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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/18896-8.txt b/18896-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9bf02f6 --- /dev/null +++ b/18896-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10241 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Faith Gartney's Girlhood, by Mrs. A. D. T. +Whitney + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Faith Gartney's Girlhood + + +Author: Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney + + + +Release Date: July 22, 2006 [eBook #18896] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAITH GARTNEY'S GIRLHOOD*** + + +E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/) + + + +FAITH GARTNEY'S GIRLHOOD + +by + +MRS. A. D. T. WHITNEY + +Author of "The Gayworthy's," "A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life," +"Footsteps on the Seas," etc. + + + + + + + +New York +The New York Book Company +1913 + + + + +CONTENTS + + I. "Money, Money!" 1 + II. Sortes. 4 + III. Aunt Henderson. 6 + IV. Glory McWhirk. 10 + V. Something Happens. 15 + VI. Aunt Henderson's Girl Hunt. 26 + VII. Cares; And What Came Of Them. 31 + VIII. A Niche In Life, And A Woman To Fill It. 34 + IX. Life Or Death? 37 + X. Rough Ends. 40 + XI. Cross Corners. 43 + XII. A Reconnoissance. 49 + XIII. Development. 54 + XIV. A Drive With The Doctor. 59 + XV. New Duties. 65 + XVI. "Blessed Be Ye, Poor." 68 + XVII. Frost-Wonders. 75 + XVIII. Out In The Snow. 79 + XIX. A "Leading." 85 + XX. Paul. 89 + XXI. Pressure. 94 + XXII. Roger Armstrong's Story. 99 + XXIII. Question And Answer. 103 + XXIV. Conflict. 112 + XXV. A Game At Chess. 116 + XXVI. Lakeside. 120 + XXVII. At The Mills. 124 + XXVIII. Locked In. 127 + XXIX. Home. 135 + XXX. Aunt Henderson's Mystery. 140 + XXXI. Nurse Sampson's Way Of Looking At It. 147 + XXXII. Glory Mcwhirk's Inspiration. 152 + XXXIII. Last Hours. 157 + XXXIV. Mrs. Parley Gimp. 160 + XXXV. Indian Summer. 164 + XXXVI. Christmastide. 169 + XXXVII. The Wedding Journey. 177 + + + + +FAITH GARTNEY'S GIRLHOOD + +CHAPTER I. + +"MONEY, MONEY!" + +"Shoe the horse and shoe the mare, +And let the little colt go bare." + + +East or West, it matters not where--the story may, doubtless, indicate +something of latitude and longitude as it proceeds--in the city of +Mishaumok, lived Henderson Gartney, Esq., one of those American +gentlemen of whom, if she were ever canonized, Martha of Bethany must be +the patron saint--if again, feminine celestials, sainthood once achieved +through the weary experience of earth, don't know better than to assume +such charge of wayward man--born, as they are, seemingly, to the life +destiny of being ever "careful and troubled about many things." + +We have all of us, as little girls, read "Rosamond." Now, one of +Rosamond's early worries suggests a key to half the worries, early and +late, of grown men and women. The silver paper won't cover the basket. + +Mr. Gartney had spent his years, from twenty-five to forty, in +sedulously tugging at the corners. He had had his share of silver paper, +too--only the basket was a little too big. + +In a pleasant apartment, half library, half parlor, and used in the +winter months as a breakfast room, beside a table still covered with the +remnants of the morning meal, sat Mrs. Gartney and her young daughter, +Faith; the latter with a somewhat disconcerted, not to say rueful, +expression of face. + +A pair of slippers on the hearth and the morning paper thrown down +beside an armchair, gave hint of the recent presence of the master of +the house. + +"Then I suppose I can't go," remarked the young lady. + +"I'm sure I don't know," answered the elder, in a helpless, worried sort +of tone. "It doesn't seem really right to ask your father for the money. +I did just speak of your wanting some things for a party, but I suppose +he has forgotten it; and, to-day, I hate to trouble him with +reminding. Must you really have new gloves and slippers, both?" + +Faith held up her little foot for answer, shod with a partly worn bronze +kid, reduced to morning service. + +"These are the best I've got. And my gloves have been cleaned over and +over, till you said yourself, last time, they would hardly do to wear +again. If it were any use, I should say I must have a new dress; but I +thought at least I should freshen up with the 'little fixings,' and +perhaps have something left for a few natural flowers for my hair." + +"I know. But your father looked annoyed when I told him we should want +fresh marketing to-day. He is really pinched, just now, for ready +money--and he is so discouraged about the times. He told me only last +night of a man who owed him five hundred dollars, and came to say he +didn't know as he could pay a cent. It doesn't seem to be a time to +afford gloves and shoes and flowers. And then there'll be the carriage, +too." + +"Oh, dear!" sighed Faith, in the tone of one who felt herself +checkmated. "I wish I knew what we really _could_ afford! It always +seems to be these little things that don't cost much, and that other +girls, whose fathers are not nearly so well off, always, have, without +thinking anything about it." And she glanced over the table, whereon +shone a silver coffee service, and up at the mantel where stood a French +clock that had been placed there a month before. + +"Pull at the bobbin and the latch will fly up." An unspoken suggestion, +of drift akin to this, flitted through the mind of Faith. She wondered +if her father knew that this was a Signal Street invitation. + +Mr. Gartney was ambitious for his children, and solicitous for their +place in society. + +But Faith had a touch of high-mindedness about her that made it +impossible for her to pull bobbins. + +So, when her father presently, with hat and coat on, came into the room +again for a moment, before going out for the day, she sat quite silent, +with her foot upon the fender, looking into the fire. + +Something in her face however, quite unconsciously, bespoke that the +world did not lie entirely straight before her, and this catching her +father's eye, brought up to him, by an untraceable association, the +half-proffered request of his wife. + +"So you haven't any shoes, Faithie. Is that it?" + +"None nice enough for a party, father." + +"And the party is a vital necessity, I suppose. Where is it to be?" + +The latch string was put forth, and while Faith still stayed her hand, +her mother, absolved from selfish end, was fain to catch it up. + +"At the Rushleighs'. The Old Year out and the New Year in." + +"Oh, well, we mustn't 'let the colt go bare,'" answered Mr. Gartney, +pleasantly, portemonnaie in hand. "But you must make that do." He handed +her five dollars. "And take good care of your things when you have got +them, for I don't pick up many five dollars nowadays." + +And the old look of care crept up, replacing the kindly smile, as he +turned and left the room. + +"I feel very much as if I had picked my father's pocket," said Faith, +holding the bank note, half ashamedly, in her hand. + +Henderson Gartney, Esq., was a man of no method in his expenditure. When +money chanced to be plenty with him it was very apt to go as might +happen--for French clocks, or whatsoever; and then, suddenly, the silver +paper fell short elsewhere, and lo! a corner was left uncovered. + +The horse and the mare were shod. Great expenses were incurred; money +was found, somehow, for grand outlays; but the comfort of buying, with a +readiness, the little needed matters of every day--this was foregone. +"Not let the colt go bare!" It was precisely the thing he was +continually doing. + +Mrs. Gartney had long found it to be her only wise way to make her hay +while the sun was shining--to buy, when she could buy, what she was sure +would be most wanted--and to look forward as far as possible, in her +provisions, since her husband scarcely seemed to look forward at all. + +So she exemplified, over and over again in her life, the story of +Pharaoh and his fat and lean kine. + +That night, Faith, her little purchases and arrangements all complete, +and flowers and carriage bespoken for the next evening, went to bed to +dream such dreams as only come to the sleep of early years. + +At the same time, lingering by the fireside below for a half hour's +unreserved conversation, Mr. Gartney was telling his wife of another +money disappointment. + +"Blacklow, at Cross Corners, gives up the lease of the house in the +spring. He writes me he is going out to Indiana with his son-in-law. I +don't know where I shall find another such tenant--or any at all, for +that matter." + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +SORTES. + +"How shall I know if I do choose the right?" + +"Since this fortune falls to you, +Be content, and seek no new." + MERCHANT OF VENICE. + + +"Now, Mahala Harris," said Faith, as she glanced in at the nursery door, +which opened from her room, "don't let Hendie get up a French Revolution +here while I'm gone to dinner." + +"Land sakes! Miss Faith! I don't know what you mean, nor whether I can +help it. I dare say he'd get up a Revolution of '76, over again, if he +once set out. He does train like 'lection, fact, sometimes." + +"Well, don't let him build barricades with all the chairs, so that I +shall have to demolish my way back again. I'm going to lay out my dress +for to-night." + +And very little dinner could her young appetite manage on this last day +of the year. All her vital energy was busy in her anticipative brain, +and glancing thence in sparkles from her eyes, and quivering down in +swift currents to her restless little feet. It mattered little that +there was delicious roast beef smoking on the table, and Christmas pies +arrayed upon the sideboard, while upstairs the bright ribbon and tiny, +shining, old-fashioned buckles were waiting to be shaped into rosettes +for the new slippers, and the lace hung, half basted, from the neck of +the simple but delicate silk dress, and those lovely greenhouse flowers +stood in a glass dish on her dressing table, to be sorted for her hair, +and into a graceful breast knot. No--dinner was a very secondary and +contemptible affair, compared with these. + +There were few forms or faces, truly, that were pleasanter to look upon +in the group that stood, disrobed of their careful outer wrappings, in +Mrs. Rushleigh's dressing room; their hurried chat and gladsome +greetings distracted with the drawing on of gloves and the last +adjustment of shining locks, while the bewildering music was floating up +from below, mingled with the hum of voices from the rooms where, as +children say, "the party had begun" already. + +And Mrs. Rushleigh, when Faith paid her timid respects in the +drawing-room at last, made her welcome with a peculiar grace and +_empressement_ that had their own flattering weight and charm; for the +lady was a sort of St. Peter of fashion, holding its mystic keys, and +admitting or rejecting whom she would; and culled, with marvelous tact +and taste, the flower of the up-growing world of Mishaumok to adorn "her +set." + +After which, Faith, claimed at once by an eager aspirant, and beset with +many a following introduction and petition, was drawn to and kept in the +joyous whirlpool of the dance, till she had breathed in enough of +delight and excitement to carry her quite beyond the thought even of +ices and oysters and jellies and fruits, and the score of unnamable +luxuries whereto the young revelers were duly summoned at half past ten +o'clock. + +Four days' anticipation--four hours' realization--culminated in the +glorious after-supper midnight dance, when, marshaled hither and thither +by the ingenious orders of the band, the jubilant company found itself, +just on the impending stroke of twelve, drawn out around the room in one +great circle; and suddenly a hush of the music, at the very poising +instant of time, left them motionless for a moment to burst out again in +the age-honored and heartwarming strains of "Auld Lang Syne." Hand +joining hand they sang its chorus, and when the last note had +lingeringly died away, one after another gently broke from their places, +and the momentary figure melted out with the dying of the Year, never +again to be just so combined. It was gone, as vanishes also every other +phase and grouping in the kaleidoscope of Time. + +"Now is the very 'witching hour' to try the Sortes!" + +Margaret Rushleigh said this, standing on the threshold of a little +inner apartment that opened from the long drawing-room, at one end. + +She held in her hand a large and beautiful volume--a gift of Christmas +Day. + +"Here are Fates for everybody who cares to find them out!" + +The book was a collection of poetical quotations, arranged by numbers, +and to be chosen thereby, and the chance application taken as an oracle. + +Everything like fortune telling, or a possible peering into the things +of coming time, has such a charm! Especially with them to whom the past +is but a prelude and beginning, and for whom the great, voluminous +Future holds enwrapped the whole mystic Story of Life! + +"No, no, this won't do!" cried the young lady, as circle behind circle +closed and crowded eagerly about her. "Fate doesn't give out her +revelations in such wholesale fashion. You must come up with proper +reverence, one by one." + +As she spoke, she withdrew a little within the curtained archway, and, +placing the crimson-covered book of destiny upon an inlaid table, +brought forward a piano stool, and seated herself thereon, as a +priestess upon a tripod. + +A little shyly, one after another, gaining knowledge of what was going +on, the company strayed in from without, and, each in turn hazarding a +number, received in answer the rhyme or stanza indicated; and who shall +say how long those chance-directed words, chosen for the most part with +the elastic ambiguity of all oracles of any established authority, +lingered echoing in the heads and hearts of them to whom they were +given--shaping and confirming, or darkening with their denial many an +after hope and fear? + +Faith Gartney came up among the very last. + +"How many numbers are there to choose from?" she asked. + +"Three hundred and sixty-five. The number of days in the year." + +"Well, then, I'll take the number of the day; the last--no, I +forgot--the first of all." + +Nobody before had chosen this, and Margaret read, in a clear, gentle +voice, not untouched with the grave beauty of its own words, and the +sweet, earnest, listening look of the young face that bent toward her to +take them in: + + "Rouse to some high and holy work of love, + And thou an angel's happiness shalt know; + Shalt bless the earth while in the world above; + The good begun by thee while here below + Shall like a river run, and broader flow." + +Ten minutes later, and all else were absorbed in other things +again--leave-takings, parting chat, and a few waltzing a last measure to +a specially accorded grace of music. Faith stood, thoughtfully, by the +table where the book was closed and left. She quietly reopened it at +that first page. Unconscious of a step behind her, her eyes ran over the +lines again, to make their beautiful words her own. + +"And that was your oracle, then?" asked a kindly voice. + +Glancing quickly up, while the timid color flushed her cheek, she met a +look as of a wise and watchful angel, though it came through the eye and +smile of a gray-haired man, who laid his hand upon the page as he said: + +"Remember--it is _conditional_." + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +AUNT HENDERSON. + +"I never met a manner more entirely without frill." + SYDNEY SMITH. + + +Late into the morning of the New Year, Faith slept. Through her half +consciousness crept, at last, a feeling of music that had been +wandering in faint echoes among the chambers of her brain all those +hours of her suspended life. + +Light, and music, and a sense of an unexamined, half-remembered joy, +filled her being and embraced her at her waking on this New Year's Day. +A moment she lay in a passive, unthinking delight; and then her first, +full, and distinct thought shaped itself, as from a sweet and solemn +memory: + + "Rouse to some high and holy work of love, + And thou an angel's happiness shalt know." + +An impulse of lofty feeling held her in its ecstasy; a noble longing and +determination shaped itself, though vaguely, within her. For a little, +she was touched in her deepest and truest nature; she was uplifted to +the threshold of a great resolve. But generalities are so grand--details +so commonplace and unsatisfying. _What_ should she do? What "high and +holy work" lay waiting for her? + +And, breaking in upon her reverie--bringing her down with its rough and +common call to common duty--the second bell for breakfast rang. + +"Oh, dear! It is no use! Who'll know what great things I've been wishing +and planning, when I've nothing to show for it but just being late to +breakfast? And father hates it so--and New Year's morning, too!" + +Hurrying her toilet, she repaired, with all the haste possible, to the +breakfast room, where her consciousness of shortcoming was in nowise +lessened when she saw who occupied the seat at her father's right +hand--Aunt Henderson! + +Aunt Faith Henderson, who had reached her nephew's house last evening +just after the young Faith, her namesake, had gone joyously off to +"dance the Old Year out and the New Year in." Old-fashioned Aunt +Faith--who believed most devoutly that "early to bed and early to rise" +was the _only_ way to be "healthy, wealthy, or wise!" Aunt Faith, who +had never quite forgiven our young heroine for having said, at the +discreet and positive age of nine, that "she didn't see what her father +and mother had called her such an ugly name for. It was a real old +maid's name!" Whereupon, having asked the child what she would have +preferred as a substitute, and being answered, "Well--Clotilda, I guess; +or Cleopatra," Miss Henderson had told her that she was quite welcome to +change it for any heathen woman's that she pleased, and the worse +behaved perhaps the better. She wouldn't be so likely to do it any +discredit! + +Aunt Henderson had a downright and rather extreme fashion of putting +things; nevertheless, in her heart she was not unkindly. + +So when Faithie, with her fair, fresh face--a little apprehensive +trouble in it for her tardiness--came in, there was a grim bending of +the old lady's brows; but, below, a half-belying twinkle in the eye, +that, long as it had looked out sharply and keenly on the things and +people of this mixed-up world, found yet a pleasure in anything so young +and bright. + +"Why, auntie! How do you do?" cried Faith, cunning culprit that she was, +taking the "bull by the horns," and holding out her hand. "I wish you a +Happy New Year! Good morning, father, and mother! A Happy New Year! I'm +sorry I'm so late." + +"Wish you a great many," responded the great-aunt, in stereotyped +phrase. "It seems to me, though, you've lost the beginning of this one." + +"Oh, no!" replied Faithie, gayly. "I had that at the party. We danced +the New Year in." + +"Humph!" said Aunt Henderson. + +Breakfast over, and Mr. Gartney gone to his counting room, the parlor +girl made her appearance with her mop and tub of hot water, to wash up +the silver and china. + +"Give me that," said Aunt Henderson, taking a large towel from the +girl's arm as she set down her tub upon the sideboard. "You go and find +something else to do." + +Wherever she might be--to be sure, her round of visiting was not a large +one--Aunt Henderson never let anyone else wash up breakfast cups. + +This quiet arming of herself, with mop and towel, stirred up everybody +else to duty. Her niece-in-law laughed, withdrew her feet from the +comfortable fender, and departed to the kitchen to give her household +orders for the day. Faith removed cups, glasses, forks, and spoons from +the table to the sideboard, while the maid, returning with a tray, +carried off to the lower regions the larger dishes. + +"I haven't told you yet, Elizabeth, what I came to town for," said Aunt +Faith, when Mrs. Gartney came back into the breakfast room. "I'm going +to hunt up a girl." + +"A girl, aunt! Why, what has become of Prudence?" + +"Mrs. Pelatiah Trowe. That's what's become of her. More fool she." + +"But why in the world do you come to the city for a servant? It's the +worst possible place. Nineteen out of twenty are utterly good for +nothing." + +"I'm going to look out for the twentieth." + +"But aren't there girls enough in Kinnicutt who would be glad to step in +Prue's place?" + +"Of course there are. But they're all well enough off where they are. +When I have a chance to give away, I want to give it to somebody that +needs it." + +"I'm afraid you'll hardly find any efficient girl who will appreciate +the chance of going twenty miles into the country." + +"I don't want an efficient girl. I'm efficient myself, and that's +enough." + +"Going to _train_ another, at your time of life, aunt?" asked Mrs. +Gartney, in surprise. + +"I suppose I must either train a girl, or let her train me; and, at my +time of life, I don't feel to stand in need of that." + +"How shall I go to work to inquire?" resumed Aunt Henderson, after a +pause. + +"Well, there are the Homes, and the Offices, and the Ministers at Large. +At a Home, they would probably recommend you somebody they've made up +their minds to put out to service, and she might or might not be such as +would suit you. Then at the Offices, you'll see all sorts, and mostly +poor ones." + +"I'll try an Office, first," interrupted Miss Henderson. "I _want_ to +see all sorts. Faith, you'll go with me, by and by, won't you, and help +me find the way?" + +Faith, seated at a little writing table at the farther end of the room, +busied in copying into her album, in a clear, neat, but rather stiff +schoolgirl's hand, the oracle of the night before, did not at once +notice that she was addressed. + +"Faith, child! don't you hear?" + +"Oh, yes, aunt. What is it?" + +"I want you to go to a what-d'ye-call-it office with me, to-day." + +"An intelligence office," explained her mother. "Aunt Faith wants to +find a girl." + +"'_Lucus a non lucendo_,'" quoted Faith, rather wittily, from her little +stock of Latin. "Stupidity offices, _I_ should call them, from the +specimens they send out." + +"Hold your tongue, chit! Don't talk Latin to me!" growled Aunt +Henderson. + +"What are you writing?" she asked, shortly after, when Mrs. Gartney had +again left her and Faith to each other. "Letters, or Latin?" + +Faith colored, and laughed. + +"Only a fortune that was told me last night," she replied. + +"Oh! 'A little husband,' I suppose, 'no bigger than my thumb; put him in +a pint pot, and there bid him drum.'" + +"No," said Faith, half seriously, and half teased out of her +seriousness. "It's nothing of that sort. At least," she added, glancing +over the lines again, "I don't think it means anything like that." + +And Faith laid down the book, and went upstairs for a word with her +mother. + +Aunt Henderson, who had been brought up in times when all the doings of +young girls were strictly supervised, and who had no high-flown +scruples, because she had no mean motives, deliberately walked over and +fetched the elegant little volume from the table, reseated herself in +her armchair--felt for her glasses, and set them carefully upon her +nose--and, as her grandniece returned, was just finishing her perusal +of the freshly inscribed lines. + +"Humph! A good fortune. Only you've got to earn it." + +"Yes," said Faith, quite gravely. "And I don't see how. There doesn't +seem to be much that I can do." + +"Just take hold of the first thing that comes in your way. If the Lord's +got anything bigger to give you, he'll see to it. There's your mother's +mending basket brimful of stockings." + +Faith couldn't help laughing. Presently she grew grave again. + +"Aunt Henderson," said she, abruptly, "I wish something would happen to +me. I get tired of living sometimes. Things don't seem worth while." + +Aunt Henderson bent her head slightly, and opened her eyes wide over the +tops of her glasses. + +"Don't say that again," said she. "Things happen fast enough. Don't you +dare to tempt Providence." + +"Providence won't be tempted, nor misunderstand," replied Faith, an +undertone of reverence qualifying her girlish repartee. "He knows just +what I mean." + +"She's a queer child," said Aunt Faith to herself, afterwards, thinking +over the brief conversation. "She'll be something or nothing, I always +said. I used to think 'twould be nothing." + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +GLORY McWHIRK. + +"There's beauty waiting to be born, + And harmony that makes no sound; +And bear we ever, unawares, + A glory that hath not been crowned." + + +Shall I try to give you a glimpse of quite another young life than Faith +Gartney's? One looking also vaguely, wonderingly, for "something to +happen"--that indefinite "something" which lies in everybody's future, +which may never arrive, and yet which any hour may bring? + +Very little likelihood there has ever seemed for any great joy to get +into such a life as this has been, that began, or at least has its +earliest memory and association, in the old poorhouse at Stonebury. + +A child she was, of five years, when she was taken in there with her +old, crippled grandmother. + +Peter McWhirk was picked up dead, from the graveled drive of a +gentleman's place, where he had been trimming the high trees that shaded +it. An unsound limb--a heedless movement--and Peter went straight down, +thirty feet, and out of life. Out of life, where he had a trim, +comfortable young wife--one happy little child, for whom skies were as +blue, and grass as green, and buttercups as golden as for the little +heiress of Elm Hill, who was riding over the lawn in her basket wagon, +when Peter met his death there--the hope, also, of another that was to +come. + +Rosa McWhirk and her baby of a day old were buried the week after, +together; and then there was nothing left for Glory and her helpless +grandmother but the poorhouse as a present refuge; and to the one death, +that ends all, and to the other a life of rough and unremitting work to +look to for by and by. + +When Glory came into this world where wants begin with the first breath, +and go on thickening around us, and pressing upon us until the last one +is supplied to us--a grave--she wanted, first of all, a name. + +"Sure what'll I call the baby?" said the proud young mother to the +ladies from the white corner house, where she had served four faithful +years of her maidenhood, and who came down at once with comforts and +congratulations. "They've sint for the praist, an' I've niver bethought +of a name. I made so certain 'twould be a boy!" + +"What a funny bit of a thing it is!" cried the younger of the two +visitors, turning back the bedclothes a little from the tiny, red, +puckered face, with short, sandy-colored hair standing up about the +temples like a fuzz ball. + +"I'd call her Glory. There's a halo round her head like the saints in +the pictures." + +"Sure, that's jist like yersilf, Miss Mattie!" exclaimed Rosa, with a +faint, merry little laugh. "An' quare enough, I knew a lady once't of +the very name, in the ould country. Miss Gloriana O'Dowd she was; an' +the beauty o' County Kerry. My Lady Kinawley, she came to be. 'Deed, but +I'd like to do it, for the ould times, an' for you thinkin' of it! I'll +ask Peter, anyhow!" + +And so Glory got her name; and Mattie Hyde, who gave her that, gave her +many another thing that was no less a giving to the mother also, before +she was two years old. Then Mrs. Hyde and the young lady, having first +let the corner house, went away to Europe to stay for years; and when a +box of tokens from the far, foreign lands came back to Stonebury a while +after, there was a grand shawl for Rosa, and a pretty braided frock for +the baby, and a rosary that Glory keeps to this hour, that had been +blessed by the Pope. That was the last. Mattie and her mother sailed out +upon the Mediterranean one day from the bright coast of France for a far +eastern port, to see the Holy Land. God's Holy Land they did see, +though they never touched those Syrian shores, or climbed the hills +about Jerusalem. + +Glory remembered--for the most part dimly, for some special points +distinctly--her child life of three years in Stonebury poorhouse. How +her grandmother and an old countrywoman from the same county "at home" +sat knitting and crooning together in a sunny corner of the common room +in winter, or out under the stoop in summer; how she rolled down the +green bank behind the house; and, when she grew big enough to be trusted +with a knife, was sent out to dig dandelions in the spring, and how an +older girl went with her round the village, and sold them from house to +house. How, at last, her old grandmother died, and was buried; and how a +woman of the village, who had used to buy her dandelions, found a place +for her with a relative of her own, in the ten-mile distant city, who +took Glory to "bring up"--"seeing," as she said, "there was nobody +belonging to her to interfere." + +Was there a day, after that, that did not leave its searing impress upon +heart and memory, of the life that was given, in its every young pulse +and breath, to sordid toil for others, and to which it seemed nobody on +earth owed aught of care or service in return? + +It was a close little house--one of those houses where they have fried +dinners so often that the smell never gets out in Budd Street--a street +of a single side, wedged in between the back yards of more pretentious +mansions that stood on fair parallel avenues sloping down from a hilltop +to the waterside, that Mrs. Grubbling lived in. + +Here Glory McWhirk, from eight years old to nearly fifteen, scoured +knives and brasses, tended doorbell, set tables, washed dishes, and +minded the baby; whom, at her peril, she must "keep pacified"--i. e., +amused and content, while its mother was otherwise busy. For her, poor +child--baby that she still, almost, was herself--who amused, or +contented her? There are humans with whom amusement and content have +nothing to do. What will you? The world must go on. + +Glory curled the baby's hair, and made him "look pretty." Mrs. Grubbling +cut her little handmaid's short to save trouble; so that the very +determined yellow locks which, under more favoring circumstances of +place and fortune, might have been trained into lovely golden curls, +stood up continually in their restless reaching after the fairer destiny +that had been meant for them, in the old fuzz-ball fashion; and Glory +grew more and more to justify her name. + +Do you think she didn't know what beauty was--this child who never had a +new or pretty garment, but who wore frocks "fadged up" out of old, faded +breadths of her mistress's dresses, and bonnets with brims cut off and +topknots taken down, and coarse shoes, and stockings cut out of the +legs of those whereof Mrs. Grubbling had worn out the extremities? Do +you think she didn't feel the difference, and that it wasn't this that +made her shuffle along so with her toes in, when she sped along the +streets upon her manifold errands, and met gentle-people's children +laughing and skipping their hoops upon the sidewalks? + +Out of all lives, actual and possible, each one of us appropriates +continually into his own. This is a world of hints only, out of which +every soul seizes to itself what it needs. + +This girl, uncherished, repressed in every natural longing to be and to +have, took in all the more of what was possible; for God had given her +this glorious insight, this imagination, wherewith we fill up life's +scanty outline, and grasp at all that might be, or that elsewhere, is. +In her, as in us all, it was often--nay, daily--a discontent; yet a +noble discontent, and curbed with a grand, unconscious patience. She +scoured her knives; she shuffled along the streets on hasty errands; she +went up and down the house in her small menial duties; she put on and +off her coarse, repulsive clothing; she uttered herself in her common, +ignorant forms of speech; she showed only as a poor, low, little Irish +girl with red hair and staring, wondering eyes, and awkward movements, +and a frightened fashion of getting into everybody's way; and yet, +behind all this, there was another life that went on in a hidden beauty +that you and I cannot fathom, save only as God gives the like, inwardly, +to ourselves. + +When Glory's mistress cut her hair, there were always tears and +rebellion. It was her one, eager, passionate longing, in these childish +days, that these locks of hers should be let to grow. She thought she +could almost bear anything else, if only this stiff, unseemly crop might +lengthen out into waves and ringlets that should toss in the wind like +the carefully kempt tresses of children she met in the streets. She +imagined it would be a complete and utter happiness just once to feel it +falling in its wealth about her shoulders or dropping against her +cheeks; and to be able to look at it with her eyes, and twist her +fingers in it at the ends. And so, when it got to be its longest, and +began to make itself troublesome about her forehead, and to peep below +her shabby bonnet in her neck, she had a brief season of wonderful +enjoyment in it. Then she could "make believe" it had really grown out; +and the comfort she took in "going through the motions"--pretending to +tuck behind her ears what scarcely touched their tips, and tossing her +head continually, to throw back imaginary masses of curls, was truly +indescribable, and such as I could not begin to make you understand. + +"Half-witted monkey!" Mrs. Grubbling would ejaculate, contemptuously, +seeing, with what she conceived marvelous penetration, the half of her +little servant's thought, and so pronouncing from her own half wit. Then +the great shears came out, and the instinct of grace and beauty in the +child was pitilessly outraged, and her soul mutilated, as it were, in +every clip of the inexorable shears. + +She was always glad--poor Glory--when the springtime came. She took +Bubby and Baby down to the Common, of a May Day, to see the processions +and the paper-crowned queens; and stood there in her stained and +drabbled dress, with the big year-and-a-half-old baby in her arms, and +so quite at the mercy of Master Herbert Clarence, who defiantly skipped +oft down the avenues, and almost out of her sight--she looking after him +in helpless dismay, lest he should get a splash or a tumble, or be +altogether lost; and then what would the mistress say? Standing there +so--the troops of children in their holiday trim passing close beside +her--her young heart turned bitter for a moment, as it sometimes would; +and her one utterance of all that swelled her martyr soul broke forth: + +"Laws a me! Sech lots of good times in the world, and I ain't in 'em!" + +Yet, that afternoon, when Mrs. Grubbling went out shopping, and left her +to her own devices with the children, how jubilantly she trained the +battered chairs in line, and put herself at the head, with Bubby's +scarlet tippet wreathed about her upstart locks, and made a May Day! + +I say, she had the soul and essence of the very life she seemed to miss. + +There were shabby children's books about the Grubbling domicile, that +had been the older child's--Cornelia's--and had descended to Master +Herbert, while yet his only pastime in them was to scrawl them full of +pencil marks, and tear them into tatters. These, one by one, Glory +rescued, and hid away, and fed upon, piecemeal, in secret. She could +read, at least--this poor, denied unfortunate. Peter McWhirk had taught +his child her letters in happy, humble Sundays and holidays long ago; +and Mrs. Grubbling had begun by sending her to a primary school for a +while, irregularly, when she could be spared; and when she hadn't just +torn her frock, or worn out her shoes, or it didn't rain, or she hadn't +been sent of an errand and come back too late--which reasons, with a +multitude of others, constantly recurring, reduced the school days in +the year to a number whose smallness Mrs. Grubbling would have +indignantly disputed, had it been calculated and set before her; she +being one of those not uncommon persons who regard a duty continually +evaded as one continually performed, it being necessarily just as much +on their minds; till, at last, Herbert had a winter's illness, and in +summer it wasn't worth while, and the winter after, baby came, so that +of course she couldn't be spared at all; and it seemed little likely now +that she ever again would be. But she kept her spelling book, and read +over and over what she knew, and groped her way slowly into more, till +she promoted herself from that to "Mother Goose"--from "Mother Goose" to +"Fables for the Nursery"--and now, her ever fresh and unfailing feast +was the "Child's Own Book of Fairy Tales," and an odd volume of the +"Parents' Assistant." She picked out, slowly, the gist of these, with a +lame and uncertain interpretation. She lived for weeks with Beauty and +the Beast--with Cinderella--with the good girl who worked for the witch, +and shook her feather bed every morning; till at last, given leave to go +home and see her mother, the gold and silver shower came down about her, +departing at the back door. Perhaps she should get her pay, some time, +and go home and see her mother. + +Meanwhile, she identified herself with--lost herself utterly in,--these +imaginary lives. She was, for the time, Cinderella; she was Beauty; she +was above all, the Fair One with Golden Locks; she was Simple Susan +going to be May Queen; she dwelt in the old Castle of Rossmore, with the +Irish Orphans. The little Grubbling house in Budd Street was peopled all +through, in every corner, with her fancies. Don't tell me she had +nothing but her niggardly outside living there. + +And the wonder began to come up in her mind, as it did in Faith +Gartney's, whether and when "something might happen" to her. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +SOMETHING HAPPENS. + +"Athirst! athirst! The sandy soil + Bears no glad trace of leaf or tree; +No grass-blade sigheth to the heaven + Its little drop of ecstasy. + +"Yet other fields are spreading wide + Green bosoms to the bounteous sun; +And palms and cedars shall sublime + Their rapture for thee,--waiting one!" + + +"Take us down to see the apple woman," said Master Herbert, going out +with Glory and the baby one day when his school didn't keep, and Mrs. +Grubbling had a headache, and wanted to get them all off out of the way. + +Bridget Foye sat at her apple stand in the cheery morning sunlight, red +cheeks and russets ranged fair and tempting before her, and a pile of +roasted peanuts, and one of delicate molasses candy, such as nobody but +she knew how to make, at either end of the board. + +Bridget Foye was the tidiest, kindliest, merriest apple woman in all +Mishaumok. Everybody whose daily path lay across that southeast corner +of the Common, knew her well, and had a smile, and perhaps a penny for +her; and got a smile and a God-bless-you, and, for the penny, a rosy or +a golden apple, or some of her crisp candy in return. + +Glory and the baby, sitting down to rest on one of the benches close by, +as their habit was, had one day made a nearer acquaintance with blithe +Bridget. I think it began with Glory--who held the baby up to see the +passing show of a portion of a menagerie in the street, and heard two +girls, stopping just before her to look, likewise, say they'd go and see +it perform next day--uttering something of her old soliloquy about "good +times," and why she "warn't ever in any of 'em." However it was, Mrs. +Foye, in her buxom cheeriness, was drawn to give some of it forth to the +uncouth-looking, companionless girl, and not only began a chat with her, +after the momentary stir in the street was over, and she had settled +herself upon her stool, and leaning her back against a tree, set +vigorously to work again at knitting a stout blue yarn stocking, but +also treated Bubby and Baby to some bits of her sweet merchandise, and +told them about the bears and the monkeys that had gone by, shut up in +the gay, red-and-yellow-painted wagons. + +So it became, after this first opening, Glory's chief pleasure to get +out with the children now and then, of a sunny day, and sit here on the +bench by Bridget Foye, and hear her talk, and tell her, confidentially, +some of her small, incessant troubles. It was one more life to draw +from--a hearty, bright, and wholesome life, besides. She had, at last, +in this great, tumultuous, indifferent city, a friendship and a +resource. + +But there was a certain fair spot of delicate honor in Glory's nature +that would not let her bring Bubby and Baby in any apparent hope of what +they might get, gratuitously, into their mouths. She laid it down, a +rule, with Master Herbert, that he was not to go to the apple stand with +her unless he had first put by a penny for a purchase. And so +unflinchingly she adhered to this determination, that sometimes weeks +went by--hard, weary weeks, without a bit of pleasantness for her; weeks +of sore pining for a morsel of heart food--before she was free of her +own conscience to go and take it. + +Bridget told stories to Herbert--strange, nonsensical fables, to be +sure--stuff that many an overwise mother, bringing up her children by +hard rule and theory, might have utterly forbidden as harmful trash--yet +that never put an evil into his heart, nor crowded, I dare to say, a +better thought out of his brain. Glory liked the stories as well, +almost, as the child. One moral always ran through them all. Troubles +always, somehow, came to an end; good creatures and children got safe +out of them all, and lived happy ever after; and the fierce, and +cunning, and bad--the wolves, and foxes, and witches--trapped themselves +in their own wickedness, and came to deplorable ends. + +"Tell us about the little red hen," said Herbert, paying his money, and +munching his candy. + +"An' thin ye'll trundle yer hoop out to the big tree, an' lave Glory an' +me our lane for a minute?" + +"Faith, an' I will that," said the boy--aping, ambitiously, the racy +Irish accent. + +"Well, thin, there was once't upon a time, away off in the ould country, +livin' all her lane in the woods, in a wee bit iv a house be herself, a +little rid hin. Nice an' quite she was, and nivir did no kind o' harrum +in her life. An' there lived out over the hill, in a din o' the rocks, a +crafty ould felly iv a fox. An' this same ould villain iv a fox, he laid +awake o' nights, and he prowled round shly iy a daytime, thinkin' always +so busy how he'd git the little rid hin, an' carry her home an' bile her +up for his shupper. But the wise little rid hin nivir went intil her bit +iv a house, but she locked the door afther her, an' pit the kay in her +pocket. So the ould rashkill iv a fox, he watched, an' he prowled, an' +he laid awake nights, till he came all to skin an' bone, on' sorra a +ha'porth o' the little rid hin could he git at. But at lasht there came +a shcame intil his wicked ould head, an' he tuk a big bag one mornin', +over his shouldher, and he says till his mother, says he, 'Mother, have +the pot all bilin' agin' I come home, for I'll bring the little rid hin +to-night for our shupper.' An' away he wint, over the hill, an' came +craping shly and soft through the woods to where the little rid hin +lived in her shnug bit iv a house. An' shure, jist at the very minute +that he got along, out comes the little rid hin out iv the door, to pick +up shticks to bile her taykettle. 'Begorra, now, but I'll have yees,' +says the shly ould fox, and in he shlips, unbeknownst, intil the house, +an' hides behind the door. An' in comes the little rid hin, a minute +afther, with her apron full of shticks, an' shuts to the door an' locks +it, an' pits the kay in her pocket. An' thin she turns round--an' there +shtands the baste iv a fox in the corner. Well, thin, what did she do, +but jist dhrop down her shticks, and fly up in a great fright and +flutter to the big bame acrass inside o' the roof, where the fox +couldn't get at her? + +"'Ah, ha!' says the ould fox, 'I'll soon bring yees down out o' that!' +An' he began to whirrul round, an' round, an' round, fashter an' fashter +an' fashter, on the floor, after his big, bushy tail, till the little +rid hin got so dizzy wid lookin', that she jist tumbled down off the +bame, and the fox whipped her up and popped her intil his bag, and +shtarted off home in a minute. An' he wint up the wood, an' down the +wood, half the day long, with the little rid hin shut up shmotherin' in +the bag. Sorra a know she knowd where she was, at all, at all. She +thought she was all biled an' ate up, an' finished, shure! But, by an' +by, she renumbered herself, an' pit her hand in her pocket, and tuk out +her little bright schissors, and shnipped a big hole in the bag behind, +an' out she leapt, an' picked up a big shtone, an' popped it intil the +bag, an' rin aff home, an' locked the door. + +"An' the fox he tugged away up over the hill, with the big shtone at his +back thumpin' his shouldhers, thinkin' to himself how heavy the little +rid hin was, an' what a fine shupper he'd have. An' whin he came in +sight iv his din in the rocks, and shpied his ould mother a-watchin' for +him at the door, he says, 'Mother! have ye the pot bilin'?' An' the ould +mother says, 'Sure an' it is; an' have ye the little rid hin?' 'Yes, +jist here in me bag. Open the lid o' the pot till I pit her in,' says +he. + +"An' the ould mother fox she lifted the lid o' the pot, and the rashkill +untied the bag, and hild it over the pot o' bilin' wather, an' shuk in +the big, heavy shtone. An' the bilin' wather shplashed up all over the +rogue iv a fox, an' his mother, an' shcalded them both to death. An' the +little rid hin lived safe in her house foriver afther." + +"Ah!" breathed Bubby, in intense relief, for perhaps the twentieth time. +"Now tell about the girl that went to seek her fortune!" + +"Away wid ye!" cried Bridget Foye. "Kape yer promish, an' lave that till +ye come back!" + +So Herbert and his hoop trundled off to the big tree. + +"An' how are yees now, honey?" says Bridget to Glory, a whole catechism +of questions in the one inquiry. "Have ye come till any good times yit?" + +"Oh, Mrs. Foye," says Glory, "I think I'm tied up tight in the bag, an' +I'll never get out, except it's into the hot water!" + +"An' havint ye nivir a pair iv schissors in yer pocket?" asks Bridget. + +"I don't know," says poor Glory, hopelessly. And just then Master +Herbert comes trundling back, and Bridget tells him the story of the +girl that went to seek her fortune and came to be a queen. + +Glory half thinks that, some day or other, she, too, will start off and +seek her fortune. + +The next morning, Sunday--never a holiday, and scarcely a holy day to +her--Glory sits at the front window, with the inevitable baby in her +arms. + +Mrs. Grubbling is upstairs getting ready for church. After baby has his +forenoon drink, and is got off to sleep--supposing he shall be +complaisant, and go--Glory is to dust up, and set table, and warm the +dinner, and be all ready to bring it up when the elder Grubbling shall +have returned. + +Out at the Pembertons' green gate she sees the tidy parlor maid come, in +her smart shawl and new, bright ribbons; holding up her pretty printed +mousseline dress with one hand, as she steps down upon the street, and +so revealing the white hem of a clean starched skirt; while the other +hand is occupied with the little Catholic prayer book and a folded +handkerchief. Actually, gloves on her hands, too. The gate closes with a +cord and pulley after her, and somehow the hem of the fresh, +outspreading crinoline gets caught in it, as it shuts. So she turns half +round, and takes both hands to push it open and release herself. Doing +so, something slips from between the folds of her handkerchief, and +drops upon the ground. A bright half dollar, which was going to pay some +of her little church dues to-day. And she hurries on, never missing it +out of her grasp, and is halfway down the side street before Glory can +set the baby suddenly on the carpet, rush out at the front door, +regardless that Mrs. Grubbling's chamber window overlooks her from +above, pick up the coin, and overtake her. + +"I saw you drop it by the gate," is all she says, as she puts it into +Katie Ryan's hand. + +Katie stares with surprise, turning round at the touch upon her +shoulder, and beholding the strange figure, and the still stranger +evidence of honesty and good will. + +"Indeed, and I'm thoroughly obliged to ye," says she, barely in time, +for the odd figure is already retreating up the street. "It's the +red-headed girl over at Grubbling's," she continues to herself. "Well, +anyhow, she's an honest, kind-hearted crature, and I'll not forget it of +her." + +Glory has made another friend. + +"Well, Glory McWhirk, this is very pretty doings indeed!" began Mrs. +Grubbling, meeting the little handmaiden at the parlor door. "So this is +the way, is it, when my back is turned for a minute? That poor baby +dumped down on the floor, to crawl up to the hot stove, or do any other +horrid thing he likes, while you go flacketting out, bareheaded, into +the streets, after a topping jade like that? You can't have any +high-flown acquaintances while you live in my house, I tell you now, +once and for all. Are you going to take up that baby or not?" Mrs. +Grubbling had been thus far effectually heading Glory off, by standing +square in the parlor doorway. "Or perhaps, I'd better stay at home and +take care of him myself," she added, in a tone of superlative irony. + +Poor Glory, meekly murmuring that it was only to give back some money +the girl had dropped, slid past her mistress submissively, like a sentry +caught off his post and warned of mortal punishment, and shouldered arms +once more; that is, picked up the baby, who, as if taking the cue from +his mother, and made conscious of his grievance, had at this moment +begun to cry. + +Glory had a good cry of her own first, and then, "killing two birds with +one stone," pacified herself and the baby "all under one." + +After this, Katie Ryan never came out at the green gate, of a Sunday on +the way to church, or of a week day to run down the little back street +of an errand, but she gave a glance up at the Grubblings' windows; and +if she caught sight of Glory's illumined head, nodded her own, with its +pretty, dark-brown locks, quite pleasant and friendly. And between these +chance recognitions of Katie's, and the good apple woman's occasional +sympathy, the world began to brighten a little, even for poor Glory. + +Still, good times went on--grand, wonderful good times--all around her. +And she caught distant glimpses, but "wasn't in 'em." + +One day, as she hurried home from the grocer's with half-a-dozen eggs +and two lemons, Katie ran out from the gate, and met her halfway down +Budd Street. + +"I've been watchin' for ye," said she. "I seen ye go out of an errand, +an' I've been lookin' for ye back. There's to be a grand party at our +house to-morrow night, an' I thought maybe ye'd like to get lave, an' +run over to take a peep at it. Put on yer best frock, and make yer hair +tidy, an' I'll see to yer gettin' a good chance." + +Poor Glory colored up, as Mrs. Grabbling might have done if the +President's wife had bidden her. Not so, either. With a glow of feeling, +and an oppression of gratitude, and a humility of delight, that Mrs. +Grubbling, under any circumstances whatever, could have known nothing +about. + +"If I only can," she managed to utter, "and, anyhow, I'm sure I'm +thankful to ye a thousand times." + +And that night she sat up in her little attic room, after everybody else +was in bed, mending, in a poor fashion, a rent in the faded "best +frock," and sewing a bit of cotton lace in the neck thereof that she had +picked out of the ragbag, and surreptitiously washed and ironed. + +Next morning, she went about her homely tasks with an alacrity that Mrs. +Grubbling, knowing nothing of the hope that had been let in upon her +dreariness, attributed wholly to the salutary effect of a "good +scolding" she had administered the day before. The work she got out of +the girl that Thursday forenoon! Never once did Glory leave her +scrubbing, or her dusting, or her stove polishing, to glance from the +windows into the street, though the market boys, and the waiters, and +the confectioners' parcels were going in at the Pembertons' gate, and +the man from the greenhouse, even, drove his cart up, filled with +beautiful plants for the staircase. + +She waited, as in our toils we wait for Heaven--trusting to the joy that +was to come. + +After dinner, she spoke, with fear and trembling. Her lips turned quite +white with anxiety as she stood before Mrs. Grubbling with the baby in +her arms. + +"Please, mum," says Glory, tremulously, "Katie Ryan asked me over for a +little while to-night to look at the party." + +Mrs. Grubbling actually felt a jealousy, as if her poor, untutored +handmaid were taking precedence of herself. + +"What party?" she snapped. + +"At the Pembertons', mum. I thought you knew about it." + +"And what if I do? Maybe I'm going, myself." + +Glory opened her eyes wide in mingled consternation and surprise. + +"I didn't think you was, mum. But if you is----" + +"You're willing, I suppose," retorted her mistress, laughing, in a +bitter way. "I'm very much obliged. But I'm going out to-night, anyhow, +whether it's there or not, and you can't be spared. Besides, you needn't +think you're going to begin with going out evenings yet a while. At your +age! A pretty thing! There--go along, and don't bother me." + +Glory went along; and only the baby--of mortal listeners--heard the +suffering cry that went up from her poor, pinched, and chilled, and +disappointed heart. + +"Oh, baby, baby! it was _too_ good a time! I'd ought to a knowed I +couldn't be in it!" + +Only a stone's throw from those brightly lighted windows of the +Pembertons'! Their superfluous radiance pouring out lavishly across the +narrow street, searched even through the dim panes behind which Glory +sat, resting her tired arms, after tucking away their ordinary burden in +his crib, and answering Herbert's wearisome questions, who from his +trundle bed kept asking, ceaselessly: + +"What are they doing now? Can't you see, Glory?" + +"Hush, hush!" said Glory, breathlessly, as a burst of brilliant melody +floated over to her ear. "They're making music now. Don't you hear?" + +"No. How can I, with my head in the pillow? I'm coming there to sit with +you, Glory." And the boy scrambled from his feed to the window. + +"No, no! you'll ketch cold. Besides, you'd oughter go to sleep. +Well--only for a little bit of a minute, then," as Herbert persisted, +and climbing upon her lap, flattened his face against the window pane. + +Glory gathered up her skirt about his shoulders and held him for a +while, begging him uneasily, over and over, to "be a good boy, and go +back to bed." No; he wouldn't be a good boy, and he wouldn't go back to +bed, till the music paused. Then, by dint of promising that if it began +again she would open the window a "teenty little crack," so that he +might hear it better, she coaxed him to the point of yielding, and +tucked him, chilly, yet half unwilling, in the trundle. + +Back again, to look and listen. And, oh, wonderful and unexpected +fortune! A beneficent hand has drawn up the white linen shade at one of +the back parlor windows to slide the sash a little from the top. It was +Katie, whom her young mistress, standing with her partner at that corner +of the room, had called in from the hall to do it. + +"No, no," whispered the young lady, hastily, as her companion moved to +render her the service she desired, "let Katie come in. She'll get such +a good look down the room at the dancers." There was no abated +admiration in the young man's eye, as he turned back to her side, and +allowed her kindly intention to be fulfilled. + +Did Katie surmise, in her turn, with the freemasonry of her class, how +it was with her humble friend over the way--that she couldn't get let +out for the evening, and that she would be sure to be looking and +listening from her old post opposite? However it was, the linen shade +was not lowered again, and there between the lace and crimson curtains +stood revealed the graceful young figure of Edith Pemberton, in her +floating ball robes, with the wreath of morning-glories in her hair. + +"Oh, my sakes and sorrows! Ain't she just like a princess? Ain't it a +splendid time? And I come so near to be in it! But I ain't; and I s'pose +I shan't ever get a chance again. Maybe Katie'd get me over of a common +workday though, some time, to help her a bit or so. Wouldn't I be glad +to?" + +"Oh, for gracious, child! Don't ever come here again. You'll catch your +death. You'll have the croup and whooping cought, and everything +to-morrow." This to Herbert, who had of course tumbled out of bed again +at Glory's first rapturous exclamation. + +"No, I won't!" cried the boy, rebelliously; "I'll stay as long as I +like. And I'll tell my ma how you was a-wantin' to go away and be the +Pembertons' girl. Won't she lam you when she hears that?" + +"You can tell wicked lies if you want to, Master Herbert; but you know I +never said such a word, nor ever thought of it. Of course I couldn't if +I wanted to ever so bad." + +"Couldn't live there? I guess not. Think they'd have a girl like you? +What a lookin' you'd be, a-comin' to the front door answerin' the bell!" + +Here the doorbell rang suddenly and sharply, and Master Herbert +fancying, as did Glory, that it was his mother come back, scrambled +into his bed again and covered himself up, while the girl ran down to +answer the summons. + +It was Katie Ryan, with cakes and sweetmeats. + +"I've jist rin in to fetch ye these. Miss Edith gave 'em me, so ye +needn't be feared. I knows ye're sich an honest one. An' it's a tearin' +shame, if ever there was, that ye couldn't come over for a bit of +diversion. Why don't ye quit this?" + +"Oh, hush!" whispered Glory, with a gesture up the staircase, where she +had just left the little pitcher with fearfully long ears. "And thank +you kindly, over and over, I'm sure. It's real good o' you to think o' +me so--oh!" And Glory couldn't say anything more for a quick little sob +that came in her throat, and caught the last word up into a spasm. + +"Pooh! it's just nothing at all. I'd do something better nor that if I +had the chance; an' I'd adwise ye to get out o' this if ye can. Good-by. +I've set the parlor windy open, an' the shade's up. I knew it would jist +be a conwenience." + +Glory ran up the back stairs to the top of the house, and hid away the +sweet things in her own room to "make a party" with next day. And then +she went down and tented over the crib with an old woolen shawl, and set +a high-backed rocking chair to keep the draft from Herbert, and opened +the window "a teenty crack." In five minutes the slight freshening of +the air and the soothing of the music had sent the boy to sleep, and +watchful Glory closed the window and set things in their ordinary +arrangement once more. + +Next morning Herbert made hoarse complaint. + +"What did you let him do, Glory, to catch such a cold?" asked Mrs. +Grabbling. + +"Nothing, mum, only he would get out of bed to hear the music," replied +the girl. + +"Well, you opened the window, you know you did, and Katie Ryan came over +and kept the front door open. And you said how you wished you could go +over there and do their chores. I told you I'd tell." + +"It's wicked lies, mum," burst out Glory, indignant. + +"Do you dare to tell him he lies, right before my face, you +good-for-nothing girl?" shrieked the exasperated mother. "Where do you +expect to go to?" + +"I don't expect to go nowheres, mum; and I wouldn't say it was lies if +he didn't tell what wasn't true." + +"How should such a thing come into his head if you didn't say it?" + +"There's many things comes into his head," answered Glory, stoutly, "and +I think you'd oughter believe me first, when I never told you a lie in +my life, and you did ketch Master Herbert fibbing, jist the other day, +but." + +Somehow, Glory had grown strangely bold in her own behalf since she had +come to feel there was a bit of sympathy somewhere for her in the world. + +"I know now where he learns it," retorted the mistress, with persistent +and angry injustice. + +Glory's face blazed up, and she took an involuntary step to the woman's +side at the warrantless accusation. + +"You don't mean that, mum, and you'd oughter take it back," said she, +excited beyond all fear and habit of submission. + +Mrs. Grubbling raised her hand passionately, and struck the girl upon +the cheek. + +"I mean _that_, then, for your impudence! Don't answer me up again!" + +"No, mum," said Glory, in a low, strange tone; quite white now, except +where the vindictive fingers had left their crimson streaks. And she +went off out of the room without another word. + +Over the knife board she revolved her wrongs, and sharpened at length +the keen edge of desperate resolution. + +"Please, mum," said she, in the old form of address, but with quite a +new manner, that, in the little dependant of less than fifteen, startled +the hard mistress, "I ain't noways bound to you, am I?" + +She propounded her question, stopping short in her return toward the +china closet through the sitting room. + +"Bound? What do you mean?" parried Mrs. Grubbling, dimly foreshadowing +to herself what it would be if Glory should break loose, and go. + +"To stay, mum, and you to keep me, till I'm growed up," answered Glory, +briefly. + +"There's no binding about it," replied the mistress. "Of course I +wouldn't be held to anything of that sort. I shan't keep you any longer +than you behave yourself." + +"Then, if you please, mum, I think I'll go," said Glory. And she burst +into a passion of tears. + +"Humph! Where?" asked Mrs. Grubbling. + +"I don't know, yet," said Glory, the sarcasm drying her tears. "I s'pose +I can go to a office." + +"And where'll you get your meals and your lodgings till you find a +place?" The cat thought she had her paw on the mouse, now, and could +play with her as securely and cruelly as she pleased. + +"If you go away at all," continued Mrs. Grubbling, with what she deemed +a finishing stroke of policy, "you go straight off. I'll have no dancing +back and forth to offices from here." + +"Do you mean right off, this minute?" asked Glory, aghast. + +"Yes just that. Pack up and go, or else let me hear no more about it." + +The next thing in Glory's programme of duty was to lay the table for +dinner. But she went out of the room, and slowly off, upstairs. + +Pretty soon she came down again, with her eyes very tearful, and her +shabby shawl and bonnet on. + +"I'm going, mum," said she, as one resolved to face calmly whatever +might befall. "I didn't mean it to be sudden, but it are. And I wouldn't +never a gone, if I'd a thought anybody cared for me the leastest bit +that ever was. I wouldn't mind bein' worked and put upon, and not havin' +any good times; but when people hates me, and goes to say I doesn't tell +the truth"--here Glory broke down, and the tears poured over her stained +cheeks again, and she essayed once more to dry them, which reminded her +that her hands again were full. + +"It's some goodies--from the party, mum"--she struggled to say between +short breaths and sobs, "that Katie Ryan give me--an' I kept--to make a +party--for the children, with--to-day, mum--when the chores was +done--and I'll leave 'em--for 'em--if you please." + +Glory laid her coals of fire upon the table as she spoke. Master Herbert +eyed them, as one utterly unconscious of a scorch. + +"I s'pose I might come back and get my bundle," said Glory, standing +still in the hope of one last kindly or relenting word. + +"Oh, yes, if you get a place," said her mistress, dryly, affecting to +treat the whole affair as a childish, though unwonted burst of +petulance. + +But Glory, not daring, unbidden, even to kiss the baby, went steadily +and sorrowfully out into the street, and drew the door behind her, that +shut with a catch lock, and fastened her out into the wide world. + +Not stopping to think, she hurried on, up Budd and down Branch Street, +and across the green common path to the apple stand and Bridget Foye. + +"I've done it! I've gone! And I don't know what to do, nor where to go +to!" + +"Arrah, poor little rid hin! So, ye've found yer schiasors, have ye, an' +let yersel' loose out o' the bag? Well, it's I that is glad, though I +wouldn't pit ye up till it," says Bridget Foye. + +Poor little red hen. She had cut a hole, and jumped out of the bag, to +be sure; but here she was, "all alone by herself" once more, and the +foxes--Want and Cruelty--ravening after her all through the great, +dreary wood! + +This day, at least, passed comfortably enough, however, although with an +undertone of sadness--in the sunshine, by Bridget's apple stand, +watching the gay passers-by, and shaping some humble hopes and plans for +the future. For dinner, she shared Mrs. Foye's plain bread and cheese, +and made a dessert of an apple and a handful of peanuts. At night +Bridget took her home and gave her shelter, and the next day she started +her off with a "God bless ye and good luck till ye," in the charge of an +older girl who lodged in the same building, and who was also "out after +a place." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +AUNT HENDERSON'S GIRL HUNT. + +"Black spirits and white, + Red spirits and gray; +Mingle, mingle, mingle, + You that mingle may." + MACBETH. + + +It was a small, close, dark room--Mrs. Griggs's Intelligence Office--a +little counter and show case dividing off its farther end, making a +sanctum for Mrs. Griggs, who sat here in rheumatic ponderosity, +dependent for whatever involved locomotion on the rather alarming +alacrity of an impish-looking granddaughter who is elbowing her way +through the throng of applicants for places and servants. She paid no +heed to the astonishment of a severe-looking, elderly lady, who, by her +impetuous onset, has been rudely thrust back into the very arms of a +fat, unsavory cook with whom she had a minute before been quite +unwillingly set to confer by the high priestess of the place. + +Aunt Henderson grasped Faith's hand as if she felt she had brought her +into a danger, and held her close to her side while she paused a moment +to observe, with the strange fascination of repulsion, the manifestation +of a phase of human life and the working of a vocation so utterly and +astoundingly novel to herself. + +"Well, Melindy," said Mrs. Griggs, salutatorily. + +"Well, grandma," answered the girl, with a pert air of show off and +consequence, "I found the place, and I found the lady. Ain't I been +quick?" + +"Yes. What did she say?" + +"Said the girl left last Saturday. Ain't had anybody sence. Wants you to +send her a first-rate one, right off. Has Care'_line_ been here after +me?" + +"No. Did you get the money?" + +"She never said a word about it. Guess she forgot the month was out." + +"Didn't you ask her?" + +"Me? No. I did the arrant, and stood and looked at her--jest as +pious--! And when she didn't say nothin', I come away." + +"Winny M'Goverin," said Mrs. Griggs, "that place'll suit you. Leastways, +it must, for another month. You'd better go right round there." + +"Where is it?" asked the fat cook, indifferently. + +"Up in Mount Pleasant Street, Number 53. First-class place, and plenty +of privileges. Margaret McKay," she continued, to another, "you're too +hard to please. Here's one more place"--handing her a card with +address--"and if you don't take that, I won't do nothing more for you, +if you _air_ Scotch and a Protestant! Mary McGinnis, it's no use your +talking to that lady from the country. She can't spare you to come down +but twice or so a year." + +"Lord!" ejaculated Mary McGinnis, "I wouldn't live a whole year with no +lady that ever was, let alone the country!" + +"Come out, Faith!" said Miss Henderson, in a deep, ineffable tone of +disgust. + +"If _that's_ a genteel West End Intelligence Office," cried Aunt Faith, +as she touched the sidewalk, "let's go downtown and try some of the +common ones." + +A large hall--where the candidates were ranged on settees under order +and restraint, and the superintendent, or directress, occupied a desk +placed upon a platform near the entrance--was the next scene whereon +Miss Henderson and Faith Gartney entered. Things looked clean and +respectable. System obtained here. Aunt Faith felt encouraged. But she +made no haste to utter her business. Tall, self-possessed, and +dignified, she stood a few paces inside the door, and looked down the +apartment, surveying coolly the faces there, and analyzing, by a shrewd +mental process, their indications. + +Her niece had stopped a moment on the landing outside to fasten her boot +lace. + +Miss Henderson did not wear hoops. Also, the streets being sloppy, she +had tucked up her plain, gray merino dress over a quilted black alpaca +petticoat. Her boots were splashed, and her black silk bonnet was +covered with a large gray barége veil, tied down over it to protect it +from the dripping roofs. Judging merely by exterior, one would hardly +take her at a glance, indeed, for a "fust-class" lady. + +The directress--a busy woman, with only half a glance to spare for +anyone--moved toward her. + +"Take a seat, if you please. What kind of a place do you want?" + +Aunt Faith turned full face upon her, with a look that was prepared to +be overwhelming. + +"I'm looking for a place, ma'am, where I can find a respectable girl." + +Her firm, emphatic utterance was heard to the farthest end of the hall. + +The girls tittered. + +Faith Gartney came in at this moment, and walked up quietly to Miss +Henderson's side. There was visibly a new impression made, and the +tittering ceased. + +"I beg pardon, ma'am. I see. But we have so many in, and I didn't fairly +look. General housework?" + +"Yes; general and particular--both. Whatever I set her to do." + +The directress turned toward the throng of faces whose fire of eyes was +now all concentrated on the unflinching countenance of Miss Henderson. + +"Ellen Mahoney!" + +A stout, well-looking damsel, with an expression that seemed to say she +answered to her name, but was nevertheless persuaded of the utter +uselessness of the movement, half rose from her seat. + +"You needn't call up that girl," said Aunt Faith, decidedly; "I don't +want her." + +Ellen Mahoney had giggled among the loudest. + +"She knows what she _does_ want!" whispered a decent-appearing young +woman to a girl at her side with an eager face looking out from a friz +of short curly hair, "and that's more than half of 'em do." + +"Country, did you say, ma'am? or city?" asked the directress once more +of Miss Henderson. + +"I didn't say. It's country, though--twenty miles out." + +"What wages?" + +"I'll find the girl first, and settle that afterwards." + +"Anybody to do general housework in the country, twenty miles out?" + +The prevailing expression of the assemblage changed. There was a +settling down into seats, and a resumption of knitting and needlework. + +One pair of eyes, however, looked on, even more eagerly than before. One +young girl--she with the short curly hair who hadn't seen the country +for six years and more--caught her breath, convulsively, at the word. + +"I wish I dar'st! I've a great mind!" whispered she to her tidy +companion. + +While she hesitated, a slatternly young woman, a few seats farther +forward, moved, with a "don't care" sort of look, to answer the summons. + +"Oh, dear!" sighed the first. "I'd ought to a done it!" + +"I don't think she would take a young girl like you," replied her +friend. + +"That's the way it always is!" exclaimed the disappointed voice, in +forgetfulness and excitement uttering itself aloud. "Plenty of good +times going, but they all go right by. I ain't never in any of 'em!" + +"Glory McWhirk!" chided the directress, "be quiet! Remember the rules, +or leave the room." + +"Call that red-headed girl to me," said Miss Henderson, turning square +round from the dirty figure that was presenting itself before her, and +addressing the desk. "She looks clean and bright," she added, aside, to +Faith, as Glory timidly approached. "And poor. And longing for a chance. +I'll have her." + +A girl with a bonnet full of braids and roses, and a look of general +knowingness, started up close at Miss Henderson's side, and interposed. + +"Did you say twenty miles, mum? How often could I come to town?" + +"You haven't been asked to go _out_ of town, that I know of," replied +Miss Henderson, frigidly, abashing the office _habitué_, who had not +been used to find her catechism cut so summarily short, and moving aside +to speak with Glory. + +"What was it I heard you say just now?" + +"I didn't mean to speak out so, mum. It was only what I mostly thinks. +That there's always lots of good times in the world, only I ain't never +in 'em." + +"And you thought it would be good times, did you, to go off twenty miles +into the country, to live alone with an old woman like me?" + +Miss Henderson's tone softened kindly to the rough, uncouth girl, and +encouraged her to confidence. + +"Well, you see, mum, I should like to go where things is green and +pleasant. I lived in the country once--ever so long ago--when I was a +little girl." + +Miss Henderson could not help a smile that was half amused, and wholly +pitiful, as she looked in the face of this creature of fourteen, so +strange and earnest, with its outline of fuzzy, cropped hair, and heard +her talk of "ever so long ago." + +"Are you strong?" + +"Yes'm. I ain't never sick." + +"And willing to work?" + +"Yes'm. Jest as much as I know how." + +"And want to learn more?" + +"Yes'm. I don't know as I'd know enough hardly, to begin, though." + +"Can you wash dishes? And sweep? And set table?" + +To each of these queries Glory successively interposed an affirmative +monosyllable, adding, gratuitously, at the close, "And tend baby, too, +real good." Her eyes filled, as she thought of the Grubbling baby with +the love that always grows for that whereto one has sacrificed oneself. + +"You won't have any babies to tend. Time enough for that when you've +learned plenty of other things. Who do you belong to?" + +"I don't belong to anybody, mum. Father, and mother, and grandmother is +all dead. I've done the chores and tended baby up at Mrs. Grubbling's +ever since. That's in Budd Street. I'm staying now in High Street, with +Mrs. Foye. Number 15." + +"I'll come after you to-morrow. Have your things ready to go right off." + +"I'm so glad you took her, auntie," said Faith, as they went out. "She +looks as if she hadn't been well treated. Think of her wanting so to go +into the country! I should like to do something for her." + +"That's my business," answered Aunt Faith, curtly, but not crossly. +"You'll find somebody to do for, if you look out. If your mother's +willing, though, you might mend up one of your old school dresses for +her. 'Tisn't likely she's got anything to begin with." And so saying, +Aunt Faith turned precipitately into a drygoods store, where she bought +a large plaid woolen shawl, and twelve yards of dark calico. Coming out, +she darted as suddenly, and apparently unpremeditatedly, across the +street into a milliner's shop, and ordered home a brown rough-and-ready +straw bonnet, and four yards of ribbon to match. + +"And that you can put on, too," she said to Faith. + +That evening, Faith was even unwontedly cheery and busy, taking a burned +half breadth out of a dark cashmere dress, darning it at the armhole, +and pinning the plain ribbon over the brown straw bonnet. + +At the same time, Glory went up across the city to Budd Street, with a +mingled heaviness and gladness at her heart, and, after a kindly +farewell interview with Katie Ryan at the Pembertons' green gate, rang, +with a half-guilty feeling at her own independence, at the Grubblings' +door. Bubby opened it. + +"Why, ma!" he shouted up the staircase, "it's Glory come back!" + +"I've come to get my bundle," said the girl. + +Mrs. Grubbling had advanced to the stair head, somewhat briskly, with +the wakeful baby in her arms. Two days' "tending" had greatly mollified +her sentiments toward the offending Glory. + +"And she's come to get her bundle," added the young usher, from below. + +Mrs. Grubbling retreated into her chamber, and shut herself and the baby +in. + +Poor Glory crept upstairs to her little attic. + +Coming down again, she set her bundle on the stairs, and knocked. + +"What is it?" was the ungracious response. + +"Please, mum, mightn't I say good-by to the baby?" + +The latch had slipped, and the door was already slightly ajar. Baby +heard the accustomed voice, and struggled in his mother's arms. + +"A pretty time to come disturbing him to do it!" grumbled she. +Nevertheless, she set the baby on the floor, who tottled out, and was +seized by Glory, standing there in the dark entry, and pressed close in +her poor, long-wearied, faithful arms. + +"Oh, baby, baby! I'm in it now! And I don't know rightly whether it's a +good time or not!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +CARES; AND WHAT CAME OF THEM. + +"To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow; +To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow; + · · · · · +To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares; +To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires." + SPENCER. + + +Two years and more had passed since the New Year's dance at the +Rushleighs'. + +The crisis of '57 and '58 was approaching its culmination. The great +earthquake that for months had been making itself heard afar off by its +portentous rumbling was heaving to the final crash. Already the weaker +houses had fallen and were forgotten. + +When a great financial trouble sweeps down upon a people, there are +three general classes who receive and feel it, each in its own peculiar +way. + +There are the great capitalists--the enormously rich--who, unless a +tremendous combination of adversities shall utterly ruin here and there +one, grow the richer yet for the calamities of their neighbors. There +are also the very poor, who have nothing to lose but their daily labor +and their daily bread--who may suffer and starve; but who, if by any +little saving of a better time they can manage just to buy bread, shall +be precisely where they were, practically, when the storm shall have +blown over. Between these lies the great middle class--among whom, as on +the middle ground, the world's great battle is continually waging--of +persons who are neither rich nor poor; who have neither secured +fortunes to fall back upon, nor yet the independence of their hands to +turn to, when business and its income fail. This is the class that +suffers most. Most keenly in apprehension, in mortification, in after +privation. + +Of this class was the Gartney family. + +Mr. Gartney was growing pale and thin. No wonder; with sleepless nights, +and harassed days, and forgotten, or unrelished meals. His wife watched +him and waited for him, and contrived special comforts for him, and +listened to his confidences. + +Faith felt that there was a cloud upon the house, and knew that it had +to do with money. So she hid her own little wants as long as she could, +wore her old ribbons, mended last year's discarded gloves, and yearned +vaguely and helplessly to do something--some great thing if she only +could, that might remedy or help. + +Once, she thought she would learn Stenography. She had heard somebody +speak one day of the great pay a lady shorthand writer had received at +Washington, for some Congressional reports. Why shouldn't she learn how +to do it, and if the terrible worst should ever come to the worst, make +known her secret resource, and earn enough for all the family? + +Something like this--some "high and holy work of love"--she longed to +do. Longed almost--if she were once prepared and certain of herself--for +even misfortune that should justify and make practicable her generous +purpose. + +She got an elementary book, and set to work, by herself. She toiled +wearily, every day, for nearly a month; despairing at every step, yet +persevering; for, beside the grand dream for the future, there was a +present fascination in the queer little scrawls and dots. + +It cannot be known how long she might have gone on with the attempt, if +her mother had not come to her one day with some parcels of cut-out +cotton cloth. + +"Faithie, dear," said she, deprecatingly, "I don't like to put such work +upon you while you go to school; but I ought not to afford to have Miss +McElroy this spring. Can't you make up some of these with me?" + +There were articles of clothing for Faith, herself. She felt the present +duty upon her; and how could she rebel? Yet what was to become of the +great scheme? + +By and by would come vacation, and in the following spring, at farthest, +she would leave school, and then--she would see. She would write a book, +maybe. Why not? And secretly dispose of it, for a large sum, to some +self-regardless publisher. Should there never be another Fanny Burney? +Not a novel, though, or any grown-up book, at first; but a juvenile, at +least, she could surely venture on. Look at all the Cousin Maries, and +Aunt Fannies, and Sister Alices, whose productions piled the +booksellers' counters during the holiday sales, and found their way, +sooner or later, into all the nurseries, and children's bookcases! And +think of all the stories she had invented to amuse Hendie with! Better +than some of these printed ones, she was quite sure, if only she could +set them down just as she had spoken them under the inspiration of +Hendie's eager eyes and ready glee. + +She made two or three beginnings, during the summer holidays, but always +came to some sort of a "sticking place," which couldn't be hobbled over +in print as in verbal relation. All the links must be apparent, and +everything be made to hold well together. She wouldn't have known what +they were, if you had asked her--but the "unities" troubled her. And +then the labor loomed up so large before her! She counted the lines in a +page of a book of the ordinary juvenile size, and the number of letters +in a line, and found out the wonderful compression of which manuscript +is capable. And there must be two hundred pages, at least, to make a +book of tolerable size. + +There seemed to be nothing in the world that she could do. She could not +give her time to charity, and go about among the poor. She had nothing +to help them with. Her father gave, already, to ceaseless applications, +more than he could positively spare. So every now and then she +relinquished in discouragement her aspirations, and lived on, from day +to day, as other girls did, getting what pleasure she could; hampered +continually, however, with the old, inevitable tether, of "can't +afford." + +"If something only would happen!" If some new circumstance would creep +into her life, and open the way for a more real living! + +Do you think girls of seventeen don't have thoughts and longings like +these? I tell you they do; and it isn't that they want to have anybody +else meet with misfortune, or die, that romantic combinations may +thereby result to them; or that they are in haste to enact the everyday +romance--to secure a lover--get married--and set up a life of their own; +it is that the ordinary marked-out bound of civilized young-lady +existence is so utterly inadequate to the fresh, vigorous, expanding +nature, with its noble hopes, and its apprehension of limitless +possibilities. + +Something did happen. + +Winter came on again. After a twelvemonth of struggle and pain such as +none but a harassed man of business can ever know or imagine, Mr. +Gartney found himself "out of the wood." + +He had survived the shock--his last mote was taken up--he had labored +through--and that was all. He was like a man from off a wreck, who has +brought away nothing but his life. + +He came home one morning from New York, whither he had been to attend a +meeting of creditors of a failed firm, and went straight to his chamber +with a raging headache. + +The next day, the physician's chaise was at the door, and on the +landing, where Mrs. Gartney stood, pale and anxious, gazing into his +face for a word, after the visit to the sick room was over, Dr. Gracie +drew on his gloves, and said to her, with one foot on the stair: +"Symptoms of typhoid. Keep him absolutely quiet." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +A NICHE IN LIFE, AND A WOMAN TO FILL IT. + +"A Traveller between Life and Death." + WORDSWORTH. + + +Miss Sampson was at home this evening. It was not what one would have +pictured to oneself as a scene of home comfort or enjoyment; but Miss +Sampson was at home. In her little room of fourteen feet square, up a +dismal flight of stairs, sitting, in the light of a single lamp, by her +air-tight stove, whereon a cup of tea was keeping warm; that, and the +open newspaper on the little table in the corner, being the only things +in any way cheery about her. + +Not even a cat or a canary bird had she for companionship. There was no +cozy arrangement for daily feminine employment; no workbasket, or litter +of spools and tapes; nothing to indicate what might be her daily way of +going on. On the broad ledges of the windows, where any other woman +would have had a plant or two, there was no array of geraniums or +verbenas--not even a seedling orange tree or a monthly rose. But in one +of them lay a plaid shawl and a carpet bag, and in the other that +peculiar and nearly obsolete piece of feminine property, a paper +bandbox, tied about with tape. + +Packed up for a journey? + +Reader, Miss Sampson was _always_ packed up. She was that much-enduring, +all-foregoing creature, a professional nurse. + +There would have been no one to feed a cat, or a canary bird, or to +water a rose bush, if she had had one. Her home was no more to her than +his station at the corner of the street is to the handcart man or the +hackney coachman. It was only the place where she might receive orders; +whence she might go forth to the toilsomeness and gloom of one sick room +after another, returning between each sally and the next to her +cheerless post of waiting--keeping her strength for others, and living +no life of her own. + +There was nothing in Miss Sampson's outer woman that would give you, at +first glance, an idea of her real energy and peculiar force of +character. She was a tall and slender figure, with no superfluous weight +of flesh; and her long, thin arms seemed to have grown long and wiry +with lifting, and easing, and winding about the poor wrecks of mortality +that had lost their own vigor, and were fain to beg a portion of hers. +Her face was thin and rigid, too--molded to no mere graces of +expression--but with a strong outline, and a habitual compression about +the mouth that told you, when you had once learned somewhat of its +meaning, of the firm will that would go straight forward to its object, +and do, without parade or delay, whatever there might be to be done. +Decision, determination, judgment, and readiness were all in that +habitual look of a face on which little else had been called out for +years. But you would not so have read it at first sight. You would +almost inevitably have called her a "scrawny, sour-looking old maid." + +A creaking step was heard upon the stair, and then a knock of decision +at Miss Sampson's door. + +"Come in!" + +And as she spoke, Miss Sampson took her cup and saucer in her hand. That +was to be kept waiting no longer for whatever visitor it might chance to +be. She was taking her first sip as Dr. Gracier entered. + +"Don't move, Miss Sampson; don't let me interrupt." + +"I don't mean to! What sends you here?" + +"A new patient." + +"Humph! Not one of the last sort, I hope. You know my kind, and 'tain't +any use talking up about any others. Any old woman can make gruel, and +feed a baby with catnip tea. Don't offer me any more such work as that! +If it's work that _is_ work, speak out!" + +"It's work that nobody else can do for me. A critical case of typhoid, +and nobody in the house that understands such illness. I've promised to +bring you." + +"You knew I was back, then?" + +"I knew you would be. I only sent you at the pinch. I warned them you'd +go as soon as things were tolerably comfortable." + +"Of course I would. What business should I have where there was nothing +wanted of me but to go to bed at nine o'clock, and sleep till daylight? +That ain't the sort of corner I was cut out to fill." + +"Well, drink your tea, and put on your bonnet. There's a carriage at the +door." + +"Man? or woman?" asked Miss Sampson. + +"A man--Mr. Henderson Gartney, Hickory Street." + +"Out of his head?" + +"Yes--and getting more so. Family all frightened to death." + +"Keep 'em out of my way, then, and let me have him to myself. One crazy +patient is enough, at a time, for any one pair of hands. I'm ready." + +In fifteen minutes more, they were in Hickory Street; and the nurse was +speedily installed, or rather installed herself, in her office. Dr. +Gracie hastened away to another patient, promising to call again at +bedtime. + +"Now, ma'am," said Miss Sampson to Mrs. Gartney, who, after taking her +first to the bedside of the patient, had withdrawn with her to the +little dressing room adjoining, and given her a _résumé_ of the +treatment thus far followed, with the doctor's last directions to +herself--"you just go downstairs to your supper. I know, by your looks, +you ain't had a mouthful to-day. That's no way to help take care of sick +folks." + +Mrs. Gartney smiled a little, feebly; and an expression of almost +childlike rest and relief came over her face. She felt herself in strong +hands. + +"And you?" she asked. "Shall I send you something here?" + +"I've drunk a cup of tea, before I started. If I see my way clear, I'll +run down for a bite after you get through. I don't want any special +providings. I take my nibbles anyhow, as I go along. You needn't mind, +more'n as if I wasn't here. I shall find my way all over the house. Now, +you go." + +"Only tell me how he seems to you." + +"Well--not so terrible sick. Just barely bad enough to keep me here. I +don't take any easy cases." + +The odd, abrupt manner and speech comforted, while they somewhat +astonished Mrs. Gartney. + +"Leave the bread and butter and cold chicken on the table," said she, +when the tea things were about to be removed; "and keep the chocolate +hot, downstairs. Faithie--sit here; and if Miss Sampson comes down by +and by, see that she is made comfortable." + +It was ten o'clock when Miss Sampson came down, and then it was with Dr. +Gracie. + +"Cheer up, little lady!" said the doctor, meeting Faith's anxious, +inquiring glance. "Not so bad, by any means, as we might be. The only +difficulty will be to keep Nurse Sampson here. She won't stay a minute, +if we begin to get better too fast. Yes--I will take a bit of chicken, I +think; and--what have you there that's hot?" as the maid came in with +the chocolate pot, in answer to Faith's ring of the bell. "Ah, yes! +Chocolate! I missed my tea, somehow, to-night." The "somehow" had been +in his kindly quest of the best nurse in Mishaumok. + +"Sit down, Miss Sampson. Let me help you to a scrap of cold chicken. +What? Drumstick! Miss Faithie--here is a woman who makes it a principle +to go through the world, choosing drumsticks! She's a study; and I set +you to finding her out." + +Last night, as he had told Miss Sampson, the family had been "frightened +to death." He had found Faith sitting on the front stairs, at midnight, +when he came in at a sudden summons. She was pale and shivering, and +caught him nervously by both hands. + +"Oh, doctor!" + +"And oh, Miss Faithie! This is no place for you. You ought to be in +bed." + +"But I can't. Mother is all alone, except Mahala. And I don't dare stay +up there, either. What _shall_ we do?" + +For all answer, the doctor had just taken her in his arms, and carried +her down to the sofa in the hall, where he laid her, and covered her +over with his greatcoat. There she stayed, passively, till he came back. +And then he told her kindly and gravely, that if she could be _quite_ +quiet, and firm, she might go and lie on the sofa in her mother's +dressing room for the remainder of the night, to be at hand for any +needed service. To-morrow he would see that they were otherwise +provided. + +And so, to-night, here was Miss Sampson eating her drumstick. + +Faith watched the hard lines of her face as she did so, and wondered +what, and how much Dr. Gracie had meant by "setting her to find her +out." + +"I'm afraid you haven't had a vary nice supper," said she, timidly. "Do +you like that best?" + +"Somebody must always eat drumsticks," was the concise reply. + +And so, presently, without any further advance toward acquaintance, they +went upstairs; and the house, under the new, energetic rule, soon +subsided into quiet for the night. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +LIFE OR DEATH? + +"With God the Lord belong the issues from death."--Ps. 68; 18. + + +The nursery was a corner room, opening both into Faith's and her +mother's. Hendie and Mahala Harris had been removed upstairs, and the +apartment was left at Miss Sampson's disposal. Mrs. Gartney's bed had +been made up in the little dressing room at the head of the front entry, +so that she and the nurse had the sick room between them. + +Faith came down the two steps that led from her room into the nursery, +the next night at bedtime, as Miss Sampson entered from her father's +chamber to put on her night wrapper and make ready for her watch. + +"How is he, nurse? He will get well, won't he? What does the doctor +say?" + +"Nothing," said Miss Sampson, shortly. "He don't know, and he don't +pretend to. And that's just what proves he's good for something. He +ain't one of the sort that comes into a sick room as if the Almighty had +made him a kind of special delegit, and left the whole concern to him. +He knows there's a solemner dealing there than his, whether it's for +life or death." + +"But he can't help _thinking_," said Faith, tremblingly. "And I wish I +knew. What do _you_--?" But Faith paused, for she was afraid, after all, +to finish the question, and to hear it answered. + +"I don't think. I just keep doing. That's my part. Folks that think too +much of what's a-coming, most likely won't attend to what there is." + +Faith was finding out--a little of Miss Sampson, and a good deal of +herself. Had she not thought too much of what might be coming? Had she +not missed, perhaps, some of her own work, when that work was easier +than now? And how presumptuously she had wished for "something to +happen!" Was God punishing her for that? + +"You just keep still, and patient--and wait," said Miss Sampson, noting +the wistful look of pain. "That's your work, and after all, maybe it's +the hardest kind. And I can't take it off folks' shoulders," added she +to herself in an under voice; "so I needn't set up for the _very_ +toughest jobs, to be sure." + +"I'll try," answered Faith, submissively, with quivering lips, "only if +there _should_ be anything that I could do--to sit up, or +anything--you'll let me, won't you?" + +"Of course I will," replied the nurse, cheerily. "I shan't be squeamish +about asking when there's anything I really want done." + +Faith moved toward the door that opened to her father's room. It was +ajar. She pushed it gently open, and paused. "I may go in, mayn't I, +nurse, just for a good-night look?" + +The sick man heard her voice, though he did not catch her words. + +"Come in, Faithie," said he, with one of his half gleams of +consciousness, "I'll see you, daughter, as long as I live." + +Faith's heart nearly broke at that, and she came, tearfully and +silently, to the bedside, and laid her little, cool hand on her father's +fevered one, and looked down on his face, worn, and suffering, and +flushed--and thought within herself--it was a prayer and vow +unspoken--"Oh, if God will only let him live, I will _find_ something +that I can do for him!" + +And then she lifted the linen cloth that was laid over his forehead, and +dipped it afresh in the bowl of ice water beside the bed, and put it +gently back, and just kissed his hair softly, and went out into her own +room. + +Three nights--three days--more, the fever raged. And on the fourth night +after, Faith and her mother knew, by the scrupulous care with which the +doctor gave minute directions for the few hours to come, and the +resolute way in which Miss Sampson declared that "whoever else had a +mind to watch, she should sit up till morning this time," that the +critical point was reached; that these dark, silent moments that would +flit by so fast, were to spell, as they passed by, the sentence of life +or death. + +Faith would not be put by. Her mother sat on one side of the bed, while +the nurse busied herself noiselessly, or waited, motionless, upon the +other. Down by the fireside, on a low stool, with her head on the +cushion of an easy-chair, leaned the young girl--her heart full, and +every nerve strained with emotion and suspense. + +She will never know, precisely, how those hours went on. She can +remember the low breathing from the bed, and the now and then +half-distinct utterance, as the brain wandered still in a dreamy, +feverish maze; and she never will forget the precise color and pattern +of the calico wrapper that Nurse Sampson wore; but she can recollect +nothing else of it all, except that, after a time, longer or shorter, +she glanced up, fearfully, as a strange hush seemed to have come over +the room, and met a look and gesture of the nurse that warned her down +again, for her life. + +And then, other hours, or minutes, she knows not which, went by. + +And then, a stir--a feeble word--a whisper from Nurse Sampson--a low +"Thank God!" from her mother. + +The crisis was passed. Henderson Gartney lived. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +ROUGH ENDS. + + "So others shall +Take patience, labor, to their heart and hand, +From thy hand and thy heart, and thy brave cheer, +And God's grace fructify through thee to all." + MRS. BROWNING. + + +"M. S. What does that stand for?" said little Hendie, reading the white +letters painted on the black leather bottom of nurse's carpetbag. He got +back, now, often, in the daytime, to his old nursery quarters, where his +father liked to hear his chatter and play, for a short time +together--though he still slept, with Mahala, upstairs. "Does that mean +'Miss Sampson'?" + +Faith glanced up from her stocking mending, with a little fun and a +little curiosity in her eyes. + +"What does 'M.' stand for?" repeated Hendie. + +The nurse was "setting to rights" about the room. She turned round at +the question, from hanging a towel straight over the stand, and looked a +little amazed, as if she had almost forgotten, herself. But it came out, +with a quick opening and shutting of the thin lips, like the snipping of +a pair of scissors--"Mehitable." + +Faith had been greatly drawn to this odd, efficient woman. Beside that +her skillful, untiring nursing had humanly, been the means of saving her +father's life, which alone had warmed her with an earnest gratitude that +was restless to prove itself, and that welled up in every glance and +tone she gave Miss Sampson, there were a certain respect and interest +that could not withhold themselves from one who so evidently worked on +with a great motive that dignified her smallest acts. In whom +self-abnegation was the underlying principle of all daily doing. + +Miss Sampson had stayed on at the Gartneys', notwithstanding the +doctor's prediction, and her usual habit. And, in truth, her patient did +not "get well _too_ fast." She was needed now as really as ever, though +the immediate danger which had summoned her was past, and the fever had +gone. The months of overstrained effort and anxiety that had culminated +in its violent attack were telling upon him now, in the scarcely less +perilous prostration that followed. And Mrs. Gartney had quite given out +since the excessive tension of nerve and feeling had relaxed. She was +almost ill enough to be regularly nursed herself. She alternated between +her bed in the dressing room and an easy-chair opposite her husband's, +at his fireside. Miss Sampson knew when she was really wanted, whether +the emergency were more or less obvious. She knew the mischief of a +change of hands at such a time. And so she stayed on, though she did +sleep comfortably of a night, and had many an hour of rest in the +daytime, when Faith would come into the nursery and constitute herself +her companion. + +Miss Sampson was to her like a book to be read, whereof she turned but a +leaf or so at a time, as she had accidental opportunity, yet whose every +page rendered up a deep, strong--above all, a most sound and healthy +meaning. + +She turned over a leaf, one day, in this wise. + +"Miss Sampson, how came you, at first, to be a sick nurse?" + +The shadow of some old struggle seemed to come over Miss Sampson's face, +as she answered, briefly: + +"I wanted to find the very toughest sort of a job to do." + +Faith looked up, surprised. + +"But I heard you tell my father that you had been nursing more than +twenty years. You must have been quite a young woman when you began. I +wonder--" + +"You wonder why I wasn't like most other young women, I suppose. Why I +didn't get married, perhaps, and have folks of my own to take care of? +Well, I didn't; and the Lord gave me a pretty plain indication that He +hadn't laid out that kind of a life for me. So then I just looked around +to find out what better He had for me to do. And I hit on the very work +I wanted. A trade that it took all the old Sampson grit to follow. I +made up my mind, as the doctor says, that _somebody_ in the world had +got to choose drumsticks, and I might as well take hold of one." + +"But don't you ever get tired of it all, and long for something to rest +or amuse you?" + +"Amuse! I couldn't be amused, child. I've been in too much awful earnest +ever to be much amused again. No, I want to die in the harness. It's +hard work I want. I couldn't have been tied down to a common, easy sort +of life. I want something to fight and grapple with; and I'm thankful +there's been a way opened for me to do good according to my nature. If I +hadn't had sickness and death to battle against, I should have got into +human quarrels, maybe, just for the sake of feeling ferocious." + +"And you always take the very worst and hardest cases, Dr. Gracie says." + +"What's the use of taking a tough job if you don't face the toughest +part of it? I don't want the comfortable end of the business. +_Somebody's_ got to nurse smallpox, and yellow fever, and +raving-distracted people; and I _know_ the Lord made me fit to do just +that very work. There ain't many that He _does_ make for it, but I'm +one. And if I shirked, there'd be a stitch dropped." + +"Yellow fever! where have you nursed that?" + +"Do you suppose I didn't go to New Orleans? I've nursed it, and I've +_had_ it, and nursed it again. I've been in the cholera hospitals, too. +I'm seasoned to most everything." + +"Do you think everybody ought to take the hardest thing they can find, +to do?" + +"Do you think everybody ought to eat drumsticks? We'd have to kill an +unreasonable lot of fowls to let 'em! No. The Lord portions out breasts +and wings, as well as legs. If He puts anything into your plate, take +it." + +Dr. Gracie always had a word for the nurse, when he came; and, to do her +justice, it was seldom but she had a word to give him back. + +"Well, Miss Sampson," said he gayly, one bright morning, "you're as +fresh as the day. What pulls down other folks seems to set you up. I +declare you're as blooming as--twenty-five." + +"You--fib--like--sixty! It's no such thing! And if it was, I'd ought to +be ashamed of it." + +"Prodigious! as your namesake, the Dominie, would say. Don't tell me a +woman is ever ashamed of looking young, or handsome!" + +"Now, look here, doctor!" said Miss Sampson, "I never was handsome; and +I thank the Lord He's given me enough to do in the world to wear off my +young looks long ago! And any woman ought to be ashamed that gets to be +thirty and upward, to say nothing of forty-five, and keeps her baby face +on! It's a sign she ain't been of much account, anyhow." + +"Oh, but there are always differences and exceptions," persisted the +doctor, who liked nothing better than to draw Miss Sampson out. "There +are some faces that take till thirty, at least, to bring out all their +possibilities of good looks, and wear on, then, till fifty. I've seen +'em. And the owners were no drones or do-nothings, either. What do you +say to that?" + +"I say there's two ways of growing old. And growing old ain't always +growing ugly. Some folks grow old from the inside, out; and some from +the outside, in. There's old furniture, and there's growing trees!" + +"And the trunk that is roughest below may branch out greenest a-top!" +said the doctor. + +The talk Faith heard now and then, in her walks from home, or when some +of "the girls" came in and called her down into the parlor--about pretty +looks, and becoming dresses, and who danced with who at the "German" +last night, and what a scrape Loolie Lloyd had got into with mixing up +and misdating her engagements at the class, and the last new roll for +the hair--used to seem rather trivial to her in these days! + +Occasionally, when Mr. Gartney had what nurse called a "good" day, he +would begin to ask for some of his books and papers, with a thought +toward business; and then Miss Sampson would display her carpetbag, and +make a show of picking up things to put in it. "For," said she, "when +you get at your business, it'll be high time for me to go about mine." + +"But only for half an hour, nurse! I'll give you that much leave of +absence, and then we'll have things back again as they were before." + +"I guess you will! And _further_ than they were before. No, Mr. Gartney, +you've got to behave. I _won't_ have them vicious-looking accounts +about, and it don't signify." + +"If it don't, why not?" But it ended in the accounts and the carpetbag +disappearing together. + +Until one morning, some three weeks from the beginning of Mr. Gartney's +illness, when, after a few days' letting alone the whole subject, he +suddenly appealed to the doctor. + +"Doctor," said he, as that gentleman entered, "I must have Braybrook up +here this afternoon. I dropped things just where I stood, you know. It's +time to take an observation." + +The doctor looked at his patient gravely. + +"Can't you be content with simply picking up things, and putting them +by, for this year? What I ought to tell you to do would be to send +business to the right about, and go off for an entire rest and change, +for three months, at least." + +"You don't know what you're talking about, doctor!" + +"Perhaps not, on one side of the subject. I feel pretty certain on the +other, however." + +Mr. Gartney did not send for Braybrook that afternoon. The next morning, +however, he came, and the tabooed books and papers were got out. + +In another day or two, Miss Sampson _did_ pack her carpetbag, and go +back to her air-tight stove and solitary cups of tea. Her occupation in +Hickory Street was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +CROSS CORNERS. + +"O thou that pinest in the imprisonment of the Actual, and criest +bitterly to the Gods for a kingdom, wherein to rule and create, +know this of a truth, the thing thou seekest is already with thee, +'here or nowhere,' couldst thou only see!"--CARLYLE. + + +"It is of no use to talk about it," said Mr. Gartney, wearily. "If I +live--as long as I live--I must do business. How else are you to get +along?" + +"How shall we get along if you do _not_ live?" asked his wife, in a low, +anxious tone. + +"My life's insured," was all Mr. Gartney's answer. + +"Father!" cried Faith, distressfully. + +Faith had been taken more and more into counsel and confidence with her +parents since the time of the illness that had brought them all so close +together. And more and more helpful she had grown, both in word and +doing, since she had learned to look daily for the daily work set before +her, and to perform it conscientiously, even although it consisted only +of little things. She still remembered with enthusiasm Nurse Sampson and +the "drumsticks," and managed to pick up now and then one for herself. +Meantime she began to see, indistinctly, before her, the vision of a +work that must be done by some one, and the duty of it pressed hourly +closer home to herself. Her father's health had never been fully +reëstablished. He had begun to use his strength before and faster than +it came. There was danger--it needed no Dr. Gracie, even, to tell them +so--of grave disease, if this went on. And still, whenever urged, his +answer was the same. "What would become of his family without his +business?" + +Faith turned these things over and over in her mind. + +"Father," said she, after a while--the conversation having been dropped +at the old conclusion, and nobody appearing to have anything more to +say--"I don't know anything about business; but I wish you'd tell me how +much money you've got!" + +Her father laughed; a sad sort of laugh though, that was not so much +amusement as tenderness and pity. Then, as if the whole thing were a +mere joke, yet with a shade upon his face that betrayed there was far +too much truth under the jest, after all, he took out his portemonnaie +and told her to look and see. + +"You know I don't mean that, father! How much in the bank, and +everywhere?" + +"Precious little in the bank, now, Faithie. Enough to keep house with +for a year, nearly, perhaps. But if I were to take it and go off and +spend it in traveling, you can understand that the housekeeping would +fall short, can't you?" + +Faith looked horrified. She was bringing down her vague ideas of money +that came from somewhere, through her father's pocket, as water comes +from Lake Kinsittewink by the turning of a faucet, to the narrow point +of actuality. + +"But that isn't all, I know! I've heard you talk about railroad +dividends, and such things." + +"Oh! what does the Western Road pay this time?" asked his wife. + +"I've had to sell out my stock there." + +"And where's the money, father?" asked Faith. + +"Gone to pay debts, child," was the answer. + +Mrs. Gartney said nothing, but she looked very grave. Her husband +surmised, perhaps, that she would go on to imagine worse than had really +happened, and so added, presently: + +"I haven't been obliged to sell _all_ my railroad stocks, wifey. I held +on to some. There's the New York Central all safe; and the Michigan +Central, too. That wouldn't have sold so well, to be sure, just when I +was wanting the money; but things are looking better, now." + +"Father," said Faithie, with her most coaxing little smile, "please just +take this bit of paper and pencil, and set down these stocks and things, +will you?" + +The little smile worked its way; and half in idleness, half in +acquiescence, Mr. Gartney took the pencil and noted down a short list of +items. + +"It's very little, Faith, you see." They ran thus: + + New York Central Railroad 20 shares. + Michigan Central " 15 " + Kinnicutt Branch " 10 " + Mishaumok Insurance Co. 15 " + Merchants Bank 30 " + +"And now, father, please put down how much you get a year in dividends." + +"Not always the same, little busybody." + +Nevertheless he noted down the average sums. And the total was between +six and seven hundred dollars. + +"But that isn't all. You've got other things. Why, there's the house at +Cross Corners." + +"Yes, but I can't let it, you know." + +"What used you to get for it?" + +"Two hundred and fifty. For house and land." + +"And you own this house, too, father?" + +"Yes. This is your mother's." + +"How much rent would this bring?" + +Mr. Gartney turned around and looked at his daughter. He began to see +there was a meaning in her questions. And as he caught her eye, he read, +or discerned without fully reading, a certain eager kindling there. + +"Why, what has come over you, Faithie, to set you catechising so?" + +Faith laughed. + +"Just answer this, please, and I won't ask a single question more +to-night." + +"About the rent? Why, this house ought to bring six hundred, certainly. +And now, if the court will permit, I'll read the news." + +About a week after this, in the latter half of one of those spring days +that come with a warm breath to tell that summer is glowing somewhere, +and that her face is northward, Aunt Faith Henderson came out upon the +low, vine-latticed stoop of her house in Kinnicutt. + +Up the little footpath from the road--across the bit of greensward that +lay between it and the stoop--came a quick, noiseless step, and there +was a touch, presently, on the old lady's arm. + +Faith Gartney stood beside her, in trim straw bonnet and shawl, with a +black leather bag upon her arm. + +"Auntie! I've come to make you a tiny little visit! Till day after +to-morrow." + +"Faith Gartney! However came you here? And in such a fashion, too, +without a word of warning, like--an angel from Heaven!" + +"I came up in the cars, auntie! I felt just like it! Will you keep me?" + +"Glory! Glory McWhirk!" Like the good Vicar of Wakefield, Aunt Henderson +liked often to give the whole name; and calling, she disappeared round +the corner of the stoop, without ever a word of more assured welcome. + +"Put on the teapot again, and make a slice of toast." The good lady's +voice, going on with further directions, was lost in the intricate +threading of the inner maze of the singular old dwelling, and Faith +followed her as far as the first apartment, where she set down her bag +and removed her bonnet. + +It was a quaint, dim room, overbrowed and gloomed by the roofed +projection of the stoop; low-ceiled, high-wainscoted and paneled. All in +oak, of the natural color, deepened and glossed by time and wear. The +heavy beams that supported the floor above were undisguised, and left +the ceiling in panels also, as it were, between. In these highest +places, a man six feet tall could hardly have stood without bending. He +certainly would not, whether he could or no. Even Aunt Faith, with her +five feet, six-and-a-half, dropped a little of her dignity, habitually, +when she entered. But then, as she said, "A hen always bobs her head +when she comes in at a barn door." Between the windows stood an old, +old-fashioned secretary, that filled up from floor to ceiling; and over +the fireplace a mirror of equally antique date tilted forward from the +wall. Opposite the secretary, a plain mahogany table; and eight +high-backed, claw-footed chairs ranged stiffly around the room. + +Aunt Henderson was proud of her old ways, her old furniture, and her +house, that was older than all. + +Some far back ancestor and early settler had built it--the beginning of +it--before Kinnicutt had even become a town; and--rare exception to the +changes elsewhere--generation after generation of the same name and line +had inhabited it until now. Aunt Faith, exultingly, told each curious +visitor that it had been built precisely two hundred and ten years. Out +in the back kitchen, or lean-to, was hung to a rafter the identical gun +with which the "old settler" had ranged the forest that stretched then +from the very door; and higher up, across a frame contrived for it, was +the "wooden saddle" fabricated for the back of the placid, slow-moving +ox, in the time when horses were as yet rare in the new country, and +used with pillions, to transport I can't definitely say how many of the +family to "meeting." + +Between these--the best room and the out-kitchen--the labyrinth of +sitting room, bedrooms, kitchen proper, milk room, and pantry, +partitioned off, or added on, many of them since the primary date of the +main structure, would defy the pencil of modern architect. + +In one of these irregularly clustered apartments that opened out on +different aspects, unexpectedly, from their conglomerate center, Faith +sat, some fifteen minutes after her entrance into the house, at a little +round table between two corner windows that looked northwest and +southwest, and together took in the full radiance of the evening sky. + +Opposite sat her aunt, taking care of her as regarded tea, toast, and +plain country loaf cake, and watching somewhat curiously, also, her +face. + +Faith's face had changed a little since Aunt Henderson had seen her +last. It was not the careless girl's face she had known. There was a +thought in it now. A thought that seemed to go quite out from, and +forget the self from which it came. + +Aunt Henderson wondered greatly what sudden whim or inward purpose had +brought her grandniece hither. + +When Faith absolutely declined any more tea or cake, Miss Henderson's +tap on the table leaf brought in Glory McWhirk. + +A tall, well-grown girl of eighteen was Glory, now--quite another Glory +than had lightened, long ago, the dull little house in Budd Street, and +filled it with her bright, untutored dreams. The luminous tresses had +had their way since then; that is, with certain comfortable bounds +prescribed; and rippled themselves backward from a clear, contented +face, into the net that held them tidily. + +Faith looked up, and remembered the poor office girl of three years +since, half clad and hopeless, with a secret amaze at what "Aunt Faith +had made of her." + +"You may give me some water, Glory," said Miss Henderson. + +Glory brought the pitcher, and poured into the tumbler, and gazed at +Faith's pretty face, and the dark-brown glossy rolls that framed it, +until the water fairly ran over the table. + +"There! there! Why, Glory, what are you thinking of?" cried Miss +Henderson. + +Glory was thinking her old thoughts--wakened always by all that was +beautiful and _beyond_. + +She came suddenly to herself, however, and darted off, with her face as +bright a crimson as her hair was golden; flashing up so, as she did most +easily, into as veritable a Glory as ever was. Never had baby been more +aptly or prophetically named. + +Coming back, towel in hand, to stop the freshet she had set flowing, she +dared not give another glance across the table; but went busily and +deftly to work, clearing it of all that should be cleared, that she +might make her shy way off again before she should be betrayed into +other unwonted blundering. + +"And now, Faith Gartney, tell me all about it! What sent you here?" + +"Nothing. Nobody. I came, aunt. I wanted to see the place, and you." + +The rough eyebrows were bent keenly across the table. + +"Hum!" breathed Aunt Henderson. + +There was small interior sympathy between her ideas and those that +governed the usual course of affairs in Hickory Street. Fond of her +nephew and his family, after her fashion, notwithstanding Faith's old +rebellion, and all other differences, she certainly was; but they went +their way, and she hers. She felt pretty sure theirs would sooner or +later come to a turning; and when that should happen, whether she should +meet them round the corner, or not, would depend. Her path would need to +bend a little, and theirs to make a pretty sharp angle, first. + +But here was Faith cutting across lots to come to her! Aunt Henderson +put away her loaf cake in the cupboard, set back her chair against the +wall in its invariable position of disuse, and departed to the milk room +and kitchen for her evening duty and oversight. + +Glory's hands were busy in the bread bowl, and her brain kneading its +secret thoughts that no one knew or intermeddled with. + +Faith sat at the open window of the little tea room, and watched the +young moon's golden horn go down behind the earth rim among the purple, +like a flamy flower bud floating over, and so lost. + +And the three lives gathered in to themselves, separately, whatsoever +the hour brought to each. + +At nine o'clock Aunt Faith came in, took down the great leather-bound +Bible from the corner shelf, and laid it on the table. Glory appeared, +and seated herself beside the door. + +For a few moments, the three lives met in the One Great Life that +overarches and includes humanity. Miss Henderson read from the sixth +chapter of St. John. + +They were fed with the five thousand. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +A RECONNOISSANCE. + +"Then said his Lordship, 'Well God mend all!' 'Nay, Donald, we must +help him to mend it,' said the other."--Quoted by CARLYLE. + +"Oh, leave these jargons, and go your way straight to God's work in +simplicity and singleness of heart!"--MISS NIGHTINGALE. + + +"Auntie," said Faith, next morning, when, after some exploring, she had +discovered Miss Henderson in a little room, the very counterpart of the +one she had had her tea in the night before, only that this opened to +the southeast, and hailed the morning sun. "Auntie, will you go over +with me to the Cross Corners house, after breakfast? It's empty, isn't +it?" + +"Yes, it's empty. But it's no great show of a house. What do you want to +see it for?" + +"Why, it used to be so pretty, there. I'd like just to go into it. Have +you heard of anybody's wanting it yet?" + +"No; and I guess nobody's likely to, for one while. Folks don't make +many changes, out here." + +"What a bright little breakfast room this is, auntie! And how grand you +are to have a room for every meal!" + +"It ain't for the grandeur of it. But I always did like to follow the +sun round. For the most part of the year, at any rate. And this is just +as near the kitchen as the other. Besides, I kind of hate to shut up any +of the rooms, altogether. They were all wanted, once; and now I'm all +alone in 'em." + +For Miss Henderson, this was a great opening of the heart. But she +didn't go on to say that the little west room had been her young +brother's, who long ago, when he was just ready for his Master's work in +this world, had been called up higher; and that her evening rest was +sweeter, and her evening reading holier for being holden there; or that +here, in the sunny morning hours, her life seemed almost to roll back +its load of many years, and to set her down beside her mother's knee, +and beneath her mother's gentle tutelage, once more; that on the little +"light stand" in the corner by the fireplace stood the selfsame basket +that had been her mother's then--just where she had kept it, too, when +it was running over with little frocks and stockings that were always +waiting finishing or mending--and now held only the plain gray knitting +work and the bit of sewing that Aunt Faith might have in hand. + +A small, square table stood now in the middle of the floor, with a fresh +brown linen breakfast cloth upon it; and Glory, neat and fresh, also, +with her brown spotted calico dress and apron of the same, came in +smiling like a very goddess of peace and plenty, with the steaming +coffeepot in one hand, and the plate of fine, white rolls in the other. +The yellow print of butter and some rounds from a brown loaf were +already on the table. Glory brought in, presently, the last addition to +the meal--six eggs, laid yesterday, the water of their boiling just +dried off, and modestly took her own seat at the lower end of the board. + +Aunt Faith, living alone, kept to the kindly old country fashion of +admitting her handmaid to the table with herself. "Why not?" she would +say. "In the first place, why should we keep the table about, half an +hour longer than we need? And I suppose hot cakes and coffee are as much +nicer than cold, for one body as another. Then where's the sense? We +take Bible meat together. Must we be more dainty about 'meat that +perisheth'?" So her argument climbed up from its lower reason to its +climax. + +Glory had little of the Irish now about her but her name. And all that +she retained visibly of the Roman faith she had been born to, was her +little rosary of colored shells, strung as beads, that had been blessed +by the Pope. + +Miss Henderson had trained and fed her in her own ways, and with such +food as she partook herself, physically and spiritually. Glory sat, +every Sunday, in the corner pew of the village church, by her mistress's +side. And this church-going being nearly all that she had ever had, she +took in the nutriment that was given her, to a soul that recognized it, +and never troubled itself with questions as to one truth differing from +another, or no. Indeed, no single form or theory could have contained +the "credo" of her simple, yet complex, thought. The old Catholic +reverence clung about her still, that had come with her all the way from +her infancy, when her mother and grandmother had taught her the prayers +of their Church; and across the long interval of ignorance and neglect +flung a sort of cathedral light over what she felt was holy now. + +Rescued from her dim and servile city life--brought out into the light +and beauty she had mutely longed for--feeling care and kindliness about +her for the long-time harshness and oppression she had borne--she was +like a spirit newly entered into heaven, that needs no priestly +ministration any more. Every breath drew in a life and teaching purer +than human words. + +And then the words she _did_ hear were Divine. Miss Henderson did no +preaching--scarcely any lip teaching, however brief. She broke the bread +of life God gave her, as she cut her daily loaf and shared it--letting +each soul, God helping, digest it for itself. + +Glory got hold of some old theology, too, that she could but +fragmentarily understand but that mingled itself--as all we gather does +mingle, not uselessly--with her growth. She found old books among Miss +Henderson's stores, that she read and mused on. She trembled at the +warnings, and reposed in the holy comforts of Doddridge's "Rise and +Progress," and Baxter's "Saint's Rest." She traveled to the Holy City, +above all, with Bunyan's Pilgrim. And then, Sunday after Sunday, she +heard the simple Christian preaching of an old and simple Christian man. +Not terrible--but earnest; not mystical--but high; not lax--but liberal; +and this fused and tempered all. + +So "things had happened" for Glory. So God had cared for this, His +child. So, according to His own Will--not any human plan or forcing-- +she grew. + +Aunt Faith washed up the breakfast cups, dusted and "set to rights" in +the rooms where, to the young Faith's eyes, there seemed such order +already as could not be righted, made up a nice little pudding for +dinner, and then, taking down her shawl and silk hood, and putting on +her overshoes, announced herself ready for Cross Corners. + +"Though it's all cross corners to me, child, sure enough. I suppose it's +none of my business, but I can't think what you're up to." + +"Not up to any great height, yet, auntie. But I'm growing," said Faith, +merrily, and with meaning somewhat beyond the letter. + +They went out at the back door, which opened on a little footpath down +the sudden green slope behind, and stretched across the field, +diagonally, to a bar place and stile at the opposite corner. Here the +roads from five different directions met and crossed, which gave the +locality its name. + +Opposite the stile at which they came out, across the shady lane that +wound down from the Old Road whereon Miss Henderson's mansion faced, a +gateway in a white paling that ran round and fenced in a grassy door +yard, overhung with pendent branches of elms and stouter canopy of +chestnuts, let them in upon the little "Cross Corners Farm." + +"Oh, Aunt Faith! It's just as lovely as ever! I remember that path up +the hill, among the trees, so well! When I was a little bit of a girl, +and nurse and I came out to stay with you. I had my 'fairy house' there. +I'd like to go over this minute, only that we shan't have time. How +shall we get in? Where is the key?" + +"It's in my pocket. But it mystifies me, what you want there." + +"I want to look out of all the windows, auntie, to begin with." + +Aunt Faith's mystification was not lessened. + +The front door opened on a small, square hall, with doors to right and +left. The room on the left, spite of the bare floor and fireless +hearth, was warm with the spring sunshine that came pouring in at the +south windows. Beyond this, embracing the corner of the house +rectangularly, projected an equally sunny and cheery kitchen; at the +right of which, communicating with both apartments, was divided off a +tiny tea and breakfast room. So Faith decided, though it had very likely +been a bedroom. + +From the entrance hall at the right opened a room larger than either of +the others--so large that the floor above afforded two bedrooms over +it--and having, besides its windows south and east, a door in the +farther corner beyond the chimney, that gave out directly upon the +grassy slope, and looked up the path among the trees that crossed the +ridge. + +Faith drew the bolt and opened it, expecting to find a closet or a +passage somewhither. She fairly started back with surprise and delight. +And then seated herself plump upon the threshold, and went into a +midsummer dream. + +"Oh, auntie!" she cried, at her waking, presently, "was ever anything so +perfect? To think of being let out so! Right from a regular, proper +parlor, into the woods!" + +"Do you mean to go upstairs?" inquired Miss Henderson, with a vague +amaze in her look that seemed to question whether her niece had not +possibly been "let out" from her "regular and proper" wits! + +Whereupon Faith scrambled up from her seat upon the sill, and hurried +off to investigate above. + +Miss Henderson closed the door, pushed the bolt, and followed quietly +after. + +It was a funny little pantomime that Faith enacted then, for the further +bewilderment of the staid old lady. + +Darting from one chamber to another, with an inexplicable look of +business and consideration in her face, that contrasted comically with +her quick movements and her general air of glee, she would take her +stand in the middle of each one in turn, and wheeling round to get a +swift panoramic view of outlook and capabilities, would end by a +succession of mysterious and apparently satisfied little nods, as if at +each pause some point of plan or arrangement had settled itself in her +mind. + +"Aunt Faith!" cried she, suddenly, as she came out upon the landing when +she had peeped into the last corner, and found Miss Henderson on the +point of making her descent--"what sort of a thing do you think it would +be for us to come here and live?" + +Aunt Faith sat down now as suddenly, in her turn, on the stairhead. +Recovering, so, from her momentary and utter astonishment, and taking +in, during that instant of repose, the full drift of the question +propounded, she rose from her involuntarily assumed position, and +continued her way down--answering, without so much as turning her head, +"It would be just the most sensible thing that Henderson Gartney ever +did in his life!" + +What made Faithie a bit sober, all at once, when the key was turned, and +they passed on, out under the elms, into the lane again? + +Did you ever project a very wise and important scheme, that involves a +little self-sacrifice, which, by a determined looking at the bright side +of the subject, you had managed tolerably to ignore; and then, by the +instant and unhesitating acquiescence of some one to whose judgment you +submitted it, find yourself suddenly wheeled about in your own mind to +the standpoint whence you discerned only the difficulty again? + +"There's one thing, Aunt Faith," said she, as they slowly walked up the +field path; "I couldn't go to school any more." + +Faith had discontinued her regular attendance since the recommencement +for the year, but had gone in for a few hours on "French and German +days." + +"There's another thing," said Aunt Faith. "I don't believe your father +can afford to send you any more. You're eighteen, ain't you?" + +"I shall be, this summer." + +"Time for you to leave off school. Bring your books and things along +with you. You'll have chance enough to study." + +Faith hadn't thought much of herself before. But when she found her aunt +didn't apparently think of her at all, she began to realize keenly all +that she must silently give up. + +"But it's a good deal of help, auntie, to study with other people. And +then--we shouldn't have any society out here. I don't mean for the sake +of parties, and going about. But for the improvement of it. I shouldn't +like to be shut out from cultivated people." + +"Faith Gartney!" exclaimed Miss Henderson, facing about in the narrow +footway, "don't you go to being fine and transcendental! If there's one +word I despise more than another, in the way folks use it nowadays--it's +'Culture'! As if God didn't know how to make souls grow! You just take +root where He puts you, and go to work, and live! He'll take care of the +cultivating! If He means you to turn out a rose, or an oak tree, you'll +come to it. And pig-weed's pig-weed, no matter where it starts up!" + +"Aunt Faith!" replied the child, humbly and earnestly, "I believe that's +true! And I believe I want the country to grow in! But the thing will +be," she added, a little doubtfully, "to persuade father." + +"Doesn't he want to come, then? Whose plan is it, pray?" asked Miss +Henderson, stopping short again, just as she had resumed her walk, in a +fresh surprise. + +"Nobody's but mine, yet, auntie! I haven't asked him, but I thought I'd +come and look." + +Miss Henderson took her by the arm, and looked steadfastly in her dark, +earnest eyes. + +"You're something, sure enough!" said she, with a sharp tenderness. + +Faith didn't know precisely what she meant, except that she seemed to +mean approval. And at the one word of appreciation, all difficulty and +self-sacrifice vanished out of her sight, and everything brightened to +her thought, again, till her thought brightened out into a smile. + +"What a skyful of lovely white clouds!" she said, looking up to the +pure, fleecy folds that were flittering over the blue. "We can't see +that in Mishaumok!" + +"She's just heavenly!" said Glory to herself, standing at the back door, +and gazing with a rapturous admiration at Faith's upturned face. "And +the dinner's all ready, and I'm thankful, and more, that the custard's +baked so beautiful!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +DEVELOPMENT. + +"Sits the wind in that corner?" + MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. + +"For courage mounteth with occasion." + KING JOHN. + + +The lassitude that comes with spring had told upon Mr. Gartney. He had +dyspepsia, too; and now and then came home early from the counting room +with a headache that sent him to his bed. Dr. Gracie dropped in, +friendly-wise, of an evening--said little that was strictly +professional--but held his hand a second longer, perhaps, than he would +have done for a mere greeting, and looked rather scrutinizingly at him +when Mr. Gartney's eyes were turned another way. Frequently he made some +slight suggestion of a journey, or other summer change. + +"You must urge it, if you can, Mrs. Gartney," he said, privately, to the +wife. "I don't quite like his looks. Get him away from business, at +_almost any_ sacrifice," he came to add, at last. + +"At _every_ sacrifice?" asked Mrs. Gartney, anxious and perplexed. +"Business is nearly all, you know." + +"Life is more--reason is more," answered the doctor, gravely. + +And the wife went about her daily task with a secret heaviness at her +heart. + +"Father," said Faith, one evening, after she had read to him the paper +while he lay resting upon the sofa, "if you had money enough to live on, +how long would it take you to wind up your business?" + +"It's pretty nearly wound up now! But what's the use of asking such a +question?" + +"Because," said Faith, timidly, "I've got a little plan in my head, if +you'll only listen to it." + +"Well, Faithie, I'll listen. What is it?" + +And then Faith spoke it all out, at once. + +"That you should give up all your business, father, and let this house, +and go to Cross Corners, and live at the farm." + +Mr. Gartney started to his elbow. But a sudden pain that leaped in his +temples sent him back again. For a minute or so, he did not speak at +all. Then he said: + +"Do you know what you are talking of, daughter?" + +"Yes, father; I've been thinking it over a good while--since the night +we wrote down these things." + +And she drew from her pocket the memorandum of stocks and dividends. + +"You see you have six hundred and fifty dollars a year from these, and +this house would be six hundred more, and mother says she can manage on +that, in the country, if I will help her." + +Mr. Gartney shaded his eyes with his hand. Not wholly, perhaps, to +shield them from the light. + +"You're a good girl, Faithie," said he, presently; and there was +assuredly a little tremble in his voice. + +"And so, you and your mother have talked it over, together?" + +"Yes; often, lately. And she said I had better ask you myself, if I +wished it. She is perfectly willing. She thinks it would be good." + +"Faithie," said her father, "you make me feel, more than ever, how much +I _ought_ to do for you!" + +"You ought to get well and strong, father--that is all!" replied Faith, +with a quiver in her own voice. + +Mr. Gartney sighed. + +"I'm no more than a mere useless block of wood!" + +"We shall just have to set you up, and make an idol of you, then!" cried +Faith, cheerily, with tears on her eyelashes, that she winked off. + +There had been a ring at the bell while they were speaking; and now Mrs. +Gartney entered, followed by Dr. Gracie. + +"Well, Miss Faith," said the doctor, after the usual greetings, and a +prolonged look at Mr. Gartney's flushed face, "what have you done to +your father?" + +"I've been reading the paper," answered Faith, quietly, "and talking a +little." + +"Mother!" said Mr. Gartney, catching his wife's hand, as she came round +to find a seat near him, "are you really in the plot, too?" + +"I'm glad there is a plot," said the doctor, quickly, glancing round +with a keen inquiry. "It's time!" + +"Wait till you hear it," said Mr. Gartney. "Are you in a hurry to lose +your patient?" + +"Depends upon _how_!" replied the doctor, touching the truth in a jest. + +"This is how. Here's a little jade who has the conceit and audacity to +propose to me to wind up my business (as if she understood the whole +process!), and let my house, and go to my farm at Cross Corners. What do +you think of that?" + +"I think it would be the most sensible thing you ever did in your life!" + +"Just exactly what Aunt Henderson said!" cried Faith, exultant. + +"Aunt Faith, too! The conspiracy thickens! How long has all this been +discussing?" continued Mr. Gartney, fairly roused, and springing, +despite the doctor's request, to a sitting position, throwing off, as he +did so, the afghan Faith had laid over his feet. + +"There hasn't been much discussion," said Faith. "Only when I went out +to Kinnicutt I got auntie to show me the house; and I asked her how she +thought it would be if we were to do such a thing, and she said just +what Dr. Gracie has said now. And, father, you _don't_ know how +beautiful it is there!" + +"So you really want to go? and it isn't drumsticks?" queried the doctor, +turning round to Faith. + +"Some drumsticks are very nice," said Faith. + +"Gartney!" said Dr. Gracie, "you'd better mind what this girl of yours +says. She's worth attending to." + +The wedge had been entered, and Faith's hand had driven it. + +The plan was taken into consideration. Of course, such a change could +not be made without some pondering; but when almost the continual +thought of a family is concentrated upon a single subject, a good deal +of pondering and deciding can be done in three weeks. At the end of that +time an advertisement appeared in the leading Mishaumok papers, offering +the house in Hickory Street to be let; and Mrs. Gartney and Faith were +busy packing boxes to go to Kinnicutt. + +Only a passing shade had been flung on the project which seemed to +brighten into sunshine, otherwise, the more they looked at it, when Mrs. +Gartney suddenly said, after a long "talking over," the second evening +after the proposal had been first broached: + +"But what will Saidie say?" + +Now Saidie--whom before it has been unnecessary to mention--was Faith's +elder sister, traveling at this moment in Europe, with a wealthy elder +sister of Mrs. Gartney. + +"I never thought of Saidie," cried Faith. + +Saidie was pretty sure not to like Kinnicutt. A young lady, educated at +a fashionable New York school--petted by an aunt who found nobody else +to pet, and who had money enough to have petted a whole asylum of +orphans--who had shone in London and Paris for two seasons past--was not +exceedingly likely to discover all the possible delights that Faith had +done, under the elms and chestnuts at Cross Corners. + +But this could make no practical difference. + +"She wouldn't like Hickory Street any better," said Faith, "if we +couldn't have parties or new furniture any more. And she's only a +visitor, at the best. Aunt Etherege will be sure to have her in New +York, or traveling about, ten months out of twelve. She can come to us +in June and October. I guess she'll like strawberries and cream, +and--whatever comes at the other season, besides red leaves." + +Now this was kind, sisterly consideration of Faith, however little so it +seems, set down. It was very certain that no more acceptable provision +could be made for Saidie Gartney in the family plan, than to leave her +out, except where the strawberries and cream were concerned. In return, +she wrote gay, entertaining letters home to her mother and young sister, +and sent pretty French, or Florentine, or Roman ornaments for them to +wear. Some persons are content to go through life with such exchange of +sympathies as this. + +By and by, Faith being in her own room, took out from her letter box the +last missive from abroad. There was something in this which vexed Faith, +and yet stirred her a little, obscurely. + +All things are fair in love, war, and--story books! So, though she would +never have shown the words to you or me, we will peep over her shoulder, +and share them, "_en rapport_." + +"And Paul Rushleigh, it seems, is as much as ever in Hickory Street! +Well--my little Faithie might make a far worse '_parti_' than that! Tell +papa I think he may be satisfied there!" + +Faith would have cut off her little finger, rather than have had her +father dream that such a thing had been put into her head! But +unfortunately it was there, now, and could not be helped. She could +only--sitting there in her chamber window with the blood tingling to the +hair upon her temples, as if from every neighboring window of the +clustering houses about her, eyes could overlook and read what she was +reading now--"wish that Saidie would not write such things as that!" + +For all that, it was one pleasant thing Faith would have to lose in +leaving Mishaumok. It was very agreeable to have him dropping in, with +his gay college gossip; and to dance the "German" with the nicest +partner in the Monday class; and to carry the flowers he so often sent +her. Had she done things greater than she knew in shutting her eyes +resolutely to all her city associations and enjoyments, and urging, for +her father's sake, this exodus in the desert? + +Only that means were actually wanting to continue on as they were, and +that health must at any rate be first striven for as a condition to the +future enlargement of means, her father and mother, in their thought for +what their child hardly considered for herself, would surely have been +more difficult to persuade. They hoped that a summer's rest might enable +Mr. Gartney to undertake again some sort of lucrative business, after +business should have revived from its present prostration; and that a +year or two, perhaps, of economizing in the country, might make it +possible for them to return, if they chose, to the house in Hickory +Street. + +There were leave takings to be gone through--questions to be answered, +and reasons to be given; for Mrs. Gartney, the polite wishes of her +visiting friends that "Mr. Gartney's health might allow them to return +to the city in the winter," with the wonder, unexpressed, whether this +were to be a final breakdown of the family, or not; and for Faith, the +horror and extravagant lamentations of her young _coterie_, at her +coming occultation--or setting, rather, out of their sky. + +Paul Rushleigh demanded eagerly if there weren't any sober old minister +out there, with whom he might be rusticated for his next college prank. + +Everybody promised to come as far as Kinnicutt "some time" to see them; +the good-bys were all said at last; the city cook had departed, and a +woman had been taken in her place who "had no objections to the country"; +and on one of the last bright days of May they skimmed, steam-sped, over +the intervening country between the brick-and-stone-encrusted hills of +Mishaumok and the fair meadow reaches of Kinnicutt; and so disappeared +out of the places that had known them so long, and could yet, alas! do +so exceedingly well without them. + +By the first of June nobody in the great city remembered, or remembered +very seriously to regard, the little gap that had been made in its +midst. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +A DRIVE WITH THE DOCTOR. + +"And what is so rare as a day in June? +Then, if ever, come perfect days; +Then heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, +And over it softly her warm ear lays." + LOWELL. + +"All lives have their prose translation as well as their ideal +meaning."--CHARLES AUCHESTER. + + +But Kinnicutt opened wider to receive them than Mishaumok had to let +them go. + +If Mr. Gartney's invalidism had to be pleaded to get away with dignity, +it was even more needed to shield with anything of quietness their +entrance into the new sphere they had chosen. + +Faith, with her young adaptability, found great fund of entertainment in +the new social developments that unfolded themselves at Cross Corners. + +All sorts of quaint vehicles drove up under the elms in the afternoon +visiting hours, day after day--hitched horses, and unladed passengers. +Both doctors and their wives came promptly, of course; the "old doctor" +from the village, and the "young doctor" from "over at Lakeside." Quiet +Mrs. Holland walked in at the twilight, by herself, one day, to explain +that her husband, the minister, was too unwell to visit, and to say her +pleasant, unpretentious words of welcome. Squire Leatherbee's daughters +made themselves fine in lilac silks and green Estella shawls, to offer +acquaintance to the new "city people." Aunt Faith came over, once or +twice a week, at times when "nobody else would be round under foot," and +always with some dainty offering from dairy, garden, or kitchen. At +other hours, Glory was fain to seize all opportunity of errands that +Miss Henderson could not do, and irradiate the kitchen, lingeringly, +until she herself might be more ecstatically irradiated with a glance +and smile from Miss Faith. + +There was need enough of Aunt Faith's ministrations during these first, +few, unsettled weeks. The young woman who "had no objections to the +country," objected no more to these pleasant country fashions of +neighborly kindness. She had reason. Aunt Faith's "thirds bread," or +crisp "vanity cakes," or "velvet creams," were no sooner disposed of +than there surely came a starvation interval of sour biscuits, heavy +gingerbread, and tough pie crust, and dinners feebly cooked, with no +attempt at desserts, at all. + +This was gloomy. This was the first trial of their country life. +Plainly, this cook was no cook. Mr. Gartney's dyspepsia must be +considered. Kinnicutt air and June sunshine would not do all the +curative work. The healthy appetite they stimulated must be wholesomely +supplied. + +Faith took to the kitchen. To Glory's mute and rapturous delight, she +began to come almost daily up the field path, in her pretty round hat +and morning wrapper, to waylay her aunt in the tidy kitchen at the early +hour when her cookery was sure to be going on, to ask questions and +investigate, and "help a little," and then to go home and repeat the +operation as nearly as she could for their somewhat later dinner. + +"Miss McGonegal seems to be improving," observed Mr. Gartney, +complacently, one day, as he partook of a simple, but favorite pudding, +nicely flavored and compounded; "or is this a charity of Aunt +Henderson's?" + +"No," replied his wife, "it is home manufacture," and she glanced at +Faith without dropping her tone to a period. Faith shook her head, and +the sentence hung in the air, unfinished. + +Mrs. Gartney had not been strong for years. Moreover, she had not a +genius for cooking. That is a real gift, as much as a genius for poetry +or painting. Faith was finding out, suddenly, that she had it. But she +was quite willing that her father should rest in the satisfactory belief +that Miss McGonegal, in whom it never, by any possibility, could be +developed, was improving; and that the good things that found their way +to his table had a paid and permanent origin. He was more comfortable +so, she thought. Meanwhile, they would inquire if the region round about +Kinnicutt might be expected to afford a substitute. + +Dr. Wasgatt's wife told Mrs. Gartney of a young American woman who was +staying in the "factory village" beyond Lakeside, and who had asked her +husband if he knew of any place where she could "hire out." Dr. Wasgatt +would be very glad to take her or Miss Faith over there, of a morning, +to see if she would answer. + +Faith was very glad to go. + +Dr. Wasgatt was the "old doctor." A benign man, as old doctors--when +they don't grow contrariwise, and become unspeakably gruff and +crusty--are apt to be. A benign old doctor, a docile old horse, an +old-fashioned two-wheeled chaise that springs to the motion like a bough +at a bird flitting, and an indescribable June morning wherein to drive +four miles and back--well! Faith couldn't help exulting in her heart +that they wanted a cook. + +The way was very lovely toward Lakeside, and across to factory village. +It crossed the capricious windings of Wachaug two or three times within +the distance, and then bore round the Pond Road, which kept its old +traditional cognomen, though the new neighborhood that had grown up at +its farther bend had got a modern name, and the beautiful pond itself +had come to be known with a legitimate dignity as Lake Wachaug. + +Graceful birches, with a spring, and a joyous, whispered secret in every +glossy leaf, leaned over the road toward the water; and close down to +its ripples grew wild shrubs and flowers, and lush grass, and lady +bracken, while out over the still depths rested green lily pads, like +floating thrones waiting the fair water queens who, a few weeks hence, +should rise to claim them. Back, behind the birches, reached the fringe +of woodland that melted away, presently, in the sunny pastures, and held +in bush and branch hundreds of little mother birds, brooding in a still +rapture, like separate embodied pulses of the Universal Love, over a +coming life and joy. + +Life and joy were everywhere. Faith's heart danced and glowed within +her. She had thought, many a time before, that she was getting somewhat +of the joy of the country, when, after dinner and business were over, +she had come out from Mishaumok, in proper fashionable toilet, with her +father and mother, for an afternoon airing in the city environs. But +here, in the old doctor's "one-hoss shay," and with her round straw hat +and chintz wrapper on, she was finding out what a rapturously different +thing it is to go out into the bountiful morning, and identify oneself +therewith. + +She had almost forgotten that she had any other errand when they turned +away from the lake, and took a little side road that wound off from it, +and struck the river again, and brought them at last to the Wachaug +Mills and the little factory settlement around them. + +"This is Mrs. Pranker's," said the doctor, stopping at the third door in +a block of factory houses, "and it's a sister-in-law of hers who wants +to 'hire out.' I've a patient in the next row, and if you like, I'll +leave you here a few minutes." + +Faith's foot was instantly on the chaise step, and she sprang to the +ground with only an acknowledging touch of the good doctor's hand, +upheld to aid her. + +A white-haired boy of three, making gravel puddings in a scalloped tin +dish at the door, scrambled up as she approached, upset his pudding, and +sidled up the steps in a scared fashion, with a finger in his mouth, and +his round gray eyes sending apprehensive peeps at her through the linty +locks. + +"Well, tow-head!" ejaculated an energetic female voice within, to an +accompaniment of swashing water, and a scrape of a bucket along the +floor; "what's wanting now? Can't you stay put, nohow?" + +An unintelligible jargon of baby chatter followed, which seemed, +however, to have conveyed an idea to the mother's mind, for she +appeared immediately in the passage, drying her wet arms upon her apron. + +"Mrs. Pranker?" asked Faith. + +"That's my name," replied the woman, as who should say, peremptorily, +"what then?" + +"I was told--my mother heard--that a sister of yours was looking for a +place." + +"She hain't done much about _lookin'_," was the reply, "but she was +sayin' she didn't know but what she'd hire out for a spell, if anybody +wanted her. She's in the keepin' room. You can come in and speak to her, +if you're a mind to. The kitchen floor's wet. I'm jest a-washin' of it. +You little sperrit!" This to the child, who was amusing himself with the +floor cloth which he had fished out of the bucket, and held up, +dripping, letting a stream of dirty water run down the front of his red +calico frock. "If children ain't the biggest torments! Talk about Job! +His wife had to have more patience than he did, I'll be bound! And +patience ain't any use, either! The more you have, the more you're took +advantage of! I declare and testify, it makes me as cross as sin, jest +to think how good-natured I be!" And with this, she snatched the cloth +from the boy's hands, shook first him and then his frock, to get rid, in +so far as a shake might accomplish it, of original depravity and sandy +soapsuds, and carried him, vociferant, to the door, where she set him +down to the consolation of gravel pudding again. + +Meanwhile Faith crossed the sloppy kitchen, on tiptoe, toward an open +door, that revealed a room within. + +Here a very fat young woman, with a rather pleasant face, was seated, +sewing, in a rocking-chair. + +She did not rise, or move, at Faith's entrance, otherwise than to look +up, composedly, and let fall her arms along those of the chair, +retaining the needle in one hand and her work in the other. + +"I came to see," said Faith--obliged to say something to explain her +presence, but secretly appalled at the magnitude of the subject she had +to deal with--"if you wanted a place in a family." + +"Take a seat," said the young woman. + +Faith availed herself of one, and, doubtful what to say next, waited for +indications from the other party. + +"Well--I _was_ calc'latin' to hire out this summer, but I ain't very +partic'ler about it, neither." + +"Can you cook?" + +"Most kinds. I can't do much fancy cookin'. Guess I can make bread--all +sorts--and roast, and bile, and see to common fixin's, though, as well +as the next one!" + +"We like plain country cooking," said Faith, thinking of Aunt +Henderson's delicious, though simple, preparations. "And I suppose you +can make new things if you have direction." + +"Well--I'm pretty good at workin' out a resate, too. But then, I ain't +anyways partic'ler 'bout hirin' out, as I said afore." + +Faith judged rightly that this was a salvo put in for pride. The Yankee +girl would not appear anxious for a servile situation. All the while the +conversation went on, she sat tilting herself gently back and forth in +the rocking-chair, with a lazy touching of her toes to the floor. Her +very _vis inertiæ_ would not let her stop. + +Faith's only question, now, was with herself--how she should get away +again. She had no idea that this huge, indolent creature would be at all +suitable as their servant. And then, her utter want of manners! + +"I'll tell my mother what you say," said she, rising. + +"What's your mother's name, and where d'ye live?" + +"We live at Kinnicutt Cross Corners. My mother is Mrs. Henderson +Gartney." + +"'M!" + +Faith turned toward the kitchen. + +"Look here!" called the stout young woman after her; "you may jest say +if she wants me she can send for me. I don't mind if I try it a spell." + +"I didn't ask _your_ name," remarked Faith. + +"Oh! my name's Mis' Battis!" + +Faith escaped over the wet floor, sprang past the white-haired child at +the doorstep, and was just in time to be put into the chaise by Dr. +Wasgatt, who drove up as she came out. She did not dare trust her voice +to speak within hearing of the house; but when they had come round the +mills again, into the secluded river road, she startled its quietness +and the doctor's composure, with a laugh that rang out clear and +overflowing like the very soul of fun. + +"So that's all you've got out of your visit?" + +"Yes, that is all," said Faith. "But it's a great deal!" And she laughed +again--such a merry little waterfall of a laugh. + +When she reached home, Mrs. Gartney met her at the door. + +"Well, Faithie," she cried, somewhat eagerly, "what have you found?" + +Faith's eyes danced with merriment. + +"I don't know, mother! A--hippopotamus, I think!" + +"Won't she do? What do you mean?" + +"Why she's as big! I can't tell you how big! And she sat in a +rocking-chair and rocked all the time--and she says her name is Miss +Battis!" + +Mrs. Gartney looked rather perplexed than amused. + +"But, Faith!--I can't think how she knew--she must have been, +listening--Norah has been so horribly angry! And she's upstairs packing +her things to go right off. How _can_ we be left without a cook?" + +"It seems Miss McGonegal means to demonstrate that we can! Perhaps--the +hippopotamus _might_ be trained to domestic service! She said you could +send if you wanted her." + +"I don't see anything else to do. Norah won't even stay till morning. +And there isn't a bit of bread in the house. I can't send this +afternoon, though, for your father has driven over to Sedgely about some +celery and tomato plants, and won't be home till tea time." + +"I'll make some cream biscuits like Aunt Faith's. And I'll go out into +the garden and find Luther. If he can't carry us through the +Reformation, somehow, he doesn't deserve his name." + +Luther was found--thought Jerry Blanchard wouldn't "value lettin' him +have his old horse and shay for an hour." And he wouldn't "be mor'n that +goin'." He could "fetch her, easy enough, if that was all." + +Mis' Battis came. + +She entered Mrs. Gartney's presence with nonchalance, and "flumped" +incontinently into the easiest and nearest chair. + +Mrs. Gartney began with the common preliminary--the name. Mis' Battis +introduced herself as before. + +"But your first name?" proceeded the lady. + +"My first name was Parthenia Franker. I'm a relic'." + +Mrs. Gartney experienced an internal convulsion, but retained her +outward composure. + +"I suppose you would quite as lief be called Parthenia?" + +"Ruther," replied the relict, laconically. + +And Mrs. Parthenia Battis was forthwith installed--_pro tem_.--in the +Cross Corners kitchen. + +"She's got considerable gumption," was the opinion Luther volunteered, +of his own previous knowledge--for Mrs. Battis was an old schoolmate and +neighbor--"but she's powerful slow." + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +NEW DUTIES. + +"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might."--Ecc. 9:10. + +"A servant with this clause + Makes drudgery divine;-- +Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws, + Makes that and the action fine." + GEORGE HERBERT. + + +Mis' Battis's "gumption" was a relief--conjoined, even, as it was, to a +mighty _inertia_--after the experience of Norah McGonegal's utter +incapacity; and her admission, _pro tempore,_ came to be tacitly looked +upon as a permanent adoption, for want of a better alternative. She +continued to seat herself, unabashed, whenever opportunity offered, in +the presence of the family; and invariably did so, when Mrs. Gartney +either sent for, or came to her, to give orders. She always spoke of Mr. +Gartney as "he," addressed her mistress as Miss Gartney, and ignored all +prefix to the gentle name of Faith. Mrs. Gartney at last remedied the +pronominal difficulty by invariably applying all remarks bearing no +other indication, to that other "he" of the household--Luther. Her own +claim to the matronly title she gave up all hope of establishing; for, +if the "relic'" abbreviated her own wifely distinction, how should she +be expected to dignify other people? + +As to Faith, her mother ventured one day, sensitively and timidly, to +speak directly to the point. + +"My daughter has always been accustomed to be called _Miss_ Faith," she +said, gently, in reply to an observation of Parthenia's, in which the +ungarnished name had twice been used. "It isn't a _very_ important +matter--still, it would be pleasanter to us, and I dare say you won't +mind trying to remember it?" + +"'M! No--I ain't partic'ler. Faith ain't a long name, and 'twon't be +much trouble to put a handle on, if that's what you want. It's English +fashion, ain't it?" + +Parthenia's coolness enabled Mrs. Gartney to assert, somewhat more +confidently, her own dignity. + +"It is a fashion of respect and courtesy, everywhere, I believe." + +"'M!" reëjaculated the relict. + +Thereafter, Faith was "Miss," with a slight pressure of emphasis upon +the handle. + +"Mamma!" cried Hendie, impetuously, one day, as he rushed in from a walk +with his attendant, "I _hate_ Mahala Harris! I wish you'd let me dress +myself, and go to walk alone, and send her off to Jericho!" + +"Whereabouts do you suppose Jericho to be?" asked Faith, laughing. + +"I don't know. It's where she keeps wishing I was, when she's cross, and +I want anything. I wish she was there!--and I mean to ask papa to send +her!" + +"Go and take your hat off, Hendie, and have your hair brushed, and your +hands washed, and then come back in a nice quiet little temper, and +we'll talk about it," said Mrs. Gartney. + +"I think," said Faith to her mother, as the boy was heard mounting the +stairs to the nursery, right foot foremost all the way, "that Mahala +doesn't manage Hendie as she ought. She keeps him in a fret. I hear them +in the morning while I am dressing. She seems to talk to him in a +taunting sort of way." + +"What can we do?" exclaimed Mrs. Gartney, worriedly. "These changes are +dreadful. We might get some one worse. And then we can't afford to pay +extravagantly. Mahala has been content to take less wages, and I think +she means to be faithful. Perhaps if I make her understand how important +it is, she will try a different manner." + +"Only it might be too late to do much good, if Hendie has really got to +dislike her. And--besides--I've been thinking--only, you will say I'm so +full of projects----" + +But what the project was, Mrs. Gartney did not hear at once, for just +then Hendie's voice was heard again at the head of the stairs. + +"I tell you, mother said I might! I'm going--down--in a nice--little +temper--to ask her--to send you--to Jericho!" Left foot foremost, a drop +between each few syllables, he came stumping, defiantly, down the +stairs, and appeared with all his eager story in his eyes. + +"She plagues me, mamma! She tells me to see who'll get dressed first; +and if _she_ does, she says: + + "'The first's the best, + The second's the same; + The last's the worst + Of all the game!' + +"And if _I_ get dressed first--all but the buttoning, you know--she says: + + "'The last's the best, + The second's the same; + The first's the worst + Of all the game!' + +"And then she keeps telling me 'her little sister never behaved like me.' +I asked her where her little sister was, and she said she'd gone over +Jordan. I'm glad of it! I wish Mahala would go too!" + +Mrs. Gartney smiled, and Faith could not help laughing outright. + +Hendie burst into a passion of tears. + +"Everybody keeps plaguing me! It's too bad!" he cried, with tumultuous +sobs. + +Faith checked her laughter instantly. She took the indignant little +fellow on her lap, in despite of some slight, implacable struggle on his +part, and kissed his pouting lips. + +"No, indeed, Hendie! We wouldn't plague you for all the world! And you +don't know what I've got for you, just as soon as you're ready for it!" + +Hendie took his little knuckles out of his eyes. + +"A bunch of great red cherries, as big as your two hands!" + +"Where?" + +"I'll get them, if you're good. And then you can go out in the front +yard, and eat them, so that you can drop the stones on the grass." + +Hendie was soon established on a flat stone under the old chestnut +trees, in a happy oblivion of Mahala's injustice, and her little +sister's perfections. + +"I'll tell you, mamma. I've been thinking we need not keep Mahala, if +you don't wish. She has been so used to do nothing but run round after +Hendie, that, really, she isn't much good about the house; and I'll take +Hendie's trundle bed into my room, and there'll be one less chamber to +take care of; and you know we always dust and arrange down here." + +"Yes--but the sweeping, Faithie! And the washing! Parthenia never would +get through with it all." + +"Well, somebody might come and help wash. And I guess I can sweep." + +"But I can't bear to put you to such work, darling! You need your time +for other things." + +"I have ever so much time, mother! And, besides, as Aunt Faith says, I +don't believe it makes so very much matter _what_ we do. I was talking +to her, the other day, about doing coarse work, and living a narrow, +common kind of life, and what do you think she said?" + +"I can't tell, of course. Something blunt and original." + +"We were out in the garden. She pointed to some plants that were coming +up from seeds, that had just two tough, clumsy, coarse leaves. 'What do +you call them?' said auntie. 'Cotyledons, aren't they?' said I. 'I don't +know what they are in botany,' said she; 'but I know the use of 'em. +They'll last a while, and help feed up what's growing inside and +underneath, and by and by they'll drop off, when they're done with, and +you'll see what's been coming of it. Folks can't live the best right +out at first, any more than plants can. I guess we all want some kind +of--cotyledons.'" + +Mrs. Gartney's eyes shone with affection, and something that affection +called there, as she looked upon her daughter. + +"I guess the cotyledons won't hinder your growing," said she. + +And so, in a few days after, Mahala was dismissed, and Faith took upon +herself new duties. + +It was a bright, happy face that glanced hither and thither, about the +house, those fair summer mornings; and it wasn't the hands alone that +were busy, as under their dexterous and delicate touch all things +arranged themselves in attractive and graceful order. Thought +straightened and cleared itself, as furniture and books were dusted and +set right; and while the carpet brightened under the broom, something +else brightened and strengthened, also, within. + +It is so true, what the author of "Euthanasy" tells us, that exercise of +limb and muscle develops not only themselves, but what is in us as we +work. + +"Every stroke of the hammer upon the anvil hardens a little what is at +the time the temper of the smith's mind." + +"The toil of the plowman furrows the ground, and so it does his brow +with wrinkles, visibly; and invisibly, but quite as certainly, it +furrows the current of feeling, common with him at his work, into an +almost unchangeable channel." + +Faith's life purpose deepened as she did each daily task. She had hold, +already, of the "high and holy work of love" that had been prophesied. + +"I am sure of one thing, mother," said she, gayly; "if I don't learn +much that is new, I am bringing old knowledge into play. It's the same +thing, taken hold of at different ends. I've learned to draw straight +lines, and shape pictures; and so there isn't any difficulty in sweeping +a carpet clean, or setting chairs straight. I never shall wonder again +that a woman who never heard of a right angle can't lay a table even." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +"BLESSED BE YE, POOR." + +"And so we yearn, and so we sigh, + And reach for more than we can see; +And, witless of our folded wings, + Walk Paradise, unconsciously." + + +October came, and brought small dividends. The expenses upon the farm +had necessarily been considerable, also, to put things in "good running +order." Mr. Gartney's health, though greatly improved, was not yet so +confidently to be relied on, as to make it advisable for him to think of +any change, as yet, with a view to business. Indeed, there was little +opportunity for business, to tempt him. Everything was flat. Mr. Gartney +must wait. Mrs. Gartney and Faith felt, though they talked of waiting, +that the prospect really before them was that of a careful, obscure +life, upon a very limited income. The house in Mishaumok had stood +vacant all the summer. There was hope, of course, of letting it now, as +the winter season came on, but rents were falling, and people were timid +and discouraged. + +October was beautiful at Kinnicutt. And Faith, when she looked out over +the glory of woods and sky, felt rich with the great wealth of the +world, and forgot about economies and privations. She was so glad they +had come here with their altered plans, and had not struggled shabbily +and drearily on in Mishaumok! + +It was only when some chance bit of news from the city, or a girlish, +gossipy note from some school friend found its way to Cross Corners, +that she felt, a little keenly, her denials--realized how the world she +had lived in all her life was going on without her. + +It was the old plaint that Glory made, in her dark days of +childhood--this feeling of despondency and loss that assailed Faith now +and then--"such lots of good times in the world, and she not in 'em!" + +Mrs. Etherege and Saidie were coming home. Gertrude Rushleigh, Saidie's +old intimate, was to be married on the twenty-eighth, and had fixed her +wedding thus for the last of the month, that Miss Gartney might arrive +to keep her promise of long time, by officiating as bridesmaid. + +The family eclipse would not overshadow Saidie. She had made her place +in the world now, and with her aunt's aid and countenance, would keep +it. It was quite different with Faith--disappearing, as she had done, +from notice, before ever actually "coming out." + +"It was a thousand pities," Aunt Etherege said, when she and Saidie +discussed with Mrs. Gartney, at Cross Corners, the family affairs. "And +things just as they were, too! Why, another year might have settled +matters for her, so that this need never have happened! At any rate, the +child shouldn't be moped up here, all winter!" + +Mrs. Etherege had engaged rooms, on her arrival, at the Mishaumok House; +and it seemed to be taken for granted by her, and by Saidie as well, +that this coming home was a mere visit; that Miss Gartney would, of +course, spend the greater part of the winter with her aunt; and that +lady extended also an invitation to Mishaumok for a month--including +the wedding festivities at the Rushleighs'--to Faith. + +Faith shook her head. She "knew she couldn't be spared so long." +Secretly, she doubted whether it would be a good plan to go back and get +a peep at things that might send her home discontented and unhappy. + +But her mother reasoned otherwise. Faithie must go. "The child mustn't +be moped up." She would get on, somehow, without her. Mothers always +can. So Faith, by a compromise, went for a fortnight. She couldn't quite +resist her newly returned sister. + +Besides, a pressing personal invitation had come from Margaret Rushleigh +to Faith herself, with a little private announcement at the end, that +"Paul was refractory, and utterly refused to act as fourth groomsman, +unless Faith Gartney were got to come and stand with him." + +Faith tore off the postscript, and might have lit it at her cheeks, but +dropped it, of habit, into the fire; and then the note was at the +disposal of the family. + +It was a whirl of wonderful excitement to Faith--that fortnight! So many +people to see, so much to hear, and in the midst of all, the gorgeous +wedding festival! + +What wonder if a little dream flitted through her head, as she stood +there, in the marriage group, at Paul Rushleigh's side, and looked about +her on the magnificent fashion, wherein the affection of new relatives +and old friends had made itself tangible; and heard the kindly words of +the elder Mr. Rushleigh to Kate Livingston, who stood with his son +Philip, and whose bridal, it was well known, was to come next? Jewels, +and silver, and gold, are such flashing, concrete evidences of love! And +the courtly condescension of an old and world-honored man to the young +girl whom his son has chosen, is such a winning and distinguishing +thing! + +Paul Rushleigh had finished his college course, and was to go abroad +this winter--between the weddings, as he said--for his brother Philip's +was to take place in the coming spring. After that--things were not +quite settled, but something was to be arranged for him meanwhile--he +would have to begin his work in the world; and then--he supposed it +would be time for him to find a helpmate. Marrying was like dying, he +believed; when a family once began to go off there was soon an end of +it! + +Blushes were the livery of the evening, and Faith's deeper glow at this +audacious rattle passed unheeded, except, perhaps, as it might be +somewhat willfully interpreted. + +There were two or three parties made for the newly married couple in the +week that followed. The week after, Paul Rushleigh, with the bride and +groom, was to sail for Europe. At each of these brilliant entertainments +he constituted himself, as in duty bound, Faith's knight and sworn +attendant; and a superb bouquet for each occasion, the result of the +ransack of successive greenhouses, came punctually, from him, to her +door. For years afterwards--perhaps for all her life--Faith couldn't +smell heliotrope, and geranium, and orange flowers, without floating +back, momentarily, into the dream of those few, enchanted days! + +She stayed in Mishaumok a little beyond the limit she had fixed for +herself, to go, with the others, on board the steamer at the time of her +sailing, and see the gay party off. Paul Rushleigh had more significant +words, and another gift of flowers as a farewell. + +When she carried these last to her own room, to put them in water, on +her return, something she had not noticed before glittered among their +stems. It was a delicate little ring, of twisted gold, with a +forget-me-not in turquoise and enamel upon the top. + +Faith was half pleased, half frightened, and wholly ashamed. + +Paul Rushleigh was miles out on the Atlantic. There was no help for it, +she thought. It had been cunningly done. + +And so, in the short November days, she went back to Kinnicutt. + +The east parlor had to be shut up now, for the winter. The family +gathering place was the sunny little sitting room; and with closed doors +and doubled windows, they began, for the first time, to find that they +were really living in a little bit of a house. + +It was very pretty, though, with the rich carpet and the crimson +curtains that had come from Hickory Street, replacing the white muslin +draperies and straw matting of the summer; and the books and vases, and +statuettes and pictures, gathered into so small space, seemed to fill +the room with luxury and beauty. + +Faith nestled her little workstand into a nook between the windows. +Hendie's blocks and picture books were stowed in a corner cupboard. Mr. +Gartney's newspapers and pamphlets, as they came, found room in a deep +drawer below; and so, through the wintry drifts and gales, they were +"close hauled" and comfortable. + +Faith was happy; yet she thought, now and then, when the whistling wind +broke the stillness of the dark evenings, of light and music elsewhere; +and how, a year ago, there had always been the chance of a visitor or +two to drop in, and while away the hours. Nobody lifted the +old-fashioned knocker, here at Cross Corners. + +By day, even, it was scarcely different. Kinnicutt was hibernating. Each +household had drawn into its shell. And the huge drifts, lying defiant +against the fences in the short, ineffectual winter sunlight, held out +little hope of reanimation. Aunt Faith, in her pumpkin hood, and Rob Roy +cloak, and carpet moccasins, came over once in two or three days, and +even occasionally stayed to tea, and helped make up a rubber of whist +for Mr. Gartney's amusement; but, beyond this, they had no social +excitement. + +January brought a thaw; and, still further to break the monotony, there +arose a stir and an anxiety in the parish. + +Good Mr. Holland, its minister of thirty years, whose health had been +failing for many months, was at last compelled to relinquish the duties +of his pulpit for a time; and a supply was sought with the ultimate +probability of a succession. A new minister came to preach, who was to +fill the pastor's place for the ensuing three months. On his first +Sunday among them, Faith heard a wonderful sermon. + +I indicate thus, not the oratory, nor the rhetoric; but the _sermon_, of +which these were the mere vehicle--the word of truth itself--which was +spoken, seemingly, to her very thought. + +So also, as certainly, to the long life-thought of one other. Glory +McWhirk sat in Miss Henderson's corner pew, and drank it in, as a soul +athirst. + +A man of middle age, one might have said, at first sight--there was, +here and there, a silver gleam in the dark hair and beard; yet a fire +and earnestness of youth in the deep, beautiful eye, and a look in the +face as of life's first flush and glow not lost, but rather merged in +broader light, still climbing to its culmination, belied these tokens, +and made it as if a white frost had fallen in June--rising up before the +crowded village congregation, looked round upon the upturned faces, as +One had looked before who brought the bread of Life to men's eager +asking; and uttered the selfsame simple words. + +It was a certain pause and emphasis he made--a slight new rendering of +punctuation--that sent home the force of those words to the people who +heard them, as if it had been for the first time, and fresh from the +lips of the Great Teacher. + + * * * * * + +"'Blessed are the poor: _in spirit_: for theirs is the kingdom of +heaven.' + +"Herein Christ spoke, not to a class, only, but to the world! A world of +souls, wrestling with the poverty of life! + +"In that whole assemblage--that great concourse--that had thronged from +cities and villages to hear His words upon the mountainside--was there, +think you, _one satisfied nature_? + +"Friends--are _ye_ satisfied? + + · · · · · + +"Or, does every life come to know, at first or at last, how something--a +hope, or a possibility, or the fulfillment of a purpose--has got +dropped out of it, or has even never entered, so that an emptiness +yawns, craving, therein, forever? + +"How many souls hunger till they are past their appetite! Go on--down +through the years--needy and waiting, and never find or grasp that which +a sure instinct tells them they were made for? + +"This, this is the poverty of life! These are the poor, to whom God's +Gospel was preached in Christ! And to these denied and waiting ones the +first words of Christ's preaching--as I read them--were spoken in +blessing. + +"Because, elsewhere, he blesses the meek; elsewhere and presently, he +tells us how the lowly in spirit shall inherit the earth; so, when I +open to this, his earliest uttered benediction upon our race, I read it +with an interpretation that includes all humanity: + +"'Blessed, in spirit, are the poor. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' + + · · · · · + +"What is this Kingdom of Heaven? 'It is within you.' It is that which +you hold, and live in spiritually; the _real_, of which all earthly, +outward being and having are but the show. It is the region wherein +little children 'do always behold the Face of my Father which is in +Heaven.' It is where we are when we shut our eyes and pray in the words +that Christ taught us. + + · · · · · + +"What matters, then, where your feet stand, or wherewith your hands are +busy? So that it is the spot where God has put you, and the work He has +given you to do? Your real life is within--hid in God with +Christ--ripening, and strengthening, and waiting, as through the long, +geologic ages of night and incompleteness waited the germs of all that +was to unfold into this actual, green, and bounteous earth! + + · · · · · + +"The narrower your daily round, the wider, maybe, the outreach. Isolated +upon a barren mountain peak, you may take in river and lake--forest, +field, and valley. A hundred gardens and harvests lift their bloom and +fullness to your single eye. + +"There is a sunlight that contracts the vision; there is a starlight +that enlarges it to take in infinite space. + + "'God sets some souls in shade, alone. + They have no daylight of their own. + Only in lives of happier ones + They see the shine of distant suns. + + "'God knows. Content thee with thy night. + Thy greater heaven hath grander light, + To-day is close. The hours are small. + Thou sit'st afar, and hast them all. + + "'Lose the less joy that doth but blind; + Reach forth a larger bliss to find. + To-day is brief: the inclusive spheres + Rain raptures of a thousand years.'" + +Faith could not tell what hymn was sung, or what were the words of the +prayer that followed the sermon. There was a music and an uplifting in +her own soul that made them needless, but for the pause they gave her. + +She hardly knew that a notice was read as the people rose before the +benediction, when the minister gave out, as requested, that "the Village +Dorcas Society would meet on Wednesday of the coming week, at Mrs. +Parley Gimp's." + +She was made aware that it had fallen upon her ears, though heard +unconsciously, when Serena Gimp caught her by the sleeve in the church +porch. + +"Ain't it awful," said she, with a simper and a flutter of importance, +"to have your name called right out so in the pulpit? I declare, if it +hadn't been for seeing the new minister, I wouldn't have come to meeting, +I dreaded it so! Ain't he handsome? He's old, though--thirty-five! He's +broken-hearted, too! Somebody died, or something else, that he was going +to be married to, ever so many years ago; and they say he hasn't hardly +spoken to a lady since. That's so romantic! I don't wonder he preaches +such low-spirited kind of sermons. Only I wish they warn't quite so. I +suppose it's beautiful, and heavenly minded, and all that; but yet I'd +rather hear something a little kind of cheerful. Don't you think so? But +the poetry was elegant--warn't it? I guess it's original, too. They say +he puts things in the _Mishaumok Monthly_. Come Wednesday, won't +you? We shall depend, you know." + +To Miss Gimp, the one salient point, amidst the solemnities of the day, +had been that pulpit notice. She had put new strings to her bonnet for +the occasion. Mrs. Gimp, being more immediately and personally affected, +had modestly remained away from church. + +Glory McWhirk went straight through the village, home; and out to her +little room in the sunny side of the low, sloping roof. This was her +winter nook. She had a shadier one, looking the other way, for summer. + +"I wonder if it's all true!" she cried, silently, in her soul, while she +stood for a minute with bonnet and shawl still on, looking out from her +little window, dreamily, over the dazzle of the snow, even as her +half-blinded thought peered out from its own narrowness into the +infinite splendor of the promise of God--"I wonder if God will ever make +me beautiful! I wonder if I shall ever have a real, great joyfulness, +that isn't a make believe!" + +Glory called her fancies so. They followed her still. She lived yet in +an ideal world. The real world--that is, the best good of it--had not +come close enough to her, even in this, her widely amended condition, to +displace the other. Remember--this child of eighteen had missed her +childhood; had known neither father nor mother, sister nor brother. + +Don't think her simple, in the pitiful meaning of the word; but she +still enacted, in the midst of her plain, daily life, wonderful dreams +that nobody could have ever suspected; and here, in her solitary +chamber, called up at will creatures of imagination who were to her what +human creatures, alas! had never been. Above all, she had a sister here, +to whom she told all her secrets. This sister's name was Leonora. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +FROST-WONDERS. + +"No hammers fell, no ponderous axes rung; +Like some tall palm, the mystic fabric sprung. +Majestic silence!" + HEBER. + + +The thaw continued till the snow was nearly gone. Only the great drifts +against the fences, and the white folds in the rifts of distant +hillsides lingered to tell what had been. Then came a day of warm rain, +that washed away the last fragment of earth's cast-off vesture, and +bathed her pure for the new adornment that was to be laid upon her. At +night, the weather cooled, and the rain changed to a fine, slow mist, +congealing as it fell. + +Faith stood next morning by a small round table in the sitting-room +window, and leaned lovingly over her jonquils and hyacinths that were +coming into bloom. Then, drawing the curtain cord to let in the first +sunbeam that should slant from the south upon her bulbs, she gave a +little cry of rapturous astonishment. It was a diamond morning! + +Away off, up the lane, and over the meadows, every tree and bush was +hung with twinkling gems that the slight wind swayed against each other +with tiny crashes of faint music, and the sun was just touching with a +level splendor. + +After that first, quick cry, Faith stood mute with ecstasy. + +"Mother!" said she, breathlessly, at last, as Mrs. Gartney entered, +"look there! have you seen it? Just imagine what the woods must be this +morning! How can we think of buckwheats?" + +Sounds and odors betrayed that Mis' Battis and breakfast were in the +little room adjoining. + +"There is a thought of something akin to them, isn't there, under all +this splendor? Men must live, and grass and grain must grow." + +Mr. Gartney said this, as he came up behind wife and daughter, and laid +a hand on a shoulder of each. + +"I know one thing, though," said Faith. "I'll eat the buckwheats, as a +vulgar necessity, and then I'll go over the brook and up in the woods +behind the Pasture Rocks. It'll last, won't it?" + +"Not many hours, with this spring balm in the air," replied her father. +"You must make haste. By noon, it will be all a drizzle." + +"Will it be quite safe for her to go alone?" asked Mrs. Gartney. + +"I'll ask Aunt Faith to let me have Glory. She showed me the walk last +summer. It is fair she should see this, now." + +So the morning odds and ends were done up quickly at Cross Corners and +at the Old House, and then Faith and Glory set forth together--the +latter in as sublime a rapture as could consist with mortal cohesion. + +The common roadside was an enchanted path. The glittering rime +transfigured the very cart ruts into bars of silver; and every coarse +weed was a fretwork of beauty. + +"Bells on their toes" they had, this morning, assuredly; each footfall +made a music on the sod. + +Over the slippery bridge--out across a stretch of open meadow, and then +along a track that skirted the border of a sparse growth of trees, +projecting itself like a promontory upon the level land--round its +abrupt angle into a sweep of meadow again, on whose farther verge rose +the Pasture Rocks. + +Behind these rocks swelled up gently a slope, half pasture, half +woodland--neither open ground nor forest; but, although clear enough for +comfortable walking, studded pretty closely with trees that often +interlaced their branches overhead, and made great, pillared aisles, +among whose shade, in summer, wound delicious little footpaths that all +came out together, midway up, into--what you shall be told of presently. + +Here, among and beyond the rocks, were oaks, and pines, and savins--each +needle-like leaf a shimmering lance--each clustering branch a spray of +gems--and the stout, spreading limbs of the oaks delineating themselves +against the sky above in Gothic frost-work. + +Suddenly--before they thought it could be so near--they came up and out +into a broader opening. Between two rocks that made, as it were, a +gateway, and around whose bases were grouped sentinel evergreens, they +came into this wider space, floored with flat rock, the surface of a +hidden ledge, carpeted with crisp mosses in the summer, whose every cup +and hollow held a jewel now--and inclosed with lofty oaks and pines, +while, straight beyond, where the woods shut in again far closer than +below, rose a bold crag, over whose brow hung pendent birches that in +their icy robing drooped like glittering wings of cherubim above an +altar. + +All around and underneath, this strange magnificence. Overhead, the +everlasting Blue, that roofed it in with sapphire. In front, the rough, +gigantic shrine. + +"It is like a cathedral!" said Faith, solemnly and low. + +"See!" whispered Glory, catching her companion hastily by the +arm--"there is the minister!" + +A little way beyond them, at the right, out from among the clumps of +evergreen where some other of the little wood walks opened, a figure +advanced without perceiving them. It was Roger Armstrong, the new +minister. He held his hat in his hand. He walked, uncovered, as he would +have into a church, into this forest temple, where God's finger had just +been writing on the walls. + +When he turned, slowly, his eye fell on the other two who stood there. +It lighted up with a quick joy of sympathy. He came forward. Faith +bowed. Glory stood back, shyly. Neither party seemed astonished at the +meeting. It was so plain _why_ they came, that if they had wondered at +all, it would have been that the whole village should not be pouring out +hither, also. + +Mr. Armstrong led them to the center of the rocky space. "This is the +best point," said he. And then was silent. There was no need of words. A +greatness of thought made itself felt from one to the other. + +Only, between still pauses, words came that almost spoke themselves. + +"'Eye hath not seen, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to +conceive, that which God hath prepared for them that love him.' What a +commentary upon His promise is a glory like this! + +"'And they shall all shine like the sun in the kingdom of my Father!'" + +Faith stood by the minister's side, and glanced, when he spoke, from the +wonderful beauty before her to a face whose look interpreted it all. +There was something in the very presence of this man that drew others +who approached him into the felt presence of God. Because he stood +therein in the spirit. These are the true apostles whom Christ sends +forth. + +Glory could have sobbed with an oppression of reverence, enthusiasm, and +joy. + +"It is only a glimpse," said Mr. Armstrong, by and by. "It is going, +already." + +A drip--drip--was beginning to be heard. + +"You ought to get away from under the trees before the thaw comes fully +on," continued he. "A branch breaks, now and then, and the ice will be +falling constantly. I can show you a more open way than the one you came +by, I think." + +And he gave his arm to Faith over the slope that even now was growing +wet and slippery in the sun. Faith touched it with a reverence, and +dropped it again, modestly, when they reached a safer foothold. + +Glory kept behind. Mr. Armstrong turned now and then, with a kindly +word, and a thought for her safety. Once he took her hand, and helped +her down a sudden descent in the path, where the water had run over and +made a smooth, dangerous glare. + +"I shall call soon to see your father and mother, Miss Gartney," said +he, when they reached the road again beyond the brook, and their ways +home lay in different directions. "This meeting, to-day, has given me +pleasure." + +"How?" Faith wondered silently, as she kept on to the Cross Corners. She +had hardly spoken a word. But, then, she might have remembered that the +minister's own words had been few, yet her very speechlessness before +him had come from the deep pleasure that his presence had given to her. +The recognition of souls cares little for words. Faith's soul had been +in her face to-day, as Roger Armstrong had seen it each Sunday, also, in +the sweet, listening look she uplifted before him in the church. He bent +toward this young, pure life, with a joy in its gentle purity; the joy +of an elder over a younger angel in the school of God. + +And Glory? she laid up in her own heart a beautiful remembrance of +something she had never known before. Of a near approach to something +great and high, yet gentle and beneficent. Of a kindly, helping touch, a +gracious smile, a glance that spoke straight to the mute aspiration +within her. + +The minister had not failed, through all her humbleness and shyness, to +read some syllables of that large, unuttered life of hers that lay +beneath. He whose labor it is to save souls, learns always the insight +that discerns souls. + +"I have seen the Winter!" cried Faith, glowing and joyous, as she came +in from her walk. + +"It has been a beautiful time!" said Glory to her shadow sister, when +she went to hang away hood and shawl. "It has been a beautiful time--and +I've been really in it--partly!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +OUT IN THE SNOW. + + "Sydnaein showers +Of sweet discourse, whose powers +Can crown old winter's head with flowers." + CRASHAW. + + +Winter had not exhausted her repertory, however. She had more wonders to +unfold. + +There came a long snowstorm. + +"Faithie," said her father, coming in, wrapped up in furs from a visit +to the stable, "put your comfortables on, and we'll go and see the snow. +We'll make tracks, literally, for the hills. There isn't a road fairly +broken between here and Grover's Peak. The snow lies beautifully, +though; and there isn't a breath of wind. It will be a sight to see." + +Faith brought, quickly, sontag, jacket, and cloak--hood and veil, and +long, warm snow boots, and in ten minutes was ready, as she averred, for +a sledge ride to Hudson's Bay. + +Luther drove the sleigh close to the kitchen door, that Faith might not +have to cross the yard to reach it, and she stepped directly from the +threshold into the warm nest of buffalo robes; while Mis' Battis put a +great stone jug of hot water in beside her feet, asserting that it was +"a real comfortin' thing on a sleigh ride, and that they needn't be +afraid of its leakin', for the cork was druv in as tight as an eye +tooth!" + +So, out by the barn, into the road, and away from the village toward the +hills, they went, with the glee of resonant bells and excited +expectation. + +A mile, or somewhat more, along the Sedgely turnpike, took them into a +bit of woods that skirted the road on either side, for a considerable +distance. Away in, under the trees, the stillness and the whiteness and +the wonderful multiplication of snow shapes were like enchantment. Each +bush had an attitude and drapery and expression of its own, as if some +weird life had suddenly been spellbound in these depths. Cherubs, and +old women, and tall statue shapes like images of gods, hovered, and +bent, and stood majestic, in a motionless poise. Over all, the bent +boughs made marble and silver arches in shadow and light, and, far down +between, the vistas lengthened endlessly, still crowded with mystic +figures, haunting the long galleries with their awful beauty. + +They went on, penetrating a lifeless silence; their horse's feet making +the first prints since early morning in the unbroken smoothness of the +way, and the only sound the gentle tinkle of their own bells, as they +moved pleasantly, but not fleetly, along. + +So, up the ascent, where the land lay higher, toward the hills. + +"I feel," said Faith, "as if I had been hurried through the Louvre, or +the Vatican, or both, and hadn't half seen anything. Was there ever +anything so strange and beautiful?" + +"We shall find more Louvres presently," said her father. "We'll keep the +road round Grover's Peak, and turn off, as we come back, down Garland +Lane." + +"That lovely, wild, shady road we took last summer so often, where the +grapevines grow so, all over the trees?" + +"Exactly," replied Mr. Gartney. "But you mustn't scream if we thump +about a little, in the drifts up there. It's pretty rough, at the best +of times, and the snow will have filled in the narrow spaces between the +rocks and ridges, like a freshet. Shall you be afraid?" + +"Afraid! Oh, no, indeed! It's glorious! I think I should like to go +everywhere!" + +"There is a good deal of everywhere in every little distance," said Mr. +Gartney. "People get into cars, and go whizzing across whole States, +often, before they stop to enjoy thoroughly something that is very like +what they might have found within ten miles of home. For my part, I like +microscopic journeying." + +"Leaving 'no stone unturned.' So do I," said Faith. "We don't half know +the journey between Kinnicutt and Sedgely yet, I think. And then, too, +they're multiplied, over and over, by all the different seasons, and by +different sorts of weather. Oh, we shan't use them up, in a long while!" + +Saidie Gartney had not felt, perhaps, in all her European travel, the +sense of inexhaustible pleasure that Faith had when she said this. + +Down under Grover's Peak, with the river on one side, and the +white-robed cedar thickets rising on the other--with the low afternoon +sun glinting across from the frosted roofs of the red mill buildings and +barns and farmhouses to the rocky slope of the Peak. + +Then they came round and up again, over a southerly ridge, by beautiful +Garland Lane, that she knew only in its summer look, when the wild grape +festooned itself wantonly from branch to branch, and sometimes, even, +from side to side; and so gave the narrow forest road its name. + +Quite into fairyland they had come now, in truth; as if, skirting the +dark peak that shut it off from ordinary espial, they had lighted on a +bypath that led them covertly in. Trailing and climbing vines wore their +draperies lightly; delicate shrubs bowed like veiled shapes in groups +around the bases of tall tree trunks, and slight-stemmed birches +quivered under their canopies of snow. Little birds hopped in and out +under the pure, still shelter, and left their tiny tracks, like magical +hieroglyphs, in the else untrodden paths. + +"Lean this way, Faith, and keep steady!" cried Mr. Gartney, as the horse +plunged breast high into a drift, and the sleigh careened toward the +side Faith was on. It was a sharp strain, but they plowed their way +through, and came upon a level again. This by-street was literally +unbroken. No one had traversed it since the beginning of the storm. The +drifts had had it all their own way there, and it involved no little +adventurousness and risk, as Mr. Gartney began to see, to pioneer a +passage through. But the spirit of adventure was upon them both. On all, +I should say; for the strong horse plunged forward, from drift to drift, +as though he delighted in the encounter. Moreover, to turn was +impossible. + +Faith laughed, and gave little shrieks, alternately, as they rose +triumphantly from deep, "slumpy" hollows, or pitched headlong into others +again. Thus, struggling, enjoying--just frightened enough, now and then, +to keep up the excitement--they came upon the summit of the ridge. Now +their way lay downward. This began to look really almost perilous. With +careful guiding, however, and skillful balancing--tipping, creaking, +sinking, emerging--they kept on slowly, about half the distance down the +descent. + +Suddenly, the horse, as men and brutes, however sagacious, sometimes +will, made a miscalculation of depth or power--lost his sure +balance--sunk to his body in the yielding snow--floundered violently in +an endeavor to regain safe footing--and, snap! crash! was down against +the drift at the left, with a broken shaft under him! + +Mr. Gartney sprang to his head. + +One runner was up--one down. The sleigh stuck fast at an angle of about +thirty degrees. Faith clung to the upper side. + +Here was a situation! What was to be done? Twilight coming on--no help +near--no way of getting anywhere! + +"Faith," said Mr. Gartney, "what have you got on your feet?" + +"Long, thick snow boots, father. What can I do?" + +"Do you dare to come and try to unfasten these buckles? There is no +danger. Major can't stir while I hold him by the head." + +Faith jumped out into the snow, and valorously set to work at the +buckles. She managed to undo one, and to slip out the fastening of the +trace, on one side, where it held to the whiffletree. But the horse was +lying so that she could not get at the other. + +"I'll come there, father!" she cried, clambering and struggling through +the drift till she came to the horse's head. "Can't I hold him while you +undo the harness?" + +"I don't believe you can, Faithie. He isn't down so flat as to be quite +under easy control." + +"Not if I sit on his head?" asked Faith. + +"That might do," replied her father, laughing. "Only you would get +frightened, maybe, and jump up too soon." + +"No, I won't," said Faith, quite determined upon heroism. While she +spoke, she had picked up the whip, which had fallen close by, doubled +back the lash against the handle, and was tying her blue veil to its +tip. Then she sat down on the animal's great cheek, which she had never +fancied to be half so broad before, and gently patted his nose with one +hand, while she upheld her blue flag with the other. Major's big, +panting breaths came up, close beside her face. She kept a quick, +watchful eye upon the road below. + +"He's as quiet as can be, father! It must be what Miss Beecher called +the 'chivalry of horses'!" + +"It's the chivalry that has to develop under petticoat government!" +retorted Mr. Gartney. + +At this moment Faith's blue flag waved vehemently over her head. She had +caught the jingle of bells, and perceived a sleigh, with a man in it, +come out into the crossing at the foot of Garland Lane. The man descried +the signal and the disaster, and the sleigh stopped. Alighting, he led +his horse to the fence, fastened him there, and turning aside into the +steep, narrow, unbroken road, began a vigorous struggle through the +drifts to reach the wreck. + +Coming nearer, he discerned and recognized Mr. Gartney, who also, at the +same moment, was aware of him. It was Mr. Armstrong. + +"Keep still a minute longer, Faith," said her father, lifting the +remaining shaft against the dasher, and trying to push the sleigh back, +away from the animal. But this, alone, he was unable to accomplish. So +the minister came up, and found Faith still seated on the horse's head. + +"Miss Gartney! Let me hold him!" cried he. + +"I'm quite comfortable!" laughed Faith. "If you would just help my +father, please!" + +The sleigh was drawn back by the combined efforts of the two gentlemen, +and then both came round to Faith. + +"Now, Faith, jump!" said her father, placing his hands upon the +creature's temple, close beside her, while Mr. Armstrong caught her arms +to snatch her safely away. Faith sprang, or was lifted as she sprang, +quite to the top of the huge bank of snow under and against which they +had, among them, beaten in and trodden down such a hollow, and the +instant after, Mr. Gartney releasing Major's head, and uttering a sound +of encouragement, the horse raised himself, with a half roll, and a +mighty scramble, first to his knees, and then to his four feet again, +and shook his great skin. + +Mr. Gartney examined the harness. The broken shaft proved the extent of +damage done. This, at the moment, however, was irremediable. He knotted +the hanging straps and laid them over the horse's neck. Then he folded a +buffalo skin, and arranged it, as well as he could, above and behind the +saddle, which he secured again by its girth. + +"Mr. Armstrong," said he, as he completed this disposal of matters, "you +came along in good time. I am very much obliged to you. If you will do +me the further favor to take my daughter home, I will ride to the +nearest house where I can obtain a sleigh, and some one to send back for +these traps of mine." + +"Miss Gartney," said the minister, in answer, "can you sit a horse's +back as well as you did his eyebrow?" + +Faith laughed, and reaching her arms to the hands upheld for them, was +borne safely from her snowy pinnacle to the buffalo cushion. Her father +took the horse by the bit, and Mr. Armstrong kept at his side holding +Faith firmly to her seat. In this fashion, grasping the bridle with one +hand, and resting the other on Mr. Armstrong's shoulder, she was +transported to the sleigh at the foot of the hill. + +"We were talking about long journeys in small circuits," said Faith, +when she was well tucked in, and they had set off on a level and not +utterly untracked road. "I think I have been to the Alhambra, and to +Rome, and have had a peep into fairyland, and come back, at last, over +the Alps!" + +Mr. Armstrong understood her. + +"It has been beautiful," said he. "I shall begin to expect always to +encounter you whenever I get among things wild and wonderful!" + +"And yet I have lived all my life, till now, in tame streets," said +Faith. "I thought I was getting into tamer places still, when we first +came to the country. But I am finding out Kinnicutt. One can't see the +whole of anything at once." + +"We are small creatures, and can only pick up atoms as we go, whether of +things outward or inward. People talk about taking 'comprehensive +views'; and they suppose they do it. There is only One who does." + +Faith was silent. + +"Did it ever occur to you," said Mr. Armstrong, "how little your thought +can really grasp at once, even of what you already know? How narrow your +mental horizon is?" + +"Doesn't it seem strange," said Faith, in a subdued tone, "that the +earth should all have been made for such little lives to be lived in, +each in its corner?" + +"If it did not thereby prove these little lives to be but the beginning. +This great Beyond that we get glimpses of, even upon earth, makes it so +sure to us that there must be an Everlasting Life, to match the Infinite +Creation. God puts us, as He did Moses, into a cleft of the rock, that +we may catch a glimmer of His glory as He goes by; and then He tells us +that one day we 'shall know even as also we are known'!" + +"And I suppose it ought to make us satisfied to live whatever little +life is given us?" said Faith, gently and wistfully. + +Mr. Armstrong turned toward her, and looked earnestly into her eyes. + +"Has that thought troubled _you_, too? Never let it do so again, my +child! Believe that however little of tangible present good you may +have, you have the unseen good of heaven, and the promise of all things +to come." + +"But we do see lives about us in the world that seem to be and to +accomplish so much!" + +"And so we ask why ours should not be like them? Yes; all souls that +aspire, must question that; but the answer comes! I will give you, some +day, if you like, the thought that comforted me at a time when that +question was a struggle." + +"I _should_ like!" said Faith, with deeply stirred and grateful +emphasis. + +Then they drove on in silence, for a while; and then the minister, +pleasantly and easily, brought on a conversation of everyday matters; +and so they came to Cross Corners, just as Mrs. Gartney was gazing a +little anxiously out of the window, down the road. + +Mrs. Gartney urged the minister to come in and join them at the tea +table; but "it was late in the week--he had writing to finish at home +that evening--he would very gladly come another time." + +"Mother!" cried Faith, presently, moving out of a dream in which she had +been sitting before the fire, "I wonder whether it has been two hours, +or two weeks, or two years, since we set off from the kitchen door! I +have seen so much, and I have heard so much. I told Mr. Armstrong, after +we met him, that I had been through the Alhambra and the Vatican, and +into fairyland, and over the Alps. And after that, mother," she added, +low, "I think he almost took me into heaven!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +A "LEADING." + +"The least flower, with a brimming cup, may stand +And share its dewdrop with another near." + MRS. BROWNING. + + +Glory McWhirk was waiting upstairs, in Faith's pretty, white, +dimity-hung chamber. + +These two girls, of such utterly different birth and training, were +drawing daily toward each other across the gulf of social circumstance +that separated them. + +Twice a week, now, Glory came over, and found her seat and her books +ready in Miss Faith's pleasant room, and Faith herself waiting to impart +to her, or to put her in the way of gathering, those bits of week-day +knowledge she had ignorantly hungered for so long. + +Glory made quick progress. A good, plain foundation had been laid during +the earlier period of her stay with Miss Henderson, by a regular +attendance, half daily, at the district school. Aunt Faith said +"nobody's time belonged to anybody that knew better themselves, until +they could read, and write, and figure, and tell which side of the globe +they lived on." Then, too, the girl's indiscriminate gleaning from such +books as had come in her way, through all these years, assorted itself +gradually, now, about new facts. + +Glory's "good times" had, verily, begun at last. + +On this day that she sat waiting, Faith had been called down by her +mother to receive some village ladies who had walked over to Cross +Corners to pay a visit. Glory had time for two or three chapters of +"Ivanhoe," and to tell Hendie, who strayed in, and begged for it, +Bridget Foye's old story of the little red hen, while the regular course +of topics was gone through below, of the weather--the new minister--the +last meeting of the Dorcas Society--the everlasting wants and +helplessness of Mrs. Sheffley and her seven children, and whether the +society had better do anything more for them--the trouble in the west +district school, and the question "where the Dorcas bag was to go next +time." + +At last, the voices and footsteps retreated, through the entry, the door +closed somewhat promptly as the last "good afternoon" was said, and +Faith sprang up the narrow staircase. + +There was a lesson in Geography, and a bit of natural Philosophy to be +done first, and then followed their Bible talk; for this was Saturday. + +Before Glory went it had come to be Faith's practice always to read to +her some bit of poetry--a gem from Tennyson or Mrs. Browning, or a stray +poem from a magazine or paper which she had laid by as worthy. + +"Glory," said she, to-day, "I'm going to let you share a little treasure +of mine--something Mr. Armstrong gave me." + +Glory's eyes deepened and glowed. + +"It is thoughts," said Faith. "Thoughts in verse. I shall read it to +you, because I think it will just answer you, as it did me. Don't you +feel, sometimes, like a little brook in a deep wood?" + +Glory's gaze never moved from Faith's face. Her poetical instinct seized +the image, and the thought of her life applied it. + +"All alone, and singing to myself? Yes, I _did_, Miss Faith. But I think +it is growing lighter and pleasanter every day. I think I am +getting----" + +"Stop! stop!" said Faith. "Don't steal the verses before I read them! +You're such a queer child, Glory! One never can tell you anything." + +And then Faith gave her pearls; because she knew they would not be +trampled under foot, but taken into a heart and held there; and because +just such a rapt and reverent ecstasy as her own had been when the +minister had given her, in fulfillment of his promise, this thought of +his for the comfort that was in it, looked out from the face that was +uplifted to hers. + + "'Up in the wild, where no one comes to look, + There lives and sings, a little lonely brook; + Liveth and singeth in the dreary pines, + Yet creepeth on to where the daylight shines. + + "'Pure from their heaven, in mountain chalice caught, + It drinks the rains, as drinks the soul her thought; + And down dim hollows, where it winds along, + Bears its life-burden of unlistened song. + + "'I catch the murmur of its undertone + That sigheth, ceaselessly,--alone! alone! + And hear, afar, the Rivers gloriously + Shout on their paths toward the shining sea! + + "'The voiceful Rivers, chanting to the sun; + And wearing names of honor, every one; + Outreaching wide, and joining hand with hand + To pour great gifts along the asking land. + + "'Ah, lonely brook! creep onward through the pines! + Press through the gloom, to where the daylight shines! + Sing on among the stones, and secretly + Feel how the floods are all akin to thee! + + "'Drink the sweet rain the gentle heaven sendeth; + Hold thine own path, howeverward it tendeth; + For, somewhere, underneath the eternal sky, + Thou, too, shalt find the Rivers, by-and-by!'" + +Faith's voice trembled with earnestness as she finished. When she looked +up from the paper as she refolded it, tears were running down Glory's +cheeks. + +"Why, the little brook has overflowed!" cried Faith, playfully. If she +had not found this to say, she would have cried, herself. + +"Miss Faith!" said Glory, "I ain't sure whether I was meant to tell; but +do you know what the minister has asked Miss Henderson? Perhaps she +won't; I'm afraid not; it would be _too_ good a time! but he wants her +to let him come and board with her! Just think what it would be for him +to be in the house with us all the time! Why, Miss Faith, it would be +just as if one of those great Rivers had come rolling along through the +dark woods, right among the little lonely brooks!" + +Faith made no answer. She was astonished. Miss Henderson had said +nothing of it. She never did make known her subjects of deliberation +till the deliberations had become conclusions. + +"Why, you don't seem glad!" + +"I _am_ glad," said Faith, slowly and quietly. She was strangely +conscious at the moment that she said so, glad as she would be if Mr. +Armstrong were really to come so near, and she might see him daily, of a +half jealousy that Glory should be nearer still. + +It was quite true that Mr. Armstrong had this wish. Hitherto, he had +been at the house of the elder minister, Mr. Holland. A unanimous +invitation had been given to Mr. Armstrong by the people to remain among +them as their settled pastor. This he had not yet consented to do. But +he had entered upon another engagement of six months, to preach for +them. Now he needed a permanent home, which he could not conveniently +have at Mr. Holland's. + +There was great putting of heads together at the "Dorcas," about it. + +Mrs. Gimp "would offer; but then--there was Serena, and folks would +talk." + +Other families had similar holdbacks--that is the word, for they were +not absolute insuperabilities--wary mothers were waiting until it should +appear positively necessary that _somebody_ should waive objection, and +take the homeless pastor in; and each watched keenly for the critical +moment when it should be just late enough, and not too late, for her to +yield. + +Meanwhile, Mr. Armstrong quietly left all this seething, and walked off +out of the village, one day, to Cross Corners, and asked Miss Henderson +if he might have one of her quaint, pleasant, old-fashioned rooms. + +Miss Henderson was deliberating. + +This very afternoon, she sat in the southwest tea parlor, with her +knitting forgotten in her lap, and her eyes searching the bright western +sky, as if for a gleam that should light her to decision. + +"It ain't that I mind the trouble. And it ain't that there isn't house +room. And it ain't that I don't like the minister," soliloquized she. +"It's whether it would be respectable common sense. I ain't going to +take the field with the Gimps and the Leatherbees, nor to have them +think it, either. She's over here almost every blessed day of her life. +I might as well try to keep the sunshine out of the old house, as to +keep her; and I should be about as likely to want to do one as the +other. But just let me take in Mr. Armstrong, and there'd be all the +eyes in the village watching. There couldn't so much as a cat walk in or +out, but they'd know it, somehow. And they'd be sure to say she was +running after the minister." + +Miss Henderson's pronouns were not precise in their reference. It isn't +necessary for soliloquy to be exact. She understood herself, and that +sufficed. + +"It would be a disgrace to the parish, anyhow," she resumed, "to let +those Gimps and Leatherbees get him into their net; and they'll do it if +Providence or somebody don't interpose. I wish I was sure whether it was +a leading or not!" + +By and by she reverted, at last, as she always did, to that question of +its being a "leading," or not; and, taking down the old Bible from the +corner shelf, she laid it with solemnity on the little light stand at +her side, and opened it, as she had known her father do, in the +important crises of his life, for an "indication." + +The wooden saddle and the gun were not all that had come down to Aunt +Faith from the primitive days of the Puritan settlers. + +The leaves parted at the story of the Good Samaritan. Bible leaves are +apt to part, as the heart opens, in accordance with long habit and holy +use. + +That evening, while Glory was washing up the tea things, Aunt Faith put +on cloak and hood, and walked over to Cross Corners. + +"No--I won't take off my things," she replied to Mrs. Gartney's advance +of assistance. "I've just come over to tell you what I'm going to do. +I've made up my mind to take the minister to board. And when the washing +and ironing's out of the way, next week, I shall fix up a room for him, +and he'll come." + +"That's a capital plan, Aunt Faith!" said her nephew, with a tone of +pleased animation. "Cross Corners will be under obligation to you. Mr. +Armstrong is a man whom I greatly respect and admire." + +"So do I," said Miss Henderson. "And if I didn't, when a man is beset +with thieves all the way from Jerusalem to Jericho, it's time for some +kind of a Samaritan to come along." + +Next day, Mis' Battis heard the news, and had her word of comment to +offer. + +"She's got room enough for him, if that's all; but I wouldn't a believed +she'd have let herself be put about and upset so, if it was for John the +Baptist! I always thought she was setter'n an old hen! But then, she's +gittin' into years, and it's kinder handy, I s'pose, havin' a minister +round the house, sayin' she should be took anyways sudden!" + +Village comments it would be needless to attempt to chronicle. + +April days began to wear their tearful beauty, and the southwest room at +the old house was given up to Mr. Armstrong. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +PAUL. + +"Standing, with reluctant feet, +Where the brook and river meet, +Womanhood and childhood fleet!" + LONGFELLOW. + + +Glory had not been content with the utmost she could find to do in +making the southwest room as clean, and bright, and fresh, and perfect +in its appointments as her zealous labor and Miss Henderson's nice, +old-fashioned methods and materials afforded possibility for. Twenty +times a day, during the few that intervened between its fitting up and +Mr. Armstrong's occupation of it, she darted in, to settle a festoon of +fringe, or to pick a speck from the carpet, or to move a chair a +hair's-breadth this way or that, or to smooth an invisible crease in the +counterpane, or, above all, to take a pleased survey of everything once +more, and to wonder how the minister would like it. + +So well, indeed, he liked it, when he had taken full possession, that he +seemed to divine the favorite room must have been relinquished to him, +and to scruple at keeping it quite solely to himself. + +In the pleasant afternoons, when the spring sun got round to his +westerly windows, and away from the southeast apartment, whither Miss +Henderson had betaken herself, her knitting work, and her Bible, and +where now the meals were always spread, he would open his door, and let +the pleasantness stray out across the passage, and into the keeping +room, and would often take a book, and come in, himself, also, with the +sunlight. Then Glory, busy in the kitchen, just beyond, would catch +words of conversation, or of reading, or even be called in to hear the +latter. And she began to think that there were good times, truly, in +this world, and that even she was "in 'em!" + +April days, as they lengthened and brightened, brought other things, +also, to pass. + +The Rushleigh party had returned from Europe. + +Faith had a note from Margaret. The second wedding was close at hand, +and would she not come down? + +But her services as bridesmaid were not needed this time; there was +nothing so exceedingly urgent in the invitation--Faith's intimacy was +with the Rushleighs, not the Livingstons--that she could not escape its +acceptance if she desired; and so--there was a great deal to be done in +summer preparation, which Mis' Battis, with her deliberate dignity, +would never accomplish alone; also, there was the forget-me-not ring +lying in her box of ornaments, that gave her a little troubled +perplexity as often as she saw it there; and Faith excused herself in a +graceful little note, and stayed at Cross Corners, helping her mother +fold away the crimson curtains, and get up the white muslin ones, make +up summer sacks for Hendie, and retouch her own simple wardrobe, which +this year could receive little addition. + +One day, Aunt Faith had twisted her foot by a slip upon the stairs, and +was kept at home. Glory, of course, was obliged to remain also, as Miss +Henderson was confined, helpless, to her chair or sofa. + +Faith Gartney and the minister walked down the pleasant lane, and along +the quiet road to the village church, together. + +Faith had fresh, white ribbons, to-day, upon her simple straw bonnet, +and delicate flowers and deep green leaves about her face. She seemed +like an outgrowth of the morning, so purely her sweet look and fair +unsulliedness of attire reflected the significance of the day's own +newness and beauty. + +"Do you know," said Mr. Armstrong, presently, after the morning greeting +had passed, and they had walked a few paces, silently, "do you know that +you are one of Glory's saints, Miss Faith?" + +Faith's wondering eyes looked out their questioning astonishment from a +deep rosiness that overspread her face. + +The minister was not apt to make remarks of at all a personal bearing. +Neither was this allusion to sainthood quite to have been looked for, +from his lips. Faith could scarcely comprehend. + +"I found her this morning, as I came out to cross the field, sitting on +the doorstone with her Bible and a rosary of beautiful, small, variously +tinted shells upon her lap. I stopped to speak with her, and asked leave +to look at them. 'They were given to me when I was very little,' she +said. 'A lady sent them from Rome. The Pope blessed them!' 'They are +very beautiful,' I said, 'and a blessing, if that mean a true man's +prayer, can never be worthless. But,' I asked her, 'do you _use_ these, +Glory?' 'Not as she did once,' she said. She had almost forgotten about +that. She knew the larger beads stood for saints, and the smaller ones +between were prayers. 'But,' she went on, 'it isn't for my prayers I +keep them now. I've named some of my saints' beads for the people that +have done me the most good in my life, and been the kindest to me; and +the little ones are thoughts, and things they've taught me. This large +one, with the queer spots, is Miss Henderson; and this lovely +rose-colored one is Miss Faith; and these are Katie Ryan and Bridget +Foye; but you don't know about them.' And then she timidly told me that +the white one next the cross was mine. The child humbled me, Miss Faith! +It is nearly fearful, sometimes, to get a glimpse of what one is to some +trustful human soul, who looks through one toward the Highest!" + +Faith had tears in her eyes. + +"Glory is such a strange girl," said she. "She seems to have an instinct +for things that other people are educated up to." + +"She has seized the spirit of the dead Roman calendar, and put it into +this rosary. Our saints _are_ the spirits through whom God wills to send +us of His own. Whatever becomes to us a channel of His truth and love we +must involuntarily canonize and consecrate. Woe, if by the same channel +ever an offense cometh!" + +Perhaps Faith was nearly the only person in church, to-day, who did not +notice that there were strangers in the pew behind the Gimps. When she +came out, she was joined; and not by strangers. Margaret and Paul +Rushleigh came eagerly to her side. + +"We came out to Lakeside to stay a day or two with the Morrises; and ran +away from them here, purposely to meet you. And we mean to be very good, +and go to church all day, if you will take us home with you meanwhile." + +Faith, between her surprise, her pleasure, her embarrassment, the rush +of old remembrance, and a quick, apprehensive thought of Mis' Battis and +her probable arrangements, made almost an awkward matter of her reply. +But her father and mother came up, welcomed the Rushleighs cordially, +and the five were presently on their way toward Cross Corners, and +Faith had recovered sufficient self-possession to say something beyond +mere words of course. + +Paul Rushleigh looked very handsome! And very glad, too, to see shy +Faith, who kept as invisible as might be at Margaret's other side, and +looked there, in her simple spring dress contrasted with Margaret's rich +and fashionable, though also simple and ladylike attire, like a field +daisy beside a garden rose. + +Dinner was of no moment. There was only roast chicken, dressed the day +before, and reheated and served with hot vegetables since their coming +in, and a custard pudding, and some pastry cakes that Faith's fingers +had shaped, and coffee; but they drank in balm and swallowed sunshine, +and the essence of all that was to be concrete by and by in fruitful +fields and gardens. And they talked of old times! Three years old, +nearly! And Faith and Margaret laughed, and Mrs. Gartney listened, and +dispensed dinner, or spoke gently now and then, and Paul did his +cleverest with Mr. Gartney, so that the latter gentleman declared +afterwards that "young Rushleigh was a capital fellow; well posted; his +father's million didn't seem to have spoiled him yet." + +Altogether, this unexpected visit infused great life at Cross Corners. + +Why was it that Faith, when she thought it all over, tried to weigh so +very nicely just the amount of gladness she had felt; and was dimly +conscious of a vague misgiving, deep down, lest her father and mother +might possibly be a little more glad than she was quite ready to have +them? What made her especially rejoice that Saidie and the strawberries +had not come yet? + +When Paul Rushleigh took her hand at parting, he glanced down at the +fair little fingers, and then up, inquiringly, at Faith's face. Her eyes +fell, and the color rose, till it became an indignation at itself. She +grew hot, for days afterwards, many a time, as she remembered it. Who +has not blushed at the self-suspicion of blushing? + +Who has not blushed at the simple recollection of having blushed before? +On Monday, this happened. Faith went over to the Old House, to inquire +about Aunt Henderson's foot, and to sit with her, if she should wish it, +for an hour. She chose the hour at which she thought Mr. Armstrong +usually walked to the village. Somehow, greatly as she enjoyed all the +minister's kindly words, and each moment of his accidental presence, she +had, of late, almost invariably taken this time for coming over to see +Aunt Faith. A secret womanly instinct, only, it was; waked into no +consciousness, and but ignorantly aware of its own prompting. + +To-day, however, Mr. Armstrong had not gone out. Some writing that he +was tempted to do, contrary to his usual Monday habit, had detained him +within. And so, just as Miss Henderson, having given the history of her +slip, and the untoward wrenching of her foot, and its present condition, +to Faith's inquiries, asked her suddenly, "if they hadn't had some city +visitors yesterday, and what sent them flacketting over from Lakeside to +church in the village?" the minister walked in. If he hadn't heard, she +might not have done it; but, with the abrupt question, came, as +abruptly, the hot memory of yesterday; and with those other eyes, beside +the doubled keenness of Aunt Faith's over her spectacles, upon her, it +was so much worse if she should, that of course she couldn't help doing +it! She colored up, and up, till the very roots of her soft hair +tingled, and a quick shame wrapped her as in a flaming garment. + +The minister saw, and read. Not quite the obvious inference Faith might +fear--he had a somewhat profounder knowledge of nature than that--but +what persuaded him there was a thought, at least, between the two who +met yesterday, more than of a mere chance greeting; it might not lie so +much with Faith as with the other; yet it had the power--even the +consciousness of its unspoken being, to send the crimson to her face. +What kept the crimson there and deepened it, he knew quite well. He knew +the shame was at having blushed at all. + +Nevertheless, Mr. Armstrong remembered that blush, and pondered it, +almost as long as Faith herself. In the little time that he had felt +himself her friend, he had grown to recognize so fully, and to prize so +dearly, her truth, her purity, her high-mindedness, her reverence, that +no new influence could show itself in her life, without touching his +solicitous love. Was this young man worthy of a blush from Faith? Was +there a height in his nature answering to the reach of hers? Was the +quick, impulsive pain that came to him in the thought of how much that +rose hue of forehead and cheek might mean, an intuition of his stronger +and more instructed soul of a danger to the child that she might not +dream? Be it as it might, Roger Armstrong pondered. He would also +watch. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +PRESSURE. + +"To be warped, unconsciously, by the magnetic influence of all +around is the destiny, to a certain extent, of even the greatest +souls."--OAKFIELD. + + +June came, and Saidie Gartney. Not for flowers, or strawberries, merely; +but for father's and mother's consent that, in a few weeks, when flowers +and strawberries should have fully come, there should be a marriage +feast made for her in the simple home, and she should go forth into the +gay world again, the bride of a wealthy New York banker. + +Aunt Etherege and Saidie filled the house. With finery, with bustle, +with important presence. + +Miss Gartney's engagement had been sudden; her marriage was to be +speedy. Half a dozen seamstresses, and as many sewing machines, were +busy in New York--hands, feet, and wheels--in making up the delicate +draperies for the _trousseau_; and Madame A---- was frantic with the +heap of elaborate dresses that was thrust upon her hands, and must be +ready for the thirtieth. + +Mrs. Gartney and Faith had enough to do, to put the house and themselves +in festival trim. Hendie was spoiled with having no lessons, and more +toys and sugar plums than he knew what to do with. Mr. Selmore's comings +and goings made special ebullitions, weekly, where was only a continuous +lesser effervescence before. Mis' Battis had not been able to subside +into an armchair since the last day of May. + +Faith found great favor in the eyes of her brother-in-law elect. He +pronounced her a "_naïve, piquante_ little person," and already there +was talk of how pleasant it would be, to have her in Madison Square, and +show her to the world. Faith said nothing to this, but in her heart she +clung to Kinnicutt. + +Glory thought Miss Gartney wonderful. Even Mr. Armstrong spoke to Aunt +Faith of the striking beauty of her elder niece. + +"I don't know how she _does_ look," Aunt Faith replied, with all her +ancient gruffness. "I see a great show of flounces, and manners, and +hair; but they don't look as if they all grew, natural. I can't make +_her_ out, amongst all that. Now, _Faith's_ just Faith. You see her +prettiness the minute you look at her, as you do a flower's." + +"There are not many like Miss Faith," replied Mr. Armstrong. "I never +knew but one other who so wore the fresh, pure beauty of God's giving." + +His voice was low and quiet, and his eye looked afar, as he spoke. + +Glory went away, and sat down on the doorstone. There was a strange +tumult at her heart. In the midst, a noble joy. About it, a disquietude, +as of one who feels shut out--alone. + +"I don't know what ails me. I wonder if I ain't glad! Of course, it's +nothing to me. I ain't in it. But it must be beautiful to be so! And to +have such words said! _She_ don't know what a sight the minister thinks +of her! I know. I knew before. It's beautiful--but I ain't in it. Only, +I think I've got the feeling of it all. And I'm glad it's real, +somewhere. Some way, I seem to have so much _here_, that never grows out +into anything. Maybe I'd be beautiful if it did!" + +So talked Glory, interjectionally, with herself. + +In the midst of these excited days, there came two letters to Mr. +Gartney. + +One was from a gentleman in Michigan, in relation to some land Mr. +Gartney owned there, taken years ago, at a very low valuation, for a +debt. This was likely, from the rapid growth and improvement in the +neighborhood, to become, within a few years, perhaps, a property of some +importance. + +The other letter was from his son, James Gartney, in San Francisco. The +young man urged his father to consider whether it might not be a good +idea for him to come out and join him in California. + +James Gartney's proposal evidently roused his attention. It was a great +deal to think of, certainly; but it was worth thinking of, too. James +had married in San Francisco, had a pleasant home there, and was +prospering. Many old business friends had gone from Mishaumok, in the +years when the great flood of enterprise set westward across the +continent, and were building up name and influence in the Golden Land. +The idea found a place in his brain, and clung there. Only, there was +Faith! But things might come round so that even this thought need to be +no hindrance to the scheme. + +Changes, and plans, and interests, and influences were gathering; all to +bear down upon one young life. + +"More news!" said Mr. Gartney, one morning, coming in from his walk to +the village post office, to the pleasant sitting room, or morning room, +as Mrs. Etherege and Saidie called it, where Faith was helping her +sister write a list of the hundreds who were to receive Mr. and Mrs. +Selmore's cards--"At Home, in September, in Madison Square." "Whom do +you think I met in the village, this morning?" + +Everybody looked up, and everybody's imagination took a discursive leap +among possibilities, and then everybody, of course, asked "Whom?" + +"Old Jacob Rushleigh, himself. He has taken a house at Lakeside, for +the summer. And he has bought the new mills just over the river. That is +to give young Paul something to do, I imagine. Kinnicutt has begun to +grow; and when places or people once take a start, there's no knowing +what they may come to. Here's something for you, Faithie, that I dare +say tells all about it." + +And he tossed over her shoulder, upon the table, a letter, bearing her +name, in Margaret Rushleigh's chirography, upon the cover. + +Faith's head was bent over the list she was writing; but the vexatious +color, feeling itself shielded in her face, crept round till it made her +ear tips rosy. Saidie put out her forefinger, with a hardly perceptible +motion, at the telltale sign, and nodded at Aunt Etherege behind her +sister's back. + +Aunt Etherege looked bland and sagacious. + +Upstairs, a little after, these sentences were spoken in Saidie's room. + +"Of course it will be," said the younger to the elder lady. "It's been +going on ever since they were children. Faith hasn't a right to say no, +now. And what else brought him up here after houses and mills?" + +"I don't see that the houses and mills were necessary to the object. +Rather cumbersome and costly machinery, I should think, to bring to bear +upon such a simple purpose." + +"Oh, the business plan is something that has come up accidentally, no +doubt. Running after one thing, people very often stumble upon another. +But it will all play in together, you'll see. Only, I'm afraid I shan't +have the glory of introducing Faithie in New York!" + +"It would be as good a thing as possible. And I can perceive that your +father and mother count upon it, also. In their situation what a great +relief it would be! Of course, Henderson never could do so mad a thing +as take the child up by the roots, again, and transplant her to San +Francisco! And I see plainly he has got that in his own head." + +A door across the passage at this moment shut, softly, but securely. + +Behind it, in her low chair by her sewing table sat the young sister +whose fate had been so lightly decreed. + +Was it all just so, as Saidie had said? Had she no longer a right to say +no? Only themselves know how easily, how almost inevitably, young +judgments and consciences are drawn on in the track beaten down for them +by others. Many and many a life decision has been made, through this +_taking for granted_ that bears with its mute, but magnetic power, upon +the shyness and irresolution that can scarcely face and interpret its +own wish or will. + +It was very true, that, as Saidie Gartney had said, "this had been +going on for years." For years, Faith had found great pleasantness in +the companionship and evident preference of Paul Rushleigh. There had +been nobody to compare with him in her young set in Mishaumok. She knew +he liked her. She had been proud of it. The girlish fancy, that may be +forgotten in after years, or may, fostered by circumstance, endure and +grow into a calm and happy wifehood, had been given to him. And what +troubled her now? Was it that always, when the decisive moment +approaches, there is a little revulsion of timid feminine feeling, even +amidst the truest joy? Or was it that a new wine had been given into +Faith's life, which would not be held in the old bottles? Was she +uncertain--inconstant; or had she spiritually outgrown her old +attachment? Or, was she bewildered, now, out of the discernment of what +was still her heart's desire and need? + +Paul was kind, and true, and manly. She recognized all this in him as +surely as ever. If he had turned from, and forgotten her, she would have +felt a pang. What was this, then, that she felt, as he came near, and +nearer? + +And then, her father! Had he really begun to count on this? Do men know +how their young daughters feel when the first suggestion comes that they +are not regarded as born for perpetual daughterhood in the father's +house? Would she even encumber his plans, if she clung still to her +maidenly life? + +By all these subtleties does the destiny of woman close in upon her. + +Margaret Rushleigh's letter was full of delight, and eagerness, and +anticipation. She and Paul had been so charmed with Kinnicutt and +Lakeside; and there had happened to be a furnished house to let for the +season close by the Morrises, and they had persuaded papa to take it. +They were tired of the seashore, and Conway was getting crowded to +death. They wanted a real summer in the country. And then this had +turned up about the mills! Perhaps, now, her father would build, and +they should come up every year. Perhaps Paul would stay altogether, and +superintend. Perhaps--anything! It was all a delightful chaos of +possibilities; with this thing certain, that she and Faith would be +together for the next four months in the glorious summer shine and +bloom. + +Miss Gartney's wedding was simple. The stateliness and show were all +reserved for Madison Square. + +Mr. Armstrong pronounced the solemn words, in the shaded summer parlor, +with the door open into the sweeter and stiller shade without. + +Faith stood by her sister's side, in fair, white robes, and Mr. Robert +Selmore was groomsman to his brother. A few especial friends from +Mishaumok and Lakeside were present to witness the ceremony. + +And then there was a kissing--a hand-shaking--a well-wishing--a going +out to the simple but elegantly arranged collation--a disappearance of +the bride to put on traveling array--a carriage at the door--smiles, +tears, and good-bys--Mr., and Mrs., and Mr. Robert Selmore were off to +meet the Western train--and all was over. + +Mrs. Etherege remained a few days longer at Cross Corners. As Mis' +Battis judiciously remarked, "after a weddin' or a funeral, there ought +to be somebody to stay a while and cheer up the mourners." + +This visit, that had been so full of happenings, was to have a strange +occurrence still to mark it, before all fell again into the usual order. + +Aunt Etherege was to go on Thursday. On Wednesday, the three ladies sat +together in the cool, open parlor, where Mr. Armstrong, walking over +from the Old House, had joined them. He had the July number of the +_Mishaumok_ in his hand, and a finger between the fresh-cut leaves at a +poem he would read them. + +Just as he had finished the last stanza, amidst a hush of the room that +paid tribute to the beauty of the lines and his perfect rendering of +them, wheels came round from the high road into the lane. + +"It is Mr. Gartney come back from Sedgely," said Aunt Etherege, looking +from her window, between the blinds. "Whom on earth has he picked up to +bring with him?" + +A thin, angular figure of a woman, destitute of crinoline, wearing big +boots, and a bonnet that ignored the fashion, and carrying in her hand a +black enameled leather bag, was alighting as she spoke, at the gate. + +"Mother!" said Faith, leaning forward, and glancing out, also, "it looks +like--it is--Nurse Sampson!" + +And she put her work hastily from her lap, and rose to go out at the +side door, to meet and welcome her. + +To do this, she had to pass by Mr. Armstrong. How came that rigid look, +that deadly paleness, to his face? What spasm of pain made him clutch +the pamphlet he held with fingers that grew white about the nails? + +Faith stopped, startled. + +"Mr. Armstrong! Are you not well?" said she. At the same instant of her +pausing, Miss Sampson entered from the hall, behind her. Mr. Armstrong's +eye, lifted toward Faith in an attempt to reply, caught a glimpse of the +sharp, pronounced outlines of the nurse's face. Before Faith could +comprehend, or turn, or cry out, the paleness blanched ghastlier over +his features, and the strong man fell back, fainting. + +With quick, professional instinct, Miss Sampson sprang forward, +seizing, as she did so, an ice-water pitcher from the table. + +"There, take this!" said she to Faith, "and sprinkle him with it, while +I loosen his neckcloth! Gracious goodness!" she exclaimed, in an altered +tone, as she came nearer to him for this purpose, "do it, some of the +rest of you, and let me get out of his way! It was me!" + +And she vanished out of the room. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +ROGER ARMSTRONG'S STORY. + +"Even by means of our sorrows, we belong to the Eternal Plan." + HUMBOLDT. + + +"Go in there," said Nurse Sampson to Mr. Gartney, calling him in from +the porch, "and lay that man flat on the floor!" + +Which Mr. Gartney did, wondering, vaguely, in the instant required for +his transit to the apartment, whether bandit or lunatic might await his +offices. + +All happened in a moment; and in that moment, the minister's fugitive +senses began to return. + +"Lie quiet, a minute. Faith, get a glass of wine, or a little brandy." + +Faith quickly brought both; and Mr. Armstrong, whom her father now +assisted to the armchair again, took the wine from her hand, with a +smile that thanked her, and depreciated himself. + +"I am not ill," he said. "It is all over now. It was the sudden shock. I +did not think I could have been so weak." + +Mrs. Gartney had gone to find some hartshorn. Mrs. Etherege, seeing that +the need for it was passing, went out to tell her sister so, and to ask +the strange woman who had originated all the commotion, what it could +possibly mean. Mr. Gartney, at the same instant, caught a glimpse of his +horse, which he had left unfastened at the gate, giving indications of +restlessness, and hastened out to tie him. + +Faith and Mr. Armstrong were left alone. + +"Did I frighten you, my child?" he asked, gently. "It was a strange +thing to happen! I thought that woman was in her grave. I thought she +died, when--I will tell you all about it some day, soon, Miss Faith. It +was the sad, terrible page of my life." + +Faith's eyes were lustrous with sympathy. Under all other thought was a +beating joy--not looked at yet--that he could speak to her so! That he +could snatch this chance moment to tell her, only, of his sacred sorrow! + +She moved a half step nearer, and laid her hand, softly, on the chair +arm beside him. She did not touch so much as a fold of his sleeve; but +it seemed, somehow, like a pitying caress. + +"I am sorry!" said she. And then the others came in. + +Mr. Gartney walked round with his friend to the old house. + +Miss Sampson began to recount what she knew of the story. Faith escaped +to her own room at the first sentence. She would rather have it as Mr. +Armstrong's confidence. + +Next morning, Faith was dusting, and arranging flowers in the east +parlor, and had just set the "hillside door," as they called it, open, +when Mr. Armstrong passed the window and appeared thereat. + +"I came to ask, Miss Faith, if you would walk up over the Ridge. It is a +lovely morning, and I am selfish enough to wish to have you to myself +for a little of it. By and by, I would like to come back, and see Miss +Sampson." + +Faith understood. He meant to tell her this that had been heavy upon his +heart through all these years. She would go. Directly, when she had +brought her hat, and spoken with her mother. + +Mrs. Etherege and Mrs. Gartney were sitting together in the guest +chamber, above. At noon, after an early dinner, Mrs. Etherege was to +leave. + +Mr. Armstrong stood upon the doorstone below, looking outward, waiting. +If he had been inside the room, he would not have heard. The ladies, +sitting by the window, just over his head, were quite unaware and +thoughtless of his possible position. + +He caught Faith's clear, sweet accent first, as she announced her +purpose to her mother, adding: + +"I shall be back, auntie, long before dinner." + +Then she crossed the hall into her own room, made her slight preparation +for the walk, and went down by the kitchen staircase, to give Parthenia +some last word about the early dinner. + +"I think," said Mrs. Etherege, in the keenness of her worldly wisdom, +"that this minister of yours might as well have a hint of how matters +stand. It seems to me he is growing to monopolize Faith, rather." + +"Oh," replied Mrs. Gartney, "there is nothing of that! You know what +nurse told us, last evening. It isn't quite likely that a man would +faint away at the memory of one woman, if his thoughts were turned, the +least, in that way, upon another. No, indeed! She is his Sunday scholar, +and he treats her always as a very dear young friend. But that is all." + +"Maybe. But is it quite safe for her? He is a young man yet, +notwithstanding those few gray hairs." + +"Oh, Faith has tacitly belonged to Paul Rushleigh these three years!" + +Mr. Armstrong heard it all. He turned the next moment, and met his "dear +young friend" with the same gentle smile and manner that he always wore +toward her, and they walked up the Ridge path, among the trees, +together. + +A bowlder of rock, scooped into smooth hollows that made pleasant seats, +was the goal, usually, of the Ridge walk. Here Faith paused, and Mr. +Armstrong made her sit down and rest. + +Standing there before her, he began his story. + +"One summer--years ago," he said, "I went to the city of New Orleans. I +went to bring thence, with me, a dear friend--her who was to have been +my wife." + +The deep voice trembled, and paused. Faith could not look up, her breath +came quickly, and the tears were all but ready. + +"She had been there, through the winter and spring, with her father, +who, save myself, was the only near friend she had in all the world. + +"The business which took him there detained him until later in the +season than Northerners are accustomed to feel safe in staying. And +still, important affairs hindered his departure. + +"He wrote to me, that, for himself, he must risk a residence there for +some weeks yet; but that his daughter must be placed in safety. There +was every indication of a sickly summer. She knew nothing of his +writing, and he feared would hardly consent to leave him. But, if I +came, she would yield to me. Our marriage might take place there, and I +could bring her home. Without her, he said, he could more quickly +dispatch what remained for him to do; and I must persuade her of this, +and that it was for the safety of all that she should so fulfill the +promise which was to have been at this time redeemed, had their earlier +return been possible. + +"In the New Orleans papers that came by the same mail, were paragraphs +of deadly significance. The very cautiousness with which they were +worded weighted them the more. + +"Miss Faith! my friend! in that city of pestilence, was my life! Night +and day I journeyed, till I reached the place. I found the address which +had been sent me--there were only strangers there! Mr. Waldo had been, +but the very day before, seized with the fatal disease, and removed to a +fever hospital. Miriam had gone with him--into plague and death! + +"Was I wrong, child? Could I have helped it? I followed. Ah! God lets +strange woes into this world of His! I cannot tell you, if I would, what +I saw there! Pestilence--death--corruption! + +"In the midst of all, among the gentle sisters of charity, I found a New +England woman--a nurse--her whom I met yesterday. She came to me on my +inquiry for Mr. Waldo. He was dead. Miriam had already sickened--was +past hope. I could not see her. It was against the rule. She would not +know me. + +"I only remember that I refused to be sent away. I think my brain reeled +with the weariness of sleepless nights and horror of the shock. + +"I cannot dwell upon the story. It was ended quickly. When I struggled +back, painfully, to life, from the disease that struck me down, there +were strange faces round me, and none could even tell me of her last +hours. The nurse--Miss Sampson--had been smitten--was dying. + +"They sent me to a hospital for convalescents. Weeks after, I came out, +feeble and hopeless, into my lonely life! + +"Since then, God, who had taken from me the object I had set for myself, +has filled its room with His own work. And, doing it, He has not denied +me to find many a chastened joy. + +"Dear young friend!" said he, with a tender, lingering emphasis--it was +all he could say then--all they had left him to say, if he would--"I +have told you this, because you have come nearer into my sympathies than +any in all these years that have been my years of strangerhood and +sorrow! You have made me think, in your fresh, maidenly life, and your +soul earnestness, of Miriam! + +"When your way broadens out into busy sunshine, and mine lies otherwise, +do not forget me!" + +A solemn baptism of mingled grief and joy seemed to touch the soul of +Faith. One hand covered her face, that was bowed down, weeping. The +other lay in her companion's, who had taken it as he uttered these last +words. So it rested a moment, and then its fellow came to it, and, +between the two, held Roger Armstrong's reverently, while the fair, +tearful face lifted itself to his. + +"I do thank you so!" And that was all. + +Faith was his "dear, young friend!" How the words in which her mother +limited his thoughts of her to commonplace, widened, when she spoke them +to herself, into a great beatitude! She never thought of more--scarcely +whether more could be. This great, noble, purified, God-loving soul that +stood between her and heaven, like the mountain peak, bathing its head +in clouds, and drawing lightnings down, leaned over her, and blessed her +thus! + +She never suspected her own heart, even when the remembrance of Paul +came up and took a tenderness from the thought how he, too, might love, +and learn from, this her friend. She turned back with a new gentleness +to all other love, as one does from a prayer! + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +QUESTION AND ANSWER. + +"Unless you can swear, 'For life, for death!' +Oh, fear to call it loving!" + MRS. BROWNING. + + +Faith sent Nurse Sampson in to talk with Mr. Armstrong. Then he learned +all that he had longed to know, but had never known before; that which +took him to his lost bride's deathbed, and awoke out of the silent years +for him a moment refused to him in its passing. + +Miss Sampson came from her hour's interview, with an unbending of the +hard lines of her face, and a softness, even, in her eyes, that told of +tears. + +"If ever there was an angel that went walking about in black broadcloth, +that man is the one," said she. + +And that was all she would say. + +"I'm staying," she explained, in answer to their inquiries, "with a +half-sister of mine at Sedgely. Mrs. Crabe, the blacksmith's wife. You +see, I'd got run down, and had to take a rest. Resting is as much a part +of work as doing, when it's necessary. I had a chance to go to Europe +with an invaleed lady; but I allers hate such halfway contrivances. I +either want to work with all my might, or be lazy with all my might. And +so I've come here to do nothing, as hard as ever I can." + +"I know well enough," she said again, afterwards, "that something's +being cut out for me, tougher'n anything I've had yet. I never had an +hour's extra rest in my life, but I found out, precious soon, what it +had been sent for. I'm going to stay on all summer, as the doctor told +me to; but I'm getting strong, already; and I shall be just like a tiger +before the year's out. And then it'll come, whatever it is. You'll see." + +Miss Sampson stayed until the next day after, and then Mr. Gartney drove +her back to Sedgely. + +In those days it came to pass that Glory found she had a "follower." + +Luther Goodell, who "did round" at Cross Corners, got so into the way of +straying up the field path, in his nooning hours, and after chores were +done at night, that Miss Henderson at last, in her plain, outright +fashion, took the subject up, and questioned Glory. + +"If it means anything, and you mean it shall mean anything, well and +good. I shall put up with it; though what anybody wants with men folks +cluttering round, is more than I can understand. But, if you don't want +him, he shan't come. So tell me the truth, child. Yes, or no. Have you +any notion of him for a husband?" + +Glory blushed her brightest at these words; but there was no falling of +the eye, or faltering of the voice, as she spoke with answering +straightforwardness and simplicity. + +"No ma'am. I don't think I shall ever have a husband." + +"No ma'am's enough. The rest you don't know anything about. Most likely +you will." + +"I shouldn't want anybody, ma'am, that would be likely to want me." + +And Glory walked out into the milk room with the pans she had been +scalding. + +It was true. This woman-child would go all through life as she had +begun; discerning always, and reaching spiritually after, that which was +beyond; which in that "kingdom of heaven" was hers already; but which to +earthly having and holding should never come. + +God puts such souls, oftener than we think, into such life. These are +His vestals. + +Miss Henderson's foot had not grown perfectly strong. She, herself, +said, coolly, that she never expected it to. More than that, she +supposed, now she had begun, she should keep on going to pieces. + +"An old life," she said, "is just like old cloth when it begins to tear. +It'll soon go into the ragbag, and then to the mill that grinds all up, +and brings us out new and white again!" + +"Glory McWhirk," said she, on another day after, "if you could do just +the thing you would like best to do, what would it be?" + +"To-day, ma'am? or any time?" asked Glory, puzzled as to how much her +mistress's question included. + +"Ever. If you had a home to live in, say, and money to spend?" + +Glory had to wait a moment before she could so grasp such an +extraordinary hypothesis as to reply. + +"Well?" said Miss Henderson, with slight impatience. + +"If I had--I should like best to find some little children, without any +fathers or mothers, as I was, and dress them up, as you did me, and curl +their hair, and make a real good time for them, every day!" + +"You would! Well, that's all. I was curious to know what you'd say. I +guess those beans in the oven want more hot water." + +The Rushleighs had come to Lakeside. Every day, nearly, saw Paul, or +Margaret, or both, at Cross Corners. + +Faith was often, also, at Lakeside. + +Old Mr. Rushleigh treated her with a benignant fatherliness, and looked +upon her with an evident fondness and pride that threw heavy weight in +the scale of his son's chances. And Madam Rushleigh, as she began to be +called, since Mrs. Philip had entered the family, petted her in the old, +graceful, gracious fashion; and Margaret loved her, simply, and from her +heart. + +With Paul himself, it had not been as in the days of bouquets, and +"Germans," and bridal association in Mishaumok. They were all living and +enjoying together a beautiful idyl. Nothing seemed special--nothing was +embarrassing. + +Faith thought, in these days, that she was very happy. + +Mr. Armstrong relinquished her, almost imperceptibly, to her younger +friends. In the pleasant twilights, though, when her day's pleasures and +occupations were ended, he would often come over, as of old, and sit +with them in the summer parlor, or under the elms. + +Or Faith would go up the beautiful Ridge walk with him; and he would +have a thought for her that was higher than any she could reach, by +herself, or with the help of any other human soul. + +And the minister? How did his world look to him? Perhaps, as if clouds +that had parted, sending a sunbeam across from the west upon the dark +sorrow of the morning, had shut again, inexorably, leaving him still to +tread the nightward path under the old, leaden sky. + +A day came, that set him thinking of all this--of the years that were +past, of those that might be to come. + +Mr. Armstrong was not quite so old as he had been represented. A man +cannot go through plague and anguish, as he had, and "keep," as Nurse +Sampson had said, long ago, of women, "the baby face on." There were +lines about brow and mouth, and gleams in the hair, that seldom come so +early. + +This day he completed one-and-thirty years. + +The same day, last month, had been Faith's birthday. She was nineteen. + +Roger Armstrong thought of the two together. + +He thought of these twelve years that lay between them. Of the love--the +loss--the stern and bitter struggle--the divine amends and holy hope +that they had brought to him; and then of the innocent girl life she had +been living in them; then, how the two paths had met so, in these last +few, beautiful months. + +Whither, and how far apart, trended they now? + +He could not see. He waited--leaving the end with God. + +A few weeks went by, in this careless, holiday fashion, with Faith and +her friends; and then came the hour when she must face the truth for +herself and for another, and speak the word of destiny for both. + +She had made a promise for a drive round the Pond Road. Margaret and +her brother were to come for her, and to return to Cross Corners for +tea. + +At the hour fixed, she sat, waiting, under the elms, hat and mantle on, +and whiling the moments of delay with a new book Mr. Armstrong had lent +her. + +Presently, the Rushleighs' light, open, single-seated wagon drove up. + +Paul had come alone. + +Margaret had a headache, but thought that after sundown she might feel +better, and begged that Faith would reverse the plan agreed upon, and +let Paul bring her home to tea with them. + +Paul took for granted that Faith would keep to her engagement with +himself. It was difficult to refuse. She was ready, waiting. It would be +absurd to draw back, sensitively, now, she thought. Besides, it would be +very pleasant; and why should she be afraid? Yet she wished, very +regretfully, that Margaret were there. + +She shrank from _tête-à-têtes_--from anything that might help to +precipitate a moment she felt herself not quite ready for. + +She supposed she did care for Paul Rushleigh as most girls cared for +lovers; that she had given him reason to expect she should; she felt, +instinctively, whither all this pleased acquiescence of father and +mother, and this warm welcome and encouragement at Lakeside, tended; and +she had a dim prescience of what must, some time, come of it: but that +was all in the far-off by and by. She would not look at it yet. + +She was afraid, now, as she let Paul help her into the wagon, and take +his place at her side. + +She had been frightened by a word of her mother's, when she had gone to +her, before leaving, to tell how the plan had been altered, and ask if +she had better do as was wished of her. + +Mrs. Gartney had assented with a smile, and a "Certainly, if you like +it, Faith; indeed, I don't see how you can very well help it; only----" + +"Only what, mother?" asked Faith, a little fearfully. + +"Nothing, dear," answered her mother, turning to her with a little +caress. But she had a look in her eyes that mothers wear when they begin +to see their last woman's sacrifice demand itself at their hands. + +"Go, darling. Paul is waiting." + +It was like giving her away. + +So they drove down, through byways, among the lanes, toward the Wachaug +Road. + +Summer was in her perfect flush and fullness of splendor. The smell of +new-mown hay was in the air. + +As they came upon the river, they saw the workmen busy in and about the +new mills. Mr. Rushleigh's buggy stood by the fence; and he was there, +among his mechanics, with his straw hat and seersucker coat on, +inspecting and giving orders. + +"What a capital old fellow the governor is!" said Paul, in the fashion +young men use, nowadays, to utter their affections. + +"Do you know he means to set me up in these mills he is making such a +hobby of, and give me half the profits?" + +Faith had not known. She thought him very good. + +"Yes; he would do anything, I believe, for me--or anybody I cared for." + +Faith was silent; and the strange fear came up in heart and throat. + +"I like Kinnicutt, thoroughly." + +"Yes," said Faith. "It is very beautiful here." + +"Not only that. I like the people. I like their simple fashions. One +gets at human life and human nature here. I don't think I was ever, at +heart, a city boy. I don't like living at arm's length from everybody. +People come close together, in the country. And--Faith! what a minister +you've got here! What a sermon that was he preached last Sunday! I've +never been what you might call one of the serious sort; but such a +sermon as that must do anybody good." + +Faith felt a warmth toward Paul as he said this, which was more a +drawing of the heart than he had gained from her by all the rest. + +"My father says he will keep him here, if money can do it. He never goes +to church at Lakeside, now. It needs just such a man among mill villages +like these, he says. My father thinks a great deal of his workpeople. He +says nobody ought to bring families together, and build up a +neighborhood, as a manufacturer does, and not look out for more than the +money. I think he'll expect a great deal of me, if he leaves me here, at +the head of it all. More than I can ever do, by myself." + +"Mr. Armstrong will be the very best help to you," said Faith. "I think +he means to stay. I'm sure Kinnicutt would seem nothing without him, +now." + +"Faith! Will you help me to make a home here?" + +She could not speak. A great shock had fallen upon her whole nature, as +if a thunderbolt she had had presentiment of, burst from a clear blue +sky. + +They drove on for minutes, without another word. + +"Faith! You don't answer me. Must I take silence as I please? It can't +be that you don't care for me!" + +"No, no!" cried Faith, desperately, like one struggling for voice +through a nightmare. "I do care. But--Paul! I don't know! I can't tell. +Let me wait, please. Let me think." + +"As long as you like, darling," said he, gently and tenderly. "You know +all I can tell you. You know I have cared for you all my life. And I'll +wait now till you tell me I may speak again. Till you put on that little +ring of mine, Faith!" + +There was a little loving reproach in these last words. + +"Please take me home, now, Paul!" + +They were close upon the return path around the Lake. A look of +disappointed pain passed over Paul Rushleigh's features. This was hardly +the happy reception, however shy, he had hoped and looked for. Still he +hoped, however. He could not think she did not care for him. She, who +had been the spring of his own thoughts and purposes for years. But, +obedient to her wish, he touched his horse with the lash, and urged him +homeward. + +Paul helped her from the wagon at the little white gate at Cross +Corners, and then they both remembered that she was to have gone to +Lakeside to tea. + +"What shall I tell Margaret?" he asked. + +"Oh, don't tell her anything! I mean--tell her, I couldn't come +to-night. And, Paul--forgive me! I do want so to do what is right!" + +"Isn't it right to let me try and make you happy all your life?" + +A light had broken upon her--confusedly, it is true--yet that began to +show her to herself more plainly than any glimpse she had had before, as +Paul's words, simple, yet burning with his strong sure love, came to +her, with their claim to honest answer. + +She saw what it was he brought her; she felt it was less she had to give +him back. There was something in the world she might go missing all the +way through life, if she took this lot that lay before her now. Would he +not miss a something in her, also? Yet, must she needs insist on the +greatest, the rarest, that God ever sends? Why should she, more than +others? Would she wrong him more, to give him what she could, or to +refuse him all? + +"I ought--if I do--" she said, tremulously, "to care as you do!" + +"You never can, Faith!" cried the young man, impetuously. "I care as a +man cares! Let me love you! care a little for me, and let it grow to +more!" + +Men, till something is accorded, are willing to take so little! And then +the little must become so entire! + +"Well, I declare!" exclaimed Mis' Battis, as Faith came in. "Who'd a +thought o' seein' you home to tea! I s'pose you ain't had none?" + +"Yes--no. That is, I don't want any. Where is my mother?" + +"She and your pa's gone down to Dr. Wasgatt's. I knew 'twould be +contrary to the thirty-nine articles that they should get away from +there without their suppers, and so I let the fire right down, and +blacked the stove." + +"Never mind," said Faith, abstractedly. "I don't feel hungry." And she +went away, upstairs. + +"'M!" said Mis 'Battis, significantly, to herself, running a released +knitting needle through her hair, "don't tell me! I've been through the +mill!" + +Half an hour after, she came up to Faith's door. + +"The minister's downstairs," said she. "Hope to goodness, he's had _his_ +supper!" + +"Oh, if I dared!" thought Faith; and her heart throbbed tumultuously. +"Why can't there be somebody to tell me what I ought to do?" + +If she had dared, how she could have leaned upon this friend! How she +could have trusted her conscience and her fate to his decision! + +"Does anything trouble you to-night, Miss Faith?" asked Mr. Armstrong, +watching her sad, abstracted look in one of the silent pauses that broke +their attempts at conversation. "Are you ill, or tired?" + +"Oh, no!" answered Faith, quickly, from the surface, as one often does +when thoughts lie deep. "I am quite well. Only--I am sometimes puzzled." + +"About what is? Or about what ought to be?" + +"About doing. So much depends. I get so tired--feeling how responsible +everything makes me. I wish I were a little child again! Or that +somebody would just take me and tell me where to go, and where to stay, +and what to do, and what not. From minute to minute, as the things come +up." + +Roger Armstrong, with his great, chastened soul, yearned over the child +as she spoke; so gladly he would have taken her, at that moment, to his +heart, and bid her lean on him for all that man might give of help--of +love--of leading! + +If she had told him, in that moment, all her doubt, as for the instant +of his pause she caught her breath with swelling impulse to do! + +"'And they shall all be led of God';" said the minister. "It is only to +be willing to take His way rather than one's own. All this that seems to +depend painfully upon oneself, depends, then, upon Him. The act is +human--the consequences become divine." + +Faith was silenced then. There was no appeal to human help from that. +Her impulse throbbed itself away into a lonely passiveness again. + +There was a distance between these two that neither dared to pass. + +A word was spoken between mother and daughter as they parted for the +night. + +"Mother! I have such a thing to think of--to decide!" + +It was whispered low, and with cheek hidden on her mother's neck, as the +good-night kiss was taken. + +"Decide for your own happiness, Faithie. We have seen and understood for +a long time. If it is to be as we think, nothing could give us a greater +joy for you." + +Ah! how much had father and mother seen and understood? + +The daughter went her way, to wage her own battle in secret; to balance +and fix her decision between her own heart and God. So we find ourselves +left, at the last, in all the great crises of our life. + +Late that night, while Mr. and Mrs. Gartney were felicitating each +other, cheerily, upon the great good that had fallen to the lot of their +cherished child, that child sat by her open window, looking out into the +summer night; the tossing elm boughs whispering weird syllables in her +ears, and the stars looking down upon her soul struggle, so silently, +from so far! + +"Mr. Rushleigh's here!" shouted Hendie, precipitating himself, next +morning, into the breakfast room, where, at a rather later hour than +usual, Mrs. Gartney and Faith were washing and wiping the silver and +china, and Mr. Gartney still lingered in his seat, finishing somebody's +long speech, reported in the evening paper of yesterday. + +"Mr. Rushleigh's here, on his long-tailed black horse! And he says he'll +give me a ride, but not yet. He wants to see papa. Make haste, papa." + +Faith dropped her towel, and as Mr. Gartney rose to go out and meet his +visitor, just whispered, hurriedly, to her mother: + +"I'll come down again. I'll see him before he goes." And escaped up the +kitchen staircase to her own room. + +Paul Rushleigh came, he told Mr. Gartney, because, although Faith had +not authorized him to appeal to her father to ratify any consent of +hers, he thought it right to let him know what he had already said to +his daughter. He did not wish to hurry Faith. He only wished to stand +openly with Mr. Gartney in the matter, and would wait, then, till she +should be quite ready to give him her own answer. + +He explained the prospect his father offered him, and the likelihood of +his making a permanent home at Kinnicutt. + +"That is," he added, "if I am to be so happy as to have a home, +anywhere, of my own." + +Mr. Gartney was delighted with the young man's unaffected warmth of +heart and noble candor. + +"I could not wish better for my daughter, Mr. Rushleigh," he replied. +"And she is a daughter whom I may fairly wish the best for, too." + +Mr. Gartney rose. "I will send Faith," said he. + +"I do not _ask_ for her," answered Paul, a flush of feeling showing in +his cheek. "I did not come, expecting it--my errand was one I owed to +yourself--but Faith knows quite well how glad I shall be if she chooses +to see me." + +As Mr. Gartney crossed the hall from parlor to sitting room, a light +step came over the front staircase. + +Faith passed her father, with a downcast look, as he motioned with his +hand toward the room where Paul stood, waiting. The bright color spread +to her temples as she glided in. + +She held, but did not wear, the little turquoise ring. + +Paul saw it, as he came forward, eagerly. + +A thrill of hope, or dread--he scarce knew which--quivered suddenly at +his heart. Was he to take it back, or place it on her finger as a +pledge? + +"I have been thinking, Paul," said she, tremulously, and with eyes that +fell again away from his, after the first glance and greeting, "almost +ever since. And I do not think I ought to keep you waiting to know the +little I can tell you. I do not think I understand myself. I cannot +tell, certainly, how I ought--how I do feel. I have liked you very much. +And it was very pleasant to me before all this. I know you deserve to be +made very happy. And if it depends on me, I do not dare to say I will +not try to do it. If you think, yourself, that this is enough--that I +shall do the truest thing so--I will try." + +And the timid little fingers laid the ring into his hand, to do with as +he would. + +What else could Paul have done? + +With the strong arm that should henceforth uphold and guard her, he drew +her close; and with the other hand slipped the simply jeweled round upon +her finger. For all word of answer, he lifted it, so encircled, to his +lips. + +Faith shrank and trembled. + +Hendie's voice sounded, jubilant, along the upper floor, toward the +staircase. + +"I will go, now, if you wish. Perhaps I ought," said Paul. "And yet, I +would so gladly stay. May I come again, by and by?" + +Faith uttered a half-audible assent, and as Hendie's step came nearer +down the stairs, and passed the door, straight out upon the grassplot, +toward the gate, and the long-tailed black horse that stood there, she +escaped again to her own chamber. + +Hendie had his ride. Meanwhile, his sister, down upon her knees at her +bedside, struggled with the mystery and doubt of her own heart. Why +could she not feel happier? Would it never be otherwise? Was this all +life had for her, in its holiest gift, henceforth? But, come what might, +she would have God, always! + +So, without words, only with tears, she prayed, and at last, grew calm. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +CONFLICT. + +"O Life, O Beyond, +_Art_ thou fair!--_art_ thou sweet?" + MRS. BROWNING. + + +There followed days that almost won Faith back into her outward life of +pleasantness. + +Margaret came over with Madam Rushleigh, and felicitated herself and +friend, impetuously. Paul's mother thanked her for making her son happy. +Old Mr. Rushleigh kissed her forehead with a blessing. And Mr. and Mrs. +Gartney looked upon their daughter as with new eyes of love. Hendie rode +the black horse every day, and declared that "everything was just as +jolly as it could be!" + +Paul drove her out, and walked with her, and talked of his plans, and +all they would do and have together. + +And she let herself be brightened by all this outward cheer and promise, +and this looking forward to a happiness and use that were to come. But +still she shrank and trembled at every loverlike caress, and still she +said, fearfully, every now and then: + +"Paul--I don't feel as you do. What if I don't love you as I ought?" + +And Paul called her his little oversensitive, conscientious Faithie, and +persuaded himself and her that he had no fear--that he was quite +satisfied. + +When Mr. Armstrong came to see her, gravely and tenderly wishing her +joy, and looked searchingly into her face for the pure content that +should be there, she bent her head into her hands, and wept. + +She was very weak, you say? She ought to have known her own mind better? +Perhaps. I speak of her as she was. There are mistakes like these in +life; there are hearts that suffer thus, unconscious of their ail. + +The minister waited while the momentary burst of emotion subsided, and +something of Faith's wonted manner returned. + +"It is very foolish of me," she said, "and you must think me very +strange. But, somehow, tears come easily when one has been feeling a +great deal. And such kind words from you touch me." + +"My words and thoughts will always be kind for you, my child. And I know +very well that tears may mean sweeter and deeper things than smiles. I +will not try you with much talking now. You have my affectionate wishes +and my prayers. If there is ever any help that I can give, to you who +have so much loving help about you, count on me as an earnest friend, +always." + +The hour was past when Faith, if she could ever, could have asked of him +the help she did most sorely need. + +And so, with a gentle hand clasp, he went away. + +Mr. Gartney began to be restless about Michigan. He wanted to go and see +this wild estate of his. He would have liked to take his wife, now that +haying would soon be over, and he could spare the time from his farm, +and make it a pleasant summer journey for them both. But he could +neither leave Faith, nor take her, well, it seemed. Hendie might go. +Fathers always think their boys ready for the world when once they are +fairly out of the nursery. + +One day, Paul came to Cross Corners with news. + +Mr. Rushleigh had affairs to be arranged and looked to, in New +York--matters connected with the mills, which had, within a few weeks, +begun to run; he had been there, once, about them; he could do all quite +well, now, by letter, and an authorized messenger; he could not just now +very well leave Kinnicutt. Besides, he wanted Paul to see and know his +business friends, and to put himself in the way of valuable business +information. Would Faith spare him for a week or two--he bade his son to +ask. + +Madam Rushleigh would accompany Paul; and before his return he would go +with his mother to Saratoga, where her daughter Gertrude and Mrs. Philip +Rushleigh were, and where he was to leave her for the remainder of their +stay. + +Margaret liked Kinnicutt better than any watering-place; and she and her +father had made a little plan of their own, which, if Faith would go +back with him, they would explain to her. + +So Faith went over to Lakeside to tea, and heard the plan. + +"We are going to make our first claim upon you, Faith," said the elder +Mr. Rushleigh, as he led his daughter-in-law elect out on the broad +piazza under the Italian awnings, when the slight summer evening repast +was ended. "We want to borrow you, while madam and the yonker are gone. +Your father tells me he wishes to make a Western journey. Now, why not +send him off at this very time? I think your mother intends accompanying +him?" + +"It had been talked of," Faith said; "and perhaps her father would be +very glad to go when he could leave her in such good keeping. She would +tell him what Mr. Rushleigh had been so kind as to propose." + +It was a suggestion of real rest to Faith--this free companionship with +Margaret again, in the old, girlish fashion--and the very thoughtful +look, that was almost sad, which had become habitual to her face, of +late, brightened into the old, careless pleasure, as she spoke. + +Old Mr. Rushleigh saw something in this that began to seem to him more +than mere maidenly shyness. + +By and by, Margaret called her brother to sing with her. + +"Come, Faithie," said Paul, drawing her gently by the hand. "I can't +sing unless you go, too." + +Faith went; more, it seemed, of his will, than her own. + +"How does that appear to you?" said Mr. Rushleigh to his wife. "Is it +all right? Does the child care for Paul?" + +"Care!" exclaimed the mother, almost surprised into too audible speech. +"How can she help caring? And hasn't it grown up from childhood with +them? What put such a question into your head? I should as soon think of +doubting whether I cared for you." + +It was easier for the father to doubt, jealously, for his son, than for +the mother to conceive the possibility of indifference in the woman her +boy had chosen. + +"Besides," added Mrs. Rushleigh, "why, else, should she have accepted +him? I _know_ Faith Gartney is not mercenary, or worldly ambitious." + +"I am quite sure of that, as well," answered her husband. "It is no +doubt of her motive or her worth--I can't say it is really a doubt of +anything; but, Gertrude, she must not marry the boy unless her whole +heart is in it! A sharp stroke is better than a lifelong pain." + +"I'm sure I can't tell what has come over you! She can't ever have +thought of anybody else! And she seems quite one of ourselves." + +"Yes; that's just the uncertainty," replied Mr. Rushleigh. "Whether it +isn't as much Margaret, and you and I, as Paul. Whether she fully knows +what she is about. She can't marry the family, you know. We shall die, +and go off, and Heaven knows what; Paul must be the whole world to her, +or nothing. I hope he hasn't hurried her--or let her hurry herself." + +"Hurry! She has had years to make up her mind in!" + +Mrs. Rushleigh, woman as she was, would not understand. + +"We shall go, in three days," said Paul, when he stood in the moonlight +with Faith at the little white gate under the elms, after driving her +home; "and I must have you all the time to myself, until then!" + +Faith wondered if it were right that she shouldn't quite care to be "had +all the time to himself until then"? Whether such demonstrativeness and +exclusiveness of affection was ever a little irksome to others as to +her? + +Faith thought and questioned, often, what other girls might feel in +positions like her own, and tried to judge herself by them; it +absolutely never occurred to her to think how it might have been if +another than Paul had stood in this relation toward herself. + +The young man did not quite have his own way, however. His father went +down to Mishaumok on one of the three days, and left him in charge at +the mills; and there were people to see, and arrangements to make; but +some part of each day he did manage to devote to Faith, and they had +walking and driving together, and every night Paul stayed to tea at +Cross Corners. + +On the last evening, they sat together, by the hillside door, in the +summer parlor. + +"Faithie," said Paul, a little suddenly, "there is something you must do +for me--do you know?" + +"What is it?" asked Faith, quite calmly. + +"You must wear this, now, and keep the forget-me-not for a guard." + +He held her hand, that wore the ring, in one of his, and there was a +flash of diamonds as he brought the other toward it. + +Then Faith gave a quick, strange cry. + +"I can't! I can't! Oh, Paul! don't ask me!" And her hand was drawn from +the clasp of his, and her face was hidden in both her own. + +Paul drew back--hurt, silent. + +"If I could only wait!" she murmured. "I don't dare, yet!" + +She could wear the forget-me-not, as she wore the memory of all their +long young friendship, it belonged to the past; but this definite pledge +for the future--these diamonds! + +"Do you not quite belong to me, even yet?" asked Paul, with a +resentment, yet a loving and patient one, in his voice. + +"I told you," said Faith, "that I would try--to be to you as you wish; +but Paul! if I couldn't be so, truly?--I don't know why I feel so +uncertain. Perhaps it is because you care for me too much. Your thought +for me is so great, that mine, when I look at it, never seems worthy." + +Paul was a man. He could not sue, too cringingly, even for Faith +Gartney's love. + +"And I told you, Faith, that I was satisfied to be allowed to love you. +That you should love me a little, and let it grow to more. But if it is +not love at all--if I frighten you, and repel you--I have no wish to +make you unhappy. I must let you go. And yet--oh, Faith!" he cried--the +sternness all gone, and only the wild love sweeping through his heart, +and driving wild words before it--"it can't be that it is no love, after +all! It would be too cruel!" + +At those words, "I must let you go," spoken apparently with calmness, as +if it could be done, Faith felt a bound of freedom in her soul. If he +would let her go, and care for her in the old way, only as a friend! But +the strong passionate accents came after; and the old battle of doubt +and pity and remorse surged up again, and the cloud of their strife +dimmed all perception, save that she was very, very wretched. + +She sobbed, silently. + +"Don't let us say good-by, so," said Paul. "Don't let us quarrel. We +will let all wait, as you wish, till I come home again." + +So he still clung to her, and held her, half bound. + +"And your father, Paul? And Margaret? How can I let them receive me as +they do--how can I go to them as I have promised, in all this +indecision?" + +"They want you, Faith, for your own sake. There is no need for you to +disappoint them. It is better to say nothing more until we do know. I +ask it of you--do not refuse me this--to let all rest just here; to make +no difference until I come back. You will let me write, Faith?" + +"Why, yes, Paul," she said, wonderingly. + +It was so hard for her to comprehend that it could not be with him, any +longer, as it had been; that his written or his spoken word could not +be, for a time, at least, mere friendly any more. + +And so she gave him, unwittingly, this hope to go with. + +"I think you _do_ care for me, Faith, if you only knew it!" said he, +half sadly and very wistfully, as they parted. + +"I do care, very much," Faith answered, simply and earnestly. "I never +can help caring. It is only that I am afraid I care so differently from +you!" + +She was nearer loving him at that moment, than she had ever been. + +Who shall attempt to bring into accord the seeming contradictions of a +woman's heart? + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +A GAME AT CHESS. + +"Life's burdens fall, its discords cease, +I lapse into the glad release +Of nature's own exceeding peace." + WHITTIER. + + +"I don't see," said Aunt Faith, "why the child can't come to me, +Henderson, while you and Elizabeth are away. I don't believe in putting +yourself under obligations to people till you're sure they're going to +be something to you. Things don't always turn out according to the +Almanac." + +"She goes just as she always has gone to the Rushleighs," replied Mr. +Gartney. "Paul is to be away. It is a visit to Margaret. Still, I shall +be absent at least a fortnight, and it might be well that she should +divide her time, and come to Cross Corners for a few days, if it is only +to see the house opened and ready. Luther can have a bed here, if Mis' +Battis should be afraid." + +Mis' Battis was to improve the fortnight's interval for a visit to +Factory Village. + +"Well, fix it your own way," said Miss Henderson. "I'm ready for her, +any time. Only, if she's going to peak and pine as she has done ever +since this grand match was settled for her, Glory and I'll have our +hands full, nursing her, by then you get back!" + +"Faith is quite well," said Mrs. Gartney. "It is natural for a girl to +be somewhat thoughtful when she decides for herself such an important +relation." + +"Symptoms differ, in different cases. _I_ should say she was taking it +pretty hard," said the old lady. + +Mr. and Mrs. Gartney left home on Monday. + +Faith and Mis' Battis remained in the house a few hours after, setting +all things in that dreary "to rights" before leaving, which is almost, +in its chillness and silence, like burial array. Glory came over to +help; and when all was done--blinds shut, windows and doors fastened, +fire out, ashes removed--stove blackened--Luther drove Mis' Battis and +her box over to Mrs. Pranker's, and Glory took Faith's little bag for +her to the Old House. + +This night she was to stay with her aunt. She wanted just this little +pause and quiet before going to the Rushleighs'. + +"Tell Aunt Faith I'm coming," said she, as she let herself and Glory out +at the front door, and then, locking it, put the key in her pocket. +"I'll just walk up over the Ridge first, for a little coolness and +quiet, after this busy day." + +There was the peace of a rested body and soul upon her face when she +came down again a half hour after, and crossed the lane, and entered, +through the stile, upon the field path to the Old House. Heart and will +had been laid asleep--earthly plan and purpose had been put aside in all +their incompleteness and uncertainty--and only God and Nature had been +permitted to come near. + +Mr. Armstrong walked down and met her midway in the field. + +"How beautiful mere simpleness and quiet are," said Faith. "The cool +look of trees and grass, and the stillness of this evening time, are +better even than flowers, and bright sunlight, and singing of birds!" + +"'He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the +still waters: He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of +righteousness for His name's sake.'" + +They did not disturb the stillness by more words. They came up +together, in the hush and shadow, to the pleasant doorstone, that +offered its broad invitation to their entering feet, and where Aunt +Faith at this moment stood, watching and awaiting them. + +"Go into the blue bedroom, and lay off your things, child," she said, +giving Faith a kiss of welcome, "and then come back and we'll have our +tea." + +Faith disappeared through passages and rooms beyond. + +Aunt Henderson turned quickly to the minister. + +"You're her spiritual adviser, ain't you?" she asked, abruptly. + +"I ought to be," answered Mr. Armstrong. + +"Why don't you advise her, then?" + +"Spiritually, I do and will, in so far as so pure a spirit can need a +help from me. But--I think I know what you mean, Miss Henderson--spirit +and heart are two. I am a man; and she is--what you know." + +Miss Henderson's keen eyes fixed themselves, for a minute, piercingly +and unflinchingly, on the minister's face. Then she turned, without a +word, and went into the house to see the tea brought in. She knew, now, +all there was to tell. + +Faith's face interpreted itself to Mr. Armstrong. He saw that she +needed, that she would have, rest. Rest, this night, from all that of +late had given her weariness and trouble. So, he did not even talk to +her in the way they mostly talked together; he would not rouse, ever so +distantly, thought, that might, by so many subtle links, bear round upon +her hidden pain. But he brought, after tea, a tiny chessboard, and set +the delicate carved men upon it, and asked her if she knew the game. + +"A little," she said. "What everybody always owns to knowing--the +moves." + +"Suppose we play." + +It was a very pleasant novelty--sitting down with this grave, earnest +friend to a game of skill--and seeing him bring to it all the resource +of power and thought that he bent, at other times, on more important +work. + +"Not that, Miss Faith! You don't mean that! You put your queen in +danger." + +"My queen is always a great trouble to me," said Faith, smiling, as she +retracted the half-made move. "I think I do better when I give her up in +exchange." + +"Excuse me, Miss Faith; but that always seems to me a cowardly sort of +game. It is like giving up a great power in life because one is too weak +to claim and hold it." + +"Only I make you lose yours, too." + +"Yes, there is a double loss and inefficiency. Does that make a better +game, or one pleasanter to play?" + +"There are two people, in there, talking riddles; and they don't even +know it," said Miss Henderson to her handmaid, in the kitchen close by. + +Perhaps Mr. Armstrong, as he spoke, did discern a possible deeper +significance in his own words; did misgive himself that he might rouse +thoughts so; at any rate, he made rapid, skillful movements on the +board, that brought the game into new complications, and taxed all +Faith's attention to avert their dangers to herself. + +For half an hour, there was no more talking. + +Then Faith's queen was put in helpless peril. + +"I must give her up," said she. "She is all but gone." + +A few moves more, and all Faith's hope depended on one little pawn, that +might be pushed to queen and save her game. + +"How one does want the queen power at the last!" said she. "And how much +easier it is to lose it, than to get it back!" + +"It is like the one great, leading possibility, that life, in some sort, +offers each of us," said Mr. Armstrong. "Once lost--once missed--we may +struggle on without it--we may push little chances forward to partial +amends; but the game is changed; its soul is gone." + +As he spoke he made the move that led to obvious checkmate. + +Glory came in to the cupboard, now, and began putting up the tea things +she had brought from washing. + +Mr. Armstrong had done just what, at first, he had meant not to do. Had +he bethought himself better, and did he seize the opening to give vague +warning where he might not speak more plainly? Or, had his habit, as a +man of thought, discerning quick meaning in all things, betrayed him +into the instant's forgetfulness? + +However it might be, Glory caught glimpse of two strange, pained faces +over the little board and its mystic pieces. + +One, pale--downcast--with expression showing a sudden pang; the other, +suffering also, yet tender, self-forgetful, loving--looking on. + +"I don't know whichever is worst," she said afterwards, without apparent +suggestion of word or circumstance, to her mistress; "to see the +beautiful times that there are in the world, and not be in 'em--or to +see people that might be in 'em, and ain't!" + +They were all out on the front stoop, later. They sat in the cool, +summer dusk, and looked out between the arched lattices where the vines +climbed up, seeing the stars rise, far away, eastwardly, in the blue; +and Mr. Armstrong, talking with Faith, managed to win her back into the +calm he had, for an instant, broken; and to keep her from pursuing the +thought that by and by would surely come back, and which she would +surely want all possible gain of strength to grapple with. + +Faith met his intention bravely, seconding it with her own. These +hours, to the last, should still be restful. She would not think, +to-night, of those words that had startled her so--of all they suggested +or might mean--of life's great possibility lost to him, away back in the +sorrowful past, as she also, perhaps was missing it--relinquishing +it--now. + +She knew not that his thought had been utterly self-forgetful. She +believed that he had told her, indirectly, of himself, when he had +spoken those dreary syllables--"the game is changed. Its soul is gone!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +LAKESIDE. + +"Look! are the southern curtains drawn? +Fetch me a fan, and so begone! + · · · · · +Rain me sweet odors on the air, +And wheel me up my Indian chair; +And spread some book not overwise +Flat out before my sleepy eyes." + O. W. HOLMES. + + +The Rushleighs' breakfast room at Lakeside was very lovely in a summer's +morning. + +Looking off, northwestwardly, across the head of the Pond, the long +windows, opening down to the piazza, let in all the light and joy of the +early day, and that indescribable freshness born from the union of woods +and water. + +Faith had come down long before the others, this fair Wednesday morning. + +Mr. Rushleigh found her, when he entered, sitting by a window--a book +upon her lap, to be sure--but her eyes away off over the lake, and a +look in them that told of thoughts horizoned yet more distantly. + +Last night, he had brought home Paul's first letter. + +When he gave it to her, at tea time, with a gay and kindly word, the +color that deepened vividly upon her face, and the quiet way in which +she laid it down beside her plate, were nothing strange, perhaps; +but--was he wrong? the eyes that drooped so quickly as the blushes rose, +and then lifted themselves again so timidly to him as he next addressed +her, were surely brimmed with feeling that was not quite, or wholly +glad. + +And now, this wistful, silent, musing, far-off look! + +"Good morning, Faithie!" + +"Good morning." And the glance came back--the reverie was +broken--Faith's spirit informed her visible presence again, and bade +him true and gentle welcome. "You haven't your morning paper yet? I'll +bring it. Thomas left it in the library, I think. He came back from the +early train, half an hour ago." + +"Can't you women tell what's the matter with each other?" said Mr. +Rushleigh to his daughter, who entered by the other door, as Faith went +out into the hall. "What ails Faith, Margaret?" + +"Nothing of consequence, I think. She is tired with all that has been +going on, lately. And then she's the shyest little thing!" + +"It's a sort of shyness that don't look so happy as it might, it seems +to me. And what has become of Paul's diamonds, I wonder? I went with him +to choose some, last week. I thought I should see them next upon her +finger." + +Margaret opened her eyes widely. Of course, this was the first she had +heard of the diamonds. Where could they be, indeed? Was anything wrong? +They had not surely quarreled! + +Faith came in with the paper. Thomas brought up breakfast. And +presently, these three, with all their thoughts of and for each other, +that reached into the long years to come, and had their roots in all +that had gone by, were gathered at the table, seemingly with no further +anxiety than to know whether one or another would have toast or +muffins--eggs or raspberries. + +Do we not--and most strangely and incomprehensively--live two lives? + +"I must write to my mother, to-day," said Margaret, when her father had +driven away to the mills, and they had brought in a few fresh flowers +from the terrace for the vases, and had had a little morning music, +which Margaret always craved, "as an overture," she said, "to the day." + +"I must write to my mother; and you, I suppose, will be busy with +answering Paul?" + +A little consciousness kept her from looking straight in Faith's face, +as she spoke. Had she done so, she might have seen that a paleness came +over it, and that the lips trembled. + +"I don't know," was the answer. "Perhaps not, to-day." + +"Not to-day? Won't he be watching every mail? I don't know much about +it, to be sure; but I fancied lovers were such uneasy, exacting +creatures!" + +"Paul is very patient," said Faith--not lightly, as Margaret had spoken, +but as one self-reproached, almost, for abusing patience--"and they go +to-morrow to Lake George. He won't look for a letter until he gets to +Saratoga." + +She had calculated her time as if it were the minutes of a reprieve. + +When Paul Rushleigh, with his mother, reached Saratoga, he found two +letters there, for him. One kind, simple, but reticent, from Faith--a +mere answer to that which she could answer, of his own. The other was +from his father. + +"There seems," he wrote to his son, toward the close, "to be a little +cloud upon Faith, somehow. Perhaps it is one you would not wish away. It +may brighten up and roll off, at your return. You, possibly, understand +it better than I. Yet I feel, in my strong anxiety for your true good, +impelled to warn you against letting her deceive herself and you, by +giving you less than, for her own happiness and yours, she ought to be +able to give. Do not marry the child, Paul, if there can be a doubt of +her entire affection for you. You had better go through life alone, than +with a wife's half love. If you have reason to imagine that she feels +bound by anything in the past to what the present cannot heartily +ratify--release her. I counsel you to this, not more in justice to her, +than for the saving of your own peace. She writes you to-day. It may be +that the antidote comes with the hurt. I may be quite mistaken. But I +hurt you, my son, only to save a sorer pain. Faith is true. If she says +she loves you, believe her, and take her, though all the world should +doubt. But if she is fearful--if she hesitates--be fearful, and hesitate +yourself, lest your marriage be no true marriage before Heaven!" + +Paul Rushleigh thanked his father, briefly, for his admonition, in +reply. He wrote, also, to Faith--affectionately, but with something, at +last, of her own reserve. He should not probably write again. In a week, +or less, he would be home. + +And behind, and beyond all this, that could be put on paper, was the +hope of a life--the sharp doubt of days--waiting the final word! + +In a week, he would be home! A week! It might bring much! + +Wednesday had come round again. + +Dinner was nearly ended at Lakeside. Cool jellies, and creams, and +fruits, were on the table for dessert. Steaming dishes of meats and +vegetables had been gladly sent away, but slightly partaken. The day was +sultry. Even now, at five in the afternoon, the heat was hardly +mitigated from that of midday. + +They lingered over their dessert, and spoke, rather languidly, of what +might be done after. + +"For me," said Mr. Rushleigh, "I must go down to the mills again, before +night. If either, or both of you, like a drive, I shall be glad to have +you with me." + +"Those hot mills!" exclaimed Margaret. "What an excursion to propose!" + +"I could find you a very cool corner, even in those hot mills," replied +her father. "My little sanctum, upstairs, that overlooks the river, and +gets its breezes, is the freshest place I have been in, to-day. Will you +go, Faith?" + +"Oh, yes! she'll go! I see it in her eyes!" said Margaret. "She is +getting to be as much absorbed in all those frantic looms and +things--that set me into a fever just to think of, whizzing and humming +all day long in this horrible heat--as you are! I believe she expects to +help Paul overseer the factory, one of these days, she is so fierce to +peer into and understand everything about it. Or else, she means +mischief! You had a funny look in your face, Faithie, the other day, +when you stood there by the great rope that hoists the water gate, and +Mr. Blasland was explaining it to us!" + +"I was thinking, I remember," said Faith, "what a strange thing it was +to have one's hand on the very motive power of it all. To see those +great looms, and wheels, and cylinders, and spindles, we had been +looking at, and hear nothing but their deafening roar all about us, and +to think that even I, standing there with my hand upon the rope, might +hush it all, and stop the mainspring of it in a minute!" + +Ah, Faithie! Did you think, as you said this, how your little hand lay, +otherwise, also, on the mainspring and motive of it all? One of the +three, at least, thought of it, as you spoke. + +"Well--your heart's in the spindles, I see!" rejoined Margaret. "So, +don't mind me. I haven't a bit of a plan for your entertainment, here. I +shouldn't, probably, speak to you, if you stayed. It's too hot for +anything but a book, and a fan, and a sofa by an open window!" + +Faith laughed; but, before she could reply, a chaise rolled up to the +open front door, and the step and voice of Dr. Wasgatt were heard, as he +inquired for Miss Gartney. + +Faith left her seat, with a word of excuse, and met him in the hall. + +"I had a patient up this way," said he, "and came round to bring you a +message from Miss Henderson. Nothing to be frightened at, in the least; +only that she isn't quite so well as ordinary, these last hot days, and +thought perhaps you might as lief come over. She said she was expecting +you for a visit there, before your folks get back. No, thank you"--as +Faith motioned to conduct him to the drawing-room--"can't come in. Sorry +I couldn't offer to take you down; but I've got more visits to make, and +they lie round the other way." + +"Is Aunt Faith ill?" + +"Well--no. Not so but that she'll be spry again in a day or two; +especially if the weather changes. That ankle of hers is troublesome, +and she had something of an ill turn last night, and called me over this +morning. She seems to have taken a sort of fancy that she'd like to have +you there." + +"I'll come." + +And Faith went back, quickly, as Dr. Wasgatt departed, to make his +errand known, and to ask if Mr. Rushleigh would mind driving her round +to Cross Corners, after going to his mills. + +"Wait till to-morrow, Faithie," said Margaret, in the tone of one whom +it fatigues to think of an exertion, even for another. "You'll want your +box with you, you know; and there isn't time for anything to-night." + +"I think I ought to go now," answered Faith. "Aunt Henderson never +complains for a slight ailment, and she might be ill again, to-night. I +can take all I shall need before to-morrow in my little morocco bag. I +won't keep you waiting a minute," she added, turning to Mr. Rushleigh. + +"I can wait twenty, if you wish," he answered kindly. + +But in less than ten, they were driving down toward the river. + +Margaret Rushleigh had betaken herself to her own cool chamber, where +the delicate straw matting, and pale green, leaf-patterned chintz of +sofa, chairs, and hangings, gave a feeling of the last degree of summer +lightness and daintiness, and the gentle air breathed in from the +southwest, sifted, on the way, of its sunny heat, by the green draperies +of vine and branch it wandered through. + +Lying there, on the cool, springy cushions of her couch--turning the +fresh-cut leaves of the August _Mishaumok_--she forgot the wheels and +the spindles--the hot mills, and the ceaseless whir. + +Just at that moment of her utter comfort and content, a young factory +girl dropped, fainting, in the dizzy heat, before her loom. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +AT THE MILLS. + +"For all day the wheels are droning, turning,-- +Their wind comes in our faces,-- +Till our hearts turn,--our head with pulses burning,-- +And the walls turn in their places." + MRS. BROWNING. + + +Faith sat silent by Mr. Rushleigh's side, drinking in, also, with a cool +content, the river air that blew upon their faces as they drove along. + +"Faithie!" said Paul's father, a little suddenly, at last--"do you know +how true a thing you said a little while ago?" + +"How, sir?" asked Faith, not perceiving what he meant. + +"When you spoke of having your hand on the mainspring of all this?" + +And he raised his right arm, motioning with the slender whip he held, +along the line of factory buildings that lay before them. + +A deep, blazing blush burned, at his words, over Faith's cheek and brow. +She sat and suffered it under his eye--uttering not a syllable. + +"I knew you did _not_ know. You did not think of it so. Yet it is true, +none the less. Faith! Are you happy? Are you satisfied?" + +Still a silence, and tears gathering in the eyes. + +"I do not wish to distress you, my dear. It is only a little word I +should like to hear you speak. I must, so far as I can, see that my +children are happy, Faith." + +"I suppose," said Faith, tremulously, struggling to speech--"one cannot +expect to be utterly happy in this world." + +"One does expect it, forgetting all else, at the moment when is given +what seems to one life's first, great good--the earthly good that comes +but once. I remember my own youth, Faithie. Pure, present content is +seldom overwise." + +"Only," said Faith, still tremblingly, "that the responsibility comes +with the good. That feeling of having one's hand upon the mainspring is +a fearful one." + +"I am not given," said Mr. Rushleigh, "to quoting Bible at all times; +but you make a line of it come up to me. 'There is no fear in love. +Perfect love casteth out fear.'" + +"Be sure of yourself, dear child. Be sure you are content and happy; and +tell me so, if you can; or, tell me otherwise, if you must, without a +reserve or misgiving," he said again, as they drove down the mill +entrance; and their conversation, for the time, came, necessarily, to an +end. + +Coming into the mill yard, they were aware of a little commotion about +one of the side doors. + +The mill girl who had fainted sat here, surrounded by two or three of +her companions, slowly recovering. + +"It is Mary Grover, sir, from up at the Peak," said one of them, in +reply to Mr. Rushleigh's question. "She hasn't been well for some days, +but she's kept on at her work, and the heat, to-day, was too much for +her. She'd ought to be got home, if there was any way. She can't ever +walk." + +"I'll take her, myself," said the mill owner, promptly. "Keep her quiet +here a minute or two, while I go in and speak to Blasland." + +But first he turned to Faith again. "What shall I do with you, my +child?" + +"Dear Mr. Rushleigh," said she, with all her gratitude for his just +spoken kindness to herself and her appreciation of his ready sympathy +for the poor workgirl, in her voice--"don't think of me! It's lovely out +there over the footbridge, and in the fields; and that way, the +distance is nearly nothing to Aunt Faith's. I should like the +walk--really." + +"Thank you," said Mr. Rushleigh. "I believe you would. Then I'll take +Mary Grover up to the Peak." + +And he shook her hand, and left her standing there, and went up into the +mill. + +Two of the girls who had come out with Mary Grover, followed him and +returned to their work. One, sitting with her in the doorway, on one of +the upper steps, and supporting her yet dizzy head upon her shoulder, +remained. + +Faith asked if she could do anything, and was answered, no, with thanks. + +She turned away, then, and walked over the planking above the race way, +toward the river, where a pretty little footbridge crossed it here, from +the end of the mill building. + +Against this end, projected, on this side, a square, tower-like +appendage to the main structure, around which one must pass to reach the +footbridge. A door at the base opened upon a staircase leading up. This +was the entrance to Mr. Rushleigh's "sanctum," above, which +communicated, also, with the second story of the mill. + +Here Faith paused. She caught, from around the corner, a sound of the +angry voices of men. + +"I tell you, I'll stay here till I see the boss!" + +"I tell you, the boss won't see you. He's done with you." + +"Let him _be_ done with me, then; and not go spoiling my chance with +other people! I'll see it out with him, somehow, yet." + +"Better not threaten. He won't go out of his way to meddle with you; +only it's no use your sending anybody here after a character. He's one +of the sort that speaks the truth and shames the devil." + +"I'll let him know he ain't boss of the whole country round! D----d if I +don't!" + +Faith turned away from hearing more of this, and from facing the +speakers; and took refuge up the open staircase. + +Above--in the quiet little countingroom, shut off by double doors at the +right from the great loom chamber of the mill, and opening at the front +by a wide window upon the river that ran tumbling and flashing below, +spanned by the graceful little bridge that reached the green slope of +the field beyond--it was so cool and pleasant--so still with continuous +and softened sound--that Faith sat down upon the comfortable sofa there, +to rest, to think, to be alone, a little. + +She had Paul's letter in her pocket; she had his father's words fresh +upon ear and heart. A strange peace came over her, as she placed herself +here; as if, somehow, a way was soon to be opened and made clear to her. +As if she should come to know herself, and to be brave to act as God +should show her how. + +She heard, presently, Mr. Rushleigh's voice in the mill yard, and then +the staircase door closed and locked below. Thinking that he should be +here no more, to-night, he had shut and fastened it. + +It was no matter. She would go through the mill, by and by, and look at +the looms; and so out, and over the river, then, to Aunt Faith's. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +LOCKED IN. + +"How idle it is to call certain things godsends! as if there were +anything else in the world."--HARE. + + +It is accounted a part of the machinery of invention when, in a story, +several coincident circumstances, that apart, would have had no +noticeable result, bear down together, with a nice and sure calculation +upon some catastrophe or _dénouement_ that develops itself therefrom. + +Last night, a man--an employee in Mr. Rushleigh's factory--had been kept +awake by one of his children, taken suddenly ill. A slight matter--but +it has to do with our story. + +Last night, also, Faith--Paul's second letter just received--had lain +sleepless for hours, fighting the old battle over, darkly, of doubt, +pity, half-love, and indecision. She had felt, or had thought she +felt--thus, or so--in the days that were past. Why could she not be sure +of her feeling now? + +The new wine in the old bottles--the new cloth in the old +garment--these, in Faith's life, were at variance. What satisfied once, +satisfied no longer. Was she to blame? What ought she to do? There was a +seething--a rending. Poor heart, that was likely to be burst and +torn--wonderingly, helplessly--in the half-comprehended struggle! + +So it happened, that, tired with all this, sore with its daily pressure +and recurrence, this moment of strange peace came over her, and soothed +her into rest. + +She laid herself back, there, on the broad, soft, old-fashioned sofa, +and with the river breeze upon her brow, and the song of its waters in +her ears, and the deadened hum of the factory rumbling on--she fell +asleep. + +How long it had been, she could not tell; she knew not whether it were +evening, or midnight, or near the morning; but she felt cold and +cramped; everything save the busy river was still, and the daylight was +all gone, and stars out bright in the deep, moonless sky, when she +awoke. + +Awoke, bewilderedly, and came slowly to the comprehension that she was +here alone. That it was night--that nobody could know it--that she was +locked up here, in the great dreary mill. + +She raised herself upon the sofa, and sat in a terrified amaze. She took +out her watch, and tried to see, by the starlight, the time. The slender +black hands upon its golden face were invisible. It ticked--it was +going. She knew, by that, it could not be far beyond midnight, at the +most. She was chilly, in her white dress, from the night air. She went +to the open window, and looked out from it, before she drew it down. +Away, over the fields, and up and down the river, all was dark, +solitary. + +Nobody knew it--she was here alone. + +She shut the window, softly, afraid of the sounds herself might make. +She opened the double doors from the countingroom, and stood on the +outer threshold, and looked into the mill. The heavy looms were still. +They stood like great, dead creatures, smitten in the midst of busy +motion. There was an awfulness in being here, the only breathing, moving +thing--in darkness--where so lately had been the deafening hum of +rolling wheels, and clanking shafts, and flying shuttles, and busy, +moving human figures. It was as if the world itself were stopped, and +she forgotten on its mighty, silent course. + +Should she find her way to the great bell, ring it, and make an alarm? +She thought of this; and then she reasoned with herself that she was +hardly so badly off, as to justify her, quite, in doing that. It would +rouse the village, it would bring Mr. Rushleigh down, perhaps--it would +cause a terrible alarm. And all that she might be spared a few hours +longer of loneliness and discomfort. She was safe. It would soon be +morning. + +The mill would be opened early. She would go back to the sofa, and try +to sleep again. Nobody could be anxious about her. The Rushleighs +supposed her to be at Cross Corners. Her aunt would think her detained +at Lakeside. It was really no great matter. She would be brave, and +quiet. + +So she shut the double doors again, and found a coat of Paul's, or Mr. +Rushleigh's, in the closet of the countingroom, and lay down upon the +sofa, covering herself with that. + +For an hour or more, her heart throbbed, her nerves were excited, she +could not sleep. But at last she grew calmer, her thought wandered from +her actual situation--became indistinct--and slumber held her again, +dreamily. + +There was another sleeper, also, in the mill whom Faith knew nothing of. + +Michael Garvin, the night watchman--the same whose child had been ill +the night before--when Faith came out into the loom chamber, had left it +but a few minutes, going his silent round within the building, and +recording his faithfulness by the half-hour pin upon the watch clock. +Six times he had done this, already. It was half past ten. + +He had gone up, now, by the stairs from the weaving room, into the third +story. These stairs ascended at the front, from within the chamber. + +Michael Garvin went on nearly to the end of the room above--stopped, and +looked out at a window. All still, all safe apparently. + +He was very tired. What harm in lying down somewhere in a corner, for +five minutes? He need not shut his eyes. He rolled his coat up for a +pillow, and threw it against the wall beneath the window. The next +instant he had stretched his stalwart limbs along the floor, and before +ten minutes of his seventh half hour were spent--long before Faith, who +thought herself all alone in the great building, had lost consciousness +of her strange position--he was fast asleep. + +Fast asleep, here, in the third story! + +So, since the days of the disciples, men have grown heavy and forgotten +their trust. So they have slumbered upon decks, at sea. So sentinels +have lain down at picket posts, though they knew the purchase of that +hour of rest might be the leaden death! + +Faith Gartney dreamed, uneasily. + +She thought herself wandering, at night, through the deserted streets of +a great city. She seemed to have come from somewhere afar off, and to +have no place to go to. + +Up and down, through avenues sometimes half familiar, sometimes wholly +unknown, she went wearily, without aim, or end, or hope. "Tired! tired! +tired!" she seemed to say to herself. "Nowhere to rest--nobody to take +care of me!" + +Then--city, streets, and houses disappeared; the scenery of her dream +rolled away, and opened out, and she was standing on a high, bare cliff, +away up in wintry air; threatening rocky avalanches overhanging +her--chill winds piercing her--and no pathway visible downward. Still +crying out in loneliness and fear. Still with none to comfort or to +help. + +Standing on the sheer edge of the precipice--behind her, suddenly, a +crater opened. A hissing breath came up, and the chill air quivered and +scorched about her. Her feet were upon a volcano! A lake of boiling, +molten stone heaved--huge, brazen, bubbling--spreading wider and wider, +like a great earth ulcer, eating in its own brink continually. Up in the +air over her, reared a vast, sulphurous canopy of smoke. The narrowing +ridge beneath her feet burned--trembled. She hovered between two +destructions. + +Instantly--in that throbbing, agonizing moment of her dream, just after +which one wakes--she felt a presence--she heard a call--she thought two +arms were stretched out toward her--there seemed a safety and a rest +near by; she was borne by an unseen impulse, along the dizzy ridge that +her feet scarce touched, toward it; she was taken--folded, held; smoke, +fire, the threatening danger of the cliff, were nothing, suddenly, any +more. Whether they menaced still, she thought not; a voice she knew and +trusted was in her ear; a grasp of loving strength sustained her; she +was utterly secure. + +So vividly she felt the presence--so warm and sure seemed that love and +strength about her--that waking out of such pause of peace, before her +senses recognized anything that was real without, she stretched her +hands, as if to find it at her side, and her lips breathed a name--the +name of Roger Armstrong. + +Then she started to her feet. The kind, protecting presence faded back +into her dream. + +The horrible smoke, the scorching smell, were true. + +A glare smote sky and trees and water, as she saw them from the window. + +There was fire near her! + +Could it be among the buildings of the mill? + +The long, main structure ran several feet beyond the square projection +within which she stood. Upon the other side, close to the front, quite +away, of course, from all observation hence, joined, at right angles, +another building, communicating and forming one with the first. Here +were the carding rooms. Then beyond, detached, were houses for storage +and other purposes connected with the business. + +Was it from one of these the glare and smoke and suffocating burning +smell were pouring? + +Or, lay the danger nearer--within these close, contiguous walls? + +Vainly she threw up the one window, and leaned forth. + +She could not tell. + + * * * * * + +At this moment, Roger Armstrong, also, woke from out a dream. + +In this strange, second life of ours, that replaces the life of day, do +we not meet interiorly? Do not thoughts and knowledges cross, from +spirit to spirit, over the abyss, that lip, and eye, and ear, in waking +moments, neither send nor receive? That even mind itself is scarcely +conscious of? Is not the great deep of being, wherein we rest, electric +with a sympathetic life--and do not warnings and promises and cheer +pulse in upon us, mysteriously, in these passive hours of the flesh, +when soul only is awake and keen? + +Do not two thoughts, two consciousnesses, call and answer to each other, +mutely, in twin dreams of night? + +Roger Armstrong came in, late, that evening, from a visit to a distant +sick parishioner. Then he sat, writing, for an hour or two longer. + +By and by, he threw down his pen--pushed back his armchair before his +window--stretched his feet, wearily, into the deep, old-fashioned window +seat--leaned his head back, and let the cool breeze stir his hair. + +So it soothed him into sleep. + +He dreamed of Faith. He dreamed he saw her stand, afar off, in some +solitary place, and beckon, as it were, visibly, from a wide, invisible +distance. He dreamed he struggled to obey her summons. He battled with +the strange inertia of sleep. He strove--he gasped--he broke the spell +and hastened on. He plunged--he climbed--he stood in a great din that +bewildered and threatened; there was a lurid light that glowed intense +about him as he went; in the midst of all--beyond--she beckoned still. + +"Faith! Faith! What danger is about you, child?" + +These words broke forth from him aloud, as he started to his feet, and +stretched his hands, impulsively, out before him, toward the open +window. + +His eyes flashed wide upon that crimson glare that flooded sky and field +and river. + +There was fire at the mills! + +Not a sound, yet, from the sleeping village. + + * * * * * + +The heavy, close-fitting double doors between the countingroom and the +great mill chamber were shut. Only by opening these and venturing forth, +could Faith gain certain knowledge of her situation. + +Once more she pulled them open and passed through. + +A blinding smoke rushed thick about her, and made her gasp for breath. +Up through the belt holes in the floor, toward the farther end of the +long room, sprang little tongues of flame that leaped higher and higher, +even while she strove for sight, that single, horrified, suffocating +instant, and gleamed, mockingly, upon the burnished shafts of silent +looms. + +In at the windows on the left, came the vengeful shine of those other +windows, at right angles, in the adjacent building. The carding rooms, +and the whole front of the mill, below, were all in flames! + +In frantic affright, in choking agony, Faith dashed herself back through +the heavy doors, that swung on springs, and closed tightly once more +after her. + +Here, at the open window, she took breath. Must she wait here, helpless, +for the fiery death? + +Down below her, the narrow brink--the rushing river. No foothold--no +chance for a descent. Behind her, only those two doors, barring out +flame and smoke! + +And the little footbridge, lying in the light across the water, and the +green fields stretching away, cool and safe beyond. A little +farther--her home! + +"Fire!" + +She cried the fearful word out upon the night, uselessly. There was no +one near. The village slumbered on, away there to the left. The strong, +deep shout of a man might reach it, but no tone of hers. There were no +completed or occupied dwelling houses, as yet, about the new mills. Mr. +Rushleigh was putting up some blocks; but, for the present, there was +nothing nearer than the village proper of Kinnicutt on the one hand, and +as far, or farther, on the other the houses at Lakeside. + +The flames themselves, alone, could signal her danger, and summon help. +How long would it be first? + +Thoughts of father, mother, and little brother--thoughts of the kind +friends at Lakeside, parted from but a few hours before--thoughts of the +young lover to whom the answer he waited for should be given, perhaps, +so awfully; through all, lighting, as it were, suddenly and searchingly, +the deep places of her own soul, the thought--the feeling, rather, of +that presence in her dream; of him who had led her, taught her, lifted +her so, to high things; brought her nearer, by his ministry, to God! Of +all human influence or love, his was nearest and strongest, spiritually, +to her, now! + +All at once, across these surging, crowding, agonizing feelings, rushed +an inspiration for the present moment. + +The water gate! The force pump! + +The apparatus for working these lay at this end of the building. She had +been shown the method of its operation; they had explained to her its +purpose. It was perfectly simple. Only the drawing of a rope over a +pulley--the turning of a faucet. She could do it, if she could only +reach the spot. + +Instantly and strangely, the cloud of terror seemed to roll away. Her +faculties cleared. Her mind was all alert and quickened. She thought of +things she had heard of years before, and long forgotten. That a wet +cloth about the face would defend from smoke. That down low, close to +the floor, was always a current of fresher air. + +She turned a faucet that supplied a basin in the countingroom, held her +handkerchief to it, and saturated it with water. Then she tied it across +her forehead, letting it hang before her face like a veil. She caught a +fold of it between her teeth. + +And so, opening the doors between whose cracks the pent-up smoke was +curling, she passed through, crouching down, and crawled along the end +of the chamber, toward the great rope in the opposite corner. + +The fire was creeping thitherward, also, to meet her. Along from the +front, down the chamber on the opposite side, the quick flames sprang +and flashed, momently higher, catching already, here and there, from +point to point, where an oiled belt or an unfinished web of cloth +attracted their hungry tongues. + +As yet, they were like separate skirmishers, sent out in advance; their +mighty force not yet gathered and rolled together in such terrible sheet +and volume as raged beneath. + +She reached the corner where hung the rope. + +Close by, was the faucet in the main pipe fed by the force pump. +Underneath it, lay a coil of hose, attached and ready. + +She turned the faucet, and laid hold of the long rope. A few pulls, and +she heard the dashing of the water far below. The wheel was turning. + +The pipes filled. She lifted the end of the coiled hose, and directed it +toward the forward part of the chamber, where flames were wreathing, +climbing, flashing. An impetuous column of water rushed, eager, hissing, +upon blazing wood and heated iron. + +Still keeping the hose in her grasp, she crawled back again, half +stifled, yet a new hope of life aroused within her, to the double doors. +Before these, with the little countingroom behind her, as her last +refuge, she took her stand. + +How long could she fight off death? Till help came? + +All this had been done and thought quickly. There had been less time +than she would have believed, since she first woke to the knowledge of +this, her horrible peril. + +The flames were already repulsed. The mill was being flooded. Down the +belt holes the water poured upon the fiercer blaze below, that swept +across the forward and central part of the great spinning room, from +side to side. + +At this moment, a cry, close at hand. + +"Fire!" + +A man was swaying by a rope, down from a third-story window. + +"Fire!" came again, instantly, from without, upon another side. + +It was a voice hoarse, excited, strained. A tone Faith had never heard +before; yet she knew, by a mysterious intuition, from whom it came. She +dropped the hose, still pouring out its torrent, to the floor, and +sprang back, through the doors, to the countingroom window. The voice +came from the riverside. + +A man was dashing down the green slope, upon the footbridge. + +Faith stretched her arms out, as a child might, wakened in pain and +terror. A cry, in which were uttered the fear, the horror, that were now +first fully felt, as a possible safety appeared, and the joy, that +itself came like a sudden pang, escaped her, piercingly, thrillingly. + +Roger Armstrong looked upward as he sprang upon the bridge. + +He caught the cry. He saw Faith stand there, in her white dress, that +had been wet and blackened in her battling with the fire. + +A great soul glance of courage and resolve flashed from his eyes. He +reached his uplifted arms toward her, answering hers. He uttered not a +word. + +"Round! round!" cried Faith. "The door upon the other side!" + +Roger Armstrong, leaping to the spot, and Michael Garvin, escaped by the +long rope that hung vibrating from his grasp, down the brick wall of the +building, met at the staircase door. + +"Help me drive that in!" cried the minister. + +And the two men threw their stalwart shoulders against the barrier, +forcing lock and hinges. + +Up the stairs rushed Roger Armstrong. + +Answering the crash of the falling door, came another and more fearful +crash within. + +Gnawed by the fire, the timbers and supports beneath the forward portion +of the second floor had given way, and the heavy looms that stood there +had gone plunging down. A horrible volume of smoke and steam poured +upward, with the flames, from out the chasm, and rushed, resistlessly, +everywhere. + +Roger Armstrong dashed into the little countingroom. Faith lay there, on +the floor. At that fearful crash, that rush of suffocating smoke, she +had fallen, senseless. He seized her, frantically, in his arms to bear +her down. + +"Faith! Faith!" he cried, when she neither spoke nor moved. "My darling! +Are you hurt? Are you killed? Oh, my God! must there be another?" + +Faith did not hear these words, uttered with all the passionate agony of +a man who would hold the woman he loves to his heart, and defy for her +even death. + +She came to herself in the open air. She felt herself in his arms. She +only heard him say, tenderly and anxiously, in something of his old +tone, as her consciousness returned, and he saw it: + +"My dear child!" + +But she knew then all that had been a mystery to her in herself before. + +She knew that she loved Roger Armstrong. That it was not a love of +gratitude and reverence, only; but that her very soul was rendered up to +him, involuntarily, as a woman renders herself but once. That she would +rather have died there, in that flame and smoke, held in his +arms--gathered to his heart--than have lived whatever life of ease and +pleasantness--aye, even of use--with any other! She knew that her +thought, in those terrible moments before he came, had been--not +father's or mother's, only; not her young lover, Paul's; but, deepest +and mostly, his! + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +HOME. + +"The joy that knows there _is_ a joy-- + That scents its breath, and cries, 'tis there! +And, patient in its pure repose, + Receiveth so the holier share." + + +Faith's thought and courage saved the mill from utter destruction. + +For one fearful moment, when that forward portion of the loom floor fell +through, and flame, and vapor, and smoke rioted together in a wild +alliance of fury, all seemed lost. But the great water wheel was plying +on; the river fought the fire; the rushing, exhaustless streams were +pouring out and down, everywhere; and the crowd that in a few moments +after the first alarm, and Faith's rescue, gathered at the spot, found +its work half done. + +A little later, there were only sullen smoke, defeated, smoldering +fires, blackened timbers, the burned carding rooms, and the ruin at the +front, to tell the awful story of the night. + +Mr. Armstrong had carried Faith into one of the unfinished factory +houses. Here he was obliged to leave her for a few moments, after making +such a rude couch for her as was possible, with a pile of clean +shavings, and his own coat, which he insisted, against all her +remonstrances, upon spreading above them. + +"The first horse and vehicle which comes, Miss Faith, I shall impress +for your service," he said; "and to do that I must leave you. I have +made that frightened watchman promise to say nothing, at present, of +your being here; so I trust the crowd may not annoy you. I shall not be +gone long, nor far away." + +The first horse and vehicle which came was the one that had brought her +there in the afternoon but just past, yet that seemed, strangely, to +have been so long ago. + +Mr. Rushleigh found her lying here, quiet, amidst the growing +tumult--exhausted, patient, waiting. + +"My little Faithie!" he cried, coming up to her with hands outstretched, +and a quiver of strong feeling in his voice. "To think that you should +have been in this horrible danger, and we all lying in our beds, asleep! +I do not quite understand it all. You must tell me, by and by. Armstrong +has told me what you have _done_. You have saved me half my property +here--do you know it, child? Can I ever thank you for your courage?" + +"Oh, Mr. Rushleigh!" cried Faith, rising as he came to her, and holding +her hands to his, "don't thank me! and don't wait here! They'll want +you--and, oh! my kind friend! there will be nothing to thank me for, +when I have told you what I must. I have been very near to death, and I +have seen life so clearly! I know now what I did not know +yesterday--what I could not answer you then!" + +"Let it be as it may, I am sure it will be right and true, and I shall +honor you, Faith! And we must bear what is, for it has come of the will +of God, and not by any fault of yours. Now, let me take you home." + +"May I do that in your stead, Mr. Rushleigh?" asked Roger Armstrong, who +entered at this moment, with garments he had brought from somewhere to +wrap Faith. + +"I must go home," said Faith. "To Aunt Henderson's." + +"You shall do as you like," answered Mr. Rushleigh. "But it belongs to +us to care for you, I think." + +"You do--you have cared for me already," said Faith, earnestly. + +And Mr. Rushleigh helped to wrap her up, and kissed her forehead +tenderly, and Roger Armstrong lifted her into the chaise, and seated +himself by her, and drove her away from out the smoke and noise and +curious crowd that had begun to find out she was there, and that she had +been shut up in the mill, and had saved herself and stopped the fire; +and would have made her as uncomfortable as crowds always do heroes or +heroines--had it not been for the friend beside her, whose foresight and +precaution had warded it all off. + +And the mill owner went back among the villagers and firemen, to direct +their efforts for his property. + +Glory McWhirk had been up and watching the great fire, since Roger +Armstrong first went out. + +She had seen it from the window of Miss Henderson's room, where she was +to sleep to-night; and had first carefully lowered the blinds lest the +light should waken her mistress, who, after suffering much pain, had at +length, by the help of an anodyne, fallen asleep; and then she had come +round softly to the southwest room, to call the minister. + +The door stood open, and she saw him sitting in his chair, asleep. Just +as she crossed the threshold to come toward him, he started, and spoke +those words out of his restless dream: + +"Faith! Faith! What danger is about you, child?" + +They were instinct with his love. They were eager with his visionary +fear. It only needed a human heart to interpret them. + +Glory drew back as he sprang to his feet, and noiselessly disappeared. +She would not have him know that she had heard this cry with which he +waked. + +"He dreamed about her! and he called her Faith. How beautiful it is to +be cared for so!" + +Glory--while we have so long been following Faith--had no less been +living on her own, peculiar, inward life, that reached to, that +apprehended, that seized ideally--that was denied, so much! + +As Glory had seen, in the old years, children happier than herself, +wearing beautiful garments, and "hair that was let to grow," she saw +those about her now whom life infolded with a grace and loveliness she +might not look for; about whom fair affections, "let to grow," clustered +radiant, and enshrined them in their light. + +She saw always something that was beyond; something she might not +attain; yet, expectant of nothing, but blindly true to the highest +within her, she lost no glimpse of the greater, through lowering herself +to the less. + +Her soul of womanhood asserted itself; longing, ignorantly, for a soul +love. "To be cared for, so!" + +But she would rather recognize it afar--rather have her joy in knowing +the joy that might be--than shut herself from knowledge in the content +of a common, sordid lot. + +She did not think this deliberately, however; it was not reason, but +instinct. She renounced unconsciously. She bore denial, and never knew +she was denied. + +Of course, the thought of daring to covet what she saw, had never +crossed her, in her humbleness. It was quite away from her. It was +something with which she had nothing to do. "But it must be beautiful to +be like Miss Faith." And she thanked God, mutely, that she had this +beautiful life near her, and could look on it every day. + +She could not marry Luther Goodell. + + "A vague unrest + And a nameless longing filled her breast"; + +But, unlike the maiden of the ballad, she could not smother it down, to +break forth, by and by, defying the "burden of life," in sweet bright +vision, grown to a keen torture then. + +Faith had read to her this story of Maud, one day. + +"I shouldn't have done so," she had said, when it was ended. "I'd rather +have kept that one minute under the apple trees to live on all the rest +of my days!" + +She could not marry Luther Goodell. + +Would it have been better that she should? That she should have gone +down from her dreams into a plain man's life, and made a plain man +happy? Some women, of far higher mental culture and social place, have +done this, and, seemingly, done well. Only God and their own hearts know +if the seeming be true. + +Glory waited. "Everybody needn't marry," she said. + +This night, with those words of Mr. Armstrong's in her ears, revealing +to her so much, she stood before that window of his and watched the +fire. + +Doors were open behind her, leading through to Miss Henderson's chamber. +She would hear her mistress if she stirred. + +If she had known what she did not know--that Faith Gartney stood at this +moment in that burning mill, looking forth despairingly on those bright +waters and green fields that lay between it and this home of hers--that +were so near her, she might discern each shining pebble and the separate +grass blades in the scarlet light, yet so infinitely far, so gone from +her forever--had she known all this, without knowing the help and hope +that were coming--she would yet have said "How beautiful it would be to +be like Miss Faith!" + +She watched the fire till it began to deaden, and the glow paled out +into the starlight. + +By and by, up from the direction of the river road, she saw a chaise +approaching. It was stopped at the corner, by the bar place. Two figures +descended from it, and entered upon the field path through the stile. + +One--yes--it was surely the minister! The other--a woman. Who? + +Miss Faith! + +Glory met them upon the doorstone. + +Faith held her finger up. + +"I was afraid of disturbing my aunt," said she. + +"Take care of her, Glory," said her companion. "She has been in +frightful danger." + +"At the fire! And you----" + +"I was there in time, thank God!" spoke Roger Armstrong, from his soul. + +The two girls passed through to the blue bedroom, softly. + +Mr. Armstrong went back to the mills again, with horse and chaise. + +Glory shut the bedroom door. + +"Why, you are all wet, and draggled, and smoked!" said she, taking off +Faith's outer, borrowed garments. "What _has_ happened to you--and how +came you there, Miss Faith?" + +"I fell asleep in the countingroom, last evening, and got locked in. I +was coming home. I can't tell you now, Glory. I don't dare to think it +all over, yet. And we mustn't let Aunt Faith know that I am here." + +These sentences they spoke in whispers. + +Glory asked no more; but brought warm water, and bathed and rubbed +Faith's feet, and helped her to undress, and put her night clothes on, +and covered her in bed with blankets, and then went away softly to the +kitchen, whence she brought back, presently, a cup of hot tea, and a +biscuit. + +"Take these, please," she said. + +"I don't think I can, Glory. I don't want anything." + +"But he told me to take care of you, Miss Faith!" + +That, also, had a power with Faith. Because he had said that, she drank +the tea, and then lay back--so tired! + + * * * * * + +"I waited up till you came, sir, because I thought you would like to +know," said Glory, meeting Mr. Armstrong once more upon the doorstone, +as he returned a second time from the fire. "She's gone to sleep, and is +resting beautiful!" + +"You are a good girl, Glory, and I thank you," said the minister; and he +put his hand forth, and grasped hers as he spoke. "Now go to bed, and +rest, yourself." + +It was reward enough. + +From the plenitude that waits on one life, falls a crumb that stays the +craving of another. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +AUNT HENDERSON'S MYSTERY. + +"Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west, +And I said in underbreath,--All our life is mixed with death, + And who knoweth which is best? + +"Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west, +And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around our incompleteness,-- + Round our restlessness, His rest." + MRS. BROWNING. + +"So the dreams depart, + So the fading phantoms flee, + And the sharp reality +Now must act its part." + WESTWOOD. + + +It was a little after noon of the next day, when Mr. Rushleigh came to +Cross Corners. + +Faith was lying back, quite pale, and silent--feeling very weak after +the terror, excitement, and fatigue she had gone through--in the large +easy-chair which had been brought for her into the southeast room. Miss +Henderson had been removed from her bed to the sofa here, and the two +were keeping each other quiet company. Neither could bear the strain of +nerve to dwell long or particularly on the events of the night. The +story had been told, as simply as it might be; and the rest and the +thankfulness were all they could think of now. So there were deep +thoughts and few words between them. On Faith's part, a patient waiting +for a trial yet before her. + +"It's Mr. Rushleigh, come over to see Miss Faith. Shall I bring him in?" +asked Glory, at the door. + +"Will you mind it, aunt?" asked Faith. + +"I? No," said Miss Henderson. "Will you mind my being here? That's the +question. I'd take myself off, without asking, if I could, you know." + +"Dear Aunt Faith! There is something I have to say to Mr. Rushleigh +which will be very hard to say, but no more so because you will be by to +hear it. It is better so. I shall only have to say it once. I am glad +you should be with me." + +"Brave little Faithie!" said Mr. Rushleigh, coming in with hands +outstretched. "Not ill, I hope?" + +"Only tired," Faith answered. "And a little weak, and foolish," as the +tears would come, in answer to his cordial words. + +"I am sorry. Miss Henderson, that I could not have persuaded this little +girl to go home with me last night--this morning, rather. But she would +come to you." + +"She did just right," Aunt Faith replied. "It's the proper place for her +to come to. Not but that we thank you all the same. You're very kind." + +"Kinder than I have deserved," whispered Faith, as he took his seat +beside her. + +Mr. Rushleigh would not let her lead him that way yet. He ignored the +little whisper, and by a gentle question or two drew from her that which +he had come, especially, to learn and speak of to-day--the story of the +fire, and her own knowledge of, and share in it, as she alone could tell +it. + +Now, for the first time, as she recalled it to explain her motive for +entering the mill at all, the rough conversation she had overheard +between the two men upon the river bank, suggested to Faith, as the +mention of it was upon her lips, a possible clew to the origin of the +mischief. She paused, suddenly, and a look of dismayed hesitation came +over her face. + +"I ought to tell you all, I suppose," she continued. "But pray, sir, do +not conclude anything hastily. The two things may have had nothing to do +with each other." + +And then, reluctantly, she repeated the angry threat that had come to +her ears. + +Pausing, timidly, to look up in her listener's face, to judge of its +expression, a smile there surprised her. + +"See how truth is always best," said Mr. Rushleigh. "If you had kept +back your knowledge of this, you would have sealed up a painful doubt +for your own tormenting. That man, James Regan, came to me this morning. +There is good in the fellow, after all. He told me, just as you have, +and as Hardy did, the words he spoke in passion. He was afraid, he said, +they might be brought up against him. And so he came to 'own up,' and +account for his time; and to beg me to believe that he never had any +definite thought of harm. I told him I did believe it; and then the poor +fellow, rough as he is, turned pale, and burst into tears. Last night +gave him a lesson, I think, that will go far to take the hardness out of +him. Blasland says, 'he worked like five men and a horse,' at the fire." + +Faith's face glowed as she listened, at the nobleness of these two; of +the generous, Christian gentleman--of the coarse workman, who wore his +nature, like his garb--the worse part of an everyday. + +Fire and loss are not all calamity, when such as this comes of them. + +Her own recital was soon finished. + +Mr. Rushleigh listened, giving his whole sympathy to the danger she had +faced, his fresh and fervent acknowledgment and admiring praise to the +prompt daring she had shown, as if these things, and naught else, had +been in either mind. + +At these thanks--at this praise--Faith shrank. + +"Oh, Mr. Rushleigh!" she interrupted, with a low, pained, humbled +entreaty--"don't speak so! Only forgive me--if you can!" + +Her hands lifted themselves with a slight, imploring gesture toward him. +He laid his own upon them, gently, soothingly. + +"I will not have you trouble or reproach yourself, Faith," he answered, +meeting her meaning, frankly, now. "There are things beyond our control. +All we can do is to be simply true. There is something, I know, which +you think lies between us to be spoken of. Do not speak at all, if it be +hard for you. I will tell the boy that it was a mistake--that it cannot +be." + +But the father's lip was a little unsteady, to his own feeling, as he +said the words. + +"Oh, Mr. Rushleigh!" cried Faith. "If everything could only be put back +as it was, in the old days before all this!" + +"But that is what we can't do. Nothing goes back precisely to what it +was before." + +"No," said Aunt Faith, from her sofa. "And never did, since the days of +Humpty Dumpty. You might be glad to, but you can't do it. Things must +just be made the best of, as they are. And they're never just alike, two +minutes together. They're altering, and working, and going on, all the +time. And that's a comfort, too, when you come to think of it." + +"There is always comfort, somehow, when there has been no willful wrong. +And there has been none here, I am sure." + +Faith, with the half smile yet upon her face, called there by her aunt's +quaint speaking, bent her head, and burst into tears. + +"I came to reassure and to thank you, Faith--not to let you distress +yourself so," said Mr. Rushleigh. "Margaret sent all kind messages; but +I would not bring her. I thought it would be too much for you, so soon. +Another day, she will come. We shall always claim old friendship, my +child, and remember our new debt; though the old days themselves cannot +quite be brought back again as they were. There may be better days, +though, even, by and by." + +"Let Margaret know, before she comes, please," whispered Faith. "I don't +think I could tell her." + +"You shall not have a moment of trial that I can spare you. But--Paul +will be content with nothing, as a final word, that does not come from +you." + +"I will see him when he comes. I wish it. Oh, sir! I am so sorry." + +"And so am I, Faith. We must all be sorry. But we are _only_ sorry. And +that is all that need be said." + +The conversation, after this, could not be prolonged. Mr. Rushleigh took +his leave, kindly, as he had made his greeting. + +"Oh, Aunt Faith! What a terrible thing I have done!" + +"What a terrible thing you came near doing, you mean, child! Be thankful +to the Lord--He's delivered you from it! And look well to the rest of +your life, after all this. Out of fire and misery you must have been +saved for something!" + +Then Aunt Faith called Glory, and told her to bring an egg, beat up in +milk--"to a good froth, mind; and sugared and nut-megged, and a +teaspoonful of brandy in it." + +This she made Faith swallow, and then bade her put her feet up on the +sofa, and lean back, and shut her eyes, and not speak another word till +she'd had a nap. + +All which, strangely enough, Faith--wearied, troubled, yet +relieved--obeyed. + +For the next two days, what with waiting on the invalids--for Faith was +far from well--and with answering the incessant calls at the door of +curious people flocking to inquire, Glory McWhirk was kept busy and +tired. But not with a thankless duty, as in the days gone by, that she +remembered; it was heart work now, and brought heart love as its reward. +It was one of her "real good times." + +Mr. Armstrong talked and read with them, and gave hand help and ministry +also, just when it could be given most effectually. + +It was a beautiful lull of peace between the conflict that was past, and +the final pang that was to come. Faith accepted it with a thankfulness. +Such joy as this was all life had for her, henceforth. There was no +restlessness, no selfishness in the love that had so suddenly asserted +itself, and borne down all her doubts. She thought not of it, as love, +any more. She never dreamed of being other to Mr. Armstrong than she +was. Only, that other life had become impossible to her. Here, if she +might not elsewhere, she had gone back to the things that were. She +could be quite content and happy, so. It was enough to rest in such a +friendship. If only she had once seen Paul, and if he could but bear it! + +And Roger Armstrong, of intent, was just what he had always been--the +kind and earnest friend--the ready helper--no more. He knew Faith +Gartney had a trouble to bear; he had read her perplexity--her +indecision; he had feared, unselfishly, for the mistake she was making. +Miss Henderson had told him, now, in few, plain words, how things were +ending; he strove, in all pleasant and thoughtful ways, to soothe and +beguile her from her harassment. He dreamed not how the light had come +to her that had revealed to her the insufficiency of that other love. He +laid his own love back, from his own sight. + +So, calmly, and with what peace they might, these hours went on. + +"I want to see that Sampson woman," said Aunt Faith, suddenly, to her +niece, on the third afternoon of their being together. "Do you think she +would come over here if I should send for her?" + +Faith flashed a surprised look of inquiry to Miss Henderson's face. + +"Why, aunt?" she asked. + +"Never mind why, child. I can't tell you now. Of course it's something, +or I shouldn't want her. Something I should like to know, and that I +suppose she could tell me. Do you think she'd come?" + +"Why, yes, auntie. I don't doubt it. I might write her a note." + +"I wish you would. Mr. Armstrong says he'll drive over. And I'd like to +have you do it right off. Now, don't ask me another word about it, till +she's been here." + +Faith wrote the note, and Mr. Armstrong went away. + +Miss Henderson seemed to grow tired, to-day, after her dinner, and at +four o'clock she said to Glory, abruptly: + +"I'll go to bed. Help me into the other room." + +Faith offered to go too, and assist her. But her aunt said, no, she +should do quite well with Glory. "And if the Sampson woman comes, send +her in to me." + +Faith was astonished, and a little frightened. + +What could it be that Miss Henderson wanted with the nurse? Was it +professionally that she wished to see her? She knew the peculiar whim, +or principle, Miss Sampson always acted on, of never taking cases of +common illness. She could not have sent for her in the hope of keeping +her merely to wait upon her wants as an invalid, and relieve Glory? Was +her aunt aware of symptoms in herself, foretokening other or more +serious illness? + +Faith could only wonder, and wait. + +Glory came back, presently, into the southeast room, to say to Faith +that her aunt was comfortable, and thought she should get a nap. But +that whenever the nurse came, she was to be shown in to her. + +The next half hour, that happened which drove even this thought utterly +from Faith's mind. + +Paul Rushleigh came. + +Faith lay, a little wearily, upon the couch her aunt had quitted; and +was thinking, at the very moment--with that sudden, breathless +anticipation that sweeps over one, now and then, of a thing awaited +apprehensively--of whether this Saturday night would not probably bring +him home--when she caught the sound of a horse's feet that stopped +before the house, and then a man's step upon the stoop. + +It was his. The moment had come. + +She sprang to her feet. For an instant she would have fled--anywhither. +Then she grew strangely calm and strong. She must meet him quietly. She +must tell him plainly. Tell him, if need be, all she knew herself. He +had a right to all. + +Paul came in, looking grave; and greeted her with a gentle reserve. + +A moment, they stood there as they had met, she with face pale, sad, +that dared not lift itself; he, not trusting himself to the utterance of +a word. + +But he had come there, not to reproach, or to bewail; not even to plead. +To hear--to bear with firmness--what she had to tell him. And there was, +in truth, a new strength and nobleness in look and tone, when, +presently, he spoke. + +If he had had his way--if all had gone prosperously with him--he would +have been, still--recipient of his father's bounty, and accepted of his +childish love--scarcely more than a mere, happy boy. This pain, this +struggle, this first rebuff of life, crowned him, a man. + +Faith might have loved him, now, if she had so seen him, first. + +Yet the hour would come when he should know that it had been better as +it was. That so he should grow to that which, otherwise, he had never +been. + +"Faith! My father has told me. That it must be all over. That it was a +mistake. I have come to hear it from you." + +Then he laid in her hand his father's letter. + +"This came with yours," he said. "After this, I expected all the rest." + +Faith took the open sheet, mechanically. With half-blinded eyes, she +glanced over the few earnest, fatherly, generous lines. When she came to +the last, she spoke, low. + +"Yes. That is it. He saw it. It would have been no true marriage, Paul, +before Heaven!" + +"Then why did I love you, Faith?" cried the young man, impetuously. + +"I don't know," she said, meditatively, as if she really were to answer +that. "Perhaps you will come to love again, differently, yet, Paul; and +then you may know why this has been." + +"I know," said Paul, sadly, "that you have been outgrowing me, Faith. I +have felt that. I know I've been nothing but a careless, merry fellow, +living an outside sort of life; and I suppose it was only in this +outside companionship you liked me. But there might be something more in +me, yet; and you might have brought it out, maybe. You _were_ bringing +it out. You, and the responsibilities my father put upon me. But it's +too late, now. It can't be helped." + +"Not too late, Paul, for that noble part of you to grow. It was that I +came so near really loving at the last. But--Paul! a woman don't want to +lead her husband. She wants to be led. I have thought," she added, +timidly, "so much of that verse in the Epistle--'the head of the woman +is the man, and the head of the man is Christ, and the head of Christ is +God.'" + +"You came _near_ loving me!" cried Paul, catching at this sentence, +only, out of all that should, by and by, nevertheless, come out in +letters of light upon his thought and memory. "Oh, Faith! you may, yet! +It isn't all quite over?" + +Then Faith Gartney knew she must say it all. All--though the hot crimson +flushed up painfully, and the breath came quick, and she trembled from +head to foot, there, where she stood. But the truth, mighty, and holy in +its might, came up from heart to lip, and the crimson paled, and the +breath grew calm, and she stood firm with her pure resolve, even in her +maidenly shame, before him. + +There are instants, when all thought of the moment itself, and the look +and the word of it, are overborne and lost. + +"No, Paul. I will tell you truly. With my little, childish heart, I +loved you. With the love of a dear friend, I hold you still, and shall +hold you, always. But, Paul!--no one else knows it, and I never knew it +till I stood face to face with death--with my _soul_ I have come to love +another!" + +Deep and low these last words were--given up from the very innermost, +and spoken with bowed head and streaming eyes. + +Paul Rushleigh took her hand. A manly reverence in him recognized the +pure courage that unveiled her woman's heart, and showed him all. + +"Faith!" he said, "you have never deceived me. You are always noble. +Forgive me that I have made you struggle to love me!" + +With these words, he went. + +Faith flung herself upon the sofa, and hid her face in its cushion, +hearing, through her sobs, the tread of his horse as he passed down the +road. + +This chapter of her life story was closed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + +NURSE SAMPSON'S WAY OF LOOKING AT IT. + +"I can believe, it shall you grieve, + And somewhat you distrain; +But afterward, your paines hard, + Within a day or twain, +Shall soon aslake; and ye shall take + Comfort to you again." + OLD ENGLISH BALLAD. + + +Glory looked in, once, at the southeast room, and saw Faith lying, still +with hidden face; and went away softly, shutting the door behind her as +she went. + +When Mr. Armstrong and Miss Sampson came, she met them at the front +entrance, and led the nurse directly to her mistress, as she had been +told. + +Mr. Armstrong betook himself to his own room. Perhaps the hollow Paul +Rushleigh's horse had pawed at the gatepost, and the closed door of the +keeping room, revealed something to his discernment that kept him from +seeking Faith just then. + +There was a half hour of quiet in the old house. A quiet that ever +brooded very much. + +Then Nurse Sampson came out, with a look on her face that made Faith +gaze upon her with an awed feeling of expectation. She feared, suddenly, +to ask a question. + +It was not a long-drawn look of sympathy. It was not surprised, nor +shocked, nor excited. It was a look of business. As if she knew of work +before her to do. As if Nurse Sampson were in her own proper element, +once more. + +Faith knew that something--she could not guess what--something terrible, +she feared--had happened, or was going to happen, to her aunt. + +It was in the softening twilight that Miss Henderson sent for her to +come in. + +Aunt Faith leaned against her pillows, looking bright and comfortable, +even cheerful; but there was a strange gentleness in look and word and +touch, as she greeted the young girl who came to her bedside with a face +that wore at once its own subduedness of fresh-past grief, and a +wondering, loving apprehension of something to be disclosed concerning +the kind friend who lay there, invested so with such new grace of +tenderness. + +Was there a twilight, other than that of day, softening, also, around +her? + +"Little Faith!" said Aunt Henderson. Her very voice had taken an +unwonted tone. + +"Auntie! It is surely something very grave! Will you not tell me?" + +"Yes, child. I mean to tell you. It may be grave. Most things are, if we +had the wisdom to see it. But it isn't very dreadful. It's what I've had +warning enough of, and had mostly made up my mind to. But I wasn't quite +sure. Now, I am. I suppose I've got to bear some pain, and go through a +risk that will be greater, at my years, than it would have been if I'd +been younger. And I may die. That's all." + +The words, of old habit, were abrupt. The eye and voice were tender with +unspoken love. + +Faith turned to Miss Sampson, who sat by. + +"And then, again, she mayn't," said the nurse. "I shall stay and see her +through. There'll have to be an operation. At least, I think so. We'll +have the doctor over, to-morrow. And now, if there's one thing more +important than another, it's to keep her cheerful. So, if you've got +anything bright and lively to say, speak out! If not, _keep_ out! She'll +do well enough, I dare say." + +Poor Faith! And, without this new trouble, there was so much that she, +herself, was needing comfort for! + +"You're a wise woman, Nurse Sampson. But you don't know everything," +said Aunt Faith. "The best thing to take people out of their own +worries, is to go to work and find out how other folks' worries are +getting on. He's been here, hasn't he, child?" + +It was not so hard for Aunt Faith, who had borne secretly, so long, the +suspicion of what was coming, and had lived on, calmly, nevertheless, in +her daily round, to turn thus from the announcement of her own state and +possible danger, to thought and inquiry for the affairs of another, as +it was for that other, newly apprised, and but half apprised, even, of +what threatened, to leave the subject there, and answer. But she saw +that Miss Henderson spoke only truth in declaring it was the best way to +take her out of her worries; she read Nurse Sampson's look, and saw that +she, at any rate, was quite resolved her patient should not be let to +dwell longer on any painful or apprehensive thought, and she put off all +her own anxious questionings, till she should see the nurse alone, and +said, in a low tone--yes, Paul Rushleigh had been there. + +"And you've told him the truth, like a woman, and he's heard it like a +man?" + +"I've told him it must be given up. Oh, it was hard, auntie!" + +"You needn't worry. You've done just the rightest thing you could do." + +"But it seems so selfish. As if my happiness were of so much more +consequence than his. I've made him so miserable, I'm afraid!" + +"Miss Sampson!" cried Aunt Faith, with all her old oddity and +suddenness, "just tell this girl, if you know, what kind of a +commandment a woman breaks, if she can't make up her mind to marry the +first man that asks her! 'Tain't in _my_ Decalogue!" + +"I can't tell what commandment she won't be likely to break, if she +isn't pretty sure of her own mind before she _does_ marry!" said Miss +Sampson, energetically. "Talk of making a man miserable! Supposing you +do for a little while? 'Twon't last long. Right's right, and settles +itself. Wrong never does. And there isn't a greater wrong than to marry +the wrong man. To him as well as to you. And it won't end there--that's +the worst of it. There's more concerned than just yourself and him; +though you mayn't know how, or who. It's an awful thing to tangle up and +disarrange the plans of Providence. And more of it's done, I verily +believe, in this matter of marrying, than any other way. It's like +mismatching anything else--gloves or stockings--and wearing the wrong +ones together. They don't fit; and more'n that, it spoils another pair. +I believe, as true as I live, if the angels ever do cry over this +miserable world, it's when they see the souls they have paired off, all +right, out of heaven, getting mixed up and mismated as they do down +here! Why, it's fairly enough to account for all the sin and misery +there is in the world! If it wasn't for Adam and Eve and Cain, I should +think it did!" + +"But it's very hard," said Faith, smiling, despite all her saddening +thoughts, at the characteristic harangue, "always to know wrong from +right. People may make mistakes, if they mean ever so well." + +"Yes, awful mistakes! There's that poor, unfortunate woman in the Bible. +I never thought the Lord meant any reflection by what he said--on her. +She'd had six husbands. And he knew she hadn't got what she bargained +for, after all. Most likely she never had, in the whole six. And if +things had got into such a snarl as that eighteen hundred years ago, how +many people, do you think, by this time, are right enough in themselves +to be right for anybody? I've thought it all over, many a time. I've had +reasons of my own, and I've seen plenty of reasons as I've gone about +the world. And my conclusion is, that matrimony's come to be more of a +discipline, nowadays, than anything else!" + +It was strange cheer; and it came at a strange moment; with the very +birth of a new anxiety. But so our moments and their influences are +mingled. Faith was roused, strengthened, confirmed in her own thought of +right, beguiled out of herself, by the words of these two odd, +plain-dealing women, as she would not have been if a score of +half-comprehending friends had soothed her indirectly with inanities, +and delicate half-handling of that which Aunt Faith and Nurse Sampson +went straight to the heart of, and brought out, uncompromisingly, into +the light. So much we can endure from a true earnestness and simplicity, +rough and homely though it be, which would be impertinent and +intolerable if it came but with surface sympathy. + +She had a word that night from Robert Armstrong, when he came, late in +the evening, from a conversation with Aunt Faith, and found her at the +open door upon the stoop. It was only a hand grasp, and a fervent "God +bless you, child! You have been brave and true!" and he passed on. But a +balm and a quiet fell deep into her heart, and a tone, that was a joy, +lingered in her ear, and comforted her as no other earthly comfort +could. But this was not all earthly; it lifted her toward heaven. It +bore her toward the eternal solace there. + +Aunt Faith would have no scenes. She told the others, in turn, very much +as she had told Faith, that a suffering and an uncertainty lay before +her; and then, by her next word and gesture, demanded that the life +about her should go right on, taking as slightly as might be its +coloring from this that brooded over her. Nobody had a chance to make a +wail. There was something for each to do. + +Miss Henderson, by Nurse Sampson's advice, remained mostly in her bed. +In fact, she had kept back the announcement of this ailment of hers, +just so long as she could resist its obvious encroachment. The twisted +ankle had been, for long, a convenient explanation of more than its own +actual disability. + +But it was not a sick room--one felt that--this little limited bound in +which her life was now visibly encircled. All the cheer of the house was +brought into it. If people were sorry and fearful, it was elsewhere. +Neither Aunt Faith nor the nurse would let anybody into "their +hospital," as Miss Sampson said, "unless they came with a bright look +for a pass." Every evening, the great Bible was opened there, and Mr. +Armstrong read with them, and uttered for them words that lifted each +heart, with its secret need and thankfulness, to heaven. All together, +trustfully, and tranquilly, they waited. + +Dr. Wasgatt had been called in. Quite surprised he was, at this new +development. He "had thought there was something a little peculiar in +her symptoms." But he was one of those Æsculapian worthies who, having +lived a scientifically uneventful life, plodding quietly along in his +profession among people who had mostly been ill after very ordinary +fashions, and who required only the administering of stereotyped +remedies, according to the old stereotyped order and rule, had quite +forgotten to think of the possibility of any unusual complications. If +anybody were taken ill of a colic, and sent for him and told him so, for +a colic he prescribed, according to outward indications. The subtle +signs that to a keener or more practiced discernment, might have +betokened more, he never thought of looking for. What then? All cannot +be geniuses; most men just learn a trade. It is only a Columbus who, by +the drift along the shore of the fact or continent he stands on, +predicates another, far over, out of sight. + +Surgeons were to come out from Mishaumok to consult. Mr. and Mrs. +Gartney would be home, now, in a day or two, and Aunt Faith preferred to +wait till then. Mis' Battis opened the Cross Corners house, and Faith +went over, daily, to direct the ordering of things there. + +"Faith!" said Miss Henderson, on the Wednesday evening when they were to +look confidently for the return of their travelers next day, "come here, +child! I have something to say to you." + +Faith was sitting alone, there, with her aunt, in the twilight. + +"There's one thing on my mind, that I ought to speak of, as things have +turned out. When I thought, a few weeks ago, that you were provided for, +as far as outside havings go, I made a will, one day. Look in that +right-hand upper bureau drawer, and you'll find a key, with a brown +ribbon to it. That'll unlock a black box on the middle shelf of the +closet. Open it, and take out the paper that lies on the top, and bring +it to me." + +Faith did all this, silently. + +"Yes, this is it," said Miss Henderson, putting on her glasses, which +were lying on the counterpane, and unfolding the single sheet, written +out in her own round, upright, old-fashioned hand. "It's an old woman's +whim; but if you don't like it, it shan't stand. Nobody knows of it, and +nobody'll be disappointed. I had a longing to leave some kind of a happy +life behind me, if I could, in the Old House. It's only an earthly +clinging and hankering, maybe; but I'd somehow like to feel sure, being +the last of the line, that there'd be time for my bones to crumble away +comfortably into dust, before the old timbers should come down. I meant, +once, you should have had it all; but it seemed as if you wasn't going +to _need_ it, and as if there was going to be other kind of work cut out +for you to do. And I'm persuaded there is yet, somewhere. So I've done +this; and I want you to know it beforehand, in case anything goes +wrong--no, not that, but unexpectedly--with me." + +She reached out the paper, and Faith took it from her hand. It was not +long in reading. + +A light shone out of Faith's eyes, through the tears that sprang to +them, as she finished it, and gave it back. + +"Aunt Faith!" she said, earnestly. "It is beautiful! I am so glad! But, +auntie! You'll get well, I know, and begin it yourself!" + +"No," said Miss Henderson, quietly. "I may get over this, and I don't +say I shouldn't be glad to. But I'm an old tree, and the ax is lying, +ground, somewhere, that's to cut me down before very long. Old folks +can't change their ways, and begin new plans and doings. I'm only +thankful that the Lord has sent me a thought that lightens all the dread +I've had for years about leaving the old place; and that I can go, +thinking maybe there'll be His work doing in it as long as it stands." + +"I don't know," she resumed, after a pause, "how your father's affairs +are now. The likelihood is, if he has any health, that he'll go into +some kind of a venture again before very long. But I shall have a talk +with him, and if he isn't satisfied I'll alter it so as to do something +more for you." + +"Something more!" said Faith. "But you have done a great deal, as it is! +I didn't say so, because I was thinking so much of the other." + +"It won't make an heiress of you," said Aunt Faith. "But it'll be better +than nothing, if other means fall short. And I don't feel, somehow, as +if you need be a burden on my mind. There's a kind of a certainty borne +in on me, otherwise. I can't help thinking that what I've done has been +a leading. And if it has, it's right. Now, put this back, and tell Miss +Sampson she may bring my gruel." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + +GLORY McWHIRK'S INSPIRATION. + +"No bird am I to sing in June, +And dare not ask an equal boon. +Good nests and berries red are Nature's +To give away to better creatures,-- +And yet my days go on, go on." + MRS. BROWNING. + + +Mr. and Mrs. Gartney arrived on Thursday. + +Two weeks and three days they had been absent; and in that time how the +busy sprites of change and circumstance had been at work! As if the +scattered straws of events, that, stretched out in slender windrows, +might have reached across a field of years, had been raked together, and +rolled over--crowded close, and heaped, portentous, into these eighteen +days! + +Letters had told them something; of the burned mill, and Faith's fearful +danger and escape; of Aunt Henderson's continued illness, and its +present serious aspect; and with this last intelligence, which met them +in New York but two days since, Mrs. Gartney found her daughter's +agitated note of pained avowal, that she "had come, through all this, to +know herself better, and to feel sure that this marriage ought not to +be"; that, in short, all was at length over between her and Paul +Rushleigh. + +It was a meeting full of thought--where much waited for speech that +letters could neither have conveyed nor satisfied--when Faith and her +father and mother exchanged the kiss of love and welcome, once more, in +the little home at Cross Corners. + +It was well that Mis' Battis had made waffles, and spread a tempting +summer tea with these and her nice, white bread, and fruits and creams; +and wished, with such faint impatience as her huge calm was capable of, +that "they would jest set right down, while things was good and hot"; +and that Hendie was full of his wonderful adventures by boat and train, +and through the wilds; so that these first hours were gotten over, and +all a little used to the old feeling of being together again, before +there was opportunity for touching upon deeper subjects. + +It came at length--the long evening talk, after Hendie was in bed, and +Mr. Gartney had been over to the old house, and seen his aunt, and had +come back, to find wife and daughter sitting in the dim light beside the +open door, drawn close in love and confidence, and so glad and thankful +to have each other back once more! + +First--Aunt Faith; and what was to be done--what might be hoped--what +must be feared--for her. Then, the terrible story of the fire; and all +about it, that could only be got at by the hundred bits of question and +answer, and the turning over and over, and repetition, whereby we do the +best--the feeble best--we can, to satisfy great askings and deep +sympathies that never can be anyhow made palpable in words. + +And, last of all--just with the good-night kiss--Faith and her mother +had had it all before, in the first minutes they were left alone +together--Mr. Gartney said to his daughter: + +"You are quite certain, now, Faith?" + +"Quite certain, father"; Faith answered, low, with downcast eyes, as she +stood before him. + +Her father laid his hand upon her head. + +"You are a good girl; and I don't blame you; yet I thought you would +have been safe and happy, so." + +"I am safe and happy here at home," said Faith. + +"Home is in no hurry to spare you, my child." + +And Faith felt taken back to daughterhood once more. + +Margaret Rushleigh had been to see her, before this. It was a painful +visit, with the mingling of old love and new restraint; and the effort, +on either side, to show that things, except in the one particular, were +still unchanged. + +Faith felt how true it was that "nothing could go back, precisely, to +what it was before." + +There was another visit, a day or two after the reassembling of the +family at Cross Corners. This was to say farewell. New plans had been +made. It would take some time to restore the mills to working order, and +Mr. Rushleigh had not quite resolved whether to sell them out as they +were, or to retain the property. Mrs. Rushleigh wished Margaret to join +her at Newport, whither the Saratoga party was to go within the coming +week. Then there was talk of another trip to Europe. Margaret had never +been abroad. It was very likely they would all go out in October. + +Paul's name was never mentioned. + +Faith realized, painfully, how her little hand had been upon the motive +power of much that was all ended, now. + +Two eminent medical men had been summoned from Mishaumok, and had held +consultation with Dr. Wasgatt upon Miss Henderson's case. It had been +decided to postpone the surgical operation for two or three weeks. +Meanwhile, she was simply to be kept comfortable and cheerful, +strengthened with fresh air, and nourishing food, and some slight +tonics. + +Faith was at the old house, constantly. Her aunt craved her presence, +and drew her more and more to herself. The strong love, kept down by a +stiff, unbending manner, so, for years--resisting almost its own +growth--would no longer be denied or concealed. Faith Gartney had +nestled herself into the very core of this true, upright heart, +unpersuadable by anything but clear judgment and inflexible conscience. + +"I had a beautiful dream last night, Miss Faith," said Glory, one +morning, when Faith came over and found the busy handmaiden with her +churn upon the doorstone, "about Miss Henderson. I thought she was all +well, and strong, and she looked so young, and bright, and pleasant! And +she told me to make a May Day. And we had it out here in the field. And +everybody had a crown; and everybody was queen. And the little children +danced round the old apple tree, and climbed up, and rode horseback in +the branches. And Miss Henderson was out there, dressed in white, and +looking on. It don't seem so--just to say it; but I couldn't tell you +how beautiful it was!" + +"Dreams are strange things," said Faith, thoughtfully. "It seems as if +they were sent to us, sometimes--as if we really had a sort of life in +them." + +"Don't they?" cried Glory, eagerly. "Why, Miss Faith, I've dreamed on, +and on, sometimes, a whole story out! And, after all, we're asleep +almost as much as we're awake. Why isn't it just as real?" + +"I had a dream that night of the fire, Glory. I never shall forget it. I +went to sleep there, on the sofa. And it seemed as if I were on the top +of a high, steep cliff, with no way to get down. And all at once, there +was fire behind me--a burning mountain! And it came nearer, and nearer, +till it scorched my very feet; and there was no way down. And then--it +was so strange!--I knew Mr. Armstrong was coming. And two hands took +me--just as his did, afterwards--and I felt so safe! And then I woke, +and it all happened. When he came, I felt as if I had called him." + +The dasher of the churn was still, and Glory stood, breathless, in a +white excitement, gazing into Faith's eyes. + +"And so you did, Miss Faith! Somehow--through the dreamland--you +certainly did!" + +Faith went in to her aunt, and Glory churned and pondered. + +Were these two to go on, dreaming, and calling to each other "through +the dreamland," and never, in the daylight, and their waking hours, +speak out? + +This thought, in vague shape, turned itself, restlessly, in Glory's +brain. + +Other brains revolved a like thought, also. + +"Somebody talked about a 'ripe pear,' once. I wonder if that one isn't +ever going to fall!" + +Nurse Sampson wondered thus, as she settled Miss Henderson in her +armchair before the window, and they saw Roger Armstrong and Faith +Gartney walk up the field together in the sunset light. + +"I suppose it wouldn't take much of a jog to do it. But, maybe, it's as +well to leave it to the Lord's sunshine. He'll ripen it, if He sees +fit." + +"It's a pretty picture, anyhow. There's the new moon exactly over their +right shoulders, if they'd only turn their heads to look at it. I don't +think much of signs; but, somehow, I always _do_ like to have that one +come right!" + +"Well, it's there, whether they've found it out, or not," replied Aunt +Faith. + +Glory sat on the flat doorstone. She had the invariable afternoon +knitting work in her hand; but hand and work had fallen to her lap, and +her eyes were away upon the glittering, faint crescent of the moon, that +pierced the golden mist of sunset. Close by, the evening star had filled +his chalice of silver splendor. + +"The star and the moon only see each other. I can see both. It is +better." + +She had come to the feeling of Roger Armstrong's sermon. To receive +consciously, as she had through her whole, life intuitively and +unwittingly, all beauty of all being about her into the secret beauty of +her own. She could be glad with the gladness of the whole world. + +The two came up, and Glory rose, and stood aside. + +"You have had thoughts, to-night, Glory," said the minister. "Where have +they been?" + +"Away, there," answered Glory, pointing to the western sky. + +They turned, and followed her gesture; and from up there, at their +right, beyond, came down the traditional promise of the beautiful young +moon. + +Glory had shown it them. + +"And I've been thinking, besides," said Glory, "about that dream of +yours, Miss Faith. I've thought of it all day. Please tell it to Mr. +Armstrong?" + +And Glory disappeared down the long passage to the kitchen, and left +them standing there, together. She went straight to the tin baker before +the fire, and lifted the cover, to see if her biscuits were ready for +tea. Then she seated herself upon a little bench that stood against the +chimney-side, and leaned her head against the bricks, and looked down +into the glowing coals. + +"It was put into my head to do it!" she said, breathlessly, to herself. +"I hope it wasn't ridiculous!" + +So she sat, and gazed on, into the coals. _They_ were out there in the +sunset, with the new moon and the bright star above them in the saffron +depths. + +They stood alone, except for each other, in this still, radiant beauty +of all things. + +Miss Henderson's window was around a projection of the rambling, +irregular structure, which made the angle wherein the pleasant old +doorstone lay. + +"May I have your dream, Miss Faith?" + +She need not be afraid to tell a simple dream. Any more, at this moment, +than when she told it to Glory, that morning, on that very spot. Why did +she feel, that if she should speak a syllable of it now, the truth that +lay behind it would look out, resistless, through its veil? That she +could not so keep down its spirit-meaning, that it should not flash, +electric, from her soul to his? + +"It was only--that night," she said, tremulously. "It seemed very +strange. Before the fire, I had the dream. It was a dream of fire and +danger--danger that I could not escape from. And I held out my +hands--and I found you there--and you saved me. Oh, Mr. Armstrong! As you +_did_ save me, afterwards!" + +Roger Armstrong turned, and faced her. His deep, earnest eyes, lit with +a new, strange radiance, smote upon hers, and held them spellbound with +their glance. + +"I, too, dreamed that night," said he, "of an unknown peril to you. You +beckoned me. I sprang from out that dream, and rushed into the +night--until I found you!" + +Their two souls met, in that brief recital, and knew that they had met +before. That, through the dreamland, there had been that call and +answer. + +Faith neither spoke, nor stirred, nor trembled. This supreme moment of +her life held her unmoved in its own mightiness. + +Roger Armstrong held out both his hands. + +"Faith! In the sight of God, I believe you belong to me!" + +At that solemn word, of force beyond all claim of a mere mortal love, +Faith stretched her hands in answer, and laid them into his, and bowed +her head above them. + +"In the sight of God, I belong to you!" + +So she gave herself. So she was taken. As God's gift, to the heart that +had been earthly desolate so long. + +There was no dread, no shrinking, in that moment. A perfect love cast +out all fear. + +And the new moon and the evening star shone down together in an absolute +peace. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + +LAST HOURS. + +"In this dim world of clouding cares + We rarely know, till 'wildered eyes + See white wings lessening up the skies, +The angels with us unawares. + · · · · · +"Strange glory streams through life's wild rents, + And through the open door of death + We see the heaven that beckoneth +To the beloved going hence." + GERALD MASSEY. + + +"Read me the twenty-third Psalm," said Miss Henderson. + +It was the evening before the day fixed upon by her physicians for the +surgical operation she had decided to submit to. + +Faith was in her place by the bedside, her hand resting in that of her +aunt. Mr. Armstrong sat near--an open Bible before him. Miss Sampson had +gone down the field for a "snatch of air." + +Clear upon the stillness fell the sacred words of cheer. There was a +strong, sure gladness in the tone that uttered them, that told they were +born anew, in the breathing, from a heart that had proved the goodness +and mercy of the Lord. + +In a solemn gladness, also, two other hearts received them, and said, +silently, Amen! + +"Now the fourteenth of St. John." + +"'In my father's house are many mansions.' 'I will dwell in the house of +the Lord, forever.' Yes. It holds us all. Under one roof. One +family--whatever happens! Now, put away the book, and come here; you +two!" + +It was done; and Roger Armstrong and Faith Gartney stood up, side by +side, before her. + +"I haven't said so before, because I wouldn't set people troubling +beforehand. But in my own mind, I'm pretty sure of what's coming. And if +I hadn't felt so all along, I should now. When the Lord gives us our +last earthly wish, and the kind of peace comes over that seems as if it +couldn't be disturbed by anything, any more, we may know, by the hush of +it, that the day is done. I'm going to bid you good night, Faith, and +send you home. Say your prayers, and thank God, for yourself and for me. +Whatever you hear of me, to-morrow, take it for good news; for it _will_ +be good. Roger Armstrong! Take care of the child! Child! love your +husband; and trust in him; for you may!" + +Close, close--bent Faith above her aunt, and gave and took that solemn +good-night kiss. + +"'The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the +communion of the Holy Ghost, be with us all. Amen!'" + +With the word of benediction, Roger Armstrong turned from the bedside, +and led Faith away. + +And the deeper shadows of night fell, and infolded the Old House, and +the hours wore on, and all was still. Stillest, calmest of all, in the +soul of her who had dwelt there for nearly threescore years and ten, and +who knew, none the less, that it would be surely home to her wheresoever +her place might be given her next, in that wide and beautiful "House of +the Lord!" + +It was a strange day that succeeded; when they sat, waiting so, through +those morning hours, keeping such Sabbath as heart and life do keep, and +are keeping, somewhere, always, in whatever busy workday of the world, +when great issues come to solemnize the time. + +Almost as still at the Old House as at Cross Corners. No hurry. No +bustle. Glory quietly doing her needful duties, and obeying all +direction of the nurse. Mr. Armstrong in his own room, in readiness +always, for any act or errand that might be required of him. Henderson +Gartney alone in that ancient parlor at the front. The three physicians +and Miss Sampson shut with Aunt Faith into her room. A faint, breathless +odor of ether creeping everywhere, even out into the summer air. + +It was eleven o'clock, when a word was spoken to Roger Armstrong, and he +took his hat and walked across the field. Faith, with pale, asking face, +met him at the door. + +"Well--thus far," was the message; and a kiss fell upon the uplifted +forehead, and a look of boundless love and sympathy into the fair, +anxious eyes. "All has been done; and she is comfortable. There may +still be danger; but the worst is past." + +Then a brazen veil fell from before the face of day. The sunshine +looked golden again, and the song of birds rang out, unmuffled. The +strange, Sabbath stillness might be broken. They could speak common +words, once more. + +Faith and her mother sat there, in the hillside parlor, talking +thankfully, and happily, with Roger Armstrong. So a half hour passed by. +Mr. Gartney would come, with further tidings, when he had been able to +speak with the physicians. + +The shadows of shrub and tree crept and shortened to the lines of noon, +and still, no word. They began to wonder, why. + +Mr. Armstrong would go back. He might be wanted, somehow. They should +hear again, immediately, unless he were detained. + +He was not detained. They watched him up the field, and into the angle +of the doorway. He was hidden there a moment, but not more. Then they +saw him turn, as one lingering and reluctant, and retrace his steps +toward them. + +"Faith! Stay here, darling! Let me meet him first," said Mrs. Gartney. + +Faith shrank back, fearful of she knew not what, into the room they had +just quitted. + +A sudden, panic dread and terror seized her. She felt her hearing +sharpened, strained, involuntarily. She should catch that first word, +however it might be spoken. She dared not hear it, yet. Out at the +hillside door, into the shade of the deep evergreens, she passed, with a +quick impulse. + +Thither Roger Armstrong followed, presently, and found her. With the +keen instinct of a loving sympathy, he knew she fled from speech. So he +put his arm about her, silently, tenderly; and led her on, and up, under +the close, cool shade, the way their steps had come to know so well. + +"Take it for good news, darling. For it is good," he said, at last, when +he had placed her in the rocky seat, where she had listened to so many +treasured words--to that old, holy confidence--of his. + +And there he comforted her. + + * * * * * + +A sudden sinking--a prostration beyond what they had looked for, had +surprised her attendants; and, almost with their notice of the change, +the last, pale, gray shadow had swept up over the calm, patient face, +and good Aunt Faith had passed away. + +Away--for a little. Not out of God's house. Not lost out of His +household. + + * * * * * + +This was her will. + + "I, Faith Henderson, spinster, in sound mind, and of my own will, + direct these things. + + "That to my dear grandniece, Faith Henderson Gartney, be given from + me, as my bequest, that portion of my worldly property now + invested in two stores in D---- Street, in the city of Mishaumok. + That this property and interest be hers, for her own use and + disposal, with my love. + + "Also, that my plate, and my box of best house linen, which stands + beside the press in the northwest chamber, be given to her, Faith + Henderson Gartney; and that my nephew, Henderson Gartney, shall, + according to his own pleasure and judgment, appropriate and dispose + of any books, or articles of old family value and interest. But + that beds, bedding, and all heavy household furniture, with a + proper number of chairs and other movables, be retained in the + house, for its necessary and suitable furnishing. + + "And then, that all this residue of personal effects, and my real + estate in the Old Homestead at Kinnicutt Cross Corners, and my + shares in the Kinnicutt Bank, be placed in the hands of my nephew, + Henderson Gartney, to be held in trust during the natural life of + my worthy and beloved handmaiden, Gloriana McWhirk; for her to + occupy said house, and use said furniture, and the income of said + property, so long as she can find at least four orphan children to + maintain therewith, and 'make a good time for, every day.' + + "Provided, that in case the said Gloriana McWhirk shall marry, or + shall no longer so employ this property, or in case that she shall + die, said property is to revert to my above-named grandniece, Faith + Henderson Gartney, for her and her heirs, to their use and behoof + forever. + + "And if there be any failure of a legal binding in this paper that + I write, I charge it upon my nephew, Henderson Gartney, on his + conscience, as I believe him to be a true and honest man, to see + that these my effects are so disposed of, according to my plain + will and intention. + + "(Signed) FAITH HENDERSON. + + "(Witnessed) + ROGER ARMSTRONG, + HIRAM WASGATT, + LUTHER GOODELL." + + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + +MRS. PARLEY GIMP. + +"The best laid schemes o' mice an' men + Gang aft agley." + BURNS. + + +Kinnicott had got an enormous deal to talk about. The excitement of the +great fire, and the curiosity and astonishment concerning Miss Gartney's +share in the events of that memorable night had hardly passed into the +quietude of things discussed to death and laid away, unwillingly, in +their graves, when all this that had happened at Cross Corners poured +itself, in a flood of wonder, upon the little community. + +Not all, quite, at once, however. Faith's engagement was not, at first, +spoken of publicly. There was no need, in this moment of their common +sorrow, to give their names to the little world about them, for such +handling as it might please. Yet the little world found plenty to say, +and a great many plans to make for them, none the less. + +Miss Henderson's so long unsuspected, and apparently brief illness, her +sudden death, and the very singular will whose provisions had somehow +leaked out, as matters of the sort always do, made a stir and ferment in +the place, and everybody felt bound to arrive at some satisfactory +conclusion which should account for all, and to get a clear idea of what +everybody immediately concerned would do, or ought, in the +circumstances, to do next, before they--the first everybodies--could eat +and sleep, and go comfortably about their own business again, in the +ordinary way. + +They should think Mr. Gartney would dispute the will. It couldn't be a +very hard matter, most likely, to set it aside. All that farm, and the +Old Homestead, and her money in the bank, going to that Glory McWhirk! +Why, it was just ridiculous. The old lady must have been losing her +faculties. One thing was certain, anyway. The minister was out of a +boarding place again. So that question came up, in all its intricate +bearings, once more. + +This time Mrs. Gimp struck, while, as she thought, the iron was hot. + +Mr. Parley Gimp met Mr. Armstrong, one morning, in the village street, +and waylaid him to say that "his good lady thought she could make room +for him in their family, if it was so that he should be looking out for +a place to stay at." + +Mr. Armstrong thanked him; but, for the present, he was to remain at +Cross Corners. + +"At the Old House?" + +"No, sir. At Mr. Gartney's." + +The iron was cold, after all. + +Mrs. Parley Gimp called, one day, a week or two later, when the minister +was out. A visit of sympathetic scrutiny. + +"Yes, it was a great loss, certainly. But then, at her age, you know, +ma'am! We must all expect these things. It was awfully sudden, to be +sure. Must have been a terrible shock. Was her mind quite clear at the +last, ma'am?" + +"Perfectly. Clear, and calm, and happy, through it all." + +"That's very pleasant to think of now, I'm sure. But I hear she's made a +very extraordinary arrangement about the property. You can't tell, +though, to be sure, about all you hear, nowadays." + +"No, Mrs. Gimp. That is very true," said Mrs. Gartney. + +"Everybody always expected that it would all come to you. At least, to +your daughter. She seemed to make so much of her." + +"My daughter is quite satisfied, and we for her." + +"Well, I must say!--and so Mr. Armstrong is to board here, now? A little +out of the way of most of the parish, isn't it? I never could see, +exactly, what put it into his head to come so far. Not but what he makes +out to do his duty as a pastor, pretty prompt, too. I don't hear any +complaints. He's rather off and on about settling, though. I guess he's +a man that keeps his intentions pretty close to himself--and all his +affairs, for that matter. Of course he's a perfect right to. But I will +say I like to know all about folks from the beginning. It aggravates me +to have to begin in the middle. I tell Serena, it's just like reading a +book when the first volume's lost. I don't suppose I'm _much_ more +curious than other people; but I _should_ like to know just how old he +is, for one thing; and who his father and mother were; and where he came +from in the first place, and what he lives on, for 'tain't our salary, I +know that; he's given away more'n half of it a'ready--right here in the +village. I've said to my husband, forty times, if I've said it once, 'I +declare, I've a great mind to ask him myself, straight out, just to see +what he'll say.'" + +"And why not?" asked a voice, pleasantly, behind her. + +Mr. Armstrong had come in, unheard by the lady in her own rush of words, +and had approached too near, as this suddenly ceased, to be able to +escape again unnoticed. + +Mis' Battis told Luther Goodell afterwards, that she "jest looked in +from the next room, at that, and if ever a woman felt cheap--all +over--and as if she hadn't a right to her own toes and fingers, and as +if every thread and stitch on her turned mean, all at once--it was Mrs. +Gimp, that minit!" + +"Has Faith returned?" Mr. Armstrong asked, of Mrs. Gartney, after a +little pause in which Mrs. Gimp showed no disposition to develop into +deed her forty-times declared "great mind." + +"I think not. She said she would remain an hour or two with Glory, and +help her to arrange those matters she came in, this morning, to ask us +about." + +"I will walk over." + +And the minister took his hat again, and with a bow to the two ladies, +passed out, and across the lane. + +"Faith!" ejaculated the village matron, her courage and her mind to +meddle returning. "Well, that's intimate!" + +It might as well be done now, as at any time. Mr. Armstrong, himself, +had heedlessly precipitated the occasion. It had only been, among them, +a question of how and when. There was nothing to conceal. + +"Yes," replied Mrs. Gartney, quietly. "They will be married by and by." + +"Did she go out the door, ma'am? Or has she melted down into the carpet? +'Cause, I _have_ heerd of people sinkin' right through the floor," said +Mis' Battis, who "jest looked in" a second time, as the bewildered +visitor receded. + + * * * * * + +The pleasant autumn months, mellowing and brightening all things, seemed +also to soften and gild their memories of the life that had ended, +ripely and beautifully, among them. + +Glory, after the first overwhelm of astonishment at what had befallen +her--made fully to understand that which she had a right, and was in +duty bound to do--entered upon the preparations for her work with the +same unaffected readiness with which she would have done the bidding of +her living mistress. It was so evident that her true humbleness was +untouched by all. "It's beautiful!" and the tears and smiles would come +together as she said it. "But then, Miss Faith--Mr. Armstrong! I never +can do any of it unless you help me!" + +Faith and Mr. Armstrong did help with heart and hand, and every word of +counsel that she needed. + +"I must buy some cotton and calico, and make some little clothes and +tyers. Hadn't I better? When they come, I'll have them to take care of." + +And with the loving anticipation of a mother, she made up, and laid +away, Faith helping her in all, her store of small apparel for little +ones that were to come. + +She had gone down, one day, to Mishaumok, and found out Bridget Foye, at +the old number in High Street. And to her she had intrusted the care of +looking up the children--to be not less than five, and not more than +eight or nine years of age--who should be taken to live with her at +"Miss Henderson's home," and "have a good time every day." + +"I must get them here before Christmas," said Glory to her friends. "We +must hang their stockings all up by the great kitchen chimney, and put +sugarplums and picture books in!" + +She was going back eagerly into her child life--rather into the life her +childhood wist of, but missed--and would live it all over, now, with +these little ones, taken already, before even they were seen or found, +out of their strangerhood into her great, kindly heart! + +A plain, capable, motherly woman had been obtained, by Mr. Armstrong's +efforts and inquiry, who would live with Glory as companion and +assistant. There was the dairy work to be carried on, still. This, and +the hay crops, made the principal income of the Old Farm. A few fields +were rented for cultivation. + +"Just think," cried Glory when the future management of these matters +was talked of, "what it will be to see the little things let out +a-rolling in the new hay!" + +Her thoughts passed so entirely over herself, as holder and arbiter of +means, to the good--the daily little joy--that was to come, thereby, to +others! + +When all was counted and calculated, they told her that she might safely +venture to receive, in the end, six children. But that, for the present, +four would perhaps be as many as it would be wise for her to undertake. + +"You know best," she said, "and I shall do whatever you say. But I don't +feel afraid--any more, that is, for taking six than four. I shall just +do for them all the time, whether or no." + +"And what if they are bad and troublesome, Glory?" + +"Oh, they won't be," she replied. "I shall love them so!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + +INDIAN SUMMER. + +"'Tis as if the benignant Heaven +Had a new revelation given, + And written it out with gems; + For the golden tops of the elms +And the burnished bronze of the ash +And the scarlet lights that flash +From the sumach's points of flame, + Like blazonings on a scroll +Spell forth an illumined Name + For the reading of the soul!" + + +It is of no use to dispute about the Indian summer. I never found two +people who could agree as to the time when it ought to be here, or upon +a month and day when it should be decidedly too late to look for it. It +keeps coming. After the equinoctial, which begins to be talked about +with the first rains of September, and isn't done with till the sun has +measured half a dozen degrees of south declination, all the pleasant +weather is Indian summer--away on to Christmastide. For my part, I think +we get it now and then, little by little, as "the kingdom" comes. That +every soft, warm, mellow, hazy, golden day, like each fair, fragrant +life, is a part and outcrop of it; though weeks of gale and frost, or +ages of cruel worldliness and miserable sin may lie between. + +It was an Indian summer day, then; and it was in October. + +Faith and Mr. Armstrong walked over the brook, and round by Pasture +Rocks, to the "little chapel," as Faith had called it, since the time, +last winter, when she and Glory had met the minister there, in the +still, wonderful, pure beauty that enshrined it on that "diamond +morning." + +The elms that stood then, in their icy sheen, about the meadows, like +great cataracts of light, were soft with amber drapery, now; translucent +in each leaf with the detained sunshine of the summer; and along the +borders of the wood walk, scarlet flames of sumach sprang out, vivid, +from among the lingering green; and birches trembled with their golden +plumes; and bronzed ash boughs, and deep crimsons and maroons and +chocolate browns and carbuncle red that crowned the oaks with richer and +intenser hues, made up a wealth and massiveness of beauty wherein eye +and thought reveled and were sated. + +Over and about all, the glorious October light, and the dreamy warmth +that was like a palpable love. + +They stood on the crisp moss carpet of the "halfway rock"--the altar +crag behind them, with its cherubim that waved illumined wings of +tenderer radiance now--and gazed over the broad outspread of marvelous +color; and thought of the summer that had come and gone since they had +stood there, last, together, and of the beauty that had breathed alike +on earth and into life, for them. + +"Faith, darling! Tell me your thought," said Roger Armstrong. + +"This was my thought," Faith answered, slowly. "That first sermon you +preached to us--that gave me such a hope, then--that comes up to me so, +almost as a warning, now! The poor--that were to have the kingdom! And +then, those other words--'how hardly shall they who have riches enter +in!' And I am _so_ rich! It frightens me." + +"Entire happiness does make one tremble. Only, if we feel God in it, and +stand but the more ready for His work, we may be safe." + +"His work--yes," Faith answered. "But now he only gives me rest. It +seems as if, somehow, I were not worthy of a hard life. As if all things +had been made too easy for me. And I had thought, so, of some great and +difficult thing to do." + +Then Faith told him of the oracle that, years ago, had first wakened her +to the thought of what life might be; of the "high and holy work" that +she had dreamed of, and of her struggles to fulfill it, feebly, in the +only ways that as yet had opened for her. + +"And now--just to receive all--love, and help, and care--and to rest, +and to be so wholly happy!" + +"Believe, darling, that we are led, through all. That the oil of joy is +but as an anointing for a nobler work. It is only so I dare to think of +it. We shall have plenty to do, Faithie! And, perhaps, to bear. It will +all be set before us, in good time." + +"But nothing can be _hard_ to do, any more. That is what makes me almost +feel unworthy. Look at Nurse Sampson. Look at Glory. They have only +their work, and the love of God to help them in it. And I--! Oh, I am +not poor any longer. The words don't seem to be for me." + +"Let us take them with their double edge of truth, then. Holding +ourselves always poor, in sight of the infinite spiritual riches of the +kingdom. Blessed are the poor, who can feel, even in the keenest earthly +joy, how there is a fullness of life laid up in Him who gives it, of +whose depth the best gladness here is but a glimpse and foretaste! We +will not be selfishly or unworthily content, God helping us, my little +one!" + +"It is so hard _not_ to be content!" whispered Faith, as the strong, +manly arm held her, in its shelter, close beside the noble, earnest +heart. + +"I think," said Roger Armstrong, afterwards, as they walked down over +the fragrant pathway of fallen pine leaves, "that I have never known an +instance of one more evidently called, commissioned, and prepared for a +good work in the world, than Glory. Her whole life has been her +education for it. It is not without a purpose, when a soul like hers is +left to struggle up through such externals of circumstance. We can love +and help her in it, Faith; and do something, in our way, for her, as she +will do, in hers, for others." + +"Oh, yes!" assented Faith, impulsively. "I have wished--" but there she +stopped. + +"Am I to hear no more?" asked Mr. Armstrong, presently. "Have I not a +right to insist upon the wish?" + +"I forgot what I was coming to," said Faith, blushing deeply. "I spoke +of it, one day, to mother. And she said it was a thing I couldn't decide +for myself, now. That some one else would be concerned, as well as I." + +"And some one else will be sure to wish as you do. Only there may be a +wisdom in waiting. Faithie--I have never told you yet--will you be +frightened if I tell you now--that I am not a poor man, as the world +counts poverty? My friend, of whom you know, in those terrible days of +the commencing pestilence, having only his daughter and myself to care +for, made his will; in provision against whatever might befall them +there. By that will--through the fearful sorrow that made it +effective--I came into possession of a large property. Your little +inheritance, Faithie, goes into your own little purse for private +expenditures or charities. But for the present, as it seems to me, Glory +has ample means for all that it is well for her to undertake. By and by, +as she gains in years and in experience, you will have it in your power +to enlarge her field of good. 'Miss Henderson's Home' may grow into a +wider benefit than even she, herself, foresaw." + +Faith was not frightened. These were not the riches that could make her +tremble with a dread lest earth should too fully satisfy. This was only +a promise of new power to work with; a guarantee that God was not +leaving her merely to care for and to rest in a good that must needs be +all her own. + +"We shall find plenty to do, Faithie!" Mr. Armstrong repeated; and he +held her hand in his with a strong pressure that told how the thought of +that work to come, and her sweet and entire association in it, leaped +along his pulses with a living joy. + +Faith caught it; and all fear was gone. She could not shrink from the +great blessedness that was laid upon her, any more than Nature could +refuse to wear her coronation robes, that trailed their radiance in this +path they trod. + +Life held them in a divine harmony. + +The October sun, that mantled them with warmth and glory; the Indian +summer, that transfigured earth about them; all tints--all +redolence--all broad beatitude of globe and sky--were none too much to +breathe out and make palpable the glad and holy auspice of the hour. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Gartney had gradually relinquished his half-formed thought of San +Francisco. Already the unsettled and threatening condition of affairs in +the country had begun to make men feel that the time was not one for new +schemes or adventurous changes. Somehow, the great wheels, mercantile +and political, had slipped out of their old grooves, and went laboring, +as it were, roughly and at random, with fierce clattering and jolting, +quite off the ordinary track; so that none could say whether they should +finally regain it, and roll smoothly forward, as in the prosperous and +peaceful days of the past, or should bear suddenly and irretrievably +down to some horrible, unknown crash and ruin. + +Henderson Gartney, however, was too restless a man to wait, with entire +passiveness, the possible turn and issue of things. + +Quite strong, again, in health--so great a part of his burden and +anxiety lifted from him in the marriages, actual and prospective, of his +two daughters--and his means augmented by the sale of a portion of his +Western property which he had effected during his summer visit +thereto--it was little to be looked for that he should consent to +vegetate, idly and quietly, through a second winter at Cross Corners. + +The first feeling of some men, apparently, when they have succeeded in +shuffling off a load of difficulty, is a sensation of the delightful +ease with which they can immediately shoulder another. As when one has +just cleared a desk or drawer of rubbish, there is such a tempting +opportunity made for beginning to stow away and accumulate again. Well! +the principle is an eternal one. Nature does abhor a vacuum. + +The greater portion of the ensuing months, therefore, Mr. Gartney spent +in New York; whither his wife and children accompanied him, also, for a +stay of a few weeks; during which, Faith and her mother accomplished the +inevitable shopping that a coming wedding necessitates; and set in train +of preparation certain matters beyond the range of Kinnicutt capacity +and resource. + +Mr. Armstrong, too, was obliged to be absent from his parish for a +little time. Affairs of his own required some personal attention. He +chose these weeks while the others, also, were away. + +It was decided that the marriage should take place in the coming spring; +and that then the house at Cross Corners should become the home of Mr. +Armstrong and Faith; and that Mr. Gartney should remove, permanently, to +New York, where he had already engaged in some incidental and +preliminary business transactions. His purpose was to fix himself there, +as a shipping and commission merchant, concerning himself, for a large +proportion, with California trade. + +The house in Mishaumok had been rented for a term of five years. One +change prepares the way for another. Things never go back precisely to +what they were before. + +Mr. Armstrong, after serious thought, had come to this conclusion of +accepting the invitation of the Old Parish at Kinnicutt to remain with +it as its pastor, because the place itself had become endeared to him +for its associations; because, also, it was Faith's home, which she had +learned to love and cling to; because she, too, had a work here, in +assisting Glory to fulfill the terms of her aunt's bequest; and because, +country parish though it was, and a limited sphere, as it might seem, +for his means and talents, he saw the way here, not only to accomplish +much direct good in the way of his profession, but as well for a wider +exercise of power through the channel of authorship; for which a more +onerous pastoral charge would not have left him the needful quiet or +leisure. + +So, with these comings and goings, these happy plans, and helpings and +onlookings, the late autumn weeks merged in winter, and days slipped +almost imperceptibly by, and Christmas came. + +Three little orphan girls had been welcomed into "Miss Henderson's +Home." And only one of them had hair that would curl. But Glory gave the +other two an extra kiss each, every morning. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + +CHRISTMASTIDE. + +"Through suffering and through sorrow thou hast past, +To show us what a woman true may be; +They have not taken sympathy from thee, +Nor made thee any other than thou wast; + · · · · · +"Nor hath thy knowledge of adversity +Robbed thee of any faith in happiness, +But rather cleared thine inner eye to see +How many simple ways there are to bless." + LOWELL. + +"And if any painter drew her, +He would paint her unaware, +With a halo round the hair." + MRS. BROWNING. + + +There were dark portents abroad. Rumors, and threats, and +prognostications of fear and strife teemed in the columns of each day's +sheet of news, and pulsed wildly along the electric nerves of the land; +and men looked out, as into a coming tempest, that blackened all the +southerly sky with wrath; and only that the horror was too great to be +believed in, they could not have eaten and drunken, and bought and sold, +and planted and builded, as they did, after the age-old manner of man, +in these days before the flood that was to come. + +Civil war, like a vulture of hell, was swooping down from the foul +fastness of iniquity that had hatched her in its high places, and that +reared itself, audaciously, in the very face of Heaven. + +And a voice, as of a mighty angel, sounded "Woe! woe! woe! to the +inhabiters of earth!" + +And still men but half heard and comprehended; and still they slept and +rose, and wrought on, each in his own work, and planned for the morrow, +and for the days that were to be. + +And in the midst of all, came the blessed Christmastide! Yes! even into +this world that has rolled its seething burden of sin and pain and shame +and conflict along the listening depths through waiting cycles of God's +eternity, was Christ once born! + +And little children, of whom is the kingdom, in their simple faith and +holy unconsciousness, were looking for the Christmas good, and wondering +only what the coming joy should be. + +The shops and streets of Mishaumok were filled with busy throngs. People +forgot, for a day, the fissure that had just opened, away there in the +far Southland, and the fierce flames that shot up, threatening, from the +abyss. What mattered the mass meetings, and the shouts, and the guns, +along those shores of the Mexican Gulf? To-night would be Christmas Eve; +and there were thousands of little stockings waiting to be hung by happy +firesides, and they must all be filled for the morrow. + +So the shops and streets were crowded, and people with arms full of +holiday parcels jostled each other at every corner. + +There are odd encounters in this world tumble that we live in. In the +early afternoon, at one of the bright show cases, filled within and +heaped without with toys, two women met--as strangers are always +meeting, with involuntary touch and glance--borne together in a +crowd--atoms impinging for an instant, never to approach again, perhaps, +in all the coming combinations of time. + +These two women, though, had met before. + +One, sharp, eager--with a stylish-shabby air of dress about her, and the +look of pretense that shopmen know, as she handled and asked prices, +where she had no actual thought of buying--holding by the hand a child +of six, who dragged and teased, and got an occasional word that crushed +him into momentary silence, but who, tired with the sights and the +Christmas shopping, had nothing for it but to begin to drag and tease +again; another, with bright, happy, earnest eyes and flushing cheeks, +and hair rolled back in a golden wealth beneath her plain straw bonnet; +bonnet, and dress, and all, of simple black; these two came face to +face. + +The shabby woman with a sharp look recognized nothing. Glory McWhirk +knew Mrs. Grubbling, and the child of six that had been the Grubbling +baby. + +All at once, she had him in her arms; and as if not a moment had gone by +since she held him so in the little, dark, upper entry in Budd Street, +where he had toddled to her in his nightgown, for her grieved farewell, +was hugging and kissing him, with the old, forgetting and forgiving +love. + +Mrs. Grubbling looked on in petrified amaze. Glory had transferred a +fragrant white paper parcel from her pocket to the child's hands, and +had thrust upon that a gay tin horse from the counter, before it +occurred to her that the mother might, possibly, neither remember nor +approve. + +"I beg your pardon, ma'am, for the liberty; and it's very likely you +don't know me. I'm Glory McWhirk, that used to live with you, and mind +the baby." + +"I'm sure I'm glad to see you, Glory," said Mrs. Grubbling +patronizingly; "and I hope you've been doing well since you went away +from me." As if she had been doing so especially well before, that there +might easily be a doubt as to whether going farther had not been faring +worse. I have no question that Mrs. Grubbling fancied, at the moment, +that the foundation of all the simple content and quiet prosperity that +evidenced themselves at present in the person of her former handmaid, +had been laid in Budd Street. + +"And where are you living now?" proceeded she, as Glory resigned the boy +to his mint stick, and was saying good-by. + +"Out in Kinnicutt, ma'am; at Miss Henderson's, where I have been ever +since." + +She never thought of triumphing. She never dreamed of what it would be +to electrify her former mistress with the announcement that she whom she +had since served had died, and left her, Glory McWhirk, the life use of +more than half her estate. That she dwelt now, as proprietress, where +she had been a servant. Her humbleness and her faithfulness were so +entire that she never thought of herself as occupying, in the eyes of +others, such position. She was Miss Henderson's handmaiden, still; doing +her behest, simply, as if she had but left her there in keeping, while +she went a journey. + +So she bade good-by, and courtesied to Mrs. Grubbling and gathered up +her little parcels, and went out. Fortunately, Mrs. Grubbling was half +stunned, as it was. It is impossible to tell what might have resulted, +had she then and there been made cognizant of more. Not to the shorn +lamb, alone, always, are sharp winds beneficently tempered. There is a +mercy, also, to the miserable wolf. + +Glory had one trouble, to-day, that hindered her pure, free and utter +enjoyment of what she had to do. + +All day she had seen, here and there along the street, little forlorn +and ragged ones, straying about aimlessly, as if by any chance, a scrap +of Christmas cheer might even fall to them, if only they kept out in the +midst of it. There was a distant wonder in their faces, as they met the +buyers among the shops, and glanced at the fair, fresh burdens they +carried; and around the confectioners' windows they would cluster, +sometimes, two or three together, and _look_; as if one sense could take +in what was denied so to another. She knew so well what the feeling of +it was! To see the good times going on, and not be in 'em! She longed so +to gather them all to herself, and take them home, and make a Christmas +for them! + +She could only drop the pennies that came to her in change loose into +her pocket, and give them, one by one, along the wayside. And she more +than once offered a bright quarter (it was in the days when quarters yet +were, reader!), when she might have counted out the sum in lesser bits, +that so the pocket should be kept supplied the longer. + + * * * * * + +Down by the ---- Railway Station, the streets were dim, and dirty, and +cheerless. Inside, the passengers gathered about the stove, where the +red coals gleamed cheerful in the already gathering dusk of the winter +afternoon. A New York train was going out; and all sorts of people--from +the well-to-do, portly gentleman of business, with his good coat +buttoned comfortably to his chin, his tickets bought, his wallet lined +with bank notes for his journey, and secretly stowed beyond the reach +(if there be such a thing) of pickpockets, and the _Mishaumok Journal_, +Evening Edition, damp from the press, unfolded in his fingers, to the +care-for-naught, dare-devil little newsboy who had sold it to him, and +who now saunters off, varying his monotonous cry with: + +"_Jour-nal_, gentlemen! Eve-nin' 'dition! Georgy out!" + +("What's that?" exclaims an inconsiderate.) + +"Georgy out! (Little brother o' mine. Seen him anywhere?) Eve-nin' +'dition! _Jour-nal_, gentleman!" and the shivering little candy girl, +threading her way with a silent imploringness among the throng--were +bustling up and down, in waiting rooms, and on the platforms, till one +would think, assuredly, that the center of all the world's activity, at +this moment, lay here; and that everybody _not_ going in this particular +express train to New York, must be utterly devoid of any aim or object +in life, whatever. + +So we do, always, carry our center about with us. A little while ago all +the world was buying dolls and tin horses. Horizons shift and ring +themselves about us, and we, ourselves, stand always in the middle. + +By and by, however, the last call was heard. + +"Passengers for New York! Train ready! All aboard!" + +And with the ringing of the bell, and the mighty gasping of the +impatient engine, and a scuffle and scurry of a minute, in which +carpetbags and babies were gathered up and shouldered indiscriminately, +the rooms and the platforms were suddenly cleared of all but a few +stragglers, and half a dozen women with Christmas bundles, who sat +waiting for trains to way stations. + +Two little pinched faces, purple with the bitter cold, looked in at the +door. + +"It's good and warm in there. Less' go!" + +And the older drew the younger into the room, toward the glowing stove. + +They looked as if they had been wandering about in the dreary streets +till the chill had touched their very bones. The larger of the two, a +boy--torn hopelessly as to his trousers, dilapidated to the last degree +as to his fragment of a hat--knees and elbows making their way out into +the world with the faintest shadow of opposition--had, perhaps from +this, a certain look of pushing knowingness that set itself, by the +obscure and inevitable law of compensation, over against the gigantic +antagonism of things he found himself born into; and you knew, as you +looked at him, that he would, somehow, sooner or later, make his small +dint against the great dead wall of society that loomed itself in his +way; whether society or he should get the worst of it, might happen as +it would. + +The younger was a little girl. A flower thrown down in the dirt. A jewel +encrusted with mean earth. Little feet in enormous coarse shoes, cracked +and trodden down; bare arms trying to hide themselves under a bit of old +woolen shawl; hair tangled beneath a squalid hood; out from amidst all, +a face of beauty that peeped, like an unconscious draft of God's own +signing, upon humanity. Was there none to acknowledge it? + +An official came through the waiting room. + +The boy showed a slink in his eyes, like one used to shoving and rebuff, +and to getting off, round corners. The girl stood, innocent and +unheeding. + +"There! out with you! No vagrums here!" + +Of course, they couldn't have all Queer Street in their waiting rooms, +these railway people; and the man's words were rougher than his voice. +But these were two children, who wanted cherishing! + +The slink in the boy's eye worked down, and became a sneak and a +shuffle, toward the door. The girl was following. + +"Stop!" called a woman's voice, sharp and authoritative. "Don't you stir +a single step, either of you, till you get warm! If there isn't any +other way to fix it, I'll buy you both a ticket somewhere and then +you'll be passengers." + +It was a tall, thin, hoopless woman, with a carpetbag, a plaid shawl, +and an umbrella; and a bonnet that, since other bonnets had begun to +poke, looked like a chaise top flattened back at the first spring. In a +word, Mehitable Sampson. + +Something twitched at the corners of the man's mouth as he glanced round +at this sudden and singular champion. Something may have twitched under +his comfortable waistcoat, also. At any rate, he passed on; and the +children--the brief battledore over in which they had been the +shuttlecocks--crept back, compliant with the second order, much amazed, +toward the stove. + +Miss Sampson began to interrogate. + +"Why don't you take your little sister home?" + +"This one ain't my sister." Children always set people right before they +answer queries. + +"Well--whoever she is, then. Why don't you both go home?" + +"'Cause it's cold there, too. And we was sent to find sticks." + +"If she isn't your sister, who does she belong to?" + +"She don't belong to nobody. She lived upstairs, and her mother died, +and she came down to us. But she's goin' to be took away. Mother's got +five of us, now. She's goin' to the poorhouse. She's a regular little +brick, though; ain't yer, Jo?" + +The pretty, childish lips that had begun to grow red and lifelike again, +parted, and showed little rows of milk teeth, like white shells. The +blue eyes and the baby smile went up, confidingly, to the young +ragamuffin's face. There had been kindness here. The boy had taken to +Jo, it seemed; and was benevolently evincing it, in the best way he +could, by teaching her good-natured slang. + +"Yes; I'm a little brick," she lisped. + +Miss Sampson's keen eyes went from one to the other, resting last and +long on Jo. + +"I shouldn't wonder," she said, deliberately, "if you was Number Four!" + +"Whereabouts do you live?" suddenly, to the boy. + +"Three doors round the corner. 'Tain't number four, though. It's +ninety-three." + +"What's your name?" + +"Tim Rafferty." + +"Tim Rafferty! Did anybody ever trust you with a carpetbag?" + +"I've carried 'em up. But then they mostly goes along, and looks sharp." + +"Well, now I'm going to leave you here, with this one. If anybody speaks +to you, say you was left in charge. Don't stir till I come back. +And--look here! if you see a young woman come in, with bright, wavy +hair, and a black gown and bonnet, and if she comes and speaks to you, +as most likely she will, tell her I said I shouldn't wonder if this was +Number Four!" + +And Nurse Sampson went out into the street. + +When she came back, the children sat there, still; and Glory McWhirk was +with them. + +"I don't know as I'd any business to meddle; and I haven't made any +promises; but I've found out that you can do as you choose about it, and +welcome. And I couldn't help thinking you might like to have this one +for Number Four." + +Glory had already nestled the poor, tattered child close to her, and +given her a cake to eat from the refreshment counter. + +Tim Rafferty delivered up the carpetbag, in proud integrity. To be sure, +there were half a dozen people in the room who had witnessed its +intrustment to his hands; but I think he would have waited there, all +the same, had the coast been clear. + +Miss Sampson gave him ten cents, and recounted to Glory what she had +learned at number ninety-three. + +"She's a strange child, left on their hands; and they're as poor as +death. They were going to give her in charge to the authorities. The +woman said she couldn't feed her another day. That's about the whole of +it. If Tim don't bring her back, they'll know where she is, and be +thankful." + +"Do you want to go home with me, and hang up your stocking, and have a +Christmas?" + +"My golly!" ejaculated Tim, staring. + +The little one smiled shyly, and was mute. She didn't know what +Christmas was. She had been cold, and she was warm, and her mouth and +hands were filled with sweet cake. And there were pleasant words in her +ears. That was all she knew. As much as we shall comprehend at first, +perhaps, when the angels take us up out of the earth cold, and give us +the first morsel of heavenly good to stay our cravings. + +This was how it ended. Tim had a paper bag of apples and cakes, with +some sugar pigs and pussy cats put in at the top, and a pair of warm +stockings out of Glory's bag, to carry home, for himself; and he was to +say that the lady who came to see his mother had taken Jo away into the +country. To Miss Henderson's, at Kinnicutt. Glory wrote these names upon +a paper. Tim was to be a good boy, and some day they would come and see +him again. + +Then Nurse Sampson's plaid shawl was wrapped about little Jo, and pinned +close over her rags to keep out the cold of Christmas Eve; and the bell +rang presently; and she was taken out into the bright, warm car, and +tucked up in a corner, where she slept all the hour that they were +steaming over the road. + +And so these three went out to Kinnicutt to keep Christmas at the Old +House. + +So Glory carried home the Christ gift that had come to her. + +Tim went back, alone, to number ninety-three. He had his bag of good +things, and his warm stockings, and his wonderful story to tell. And +there was more supper and breakfast for five than there would have been +for six. Nevertheless, somehow, he missed the "little brick." + +Out at Cross Corners, Miss Henderson's Home was all aglow. The long +kitchen, which, by the outgrowth of the house for generations, had come +to be a central room, was flooded with the clear blaze of a great pine +knot, that crackled in the chimney; and open doors showed neat adjoining +rooms, in and out which the gleams and shadows played, making a +suggestive pantomime of hide and seek. It was a grand old place for +Christmas games! And three little bright-faced girls sat round the knee +of a tidy, cheery old woman, who told them, in a quaint Irish brogue, +the story of the "little rid hin," that was caught by the fox, and got +away, again, safe, to her own little house in the woods, where she +"lived happy iver afther, an' got a fine little brood of chickens to +live wid her; an' pit 'em all intill warrum stockings and shoes, an' +round-o-caliker gowns." + +And they carped at no discrepancies or improbabilities; but seized all +eagerly, and fused it in their quick imaginations to one beautiful +meaning; which, whether it were of chicken comfort, overbrooded with +warm love, or of a clothed, contented childhood, in safe shelter, +mattered not a bit. + +Into this warm, blithe scene came Glory, just as the fable was ended for +the fourth time, bringing the last little chick, flushed and rosy from a +bath; born into beauty, like Venus from the sea; her fair hair, combed +and glossy, hanging about her neck in curls; and wrapped, not in a +"round-o-caliker," but in a scarlet-flannel nightgown, comfortable and +gay. Then they had bowls of bread and milk, and gingerbread, and ate +their suppers by the fire. And then Glory told them the old story of +Santa Claus; and how, if they hung their stockings by the chimney, there +was no knowing what they mightn't find in them to-morrow. + +"Only," she said, "whatever it is, and whoever He sends it by, it all +comes from the good Lord, first of all." + +And then, the two white beds in the two bedrooms close by held four +little happy bodies, whose souls were given into God's keeping till his +Christmas dawn should come, in the old, holy rhyme, said after Glory. + +By and by, Faith and Mr. Armstrong and Miss Sampson came over from the +Corner House, with parcels from. Kriss Kringle. + +And now there was a gladsome time for all; but chiefly, for Glory. + +What unpacking and refolding in separate papers! Every sugar pig, and +dog, and pussy cat must be in a distinct wrapping, that so the children +might be a long time finding out all that Santa Claus had brought them. +What stuffing, and tying, and pinning, inside, and outside, and over the +little red woolen legs that hung, expectant, above the big, open +chimney! How Glory laughed, and sorted, and tied and made errands for +string and pins, and seized the opportunity for brushing away great +tears of love, and joy, and thankfulness, that would keep coming into +her eyes! And then, when all was done, and she and Faith came back from +a little flitting into the bedrooms, and a hovering look over the wee, +peaceful, sleeping faces there, and they all stood, for a minute, +surveying the goodly fullness of small delights stored up and waiting +for the morrow--how she turned suddenly, and stretched her hands out +toward the kind friends who had helped and sympathized in all, and said, +with a quick overflow of feeling, that could find only the old words +wherein to utter herself: + +"Such a time as this! Such a beautiful time! And to think that I should +be in it!" + +Miss Henderson's will was fulfilled. + +A happy, young life had gathered again about the ancient hearthstone +that had seen two hundred years of human change. + +The Old House, wherefrom the last of a long line had passed on into the +Everlasting Mansions, had become God's heritage. + +Nurse Sampson spent her Christmas with the Gartneys. + +They must have her again, they told her, at parting, for the wedding; +which would be in May. + +"I may be a thousand miles off, by that time. But I shall think of you, +all the same, wherever I am. My work is coming. I feel it. There's a +smell of blood and death in the air; and all the strong hearts and +hands'll be wanted. You'll see it." + +And with that, she was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII. + +THE WEDDING JOURNEY. + + "The tree +Sucks kindlier nurture from a soil enriched +By its own fallen leaves; and man is made, +In heart and spirit, from deciduous hopes +And things that seem to perish." + +"A stream always among woods or in the sunshine is pleasant to all +and happy in itself. Another, forced through rocks, and choked with +sand, under ground, cold, dark, comes up able to heal the +world."--FROM "SEED GRAIN." + + +"Shall we plan a wedding journey, Faith?" + +It was one evening in April that Mr. Armstrong said this. The day for +the marriage had been fixed for the first week in May. + +Faith had something of the bird nature about her. Always, at this moment +of the year, a restlessness, akin to that which prompts the flitting of +winged things that track the sunshine and the creeping greenness that +goes up the latitudes, had used to seize her, inwardly. Something that +came with the swelling of tender buds, and the springing of bright +blades, and the first music born from winter silence, had prompted her +with the whisper: "Abroad! abroad! Out into the beautiful earth!" + +It had been one of her unsatisfied longings. She had thought, what a joy +it would be if she could have said, frankly, "Father, mother! let us +have a pleasant journey in the lovely weather!" + +And now, that one stood at her side, who would have taken her in his +tender guardianship whithersoever she might choose--now that there was +no need for hesitancy in her wish--this child, who had never been beyond +the Hudson, who had thought longingly of Catskill, and Trenton, and +Niagara, and had seen them only in her dreams--felt, inexplicably, a +contrary impulse, that said within her, "Not yet!" Somehow, she did not +care, at this great and beautiful hour of her life, to wander away into +strange places. Its holy happiness belonged to home. + +"Not now. Unless you wish it. Not on purpose. Take me with you, some +time, when, perhaps, you would have gone alone. Let it _happen_." + +"We will just begin our quiet life, then, darling, shall we? The life +that is to be our real blessedness, and that has no need to give itself +a holiday, as yet. And let the workdays and the holidays be portioned as +God pleases?" + +"It will be better--happier," Faith answered, timidly. "Besides, with +all this fearful tramping to war through the whole land, how can one +feel like pleasure journeying? And then"--there was another little +reason that peeped out last--"they would have been so sure to make a +fuss about us in New York!" + +The adjuncts of life had been much to her in those restless days when a +dark doubt lay over its deep reality. She had found a passing cheer and +relief in them, then. Now, she was so sure, so quietly content! It was a +joy too sacred to be intermeddled with. + +So a family group, only, gathered in the hillside parlor, on the fair +May morning wherein good, venerable Mr. Holland said the words that made +Faith Gartney and Roger Armstrong one. + +It was all still, and bright, and simple. Glory, standing modestly by +the door, said within herself, "it was like a little piece of heaven." + +And afterwards--not the bride and groom--but father, mother, and little +brother, said good-by, and went away upon their journey, and left them +there. In the quaint, pleasant home, that was theirs now, under the +budding elms, with the smile of the May promise pouring in. + +And Glory made a May Day at the Old House, by and by. And the little +children climbed in the apple branches, and perched there, singing, like +the birds. + +And was there not a white-robed presence with them, somehow, watching +all? + + * * * * * + +Nearly three months had gone. The hay was down. The distillation of +sweet clover was in all the air. The little ones at the Old House were +out, in the lengthening shadows of the July afternoon, rolling and +reveling in the perfumed, elastic heaps. + +Faith Armstrong stood with Glory, in the porch angle, looking on. + +Calm and beautiful. Only the joy of birds and children making sound and +stir across the summer stillness. + +Away over the broad face of the earth, out from such peace as this, +might there, if one could look--unroll some vision of horrible contrast? +Were blood, and wrath, and groans, and thunderous roar of guns down +there under that far, fair horizon, stooping in golden beauty to the +cool, green hills? + +Faith walked down the field path, presently, to meet her husband, coming +up. He held in his hand an open paper, that he had brought, just now +from the village. + +There was news. + +Rout, horror, confusion, death, dismay. + +The field of Manassas had been fought. The Union armies were falling +back, in disorder, upon Washington. + +Breathlessly, with pale faces, and with hands that grasped each other in +a deep excitement that could not come to speech, they read those +columns, together. + +Down there, on those Virginian plains, was this. + +And they were here, in quiet safety, among the clover blooms, and the +new-cut hay. Elsewhere, men were mown. + +"Roger!" said Faith, when, by and by, they had grown calmer over the +fearful tidings, and had had Bible words of peace and cheer for the +fevered and bloody rumors of men--"mightn't we take our wedding journey, +now?" + +All the bright, early summer, in those first months of their life +together, they had been finding work to do. Work they had hardly dreamed +of when Faith had feared she might be left to a mere, unworthy, selfish +rest and happiness. + +The old New England spirit had roused itself, mightily, in the little +country town. People had forgotten their own needs, and the provision +they were wont to make, at this time, each household for itself. Money +and material, and quick, willing hands were found, and a good work went +on; and kindling zeal, and noble sympathies, and hearty prayers wove +themselves in, with toil of thread and needle, to homely fabrics, and +embalmed, with every finger touch, all whereon they labored. + +They had remembered the old struggle wherein their country had been +born. They were glad and proud to bear their burden in this grander one +wherein she was to be born anew, to higher life. + +Roger Armstrong and his wife had been the spring and soul and center of +all. + +And now Faith said: "Roger! mayn't we take our wedding journey?" + +Not for a bridal holiday--not for gay change and pleasure--but for a +holy purpose, went they out from home. + +Down among the wounded, and war-smitten. Bearing comfort of gifts, and +helpful words, and prayers. Doing whatsoever they found to do, now; +seeking and learning what they might best do, hereafter. Truly, God left +them not without a work. A noble ministry lay ready for them, at this +very threshold of their wedded life. + +In the hospital at Georgetown, they found Nurse Sampson. + +"I told you so," she said. "I knew it was coming. And the first gun +brought me down here to be ready. I've been out to Western Virginia; and +I came back here when we got the news of this. I shall follow round, +wherever the clouds roll." + +In Washington, still another meeting awaited them. + +Paul Rushleigh, in a Captain's uniform, came, one day, to the table of +their hotel. + +The first gun had brought him, also, where he could be ready. He had +sailed for home, with his father, upon the reception, abroad, of the +tidings of the fall of Sumter. + +"Your country will want you, now, my son," had been the words of the +brave and loyal gentleman. And, like another Abraham, he had set his +face toward the mount of sacrifice. + +There was a new light in the young man's eye. A soul awakened there. A +purpose, better than any plan or hope of a mere happy living in the +earth. + +He met his old friends frankly, generously; and, seemingly, without a +pang. They were all one now, in the sublime labor that, in their several +spheres, lay out before them. + +"You were right, Faith," he said, as he stood with them, and spoke +briefly of the past, before they parted. "I shall be more of a man, than +if I'd had my first wish. This war is going to make a nation of men. I'm +free, now, to give my heart and hand to my country, as long as she needs +me. And by and by, perhaps, if I live, some woman may love me with the +sort of love you have for your husband. I feel now, how surely I should +have come to be dissatisfied with less. God bless you both!" + +"God bless you, Paul!" + +THE END. + + + + * * * * * * + + + +BIOGRAPHY AND BIBLIOGRAPHY + +MRS. ADELINE DUTTON (Train) WHITNEY, American novelist and poet, was +born in Boston, September 15, 1824, and was married to Seth D. Whitney, +of Milton, Mass., in 1843. Writing little for publication in early life, +she produced, in 1863, _Faith Gartney's Girlhood_, which brought her +great popularity both at home and in England, where the novel gained +especially favorable commendation. Although planned purely as a girl's +book, the story of _Faith_ grew into her womanhood, and after the lapse +of almost half a century continues to be a prime favorite. It is a +purely told story of New England life, especially with dramatic +incidents and an excellent bit of romance. + +_The Gayworthys: a Story of Threads and Thrums_ (1865), continued Mrs. +Whitney's popularity and received flattering notices from the London +_Reader_, _Athenæum_, _Pall Mall Gazette_, and _Spectator_. Mrs. Whitney +was a contributor to the _Atlantic Monthly_, _Our Young Folks_, _Old and +New_ and various other periodicals. + +Among her other published works are: _Footsteps on the Seas_ (1857), +poems; _Mother Goose for Grown Folks_ (1860); _Boys at Chequasset_ +(1862); _A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life_ (1866); _Patience +Strong's Outings_ (1868); _Hitherto: a Story of Yesterday_ (1869); _We +Girls_ (1870); _Real Folks_ (1871); _Zerub Throop's Experiment_ (1871); +_Pansies_, verse (1872); _The Other Girls_ (1873); _Sights and Insights_ +(1876); _Odd or Even_ (1880); _Bonnyborough_ (1885); _Holy-Tides_, verse +(1886); _Homespun Yarns_ (1887); _Bird Talk_, verse (1887); _Daffodils_, +verse (1887); _Friendly Letters to Girl Friends_ (1897); _Biddy's +Episodes_ (1904). + +Breadth of view on social conditions, a deeply religious spirit, and a +charming facility both in descriptive and romantic passages, give this +novelist her sustained popularity. + +Mrs. Whitney died in Boston on March 21st, 1906. + + + + * * * * * * + + + +Transcriber's Notes + + 1. Some punctuation has been changed to conform to contemporary + standards. + + 2. The author's biography has been moved to the end of the text + from the reverse of the title page. + + 3. A Table of Contents was not present in the original edition. + + 4. The "certain pause and emphasis" differentiated by the author + is marked with spaced mid-dots in Chapter XVI, as in the + original text. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAITH GARTNEY'S GIRLHOOD*** + + +******* This file should be named 18896-8.txt or 18896-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/8/9/18896 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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D. T. Whitney</title> + <style type="text/css"> + /*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ + <!-- + body {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + p {margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em;} + h1 {text-align: center; clear: both; font-size: 160%;} + h1.pg {text-align: center; clear: both; font-size: 173%;} + h2 {text-align: center; clear: both; font-size: 120%;} + h3 {text-align: center; clear: both; font-size: 100%;} + table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; text-align: center;} + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} + hr.full {width:100%; margin-top:2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + hr.major {width:75%; margin-top:2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + hr.minor {width:30%; margin-top:0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + .tnote {border: dashed 1px; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; + padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; + font-size: 90% } + ins {text-decoration:none; border-bottom: thin dotted gray;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps} + .blockquot {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .center {text-align: center;} + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + + /* right align author signature */ + p.last {margin-bottom: 0;} + p.auth {margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; text-align: right; font-variant: small-caps;} + pre {font-size: 75%;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h1 class="pg">The Project Gutenberg eBook, Faith Gartney's Girlhood, by Mrs. A. D. T. +Whitney</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Faith Gartney's Girlhood</p> +<p>Author: Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney</p> +<p>Release Date: July 22, 2006 [eBook #18896]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAITH GARTNEY'S GIRLHOOD***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Roger Frank<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net/)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h1>FAITH GARTNEY'S GIRLHOOD</h1> +<h3>BY</h3> +<h2>MRS. A. D. T. WHITNEY</h2> + +<div style="text-align: center"> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<br /><br />Author of "The Gayworthy's," "A Summer in<br /> +Leslie Goldthwaite's Life," "Footsteps on the<br /> +Seas," etc.<br /><br /> +</td></tr></table> +</div> +<p> </p> + +<p style='text-align:center'>NEW YORK<br /><br /> +THE NEW YORK BOOK COMPANY<br /><br /> +1913</p> + +<hr class='full' /> + +<h2><a name="Contents" id="Contents"></a>Contents</h2> +<div class="smcap"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents"> +<col style="width:15%;" /> +<col style="width:75%;" /> +<col style="width:10%;" /> +<tr><td align="right">I. </td><td align="left">"Money, Money!"</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_I.">1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">II. </td><td align="left">Sortes.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_II.">4</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">III. </td><td align="left">Aunt Henderson.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_III.">6</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">IV. </td><td align="left">Glory McWhirk.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV.">10</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">V. </td><td align="left">Something Happens.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_V.">15</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">VI. </td><td align="left">Aunt Henderson's Girl Hunt.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI.">26</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">VII. </td><td align="left">Cares; And What Came Of Them.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII.">31</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">VIII. </td><td align="left">A Niche In Life, And A Woman To Fill It.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII.">34</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">IX. </td><td align="left">Life Or Death?</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX.">37</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">X. </td><td align="left">Rough Ends.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_X.">40</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XI. </td><td align="left">Cross Corners.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI.">43</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XII. </td><td align="left">A Reconnoissance.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII.">49</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XIII. </td><td align="left">Development.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII.">54</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XIV. </td><td align="left">A Drive With The Doctor.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV.">59</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XV. </td><td align="left">New Duties.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV.">65</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XVI. </td><td align="left">"Blessed Be Ye, Poor."</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI.">68</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XVII. </td><td align="left">Frost-Wonders.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII.">75</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XVIII. </td><td align="left">Out In The Snow.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII.">79</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XIX. </td><td align="left">A "Leading."</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX.">85</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XX. </td><td align="left">Paul.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX.">89</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXI. </td><td align="left">Pressure.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI.">94</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXII. </td><td align="left">Roger Armstrong's Story.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII.">99</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXIII. </td><td align="left">Question And Answer.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII.">103</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXIV. </td><td align="left">Conflict.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV.">112</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXV. </td><td align="left">A Game At Chess.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV.">116</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXVI. </td><td align="left">Lakeside.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI.">120</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXVII. </td><td align="left">At The Mills.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII.">124</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXVIII. </td><td align="left">Locked In.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII.">127</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXIX. </td><td align="left">Home.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX.">135</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXX. </td><td align="left">Aunt Henderson's Mystery.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX.">140</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXXI. </td><td align="left">Nurse Sampson's Way Of Looking At It.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI.">147</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXXII. </td><td align="left">Glory Mcwhirk's Inspiration.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII.">152</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXXIII. </td><td align="left">Last Hours.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII.">157</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXXIV. </td><td align="left">Mrs. Parley Gimp.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV.">160</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXXV. </td><td align="left">Indian Summer.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV.">164</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXXVI. </td><td align="left">Christmastide.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI.">169</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXXVII. </td><td align="left">The Wedding Journey.</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII.">177</a></td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<hr class='full' /> + +<h2><a name="FAITH_GARTNEYS_GIRLHOOD" id="FAITH_GARTNEYS_GIRLHOOD"></a>FAITH GARTNEY'S GIRLHOOD</h2> + +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_I." id="CHAPTER_I."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2><h3>"MONEY, MONEY!"</h3> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +"Shoe the horse and shoe the mare,<br /> +And let the little colt go bare." +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>East or West, it matters not where—the story may, doubtless, indicate +something of latitude and longitude as it proceeds—in the city of +Mishaumok, lived Henderson Gartney, Esq., one of those American +gentlemen of whom, if she were ever canonized, Martha of Bethany must be +the patron saint—if again, feminine celestials, sainthood once achieved +through the weary experience of earth, don't know better than to assume +such charge of wayward man—born, as they are, seemingly, to the life +destiny of being ever "careful and troubled about many things."</p> + +<p>We have all of us, as little girls, read "Rosamond." Now, one of +Rosamond's early worries suggests a key to half the worries, early and +late, of grown men and women. The silver paper won't cover the basket.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gartney had spent his years, from twenty-five to forty, in +sedulously tugging at the corners. He had had his share of silver paper, +too—only the basket was a little too big.</p> + +<p>In a pleasant apartment, half library, half parlor, and used in the +winter months as a breakfast room, beside a table still covered with the +remnants of the morning meal, sat Mrs. Gartney and her young daughter, +Faith; the latter with a somewhat disconcerted, not to say rueful, +expression of face.</p> + +<p>A pair of slippers on the hearth and the morning paper thrown down +beside an armchair, gave hint of the recent presence of the master of +the house.</p> + +<p>"Then I suppose I can't go," remarked the young lady.</p> + +<p>"I'm sure I don't know," answered the elder, in a helpless, worried sort +of tone. "It doesn't seem really right to ask your father for the money. +I did just speak of your wanting some things for a party, but I suppose +he has forgotten it; and, to-day,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> I hate to trouble him with +reminding. Must you really have new gloves and slippers, both?"</p> + +<p>Faith held up her little foot for answer, shod with a partly worn bronze +kid, reduced to morning service.</p> + +<p>"These are the best I've got. And my gloves have been cleaned over and +over, till you said yourself, last time, they would hardly do to wear +again. If it were any use, I should say I must have a new dress; but I +thought at least I should freshen up with the 'little fixings,' and +perhaps have something left for a few natural flowers for my hair."</p> + +<p>"I know. But your father looked annoyed when I told him we should want +fresh marketing to-day. He is really pinched, just now, for ready +money—and he is so discouraged about the times. He told me only last +night of a man who owed him five hundred dollars, and came to say he +didn't know as he could pay a cent. It doesn't seem to be a time to +afford gloves and shoes and flowers. And then there'll be the carriage, +too."</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear!" sighed Faith, in the tone of one who felt herself +checkmated. "I wish I knew what we really <i>could</i> afford! It always +seems to be these little things that don't cost much, and that other +girls, whose fathers are not nearly so well off, always, have, without +thinking anything about it." And she glanced over the table, whereon +shone a silver coffee service, and up at the mantel where stood a French +clock that had been placed there a month before.</p> + +<p>"Pull at the bobbin and the latch will fly up." An unspoken suggestion, +of drift akin to this, flitted through the mind of Faith. She wondered +if her father knew that this was a Signal Street invitation.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gartney was ambitious for his children, and solicitous for their +place in society.</p> + +<p>But Faith had a touch of high-mindedness about her that made it +impossible for her to pull bobbins.</p> + +<p>So, when her father presently, with hat and coat on, came into the room +again for a moment, before going out for the day, she sat quite silent, +with her foot upon the fender, looking into the fire.</p> + +<p>Something in her face however, quite unconsciously, bespoke that the +world did not lie entirely straight before her, and this catching her +father's eye, brought up to him, by an untraceable association, the +half-proffered request of his wife.</p> + +<p>"So you haven't any shoes, Faithie. Is that it?"</p> + +<p>"None nice enough for a party, father."</p> + +<p>"And the party is a vital necessity, I suppose. Where is it to be?"</p> + +<p>The latch string was put forth, and while Faith still stayed her hand, +her mother, absolved from selfish end, was fain to catch it up.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> + +<p>"At the Rushleighs'. The Old Year out and the New Year in."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, we mustn't 'let the colt go bare,'" answered Mr. Gartney, +pleasantly, portemonnaie in hand. "But you must make that do." He handed +her five dollars. "And take good care of your things when you have got +them, for I don't pick up many five dollars nowadays."</p> + +<p>And the old look of care crept up, replacing the kindly smile, as he +turned and left the room.</p> + +<p>"I feel very much as if I had picked my father's pocket," said Faith, +holding the bank note, half ashamedly, in her hand.</p> + +<p>Henderson Gartney, Esq., was a man of no method in his expenditure. When +money chanced to be plenty with him it was very apt to go as might +happen—for French clocks, or whatsoever; and then, suddenly, the silver +paper fell short elsewhere, and lo! a corner was left uncovered.</p> + +<p>The horse and the mare were shod. Great expenses were incurred; money +was found, somehow, for grand outlays; but the comfort of buying, with a +readiness, the little needed matters of every day—this was foregone. +"Not let the colt go bare!" It was precisely the thing he was +continually doing.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gartney had long found it to be her only wise way to make her hay +while the sun was shining—to buy, when she could buy, what she was sure +would be most wanted—and to look forward as far as possible, in her +provisions, since her husband scarcely seemed to look forward at all.</p> + +<p>So she exemplified, over and over again in her life, the story of +Pharaoh and his fat and lean kine.</p> + +<p>That night, Faith, her little purchases and arrangements all complete, +and flowers and carriage bespoken for the next evening, went to bed to +dream such dreams as only come to the sleep of early years.</p> + +<p>At the same time, lingering by the fireside below for a half hour's +unreserved conversation, Mr. Gartney was telling his wife of another +money disappointment.</p> + +<p>"Blacklow, at Cross Corners, gives up the lease of the house in the +spring. He writes me he is going out to Indiana with his son-in-law. I +don't know where I shall find another such tenant—or any at all, for +that matter."</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_II." id="CHAPTER_II."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2><h3>SORTES.</h3> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p>"How shall I know if I do choose the right?"</p> +</td></tr></table> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p class='last'>"Since this fortune falls to you,<br /> +Be content, and seek no new." </p> +<p class='auth'>Merchant of Venice.</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>"Now, Mahala Harris," said Faith, as she glanced in at the nursery door, +which opened from her room, "don't let Hendie get up a French Revolution +here while I'm gone to dinner."</p> + +<p>"Land sakes! Miss Faith! I don't know what you mean, nor whether I can +help it. I dare say he'd get up a Revolution of '76, over again, if he +once set out. He does train like 'lection, fact, sometimes."</p> + +<p>"Well, don't let him build barricades with all the chairs, so that I +shall have to demolish my way back again. I'm going to lay out my dress +for to-night."</p> + +<p>And very little dinner could her young appetite manage on this last day +of the year. All her vital energy was busy in her anticipative brain, +and glancing thence in sparkles from her eyes, and quivering down in +swift currents to her restless little feet. It mattered little that +there was delicious roast beef smoking on the table, and Christmas pies +arrayed upon the sideboard, while upstairs the bright ribbon and tiny, +shining, old-fashioned buckles were waiting to be shaped into rosettes +for the new slippers, and the lace hung, half basted, from the neck of +the simple but delicate silk dress, and those lovely greenhouse flowers +stood in a glass dish on her dressing table, to be sorted for her hair, +and into a graceful breast knot. No—dinner was a very secondary and +contemptible affair, compared with these.</p> + +<p>There were few forms or faces, truly, that were pleasanter to look upon +in the group that stood, disrobed of their careful outer wrappings, in +Mrs. Rushleigh's dressing room; their hurried chat and gladsome +greetings distracted with the drawing on of gloves and the last +adjustment of shining locks, while the bewildering music was floating up +from below, mingled with the hum of voices from the rooms where, as +children say, "the party had begun" already.</p> + +<p>And Mrs. Rushleigh, when Faith paid her timid respects in the +drawing-room at last, made her welcome with a peculiar grace and +<i>empressement</i> that had their own flattering weight and charm; for the +lady was a sort of St. Peter of fashion, holding its mystic keys, and +admitting or rejecting whom she would;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> and culled, with marvelous tact +and taste, the flower of the up-growing world of Mishaumok to adorn "her +set."</p> + +<p>After which, Faith, claimed at once by an eager aspirant, and beset with +many a following introduction and petition, was drawn to and kept in the +joyous whirlpool of the dance, till she had breathed in enough of +delight and excitement to carry her quite beyond the thought even of +ices and oysters and jellies and fruits, and the score of unnamable +luxuries whereto the young revelers were duly summoned at half past ten +o'clock.</p> + +<p>Four days' anticipation—four hours' realization—culminated in the +glorious after-supper midnight dance, when, marshaled hither and thither +by the ingenious orders of the band, the jubilant company found itself, +just on the impending stroke of twelve, drawn out around the room in one +great circle; and suddenly a hush of the music, at the very poising +instant of time, left them motionless for a moment to burst out again in +the age-honored and heartwarming strains of "Auld Lang Syne." Hand +joining hand they sang its chorus, and when the last note had +lingeringly died away, one after another gently broke from their places, +and the momentary figure melted out with the dying of the Year, never +again to be just so combined. It was gone, as vanishes also every other +phase and grouping in the kaleidoscope of Time.</p> + +<p>"Now is the very 'witching hour' to try the Sortes!"</p> + +<p>Margaret Rushleigh said this, standing on the threshold of a little +inner apartment that opened from the long drawing-room, at one end.</p> + +<p>She held in her hand a large and beautiful volume—a gift of Christmas +Day.</p> + +<p>"Here are Fates for everybody who cares to find them out!"</p> + +<p>The book was a collection of poetical quotations, arranged by numbers, +and to be chosen thereby, and the chance application taken as an oracle.</p> + +<p>Everything like fortune telling, or a possible peering into the things +of coming time, has such a charm! Especially with them to whom the past +is but a prelude and beginning, and for whom the great, voluminous +Future holds enwrapped the whole mystic Story of Life!</p> + +<p>"No, no, this won't do!" cried the young lady, as circle behind circle +closed and crowded eagerly about her. "Fate doesn't give out her +revelations in such wholesale fashion. You must come up with proper +reverence, one by one."</p> + +<p>As she spoke, she withdrew a little within the curtained archway, and, +placing the crimson-covered book of destiny upon an inlaid table, +brought forward a piano stool, and seated herself thereon, as a +priestess upon a tripod.</p> + +<p>A little shyly, one after another, gaining knowledge of what was going +on, the company strayed in from without, and, each in turn hazarding a +number, received in answer the rhyme or stanza indicated; and who shall +say how long those chance-directed words, chosen for the most part with +the elastic ambiguity of all oracles of any established authority, +lingered echoing in the heads and hearts of them to whom they were +given—shaping and confirming, or darkening with their denial many an +after hope and fear?</p> + +<p>Faith Gartney came up among the very last.</p> + +<p>"How many numbers are there to choose from?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Three hundred and sixty-five. The number of days in the year."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, I'll take the number of the day; the last—no, I +forgot—the first of all."</p> + +<p>Nobody before had chosen this, and Margaret read, in a clear, gentle +voice, not untouched with the grave beauty of its own words, and the +sweet, earnest, listening look of the young face that bent toward her to +take them in:</p> + +<div style="text-align: center"> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +"Rouse to some high and holy work of love,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And thou an angel's happiness shalt know;</span><br /> +Shalt bless the earth while in the world above;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The good begun by thee while here below</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shall like a river run, and broader flow."</span> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>Ten minutes later, and all else were absorbed in other things +again—leave-takings, parting chat, and a few waltzing a last measure to +a specially accorded grace of music. Faith stood, thoughtfully, by the +table where the book was closed and left. She quietly reopened it at +that first page. Unconscious of a step behind her, her eyes ran over the +lines again, to make their beautiful words her own.</p> + +<p>"And that was your oracle, then?" asked a kindly voice.</p> + +<p>Glancing quickly up, while the timid color flushed her cheek, she met a +look as of a wise and watchful angel, though it came through the eye and +smile of a gray-haired man, who laid his hand upon the page as he said:</p> + +<p>"Remember—it is <i>conditional</i>."</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_III." id="CHAPTER_III."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2><h3>AUNT HENDERSON.</h3> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p class='last'>"I never met a manner more entirely without frill." </p> +<p class='auth'>Sydney Smith.</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>Late into the morning of the New Year, Faith slept. Through her half +consciousness crept, at last, a feeling of music<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> that had been +wandering in faint echoes among the chambers of her brain all those +hours of her suspended life.</p> + +<p>Light, and music, and a sense of an unexamined, half-remembered joy, +filled her being and embraced her at her waking on this New Year's Day. +A moment she lay in a passive, unthinking delight; and then her first, +full, and distinct thought shaped itself, as from a sweet and solemn +memory:</p> + +<div style="text-align: center"> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +"Rouse to some high and holy work of love,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And thou an angel's happiness shalt know."</span> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>An impulse of lofty feeling held her in its ecstasy; a noble longing and +determination shaped itself, though vaguely, within her. For a little, +she was touched in her deepest and truest nature; she was uplifted to +the threshold of a great resolve. But generalities are so grand—details +so commonplace and unsatisfying. <i>What</i> should she do? What "high and +holy work" lay waiting for her?</p> + +<p>And, breaking in upon her reverie—bringing her down with its rough and +common call to common duty—the second bell for breakfast rang.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear! It is no use! Who'll know what great things I've been wishing +and planning, when I've nothing to show for it but just being late to +breakfast? And father hates it so—and New Year's morning, too!"</p> + +<p>Hurrying her toilet, she repaired, with all the haste possible, to the +breakfast room, where her consciousness of shortcoming was in nowise +lessened when she saw who occupied the seat at her father's right +hand—Aunt Henderson!</p> + +<p>Aunt Faith Henderson, who had reached her nephew's house last evening +just after the young Faith, her namesake, had gone joyously off to +"dance the Old Year out and the New Year in." Old-fashioned Aunt +Faith—who believed most devoutly that "early to bed and early to rise" +was the <i>only</i> way to be "healthy, wealthy, or wise!" Aunt Faith, who +had never quite forgiven our young heroine for having said, at the +discreet and positive age of nine, that "she didn't see what her father +and mother had called her such an ugly name for. It was a real old +maid's name!" Whereupon, having asked the child what she would have +preferred as a substitute, and being answered, "Well—Clotilda, I guess; +or Cleopatra," Miss Henderson had told her that she was quite welcome to +change it for any heathen woman's that she pleased, and the worse +behaved perhaps the better. She wouldn't be so likely to do it any +discredit!</p> + +<p>Aunt Henderson had a downright and rather extreme fashion of putting +things; nevertheless, in her heart she was not unkindly.</p> + +<p>So when Faithie, with her fair, fresh face—a little apprehensive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> +trouble in it for her tardiness—came in, there was a grim bending of +the old lady's brows; but, below, a half-belying twinkle in the eye, +that, long as it had looked out sharply and keenly on the things and +people of this mixed-up world, found yet a pleasure in anything so young +and bright.</p> + +<p>"Why, auntie! How do you do?" cried Faith, cunning culprit that she was, +taking the "bull by the horns," and holding out her hand. "I wish you a +Happy New Year! Good morning, father, and mother! A Happy New Year! I'm +sorry I'm so late."</p> + +<p>"Wish you a great many," responded the great-aunt, in stereotyped +phrase. "It seems to me, though, you've lost the beginning of this one."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no!" replied Faithie, gayly. "I had that at the party. We danced +the New Year in."</p> + +<p>"Humph!" said Aunt Henderson.</p> + +<p>Breakfast over, and Mr. Gartney gone to his counting room, the parlor +girl made her appearance with her mop and tub of hot water, to wash up +the silver and china.</p> + +<p>"Give me that," said Aunt Henderson, taking a large towel from the +girl's arm as she set down her tub upon the sideboard. "You go and find +something else to do."</p> + +<p>Wherever she might be—to be sure, her round of visiting was not a large +one—Aunt Henderson never let anyone else wash up breakfast cups.</p> + +<p>This quiet arming of herself, with mop and towel, stirred up everybody +else to duty. Her niece-in-law laughed, withdrew her feet from the +comfortable fender, and departed to the kitchen to give her household +orders for the day. Faith removed cups, glasses, forks, and spoons from +the table to the sideboard, while the maid, returning with a tray, +carried off to the lower regions the larger dishes.</p> + +<p>"I haven't told you yet, Elizabeth, what I came to town for," said Aunt +Faith, when Mrs. Gartney came back into the breakfast room. "I'm going +to hunt up a girl."</p> + +<p>"A girl, aunt! Why, what has become of Prudence?"</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Pelatiah Trowe. That's what's become of her. More fool she."</p> + +<p>"But why in the world do you come to the city for a servant? It's the +worst possible place. Nineteen out of twenty are utterly good for +nothing."</p> + +<p>"I'm going to look out for the twentieth."</p> + +<p>"But aren't there girls enough in Kinnicutt who would be glad to step in +Prue's place?"</p> + +<p>"Of course there are. But they're all well enough off where they are. +When I have a chance to give away, I want to give it to somebody that +needs it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'm afraid you'll hardly find any efficient girl who will appreciate +the chance of going twenty miles into the country."</p> + +<p>"I don't want an efficient girl. I'm efficient myself, and that's +enough."</p> + +<p>"Going to <i>train</i> another, at your time of life, aunt?" asked Mrs. +Gartney, in surprise.</p> + +<p>"I suppose I must either train a girl, or let her train me; and, at my +time of life, I don't feel to stand in need of that."</p> + +<p>"How shall I go to work to inquire?" resumed Aunt Henderson, after a +pause.</p> + +<p>"Well, there are the Homes, and the Offices, and the Ministers at Large. +At a Home, they would probably recommend you somebody they've made up +their minds to put out to service, and she might or might not be such as +would suit you. Then at the Offices, you'll see all sorts, and mostly +poor ones."</p> + +<p>"I'll try an Office, first," interrupted Miss Henderson. "I <i>want</i> to +see all sorts. Faith, you'll go with me, by and by, won't you, and help +me find the way?"</p> + +<p>Faith, seated at a little writing table at the farther end of the room, +busied in copying into her album, in a clear, neat, but rather stiff +schoolgirl's hand, the oracle of the night before, did not at once +notice that she was addressed.</p> + +<p>"Faith, child! don't you hear?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, aunt. What is it?"</p> + +<p>"I want you to go to a what-d'ye-call-it office with me, to-day."</p> + +<p>"An intelligence office," explained her mother. "Aunt Faith wants to +find a girl."</p> + +<p>"'<i>Lucus a non lucendo</i>,'" quoted Faith, rather wittily, from her little +stock of Latin. "Stupidity offices, <i>I</i> should call them, from the +specimens they send out."</p> + +<p>"Hold your tongue, chit! Don't talk Latin to me!" growled Aunt +Henderson.</p> + +<p>"What are you writing?" she asked, shortly after, when Mrs. Gartney had +again left her and Faith to each other. "Letters, or Latin?"</p> + +<p>Faith colored, and laughed.</p> + +<p>"Only a fortune that was told me last night," she replied.</p> + +<p>"Oh! 'A little husband,' I suppose, 'no bigger than my thumb; put him in +a pint pot, and there bid him drum.'"</p> + +<p>"No," said Faith, half seriously, and half teased out of her +seriousness. "It's nothing of that sort. At least," she added, glancing +over the lines again, "I don't think it means anything like that."</p> + +<p>And Faith laid down the book, and went upstairs for a word with her +mother.</p> + +<p>Aunt Henderson, who had been brought up in times when all the doings of +young girls were strictly supervised, and who had no high-flown +scruples, because she had no mean motives, deliberately walked over and +fetched the elegant little volume from the table, reseated herself in +her armchair—felt for her glasses, and set them carefully upon her +nose—and, as her grandniece returned, was just finishing her perusal +of the freshly inscribed lines.</p> + +<p>"Humph! A good fortune. Only you've got to earn it."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Faith, quite gravely. "And I don't see how. There doesn't +seem to be much that I can do."</p> + +<p>"Just take hold of the first thing that comes in your way. If the Lord's +got anything bigger to give you, he'll see to it. There's your mother's +mending basket brimful of stockings."</p> + +<p>Faith couldn't help laughing. Presently she grew grave again.</p> + +<p>"Aunt Henderson," said she, abruptly, "I wish something would happen to +me. I get tired of living sometimes. Things don't seem worth while."</p> + +<p>Aunt Henderson bent her head slightly, and opened her eyes wide over the +tops of her glasses.</p> + +<p>"Don't say that again," said she. "Things happen fast enough. Don't you +dare to tempt Providence."</p> + +<p>"Providence won't be tempted, nor misunderstand," replied Faith, an +undertone of reverence qualifying her girlish repartee. "He knows just +what I mean."</p> + +<p>"She's a queer child," said Aunt Faith to herself, afterwards, thinking +over the brief conversation. "She'll be something or nothing, I always +said. I used to think 'twould be nothing."</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_IV." id="CHAPTER_IV."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2><h3>GLORY McWHIRK.</h3> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> + "There's beauty waiting to be born,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And harmony that makes no sound;</span><br /> +And bear we ever, unawares,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A glory that hath not been crowned."</span> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>Shall I try to give you a glimpse of quite another young life than Faith +Gartney's? One looking also vaguely, wonderingly, for "something to +happen"—that indefinite "something" which lies in everybody's future, +which may never arrive, and yet which any hour may bring?</p> + +<p>Very little likelihood there has ever seemed for any great joy to get +into such a life as this has been, that began, or at least has its +earliest memory and association, in the old poorhouse at Stonebury.</p> + +<p>A child she was, of five years, when she was taken in there with her +old, crippled grandmother.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p> + +<p>Peter McWhirk was picked up dead, from the graveled drive of a +gentleman's place, where he had been trimming the high trees that shaded +it. An unsound limb—a heedless movement—and Peter went straight down, +thirty feet, and out of life. Out of life, where he had a trim, +comfortable young wife—one happy little child, for whom skies were as +blue, and grass as green, and buttercups as golden as for the little +heiress of Elm Hill, who was riding over the lawn in her basket wagon, +when Peter met his death there—the hope, also, of another that was to +come.</p> + +<p>Rosa McWhirk and her baby of a day old were buried the week after, +together; and then there was nothing left for Glory and her helpless +grandmother but the poorhouse as a present refuge; and to the one death, +that ends all, and to the other a life of rough and unremitting work to +look to for by and by.</p> + +<p>When Glory came into this world where wants begin with the first breath, +and go on thickening around us, and pressing upon us until the last one +is supplied to us—a grave—she wanted, first of all, a name.</p> + +<p>"Sure what'll I call the baby?" said the proud young mother to the +ladies from the white corner house, where she had served four faithful +years of her maidenhood, and who came down at once with comforts and +congratulations. "They've sint for the praist, an' I've niver bethought +of a name. I made so certain 'twould be a boy!"</p> + +<p>"What a funny bit of a thing it is!" cried the younger of the two +visitors, turning back the bedclothes a little from the tiny, red, +puckered face, with short, sandy-colored hair standing up about the +temples like a fuzz ball.</p> + +<p>"I'd call her Glory. There's a halo round her head like the saints in +the pictures."</p> + +<p>"Sure, that's jist like yersilf, Miss Mattie!" exclaimed Rosa, with a +faint, merry little laugh. "An' quare enough, I knew a lady once't of +the very name, in the ould country. Miss Gloriana O'Dowd she was; an' +the beauty o' County Kerry. My Lady Kinawley, she came to be. 'Deed, but +I'd like to do it, for the ould times, an' for you thinkin' of it! I'll +ask Peter, anyhow!"</p> + +<p>And so Glory got her name; and Mattie Hyde, who gave her that, gave her +many another thing that was no less a giving to the mother also, before +she was two years old. Then Mrs. Hyde and the young lady, having first +let the corner house, went away to Europe to stay for years; and when a +box of tokens from the far, foreign lands came back to Stonebury a while +after, there was a grand shawl for Rosa, and a pretty braided frock for +the baby, and a rosary that Glory keeps to this hour, that had been +blessed by the Pope. That was the last. Mattie and her mother sailed out +upon the Mediterranean one day from the bright coast of France for a far +eastern port, to see the Holy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> Land. God's Holy Land they did see, +though they never touched those Syrian shores, or climbed the hills +about Jerusalem.</p> + +<p>Glory remembered—for the most part dimly, for some special points +distinctly—her child life of three years in Stonebury poorhouse. How +her grandmother and an old countrywoman from the same county "at home" +sat knitting and crooning together in a sunny corner of the common room +in winter, or out under the stoop in summer; how she rolled down the +green bank behind the house; and, when she grew big enough to be trusted +with a knife, was sent out to dig dandelions in the spring, and how an +older girl went with her round the village, and sold them from house to +house. How, at last, her old grandmother died, and was buried; and how a +woman of the village, who had used to buy her dandelions, found a place +for her with a relative of her own, in the ten-mile distant city, who +took Glory to "bring up"—"seeing," as she said, "there was nobody +belonging to her to interfere."</p> + +<p>Was there a day, after that, that did not leave its searing impress upon +heart and memory, of the life that was given, in its every young pulse +and breath, to sordid toil for others, and to which it seemed nobody on +earth owed aught of care or service in return?</p> + +<p>It was a close little house—one of those houses where they have fried +dinners so often that the smell never gets out in Budd Street—a street +of a single side, wedged in between the back yards of more pretentious +mansions that stood on fair parallel avenues sloping down from a hilltop +to the waterside, that Mrs. Grubbling lived in.</p> + +<p>Here Glory McWhirk, from eight years old to nearly fifteen, scoured +knives and brasses, tended doorbell, set tables, washed dishes, and +minded the baby; whom, at her peril, she must "keep pacified"—i. e., +amused and content, while its mother was otherwise busy. For her, poor +child—baby that she still, almost, was herself—who amused, or +contented her? There are humans with whom amusement and content have +nothing to do. What will you? The world must go on.</p> + +<p>Glory curled the baby's hair, and made him "look pretty." Mrs. Grubbling +cut her little handmaid's short to save trouble; so that the very +determined yellow locks which, under more favoring circumstances of +place and fortune, might have been trained into lovely golden curls, +stood up continually in their restless reaching after the fairer destiny +that had been meant for them, in the old fuzz-ball fashion; and Glory +grew more and more to justify her name.</p> + +<p>Do you think she didn't know what beauty was—this child who never had a +new or pretty garment, but who wore frocks "fadged up" out of old, faded +breadths of her mistress's dresses, and bonnets with brims cut off and +topknots taken down, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> coarse shoes, and stockings cut out of the +legs of those whereof Mrs. Grubbling had worn out the extremities? Do +you think she didn't feel the difference, and that it wasn't this that +made her shuffle along so with her toes in, when she sped along the +streets upon her manifold errands, and met gentle-people's children +laughing and skipping their hoops upon the sidewalks?</p> + +<p>Out of all lives, actual and possible, each one of us appropriates +continually into his own. This is a world of hints only, out of which +every soul seizes to itself what it needs.</p> + +<p>This girl, uncherished, repressed in every natural longing to be and to +have, took in all the more of what was possible; for God had given her +this glorious insight, this imagination, wherewith we fill up life's +scanty outline, and grasp at all that might be, or that elsewhere, is. +In her, as in us all, it was often—nay, daily—a discontent; yet a +noble discontent, and curbed with a grand, unconscious patience. She +scoured her knives; she shuffled along the streets on hasty errands; she +went up and down the house in her small menial duties; she put on and +off her coarse, repulsive clothing; she uttered herself in her common, +ignorant forms of speech; she showed only as a poor, low, little Irish +girl with red hair and staring, wondering eyes, and awkward movements, +and a frightened fashion of getting into everybody's way; and yet, +behind all this, there was another life that went on in a hidden beauty +that you and I cannot fathom, save only as God gives the like, inwardly, +to ourselves.</p> + +<p>When Glory's mistress cut her hair, there were always tears and +rebellion. It was her one, eager, passionate longing, in these childish +days, that these locks of hers should be let to grow. She thought she +could almost bear anything else, if only this stiff, unseemly crop might +lengthen out into waves and ringlets that should toss in the wind like +the carefully kempt tresses of children she met in the streets. She +imagined it would be a complete and utter happiness just once to feel it +falling in its wealth about her shoulders or dropping against her +cheeks; and to be able to look at it with her eyes, and twist her +fingers in it at the ends. And so, when it got to be its longest, and +began to make itself troublesome about her forehead, and to peep below +her shabby bonnet in her neck, she had a brief season of wonderful +enjoyment in it. Then she could "make believe" it had really grown out; +and the comfort she took in "going through the motions"—pretending to +tuck behind her ears what scarcely touched their tips, and tossing her +head continually, to throw back imaginary masses of curls, was truly +indescribable, and such as I could not begin to make you understand.</p> + +<p>"Half-witted monkey!" Mrs. Grubbling would ejaculate, contemptuously, +seeing, with what she conceived marvelous penetration, the half of her +little servant's thought, and so pronouncing from her own half wit. Then +the great shears came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> out, and the instinct of grace and beauty in the +child was pitilessly outraged, and her soul mutilated, as it were, in +every clip of the inexorable shears.</p> + +<p>She was always glad—poor Glory—when the springtime came. She took +Bubby and Baby down to the Common, of a May Day, to see the processions +and the paper-crowned queens; and stood there in her stained and +drabbled dress, with the big year-and-a-half-old baby in her arms, and +so quite at the mercy of Master Herbert Clarence, who defiantly skipped +oft down the avenues, and almost out of her sight—she looking after him +in helpless dismay, lest he should get a splash or a tumble, or be +altogether lost; and then what would the mistress say? Standing there +so—the troops of children in their holiday trim passing close beside +her—her young heart turned bitter for a moment, as it sometimes would; +and her one utterance of all that swelled her martyr soul broke forth:</p> + +<p>"Laws a me! Sech lots of good times in the world, and I ain't in 'em!"</p> + +<p>Yet, that afternoon, when Mrs. Grubbling went out shopping, and left her +to her own devices with the children, how jubilantly she trained the +battered chairs in line, and put herself at the head, with Bubby's +scarlet tippet wreathed about her upstart locks, and made a May Day!</p> + +<p>I say, she had the soul and essence of the very life she seemed to miss.</p> + +<p>There were shabby children's books about the Grubbling domicile, that +had been the older child's—Cornelia's—and had descended to Master +Herbert, while yet his only pastime in them was to scrawl them full of +pencil marks, and tear them into tatters. These, one by one, Glory +rescued, and hid away, and fed upon, piecemeal, in secret. She could +read, at least—this poor, denied unfortunate. Peter McWhirk had taught +his child her letters in happy, humble Sundays and holidays long ago; +and Mrs. Grubbling had begun by sending her to a primary school for a +while, irregularly, when she could be spared; and when she hadn't just +torn her frock, or worn out her shoes, or it didn't rain, or she hadn't +been sent of an errand and come back too late—which reasons, with a +multitude of others, constantly recurring, reduced the school days in +the year to a number whose smallness Mrs. Grubbling would have +indignantly disputed, had it been calculated and set before her; she +being one of those not uncommon persons who regard a duty continually +evaded as one continually performed, it being necessarily just as much +on their minds; till, at last, Herbert had a winter's illness, and in +summer it wasn't worth while, and the winter after, baby came, so that +of course she couldn't be spared at all; and it seemed little likely now +that she ever again would be. But she kept her spelling book, and read +over and over what she knew, and groped her way slowly into more, till +she promoted herself from that to "Mother Goose"—from "Mother Goose" to +"Fables for the Nursery"—and now, her ever fresh and unfailing feast +was the "Child's Own Book of Fairy Tales," and an odd volume of the +"Parents' Assistant." She picked out, slowly, the gist of these, with a +lame and uncertain interpretation. She lived for weeks with Beauty and +the Beast—with Cinderella—with the good girl who worked for the witch, +and shook her feather bed every morning; till at last, given leave to go +home and see her mother, the gold and silver shower came down about her, +departing at the back door. Perhaps she should get her pay, some time, +and go home and see her mother.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, she identified herself with—lost herself utterly in,—these +imaginary lives. She was, for the time, Cinderella; she was Beauty; she +was above all, the Fair One with Golden Locks; she was Simple Susan +going to be May Queen; she dwelt in the old Castle of Rossmore, with the +Irish Orphans. The little Grubbling house in Budd Street was peopled all +through, in every corner, with her fancies. Don't tell me she had +nothing but her niggardly outside living there.</p> + +<p>And the wonder began to come up in her mind, as it did in Faith +Gartney's, whether and when "something might happen" to her.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_V." id="CHAPTER_V."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2><h3>SOMETHING HAPPENS.</h3> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p>"Athirst! athirst! The sandy soil<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Bears no glad trace of leaf or tree;</span><br /> +No grass-blade sigheth to the heaven<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Its little drop of ecstasy.</span></p> +<p>"Yet other fields are spreading wide<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Green bosoms to the bounteous sun;</span><br /> +And palms and cedars shall sublime<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Their rapture for thee,—waiting one!"</span></p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>"Take us down to see the apple woman," said Master Herbert, going out +with Glory and the baby one day when his school didn't keep, and Mrs. +Grubbling had a headache, and wanted to get them all off out of the way.</p> + +<p>Bridget Foye sat at her apple stand in the cheery morning sunlight, red +cheeks and russets ranged fair and tempting before her, and a pile of +roasted peanuts, and one of delicate molasses candy, such as nobody but +she knew how to make, at either end of the board.</p> + +<p>Bridget Foye was the tidiest, kindliest, merriest apple woman<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> in all +Mishaumok. Everybody whose daily path lay across that southeast corner +of the Common, knew her well, and had a smile, and perhaps a penny for +her; and got a smile and a God-bless-you, and, for the penny, a rosy or +a golden apple, or some of her crisp candy in return.</p> + +<p>Glory and the baby, sitting down to rest on one of the benches close by, +as their habit was, had one day made a nearer acquaintance with blithe +Bridget. I think it began with Glory—who held the baby up to see the +passing show of a portion of a menagerie in the street, and heard two +girls, stopping just before her to look, likewise, say they'd go and see +it perform next day—uttering something of her old soliloquy about "good +times," and why she "warn't ever in any of 'em." However it was, Mrs. +Foye, in her buxom cheeriness, was drawn to give some of it forth to the +uncouth-looking, companionless girl, and not only began a chat with her, +after the momentary stir in the street was over, and she had settled +herself upon her stool, and leaning her back against a tree, set +vigorously to work again at knitting a stout blue yarn stocking, but +also treated Bubby and Baby to some bits of her sweet merchandise, and +told them about the bears and the monkeys that had gone by, shut up in +the gay, red-and-yellow-painted wagons.</p> + +<p>So it became, after this first opening, Glory's chief pleasure to get +out with the children now and then, of a sunny day, and sit here on the +bench by Bridget Foye, and hear her talk, and tell her, confidentially, +some of her small, incessant troubles. It was one more life to draw +from—a hearty, bright, and wholesome life, besides. She had, at last, +in this great, tumultuous, indifferent city, a friendship and a +resource.</p> + +<p>But there was a certain fair spot of delicate honor in Glory's nature +that would not let her bring Bubby and Baby in any apparent hope of what +they might get, gratuitously, into their mouths. She laid it down, a +rule, with Master Herbert, that he was not to go to the apple stand with +her unless he had first put by a penny for a purchase. And so +unflinchingly she adhered to this determination, that sometimes weeks +went by—hard, weary weeks, without a bit of pleasantness for her; weeks +of sore pining for a morsel of heart food—before she was free of her +own conscience to go and take it.</p> + +<p>Bridget told stories to Herbert—strange, nonsensical fables, to be +sure—stuff that many an overwise mother, bringing up her children by +hard rule and theory, might have utterly forbidden as harmful trash—yet +that never put an evil into his heart, nor crowded, I dare to say, a +better thought out of his brain. Glory liked the stories as well, +almost, as the child. One moral always ran through them all. Troubles +always, somehow, came to an end; good creatures and children got safe +out of them all, and lived happy ever after; and the fierce,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> and +cunning, and bad—the wolves, and foxes, and witches—trapped themselves +in their own wickedness, and came to deplorable ends.</p> + +<p>"Tell us about the little red hen," said Herbert, paying his money, and +munching his candy.</p> + +<p>"An' thin ye'll trundle yer hoop out to the big tree, an' lave Glory an' +me our lane for a minute?"</p> + +<p>"Faith, an' I will that," said the boy—aping, ambitiously, the racy +Irish accent.</p> + +<p>"Well, thin, there was once't upon a time, away off in the ould country, +livin' all her lane in the woods, in a wee bit iv a house be herself, a +little rid hin. Nice an' quite she was, and nivir did no kind o' harrum +in her life. An' there lived out over the hill, in a din o' the rocks, a +crafty ould felly iv a fox. An' this same ould villain iv a fox, he laid +awake o' nights, and he prowled round shly iy a daytime, thinkin' always +so busy how he'd git the little rid hin, an' carry her home an' bile her +up for his shupper. But the wise little rid hin nivir went intil her bit +iv a house, but she locked the door afther her, an' pit the kay in her +pocket. So the ould rashkill iv a fox, he watched, an' he prowled, an' +he laid awake nights, till he came all to skin an' bone, on' sorra a +ha'porth o' the little rid hin could he git at. But at lasht there came +a shcame intil his wicked ould head, an' he tuk a big bag one mornin', +over his shouldher, and he says till his mother, says he, 'Mother, have +the pot all bilin' agin' I come home, for I'll bring the little rid hin +to-night for our shupper.' An' away he wint, over the hill, an' came +craping shly and soft through the woods to where the little rid hin +lived in her shnug bit iv a house. An' shure, jist at the very minute +that he got along, out comes the little rid hin out iv the door, to pick +up shticks to bile her taykettle. 'Begorra, now, but I'll have yees,' +says the shly ould fox, and in he shlips, unbeknownst, intil the house, +an' hides behind the door. An' in comes the little rid hin, a minute +afther, with her apron full of shticks, an' shuts to the door an' locks +it, an' pits the kay in her pocket. An' thin she turns round—an' there +shtands the baste iv a fox in the corner. Well, thin, what did she do, +but jist dhrop down her shticks, and fly up in a great fright and +flutter to the big bame acrass inside o' the roof, where the fox +couldn't get at her?</p> + +<p>"'Ah, ha!' says the ould fox, 'I'll soon bring yees down out o' that!' +An' he began to whirrul round, an' round, an' round, fashter an' fashter +an' fashter, on the floor, after his big, bushy tail, till the little +rid hin got so dizzy wid lookin', that she jist tumbled down off the +bame, and the fox whipped her up and popped her intil his bag, and +shtarted off home in a minute. An' he wint up the wood, an' down the +wood, half the day long, with the little rid hin shut up shmotherin' in +the bag. Sorra<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> a know she knowd where she was, at all, at all. She +thought she was all biled an' ate up, an' finished, shure! But, by an' +by, she renumbered herself, an' pit her hand in her pocket, and tuk out +her little bright schissors, and shnipped a big hole in the bag behind, +an' out she leapt, an' picked up a big shtone, an' popped it intil the +bag, an' rin aff home, an' locked the door.</p> + +<p>"An' the fox he tugged away up over the hill, with the big shtone at his +back thumpin' his shouldhers, thinkin' to himself how heavy the little +rid hin was, an' what a fine shupper he'd have. An' whin he came in +sight iv his din in the rocks, and shpied his ould mother a-watchin' for +him at the door, he says, 'Mother! have ye the pot bilin'?' An' the ould +mother says, 'Sure an' it is; an' have ye the little rid hin?' 'Yes, +jist here in me bag. Open the lid o' the pot till I pit her in,' says +he.</p> + +<p>"An' the ould mother fox she lifted the lid o' the pot, and the rashkill +untied the bag, and hild it over the pot o' bilin' wather, an' shuk in +the big, heavy shtone. An' the bilin' wather shplashed up all over the +rogue iv a fox, an' his mother, an' shcalded them both to death. An' the +little rid hin lived safe in her house foriver afther."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" breathed Bubby, in intense relief, for perhaps the twentieth time. +"Now tell about the girl that went to seek her fortune!"</p> + +<p>"Away wid ye!" cried Bridget Foye. "Kape yer promish, an' lave that till +ye come back!"</p> + +<p>So Herbert and his hoop trundled off to the big tree.</p> + +<p>"An' how are yees now, honey?" says Bridget to Glory, a whole catechism +of questions in the one inquiry. "Have ye come till any good times yit?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mrs. Foye," says Glory, "I think I'm tied up tight in the bag, an' +I'll never get out, except it's into the hot water!"</p> + +<p>"An' havint ye nivir a pair iv schissors in yer pocket?" asks Bridget.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," says poor Glory, hopelessly. And just then Master +Herbert comes trundling back, and Bridget tells him the story of the +girl that went to seek her fortune and came to be a queen.</p> + +<p>Glory half thinks that, some day or other, she, too, will start off and +seek her fortune.</p> + +<p>The next morning, Sunday—never a holiday, and scarcely a holy day to +her—Glory sits at the front window, with the inevitable baby in her +arms.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Grubbling is upstairs getting ready for church. After baby has his +forenoon drink, and is got off to sleep—supposing he shall be +complaisant, and go—Glory is to dust up, and set table, and warm the +dinner, and be all ready to bring it up when the elder Grubbling shall +have returned.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p> + +<p>Out at the Pembertons' green gate she sees the tidy parlor maid come, in +her smart shawl and new, bright ribbons; holding up her pretty printed +mousseline dress with one hand, as she steps down upon the street, and +so revealing the white hem of a clean starched skirt; while the other +hand is occupied with the little Catholic prayer book and a folded +handkerchief. Actually, gloves on her hands, too. The gate closes with a +cord and pulley after her, and somehow the hem of the fresh, +outspreading crinoline gets caught in it, as it shuts. So she turns half +round, and takes both hands to push it open and release herself. Doing +so, something slips from between the folds of her handkerchief, and +drops upon the ground. A bright half dollar, which was going to pay some +of her little church dues to-day. And she hurries on, never missing it +out of her grasp, and is halfway down the side street before Glory can +set the baby suddenly on the carpet, rush out at the front door, +regardless that Mrs. Grubbling's chamber window overlooks her from +above, pick up the coin, and overtake her.</p> + +<p>"I saw you drop it by the gate," is all she says, as she puts it into +Katie Ryan's hand.</p> + +<p>Katie stares with surprise, turning round at the touch upon her +shoulder, and beholding the strange figure, and the still stranger +evidence of honesty and good will.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, and I'm thoroughly obliged to ye," says she, barely in time, +for the odd figure is already retreating up the street. "It's the +red-headed girl over at Grubbling's," she continues to herself. "Well, +anyhow, she's an honest, kind-hearted crature, and I'll not forget it of +her."</p> + +<p>Glory has made another friend.</p> + +<p>"Well, Glory McWhirk, this is very pretty doings indeed!" began Mrs. +Grubbling, meeting the little handmaiden at the parlor door. "So this is +the way, is it, when my back is turned for a minute? That poor baby +dumped down on the floor, to crawl up to the hot stove, or do any other +horrid thing he likes, while you go flacketting out, bareheaded, into +the streets, after a topping jade like that? You can't have any +high-flown acquaintances while you live in my house, I tell you now, +once and for all. Are you going to take up that baby or not?" Mrs. +Grubbling had been thus far effectually heading Glory off, by standing +square in the parlor doorway. "Or perhaps, I'd better stay at home and +take care of him myself," she added, in a tone of superlative irony.</p> + +<p>Poor Glory, meekly murmuring that it was only to give back some money +the girl had dropped, slid past her mistress submissively, like a sentry +caught off his post and warned of mortal punishment, and shouldered arms +once more; that is, picked up the baby, who, as if taking the cue from +his mother, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> made conscious of his grievance, had at this moment +begun to cry.</p> + +<p>Glory had a good cry of her own first, and then, "killing two birds with +one stone," pacified herself and the baby "all under one."</p> + +<p>After this, Katie Ryan never came out at the green gate, of a Sunday on +the way to church, or of a week day to run down the little back street +of an errand, but she gave a glance up at the Grubblings' windows; and +if she caught sight of Glory's illumined head, nodded her own, with its +pretty, dark-brown locks, quite pleasant and friendly. And between these +chance recognitions of Katie's, and the good apple woman's occasional +sympathy, the world began to brighten a little, even for poor Glory.</p> + +<p>Still, good times went on—grand, wonderful good times—all around her. +And she caught distant glimpses, but "wasn't in 'em."</p> + +<p>One day, as she hurried home from the grocer's with half-a-dozen eggs +and two lemons, Katie ran out from the gate, and met her halfway down +Budd Street.</p> + +<p>"I've been watchin' for ye," said she. "I seen ye go out of an errand, +an' I've been lookin' for ye back. There's to be a grand party at our +house to-morrow night, an' I thought maybe ye'd like to get lave, an' +run over to take a peep at it. Put on yer best frock, and make yer hair +tidy, an' I'll see to yer gettin' a good chance."</p> + +<p>Poor Glory colored up, as Mrs. Grabbling might have done if the +President's wife had bidden her. Not so, either. With a glow of feeling, +and an oppression of gratitude, and a humility of delight, that Mrs. +Grubbling, under any circumstances whatever, could have known nothing +about.</p> + +<p>"If I only can," she managed to utter, "and, anyhow, I'm sure I'm +thankful to ye a thousand times."</p> + +<p>And that night she sat up in her little attic room, after everybody else +was in bed, mending, in a poor fashion, a rent in the faded "best +frock," and sewing a bit of cotton lace in the neck thereof that she had +picked out of the ragbag, and surreptitiously washed and ironed.</p> + +<p>Next morning, she went about her homely tasks with an alacrity that Mrs. +Grubbling, knowing nothing of the hope that had been let in upon her +dreariness, attributed wholly to the salutary effect of a "good +scolding" she had administered the day before. The work she got out of +the girl that Thursday forenoon! Never once did Glory leave her +scrubbing, or her dusting, or her stove polishing, to glance from the +windows into the street, though the market boys, and the waiters, and +the confectioners' parcels were going in at the Pembertons' gate, and +the man from the greenhouse, even, drove<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> his cart up, filled with +beautiful plants for the staircase.</p> + +<p>She waited, as in our toils we wait for Heaven—trusting to the joy that +was to come.</p> + +<p>After dinner, she spoke, with fear and trembling. Her lips turned quite +white with anxiety as she stood before Mrs. Grubbling with the baby in +her arms.</p> + +<p>"Please, mum," says Glory, tremulously, "Katie Ryan asked me over for a +little while to-night to look at the party."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Grubbling actually felt a jealousy, as if her poor, untutored +handmaid were taking precedence of herself.</p> + +<p>"What party?" she snapped.</p> + +<p>"At the Pembertons', mum. I thought you knew about it."</p> + +<p>"And what if I do? Maybe I'm going, myself."</p> + +<p>Glory opened her eyes wide in mingled consternation and surprise.</p> + +<p>"I didn't think you was, mum. But if you is——"</p> + +<p>"You're willing, I suppose," retorted her mistress, laughing, in a +bitter way. "I'm very much obliged. But I'm going out to-night, anyhow, +whether it's there or not, and you can't be spared. Besides, you needn't +think you're going to begin with going out evenings yet a while. At your +age! A pretty thing! There—go along, and don't bother me."</p> + +<p>Glory went along; and only the baby—of mortal listeners—heard the +suffering cry that went up from her poor, pinched, and chilled, and +disappointed heart.</p> + +<p>"Oh, baby, baby! it was <i>too</i> good a time! I'd ought to a knowed I +couldn't be in it!"</p> + +<p>Only a stone's throw from those brightly lighted windows of the +Pembertons'! Their superfluous radiance pouring out lavishly across the +narrow street, searched even through the dim panes behind which Glory +sat, resting her tired arms, after tucking away their ordinary burden in +his crib, and answering Herbert's wearisome questions, who from his +trundle bed kept asking, ceaselessly:</p> + +<p>"What are they doing now? Can't you see, Glory?"</p> + +<p>"Hush, hush!" said Glory, breathlessly, as a burst of brilliant melody +floated over to her ear. "They're making music now. Don't you hear?"</p> + +<p>"No. How can I, with my head in the pillow? I'm coming there to sit with +you, Glory." And the boy scrambled from his feed to the window.</p> + +<p>"No, no! you'll ketch cold. Besides, you'd oughter go to sleep. +Well—only for a little bit of a minute, then," as Herbert persisted, +and climbing upon her lap, flattened his face against the window pane.</p> + +<p>Glory gathered up her skirt about his shoulders and held him for a +while, begging him uneasily, over and over, to "be a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> good boy, and go +back to bed." No; he wouldn't be a good boy, and he wouldn't go back to +bed, till the music paused. Then, by dint of promising that if it began +again she would open the window a "teenty little crack," so that he +might hear it better, she coaxed him to the point of yielding, and +tucked him, chilly, yet half unwilling, in the trundle.</p> + +<p>Back again, to look and listen. And, oh, wonderful and unexpected +fortune! A beneficent hand has drawn up the white linen shade at one of +the back parlor windows to slide the sash a little from the top. It was +Katie, whom her young mistress, standing with her partner at that corner +of the room, had called in from the hall to do it.</p> + +<p>"No, no," whispered the young lady, hastily, as her companion moved to +render her the service she desired, "let Katie come in. She'll get such +a good look down the room at the dancers." There was no abated +admiration in the young man's eye, as he turned back to her side, and +allowed her kindly intention to be fulfilled.</p> + +<p>Did Katie surmise, in her turn, with the freemasonry of her class, how +it was with her humble friend over the way—that she couldn't get let +out for the evening, and that she would be sure to be looking and +listening from her old post opposite? However it was, the linen shade +was not lowered again, and there between the lace and crimson curtains +stood revealed the graceful young figure of Edith Pemberton, in her +floating ball robes, with the wreath of morning-glories in her hair.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my sakes and sorrows! Ain't she just like a princess? Ain't it a +splendid time? And I come so near to be in it! But I ain't; and I s'pose +I shan't ever get a chance again. Maybe Katie'd get me over of a common +workday though, some time, to help her a bit or so. Wouldn't I be glad +to?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, for gracious, child! Don't ever come here again. You'll catch your +death. You'll have the croup and whooping cought, and everything +to-morrow." This to Herbert, who had of course tumbled out of bed again +at Glory's first rapturous exclamation.</p> + +<p>"No, I won't!" cried the boy, rebelliously; "I'll stay as long as I +like. And I'll tell my ma how you was a-wantin' to go away and be the +Pembertons' girl. Won't she lam you when she hears that?"</p> + +<p>"You can tell wicked lies if you want to, Master Herbert; but you know I +never said such a word, nor ever thought of it. Of course I couldn't if +I wanted to ever so bad."</p> + +<p>"Couldn't live there? I guess not. Think they'd have a girl like you? +What a lookin' you'd be, a-comin' to the front door answerin' the bell!"</p> + +<p>Here the doorbell rang suddenly and sharply, and Master Herbert +fancying, as did Glory, that it was his mother come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> back, scrambled +into his bed again and covered himself up, while the girl ran down to +answer the summons.</p> + +<p>It was Katie Ryan, with cakes and sweetmeats.</p> + +<p>"I've jist rin in to fetch ye these. Miss Edith gave 'em me, so ye +needn't be feared. I knows ye're sich an honest one. An' it's a tearin' +shame, if ever there was, that ye couldn't come over for a bit of +diversion. Why don't ye quit this?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, hush!" whispered Glory, with a gesture up the staircase, where she +had just left the little pitcher with fearfully long ears. "And thank +you kindly, over and over, I'm sure. It's real good o' you to think o' +me so—oh!" And Glory couldn't say anything more for a quick little sob +that came in her throat, and caught the last word up into a spasm.</p> + +<p>"Pooh! it's just nothing at all. I'd do something better nor that if I +had the chance; an' I'd adwise ye to get out o' this if ye can. Good-by. +I've set the parlor windy open, an' the shade's up. I knew it would jist +be a conwenience."</p> + +<p>Glory ran up the back stairs to the top of the house, and hid away the +sweet things in her own room to "make a party" with next day. And then +she went down and tented over the crib with an old woolen shawl, and set +a high-backed rocking chair to keep the draft from Herbert, and opened +the window "a teenty crack." In five minutes the slight freshening of +the air and the soothing of the music had sent the boy to sleep, and +watchful Glory closed the window and set things in their ordinary +arrangement once more.</p> + +<p>Next morning Herbert made hoarse complaint.</p> + +<p>"What did you let him do, Glory, to catch such a cold?" asked Mrs. +Grabbling.</p> + +<p>"Nothing, mum, only he would get out of bed to hear the music," replied +the girl.</p> + +<p>"Well, you opened the window, you know you did, and Katie Ryan came over +and kept the front door open. And you said how you wished you could go +over there and do their chores. I told you I'd tell."</p> + +<p>"It's wicked lies, mum," burst out Glory, indignant.</p> + +<p>"Do you dare to tell him he lies, right before my face, you +good-for-nothing girl?" shrieked the exasperated mother. "Where do you +expect to go to?"</p> + +<p>"I don't expect to go nowheres, mum; and I wouldn't say it was lies if +he didn't tell what wasn't true."</p> + +<p>"How should such a thing come into his head if you didn't say it?"</p> + +<p>"There's many things comes into his head," answered Glory, stoutly, "and +I think you'd oughter believe me first, when I never told you a lie in +my life, and you did ketch Master Herbert fibbing, jist the other day, +but."</p> + +<p>Somehow, Glory had grown strangely bold in her own behalf<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> since she had +come to feel there was a bit of sympathy somewhere for her in the world.</p> + +<p>"I know now where he learns it," retorted the mistress, with persistent +and angry injustice.</p> + +<p>Glory's face blazed up, and she took an involuntary step to the woman's +side at the warrantless accusation.</p> + +<p>"You don't mean that, mum, and you'd oughter take it back," said she, +excited beyond all fear and habit of submission.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Grubbling raised her hand passionately, and struck the girl upon +the cheek.</p> + +<p>"I mean <i>that</i>, then, for your impudence! Don't answer me up again!"</p> + +<p>"No, mum," said Glory, in a low, strange tone; quite white now, except +where the vindictive fingers had left their crimson streaks. And she +went off out of the room without another word.