
+half-burned tobacco, blew through the stem, then proceeded to fill
+and light it again. From the resultant haze issued his voice once
+more, bland, authoritative, reminiscent.
+
+"Well, now, son, that depends on how you look at it. Time was when
+Andrew Bolton wouldn't have parted with the place for three times
+that amount. It was rated, I remember, at eighteen thousand,
+including live stock, conveyances an' furniture, when it was deeded
+over to the assignees. We sold out the furniture and stock at auction
+for about half what they were worth. But there weren't any bidders
+worth mentioning for the house and land. So it was held by the
+assignees--Cephas Dix, Deacon Whittle and myself--for private sale.
+We could have sold it on easy terms the next year for six thousand;
+but in process of trying to jack up our customer to seven, we lost
+out on the deal. But now--"
+
+Judge Fulsom arose, brushed the tobacco from his waistcoat front and
+cleared his throat.
+
+"Guess I'll have to be getting along," said he; "important papers to
+look over, and--"
+
+"A female woman, like her, is likely to change her mind before
+tomorrow morning," said the middle-aged man dubiously. "And I heard
+Mrs. Solomon Black had offered to sell her place to the young woman
+for twenty-nine hundred--all in good repair and neat as wax. She
+might take it into her head to buy it."
+
+"Right in the village, too," growled Lute Parsons. "Say, Jedge, did
+you give her that option she was looking for? Because if you did she
+can't get out of it so easy."
+
+Judge Fulsom twinkled pleasantly over his bulging cheeks.
+
+"I sure did accommodate the young lady with the option, as
+aforesaid," he vouchsafed. "And what's more, I telephoned to the
+Grenoble Bank to see if her check for five thousand dollars was O.
+K.... Well; so long, boys!"
+
+He stepped ponderously down from the piazza and turned his broad back
+on the row of excited faces.
+
+"Hold on, Jedge!" the middle-aged man called after him. "Was her
+check any good? You didn't tell us!"
+
+The Judge did not reply. He merely waved his hand.
+
+"He's going over to the post office," surmised the lean youth,
+shifting the stub of his cigar to the corner of his mouth in a
+knowing manner.
+
+He lowered his heels to the floor with a thud and prepared to follow.
+Five minutes later the bartender, not hearing the familiar hum of
+voices from the piazza, thrust his head out of the door.
+
+"Say!" he called out to the hatchet-faced woman who was writing down
+sundry items in a ledger at a high desk. "The boys has all cleared
+out. What's up, I wonder?"
+
+"They'll be back," said the woman imperturbably, "an' more with 'em.
+You want t' git your glasses all washed up, Gus; an' you may as well
+fetch up another demijohn out the cellar."
+
+Was it foreknowledge, or merely coincidence which at this same hour
+led Mrs. Solomon Black, frugally inspecting her supplies for tomorrow
+morning's breakfast, to discover that her baking-powder can was
+empty?
+
+"I'll have to roll out a few biscuits for their breakfast," she
+decided, "or else I'll run short of bread for dinner."
+
+Her two boarders, Lydia Orr and the minister, were sitting on the
+piazza, engaged in what appeared to be a most interesting
+conversation, when Mrs. Black unlatched the front gate and emerged
+upon the street, her second-best hat carefully disposed upon her
+water-waves.
+
+"I won't be gone a minute," she paused to assure them; "I just got to
+step down to the grocery."
+
+A sudden hush fell upon a loud and excited conversation when Mrs.
+Solomon Black, very erect as to her spinal column and noticeably
+composed and dignified in her manner, entered Henry Daggett's store.
+She walked straight past the group of men who stood about the door to
+the counter, where Mr. Daggett was wrapping in brown paper two large
+dill pickles dripping sourness for a small girl with straw-colored
+pig-tails.
+
+Mr. Daggett beamed cordially upon Mrs. Black, as he dropped two
+copper pennies in his cash-drawer.
+
+"Good evening, ma'am," said he. "What can I do for you?"
+
+"A ten-cent can of baking-powder, if you please," replied the lady
+primly.
+
+"Must take a lot of victuals to feed them two boarders o' yourn,"
+hazarded Mr. Daggett, still cordially, and with a dash of
+confidential sympathy in his voice.
+
+Mr. Daggett had, by virtue of long association with his wife,
+acquired something of her spontaneous warm-heartedness. He had found
+it useful in his business.
+
+"Oh, they ain't neither of 'em so hearty," said Mrs. Black, searching
+in her pocket-book with the air of one who is in haste.
+
+"We was just speakin' about the young woman that's stopping at your
+house," murmured Mr. Daggett. "Let me see; I disremember which kind
+of bakin'-powder you use, Mis' Black."
+
+"The Golden Rule brand, if you please, Mr. Daggett."
+
+"H'm; let me see if I've got one of them Golden Rules left," mused
+Mr. Daggett.... "I told the boys I guessed she was some relation of
+th' Grenoble Orrs, an' mebbe--"
+
+"Well; she ain't," denied Mrs. Black crisply.
+
+"M-m-m?" interrogated Mr. Daggett, intent upon a careful search among
+the various canned products on his shelf. "How'd she happen to come
+to Brookville?"
+
+Mrs. Black tossed her head.
+
+"Of course it ain't for me to say," she returned, with a dignity
+which made her appear taller than she really was. "But folks has
+heard of the table I set, 'way to Boston."
+
+"You don't say!" exclaimed Mr. Daggett. "So she come from Boston, did
+she? I thought she seemed kind of--"
+
+"I don't know as there's any secret about where she _come_ from,"
+returned Mrs. Black aggressively. "I never s'posed there was. Folks
+ain't had time to git acquainted with her yit."
+
+"That's so," agreed Mr. Daggett, as if the idea was a new and
+valuable one. "Yes, ma'am; you're right! we ain't none of us had time
+to git acquainted."
+
+He beamed cordially upon Mrs. Black over the tops of his spectacles.
+"Looks like we're going to git a chance to know her," he went on. "It
+seems the young woman has made up her mind to settle amongst us. Yes,
+ma'am; we've been hearing she's on the point of buying property and
+settling right down here in Brookville."
+
+An excited buzz of comment in the front of the store broke in upon
+this confidential conversation. Mrs. Black appeared to become aware
+for the first time of the score of masculine eyes fixed upon her.
+
+"Ain't you got any of the Golden Rule?" she demanded sharply. "That
+looks like it to me--over in behind them cans of tomatoes. It's got a
+blue label."
+
+"Why, yes; here 'tis, sure enough," admitted Mr. Daggett. "I guess I
+must be losing my eyesight.... It's going to be quite a chore to fix
+up the old Bolton house," he added, as he inserted the blue labeled
+can of reputation in a red and yellow striped paper bag.
+
+"That ain't decided," snapped Mrs. Black. "She could do better than
+to buy that tumble-down old shack."
+
+"So she could; so she could," soothed the postmaster. "But it's going
+to be a good thing for the creditors, if she can swing it. Let me
+see, you wa'n't a loser in the Bolton Bank; was you, Mis' Black?"
+
+"No; I wa'n't; my late departed husband had too much horse-sense."
+
+And having thus impugned less fortunate persons, Mrs. Solomon Black
+departed, a little stiffer as to her back-bone than when she entered.
+She had imparted information; she had also acquired it. When she had
+returned rather later than usual from selling her strawberries in
+Grenoble she had hurried her vegetables on to boil and set the table
+for dinner. She could hear the minister pacing up and down his room
+in the restless way which Mrs. Black secretly resented, since it
+would necessitate changing the side breadths of matting to the middle
+of the floor long before this should be done. But of Lydia Orr there
+was no sign. The minister came promptly down stairs at sound of the
+belated dinner-bell. But to Mrs. Black's voluble explanations for the
+unwonted hour he returned the briefest of perfunctory replies. He
+seemed hungry and ate heartily of the cold boiled beef and
+vegetables.
+
+"Did you see anything of _her_ this morning?" asked Mrs. Black
+pointedly, as she cut the dried-apple pie. "I can't think what's
+become of her."
+
+Wesley Elliot glanced up from an absent-minded contemplation of an
+egg spot on the tablecloth.
+
+"If you refer to Miss Orr," said he, "I did see her--in a carriage
+with Deacon Whittle."
+
+He was instantly ashamed of the innocent prevarication. But he told
+himself he did not choose to discuss Miss Orr's affairs with Mrs.
+Black.
+
+Just then Lydia came in, her eyes shining, her cheeks very pink; but
+like the minister she seemed disposed to silence, and Mrs. Black was
+forced to restrain her curiosity.
+
+"How'd you make out this morning?" she inquired, as Lydia, having
+hurried through her dinner, rose to leave the table.
+
+"Very well, thank you, Mrs. Black," said the girl brightly. Then she
+went at once to her room and closed the door.
+
+At supper time it was just the same; neither the minister nor the
+girl who sat opposite him had anything to say. But no sooner had Mrs.
+Black begun to clear away the dishes than the two withdrew to the
+vine-shaded porch, as if by common consent.
+
+"She ought to know right off about Fanny Dodge and the minister,"
+Mrs. Black told herself.
+
+She was still revolving this in her mind as she walked sedately along
+the street, the red and yellow striped bag clasped tightly in both
+hands. Of course everybody in the village would suppose she knew all
+about Lydia Orr. But the fact was she knew very little. The week
+before, one of her customers in Grenoble, in the course of a business
+transaction which involved a pair of chickens, a dozen eggs and two
+boxes of strawberries, had asked, in a casual way, if Mrs. Black knew
+any one in Brookville who kept boarders.
+
+"The minister of our church boards with me," she told the Grenoble
+woman, with pardonable pride. "I don't know of anybody else that
+takes boarders in Brookville."  She added that she had an extra room.
+
+"Well, one of my boarders--a real nice young lady from Boston--has
+taken a queer notion to board in Brookville," said the woman. "She
+was out autoing the other day and went through there. I guess the
+country 'round Brookville must be real pretty this time of year."
+
+"Yes; it is, real pretty," she had told the Grenoble woman.
+
+And this had been the simple prelude to Lydia Orr's appearance in
+Brookville.
+
+Wooded hills did not interest Mrs. Black, nor did the meandering of
+the silver river through its narrow valley. But she took an honest
+pride in her own freshly painted white house with its vividly green
+blinds, and in her front yard with its prim rows of annuals and
+thrifty young dahlias. As for Miss Lydia Orr's girlish rapture over
+the view from her bedroom window, so long as it was productive of
+honestly earned dollars, Mrs. Black was disposed to view it with
+indulgence. There was nothing about the girl or her possessions to
+indicate wealth or social importance, beyond the fact that she
+arrived in a hired automobile from Grenoble instead of riding over in
+Mrs. Solomon Black's spring wagon. Miss Orr brought with her to
+Brookville one trunk, the contents of which she had arranged at once
+in the bureau drawers and wardrobe of Mrs. Black's second-best
+bedroom. It was evident from a private inspection of their contents
+that Miss Orr was in mourning.
+
+At this point in her meditations Mrs. Black became aware of an
+insistent voice hailing her from the other side of the picket fence.
+
+It was Mrs. Daggett, her large fair face flushed with the exertion of
+hurrying down the walk leading from Mrs. Whittle's house.
+
+"Some of us ladies has been clearing up after the fair," she
+explained, as she joined Mrs. Solomon Black. "It didn't seem no more
+than right; for even if Ann Whittle doesn't use her parlor, on
+account of not having it furnished up, she wants it broom-clean. My!
+You'd ought to have seen the muss we swept out."
+
+"I'd have been glad to help," said Mrs. Black stiffly; "but what with
+it being my day to go over to Grenoble, and my boarders t' cook for
+and all--"
+
+"Oh, we didn't expect you," said Abby Daggett tranquilly. "There was
+enough of us to do everything."
+
+She beamed warmly upon Mrs. Black.
+
+"Us ladies was saying we'd all better give you a rising vote of
+thanks for bringing that sweet Miss Orr to the fair. Why, 'twas a
+real success after all; we took in two hundred and forty-seven
+dollars and twenty-nine cents. Ain't that splendid?"
+
+Mrs. Black nodded. She felt suddenly proud of her share in this
+success.
+
+"I guess she wouldn't have come to the fair if I hadn't told her
+about it," she admitted. "She only come to my house yesterd'y
+morning."
+
+"In an auto?" inquired Abby Daggett eagerly.
+
+"Yes," nodded Mrs. Black. "I told her I could bring her over in the
+wagon just as well as not; but she said she had the man all engaged.
+I told her we was going to have a fair, and she said right off she
+wanted to come."
+
+Abby Daggett laid her warm plump hand on Mrs. Black's arm.
+
+"I dunno when I've took such a fancy to anybody at first sight," she
+said musingly. "She's what I call a real sweet girl. I'm just going
+to love her, I know."
+
+She gazed beseechingly at Mrs. Solomon Black.
+
+"Mebbe you'll think it's just gossipy curiosity; but I _would_ like
+to know where that girl come from, and who her folks was, and how she
+happened to come to Brookville. I s'pose you know all about her;
+don't you?"
+
+Mrs. Solomon Black coughed slightly. She was aware of the distinction
+she had already acquired in the eyes of Brookville from the mere fact
+of Lydia Orr's presence in her house.
+
+"If I do," she began cautiously, "I don't know as it's for me to
+say."
+
+"Don't fer pity's sake think I'm nosey," besought Abby Daggett almost
+tearfully. "You know I ain't that kind; but I don't see how folks is
+going to help being interested in a sweet pretty girl like Miss Orr,
+and her coming so unexpected. And you know there's them that'll
+invent things that ain't true, if they don't hear the facts."
+
+"She's from Boston," said Mrs. Solomon Black grudgingly. "You can
+tell Lois Daggett that much, if she's getting anxious."
+
+Mrs. Daggett's large face crimsoned. She was one of those soft,
+easily hurt persons whose blushes bring tears. She sniffed a little
+and raised her handkerchief to her eyes.
+
+"I was afraid you'd--"
+
+"Well, of course I ain't scared of you, Abby," relented Mrs. Black.
+"But I says to myself, 'I'm goin' to let Lydia Orr stand on her two
+own feet in this town,' I says. She can say what she likes about
+herself, an' there won't be no lies coming home to roost at _my_
+house. I guess you'd feel the very same way if you was in my place,
+Abby."
+
+Mrs. Daggett glanced with childish admiration at the other woman's
+magenta-tinted face under its jetty water-waves. Even Mrs. Black's
+everyday hat was handsomer than her own Sunday-best.
+
+"You always was so smart an' sensible, Phoebe," she said mildly. "I
+remember 'way back in school, when we was both girls, you always
+could see through arithmetic problems right off, when I couldn't for
+the life of me. I guess you're right about letting her speak for
+herself."
+
+"Course I am!" agreed Mrs. Black triumphantly.
+
+She had extricated herself from a difficulty with flying colors. She
+would still preserve her reputation for being a close-mouthed woman
+who knew a lot more about everything than she chose to tell.
+
+"Anybody can see she's wearing mournin'," she added benevolently.
+
+"Oh, I thought mebbe she had a black dress on because they're
+stylish. She did look awful pretty in it, with her arms and neck
+showing through. I like black myself; but mourning--that's different.
+Poor young thing, I wonder who it was. Her father, mebbe, or her
+mother. You didn't happen to hear her say, did you, Phoebe?"
+
+Mrs. Solomon Black compressed her lips tightly. She paused at her own
+gate with majestic dignity.
+
+"I guess I'll have to hurry right in, Abby," said she. "I have my
+bread to set."
+
+Mrs. Solomon Black had closed her gate behind her, noticing as she
+did so that Wesley Elliot and Lydia Orr had disappeared from the
+piazza where she had left them. She glanced at Mrs. Daggett,
+lingering wistfully before the gate.
+
+"Goodnight, Abby," said she firmly.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VI
+
+
+Mrs. Maria Dodge sifted flour over her molding board preparatory to
+transferring the sticky mass of newly made dough from the big yellow
+mixing bowl to the board. More flour and a skillful twirl or two of
+the lump and the process of kneading was begun. It continued
+monotonously for the space of two minutes; then the motions became
+gradually slower, finally coming to a full stop.
+
+"My patience!" murmured Mrs. Dodge, slapping her dough smartly.
+"Fanny ought to be ready by now. They'll be late--both of 'em."
+
+She hurriedly crossed the kitchen to where, through a partly open
+door, an uncarpeted stair could be seen winding upward.
+
+"Fanny!" she called sharply. "Fanny! ain't you ready yet?"
+
+A quick step in the passage above, a subdued whistle, and her son Jim
+came clattering down the stair. He glanced at his mother, a slight
+pucker between his handsome brows. She returned the look with one of
+fond maternal admiration.
+
+"How nice you do look, Jim," said she, and smiled up at her tall son.
+"I always did like you in red, and that necktie--"
+
+Jim Dodge shrugged his shoulders with a laugh.
+
+"Don't know about that tie," he said. "Kind of crude and flashy,
+ain't it, mother?"
+
+"Flashy? No, of course it ain't. It looks real stylish with the brown
+suit."
+
+"Stylish," repeated the young man. "Yes, I'm a regular
+swell--everything up to date, latest Broadway cut."
+
+He looked down with some bitterness at his stalwart young person clad
+in clothes somewhat shabby, despite a recent pressing.
+
+Mrs. Dodge had returned to her bread which had spread in a mass of
+stickiness all over the board.
+
+"Where's Fanny?" she asked, glancing up at the noisy little clock on
+the shelf above her head. "Tell her to hurry, Jim. You're late, now."
+
+Jim passed his hand thoughtfully over his clean-shaven chin.
+
+"You might as well know, mother; Fan isn't going."
+
+"Not going?" echoed Mrs. Dodge, sharp dismay in voice and eyes. "Why,
+I did up her white dress a-purpose, and she's been making up ribbon
+bows."
+
+She extricated her fingers from the bread and again hurried across
+the floor.
+
+Her son intercepted her with a single long stride.
+
+"No use, mother," he said quietly. "Better let her alone."
+
+"You think it's--?"
+
+The young man slammed the door leading to the stairway with a fierce
+gesture.
+
+"If you weren't blinder than a bat, mother, you'd know by this time
+what ailed Fan," he said angrily.
+
+Mrs. Dodge sank into a chair by the table.
+
+"Oh, I ain't blind," she denied weakly; "but I thought mebbe
+Fannie--I hoped--"
+
+"Did you think she'd refused him?" demanded Jim roughly. "Did you
+suppose--? Huh! makes me mad clean through to think of it."
+
+Mrs. Dodge began picking the dough off her fingers and rolling it
+into little balls which she laid in a row on the edge of the table.
+
+"I've been awful worried about Fanny--ever since the night of the
+fair," she confessed. "He was here all that afternoon and stayed to
+tea; don't you remember? And they were just as happy together--I
+guess I can tell! But he ain't been near her since."
+
+She paused to wipe her eyes on a corner of her gingham apron.
+
+"Fanny thought--at least I sort of imagined Mr. Elliot didn't like
+the way you treated him that night," she went on piteously. "You're
+kind of short in your ways, Jim, if you don't like anybody; don't you
+know you are?"
+
+The young man had thrust his hands deep in his trousers' pockets and
+was glowering at the dough on the molding board.
+
+"That's rotten nonsense, mother," he burst out. "Do you suppose, if a
+man's really in love with a girl, he's going to care a cotton hat
+about the way her brother treats him? You don't know much about men
+if you think so. No; you're on the wrong track. It wasn't my fault."
+
+His mother's tragic dark eyes entreated him timidly.
+
+"I'm awfully afraid Fanny's let herself get all wrapped up in the
+minister," she half whispered. "And if he--"
+
+"I'd like to thrash him!" interrupted her son in a low tense voice.
+"He's a white-livered, cowardly hypocrite, that's my name for Wesley
+Elliot!"
+
+"But, Jim, that ain't goin' to help Fanny--what you think of Mr.
+Elliot. And anyway, it ain't so. It's something else. Do
+you--suppose, you could--You wouldn't like to--to speak to him,
+Jim--would you?"
+
+"What! speak to that fellow about my sister? Why, mother, you must be
+crazy! What could I say?--'My sister Fanny is in love with you; and I
+don't think you're treating her right.'  Is that your idea?"
+
+"Hush, Jim! Don't talk so loud. She might hear you."
+
+"No danger of that, mother; she was lying on her bed, her face in the
+pillow, when I looked in her room ten minutes ago. Said she had a
+headache and wasn't going."
+
+Mrs. Dodge drew a deep, dispirited sigh.
+
+"If there was only something a body could do," she began. "You might
+get into conversation with him, kind of careless, couldn't you, Jim?
+And then you might mention that he hadn't been to see us for two
+weeks--'course you'd put it real cautious, then perhaps he--"
+
+A light hurried step on the stair warned them to silence; the door
+was pushed open and Fanny Dodge entered the kitchen. She was wearing
+the freshly ironed white dress, garnished with crisp pink ribbons;
+her cheeks were brilliant with color, her pretty head poised high.
+
+"I changed my mind," said she, in a hard, sweet voice. "I decided I'd
+go, after all. My--my head feels better."
+
+Mother and son exchanged stealthy glances behind the girl's back as
+she leaned toward the cracked mirror between the windows, apparently
+intent upon capturing an airy tendril of hair which had escaped
+confinement.
+
+"That's real sensible, Fanny," approved Mrs. Dodge with perfunctory
+cheerfulness. "I want you should go out all you can, whilest you're
+young, an' have a good time."
+
+Jim Dodge was silent; but the scowl between his eyes deepened.
+
+Mrs. Dodge formed three words with her lips, as she shook her head at
+him warningly.
+
+Fanny burst into a sudden ringing laugh.
+
+"Oh, I can see you in the glass, mother," she cried. "I don't care
+what Jim says to me; he can say anything he likes."
+
+[Illustration: "Oh, I can see you in the glass, mother," she cried.]
+
+Her beautiful face, half turned over her shoulder, quivered slightly.
+
+"If you knew how I--" she began, then stopped short.
+
+"That's just what I was saying to Jim," put in her mother eagerly.
+
+The girl flung up both hands in a gesture of angry protest.
+
+"Please don't talk about me, mother--to Jim, or anybody. Do you
+hear?"
+
+Her voice shrilled suddenly loud and harsh, like an untuned string
+under the bow.
+
+Jim Dodge flung his hat on his head with an impatient exclamation.
+
+"Come on, Fan," he said roughly. "Nobody's going to bother you. Don't
+you worry."
+
+Mrs. Dodge had gone back to her kneading board and was thumping the
+dough with regular slapping motions of her capable hands, but her
+thin dark face was drawn into a myriad folds and puckers of anxiety.
+
+Fanny stooped and brushed the lined forehead with her fresh young
+lips.
+
+"Goodnight, mother," said she. "I wish you were going."
+
+She drew back a little and looked down at her mother, smiling
+brilliantly.
+
+"And don't you worry another minute about me, mother," she said
+resolutely. "I'm all right."
+
+"Oh, I do hope so, child," returned her mother, sniffing back her
+ready tears. "I'd hate to feel that you--"
+
+The girl hurried to the door, where her brother stood watching her.
+
+"Come on, Jim," she said. "We have to stop for Ellen."
+
+She followed him down the narrow path to the gate, holding her crisp
+white skirts well away from the dew-drenched border. As the two
+emerged upon the road, lying white before them under the brilliant
+moonlight, Fanny glanced up timidly at her brother's dimly seen
+profile under the downward sweep of his hat-brim.
+
+"It's real dusty, isn't it?" said she, by way of breaking a silence
+she found unbearable. "It'll make my shoes look horrid."
+
+"Walk over on the side more," advised Jim laconically.
+
+"Then I'll get in with all those weeds; they're covered with dust and
+wet, besides," objected Fanny.... "Say, Jim!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Wouldn't it be nice if we had an auto, then I could step in, right
+in front of the house, and keep as clean as--"
+
+The young man laughed.
+
+"Wouldn't you like an aeroplane better, Fan? I believe I would."
+
+"You could keep it in the barn; couldn't you, Jim?"
+
+"No," derided Jim, "the barn isn't what you'd call up-to-date. I
+require a hangar--or whatever you call 'em."
+
+The girl smothered a sigh.
+
+"If we weren't so poor--" she began.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Oh--lots of things.... They say that Orr girl has heaps of money."
+
+"Who says so?" demanded her brother roughly.
+
+"Why, everybody. Joyce Fulsom told me her father said so; and he
+ought to know. Do you suppose--?"
+
+"Do I suppose what?"
+
+Jim's tone was almost savage.
+
+"What's the matter with you, Jim?"
+
+Fanny's sweet voice conveyed impatience, almost reproach. It was as
+if she had said to her brother, "You know how I must feel, and yet
+you are cross with me."
+
+Jim glanced down at her, sudden relenting in his heart.
+
+"I was just thinking it's pretty hard lines for both of us," said he.
+"If we were rich and could come speeding into town in a snappy auto,
+our clothes in the latest style, I guess things would be different.
+There's no use talking, Fan; there's mighty little chance for our
+sort. And if there's one thing I hate more than another it's what
+folks call sympathy."
+
+"So do I!" cried Fanny. "I simply can't bear it to know that people
+are saying behind my back, 'There's _poor_ Fanny Dodge; I wonder--'
+Then they squeeze your hand, and gaze at you and sigh. Even mother--I
+want you to tell mother I'm not--that it isn't true--I can't talk to
+her, Jim."
+
+"I'll put her wise," said Jim gruffly.
+
+After a pause, during which both walked faster than before, he said
+hurriedly, as if the words broke loose:
+
+"Don't you give that fellow another thought, Fan. He isn't worth it!"
+
+The girl started like a blooded horse under the whip. She did not
+pretend to misunderstand.
+
+"I know you never liked him, Jim," she said after a short silence.
+
+"You bet I didn't! Forget him, Fan. That's all I have to say."
+
+"But--if I only knew what it was--I must have done something--said
+something-- I keep wondering and wondering. I can't help it, Jim."
+
+There was an irrepressible sob in the girl's voice.
+
+"Come, Fan, pull yourself together," he urged. "Here's Ellen waiting
+for us by the gate. Don't for heaven's sake give yourself away. Keep
+a stiff upper lip, old girl!"
+
+"Well, I thought you two were never coming!" Ellen's full rich voice
+floated out to them, as they came abreast of the Dix homestead
+nestled back among tall locust trees.
+
+The girl herself daintily picked her way toward them among the weeds
+by the roadside. She uttered a little cry of dismay as a stray branch
+caught in her muslin skirts.
+
+"That's the sign of a beau, Ellen," laughed Fanny, with extravagant
+gayety. "The bigger the stick the handsomer and richer the beau."
+
+"What made you so late?" inquired Ellen, as all three proceeded on
+their way, the two girls linked affectionately arm in arm; Jim Dodge
+striding in the middle of the road a little apart from his
+companions.
+
+"Oh, I don't know," fibbed Fanny. "I guess I was slow starting to
+dress. The days are so long now I didn't realize how late it was
+getting."
+
+Ellen glanced sympathizingly at her friend.
+
+"I was afraid you wouldn't want to come, Fanny," she murmured,
+"Seeing the social is at Mrs. Solomon Black's house."
+
+"Why shouldn't I want to come?" demanded Fanny aggressively.
+
+"Well, I didn't know," replied Ellen.
+
+After a pause she said:
+
+"That Orr girl has really bought the Bolton house; I suppose you
+heard? It's all settled; and she's going to begin fixing up the place
+right off. Don't you think it's funny for a girl like her to want a
+house all to herself. I should think she'd rather board, as long as
+she's single."
+
+"Oh, I don't know about that," said Jim Dodge coolly.
+
+"You folks'll get money out of it; so shall we," Ellen went on.
+"Everybody's so excited! I went down for the mail this afternoon and
+seemed to me 'most everybody was out in the street talking it over.
+My! I'd hate to be her tonight."
+
+"Why?" asked Fanny shortly.
+
+"Oh, I don't know. Everybody will be crowding around, asking
+questions and saying things.... Do you think she's pretty, Jim?"
+
+"Pretty?" echoed the young man.
+
+He shot a keen glance at Ellen Dix from under half-closed lids. The
+girl's big, black eyes were fixed full upon him; she was leaning
+forward, a suggestion of timid defiance in the poise of her head.
+
+"Well, that depends," he said slowly. "No, I don't think she's
+_pretty_."
+
+Ellen burst into a sudden trill of laughter.
+
+"Well, I never!" she exclaimed. "I supposed all the men--"
+
+"But I do think she's beautiful," he finished calmly. "There's a
+difference, you know."
+
+Ellen Dix tossed her head.
+
+"Oh, is there?" she said airily. "Well, I don't even think she's
+pretty; do you, Fan?--with all that light hair, drawn back plain from
+her forehead, and those big, solemn eyes. But I guess she _thinks_
+she's pretty, all right."
+
+"She doesn't think anything about herself," said Jim doggedly. "She
+isn't that kind of a girl."
+
+Ellen Dix bit a vexed exclamation short.
+
+"I don't believe any of us know her very well," she said, after a
+pause. "You know what a gossip Lois Daggett is? Well, I met her and
+Mrs. Fulsom and Mrs. Whittle coming out of the Daggetts' house.
+They'd been talking it over; when they saw me they stopped me to ask
+if I'd been to see Miss Orr, and when I said no, not yet, but I was
+going, Lois Daggett said, 'Well, I do hope she won't be quite so
+close-mouthed with you girls. When I asked her, real sympathizing,
+who she was wearing black for, she said she had lost a dear friend
+and never even told who it was!'"
+
+Jim Dodge threw back his head and burst into a laugh.
+
+"Served her right," he said.
+
+"You mean Lois?"
+
+"You didn't suppose I meant Miss Orr; did you?"
+
+Jim's voice held a disdainful note which brought the hot color to
+Ellen's cheeks.
+
+"I'm not so stupid as you seem to think, Jim Dodge," she said, with
+spirit.
+
+"I never thought you were stupid, Ellen," he returned quickly. "Don't
+make a mistake and be so now."
+
+Ellen gazed at him in hurt silence. She guessed at his meaning and it
+humiliated her girlish pride.
+
+It was Fanny who said somewhat impatiently: "I'm sure I can't think
+what you mean, Jim."
+
+"Well, in my humble opinion, it would be downright stupid for you two
+girls to fool yourselves into disliking Lydia Orr. She'd like to be
+friends with everybody; why not give her a chance?"
+
+Again Ellen did not reply; and again it was Fanny who spoke the words
+that rose to her friend's lips unuttered:
+
+"I can't see how you should know so much about Miss Orr, Jim."
+
+"I don't myself," he returned good-humoredly. "But sometimes a man
+can see through a woman better--or at least more fair-mindedly than
+another woman. You see," he added, "there's no sex jealousy in the
+way."
+
+Both girls cried out in protest against this.
+
+It wasn't so, they declared. He ought to be ashamed of himself! As
+for being _jealous_ of any one--Fanny haughtily disclaimed the
+suggestion, with a bitterness which astonished her friend.
+
+It was something of a relief to all three when the brilliantly
+illuminated house and grounds belonging to Mrs. Solomon Black came in
+view. Japanese lanterns in lavish abundance had been strung from tree
+to tree and outlined the piazza and the walk leading to the house.
+
+"Doesn't it look lovely!" cried Ellen, scattering her vexation to the
+winds. "I never saw anything so pretty!"
+
+Inside the house further surprises awaited them; the music of harp
+and violins stole pleasantly through the flower-scented rooms, which
+were softly lighted with shaded lamps the like of which Brookville
+had never seen before.
+
+Mrs. Solomon Black, arrayed in a crisp blue taffeta, came bustling to
+meet them. But not before Fanny's swift gaze had penetrated the
+assembled guests. Yes! there was Wesley Elliot's tall figure. He was
+talking to Mrs. Henry Daggett at the far end of the double parlors.
+
+"Go right up stairs and lay off your things," urged their hostess
+hospitably. "Ladies to the right; gents to the left. I'm so glad you
+came, Fanny. I'd begun to wonder--"
+
+The girl's lip curled haughtily. The slight emphasis on the personal
+pronoun and the fervid squeeze of Mrs. Black's fat hand hurt her sore
+heart. But she smiled brilliantly.
+
+"Thank you, Mrs. Black, I wouldn't have missed it for worlds!" she
+said coldly.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VII
+
+
+"Does my hair look decent?" asked Ellen, as the two girls peered into
+the mirror together. "The dew does take the curl out so. It must be
+lovely to have naturally curly hair, like yours, Fanny. It looks all
+the prettier for being damp and ruffled up."
+
+Fanny was pulling out the fluffy masses of curling brown hair about
+her forehead.
+
+"Your hair looks all right, Ellen," she said absent-mindedly.
+
+She was wondering if Wesley Elliot would speak to her.
+
+"I saw that Orr girl," whispered Ellen; "she's got on a white dress,
+all lace, and a black sash. She does look pretty, Fanny; we'll have
+to acknowledge it."
+
+"Ye-es," murmured Fanny who was drawing on a pair of fresh white
+gloves.
+
+"You aren't going to wear those gloves down stairs, are you, Fan? I
+haven't got any."
+
+"My hands are all stained up with currant jelly," explained Fanny
+hurriedly. "Your hands are real pretty, Ellen."
+
+Ellen glanced down at her capable, brown hands, with their blunt
+finger-tips.
+
+"Did you ever notice _her_ hands, Fanny?"
+
+Fanny shook her head.
+
+"Her nails are cut kind of pointed, and all shined up. And her hands
+are so little and soft and white. I suppose a man--do you think Jim
+would notice that sort of thing, Fanny?"
+
+Fanny snapped the fastenings of her gloves.
+
+"Let's go down stairs," she suggested. "They'll be wondering what's
+become of us."
+
+"Say, Fan!"
+
+Ellen Dix caught at her friend's arm, her pretty face, with its full
+pouting lips and brilliant dark eyes upturned.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Do you suppose-- You don't think Jim is mad at me for what I said
+about _her_, do you?"
+
+"I don't remember you said anything to make anybody mad. Come, let's
+go down, Ellen."
+
+"But, Fan, I was wondering if that girl-- Do you know I--I kind of
+wish she hadn't come to Brookville. Everything seems--different,
+already. Don't you think so, Fanny?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know. Why should you think about it? She's here and
+there's no use. I'm going down, Ellen."
+
+Fanny moved toward the stairs, her fresh young beauty heightened by
+an air of dignified reserve which Ellen Dix had failed to penetrate.
+
+Wesley Elliot, who had by now reached the wide opening into the hall
+in the course of his progress among the guests, glanced up as Fanny
+Dodge swept the last step of the stair with her unfashionable white
+gown.
+
+"Why, good evening, Miss Dodge," he exclaimed, with commendable
+presence of mind, seeing the heart under his waistcoat had executed
+an uncomfortable _pas seul_ at sight of her.
+
+He held out his hand with every appearance of cordial welcome, and
+after an instant's hesitation Fanny laid her gloved fingers in it.
+She had meant to avoid his direct gaze, but somehow his glance had
+caught and held her own. What were his eyes saying to her? She
+blushed and trembled under the soft dark fire of them. In that
+instant she appeared so wholly adorable, so temptingly sweet that the
+young man felt his prudent resolves slipping away from him one by
+one. Had they been alone--...
+
+But, no; Ellen Dix, her piquant, provokingly pretty face tip-tilted
+with ardent curiosity, was just behind. In another moment he was
+saying, in the easy, pleasant way everybody liked, that he was glad
+to see Ellen; and how was Mrs. Dix, this evening? And why wasn't she
+there?
+
+Ellen replied demurely that it had been given out on Sunday as a
+young people's social; so her mother thought she wasn't included.
+
+They entered the crowded room, where Deacon Whittle was presently
+heard declaring that he felt just as young as anybody, so he "picked
+up mother and came right along with Joe."  And Mrs. Daggett, whose
+placid face had lighted with pleasure at sight of Fanny and Ellen,
+proclaimed that when the day came for _her_ to stay at home from a
+young folks' social she hoped they'd bury her, right off.
+
+So the instant--psychological or otherwise--passed. But Fanny Dodge's
+heavy heart was beating hopefully once more.
+
+"If I could only see him alone," she was thinking. "He would explain
+everything."
+
+Her thoughts flew onward to the moment when she would come down
+stairs once more, cloaked for departure. Perhaps Wesley--she ventured
+to call him Wesley in her joyously confused thoughts--perhaps Wesley
+would walk home with her as on other occasions not long past. Jim,
+she reflected, could go with Ellen.
+
+Then all at once she came upon Lydia Orr, in her simple white dress,
+made with an elegant simplicity which convicted every girl in the
+room of dowdiness. She was talking with Judge Fulsom, who was slowly
+consuming a huge saucer of ice-cream, with every appearance of
+enjoyment.
+
+"As I understand it, my dear young lady, you wish to employ
+Brookville talent exclusively in repairing your house," Fanny heard
+him saying, between smacking mouthfuls.
+
+And Lydia Orr replied, "Yes, if you please, I do want everything to
+be done here. There are people who can, aren't there?"
+
+When she saw that Fanny had paused and was gazing at her doubtfully,
+her hand went out with a smile, wistful and timid and sincere, all at
+once. There was something so appealing in the girl's upturned face,
+an honesty of purpose so crystal-clear in her lovely eyes, that
+Fanny, still confused and uncertain whether to be happy or not, was
+irresistibly drawn to her. She thought for a fleeting instant she
+would like to take Lydia Orr away to some dim secluded spot and there
+pour out her heart. The next minute she was ready to laugh at herself
+for entertaining so absurd an idea. She glanced down at Lydia's
+ungloved hands, which Ellen Dix had just described, and reflected
+soberly that Wesley Elliot sat at table with those dainty pink-tipped
+fingers three times each day. She had not answered Ellen's foolish
+little questions; but now she felt sure that any man, possessed of
+his normal faculties, could hardly fail to become aware of Lydia
+Orr's delicate beauty.
+
+Fanny compelled herself to gaze with unprejudiced eyes at the fair
+transparent skin, with the warm color coming and going beneath
+it, at the masses of blond hair drawn softly back from the high
+round forehead, at the large blue eyes beneath the long sweep of
+darker lashes, at the exquisite curve of the lips and the firmly
+modeled chin. Yes; Jim had seen truly; the ordinary adjective
+"pretty"--applicable alike to a length of ribbon, a gown, or a girl
+of the commoner type--could not be applied to Lydia Orr. She was
+beautiful to the discerning eye, and Fanny unwillingly admitted it.
+
+Lydia Orr, unabashed by the girl's frank inspection, returned her
+gaze with beaming friendliness.
+
+"Did you know I'd bought a house?" she asked. "It's old and needs a
+lot of repairing; so I was just asking Judge Fulsom--"
+
+"Deacon Amos Whittle is, so to say, a contractor," said the Judge
+ponderously, "and so, in a way, am I."
+
+"A contractor?" puzzled Lydia. "Yes; but I--"
+
+"If you'll just give over everything into our hands connected with
+putting the old place into A-number-one shape, I think you'll find
+you can dismiss the whole matter from your mind. In two months' time,
+my dear young lady, we'll guarantee to pass the house over to you in
+apple-pie order, good as new, if not better.... Yes, indeed; better!"
+
+The Judge eyed his empty saucer regretfully.
+
+"That's the best ice cream--" he added with total irrelevance. "Have
+some, won't you? I hear they're passing it out free and permiscuous
+in the back room."
+
+"I think we should like some cream, if you please, Judge Fulsom,"
+said Lydia, "if you'll keep us company."
+
+"Oh, I'll keep company with you, as far as strawberry ice cream's
+concerned," chuckled the Judge, his big bulk shaking with humor. "But
+I see Mis' Fulsom over there; she's got her weather eye on us. Now,
+watch me skeedaddle for that cream! Pink, white or brown, Miss Orr;
+or, all three mixed? There's a young fellow out there in charge of
+the freezers that sure is a wonder. How about you, Fanny?"
