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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to
+1922, by Lucy Maud Montgomery
+
+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: Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922
+
+Author: Lucy Maud Montgomery
+
+Release Date: March 19, 2008 [EBook #24878]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MONTGOMERY SHORT STORIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Alicia Williams, Jeannie Howse and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922
+
+
+Lucy Maud Montgomery was born at Clifton (now New London), Prince
+Edward Island, Canada, on November 30, 1874. She achieved
+international fame in her lifetime, putting Prince Edward Island and
+Canada on the world literary map. Best known for her "Anne of Green
+Gables" books, she was also a prolific writer of short stories and
+poetry. She published some 500 short stories and poems and twenty
+novels before her death in 1942. The Project Gutenberg collection of
+her short stories was gathered from numerous sources and is presented
+in chronological publishing order:
+
+Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901
+Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903
+Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904
+Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906
+Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908
+Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Short Stories 1909 to 1922
+
+    A Golden Wedding                                         1909
+    A Redeeming Sacrifice                                    1909
+    A Soul that Was Not At Home                              1909
+    Abel And His Great Adventure                             1917
+    Akin to Love                                             1909
+    Aunt Philippa and the Men                                1915
+    Bessie's Doll                                            1914
+    Charlotte's Ladies                                       1911
+    Christmas at Red Butte                                   1909
+    How We Went to the Wedding                               1913
+    Jessamine                                                1909
+    Miss Sally's Letter                                      1910
+    My Lady Jane                                             1915
+    Robert Turner's Revenge                                  1909
+    The Fillmore Elderberries                                1909
+    The Finished Story                                       1912
+    The Garden of Spices                                     1918
+    The Girl and the Photograph                              1915
+    The Gossip of Valley View                                1910
+    The Letters                                              1910
+    The Life-Book of Uncle Jesse                             1909
+    The Little Black Doll                                    1909
+    The Man on the Train                                     1914
+    The Romance of Jedediah                                  1912
+    The Tryst of the White Lady                              1922
+    Uncle Richard's New Year Dinner                          1910
+    White Magic                                              1921
+
+
+
+
+A Golden Wedding
+
+
+The land dropped abruptly down from the gate, and a thick, shrubby
+growth of young apple orchard almost hid the little weather-grey house
+from the road. This was why the young man who opened the sagging gate
+could not see that it was boarded up, and did not cease his cheerful
+whistling until he had pressed through the crowding trees and found
+himself almost on the sunken stone doorstep over which in olden days
+honeysuckle had been wont to arch. Now only a few straggling,
+uncared-for vines clung forlornly to the shingles, and the windows
+were, as has been said, all boarded up.
+
+The whistle died on the young man's lips and an expression of blank
+astonishment and dismay settled down on his face--a good, kindly,
+honest face it was, although perhaps it did not betoken any pronounced
+mental gifts on the part of its owner.
+
+"What can have happened?" he said to himself. "Uncle Tom and Aunt
+Sally can't be dead--I'd have seen their deaths in the paper if they
+was. And I'd a-thought if they'd moved away it'd been printed too.
+They can't have been gone long--that flower-bed must have been made up
+last spring. Well, this is a kind of setback for a fellow. Here I've
+been tramping all the way from the station, a-thinking how good it
+would be to see Aunt Sally's sweet old face again, and hear Uncle
+Tom's laugh, and all I find is a boarded-up house going to seed.
+S'pose I might as well toddle over to Stetsons' and inquire if they
+haven't disappeared, too."
+
+He went through the old firs back of the lot and across the field to a
+rather shabby house beyond. A cheery-faced woman answered his knock
+and looked at him in a puzzled fashion. "Have you forgot me, Mrs.
+Stetson? Don't you remember Lovell Stevens and how you used to give
+him plum tarts when he'd bring your turkeys home?"
+
+Mrs. Stetson caught both his hands in a hearty clasp.
+
+"I guess I haven't forgotten!" she declared. "Well, well, and you're
+Lovell! I think I ought to know your face, though you've changed a
+lot. Fifteen years have made a big difference in you. Come right in.
+Pa, this is Lovell--you mind Lovell, the boy Aunt Sally and Uncle Tom
+had for years?"
+
+"Reckon I do," drawled Jonah Stetson with a friendly grin. "Ain't
+likely to forget some of the capers you used to be cutting up. You've
+filled out considerable. Where have you been for the last ten years?
+Aunt Sally fretted a lot over you, thinking you was dead or gone to
+the bad."
+
+Lovell's face clouded.
+
+"I know I ought to have written," he said repentantly, "but you know
+I'm a terrible poor scholar, and I'd do most anything than try to
+write a letter. But where's Uncle Tom and Aunt Sally gone? Surely they
+ain't dead?"
+
+"No," said Jonah Stetson slowly, "no--but I guess they'd rather be.
+They're in the poorhouse."
+
+"The poorhouse! Aunt Sally in the poorhouse!" exclaimed Lovell.
+
+"Yes, and it's a burning shame," declared Mrs. Stetson. "Aunt Sally's
+just breaking her heart from the disgrace of it. But it didn't seem as
+if it could be helped. Uncle Tom got so crippled with rheumatism he
+couldn't work and Aunt Sally was too frail to do anything. They hadn't
+any relations and there was a mortgage on the house."
+
+"There wasn't any when I went away."
+
+"No; they had to borrow money six years ago when Uncle Tom had his
+first spell of rheumatic fever. This spring it was clear that there
+was nothing for them but the poorhouse. They went three months ago and
+terrible hard they took it, especially Aunt Sally, I felt awful about
+it myself. Jonah and I would have took them if we could, but we just
+couldn't--we've nothing but Jonah's wages and we have eight children
+and not a bit of spare room. I go over to see Aunt Sally as often as I
+can and take her some little thing, but I dunno's she wouldn't rather
+not see anybody than see them in the poorhouse."
+
+Lovell weighed his hat in his hands and frowned over it reflectively.
+
+"Who owns the house now?"
+
+"Peter Townley. He held the mortgage. And all the old furniture was
+sold too, and that most killed Aunt Sally. But do you know what she's
+fretting over most of all? She and Uncle Tom will have been married
+fifty years in a fortnight's time and Aunt Sally thinks it's awful to
+have to spend their golden wedding anniversary in the poorhouse. She
+talks about it all the time. You're not going, Lovell"--for Lovell had
+risen--"you must stop with us, since your old home is closed up. We'll
+scare you up a shakedown to sleep on and you're welcome as welcome. I
+haven't forgot the time you caught Mary Ellen just as she was tumbling
+into the well."
+
+"Thank you, I'll stay to tea," said Lovell, sitting down again, "but I
+guess I'll make my headquarters up at the station hotel as long as I
+stay round here. It's kind of more central."
+
+"Got on pretty well out west, hey?" queried Jonah.
+
+"Pretty well for a fellow who had nothing but his two hands to depend
+on when he went out," said Lovell cautiously. "I've only been a
+labouring man, of course, but I've saved up enough to start a little
+store when I go back. That's why I came east for a trip now--before
+I'd be tied down to business. I was hankering to see Aunt Sally and
+Uncle Tom once more. I'll never forget how kind and good they was to
+me. There I was, when Dad died, a little sinner of eleven, just
+heading for destruction. They give me a home and all the schooling I
+ever had and all the love I ever got. It was Aunt Sally's teachings
+made as much a man of me as I am. I never forgot 'em and I've tried to
+live up to 'em."
+
+After tea Lovell said he thought he'd stroll up the road and pay Peter
+Townley a call. Jonah Stetson and his wife looked at each other when
+he had gone.
+
+"Got something in his eye," nodded Jonah. "Him and Peter weren't never
+much of friends."
+
+"Maybe Aunt Sally's bread is coming back to her after all," said his
+wife. "People used to be hard on Lovell. But I always liked him and
+I'm real glad he's turned out so well."
+
+Lovell came back to the Stetsons' the next evening. In the interval he
+had seen Aunt Sally and Uncle Tom. The meeting had been both glad and
+sad. Lovell had also seen other people.
+
+"I've bought Uncle Tom's old house from Peter Townley," he said
+quietly, "and I want you folks to help me out with my plans. Uncle Tom
+and Aunt Sally ain't going to spend their golden wedding in the
+poorhouse--no, sir. They'll spend it in their own home with their old
+friends about them. But they're not to know anything about it till the
+very night. Do you s'pose any of the old furniture could be got back?"
+
+"I believe every stick of it could," said Mrs. Stetson excitedly.
+"Most of it was bought by folks living handy and I don't believe one
+of them would refuse to sell it back. Uncle Tom's old chair is here to
+begin with--Aunt Sally give me that herself. She said she couldn't
+bear to have it sold. Mrs. Isaac Appleby at the station bought the set
+of pink-sprigged china and James Parker bought the grandfather's clock
+and the whatnot is at the Stanton Grays'."
+
+For the next fortnight Lovell and Mrs. Stetson did so much travelling
+round together that Jonah said genially he might as well be a bachelor
+as far as meals and buttons went. They visited every house where a bit
+of Aunt Sally's belongings could be found. Very successful they were
+too, and at the end of their jaunting the interior of the little house
+behind the apple trees looked very much as it had looked when Aunt
+Sally and Uncle Tom lived there.
+
+Meanwhile, Mrs. Stetson had been revolving a design in her mind, and
+one afternoon she did some canvassing on her own account. The next
+time she saw Lovell she said:
+
+"We ain't going to let you do it all. The women folks around here are
+going to furnish the refreshments for the golden wedding and the girls
+are going to decorate the house with golden rod."
+
+The evening of the wedding anniversary came. Everybody in Blair was in
+the plot, including the matron of the poorhouse. That night Aunt Sally
+watched the sunset over the hills through bitter tears.
+
+"I never thought I'd be celebrating my golden wedding in the
+poorhouse," she sobbed. Uncle Tom put his twisted hand on her shaking
+old shoulder, but before he could utter any words of comfort Lovell
+Stevens stood before them.
+
+"Just get your bonnet on, Aunt Sally," he cried jovially, "and both of
+you come along with me. I've got a buggy here for you ... and you
+might as well say goodbye to this place, for you're not coming back to
+it any more."
+
+"Lovell, oh, what do you mean?" said Aunt Sally tremulously.
+
+"I'll explain what I mean as we drive along. Hurry up--the folks are
+waiting."
+
+When they reached the little old house, it was all aglow with light.
+Aunt Sally gave a cry as she entered it. All her old household goods
+were back in their places. There were some new ones too, for Lovell
+had supplied all that was lacking. The house was full of their old
+friends and neighbours. Mrs. Stetson welcomed them home again.
+
+"Oh, Tom," whispered Aunt Sally, tears of happiness streaming down her
+old face, "oh, Tom, isn't God good?"
+
+They had a right royal celebration, and a supper such as the Blair
+housewives could produce. There were speeches and songs and tales.
+Lovell kept himself in the background and helped Mrs. Stetson cut cake
+in the pantry all the evening. But when the guests had gone, he went
+to Aunt Sally and Uncle Tom, who were sitting by the fire.
+
+"Here's a little golden wedding present for you," he said awkwardly,
+putting a purse into Aunt Sally's hand. "I reckon there's enough there
+to keep you from ever having to go to the poorhouse again and if not,
+there'll be more where that comes from when it's done."
+
+There were twenty-five bright twenty-dollar gold pieces in the purse.
+
+"We can't take it, Lovell," protested Aunt Sally. "You can't afford
+it."
+
+"Don't you worry about that," laughed Lovell. "Out west men don't
+think much of a little wad like that. I owe you far more than can be
+paid in cash, Aunt Sally. You must take it--I want to know there's a
+little home here for me and two kind hearts in it, no matter where I
+roam."
+
+"God bless you, Lovell," said Uncle Tom huskily. "You don't know what
+you've done for Sally and me."
+
+That night, when Lovell went to the little bedroom off the
+parlour--for Aunt Sally, rejoicing in the fact that she was again
+mistress of a spare room, would not hear of his going to the station
+hotel--he gazed at his reflection in the gilt-framed mirror soberly.