</p> + +<p>Over the knife board she revolved her wrongs, and sharpened at length +the keen edge of desperate resolution.</p> + +<p>"Please, mum," said she, in the old form of address, but with quite a +new manner, that, in the little dependant of less than fifteen, startled +the hard mistress, "I ain't noways bound to you, am I?"</p> + +<p>She propounded her question, stopping short in her return toward the +china closet through the sitting room.</p> + +<p>"Bound? What do you mean?" parried Mrs. Grubbling, dimly foreshadowing +to herself what it would be if Glory should break loose, and go.</p> + +<p>"To stay, mum, and you to keep me, till I'm growed up," answered Glory, +briefly.</p> + +<p>"There's no binding about it," replied the mistress. "Of course I +wouldn't be held to anything of that sort. I shan't keep you any longer +than you behave yourself."</p> + +<p>"Then, if you please, mum, I think I'll go," said Glory. And she burst +into a passion of tears.</p> + +<p>"Humph! Where?" asked Mrs. Grubbling.</p> + +<p>"I don't know, yet," said Glory, the sarcasm drying her tears. "I s'pose +I can go to a office."</p> + +<p>"And where'll you get your meals and your lodgings till you find a +place?" The cat thought she had her paw on the mouse, now, and could +play with her as securely and cruelly as she pleased.</p> + +<p>"If you go away at all," continued Mrs. Grubbling, with what she deemed +a finishing stroke of policy, "you go straight off. I'll have no dancing +back and forth to offices from here."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean right off, this minute?" asked Glory, aghast.</p> + +<p>"Yes just that. Pack up and go, or else let me hear no more about it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> + +<p>The next thing in Glory's programme of duty was to lay the table for +dinner. But she went out of the room, and slowly off, upstairs.</p> + +<p>Pretty soon she came down again, with her eyes very tearful, and her +shabby shawl and bonnet on.</p> + +<p>"I'm going, mum," said she, as one resolved to face calmly whatever +might befall. "I didn't mean it to be sudden, but it are. And I wouldn't +never a gone, if I'd a thought anybody cared for me the leastest bit +that ever was. I wouldn't mind bein' worked and put upon, and not havin' +any good times; but when people hates me, and goes to say I doesn't tell +the truth"—here Glory broke down, and the tears poured over her stained +cheeks again, and she essayed once more to dry them, which reminded her +that her hands again were full.</p> + +<p>"It's some goodies—from the party, mum"—she struggled to say between +short breaths and sobs, "that Katie Ryan give me—an' I kept—to make a +party—for the children, with—to-day, mum—when the chores was +done—and I'll leave 'em—for 'em—if you please."</p> + +<p>Glory laid her coals of fire upon the table as she spoke. Master Herbert +eyed them, as one utterly unconscious of a scorch.</p> + +<p>"I s'pose I might come back and get my bundle," said Glory, standing +still in the hope of one last kindly or relenting word.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, if you get a place," said her mistress, dryly, affecting to +treat the whole affair as a childish, though unwonted burst of +petulance.</p> + +<p>But Glory, not daring, unbidden, even to kiss the baby, went steadily +and sorrowfully out into the street, and drew the door behind her, that +shut with a catch lock, and fastened her out into the wide world.</p> + +<p>Not stopping to think, she hurried on, up Budd and down Branch Street, +and across the green common path to the apple stand and Bridget Foye.</p> + +<p>"I've done it! I've gone! And I don't know what to do, nor where to go +to!"</p> + +<p>"Arrah, poor little rid hin! So, ye've found yer schiasors, have ye, an' +let yersel' loose out o' the bag? Well, it's I that is glad, though I +wouldn't pit ye up till it," says Bridget Foye.</p> + +<p>Poor little red hen. She had cut a hole, and jumped out of the bag, to +be sure; but here she was, "all alone by herself" once more, and the +foxes—Want and Cruelty—ravening after her all through the great, +dreary wood!</p> + +<p>This day, at least, passed comfortably enough, however, although with an +undertone of sadness—in the sunshine, by Bridget's apple stand, +watching the gay passers-by, and shaping some humble hopes and plans for +the future. For dinner, she shared Mrs. Foye's plain bread and cheese, +and made a dessert of an apple and a handful of peanuts. At night +Bridget took her home and gave her shelter, and the next day she started +her off with a "God bless ye and good luck till ye," in the charge of an +older girl who lodged in the same building, and who was also "out after +a place."</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_VI." id="CHAPTER_VI."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2><h3>AUNT HENDERSON'S GIRL HUNT.</h3> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p class='last'>"Black spirits and white,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Red spirits and gray;</span><br /> +Mingle, mingle, mingle,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">You that mingle may." </span></p> +<p class='auth'>Macbeth.</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>It was a small, close, dark room—Mrs. Griggs's Intelligence Office—a +little counter and show case dividing off its farther end, making a +sanctum for Mrs. Griggs, who sat here in rheumatic ponderosity, +dependent for whatever involved locomotion on the rather alarming +alacrity of an impish-looking granddaughter who is elbowing her way +through the throng of applicants for places and servants. She paid no +heed to the astonishment of a severe-looking, elderly lady, who, by her +impetuous onset, has been rudely thrust back into the very arms of a +fat, unsavory cook with whom she had a minute before been quite +unwillingly set to confer by the high priestess of the place.</p> + +<p>Aunt Henderson grasped Faith's hand as if she felt she had brought her +into a danger, and held her close to her side while she paused a moment +to observe, with the strange fascination of repulsion, the manifestation +of a phase of human life and the working of a vocation so utterly and +astoundingly novel to herself.</p> + +<p>"Well, Melindy," said Mrs. Griggs, salutatorily.</p> + +<p>"Well, grandma," answered the girl, with a pert air of show off and +consequence, "I found the place, and I found the lady. Ain't I been +quick?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. What did she say?"</p> + +<p>"Said the girl left last Saturday. Ain't had anybody sence. Wants you to +send her a first-rate one, right off. Has Care'<i>line</i> been here after +me?"</p> + +<p>"No. Did you get the money?"</p> + +<p>"She never said a word about it. Guess she forgot the month was out."</p> + +<p>"Didn't you ask her?"</p> + +<p>"Me? No. I did the arrant, and stood and looked at her—jest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> as +pious—! And when she didn't say nothin', I come away."</p> + +<p>"Winny M'Goverin," said Mrs. Griggs, "that place'll suit you. Leastways, +it must, for another month. You'd better go right round there."</p> + +<p>"Where is it?" asked the fat cook, indifferently.</p> + +<p>"Up in Mount Pleasant Street, Number 53. First-class place, and plenty +of privileges. Margaret McKay," she continued, to another, "you're too +hard to please. Here's one more place"—handing her a card with +address—"and if you don't take that, I won't do nothing more for you, +if you <i>air</i> Scotch and a Protestant! Mary McGinnis, it's no use your +talking to that lady from the country. She can't spare you to come down +but twice or so a year."</p> + +<p>"Lord!" ejaculated Mary McGinnis, "I wouldn't live a whole year with no +lady that ever was, let alone the country!"</p> + +<p>"Come out, Faith!" said Miss Henderson, in a deep, ineffable tone of +disgust.</p> + +<p>"If <i>that's</i> a genteel West End Intelligence Office," cried Aunt Faith, +as she touched the sidewalk, "let's go downtown and try some of the +common ones."</p> + +<p>A large hall—where the candidates were ranged on settees under order +and restraint, and the superintendent, or directress, occupied a desk +placed upon a platform near the entrance—was the next scene whereon +Miss Henderson and Faith Gartney entered. Things looked clean and +respectable. System obtained here. Aunt Faith felt encouraged. But she +made no haste to utter her business. Tall, self-possessed, and +dignified, she stood a few paces inside the door, and looked down the +apartment, surveying coolly the faces there, and analyzing, by a shrewd +mental process, their indications.</p> + +<p>Her niece had stopped a moment on the landing outside to fasten her boot +lace.</p> + +<p>Miss Henderson did not wear hoops. Also, the streets being sloppy, she +had tucked up her plain, gray merino dress over a quilted black alpaca +petticoat. Her boots were splashed, and her black silk bonnet was +covered with a large gray barége veil, tied down over it to protect it +from the dripping roofs. Judging merely by exterior, one would hardly +take her at a glance, indeed, for a "fust-class" lady.</p> + +<p>The directress—a busy woman, with only half a glance to spare for +anyone—moved toward her.</p> + +<p>"Take a seat, if you please. What kind of a place do you want?"</p> + +<p>Aunt Faith turned full face upon her, with a look that was prepared to +be overwhelming.</p> + +<p>"I'm looking for a place, ma'am, where I can find a respectable girl."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p> + +<p>Her firm, emphatic utterance was heard to the farthest end of the hall.</p> + +<p>The girls tittered.</p> + +<p>Faith Gartney came in at this moment, and walked up quietly to Miss +Henderson's side. There was visibly a new impression made, and the +tittering ceased.</p> + +<p>"I beg pardon, ma'am. I see. But we have so many in, and I didn't fairly +look. General housework?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; general and particular—both. Whatever I set her to do."</p> + +<p>The directress turned toward the throng of faces whose fire of eyes was +now all concentrated on the unflinching countenance of Miss Henderson.</p> + +<p>"Ellen Mahoney!"</p> + +<p>A stout, well-looking damsel, with an expression that seemed to say she +answered to her name, but was nevertheless persuaded of the utter +uselessness of the movement, half rose from her seat.</p> + +<p>"You needn't call up that girl," said Aunt Faith, decidedly; "I don't +want her."</p> + +<p>Ellen Mahoney had giggled among the loudest.</p> + +<p>"She knows what she <i>does</i> want!" whispered a decent-appearing young +woman to a girl at her side with an eager face looking out from a friz +of short curly hair, "and that's more than half of 'em do."</p> + +<p>"Country, did you say, ma'am? or city?" asked the directress once more +of Miss Henderson.</p> + +<p>"I didn't say. It's country, though—twenty miles out."</p> + +<p>"What wages?"</p> + +<p>"I'll find the girl first, and settle that afterwards."</p> + +<p>"Anybody to do general housework in the country, twenty miles out?"</p> + +<p>The prevailing expression of the assemblage changed. There was a +settling down into seats, and a resumption of knitting and needlework.</p> + +<p>One pair of eyes, however, looked on, even more eagerly than before. One +young girl—she with the short curly hair who hadn't seen the country +for six years and more—caught her breath, convulsively, at the word.</p> + +<p>"I wish I dar'st! I've a great mind!" whispered she to her tidy +companion.</p> + +<p>While she hesitated, a slatternly young woman, a few seats farther +forward, moved, with a "don't care" sort of look, to answer the summons.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear!" sighed the first. "I'd ought to a done it!"</p> + +<p>"I don't think she would take a young girl like you," replied her +friend.</p> + +<p>"That's the way it always is!" exclaimed the disappointed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> voice, in +forgetfulness and excitement uttering itself aloud. "Plenty of good +times going, but they all go right by. I ain't never in any of 'em!"</p> + +<p>"Glory McWhirk!" chided the directress, "be quiet! Remember the rules, +or leave the room."</p> + +<p>"Call that red-headed girl to me," said Miss Henderson, turning square +round from the dirty figure that was presenting itself before her, and +addressing the desk. "She looks clean and bright," she added, aside, to +Faith, as Glory timidly approached. "And poor. And longing for a chance. +I'll have her."</p> + +<p>A girl with a bonnet full of braids and roses, and a look of general +knowingness, started up close at Miss Henderson's side, and interposed.</p> + +<p>"Did you say twenty miles, mum? How often could I come to town?"</p> + +<p>"You haven't been asked to go <i>out</i> of town, that I know of," replied +Miss Henderson, frigidly, abashing the office <i>habitué</i>, who had not +been used to find her catechism cut so summarily short, and moving aside +to speak with Glory.</p> + +<p>"What was it I heard you say just now?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean to speak out so, mum. It was only what I mostly thinks. +That there's always lots of good times in the world, only I ain't never +in 'em."</p> + +<p>"And you thought it would be good times, did you, to go off twenty miles +into the country, to live alone with an old woman like me?"</p> + +<p>Miss Henderson's tone softened kindly to the rough, uncouth girl, and +encouraged her to confidence.</p> + +<p>"Well, you see, mum, I should like to go where things is green and +pleasant. I lived in the country once—ever so long ago—when I was a +little girl."</p> + +<p>Miss Henderson could not help a smile that was half amused, and wholly +pitiful, as she looked in the face of this creature of fourteen, so +strange and earnest, with its outline of fuzzy, cropped hair, and heard +her talk of "ever so long ago."</p> + +<p>"Are you strong?"</p> + +<p>"Yes'm. I ain't never sick."</p> + +<p>"And willing to work?"</p> + +<p>"Yes'm. Jest as much as I know how."</p> + +<p>"And want to learn more?"</p> + +<p>"Yes'm. I don't know as I'd know enough hardly, to begin, though."</p> + +<p>"Can you wash dishes? And sweep? And set table?"</p> + +<p>To each of these queries Glory successively interposed an affirmative +monosyllable, adding, gratuitously, at the close, "And tend baby, too, +real good." Her eyes filled, as she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> thought of the Grubbling baby with +the love that always grows for that whereto one has sacrificed oneself.</p> + +<p>"You won't have any babies to tend. Time enough for that when you've +learned plenty of other things. Who do you belong to?"</p> + +<p>"I don't belong to anybody, mum. Father, and mother, and grandmother is +all dead. I've done the chores and tended baby up at Mrs. Grubbling's +ever since. That's in Budd Street. I'm staying now in High Street, with +Mrs. Foye. Number 15."</p> + +<p>"I'll come after you to-morrow. Have your things ready to go right off."</p> + +<p>"I'm so glad you took her, auntie," said Faith, as they went out. "She +looks as if she hadn't been well treated. Think of her wanting so to go +into the country! I should like to do something for her."</p> + +<p>"That's my business," answered Aunt Faith, curtly, but not crossly. +"You'll find somebody to do for, if you look out. If your mother's +willing, though, you might mend up one of your old school dresses for +her. 'Tisn't likely she's got anything to begin with." And so saying, +Aunt Faith turned precipitately into a drygoods store, where she bought +a large plaid woolen shawl, and twelve yards of dark calico. Coming out, +she darted as suddenly, and apparently unpremeditatedly, across the +street into a milliner's shop, and ordered home a brown rough-and-ready +straw bonnet, and four yards of ribbon to match.</p> + +<p>"And that you can put on, too," she said to Faith.</p> + +<p>That evening, Faith was even unwontedly cheery and busy, taking a burned +half breadth out of a dark cashmere dress, darning it at the armhole, +and pinning the plain ribbon over the brown straw bonnet.</p> + +<p>At the same time, Glory went up across the city to Budd Street, with a +mingled heaviness and gladness at her heart, and, after a kindly +farewell interview with Katie Ryan at the Pembertons' green gate, rang, +with a half-guilty feeling at her own independence, at the Grubblings' +door. Bubby opened it.</p> + +<p>"Why, ma!" he shouted up the staircase, "it's Glory come back!"</p> + +<p>"I've come to get my bundle," said the girl.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Grubbling had advanced to the stair head, somewhat briskly, with +the wakeful baby in her arms. Two days' "tending" had greatly mollified +her sentiments toward the offending Glory.</p> + +<p>"And she's come to get her bundle," added the young usher, from below.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Grubbling retreated into her chamber, and shut herself and the baby +in.</p> + +<p>Poor Glory crept upstairs to her little attic.</p> + +<p>Coming down again, she set her bundle on the stairs, and knocked.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" was the ungracious response.</p> + +<p>"Please, mum, mightn't I say good-by to the baby?"</p> + +<p>The latch had slipped, and the door was already slightly ajar. Baby +heard the accustomed voice, and struggled in his mother's arms.</p> + +<p>"A pretty time to come disturbing him to do it!" grumbled she. +Nevertheless, she set the baby on the floor, who tottled out, and was +seized by Glory, standing there in the dark entry, and pressed close in +her poor, long-wearied, faithful arms.</p> + +<p>"Oh, baby, baby! I'm in it now! And I don't know rightly whether it's a +good time or not!"</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_VII." id="CHAPTER_VII."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2><h3>CARES; AND WHAT CAME OF THEM.</h3> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p class='last'>"To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;<br /> +To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow;<br /> + · + · + · + · + · + · +<br /> +To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares;<br /> +To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires." </p> +<p class='auth'>Spencer.</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>Two years and more had passed since the New Year's dance at the +Rushleighs'.</p> + +<p>The crisis of '57 and '58 was approaching its culmination. The great +earthquake that for months had been making itself heard afar off by its +portentous rumbling was heaving to the final crash. Already the weaker +houses had fallen and were forgotten.</p> + +<p>When a great financial trouble sweeps down upon a people, there are +three general classes who receive and feel it, each in its own peculiar +way.</p> + +<p>There are the great capitalists—the enormously rich—who, unless a +tremendous combination of adversities shall utterly ruin here and there +one, grow the richer yet for the calamities of their neighbors. There +are also the very poor, who have nothing to lose but their daily labor +and their daily bread—who may suffer and starve; but who, if by any +little saving of a better time they can manage just to buy bread, shall +be precisely where they were, practically, when the storm shall have +blown over. Between these lies the great middle class—among whom, as on +the middle ground, the world's great battle is continually waging—of +persons who are neither rich nor poor;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> who have neither secured +fortunes to fall back upon, nor yet the independence of their hands to +turn to, when business and its income fail. This is the class that +suffers most. Most keenly in apprehension, in mortification, in after +privation.</p> + +<p>Of this class was the Gartney family.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gartney was growing pale and thin. No wonder; with sleepless nights, +and harassed days, and forgotten, or unrelished meals. His wife watched +him and waited for him, and contrived special comforts for him, and +listened to his confidences.</p> + +<p>Faith felt that there was a cloud upon the house, and knew that it had +to do with money. So she hid her own little wants as long as she could, +wore her old ribbons, mended last year's discarded gloves, and yearned +vaguely and helplessly to do something—some great thing if she only +could, that might remedy or help.</p> + +<p>Once, she thought she would learn Stenography. She had heard somebody +speak one day of the great pay a lady shorthand writer had received at +Washington, for some Congressional reports. Why shouldn't she learn how +to do it, and if the terrible worst should ever come to the worst, make +known her secret resource, and earn enough for all the family?</p> + +<p>Something like this—some "high and holy work of love"—she longed to +do. Longed almost—if she were once prepared and certain of herself—for +even misfortune that should justify and make practicable her generous +purpose.</p> + +<p>She got an elementary book, and set to work, by herself. She toiled +wearily, every day, for nearly a month; despairing at every step, yet +persevering; for, beside the grand dream for the future, there was a +present fascination in the queer little scrawls and dots.</p> + +<p>It cannot be known how long she might have gone on with the attempt, if +her mother had not come to her one day with some parcels of cut-out +cotton cloth.</p> + +<p>"Faithie, dear," said she, deprecatingly, "I don't like to put such work +upon you while you go to school; but I ought not to afford to have Miss +McElroy this spring. Can't you make up some of these with me?"</p> + +<p>There were articles of clothing for Faith, herself. She felt the present +duty upon her; and how could she rebel? Yet what was to become of the +great scheme?</p> + +<p>By and by would come vacation, and in the following spring, at farthest, +she would leave school, and then—she would see. She would write a book, +maybe. Why not? And secretly dispose of it, for a large sum, to some +self-regardless publisher. Should there never be another Fanny Burney? +Not a novel, though, or any grown-up book, at first; but a juvenile, at +least, she could surely venture on. Look at all the Cousin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> Maries, and +Aunt Fannies, and Sister Alices, whose productions piled the +booksellers' counters during the holiday sales, and found their way, +sooner or later, into all the nurseries, and children's bookcases! And +think of all the stories she had invented to amuse Hendie with! Better +than some of these printed ones, she was quite sure, if only she could +set them down just as she had spoken them under the inspiration of +Hendie's eager eyes and ready glee.</p> + +<p>She made two or three beginnings, during the summer holidays, but always +came to some sort of a "sticking place," which couldn't be hobbled over +in print as in verbal relation. All the links must be apparent, and +everything be made to hold well together. She wouldn't have known what +they were, if you had asked her—but the "unities" troubled her. And +then the labor loomed up so large before her! She counted the lines in a +page of a book of the ordinary juvenile size, and the number of letters +in a line, and found out the wonderful compression of which manuscript +is capable. And there must be two hundred pages, at least, to make a +book of tolerable size.</p> + +<p>There seemed to be nothing in the world that she could do. She could not +give her time to charity, and go about among the poor. She had nothing +to help them with. Her father gave, already, to ceaseless applications, +more than he could positively spare. So every now and then she +relinquished in discouragement her aspirations, and lived on, from day +to day, as other girls did, getting what pleasure she could; hampered +continually, however, with the old, inevitable tether, of "can't +afford."</p> + +<p>"If something only would happen!" If some new circumstance would creep +into her life, and open the way for a more real living!</p> + +<p>Do you think girls of seventeen don't have thoughts and longings like +these? I tell you they do; and it isn't that they want to have anybody +else meet with misfortune, or die, that romantic combinations may +thereby result to them; or that they are in haste to enact the everyday +romance—to secure a lover—get married—and set up a life of their own; +it is that the ordinary marked-out bound of civilized young-lady +existence is so utterly inadequate to the fresh, vigorous, expanding +nature, with its noble hopes, and its apprehension of limitless +possibilities.</p> + +<p>Something did happen.</p> + +<p>Winter came on again. After a twelvemonth of struggle and pain such as +none but a harassed man of business can ever know or imagine, Mr. +Gartney found himself "out of the wood."</p> + +<p>He had survived the shock—his last mote was taken up—he had labored +through—and that was all. He was like a man from off a wreck, who has +brought away nothing but his life.</p> + +<p>He came home one morning from New York, whither he had been to attend a +meeting of creditors of a failed firm, and went straight to his chamber +with a raging headache.</p> + +<p>The next day, the physician's chaise was at the door, and on the +landing, where Mrs. Gartney stood, pale and anxious, gazing into his +face for a word, after the visit to the sick room was over, Dr. Gracie +drew on his gloves, and said to her, with one foot on the stair: +"Symptoms of typhoid. Keep him absolutely quiet."</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_VIII." id="CHAPTER_VIII."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2><h3>A NICHE IN LIFE, AND A WOMAN TO FILL IT.</h3> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p class='last'>"A Traveller between Life and Death." </p> +<p class='auth'>Wordsworth.</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>Miss Sampson was at home this evening. It was not what one would have +pictured to oneself as a scene of home comfort or enjoyment; but Miss +Sampson was at home. In her little room of fourteen feet square, up a +dismal flight of stairs, sitting, in the light of a single lamp, by her +air-tight stove, whereon a cup of tea was keeping warm; that, and the +open newspaper on the little table in the corner, being the only things +in any way cheery about her.</p> + +<p>Not even a cat or a canary bird had she for companionship. There was no +cozy arrangement for daily feminine employment; no workbasket, or litter +of spools and tapes; nothing to indicate what might be her daily way of +going on. On the broad ledges of the windows, where any other woman +would have had a plant or two, there was no array of geraniums or +verbenas—not even a seedling orange tree or a monthly rose. But in one +of them lay a plaid shawl and a carpet bag, and in the other that +peculiar and nearly obsolete piece of feminine property, a paper +bandbox, tied about with tape.</p> + +<p>Packed up for a journey?</p> + +<p>Reader, Miss Sampson was <i>always</i> packed up. She was that much-enduring, +all-foregoing creature, a professional nurse.</p> + +<p>There would have been no one to feed a cat, or a canary bird, or to +water a rose bush, if she had had one. Her home was no more to her than +his station at the corner of the street is to the handcart man or the +hackney coachman. It was only the place where she might receive orders; +whence she might go forth to the toilsomeness and gloom of one sick room +after another, returning between each sally and the next to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> her +cheerless post of waiting—keeping her strength for others, and living +no life of her own.</p> + +<p>There was nothing in Miss Sampson's outer woman that would give you, at +first glance, an idea of her real energy and peculiar force of +character. She was a tall and slender figure, with no superfluous weight +of flesh; and her long, thin arms seemed to have grown long and wiry +with lifting, and easing, and winding about the poor wrecks of mortality +that had lost their own vigor, and were fain to beg a portion of hers. +Her face was thin and rigid, too—molded to no mere graces of +expression—but with a strong outline, and a habitual compression about +the mouth that told you, when you had once learned somewhat of its +meaning, of the firm will that would go straight forward to its object, +and do, without parade or delay, whatever there might be to be done. +Decision, determination, judgment, and readiness were all in that +habitual look of a face on which little else had been called out for +years. But you would not so have read it at first sight. You would +almost inevitably have called her a "scrawny, sour-looking old maid."</p> + +<p>A creaking step was heard upon the stair, and then a knock of decision +at Miss Sampson's door.</p> + +<p>"Come in!"</p> + +<p>And as she spoke, Miss Sampson took her cup and saucer in her hand. That +was to be kept waiting no longer for whatever visitor it might chance to +be. She was taking her first sip as Dr. Gracier entered.</p> + +<p>"Don't move, Miss Sampson; don't let me interrupt."</p> + +<p>"I don't mean to! What sends you here?"</p> + +<p>"A new patient."</p> + +<p>"Humph! Not one of the last sort, I hope. You know my kind, and 'tain't +any use talking up about any others. Any old woman can make gruel, and +feed a baby with catnip tea. Don't offer me any more such work as that! +If it's work that <i>is</i> work, speak out!"</p> + +<p>"It's work that nobody else can do for me. A critical case of typhoid, +and nobody in the house that understands such illness. I've promised to +bring you."</p> + +<p>"You knew I was back, then?"</p> + +<p>"I knew you would be. I only sent you at the pinch. I warned them you'd +go as soon as things were tolerably comfortable."</p> + +<p>"Of course I would. What business should I have where there was nothing +wanted of me but to go to bed at nine o'clock, and sleep till daylight? +That ain't the sort of corner I was cut out to fill."</p> + +<p>"Well, drink your tea, and put on your bonnet. There's a carriage at the +door."</p> + +<p>"Man? or woman?" asked Miss Sampson.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p> + +<p>"A man—Mr. Henderson Gartney, Hickory Street."</p> + +<p>"Out of his head?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—and getting more so. Family all frightened to death."</p> + +<p>"Keep 'em out of my way, then, and let me have him to myself. One crazy +patient is enough, at a time, for any one pair of hands. I'm ready."</p> + +<p>In fifteen minutes more, they were in Hickory Street; and the nurse was +speedily installed, or rather installed herself, in her office. Dr. +Gracie hastened away to another patient, promising to call again at +bedtime.</p> + +<p>"Now, ma'am," said Miss Sampson to Mrs. Gartney, who, after taking her +first to the bedside of the patient, had withdrawn with her to the +little dressing room adjoining, and given her a <i>résumé</i> of the +treatment thus far followed, with the doctor's last directions to +herself—"you just go downstairs to your supper. I know, by your looks, +you ain't had a mouthful to-day. That's no way to help take care of sick +folks."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gartney smiled a little, feebly; and an expression of almost +childlike rest and relief came over her face. She felt herself in strong +hands.</p> + +<p>"And you?" she asked. "Shall I send you something here?"</p> + +<p>"I've drunk a cup of tea, before I started. If I see my way clear, I'll +run down for a bite after you get through. I don't want any special +providings. I take my nibbles anyhow, as I go along. You needn't mind, +more'n as if I wasn't here. I shall find my way all over the house. Now, +you go."</p> + +<p>"Only tell me how he seems to you."</p> + +<p>"Well—not so terrible sick. Just barely bad enough to keep me here. I +don't take any easy cases."</p> + +<p>The odd, abrupt manner and speech comforted, while they somewhat +astonished Mrs. Gartney.</p> + +<p>"Leave the bread and butter and cold chicken on the table," said she, +when the tea things were about to be removed; "and keep the chocolate +hot, downstairs. Faithie—sit here; and if Miss Sampson comes down by +and by, see that she is made comfortable."</p> + +<p>It was ten o'clock when Miss Sampson came down, and then it was with Dr. +Gracie.</p> + +<p>"Cheer up, little lady!" said the doctor, meeting Faith's anxious, +inquiring glance. "Not so bad, by any means, as we might be. The only +difficulty will be to keep Nurse Sampson here. She won't stay a minute, +if we begin to get better too fast. Yes—I will take a bit of chicken, I +think; and—what have you there that's hot?" as the maid came in with +the chocolate pot, in answer to Faith's ring of the bell. "Ah, yes! +Chocolate! I missed my tea, somehow, to-night." The "somehow" had been +in his kindly quest of the best nurse in Mishaumok.</p> + +<p>"Sit down, Miss Sampson. Let me help you to a scrap of cold chicken. +What? Drumstick! Miss Faithie—here is a woman who makes it a principle +to go through the world, choosing drumsticks! She's a study; and I set +you to finding her out."</p> + +<p>Last night, as he had told Miss Sampson, the family had been "frightened +to death." He had found Faith sitting on the front stairs, at midnight, +when he came in at a sudden summons. She was pale and shivering, and +caught him nervously by both hands.</p> + +<p>"Oh, doctor!"</p> + +<p>"And oh, Miss Faithie! This is no place for you. You ought to be in +bed."</p> + +<p>"But I can't. Mother is all alone, except Mahala. And I don't dare stay +up there, either. What <i>shall</i> we do?"</p> + +<p>For all answer, the doctor had just taken her in his arms, and carried +her down to the sofa in the hall, where he laid her, and covered her +over with his greatcoat. There she stayed, passively, till he came back. +And then he told her kindly and gravely, that if she could be <i>quite</i> +quiet, and firm, she might go and lie on the sofa in her mother's +dressing room for the remainder of the night, to be at hand for any +needed service. To-morrow he would see that they were otherwise +provided.</p> + +<p>And so, to-night, here was Miss Sampson eating her drumstick.</p> + +<p>Faith watched the hard lines of her face as she did so, and wondered +what, and how much Dr. Gracie had meant by "setting her to find her +out."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid you haven't had a vary nice supper," said she, timidly. "Do +you like that best?"</p> + +<p>"Somebody must always eat drumsticks," was the concise reply.</p> + +<p>And so, presently, without any further advance toward acquaintance, they +went upstairs; and the house, under the new, energetic rule, soon +subsided into quiet for the night.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_IX." id="CHAPTER_IX."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2><h3>LIFE OR DEATH?</h3> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +"With God the Lord belong the issues from death."—Ps. 68; 18. +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>The nursery was a corner room, opening both into Faith's and her +mother's. Hendie and Mahala Harris had been removed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> upstairs, and the +apartment was left at Miss Sampson's disposal. Mrs. Gartney's bed had +been made up in the little dressing room at the head of the front entry, +so that she and the nurse had the sick room between them.</p> + +<p>Faith came down the two steps that led from her room into the nursery, +the next night at bedtime, as Miss Sampson entered from her father's +chamber to put on her night wrapper and make ready for her watch.</p> + +<p>"How is he, nurse? He will get well, won't he? What does the doctor +say?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing," said Miss Sampson, shortly. "He don't know, and he don't +pretend to. And that's just what proves he's good for something. He +ain't one of the sort that comes into a sick room as if the Almighty had +made him a kind of special delegit, and left the whole concern to him. +He knows there's a solemner dealing there than his, whether it's for +life or death."</p> + +<p>"But he can't help <i>thinking</i>," said Faith, tremblingly. "And I wish I +knew. What do <i>you</i>—?" But Faith paused, for she was afraid, after all, +to finish the question, and to hear it answered.</p> + +<p>"I don't think. I just keep doing. That's my part. Folks that think too +much of what's a-coming, most likely won't attend to what there is."</p> + +<p>Faith was finding out—a little of Miss Sampson, and a good deal of +herself. Had she not thought too much of what might be coming? Had she +not missed, perhaps, some of her own work, when that work was easier +than now? And how presumptuously she had wished for "something to +happen!" Was God punishing her for that?</p> + +<p>"You just keep still, and patient—and wait," said Miss Sampson, noting +the wistful look of pain. "That's your work, and after all, maybe it's +the hardest kind. And I can't take it off folks' shoulders," added she +to herself in an under voice; "so I needn't set up for the <i>very</i> +toughest jobs, to be sure."</p> + +<p>"I'll try," answered Faith, submissively, with quivering lips, "only if +there <i>should</i> be anything that I could do—to sit up, or +anything—you'll let me, won't you?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I will," replied the nurse, cheerily. "I shan't be squeamish +about asking when there's anything I really want done."</p> + +<p>Faith moved toward the door that opened to her father's room. It was +ajar. She pushed it gently open, and paused. "I may go in, mayn't I, +nurse, just for a good-night look?"</p> + +<p>The sick man heard her voice, though he did not catch her words.</p> + +<p>"Come in, Faithie," said he, with one of his half gleams of +consciousness, "I'll see you, daughter, as long as I live."</p> + +<p>Faith's heart nearly broke at that, and she came, tearfully<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> and +silently, to the bedside, and laid her little, cool hand on her father's +fevered one, and looked down on his face, worn, and suffering, and +flushed—and thought within herself—it was a prayer and vow +unspoken—"Oh, if God will only let him live, I will <i>find</i> something +that I can do for him!"</p> + +<p>And then she lifted the linen cloth that was laid over his forehead, and +dipped it afresh in the bowl of ice water beside the bed, and put it +gently back, and just kissed his hair softly, and went out into her own +room.</p> + +<p>Three nights—three days—more, the fever raged. And on the fourth night +after, Faith and her mother knew, by the scrupulous care with which the +doctor gave minute directions for the few hours to come, and the +resolute way in which Miss Sampson declared that "whoever else had a +mind to watch, she should sit up till morning this time," that the +critical point was reached; that these dark, silent moments that would +flit by so fast, were to spell, as they passed by, the sentence of life +or death.</p> + +<p>Faith would not be put by. Her mother sat on one side of the bed, while +the nurse busied herself noiselessly, or waited, motionless, upon the +other. Down by the fireside, on a low stool, with her head on the +cushion of an easy-chair, leaned the young girl—her heart full, and +every nerve strained with emotion and suspense.</p> + +<p>She will never know, precisely, how those hours went on. She can +remember the low breathing from the bed, and the now and then +half-distinct utterance, as the brain wandered still in a dreamy, +feverish maze; and she never will forget the precise color and pattern +of the calico wrapper that Nurse Sampson wore; but she can recollect +nothing else of it all, except that, after a time, longer or shorter, +she glanced up, fearfully, as a strange hush seemed to have come over +the room, and met a look and gesture of the nurse that warned her down +again, for her life.</p> + +<p>And then, other hours, or minutes, she knows not which, went by.</p> + +<p>And then, a stir—a feeble word—a whisper from Nurse Sampson—a low +"Thank God!" from her mother.</p> + +<p>The crisis was passed. Henderson Gartney lived.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_X." id="CHAPTER_X."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER X.</h2><h3>ROUGH ENDS.</h3> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p class='last'> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">"So others shall</span><br /> +Take patience, labor, to their heart and hand,<br /> +From thy hand and thy heart, and thy brave cheer, <br /> +And God's grace fructify through thee to all."</p> +<p class='auth'>Mrs. Browning.</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>"M. S. What does that stand for?" said little Hendie, reading the white +letters painted on the black leather bottom of nurse's carpetbag. He got +back, now, often, in the daytime, to his old nursery quarters, where his +father liked to hear his chatter and play, for a short time +together—though he still slept, with Mahala, upstairs. "Does that mean +'Miss Sampson'?"</p> + +<p>Faith glanced up from her stocking mending, with a little fun and a +little curiosity in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"What does 'M.' stand for?" repeated Hendie.</p> + +<p>The nurse was "setting to rights" about the room. She turned round at +the question, from hanging a towel straight over the stand, and looked a +little amazed, as if she had almost forgotten, herself. But it came out, +with a quick opening and shutting of the thin lips, like the snipping of +a pair of scissors—"Mehitable."</p> + +<p>Faith had been greatly drawn to this odd, efficient woman. Beside that +her skillful, untiring nursing had humanly, been the means of saving her +father's life, which alone had warmed her with an earnest gratitude that +was restless to prove itself, and that welled up in every glance and +tone she gave Miss Sampson, there were a certain respect and interest +that could not withhold themselves from one who so evidently worked on +with a great motive that dignified her smallest acts. In whom +self-abnegation was the underlying principle of all daily doing.</p> + +<p>Miss Sampson had stayed on at the Gartneys', notwithstanding the +doctor's prediction, and her usual habit. And, in truth, her patient did +not "get well <i>too</i> fast." She was needed now as really as ever, though +the immediate danger which had summoned her was past, and the fever had +gone. The months of overstrained effort and anxiety that had culminated +in its violent attack were telling upon him now, in the scarcely less +perilous prostration that followed. And Mrs. Gartney had quite given out +since the excessive tension of nerve and feeling had relaxed. She was +almost ill enough to be regularly nursed herself. She alternated between +her bed in the dressing room and an easy-chair opposite her husband's, +at his fireside. Miss Sampson knew when she was really wanted, whether +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> emergency were more or less obvious. She knew the mischief of a +change of hands at such a time. And so she stayed on, though she did +sleep comfortably of a night, and had many an hour of rest in the +daytime, when Faith would come into the nursery and constitute herself +her companion.</p> + +<p>Miss Sampson was to her like a book to be read, whereof she turned but a +leaf or so at a time, as she had accidental opportunity, yet whose every +page rendered up a deep, strong—above all, a most sound and healthy +meaning.</p> + +<p>She turned over a leaf, one day, in this wise.</p> + +<p>"Miss Sampson, how came you, at first, to be a sick nurse?"</p> + +<p>The shadow of some old struggle seemed to come over Miss Sampson's face, +as she answered, briefly:</p> + +<p>"I wanted to find the very toughest sort of a job to do."</p> + +<p>Faith looked up, surprised.</p> + +<p>"But I heard you tell my father that you had been nursing more than +twenty years. You must have been quite a young woman when you began. I +wonder—"</p> + +<p>"You wonder why I wasn't like most other young women, I suppose. Why I +didn't get married, perhaps, and have folks of my own to take care of? +Well, I didn't; and the Lord gave me a pretty plain indication that He +hadn't laid out that kind of a life for me. So then I just looked around +to find out what better He had for me to do. And I hit on the very work +I wanted. A trade that it took all the old Sampson grit to follow. I +made up my mind, as the doctor says, that <i>somebody</i> in the world had +got to choose drumsticks, and I might as well take hold of one."</p> + +<p>"But don't you ever get tired of it all, and long for something to rest +or amuse you?"</p> + +<p>"Amuse! I couldn't be amused, child. I've been in too much awful earnest +ever to be much amused again. No, I want to die in the harness. It's +hard work I want. I couldn't have been tied down to a common, easy sort +of life. I want something to fight and grapple with; and I'm thankful +there's been a way opened for me to do good according to my nature. If I +hadn't had sickness and death to battle against, I should have got into +human quarrels, maybe, just for the sake of feeling ferocious."</p> + +<p>"And you always take the very worst and hardest cases, Dr. Gracie says."</p> + +<p>"What's the use of taking a tough job if you don't face the toughest +part of it? I don't want the comfortable end of the business. +<i>Somebody's</i> got to nurse smallpox, and yellow fever, and +raving-distracted people; and I <i>know</i> the Lord made me fit to do just +that very work. There ain't many that He <i>does</i> make for it, but I'm +one. And if I shirked, there'd be a stitch dropped."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yellow fever! where have you nursed that?"</p> + +<p>"Do you suppose I didn't go to New Orleans? I've nursed it, and I've +<i>had</i> it, and nursed it again. I've been in the cholera hospitals, too. +I'm seasoned to most everything."</p> + +<p>"Do you think everybody ought to take the hardest thing they can find, +to do?"</p> + +<p>"Do you think everybody ought to eat drumsticks? We'd have to kill an +unreasonable lot of fowls to let 'em! No. The Lord portions out breasts +and wings, as well as legs. If He puts anything into your plate, take +it."</p> + +<p>Dr. Gracie always had a word for the nurse, when he came; and, to do her +justice, it was seldom but she had a word to give him back.</p> + +<p>"Well, Miss Sampson," said he gayly, one bright morning, "you're as +fresh as the day. What pulls down other folks seems to set you up. I +declare you're as blooming as—twenty-five."</p> + +<p>"You—fib—like—sixty! It's no such thing! And if it was, I'd ought to +be ashamed of it."</p> + +<p>"Prodigious! as your namesake, the Dominie, would say. Don't tell me a +woman is ever ashamed of looking young, or handsome!"</p> + +<p>"Now, look here, doctor!" said Miss Sampson, "I never was handsome; and +I thank the Lord He's given me enough to do in the world to wear off my +young looks long ago! And any woman ought to be ashamed that gets to be +thirty and upward, to say nothing of forty-five, and keeps her baby face +on! It's a sign she ain't been of much account, anyhow."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but there are always differences and exceptions," persisted the +doctor, who liked nothing better than to draw Miss Sampson out. "There +are some faces that take till thirty, at least, to bring out all their +possibilities of good looks, and wear on, then, till fifty. I've seen +'em. And the owners were no drones or do-nothings, either. What do you +say to that?"</p> + +<p>"I say there's two ways of growing old. And growing old ain't always +growing ugly. Some folks grow old from the inside, out; and some from +the outside, in. There's old furniture, and there's growing trees!"</p> + +<p>"And the trunk that is roughest below may branch out greenest a-top!" +said the doctor.</p> + +<p>The talk Faith heard now and then, in her walks from home, or when some +of "the girls" came in and called her down into the parlor—about pretty +looks, and becoming dresses, and who danced with who at the "German" +last night, and what a scrape Loolie Lloyd had got into with mixing up +and misdating her engagements at the class, and the last new roll for +the hair—used to seem rather trivial to her in these days!</p> + +<p>Occasionally, when Mr. Gartney had what nurse called a "good" day, he +would begin to ask for some of his books and papers, with a thought +toward business; and then Miss Sampson would display her carpetbag, and +make a show of picking up things to put in it. "For," said she, "when +you get at your business, it'll be high time for me to go about mine."</p> + +<p>"But only for half an hour, nurse! I'll give you that much leave of +absence, and then we'll have things back again as they were before."</p> + +<p>"I guess you will! And <i>further</i> than they were before. No, Mr. Gartney, +you've got to behave. I <i>won't</i> have them vicious-looking accounts +about, and it don't signify."</p> + +<p>"If it don't, why not?" But it ended in the accounts and the carpetbag +disappearing together.</p> + +<p>Until one morning, some three weeks from the beginning of Mr. Gartney's +illness, when, after a few days' letting alone the whole subject, he +suddenly appealed to the doctor.</p> + +<p>"Doctor," said he, as that gentleman entered, "I must have Braybrook up +here this afternoon. I dropped things just where I stood, you know. It's +time to take an observation."</p> + +<p>The doctor looked at his patient gravely.</p> + +<p>"Can't you be content with simply picking up things, and putting them +by, for this year? What I ought to tell you to do would be to send +business to the right about, and go off for an entire rest and change, +for three months, at least."</p> + +<p>"You don't know what you're talking about, doctor!"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps not, on one side of the subject. I feel pretty certain on the +other, however."</p> + +<p>Mr. Gartney did not send for Braybrook that afternoon. The next morning, +however, he came, and the tabooed books and papers were got out.</p> + +<p>In another day or two, Miss Sampson <i>did</i> pack her carpetbag, and go +back to her air-tight stove and solitary cups of tea. Her occupation in +Hickory Street was gone.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XI." id="CHAPTER_XI."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XI.</h2><h3>CROSS CORNERS.</h3> +<p class='blockquot'>"O thou that pinest in the imprisonment of the Actual, and criest +bitterly to the Gods for a kingdom, wherein to rule and create, +know this of a truth, the thing thou seekest is already with thee, +'here or nowhere,' couldst thou only see!"—<span class="smcap">Carlyle</span>.</p> +</div> + + +<p>"It is of no use to talk about it," said Mr. Gartney, wearily. "If I +live—as long as I live—I must do business. How else are you to get +along?"</p> + +<p>"How shall we get along if you do <i>not</i> live?" asked his wife, in a low, +anxious tone.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p> + +<p>"My life's insured," was all Mr. Gartney's answer.</p> + +<p>"Father!" cried Faith, distressfully.</p> + +<p>Faith had been taken more and more into counsel and confidence with her +parents since the time of the illness that had brought them all so close +together. And more and more helpful she had grown, both in word and +doing, since she had learned to look daily for the daily work set before +her, and to perform it conscientiously, even although it consisted only +of little things. She still remembered with enthusiasm Nurse Sampson and +the "drumsticks," and managed to pick up now and then one for herself. +Meantime she began to see, indistinctly, before her, the vision of a +work that must be done by some one, and the duty of it pressed hourly +closer home to herself. Her father's health had never been fully +reëstablished. He had begun to use his strength before and faster than +it came. There was danger—it needed no Dr. Gracie, even, to tell them +so—of grave disease, if this went on. And still, whenever urged, his +answer was the same. "What would become of his family without his +business?"</p> + +<p>Faith turned these things over and over in her mind.</p> + +<p>"Father," said she, after a while—the conversation having been dropped +at the old conclusion, and nobody appearing to have anything more to +say—"I don't know anything about business; but I wish you'd tell me how +much money you've got!"</p> + +<p>Her father laughed; a sad sort of laugh though, that was not so much +amusement as tenderness and pity. Then, as if the whole thing were a +mere joke, yet with a shade upon his face that betrayed there was far +too much truth under the jest, after all, he took out his portemonnaie +and told her to look and see.</p> + +<p>"You know I don't mean that, father! How much in the bank, and +everywhere?"</p> + +<p>"Precious little in the bank, now, Faithie. Enough to keep house with +for a year, nearly, perhaps. But if I were to take it and go off and +spend it in traveling, you can understand that the housekeeping would +fall short, can't you?"</p> + +<p>Faith looked horrified. She was bringing down her vague ideas of money +that came from somewhere, through her father's pocket, as water comes +from Lake Kinsittewink by the turning of a faucet, to the narrow point +of actuality.</p> + +<p>"But that isn't all, I know! I've heard you talk about railroad +dividends, and such things."</p> + +<p>"Oh! what does the Western Road pay this time?" asked his wife.</p> + +<p>"I've had to sell out my stock there."</p> + +<p>"And where's the money, father?" asked Faith.</p> + +<p>"Gone to pay debts, child," was the answer.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gartney said nothing, but she looked very grave. Her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> husband +surmised, perhaps, that she would go on to imagine worse than had really +happened, and so added, presently:</p> + +<p>"I haven't been obliged to sell <i>all</i> my railroad stocks, wifey. I held +on to some. There's the New York Central all safe; and the Michigan +Central, too. That wouldn't have sold so well, to be sure, just when I +was wanting the money; but things are looking better, now."</p> + +<p>"Father," said Faithie, with her most coaxing little smile, "please just +take this bit of paper and pencil, and set down these stocks and things, +will you?"</p> + +<p>The little smile worked its way; and half in idleness, half in +acquiescence, Mr. Gartney took the pencil and noted down a short list of +items.</p> + +<p>"It's very little, Faith, you see." They ran thus:</p> + + +<table summary=''> +<tr><td align='left'>New York Central Railroad </td><td align='left'>20 shares.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Michigan Central "</td><td align='left'>15 "</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Kinnicutt Branch "</td><td align='left'>10 "</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mishaumok Insurance Co.</td><td align='left'>15 "</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Merchants Bank</td><td align='left'>30 "</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>"And now, father, please put down how much you get a year in dividends."</p> + +<p>"Not always the same, little busybody."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless he noted down the average sums. And the total was between +six and seven hundred dollars.</p> + +<p>"But that isn't all. You've got other things. Why, there's the house at +Cross Corners."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but I can't let it, you know."</p> + +<p>"What used you to get for it?"</p> + +<p>"Two hundred and fifty. For house and land."</p> + +<p>"And you own this house, too, father?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. This is your mother's."</p> + +<p>"How much rent would this bring?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Gartney turned around and looked at his daughter. He began to see +there was a meaning in her questions. And as he caught her eye, he read, +or discerned without fully reading, a certain eager kindling there.</p> + +<p>"Why, what has come over you, Faithie, to set you catechising so?"</p> + +<p>Faith laughed.</p> + +<p>"Just answer this, please, and I won't ask a single question more +to-night."</p> + +<p>"About the rent? Why, this house ought to bring six hundred, certainly. +And now, if the court will permit, I'll read the news."</p> + +<p>About a week after this, in the latter half of one of those spring days +that come with a warm breath to tell that summer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> is glowing somewhere, +and that her face is northward, Aunt Faith Henderson came out upon the +low, vine-latticed stoop of her house in Kinnicutt.</p> + +<p>Up the little footpath from the road—across the bit of greensward that +lay between it and the stoop—came a quick, noiseless step, and there +was a touch, presently, on the old lady's arm.</p> + +<p>Faith Gartney stood beside her, in trim straw bonnet and shawl, with a +black leather bag upon her arm.</p> + +<p>"Auntie! I've come to make you a tiny little visit! Till day after +to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Faith Gartney! However came you here? And in such a fashion, too, +without a word of warning, like—an angel from Heaven!"</p> + +<p>"I came up in the cars, auntie! I felt just like it! Will you keep me?"</p> + +<p>"Glory! Glory McWhirk!" Like the good Vicar of Wakefield, Aunt Henderson +liked often to give the whole name; and calling, she disappeared round +the corner of the stoop, without ever a word of more assured welcome.</p> + +<p>"Put on the teapot again, and make a slice of toast." The good lady's +voice, going on with further directions, was lost in the intricate +threading of the inner maze of the singular old dwelling, and Faith +followed her as far as the first apartment, where she set down her bag +and removed her bonnet.</p> + +<p>It was a quaint, dim room, overbrowed and gloomed by the roofed +projection of the stoop; low-ceiled, high-wainscoted and paneled. All in +oak, of the natural color, deepened and glossed by time and wear. The +heavy beams that supported the floor above were undisguised, and left +the ceiling in panels also, as it were, between. In these highest +places, a man six feet tall could hardly have stood without bending. He +certainly would not, whether he could or no. Even Aunt Faith, with her +five feet, six-and-a-half, dropped a little of her dignity, habitually, +when she entered. But then, as she said, "A hen always bobs her head +when she comes in at a barn door." Between the windows stood an old, +old-fashioned secretary, that filled up from floor to ceiling; and over +the fireplace a mirror of equally antique date tilted forward from the +wall. Opposite the secretary, a plain mahogany table; and eight +high-backed, claw-footed chairs ranged stiffly around the room.</p> + +<p>Aunt Henderson was proud of her old ways, her old furniture, and her +house, that was older than all.</p> + +<p>Some far back ancestor and early settler had built it—the beginning of +it—before Kinnicutt had even become a town; and—rare exception to the +changes elsewhere—generation after generation of the same name and line +had inhabited it until now. Aunt Faith, exultingly, told each curious +visitor that it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> had been built precisely two hundred and ten years. Out +in the back kitchen, or lean-to, was hung to a rafter the identical gun +with which the "old settler" had ranged the forest that stretched then +from the very door; and higher up, across a frame contrived for it, was +the "wooden saddle" fabricated for the back of the placid, slow-moving +ox, in the time when horses were as yet rare in the new country, and +used with pillions, to transport I can't definitely say how many of the +family to "meeting."</p> + +<p>Between these—the best room and the out-kitchen—the labyrinth of +sitting room, bedrooms, kitchen proper, milk room, and pantry, +partitioned off, or added on, many of them since the primary date of the +main structure, would defy the pencil of modern architect.</p> + +<p>In one of these irregularly clustered apartments that opened out on +different aspects, unexpectedly, from their conglomerate center, Faith +sat, some fifteen minutes after her entrance into the house, at a little +round table between two corner windows that looked northwest and +southwest, and together took in the full radiance of the evening sky.</p> + +<p>Opposite sat her aunt, taking care of her as regarded tea, toast, and +plain country loaf cake, and watching somewhat curiously, also, her +face.</p> + +<p>Faith's face had changed a little since Aunt Henderson had seen her +last. It was not the careless girl's face she had known. There was a +thought in it now. A thought that seemed to go quite out from, and +forget the self from which it came.</p> + +<p>Aunt Henderson wondered greatly what sudden whim or inward purpose had +brought her grandniece hither.</p> + +<p>When Faith absolutely declined any more tea or cake, Miss Henderson's +tap on the table leaf brought in Glory McWhirk.</p> + +<p>A tall, well-grown girl of eighteen was Glory, now—quite another Glory +than had lightened, long ago, the dull little house in Budd Street, and +filled it with her bright, untutored dreams. The luminous tresses had +had their way since then; that is, with certain comfortable bounds +prescribed; and rippled themselves backward from a clear, contented +face, into the net that held them tidily.</p> + +<p>Faith looked up, and remembered the poor office girl of three years +since, half clad and hopeless, with a secret amaze at what "Aunt Faith +had made of her."</p> + +<p>"You may give me some water, Glory," said Miss Henderson.</p> + +<p>Glory brought the pitcher, and poured into the tumbler, and gazed at +Faith's pretty face, and the dark-brown glossy rolls that framed it, +until the water fairly ran over the table.</p> + +<p>"There! there! Why, Glory, what are you thinking of?" cried Miss +Henderson.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p> + +<p>Glory was thinking her old thoughts—wakened always by all that was +beautiful and <i>beyond</i>.</p> + +<p>She came suddenly to herself, however, and darted off, with her face as +bright a crimson as her hair was golden; flashing up so, as she did most +easily, into as veritable a Glory as ever was. Never had baby been more +aptly or prophetically named.</p> + +<p>Coming back, towel in hand, to stop the freshet she had set flowing, she +dared not give another glance across the table; but went busily and +deftly to work, clearing it of all that should be cleared, that she +might make her shy way off again before she should be betrayed into +other unwonted blundering.</p> + +<p>"And now, Faith Gartney, tell me all about it! What sent you here?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing. Nobody. I came, aunt. I wanted to see the place, and you."</p> + +<p>The rough eyebrows were bent keenly across the table.</p> + +<p>"Hum!" breathed Aunt Henderson.</p> + +<p>There was small interior sympathy between her ideas and those that +governed the usual course of affairs in Hickory Street. Fond of her +nephew and his family, after her fashion, notwithstanding Faith's old +rebellion, and all other differences, she certainly was; but they went +their way, and she hers. She felt pretty sure theirs would sooner or +later come to a turning; and when that should happen, whether she should +meet them round the corner, or not, would depend. Her path would need to +bend a little, and theirs to make a pretty sharp angle, first.</p> + +<p>But here was Faith cutting across lots to come to her! Aunt Henderson +put away her loaf cake in the cupboard, set back her chair against the +wall in its invariable position of disuse, and departed to the milk room +and kitchen for her evening duty and oversight.</p> + +<p>Glory's hands were busy in the bread bowl, and her brain kneading its +secret thoughts that no one knew or intermeddled with.</p> + +<p>Faith sat at the open window of the little tea room, and watched the +young moon's golden horn go down behind the earth rim among the purple, +like a flamy flower bud floating over, and so lost.</p> + +<p>And the three lives gathered in to themselves, separately, whatsoever +the hour brought to each.</p> + +<p>At nine o'clock Aunt Faith came in, took down the great leather-bound +Bible from the corner shelf, and laid it on the table. Glory appeared, +and seated herself beside the door.</p> + +<p>For a few moments, the three lives met in the One Great Life that +overarches and includes humanity. Miss Henderson read from the sixth +chapter of St. John.</p> + +<p>They were fed with the five thousand.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XII." id="CHAPTER_XII."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XII.</h2><h3>A RECONNOISSANCE.</h3> +<p class='blockquot'>"Then said his Lordship, 'Well God mend all!' 'Nay, Donald, we must +help him to mend it,' said the other."—Quoted by <span class="smcap">Carlyle</span>.</p> +<p class='blockquot'>"Oh, leave these jargons, and go your way straight to God's work in +simplicity and singleness of heart!"—<span class="smcap">Miss Nightingale</span>.</p> +</div> + +<p>"Auntie," said Faith, next morning, when, after some exploring, she had +discovered Miss Henderson in a little room, the very counterpart of the +one she had had her tea in the night before, only that this opened to +the southeast, and hailed the morning sun. "Auntie, will you go over +with me to the Cross Corners house, after breakfast? It's empty, isn't +it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's empty. But it's no great show of a house. What do you want to +see it for?"</p> + +<p>"Why, it used to be so pretty, there. I'd like just to go into it. Have +you heard of anybody's wanting it yet?"</p> + +<p>"No; and I guess nobody's likely to, for one while. Folks don't make +many changes, out here."</p> + +<p>"What a bright little breakfast room this is, auntie! And how grand you +are to have a room for every meal!"</p> + +<p>"It ain't for the grandeur of it. But I always did like to follow the +sun round. For the most part of the year, at any rate. And this is just +as near the kitchen as the other. Besides, I kind of hate to shut up any +of the rooms, altogether. They were all wanted, once; and now I'm all +alone in 'em."</p> + +<p>For Miss Henderson, this was a great opening of the heart. But she +didn't go on to say that the little west room had been her young +brother's, who long ago, when he was just ready for his Master's work in +this world, had been called up higher; and that her evening rest was +sweeter, and her evening reading holier for being holden there; or that +here, in the sunny morning hours, her life seemed almost to roll back +its load of many years, and to set her down beside her mother's knee, +and beneath her mother's gentle tutelage, once more; that on the little +"light stand" in the corner by the fireplace stood the selfsame basket +that had been her mother's then—just where she had kept it, too, when +it was running over with little frocks and stockings that were always +waiting finishing or mending—and now held only the plain gray knitting +work and the bit of sewing that Aunt Faith might have in hand.</p> + +<p>A small, square table stood now in the middle of the floor, with a fresh +brown linen breakfast cloth upon it; and Glory, neat and fresh, also, +with her brown spotted calico dress and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> apron of the same, came in +smiling like a very goddess of peace and plenty, with the steaming +coffeepot in one hand, and the plate of fine, white rolls in the other. +The yellow print of butter and some rounds from a brown loaf were +already on the table. Glory brought in, presently, the last addition to +the meal—six eggs, laid yesterday, the water of their boiling just +dried off, and modestly took her own seat at the lower end of the board.</p> + +<p>Aunt Faith, living alone, kept to the kindly old country fashion of +admitting her handmaid to the table with herself. "Why not?" she would +say. "In the first place, why should we keep the table about, half an +hour longer than we need? And I suppose hot cakes and coffee are as much +nicer than cold, for one body as another. Then where's the sense? We +take Bible meat together. Must we be more dainty about 'meat that +perisheth'?" So her argument climbed up from its lower reason to its +climax.</p> + +<p>Glory had little of the Irish now about her but her name. And all that +she retained visibly of the Roman faith she had been born to, was her +little rosary of colored shells, strung as beads, that had been blessed +by the Pope.</p> + +<p>Miss Henderson had trained and fed her in her own ways, and with such +food as she partook herself, physically and spiritually. Glory sat, +every Sunday, in the corner pew of the village church, by her mistress's +side. And this church-going being nearly all that she had ever had, she +took in the nutriment that was given her, to a soul that recognized it, +and never troubled itself with questions as to one truth differing from +another, or no. Indeed, no single form or theory could have contained +the "credo" of her simple, yet complex, thought. The old Catholic +reverence clung about her still, that had come with her all the way from +her infancy, when her mother and grandmother had taught her the prayers +of their Church; and across the long interval of ignorance and neglect +flung a sort of cathedral light over what she felt was holy now.</p> + +<p>Rescued from her dim and servile city life—brought out into the light +and beauty she had mutely longed for—feeling care and kindliness about +her for the long-time harshness and oppression she had borne—she was +like a spirit newly entered into heaven, that needs no priestly +ministration any more. Every breath drew in a life and teaching purer +than human words.</p> + +<p>And then the words she <i>did</i> hear were Divine. Miss Henderson did no +preaching—scarcely any lip teaching, however brief. She broke the bread +of life God gave her, as she cut her daily loaf and shared it—letting +each soul, God helping, digest it for itself.</p> + +<p>Glory got hold of some old theology, too, that she could but +fragmentarily understand but that mingled itself—as all we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> gather does +mingle, not uselessly—with her growth. She found old books among Miss +Henderson's stores, that she read and mused on. She trembled at the +warnings, and reposed in the holy comforts of Doddridge's "Rise and +Progress," and Baxter's "Saint's Rest." She traveled to the Holy City, +above all, with Bunyan's Pilgrim. And then, Sunday after Sunday, she +heard the simple Christian preaching of an old and simple Christian man. +Not terrible—but earnest; not mystical—but high; not lax—but liberal; +and this fused and tempered all.</p> + +<p>So "things had happened" for Glory. So God had cared for this, His +child. So, according to His own Will—not any human plan or forcing— +she grew.</p> + +<p>Aunt Faith washed up the breakfast cups, dusted and "set to rights" in +the rooms where, to the young Faith's eyes, there seemed such order +already as could not be righted, made up a nice little pudding for +dinner, and then, taking down her shawl and silk hood, and putting on +her overshoes, announced herself ready for Cross Corners.</p> + +<p>"Though it's all cross corners to me, child, sure enough. I suppose it's +none of my business, but I can't think what you're up to."</p> + +<p>"Not up to any great height, yet, auntie. But I'm growing," said Faith, +merrily, and with meaning somewhat beyond the letter.</p> + +<p>They went out at the back door, which opened on a little footpath down +the sudden green slope behind, and stretched across the field, +diagonally, to a bar place and stile at the opposite corner. Here the +roads from five different directions met and crossed, which gave the +locality its name.</p> + +<p>Opposite the stile at which they came out, across the shady lane that +wound down from the Old Road whereon Miss Henderson's mansion faced, a +gateway in a white paling that ran round and fenced in a grassy door +yard, overhung with pendent branches of elms and stouter canopy of +chestnuts, let them in upon the little "Cross Corners Farm."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Aunt Faith! It's just as lovely as ever! I remember that path up +the hill, among the trees, so well! When I was a little bit of a girl, +and nurse and I came out to stay with you. I had my 'fairy house' there. +I'd like to go over this minute, only that we shan't have time. How +shall we get in? Where is the key?"</p> + +<p>"It's in my pocket. But it mystifies me, what you want there."</p> + +<p>"I want to look out of all the windows, auntie, to begin with."</p> + +<p>Aunt Faith's mystification was not lessened.</p> + +<p>The front door opened on a small, square hall, with doors to right and +left. The room on the left, spite of the bare floor and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> fireless +hearth, was warm with the spring sunshine that came pouring in at the +south windows. Beyond this, embracing the corner of the house +rectangularly, projected an equally sunny and cheery kitchen; at the +right of which, communicating with both apartments, was divided off a +tiny tea and breakfast room. So Faith decided, though it had very likely +been a bedroom.</p> + +<p>From the entrance hall at the right opened a room larger than either of +the others—so large that the floor above afforded two bedrooms over +it—and having, besides its windows south and east, a door in the +farther corner beyond the chimney, that gave out directly upon the +grassy slope, and looked up the path among the trees that crossed the +ridge.</p> + +<p>Faith drew the bolt and opened it, expecting to find a closet or a +passage somewhither. She fairly started back with surprise and delight. +And then seated herself plump upon the threshold, and went into a +midsummer dream.</p> + +<p>"Oh, auntie!" she cried, at her waking, presently, "was ever anything so +perfect? To think of being let out so! Right from a regular, proper +parlor, into the woods!"</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to go upstairs?" inquired Miss Henderson, with a vague +amaze in her look that seemed to question whether her niece had not +possibly been "let out" from her "regular and proper" wits!</p> + +<p>Whereupon Faith scrambled up from her seat upon the sill, and hurried +off to investigate above.</p> + +<p>Miss Henderson closed the door, pushed the bolt, and followed quietly +after.</p> + +<p>It was a funny little pantomime that Faith enacted then, for the further +bewilderment of the staid old lady.</p> + +<p>Darting from one chamber to another, with an inexplicable look of +business and consideration in her face, that contrasted comically with +her quick movements and her general air of glee, she would take her +stand in the middle of each one in turn, and wheeling round to get a +swift panoramic view of outlook and capabilities, would end by a +succession of mysterious and apparently satisfied little nods, as if at +each pause some point of plan or arrangement had settled itself in her +mind.</p> + +<p>"Aunt Faith!" cried she, suddenly, as she came out upon the landing when +she had peeped into the last corner, and found Miss Henderson on the +point of making her descent—"what sort of a thing do you think it would +be for us to come here and live?"</p> + +<p>Aunt Faith sat down now as suddenly, in her turn, on the stairhead. +Recovering, so, from her momentary and utter astonishment, and taking +in, during that instant of repose, the full drift of the question +propounded, she rose from her involuntarily assumed position, and +continued her way down—answering, without so much as turning her head, +"It would be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> just the most sensible thing that Henderson Gartney ever +did in his life!"</p> + +<p>What made Faithie a bit sober, all at once, when the key was turned, and +they passed on, out under the elms, into the lane again?</p> + +<p>Did you ever project a very wise and important scheme, that involves a +little self-sacrifice, which, by a determined looking at the bright side +of the subject, you had managed tolerably to ignore; and then, by the +instant and unhesitating acquiescence of some one to whose judgment you +submitted it, find yourself suddenly wheeled about in your own mind to +the standpoint whence you discerned only the difficulty again?</p> + +<p>"There's one thing, Aunt Faith," said she, as they slowly walked up the +field path; "I couldn't go to school any more."</p> + +<p>Faith had discontinued her regular attendance since the recommencement +for the year, but had gone in for a few hours on "French and German +days."</p> + +<p>"There's another thing," said Aunt Faith. "I don't believe your father +can afford to send you any more. You're eighteen, ain't you?"</p> + +<p>"I shall be, this summer."</p> + +<p>"Time for you to leave off school. Bring your books and things along +with you. You'll have chance enough to study."</p> + +<p>Faith hadn't thought much of herself before. But when she found her aunt +didn't apparently think of her at all, she began to realize keenly all +that she must silently give up.</p> + +<p>"But it's a good deal of help, auntie, to study with other people. And +then—we shouldn't have any society out here. I don't mean for the sake +of parties, and going about. But for the improvement of it. I shouldn't +like to be shut out from cultivated people."</p> + +<p>"Faith Gartney!" exclaimed Miss Henderson, facing about in the narrow +footway, "don't you go to being fine and transcendental! If there's one +word I despise more than another, in the way folks use it nowadays—it's +'Culture'! As if God didn't know how to make souls grow! You just take +root where He puts you, and go to work, and live! He'll take care of the +cultivating! If He means you to turn out a rose, or an oak tree, you'll +come to it. And pig-weed's pig-weed, no matter where it starts up!"</p> + +<p>"Aunt Faith!" replied the child, humbly and earnestly, "I believe that's +true! And I believe I want the country to grow in! But the thing will +be," she added, a little doubtfully, "to persuade father."</p> + +<p>"Doesn't he want to come, then? Whose plan is it, pray?" asked Miss +Henderson, stopping short again, just as she had resumed her walk, in a +fresh surprise.</p> + +<p>"Nobody's but mine, yet, auntie! I haven't asked him, but I thought I'd +come and look."</p> + +<p>Miss Henderson took her by the arm, and looked steadfastly in her dark, +earnest eyes.</p> + +<p>"You're something, sure enough!" said she, with a sharp tenderness.</p> + +<p>Faith didn't know precisely what she meant, except that she seemed to +mean approval. And at the one word of appreciation, all difficulty and +self-sacrifice vanished out of her sight, and everything brightened to +her thought, again, till her thought brightened out into a smile.</p> + +<p>"What a skyful of lovely white clouds!" she said, looking up to the +pure, fleecy folds that were flittering over the blue. "We can't see +that in Mishaumok!"</p> + +<p>"She's just heavenly!" said Glory to herself, standing at the back door, +and gazing with a rapturous admiration at Faith's upturned face. "And +the dinner's all ready, and I'm thankful, and more, that the custard's +baked so beautiful!"</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XIII." id="CHAPTER_XIII."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XIII.</h2><h3>DEVELOPMENT.</h3> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p class='last'>"Sits the wind in that corner?" </p> +<p class='auth'>Much Ado About Nothing.</p> +<p class='last'>"For courage mounteth with occasion." </p> +<p class='auth'>King John.</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>The lassitude that comes with spring had told upon Mr. Gartney. He had +dyspepsia, too; and now and then came home early from the counting room +with a headache that sent him to his bed. Dr. Gracie dropped in, +friendly-wise, of an evening—said little that was strictly +professional—but held his hand a second longer, perhaps, than he would +have done for a mere greeting, and looked rather scrutinizingly at him +when Mr. Gartney's eyes were turned another way. Frequently he made some +slight suggestion of a journey, or other summer change.</p> + +<p>"You must urge it, if you can, Mrs. Gartney," he said, privately, to the +wife. "I don't quite like his looks. Get him away from business, at +<i>almost any</i> sacrifice," he came to add, at last.</p> + +<p>"At <i>every</i> sacrifice?" asked Mrs. Gartney, anxious and perplexed. +"Business is nearly all, you know."</p> + +<p>"Life is more—reason is more," answered the doctor, gravely.</p> + +<p>And the wife went about her daily task with a secret heaviness at her +heart.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Father," said Faith, one evening, after she had read to him the paper +while he lay resting upon the sofa, "if you had money enough to live on, +how long would it take you to wind up your business?"</p> + +<p>"It's pretty nearly wound up now! But what's the use of asking such a +question?"</p> + +<p>"Because," said Faith, timidly, "I've got a little plan in my head, if +you'll only listen to it."</p> + +<p>"Well, Faithie, I'll listen. What is it?"</p> + +<p>And then Faith spoke it all out, at once.</p> + +<p>"That you should give up all your business, father, and let this house, +and go to Cross Corners, and live at the farm."</p> + +<p>Mr. Gartney started to his elbow. But a sudden pain that leaped in his +temples sent him back again. For a minute or so, he did not speak at +all. Then he said:</p> + +<p>"Do you know what you are talking of, daughter?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, father; I've been thinking it over a good while—since the night +we wrote down these things."</p> + +<p>And she drew from her pocket the memorandum of stocks and dividends.</p> + +<p>"You see you have six hundred and fifty dollars a year from these, and +this house would be six hundred more, and mother says she can manage on +that, in the country, if I will help her."</p> + +<p>Mr. Gartney shaded his eyes with his hand. Not wholly, perhaps, to +shield them from the light.</p> + +<p>"You're a good girl, Faithie," said he, presently; and there was +assuredly a little tremble in his voice.</p> + +<p>"And so, you and your mother have talked it over, together?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; often, lately. And she said I had better ask you myself, if I +wished it. She is perfectly willing. She thinks it would be good."</p> + +<p>"Faithie," said her father, "you make me feel, more than ever, how much +I <i>ought</i> to do for you!"</p> + +<p>"You ought to get well and strong, father—that is all!" replied Faith, +with a quiver in her own voice.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gartney sighed.</p> + +<p>"I'm no more than a mere useless block of wood!"</p> + +<p>"We shall just have to set you up, and make an idol of you, then!" cried +Faith, cheerily, with tears on her eyelashes, that she winked off.</p> + +<p>There had been a ring at the bell while they were speaking; and now Mrs. +Gartney entered, followed by Dr. Gracie.</p> + +<p>"Well, Miss Faith," said the doctor, after the usual greetings, and a +prolonged look at Mr. Gartney's flushed face, "what have you done to +your father?"</p> + +<p>"I've been reading the paper," answered Faith, quietly, "and talking a +little."</p> + +<p>"Mother!" said Mr. Gartney, catching his wife's hand, as she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> came round +to find a seat near him, "are you really in the plot, too?"</p> + +<p>"I'm glad there is a plot," said the doctor, quickly, glancing round +with a keen inquiry. "It's time!"</p> + +<p>"Wait till you hear it," said Mr. Gartney. "Are you in a hurry to lose +your patient?"</p> + +<p>"Depends upon <i>how</i>!" replied the doctor, touching the truth in a jest.</p> + +<p>"This is how. Here's a little jade who has the conceit and audacity to +propose to me to wind up my business (as if she understood the whole +process!), and let my house, and go to my farm at Cross Corners. What do +you think of that?"</p> + +<p>"I think it would be the most sensible thing you ever did in your life!"</p> + +<p>"Just exactly what Aunt Henderson said!" cried Faith, exultant.</p> + +<p>"Aunt Faith, too! The conspiracy thickens! How long has all this been +discussing?" continued Mr. Gartney, fairly roused, and springing, +despite the doctor's request, to a sitting position, throwing off, as he +did so, the afghan Faith had laid over his feet.</p> + +<p>"There hasn't been much discussion," said Faith. "Only when I went out +to Kinnicutt I got auntie to show me the house; and I asked her how she +thought it would be if we were to do such a thing, and she said just +what Dr. Gracie has said now. And, father, you <i>don't</i> know how +beautiful it is there!"</p> + +<p>"So you really want to go? and it isn't drumsticks?" queried the doctor, +turning round to Faith.</p> + +<p>"Some drumsticks are very nice," said Faith.</p> + +<p>"Gartney!" said Dr. Gracie, "you'd better mind what this girl of yours +says. She's worth attending to."</p> + +<p>The wedge had been entered, and Faith's hand had driven it.</p> + +<p>The plan was taken into consideration. Of course, such a change could +not be made without some pondering; but when almost the continual +thought of a family is concentrated upon a single subject, a good deal +of pondering and deciding can be done in three weeks. At the end of that +time an advertisement appeared in the leading Mishaumok papers, offering +the house in Hickory Street to be let; and Mrs. Gartney and Faith were +busy packing boxes to go to Kinnicutt.</p> + +<p>Only a passing shade had been flung on the project which seemed to +brighten into sunshine, otherwise, the more they looked at it, when Mrs. +Gartney suddenly said, after a long "talking over," the second evening +after the proposal had been first broached:</p> + +<p>"But what will Saidie say?"</p> + +<p>Now Saidie—whom before it has been unnecessary to mention—was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> Faith's +elder sister, traveling at this moment in Europe, with a wealthy elder +sister of Mrs. Gartney.</p> + +<p>"I never thought of Saidie," cried Faith.</p> + +<p>Saidie was pretty sure not to like Kinnicutt. A young lady, educated at +a fashionable New York school—petted by an aunt who found nobody else +to pet, and who had money enough to have petted a whole asylum of +orphans—who had shone in London and Paris for two seasons past—was not +exceedingly likely to discover all the possible delights that Faith had +done, under the elms and chestnuts at Cross Corners.</p> + +<p>But this could make no practical difference.</p> + +<p>"She wouldn't like Hickory Street any better," said Faith, "if we +couldn't have parties or new furniture any more. And she's only a +visitor, at the best. Aunt Etherege will be sure to have her in New +York, or traveling about, ten months out of twelve. She can come to us +in June and October. I guess she'll like strawberries and cream, +and—whatever comes at the other season, besides red leaves."</p> + +<p>Now this was kind, sisterly consideration of Faith, however little so it +seems, set down. It was very certain that no more acceptable provision +could be made for Saidie Gartney in the family plan, than to leave her +out, except where the strawberries and cream were concerned. In return, +she wrote gay, entertaining letters home to her mother and young sister, +and sent pretty French, or Florentine, or Roman ornaments for them to +wear. Some persons are content to go through life with such exchange of +sympathies as this.</p> + +<p>By and by, Faith being in her own room, took out from her letter box the +last missive from abroad. There was something in this which vexed Faith, +and yet stirred her a little, obscurely.</p> + +<p>All things are fair in love, war, and—story books! So, though she would +never have shown the words to you or me, we will peep over her shoulder, +and share them, "<i>en rapport</i>."</p> + +<p>"And Paul Rushleigh, it seems, is as much as ever in Hickory Street! +Well—my little Faithie might make a far worse '<i>parti</i>' than that! Tell +papa I think he may be satisfied there!"</p> + +<p>Faith would have cut off her little finger, rather than have had her +father dream that such a thing had been put into her head! But +unfortunately it was there, now, and could not be helped. She could +only—sitting there in her chamber window with the blood tingling to the +hair upon her temples, as if from every neighboring window of the +clustering houses about her, eyes could overlook and read what she was +reading now—"wish that Saidie would not write such things as that!"</p> + +<p>For all that, it was one pleasant thing Faith would have to lose in +leaving Mishaumok. It was very agreeable to have him dropping in, with +his gay college gossip; and to dance the "German"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> with the nicest +partner in the Monday class; and to carry the flowers he so often sent +her. Had she done things greater than she knew in shutting her eyes +resolutely to all her city associations and enjoyments, and urging, for +her father's sake, this exodus in the desert?</p> + +<p>Only that means were actually wanting to continue on as they were, and +that health must at any rate be first striven for as a condition to the +future enlargement of means, her father and mother, in their thought for +what their child hardly considered for herself, would surely have been +more difficult to persuade. They hoped that a summer's rest might enable +Mr. Gartney to undertake again some sort of lucrative business, after +business should have revived from its present prostration; and that a +year or two, perhaps, of economizing in the country, might make it +possible for them to return, if they chose, to the house in Hickory +Street.</p> + +<p>There were leave takings to be gone through—questions to be answered, +and reasons to be given; for Mrs. Gartney, the polite wishes of her +visiting friends that "Mr. Gartney's health might allow them to return +to the city in the winter," with the wonder, unexpressed, whether this +were to be a final breakdown of the family, or not; and for Faith, the +horror and extravagant lamentations of her young <i>coterie</i>, at her +coming occultation—or setting, rather, out of their sky.</p> + +<p>Paul Rushleigh demanded eagerly if there weren't any sober old minister +out there, with whom he might be rusticated for his next college prank.</p> + +<p>Everybody promised to come as far as Kinnicutt "some time" to see them; +the good-bys were all said at last; the city cook had departed, and a +woman had been taken in her place who "had no objections to the country"; +and on one of the last bright days of May they skimmed, steam-sped, over +the intervening country between the brick-and-stone-encrusted hills of +Mishaumok and the fair meadow reaches of Kinnicutt; and so disappeared +out of the places that had known them so long, and could yet, alas! do +so exceedingly well without them.</p> + +<p>By the first of June nobody in the great city remembered, or remembered +very seriously to regard, the little gap that had been made in its +midst.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XIV." id="CHAPTER_XIV."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XIV.</h2><h3>A DRIVE WITH THE DOCTOR.</h3> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p class='last'>"And what is so rare as a day in June?<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then, if ever, come perfect days;</span><br /> +Then heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And over it softly her warm ear lays." </span></p> +<p class='auth'>Lowell.</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>"All lives have their prose translation as well as their ideal +meaning."—<span class="smcap">Charles Auchester.</span></p> + +<p>But Kinnicutt opened wider to receive them than Mishaumok had to let +them go.</p> + +<p>If Mr. Gartney's invalidism had to be pleaded to get away with dignity, +it was even more needed to shield with anything of quietness their +entrance into the new sphere they had chosen.</p> + +<p>Faith, with her young adaptability, found great fund of entertainment in +the new social developments that unfolded themselves at Cross Corners.</p> + +<p>All sorts of quaint vehicles drove up under the elms in the afternoon +visiting hours, day after day—hitched horses, and unladed passengers. +Both doctors and their wives came promptly, of course; the "old doctor" +from the village, and the "young doctor" from "over at Lakeside." Quiet +Mrs. Holland walked in at the twilight, by herself, one day, to explain +that her husband, the minister, was too unwell to visit, and to say her +pleasant, unpretentious words of welcome. Squire Leatherbee's daughters +made themselves fine in lilac silks and green Estella shawls, to offer +acquaintance to the new "city people." Aunt Faith came over, once or +twice a week, at times when "nobody else would be round under foot," and +always with some dainty offering from dairy, garden, or kitchen. At +other hours, Glory was fain to seize all opportunity of errands that +Miss Henderson could not do, and irradiate the kitchen, lingeringly, +until she herself might be more ecstatically irradiated with a glance +and smile from Miss Faith.</p> + +<p>There was need enough of Aunt Faith's ministrations during these first, +few, unsettled weeks. The young woman who "had no objections to the +country," objected no more to these pleasant country fashions of +neighborly kindness. She had reason. Aunt Faith's "thirds bread," or +crisp "vanity cakes," or "velvet creams," were no sooner disposed of +than there surely came a starvation interval of sour biscuits, heavy +gingerbread, and tough pie crust, and dinners feebly cooked, with no +attempt at desserts, at all.</p> + +<p>This was gloomy. This was the first trial of their country<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> life. +Plainly, this cook was no cook. Mr. Gartney's dyspepsia must be +considered. Kinnicutt air and June sunshine would not do all the +curative work. The healthy appetite they stimulated must be wholesomely +supplied.</p> + +<p>Faith took to the kitchen. To Glory's mute and rapturous delight, she +began to come almost daily up the field path, in her pretty round hat +and morning wrapper, to waylay her aunt in the tidy kitchen at the early +hour when her cookery was sure to be going on, to ask questions and +investigate, and "help a little," and then to go home and repeat the +operation as nearly as she could for their somewhat later dinner.</p> + +<p>"Miss McGonegal seems to be improving," observed Mr. Gartney, +complacently, one day, as he partook of a simple, but favorite pudding, +nicely flavored and compounded; "or is this a charity of Aunt +Henderson's?"</p> + +<p>"No," replied his wife, "it is home manufacture," and she glanced at +Faith without dropping her tone to a period. Faith shook her head, and +the sentence hung in the air, unfinished.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gartney had not been strong for years. Moreover, she had not a +genius for cooking. That is a real gift, as much as a genius for poetry +or painting. Faith was finding out, suddenly, that she had it. But she +was quite willing that her father should rest in the satisfactory belief +that Miss McGonegal, in whom it never, by any possibility, could be +developed, was improving; and that the good things that found their way +to his table had a paid and permanent origin. He was more comfortable +so, she thought. Meanwhile, they would inquire if the region round about +Kinnicutt might be expected to afford a substitute.</p> + +<p>Dr. Wasgatt's wife told Mrs. Gartney of a young American woman who was +staying in the "factory village" beyond Lakeside, and who had asked her +husband if he knew of any place where she could "hire out." Dr. Wasgatt +would be very glad to take her or Miss Faith over there, of a morning, +to see if she would answer.</p> + +<p>Faith was very glad to go.</p> + +<p>Dr. Wasgatt was the "old doctor." A benign man, as old doctors—when +they don't grow contrariwise, and become unspeakably gruff and +crusty—are apt to be. A benign old doctor, a docile old horse, an +old-fashioned two-wheeled chaise that springs to the motion like a bough +at a bird flitting, and an indescribable June morning wherein to drive +four miles and back—well! Faith couldn't help exulting in her heart +that they wanted a cook.</p> + +<p>The way was very lovely toward Lakeside, and across to factory village. +It crossed the capricious windings of Wachaug two or three times within +the distance, and then bore round the Pond Road, which kept its old +traditional cognomen, though<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> the new neighborhood that had grown up at +its farther bend had got a modern name, and the beautiful pond itself +had come to be known with a legitimate dignity as Lake Wachaug.</p> + +<p>Graceful birches, with a spring, and a joyous, whispered secret in every +glossy leaf, leaned over the road toward the water; and close down to +its ripples grew wild shrubs and flowers, and lush grass, and lady +bracken, while out over the still depths rested green lily pads, like +floating thrones waiting the fair water queens who, a few weeks hence, +should rise to claim them. Back, behind the birches, reached the fringe +of woodland that melted away, presently, in the sunny pastures, and held +in bush and branch hundreds of little mother birds, brooding in a still +rapture, like separate embodied pulses of the Universal Love, over a +coming life and joy.</p> + +<p>Life and joy were everywhere. Faith's heart danced and glowed within +her. She had thought, many a time before, that she was getting somewhat +of the joy of the country, when, after dinner and business were over, +she had come out from Mishaumok, in proper fashionable toilet, with her +father and mother, for an afternoon airing in the city environs. But +here, in the old doctor's "one-hoss shay," and with her round straw hat +and chintz wrapper on, she was finding out what a rapturously different +thing it is to go out into the bountiful morning, and identify oneself +therewith.</p> + +<p>She had almost forgotten that she had any other errand when they turned +away from the lake, and took a little side road that wound off from it, +and struck the river again, and brought them at last to the Wachaug +Mills and the little factory settlement around them.</p> + +<p>"This is Mrs. Pranker's," said the doctor, stopping at the third door in +a block of factory houses, "and it's a sister-in-law of hers who wants +to 'hire out.' I've a patient in the next row, and if you like, I'll +leave you here a few minutes."</p> + +<p>Faith's foot was instantly on the chaise step, and she sprang to the +ground with only an acknowledging touch of the good doctor's hand, +upheld to aid her.</p> + +<p>A white-haired boy of three, making gravel puddings in a scalloped tin +dish at the door, scrambled up as she approached, upset his pudding, and +sidled up the steps in a scared fashion, with a finger in his mouth, and +his round gray eyes sending apprehensive peeps at her through the linty +locks.</p> + +<p>"Well, tow-head!" ejaculated an energetic female voice within, to an +accompaniment of swashing water, and a scrape of a bucket along the +floor; "what's wanting now? Can't you stay put, nohow?"</p> + +<p>An unintelligible jargon of baby chatter followed, which seemed, +however, to have conveyed an idea to the mother's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> mind, for she +appeared immediately in the passage, drying her wet arms upon her apron.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Pranker?" asked Faith.</p> + +<p>"That's my name," replied the woman, as who should say, peremptorily, +"what then?"</p> + +<p>"I was told—my mother heard—that a sister of yours was looking for a +place."</p> + +<p>"She hain't done much about <i>lookin'</i>," was the reply, "but she was +sayin' she didn't know but what she'd hire out for a spell, if anybody +wanted her. She's in the keepin' room. You can come in and speak to her, +if you're a mind to. The kitchen floor's wet. I'm jest a-washin' of it. +You little sperrit!" This to the child, who was amusing himself with the +floor cloth which he had fished out of the bucket, and held up, +dripping, letting a stream of dirty water run down the front of his red +calico frock. "If children ain't the biggest torments! Talk about Job! +His wife had to have more patience than he did, I'll be bound! And +patience ain't any use, either! The more you have, the more you're took +advantage of! I declare and testify, it makes me as cross as sin, jest +to think how good-natured I be!" And with this, she snatched the cloth +from the boy's hands, shook first him and then his frock, to get rid, in +so far as a shake might accomplish it, of original depravity and sandy +soapsuds, and carried him, vociferant, to the door, where she set him +down to the consolation of gravel pudding again.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Faith crossed the sloppy kitchen, on tiptoe, toward an open +door, that revealed a room within.</p> + +<p>Here a very fat young woman, with a rather pleasant face, was seated, +sewing, in a rocking-chair.</p> + +<p>She did not rise, or move, at Faith's entrance, otherwise than to look +up, composedly, and let fall her arms along those of the chair, +retaining the needle in one hand and her work in the other.</p> + +<p>"I came to see," said Faith—obliged to say something to explain her +presence, but secretly appalled at the magnitude of the subject she had +to deal with—"if you wanted a place in a family."</p> + +<p>"Take a seat," said the young woman.</p> + +<p>Faith availed herself of one, and, doubtful what to say next, waited for +indications from the other party.</p> + +<p>"Well—I <i>was</i> calc'latin' to hire out this summer, but I ain't very +partic'ler about it, neither."</p> + +<p>"Can you cook?"</p> + +<p>"Most kinds. I can't do much fancy cookin'. Guess I can make bread—all +sorts—and roast, and bile, and see to common fixin's, though, as well +as the next one!"</p> + +<p>"We like plain country cooking," said Faith, thinking of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> Aunt +Henderson's delicious, though simple, preparations. "And I suppose you +can make new things if you have direction."</p> + +<p>"Well—I'm pretty good at workin' out a resate, too. But then, I ain't +anyways partic'ler 'bout hirin' out, as I said afore."</p> + +<p>Faith judged rightly that this was a salvo put in for pride. The Yankee +girl would not appear anxious for a servile situation. All the while the +conversation went on, she sat tilting herself gently back and forth in +the rocking-chair, with a lazy touching of her toes to the floor. Her +very <i>vis inertiæ</i> would not let her stop.</p> + +<p>Faith's only question, now, was with herself—how she should get away +again. She had no idea that this huge, indolent creature would be at all +suitable as their servant. And then, her utter want of manners!</p> + +<p>"I'll tell my mother what you say," said she, rising.</p> + +<p>"What's your mother's name, and where d'ye live?"</p> + +<p>"We live at Kinnicutt Cross Corners. My mother is Mrs. Henderson +Gartney."</p> + +<p>"'M!"</p> + +<p>Faith turned toward the kitchen.</p> + +<p>"Look here!" called the stout young woman after her; "you may jest say +if she wants me she can send for me. I don't mind if I try it a spell."</p> + +<p>"I didn't ask <i>your</i> name," remarked Faith.</p> + +<p>"Oh! my name's Mis' Battis!"</p> + +<p>Faith escaped over the wet floor, sprang past the white-haired child at +the doorstep, and was just in time to be put into the chaise by Dr. +Wasgatt, who drove up as she came out. She did not dare trust her voice +to speak within hearing of the house; but when they had come round the +mills again, into the secluded river road, she startled its quietness +and the doctor's composure, with a laugh that rang out clear and +overflowing like the very soul of fun.</p> + +<p>"So that's all you've got out of your visit?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, that is all," said Faith. "But it's a great deal!" And she laughed +again—such a merry little waterfall of a laugh.</p> + +<p>When she reached home, Mrs. Gartney met her at the door.</p> + +<p>"Well, Faithie," she cried, somewhat eagerly, "what have you found?"</p> + +<p>Faith's eyes danced with merriment.</p> + +<p>"I don't know, mother! A—hippopotamus, I think!"</p> + +<p>"Won't she do? What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Why she's as big! I can't tell you how big! And she sat in a +rocking-chair and rocked all the time—and she says her name is Miss +Battis!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gartney looked rather perplexed than amused.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But, Faith!—I can't think how she knew—she must have been, +listening—Norah has been so horribly angry! And she's upstairs packing +her things to go right off. How <i>can</i> we be left without a cook?"</p> + +<p>"It seems Miss McGonegal means to demonstrate that we can! Perhaps—the +hippopotamus <i>might</i> be trained to domestic service! She said you could +send if you wanted her."</p> + +<p>"I don't see anything else to do. Norah won't even stay till morning. +And there isn't a bit of bread in the house. I can't send this +afternoon, though, for your father has driven over to Sedgely about some +celery and tomato plants, and won't be home till tea time."</p> + +<p>"I'll make some cream biscuits like Aunt Faith's. And I'll go out into +the garden and find Luther. If he can't carry us through the +Reformation, somehow, he doesn't deserve his name."</p> + +<p>Luther was found—thought Jerry Blanchard wouldn't "value lettin' him +have his old horse and shay for an hour." And he wouldn't "be mor'n that +goin'." He could "fetch her, easy enough, if that was all."</p> + +<p>Mis' Battis came.</p> + +<p>She entered Mrs. Gartney's presence with nonchalance, and "flumped" +incontinently into the easiest and nearest chair.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gartney began with the common preliminary—the name. Mis' Battis +introduced herself as before.</p> + +<p>"But your first name?" proceeded the lady.</p> + +<p>"My first name was Parthenia Franker. I'm a relic'."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gartney experienced an internal convulsion, but retained her +outward composure.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you would quite as lief be called Parthenia?"</p> + +<p>"Ruther," replied the relict, laconically.</p> + +<p>And Mrs. Parthenia Battis was forthwith installed—<i>pro tem</i>.—in the +Cross Corners kitchen.</p> + +<p>"She's got considerable gumption," was the opinion Luther volunteered, +of his own previous knowledge—for Mrs. Battis was an old schoolmate and +neighbor—"but she's powerful slow."</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XV." id="CHAPTER_XV."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XV.</h2><h3>NEW DUTIES.</h3> +<p class='center'>"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might."—Ecc. 9:10.</p> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p class='last'>"A servant with this clause<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Makes drudgery divine;—</span><br /> +Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws, <br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Makes that and the action fine."</span></p> +<p class='auth'>George Herbert.</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>Mis' Battis's "gumption" was a relief—conjoined, even, as it was, to a +mighty <i>inertia</i>—after the experience of Norah McGonegal's utter +incapacity; and her admission, <i>pro tempore,</i> came to be tacitly looked +upon as a permanent adoption, for want of a better alternative. She +continued to seat herself, unabashed, whenever opportunity offered, in +the presence of the family; and invariably did so, when Mrs. Gartney +either sent for, or came to her, to give orders. She always spoke of Mr. +Gartney as "he," addressed her mistress as Miss Gartney, and ignored all +prefix to the gentle name of Faith. Mrs. Gartney at last remedied the +pronominal difficulty by invariably applying all remarks bearing no +other indication, to that other "he" of the household—Luther. Her own +claim to the matronly title she gave up all hope of establishing; for, +if the "relic'" abbreviated her own wifely distinction, how should she +be expected to dignify other people?</p> + +<p>As to Faith, her mother ventured one day, sensitively and timidly, to +speak directly to the point.</p> + +<p>"My daughter has always been accustomed to be called <i>Miss</i> Faith," she +said, gently, in reply to an observation of Parthenia's, in which the +ungarnished name had twice been used. "It isn't a <i>very</i> important +matter—still, it would be pleasanter to us, and I dare say you won't +mind trying to remember it?"</p> + +<p>"'M! No—I ain't partic'ler. Faith ain't a long name, and 'twon't be +much trouble to put a handle on, if that's what you want. It's English +fashion, ain't it?"</p> + +<p>Parthenia's coolness enabled Mrs. Gartney to assert, somewhat more +confidently, her own dignity.</p> + +<p>"It is a fashion of respect and courtesy, everywhere, I believe."</p> + +<p>"'M!" reëjaculated the relict.</p> + +<p>Thereafter, Faith was "Miss," with a slight pressure of emphasis upon +the handle.</p> + +<p>"Mamma!" cried Hendie, impetuously, one day, as he rushed in from a walk +with his attendant, "I <i>hate</i> Mahala<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> Harris! I wish you'd let me dress +myself, and go to walk alone, and send her off to Jericho!"</p> + +<p>"Whereabouts do you suppose Jericho to be?" asked Faith, laughing.</p> + +<p>"I don't know. It's where she keeps wishing I was, when she's cross, and +I want anything. I wish she was there!—and I mean to ask papa to send +her!"</p> + +<p>"Go and take your hat off, Hendie, and have your hair brushed, and your +hands washed, and then come back in a nice quiet little temper, and +we'll talk about it," said Mrs. Gartney.</p> + +<p>"I think," said Faith to her mother, as the boy was heard mounting the +stairs to the nursery, right foot foremost all the way, "that Mahala +doesn't manage Hendie as she ought. She keeps him in a fret. I hear them +in the morning while I am dressing. She seems to talk to him in a +taunting sort of way."</p> + +<p>"What can we do?" exclaimed Mrs. Gartney, worriedly. "These changes are +dreadful. We might get some one worse. And then we can't afford to pay +extravagantly. Mahala has been content to take less wages, and I think +she means to be faithful. Perhaps if I make her understand how important +it is, she will try a different manner."</p> + +<p>"Only it might be too late to do much good, if Hendie has really got to +dislike her. And—besides—I've been thinking—only, you will say I'm so +full of projects——"</p> + +<p>But what the project was, Mrs. Gartney did not hear at once, for just +then Hendie's voice was heard again at the head of the stairs.</p> + +<p>"I tell you, mother said I might! I'm going—down—in a nice—little +temper—to ask her—to send you—to Jericho!" Left foot foremost, a drop +between each few syllables, he came stumping, defiantly, down the +stairs, and appeared with all his eager story in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"She plagues me, mamma! She tells me to see who'll get dressed first; +and if <i>she</i> does, she says:</p> + + +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p>"'The first's the best,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The second's the same;</span><br /> +The last's the worst<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of all the game!'</span></p> + </td></tr></table> + +<p>"And if <i>I</i> get dressed first—all but the buttoning, you know—she says:</p> + +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p>"'The last's the best,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The second's the same;</span><br /> +The first's the worst<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of all the game!'</span></p> +</td></tr></table> + + +<p>"And then she keeps telling me 'her little sister never behaved like me.' +I asked her where her little sister was, and she said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> she'd gone over +Jordan. I'm glad of it! I wish Mahala would go too!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gartney smiled, and Faith could not help laughing outright.</p> + +<p>Hendie burst into a passion of tears.</p> + +<p>"Everybody keeps plaguing me! It's too bad!" he cried, with tumultuous +sobs.</p> + +<p>Faith checked her laughter instantly. She took the indignant little +fellow on her lap, in despite of some slight, implacable struggle on his +part, and kissed his pouting lips.</p> + +<p>"No, indeed, Hendie! We wouldn't plague you for all the world! And you +don't know what I've got for you, just as soon as you're ready for it!"</p> + +<p>Hendie took his little knuckles out of his eyes.</p> + +<p>"A bunch of great red cherries, as big as your two hands!"</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>"I'll get them, if you're good. And then you can go out in the front +yard, and eat them, so that you can drop the stones on the grass."</p> + +<p>Hendie was soon established on a flat stone under the old chestnut +trees, in a happy oblivion of Mahala's injustice, and her little +sister's perfections.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you, mamma. I've been thinking we need not keep Mahala, if +you don't wish. She has been so used to do nothing but run round after +Hendie, that, really, she isn't much good about the house; and I'll take +Hendie's trundle bed into my room, and there'll be one less chamber to +take care of; and you know we always dust and arrange down here."</p> + +<p>"Yes—but the sweeping, Faithie! And the washing! Parthenia never would +get through with it all."</p> + +<p>"Well, somebody might come and help wash. And I guess I can sweep."</p> + +<p>"But I can't bear to put you to such work, darling! You need your time +for other things."</p> + +<p>"I have ever so much time, mother! And, besides, as Aunt Faith says, I +don't believe it makes so very much matter <i>what</i> we do. I was talking +to her, the other day, about doing coarse work, and living a narrow, +common kind of life, and what do you think she said?"</p> + +<p>"I can't tell, of course. Something blunt and original."</p> + +<p>"We were out in the garden. She pointed to some plants that were coming +up from seeds, that had just two tough, clumsy, coarse leaves. 'What do +you call them?' said auntie. 'Cotyledons, aren't they?' said I. 'I don't +know what they are in botany,' said she; 'but I know the use of 'em. +They'll last a while, and help feed up what's growing inside and +underneath, and by and by they'll drop off, when they're done with, and +you'll see what's been coming of it. Folks can't live the best right +out at first, any more than plants can. I guess we all want some kind +of—cotyledons.'"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gartney's eyes shone with affection, and something that affection +called there, as she looked upon her daughter.</p> + +<p>"I guess the cotyledons won't hinder your growing," said she.</p> + +<p>And so, in a few days after, Mahala was dismissed, and Faith took upon +herself new duties.</p> + +<p>It was a bright, happy face that glanced hither and thither, about the +house, those fair summer mornings; and it wasn't the hands alone that +were busy, as under their dexterous and delicate touch all things +arranged themselves in attractive and graceful order. Thought +straightened and cleared itself, as furniture and books were dusted and +set right; and while the carpet brightened under the broom, something +else brightened and strengthened, also, within.</p> + +<p>It is so true, what the author of "Euthanasy" tells us, that exercise of +limb and muscle develops not only themselves, but what is in us as we +work.</p> + +<p>"Every stroke of the hammer upon the anvil hardens a little what is at +the time the temper of the smith's mind."</p> + +<p>"The toil of the plowman furrows the ground, and so it does his brow +with wrinkles, visibly; and invisibly, but quite as certainly, it +furrows the current of feeling, common with him at his work, into an +almost unchangeable channel."</p> + +<p>Faith's life purpose deepened as she did each daily task. She had hold, +already, of the "high and holy work of love" that had been prophesied.</p> + +<p>"I am sure of one thing, mother," said she, gayly; "if I don't learn +much that is new, I am bringing old knowledge into play. It's the same +thing, taken hold of at different ends. I've learned to draw straight +lines, and shape pictures; and so there isn't any difficulty in sweeping +a carpet clean, or setting chairs straight. I never shall wonder again +that a woman who never heard of a right angle can't lay a table even."</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XVI." id="CHAPTER_XVI."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XVI.</h2><h3>"BLESSED BE YE, POOR."</h3> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p>"And so we yearn, and so we sigh,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And reach for more than we can see;</span><br /> +And, witless of our folded wings,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Walk Paradise, unconsciously."</span></p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>October came, and brought small dividends. The expenses upon the farm +had necessarily been considerable, also, to put<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> things in "good running +order." Mr. Gartney's health, though greatly improved, was not yet so +confidently to be relied on, as to make it advisable for him to think of +any change, as yet, with a view to business. Indeed, there was little +opportunity for business, to tempt him. Everything was flat. Mr. Gartney +must wait. Mrs. Gartney and Faith felt, though they talked of waiting, +that the prospect really before them was that of a careful, obscure +life, upon a very limited income. The house in Mishaumok had stood +vacant all the summer. There was hope, of course, of letting it now, as +the winter season came on, but rents were falling, and people were timid +and discouraged.</p> + +<p>October was beautiful at Kinnicutt. And Faith, when she looked out over +the glory of woods and sky, felt rich with the great wealth of the +world, and forgot about economies and privations. She was so glad they +had come here with their altered plans, and had not struggled shabbily +and drearily on in Mishaumok!</p> + +<p>It was only when some chance bit of news from the city, or a girlish, +gossipy note from some school friend found its way to Cross Corners, +that she felt, a little keenly, her denials—realized how the world she +had lived in all her life was going on without her.</p> + +<p>It was the old plaint that Glory made, in her dark days of +childhood—this feeling of despondency and loss that assailed Faith now +and then—"such lots of good times in the world, and she not in 'em!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Etherege and Saidie were coming home. Gertrude Rushleigh, Saidie's +old intimate, was to be married on the twenty-eighth, and had fixed her +wedding thus for the last of the month, that Miss Gartney might arrive +to keep her promise of long time, by officiating as bridesmaid.</p> + +<p>The family eclipse would not overshadow Saidie. She had made her place +in the world now, and with her aunt's aid and countenance, would keep +it. It was quite different with Faith—disappearing, as she had done, +from notice, before ever actually "coming out."</p> + +<p>"It was a thousand pities," Aunt Etherege said, when she and Saidie +discussed with Mrs. Gartney, at Cross Corners, the family affairs. "And +things just as they were, too! Why, another year might have settled +matters for her, so that this need never have happened! At any rate, the +child shouldn't be moped up here, all winter!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Etherege had engaged rooms, on her arrival, at the Mishaumok House; +and it seemed to be taken for granted by her, and by Saidie as well, +that this coming home was a mere visit; that Miss Gartney would, of +course, spend the greater part of the winter with her aunt; and that +lady extended also<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> an invitation to Mishaumok for a month—including +the wedding festivities at the Rushleighs'—to Faith.</p> + +<p>Faith shook her head. She "knew she couldn't be spared so long." +Secretly, she doubted whether it would be a good plan to go back and get +a peep at things that might send her home discontented and unhappy.</p> + +<p>But her mother reasoned otherwise. Faithie must go. "The child mustn't +be moped up." She would get on, somehow, without her. Mothers always +can. So Faith, by a compromise, went for a fortnight. She couldn't quite +resist her newly returned sister.</p> + +<p>Besides, a pressing personal invitation had come from Margaret Rushleigh +to Faith herself, with a little private announcement at the end, that +"Paul was refractory, and utterly refused to act as fourth groomsman, +unless Faith Gartney were got to come and stand with him."</p> + +<p>Faith tore off the postscript, and might have lit it at her cheeks, but +dropped it, of habit, into the fire; and then the note was at the +disposal of the family.</p> + +<p>It was a whirl of wonderful excitement to Faith—that fortnight! So many +people to see, so much to hear, and in the midst of all, the gorgeous +wedding festival!</p> + +<p>What wonder if a little dream flitted through her head, as she stood +there, in the marriage group, at Paul Rushleigh's side, and looked about +her on the magnificent fashion, wherein the affection of new relatives +and old friends had made itself tangible; and heard the kindly words of +the elder Mr. Rushleigh to Kate Livingston, who stood with his son +Philip, and whose bridal, it was well known, was to come next? Jewels, +and silver, and gold, are such flashing, concrete evidences of love! And +the courtly condescension of an old and world-honored man to the young +girl whom his son has chosen, is such a winning and distinguishing +thing!</p> + +<p>Paul Rushleigh had finished his college course, and was to go abroad +this winter—between the weddings, as he said—for his brother Philip's +was to take place in the coming spring. After that—things were not +quite settled, but something was to be arranged for him meanwhile—he +would have to begin his work in the world; and then—he supposed it +would be time for him to find a helpmate. Marrying was like dying, he +believed; when a family once began to go off there was soon an end of +it!</p> + +<p>Blushes were the livery of the evening, and Faith's deeper glow at this +audacious rattle passed unheeded, except, perhaps, as it might be +somewhat willfully interpreted.</p> + +<p>There were two or three parties made for the newly married couple in the +week that followed. The week after, Paul Rushleigh, with the bride and +groom, was to sail for Europe. At<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> each of these brilliant +entertainments he constituted himself, as in duty bound, Faith's knight +and sworn attendant; and a superb bouquet for each occasion, the result +of the ransack of successive greenhouses, came punctually, from him, to +her door. For years afterwards—perhaps for all her life—Faith couldn't +smell heliotrope, and geranium, and orange flowers, without floating +back, momentarily, into the dream of those few, enchanted days!</p> + +<p>She stayed in Mishaumok a little beyond the limit she had fixed for +herself, to go, with the others, on board the steamer at the time of her +sailing, and see the gay party off. Paul Rushleigh had more significant +words, and another gift of flowers as a farewell.</p> + +<p>When she carried these last to her own room, to put them in water, on +her return, something she had not noticed before glittered among their +stems. It was a delicate little ring, of twisted gold, with a +forget-me-not in turquoise and enamel upon the top.</p> + +<p>Faith was half pleased, half frightened, and wholly ashamed.</p> + +<p>Paul Rushleigh was miles out on the Atlantic. There was no help for it, +she thought. It had been cunningly done.</p> + +<p>And so, in the short November days, she went back to Kinnicutt.</p> + +<p>The east parlor had to be shut up now, for the winter. The family +gathering place was the sunny little sitting room; and with closed doors +and doubled windows, they began, for the first time, to find that they +were really living in a little bit of a house.</p> + +<p>It was very pretty, though, with the rich carpet and the crimson +curtains that had come from Hickory Street, replacing the white muslin +draperies and straw matting of the summer; and the books and vases, and +statuettes and pictures, gathered into so small space, seemed to fill +the room with luxury and beauty.</p> + +<p>Faith nestled her little workstand into a nook between the windows. +Hendie's blocks and picture books were stowed in a corner cupboard. Mr. +Gartney's newspapers and pamphlets, as they came, found room in a deep +drawer below; and so, through the wintry drifts and gales, they were +"close hauled" and comfortable.</p> + +<p>Faith was happy; yet she thought, now and then, when the whistling wind +broke the stillness of the dark evenings, of light and music elsewhere; +and how, a year ago, there had always been the chance of a visitor or +two to drop in, and while away the hours. Nobody lifted the +old-fashioned knocker, here at Cross Corners.</p> + +<p>By day, even, it was scarcely different. Kinnicutt was hibernating. Each +household had drawn into its shell. And the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> huge drifts, lying defiant +against the fences in the short, ineffectual winter sunlight, held out +little hope of reanimation. Aunt Faith, in her pumpkin hood, and Rob Roy +cloak, and carpet moccasins, came over once in two or three days, and +even occasionally stayed to tea, and helped make up a rubber of whist +for Mr. Gartney's amusement; but, beyond this, they had no social +excitement.</p> + +<p>January brought a thaw; and, still further to break the monotony, there +arose a stir and an anxiety in the parish.</p> + +<p>Good Mr. Holland, its minister of thirty years, whose health had been +failing for many months, was at last compelled to relinquish the duties +of his pulpit for a time; and a supply was sought with the ultimate +probability of a succession. A new minister came to preach, who was to +fill the pastor's place for the ensuing three months. On his first +Sunday among them, Faith heard a wonderful sermon.</p> + +<p>I indicate thus, not the oratory, nor the rhetoric; but the <i>sermon</i>, of +which these were the mere vehicle—the word of truth itself—which was +spoken, seemingly, to her very thought.</p> + +<p>So also, as certainly, to the long life-thought of one other. Glory +McWhirk sat in Miss Henderson's corner pew, and drank it in, as a soul +athirst.</p> + +<p>A man of middle age, one might have said, at first sight—there was, +here and there, a silver gleam in the dark hair and beard; yet a fire +and earnestness of youth in the deep, beautiful eye, and a look in the +face as of life's first flush and glow not lost, but rather merged in +broader light, still climbing to its culmination, belied these tokens, +and made it as if a white frost had fallen in June—rising up before the +crowded village congregation, looked round upon the upturned faces, as +One had looked before who brought the bread of Life to men's eager +asking; and uttered the selfsame simple words.</p> + +<p>It was a certain pause and emphasis he made—a slight new rendering of +punctuation—that sent home the force of those words to the people who +heard them, as if it had been for the first time, and fresh from the +lips of the Great Teacher.</p> + +<hr class='minor' /> + +<p>"'Blessed are the poor: <i>in spirit</i>: for theirs is the kingdom of +heaven.'</p> + +<p>"Herein Christ spoke, not to a class, only, but to the world! A world of +souls, wrestling with the poverty of life!</p> + +<p>"In that whole assemblage—that great concourse—that had thronged from +cities and villages to hear His words upon the mountainside—was there, +think you, <i>one satisfied nature</i>?</p> + +<p>"Friends—are <i>ye</i> satisfied?</p> + +<p class='center'> +· +· +· +· +·</p> + +<p>"Or, does every life come to know, at first or at last, how something—a +hope, or a possibility, or the fulfillment of a purpose—has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> got +dropped out of it, or has even never entered, so that an emptiness +yawns, craving, therein, forever?</p> + +<p>"How many souls hunger till they are past their appetite! Go on—down +through the years—needy and waiting, and never find or grasp that which +a sure instinct tells them they were made for?</p> + +<p>"This, this is the poverty of life! These are the poor, to whom God's +Gospel was preached in Christ! And to these denied and waiting ones the +first words of Christ's preaching—as I read them—were spoken in +blessing.</p> + +<p>"Because, elsewhere, he blesses the meek; elsewhere and presently, he +tells us how the lowly in spirit shall inherit the earth; so, when I +open to this, his earliest uttered benediction upon our race, I read it +with an interpretation that includes all humanity:</p> + +<p>"'Blessed, in spirit, are the poor. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.'</p> + +<p class='center'> +· +· +· +· +·</p> + +<p>"What is this Kingdom of Heaven? 'It is within you.' It is that which +you hold, and live in spiritually; the <i>real</i>, of which all earthly, +outward being and having are but the show. It is the region wherein +little children 'do always behold the Face of my Father which is in +Heaven.' It is where we are when we shut our eyes and pray in the words +that Christ taught us.</p> + +<p class='center'> +· +· +· +· +·</p> + +<p>"What matters, then, where your feet stand, or wherewith your hands are +busy? So that it is the spot where God has put you, and the work He has +given you to do? Your real life is within—hid in God with +Christ—ripening, and strengthening, and waiting, as through the long, +geologic ages of night and incompleteness waited the germs of all that +was to unfold into this actual, green, and bounteous earth!</p> + +<p class='center'> +· +· +· +· +·</p> + +<p>"The narrower your daily round, the wider, maybe, the outreach. Isolated +upon a barren mountain peak, you may take in river and lake—forest, +field, and valley. A hundred gardens and harvests lift their bloom and +fullness to your single eye.</p> + +<p>"There is a sunlight that contracts the vision; there is a starlight +that enlarges it to take in infinite space.</p> + +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p>"'God sets some souls in shade, alone.<br /> +They have no daylight of their own.<br /> +Only in lives of happier ones<br /> +They see the shine of distant suns.</p> + +<p>"'God knows. Content thee with thy night.<br /> +Thy greater heaven hath grander light,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span><br /> +To-day is close. The hours are small.<br /> +Thou sit'st afar, and hast them all.</p> + +<p>"'Lose the less joy that doth but blind;<br /> +Reach forth a larger bliss to find.<br /> +To-day is brief: the inclusive spheres<br /> +Rain raptures of a thousand years.'"</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>Faith could not tell what hymn was sung, or what were the words of the +prayer that followed the sermon. There was a music and an uplifting in +her own soul that made them needless, but for the pause they gave her.</p> + +<p>She hardly knew that a notice was read as the people rose before the +benediction, when the minister gave out, as requested, that "the Village +Dorcas Society would meet on Wednesday of the coming week, at Mrs. +Parley Gimp's."</p> + +<p>She was made aware that it had fallen upon her ears, though heard +unconsciously, when Serena Gimp caught her by the sleeve in the church +porch.</p> + +<p>"Ain't it awful," said she, with a simper and a flutter of importance, +"to have your name called right out so in the pulpit? I declare, if it +hadn't been for seeing the new minister, I wouldn't have come to meeting, +I dreaded it so! Ain't he handsome? He's old, though—thirty-five! He's +broken-hearted, too! Somebody died, or something else, that he was going +to be married to, ever so many years ago; and they say he hasn't hardly +spoken to a lady since. That's so romantic! I don't wonder he preaches +such low-spirited kind of sermons. Only I wish they warn't quite so. I +suppose it's beautiful, and heavenly minded, and all that; but yet I'd +rather hear something a little kind of cheerful. Don't you think so? But +the poetry was elegant--warn't it? I guess it's original, too. They say +he puts things in the <i>Mishaumok Monthly</i>. Come Wednesday, won't +you? We shall depend, you know."</p> + +<p>To Miss Gimp, the one salient point, amidst the solemnities of the day, +had been that pulpit notice. She had put new strings to her bonnet for +the occasion. Mrs. Gimp, being more immediately and personally affected, +had modestly remained away from church.</p> + +<p>Glory McWhirk went straight through the village, home; and out to her +little room in the sunny side of the low, sloping roof. This was her +winter nook. She had a shadier one, looking the other way, for summer.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if it's all true!" she cried, silently, in her soul, while she +stood for a minute with bonnet and shawl still on, looking out from her +little window, dreamily, over the dazzle of the snow, even as her +half-blinded thought peered out from its own narrowness into the +infinite splendor of the promise of God—"I wonder if God will ever make +me beautiful! I wonder if I shall ever have a real, great joyfulness, +that isn't a make believe!"</p> + +<p>Glory called her fancies so. They followed her still. She lived yet in +an ideal world. The real world—that is, the best good of it—had not +come close enough to her, even in this, her widely amended condition, to +displace the other. Remember—this child of eighteen had missed her +childhood; had known neither father nor mother, sister nor brother.</p> + +<p>Don't think her simple, in the pitiful meaning of the word; but she +still enacted, in the midst of her plain, daily life, wonderful dreams +that nobody could have ever suspected; and here, in her solitary +chamber, called up at will creatures of imagination who were to her what +human creatures, alas! had never been. Above all, she had a sister here, +to whom she told all her secrets. This sister's name was Leonora.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XVII." id="CHAPTER_XVII."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XVII.</h2><h3>FROST-WONDERS.</h3> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p class='last'>"No hammers fell, no ponderous axes rung;<br /> +Like some tall palm, the mystic fabric sprung. <br /> +Majestic silence!"</p> +<p class='auth'>Heber.</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>The thaw continued till the snow was nearly gone. Only the great drifts +against the fences, and the white folds in the rifts of distant +hillsides lingered to tell what had been. Then came a day of warm rain, +that washed away the last fragment of earth's cast-off vesture, and +bathed her pure for the new adornment that was to be laid upon her. At +night, the weather cooled, and the rain changed to a fine, slow mist, +congealing as it fell.</p> + +<p>Faith stood next morning by a small round table in the sitting-room +window, and leaned lovingly over her jonquils and hyacinths that were +coming into bloom. Then, drawing the curtain cord to let in the first +sunbeam that should slant from the south upon her bulbs, she gave a +little cry of rapturous astonishment. It was a diamond morning!</p> + +<p>Away off, up the lane, and over the meadows, every tree and bush was +hung with twinkling gems that the slight wind swayed against each other +with tiny crashes of faint music, and the sun was just touching with a +level splendor.</p> + +<p>After that first, quick cry, Faith stood mute with ecstasy.</p> + +<p>"Mother!" said she, breathlessly, at last, as Mrs. Gartney entered, +"look there! have you seen it? Just imagine what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> the woods must be this +morning! How can we think of buckwheats?"</p> + +<p>Sounds and odors betrayed that Mis' Battis and breakfast were in the +little room adjoining.</p> + +<p>"There is a thought of something akin to them, isn't there, under all +this splendor? Men must live, and grass and grain must grow."</p> + +<p>Mr. Gartney said this, as he came up behind wife and daughter, and laid +a hand on a shoulder of each.</p> + +<p>"I know one thing, though," said Faith. "I'll eat the buckwheats, as a +vulgar necessity, and then I'll go over the brook and up in the woods +behind the Pasture Rocks. It'll last, won't it?"</p> + +<p>"Not many hours, with this spring balm in the air," replied her father. +"You must make haste. By noon, it will be all a drizzle."</p> + +<p>"Will it be quite safe for her to go alone?" asked Mrs. Gartney.</p> + +<p>"I'll ask Aunt Faith to let me have Glory. She showed me the walk last +summer. It is fair she should see this, now."</p> + +<p>So the morning odds and ends were done up quickly at Cross Corners and +at the Old House, and then Faith and Glory set forth together—the +latter in as sublime a rapture as could consist with mortal cohesion.</p> + +<p>The common roadside was an enchanted path. The glittering rime +transfigured the very cart ruts into bars of silver; and every coarse +weed was a fretwork of beauty.</p> + +<p>"Bells on their toes" they had, this morning, assuredly; each footfall +made a music on the sod.</p> + +<p>Over the slippery bridge—out across a stretch of open meadow, and then +along a track that skirted the border of a sparse growth of trees, +projecting itself like a promontory upon the level land—round its +abrupt angle into a sweep of meadow again, on whose farther verge rose +the Pasture Rocks.</p> + +<p>Behind these rocks swelled up gently a slope, half pasture, half +woodland—neither open ground nor forest; but, although clear enough for +comfortable walking, studded pretty closely with trees that often +interlaced their branches overhead, and made great, pillared aisles, +among whose shade, in summer, wound delicious little footpaths that all +came out together, midway up, into—what you shall be told of presently.</p> + +<p>Here, among and beyond the rocks, were oaks, and pines, and savins—each +needle-like leaf a shimmering lance—each clustering branch a spray of +gems—and the stout, spreading limbs of the oaks delineating themselves +against the sky above in Gothic frost-work.</p> + +<p>Suddenly—before they thought it could be so near—they came up and out +into a broader opening. Between two rocks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> that made, as it were, a +gateway, and around whose bases were grouped sentinel evergreens, they +came into this wider space, floored with flat rock, the surface of a +hidden ledge, carpeted with crisp mosses in the summer, whose every cup +and hollow held a jewel now—and inclosed with lofty oaks and pines, +while, straight beyond, where the woods shut in again far closer than +below, rose a bold crag, over whose brow hung pendent birches that in +their icy robing drooped like glittering wings of cherubim above an +altar.</p> + +<p>All around and underneath, this strange magnificence. Overhead, the +everlasting Blue, that roofed it in with sapphire. In front, the rough, +gigantic shrine.</p> + +<p>"It is like a cathedral!" said Faith, solemnly and low.</p> + +<p>"See!" whispered Glory, catching her companion hastily by the +arm—"there is the minister!"</p> + +<p>A little way beyond them, at the right, out from among the clumps of +evergreen where some other of the little wood walks opened, a figure +advanced without perceiving them. It was Roger Armstrong, the new +minister. He held his hat in his hand. He walked, uncovered, as he would +have into a church, into this forest temple, where God's finger had just +been writing on the walls.</p> + +<p>When he turned, slowly, his eye fell on the other two who stood there. +It lighted up with a quick joy of sympathy. He came forward. Faith +bowed. Glory stood back, shyly. Neither party seemed astonished at the +meeting. It was so plain <i>why</i> they came, that if they had wondered at +all, it would have been that the whole village should not be pouring out +hither, also.</p> + +<p>Mr. Armstrong led them to the center of the rocky space. "This is the +best point," said he. And then was silent. There was no need of words. A +greatness of thought made itself felt from one to the other.</p> + +<p>Only, between still pauses, words came that almost spoke themselves.</p> + +<p>"'Eye hath not seen, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to +conceive, that which God hath prepared for them that love him.' What a +commentary upon His promise is a glory like this!</p> + +<p>"'And they shall all shine like the sun in the kingdom of my Father!'"</p> + +<p>Faith stood by the minister's side, and glanced, when he spoke, from the +wonderful beauty before her to a face whose look interpreted it all. +There was something in the very presence of this man that drew others +who approached him into the felt presence of God. Because he stood +therein in the spirit. These are the true apostles whom Christ sends +forth.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p> + +<p>Glory could have sobbed with an oppression of reverence, enthusiasm, and +joy.</p> + +<p>"It is only a glimpse," said Mr. Armstrong, by and by. "It is going, +already."</p> + +<p>A drip—drip—was beginning to be heard.</p> + +<p>"You ought to get away from under the trees before the thaw comes fully +on," continued he. "A branch breaks, now and then, and the ice will be +falling constantly. I can show you a more open way than the one you came +by, I think."</p> + +<p>And he gave his arm to Faith over the slope that even now was growing +wet and slippery in the sun. Faith touched it with a reverence, and +dropped it again, modestly, when they reached a safer foothold.</p> + +<p>Glory kept behind. Mr. Armstrong turned now and then, with a kindly +word, and a thought for her safety. Once he took her hand, and helped +her down a sudden descent in the path, where the water had run over and +made a smooth, dangerous glare.</p> + +<p>"I shall call soon to see your father and mother, Miss Gartney," said +he, when they reached the road again beyond the brook, and their ways +home lay in different directions. "This meeting, to-day, has given me +pleasure."</p> + +<p>"How?" Faith wondered silently, as she kept on to the Cross Corners. She +had hardly spoken a word. But, then, she might have remembered that the +minister's own words had been few, yet her very speechlessness before +him had come from the deep pleasure that his presence had given to her. +The recognition of souls cares little for words. Faith's soul had been +in her face to-day, as Roger Armstrong had seen it each Sunday, also, in +the sweet, listening look she uplifted before him in the church. He bent +toward this young, pure life, with a joy in its gentle purity; the joy +of an elder over a younger angel in the school of God.</p> + +<p>And Glory? she laid up in her own heart a beautiful remembrance of +something she had never known before. Of a near approach to something +great and high, yet gentle and beneficent. Of a kindly, helping touch, a +gracious smile, a glance that spoke straight to the mute aspiration +within her.</p> + +<p>The minister had not failed, through all her humbleness and shyness, to +read some syllables of that large, unuttered life of hers that lay +beneath. He whose labor it is to save souls, learns always the insight +that discerns souls.</p> + +<p>"I have seen the Winter!" cried Faith, glowing and joyous, as she came +in from her walk.</p> + +<p>"It has been a beautiful time!" said Glory to her shadow sister, when +she went to hang away hood and shawl. "It has been a beautiful time—and +I've been really in it—partly!"</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XVIII." id="CHAPTER_XVIII."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2><h3>OUT IN THE SNOW.</h3> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p class='last'> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;">"Sydnaein showers</span><br /> +Of sweet discourse, whose powers<br /> +Can crown old winter's head with flowers." </p> +<p class='auth'>Crashaw</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>Winter had not exhausted her repertory, however. She had more wonders to +unfold.</p> + +<p>There came a long snowstorm.</p> + +<p>"Faithie," said her father, coming in, wrapped up in furs from a visit +to the stable, "put your comfortables on, and we'll go and see the snow. +We'll make tracks, literally, for the hills. There isn't a road fairly +broken between here and Grover's Peak. The snow lies beautifully, +though; and there isn't a breath of wind. It will be a sight to see."</p> + +<p>Faith brought, quickly, sontag, jacket, and cloak—hood and veil, and +long, warm snow boots, and in ten minutes was ready, as she averred, for +a sledge ride to Hudson's Bay.</p> + +<p>Luther drove the sleigh close to the kitchen door, that Faith might not +have to cross the yard to reach it, and she stepped directly from the +threshold into the warm nest of buffalo robes; while Mis' Battis put a +great stone jug of hot water in beside her feet, asserting that it was +"a real comfortin' thing on a sleigh ride, and that they needn't be +afraid of its leakin', for the cork was druv in as tight as an eye +tooth!"</p> + +<p>So, out by the barn, into the road, and away from the village toward the +hills, they went, with the glee of resonant bells and excited +expectation.</p> + +<p>A mile, or somewhat more, along the Sedgely turnpike, took them into a +bit of woods that skirted the road on either side, for a considerable +distance. Away in, under the trees, the stillness and the whiteness and +the wonderful multiplication of snow shapes were like enchantment. Each +bush had an attitude and drapery and expression of its own, as if some +weird life had suddenly been spellbound in these depths. Cherubs, and +old women, and tall statue shapes like images of gods, hovered, and +bent, and stood majestic, in a motionless poise. Over all, the bent +boughs made marble and silver arches in shadow and light, and, far down +between, the vistas lengthened endlessly, still crowded with mystic +figures, haunting the long galleries with their awful beauty.</p> + +<p>They went on, penetrating a lifeless silence; their horse's feet making +the first prints since early morning in the unbroken smoothness of the +way, and the only sound the gentle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> tinkle of their own bells, as they +moved pleasantly, but not fleetly, along.</p> + +<p>So, up the ascent, where the land lay higher, toward the hills.</p> + +<p>"I feel," said Faith, "as if I had been hurried through the Louvre, or +the Vatican, or both, and hadn't half seen anything. Was there ever +anything so strange and beautiful?"</p> + +<p>"We shall find more Louvres presently," said her father. "We'll keep the +road round Grover's Peak, and turn off, as we come back, down Garland +Lane."</p> + +<p>"That lovely, wild, shady road we took last summer so often, where the +grapevines grow so, all over the trees?"</p> + +<p>"Exactly," replied Mr. Gartney. "But you mustn't scream if we thump +about a little, in the drifts up there. It's pretty rough, at the best +of times, and the snow will have filled in the narrow spaces between the +rocks and ridges, like a freshet. Shall you be afraid?"</p> + +<p>"Afraid! Oh, no, indeed! It's glorious! I think I should like to go +everywhere!"</p> + +<p>"There is a good deal of everywhere in every little distance," said Mr. +Gartney. "People get into cars, and go whizzing across whole States, +often, before they stop to enjoy thoroughly something that is very like +what they might have found within ten miles of home. For my part, I like +microscopic journeying."</p> + +<p>"Leaving 'no stone unturned.' So do I," said Faith. "We don't half know +the journey between Kinnicutt and Sedgely yet, I think. And then, too, +they're multiplied, over and over, by all the different seasons, and by +different sorts of weather. Oh, we shan't use them up, in a long while!"</p> + +<p>Saidie Gartney had not felt, perhaps, in all her European travel, the +sense of inexhaustible pleasure that Faith had when she said this.</p> + +<p>Down under Grover's Peak, with the river on one side, and the +white-robed cedar thickets rising on the other—with the low afternoon +sun glinting across from the frosted roofs of the red mill buildings and +barns and farmhouses to the rocky slope of the Peak.</p> + +<p>Then they came round and up again, over a southerly ridge, by beautiful +Garland Lane, that she knew only in its summer look, when the wild grape +festooned itself wantonly from branch to branch, and sometimes, even, +from side to side; and so gave the narrow forest road its name.</p> + +<p>Quite into fairyland they had come now, in truth; as if, skirting the +dark peak that shut it off from ordinary espial, they had lighted on a +bypath that led them covertly in. Trailing and climbing vines wore their +draperies lightly; delicate shrubs bowed like veiled shapes in groups +around the bases of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> tall tree trunks, and slight-stemmed birches +quivered under their canopies of snow. Little birds hopped in and out +under the pure, still shelter, and left their tiny tracks, like magical +hieroglyphs, in the else untrodden paths.</p> + +<p>"Lean this way, Faith, and keep steady!" cried Mr. Gartney, as the horse +plunged breast high into a drift, and the sleigh careened toward the +side Faith was on. It was a sharp strain, but they plowed their way +through, and came upon a level again. This by-street was literally +unbroken. No one had traversed it since the beginning of the storm. The +drifts had had it all their own way there, and it involved no little +adventurousness and risk, as Mr. Gartney began to see, to pioneer a +passage through. But the spirit of adventure was upon them both. On all, +I should say; for the strong horse plunged forward, from drift to drift, +as though he delighted in the encounter. Moreover, to turn was +impossible.</p> + +<p>Faith laughed, and gave little shrieks, alternately, as they rose +triumphantly from deep, "slumpy" hollows, or pitched headlong into +others again. Thus, struggling, enjoying—just frightened enough, now +and then, to keep up the excitement—they came upon the summit of the +ridge. Now their way lay downward. This began to look really almost +perilous. With careful guiding, however, and skillful +balancing—tipping, creaking, sinking, emerging—they kept on slowly, +about half the distance down the descent.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, the horse, as men and brutes, however sagacious, sometimes +will, made a miscalculation of depth or power—lost his sure +balance—sunk to his body in the yielding snow—floundered violently in +an endeavor to regain safe footing—and, snap! crash! was down against +the drift at the left, with a broken shaft under him!</p> + +<p>Mr. Gartney sprang to his head.</p> + +<p>One runner was up—one down. The sleigh stuck fast at an angle of about +thirty degrees. Faith clung to the upper side.</p> + +<p>Here was a situation! What was to be done? Twilight coming on—no help +near—no way of getting anywhere!</p> + +<p>"Faith," said Mr. Gartney, "what have you got on your feet?"</p> + +<p>"Long, thick snow boots, father. What can I do?"</p> + +<p>"Do you dare to come and try to unfasten these buckles? There is no +danger. Major can't stir while I hold him by the head."</p> + +<p>Faith jumped out into the snow, and valorously set to work at the +buckles. She managed to undo one, and to slip out the fastening of the +trace, on one side, where it held to the whiffletree. But the horse was +lying so that she could not get at the other.</p> + +<p>"I'll come there, father!" she cried, clambering and struggling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> through +the drift till she came to the horse's head. "Can't I hold him while you +undo the harness?"</p> + +<p>"I don't believe you can, Faithie. He isn't down so flat as to be quite +under easy control."</p> + +<p>"Not if I sit on his head?" asked Faith.</p> + +<p>"That might do," replied her father, laughing. "Only you would get +frightened, maybe, and jump up too soon."</p> + +<p>"No, I won't," said Faith, quite determined upon heroism. While she +spoke, she had picked up the whip, which had fallen close by, doubled +back the lash against the handle, and was tying her blue veil to its +tip. Then she sat down on the animal's great cheek, which she had never +fancied to be half so broad before, and gently patted his nose with one +hand, while she upheld her blue flag with the other. Major's big, +panting breaths came up, close beside her face. She kept a quick, +watchful eye upon the road below.</p> + +<p>"He's as quiet as can be, father! It must be what Miss Beecher called +the 'chivalry of horses'!"</p> + +<p>"It's the chivalry that has to develop under petticoat government!" +retorted Mr. Gartney.</p> + +<p>At this moment Faith's blue flag waved vehemently over her head. She had +caught the jingle of bells, and perceived a sleigh, with a man in it, +come out into the crossing at the foot of Garland Lane. The man descried +the signal and the disaster, and the sleigh stopped. Alighting, he led +his horse to the fence, fastened him there, and turning aside into the +steep, narrow, unbroken road, began a vigorous struggle through the +drifts to reach the wreck.</p> + +<p>Coming nearer, he discerned and recognized Mr. Gartney, who also, at the +same moment, was aware of him. It was Mr. Armstrong.</p> + +<p>"Keep still a minute longer, Faith," said her father, lifting the +remaining shaft against the dasher, and trying to push the sleigh back, +away from the animal. But this, alone, he was unable to accomplish. So +the minister came up, and found Faith still seated on the horse's head.</p> + +<p>"Miss Gartney! Let me hold him!" cried he.</p> + +<p>"I'm quite comfortable!" laughed Faith. "If you would just help my +father, please!"</p> + +<p>The sleigh was drawn back by the combined efforts of the two gentlemen, +and then both came round to Faith.</p> + +<p>"Now, Faith, jump!" said her father, placing his hands upon the +creature's temple, close beside her, while Mr. Armstrong caught her arms +to snatch her safely away. Faith sprang, or was lifted as she sprang, +quite to the top of the huge bank of snow under and against which they +had, among them, beaten in and trodden down such a hollow, and the +instant after, Mr. Gartney releasing Major's head, and uttering<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> a sound +of encouragement, the horse raised himself, with a half roll, and a +mighty scramble, first to his knees, and then to his four feet again, +and shook his great skin.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gartney examined the harness. The broken shaft proved the extent of +damage done. This, at the moment, however, was irremediable. He knotted +the hanging straps and laid them over the horse's neck. Then he folded a +buffalo skin, and arranged it, as well as he could, above and behind the +saddle, which he secured again by its girth.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Armstrong," said he, as he completed this disposal of matters, "you +came along in good time. I am very much obliged to you. If you will do +me the further favor to take my daughter home, I will ride to the +nearest house where I can obtain a sleigh, and some one to send back for +these traps of mine."</p> + +<p>"Miss Gartney," said the minister, in answer, "can you sit a horse's +back as well as you did his eyebrow?"</p> + +<p>Faith laughed, and reaching her arms to the hands upheld for them, was +borne safely from her snowy pinnacle to the buffalo cushion. Her father +took the horse by the bit, and Mr. Armstrong kept at his side holding +Faith firmly to her seat. In this fashion, grasping the bridle with one +hand, and resting the other on Mr. Armstrong's shoulder, she was +transported to the sleigh at the foot of the hill.</p> + +<p>"We were talking about long journeys in small circuits," said Faith, +when she was well tucked in, and they had set off on a level and not +utterly untracked road. "I think I have been to the Alhambra, and to +Rome, and have had a peep into fairyland, and come back, at last, over +the Alps!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Armstrong understood her.</p> + +<p>"It has been beautiful," said he. "I shall begin to expect always to +encounter you whenever I get among things wild and wonderful!"</p> + +<p>"And yet I have lived all my life, till now, in tame streets," said +Faith. "I thought I was getting into tamer places still, when we first +came to the country. But I am finding out Kinnicutt. One can't see the +whole of anything at once."</p> + +<p>"We are small creatures, and can only pick up atoms as we go, whether of +things outward or inward. People talk about taking 'comprehensive +views'; and they suppose they do it. There is only One who does."</p> + +<p>Faith was silent.</p> + +<p>"Did it ever occur to you," said Mr. Armstrong, "how little your thought +can really grasp at once, even of what you already know? How narrow your +mental horizon is?"</p> + +<p>"Doesn't it seem strange," said Faith, in a subdued tone, "that the +earth should all have been made for such little lives to be lived in, +each in its corner?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p> + +<p>"If it did not thereby prove these little lives to be but the beginning. +This great Beyond that we get glimpses of, even upon earth, makes it so +sure to us that there must be an Everlasting Life, to match the Infinite +Creation. God puts us, as He did Moses, into a cleft of the rock, that +we may catch a glimmer of His glory as He goes by; and then He tells us +that one day we 'shall know even as also we are known'!"</p> + +<p>"And I suppose it ought to make us satisfied to live whatever little +life is given us?" said Faith, gently and wistfully.</p> + +<p>Mr. Armstrong turned toward her, and looked earnestly into her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Has that thought troubled <i>you</i>, too? Never let it do so again, my +child! Believe that however little of tangible present good you may +have, you have the unseen good of heaven, and the promise of all things +to come."</p> + +<p>"But we do see lives about us in the world that seem to be and to +accomplish so much!"</p> + +<p>"And so we ask why ours should not be like them? Yes; all souls that +aspire, must question that; but the answer comes! I will give you, some +day, if you like, the thought that comforted me at a time when that +question was a struggle."</p> + +<p>"I <i>should</i> like!" said Faith, with deeply stirred and grateful +emphasis.</p> + +<p>Then they drove on in silence, for a while; and then the minister, +pleasantly and easily, brought on a conversation of everyday matters; +and so they came to Cross Corners, just as Mrs. Gartney was gazing a +little anxiously out of the window, down the road.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gartney urged the minister to come in and join them at the tea +table; but "it was late in the week—he had writing to finish at home +that evening—he would very gladly come another time."</p> + +<p>"Mother!" cried Faith, presently, moving out of a dream in which she had +been sitting before the fire, "I wonder whether it has been two hours, +or two weeks, or two years, since we set off from the kitchen door! I +have seen so much, and I have heard so much. I told Mr. Armstrong, after +we met him, that I had been through the Alhambra and the Vatican, and +into fairyland, and over the Alps. And after that, mother," she added, +low, "I think he almost took me into heaven!"</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XIX." id="CHAPTER_XIX."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XIX.</h2><h3>A "LEADING."</h3> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p class='last'>"The least flower, with a brimming cup, may stand <br /> +And share its dewdrop with another near."</p> +<p class='auth'>Mrs. Browning.</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>Glory McWhirk was waiting upstairs, in Faith's pretty, white, +dimity-hung chamber.</p> + +<p>These two girls, of such utterly different birth and training, were +drawing daily toward each other across the gulf of social circumstance +that separated them.</p> + +<p>Twice a week, now, Glory came over, and found her seat and her books +ready in Miss Faith's pleasant room, and Faith herself waiting to impart +to her, or to put her in the way of gathering, those bits of week-day +knowledge she had ignorantly hungered for so long.</p> + +<p>Glory made quick progress. A good, plain foundation had been laid during +the earlier period of her stay with Miss Henderson, by a regular +attendance, half daily, at the district school. Aunt Faith said +"nobody's time belonged to anybody that knew better themselves, until +they could read, and write, and figure, and tell which side of the globe +they lived on." Then, too, the girl's indiscriminate gleaning from such +books as had come in her way, through all these years, assorted itself +gradually, now, about new facts.</p> + +<p>Glory's "good times" had, verily, begun at last.</p> + +<p>On this day that she sat waiting, Faith had been called down by her +mother to receive some village ladies who had walked over to Cross +Corners to pay a visit. Glory had time for two or three chapters of +"Ivanhoe," and to tell Hendie, who strayed in, and begged for it, +Bridget Foye's old story of the little red hen, while the regular course +of topics was gone through below, of the weather—the new minister—the +last meeting of the Dorcas Society—the everlasting wants and +helplessness of Mrs. Sheffley and her seven children, and whether the +society had better do anything more for them—the trouble in the west +district school, and the question "where the Dorcas bag was to go next +time."</p> + +<p>At last, the voices and footsteps retreated, through the entry, the door +closed somewhat promptly as the last "good afternoon" was said, and +Faith sprang up the narrow staircase.</p> + +<p>There was a lesson in Geography, and a bit of natural Philosophy to be +done first, and then followed their Bible talk; for this was Saturday.</p> + +<p>Before Glory went it had come to be Faith's practice +always<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> to read to +her some bit of poetry--a gem from Tennyson or Mrs. Browning, or a stray +poem from a magazine or paper which she had laid by as worthy.</p> + +<p>"Glory," said she, to-day, "I'm going to let you share a little treasure +of mine—something Mr. Armstrong gave me."</p> + +<p>Glory's eyes deepened and glowed.</p> + +<p>"It is thoughts," said Faith. "Thoughts in verse. I shall read it to +you, because I think it will just answer you, as it did me. Don't you +feel, sometimes, like a little brook in a deep wood?"</p> + +<p>Glory's gaze never moved from Faith's face. Her poetical instinct seized +the image, and the thought of her life applied it.</p> + +<p>"All alone, and singing to myself? Yes, I <i>did</i>, Miss Faith. But I think +it is growing lighter and pleasanter every day. I think I am +getting——"</p> + +<p>"Stop! stop!" said Faith. "Don't steal the verses before I read them! +You're such a queer child, Glory! One never can tell you anything."</p> + +<p>And then Faith gave her pearls; because she knew they would not be +trampled under foot, but taken into a heart and held there; and because +just such a rapt and reverent ecstasy as her own had been when the +minister had given her, in fulfillment of his promise, this thought of +his for the comfort that was in it, looked out from the face that was +uplifted to hers.</p> + +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p>"'Up in the wild, where no one comes to look,<br /> +There lives and sings, a little lonely brook;<br /> +Liveth and singeth in the dreary pines,<br /> +Yet creepeth on to where the daylight shines.</p> + +<p>"'Pure from their heaven, in mountain chalice caught,<br /> +It drinks the rains, as drinks the soul her thought;<br /> +And down dim hollows, where it winds along,<br /> +Bears its life-burden of unlistened song.</p> + +<p>"'I catch the murmur of its undertone<br /> +That sigheth, ceaselessly,—alone! alone!<br /> +And hear, afar, the Rivers gloriously<br /> +Shout on their paths toward the shining sea!</p> + +<p>"'The voiceful Rivers, chanting to the sun;<br /> +And wearing names of honor, every one;<br /> +Outreaching wide, and joining hand with hand<br /> +To pour great gifts along the asking land.</p> + +<p>"'Ah, lonely brook! creep onward through the pines!<br /> +Press through the gloom, to where the daylight shines!<br /> +Sing on among the stones, and secretly<br /> +Feel how the floods are all akin to thee!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p> + +<p>"'Drink the sweet rain the gentle heaven sendeth;<br /> +Hold thine own path, howeverward it tendeth;<br /> +For, somewhere, underneath the eternal sky,<br /> +Thou, too, shalt find the Rivers, by-and-by!'"</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>Faith's voice trembled with earnestness as she finished. When she looked +up from the paper as she refolded it, tears were running down Glory's +cheeks.</p> + +<p>"Why, the little brook has overflowed!" cried Faith, playfully. If she +had not found this to say, she would have cried, herself.</p> + +<p>"Miss Faith!" said Glory, "I ain't sure whether I was meant to tell; but +do you know what the minister has asked Miss Henderson? Perhaps she +won't; I'm afraid not; it would be <i>too</i> good a time! but he wants her +to let him come and board with her! Just think what it would be for him +to be in the house with us all the time! Why, Miss Faith, it would be +just as if one of those great Rivers had come rolling along through the +dark woods, right among the little lonely brooks!"</p> + +<p>Faith made no answer. She was astonished. Miss Henderson had said +nothing of it. She never did make known her subjects of deliberation +till the deliberations had become conclusions.</p> + +<p>"Why, you don't seem glad!"</p> + +<p>"I <i>am</i> glad," said Faith, slowly and quietly. She was strangely +conscious at the moment that she said so, glad as she would be if Mr. +Armstrong were really to come so near, and she might see him daily, of a +half jealousy that Glory should be nearer still.</p> + +<p>It was quite true that Mr. Armstrong had this wish. Hitherto, he had +been at the house of the elder minister, Mr. Holland. A unanimous +invitation had been given to Mr. Armstrong by the people to remain among +them as their settled pastor. This he had not yet consented to do. But +he had entered upon another engagement of six months, to preach for +them. Now he needed a permanent home, which he could not conveniently +have at Mr. Holland's.</p> + +<p>There was great putting of heads together at the "Dorcas," about it.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gimp "would offer; but then—there was Serena, and folks would +talk."</p> + +<p>Other families had similar holdbacks—that is the word, for they were +not absolute insuperabilities—wary mothers were waiting until it should +appear positively necessary that <i>somebody</i> should waive objection, and +take the homeless pastor in; and each watched keenly for the critical +moment when it should be just late enough, and not too late, for her to +yield.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, Mr. Armstrong quietly left all this seething, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> walked off +out of the village, one day, to Cross Corners, and asked Miss Henderson +if he might have one of her quaint, pleasant, old-fashioned rooms.</p> + +<p>Miss Henderson was deliberating.</p> + +<p>This very afternoon, she sat in the southwest tea parlor, with her +knitting forgotten in her lap, and her eyes searching the bright western +sky, as if for a gleam that should light her to decision.</p> + +<p>"It ain't that I mind the trouble. And it ain't that there isn't house +room. And it ain't that I don't like the minister," soliloquized she. +"It's whether it would be respectable common sense. I ain't going to +take the field with the Gimps and the Leatherbees, nor to have them +think it, either. She's over here almost every blessed day of her life. +I might as well try to keep the sunshine out of the old house, as to +keep her; and I should be about as likely to want to do one as the +other. But just let me take in Mr. Armstrong, and there'd be all the +eyes in the village watching. There couldn't so much as a cat walk in or +out, but they'd know it, somehow. And they'd be sure to say she was +running after the minister."</p> + +<p>Miss Henderson's pronouns were not precise in their reference. It isn't +necessary for soliloquy to be exact. She understood herself, and that +sufficed.</p> + +<p>"It would be a disgrace to the parish, anyhow," she resumed, "to let +those Gimps and Leatherbees get him into their net; and they'll do it if +Providence or somebody don't interpose. I wish I was sure whether it was +a leading or not!"</p> + +<p>By and by she reverted, at last, as she always did, to that question of +its being a "leading," or not; and, taking down the old Bible from the +corner shelf, she laid it with solemnity on the little light stand at +her side, and opened it, as she had known her father do, in the +important crises of his life, for an "indication."</p> + +<p>The wooden saddle and the gun were not all that had come down to Aunt +Faith from the primitive days of the Puritan settlers.</p> + +<p>The leaves parted at the story of the Good Samaritan. Bible leaves are +apt to part, as the heart opens, in accordance with long habit and holy +use.</p> + +<p>That evening, while Glory was washing up the tea things, Aunt Faith put +on cloak and hood, and walked over to Cross Corners.</p> + +<p>"No—I won't take off my things," she replied to Mrs. Gartney's advance +of assistance. "I've just come over to tell you what I'm going to do. +I've made up my mind to take the minister to board. And when the washing +and ironing's out of the way, next week, I shall fix up a room for him, +and he'll come."</p> + +<p>"That's a capital plan, Aunt Faith!" said her nephew, with a tone of +pleased animation. "Cross Corners will be under obligation to you. Mr. +Armstrong is a man whom I greatly respect and admire."</p> + +<p>"So do I," said Miss Henderson. "And if I didn't, when a man is beset +with thieves all the way from Jerusalem to Jericho, it's time for some +kind of a Samaritan to come along."</p> + +<p>Next day, Mis' Battis heard the news, and had her word of comment to +offer.</p> + +<p>"She's got room enough for him, if that's all; but I wouldn't a believed +she'd have let herself be put about and upset so, if it was for John the +Baptist! I always thought she was setter'n an old hen! But then, she's +gittin' into years, and it's kinder handy, I s'pose, havin' a minister +round the house, sayin' she should be took anyways sudden!"</p> + +<p>Village comments it would be needless to attempt to chronicle.</p> + +<p>April days began to wear their tearful beauty, and the southwest room at +the old house was given up to Mr. Armstrong.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XX." id="CHAPTER_XX."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XX.</h2><h3>PAUL.