+
+The two girls looked at each other with a smile of understanding as
+the big figure of the Judge moved ponderously away.
+
+"We never had ice cream before at a church sociable," said Fanny.
+"And I didn't know Mrs. Solomon Black had so many lanterns. Did you
+buy all this?"
+
+Her gesture seemed to include the shaded lamps, the masses of flowers
+and trailing vines, the gay strains of music, and the plentiful
+refreshments which nearly every one was enjoying.
+
+"It's just like a regular party," she added. "We're not used to such
+things in Brookville."
+
+"Do you like it?" Lydia asked, doubtfully.
+
+"Why, of course," returned Fanny, the color rising swiftly to her
+face.
+
+She had caught a glimpse of Wesley Elliot edging his way past a group
+of the younger boys and girls, mad with the revelry of unlimited cake
+and ice cream. He was coming directly toward their corner; his eyes,
+alas! fixed upon the stranger in their midst. Unconsciously Fanny
+sighed deeply; the corners of her smiling lips drooped. She appeared
+all at once like a lovely rose which some one has worn for an hour
+and cast aside.
+
+"It's such a little thing to do," murmured Lydia.
+
+Then, before Fanny was aware of her intention, she had slipped away.
+At the same moment Judge Fulsom made his appearance, elbowing his
+smiling way through the crowd, a brimming saucer of vari-colored ice
+cream in each hand.
+
+"Here we are!" he announced cheerfully. "Had to get a _habeas corpus_
+on this ice cream, though. Why, what's become of Miss Orr? Gone with
+a handsomer man--eh?"
+
+He stared humorously at the minister.
+
+"Twa'n't you, dominie; seen' you're here. Had any ice cream yet? No
+harm done, if you have. Seems to be a plenty. Take this, parson, and
+I'll replevin another plate for myself and one for Miss Orr. Won't be
+gone more'n another hour."
+
+Fanny, piteously tongue-tied in the presence of the man she loved,
+glanced up at Wesley Elliot with a timidity she had never before felt
+in his company. His eyes under close-drawn brows were searching the
+crowd. Fanny divined that she was not in his thoughts.
+
+"If you are looking for Miss Orr," she said distinctly, "I think she
+has gone out in the kitchen. I saw Mrs. Solomon Black beckon to her."
+
+The minister glanced down at her; his rash impulse of an hour back
+was already forgotten.
+
+"Don't you think it's awfully warm in here?" continued Fanny.
+
+A sudden desperate desire had assailed her; she must--she would
+compel him to some sort of an explanation.
+
+"It's a warm evening," commented the minister. "But why not eat your
+cream? You'll find it will cool you off."
+
+"I--I don't care much for ice cream," said Fanny, in a low tremulous
+voice.
+
+She gazed at him, her dark eyes brimming with eager questions.
+
+"I was wondering if we couldn't--it's pleasant out in the yard--"
+
+"If you'll excuse me for just a moment, Miss Dodge," Wesley Elliot's
+tone was blandly courteous--"I'll try and find you a chair. They
+appear to be scarce articles; I believe the ladies removed most of
+them to the rear of the house. Pardon me--"
+
+He set down his plate of ice cream on the top shelf of Mrs. Solomon
+Black's what-not, thereby deranging a careful group of sea-shells and
+daguerreotypes, and walked quickly away.
+
+Fanny's face flushed to a painful crimson; then as suddenly paled.
+She was a proud girl, accustomed to love and admiration since early
+childhood, when she had queened it over her playmates because her
+yellow curls were longer than theirs, her cheeks pinker, her eyes
+brighter and her slim, strong body taller. Fanny had never been
+compelled to stoop from her graceful height to secure masculine
+attention. It had been hers by a sort of divine right. She had not
+been at all surprised when the handsome young minister had looked at
+her twice, thrice, to every other girl's once, nor when he had
+singled her out from the others in the various social events of the
+country side.
+
+Fanny had long ago resolved, in the secret of her own heart, that she
+would never, never become the hard-worked wife of a plodding farmer.
+Somewhere in the world--riding toward her on the steed of his
+passionate desire--was the fairy prince; her prince, coming to lift
+her out from the sordid commonplace of life in Brookville. Almost
+from the very first she had recognized Wesley Elliot as her
+deliverer.
+
+Once he had said to her: "I have a strange feeling that I have known
+you always."  She had cherished the saying in her heart,
+hoping--believing that it might, in some vague, mysterious way, be
+true. And not at all aware that this pretty sentiment is as old as
+the race and the merest banality on the masculine tongue, signifying:
+"At this moment I am drawn to you, as to no other woman; but an hour
+hence it may be otherwise." ... How else may man, as yet imperfectly
+monogamous, find the mate for whom he is ever ardently questing? In
+this woman he finds the trick of a lifted lash, or a shadowy dimple
+in the melting rose of her cheek. In another, the stately curve of
+neck and shoulder and the somber fire of dark eyes draws his roving
+gaze; in a third, there is a soft, adorable prettiness, like that of
+a baby. He has always known them--all. And thus it is, that love
+comes and goes unbidden, like the wind which blows where it listeth;
+and woman, hearing the sound thereof, cannot tell whence it cometh
+nor whither it goeth.
+
+In this particular instance Wesley Elliot had not chosen to examine
+the secret movements of his own mind. Baldly speaking, he had
+cherished a fleeting fancy for Fanny Dodge, a sort of love in
+idleness, which comes to a man like the delicate, floating seeds of
+the parasite orchid, capable indeed of exquisite blossoming; but
+deadly to the tree upon which it fastens. He had resolved to free
+himself. It was a sensible resolve. He was glad he had made up his
+mind to it before it was too late. Upon the possible discomfiture of
+Fanny Dodge he bestowed but a single thought: She would get over it.
+"It" meaning a quite pardonable fancy--he refused to give it a more
+specific name--for himself. To the unvoiced opinions of Mrs. Solomon
+Black, Mrs. Deacon Whittle, Ellen Dix, Mrs. Abby Daggett and all the
+other women of his parish he was wholly indifferent. Men, he was glad
+to remember, never bothered their heads about another man's love
+affairs....
+
+The chairs from the sitting room had been removed to the yard, where
+they were grouped about small tables adequately illuminated by the
+moon and numerous Japanese lanterns. Every second chair appeared to
+be filled by a giggling, pink-cheeked girl; the others being suitably
+occupied by youths of the opposite sex--all pleasantly occupied. The
+minister conscientiously searched for the chair he had promised to
+fetch to Fanny Dodge; but it never once occurred to him to bring
+Fanny out to the cool loveliness of mingled moon and lantern-light.
+There was no unoccupied chair, as he quickly discovered; but he came
+presently upon Lydia Orr, apparently doing nothing at all. She was
+standing near Mrs. Black's boundary picket fence, shielded from the
+observation of the joyous groups about the little tables by the
+down-dropping branches of an apple-tree.
+
+"I was looking for you!" said Wesley Elliot.
+
+It was the truth; but it surprised him nevertheless. He supposed he
+had been looking for a chair.
+
+"Were you?" said Lydia, smiling.
+
+She moved a little away from him.
+
+"I must go in," she murmured.
+
+"Why must you? It's delightful out here--so cool and--"
+
+"Yes, I know. But the others-- Why not bring Miss Dodge out of that
+hot room? I thought she looked tired."
+
+"I didn't notice," he said.... "Just look at that flock of little
+white clouds up there with the moon shining through them!"
+
+Lydia glided away over the soft grass.
+
+"I've been looking at them for a long time," she said gently. "I must
+go now and help cut more cake."
+
+He made a gesture of disgust.
+
+"They're fairly stuffing," he complained. "And, anyway, there are
+plenty of women to attend to all that. I want to talk to you, Miss
+Orr."
+
+His tone was authoritative.
+
+She turned her head and looked at him.
+
+"To talk to me?" she echoed.
+
+"Yes; come back--for just a minute. I know what you're thinking: that
+it's my duty to be talking to parishioners. Well, I've been doing
+that all the evening. I think I'm entitled to a moment of relaxation;
+don't you?"
+
+"I'm a parishioner," she reminded him.
+
+"So you are," he agreed joyously. "And I haven't had a word with you
+this evening, so far; so you see it's my duty to talk to you; and
+it's your duty to listen."
+
+"Well?" she murmured.
+
+Her face upturned to his in the moonlight wore the austere loveliness
+of a saint's.
+
+[Illustration: Her face upturned to his in the moonlight, wore the
+austere loveliness of a saint's.]
+
+"I wish you'd tell me something," he said, his fine dark eyes taking
+in every detail of delicate tint and outline. "Do you know it all
+seems very strange and unusual to me--your coming to Brookville the
+way you did, and doing so much to--to make the people here happy."
+
+She drew a deep, sighing breath.
+
+"I'm afraid it isn't going to be easy," she said slowly. "I thought
+it would be; but--"
+
+"Then you came with that intention," he inferred quickly. "You meant
+to do it from the beginning. But just what was the beginning? What
+ever attracted your attention to this forlorn little place?"
+
+She was silent for a moment, her eyes downcast. Then she smiled.
+
+"I might ask you the same question," she said at last. "Why did you
+come to Brookville, Mr. Elliot?"
+
+He made an impatient gesture.
+
+"Oh, that is easily explained. I had a call to Brookville."
+
+"So did I," she murmured. "Yes; I think that was the reason--if there
+must be a reason."
+
+"There is always a reason for everything," he urged. "But you didn't
+understand me. Do you know I couldn't say this to another soul in
+Brookville; but I'm going to tell you: I wanted to live and work in a
+big city, and I tried to find a church--"
+
+"Yes; I know," she said, unexpectedly. "One can't always go where one
+wishes to go, just at first. Things turn out that way, sometimes."
+
+"They seemed to want me here in Brookville," he said, with some
+bitterness. "It was a last resort, for me. I might have taken a
+position in a school; but I couldn't bring myself to that. I'd
+dreamed of preaching--to big audiences."
+
+She smiled at him, with a gentle sidewise motion of the head.
+
+"God lets us do things, if we want to hard enough," she told him
+quite simply.
+
+"Do you believe that?" he cried. "Perhaps you'll think it strange for
+me to ask; but do you?"
+
+A great wave of emotion seemed to pass over her quiet face. He saw it
+alter strangely under his gaze. For an instant she stood
+transfigured; smiling, without word or movement. Then the inward
+light subsided. She was only an ordinary young woman, once more, upon
+whom one might bestow an indulgent smile--so simple, even childlike
+she was, in her unaffected modesty.
+
+"I really must go in," she said apologetically, "and help them cut
+the cake."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII
+
+
+Jim Dodge had been hoeing potatoes all day. It was hard, monotonous
+work, and he secretly detested it. But the hunting season was far
+away, and the growing potatoes were grievously beset by weeds; so he
+had cut and thrust with his sharp-bladed hoe from early morning till
+the sun burned the crest of the great high-shouldered hill which
+appeared to close in the valley like a rampart, off Grenoble way. As
+a matter of fact, the brawling stream which gave Brookville its name
+successfully skirted the hill by a narrow margin which likewise
+afforded space for the state road.
+
+But the young man was not considering either the geographical
+contours of the country at large or the refreshed and renovated
+potato field, with its serried ranks of low-growing plants, as he
+tramped heavily crosslots toward the house. At noon, when he came in
+to dinner, in response to the wideflung summons of the tin horn which
+hung by the back door, he had found the two women of his household in
+a pleasurable state of excitement.
+
+"We've got our share, Jim!" proclaimed Mrs. Dodge, a bright red spot
+glowing on either thin cheek. "See! here's the check; it came in the
+mail this morning."
+
+And she spread a crackling bit of paper under her son's eyes.
+
+"I was some surprised to get it so soon," she added. "Folks ain't
+generally in any great hurry to part with their money. But they do
+say Miss Orr paid right down for the place--never even asked 'em for
+any sort of terms; and th' land knows they'd have been glad to given
+them to her, or to anybody that had bought the place these dozen
+years back. Likely she didn't know that."
+
+Jim scowled at the check.
+
+"How much did she pay for the place?" he demanded. "It must have been
+a lot more than it was worth, judging from this."
+
+"I don't know," Mrs. Dodge replied. "And I dunno as I care
+particularly, as long's we've got our share of it."
+
+She was swaying back and forth in a squeaky old rocking-chair, the
+check clasped in both thin hands.
+
+"Shall we bank it, children; or draw it all out in cash? Fanny needs
+new clothes; so do you, Jim. And I've got to have a new carpet, or
+something, for the parlor. Those skins of wild animals you brought in
+are all right, Jim, if one can't get anything better. I suppose we'd
+ought to be prudent and saving; but I declare we haven't had any
+money to speak of, for so long--"
+
+Mrs. Dodge's faded eyes were glowing with joy; she spread the check
+upon her lap and gazed at it smilingly.
+
+"I declare it's the biggest surprise I've had in all my life!"
+
+"Let's spend every cent of it," proposed Fanny recklessly. "We didn't
+know we were going to have it. We can scrub along afterward the same
+as we always have. Let's divide it into four parts: one for the
+house--to fix it up--and one for each of us, to spend any way we
+like. What do you say, Jim?"
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if Mrs. Deacon Whittle would furnish up her best
+parlor something elegant," surmised Mrs. Dodge. "She's always said
+she was goin' to have gilt paper and marble tops and electric blue
+plush upholstered furniture. I guess that'll be the last fair we'll
+ever have in that house. She wouldn't have everybody trampin' over
+her flowered Body-Brussels. I suppose _we_ might buy some plush
+furniture; but I don't know as I'd care for electric blue. What do
+you think, son?"
+
+Jim Dodge sat sprawled out in his chair before the half-set table. At
+this picture of magnificence, about to be realized in the abode of
+Deacon Amos Whittle, he gave vent to an inarticulate growl.
+
+"What's the matter with you, Jim?" shrilled his mother, whose
+perpetually jangled nerves were capable of strange dissonances.
+"Anybody'd suppose you wasn't pleased at having the old Bolton place
+sold at last, and a little bit of all that's been owing to us since
+before your poor father died, paid off. My! If we was to have all
+that was coming to us by rights, with the interest money--"
+
+"I'm hungry and tired, mother, and I want my dinner," said Jim
+brusquely. "That check won't hoe the potatoes; so I guess I'll have
+to do it, same as usual."
+
+"For pity sake, Fanny!" cried his mother, "did you put the vegetables
+over to boil? I ain't thought of anything since this check came."
+
+It appeared that Fanny had been less forgetful.
+
+After his belated dinner, Jim had gone back to his potatoes, leaving
+his mother and sister deep in discussion over the comparative virtues
+of Nottingham lace and plain muslin, made up with ruffles, for parlor
+curtains.
+
+"I really believe I'd rather spend more on the house than on clo'es
+at my age," he heard his mother saying, happily, as he strode away.
+
+All during the afternoon, to the clink of myriad small stones against
+the busy blade of his hoe, Jim thought about Lydia Orr. He could not
+help seeing that it was to Lydia he owed the prospect of a much
+needed suit of clothes. It would be Lydia who hung curtains, of
+whatever sort, in their shabby best room. And no other than Lydia was
+to furnish Mrs. Whittle's empty parlor. She had already given the
+minister a new long-tailed coat, as Jim chose to characterize the
+ministerial black. His cheeks burned under the slanting rays of the
+afternoon sun with something deeper than an added coat of tan. Why
+should Lydia Orr--that slip of a girl, with the eyes of a baby, or a
+saint--do all this? Jim found himself unable to believe that she
+really wanted the Bolton place. Why, the house was an uninhabitable
+ruin! It would cost thousands of dollars to rebuild it.
+
+He set his jaw savagely as he recalled his late conversation with
+Deacon Whittle. "The cheating old skinflint," as he mentally termed
+that worthy pillar of the church, had, he was sure, bamboozled the
+girl into buying a well-nigh worthless property, at a scandalous
+price. It was a shame! He, Jim Dodge, even now burned with the shame
+of it. He pondered briefly the possibilities of taking from his
+mother the check, which represented the _pro rata_ share of the Dodge
+estate, and returning it to Lydia Orr. Reluctantly he abandoned this
+quixotic scheme. The swindle--for as such he chose to view it--had
+already been accomplished. Other people would not return their
+checks. On the contrary, there would be new and fertile schemes set
+on foot to part the unworldly stranger and her money.
+
+He flung down his hoe in disgust and straightened his aching
+shoulders. The whole sordid transaction put him in mind of the greedy
+onslaught of a horde of hungry ants on a beautiful, defenseless
+flower, its torn corolla exuding sweetness.... And there must be some
+sort of reason behind it. Why had Lydia Orr come to Brookville?
+
+And here, unwittingly, Jim's blind conjectures followed those of
+Wesley Elliot. He had told Lydia Orr he meant to call upon her. That
+he had not yet accomplished his purpose had been due to the
+watchfulness of Mrs. Solomon Black. On the two occasions when he had
+rung Mrs. Black's front door-bell, that lady herself had appeared in
+response to its summons. On both occasions she had informed Mr. Dodge
+tartly that Miss Orr wasn't at home.
+
+On the occasion of his second disappointment he had offered to await
+the young lady's home-coming.
+
+"There ain't no use of that, Jim," Mrs. Black had assured him. "Miss
+Orr's gone t' Boston to stay two days."
+
+Then she had unlatched her close-shut lips to add: "She goes there
+frequent, on business."
+
+Her eyes appeared to inform him further that Miss Orr's business, of
+whatever nature, was none of _his_ business and never would be.
+
+"That old girl is down on me for some reason or other," he told
+himself ruefully, as he walked away for the second time. But he was
+none the less resolved to pursue his hopefully nascent friendship
+with Lydia Orr.
+
+He was thinking of her vaguely as he walked toward the house which
+had been his father's, and where he and Fanny had been born. It was
+little and low and old, as he viewed it indifferently in the fading
+light of the sunset sky. Its walls had needed painting so long, that
+for years nobody had even mentioned the subject. Its picturesquely
+mossy roof leaked. But a leaky roof was a commonplace in Brookville.
+It was customary to set rusty tin pans, their holes stopped with
+rags, under such spots as actually let in water; the emptying of the
+pans being a regular household "chore."  Somehow, he found himself
+disliking to enter; his mother and Fanny would still be talking about
+the disposition of Lydia Orr's money. To his relief he found his
+sister alone in the kitchen, which served as a general living room.
+The small square table neatly spread for two stood against the wall;
+Fanny was standing by the window, her face close to the pane, and
+apparently intent upon the prospect without, which comprised a grassy
+stretch of yard flanked by a dull rampart of over-grown lilac bushes.
+
+"Where's mother?" inquired Jim, as he hung his hat on the accustomed
+nail.
+
+"She went down to the village," said Fanny, turning her back on the
+window with suspicious haste. "There was a meeting of the sewing
+society at Mrs. Daggett's."
+
+"Good Lord!" exclaimed Jim. "What an opportunity!"
+
+"Opportunity?" echoed Fanny vaguely.
+
+"Yes; for talking it over. Can't you imagine the clack of tongues;
+the 'I says to _her_,' and 'she told _me_,' and 'what _do_ you
+think!'"
+
+"Don't be sarcastic and disagreeable, Jim," advised Fanny, with some
+heat. "When you think of it, it _is_ a wonder--that girl coming here
+the way she did; buying out the fair, just as everybody was
+discouraged over it. And now--"
+
+"How do you explain it, Fan?" asked her brother.
+
+"Explain it? I can't explain it. Nobody seems to know anything about
+her, except that she's from Boston and seems to have heaps of money."
+
+Jim was wiping his hands on the roller-towel behind the door.
+
+"I had a chance to annex a little more of Miss Orr's money today," he
+observed grimly. "But I haven't made up my mind yet whether to do it,
+or not."
+
+Fanny laughed and shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"If you don't, somebody else will," she replied. "It was Deacon
+Whittle, wasn't it? He stopped at the house this afternoon and wanted
+to know where to find you."
+
+"They're going right to work on the old place, and there's plenty to
+do for everybody, including yours truly, at four dollars a day."
+
+"What sort of work?" inquired Fanny.
+
+"All sorts: pulling down and building up; clearing away and
+replanting. The place is a jungle, you know. But four dollars a day!
+It's like taking candy from a baby."
+
+"It sounds like a great deal," said the girl. "But why shouldn't you
+do it?"
+
+Jim laughed.
+
+"Why, indeed? I might earn enough to put a shingle or two on our own
+roof. It looks like honest money; but--"
+
+Fanny was busy putting the finishing touches to the supper table.
+
+"Mother's going to stop for tea at Mrs. Daggett's, and go to prayer
+meeting afterward," she said. "We may as well eat."
+
+The two sat down, facing each other.
+
+"What did you mean, Jim?" asked Fanny, as she passed the bread plate
+to her brother. "You said, 'It looks like honest money; but--'"
+
+"I guess I'm a fool," he grumbled; "but there's something about the
+whole business I don't like.... Have some of this apple sauce, Fan?"
+
+The girl passed her plate for a spoonful of the thick compound, and
+in return shoved the home-dried beef toward her brother.
+
+"I don't see anything queer about it," she replied dully. "I suppose
+a person with money might come to Brookville and want to buy a house.
+The old Bolton place used to be beautiful, mother says. I suppose it
+can be again. And if she chooses to spend her money that way--"
+
+"That's just the point I can't see: why on earth should she want to
+saddle herself with a proposition like that?"
+
+Fanny's mute lips trembled. She was thinking she knew very well why
+Lydia Orr had chosen to come to Brookville: in some way unknown to
+Fanny, Miss Orr had chanced to meet the incomparable Wesley Elliot,
+and had straightway set her affections upon him. Fanny had been
+thinking it over, ever since the night of the social at Mrs. Solomon
+Black's. Up to the moment when Wesley--she couldn't help calling him
+Wesley still--had left her, on pretense of fetching a chair, she had
+instantly divined that it was a pretense, and of course he had not
+returned. Her cheeks tingled hotly as she recalled the way in which
+Joyce Fulsom had remarked the plate of melting ice cream on the top
+shelf of Mrs. Black's what-not:
+
+"I guess Mr. Elliot forgot his cream," the girl had said, with a
+spark of malice. "I saw him out in the yard awhile ago talking to
+that Miss Orr."
+
+Fanny had humiliated herself still further by pretending she didn't
+know it was the minister who had left his ice cream to dissolve in a
+pink and brown puddle of sweetness. Whereat Joyce Fulsom had giggled
+disagreeably.
+
+"Better keep your eye on him, Fan," she had advised.
+
+Of course she couldn't speak of this to Jim; but it was all plain
+enough to her.
+
+"I'm going down to the village for awhile, Fan," her brother said, as
+he arose from the table. But he did not, as was his custom, invite
+her to accompany him.
+
+After Jim had gone, Fanny washed the dishes with mechanical
+swiftness. Her mother had asked her if she would come to prayer
+meeting, and walk home with her afterwards. Not that Mrs. Dodge was
+timid; the neighborhood of Brookville had never been haunted after
+nightfall by anything more dangerous than whippoorwills and frogs. A
+plaintive chorus of night sounds greeted the girl, as she stepped out
+into the darkness. How sweet the honeysuckle and late roses smelled
+under the dew! Fanny walked slowly across the yard to the old
+summer-house, where the minister had asked her to call him Wesley,
+and sat down. It was very dark under the thick-growing vines, and
+after awhile tranquillity of a sort stole over the girl's spirit. She
+gazed out into the dim spaces beyond the summer-house and thought,
+with a curious detachment, of all that had happened. It was as if she
+had grown old and was looking back calmly to a girlhood long since
+past. She could almost smile at the recollection of herself stifling
+her sobs in her pillow, lest Jim should hear.
+
+"Why should I care for him?" she asked herself wonderingly; and could
+not tell.
+
+Then all at once she found herself weeping softly, her head on the
+rickety table.
+
+Jim Dodge, too intently absorbed in his own confused thoughts to pay
+much attention to Fanny, had walked resolutely in the direction of
+Mrs. Solomon Black's house; from which, he reflected, the minister
+would be obliged to absent himself for at least an hour. He hoped
+Mrs. Black had not induced Lydia to go to the prayer meeting with
+her. Why any one should voluntarily go to a prayer meeting passed his
+comprehension. Jim had once attended what was known as a "protracted
+meeting," for the sole purpose of pleasing his mother, who all at
+once had appeared tearfully anxious about his "soul."  He had not
+enjoyed the experience.
+
+"Are you saved, my dear young brother?" Deacon Whittle had inquired
+of him, in his snuffling, whining, peculiarly objectionable tone.
+
+"From what, Deacon?" Jim had blandly inquired. "You in for it, too?"
+
+Whereat the Deacon had piously shaken his head and referred him to
+the "mourner's pew," with the hope that he might even yet be plucked
+as a brand from the burning.
+
+Lydia had not gone to the prayer meeting. She was sitting on the
+piazza, quite alone. She arose when her determined visitor boldly
+walked up the steps.
+
+"Oh, it is you!" said she.
+
+An unreasonable feeling of elation arose in the young man's breast.
+
+"Did you think I wasn't coming?" he inquired, with all the egotism of
+which he had been justly accused.
+
+He did not wait for her reply; but proceeded with considerable humor
+to describe his previous unsuccessful attempts to see her.
+
+"I suppose," he added, "Mrs. Solomon Black has kindly warned you
+against me?"
+
+She could not deny it; so smiled instead.
+
+"Well," said the young man, "I give you my word I'm not a villain: I
+neither drink, steal, nor gamble. But I'm not a saint, after the
+prescribed Brookville pattern."
+
+He appeared rather proud of the fact, she thought. Aloud she said,
+with pardonable curiosity:
+
+"What is the Brookville pattern? I ought to know, since I am to live
+here."
+
+At this he dropped his bantering tone.
+
+"I wanted to talk to you about that," he said gravely.
+
+"You mean--?"
+
+"About your buying the old Bolton place and paying such a
+preposterous price for it, and all the rest, including the minister's
+back-pay."
+
+She remained silent, playing with the ribbon of her sash.
+
+"I have a sort of inward conviction that you're not doing it because
+you think Brookville is such a pleasant place to live in," he went
+on, keenly observant of the sudden color fluttering in her cheeks,
+revealed by the light of Mrs. Solomon Black's parlor lamp which stood
+on a stand just inside the carefully screened window. "It looks," he
+finished, "as if you--well; it may be a queer thing for me to say;
+but I'll tell you frankly that when mother showed me the check she
+got today I felt that it was--charity."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Oh, no," she said quickly. "You are quite, quite in the wrong."
+
+"But you can't make me believe that with all your money--pardon me
+for mentioning what everybody in the village is talking about--
+You'll have to convince me that the old Bolton place has oil under
+it, or coal or diamonds, before I--"
+
+"Why should you need to be convinced of anything so unlikely?" she
+asked, with gentle coldness.
+
+He reddened angrily.
+
+"Of course it's none of my business," he conceded.
+
+"I didn't mean that. But, naturally, I could have no idea of coal or
+oil--"
+
+"Well; I won't work for you at any four dollars a day," he said
+loudly. "I thought I'd like to tell you."
+
+"I don't want you to," she said. "Didn't Deacon Whittle give you my
+message?"
+
+He got hurriedly to his feet with a muttered exclamation.
+
+"Please sit down, Mr. Dodge," she bade him tranquilly. "I've been
+wanting to see you all day. But there are so few telephones in
+Brookville it is difficult to get word to people."
+
+He eyed her with stubborn resentment.
+
+"What I meant to say was that four dollars a day is too much! Don't
+you know anything about the value of money, Miss Orr? Somebody ought
+to have common honesty enough to inform you that there are plenty of
+men in Brookville who would be thankful to work for two dollars a
+day. I would, for one; and I won't take a cent more."
+
+She was frowning a little over these statements. The stalwart young
+man in shabby clothes who sat facing her under the light of Mrs.
+Solomon Black's well-trimmed lamp appeared to puzzle her.
+
+"But why shouldn't you want to earn all you can?" she propounded at
+last. "Isn't there anything you need to use money for?"
+
+"Oh, just a few things," he admitted grudgingly. "I suppose you've
+noticed that I'm not exactly the glass of fashion and the mold of
+form."
+
+He was instantly ashamed of himself for the crude personality.
+
+"You must think I'm a fool!" burst from him, under the sting of his
+self-inflicted lash.
+
+She smiled and shook her head.
+
+"I'm not at all the sort of person you appear to think me," she said.
+Her grave blue eyes looked straight into his. "But don't let's waste
+time trying to be clever: I want to ask you if you are willing, for a
+fair salary, to take charge of the outdoor improvements at Bolton
+House."
+
+She colored swiftly at sight of the quizzical lift of his brows.
+
+"I've decided to call my place 'Bolton House' for several reasons,"
+she went on rapidly: "for one thing, everybody has always called it
+the Bolton place, so it will be easier for the workmen and everybody
+to know what place is meant. Besides, I--"
+
+"Yes; but the name of Bolton has an ill-omened sound in Brookville
+ears," he objected. "You've no idea how people here hate that man."
+
+"It all happened so long ago, I should think they might forgive him
+by now," she offered, after a pause.
+
+"I wouldn't call my house after a thief," he said strongly. "There
+are hundreds of prettier names. Why not--Pine Court, for example?"
+
+"You haven't told me yet if you will accept the position I spoke of."
+
+He passed his hand over his clean-shaven chin, a trick he had
+inherited from his father, and surveyed her steadily from under
+meditative brows.
+
+"In the first place, I'm not a landscape gardener, Miss Orr," he
+stated. "That's the sort of man you want. You can get one in Boston,
+who'll group your evergreens, open vistas, build pergolas and all
+that sort of thing."
+
+"You appear to know exactly what I want," she laughed.
+
+"Perhaps I do," he defied her.
+
+"But, seriously, I don't want and won't have a landscape-gardener
+from Boston--with due deference to your well-formed opinions, Mr.
+Dodge. I intend to mess around myself, and change my mind every other
+day about all sorts of things. I want to work things out, not on
+paper in cold black and white; but in terms of growing things--wild
+things out of the woods. You understand, I'm sure."
+
+The dawning light in his eyes told her that he did.
+
+"But I've had no experience," he hesitated. "Besides, I've
+considerable farm-work of my own to do. I've been hoeing potatoes all
+day. Tomorrow I shall have to go into the cornfield, or lose my crop.
+Time, tide and weeds wait for no man."
+
+"I supposed you were a hunter," she said. "I thought--"
+
+He laughed unpleasantly.
+
+"Oh, I see," he interrupted rudely: "you supposed, in other words,
+that I was an idle chap, addicted to wandering about the woods, a gun
+on my shoulder, a cur--quite as much of a ne'er-do-well as myself--at
+my heels. Of course Deacon Whittle and Mrs. Solomon Black have told
+you all about it. And since you've set about reforming Brookville,
+you thought you'd begin with me. Well, I'm obliged to you; but--"
+
+The girl arose trembling to her feet.
+
+"You are not kind!" she cried. "You are not kind!"
+
+They stood for an instant, gazing into each other's eyes during one
+of those flashes of time which sometimes count for years.
+
+"Forgive me," he muttered huskily. "I'm a brute at best; but I had no
+business to speak to you as I did."
+
+"But why did you say--what made you ever think I'd set about
+reforming--that is what you said--_reforming_--Brookville? I never
+thought of such a thing! How could I?"
+
+He hung his head, abashed by the lightning in her mild eyes.
+
+She clasped her small, fair hands and bent toward him.
+
+"And you said you wanted to be--friends. I hoped--"
+
+"I do," he said gruffly. "I've told you I'm ashamed of myself."
+
+She drew back, sighing deeply.
+
+"I don't want you to feel--ashamed," she said, in a sweet, tired
+voice. "But I wish--"
+
+"Tell me!" he urged, when she did not finish her sentence.
+
+"Do you think everybody is going to misunderstand me, as you have?"
+she asked, somewhat piteously. "Is it so strange and unheard of a
+thing for a woman to want a home and--and friends? Isn't it allowable
+for a person who has money to want to pay fair wages? Why should I
+scrimp and haggle and screw, when I want most of all to be generous?"
+
+"Because," he told her seriously, "scrimping, haggling and screwing
+have been the fashion for so long, the other thing rouses mean
+suspicions by its very novelty. It's too good to be true; that's
+all."
+
+"You mean people will suspect--they'll think there's something--"
+
+She stood before him, her hands fallen at her sides, her eyes
+downcast.
+
+"I confess I couldn't believe that there wasn't an ulterior motive,"
+he said honestly. "That's where I was less noble than you."
+
+She flashed a sudden strange look at him.
+
+"There is," she breathed. "I'm going to be honest--with you. I
+have--an ulterior motive."
+
+"Will you tell me what it is?"
+
+Her lips formed the single word of denial.
+
+He gazed at her in silence for a moment.
+
+"I'm going to accept the post you just offered me, Miss Orr; at any
+salary you think I'm worth," he said gravely.
+
+"Thank you," she murmured.
+
+Steps and the sound of voices floated across the picket fence. The
+gate rasped on its rusted hinges; then slammed shut.
+
+"If I was you, Mr. Elliot," came the penetrating accents of Mrs.
+Solomon Black's voice, "I should hire a reg'lar reviv'list along in
+th' fall, after preservin' an' house-cleanin' time. We need an
+outpourin' of grace, right here in Brookville; and we can't get it no
+other way."
+
+And the minister's cultured voice in reply:
+
+"I shall give your suggestion the most careful consideration, Mrs.
+Black, between now and the autumn season."
+
+"Great Scott!" exclaimed Jim Dodge; "this is no place for me! Good
+night, Miss Orr!"
+
+She laid her hand in his.
+
+"You can trust me," he said briefly, and became on the instant a
+flitting shadow among the lilac bushes, lightly vaulting over the
+fence and mingling with the darker shadows beyond.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IX
+
+
+"Now, Henry," said Mrs. Daggett, as she smilingly set a plate of
+perfectly browned pancakes before her husband, which he proceeded to
+deluge with butter and maple syrup, "are you sure that's _so_, about
+the furniture? 'Cause if it is, we've got two or three o' them things
+right in this house: that chair you're settin' in, for one, an'
+upstairs there's that ol' fashioned brown bureau, where I keep the
+sheets 'n' pillow slips. You don't s'pose she'd want that, do you?"
+
+Mrs. Daggett sank down in a chair opposite her husband, her large
+pink and white face damp with moisture. Above her forehead a mist of
+airy curls fluttered in the warm breeze from the open window.
+
+"My, ain't it hot!" she sighed. "I got all het up a-bakin' them
+cakes. Shall I fry you another griddleful, papa?"
+
+"They cer'nly do taste kind o' moreish, Abby," conceded Mr. Daggett
+thickly. "You do beat the Dutch, Abby, when it comes t' pancakes.
+Mebbe I could manage a few more of 'em."
+
+Mrs. Daggett beamed sincerest satisfaction.
+
+"Oh, I don't know," she deprecated happily. "Ann Whittle says I don't
+mix batter the way she does. But if _you_ like 'em, Henry--"
+
+"Couldn't be beat, Abby," affirmed Mr. Daggett sturdily, as he
+reached for his third cup of coffee.
+
+The cook stove was only a few steps away, so the sizzle of the batter
+as it expanded into generous disks on the smoking griddle did not
+interrupt the conversation. Mrs. Daggett, in her blue and white
+striped gingham, a pancake turner in one plump hand, smiled through
+the odorous blue haze like a tutelary goddess. Mr. Daggett, in his
+shirt-sleeves, his scant locks brushed carefully over his bald spot,
+gazed at her with placid satisfaction. He was thoroughly accustomed
+to having Abby wait upon his appetite.
+
+"I got to get down to the store kind of early this morning, Abby," he
+observed, frowning slightly at his empty plate.
+
+"I'll have 'em for you in two shakes of a lamb's tail, papa," soothed
+Mrs. Daggett, to whom the above remark had come to signify not merely
+a statement of fact, but a gentle reprimand. "I know you like 'em
+good and hot; and cold buckwheat cakes certainly is about th' meanest
+vict'als.... There!"
+
+And she transferred a neat pile of the delicate, crisp rounds from
+the griddle to her husband's plate with a skill born of long
+practice.
+
+"About that furnitur'," remarked Mr. Daggett, gazing thoughtfully at
+the golden stream of sweetness, stolen from leaf and branch of the
+big sugar maples behind the house to supply the pewter syrup-jug he
+suspended above his cakes, "I guess it's a fact she wants it, all
+right."
+
+"I should think she'd rather have new furniture; Henry, they do say
+the house is going to be handsome. But you say she wants the old
+stuff? Ain't that queer, for anybody with means."
+
+"Well, that Orr girl beats me," Mr. Daggett acknowledged handsomely.
+"She seems kind of soft an' easy, when you talk to her; but she's got
+ideas of her own; an' you can't no more talk 'em out of her--"
+
+"Why should you try to talk 'em out of her, papa?" inquired Mrs.
+Daggett mildly. "Mebbe her ideas is all right; and anyhow, s'long as
+she's paying out good money--"
+
+"Oh, she'll pay! she'll pay!" said Mr. Daggett, with a large gesture.
+"Ain't no doubt about her paying for what she wants."
+
+He shoved his plate aside, and tipped back in his chair with a heavy
+yawn.
+
+"She's asked me to see about the wall paper, Abby," he continued,
+bringing down his chair with a resounding thump of its sturdy legs.
+"And she's got the most outlandish notions about it; asked me could I
+match up what was on the walls."
+
+"Match it up? Why, ain't th' paper all moldered away, Henry, with the
+damp an' all?"
+
+"'Course it is, Abby; but she says she wants to restore the
+house--fix it up just as 'twas. She says that's th' correct thing to
+do. 'Why, shucks!' I sez, 'the wall papers they're gettin' out now is
+a lot handsomer than them old style papers. You don't want no old
+stuff like that,' I sez. But, I swan! you can't tell that girl
+nothing, for all she seems so mild and meachin'. I was wonderin' if
+you couldn't shove some sense into her, Abby. Now, I'd like th' job
+of furnishin' up that house with new stuff. 'I don't carry a very big
+stock of furniture,' I sez to her; but--"
+
+"Why, Hen-ery Daggett!" reproved his wife, "an' you a reg'lar
+professing member of the church! You ain't never carried no stock of
+furniture in the store, and you know it."
+
+"That ain't no sign I ain't never goin' to, Abby," retorted Mr.
+Daggett with spirit. "We been stuck right down in the mud here in
+Brookville since that dratted bank failed. Nobody's moved, except to
+the graveyard. And here comes along a young woman with money ... I'd
+like mighty well to know just how much she's got an' where it come
+from. I asked the Judge, and he says, blamed if he knows.... But this
+'ere young female spells op-per-tunity, Abby. We got to take
+advantage of the situation, Abby, same as you do in blackberrying
+season: pick 'em when they're ripe; if you don't, the birds and the
+bugs'll get 'em."
+
+"It don't sound right to me, papa," murmured his wife, her kind face
+full of soft distress: "Taking advantage of a poor young thing, like
+her, an' all in mourning, too, fer a near friend. She told Lois so
+... Dear, dear!"
+
+Mr. Daggett had filled his morning pipe and was puffing energetically
+in his efforts to make it draw.
+
+"I didn't _say_ take advantage of _her_," he objected. "That's
+somethin' I never done yet in my business, Abby. Th' Lord knows I
+don't sand my sugar nor water my vinegar, the way some storekeepers
+do. I'm all for 'live an' let live.'  What I says was--... Now, you
+pay attention to me, Abby, and quit sniffling. You're a good woman;
+but you're about as soft as that there butter! ..."
+
+The article in question had melted to a yellow pool under the heat.