+
+"You've just got enough left to pay your passage back west, old
+fellow," he said, "and then it's begin all over again just where you
+begun before. But Aunt Sally's face was worth it all--yes, sir. And
+you've got your two hands still and an old couple's prayers and
+blessings. Not such a bad capital, Lovell, not such a bad capital."
+
+
+
+
+A Redeeming Sacrifice
+
+
+The dance at Byron Lyall's was in full swing. Toff Leclerc, the best
+fiddler in three counties, was enthroned on the kitchen table and from
+the glossy brown violin, which his grandfather brought from Grand Pré,
+was conjuring music which made even stiff old Aunt Phemy want to show
+her steps. Around the kitchen sat a row of young men and women, and
+the open sitting-room doorway was crowded with the faces of
+non-dancing guests who wanted to watch the sets.
+
+An eight-hand reel had just been danced and the girls, giddy from the
+much swinging of the final figure, had been led back to their seats.
+Mattie Lyall came out with a dipper of water and sprinkled the floor,
+from which a fine dust was rising. Toff's violin purred under his
+hands as he waited for the next set to form. The dancers were slow
+about it. There was not the rush for the floor that there had been
+earlier in the evening, for the supper table was now spread in the
+dining-room and most of the guests were hungry.
+
+"Fill up dere, boys," shouted the fiddler impatiently. "Bring out your
+gals for de nex' set."
+
+After a moment Paul King led out Joan Shelley from the shadowy corner
+where they had been sitting. They had already danced several sets
+together; Joan had not danced with anybody else that evening. As they
+stood together under the light from the lamp on the shelf above them,
+many curious and disapproving eyes watched them. Connor Mitchell, who
+had been standing in the open outer doorway with the moonlight behind
+him, turned abruptly on his heel and went out.
+
+Paul King leaned his head against the wall and watched the watchers
+with a smiling, defiant face as they waited for the set to form. He
+was a handsome fellow, with the easy, winning ways that women love.
+His hair curled in bronze masses about his head; his dark eyes were
+long and drowsy and laughing; there was a swarthy bloom on his round
+cheeks; and his lips were as red and beguiling as a girl's. A bad egg
+was Paul King, with a bad past and a bad future. He was shiftless and
+drunken; ugly tales were told of him. Not a man in Lyall's house that
+night but grudged him the privilege of standing up with Joan Shelley.
+
+Joan was a slight, blossom-like girl in white, looking much like the
+pale, sweet-scented house rose she wore in her dark hair. Her face was
+colourless and young, very pure and softly curved. She had wonderfully
+sweet, dark blue eyes, generally dropped down, with notably long black
+lashes. There were many showier girls in the groups around her, but
+none half so lovely. She made all the rosy-cheeked beauties seem
+coarse and over-blown.
+
+She left in Paul's clasp the hand by which he had led her out on the
+floor. Now and then he shifted his gaze from the faces before him to
+hers. When he did, she always looked up and they exchanged glances as
+if they had been utterly alone. Three other couples gradually took the
+floor and the reel began. Joan drifted through the figures with the
+grace of a wind-blown leaf. Paul danced with rollicking abandon,
+seldom taking his eyes from Joan's face. When the last mad whirl was
+over, Joan's brother came up and told her in an angry tone to go into
+the next room and dance no more, since she would dance with only one
+man. Joan looked at Paul. That look meant that she would do as he, and
+none other, told her. Paul nodded easily--he did not want any fuss
+just then--and the girl went obediently into the room. As she turned
+from him, Paul coolly reached out his hand and took the rose from her
+hair; then, with a triumphant glance around the room, he went out.
+
+The autumn night was very clear and chill, with a faint, moaning wind
+blowing up from the northwest over the sea that lay shimmering before
+the door. Out beyond the cove the boats were nodding and curtsying on
+the swell, and over the shore fields the great red star of the
+lighthouse flared out against the silvery sky. Paul, with a whistle,
+sauntered down the sandy lane, thinking of Joan. How mightily he loved
+her--he, Paul King, who had made a mock of so many women and had never
+loved before! Ah, and she loved him. She had never said so in words,
+but eyes and tones had said it--she, Joan Shelley, the pick and pride
+of the Harbour girls, whom so many men had wooed, winning their
+trouble for their pains. He had won her; she was his and his only, for
+the asking. His heart was seething with pride and triumph and passion
+as he strode down to the shore and flung himself on the cold sand in
+the black shadow of Michael Brown's beached boat.
+
+Byron Lyall, a grizzled, elderly man, half farmer, half fisherman, and
+Maxwell Holmes, the Prospect schoolteacher, came up to the boat
+presently. Paul lay softly and listened to what they were saying. He
+was not troubled by any sense of dishonour. Honour was something Paul
+King could not lose since it was something he had never possessed.
+They were talking of him and Joan.
+
+"What a shame that a girl like Joan Shelley should throw herself away
+on a man like that," Holmes said.
+
+Byron Lyall removed the pipe he was smoking and spat reflectively at
+his shadow.
+
+"Darned shame," he agreed. "That girl's life will be ruined if she
+marries him, plum' ruined, and marry him she will. He's bewitched
+her--darned if I can understand it. A dozen better men have wanted
+her--Connor Mitchell for one. And he's a honest, steady fellow with a
+good home to offer her. If King had left her alone, she'd have taken
+Connor. She used to like him well enough. But that's all over. She's
+infatuated with King, the worthless scamp. She'll marry him and be
+sorry for it to her last day. He's bad clear through and always will
+be. Why, look you, Teacher, most men pull up a bit when they're
+courting a girl, no matter how wild they've been and will be again.
+Paul hasn't. It hasn't made any difference. He was dead drunk night
+afore last at the Harbour head, and he hasn't done a stroke of work
+for a month. And yet Joan Shelley'll take him."
+
+"What are her people thinking of to let her go with him?" asked
+Holmes.
+
+"She hasn't any but her brother. He's against Paul, of course, but it
+won't matter. The girl's fancy's caught and she'll go her own gait to
+ruin. Ruin, I tell ye. If she marries that handsome ne'er-do-well,
+she'll be a wretched woman all her days and none to pity her."
+
+The two moved away then, and Paul lay motionless, face downward on the
+sand, his lips pressed against Joan's sweet, crushed rose. He felt no
+anger over Byron Lyall's unsparing condemnation. He knew it was true,
+every word of it. He _was_ a worthless scamp and always would be. He
+knew that perfectly well. It was in his blood. None of his race had
+ever been respectable and he was worse than them all. He had no
+intention of trying to reform because he could not and because he did
+not even want to. He was not fit to touch Joan's hand. Yet he had
+meant to marry her!
+
+But to spoil her life! Would it do that? Yes, it surely would. And if
+he were out of the way, taking his baleful charm out of her life,
+Connor Mitchell might and doubtless would win her yet and give her all
+he could not.
+
+The man suddenly felt his eyes wet with tears. He had never shed a
+tear in his daredevil life before, but they came hot and stinging now.
+Something he had never known or thought of before entered into his
+passion and purified it. He loved Joan. Did he love her well enough to
+stand aside and let another take the sweetness and grace that was now
+his own? Did he love her well enough to save her from the
+poverty-stricken, shamed life she must lead with him? Did he love her
+better than himself?
+
+"I ain't fit to think of her," he groaned. "I never did a decent thing
+in my life, as they say. But how can I give her up--God, how can I?"
+
+He lay still a long time after that, until the moonlight crept around
+the boat and drove away the shadow. Then he got up and went slowly
+down to the water's edge with Joan's rose, all wet with his
+unaccustomed tears, in his hands. Slowly and reverently he plucked off
+the petals and scattered them on the ripples, where they drifted
+lightly off like fairy shallops on moonshine. When the last one had
+fluttered from his fingers, he went back to the house and hunted up
+Captain Alec Matheson, who was smoking his pipe in a corner of the
+verandah and watching the young folks dancing through the open door.
+The two men talked together for some time.
+
+When the dance broke up and the guests straggled homeward, Paul sought
+Joan. Rob Shelley had his own girl to see home and relinquished the
+guardianship of his sister with a scowl. Paul strode out of the
+kitchen and down the steps at the side of Joan, smiling with his usual
+daredeviltry. He whistled noisily all the way up the lane.
+
+"Great little dance," he said. "My last in Prospect for a spell, I
+guess."
+
+"Why?" asked Joan wonderingly.
+
+"Oh, I'm going to take a run down to South America in Matheson's
+schooner. Lord knows when I'll come back. This old place has got too
+deadly dull to suit me. I'm going to look for something livelier."
+
+Joan's lips turned ashen under the fringes of her white fascinator.
+She trembled violently and put one of her small brown hands up to her
+throat. "You--you are not coming back?" she said faintly.
+
+"Not likely. I'm pretty well tired of Prospect and I haven't got
+anything to hold me here. Things'll be livelier down south."
+
+Joan said nothing more. They walked along the spruce-fringed roads
+where the moonbeams laughed down through the thick, softly swaying
+boughs. Paul whistled one rollicking tune after another. The girl bit
+her lips and clenched her hands. He cared nothing for her--he had been
+making a mock of her as of others. Hurt pride and wounded love fought
+each other in her soul. Pride conquered. She would not let him, or
+anyone, see that she cared. She would _not_ care!
+
+At her gate Paul held out his hand.
+
+"Well, good-bye, Joan. I'm sailing tomorrow so I won't see you
+again--not for years likely. You will be some sober old married woman
+when I come back to Prospect, if I ever do."
+
+"Good-bye," said Joan steadily. She gave him her cold hand and looked
+calmly into his face without quailing. She had loved him with all her
+heart, but now a fatal scorn of him was already mingling with her
+love. He was what they said he was, a scamp without principle or
+honour.
+
+Paul whistled himself out of the Shelley lane and over the hill. Then
+he flung himself down under the spruces, crushed his face into the
+spicy frosted ferns, and had his black hour alone.
+
+But when Captain Alec's schooner sailed out of the harbour the next
+day, Paul King was on board of her, the wildest and most hilarious of
+a wild and hilarious crew. Prospect people nodded their satisfaction.
+
+"Good riddance," they said. "Paul King is black to the core. He never
+did a decent thing in his life."
+
+
+
+
+A Soul That Was Not at Home
+
+
+There was a very fine sunset on the night Paul and Miss Trevor first
+met, and she had lingered on the headland beyond Noel's Cove to
+delight in it. The west was splendid in daffodil and rose; away to the
+north there was a mackerel sky of little fiery golden clouds; and
+across the water straight from Miss Trevor's feet ran a sparkling path
+of light to the sun, whose rim had just touched the throbbing edge of
+the purple sea. Off to the left were softly swelling violet hills and
+beyond the sandshore, where little waves were crisping and silvering,
+there was a harbour where scores of slender masts were nodding against
+the gracious horizon.
+
+Miss Trevor sighed with sheer happiness in all the wonderful,
+fleeting, elusive loveliness of sky and sea. Then she turned to look
+back at Noel's Cove, dim and shadowy in the gloom of the tall
+headlands, and she saw Paul.
+
+It did not occur to her that he could be a shore boy--she knew the
+shore type too well. She thought his coming mysterious, for she was
+sure he had not come along the sand, and the tide was too high for him
+to have come past the other headland. Yet there he was, sitting on a
+red sandstone boulder, with his bare, bronzed, shapely little legs
+crossed in front of him and his hands clasped around his knee. He was
+not looking at Miss Trevor but at the sunset--or, rather, it seemed as
+if he were looking through the sunset to still grander and more
+radiant splendours beyond, of which the things seen were only the pale
+reflections, not worthy of attention from those who had the gift of
+further sight.
+
+Miss Trevor looked him over carefully with eyes that had seen a good
+many people in many parts of the world for more years than she found
+it altogether pleasant to acknowledge, and she concluded that he was
+quite the handsomest lad she had ever seen. He had a lithe, supple
+body, with sloping shoulders and a brown, satin throat. His hair was
+thick and wavy, of a fine reddish chestnut; his brows were very
+straight and much darker than his hair; and his eyes were large and
+grey and meditative. The modelling of chin and jaw was perfect and his
+mouth was delicious, being full without pouting, the crimson lips just
+softly touching, and curving into finely finished little corners that
+narrowly escaped being dimpled.