</h3> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p class='last'>"Standing, with reluctant feet,<br /> +Where the brook and river meet,<br /> +Womanhood and childhood fleet!" </p> +<p class='auth'>Longfellow</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + + +<p>Glory had not been content with the utmost she could find to do in +making the southwest room as clean, and bright, and fresh, and perfect +in its appointments as her zealous labor and Miss Henderson's nice, +old-fashioned methods and materials afforded possibility for. Twenty +times a day, during the few that intervened between its fitting up and +Mr. Armstrong's occupation of it, she darted in, to settle a festoon of +fringe, or to pick a speck from the carpet, or to move a chair a +hair's-breadth this way or that, or to smooth an invisible crease in the +counterpane, or, above all, to take a pleased survey of everything once +more, and to wonder how the minister would like it.</p> + +<p>So well, indeed, he liked it, when he had taken full possession, that he +seemed to divine the favorite room must have been relinquished to him, +and to scruple at keeping it quite solely to himself.</p> + +<p>In the pleasant afternoons, when the spring sun got round to his +westerly windows, and away from the southeast apartment,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> whither Miss +Henderson had betaken herself, her knitting work, and her Bible, and +where now the meals were always spread, he would open his door, and let +the pleasantness stray out across the passage, and into the keeping +room, and would often take a book, and come in, himself, also, with the +sunlight. Then Glory, busy in the kitchen, just beyond, would catch +words of conversation, or of reading, or even be called in to hear the +latter. And she began to think that there were good times, truly, in +this world, and that even she was "in 'em!"</p> + +<p>April days, as they lengthened and brightened, brought other things, +also, to pass.</p> + +<p>The Rushleigh party had returned from Europe.</p> + +<p>Faith had a note from Margaret. The second wedding was close at hand, +and would she not come down?</p> + +<p>But her services as bridesmaid were not needed this time; there was +nothing so exceedingly urgent in the invitation—Faith's intimacy was +with the Rushleighs, not the Livingstons—that she could not escape its +acceptance if she desired; and so—there was a great deal to be done in +summer preparation, which Mis' Battis, with her deliberate dignity, +would never accomplish alone; also, there was the forget-me-not ring +lying in her box of ornaments, that gave her a little troubled +perplexity as often as she saw it there; and Faith excused herself in a +graceful little note, and stayed at Cross Corners, helping her mother +fold away the crimson curtains, and get up the white muslin ones, make +up summer sacks for Hendie, and retouch her own simple wardrobe, which +this year could receive little addition.</p> + +<p>One day, Aunt Faith had twisted her foot by a slip upon the stairs, and +was kept at home. Glory, of course, was obliged to remain also, as Miss +Henderson was confined, helpless, to her chair or sofa.</p> + +<p>Faith Gartney and the minister walked down the pleasant lane, and along +the quiet road to the village church, together.</p> + +<p>Faith had fresh, white ribbons, to-day, upon her simple straw bonnet, +and delicate flowers and deep green leaves about her face. She seemed +like an outgrowth of the morning, so purely her sweet look and fair +unsulliedness of attire reflected the significance of the day's own +newness and beauty.</p> + +<p>"Do you know," said Mr. Armstrong, presently, after the morning greeting +had passed, and they had walked a few paces, silently, "do you know that +you are one of Glory's saints, Miss Faith?"</p> + +<p>Faith's wondering eyes looked out their questioning astonishment from a +deep rosiness that overspread her face.</p> + +<p>The minister was not apt to make remarks of at all a personal bearing. +Neither was this allusion to sainthood quite to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> have been looked for, +from his lips. Faith could scarcely comprehend.</p> + +<p>"I found her this morning, as I came out to cross the field, sitting on +the doorstone with her Bible and a rosary of beautiful, small, variously +tinted shells upon her lap. I stopped to speak with her, and asked leave +to look at them. 'They were given to me when I was very little,' she +said. 'A lady sent them from Rome. The Pope blessed them!' 'They are +very beautiful,' I said, 'and a blessing, if that mean a true man's +prayer, can never be worthless. But,' I asked her, 'do you <i>use</i> these, +Glory?' 'Not as she did once,' she said. She had almost forgotten about +that. She knew the larger beads stood for saints, and the smaller ones +between were prayers. 'But,' she went on, 'it isn't for my prayers I +keep them now. I've named some of my saints' beads for the people that +have done me the most good in my life, and been the kindest to me; and +the little ones are thoughts, and things they've taught me. This large +one, with the queer spots, is Miss Henderson; and this lovely +rose-colored one is Miss Faith; and these are Katie Ryan and Bridget +Foye; but you don't know about them.' And then she timidly told me that +the white one next the cross was mine. The child humbled me, Miss Faith! +It is nearly fearful, sometimes, to get a glimpse of what one is to some +trustful human soul, who looks through one toward the Highest!"</p> + +<p>Faith had tears in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Glory is such a strange girl," said she. "She seems to have an instinct +for things that other people are educated up to."</p> + +<p>"She has seized the spirit of the dead Roman calendar, and put it into +this rosary. Our saints <i>are</i> the spirits through whom God wills to send +us of His own. Whatever becomes to us a channel of His truth and love we +must involuntarily canonize and consecrate. Woe, if by the same channel +ever an offense cometh!"</p> + +<p>Perhaps Faith was nearly the only person in church, to-day, who did not +notice that there were strangers in the pew behind the Gimps. When she +came out, she was joined; and not by strangers. Margaret and Paul +Rushleigh came eagerly to her side.</p> + +<p>"We came out to Lakeside to stay a day or two with the Morrises; and ran +away from them here, purposely to meet you. And we mean to be very good, +and go to church all day, if you will take us home with you meanwhile."</p> + +<p>Faith, between her surprise, her pleasure, her embarrassment, the rush +of old remembrance, and a quick, apprehensive thought of Mis' Battis and +her probable arrangements, made almost an awkward matter of her reply. +But her father and mother came up, welcomed the Rushleighs cordially, +and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> five were presently on their way toward Cross Corners, and +Faith had recovered sufficient self-possession to say something beyond +mere words of course.</p> + +<p>Paul Rushleigh looked very handsome! And very glad, too, to see shy +Faith, who kept as invisible as might be at Margaret's other side, and +looked there, in her simple spring dress contrasted with Margaret's rich +and fashionable, though also simple and ladylike attire, like a field +daisy beside a garden rose.</p> + +<p>Dinner was of no moment. There was only roast chicken, dressed the day +before, and reheated and served with hot vegetables since their coming +in, and a custard pudding, and some pastry cakes that Faith's fingers +had shaped, and coffee; but they drank in balm and swallowed sunshine, +and the essence of all that was to be concrete by and by in fruitful +fields and gardens. And they talked of old times! Three years old, +nearly! And Faith and Margaret laughed, and Mrs. Gartney listened, and +dispensed dinner, or spoke gently now and then, and Paul did his +cleverest with Mr. Gartney, so that the latter gentleman declared +afterwards that "young Rushleigh was a capital fellow; well posted; his +father's million didn't seem to have spoiled him yet."</p> + +<p>Altogether, this unexpected visit infused great life at Cross Corners.</p> + +<p>Why was it that Faith, when she thought it all over, tried to weigh so +very nicely just the amount of gladness she had felt; and was dimly +conscious of a vague misgiving, deep down, lest her father and mother +might possibly be a little more glad than she was quite ready to have +them? What made her especially rejoice that Saidie and the strawberries +had not come yet?</p> + +<p>When Paul Rushleigh took her hand at parting, he glanced down at the +fair little fingers, and then up, inquiringly, at Faith's face. Her eyes +fell, and the color rose, till it became an indignation at itself. She +grew hot, for days afterwards, many a time, as she remembered it. Who +has not blushed at the self-suspicion of blushing?</p> + +<p>Who has not blushed at the simple recollection of having blushed before? +On Monday, this happened. Faith went over to the Old House, to inquire +about Aunt Henderson's foot, and to sit with her, if she should wish it, +for an hour. She chose the hour at which she thought Mr. Armstrong +usually walked to the village. Somehow, greatly as she enjoyed all the +minister's kindly words, and each moment of his accidental presence, she +had, of late, almost invariably taken this time for coming over to see +Aunt Faith. A secret womanly instinct, only, it was; waked into no +consciousness, and but ignorantly aware of its own prompting.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p> + +<p>To-day, however, Mr. Armstrong had not gone out. Some writing that he +was tempted to do, contrary to his usual Monday habit, had detained him +within. And so, just as Miss Henderson, having given the history of her +slip, and the untoward wrenching of her foot, and its present condition, +to Faith's inquiries, asked her suddenly, "if they hadn't had some city +visitors yesterday, and what sent them flacketting over from Lakeside to +church in the village?" the minister walked in. If he hadn't heard, she +might not have done it; but, with the abrupt question, came, as +abruptly, the hot memory of yesterday; and with those other eyes, beside +the doubled keenness of Aunt Faith's over her spectacles, upon her, it +was so much worse if she should, that of course she couldn't help doing +it! She colored up, and up, till the very roots of her soft hair +tingled, and a quick shame wrapped her as in a flaming garment.</p> + +<p>The minister saw, and read. Not quite the obvious inference Faith might +fear—he had a somewhat profounder knowledge of nature than that—but +what persuaded him there was a thought, at least, between the two who +met yesterday, more than of a mere chance greeting; it might not lie so +much with Faith as with the other; yet it had the power—even the +consciousness of its unspoken being, to send the crimson to her face. +What kept the crimson there and deepened it, he knew quite well. He knew +the shame was at having blushed at all.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, Mr. Armstrong remembered that blush, and pondered it, +almost as long as Faith herself. In the little time that he had felt +himself her friend, he had grown to recognize so fully, and to prize so +dearly, her truth, her purity, her high-mindedness, her reverence, that +no new influence could show itself in her life, without touching his +solicitous love. Was this young man worthy of a blush from Faith? Was +there a height in his nature answering to the reach of hers? Was the +quick, impulsive pain that came to him in the thought of how much that +rose hue of forehead and cheek might mean, an intuition of his stronger +and more instructed soul of a danger to the child that she might not +dream? Be it as it might, Roger Armstrong pondered. He would also +watch.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXI." id="CHAPTER_XXI."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXI.</h2><h3>PRESSURE.</h3> +<p class='blockquot'>"To be warped, unconsciously, by the magnetic influence of all +around is the destiny, to a certain extent, of even the greatest +souls."—<span class="smcap">Oakfield</span>.</p> +</div> + +<p>June came, and Saidie Gartney. Not for flowers, or strawberries, merely; +but for father's and mother's consent that, in a few weeks, when flowers +and strawberries should have fully come, there should be a marriage +feast made for her in the simple home, and she should go forth into the +gay world again, the bride of a wealthy New York banker.</p> + +<p>Aunt Etherege and Saidie filled the house. With finery, with bustle, +with important presence.</p> + +<p>Miss Gartney's engagement had been sudden; her marriage was to be +speedy. Half a dozen seamstresses, and as many sewing machines, were +busy in New York—hands, feet, and wheels—in making up the delicate +draperies for the <i>trousseau</i>; and Madame A—— was frantic with the +heap of elaborate dresses that was thrust upon her hands, and must be +ready for the thirtieth.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gartney and Faith had enough to do, to put the house and themselves +in festival trim. Hendie was spoiled with having no lessons, and more +toys and sugar plums than he knew what to do with. Mr. Selmore's comings +and goings made special ebullitions, weekly, where was only a continuous +lesser effervescence before. Mis' Battis had not been able to subside +into an armchair since the last day of May.</p> + +<p>Faith found great favor in the eyes of her brother-in-law elect. He +pronounced her a "<i>naïve, piquante</i> little person," and already there +was talk of how pleasant it would be, to have her in Madison Square, and +show her to the world. Faith said nothing to this, but in her heart she +clung to Kinnicutt.</p> + +<p>Glory thought Miss Gartney wonderful. Even Mr. Armstrong spoke to Aunt +Faith of the striking beauty of her elder niece.</p> + +<p>"I don't know how she <i>does</i> look," Aunt Faith replied, with all her +ancient gruffness. "I see a great show of flounces, and manners, and +hair; but they don't look as if they all grew, natural. I can't make +<i>her</i> out, amongst all that. Now, <i>Faith's</i> just Faith. You see her +prettiness the minute you look at her, as you do a flower's."</p> + +<p>"There are not many like Miss Faith," replied Mr. Armstrong. "I never +knew but one other who so wore the fresh, pure beauty of God's giving."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> + +<p>His voice was low and quiet, and his eye looked afar, as he spoke.</p> + +<p>Glory went away, and sat down on the doorstone. There was a strange +tumult at her heart. In the midst, a noble joy. About it, a disquietude, +as of one who feels shut out—alone.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what ails me. I wonder if I ain't glad! Of course, it's +nothing to me. I ain't in it. But it must be beautiful to be so! And to +have such words said! <i>She</i> don't know what a sight the minister thinks +of her! I know. I knew before. It's beautiful—but I ain't in it. Only, +I think I've got the feeling of it all. And I'm glad it's real, +somewhere. Some way, I seem to have so much <i>here</i>, that never grows out +into anything. Maybe I'd be beautiful if it did!"</p> + +<p>So talked Glory, interjectionally, with herself.</p> + +<p>In the midst of these excited days, there came two letters to Mr. +Gartney.</p> + +<p>One was from a gentleman in Michigan, in relation to some land Mr. +Gartney owned there, taken years ago, at a very low valuation, for a +debt. This was likely, from the rapid growth and improvement in the +neighborhood, to become, within a few years, perhaps, a property of some +importance.</p> + +<p>The other letter was from his son, James Gartney, in San Francisco. The +young man urged his father to consider whether it might not be a good +idea for him to come out and join him in California.</p> + +<p>James Gartney's proposal evidently roused his attention. It was a great +deal to think of, certainly; but it was worth thinking of, too. James +had married in San Francisco, had a pleasant home there, and was +prospering. Many old business friends had gone from Mishaumok, in the +years when the great flood of enterprise set westward across the +continent, and were building up name and influence in the Golden Land. +The idea found a place in his brain, and clung there. Only, there was +Faith! But things might come round so that even this thought need to be +no hindrance to the scheme.</p> + +<p>Changes, and plans, and interests, and influences were gathering; all to +bear down upon one young life.</p> + +<p>"More news!" said Mr. Gartney, one morning, coming in from his walk to +the village post office, to the pleasant sitting room, or morning room, +as Mrs. Etherege and Saidie called it, where Faith was helping her +sister write a list of the hundreds who were to receive Mr. and Mrs. +Selmore's cards—"At Home, in September, in Madison Square." "Whom do +you think I met in the village, this morning?"</p> + +<p>Everybody looked up, and everybody's imagination took a discursive leap +among possibilities, and then everybody, of course, asked "Whom?"</p> + +<p>"Old Jacob Rushleigh, himself. He has taken a house at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> Lakeside, for +the summer. And he has bought the new mills just over the river. That is +to give young Paul something to do, I imagine. Kinnicutt has begun to +grow; and when places or people once take a start, there's no knowing +what they may come to. Here's something for you, Faithie, that I dare +say tells all about it."</p> + +<p>And he tossed over her shoulder, upon the table, a letter, bearing her +name, in Margaret Rushleigh's chirography, upon the cover.</p> + +<p>Faith's head was bent over the list she was writing; but the vexatious +color, feeling itself shielded in her face, crept round till it made her +ear tips rosy. Saidie put out her forefinger, with a hardly perceptible +motion, at the telltale sign, and nodded at Aunt Etherege behind her +sister's back.</p> + +<p>Aunt Etherege looked bland and sagacious.</p> + +<p>Upstairs, a little after, these sentences were spoken in Saidie's room.</p> + +<p>"Of course it will be," said the younger to the elder lady. "It's been +going on ever since they were children. Faith hasn't a right to say no, +now. And what else brought him up here after houses and mills?"</p> + +<p>"I don't see that the houses and mills were necessary to the object. +Rather cumbersome and costly machinery, I should think, to bring to bear +upon such a simple purpose."</p> + +<p>"Oh, the business plan is something that has come up accidentally, no +doubt. Running after one thing, people very often stumble upon another. +But it will all play in together, you'll see. Only, I'm afraid I shan't +have the glory of introducing Faithie in New York!"</p> + +<p>"It would be as good a thing as possible. And I can perceive that your +father and mother count upon it, also. In their situation what a great +relief it would be! Of course, Henderson never could do so mad a thing +as take the child up by the roots, again, and transplant her to San +Francisco! And I see plainly he has got that in his own head."</p> + +<p>A door across the passage at this moment shut, softly, but securely.</p> + +<p>Behind it, in her low chair by her sewing table sat the young sister +whose fate had been so lightly decreed.</p> + +<p>Was it all just so, as Saidie had said? Had she no longer a right to say +no? Only themselves know how easily, how almost inevitably, young +judgments and consciences are drawn on in the track beaten down for them +by others. Many and many a life decision has been made, through this +<i>taking for granted</i> that bears with its mute, but magnetic power, upon +the shyness and irresolution that can scarcely face and interpret its +own wish or will.</p> + +<p>It was very true, that, as Saidie Gartney had said, "this had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> been +going on for years." For years, Faith had found great pleasantness in +the companionship and evident preference of Paul Rushleigh. There had +been nobody to compare with him in her young set in Mishaumok. She knew +he liked her. She had been proud of it. The girlish fancy, that may be +forgotten in after years, or may, fostered by circumstance, endure and +grow into a calm and happy wifehood, had been given to him. And what +troubled her now? Was it that always, when the decisive moment +approaches, there is a little revulsion of timid feminine feeling, even +amidst the truest joy? Or was it that a new wine had been given into +Faith's life, which would not be held in the old bottles? Was she +uncertain—inconstant; or had she spiritually outgrown her old +attachment? Or, was she bewildered, now, out of the discernment of what +was still her heart's desire and need?</p> + +<p>Paul was kind, and true, and manly. She recognized all this in him as +surely as ever. If he had turned from, and forgotten her, she would have +felt a pang. What was this, then, that she felt, as he came near, and +nearer?</p> + +<p>And then, her father! Had he really begun to count on this? Do men know +how their young daughters feel when the first suggestion comes that they +are not regarded as born for perpetual daughterhood in the father's +house? Would she even encumber his plans, if she clung still to her +maidenly life?</p> + +<p>By all these subtleties does the destiny of woman close in upon her.</p> + +<p>Margaret Rushleigh's letter was full of delight, and eagerness, and +anticipation. She and Paul had been so charmed with Kinnicutt and +Lakeside; and there had happened to be a furnished house to let for the +season close by the Morrises, and they had persuaded papa to take it. +They were tired of the seashore, and Conway was getting crowded to +death. They wanted a real summer in the country. And then this had +turned up about the mills! Perhaps, now, her father would build, and +they should come up every year. Perhaps Paul would stay altogether, and +superintend. Perhaps—anything! It was all a delightful chaos of +possibilities; with this thing certain, that she and Faith would be +together for the next four months in the glorious summer shine and +bloom.</p> + +<p>Miss Gartney's wedding was simple. The stateliness and show were all +reserved for Madison Square.</p> + +<p>Mr. Armstrong pronounced the solemn words, in the shaded summer parlor, +with the door open into the sweeter and stiller shade without.</p> + +<p>Faith stood by her sister's side, in fair, white robes, and Mr. Robert +Selmore was groomsman to his brother. A few especial friends from +Mishaumok and Lakeside were present to witness the ceremony.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p> + +<p>And then there was a kissing—a hand-shaking—a well-wishing—a going +out to the simple but elegantly arranged collation—a disappearance of +the bride to put on traveling array—a carriage at the door—smiles, +tears, and good-bys—Mr., and Mrs., and Mr. Robert Selmore were off to +meet the Western train—and all was over.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Etherege remained a few days longer at Cross Corners. As Mis' +Battis judiciously remarked, "after a weddin' or a funeral, there ought +to be somebody to stay a while and cheer up the mourners."</p> + +<p>This visit, that had been so full of happenings, was to have a strange +occurrence still to mark it, before all fell again into the usual order.</p> + +<p>Aunt Etherege was to go on Thursday. On Wednesday, the three ladies sat +together in the cool, open parlor, where Mr. Armstrong, walking over +from the Old House, had joined them. He had the July number of the +<i>Mishaumok</i> in his hand, and a finger between the fresh-cut leaves at a +poem he would read them.</p> + +<p>Just as he had finished the last stanza, amidst a hush of the room that +paid tribute to the beauty of the lines and his perfect rendering of +them, wheels came round from the high road into the lane.</p> + +<p>"It is Mr. Gartney come back from Sedgely," said Aunt Etherege, looking +from her window, between the blinds. "Whom on earth has he picked up to +bring with him?"</p> + +<p>A thin, angular figure of a woman, destitute of crinoline, wearing big +boots, and a bonnet that ignored the fashion, and carrying in her hand a +black enameled leather bag, was alighting as she spoke, at the gate.</p> + +<p>"Mother!" said Faith, leaning forward, and glancing out, also, "it looks +like—it is—Nurse Sampson!"</p> + +<p>And she put her work hastily from her lap, and rose to go out at the +side door, to meet and welcome her.</p> + +<p>To do this, she had to pass by Mr. Armstrong. How came that rigid look, +that deadly paleness, to his face? What spasm of pain made him clutch +the pamphlet he held with fingers that grew white about the nails?</p> + +<p>Faith stopped, startled.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Armstrong! Are you not well?" said she. At the same instant of her +pausing, Miss Sampson entered from the hall, behind her. Mr. Armstrong's +eye, lifted toward Faith in an attempt to reply, caught a glimpse of the +sharp, pronounced outlines of the nurse's face. Before Faith could +comprehend, or turn, or cry out, the paleness blanched ghastlier over +his features, and the strong man fell back, fainting.</p> + +<p>With quick, professional instinct, Miss Sampson sprang forward, +seizing, as she did so, an ice-water pitcher from the table.</p> + +<p>"There, take this!" said she to Faith, "and sprinkle him with it, while +I loosen his neckcloth! Gracious goodness!" she exclaimed, in an altered +tone, as she came nearer to him for this purpose, "do it, some of the +rest of you, and let me get out of his way! It was me!"</p> + +<p>And she vanished out of the room.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXII." id="CHAPTER_XXII."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXII.</h2><h3>ROGER ARMSTRONG'S STORY.</h3> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p class='last'>"Even by means of our sorrows, we belong to the Eternal Plan." </p> +<p class='auth'>Humboldt.</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>"Go in there," said Nurse Sampson to Mr. Gartney, calling him in from +the porch, "and lay that man flat on the floor!"</p> + +<p>Which Mr. Gartney did, wondering, vaguely, in the instant required for +his transit to the apartment, whether bandit or lunatic might await his +offices.</p> + +<p>All happened in a moment; and in that moment, the minister's fugitive +senses began to return.</p> + +<p>"Lie quiet, a minute. Faith, get a glass of wine, or a little brandy."</p> + +<p>Faith quickly brought both; and Mr. Armstrong, whom her father now +assisted to the armchair again, took the wine from her hand, with a +smile that thanked her, and depreciated himself.</p> + +<p>"I am not ill," he said. "It is all over now. It was the sudden shock. I +did not think I could have been so weak."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gartney had gone to find some hartshorn. Mrs. Etherege, seeing that +the need for it was passing, went out to tell her sister so, and to ask +the strange woman who had originated all the commotion, what it could +possibly mean. Mr. Gartney, at the same instant, caught a glimpse of his +horse, which he had left unfastened at the gate, giving indications of +restlessness, and hastened out to tie him.</p> + +<p>Faith and Mr. Armstrong were left alone.</p> + +<p>"Did I frighten you, my child?" he asked, gently. "It was a strange +thing to happen! I thought that woman was in her grave. I thought she +died, when—I will tell you all about it some day, soon, Miss Faith. It +was the sad, terrible page of my life."</p> + +<p>Faith's eyes were lustrous with sympathy. Under all other thought was a +beating joy—not looked at yet—that he could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> speak to her so! That he +could snatch this chance moment to tell her, only, of his sacred sorrow!</p> + +<p>She moved a half step nearer, and laid her hand, softly, on the chair +arm beside him. She did not touch so much as a fold of his sleeve; but +it seemed, somehow, like a pitying caress.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry!" said she. And then the others came in.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gartney walked round with his friend to the old house.</p> + +<p>Miss Sampson began to recount what she knew of the story. Faith escaped +to her own room at the first sentence. She would rather have it as Mr. +Armstrong's confidence.</p> + +<p>Next morning, Faith was dusting, and arranging flowers in the east +parlor, and had just set the "hillside door," as they called it, open, +when Mr. Armstrong passed the window and appeared thereat.</p> + +<p>"I came to ask, Miss Faith, if you would walk up over the Ridge. It is a +lovely morning, and I am selfish enough to wish to have you to myself +for a little of it. By and by, I would like to come back, and see Miss +Sampson."</p> + +<p>Faith understood. He meant to tell her this that had been heavy upon his +heart through all these years. She would go. Directly, when she had +brought her hat, and spoken with her mother.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Etherege and Mrs. Gartney were sitting together in the guest +chamber, above. At noon, after an early dinner, Mrs. Etherege was to +leave.</p> + +<p>Mr. Armstrong stood upon the doorstone below, looking outward, waiting. +If he had been inside the room, he would not have heard. The ladies, +sitting by the window, just over his head, were quite unaware and +thoughtless of his possible position.</p> + +<p>He caught Faith's clear, sweet accent first, as she announced her +purpose to her mother, adding:</p> + +<p>"I shall be back, auntie, long before dinner."</p> + +<p>Then she crossed the hall into her own room, made her slight preparation +for the walk, and went down by the kitchen staircase, to give Parthenia +some last word about the early dinner.</p> + +<p>"I think," said Mrs. Etherege, in the keenness of her worldly wisdom, +"that this minister of yours might as well have a hint of how matters +stand. It seems to me he is growing to monopolize Faith, rather."</p> + +<p>"Oh," replied Mrs. Gartney, "there is nothing of that! You know what +nurse told us, last evening. It isn't quite likely that a man would +faint away at the memory of one woman, if his thoughts were turned, the +least, in that way, upon another. No, indeed! She is his Sunday scholar, +and he treats her always as a very dear young friend. But that is all."</p> + +<p>"Maybe. But is it quite safe for her? He is a young man yet, +notwithstanding those few gray hairs."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, Faith has tacitly belonged to Paul Rushleigh these three years!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Armstrong heard it all. He turned the next moment, and met his "dear +young friend" with the same gentle smile and manner that he always wore +toward her, and they walked up the Ridge path, among the trees, +together.</p> + +<p>A bowlder of rock, scooped into smooth hollows that made pleasant seats, +was the goal, usually, of the Ridge walk. Here Faith paused, and Mr. +Armstrong made her sit down and rest.</p> + +<p>Standing there before her, he began his story.</p> + +<p>"One summer—years ago," he said, "I went to the city of New Orleans. I +went to bring thence, with me, a dear friend—her who was to have been +my wife."</p> + +<p>The deep voice trembled, and paused. Faith could not look up, her breath +came quickly, and the tears were all but ready.</p> + +<p>"She had been there, through the winter and spring, with her father, +who, save myself, was the only near friend she had in all the world.</p> + +<p>"The business which took him there detained him until later in the +season than Northerners are accustomed to feel safe in staying. And +still, important affairs hindered his departure.</p> + +<p>"He wrote to me, that, for himself, he must risk a residence there for +some weeks yet; but that his daughter must be placed in safety. There +was every indication of a sickly summer. She knew nothing of his +writing, and he feared would hardly consent to leave him. But, if I +came, she would yield to me. Our marriage might take place there, and I +could bring her home. Without her, he said, he could more quickly +dispatch what remained for him to do; and I must persuade her of this, +and that it was for the safety of all that she should so fulfill the +promise which was to have been at this time redeemed, had their earlier +return been possible.</p> + +<p>"In the New Orleans papers that came by the same mail, were paragraphs +of deadly significance. The very cautiousness with which they were +worded weighted them the more.</p> + +<p>"Miss Faith! my friend! in that city of pestilence, was my life! Night +and day I journeyed, till I reached the place. I found the address which +had been sent me—there were only strangers there! Mr. Waldo had been, +but the very day before, seized with the fatal disease, and removed to a +fever hospital. Miriam had gone with him—into plague and death!</p> + +<p>"Was I wrong, child? Could I have helped it? I followed. Ah! God lets +strange woes into this world of His! I cannot tell you, if I would, what +I saw there! Pestilence—death—corruption!</p> + +<p>"In the midst of all, among the gentle sisters of charity, I found a New +England woman—a nurse—her whom I met yesterday. She came to me on my +inquiry for Mr. Waldo. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> was dead. Miriam had already sickened—was +past hope. I could not see her. It was against the rule. She would not +know me.</p> + +<p>"I only remember that I refused to be sent away. I think my brain reeled +with the weariness of sleepless nights and horror of the shock.</p> + +<p>"I cannot dwell upon the story. It was ended quickly. When I struggled +back, painfully, to life, from the disease that struck me down, there +were strange faces round me, and none could even tell me of her last +hours. The nurse—Miss Sampson—had been smitten—was dying.</p> + +<p>"They sent me to a hospital for convalescents. Weeks after, I came out, +feeble and hopeless, into my lonely life!</p> + +<p>"Since then, God, who had taken from me the object I had set for myself, +has filled its room with His own work. And, doing it, He has not denied +me to find many a chastened joy.</p> + +<p>"Dear young friend!" said he, with a tender, lingering emphasis—it was +all he could say then—all they had left him to say, if he would—"I +have told you this, because you have come nearer into my sympathies than +any in all these years that have been my years of strangerhood and +sorrow! You have made me think, in your fresh, maidenly life, and your +soul earnestness, of Miriam!</p> + +<p>"When your way broadens out into busy sunshine, and mine lies otherwise, +do not forget me!"</p> + +<p>A solemn baptism of mingled grief and joy seemed to touch the soul of +Faith. One hand covered her face, that was bowed down, weeping. The +other lay in her companion's, who had taken it as he uttered these last +words. So it rested a moment, and then its fellow came to it, and, +between the two, held Roger Armstrong's reverently, while the fair, +tearful face lifted itself to his.</p> + +<p>"I do thank you so!" And that was all.</p> + +<p>Faith was his "dear, young friend!" How the words in which her mother +limited his thoughts of her to commonplace, widened, when she spoke them +to herself, into a great beatitude! She never thought of more—scarcely +whether more could be. This great, noble, purified, God-loving soul that +stood between her and heaven, like the mountain peak, bathing its head +in clouds, and drawing lightnings down, leaned over her, and blessed her +thus!</p> + +<p>She never suspected her own heart, even when the remembrance of Paul +came up and took a tenderness from the thought how he, too, might love, +and learn from, this her friend. She turned back with a new gentleness +to all other love, as one does from a prayer!</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXIII." id="CHAPTER_XXIII."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2><h3>QUESTION AND ANSWER.</h3> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p class='last'>"Unless you can swear, 'For life, for death!' <br /> +Oh, fear to call it loving!"</p> +<p class='auth'>Mrs. Browning.</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>Faith sent Nurse Sampson in to talk with Mr. Armstrong. Then he learned +all that he had longed to know, but had never known before; that which +took him to his lost bride's deathbed, and awoke out of the silent years +for him a moment refused to him in its passing.</p> + +<p>Miss Sampson came from her hour's interview, with an unbending of the +hard lines of her face, and a softness, even, in her eyes, that told of +tears.</p> + +<p>"If ever there was an angel that went walking about in black broadcloth, +that man is the one," said she.</p> + +<p>And that was all she would say.</p> + +<p>"I'm staying," she explained, in answer to their inquiries, "with a +half-sister of mine at Sedgely. Mrs. Crabe, the blacksmith's wife. You +see, I'd got run down, and had to take a rest. Resting is as much a part +of work as doing, when it's necessary. I had a chance to go to Europe +with an invaleed lady; but I allers hate such halfway contrivances. I +either want to work with all my might, or be lazy with all my might. And +so I've come here to do nothing, as hard as ever I can."</p> + +<p>"I know well enough," she said again, afterwards, "that something's +being cut out for me, tougher'n anything I've had yet. I never had an +hour's extra rest in my life, but I found out, precious soon, what it +had been sent for. I'm going to stay on all summer, as the doctor told +me to; but I'm getting strong, already; and I shall be just like a tiger +before the year's out. And then it'll come, whatever it is. You'll see."</p> + +<p>Miss Sampson stayed until the next day after, and then Mr. Gartney drove +her back to Sedgely.</p> + +<p>In those days it came to pass that Glory found she had a "follower."</p> + +<p>Luther Goodell, who "did round" at Cross Corners, got so into the way of +straying up the field path, in his nooning hours, and after chores were +done at night, that Miss Henderson at last, in her plain, outright +fashion, took the subject up, and questioned Glory.</p> + +<p>"If it means anything, and you mean it shall mean anything, well and +good. I shall put up with it; though what anybody wants with men folks +cluttering round, is more than I can understand. But, if you don't want +him, he shan't come.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> So tell me the truth, child. Yes, or no. Have you +any notion of him for a husband?"</p> + +<p>Glory blushed her brightest at these words; but there was no falling of +the eye, or faltering of the voice, as she spoke with answering +straightforwardness and simplicity.</p> + +<p>"No ma'am. I don't think I shall ever have a husband."</p> + +<p>"No ma'am's enough. The rest you don't know anything about. Most likely +you will."</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't want anybody, ma'am, that would be likely to want me."</p> + +<p>And Glory walked out into the milk room with the pans she had been +scalding.</p> + +<p>It was true. This woman-child would go all through life as she had +begun; discerning always, and reaching spiritually after, that which was +beyond; which in that "kingdom of heaven" was hers already; but which to +earthly having and holding should never come.</p> + +<p>God puts such souls, oftener than we think, into such life. These are +His vestals.</p> + +<p>Miss Henderson's foot had not grown perfectly strong. She, herself, +said, coolly, that she never expected it to. More than that, she +supposed, now she had begun, she should keep on going to pieces.</p> + +<p>"An old life," she said, "is just like old cloth when it begins to tear. +It'll soon go into the ragbag, and then to the mill that grinds all up, +and brings us out new and white again!"</p> + +<p>"Glory McWhirk," said she, on another day after, "if you could do just +the thing you would like best to do, what would it be?"</p> + +<p>"To-day, ma'am? or any time?" asked Glory, puzzled as to how much her +mistress's question included.</p> + +<p>"Ever. If you had a home to live in, say, and money to spend?"</p> + +<p>Glory had to wait a moment before she could so grasp such an +extraordinary hypothesis as to reply.</p> + +<p>"Well?" said Miss Henderson, with slight impatience.</p> + +<p>"If I had—I should like best to find some little children, without any +fathers or mothers, as I was, and dress them up, as you did me, and curl +their hair, and make a real good time for them, every day!"</p> + +<p>"You would! Well, that's all. I was curious to know what you'd say. I +guess those beans in the oven want more hot water."</p> + +<p>The Rushleighs had come to Lakeside. Every day, nearly, saw Paul, or +Margaret, or both, at Cross Corners.</p> + +<p>Faith was often, also, at Lakeside.</p> + +<p>Old Mr. Rushleigh treated her with a benignant fatherliness, and looked +upon her with an evident fondness and pride<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> that threw heavy weight in +the scale of his son's chances. And Madam Rushleigh, as she began to be +called, since Mrs. Philip had entered the family, petted her in the old, +graceful, gracious fashion; and Margaret loved her, simply, and from her +heart.</p> + +<p>With Paul himself, it had not been as in the days of bouquets, and +"Germans," and bridal association in Mishaumok. They were all living and +enjoying together a beautiful idyl. Nothing seemed special—nothing was +embarrassing.</p> + +<p>Faith thought, in these days, that she was very happy.</p> + +<p>Mr. Armstrong relinquished her, almost imperceptibly, to her younger +friends. In the pleasant twilights, though, when her day's pleasures and +occupations were ended, he would often come over, as of old, and sit +with them in the summer parlor, or under the elms.</p> + +<p>Or Faith would go up the beautiful Ridge walk with him; and he would +have a thought for her that was higher than any she could reach, by +herself, or with the help of any other human soul.</p> + +<p>And the minister? How did his world look to him? Perhaps, as if clouds +that had parted, sending a sunbeam across from the west upon the dark +sorrow of the morning, had shut again, inexorably, leaving him still to +tread the nightward path under the old, leaden sky.</p> + +<p>A day came, that set him thinking of all this—of the years that were +past, of those that might be to come.</p> + +<p>Mr. Armstrong was not quite so old as he had been represented. A man +cannot go through plague and anguish, as he had, and "keep," as Nurse +Sampson had said, long ago, of women, "the baby face on." There were +lines about brow and mouth, and gleams in the hair, that seldom come so +early.</p> + +<p>This day he completed one-and-thirty years.</p> + +<p>The same day, last month, had been Faith's birthday. She was nineteen.</p> + +<p>Roger Armstrong thought of the two together.</p> + +<p>He thought of these twelve years that lay between them. Of the love—the +loss—the stern and bitter struggle—the divine amends and holy hope +that they had brought to him; and then of the innocent girl life she had +been living in them; then, how the two paths had met so, in these last +few, beautiful months.</p> + +<p>Whither, and how far apart, trended they now?</p> + +<p>He could not see. He waited—leaving the end with God.</p> + +<p>A few weeks went by, in this careless, holiday fashion, with Faith and +her friends; and then came the hour when she must face the truth for +herself and for another, and speak the word of destiny for both.</p> + +<p>She had made a promise for a drive round the Pond Road.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> Margaret and +her brother were to come for her, and to return to Cross Corners for +tea.</p> + +<p>At the hour fixed, she sat, waiting, under the elms, hat and mantle on, +and whiling the moments of delay with a new book Mr. Armstrong had lent +her.</p> + +<p>Presently, the Rushleighs' light, open, single-seated wagon drove up.</p> + +<p>Paul had come alone.</p> + +<p>Margaret had a headache, but thought that after sundown she might feel +better, and begged that Faith would reverse the plan agreed upon, and +let Paul bring her home to tea with them.</p> + +<p>Paul took for granted that Faith would keep to her engagement with +himself. It was difficult to refuse. She was ready, waiting. It would be +absurd to draw back, sensitively, now, she thought. Besides, it would be +very pleasant; and why should she be afraid? Yet she wished, very +regretfully, that Margaret were there.</p> + +<p>She shrank from <i>tête-à-têtes</i>—from anything that might help to +precipitate a moment she felt herself not quite ready for.</p> + +<p>She supposed she did care for Paul Rushleigh as most girls cared for +lovers; that she had given him reason to expect she should; she felt, +instinctively, whither all this pleased acquiescence of father and +mother, and this warm welcome and encouragement at Lakeside, tended; and +she had a dim prescience of what must, some time, come of it: but that +was all in the far-off by and by. She would not look at it yet.</p> + +<p>She was afraid, now, as she let Paul help her into the wagon, and take +his place at her side.</p> + +<p>She had been frightened by a word of her mother's, when she had gone to +her, before leaving, to tell how the plan had been altered, and ask if +she had better do as was wished of her.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gartney had assented with a smile, and a "Certainly, if you like +it, Faith; indeed, I don't see how you can very well help it; only——"</p> + +<p>"Only what, mother?" asked Faith, a little fearfully.</p> + +<p>"Nothing, dear," answered her mother, turning to her with a little +caress. But she had a look in her eyes that mothers wear when they begin +to see their last woman's sacrifice demand itself at their hands.</p> + +<p>"Go, darling. Paul is waiting."</p> + +<p>It was like giving her away.</p> + +<p>So they drove down, through byways, among the lanes, toward the Wachaug +Road.</p> + +<p>Summer was in her perfect flush and fullness of splendor. The smell of +new-mown hay was in the air.</p> + +<p>As they came upon the river, they saw the workmen busy in and about the +new mills. Mr. Rushleigh's buggy stood by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> fence; and he was there, +among his mechanics, with his straw hat and seersucker coat on, +inspecting and giving orders.</p> + +<p>"What a capital old fellow the governor is!" said Paul, in the fashion +young men use, nowadays, to utter their affections.</p> + +<p>"Do you know he means to set me up in these mills he is making such a +hobby of, and give me half the profits?"</p> + +<p>Faith had not known. She thought him very good.</p> + +<p>"Yes; he would do anything, I believe, for me—or anybody I cared for."</p> + +<p>Faith was silent; and the strange fear came up in heart and throat.</p> + +<p>"I like Kinnicutt, thoroughly."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Faith. "It is very beautiful here."</p> + +<p>"Not only that. I like the people. I like their simple fashions. One +gets at human life and human nature here. I don't think I was ever, at +heart, a city boy. I don't like living at arm's length from everybody. +People come close together, in the country. And—Faith! what a minister +you've got here! What a sermon that was he preached last Sunday! I've +never been what you might call one of the serious sort; but such a +sermon as that must do anybody good."</p> + +<p>Faith felt a warmth toward Paul as he said this, which was more a +drawing of the heart than he had gained from her by all the rest.</p> + +<p>"My father says he will keep him here, if money can do it. He never goes +to church at Lakeside, now. It needs just such a man among mill villages +like these, he says. My father thinks a great deal of his workpeople. He +says nobody ought to bring families together, and build up a +neighborhood, as a manufacturer does, and not look out for more than the +money. I think he'll expect a great deal of me, if he leaves me here, at +the head of it all. More than I can ever do, by myself."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Armstrong will be the very best help to you," said Faith. "I think +he means to stay. I'm sure Kinnicutt would seem nothing without him, +now."</p> + +<p>"Faith! Will you help me to make a home here?"</p> + +<p>She could not speak. A great shock had fallen upon her whole nature, as +if a thunderbolt she had had presentiment of, burst from a clear blue +sky.</p> + +<p>They drove on for minutes, without another word.</p> + +<p>"Faith! You don't answer me. Must I take silence as I please? It can't +be that you don't care for me!"</p> + +<p>"No, no!" cried Faith, desperately, like one struggling for voice +through a nightmare. "I do care. But—Paul! I don't know! I can't tell. +Let me wait, please. Let me think."</p> + +<p>"As long as you like, darling," said he, gently and tenderly. "You know +all I can tell you. You know I have cared for you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> all my life. And I'll +wait now till you tell me I may speak again. Till you put on that little +ring of mine, Faith!"</p> + +<p>There was a little loving reproach in these last words.</p> + +<p>"Please take me home, now, Paul!"</p> + +<p>They were close upon the return path around the Lake. A look of +disappointed pain passed over Paul Rushleigh's features. This was hardly +the happy reception, however shy, he had hoped and looked for. Still he +hoped, however. He could not think she did not care for him. She, who +had been the spring of his own thoughts and purposes for years. But, +obedient to her wish, he touched his horse with the lash, and urged him +homeward.</p> + +<p>Paul helped her from the wagon at the little white gate at Cross +Corners, and then they both remembered that she was to have gone to +Lakeside to tea.</p> + +<p>"What shall I tell Margaret?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't tell her anything! I mean—tell her, I couldn't come +to-night. And, Paul—forgive me! I do want so to do what is right!"</p> + +<p>"Isn't it right to let me try and make you happy all your life?"</p> + +<p>A light had broken upon her—confusedly, it is true—yet that began to +show her to herself more plainly than any glimpse she had had before, as +Paul's words, simple, yet burning with his strong sure love, came to +her, with their claim to honest answer.</p> + +<p>She saw what it was he brought her; she felt it was less she had to give +him back. There was something in the world she might go missing all the +way through life, if she took this lot that lay before her now. Would he +not miss a something in her, also? Yet, must she needs insist on the +greatest, the rarest, that God ever sends? Why should she, more than +others? Would she wrong him more, to give him what she could, or to +refuse him all?</p> + +<p>"I ought—if I do—" she said, tremulously, "to care as you do!"</p> + +<p>"You never can, Faith!" cried the young man, impetuously. "I care as a +man cares! Let me love you! care a little for me, and let it grow to +more!"</p> + +<p>Men, till something is accorded, are willing to take so little! And then +the little must become so entire!</p> + +<p>"Well, I declare!" exclaimed Mis' Battis, as Faith came in. "Who'd a +thought o' seein' you home to tea! I s'pose you ain't had none?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—no. That is, I don't want any. Where is my mother?"</p> + +<p>"She and your pa's gone down to Dr. Wasgatt's. I knew 'twould be +contrary to the thirty-nine articles that they should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> get away from +there without their suppers, and so I let the fire right down, and +blacked the stove."</p> + +<p>"Never mind," said Faith, abstractedly. "I don't feel hungry." And she +went away, upstairs.</p> + +<p>"'M!" said Mis 'Battis, significantly, to herself, running a released +knitting needle through her hair, "don't tell me! I've been through the +mill!"</p> + +<p>Half an hour after, she came up to Faith's door.</p> + +<p>"The minister's downstairs," said she. "Hope to goodness, he's had <i>his</i> +supper!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, if I dared!" thought Faith; and her heart throbbed tumultuously. +"Why can't there be somebody to tell me what I ought to do?"</p> + +<p>If she had dared, how she could have leaned upon this friend! How she +could have trusted her conscience and her fate to his decision!</p> + +<p>"Does anything trouble you to-night, Miss Faith?" asked Mr. Armstrong, +watching her sad, abstracted look in one of the silent pauses that broke +their attempts at conversation. "Are you ill, or tired?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no!" answered Faith, quickly, from the surface, as one often does +when thoughts lie deep. "I am quite well. Only—I am sometimes puzzled."</p> + +<p>"About what is? Or about what ought to be?"</p> + +<p>"About doing. So much depends. I get so tired—feeling how responsible +everything makes me. I wish I were a little child again! Or that +somebody would just take me and tell me where to go, and where to stay, +and what to do, and what not. From minute to minute, as the things come +up."</p> + +<p>Roger Armstrong, with his great, chastened soul, yearned over the child +as she spoke; so gladly he would have taken her, at that moment, to his +heart, and bid her lean on him for all that man might give of help—of +love—of leading!</p> + +<p>If she had told him, in that moment, all her doubt, as for the instant +of his pause she caught her breath with swelling impulse to do!</p> + +<p>"'And they shall all be led of God';" said the minister. "It is only to +be willing to take His way rather than one's own. All this that seems to +depend painfully upon oneself, depends, then, upon Him. The act is +human—the consequences become divine."</p> + +<p>Faith was silenced then. There was no appeal to human help from that. +Her impulse throbbed itself away into a lonely passiveness again.</p> + +<p>There was a distance between these two that neither dared to pass.</p> + +<p>A word was spoken between mother and daughter as they parted for the +night.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Mother! I have such a thing to think of—to decide!"</p> + +<p>It was whispered low, and with cheek hidden on her mother's neck, as the +good-night kiss was taken.</p> + +<p>"Decide for your own happiness, Faithie. We have seen and understood for +a long time. If it is to be as we think, nothing could give us a greater +joy for you."</p> + +<p>Ah! how much had father and mother seen and understood?</p> + +<p>The daughter went her way, to wage her own battle in secret; to balance +and fix her decision between her own heart and God. So we find ourselves +left, at the last, in all the great crises of our life.</p> + +<p>Late that night, while Mr. and Mrs. Gartney were felicitating each +other, cheerily, upon the great good that had fallen to the lot of their +cherished child, that child sat by her open window, looking out into the +summer night; the tossing elm boughs whispering weird syllables in her +ears, and the stars looking down upon her soul struggle, so silently, +from so far!</p> + +<p>"Mr. Rushleigh's here!" shouted Hendie, precipitating himself, next +morning, into the breakfast room, where, at a rather later hour than +usual, Mrs. Gartney and Faith were washing and wiping the silver and +china, and Mr. Gartney still lingered in his seat, finishing somebody's +long speech, reported in the evening paper of yesterday.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Rushleigh's here, on his long-tailed black horse! And he says he'll +give me a ride, but not yet. He wants to see papa. Make haste, papa."</p> + +<p>Faith dropped her towel, and as Mr. Gartney rose to go out and meet his +visitor, just whispered, hurriedly, to her mother:</p> + +<p>"I'll come down again. I'll see him before he goes." And escaped up the +kitchen staircase to her own room.</p> + +<p>Paul Rushleigh came, he told Mr. Gartney, because, although Faith had +not authorized him to appeal to her father to ratify any consent of +hers, he thought it right to let him know what he had already said to +his daughter. He did not wish to hurry Faith. He only wished to stand +openly with Mr. Gartney in the matter, and would wait, then, till she +should be quite ready to give him her own answer.</p> + +<p>He explained the prospect his father offered him, and the likelihood of +his making a permanent home at Kinnicutt.</p> + +<p>"That is," he added, "if I am to be so happy as to have a home, +anywhere, of my own."</p> + +<p>Mr. Gartney was delighted with the young man's unaffected warmth of +heart and noble candor.</p> + +<p>"I could not wish better for my daughter, Mr. Rushleigh," he replied. +"And she is a daughter whom I may fairly wish the best for, too."</p> + +<p>Mr. Gartney rose. "I will send Faith," said he.</p> + +<p>"I do not <i>ask</i> for her," answered Paul, a flush of feeling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> showing in +his cheek. "I did not come, expecting it—my errand was one I owed to +yourself—but Faith knows quite well how glad I shall be if she chooses +to see me."</p> + +<p>As Mr. Gartney crossed the hall from parlor to sitting room, a light +step came over the front staircase.</p> + +<p>Faith passed her father, with a downcast look, as he motioned with his +hand toward the room where Paul stood, waiting. The bright color spread +to her temples as she glided in.</p> + +<p>She held, but did not wear, the little turquoise ring.</p> + +<p>Paul saw it, as he came forward, eagerly.</p> + +<p>A thrill of hope, or dread—he scarce knew which—quivered suddenly at +his heart. Was he to take it back, or place it on her finger as a +pledge?</p> + +<p>"I have been thinking, Paul," said she, tremulously, and with eyes that +fell again away from his, after the first glance and greeting, "almost +ever since. And I do not think I ought to keep you waiting to know the +little I can tell you. I do not think I understand myself. I cannot +tell, certainly, how I ought—how I do feel. I have liked you very much. +And it was very pleasant to me before all this. I know you deserve to be +made very happy. And if it depends on me, I do not dare to say I will +not try to do it. If you think, yourself, that this is enough—that I +shall do the truest thing so—I will try."</p> + +<p>And the timid little fingers laid the ring into his hand, to do with as +he would.</p> + +<p>What else could Paul have done?</p> + +<p>With the strong arm that should henceforth uphold and guard her, he drew +her close; and with the other hand slipped the simply jeweled round upon +her finger. For all word of answer, he lifted it, so encircled, to his +lips.</p> + +<p>Faith shrank and trembled.</p> + +<p>Hendie's voice sounded, jubilant, along the upper floor, toward the +staircase.</p> + +<p>"I will go, now, if you wish. Perhaps I ought," said Paul. "And yet, I +would so gladly stay. May I come again, by and by?"</p> + +<p>Faith uttered a half-audible assent, and as Hendie's step came nearer +down the stairs, and passed the door, straight out upon the grassplot, +toward the gate, and the long-tailed black horse that stood there, she +escaped again to her own chamber.</p> + +<p>Hendie had his ride. Meanwhile, his sister, down upon her knees at her +bedside, struggled with the mystery and doubt of her own heart. Why +could she not feel happier? Would it never be otherwise? Was this all +life had for her, in its holiest gift, henceforth? But, come what might, +she would have God, always!</p> + +<p>So, without words, only with tears, she prayed, and at last, grew calm.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXIV." id="CHAPTER_XXIV."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2><h3>CONFLICT.</h3> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p class='last'>"O Life, O Beyond,<br /> +<i>Art</i> thou fair!—<i>art</i> thou sweet?" </p> +<p class='auth'>Mrs. Browning.</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>There followed days that almost won Faith back into her outward life of +pleasantness.</p> + +<p>Margaret came over with Madam Rushleigh, and felicitated herself and +friend, impetuously. Paul's mother thanked her for making her son happy. +Old Mr. Rushleigh kissed her forehead with a blessing. And Mr. and Mrs. +Gartney looked upon their daughter as with new eyes of love. Hendie rode +the black horse every day, and declared that "everything was just as +jolly as it could be!"</p> + +<p>Paul drove her out, and walked with her, and talked of his plans, and +all they would do and have together.</p> + +<p>And she let herself be brightened by all this outward cheer and promise, +and this looking forward to a happiness and use that were to come. But +still she shrank and trembled at every loverlike caress, and still she +said, fearfully, every now and then:</p> + +<p>"Paul—I don't feel as you do. What if I don't love you as I ought?"</p> + +<p>And Paul called her his little oversensitive, conscientious Faithie, and +persuaded himself and her that he had no fear—that he was quite +satisfied.</p> + +<p>When Mr. Armstrong came to see her, gravely and tenderly wishing her +joy, and looked searchingly into her face for the pure content that +should be there, she bent her head into her hands, and wept.</p> + +<p>She was very weak, you say? She ought to have known her own mind better? +Perhaps. I speak of her as she was. There are mistakes like these in +life; there are hearts that suffer thus, unconscious of their ail.</p> + +<p>The minister waited while the momentary burst of emotion subsided, and +something of Faith's wonted manner returned.</p> + +<p>"It is very foolish of me," she said, "and you must think me very +strange. But, somehow, tears come easily when one has been feeling a +great deal. And such kind words from you touch me."</p> + +<p>"My words and thoughts will always be kind for you, my child. And I know +very well that tears may mean sweeter and deeper things than smiles. I +will not try you with much talking now. You have my affectionate wishes +and my prayers. If there is ever any help that I can give, to you who +have so much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> loving help about you, count on me as an earnest friend, +always."</p> + +<p>The hour was past when Faith, if she could ever, could have asked of him +the help she did most sorely need.</p> + +<p>And so, with a gentle hand clasp, he went away.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gartney began to be restless about Michigan. He wanted to go and see +this wild estate of his. He would have liked to take his wife, now that +haying would soon be over, and he could spare the time from his farm, +and make it a pleasant summer journey for them both. But he could +neither leave Faith, nor take her, well, it seemed. Hendie might go. +Fathers always think their boys ready for the world when once they are +fairly out of the nursery.</p> + +<p>One day, Paul came to Cross Corners with news.</p> + +<p>Mr. Rushleigh had affairs to be arranged and looked to, in New +York—matters connected with the mills, which had, within a few weeks, +begun to run; he had been there, once, about them; he could do all quite +well, now, by letter, and an authorized messenger; he could not just now +very well leave Kinnicutt. Besides, he wanted Paul to see and know his +business friends, and to put himself in the way of valuable business +information. Would Faith spare him for a week or two—he bade his son to +ask.</p> + +<p>Madam Rushleigh would accompany Paul; and before his return he would go +with his mother to Saratoga, where her daughter Gertrude and Mrs. Philip +Rushleigh were, and where he was to leave her for the remainder of their +stay.</p> + +<p>Margaret liked Kinnicutt better than any watering-place; and she and her +father had made a little plan of their own, which, if Faith would go +back with him, they would explain to her.</p> + +<p>So Faith went over to Lakeside to tea, and heard the plan.</p> + +<p>"We are going to make our first claim upon you, Faith," said the elder +Mr. Rushleigh, as he led his daughter-in-law elect out on the broad +piazza under the Italian awnings, when the slight summer evening repast +was ended. "We want to borrow you, while madam and the yonker are gone. +Your father tells me he wishes to make a Western journey. Now, why not +send him off at this very time? I think your mother intends accompanying +him?"</p> + +<p>"It had been talked of," Faith said; "and perhaps her father would be +very glad to go when he could leave her in such good keeping. She would +tell him what Mr. Rushleigh had been so kind as to propose."</p> + +<p>It was a suggestion of real rest to Faith—this free companionship with +Margaret again, in the old, girlish fashion—and the very thoughtful +look, that was almost sad, which had become habitual to her face, of +late, brightened into the old, careless pleasure, as she spoke.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p> + +<p>Old Mr. Rushleigh saw something in this that began to seem to him more +than mere maidenly shyness.</p> + +<p>By and by, Margaret called her brother to sing with her.</p> + +<p>"Come, Faithie," said Paul, drawing her gently by the hand. "I can't +sing unless you go, too."</p> + +<p>Faith went; more, it seemed, of his will, than her own.</p> + +<p>"How does that appear to you?" said Mr. Rushleigh to his wife. "Is it +all right? Does the child care for Paul?"</p> + +<p>"Care!" exclaimed the mother, almost surprised into too audible speech. +"How can she help caring? And hasn't it grown up from childhood with +them? What put such a question into your head? I should as soon think of +doubting whether I cared for you."</p> + +<p>It was easier for the father to doubt, jealously, for his son, than for +the mother to conceive the possibility of indifference in the woman her +boy had chosen.</p> + +<p>"Besides," added Mrs. Rushleigh, "why, else, should she have accepted +him? I <i>know</i> Faith Gartney is not mercenary, or worldly ambitious."</p> + +<p>"I am quite sure of that, as well," answered her husband. "It is no +doubt of her motive or her worth—I can't say it is really a doubt of +anything; but, Gertrude, she must not marry the boy unless her whole +heart is in it! A sharp stroke is better than a lifelong pain."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure I can't tell what has come over you! She can't ever have +thought of anybody else! And she seems quite one of ourselves."</p> + +<p>"Yes; that's just the uncertainty," replied Mr. Rushleigh. "Whether it +isn't as much Margaret, and you and I, as Paul. Whether she fully knows +what she is about. She can't marry the family, you know. We shall die, +and go off, and Heaven knows what; Paul must be the whole world to her, +or nothing. I hope he hasn't hurried her—or let her hurry herself."</p> + +<p>"Hurry! She has had years to make up her mind in!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Rushleigh, woman as she was, would not understand.</p> + +<p>"We shall go, in three days," said Paul, when he stood in the moonlight +with Faith at the little white gate under the elms, after driving her +home; "and I must have you all the time to myself, until then!"</p> + +<p>Faith wondered if it were right that she shouldn't quite care to be "had +all the time to himself until then"? Whether such demonstrativeness and +exclusiveness of affection was ever a little irksome to others as to +her?</p> + +<p>Faith thought and questioned, often, what other girls might feel in +positions like her own, and tried to judge herself by them; it +absolutely never occurred to her to think how it might have been if +another than Paul had stood in this relation toward herself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p> + +<p>The young man did not quite have his own way, however. His father went +down to Mishaumok on one of the three days, and left him in charge at +the mills; and there were people to see, and arrangements to make; but +some part of each day he did manage to devote to Faith, and they had +walking and driving together, and every night Paul stayed to tea at +Cross Corners.</p> + +<p>On the last evening, they sat together, by the hillside door, in the +summer parlor.</p> + +<p>"Faithie," said Paul, a little suddenly, "there is something you must do +for me—do you know?"</p> + +<p>"What is it?" asked Faith, quite calmly.</p> + +<p>"You must wear this, now, and keep the forget-me-not for a guard."</p> + +<p>He held her hand, that wore the ring, in one of his, and there was a +flash of diamonds as he brought the other toward it.</p> + +<p>Then Faith gave a quick, strange cry.</p> + +<p>"I can't! I can't! Oh, Paul! don't ask me!" And her hand was drawn from +the clasp of his, and her face was hidden in both her own.</p> + +<p>Paul drew back—hurt, silent.</p> + +<p>"If I could only wait!" she murmured. "I don't dare, yet!"</p> + +<p>She could wear the forget-me-not, as she wore the memory of all their +long young friendship, it belonged to the past; but this definite pledge +for the future—these diamonds!</p> + +<p>"Do you not quite belong to me, even yet?" asked Paul, with a +resentment, yet a loving and patient one, in his voice.</p> + +<p>"I told you," said Faith, "that I would try—to be to you as you wish; +but Paul! if I couldn't be so, truly?—I don't know why I feel so +uncertain. Perhaps it is because you care for me too much. Your thought +for me is so great, that mine, when I look at it, never seems worthy."</p> + +<p>Paul was a man. He could not sue, too cringingly, even for Faith +Gartney's love.</p> + +<p>"And I told you, Faith, that I was satisfied to be allowed to love you. +That you should love me a little, and let it grow to more. But if it is +not love at all—if I frighten you, and repel you—I have no wish to +make you unhappy. I must let you go. And yet—oh, Faith!" he cried—the +sternness all gone, and only the wild love sweeping through his heart, +and driving wild words before it—"it can't be that it is no love, after +all! It would be too cruel!"</p> + +<p>At those words, "I must let you go," spoken apparently with calmness, as +if it could be done, Faith felt a bound of freedom in her soul. If he +would let her go, and care for her in the old way, only as a friend! But +the strong passionate accents came after; and the old battle of doubt +and pity and remorse surged up again, and the cloud of their strife +dimmed all perception, save that she was very, very wretched.</p> + +<p>She sobbed, silently.</p> + +<p>"Don't let us say good-by, so," said Paul. "Don't let us quarrel. We +will let all wait, as you wish, till I come home again."</p> + +<p>So he still clung to her, and held her, half bound.</p> + +<p>"And your father, Paul? And Margaret? How can I let them receive me as +they do—how can I go to them as I have promised, in all this +indecision?"</p> + +<p>"They want you, Faith, for your own sake. There is no need for you to +disappoint them. It is better to say nothing more until we do know. I +ask it of you—do not refuse me this—to let all rest just here; to make +no difference until I come back. You will let me write, Faith?"</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, Paul," she said, wonderingly.</p> + +<p>It was so hard for her to comprehend that it could not be with him, any +longer, as it had been; that his written or his spoken word could not +be, for a time, at least, mere friendly any more.</p> + +<p>And so she gave him, unwittingly, this hope to go with.</p> + +<p>"I think you <i>do</i> care for me, Faith, if you only knew it!" said he, +half sadly and very wistfully, as they parted.</p> + +<p>"I do care, very much," Faith answered, simply and earnestly. "I never +can help caring. It is only that I am afraid I care so differently from +you!"</p> + +<p>She was nearer loving him at that moment, than she had ever been.</p> + +<p>Who shall attempt to bring into accord the seeming contradictions of a +woman's heart?</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXV." id="CHAPTER_XXV."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXV.</h2><h3>A GAME AT CHESS.</h3> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p class='last'>"Life's burdens fall, its discords cease, <br /> +I lapse into the glad release<br /> +Of nature's own exceeding peace."</p> +<p class='auth'>Whittier</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>"I don't see," said Aunt Faith, "why the child can't come to me, +Henderson, while you and Elizabeth are away. I don't believe in putting +yourself under obligations to people till you're sure they're going to +be something to you. Things don't always turn out according to the +Almanac."</p> + +<p>"She goes just as she always has gone to the Rushleighs," replied Mr. +Gartney. "Paul is to be away. It is a visit to Margaret.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> Still, I shall +be absent at least a fortnight, and it might be well that she should +divide her time, and come to Cross Corners for a few days, if it is only +to see the house opened and ready. Luther can have a bed here, if Mis' +Battis should be afraid."</p> + +<p>Mis' Battis was to improve the fortnight's interval for a visit to +Factory Village.</p> + +<p>"Well, fix it your own way," said Miss Henderson. "I'm ready for her, +any time. Only, if she's going to peak and pine as she has done ever +since this grand match was settled for her, Glory and I'll have our +hands full, nursing her, by then you get back!"</p> + +<p>"Faith is quite well," said Mrs. Gartney. "It is natural for a girl to +be somewhat thoughtful when she decides for herself such an important +relation."</p> + +<p>"Symptoms differ, in different cases. <i>I</i> should say she was taking it +pretty hard," said the old lady.</p> + +<p>Mr. and Mrs. Gartney left home on Monday.</p> + +<p>Faith and Mis' Battis remained in the house a few hours after, setting +all things in that dreary "to rights" before leaving, which is almost, +in its chillness and silence, like burial array. Glory came over to +help; and when all was done—blinds shut, windows and doors fastened, +fire out, ashes removed—stove blackened—Luther drove Mis' Battis and +her box over to Mrs. Pranker's, and Glory took Faith's little bag for +her to the Old House.</p> + +<p>This night she was to stay with her aunt. She wanted just this little +pause and quiet before going to the Rushleighs'.</p> + +<p>"Tell Aunt Faith I'm coming," said she, as she let herself and Glory out +at the front door, and then, locking it, put the key in her pocket. +"I'll just walk up over the Ridge first, for a little coolness and +quiet, after this busy day."</p> + +<p>There was the peace of a rested body and soul upon her face when she +came down again a half hour after, and crossed the lane, and entered, +through the stile, upon the field path to the Old House. Heart and will +had been laid asleep—earthly plan and purpose had been put aside in all +their incompleteness and uncertainty—and only God and Nature had been +permitted to come near.</p> + +<p>Mr. Armstrong walked down and met her midway in the field.</p> + +<p>"How beautiful mere simpleness and quiet are," said Faith. "The cool +look of trees and grass, and the stillness of this evening time, are +better even than flowers, and bright sunlight, and singing of birds!"</p> + +<p>"'He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the +still waters: He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of +righteousness for His name's sake.'"</p> + +<p>They did not disturb the stillness by more words. They came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> up +together, in the hush and shadow, to the pleasant doorstone, that +offered its broad invitation to their entering feet, and where Aunt +Faith at this moment stood, watching and awaiting them.</p> + +<p>"Go into the blue bedroom, and lay off your things, child," she said, +giving Faith a kiss of welcome, "and then come back and we'll have our +tea."</p> + +<p>Faith disappeared through passages and rooms beyond.</p> + +<p>Aunt Henderson turned quickly to the minister.</p> + +<p>"You're her spiritual adviser, ain't you?" she asked, abruptly.</p> + +<p>"I ought to be," answered Mr. Armstrong.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you advise her, then?"</p> + +<p>"Spiritually, I do and will, in so far as so pure a spirit can need a +help from me. But—I think I know what you mean, Miss Henderson—spirit +and heart are two. I am a man; and she is—what you know."</p> + +<p>Miss Henderson's keen eyes fixed themselves, for a minute, piercingly +and unflinchingly, on the minister's face. Then she turned, without a +word, and went into the house to see the tea brought in. She knew, now, +all there was to tell.</p> + +<p>Faith's face interpreted itself to Mr. Armstrong. He saw that she +needed, that she would have, rest. Rest, this night, from all that of +late had given her weariness and trouble. So, he did not even talk to +her in the way they mostly talked together; he would not rouse, ever so +distantly, thought, that might, by so many subtle links, bear round upon +her hidden pain. But he brought, after tea, a tiny chessboard, and set +the delicate carved men upon it, and asked her if she knew the game.</p> + +<p>"A little," she said. "What everybody always owns to knowing—the +moves."</p> + +<p>"Suppose we play."</p> + +<p>It was a very pleasant novelty—sitting down with this grave, earnest +friend to a game of skill—and seeing him bring to it all the resource +of power and thought that he bent, at other times, on more important +work.</p> + +<p>"Not that, Miss Faith! You don't mean that! You put your queen in +danger."</p> + +<p>"My queen is always a great trouble to me," said Faith, smiling, as she +retracted the half-made move. "I think I do better when I give her up in +exchange."</p> + +<p>"Excuse me, Miss Faith; but that always seems to me a cowardly sort of +game. It is like giving up a great power in life because one is too weak +to claim and hold it."</p> + +<p>"Only I make you lose yours, too."</p> + +<p>"Yes, there is a double loss and inefficiency. Does that make a better +game, or one pleasanter to play?"</p> + +<p>"There are two people, in there, talking riddles; and they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> don't even +know it," said Miss Henderson to her handmaid, in the kitchen close by.</p> + +<p>Perhaps Mr. Armstrong, as he spoke, did discern a possible deeper +significance in his own words; did misgive himself that he might rouse +thoughts so; at any rate, he made rapid, skillful movements on the +board, that brought the game into new complications, and taxed all +Faith's attention to avert their dangers to herself.</p> + +<p>For half an hour, there was no more talking.</p> + +<p>Then Faith's queen was put in helpless peril.</p> + +<p>"I must give her up," said she. "She is all but gone."</p> + +<p>A few moves more, and all Faith's hope depended on one little pawn, that +might be pushed to queen and save her game.</p> + +<p>"How one does want the queen power at the last!" said she. "And how much +easier it is to lose it, than to get it back!"</p> + +<p>"It is like the one great, leading possibility, that life, in some sort, +offers each of us," said Mr. Armstrong. "Once lost—once missed—we may +struggle on without it—we may push little chances forward to partial +amends; but the game is changed; its soul is gone."</p> + +<p>As he spoke he made the move that led to obvious checkmate.</p> + +<p>Glory came in to the cupboard, now, and began putting up the tea things +she had brought from washing.</p> + +<p>Mr. Armstrong had done just what, at first, he had meant not to do. Had +he bethought himself better, and did he seize the opening to give vague +warning where he might not speak more plainly? Or, had his habit, as a +man of thought, discerning quick meaning in all things, betrayed him +into the instant's forgetfulness?</p> + +<p>However it might be, Glory caught glimpse of two strange, pained faces +over the little board and its mystic pieces.</p> + +<p>One, pale—downcast—with expression showing a sudden pang; the other, +suffering also, yet tender, self-forgetful, loving—looking on.</p> + +<p>"I don't know whichever is worst," she said afterwards, without apparent +suggestion of word or circumstance, to her mistress; "to see the +beautiful times that there are in the world, and not be in 'em—or to +see people that might be in 'em, and ain't!"</p> + +<p>They were all out on the front stoop, later. They sat in the cool, +summer dusk, and looked out between the arched lattices where the vines +climbed up, seeing the stars rise, far away, eastwardly, in the blue; +and Mr. Armstrong, talking with Faith, managed to win her back into the +calm he had, for an instant, broken; and to keep her from pursuing the +thought that by and by would surely come back, and which she would +surely want all possible gain of strength to grapple with.</p> + +<p>Faith met his intention bravely, seconding it with her own. These +hours, to the last, should still be restful. She would not think, +to-night, of those words that had startled her so—of all they suggested +or might mean—of life's great possibility lost to him, away back in the +sorrowful past, as she also, perhaps was missing it—relinquishing +it—now.</p> + +<p>She knew not that his thought had been utterly self-forgetful. She +believed that he had told her, indirectly, of himself, when he had +spoken those dreary syllables—"the game is changed. Its soul is gone!"</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXVI." id="CHAPTER_XXVI."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2><h3>LAKESIDE.</h3> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p>"Look! are the southern curtains drawn? <br /> +Fetch me a fan, and so begone!<br /> + · + · + · + · + · + · +<br /> +Rain me sweet odors on the air,<br /> +And wheel me up my Indian chair;<br /> +And spread some book not overwise<br /> +Flat out before my sleepy eyes."</p> +<p class='auth'>O. W. Holmes.</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>The Rushleighs' breakfast room at Lakeside was very lovely in a summer's +morning.</p> + +<p>Looking off, northwestwardly, across the head of the Pond, the long +windows, opening down to the piazza, let in all the light and joy of the +early day, and that indescribable freshness born from the union of woods +and water.</p> + +<p>Faith had come down long before the others, this fair Wednesday morning.</p> + +<p>Mr. Rushleigh found her, when he entered, sitting by a window—a book +upon her lap, to be sure—but her eyes away off over the lake, and a +look in them that told of thoughts horizoned yet more distantly.</p> + +<p>Last night, he had brought home Paul's first letter.</p> + +<p>When he gave it to her, at tea time, with a gay and kindly word, the +color that deepened vividly upon her face, and the quiet way in which +she laid it down beside her plate, were nothing strange, perhaps; +but—was he wrong? the eyes that drooped so quickly as the blushes rose, +and then lifted themselves again so timidly to him as he next addressed +her, were surely brimmed with feeling that was not quite, or wholly +glad.</p> + +<p>And now, this wistful, silent, musing, far-off look!</p> + +<p>"Good morning, Faithie!"</p> + +<p>"Good morning." And the glance came back—the reverie was +broken—Faith's spirit informed her visible presence again,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> and bade +him true and gentle welcome. "You haven't your morning paper yet? I'll +bring it. Thomas left it in the library, I think. He came back from the +early train, half an hour ago."</p> + +<p>"Can't you women tell what's the matter with each other?" said Mr. +Rushleigh to his daughter, who entered by the other door, as Faith went +out into the hall. "What ails Faith, Margaret?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing of consequence, I think. She is tired with all that has been +going on, lately. And then she's the shyest little thing!"</p> + +<p>"It's a sort of shyness that don't look so happy as it might, it seems +to me. And what has become of Paul's diamonds, I wonder? I went with him +to choose some, last week. I thought I should see them next upon her +finger."</p> + +<p>Margaret opened her eyes widely. Of course, this was the first she had +heard of the diamonds. Where could they be, indeed? Was anything wrong? +They had not surely quarreled!</p> + +<p>Faith came in with the paper. Thomas brought up breakfast. And +presently, these three, with all their thoughts of and for each other, +that reached into the long years to come, and had their roots in all +that had gone by, were gathered at the table, seemingly with no further +anxiety than to know whether one or another would have toast or +muffins—eggs or raspberries.</p> + +<p>Do we not—and most strangely and incomprehensively—live two lives?</p> + +<p>"I must write to my mother, to-day," said Margaret, when her father had +driven away to the mills, and they had brought in a few fresh flowers +from the terrace for the vases, and had had a little morning music, +which Margaret always craved, "as an overture," she said, "to the day."</p> + +<p>"I must write to my mother; and you, I suppose, will be busy with +answering Paul?"</p> + +<p>A little consciousness kept her from looking straight in Faith's face, +as she spoke. Had she done so, she might have seen that a paleness came +over it, and that the lips trembled.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," was the answer. "Perhaps not, to-day."</p> + +<p>"Not to-day? Won't he be watching every mail? I don't know much about +it, to be sure; but I fancied lovers were such uneasy, exacting +creatures!"</p> + +<p>"Paul is very patient," said Faith—not lightly, as Margaret had spoken, +but as one self-reproached, almost, for abusing patience—"and they go +to-morrow to Lake George. He won't look for a letter until he gets to +Saratoga."</p> + +<p>She had calculated her time as if it were the minutes of a reprieve.</p> + +<p>When Paul Rushleigh, with his mother, reached Saratoga, he found two +letters there, for him. One kind, simple, but reticent,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> from Faith—a +mere answer to that which she could answer, of his own. The other was +from his father.</p> + +<p>"There seems," he wrote to his son, toward the close, "to be a little +cloud upon Faith, somehow. Perhaps it is one you would not wish away. It +may brighten up and roll off, at your return. You, possibly, understand +it better than I. Yet I feel, in my strong anxiety for your true good, +impelled to warn you against letting her deceive herself and you, by +giving you less than, for her own happiness and yours, she ought to be +able to give. Do not marry the child, Paul, if there can be a doubt of +her entire affection for you. You had better go through life alone, than +with a wife's half love. If you have reason to imagine that she feels +bound by anything in the past to what the present cannot heartily +ratify—release her. I counsel you to this, not more in justice to her, +than for the saving of your own peace. She writes you to-day. It may be +that the antidote comes with the hurt. I may be quite mistaken. But I +hurt you, my son, only to save a sorer pain. Faith is true. If she says +she loves you, believe her, and take her, though all the world should +doubt. But if she is fearful—if she hesitates—be fearful, and hesitate +yourself, lest your marriage be no true marriage before Heaven!"</p> + +<p>Paul Rushleigh thanked his father, briefly, for his admonition, in +reply. He wrote, also, to Faith—affectionately, but with something, at +last, of her own reserve. He should not probably write again. In a week, +or less, he would be home.</p> + +<p>And behind, and beyond all this, that could be put on paper, was the +hope of a life—the sharp doubt of days—waiting the final word!</p> + +<p>In a week, he would be home! A week! It might bring much!</p> + +<p>Wednesday had come round again.</p> + +<p>Dinner was nearly ended at Lakeside. Cool jellies, and creams, and +fruits, were on the table for dessert. Steaming dishes of meats and +vegetables had been gladly sent away, but slightly partaken. The day was +sultry. Even now, at five in the afternoon, the heat was hardly +mitigated from that of midday.</p> + +<p>They lingered over their dessert, and spoke, rather languidly, of what +might be done after.</p> + +<p>"For me," said Mr. Rushleigh, "I must go down to the mills again, before +night. If either, or both of you, like a drive, I shall be glad to have +you with me."</p> + +<p>"Those hot mills!" exclaimed Margaret. "What an excursion to propose!"</p> + +<p>"I could find you a very cool corner, even in those hot mills," replied +her father. "My little sanctum, upstairs, that overlooks the river, and +gets its breezes, is the freshest place I have been in, to-day. Will you +go, Faith?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, yes! she'll go! I see it in her eyes!" said Margaret. "She is +getting to be as much absorbed in all those frantic looms and +things—that set me into a fever just to think of, whizzing and humming +all day long in this horrible heat—as you are! I believe she expects to +help Paul overseer the factory, one of these days, she is so fierce to +peer into and understand everything about it. Or else, she means +mischief! You had a funny look in your face, Faithie, the other day, +when you stood there by the great rope that hoists the water gate, and +Mr. Blasland was explaining it to us!"</p> + +<p>"I was thinking, I remember," said Faith, "what a strange thing it was +to have one's hand on the very motive power of it all. To see those +great looms, and wheels, and cylinders, and spindles, we had been +looking at, and hear nothing but their deafening roar all about us, and +to think that even I, standing there with my hand upon the rope, might +hush it all, and stop the mainspring of it in a minute!"</p> + +<p>Ah, Faithie! Did you think, as you said this, how your little hand lay, +otherwise, also, on the mainspring and motive of it all? One of the +three, at least, thought of it, as you spoke.</p> + +<p>"Well—your heart's in the spindles, I see!" rejoined Margaret. "So, +don't mind me. I haven't a bit of a plan for your entertainment, here. I +shouldn't, probably, speak to you, if you stayed. It's too hot for +anything but a book, and a fan, and a sofa by an open window!"</p> + +<p>Faith laughed; but, before she could reply, a chaise rolled up to the +open front door, and the step and voice of Dr. Wasgatt were heard, as he +inquired for Miss Gartney.</p> + +<p>Faith left her seat, with a word of excuse, and met him in the hall.</p> + +<p>"I had a patient up this way," said he, "and came round to bring you a +message from Miss Henderson. Nothing to be frightened at, in the least; +only that she isn't quite so well as ordinary, these last hot days, and +thought perhaps you might as lief come over. She said she was expecting +you for a visit there, before your folks get back. No, thank you"—as +Faith motioned to conduct him to the drawing-room—"can't come in. Sorry +I couldn't offer to take you down; but I've got more visits to make, and +they lie round the other way."</p> + +<p>"Is Aunt Faith ill?"</p> + +<p>"Well—no. Not so but that she'll be spry again in a day or two; +especially if the weather changes. That ankle of hers is troublesome, +and she had something of an ill turn last night, and called me over this +morning. She seems to have taken a sort of fancy that she'd like to have +you there."</p> + +<p>"I'll come."</p> + +<p>And Faith went back, quickly, as Dr. Wasgatt departed, to make his +errand known, and to ask if Mr. Rushleigh would mind driving her round +to Cross Corners, after going to his mills.</p> + +<p>"Wait till to-morrow, Faithie," said Margaret, in the tone of one whom +it fatigues to think of an exertion, even for another. "You'll want your +box with you, you know; and there isn't time for anything to-night."</p> + +<p>"I think I ought to go now," answered Faith. "Aunt Henderson never +complains for a slight ailment, and she might be ill again, to-night. I +can take all I shall need before to-morrow in my little morocco bag. I +won't keep you waiting a minute," she added, turning to Mr. Rushleigh.</p> + +<p>"I can wait twenty, if you wish," he answered kindly.</p> + +<p>But in less than ten, they were driving down toward the river.</p> + +<p>Margaret Rushleigh had betaken herself to her own cool chamber, where +the delicate straw matting, and pale green, leaf-patterned chintz of +sofa, chairs, and hangings, gave a feeling of the last degree of summer +lightness and daintiness, and the gentle air breathed in from the +southwest, sifted, on the way, of its sunny heat, by the green draperies +of vine and branch it wandered through.</p> + +<p>Lying there, on the cool, springy cushions of her couch—turning the +fresh-cut leaves of the August <i>Mishaumok</i>—she forgot the wheels and +the spindles—the hot mills, and the ceaseless whir.</p> + +<p>Just at that moment of her utter comfort and content, a young factory +girl dropped, fainting, in the dizzy heat, before her loom.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXVII." id="CHAPTER_XXVII."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2><h3>AT THE MILLS.</h3> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p class='last'>"For all day the wheels are droning, turning,—<br /> +Their wind comes in our faces,—<br /> +Till our hearts turn,—our head with pulses burning,— <br /> +And the walls turn in their places."</p> +<p class='auth'>Mrs. Browning.</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>Faith sat silent by Mr. Rushleigh's side, drinking in, also, with a cool +content, the river air that blew upon their faces as they drove along.</p> + +<p>"Faithie!" said Paul's father, a little suddenly, at last—"do you know +how true a thing you said a little while ago?"</p> + +<p>"How, sir?" asked Faith, not perceiving what he meant.</p> + +<p>"When you spoke of having your hand on the mainspring of all this?"</p> + +<p>And he raised his right arm, motioning with the slender<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> whip he held, +along the line of factory buildings that lay before them.</p> + +<p>A deep, blazing blush burned, at his words, over Faith's cheek and brow. +She sat and suffered it under his eye—uttering not a syllable.</p> + +<p>"I knew you did <i>not</i> know. You did not think of it so. Yet it is true, +none the less. Faith! Are you happy? Are you satisfied?"</p> + +<p>Still a silence, and tears gathering in the eyes.</p> + +<p>"I do not wish to distress you, my dear. It is only a little word I +should like to hear you speak. I must, so far as I can, see that my +children are happy, Faith."</p> + +<p>"I suppose," said Faith, tremulously, struggling to speech—"one cannot +expect to be utterly happy in this world."</p> + +<p>"One does expect it, forgetting all else, at the moment when is given +what seems to one life's first, great good—the earthly good that comes +but once. I remember my own youth, Faithie. Pure, present content is +seldom overwise."</p> + +<p>"Only," said Faith, still tremblingly, "that the responsibility comes +with the good. That feeling of having one's hand upon the mainspring is +a fearful one."</p> + +<p>"I am not given," said Mr. Rushleigh, "to quoting Bible at all times; +but you make a line of it come up to me. 'There is no fear in love. +Perfect love casteth out fear.'"</p> + +<p>"Be sure of yourself, dear child. Be sure you are content and happy; and +tell me so, if you can; or, tell me otherwise, if you must, without a +reserve or misgiving," he said again, as they drove down the mill +entrance; and their conversation, for the time, came, necessarily, to an +end.</p> + +<p>Coming into the mill yard, they were aware of a little commotion about +one of the side doors.</p> + +<p>The mill girl who had fainted sat here, surrounded by two or three of +her companions, slowly recovering.</p> + +<p>"It is Mary Grover, sir, from up at the Peak," said one of them, in +reply to Mr. Rushleigh's question. "She hasn't been well for some days, +but she's kept on at her work, and the heat, to-day, was too much for +her. She'd ought to be got home, if there was any way. She can't ever +walk."</p> + +<p>"I'll take her, myself," said the mill owner, promptly. "Keep her quiet +here a minute or two, while I go in and speak to Blasland."</p> + +<p>But first he turned to Faith again. "What shall I do with you, my +child?"</p> + +<p>"Dear Mr. Rushleigh," said she, with all her gratitude for his just +spoken kindness to herself and her appreciation of his ready sympathy +for the poor workgirl, in her voice—"don't think of me! It's lovely out +there over the footbridge,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> and in the fields; and that way, the +distance is nearly nothing to Aunt Faith's. I should like the +walk—really."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Mr. Rushleigh. "I believe you would. Then I'll take +Mary Grover up to the Peak."</p> + +<p>And he shook her hand, and left her standing there, and went up into the +mill.</p> + +<p>Two of the girls who had come out with Mary Grover, followed him and +returned to their work. One, sitting with her in the doorway, on one of +the upper steps, and supporting her yet dizzy head upon her shoulder, +remained.</p> + +<p>Faith asked if she could do anything, and was answered, no, with thanks.</p> + +<p>She turned away, then, and walked over the planking above the race way, +toward the river, where a pretty little footbridge crossed it here, from +the end of the mill building.</p> + +<p>Against this end, projected, on this side, a square, tower-like +appendage to the main structure, around which one must pass to reach the +footbridge. A door at the base opened upon a staircase leading up. This +was the entrance to Mr. Rushleigh's "sanctum," above, which +communicated, also, with the second story of the mill.</p> + +<p>Here Faith paused. She caught, from around the corner, a sound of the +angry voices of men.</p> + +<p>"I tell you, I'll stay here till I see the boss!"</p> + +<p>"I tell you, the boss won't see you. He's done with you."</p> + +<p>"Let him <i>be</i> done with me, then; and not go spoiling my chance with +other people! I'll see it out with him, somehow, yet."</p> + +<p>"Better not threaten. He won't go out of his way to meddle with you; +only it's no use your sending anybody here after a character. He's one +of the sort that speaks the truth and shames the devil."</p> + +<p>"I'll let him know he ain't boss of the whole country round! D—d if I +don't!"</p> + +<p>Faith turned away from hearing more of this, and from facing the +speakers; and took refuge up the open staircase.</p> + +<p>Above—in the quiet little countingroom, shut off by double doors at the +right from the great loom chamber of the mill, and opening at the front +by a wide window upon the river that ran tumbling and flashing below, +spanned by the graceful little bridge that reached the green slope of +the field beyond—it was so cool and pleasant—so still with continuous +and softened sound—that Faith sat down upon the comfortable sofa there, +to rest, to think, to be alone, a little.</p> + +<p>She had Paul's letter in her pocket; she had his father's words fresh +upon ear and heart. A strange peace came over her, as she placed herself +here; as if, somehow, a way was soon to be opened and made clear to her. +As if she should come to know herself, and to be brave to act as God +should show her how.</p> + +<p>She heard, presently, Mr. Rushleigh's voice in the mill yard, and then +the staircase door closed and locked below. Thinking that he should be +here no more, to-night, he had shut and fastened it.</p> + +<p>It was no matter. She would go through the mill, by and by, and look at +the looms; and so out, and over the river, then, to Aunt Faith's.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII." id="CHAPTER_XXVIII."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2><h3>LOCKED IN.</h3> +<p class='blockquot'>"How idle it is to call certain things godsends! as if there were +anything else in the world."—<span class="smcap">Hare</span>.</p> +</div> + +<p>It is accounted a part of the machinery of invention when, in a story, +several coincident circumstances, that apart, would have had no +noticeable result, bear down together, with a nice and sure calculation +upon some catastrophe or <i>dénouement</i> that develops itself therefrom.</p> + +<p>Last night, a man—an employee in Mr. Rushleigh's factory—had been kept +awake by one of his children, taken suddenly ill. A slight matter—but +it has to do with our story.</p> + +<p>Last night, also, Faith—Paul's second letter just received—had lain +sleepless for hours, fighting the old battle over, darkly, of doubt, +pity, half-love, and indecision. She had felt, or had thought she +felt—thus, or so—in the days that were past. Why could she not be sure +of her feeling now?</p> + +<p>The new wine in the old bottles—the new cloth in the old +garment—these, in Faith's life, were at variance. What satisfied once, +satisfied no longer. Was she to blame? What ought she to do? There was a +seething—a rending. Poor heart, that was likely to be burst and +torn—wonderingly, helplessly—in the half-comprehended struggle!</p> + +<p>So it happened, that, tired with all this, sore with its daily pressure +and recurrence, this moment of strange peace came over her, and soothed +her into rest.</p> + +<p>She laid herself back, there, on the broad, soft, old-fashioned sofa, +and with the river breeze upon her brow, and the song of its waters in +her ears, and the deadened hum of the factory rumbling on—she fell +asleep.</p> + +<p>How long it had been, she could not tell; she knew not whether it were +evening, or midnight, or near the morning; but she felt cold and +cramped; everything save the busy river was still, and the daylight was +all gone, and stars out bright in the deep, moonless sky, when she +awoke.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p> + +<p>Awoke, bewilderedly, and came slowly to the comprehension that she was +here alone. That it was night—that nobody could know it—that she was +locked up here, in the great dreary mill.</p> + +<p>She raised herself upon the sofa, and sat in a terrified amaze. She took +out her watch, and tried to see, by the starlight, the time. The slender +black hands upon its golden face were invisible. It ticked—it was +going. She knew, by that, it could not be far beyond midnight, at the +most. She was chilly, in her white dress, from the night air. She went +to the open window, and looked out from it, before she drew it down. +Away, over the fields, and up and down the river, all was dark, +solitary.</p> + +<p>Nobody knew it—she was here alone.</p> + +<p>She shut the window, softly, afraid of the sounds herself might make. +She opened the double doors from the countingroom, and stood on the +outer threshold, and looked into the mill. The heavy looms were still. +They stood like great, dead creatures, smitten in the midst of busy +motion. There was an awfulness in being here, the only breathing, moving +thing—in darkness—where so lately had been the deafening hum of +rolling wheels, and clanking shafts, and flying shuttles, and busy, +moving human figures. It was as if the world itself were stopped, and +she forgotten on its mighty, silent course.</p> + +<p>Should she find her way to the great bell, ring it, and make an alarm? +She thought of this; and then she reasoned with herself that she was +hardly so badly off, as to justify her, quite, in doing that. It would +rouse the village, it would bring Mr. Rushleigh down, perhaps—it would +cause a terrible alarm. And all that she might be spared a few hours +longer of loneliness and discomfort. She was safe. It would soon be +morning.</p> + +<p>The mill would be opened early. She would go back to the sofa, and try +to sleep again. Nobody could be anxious about her. The Rushleighs +supposed her to be at Cross Corners. Her aunt would think her detained +at Lakeside. It was really no great matter. She would be brave, and +quiet.</p> + +<p>So she shut the double doors again, and found a coat of Paul's, or Mr. +Rushleigh's, in the closet of the countingroom, and lay down upon the +sofa, covering herself with that.</p> + +<p>For an hour or more, her heart throbbed, her nerves were excited, she +could not sleep. But at last she grew calmer, her thought wandered from +her actual situation—became indistinct—and slumber held her again, +dreamily.</p> + +<p>There was another sleeper, also, in the mill whom Faith knew nothing of.</p> + +<p>Michael Garvin, the night watchman—the same whose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> child had been ill +the night before—when Faith came out into the loom chamber, had left it +but a few minutes, going his silent round within the building, and +recording his faithfulness by the half-hour pin upon the watch clock. +Six times he had done this, already. It was half past ten.</p> + +<p>He had gone up, now, by the stairs from the weaving room, into the third +story. These stairs ascended at the front, from within the chamber.</p> + +<p>Michael Garvin went on nearly to the end of the room above—stopped, and +looked out at a window. All still, all safe apparently.</p> + +<p>He was very tired. What harm in lying down somewhere in a corner, for +five minutes? He need not shut his eyes. He rolled his coat up for a +pillow, and threw it against the wall beneath the window. The next +instant he had stretched his stalwart limbs along the floor, and before +ten minutes of his seventh half hour were spent—long before Faith, who +thought herself all alone in the great building, had lost consciousness +of her strange position—he was fast asleep.</p> + +<p>Fast asleep, here, in the third story!</p> + +<p>So, since the days of the disciples, men have grown heavy and forgotten +their trust. So they have slumbered upon decks, at sea. So sentinels +have lain down at picket posts, though they knew the purchase of that +hour of rest might be the leaden death!</p> + +<p>Faith Gartney dreamed, uneasily.</p> + +<p>She thought herself wandering, at night, through the deserted streets of +a great city. She seemed to have come from somewhere afar off, and to +have no place to go to.</p> + +<p>Up and down, through avenues sometimes half familiar, sometimes wholly +unknown, she went wearily, without aim, or end, or hope. "Tired! tired! +tired!" she seemed to say to herself. "Nowhere to rest—nobody to take +care of me!"</p> + +<p>Then—city, streets, and houses disappeared; the scenery of her dream +rolled away, and opened out, and she was standing on a high, bare cliff, +away up in wintry air; threatening rocky avalanches overhanging +her—chill winds piercing her—and no pathway visible downward. Still +crying out in loneliness and fear. Still with none to comfort or to +help.</p> + +<p>Standing on the sheer edge of the precipice—behind her, suddenly, a +crater opened. A hissing breath came up, and the chill air quivered and +scorched about her. Her feet were upon a volcano! A lake of boiling, +molten stone heaved—huge, brazen, bubbling—spreading wider and wider, +like a great earth ulcer, eating in its own brink continually. Up in the +air over her, reared a vast, sulphurous canopy of smoke. The narrowing +ridge beneath her feet burned—trembled. She hovered between two +destructions.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p> + +<p>Instantly—in that throbbing, agonizing moment of her dream, just after +which one wakes—she felt a presence—she heard a call—she thought two +arms were stretched out toward her—there seemed a safety and a rest +near by; she was borne by an unseen impulse, along the dizzy ridge that +her feet scarce touched, toward it; she was taken—folded, held; smoke, +fire, the threatening danger of the cliff, were nothing, suddenly, any +more. Whether they menaced still, she thought not; a voice she knew and +trusted was in her ear; a grasp of loving strength sustained her; she +was utterly secure.</p> + +<p>So vividly she felt the presence—so warm and sure seemed that love and +strength about her—that waking out of such pause of peace, before her +senses recognized anything that was real without, she stretched her +hands, as if to find it at her side, and her lips breathed a name—the +name of Roger Armstrong.</p> + +<p>Then she started to her feet. The kind, protecting presence faded back +into her dream.</p> + +<p>The horrible smoke, the scorching smell, were true.</p> + +<p>A glare smote sky and trees and water, as she saw them from the window.</p> + +<p>There was fire near her!</p> + +<p>Could it be among the buildings of the mill?</p> + +<p>The long, main structure ran several feet beyond the square projection +within which she stood. Upon the other side, close to the front, quite +away, of course, from all observation hence, joined, at right angles, +another building, communicating and forming one with the first. Here +were the carding rooms. Then beyond, detached, were houses for storage +and other purposes connected with the business.</p> + +<p>Was it from one of these the glare and smoke and suffocating burning +smell were pouring?</p> + +<p>Or, lay the danger nearer—within these close, contiguous walls?</p> + +<p>Vainly she threw up the one window, and leaned forth.</p> + +<p>She could not tell.</p> + +<hr class='minor' /> + +<p>At this moment, Roger Armstrong, also, woke from out a dream.</p> + +<p>In this strange, second life of ours, that replaces the life of day, do +we not meet interiorly? Do not thoughts and knowledges cross, from +spirit to spirit, over the abyss, that lip, and eye, and ear, in waking +moments, neither send nor receive? That even mind itself is scarcely +conscious of? Is not the great deep of being, wherein we rest, electric +with a sympathetic life—and do not warnings and promises and cheer +pulse in upon us, mysteriously, in these passive hours of the flesh, +when soul only is awake and keen?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p> + +<p>Do not two thoughts, two consciousnesses, call and answer to each other, +mutely, in twin dreams of night?</p> + +<p>Roger Armstrong came in, late, that evening, from a visit to a distant +sick parishioner. Then he sat, writing, for an hour or two longer.</p> + +<p>By and by, he threw down his pen—pushed back his armchair before his +window—stretched his feet, wearily, into the deep, old-fashioned window +seat—leaned his head back, and let the cool breeze stir his hair.</p> + +<p>So it soothed him into sleep.</p> + +<p>He dreamed of Faith. He dreamed he saw her stand, afar off, in some +solitary place, and beckon, as it were, visibly, from a wide, invisible +distance. He dreamed he struggled to obey her summons. He battled with +the strange inertia of sleep. He strove—he gasped—he broke the spell +and hastened on. He plunged—he climbed—he stood in a great din that +bewildered and threatened; there was a lurid light that glowed intense +about him as he went; in the midst of all—beyond—she beckoned still.</p> + +<p>"Faith! Faith! What danger is about you, child?"</p> + +<p>These words broke forth from him aloud, as he started to his feet, and +stretched his hands, impulsively, out before him, toward the open +window.</p> + +<p>His eyes flashed wide upon that crimson glare that flooded sky and field +and river.</p> + +<p>There was fire at the mills!</p> + +<p>Not a sound, yet, from the sleeping village.</p> + +<hr class='minor' /> + +<p>The heavy, close-fitting double doors between the countingroom and the +great mill chamber were shut. Only by opening these and venturing forth, +could Faith gain certain knowledge of her situation.</p> + +<p>Once more she pulled them open and passed through.</p> + +<p>A blinding smoke rushed thick about her, and made her gasp for breath. +Up through the belt holes in the floor, toward the farther end of the +long room, sprang little tongues of flame that leaped higher and higher, +even while she strove for sight, that single, horrified, suffocating +instant, and gleamed, mockingly, upon the burnished shafts of silent +looms.</p> + +<p>In at the windows on the left, came the vengeful shine of those other +windows, at right angles, in the adjacent building. The carding rooms, +and the whole front of the mill, below, were all in flames!</p> + +<p>In frantic affright, in choking agony, Faith dashed herself back through +the heavy doors, that swung on springs, and closed tightly once more +after her.</p> + +<p>Here, at the open window, she took breath. Must she wait here, helpless, +for the fiery death?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p> + +<p>Down below her, the narrow brink—the rushing river. No foothold—no +chance for a descent. Behind her, only those two doors, barring out +flame and smoke!</p> + +<p>And the little footbridge, lying in the light across the water, and the +green fields stretching away, cool and safe beyond. A little +farther—her home!</p> + +<p>"Fire!"</p> + +<p>She cried the fearful word out upon the night, uselessly. There was no +one near. The village slumbered on, away there to the left. The strong, +deep shout of a man might reach it, but no tone of hers. There were no +completed or occupied dwelling houses, as yet, about the new mills. Mr. +Rushleigh was putting up some blocks; but, for the present, there was +nothing nearer than the village proper of Kinnicutt on the one hand, and +as far, or farther, on the other the houses at Lakeside.</p> + +<p>The flames themselves, alone, could signal her danger, and summon help. +How long would it be first?</p> + +<p>Thoughts of father, mother, and little brother—thoughts of the kind +friends at Lakeside, parted from but a few hours before—thoughts of the +young lover to whom the answer he waited for should be given, perhaps, +so awfully; through all, lighting, as it were, suddenly and searchingly, +the deep places of her own soul, the thought—the feeling, rather, of +that presence in her dream; of him who had led her, taught her, lifted +her so, to high things; brought her nearer, by his ministry, to God! Of +all human influence or love, his was nearest and strongest, spiritually, +to her, now!</p> + +<p>All at once, across these surging, crowding, agonizing feelings, rushed +an inspiration for the present moment.</p> + +<p>The water gate! The force pump!</p> + +<p>The apparatus for working these lay at this end of the building. She had +been shown the method of its operation; they had explained to her its +purpose. It was perfectly simple. Only the drawing of a rope over a +pulley—the turning of a faucet. She could do it, if she could only +reach the spot.</p> + +<p>Instantly and strangely, the cloud of terror seemed to roll away. Her +faculties cleared. Her mind was all alert and quickened. She thought of +things she had heard of years before, and long forgotten. That a wet +cloth about the face would defend from smoke. That down low, close to +the floor, was always a current of fresher air.</p> + +<p>She turned a faucet that supplied a basin in the countingroom, held her +handkerchief to it, and saturated it with water. Then she tied it across +her forehead, letting it hang before her face like a veil. She caught a +fold of it between her teeth.</p> + +<p>And so, opening the doors between whose cracks the pent-up smoke was +curling, she passed through, crouching down, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> crawled along the end +of the chamber, toward the great rope in the opposite corner.</p> + +<p>The fire was creeping thitherward, also, to meet her. Along from the +front, down the chamber on the opposite side, the quick flames sprang +and flashed, momently higher, catching already, here and there, from +point to point, where an oiled belt or an unfinished web of cloth +attracted their hungry tongues.</p> + +<p>As yet, they were like separate skirmishers, sent out in advance; their +mighty force not yet gathered and rolled together in such terrible sheet +and volume as raged beneath.</p> + +<p>She reached the corner where hung the rope.</p> + +<p>Close by, was the faucet in the main pipe fed by the force pump. +Underneath it, lay a coil of hose, attached and ready.</p> + +<p>She turned the faucet, and laid hold of the long rope. A few pulls, and +she heard the dashing of the water far below. The wheel was turning.</p> + +<p>The pipes filled. She lifted the end of the coiled hose, and directed it +toward the forward part of the chamber, where flames were wreathing, +climbing, flashing. An impetuous column of water rushed, eager, hissing, +upon blazing wood and heated iron.</p> + +<p>Still keeping the hose in her grasp, she crawled back again, half +stifled, yet a new hope of life aroused within her, to the double doors. +Before these, with the little countingroom behind her, as her last +refuge, she took her stand.</p> + +<p>How long could she fight off death? Till help came?</p> + +<p>All this had been done and thought quickly. There had been less time +than she would have believed, since she first woke to the knowledge of +this, her horrible peril.</p> + +<p>The flames were already repulsed. The mill was being flooded. Down the +belt holes the water poured upon the fiercer blaze below, that swept +across the forward and central part of the great spinning room, from +side to side.</p> + +<p>At this moment, a cry, close at hand.</p> + +<p>"Fire!"</p> + +<p>A man was swaying by a rope, down from a third-story window.</p> + +<p>"Fire!" came again, instantly, from without, upon another side.</p> + +<p>It was a voice hoarse, excited, strained. A tone Faith had never heard +before; yet she knew, by a mysterious intuition, from whom it came. She +dropped the hose, still pouring out its torrent, to the floor, and +sprang back, through the doors, to the countingroom window. The voice +came from the riverside.</p> + +<p>A man was dashing down the green slope, upon the footbridge.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p> + +<p>Faith stretched her arms out, as a child might, wakened in pain and +terror. A cry, in which were uttered the fear, the horror, that were now +first fully felt, as a possible safety appeared, and the joy, that +itself came like a sudden pang, escaped her, piercingly, thrillingly.</p> + +<p>Roger Armstrong looked upward as he sprang upon the bridge.</p> + +<p>He caught the cry. He saw Faith stand there, in her white dress, that +had been wet and blackened in her battling with the fire.</p> + +<p>A great soul glance of courage and resolve flashed from his eyes. He +reached his uplifted arms toward her, answering hers. He uttered not a +word.</p> + +<p>"Round! round!" cried Faith. "The door upon the other side!"</p> + +<p>Roger Armstrong, leaping to the spot, and Michael Garvin, escaped by the +long rope that hung vibrating from his grasp, down the brick wall of the +building, met at the staircase door.</p> + +<p>"Help me drive that in!" cried the minister.</p> + +<p>And the two men threw their stalwart shoulders against the barrier, +forcing lock and hinges.</p> + +<p>Up the stairs rushed Roger Armstrong.</p> + +<p>Answering the crash of the falling door, came another and more fearful +crash within.</p> + +<p>Gnawed by the fire, the timbers and supports beneath the forward portion +of the second floor had given way, and the heavy looms that stood there +had gone plunging down. A horrible volume of smoke and steam poured +upward, with the flames, from out the chasm, and rushed, resistlessly, +everywhere.</p> + +<p>Roger Armstrong dashed into the little countingroom. Faith lay there, on +the floor. At that fearful crash, that rush of suffocating smoke, she +had fallen, senseless. He seized her, frantically, in his arms to bear +her down.</p> + +<p>"Faith! Faith!" he cried, when she neither spoke nor moved. "My darling! +Are you hurt? Are you killed? Oh, my God! must there be another?"</p> + +<p>Faith did not hear these words, uttered with all the passionate agony of +a man who would hold the woman he loves to his heart, and defy for her +even death.</p> + +<p>She came to herself in the open air. She felt herself in his arms. She +only heard him say, tenderly and anxiously, in something of his old +tone, as her consciousness returned, and he saw it:</p> + +<p>"My dear child!"</p> + +<p>But she knew then all that had been a mystery to her in herself before.</p> + +<p>She knew that she loved Roger Armstrong. That it was not a love of +gratitude and reverence, only; but that her very soul was rendered up to +him, involuntarily, as a woman renders herself but once. That she would +rather have died there, in that flame and smoke, held in his +arms—gathered to his heart—than have lived whatever life of ease and +pleasantness—aye, even of use—with any other! She knew that her +thought, in those terrible moments before he came, had been—not +father's or mother's, only; not her young lover, Paul's; but, deepest +and mostly, his!</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXIX." id="CHAPTER_XXIX."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2><h3>HOME.</h3> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p>"The joy that knows there <i>is</i> a joy—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That scents its breath, and cries, 'tis there!</span><br /> +And, patient in its pure repose,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Receiveth so the holier share."</span></p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>Faith's thought and courage saved the mill from utter destruction.</p> + +<p>For one fearful moment, when that forward portion of the loom floor fell +through, and flame, and vapor, and smoke rioted together in a wild +alliance of fury, all seemed lost. But the great water wheel was plying +on; the river fought the fire; the rushing, exhaustless streams were +pouring out and down, everywhere; and the crowd that in a few moments +after the first alarm, and Faith's rescue, gathered at the spot, found +its work half done.</p> + +<p>A little later, there were only sullen smoke, defeated, smoldering +fires, blackened timbers, the burned carding rooms, and the ruin at the +front, to tell the awful story of the night.</p> + +<p>Mr. Armstrong had carried Faith into one of the unfinished factory +houses. Here he was obliged to leave her for a few moments, after making +such a rude couch for her as was possible, with a pile of clean +shavings, and his own coat, which he insisted, against all her +remonstrances, upon spreading above them.</p> + +<p>"The first horse and vehicle which comes, Miss Faith, I shall impress +for your service," he said; "and to do that I must leave you. I have +made that frightened watchman promise to say nothing, at present, of +your being here; so I trust the crowd may not annoy you. I shall not be +gone long, nor far away."</p> + +<p>The first horse and vehicle which came was the one that had brought her +there in the afternoon but just past, yet that seemed, strangely, to +have been so long ago.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mr. Rushleigh found her lying here, quiet, amidst the growing +tumult—exhausted, patient, waiting.</p> + +<p>"My little Faithie!" he cried, coming up to her with hands outstretched, +and a quiver of strong feeling in his voice. "To think that you should +have been in this horrible danger, and we all lying in our beds, asleep! +I do not quite understand it all. You must tell me, by and by. Armstrong +has told me what you have <i>done</i>. You have saved me half my property +here—do you know it, child? Can I ever thank you for your courage?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Rushleigh!" cried Faith, rising as he came to her, and holding +her hands to his, "don't thank me! and don't wait here! They'll want +you—and, oh! my kind friend! there will be nothing to thank me for, +when I have told you what I must. I have been very near to death, and I +have seen life so clearly! I know now what I did not know +yesterday—what I could not answer you then!"</p> + +<p>"Let it be as it may, I am sure it will be right and true, and I shall +honor you, Faith! And we must bear what is, for it has come of the will +of God, and not by any fault of yours. Now, let me take you home."</p> + +<p>"May I do that in your stead, Mr. Rushleigh?" asked Roger Armstrong, who +entered at this moment, with garments he had brought from somewhere to +wrap Faith.</p> + +<p>"I must go home," said Faith. "To Aunt Henderson's."</p> + +<p>"You shall do as you like," answered Mr. Rushleigh. "But it belongs to +us to care for you, I think."</p> + +<p>"You do—you have cared for me already," said Faith, earnestly.</p> + +<p>And Mr. Rushleigh helped to wrap her up, and kissed her forehead +tenderly, and Roger Armstrong lifted her into the chaise, and seated +himself by her, and drove her away from out the smoke and noise and +curious crowd that had begun to find out she was there, and that she had +been shut up in the mill, and had saved herself and stopped the fire; +and would have made her as uncomfortable as crowds always do heroes or +heroines—had it not been for the friend beside her, whose foresight and +precaution had warded it all off.</p> + +<p>And the mill owner went back among the villagers and firemen, to direct +their efforts for his property.</p> + +<p>Glory McWhirk had been up and watching the great fire, since Roger +Armstrong first went out.</p> + +<p>She had seen it from the window of Miss Henderson's room, where she was +to sleep to-night; and had first carefully lowered the blinds lest the +light should waken her mistress, who, after suffering much pain, had at +length, by the help of an anodyne, fallen asleep; and then she had come +round softly to the southwest room, to call the minister.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p> + +<p>The door stood open, and she saw him sitting in his chair, asleep. Just +as she crossed the threshold to come toward him, he started, and spoke +those words out of his restless dream:</p> + +<p>"Faith! Faith! What danger is about you, child?"</p> + +<p>They were instinct with his love. They were eager with his visionary +fear. It only needed a human heart to interpret them.</p> + +<p>Glory drew back as he sprang to his feet, and noiselessly disappeared. +She would not have him know that she had heard this cry with which he +waked.</p> + +<p>"He dreamed about her! and he called her Faith. How beautiful it is to +be cared for so!"</p> + +<p>Glory—while we have so long been following Faith—had no less been +living on her own, peculiar, inward life, that reached to, that +apprehended, that seized ideally—that was denied, so much!</p> + +<p>As Glory had seen, in the old years, children happier than herself, +wearing beautiful garments, and "hair that was let to grow," she saw +those about her now whom life infolded with a grace and loveliness she +might not look for; about whom fair affections, "let to grow," clustered +radiant, and enshrined them in their light.</p> + +<p>She saw always something that was beyond; something she might not +attain; yet, expectant of nothing, but blindly true to the highest +within her, she lost no glimpse of the greater, through lowering herself +to the less.</p> + +<p>Her soul of womanhood asserted itself; longing, ignorantly, for a soul +love. "To be cared for, so!"</p> + +<p>But she would rather recognize it afar—rather have her joy in knowing +the joy that might be—than shut herself from knowledge in the content +of a common, sordid lot.</p> + +<p>She did not think this deliberately, however; it was not reason, but +instinct. She renounced unconsciously. She bore denial, and never knew +she was denied.</p> + +<p>Of course, the thought of daring to covet what she saw, had never +crossed her, in her humbleness. It was quite away from her. It was +something with which she had nothing to do. "But it must be beautiful to +be like Miss Faith." And she thanked God, mutely, that she had this +beautiful life near her, and could look on it every day.</p> + +<p>She could not marry Luther Goodell.</p> + +<p class='center'> +"A vague unrest<br /> +And a nameless longing filled her breast";</p> + +<p>But, unlike the maiden of the ballad, she could not smother it down, to +break forth, by and by, defying the "burden of life," in sweet bright +vision, grown to a keen torture then.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p> + +<p>Faith had read to her this story of Maud, one day.</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't have done so," she had said, when it was ended. "I'd rather +have kept that one minute under the apple trees to live on all the rest +of my days!"</p> + +<p>She could not marry Luther Goodell.</p> + +<p>Would it have been better that she should? That she should have gone +down from her dreams into a plain man's life, and made a plain man +happy? Some women, of far higher mental culture and social place, have +done this, and, seemingly, done well. Only God and their own hearts know +if the seeming be true.</p> + +<p>Glory waited. "Everybody needn't marry," she said.</p> + +<p>This night, with those words of Mr. Armstrong's in her ears, revealing +to her so much, she stood before that window of his and watched the +fire.</p> + +<p>Doors were open behind her, leading through to Miss Henderson's chamber. +She would hear her mistress if she stirred.</p> + +<p>If she had known what she did not know—that Faith Gartney stood at this +moment in that burning mill, looking forth despairingly on those bright +waters and green fields that lay between it and this home of hers—that +were so near her, she might discern each shining pebble and the separate +grass blades in the scarlet light, yet so infinitely far, so gone from +her forever—had she known all this, without knowing the help and hope +that were coming—she would yet have said "How beautiful it would be to +be like Miss Faith!"</p> + +<p>She watched the fire till it began to deaden, and the glow paled out +into the starlight.</p> + +<p>By and by, up from the direction of the river road, she saw a chaise +approaching. It was stopped at the corner, by the bar place. Two figures +descended from it, and entered upon the field path through the stile.</p> + +<p>One—yes—it was surely the minister! The other—a woman. Who?</p> + +<p>Miss Faith!</p> + +<p>Glory met them upon the doorstone.</p> + +<p>Faith held her finger up.</p> + +<p>"I was afraid of disturbing my aunt," said she.</p> + +<p>"Take care of her, Glory," said her companion. "She has been in +frightful danger."</p> + +<p>"At the fire! And you——"</p> + +<p>"I was there in time, thank God!" spoke Roger Armstrong, from his soul.</p> + +<p>The two girls passed through to the blue bedroom, softly.</p> + +<p>Mr. Armstrong went back to the mills again, with horse and chaise.</p> + +<p>Glory shut the bedroom door.</p> + +<p>"Why, you are all wet, and draggled, and smoked!" said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> she, taking off +Faith's outer, borrowed garments. "What <i>has</i> happened to you—and how +came you there, Miss Faith?"</p> + +<p>"I fell asleep in the countingroom, last evening, and got locked in. I +was coming home. I can't tell you now, Glory. I don't dare to think it +all over, yet. And we mustn't let Aunt Faith know that I am here."</p> + +<p>These sentences they spoke in whispers.</p> + +<p>Glory asked no more; but brought warm water, and bathed and rubbed +Faith's feet, and helped her to undress, and put her night clothes on, +and covered her in bed with blankets, and then went away softly to the +kitchen, whence she brought back, presently, a cup of hot tea, and a +biscuit.</p> + +<p>"Take these, please," she said.</p> + +<p>"I don't think I can, Glory. I don't want anything."</p> + +<p>"But he told me to take care of you, Miss Faith!"</p> + +<p>That, also, had a power with Faith. Because he had said that, she drank +the tea, and then lay back—so tired!</p> + +<hr class='minor' /> + +<p>"I waited up till you came, sir, because I thought you would like to +know," said Glory, meeting Mr. Armstrong once more upon the doorstone, +as he returned a second time from the fire. "She's gone to sleep, and is +resting beautiful!"</p> + +<p>"You are a good girl, Glory, and I thank you," said the minister; and he +put his hand forth, and grasped hers as he spoke. "Now go to bed, and +rest, yourself."</p> + +<p>It was reward enough.</p> + +<p>From the plenitude that waits on one life, falls a crumb that stays the +craving of another.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXX." id="CHAPTER_XXX."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXX.</h2><h3>AUNT HENDERSON'S MYSTERY.</h3> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p>"Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west,<br /> +And I said in underbreath,—All our life is mixed with death,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">And who knoweth which is best?</span> +</p> +<p class='last'>"Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west,<br /> +And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around our incompleteness,— <br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">Round our restlessness, His rest."</span></p> +<p class='auth'>Mrs. Browning.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p class='last'>"So the dreams depart,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">So the fading phantoms flee, </span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the sharp reality</span><br /> +Now must act its part."</p> +<p class='auth'>Westwood.</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>It was a little after noon of the next day, when Mr. Rushleigh came to +Cross Corners.</p> + +<p>Faith was lying back, quite pale, and silent—feeling very weak after +the terror, excitement, and fatigue she had gone through—in the large +easy-chair which had been brought for her into the southeast room. Miss +Henderson had been removed from her bed to the sofa here, and the two +were keeping each other quiet company. Neither could bear the strain of +nerve to dwell long or particularly on the events of the night. The +story had been told, as simply as it might be; and the rest and the +thankfulness were all they could think of now. So there were deep +thoughts and few words between them. On Faith's part, a patient waiting +for a trial yet before her.</p> + +<p>"It's Mr. Rushleigh, come over to see Miss Faith. Shall I bring him in?" +asked Glory, at the door.</p> + +<p>"Will you mind it, aunt?" asked Faith.</p> + +<p>"I? No," said Miss Henderson. "Will you mind my being here? That's the +question. I'd take myself off, without asking, if I could, you know."</p> + +<p>"Dear Aunt Faith! There is something I have to say to Mr. Rushleigh +which will be very hard to say, but no more so because you will be by to +hear it. It is better so. I shall only have to say it once. I am glad +you should be with me."</p> + +<p>"Brave little Faithie!" said Mr. Rushleigh, coming in with hands +outstretched. "Not ill, I hope?"</p> + +<p>"Only tired," Faith answered. "And a little weak, and foolish," as the +tears would come, in answer to his cordial words.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry. Miss Henderson, that I could not have persuaded this little +girl to go home with me last night—this morning, rather. But she would +come to you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p> + +<p>"She did just right," Aunt Faith replied. "It's the proper place for her +to come to. Not but that we thank you all the same. You're very kind."</p> + +<p>"Kinder than I have deserved," whispered Faith, as he took his seat +beside her.</p> + +<p>Mr. Rushleigh would not let her lead him that way yet. He ignored the +little whisper, and by a gentle question or two drew from her that which +he had come, especially, to learn and speak of to-day—the story of the +fire, and her own knowledge of, and share in it, as she alone could tell +it.</p> + +<p>Now, for the first time, as she recalled it to explain her motive for +entering the mill at all, the rough conversation she had overheard +between the two men upon the river bank, suggested to Faith, as the +mention of it was upon her lips, a possible clew to the origin of the +mischief. She paused, suddenly, and a look of dismayed hesitation came +over her face.</p> + +<p>"I ought to tell you all, I suppose," she continued. "But pray, sir, do +not conclude anything hastily. The two things may have had nothing to do +with each other."</p> + +<p>And then, reluctantly, she repeated the angry threat that had come to +her ears.</p> + +<p>Pausing, timidly, to look up in her listener's face, to judge of its +expression, a smile there surprised her.</p> + +<p>"See how truth is always best," said Mr. Rushleigh. "If you had kept +back your knowledge of this, you would have sealed up a painful doubt +for your own tormenting. That man, James Regan, came to me this morning. +There is good in the fellow, after all. He told me, just as you have, +and as Hardy did, the words he spoke in passion. He was afraid, he said, +they might be brought up against him. And so he came to 'own up,' and +account for his time; and to beg me to believe that he never had any +definite thought of harm. I told him I did believe it; and then the poor +fellow, rough as he is, turned pale, and burst into tears. Last night +gave him a lesson, I think, that will go far to take the hardness out of +him. Blasland says, 'he worked like five men and a horse,' at the fire."</p> + +<p>Faith's face glowed as she listened, at the nobleness of these two; of +the generous, Christian gentleman—of the coarse workman, who wore his +nature, like his garb—the worse part of an everyday.</p> + +<p>Fire and loss are not all calamity, when such as this comes of them.</p> + +<p>Her own recital was soon finished.</p> + +<p>Mr. Rushleigh listened, giving his whole sympathy to the danger she had +faced, his fresh and fervent acknowledgment and admiring praise to the +prompt daring she had shown, as if these things, and naught else, had +been in either mind.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p> + +<p>At these thanks—at this praise—Faith shrank.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Rushleigh!" she interrupted, with a low, pained, humbled +entreaty—"don't speak so! Only forgive me—if you can!"</p> + +<p>Her hands lifted themselves with a slight, imploring gesture toward him. +He laid his own upon them, gently, soothingly.</p> + +<p>"I will not have you trouble or reproach yourself, Faith," he answered, +meeting her meaning, frankly, now. "There are things beyond our control. +All we can do is to be simply true. There is something, I know, which +you think lies between us to be spoken of. Do not speak at all, if it be +hard for you. I will tell the boy that it was a mistake—that it cannot +be."</p> + +<p>But the father's lip was a little unsteady, to his own feeling, as he +said the words.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Rushleigh!" cried Faith. "If everything could only be put back +as it was, in the old days before all this!"</p> + +<p>"But that is what we can't do. Nothing goes back precisely to what it +was before."</p> + +<p>"No," said Aunt Faith, from her sofa. "And never did, since the days of +Humpty Dumpty. You might be glad to, but you can't do it. Things must +just be made the best of, as they are. And they're never just alike, two +minutes together. They're altering, and working, and going on, all the +time. And that's a comfort, too, when you come to think of it."</p> + +<p>"There is always comfort, somehow, when there has been no willful wrong. +And there has been none here, I am sure."</p> + +<p>Faith, with the half smile yet upon her face, called there by her aunt's +quaint speaking, bent her head, and burst into tears.</p> + +<p>"I came to reassure and to thank you, Faith—not to let you distress +yourself so," said Mr. Rushleigh. "Margaret sent all kind messages; but +I would not bring her. I thought it would be too much for you, so soon. +Another day, she will come. We shall always claim old friendship, my +child, and remember our new debt; though the old days themselves cannot +quite be brought back again as they were. There may be better days, +though, even, by and by."</p> + +<p>"Let Margaret know, before she comes, please," whispered Faith. "I don't +think I could tell her."</p> + +<p>"You shall not have a moment of trial that I can spare you. But—Paul +will be content with nothing, as a final word, that does not come from +you."</p> + +<p>"I will see him when he comes. I wish it. Oh, sir! I am so sorry."</p> + +<p>"And so am I, Faith. We must all be sorry. But we are <i>only</i> sorry. And +that is all that need be said."</p> + +<p>The conversation, after this, could not be prolonged. Mr. Rushleigh took +his leave, kindly, as he had made his greeting.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Aunt Faith! What a terrible thing I have done!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What a terrible thing you came near doing, you mean, child! Be thankful +to the Lord—He's delivered you from it! And look well to the rest of +your life, after all this. Out of fire and misery you must have been +saved for something!"</p> + +<p>Then Aunt Faith called Glory, and told her to bring an egg, beat up in +milk—"to a good froth, mind; and sugared and nut-megged, and a +teaspoonful of brandy in it."</p> + +<p>This she made Faith swallow, and then bade her put her feet up on the +sofa, and lean back, and shut her eyes, and not speak another word till +she'd had a nap.</p> + +<p>All which, strangely enough, Faith—wearied, troubled, yet +relieved—obeyed.</p> + +<p>For the next two days, what with waiting on the invalids—for Faith was +far from well—and with answering the incessant calls at the door of +curious people flocking to inquire, Glory McWhirk was kept busy and +tired. But not with a thankless duty, as in the days gone by, that she +remembered; it was heart work now, and brought heart love as its reward. +It was one of her "real good times."</p> + +<p>Mr. Armstrong talked and read with them, and gave hand help and ministry +also, just when it could be given most effectually.</p> + +<p>It was a beautiful lull of peace between the conflict that was past, and +the final pang that was to come. Faith accepted it with a thankfulness. +Such joy as this was all life had for her, henceforth. There was no +restlessness, no selfishness in the love that had so suddenly asserted +itself, and borne down all her doubts. She thought not of it, as love, +any more. She never dreamed of being other to Mr. Armstrong than she +was. Only, that other life had become impossible to her. Here, if she +might not elsewhere, she had gone back to the things that were. She +could be quite content and happy, so. It was enough to rest in such a +friendship. If only she had once seen Paul, and if he could but bear it!</p> + +<p>And Roger Armstrong, of intent, was just what he had always been—the +kind and earnest friend—the ready helper—no more. He knew Faith +Gartney had a trouble to bear; he had read her perplexity—her +indecision; he had feared, unselfishly, for the mistake she was making. +Miss Henderson had told him, now, in few, plain words, how things were +ending; he strove, in all pleasant and thoughtful ways, to soothe and +beguile her from her harassment. He dreamed not how the light had come +to her that had revealed to her the insufficiency of that other love. He +laid his own love back, from his own sight.</p> + +<p>So, calmly, and with what peace they might, these hours went on.</p> + +<p>"I want to see that Sampson woman," said Aunt Faith, suddenly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> to her +niece, on the third afternoon of their being together. "Do you think she +would come over here if I should send for her?"</p> + +<p>Faith flashed a surprised look of inquiry to Miss Henderson's face.</p> + +<p>"Why, aunt?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Never mind why, child. I can't tell you now. Of course it's something, +or I shouldn't want her. Something I should like to know, and that I +suppose she could tell me. Do you think she'd come?"</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, auntie. I don't doubt it. I might write her a note."</p> + +<p>"I wish you would. Mr. Armstrong says he'll drive over. And I'd like to +have you do it right off. Now, don't ask me another word about it, till +she's been here."</p> + +<p>Faith wrote the note, and Mr. Armstrong went away.</p> + +<p>Miss Henderson seemed to grow tired, to-day, after her dinner, and at +four o'clock she said to Glory, abruptly:</p> + +<p>"I'll go to bed. Help me into the other room."</p> + +<p>Faith offered to go too, and assist her. But her aunt said, no, she +should do quite well with Glory. "And if the Sampson woman comes, send +her in to me."</p> + +<p>Faith was astonished, and a little frightened.</p> + +<p>What could it be that Miss Henderson wanted with the nurse? Was it +professionally that she wished to see her? She knew the peculiar whim, +or principle, Miss Sampson always acted on, of never taking cases of +common illness. She could not have sent for her in the hope of keeping +her merely to wait upon her wants as an invalid, and relieve Glory? Was +her aunt aware of symptoms in herself, foretokening other or more +serious illness?</p> + +<p>Faith could only wonder, and wait.</p> + +<p>Glory came back, presently, into the southeast room, to say to Faith +that her aunt was comfortable, and thought she should get a nap. But +that whenever the nurse came, she was to be shown in to her.</p> + +<p>The next half hour, that happened which drove even this thought utterly +from Faith's mind.</p> + +<p>Paul Rushleigh came.</p> + +<p>Faith lay, a little wearily, upon the couch her aunt had quitted; and +was thinking, at the very moment—with that sudden, breathless +anticipation that sweeps over one, now and then, of a thing awaited +apprehensively—of whether this Saturday night would not probably bring +him home—when she caught the sound of a horse's feet that stopped +before the house, and then a man's step upon the stoop.</p> + +<p>It was his. The moment had come.</p> + +<p>She sprang to her feet. For an instant she would have fled—anywhither.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> +Then she grew strangely calm and strong. She must meet him quietly. She +must tell him plainly. Tell him, if need be, all she knew herself. He +had a right to all.</p> + +<p>Paul came in, looking grave; and greeted her with a gentle reserve.</p> + +<p>A moment, they stood there as they had met, she with face pale, sad, +that dared not lift itself; he, not trusting himself to the utterance of +a word.</p> + +<p>But he had come there, not to reproach, or to bewail; not even to plead. +To hear—to bear with firmness—what she had to tell him. And there was, +in truth, a new strength and nobleness in look and tone, when, +presently, he spoke.</p> + +<p>If he had had his way—if all had gone prosperously with him—he would +have been, still—recipient of his father's bounty, and accepted of his +childish love—scarcely more than a mere, happy boy. This pain, this +struggle, this first rebuff of life, crowned him, a man.</p> + +<p>Faith might have loved him, now, if she had so seen him, first.</p> + +<p>Yet the hour would come when he should know that it had been better as +it was. That so he should grow to that which, otherwise, he had never +been.</p> + +<p>"Faith! My father has told me. That it must be all over. That it was a +mistake. I have come to hear it from you."</p> + +<p>Then he laid in her hand his father's letter.</p> + +<p>"This came with yours," he said. "After this, I expected all the rest."</p> + +<p>Faith took the open sheet, mechanically. With half-blinded eyes, she +glanced over the few earnest, fatherly, generous lines. When she came to +the last, she spoke, low.</p> + +<p>"Yes. That is it. He saw it. It would have been no true marriage, Paul, +before Heaven!"</p> + +<p>"Then why did I love you, Faith?" cried the young man, impetuously.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," she said, meditatively, as if she really were to answer +that. "Perhaps you will come to love again, differently, yet, Paul; and +then you may know why this has been."</p> + +<p>"I know," said Paul, sadly, "that you have been outgrowing me, Faith. I +have felt that. I know I've been nothing but a careless, merry fellow, +living an outside sort of life; and I suppose it was only in this +outside companionship you liked me. But there might be something more in +me, yet; and you might have brought it out, maybe. You <i>were</i> bringing +it out. You, and the responsibilities my father put upon me. But it's +too late, now. It can't be helped."</p> + +<p>"Not too late, Paul, for that noble part of you to grow. It was that I +came so near really loving at the last. But—Paul! a woman don't want to +lead her husband. She wants to be led.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> I have thought," she added, +timidly, "so much of that verse in the Epistle—'the head of the woman +is the man, and the head of the man is Christ, and the head of Christ is +God.'"</p> + +<p>"You came <i>near</i> loving me!" cried Paul, catching at this sentence, +only, out of all that should, by and by, nevertheless, come out in +letters of light upon his thought and memory. "Oh, Faith! you may, yet! +It isn't all quite over?"</p> + +<p>Then Faith Gartney knew she must say it all. All—though the hot crimson +flushed up painfully, and the breath came quick, and she trembled from +head to foot, there, where she stood. But the truth, mighty, and holy in +its might, came up from heart to lip, and the crimson paled, and the +breath grew calm, and she stood firm with her pure resolve, even in her +maidenly shame, before him.</p> + +<p>There are instants, when all thought of the moment itself, and the look +and the word of it, are overborne and lost.</p> + +<p>"No, Paul. I will tell you truly. With my little, childish heart, I +loved you. With the love of a dear friend, I hold you still, and shall +hold you, always. But, Paul!—no one else knows it, and I never knew it +till I stood face to face with death—with my <i>soul</i> I have come to love +another!"</p> + +<p>Deep and low these last words were—given up from the very innermost, +and spoken with bowed head and streaming eyes.</p> + +<p>Paul Rushleigh took her hand. A manly reverence in him recognized the +pure courage that unveiled her woman's heart, and showed him all.</p> + +<p>"Faith!" he said, "you have never deceived me. You are always noble. +Forgive me that I have made you struggle to love me!"</p> + +<p>With these words, he went.</p> + +<p>Faith flung herself upon the sofa, and hid her face in its cushion, +hearing, through her sobs, the tread of his horse as he passed down the +road.</p> + +<p>This chapter of her life story was closed.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXXI." id="CHAPTER_XXXI."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2><h3>NURSE SAMPSON'S WAY OF LOOKING AT IT.</h3> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p class='last'>"I can believe, it shall you grieve,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And somewhat you distrain;</span><br /> +But afterward, your paines hard,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Within a day or twain,</span><br /> +Shall soon aslake; and ye shall take <br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Comfort to you again."</span></p> +<p class='auth'>Old English Ballad.</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + + +<p>Glory looked in, once, at the southeast room, and saw Faith lying, still +with hidden face; and went away softly, shutting the door behind her as +she went.</p> + +<p>When Mr. Armstrong and Miss Sampson came, she met them at the front +entrance, and led the nurse directly to her mistress, as she had been +told.</p> + +<p>Mr. Armstrong betook himself to his own room. Perhaps the hollow Paul +Rushleigh's horse had pawed at the gatepost, and the closed door of the +keeping room, revealed something to his discernment that kept him from +seeking Faith just then.</p> + +<p>There was a half hour of quiet in the old house. A quiet that ever +brooded very much.</p> + +<p>Then Nurse Sampson came out, with a look on her face that made Faith +gaze upon her with an awed feeling of expectation. She feared, suddenly, +to ask a question.</p> + +<p>It was not a long-drawn look of sympathy. It was not surprised, nor +shocked, nor excited. It was a look of business. As if she knew of work +before her to do. As if Nurse Sampson were in her own proper element, +once more.</p> + +<p>Faith knew that something—she could not guess what—something terrible, +she feared—had happened, or was going to happen, to her aunt.</p> + +<p>It was in the softening twilight that Miss Henderson sent for her to +come in.</p> + +<p>Aunt Faith leaned against her pillows, looking bright and comfortable, +even cheerful; but there was a strange gentleness in look and word and +touch, as she greeted the young girl who came to her bedside with a face +that wore at once its own subduedness of fresh-past grief, and a +wondering, loving apprehension of something to be disclosed concerning +the kind friend who lay there, invested so with such new grace of +tenderness.</p> + +<p>Was there a twilight, other than that of day, softening, also, around +her?</p> + +<p>"Little Faith!" said Aunt Henderson. Her very voice had taken an +unwonted tone.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Auntie! It is surely something very grave! Will you not tell me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, child. I mean to tell you. It may be grave. Most things are, if we +had the wisdom to see it. But it isn't very dreadful. It's what I've had +warning enough of, and had mostly made up my mind to. But I wasn't quite +sure. Now, I am. I suppose I've got to bear some pain, and go through a +risk that will be greater, at my years, than it would have been if I'd +been younger. And I may die. That's all."</p> + +<p>The words, of old habit, were abrupt. The eye and voice were tender with +unspoken love.</p> + +<p>Faith turned to Miss Sampson, who sat by.</p> + +<p>"And then, again, she mayn't," said the nurse. "I shall stay and see her +through. There'll have to be an operation. At least, I think so. We'll +have the doctor over, to-morrow. And now, if there's one thing more +important than another, it's to keep her cheerful. So, if you've got +anything bright and lively to say, speak out! If not, <i>keep</i> out! She'll +do well enough, I dare say."</p> + +<p>Poor Faith! And, without this new trouble, there was so much that she, +herself, was needing comfort for!</p> + +<p>"You're a wise woman, Nurse Sampson. But you don't know everything," +said Aunt Faith. "The best thing to take people out of their own +worries, is to go to work and find out how other folks' worries are +getting on. He's been here, hasn't he, child?"</p> + +<p>It was not so hard for Aunt Faith, who had borne secretly, so long, the +suspicion of what was coming, and had lived on, calmly, nevertheless, in +her daily round, to turn thus from the announcement of her own state and +possible danger, to thought and inquiry for the affairs of another, as +it was for that other, newly apprised, and but half apprised, even, of +what threatened, to leave the subject there, and answer. But she saw +that Miss Henderson spoke only truth in declaring it was the best way to +take her out of her worries; she read Nurse Sampson's look, and saw that +she, at any rate, was quite resolved her patient should not be let to +dwell longer on any painful or apprehensive thought, and she put off all +her own anxious questionings, till she should see the nurse alone, and +said, in a low tone—yes, Paul Rushleigh had been there.</p> + +<p>"And you've told him the truth, like a woman, and he's heard it like a +man?"</p> + +<p>"I've told him it must be given up. Oh, it was hard, auntie!"</p> + +<p>"You needn't worry. You've done just the rightest thing you could do."</p> + +<p>"But it seems so selfish. As if my happiness were of so much more +consequence than his. I've made him so miserable, I'm afraid!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Miss Sampson!" cried Aunt Faith, with all her old oddity and +suddenness, "just tell this girl, if you know, what kind of a +commandment a woman breaks, if she can't make up her mind to marry the +first man that asks her! 'Tain't in <i>my</i> Decalogue!"</p> + +<p>"I can't tell what commandment she won't be likely to break, if she +isn't pretty sure of her own mind before she <i>does</i> marry!" said Miss +Sampson, energetically. "Talk of making a man miserable! Supposing you +do for a little while? 'Twon't last long. Right's right, and settles +itself. Wrong never does. And there isn't a greater wrong than to marry +the wrong man. To him as well as to you. And it won't end there—that's +the worst of it. There's more concerned than just yourself and him; +though you mayn't know how, or who. It's an awful thing to tangle up and +disarrange the plans of Providence. And more of it's done, I verily +believe, in this matter of marrying, than any other way. It's like +mismatching anything else—gloves or stockings—and wearing the wrong +ones together. They don't fit; and more'n that, it spoils another pair. +I believe, as true as I live, if the angels ever do cry over this +miserable world, it's when they see the souls they have paired off, all +right, out of heaven, getting mixed up and mismated as they do down +here! Why, it's fairly enough to account for all the sin and misery +there is in the world! If it wasn't for Adam and Eve and Cain, I should +think it did!"</p> + +<p>"But it's very hard," said Faith, smiling, despite all her saddening +thoughts, at the characteristic harangue, "always to know wrong from +right. People may make mistakes, if they mean ever so well."</p> + +<p>"Yes, awful mistakes! There's that poor, unfortunate woman in the Bible. +I never thought the Lord meant any reflection by what he said—on her. +She'd had six husbands. And he knew she hadn't got what she bargained +for, after all. Most likely she never had, in the whole six. And if +things had got into such a snarl as that eighteen hundred years ago, how +many people, do you think, by this time, are right enough in themselves +to be right for anybody? I've thought it all over, many a time. I've had +reasons of my own, and I've seen plenty of reasons as I've gone about +the world. And my conclusion is, that matrimony's come to be more of a +discipline, nowadays, than anything else!"</p> + +<p>It was strange cheer; and it came at a strange moment; with the very +birth of a new anxiety. But so our moments and their influences are +mingled. Faith was roused, strengthened, confirmed in her own thought of +right, beguiled out of herself, by the words of these two odd, +plain-dealing women, as she would not have been if a score of +half-comprehending friends had soothed her indirectly with inanities, +and delicate half-handling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> of that which Aunt Faith and Nurse Sampson +went straight to the heart of, and brought out, uncompromisingly, into +the light. So much we can endure from a true earnestness and simplicity, +rough and homely though it be, which would be impertinent and +intolerable if it came but with surface sympathy.</p> + +<p>She had a word that night from Robert Armstrong, when he came, late in +the evening, from a conversation with Aunt Faith, and found her at the +open door upon the stoop. It was only a hand grasp, and a fervent "God +bless you, child! You have been brave and true!" and he passed on. But a +balm and a quiet fell deep into her heart, and a tone, that was a joy, +lingered in her ear, and comforted her as no other earthly comfort +could. But this was not all earthly; it lifted her toward heaven. It +bore her toward the eternal solace there.</p> + +<p>Aunt Faith would have no scenes. She told the others, in turn, very much +as she had told Faith, that a suffering and an uncertainty lay before +her; and then, by her next word and gesture, demanded that the life +about her should go right on, taking as slightly as might be its +coloring from this that brooded over her. Nobody had a chance to make a +wail. There was something for each to do.</p> + +<p>Miss Henderson, by Nurse Sampson's advice, remained mostly in her bed. +In fact, she had kept back the announcement of this ailment of hers, +just so long as she could resist its obvious encroachment. The twisted +ankle had been, for long, a convenient explanation of more than its own +actual disability.</p> + +<p>But it was not a sick room—one felt that—this little limited bound in +which her life was now visibly encircled. All the cheer of the house was +brought into it. If people were sorry and fearful, it was elsewhere. +Neither Aunt Faith nor the nurse would let anybody into "their +hospital," as Miss Sampson said, "unless they came with a bright look +for a pass." Every evening, the great Bible was opened there, and Mr. +Armstrong read with them, and uttered for them words that lifted each +heart, with its secret need and thankfulness, to heaven. All together, +trustfully, and tranquilly, they waited.</p> + +<p>Dr. Wasgatt had been called in. Quite surprised he was, at this new +development. He "had thought there was something a little peculiar in +her symptoms." But he was one of those Æsculapian worthies who, having +lived a scientifically uneventful life, plodding quietly along in his +profession among people who had mostly been ill after very ordinary +fashions, and who required only the administering of stereotyped +remedies, according to the old stereotyped order and rule, had quite +forgotten to think of the possibility of any unusual complications. If +anybody were taken ill of a colic, and sent for him and told him so, for +a colic he prescribed, according to outward indications. The subtle +signs that to a keener or more practiced discernment,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> might have +betokened more, he never thought of looking for. What then? All cannot +be geniuses; most men just learn a trade. It is only a Columbus who, by +the drift along the shore of the fact or continent he stands on, +predicates another, far over, out of sight.</p> + +<p>Surgeons were to come out from Mishaumok to consult. Mr. and Mrs. +Gartney would be home, now, in a day or two, and Aunt Faith preferred to +wait till then. Mis' Battis opened the Cross Corners house, and Faith +went over, daily, to direct the ordering of things there.</p> + +<p>"Faith!" said Miss Henderson, on the Wednesday evening when they were to +look confidently for the return of their travelers next day, "come here, +child! I have something to say to you."</p> + +<p>Faith was sitting alone, there, with her aunt, in the twilight.</p> + +<p>"There's one thing on my mind, that I ought to speak of, as things have +turned out. When I thought, a few weeks ago, that you were provided for, +as far as outside havings go, I made a will, one day. Look in that +right-hand upper bureau drawer, and you'll find a key, with a brown +ribbon to it. That'll unlock a black box on the middle shelf of the +closet. Open it, and take out the paper that lies on the top, and bring +it to me."</p> + +<p>Faith did all this, silently.</p> + +<p>"Yes, this is it," said Miss Henderson, putting on her glasses, which +were lying on the counterpane, and unfolding the single sheet, written +out in her own round, upright, old-fashioned hand. "It's an old woman's +whim; but if you don't like it, it shan't stand. Nobody knows of it, and +nobody'll be disappointed. I had a longing to leave some kind of a happy +life behind me, if I could, in the Old House. It's only an earthly +clinging and hankering, maybe; but I'd somehow like to feel sure, being +the last of the line, that there'd be time for my bones to crumble away +comfortably into dust, before the old timbers should come down. I meant, +once, you should have had it all; but it seemed as if you wasn't going +to <i>need</i> it, and as if there was going to be other kind of work cut out +for you to do. And I'm persuaded there is yet, somewhere. So I've done +this; and I want you to know it beforehand, in case anything goes +wrong—no, not that, but unexpectedly—with me."</p> + +<p>She reached out the paper, and Faith took it from her hand. It was not +long in reading.</p> + +<p>A light shone out of Faith's eyes, through the tears that sprang to +them, as she finished it, and gave it back.</p> + +<p>"Aunt Faith!" she said, earnestly. "It is beautiful! I am so glad! But, +auntie! You'll get well, I know, and begin it yourself!"</p> + +<p>"No," said Miss Henderson, quietly. "I may get over this, and I don't +say I shouldn't be glad to. But I'm an old tree, and the ax is lying, +ground, somewhere, that's to cut me down before very long. Old folks +can't change their ways, and begin new plans and doings. I'm only +thankful that the Lord has sent me a thought that lightens all the dread +I've had for years about leaving the old place; and that I can go, +thinking maybe there'll be His work doing in it as long as it stands."</p> + +<p>"I don't know," she resumed, after a pause, "how your father's affairs +are now. The likelihood is, if he has any health, that he'll go into +some kind of a venture again before very long. But I shall have a talk +with him, and if he isn't satisfied I'll alter it so as to do something +more for you."</p> + +<p>"Something more!" said Faith. "But you have done a great deal, as it is! +I didn't say so, because I was thinking so much of the other."</p> + +<p>"It won't make an heiress of you," said Aunt Faith. "But it'll be better +than nothing, if other means fall short. And I don't feel, somehow, as +if you need be a burden on my mind. There's a kind of a certainty borne +in on me, otherwise. I can't help thinking that what I've done has been +a leading. And if it has, it's right. Now, put this back, and tell Miss +Sampson she may bring my gruel."</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXXII." id="CHAPTER_XXXII."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXII.</h2><h3>GLORY McWHIRK'S INSPIRATION.</h3> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p>"No bird am I to sing in June,<br /> +And dare not ask an equal boon.<br /> +Good nests and berries red are Nature's <br /> +To give away to better creatures,—<br /> +And yet my days go on, go on."</p> +<p class='auth'>Mrs. Browning.</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>Mr. and Mrs. Gartney arrived on Thursday.</p> + +<p>Two weeks and three days they had been absent; and in that time how the +busy sprites of change and circumstance had been at work! As if the +scattered straws of events, that, stretched out in slender windrows, +might have reached across a field of years, had been raked together, and +rolled over—crowded close, and heaped, portentous, into these eighteen +days!</p> + +<p>Letters had told them something; of the burned mill, and Faith's fearful +danger and escape; of Aunt Henderson's continued illness, and its +present serious aspect; and with this last intelligence, which met them +in New York but two days since, Mrs. Gartney found her daughter's +agitated note of pained avowal, that she "had come, through all this, to +know herself better, and to feel sure that this marriage ought not to +be";<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> that, in short, all was at length over between her and Paul +Rushleigh.</p> + +<p>It was a meeting full of thought—where much waited for speech that +letters could neither have conveyed nor satisfied—when Faith and her +father and mother exchanged the kiss of love and welcome, once more, in +the little home at Cross Corners.</p> + +<p>It was well that Mis' Battis had made waffles, and spread a tempting +summer tea with these and her nice, white bread, and fruits and creams; +and wished, with such faint impatience as her huge calm was capable of, +that "they would jest set right down, while things was good and hot"; +and that Hendie was full of his wonderful adventures by boat and train, +and through the wilds; so that these first hours were gotten over, and +all a little used to the old feeling of being together again, before +there was opportunity for touching upon deeper subjects.</p> + +<p>It came at length—the long evening talk, after Hendie was in bed, and +Mr. Gartney had been over to the old house, and seen his aunt, and had +come back, to find wife and daughter sitting in the dim light beside the +open door, drawn close in love and confidence, and so glad and thankful +to have each other back once more!</p> + +<p>First—Aunt Faith; and what was to be done—what might be hoped—what +must be feared—for her. Then, the terrible story of the fire; and all +about it, that could only be got at by the hundred bits of question and +answer, and the turning over and over, and repetition, whereby we do the +best—the feeble best—we can, to satisfy great askings and deep +sympathies that never can be anyhow made palpable in words.</p> + +<p>And, last of all—just with the good-night kiss—Faith and her mother +had had it all before, in the first minutes they were left alone +together—Mr. Gartney said to his daughter:</p> + +<p>"You are quite certain, now, Faith?"</p> + +<p>"Quite certain, father"; Faith answered, low, with downcast eyes, as she +stood before him.</p> + +<p>Her father laid his hand upon her head.</p> + +<p>"You are a good girl; and I don't blame you; yet I thought you would +have been safe and happy, so."</p> + +<p>"I am safe and happy here at home," said Faith.</p> + +<p>"Home is in no hurry to spare you, my child."</p> + +<p>And Faith felt taken back to daughterhood once more.</p> + +<p>Margaret Rushleigh had been to see her, before this. It was a painful +visit, with the mingling of old love and new restraint; and the effort, +on either side, to show that things, except in the one particular, were +still unchanged.</p> + +<p>Faith felt how true it was that "nothing could go back, precisely, to +what it was before."</p> + +<p>There was another visit, a day or two after the reassembling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> of the +family at Cross Corners. This was to say farewell. New plans had been +made. It would take some time to restore the mills to working order, and +Mr. Rushleigh had not quite resolved whether to sell them out as they +were, or to retain the property. Mrs. Rushleigh wished Margaret to join +her at Newport, whither the Saratoga party was to go within the coming +week. Then there was talk of another trip to Europe. Margaret had never +been abroad. It was very likely they would all go out in October.</p> + +<p>Paul's name was never mentioned.</p> + +<p>Faith realized, painfully, how her little hand had been upon the motive +power of much that was all ended, now.</p> + +<p>Two eminent medical men had been summoned from Mishaumok, and had held +consultation with Dr. Wasgatt upon Miss Henderson's case. It had been +decided to postpone the surgical operation for two or three weeks. +Meanwhile, she was simply to be kept comfortable and cheerful, +strengthened with fresh air, and nourishing food, and some slight +tonics.</p> + +<p>Faith was at the old house, constantly. Her aunt craved her presence, +and drew her more and more to herself. The strong love, kept down by a +stiff, unbending manner, so, for years—resisting almost its own +growth—would no longer be denied or concealed. Faith Gartney had +nestled herself into the very core of this true, upright heart, +unpersuadable by anything but clear judgment and inflexible conscience.</p> + +<p>"I had a beautiful dream last night, Miss Faith," said Glory, one +morning, when Faith came over and found the busy handmaiden with her +churn upon the doorstone, "about Miss Henderson. I thought she was all +well, and strong, and she looked so young, and bright, and pleasant! And +she told me to make a May Day. And we had it out here in the field. And +everybody had a crown; and everybody was queen. And the little children +danced round the old apple tree, and climbed up, and rode horseback in +the branches. And Miss Henderson was out there, dressed in white, and +looking on. It don't seem so—just to say it; but I couldn't tell you +how beautiful it was!"</p> + +<p>"Dreams are strange things," said Faith, thoughtfully. "It seems as if +they were sent to us, sometimes—as if we really had a sort of life in +them."</p> + +<p>"Don't they?" cried Glory, eagerly. "Why, Miss Faith, I've dreamed on, +and on, sometimes, a whole story out! And, after all, we're asleep +almost as much as we're awake. Why isn't it just as real?"</p> + +<p>"I had a dream that night of the fire, Glory. I never shall forget it. I +went to sleep there, on the sofa. And it seemed as if I were on the top +of a high, steep cliff, with no way to get down. And all at once, there +was fire behind me—a burning mountain! And it came nearer, and nearer, +till it scorched my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> very feet; and there was no way down. And then—it +was so strange!—I knew Mr. Armstrong was coming. And two hands took +me—just as his did, afterwards—and I felt so safe! And then I woke, +and it all happened. When he came, I felt as if I had called him."