+Mrs. Daggett gazed at it with wide blue eyes, like those of a child.
+
+"Why, Henry," she protested, "I never heerd you talk so before."
+
+"And likely you won't again. Now you listen, Abby; all I want, is to
+do what honest business I can with this young woman. She's bound to
+spend her money, and she's kind of took to me; comes into th' store
+after her mail, and hangs around and buys the greatest lot o' stuff--
+'Land!' I says to her: 'a body'd think you was getting ready to get
+married.'"
+
+"Well, now I shouldn't wonder--" began Mrs. Daggett eagerly.
+
+"Don't you get excited, Abby. She says she ain't; real pointed, too.
+But about this wall paper; I don't know as I can match up them
+stripes and figures. I wisht you'd go an' see her, Abby. She'll tell
+you all about it. An' her scheme about collecting all the old Bolton
+furniture is perfectly ridiculous. 'Twouldn't be worth shucks after
+kickin' 'round folk's houses here in Brookville for the last fifteen
+years or so."
+
+"But you can't never find her at home, Henry," said Mrs. Daggett. "I
+been to see her lots of times; but Mis' Solomon Black says she don't
+stay in the house hardly long enough to eat her victuals."
+
+"Why don't you take the buggy, Abby, and drive out to the old place?"
+suggested Mr. Daggett. "Likely you'll find her there. She appears to
+take an interest in every nail that's drove. I can spare the horse
+this afternoon just as well as not."
+
+"'Twould be pleasant," purred Mrs. Daggett. "But, I suppose, by
+rights, I ought to take Lois along."
+
+"Nope," disagreed her husband, shaking his head. "Don't you take
+Lois; she wouldn't talk confiding to Lois, the way she would to you.
+You've got a way with you, Abby. I'll bet you could coax a bird off a
+bush as easy as pie, if you was a mind to."
+
+Mrs. Daggett's big body shook with soft laughter. She beamed rosily
+on her husband.
+
+"How you do go on, Henry!" she protested. "But I ain't going to coax
+Lydia Orr off no bush she's set her heart on. She's got the sweetest
+face, papa; an' I know, without anybody telling me, whatever she does
+or wants to do is _all_ right."
+
+Mr. Daggett had by now invested his portly person in a clean linen
+coat, bearing on its front the shining mark of Mrs. Daggett's careful
+iron.
+
+"Same here, Abby," he said kindly: "whatever you do, Abby, suits _me_
+all right."
+
+The worthy couple parted for the morning: Mr. Daggett for the scene
+of his activities in the post office and store; Mrs. Daggett to set
+her house to rights and prepare for the noon meal, when her Henry
+liked to "eat hearty of good, nourishing victuals," after his light
+repast of the morning.
+
+"Guess I'll wear my striped muslin," said Mrs. Daggett to herself
+happily. "Ain't it lucky it's all clean an' fresh? 'Twill be so cool
+to wear out buggy-ridin'."
+
+Mrs. Daggett was always finding occasion for thus reminding herself
+of her astonishing good fortune. She had formed the habit of talking
+aloud to herself as she worked about the house and garden.
+
+"'Tain't near as lonesome, when you can hear the sound of a voice--if
+it is only your own," she apologized, when rebuked for the practice
+by her friend Mrs. Maria Dodge. "Mebbe it does sound kind of crazy--
+You say lunatics does it constant--but, I don't know, Maria, I've a
+kind of a notion there's them that hears, even if you can't see 'em.
+And mebbe they answer, too--in your thought-ear."
+
+"You want to be careful, Abby," warned Mrs. Dodge, shaking her head.
+"It makes the chills go up and down my back to hear you talk like
+that; and they don't allow no such doctrines in the church."
+
+"The Apostle Paul allowed 'em," Mrs. Daggett pointed out, "so did the
+Psalmist. You read your Bible, Maria, with that in mind, and you'll
+see."
+
+In the spacious, sunlighted chamber of her soul, devoted to the
+memory of her two daughters who had died in early childhood, Mrs.
+Daggett sometimes permitted herself to picture Nellie and Minnie,
+grown to angelic girlhood, and keeping her company about her lonely
+household tasks in the intervals not necessarily devoted to harp
+playing in the Celestial City. She laughed softly to herself as she
+filled two pies with sliced sour apples and dusted them plentifully
+with spice and sugar.
+
+"I'd admire to see papa argufying with that sweet girl," she observed
+to the surrounding silence. "Papa certainly is set on having his own
+way. Guess bin' alone here with me so constant, he's got kind of
+willful. But it don't bother me any; ain't that lucky?"
+
+She hurried her completed pies into the oven with a swiftness of
+movement she had never lost, her sweet, thin soprano soaring high in
+the words of a winding old hymn tune:
+
+  Lord, how we grovel here below,
+  Fond of these trifling toys;
+  Our souls can neither rise nor go
+  To taste supernal joys! ...
+
+It was nearly two o'clock before the big brown horse, indignant at
+the unwonted invasion of his afternoon leisure, stepped slowly out
+from the Daggett barn. On the seat of the old-fashioned vehicle, to
+which he had been attached by Mrs. Daggett's skillful hands, that
+lady herself sat placidly erect, arrayed in her blue and white
+striped muslin. Mrs. Daggett conscientiously wore stripes at all
+seasons of the year: she had read somewhere that stripes impart to
+the most rotund of figures an appearance of slimness totally at
+variance with the facts. As for blue and white, her favorite
+combination of stripes, any fabric in those colors looked cool and
+clean; and there was a vague strain of poetry in Mrs. Daggett's
+nature which made her lift her eyes to a blue sky filled with
+floating white clouds with a sense of rapturous satisfaction wholly
+unrelated to the state of the weather.
+
+"G'long, Dolly!" she bade the reluctant animal, with a gentle slap of
+leathern reins over a rotund back. "Git-ap!"
+
+"Dolly," who might have been called Caesar, both by reason of his sex
+and a stubbornly dominant nature, now fortunately subdued by years of
+chastening experience, strode slowly forward, his eyes rolling, his
+large hoofs stirring up heavy clouds of dust. There were
+sweet-smelling meadows stacked with newly-cured hay on either side of
+the road, and tufts of red clover blossoms exhaling delicious odors
+of honey almost under his saturnine nose; but he trotted ponderously
+on, sullenly aware of the gentle hand on the reins and the mild,
+persistent voice which bade him "Git-ap, Dolly!"
+
+Miss Lois Daggett, carrying a black silk bag, which contained a
+prospectus of the invaluable work which she was striving to introduce
+to an unappreciative public, halted the vehicle before it had reached
+the outskirts of the village.
+
+"Where you going, Abby?" she demanded, in the privileged tone of
+authority a wife should expect from her husband's female relatives.
+
+"Just out in the country a piece, Lois," replied Mrs. Daggett
+evasively.
+
+"Well, I guess I'll git in and ride a ways with you," said Lois
+Daggett. "Cramp your wheel, Abby," she added sharply. "I don't want
+to git my skirt all dust."
+
+Miss Daggett was wearing a black alpaca skirt and a white shirtwaist,
+profusely ornamented with what is known as coronation braid. Her
+hair, very tightly frizzed, projected from beneath the brim of her
+straw hat on both sides.
+
+"I'm going out to see if I can catch that Orr girl this afternoon,"
+she explained, as she took a seat beside her sister-in-law. "She
+ought to want a copy of Famous People--in the best binding, too. I
+ain't sold a leather-bound yit, not even in Grenoble. They come in
+red with gold lettering. You'd ought to have one, Abby, now that
+Henry's gitting more business by the minute. I should think you might
+afford one, if you ain't too stingy."
+
+"Mebbe we could, Lois," said Mrs. Daggett amiably. "I've always
+thought I'd like to know more about famous people: what they eat for
+breakfast, and how they do their back hair and--"
+
+"Don't be silly, Abby," Miss Daggett bade her sharply. "There ain't
+any such nonsense in Famous People! _I_ wouldn't be canvassing for
+it, if there was."  And she shifted her pointed nose to one side with
+a slight, genteel sniff.
+
+"Git-ap, Dolly!" murmured Mrs. Daggett, gently slapping the reins.
+
+Dolly responded by a single swift gesture of his tail which firmly
+lashed the hated reminder of bondage to his hind quarters. Then
+wickedly pretending that he was not aware of what had happened he
+strolled to the side of the road nearest the hay field.
+
+"Now, if he ain't gone and got his tail over the lines!" cried Mrs.
+Daggett indignantly. "He's got more resistin' strength in that tail
+of his'n--wonder if I can--"
+
+She leaned over the dashboard and grasped the offending member with
+both hands.
+
+"You hang onto the lines, Lois, and give 'em a good jerk the minute I
+loosen up his tail."
+
+The subsequent failure of this attempt deflected the malicious Dolly
+still further from the path of duty. A wheel cramped and lifted
+perilously.
+
+Miss Daggett squealed shrilly:
+
+"He'll tip the buggy over--he'll tip the buggy over! For pity's sake,
+Abby!"
+
+Mrs. Daggett stepped briskly out of the vehicle and seized the
+bridle.
+
+"Ain't you ashamed?" she demanded sternly. "You loosen up that there
+tail o' yourn this minute!"
+
+"I got 'em!" announced Miss Daggett, triumphantly. "He loosened right
+up."
+
+She handed the recovered reins to her sister-in-law, and the two
+ladies resumed their journey and their conversation.
+
+"I never was so scared in all my life," stated Lois Daggett,
+straightening her hat which had assumed a rakish angle over one ear.
+"I should think you'd be afraid to drive such a horse, Abby. What in
+creation would have happened to you if I hadn't been in the buggy?"
+
+"As like as not he wouldn't have took a notion with his tail, Lois,
+if I'd been driving him alone," hazarded Mrs. Daggett mildly.
+"Dolly's an awful knowing horse.... Git-ap, Dolly!"
+
+"Do you mean to tell me, Abby Daggett, that there horse of Henry's
+has took a spite against _me?_" demanded the spinster.... "Mebbe he's
+a mind-reader," she added darkly.
+
+"You know I didn't mean nothin' like that, Lois," her sister-in-law
+assured her pacifically. "What I meant to say was: I got so
+interested in what you were saying, Lois, that I handled the reins
+careless, and he took advantage.... Git-ap, Dolly! Don't you see,
+Lois, even a horse knows the difference when two ladies is talking."
+
+"You'd ought to learn to say exactly what you mean, Abby," commented
+Miss Daggett.
+
+She glanced suspiciously at the fresh striped muslin, which was
+further enhanced by a wide crocheted collar and a light blue satin
+bow.
+
+"Where'd you say you were goin' this afternoon, Abby?"
+
+"I said out in the country a piece, Lois; it's such a nice
+afternoon."
+
+"Well, _I_ should think Henry'd be needing the horse for his
+business. I know _I'd_ never think of asking him for it--and me a
+blood relation, too, trying to earn my bread and butter tramping
+around the country with Famous People."
+
+Mrs. Daggett, thus convicted of heartless selfishness, sighed
+vaguely. Henry's sister always made her feel vastly uncomfortable,
+even sinful.
+
+"You know, Lois, we'd be real glad to have you come and live with us
+constant," she said heroically.... "Git-ap, Dolly!"
+
+Miss Daggett compressed her thin lips.
+
+"No; I'm too independent for that, Abby, an' you know it. If poor
+Henry was to be left a widower, I might consider living in his house
+and doing for him; but you know, Abby, there's very few houses big
+enough for two women.... And that r'minds me; did you know Miss Orr
+has got a hired girl?"
+
+"Has she?" inquired Mrs. Daggett, welcoming the change of subject
+with cordial interest. "A hired girl! ...Git-ap, Dolly!"
+
+"Yes," confirmed Miss Daggett. "Lute Parsons was telling me she came
+in on th' noon train yesterday. She brought a trunk with her, and her
+check was from Boston."
+
+"Well, I want to know!" murmured Mrs. Daggett. "Boston's where _she_
+came from, ain't it? It'll be real pleasant for her to have somebody
+from Boston right in the house.... G'long, Dolly!"
+
+"I don't know why you should be so sure of that, Abby," sniffed Miss
+Daggett. "I should think a person from right here in Brookville would
+be more company. How can a hired girl from Boston view the passin'
+and tell her who's goin' by? I think it's a ridiculous idea, myself."
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if it's somebody she knows," surmised Mrs.
+Daggett. "'Twould be real pleasant for her to have a hired girl
+that's mebbe worked for her folks."
+
+"I intend to ask her, if she comes to the door," stated Lois Daggett.
+"You can drop me right at the gate; and if you ain't going too far
+with your buggy-riding, Abby, you might stop and take me up a spell
+later. It's pretty warm to walk far today."
+
+"Well, I was thinkin' mebbe I'd stop in there, too, Lois," said Mrs.
+Daggett apologetically. "I ain't been to see Miss Orr for quite a
+spell, and--"
+
+The spinster turned and fixed a scornfully, intelligent gaze upon the
+mild, rosy countenance of her sister-in-law.
+
+"Oh, _I see!_" she sniffed. "That was where you was pointing for, all
+the while! And you didn't let on to me, oh, no!"
+
+"Now, Lois, don't you get excited," exhorted Mrs. Daggett. "It was
+just about the wall papers. Henry, he says to me this mornin'--...
+Git-ap, Dolly!"
+
+_"'Henry says--Henry says'!_  Yes; I guess so! What do you know about
+wall papers, Abby? ...Well, all I got to say is: I don't want nobody
+looking on an' interfering when I'm trying to sell 'Lives of Famous
+People.'  Folks, es a rule, ain't so interested in anything they got
+to pay out money fer, an' I want a clear field."
+
+"I won't say a word till you're all through talkin', Lois," promised
+Mrs. Daggett meekly. "Mebbe she'd kind of hate to say 'no' before me.
+She's took a real liking to Henry.... Git-ap, Dolly.... And anyway,
+she's awful generous. I could say, kind of careless; 'If I was you,
+I'd take a leather-bound.'  Couldn't I, Lois?"
+
+"Well, you can come in, Abby, if you're so terrible anxious,"
+relented Miss Daggett. "You might tell her, you and Henry was going
+to take a leather-bound; that might have some effect. I remember once
+I sold three Famous People in a row in one street. There couldn't one
+o' them women endure to think of her next door neighbor having
+something she didn't have."
+
+"That's so, Lois," beamed Mrs. Daggett. "The most of folks is about
+like that. Why, I rec'lect once, Henry brought me up a red-handled
+broom from th' store. My! it wa'n't no time b'fore he was cleaned
+right out of red-handled brooms. Nobody wanted 'em natural color,
+striped, or blue. Henry, he says to me, 'What did you do to advertise
+them red-handled brooms, Abby?'  'Why, papa,' says I, 'I swept off my
+stoop and the front walk a couple of times, that's all.'  'Well,' he
+says, 'broom-handles is as catching as measles, if you only get 'em
+th' right color!' ... Git-ap, Dolly!"
+
+"Well, did you _ever!_" breathed Miss Daggett excitedly, leaning out
+of the buggy to gaze upon the scene of activity displayed on the
+further side of the freshly-pruned hedge which divided Miss Lydia
+Orr's property from the road: "Painters and carpenters and masons,
+all going at once! And ain't that Jim Dodge out there in the side
+yard talking to her? 'Tis, as sure as I'm alive! I wonder what _he's_
+doing? Go right in, Abby!"
+
+"I kind of hate to drive Dolly in on that fresh gravel," hesitated
+Mrs. Daggett. "He's so heavy on his feet he'll muss it all up. Mebbe
+I'd better hitch out in front."
+
+"She sees us, Abby; go on in!" commanded Miss Daggett masterfully. "I
+guess when it comes to that, her gravel ain't any better than other
+folks' gravel."
+
+Thus urged, Mrs. Daggett guided the sulky brown horse between the big
+stone gateposts and brought him to a standstill under the somewhat
+pretentious _porte-cochere_ of the Bolton house.
+
+Lydia Orr was beside the vehicle in a moment, her face bright with
+welcoming smiles.
+
+"Dear Mrs. Daggett," she said, "I'm so glad you've come. I've been
+wanting to see you all day. I'm sure you can tell me--"
+
+"You've met my husband's sister, Miss Lois Daggett, haven't you, Miss
+Orr? She's the lady that made that beautiful drawn-in mat you bought
+at the fair."
+
+Miss Orr shook hands cordially with the author of the drawn-in mat.
+
+"Come right in," she said. "You'll want to see what we're doing
+inside, though nothing is finished yet."
+
+She led the way to a small room off the library, its long French
+windows opening on a balcony.
+
+"This room used to be a kind of a den, they tell me; so I've made it
+into one, the first thing, you see."
+
+There was a rug on the floor, a chair or two and a high mahogany desk
+which gave the place a semblance of comfort amid the general
+confusion. Miss Lois Daggett gazed about with argus-eyed curiosity.
+
+"I don't know as I was ever in this room, when Andrew Bolton lived
+here," she observed, "but it looks real homelike now."
+
+"Poor man! I often think of him," said kindly Mrs. Daggett. "'Twould
+be turrible to be shut away from the sunshine f'r even one year; but
+poor Andrew Bolton's been closed up in State's prison fer--l' me see,
+it mus' be goin' on--"
+
+"It's fifteen years, come fall, since he got his sentence," stated
+the spinster. "His time must be 'most up."
+
+Lydia Orr had seated herself in an old-fashioned chair, its tall
+carved back turned to the open windows.
+
+"Did you--lose much in the bank failure, Miss Daggett?" she inquired,
+after a slight pause, during which the promoter of Famous People was
+loosening the strings of her black silk bag.
+
+"About two hundred dollars I'd saved up," replied Miss Daggett. "By
+now it would be a lot more--with the interest."
+
+"Yes, of course," assented their hostess; "one should always think of
+interest in connection with savings."
+
+She appeared to be gazing rather attentively at the leather-bound
+prospectus Miss Daggett had withdrawn from her bag.
+
+"That looks like something interesting, Miss Daggett," she
+volunteered.
+
+"This volume I'm holdin' in my hand," began that lady,
+professionally, "is one of the most remarkable works ever issued by
+the press of any country. It is the life history of one thousand men
+and women of world-wide fame and reputation, in letters, art, science
+_an'_ public life. No library nor parlor table is complete without
+this authoritative work of general information _an'_ reference. It is
+a com-plete library in itself, and--"
+
+"What is the price of the work, Miss Daggett?" inquired Lydia Orr.
+
+"Just hold on a minute; I'm coming to that," said Miss Daggett
+firmly. "As I was telling you, this work is a complete library in
+itself. A careful perusal of the specimen pages will convince the
+most skeptical. Turning to page four hundred and fifty-six, we
+read:--"
+
+[Illustration: "Just hold on a minute; I'm coming to that," said Miss
+Daggett firmly.]
+
+"I'm sure I should like to buy the book, Miss Daggett."
+
+"You ain't th' only one," said the agent. "Any person of even the
+most ordinary intelligence ought to own this work. Turning to page
+four hundred and fifty-six, we read: 'Snipeley, Samuel Bangs: lawyer
+ligislator _an'_ author; born eighteen hundred fifty-nine, in the
+town of--'"
+
+At this moment the door was pushed noiselessly open, and a tall,
+spare woman of middle age stood upon the threshold bearing a tray in
+her hands. On the tray were set forth silver tea things, flanked by
+thin bread and butter and a generous pile of sponge cake.
+
+"You must be tired and thirsty after your drive," said Lydia Orr
+hospitably. "You may set the tray here, Martha."
+
+The maid complied.
+
+"Of course I must have that book, Miss Daggett," their hostess went
+on. "You didn't mention the title, nor the price. Won't you have a
+cup of tea, Mrs. Daggett?"
+
+"That cup of tea looks real nice; but I'm afraid you've gone to a lot
+of trouble and put yourself out," protested Mrs. Daggett, who had not
+ventured to open her lips until then. What wonderful long words Lois
+had used; and how convincing had been her manner. Mrs. Daggett had
+resolved that "Lives of Famous People," in its best red leather
+binding, should adorn her own parlor table in the near future, if she
+could persuade Henry to consent.
+
+"I think that book Lois is canvassing for is just lovely," she added
+artfully, as she helped herself to cake. "I'm awful anxious to own
+one; just think, I'd never even heard of Snipeley Samuel Bangs--"
+
+Lois Daggett crowed with laughter.
+
+"Fer pity sake, Abby! don't you know no better than that? It's Samuel
+Bangs Snipeley; he was County Judge, the author of 'Platform Pearls,'
+and was returned to legislature four times by his constituents,
+besides being--"
+
+"Could you spare me five copies of the book, Miss Daggett?" inquired
+Lydia, handing her the sponge cake.
+
+"Five copies!"
+
+Miss Daggett swiftly controlled her agitation.
+
+"I haven't told you the price, yet. You'd want one of them
+leather-bound, wouldn't you? They come high, but they wear real well,
+and I will say there's nothing handsomer for a parlor table."
+
+"I want them all leather-bound," said Lydia, smiling. "I want one for
+myself, one for a library and the other three--"
+
+"There's nothing neater for a Christmas or birthday present!"
+shrilled Lois Daggett joyously. "And so informing."
+
+She swallowed her tea in short, swift gulps; her faded eyes shone.
+Inwardly she was striving to compute the agent's profit on five
+leather-bound copies of Famous People. She almost said aloud "I can
+have a new dress!"
+
+"We've been thinking," Lydia Orr said composedly, "that it might be
+pleasant to open a library and reading room in the village. What do
+you think of the idea, Miss Daggett? You seem interested in books,
+and I thought possibly you might like to take charge of the work."
+
+"Who, me?-- Take charge of a library?"
+
+Lois Daggett's eyes became on the instant watchful and suspicious.
+Lydia Orr had encountered that look before, on the faces of men and
+even of boys. Everybody was afraid of being cheated, she thought. Was
+this just in Brookville, and because of the misdeeds of one man, so
+long ago?
+
+"Of course we shall have to talk it over some other day, when we have
+more time," she said gently.
+
+"Wouldn't that be nice!" said Mrs. Daggett. "I was in a library once,
+over to Grenoble. Even school children were coming in constant to get
+books. But I never thought we could have one in Brookville. Where
+could we have it, my dear?"
+
+"Yes; that's the trouble," chimed in Lois. "There isn't any place fit
+for anything like that in our town."
+
+Lydia glanced appealingly from one to the other of the two faces. One
+might have thought her irresolute--or even afraid of their verdict.
+
+"I had thought," she said slowly, "of buying the old Bolton bank
+building. It has not been used for anything, Judge Fulsom says,
+since--"
+
+"No; it ain't," acquiesced Mrs. Daggett soberly, "not since--"
+
+She fell silent, thinking of the dreadful winter after the bank
+failure, when scarlet fever raged among the impoverished homes.
+
+"There's been some talk, off and on, of opening a store there,"
+chimed in Lois Daggett, setting down her cup with a clash; "but I
+guess nobody'd patronize it. Folks don't forget so easy."
+
+"But it's a good substantial building," Lydia went on, her eyes
+resting on Mrs. Daggett's broad, rosy face, which still wore that
+unwonted look of pain and sadness. "It seems a pity not to change
+the--the associations. The library and reading room could be on the
+first floor; and on the second, perhaps, a town hall, where--"
+
+"For the land sake!" ejaculated Lois Daggett; "you cer'nly have got
+an imagination, Miss Orr. I haven't heard that town hall idea spoken
+of since Andrew Bolton's time. He was always talking about town
+improvements; wanted a town hall and courses of lectures, and a
+fountain playing in a park and a fire-engine, and the land knows
+what. He was a great hand to talk, Andrew Bolton was. And you see how
+he turned out!"
+
+"And mebbe he'd have done all those nice things for Brookville, Lois,
+if his speculations had turned out different," said Mrs. Daggett,
+charitably. "I always thought Andrew Bolton _meant_ all right. Of
+course he had to invest our savings; banks always do, Henry says."
+
+"I don't know anything about _investing_, and don't want to,
+either--not the kind he did, anyhow," retorted Lois Daggett.
+
+She arose as she spoke, brushing the crumbs of sponge cake from her
+skirt.
+
+"I got to get that order right in," she said: "five copies--or was it
+six, you said?"
+
+"I think I could use six," murmured Lydia.
+
+"And all leather-bound! Well, now, I know you won't ever be sorry.
+It's one of those works any intelligent person would be proud to
+own."
+
+"I'm sure it is," said the girl gently.
+
+She turned to Mrs. Daggett.
+
+"Can't you stay awhile longer? I--I should like--"
+
+"Oh, I guess Abby'd better come right along with me," put in Lois
+briskly ... "and that reminds me, do you want to pay something down
+on that order? As a general thing, where I take a big order--"
+
+"Of course--I'd forgotten; I always prefer to pay in advance."
+
+The girl opened the tall desk and producing a roll of bills told off
+the price of her order into Miss Daggett's hand.
+
+"I should think you'd be almost afraid to keep so much ready money by
+you, with all those men workin' outside," she commented.
+
+"They're all Brookville men," said Lydia. "I have to have money to
+pay them with. Besides, I have Martha."
+
+"You mean your hired girl, I suppose," inferred Miss Daggett, rubbing
+her nose thoughtfully.
+
+"She isn't exactly--a servant," hesitated Lydia. "We give the men
+their noon meal," she added. "Martha helps me with that."
+
+"You give them their dinner! Well, I never! Did you hear that, Abby?
+She gives them their dinner. Didn't you know men-folks generally
+bring their noonings in a pail? Land! I don't know how you get hearty
+victuals enough for all those men. Where do they eat?"
+
+"In the new barn," said Lydia, smiling. "We have a cook stove out
+there."
+
+"Ain't that just lovely!" beamed Mrs. Daggett, squeezing the girl's
+slim hand in both her own. "Most folks wouldn't go to the trouble of
+doing anything so nice. No wonder they're hustling."
+
+"Mebbe they won't hustle so fast toward the end of the job," said
+Lois Daggett. "You'll find men-folks are always ready to take
+advantage of any kind of foolishness. Come, Abby; we must be going.
+You'll get those books in about two weeks, Miss Orr. A big order
+takes more time, I always tell people."
+
+"Thank you, Miss Daggett. But wouldn't you--if you are in a hurry,
+you know; Mr. Dodge is going to the village in the automobile; we're
+expecting some supplies for the house. He'll be glad to take you."
+
+"Who, Jim Dodge? You don't mean to tell me Jim Dodge can drive an
+auto! I never stepped foot inside of one of those contraptions. But I
+don't know but I might's well die for a sheep as a lamb."
+
+Lois Daggett followed the girl from the room in a flutter of joyous
+excitement.
+
+"You can come home when you get ready, Abby," she said over her
+shoulder. "But you want to be careful driving that horse of yours; he
+might cut up something scandalous if he was to meet an auto."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter X
+
+
+Mrs. Daggett was sitting by the window gazing dreamily out, when
+Lydia returned after witnessing the triumphant departure of the
+promoter of Famous People.
+
+"It kind of brings it all back to me," said Mrs. Daggett, furtively
+wiping her eyes. "It's going t' look pretty near's it used to. Only I
+remember Mis' Bolton used to have a flower garden all along that
+stone wall over there; she was awful fond of flowers. I remember I
+gave her some roots of pinies and iris out of our yard, and she gave
+me a new kind of lilac bush--pink, it is, and sweet! My! you can
+smell it a mile off when it's in blow."
+
+"Then you knew--the Bolton family?"
+
+The girl's blue eyes widened wistfully as she asked the question.
+
+"Yes, indeed, my dear. And I want to tell you--just betwixt
+ourselves--that Andrew Bolton was a real nice man; and don't you let
+folks set you t' thinking he wa'n't. Now that you're going to live
+right here in this house, my dear, seems to me it would be a lot
+pleasanter to know that those who were here before you were just
+good, kind folks that had made a mistake. I was saying to Henry this
+morning: 'I'm going to tell her some of the nice things folks has
+seemed to forget about the Boltons. It won't do any harm,' I said.
+'And it'll be cheerfuller for her.'  Now this room we're sitting
+in--I remember lots of pleasant things about this room. 'Twas
+here--right at that desk--he gave us a check to fix up the church. He
+was always doing things like that. But folks don't seem to remember."
+
+"Thank you so much, dear Mrs. Daggett, for telling me," murmured
+Lydia. "Indeed it will be--cheerfuller for me to know that Andrew
+Bolton wasn't always--a thief. I've sometimes imagined him walking
+about these rooms.... One can't help it, you know, in an old house
+like this."
+
+Mrs. Daggett nodded eagerly. Here was one to whom she might impart
+some of the secret thoughts and imaginings which even Maria Dodge
+would have called "outlandish":
+
+"I know," she said. "Sometimes I've wondered if--if mebbe folks don't
+leave something or other after them--something you can't see nor
+touch; but you can sense it, just as plain, in your mind. But land! I
+don't know as I'd ought to mention it; of course you know I don't
+mean ghosts and like that."
+
+"You mean their--their thoughts, perhaps," hesitated Lydia. "I can't
+put it into words; but I know what you mean."
+
+Mrs. Daggett patted the girl's hand kindly.
+
+"I've come to talk to you about the wall papers, dearie; Henry
+thought mebbe you'd like to see me, seeing I don't forget so easy's
+some. This room was done in a real pretty striped paper in two shades
+of buff. There's a little of it left behind that door. Mrs. Bolton
+was a great hand to want things cheerful. She said it looked kind of
+sunshiny, even on a dark day. Poor dear, it fell harder on her than
+on anybody else when the crash came. She died the same week they took
+him to prison; and fer one, I was glad of it."
+
+Mrs. Daggett wiped her kind eyes.
+
+"Mebbe you'll think it's a terrible thing for me to say," she added
+hastily. "But she was such a delicate, soft-hearted sort of a woman:
+I couldn't help feelin' th' Lord spared her a deal of bitter sorrow
+by taking her away. My! It does bring it all back to me so--the house
+and the yard, and all. We'd all got used to seeing it a ruin; and
+now-- Whatever put it in your head, dearie, to want things put back
+just as they were? Papa was telling me this morning you was all for
+restoring the place. He thinks 'twould be more stylish and up-to-date
+if you was to put new-style paper on the walls, and let him furnish
+it up for you with nice golden oak. Henry's got real good taste.
+You'd ought to see our sideboard he gave me Chris'mas, with a mirror
+and all."
+
+Having thus discharged her wifely duty, as it appeared to her, Mrs.
+Daggett promptly turned her back upon it.
+
+"But you don't want any golden oak sideboards and like that in this
+house. Henry was telling me all about it, and how you were set on
+getting back the old Bolton furniture."
+
+"Do you think I could?" asked the girl eagerly. "It was all sold
+about here, wasn't it? And don't you think if I was willing to pay a
+great deal for it people would--"
+
+"'Course they would!" cried Mrs. Daggett, with cheerful assurance.
+"They'd be tickled half to death to get money for it. But, you see,
+dearie, it's a long time ago, and some folks have moved away, and
+there's been two or three fires, and I suppose some are not as
+careful as others; still--"
+
+The smile faded on the girl's lips.
+
+"But I can get some of it back; don't you think I can? I--I've quite
+set my heart on--restoring the house. I want it just as it used to
+be. The old furniture would suit the house so much better; don't you
+think it would?"
+
+Mrs. Daggett clapped her plump hands excitedly.
+
+"I've just thought of a way!" she exclaimed. "And I'll bet it'll
+work, too. You know Henry he keeps th' post office; an' 'most
+everybody for miles around comes after their mail to th' store. I'll
+tell him to put up a sign, right where everybody will see; something
+like this: 'Miss Lydia Orr wants to buy the old furniture of the
+Bolton house.'  And you might mention casual you'd pay good prices
+for it. 'Twas real good, solid furniture, I remember.... Come to
+think of it, Mrs. Bolton collected quite a lot of it right 'round
+here. She was a city girl when she married Andrew Bolton, an' she
+took a great interest in queer old things. She bought a big tall
+clock out of somebody's attic, and four-posted beds, the kind folks
+used to sleep in, an' outlandish old cracked china plates with scenes
+on 'em. I recollect I gave her a blue and white teapot, with an eagle
+on the side that belonged to my grandmother. She thought it was
+perfectly elegant, and kept it full of rose-leaves and spice on the
+parlor mantelpiece. Land! I hadn't thought of that teapot for years
+and years. I don't know whatever became of it."
+
+The sound of planes and hammers filled the silence that followed.
+Lydia was standing by the tall carved chair, her eyes downcast.
+
+"I'm glad you thought of--that notice," she said at last. "If Mr.
+Daggett will see to it for me--I'll stop at the office tomorrow. And
+now, if you have time, I'd so like you to go over the house with me.
+You can tell me about the wall papers and--"
+
+Mrs. Daggett arose with cheerful alacrity.
+
+"I'd like nothing better," she declared. "I ain't been in the house
+for so long. Last time was the day of the auction; 'twas after they
+took the little girl away, I remember.... Oh, didn't nobody tell you?
+There was one child--a real, nice little girl. I forget her name;
+Mrs. Bolton used to call her Baby and Darling and like that. She was
+an awful pretty little girl, about as old as my Nellie. I've often
+wondered what became of her. Some of her relatives took her away,
+after her mother was buried. Poor little thing--her ma dead an' her
+pa shut up in prison--... Oh! yes; this was the parlor.... My! to
+think how the years have gone by, and me as slim as a match then. Now
+that's what I call a handsome mantel; and ain't the marble kept real
+pretty? There was all-colored rugs and a waxed floor in here, and a
+real old-fashioned sofa in that corner and a mahogany table with
+carved legs over here, and long lace curtains at the windows. I see
+they've fixed the ceilings as good as new and scraped all the old
+paper off the walls. There used to be some sort of patterned paper in
+here. I can't seem to think what color it was."
+
+"I found quite a fresh piece behind the door," said Lydia. "See; I've
+put all the good pieces from the different rooms together, and marked
+them. I was wondering if Mr. Daggett could go to Boston for me? I'm
+sure he could match the papers there. You could go, too, if you cared
+to."
+
+"To Boston!" exclaimed Mrs. Daggett; "me and Henry? Why, Miss Orr,
+what an idea! But Henry couldn't no more leave the post office--he
+ain't never left it a day since he was appointed postmaster. My, no!
+'twouldn't do for Henry to take a trip clear to Boston. And me--I'm
+so busy I'd be like a fly trying t' get off sticky paper.... I do
+hate to see 'em struggle, myself."
+
+She followed the girl up the broad stair, once more safe and firm,
+talking steadily all the way.
+
+There were four large chambers, their windows framing lovely vistas
+of stream and wood and meadow, with the distant blue of the far
+horizon melting into the summer sky. Mrs. Daggett stopped in the
+middle of the wide hall and looked about her wonderingly.
+
+"Why, yes," she said slowly. "You certainly did show good sense in
+buying this old house. They don't build them this way now-a-days.
+That's what I said to Mrs. Deacon Whittle-- You know some folks
+thought you were kind of foolish not to buy Mrs. Solomon Black's
+house down in the village. But if you're going to live here all
+alone, dearie, ain't it going to be kind of lonesome--all these big
+rooms for a little body like you?"
+
+"Tell me about it, please," begged Lydia. "I--I've been wondering
+which room was his."
+
+"You mean Andrew Bolton's, I s'pose," said Mrs. Daggett reluctantly.
+"But I hope you won't worry any over what folks tells you about the
+day he was taken away. My! seems as if 'twas yesterday."
+
+She moved softly into one of the spacious, sunny rooms and stood
+looking about her, as if her eyes beheld once more the tragedy long
+since folded into the past.
+
+"I ain't going to tell you anything sad," she said under her breath.
+"It's best forgot. This was their room; ain't it nice an' cheerful? I
+like a southwest room myself. And 'tain't a bit warm here, what with
+the breeze sweeping in at the four big windows and smelling sweet of
+clover an' locust blooms. And ain't it lucky them trees didn't get
+blown over last winter?"
+
+She turned abruptly toward the girl.
+
+"Was you thinking of sleeping in this room, dearie? It used to have
+blue and white paper on it, and white paint as fresh as milk. It'd be
+nice and pleasant for a young lady, I should think."
+
+Lydia shook her head.
+
+"Not," she said slowly, "if it was _his_ room. I think I'd
+rather--which was the little girl's room? You said there was a
+child?"
+
+"Now, I'm real sorry you feel that way," sympathized Mrs. Daggett,
+"but I don't know as I blame you, the way folks talk. You'd think
+they'd have forgot all about it by now, wouldn't you? But land! it
+does seem as if bad thoughts and mean thoughts, and like that, was
+possessed to fasten right on to folks; and you can't seem to shake
+'em off, no more than them spiteful little stick-tights that get all
+over your clo'es.... This room right next belonged to their baby. Let
+me see; she must have been about three and a half or four years old
+when they took her away. See, there's a door in between, so Mrs.
+Bolton could get to her quick in the night. I used to be that way,
+too, with my children.... You know we lost our two little girls that
+same winter, three and five, they were. But I know I wanted 'em right
+where I could hear 'em if they asked for a drink of water, or like
+that, in the night. Folks has a great notion now-a-days of putting
+their babies off by themselves and letting them cry it out, as they
+say. But I couldn't ever do that; and Mrs. Andrew Bolton she wa'n't
+that kind of a parent, either-- I don't know as they ought to be
+called _mothers_. No, she was more like me--liked to tuck the
+blankets around her baby in the middle of th' night an' pat her down
+all warm and nice. I've often wondered what became of that poor
+little orphan child. We never heard. Like enough she died. I
+shouldn't wonder."
+
+And Mrs. Daggett wiped the ready tears from her eyes.
+
+"But I guess you'll think I'm a real old Aunty Doleful, going on this
+way," she made haste to add.
+
+"There's plenty of folks in Brookville as 'll tell you how stuck-up
+an' stylish Mrs. Andrew Bolton was, always dressed in silk of an
+afternoon and driving out with a two-horse team, an' keeping two
+hired girls constant, besides a man to work in her flower garden and
+another for the barn. But of course she supposed they were really
+rich and could afford it. _He_ never let on to _her_, after things
+begun to go to pieces; and folks blamed her for it, afterwards. Her
+heart was weak, and he knew it, all along. And then I suppose he
+thought mebbe things would take a turn.... Yes; the paper in this
+room was white with little wreaths of pink roses tied up with blue
+ribbons all over it. 'Twas furnished up real pretty with white
+furniture, and there was ruffled muslin curtains with dots on 'em at
+the windows and over the bed; Mrs. Andrew Bolton certainly did fix
+things up pretty, and to think you're going to have it just the same
+way. Well, I will say you couldn't do any better.... But, land! if
+there isn't the sun going down behind the hill, and me way out here,
+with Henry's supper to get, and Dolly champing his bit impatient.
+There's one lucky thing, though; he'll travel good, going towards
+home; he won't stop to get his tail over the lines, neither."
+
+An hour later, when the long summer twilight was deepening into
+gloom, Jim Dodge crossed the empty library and paused at the open
+door of the room beyond. The somber light from the two tall windows
+fell upon the figure of the girl. She was sitting before Andrew
+Bolton's desk, her head upon her folded arms. Something in the
+spiritless droop of her shoulders and the soft dishevelment of her
+fair hair suggested weariness--sleep, perhaps. But as the young man
+hesitated on the threshold the sound of a muffled sob escaped the
+quiet figure. He turned noiselessly and went away, sorry and ashamed,
+because unwittingly he had stumbled upon the clew he had long been
+seeking.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XI
+
+
+"Beside this stone wall I want flowers," Lydia was saying to her
+landscape-gardener, as she persisted in calling Jim Dodge.
+"Hollyhocks and foxgloves and pinies--I shall never say peony in
+Brookville--and pansies, sweet williams, lads' love, iris and
+sweetbrier. Mrs. Daggett has promised to give me some roots."