+
+His attire was a blue cotton shirt and a pair of scanty corduroy
+knickerbockers, but he wore it with such an unconscious air of purple
+and fine linen that Miss Trevor was tricked into believing him much
+better dressed than he really was.
+
+Presently he smiled dreamily, and the smile completed her subjugation.
+It was not merely an affair of lip and eye, as are most smiles; it
+seemed an illumination of his whole body, as if some lamp had
+suddenly burst into flame inside of him, irradiating him from his
+chestnut crown to the tips of his unspoiled toes. Best of all, it was
+involuntary, born of no external effort or motive, but simply the
+outflashing of some wild, delicious thought that was as untrammelled
+and freakish as the wind of the sea.
+
+Miss Trevor made up her mind that she must find out all about him, and
+she stepped out from the shadows of the rocks into the vivid, eerie
+light that was glowing all along the shore. The boy turned his head
+and looked at her, first with surprise, then with inquiry, then with
+admiration. Miss Trevor, in a white dress with a lace scarf on her
+dark, stately head, was well worth admiring. She smiled at him and
+Paul smiled back. It was not quite up to his first smile, having more
+of the effect of being put on from the outside, but at least it
+conveyed the subtly flattering impression that it had been put on
+solely for her, and they were as good friends from that moment as if
+they had known each other for a hundred years. Miss Trevor had enough
+discrimination to realize this and know that she need not waste time
+in becoming acquainted.
+
+"I want to know your name and where you live and what you were looking
+at beyond the sunset," she said.
+
+"My name is Paul Hubert. I live over there. And I can't tell just what
+I saw in the sunset, but when I go home I'm going to write it all in
+my foolscap book."
+
+In her surprise over the second clause of his answer, Miss Trevor
+forgot, at first, to appreciate the last. "Over there," according to
+his gesture, was up at the head of Noel's Cove, where there was a
+little grey house perched on the rocks and looking like a large
+seashell cast up by the tide. The house had a stovepipe coming out of
+its roof in lieu of a chimney, and two of its window panes were
+replaced by shingles. Could this boy, who looked as young princes
+should--and seldom do--live there? Then he was a shore boy after all.
+
+"Who lives there with you?" she asked. "You see"--plaintively--"I must
+ask questions about you. I know we like each other, and that is all
+that really matters. But there are some tiresome items which it would
+be convenient to know. For example, have you a father--a mother? Are
+there any more of you? How long have you been yourself?"
+
+Paul did not reply immediately. He clasped his hands behind him and
+looked at her affectionately.
+
+"I like the way you talk," he said. "I never knew anybody did talk
+like that except folks in books and my rock people."
+
+"Your rock people?"
+
+"I'm eleven years old. I haven't any father or mother, they're dead. I
+live over there with Stephen Kane. Stephen is splendid. He plays the
+violin and takes me fishing in his boat. When I get bigger he's going
+shares with me. I love him, and I love my rock people too."
+
+"What do you mean by your rock people?" asked Miss Trevor, enjoying
+herself hugely. This was the only child she had ever met who talked as
+she wanted children to talk and who understood her remarks without
+having to have them translated.
+
+"Nora is one of them," said Paul, "the best one of them. I love her
+better than all the others because she came first. She lives around
+that point and she has black eyes and black hair and she knows all
+about the mermaids and water kelpies. You ought to hear the stories
+she can tell. Then there are the Twin Sailors. They don't live
+anywhere--they sail all the time, but they often come ashore to talk
+to me. They are a pair of jolly tars and they have seen everything in
+the world--and more than what's in the world, if you only knew it. Do
+you know what happened to the Youngest Twin Sailor once? He was
+sailing and he sailed right into a moonglade. A moonglade is the track
+the full moon makes on the water when it is rising from the sea, you
+know. Well, the Youngest Twin Sailor sailed along the moonglade till
+he came right up to the moon, and there was a little golden door in
+the moon and he opened it and sailed right through. He had some
+wonderful adventures inside the moon--I've got them all written down
+in my foolscap book. Then there is the Golden Lady of the Cave. One
+day I found a big cave down the shore and I went in and in and in--and
+after a while I found the Golden Lady. She has golden hair right down
+to her feet, and her dress is all glittering and glistening like gold
+that is alive. And she has a golden harp and she plays all day long on
+it--you might hear the music if you'd listen carefully, but prob'bly
+you'd think it was only the wind among the rocks. I've never told Nora
+about the Golden Lady, because I think it would hurt her feelings. It
+even hurts her feelings when I talk too long with the Twin Sailors.
+And I hate to hurt Nora's feelings, because I do love her best of all
+my rock people."
+
+"Paul! How much of this is true?" gasped Miss Trevor.
+
+"Why, none of it!" said Paul, opening his eyes widely and
+reproachfully. "I thought you would know that. If I'd s'posed you
+wouldn't I'd have warned you there wasn't any of it true. I thought
+you were one of the kind that would know."
+
+"I am. Oh, I am!" said Miss Trevor eagerly. "I really would have known
+if I had stopped to think. Well, it's getting late now. I must go
+back, although I don't want to. But I'm coming to see you again. Will
+you be here tomorrow afternoon?"
+
+Paul nodded.
+
+"Yes. I promised to meet the Youngest Twin Sailor down at the striped
+rocks tomorrow afternoon, but the day after will do just as well. That
+is the beauty of the rock people, you know. You can always depend on
+them to be there just when you want them. The Youngest Twin Sailor
+won't mind--he's very good-tempered. If it was the Oldest Twin I dare
+say he'd be cross. I have my suspicions about that Oldest Twin
+sometimes. I b'lieve he'd be a pirate if he dared. You don't know how
+fierce he can look at times. There's really something very mysterious
+about him."
+
+On her way back to the hotel Miss Trevor remembered the foolscap book.
+
+"I must get him to show it to me," she mused, smiling. "Why, the boy
+is a born genius--and to think he should be a shore boy! I can't
+understand it. And here I am loving him already. Well, a woman has to
+love something--and you don't have to know people for years before you
+can love them."
+
+Paul was waiting on the Noel's Cove rocks for Miss Trevor the next
+afternoon. He was not alone; a tall man, with a lined, strong-featured
+face and a grey beard, was with him. The man was clad in a rough suit
+and looked what he was, a 'longshore fisherman. But he had deep-set,
+kindly eyes, and Miss Trevor liked his face. He moved off to one side
+when she came and stood there for a little, apparently gazing out to
+sea, while Paul and Miss Trevor talked. Then he walked away up the
+cove and disappeared in his little grey house.
+
+"Stephen came down to see if you were a suitable person for me to talk
+to," said Paul gravely.
+
+"I hope he thinks I am," said Miss Trevor, amused.
+
+"Oh, he does! He wouldn't have gone away and left us alone if he
+didn't. Stephen is very particular who he lets me 'sociate with. Why,
+even the rock people now--I had to promise I'd never let the Twin
+Sailors swear before he'd allow me to be friends with them. Sometimes
+I know by the look of the Oldest Twin that he's just dying to swear,
+but I never let him, because I promised Stephen. I'd do anything for
+Stephen. He's awful good to me. Stephen's bringing me up, you know,
+and he's bound to do it well. We're just perfectly happy here, only I
+wish I'd more books to read. We go fishing, and when we come home at
+night I help Stephen clean the fish and then we sit outside the door
+and he plays the violin for me. We sit there for hours sometimes. We
+never talk much--Stephen isn't much of a hand for talking--but we just
+sit and think. There's not many men like Stephen, I can tell you."
+
+Miss Trevor did not get a glimpse of the foolscap book that day, nor
+for many days after. Paul blushed all over his beautiful face whenever
+she mentioned it.
+
+"Oh, I couldn't show you that," he said uncomfortably. "Why, I've
+never even showed it to Stephen--or Nora. Let me tell you something
+else instead, something that happened to me once long ago. You'll find
+it more interesting than the foolscap book, only you must remember it
+isn't true! You won't forget that, will you?"
+
+"I'll try to remember," Miss Trevor agreed.
+
+"Well, I was sitting here one evening just like I was last night, and
+the sun was setting. And an enchanted boat came sailing over the sea
+and I got into her. The boat was all pearly like the inside of the
+mussel shells, and her sail was like moonshine. Well, I sailed right
+across to the sunset. Think of that--I've been in the sunset! And what
+do you suppose it is? The sunset is a land all flowers, like a great
+garden, and the clouds are beds of flowers. We sailed into a great big
+harbour, a thousand times bigger than the harbour over there at your
+hotel, and I stepped out of the boat on a 'normous meadow all roses. I
+stayed there for ever so long. It seemed almost a year, but the
+Youngest Twin Sailor says I was only away a few hours or so. You see,
+in Sunset Land the time is ever so much longer than it is here. But I
+was glad to come back too. I'm always glad to come back to the cove
+and Stephen. Now, you know this never really happened."
+
+Miss Trevor would not give up the foolscap book so easily, but for a
+long time Paul refused to show it to her. She came to the cove every
+day, and every day Paul seemed more delightful to her. He was so
+quaint, so clever, so spontaneous. Yet there was nothing premature or
+unnatural about him. He was wholly boy, fond of fun and frolic, not
+too good for little spurts of quick temper now and again, though, as
+he was careful to explain to Miss Trevor, he never showed them to a
+lady.
+
+"I get real mad with the Twin Sailors sometimes, and even with
+Stephen, for all he's so good to me. But I couldn't be mad with you or
+Nora or the Golden Lady. It would never do."
+
+Every day he had some new story to tell of a wonderful adventure on
+rock or sea, always taking the precaution of assuring her beforehand
+that it wasn't true. The boy's fancy was like a prism, separating
+every ray that fell upon it into rainbows. He was passionately fond of
+the shore and water. The only world for him beyond Noel's Cove was the
+world of his imagination. He had no companions except Stephen and the
+"rock people."
+
+"And now you," he told Miss Trevor. "I love you too, but I know you'll
+be going away before long, so I don't let myself love you as
+much--quite--as Stephen and the rock people."
+
+"But you could, couldn't you?" pleaded Miss Trevor. "If you and I were
+to go on being together every day, you could love me just as well as
+you love them, couldn't you?"
+
+Paul considered in a charming way he had.
+
+"Of course I could love you better than the Twin Sailors and the
+Golden Lady," he announced finally. "And I think perhaps I could love
+you as much as I love Stephen. But not as much as Nora--oh, no, I
+wouldn't love you quite as much as Nora. She was first, you see; she's
+always been there. I feel sure I couldn't ever love anybody as much as
+Nora."
+
+One day when Stephen was out to the mackerel grounds, Paul took Miss
+Trevor into the little grey house and showed her his treasures. They
+climbed the ladder in one corner to the loft where Paul slept. The
+window of it, small and square-paned, looked seaward, and the moan of
+the sea and the pipe of the wind sounded there night and day. Paul had
+many rare shells and seaweeds, curious flotsam and jetsam of shore
+storms, and he had a small shelf full of books.
+
+"They're splendid," he said enthusiastically. "Stephen brought me them
+all. Every time Stephen goes to town to ship his mackerel he brings me
+home a new book."
+
+"Were you ever in town yourself?" asked Miss Trevor.
+
+"Oh, yes, twice. Stephen took me. It was a wonderful place. I tell
+you, when I next met the Twin Sailors it was me did the talking then.
+I had to tell them about all I saw and all that had happened. And Nora
+was ever so interested too. The Golden Lady wasn't, though--she didn't
+hardly listen. Golden people are like that."
+
+"Would you like," said Miss Trevor, watching him closely, "to live
+always in a town and have all the books you wanted and play with real
+girls and boys--and visit those strange lands your twin sailors tell
+you of?"
+
+Paul looked startled.
+
+"I--don't--know," he said doubtfully. "I don't think I'd like it very
+well if Stephen and Nora weren't there too."
+
+But the new thought remained in his mind. It came back to him at
+intervals, seeming less new and startling every time.