</p> + +<p>The dasher of the churn was still, and Glory stood, breathless, in a +white excitement, gazing into Faith's eyes.</p> + +<p>"And so you did, Miss Faith! Somehow—through the dreamland—you +certainly did!"</p> + +<p>Faith went in to her aunt, and Glory churned and pondered.</p> + +<p>Were these two to go on, dreaming, and calling to each other "through +the dreamland," and never, in the daylight, and their waking hours, +speak out?</p> + +<p>This thought, in vague shape, turned itself, restlessly, in Glory's +brain.</p> + +<p>Other brains revolved a like thought, also.</p> + +<p>"Somebody talked about a 'ripe pear,' once. I wonder if that one isn't +ever going to fall!"</p> + +<p>Nurse Sampson wondered thus, as she settled Miss Henderson in her +armchair before the window, and they saw Roger Armstrong and Faith +Gartney walk up the field together in the sunset light.</p> + +<p>"I suppose it wouldn't take much of a jog to do it. But, maybe, it's as +well to leave it to the Lord's sunshine. He'll ripen it, if He sees +fit."</p> + +<p>"It's a pretty picture, anyhow. There's the new moon exactly over their +right shoulders, if they'd only turn their heads to look at it. I don't +think much of signs; but, somehow, I always <i>do</i> like to have that one +come right!"</p> + +<p>"Well, it's there, whether they've found it out, or not," replied Aunt +Faith.</p> + +<p>Glory sat on the flat doorstone. She had the invariable afternoon +knitting work in her hand; but hand and work had fallen to her lap, and +her eyes were away upon the glittering, faint crescent of the moon, that +pierced the golden mist of sunset. Close by, the evening star had filled +his chalice of silver splendor.</p> + +<p>"The star and the moon only see each other. I can see both. It is +better."</p> + +<p>She had come to the feeling of Roger Armstrong's sermon. To receive +consciously, as she had through her whole, life intuitively and +unwittingly, all beauty of all being about her into the secret beauty of +her own. She could be glad with the gladness of the whole world.</p> + +<p>The two came up, and Glory rose, and stood aside.</p> + +<p>"You have had thoughts, to-night, Glory," said the minister. "Where have +they been?"</p> + +<p>"Away, there," answered Glory, pointing to the western sky.</p> + +<p>They turned, and followed her gesture; and from up there, at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> their +right, beyond, came down the traditional promise of the beautiful young +moon.</p> + +<p>Glory had shown it them.</p> + +<p>"And I've been thinking, besides," said Glory, "about that dream of +yours, Miss Faith. I've thought of it all day. Please tell it to Mr. +Armstrong?"</p> + +<p>And Glory disappeared down the long passage to the kitchen, and left +them standing there, together. She went straight to the tin baker before +the fire, and lifted the cover, to see if her biscuits were ready for +tea. Then she seated herself upon a little bench that stood against the +chimney-side, and leaned her head against the bricks, and looked down +into the glowing coals.</p> + +<p>"It was put into my head to do it!" she said, breathlessly, to herself. +"I hope it wasn't ridiculous!"</p> + +<p>So she sat, and gazed on, into the coals. <i>They</i> were out there in the +sunset, with the new moon and the bright star above them in the saffron +depths.</p> + +<p>They stood alone, except for each other, in this still, radiant beauty +of all things.</p> + +<p>Miss Henderson's window was around a projection of the rambling, +irregular structure, which made the angle wherein the pleasant old +doorstone lay.</p> + +<p>"May I have your dream, Miss Faith?"</p> + +<p>She need not be afraid to tell a simple dream. Any more, at this moment, +than when she told it to Glory, that morning, on that very spot. Why did +she feel, that if she should speak a syllable of it now, the truth that +lay behind it would look out, resistless, through its veil? That she +could not so keep down its spirit-meaning, that it should not flash, +electric, from her soul to his?</p> + +<p>"It was only—that night," she said, tremulously. "It seemed very +strange. Before the fire, I had the dream. It was a dream of fire and +danger—danger that I could not escape from. And I held out my +hands—and I found you there—and you saved me. Oh, Mr. Armstrong! As you +<i>did</i> save me, afterwards!"</p> + +<p>Roger Armstrong turned, and faced her. His deep, earnest eyes, lit with +a new, strange radiance, smote upon hers, and held them spellbound with +their glance.</p> + +<p>"I, too, dreamed that night," said he, "of an unknown peril to you. You +beckoned me. I sprang from out that dream, and rushed into the +night—until I found you!"</p> + +<p>Their two souls met, in that brief recital, and knew that they had met +before. That, through the dreamland, there had been that call and +answer.</p> + +<p>Faith neither spoke, nor stirred, nor trembled. This supreme moment of +her life held her unmoved in its own mightiness.</p> + +<p>Roger Armstrong held out both his hands.</p> + +<p>"Faith! In the sight of God, I believe you belong to me!"</p> + +<p>At that solemn word, of force beyond all claim of a mere mortal love, +Faith stretched her hands in answer, and laid them into his, and bowed +her head above them.</p> + +<p>"In the sight of God, I belong to you!"</p> + +<p>So she gave herself. So she was taken. As God's gift, to the heart that +had been earthly desolate so long.</p> + +<p>There was no dread, no shrinking, in that moment. A perfect love cast +out all fear.</p> + +<p>And the new moon and the evening star shone down together in an absolute +peace.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII." id="CHAPTER_XXXIII."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h2><h3>LAST HOURS.</h3> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p class='last'>"In this dim world of clouding cares<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">We rarely know, till 'wildered eyes</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">See white wings lessening up the skies,</span><br /> +The angels with us unawares.<br /> + · + · + · + · + · + · +<br /> +"Strange glory streams through life's wild rents, <br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And through the open door of death</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">We see the heaven that beckoneth</span><br /> +To the beloved going hence."</p> +<p class='auth'>Gerald Massey.</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>"Read me the twenty-third Psalm," said Miss Henderson.</p> + +<p>It was the evening before the day fixed upon by her physicians for the +surgical operation she had decided to submit to.</p> + +<p>Faith was in her place by the bedside, her hand resting in that of her +aunt. Mr. Armstrong sat near—an open Bible before him. Miss Sampson had +gone down the field for a "snatch of air."</p> + +<p>Clear upon the stillness fell the sacred words of cheer. There was a +strong, sure gladness in the tone that uttered them, that told they were +born anew, in the breathing, from a heart that had proved the goodness +and mercy of the Lord.</p> + +<p>In a solemn gladness, also, two other hearts received them, and said, +silently, Amen!</p> + +<p>"Now the fourteenth of St. John."</p> + +<p>"'In my father's house are many mansions.' 'I will dwell in the house of +the Lord, forever.' Yes. It holds us all. Under one roof. One +family—whatever happens! Now, put away the book, and come here; you +two!"</p> + +<p>It was done; and Roger Armstrong and Faith Gartney stood up, side by +side, before her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I haven't said so before, because I wouldn't set people troubling +beforehand. But in my own mind, I'm pretty sure of what's coming. And if +I hadn't felt so all along, I should now. When the Lord gives us our +last earthly wish, and the kind of peace comes over that seems as if it +couldn't be disturbed by anything, any more, we may know, by the hush of +it, that the day is done. I'm going to bid you good night, Faith, and +send you home. Say your prayers, and thank God, for yourself and for me. +Whatever you hear of me, to-morrow, take it for good news; for it <i>will</i> +be good. Roger Armstrong! Take care of the child! Child! love your +husband; and trust in him; for you may!"</p> + +<p>Close, close—bent Faith above her aunt, and gave and took that solemn +good-night kiss.</p> + +<p>"'The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the +communion of the Holy Ghost, be with us all. Amen!'"</p> + +<p>With the word of benediction, Roger Armstrong turned from the bedside, +and led Faith away.</p> + +<p>And the deeper shadows of night fell, and infolded the Old House, and +the hours wore on, and all was still. Stillest, calmest of all, in the +soul of her who had dwelt there for nearly threescore years and ten, and +who knew, none the less, that it would be surely home to her wheresoever +her place might be given her next, in that wide and beautiful "House of +the Lord!"</p> + +<p>It was a strange day that succeeded; when they sat, waiting so, through +those morning hours, keeping such Sabbath as heart and life do keep, and +are keeping, somewhere, always, in whatever busy workday of the world, +when great issues come to solemnize the time.</p> + +<p>Almost as still at the Old House as at Cross Corners. No hurry. No +bustle. Glory quietly doing her needful duties, and obeying all +direction of the nurse. Mr. Armstrong in his own room, in readiness +always, for any act or errand that might be required of him. Henderson +Gartney alone in that ancient parlor at the front. The three physicians +and Miss Sampson shut with Aunt Faith into her room. A faint, breathless +odor of ether creeping everywhere, even out into the summer air.</p> + +<p>It was eleven o'clock, when a word was spoken to Roger Armstrong, and he +took his hat and walked across the field. Faith, with pale, asking face, +met him at the door.</p> + +<p>"Well—thus far," was the message; and a kiss fell upon the uplifted +forehead, and a look of boundless love and sympathy into the fair, +anxious eyes. "All has been done; and she is comfortable. There may +still be danger; but the worst is past."</p> + +<p>Then a brazen veil fell from before the face of day. The sunshine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> +looked golden again, and the song of birds rang out, unmuffled. The +strange, Sabbath stillness might be broken. They could speak common +words, once more.</p> + +<p>Faith and her mother sat there, in the hillside parlor, talking +thankfully, and happily, with Roger Armstrong. So a half hour passed by. +Mr. Gartney would come, with further tidings, when he had been able to +speak with the physicians.</p> + +<p>The shadows of shrub and tree crept and shortened to the lines of noon, +and still, no word. They began to wonder, why.</p> + +<p>Mr. Armstrong would go back. He might be wanted, somehow. They should +hear again, immediately, unless he were detained.</p> + +<p>He was not detained. They watched him up the field, and into the angle +of the doorway. He was hidden there a moment, but not more. Then they +saw him turn, as one lingering and reluctant, and retrace his steps +toward them.</p> + +<p>"Faith! Stay here, darling! Let me meet him first," said Mrs. Gartney.</p> + +<p>Faith shrank back, fearful of she knew not what, into the room they had +just quitted.</p> + +<p>A sudden, panic dread and terror seized her. She felt her hearing +sharpened, strained, involuntarily. She should catch that first word, +however it might be spoken. She dared not hear it, yet. Out at the +hillside door, into the shade of the deep evergreens, she passed, with a +quick impulse.</p> + +<p>Thither Roger Armstrong followed, presently, and found her. With the +keen instinct of a loving sympathy, he knew she fled from speech. So he +put his arm about her, silently, tenderly; and led her on, and up, under +the close, cool shade, the way their steps had come to know so well.</p> + +<p>"Take it for good news, darling. For it is good," he said, at last, when +he had placed her in the rocky seat, where she had listened to so many +treasured words—to that old, holy confidence—of his.</p> + +<p>And there he comforted her.</p> + +<hr class='minor' /> + +<p>A sudden sinking—a prostration beyond what they had looked for, had +surprised her attendants; and, almost with their notice of the change, +the last, pale, gray shadow had swept up over the calm, patient face, +and good Aunt Faith had passed away.</p> + +<p>Away—for a little. Not out of God's house. Not lost out of His +household.</p> + +<hr class='minor' /> + +<p>This was her will.</p> + +<div class='blockquot'> +<p>"I, Faith Henderson, spinster, in sound mind, and of my own will, +direct these things.</p> + +<p>"That to my dear grandniece, Faith Henderson Gartney, be given from +me, as my bequest, that portion of my worldly property now +invested in two stores in D—— Street, in the city of Mishaumok. +That this property and interest be hers, for her own use and +disposal, with my love.</p> + +<p>"Also, that my plate, and my box of best house linen, which stands +beside the press in the northwest chamber, be given to her, Faith +Henderson Gartney; and that my nephew, Henderson Gartney, shall, +according to his own pleasure and judgment, appropriate and dispose +of any books, or articles of old family value and interest. But +that beds, bedding, and all heavy household furniture, with a +proper number of chairs and other movables, be retained in the +house, for its necessary and suitable furnishing.</p> + +<p>"And then, that all this residue of personal effects, and my real +estate in the Old Homestead at Kinnicutt Cross Corners, and my +shares in the Kinnicutt Bank, be placed in the hands of my nephew, +Henderson Gartney, to be held in trust during the natural life of +my worthy and beloved handmaiden, Gloriana McWhirk; for her to +occupy said house, and use said furniture, and the income of said +property, so long as she can find at least four orphan children to +maintain therewith, and 'make a good time for, every day.'</p> + +<p>"Provided, that in case the said Gloriana McWhirk shall marry, or +shall no longer so employ this property, or in case that she shall +die, said property is to revert to my above-named grandniece, Faith +Henderson Gartney, for her and her heirs, to their use and behoof +forever.</p> + +<p>"And if there be any failure of a legal binding in this paper that +I write, I charge it upon my nephew, Henderson Gartney, on his +conscience, as I believe him to be a true and honest man, to see +that these my effects are so disposed of, according to my plain +will and intention.</p> + +<p style="text-align:right;">"(Signed) FAITH HENDERSON.</p> + +<p>"(Witnessed)<br /> +<span class="smcap"> Roger Armstrong</span>,<br /> +<span class="smcap"> Hiram Wasgatt</span>,<br /> +<span class="smcap"> Luther Goodell</span>."</p> +</div> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV." id="CHAPTER_XXXIV."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXIV.</h2><h3>MRS. PARLEY GIMP.</h3> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p class='last'>"The best laid schemes o' mice an' men <br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">Gang aft agley."</span></p> +<p class='auth'>Burns.</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>Kinnicott had got an enormous deal to talk about. The excitement of the +great fire, and the curiosity and astonishment concerning Miss Gartney's +share in the events of that memorable night had hardly passed into the +quietude of things discussed to death and laid away, unwillingly, in +their graves, when all this that had happened at Cross Corners poured +itself, in a flood of wonder, upon the little community.</p> + +<p>Not all, quite, at once, however. Faith's engagement was not, at first, +spoken of publicly. There was no need, in this moment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> of their common +sorrow, to give their names to the little world about them, for such +handling as it might please. Yet the little world found plenty to say, +and a great many plans to make for them, none the less.</p> + +<p>Miss Henderson's so long unsuspected, and apparently brief illness, her +sudden death, and the very singular will whose provisions had somehow +leaked out, as matters of the sort always do, made a stir and ferment in +the place, and everybody felt bound to arrive at some satisfactory +conclusion which should account for all, and to get a clear idea of what +everybody immediately concerned would do, or ought, in the +circumstances, to do next, before they—the first everybodies—could eat +and sleep, and go comfortably about their own business again, in the +ordinary way.</p> + +<p>They should think Mr. Gartney would dispute the will. It couldn't be a +very hard matter, most likely, to set it aside. All that farm, and the +Old Homestead, and her money in the bank, going to that Glory McWhirk! +Why, it was just ridiculous. The old lady must have been losing her +faculties. One thing was certain, anyway. The minister was out of a +boarding place again. So that question came up, in all its intricate +bearings, once more.</p> + +<p>This time Mrs. Gimp struck, while, as she thought, the iron was hot.</p> + +<p>Mr. Parley Gimp met Mr. Armstrong, one morning, in the village street, +and waylaid him to say that "his good lady thought she could make room +for him in their family, if it was so that he should be looking out for +a place to stay at."</p> + +<p>Mr. Armstrong thanked him; but, for the present, he was to remain at +Cross Corners.</p> + +<p>"At the Old House?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir. At Mr. Gartney's."</p> + +<p>The iron was cold, after all.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Parley Gimp called, one day, a week or two later, when the minister +was out. A visit of sympathetic scrutiny.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it was a great loss, certainly. But then, at her age, you know, +ma'am! We must all expect these things. It was awfully sudden, to be +sure. Must have been a terrible shock. Was her mind quite clear at the +last, ma'am?"</p> + +<p>"Perfectly. Clear, and calm, and happy, through it all."</p> + +<p>"That's very pleasant to think of now, I'm sure. But I hear she's made a +very extraordinary arrangement about the property. You can't tell, +though, to be sure, about all you hear, nowadays."</p> + +<p>"No, Mrs. Gimp. That is very true," said Mrs. Gartney.</p> + +<p>"Everybody always expected that it would all come to you. At least, to +your daughter. She seemed to make so much of her."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p> + +<p>"My daughter is quite satisfied, and we for her."</p> + +<p>"Well, I must say!—and so Mr. Armstrong is to board here, now? A little +out of the way of most of the parish, isn't it? I never could see, +exactly, what put it into his head to come so far. Not but what he makes +out to do his duty as a pastor, pretty prompt, too. I don't hear any +complaints. He's rather off and on about settling, though. I guess he's +a man that keeps his intentions pretty close to himself—and all his +affairs, for that matter. Of course he's a perfect right to. But I will +say I like to know all about folks from the beginning. It aggravates me +to have to begin in the middle. I tell Serena, it's just like reading a +book when the first volume's lost. I don't suppose I'm <i>much</i> more +curious than other people; but I <i>should</i> like to know just how old he +is, for one thing; and who his father and mother were; and where he came +from in the first place, and what he lives on, for 'tain't our salary, I +know that; he's given away more'n half of it a'ready—right here in the +village. I've said to my husband, forty times, if I've said it once, 'I +declare, I've a great mind to ask him myself, straight out, just to see +what he'll say.'"</p> + +<p>"And why not?" asked a voice, pleasantly, behind her.</p> + +<p>Mr. Armstrong had come in, unheard by the lady in her own rush of words, +and had approached too near, as this suddenly ceased, to be able to +escape again unnoticed.</p> + +<p>Mis' Battis told Luther Goodell afterwards, that she "jest looked in +from the next room, at that, and if ever a woman felt cheap—all +over—and as if she hadn't a right to her own toes and fingers, and as +if every thread and stitch on her turned mean, all at once—it was Mrs. +Gimp, that minit!"</p> + +<p>"Has Faith returned?" Mr. Armstrong asked, of Mrs. Gartney, after a +little pause in which Mrs. Gimp showed no disposition to develop into +deed her forty-times declared "great mind."</p> + +<p>"I think not. She said she would remain an hour or two with Glory, and +help her to arrange those matters she came in, this morning, to ask us +about."</p> + +<p>"I will walk over."</p> + +<p>And the minister took his hat again, and with a bow to the two ladies, +passed out, and across the lane.</p> + +<p>"Faith!" ejaculated the village matron, her courage and her mind to +meddle returning. "Well, that's intimate!"</p> + +<p>It might as well be done now, as at any time. Mr. Armstrong, himself, +had heedlessly precipitated the occasion. It had only been, among them, +a question of how and when. There was nothing to conceal.</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied Mrs. Gartney, quietly. "They will be married by and by."</p> + +<p>"Did she go out the door, ma'am? Or has she melted down into the carpet? +'Cause, I <i>have</i> heerd of people sinkin' right<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> through the floor," said +Mis' Battis, who "jest looked in" a second time, as the bewildered +visitor receded.</p> + +<hr class='minor' /> + +<p>The pleasant autumn months, mellowing and brightening all things, seemed +also to soften and gild their memories of the life that had ended, +ripely and beautifully, among them.</p> + +<p>Glory, after the first overwhelm of astonishment at what had befallen +her—made fully to understand that which she had a right, and was in +duty bound to do—entered upon the preparations for her work with the +same unaffected readiness with which she would have done the bidding of +her living mistress. It was so evident that her true humbleness was +untouched by all. "It's beautiful!" and the tears and smiles would come +together as she said it. "But then, Miss Faith—Mr. Armstrong! I never +can do any of it unless you help me!"</p> + +<p>Faith and Mr. Armstrong did help with heart and hand, and every word of +counsel that she needed.</p> + +<p>"I must buy some cotton and calico, and make some little clothes and +tyers. Hadn't I better? When they come, I'll have them to take care of."</p> + +<p>And with the loving anticipation of a mother, she made up, and laid +away, Faith helping her in all, her store of small apparel for little +ones that were to come.</p> + +<p>She had gone down, one day, to Mishaumok, and found out Bridget Foye, at +the old number in High Street. And to her she had intrusted the care of +looking up the children—to be not less than five, and not more than +eight or nine years of age—who should be taken to live with her at +"Miss Henderson's home," and "have a good time every day."</p> + +<p>"I must get them here before Christmas," said Glory to her friends. "We +must hang their stockings all up by the great kitchen chimney, and put +sugarplums and picture books in!"</p> + +<p>She was going back eagerly into her child life—rather into the life her +childhood wist of, but missed—and would live it all over, now, with +these little ones, taken already, before even they were seen or found, +out of their strangerhood into her great, kindly heart!</p> + +<p>A plain, capable, motherly woman had been obtained, by Mr. Armstrong's +efforts and inquiry, who would live with Glory as companion and +assistant. There was the dairy work to be carried on, still. This, and +the hay crops, made the principal income of the Old Farm. A few fields +were rented for cultivation.</p> + +<p>"Just think," cried Glory when the future management of these matters +was talked of, "what it will be to see the little things let out +a-rolling in the new hay!"</p> + +<p>Her thoughts passed so entirely over herself, as holder and arbiter of +means, to the good—the daily little joy—that was to come, thereby, to +others!</p> + +<p>When all was counted and calculated, they told her that she might safely +venture to receive, in the end, six children. But that, for the present, +four would perhaps be as many as it would be wise for her to undertake.</p> + +<p>"You know best," she said, "and I shall do whatever you say. But I don't +feel afraid—any more, that is, for taking six than four. I shall just +do for them all the time, whether or no."</p> + +<p>"And what if they are bad and troublesome, Glory?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, they won't be," she replied. "I shall love them so!"</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXXV." id="CHAPTER_XXXV."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXV.</h2><h3>INDIAN SUMMER.</h3> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p>"'Tis as if the benignant Heaven<br /> +Had a new revelation given,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And written it out with gems;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For the golden tops of the elms</span><br /> +And the burnished bronze of the ash<br /> +And the scarlet lights that flash<br /> +From the sumach's points of flame,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Like blazonings on a scroll</span><br /> +Spell forth an illumined Name<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For the reading of the soul!"</span></p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>It is of no use to dispute about the Indian summer. I never found two +people who could agree as to the time when it ought to be here, or upon +a month and day when it should be decidedly too late to look for it. It +keeps coming. After the equinoctial, which begins to be talked about +with the first rains of September, and isn't done with till the sun has +measured half a dozen degrees of south declination, all the pleasant +weather is Indian summer—away on to Christmastide. For my part, I think +we get it now and then, little by little, as "the kingdom" comes. That +every soft, warm, mellow, hazy, golden day, like each fair, fragrant +life, is a part and outcrop of it; though weeks of gale and frost, or +ages of cruel worldliness and miserable sin may lie between.</p> + +<p>It was an Indian summer day, then; and it was in October.</p> + +<p>Faith and Mr. Armstrong walked over the brook, and round by Pasture +Rocks, to the "little chapel," as Faith had called it, since the time, +last winter, when she and Glory had met the minister there, in the +still, wonderful, pure beauty that enshrined it on that "diamond +morning."</p> + +<p>The elms that stood then, in their icy sheen, about the meadows, like +great cataracts of light, were soft with amber drapery, now; translucent +in each leaf with the detained sunshine of the summer; and along the +borders of the wood walk, scarlet flames<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> of sumach sprang out, vivid, +from among the lingering green; and birches trembled with their golden +plumes; and bronzed ash boughs, and deep crimsons and maroons and +chocolate browns and carbuncle red that crowned the oaks with richer and +intenser hues, made up a wealth and massiveness of beauty wherein eye +and thought reveled and were sated.</p> + +<p>Over and about all, the glorious October light, and the dreamy warmth +that was like a palpable love.</p> + +<p>They stood on the crisp moss carpet of the "halfway rock"—the altar +crag behind them, with its cherubim that waved illumined wings of +tenderer radiance now—and gazed over the broad outspread of marvelous +color; and thought of the summer that had come and gone since they had +stood there, last, together, and of the beauty that had breathed alike +on earth and into life, for them.</p> + +<p>"Faith, darling! Tell me your thought," said Roger Armstrong.</p> + +<p>"This was my thought," Faith answered, slowly. "That first sermon you +preached to us—that gave me such a hope, then—that comes up to me so, +almost as a warning, now! The poor—that were to have the kingdom! And +then, those other words—'how hardly shall they who have riches enter +in!' And I am <i>so</i> rich! It frightens me."</p> + +<p>"Entire happiness does make one tremble. Only, if we feel God in it, and +stand but the more ready for His work, we may be safe."</p> + +<p>"His work—yes," Faith answered. "But now he only gives me rest. It +seems as if, somehow, I were not worthy of a hard life. As if all things +had been made too easy for me. And I had thought, so, of some great and +difficult thing to do."</p> + +<p>Then Faith told him of the oracle that, years ago, had first wakened her +to the thought of what life might be; of the "high and holy work" that +she had dreamed of, and of her struggles to fulfill it, feebly, in the +only ways that as yet had opened for her.</p> + +<p>"And now—just to receive all—love, and help, and care—and to rest, +and to be so wholly happy!"</p> + +<p>"Believe, darling, that we are led, through all. That the oil of joy is +but as an anointing for a nobler work. It is only so I dare to think of +it. We shall have plenty to do, Faithie! And, perhaps, to bear. It will +all be set before us, in good time."</p> + +<p>"But nothing can be <i>hard</i> to do, any more. That is what makes me almost +feel unworthy. Look at Nurse Sampson. Look at Glory. They have only +their work, and the love of God to help them in it. And I—! Oh, I am +not poor any longer. The words don't seem to be for me."</p> + +<p>"Let us take them with their double edge of truth, then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>. Holding +ourselves always poor, in sight of the infinite spiritual riches of the +kingdom. Blessed are the poor, who can feel, even in the keenest earthly +joy, how there is a fullness of life laid up in Him who gives it, of +whose depth the best gladness here is but a glimpse and foretaste! We +will not be selfishly or unworthily content, God helping us, my little +one!"</p> + +<p>"It is so hard <i>not</i> to be content!" whispered Faith, as the strong, +manly arm held her, in its shelter, close beside the noble, earnest +heart.</p> + +<p>"I think," said Roger Armstrong, afterwards, as they walked down over +the fragrant pathway of fallen pine leaves, "that I have never known an +instance of one more evidently called, commissioned, and prepared for a +good work in the world, than Glory. Her whole life has been her +education for it. It is not without a purpose, when a soul like hers is +left to struggle up through such externals of circumstance. We can love +and help her in it, Faith; and do something, in our way, for her, as she +will do, in hers, for others."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes!" assented Faith, impulsively. "I have wished—" but there she +stopped.</p> + +<p>"Am I to hear no more?" asked Mr. Armstrong, presently. "Have I not a +right to insist upon the wish?"</p> + +<p>"I forgot what I was coming to," said Faith, blushing deeply. "I spoke +of it, one day, to mother. And she said it was a thing I couldn't decide +for myself, now. That some one else would be concerned, as well as I."</p> + +<p>"And some one else will be sure to wish as you do. Only there may be a +wisdom in waiting. Faithie—I have never told you yet—will you be +frightened if I tell you now—that I am not a poor man, as the world +counts poverty? My friend, of whom you know, in those terrible days of +the commencing pestilence, having only his daughter and myself to care +for, made his will; in provision against whatever might befall them +there. By that will—through the fearful sorrow that made it +effective—I came into possession of a large property. Your little +inheritance, Faithie, goes into your own little purse for private +expenditures or charities. But for the present, as it seems to me, Glory +has ample means for all that it is well for her to undertake. By and by, +as she gains in years and in experience, you will have it in your power +to enlarge her field of good. 'Miss Henderson's Home' may grow into a +wider benefit than even she, herself, foresaw."</p> + +<p>Faith was not frightened. These were not the riches that could make her +tremble with a dread lest earth should too fully satisfy. This was only +a promise of new power to work with; a guarantee that God was not +leaving her merely to care for and to rest in a good that must needs be +all her own.</p> + +<p>"We shall find plenty to do, Faithie!" Mr. Armstrong repeated;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> and he +held her hand in his with a strong pressure that told how the thought of +that work to come, and her sweet and entire association in it, leaped +along his pulses with a living joy.</p> + +<p>Faith caught it; and all fear was gone. She could not shrink from the +great blessedness that was laid upon her, any more than Nature could +refuse to wear her coronation robes, that trailed their radiance in this +path they trod.</p> + +<p>Life held them in a divine harmony.</p> + +<p>The October sun, that mantled them with warmth and glory; the Indian +summer, that transfigured earth about them; all tints—all +redolence—all broad beatitude of globe and sky—were none too much to +breathe out and make palpable the glad and holy auspice of the hour.</p> + +<hr class='minor' /> + +<p>Mr. Gartney had gradually relinquished his half-formed thought of San +Francisco. Already the unsettled and threatening condition of affairs in +the country had begun to make men feel that the time was not one for new +schemes or adventurous changes. Somehow, the great wheels, mercantile +and political, had slipped out of their old grooves, and went laboring, +as it were, roughly and at random, with fierce clattering and jolting, +quite off the ordinary track; so that none could say whether they should +finally regain it, and roll smoothly forward, as in the prosperous and +peaceful days of the past, or should bear suddenly and irretrievably +down to some horrible, unknown crash and ruin.</p> + +<p>Henderson Gartney, however, was too restless a man to wait, with entire +passiveness, the possible turn and issue of things.</p> + +<p>Quite strong, again, in health—so great a part of his burden and +anxiety lifted from him in the marriages, actual and prospective, of his +two daughters—and his means augmented by the sale of a portion of his +Western property which he had effected during his summer visit +thereto—it was little to be looked for that he should consent to +vegetate, idly and quietly, through a second winter at Cross Corners.</p> + +<p>The first feeling of some men, apparently, when they have succeeded in +shuffling off a load of difficulty, is a sensation of the delightful +ease with which they can immediately shoulder another. As when one has +just cleared a desk or drawer of rubbish, there is such a tempting +opportunity made for beginning to stow away and accumulate again. Well! +the principle is an eternal one. Nature does abhor a vacuum.</p> + +<p>The greater portion of the ensuing months, therefore, Mr. Gartney spent +in New York; whither his wife and children accompanied him, also, for a +stay of a few weeks; during which, Faith and her mother accomplished the +inevitable shopping that a coming wedding necessitates; and set in train +of preparation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> certain matters beyond the range of Kinnicutt capacity +and resource.</p> + +<p>Mr. Armstrong, too, was obliged to be absent from his parish for a +little time. Affairs of his own required some personal attention. He +chose these weeks while the others, also, were away.</p> + +<p>It was decided that the marriage should take place in the coming spring; +and that then the house at Cross Corners should become the home of Mr. +Armstrong and Faith; and that Mr. Gartney should remove, permanently, to +New York, where he had already engaged in some incidental and +preliminary business transactions. His purpose was to fix himself there, +as a shipping and commission merchant, concerning himself, for a large +proportion, with California trade.</p> + +<p>The house in Mishaumok had been rented for a term of five years. One +change prepares the way for another. Things never go back precisely to +what they were before.</p> + +<p>Mr. Armstrong, after serious thought, had come to this conclusion of +accepting the invitation of the Old Parish at Kinnicutt to remain with +it as its pastor, because the place itself had become endeared to him +for its associations; because, also, it was Faith's home, which she had +learned to love and cling to; because she, too, had a work here, in +assisting Glory to fulfill the terms of her aunt's bequest; and because, +country parish though it was, and a limited sphere, as it might seem, +for his means and talents, he saw the way here, not only to accomplish +much direct good in the way of his profession, but as well for a wider +exercise of power through the channel of authorship; for which a more +onerous pastoral charge would not have left him the needful quiet or +leisure.</p> + +<p>So, with these comings and goings, these happy plans, and helpings and +onlookings, the late autumn weeks merged in winter, and days slipped +almost imperceptibly by, and Christmas came.</p> + +<p>Three little orphan girls had been welcomed into "Miss Henderson's +Home." And only one of them had hair that would curl. But Glory gave the +other two an extra kiss each, every morning.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI." id="CHAPTER_XXXVI."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXVI.</h2><h3>CHRISTMASTIDE.</h3> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p class='last'> +"Through suffering and through sorrow thou hast past, <br /> +To show us what a woman true may be;<br /> +They have not taken sympathy from thee,<br /> +Nor made thee any other than thou wast;<br /> + · + · + · + · + · + · +<br /> +"Nor hath thy knowledge of adversity<br /> +Robbed thee of any faith in happiness,<br /> +But rather cleared thine inner eye to see<br /> +How many simple ways there are to bless."</p> +<p class='auth'>Lowell.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p class='last'>"And if any painter drew her,<br /> +He would paint her unaware, <br /> +With a halo round the hair."</p> +<p class='auth'>Mrs. Browning.</p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>There were dark portents abroad. Rumors, and threats, and +prognostications of fear and strife teemed in the columns of each day's +sheet of news, and pulsed wildly along the electric nerves of the land; +and men looked out, as into a coming tempest, that blackened all the +southerly sky with wrath; and only that the horror was too great to be +believed in, they could not have eaten and drunken, and bought and sold, +and planted and builded, as they did, after the age-old manner of man, +in these days before the flood that was to come.</p> + +<p>Civil war, like a vulture of hell, was swooping down from the foul +fastness of iniquity that had hatched her in its high places, and that +reared itself, audaciously, in the very face of Heaven.</p> + +<p>And a voice, as of a mighty angel, sounded "Woe! woe! woe! to the +inhabiters of earth!"</p> + +<p>And still men but half heard and comprehended; and still they slept and +rose, and wrought on, each in his own work, and planned for the morrow, +and for the days that were to be.</p> + +<p>And in the midst of all, came the blessed Christmastide! Yes! even into +this world that has rolled its seething burden of sin and pain and shame +and conflict along the listening depths through waiting cycles of God's +eternity, was Christ once born!</p> + +<p>And little children, of whom is the kingdom, in their simple faith and +holy unconsciousness, were looking for the Christmas good, and wondering +only what the coming joy should be.</p> + +<p>The shops and streets of Mishaumok were filled with busy throngs. People +forgot, for a day, the fissure that had just opened, away there in the +far Southland, and the fierce flames that shot up, threatening, from the +abyss. What mattered the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> mass meetings, and the shouts, and the guns, +along those shores of the Mexican Gulf? To-night would be Christmas Eve; +and there were thousands of little stockings waiting to be hung by happy +firesides, and they must all be filled for the morrow.</p> + +<p>So the shops and streets were crowded, and people with arms full of +holiday parcels jostled each other at every corner.</p> + +<p>There are odd encounters in this world tumble that we live in. In the +early afternoon, at one of the bright show cases, filled within and +heaped without with toys, two women met—as strangers are always +meeting, with involuntary touch and glance—borne together in a +crowd—atoms impinging for an instant, never to approach again, perhaps, +in all the coming combinations of time.</p> + +<p>These two women, though, had met before.</p> + +<p>One, sharp, eager—with a stylish-shabby air of dress about her, and the +look of pretense that shopmen know, as she handled and asked prices, +where she had no actual thought of buying—holding by the hand a child +of six, who dragged and teased, and got an occasional word that crushed +him into momentary silence, but who, tired with the sights and the +Christmas shopping, had nothing for it but to begin to drag and tease +again; another, with bright, happy, earnest eyes and flushing cheeks, +and hair rolled back in a golden wealth beneath her plain straw bonnet; +bonnet, and dress, and all, of simple black; these two came face to +face.</p> + +<p>The shabby woman with a sharp look recognized nothing. Glory McWhirk +knew Mrs. Grubbling, and the child of six that had been the Grubbling +baby.</p> + +<p>All at once, she had him in her arms; and as if not a moment had gone by +since she held him so in the little, dark, upper entry in Budd Street, +where he had toddled to her in his nightgown, for her grieved farewell, +was hugging and kissing him, with the old, forgetting and forgiving +love.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Grubbling looked on in petrified amaze. Glory had transferred a +fragrant white paper parcel from her pocket to the child's hands, and +had thrust upon that a gay tin horse from the counter, before it +occurred to her that the mother might, possibly, neither remember nor +approve.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, ma'am, for the liberty; and it's very likely you +don't know me. I'm Glory McWhirk, that used to live with you, and mind +the baby."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure I'm glad to see you, Glory," said Mrs. Grubbling +patronizingly; "and I hope you've been doing well since you went away +from me." As if she had been doing so especially well before, that there +might easily be a doubt as to whether going farther had not been faring +worse. I have no question that Mrs. Grubbling fancied, at the moment, +that the foundation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> of all the simple content and quiet prosperity that +evidenced themselves at present in the person of her former handmaid, +had been laid in Budd Street.</p> + +<p>"And where are you living now?" proceeded she, as Glory resigned the boy +to his mint stick, and was saying good-by.</p> + +<p>"Out in Kinnicutt, ma'am; at Miss Henderson's, where I have been ever +since."</p> + +<p>She never thought of triumphing. She never dreamed of what it would be +to electrify her former mistress with the announcement that she whom she +had since served had died, and left her, Glory McWhirk, the life use of +more than half her estate. That she dwelt now, as proprietress, where +she had been a servant. Her humbleness and her faithfulness were so +entire that she never thought of herself as occupying, in the eyes of +others, such position. She was Miss Henderson's handmaiden, still; doing +her behest, simply, as if she had but left her there in keeping, while +she went a journey.</p> + +<p>So she bade good-by, and courtesied to Mrs. Grubbling and gathered up +her little parcels, and went out. Fortunately, Mrs. Grubbling was half +stunned, as it was. It is impossible to tell what might have resulted, +had she then and there been made cognizant of more. Not to the shorn +lamb, alone, always, are sharp winds beneficently tempered. There is a +mercy, also, to the miserable wolf.</p> + +<p>Glory had one trouble, to-day, that hindered her pure, free and utter +enjoyment of what she had to do.</p> + +<p>All day she had seen, here and there along the street, little forlorn +and ragged ones, straying about aimlessly, as if by any chance, a scrap +of Christmas cheer might even fall to them, if only they kept out in the +midst of it. There was a distant wonder in their faces, as they met the +buyers among the shops, and glanced at the fair, fresh burdens they +carried; and around the confectioners' windows they would cluster, +sometimes, two or three together, and <i>look</i>; as if one sense could take +in what was denied so to another. She knew so well what the feeling of +it was! To see the good times going on, and not be in 'em! She longed so +to gather them all to herself, and take them home, and make a Christmas +for them!</p> + +<p>She could only drop the pennies that came to her in change loose into +her pocket, and give them, one by one, along the wayside. And she more +than once offered a bright quarter (it was in the days when quarters yet +were, reader!), when she might have counted out the sum in lesser bits, +that so the pocket should be kept supplied the longer.</p> + +<hr class='minor' /> + +<p>Down by the —— Railway Station, the streets were dim, and dirty, and +cheerless. Inside, the passengers gathered about the stove, where the +red coals gleamed cheerful in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> already gathering dusk of the winter +afternoon. A New York train was going out; and all sorts of people—from +the well-to-do, portly gentleman of business, with his good coat +buttoned comfortably to his chin, his tickets bought, his wallet lined +with bank notes for his journey, and secretly stowed beyond the reach +(if there be such a thing) of pickpockets, and the <i>Mishaumok Journal</i>, +Evening Edition, damp from the press, unfolded in his fingers, to the +care-for-naught, dare-devil little newsboy who had sold it to him, and +who now saunters off, varying his monotonous cry with:</p> + +<p>"<i>Jour-nal</i>, gentlemen! Eve-nin' 'dition! Georgy out!"</p> + +<p>("What's that?" exclaims an inconsiderate.)</p> + +<p>"Georgy out! (Little brother o' mine. Seen him anywhere?) Eve-nin' +'dition! <i>Jour-nal</i>, gentleman!" and the shivering little candy girl, +threading her way with a silent imploringness among the throng—were +bustling up and down, in waiting rooms, and on the platforms, till one +would think, assuredly, that the center of all the world's activity, at +this moment, lay here; and that everybody <i>not</i> going in this particular +express train to New York, must be utterly devoid of any aim or object +in life, whatever.</p> + +<p>So we do, always, carry our center about with us. A little while ago all +the world was buying dolls and tin horses. Horizons shift and ring +themselves about us, and we, ourselves, stand always in the middle.</p> + +<p>By and by, however, the last call was heard.</p> + +<p>"Passengers for New York! Train ready! All aboard!"</p> + +<p>And with the ringing of the bell, and the mighty gasping of the +impatient engine, and a scuffle and scurry of a minute, in which +carpetbags and babies were gathered up and shouldered indiscriminately, +the rooms and the platforms were suddenly cleared of all but a few +stragglers, and half a dozen women with Christmas bundles, who sat +waiting for trains to way stations.</p> + +<p>Two little pinched faces, purple with the bitter cold, looked in at the +door.</p> + +<p>"It's good and warm in there. Less' go!"</p> + +<p>And the older drew the younger into the room, toward the glowing stove.</p> + +<p>They looked as if they had been wandering about in the dreary streets +till the chill had touched their very bones. The larger of the two, a +boy—torn hopelessly as to his trousers, dilapidated to the last degree +as to his fragment of a hat—knees and elbows making their way out into +the world with the faintest shadow of opposition—had, perhaps from +this, a certain look of pushing knowingness that set itself, by the +obscure and inevitable law of compensation, over against the gigantic +antagonism of things he found himself born into;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> and you knew, as you +looked at him, that he would, somehow, sooner or later, make his small +dint against the great dead wall of society that loomed itself in his +way; whether society or he should get the worst of it, might happen as +it would.</p> + +<p>The younger was a little girl. A flower thrown down in the dirt. A jewel +encrusted with mean earth. Little feet in enormous coarse shoes, cracked +and trodden down; bare arms trying to hide themselves under a bit of old +woolen shawl; hair tangled beneath a squalid hood; out from amidst all, +a face of beauty that peeped, like an unconscious draft of God's own +signing, upon humanity. Was there none to acknowledge it?</p> + +<p>An official came through the waiting room.</p> + +<p>The boy showed a slink in his eyes, like one used to shoving and rebuff, +and to getting off, round corners. The girl stood, innocent and +unheeding.</p> + +<p>"There! out with you! No vagrums here!"</p> + +<p>Of course, they couldn't have all Queer Street in their waiting rooms, +these railway people; and the man's words were rougher than his voice. +But these were two children, who wanted cherishing!</p> + +<p>The slink in the boy's eye worked down, and became a sneak and a +shuffle, toward the door. The girl was following.</p> + +<p>"Stop!" called a woman's voice, sharp and authoritative. "Don't you stir +a single step, either of you, till you get warm! If there isn't any +other way to fix it, I'll buy you both a ticket somewhere and then +you'll be passengers."</p> + +<p>It was a tall, thin, hoopless woman, with a carpetbag, a plaid shawl, +and an umbrella; and a bonnet that, since other bonnets had begun to +poke, looked like a chaise top flattened back at the first spring. In a +word, Mehitable Sampson.</p> + +<p>Something twitched at the corners of the man's mouth as he glanced round +at this sudden and singular champion. Something may have twitched under +his comfortable waistcoat, also. At any rate, he passed on; and the +children—the brief battledore over in which they had been the +shuttlecocks—crept back, compliant with the second order, much amazed, +toward the stove.</p> + +<p>Miss Sampson began to interrogate.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you take your little sister home?"</p> + +<p>"This one ain't my sister." Children always set people right before they +answer queries.</p> + +<p>"Well—whoever she is, then. Why don't you both go home?"</p> + +<p>"'Cause it's cold there, too. And we was sent to find sticks."</p> + +<p>"If she isn't your sister, who does she belong to?"</p> + +<p>"She don't belong to nobody. She lived upstairs, and her mother died, +and she came down to us. But she's goin' to be took away. Mother's got +five of us, now. She's goin' to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> poorhouse. She's a regular little +brick, though; ain't yer, Jo?"</p> + +<p>The pretty, childish lips that had begun to grow red and lifelike again, +parted, and showed little rows of milk teeth, like white shells. The +blue eyes and the baby smile went up, confidingly, to the young +ragamuffin's face. There had been kindness here. The boy had taken to +Jo, it seemed; and was benevolently evincing it, in the best way he +could, by teaching her good-natured slang.</p> + +<p>"Yes; I'm a little brick," she lisped.</p> + +<p>Miss Sampson's keen eyes went from one to the other, resting last and +long on Jo.</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't wonder," she said, deliberately, "if you was Number Four!"</p> + +<p>"Whereabouts do you live?" suddenly, to the boy.</p> + +<p>"Three doors round the corner. 'Tain't number four, though. It's +ninety-three."</p> + +<p>"What's your name?"</p> + +<p>"Tim Rafferty."</p> + +<p>"Tim Rafferty! Did anybody ever trust you with a carpetbag?"</p> + +<p>"I've carried 'em up. But then they mostly goes along, and looks sharp."</p> + +<p>"Well, now I'm going to leave you here, with this one. If anybody speaks +to you, say you was left in charge. Don't stir till I come back. +And—look here! if you see a young woman come in, with bright, wavy +hair, and a black gown and bonnet, and if she comes and speaks to you, +as most likely she will, tell her I said I shouldn't wonder if this was +Number Four!"</p> + +<p>And Nurse Sampson went out into the street.</p> + +<p>When she came back, the children sat there, still; and Glory McWhirk was +with them.</p> + +<p>"I don't know as I'd any business to meddle; and I haven't made any +promises; but I've found out that you can do as you choose about it, and +welcome. And I couldn't help thinking you might like to have this one +for Number Four."</p> + +<p>Glory had already nestled the poor, tattered child close to her, and +given her a cake to eat from the refreshment counter.</p> + +<p>Tim Rafferty delivered up the carpetbag, in proud integrity. To be sure, +there were half a dozen people in the room who had witnessed its +intrustment to his hands; but I think he would have waited there, all +the same, had the coast been clear.</p> + +<p>Miss Sampson gave him ten cents, and recounted to Glory what she had +learned at number ninety-three.</p> + +<p>"She's a strange child, left on their hands; and they're as poor as +death. They were going to give her in charge to the authorities. The +woman said she couldn't feed her another<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> day. That's about the whole of +it. If Tim don't bring her back, they'll know where she is, and be +thankful."</p> + +<p>"Do you want to go home with me, and hang up your stocking, and have a +Christmas?"</p> + +<p>"My golly!" ejaculated Tim, staring.</p> + +<p>The little one smiled shyly, and was mute. She didn't know what +Christmas was. She had been cold, and she was warm, and her mouth and +hands were filled with sweet cake. And there were pleasant words in her +ears. That was all she knew. As much as we shall comprehend at first, +perhaps, when the angels take us up out of the earth cold, and give us +the first morsel of heavenly good to stay our cravings.</p> + +<p>This was how it ended. Tim had a paper bag of apples and cakes, with +some sugar pigs and pussy cats put in at the top, and a pair of warm +stockings out of Glory's bag, to carry home, for himself; and he was to +say that the lady who came to see his mother had taken Jo away into the +country. To Miss Henderson's, at Kinnicutt. Glory wrote these names upon +a paper. Tim was to be a good boy, and some day they would come and see +him again.</p> + +<p>Then Nurse Sampson's plaid shawl was wrapped about little Jo, and pinned +close over her rags to keep out the cold of Christmas Eve; and the bell +rang presently; and she was taken out into the bright, warm car, and +tucked up in a corner, where she slept all the hour that they were +steaming over the road.</p> + +<p>And so these three went out to Kinnicutt to keep Christmas at the Old +House.</p> + +<p>So Glory carried home the Christ gift that had come to her.</p> + +<p>Tim went back, alone, to number ninety-three. He had his bag of good +things, and his warm stockings, and his wonderful story to tell. And +there was more supper and breakfast for five than there would have been +for six. Nevertheless, somehow, he missed the "little brick."</p> + +<p>Out at Cross Corners, Miss Henderson's Home was all aglow. The long +kitchen, which, by the outgrowth of the house for generations, had come +to be a central room, was flooded with the clear blaze of a great pine +knot, that crackled in the chimney; and open doors showed neat adjoining +rooms, in and out which the gleams and shadows played, making a +suggestive pantomime of hide and seek. It was a grand old place for +Christmas games! And three little bright-faced girls sat round the knee +of a tidy, cheery old woman, who told them, in a quaint Irish brogue, +the story of the "little rid hin," that was caught by the fox, and got +away, again, safe, to her own little house in the woods, where she +"lived happy iver afther, an' got a fine little brood of chickens to +live wid her; an' pit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> 'em all intill warrum stockings and shoes, an' +round-o-caliker gowns."</p> + +<p>And they carped at no discrepancies or improbabilities; but seized all +eagerly, and fused it in their quick imaginations to one beautiful +meaning; which, whether it were of chicken comfort, overbrooded with +warm love, or of a clothed, contented childhood, in safe shelter, +mattered not a bit.</p> + +<p>Into this warm, blithe scene came Glory, just as the fable was ended for +the fourth time, bringing the last little chick, flushed and rosy from a +bath; born into beauty, like Venus from the sea; her fair hair, combed +and glossy, hanging about her neck in curls; and wrapped, not in a +"round-o-caliker," but in a scarlet-flannel nightgown, comfortable and +gay. Then they had bowls of bread and milk, and gingerbread, and ate +their suppers by the fire. And then Glory told them the old story of +Santa Claus; and how, if they hung their stockings by the chimney, there +was no knowing what they mightn't find in them to-morrow.</p> + +<p>"Only," she said, "whatever it is, and whoever He sends it by, it all +comes from the good Lord, first of all."</p> + +<p>And then, the two white beds in the two bedrooms close by held four +little happy bodies, whose souls were given into God's keeping till his +Christmas dawn should come, in the old, holy rhyme, said after Glory.</p> + +<p>By and by, Faith and Mr. Armstrong and Miss Sampson came over from the +Corner House, with parcels from. Kriss Kringle.</p> + +<p>And now there was a gladsome time for all; but chiefly, for Glory.</p> + +<p>What unpacking and refolding in separate papers! Every sugar pig, and +dog, and pussy cat must be in a distinct wrapping, that so the children +might be a long time finding out all that Santa Claus had brought them. +What stuffing, and tying, and pinning, inside, and outside, and over the +little red woolen legs that hung, expectant, above the big, open +chimney! How Glory laughed, and sorted, and tied and made errands for +string and pins, and seized the opportunity for brushing away great +tears of love, and joy, and thankfulness, that would keep coming into +her eyes! And then, when all was done, and she and Faith came back from +a little flitting into the bedrooms, and a hovering look over the wee, +peaceful, sleeping faces there, and they all stood, for a minute, +surveying the goodly fullness of small delights stored up and waiting +for the morrow—how she turned suddenly, and stretched her hands out +toward the kind friends who had helped and sympathized in all, and said, +with a quick overflow of feeling, that could find only the old words +wherein to utter herself:</p> + +<p>"Such a time as this! Such a beautiful time! And to think that I should +be in it!"</p> + +<p>Miss Henderson's will was fulfilled.</p> + +<p>A happy, young life had gathered again about the ancient hearthstone +that had seen two hundred years of human change.</p> + +<p>The Old House, wherefrom the last of a long line had passed on into the +Everlasting Mansions, had become God's heritage.</p> + +<p>Nurse Sampson spent her Christmas with the Gartneys.</p> + +<p>They must have her again, they told her, at parting, for the wedding; +which would be in May.</p> + +<p>"I may be a thousand miles off, by that time. But I shall think of you, +all the same, wherever I am. My work is coming. I feel it. There's a +smell of blood and death in the air; and all the strong hearts and +hands'll be wanted. You'll see it."</p> + +<p>And with that, she was gone.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII." id="CHAPTER_XXXVII."></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXVII.</h2><h3>THE WEDDING JOURNEY.</h3> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p><span style="margin-left: 8em;">"The tree</span><br /> +Sucks kindlier nurture from a soil enriched<br /> +By its own fallen leaves; and man is made,<br /> +In heart and spirit, from deciduous hopes<br /> +And things that seem to perish."</p> +</td></tr></table> +<table summary=''><tr><td align='left'> +<p class='blockquot'>"A stream always among woods or in the sunshine is pleasant to all +and happy in itself. Another, forced through rocks, and choked with +sand, under ground, cold, dark, comes up able to heal the +world."—<span class="smcap">From "Seed Grain."</span></p> +</td></tr></table> +</div> + +<p>"Shall we plan a wedding journey, Faith?"</p> + +<p>It was one evening in April that Mr. Armstrong said this. The day for +the marriage had been fixed for the first week in May.</p> + +<p>Faith had something of the bird nature about her. Always, at this moment +of the year, a restlessness, akin to that which prompts the flitting of +winged things that track the sunshine and the creeping greenness that +goes up the latitudes, had used to seize her, inwardly. Something that +came with the swelling of tender buds, and the springing of bright +blades, and the first music born from winter silence, had prompted her +with the whisper: "Abroad! abroad! Out into the beautiful earth!"</p> + +<p>It had been one of her unsatisfied longings. She had thought, what a joy +it would be if she could have said, frankly, "Father, mother! let us +have a pleasant journey in the lovely weather!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p> + +<p>And now, that one stood at her side, who would have taken her in his +tender guardianship whithersoever she might choose—now that there was +no need for hesitancy in her wish—this child, who had never been beyond +the Hudson, who had thought longingly of Catskill, and Trenton, and +Niagara, and had seen them only in her dreams—felt, inexplicably, a +contrary impulse, that said within her, "Not yet!" Somehow, she did not +care, at this great and beautiful hour of her life, to wander away into +strange places. Its holy happiness belonged to home.</p> + +<p>"Not now. Unless you wish it. Not on purpose. Take me with you, some +time, when, perhaps, you would have gone alone. Let it <i>happen</i>."</p> + +<p>"We will just begin our quiet life, then, darling, shall we? The life +that is to be our real blessedness, and that has no need to give itself +a holiday, as yet. And let the workdays and the holidays be portioned as +God pleases?"</p> + +<p>"It will be better—happier," Faith answered, timidly. "Besides, with +all this fearful tramping to war through the whole land, how can one +feel like pleasure journeying? And then"—there was another little +reason that peeped out last—"they would have been so sure to make a +fuss about us in New York!"</p> + +<p>The adjuncts of life had been much to her in those restless days when a +dark doubt lay over its deep reality. She had found a passing cheer and +relief in them, then. Now, she was so sure, so quietly content! It was a +joy too sacred to be intermeddled with.</p> + +<p>So a family group, only, gathered in the hillside parlor, on the fair +May morning wherein good, venerable Mr. Holland said the words that made +Faith Gartney and Roger Armstrong one.</p> + +<p>It was all still, and bright, and simple. Glory, standing modestly by +the door, said within herself, "it was like a little piece of heaven."</p> + +<p>And afterwards—not the bride and groom—but father, mother, and little +brother, said good-by, and went away upon their journey, and left them +there. In the quaint, pleasant home, that was theirs now, under the +budding elms, with the smile of the May promise pouring in.</p> + +<p>And Glory made a May Day at the Old House, by and by. And the little +children climbed in the apple branches, and perched there, singing, like +the birds.</p> + +<p>And was there not a white-robed presence with them, somehow, watching +all?</p> + +<hr class='minor' /> + +<p>Nearly three months had gone. The hay was down. The distillation of +sweet clover was in all the air. The little ones at the Old House were +out, in the lengthening shadows of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> July afternoon, rolling and +reveling in the perfumed, elastic heaps.</p> + +<p>Faith Armstrong stood with Glory, in the porch angle, looking on.</p> + +<p>Calm and beautiful. Only the joy of birds and children making sound and +stir across the summer stillness.</p> + +<p>Away over the broad face of the earth, out from such peace as this, +might there, if one could look—unroll some vision of horrible contrast? +Were blood, and wrath, and groans, and thunderous roar of guns down +there under that far, fair horizon, stooping in golden beauty to the +cool, green hills?</p> + +<p>Faith walked down the field path, presently, to meet her husband, coming +up. He held in his hand an open paper, that he had brought, just now +from the village.</p> + +<p>There was news.</p> + +<p>Rout, horror, confusion, death, dismay.</p> + +<p>The field of Manassas had been fought. The Union armies were falling +back, in disorder, upon Washington.</p> + +<p>Breathlessly, with pale faces, and with hands that grasped each other in +a deep excitement that could not come to speech, they read those +columns, together.</p> + +<p>Down there, on those Virginian plains, was this.</p> + +<p>And they were here, in quiet safety, among the clover blooms, and the +new-cut hay. Elsewhere, men were mown.</p> + +<p>"Roger!" said Faith, when, by and by, they had grown calmer over the +fearful tidings, and had had Bible words of peace and cheer for the +fevered and bloody rumors of men—"mightn't we take our wedding journey, +now?"</p> + +<p>All the bright, early summer, in those first months of their life +together, they had been finding work to do. Work they had hardly dreamed +of when Faith had feared she might be left to a mere, unworthy, selfish +rest and happiness.</p> + +<p>The old New England spirit had roused itself, mightily, in the little +country town. People had forgotten their own needs, and the provision +they were wont to make, at this time, each household for itself. Money +and material, and quick, willing hands were found, and a good work went +on; and kindling zeal, and noble sympathies, and hearty prayers wove +themselves in, with toil of thread and needle, to homely fabrics, and +embalmed, with every finger touch, all whereon they labored.</p> + +<p>They had remembered the old struggle wherein their country had been +born. They were glad and proud to bear their burden in this grander one +wherein she was to be born anew, to higher life.</p> + +<p>Roger Armstrong and his wife had been the spring and soul and center of +all.</p> + +<p>And now Faith said: "Roger! mayn't we take our wedding journey?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p> + +<p>Not for a bridal holiday—not for gay change and pleasure—but for a +holy purpose, went they out from home.</p> + +<p>Down among the wounded, and war-smitten. Bearing comfort of gifts, and +helpful words, and prayers. Doing whatsoever they found to do, now; +seeking and learning what they might best do, hereafter. Truly, God left +them not without a work. A noble ministry lay ready for them, at this +very threshold of their wedded life.</p> + +<p>In the hospital at Georgetown, they found Nurse Sampson.</p> + +<p>"I told you so," she said. "I knew it was coming. And the first gun +brought me down here to be ready. I've been out to Western Virginia; and +I came back here when we got the news of this. I shall follow round, +wherever the clouds roll."</p> + +<p>In Washington, still another meeting awaited them.</p> + +<p>Paul Rushleigh, in a Captain's uniform, came, one day, to the table of +their hotel.</p> + +<p>The first gun had brought him, also, where he could be ready. He had +sailed for home, with his father, upon the reception, abroad, of the +tidings of the fall of Sumter.</p> + +<p>"Your country will want you, now, my son," had been the words of the +brave and loyal gentleman. And, like another Abraham, he had set his +face toward the mount of sacrifice.</p> + +<p>There was a new light in the young man's eye. A soul awakened there. A +purpose, better than any plan or hope of a mere happy living in the +earth.</p> + +<p>He met his old friends frankly, generously; and, seemingly, without a +pang. They were all one now, in the sublime labor that, in their several +spheres, lay out before them.</p> + +<p>"You were right, Faith," he said, as he stood with them, and spoke +briefly of the past, before they parted. "I shall be more of a man, than +if I'd had my first wish. This war is going to make a nation of men. I'm +free, now, to give my heart and hand to my country, as long as she needs +me. And by and by, perhaps, if I live, some woman may love me with the +sort of love you have for your husband. I feel now, how surely I should +have come to be dissatisfied with less. God bless you both!"</p> + +<p>"God bless you, Paul!"</p> + +<p style='text-align:center; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 5em;'>THE END.</p> + +<hr class='full' /> + +<p style='text-align: center;'>BIOGRAPHY AND BIBLIOGRAPHY</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Adeline Dutton</span> (Train) <span class="smcap">Whitney</span>, American novelist and poet, was +born in Boston, September 15, 1824, and was married to Seth D. Whitney, +of Milton, Mass., in 1843. Writing little for publication in early life, +she produced, in 1863, <i>Faith Gartney's Girlhood</i>, which brought her +great popularity both at home and in England, where the novel gained +especially favorable commendation. Although planned purely as a girl's +book, the story of <i>Faith</i> grew into her womanhood, and after the lapse +of almost half a century continues to be a prime favorite. It is a +purely told story of New England life, especially with dramatic +incidents and an excellent bit of romance.</p> + +<p><i>The Gayworthys: a Story of Threads and Thrums</i> (1865), continued Mrs. +Whitney's popularity and received flattering notices from the London +<i>Reader</i>, <i>Athenæum</i>, <i>Pall Mall Gazette</i>, and <i>Spectator</i>. Mrs. Whitney +was a contributor to the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, <i>Our Young Folks</i>, <i>Old and +New</i> and various other periodicals.</p> + +<p>Among her other published works are: <i>Footsteps on the Seas</i> (1857), +poems; <i>Mother Goose for Grown Folks</i> (1860); <i>Boys at Chequasset</i> +(1862); <i>A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life</i> (1866); <i>Patience +Strong's Outings</i> (1868); <i>Hitherto: a Story of Yesterday</i> (1869); <i>We +Girls</i> (1870); <i>Real Folks</i> (1871); <i>Zerub Throop's Experiment</i> (1871); +<i>Pansies</i>, verse (1872); <i>The Other Girls</i> (1873); <i>Sights and Insights</i> +(1876); <i>Odd or Even</i> (1880); <i>Bonnyborough</i> (1885); <i>Holy-Tides</i>, verse +(1886); <i>Homespun Yarns</i> (1887); <i>Bird Talk</i>, verse (1887); <i>Daffodils</i>, +verse (1887); <i>Friendly Letters to Girl Friends</i> (1897); <i>Biddy's +Episodes</i> (1904).</p> + +<p>Breadth of view on social conditions, a deeply religious spirit, and a +charming facility both in descriptive and romantic passages, give this +novelist her sustained popularity.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Whitney died in Boston on March 21st, 1906.</p> + +<hr class='full' /> + +<div class='tnote'><h3>Transcriber's Notes</h3> + <ol> +<li>Some punctuation has been changed to conform to contemporary standards.</li> +<li>The author's biography has been moved to the end of the text +from the reverse of the title page.</li> +<li>A Table of Contents was not present in the original edition.</li> +<li>The "certain pause and emphasis" differentiated by the author +is marked with spaced mid-dots in Chapter XVI, as in the +original text.</li> +</ol> +</div> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAITH GARTNEY'S GIRLHOOD***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 18896-h.txt or 18896-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/8/9/18896">http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/8/9/18896</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL">http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL</a> + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** +</pre> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/18896.txt b/18896.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3a661eb --- /dev/null +++ b/18896.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10241 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Faith Gartney's Girlhood, by Mrs. A. D. T. +Whitney + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Faith Gartney's Girlhood + + +Author: Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney + + + +Release Date: July 22, 2006 [eBook #18896] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAITH GARTNEY'S GIRLHOOD*** + + +E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/) + + + +FAITH GARTNEY'S GIRLHOOD + +by + +MRS. A. D. T. WHITNEY + +Author of "The Gayworthy's," "A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life," +"Footsteps on the Seas," etc. + + + + + + + +New York +The New York Book Company +1913 + + + + +CONTENTS + + I. "Money, Money!" 1 + II. Sortes. 4 + III. Aunt Henderson. 6 + IV. Glory McWhirk. 10 + V. Something Happens. 15 + VI. Aunt Henderson's Girl Hunt. 26 + VII. Cares; And What Came Of Them. 31 + VIII. A Niche In Life, And A Woman To Fill It. 34 + IX. Life Or Death? 37 + X. Rough Ends. 40 + XI. Cross Corners. 43 + XII. A Reconnoissance. 49 + XIII. Development. 54 + XIV. A Drive With The Doctor. 59 + XV. New Duties. 65 + XVI. "Blessed Be Ye, Poor." 68 + XVII. Frost-Wonders. 75 + XVIII. Out In The Snow. 79 + XIX. A "Leading." 85 + XX. Paul. 89 + XXI. Pressure. 94 + XXII. Roger Armstrong's Story. 99 + XXIII. Question And Answer. 103 + XXIV. Conflict. 112 + XXV. A Game At Chess. 116 + XXVI. Lakeside. 120 + XXVII. At The Mills. 124 + XXVIII. Locked In. 127 + XXIX. Home. 135 + XXX. Aunt Henderson's Mystery. 140 + XXXI. Nurse Sampson's Way Of Looking At It. 147 + XXXII. Glory Mcwhirk's Inspiration. 152 + XXXIII. Last Hours. 157 + XXXIV. Mrs. Parley Gimp. 160 + XXXV. Indian Summer. 164 + XXXVI. Christmastide. 169 + XXXVII. The Wedding Journey. 177 + + + + +FAITH GARTNEY'S GIRLHOOD + +CHAPTER I. + +"MONEY, MONEY!" + +"Shoe the horse and shoe the mare, +And let the little colt go bare." + + +East or West, it matters not where--the story may, doubtless, indicate +something of latitude and longitude as it proceeds--in the city of +Mishaumok, lived Henderson Gartney, Esq., one of those American +gentlemen of whom, if she were ever canonized, Martha of Bethany must be +the patron saint--if again, feminine celestials, sainthood once achieved +through the weary experience of earth, don't know better than to assume +such charge of wayward man--born, as they are, seemingly, to the life +destiny of being ever "careful and troubled about many things." + +We have all of us, as little girls, read "Rosamond." Now, one of +Rosamond's early worries suggests a key to half the worries, early and +late, of grown men and women. The silver paper won't cover the basket. + +Mr. Gartney had spent his years, from twenty-five to forty, in +sedulously tugging at the corners. He had had his share of silver paper, +too--only the basket was a little too big. + +In a pleasant apartment, half library, half parlor, and used in the +winter months as a breakfast room, beside a table still covered with the +remnants of the morning meal, sat Mrs. Gartney and her young daughter, +Faith; the latter with a somewhat disconcerted, not to say rueful, +expression of face. + +A pair of slippers on the hearth and the morning paper thrown down +beside an armchair, gave hint of the recent presence of the master of +the house. + +"Then I suppose I can't go," remarked the young lady. + +"I'm sure I don't know," answered the elder, in a helpless, worried sort +of tone. "It doesn't seem really right to ask your father for the money. +I did just speak of your wanting some things for a party, but I suppose +he has forgotten it; and, to-day, I hate to trouble him with +reminding. Must you really have new gloves and slippers, both?" + +Faith held up her little foot for answer, shod with a partly worn bronze +kid, reduced to morning service. + +"These are the best I've got. And my gloves have been cleaned over and +over, till you said yourself, last time, they would hardly do to wear +again. If it were any use, I should say I must have a new dress; but I +thought at least I should freshen up with the 'little fixings,' and +perhaps have something left for a few natural flowers for my hair." + +"I know. But your father looked annoyed when I told him we should want +fresh marketing to-day. He is really pinched, just now, for ready +money--and he is so discouraged about the times. He told me only last +night of a man who owed him five hundred dollars, and came to say he +didn't know as he could pay a cent. It doesn't seem to be a time to +afford gloves and shoes and flowers. And then there'll be the carriage, +too." + +"Oh, dear!" sighed Faith, in the tone of one who felt herself +checkmated. "I wish I knew what we really _could_ afford! It always +seems to be these little things that don't cost much, and that other +girls, whose fathers are not nearly so well off, always, have, without +thinking anything about it." And she glanced over the table, whereon +shone a silver coffee service, and up at the mantel where stood a French +clock that had been placed there a month before. + +"Pull at the bobbin and the latch will fly up." An unspoken suggestion, +of drift akin to this, flitted through the mind of Faith. She wondered +if her father knew that this was a Signal Street invitation. + +Mr. Gartney was ambitious for his children, and solicitous for their +place in society. + +But Faith had a touch of high-mindedness about her that made it +impossible for her to pull bobbins. + +So, when her father presently, with hat and coat on, came into the room +again for a moment, before going out for the day, she sat quite silent, +with her foot upon the fender, looking into the fire. + +Something in her face however, quite unconsciously, bespoke that the +world did not lie entirely straight before her, and this catching her +father's eye, brought up to him, by an untraceable association, the +half-proffered request of his wife. + +"So you haven't any shoes, Faithie. Is that it?" + +"None nice enough for a party, father." + +"And the party is a vital necessity, I suppose. Where is it to be?" + +The latch string was put forth, and while Faith still stayed her hand, +her mother, absolved from selfish end, was fain to catch it up. + +"At the Rushleighs'. The Old Year out and the New Year in." + +"Oh, well, we mustn't 'let the colt go bare,'" answered Mr. Gartney, +pleasantly, portemonnaie in hand. "But you must make that do." He handed +her five dollars. "And take good care of your things when you have got +them, for I don't pick up many five dollars nowadays." + +And the old look of care crept up, replacing the kindly smile, as he +turned and left the room. + +"I feel very much as if I had picked my father's pocket," said Faith, +holding the bank note, half ashamedly, in her hand. + +Henderson Gartney, Esq., was a man of no method in his expenditure. When +money chanced to be plenty with him it was very apt to go as might +happen--for French clocks, or whatsoever; and then, suddenly, the silver +paper fell short elsewhere, and lo! a corner was left uncovered. + +The horse and the mare were shod. Great expenses were incurred; money +was found, somehow, for grand outlays; but the comfort of buying, with a +readiness, the little needed matters of every day--this was foregone. +"Not let the colt go bare!" It was precisely the thing he was +continually doing. + +Mrs. Gartney had long found it to be her only wise way to make her hay +while the sun was shining--to buy, when she could buy, what she was sure +would be most wanted--and to look forward as far as possible, in her +provisions, since her husband scarcely seemed to look forward at all. + +So she exemplified, over and over again in her life, the story of +Pharaoh and his fat and lean kine. + +That night, Faith, her little purchases and arrangements all complete, +and flowers and carriage bespoken for the next evening, went to bed to +dream such dreams as only come to the sleep of early years. + +At the same time, lingering by the fireside below for a half hour's +unreserved conversation, Mr. Gartney was telling his wife of another +money disappointment. + +"Blacklow, at Cross Corners, gives up the lease of the house in the +spring. He writes me he is going out to Indiana with his son-in-law. I +don't know where I shall find another such tenant--or any at all, for +that matter." + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +SORTES. + +"How shall I know if I do choose the right?" + +"Since this fortune falls to you, +Be content, and seek no new." + MERCHANT OF VENICE. + + +"Now, Mahala Harris," said Faith, as she glanced in at the nursery door, +which opened from her room, "don't let Hendie get up a French Revolution +here while I'm gone to dinner." + +"Land sakes! Miss Faith! I don't know what you mean, nor whether I can +help it. I dare say he'd get up a Revolution of '76, over again, if he +once set out. He does train like 'lection, fact, sometimes." + +"Well, don't let him build barricades with all the chairs, so that I +shall have to demolish my way back again. I'm going to lay out my dress +for to-night." + +And very little dinner could her young appetite manage on this last day +of the year. All her vital energy was busy in her anticipative brain, +and glancing thence in sparkles from her eyes, and quivering down in +swift currents to her restless little feet. It mattered little that +there was delicious roast beef smoking on the table, and Christmas pies +arrayed upon the sideboard, while upstairs the bright ribbon and tiny, +shining, old-fashioned buckles were waiting to be shaped into rosettes +for the new slippers, and the lace hung, half basted, from the neck of +the simple but delicate silk dress, and those lovely greenhouse flowers +stood in a glass dish on her dressing table, to be sorted for her hair, +and into a graceful breast knot. No--dinner was a very secondary and +contemptible affair, compared with these. + +There were few forms or faces, truly, that were pleasanter to look upon +in the group that stood, disrobed of their careful outer wrappings, in +Mrs. Rushleigh's dressing room; their hurried chat and gladsome +greetings distracted with the drawing on of gloves and the last +adjustment of shining locks, while the bewildering music was floating up +from below, mingled with the hum of voices from the rooms where, as +children say, "the party had begun" already. + +And Mrs. Rushleigh, when Faith paid her timid respects in the +drawing-room at last, made her welcome with a peculiar grace and +_empressement_ that had their own flattering weight and charm; for the +lady was a sort of St. Peter of fashion, holding its mystic keys, and +admitting or rejecting whom she would; and culled, with marvelous tact +and taste, the flower of the up-growing world of Mishaumok to adorn "her +set." + +After which, Faith, claimed at once by an eager aspirant, and beset with +many a following introduction and petition, was drawn to and kept in the +joyous whirlpool of the dance, till she had breathed in enough of +delight and excitement to carry her quite beyond the thought even of +ices and oysters and jellies and fruits, and the score of unnamable +luxuries whereto the young revelers were duly summoned at half past ten +o'clock. + +Four days' anticipation--four hours' realization--culminated in the +glorious after-supper midnight dance, when, marshaled hither and thither +by the ingenious orders of the band, the jubilant company found itself, +just on the impending stroke of twelve, drawn out around the room in one +great circle; and suddenly a hush of the music, at the very poising +instant of time, left them motionless for a moment to burst out again in +the age-honored and heartwarming strains of "Auld Lang Syne." Hand +joining hand they sang its chorus, and when the last note had +lingeringly died away, one after another gently broke from their places, +and the momentary figure melted out with the dying of the Year, never +again to be just so combined. It was gone, as vanishes also every other +phase and grouping in the kaleidoscope of Time. + +"Now is the very 'witching hour' to try the Sortes!" + +Margaret Rushleigh said this, standing on the threshold of a little +inner apartment that opened from the long drawing-room, at one end. + +She held in her hand a large and beautiful volume--a gift of Christmas +Day. + +"Here are Fates for everybody who cares to find them out!" + +The book was a collection of poetical quotations, arranged by numbers, +and to be chosen thereby, and the chance application taken as an oracle. + +Everything like fortune telling, or a possible peering into the things +of coming time, has such a charm! Especially with them to whom the past +is but a prelude and beginning, and for whom the great, voluminous +Future holds enwrapped the whole mystic Story of Life! + +"No, no, this won't do!" cried the young lady, as circle behind circle +closed and crowded eagerly about her. "Fate doesn't give out her +revelations in such wholesale fashion. You must come up with proper +reverence, one by one." + +As she spoke, she withdrew a little within the curtained archway, and, +placing the crimson-covered book of destiny upon an inlaid table, +brought forward a piano stool, and seated herself thereon, as a +priestess upon a tripod. + +A little shyly, one after another, gaining knowledge of what was going +on, the company strayed in from without, and, each in turn hazarding a +number, received in answer the rhyme or stanza indicated; and who shall +say how long those chance-directed words, chosen for the most part with +the elastic ambiguity of all oracles of any established authority, +lingered echoing in the heads and hearts of them to whom they were +given--shaping and confirming, or darkening with their denial many an +after hope and fear? + +Faith Gartney came up among the very last. + +"How many numbers are there to choose from?" she asked. + +"Three hundred and sixty-five. The number of days in the year." + +"Well, then, I'll take the number of the day; the last--no, I +forgot--the first of all." + +Nobody before had chosen this, and Margaret read, in a clear, gentle +voice, not untouched with the grave beauty of its own words, and the +sweet, earnest, listening look of the young face that bent toward her to +take them in: + + "Rouse to some high and holy work of love, + And thou an angel's happiness shalt know; + Shalt bless the earth while in the world above; + The good begun by thee while here below + Shall like a river run, and broader flow." + +Ten minutes later, and all else were absorbed in other things +again--leave-takings, parting chat, and a few waltzing a last measure to +a specially accorded grace of music. Faith stood, thoughtfully, by the +table where the book was closed and left. She quietly reopened it at +that first page. Unconscious of a step behind her, her eyes ran over the +lines again, to make their beautiful words her own. + +"And that was your oracle, then?" asked a kindly voice. + +Glancing quickly up, while the timid color flushed her cheek, she met a +look as of a wise and watchful angel, though it came through the eye and +smile of a gray-haired man, who laid his hand upon the page as he said: + +"Remember--it is _conditional_." + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +AUNT HENDERSON. + +"I never met a manner more entirely without frill." + SYDNEY SMITH. + + +Late into the morning of the New Year, Faith slept. Through her half +consciousness crept, at last, a feeling of music that had been +wandering in faint echoes among the chambers of her brain all those +hours of her suspended life. + +Light, and music, and a sense of an unexamined, half-remembered joy, +filled her being and embraced her at her waking on this New Year's Day. +A moment she lay in a passive, unthinking delight; and then her first, +full, and distinct thought shaped itself, as from a sweet and solemn +memory: + + "Rouse to some high and holy work of love, + And thou an angel's happiness shalt know." + +An impulse of lofty feeling held her in its ecstasy; a noble longing and +determination shaped itself, though vaguely, within her. For a little, +she was touched in her deepest and truest nature; she was uplifted to +the threshold of a great resolve. But generalities are so grand--details +so commonplace and unsatisfying. _What_ should she do? What "high and +holy work" lay waiting for her? + +And, breaking in upon her reverie--bringing her down with its rough and +common call to common duty--the second bell for breakfast rang. + +"Oh, dear! It is no use! Who'll know what great things I've been wishing +and planning, when I've nothing to show for it but just being late to +breakfast? And father hates it so--and New Year's morning, too!" + +Hurrying her toilet, she repaired, with all the haste possible, to the +breakfast room, where her consciousness of shortcoming was in nowise +lessened when she saw who occupied the seat at her father's right +hand--Aunt Henderson! + +Aunt Faith Henderson, who had reached her nephew's house last evening +just after the young Faith, her namesake, had gone joyously off to +"dance the Old Year out and the New Year in." Old-fashioned Aunt +Faith--who believed most devoutly that "early to bed and early to rise" +was the _only_ way to be "healthy, wealthy, or wise!" Aunt Faith, who +had never quite forgiven our young heroine for having said, at the +discreet and positive age of nine, that "she didn't see what her father +and mother had called her such an ugly name for. It was a real old +maid's name!" Whereupon, having asked the child what she would have +preferred as a substitute, and being answered, "Well--Clotilda, I guess; +or Cleopatra," Miss Henderson had told her that she was quite welcome to +change it for any heathen woman's that she pleased, and the worse +behaved perhaps the better. She wouldn't be so likely to do it any +discredit! + +Aunt Henderson had a downright and rather extreme fashion of putting +things; nevertheless, in her heart she was not unkindly. + +So when Faithie, with her fair, fresh face--a little apprehensive +trouble in it for her tardiness--came in, there was a grim bending of +the old lady's brows; but, below, a half-belying twinkle in the eye, +that, long as it had looked out sharply and keenly on the things and +people of this mixed-up world, found yet a pleasure in anything so young +and bright. + +"Why, auntie! How do you do?" cried Faith, cunning culprit that she was, +taking the "bull by the horns," and holding out her hand. "I wish you a +Happy New Year! Good morning, father, and mother! A Happy New Year! I'm +sorry I'm so late." + +"Wish you a great many," responded the great-aunt, in stereotyped +phrase. "It seems to me, though, you've lost the beginning of this one." + +"Oh, no!" replied Faithie, gayly. "I had that at the party. We danced +the New Year in." + +"Humph!" said Aunt Henderson. + +Breakfast over, and Mr. Gartney gone to his counting room, the parlor +girl made her appearance with her mop and tub of hot water, to wash up +the silver and china. + +"Give me that," said Aunt Henderson, taking a large towel from the +girl's arm as she set down her tub upon the sideboard. "You go and find +something else to do." + +Wherever she might be--to be sure, her round of visiting was not a large +one--Aunt Henderson never let anyone else wash up breakfast cups. + +This quiet arming of herself, with mop and towel, stirred up everybody +else to duty. Her niece-in-law laughed, withdrew her feet from the +comfortable fender, and departed to the kitchen to give her household +orders for the day. Faith removed cups, glasses, forks, and spoons from +the table to the sideboard, while the maid, returning with a tray, +carried off to the lower regions the larger dishes. + +"I haven't told you yet, Elizabeth, what I came to town for," said Aunt +Faith, when Mrs. Gartney came back into the breakfast room. "I'm going +to hunt up a girl." + +"A girl, aunt! Why, what has become of Prudence?" + +"Mrs. Pelatiah Trowe. That's what's become of her. More fool she." + +"But why in the world do you come to the city for a servant? It's the +worst possible place. Nineteen out of twenty are utterly good for +nothing." + +"I'm going to look out for the twentieth." + +"But aren't there girls enough in Kinnicutt who would be glad to step in +Prue's place?" + +"Of course there are. But they're all well enough off where they are. +When I have a chance to give away, I want to give it to somebody that +needs it." + +"I'm afraid you'll hardly find any efficient girl who will appreciate +the chance of going twenty miles into the country." + +"I don't want an efficient girl. I'm efficient myself, and that's +enough." + +"Going to _train_ another, at your time of life, aunt?" asked Mrs. +Gartney, in surprise. + +"I suppose I must either train a girl, or let her train me; and, at my +time of life, I don't feel to stand in need of that." + +"How shall I go to work to inquire?" resumed Aunt Henderson, after a +pause. + +"Well, there are the Homes, and the Offices, and the Ministers at Large. +At a Home, they would probably recommend you somebody they've made up +their minds to put out to service, and she might or might not be such as +would suit you. Then at the Offices, you'll see all sorts, and mostly +poor ones." + +"I'll try an Office, first," interrupted Miss Henderson. "I _want_ to +see all sorts. Faith, you'll go with me, by and by, won't you, and help +me find the way?" + +Faith, seated at a little writing table at the farther end of the room, +busied in copying into her album, in a clear, neat, but rather stiff +schoolgirl's hand, the oracle of the night before, did not at once +notice that she was addressed. + +"Faith, child! don't you hear?" + +"Oh, yes, aunt. What is it?" + +"I want you to go to a what-d'ye-call-it office with me, to-day." + +"An intelligence office," explained her mother. "Aunt Faith wants to +find a girl." + +"'_Lucus a non lucendo_,'" quoted Faith, rather wittily, from her little +stock of Latin. "Stupidity offices, _I_ should call them, from the +specimens they send out." + +"Hold your tongue, chit! Don't talk Latin to me!" growled Aunt +Henderson. + +"What are you writing?" she asked, shortly after, when Mrs. Gartney had +again left her and Faith to each other. "Letters, or Latin?" + +Faith colored, and laughed. + +"Only a fortune that was told me last night," she replied. + +"Oh! 'A little husband,' I suppose, 'no bigger than my thumb; put him in +a pint pot, and there bid him drum.'" + +"No," said Faith, half seriously, and half teased out of her +seriousness. "It's nothing of that sort. At least," she added, glancing +over the lines again, "I don't think it means anything like that." + +And Faith laid down the book, and went upstairs for a word with her +mother. + +Aunt Henderson, who had been brought up in times when all the doings of +young girls were strictly supervised, and who had no high-flown +scruples, because she had no mean motives, deliberately walked over and +fetched the elegant little volume from the table, reseated herself in +her armchair--felt for her glasses, and set them carefully upon her +nose--and, as her grandniece returned, was just finishing her perusal +of the freshly inscribed lines. + +"Humph! A good fortune. Only you've got to earn it." + +"Yes," said Faith, quite gravely. "And I don't see how. There doesn't +seem to be much that I can do." + +"Just take hold of the first thing that comes in your way. If the Lord's +got anything bigger to give you, he'll see to it. There's your mother's +mending basket brimful of stockings." + +Faith couldn't help laughing. Presently she grew grave again. + +"Aunt Henderson," said she, abruptly, "I wish something would happen to +me. I get tired of living sometimes. Things don't seem worth while." + +Aunt Henderson bent her head slightly, and opened her eyes wide over the +tops of her glasses. + +"Don't say that again," said she. "Things happen fast enough. Don't you +dare to tempt Providence." + +"Providence won't be tempted, nor misunderstand," replied Faith, an +undertone of reverence qualifying her girlish repartee. "He knows just +what I mean." + +"She's a queer child," said Aunt Faith to herself, afterwards, thinking +over the brief conversation. "She'll be something or nothing, I always +said. I used to think 'twould be nothing." + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +GLORY McWHIRK. + +"There's beauty waiting to be born, + And harmony that makes no sound; +And bear we ever, unawares, + A glory that hath not been crowned." + + +Shall I try to give you a glimpse of quite another young life than Faith +Gartney's? One looking also vaguely, wonderingly, for "something to +happen"--that indefinite "something" which lies in everybody's future, +which may never arrive, and yet which any hour may bring? + +Very little likelihood there has ever seemed for any great joy to get +into such a life as this has been, that began, or at least has its +earliest memory and association, in the old poorhouse at Stonebury. + +A child she was, of five years, when she was taken in there with her +old, crippled grandmother. + +Peter McWhirk was picked up dead, from the graveled drive of a +gentleman's place, where he had been trimming the high trees that shaded +it. An unsound limb--a heedless movement--and Peter went straight down, +thirty feet, and out of life. Out of life, where he had a trim, +comfortable young wife--one happy little child, for whom skies were as +blue, and grass as green, and buttercups as golden as for the little +heiress of Elm Hill, who was riding over the lawn in her basket wagon, +when Peter met his death there--the hope, also, of another that was to +come. + +Rosa McWhirk and her baby of a day old were buried the week after, +together; and then there was nothing left for Glory and her helpless +grandmother but the poorhouse as a present refuge; and to the one death, +that ends all, and to the other a life of rough and unremitting work to +look to for by and by. + +When Glory came into this world where wants begin with the first breath, +and go on thickening around us, and pressing upon us until the last one +is supplied to us--a grave--she wanted, first of all, a name. + +"Sure what'll I call the baby?" said the proud young mother to the +ladies from the white corner house, where she had served four faithful +years of her maidenhood, and who came down at once with comforts and +congratulations. "They've sint for the praist, an' I've niver bethought +of a name. I made so certain 'twould be a boy!" + +"What a funny bit of a thing it is!" cried the younger of the two +visitors, turning back the bedclothes a little from the tiny, red, +puckered face, with short, sandy-colored hair standing up about the +temples like a fuzz ball. + +"I'd call her Glory. There's a halo round her head like the saints in +the pictures." + +"Sure, that's jist like yersilf, Miss Mattie!" exclaimed Rosa, with a +faint, merry little laugh. "An' quare enough, I knew a lady once't of +the very name, in the ould country. Miss Gloriana O'Dowd she was; an' +the beauty o' County Kerry. My Lady Kinawley, she came to be. 'Deed, but +I'd like to do it, for the ould times, an' for you thinkin' of it! I'll +ask Peter, anyhow!" + +And so Glory got her name; and Mattie Hyde, who gave her that, gave her +many another thing that was no less a giving to the mother also, before +she was two years old. Then Mrs. Hyde and the young lady, having first +let the corner house, went away to Europe to stay for years; and when a +box of tokens from the far, foreign lands came back to Stonebury a while +after, there was a grand shawl for Rosa, and a pretty braided frock for +the baby, and a rosary that Glory keeps to this hour, that had been +blessed by the Pope. That was the last. Mattie and her mother sailed out +upon the Mediterranean one day from the bright coast of France for a far +eastern port, to see the Holy Land. God's Holy Land they did see, +though they never touched those Syrian shores, or climbed the hills +about Jerusalem. + +Glory remembered--for the most part dimly, for some special points +distinctly--her child life of three years in Stonebury poorhouse. How +her grandmother and an old countrywoman from the same county "at home" +sat knitting and crooning together in a sunny corner of the common room +in winter, or out under the stoop in summer; how she rolled down the +green bank behind the house; and, when she grew big enough to be trusted +with a knife, was sent out to dig dandelions in the spring, and how an +older girl went with her round the village, and sold them from house to +house. How, at last, her old grandmother died, and was buried; and how a +woman of the village, who had used to buy her dandelions, found a place +for her with a relative of her own, in the ten-mile distant city, who +took Glory to "bring up"--"seeing," as she said, "there was nobody +belonging to her to interfere." + +Was there a day, after that, that did not leave its searing impress upon +heart and memory, of the life that was given, in its every young pulse +and breath, to sordid toil for others, and to which it seemed nobody on +earth owed aught of care or service in return? + +It was a close little house--one of those houses where they have fried +dinners so often that the smell never gets out in Budd Street--a street +of a single side, wedged in between the back yards of more pretentious +mansions that stood on fair parallel avenues sloping down from a hilltop +to the waterside, that Mrs. Grubbling lived in. + +Here Glory McWhirk, from eight years old to nearly fifteen, scoured +knives and brasses, tended doorbell, set tables, washed dishes, and +minded the baby; whom, at her peril, she must "keep pacified"--i. e., +amused and content, while its mother was otherwise busy. For her, poor +child--baby that she still, almost, was herself--who amused, or +contented her? There are humans with whom amusement and content have +nothing to do. What will you? The world must go on. + +Glory curled the baby's hair, and made him "look pretty." Mrs. Grubbling +cut her little handmaid's short to save trouble; so that the very +determined yellow locks which, under more favoring circumstances of +place and fortune, might have been trained into lovely golden curls, +stood up continually in their restless reaching after the fairer destiny +that had been meant for them, in the old fuzz-ball fashion; and Glory +grew more and more to justify her name. + +Do you think she didn't know what beauty was--this child who never had a +new or pretty garment, but who wore frocks "fadged up" out of old, faded +breadths of her mistress's dresses, and bonnets with brims cut off and +topknots taken down, and coarse shoes, and stockings cut out of the +legs of those whereof Mrs. Grubbling had worn out the extremities? Do +you think she didn't feel the difference, and that it wasn't this that +made her shuffle along so with her toes in, when she sped along the +streets upon her manifold errands, and met gentle-people's children +laughing and skipping their hoops upon the sidewalks? + +Out of all lives, actual and possible, each one of us appropriates +continually into his own. This is a world of hints only, out of which +every soul seizes to itself what it needs. + +This girl, uncherished, repressed in every natural longing to be and to +have, took in all the more of what was possible; for God had given her +this glorious insight, this imagination, wherewith we fill up life's +scanty outline, and grasp at all that might be, or that elsewhere, is. +In her, as in us all, it was often--nay, daily--a discontent; yet a +noble discontent, and curbed with a grand, unconscious patience. She +scoured her knives; she shuffled along the streets on hasty errands; she +went up and down the house in her small menial duties; she put on and +off her coarse, repulsive clothing; she uttered herself in her common, +ignorant forms of speech; she showed only as a poor, low, little Irish +girl with red hair and staring, wondering eyes, and awkward movements, +and a frightened fashion of getting into everybody's way; and yet, +behind all this, there was another life that went on in a hidden beauty +that you and I cannot fathom, save only as God gives the like, inwardly, +to ourselves. + +When Glory's mistress cut her hair, there were always tears and +rebellion. It was her one, eager, passionate longing, in these childish +days, that these locks of hers should be let to grow. She thought she +could almost bear anything else, if only this stiff, unseemly crop might +lengthen out into waves and ringlets that should toss in the wind like +the carefully kempt tresses of children she met in the streets. She +imagined it would be a complete and utter happiness just once to feel it +falling in its wealth about her shoulders or dropping against her +cheeks; and to be able to look at it with her eyes, and twist her +fingers in it at the ends. And so, when it got to be its longest, and +began to make itself troublesome about her forehead, and to peep below +her shabby bonnet in her neck, she had a brief season of wonderful +enjoyment in it. Then she could "make believe" it had really grown out; +and the comfort she took in "going through the motions"--pretending to +tuck behind her ears what scarcely touched their tips, and tossing her +head continually, to throw back imaginary masses of curls, was truly +indescribable, and such as I could not begin to make you understand. + +"Half-witted monkey!" Mrs. Grubbling would ejaculate, contemptuously, +seeing, with what she conceived marvelous penetration, the half of her +little servant's thought, and so pronouncing from her own half wit. Then +the great shears came out, and the instinct of grace and beauty in the +child was pitilessly outraged, and her soul mutilated, as it were, in +every clip of the inexorable shears. + +She was always glad--poor Glory--when the springtime came. She took +Bubby and Baby down to the Common, of a May Day, to see the processions +and the paper-crowned queens; and stood there in her stained and +drabbled dress, with the big year-and-a-half-old baby in her arms, and +so quite at the mercy of Master Herbert Clarence, who defiantly skipped +oft down the avenues, and almost out of her sight--she looking after him +in helpless dismay, lest he should get a splash or a tumble, or be +altogether lost; and then what would the mistress say? Standing there +so--the troops of children in their holiday trim passing close beside +her--her young heart turned bitter for a moment, as it sometimes would; +and her one utterance of all that swelled her martyr soul broke forth: + +"Laws a me! Sech lots of good times in the world, and I ain't in 'em!" + +Yet, that afternoon, when Mrs. Grubbling went out shopping, and left her +to her own devices with the children, how jubilantly she trained the +battered chairs in line, and put herself at the head, with Bubby's +scarlet tippet wreathed about her upstart locks, and made a May Day! + +I say, she had the soul and essence of the very life she seemed to miss. + +There were shabby children's books about the Grubbling domicile, that +had been the older child's--Cornelia's--and had descended to Master +Herbert, while yet his only pastime in them was to scrawl them full of +pencil marks, and tear them into tatters. These, one by one, Glory +rescued, and hid away, and fed upon, piecemeal, in secret. She could +read, at least--this poor, denied unfortunate. Peter McWhirk had taught +his child her letters in happy, humble Sundays and holidays long ago; +and Mrs. Grubbling had begun by sending her to a primary school for a +while, irregularly, when she could be spared; and when she hadn't just +torn her frock, or worn out her shoes, or it didn't rain, or she hadn't +been sent of an errand and come back too late--which reasons, with a +multitude of others, constantly recurring, reduced the school days in +the year to a number whose smallness Mrs. Grubbling would have +indignantly disputed, had it been calculated and set before her; she +being one of those not uncommon persons who regard a duty continually +evaded as one continually performed, it being necessarily just as much +on their minds; till, at last, Herbert had a winter's illness, and in +summer it wasn't worth while, and the winter after, baby came, so that +of course she couldn't be spared at all; and it seemed little likely now +that she ever again would be. But she kept her spelling book, and read +over and over what she knew, and groped her way slowly into more, till +she promoted herself from that to "Mother Goose"--from "Mother Goose" to +"Fables for the Nursery"--and now, her ever fresh and unfailing feast +was the "Child's Own Book of Fairy Tales," and an odd volume of the +"Parents' Assistant." She picked out, slowly, the gist of these, with a +lame and uncertain interpretation. She lived for weeks with Beauty and +the Beast--with Cinderella--with the good girl who worked for the witch, +and shook her feather bed every morning; till at last, given leave to go +home and see her mother, the gold and silver shower came down about her, +departing at the back door. Perhaps she should get her pay, some time, +and go home and see her mother. + +Meanwhile, she identified herself with--lost herself utterly in,--these +imaginary lives. She was, for the time, Cinderella; she was Beauty; she +was above all, the Fair One with Golden Locks; she was Simple Susan +going to be May Queen; she dwelt in the old Castle of Rossmore, with the +Irish Orphans. The little Grubbling house in Budd Street was peopled all +through, in every corner, with her fancies. Don't tell me she had +nothing but her niggardly outside living there. + +And the wonder began to come up in her mind, as it did in Faith +Gartney's, whether and when "something might happen" to her. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +SOMETHING HAPPENS. + +"Athirst! athirst! The sandy soil + Bears no glad trace of leaf or tree; +No grass-blade sigheth to the heaven + Its little drop of ecstasy. + +"Yet other fields are spreading wide + Green bosoms to the bounteous sun; +And palms and cedars shall sublime + Their rapture for thee,--waiting one!" + + +"Take us down to see the apple woman," said Master Herbert, going out +with Glory and the baby one day when his school didn't keep, and Mrs. +Grubbling had a headache, and wanted to get them all off out of the way. + +Bridget Foye sat at her apple stand in the cheery morning sunlight, red +cheeks and russets ranged fair and tempting before her, and a pile of +roasted peanuts, and one of delicate molasses candy, such as nobody but +she knew how to make, at either end of the board. + +Bridget Foye was the tidiest, kindliest, merriest apple woman in all +Mishaumok. Everybody whose daily path lay across that southeast corner +of the Common, knew her well, and had a smile, and perhaps a penny for +her; and got a smile and a God-bless-you, and, for the penny, a rosy or +a golden apple, or some of her crisp candy in return. + +Glory and the baby, sitting down to rest on one of the benches close by, +as their habit was, had one day made a nearer acquaintance with blithe +Bridget. I think it began with Glory--who held the baby up to see the +passing show of a portion of a menagerie in the street, and heard two +girls, stopping just before her to look, likewise, say they'd go and see +it perform next day--uttering something of her old soliloquy about "good +times," and why she "warn't ever in any of 'em." However it was, Mrs. +Foye, in her buxom cheeriness, was drawn to give some of it forth to the +uncouth-looking, companionless girl, and not only began a chat with her, +after the momentary stir in the street was over, and she had settled +herself upon her stool, and leaning her back against a tree, set +vigorously to work again at knitting a stout blue yarn stocking, but +also treated Bubby and Baby to some bits of her sweet merchandise, and +told them about the bears and the monkeys that had gone by, shut up in +the gay, red-and-yellow-painted wagons. + +So it became, after this first opening, Glory's chief pleasure to get +out with the children now and then, of a sunny day, and sit here on the +bench by Bridget Foye, and hear her talk, and tell her, confidentially, +some of her small, incessant troubles. It was one more life to draw +from--a hearty, bright, and wholesome life, besides. She had, at last, +in this great, tumultuous, indifferent city, a friendship and a +resource. + +But there was a certain fair spot of delicate honor in Glory's nature +that would not let her bring Bubby and Baby in any apparent hope of what +they might get, gratuitously, into their mouths. She laid it down, a +rule, with Master Herbert, that he was not to go to the apple stand with +her unless he had first put by a penny for a purchase. And so +unflinchingly she adhered to this determination, that sometimes weeks +went by--hard, weary weeks, without a bit of pleasantness for her; weeks +of sore pining for a morsel of heart food--before she was free of her +own conscience to go and take it. + +Bridget told stories to Herbert--strange, nonsensical fables, to be +sure--stuff that many an overwise mother, bringing up her children by +hard rule and theory, might have utterly forbidden as harmful trash--yet +that never put an evil into his heart, nor crowded, I dare to say, a +better thought out of his brain. Glory liked the stories as well, +almost, as the child. One moral always ran through them all. Troubles +always, somehow, came to an end; good creatures and children got safe +out of them all, and lived happy ever after; and the fierce, and +cunning, and bad--the wolves, and foxes, and witches--trapped themselves +in their own wickedness, and came to deplorable ends. + +"Tell us about the little red hen," said Herbert, paying his money, and +munching his candy. + +"An' thin ye'll trundle yer hoop out to the big tree, an' lave Glory an' +me our lane for a minute?" + +"Faith, an' I will that," said the boy--aping, ambitiously, the racy +Irish accent. + +"Well, thin, there was once't upon a time, away off in the ould country, +livin' all her lane in the woods, in a wee bit iv a house be herself, a +little rid hin. Nice an' quite she was, and nivir did no kind o' harrum +in her life. An' there lived out over the hill, in a din o' the rocks, a +crafty ould felly iv a fox. An' this same ould villain iv a fox, he laid +awake o' nights, and he prowled round shly iy a daytime, thinkin' always +so busy how he'd git the little rid hin, an' carry her home an' bile her +up for his shupper. But the wise little rid hin nivir went intil her bit +iv a house, but she locked the door afther her, an' pit the kay in her +pocket. So the ould rashkill iv a fox, he watched, an' he prowled, an' +he laid awake nights, till he came all to skin an' bone, on' sorra a +ha'porth o' the little rid hin could he git at. But at lasht there came +a shcame intil his wicked ould head, an' he tuk a big bag one mornin', +over his shouldher, and he says till his mother, says he, 'Mother, have +the pot all bilin' agin' I come home, for I'll bring the little rid hin +to-night for our shupper.' An' away he wint, over the hill, an' came +craping shly and soft through the woods to where the little rid hin +lived in her shnug bit iv a house. An' shure, jist at the very minute +that he got along, out comes the little rid hin out iv the door, to pick +up shticks to bile her taykettle. 'Begorra, now, but I'll have yees,' +says the shly ould fox, and in he shlips, unbeknownst, intil the house, +an' hides behind the door. An' in comes the little rid hin, a minute +afther, with her apron full of shticks, an' shuts to the door an' locks +it, an' pits the kay in her pocket. An' thin she turns round--an' there +shtands the baste iv a fox in the corner. Well, thin, what did she do, +but jist dhrop down her shticks, and fly up in a great fright and +flutter to the big bame acrass inside o' the roof, where the fox +couldn't get at her? + +"'Ah, ha!' says the ould fox, 'I'll soon bring yees down out o' that!' +An' he began to whirrul round, an' round, an' round, fashter an' fashter +an' fashter, on the floor, after his big, bushy tail, till the little +rid hin got so dizzy wid lookin', that she jist tumbled down off the +bame, and the fox whipped her up and popped her intil his bag, and +shtarted off home in a minute. An' he wint up the wood, an' down the +wood, half the day long, with the little rid hin shut up shmotherin' in +the bag. Sorra a know she knowd where she was, at all, at all. She +thought she was all biled an' ate up, an' finished, shure! But, by an' +by, she renumbered herself, an' pit her hand in her pocket, and tuk out +her little bright schissors, and shnipped a big hole in the bag behind, +an' out she leapt, an' picked up a big shtone, an' popped it intil the +bag, an' rin aff home, an' locked the door. + +"An' the fox he tugged away up over the hill, with the big shtone at his +back thumpin' his shouldhers, thinkin' to himself how heavy the little +rid hin was, an' what a fine shupper he'd have. An' whin he came in +sight iv his din in the rocks, and shpied his ould mother a-watchin' for +him at the door, he says, 'Mother! have ye the pot bilin'?' An' the ould +mother says, 'Sure an' it is; an' have ye the little rid hin?' 'Yes, +jist here in me bag. Open the lid o' the pot till I pit her in,' says +he. + +"An' the ould mother fox she lifted the lid o' the pot, and the rashkill +untied the bag, and hild it over the pot o' bilin' wather, an' shuk in +the big, heavy shtone. An' the bilin' wather shplashed up all over the +rogue iv a fox, an' his mother, an' shcalded them both to death. An' the +little rid hin lived safe in her house foriver afther." + +"Ah!" breathed Bubby, in intense relief, for perhaps the twentieth time. +"Now tell about the girl that went to seek her fortune!" + +"Away wid ye!" cried Bridget Foye. "Kape yer promish, an' lave that till +ye come back!" + +So Herbert and his hoop trundled off to the big tree. + +"An' how are yees now, honey?" says Bridget to Glory, a whole catechism +of questions in the one inquiry. "Have ye come till any good times yit?" + +"Oh, Mrs. Foye," says Glory, "I think I'm tied up tight in the bag, an' +I'll never get out, except it's into the hot water!" + +"An' havint ye nivir a pair iv schissors in yer pocket?" asks Bridget. + +"I don't know," says poor Glory, hopelessly. And just then Master +Herbert comes trundling back, and Bridget tells him the story of the +girl that went to seek her fortune and came to be a queen. + +Glory half thinks that, some day or other, she, too, will start off and +seek her fortune. + +The next morning, Sunday--never a holiday, and scarcely a holy day to +her--Glory sits at the front window, with the inevitable baby in her +arms. + +Mrs. Grubbling is upstairs getting ready for church. After baby has his +forenoon drink, and is got off to sleep--supposing he shall be +complaisant, and go--Glory is to dust up, and set table, and warm the +dinner, and be all ready to bring it up when the elder Grubbling shall +have returned. + +Out at the Pembertons' green gate she sees the tidy parlor maid come, in +her smart shawl and new, bright ribbons; holding up her pretty printed +mousseline dress with one hand, as she steps down upon the street, and +so revealing the white hem of a clean starched skirt; while the other +hand is occupied with the little Catholic prayer book and a folded +handkerchief. Actually, gloves on her hands, too. The gate closes with a +cord and pulley after her, and somehow the hem of the fresh, +outspreading crinoline gets caught in it, as it shuts. So she turns half +round, and takes both hands to push it open and release herself. Doing +so, something slips from between the folds of her handkerchief, and +drops upon the ground. A bright half dollar, which was going to pay some +of her little church dues to-day. And she hurries on, never missing it +out of her grasp, and is halfway down the side street before Glory can +set the baby suddenly on the carpet, rush out at the front door, +regardless that Mrs. Grubbling's chamber window overlooks her from +above, pick up the coin, and overtake her. + +"I saw you drop it by the gate," is all she says, as she puts it into +Katie Ryan's hand. + +Katie stares with surprise, turning round at the touch upon her +shoulder, and beholding the strange figure, and the still stranger +evidence of honesty and good will. + +"Indeed, and I'm thoroughly obliged to ye," says she, barely in time, +for the odd figure is already retreating up the street. "It's the +red-headed girl over at Grubbling's," she continues to herself. "Well, +anyhow, she's an honest, kind-hearted crature, and I'll not forget it of +her." + +Glory has made another friend. + +"Well, Glory McWhirk, this is very pretty doings indeed!" began Mrs. +Grubbling, meeting the little handmaiden at the parlor door. "So this is +the way, is it, when my back is turned for a minute? That poor baby +dumped down on the floor, to crawl up to the hot stove, or do any other +horrid thing he likes, while you go flacketting out, bareheaded, into +the streets, after a topping jade like that? You can't have any +high-flown acquaintances while you live in my house, I tell you now, +once and for all. Are you going to take up that baby or not?" Mrs. +Grubbling had been thus far effectually heading Glory off, by standing +square in the parlor doorway. "Or perhaps, I'd better stay at home and +take care of him myself," she added, in a tone of superlative irony. + +Poor Glory, meekly murmuring that it was only to give back some money +the girl had dropped, slid past her mistress submissively, like a sentry +caught off his post and warned of mortal punishment, and shouldered arms +once more; that is, picked up the baby, who, as if taking the cue from +his mother, and made conscious of his grievance, had at this moment +begun to cry. + +Glory had a good cry of her own first, and then, "killing two birds with +one stone," pacified herself and the baby "all under one." + +After this, Katie Ryan never came out at the green gate, of a Sunday on +the way to church, or of a week day to run down the little back street +of an errand, but she gave a glance up at the Grubblings' windows; and +if she caught sight of Glory's illumined head, nodded her own, with its +pretty, dark-brown locks, quite pleasant and friendly. And between these +chance recognitions of Katie's, and the good apple woman's occasional +sympathy, the world began to brighten a little, even for poor Glory. + +Still, good times went on--grand, wonderful good times--all around her. +And she caught distant glimpses, but "wasn't in 'em." + +One day, as she hurried home from the grocer's with half-a-dozen eggs +and two lemons, Katie ran out from the gate, and met her halfway down +Budd Street. + +"I've been watchin' for ye," said she. "I seen ye go out of an errand, +an' I've been lookin' for ye back. There's to be a grand party at our +house to-morrow night, an' I thought maybe ye'd like to get lave, an' +run over to take a peep at it. Put on yer best frock, and make yer hair +tidy, an' I'll see to yer gettin' a good chance." + +Poor Glory colored up, as Mrs. Grabbling might have done if the +President's wife had bidden her. Not so, either. With a glow of feeling, +and an oppression of gratitude, and a humility of delight, that Mrs. +Grubbling, under any circumstances whatever, could have known nothing +about. + +"If I only can," she managed to utter, "and, anyhow, I'm sure I'm +thankful to ye a thousand times." + +And that night she sat up in her little attic room, after everybody else +was in bed, mending, in a poor fashion, a rent in the faded "best +frock," and sewing a bit of cotton lace in the neck thereof that she had +picked out of the ragbag, and surreptitiously washed and ironed. + +Next morning, she went about her homely tasks with an alacrity that Mrs. +Grubbling, knowing nothing of the hope that had been let in upon her +dreariness, attributed wholly to the salutary effect of a "good +scolding" she had administered the day before. The work she got out of +the girl that Thursday forenoon! Never once did Glory leave her +scrubbing, or her dusting, or her stove polishing, to glance from the +windows into the street, though the market boys, and the waiters, and +the confectioners' parcels were going in at the Pembertons' gate, and +the man from the greenhouse, even, drove his cart up, filled with +beautiful plants for the staircase. + +She waited, as in our toils we wait for Heaven--trusting to the joy that +was to come. + +After dinner, she spoke, with fear and trembling. Her lips turned quite +white with anxiety as she stood before Mrs. Grubbling with the baby in +her arms. + +"Please, mum," says Glory, tremulously, "Katie Ryan asked me over for a +little while to-night to look at the party." + +Mrs. Grubbling actually felt a jealousy, as if her poor, untutored +handmaid were taking precedence of herself. + +"What party?" she snapped. + +"At the Pembertons', mum. I thought you knew about it." + +"And what if I do? Maybe I'm going, myself." + +Glory opened her eyes wide in mingled consternation and surprise. + +"I didn't think you was, mum. But if you is----" + +"You're willing, I suppose," retorted her mistress, laughing, in a +bitter way. "I'm very much obliged. But I'm going out to-night, anyhow, +whether it's there or not, and you can't be spared. Besides, you needn't +think you're going to begin with going out evenings yet a while. At your +age! A pretty thing! There--go along, and don't bother me." + +Glory went along; and only the baby--of mortal listeners--heard the +suffering cry that went up from her poor, pinched, and chilled, and +disappointed heart. + +"Oh, baby, baby! it was _too_ good a time! I'd ought to a knowed I +couldn't be in it!" + +Only a stone's throw from those brightly lighted windows of the +Pembertons'! Their superfluous radiance pouring out lavishly across the +narrow street, searched even through the dim panes behind which Glory +sat, resting her tired arms, after tucking away their ordinary burden in +his crib, and answering Herbert's wearisome questions, who from his +trundle bed kept asking, ceaselessly: + +"What are they doing now? Can't you see, Glory?" + +"Hush, hush!" said Glory, breathlessly, as a burst of brilliant melody +floated over to her ear. "They're making music now. Don't you hear?" + +"No. How can I, with my head in the pillow? I'm coming there to sit with +you, Glory." And the boy scrambled from his feed to the window. + +"No, no! you'll ketch cold. Besides, you'd oughter go to sleep. +Well--only for a little bit of a minute, then," as Herbert persisted, +and climbing upon her lap, flattened his face against the window pane. + +Glory gathered up her skirt about his shoulders and held him for a +while, begging him uneasily, over and over, to "be a good boy, and go +back to bed." No; he wouldn't be a good boy, and he wouldn't go back to +bed, till the music paused. Then, by dint of promising that if it began +again she would open the window a "teenty little crack," so that he +might hear it better, she coaxed him to the point of yielding, and +tucked him, chilly, yet half unwilling, in the trundle. + +Back again, to look and listen. And, oh, wonderful and unexpected +fortune! A beneficent hand has drawn up the white linen shade at one of +the back parlor windows to slide the sash a little from the top. It was +Katie, whom her young mistress, standing with her partner at that corner +of the room, had called in from the hall to do it. + +"No, no," whispered the young lady, hastily, as her companion moved to +render her the service she desired, "let Katie come in. She'll get such +a good look down the room at the dancers." There was no abated +admiration in the young man's eye, as he turned back to her side, and +allowed her kindly intention to be fulfilled. + +Did Katie surmise, in her turn, with the freemasonry of her class, how +it was with her humble friend over the way--that she couldn't get let +out for the evening, and that she would be sure to be looking and +listening from her old post opposite? However it was, the linen shade +was not lowered again, and there between the lace and crimson curtains +stood revealed the graceful young figure of Edith Pemberton, in her +floating ball robes, with the wreath of morning-glories in her hair. + +"Oh, my sakes and sorrows! Ain't she just like a princess? Ain't it a +splendid time? And I come so near to be in it! But I ain't; and I s'pose +I shan't ever get a chance again. Maybe Katie'd get me over of a common +workday though, some time, to help her a bit or so. Wouldn't I be glad +to?" + +"Oh, for gracious, child! Don't ever come here again. You'll catch your +death. You'll have the croup and whooping cought, and everything +to-morrow." This to Herbert, who had of course tumbled out of bed again +at Glory's first rapturous exclamation. + +"No, I won't!" cried the boy, rebelliously; "I'll stay as long as I +like. And I'll tell my ma how you was a-wantin' to go away and be the +Pembertons' girl. Won't she lam you when she hears that?" + +"You can tell wicked lies if you want to, Master Herbert; but you know I +never said such a word, nor ever thought of it. Of course I couldn't if +I wanted to ever so bad." + +"Couldn't live there? I guess not. Think they'd have a girl like you? +What a lookin' you'd be, a-comin' to the front door answerin' the bell!" + +Here the doorbell rang suddenly and sharply, and Master Herbert +fancying, as did Glory, that it was his mother come back, scrambled +into his bed again and covered himself up, while the girl ran down to +answer the summons. + +It was Katie Ryan, with cakes and sweetmeats. + +"I've jist rin in to fetch ye these. Miss Edith gave 'em me, so ye +needn't be feared. I knows ye're sich an honest one. An' it's a tearin' +shame, if ever there was, that ye couldn't come over for a bit of +diversion. Why don't ye quit this?" + +"Oh, hush!" whispered Glory, with a gesture up the staircase, where she +had just left the little pitcher with fearfully long ears. "And thank +you kindly, over and over, I'm sure. It's real good o' you to think o' +me so--oh!" And Glory couldn't say anything more for a quick little sob +that came in her throat, and caught the last word up into a spasm. + +"Pooh! it's just nothing at all. I'd do something better nor that if I +had the chance; an' I'd adwise ye to get out o' this if ye can. Good-by. +I've set the parlor windy open, an' the shade's up. I knew it would jist +be a conwenience." + +Glory ran up the back stairs to the top of the house, and hid away the +sweet things in her own room to "make a party" with next day. And then +she went down and tented over the crib with an old woolen shawl, and set +a high-backed rocking chair to keep the draft from Herbert, and opened +the window "a teenty crack." In five minutes the slight freshening of +the air and the soothing of the music had sent the boy to sleep, and +watchful Glory closed the window and set things in their ordinary +arrangement once more. + +Next morning Herbert made hoarse complaint. + +"What did you let him do, Glory, to catch such a cold?" asked Mrs. +Grabbling. + +"Nothing, mum, only he would get out of bed to hear the music," replied +the girl. + +"Well, you opened the window, you know you did, and Katie Ryan came over +and kept the front door open. And you said how you wished you could go +over there and do their chores. I told you I'd tell." + +"It's wicked lies, mum," burst out Glory, indignant. + +"Do you dare to tell him he lies, right before my face, you +good-for-nothing girl?" shrieked the exasperated mother. "Where do you +expect to go to?" + +"I don't expect to go nowheres, mum; and I wouldn't say it was lies if +he didn't tell what wasn't true." + +"How should such a thing come into his head if you didn't say it?" + +"There's many things comes into his head," answered Glory, stoutly, "and +I think you'd oughter believe me first, when I never told you a lie in +my life, and you did ketch Master Herbert fibbing, jist the other day, +but." + +Somehow, Glory had grown strangely bold in her own behalf since she had +come to feel there was a bit of sympathy somewhere for her in the world. + +"I know now where he learns it," retorted the mistress, with persistent +and angry injustice. + +Glory's face blazed up, and she took an involuntary step to the woman's +side at the warrantless accusation. + +"You don't mean that, mum, and you'd oughter take it back," said she, +excited beyond all fear and habit of submission. + +Mrs. Grubbling raised her hand passionately, and struck the girl upon +the cheek. + +"I mean _that_, then, for your impudence! Don't answer me up again!" + +"No, mum," said Glory, in a low, strange tone; quite white now, except +where the vindictive fingers had left their crimson streaks. And she +went off out of the room without another word. + +Over the knife board she revolved her wrongs, and sharpened at length +the keen edge of desperate resolution. + +"Please, mum," said she, in the old form of address, but with quite a +new manner, that, in the little dependant of less than fifteen, startled +the hard mistress, "I ain't noways bound to you, am I?" + +She propounded her question, stopping short in her return toward the +china closet through the sitting room. + +"Bound? What do you mean?" parried Mrs. Grubbling, dimly foreshadowing +to herself what it would be if Glory should break loose, and go. + +"To stay, mum, and you to keep me, till I'm growed up," answered Glory, +briefly. + +"There's no binding about it," replied the mistress. "Of course I +wouldn't be held to anything of that sort. I shan't keep you any longer +than you behave yourself." + +"Then, if you please, mum, I think I'll go," said Glory. And she burst +into a passion of tears. + +"Humph! Where?" asked Mrs. Grubbling. + +"I don't know, yet," said Glory, the sarcasm drying her tears. "I s'pose +I can go to a office." + +"And where'll you get your meals and your lodgings till you find a +place?" The cat thought she had her paw on the mouse, now, and could +play with her as securely and cruelly as she pleased. + +"If you go away at all," continued Mrs. Grubbling, with what she deemed +a finishing stroke of policy, "you go straight off. I'll have no dancing +back and forth to offices from here." + +"Do you mean right off, this minute?" asked Glory, aghast. + +"Yes just that. Pack up and go, or else let me hear no more about it." + +The next thing in Glory's programme of duty was to lay the table for +dinner. But she went out of the room, and slowly off, upstairs. + +Pretty soon she came down again, with her eyes very tearful, and her +shabby shawl and bonnet on. + +"I'm going, mum," said she, as one resolved to face calmly whatever +might befall. "I didn't mean it to be sudden, but it are. And I wouldn't +never a gone, if I'd a thought anybody cared for me the leastest bit +that ever was. I wouldn't mind bein' worked and put upon, and not havin' +any good times; but when people hates me, and goes to say I doesn't tell +the truth"--here Glory broke down, and the tears poured over her stained +cheeks again, and she essayed once more to dry them, which reminded her +that her hands again were full. + +"It's some goodies--from the party, mum"--she struggled to say between +short breaths and sobs, "that Katie Ryan give me--an' I kept--to make a +party--for the children, with--to-day, mum--when the chores was +done--and I'll leave 'em--for 'em--if you please." + +Glory laid her coals of fire upon the table as she spoke. Master Herbert +eyed them, as one utterly unconscious of a scorch. + +"I s'pose I might come back and get my bundle," said Glory, standing +still in the hope of one last kindly or relenting word. + +"Oh, yes, if you get a place," said her mistress, dryly, affecting to +treat the whole affair as a childish, though unwonted burst of +petulance. + +But Glory, not daring, unbidden, even to kiss the baby, went steadily +and sorrowfully out into the street, and drew the door behind her, that +shut with a catch lock, and fastened her out into the wide world. + +Not stopping to think, she hurried on, up Budd and down Branch Street, +and across the green common path to the apple stand and Bridget Foye. + +"I've done it! I've gone! And I don't know what to do, nor where to go +to!" + +"Arrah, poor little rid hin! So, ye've found yer schiasors, have ye, an' +let yersel' loose out o' the bag? Well, it's I that is glad, though I +wouldn't pit ye up till it," says Bridget Foye. + +Poor little red hen. She had cut a hole, and jumped out of the bag, to +be sure; but here she was, "all alone by herself" once more, and the +foxes--Want and Cruelty--ravening after her all through the great, +dreary wood! + +This day, at least, passed comfortably enough, however, although with an +undertone of sadness--in the sunshine, by Bridget's apple stand, +watching the gay passers-by, and shaping some humble hopes and plans for +the future. For dinner, she shared Mrs. Foye's plain bread and cheese, +and made a dessert of an apple and a handful of peanuts. At night +Bridget took her home and gave her shelter, and the next day she started +her off with a "God bless ye and good luck till ye," in the charge of an +older girl who lodged in the same building, and who was also "out after +a place." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +AUNT HENDERSON'S GIRL HUNT. + +"Black spirits and white, + Red spirits and gray; +Mingle, mingle, mingle, + You that mingle may." + MACBETH. + + +It was a small, close, dark room--Mrs. Griggs's Intelligence Office--a +little counter and show case dividing off its farther end, making a +sanctum for Mrs. Griggs, who sat here in rheumatic ponderosity, +dependent for whatever involved locomotion on the rather alarming +alacrity of an impish-looking granddaughter who is elbowing her way +through the throng of applicants for places and servants. She paid no +heed to the astonishment of a severe-looking, elderly lady, who, by her +impetuous onset, has been rudely thrust back into the very arms of a +fat, unsavory cook with whom she had a minute before been quite +unwillingly set to confer by the high priestess of the place. + +Aunt Henderson grasped Faith's hand as if she felt she had brought her +into a danger, and held her close to her side while she paused a moment +to observe, with the strange fascination of repulsion, the manifestation +of a phase of human life and the working of a vocation so utterly and +astoundingly novel to herself. + +"Well, Melindy," said Mrs. Griggs, salutatorily. + +"Well, grandma," answered the girl, with a pert air of show off and +consequence, "I found the place, and I found the lady. Ain't I been +quick?" + +"Yes. What did she say?" + +"Said the girl left last Saturday. Ain't had anybody sence. Wants you to +send her a first-rate one, right off. Has Care'_line_ been here after +me?" + +"No. Did you get the money?" + +"She never said a word about it. Guess she forgot the month was out." + +"Didn't you ask her?" + +"Me? No. I did the arrant, and stood and looked at her--jest as +pious--! And when she didn't say nothin', I come away." + +"Winny M'Goverin," said Mrs. Griggs, "that place'll suit you. Leastways, +it must, for another month. You'd better go right round there." + +"Where is it?" asked the fat cook, indifferently. + +"Up in Mount Pleasant Street, Number 53. First-class place, and plenty +of privileges. Margaret McKay," she continued, to another, "you're too +hard to please. Here's one more place"--handing her a card with +address--"and if you don't take that, I won't do nothing more for you, +if you _air_ Scotch and a Protestant! Mary McGinnis, it's no use your +talking to that lady from the country. She can't spare you to come down +but twice or so a year." + +"Lord!" ejaculated Mary McGinnis, "I wouldn't live a whole year with no +lady that ever was, let alone the country!" + +"Come out, Faith!" said Miss Henderson, in a deep, ineffable tone of +disgust. + +"If _that's_ a genteel West End Intelligence Office," cried Aunt Faith, +as she touched the sidewalk, "let's go downtown and try some of the +common ones." + +A large hall--where the candidates were ranged on settees under order +and restraint, and the superintendent, or directress, occupied a desk +placed upon a platform near the entrance--was the next scene whereon +Miss Henderson and Faith Gartney entered. Things looked clean and +respectable. System obtained here. Aunt Faith felt encouraged. But she +made no haste to utter her business. Tall, self-possessed, and +dignified, she stood a few paces inside the door, and looked down the +apartment, surveying coolly the faces there, and analyzing, by a shrewd +mental process, their indications. + +Her niece had stopped a moment on the landing outside to fasten her boot +lace. + +Miss Henderson did not wear hoops. Also, the streets being sloppy, she +had tucked up her plain, gray merino dress over a quilted black alpaca +petticoat. Her boots were splashed, and her black silk bonnet was +covered with a large gray barege veil, tied down over it to protect it +from the dripping roofs. Judging merely by exterior, one would hardly +take her at a glance, indeed, for a "fust-class" lady. + +The directress--a busy woman, with only half a glance to spare for +anyone--moved toward her. + +"Take a seat, if you please. What kind of a place do you want?" + +Aunt Faith turned full face upon her, with a look that was prepared to +be overwhelming. + +"I'm looking for a place, ma'am, where I can find a respectable girl." + +Her firm, emphatic utterance was heard to the farthest end of the hall. + +The girls tittered. + +Faith Gartney came in at this moment, and walked up quietly to Miss +Henderson's side. There was visibly a new impression made, and the +tittering ceased. + +"I beg pardon, ma'am. I see. But we have so many in, and I didn't fairly +look. General housework?" + +"Yes; general and particular--both. Whatever I set her to do." + +The directress turned toward the throng of faces whose fire of eyes was +now all concentrated on the unflinching countenance of Miss Henderson. + +"Ellen Mahoney!" + +A stout, well-looking damsel, with an expression that seemed to say she +answered to her name, but was nevertheless persuaded of the utter +uselessness of the movement, half rose from her seat. + +"You needn't call up that girl," said Aunt Faith, decidedly; "I don't +want her." + +Ellen Mahoney had giggled among the loudest. + +"She knows what she _does_ want!" whispered a decent-appearing young +woman to a girl at her side with an eager face looking out from a friz +of short curly hair, "and that's more than half of 'em do." + +"Country, did you say, ma'am? or city?" asked the directress once more +of Miss Henderson. + +"I didn't say. It's country, though--twenty miles out." + +"What wages?" + +"I'll find the girl first, and settle that afterwards." + +"Anybody to do general housework in the country, twenty miles out?" + +The prevailing expression of the assemblage changed. There was a +settling down into seats, and a resumption of knitting and needlework. + +One pair of eyes, however, looked on, even more eagerly than before. One +young girl--she with the short curly hair who hadn't seen the country +for six years and more--caught her breath, convulsively, at the word. + +"I wish I dar'st! I've a great mind!" whispered she to her tidy +companion. + +While she hesitated, a slatternly young woman, a few seats farther +forward, moved, with a "don't care" sort of look, to answer the summons. + +"Oh, dear!" sighed the first. "I'd ought to a done it!" + +"I don't think she would take a young girl like you," replied her +friend. + +"That's the way it always is!" exclaimed the disappointed voice, in +forgetfulness and excitement uttering itself aloud. "Plenty of good +times going, but they all go right by. I ain't never in any of 'em!" + +"Glory McWhirk!" chided the directress, "be quiet! Remember the rules, +or leave the room." + +"Call that red-headed girl to me," said Miss Henderson, turning square +round from the dirty figure that was presenting itself before her, and +addressing the desk. "She looks clean and bright," she added, aside, to +Faith, as Glory timidly approached. "And poor. And longing for a chance. +I'll have her." + +A girl with a bonnet full of braids and roses, and a look of general +knowingness, started up close at Miss Henderson's side, and interposed. + +"Did you say twenty miles, mum? How often could I come to town?" + +"You haven't been asked to go _out_ of town, that I know of," replied +Miss Henderson, frigidly, abashing the office _habitue_, who had not +been used to find her catechism cut so summarily short, and moving aside +to speak with Glory. + +"What was it I heard you say just now?" + +"I didn't mean to speak out so, mum. It was only what I mostly thinks. +That there's always lots of good times in the world, only I ain't never +in 'em." + +"And you thought it would be good times, did you, to go off twenty miles +into the country, to live alone with an old woman like me?" + +Miss Henderson's tone softened kindly to the rough, uncouth girl, and +encouraged her to confidence. + +"Well, you see, mum, I should like to go where things is green and +pleasant. I lived in the country once--ever so long ago--when I was a +little girl." + +Miss Henderson could not help a smile that was half amused, and wholly +pitiful, as she looked in the face of this creature of fourteen, so +strange and earnest, with its outline of fuzzy, cropped hair, and heard +her talk of "ever so long ago." + +"Are you strong?" + +"Yes'm. I ain't never sick." + +"And willing to work?" + +"Yes'm. Jest as much as I know how." + +"And want to learn more?" + +"Yes'm. I don't know as I'd know enough hardly, to begin, though." + +"Can you wash dishes? And sweep? And set table?" + +To each of these queries Glory successively interposed an affirmative +monosyllable, adding, gratuitously, at the close, "And tend baby, too, +real good." Her eyes filled, as she thought of the Grubbling baby with +the love that always grows for that whereto one has sacrificed oneself. + +"You won't have any babies to tend. Time enough for that when you've +learned plenty of other things. Who do you belong to?" + +"I don't belong to anybody, mum. Father, and mother, and grandmother is +all dead. I've done the chores and tended baby up at Mrs. Grubbling's +ever since. That's in Budd Street. I'm staying now in High Street, with +Mrs. Foye. Number 15." + +"I'll come after you to-morrow. Have your things ready to go right off." + +"I'm so glad you took her, auntie," said Faith, as they went out. "She +looks as if she hadn't been well treated. Think of her wanting so to go +into the country! I should like to do something for her." + +"That's my business," answered Aunt Faith, curtly, but not crossly. +"You'll find somebody to do for, if you look out. If your mother's +willing, though, you might mend up one of your old school dresses for +her. 'Tisn't likely she's got anything to begin with." And so saying, +Aunt Faith turned precipitately into a drygoods store, where she bought +a large plaid woolen shawl, and twelve yards of dark calico. Coming out, +she darted as suddenly, and apparently unpremeditatedly, across the +street into a milliner's shop, and ordered home a brown rough-and-ready +straw bonnet, and four yards of ribbon to match. + +"And that you can put on, too," she said to Faith. + +That evening, Faith was even unwontedly cheery and busy, taking a burned +half breadth out of a dark cashmere dress, darning it at the armhole, +and pinning the plain ribbon over the brown straw bonnet. + +At the same time, Glory went up across the city to Budd Street, with a +mingled heaviness and gladness at her heart, and, after a kindly +farewell interview with Katie Ryan at the Pembertons' green gate, rang, +with a half-guilty feeling at her own independence, at the Grubblings' +door. Bubby opened it. + +"Why, ma!" he shouted up the staircase, "it's Glory come back!" + +"I've come to get my bundle," said the girl. + +Mrs. Grubbling had advanced to the stair head, somewhat briskly, with +the wakeful baby in her arms. Two days' "tending" had greatly mollified +her sentiments toward the offending Glory. + +"And she's come to get her bundle," added the young usher, from below. + +Mrs. Grubbling retreated into her chamber, and shut herself and the baby +in. + +Poor Glory crept upstairs to her little attic. + +Coming down again, she set her bundle on the stairs, and knocked. + +"What is it?" was the ungracious response. + +"Please, mum, mightn't I say good-by to the baby?" + +The latch had slipped, and the door was already slightly ajar. Baby +heard the accustomed voice, and struggled in his mother's arms. + +"A pretty time to come disturbing him to do it!" grumbled she. +Nevertheless, she set the baby on the floor, who tottled out, and was +seized by Glory, standing there in the dark entry, and pressed close in +her poor, long-wearied, faithful arms. + +"Oh, baby, baby! I'm in it now! And I don't know rightly whether it's a +good time or not!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +CARES; AND WHAT CAME OF THEM. + +"To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow; +To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow; + . . . . . +To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares; +To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires." + SPENCER. + + +Two years and more had passed since the New Year's dance at the +Rushleighs'. + +The crisis of '57 and '58 was approaching its culmination. The great +earthquake that for months had been making itself heard afar off by its +portentous rumbling was heaving to the final crash. Already the weaker +houses had fallen and were forgotten. + +When a great financial trouble sweeps down upon a people, there are +three general classes who receive and feel it, each in its own peculiar +way. + +There are the great capitalists--the enormously rich--who, unless a +tremendous combination of adversities shall utterly ruin here and there +one, grow the richer yet for the calamities of their neighbors. There +are also the very poor, who have nothing to lose but their daily labor +and their daily bread--who may suffer and starve; but who, if by any +little saving of a better time they can manage just to buy bread, shall +be precisely where they were, practically, when the storm shall have +blown over. Between these lies the great middle class--among whom, as on +the middle ground, the world's great battle is continually waging--of +persons who are neither rich nor poor; who have neither secured +fortunes to fall back upon, nor yet the independence of their hands to +turn to, when business and its income fail. This is the class that +suffers most. Most keenly in apprehension, in mortification, in after +privation. + +Of this class was the Gartney family. + +Mr. Gartney was growing pale and thin. No wonder; with sleepless nights, +and harassed days, and forgotten, or unrelished meals. His wife watched +him and waited for him, and contrived special comforts for him, and +listened to his confidences. + +Faith felt that there was a cloud upon the house, and knew that it had +to do with money. So she hid her own little wants as long as she could, +wore her old ribbons, mended last year's discarded gloves, and yearned +vaguely and helplessly to do something--some great thing if she only +could, that might remedy or help. + +Once, she thought she would learn Stenography. She had heard somebody +speak one day of the great pay a lady shorthand writer had received at +Washington, for some Congressional reports. Why shouldn't she learn how +to do it, and if the terrible worst should ever come to the worst, make +known her secret resource, and earn enough for all the family? + +Something like this--some "high and holy work of love"--she longed to +do. Longed almost--if she were once prepared and certain of herself--for +even misfortune that should justify and make practicable her generous +purpose. + +She got an elementary book, and set to work, by herself. She toiled +wearily, every day, for nearly a month; despairing at every step, yet +persevering; for, beside the grand dream for the future, there was a +present fascination in the queer little scrawls and dots. + +It cannot be known how long she might have gone on with the attempt, if +her mother had not come to her one day with some parcels of cut-out +cotton cloth. + +"Faithie, dear," said she, deprecatingly, "I don't like to put such work +upon you while you go to school; but I ought not to afford to have Miss +McElroy this spring. Can't you make up some of these with me?" + +There were articles of clothing for Faith, herself. She felt the present +duty upon her; and how could she rebel? Yet what was to become of the +great scheme? + +By and by would come vacation, and in the following spring, at farthest, +she would leave school, and then--she would see. She would write a book, +maybe. Why not? And secretly dispose of it, for a large sum, to some +self-regardless publisher. Should there never be another Fanny Burney? +Not a novel, though, or any grown-up book, at first; but a juvenile, at +least, she could surely venture on. Look at all the Cousin Maries, and +Aunt Fannies, and Sister Alices, whose productions piled the +booksellers' counters during the holiday sales, and found their way, +sooner or later, into all the nurseries, and children's bookcases! And +think of all the stories she had invented to amuse Hendie with! Better +than some of these printed ones, she was quite sure, if only she could +set them down just as she had spoken them under the inspiration of +Hendie's eager eyes and ready glee. + +She made two or three beginnings, during the summer holidays, but always +came to some sort of a "sticking place," which couldn't be hobbled over +in print as in verbal relation. All the links must be apparent, and +everything be made to hold well together. She wouldn't have known what +they were, if you had asked her--but the "unities" troubled her. And +then the labor loomed up so large before her! She counted the lines in a +page of a book of the ordinary juvenile size, and the number of letters +in a line, and found out the wonderful compression of which manuscript +is capable. And there must be two hundred pages, at least, to make a +book of tolerable size. + +There seemed to be nothing in the world that she could do. She could not +give her time to charity, and go about among the poor. She had nothing +to help them with. Her father gave, already, to ceaseless applications, +more than he could positively spare. So every now and then she +relinquished in discouragement her aspirations, and lived on, from day +to day, as other girls did, getting what pleasure she could; hampered +continually, however, with the old, inevitable tether, of "can't +afford." + +"If something only would happen!" If some new circumstance would creep +into her life, and open the way for a more real living! + +Do you think girls of seventeen don't have thoughts and longings like +these? I tell you they do; and it isn't that they want to have anybody +else meet with misfortune, or die, that romantic combinations may +thereby result to them; or that they are in haste to enact the everyday +romance--to secure a lover--get married--and set up a life of their own; +it is that the ordinary marked-out bound of civilized young-lady +existence is so utterly inadequate to the fresh, vigorous, expanding +nature, with its noble hopes, and its apprehension of limitless +possibilities. + +Something did happen. + +Winter came on again. After a twelvemonth of struggle and pain such as +none but a harassed man of business can ever know or imagine, Mr. +Gartney found himself "out of the wood." + +He had survived the shock--his last mote was taken up--he had labored +through--and that was all. He was like a man from off a wreck, who has +brought away nothing but his life. + +He came home one morning from New York, whither he had been to attend a +meeting of creditors of a failed firm, and went straight to his chamber +with a raging headache. + +The next day, the physician's chaise was at the door, and on the +landing, where Mrs. Gartney stood, pale and anxious, gazing into his +face for a word, after the visit to the sick room was over, Dr. Gracie +drew on his gloves, and said to her, with one foot on the stair: +"Symptoms of typhoid. Keep him absolutely quiet." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +A NICHE IN LIFE, AND A WOMAN TO FILL IT. + +"A Traveller between Life and Death." + WORDSWORTH. + + +Miss Sampson was at home this evening. It was not what one would have +pictured to oneself as a scene of home comfort or enjoyment; but Miss +Sampson was at home. In her little room of fourteen feet square, up a +dismal flight of stairs, sitting, in the light of a single lamp, by her +air-tight stove, whereon a cup of tea was keeping warm; that, and the +open newspaper on the little table in the corner, being the only things +in any way cheery about her. + +Not even a cat or a canary bird had she for companionship. There was no +cozy arrangement for daily feminine employment; no workbasket, or litter +of spools and tapes; nothing to indicate what might be her daily way of +going on. On the broad ledges of the windows, where any other woman +would have had a plant or two, there was no array of geraniums or +verbenas--not even a seedling orange tree or a monthly rose. But in one +of them lay a plaid shawl and a carpet bag, and in the other that +peculiar and nearly obsolete piece of feminine property, a paper +bandbox, tied about with tape. + +Packed up for a journey? + +Reader, Miss Sampson was _always_ packed up. She was that much-enduring, +all-foregoing creature, a professional nurse. + +There would have been no one to feed a cat, or a canary bird, or to +water a rose bush, if she had had one. Her home was no more to her than +his station at the corner of the street is to the handcart man or the +hackney coachman. It was only the place where she might receive orders; +whence she might go forth to the toilsomeness and gloom of one sick room +after another, returning between each sally and the next to her +cheerless post of waiting--keeping her strength for others, and living +no life of her own. + +There was nothing in Miss Sampson's outer woman that would give you, at +first glance, an idea of her real energy and peculiar force of +character. She was a tall and slender figure, with no superfluous weight +of flesh; and her long, thin arms seemed to have grown long and wiry +with lifting, and easing, and winding about the poor wrecks of mortality +that had lost their own vigor, and were fain to beg a portion of hers. +Her face was thin and rigid, too--molded to no mere graces of +expression--but with a strong outline, and a habitual compression about +the mouth that told you, when you had once learned somewhat of its +meaning, of the firm will that would go straight forward to its object, +and do, without parade or delay, whatever there might be to be done. +Decision, determination, judgment, and readiness were all in that +habitual look of a face on which little else had been called out for +years. But you would not so have read it at first sight. You would +almost inevitably have called her a "scrawny, sour-looking old maid." + +A creaking step was heard upon the stair, and then a knock of decision +at Miss Sampson's door. + +"Come in!" + +And as she spoke, Miss Sampson took her cup and saucer in her hand. That +was to be kept waiting no longer for whatever visitor it might chance to +be. She was taking her first sip as Dr. Gracier entered. + +"Don't move, Miss Sampson; don't let me interrupt." + +"I don't mean to! What sends you here?" + +"A new patient." + +"Humph! Not one of the last sort, I hope. You know my kind, and 'tain't +any use talking up about any others. Any old woman can make gruel, and +feed a baby with catnip tea. Don't offer me any more such work as that! +If it's work that _is_ work, speak out!" + +"It's work that nobody else can do for me. A critical case of typhoid, +and nobody in the house that understands such illness. I've promised to +bring you." + +"You knew I was back, then?" + +"I knew you would be. I only sent you at the pinch. I warned them you'd +go as soon as things were tolerably comfortable." + +"Of course I would. What business should I have where there was nothing +wanted of me but to go to bed at nine o'clock, and sleep till daylight? +That ain't the sort of corner I was cut out to fill." + +"Well, drink your tea, and put on your bonnet. There's a carriage at the +door." + +"Man? or woman?" asked Miss Sampson. + +"A man--Mr. Henderson Gartney, Hickory Street." + +"Out of his head?" + +"Yes--and getting more so. Family all frightened to death." + +"Keep 'em out of my way, then, and let me have him to myself. One crazy +patient is enough, at a time, for any one pair of hands. I'm ready." + +In fifteen minutes more, they were in Hickory Street; and the nurse was +speedily installed, or rather installed herself, in her office. Dr. +Gracie hastened away to another patient, promising to call again at +bedtime. + +"Now, ma'am," said Miss Sampson to Mrs. Gartney, who, after taking her +first to the bedside of the patient, had withdrawn with her to the +little dressing room adjoining, and given her a _resume_ of the +treatment thus far followed, with the doctor's last directions to +herself--"you just go downstairs to your supper. I know, by your looks, +you ain't had a mouthful to-day. That's no way to help take care of sick +folks." + +Mrs. Gartney smiled a little, feebly; and an expression of almost +childlike rest and relief came over her face. She felt herself in strong +hands. + +"And you?" she asked. "Shall I send you something here?" + +"I've drunk a cup of tea, before I started. If I see my way clear, I'll +run down for a bite after you get through. I don't want any special +providings. I take my nibbles anyhow, as I go along. You needn't mind, +more'n as if I wasn't here. I shall find my way all over the house. Now, +you go." + +"Only tell me how he seems to you." + +"Well--not so terrible sick. Just barely bad enough to keep me here. I +don't take any easy cases." + +The odd, abrupt manner and speech comforted, while they somewhat +astonished Mrs. Gartney. + +"Leave the bread and butter and cold chicken on the table," said she, +when the tea things were about to be removed; "and keep the chocolate +hot, downstairs. Faithie--sit here; and if Miss Sampson comes down by +and by, see that she is made comfortable." + +It was ten o'clock when Miss Sampson came down, and then it was with Dr. +Gracie. + +"Cheer up, little lady!" said the doctor, meeting Faith's anxious, +inquiring glance. "Not so bad, by any means, as we might be. The only +difficulty will be to keep Nurse Sampson here. She won't stay a minute, +if we begin to get better too fast. Yes--I will take a bit of chicken, I +think; and--what have you there that's hot?" as the maid came in with +the chocolate pot, in answer to Faith's ring of the bell. "Ah, yes! +Chocolate! I missed my tea, somehow, to-night." The "somehow" had been +in his kindly quest of the best nurse in Mishaumok. + +"Sit down, Miss Sampson. Let me help you to a scrap of cold chicken. +What? Drumstick! Miss Faithie--here is a woman who makes it a principle +to go through the world, choosing drumsticks! She's a study; and I set +you to finding her out." + +Last night, as he had told Miss Sampson, the family had been "frightened +to death." He had found Faith sitting on the front stairs, at midnight, +when he came in at a sudden summons. She was pale and shivering, and +caught him nervously by both hands. + +"Oh, doctor!" + +"And oh, Miss Faithie! This is no place for you. You ought to be in +bed." + +"But I can't. Mother is all alone, except Mahala. And I don't dare stay +up there, either. What _shall_ we do?" + +For all answer, the doctor had just taken her in his arms, and carried +her down to the sofa in the hall, where he laid her, and covered her +over with his greatcoat. There she stayed, passively, till he came back. +And then he told her kindly and gravely, that if she could be _quite_ +quiet, and firm, she might go and lie on the sofa in her mother's +dressing room for the remainder of the night, to be at hand for any +needed service. To-morrow he would see that they were otherwise +provided. + +And so, to-night, here was Miss Sampson eating her drumstick. + +Faith watched the hard lines of her face as she did so, and wondered +what, and how much Dr. Gracie had meant by "setting her to find her +out." + +"I'm afraid you haven't had a vary nice supper," said she, timidly. "Do +you like that best?" + +"Somebody must always eat drumsticks," was the concise reply. + +And so, presently, without any further advance toward acquaintance, they +went upstairs; and the house, under the new, energetic rule, soon +subsided into quiet for the night. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +LIFE OR DEATH? + +"With God the Lord belong the issues from death."--Ps. 68; 18. + + +The nursery was a corner room, opening both into Faith's and her +mother's. Hendie and Mahala Harris had been removed upstairs, and the +apartment was left at Miss Sampson's disposal. Mrs. Gartney's bed had +been made up in the little dressing room at the head of the front entry, +so that she and the nurse had the sick room between them. + +Faith came down the two steps that led from her room into the nursery, +the next night at bedtime, as Miss Sampson entered from her father's +chamber to put on her night wrapper and make ready for her watch. + +"How is he, nurse? He will get well, won't he? What does the doctor +say?" + +"Nothing," said Miss Sampson, shortly. "He don't know, and he don't +pretend to. And that's just what proves he's good for something. He +ain't one of the sort that comes into a sick room as if the Almighty had +made him a kind of special delegit, and left the whole concern to him. +He knows there's a solemner dealing there than his, whether it's for +life or death." + +"But he can't help _thinking_," said Faith, tremblingly. "And I wish I +knew. What do _you_--?" But Faith paused, for she was afraid, after all, +to finish the question, and to hear it answered. + +"I don't think. I just keep doing. That's my part. Folks that think too +much of what's a-coming, most likely won't attend to what there is." + +Faith was finding out--a little of Miss Sampson, and a good deal of +herself. Had she not thought too much of what might be coming? Had she +not missed, perhaps, some of her own work, when that work was easier +than now? And how presumptuously she had wished for "something to +happen!" Was God punishing her for that? + +"You just keep still, and patient--and wait," said Miss Sampson, noting +the wistful look of pain. "That's your work, and after all, maybe it's +the hardest kind. And I can't take it off folks' shoulders," added she +to herself in an under voice; "so I needn't set up for the _very_ +toughest jobs, to be sure." + +"I'll try," answered Faith, submissively, with quivering lips, "only if +there _should_ be anything that I could do--to sit up, or +anything--you'll let me, won't you?" + +"Of course I will," replied the nurse, cheerily. "I shan't be squeamish +about asking when there's anything I really want done." + +Faith moved toward the door that opened to her father's room. It was +ajar. She pushed it gently open, and paused. "I may go in, mayn't I, +nurse, just for a good-night look?" + +The sick man heard her voice, though he did not catch her words. + +"Come in, Faithie," said he, with one of his half gleams of +consciousness, "I'll see you, daughter, as long as I live." + +Faith's heart nearly broke at that, and she came, tearfully and +silently, to the bedside, and laid her little, cool hand on her father's +fevered one, and looked down on his face, worn, and suffering, and +flushed--and thought within herself--it was a prayer and vow +unspoken--"Oh, if God will only let him live, I will _find_ something +that I can do for him!" + +And then she lifted the linen cloth that was laid over his forehead, and +dipped it afresh in the bowl of ice water beside the bed, and put it +gently back, and just kissed his hair softly, and went out into her own +room. + +Three nights--three days--more, the fever raged. And on the fourth night +after, Faith and her mother knew, by the scrupulous care with which the +doctor gave minute directions for the few hours to come, and the +resolute way in which Miss Sampson declared that "whoever else had a +mind to watch, she should sit up till morning this time," that the +critical point was reached; that these dark, silent moments that would +flit by so fast, were to spell, as they passed by, the sentence of life +or death. + +Faith would not be put by. Her mother sat on one side of the bed, while +the nurse busied herself noiselessly, or waited, motionless, upon the +other. Down by the fireside, on a low stool, with her head on the +cushion of an easy-chair, leaned the young girl--her heart full, and +every nerve strained with emotion and suspense. + +She will never know, precisely, how those hours went on. She can +remember the low breathing from the bed, and the now and then +half-distinct utterance, as the brain wandered still in a dreamy, +feverish maze; and she never will forget the precise color and pattern +of the calico wrapper that Nurse Sampson wore; but she can recollect +nothing else of it all, except that, after a time, longer or shorter, +she glanced up, fearfully, as a strange hush seemed to have come over +the room, and met a look and gesture of the nurse that warned her down +again, for her life. + +And then, other hours, or minutes, she knows not which, went by. + +And then, a stir--a feeble word--a whisper from Nurse Sampson--a low +"Thank God!" from her mother. + +The crisis was passed. Henderson Gartney lived. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +ROUGH ENDS. + + "So others shall +Take patience, labor, to their heart and hand, +From thy hand and thy heart, and thy brave cheer, +And God's grace fructify through thee to all." + MRS. BROWNING. + + +"M. S. What does that stand for?" said little Hendie, reading the white +letters painted on the black leather bottom of nurse's carpetbag. He got +back, now, often, in the daytime, to his old nursery quarters, where his +father liked to hear his chatter and play, for a short time +together--though he still slept, with Mahala, upstairs. "Does that mean +'Miss Sampson'?" + +Faith glanced up from her stocking mending, with a little fun and a +little curiosity in her eyes. + +"What does 'M.' stand for?" repeated Hendie. + +The nurse was "setting to rights" about the room. She turned round at +the question, from hanging a towel straight over the stand, and looked a +little amazed, as if she had almost forgotten, herself. But it came out, +with a quick opening and shutting of the thin lips, like the snipping of +a pair of scissors--"Mehitable." + +Faith had been greatly drawn to this odd, efficient woman. Beside that +her skillful, untiring nursing had humanly, been the means of saving her +father's life, which alone had warmed her with an earnest gratitude that +was restless to prove itself, and that welled up in every glance and +tone she gave Miss Sampson, there were a certain respect and interest +that could not withhold themselves from one who so evidently worked on +with a great motive that dignified her smallest acts. In whom +self-abnegation was the underlying principle of all daily doing. + +Miss Sampson had stayed on at the Gartneys', notwithstanding the +doctor's prediction, and her usual habit. And, in truth, her patient did +not "get well _too_ fast." She was needed now as really as ever, though +the immediate danger which had summoned her was past, and the fever had +gone. The months of overstrained effort and anxiety that had culminated +in its violent attack were telling upon him now, in the scarcely less +perilous prostration that followed. And Mrs. Gartney had quite given out +since the excessive tension of nerve and feeling had relaxed. She was +almost ill enough to be regularly nursed herself. She alternated between +her bed in the dressing room and an easy-chair opposite her husband's, +at his fireside. Miss Sampson knew when she was really wanted, whether +the emergency were more or less obvious. She knew the mischief of a +change of hands at such a time. And so she stayed on, though she did +sleep comfortably of a night, and had many an hour of rest in the +daytime, when Faith would come into the nursery and constitute herself +her companion. + +Miss Sampson was to her like a book to be read, whereof she turned but a +leaf or so at a time, as she had accidental opportunity, yet whose every +page rendered up a deep, strong--above all, a most sound and healthy +meaning. + +She turned over a leaf, one day, in this wise. + +"Miss Sampson, how came you, at first, to be a sick nurse?" + +The shadow of some old struggle seemed to come over Miss Sampson's face, +as she answered, briefly: + +"I wanted to find the very toughest sort of a job to do." + +Faith looked up, surprised. + +"But I heard you tell my father that you had been nursing more than +twenty years. You must have been quite a young woman when you began. I +wonder--" + +"You wonder why I wasn't like most other young women, I suppose. Why I +didn't get married, perhaps, and have folks of my own to take care of? +Well, I didn't; and the Lord gave me a pretty plain indication that He +hadn't laid out that kind of a life for me. So then I just looked around +to find out what better He had for me to do. And I hit on the very work +I wanted. A trade that it took all the old Sampson grit to follow. I +made up my mind, as the doctor says, that _somebody_ in the world had +got to choose drumsticks, and I might as well take hold of one." + +"But don't you ever get tired of it all, and long for something to rest +or amuse you?" + +"Amuse! I couldn't be amused, child. I've been in too much awful earnest +ever to be much amused again. No, I want to die in the harness. It's +hard work I want. I couldn't have been tied down to a common, easy sort +of life. I want something to fight and grapple with; and I'm thankful +there's been a way opened for me to do good according to my nature. If I +hadn't had sickness and death to battle against, I should have got into +human quarrels, maybe, just for the sake of feeling ferocious." + +"And you always take the very worst and hardest cases, Dr. Gracie says." + +"What's the use of taking a tough job if you don't face the toughest +part of it? I don't want the comfortable end of the business. +_Somebody's_ got to nurse smallpox, and yellow fever, and +raving-distracted people; and I _know_ the Lord made me fit to do just +that very work. There ain't many that He _does_ make for it, but I'm +one. And if I shirked, there'd be a stitch dropped." + +"Yellow fever! where have you nursed that?" + +"Do you suppose I didn't go to New Orleans? I've nursed it, and I've +_had_ it, and nursed it again. I've been in the cholera hospitals, too. +I'm seasoned to most everything." + +"Do you think everybody ought to take the hardest thing they can find, +to do?" + +"Do you think everybody ought to eat drumsticks? We'd have to kill an +unreasonable lot of fowls to let 'em! No. The Lord portions out breasts +and wings, as well as legs. If He puts anything into your plate, take +it." + +Dr. Gracie always had a word for the nurse, when he came; and, to do her +justice, it was seldom but she had a word to give him back. + +"Well, Miss Sampson," said he gayly, one bright morning, "you're as +fresh as the day. What pulls down other folks seems to set you up. I +declare you're as blooming as--twenty-five." + +"You--fib--like--sixty! It's no such thing! And if it was, I'd ought to +be ashamed of it." + +"Prodigious! as your namesake, the Dominie, would say. Don't tell me a +woman is ever ashamed of looking young, or handsome!" + +"Now, look here, doctor!" said Miss Sampson, "I never was handsome; and +I thank the Lord He's given me enough to do in the world to wear off my +young looks long ago! And any woman ought to be ashamed that gets to be +thirty and upward, to say nothing of forty-five, and keeps her baby face +on! It's a sign she ain't been of much account, anyhow." + +"Oh, but there are always differences and exceptions," persisted the +doctor, who liked nothing better than to draw Miss Sampson out. "There +are some faces that take till thirty, at least, to bring out all their +possibilities of good looks, and wear on, then, till fifty. I've seen +'em. And the owners were no drones or do-nothings, either. What do you +say to that?" + +"I say there's two ways of growing old. And growing old ain't always +growing ugly. Some folks grow old from the inside, out; and some from +the outside, in. There's old furniture, and there's growing trees!" + +"And the trunk that is roughest below may branch out greenest a-top!" +said the doctor. + +The talk Faith heard now and then, in her walks from home, or when some +of "the girls" came in and called her down into the parlor--about pretty +looks, and becoming dresses, and who danced with who at the "German" +last night, and what a scrape Loolie Lloyd had got into with mixing up +and misdating her engagements at the class, and the last new roll for +the hair--used to seem rather trivial to her in these days! + +Occasionally, when Mr. Gartney had what nurse called a "good" day, he +would begin to ask for some of his books and papers, with a thought +toward business; and then Miss Sampson would display her carpetbag, and +make a show of picking up things to put in it. "For," said she, "when +you get at your business, it'll be high time for me to go about mine." + +"But only for half an hour, nurse! I'll give you that much leave of +absence, and then we'll have things back again as they were before." + +"I guess you will! And _further_ than they were before. No, Mr. Gartney, +you've got to behave. I _won't_ have them vicious-looking accounts +about, and it don't signify." + +"If it don't, why not?" But it ended in the accounts and the carpetbag +disappearing together. + +Until one morning, some three weeks from the beginning of Mr. Gartney's +illness, when, after a few days' letting alone the whole subject, he +suddenly appealed to the doctor. + +"Doctor," said he, as that gentleman entered, "I must have Braybrook up +here this afternoon. I dropped things just where I stood, you know. It's +time to take an observation." + +The doctor looked at his patient gravely. + +"Can't you be content with simply picking up things, and putting them +by, for this year? What I ought to tell you to do would be to send +business to the right about, and go off for an entire rest and change, +for three months, at least." + +"You don't know what you're talking about, doctor!" + +"Perhaps not, on one side of the subject. I feel pretty certain on the +other, however." + +Mr. Gartney did not send for Braybrook that afternoon. The next morning, +however, he came, and the tabooed books and papers were got out. + +In another day or two, Miss Sampson _did_ pack her carpetbag, and go +back to her air-tight stove and solitary cups of tea. Her occupation in +Hickory Street was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +CROSS CORNERS. + +"O thou that pinest in the imprisonment of the Actual, and criest +bitterly to the Gods for a kingdom, wherein to rule and create, +know this of a truth, the thing thou seekest is already with thee, +'here or nowhere,' couldst thou only see!"--CARLYLE. + + +"It is of no use to talk about it," said Mr. Gartney, wearily. "If I +live--as long as I live--I must do business. How else are you to get +along?" + +"How shall we get along if you do _not_ live?" asked his wife, in a low, +anxious tone. + +"My life's insured," was all Mr. Gartney's answer. + +"Father!" cried Faith, distressfully. + +Faith had been taken more and more into counsel and confidence with her +parents since the time of the illness that had brought them all so close +together. And more and more helpful she had grown, both in word and +doing, since she had learned to look daily for the daily work set before +her, and to perform it conscientiously, even although it consisted only +of little things. She still remembered with enthusiasm Nurse Sampson and +the "drumsticks," and managed to pick up now and then one for herself. +Meantime she began to see, indistinctly, before her, the vision of a +work that must be done by some one, and the duty of it pressed hourly +closer home to herself. Her father's health had never been fully +reestablished. He had begun to use his strength before and faster than +it came. There was danger--it needed no Dr. Gracie, even, to tell them +so--of grave disease, if this went on. And still, whenever urged, his +answer was the same. "What would become of his family without his +business?" + +Faith turned these things over and over in her mind. + +"Father," said she, after a while--the conversation having been dropped +at the old conclusion, and nobody appearing to have anything more to +say--"I don't know anything about business; but I wish you'd tell me how +much money you've got!" + +Her father laughed; a sad sort of laugh though, that was not so much +amusement as tenderness and pity. Then, as if the whole thing were a +mere joke, yet with a shade upon his face that betrayed there was far +too much truth under the jest, after all, he took out his portemonnaie +and told her to look and see. + +"You know I don't mean that, father! How much in the bank, and +everywhere?" + +"Precious little in the bank, now, Faithie. Enough to keep house with +for a year, nearly, perhaps. But if I were to take it and go off and +spend it in traveling, you can understand that the housekeeping would +fall short, can't you?" + +Faith looked horrified. She was bringing down her vague ideas of money +that came from somewhere, through her father's pocket, as water comes +from Lake Kinsittewink by the turning of a faucet, to the narrow point +of actuality. + +"But that isn't all, I know! I've heard you talk about railroad +dividends, and such things." + +"Oh! what does the Western Road pay this time?" asked his wife. + +"I've had to sell out my stock there." + +"And where's the money, father?" asked Faith. + +"Gone to pay debts, child," was the answer. + +Mrs. Gartney said nothing, but she looked very grave. Her husband +surmised, perhaps, that she would go on to imagine worse than had really +happened, and so added, presently: + +"I haven't been obliged to sell _all_ my railroad stocks, wifey. I held +on to some. There's the New York Central all safe; and the Michigan +Central, too. That wouldn't have sold so well, to be sure, just when I +was wanting the money; but things are looking better, now." + +"Father," said Faithie, with her most coaxing little smile, "please just +take this bit of paper and pencil, and set down these stocks and things, +will you?" + +The little smile worked its way; and half in idleness, half in +acquiescence, Mr. Gartney took the pencil and noted down a short list of +items. + +"It's very little, Faith, you see." They ran thus: + + New York Central Railroad 20 shares. + Michigan Central " 15 " + Kinnicutt Branch " 10 " + Mishaumok Insurance Co. 15 " + Merchants Bank 30 " + +"And now, father, please put down how much you get a year in dividends." + +"Not always the same, little busybody." + +Nevertheless he noted down the average sums. And the total was between +six and seven hundred dollars. + +"But that isn't all. You've got other things. Why, there's the house at +Cross Corners." + +"Yes, but I can't let it, you know." + +"What used you to get for it?" + +"Two hundred and fifty. For house and land." + +"And you own this house, too, father?" + +"Yes. This is your mother's." + +"How much rent would this bring?" + +Mr. Gartney turned around and looked at his daughter. He began to see +there was a meaning in her questions. And as he caught her eye, he read, +or discerned without fully reading, a certain eager kindling there. + +"Why, what has come over you, Faithie, to set you catechising so?" + +Faith laughed. + +"Just answer this, please, and I won't ask a single question more +to-night." + +"About the rent? Why, this house ought to bring six hundred, certainly. +And now, if the court will permit, I'll read the news." + +About a week after this, in the latter half of one of those spring days +that come with a warm breath to tell that summer is glowing somewhere, +and that her face is northward, Aunt Faith Henderson came out upon the +low, vine-latticed stoop of her house in Kinnicutt. + +Up the little footpath from the road--across the bit of greensward that +lay between it and the stoop--came a quick, noiseless step, and there +was a touch, presently, on the old lady's arm. + +Faith Gartney stood beside her, in trim straw bonnet and shawl, with a +black leather bag upon her arm. + +"Auntie! I've come to make you a tiny little visit! Till day after +to-morrow." + +"Faith Gartney! However came you here? And in such a fashion, too, +without a word of warning, like--an angel from Heaven!" + +"I came up in the cars, auntie! I felt just like it! Will you keep me?" + +"Glory! Glory McWhirk!" Like the good Vicar of Wakefield, Aunt Henderson +liked often to give the whole name; and calling, she disappeared round +the corner of the stoop, without ever a word of more assured welcome. + +"Put on the teapot again, and make a slice of toast." The good lady's +voice, going on with further directions, was lost in the intricate +threading of the inner maze of the singular old dwelling, and Faith +followed her as far as the first apartment, where she set down her bag +and removed her bonnet. + +It was a quaint, dim room, overbrowed and gloomed by the roofed +projection of the stoop; low-ceiled, high-wainscoted and paneled. All in +oak, of the natural color, deepened and glossed by time and wear. The +heavy beams that supported the floor above were undisguised, and left +the ceiling in panels also, as it were, between. In these highest +places, a man six feet tall could hardly have stood without bending. He +certainly would not, whether he could or no. Even Aunt Faith, with her +five feet, six-and-a-half, dropped a little of her dignity, habitually, +when she entered. But then, as she said, "A hen always bobs her head +when she comes in at a barn door." Between the windows stood an old, +old-fashioned secretary, that filled up from floor to ceiling; and over +the fireplace a mirror of equally antique date tilted forward from the +wall. Opposite the secretary, a plain mahogany table; and eight +high-backed, claw-footed chairs ranged stiffly around the room. + +Aunt Henderson was proud of her old ways, her old furniture, and her +house, that was older than all. + +Some far back ancestor and early settler had built it--the beginning of +it--before Kinnicutt had even become a town; and--rare exception to the +changes elsewhere--generation after generation of the same name and line +had inhabited it until now. Aunt Faith, exultingly, told each curious +visitor that it had been built precisely two hundred and ten years. Out +in the back kitchen, or lean-to, was hung to a rafter the identical gun +with which the "old settler" had ranged the forest that stretched then +from the very door; and higher up, across a frame contrived for it, was +the "wooden saddle" fabricated for the back of the placid, slow-moving +ox, in the time when horses were as yet rare in the new country, and +used with pillions, to transport I can't definitely say how many of the +family to "meeting." + +Between these--the best room and the out-kitchen--the labyrinth of +sitting room, bedrooms, kitchen proper, milk room, and pantry, +partitioned off, or added on, many of them since the primary date of the +main structure, would defy the pencil of modern architect. + +In one of these irregularly clustered apartments that opened out on +different aspects, unexpectedly, from their conglomerate center, Faith +sat, some fifteen minutes after her entrance into the house, at a little +round table between two corner windows that looked northwest and +southwest, and together took in the full radiance of the evening sky. + +Opposite sat her aunt, taking care of her as regarded tea, toast, and +plain country loaf cake, and watching somewhat curiously, also, her +face. + +Faith's face had changed a little since Aunt Henderson had seen her +last. It was not the careless girl's face she had known. There was a +thought in it now. A thought that seemed to go quite out from, and +forget the self from which it came. + +Aunt Henderson wondered greatly what sudden whim or inward purpose had +brought her grandniece hither. + +When Faith absolutely declined any more tea or cake, Miss Henderson's +tap on the table leaf brought in Glory McWhirk. + +A tall, well-grown girl of eighteen was Glory, now--quite another Glory +than had lightened, long ago, the dull little house in Budd Street, and +filled it with her bright, untutored dreams. The luminous tresses had +had their way since then; that is, with certain comfortable bounds +prescribed; and rippled themselves backward from a clear, contented +face, into the net that held them tidily. + +Faith looked up, and remembered the poor office girl of three years +since, half clad and hopeless, with a secret amaze at what "Aunt Faith +had made of her." + +"You may give me some water, Glory," said Miss Henderson. + +Glory brought the pitcher, and poured into the tumbler, and gazed at +Faith's pretty face, and the dark-brown glossy rolls that framed it, +until the water fairly ran over the table. + +"There! there! Why, Glory, what are you thinking of?" cried Miss +Henderson. + +Glory was thinking her old thoughts--wakened always by all that was +beautiful and _beyond_. + +She came suddenly to herself, however, and darted off, with her face as +bright a crimson as her hair was golden; flashing up so, as she did most +easily, into as veritable a Glory as ever was. Never had baby been more +aptly or prophetically named. + +Coming back, towel in hand, to stop the freshet she had set flowing, she +dared not give another glance across the table; but went busily and +deftly to work, clearing it of all that should be cleared, that she +might make her shy way off again before she should be betrayed into +other unwonted blundering. + +"And now, Faith Gartney, tell me all about it! What sent you here?" + +"Nothing. Nobody. I came, aunt. I wanted to see the place, and you." + +The rough eyebrows were bent keenly across the table. + +"Hum!" breathed Aunt Henderson. + +There was small interior sympathy between her ideas and those that +governed the usual course of affairs in Hickory Street. Fond of her +nephew and his family, after her fashion, notwithstanding Faith's old +rebellion, and all other differences, she certainly was; but they went +their way, and she hers. She felt pretty sure theirs would sooner or +later come to a turning; and when that should happen, whether she should +meet them round the corner, or not, would depend. Her path would need to +bend a little, and theirs to make a pretty sharp angle, first. + +But here was Faith cutting across lots to come to her! Aunt Henderson +put away her loaf cake in the cupboard, set back her chair against the +wall in its invariable position of disuse, and departed to the milk room +and kitchen for her evening duty and oversight. + +Glory's hands were busy in the bread bowl, and her brain kneading its +secret thoughts that no one knew or intermeddled with. + +Faith sat at the open window of the little tea room, and watched the +young moon's golden horn go down behind the earth rim among the purple, +like a flamy flower bud floating over, and so lost. + +And the three lives gathered in to themselves, separately, whatsoever +the hour brought to each. + +At nine o'clock Aunt Faith came in, took down the great leather-bound +Bible from the corner shelf, and laid it on the table. Glory appeared, +and seated herself beside the door. + +For a few moments, the three lives met in the One Great Life that +overarches and includes humanity. Miss Henderson read from the sixth +chapter of St. John. + +They were fed with the five thousand. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +A RECONNOISSANCE. + +"Then said his Lordship, 'Well God mend all!' 'Nay, Donald, we must +help him to mend it,' said the other."--Quoted by CARLYLE. + +"Oh, leave these jargons, and go your way straight to God's work in +simplicity and singleness of heart!"--MISS NIGHTINGALE. + + +"Auntie," said Faith, next morning, when, after some exploring, she had +discovered Miss Henderson in a little room, the very counterpart of the +one she had had her tea in the night before, only that this opened to +the southeast, and hailed the morning sun. "Auntie, will you go over +with me to the Cross Corners house, after breakfast? It's empty, isn't +it?" + +"Yes, it's empty. But it's no great show of a house. What do you want to +see it for?" + +"Why, it used to be so pretty, there. I'd like just to go into it. Have +you heard of anybody's wanting it yet?" + +"No; and I guess nobody's likely to, for one while. Folks don't make +many changes, out here." + +"What a bright little breakfast room this is, auntie! And how grand you +are to have a room for every meal!" + +"It ain't for the grandeur of it. But I always did like to follow the +sun round. For the most part of the year, at any rate. And this is just +as near the kitchen as the other. Besides, I kind of hate to shut up any +of the rooms, altogether. They were all wanted, once; and now I'm all +alone in 'em." + +For Miss Henderson, this was a great opening of the heart. But she +didn't go on to say that the little west room had been her young +brother's, who long ago, when he was just ready for his Master's work in +this world, had been called up higher; and that her evening rest was +sweeter, and her evening reading holier for being holden there; or that +here, in the sunny morning hours, her life seemed almost to roll back +its load of many years, and to set her down beside her mother's knee, +and beneath her mother's gentle tutelage, once more; that on the little +"light stand" in the corner by the fireplace stood the selfsame basket +that had been her mother's then--just where she had kept it, too, when +it was running over with little frocks and stockings that were always +waiting finishing or mending--and now held only the plain gray knitting +work and the bit of sewing that Aunt Faith might have in hand. + +A small, square table stood now in the middle of the floor, with a fresh +brown linen breakfast cloth upon it; and Glory, neat and fresh, also, +with her brown spotted calico dress and apron of the same, came in +smiling like a very goddess of peace and plenty, with the steaming +coffeepot in one hand, and the plate of fine, white rolls in the other. +The yellow print of butter and some rounds from a brown loaf were +already on the table. Glory brought in, presently, the last addition to +the meal--six eggs, laid yesterday, the water of their boiling just +dried off, and modestly took her own seat at the lower end of the board. + +Aunt Faith, living alone, kept to the kindly old country fashion of +admitting her handmaid to the table with herself. "Why not?" she would +say. "In the first place, why should we keep the table about, half an +hour longer than we need? And I suppose hot cakes and coffee are as much +nicer than cold, for one body as another. Then where's the sense? We +take Bible meat together. Must we be more dainty about 'meat that +perisheth'?" So her argument climbed up from its lower reason to its +climax. + +Glory had little of the Irish now about her but her name. And all that +she retained visibly of the Roman faith she had been born to, was her +little rosary of colored shells, strung as beads, that had been blessed +by the Pope. + +Miss Henderson had trained and fed her in her own ways, and with such +food as she partook herself, physically and spiritually. Glory sat, +every Sunday, in the corner pew of the village church, by her mistress's +side. And this church-going being nearly all that she had ever had, she +took in the nutriment that was given her, to a soul that recognized it, +and never troubled itself with questions as to one truth differing from +another, or no. Indeed, no single form or theory could have contained +the "credo" of her simple, yet complex, thought. The old Catholic +reverence clung about her still, that had come with her all the way from +her infancy, when her mother and grandmother had taught her the prayers +of their Church; and across the long interval of ignorance and neglect +flung a sort of cathedral light over what she felt was holy now. + +Rescued from her dim and servile city life--brought out into the light +and beauty she had mutely longed for--feeling care and kindliness about +her for the long-time harshness and oppression she had borne--she was +like a spirit newly entered into heaven, that needs no priestly +ministration any more. Every breath drew in a life and teaching purer +than human words. + +And then the words she _did_ hear were Divine. Miss Henderson did no +preaching--scarcely any lip teaching, however brief. She broke the bread +of life God gave her, as she cut her daily loaf and shared it--letting +each soul, God helping, digest it for itself. + +Glory got hold of some old theology, too, that she could but +fragmentarily understand but that mingled itself--as all we gather does +mingle, not uselessly--with her growth. She found old books among Miss +Henderson's stores, that she read and mused on. She trembled at the +warnings, and reposed in the holy comforts of Doddridge's "Rise and +Progress," and Baxter's "Saint's Rest." She traveled to the Holy City, +above all, with Bunyan's Pilgrim. And then, Sunday after Sunday, she +heard the simple Christian preaching of an old and simple Christian man. +Not terrible--but earnest; not mystical--but high; not lax--but liberal; +and this fused and tempered all. + +So "things had happened" for Glory. So God had cared for this, His +child. So, according to His own Will--not any human plan or forcing-- +she grew. + +Aunt Faith washed up the breakfast cups, dusted and "set to rights" in +the rooms where, to the young Faith's eyes, there seemed such order +already as could not be righted, made up a nice little pudding for +dinner, and then, taking down her shawl and silk hood, and putting on +her overshoes, announced herself ready for Cross Corners. + +"Though it's all cross corners to me, child, sure enough. I suppose it's +none of my business, but I can't think what you're up to." + +"Not up to any great height, yet, auntie. But I'm growing," said Faith, +merrily, and with meaning somewhat beyond the letter. + +They went out at the back door, which opened on a little footpath down +the sudden green slope behind, and stretched across the field, +diagonally, to a bar place and stile at the opposite corner. Here the +roads from five different directions met and crossed, which gave the +locality its name. + +Opposite the stile at which they came out, across the shady lane that +wound down from the Old Road whereon Miss Henderson's mansion faced, a +gateway in a white paling that ran round and fenced in a grassy door +yard, overhung with pendent branches of elms and stouter canopy of +chestnuts, let them in upon the little "Cross Corners Farm." + +"Oh, Aunt Faith! It's just as lovely as ever! I remember that path up +the hill, among the trees, so well! When I was a little bit of a girl, +and nurse and I came out to stay with you. I had my 'fairy house' there. +I'd like to go over this minute, only that we shan't have time. How +shall we get in? Where is the key?" + +"It's in my pocket. But it mystifies me, what you want there." + +"I want to look out of all the windows, auntie, to begin with." + +Aunt Faith's mystification was not lessened. + +The front door opened on a small, square hall, with doors to right and +left. The room on the left, spite of the bare floor and fireless +hearth, was warm with the spring sunshine that came pouring in at the +south windows. Beyond this, embracing the corner of the house +rectangularly, projected an equally sunny and cheery kitchen; at the +right of which, communicating with both apartments, was divided off a +tiny tea and breakfast room. So Faith decided, though it had very likely +been a bedroom. + +From the entrance hall at the right opened a room larger than either of +the others--so large that the floor above afforded two bedrooms over +it--and having, besides its windows south and east, a door in the +farther corner beyond the chimney, that gave out directly upon the +grassy slope, and looked up the path among the trees that crossed the +ridge. + +Faith drew the bolt and opened it, expecting to find a closet or a +passage somewhither. She fairly started back with surprise and delight. +And then seated herself plump upon the threshold, and went into a +midsummer dream. + +"Oh, auntie!" she cried, at her waking, presently, "was ever anything so +perfect? To think of being let out so! Right from a regular, proper +parlor, into the woods!" + +"Do you mean to go upstairs?" inquired Miss Henderson, with a vague +amaze in her look that seemed to question whether her niece had not +possibly been "let out" from her "regular and proper" wits! + +Whereupon Faith scrambled up from her seat upon the sill, and hurried +off to investigate above. + +Miss Henderson closed the door, pushed the bolt, and followed quietly +after. + +It was a funny little pantomime that Faith enacted then, for the further +bewilderment of the staid old lady. + +Darting from one chamber to another, with an inexplicable look of +business and consideration in her face, that contrasted comically with +her quick movements and her general air of glee, she would take her +stand in the middle of each one in turn, and wheeling round to get a +swift panoramic view of outlook and capabilities, would end by a +succession of mysterious and apparently satisfied little nods, as if at +each pause some point of plan or arrangement had settled itself in her +mind. + +"Aunt Faith!" cried she, suddenly, as she came out upon the landing when +she had peeped into the last corner, and found Miss Henderson on the +point of making her descent--"what sort of a thing do you think it would +be for us to come here and live?" + +Aunt Faith sat down now as suddenly, in her turn, on the stairhead. +Recovering, so, from her momentary and utter astonishment, and taking +in, during that instant of repose, the full drift of the question +propounded, she rose from her involuntarily assumed position, and +continued her way down--answering, without so much as turning her head, +"It would be just the most sensible thing that Henderson Gartney ever +did in his life!" + +What made Faithie a bit sober, all at once, when the key was turned, and +they passed on, out under the elms, into the lane again? + +Did you ever project a very wise and important scheme, that involves a +little self-sacrifice, which, by a determined looking at the bright side +of the subject, you had managed tolerably to ignore; and then, by the +instant and unhesitating acquiescence of some one to whose judgment you +submitted it, find yourself suddenly wheeled about in your own mind to +the standpoint whence you discerned only the difficulty again? + +"There's one thing, Aunt Faith," said she, as they slowly walked up the +field path; "I couldn't go to school any more." + +Faith had discontinued her regular attendance since the recommencement +for the year, but had gone in for a few hours on "French and German +days." + +"There's another thing," said Aunt Faith. "I don't believe your father +can afford to send you any more. You're eighteen, ain't you?" + +"I shall be, this summer." + +"Time for you to leave off school. Bring your books and things along +with you. You'll have chance enough to study." + +Faith hadn't thought much of herself before. But when she found her aunt +didn't apparently think of her at all, she began to realize keenly all +that she must silently give up. + +"But it's a good deal of help, auntie, to study with other people. And +then--we shouldn't have any society out here. I don't mean for the sake +of parties, and going about. But for the improvement of it. I shouldn't +like to be shut out from cultivated people." + +"Faith Gartney!" exclaimed Miss Henderson, facing about in the narrow +footway, "don't you go to being fine and transcendental! If there's one +word I despise more than another, in the way folks use it nowadays--it's +'Culture'! As if God didn't know how to make souls grow! You just take +root where He puts you, and go to work, and live! He'll take care of the +cultivating! If He means you to turn out a rose, or an oak tree, you'll +come to it. And pig-weed's pig-weed, no matter where it starts up!" + +"Aunt Faith!" replied the child, humbly and earnestly, "I believe that's +true! And I believe I want the country to grow in! But the thing will +be," she added, a little doubtfully, "to persuade father." + +"Doesn't he want to come, then? Whose plan is it, pray?" asked Miss +Henderson, stopping short again, just as she had resumed her walk, in a +fresh surprise. + +"Nobody's but mine, yet, auntie! I haven't asked him, but I thought I'd +come and look." + +Miss Henderson took her by the arm, and looked steadfastly in her dark, +earnest eyes. + +"You're something, sure enough!" said she, with a sharp tenderness. + +Faith didn't know precisely what she meant, except that she seemed to +mean approval. And at the one word of appreciation, all difficulty and +self-sacrifice vanished out of her sight, and everything brightened to +her thought, again, till her thought brightened out into a smile. + +"What a skyful of lovely white clouds!" she said, looking up to the +pure, fleecy folds that were flittering over the blue. "We can't see +that in Mishaumok!" + +"She's just heavenly!" said Glory to herself, standing at the back door, +and gazing with a rapturous admiration at Faith's upturned face. "And +the dinner's all ready, and I'm thankful, and more, that the custard's +baked so beautiful!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +DEVELOPMENT. + +"Sits the wind in that corner?" + MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. + +"For courage mounteth with occasion." + KING JOHN. + + +The lassitude that comes with spring had told upon Mr. Gartney. He had +dyspepsia, too; and now and then came home early from the counting room +with a headache that sent him to his bed. Dr. Gracie dropped in, +friendly-wise, of an evening--said little that was strictly +professional--but held his hand a second longer, perhaps, than he would +have done for a mere greeting, and looked rather scrutinizingly at him +when Mr. Gartney's eyes were turned another way. Frequently he made some +slight suggestion of a journey, or other summer change. + +"You must urge it, if you can, Mrs. Gartney," he said, privately, to the +wife. "I don't quite like his looks. Get him away from business, at +_almost any_ sacrifice," he came to add, at last. + +"At _every_ sacrifice?" asked Mrs. Gartney, anxious and perplexed. +"Business is nearly all, you know." + +"Life is more--reason is more," answered the doctor, gravely. + +And the wife went about her daily task with a secret heaviness at her +heart. + +"Father," said Faith, one evening, after she had read to him the paper +while he lay resting upon the sofa, "if you had money enough to live on, +how long would it take you to wind up your business?" + +"It's pretty nearly wound up now! But what's the use of asking such a +question?" + +"Because," said Faith, timidly, "I've got a little plan in my head, if +you'll only listen to it." + +"Well, Faithie, I'll listen. What is it?" + +And then Faith spoke it all out, at once. + +"That you should give up all your business, father, and let this house, +and go to Cross Corners, and live at the farm." + +Mr. Gartney started to his elbow. But a sudden pain that leaped in his +temples sent him back again. For a minute or so, he did not speak at +all. Then he said: + +"Do you know what you are talking of, daughter?" + +"Yes, father; I've been thinking it over a good while--since the night +we wrote down these things." + +And she drew from her pocket the memorandum of stocks and dividends. + +"You see you have six hundred and fifty dollars a year from these, and +this house would be six hundred more, and mother says she can manage on +that, in the country, if I will help her." + +Mr. Gartney shaded his eyes with his hand. Not wholly, perhaps, to +shield them from the light. + +"You're a good girl, Faithie," said he, presently; and there was +assuredly a little tremble in his voice. + +"And so, you and your mother have talked it over, together?" + +"Yes; often, lately. And she said I had better ask you myself, if I +wished it. She is perfectly willing. She thinks it would be good." + +"Faithie," said her father, "you make me feel, more than ever, how much +I _ought_ to do for you!" + +"You ought to get well and strong, father--that is all!" replied Faith, +with a quiver in her own voice. + +Mr. Gartney sighed. + +"I'm no more than a mere useless block of wood!" + +"We shall just have to set you up, and make an idol of you, then!" cried +Faith, cheerily, with tears on her eyelashes, that she winked off. + +There had been a ring at the bell while they were speaking; and now Mrs. +Gartney entered, followed by Dr. Gracie. + +"Well, Miss Faith," said the doctor, after the usual greetings, and a +prolonged look at Mr. Gartney's flushed face, "what have you done to +your father?" + +"I've been reading the paper," answered Faith, quietly, "and talking a +little." + +"Mother!" said Mr. Gartney, catching his wife's hand, as she came round +to find a seat near him, "are you really in the plot, too?" + +"I'm glad there is a plot," said the doctor, quickly, glancing round +with a keen inquiry. "It's time!" + +"Wait till you hear it," said Mr. Gartney. "Are you in a hurry to lose +your patient?" + +"Depends upon _how_!" replied the doctor, touching the truth in a jest. + +"This is how. Here's a little jade who has the conceit and audacity to +propose to me to wind up my business (as if she understood the whole +process!), and let my house, and go to my farm at Cross Corners. What do +you think of that?" + +"I think it would be the most sensible thing you ever did in your life!" + +"Just exactly what Aunt Henderson said!" cried Faith, exultant. + +"Aunt Faith, too! The conspiracy thickens! How long has all this been +discussing?" continued Mr. Gartney, fairly roused, and springing, +despite the doctor's request, to a sitting position, throwing off, as he +did so, the afghan Faith had laid over his feet. + +"There hasn't been much discussion," said Faith. "Only when I went out +to Kinnicutt I got auntie to show me the house; and I asked her how she +thought it would be if we were to do such a thing, and she said just +what Dr. Gracie has said now. And, father, you _don't_ know how +beautiful it is there!" + +"So you really want to go? and it isn't drumsticks?" queried the doctor, +turning round to Faith. + +"Some drumsticks are very nice," said Faith. + +"Gartney!" said Dr. Gracie, "you'd better mind what this girl of yours +says. She's worth attending to." + +The wedge had been entered, and Faith's hand had driven it. + +The plan was taken into consideration. Of course, such a change could +not be made without some pondering; but when almost the continual +thought of a family is concentrated upon a single subject, a good deal +of pondering and deciding can be done in three weeks. At the end of that +time an advertisement appeared in the leading Mishaumok papers, offering +the house in Hickory Street to be let; and Mrs. Gartney and Faith were +busy packing boxes to go to Kinnicutt. + +Only a passing shade had been flung on the project which seemed to +brighten into sunshine, otherwise, the more they looked at it, when Mrs. +Gartney suddenly said, after a long "talking over," the second evening +after the proposal had been first broached: + +"But what will Saidie say?" + +Now Saidie--whom before it has been unnecessary to mention--was Faith's +elder sister, traveling at this moment in Europe, with a wealthy elder +sister of Mrs. Gartney. + +"I never thought of Saidie," cried Faith. + +Saidie was pretty sure not to like Kinnicutt. A young lady, educated at +a fashionable New York school--petted by an aunt who found nobody else +to pet, and who had money enough to have petted a whole asylum of +orphans--who had shone in London and Paris for two seasons past--was not +exceedingly likely to discover all the possible delights that Faith had +done, under the elms and chestnuts at Cross Corners. + +But this could make no practical difference. + +"She wouldn't like Hickory Street any better," said Faith, "if we +couldn't have parties or new furniture any more. And she's only a +visitor, at the best. Aunt Etherege will be sure to have her in New +York, or traveling about, ten months out of twelve. She can come to us +in June and October. I guess she'll like strawberries and cream, +and--whatever comes at the other season, besides red leaves." + +Now this was kind, sisterly consideration of Faith, however little so it +seems, set down. It was very certain that no more acceptable provision +could be made for Saidie Gartney in the family plan, than to leave her +out, except where the strawberries and cream were concerned. In return, +she wrote gay, entertaining letters home to her mother and young sister, +and sent pretty French, or Florentine, or Roman ornaments for them to +wear. Some persons are content to go through life with such exchange of +sympathies as this. + +By and by, Faith being in her own room, took out from her letter box the +last missive from abroad. There was something in this which vexed Faith, +and yet stirred her a little, obscurely. + +All things are fair in love, war, and--story books! So, though she would +never have shown the words to you or me, we will peep over her shoulder, +and share them, "_en rapport_." + +"And Paul Rushleigh, it seems, is as much as ever in Hickory Street! +Well--my little Faithie might make a far worse '_parti_' than that! Tell +papa I think he may be satisfied there!" + +Faith would have cut off her little finger, rather than have had her +father dream that such a thing had been put into her head! But +unfortunately it was there, now, and could not be helped. She could +only--sitting there in her chamber window with the blood tingling to the +hair upon her temples, as if from every neighboring window of the +clustering houses about her, eyes could overlook and read what she was +reading now--"wish that Saidie would not write such things as that!" + +For all that, it was one pleasant thing Faith would have to lose in +leaving Mishaumok. It was very agreeable to have him dropping in, with +his gay college gossip; and to dance the "German" with the nicest +partner in the Monday class; and to carry the flowers he so often sent +her. Had she done things greater than she knew in shutting her eyes +resolutely to all her city associations and enjoyments, and urging, for +her father's sake, this exodus in the desert? + +Only that means were actually wanting to continue on as they were, and +that health must at any rate be first striven for as a condition to the +future enlargement of means, her father and mother, in their thought for +what their child hardly considered for herself, would surely have been +more difficult to persuade. They hoped that a summer's rest might enable +Mr. Gartney to undertake again some sort of lucrative business, after +business should have revived from its present prostration; and that a +year or two, perhaps, of economizing in the country, might make it +possible for them to return, if they chose, to the house in Hickory +Street. + +There were leave takings to be gone through--questions to be answered, +and reasons to be given; for Mrs. Gartney, the polite wishes of her +visiting friends that "Mr. Gartney's health might allow them to return +to the city in the winter," with the wonder, unexpressed, whether this +were to be a final breakdown of the family, or not; and for Faith, the +horror and extravagant lamentations of her young _coterie_, at her +coming occultation--or setting, rather, out of their sky. + +Paul Rushleigh demanded eagerly if there weren't any sober old minister +out there, with whom he might be rusticated for his next college prank. + +Everybody promised to come as far as Kinnicutt "some time" to see them; +the good-bys were all said at last; the city cook had departed, and a +woman had been taken in her place who "had no objections to the country"; +and on one of the last bright days of May they skimmed, steam-sped, over +the intervening country between the brick-and-stone-encrusted hills of +Mishaumok and the fair meadow reaches of Kinnicutt; and so disappeared +out of the places that had known them so long, and could yet, alas! do +so exceedingly well without them. + +By the first of June nobody in the great city remembered, or remembered +very seriously to regard, the little gap that had been made in its +midst. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +A DRIVE WITH THE DOCTOR. + +"And what is so rare as a day in June? +Then, if ever, come perfect days; +Then heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, +And over it softly her warm ear lays." + LOWELL. + +"All lives have their prose translation as well as their ideal +meaning."--CHARLES AUCHESTER. + + +But Kinnicutt opened wider to receive them than Mishaumok had to let +them go. + +If Mr. Gartney's invalidism had to be pleaded to get away with dignity, +it was even more needed to shield with anything of quietness their +entrance into the new sphere they had chosen. + +Faith, with her young adaptability, found great fund of entertainment in +the new social developments that unfolded themselves at Cross Corners. + +All sorts of quaint vehicles drove up under the elms in the afternoon +visiting hours, day after day--hitched horses, and unladed passengers. +Both doctors and their wives came promptly, of course; the "old doctor" +from the village, and the "young doctor" from "over at Lakeside." Quiet +Mrs. Holland walked in at the twilight, by herself, one day, to explain +that her husband, the minister, was too unwell to visit, and to say her +pleasant, unpretentious words of welcome. Squire Leatherbee's daughters +made themselves fine in lilac silks and green Estella shawls, to offer +acquaintance to the new "city people." Aunt Faith came over, once or +twice a week, at times when "nobody else would be round under foot," and +always with some dainty offering from dairy, garden, or kitchen. At +other hours, Glory was fain to seize all opportunity of errands that +Miss Henderson could not do, and irradiate the kitchen, lingeringly, +until she herself might be more ecstatically irradiated with a glance +and smile from Miss Faith. + +There was need enough of Aunt Faith's ministrations during these first, +few, unsettled weeks. The young woman who "had no objections to the +country," objected no more to these pleasant country fashions of +neighborly kindness. She had reason. Aunt Faith's "thirds bread," or +crisp "vanity cakes," or "velvet creams," were no sooner disposed of +than there surely came a starvation interval of sour biscuits, heavy +gingerbread, and tough pie crust, and dinners feebly cooked, with no +attempt at desserts, at all. + +This was gloomy. This was the first trial of their country life. +Plainly, this cook was no cook. Mr. Gartney's dyspepsia must be +considered. Kinnicutt air and June sunshine would not do all the +curative work. The healthy appetite they stimulated must be wholesomely +supplied. + +Faith took to the kitchen. To Glory's mute and rapturous delight, she +began to come almost daily up the field path, in her pretty round hat +and morning wrapper, to waylay her aunt in the tidy kitchen at the early +hour when her cookery was sure to be going on, to ask questions and +investigate, and "help a little," and then to go home and repeat the +operation as nearly as she could for their somewhat later dinner. + +"Miss McGonegal seems to be improving," observed Mr. Gartney, +complacently, one day, as he partook of a simple, but favorite pudding, +nicely flavored and compounded; "or is this a charity of Aunt +Henderson's?" + +"No," replied his wife, "it is home manufacture," and she glanced at +Faith without dropping her tone to a period. Faith shook her head, and +the sentence hung in the air, unfinished. + +Mrs. Gartney had not been strong for years. Moreover, she had not a +genius for cooking. That is a real gift, as much as a genius for poetry +or painting. Faith was finding out, suddenly, that she had it. But she +was quite willing that her father should rest in the satisfactory belief +that Miss McGonegal, in whom it never, by any possibility, could be +developed, was improving; and that the good things that found their way +to his table had a paid and permanent origin. He was more comfortable +so, she thought. Meanwhile, they would inquire if the region round about +Kinnicutt might be expected to afford a substitute. + +Dr. Wasgatt's wife told Mrs. Gartney of a young American woman who was +staying in the "factory village" beyond Lakeside, and who had asked her +husband if he knew of any place where she could "hire out." Dr. Wasgatt +would be very glad to take her or Miss Faith over there, of a morning, +to see if she would answer. + +Faith was very glad to go. + +Dr. Wasgatt was the "old doctor." A benign man, as old doctors--when +they don't grow contrariwise, and become unspeakably gruff and +crusty--are apt to be. A benign old doctor, a docile old horse, an +old-fashioned two-wheeled chaise that springs to the motion like a bough +at a bird flitting, and an indescribable June morning wherein to drive +four miles and back--well! Faith couldn't help exulting in her heart +that they wanted a cook. + +The way was very lovely toward Lakeside, and across to factory village. +It crossed the capricious windings of Wachaug two or three times within +the distance, and then bore round the Pond Road, which kept its old +traditional cognomen, though the new neighborhood that had grown up at +its farther bend had got a modern name, and the beautiful pond itself +had come to be known with a legitimate dignity as Lake Wachaug. + +Graceful birches, with a spring, and a joyous, whispered secret in every +glossy leaf, leaned over the road toward the water; and close down to +its ripples grew wild shrubs and flowers, and lush grass, and lady +bracken, while out over the still depths rested green lily pads, like +floating thrones waiting the fair water queens who, a few weeks hence, +should rise to claim them. Back, behind the birches, reached the fringe +of woodland that melted away, presently, in the sunny pastures, and held +in bush and branch hundreds of little mother birds, brooding in a still +rapture, like separate embodied pulses of the Universal Love, over a +coming life and joy. + +Life and joy were everywhere. Faith's heart danced and glowed within +her. She had thought, many a time before, that she was getting somewhat +of the joy of the country, when, after dinner and business were over, +she had come out from Mishaumok, in proper fashionable toilet, with her +father and mother, for an afternoon airing in the city environs. But +here, in the old doctor's "one-hoss shay," and with her round straw hat +and chintz wrapper on, she was finding out what a rapturously different +thing it is to go out into the bountiful morning, and identify oneself +therewith. + +She had almost forgotten that she had any other errand when they turned +away from the lake, and took a little side road that wound off from it, +and struck the river again, and brought them at last to the Wachaug +Mills and the little factory settlement around them. + +"This is Mrs. Pranker's," said the doctor, stopping at the third door in +a block of factory houses, "and it's a sister-in-law of hers who wants +to 'hire out.' I've a patient in the next row, and if you like, I'll +leave you here a few minutes." + +Faith's foot was instantly on the chaise step, and she sprang to the +ground with only an acknowledging touch of the good doctor's hand, +upheld to aid her. + +A white-haired boy of three, making gravel puddings in a scalloped tin +dish at the door, scrambled up as she approached, upset his pudding, and +sidled up the steps in a scared fashion, with a finger in his mouth, and +his round gray eyes sending apprehensive peeps at her through the linty +locks. + +"Well, tow-head!" ejaculated an energetic female voice within, to an +accompaniment of swashing water, and a scrape of a bucket along the +floor; "what's wanting now? Can't you stay put, nohow?" + +An unintelligible jargon of baby chatter followed, which seemed, +however, to have conveyed an idea to the mother's mind, for she +appeared immediately in the passage, drying her wet arms upon her apron. + +"Mrs. Pranker?" asked Faith. + +"That's my name," replied the woman, as who should say, peremptorily, +"what then?" + +"I was told--my mother heard--that a sister of yours was looking for a +place." + +"She hain't done much about _lookin'_," was the reply, "but she was +sayin' she didn't know but what she'd hire out for a spell, if anybody +wanted her. She's in the keepin' room. You can come in and speak to her, +if you're a mind to. The kitchen floor's wet. I'm jest a-washin' of it. +You little sperrit!" This to the child, who was amusing himself with the +floor cloth which he had fished out of the bucket, and held up, +dripping, letting a stream of dirty water run down the front of his red +calico frock. "If children ain't the biggest torments! Talk about Job! +His wife had to have more patience than he did, I'll be bound! And +patience ain't any use, either! The more you have, the more you're took +advantage of! I declare and testify, it makes me as cross as sin, jest +to think how good-natured I be!" And with this, she snatched the cloth +from the boy's hands, shook first him and then his frock, to get rid, in +so far as a shake might accomplish it, of original depravity and sandy +soapsuds, and carried him, vociferant, to the door, where she set him +down to the consolation of gravel pudding again. + +Meanwhile Faith crossed the sloppy kitchen, on tiptoe, toward an open +door, that revealed a room within. + +Here a very fat young woman, with a rather pleasant face, was seated, +sewing, in a rocking-chair. + +She did not rise, or move, at Faith's entrance, otherwise than to look +up, composedly, and let fall her arms along those of the chair, +retaining the needle in one hand and her work in the other. + +"I came to see," said Faith--obliged to say something to explain her +presence, but secretly appalled at the magnitude of the subject she had +to deal with--"if you wanted a place in a family." + +"Take a seat," said the young woman. + +Faith availed herself of one, and, doubtful what to say next, waited for +indications from the other party. + +"Well--I _was_ calc'latin' to hire out this summer, but I ain't very +partic'ler about it, neither." + +"Can you cook?" + +"Most kinds. I can't do much fancy cookin'. Guess I can make bread--all +sorts--and roast, and bile, and see to common fixin's, though, as well +as the next one!" + +"We like plain country cooking," said Faith, thinking of Aunt +Henderson's delicious, though simple, preparations. "And I suppose you +can make new things if you have direction." + +"Well--I'm pretty good at workin' out a resate, too. But then, I ain't +anyways partic'ler 'bout hirin' out, as I said afore." + +Faith judged rightly that this was a salvo put in for pride. The Yankee +girl would not appear anxious for a servile situation. All the while the +conversation went on, she sat tilting herself gently back and forth in +the rocking-chair, with a lazy touching of her toes to the floor. Her +very _vis inertiae_ would not let her stop. + +Faith's only question, now, was with herself--how she should get away +again. She had no idea that this huge, indolent creature would be at all +suitable as their servant. And then, her utter want of manners! + +"I'll tell my mother what you say," said she, rising. + +"What's your mother's name, and where d'ye live?" + +"We live at Kinnicutt Cross Corners. My mother is Mrs. Henderson +Gartney." + +"'M!" + +Faith turned toward the kitchen. + +"Look here!" called the stout young woman after her; "you may jest say +if she wants me she can send for me. I don't mind if I try it a spell." + +"I didn't ask _your_ name," remarked Faith. + +"Oh! my name's Mis' Battis!" + +Faith escaped over the wet floor, sprang past the white-haired child at +the doorstep, and was just in time to be put into the chaise by Dr. +Wasgatt, who drove up as she came out. She did not dare trust her voice +to speak within hearing of the house; but when they had come round the +mills again, into the secluded river road, she startled its quietness +and the doctor's composure, with a laugh that rang out clear and +overflowing like the very soul of fun. + +"So that's all you've got out of your visit?" + +"Yes, that is all," said Faith. "But it's a great deal!" And she laughed +again--such a merry little waterfall of a laugh. + +When she reached home, Mrs. Gartney met her at the door. + +"Well, Faithie," she cried, somewhat eagerly, "what have you found?" + +Faith's eyes danced with merriment. + +"I don't know, mother! A--hippopotamus, I think!" + +"Won't she do? What do you mean?" + +"Why she's as big! I can't tell you how big! And she sat in a +rocking-chair and rocked all the time--and she says her name is Miss +Battis!" + +Mrs. Gartney looked rather perplexed than amused. + +"But, Faith!--I can't think how she knew--she must have been, +listening--Norah has been so horribly angry! And she's upstairs packing +her things to go right off. How _can_ we be left without a cook?" + +"It seems Miss McGonegal means to demonstrate that we can! Perhaps--the +hippopotamus _might_ be trained to domestic service! She said you could +send if you wanted her." + +"I don't see anything else to do. Norah won't even stay till morning. +And there isn't a bit of bread in the house. I can't send this +afternoon, though, for your father has driven over to Sedgely about some +celery and tomato plants, and won't be home till tea time." + +"I'll make some cream biscuits like Aunt Faith's. And I'll go out into +the garden and find Luther. If he can't carry us through the +Reformation, somehow, he doesn't deserve his name." + +Luther was found--thought Jerry Blanchard wouldn't "value lettin' him +have his old horse and shay for an hour." And he wouldn't "be mor'n that +goin'." He could "fetch her, easy enough, if that was all." + +Mis' Battis came. + +She entered Mrs. Gartney's presence with nonchalance, and "flumped" +incontinently into the easiest and nearest chair. + +Mrs. Gartney began with the common preliminary--the name. Mis' Battis +introduced herself as before. + +"But your first name?" proceeded the lady. + +"My first name was Parthenia Franker. I'm a relic'." + +Mrs. Gartney experienced an internal convulsion, but retained her +outward composure. + +"I suppose you would quite as lief be called Parthenia?" + +"Ruther," replied the relict, laconically. + +And Mrs. Parthenia Battis was forthwith installed--_pro tem_.--in the +Cross Corners kitchen. + +"She's got considerable gumption," was the opinion Luther volunteered, +of his own previous knowledge--for Mrs. Battis was an old schoolmate and +neighbor--"but she's powerful slow." + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +NEW DUTIES. + +"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might."--Ecc. 9:10. + +"A servant with this clause + Makes drudgery divine;-- +Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws, + Makes that and the action fine." + GEORGE HERBERT. + + +Mis' Battis's "gumption" was a relief--conjoined, even, as it was, to a +mighty _inertia_--after the experience of Norah McGonegal's utter +incapacity; and her admission, _pro tempore,_ came to be tacitly looked +upon as a permanent adoption, for want of a better alternative. She +continued to seat herself, unabashed, whenever opportunity offered, in +the presence of the family; and invariably did so, when Mrs. Gartney +either sent for, or came to her, to give orders. She always spoke of Mr. +Gartney as "he," addressed her mistress as Miss Gartney, and ignored all +prefix to the gentle name of Faith. Mrs. Gartney at last remedied the +pronominal difficulty by invariably applying all remarks bearing no +other indication, to that other "he" of the household--Luther. Her own +claim to the matronly title she gave up all hope of establishing; for, +if the "relic'" abbreviated her own wifely distinction, how should she +be expected to dignify other people? + +As to Faith, her mother ventured one day, sensitively and timidly, to +speak directly to the point. + +"My daughter has always been accustomed to be called _Miss_ Faith," she +said, gently, in reply to an observation of Parthenia's, in which the +ungarnished name had twice been used. "It isn't a _very_ important +matter--still, it would be pleasanter to us, and I dare say you won't +mind trying to remember it?" + +"'M! No--I ain't partic'ler. Faith ain't a long name, and 'twon't be +much trouble to put a handle on, if that's what you want. It's English +fashion, ain't it?" + +Parthenia's coolness enabled Mrs. Gartney to assert, somewhat more +confidently, her own dignity. + +"It is a fashion of respect and courtesy, everywhere, I believe." + +"'M!" reejaculated the relict. + +Thereafter, Faith was "Miss," with a slight pressure of emphasis upon +the handle. + +"Mamma!" cried Hendie, impetuously, one day, as he rushed in from a walk +with his attendant, "I _hate_ Mahala Harris! I wish you'd let me dress +myself, and go to walk alone, and send her off to Jericho!" + +"Whereabouts do you suppose Jericho to be?" asked Faith, laughing. + +"I don't know. It's where she keeps wishing I was, when she's cross, and +I want anything. I wish she was there!--and I mean to ask papa to send +her!" + +"Go and take your hat off, Hendie, and have your hair brushed, and your +hands washed, and then come back in a nice quiet little temper, and +we'll talk about it," said Mrs. Gartney. + +"I think," said Faith to her mother, as the boy was heard mounting the +stairs to the nursery, right foot foremost all the way, "that Mahala +doesn't manage Hendie as she ought. She keeps him in a fret. I hear them +in the morning while I am dressing. She seems to talk to him in a +taunting sort of way." + +"What can we do?" exclaimed Mrs. Gartney, worriedly. "These changes are +dreadful. We might get some one worse. And then we can't afford to pay +extravagantly. Mahala has been content to take less wages, and I think +she means to be faithful. Perhaps if I make her understand how important +it is, she will try a different manner." + +"Only it might be too late to do much good, if Hendie has really got to +dislike her. And--besides--I've been thinking--only, you will say I'm so +full of projects----" + +But what the project was, Mrs. Gartney did not hear at once, for just +then Hendie's voice was heard again at the head of the stairs. + +"I tell you, mother said I might! I'm going--down--in a nice--little +temper--to ask her--to send you--to Jericho!" Left foot foremost, a drop +between each few syllables, he came stumping, defiantly, down the +stairs, and appeared with all his eager story in his eyes. + +"She plagues me, mamma! She tells me to see who'll get dressed first; +and if _she_ does, she says: + + "'The first's the best, + The second's the same; + The last's the worst + Of all the game!' + +"And if _I_ get dressed first--all but the buttoning, you know--she says: + + "'The last's the best, + The second's the same; + The first's the worst + Of all the game!' + +"And then she keeps telling me 'her little sister never behaved like me.' +I asked her where her little sister was, and she said she'd gone over +Jordan. I'm glad of it! I wish Mahala would go too!" + +Mrs. Gartney smiled, and Faith could not help laughing outright. + +Hendie burst into a passion of tears. + +"Everybody keeps plaguing me! It's too bad!" he cried, with tumultuous +sobs. + +Faith checked her laughter instantly. She took the indignant little +fellow on her lap, in despite of some slight, implacable struggle on his +part, and kissed his pouting lips. + +"No, indeed, Hendie! We wouldn't plague you for all the world! And you +don't know what I've got for you, just as soon as you're ready for it!" + +Hendie took his little knuckles out of his eyes. + +"A bunch of great red cherries, as big as your two hands!" + +"Where?" + +"I'll get them, if you're good. And then you can go out in the front +yard, and eat them, so that you can drop the stones on the grass." + +Hendie was soon established on a flat stone under the old chestnut +trees, in a happy oblivion of Mahala's injustice, and her little +sister's perfections. + +"I'll tell you, mamma. I've been thinking we need not keep Mahala, if +you don't wish. She has been so used to do nothing but run round after +Hendie, that, really, she isn't much good about the house; and I'll take +Hendie's trundle bed into my room, and there'll be one less chamber to +take care of; and you know we always dust and arrange down here." + +"Yes--but the sweeping, Faithie! And the washing! Parthenia never would +get through with it all." + +"Well, somebody might come and help wash. And I guess I can sweep." + +"But I can't bear to put you to such work, darling! You need your time +for other things." + +"I have ever so much time, mother! And, besides, as Aunt Faith says, I +don't believe it makes so very much matter _what_ we do. I was talking +to her, the other day, about doing coarse work, and living a narrow, +common kind of life, and what do you think she said?" + +"I can't tell, of course. Something blunt and original." + +"We were out in the garden. She pointed to some plants that were coming +up from seeds, that had just two tough, clumsy, coarse leaves. 'What do +you call them?' said auntie. 'Cotyledons, aren't they?' said I. 'I don't +know what they are in botany,' said she; 'but I know the use of 'em. +They'll last a while, and help feed up what's growing inside and +underneath, and by and by they'll drop off, when they're done with, and +you'll see what's been coming of it. Folks can't live the best right +out at first, any more than plants can. I guess we all want some kind +of--cotyledons.'" + +Mrs. Gartney's eyes shone with affection, and something that affection +called there, as she looked upon her daughter. + +"I guess the cotyledons won't hinder your growing," said she. + +And so, in a few days after, Mahala was dismissed, and Faith took upon +herself new duties. + +It was a bright, happy face that glanced hither and thither, about the +house, those fair summer mornings; and it wasn't the hands alone that +were busy, as under their dexterous and delicate touch all things +arranged themselves in attractive and graceful order. Thought +straightened and cleared itself, as furniture and books were dusted and +set right; and while the carpet brightened under the broom, something +else brightened and strengthened, also, within. + +It is so true, what the author of "Euthanasy" tells us, that exercise of +limb and muscle develops not only themselves, but what is in us as we +work. + +"Every stroke of the hammer upon the anvil hardens a little what is at +the time the temper of the smith's mind." + +"The toil of the plowman furrows the ground, and so it does his brow +with wrinkles, visibly; and invisibly, but quite as certainly, it +furrows the current of feeling, common with him at his work, into an +almost unchangeable channel." + +Faith's life purpose deepened as she did each daily task. She had hold, +already, of the "high and holy work of love" that had been prophesied. + +"I am sure of one thing, mother," said she, gayly; "if I don't learn +much that is new, I am bringing old knowledge into play. It's the same +thing, taken hold of at different ends. I've learned to draw straight +lines, and shape pictures; and so there isn't any difficulty in sweeping +a carpet clean, or setting chairs straight. I never shall wonder again +that a woman who never heard of a right angle can't lay a table even." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +"BLESSED BE YE, POOR." + +"And so we yearn, and so we sigh, + And reach for more than we can see; +And, witless of our folded wings, + Walk Paradise, unconsciously." + + +October came, and brought small dividends. The expenses upon the farm +had necessarily been considerable, also, to put things in "good running +order." Mr. Gartney's health, though greatly improved, was not yet so +confidently to be relied on, as to make it advisable for him to think of +any change, as yet, with a view to business. Indeed, there was little +opportunity for business, to tempt him. Everything was flat. Mr. Gartney +must wait. Mrs. Gartney and Faith felt, though they talked of waiting, +that the prospect really before them was that of a careful, obscure +life, upon a very limited income. The house in Mishaumok had stood +vacant all the summer. There was hope, of course, of letting it now, as +the winter season came on, but rents were falling, and people were timid +and discouraged. + +October was beautiful at Kinnicutt. And Faith, when she looked out over +the glory of woods and sky, felt rich with the great wealth of the +world, and forgot about economies and privations. She was so glad they +had come here with their altered plans, and had not struggled shabbily +and drearily on in Mishaumok! + +It was only when some chance bit of news from the city, or a girlish, +gossipy note from some school friend found its way to Cross Corners, +that she felt, a little keenly, her denials--realized how the world she +had lived in all her life was going on without her. + +It was the old plaint that Glory made, in her dark days of +childhood--this feeling of despondency and loss that assailed Faith now +and then--"such lots of good times in the world, and she not in 'em!" + +Mrs. Etherege and Saidie were coming home. Gertrude Rushleigh, Saidie's +old intimate, was to be married on the twenty-eighth, and had fixed her +wedding thus for the last of the month, that Miss Gartney might arrive +to keep her promise of long time, by officiating as bridesmaid. + +The family eclipse would not overshadow Saidie. She had made her place +in the world now, and with her aunt's aid and countenance, would keep +it. It was quite different with Faith--disappearing, as she had done, +from notice, before ever actually "coming out." + +"It was a thousand pities," Aunt Etherege said, when she and Saidie +discussed with Mrs. Gartney, at Cross Corners, the family affairs. "And +things just as they were, too! Why, another year might have settled +matters for her, so that this need never have happened! At any rate, the +child shouldn't be moped up here, all winter!" + +Mrs. Etherege had engaged rooms, on her arrival, at the Mishaumok House; +and it seemed to be taken for granted by her, and by Saidie as well, +that this coming home was a mere visit; that Miss Gartney would, of +course, spend the greater part of the winter with her aunt; and that +lady extended also an invitation to Mishaumok for a month--including +the wedding festivities at the Rushleighs'--to Faith. + +Faith shook her head. She "knew she couldn't be spared so long." +Secretly, she doubted whether it would be a good plan to go back and get +a peep at things that might send her home discontented and unhappy. + +But her mother reasoned otherwise. Faithie must go. "The child mustn't +be moped up." She would get on, somehow, without her. Mothers always +can. So Faith, by a compromise, went for a fortnight. She couldn't quite +resist her newly returned sister. + +Besides, a pressing personal invitation had come from Margaret Rushleigh +to Faith herself, with a little private announcement at the end, that +"Paul was refractory, and utterly refused to act as fourth groomsman, +unless Faith Gartney were got to come and stand with him." + +Faith tore off the postscript, and might have lit it at her cheeks, but +dropped it, of habit, into the fire; and then the note was at the +disposal of the family. + +It was a whirl of wonderful excitement to Faith--that fortnight! So many +people to see, so much to hear, and in the midst of all, the gorgeous +wedding festival! + +What wonder if a little dream flitted through her head, as she stood +there, in the marriage group, at Paul Rushleigh's side, and looked about +her on the magnificent fashion, wherein the affection of new relatives +and old friends had made itself tangible; and heard the kindly words of +the elder Mr. Rushleigh to Kate Livingston, who stood with his son +Philip, and whose bridal, it was well known, was to come next? Jewels, +and silver, and gold, are such flashing, concrete evidences of love! And +the courtly condescension of an old and world-honored man to the young +girl whom his son has chosen, is such a winning and distinguishing +thing! + +Paul Rushleigh had finished his college course, and was to go abroad +this winter--between the weddings, as he said--for his brother Philip's +was to take place in the coming spring. After that--things were not +quite settled, but something was to be arranged for him meanwhile--he +would have to begin his work in the world; and then--he supposed it +would be time for him to find a helpmate. Marrying was like dying, he +believed; when a family once began to go off there was soon an end of +it! + +Blushes were the livery of the evening, and Faith's deeper glow at this +audacious rattle passed unheeded, except, perhaps, as it might be +somewhat willfully interpreted. + +There were two or three parties made for the newly married couple in the +week that followed. The week after, Paul Rushleigh, with the bride and +groom, was to sail for Europe. At each of these brilliant entertainments +he constituted himself, as in duty bound, Faith's knight and sworn +attendant; and a superb bouquet for each occasion, the result of the +ransack of successive greenhouses, came punctually, from him, to her +door. For years afterwards--perhaps for all her life--Faith couldn't +smell heliotrope, and geranium, and orange flowers, without floating +back, momentarily, into the dream of those few, enchanted days! + +She stayed in Mishaumok a little beyond the limit she had fixed for +herself, to go, with the others, on board the steamer at the time of her +sailing, and see the gay party off. Paul Rushleigh had more significant +words, and another gift of flowers as a farewell. + +When she carried these last to her own room, to put them in water, on +her return, something she had not noticed before glittered among their +stems. It was a delicate little ring, of twisted gold, with a +forget-me-not in turquoise and enamel upon the top. + +Faith was half pleased, half frightened, and wholly ashamed. + +Paul Rushleigh was miles out on the Atlantic. There was no help for it, +she thought. It had been cunningly done. + +And so, in the short November days, she went back to Kinnicutt. + +The east parlor had to be shut up now, for the winter. The family +gathering place was the sunny little sitting room; and with closed doors +and doubled windows, they began, for the first time, to find that they +were really living in a little bit of a house. + +It was very pretty, though, with the rich carpet and the crimson +curtains that had come from Hickory Street, replacing the white muslin +draperies and straw matting of the summer; and the books and vases, and +statuettes and pictures, gathered into so small space, seemed to fill +the room with luxury and beauty. + +Faith nestled her little workstand into a nook between the windows. +Hendie's blocks and picture books were stowed in a corner cupboard. Mr. +Gartney's newspapers and pamphlets, as they came, found room in a deep +drawer below; and so, through the wintry drifts and gales, they were +"close hauled" and comfortable. + +Faith was happy; yet she thought, now and then, when the whistling wind +broke the stillness of the dark evenings, of light and music elsewhere; +and how, a year ago, there had always been the chance of a visitor or +two to drop in, and while away the hours. Nobody lifted the +old-fashioned knocker, here at Cross Corners. + +By day, even, it was scarcely different. Kinnicutt was hibernating. Each +household had drawn into its shell. And the huge drifts, lying defiant +against the fences in the short, ineffectual winter sunlight, held out +little hope of reanimation. Aunt Faith, in her pumpkin hood, and Rob Roy +cloak, and carpet moccasins, came over once in two or three days, and +even occasionally stayed to tea, and helped make up a rubber of whist +for Mr. Gartney's amusement; but, beyond this, they had no social +excitement. + +January brought a thaw; and, still further to break the monotony, there +arose a stir and an anxiety in the parish. + +Good Mr. Holland, its minister of thirty years, whose health had been +failing for many months, was at last compelled to relinquish the duties +of his pulpit for a time; and a supply was sought with the ultimate +probability of a succession. A new minister came to preach, who was to +fill the pastor's place for the ensuing three months. On his first +Sunday among them, Faith heard a wonderful sermon. + +I indicate thus, not the oratory, nor the rhetoric; but the _sermon_, of +which these were the mere vehicle--the word of truth itself--which was +spoken, seemingly, to her very thought. + +So also, as certainly, to the long life-thought of one other. Glory +McWhirk sat in Miss Henderson's corner pew, and drank it in, as a soul +athirst. + +A man of middle age, one might have said, at first sight--there was, +here and there, a silver gleam in the dark hair and beard; yet a fire +and earnestness of youth in the deep, beautiful eye, and a look in the +face as of life's first flush and glow not lost, but rather merged in +broader light, still climbing to its culmination, belied these tokens, +and made it as if a white frost had fallen in June--rising up before the +crowded village congregation, looked round upon the upturned faces, as +One had looked before who brought the bread of Life to men's eager +asking; and uttered the selfsame simple words. + +It was a certain pause and emphasis he made--a slight new rendering of +punctuation--that sent home the force of those words to the people who +heard them, as if it had been for the first time, and fresh from the +lips of the Great Teacher. + + * * * * * + +"'Blessed are the poor: _in spirit_: for theirs is the kingdom of +heaven.' + +"Herein Christ spoke, not to a class, only, but to the world! A world of +souls, wrestling with the poverty of life! + +"In that whole assemblage--that great concourse--that had thronged from +cities and villages to hear His words upon the mountainside--was there, +think you, _one satisfied nature_? + +"Friends--are _ye_ satisfied? + + . . . . . + +"Or, does every life come to know, at first or at last, how something--a +hope, or a possibility, or the fulfillment of a purpose--has got +dropped out of it, or has even never entered, so that an emptiness +yawns, craving, therein, forever? + +"How many souls hunger till they are past their appetite! Go on--down +through the years--needy and waiting, and never find or grasp that which +a sure instinct tells them they were made for? + +"This, this is the poverty of life! These are the poor, to whom God's +Gospel was preached in Christ! And to these denied and waiting ones the +first words of Christ's preaching--as I read them--were spoken in +blessing. + +"Because, elsewhere, he blesses the meek; elsewhere and presently, he +tells us how the lowly in spirit shall inherit the earth; so, when I +open to this, his earliest uttered benediction upon our race, I read it +with an interpretation that includes all humanity: + +"'Blessed, in spirit, are the poor. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' + + . . . . . + +"What is this Kingdom of Heaven? 'It is within you.' It is that which +you hold, and live in spiritually; the _real_, of which all earthly, +outward being and having are but the show. It is the region wherein +little children 'do always behold the Face of my Father which is in +Heaven.' It is where we are when we shut our eyes and pray in the words +that Christ taught us. + + . . . . . + +"What matters, then, where your feet stand, or wherewith your hands are +busy? So that it is the spot where God has put you, and the work He has +given you to do? Your real life is within--hid in God with +Christ--ripening, and strengthening, and waiting, as through the long, +geologic ages of night and incompleteness waited the germs of all that +was to unfold into this actual, green, and bounteous earth! + + . . . . . + +"The narrower your daily round, the wider, maybe, the outreach. Isolated +upon a barren mountain peak, you may take in river and lake--forest, +field, and valley. A hundred gardens and harvests lift their bloom and +fullness to your single eye. + +"There is a sunlight that contracts the vision; there is a starlight +that enlarges it to take in infinite space. + + "'God sets some souls in shade, alone. + They have no daylight of their own. + Only in lives of happier ones + They see the shine of distant suns. + + "'God knows. Content thee with thy night. + Thy greater heaven hath grander light, + To-day is close. The hours are small. + Thou sit'st afar, and hast them all. + + "'Lose the less joy that doth but blind; + Reach forth a larger bliss to find. + To-day is brief: the inclusive spheres + Rain raptures of a thousand years.'" + +Faith could not tell what hymn was sung, or what were the words of the +prayer that followed the sermon. There was a music and an uplifting in +her own soul that made them needless, but for the pause they gave her. + +She hardly knew that a notice was read as the people rose before the +benediction, when the minister gave out, as requested, that "the Village +Dorcas Society would meet on Wednesday of the coming week, at Mrs. +Parley Gimp's." + +She was made aware that it had fallen upon her ears, though heard +unconsciously, when Serena Gimp caught her by the sleeve in the church +porch. + +"Ain't it awful," said she, with a simper and a flutter of importance, +"to have your name called right out so in the pulpit? I declare, if it +hadn't been for seeing the new minister, I wouldn't have come to meeting, +I dreaded it so! Ain't he handsome? He's old, though--thirty-five! He's +broken-hearted, too! Somebody died, or something else, that he was going +to be married to, ever so many years ago; and they say he hasn't hardly +spoken to a lady since. That's so romantic! I don't wonder he preaches +such low-spirited kind of sermons. Only I wish they warn't quite so. I +suppose it's beautiful, and heavenly minded, and all that; but yet I'd +rather hear something a little kind of cheerful. Don't you think so? But +the poetry was elegant--warn't it? I guess it's original, too. They say +he puts things in the _Mishaumok Monthly_. Come Wednesday, won't +you? We shall depend, you know." + +To Miss Gimp, the one salient point, amidst the solemnities of the day, +had been that pulpit notice. She had put new strings to her bonnet for +the occasion. Mrs. Gimp, being more immediately and personally affected, +had modestly remained away from church. + +Glory McWhirk went straight through the village, home; and out to her +little room in the sunny side of the low, sloping roof. This was her +winter nook. She had a shadier one, looking the other way, for summer. + +"I wonder if it's all true!" she cried, silently, in her soul, while she +stood for a minute with bonnet and shawl still on, looking out from her +little window, dreamily, over the dazzle of the snow, even as her +half-blinded thought peered out from its own narrowness into the +infinite splendor of the promise of God--"I wonder if God will ever make +me beautiful! I wonder if I shall ever have a real, great joyfulness, +that isn't a make believe!" + +Glory called her fancies so. They followed her still. She lived yet in +an ideal world. The real world--that is, the best good of it--had not +come close enough to her, even in this, her widely amended condition, to +displace the other. Remember--this child of eighteen had missed her +childhood; had known neither father nor mother, sister nor brother. + +Don't think her simple, in the pitiful meaning of the word; but she +still enacted, in the midst of her plain, daily life, wonderful dreams +that nobody could have ever suspected; and here, in her solitary +chamber, called up at will creatures of imagination who were to her what +human creatures, alas! had never been. Above all, she had a sister here, +to whom she told all her secrets. This sister's name was Leonora. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +FROST-WONDERS. + +"No hammers fell, no ponderous axes rung; +Like some tall palm, the mystic fabric sprung. +Majestic silence!" + HEBER. + + +The thaw continued till the snow was nearly gone. Only the great drifts +against the fences, and the white folds in the rifts of distant +hillsides lingered to tell what had been. Then came a day of warm rain, +that washed away the last fragment of earth's cast-off vesture, and +bathed her pure for the new adornment that was to be laid upon her. At +night, the weather cooled, and the rain changed to a fine, slow mist, +congealing as it fell. + +Faith stood next morning by a small round table in the sitting-room +window, and leaned lovingly over her jonquils and hyacinths that were +coming into bloom. Then, drawing the curtain cord to let in the first +sunbeam that should slant from the south upon her bulbs, she gave a +little cry of rapturous astonishment. It was a diamond morning! + +Away off, up the lane, and over the meadows, every tree and bush was +hung with twinkling gems that the slight wind swayed against each other +with tiny crashes of faint music, and the sun was just touching with a +level splendor. + +After that first, quick cry, Faith stood mute with ecstasy. + +"Mother!" said she, breathlessly, at last, as Mrs. Gartney entered, +"look there! have you seen it? Just imagine what the woods must be this +morning! How can we think of buckwheats?" + +Sounds and odors betrayed that Mis' Battis and breakfast were in the +little room adjoining. + +"There is a thought of something akin to them, isn't there, under all +this splendor? Men must live, and grass and grain must grow." + +Mr. Gartney said this, as he came up behind wife and daughter, and laid +a hand on a shoulder of each. + +"I know one thing, though," said Faith. "I'll eat the buckwheats, as a +vulgar necessity, and then I'll go over the brook and up in the woods +behind the Pasture Rocks. It'll last, won't it?" + +"Not many hours, with this spring balm in the air," replied her father. +"You must make haste. By noon, it will be all a drizzle." + +"Will it be quite safe for her to go alone?" asked Mrs. Gartney. + +"I'll ask Aunt Faith to let me have Glory. She showed me the walk last +summer. It is fair she should see this, now." + +So the morning odds and ends were done up quickly at Cross Corners and +at the Old House, and then Faith and Glory set forth together--the +latter in as sublime a rapture as could consist with mortal cohesion. + +The common roadside was an enchanted path. The glittering rime +transfigured the very cart ruts into bars of silver; and every coarse +weed was a fretwork of beauty. + +"Bells on their toes" they had, this morning, assuredly; each footfall +made a music on the sod. + +Over the slippery bridge--out across a stretch of open meadow, and then +along a track that skirted the border of a sparse growth of trees, +projecting itself like a promontory upon the level land--round its +abrupt angle into a sweep of meadow again, on whose farther verge rose +the Pasture Rocks. + +Behind these rocks swelled up gently a slope, half pasture, half +woodland--neither open ground nor forest; but, although clear enough for +comfortable walking, studded pretty closely with trees that often +interlaced their branches overhead, and made great, pillared aisles, +among whose shade, in summer, wound delicious little footpaths that all +came out together, midway up, into--what you shall be told of presently. + +Here, among and beyond the rocks, were oaks, and pines, and savins--each +needle-like leaf a shimmering lance--each clustering branch a spray of +gems--and the stout, spreading limbs of the oaks delineating themselves +against the sky above in Gothic frost-work. + +Suddenly--before they thought it could be so near--they came up and out +into a broader opening. Between two rocks that made, as it were, a +gateway, and around whose bases were grouped sentinel evergreens, they +came into this wider space, floored with flat rock, the surface of a +hidden ledge, carpeted with crisp mosses in the summer, whose every cup +and hollow held a jewel now--and inclosed with lofty oaks and pines, +while, straight beyond, where the woods shut in again far closer than +below, rose a bold crag, over whose brow hung pendent birches that in +their icy robing drooped like glittering wings of cherubim above an +altar. + +All around and underneath, this strange magnificence. Overhead, the +everlasting Blue, that roofed it in with sapphire. In front, the rough, +gigantic shrine. + +"It is like a cathedral!" said Faith, solemnly and low. + +"See!" whispered Glory, catching her companion hastily by the +arm--"there is the minister!" + +A little way beyond them, at the right, out from among the clumps of +evergreen where some other of the little wood walks opened, a figure +advanced without perceiving them. It was Roger Armstrong, the new +minister. He held his hat in his hand. He walked, uncovered, as he would +have into a church, into this forest temple, where God's finger had just +been writing on the walls. + +When he turned, slowly, his eye fell on the other two who stood there. +It lighted up with a quick joy of sympathy. He came forward. Faith +bowed. Glory stood back, shyly. Neither party seemed astonished at the +meeting. It was so plain _why_ they came, that if they had wondered at +all, it would have been that the whole village should not be pouring out +hither, also. + +Mr. Armstrong led them to the center of the rocky space. "This is the +best point," said he. And then was silent. There was no need of words. A +greatness of thought made itself felt from one to the other. + +Only, between still pauses, words came that almost spoke themselves. + +"'Eye hath not seen, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to +conceive, that which God hath prepared for them that love him.' What a +commentary upon His promise is a glory like this! + +"'And they shall all shine like the sun in the kingdom of my Father!'" + +Faith stood by the minister's side, and glanced, when he spoke, from the +wonderful beauty before her to a face whose look interpreted it all. +There was something in the very presence of this man that drew others +who approached him into the felt presence of God. Because he stood +therein in the spirit. These are the true apostles whom Christ sends +forth. + +Glory could have sobbed with an oppression of reverence, enthusiasm, and +joy. + +"It is only a glimpse," said Mr. Armstrong, by and by. "It is going, +already." + +A drip--drip--was beginning to be heard. + +"You ought to get away from under the trees before the thaw comes fully +on," continued he. "A branch breaks, now and then, and the ice will be +falling constantly. I can show you a more open way than the one you came +by, I think." + +And he gave his arm to Faith over the slope that even now was growing +wet and slippery in the sun. Faith touched it with a reverence, and +dropped it again, modestly, when they reached a safer foothold. + +Glory kept behind. Mr. Armstrong turned now and then, with a kindly +word, and a thought for her safety. Once he took her hand, and helped +her down a sudden descent in the path, where the water had run over and +made a smooth, dangerous glare. + +"I shall call soon to see your father and mother, Miss Gartney," said +he, when they reached the road again beyond the brook, and their ways +home lay in different directions. "This meeting, to-day, has given me +pleasure." + +"How?" Faith wondered silently, as she kept on to the Cross Corners. She +had hardly spoken a word. But, then, she might have remembered that the +minister's own words had been few, yet her very speechlessness before +him had come from the deep pleasure that his presence had given to her. +The recognition of souls cares little for words. Faith's soul had been +in her face to-day, as Roger Armstrong had seen it each Sunday, also, in +the sweet, listening look she uplifted before him in the church. He bent +toward this young, pure life, with a joy in its gentle purity; the joy +of an elder over a younger angel in the school of God. + +And Glory? she laid up in her own heart a beautiful remembrance of +something she had never known before. Of a near approach to something +great and high, yet gentle and beneficent. Of a kindly, helping touch, a +gracious smile, a glance that spoke straight to the mute aspiration +within her. + +The minister had not failed, through all her humbleness and shyness, to +read some syllables of that large, unuttered life of hers that lay +beneath. He whose labor it is to save souls, learns always the insight +that discerns souls. + +"I have seen the Winter!" cried Faith, glowing and joyous, as she came +in from her walk. + +"It has been a beautiful time!" said Glory to her shadow sister, when +she went to hang away hood and shawl. "It has been a beautiful time--and +I've been really in it--partly!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +OUT IN THE SNOW. + + "Sydnaein showers +Of sweet discourse, whose powers +Can crown old winter's head with flowers." + CRASHAW. + + +Winter had not exhausted her repertory, however. She had more wonders to +unfold. + +There came a long snowstorm. + +"Faithie," said her father, coming in, wrapped up in furs from a visit +to the stable, "put your comfortables on, and we'll go and see the snow. +We'll make tracks, literally, for the hills. There isn't a road fairly +broken between here and Grover's Peak. The snow lies beautifully, +though; and there isn't a breath of wind. It will be a sight to see." + +Faith brought, quickly, sontag, jacket, and cloak--hood and veil, and +long, warm snow boots, and in ten minutes was ready, as she averred, for +a sledge ride to Hudson's Bay. + +Luther drove the sleigh close to the kitchen door, that Faith might not +have to cross the yard to reach it, and she stepped directly from the +threshold into the warm nest of buffalo robes; while Mis' Battis put a +great stone jug of hot water in beside her feet, asserting that it was +"a real comfortin' thing on a sleigh ride, and that they needn't be +afraid of its leakin', for the cork was druv in as tight as an eye +tooth!" + +So, out by the barn, into the road, and away from the village toward the +hills, they went, with the glee of resonant bells and excited +expectation. + +A mile, or somewhat more, along the Sedgely turnpike, took them into a +bit of woods that skirted the road on either side, for a considerable +distance. Away in, under the trees, the stillness and the whiteness and +the wonderful multiplication of snow shapes were like enchantment. Each +bush had an attitude and drapery and expression of its own, as if some +weird life had suddenly been spellbound in these depths. Cherubs, and +old women, and tall statue shapes like images of gods, hovered, and +bent, and stood majestic, in a motionless poise. Over all, the bent +boughs made marble and silver arches in shadow and light, and, far down +between, the vistas lengthened endlessly, still crowded with mystic +figures, haunting the long galleries with their awful beauty. + +They went on, penetrating a lifeless silence; their horse's feet making +the first prints since early morning in the unbroken smoothness of the +way, and the only sound the gentle tinkle of their own bells, as they +moved pleasantly, but not fleetly, along. + +So, up the ascent, where the land lay higher, toward the hills. + +"I feel," said Faith, "as if I had been hurried through the Louvre, or +the Vatican, or both, and hadn't half seen anything. Was there ever +anything so strange and beautiful?" + +"We shall find more Louvres presently," said her father. "We'll keep the +road round Grover's Peak, and turn off, as we come back, down Garland +Lane." + +"That lovely, wild, shady road we took last summer so often, where the +grapevines grow so, all over the trees?" + +"Exactly," replied Mr. Gartney. "But you mustn't scream if we thump +about a little, in the drifts up there. It's pretty rough, at the best +of times, and the snow will have filled in the narrow spaces between the +rocks and ridges, like a freshet. Shall you be afraid?" + +"Afraid! Oh, no, indeed! It's glorious! I think I should like to go +everywhere!" + +"There is a good deal of everywhere in every little distance," said Mr. +Gartney. "People get into cars, and go whizzing across whole States, +often, before they stop to enjoy thoroughly something that is very like +what they might have found within ten miles of home. For my part, I like +microscopic journeying." + +"Leaving 'no stone unturned.' So do I," said Faith. "We don't half know +the journey between Kinnicutt and Sedgely yet, I think. And then, too, +they're multiplied, over and over, by all the different seasons, and by +different sorts of weather. Oh, we shan't use them up, in a long while!" + +Saidie Gartney had not felt, perhaps, in all her European travel, the +sense of inexhaustible pleasure that Faith had when she said this. + +Down under Grover's Peak, with the river on one side, and the +white-robed cedar thickets rising on the other--with the low afternoon +sun glinting across from the frosted roofs of the red mill buildings and +barns and farmhouses to the rocky slope of the Peak. + +Then they came round and up again, over a southerly ridge, by beautiful +Garland Lane, that she knew only in its summer look, when the wild grape +festooned itself wantonly from branch to branch, and sometimes, even, +from side to side; and so gave the narrow forest road its name. + +Quite into fairyland they had come now, in truth; as if, skirting the +dark peak that shut it off from ordinary espial, they had lighted on a +bypath that led them covertly in. Trailing and climbing vines wore their +draperies lightly; delicate shrubs bowed like veiled shapes in groups +around the bases of tall tree trunks, and slight-stemmed birches +quivered under their canopies of snow. Little birds hopped in and out +under the pure, still shelter, and left their tiny tracks, like magical +hieroglyphs, in the else untrodden paths. + +"Lean this way, Faith, and keep steady!" cried Mr. Gartney, as the horse +plunged breast high into a drift, and the sleigh careened toward the +side Faith was on. It was a sharp strain, but they plowed their way +through, and came upon a level again. This by-street was literally +unbroken. No one had traversed it since the beginning of the storm. The +drifts had had it all their own way there, and it involved no little +adventurousness and risk, as Mr. Gartney began to see, to pioneer a +passage through. But the spirit of adventure was upon them both. On all, +I should say; for the strong horse plunged forward, from drift to drift, +as though he delighted in the encounter. Moreover, to turn was +impossible. + +Faith laughed, and gave little shrieks, alternately, as they rose +triumphantly from deep, "slumpy" hollows, or pitched headlong into others +again. Thus, struggling, enjoying--just frightened enough, now and then, +to keep up the excitement--they came upon the summit of the ridge. Now +their way lay downward. This began to look really almost perilous. With +careful guiding, however, and skillful balancing--tipping, creaking, +sinking, emerging--they kept on slowly, about half the distance down the +descent. + +Suddenly, the horse, as men and brutes, however sagacious, sometimes +will, made a miscalculation of depth or power--lost his sure +balance--sunk to his body in the yielding snow--floundered violently in +an endeavor to regain safe footing--and, snap! crash! was down against +the drift at the left, with a broken shaft under him! + +Mr. Gartney sprang to his head. + +One runner was up--one down. The sleigh stuck fast at an angle of about +thirty degrees. Faith clung to the upper side. + +Here was a situation! What was to be done? Twilight coming on--no help +near--no way of getting anywhere! + +"Faith," said Mr. Gartney, "what have you got on your feet?" + +"Long, thick snow boots, father. What can I do?" + +"Do you dare to come and try to unfasten these buckles? There is no +danger. Major can't stir while I hold him by the head." + +Faith jumped out into the snow, and valorously set to work at the +buckles. She managed to undo one, and to slip out the fastening of the +trace, on one side, where it held to the whiffletree. But the horse was +lying so that she could not get at the other. + +"I'll come there, father!" she cried, clambering and struggling through +the drift till she came to the horse's head. "Can't I hold him while you +undo the harness?" + +"I don't believe you can, Faithie. He isn't down so flat as to be quite +under easy control." + +"Not if I sit on his head?" asked Faith. + +"That might do," replied her father, laughing. "Only you would get +frightened, maybe, and jump up too soon." + +"No, I won't," said Faith, quite determined upon heroism. While she +spoke, she had picked up the whip, which had fallen close by, doubled +back the lash against the handle, and was tying her blue veil to its +tip. Then she sat down on the animal's great cheek, which she had never +fancied to be half so broad before, and gently patted his nose with one +hand, while she upheld her blue flag with the other. Major's big, +panting breaths came up, close beside her face. She kept a quick, +watchful eye upon the road below. + +"He's as quiet as can be, father! It must be what Miss Beecher called +the 'chivalry of horses'!" + +"It's the chivalry that has to develop under petticoat government!" +retorted Mr. Gartney. + +At this moment Faith's blue flag waved vehemently over her head. She had +caught the jingle of bells, and perceived a sleigh, with a man in it, +come out into the crossing at the foot of Garland Lane. The man descried +the signal and the disaster, and the sleigh stopped. Alighting, he led +his horse to the fence, fastened him there, and turning aside into the +steep, narrow, unbroken road, began a vigorous struggle through the +drifts to reach the wreck. + +Coming nearer, he discerned and recognized Mr. Gartney, who also, at the +same moment, was aware of him. It was Mr. Armstrong. + +"Keep still a minute longer, Faith," said her father, lifting the +remaining shaft against the dasher, and trying to push the sleigh back, +away from the animal. But this, alone, he was unable to accomplish. So +the minister came up, and found Faith still seated on the horse's head. + +"Miss Gartney! Let me hold him!" cried he. + +"I'm quite comfortable!" laughed Faith. "If you would just help my +father, please!" + +The sleigh was drawn back by the combined efforts of the two gentlemen, +and then both came round to Faith. + +"Now, Faith, jump!" said her father, placing his hands upon the +creature's temple, close beside her, while Mr. Armstrong caught her arms +to snatch her safely away. Faith sprang, or was lifted as she sprang, +quite to the top of the huge bank of snow under and against which they +had, among them, beaten in and trodden down such a hollow, and the +instant after, Mr. Gartney releasing Major's head, and uttering a sound +of encouragement, the horse raised himself, with a half roll, and a +mighty scramble, first to his knees, and then to his four feet again, +and shook his great skin. + +Mr. Gartney examined the harness. The broken shaft proved the extent of +damage done. This, at the moment, however, was irremediable. He knotted +the hanging straps and laid them over the horse's neck. Then he folded a +buffalo skin, and arranged it, as well as he could, above and behind the +saddle, which he secured again by its girth. + +"Mr. Armstrong," said he, as he completed this disposal of matters, "you +came along in good time. I am very much obliged to you. If you will do +me the further favor to take my daughter home, I will ride to the +nearest house where I can obtain a sleigh, and some one to send back for +these traps of mine." + +"Miss Gartney," said the minister, in answer, "can you sit a horse's +back as well as you did his eyebrow?" + +Faith laughed, and reaching her arms to the hands upheld for them, was +borne safely from her snowy pinnacle to the buffalo cushion. Her father +took the horse by the bit, and Mr. Armstrong kept at his side holding +Faith firmly to her seat. In this fashion, grasping the bridle with one +hand, and resting the other on Mr. Armstrong's shoulder, she was +transported to the sleigh at the foot of the hill. + +"We were talking about long journeys in small circuits," said Faith, +when she was well tucked in, and they had set off on a level and not +utterly untracked road. "I think I have been to the Alhambra, and to +Rome, and have had a peep into fairyland, and come back, at last, over +the Alps!" + +Mr. Armstrong understood her. + +"It has been beautiful," said he. "I shall begin to expect always to +encounter you whenever I get among things wild and wonderful!" + +"And yet I have lived all my life, till now, in tame streets," said +Faith. "I thought I was getting into tamer places still, when we first +came to the country. But I am finding out Kinnicutt. One can't see the +whole of anything at once." + +"We are small creatures, and can only pick up atoms as we go, whether of +things outward or inward. People talk about taking 'comprehensive +views'; and they suppose they do it. There is only One who does." + +Faith was silent. + +"Did it ever occur to you," said Mr. Armstrong, "how little your thought +can really grasp at once, even of what you already know? How narrow your +mental horizon is?" + +"Doesn't it seem strange," said Faith, in a subdued tone, "that the +earth should all have been made for such little lives to be lived in, +each in its corner?" + +"If it did not thereby prove these little lives to be but the beginning. +This great Beyond that we get glimpses of, even upon earth, makes it so +sure to us that there must be an Everlasting Life, to match the Infinite +Creation. God puts us, as He did Moses, into a cleft of the rock, that +we may catch a glimmer of His glory as He goes by; and then He tells us +that one day we 'shall know even as also we are known'!" + +"And I suppose it ought to make us satisfied to live whatever little +life is given us?" said Faith, gently and wistfully. + +Mr. Armstrong turned toward her, and looked earnestly into her eyes. + +"Has that thought troubled _you_, too? Never let it do so again, my +child! Believe that however little of tangible present good you may +have, you have the unseen good of heaven, and the promise of all things +to come." + +"But we do see lives about us in the world that seem to be and to +accomplish so much!" + +"And so we ask why ours should not be like them? Yes; all souls that +aspire, must question that; but the answer comes! I will give you, some +day, if you like, the thought that comforted me at a time when that +question was a struggle." + +"I _should_ like!" said Faith, with deeply stirred and grateful +emphasis. + +Then they drove on in silence, for a while; and then the minister, +pleasantly and easily, brought on a conversation of everyday matters; +and so they came to Cross Corners, just as Mrs. Gartney was gazing a +little anxiously out of the window, down the road. + +Mrs. Gartney urged the minister to come in and join them at the tea +table; but "it was late in the week--he had writing to finish at home +that evening--he would very gladly come another time." + +"Mother!" cried Faith, presently, moving out of a dream in which she had +been sitting before the fire, "I wonder whether it has been two hours, +or two weeks, or two years, since we set off from the kitchen door! I +have seen so much, and I have heard so much. I told Mr. Armstrong, after +we met him, that I had been through the Alhambra and the Vatican, and +into fairyland, and over the Alps. And after that, mother," she added, +low, "I think he almost took me into heaven!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +A "LEADING." + +"The least flower, with a brimming cup, may stand +And share its dewdrop with another near." + MRS. BROWNING. + + +Glory McWhirk was waiting upstairs, in Faith's pretty, white, +dimity-hung chamber. + +These two girls, of such utterly different birth and training, were +drawing daily toward each other across the gulf of social circumstance +that separated them. + +Twice a week, now, Glory came over, and found her seat and her books +ready in Miss Faith's pleasant room, and Faith herself waiting to impart +to her, or to put her in the way of gathering, those bits of week-day +knowledge she had ignorantly hungered for so long. + +Glory made quick progress. A good, plain foundation had been laid during +the earlier period of her stay with Miss Henderson, by a regular +attendance, half daily, at the district school. Aunt Faith said +"nobody's time belonged to anybody that knew better themselves, until +they could read, and write, and figure, and tell which side of the globe +they lived on." Then, too, the girl's indiscriminate gleaning from such +books as had come in her way, through all these years, assorted itself +gradually, now, about new facts. + +Glory's "good times" had, verily, begun at last. + +On this day that she sat waiting, Faith had been called down by her +mother to receive some village ladies who had walked over to Cross +Corners to pay a visit. Glory had time for two or three chapters of +"Ivanhoe," and to tell Hendie, who strayed in, and begged for it, +Bridget Foye's old story of the little red hen, while the regular course +of topics was gone through below, of the weather--the new minister--the +last meeting of the Dorcas Society--the everlasting wants and +helplessness of Mrs. Sheffley and her seven children, and whether the +society had better do anything more for them--the trouble in the west +district school, and the question "where the Dorcas bag was to go next +time." + +At last, the voices and footsteps retreated, through the entry, the door +closed somewhat promptly as the last "good afternoon" was said, and +Faith sprang up the narrow staircase. + +There was a lesson in Geography, and a bit of natural Philosophy to be +done first, and then followed their Bible talk; for this was Saturday. + +Before Glory went it had come to be Faith's practice always to read to +her some bit of poetry--a gem from Tennyson or Mrs. Browning, or a stray +poem from a magazine or paper which she had laid by as worthy. + +"Glory," said she, to-day, "I'm going to let you share a little treasure +of mine--something Mr. Armstrong gave me." + +Glory's eyes deepened and glowed. + +"It is thoughts," said Faith. "Thoughts in verse. I shall read it to +you, because I think it will just answer you, as it did me. Don't you +feel, sometimes, like a little brook in a deep wood?" + +Glory's gaze never moved from Faith's face. Her poetical instinct seized +the image, and the thought of her life applied it. + +"All alone, and singing to myself? Yes, I _did_, Miss Faith. But I think +it is growing lighter and pleasanter every day. I think I am +getting----" + +"Stop! stop!" said Faith. "Don't steal the verses before I read them! +You're such a queer child, Glory! One never can tell you anything." + +And then Faith gave her pearls; because she knew they would not be +trampled under foot, but taken into a heart and held there; and because +just such a rapt and reverent ecstasy as her own had been when the +minister had given her, in fulfillment of his promise, this thought of +his for the comfort that was in it, looked out from the face that was +uplifted to hers. + + "'Up in the wild, where no one comes to look, + There lives and sings, a little lonely brook; + Liveth and singeth in the dreary pines, + Yet creepeth on to where the daylight shines. + + "'Pure from their heaven, in mountain chalice caught, + It drinks the rains, as drinks the soul her thought; + And down dim hollows, where it winds along, + Bears its life-burden of unlistened song. + + "'I catch the murmur of its undertone + That sigheth, ceaselessly,--alone! alone! + And hear, afar, the Rivers gloriously + Shout on their paths toward the shining sea! + + "'The voiceful Rivers, chanting to the sun; + And wearing names of honor, every one; + Outreaching wide, and joining hand with hand + To pour great gifts along the asking land. + + "'Ah, lonely brook! creep onward through the pines! + Press through the gloom, to where the daylight shines! + Sing on among the stones, and secretly + Feel how the floods are all akin to thee! + + "'Drink the sweet rain the gentle heaven sendeth; + Hold thine own path, howeverward it tendeth; + For, somewhere, underneath the eternal sky, + Thou, too, shalt find the Rivers, by-and-by!'" + +Faith's voice trembled with earnestness as she finished. When she looked +up from the paper as she refolded it, tears were running down Glory's +cheeks. + +"Why, the little brook has overflowed!" cried Faith, playfully. If she +had not found this to say, she would have cried, herself. + +"Miss Faith!" said Glory, "I ain't sure whether I was meant to tell; but +do you know what the minister has asked Miss Henderson? Perhaps she +won't; I'm afraid not; it would be _too_ good a time! but he wants her +to let him come and board with her! Just think what it would be for him +to be in the house with us all the time! Why, Miss Faith, it would be +just as if one of those great Rivers had come rolling along through the +dark woods, right among the little lonely brooks!" + +Faith made no answer. She was astonished. Miss Henderson had said +nothing of it. She never did make known her subjects of deliberation +till the deliberations had become conclusions. + +"Why, you don't seem glad!" + +"I _am_ glad," said Faith, slowly and quietly. She was strangely +conscious at the moment that she said so, glad as she would be if Mr. +Armstrong were really to come so near, and she might see him daily, of a +half jealousy that Glory should be nearer still. + +It was quite true that Mr. Armstrong had this wish. Hitherto, he had +been at the house of the elder minister, Mr. Holland. A unanimous +invitation had been given to Mr. Armstrong by the people to remain among +them as their settled pastor. This he had not yet consented to do. But +he had entered upon another engagement of six months, to preach for +them. Now he needed a permanent home, which he could not conveniently +have at Mr. Holland's. + +There was great putting of heads together at the "Dorcas," about it. + +Mrs. Gimp "would offer; but then--there was Serena, and folks would +talk." + +Other families had similar holdbacks--that is the word, for they were +not absolute insuperabilities--wary mothers were waiting until it should +appear positively necessary that _somebody_ should waive objection, and +take the homeless pastor in; and each watched keenly for the critical +moment when it should be just late enough, and not too late, for her to +yield. + +Meanwhile, Mr. Armstrong quietly left all this seething, and walked off +out of the village, one day, to Cross Corners, and asked Miss Henderson +if he might have one of her quaint, pleasant, old-fashioned rooms. + +Miss Henderson was deliberating. + +This very afternoon, she sat in the southwest tea parlor, with her +knitting forgotten in her lap, and her eyes searching the bright western +sky, as if for a gleam that should light her to decision. + +"It ain't that I mind the trouble. And it ain't that there isn't house +room. And it ain't that I don't like the minister," soliloquized she. +"It's whether it would be respectable common sense. I ain't going to +take the field with the Gimps and the Leatherbees, nor to have them +think it, either. She's over here almost every blessed day of her life. +I might as well try to keep the sunshine out of the old house, as to +keep her; and I should be about as likely to want to do one as the +other. But just let me take in Mr. Armstrong, and there'd be all the +eyes in the village watching. There couldn't so much as a cat walk in or +out, but they'd know it, somehow. And they'd be sure to say she was +running after the minister." + +Miss Henderson's pronouns were not precise in their reference. It isn't +necessary for soliloquy to be exact. She understood herself, and that +sufficed. + +"It would be a disgrace to the parish, anyhow," she resumed, "to let +those Gimps and Leatherbees get him into their net; and they'll do it if +Providence or somebody don't interpose. I wish I was sure whether it was +a leading or not!" + +By and by she reverted, at last, as she always did, to that question of +its being a "leading," or not; and, taking down the old Bible from the +corner shelf, she laid it with solemnity on the little light stand at +her side, and opened it, as she had known her father do, in the +important crises of his life, for an "indication." + +The wooden saddle and the gun were not all that had come down to Aunt +Faith from the primitive days of the Puritan settlers. + +The leaves parted at the story of the Good Samaritan. Bible leaves are +apt to part, as the heart opens, in accordance with long habit and holy +use. + +That evening, while Glory was washing up the tea things, Aunt Faith put +on cloak and hood, and walked over to Cross Corners. + +"No--I won't take off my things," she replied to Mrs. Gartney's advance +of assistance. "I've just come over to tell you what I'm going to do. +I've made up my mind to take the minister to board. And when the washing +and ironing's out of the way, next week, I shall fix up a room for him, +and he'll come." + +"That's a capital plan, Aunt Faith!" said her nephew, with a tone of +pleased animation. "Cross Corners will be under obligation to you. Mr. +Armstrong is a man whom I greatly respect and admire." + +"So do I," said Miss Henderson. "And if I didn't, when a man is beset +with thieves all the way from Jerusalem to Jericho, it's time for some +kind of a Samaritan to come along." + +Next day, Mis' Battis heard the news, and had her word of comment to +offer. + +"She's got room enough for him, if that's all; but I wouldn't a believed +she'd have let herself be put about and upset so, if it was for John the +Baptist! I always thought she was setter'n an old hen! But then, she's +gittin' into years, and it's kinder handy, I s'pose, havin' a minister +round the house, sayin' she should be took anyways sudden!" + +Village comments it would be needless to attempt to chronicle. + +April days began to wear their tearful beauty, and the southwest room at +the old house was given up to Mr. Armstrong. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +PAUL. + +"Standing, with reluctant feet, +Where the brook and river meet, +Womanhood and childhood fleet!" + LONGFELLOW. + + +Glory had not been content with the utmost she could find to do in +making the southwest room as clean, and bright, and fresh, and perfect +in its appointments as her zealous labor and Miss Henderson's nice, +old-fashioned methods and materials afforded possibility for. Twenty +times a day, during the few that intervened between its fitting up and +Mr. Armstrong's occupation of it, she darted in, to settle a festoon of +fringe, or to pick a speck from the carpet, or to move a chair a +hair's-breadth this way or that, or to smooth an invisible crease in the +counterpane, or, above all, to take a pleased survey of everything once +more, and to wonder how the minister would like it. + +So well, indeed, he liked it, when he had taken full possession, that he +seemed to divine the favorite room must have been relinquished to him, +and to scruple at keeping it quite solely to himself. + +In the pleasant afternoons, when the spring sun got round to his +westerly windows, and away from the southeast apartment, whither Miss +Henderson had betaken herself, her knitting work, and her Bible, and +where now the meals were always spread, he would open his door, and let +the pleasantness stray out across the passage, and into the keeping +room, and would often take a book, and come in, himself, also, with the +sunlight. Then Glory, busy in the kitchen, just beyond, would catch +words of conversation, or of reading, or even be called in to hear the +latter. And she began to think that there were good times, truly, in +this world, and that even she was "in 'em!" + +April days, as they lengthened and brightened, brought other things, +also, to pass. + +The Rushleigh party had returned from Europe. + +Faith had a note from Margaret. The second wedding was close at hand, +and would she not come down? + +But her services as bridesmaid were not needed this time; there was +nothing so exceedingly urgent in the invitation--Faith's intimacy was +with the Rushleighs, not the Livingstons--that she could not escape its +acceptance if she desired; and so--there was a great deal to be done in +summer preparation, which Mis' Battis, with her deliberate dignity, +would never accomplish alone; also, there was the forget-me-not ring +lying in her box of ornaments, that gave her a little troubled +perplexity as often as she saw it there; and Faith excused herself in a +graceful little note, and stayed at Cross Corners, helping her mother +fold away the crimson curtains, and get up the white muslin ones, make +up summer sacks for Hendie, and retouch her own simple wardrobe, which +this year could receive little addition. + +One day, Aunt Faith had twisted her foot by a slip upon the stairs, and +was kept at home. Glory, of course, was obliged to remain also, as Miss +Henderson was confined, helpless, to her chair or sofa. + +Faith Gartney and the minister walked down the pleasant lane, and along +the quiet road to the village church, together. + +Faith had fresh, white ribbons, to-day, upon her simple straw bonnet, +and delicate flowers and deep green leaves about her face. She seemed +like an outgrowth of the morning, so purely her sweet look and fair +unsulliedness of attire reflected the significance of the day's own +newness and beauty. + +"Do you know," said Mr. Armstrong, presently, after the morning greeting +had passed, and they had walked a few paces, silently, "do you know that +you are one of Glory's saints, Miss Faith?" + +Faith's wondering eyes looked out their questioning astonishment from a +deep rosiness that overspread her face. + +The minister was not apt to make remarks of at all a personal bearing. +Neither was this allusion to sainthood quite to have been looked for, +from his lips. Faith could scarcely comprehend. + +"I found her this morning, as I came out to cross the field, sitting on +the doorstone with her Bible and a rosary of beautiful, small, variously +tinted shells upon her lap. I stopped to speak with her, and asked leave +to look at them. 'They were given to me when I was very little,' she +said. 'A lady sent them from Rome. The Pope blessed them!' 'They are +very beautiful,' I said, 'and a blessing, if that mean a true man's +prayer, can never be worthless. But,' I asked her, 'do you _use_ these, +Glory?' 'Not as she did once,' she said. She had almost forgotten about +that. She knew the larger beads stood for saints, and the smaller ones +between were prayers. 'But,' she went on, 'it isn't for my prayers I +keep them now. I've named some of my saints' beads for the people that +have done me the most good in my life, and been the kindest to me; and +the little ones are thoughts, and things they've taught me. This large +one, with the queer spots, is Miss Henderson; and this lovely +rose-colored one is Miss Faith; and these are Katie Ryan and Bridget +Foye; but you don't know about them.' And then she timidly told me that +the white one next the cross was mine. The child humbled me, Miss Faith! +It is nearly fearful, sometimes, to get a glimpse of what one is to some +trustful human soul, who looks through one toward the Highest!" + +Faith had tears in her eyes. + +"Glory is such a strange girl," said she. "She seems to have an instinct +for things that other people are educated up to." + +"She has seized the spirit of the dead Roman calendar, and put it into +this rosary. Our saints _are_ the spirits through whom God wills to send +us of His own. Whatever becomes to us a channel of His truth and love we +must involuntarily canonize and consecrate. Woe, if by the same channel +ever an offense cometh!" + +Perhaps Faith was nearly the only person in church, to-day, who did not +notice that there were strangers in the pew behind the Gimps. When she +came out, she was joined; and not by strangers. Margaret and Paul +Rushleigh came eagerly to her side. + +"We came out to Lakeside to stay a day or two with the Morrises; and ran +away from them here, purposely to meet you. And we mean to be very good, +and go to church all day, if you will take us home with you meanwhile." + +Faith, between her surprise, her pleasure, her embarrassment, the rush +of old remembrance, and a quick, apprehensive thought of Mis' Battis and +her probable arrangements, made almost an awkward matter of her reply. +But her father and mother came up, welcomed the Rushleighs cordially, +and the five were presently on their way toward Cross Corners, and +Faith had recovered sufficient self-possession to say something beyond +mere words of course. + +Paul Rushleigh looked very handsome! And very glad, too, to see shy +Faith, who kept as invisible as might be at Margaret's other side, and +looked there, in her simple spring dress contrasted with Margaret's rich +and fashionable, though also simple and ladylike attire, like a field +daisy beside a garden rose. + +Dinner was of no moment. There was only roast chicken, dressed the day +before, and reheated and served with hot vegetables since their coming +in, and a custard pudding, and some pastry cakes that Faith's fingers +had shaped, and coffee; but they drank in balm and swallowed sunshine, +and the essence of all that was to be concrete by and by in fruitful +fields and gardens. And they talked of old times! Three years old, +nearly! And Faith and Margaret laughed, and Mrs. Gartney listened, and +dispensed dinner, or spoke gently now and then, and Paul did his +cleverest with Mr. Gartney, so that the latter gentleman declared +afterwards that "young Rushleigh was a capital fellow; well posted; his +father's million didn't seem to have spoiled him yet." + +Altogether, this unexpected visit infused great life at Cross Corners. + +Why was it that Faith, when she thought it all over, tried to weigh so +very nicely just the amount of gladness she had felt; and was dimly +conscious of a vague misgiving, deep down, lest her father and mother +might possibly be a little more glad than she was quite ready to have +them? What made her especially rejoice that Saidie and the strawberries +had not come yet? + +When Paul Rushleigh took her hand at parting, he glanced down at the +fair little fingers, and then up, inquiringly, at Faith's face. Her eyes +fell, and the color rose, till it became an indignation at itself. She +grew hot, for days afterwards, many a time, as she remembered it. Who +has not blushed at the self-suspicion of blushing? + +Who has not blushed at the simple recollection of having blushed before? +On Monday, this happened. Faith went over to the Old House, to inquire +about Aunt Henderson's foot, and to sit with her, if she should wish it, +for an hour. She chose the hour at which she thought Mr. Armstrong +usually walked to the village. Somehow, greatly as she enjoyed all the +minister's kindly words, and each moment of his accidental presence, she +had, of late, almost invariably taken this time for coming over to see +Aunt Faith. A secret womanly instinct, only, it was; waked into no +consciousness, and but ignorantly aware of its own prompting. + +To-day, however, Mr. Armstrong had not gone out. Some writing that he +was tempted to do, contrary to his usual Monday habit, had detained him +within. And so, just as Miss Henderson, having given the history of her +slip, and the untoward wrenching of her foot, and its present condition, +to Faith's inquiries, asked her suddenly, "if they hadn't had some city +visitors yesterday, and what sent them flacketting over from Lakeside to +church in the village?" the minister walked in. If he hadn't heard, she +might not have done it; but, with the abrupt question, came, as +abruptly, the hot memory of yesterday; and with those other eyes, beside +the doubled keenness of Aunt Faith's over her spectacles, upon her, it +was so much worse if she should, that of course she couldn't help doing +it! She colored up, and up, till the very roots of her soft hair +tingled, and a quick shame wrapped her as in a flaming garment. + +The minister saw, and read. Not quite the obvious inference Faith might +fear--he had a somewhat profounder knowledge of nature than that--but +what persuaded him there was a thought, at least, between the two who +met yesterday, more than of a mere chance greeting; it might not lie so +much with Faith as with the other; yet it had the power--even the +consciousness of its unspoken being, to send the crimson to her face. +What kept the crimson there and deepened it, he knew quite well. He knew +the shame was at having blushed at all. + +Nevertheless, Mr. Armstrong remembered that blush, and pondered it, +almost as long as Faith herself. In the little time that he had felt +himself her friend, he had grown to recognize so fully, and to prize so +dearly, her truth, her purity, her high-mindedness, her reverence, that +no new influence could show itself in her life, without touching his +solicitous love. Was this young man worthy of a blush from Faith? Was +there a height in his nature answering to the reach of hers? Was the +quick, impulsive pain that came to him in the thought of how much that +rose hue of forehead and cheek might mean, an intuition of his stronger +and more instructed soul of a danger to the child that she might not +dream? Be it as it might, Roger Armstrong pondered. He would also +watch. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +PRESSURE. + +"To be warped, unconsciously, by the magnetic influence of all +around is the destiny, to a certain extent, of even the greatest +souls."--OAKFIELD. + + +June came, and Saidie Gartney. Not for flowers, or strawberries, merely; +but for father's and mother's consent that, in a few weeks, when flowers +and strawberries should have fully come, there should be a marriage +feast made for her in the simple home, and she should go forth into the +gay world again, the bride of a wealthy New York banker. + +Aunt Etherege and Saidie filled the house. With finery, with bustle, +with important presence. + +Miss Gartney's engagement had been sudden; her marriage was to be +speedy. Half a dozen seamstresses, and as many sewing machines, were +busy in New York--hands, feet, and wheels--in making up the delicate +draperies for the _trousseau_; and Madame A---- was frantic with the +heap of elaborate dresses that was thrust upon her hands, and must be +ready for the thirtieth. + +Mrs. Gartney and Faith had enough to do, to put the house and themselves +in festival trim. Hendie was spoiled with having no lessons, and more +toys and sugar plums than he knew what to do with. Mr. Selmore's comings +and goings made special ebullitions, weekly, where was only a continuous +lesser effervescence before. Mis' Battis had not been able to subside +into an armchair since the last day of May. + +Faith found great favor in the eyes of her brother-in-law elect. He +pronounced her a "_naive, piquante_ little person," and already there +was talk of how pleasant it would be, to have her in Madison Square, and +show her to the world. Faith said nothing to this, but in her heart she +clung to Kinnicutt. + +Glory thought Miss Gartney wonderful. Even Mr. Armstrong spoke to Aunt +Faith of the striking beauty of her elder niece. + +"I don't know how she _does_ look," Aunt Faith replied, with all her +ancient gruffness. "I see a great show of flounces, and manners, and +hair; but they don't look as if they all grew, natural. I can't make +_her_ out, amongst all that. Now, _Faith's_ just Faith. You see her +prettiness the minute you look at her, as you do a flower's." + +"There are not many like Miss Faith," replied Mr. Armstrong. "I never +knew but one other who so wore the fresh, pure beauty of God's giving." + +His voice was low and quiet, and his eye looked afar, as he spoke. + +Glory went away, and sat down on the doorstone. There was a strange +tumult at her heart. In the midst, a noble joy. About it, a disquietude, +as of one who feels shut out--alone. + +"I don't know what ails me. I wonder if I ain't glad! Of course, it's +nothing to me. I ain't in it. But it must be beautiful to be so! And to +have such words said! _She_ don't know what a sight the minister thinks +of her! I know. I knew before. It's beautiful--but I ain't in it. Only, +I think I've got the feeling of it all. And I'm glad it's real, +somewhere. Some way, I seem to have so much _here_, that never grows out +into anything. Maybe I'd be beautiful if it did!" + +So talked Glory, interjectionally, with herself. + +In the midst of these excited days, there came two letters to Mr. +Gartney. + +One was from a gentleman in Michigan, in relation to some land Mr. +Gartney owned there, taken years ago, at a very low valuation, for a +debt. This was likely, from the rapid growth and improvement in the +neighborhood, to become, within a few years, perhaps, a property of some +importance. + +The other letter was from his son, James Gartney, in San Francisco. The +young man urged his father to consider whether it might not be a good +idea for him to come out and join him in California. + +James Gartney's proposal evidently roused his attention. It was a great +deal to think of, certainly; but it was worth thinking of, too. James +had married in San Francisco, had a pleasant home there, and was +prospering. Many old business friends had gone from Mishaumok, in the +years when the great flood of enterprise set westward across the +continent, and were building up name and influence in the Golden Land. +The idea found a place in his brain, and clung there. Only, there was +Faith! But things might come round so that even this thought need to be +no hindrance to the scheme. + +Changes, and plans, and interests, and influences were gathering; all to +bear down upon one young life. + +"More news!" said Mr. Gartney, one morning, coming in from his walk to +the village post office, to the pleasant sitting room, or morning room, +as Mrs. Etherege and Saidie called it, where Faith was helping her +sister write a list of the hundreds who were to receive Mr. and Mrs. +Selmore's cards--"At Home, in September, in Madison Square." "Whom do +you think I met in the village, this morning?" + +Everybody looked up, and everybody's imagination took a discursive leap +among possibilities, and then everybody, of course, asked "Whom?" + +"Old Jacob Rushleigh, himself. He has taken a house at Lakeside, for +the summer. And he has bought the new mills just over the river. That is +to give young Paul something to do, I imagine. Kinnicutt has begun to +grow; and when places or people once take a start, there's no knowing +what they may come to. Here's something for you, Faithie, that I dare +say tells all about it." + +And he tossed over her shoulder, upon the table, a letter, bearing her +name, in Margaret Rushleigh's chirography, upon the cover. + +Faith's head was bent over the list she was writing; but the vexatious +color, feeling itself shielded in her face, crept round till it made her +ear tips rosy. Saidie put out her forefinger, with a hardly perceptible +motion, at the telltale sign, and nodded at Aunt Etherege behind her +sister's back. + +Aunt Etherege looked bland and sagacious. + +Upstairs, a little after, these sentences were spoken in Saidie's room. + +"Of course it will be," said the younger to the elder lady. "It's been +going on ever since they were children. Faith hasn't a right to say no, +now. And what else brought him up here after houses and mills?" + +"I don't see that the houses and mills were necessary to the object. +Rather cumbersome and costly machinery, I should think, to bring to bear +upon such a simple purpose." + +"Oh, the business plan is something that has come up accidentally, no +doubt. Running after one thing, people very often stumble upon another. +But it will all play in together, you'll see. Only, I'm afraid I shan't +have the glory of introducing Faithie in New York!" + +"It would be as good a thing as possible. And I can perceive that your +father and mother count upon it, also. In their situation what a great +relief it would be! Of course, Henderson never could do so mad a thing +as take the child up by the roots, again, and transplant her to San +Francisco! And I see plainly he has got that in his own head." + +A door across the passage at this moment shut, softly, but securely. + +Behind it, in her low chair by her sewing table sat the young sister +whose fate had been so lightly decreed. + +Was it all just so, as Saidie had said? Had she no longer a right to say +no? Only themselves know how easily, how almost inevitably, young +judgments and consciences are drawn on in the track beaten down for them +by others. Many and many a life decision has been made, through this +_taking for granted_ that bears with its mute, but magnetic power, upon +the shyness and irresolution that can scarcely face and interpret its +own wish or will. + +It was very true, that, as Saidie Gartney had said, "this had been +going on for years." For years, Faith had found great pleasantness in +the companionship and evident preference of Paul Rushleigh. There had +been nobody to compare with him in her young set in Mishaumok. She knew +he liked her. She had been proud of it. The girlish fancy, that may be +forgotten in after years, or may, fostered by circumstance, endure and +grow into a calm and happy wifehood, had been given to him. And what +troubled her now? Was it that always, when the decisive moment +approaches, there is a little revulsion of timid feminine feeling, even +amidst the truest joy? Or was it that a new wine had been given into +Faith's life, which would not be held in the old bottles? Was she +uncertain--inconstant; or had she spiritually outgrown her old +attachment? Or, was she bewildered, now, out of the discernment of what +was still her heart's desire and need? + +Paul was kind, and true, and manly. She recognized all this in him as +surely as ever. If he had turned from, and forgotten her, she would have +felt a pang. What was this, then, that she felt, as he came near, and +nearer? + +And then, her father! Had he really begun to count on this? Do men know +how their young daughters feel when the first suggestion comes that they +are not regarded as born for perpetual daughterhood in the father's +house? Would she even encumber his plans, if she clung still to her +maidenly life? + +By all these subtleties does the destiny of woman close in upon her. + +Margaret Rushleigh's letter was full of delight, and eagerness, and +anticipation. She and Paul had been so charmed with Kinnicutt and +Lakeside; and there had happened to be a furnished house to let for the +season close by the Morrises, and they had persuaded papa to take it. +They were tired of the seashore, and Conway was getting crowded to +death. They wanted a real summer in the country. And then this had +turned up about the mills! Perhaps, now, her father would build, and +they should come up every year. Perhaps Paul would stay altogether, and +superintend. Perhaps--anything! It was all a delightful chaos of +possibilities; with this thing certain, that she and Faith would be +together for the next four months in the glorious summer shine and +bloom. + +Miss Gartney's wedding was simple. The stateliness and show were all +reserved for Madison Square. + +Mr. Armstrong pronounced the solemn words, in the shaded summer parlor, +with the door open into the sweeter and stiller shade without. + +Faith stood by her sister's side, in fair, white robes, and Mr. Robert +Selmore was groomsman to his brother. A few especial friends from +Mishaumok and Lakeside were present to witness the ceremony. + +And then there was a kissing--a hand-shaking--a well-wishing--a going +out to the simple but elegantly arranged collation--a disappearance of +the bride to put on traveling array--a carriage at the door--smiles, +tears, and good-bys--Mr., and Mrs., and Mr. Robert Selmore were off to +meet the Western train--and all was over. + +Mrs. Etherege remained a few days longer at Cross Corners. As Mis' +Battis judiciously remarked, "after a weddin' or a funeral, there ought +to be somebody to stay a while and cheer up the mourners." + +This visit, that had been so full of happenings, was to have a strange +occurrence still to mark it, before all fell again into the usual order. + +Aunt Etherege was to go on Thursday. On Wednesday, the three ladies sat +together in the cool, open parlor, where Mr. Armstrong, walking over +from the Old House, had joined them. He had the July number of the +_Mishaumok_ in his hand, and a finger between the fresh-cut leaves at a +poem he would read them. + +Just as he had finished the last stanza, amidst a hush of the room that +paid tribute to the beauty of the lines and his perfect rendering of +them, wheels came round from the high road into the lane. + +"It is Mr. Gartney come back from Sedgely," said Aunt Etherege, looking +from her window, between the blinds. "Whom on earth has he picked up to +bring with him?" + +A thin, angular figure of a woman, destitute of crinoline, wearing big +boots, and a bonnet that ignored the fashion, and carrying in her hand a +black enameled leather bag, was alighting as she spoke, at the gate. + +"Mother!" said Faith, leaning forward, and glancing out, also, "it looks +like--it is--Nurse Sampson!" + +And she put her work hastily from her lap, and rose to go out at the +side door, to meet and welcome her. + +To do this, she had to pass by Mr. Armstrong. How came that rigid look, +that deadly paleness, to his face? What spasm of pain made him clutch +the pamphlet he held with fingers that grew white about the nails? + +Faith stopped, startled. + +"Mr. Armstrong! Are you not well?" said she. At the same instant of her +pausing, Miss Sampson entered from the hall, behind her. Mr. Armstrong's +eye, lifted toward Faith in an attempt to reply, caught a glimpse of the +sharp, pronounced outlines of the nurse's face. Before Faith could +comprehend, or turn, or cry out, the paleness blanched ghastlier over +his features, and the strong man fell back, fainting. + +With quick, professional instinct, Miss Sampson sprang forward, +seizing, as she did so, an ice-water pitcher from the table. + +"There, take this!" said she to Faith, "and sprinkle him with it, while +I loosen his neckcloth! Gracious goodness!" she exclaimed, in an altered +tone, as she came nearer to him for this purpose, "do it, some of the +rest of you, and let me get out of his way! It was me!" + +And she vanished out of the room. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +ROGER ARMSTRONG'S STORY. + +"Even by means of our sorrows, we belong to the Eternal Plan." + HUMBOLDT. + + +"Go in there," said Nurse Sampson to Mr. Gartney, calling him in from +the porch, "and lay that man flat on the floor!" + +Which Mr. Gartney did, wondering, vaguely, in the instant required for +his transit to the apartment, whether bandit or lunatic might await his +offices. + +All happened in a moment; and in that moment, the minister's fugitive +senses began to return. + +"Lie quiet, a minute. Faith, get a glass of wine, or a little brandy." + +Faith quickly brought both; and Mr. Armstrong, whom her father now +assisted to the armchair again, took the wine from her hand, with a +smile that thanked her, and depreciated himself. + +"I am not ill," he said. "It is all over now. It was the sudden shock. I +did not think I could have been so weak." + +Mrs. Gartney had gone to find some hartshorn. Mrs. Etherege, seeing that +the need for it was passing, went out to tell her sister so, and to ask +the strange woman who had originated all the commotion, what it could +possibly mean. Mr. Gartney, at the same instant, caught a glimpse of his +horse, which he had left unfastened at the gate, giving indications of +restlessness, and hastened out to tie him. + +Faith and Mr. Armstrong were left alone. + +"Did I frighten you, my child?" he asked, gently. "It was a strange +thing to happen! I thought that woman was in her grave. I thought she +died, when--I will tell you all about it some day, soon, Miss Faith. It +was the sad, terrible page of my life." + +Faith's eyes were lustrous with sympathy. Under all other thought was a +beating joy--not looked at yet--that he could speak to her so! That he +could snatch this chance moment to tell her, only, of his sacred sorrow! + +She moved a half step nearer, and laid her hand, softly, on the chair +arm beside him. She did not touch so much as a fold of his sleeve; but +it seemed, somehow, like a pitying caress. + +"I am sorry!" said she. And then the others came in. + +Mr. Gartney walked round with his friend to the old house. + +Miss Sampson began to recount what she knew of the story. Faith escaped +to her own room at the first sentence. She would rather have it as Mr. +Armstrong's confidence. + +Next morning, Faith was dusting, and arranging flowers in the east +parlor, and had just set the "hillside door," as they called it, open, +when Mr. Armstrong passed the window and appeared thereat. + +"I came to ask, Miss Faith, if you would walk up over the Ridge. It is a +lovely morning, and I am selfish enough to wish to have you to myself +for a little of it. By and by, I would like to come back, and see Miss +Sampson." + +Faith understood. He meant to tell her this that had been heavy upon his +heart through all these years. She would go. Directly, when she had +brought her hat, and spoken with her mother. + +Mrs. Etherege and Mrs. Gartney were sitting together in the guest +chamber, above. At noon, after an early dinner, Mrs. Etherege was to +leave. + +Mr. Armstrong stood upon the doorstone below, looking outward, waiting. +If he had been inside the room, he would not have heard. The ladies, +sitting by the window, just over his head, were quite unaware and +thoughtless of his possible position. + +He caught Faith's clear, sweet accent first, as she announced her +purpose to her mother, adding: + +"I shall be back, auntie, long before dinner." + +Then she crossed the hall into her own room, made her slight preparation +for the walk, and went down by the kitchen staircase, to give Parthenia +some last word about the early dinner. + +"I think," said Mrs. Etherege, in the keenness of her worldly wisdom, +"that this minister of yours might as well have a hint of how matters +stand. It seems to me he is growing to monopolize Faith, rather." + +"Oh," replied Mrs. Gartney, "there is nothing of that! You know what +nurse told us, last evening. It isn't quite likely that a man would +faint away at the memory of one woman, if his thoughts were turned, the +least, in that way, upon another. No, indeed! She is his Sunday scholar, +and he treats her always as a very dear young friend. But that is all." + +"Maybe. But is it quite safe for her? He is a young man yet, +notwithstanding those few gray hairs." + +"Oh, Faith has tacitly belonged to Paul Rushleigh these three years!" + +Mr. Armstrong heard it all. He turned the next moment, and met his "dear +young friend" with the same gentle smile and manner that he always wore +toward her, and they walked up the Ridge path, among the trees, +together. + +A bowlder of rock, scooped into smooth hollows that made pleasant seats, +was the goal, usually, of the Ridge walk. Here Faith paused, and Mr. +Armstrong made her sit down and rest. + +Standing there before her, he began his story. + +"One summer--years ago," he said, "I went to the city of New Orleans. I +went to bring thence, with me, a dear friend--her who was to have been +my wife." + +The deep voice trembled, and paused. Faith could not look up, her breath +came quickly, and the tears were all but ready. + +"She had been there, through the winter and spring, with her father, +who, save myself, was the only near friend she had in all the world. + +"The business which took him there detained him until later in the +season than Northerners are accustomed to feel safe in staying. And +still, important affairs hindered his departure. + +"He wrote to me, that, for himself, he must risk a residence there for +some weeks yet; but that his daughter must be placed in safety. There +was every indication of a sickly summer. She knew nothing of his +writing, and he feared would hardly consent to leave him. But, if I +came, she would yield to me. Our marriage might take place there, and I +could bring her home. Without her, he said, he could more quickly +dispatch what remained for him to do; and I must persuade her of this, +and that it was for the safety of all that she should so fulfill the +promise which was to have been at this time redeemed, had their earlier +return been possible. + +"In the New Orleans papers that came by the same mail, were paragraphs +of deadly significance. The very cautiousness with which they were +worded weighted them the more. + +"Miss Faith! my friend! in that city of pestilence, was my life! Night +and day I journeyed, till I reached the place. I found the address which +had been sent me--there were only strangers there! Mr. Waldo had been, +but the very day before, seized with the fatal disease, and removed to a +fever hospital. Miriam had gone with him--into plague and death! + +"Was I wrong, child? Could I have helped it? I followed. Ah! God lets +strange woes into this world of His! I cannot tell you, if I would, what +I saw there! Pestilence--death--corruption! + +"In the midst of all, among the gentle sisters of charity, I found a New +England woman--a nurse--her whom I met yesterday. She came to me on my +inquiry for Mr. Waldo. He was dead. Miriam had already sickened--was +past hope. I could not see her. It was against the rule. She would not +know me. + +"I only remember that I refused to be sent away. I think my brain reeled +with the weariness of sleepless nights and horror of the shock. + +"I cannot dwell upon the story. It was ended quickly. When I struggled +back, painfully, to life, from the disease that struck me down, there +were strange faces round me, and none could even tell me of her last +hours. The nurse--Miss Sampson--had been smitten--was dying. + +"They sent me to a hospital for convalescents. Weeks after, I came out, +feeble and hopeless, into my lonely life! + +"Since then, God, who had taken from me the object I had set for myself, +has filled its room with His own work. And, doing it, He has not denied +me to find many a chastened joy. + +"Dear young friend!" said he, with a tender, lingering emphasis--it was +all he could say then--all they had left him to say, if he would--"I +have told you this, because you have come nearer into my sympathies than +any in all these years that have been my years of strangerhood and +sorrow! You have made me think, in your fresh, maidenly life, and your +soul earnestness, of Miriam! + +"When your way broadens out into busy sunshine, and mine lies otherwise, +do not forget me!" + +A solemn baptism of mingled grief and joy seemed to touch the soul of +Faith. One hand covered her face, that was bowed down, weeping. The +other lay in her companion's, who had taken it as he uttered these last +words. So it rested a moment, and then its fellow came to it, and, +between the two, held Roger Armstrong's reverently, while the fair, +tearful face lifted itself to his. + +"I do thank you so!" And that was all. + +Faith was his "dear, young friend!" How the words in which her mother +limited his thoughts of her to commonplace, widened, when she spoke them +to herself, into a great beatitude! She never thought of more--scarcely +whether more could be. This great, noble, purified, God-loving soul that +stood between her and heaven, like the mountain peak, bathing its head +in clouds, and drawing lightnings down, leaned over her, and blessed her +thus! + +She never suspected her own heart, even when the remembrance of Paul +came up and took a tenderness from the thought how he, too, might love, +and learn from, this her friend. She turned back with a new gentleness +to all other love, as one does from a prayer! + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +QUESTION AND ANSWER. + +"Unless you can swear, 'For life, for death!' +Oh, fear to call it loving!" + MRS. BROWNING. + + +Faith sent Nurse Sampson in to talk with Mr. Armstrong. Then he learned +all that he had longed to know, but had never known before; that which +took him to his lost bride's deathbed, and awoke out of the silent years +for him a moment refused to him in its passing. + +Miss Sampson came from her hour's interview, with an unbending of the +hard lines of her face, and a softness, even, in her eyes, that told of +tears. + +"If ever there was an angel that went walking about in black broadcloth, +that man is the one," said she. + +And that was all she would say. + +"I'm staying," she explained, in answer to their inquiries, "with a +half-sister of mine at Sedgely. Mrs. Crabe, the blacksmith's wife. You +see, I'd got run down, and had to take a rest. Resting is as much a part +of work as doing, when it's necessary. I had a chance to go to Europe +with an invaleed lady; but I allers hate such halfway contrivances. I +either want to work with all my might, or be lazy with all my might. And +so I've come here to do nothing, as hard as ever I can." + +"I know well enough," she said again, afterwards, "that something's +being cut out for me, tougher'n anything I've had yet. I never had an +hour's extra rest in my life, but I found out, precious soon, what it +had been sent for. I'm going to stay on all summer, as the doctor told +me to; but I'm getting strong, already; and I shall be just like a tiger +before the year's out. And then it'll come, whatever it is. You'll see." + +Miss Sampson stayed until the next day after, and then Mr. Gartney drove +her back to Sedgely. + +In those days it came to pass that Glory found she had a "follower." + +Luther Goodell, who "did round" at Cross Corners, got so into the way of +straying up the field path, in his nooning hours, and after chores were +done at night, that Miss Henderson at last, in her plain, outright +fashion, took the subject up, and questioned Glory. + +"If it means anything, and you mean it shall mean anything, well and +good. I shall put up with it; though what anybody wants with men folks +cluttering round, is more than I can understand. But, if you don't want +him, he shan't come. So tell me the truth, child. Yes, or no. Have you +any notion of him for a husband?" + +Glory blushed her brightest at these words; but there was no falling of +the eye, or faltering of the voice, as she spoke with answering +straightforwardness and simplicity. + +"No ma'am. I don't think I shall ever have a husband." + +"No ma'am's enough. The rest you don't know anything about. Most likely +you will." + +"I shouldn't want anybody, ma'am, that would be likely to want me." + +And Glory walked out into the milk room with the pans she had been +scalding. + +It was true. This woman-child would go all through life as she had +begun; discerning always, and reaching spiritually after, that which was +beyond; which in that "kingdom of heaven" was hers already; but which to +earthly having and holding should never come. + +God puts such souls, oftener than we think, into such life. These are +His vestals. + +Miss Henderson's foot had not grown perfectly strong. She, herself, +said, coolly, that she never expected it to. More than that, she +supposed, now she had begun, she should keep on going to pieces. + +"An old life," she said, "is just like old cloth when it begins to tear. +It'll soon go into the ragbag, and then to the mill that grinds all up, +and brings us out new and white again!" + +"Glory McWhirk," said she, on another day after, "if you could do just +the thing you would like best to do, what would it be?" + +"To-day, ma'am? or any time?" asked Glory, puzzled as to how much her +mistress's question included. + +"Ever. If you had a home to live in, say, and money to spend?" + +Glory had to wait a moment before she could so grasp such an +extraordinary hypothesis as to reply. + +"Well?" said Miss Henderson, with slight impatience. + +"If I had--I should like best to find some little children, without any +fathers or mothers, as I was, and dress them up, as you did me, and curl +their hair, and make a real good time for them, every day!" + +"You would! Well, that's all. I was curious to know what you'd say. I +guess those beans in the oven want more hot water." + +The Rushleighs had come to Lakeside. Every day, nearly, saw Paul, or +Margaret, or both, at Cross Corners. + +Faith was often, also, at Lakeside. + +Old Mr. Rushleigh treated her with a benignant fatherliness, and looked +upon her with an evident fondness and pride that threw heavy weight in +the scale of his son's chances. And Madam Rushleigh, as she began to be +called, since Mrs. Philip had entered the family, petted her in the old, +graceful, gracious fashion; and Margaret loved her, simply, and from her +heart. + +With Paul himself, it had not been as in the days of bouquets, and +"Germans," and bridal association in Mishaumok. They were all living and +enjoying together a beautiful idyl. Nothing seemed special--nothing was +embarrassing. + +Faith thought, in these days, that she was very happy. + +Mr. Armstrong relinquished her, almost imperceptibly, to her younger +friends. In the pleasant twilights, though, when her day's pleasures and +occupations were ended, he would often come over, as of old, and sit +with them in the summer parlor, or under the elms. + +Or Faith would go up the beautiful Ridge walk with him; and he would +have a thought for her that was higher than any she could reach, by +herself, or with the help of any other human soul. + +And the minister? How did his world look to him? Perhaps, as if clouds +that had parted, sending a sunbeam across from the west upon the dark +sorrow of the morning, had shut again, inexorably, leaving him still to +tread the nightward path under the old, leaden sky. + +A day came, that set him thinking of all this--of the years that were +past, of those that might be to come. + +Mr. Armstrong was not quite so old as he had been represented. A man +cannot go through plague and anguish, as he had, and "keep," as Nurse +Sampson had said, long ago, of women, "the baby face on." There were +lines about brow and mouth, and gleams in the hair, that seldom come so +early. + +This day he completed one-and-thirty years. + +The same day, last month, had been Faith's birthday. She was nineteen. + +Roger Armstrong thought of the two together. + +He thought of these twelve years that lay between them. Of the love--the +loss--the stern and bitter struggle--the divine amends and holy hope +that they had brought to him; and then of the innocent girl life she had +been living in them; then, how the two paths had met so, in these last +few, beautiful months. + +Whither, and how far apart, trended they now? + +He could not see. He waited--leaving the end with God. + +A few weeks went by, in this careless, holiday fashion, with Faith and +her friends; and then came the hour when she must face the truth for +herself and for another, and speak the word of destiny for both. + +She had made a promise for a drive round the Pond Road. Margaret and +her brother were to come for her, and to return to Cross Corners for +tea. + +At the hour fixed, she sat, waiting, under the elms, hat and mantle on, +and whiling the moments of delay with a new book Mr. Armstrong had lent +her. + +Presently, the Rushleighs' light, open, single-seated wagon drove up. + +Paul had come alone. + +Margaret had a headache, but thought that after sundown she might feel +better, and begged that Faith would reverse the plan agreed upon, and +let Paul bring her home to tea with them. + +Paul took for granted that Faith would keep to her engagement with +himself. It was difficult to refuse. She was ready, waiting. It would be +absurd to draw back, sensitively, now, she thought. Besides, it would be +very pleasant; and why should she be afraid? Yet she wished, very +regretfully, that Margaret were there. + +She shrank from _tete-a-tetes_--from anything that might help to +precipitate a moment she felt herself not quite ready for. + +She supposed she did care for Paul Rushleigh as most girls cared for +lovers; that she had given him reason to expect she should; she felt, +instinctively, whither all this pleased acquiescence of father and +mother, and this warm welcome and encouragement at Lakeside, tended; and +she had a dim prescience of what must, some time, come of it: but that +was all in the far-off by and by. She would not look at it yet. + +She was afraid, now, as she let Paul help her into the wagon, and take +his place at her side. + +She had been frightened by a word of her mother's, when she had gone to +her, before leaving, to tell how the plan had been altered, and ask if +she had better do as was wished of her. + +Mrs. Gartney had assented with a smile, and a "Certainly, if you like +it, Faith; indeed, I don't see how you can very well help it; only----" + +"Only what, mother?" asked Faith, a little fearfully. + +"Nothing, dear," answered her mother, turning to her with a little +caress. But she had a look in her eyes that mothers wear when they begin +to see their last woman's sacrifice demand itself at their hands. + +"Go, darling. Paul is waiting." + +It was like giving her away. + +So they drove down, through byways, among the lanes, toward the Wachaug +Road. + +Summer was in her perfect flush and fullness of splendor. The smell of +new-mown hay was in the air. + +As they came upon the river, they saw the workmen busy in and about the +new mills. Mr. Rushleigh's buggy stood by the fence; and he was there, +among his mechanics, with his straw hat and seersucker coat on, +inspecting and giving orders. + +"What a capital old fellow the governor is!" said Paul, in the fashion +young men use, nowadays, to utter their affections. + +"Do you know he means to set me up in these mills he is making such a +hobby of, and give me half the profits?" + +Faith had not known. She thought him very good. + +"Yes; he would do anything, I believe, for me--or anybody I cared for." + +Faith was silent; and the strange fear came up in heart and throat. + +"I like Kinnicutt, thoroughly." + +"Yes," said Faith. "It is very beautiful here." + +"Not only that. I like the people. I like their simple fashions. One +gets at human life and human nature here. I don't think I was ever, at +heart, a city boy. I don't like living at arm's length from everybody. +People come close together, in the country. And--Faith! what a minister +you've got here! What a sermon that was he preached last Sunday! I've +never been what you might call one of the serious sort; but such a +sermon as that must do anybody good." + +Faith felt a warmth toward Paul as he said this, which was more a +drawing of the heart than he had gained from her by all the rest. + +"My father says he will keep him here, if money can do it. He never goes +to church at Lakeside, now. It needs just such a man among mill villages +like these, he says. My father thinks a great deal of his workpeople. He +says nobody ought to bring families together, and build up a +neighborhood, as a manufacturer does, and not look out for more than the +money. I think he'll expect a great deal of me, if he leaves me here, at +the head of it all. More than I can ever do, by myself." + +"Mr. Armstrong will be the very best help to you," said Faith. "I think +he means to stay. I'm sure Kinnicutt would seem nothing without him, +now." + +"Faith! Will you help me to make a home here?" + +She could not speak. A great shock had fallen upon her whole nature, as +if a thunderbolt she had had presentiment of, burst from a clear blue +sky. + +They drove on for minutes, without another word. + +"Faith! You don't answer me. Must I take silence as I please? It can't +be that you don't care for me!" + +"No, no!" cried Faith, desperately, like one struggling for voice +through a nightmare. "I do care. But--Paul! I don't know! I can't tell. +Let me wait, please. Let me think." + +"As long as you like, darling," said he, gently and tenderly. "You know +all I can tell you. You know I have cared for you all my life. And I'll +wait now till you tell me I may speak again. Till you put on that little +ring of mine, Faith!" + +There was a little loving reproach in these last words. + +"Please take me home, now, Paul!" + +They were close upon the return path around the Lake. A look of +disappointed pain passed over Paul Rushleigh's features. This was hardly +the happy reception, however shy, he had hoped and looked for. Still he +hoped, however. He could not think she did not care for him. She, who +had been the spring of his own thoughts and purposes for years. But, +obedient to her wish, he touched his horse with the lash, and urged him +homeward. + +Paul helped her from the wagon at the little white gate at Cross +Corners, and then they both remembered that she was to have gone to +Lakeside to tea. + +"What shall I tell Margaret?" he asked. + +"Oh, don't tell her anything! I mean--tell her, I couldn't come +to-night. And, Paul--forgive me! I do want so to do what is right!" + +"Isn't it right to let me try and make you happy all your life?" + +A light had broken upon her--confusedly, it is true--yet that began to +show her to herself more plainly than any glimpse she had had before, as +Paul's words, simple, yet burning with his strong sure love, came to +her, with their claim to honest answer. + +She saw what it was he brought her; she felt it was less she had to give +him back. There was something in the world she might go missing all the +way through life, if she took this lot that lay before her now. Would he +not miss a something in her, also? Yet, must she needs insist on the +greatest, the rarest, that God ever sends? Why should she, more than +others? Would she wrong him more, to give him what she could, or to +refuse him all? + +"I ought--if I do--" she said, tremulously, "to care as you do!" + +"You never can, Faith!" cried the young man, impetuously. "I care as a +man cares! Let me love you! care a little for me, and let it grow to +more!" + +Men, till something is accorded, are willing to take so little! And then +the little must become so entire! + +"Well, I declare!" exclaimed Mis' Battis, as Faith came in. "Who'd a +thought o' seein' you home to tea! I s'pose you ain't had none?" + +"Yes--no. That is, I don't want any. Where is my mother?" + +"She and your pa's gone down to Dr. Wasgatt's. I knew 'twould be +contrary to the thirty-nine articles that they should get away from +there without their suppers, and so I let the fire right down, and +blacked the stove." + +"Never mind," said Faith, abstractedly. "I don't feel hungry." And she +went away, upstairs. + +"'M!" said Mis 'Battis, significantly, to herself, running a released +knitting needle through her hair, "don't tell me! I've been through the +mill!" + +Half an hour after, she came up to Faith's door. + +"The minister's downstairs," said she. "Hope to goodness, he's had _his_ +supper!" + +"Oh, if I dared!" thought Faith; and her heart throbbed tumultuously. +"Why can't there be somebody to tell me what I ought to do?" + +If she had dared, how she could have leaned upon this friend! How she +could have trusted her conscience and her fate to his decision! + +"Does anything trouble you to-night, Miss Faith?" asked Mr. Armstrong, +watching her sad, abstracted look in one of the silent pauses that broke +their attempts at conversation. "Are you ill, or tired?" + +"Oh, no!" answered Faith, quickly, from the surface, as one often does +when thoughts lie deep. "I am quite well. Only--I am sometimes puzzled." + +"About what is? Or about what ought to be?" + +"About doing. So much depends. I get so tired--feeling how responsible +everything makes me. I wish I were a little child again! Or that +somebody would just take me and tell me where to go, and where to stay, +and what to do, and what not. From minute to minute, as the things come +up." + +Roger Armstrong, with his great, chastened soul, yearned over the child +as she spoke; so gladly he would have taken her, at that moment, to his +heart, and bid her lean on him for all that man might give of help--of +love--of leading! + +If she had told him, in that moment, all her doubt, as for the instant +of his pause she caught her breath with swelling impulse to do! + +"'And they shall all be led of God';" said the minister. "It is only to +be willing to take His way rather than one's own. All this that seems to +depend painfully upon oneself, depends, then, upon Him. The act is +human--the consequences become divine." + +Faith was silenced then. There was no appeal to human help from that. +Her impulse throbbed itself away into a lonely passiveness again. + +There was a distance between these two that neither dared to pass. + +A word was spoken between mother and daughter as they parted for the +night. + +"Mother! I have such a thing to think of--to decide!" + +It was whispered low, and with cheek hidden on her mother's neck, as the +good-night kiss was taken. + +"Decide for your own happiness, Faithie. We have seen and understood for +a long time. If it is to be as we think, nothing could give us a greater +joy for you." + +Ah! how much had father and mother seen and understood? + +The daughter went her way, to wage her own battle in secret; to balance +and fix her decision between her own heart and God. So we find ourselves +left, at the last, in all the great crises of our life. + +Late that night, while Mr. and Mrs. Gartney were felicitating each +other, cheerily, upon the great good that had fallen to the lot of their +cherished child, that child sat by her open window, looking out into the +summer night; the tossing elm boughs whispering weird syllables in her +ears, and the stars looking down upon her soul struggle, so silently, +from so far! + +"Mr. Rushleigh's here!" shouted Hendie, precipitating himself, next +morning, into the breakfast room, where, at a rather later hour than +usual, Mrs. Gartney and Faith were washing and wiping the silver and +china, and Mr. Gartney still lingered in his seat, finishing somebody's +long speech, reported in the evening paper of yesterday. + +"Mr. Rushleigh's here, on his long-tailed black horse! And he says he'll +give me a ride, but not yet. He wants to see papa. Make haste, papa." + +Faith dropped her towel, and as Mr. Gartney rose to go out and meet his +visitor, just whispered, hurriedly, to her mother: + +"I'll come down again. I'll see him before he goes." And escaped up the +kitchen staircase to her own room. + +Paul Rushleigh came, he told Mr. Gartney, because, although Faith had +not authorized him to appeal to her father to ratify any consent of +hers, he thought it right to let him know what he had already said to +his daughter. He did not wish to hurry Faith. He only wished to stand +openly with Mr. Gartney in the matter, and would wait, then, till she +should be quite ready to give him her own answer. + +He explained the prospect his father offered him, and the likelihood of +his making a permanent home at Kinnicutt. + +"That is," he added, "if I am to be so happy as to have a home, +anywhere, of my own." + +Mr. Gartney was delighted with the young man's unaffected warmth of +heart and noble candor. + +"I could not wish better for my daughter, Mr. Rushleigh," he replied. +"And she is a daughter whom I may fairly wish the best for, too." + +Mr. Gartney rose. "I will send Faith," said he. + +"I do not _ask_ for her," answered Paul, a flush of feeling showing in +his cheek. "I did not come, expecting it--my errand was one I owed to +yourself--but Faith knows quite well how glad I shall be if she chooses +to see me." + +As Mr. Gartney crossed the hall from parlor to sitting room, a light +step came over the front staircase. + +Faith passed her father, with a downcast look, as he motioned with his +hand toward the room where Paul stood, waiting. The bright color spread +to her temples as she glided in. + +She held, but did not wear, the little turquoise ring. + +Paul saw it, as he came forward, eagerly. + +A thrill of hope, or dread--he scarce knew which--quivered suddenly at +his heart. Was he to take it back, or place it on her finger as a +pledge? + +"I have been thinking, Paul," said she, tremulously, and with eyes that +fell again away from his, after the first glance and greeting, "almost +ever since. And I do not think I ought to keep you waiting to know the +little I can tell you. I do not think I understand myself. I cannot +tell, certainly, how I ought--how I do feel. I have liked you very much. +And it was very pleasant to me before all this. I know you deserve to be +made very happy. And if it depends on me, I do not dare to say I will +not try to do it. If you think, yourself, that this is enough--that I +shall do the truest thing so--I will try." + +And the timid little fingers laid the ring into his hand, to do with as +he would. + +What else could Paul have done? + +With the strong arm that should henceforth uphold and guard her, he drew +her close; and with the other hand slipped the simply jeweled round upon +her finger. For all word of answer, he lifted it, so encircled, to his +lips. + +Faith shrank and trembled. + +Hendie's voice sounded, jubilant, along the upper floor, toward the +staircase. + +"I will go, now, if you wish. Perhaps I ought," said Paul. "And yet, I +would so gladly stay. May I come again, by and by?" + +Faith uttered a half-audible assent, and as Hendie's step came nearer +down the stairs, and passed the door, straight out upon the grassplot, +toward the gate, and the long-tailed black horse that stood there, she +escaped again to her own chamber. + +Hendie had his ride. Meanwhile, his sister, down upon her knees at her +bedside, struggled with the mystery and doubt of her own heart. Why +could she not feel happier? Would it never be otherwise? Was this all +life had for her, in its holiest gift, henceforth? But, come what might, +she would have God, always! + +So, without words, only with tears, she prayed, and at last, grew calm. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +CONFLICT. + +"O Life, O Beyond, +_Art_ thou fair!--_art_ thou sweet?" + MRS. BROWNING. + + +There followed days that almost won Faith back into her outward life of +pleasantness. + +Margaret came over with Madam Rushleigh, and felicitated herself and +friend, impetuously. Paul's mother thanked her for making her son happy. +Old Mr. Rushleigh kissed her forehead with a blessing. And Mr. and Mrs. +Gartney looked upon their daughter as with new eyes of love. Hendie rode +the black horse every day, and declared that "everything was just as +jolly as it could be!" + +Paul drove her out, and walked with her, and talked of his plans, and +all they would do and have together. + +And she let herself be brightened by all this outward cheer and promise, +and this looking forward to a happiness and use that were to come. But +still she shrank and trembled at every loverlike caress, and still she +said, fearfully, every now and then: + +"Paul--I don't feel as you do. What if I don't love you as I ought?" + +And Paul called her his little oversensitive, conscientious Faithie, and +persuaded himself and her that he had no fear--that he was quite +satisfied. + +When Mr. Armstrong came to see her, gravely and tenderly wishing her +joy, and looked searchingly into her face for the pure content that +should be there, she bent her head into her hands, and wept. + +She was very weak, you say? She ought to have known her own mind better? +Perhaps. I speak of her as she was. There are mistakes like these in +life; there are hearts that suffer thus, unconscious of their ail. + +The minister waited while the momentary burst of emotion subsided, and +something of Faith's wonted manner returned. + +"It is very foolish of me," she said, "and you must think me very +strange. But, somehow, tears come easily when one has been feeling a +great deal. And such kind words from you touch me." + +"My words and thoughts will always be kind for you, my child. And I know +very well that tears may mean sweeter and deeper things than smiles. I +will not try you with much talking now. You have my affectionate wishes +and my prayers. If there is ever any help that I can give, to you who +have so much loving help about you, count on me as an earnest friend, +always." + +The hour was past when Faith, if she could ever, could have asked of him +the help she did most sorely need. + +And so, with a gentle hand clasp, he went away. + +Mr. Gartney began to be restless about Michigan. He wanted to go and see +this wild estate of his. He would have liked to take his wife, now that +haying would soon be over, and he could spare the time from his farm, +and make it a pleasant summer journey for them both. But he could +neither leave Faith, nor take her, well, it seemed. Hendie might go. +Fathers always think their boys ready for the world when once they are +fairly out of the nursery. + +One day, Paul came to Cross Corners with news. + +Mr. Rushleigh had affairs to be arranged and looked to, in New +York--matters connected with the mills, which had, within a few weeks, +begun to run; he had been there, once, about them; he could do all quite +well, now, by letter, and an authorized messenger; he could not just now +very well leave Kinnicutt. Besides, he wanted Paul to see and know his +business friends, and to put himself in the way of valuable business +information. Would Faith spare him for a week or two--he bade his son to +ask. + +Madam Rushleigh would accompany Paul; and before his return he would go +with his mother to Saratoga, where her daughter Gertrude and Mrs. Philip +Rushleigh were, and where he was to leave her for the remainder of their +stay. + +Margaret liked Kinnicutt better than any watering-place; and she and her +father had made a little plan of their own, which, if Faith would go +back with him, they would explain to her. + +So Faith went over to Lakeside to tea, and heard the plan. + +"We are going to make our first claim upon you, Faith," said the elder +Mr. Rushleigh, as he led his daughter-in-law elect out on the broad +piazza under the Italian awnings, when the slight summer evening repast +was ended. "We want to borrow you, while madam and the yonker are gone. +Your father tells me he wishes to make a Western journey. Now, why not +send him off at this very time? I think your mother intends accompanying +him?" + +"It had been talked of," Faith said; "and perhaps her father would be +very glad to go when he could leave her in such good keeping. She would +tell him what Mr. Rushleigh had been so kind as to propose." + +It was a suggestion of real rest to Faith--this free companionship with +Margaret again, in the old, girlish fashion--and the very thoughtful +look, that was almost sad, which had become habitual to her face, of +late, brightened into the old, careless pleasure, as she spoke. + +Old Mr. Rushleigh saw something in this that began to seem to him more +than mere maidenly shyness. + +By and by, Margaret called her brother to sing with her. + +"Come, Faithie," said Paul, drawing her gently by the hand. "I can't +sing unless you go, too." + +Faith went; more, it seemed, of his will, than her own. + +"How does that appear to you?" said Mr. Rushleigh to his wife. "Is it +all right? Does the child care for Paul?" + +"Care!" exclaimed the mother, almost surprised into too audible speech. +"How can she help caring? And hasn't it grown up from childhood with +them? What put such a question into your head? I should as soon think of +doubting whether I cared for you." + +It was easier for the father to doubt, jealously, for his son, than for +the mother to conceive the possibility of indifference in the woman her +boy had chosen. + +"Besides," added Mrs. Rushleigh, "why, else, should she have accepted +him? I _know_ Faith Gartney is not mercenary, or worldly ambitious." + +"I am quite sure of that, as well," answered her husband. "It is no +doubt of her motive or her worth--I can't say it is really a doubt of +anything; but, Gertrude, she must not marry the boy unless her whole +heart is in it! A sharp stroke is better than a lifelong pain." + +"I'm sure I can't tell what has come over you! She can't ever have +thought of anybody else! And she seems quite one of ourselves." + +"Yes; that's just the uncertainty," replied Mr. Rushleigh. "Whether it +isn't as much Margaret, and you and I, as Paul. Whether she fully knows +what she is about. She can't marry the family, you know. We shall die, +and go off, and Heaven knows what; Paul must be the whole world to her, +or nothing. I hope he hasn't hurried her--or let her hurry herself." + +"Hurry! She has had years to make up her mind in!" + +Mrs. Rushleigh, woman as she was, would not understand. + +"We shall go, in three days," said Paul, when he stood in the moonlight +with Faith at the little white gate under the elms, after driving her +home; "and I must have you all the time to myself, until then!" + +Faith wondered if it were right that she shouldn't quite care to be "had +all the time to himself until then"? Whether such demonstrativeness and +exclusiveness of affection was ever a little irksome to others as to +her? + +Faith thought and questioned, often, what other girls might feel in +positions like her own, and tried to judge herself by them; it +absolutely never occurred to her to think how it might have been if +another than Paul had stood in this relation toward herself. + +The young man did not quite have his own way, however. His father went +down to Mishaumok on one of the three days, and left him in charge at +the mills; and there were people to see, and arrangements to make; but +some part of each day he did manage to devote to Faith, and they had +walking and driving together, and every night Paul stayed to tea at +Cross Corners. + +On the last evening, they sat together, by the hillside door, in the +summer parlor. + +"Faithie," said Paul, a little suddenly, "there is something you must do +for me--do you know?" + +"What is it?" asked Faith, quite calmly. + +"You must wear this, now, and keep the forget-me-not for a guard." + +He held her hand, that wore the ring, in one of his, and there was a +flash of diamonds as he brought the other toward it. + +Then Faith gave a quick, strange cry. + +"I can't! I can't! Oh, Paul! don't ask me!" And her hand was drawn from +the clasp of his, and her face was hidden in both her own. + +Paul drew back--hurt, silent. + +"If I could only wait!" she murmured. "I don't dare, yet!" + +She could wear the forget-me-not, as she wore the memory of all their +long young friendship, it belonged to the past; but this definite pledge +for the future--these diamonds! + +"Do you not quite belong to me, even yet?" asked Paul, with a +resentment, yet a loving and patient one, in his voice. + +"I told you," said Faith, "that I would try--to be to you as you wish; +but Paul! if I couldn't be so, truly?--I don't know why I feel so +uncertain. Perhaps it is because you care for me too much. Your thought +for me is so great, that mine, when I look at it, never seems worthy." + +Paul was a man. He could not sue, too cringingly, even for Faith +Gartney's love. + +"And I told you, Faith, that I was satisfied to be allowed to love you. +That you should love me a little, and let it grow to more. But if it is +not love at all--if I frighten you, and repel you--I have no wish to +make you unhappy. I must let you go. And yet--oh, Faith!" he cried--the +sternness all gone, and only the wild love sweeping through his heart, +and driving wild words before it--"it can't be that it is no love, after +all! It would be too cruel!" + +At those words, "I must let you go," spoken apparently with calmness, as +if it could be done, Faith felt a bound of freedom in her soul. If he +would let her go, and care for her in the old way, only as a friend! But +the strong passionate accents came after; and the old battle of doubt +and pity and remorse surged up again, and the cloud of their strife +dimmed all perception, save that she was very, very wretched. + +She sobbed, silently. + +"Don't let us say good-by, so," said Paul. "Don't let us quarrel. We +will let all wait, as you wish, till I come home again." + +So he still clung to her, and held her, half bound. + +"And your father, Paul? And Margaret? How can I let them receive me as +they do--how can I go to them as I have promised, in all this +indecision?" + +"They want you, Faith, for your own sake. There is no need for you to +disappoint them. It is better to say nothing more until we do know. I +ask it of you--do not refuse me this--to let all rest just here; to make +no difference until I come back. You will let me write, Faith?" + +"Why, yes, Paul," she said, wonderingly. + +It was so hard for her to comprehend that it could not be with him, any +longer, as it had been; that his written or his spoken word could not +be, for a time, at least, mere friendly any more. + +And so she gave him, unwittingly, this hope to go with. + +"I think you _do_ care for me, Faith, if you only knew it!" said he, +half sadly and very wistfully, as they parted. + +"I do care, very much," Faith answered, simply and earnestly. "I never +can help caring. It is only that I am afraid I care so differently from +you!" + +She was nearer loving him at that moment, than she had ever been. + +Who shall attempt to bring into accord the seeming contradictions of a +woman's heart? + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +A GAME AT CHESS. + +"Life's burdens fall, its discords cease, +I lapse into the glad release +Of nature's own exceeding peace." + WHITTIER. + + +"I don't see," said Aunt Faith, "why the child can't come to me, +Henderson, while you and Elizabeth are away. I don't believe in putting +yourself under obligations to people till you're sure they're going to +be something to you. Things don't always turn out according to the +Almanac." + +"She goes just as she always has gone to the Rushleighs," replied Mr. +Gartney. "Paul is to be away. It is a visit to Margaret. Still, I shall +be absent at least a fortnight, and it might be well that she should +divide her time, and come to Cross Corners for a few days, if it is only +to see the house opened and ready. Luther can have a bed here, if Mis' +Battis should be afraid." + +Mis' Battis was to improve the fortnight's interval for a visit to +Factory Village. + +"Well, fix it your own way," said Miss Henderson. "I'm ready for her, +any time. Only, if she's going to peak and pine as she has done ever +since this grand match was settled for her, Glory and I'll have our +hands full, nursing her, by then you get back!" + +"Faith is quite well," said Mrs. Gartney. "It is natural for a girl to +be somewhat thoughtful when she decides for herself such an important +relation." + +"Symptoms differ, in different cases. _I_ should say she was taking it +pretty hard," said the old lady. + +Mr. and Mrs. Gartney left home on Monday. + +Faith and Mis' Battis remained in the house a few hours after, setting +all things in that dreary "to rights" before leaving, which is almost, +in its chillness and silence, like burial array. Glory came over to +help; and when all was done--blinds shut, windows and doors fastened, +fire out, ashes removed--stove blackened--Luther drove Mis' Battis and +her box over to Mrs. Pranker's, and Glory took Faith's little bag for +her to the Old House. + +This night she was to stay with her aunt. She wanted just this little +pause and quiet before going to the Rushleighs'. + +"Tell Aunt Faith I'm coming," said she, as she let herself and Glory out +at the front door, and then, locking it, put the key in her pocket. +"I'll just walk up over the Ridge first, for a little coolness and +quiet, after this busy day." + +There was the peace of a rested body and soul upon her face when she +came down again a half hour after, and crossed the lane, and entered, +through the stile, upon the field path to the Old House. Heart and will +had been laid asleep--earthly plan and purpose had been put aside in all +their incompleteness and uncertainty--and only God and Nature had been +permitted to come near. + +Mr. Armstrong walked down and met her midway in the field. + +"How beautiful mere simpleness and quiet are," said Faith. "The cool +look of trees and grass, and the stillness of this evening time, are +better even than flowers, and bright sunlight, and singing of birds!" + +"'He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the +still waters: He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of +righteousness for His name's sake.'" + +They did not disturb the stillness by more words. They came up +together, in the hush and shadow, to the pleasant doorstone, that +offered its broad invitation to their entering feet, and where Aunt +Faith at this moment stood, watching and awaiting them. + +"Go into the blue bedroom, and lay off your things, child," she said, +giving Faith a kiss of welcome, "and then come back and we'll have our +tea." + +Faith disappeared through passages and rooms beyond. + +Aunt Henderson turned quickly to the minister. + +"You're her spiritual adviser, ain't you?" she asked, abruptly. + +"I ought to be," answered Mr. Armstrong. + +"Why don't you advise her, then?" + +"Spiritually, I do and will, in so far as so pure a spirit can need a +help from me. But--I think I know what you mean, Miss Henderson--spirit +and heart are two. I am a man; and she is--what you know." + +Miss Henderson's keen eyes fixed themselves, for a minute, piercingly +and unflinchingly, on the minister's face. Then she turned, without a +word, and went into the house to see the tea brought in. She knew, now, +all there was to tell. + +Faith's face interpreted itself to Mr. Armstrong. He saw that she +needed, that she would have, rest. Rest, this night, from all that of +late had given her weariness and trouble. So, he did not even talk to +her in the way they mostly talked together; he would not rouse, ever so +distantly, thought, that might, by so many subtle links, bear round upon +her hidden pain. But he brought, after tea, a tiny chessboard, and set +the delicate carved men upon it, and asked her if she knew the game. + +"A little," she said. "What everybody always owns to knowing--the +moves." + +"Suppose we play." + +It was a very pleasant novelty--sitting down with this grave, earnest +friend to a game of skill--and seeing him bring to it all the resource +of power and thought that he bent, at other times, on more important +work. + +"Not that, Miss Faith! You don't mean that! You put your queen in +danger." + +"My queen is always a great trouble to me," said Faith, smiling, as she +retracted the half-made move. "I think I do better when I give her up in +exchange." + +"Excuse me, Miss Faith; but that always seems to me a cowardly sort of +game. It is like giving up a great power in life because one is too weak +to claim and hold it." + +"Only I make you lose yours, too." + +"Yes, there is a double loss and inefficiency. Does that make a better +game, or one pleasanter to play?" + +"There are two people, in there, talking riddles; and they don't even +know it," said Miss Henderson to her handmaid, in the kitchen close by. + +Perhaps Mr. Armstrong, as he spoke, did discern a possible deeper +significance in his own words; did misgive himself that he might rouse +thoughts so; at any rate, he made rapid, skillful movements on the +board, that brought the game into new complications, and taxed all +Faith's attention to avert their dangers to herself. + +For half an hour, there was no more talking. + +Then Faith's queen was put in helpless peril. + +"I must give her up," said she. "She is all but gone." + +A few moves more, and all Faith's hope depended on one little pawn, that +might be pushed to queen and save her game. + +"How one does want the queen power at the last!" said she. "And how much +easier it is to lose it, than to get it back!" + +"It is like the one great, leading possibility, that life, in some sort, +offers each of us," said Mr. Armstrong. "Once lost--once missed--we may +struggle on without it--we may push little chances forward to partial +amends; but the game is changed; its soul is gone." + +As he spoke he made the move that led to obvious checkmate. + +Glory came in to the cupboard, now, and began putting up the tea things +she had brought from washing. + +Mr. Armstrong had done just what, at first, he had meant not to do. Had +he bethought himself better, and did he seize the opening to give vague +warning where he might not speak more plainly? Or, had his habit, as a +man of thought, discerning quick meaning in all things, betrayed him +into the instant's forgetfulness? + +However it might be, Glory caught glimpse of two strange, pained faces +over the little board and its mystic pieces. + +One, pale--downcast--with expression showing a sudden pang; the other, +suffering also, yet tender, self-forgetful, loving--looking on. + +"I don't know whichever is worst," she said afterwards, without apparent +suggestion of word or circumstance, to her mistress; "to see the +beautiful times that there are in the world, and not be in 'em--or to +see people that might be in 'em, and ain't!" + +They were all out on the front stoop, later. They sat in the cool, +summer dusk, and looked out between the arched lattices where the vines +climbed up, seeing the stars rise, far away, eastwardly, in the blue; +and Mr. Armstrong, talking with Faith, managed to win her back into the +calm he had, for an instant, broken; and to keep her from pursuing the +thought that by and by would surely come back, and which she would +surely want all possible gain of strength to grapple with. + +Faith met his intention bravely, seconding it with her own. These +hours, to the last, should still be restful. She would not think, +to-night, of those words that had startled her so--of all they suggested +or might mean--of life's great possibility lost to him, away back in the +sorrowful past, as she also, perhaps was missing it--relinquishing +it--now. + +She knew not that his thought had been utterly self-forgetful. She +believed that he had told her, indirectly, of himself, when he had +spoken those dreary syllables--"the game is changed. Its soul is gone!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +LAKESIDE. + +"Look! are the southern curtains drawn? +Fetch me a fan, and so begone! + . . . . . +Rain me sweet odors on the air, +And wheel me up my Indian chair; +And spread some book not overwise +Flat out before my sleepy eyes." + O. W. HOLMES. + + +The Rushleighs' breakfast room at Lakeside was very lovely in a summer's +morning. + +Looking off, northwestwardly, across the head of the Pond, the long +windows, opening down to the piazza, let in all the light and joy of the +early day, and that indescribable freshness born from the union of woods +and water. + +Faith had come down long before the others, this fair Wednesday morning. + +Mr. Rushleigh found her, when he entered, sitting by a window--a book +upon her lap, to be sure--but her eyes away off over the lake, and a +look in them that told of thoughts horizoned yet more distantly. + +Last night, he had brought home Paul's first letter. + +When he gave it to her, at tea time, with a gay and kindly word, the +color that deepened vividly upon her face, and the quiet way in which +she laid it down beside her plate, were nothing strange, perhaps; +but--was he wrong? the eyes that drooped so quickly as the blushes rose, +and then lifted themselves again so timidly to him as he next addressed +her, were surely brimmed with feeling that was not quite, or wholly +glad. + +And now, this wistful, silent, musing, far-off look! + +"Good morning, Faithie!" + +"Good morning." And the glance came back--the reverie was +broken--Faith's spirit informed her visible presence again, and bade +him true and gentle welcome. "You haven't your morning paper yet? I'll +bring it. Thomas left it in the library, I think. He came back from the +early train, half an hour ago." + +"Can't you women tell what's the matter with each other?" said Mr. +Rushleigh to his daughter, who entered by the other door, as Faith went +out into the hall. "What ails Faith, Margaret?" + +"Nothing of consequence, I think. She is tired with all that has been +going on, lately. And then she's the shyest little thing!" + +"It's a sort of shyness that don't look so happy as it might, it seems +to me. And what has become of Paul's diamonds, I wonder? I went with him +to choose some, last week. I thought I should see them next upon her +finger." + +Margaret opened her eyes widely. Of course, this was the first she had +heard of the diamonds. Where could they be, indeed? Was anything wrong? +They had not surely quarreled! + +Faith came in with the paper. Thomas brought up breakfast. And +presently, these three, with all their thoughts of and for each other, +that reached into the long years to come, and had their roots in all +that had gone by, were gathered at the table, seemingly with no further +anxiety than to know whether one or another would have toast or +muffins--eggs or raspberries. + +Do we not--and most strangely and incomprehensively--live two lives? + +"I must write to my mother, to-day," said Margaret, when her father had +driven away to the mills, and they had brought in a few fresh flowers +from the terrace for the vases, and had had a little morning music, +which Margaret always craved, "as an overture," she said, "to the day." + +"I must write to my mother; and you, I suppose, will be busy with +answering Paul?" + +A little consciousness kept her from looking straight in Faith's face, +as she spoke. Had she done so, she might have seen that a paleness came +over it, and that the lips trembled. + +"I don't know," was the answer. "Perhaps not, to-day." + +"Not to-day? Won't he be watching every mail? I don't know much about +it, to be sure; but I fancied lovers were such uneasy, exacting +creatures!" + +"Paul is very patient," said Faith--not lightly, as Margaret had spoken, +but as one self-reproached, almost, for abusing patience--"and they go +to-morrow to Lake George. He won't look for a letter until he gets to +Saratoga." + +She had calculated her time as if it were the minutes of a reprieve. + +When Paul Rushleigh, with his mother, reached Saratoga, he found two +letters there, for him. One kind, simple, but reticent, from Faith--a +mere answer to that which she could answer, of his own. The other was +from his father. + +"There seems," he wrote to his son, toward the close, "to be a little +cloud upon Faith, somehow. Perhaps it is one you would not wish away. It +may brighten up and roll off, at your return. You, possibly, understand +it better than I. Yet I feel, in my strong anxiety for your true good, +impelled to warn you against letting her deceive herself and you, by +giving you less than, for her own happiness and yours, she ought to be +able to give. Do not marry the child, Paul, if there can be a doubt of +her entire affection for you. You had better go through life alone, than +with a wife's half love. If you have reason to imagine that she feels +bound by anything in the past to what the present cannot heartily +ratify--release her. I counsel you to this, not more in justice to her, +than for the saving of your own peace. She writes you to-day. It may be +that the antidote comes with the hurt. I may be quite mistaken. But I +hurt you, my son, only to save a sorer pain. Faith is true. If she says +she loves you, believe her, and take her, though all the world should +doubt. But if she is fearful--if she hesitates--be fearful, and hesitate +yourself, lest your marriage be no true marriage before Heaven!" + +Paul Rushleigh thanked his father, briefly, for his admonition, in +reply. He wrote, also, to Faith--affectionately, but with something, at +last, of her own reserve. He should not probably write again. In a week, +or less, he would be home. + +And behind, and beyond all this, that could be put on paper, was the +hope of a life--the sharp doubt of days--waiting the final word! + +In a week, he would be home! A week! It might bring much! + +Wednesday had come round again. + +Dinner was nearly ended at Lakeside. Cool jellies, and creams, and +fruits, were on the table for dessert. Steaming dishes of meats and +vegetables had been gladly sent away, but slightly partaken. The day was +sultry. Even now, at five in the afternoon, the heat was hardly +mitigated from that of midday. + +They lingered over their dessert, and spoke, rather languidly, of what +might be done after. + +"For me," said Mr. Rushleigh, "I must go down to the mills again, before +night. If either, or both of you, like a drive, I shall be glad to have +you with me." + +"Those hot mills!" exclaimed Margaret. "What an excursion to propose!" + +"I could find you a very cool corner, even in those hot mills," replied +her father. "My little sanctum, upstairs, that overlooks the river, and +gets its breezes, is the freshest place I have been in, to-day. Will you +go, Faith?" + +"Oh, yes! she'll go! I see it in her eyes!" said Margaret. "She is +getting to be as much absorbed in all those frantic looms and +things--that set me into a fever just to think of, whizzing and humming +all day long in this horrible heat--as you are! I believe she expects to +help Paul overseer the factory, one of these days, she is so fierce to +peer into and understand everything about it. Or else, she means +mischief! You had a funny look in your face, Faithie, the other day, +when you stood there by the great rope that hoists the water gate, and +Mr. Blasland was explaining it to us!" + +"I was thinking, I remember," said Faith, "what a strange thing it was +to have one's hand on the very motive power of it all. To see those +great looms, and wheels, and cylinders, and spindles, we had been +looking at, and hear nothing but their deafening roar all about us, and +to think that even I, standing there with my hand upon the rope, might +hush it all, and stop the mainspring of it in a minute!" + +Ah, Faithie! Did you think, as you said this, how your little hand lay, +otherwise, also, on the mainspring and motive of it all? One of the +three, at least, thought of it, as you spoke. + +"Well--your heart's in the spindles, I see!" rejoined Margaret. "So, +don't mind me. I haven't a bit of a plan for your entertainment, here. I +shouldn't, probably, speak to you, if you stayed. It's too hot for +anything but a book, and a fan, and a sofa by an open window!" + +Faith laughed; but, before she could reply, a chaise rolled up to the +open front door, and the step and voice of Dr. Wasgatt were heard, as he +inquired for Miss Gartney. + +Faith left her seat, with a word of excuse, and met him in the hall. + +"I had a patient up this way," said he, "and came round to bring you a +message from Miss Henderson. Nothing to be frightened at, in the least; +only that she isn't quite so well as ordinary, these last hot days, and +thought perhaps you might as lief come over. She said she was expecting +you for a visit there, before your folks get back. No, thank you"--as +Faith motioned to conduct him to the drawing-room--"can't come in. Sorry +I couldn't offer to take you down; but I've got more visits to make, and +they lie round the other way." + +"Is Aunt Faith ill?" + +"Well--no. Not so but that she'll be spry again in a day or two; +especially if the weather changes. That ankle of hers is troublesome, +and she had something of an ill turn last night, and called me over this +morning. She seems to have taken a sort of fancy that she'd like to have +you there." + +"I'll come." + +And Faith went back, quickly, as Dr. Wasgatt departed, to make his +errand known, and to ask if Mr. Rushleigh would mind driving her round +to Cross Corners, after going to his mills. + +"Wait till to-morrow, Faithie," said Margaret, in the tone of one whom +it fatigues to think of an exertion, even for another. "You'll want your +box with you, you know; and there isn't time for anything to-night." + +"I think I ought to go now," answered Faith. "Aunt Henderson never +complains for a slight ailment, and she might be ill again, to-night. I +can take all I shall need before to-morrow in my little morocco bag. I +won't keep you waiting a minute," she added, turning to Mr. Rushleigh. + +"I can wait twenty, if you wish," he answered kindly. + +But in less than ten, they were driving down toward the river. + +Margaret Rushleigh had betaken herself to her own cool chamber, where +the delicate straw matting, and pale green, leaf-patterned chintz of +sofa, chairs, and hangings, gave a feeling of the last degree of summer +lightness and daintiness, and the gentle air breathed in from the +southwest, sifted, on the way, of its sunny heat, by the green draperies +of vine and branch it wandered through. + +Lying there, on the cool, springy cushions of her couch--turning the +fresh-cut leaves of the August _Mishaumok_--she forgot the wheels and +the spindles--the hot mills, and the ceaseless whir. + +Just at that moment of her utter comfort and content, a young factory +girl dropped, fainting, in the dizzy heat, before her loom. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +AT THE MILLS. + +"For all day the wheels are droning, turning,-- +Their wind comes in our faces,-- +Till our hearts turn,--our head with pulses burning,-- +And the walls turn in their places." + MRS. BROWNING. + + +Faith sat silent by Mr. Rushleigh's side, drinking in, also, with a cool +content, the river air that blew upon their faces as they drove along. + +"Faithie!" said Paul's father, a little suddenly, at last--"do you know +how true a thing you said a little while ago?" + +"How, sir?" asked Faith, not perceiving what he meant. + +"When you spoke of having your hand on the mainspring of all this?" + +And he raised his right arm, motioning with the slender whip he held, +along the line of factory buildings that lay before them. + +A deep, blazing blush burned, at his words, over Faith's cheek and brow. +She sat and suffered it under his eye--uttering not a syllable. + +"I knew you did _not_ know. You did not think of it so. Yet it is true, +none the less. Faith! Are you happy? Are you satisfied?" + +Still a silence, and tears gathering in the eyes. + +"I do not wish to distress you, my dear. It is only a little word I +should like to hear you speak. I must, so far as I can, see that my +children are happy, Faith." + +"I suppose," said Faith, tremulously, struggling to speech--"one cannot +expect to be utterly happy in this world." + +"One does expect it, forgetting all else, at the moment when is given +what seems to one life's first, great good--the earthly good that comes +but once. I remember my own youth, Faithie. Pure, present content is +seldom overwise." + +"Only," said Faith, still tremblingly, "that the responsibility comes +with the good. That feeling of having one's hand upon the mainspring is +a fearful one." + +"I am not given," said Mr. Rushleigh, "to quoting Bible at all times; +but you make a line of it come up to me. 'There is no fear in love. +Perfect love casteth out fear.'" + +"Be sure of yourself, dear child. Be sure you are content and happy; and +tell me so, if you can; or, tell me otherwise, if you must, without a +reserve or misgiving," he said again, as they drove down the mill +entrance; and their conversation, for the time, came, necessarily, to an +end. + +Coming into the mill yard, they were aware of a little commotion about +one of the side doors. + +The mill girl who had fainted sat here, surrounded by two or three of +her companions, slowly recovering. + +"It is Mary Grover, sir, from up at the Peak," said one of them, in +reply to Mr. Rushleigh's question. "She hasn't been well for some days, +but she's kept on at her work, and the heat, to-day, was too much for +her. She'd ought to be got home, if there was any way. She can't ever +walk." + +"I'll take her, myself," said the mill owner, promptly. "Keep her quiet +here a minute or two, while I go in and speak to Blasland." + +But first he turned to Faith again. "What shall I do with you, my +child?" + +"Dear Mr. Rushleigh," said she, with all her gratitude for his just +spoken kindness to herself and her appreciation of his ready sympathy +for the poor workgirl, in her voice--"don't think of me! It's lovely out +there over the footbridge, and in the fields; and that way, the +distance is nearly nothing to Aunt Faith's. I should like the +walk--really." + +"Thank you," said Mr. Rushleigh. "I believe you would. Then I'll take +Mary Grover up to the Peak." + +And he shook her hand, and left her standing there, and went up into the +mill. + +Two of the girls who had come out with Mary Grover, followed him and +returned to their work. One, sitting with her in the doorway, on one of +the upper steps, and supporting her yet dizzy head upon her shoulder, +remained. + +Faith asked if she could do anything, and was answered, no, with thanks. + +She turned away, then, and walked over the planking above the race way, +toward the river, where a pretty little footbridge crossed it here, from +the end of the mill building. + +Against this end, projected, on this side, a square, tower-like +appendage to the main structure, around which one must pass to reach the +footbridge. A door at the base opened upon a staircase leading up. This +was the entrance to Mr. Rushleigh's "sanctum," above, which +communicated, also, with the second story of the mill. + +Here Faith paused. She caught, from around the corner, a sound of the +angry voices of men. + +"I tell you, I'll stay here till I see the boss!" + +"I tell you, the boss won't see you. He's done with you." + +"Let him _be_ done with me, then; and not go spoiling my chance with +other people! I'll see it out with him, somehow, yet." + +"Better not threaten. He won't go out of his way to meddle with you; +only it's no use your sending anybody here after a character. He's one +of the sort that speaks the truth and shames the devil." + +"I'll let him know he ain't boss of the whole country round! D----d if I +don't!" + +Faith turned away from hearing more of this, and from facing the +speakers; and took refuge up the open staircase. + +Above--in the quiet little countingroom, shut off by double doors at the +right from the great loom chamber of the mill, and opening at the front +by a wide window upon the river that ran tumbling and flashing below, +spanned by the graceful little bridge that reached the green slope of +the field beyond--it was so cool and pleasant--so still with continuous +and softened sound--that Faith sat down upon the comfortable sofa there, +to rest, to think, to be alone, a little. + +She had Paul's letter in her pocket; she had his father's words fresh +upon ear and heart. A strange peace came over her, as she placed herself +here; as if, somehow, a way was soon to be opened and made clear to her. +As if she should come to know herself, and to be brave to act as God +should show her how. + +She heard, presently, Mr. Rushleigh's voice in the mill yard, and then +the staircase door closed and locked below. Thinking that he should be +here no more, to-night, he had shut and fastened it. + +It was no matter. She would go through the mill, by and by, and look at +the looms; and so out, and over the river, then, to Aunt Faith's. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +LOCKED IN. + +"How idle it is to call certain things godsends! as if there were +anything else in the world."--HARE. + + +It is accounted a part of the machinery of invention when, in a story, +several coincident circumstances, that apart, would have had no +noticeable result, bear down together, with a nice and sure calculation +upon some catastrophe or _denouement_ that develops itself therefrom. + +Last night, a man--an employee in Mr. Rushleigh's factory--had been kept +awake by one of his children, taken suddenly ill. A slight matter--but +it has to do with our story. + +Last night, also, Faith--Paul's second letter just received--had lain +sleepless for hours, fighting the old battle over, darkly, of doubt, +pity, half-love, and indecision. She had felt, or had thought she +felt--thus, or so--in the days that were past. Why could she not be sure +of her feeling now? + +The new wine in the old bottles--the new cloth in the old +garment--these, in Faith's life, were at variance. What satisfied once, +satisfied no longer. Was she to blame? What ought she to do? There was a +seething--a rending. Poor heart, that was likely to be burst and +torn--wonderingly, helplessly--in the half-comprehended struggle! + +So it happened, that, tired with all this, sore with its daily pressure +and recurrence, this moment of strange peace came over her, and soothed +her into rest. + +She laid herself back, there, on the broad, soft, old-fashioned sofa, +and with the river breeze upon her brow, and the song of its waters in +her ears, and the deadened hum of the factory rumbling on--she fell +asleep. + +How long it had been, she could not tell; she knew not whether it were +evening, or midnight, or near the morning; but she felt cold and +cramped; everything save the busy river was still, and the daylight was +all gone, and stars out bright in the deep, moonless sky, when she +awoke. + +Awoke, bewilderedly, and came slowly to the comprehension that she was +here alone. That it was night--that nobody could know it--that she was +locked up here, in the great dreary mill. + +She raised herself upon the sofa, and sat in a terrified amaze. She took +out her watch, and tried to see, by the starlight, the time. The slender +black hands upon its golden face were invisible. It ticked--it was +going. She knew, by that, it could not be far beyond midnight, at the +most. She was chilly, in her white dress, from the night air. She went +to the open window, and looked out from it, before she drew it down. +Away, over the fields, and up and down the river, all was dark, +solitary. + +Nobody knew it--she was here alone. + +She shut the window, softly, afraid of the sounds herself might make. +She opened the double doors from the countingroom, and stood on the +outer threshold, and looked into the mill. The heavy looms were still. +They stood like great, dead creatures, smitten in the midst of busy +motion. There was an awfulness in being here, the only breathing, moving +thing--in darkness--where so lately had been the deafening hum of +rolling wheels, and clanking shafts, and flying shuttles, and busy, +moving human figures. It was as if the world itself were stopped, and +she forgotten on its mighty, silent course. + +Should she find her way to the great bell, ring it, and make an alarm? +She thought of this; and then she reasoned with herself that she was +hardly so badly off, as to justify her, quite, in doing that. It would +rouse the village, it would bring Mr. Rushleigh down, perhaps--it would +cause a terrible alarm. And all that she might be spared a few hours +longer of loneliness and discomfort. She was safe. It would soon be +morning. + +The mill would be opened early. She would go back to the sofa, and try +to sleep again. Nobody could be anxious about her. The Rushleighs +supposed her to be at Cross Corners. Her aunt would think her detained +at Lakeside. It was really no great matter. She would be brave, and +quiet. + +So she shut the double doors again, and found a coat of Paul's, or Mr. +Rushleigh's, in the closet of the countingroom, and lay down upon the +sofa, covering herself with that. + +For an hour or more, her heart throbbed, her nerves were excited, she +could not sleep. But at last she grew calmer, her thought wandered from +her actual situation--became indistinct--and slumber held her again, +dreamily. + +There was another sleeper, also, in the mill whom Faith knew nothing of. + +Michael Garvin, the night watchman--the same whose child had been ill +the night before--when Faith came out into the loom chamber, had left it +but a few minutes, going his silent round within the building, and +recording his faithfulness by the half-hour pin upon the watch clock. +Six times he had done this, already. It was half past ten. + +He had gone up, now, by the stairs from the weaving room, into the third +story. These stairs ascended at the front, from within the chamber. + +Michael Garvin went on nearly to the end of the room above--stopped, and +looked out at a window. All still, all safe apparently. + +He was very tired. What harm in lying down somewhere in a corner, for +five minutes? He need not shut his eyes. He rolled his coat up for a +pillow, and threw it against the wall beneath the window. The next +instant he had stretched his stalwart limbs along the floor, and before +ten minutes of his seventh half hour were spent--long before Faith, who +thought herself all alone in the great building, had lost consciousness +of her strange position--he was fast asleep. + +Fast asleep, here, in the third story! + +So, since the days of the disciples, men have grown heavy and forgotten +their trust. So they have slumbered upon decks, at sea. So sentinels +have lain down at picket posts, though they knew the purchase of that +hour of rest might be the leaden death! + +Faith Gartney dreamed, uneasily. + +She thought herself wandering, at night, through the deserted streets of +a great city. She seemed to have come from somewhere afar off, and to +have no place to go to. + +Up and down, through avenues sometimes half familiar, sometimes wholly +unknown, she went wearily, without aim, or end, or hope. "Tired! tired! +tired!" she seemed to say to herself. "Nowhere to rest--nobody to take +care of me!" + +Then--city, streets, and houses disappeared; the scenery of her dream +rolled away, and opened out, and she was standing on a high, bare cliff, +away up in wintry air; threatening rocky avalanches overhanging +her--chill winds piercing her--and no pathway visible downward. Still +crying out in loneliness and fear. Still with none to comfort or to +help. + +Standing on the sheer edge of the precipice--behind her, suddenly, a +crater opened. A hissing breath came up, and the chill air quivered and +scorched about her. Her feet were upon a volcano! A lake of boiling, +molten stone heaved--huge, brazen, bubbling--spreading wider and wider, +like a great earth ulcer, eating in its own brink continually. Up in the +air over her, reared a vast, sulphurous canopy of smoke. The narrowing +ridge beneath her feet burned--trembled. She hovered between two +destructions. + +Instantly--in that throbbing, agonizing moment of her dream, just after +which one wakes--she felt a presence--she heard a call--she thought two +arms were stretched out toward her--there seemed a safety and a rest +near by; she was borne by an unseen impulse, along the dizzy ridge that +her feet scarce touched, toward it; she was taken--folded, held; smoke, +fire, the threatening danger of the cliff, were nothing, suddenly, any +more. Whether they menaced still, she thought not; a voice she knew and +trusted was in her ear; a grasp of loving strength sustained her; she +was utterly secure. + +So vividly she felt the presence--so warm and sure seemed that love and +strength about her--that waking out of such pause of peace, before her +senses recognized anything that was real without, she stretched her +hands, as if to find it at her side, and her lips breathed a name--the +name of Roger Armstrong. + +Then she started to her feet. The kind, protecting presence faded back +into her dream. + +The horrible smoke, the scorching smell, were true. + +A glare smote sky and trees and water, as she saw them from the window. + +There was fire near her! + +Could it be among the buildings of the mill? + +The long, main structure ran several feet beyond the square projection +within which she stood. Upon the other side, close to the front, quite +away, of course, from all observation hence, joined, at right angles, +another building, communicating and forming one with the first. Here +were the carding rooms. Then beyond, detached, were houses for storage +and other purposes connected with the business. + +Was it from one of these the glare and smoke and suffocating burning +smell were pouring? + +Or, lay the danger nearer--within these close, contiguous walls? + +Vainly she threw up the one window, and leaned forth. + +She could not tell. + + * * * * * + +At this moment, Roger Armstrong, also, woke from out a dream. + +In this strange, second life of ours, that replaces the life of day, do +we not meet interiorly? Do not thoughts and knowledges cross, from +spirit to spirit, over the abyss, that lip, and eye, and ear, in waking +moments, neither send nor receive? That even mind itself is scarcely +conscious of? Is not the great deep of being, wherein we rest, electric +with a sympathetic life--and do not warnings and promises and cheer +pulse in upon us, mysteriously, in these passive hours of the flesh, +when soul only is awake and keen? + +Do not two thoughts, two consciousnesses, call and answer to each other, +mutely, in twin dreams of night? + +Roger Armstrong came in, late, that evening, from a visit to a distant +sick parishioner. Then he sat, writing, for an hour or two longer. + +By and by, he threw down his pen--pushed back his armchair before his +window--stretched his feet, wearily, into the deep, old-fashioned window +seat--leaned his head back, and let the cool breeze stir his hair. + +So it soothed him into sleep. + +He dreamed of Faith. He dreamed he saw her stand, afar off, in some +solitary place, and beckon, as it were, visibly, from a wide, invisible +distance. He dreamed he struggled to obey her summons. He battled with +the strange inertia of sleep. He strove--he gasped--he broke the spell +and hastened on. He plunged--he climbed--he stood in a great din that +bewildered and threatened; there was a lurid light that glowed intense +about him as he went; in the midst of all--beyond--she beckoned still. + +"Faith! Faith! What danger is about you, child?" + +These words broke forth from him aloud, as he started to his feet, and +stretched his hands, impulsively, out before him, toward the open +window. + +His eyes flashed wide upon that crimson glare that flooded sky and field +and river. + +There was fire at the mills! + +Not a sound, yet, from the sleeping village. + + * * * * * + +The heavy, close-fitting double doors between the countingroom and the +great mill chamber were shut. Only by opening these and venturing forth, +could Faith gain certain knowledge of her situation. + +Once more she pulled them open and passed through. + +A blinding smoke rushed thick about her, and made her gasp for breath. +Up through the belt holes in the floor, toward the farther end of the +long room, sprang little tongues of flame that leaped higher and higher, +even while she strove for sight, that single, horrified, suffocating +instant, and gleamed, mockingly, upon the burnished shafts of silent +looms. + +In at the windows on the left, came the vengeful shine of those other +windows, at right angles, in the adjacent building. The carding rooms, +and the whole front of the mill, below, were all in flames! + +In frantic affright, in choking agony, Faith dashed herself back through +the heavy doors, that swung on springs, and closed tightly once more +after her. + +Here, at the open window, she took breath. Must she wait here, helpless, +for the fiery death? + +Down below her, the narrow brink--the rushing river. No foothold--no +chance for a descent. Behind her, only those two doors, barring out +flame and smoke! + +And the little footbridge, lying in the light across the water, and the +green fields stretching away, cool and safe beyond. A little +farther--her home! + +"Fire!" + +She cried the fearful word out upon the night, uselessly. There was no +one near. The village slumbered on, away there to the left. The strong, +deep shout of a man might reach it, but no tone of hers. There were no +completed or occupied dwelling houses, as yet, about the new mills. Mr. +Rushleigh was putting up some blocks; but, for the present, there was +nothing nearer than the village proper of Kinnicutt on the one hand, and +as far, or farther, on the other the houses at Lakeside. + +The flames themselves, alone, could signal her danger, and summon help. +How long would it be first? + +Thoughts of father, mother, and little brother--thoughts of the kind +friends at Lakeside, parted from but a few hours before--thoughts of the +young lover to whom the answer he waited for should be given, perhaps, +so awfully; through all, lighting, as it were, suddenly and searchingly, +the deep places of her own soul, the thought--the feeling, rather, of +that presence in her dream; of him who had led her, taught her, lifted +her so, to high things; brought her nearer, by his ministry, to God! Of +all human influence or love, his was nearest and strongest, spiritually, +to her, now! + +All at once, across these surging, crowding, agonizing feelings, rushed +an inspiration for the present moment. + +The water gate! The force pump! + +The apparatus for working these lay at this end of the building. She had +been shown the method of its operation; they had explained to her its +purpose. It was perfectly simple. Only the drawing of a rope over a +pulley--the turning of a faucet. She could do it, if she could only +reach the spot. + +Instantly and strangely, the cloud of terror seemed to roll away. Her +faculties cleared. Her mind was all alert and quickened. She thought of +things she had heard of years before, and long forgotten. That a wet +cloth about the face would defend from smoke. That down low, close to +the floor, was always a current of fresher air. + +She turned a faucet that supplied a basin in the countingroom, held her +handkerchief to it, and saturated it with water. Then she tied it across +her forehead, letting it hang before her face like a veil. She caught a +fold of it between her teeth. + +And so, opening the doors between whose cracks the pent-up smoke was +curling, she passed through, crouching down, and crawled along the end +of the chamber, toward the great rope in the opposite corner. + +The fire was creeping thitherward, also, to meet her. Along from the +front, down the chamber on the opposite side, the quick flames sprang +and flashed, momently higher, catching already, here and there, from +point to point, where an oiled belt or an unfinished web of cloth +attracted their hungry tongues. + +As yet, they were like separate skirmishers, sent out in advance; their +mighty force not yet gathered and rolled together in such terrible sheet +and volume as raged beneath. + +She reached the corner where hung the rope. + +Close by, was the faucet in the main pipe fed by the force pump. +Underneath it, lay a coil of hose, attached and ready. + +She turned the faucet, and laid hold of the long rope. A few pulls, and +she heard the dashing of the water far below. The wheel was turning. + +The pipes filled. She lifted the end of the coiled hose, and directed it +toward the forward part of the chamber, where flames were wreathing, +climbing, flashing. An impetuous column of water rushed, eager, hissing, +upon blazing wood and heated iron. + +Still keeping the hose in her grasp, she crawled back again, half +stifled, yet a new hope of life aroused within her, to the double doors. +Before these, with the little countingroom behind her, as her last +refuge, she took her stand. + +How long could she fight off death? Till help came? + +All this had been done and thought quickly. There had been less time +than she would have believed, since she first woke to the knowledge of +this, her horrible peril. + +The flames were already repulsed. The mill was being flooded. Down the +belt holes the water poured upon the fiercer blaze below, that swept +across the forward and central part of the great spinning room, from +side to side. + +At this moment, a cry, close at hand. + +"Fire!" + +A man was swaying by a rope, down from a third-story window. + +"Fire!" came again, instantly, from without, upon another side. + +It was a voice hoarse, excited, strained. A tone Faith had never heard +before; yet she knew, by a mysterious intuition, from whom it came. She +dropped the hose, still pouring out its torrent, to the floor, and +sprang back, through the doors, to the countingroom window. The voice +came from the riverside. + +A man was dashing down the green slope, upon the footbridge. + +Faith stretched her arms out, as a child might, wakened in pain and +terror. A cry, in which were uttered the fear, the horror, that were now +first fully felt, as a possible safety appeared, and the joy, that +itself came like a sudden pang, escaped her, piercingly, thrillingly. + +Roger Armstrong looked upward as he sprang upon the bridge. + +He caught the cry. He saw Faith stand there, in her white dress, that +had been wet and blackened in her battling with the fire. + +A great soul glance of courage and resolve flashed from his eyes. He +reached his uplifted arms toward her, answering hers. He uttered not a +word. + +"Round! round!" cried Faith. "The door upon the other side!" + +Roger Armstrong, leaping to the spot, and Michael Garvin, escaped by the +long rope that hung vibrating from his grasp, down the brick wall of the +building, met at the staircase door. + +"Help me drive that in!" cried the minister. + +And the two men threw their stalwart shoulders against the barrier, +forcing lock and hinges. + +Up the stairs rushed Roger Armstrong. + +Answering the crash of the falling door, came another and more fearful +crash within. + +Gnawed by the fire, the timbers and supports beneath the forward portion +of the second floor had given way, and the heavy looms that stood there +had gone plunging down. A horrible volume of smoke and steam poured +upward, with the flames, from out the chasm, and rushed, resistlessly, +everywhere. + +Roger Armstrong dashed into the little countingroom. Faith lay there, on +the floor. At that fearful crash, that rush of suffocating smoke, she +had fallen, senseless. He seized her, frantically, in his arms to bear +her down. + +"Faith! Faith!" he cried, when she neither spoke nor moved. "My darling! +Are you hurt? Are you killed? Oh, my God! must there be another?" + +Faith did not hear these words, uttered with all the passionate agony of +a man who would hold the woman he loves to his heart, and defy for her +even death. + +She came to herself in the open air. She felt herself in his arms. She +only heard him say, tenderly and anxiously, in something of his old +tone, as her consciousness returned, and he saw it: + +"My dear child!" + +But she knew then all that had been a mystery to her in herself before. + +She knew that she loved Roger Armstrong. That it was not a love of +gratitude and reverence, only; but that her very soul was rendered up to +him, involuntarily, as a woman renders herself but once. That she would +rather have died there, in that flame and smoke, held in his +arms--gathered to his heart--than have lived whatever life of ease and +pleasantness--aye, even of use--with any other! She knew that her +thought, in those terrible moments before he came, had been--not +father's or mother's, only; not her young lover, Paul's; but, deepest +and mostly, his! + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +HOME. + +"The joy that knows there _is_ a joy-- + That scents its breath, and cries, 'tis there! +And, patient in its pure repose, + Receiveth so the holier share." + + +Faith's thought and courage saved the mill from utter destruction. + +For one fearful moment, when that forward portion of the loom floor fell +through, and flame, and vapor, and smoke rioted together in a wild +alliance of fury, all seemed lost. But the great water wheel was plying +on; the river fought the fire; the rushing, exhaustless streams were +pouring out and down, everywhere; and the crowd that in a few moments +after the first alarm, and Faith's rescue, gathered at the spot, found +its work half done. + +A little later, there were only sullen smoke, defeated, smoldering +fires, blackened timbers, the burned carding rooms, and the ruin at the +front, to tell the awful story of the night. + +Mr. Armstrong had carried Faith into one of the unfinished factory +houses. Here he was obliged to leave her for a few moments, after making +such a rude couch for her as was possible, with a pile of clean +shavings, and his own coat, which he insisted, against all her +remonstrances, upon spreading above them. + +"The first horse and vehicle which comes, Miss Faith, I shall impress +for your service," he said; "and to do that I must leave you. I have +made that frightened watchman promise to say nothing, at present, of +your being here; so I trust the crowd may not annoy you. I shall not be +gone long, nor far away." + +The first horse and vehicle which came was the one that had brought her +there in the afternoon but just past, yet that seemed, strangely, to +have been so long ago. + +Mr. Rushleigh found her lying here, quiet, amidst the growing +tumult--exhausted, patient, waiting. + +"My little Faithie!" he cried, coming up to her with hands outstretched, +and a quiver of strong feeling in his voice. "To think that you should +have been in this horrible danger, and we all lying in our beds, asleep! +I do not quite understand it all. You must tell me, by and by. Armstrong +has told me what you have _done_. You have saved me half my property +here--do you know it, child? Can I ever thank you for your courage?" + +"Oh, Mr. Rushleigh!" cried Faith, rising as he came to her, and holding +her hands to his, "don't thank me! and don't wait here! They'll want +you--and, oh! my kind friend! there will be nothing to thank me for, +when I have told you what I must. I have been very near to death, and I +have seen life so clearly! I know now what I did not know +yesterday--what I could not answer you then!" + +"Let it be as it may, I am sure it will be right and true, and I shall +honor you, Faith! And we must bear what is, for it has come of the will +of God, and not by any fault of yours. Now, let me take you home." + +"May I do that in your stead, Mr. Rushleigh?" asked Roger Armstrong, who +entered at this moment, with garments he had brought from somewhere to +wrap Faith. + +"I must go home," said Faith. "To Aunt Henderson's." + +"You shall do as you like," answered Mr. Rushleigh. "But it belongs to +us to care for you, I think." + +"You do--you have cared for me already," said Faith, earnestly. + +And Mr. Rushleigh helped to wrap her up, and kissed her forehead +tenderly, and Roger Armstrong lifted her into the chaise, and seated +himself by her, and drove her away from out the smoke and noise and +curious crowd that had begun to find out she was there, and that she had +been shut up in the mill, and had saved herself and stopped the fire; +and would have made her as uncomfortable as crowds always do heroes or +heroines--had it not been for the friend beside her, whose foresight and +precaution had warded it all off. + +And the mill owner went back among the villagers and firemen, to direct +their efforts for his property. + +Glory McWhirk had been up and watching the great fire, since Roger +Armstrong first went out. + +She had seen it from the window of Miss Henderson's room, where she was +to sleep to-night; and had first carefully lowered the blinds lest the +light should waken her mistress, who, after suffering much pain, had at +length, by the help of an anodyne, fallen asleep; and then she had come +round softly to the southwest room, to call the minister. + +The door stood open, and she saw him sitting in his chair, asleep. Just +as she crossed the threshold to come toward him, he started, and spoke +those words out of his restless dream: + +"Faith! Faith! What danger is about you, child?" + +They were instinct with his love. They were eager with his visionary +fear. It only needed a human heart to interpret them. + +Glory drew back as he sprang to his feet, and noiselessly disappeared. +She would not have him know that she had heard this cry with which he +waked. + +"He dreamed about her! and he called her Faith. How beautiful it is to +be cared for so!" + +Glory--while we have so long been following Faith--had no less been +living on her own, peculiar, inward life, that reached to, that +apprehended, that seized ideally--that was denied, so much! + +As Glory had seen, in the old years, children happier than herself, +wearing beautiful garments, and "hair that was let to grow," she saw +those about her now whom life infolded with a grace and loveliness she +might not look for; about whom fair affections, "let to grow," clustered +radiant, and enshrined them in their light. + +She saw always something that was beyond; something she might not +attain; yet, expectant of nothing, but blindly true to the highest +within her, she lost no glimpse of the greater, through lowering herself +to the less. + +Her soul of womanhood asserted itself; longing, ignorantly, for a soul +love. "To be cared for, so!" + +But she would rather recognize it afar--rather have her joy in knowing +the joy that might be--than shut herself from knowledge in the content +of a common, sordid lot. + +She did not think this deliberately, however; it was not reason, but +instinct. She renounced unconsciously. She bore denial, and never knew +she was denied. + +Of course, the thought of daring to covet what she saw, had never +crossed her, in her humbleness. It was quite away from her. It was +something with which she had nothing to do. "But it must be beautiful to +be like Miss Faith." And she thanked God, mutely, that she had this +beautiful life near her, and could look on it every day. + +She could not marry Luther Goodell. + + "A vague unrest + And a nameless longing filled her breast"; + +But, unlike the maiden of the ballad, she could not smother it down, to +break forth, by and by, defying the "burden of life," in sweet bright +vision, grown to a keen torture then. + +Faith had read to her this story of Maud, one day. + +"I shouldn't have done so," she had said, when it was ended. "I'd rather +have kept that one minute under the apple trees to live on all the rest +of my days!" + +She could not marry Luther Goodell. + +Would it have been better that she should? That she should have gone +down from her dreams into a plain man's life, and made a plain man +happy? Some women, of far higher mental culture and social place, have +done this, and, seemingly, done well. Only God and their own hearts know +if the seeming be true. + +Glory waited. "Everybody needn't marry," she said. + +This night, with those words of Mr. Armstrong's in her ears, revealing +to her so much, she stood before that window of his and watched the +fire. + +Doors were open behind her, leading through to Miss Henderson's chamber. +She would hear her mistress if she stirred. + +If she had known what she did not know--that Faith Gartney stood at this +moment in that burning mill, looking forth despairingly on those bright +waters and green fields that lay between it and this home of hers--that +were so near her, she might discern each shining pebble and the separate +grass blades in the scarlet light, yet so infinitely far, so gone from +her forever--had she known all this, without knowing the help and hope +that were coming--she would yet have said "How beautiful it would be to +be like Miss Faith!" + +She watched the fire till it began to deaden, and the glow paled out +into the starlight. + +By and by, up from the direction of the river road, she saw a chaise +approaching. It was stopped at the corner, by the bar place. Two figures +descended from it, and entered upon the field path through the stile. + +One--yes--it was surely the minister! The other--a woman. Who? + +Miss Faith! + +Glory met them upon the doorstone. + +Faith held her finger up. + +"I was afraid of disturbing my aunt," said she. + +"Take care of her, Glory," said her companion. "She has been in +frightful danger." + +"At the fire! And you----" + +"I was there in time, thank God!" spoke Roger Armstrong, from his soul. + +The two girls passed through to the blue bedroom, softly. + +Mr. Armstrong went back to the mills again, with horse and chaise. + +Glory shut the bedroom door. + +"Why, you are all wet, and draggled, and smoked!" said she, taking off +Faith's outer, borrowed garments. "What _has_ happened to you--and how +came you there, Miss Faith?" + +"I fell asleep in the countingroom, last evening, and got locked in. I +was coming home. I can't tell you now, Glory. I don't dare to think it +all over, yet. And we mustn't let Aunt Faith know that I am here." + +These sentences they spoke in whispers. + +Glory asked no more; but brought warm water, and bathed and rubbed +Faith's feet, and helped her to undress, and put her night clothes on, +and covered her in bed with blankets, and then went away softly to the +kitchen, whence she brought back, presently, a cup of hot tea, and a +biscuit. + +"Take these, please," she said. + +"I don't think I can, Glory. I don't want anything." + +"But he told me to take care of you, Miss Faith!" + +That, also, had a power with Faith. Because he had said that, she drank +the tea, and then lay back--so tired! + + * * * * * + +"I waited up till you came, sir, because I thought you would like to +know," said Glory, meeting Mr. Armstrong once more upon the doorstone, +as he returned a second time from the fire. "She's gone to sleep, and is +resting beautiful!" + +"You are a good girl, Glory, and I thank you," said the minister; and he +put his hand forth, and grasped hers as he spoke. "Now go to bed, and +rest, yourself." + +It was reward enough. + +From the plenitude that waits on one life, falls a crumb that stays the +craving of another. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +AUNT HENDERSON'S MYSTERY. + +"Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west, +And I said in underbreath,--All our life is mixed with death, + And who knoweth which is best? + +"Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west, +And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around our incompleteness,-- + Round our restlessness, His rest." + MRS. BROWNING. + +"So the dreams depart, + So the fading phantoms flee, + And the sharp reality +Now must act its part." + WESTWOOD. + + +It was a little after noon of the next day, when Mr. Rushleigh came to +Cross Corners. + +Faith was lying back, quite pale, and silent--feeling very weak after +the terror, excitement, and fatigue she had gone through--in the large +easy-chair which had been brought for her into the southeast room. Miss +Henderson had been removed from her bed to the sofa here, and the two +were keeping each other quiet company. Neither could bear the strain of +nerve to dwell long or particularly on the events of the night. The +story had been told, as simply as it might be; and the rest and the +thankfulness were all they could think of now. So there were deep +thoughts and few words between them. On Faith's part, a patient waiting +for a trial yet before her. + +"It's Mr. Rushleigh, come over to see Miss Faith. Shall I bring him in?" +asked Glory, at the door. + +"Will you mind it, aunt?" asked Faith. + +"I? No," said Miss Henderson. "Will you mind my being here? That's the +question. I'd take myself off, without asking, if I could, you know." + +"Dear Aunt Faith! There is something I have to say to Mr. Rushleigh +which will be very hard to say, but no more so because you will be by to +hear it. It is better so. I shall only have to say it once. I am glad +you should be with me." + +"Brave little Faithie!" said Mr. Rushleigh, coming in with hands +outstretched. "Not ill, I hope?" + +"Only tired," Faith answered. "And a little weak, and foolish," as the +tears would come, in answer to his cordial words. + +"I am sorry. Miss Henderson, that I could not have persuaded this little +girl to go home with me last night--this morning, rather. But she would +come to you." + +"She did just right," Aunt Faith replied. "It's the proper place for her +to come to. Not but that we thank you all the same. You're very kind." + +"Kinder than I have deserved," whispered Faith, as he took his seat +beside her. + +Mr. Rushleigh would not let her lead him that way yet. He ignored the +little whisper, and by a gentle question or two drew from her that which +he had come, especially, to learn and speak of to-day--the story of the +fire, and her own knowledge of, and share in it, as she alone could tell +it. + +Now, for the first time, as she recalled it to explain her motive for +entering the mill at all, the rough conversation she had overheard +between the two men upon the river bank, suggested to Faith, as the +mention of it was upon her lips, a possible clew to the origin of the +mischief. She paused, suddenly, and a look of dismayed hesitation came +over her face. + +"I ought to tell you all, I suppose," she continued. "But pray, sir, do +not conclude anything hastily. The two things may have had nothing to do +with each other." + +And then, reluctantly, she repeated the angry threat that had come to +her ears. + +Pausing, timidly, to look up in her listener's face, to judge of its +expression, a smile there surprised her. + +"See how truth is always best," said Mr. Rushleigh. "If you had kept +back your knowledge of this, you would have sealed up a painful doubt +for your own tormenting. That man, James Regan, came to me this morning. +There is good in the fellow, after all. He told me, just as you have, +and as Hardy did, the words he spoke in passion. He was afraid, he said, +they might be brought up against him. And so he came to 'own up,' and +account for his time; and to beg me to believe that he never had any +definite thought of harm. I told him I did believe it; and then the poor +fellow, rough as he is, turned pale, and burst into tears. Last night +gave him a lesson, I think, that will go far to take the hardness out of +him. Blasland says, 'he worked like five men and a horse,' at the fire." + +Faith's face glowed as she listened, at the nobleness of these two; of +the generous, Christian gentleman--of the coarse workman, who wore his +nature, like his garb--the worse part of an everyday. + +Fire and loss are not all calamity, when such as this comes of them. + +Her own recital was soon finished. + +Mr. Rushleigh listened, giving his whole sympathy to the danger she had +faced, his fresh and fervent acknowledgment and admiring praise to the +prompt daring she had shown, as if these things, and naught else, had +been in either mind. + +At these thanks--at this praise--Faith shrank. + +"Oh, Mr. Rushleigh!" she interrupted, with a low, pained, humbled +entreaty--"don't speak so! Only forgive me--if you can!" + +Her hands lifted themselves with a slight, imploring gesture toward him. +He laid his own upon them, gently, soothingly. + +"I will not have you trouble or reproach yourself, Faith," he answered, +meeting her meaning, frankly, now. "There are things beyond our control. +All we can do is to be simply true. There is something, I know, which +you think lies between us to be spoken of. Do not speak at all, if it be +hard for you. I will tell the boy that it was a mistake--that it cannot +be." + +But the father's lip was a little unsteady, to his own feeling, as he +said the words. + +"Oh, Mr. Rushleigh!" cried Faith. "If everything could only be put back +as it was, in the old days before all this!" + +"But that is what we can't do. Nothing goes back precisely to what it +was before." + +"No," said Aunt Faith, from her sofa. "And never did, since the days of +Humpty Dumpty. You might be glad to, but you can't do it. Things must +just be made the best of, as they are. And they're never just alike, two +minutes together. They're altering, and working, and going on, all the +time. And that's a comfort, too, when you come to think of it." + +"There is always comfort, somehow, when there has been no willful wrong. +And there has been none here, I am sure." + +Faith, with the half smile yet upon her face, called there by her aunt's +quaint speaking, bent her head, and burst into tears. + +"I came to reassure and to thank you, Faith--not to let you distress +yourself so," said Mr. Rushleigh. "Margaret sent all kind messages; but +I would not bring her. I thought it would be too much for you, so soon. +Another day, she will come. We shall always claim old friendship, my +child, and remember our new debt; though the old days themselves cannot +quite be brought back again as they were. There may be better days, +though, even, by and by." + +"Let Margaret know, before she comes, please," whispered Faith. "I don't +think I could tell her." + +"You shall not have a moment of trial that I can spare you. But--Paul +will be content with nothing, as a final word, that does not come from +you." + +"I will see him when he comes. I wish it. Oh, sir! I am so sorry." + +"And so am I, Faith. We must all be sorry. But we are _only_ sorry. And +that is all that need be said." + +The conversation, after this, could not be prolonged. Mr. Rushleigh took +his leave, kindly, as he had made his greeting. + +"Oh, Aunt Faith! What a terrible thing I have done!" + +"What a terrible thing you came near doing, you mean, child! Be thankful +to the Lord--He's delivered you from it! And look well to the rest of +your life, after all this. Out of fire and misery you must have been +saved for something!" + +Then Aunt Faith called Glory, and told her to bring an egg, beat up in +milk--"to a good froth, mind; and sugared and nut-megged, and a +teaspoonful of brandy in it." + +This she made Faith swallow, and then bade her put her feet up on the +sofa, and lean back, and shut her eyes, and not speak another word till +she'd had a nap. + +All which, strangely enough, Faith--wearied, troubled, yet +relieved--obeyed. + +For the next two days, what with waiting on the invalids--for Faith was +far from well--and with answering the incessant calls at the door of +curious people flocking to inquire, Glory McWhirk was kept busy and +tired. But not with a thankless duty, as in the days gone by, that she +remembered; it was heart work now, and brought heart love as its reward. +It was one of her "real good times." + +Mr. Armstrong talked and read with them, and gave hand help and ministry +also, just when it could be given most effectually. + +It was a beautiful lull of peace between the conflict that was past, and +the final pang that was to come. Faith accepted it with a thankfulness. +Such joy as this was all life had for her, henceforth. There was no +restlessness, no selfishness in the love that had so suddenly asserted +itself, and borne down all her doubts. She thought not of it, as love, +any more. She never dreamed of being other to Mr. Armstrong than she +was. Only, that other life had become impossible to her. Here, if she +might not elsewhere, she had gone back to the things that were. She +could be quite content and happy, so. It was enough to rest in such a +friendship. If only she had once seen Paul, and if he could but bear it! + +And Roger Armstrong, of intent, was just what he had always been--the +kind and earnest friend--the ready helper--no more. He knew Faith +Gartney had a trouble to bear; he had read her perplexity--her +indecision; he had feared, unselfishly, for the mistake she was making. +Miss Henderson had told him, now, in few, plain words, how things were +ending; he strove, in all pleasant and thoughtful ways, to soothe and +beguile her from her harassment. He dreamed not how the light had come +to her that had revealed to her the insufficiency of that other love. He +laid his own love back, from his own sight. + +So, calmly, and with what peace they might, these hours went on. + +"I want to see that Sampson woman," said Aunt Faith, suddenly, to her +niece, on the third afternoon of their being together. "Do you think she +would come over here if I should send for her?" + +Faith flashed a surprised look of inquiry to Miss Henderson's face. + +"Why, aunt?" she asked. + +"Never mind why, child. I can't tell you now. Of course it's something, +or I shouldn't want her. Something I should like to know, and that I +suppose she could tell me. Do you think she'd come?" + +"Why, yes, auntie. I don't doubt it. I might write her a note." + +"I wish you would. Mr. Armstrong says he'll drive over. And I'd like to +have you do it right off. Now, don't ask me another word about it, till +she's been here." + +Faith wrote the note, and Mr. Armstrong went away. + +Miss Henderson seemed to grow tired, to-day, after her dinner, and at +four o'clock she said to Glory, abruptly: + +"I'll go to bed. Help me into the other room." + +Faith offered to go too, and assist her. But her aunt said, no, she +should do quite well with Glory. "And if the Sampson woman comes, send +her in to me." + +Faith was astonished, and a little frightened. + +What could it be that Miss Henderson wanted with the nurse? Was it +professionally that she wished to see her? She knew the peculiar whim, +or principle, Miss Sampson always acted on, of never taking cases of +common illness. She could not have sent for her in the hope of keeping +her merely to wait upon her wants as an invalid, and relieve Glory? Was +her aunt aware of symptoms in herself, foretokening other or more +serious illness? + +Faith could only wonder, and wait. + +Glory came back, presently, into the southeast room, to say to Faith +that her aunt was comfortable, and thought she should get a nap. But +that whenever the nurse came, she was to be shown in to her. + +The next half hour, that happened which drove even this thought utterly +from Faith's mind. + +Paul Rushleigh came. + +Faith lay, a little wearily, upon the couch her aunt had quitted; and +was thinking, at the very moment--with that sudden, breathless +anticipation that sweeps over one, now and then, of a thing awaited +apprehensively--of whether this Saturday night would not probably bring +him home--when she caught the sound of a horse's feet that stopped +before the house, and then a man's step upon the stoop. + +It was his. The moment had come. + +She sprang to her feet. For an instant she would have fled--anywhither. +Then she grew strangely calm and strong. She must meet him quietly. She +must tell him plainly. Tell him, if need be, all she knew herself. He +had a right to all. + +Paul came in, looking grave; and greeted her with a gentle reserve. + +A moment, they stood there as they had met, she with face pale, sad, +that dared not lift itself; he, not trusting himself to the utterance of +a word. + +But he had come there, not to reproach, or to bewail; not even to plead. +To hear--to bear with firmness--what she had to tell him. And there was, +in truth, a new strength and nobleness in look and tone, when, +presently, he spoke. + +If he had had his way--if all had gone prosperously with him--he would +have been, still--recipient of his father's bounty, and accepted of his +childish love--scarcely more than a mere, happy boy. This pain, this +struggle, this first rebuff of life, crowned him, a man. + +Faith might have loved him, now, if she had so seen him, first. + +Yet the hour would come when he should know that it had been better as +it was. That so he should grow to that which, otherwise, he had never +been. + +"Faith! My father has told me. That it must be all over. That it was a +mistake. I have come to hear it from you." + +Then he laid in her hand his father's letter. + +"This came with yours," he said. "After this, I expected all the rest." + +Faith took the open sheet, mechanically. With half-blinded eyes, she +glanced over the few earnest, fatherly, generous lines. When she came to +the last, she spoke, low. + +"Yes. That is it. He saw it. It would have been no true marriage, Paul, +before Heaven!" + +"Then why did I love you, Faith?" cried the young man, impetuously. + +"I don't know," she said, meditatively, as if she really were to answer +that. "Perhaps you will come to love again, differently, yet, Paul; and +then you may know why this has been." + +"I know," said Paul, sadly, "that you have been outgrowing me, Faith. I +have felt that. I know I've been nothing but a careless, merry fellow, +living an outside sort of life; and I suppose it was only in this +outside companionship you liked me. But there might be something more in +me, yet; and you might have brought it out, maybe. You _were_ bringing +it out. You, and the responsibilities my father put upon me. But it's +too late, now. It can't be helped." + +"Not too late, Paul, for that noble part of you to grow. It was that I +came so near really loving at the last. But--Paul! a woman don't want to +lead her husband. She wants to be led. I have thought," she added, +timidly, "so much of that verse in the Epistle--'the head of the woman +is the man, and the head of the man is Christ, and the head of Christ is +God.'" + +"You came _near_ loving me!" cried Paul, catching at this sentence, +only, out of all that should, by and by, nevertheless, come out in +letters of light upon his thought and memory. "Oh, Faith! you may, yet! +It isn't all quite over?" + +Then Faith Gartney knew she must say it all. All--though the hot crimson +flushed up painfully, and the breath came quick, and she trembled from +head to foot, there, where she stood. But the truth, mighty, and holy in +its might, came up from heart to lip, and the crimson paled, and the +breath grew calm, and she stood firm with her pure resolve, even in her +maidenly shame, before him. + +There are instants, when all thought of the moment itself, and the look +and the word of it, are overborne and lost. + +"No, Paul. I will tell you truly. With my little, childish heart, I +loved you. With the love of a dear friend, I hold you still, and shall +hold you, always. But, Paul!--no one else knows it, and I never knew it +till I stood face to face with death--with my _soul_ I have come to love +another!" + +Deep and low these last words were--given up from the very innermost, +and spoken with bowed head and streaming eyes. + +Paul Rushleigh took her hand. A manly reverence in him recognized the +pure courage that unveiled her woman's heart, and showed him all. + +"Faith!" he said, "you have never deceived me. You are always noble. +Forgive me that I have made you struggle to love me!" + +With these words, he went. + +Faith flung herself upon the sofa, and hid her face in its cushion, +hearing, through her sobs, the tread of his horse as he passed down the +road. + +This chapter of her life story was closed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + +NURSE SAMPSON'S WAY OF LOOKING AT IT. + +"I can believe, it shall you grieve, + And somewhat you distrain; +But afterward, your paines hard, + Within a day or twain, +Shall soon aslake; and ye shall take + Comfort to you again." + OLD ENGLISH BALLAD. + + +Glory looked in, once, at the southeast room, and saw Faith lying, still +with hidden face; and went away softly, shutting the door behind her as +she went. + +When Mr. Armstrong and Miss Sampson came, she met them at the front +entrance, and led the nurse directly to her mistress, as she had been +told. + +Mr. Armstrong betook himself to his own room. Perhaps the hollow Paul +Rushleigh's horse had pawed at the gatepost, and the closed door of the +keeping room, revealed something to his discernment that kept him from +seeking Faith just then. + +There was a half hour of quiet in the old house. A quiet that ever +brooded very much. + +Then Nurse Sampson came out, with a look on her face that made Faith +gaze upon her with an awed feeling of expectation. She feared, suddenly, +to ask a question. + +It was not a long-drawn look of sympathy. It was not surprised, nor +shocked, nor excited. It was a look of business. As if she knew of work +before her to do. As if Nurse Sampson were in her own proper element, +once more. + +Faith knew that something--she could not guess what--something terrible, +she feared--had happened, or was going to happen, to her aunt. + +It was in the softening twilight that Miss Henderson sent for her to +come in. + +Aunt Faith leaned against her pillows, looking bright and comfortable, +even cheerful; but there was a strange gentleness in look and word and +touch, as she greeted the young girl who came to her bedside with a face +that wore at once its own subduedness of fresh-past grief, and a +wondering, loving apprehension of something to be disclosed concerning +the kind friend who lay there, invested so with such new grace of +tenderness. + +Was there a twilight, other than that of day, softening, also, around +her? + +"Little Faith!" said Aunt Henderson. Her very voice had taken an +unwonted tone. + +"Auntie! It is surely something very grave! Will you not tell me?" + +"Yes, child. I mean to tell you. It may be grave. Most things are, if we +had the wisdom to see it. But it isn't very dreadful. It's what I've had +warning enough of, and had mostly made up my mind to. But I wasn't quite +sure. Now, I am. I suppose I've got to bear some pain, and go through a +risk that will be greater, at my years, than it would have been if I'd +been younger. And I may die. That's all." + +The words, of old habit, were abrupt. The eye and voice were tender with +unspoken love. + +Faith turned to Miss Sampson, who sat by. + +"And then, again, she mayn't," said the nurse. "I shall stay and see her +through. There'll have to be an operation. At least, I think so. We'll +have the doctor over, to-morrow. And now, if there's one thing more +important than another, it's to keep her cheerful. So, if you've got +anything bright and lively to say, speak out! If not, _keep_ out! She'll +do well enough, I dare say." + +Poor Faith! And, without this new trouble, there was so much that she, +herself, was needing comfort for! + +"You're a wise woman, Nurse Sampson. But you don't know everything," +said Aunt Faith. "The best thing to take people out of their own +worries, is to go to work and find out how other folks' worries are +getting on. He's been here, hasn't he, child?" + +It was not so hard for Aunt Faith, who had borne secretly, so long, the +suspicion of what was coming, and had lived on, calmly, nevertheless, in +her daily round, to turn thus from the announcement of her own state and +possible danger, to thought and inquiry for the affairs of another, as +it was for that other, newly apprised, and but half apprised, even, of +what threatened, to leave the subject there, and answer. But she saw +that Miss Henderson spoke only truth in declaring it was the best way to +take her out of her worries; she read Nurse Sampson's look, and saw that +she, at any rate, was quite resolved her patient should not be let to +dwell longer on any painful or apprehensive thought, and she put off all +her own anxious questionings, till she should see the nurse alone, and +said, in a low tone--yes, Paul Rushleigh had been there. + +"And you've told him the truth, like a woman, and he's heard it like a +man?" + +"I've told him it must be given up. Oh, it was hard, auntie!" + +"You needn't worry. You've done just the rightest thing you could do." + +"But it seems so selfish. As if my happiness were of so much more +consequence than his. I've made him so miserable, I'm afraid!" + +"Miss Sampson!" cried Aunt Faith, with all her old oddity and +suddenness, "just tell this girl, if you know, what kind of a +commandment a woman breaks, if she can't make up her mind to marry the +first man that asks her! 'Tain't in _my_ Decalogue!" + +"I can't tell what commandment she won't be likely to break, if she +isn't pretty sure of her own mind before she _does_ marry!" said Miss +Sampson, energetically. "Talk of making a man miserable! Supposing you +do for a little while? 'Twon't last long. Right's right, and settles +itself. Wrong never does. And there isn't a greater wrong than to marry +the wrong man. To him as well as to you. And it won't end there--that's +the worst of it. There's more concerned than just yourself and him; +though you mayn't know how, or who. It's an awful thing to tangle up and +disarrange the plans of Providence. And more of it's done, I verily +believe, in this matter of marrying, than any other way. It's like +mismatching anything else--gloves or stockings--and wearing the wrong +ones together. They don't fit; and more'n that, it spoils another pair. +I believe, as true as I live, if the angels ever do cry over this +miserable world, it's when they see the souls they have paired off, all +right, out of heaven, getting mixed up and mismated as they do down +here! Why, it's fairly enough to account for all the sin and misery +there is in the world! If it wasn't for Adam and Eve and Cain, I should +think it did!" + +"But it's very hard," said Faith, smiling, despite all her saddening +thoughts, at the characteristic harangue, "always to know wrong from +right. People may make mistakes, if they mean ever so well." + +"Yes, awful mistakes! There's that poor, unfortunate woman in the Bible. +I never thought the Lord meant any reflection by what he said--on her. +She'd had six husbands. And he knew she hadn't got what she bargained +for, after all. Most likely she never had, in the whole six. And if +things had got into such a snarl as that eighteen hundred years ago, how +many people, do you think, by this time, are right enough in themselves +to be right for anybody? I've thought it all over, many a time. I've had +reasons of my own, and I've seen plenty of reasons as I've gone about +the world. And my conclusion is, that matrimony's come to be more of a +discipline, nowadays, than anything else!" + +It was strange cheer; and it came at a strange moment; with the very +birth of a new anxiety. But so our moments and their influences are +mingled. Faith was roused, strengthened, confirmed in her own thought of +right, beguiled out of herself, by the words of these two odd, +plain-dealing women, as she would not have been if a score of +half-comprehending friends had soothed her indirectly with inanities, +and delicate half-handling of that which Aunt Faith and Nurse Sampson +went straight to the heart of, and brought out, uncompromisingly, into +the light. So much we can endure from a true earnestness and simplicity, +rough and homely though it be, which would be impertinent and +intolerable if it came but with surface sympathy. + +She had a word that night from Robert Armstrong, when he came, late in +the evening, from a conversation with Aunt Faith, and found her at the +open door upon the stoop. It was only a hand grasp, and a fervent "God +bless you, child! You have been brave and true!" and he passed on. But a +balm and a quiet fell deep into her heart, and a tone, that was a joy, +lingered in her ear, and comforted her as no other earthly comfort +could. But this was not all earthly; it lifted her toward heaven. It +bore her toward the eternal solace there. + +Aunt Faith would have no scenes. She told the others, in turn, very much +as she had told Faith, that a suffering and an uncertainty lay before +her; and then, by her next word and gesture, demanded that the life +about her should go right on, taking as slightly as might be its +coloring from this that brooded over her. Nobody had a chance to make a +wail. There was something for each to do. + +Miss Henderson, by Nurse Sampson's advice, remained mostly in her bed. +In fact, she had kept back the announcement of this ailment of hers, +just so long as she could resist its obvious encroachment. The twisted +ankle had been, for long, a convenient explanation of more than its own +actual disability. + +But it was not a sick room--one felt that--this little limited bound in +which her life was now visibly encircled. All the cheer of the house was +brought into it. If people were sorry and fearful, it was elsewhere. +Neither Aunt Faith nor the nurse would let anybody into "their +hospital," as Miss Sampson said, "unless they came with a bright look +for a pass." Every evening, the great Bible was opened there, and Mr. +Armstrong read with them, and uttered for them words that lifted each +heart, with its secret need and thankfulness, to heaven. All together, +trustfully, and tranquilly, they waited. + +Dr. Wasgatt had been called in. Quite surprised he was, at this new +development. He "had thought there was something a little peculiar in +her symptoms." But he was one of those AEsculapian worthies who, having +lived a scientifically uneventful life, plodding quietly along in his +profession among people who had mostly been ill after very ordinary +fashions, and who required only the administering of stereotyped +remedies, according to the old stereotyped order and rule, had quite +forgotten to think of the possibility of any unusual complications. If +anybody were taken ill of a colic, and sent for him and told him so, for +a colic he prescribed, according to outward indications. The subtle +signs that to a keener or more practiced discernment, might have +betokened more, he never thought of looking for. What then? All cannot +be geniuses; most men just learn a trade. It is only a Columbus who, by +the drift along the shore of the fact or continent he stands on, +predicates another, far over, out of sight. + +Surgeons were to come out from Mishaumok to consult. Mr. and Mrs. +Gartney would be home, now, in a day or two, and Aunt Faith preferred to +wait till then. Mis' Battis opened the Cross Corners house, and Faith +went over, daily, to direct the ordering of things there. + +"Faith!" said Miss Henderson, on the Wednesday evening when they were to +look confidently for the return of their travelers next day, "come here, +child! I have something to say to you." + +Faith was sitting alone, there, with her aunt, in the twilight. + +"There's one thing on my mind, that I ought to speak of, as things have +turned out. When I thought, a few weeks ago, that you were provided for, +as far as outside havings go, I made a will, one day. Look in that +right-hand upper bureau drawer, and you'll find a key, with a brown +ribbon to it. That'll unlock a black box on the middle shelf of the +closet. Open it, and take out the paper that lies on the top, and bring +it to me." + +Faith did all this, silently. + +"Yes, this is it," said Miss Henderson, putting on her glasses, which +were lying on the counterpane, and unfolding the single sheet, written +out in her own round, upright, old-fashioned hand. "It's an old woman's +whim; but if you don't like it, it shan't stand. Nobody knows of it, and +nobody'll be disappointed. I had a longing to leave some kind of a happy +life behind me, if I could, in the Old House. It's only an earthly +clinging and hankering, maybe; but I'd somehow like to feel sure, being +the last of the line, that there'd be time for my bones to crumble away +comfortably into dust, before the old timbers should come down. I meant, +once, you should have had it all; but it seemed as if you wasn't going +to _need_ it, and as if there was going to be other kind of work cut out +for you to do. And I'm persuaded there is yet, somewhere. So I've done +this; and I want you to know it beforehand, in case anything goes +wrong--no, not that, but unexpectedly--with me." + +She reached out the paper, and Faith took it from her hand. It was not +long in reading. + +A light shone out of Faith's eyes, through the tears that sprang to +them, as she finished it, and gave it back. + +"Aunt Faith!" she said, earnestly. "It is beautiful! I am so glad! But, +auntie! You'll get well, I know, and begin it yourself!" + +"No," said Miss Henderson, quietly. "I may get over this, and I don't +say I shouldn't be glad to. But I'm an old tree, and the ax is lying, +ground, somewhere, that's to cut me down before very long. Old folks +can't change their ways, and begin new plans and doings. I'm only +thankful that the Lord has sent me a thought that lightens all the dread +I've had for years about leaving the old place; and that I can go, +thinking maybe there'll be His work doing in it as long as it stands." + +"I don't know," she resumed, after a pause, "how your father's affairs +are now. The likelihood is, if he has any health, that he'll go into +some kind of a venture again before very long. But I shall have a talk +with him, and if he isn't satisfied I'll alter it so as to do something +more for you." + +"Something more!" said Faith. "But you have done a great deal, as it is! +I didn't say so, because I was thinking so much of the other." + +"It won't make an heiress of you," said Aunt Faith. "But it'll be better +than nothing, if other means fall short. And I don't feel, somehow, as +if you need be a burden on my mind. There's a kind of a certainty borne +in on me, otherwise. I can't help thinking that what I've done has been +a leading. And if it has, it's right. Now, put this back, and tell Miss +Sampson she may bring my gruel." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + +GLORY McWHIRK'S INSPIRATION. + +"No bird am I to sing in June, +And dare not ask an equal boon. +Good nests and berries red are Nature's +To give away to better creatures,-- +And yet my days go on, go on." + MRS. BROWNING. + + +Mr. and Mrs. Gartney arrived on Thursday. + +Two weeks and three days they had been absent; and in that time how the +busy sprites of change and circumstance had been at work! As if the +scattered straws of events, that, stretched out in slender windrows, +might have reached across a field of years, had been raked together, and +rolled over--crowded close, and heaped, portentous, into these eighteen +days! + +Letters had told them something; of the burned mill, and Faith's fearful +danger and escape; of Aunt Henderson's continued illness, and its +present serious aspect; and with this last intelligence, which met them +in New York but two days since, Mrs. Gartney found her daughter's +agitated note of pained avowal, that she "had come, through all this, to +know herself better, and to feel sure that this marriage ought not to +be"; that, in short, all was at length over between her and Paul +Rushleigh. + +It was a meeting full of thought--where much waited for speech that +letters could neither have conveyed nor satisfied--when Faith and her +father and mother exchanged the kiss of love and welcome, once more, in +the little home at Cross Corners. + +It was well that Mis' Battis had made waffles, and spread a tempting +summer tea with these and her nice, white bread, and fruits and creams; +and wished, with such faint impatience as her huge calm was capable of, +that "they would jest set right down, while things was good and hot"; +and that Hendie was full of his wonderful adventures by boat and train, +and through the wilds; so that these first hours were gotten over, and +all a little used to the old feeling of being together again, before +there was opportunity for touching upon deeper subjects. + +It came at length--the long evening talk, after Hendie was in bed, and +Mr. Gartney had been over to the old house, and seen his aunt, and had +come back, to find wife and daughter sitting in the dim light beside the +open door, drawn close in love and confidence, and so glad and thankful +to have each other back once more! + +First--Aunt Faith; and what was to be done--what might be hoped--what +must be feared--for her. Then, the terrible story of the fire; and all +about it, that could only be got at by the hundred bits of question and +answer, and the turning over and over, and repetition, whereby we do the +best--the feeble best--we can, to satisfy great askings and deep +sympathies that never can be anyhow made palpable in words. + +And, last of all--just with the good-night kiss--Faith and her mother +had had it all before, in the first minutes they were left alone +together--Mr. Gartney said to his daughter: + +"You are quite certain, now, Faith?" + +"Quite certain, father"; Faith answered, low, with downcast eyes, as she +stood before him. + +Her father laid his hand upon her head. + +"You are a good girl; and I don't blame you; yet I thought you would +have been safe and happy, so." + +"I am safe and happy here at home," said Faith. + +"Home is in no hurry to spare you, my child." + +And Faith felt taken back to daughterhood once more. + +Margaret Rushleigh had been to see her, before this. It was a painful +visit, with the mingling of old love and new restraint; and the effort, +on either side, to show that things, except in the one particular, were +still unchanged. + +Faith felt how true it was that "nothing could go back, precisely, to +what it was before." + +There was another visit, a day or two after the reassembling of the +family at Cross Corners. This was to say farewell. New plans had been +made. It would take some time to restore the mills to working order, and +Mr. Rushleigh had not quite resolved whether to sell them out as they +were, or to retain the property. Mrs. Rushleigh wished Margaret to join +her at Newport, whither the Saratoga party was to go within the coming +week. Then there was talk of another trip to Europe. Margaret had never +been abroad. It was very likely they would all go out in October. + +Paul's name was never mentioned. + +Faith realized, painfully, how her little hand had been upon the motive +power of much that was all ended, now. + +Two eminent medical men had been summoned from Mishaumok, and had held +consultation with Dr. Wasgatt upon Miss Henderson's case. It had been +decided to postpone the surgical operation for two or three weeks. +Meanwhile, she was simply to be kept comfortable and cheerful, +strengthened with fresh air, and nourishing food, and some slight +tonics. + +Faith was at the old house, constantly. Her aunt craved her presence, +and drew her more and more to herself. The strong love, kept down by a +stiff, unbending manner, so, for years--resisting almost its own +growth--would no longer be denied or concealed. Faith Gartney had +nestled herself into the very core of this true, upright heart, +unpersuadable by anything but clear judgment and inflexible conscience. + +"I had a beautiful dream last night, Miss Faith," said Glory, one +morning, when Faith came over and found the busy handmaiden with her +churn upon the doorstone, "about Miss Henderson. I thought she was all +well, and strong, and she looked so young, and bright, and pleasant! And +she told me to make a May Day. And we had it out here in the field. And +everybody had a crown; and everybody was queen. And the little children +danced round the old apple tree, and climbed up, and rode horseback in +the branches. And Miss Henderson was out there, dressed in white, and +looking on. It don't seem so--just to say it; but I couldn't tell you +how beautiful it was!" + +"Dreams are strange things," said Faith, thoughtfully. "It seems as if +they were sent to us, sometimes--as if we really had a sort of life in +them." + +"Don't they?" cried Glory, eagerly. "Why, Miss Faith, I've dreamed on, +and on, sometimes, a whole story out! And, after all, we're asleep +almost as much as we're awake. Why isn't it just as real?" + +"I had a dream that night of the fire, Glory. I never shall forget it. I +went to sleep there, on the sofa. And it seemed as if I were on the top +of a high, steep cliff, with no way to get down. And all at once, there +was fire behind me--a burning mountain! And it came nearer, and nearer, +till it scorched my very feet; and there was no way down. And then--it +was so strange!--I knew Mr. Armstrong was coming. And two hands took +me--just as his did, afterwards--and I felt so safe! And then I woke, +and it all happened. When he came, I felt as if I had called him." + +The dasher of the churn was still, and Glory stood, breathless, in a +white excitement, gazing into Faith's eyes. + +"And so you did, Miss Faith! Somehow--through the dreamland--you +certainly did!" + +Faith went in to her aunt, and Glory churned and pondered. + +Were these two to go on, dreaming, and calling to each other "through +the dreamland," and never, in the daylight, and their waking hours, +speak out? + +This thought, in vague shape, turned itself, restlessly, in Glory's +brain. + +Other brains revolved a like thought, also. + +"Somebody talked about a 'ripe pear,' once. I wonder if that one isn't +ever going to fall!" + +Nurse Sampson wondered thus, as she settled Miss Henderson in her +armchair before the window, and they saw Roger Armstrong and Faith +Gartney walk up the field together in the sunset light. + +"I suppose it wouldn't take much of a jog to do it. But, maybe, it's as +well to leave it to the Lord's sunshine. He'll ripen it, if He sees +fit." + +"It's a pretty picture, anyhow. There's the new moon exactly over their +right shoulders, if they'd only turn their heads to look at it. I don't +think much of signs; but, somehow, I always _do_ like to have that one +come right!" + +"Well, it's there, whether they've found it out, or not," replied Aunt +Faith. + +Glory sat on the flat doorstone. She had the invariable afternoon +knitting work in her hand; but hand and work had fallen to her lap, and +her eyes were away upon the glittering, faint crescent of the moon, that +pierced the golden mist of sunset. Close by, the evening star had filled +his chalice of silver splendor. + +"The star and the moon only see each other. I can see both. It is +better." + +She had come to the feeling of Roger Armstrong's sermon. To receive +consciously, as she had through her whole, life intuitively and +unwittingly, all beauty of all being about her into the secret beauty of +her own. She could be glad with the gladness of the whole world. + +The two came up, and Glory rose, and stood aside. + +"You have had thoughts, to-night, Glory," said the minister. "Where have +they been?" + +"Away, there," answered Glory, pointing to the western sky. + +They turned, and followed her gesture; and from up there, at their +right, beyond, came down the traditional promise of the beautiful young +moon. + +Glory had shown it them. + +"And I've been thinking, besides," said Glory, "about that dream of +yours, Miss Faith. I've thought of it all day. Please tell it to Mr. +Armstrong?" + +And Glory disappeared down the long passage to the kitchen, and left +them standing there, together. She went straight to the tin baker before +the fire, and lifted the cover, to see if her biscuits were ready for +tea. Then she seated herself upon a little bench that stood against the +chimney-side, and leaned her head against the bricks, and looked down +into the glowing coals. + +"It was put into my head to do it!" she said, breathlessly, to herself. +"I hope it wasn't ridiculous!" + +So she sat, and gazed on, into the coals. _They_ were out there in the +sunset, with the new moon and the bright star above them in the saffron +depths. + +They stood alone, except for each other, in this still, radiant beauty +of all things. + +Miss Henderson's window was around a projection of the rambling, +irregular structure, which made the angle wherein the pleasant old +doorstone lay. + +"May I have your dream, Miss Faith?" + +She need not be afraid to tell a simple dream. Any more, at this moment, +than when she told it to Glory, that morning, on that very spot. Why did +she feel, that if she should speak a syllable of it now, the truth that +lay behind it would look out, resistless, through its veil? That she +could not so keep down its spirit-meaning, that it should not flash, +electric, from her soul to his? + +"It was only--that night," she said, tremulously. "It seemed very +strange. Before the fire, I had the dream. It was a dream of fire and +danger--danger that I could not escape from. And I held out my +hands--and I found you there--and you saved me. Oh, Mr. Armstrong! As you +_did_ save me, afterwards!" + +Roger Armstrong turned, and faced her. His deep, earnest eyes, lit with +a new, strange radiance, smote upon hers, and held them spellbound with +their glance. + +"I, too, dreamed that night," said he, "of an unknown peril to you. You +beckoned me. I sprang from out that dream, and rushed into the +night--until I found you!" + +Their two souls met, in that brief recital, and knew that they had met +before. That, through the dreamland, there had been that call and +answer. + +Faith neither spoke, nor stirred, nor trembled. This supreme moment of +her life held her unmoved in its own mightiness. + +Roger Armstrong held out both his hands. + +"Faith! In the sight of God, I believe you belong to me!" + +At that solemn word, of force beyond all claim of a mere mortal love, +Faith stretched her hands in answer, and laid them into his, and bowed +her head above them. + +"In the sight of God, I belong to you!" + +So she gave herself. So she was taken. As God's gift, to the heart that +had been earthly desolate so long. + +There was no dread, no shrinking, in that moment. A perfect love cast +out all fear. + +And the new moon and the evening star shone down together in an absolute +peace. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + +LAST HOURS. + +"In this dim world of clouding cares + We rarely know, till 'wildered eyes + See white wings lessening up the skies, +The angels with us unawares. + . . . . . +"Strange glory streams through life's wild rents, + And through the open door of death + We see the heaven that beckoneth +To the beloved going hence." + GERALD MASSEY. + + +"Read me the twenty-third Psalm," said Miss Henderson. + +It was the evening before the day fixed upon by her physicians for the +surgical operation she had decided to submit to. + +Faith was in her place by the bedside, her hand resting in that of her +aunt. Mr. Armstrong sat near--an open Bible before him. Miss Sampson had +gone down the field for a "snatch of air." + +Clear upon the stillness fell the sacred words of cheer. There was a +strong, sure gladness in the tone that uttered them, that told they were +born anew, in the breathing, from a heart that had proved the goodness +and mercy of the Lord. + +In a solemn gladness, also, two other hearts received them, and said, +silently, Amen! + +"Now the fourteenth of St. John." + +"'In my father's house are many mansions.' 'I will dwell in the house of +the Lord, forever.' Yes. It holds us all. Under one roof. One +family--whatever happens! Now, put away the book, and come here; you +two!" + +It was done; and Roger Armstrong and Faith Gartney stood up, side by +side, before her. + +"I haven't said so before, because I wouldn't set people troubling +beforehand. But in my own mind, I'm pretty sure of what's coming. And if +I hadn't felt so all along, I should now. When the Lord gives us our +last earthly wish, and the kind of peace comes over that seems as if it +couldn't be disturbed by anything, any more, we may know, by the hush of +it, that the day is done. I'm going to bid you good night, Faith, and +send you home. Say your prayers, and thank God, for yourself and for me. +Whatever you hear of me, to-morrow, take it for good news; for it _will_ +be good. Roger Armstrong! Take care of the child! Child! love your +husband; and trust in him; for you may!" + +Close, close--bent Faith above her aunt, and gave and took that solemn +good-night kiss. + +"'The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the +communion of the Holy Ghost, be with us all. Amen!'" + +With the word of benediction, Roger Armstrong turned from the bedside, +and led Faith away. + +And the deeper shadows of night fell, and infolded the Old House, and +the hours wore on, and all was still. Stillest, calmest of all, in the +soul of her who had dwelt there for nearly threescore years and ten, and +who knew, none the less, that it would be surely home to her wheresoever +her place might be given her next, in that wide and beautiful "House of +the Lord!" + +It was a strange day that succeeded; when they sat, waiting so, through +those morning hours, keeping such Sabbath as heart and life do keep, and +are keeping, somewhere, always, in whatever busy workday of the world, +when great issues come to solemnize the time. + +Almost as still at the Old House as at Cross Corners. No hurry. No +bustle. Glory quietly doing her needful duties, and obeying all +direction of the nurse. Mr. Armstrong in his own room, in readiness +always, for any act or errand that might be required of him. Henderson +Gartney alone in that ancient parlor at the front. The three physicians +and Miss Sampson shut with Aunt Faith into her room. A faint, breathless +odor of ether creeping everywhere, even out into the summer air. + +It was eleven o'clock, when a word was spoken to Roger Armstrong, and he +took his hat and walked across the field. Faith, with pale, asking face, +met him at the door. + +"Well--thus far," was the message; and a kiss fell upon the uplifted +forehead, and a look of boundless love and sympathy into the fair, +anxious eyes. "All has been done; and she is comfortable. There may +still be danger; but the worst is past." + +Then a brazen veil fell from before the face of day. The sunshine +looked golden again, and the song of birds rang out, unmuffled. The +strange, Sabbath stillness might be broken. They could speak common +words, once more. + +Faith and her mother sat there, in the hillside parlor, talking +thankfully, and happily, with Roger Armstrong. So a half hour passed by. +Mr. Gartney would come, with further tidings, when he had been able to +speak with the physicians. + +The shadows of shrub and tree crept and shortened to the lines of noon, +and still, no word. They began to wonder, why. + +Mr. Armstrong would go back. He might be wanted, somehow. They should +hear again, immediately, unless he were detained. + +He was not detained. They watched him up the field, and into the angle +of the doorway. He was hidden there a moment, but not more. Then they +saw him turn, as one lingering and reluctant, and retrace his steps +toward them. + +"Faith! Stay here, darling! Let me meet him first," said Mrs. Gartney. + +Faith shrank back, fearful of she knew not what, into the room they had +just quitted. + +A sudden, panic dread and terror seized her. She felt her hearing +sharpened, strained, involuntarily. She should catch that first word, +however it might be spoken. She dared not hear it, yet. Out at the +hillside door, into the shade of the deep evergreens, she passed, with a +quick impulse. + +Thither Roger Armstrong followed, presently, and found her. With the +keen instinct of a loving sympathy, he knew she fled from speech. So he +put his arm about her, silently, tenderly; and led her on, and up, under +the close, cool shade, the way their steps had come to know so well. + +"Take it for good news, darling. For it is good," he said, at last, when +he had placed her in the rocky seat, where she had listened to so many +treasured words--to that old, holy confidence--of his. + +And there he comforted her. + + * * * * * + +A sudden sinking--a prostration beyond what they had looked for, had +surprised her attendants; and, almost with their notice of the change, +the last, pale, gray shadow had swept up over the calm, patient face, +and good Aunt Faith had passed away. + +Away--for a little. Not out of God's house. Not lost out of His +household. + + * * * * * + +This was her will. + + "I, Faith Henderson, spinster, in sound mind, and of my own will, + direct these things. + + "That to my dear grandniece, Faith Henderson Gartney, be given from + me, as my bequest, that portion of my worldly property now + invested in two stores in D---- Street, in the city of Mishaumok. + That this property and interest be hers, for her own use and + disposal, with my love. + + "Also, that my plate, and my box of best house linen, which stands + beside the press in the northwest chamber, be given to her, Faith + Henderson Gartney; and that my nephew, Henderson Gartney, shall, + according to his own pleasure and judgment, appropriate and dispose + of any books, or articles of old family value and interest. But + that beds, bedding, and all heavy household furniture, with a + proper number of chairs and other movables, be retained in the + house, for its necessary and suitable furnishing. + + "And then, that all this residue of personal effects, and my real + estate in the Old Homestead at Kinnicutt Cross Corners, and my + shares in the Kinnicutt Bank, be placed in the hands of my nephew, + Henderson Gartney, to be held in trust during the natural life of + my worthy and beloved handmaiden, Gloriana McWhirk; for her to + occupy said house, and use said furniture, and the income of said + property, so long as she can find at least four orphan children to + maintain therewith, and 'make a good time for, every day.' + + "Provided, that in case the said Gloriana McWhirk shall marry, or + shall no longer so employ this property, or in case that she shall + die, said property is to revert to my above-named grandniece, Faith + Henderson Gartney, for her and her heirs, to their use and behoof + forever. + + "And if there be any failure of a legal binding in this paper that + I write, I charge it upon my nephew, Henderson Gartney, on his + conscience, as I believe him to be a true and honest man, to see + that these my effects are so disposed of, according to my plain + will and intention. + + "(Signed) FAITH HENDERSON. + + "(Witnessed) + ROGER ARMSTRONG, + HIRAM WASGATT, + LUTHER GOODELL." + + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + +MRS. PARLEY GIMP. + +"The best laid schemes o' mice an' men + Gang aft agley." + BURNS. + + +Kinnicott had got an enormous deal to talk about. The excitement of the +great fire, and the curiosity and astonishment concerning Miss Gartney's +share in the events of that memorable night had hardly passed into the +quietude of things discussed to death and laid away, unwillingly, in +their graves, when all this that had happened at Cross Corners poured +itself, in a flood of wonder, upon the little community. + +Not all, quite, at once, however. Faith's engagement was not, at first, +spoken of publicly. There was no need, in this moment of their common +sorrow, to give their names to the little world about them, for such +handling as it might please. Yet the little world found plenty to say, +and a great many plans to make for them, none the less. + +Miss Henderson's so long unsuspected, and apparently brief illness, her +sudden death, and the very singular will whose provisions had somehow +leaked out, as matters of the sort always do, made a stir and ferment in +the place, and everybody felt bound to arrive at some satisfactory +conclusion which should account for all, and to get a clear idea of what +everybody immediately concerned would do, or ought, in the +circumstances, to do next, before they--the first everybodies--could eat +and sleep, and go comfortably about their own business again, in the +ordinary way. + +They should think Mr. Gartney would dispute the will. It couldn't be a +very hard matter, most likely, to set it aside. All that farm, and the +Old Homestead, and her money in the bank, going to that Glory McWhirk! +Why, it was just ridiculous. The old lady must have been losing her +faculties. One thing was certain, anyway. The minister was out of a +boarding place again. So that question came up, in all its intricate +bearings, once more. + +This time Mrs. Gimp struck, while, as she thought, the iron was hot. + +Mr. Parley Gimp met Mr. Armstrong, one morning, in the village street, +and waylaid him to say that "his good lady thought she could make room +for him in their family, if it was so that he should be looking out for +a place to stay at." + +Mr. Armstrong thanked him; but, for the present, he was to remain at +Cross Corners. + +"At the Old House?" + +"No, sir. At Mr. Gartney's." + +The iron was cold, after all. + +Mrs. Parley Gimp called, one day, a week or two later, when the minister +was out. A visit of sympathetic scrutiny. + +"Yes, it was a great loss, certainly. But then, at her age, you know, +ma'am! We must all expect these things. It was awfully sudden, to be +sure. Must have been a terrible shock. Was her mind quite clear at the +last, ma'am?" + +"Perfectly. Clear, and calm, and happy, through it all." + +"That's very pleasant to think of now, I'm sure. But I hear she's made a +very extraordinary arrangement about the property. You can't tell, +though, to be sure, about all you hear, nowadays." + +"No, Mrs. Gimp. That is very true," said Mrs. Gartney. + +"Everybody always expected that it would all come to you. At least, to +your daughter. She seemed to make so much of her." + +"My daughter is quite satisfied, and we for her." + +"Well, I must say!--and so Mr. Armstrong is to board here, now? A little +out of the way of most of the parish, isn't it? I never could see, +exactly, what put it into his head to come so far. Not but what he makes +out to do his duty as a pastor, pretty prompt, too. I don't hear any +complaints. He's rather off and on about settling, though. I guess he's +a man that keeps his intentions pretty close to himself--and all his +affairs, for that matter. Of course he's a perfect right to. But I will +say I like to know all about folks from the beginning. It aggravates me +to have to begin in the middle. I tell Serena, it's just like reading a +book when the first volume's lost. I don't suppose I'm _much_ more +curious than other people; but I _should_ like to know just how old he +is, for one thing; and who his father and mother were; and where he came +from in the first place, and what he lives on, for 'tain't our salary, I +know that; he's given away more'n half of it a'ready--right here in the +village. I've said to my husband, forty times, if I've said it once, 'I +declare, I've a great mind to ask him myself, straight out, just to see +what he'll say.'" + +"And why not?" asked a voice, pleasantly, behind her. + +Mr. Armstrong had come in, unheard by the lady in her own rush of words, +and had approached too near, as this suddenly ceased, to be able to +escape again unnoticed. + +Mis' Battis told Luther Goodell afterwards, that she "jest looked in +from the next room, at that, and if ever a woman felt cheap--all +over--and as if she hadn't a right to her own toes and fingers, and as +if every thread and stitch on her turned mean, all at once--it was Mrs. +Gimp, that minit!" + +"Has Faith returned?" Mr. Armstrong asked, of Mrs. Gartney, after a +little pause in which Mrs. Gimp showed no disposition to develop into +deed her forty-times declared "great mind." + +"I think not. She said she would remain an hour or two with Glory, and +help her to arrange those matters she came in, this morning, to ask us +about." + +"I will walk over." + +And the minister took his hat again, and with a bow to the two ladies, +passed out, and across the lane. + +"Faith!" ejaculated the village matron, her courage and her mind to +meddle returning. "Well, that's intimate!" + +It might as well be done now, as at any time. Mr. Armstrong, himself, +had heedlessly precipitated the occasion. It had only been, among them, +a question of how and when. There was nothing to conceal. + +"Yes," replied Mrs. Gartney, quietly. "They will be married by and by." + +"Did she go out the door, ma'am? Or has she melted down into the carpet? +'Cause, I _have_ heerd of people sinkin' right through the floor," said +Mis' Battis, who "jest looked in" a second time, as the bewildered +visitor receded. + + * * * * * + +The pleasant autumn months, mellowing and brightening all things, seemed +also to soften and gild their memories of the life that had ended, +ripely and beautifully, among them. + +Glory, after the first overwhelm of astonishment at what had befallen +her--made fully to understand that which she had a right, and was in +duty bound to do--entered upon the preparations for her work with the +same unaffected readiness with which she would have done the bidding of +her living mistress. It was so evident that her true humbleness was +untouched by all. "It's beautiful!" and the tears and smiles would come +together as she said it. "But then, Miss Faith--Mr. Armstrong! I never +can do any of it unless you help me!" + +Faith and Mr. Armstrong did help with heart and hand, and every word of +counsel that she needed. + +"I must buy some cotton and calico, and make some little clothes and +tyers. Hadn't I better? When they come, I'll have them to take care of." + +And with the loving anticipation of a mother, she made up, and laid +away, Faith helping her in all, her store of small apparel for little +ones that were to come. + +She had gone down, one day, to Mishaumok, and found out Bridget Foye, at +the old number in High Street. And to her she had intrusted the care of +looking up the children--to be not less than five, and not more than +eight or nine years of age--who should be taken to live with her at +"Miss Henderson's home," and "have a good time every day." + +"I must get them here before Christmas," said Glory to her friends. "We +must hang their stockings all up by the great kitchen chimney, and put +sugarplums and picture books in!" + +She was going back eagerly into her child life--rather into the life her +childhood wist of, but missed--and would live it all over, now, with +these little ones, taken already, before even they were seen or found, +out of their strangerhood into her great, kindly heart! + +A plain, capable, motherly woman had been obtained, by Mr. Armstrong's +efforts and inquiry, who would live with Glory as companion and +assistant. There was the dairy work to be carried on, still. This, and +the hay crops, made the principal income of the Old Farm. A few fields +were rented for cultivation. + +"Just think," cried Glory when the future management of these matters +was talked of, "what it will be to see the little things let out +a-rolling in the new hay!" + +Her thoughts passed so entirely over herself, as holder and arbiter of +means, to the good--the daily little joy--that was to come, thereby, to +others! + +When all was counted and calculated, they told her that she might safely +venture to receive, in the end, six children. But that, for the present, +four would perhaps be as many as it would be wise for her to undertake. + +"You know best," she said, "and I shall do whatever you say. But I don't +feel afraid--any more, that is, for taking six than four. I shall just +do for them all the time, whether or no." + +"And what if they are bad and troublesome, Glory?" + +"Oh, they won't be," she replied. "I shall love them so!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + +INDIAN SUMMER. + +"'Tis as if the benignant Heaven +Had a new revelation given, + And written it out with gems; + For the golden tops of the elms +And the burnished bronze of the ash +And the scarlet lights that flash +From the sumach's points of flame, + Like blazonings on a scroll +Spell forth an illumined Name + For the reading of the soul!" + + +It is of no use to dispute about the Indian summer. I never found two +people who could agree as to the time when it ought to be here, or upon +a month and day when it should be decidedly too late to look for it. It +keeps coming. After the equinoctial, which begins to be talked about +with the first rains of September, and isn't done with till the sun has +measured half a dozen degrees of south declination, all the pleasant +weather is Indian summer--away on to Christmastide. For my part, I think +we get it now and then, little by little, as "the kingdom" comes. That +every soft, warm, mellow, hazy, golden day, like each fair, fragrant +life, is a part and outcrop of it; though weeks of gale and frost, or +ages of cruel worldliness and miserable sin may lie between. + +It was an Indian summer day, then; and it was in October. + +Faith and Mr. Armstrong walked over the brook, and round by Pasture +Rocks, to the "little chapel," as Faith had called it, since the time, +last winter, when she and Glory had met the minister there, in the +still, wonderful, pure beauty that enshrined it on that "diamond +morning." + +The elms that stood then, in their icy sheen, about the meadows, like +great cataracts of light, were soft with amber drapery, now; translucent +in each leaf with the detained sunshine of the summer; and along the +borders of the wood walk, scarlet flames of sumach sprang out, vivid, +from among the lingering green; and birches trembled with their golden +plumes; and bronzed ash boughs, and deep crimsons and maroons and +chocolate browns and carbuncle red that crowned the oaks with richer and +intenser hues, made up a wealth and massiveness of beauty wherein eye +and thought reveled and were sated. + +Over and about all, the glorious October light, and the dreamy warmth +that was like a palpable love. + +They stood on the crisp moss carpet of the "halfway rock"--the altar +crag behind them, with its cherubim that waved illumined wings of +tenderer radiance now--and gazed over the broad outspread of marvelous +color; and thought of the summer that had come and gone since they had +stood there, last, together, and of the beauty that had breathed alike +on earth and into life, for them. + +"Faith, darling! Tell me your thought," said Roger Armstrong. + +"This was my thought," Faith answered, slowly. "That first sermon you +preached to us--that gave me such a hope, then--that comes up to me so, +almost as a warning, now! The poor--that were to have the kingdom! And +then, those other words--'how hardly shall they who have riches enter +in!' And I am _so_ rich! It frightens me." + +"Entire happiness does make one tremble. Only, if we feel God in it, and +stand but the more ready for His work, we may be safe." + +"His work--yes," Faith answered. "But now he only gives me rest. It +seems as if, somehow, I were not worthy of a hard life. As if all things +had been made too easy for me. And I had thought, so, of some great and +difficult thing to do." + +Then Faith told him of the oracle that, years ago, had first wakened her +to the thought of what life might be; of the "high and holy work" that +she had dreamed of, and of her struggles to fulfill it, feebly, in the +only ways that as yet had opened for her. + +"And now--just to receive all--love, and help, and care--and to rest, +and to be so wholly happy!" + +"Believe, darling, that we are led, through all. That the oil of joy is +but as an anointing for a nobler work. It is only so I dare to think of +it. We shall have plenty to do, Faithie! And, perhaps, to bear. It will +all be set before us, in good time." + +"But nothing can be _hard_ to do, any more. That is what makes me almost +feel unworthy. Look at Nurse Sampson. Look at Glory. They have only +their work, and the love of God to help them in it. And I--! Oh, I am +not poor any longer. The words don't seem to be for me." + +"Let us take them with their double edge of truth, then. Holding +ourselves always poor, in sight of the infinite spiritual riches of the +kingdom. Blessed are the poor, who can feel, even in the keenest earthly +joy, how there is a fullness of life laid up in Him who gives it, of +whose depth the best gladness here is but a glimpse and foretaste! We +will not be selfishly or unworthily content, God helping us, my little +one!" + +"It is so hard _not_ to be content!" whispered Faith, as the strong, +manly arm held her, in its shelter, close beside the noble, earnest +heart. + +"I think," said Roger Armstrong, afterwards, as they walked down over +the fragrant pathway of fallen pine leaves, "that I have never known an +instance of one more evidently called, commissioned, and prepared for a +good work in the world, than Glory. Her whole life has been her +education for it. It is not without a purpose, when a soul like hers is +left to struggle up through such externals of circumstance. We can love +and help her in it, Faith; and do something, in our way, for her, as she +will do, in hers, for others." + +"Oh, yes!" assented Faith, impulsively. "I have wished--" but there she +stopped. + +"Am I to hear no more?" asked Mr. Armstrong, presently. "Have I not a +right to insist upon the wish?" + +"I forgot what I was coming to," said Faith, blushing deeply. "I spoke +of it, one day, to mother. And she said it was a thing I couldn't decide +for myself, now. That some one else would be concerned, as well as I." + +"And some one else will be sure to wish as you do. Only there may be a +wisdom in waiting. Faithie--I have never told you yet--will you be +frightened if I tell you now--that I am not a poor man, as the world +counts poverty? My friend, of whom you know, in those terrible days of +the commencing pestilence, having only his daughter and myself to care +for, made his will; in provision against whatever might befall them +there. By that will--through the fearful sorrow that made it +effective--I came into possession of a large property. Your little +inheritance, Faithie, goes into your own little purse for private +expenditures or charities. But for the present, as it seems to me, Glory +has ample means for all that it is well for her to undertake. By and by, +as she gains in years and in experience, you will have it in your power +to enlarge her field of good. 'Miss Henderson's Home' may grow into a +wider benefit than even she, herself, foresaw." + +Faith was not frightened. These were not the riches that could make her +tremble with a dread lest earth should too fully satisfy. This was only +a promise of new power to work with; a guarantee that God was not +leaving her merely to care for and to rest in a good that must needs be +all her own. + +"We shall find plenty to do, Faithie!" Mr. Armstrong repeated; and he +held her hand in his with a strong pressure that told how the thought of +that work to come, and her sweet and entire association in it, leaped +along his pulses with a living joy. + +Faith caught it; and all fear was gone. She could not shrink from the +great blessedness that was laid upon her, any more than Nature could +refuse to wear her coronation robes, that trailed their radiance in this +path they trod. + +Life held them in a divine harmony. + +The October sun, that mantled them with warmth and glory; the Indian +summer, that transfigured earth about them; all tints--all +redolence--all broad beatitude of globe and sky--were none too much to +breathe out and make palpable the glad and holy auspice of the hour. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Gartney had gradually relinquished his half-formed thought of San +Francisco. Already the unsettled and threatening condition of affairs in +the country had begun to make men feel that the time was not one for new +schemes or adventurous changes. Somehow, the great wheels, mercantile +and political, had slipped out of their old grooves, and went laboring, +as it were, roughly and at random, with fierce clattering and jolting, +quite off the ordinary track; so that none could say whether they should +finally regain it, and roll smoothly forward, as in the prosperous and +peaceful days of the past, or should bear suddenly and irretrievably +down to some horrible, unknown crash and ruin. + +Henderson Gartney, however, was too restless a man to wait, with entire +passiveness, the possible turn and issue of things. + +Quite strong, again, in health--so great a part of his burden and +anxiety lifted from him in the marriages, actual and prospective, of his +two daughters--and his means augmented by the sale of a portion of his +Western property which he had effected during his summer visit +thereto--it was little to be looked for that he should consent to +vegetate, idly and quietly, through a second winter at Cross Corners. + +The first feeling of some men, apparently, when they have succeeded in +shuffling off a load of difficulty, is a sensation of the delightful +ease with which they can immediately shoulder another. As when one has +just cleared a desk or drawer of rubbish, there is such a tempting +opportunity made for beginning to stow away and accumulate again. Well! +the principle is an eternal one. Nature does abhor a vacuum. + +The greater portion of the ensuing months, therefore, Mr. Gartney spent +in New York; whither his wife and children accompanied him, also, for a +stay of a few weeks; during which, Faith and her mother accomplished the +inevitable shopping that a coming wedding necessitates; and set in train +of preparation certain matters beyond the range of Kinnicutt capacity +and resource. + +Mr. Armstrong, too, was obliged to be absent from his parish for a +little time. Affairs of his own required some personal attention. He +chose these weeks while the others, also, were away. + +It was decided that the marriage should take place in the coming spring; +and that then the house at Cross Corners should become the home of Mr. +Armstrong and Faith; and that Mr. Gartney should remove, permanently, to +New York, where he had already engaged in some incidental and +preliminary business transactions. His purpose was to fix himself there, +as a shipping and commission merchant, concerning himself, for a large +proportion, with California trade. + +The house in Mishaumok had been rented for a term of five years. One +change prepares the way for another. Things never go back precisely to +what they were before. + +Mr. Armstrong, after serious thought, had come to this conclusion of +accepting the invitation of the Old Parish at Kinnicutt to remain with +it as its pastor, because the place itself had become endeared to him +for its associations; because, also, it was Faith's home, which she had +learned to love and cling to; because she, too, had a work here, in +assisting Glory to fulfill the terms of her aunt's bequest; and because, +country parish though it was, and a limited sphere, as it might seem, +for his means and talents, he saw the way here, not only to accomplish +much direct good in the way of his profession, but as well for a wider +exercise of power through the channel of authorship; for which a more +onerous pastoral charge would not have left him the needful quiet or +leisure. + +So, with these comings and goings, these happy plans, and helpings and +onlookings, the late autumn weeks merged in winter, and days slipped +almost imperceptibly by, and Christmas came. + +Three little orphan girls had been welcomed into "Miss Henderson's +Home." And only one of them had hair that would curl. But Glory gave the +other two an extra kiss each, every morning. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + +CHRISTMASTIDE. + +"Through suffering and through sorrow thou hast past, +To show us what a woman true may be; +They have not taken sympathy from thee, +Nor made thee any other than thou wast; + . . . . . +"Nor hath thy knowledge of adversity +Robbed thee of any faith in happiness, +But rather cleared thine inner eye to see +How many simple ways there are to bless." + LOWELL. + +"And if any painter drew her, +He would paint her unaware, +With a halo round the hair." + MRS. BROWNING. + + +There were dark portents abroad. Rumors, and threats, and +prognostications of fear and strife teemed in the columns of each day's +sheet of news, and pulsed wildly along the electric nerves of the land; +and men looked out, as into a coming tempest, that blackened all the +southerly sky with wrath; and only that the horror was too great to be +believed in, they could not have eaten and drunken, and bought and sold, +and planted and builded, as they did, after the age-old manner of man, +in these days before the flood that was to come. + +Civil war, like a vulture of hell, was swooping down from the foul +fastness of iniquity that had hatched her in its high places, and that +reared itself, audaciously, in the very face of Heaven. + +And a voice, as of a mighty angel, sounded "Woe! woe! woe! to the +inhabiters of earth!" + +And still men but half heard and comprehended; and still they slept and +rose, and wrought on, each in his own work, and planned for the morrow, +and for the days that were to be. + +And in the midst of all, came the blessed Christmastide! Yes! even into +this world that has rolled its seething burden of sin and pain and shame +and conflict along the listening depths through waiting cycles of God's +eternity, was Christ once born! + +And little children, of whom is the kingdom, in their simple faith and +holy unconsciousness, were looking for the Christmas good, and wondering +only what the coming joy should be. + +The shops and streets of Mishaumok were filled with busy throngs. People +forgot, for a day, the fissure that had just opened, away there in the +far Southland, and the fierce flames that shot up, threatening, from the +abyss. What mattered the mass meetings, and the shouts, and the guns, +along those shores of the Mexican Gulf? To-night would be Christmas Eve; +and there were thousands of little stockings waiting to be hung by happy +firesides, and they must all be filled for the morrow. + +So the shops and streets were crowded, and people with arms full of +holiday parcels jostled each other at every corner. + +There are odd encounters in this world tumble that we live in. In the +early afternoon, at one of the bright show cases, filled within and +heaped without with toys, two women met--as strangers are always +meeting, with involuntary touch and glance--borne together in a +crowd--atoms impinging for an instant, never to approach again, perhaps, +in all the coming combinations of time. + +These two women, though, had met before. + +One, sharp, eager--with a stylish-shabby air of dress about her, and the +look of pretense that shopmen know, as she handled and asked prices, +where she had no actual thought of buying--holding by the hand a child +of six, who dragged and teased, and got an occasional word that crushed +him into momentary silence, but who, tired with the sights and the +Christmas shopping, had nothing for it but to begin to drag and tease +again; another, with bright, happy, earnest eyes and flushing cheeks, +and hair rolled back in a golden wealth beneath her plain straw bonnet; +bonnet, and dress, and all, of simple black; these two came face to +face. + +The shabby woman with a sharp look recognized nothing. Glory McWhirk +knew Mrs. Grubbling, and the child of six that had been the Grubbling +baby. + +All at once, she had him in her arms; and as if not a moment had gone by +since she held him so in the little, dark, upper entry in Budd Street, +where he had toddled to her in his nightgown, for her grieved farewell, +was hugging and kissing him, with the old, forgetting and forgiving +love. + +Mrs. Grubbling looked on in petrified amaze. Glory had transferred a +fragrant white paper parcel from her pocket to the child's hands, and +had thrust upon that a gay tin horse from the counter, before it +occurred to her that the mother might, possibly, neither remember nor +approve. + +"I beg your pardon, ma'am, for the liberty; and it's very likely you +don't know me. I'm Glory McWhirk, that used to live with you, and mind +the baby." + +"I'm sure I'm glad to see you, Glory," said Mrs. Grubbling +patronizingly; "and I hope you've been doing well since you went away +from me." As if she had been doing so especially well before, that there +might easily be a doubt as to whether going farther had not been faring +worse. I have no question that Mrs. Grubbling fancied, at the moment, +that the foundation of all the simple content and quiet prosperity that +evidenced themselves at present in the person of her former handmaid, +had been laid in Budd Street. + +"And where are you living now?" proceeded she, as Glory resigned the boy +to his mint stick, and was saying good-by. + +"Out in Kinnicutt, ma'am; at Miss Henderson's, where I have been ever +since." + +She never thought of triumphing. She never dreamed of what it would be +to electrify her former mistress with the announcement that she whom she +had since served had died, and left her, Glory McWhirk, the life use of +more than half her estate. That she dwelt now, as proprietress, where +she had been a servant. Her humbleness and her faithfulness were so +entire that she never thought of herself as occupying, in the eyes of +others, such position. She was Miss Henderson's handmaiden, still; doing +her behest, simply, as if she had but left her there in keeping, while +she went a journey. + +So she bade good-by, and courtesied to Mrs. Grubbling and gathered up +her little parcels, and went out. Fortunately, Mrs. Grubbling was half +stunned, as it was. It is impossible to tell what might have resulted, +had she then and there been made cognizant of more. Not to the shorn +lamb, alone, always, are sharp winds beneficently tempered. There is a +mercy, also, to the miserable wolf. + +Glory had one trouble, to-day, that hindered her pure, free and utter +enjoyment of what she had to do. + +All day she had seen, here and there along the street, little forlorn +and ragged ones, straying about aimlessly, as if by any chance, a scrap +of Christmas cheer might even fall to them, if only they kept out in the +midst of it. There was a distant wonder in their faces, as they met the +buyers among the shops, and glanced at the fair, fresh burdens they +carried; and around the confectioners' windows they would cluster, +sometimes, two or three together, and _look_; as if one sense could take +in what was denied so to another. She knew so well what the feeling of +it was! To see the good times going on, and not be in 'em! She longed so +to gather them all to herself, and take them home, and make a Christmas +for them! + +She could only drop the pennies that came to her in change loose into +her pocket, and give them, one by one, along the wayside. And she more +than once offered a bright quarter (it was in the days when quarters yet +were, reader!), when she might have counted out the sum in lesser bits, +that so the pocket should be kept supplied the longer. + + * * * * * + +Down by the ---- Railway Station, the streets were dim, and dirty, and +cheerless. Inside, the passengers gathered about the stove, where the +red coals gleamed cheerful in the already gathering dusk of the winter +afternoon. A New York train was going out; and all sorts of people--from +the well-to-do, portly gentleman of business, with his good coat +buttoned comfortably to his chin, his tickets bought, his wallet lined +with bank notes for his journey, and secretly stowed beyond the reach +(if there be such a thing) of pickpockets, and the _Mishaumok Journal_, +Evening Edition, damp from the press, unfolded in his fingers, to the +care-for-naught, dare-devil little newsboy who had sold it to him, and +who now saunters off, varying his monotonous cry with: + +"_Jour-nal_, gentlemen! Eve-nin' 'dition! Georgy out!" + +("What's that?" exclaims an inconsiderate.) + +"Georgy out! (Little brother o' mine. Seen him anywhere?) Eve-nin' +'dition! _Jour-nal_, gentleman!" and the shivering little candy girl, +threading her way with a silent imploringness among the throng--were +bustling up and down, in waiting rooms, and on the platforms, till one +would think, assuredly, that the center of all the world's activity, at +this moment, lay here; and that everybody _not_ going in this particular +express train to New York, must be utterly devoid of any aim or object +in life, whatever. + +So we do, always, carry our center about with us. A little while ago all +the world was buying dolls and tin horses. Horizons shift and ring +themselves about us, and we, ourselves, stand always in the middle. + +By and by, however, the last call was heard. + +"Passengers for New York! Train ready! All aboard!" + +And with the ringing of the bell, and the mighty gasping of the +impatient engine, and a scuffle and scurry of a minute, in which +carpetbags and babies were gathered up and shouldered indiscriminately, +the rooms and the platforms were suddenly cleared of all but a few +stragglers, and half a dozen women with Christmas bundles, who sat +waiting for trains to way stations. + +Two little pinched faces, purple with the bitter cold, looked in at the +door. + +"It's good and warm in there. Less' go!" + +And the older drew the younger into the room, toward the glowing stove. + +They looked as if they had been wandering about in the dreary streets +till the chill had touched their very bones. The larger of the two, a +boy--torn hopelessly as to his trousers, dilapidated to the last degree +as to his fragment of a hat--knees and elbows making their way out into +the world with the faintest shadow of opposition--had, perhaps from +this, a certain look of pushing knowingness that set itself, by the +obscure and inevitable law of compensation, over against the gigantic +antagonism of things he found himself born into; and you knew, as you +looked at him, that he would, somehow, sooner or later, make his small +dint against the great dead wall of society that loomed itself in his +way; whether society or he should get the worst of it, might happen as +it would. + +The younger was a little girl. A flower thrown down in the dirt. A jewel +encrusted with mean earth. Little feet in enormous coarse shoes, cracked +and trodden down; bare arms trying to hide themselves under a bit of old +woolen shawl; hair tangled beneath a squalid hood; out from amidst all, +a face of beauty that peeped, like an unconscious draft of God's own +signing, upon humanity. Was there none to acknowledge it? + +An official came through the waiting room. + +The boy showed a slink in his eyes, like one used to shoving and rebuff, +and to getting off, round corners. The girl stood, innocent and +unheeding. + +"There! out with you! No vagrums here!" + +Of course, they couldn't have all Queer Street in their waiting rooms, +these railway people; and the man's words were rougher than his voice. +But these were two children, who wanted cherishing! + +The slink in the boy's eye worked down, and became a sneak and a +shuffle, toward the door. The girl was following. + +"Stop!" called a woman's voice, sharp and authoritative. "Don't you stir +a single step, either of you, till you get warm! If there isn't any +other way to fix it, I'll buy you both a ticket somewhere and then +you'll be passengers." + +It was a tall, thin, hoopless woman, with a carpetbag, a plaid shawl, +and an umbrella; and a bonnet that, since other bonnets had begun to +poke, looked like a chaise top flattened back at the first spring. In a +word, Mehitable Sampson. + +Something twitched at the corners of the man's mouth as he glanced round +at this sudden and singular champion. Something may have twitched under +his comfortable waistcoat, also. At any rate, he passed on; and the +children--the brief battledore over in which they had been the +shuttlecocks--crept back, compliant with the second order, much amazed, +toward the stove. + +Miss Sampson began to interrogate. + +"Why don't you take your little sister home?" + +"This one ain't my sister." Children always set people right before they +answer queries. + +"Well--whoever she is, then. Why don't you both go home?" + +"'Cause it's cold there, too. And we was sent to find sticks." + +"If she isn't your sister, who does she belong to?" + +"She don't belong to nobody. She lived upstairs, and her mother died, +and she came down to us. But she's goin' to be took away. Mother's got +five of us, now. She's goin' to the poorhouse. She's a regular little +brick, though; ain't yer, Jo?" + +The pretty, childish lips that had begun to grow red and lifelike again, +parted, and showed little rows of milk teeth, like white shells. The +blue eyes and the baby smile went up, confidingly, to the young +ragamuffin's face. There had been kindness here. The boy had taken to +Jo, it seemed; and was benevolently evincing it, in the best way he +could, by teaching her good-natured slang. + +"Yes; I'm a little brick," she lisped. + +Miss Sampson's keen eyes went from one to the other, resting last and +long on Jo. + +"I shouldn't wonder," she said, deliberately, "if you was Number Four!" + +"Whereabouts do you live?" suddenly, to the boy. + +"Three doors round the corner. 'Tain't number four, though. It's +ninety-three." + +"What's your name?" + +"Tim Rafferty." + +"Tim Rafferty! Did anybody ever trust you with a carpetbag?" + +"I've carried 'em up. But then they mostly goes along, and looks sharp." + +"Well, now I'm going to leave you here, with this one. If anybody speaks +to you, say you was left in charge. Don't stir till I come back. +And--look here! if you see a young woman come in, with bright, wavy +hair, and a black gown and bonnet, and if she comes and speaks to you, +as most likely she will, tell her I said I shouldn't wonder if this was +Number Four!" + +And Nurse Sampson went out into the street. + +When she came back, the children sat there, still; and Glory McWhirk was +with them. + +"I don't know as I'd any business to meddle; and I haven't made any +promises; but I've found out that you can do as you choose about it, and +welcome. And I couldn't help thinking you might like to have this one +for Number Four." + +Glory had already nestled the poor, tattered child close to her, and +given her a cake to eat from the refreshment counter. + +Tim Rafferty delivered up the carpetbag, in proud integrity. To be sure, +there were half a dozen people in the room who had witnessed its +intrustment to his hands; but I think he would have waited there, all +the same, had the coast been clear. + +Miss Sampson gave him ten cents, and recounted to Glory what she had +learned at number ninety-three. + +"She's a strange child, left on their hands; and they're as poor as +death. They were going to give her in charge to the authorities. The +woman said she couldn't feed her another day. That's about the whole of +it. If Tim don't bring her back, they'll know where she is, and be +thankful." + +"Do you want to go home with me, and hang up your stocking, and have a +Christmas?" + +"My golly!" ejaculated Tim, staring. + +The little one smiled shyly, and was mute. She didn't know what +Christmas was. She had been cold, and she was warm, and her mouth and +hands were filled with sweet cake. And there were pleasant words in her +ears. That was all she knew. As much as we shall comprehend at first, +perhaps, when the angels take us up out of the earth cold, and give us +the first morsel of heavenly good to stay our cravings. + +This was how it ended. Tim had a paper bag of apples and cakes, with +some sugar pigs and pussy cats put in at the top, and a pair of warm +stockings out of Glory's bag, to carry home, for himself; and he was to +say that the lady who came to see his mother had taken Jo away into the +country. To Miss Henderson's, at Kinnicutt. Glory wrote these names upon +a paper. Tim was to be a good boy, and some day they would come and see +him again. + +Then Nurse Sampson's plaid shawl was wrapped about little Jo, and pinned +close over her rags to keep out the cold of Christmas Eve; and the bell +rang presently; and she was taken out into the bright, warm car, and +tucked up in a corner, where she slept all the hour that they were +steaming over the road. + +And so these three went out to Kinnicutt to keep Christmas at the Old +House. + +So Glory carried home the Christ gift that had come to her. + +Tim went back, alone, to number ninety-three. He had his bag of good +things, and his warm stockings, and his wonderful story to tell. And +there was more supper and breakfast for five than there would have been +for six. Nevertheless, somehow, he missed the "little brick." + +Out at Cross Corners, Miss Henderson's Home was all aglow. The long +kitchen, which, by the outgrowth of the house for generations, had come +to be a central room, was flooded with the clear blaze of a great pine +knot, that crackled in the chimney; and open doors showed neat adjoining +rooms, in and out which the gleams and shadows played, making a +suggestive pantomime of hide and seek. It was a grand old place for +Christmas games! And three little bright-faced girls sat round the knee +of a tidy, cheery old woman, who told them, in a quaint Irish brogue, +the story of the "little rid hin," that was caught by the fox, and got +away, again, safe, to her own little house in the woods, where she +"lived happy iver afther, an' got a fine little brood of chickens to +live wid her; an' pit 'em all intill warrum stockings and shoes, an' +round-o-caliker gowns." + +And they carped at no discrepancies or improbabilities; but seized all +eagerly, and fused it in their quick imaginations to one beautiful +meaning; which, whether it were of chicken comfort, overbrooded with +warm love, or of a clothed, contented childhood, in safe shelter, +mattered not a bit. + +Into this warm, blithe scene came Glory, just as the fable was ended for +the fourth time, bringing the last little chick, flushed and rosy from a +bath; born into beauty, like Venus from the sea; her fair hair, combed +and glossy, hanging about her neck in curls; and wrapped, not in a +"round-o-caliker," but in a scarlet-flannel nightgown, comfortable and +gay. Then they had bowls of bread and milk, and gingerbread, and ate +their suppers by the fire. And then Glory told them the old story of +Santa Claus; and how, if they hung their stockings by the chimney, there +was no knowing what they mightn't find in them to-morrow. + +"Only," she said, "whatever it is, and whoever He sends it by, it all +comes from the good Lord, first of all." + +And then, the two white beds in the two bedrooms close by held four +little happy bodies, whose souls were given into God's keeping till his +Christmas dawn should come, in the old, holy rhyme, said after Glory. + +By and by, Faith and Mr. Armstrong and Miss Sampson came over from the +Corner House, with parcels from. Kriss Kringle. + +And now there was a gladsome time for all; but chiefly, for Glory. + +What unpacking and refolding in separate papers! Every sugar pig, and +dog, and pussy cat must be in a distinct wrapping, that so the children +might be a long time finding out all that Santa Claus had brought them. +What stuffing, and tying, and pinning, inside, and outside, and over the +little red woolen legs that hung, expectant, above the big, open +chimney! How Glory laughed, and sorted, and tied and made errands for +string and pins, and seized the opportunity for brushing away great +tears of love, and joy, and thankfulness, that would keep coming into +her eyes! And then, when all was done, and she and Faith came back from +a little flitting into the bedrooms, and a hovering look over the wee, +peaceful, sleeping faces there, and they all stood, for a minute, +surveying the goodly fullness of small delights stored up and waiting +for the morrow--how she turned suddenly, and stretched her hands out +toward the kind friends who had helped and sympathized in all, and said, +with a quick overflow of feeling, that could find only the old words +wherein to utter herself: + +"Such a time as this! Such a beautiful time! And to think that I should +be in it!" + +Miss Henderson's will was fulfilled. + +A happy, young life had gathered again about the ancient hearthstone +that had seen two hundred years of human change. + +The Old House, wherefrom the last of a long line had passed on into the +Everlasting Mansions, had become God's heritage. + +Nurse Sampson spent her Christmas with the Gartneys. + +They must have her again, they told her, at parting, for the wedding; +which would be in May. + +"I may be a thousand miles off, by that time. But I shall think of you, +all the same, wherever I am. My work is coming. I feel it. There's a +smell of blood and death in the air; and all the strong hearts and +hands'll be wanted. You'll see it." + +And with that, she was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII. + +THE WEDDING JOURNEY. + + "The tree +Sucks kindlier nurture from a soil enriched +By its own fallen leaves; and man is made, +In heart and spirit, from deciduous hopes +And things that seem to perish." + +"A stream always among woods or in the sunshine is pleasant to all +and happy in itself. Another, forced through rocks, and choked with +sand, under ground, cold, dark, comes up able to heal the +world."--FROM "SEED GRAIN." + + +"Shall we plan a wedding journey, Faith?" + +It was one evening in April that Mr. Armstrong said this. The day for +the marriage had been fixed for the first week in May. + +Faith had something of the bird nature about her. Always, at this moment +of the year, a restlessness, akin to that which prompts the flitting of +winged things that track the sunshine and the creeping greenness that +goes up the latitudes, had used to seize her, inwardly. Something that +came with the swelling of tender buds, and the springing of bright +blades, and the first music born from winter silence, had prompted her +with the whisper: "Abroad! abroad! Out into the beautiful earth!" + +It had been one of her unsatisfied longings. She had thought, what a joy +it would be if she could have said, frankly, "Father, mother! let us +have a pleasant journey in the lovely weather!" + +And now, that one stood at her side, who would have taken her in his +tender guardianship whithersoever she might choose--now that there was +no need for hesitancy in her wish--this child, who had never been beyond +the Hudson, who had thought longingly of Catskill, and Trenton, and +Niagara, and had seen them only in her dreams--felt, inexplicably, a +contrary impulse, that said within her, "Not yet!" Somehow, she did not +care, at this great and beautiful hour of her life, to wander away into +strange places. Its holy happiness belonged to home. + +"Not now. Unless you wish it. Not on purpose. Take me with you, some +time, when, perhaps, you would have gone alone. Let it _happen_." + +"We will just begin our quiet life, then, darling, shall we? The life +that is to be our real blessedness, and that has no need to give itself +a holiday, as yet. And let the workdays and the holidays be portioned as +God pleases?" + +"It will be better--happier," Faith answered, timidly. "Besides, with +all this fearful tramping to war through the whole land, how can one +feel like pleasure journeying? And then"--there was another little +reason that peeped out last--"they would have been so sure to make a +fuss about us in New York!" + +The adjuncts of life had been much to her in those restless days when a +dark doubt lay over its deep reality. She had found a passing cheer and +relief in them, then. Now, she was so sure, so quietly content! It was a +joy too sacred to be intermeddled with. + +So a family group, only, gathered in the hillside parlor, on the fair +May morning wherein good, venerable Mr. Holland said the words that made +Faith Gartney and Roger Armstrong one. + +It was all still, and bright, and simple. Glory, standing modestly by +the door, said within herself, "it was like a little piece of heaven." + +And afterwards--not the bride and groom--but father, mother, and little +brother, said good-by, and went away upon their journey, and left them +there. In the quaint, pleasant home, that was theirs now, under the +budding elms, with the smile of the May promise pouring in. + +And Glory made a May Day at the Old House, by and by. And the little +children climbed in the apple branches, and perched there, singing, like +the birds. + +And was there not a white-robed presence with them, somehow, watching +all? + + * * * * * + +Nearly three months had gone. The hay was down. The distillation of +sweet clover was in all the air. The little ones at the Old House were +out, in the lengthening shadows of the July afternoon, rolling and +reveling in the perfumed, elastic heaps. + +Faith Armstrong stood with Glory, in the porch angle, looking on. + +Calm and beautiful. Only the joy of birds and children making sound and +stir across the summer stillness. + +Away over the broad face of the earth, out from such peace as this, +might there, if one could look--unroll some vision of horrible contrast? +Were blood, and wrath, and groans, and thunderous roar of guns down +there under that far, fair horizon, stooping in golden beauty to the +cool, green hills? + +Faith walked down the field path, presently, to meet her husband, coming +up. He held in his hand an open paper, that he had brought, just now +from the village. + +There was news. + +Rout, horror, confusion, death, dismay. + +The field of Manassas had been fought. The Union armies were falling +back, in disorder, upon Washington. + +Breathlessly, with pale faces, and with hands that grasped each other in +a deep excitement that could not come to speech, they read those +columns, together. + +Down there, on those Virginian plains, was this. + +And they were here, in quiet safety, among the clover blooms, and the +new-cut hay. Elsewhere, men were mown. + +"Roger!" said Faith, when, by and by, they had grown calmer over the +fearful tidings, and had had Bible words of peace and cheer for the +fevered and bloody rumors of men--"mightn't we take our wedding journey, +now?" + +All the bright, early summer, in those first months of their life +together, they had been finding work to do. Work they had hardly dreamed +of when Faith had feared she might be left to a mere, unworthy, selfish +rest and happiness. + +The old New England spirit had roused itself, mightily, in the little +country town. People had forgotten their own needs, and the provision +they were wont to make, at this time, each household for itself. Money +and material, and quick, willing hands were found, and a good work went +on; and kindling zeal, and noble sympathies, and hearty prayers wove +themselves in, with toil of thread and needle, to homely fabrics, and +embalmed, with every finger touch, all whereon they labored. + +They had remembered the old struggle wherein their country had been +born. They were glad and proud to bear their burden in this grander one +wherein she was to be born anew, to higher life. + +Roger Armstrong and his wife had been the spring and soul and center of +all. + +And now Faith said: "Roger! mayn't we take our wedding journey?" + +Not for a bridal holiday--not for gay change and pleasure--but for a +holy purpose, went they out from home. + +Down among the wounded, and war-smitten. Bearing comfort of gifts, and +helpful words, and prayers. Doing whatsoever they found to do, now; +seeking and learning what they might best do, hereafter. Truly, God left +them not without a work. A noble ministry lay ready for them, at this +very threshold of their wedded life. + +In the hospital at Georgetown, they found Nurse Sampson. + +"I told you so," she said. "I knew it was coming. And the first gun +brought me down here to be ready. I've been out to Western Virginia; and +I came back here when we got the news of this. I shall follow round, +wherever the clouds roll." + +In Washington, still another meeting awaited them. + +Paul Rushleigh, in a Captain's uniform, came, one day, to the table of +their hotel. + +The first gun had brought him, also, where he could be ready. He had +sailed for home, with his father, upon the reception, abroad, of the +tidings of the fall of Sumter. + +"Your country will want you, now, my son," had been the words of the +brave and loyal gentleman. And, like another Abraham, he had set his +face toward the mount of sacrifice. + +There was a new light in the young man's eye. A soul awakened there. A +purpose, better than any plan or hope of a mere happy living in the +earth. + +He met his old friends frankly, generously; and, seemingly, without a +pang. They were all one now, in the sublime labor that, in their several +spheres, lay out before them. + +"You were right, Faith," he said, as he stood with them, and spoke +briefly of the past, before they parted. "I shall be more of a man, than +if I'd had my first wish. This war is going to make a nation of men. I'm +free, now, to give my heart and hand to my country, as long as she needs +me. And by and by, perhaps, if I live, some woman may love me with the +sort of love you have for your husband. I feel now, how surely I should +have come to be dissatisfied with less. God bless you both!" + +"God bless you, Paul!" + +THE END. + + + + * * * * * * + + + +BIOGRAPHY AND BIBLIOGRAPHY + +MRS. ADELINE DUTTON (Train) WHITNEY, American novelist and poet, was +born in Boston, September 15, 1824, and was married to Seth D. Whitney, +of Milton, Mass., in 1843. Writing little for publication in early life, +she produced, in 1863, _Faith Gartney's Girlhood_, which brought her +great popularity both at home and in England, where the novel gained +especially favorable commendation. Although planned purely as a girl's +book, the story of _Faith_ grew into her womanhood, and after the lapse +of almost half a century continues to be a prime favorite. It is a +purely told story of New England life, especially with dramatic +incidents and an excellent bit of romance. + +_The Gayworthys: a Story of Threads and Thrums_ (1865), continued Mrs. +Whitney's popularity and received flattering notices from the London +_Reader_, _Athenaeum_, _Pall Mall Gazette_, and _Spectator_. Mrs. Whitney +was a contributor to the _Atlantic Monthly_, _Our Young Folks_, _Old and +New_ and various other periodicals. + +Among her other published works are: _Footsteps on the Seas_ (1857), +poems; _Mother Goose for Grown Folks_ (1860); _Boys at Chequasset_ +(1862); _A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life_ (1866); _Patience +Strong's Outings_ (1868); _Hitherto: a Story of Yesterday_ (1869); _We +Girls_ (1870); _Real Folks_ (1871); _Zerub Throop's Experiment_ (1871); +_Pansies_, verse (1872); _The Other Girls_ (1873); _Sights and Insights_ +(1876); _Odd or Even_ (1880); _Bonnyborough_ (1885); _Holy-Tides_, verse +(1886); _Homespun Yarns_ (1887); _Bird Talk_, verse (1887); _Daffodils_, +verse (1887); _Friendly Letters to Girl Friends_ (1897); _Biddy's +Episodes_ (1904). + +Breadth of view on social conditions, a deeply religious spirit, and a +charming facility both in descriptive and romantic passages, give this +novelist her sustained popularity. + +Mrs. Whitney died in Boston on March 21st, 1906. + + + + * * * * * * + + + +Transcriber's Notes + + 1. Some punctuation has been changed to conform to contemporary + standards. + + 2. The author's biography has been moved to the end of the text + from the reverse of the title page. + + 3. A Table of Contents was not present in the original edition. + + 4. The "certain pause and emphasis" differentiated by the author + is marked with spaced mid-dots in Chapter XVI, as in the + original text. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAITH GARTNEY'S GIRLHOOD*** + + +******* This file should be named 18896.txt or 18896.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/8/9/18896 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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