+
+He avoided her eyes as she faced him in the bright glow of the
+morning sunlight.
+
+"Very well, Miss Orr," he said, with cold respect. "You want a border
+here about four feet wide, filled with old-fashioned perennials."
+
+He had been diligent in his study of the books she had supplied him
+with.
+
+"A herbaceous border of that sort in front of the stone wall will
+give quite the latest effect in country-house decoration," he went on
+professionally. "Ramblers of various colors might be planted at the
+back, and there should be a mixture of bulbs among the taller plants
+to give color in early spring."
+
+She listened doubtfully.
+
+"I don't know about the ramblers," she said. "Were there
+ramblers--twenty years ago? I want it as nearly as possible just as
+it was. Mrs. Daggett told me yesterday about the flower-border here.
+You--of course you don't remember the place at all; do you?"
+
+He reddened slightly under her intent gaze.
+
+"Oh, I remember something about it," he told her; "the garden was a
+long time going down. There were flowers here a few years back; but
+the grass and weeds got the better of them."
+
+"And do you--remember the Boltons?" she persisted. "I was so
+interested in what Mrs. Daggett told me about the family yesterday.
+It seems strange to think no one has lived here since. And now that
+I--it is to be my home, I can't help thinking about them."
+
+"You should have built a new house," said Jim Dodge. "A new house
+would have been better and cheaper, in the end."
+
+He thrust his spade deep, a sign that he considered the conversation
+at an end.
+
+"Tell one of the other men to dig this," she objected. "I want to
+make a list of the plants we need and get the order out."
+
+"I can do that tonight, Miss Orr," he returned, going on with his
+digging. "The men are busy in the orchards this morning."
+
+"You want me to go away," she inferred swiftly.
+
+He flung down his spade.
+
+"It is certainly up to me to obey orders," he said. "Pardon me, if I
+seem to have forgotten the fact. Shall we make the list now?"
+
+Inwardly he was cursing himself for his stupidity. Perhaps he had
+been mistaken the night before. His fancy had taken a swift leap in
+the dark and landed--where? There was a sort of scornful honesty in
+Jim Dodge's nature which despised all manner of shams and petty
+deceits. His code also included a strict minding of his own business.
+He told himself rather sharply that he was a fool for suspecting that
+Lydia Orr was other than she had represented herself to be. She had
+been crying the night before. What of that? Other girls cried over
+night and smiled the next morning--his sister Fanny, for example. It
+was an inexplicable habit of women. His mother had once told him,
+rather vaguely, that it did her good to have a regular crying-spell.
+It relieved her nerves, she said, and sort of braced her up....
+
+"Of course I didn't mean that," Lydia was at some pains to explain,
+as the two walked toward the veranda where there were chairs and a
+table.
+
+She was looking fair and dainty in a gown of some thin white stuff,
+through which her neck and arms showed slenderly.
+
+"It's too warm to dig in the ground this morning," she decided. "And
+anyway, planning the work is far more important."
+
+"Than doing it?" he asked quizzically. "If we'd done nothing but plan
+all this; why you see--"
+
+He made a large gesture which included the carpenters at work on the
+roof, painters perilously poised on tall ladders and a half dozen men
+busy spraying the renovated orchards.
+
+"I see," she returned with a smile, "--now that you've so kindly
+pointed it out to me."
+
+He leveled a keen glance at her. It was impossible not to see her
+this morning in the light of what he thought he had discovered the
+night before.
+
+"I've done nothing but make plans all my life," she went on gravely.
+"Ever since I can remember I've been thinking--thinking and planning
+what I should do when I grew up. It seemed such a long, long
+time--being just a little girl, I mean, and not able to do what I
+wished. But I kept on thinking and planning, and all the while I
+_was_ growing up; and then at last--it all happened as I wished."
+
+She appeared to wait for his question. But he remained silent,
+staring at the blue rim of distant hills.
+
+"You don't ask me--you don't seem to care what I was planning," she
+said, her voice timid and uncertain.
+
+He glanced quickly at her. Something in her look stirred him
+curiously. It did not occur to him that her appeal and his instant
+response to it were as old as the race.
+
+"I wish you would tell me," he urged. "Tell me everything!"
+
+She drew a deep breath, her eyes misty with dreams.
+
+"For a long time I taught school," she went on, "but I couldn't save
+enough that way. I never could have saved enough, even if I had lived
+on bread and water. I wanted--I needed a great deal of money, and I
+wasn't clever nor particularly well educated. Sometimes I thought if
+I could only marry a millionaire--"
+
+He stared at her incredulously.
+
+"You don't mean that," he said with some impatience.
+
+She sighed.
+
+"I'm telling you just what happened," she reminded him. "It seemed
+the only way to get what I wanted. I thought I shouldn't mind that,
+or--anything, if I could only have as much money as I needed."
+
+A sense of sudden violent anger flared up within him. Did the girl
+realize what she was saying?
+
+She glanced up at him.
+
+"I never meant to tell any one about that part of it," she said
+hurriedly. "And--it wasn't necessary, after all; I got the money
+another way."
+
+He bit off the point of a pencil he had been sharpening with
+laborious care.
+
+"I should probably never have had a chance to marry a millionaire,"
+she concluded reminiscently. "I'm not beautiful enough."
+
+With what abominable clearness she understood the game: the
+marriage-market; the buyer and the price.
+
+"I--didn't suppose you were like that," he muttered, after what
+seemed a long silence.
+
+She seemed faintly surprised.
+
+"Of course you don't know me," she said quickly. "Does any man know
+any woman, I wonder?"
+
+"They think they do," he stated doggedly; "and that amounts to the
+same thing."
+
+His thoughts reverted for an uncomfortable instant to Wesley Elliot
+and Fanny. It was only too easy to see through Fanny.
+
+"Most of them are simple souls, and thank heaven for it!"
+
+His tone was fervently censorious.
+
+She smiled understandingly.
+
+"Perhaps I ought to tell you further that a rich man--not a
+millionaire; but rich enough--actually did ask me to marry him, and I
+refused."
+
+"H'mph!"
+
+"But," she added calmly, "I think I should have married him, if I had
+not had money left me first--before he asked me, I mean. I knew all
+along that what I had determined to do, I could do best alone."
+
+He stared at her from under gathered brows. He still felt that
+curious mixture of shame and anger burning hotly within.
+
+"Just why are you telling me all this?" he demanded roughly.
+
+She returned his look quietly.
+
+"Because," she said, "you have been trying to guess my secret for a
+long time and you have succeeded; haven't you?"
+
+He was speechless.
+
+"You have been wondering about me, all along. I could see that, of
+course. I suppose everybody in Brookville has been wondering and--and
+talking. I meant to be frank and open about it--to tell right out who
+I was and what I came to do. But--somehow--I couldn't.... It didn't
+seem possible, when everybody--you see I thought it all happened so
+long ago people would have forgotten. I supposed they would be just
+glad to get their money back. I meant to give it to them--all, every
+dollar of it. I didn't care if it took all I had.... And then--I
+heard you last night when you crossed the library. I hoped--you would
+ask me why--but you didn't. I thought, first, of telling Mrs.
+Daggett; she is a kind soul. I had to tell someone, because he is
+coming home soon, and I may need--help."
+
+Her eyes were solemn, beseeching, compelling.
+
+His anger died suddenly, leaving only a sort of indignant pity for
+her unfriended youth.
+
+"You are--" he began, then stopped short. A painter was swiftly
+descending his ladder, whistling as he came.
+
+"My name," she said, without appearing to notice, "is Lydia Orr
+Bolton. No one seems to remember--perhaps they didn't know my
+mother's name was Orr. My uncle took me away from here. I was only a
+baby. It seemed best to--"
+
+"Where are they now?" he asked guardedly.
+
+The painter had disappeared behind the house. But he could hear heavy
+steps on the roof over their heads.
+
+"Both are dead," she replied briefly. "No one knew my uncle had much
+money; we lived quite simply and unpretentiously in South Boston.
+They never told me about the money; and all those years I was praying
+for it! Well, it came to me--in time."
+
+His eyes asked a pitying question.
+
+"Oh, yes," she sighed. "I knew about father. They used to take me to
+visit him in the prison. Of course I didn't understand, at first. But
+gradually, as I grew older, I began to realize what had happened--to
+him and to me. It was then I began to make plans. He would be free,
+sometime; he would need a home. Once he tried to escape, with some
+other men. A guard shot my father; he was in the prison-hospital a
+long time. They let me see him then without bars between, because
+they were sure he would die."
+
+"For God's sake," he interrupted hoarsely. "Was there no one--?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"That was after my aunt died: I went alone. They watched me closely
+at first; but afterward they were kinder. He used to talk about
+home--always about home. He meant this house, I found. It was then I
+made up my mind to do anything to get the money.... You see I knew he
+could never be happy here unless the old wrongs were righted first. I
+saw I must do all that; and when, after my uncle's death, I found
+that I was rich--really rich, I came here as soon as I could. There
+wasn't any time to lose."
+
+She fell silent, her eyes shining luminously under half closed lids.
+She seemed unconscious of his gaze riveted upon her face. It was as
+if a curtain had been drawn aside by her painful effort. He was
+seeing her clearly now and without cloud of passion--in all her
+innocence, her sadness, set sacredly apart from other women by the
+long devotion of her thwarted youth. An immense compassion took
+possession of him. He could have fallen at her feet praying her
+forgiveness for his mean suspicions, his harsh judgment.
+
+The sound of hammers on the veranda roof above their heads appeared
+to rouse her.
+
+"Don't you think I ought to tell--everybody?" she asked hurriedly.
+
+He considered her question in silence for a moment. The bitterness
+against Andrew Bolton had grown and strengthened with the years into
+something rigid, inexorable. Since early boyhood he had grown
+accustomed to the harsh, unrelenting criticisms, the brutal epithets
+applied to this man who had been trusted with money and had
+defaulted. Even children, born long after the failure, reviled the
+name of the man who had made their hard lot harder. It had been the
+juvenile custom to throw stones at the house he had lived in. He
+remembered with fresh shame the impish glee with which, in company
+with other boys of his own age, he had trampled the few surviving
+flowers and broken down the shrubs in the garden. The hatred of
+Bolton, like some malignant growth, had waxed monstrous from what it
+preyed upon, ruining and distorting the simple kindly life of the
+village. She was waiting for his answer.
+
+"It would seem so much more honest," she said in a tired voice. "Now
+they can only think me eccentric, foolishly extravagant, lavishly
+generous--when I am trying-- I didn't dare to ask Deacon Whittle or
+Judge Fulsom for a list of the creditors, so I paid a large sum--far
+more than they would have asked--for the house. And since then I have
+bought the old bank building. I should like to make a library there."
+
+"Yes, I know," he said huskily.
+
+"Then the furniture--I shall pay a great deal for that. I want the
+house to look just as it used to, when father comes home. You see he
+had an additional sentence for trying to escape and for conspiracy;
+and since then his mind--he doesn't seem to remember everything.
+Sometimes he calls me Margaret. He thinks I am--mother."
+
+Her voice faltered a little.
+
+"You mustn't tell them," he said vehemently. "You mustn't!"
+
+He saw with terrible clearness what it would be like: the home-coming
+of the half-imbecile criminal, and the staring eyes, the pointing
+fingers of all Brookville leveled at him. She would be overborne by
+the shame of it all--trampled like a flower in the mire.
+
+She seemed faintly disappointed.
+
+"But I would far rather tell," she persisted. "I have had so much to
+conceal--all my life!"
+
+She flung out her hands in a gesture of utter weariness.
+
+"I was never allowed to mention father to anyone," she went on. "My
+aunt was always pointing out what a terrible thing it would be for
+any one to find out--who I was. She didn't want me to know; but uncle
+insisted. I think he was sorry for--father.... Oh, you don't know
+what it is like to be in prison for years--to have all the manhood
+squeezed out of one, drop by drop! I think if it hadn't been for me
+he would have died long ago. I used to pretend I was very gay and
+happy when I went to see him. He wanted me to be like that. It
+pleased him to think my life had not been clouded by what he called
+his _mistake_.... He didn't intend to wreck the bank, Mr. Dodge. He
+thought he was going to make the village rich and prosperous."
+
+She leaned forward. "I have learned to smile during all these years.
+But now, I want to tell everybody--I long to be free from pretending!
+Can't you see?"
+
+Something big and round in his throat hurt him so that he could not
+answer at once. He clenched his hands, enraged by the futility of his
+pity for her.
+
+"Mrs. Daggett seems a kind soul," she murmured. "She would be my
+friend. I am sure of it. But--the others--"
+
+She sighed.
+
+"I used to fancy how they would all come to the station to meet
+him--after I had paid everybody, I mean--how they would crowd about
+him and take his hand and tell him they were glad it was all over;
+then I would bring him home, and he would never even guess it had
+stood desolate during all these years. He has forgotten so much
+already; but he remembers home--oh, quite perfectly. I went to see
+him last week, and he spoke of the gardens and orchards. That is how
+I knew how to have things planted: he told me."
+
+He got hastily to his feet: her look, her voice--the useless smart of
+it all was swiftly growing unbearable.
+
+"You must wait--I must think!" he said unsteadily. "You ought not to
+have told me."
+
+"Do you think I should have told the minister, instead?" she asked
+rather piteously. "He has been very kind; but somehow--"
+
+"What! Wesley Elliot?"
+
+His face darkened.
+
+"Thank heaven you did not tell him! I am at least no--"
+
+He checked himself with an effort.
+
+"See here," he said: "You--you mustn't speak to any one of what you
+have told me--not for the present, anyway. I want you to promise me."
+
+Her slight figure sagged wearily against the back of her chair. She
+was looking up at him like a child spent with an unavailing passion
+of grief.
+
+"I have promised that so many times," she murmured: "I have concealed
+everything so long--it will be easier for me."
+
+"It will be easier for you," he agreed quickly; "and--perhaps better,
+on the whole."
+
+"But they will not know they are being paid--they won't understand--"
+
+"That makes no difference," he decided. "It would make them, perhaps,
+less contented to know where the money was coming from. Tell me, does
+your servant--this woman you brought from Boston; does she know?"
+
+"You mean Martha? I--I'm not sure. She was a servant in my uncle's
+home for years. She wanted to live with me, so I sent for her. I
+never spoke to her about--father. She seems devoted to me. I have
+thought it would be necessary to tell her--before-- He is coming in
+September. Everything will be finished by then."
+
+His eyes were fixed blankly on the hedge; something--a horse's ears,
+perhaps--was bobbing slowly up and down; a faint rattle of wheels
+came to their ears.
+
+"Don't tell anyone, yet," he urged, and stepped down from the
+veranda, his unseeing gaze still fixed upon the slow advance of those
+bobbing ears.
+
+"Someone is coming," she said.
+
+He glanced at her, marveling at the swift transition in her face. A
+moment before she had been listless, sad, disheartened by his
+apparent disapproval of her plans. Now all at once the cloud had
+vanished; she was once more cheerful, calm, even smiling.
+
+She too had been looking and had at once recognized the four persons
+seated in the shabby old carryall which at that moment turned in at
+the gate.
+
+"I am to have visitors," she said tranquilly.
+
+His eyes reluctantly followed hers. There were four women in the
+approaching vehicle.
+
+As on another occasion, the young man beat a swift retreat.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XII
+
+
+"I am sure I don't know what you'll think of us gadding about in the
+morning so," began Mrs. Dix, as she caught sight of Lydia.
+
+Mrs. Dix was sitting in the back seat of the carryall with Mrs.
+Dodge. The two girls were in front. Lydia noticed mechanically that
+both were freshly gowned in white and that Fanny, who was driving,
+eyed her with haughty reserve from under the brim of her flower-laden
+hat. Ellen Dix had turned her head to gaze after Jim Dodge's
+retreating figure; her eyes returned to Lydia with an expression of
+sulky reluctance.
+
+"I'm so glad to see you," said Lydia. "Won't you come in?"
+
+"I should like to," said Mrs. Dodge. "Jim has been telling us about
+the improvements, all along."
+
+"It certainly does look nice," chimed in Mrs. Dix. "I wouldn't have
+believed it possible, in such a little time, too. Just cramp that
+wheel a little more, Fanny."
+
+The two older women descended from the carryall and began looking
+eagerly around.
+
+"Just see how nice the grass looks," said Mrs. Dodge. "And the
+flowers! My! I didn't suppose Jim was that smart at fixing things
+up.... Aren't you going to get out, girls?"
+
+The two girls still sat on the high front seat of the carryall; both
+were gazing at Lydia in her simple morning frock. There were no
+flowers on Lydia's Panama hat; nothing but a plain black band; but it
+had an air of style and elegance. Fanny was wishing she had bought a
+plain hat without roses. Ellen tossed her dark head:
+
+"I don't know," she said. "You aren't going to stay long; are you,
+mother?"
+
+"For pity sake, Ellen!" expostulated Mrs. Dodge briskly. "Of course
+you'll get out, and you, too, Fanny. The horse'll stand."
+
+"Please do!" entreated Lydia.
+
+Thus urged, the girls reluctantly descended. Neither was in the habit
+of concealing her feelings under the convenient cloak of society
+observance, and both were jealously suspicious of Lydia Orr. Fanny
+had met her only the week before, walking with Wesley Elliot along
+the village street. And Mrs. Solomon Black had told Mrs. Fulsom, and
+Mrs. Fulsom had told Mrs. Deacon Whittle, and Mrs. Whittle had told
+another woman, who had felt it to be her Christian duty (however
+unpleasant) to inform Fanny that the minister was "payin' attention
+to Miss Orr."
+
+"Of course," the woman had pointed out, "it wasn't to be wondered at,
+special, seeing the Orr girl had every chance in the world to catch
+him--living right in the same house with him."  Then she had further
+stated her opinions of men in general for Fanny's benefit. All
+persons of the male sex, according to this woman, were easily put
+upon, deceived and otherwise led astray by artful young women from
+the city, who were represented as perpetually on the lookout for easy
+marks, like Wesley Elliot.
+
+"He ain't any different from other men, if he _is_ a minister," said
+she with a comprehensive sniff. "They're all alike, as far as I can
+find out: anybody that's a mind to soft-soap them and flatter them
+into thinkin' they're something great can lead them right around by
+the nose. And besides, _she's_ got _money!_"
+
+Fanny had affected a haughty indifference to the doings of Wesley
+Elliot, which did not for a moment deceive her keen-eyed informer.
+
+"Of course, anybody with eyes in their heads can see what's taken
+place," compassionated she, impaling the unfortunate Fanny on the
+prongs of her sympathy. "My! I was telling George only yesterday, I
+thought it was a _perfect shame!_ and somebody ought to speak out
+real plain to the minister."
+
+Whereat Fanny had been goaded into wishing the woman would mind her
+own business! She did wish everybody would leave her and her affairs
+alone! People had no right to talk! As for speaking to the minister;
+let any one dare--!
+
+As for Ellen Dix, she had never quite forgiven Lydia for innocently
+acquiring the fox skin and she had by now almost persuaded herself
+that she was passionately in love with Jim Dodge. She had always
+liked him--at least, she had not actively disliked him, as some of
+the other girls professed to do. She had found his satirical tongue,
+his keen eyes and his real or affected indifference to feminine wiles
+pleasantly stimulating. There was some fun in talking to Jim Dodge.
+But of late she had not been afforded the opportunity. Fanny had
+explained to Ellen that Jim was working terribly hard, often rising
+at three and four in the morning to work on his own farm, and putting
+in long days at the Bolton place.
+
+"She seems to have most of the men in Brookville doing for her,"
+Ellen had remarked coldly.
+
+Then the girls had exchanged cautious glances.
+
+"There's something awfully funny about her coming here, anyway," said
+Ellen. "Everybody thinks it's queer."
+
+"I expect she had a reason," said Fanny, avoiding Ellen's eyes.
+
+After which brief interchange of opinion they had twined their arms
+about each other's waists and squeezed wordless understanding and
+sympathy. Henceforth, it was tacitly understood between the two girls
+that singly and collectively they did not "like" Lydia Orr.
+
+Lydia understood without further explanation that she was not to look
+to her nearest neighbors for either friendship or the affection she
+so deeply craved. Both Ellen and Fanny had passed the place every day
+since its restoration began; but not once had either betrayed the
+slightest interest or curiosity in what was going on beyond the
+barrier of the hedge. To be sure, Fanny had once stopped to speak to
+her brother; but when Lydia had hurried hopefully out to greet her it
+was only to catch a glimpse of the girl's back as she walked quickly
+away.
+
+Jim Dodge had explained, with some awkwardness, that Fanny was in a
+hurry....
+
+"Well, now, I'll tell you, Miss Orr," Mrs. Dix was saying, as all
+five women walked slowly toward the house. "I was talking with Abby
+Daggett, and she was telling me about your wanting to get back the
+old furniture that used to be in the house. It seems Henry Daggett
+has put up a notice in the post office; but so far, he says, not very
+many pieces have been heard from. You know the men-folks generally go
+after the mail, and men are slow; there's no denying that. As like as
+not they haven't even mentioned seeing the notice to the folks at
+home."
+
+"That's so," confirmed Mrs. Dodge, nodding her head. "I don't know as
+Jim would ever tell us anything that happened from morning till
+night. We just have to pump things out of him; don't we, Fanny? He'd
+never tell without we did. His father was just the same."
+
+Fanny looked annoyed, and Ellen squeezed her arm with an amused
+giggle.
+
+"I didn't know, mother, there was anything we wanted to know,
+particularly," she said coldly.
+
+"Well, you know both of us have been real interested in the work
+here," protested Mrs. Dodge, wonderingly. "I remember you was asking
+Jim only last night if Miss Orr was really going to--"
+
+"I hope you'll like to see the house," said Lydia, as if she had not
+heard; "of course, being here every day I don't notice the changes as
+you might."
+
+"You aren't living here yet, are you?" asked Mrs. Dix. "I understood
+Mrs. Solomon Black to say you weren't going to leave her for awhile
+yet."
+
+"No; I shall be there nights and Sundays till everything is finished
+here," said Lydia. "Mrs. Black makes me very comfortable."
+
+"Well, I think most of us ladies had ought to give you a vote of
+thanks on account of feeding the men-folks, noons," put in Mrs.
+Dodge. "It saves a lot of time not to have to look after a
+dinner-pail."
+
+"Mother," interrupted Fanny in a thin, sharp voice, quite unlike her
+own, "you know Jim always comes home to his dinner."
+
+"Well, what if he does; I was speaking for the rest of th' women,"
+said Mrs. Dodge. "I'm sure it's very kind of Miss Orr to think of
+such a thing as cooking a hot dinner for all those hungry men."
+
+Mrs. Dodge had received a second check from the assignees that very
+morning from the sale of the old bank building, and she was
+proportionately cheerful and content.
+
+"Well; if this isn't handsome!" cried Mrs. Dix, pausing in the hall
+to look about her. "I declare I'd forgotten how it used to look. This
+is certainly better than having an old ruin standing here. But, of
+course it brings back old days."
+
+She sighed, her dark, comely face clouding with sorrow.
+
+"You know," she went on, turning confidentially to Lydia, "that
+dreadful bank failure was the real cause of my poor husband's death.
+He never held up his head after that. They suspected at first he was
+implicated in the steal. But Mr. Dix wasn't anything like Andrew
+Bolton. No; indeed! He wouldn't have taken a cent that belonged to
+anybody else--not if he was to die for it!"
+
+"That's so," confirmed Mrs. Dodge. "What Andrew Bolton got was
+altogether too good for him. Come right down to it, he wasn't no
+better than a murderer!"
+
+And she nodded her head emphatically.
+
+Fanny and Ellen, who stood looking on, reddened impatiently at this:
+
+"I'm sick and tired of hearing about Andrew Bolton," complained
+Ellen. "I've heard nothing else since I can remember. It's a pity you
+bought this house, Miss Orr: I heard Mr. Elliot say it was like
+stirring up a horrid, muddy pool. Not very complimentary to
+Brookville; but then--"
+
+"Don't you think people will--forget after a while?" asked Lydia, her
+blue eyes fixed appealingly on the two young faces. "I don't see why
+everybody should--"
+
+"Well, if you'd fixed the house entirely different," said Mrs. Dix.
+"But having it put back, just as it was, and wanting the old
+furniture and all--whatever put that into your head, my dear?"
+
+"I heard it was handsome and old--I like old things. And, of course,
+it was--more in keeping to restore the house as it was, than to--"
+
+"Well, I s'pose that's so," conceded Mrs. Dodge, her quick dark eyes
+busy with the renovated interior. "I'd sort of forgot how it did look
+when the Boltons was livin' here. But speaking of furniture; I see
+Mrs. Judge Fulsom let you have the old sofa. I remember she got it at
+the auction; she's kept it in her parlor ever since."
+
+"Yes," said Lydia. "I was only too happy to give a hundred dollars
+for the sofa. It has been excellently preserved."
+
+"A hundred dollars!" echoed Mrs. Dix. "Well!"
+
+Mrs. Dodge giggled excitedly, like a young girl.
+
+"A hundred dollars!" she repeated. "Well, I want to know!"
+
+The two women exchanged swift glances.
+
+"You wouldn't want to buy any pieces that had been broke, I s'pose,"
+suggested Mrs. Dodge.
+
+"If they can be repaired, I certainly do," replied Lydia.
+
+"Mother!" expostulated Fanny, in a low but urgent tone. "Ellen and
+I--we really ought to be going."
+
+The girl's face glowed with shamed crimson. She felt haughty and
+humiliated and angry all at once. It was not to be borne.
+
+Mrs. Dix was not listening to Fanny Dodge.
+
+"I bid in the big, four-post mahogany bed at the auction," she said,
+"and the bureau to match; an' I believe there are two or three chairs
+about the house."
+
+"We've got a table," chimed in Mrs. Dodge; "but one leg give away,
+an' I had it put up in the attic years ago. And Fanny's got a bed and
+bureau in her room that was painted white, with little pink flowers
+tied up with blue ribbons. Of course the paint is pretty well rubbed
+off; but--"
+
+"Oh, might I have that set?" cried Lydia, turning to Fanny. "Perhaps
+you've grown fond of it and won't want to give it up. But I--I'd pay
+almost anything for it. And of course I shall want the mahogany,
+too."
+
+"Well, we didn't know," explained Mrs. Dix, with dignity. "We got
+those pieces instead of the money we'd ought to have had from the
+estate. There was a big crowd at the auction, I remember; but nobody
+really wanted to pay anything for the old furniture. A good deal of
+it had come out of folks' attics in the first place."
+
+"I shall be glad to pay three hundred dollars for the mahogany bed
+and bureau," said Lydia. "And for the little white set--"
+
+"I don't care to part with my furniture," said Fanny Dodge, her
+pretty round chin uplifted.
+
+She was taller than Lydia, and appeared to be looking over her head
+with an intent stare at the freshly papered wall beyond.
+
+"For pity sake!" exclaimed her mother sharply. "Why, Fanny, you could
+buy a brand new set, an' goodness knows what-all with the money.
+What's the matter with you?"
+
+"I know just how Fanny feels about having her room changed," put in
+Ellen Dix, with a spirited glance at the common enemy. "There are
+things that money can't buy, but some people don't seem to think so."
+
+Lydia's blue eyes had clouded swiftly.
+
+"If you'll come into the library," she said, "we'll have some
+lemonade. It's so very warm I'm sure we are all thirsty."
+
+She did not speak of the furniture again, and after a little the
+visitors rose to go. Mrs. Dodge lingered behind the others to
+whisper:
+
+"I'm sure I don't know what got into my Fanny. Only the other day she
+was wishing she might have her room done over, with new furniture and
+all. I'll try and coax her."
+
+But Lydia shook her head.
+
+"Please don't," she said. "I want that furniture very much; but--I
+know there are things money can't buy."
+
+"Mebbe you wouldn't want it, if you was t' see it," was Mrs. Dodge's
+honest opinion. "It's all turned yellow, an' the pink flowers are
+mostly rubbed off. I remember it was real pretty when we first got
+it. It used to belong to Mrs. Bolton's little girl. I don't know as
+anybody's told you, but they had a little girl. My! what an awful
+thing for a child to grow up to! I've often thought of it. But mebbe
+she didn't live to grow up. None of us ever heard."
+
+"Mother!" called Fanny, from the front seat of the carryall. "We're
+waiting for you."
+
+"In a minute, Fanny," said Mrs. Dodge.... "Of course you can have
+that table I spoke of, Miss Orr, and anything else I can find in the
+attic, or around. An' I was thinking if you was to come down to the
+Ladies' Aid on Friday afternoon--it meets at Mrs. Mixter's this week,
+at two o'clock; you know where Mrs. Mixter lives, don't you? Well;
+anyway, Mrs. Solomon Black does, an' she generally comes. But I know
+lots of the ladies has pieces of that furniture; and most of them
+would be mighty glad to get rid of it. But they are like my
+Fanny--kind of contrary, and backward about selling things. I'll talk
+to Fanny when we get home. Why, she don't any more want that old
+painted set--"
+
+"Mother!"  Fanny's sweet angry voice halted the rapid progress of her
+mother's speech for an instant.
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if the flies was bothering th' horse," surmised
+Mrs. Dodge; "he does fidget an' stamp somethin' terrible when the
+flies gets after him; his tail ain't so long as some.... Well, I'll
+let you know; and if you could drop around and see the table and
+all-- Yes, some day this week. Of course I'll have to buy new
+furniture to put in their places; so will Mrs. Dix. But I will say
+that mahogany bed is handsome; they've got it in their spare room,
+and there ain't a scratch on it. I can guarantee that.... Yes; I
+guess the flies are bad today; looks like rain. Good-by!"
+
+Lydia stood watching the carryall, as it moved away from under the
+milk-white pillars of the restored portico. Why did Fanny Dodge and
+Ellen Dix dislike her, she wondered, and what could she do to win
+their friendship? Her troubled thoughts were interrupted by Martha,
+the taciturn maid.
+
+"I found this picture on the floor, Miss Lydia," said Martha; "did
+you drop it?"
+
+Lydia glanced at the small, unmounted photograph. It was a faded
+snapshot of a picnic party under a big tree. Her eyes became at once
+riveted upon the central figures of the little group; the pretty girl
+in the middle was Fanny Dodge; and behind her--yes, surely, that was
+the young clergyman, Wesley Elliot. Something in the attitude of the
+man and the coquettish upward tilt of the girl's face brought back to
+her mind a forgotten remark of Mrs. Solomon Black's. Lydia had failed
+to properly understand it, at the time. Mrs. Solomon Black was given
+to cryptic remarks, and Lydia's mind had been preoccupied by the
+increasing difficulties which threatened the accomplishment of her
+purpose:
+
+"A person, coming into a town like Brookville to live, by rights had
+ought to have eyes in the backs of their heads," Mrs. Black had
+observed.
+
+It was at breakfast time, Lydia now remembered, and the minister was
+late, as frequently happened.
+
+"I thought like's not nobody would mention it to you," Mrs. Black had
+further elucidated. "Of course _he_ wouldn't say anything, men-folks
+are kind of sly and secret in their doings--even the best of 'em; and
+you'll find it's so, as you travel along life's path-way."
+
+Mrs. Black had once written a piece of poetry and it had actually
+been printed in the Grenoble _News_; since then she frequently made
+use of figures of speech.
+
+"A married woman and a widow can speak from experience," she went on.
+"So I thought I'd just tell you: he's as good as engaged, already."
+
+"Do you mean Mr. Elliot?" asked Lydia incuriously.
+
+Mrs. Black nodded.
+
+"I thought you ought to know," she said.
+
+Mr. Elliot had entered the room upon the heels of this warning, and
+Lydia had promptly forgotten it. Now she paused for a swift review of
+the weeks which had already passed since her arrival. Mr. Elliot had
+been unobtrusively kind and helpful from the first, she remembered.
+Later, he had been indefatigable in the matter of securing workmen
+for the restoration of the old house, when she made it clear to him
+that she did not want an architect and preferred to hire Brookville
+men exclusively. As seemed entirely natural, the minister had called
+frequently to inspect the progress of the work. Twice in their rounds
+together they had come upon Jim Dodge; and although the clergyman was
+affable in his recognition and greeting, Lydia had been unpleasantly
+surprised by the savage look on her landscape-gardener's face as he
+returned the polite salutation.
+
+"Don't you like Mr. Elliot?" she had ventured to inquire, after the
+second disagreeable incident of the sort.
+
+Jim Dodge had treated her to one of his dark-browed, incisive glances
+before replying.
+
+"I'm afraid I can't answer that question satisfactorily, Miss Orr,"
+was what he said.
+
+And Lydia, wondering, desisted from further question.
+
+"That middle one looks some like one of the young ladies that was
+here this morning," observed Martha, with the privileged familiarity
+of an old servant.
+
+"She must have dropped it," said Lydia, slowly.
+
+"The young ladies here in the country has very bad manners,"
+commented Martha, puckering her lips primly. "I wouldn't put myself
+out for them, if I was you, mem."
+
+Lydia turned the picture over and gazed abstractedly at the three
+words written there: "Lest we forget!"  Beneath this pertinent
+quotation appeared the initials "W. E."
+
+"If it was for _me_ to say," went on Martha, in an injured tone, "I'd
+not be for feedin' up every man, woman and child that shows their
+face inside the grounds. Why, they don't appreciate it no more
+than--"
+
+The woman's eloquent gesture appeared to include the blue-bottle fly
+buzzing noisily on the window-pane:
+
+"Goodness gracious! if these flies ain't enough to drive a body
+crazy--what with the new paint and all...."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII
+
+
+Lydia laid the picture carefully away in a pigeonhole of her desk.
+She was still thinking soberly of the subtle web of prejudices,
+feelings and conditions into which she had obtruded her one fixed
+purpose in life. But if Mr. Elliot had been as good as engaged to
+Fanny Dodge, as Mrs. Solomon Black had been at some pains to imply,
+in what way had she (Lydia) interfered with the denouement?
+
+She shook her head at last over the intricacies of the imperfectly
+stated problem. The idea of coquetting with a man had never entered
+Lydia's fancy. Long since, in the chill spring of her girlhood, she
+had understood her position in life as compared with that of other
+girls. She must never marry. She must never fall in love, even. The
+inflexible Puritan code of her uncle's wife had found ready
+acceptance in Lydia's nature. If not an active participant in her
+father's crime, she still felt herself in a measure responsible for
+it. He had determined to grow rich and powerful for her sake. More
+than once, in the empty rambling talk which he poured forth in a
+turgid stream during their infrequent meetings, he had told her so,
+with extravagant phrase and gesture. And so, at last, she had come to
+share his punishment in a hundred secret, unconfessed ways. She ate
+scant food, slept on the hardest of beds, labored unceasingly, with
+the great, impossible purpose of some day making things right: of
+restoring the money they--she no longer said _he_--had stolen; of
+building again the waste places desolated by the fire of his ambition
+for her. There had followed that other purpose, growing ever stronger
+with the years, and deepening with the deepening stream of her
+womanhood: her love, her vast, unavailing pity for the broken and
+aging man, who would some day be free. She came at length to the time
+when she saw clearly that he would never leave the prison alive,
+unless in some way she could contrive to keep open the clogging
+springs of hope and desire. She began deliberately and with purpose
+to call back memories of the past: the house in which he had lived,
+the gardens and orchards in which he once had taken pride, his
+ambitious projects for village improvement.
+
+"You shall have it all back, father!" she promised him, with
+passionate resolve. "And it will only be a little while to wait,
+now."
+
+Thus encouraged, the prisoner's horizon widened, day by day. He
+appeared, indeed, to almost forget the prison, so busy was he in
+recalling trivial details and unimportant memories of events long
+since past. He babbled incessantly of his old neighbors, calling them
+by name, and chuckling feebly as he told her of their foibles and
+peculiarities.
+
+"But we must give them every cent of the money, father," she
+insisted; "we must make everything right."
+
+"Oh, yes! Oh, yes, we'll fix it up somehow with the creditors," he
+would say.
+
+Then he would scowl and rub his shorn head with his tremulous old
+hands.
+
+"What did they do with the house, Margaret?" he asked, over and over,
+a furtive gleam of anxiety in his eyes. "They didn't tear it down;
+did they?"
+
+He waxed increasingly anxious on this point as the years of his
+imprisonment dwindled at last to months. And then her dream had
+unexpectedly come true. She had money--plenty of it--and nothing
+stood in the way. She could never forget the day she told him about
+the house. Always she had tried to quiet him with vague promises and
+imagined descriptions of a place she had completely forgotten.
+
+"The house is ours, father," she assured him, jubilantly. "And I am
+having it painted on the outside."
+
+"You are having it painted on the outside, Margaret? Was that
+necessary, already?"
+
+"Yes, father.... But I am Lydia. Don't you remember? I am your little
+girl, grown up."
+
+"Yes, yes, of course. You are like your mother-- And you are having
+the house painted? Who's doing the job?"
+
+She told him the man's name and he laughed rather immoderately.
+
+"He'll do you on the white lead, if you don't watch him," he said. "I
+know Asa Todd. Talk about frauds-- You must be sure he puts honest
+linseed oil in the paint. He won't, unless you watch him."
+
+"I'll see to it, father."
+
+"But whatever you do, don't let 'em into my room," he went on, after
+a frowning pause.
+
+"You mean your library, father? I'm having the ceiling whitened.
+It--it needed it."
+
+"I mean my bedroom, child. I won't have workmen pottering about in
+there."
+
+"But you won't mind if they paint the woodwork, father? It--has grown
+quite yellow in places."
+
+"Nonsense, my dear! Why, I had all the paint upstairs gone over--let
+me see--"
+
+And he fell into one of his heavy moods of introspection which
+seemed, indeed, not far removed from torpor.
+
+When she had at last roused him with an animated description of the
+vegetable garden, he appeared to have forgotten his objections to
+having workmen enter his chamber. And Lydia was careful not to recall
+it to his mind.
+
+She was still sitting before his desk, ostensibly absorbed in the
+rows of incomprehensible figures Deacon Whittle, as general
+contractor, had urged upon her attention, when Martha again parted
+the heavy cloud of her thoughts.
+
+"The minister, come to see you again," she announced, with a slight
+but mordant emphasis on the ultimate word.
+
+"Yes," said Lydia, rousing herself, with an effort. "Mr. Elliot, you
+said?"
+
+"I s'pose that's his name," conceded Martha ungraciously. "I set him
+in the dining room. It's about the only place with two chairs in it;
+an' I shan't have no time to make more lemonade, in case you wanted
+it, m'm."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIV
+
+
+The Reverend Wesley Elliot, looking young, eager and pleasingly
+worldly in a blue serge suit of unclerical cut, rose to greet her as
+she entered.
+
+"I haven't been here in two or three days," he began, as he took the
+hand she offered, "and I'm really astonished at the progress you've
+been making."
+
+He still retained her hand, as he smiled down into her grave,
+preoccupied face.
+
+"What's the trouble with our little lady of Bolton House?" he
+inquired. "Any of the workmen on strike, or--"
+
+She withdrew her hand with a faint smile.
+
+"Everything is going very well, I think," she told him.
+
+He was still scrutinizing her with that air of intimate concern,
+which inspired most of the women of his flock to unburden themselves
+of their manifold anxieties at his slightest word of encouragement.
+
+"It's a pretty heavy burden for you," he said gravely. "You need some
+one to help you. I wonder if I couldn't shoulder a few of the grosser
+details?"
+
+"You've already been most kind," Lydia said evasively. "But now-- Oh,
+I think everything has been thought of. You know Mr. Whittle is
+looking after the work."
+
+He smiled, a glimmer of humorous understanding in his fine dark eyes.
+"Yes, I know," he said.