+
+"And why not?" Miss Trevor asked herself. "The boy should have a
+chance. I shall never have a son of my own--he shall be to me in the
+place of one."
+
+The day came when Paul at last showed her the foolscap book. He
+brought it to her as she sat on the rocks of the headland.
+
+"I'm going to run around and talk to Nora while you read it," he said.
+"I'm afraid I've been neglecting her lately--and I think she feels
+it."
+
+Miss Trevor took the foolscap book. It was made of several sheets of
+paper sewed together and encased in an oilcloth cover. It was nearly
+filled with writing in a round childish hand and it was very neat,
+although the orthography was rather wild and the punctuation
+capricious. Miss Trevor read it through in no very long time. It was a
+curious medley of quaint thoughts and fancies. Conversations with the
+Twin Sailors filled many of the pages; accounts of Paul's "adventures"
+occupied others. Sometimes it seemed impossible that a child of eleven
+should have written them, then would come an expression so boyish and
+naive that Miss Trevor laughed delightedly over it. When she finished
+the book and closed it she found Stephen Kane at her elbow. He
+removed his pipe and nodded at the foolscap book.
+
+"What do you think of it?" he said.
+
+"I think it is wonderful. Paul is a very clever child."
+
+"I've often thought so," said Stephen laconically. He thrust his hands
+into his pockets and gazed moodily out to sea. Miss Trevor had never
+before had an opportunity to talk to him in Paul's absence and she
+determined to make the most of it.
+
+"I want to know something about Paul," she said, "all about him. Is he
+any relation to you?"
+
+"No. I expected to marry his mother once, though," said Stephen
+unemotionally. His hand in his pocket was clutching his pipe fiercely,
+but Miss Trevor could not know that. "She was a shore girl and very
+pretty. Well, she fell in love with a young fellow that came teaching
+up t' the harbour school and he with her. They got married and she
+went away with him. He was a good enough sort of chap. I know that
+now, though once I wasn't disposed to think much good of him. But
+'twas a mistake all the same; Rachel couldn't live away from the
+shore. She fretted and pined and broke her heart for it away there in
+his world. Finally her husband died and she came back--but it was too
+late for her. She only lived a month--and there was Paul, a baby of
+two. I took him. There was nobody else. Rachel had no relatives nor
+her husband either. I've done what I could for him--not that it's been
+much, perhaps."
+
+"I am sure you have done a great deal for him," said Miss Trevor
+rather patronizingly. "But I think he should have more than you can
+give him now. He should be sent to school."
+
+Stephen nodded.
+
+"Maybe. He never went to school. The harbour school was too far away.
+I taught him to read and write and bought him all the books I could
+afford. But I can't do any more for him."
+
+"But I can," said Miss Trevor, "and I want to. Will you give Paul to
+me, Mr. Kane? I love him dearly and he shall have every advantage. I'm
+rich--I can do a great deal for him."
+
+Stephen continued to gaze out to sea with an expressionless face.
+Finally he said: "I've been expecting to hear you say something of the
+sort. I don't know. If you took Paul away, he'd grow to be a cleverer
+man and a richer man maybe, but would he be any better--or happier?
+He's his mother's son--he loves the sea and its ways. There's nothing
+of his father in him except his hankering after books. But I won't
+choose for him--he can go if he likes--he can go if he likes."
+
+In the end Paul "liked," since Stephen refused to influence him by so
+much as a word. Paul thought Stephen didn't seem to care much whether
+he went or stayed, and he was dazzled by Miss Trevor's charm and the
+lure of books and knowledge she held out to him.
+
+"I'll go, I guess," he said, with a long sigh.
+
+Miss Trevor clasped him close to her and kissed him maternally. Paul
+kissed her cheek shyly in return. He thought it very wonderful that he
+was to live with her always. He felt happy and excited--so happy and
+excited that the parting when it came slipped over him lightly. Miss
+Trevor even thought he took it too easily and had a vague wish that he
+had shown more sorrow. Stephen said farewell to the boy he loved
+better than life with no visible emotion.
+
+"Good-bye, Paul. Be a good boy and learn all you can." He hesitated a
+moment and then said slowly, "If you don't like it, come back."
+
+"Did you bid good-bye to your rock people?" Miss Trevor asked him with
+a smile as they drove away.
+
+"No. I--couldn't--I--I--didn't even tell them I was going away. Nora
+would break her heart. I'd rather not talk of them anymore, if you
+please. Maybe I won't want them when I've plenty of books and lots of
+other boys and girls--real ones--to play with."
+
+They drove the ten miles to the town where they were to take the train
+the next day. Paul enjoyed the drive and the sights of the busy
+streets at its end. He was all excitement and animation. After they
+had had tea at the house of the friend where Miss Trevor meant to
+spend the night, they went for a walk in the park. Paul was tired and
+very quiet when they came back. He was put away to sleep in a bedroom
+whose splendours frightened him, and left alone.
+
+At first Paul lay very still on his luxurious perfumed pillows. It was
+the first night he had ever spent away from the little seaward-looking
+loft where he could touch the rafters with his hands. He thought of it
+now and a lump came into his throat and a strange, new, bitter longing
+came into his heart. He missed the sea plashing on the rocks below
+him--he could not sleep without that old lullaby. He turned his face
+into the pillow, and the longing and loneliness grew worse and hurt
+him until he moaned. Oh, he wanted to be back home! Surely he had not
+left it--he could never have meant to leave it. Out there the stars
+would be shining over the harbour. Stephen would be sitting at the
+door, all alone, with his violin. But he would not be playing it--all
+at once Paul knew he would not be playing it. He would be sitting
+there with his head bowed and the loneliness in his heart calling to
+the loneliness in Paul's heart over all the miles between them. Oh, he
+could never have really meant to leave Stephen.
+
+And Nora? Nora would be down on the rocks waiting for him--for him,
+Paul, who would never come to her more. He could see her elfin little
+face peering around the point, watching for him wistfully.
+
+Paul sat up in bed, choking with tears. Oh, what were books and
+strange countries?--what was even Miss Trevor, the friend of a
+month?--to the call of the sea and Stephen's kind, deep eyes and his
+dear rock people? He could not stay away from them--never--never.
+
+He slipped out of bed very softly and dressed in the dark. Then he
+lighted the lamp timidly and opened the little brown chest Stephen had
+given him. It held his books and his treasures, but he took out only a
+pencil, a bit of paper and the foolscap book. With a hand shaking in
+his eagerness, he wrote:
+
+    _dear miss Trever_
+
+    _Im going back home, dont be fritened about me because I know
+    the way. Ive got to go. something is calling me. dont be
+    cross. I love you, but I cant stay. Im leaving my foolscap
+    book for you, you can keep it always but I must go back to
+    Stephen and nora_
+
+                                                 _Paul_
+
+He put the note on the foolscap book and laid them on the table. Then
+he blew out the light, took his cap and went softly out. The house was
+very still. Holding his breath, he tiptoed downstairs and opened the
+front door. Before it ran the street which went, he knew, straight out
+to the country road that led home. Paul closed the door and stole down
+the steps, his heart beating painfully, but when he reached the
+sidewalk he broke into a frantic run under the limes. It was late and
+no one was out on that quiet street. He ran until his breath gave
+out, then walked miserably until he recovered it, and then ran again.
+He dared not stop running until he was out of that horrible town,
+which seemed like a prison closing around him, where the houses shut
+out the stars and the wind could only creep in a narrow space like a
+fettered, cringing thing, instead of sweeping grandly over great salt
+wastes of sea.
+
+At last the houses grew few and scattered, and finally he left them
+behind. He drew a long breath; this was better--rather smothering yet,
+of course, with nothing but hills and fields and dark woods all about
+him, but at least his own sky was above him, looking just the same as
+it looked out home at Noel's Cove. He recognized the stars as friends;
+how often Stephen had pointed them out to him as they sat at night by
+the door of the little house.
+
+He was not at all frightened now. He knew the way home and the kind
+night was before him. Every step was bringing him nearer to Stephen
+and Nora and the Twin Sailors. He whistled as he walked sturdily
+along.
+
+The dawn was just breaking when he reached Noel's Cove. The eastern
+sky was all pale rose and silver, and the sea was mottled over with
+dear grey ripples. In the west over the harbour the sky was a very
+fine ethereal blue and the wind blew from there, salt and bracing.
+Paul was tired, but he ran lightly down the shelving rocks to the
+cove. Stephen was getting ready to launch his boat. When he saw Paul
+he started and a strange, vivid, exultant expression flashed across
+his face.
+
+Paul felt a sudden chill--the upspringing fountain of his gladness was
+checked in mid-leap. He had known no doubt on the way home--all that
+long, weary walk he had known no doubt--but now?
+
+"Stephen," he cried. "I've come back! I had to! Stephen, are you
+glad--are you glad?"
+
+Stephen's face was as emotionless as ever. The burst of feeling which
+had frightened Paul by its unaccustomedness had passed like a fleeting
+outbreak of sunshine between dull clouds.
+
+"I reckon I am," he said. "Yes, I reckon I am. I kind of--hoped--you
+would come back. You'd better go in and get some breakfast."
+
+Paul's eyes were as radiant as the deepening dawn. He knew Stephen was
+glad and he knew there was nothing more to be said about it. They were
+back just where they were before Miss Trevor came--back in their
+perfect, unmarred, sufficient comradeship.
+
+"I must just run around and see Nora first," said Paul.
+
+
+
+
+Abel and His Great Adventure
+
+
+"Come out of doors, master--come out of doors. I can't talk or think
+right with walls around me--never could. Let's go out to the garden."
+These were almost the first words I ever heard Abel Armstrong say. He
+was a member of the board of school trustees in Stillwater, and I had
+not met him before this late May evening, when I had gone down to
+confer with him upon some small matter of business. For I was "the new
+schoolmaster" in Stillwater, having taken the school for the summer
+term.
+
+It was a rather lonely country district--a fact of which I was glad,
+for life had been going somewhat awry with me and my heart was sore
+and rebellious over many things that have nothing to do with this
+narration. Stillwater offered time and opportunity for healing and
+counsel. Yet, looking back, I doubt if I should have found either had
+it not been for Abel and his beloved garden.
+
+Abel Armstrong (he was always called "Old Abel", though he was barely
+sixty) lived in a quaint, gray house close by the harbour shore. I
+heard a good deal about him before I saw him. He was called "queer",
+but Stillwater folks seemed to be very fond of him. He and his sister,
+Tamzine, lived together; she, so my garrulous landlady informed me,
+had not been sound of mind at times for many years; but she was all
+right now, only odd and quiet. Abel had gone to college for a year
+when he was young, but had given it up when Tamzine "went crazy".
+There was no one else to look after her. Abel had settled down to it
+with apparent content: at least he had never complained.
+
+"Always took things easy, Abel did," said Mrs. Campbell. "Never
+seemed to worry over disappointments and trials as most folks do.
+Seems to me that as long as Abel Armstrong can stride up and down in
+that garden of his, reciting poetry and speeches, or talking to that
+yaller cat of his as if it was a human, he doesn't care much how the
+world wags on. He never had much git-up-and-git. His father was a
+hustler, but the family didn't take after him. They all favoured the
+mother's people--sorter shiftless and dreamy. 'Taint the way to git on
+in this world."
+
+No, good and worthy Mrs. Campbell. It was not the way to get on in
+your world; but there are other worlds where getting on is estimated
+by different standards, and Abel Armstrong lived in one of these--a
+world far beyond the ken of the thrifty Stillwater farmers and
+fishers. Something of this I had sensed, even before I saw him; and
+that night in his garden, under a sky of smoky red, blossoming into
+stars above the harbour, I found a friend whose personality and
+philosophy were to calm and harmonize and enrich my whole existence.
+This sketch is my grateful tribute to one of the rarest and finest
+souls God ever clothed with clay.