+
+A silence fell between them. Lydia was one of those rare women who do
+not object to silence. It seemed to her that she had always lived
+alone with her ambitions, which could not be shared, and her bitter
+knowledge, which was never to be spoken of. But now she stirred
+uneasily in her chair, aware of the intent expression in his eyes.
+Her troubled thoughts reverted to the little picture which had
+fluttered to the floor from somebody's keeping only an hour before.
+
+"I've had visitors this morning," she told him, with purpose.
+
+"Ah! people are sure to be curious and interested," he commented.
+
+"They were Mrs. Dodge and her daughter and Mrs. Dix and Ellen," she
+explained.
+
+"That must have been pleasant," he murmured perfunctorily. "Are
+you--do you find yourself becoming at all interested in the people
+about here? Of course it is easy to see you come to us from quite
+another world."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Oh, no," she said quickly. "--If you mean that I am superior in any
+way to the people of Brookville; I'm not, at all. I am really a very
+ordinary sort of a person. I've not been to college and--I've always
+worked, harder than most, so that I've had little opportunity
+for--culture."
+
+His smile broadened into a laugh of genuine amusement.
+
+"My dear Miss Orr," he protested, "I had no idea of intimating--"
+
+Her look of passionate sincerity halted his words of apology.
+
+"I am very much interested in the people here," she declared. "I
+want--oh, so much--to be friends with them! I want it more than
+anything else in the world! If they would only like me. But--they
+don't."
+
+"How can they help it?" he exclaimed. "Like you? They ought to
+worship you! They shall!"
+
+She shook her head sadly.
+
+"No one can compel love," she said.
+
+"Sometimes the love of one can atone for the indifference--even the
+hostility of the many," he ventured.
+
+But she had not stooped to the particular, he perceived. Her thoughts
+were ranging wide over an unknown country whither, for the moment, he
+could not follow. He studied her abstracted face with its strangely
+aloof expression, like that of a saint or a fanatic, with a faint
+renewal of previous misgivings.
+
+"I am very much interested in Fanny Dodge," she said abruptly.
+
+"In--Fanny Dodge?" he repeated.
+
+He became instantly angry with himself for the dismayed astonishment
+he had permitted to escape him, and increasingly so because of the
+uncontrollable tide of crimson which invaded his face.
+
+She was looking at him, with the calm, direct gaze which had more
+than once puzzled him.
+
+"You know her very well, don't you?"
+
+"Why, of course, Miss Dodge is--she is--er--one of our leading young
+people, and naturally-- She plays our little organ in church and
+Sunday School. Of course you've noticed. She is most useful
+and--er--helpful."
+
+Lydia appeared to be considering his words with undue gravity.
+
+"But I didn't come here this morning to talk to you about another
+woman," he said, with undeniable hardihood. "I want to talk to
+you--_to you_--and what I have to say--"
+
+Lydia got up from her chair rather suddenly.
+
+"Please excuse me a moment," she said, quite as if he had not spoken.
+
+He heard her cross the hall swiftly. In a moment she had returned.
+
+"I found this picture on the floor--after they had gone," she said,
+and handed him the photograph.
+
+He stared at it with unfeigned astonishment.
+
+"Oh, yes," he murmured. "Well--?"
+
+"Turn it over," she urged, somewhat breathlessly.
+
+He obeyed, and bit his lip angrily.
+
+"What of it?" he demanded. "A quotation from Kipling's Recessional--a
+mere commonplace.... Yes; I wrote it."
+
+Then his anger suddenly left him. His mind had leaped to the solution
+of the matter, and the solution appeared to Wesley Elliot as
+eminently satisfying; it was even amusing. What a transparent,
+womanly little creature she was, to be sure! He had not been
+altogether certain of himself as he walked out to the old Bolton
+place that morning. But oddly enough, this girlish jealousy of hers,
+this pretty spite--he found it piquantly charming.
+
+"I wrote it," he repeated, his indulgent understanding of her mood
+lurking in smiling lips and eyes, "on the occasion of a particularly
+grubby Sunday School picnic: I assure you I shall not soon forget the
+spiders which came to an untimely end in my lemonade, nor the
+inquisitive ants which explored my sandwiches."
+
+She surveyed him unsmilingly.
+
+"But you did not mean that," she said. "You were thinking of
+something--quite different."
+
+He frowned thoughtfully. Decidedly, this matter should be settled
+between them at once and for ever. A clergyman, he reflected, must
+always be on friendly--even confidential terms with a wide variety of
+women. His brief experience had already taught him this much. And a
+jealous or unduly suspicious wife might prove a serious handicap to
+future success.
+
+"Won't you sit down," he urged. "I--You must allow me to explain.
+We--er--must talk this over."
+
+She obeyed him mechanically. All at once she was excessively
+frightened at what she had attempted. She knew nothing of the ways of
+men; but she felt suddenly sure that he would resent her interference
+as an unwarrantable impertinence.
+
+"I thought--if you were going there today--you might take it--to
+her," she hesitated. "Or, I could send it. It is a small matter, of
+course."
+
+"I think," he said gravely, "that it is a very serious matter."
+
+She interpreted uncertainly the intent gaze of his beautiful, somber
+eyes.
+
+"I came here," she faltered, "to--to find a home. I had no wish--"
+
+"I understand," he said, his voice deep and sympathetic; "people have
+been talking to you--about me. Am I right?"
+
+She was silent, a pink flush slowly staining her cheeks.
+
+"You have not yet learned upon what slight premises country women, of
+the type we find in Brookville, arrive at the most unwarrantable
+conclusions," he went on carefully. "I did not myself sufficiently
+realize this, at first. I may have been unwise."
+
+"No, you were not!" she contradicted him unexpectedly.
+
+His lifted eyebrows expressed surprise.
+
+"I wish you would explain to me--" he began.
+
+Then stopped short. How indeed could she explain, when as yet he had
+not made clear to her his own purpose, which had grown steadily with
+the passing weeks?
+
+"You will let me speak, first," he concluded inadequately.
+
+He hastily reviewed the various phrases which arose to his lips and
+rejected them one by one. There was some peculiar quality of
+coldness, of reserve--he could not altogether make it clear to
+himself: it might well be the knowledge of her power, her wealth,
+which lent that almost austere expression to her face. It was evident
+that her wonted composure had been seriously disturbed by the unlucky
+circumstance of the photograph. He had permitted the time and
+occasion which had prompted him to write those three fatefully
+familiar words on the back of the picture altogether to escape him.
+If he chose to forget, why should Fanny Dodge, or any one else,
+persist in remembering?
+
+And above all, why should the girl have chosen to drop this absurd
+memento of the most harmless of flirtations at the feet of Lydia?
+There could be but one reasonable explanation.... Confound women,
+anyway!
+
+"I had not meant to speak, yet," he went on, out of the clamoring
+multitude of his thoughts. "I felt that we ought--"
+
+He became suddenly aware of Lydia's eyes. There was no soft answering
+fire, no maidenly uncertainty of hope and fear in those clear depths.
+
+"It is very difficult for me to talk of this to you," she said
+slowly. "You will think me over-bold--unmannerly, perhaps. But I
+can't help that. I should never have thought of your caring for
+me--you will at least do me the justice to believe that."
+
+"Lydia!" he interrupted, poignantly distressed by her evident
+timidity--her exquisite hesitation, "let me speak! I understand--I
+know--"
+
+She forbade him with a gesture, at once pleading and peremptory.
+
+"No," she said. "No! I began this, I must go on to the end. What you
+ought to understand is this: I am not like other women. I want only
+friendship from every one. I shall never ask more. I can never accept
+more--from any one. I want you to know this--now."
+
+"But I--do you realize--"
+
+"I want your friendship," she went on, facing him with a sort of
+desperate courage; "but more than any kindness you can offer me, Mr.
+Elliot, I want the friendship of Fanny Dodge, of Ellen Dix--of all
+good women. I need it! Now you know why I showed you the picture. If
+you will not give it to her, I shall. I want her--I want every
+one--to understand that I shall never come between her and the
+slightest hope she may have cherished before my coming to Brookville.
+All I ask is--leave to live here quietly--and be friendly, as
+opportunity offers."
+
+Her words, her tone were not to be mistaken. But even the sanest and
+wisest of men has never thus easily surrendered the jealously guarded
+stronghold of sex. Wesley Elliot's youthful ideas of women were
+totally at variance with the disconcerting conviction which strove to
+invade his mind. He had experienced not the slightest difficulty, up
+to the present moment, in classifying them, neatly and logically; but
+there was no space in his mental files for a woman such as Lydia Orr
+was representing herself to be. It was inconceivable, on the face of
+it! All women demanded admiration, courtship, love. They always had;
+they always would. The literature of the ages attested it. He had
+been too precipitate--too hasty. He must give her time to recover
+from the shock she must have experienced from hearing the spiteful
+gossip about himself and Fanny Dodge. On the whole, he admired her
+courage. What she had said could not be attributed to the mere
+promptings of vulgar sex-jealousy. Very likely Fanny had been
+disagreeable and haughty in her manner. He believed her capable of
+it. He sympathized with Fanny; with the curious mental aptitude of a
+sensitive nature, he still loved Fanny. It had cost him real effort
+to close the doors of his heart against her.
+
+"I admire you more than I can express for what you have had the
+courage to tell me," he assured her. "And you will let me see that I
+understand--more than you think."
+
+"It is impossible that you should understand," she said tranquilly.
+"But you will, at least, remember what I have said?"
+
+"I will," he promised easily. "I shall never forget it!"
+
+A slight humorous smile curved the corners of his handsome mouth.
+
+"Now this--er--what shall we call it?--'bone of contention' savors
+too strongly of wrath and discomfiture; so we'll say, simply and
+specifically, this photograph--which chances to have a harmless
+quotation inscribed upon its reverse: Suppose I drop it in the
+waste-basket? I can conceive that it possesses no particular
+significance or value for any one. I assure you most earnestly that
+it does not--for me."
+
+He made as though he would have carelessly torn the picture across,
+preparatory to making good his proposal.
+
+She stopped him with a swift gesture.
+
+"Give it to me," she said. "It is lost property, and I am responsible
+for its safe-keeping."
+
+She perceived that she had completely failed in her intention.
+
+"What are you going to do with it?" he inquired, with an easy
+assumption of friendliness calculated to put her more completely at
+her ease with him.
+
+"I don't know. For the present, I shall put it back in my desk."
+
+"Better take my advice and destroy it," he persisted. "It--er--is not
+valuable evidence. Or--I believe on second thought I shall accept
+your suggestion and return it myself to its probable owner."
+
+He was actually laughing, his eyes brimming with boyish mischief.
+
+"I think it belongs to Miss Dix," he told her audaciously.
+
+"To Miss Dix?" she echoed.
+
+"Yes; why not? Don't you see the fair Ellen among the group?"
+
+Her eyes blazed suddenly upon him; her lips trembled.
+
+"Forgive me!" he cried, aghast at his own folly.
+
+She retreated before his outstretched hands.
+
+"I didn't mean to--to make light of what appears so serious a matter
+to you," he went on impetuously. "It is only that it is _not_
+serious; don't you see? It is such a foolish little mistake. It must
+not come between us, Lydia!"
+
+"Please go away, at once," she interrupted him breathlessly,
+"and--and _think_ of what I have said to you. Perhaps you didn't
+believe it; but you _must_ believe it!"
+
+Then, because he did not stir, but instead stood gazing at her, his
+puzzled eyes full of questions, entreaties, denials, she quietly
+closed a door between them. A moment later he heard her hurrying feet
+upon the stair.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XV
+
+
+August was a month of drought and intense heat that year; by the
+first week in September the stream had dwindled to the merest silver
+thread, its wasted waters floating upward in clouds of impalpable
+mist at dawn and evening to be lost forever in the empty vault of
+heaven. Behind the closed shutters of the village houses, women
+fanned themselves in the intervals of labor over superheated
+cookstoves. Men consulted their thermometers with incredulous eyes.
+Springs reputed to be unfailing gradually ceased their cool trickle.
+Wells and cisterns yielded little save the hollow sound of the
+questing bucket. There was serious talk of a water famine in
+Brookville. At the old Bolton house, however, there was still water
+in abundance. In jubilant defiance of blazing heavens and parching
+earth the Red-Fox Spring--tapped years before by Andrew Bolton and
+piped a mile or more down the mountain side, that his household,
+garden and stock might never lack of pure cold water--gushed in
+undiminished volume, filling and overflowing the new cement
+reservoir, which had been one of Lydia Orr's cautious innovations in
+the old order of things.
+
+The repairs on the house were by now finished, and the new-old
+mansion, shining white amid the chastened luxuriance of ancient
+trees, once more showed glimpses of snowy curtains behind polished
+windowpanes. Flowers, in a lavish prodigality of bloom the Bolton
+house of the past had never known, flanked the old stone walls,
+bordered the drives, climbed high on trellises and arbors, and blazed
+in serried ranks beyond the broad sweep of velvet turf, which repaid
+in emerald freshness its daily share of the friendly water.
+
+Mrs. Abby Daggett gazed at the scene in rapt admiration through the
+clouds of dust which uprose from under Dolly's scuffling feet.
+
+"Ain't that place han'some, now she's fixed it up?" she demanded of
+Mrs. Deacon Whittle, who sat bolt upright at her side, her best
+summer hat, sparsely decorated with purple flowers, protected from
+the suffocating clouds of dust by a voluminous brown veil. "I declare
+I'd like to stop in and see the house, now it's all furnished up--if
+only for a minute."
+
+"We ain't got time, Abby," Mrs. Whittle pointed out. "There's work to
+cut out after we get to Mis' Dix's, and it was kind of late when we
+started."
+
+Mrs. Daggett relinquished her random desire with her accustomed
+amiability. Life consisted mainly in giving up things, she had found;
+but being cheerful, withal, served to cast a mellow glow over the
+severest denials; in fact, it often turned them into something
+unexpectedly rare and beautiful.
+
+"I guess that's so, Ann," she agreed. "Dolly got kind of fractious
+over his headstall when I was harnessin'. He don't seem to like his
+sun hat, and I dunno's I blame him. I guess if our ears stuck up
+through the top of our bunnits like his we wouldn't like it neither."
+
+Mrs. Whittle surveyed the animal's grotesquely bonneted head with
+cold disfavor.
+
+"What simple ideas you do get into your mind, Abby," said she, with
+the air of one conscious of superior intellect. "A horse ain't human,
+Abby. He ain't no idea he's wearing a hat.... The Deacon says their
+heads get hotter with them rediculous bunnits on. He favors a green
+branch."
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Daggett, foiling a suspicious movement of Dolly's
+switching tail, "mebbe that's so; I feel some cooler without a hat.
+But 'tain't safe to let the sun beat right down, the way it does,
+without something between. Then, you see, Henry's got a lot o' these
+horse hats in the store to sell. So of course Dolly, he has to wear
+one."
+
+Mrs. Whittle cautiously wiped the dust from her hard red cheeks.
+
+"My! if it ain't hot," she observed. "You're so fleshy, Abby, I
+should think you'd feel it something terrible."
+
+"Oh, I don't know," said Mrs. Daggett placidly. "Of course I'm
+fleshy, Ann; I ain't denying that; but so be you. You don't want to
+think about the heat so constant, Ann. Our thermometer fell down and
+got broke day before yesterday, and Henry says 'I'll bring you up
+another from the store this noon.'  But he forgot all about it. I
+didn't say a word, and that afternoon I set out on the porch under
+the vines and felt real cool--not knowing it was so hot--when along
+comes Mrs. Fulsom, a-pantin' and fannin' herself. 'Good land, Abby!'
+says she; 'by the looks, a body'd think you didn't know the
+thermometer had risen to ninety-two since eleven o'clock this
+morning.'  'I didn't,' I says placid; 'our thermometer's broke.'
+'Well, you'd better get another right off,' says she, wiping her face
+and groaning. 'It's an awful thing, weather like this, not to have a
+thermometer right where you can see it.'  Henry brought a real nice
+one home from the store that very night; and I hung it out of sight
+behind the sitting room door; I told Henry I thought 'twould be safer
+there."
+
+"That sounds exactly like you, Abby," commented Mrs. Whittle
+censoriously. "I should think Henry Daggett would be onto you, by
+now."
+
+"Well, he ain't," said Mrs. Daggett, with mild triumph. "He thinks
+I'm real cute, an' like that. It does beat all, don't it? how simple
+menfolks are. I like 'em all the better for it, myself. If Henry'd
+been as smart an' penetrating as some folks, I don't know as we'd
+have made out so well together. Ain't it lucky for me he ain't?"
+
+Ann Whittle sniffed suspiciously. She never felt quite sure of Abby
+Daggett: there was a lurking sparkle in her demure blue eyes and a
+suspicious dimple near the corner of her mouth which ruffled Mrs.
+Whittle's temper, already strained to the breaking point by the heat
+and dust of their midday journey.
+
+"Well, I never should have thought of such a thing, as going to
+Ladies' Aid in all this heat, if you hadn't come after me, Abby," she
+said crossly. "I guess flannel petticoats for the heathen could have
+waited a spell."
+
+"Mebbe they could, Ann," Mrs. Daggett said soothingly. "It's kind of
+hard to imagine a heathen wanting any sort of a petticoat this
+weather, and I guess they don't wear 'em before they're converted;
+but of course the missionaries try to teach 'em better. They go
+forth, so to say, with the Bible in one hand and a petticoat in the
+other."
+
+"I should hope so!" said Mrs. Whittle, with vague fervor.
+
+The sight of a toiling wagon supporting a huge barrel caused her to
+change the subject rather abruptly.
+
+"That's Jacob Merrill's team," she said, craning her neck. "What on
+earth has he got in that hogs-head?"
+
+"He's headed for Lydia Orr's spring, I shouldn't wonder," surmised
+Mrs. Daggett. "She told Henry to put up a notice in the post office
+that folks could get all the water they wanted from her spring. It's
+running, same as usual; but, most everybody else's has dried up."
+
+"I think the minister ought to pray for rain regular from the pulpit
+on Sunday," Mrs. Whittle advanced. "I'm going to tell him so."
+
+"She's going to do a lot better than that," said Mrs. Daggett....
+"For the land sake, Dolly! I ain't urged you beyond your strength,
+and you know it; but if you don't g'long--"
+
+A vigorous slap of the reins conveyed Mrs. Daggett's unuttered threat
+to the reluctant animal, with the result that both ladies were
+suddenly jerked backward by an unlooked for burst of speed.
+
+"I think that horse is dangerous, Abby," remonstrated Mrs. Whittle,
+indignantly, as she settled her veil. "You ought to be more careful
+how you speak up to him."
+
+"I'll risk him!" said Mrs. Daggett with spirit. "It don't help him
+none to stop walking altogether and stand stock still in the middle
+of the road, like he was a graven image. I'll take the whip to him,
+if he don't look out!"
+
+Mrs. Whittle gathered her skirts about her, with an apprehensive
+glance at the dusty road.
+
+"If you das' to touch that whip, Abby Daggett," said she, "I'll git
+right out o' this buggy and walk, so there!"
+
+Mrs. Daggett's broad bosom shook with merriment.
+
+"Fer pity sake, Ann, don't be scared," she exhorted her friend. "I
+ain't never touched Dolly with the whip; but he knows I mean what I
+say when I speak to him like that! ...I started in to tell you about
+the Red-Fox Spring, didn't I?"
+
+Mrs. Whittle coughed dryly.
+
+"I wish I had a drink of it right now," she said. "The idea of that
+Orr girl watering her flowers and grass, when everybody else in town
+is pretty near burnt up. Why, we ain't had water enough in our
+cistern to do the regular wash fer two weeks. I said to Joe and the
+Deacon today: 'You can wear them shirts another day, for I don't know
+where on earth you'll get clean ones.'"
+
+"There ain't nothing selfish about Lydia Orr," proclaimed Mrs.
+Daggett joyfully. "What _do_ you think she's going to do now?"
+
+"How should I know?"
+
+Mrs. Whittle's tone implied a jaded indifference to the doings of any
+one outside of her own immediate family circle.
+
+"She's going to have the Red-Fox piped down to the village," said
+Mrs. Daggett. "She's had a man from Boston to look at it; and he says
+there's water enough up there in the mountains to supply two or three
+towns the size of Brookville. She's going to have a reservoir: and
+anybody that's a mind to can pipe it right into their kitchens."
+
+Mrs. Whittle turned her veiled head to stare incredulously at her
+companion.
+
+"Well, I declare!" she said; "that girl certainly does like to make a
+show of her money; don't she? If 'tain't one thing it's another. How
+did a girl like her come by all that money, I'd like to know?"
+
+"I don't see as that's any of our particular affairs," objected Mrs.
+Daggett warmly. "Think of havin' nice cool spring water, just by
+turning a faucet. We're going to have it in our house. And Henry says
+mebbe he'll put in a tap and a drain-pipe upstairs. It'd save a lot
+o' steps."
+
+"Huh! like enough you'll be talkin' about a regular nickel-plated
+bathroom like hers, next," suspicioned Mrs. Whittle. "The Deacon says
+he did his best to talk her out of it; but she stuck right to it. And
+one wa'n't enough, at that. She's got three of 'em in that house.
+That's worse'n Andrew Bolton."
+
+"Do you mean _worse_, Ann Whittle, or do you mean _better?_  A nice
+white bathtub is a means o' grace, I think!"
+
+"I mean what I said, Abby; and you hadn't ought to talk like that.
+It's downright sinful. _Means o' grace! a bathtub!_  Well, I never!"
+
+The ladies of the Aid Society were already convened in Mrs. Dix's
+front parlor, a large square room, filled with the cool green light
+from a yard full of trees, whose deep-thrust roots defied the
+drought. Ellen Dix had just brought in a glass pitcher, its frosted
+sides proclaiming its cool contents, when the late comers arrived.
+
+"Yes," Mrs. Dix was saying, "Miss Orr sent over a big piece of ice
+this morning and she squeezed out juice of I don't know how many
+lemons. Jim Dodge brought 'em here in the auto; and she told him to
+go around and gather up all the ladies that didn't have conveyances
+of their own."
+
+"And that's how I came to be here," said Mrs. Mixter. "Our horse has
+gone lame."
+
+"Well now, wa'n't that lovely?" crowed Mrs. Daggett, cooling her
+flushed face with slow sweeps of the big turkey-feather fan Mrs. Dix
+handed her. "Ain't she just the sweetest girl--always thinking of
+other folks! I never see anything like her."
+
+A subtle expression of reserve crept over the faces of the attentive
+women. Mrs. Mixter tasted the contents of her glass critically.
+
+"I don't know," she said dryly, as if the lemonade had failed to cool
+her parched throat, "that depends on how you look at it."
+
+Mrs. Whittle gave vent to a cackle of rather discordant laughter.
+
+"That's just what I was telling Abby on the way over," she said.
+"Once in a while you do run across a person that's bound to make a
+show of their money."
+
+Mrs. Solomon Black, in a green and white sprigged muslin dress, her
+water-waves unusually crisp and conspicuous, bit off a length of
+thread with a meditative air.
+
+"Well," said she, "that girl lived in my house, off an' on, for more
+than two months. I can't say as I think she's the kind that wants to
+show off."
+
+Fifteen needles paused in their busy activities, and twice as many
+eyes were focused upon Mrs. Solomon Black. That lady sustained the
+combined attack with studied calm. She even smiled, as she jerked her
+thread smartly through a breadth of red flannel.
+
+"I s'pose you knew a lot more about her in the beginning than we
+did," said Mrs. Dodge, in a slightly offended tone.
+
+"You must have known something about her, Phoebe," put in Mrs.
+Fulsom. "I don't care what anybody says to the contrary, there's
+something queer in a young girl, like her, coming to a strange place,
+like Brookville, and doing all the things she's done. It ain't
+natural: and that's what I told the Judge when he was considering the
+new waterworks. There's a great deal of money to be made on
+waterworks, the Judge says."
+
+The eyes were now focused upon Mrs. Fulsom.
+
+"Well, I can tell you, she ain't looking to make money out of
+Brookville," said Abby Daggett, laying down her fan and taking an
+unfinished red flannel petticoat from the basket on the table. "Henry
+knows all about her plans, and he says it's the grandest idea! The
+water's going to be piped down from the mountain right to our
+doors--an' it'll be just as free as the Water of Life to anybody
+that'll take it."
+
+"Yes; but who's going to pay for digging up the streets and putting
+'em back?" piped up an anxious voice from a corner.
+
+"We'd ought to, if she does the rest," said Mrs. Daggett; "but Henry
+says--"
+
+"You can be mighty sure there's a come-back in it somewhere," was
+Mrs. Whittle's opinion. "The Deacon says he don't know whether to
+vote for it or not. We'll have rain before long; and these droughts
+don't come every summer."
+
+Ellen Dix and Fanny Dodge were sitting outside on the porch. Both
+girls were sewing heart-shaped pieces of white cloth upon squares of
+turkey-red calico.
+
+"Isn't it funny nobody seems to like her?" murmured Ellen, tossing
+her head. "I shouldn't be surprised if they wouldn't let her bring
+the water in, for all she says she'll pay for everything except
+putting it in the houses."
+
+Fanny gazed at the white heart in the middle of the red square.
+
+"It's awfully hard to sew these hearts on without puckering," she
+said.
+
+"Fan," said Ellen cautiously, "does the minister go there much now?"
+
+Fanny compressed her lips.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know," she replied, her eyes and fingers busy with
+an unruly heart, which declined to adjust itself to requirements.
+"What are they going to do with this silly patchwork, anyway?"
+
+"Make an autograph quilt for the minister's birthday; didn't you
+know?"
+
+Fanny dropped her unfinished work.
+
+"I never heard of anything so silly!" she said sharply.
+
+"Everybody is to write their names in pencil on these hearts,"
+pursued Ellen mischievously; "then they're to be done in tracing
+stitch in red cotton. In the middle of the quilt is to be a big white
+square, with a large red heart in it; that's supposed to be Wesley
+Elliot's. It's to have his monogram in stuffed letters, in the middle
+of it. Lois Daggett's doing that now. I think it's a lovely idea--so
+romantic, you know."
+
+Fanny did not appear to be listening; her pretty white forehead wore
+a frowning look.
+
+"Ellen," she said abruptly, "do you ever see anything of Jim
+nowadays?"
+
+"Oh! so you thought you'd pay me back, did you?" cried Ellen angrily.
+"I never said I cared a rap for Jim Dodge; but you told me a whole
+lot about Wesley Elliot: don't you remember that night we walked home
+from the fair, and you--"
+
+Fanny suddenly put her hand over her friend's.
+
+"Please don't talk so loud, Ellen; somebody will be sure to hear. I'd
+forgotten what you said--truly, I had. But Jim--"
+
+"Well?" interrogated Ellen impatiently, arching her slender black
+brows.
+
+"Let's walk down in the orchard," proposed Fanny. "Somebody else can
+work on these silly old hearts, if they want to. My needle sticks so
+I can't sew, anyway."
+
+"I've got to help mother cut the cake, in a minute," objected Ellen.
+
+But she stepped down on the parched grass and the two friends were
+soon strolling among the fallen fruit of a big sweet apple tree
+behind the house, their arms twined about each other's waists, their
+pretty heads bent close together.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVI
+
+
+"The reason I spoke to you about Jim just now," said Fanny, "was
+because he's been acting awfully queer lately. I thought perhaps you
+knew--I know he likes you better than any of the other girls. He says
+you have some sense, and the others haven't."
+
+"I guess that must have been before Lydia Orr came to Brookville,"
+said Ellen, in a hard, sweet voice.
+
+"Yes; it was," admitted Fanny reluctantly. "Everything seems to be
+different since then."
+
+"What has Jim been doing that's any queerer than usual?" inquired
+Ellen, with some asperity.
+
+Fanny hesitated.
+
+"You won't tell?"
+
+"Of course not, if it's a secret."
+
+"Cross your heart an' hope t' die?" quoted Fanny from their childhood
+days.
+
+Ellen giggled.
+
+"Cross m' heart an' hope t' die," she repeated.
+
+"Well, Jim's been off on some sort of a trip," said Fanny.
+
+"I don't see anything so very queer about that."
+
+"Wait till I tell you-- You must be sure and not breathe a word, even
+to your mother; you won't, will you?"
+
+"Fan, you make me mad! Didn't I just say I wouldn't?"
+
+"Well, then; he went with _her_ in the auto; they started about five
+o'clock in the morning, and Jim didn't get home till after twelve
+that night."
+
+Ellen laughed, with studied indifference.
+
+"Pity they couldn't have asked us to go along," she said. "I'm sure
+the car's plenty big enough."
+
+"I don't think it was just for fun," said Fanny.
+
+"You don't? What for, then?"
+
+"I asked Jim, and he wouldn't tell me."
+
+"When did you ask him?"
+
+"The morning they went. I came down about half past four: mother
+doesn't get up as early as that, we haven't much milk to look after
+now; but I wake up awfully early sometimes, and I'd rather be doing
+something than lying there wide awake."
+
+Ellen squeezed Fanny's arm sympathetically. She herself had lost no
+moments of healthy sleep over Jim Dodge's fancied defection; but she
+enjoyed imagining herself to be involved in a passionate romance.
+
+"Isn't it _awful_ to lie awake and think--_and think_, and not be
+able to do a single thing!" she said, with a tragic gesture.
+
+Fanny bent down to look into Ellen's pretty face.
+
+"Why, Ellen," she said, "is it as bad as that? I didn't suppose you
+really cared."
+
+She clasped Ellen's slender waist closer and kissed her fervently.
+
+Ellen coaxed two shining tears into sparkling prominence on her long
+lashes.
+
+"Oh, don't mind me, Fan," she murmured; "but I _can_ sympathize with
+you, dear. I know _exactly_ how you feel--and to think it's the same
+girl!"
+
+Ellen giggled light-heartedly:
+
+"Anyway, she can't marry both of them," she finished.
+
+Fanny was looking away through the boles of the gnarled old trees,
+her face grave and preoccupied.
+
+"Perhaps I oughtn't to have told you," she said.
+
+"Why, you haven't told me anything, yet," protested Ellen. "You're
+the funniest girl, Fan! I don't believe you know how to--really
+confide in anybody. If you'd tell me more how you feel about _him_,
+you wouldn't care half so much."
+
+Fanny winced perceptibly. She could not bear to speak of the
+secret--which indeed appeared to be no secret--she strove daily to
+bury under a mountain of hard work, but which seemed possessed of
+mysterious powers of resurrection in the dark hours between sunset
+and sunrise.
+
+"But there's nothing to--to talk about, Ellen," she said; and in
+spite of herself her voice sounded cold, almost menacing.
+
+"Oh, very well, if you feel that way," retorted Ellen. "But I can
+tell you one thing--or, I _might_ tell you something; but I guess I
+won't."
+
+"Please, Ellen,--if it's about--"
+
+"Well, it is."
+
+Fanny's eyes pleaded hungrily with the naughty Ellen.
+
+"You haven't finished your account of that interesting pleasure
+excursion of Jim's and Miss Orr's," said Ellen. "Isn't it lovely Jim
+can drive her car? Is he going to be her regular chauffeur? And do
+you get an occasional joy-ride?"
+
+"Of course not," Fanny said indignantly. "Oh, Ellen, how can you go
+on like that! I'm sure you don't care a bit about Jim or me, either."
+
+"I do!" declared Ellen. "I love you with all my heart, Fan; but I
+don't know about Jim. I--I might have--you know; but if he's crazy
+over that Orr girl, what's the use? There are other men, just as
+good-looking as Jim Dodge and not half so sarcastic and
+disagreeable."
+
+"Jim can be disagreeable, if he wants to," conceded Jim's sister.
+"When I asked him where he was going with the car so early in the
+morning--you know he's been bringing the car home nights so as to
+clean it and fix the engine, till she can get somebody--I was
+surprised to find him putting in oil and tightening up screws and
+things, when it was scarcely daylight; and I said so. He wouldn't
+tell me a thing. 'You just 'tend to your own knitting, Fan,' was all
+he said; 'perhaps you'll know some day; and then again, perhaps you
+won't.'"
+
+"And didn't you find out?" cried Ellen, her dark eyes alight with
+curiosity. "If that doesn't sound exactly like Jim Dodge! But you
+said you heard him when he came in that night; didn't he tell you
+anything then?--You don't think they ran off to get married? Oh,
+Fan!"
+
+"Of course not, you goose! Do you suppose he'd have come back home
+alone, if it had been anything like that?"
+
+Ellen heaved a sigh of exaggerated relief.
+
+"'Be still, my heart'!" she murmured.
+
+"No; they went to get somebody from somewhere," pursued Fanny.
+
+"To get somebody from somewhere," repeated Ellen impatiently. "How
+thrilling! Who do you suppose it was?"
+
+Fanny shook her head:
+
+"I haven't the slightest idea."
+
+"How perfectly funny! ...Is the somebody there, now?"
+
+"I don't know. Jim won't tell me a thing that goes on there. He says
+if there's anything on top of the earth he absolutely despises it's a
+gossiping man. He says a gossiping woman is a creation of God--must
+be, there's so many of 'em; but a gossiping man--he can't find any
+word in the dictionary mean enough for that sort of a low-down
+skunk."
+
+Ellen burst into hysterical laughter.
+
+"What an idea!" she gasped. "Oh, but he's almost too sweet to live,
+Fan. Somebody ought to take him down a peg or two. Fan, if he
+proposes to that girl, I hope she won't have him. 'Twould serve him
+right!"
+
+"Perhaps she won't marry anybody around here," mused Fanny. "Did you
+ever notice she wears a thin gold chain around her neck, Ellen?"
+
+Ellen nodded.
+
+"Perhaps there's a picture of somebody on it."
+
+"I shouldn't wonder."
+
+Ellen impatiently kicked a big apple out of her way, to the manifest
+discomfiture of two or three drunken wasps who were battening on the
+sweet juices.
+
+"I've got to go back to the house," she said. "Mother'll be looking
+for me."
+
+"But, Ellen--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"You said you knew something--"
+
+Ellen yawned.
+
+"Did I?"
+
+"You know you did, Ellen! Please--"
+
+"'Twasn't much."
+
+"What was it?"
+
+"Oh, nothing, only I met the minister coming out of Lydia Orr's house
+one day awhile ago, and he was walking along as if he'd been sent
+for-- Never even saw me. I had a good mind to speak to him, anyway;
+but before I could think of anything cute to say he'd gone
+by--two-forty on a plank road!"
+
+Fanny was silent. She was wishing she had not asked Ellen to tell.
+Then instantly her mind began to examine this new aspect of her
+problem.
+
+"He didn't look so awfully pleased and happy," Ellen went on, "his
+head was down--so, and he was just scorching up the road. Perhaps
+they'd been having a scrap."
+
+"Oh, no!" burst from Fanny's lips. "It wasn't that."
+
+"Why, what do you know about Wesley Elliot and Lydia Orr?" inquired
+Ellen vindictively. "You're a whole lot like Jim--as close-mouthed as
+a molasses jug, when you don't happen to feel like talking.... It
+isn't fair," she went on crossly. "I tell you everything--every
+single thing; and you just take it all in without winking an eyelash.
+It isn't fair!"
+
+"Oh, Ellen, please don't--I can't bear it from you!"
+
+Fanny's proud head drooped to her friend's shoulder, a stifled sob
+escaped her.
+
+"There now, Fan; I didn't mean a word of it! I'm sorry I told you
+about him--only I thought he looked so kind of cut up over something
+that maybe-- Honest, Fan, I don't believe he likes her."
+
+"You don't know," murmured Fanny, wiping her wet eyes. "I didn't tell
+you she came to see me."
+
+"She did!"
+
+"Yes; it was after we had all been there, and mother was going on so
+about the furniture. It all seemed so mean and sordid to me, as if we
+were trying to--well, you know."
+
+Ellen nodded:
+
+"Of course I do. That's why you wouldn't let her have your furniture.
+I gloried in your spunk, Fan."
+
+"But I did let her have it, Ellen."
+
+"You did? Well!"
+
+"I'll tell you how it happened. Mother'd gone down to the village,
+and Jim was off somewhere--he's never in the house day-times any
+more; I'd been working on the new curtains all day, and I was just
+putting them up in the parlor, when she came.... Ellen, sometimes I
+think perhaps we don't understand that girl. She was just as sweet--
+If it wasn't for-- If I hadn't hardened my heart against her almost
+the first thing, you know, I don't believe I could help loving her."
+
+"Fanny!" cried Ellen protestingly. "She certainly is a soft-soap
+artist. My mother says she is so refined; and Mrs. Daggett is always
+chanting her praises."
+
+"Think of all she's done for the village," urged Fanny. "I want to be
+just, even if--"
+
+"Well, I don't!" cried Ellen. "I just enjoy being real spiteful
+sometimes--especially when another girl gobbles all the men in sight;
+and I know I'm prettier than she is. It's just because she's new
+and--and stylish and rich. What made you give in about your
+furniture, Fan?"
+
+"Because I--"
+
+Fanny stopped short, puckering her forehead.
+
+"I don't know whether I can explain it, Ellen; but I notice it every
+time I am with her. There's something--"
+
+"Good gracious, Fan! She must have hypnotized you."
+
+"Be quiet, Ellen, I'm trying to think just how it happened. She
+didn't say so very much--just sat down and watched me, while I sewed
+rings on the curtains. But the first thing I knew, I piped up and
+said: 'Do you really want that old furniture of mine so much?'  And
+she said-- Well, no matter what she said; it was more the way she
+looked. I guess I'd have given her the eyes out of my head, or any
+old thing."
+
+"That's just what I told you," interrupted Ellen. "There are people
+like that. Don't you remember that horrid old what's-his-name in
+'Trilby'?"
+
+"Don't be silly, Ellen," said Fanny rebukingly. "Well, I took her up
+to my room and showed her my bed and bureau and washstand. There were
+some chairs, too; mother got them all for my room at that old auction
+we've heard so much about; I was just a baby then. I told her about
+it. She sat down in my rocking-chair by the window and just looked at
+the things, without saying a word, at first. After a while, she said:
+'Your mother used to come in and tuck the blankets around you nice
+and warm in the night; didn't she?'"
+
+"'Why, I suppose she did,' I told her. 'Mother's room is right next
+to mine.' ... Ellen, there was a look in her eyes--I can't tell you
+about it--you wouldn't understand. And, anyway, I didn't care a bit
+about the furniture. 'You can have it,' I said. 'I don't want it, and
+I don't see why you do; it isn't pretty any more.'  I thought she was
+going to cry, for a minute. Then such a soft gladness came over her
+face. She came up to me and took both my hands in hers; but all she
+said was 'Thank you.'"
+
+"And did she pay you a whole lot for it?" inquired Ellen sordidly.
+
+"I didn't think anything about that part of it," said Fanny. "Jim
+carried it all over the next day, with a lot of old stuff mother had.
+Jim says she's had a man from Grenoble working in the barn for weeks
+and weeks, putting everything in order. My old set was painted over,
+with all the little garlands and blue ribbons, like new."
+
+"But how much--" persisted Ellen. "She must have paid you a lot for
+it."
+
+"I didn't ask mother," said Fanny. "I didn't want to know. I've got a
+new set; it's real pretty. You must come over and see my room, now
+it's all finished."
+
+What Fanny did not tell Ellen was that after Lydia's departure she
+had unexpectedly come upon the photograph of the picnic group under a
+book on her table. The faded picture with its penciled words had
+meant much to Fanny. She had not forgotten, she told herself, she
+could never forget, that day in June, before the unlooked-for arrival
+of the strange girl, whose coming had changed everything. Once more
+she lived over in imagination that perfect day, with its white clouds
+floating high in the blue, and the breath of clover on the wind. She
+and Wesley Elliot had gone quietly away into the woods after the
+boisterous merriment of the picnic luncheon.