+
+He was a tall man, somewhat ungainly of figure and homely of face. But
+his large, deep eyes of velvety nut-brown were very beautiful and
+marvellously bright and clear for a man of his age. He wore a little
+pointed, well-cared-for beard, innocent of gray; but his hair was
+grizzled, and altogether he had the appearance of a man who had passed
+through many sorrows which had marked his body as well as his soul.
+Looking at him, I doubted Mrs. Campbell's conclusion that he had not
+"minded" giving up college. This man had given up much and felt it
+deeply; but he had outlived the pain and the blessing of sacrifice had
+come to him. His voice was very melodious and beautiful, and the brown
+hand he held out to me was peculiarly long and shapely and flexible.
+
+We went out to the garden in the scented moist air of a maritime
+spring evening. Behind the garden was a cloudy pine wood; the house
+closed it in on the left, while in front and on the right a row of
+tall Lombardy poplars stood out in stately purple silhouette against
+the sunset sky.
+
+"Always liked Lombardies," said Abel, waving a long arm at them. "They
+are the trees of princesses. When I was a boy they were fashionable.
+Anyone who had any pretensions to gentility had a row of Lombardies at
+the foot of his lawn or up his lane, or at any rate one on either side
+of his front door. They're out of fashion now. Folks complain they die
+at the top and get ragged-looking. So they do--so they do, if you
+don't risk your neck every spring climbing up a light ladder to trim
+them out as I do. My neck isn't worth much to anyone, which, I
+suppose, is why I've never broken it; and _my_ Lombardies never look
+out-at-elbows. My mother was especially fond of them. She liked their
+dignity and their stand-offishness. _They_ don't hobnob with every
+Tom, Dick and Harry. If it's pines for company, master, it's
+Lombardies for society."
+
+We stepped from the front doorstone into the garden. There was another
+entrance--a sagging gate flanked by two branching white lilacs. From
+it a little dappled path led to a huge apple-tree in the centre, a
+great swelling cone of rosy blossom with a mossy circular seat around
+its trunk. But Abel's favourite seat, so he told me, was lower down
+the slope, under a little trellis overhung with the delicate emerald
+of young hop-vines. He led me to it and pointed proudly to the fine
+view of the harbour visible from it. The early sunset glow of rose and
+flame had faded out of the sky; the water was silvery and mirror-like;
+dim sails drifted along by the darkening shore. A bell was ringing in
+a small Catholic chapel across the harbour. Mellowly and dreamily
+sweet the chime floated through the dusk, blent with the moan of the
+sea. The great revolving light at the channel trembled and flashed
+against the opal sky, and far out, beyond the golden sand-dunes of the
+bar, was the crinkled gray ribbon of a passing steamer's smoke.
+
+"There, isn't that view worth looking at?" said old Abel, with a
+loving, proprietary pride. "You don't have to pay anything for it,
+either. All that sea and sky free--'without money and without price'.
+Let's sit down here in the hop-vine arbour, master. There'll be a
+moonrise presently. I'm never tired of finding out what a moonrise
+sheen can be like over that sea. There's a surprise in it every time.
+Now, master, you're getting your mouth in the proper shape to talk
+business--but don't you do it. Nobody should talk business when he's
+expecting a moonrise. Not that I like talking business at any time."
+
+"Unfortunately it has to be talked of sometimes, Mr. Armstrong," I
+said.
+
+"Yes, it seems to be a necessary evil, master," he acknowledged. "But
+I know what business you've come upon, and we can settle it in five
+minutes after the moon's well up. I'll just agree to everything you
+and the other two trustees want. Lord knows why they ever put me on
+the school board. Maybe it's because I'm so ornamental. They wanted
+one good-looking man, I reckon."
+
+His low chuckle, so full of mirth and so free from malice, was
+infectious. I laughed also, as I sat down in the hop-vine arbour.
+
+"Now, you needn't talk if you don't want to," he said. "And I won't.
+We'll just sit here, sociable like, and if we think of anything worth
+while to say we'll say it. Otherwise, not. If you can sit in silence
+with a person for half an hour and feel comfortable, you and that
+person can be friends. If you can't, friends you'll never be, and you
+needn't waste time in trying."
+
+Abel and I passed successfully the test of silence that evening in the
+hop-vine arbour. I was strangely content to sit and think--something I
+had not cared to do lately. A peace, long unknown to my stormy soul,
+seemed hovering near it. The garden was steeped in it; old Abel's
+personality radiated it. I looked about me and wondered whence came
+the charm of that tangled, unworldly spot.
+
+"Nice and far from the market-place isn't it?" asked Abel suddenly,
+as if he had heard my unasked question. "No buying and selling and
+getting gain here. Nothing was ever sold out of _this_ garden. Tamzine
+has her vegetable plot over yonder, but what we don't eat we give
+away. Geordie Marr down the harbour has a big garden like this and he
+sells heaps of flowers and fruit and vegetables to the hotel folks. He
+thinks I'm an awful fool because I won't do the same. Well, he gets
+money out of his garden and I get happiness out of mine. That's the
+difference. S'posing I could make more money--what then? I'd only be
+taking it from people that needed it more. There's enough for Tamzine
+and me. As for Geordie Marr, there isn't a more unhappy creature on
+God's earth--he's always stewing in a broth of trouble, poor man. O'
+course, he brews up most of it for himself, but I reckon that doesn't
+make it any easier to bear. Ever sit in a hop-vine arbour before,
+master?"
+
+I was to grow used to Abel's abrupt change of subject. I answered that
+I never had.
+
+"Great place for dreaming," said Abel complacently. "Being young, no
+doubt, you dream a-plenty."
+
+I answered hotly and bitterly that I had done with dreams.
+
+"No, you haven't," said Abel meditatively. "You may _think_ you have.
+What then? First thing you know you'll be dreaming again--thank the
+Lord for it. I ain't going to ask you what's soured you on dreaming
+just now. After awhile you'll begin again, especially if you come to
+this garden as much as I hope you will. It's chockful of dreams--_any_
+kind of dreams. You take your choice. Now, _I_ favour dreams of
+adventures, if you'll believe it. I'm sixty-one and I never do anything
+rasher than go out cod-fishing on a fine day, but I still lust after
+adventures. Then I dream I'm an awful fellow--blood-thirsty."
+
+I burst out laughing. Perhaps laughter was somewhat rare in that old
+garden. Tamzine, who was weeding at the far end, lifted her head in a
+startled fashion and walked past us into the house. She did not look
+at us or speak to us. She was reputed to be abnormally shy. She was
+very stout and wore a dress of bright red-and-white striped material.
+Her face was round and blank, but her reddish hair was abundant and
+beautiful. A huge, orange-coloured cat was at her heels; as she passed
+us he bounded over to the arbour and sprang up on Abel's knee. He was
+a gorgeous brute, with vivid green eyes, and immense white double
+paws.
+
+"Captain Kidd, Mr. Woodley." He introduced us as seriously as if the
+cat had been a human being. Neither Captain Kidd nor I responded very
+enthusiastically.
+
+"You don't like cats, I reckon, master," said Abel, stroking the
+Captain's velvet back. "I don't blame you. I was never fond of them
+myself until I found the Captain. I saved his life and when you've
+saved a creature's life you're bound to love it. It's next thing to
+giving it life. There are some terrible thoughtless people in the
+world, master. Some of those city folks who have summer homes down the
+harbour are so thoughtless that they're cruel. It's the worst kind of
+cruelty, I think--the thoughtless kind. You can't cope with it. They
+keep cats there in the summer and feed them and pet them and doll them
+up with ribbons and collars; and then in the fall they go off and
+leave them to starve or freeze. It makes my blood boil, master."
+
+"One day last winter I found a poor old mother cat dead on the shore,
+lying against the skin and bone bodies of her three little kittens.
+She had died trying to shelter them. She had her poor stiff claws
+around them. Master, I cried. Then I swore. Then I carried those poor
+little kittens home and fed 'hem up and found good homes for them. I
+know the woman who left the cat. When she comes back this summer I'm
+going to go down and tell her my opinion of her. It'll be rank
+meddling, but, lord, how I love meddling in a good cause."
+
+"Was Captain Kidd one of the forsaken?" I asked.
+
+"Yes. I found him one bitter cold day in winter caught in the
+branches of a tree by his darn-fool ribbon collar. He was almost
+starving. Lord, if you could have seen his eyes! He was nothing but a
+kitten, and he'd got his living somehow since he'd been left till he
+got hung up. When I loosed him he gave my hand a pitiful swipe with
+his little red tongue. He wasn't the prosperous free-booter you behold
+now. He was meek as Moses. That was nine years ago. His life has been
+long in the land for a cat. He's a good old pal, the Captain is."
+
+"I should have expected you to have a dog," I said.
+
+Abel shook his head.
+
+"I had a dog once. I cared so much for him that when he died I
+couldn't bear the thought of ever getting another in his place. He was
+a _friend_--you understand? The Captain's only a pal. I'm fond of the
+Captain--all the fonder because of the spice of deviltry there is in
+all cats. But I _loved_ my dog. There isn't any devil in a good dog.
+That's why they're more lovable than cats--but I'm darned if they're
+as interesting."
+
+I laughed as I rose regretfully.
+
+"Must you go, master? And we haven't talked any business after all. I
+reckon it's that stove matter you've come about. It's like those two
+fool trustees to start up a stove sputter in spring. It's a wonder
+they didn't leave it till dog-days and begin then."
+
+"They merely wished me to ask you if you approved of putting in a new
+stove."
+
+"Tell them to put in a new stove--any kind of a new stove--and be
+hanged to them," rejoined Abel. "As for you, master, you're welcome to
+this garden any time. If you're tired or lonely, or too ambitious or
+angry, come here and sit awhile, master. Do you think any man could
+keep mad if he sat and looked into the heart of a pansy for ten
+minutes? When you feel like talking, I'll talk, and when you feel like
+thinking, I'll let you. I'm a great hand to leave folks alone."
+
+"I think I'll come often," I said, "perhaps too often."
+
+"Not likely, master--not likely--not after we've watched a moonrise
+contentedly together. It's as good a test of compatibility as any I
+know. You're young and I'm old, but our souls are about the same age,
+I reckon, and we'll find lots to say to each other. Are you going
+straight home from here?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then I'm going to bother you to stop for a moment at Mary Bascom's
+and give her a bouquet of my white lilacs. She loves 'em and I'm not
+going to wait till she's dead to send her flowers."
+
+"She's very ill just now, isn't she?"
+
+"She's got the Bascom consumption. That means she may die in a month,
+like her brother, or linger on for twenty years, like her father. But
+long or short, white lilac in spring is sweet, and I'm sending her a
+fresh bunch every day while it lasts. It's a rare night, master. I
+envy you your walk home in the moonlight along that shore."
+
+"Better come part of the way with me," I suggested.
+
+"No." Abel glanced at the house. "Tamzine never likes to be alone o'
+nights. So I take my moonlight walks in the garden. The moon's a great
+friend of mine, master. I've loved her ever since I can remember. When
+I was a little lad of eight I fell asleep in the garden one evening
+and wasn't missed. I woke up alone in the night and I was most scared
+to death, master. Lord, what shadows and queer noises there were! I
+darsn't move. I just sat there quaking, poor small mite. Then all at
+once I saw the moon looking down at me through the pine boughs, just
+like an old friend. I was comforted right off. Got up and walked to
+the house as brave as a lion, looking at her. Goodnight, master. Tell
+Mary the lilacs'll last another week yet."
+
+From that night Abel and I were cronies. We walked and talked and kept
+silence and fished cod together. Stillwater people thought it very
+strange that I should prefer his society to that of the young fellows
+of my own age. Mrs. Campbell was quite worried over it, and opined
+that there had always been something queer about me. "Birds of a
+feather."
+
+I loved that old garden by the harbour shore. Even Abel himself, I
+think, could hardly have felt a deeper affection for it. When its gate
+closed behind me it shut out the world and my corroding memories and
+discontents. In its peace my soul emptied itself of the bitterness
+which had been filling and spoiling it, and grew normal and healthy
+again, aided thereto by Abel's wise words. He never preached, but he
+radiated courage and endurance and a frank acceptance of the hard
+things of life, as well as a cordial welcome of its pleasant things.
+He was the sanest soul I ever met. He neither minimized ill nor
+exaggerated good, but he held that we should never be controlled by
+either. Pain should not depress us unduly, nor pleasure lure us into
+forgetfulness and sloth. All unknowingly he made me realize that I had
+been a bit of a coward and a shirker. I began to understand that my
+personal woes were not the most important things in the universe, even
+to myself. In short, Abel taught me to laugh again; and when a man can
+laugh wholesomely things are not going too badly with him.
+
+That old garden was always such a cheery place. Even when the east
+wind sang in minor and the waves on the gray shore were sad, hints of
+sunshine seemed to be lurking all about it. Perhaps this was because
+there were so many yellow flowers in it. Tamzine liked yellow flowers.
+Captain Kidd, too, always paraded it in panoply of gold. He was so
+large and effulgent that one hardly missed the sun. Considering his
+presence I wondered that the garden was always so full of singing
+birds. But the Captain never meddled with them. Probably he understood
+that his master would not have tolerated it for a moment. So there was
+always a song or a chirp somewhere. Overhead flew the gulls and the
+cranes. The wind in the pines always made a glad salutation. Abel and
+I paced the walks, in high converse on matters beyond the ken of cat
+or king.
+
+"I liked to ponder on all problems, though I can never solve them,"
+Abel used to say. "My father held that we should never talk of things
+we couldn't understand. But, lord, master, if we didn't the subjects
+for conversation would be mighty few. I reckon the gods laugh many a
+time to hear us, but what matter? So long as we remember that we're
+only men, and don't take to fancying ourselves gods, really knowing
+good and evil, I reckon our discussions won't do us or anyone much
+harm. So we'll have another whack at the origin of evil this evening,
+master."
+
+Tamzine forgot to be shy with me at last, and gave me a broad smile of
+welcome every time I came. But she rarely spoke to me. She spent all
+her spare time weeding the garden, which she loved as well as Abel
+did. She was addicted to bright colours and always wore wrappers of
+very gorgeous print. She worshipped Abel and his word was a law unto
+her.
+
+"I am very thankful Tamzine is so well," said Abel one evening as we
+watched the sunset. The day had begun sombrely in gray cloud and mist,
+but it ended in a pomp of scarlet and gold. "There was a time when she
+wasn't, master--you've heard? But for years now she has been quite
+able to look after herself. And so, if I fare forth on the last great
+adventure some of these days Tamzine will not be left helpless."
+
+"She is ten years older than you. It is likely she will go before
+you," I said.
+
+Abel shook his head and stroked his smart beard. I always suspected
+that beard of being Abel's last surviving vanity. It was always so
+carefully groomed, while I had no evidence that he ever combed his
+grizzled mop of hair.
+
+"No, Tamzine will outlive me. She's got the Armstrong heart. I have
+the Marwood heart--my mother was a Marwood. We don't live to be old,
+and we go quick and easy. I'm glad of it. I don't think I'm a coward,
+master, but the thought of a lingering death gives me a queer sick
+feeling of horror. There, I'm not going to say any more about it. I
+just mentioned it so that some day when you hear that old Abel
+Armstrong has been found dead, you won't feel sorry. You'll remember I
+wanted it that way. Not that I'm tired of life either. It's very
+pleasant, what with my garden and Captain Kidd and the harbour out
+there. But it's a trifle monotonous at times and death will be
+something of a change, master. I'm real curious about it."
+
+"I hate the thought of death," I said gloomily.
+
+"Oh, you're young. The young always do. Death grows friendlier as we
+grow older. Not that one of us really wants to die, though, master.
+Tennyson spoke truth when he said that. There's old Mrs. Warner at the
+Channel Head. She's had heaps of trouble all her life, poor soul, and
+she's lost almost everyone she cared about. She's always saying that
+she'll be glad when her time comes, and she doesn't want to live any
+longer in this vale of tears. But when she takes a sick spell, lord,
+what a fuss she makes, master! Doctors from town and a trained nurse
+and enough medicine to kill a dog! Life may be a vale of tears, all
+right, master, but there are some folks who enjoy weeping, I reckon."
+
+Summer passed through the garden with her procession of roses and
+lilies and hollyhocks and golden glow. The golden glow was
+particularly fine that year. There was a great bank of it at the lower
+end of the garden, like a huge billow of sunshine. Tamzine revelled in
+it, but Abel liked more subtly-tinted flowers. There was a certain
+dark wine-hued hollyhock which was a favourite with him. He would sit
+for hours looking steadfastly into one of its shallow satin cups. I
+found him so one afternoon in the hop-vine arbour.
+
+"This colour always has a soothing effect on me," he explained.
+"Yellow excites me too much--makes me restless--makes me want to sail
+'beyond the bourne of sunset'. I looked at that surge of golden glow
+down there today till I got all worked up and thought my life had been
+an awful failure. I found a dead butterfly and had a little
+funeral--buried it in the fern corner. And I thought I hadn't been
+any more use in the world than that poor little butterfly. Oh, I was
+woeful, master. Then I got me this hollyhock and sat down here to look
+at it alone. When a man's alone, master, he's most with God--or with
+the devil. The devil rampaged around me all the time I was looking at
+that golden glow; but God spoke to me through the hollyhock. And it
+seemed to me that a man who's as happy as I am and has got such a
+garden has made a real success of living."
+
+"I hope I'll be able to make as much of a success," I said sincerely.
+
+"I want you to make a different kind of success, though, master," said
+Abel, shaking his head. "I want you to _do_ things--the things I'd
+have tried to do if I'd had the chance. It's in you to do them--if you
+set your teeth and go ahead."
+
+"I believe I _can_ set my teeth and go ahead now, thanks to you, Mr.
+Armstrong," I said. "I was heading straight for failure when I came
+here last spring; but you've changed my course."
+
+"Given you a sort of compass to steer by, haven't I?" queried Abel
+with a smile. "I ain't too modest to take some credit for it. I saw I
+could do _you_ some good. But my garden has done more than I did, if
+you'll believe it. It's wonderful what a garden can do for a man when
+he lets it have its way. Come, sit down here and bask, master. The
+sunshine may be gone to-morrow. Let's just sit and think."
+
+We sat and thought for a long while. Presently Abel said abruptly:
+
+"You don't see the folks I see in this garden, master. You don't see
+anybody but me and old Tamzine and Captain Kidd. I see all who used to
+be here long ago. It was a lively place then. There were plenty of us
+and we were as gay a set of youngsters as you'd find anywhere. We
+tossed laughter backwards and forwards here like a ball. And now old
+Tamzine and older Abel are all that are left."
+
+He was silent a moment, looking at the phantoms of memory that paced
+invisibly to me the dappled walks and peeped merrily through the
+swinging boughs. Then he went on:
+
+"Of all the folks I see here there are two that are more vivid and
+real than all the rest, master. One is my sister Alice. She died
+thirty years ago. She was very beautiful. You'd hardly believe that to
+look at Tamzine and me, would you? But it is true. We always called
+her Queen Alice--she was so stately and handsome. She had brown eyes
+and red gold hair, just the colour of that nasturtium there. She was
+father's favourite. The night she was born they didn't think my mother
+would live. Father walked this garden all night. And just under that
+old apple-tree he knelt at sunrise and thanked God when they came to
+tell him that all was well.
+
+"Alice was always a creature of joy. This old garden rang with her
+laughter in those years. She seldom walked--she ran or danced. She
+only lived twenty years, but nineteen of them were so happy I've never
+pitied her over much. She had everything that makes life worth
+living--laughter and love, and at the last sorrow. James Milburn was
+her lover. It's thirty-one years since his ship sailed out of that
+harbour and Alice waved him good-bye from this garden. He never came
+back. His ship was never heard of again.
+
+"When Alice gave up hope that it would be, she died of a broken heart.
+They say there's no such thing; but nothing else ailed Alice. She
+stood at yonder gate day after day and watched the harbour; and when
+at last she gave up hope life went with it. I remember the day: she
+had watched until sunset. Then she turned away from the gate. All the
+unrest and despair had gone out of her eyes. There was a terrible
+peace in them--the peace of the dead. 'He will never come back now,
+Abel,' she said to me.
+
+"In less than a week she was dead. The others mourned her, but I
+didn't, master. She had sounded the deeps of living and there was
+nothing else to linger through the years for. _My_ grief had spent
+itself earlier, when I walked this garden in agony because I could
+not help her. But often, on these long warm summer afternoons, I seem
+to hear Alice's laughter all over this garden; though she's been dead
+so long."
+
+He lapsed into a reverie which I did not disturb, and it was not until
+another day that I learned of the other memory that he cherished. He
+reverted to it suddenly as we sat again in the hop-vine arbour,
+looking at the glimmering radiance of the September sea.
+
+"Master, how many of us are sitting here?"
+
+"Two in the flesh. How many in the spirit I know not," I answered,
+humouring his mood.
+
+"There is one--the other of the two I spoke of the day I told you
+about Alice. It's harder for me to speak of this one."
+
+"Don't speak of it if it hurts you," I said.
+
+"But I want to. It's a whim of mine. Do you know why I told you of
+Alice and why I'm going to tell you of Mercedes? It's because I want
+someone to remember them and think of them sometimes after I'm gone. I
+can't bear that their names should be utterly forgotten by all living
+souls.
+
+"My older brother, Alec, was a sailor, and on his last voyage to the
+West Indies he married and brought home a Spanish girl. My father and
+mother didn't like the match. Mercedes was a foreigner and a Catholic,
+and differed from us in every way. But I never blamed Alec after I saw
+her. It wasn't that she was so very pretty. She was slight and dark
+and ivory-coloured. But she was very graceful, and there was a charm
+about her, master--a mighty and potent charm. The women couldn't
+understand it. They wondered at Alec's infatuation for her. I never
+did. I--I loved her, too, master, before I had known her a day. Nobody
+ever knew it. Mercedes never dreamed of it. But it's lasted me all my
+life. I never wanted to think of any other woman. She spoiled a man
+for any other kind of woman--that little pale, dark-eyed Spanish girl.
+To love her was like drinking some rare sparkling wine. You'd never
+again have any taste for a commoner draught.
+
+"I think she was very happy the year she spent here. Our thrifty
+women-folk in Stillwater jeered at her because she wasn't what they
+called capable. They said she couldn't do anything. But she could do
+one thing well--she could love. She worshipped Alec. I used to hate
+him for it. Oh, my heart has been very full of black thoughts in its
+time, master. But neither Alec nor Mercedes ever knew. And I'm
+thankful now that they were so happy. Alec made this arbour for
+Mercedes--at least he made the trellis, and she planted the vines.
+
+"She used to sit here most of the time in summer. I suppose that's why
+I like to sit here. Her eyes would be dreamy and far-away until Alec
+would flash his welcome. How that used to torture me! But now I like
+to remember it. And her pretty soft foreign voice and little white
+hands. She died after she had lived here a year. They buried her and
+her baby in the graveyard of that little chapel over the harbour where
+the bell rings every evening. She used to like sitting here and
+listening to it. Alec lived a long while after, but he never married
+again. He's gone now, and nobody remembers Mercedes but me."
+
+Abel lapsed into a reverie--a tryst with the past which I would not
+disturb. I thought he did not notice my departure, but as I opened the
+gate he stood up and waved his hand.
+
+Three days later I went again to the old garden by the harbour shore.
+There was a red light on a distant sail. In the far west a sunset city
+was built around a great deep harbour of twilight. Palaces were there
+and bannered towers of crimson and gold. The air was full of music;
+there was one music of the wind and another of the waves, and still
+another of the distant bell from the chapel near which Mercedes slept.
+The garden was full of ripe odours and warm colours. The Lombardies
+around it were tall and sombre like the priestly forms of some mystic
+band. Abel was sitting in the hop-vine arbour; beside him Captain
+Kidd slept. I thought Abel was asleep, too; his head leaned against
+the trellis and his eyes were shut.
+
+But when I reached the arbour I saw that he was not asleep. There was
+a strange, wise little smile on his lips as if he had attained to the
+ultimate wisdom and were laughing in no unkindly fashion at our old
+blind suppositions and perplexities.