+
+"It's safe enough, as long as we follow the stream," Fanny had
+assured him, piloting the way over fallen logs and through dense
+thickets of pine and laurel, further and further away from the sounds
+of shrill laughter and the smoky smell of the camp fire, where the
+girls were still busy toasting marshmallows on long sticks for the
+youths who hovered in the rear.
+
+The minister had expressed a keen desire to hear the rare notes of
+the hermit thrush; and this romantic quest led them deep into the
+forest. The girl paused at last on the brink of a pool, where they
+could see the shadowy forms of brook trout gliding through the clear,
+cold water.
+
+"If we are quiet and listen," she told him, "I think we shall hear
+the hermit."
+
+On a carpet of moss, thicker and softer than a deep-piled rug, they
+sat down. Not a sound broke the stillness but the gurgle of water and
+the soft soughing of the wind through great tree tops. The minister
+bared his head, as if aware of the holy spirit of solitude in the
+place. Neither spoke nor stirred; but the girl's heart beat loud--so
+loud she feared he might hear, and drew her little cape closer above
+her breast. Then all at once, ringing down the somber aisles of the
+forest came the song of the solitary bird, exquisite, lonely, filled
+with an indescribable, yearning sweetness. The man's eloquent eyes
+met her own in a long look.
+
+"Wonderful!" he murmured.
+
+His hand sought and closed upon hers for an instant. Then without
+further speech they returned to the picnickers. Someone--she thought
+it was Joyce Fulsom--snapped the joyous group at the moment of the
+departure. It had been a week later, that he had written the words
+"Lest we forget"--with a look and smile which set the girl's pulses
+fluttering. But that was in June. Now it was September. Fanny,
+crouched by the window where Lydia Orr had been that afternoon,
+stared coldly at the picture. It was downright silly to have carried
+it about with her. She had lost it somewhere--pulling out her
+handkerchief, perhaps. Had Lydia Orr found and brought it back? She
+ardently wished she knew; but in the meanwhile--
+
+She tore the picture deliberately across, thereby accomplishing
+unhindered what Wesley Elliot had attempted several days before; then
+she burned the fragments in the quick spurt of a lighted match....
+Lest we forget, indeed!
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVII
+
+
+The day after the sewing society Ellen Dix went up to her room, after
+hurriedly washing the dinner dishes. It was still hot, but a vague
+haze had crept across the brazen sky since morning. Ellen's room
+looked out into cool green depths of trees, so that on a cloudy day
+it was almost too dark to examine the contents of the closet opposite
+its two east windows.
+
+It was a pretty room, freshly papered and painted, as were many rooms
+in Brookville since the sale of the old Bolton properties. Nearly
+every one had scrimped and saved and gone without so long that the
+sudden influx of money into empty pockets had acted like wine in a
+hungry stomach. Henry Daggett had thrice replenished his stock of
+wall papers; window shades and curtaining by the yard had been in
+constant demand for weeks; bright colored chintzes and gay flowered
+cretonnes were apparently a prime necessity in many households. As
+for paper hangers and painters, few awaited their unhurried
+movements. It was easy for anybody with energy and common sense to
+wield a paintbrush; and old paper could be scraped off and fresh
+strips applied by a simple application of flour paste and the
+fundamental laws of physics. One improvement clamors loudly for
+another, and money was still coming in from the most unexpected
+sources, so new furniture was bought to take the place of unprized
+chairs and tables long ago salvaged from the Bolton wreck. And since
+Mrs. Deacon Whittle's dream parlor, with its marble-tops and
+plush-upholstered furniture, had become a solid reality, other
+parlors burgeoned forth in multi-colored magnificence. Scraggy old
+shrubs were trimmed; grass was cut in unkempt dooryards; flowers were
+planted--and all because of the lavish display of such improvements
+at Bolton House, as "that queer Orr girl" persisted in calling it;
+thereby flying in the face of public opinion and local prejudice in a
+way which soured the milk of human kindness before the cream of
+gratitude could rise.
+
+Everybody agreed that there was something mysterious, if not entirely
+unnatural in the conduct of the young woman. Nobody likes unsolved
+riddles for long. The moment or century of suspense may prove
+interesting--even exciting; but human intelligence resents the
+Sphynx.
+
+Ellen Dix was intensely human. She was, moreover, jealous--or
+supposed she was, which often amounts to the same thing. And because
+of this she was looking over the dresses, hanging on pegs along her
+closet wall, with a demurely puckered brow. The pink muslin was
+becoming, but old-fashioned; the pale yellow trimmed with black
+velvet might get soiled with the dust, and she wasn't sure it would
+wash. She finally selected a white dress of a new and becoming style,
+attired in which she presently stood before her mirror adjusting a
+plain Panama hat, trimmed simply with a black ribbon. Not for nothing
+had Ellen used her handsome dark eyes. She set the hat over her black
+hair at exactly the right angle, skewering it securely in place with
+two silver pins, also severely simple in their style and quite unlike
+the glittering rhinestone variety offered for sale in Henry Daggett's
+general store.
+
+"I'm going out for a while, mother," she said, as she passed the room
+where Mrs. Dix was placidly sewing carpet rags out of materials
+prodigiously increased of late, since both women had been able to
+afford several new dresses.
+
+"Going to Fanny's?" inquired Mrs. Dix.... "Seems to me you're
+starting out pretty early, dear, in all this heat. If you'll wait
+till sundown, I'll go with you. I haven't seen their parlor since
+they got the new curtains up."
+
+"I'm not going to Fanny's, right off," said Ellen evasively. "Maybe
+I'll stop on the way back, though. 'Tisn't very hot; it's clouded up
+some."
+
+"Better taken an umbrella," her mother sent after her. "We might get
+a thunder storm along towards four o'clock. My shoulder's been
+paining me all the morning."
+
+But Ellen had already passed out of hearing, her fresh skirts held
+well away from the dusty wayside weeds.
+
+She was going, with intentions undefined, to see Lydia Orr. Perhaps
+(she was thinking) she might see Jim Dodge. Anyway, she wanted to go
+to Bolton House. She would find out for herself wherein lay the
+curious fascination of which Fanny had spoken. She was surprised at
+Fanny for so easily giving in about the furniture. Secretly, she
+considered herself to be possibly a bit shrewder than Fanny. In
+reality she was not as easily influenced, and slower at forming
+conclusions. She possessed a mind of more scope.
+
+Ellen walked along, setting her pointed feet down very carefully so
+as not to raise the dust and soil her nice skirts. She was a dainty
+creature. When she reached the hedge which marked the beginning of
+the Bolton estate, she started, not violently, that was not her way,
+but anybody is more startled at the sudden glimpse of a figure at
+complete rest, almost rigidity, than of a figure in motion. Had the
+old man whom Ellen saw been walking along toward her, she would not
+have started at all. She might have glanced at him with passing
+curiosity, since he was a stranger in Brookville, then that would
+have been the end of it. But this old man, standing as firmly fixed
+as a statue against the hedge, startled the girl. He was rather a
+handsome old man, but there was something peculiar about him. For one
+thing he was better dressed than old men in Brookville generally
+were. He wore a light Palm Beach cloth suit, possibly too young for
+him, also a Panama hat. He did not look altogether tidy. He did not
+wear his up-to-date clothes very well. He had a rumpled appearance.
+He was very pale almost with the paleness of wax. He did not stand
+strongly, but rested his weight first on one foot, then on the other.
+Ellen recovered her composure, but as she was passing, he spoke
+suddenly. His tone was eager and pitiful. "Why Ann Eliza Dix," he
+said. "How do you do? You are not going to pass without speaking to
+me?"
+
+"My name is Dix, but not Ann Eliza," said Ellen politely; "my name is
+Ellen."
+
+"You are Cephas Dix's sister, Ann Eliza," insisted the old man. His
+eyes looked suddenly tearful. "I know I am right," he said. "You are
+Ann Eliza Dix."
+
+The girl felt a sudden pity. Her Aunt Ann Eliza Dix had been lying in
+her grave for ten years, but she could not contradict the poor man.
+"Of course," she said. "How do you do?"
+
+The old man's face lit up. "I knew I was right," he said. "I forget,
+you see, sometimes, but this time I was sure. How are you, Ann
+Eliza?"
+
+"Very well, thank you."
+
+"How is Cephas?"
+
+"He is well, too."
+
+"And your father?"
+
+Ellen shivered a little. It was rather bewildering. This strange old
+man must mean her grandfather, who had died before her Aunt Ann
+Eliza. She replied faintly that he was well, and hoped, with a qualm
+of ghastly mirth, that she was speaking the truth. Ellen's
+grandfather had not been exactly a godly man, and the family seldom
+mentioned him.
+
+"He means well, Ann Eliza, if sometimes you don't exactly like the
+way he does," said the living old man, excusing the dead one for the
+faults of his life.
+
+"I know he does," said Ellen. The desire to laugh grew upon her.
+
+She was relieved when the stranger changed the subject. She felt that
+she would become hysterical if this forcible resurrection of her dead
+relatives continued.
+
+"Do you like an automobile?" asked the old man.
+
+"I don't know, I never had one."
+
+The stranger looked at her confidingly. "My daughter has one," he
+said, "and I know she bought it for me, and she has me taken out in
+it, but I am afraid. It goes too fast. I can't get over being afraid.
+But you won't tell her, will you, Ann Eliza?"
+
+"Of course I won't."
+
+Ellen continued to gaze at him, but she did not speak.
+
+"Let me see, what is your name, my dear?" the man went on. He was
+leaning on his stick, and Ellen noticed that he trembled slightly, as
+though with weakness. He breathed hard. The veinous hands folded on
+top of the stick were almost as white as his ears.
+
+"My name is Ellen Dix," she said.
+
+"Dix--Dix?" repeated the man. "Why, I know that name, certainly, of
+course! You must be the daughter of Cephas Dix. Odd name, Cephas,
+eh?"
+
+Ellen nodded, her eyes still busy with the details of the stranger's
+appearance. She was sure she had never seen him before, yet he knew
+her father's name.
+
+"My father has been dead a long time," she said; "ever since I was a
+little girl."
+
+The man appeared singularly disquieted by this intelligence. "I
+hadn't heard that," he said. "Dead--a long time? Well!"
+
+He scowled, flourishing his stick as if to pass on; then settled to
+his former posture, his pale hands folded on its handsome gold top.
+
+"Cephas Dix wasn't an old man," he muttered, as if talking to
+himself. "Not old. He should be hale and hearty, living in this good
+country air. Wonderful air this, my dear."
+
+And he drew a deep breath, his wandering gaze returning swiftly to
+the girl's face.
+
+"I was just walking out," he said, nodding briskly. "Great treat to
+be able to walk out. I shall walk out whenever I like. Don't care for
+automobiles--get you over the road too fast. No, no; I won't go out
+in the automobile, unless I feel like it! No, I won't; and there's an
+end of it!"
+
+He brought his stick down heavily in the dust, as if emphasizing this
+statement.
+
+"Guess your father left you pretty well off, eh, my dear?" he went on
+presently. "Glad to see you looking so fresh and neat. Always like to
+see a pretty girl well dressed."
+
+The man's eyes, extraordinarily bright and keen, roved nimbly over
+her face and figure.
+
+"No, he did not," replied Ellen. "My father used to be rich," she
+went on. "I've heard mother tell about it hundreds of times. We had
+horses and a carriage and plenty of money; but when the bank went to
+pieces my father lost everything. Then he died."
+
+The man was peering at her from under his shaggy gray brows.
+
+"But not because the bank failed? Surely not because he lost his
+money? That sort of thing doesn't kill a man, my dear. No, no!"
+
+"It did," declared Ellen firmly.
+
+The man at once seemed to grow smaller; to huddle together in his
+clothes. He muttered something unintelligible, then turned squarely
+about, so that Ellen could see only his hunched back and the
+glistening white hair cut close behind his waxen ears.
+
+The girl walked thoughtfully on, but when she paused to look back she
+saw that he had resumed his slow walk in the opposite direction, his
+stick describing odd flourishes in the air, as before.
+
+When she reached Bolton House she was ushered into a beautiful parlor
+by a prim maid in a frilled cap and apron. The maid presented to her
+attention a small silver tray, and Ellen, blushing uncomfortably
+because she had no card, asked for Miss Orr.
+
+Soon the frilled maid reappeared. "I'm sorry, Miss," she said, "I
+thought Miss Lydia was at home, but I can't find her anywheres
+about."
+
+She eyed Ellen's trim figure doubtfully. "If there was any message--"
+
+"No," said Ellen. "I only came to call."
+
+"I'm real sorry, Miss," repeated the maid. "Miss Lydia'll be sorry,
+too. Who shall I say, please?"
+
+"Miss Dix," replied Ellen. She walked past the maid, who held the
+door wide for her exit. Then she paused. A surprising sight met her
+eyes. Lydia Orr, hatless, flushed as if by rapid flight, was just
+reaching the steps, convoying the strange old man Ellen had met on
+the road a short time before.
+
+The maid at her back gave a little cry. Ellen stood staring. So this
+was the person Jim Dodge had gone to fetch from somewhere!
+
+"But it isn't too warm for me to be walking out to take the air," she
+heard, in the heavy mumble of the man's voice. "I don't like being
+watched, Lydia; and I won't stand it, either. I might as well be--"
+
+Lydia interrupted him with a sharp exclamation. She had caught sight
+of Ellen Dix standing under the deep portico, the scared face of the
+maid looking over her shoulder.
+
+Ellen's face crimsoned slowly. All at once she felt unaccountably
+sorry and ashamed. She wished she had not come. She felt that she
+wanted nothing so much as to hurry swiftly away.
+
+But Lydia Orr, still holding the strange old man by the arm, was
+already coming up the steps.
+
+"I'll not go in the automobile, child," he repeated, with an
+obstinate flourish of his stick. "I don't like to ride so fast. I
+want to see things. I want--"
+
+He stopped short, his mouth gaping, his eyes staring at Ellen.
+
+"That girl!" he almost shouted. "She told me--I don't want her
+here.... Go away, girl, you make my head hurt!"
+
+Lydia flashed a beseeching look at Ellen, as she led the old man
+past.
+
+"Please come in," she said; "I shall be at liberty in just a
+moment.... Come, father!"
+
+Ellen hesitated.
+
+"Perhaps I'd better not, today," she murmured, and slowly descended
+the steps.
+
+The discreet maid closed the door behind her.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVIII
+
+
+Ellen did not at once return home. She walked on reflecting. So the
+old man was Lydia Orr's father! And she was the first to know it!
+
+The girl had never spoken of her father, Ellen was sure. Had she done
+so, Mrs. Solomon Black would certainly have told Mrs. Whittle, and
+Mrs. Whittle would have informed Mrs. Daggett, and thence, by way of
+Mrs. Dodge and Fanny, the news would long ago have reached Ellen and
+her mother.
+
+Before she had covered a quarter of a mile of the dusty road, Ellen
+heard the muffled roar of an over-taking motor car. She glanced up,
+startled and half choked with the enveloping cloud of dust. Jim Dodge
+was driving the car. He slowed down and stopped.
+
+"Hello, Ellen. Going down to the village? Get in and I'll take you
+along," he called out.
+
+"All right," said Ellen, jumping in.
+
+"I haven't seen you for an age, Jim," said Ellen after awhile.
+
+The young man laughed. "Does it seem that long to you, Ellen?"
+
+"No, why should it?" she returned.
+
+"I say, Ellen," said Jim, "I saw you when you came out of Bolton
+House just now."
+
+"Did you?"
+
+"Yes."  He looked sharply at Ellen, who smiled evasively.
+
+"I was going to call," she said with an innocent air, "but Miss Orr
+had--a visitor."
+
+"Look here, Ellen; don't let's beat about the bush. Nobody knows he's
+there, yet, except myself and--you. You met him on the road; didn't
+you?"
+
+"Yes," said Ellen, "I met him on the road."
+
+"Did he talk to you?"
+
+"He asked me what my name was. He's crazy, isn't he, Jim?"
+
+The young man frowned thoughtfully at his steering wheel.
+
+"Not exactly," he said, after a pause. "He's been sick a long time
+and his mind is--well, I think it has been somewhat affected. Did
+he-- He didn't talk to you about himself, did he?"
+
+"What do you want to know for?"
+
+"Oh, he appeared rather excited, and--"
+
+"Yes; I noticed that."  She laughed mischievously.
+
+Jim frowned. "Come, Ellen, quit this nonsense! What did he say to
+you?"
+
+"If you mean Mr. Orr--"
+
+He turned his eyes from the road to stare at her for an instant.
+
+"Did he tell you his name was Orr?" he asked sharply.
+
+It was Ellen's turn to stare.
+
+"Why, if he is Miss Orr's father--" she began.
+
+"Oh, of course," said Jim hurriedly. "I was just wondering if he had
+introduced himself."
+
+Ellen was silent. She was convinced that there was some mystery about
+the pale old man.
+
+"He said a lot of awfully queer things to me," she admitted, after a
+pause during which Jim turned the car into a side road.... "I thought
+you were going to the village."
+
+"This will take us to the village--give you a longer ride, Ellen.
+I'll take you home afterwards."
+
+"After what?"
+
+"Why, after we've got the mail--or whatever you want."
+
+"Don't you think Miss Orr and that queer old Mr. ---- If his name
+isn't Orr, Jim, what is it?"  She shot a quick glance at him.
+
+"Good Lord!" muttered Jim profanely.
+
+He drew the car up at the side of the road and stopped it.
+
+"What are you going to do?" inquired Ellen, in some alarm. "Won't it
+go?"
+
+"When I get ready," said Jim.
+
+He turned and faced her squarely:
+
+"We'll have this out, before we go a foot further! I won't have the
+whole town talking," he said savagely.
+
+Ellen said nothing. She was rather angry.
+
+"The devil!" cried Jim Dodge. "What's the matter with you, Ellen?"
+
+"With me?" she repeated.
+
+"Yes. Why can't you talk?"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders. "I want to go home," she said.
+
+He seized her roughly by the wrist. "Ellen," he said, "I believe you
+know more than you are willing to tell."  He stared down into her
+eyes. "What did he say to you, anyway?"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"You know well enough. The old man. Lord, what a mess!"
+
+"Please let me go, Jim," said Ellen. "Now look here, I know
+absolutely nothing except what I have told you, and I want to go
+home."
+
+_"Ellen!"_
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Can you keep a secret?"
+
+"Of course I can, Jim!"  She met his dark gaze squarely.
+
+"Well, rather than have you spreading a piece of damnable gossip over
+the village-- Of course you would have told everybody."
+
+"You mean about meeting the old man? But won't everybody know? If he
+goes out and talks to people as he did to me?"
+
+"You haven't told me what he said."
+
+Ellen raised her brows with a mischievous air.
+
+"I didn't care to spread any--what sort of gossip did you say, Jim?"
+
+"Confound it! I didn't mean that."
+
+"Of course I could see he was some one who used to live here," she
+went on. "He knew father."
+
+Jim had thrust his hands deep into his trousers' pockets. He uttered
+an impatient ejaculation.
+
+"And he said he should go out whenever he felt like it. He doesn't
+like the automobile."
+
+"Oh, it's an impossible proposition. I see that plainly enough!" Jim
+said, as if to himself. "But it seems a pity--"
+
+He appeared to plunge into profound meditation.
+
+"I say, Ellen, you like her; don't you? ...Don't see how you can help
+it. She's a wonder!"
+
+"Who? Miss Orr?"
+
+"Of course! Say, Ellen, if you knew what that girl has gone through,
+without a murmur; and now I'm afraid-- By George! we ought to spare
+her."
+
+"We?"
+
+"Yes; you and I. You can do a lot to help, Ellen, if you will. That
+old man you saw is sick, hardly sane. And no wonder."
+
+He stopped short and stared fixedly at his companion.
+
+"Did you guess who he was?" he asked abruptly.
+
+Ellen reflected. "I can guess--if you'll give me time."
+
+Jim made an impatient gesture. "That's just what I thought," he
+growled. "There'll be the devil to pay generally."
+
+"Jim," said Ellen earnestly, "if we are to help her, you must tell me
+all about that old man."
+
+"_She_ wanted to tell everybody," he recollected gloomily. "And why
+not you? Imagine an innocent child set apart from the world by
+another's crime, Ellen. See, if you can, that child growing up, with
+but one thought, one ideal--the welfare of that other person. Picture
+to yourself what it would be like to live solely to make a great
+wrong right, and to save the wrongdoer. Literally, Ellen, she has
+borne that man's grief and carried his sorrow, as truly as any
+vaunted Saviour of the world. Can you see it?"
+
+"Do you mean--? Is _that_ why she calls it _Bolton_ House? Of course!
+And that dreadful old man is-- But, Jim, everybody will find it out."
+
+"You're right," he acknowledged. "But they mustn't find it out just
+yet. We must put it off till the man can shake that hang-dog air of
+his. Why, he can't even walk decently. Prison is written all over
+him. Thank God, she doesn't seem to see it!"
+
+"I'm so glad you told me, Jim," said Ellen gently.
+
+"You won't say a word about this, will you, Ellen?" he asked
+anxiously. "I can depend on you?"
+
+"Give me a little credit for decency and common sense," replied
+Ellen.
+
+Jim bent over the wheel and kissed her.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIX
+
+
+Rain was falling in torrents, slanting past the windows of the old
+parsonage in long gray lines, gurgling up between loosened panes, and
+drip-dropping resoundingly in the rusty pan the minister had set
+under a broken spot in the ceiling. Upstairs a loosened shutter
+banged intermittently under the impact of the wind, which howled
+past, to lose itself with great commotion in the tops of the tall
+evergreens in the churchyard. It was the sort of day when untoward
+events, near and far, stand out with unpleasant prominence against
+the background of one's everyday life. A day in which a man is led,
+whether he will or not, to take stock of himself and to balance with
+some care the credit and debit sides of his ledger.
+
+Wesley Elliot had been working diligently on his sermon since nine
+o'clock that morning, at which hour he had deserted Mrs. Solomon
+Black's comfortable tight roof, to walk under the inadequate shelter
+of a leaking umbrella to the parsonage.
+
+Three closely written pages in the minister's neat firm handwriting
+attested his uninterrupted diligence. At the top of the fourth page
+he set a careful numeral, under it wrote "Thirdly," then paused, laid
+down his pen, yawned wearily and gazed out at the dripping shrubbery.
+The rain had come too late to help the farmers, he was thinking. It
+was always that way: too much sunshine and dry weather; then too much
+rain--floods of it, deluges of it.
+
+He got up from his chair, stretched his cramped limbs and began
+marching up and down the floor. He had fully intended to get away
+from Brookville before another winter set in. But there were reasons
+why he felt in no hurry to leave the place. He compelled himself to
+consider them.
+
+Was he in love with Lydia Orr? Honestly, he didn't know. He had half
+thought he was, for a whole month, during which Lydia had faced him
+across Mrs. Solomon Black's table three times a day.
+
+As he walked up and down, he viewed the situation. Lydia had
+declared, not once but often, that she wanted friends. Women always
+talked that way, and meant otherwise. But did she? The minister shook
+his head dubiously. He thought of Lydia Orr, of her beauty, of her
+elusive sweetness. He was ashamed to think of her money, but he owned
+to himself that he did.
+
+Then he left his study and rambled about the chill rooms of the lower
+floor. From the windows of the parlor, where he paused to stare out,
+he could look for some distance up the street. He noticed dully the
+double row of maples from which yellowed leaves were already
+beginning to fall and the ugly fronts of houses, behind their shabby
+picket fences. A wagon was creaking slowly through a shallow sea of
+mud which had been dust the day before: beyond the hunched figure of
+the teamster not a human being was in sight. Somewhere, a dog barked
+fitfully and was answered by other dogs far away; and always the
+shutter banged at uncertain intervals upstairs. This nuisance, at
+least, could be abated. He presently located the shutter and closed
+it; then, because its fastening had rusted quite away, sought for a
+bit of twine in his pocket and was about to tie it fast when the wind
+wrenched it again from his hold. As he thrust a black-coated arm from
+the window to secure the unruly disturber of the peace he saw a man
+fumbling with the fastening of the parsonage gate. Before he could
+reach the foot of the stairs the long unused doorbell jangled
+noisily.
+
+He did not recognize the figure which confronted him on the stoop,
+when at last he succeeded in undoing the door. The man wore a
+raincoat turned up about his chin and the soft brim of a felt hat
+dripped water upon its close-buttoned front.
+
+"Good-morning, good-morning, sir!" said the stranger, as if his words
+had awaited the opening of the door with scant patience. "You are
+the--er--local clergyman, I suppose?"
+
+At uncertain periods Wesley Elliot had been visited by a migratory
+_colporteur_, and less frequently by impecunious persons representing
+themselves to be fellow warriors on the walls of Zion, temporarily
+out of ammunition. In the brief interval during which he convoyed the
+stranger from the chilly obscurity of the hall to the dubious comfort
+of his study, he endeavored to place his visitor in one of these two
+classes, but without success.
+
+"Didn't stop for an umbrella," explained the man, rubbing his hands
+before the stove, in which the minister was striving to kindle a
+livelier blaze.
+
+Divested of his dripping coat and hat he appeared somewhat stooped
+and feeble; he coughed slightly, as he gazed about the room.
+
+"What's the matter here?" he inquired abruptly; "don't they pay you
+your salary?"
+
+The minister explained in brief his slight occupancy of the
+parsonage; whereat the stranger shook his head:
+
+"That's wrong--all wrong," he pronounced: "A parson should be married
+and have children--plenty of them. Last time I was here, couldn't
+hear myself speak there was such a racket of children in the hall.
+Mother sick upstairs, and the kids sliding down the banisters like
+mad. I left the parson a check; poor devil!"
+
+He appeared to fall into a fit of musing, his eyes on the floor.
+
+"I see you're wondering who I am, young man," he said presently.
+"Well, we're coming to that, presently. I want some advice; so I
+shall merely put the case baldly.... I wanted advice, before; but the
+parson of that day couldn't give me the right sort. Good Lord! I can
+see him yet: short man, rather stout and baldish. Meant well, but his
+religion wasn't worth a bean to me that day.... Religion is all very
+well to talk about on a Sunday; broadcloth coat, white tie and that
+sort of thing; good for funerals, too, when a man's dead and can't
+answer back. Sometimes I've amused myself wondering what a dead man
+would say to a parson, if he could sit up in his coffin and talk five
+minutes of what's happened to him since they called him dead.
+Interesting to think of--eh? ...Had lots of time to think.... Thought
+of most everything that ever happened; and more that didn't."
+
+"You are a stranger in Brookville, sir?" observed Wesley Elliot,
+politely.
+
+He had already decided that the man was neither a _colporteur_ nor a
+clerical mendicant; his clothes were too good, for one thing.
+
+The man laughed, a short, unpleasant sound which ended in a fit of
+coughing.
+
+"A stranger in Brookville?" he echoed. "Well; not precisely.... But
+never mind that, young man. Now, you're a clergyman, and on that
+account supposed to have more than ordinary good judgment: what would
+you advise a man to do, who had--er--been out of active life for a
+number of years. In a hospital, we'll say, incapacitated, very much
+so. When he comes out, he finds himself quite pleasantly situated, in
+a way; good home, and all that sort of thing; but not allowed to--to
+use his judgment in any way. Watched--yes, watched, by a person who
+ought to know better. It's intolerable--intolerable! Why, you'll not
+believe me when I tell you I'm obliged to sneak out of my own house
+on the sly--on the sly, you understand, for the purpose of taking
+needful exercise."
+
+He stopped short and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief, the
+fineness of which the minister noted mechanically--with other details
+which had before escaped him; such as the extreme, yellowish pallor
+of the man's face and hands and the extraordinary swiftness and
+brightness of his eyes. He was conscious of growing uneasiness as he
+said:
+
+"That sounds very unpleasant, sir; but as I am not in possession of
+the facts--"
+
+"But I just told you," interrupted the stranger. "Didn't I say--"
+
+"You didn't make clear to me what the motives of this person who
+tries to control your movements are. You didn't tell me--"
+
+The man moved his hand before his face, like one trying to brush away
+imaginary flies.
+
+"I suppose she has her motives," he said fretfully. "And very likely
+they're good. I'll not deny that. But I can't make her see that this
+constant espionage--this everlasting watchfulness is not to be borne.
+I want freedom, and by God I'll have it!"
+
+He sprang from his chair and began pacing the room.
+
+Wesley Elliot stared at his visitor without speaking. He perceived
+that the man dragged his feet, as if from excessive fatigue or
+weakness.
+
+"I had no thought of such a thing," the stranger went on. "I'd
+planned, as a man will who looks forward to release from--from a
+hospital, how I'd go about and see my old neighbors. I wanted to have
+them in for dinners and luncheons--people I haven't seen for years.
+She knows them. She can't excuse herself on that ground. She knows
+you."
+
+He stopped short and eyed the minister, a slow grin spreading over
+his face.
+
+"The last time you were at my house I had a good mind to walk in and
+make your acquaintance, then and there. I heard you talking to her.
+You admire my daughter: that's easy to see; and she's not such a bad
+match, everything considered."
+
+"Who are you?" demanded the young man sharply.
+
+"I am a man who's been dead and buried these eighteen years," replied
+the other. "But I'm alive still--very much alive; and they'll find it
+out."
+
+An ugly scowl distorted the man's pale face. For an instant he stared
+past Wesley Elliot, his eyes resting on an irregular splotch of damp
+on the wall. Then he shook himself.
+
+"I'm alive," he repeated slowly. "And I'm free!"
+
+"Who are you?" asked the minister for the second time.
+
+For all his superior height and the sinewy strength of his young
+shoulders he began to be afraid of the man who had come to him out of
+the storm. There was something strangely disconcerting, even
+sinister, in the ceaseless movements of his pale hands and the sudden
+lightning dart of his eyes, as they shifted from the defaced wall to
+his own perturbed face.
+
+By way of reply the man burst into a disagreeable cackle of laughter:
+
+"Stopped in at the old bank building on my way," he said. "Got it all
+fixed up for a reading room and library. Quite a nice idea for the
+villagers. I'd planned something of the sort, myself. Approve of that
+sort of thing for a rural population. Who--was the benefactor in this
+case--eh? Take it for granted the villagers didn't do it for
+themselves. The women in charge there referred me to you for
+information.... Don't be in haste, young man. I'll answer your
+question in good time. Who gave the library, fixed up the building
+and all that? Must have cost something."
+
+The minister sat down with an assumption of ease he did not feel,
+facing the stranger who had already possessed himself of the one
+comfortable chair in the room.
+
+"The library," he said, "was given to the village by a Miss Orr, a
+young woman who has recently settled in Brookville. She has done a
+good deal for the place, in various ways."
+
+"What ways?" asked the stranger, with an air of interest.
+
+Wesley Elliot enumerated briefly the number of benefits: the purchase
+and rebuilding of the old Bolton house, the construction of the
+waterworks, at present under way, the library and reading room, with
+the town hall above. "There are," he stated, "other things which
+might be mentioned; such as the improvement of the village green,
+repairs on the church, the beginning of a fund for lighting the
+streets, as well as innumerable smaller benefactions, involving
+individuals in and around Brookville."
+
+The man listened alertly. When the minister paused, he said:
+
+"The young woman you speak of appears to have a deep pocket."
+
+The minister did not deny this. And the man spoke again, after a
+period of frowning silence:
+
+"What was her idea?-- Orr, you said her name was?--in doing all this
+for Brookville? Rather remarkable--eh?"
+
+His tone, like his words, was mild and commonplace; but his face wore
+an ugly sneering look, which enraged the minister.
+
+"Miss Orr's motive for thus benefiting a wretched community,
+well-nigh ruined years ago by the villainy of one man, should be held
+sacred from criticism," he said, with heat.
+
+"Well, let me tell you the girl had a motive--or thought she had,"
+said the stranger unpleasantly. "But she had no right to spend her
+money that way. You spoke just now of the village as being ruined
+years ago by the villainy of one man. That's a lie! The village
+ruined the man.... Never looked at it that way; did you? Andrew
+Bolton had the interests of this place more deeply at heart than any
+other human being ever did. He was the one public-spirited man in the
+place.... Do you know who built your church, young man? I see you
+don't. Well, Andrew Bolton built it, with mighty little help from
+your whining, hypocritical church members. Every Tom, Dick and Harry,
+for miles about; every old maid with a book to sell; every cause--as
+they call the thousand and one pious schemes to line their own
+pockets--every damned one of 'em came to Andrew Bolton for money, and
+he gave it to them. He was no hoarding skinflint; not he. Better for
+him if he had been. When luck went against him, as it did at last,
+these precious villagers turned on him like a pack of wolves. They
+killed his wife; stripped his one child of everything--even to the
+bed she slept in; and the man himself they buried alive under a
+mountain of stone and iron, where he rotted for eighteen years!"
+
+The stranger's eyes were glaring with maniacal fury; he shook a
+tremulous yellow finger in the other's face.
+
+"Talk about ruin!" he shouted. "Talk about one man's villainy! This
+damnable village deserves to be razed off the face of the earth! ...
+But I meant to forgive them. I was willing to call the score even."
+
+A nameless fear had gripped the younger man by the throat.
+
+"Are you--?" he began; but could not speak the words.
+
+"My name," said the stranger, with astonishing composure, in view of
+his late fury, "is Andrew Bolton; and the girl you have been praising
+and--courting--is my daughter. Now you see what a sentimental fool a
+woman can be. Well; I'll have it out with her. I'll live here in
+Brookville on equal terms with my neighbors. If there was ever a debt
+between us, it's been paid to the uttermost farthing. I've paid it in
+flesh and blood and manhood. Is there any money--any property you can
+name worth eighteen years of a man's life? And such years-- God! such
+years!"
+
+Wesley Elliot stared. At last he understood the girl, and as he
+thought of her shrinking aloofness standing guard over her eager
+longing for friends--for affection, something hot and wet blurred his
+eyes. He was scarcely conscious that the man, who had taken to
+himself the name with which he had become hatefully familiar during
+his years in Brookville, was still speaking, till a startling
+sentence or two aroused him.
+
+"There's no reason under heaven why you should not marry her, if you
+like. Convict's daughter? Bah! I snap my fingers in their faces. My
+girl shall be happy yet. I swear it! But we'll stop all this sickly
+sentimentality about the money. We'll--"
+
+The minister held up a warning hand.
+
+An immense yearning pity for Lydia had taken possession of him; but
+for the man who had thus risen from a dishonorable grave to blight
+her girlhood he felt not a whit.
+
+"You'd better keep quiet," he said sternly. "You'd far better go away
+and leave her to live her life alone."
+
+"You'd like that; wouldn't you?" said Bolton dryly.
+
+He leaned forward and stared the young man in the eyes.
+
+"But she wouldn't have it that way. Do you know that girl of mine
+wouldn't hear of it. She expects to make it up to me.... Imagine
+making up eighteen years of hell with a few pet names, a soft bed
+and--"
+
+"Stop!" cried Wesley Elliot, with a gesture of loathing. "I can't
+listen to you."
+
+"But you'll marry her--eh?"
+
+Bolton's voice again dropped into a whining monotone. He even smiled
+deprecatingly.
+
+"You'll excuse my ranting a bit, sir. It's natural after what I've
+gone through. You've never been in a prison, maybe. And you don't
+know what it's like to shake the bars of a cell at midnight and howl
+out of sheer madness to be off and away--somewhere, anywhere!"
+
+He leaned forward and touched the minister on the knee.
+
+"And that brings me back to my idea in coming to see you. I'm a
+level-headed man, still--quite cool and collected, as you see--and
+I've been thinking the situation over."
+
+He drew his brows together and stared hard at the minister.
+
+"I've a proposition to make to you--as man to man. Can't talk reason
+to a woman; there's no reason in a woman's make-up--just sentiment
+and affection and imagination: an impossible combination, when there
+are hard realities to face.... I see you don't agree with me; but
+never mind that; just hear what I have to say."
+
+But he appeared in no haste to go on, for all the eagerness of his
+eyes and those pallid, restless hands. The minister got quickly to
+his feet. The situation was momentarily becoming intolerable; he must
+have time to think it over, he told himself, and determine his own
+relations to this new and unwelcome parishioner.
+
+"I'm very sorry, sir," he began; "but--"
+
+"None of that," growled Bolton. "Sit down, young man, and listen to
+what I have to say to you. We may not have another chance like this."
+
+His assumption of a common interest between them was most
+distasteful; but for all that the minister resumed his chair.
+
+"Now, as I've told you, my daughter appears unwilling to allow me out
+of her sight. She tries to cover her watchfulness under a pretense of
+solicitude for my health. I'm not well, of course; was knocked down
+and beaten about the head by one of those devils in the prison--
+Can't call them men: no decent man would choose to earn his living
+that way. But cosseting and coddling in a warm house will never
+restore me. I want freedom--nothing less. I must be out and away when
+the mood seizes me night or day. Her affection stifles me at
+times.... You can't understand that, of course; you think I'm
+ungrateful, no doubt; and that I ought--"
+
+"You appear to me, a monster of selfishness," Wesley Elliot broke in.
+"You ought to stop thinking of yourself and think of her."
+
+Bolton's face drew itself into the mirthless wrinkles which passed
+for a smile.
+
+"I'm coming to that," he said with some eagerness. "I do think of
+her; and that's why-- Can't you see, man, that eighteen years of
+prison don't grow the domestic virtues? A monster of selfishness?
+You're dead right. I'm all of that; and I'm too old to change. I
+can't play the part of a doting father. I thought I could, before I
+got out; but I can't. Twice I've been tempted to knock her down, when
+she stood between me and the door.... Keep cool; I didn't do it! But
+I'm afraid of myself, I tell you. I've got to have my liberty. She
+can have hers.... Now here's my proposition: Lydia's got money. I
+don't know how much. My brother-in-law was a close man. Never even
+knew he was rich. But she's got it--all but what she's spent here
+trying to square accounts, as she thought. Do they thank her for it?
+Not much. I know them! But see here, you marry Lydia, whenever you
+like; then give me ten thousand dollars, and I'll clear out. I'm not
+a desirable father-in-law; I know that, as well as you do. But I'll
+guarantee to disappear, once my girl is settled. Is it a bargain?"
+
+Elliot shook his head.
+
+"Your daughter doesn't love me," he said.
+
+Bolton flung up his hand in an impatient gesture of dissent.
+
+"I stood in the way," he said. "She was thinking of me, don't you
+see? But if I get out-- Oh, I promise you I'll make myself scarce,
+once this matter is settled."
+
+"What you propose is impossible, on the face of it," the minister
+said slowly. "I am sorry--"
+
+"Impossible! Why impossible?" shouted Bolton, in a sudden fury.
+"You've been courting my daughter--don't try to crawl out of it, now
+you know what I am. I'll not stand in the way, I tell you. Why, the
+devil--"
+
+He stopped short, his restless eyes roving over the young man's face
+and figure:
+
+"Oh, I see!" he sneered. "I begin to understand: 'the sanctity of the
+cloth'--'my sacred calling'-- Yes, yes! And perhaps my price seems a
+bit high: ten thousand dollars--"
+
+Elliot sprang from his chair and stood over the cringing figure of
+the ex-convict.
+
+"I could strike you," he said in a smothered voice; "but you are an
+old man and--not responsible. You don't understand what you've said,
+perhaps; and I'll not try to make you see it as I do."
+
+"I supposed you were fond of my girl," mumbled Bolton. "I heard you
+tell her--"
+
+But the look in the younger man's eyes stopped him. His hand sought
+his heart in an uncertain gesture.
+
+"Have you any brandy?" he asked feebly. "I--I'm not well.... No
+matter; I'll go over to the tavern. I'll have them take me home.
+Tired, after all this; don't feel like walking."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XX
+
+
+The minister from the doorstep of the parsonage watched the stooped
+figure as it shambled down the street. The rain was still falling in
+torrents. The thought crossed his mind that the old man might not be
+able to compass the two miles or more of country road. Then he got
+into his raincoat and followed.
+
+"My umbrella isn't of the best," he said, as he overtook the toiling
+figure; "but I should have offered it."
+
+Andrew Bolton muttered something unintelligible, as he glanced up at
+the poor shelter the young man held over him. As he did not offer to
+avail himself of it the minister continued to walk at his side,
+accommodating his long free stride to the curious shuffling gait of
+the man who had spent eighteen years in prison. And so they passed
+the windowed fronts of the village houses, peering out from the
+dripping autumnal foliage like so many watchful eyes, till the hoarse
+signal of a motor car halted them, as they were about to cross the
+street in front of the Brookville House.
+
+From the open door of the car Lydia Orr's pale face looked out.
+
+"Oh, father," she said. "I've been looking for you everywhere!"
+
+She did not appear to see the minister.
+
+Bolton stepped into the car with a grunt.
+
+"Glad to see the old black Maria, for once," he chuckled. "Don't you
+recognize the parson, my dear? Nice fellow--the parson; been having
+quite a visit with him at the manse. Old stamping-ground of mine, you
+know. Always friendly with the parson."
+
+Wesley Elliot had swept the hat from his head. Lydia's eyes, blue and
+wide like those of a frightened child, met his with an anguished
+question.
+
+He bowed gravely.
+
+"I should have brought him home quite safe," he told her. "I intended
+ordering a carriage."
+
+The girl's lips shaped formal words of gratitude. Then the obedient
+humming of the motor deepened to a roar and the car glided swiftly
+away.
+
+On the opposite corner, her bunched skirts held high, stood Miss Lois
+Daggett.
+
+"Please wait a minute, Mr. Elliot," she called. "I'll walk right
+along under your umbrella, if you don't mind."
+
+Wesley Elliot bowed and crossed the street. "Certainly," he said.
+
+"I don't know why I didn't bring my own umbrella this morning," said
+Miss Daggett with a keen glance at Elliot. "That old man stopped in
+the library awhile ago, and he rather frightened me. He looked very
+odd and talked so queer. Did he come to the parsonage?"
+
+"Yes," said Wesley Elliot. "He came to the parsonage?"
+
+"Did he tell you who he was?"
+
+He had expected this question. But how should he answer it?
+
+"He told me he had been ill for a long time," said the minister
+evasively.
+
+"Ill!" repeated Miss Daggett shrilly. Then she said one word:
+"Insane."
+
+"People who are insane are not likely to mention it," said Elliot.
+
+"Then he is insane," said Miss Daggett with conviction.
+
+Wesley looked at her meditatively. Would the truth, the whole truth,
+openly proclaimed, be advisable at this juncture, he wondered. Lydia
+could not hope to keep her secret long. And there was danger in her
+attempt. He shuddered as he remembered the man's terrible words,
+"Twice I have been tempted to knock her down when she stood between
+me and the door."  Would it not be better to abandon this pretense
+sooner, rather than later? If the village knew the truth, would not
+the people show at least a semblance of kindness to the man who had
+expiated so bitterly the wrong he had done them?
+
+"If the man is insane," Miss Daggett said, "it doesn't seem right to
+me to have him at large."
+
+"I wish I knew what to do," said Elliot.
+
+"I think you ought to tell what you know if the man is insane."
+
+"Well, I will tell," said Elliot, almost fiercely. "That man is
+Andrew Bolton. He has come home after eighteen years of imprisonment,
+which have left him terribly weak in mind and body. Don't you think
+people will forgive him now?"
+
+A swift vindictiveness flashed into the woman's face. "I don't know,"
+said she.
+
+"Why in the world don't you know, Miss Daggett?"
+
+Then the true reason for the woman's rancor was disclosed. It was a
+reason as old as the human race, a suspicion as old as the human
+race, which she voiced. "I have said from the first," she declared,
+"that nobody would come here, as that girl did, and do so much unless
+she had a motive."
+
+Elliot stared at her. "Then you hate that poor child for trying to
+make up for the wrong her father did; and that, and not his
+wrongdoing, influences you?"
+
+Miss Daggett stared at him. Her face slowly reddened. "I wouldn't put
+it that way," she said.
+
+"What way would you put it?" demanded Elliot mercilessly. He was so
+furious that he forgot to hold the umbrella over Miss Daggett, and
+the rain drove in her hard, unhappy face. She did not seem to notice.
+She had led a poisoned life, in a narrow rut of existence, and toxic
+emotions had become as her native atmosphere of mind. Now she seemed
+to be about to breathe in a better air of humanity, and she choked
+under it.
+
+"If--" she stammered, "that was--her reason, but--I always felt--that
+nobody ever did such things without--as they used to say--an ax to
+grind."
+
+"This seems to me a holy sort of ax," said Elliot grimly, "and one
+for which a Christian woman should certainly not fling stones."
+
+They had reached the Daggett house. The woman stopped short. "You
+needn't think I'm going around talking, any more than you would," she
+said, and her voice snapped like a whip. She went up the steps, and
+Elliot went home, not knowing whether he had accomplished good or
+mischief.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXI
+
+
+Much to Mrs. Solomon Black's astonishment, Wesley Elliot ate no
+dinner that day. It was his habit to come in from a morning's work
+with a healthy young appetite keen-set for her beef and vegetables.
+He passed directly up to his room, although she called to him that
+dinner was ready. Finally she went upstairs and knocked smartly on
+his door.
+
+"Dinner's ready, Mr. Elliot," she called out.
+
+"I don't want any today, thank you, Mrs. Black," was his reply.
+
+"You ain't sick?"
+
+"Oh, no, only not hungry."
+
+Mrs. Black was alarmed when, later in the afternoon, she heard the
+front door slam, and beheld from a front window Elliot striding down
+the street. The rain had ceased falling, and there were ragged holes
+in the low-hanging clouds which revealed glimpses of dazzling blue.
+
+"I do hope he ain't coming down with a fever or something," Mrs.
+Black said aloud. Then she saw Mrs. Deacon Whittle, Lois Daggett,
+Mrs. Fulsom, and the wife of the postmaster approaching her house in
+the opposite direction. All appeared flushed and agitated, and Mrs.
+Black hastened to open her door, as she saw them hurrying up her wet
+gravel path.
+
+"Is the minister home?" demanded Lois Daggett breathlessly. "I want
+he should come right down here and tell you what he told me this
+noon. Abby Daggett seems to think I made it up out of whole cloth.
+Don't deny it, Abby. You know very well you said.... I s'pose of
+course he's told you, Mrs. Black."
+
+"Mr. Elliot has gone out," said Mrs. Black rather coldly.
+
+"Where's he gone?" demanded Lois.
+
+Mrs. Black was being devoured with curiosity; still she felt vaguely
+repelled.
+
+"Ladies," she said, her air of reserve deepening. "I don't know what
+you are talking about, but Mr. Elliot didn't eat any dinner, and he
+is either sick or troubled in his mind."
+
+"There! Now you c'n all see from that!" triumphed Lois Daggett.
+
+Mrs. Deacon Whittle and Mrs. Judge Fulsom gazed incredulously at Mrs.
+Solomon Black, then at one another.
+
+Abby Daggett, the soft round of her beautiful, kind face flushed and
+tremulous, murmured: "Poor man--poor man!"
+
+Mrs. Solomon Black with a masterly gesture headed the women toward
+her parlor, where a fire was burning in a splendidly nickeled stove
+full five feet high.
+
+"Now," said she; "we'll talk this over, whatever it is."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXII
+
+
+A mile from town, where the angry wind could be seen at work tearing
+the purple rainclouds into rags and tatters, through which the hidden
+sun shot long rays of pale splendor, Wesley Elliot was walking
+rapidly, his head bent, his eyes fixed and absent.
+
+He had just emerged from one of those crucial experiences of life,
+which, more than the turning of the earth upon its axis, serve to age
+a human being. For perhaps the first time in the brief span of his
+remembrance, he had scrutinized himself in the pitiless light of an
+intelligence higher than his own everyday consciousness; and the
+sight of that meaner self, striving to run to cover, had not been
+pleasant. Just why his late interview with Andrew Bolton should have
+precipitated this event, he could not possibly have explained to any
+one--and least of all to himself. He had begun, logically enough,
+with an illuminating review of the motives which led him into the
+ministry; they were a sorry lot, on the whole; but his subsequent
+ambitions appeared even worse. For the first time, he perceived his
+own consummate selfishness set over against the shining renunciations
+of his mother. Then, step by step, he followed his career in
+Brookville: his smug satisfaction in his own good looks; his shallow
+pride and vanity over the vapid insincerities he had perpetrated
+Sunday after Sunday in the shabby pulpit of the Brookville church;
+his Pharisaical relations with his people; his utter misunderstanding
+of their needs. All this proved poignant enough to force the big
+drops to his forehead.... There were other aspects of himself at
+which he scarcely dared look in his utter abasement of spirit; those
+dark hieroglyphics of the beast-self which appear on the whitest
+soul. He had supposed himself pure and saintly because, forsooth, he
+had concealed the arena of these primal passions beneath the surface
+of this outward life, chaining them there like leashed tigers in the
+dark.... Two faces of women appeared to be looking on, while he
+strove to unravel the snarl of his self-knowledge. Lydia's unworldly
+face, wearing a faint nimbus of unimagined self-immolation, and
+Fanny's--full of love and solicitude, the face which he had almost
+determined to forget.
+
+He was going to Lydia. Every newly awakened instinct of his manhood
+bade him go.
+
+She came to him at once, and without pretense of concealment began to
+speak of her father. She trembled a little as she asked:
+
+"He told you who he was?"
+
+Without waiting for his answer she gravely corrected herself.
+
+"I should have said, who _we_ are."
+
+She smiled a faint apology:
+
+"I have always been called Lydia Orr; it was my mother's name. I was
+adopted into my uncle's family, after father--went to prison."
+
+Her blue eyes met his pitying gaze without evasion.
+
+"I am glad you know," she said. "I think I shall be glad--to have
+every one know. I meant to tell them all, at first. But when I
+found--"
+
+"I know," he said in a low voice.
+
+Then because as yet he had said nothing to comfort her, or himself;
+and because every word that came bubbling to the surface appeared
+banal and inadequate, he continued silent, gazing at her and
+marveling at her perfect serenity--her absolute poise.
+
+"It will be a relief," she sighed, "When every one knows. He dislikes
+to be watched. I have been afraid--I could not bear to have him know
+how they hate him."
+
+"Perhaps," he forced himself to say, "they will not hate him, when
+they know how you-- Lydia, you are wonderful!"
+
+She looked up startled and put out her hand as if to prevent him from
+speaking further.
+
+But the words came in a torrent now:
+
+"How you must despise me! I despise myself. I am not worthy, Lydia;
+but if you can care--"
+
+"Stop!" she said softly, as if she would lay the compelling finger of
+silence upon his lips. "I told you I was not like other women. Can't
+you see--?"
+
+"You must marry me," he urged, in a veritable passion of self-giving.
+"I want to help you! You will let me, Lydia?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"You could not help me; I am better alone."
+
+She looked at him, the glimmer of a smile dawning in her eyes.
+
+"You do not love me," she said; "nor I you. You are my friend. You
+will remain my friend, I hope?"
+
+She arose and held out her hand. He took it without a word. And so
+they stood for a moment; each knowing without need of speech what the
+other was thinking; the man sorry and ashamed because he could not
+deny the truth of her words; and she compassionately willing to draw
+the veil of a soothing silence over his hurts.
+
+"I ought to tell you--" he began.
+
+But she shook her head:
+
+"No need to tell me anything."
+
+"You mean," he said bitterly, "that you saw through my shallow
+pretenses all the while. I know now how you must have despised me."
+
+"Is it nothing that you have asked me--a convict's daughter--to be
+your wife?" she asked. "Do you think I don't know that some men would
+have thanked heaven for their escape and never spoken to me again? I
+can't tell you how it has helped to hearten me for what must come. I
+shall not soon forget that you offered me your self--your career; it
+would have cost you that. I want you to know how much I--appreciate
+what you have done, in offering me the shelter of an honest name."
+
+He would have uttered some unavailing words of protest, but she
+checked him.
+
+"We shall both be glad of this, some day," she predicted gravely....
+"There is one thing you can do for me," she added: "Tell them. It
+will be best for both of us, now."
+
+It was already done, he said, explaining his motives in short,
+disjointed sentences.
+
+Then with a feeling of relief which he strove to put down, but which
+nevertheless persisted in making itself felt in a curious lightening
+of his spirits, he was again walking rapidly and without thought of
+his destination. Somber bars of crimson and purple crossed the west,
+and behind them, flaming up toward the zenith in a passionate
+splendor of light, streamed long, golden rays from out the heart of
+that glory upon which no human eye may look. The angry wind had
+fallen to quiet, and higher up, floating in a sea of purest violet,
+those despised and flouted rags of clouds were seen, magically
+changed to rose and silver.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIII
+
+
+Fanny Dodge sat by the pleasant west window of the kitchen, engaged
+in reading those aimless shreds of local information which usually
+make up the outside pages of the weekly newspaper. She could not
+possibly feel the slightest interest in the fact that Mr. and Mrs.
+James M. Snider of West Schofield were entertaining a daughter, whose
+net weight was reported to be nine and three quarters pounds; or that
+Miss Elizabeth Wardwell of Eltingville had just issued beautifully
+engraved invitations to her wedding, which was to take place on the
+seventeenth day of October--yet she went on reading. Everybody read
+the paper. Sometimes they talked about what they read. Anyway, her
+work was over for the day--all except tea, which was negligible; so
+she went on, somewhat drearily suppressing a yawn, to a description
+of the new water-works, which were being speedily brought to
+completion in "our neighboring enterprising town of Brookville."
+
+Fanny already knew all there was to tell concerning the concrete
+reservoir on the mountain, the big conduit leading to the village and
+the smaller pipes laid wherever there were householders desiring
+water. These were surprisingly few, considering the fact that there
+would be no annual charge for the water, beyond the insignificant sum
+required for its up-keep. People said their wells were good enough
+for them; and that spring water wasn't as good as cistern water, when
+it came to washing. Some were of the opinion that Lydia Orr was in a
+fool's hurry to get rid of her money; others that she couldn't stand
+it to be out of the limelight; and still other sagacious individuals
+felt confident there was something in it for "that girl."  Fanny had
+heard these various views of Miss Orr's conduct. She was still
+striving with indifferent success to rise above her jealousy, and to
+this end she never failed to champion Lydia's cause against all
+comers. Curiously enough, this course had finally brought her
+tranquillity of a sort and an utter unprotesting acquiescence.
+
+Mrs. Whittle had been overheard saying to Mrs. Fulsom that she
+guessed, after all, Fanny Dodge didn't care so much about the
+minister.
+
+Fanny, deep once more in the absorbing consideration of the question
+which had once been too poignant to consider calmly, and the answer
+to which she was never to know, permitted the paper to slide off her
+knee to the floor: Why had Wesley Elliot so suddenly deserted her?
+Surely, he could not have fallen in love with another woman; she was
+sure he had been in love with her. However, to kiss and forget might
+be one of the inscrutable ways of men. She was really afraid it was.
+But Wesley Elliot had never kissed her; had never even held her hand
+for more than a minute at a time. But those minutes loomed large in
+retrospect.
+
+The clock struck five and Fanny, roused from her reverie by the
+sudden sound, glanced out of the window. At the gate she saw Elliot.
+He stood there, gazing at the house as if uncertain whether to enter
+or not. Fanny put up a tremulous hand to her hair, which was pinned
+fast in its accustomed crisp coils; then she glanced down at her blue
+gown.... Yes; he was coming in! The bell hanging over the passage
+door jangled shrilly. Fanny stood stock-still in the middle of the
+floor, staring at it. There was no fire in the parlor. She would be
+forced to bring him out to the kitchen. She thought of the wide,
+luxuriously furnished rooms of Bolton house and unconsciously her
+face hardened. She might pretend she did not hear the bell. She might
+allow him to go away, thinking none of the family were at home. She
+pictured him, standing there on the doorstep facing the closed door;
+and a perverse spirit held her silent, while the clock ticked
+resoundingly. Then all at once with a smothered cry she hurried
+through the hall, letting the door fall to behind her with a loud
+slam.
+
+He was waiting patiently on the doorstep, as she had pictured him;
+and before a single word had passed between them she knew that the
+stone had been rolled away. His eyes met hers, not indeed with the
+old look, but with another, incomprehensible, yet wonderfully
+soul-satisfying.
+
+"I wanted to tell you about it, before it came to you from the
+outside," he said, when they had settled themselves in the warm,
+silent kitchen.
+
+His words startled Fanny. Was he going to tell her of his approaching
+marriage to Lydia? Her color faded, and a look of almost piteous
+resignation drooped the corners of her mouth. She strove to collect
+her scattered wits, to frame words of congratulation with which to
+meet the dreaded avowal.
+
+He appeared in no hurry to begin; but bent forward, his eyes upon her
+changing face.
+
+"Perhaps you know, already," he reflected. "She may have told your
+brother."
+
+"Are you speaking of Miss Orr?"
+
+Her voice sounded strange in her own ears.
+
+"Yes," he said slowly. "But I suppose one should give her her
+rightful name, from now on."
+
+"I--I hadn't heard," said Fanny, feeling her hard-won courage
+slipping from her. "Jim didn't tell me. But of course I am
+not--surprised."
+
+He evidently experienced something of the emotion she had just
+denied.
+
+"No one seemed to have guessed it," he said. "But now everything is
+plain. Poor girl!"
+
+He fell into a fit of musing, which he finally broke to say:
+
+"I thought you would go to see her. She sorely needs friends."
+
+"She has--you," said Fanny in a smothered voice.
+
+For the life of her she could not withhold that one lightning flash
+out of her enveloping cloud.
+
+He disclaimed her words with a swift gesture.
+
+"I'm not worthy to claim her friendship, nor yours," he said humbly;
+"but I hope you--sometime you may be able to forgive me, Fanny."
+
+"I don't think I understand what you have come to tell me," she said
+with difficulty.
+
+"The village is ringing with the news. She wanted every one to know;
+her father has come home."
+
+"Her father!"
+
+"Ah, you didn't guess, after all. I think we were all blind. Andrew
+Bolton has come back to Brookville, a miserable, broken man."
+
+"But you said--her father. Do you mean that Lydia Orr--"
+
+"It wasn't a deliberate deception on her part," he interrupted
+quickly. "She has always been known as Lydia Orr. It was her mother's
+name."
+
+Fanny despised herself for the unreasoning tumult of joy which surged
+up within her. He could not possibly marry Andrew Bolton's daughter!
+
+He was watching her closely.
+
+"I thought perhaps, if she consented, I would marry Lydia Orr," he
+forced himself to tell her. "I want you to know this from me, now. I
+decided that her money and her position would help me.... I admired
+her; I even thought at one time I--loved her. I tried to love her....
+I am not quite so base as to marry without love.... But she knew. She
+tried to save me.... Then her father--that wretched, ruined man came
+to me. He told me everything.... Fanny, that girl is a saint!"
+
+His eyes were inscrutable under their somber brows. The girl sitting
+stiffly erect, every particle of color drained from her young face,
+watched him with something like terror. Why was he telling her
+this?--Why? Why?
+
+His next words answered her:
+
+"I can conceive of no worse punishment than having you think ill of
+me." ... And after a pause: "I deserve everything you may be telling
+yourself."
+
+But coherent thought had become impossible for Fanny.
+
+"Why don't you marry her?" she asked clearly.
+
+"Oh, I asked her. I knew I had been a cad to both of you. I asked her
+all right."
+
+Fanny's fingers, locked rigidly in her lap, did not quiver. Her blue
+eyes were wide and strange, but she tried to smile.
+
+His voice, harsh and hesitating, went on: "She refused me, of course.
+She had known all along what I was. She said she did not love me;
+that I did not love her--which was God's truth. I wanted to atone.
+You see that, don't you?"
+
+He looked at Fanny and started.
+
+"My God, Fanny!" he cried. "I have made you suffer too!"
+
+"Never mind me."
+
+"Fanny, can you love me and be my wife after all this?"
+
+"I am a woman," said Fanny. Her eyes blazed angrily at him. Then she
+laughed and put up her mouth to be kissed.
+
+"Men will make fools of women till the Day of Judgment," said she,
+and laughed again.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIV
+
+
+When the afternoon mail came in that day, Mr. Henry Daggett retired
+behind his official barrier according to his wont, leaving the store
+in charge of Joe Whittle, the Deacon's son. It had been diligently
+pointed out to Joe by his thrifty parents that all rich men began
+life by sweeping out stores and other menial tasks, and for some time
+Joe had been working for Mr. Daggett with doubtful alacrity.
+
+Joe liked the store. There was a large stock of candy, dried fruit,
+crackers and pickles; Joe was a hungry boy, and Mr. Daggett had told
+him he could eat what he wished. He was an easy-going man with no
+children of his own, and he took great delight in pampering the
+Deacon's son. "I told him he could eat candy and things, and he
+looked tickled to death," he told his wife.
+
+"He'll get his stomach upset," objected Mrs. Daggett.
+
+"He can't eat the whole stock," said Daggett, "and upsetting a boy's
+stomach is not much of an upset anyway. It don't take long to right
+it."
+
+Once in a while Daggett would suggest to Joe that if he were in his
+place he wouldn't eat too much of that green candy. He supposed it
+was pure; he didn't mean to sell any but pure candy if he knew it,
+but it might be just as well for him to go slow. Generally he took a
+paternal delight in watching the growing boy eat his stock in trade.
+
+That afternoon Joe was working on a species of hard sweet which
+distended his cheeks, and nearly deprived him temporarily of the
+power of speech, while the people seeking their mail came in. There
+was never much custom while mail-sorting was going on, and Joe sucked
+blissfully.
+
+Then Jim Dodge entered and spoke to him. "Hullo, Joe," he said.
+
+Joe nodded, speechless.
+
+Jim seated himself on a stool, and lit his pipe.
+
+Joe eyed him. Jim was a sort of hero to him on account of his hunting
+fame. As soon as he could control his tongue, he addressed him:
+
+"Heard the news?" said he, trying to speak like a man.
+
+"What news?"
+
+"Old Andrew Bolton's got out of prison and come back. He's crazy,
+too."
+
+"How did you get hold of such nonsense?"
+
+"Heard the women talking."
+
+Jim pondered a moment. Then he said "Damn," and Joe admired him as
+never before. When Jim had gone out, directly, Joe shook his fist at
+a sugar barrel, and said "Damn," in a whisper.
+
+Jim in the meantime was hurrying along the road to the Bolton house.
+He made up his mind that he must see Lydia. He must know if she had
+authorized the revelation that had evidently been made, and if so,
+through whom. He suspected the minister, and was hot with jealousy.
+His own friendship with Lydia seemed to have suffered a blight after
+that one confidential talk of theirs, in which she had afforded him a
+glimpse of her sorrowful past. She had not alluded to the subject a
+second time; and, somehow, he had not been able to get behind the
+defenses of her smiling cheerfulness. Always she was with her father,
+it seemed; and the old man, garrulous enough when alone, was
+invariably silent and moody in his daughter's company. One might
+almost have said he hated her, from the sneering impatient looks he
+cast at her from time to time. As for Lydia, she was all love and
+brooding tenderness for the man who had suffered so long and
+terribly.
+
+"He'll be better after a while," she constantly excused him. "He
+needs peace and quiet and home to restore him to himself."
+
+"You want to look out for him," Jim had ventured to warn the girl,
+when the two were alone together for a moment.
+
+"Do you mean father?" Lydia asked. "What else should I do? It is all
+I live for--just to look out for father."
+
+Had she been a martyr bound to the stake, the faggots piled about her
+slim body, her face might have worn just that expression of high
+resignation and contempt for danger and suffering.
+
+The young man walked slowly on. He wanted time to think. Besides--he
+glanced down with a quick frown of annoyance at his mud-splashed
+clothing--he certainly cut a queer figure for a call.
+
+Some one was standing on the doorstep talking to Fanny, as he
+approached his own home. Another instant and he had recognized Wesley
+Elliot. He stopped behind a clump of low-growing trees, and watched.
+Fanny, framed in the dark doorway, glowed like a rose. Jim saw her
+bend forward, smiling; saw the minister take both her hands in his
+and kiss them; saw Fanny glance quickly up and down the empty road,
+as if apprehensive of a chance passerby. Then the minister, his
+handsome head bared to the cold wind, waved her farewell and started
+at a brisk pace down the road.
+
+Jim waited till the door had closed lingeringly on the girl; then he
+stepped forth from his concealment and waited.
+
+Abreast of him Elliot stopped; aware, it would seem, of the menace in
+the other man's eyes.
+
+"You wished to speak with me?" he began.
+
+"Speak with you--no! I want to kick you."
+
+The minister eyed him indignantly. "What do you mean?"
+
+"You sneaking hypocrite! do you think I don't know what has happened?
+You threw Fanny down, when Lydia Orr came to town; you thought my
+sister wasn't good enough--nor rich enough for a handsome, eloquent
+clergyman like you. But when you learned her father was a convict--"
+
+"Stop!" cried Elliot. "You don't understand!"
+
+"I don't? Well, I guess I come pretty near it. And not content with
+telling Lydia's pitiful secret to all the busybodies in town, you
+come to Fanny with your smug explanations. My God! I could kill you!"
+
+The minister's face had hardened during this speech.
+
+"See here," he said. "You are going too far."
+
+"Do you deny that you've made love to both my sister and Miss Orr?"
+demanded Jim.
+
+Physically the minister was no coward. He measured the slight, wiry
+figure of his wrathful opponent with a coolly appraising eye.
+
+"My relations with Miss Orr are none of your business," he reminded
+Jim. "As for your sister--"
+
+"Damn you!" cried Jim.
+
+The minister shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"If you'll listen to reason," he suggested pacifically.
+
+"I saw you kiss my sister's hand! I tell you I'll not have you
+hanging around the place, after what's gone. You may as well
+understand it."
+
+Wesley Elliot reflected briefly.
+
+"There's one thing you ought to know," he said, controlling his
+desire to knock Fanny's brother into the bushes.
+
+A scornful gesture bade him to proceed.
+
+"Andrew Bolton came to see me in the parsonage this morning. He is a
+ruined man, in every sense of the word. He will never be otherwise."
+
+Jim Dodge thrust both hands deep in his trousers' pockets, his eyes
+fixed and frowning.
+
+"Well," he murmured; "what of that?"
+
+"That being the case, all we can do is to make the best of
+things--for her.... She requested me to make the facts known in the
+village. They would have found out everything from the man himself.
+He is--perhaps you are aware that Bolton bitterly resents his
+daughter's interference. She would have been glad to spare him the
+pain of publicity."
+
+The minister's tone was calm, even judicial; and Jim Dodge suddenly
+experienced a certain flat humiliation of spirit.
+
+"I didn't know she asked you to tell," he muttered, kicking a pebble
+out of the way. "That puts a different face on it."
+
+He eyed the minister steadily.
+
+"I'll be hanged if I can make you out, Elliot," he said at last. "You
+can't blame me for thinking-- Why did you come here this afternoon,
+anyway?"
+
+A sudden belated glimmer of comprehension dawned upon the minister.
+
+"Are you in love with Miss Orr?" he parried.
+
+"None of your damned business!"
+
+"I was hoping you were," the minister said quietly. "She needs a
+friend--one who will stand close, just now."
+
+"Do you mean--?"
+
+"I am going to marry Fanny."
+
+"The devil you are!"
+
+The minister smiled and held out his hand.
+
+"We may as well be friends, Jim," he said coolly, "seeing we're to be
+brothers."
+
+The young man turned on his heel.
+
+"I'll have to think that proposition over," he growled. "It's a bit
+too sudden--for me."
+
+Without another glance in the direction of the minister he marched
+toward the house. Fanny was laying the table, a radiant color in her
+face. A single glance told her brother that she was happy. He threw
+himself into a chair by the window.
+
+"Where's mother?" he asked presently, pretending to ignore the
+excited flutter of the girl's hands as she set a plate of bread on
+the table.
+
+"She hasn't come back from the village yet," warbled Fanny. She
+couldn't keep the joy in her soul from singing.
+
+"Guess I'll eat my supper and get out. I don't want to hear a word of
+gossip."
+
+Fanny glanced up, faltered, then ran around the table and threw her
+arms about Jim's neck.
+
+"Oh, Jim!" she breathed, "you've seen him!"
+
+"Worse luck!" grumbled Jim.
+
+He held his sister off at arm's length and gazed at her fixedly.
+
+"What you see in that chap," he murmured. "Well--"
+
+"Oh, Jim, he's wonderful!" cried Fanny, half laughing, half crying,
+and altogether lovely.
+
+"I suppose you think so. But after the way he's treated you-- By
+George, Fan! I can't see--"
+
+Fanny drew herself up proudly.
+
+"Of course I haven't talked much about it, Jim," she said, with
+dignity; "but Wesley and I had a--a little misunderstanding. It's all
+explained away now."
+
+And to this meager explanation she stubbornly adhered, through
+subsequent soul-searching conversations with her mother, and during
+the years of married life that followed. In time she came to believe
+it, herself; and the "little misunderstanding with Wesley" and its
+romantic denouement became a well-remembered milestone, wreathed with
+sentiment.
+
+But poised triumphant on this pinnacle of joy, she yet had time to
+think of another than herself.
+
+"Jim," said she, a touch of matronly authority already apparent in
+her manner. "I've wanted for a long time to talk to you seriously
+about Ellen."
+
+Jim stared.
+
+"About Ellen?" he repeated.
+
+"Jim, she's awfully fond of you. I think you've treated her cruelly."
+
+"Look here, Fan," said Jim, "don't you worry yourself about Ellen
+Dix. She's not in love with me, and never was."
+
+Having thus spoken, Jim would not say another word. He gulped down
+his supper and was off. He kissed Fanny when he went.
+
+"Hope you'll be happy, and all that," he told her rather awkwardly.
+Fanny looked after him swinging down the road. "I guess it's all
+right between him and Ellen," she thought.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXV
+
+
+Jim had no definite plan as he tramped down the road in the falling
+darkness. He felt uncertain and miserable as he speculated with
+regard to Lydia. She could not guess at half the unkind things people
+must be saying; but she would ask for the bread of sympathy and they
+would give her a stone. He wished he might carry her away, shielding
+her and comforting her against the storm. He knew he would willingly
+give his life to make her happier. Of course she did not care for
+him. How could she? Who was he--Jim Dodge--to aspire to a girl like
+Lydia?
+
+The wind had risen again and was driving dark masses of cloud across
+the sky; in the west a sullen red flared up from behind the hills,
+touching the lower edges of the vaporous mountains with purple. In a
+small, clear space above the red hung the silver sickle of the new
+moon, and near it shone a single star.... Lydia was like that star,
+he told himself--as wonderful, as remote.
+
+There were lights in the windows of Bolton House. Jim stopped and
+gazed at the yellow squares, something big and powerful rising within
+him. Then, yielding to a sudden impulse, he approached and looked in.
+In a great armchair before the blazing hearth sat, or rather
+crouched, Andrew Bolton. He was wearing a smoking-jacket of crimson
+velvet and a pipe hung from his nerveless fingers. Only the man's
+eyes appeared alive; they were fixed upon Lydia at the piano. She was
+playing some light tuneful melody, with a superabundance of trills
+and runs. Jim did not know Lydia played; and the knowledge of this
+trivial accomplishment seemed to put her still further beyond his
+reach. He did not know, either, that she had acquired her somewhat
+indifferent skill after long years of dull practice, and for the
+single purpose of diverting the man, who sat watching her with
+bright, furtive eyes.... Presently she arose from the piano and
+crossed the room to his side. She bent over him and kissed him on his
+bald forehead, her white hands clinging to his shoulders. Jim saw the
+man shake off those hands with a rough gesture; saw the grieved look
+on her face; saw the man follow her slight figure with his eyes, as
+she stooped under pretext of mending the fire. But he could not hear
+the words which passed between them.
+
+"You pretend to love me," Bolton was saying. "Why don't you do what I
+want you to?"
+
+"If you'd like to go away from Brookville, father, I will go with
+you. You need me!"
+
+"That's where you're dead wrong, my girl: I don't need you. What I do
+need is freedom! You stifle me with your fussy attentions. Give me
+some money; I'll go away and not bother you again."
+
+Whereat Lydia had cried out--a little hurt cry, which reached the
+ears of the watcher outside.
+
+"Don't leave me, father! I have no one but you in all the world--no
+one."
+
+"And you've never even told me how much money you have," the man went
+on in a whining voice. "There's daughterly affection for you! By
+rights it all ought to be mine. I've suffered enough, God knows, to
+deserve a little comfort now."
+
+"All that I have is yours, father. I want nothing for myself."
+
+"Then hand it over--the control of it, I mean. I'll make you a
+handsome allowance; and I'll give you this place, too. I don't want
+to rot here.... Marry that good-looking parson and settle down, if
+you like. I don't want to settle down: been settled in one cursed
+place long enough, by gad! I should think you could see that."
+
+"But you wanted to come home to Brookville, father. Don't you
+remember you said--"
+
+"That was when I was back there in that hell-hole, and didn't know
+what I wanted. How could I? I only wanted to get out. That's what I
+want now--to get out and away! If you weren't so damned selfish,
+you'd let me go. I hate a selfish woman!"
+
+Then it was that Jim Dodge, pressing closer to the long window, heard
+her say quite distinctly:
+
+"Very well, father; we will go. Only I must go with you.... You are
+not strong enough to go alone. We will go anywhere you like."
+
+Andrew Bolton got nimbly out of his chair and stood glowering at her
+across its back. Then he burst into a prolonged fit of laughter mixed
+with coughing.
+
+"Oh, so you'll go with father, will you?" he spluttered. "You
+insist--eh?"
+
+And, still coughing and laughing mirthlessly, he went out of the
+room.
+
+Left to herself, the girl sat down quietly enough before the fire.
+Her serene face told no story of inward sorrow to the watchful eyes
+of the man who loved her. Over long she had concealed her feelings,
+even from herself. She seemed lost in revery, at once sad and
+profound. Had she foreseen this dire disappointment of all her hopes,
+he wondered.
+
+He stole away at last, half ashamed of spying upon her lonely vigil,
+yet withal curiously heartened. Wesley Elliot was right: Lydia Orr
+needed a friend. He resolved that he would be that friend.
+
+In the room overhead the light had leapt to full brilliancy. An
+uncertain hand pulled the shade down crookedly. As the young man
+turned for a last look at the house he perceived a shadow hurriedly
+passing and repassing the lighted window. Then all at once the
+shadow, curiously huddled, stooped and was gone. There was something
+sinister in the sudden disappearance of that active shadow. Jim Dodge
+watched the vacant window for a long minute; then with a muttered
+exclamation walked on toward the village.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVI
+
+
+In the barroom of the Brookville House the flaring kerosene lamp lit
+up a group of men and half-grown boys, who had strayed in out of the
+chill darkness to warm themselves around the great stove in the
+middle of the floor. The wooden armchairs, which in summer made a
+forum of the tavern's side piazza, had been brought in and ranged in
+a wide semicircle about the stove, marking the formal opening of the
+winter session. In the central chair sat the large figure of Judge
+Fulsom, puffing clouds of smoke from a calabash pipe; his twinkling
+eyes looking forth over his fat, creased cheeks roved impartially
+about the circle of excited faces.
+
+"I can understand all right about Andrew Bolton's turning up," one
+man was saying. "He was bound to turn up sooner or later. I seen him
+myself, day before yesterday, going down street. Thinks I, 'Who can
+that be?'  There was something kind of queer about the way he dragged
+his feet. What you going to do about it, Judge? Have we got to put up
+with having a jailbird, as crazy as a loon into the bargain, living
+right here in our midst?"
+
+"In luxury and idleness, like he was a captain of industry," drawled
+another man who was eating hot dog and sipping beer. "That's what
+strikes me kind of hard, Judge, in luxury and idleness, while the
+rest of us has to work."
+
+Judge Fulsom gave an inarticulate grunt and smoked on imperturbably.
+
+"Set down, boys; set down," ordered a small man in a red sweater
+under a corduroy coat. "Give the Jedge a chance! He ain't going to
+deliver no opinion whilst you boys are rammaging around. Set down and
+let the Jedge take th' floor."
+
+A general scraping of chair legs and a shuffling of uneasy feet
+followed this exhortation; still no word from the huge, impassive
+figure in the central chair. The oily-faced young man behind the bar
+improved the opportunity by washing a dozen or so glasses, setting
+them down showily on a tin tray in view of the company.
+
+"Quit that noise, Cholley!" exhorted the small man in the red
+sweater; "we want order in the court room--eh, Jedge?"
+
+"What I'd like to know is where she got all that money of hers,"
+piped an old man, with a mottled complexion and bleary eyes.
+
+"Sure enough; where'd she get it?" chimed in half a dozen voices at
+once.
+
+"She's Andrew Bolton's daughter," said the first speaker. "And she's
+been setting up for a fine lady, doing stunts for charity. How about
+our town hall an' our lov-elly library, an' our be-utiful drinking
+fountain, and the new shingles on our church roof? You don't want to
+ask too many questions, Lute."
+
+"Don't I?" cried the man, who was eating hot dog. "You all know _me!_
+I ain't a-going to stand for no grab-game. If she's got money, it's
+more than likely the old fox salted it down before they ketched him.
+It's our money; that's whose money 'tis, if you want to know!"
+
+And he swallowed his mouthful with a slow, menacing glance which
+swept the entire circle.
+
+"Now, Lucius," began Judge Fulsom, removing the pipe from his mouth,
+"go slow! No use in talk without proof."
+
+"But what have you got to say, Jedge? Where'd she get all that money
+she's been flamming about with, and that grand house, better than
+new, with all the latest improvements. Wa'n't we some jays to be took
+in like we was by a little, white-faced chit like her? Couldn't see
+through a grindstone with a hole in it! Bolton House.... And an
+automobile to fetch the old jailbird home in. Wa'n't it love-ly?"
+
+A low growl ran around the circle.
+
+"Durn you, Lute! Don't you see the Jedge has something to say?"
+demanded the man behind the bar.
+
+Judge Fulsom slowly tapped his pipe on the arm of his chair. "If you
+all will keep still a second and let me speak," he began.
+
+"I want my rights," interrupted a man with a hoarse crow.
+
+"Your rights!" shouted the Judge. "You've got no right to a damned
+thing but a good horsewhipping!"
+
+"I've got my rights to the money other folks are keeping, I'll let
+you know!"
+
+Then the Judge fairly bellowed, as he got slowly to his feet:
+
+"I tell you once for all, the whole damned lot of you," he shouted,
+"that every man, woman and child in Brookville has been paid,
+compensated, remunerated and requited in full for every cent he, she
+or it lost in the Andrew Bolton bank failure."
+
+There was a snarl of dissent.
+
+"You all better go slow, and hold your tongues, and mind your own
+business. Remember what I say; that girl does not owe a red cent in
+this town, neither does her father. She's paid in full, and you've
+spent a lot of it in here, too!"  The Judge wiped his red face.
+
+"Oh, come on, Jedge; you don't want to be hard on the house,"
+protested the man in the red sweater, waving his arms as frantically
+as a freight brakeman. "Say, you boys! don't ye git excited! The
+Jedge didn't mean that; you got him kind of het up with argufying....
+Down in front, boys! You, Lute--"
+
+But it was too late: half a dozen voices were shouting at once. There
+was a simultaneous descent upon the bar, with loud demands for liquor
+of the sort Lute Parsons filled up on. Then the raucous voice of the
+ringleader pierced the tumult.