+
+Abel had gone on his Great Adventure.
+
+
+
+
+
+Akin To Love
+
+
+David Hartley had dropped in to pay a neighbourly call on Josephine
+Elliott. It was well along in the afternoon, and outside, in the clear
+crispness of a Canadian winter, the long blue shadows from the tall
+firs behind the house were falling over the snow.
+
+It was a frosty day, and all the windows of every room where there was
+no fire were covered with silver palms. But the big, bright kitchen
+was warm and cosy, and somehow seemed to David more tempting than ever
+before, and that is saying a good deal. He had an uneasy feeling that
+he had stayed long enough and ought to go. Josephine was knitting at a
+long gray sock with doubly aggressive energy, and that was a sign that
+she was talked out. As long as Josephine had plenty to say, her plump
+white fingers, where her mother's wedding ring was lost in dimples,
+moved slowly among her needles. When conversation flagged she fell to
+her work as furiously as if a husband and half a dozen sons were
+waiting for its completion. David often wondered in his secret soul
+what Josephine did with all the interminable gray socks she knitted.
+Sometimes he concluded that she put them in the home missionary
+barrels; again, that she sold them to her hired man. At any rate, they
+were very warm and comfortable looking, and David sighed as he thought
+of the deplorable state his own socks were generally in.
+
+When David sighed Josephine took alarm. She was afraid David was going
+to have one of his attacks of foolishness. She must head him off
+someway, so she rolled up the gray sock, stabbed the big pudgy ball
+with her needles, and said she guessed she'd get the tea.
+
+David got up.
+
+"Now, you're not going before tea?" said Josephine hospitably. "I'll
+have it all ready in no time."
+
+"I ought to go home, I s'pose," said David, with the air and tone of a
+man dallying with a great temptation. "Zillah'll be waiting tea for
+me; and there's the stock to tend to."
+
+"I guess Zillah won't wait long," said Josephine. She did not intend
+it at all, but there was a certain scornful ring in her voice. "You
+must stay. I've a fancy for company to tea."
+
+David sat down again. He looked so pleased that Josephine went down on
+her knees behind the stove, ostensibly to get a stick of firewood, but
+really to hide her smile.
+
+"I suppose he's tickled to death to think of getting a good square
+meal, after the starvation rations Zillah puts him on," she thought.
+
+But Josephine misjudged David just as much as he misjudged her. She
+had really asked him to stay to tea out of pity, but David thought it
+was because she was lonesome, and he hailed that as an encouraging
+sign. And he was not thinking about getting a good meal either,
+although his dinner had been such a one as only Zillah Hartley could
+get up. As he leaned back in his cushioned chair and watched Josephine
+bustling about the kitchen, he was glorying in the fact that he could
+spend another hour with her, and sit opposite to her at the table
+while she poured his tea for him and passed him the biscuits, just as
+if--just as if--
+
+Here Josephine looked straight at him with such intent and stern brown
+eyes that David felt she must have read his thoughts, and he colored
+guiltily. But Josephine did not even notice that he was blushing. She
+had only paused to wonder whether she would bring out cherry or
+strawberry preserve; and, having decided on the cherry, took her
+piercing gaze from David without having seen him at all. But he
+allowed his thoughts no more vagaries.
+
+Josephine set the table with her mother's wedding china. She used it
+because it was the anniversary of her mother's wedding day, but David
+thought it was out of compliment to him. And, as he knew quite well
+that Josephine prized that china beyond all her other earthly
+possessions, he stroked his smooth-shaven, dimpled chin with the air
+of a man to whom is offered a very subtly sweet homage.
+
+Josephine whisked in and out of the pantry, and up and down cellar,
+and with every whisk a new dainty was added to the table. Josephine,
+as everybody in Meadowby admitted, was past mistress in the noble art
+of cookery. Once upon a time rash matrons and ambitious young wives
+had aspired to rival her, but they had long ago realised the vanity of
+such efforts and dropped comfortably back to second place.
+
+Josephine felt an artist's pride in her table when she set the teapot
+on its stand and invited David to sit in. There were pink slices of
+cold tongue, and crisp green pickles and spiced gooseberry, the recipe
+for which Josephine had invented herself, and which had taken first
+prize at the Provincial Exhibition for six successive years; there was
+a lemon pie which was a symphony in gold and silver, biscuits as light
+and white as snow, and moist, plummy cubes of fruit cake. There was
+the ruby-tinted cherry preserve, a mound of amber jelly, and, to crown
+all, steaming cups of tea, in flavour and fragrance unequalled.
+
+And Josephine, too, sitting at the head of the table, with her smooth,
+glossy crimps of black hair and cheeks as rosy clear as they had been
+twenty years ago, when she had been a slender slip of girlhood and
+bashful young David Hartley had looked at her over his hymn-book in
+prayer-meeting and tramped all the way home a few feet behind her,
+because he was too shy to go boldly up and ask if he might see her
+home.
+
+All taken together, what wonder if David lost his head over that
+tea-table and determined to ask Josephine the same old question once
+more? It was eighteen years since he had asked it for the first time,
+and two years since the last. He would try his luck again; Josephine
+was certainly more gracious than he remembered her to ever have been
+before.
+
+When the meal was over Josephine cleared the table and washed the
+dishes. When she had taken a dry towel and sat down by the window to
+polish her china David understood that his opportunity had come. He
+moved over and sat down beside her on the sofa by the window.
+
+Outside the sun was setting in a magnificent arch of light and colour
+over the snow-clad hills and deep blue St. Lawrence gulf. David
+grasped at the sunset as an introductory factor.
+
+"Isn't that fine, Josephine?" he said admiringly. "It makes me think
+of that piece of poetry that used to be in the old Fifth Reader when
+we went to school. D'ye mind how the teacher used to drill us up in it
+on Friday afternoons? It begun
+
+    'Slow sinks more lovely ere his race is run
+    Along Morea's hills the setting sun.'"
+
+Then David declaimed the whole passage in a sing-song tone,
+accompanied by a few crude gestures recalled from long-ago school-boy
+elocution. Josephine knew what was coming. Every time David proposed
+to her he had begun by reciting poetry. She twirled her towel around
+the last plate resignedly. If it had to come, the sooner it was over
+the better. Josephine knew by experience that there was no heading
+David off, despite his shyness, when he had once got along as far as
+the poetry.
+
+"But it's going to be for the last time," she said determinedly. "I'm
+going to settle this question so decidedly to-night that there'll
+never be a repetition."
+
+When David had finished his quotation he laid his hand on Josephine's
+plump arm.
+
+"Josephine," he said huskily, "I s'pose you couldn't--could you
+now?--make up your mind to have me. I wish you would, Josephine--I
+wish you would. Don't you think you could, Josephine?"
+
+Josephine folded up her towel, crossed her hands on it, and looked her
+wooer squarely in the eyes.
+
+"David Hartley," she said deliberately, "what makes you go on asking
+me to marry you every once in a while when I've told you times out of
+mind that I can't and won't?"
+
+"Because I can't help hoping that you'll change your mind through
+time," David replied meekly.
+
+"Well, you just listen to me. I will not marry you. That is in the
+first place. And in the second, this is to be final. It has to be. You
+are never to ask me this again under any circumstances. If you do I
+will not answer you--I will not let on I hear you at all; but (and
+Josephine spoke very slowly and impressively) I will never speak to
+you again--never. We are good friends now, and I like you real well,
+and like to have you drop in for a neighbourly chat as often as you
+wish to, but there'll be an end, short and sudden, to that, if you
+don't mind what I say."
+
+"Oh, Josephine, ain't that rather hard?" protested David feebly. It
+seemed terrible to be cut off from all hope with such finality as
+this.
+
+"I mean every word of it," returned Josephine calmly. "You'd better go
+home now, David. I always feel as if I'd like to be alone for a spell
+after a disagreeable experience."
+
+David obeyed sadly and put on his cap and overcoat. Josephine kindly
+warned him not to slip and break his legs on the porch, because the
+floor was as icy as anything; and she even lighted a candle and held
+it up at the kitchen door to guide him safely out. David, as he
+trudged sorrowfully homeward across the fields, carried with him the
+mental picture of a plump, sonsy woman, in a trim dress of
+plum-coloured homespun and ruffled blue-check apron, haloed by
+candlelight. It was not a very romantic vision, perhaps, but to David
+it was more beautiful than anything else in the world.
+
+When David was gone Josephine shut the door with a little shiver. She
+blew out the candle, for it was not yet dark enough to justify
+artificial light to her thrifty mind. She thought the big, empty
+house, in which she was the only living thing, was very lonely. It was
+so still, except for the slow tick of the "grandfather's clock" and
+the soft purr and crackle of the wood in the stove. Josephine sat down
+by the window.
+
+"I wish some of the Sentners would run down," she said aloud. "If
+David hadn't been so ridiculous I'd have got him to stay the evening.
+He can be good company when he likes--he's real well-read and
+intelligent. And he must have dismal times at home there with nobody
+but Zillah."
+
+She looked across the yard to the little house at the other side of
+it, where her French-Canadian hired man lived, and watched the purple
+spiral of smoke from its chimney curling up against the crocus sky.
+Would she run over and see Mrs. Leon Poirier and her little
+black-eyed, brown-skinned baby? No, they never knew what to say to
+each other.
+
+"If 'twasn't so cold I'd go up and see Ida," she said. "As it is, I
+guess I'd better fall back on my knitting, for I saw Jimmy Sentner's
+toes sticking through his socks the other day. How setback poor David
+did look, to be sure! But I think I've settled that marrying notion of
+his once for all and I'm glad of it."
+
+She said the same thing next day to Mrs. Tom Sentner, who had come
+down to help her pick her geese. They were at work in the kitchen with
+a big tubful of feathers between them, and on the table a row of dead
+birds, which Leon had killed and brought in. Josephine was enveloped
+in a shapeless print wrapper, and had an apron tied tightly around her
+head to keep the down out of her beautiful hair, of which she was
+rather proud.
+
+"What do you think, Ida?" she said, with a hearty laugh at the
+recollection. "David Hartley was here to tea last night, and asked me
+to marry him again. There's a persistent man for you. I can't brag of
+ever having had many beaux, but I've certainly had my fair share of
+proposals."
+
+Mrs. Tom did not laugh. Her thin little face, with its faded
+prettiness, looked as if she never laughed.
+
+"Why won't you marry him?" she said fretfully.
+
+"Why should I?" retorted Josephine. "Tell me that, Ida Sentner."
+
+"Because it is high time you were married," said Mrs. Tom decisively.
+"I don't believe in women living single. And I don't see what better
+you can do than take David Hartley."
+
+Josephine looked at her sister with the interested expression of a
+person who is trying to understand some mental attitude in another
+which is a standing puzzle to her. Ida's evident wish to see her
+married always amused Josephine. Ida had married very young and for
+fifteen years her life had been one of drudgery and ill-health. Tom
+Sentner was a lazy, shiftless fellow. He neglected his family and was
+drunk half his time. Meadowby people said that he beat his wife when
+"on the spree," but Josephine did not believe that, because she did
+not think that Ida could keep from telling her if it were so. Ida
+Sentner was not given to bearing her trials in silence.
+
+Had it not been for Josephine's assistance, Tom Sentner's family would
+have stood an excellent chance of starvation. Josephine practically
+kept them, and her generosity never failed or stinted. She fed and
+clothed her nephews and nieces, and all the gray socks whose
+destination puzzled David so much went to the Sentners.
+
+As for Josephine herself, she had a good farm, a comfortable house, a
+plump bank account, and was an independent, unworried woman. And yet,
+in the face of all this, Mrs. Tom Sentner could bewail the fact that
+Josephine had no husband to look out for her. Josephine shrugged her
+shoulders and gave up the conundrum, merely saying ironically, in
+reply to her sister's remark:
+
+"And go to live with Zillah Hartley?"