+
+"Come on, boys! Let's go out to the old place and get our rights off
+that gal of Bolton's!"
+
+"That's th' stuff, Lute!" yelled the others, clashing their glasses
+wildly. "Come on! Come on, everybody!"
+
+In vain Judge Fulsom hammered on the bar and called for order in the
+court room. The majesty of the law, as embodied in his great bulk,
+appeared to have lost its power. Even his faithful henchman in the
+red sweater had joined the rioters and was yelling wildly for his
+rights. Somebody flung wide the door, and the barroom emptied itself
+into the night, leaving the oily young man at his post of duty gazing
+fearfully at the purple face of Judge Fulsom, who stood staring, as
+if stupefied, at the overturned chairs, the broken glasses and the
+empty darkness outside.
+
+"Say, Jedge, them boys was sure some excited," ventured the bartender
+timidly. "You don't s'pose--"
+
+The big man put himself slowly into motion.
+
+"I'll get th' constable," he growled. "I--I'll run 'em in; and I'll
+give Lute Parsons the full extent of the law, if it's the last thing
+I do on earth. I--I'll teach them!--I'll give them all they're
+lookin' for."
+
+And he, too, went out, leaving the door swinging in the cold wind.
+
+At the corner, still meditating vengeance for this affront to his
+dignity, Judge Fulsom almost collided with the hurrying figure of a
+man approaching in the opposite direction.
+
+"Hello!" he challenged sharply. "Where you goin' so fast, my friend?"
+
+"Evening, Judge," responded the man, giving the other a wide margin.
+
+"Oh, it's Jim Dodge--eh? Say, Jim, did you meet any of the boys on
+the road?"
+
+"What boys?"
+
+"Why, we got into a little discussion over to the Brookville House
+about this Andrew Bolton business--his coming back unexpected, you
+know; and some of the boys seemed to think they hadn't got all that
+was coming to them by rights. Lute Parsons he gets kind of worked up
+after about three or four glasses, and he sicked the boys onto going
+out there, and--"
+
+"Going out--where? In the name of Heaven, what do you mean, Judge?"
+
+"I told 'em to keep cool and-- Say, don't be in a hurry, Jim. I had
+an awful good mind to call out Hank Simonson to run a few of 'em in.
+But I dunno as the boys'll do any real harm. They wouldn't dare. They
+know _me_, and they know--"
+
+"Do you mean that drunken mob was headed for Bolton House? Why, Good
+Lord, man, she's there practically alone!"
+
+"Well, perhaps you'd better see if you can get some help," began the
+Judge, whose easy-going disposition was already balking at effort.
+
+But Jim Dodge, shouting back a few trenchant directions, had already
+disappeared, running at top speed.
+
+There was a short cut to Bolton House, across plowed fields and
+through a patch of woodland. Jim Dodge ran all the way, wading a
+brook, swollen with the recent rains, tearing his way through
+thickets of brush and bramble, the twinkling lights in the top story
+of the distant house leading him on. Once he paused for an instant,
+thinking he heard the clamor of rude voices borne on the wind; then
+plunged forward again, his flying feet seemingly weighted with lead;
+and all the while an agonizing picture of Lydia, white and helpless,
+facing the crowd of drunken men flitted before his eyes.
+
+Now he had reached the wall at the rear of the gardens; had clambered
+over it, dropping to his feet in the midst of a climbing rose which
+clutched at him with its thorny branches; had run across an acre of
+kitchen garden and leaped the low-growing hedge which divided it from
+the sunken flower garden he had made for Lydia. Here were more
+rosebushes and an interminable space broken by walks and a sundial,
+masked by shrubs, with which he collided violently. There was no
+mistaking the clamor from the front of the house; the rioters had
+reached their quarry first! Not stopping to consider what one man,
+single-handed and unarmed, could do against a score of drunken
+opponents, the young man rounded the corner of the big house just as
+the door was flung wide and the slim figure of Lydia stood outlined
+against the bright interior.
+
+"What do you want, men?" she called out, in her clear, fearless
+voice. "What has happened?"
+
+There was a confused murmur of voices in reply. Most of the men were
+decent enough fellows, when sober. Some one was heard to suggest a
+retreat: "No need to scare the young lady. 'Tain't her fault!"
+
+"Aw! shut up, you coward!" shouted another. "We want our money!"
+
+"Where did you get yer money?" demanded a third. "You tell us that,
+young woman. That's what we're after!"
+
+"Where's the old thief? ...We want Andrew Bolton!"
+
+Then from somewhere in the darkness a pebble flung by a reckless hand
+shattered a pane of glass. At sound of the crash all pretense of
+decency and order seemed abandoned. The spirit of the pack broke
+loose!
+
+Just what happened from the moment when he leaped upon the portico,
+wrenching loose a piece of iron pipe which formed the support of a
+giant wistaria, Jim Dodge could never afterward recall in precise
+detail. A sort of wild rage seized him; he struck right and left
+among the dark figures swarming up the steps. There were cries,
+shouts, curses, flying stones; then he had dragged Lydia inside and
+bolted the heavy door between them and the ugly clamor without.
+
+She faced him where he stood, breathing hard, his back against the
+barred door.
+
+"They were saying--" she whispered, her face still and white. "My
+God! What do they think I've done?"
+
+"They're drunk," he explained. "It was only a miserable rabble from
+the barroom in the village. But if you'd been here alone--!"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"I recognized the man who spoke first; his name is Parsons. There
+were others, too, who worked on the place here in the summer.... They
+have heard?"
+
+He nodded, unable to speak because of something which rose in his
+throat choking him. Then he saw a thin trickle of red oozing from
+under the fair hair above her temple, and the blood hammered in his
+ears.
+
+"You are hurt!" he said thickly. "The devils struck you!"
+
+"It's nothing--a stone, perhaps."
+
+Something in the sorrowful look she gave him broke down the flimsy
+barrier between them.
+
+"Lydia--Lydia!" he cried, holding out his arms.
+
+She clung to him like a child. They stood so for a moment, listening
+to the sounds from without. There were still occasional shouts and
+the altercation of loud, angry voices; but this was momently growing
+fainter; presently it died away altogether.
+
+She stirred in his arms and he stooped to look into her face.
+
+"I--Father will be frightened," she murmured, drawing away from him
+with a quick decided movement. "You must let me go."
+
+"Not until I have told you, Lydia! I am poor, rough--not worthy to
+touch you--but I love you with my whole heart and soul, Lydia. You
+must let me take care of you. You need me, dear."
+
+Tears overflowed her eyes, quiet, patient tears; but she answered
+steadily.
+
+"Can't you see that I--I am different from other women? I have only
+one thing to live for. I must go to him.... You had forgotten--him."
+
+In vain he protested, arguing his case with all lover's skill and
+ingenuity. She shook her head.
+
+"Sometime you will forgive me that one moment of weakness," she said
+sadly. "I was frightened and--tired."
+
+He followed her upstairs in gloomy silence. The old man, she was
+telling him hurriedly, would be terrified. She must reassure him; and
+tomorrow they would go away together for a long journey. She could
+see now that she had made a cruel mistake in bringing him to
+Brookville.
+
+But there was no answer in response to her repeated tapping at his
+door; and suddenly the remembrance of that stooping shadow came back
+to him.
+
+"Let me go in," he said, pushing her gently aside.
+
+The lights, turned high in the quiet room, revealed only emptiness
+and disorder; drawers and wardrobes pulled wide, scattered garments
+apparently dropped at random on chairs and tables. The carpet, drawn
+aside in one corner, disclosed a shallow aperture in the floor, from
+which the boards had been lifted.
+
+"Why-- What?" stammered the girl, all the high courage gone from her
+face. "What has happened?"
+
+He picked up a box--a common cigar box--from amid the litter of
+abandoned clothing. It was quite empty save for a solitary slip of
+greenish paper which had somehow adhered to the bottom.
+
+Lydia clutched the box in both trembling hands, staring with piteous
+eyes at the damning evidence of that bit of paper.
+
+"Money!" she whispered. "He must have hidden it before--before-- Oh,
+father, father!"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVII
+
+
+History is said to repeat itself, as if indeed the world were a vast
+pendulum, swinging between events now inconceivably remote, and again
+menacing and near. And if in things great and heroic, so also in the
+less significant aspects of life.
+
+Mrs. Henry Daggett stood, weary but triumphant, amid the nearly
+completed preparations for a reception in the new church parlors, her
+broad, rosy face wearing a smile of satisfaction.
+
+"Don't it look nice?" she said, by way of expressing her overflowing
+contentment.
+
+Mrs. Maria Dodge, evergreen wreaths looped over one arm, nodded.
+
+"It certainly does look fine, Abby," said she. "And I guess nobody
+but you would have thought of having it."
+
+Mrs. Daggett beamed. "I thought of it the minute I heard about that
+city church that done it. I call it a real tasty way to treat a
+minister as nice as ours."
+
+"So 'tis," agreed Mrs. Dodge with the air of complacent satisfaction
+she had acquired since Fanny's marriage to the minister. "And I think
+Wesley'll appreciate it."
+
+Mrs. Daggett's face grew serious. Then her soft bosom heaved with
+mirth.
+
+"'Tain't everybody that's lucky enough to have a minister right in
+the family," said she briskly. "Mebbe if I was to hear a sermon
+preached every day in the week I'd get some piouser myself. I've been
+comparing this with the fair we had last summer. It ain't so grand,
+but it's newer. A fair's like a work of nature, Maria; sun and rain
+and dew, and the scrapings from the henyard, all mixed with garden
+ground to fetch out cabbages, potatoes or roses. God gives the
+increase."
+
+Mrs. Dodge stared at her friend in amazement.
+
+"That sounds real beautiful, Abby," she said. "You must have thought
+it all out."
+
+"That's just what I done," confirmed Mrs. Daggett happily. "I'm
+always meditating about something, whilst I'm working 'round th'
+house. And it's amazing what thoughts'll come to a body from
+somewheres.... What you going to do with them wreaths, Maria?"
+
+"Why, I was thinking of putting 'em right up here," said Mrs. Dodge,
+pointing.
+
+"A good place," said Mrs. Daggett. "Remember Fanny peeking through
+them wreaths last summer? Pretty as a pink! An' now she's Mis'
+Reveren' Elliot. I seen him looking at her that night.... My! My!
+What lots of things have took place in our midst since then."
+
+Mrs. Dodge, from the lofty elevation of a stepladder, looked across
+the room.
+
+"Here comes Ann Whittle with two baskets," she said, "and Mrs.
+Solomon Black carrying a big cake, and a whole crowd of ladies just
+behind 'em."
+
+"Glad they ain't going to be late like they was last year," said Mrs.
+Daggett. "My sakes! I hadn't thought so much about that fair till
+today; the scent of the evergreens brings it all back. We was
+wondering who'd buy the things; remember, Maria?"
+
+"I should say I did," assented Mrs. Dodge, hopping nimbly down from
+the ladder. "There, that looks even nicer than it did at the fair;
+don't you think so, Abby?"
+
+"It looks perfectly lovely, Maria."
+
+"Well, here we are at last," announced Mrs. Whittle as she entered.
+"I had to wait till the frosting stiffened up on my cake."
+
+She bustled over to a table and began to take the things out of her
+baskets. Mrs. Daggett hurried forward to meet Mrs. Solomon Black, who
+was advancing with slow majesty, bearing a huge disk covered with
+tissue paper.
+
+Mrs. Black was not the only woman in the town of Brookville who could
+now boast sleeves made in the latest Parisian style. Her quick black
+eyes had already observed the crisp blue taffeta, in which Mrs.
+Whittle was attired, and the fresh muslin gowns decked with uncreased
+ribbons worn by Mrs. Daggett and her friend, Maria Dodge. Mrs.
+Solomon Black's water-waves were crisp and precise, as of yore, and
+her hard red cheeks glowed like apples above the elaborate embroidery
+of her dress.
+
+"Here, Mis' Black, let me take your cake!" offered Abby Daggett. "I
+sh'd think your arm would be most broke carryin' it all the way from
+your house."
+
+"Thank you, Abby; but I wouldn't das' t' resk changin' it; I'll set
+it right down where it's t' go."
+
+The brisk chatter and laughter, which by now had prevaded the big
+place, ceased as by a preconcerted signal, and a dozen women gathered
+about the table toward which Mrs. Solomon Black was moving like the
+central figure in some stately pageant.
+
+"Fer pity sake!" whispered Mrs. Mixter, "what d' you s'pose she's got
+under all that tissue paper?"
+
+Mrs. Solomon Black set the great cake, still veiled, in the middle of
+the table; then she straightened herself and looked from one to the
+other of the eager, curious faces gathered around.
+
+"There!" she said. "I feel now 's 'o' I could dror m' breath once
+more. I ain't joggled it once, so's t' hurt, since I started from
+home."
+
+Then slowly she withdrew the shrouding tissue paper from the creation
+she had thus triumphantly borne to its place of honor, and stood off,
+a little to one side, her face one broad smile of satisfaction.
+
+"Fer goodness' sake!"
+
+"Did you ev--er!"
+
+"Why, Mis' Black!"
+
+"Ain't that just--"
+
+"You never done that all yourself?"
+
+Mrs. Black nodded slowly, almost solemnly. The huge cake which was
+built up in successive steps, like a pyramid, was crowned on its
+topmost disk by a bridal scene, a tiny man holding his tiny veiled
+bride by the hand in the midst of an expanse of pink frosting. About
+the side of the great cake, in brightly colored "mites," was
+inscribed "Greetings to our Pastor and his Bride."
+
+"I thought 'twould be kind of nice, seeing our minister was just
+married, and so, in a way, this is a wedding reception. I don't know
+what the rest of you ladies'll think."
+
+Abby Daggett stood with clasped hands, her big soft bosom rising and
+falling in a sort of ecstasy.
+
+"Why, Phoebe," she said, "it's a real poem! It couldn't be no
+han'somer if it had been done right up in heaven!"
+
+She put her arms about Mrs. Solomon Black and kissed her.
+
+"And this ain't all," said Mrs. Black. "Lois Daggett is going to
+fetch over a chocolate cake and a batch of crullers for me when she
+comes."
+
+Applause greeted this statement.
+
+"Time was," went on Mrs. Black, "and not so long ago, neither, when I
+was afraid to spend a cent, for fear of a rainy day that's been long
+coming. 'Tain't got here yet; but I can tell you ladies, I got a
+lesson from _her_ in generosity I don't mean to forget. 'Spend and be
+spent' is my motto from now on; so I didn't grudge the new-laid eggs
+I put in that cake, nor yet the sugar, spice nor raisins. There's
+three cakes in one--in token of the trinity (I do hope th' won't
+nobody think it's wicked t' mention r'ligion in connection with a
+cake); the bottom cake was baked in a milk-pan, an' it's a bride's
+cake, being made with the whites of fourteen perfec'ly fresh eggs;
+the next layer is fruit and spice, as rich as wedding cake ought to
+be; the top cake is best of all; and can be lifted right off and
+given to Rever'nd an' Mrs. Wesley Elliot.... I guess they'll like to
+keep the wedding couple for a souvenir."
+
+A vigorous clapping of hands burst forth. Mrs. Solomon Black waited
+modestly till this gratifying demonstration had subsided, then she
+went on:
+
+"I guess most of you ladies'll r'member how one short year ago Miss
+Lyddy Orr Bolton came a'walkin' int' our midst, lookin' sweet an'
+modest, like she was; and how down-in-th'-mouth we was all a-feelin',
+'count o' havin' no money t' buy th' things we'd worked s' hard t'
+make. Some of us hadn't no more grit an' gumption 'n Ananias an'
+S'phira, t' say nothin' o' Jonah an' others I c'd name. In she came,
+an' ev'rythin' was changed from that minute! ...Now, I want we sh'd
+cut up that cake--after everybody's had a chance t' see it good--all
+but th' top layer, same's I said--an' all of us have a piece, out o'
+compl'ment t' our paster an' his wife, an' in memory o' her, who's
+gone from us."
+
+"But Lyddy Orr ain't dead, Mis' Black," protested Mrs. Daggett
+warmly.
+
+"She might 's well be, 's fur 's our seein' her 's concerned,"
+replied Mrs. Black. "She's gone t' Boston t' stay f'r good, b'cause
+she couldn't stan' it no-how here in Brookville, after her pa was
+found dead. The' was plenty o' hard talk, b'fore an' after; an' when
+it come t' breakin' her windows with stones an' hittin' her in th'
+head, so she was 'bleeged t' have three stitches took, all I c'n say
+is I don't wonder she went t' Boston.... Anyway, that's my wish an'
+d'sire 'bout that cake."
+
+The arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Wesley Elliot offered a welcome
+interruption to a scene which was becoming uncomfortably tense.
+Whatever prickings of conscience there might have been under the gay
+muslin and silks of her little audience, each woman privately
+resented the superior attitude assumed by Mrs. Solomon Black.
+
+"Easy f'r _her_ t' talk," murmured Mrs. Fulsom, from between puckered
+lips; "_she_ didn't lose no money off Andrew Bolton."
+
+"An' she didn't get none, neither, when it come t' dividin' up," Mrs.
+Mixter reminded her.
+
+"That's so," assented Mrs. Fulsom, as she followed in pretty Mrs.
+Mixter's wake to greet the newly-married pair.
+
+"My! ain't you proud o' her," whispered Abby Daggett to Maria Dodge.
+"She's a perfec' pictur' o' joy, if ever I laid my eyes on one!"
+
+Fanny stood beside her tall husband, her pretty face irradiating
+happiness. She felt a sincere pity welling up in her heart for Ellen
+Dix and Joyce Fulsom and the other girls. Compared with her own
+transcendent experiences, their lives seemed cold and bleak to Fanny.
+And all the while she was talking to the women who crowded about her.
+
+"Yes; we are getting nicely settled, thank you, Mrs. Fulsom--all but
+the attic. Oh, how'd you do, Judge Fulsom?"
+
+The big man wiped the perspiration from his bald forehead.
+
+"Just been fetchin' in th' ice cream freezers," he said, with his
+booming chuckle. "I guess I'm 's well 's c'n be expected, under th'
+circumstances, ma'am.... An' that r'minds me, parson, a little matter
+was s'ggested t' me. In fact, I'd thought of it, some time ago. No
+more 'n right, in view o' th' facts. If you don't mind, I'll outline
+th' idee t' you, parson, an' see if you approve."
+
+Fanny, striving to focus attention on the pointed remarks Miss Lois
+Daggett was making, caught occasional snatches of their conversation.
+Fanny had never liked Lois Daggett; but in her new role of minister's
+wife, it was her foreordained duty to love everybody and to condole
+and sympathize with the parish at large. One could easily sympathize
+with Lois Daggett, she was thinking; what would it be like to be
+obliged daily to face the reflection of that mottled complexion, that
+long, pointed nose, with its rasped tip, that drab lifeless hair with
+its sharp hairpin crimp, and those small greenish eyes with no
+perceptible fringe of lashes? Fanny looked down from her lovely
+height into Miss Daggett's upturned face and pitied her from the
+bottom of her heart.
+
+"I hear your brother Jim has gone t' Boston," Miss Daggett was saying
+with a simper.
+
+From the rear Fanny heard Judge Fulsom's rumbling monotone, earnestly
+addressed to her husband:
+
+"Not that Boston ain't a nice town t' live in; but we'll have t'
+enter a demurrer against her staying there f'r good. Y' see--"
+
+"Yes," said Fanny, smiling at Miss Daggett. "He went several days
+ago."
+
+"H'm-m," murmured Miss Daggett. "_She's_ livin' there, ain't she?"
+
+"You mean Miss Orr?"
+
+"I mean Miss Lyddy Bolton. I guess Bolton's a good 'nough name for
+_her_."
+
+From the Judge, in a somewhat louder tone:
+
+"That's th' way it looks t' me, dominie; an' if all th' leadin'
+citizens of Brookville'll put their name to it--an' I'm of th'
+opinion they will, when I make my charge t' th' jury--"
+
+"Certainly," murmured Fanny absently, as she gazed at her husband and
+the judge.
+
+She couldn't help wondering why her Wesley was speaking so earnestly
+to the Judge, yet in such a provokingly low tone of voice.
+
+"I had become so accustomed to thinking of her as Lydia Orr," she
+finished hastily.
+
+"Well, I don't b'lieve in givin' out a name 'at ain't yourn," said
+Lois Daggett, sharply. "She'd ought t' 'a' told right out who she
+was, an' what she come t' Brookville _for_."
+
+Judge Fulsom and the minister had moved still further away. Fanny,
+with some alarm, felt herself alone.
+
+"I don't think Miss Orr meant to be deceitful," she said nervously.
+
+"Well, o' course, if she's a-goin' t' be in th' family, it's natural
+you sh'd think so," said Lois Daggett, sniffing loudly.
+
+Fanny did not answer.
+
+"I sh'd _hope_ she an' Jim was engaged," proclaimed Miss Daggett. "If
+they ain't, they'd ought t' be."
+
+"Why should you say that, Miss Lois?" asked Fanny hurriedly. "They
+are very good friends."
+
+Miss Daggett bent forward, lowering her voice.
+
+"The's one thing I'd like t' know f'r certain," she said: "Did Jim
+Dodge find that body?"
+
+Fanny stared at her inquisitor resentfully.
+
+"There were a good many persons searching," she said coldly.
+
+Miss Daggett wagged her head in an irritated fashion.
+
+"Of course I know _that_," she snapped. "What I want t' know is
+whether Jim Dodge--"
+
+"I never asked my brother," interrupted Fanny. "It all happened so
+long ago, why not--"
+
+"Not s' terrible long," disagreed Miss Daggett. "It was th' first o'
+November. N' I've got a mighty good reason f'r askin'."
+
+"You have?" murmured Fanny, flashing a glance of entreaty at her
+husband.
+
+"Some of us ladies was talkin' it over," pursued the spinster
+relentlessly, "an' I says t' Mis' Deacon Whittle: 'Who counted th'
+money 'at was found on Andrew Bolton's body?' I says. 'W'y,' s' she,
+'th' ones 'at found him out in th' woods where he got lost, I
+s'pose.'  But come t' sift it right down t' facts, not one o' them
+ladies c'd tell f'r certain who 't was 'at found that body. The' was
+such an' excitement 'n' hullaballoo, nobody 'd thought t' ask. It
+wa'n't Deacon Whittle; n'r it wa'n't th' party from th' Brookville
+House; ner Hank Simonson, ner any o' the boys. _It was Jim Dodge, an'
+she was with him!"_
+
+"Well," said Fanny faintly.
+
+She looked up to meet the minister's eyes, with a sense of strong
+relief. Wesley was so wise and good. Wesley would know just what to
+say to this prying woman.
+
+"What are you and Miss Daggett talking about so earnestly?" asked the
+minister.
+
+When informed of the question under discussion, he frowned
+thoughtfully.
+
+"My dear Miss Daggett," he said, "if you will fetch me the dinner
+bell from Mrs. Whittle's kitchen, I shall be happy to answer your
+question and others like it which have reached me from time to time
+concerning this unhappy affair."
+
+"Mis' Deacon Whittle's dinner bell?" gasped Lois Daggett. "What's
+that got t' do with--"
+
+"Bring it to me, and you'll see," smiled the minister imperturbably.
+
+"What are you going to do, Wesley?" whispered Fanny.
+
+He gazed gravely down into her lovely eyes.
+
+_"Dearest,"_ he whispered back, "trust me! It is time we laid this
+uneasy ghost; don't you think so?"
+
+By now the large room was well filled with men, women and children.
+The ice cream was being passed around when suddenly the clanging
+sound of a dinner bell, vigorously operated by Joe Whittle, arrested
+attention.
+
+"The minister's got something to say! The minister's got something to
+say!" shouted the boy.
+
+Wesley Elliot, standing apart, lifted his hand in token of silence,
+then he spoke:
+
+"I have taken this somewhat unusual method of asking your attention
+to a matter which has for many years past enlisted your sympathies,"
+he began: "I refer to the Bolton affair."
+
+The sound of breath sharply indrawn and the stir of many feet died
+into profound silence as the minister went on, slowly and with
+frequent pauses:
+
+"Most of you are already familiar with the sordid details. It is not
+necessary for me to go back to the day, now nearly nineteen years
+ago, when many of you found yourselves unexpectedly impoverished
+because the man you trusted had defaulted.... There was much
+suffering in Brookville that winter, and since.... When I came to
+this parish I found it--sick. Because of the crime of Andrew Bolton?
+No. I repeat the word with emphasis: _No!_  Brookville was sick,
+despondent, dull, gloomy and impoverished--not because of Andrew
+Bolton's crime; but because Brookville had never forgiven Andrew
+Bolton.... Hate is the one destructive element in the universe; did
+you know that, friends? It is impossible for a man or woman who hates
+another to prosper.... And I'll tell you why this is--why it must be
+true: God is love--the opposite of hate. Hence All Power is enlisted
+on the side of _love_.... Think this over, and you'll know it is
+true.... Now the Bolton mystery: A year ago we were holding a fair in
+this village, which was sick and impoverished because it had never
+forgiven the man who stole its money.... You all remember that
+occasion. There were things to sell; but nobody had money to buy
+them. It wasn't a pleasant occasion. Nobody was enjoying it, least of
+all your minister. But a miracle took place-- There are miracles in
+the world today, as there always have been, thank God! There came
+into Brookville that day a person who was moved by love. Every
+impulse of her heart; everything she did was inspired by that
+mightiest force of the universe. She called herself Lydia Orr.... She
+had been called Lydia Orr, as far back as she could remember; so she
+did no wrong to anyone by retaining that name. But she had another
+name, which she quickly found was a byword and a hissing in
+Brookville. Was it strange that she shrank from telling it? She
+believed in the forgiveness of sins; and she had come to right a
+great wrong.... She did what she could, as it is written of another
+woman, who poured out a fragrant offering of love unappreciated save
+by One.... There quickly followed the last chapter in the
+tragedy--for it was all a tragedy, friends, as I look at it: the
+theft; the pitiful attempt to restore fourfold all that had been
+taken; the return of that ruined man, Andrew Bolton, after his heavy
+punishment; and his tragic death.... Some of you may not know all
+that happened that night. You do know of the cowardly attack made
+upon the helpless girl. You know of the flight of the terrified man,
+of how he was found dead two days later three miles from the village,
+in a lonely spot where he had perished from hunger and exposure....
+The body was discovered by James Dodge, with the aid of his dog. With
+him on that occasion was a detective from Boston, employed by Miss
+Bolton, and myself. There was a sum of money found on the body
+amounting to something over five thousand dollars. It had been
+secreted beneath the floor of Andrew Bolton's chamber, before his
+arrest and imprisonment. It is probable that he intended to make good
+his escape, but failed, owing to the illness of his wife.... This is
+a terrible story, friends, and it has a sad ending. Brookville had
+never learned to forgive. It had long ago formed the terrible habits
+of hate: suspicion, envy, sharp-tongued censure and the rest. Lydia
+Bolton could not remain here, though it was her birthplace and her
+home.... She longed for friendship! She asked for bread and you gave
+her--a stone!"
+
+The profound silence was broken by a sob from a distant corner. The
+strained listeners turned with a sharp movement of relief.
+
+"Fer pity sake!" faltered Abby Daggett, her beautiful, rosy face all
+quivering with grief. "Can't nobody do nothing?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am!" shouted the big voice of Judge Fulsom. "We can all do
+something.... I ain't going to sum up the case against Brookville;
+the parson's done it already; if there's any rebuttal coming from the
+defendant, now's the time to bring it before the court.... Nothing to
+say--eh? Well, I thought so! We're guilty of the charges preferred,
+and I'm going to pass sentence.... But before I do that, there's one
+thing the parson didn't mention, that in my opinion should be told,
+to wit: Miss Lydia Bolton's money--all that she had--came to her from
+her uncle, an honest hardworkin' citizen of Boston. He made every
+penny of it as a soap-boiler. So you see 'twas _clean_ money; and he
+left it to his niece, Lydia Bolton. What did she do with it? You
+know! She poured it out, right here in Brookville--pretty nigh all
+there was of it. She's got her place here; but mighty little besides.
+I'm her trustee, and I know. The five thousand dollars found on the
+dead body of Andrew Bolton, has been made a trust fund for the poor
+and discouraged of this community, under conditions anybody that'll
+take the trouble to step in to my office can find out...."
+
+The Judge paused to clear his throat, while he produced from his
+pocket, with a vast deal of ceremony, a legal looking document
+dangling lengths of red ribbon and sealing wax.
+
+"This Bond of Indemnity, which I'm going to ask every man, woman and
+child of fifteen years and up'ards, of the village of Brookville,
+hereinafter known as the Party of the First Part, to sign, reads as
+follows: Know all men by these presents that we, citizens of the
+village of Brookville, hereinafter known as the Party of the First
+Part, are held and firmly bound unto Miss Lydia Orr Bolton,
+hereinafter known as the Party of the Second Part.... Whereas; the
+above-named Party of the Second Part (don't f'rget that means Miss
+Lydia Bolton) did in behalf of her father--one Andrew Bolton,
+deceased--pay, compensate, satisfy, restore, remunerate, recompense
+_and re-quite_ all legal indebtedness incurred by said Andrew Bolton
+to, for, and in behalf of the aforesaid Party of the First Part....
+
+"You git me? If you don't, just come to my office and I'll explain in
+detail any of the legal terms not understood, comprehended and known
+by the feeble-minded of Brookville. Form in line at nine o'clock.
+First come, first served:
+
+"We, the Party of the First Part, bind ourselves, and each of our
+heirs, executors, administrators and assigns, jointly and severally,
+firmly by these presents, and at all times hereafter to save, defend,
+keep harmless and indemnify the aforesaid Party of the Second Part
+(Miss Lydia Bolton) of, from and against all further costs, damages,
+expense, disparagements (that means spiteful gossip, ladies!)
+molestations, slander, vituperations, etc. (I could say more, _but_
+we've got something to do that'll take time.)  And whereas, the said
+Party of the Second Part has been actually drove to Boston to live by
+the aforesaid slander, calumniations, aspersions and libels--which
+we, the said Party of the First Part do hereby acknowledge to be
+false and untrue (yes, and doggone mean, as I look at it)--we, the
+said Party of the First part do firmly bind ourselves, our heirs,
+executors, administrators an' assigns to quit all such illegalities
+from this day forth, and forever more." ...
+
+"You want to get out of the habit of talking mean about Andrew
+Bolton, for one thing. It's been as catching as measles in this town
+since I can remember. Andrew Bolton's dead and buried in our
+cemetery, beside his wife. We'll be there ourselves, some day; in the
+meanwhile we want to reform our tongues. You get me? All right!
+
+"And whereas, we, the Party of the First Part, otherwise known as the
+village of Brookville, do ask, beg, entreat, supplicate and plead the
+f'rgiveness of the Party of the Second Part, otherwise known as Miss
+Lydia Orr Bolton. And we also hereby request, petition, implore _an'_
+importune Miss Lydia Orr Bolton, otherwise known as the Party of the
+Second Part, to return to Brookville and make it her permanent place
+of residence, promising on our part, at all times hereafter, to save,
+defend, keep harmless and indemnify her against all unfriendliness,
+of whatever sort; and pledging ourselves to be good neighbors and
+loving friends from the date of this document, which, when signed by
+th' Party of the First Part, shall be of full force and virtue.
+Sealed with our seals. Dated this seventh day of June, in the year of
+our Lord, nineteen hundred--"
+
+A loud uproar of applause broke loose in the pause that followed;
+then the minister's clear voice called for silence once more.
+
+"The Judge has his big fountain pen filled to its capacity," he said.
+"Come forward and sign this--the most remarkable document on record,
+I am not afraid to say. Its signing will mean the wiping out of an
+old bitterness and the dawning of a new and better day for
+Brookville!"
+
+The Reverend Wesley Elliot had mixed his metaphors sadly; but no one
+minded that, least of all the minister himself, as he signed his name
+in bold black characters to the wondrous screed, over which Judge
+Fulsom had literally as well as metaphorically burned the midnight
+oil. Deacon and Mrs. Whittle signed; Postmaster and Mrs. Daggett
+signed, the latter with copious tears flowing over her smooth rosy
+cheeks. Miss Lois Daggett was next:
+
+"I guess I ought to be written down near the front," said she,
+"seeing I'm full as much to blame, and like that, as most anybody."
+
+"Come on you, Lute Parsons!" roared the Judge, while a group of
+matrons meekly subscribed their signatures. "We want some live
+men-folks on this document.... Aw, never mind, if you did! We all
+know you wa'n't yourself that night, Lucius.... That's right; come
+right forward! We want the signature of every man that went out there
+that night, full of cussedness and bad whiskey.... That's the ticket!
+Come on, everybody! Get busy!"
+
+Nobody had attended the door for the last hour, Joe Whittle being a
+spellbound witness of the proceedings; and so it chanced that nobody
+saw two persons, a man and a woman who entered quietly--one might
+almost have said timidly, as if doubtful of a welcome in the crowded
+place. It was Abby Daggett who caught sight of the girl's face,
+shining against the soft dark of the summer night like a pale star.
+
+"Why, my sakes alive!" she cried, "if there ain't Lyddy Bolton and
+Jim Dodge, now! Did you ever!"
+
+As she folded the girl's slight figure to her capacious breast, Mrs.
+Daggett summed up in a single pithy sentence all the legal
+phraseology of the Document, which by now had been signed by
+everybody old enough to write their names:
+
+"Well! we certainly are glad you've come home, Lyddy; an' we hope
+you'll never leave us no more!"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVIII
+
+
+"Fanny," said Ellen suddenly; "I want to tell you something."
+
+Mrs. Wesley Elliot turned a complacently abstracted gaze upon her
+friend who sat beside her on the vine-shaded piazza of the parsonage.
+She felt the sweetest sympathy for Ellen, whenever she thought of her
+at all:
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+"Do you remember my speaking to you about Jim-- Oh, a long time ago,
+and how he--? It was perfectly ridiculous, you know."
+
+Fanny's blue eyes became suddenly alert.
+
+"You mean the time Jim kissed you," she murmured. "Oh, Ellen, I've
+always been so sorry for--"
+
+"Well; you needn't be," interrupted Ellen; "I never cared a snap for
+Jim Dodge; so there!"
+
+The youthful matron sighed gently: she felt that she understood poor
+dear Ellen perfectly, and in token thereof she patted poor dear
+Ellen's hand.
+
+"I know exactly how you feel," she warbled.
+
+Ellen burst into a gleeful laugh:
+
+"You think you do; but you don't," she informed her friend, with a
+spice of malice. "Your case was entirely different from mine, my
+dear: You were perfectly crazy over Wesley Elliot; I was only in love
+with being in love."
+
+Fanny looked sweetly mystified and a trifle piqued withal.
+
+"I wanted to have a romance--to be madly in love," Ellen explained.
+"Oh, you know! Jim was merely a peg to hang it on."
+
+The wife of the minister smiled a lofty compassion.
+
+"Everything seems so different after one is married," she stated.
+
+"Is that really so?" cried Ellen. "Well, I shall soon know, Fan, for
+I'm to be married in the fall."
+
+_"Married? Why, Ellen Dix!"_
+
+"Uh--huh," confirmed Ellen, quite satisfied with the success of her
+_coup_. "You don't know him, Fan; but he's perfectly elegant--and
+_handsome!_  Just wait till you see him."
+
+Ellen rocked herself to and fro excitedly.
+
+"I met him in Grenoble last winter, and we're going to live there in
+the _sweetest_ house. He fell in love with me the first minute he saw
+me. You never knew anyone to be so awfully in love ... m'm!"
+
+Without in the least comprehending the reason for the phenomenon,
+Mrs. Wesley Elliot experienced a singular depression of spirit. Of
+course she was glad poor dear Ellen was to be happy. She strove to
+infuse a sprightly satisfaction into her tone and manner as she said:
+
+"What wonderful news, dear. But isn't it rather--sudden? I mean,
+oughtn't you to have known him longer! ...You didn't tell me his
+name."
+
+Ellen's piquant dark face sparkled with mischief and happiness.
+
+"His name is Harvey Wade," she replied; "you know Wade and Hampton,
+where you bought your wedding things, Fan? Everybody knows the Wades,
+and I've known Harvey long enough to--"
+
+She grew suddenly wistful as she eyed her friend:
+
+"You _have_ changed a lot since you were married, Fan; all the girls
+think so. Sometimes I feel almost afraid of you. Is it--do you--?"
+
+Fanny's unaccountable resentment melted before a sudden rush of
+sympathy and understanding. She drew Ellen's blushing face close to
+her own in the sweetness of caresses:
+
+"I'm _so_ glad for you, dear, so _glad!_"
+
+"And you'll tell Jim?" begged Ellen, after a silence full of thrills.
+"I should hate to have him suppose--"
+
+"He doesn't, Ellen," Jim's sister assured her, out of a secret fund
+of knowledge to which she would never have confessed. "Jim always
+understood you far better than I did. And he likes you, too, better
+than any girl in Brookville."
+
+"Except Lydia," amended Ellen.
+
+"Oh, of course, except Lydia."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIX
+
+
+There was a warm, flower-scented breeze stirring the heavy foliage
+drenched with the silver rain of moonlight, and the shrilling of
+innumerable small voices of the night. It all belonged; yet neither
+the man nor the woman noticed anything except each other; nor heard
+anything save the words the other uttered.
+
+"To think that you love me, Lydia!" he said, triumph and humility
+curiously mingled in his voice.
+
+"How could I help it, Jim? I could never have borne it all, if you--"
+
+"Really, Lydia?"
+
+He looked down into her face which the moonlight had spiritualized to
+the likeness of an angel.
+
+She smiled and slipped her hand into his.
+
+They were alone in the universe, so he stooped and kissed her,
+murmuring inarticulate words of rapture.
+
+After uncounted minutes they walked slowly on, she within the circle
+of his arm, her blond head against the shoulder of his rough tweed
+coat.
+
+"When shall it be, Lydia?" he asked.
+
+She blushed--even in the moonlight he could see the adorable flutter
+of color in her face.
+
+"I am all alone in the world, Jim," she said, rather sadly. "I have
+no one but you."
+
+"I'll love you enough to make up for forty relations!" he declared.
+"And, anyway, as soon as we're married you'll have mother and Fan
+and--er--"
+
+He made a wry face, as it occurred to him for the first time that the
+Reverend Wesley Elliot was about to become Lydia's brother-in-law.
+
+The girl laughed.
+
+"Haven't you learned to like him yet?" she inquired teasingly.
+
+"I can stand him for a whole hour at a time now, without experiencing
+a desire to kick him," he told her. "But why should we waste time
+talking about Wesley Elliot?"
+
+Lydia appeared to be considering his question with some seriousness.
+
+"Why, Jim," she said, looking straight up into his eyes with the
+innocent candor he had loved in her from the beginning, "Mr. Elliot
+will expect to marry us."
+
+"That's so!" conceded Jim; "Fan will expect it, too."
+
+He looked at her eagerly:
+
+"Aren't you in a hurry for that wonderful brother-in-law, Lydia?
+Don't you think--?"
+
+The smile on her face was wonderful now; he felt curiously abashed by
+it, like one who has inadvertently jested in a holy place.
+
+"Forgive me, dearest," he murmured.
+
+"If you would like--if it is not too soon--my birthday is next
+Saturday. Mother used to make me a little party on my birthday, so I
+thought--it seemed to me--and the roses are all in bloom."
+
+There was only one way to thank her for this halting little speech:
+he took her in his arms and whispered words which no one, not even
+the crickets in the hedge could hear, if crickets ever were
+listeners, and not the sole chorus on their tiny stage of life.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of An Alabaster Box, by
+Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
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