+
+"You know very well you wouldn't have to do that. Ever since John
+Hartley's wife at the Creek died he's been wanting Zillah to go and
+keep house for him, and if David got married Zillah'd go quick. Catch
+her staying there if you were mistress! And David has such a beautiful
+house! It's ten times finer than yours, though I don't deny yours is
+comfortable. And his farm is the best in Meadowby and joins yours.
+Think what a beautiful property they'd make together. You're all right
+now, Josephine, but what will you do when you get old and have nobody
+to take care of you? I declare the thought worries me at night till I
+can't sleep."
+
+"I should have thought you had enough worries of your own to keep you
+awake at nights without taking over any of mine," said Josephine
+drily. "As for old age, it's a good ways off for me yet. When your
+Jack gets old enough to have some sense he can come here and live with
+me. But I'm not going to marry David Hartley, you can depend on that,
+Ida, my dear. I wish you could have heard him rhyming off that poetry
+last night. It doesn't seem to matter much what piece he
+recites--first thing that comes into his head, I reckon. I remember
+one time he went clean through that hymn beginning, 'Hark from the
+tombs a doleful sound,' and two years ago it was 'To Mary in Heaven,'
+as lackadaisical as you please. I never had such a time to keep from
+laughing, but I managed it, for I wouldn't hurt his feelings for the
+world. No, I haven't any intention of marrying anybody, but if I had
+it wouldn't be dear old sentimental, easy-going David."
+
+Mrs. Tom thumped a plucked goose down on the bench with an expression
+which said that she, for one, wasn't going to waste any more words on
+an idiot. Easy-going, indeed! Did Josephine consider that a drawback?
+Mrs. Tom sighed. If Josephine, she thought, had put up with Tom
+Sentner's tempers for fifteen years she would know how to appreciate a
+good-natured man at his real value.
+
+The cold snap which had set in on the day of David's call lasted and
+deepened for a week. On Saturday evening, when Mrs. Tom came down for
+a jug of cream, the mercury of the little thermometer thumping against
+Josephine's porch was below zero. The gulf was no longer blue, but
+white with ice. Everything outdoors was crackling and snapping. Inside
+Josephine had kept roaring fires all through the house but the only
+place really warm was the kitchen.
+
+"Wrap your head up well, Ida," she said anxiously, when Mrs. Tom rose
+to go. "You've got a bad cold."
+
+"There's a cold going," said Mrs. Tom. "Everyone has it. David Hartley
+was up at our place to-day barking terrible--a real churchyard cough,
+as I told him. He never takes any care of himself. He said Zillah had
+a bad cold, too. Won't she be cranky while it lasts?"
+
+Josephine sat up late that night to keep fires on. She finally went to
+bed in the little room opposite the big hall stove, and she slept at
+once, and dreamed that the thumps of the thermometer flapping in the
+wind against the wall outside grew louder and more insistent until
+they woke her up. Some one was pounding on the porch door.
+
+Josephine sprang out of bed and hurried on her wrapper and felt shoes.
+She had no doubt that some of the Sentners were sick. They had a habit
+of getting sick about that time of night. She hurried out and opened
+the door, expecting to see hulking Tom Sentner, or perhaps Ida
+herself, big-eyed and hysterical.
+
+But David Hartley stood there, panting for breath. The clear moonlight
+showed that he had no overcoat on, and he was coughing hard.
+Josephine, before she spoke a word, clutched him by the arm and pulled
+him in out of the wind.
+
+"For pity's sake, David Hartley, what is the matter?"
+
+"Zillah's awful sick," he gasped. "I came here because 'twas nearest.
+Oh, won't you come over, Josephine? I've got to go for the doctor and
+I can't leave her alone. She's suffering dreadful. I know you and her
+ain't on good terms, but you'll come, won't you?"
+
+"Of course I will," said Josephine sharply. "I'm not a barbarian, I
+hope, to refuse to go to the help of a sick person, if 'twas my worst
+enemy. I'll go in and get ready and you go straight to the hall stove
+and warm yourself. There's a good fire in it yet. What on earth do you
+mean, starting out on a bitter night like this without an overcoat or
+even mittens, and you with a cold like that?"
+
+"I never thought of them, I was so frightened," said David
+apologetically. "I just lit up a fire in the kitchen stove as quick's
+I could and run. It rattled me to hear Zillah moaning so's you could
+hear her all over the house."
+
+"You need someone to look after you as bad as Zillah does," said
+Josephine severely.
+
+In a very few minutes she was ready, with a basket packed full of
+homely remedies, "for like as not there'll be no putting one's hand on
+anything there," she muttered. She insisted on wrapping her big plaid
+shawl around David's head and neck, and made him put on a pair of
+mittens she had knitted for Jack Sentner. Then she locked the door and
+they started across the gleaming, crusted field. It was so slippery
+that Josephine had to cling to David's arm to keep her feet. In the
+rapture of supporting her David almost forgot everything else.
+
+In a few minutes they had passed under the bare, glistening boughs of
+the poplars on David's lawn, and for the first time Josephine crossed
+the threshold of David Hartley's house.
+
+Years ago, in her girlhood, when the Hartley's lived in the old house
+and there were half a dozen girls at home, Josephine had frequently
+visited there. All the Hartley girls liked her except Zillah. She and
+Zillah never "got on" together. When the other girls had married and
+gone, Josephine gave up visiting there. She had never been inside the
+new house, and she and Zillah had not spoken to each other for years.
+
+Zillah was a sick woman--too sick to be anything but civil to
+Josephine. David started at once for the doctor at the Creek, and
+Josephine saw that he was well wrapped up before she let him go. Then
+she mixed up a mustard plaster for Zillah and sat down by the bedside
+to wait.
+
+When Mrs. Tom Sentner came down the next day she found Josephine busy
+making flaxseed poultices, with her lips set in a line that betokened
+she had made up her mind to some disagreeable course of duty.
+
+"Zillah has got pneumonia bad," she said, in reply to Mrs. Tom's
+inquiries. "The Doctor is here and Mary Bell from the Creek. She'll
+wait on Zillah, but there'll have to be another woman here to see to
+the work. I reckon I'll stay. I suppose it's my duty and I don't see
+who else could be got. You can send Mamie and Jack down to stay at my
+house until I can go back. I'll run over every day and keep an eye on
+things."
+
+At the end of a week Zillah was out of danger. Saturday afternoon
+Josephine went over home to see how Mamie and Jack were getting on.
+She found Mrs. Tom there, and the latter promptly despatched Jack and
+Mamie to the post-office that she might have an opportunity to hear
+Josephine's news.
+
+"I've had an awful week of it, Ida," said Josephine solemnly, as she
+sat down by the stove and put her feet up on the glowing hearth.
+
+"I suppose Zillah is pretty cranky to wait on," said Mrs. Tom
+sympathetically.
+
+"Oh, it isn't Zillah. Mary Bell looks after her. No, it's the house. I
+never lived in such a place of dust and disorder in my born days. I'm
+sorrier for David Hartley than I ever was for anyone before."
+
+"I suppose he's used to it," said Mrs. Tom with a shrug.
+
+"I don't see how anyone could ever get used to it," groaned Josephine.
+"And David used to be so particular when he was a boy. The minute I
+went there the other night I took in that kitchen with a look. I don't
+believe the paint has even been washed since the house was built. I
+honestly don't. And I wouldn't like to be called upon to swear when
+the floor was scrubbed either. The corners were just full of rolls of
+dust--you could have shovelled it out. I swept it out next day and I
+thought I'd be choked. As for the pantry--well, the less said about
+_that_ the better. And it's the same all through the house. You could
+write your name on everything. I couldn't so much as clean up. Zillah
+was so sick there couldn't be a bit of noise made. I did manage to
+sweep and dust, and I cleaned out the pantry. And, of course, I saw
+that the meals were nice and well cooked. You should have seen David's
+face. He looked as if he couldn't get used to having things clean and
+tasty. I darned his socks--he hadn't a whole pair to his name--and
+I've done everything I could to give him a little comfort. Not that I
+could do much. If Zillah heard me moving round she'd send Mary Bell
+out to ask what the matter was. When I wanted to go upstairs I'd have
+to take off my shoes and tiptoe up on my stocking feet, so's she
+wouldn't know it. And I'll have to stay there another fortnight yet.
+Zillah won't be able to sit up till then. I don't really know if I can
+stand it without falling to and scrubbing the house from garret to
+cellar in spite of her."
+
+Mrs. Tom Sentner did not say much to Josephine. To herself she said
+complacently:
+
+"She's sorry for David. Well, I've always heard that pity was akin to
+love. We'll see what comes of this."
+
+Josephine did manage to live through that fortnight. One morning she
+remarked to David at the breakfast table:
+
+"Well, I think that Mary Bell will be able to attend to the work after
+today, David. I guess I'll go home tonight."
+
+David's face clouded over.
+
+"Well, I s'pose we oughtn't to keep you any longer, Josephine. I'm
+sure it's been awful good of you to stay this long. I don't know what
+we'd have done without you."
+
+"You're welcome," said Josephine shortly.
+
+"Don't go for to walk home," said David; "the snow is too deep. I'll
+drive you over when you want to go."
+
+"I'll not go before the evening," said Josephine slowly.
+
+David went out to his work gloomily. For three weeks he had been
+living in comfort. His wants were carefully attended to; his meals
+were well cooked and served, and everything was bright and clean. And
+more than all, Josephine had been there, with her cheerful smile and
+companionable ways. Well, it was all ended now.
+
+Josephine sat at the breakfast table long after David had gone out.
+She scowled at the sugar-bowl and shook her head savagely at the
+tea-pot.
+
+"I'll have to do it," she said at last.
+
+"I'm so sorry for him that I can't do anything else."
+
+She got up and went to the window, looking across the snowy field to
+her own home, nestled between the grove of firs and the orchard.
+
+"It's awful snug and comfortable," she said regretfully, "and I've
+always felt set on being free and independent. But it's no use. I'd
+never have a minute's peace of mind again, thinking of David living
+here in dirt and disorder, and him so particular and tidy by nature.
+No, it's my duty, plain and clear, to come here and make things
+pleasant for him--the pointing of Providence, as you might say. The
+worst of it is, I'll have to tell him so myself. He'll never dare to
+mention the subject again, after what I said to him that night he
+proposed last. I wish I hadn't been so dreadful emphatic. Now I've got
+to say it myself if it is ever said. But I'll not begin by quoting
+poetry, that's one thing sure!"
+
+Josephine threw back her head, crowned with its shining braids of
+jet-black hair, and laughed heartily. She bustled back to the stove
+and poked up the fire.
+
+"I'll have a bit of corned beef and cabbage for dinner," she said,
+"and I'll make David that pudding he's so fond of. After all, it's
+kind of nice to have someone to plan and think for. It always did seem
+like a waste of energy to fuss over cooking things when there was
+nobody but myself to eat them."
+
+Josephine sang over her work all day, and David went about his with
+the face of a man who is going to the gallows without benefit of
+clergy. When he came in to supper at sunset his expression was so
+woe-begone that Josephine had to dodge into the pantry to keep from
+laughing outright. She relieved her feelings by pounding the dresser
+with the potato masher, and then went primly out and took her place at
+the table.
+
+The meal was not a success from a social point of view. Josephine was
+nervous and David glum. Mary Bell gobbled down her food with her usual
+haste, and then went away to carry Zillah hers. Then David said
+reluctantly:
+
+"If you want to go home now, Josephine, I'll hitch up Red Rob and
+drive you over."
+
+Josephine began to plait the tablecloth. She wished again that she had
+not been so emphatic on the occasion of his last proposal. Without
+replying to David's suggestion she said crossly (Josephine always
+spoke crossly when she was especially in earnest):
+
+"I want to tell you what I think about Zillah. She's getting better,
+but she's had a terrible shaking up, and it's my opinion that she
+won't be good for much all winter. She won't be able to do any hard
+work, that's certain. If you want my advice, I tell you fair and
+square that I think she'd better go off for a visit as soon as she's
+fit. She thinks so herself. Clementine wants her to go and stay a
+spell with her in town. 'Twould be just the thing for her."
+
+"She can go if she wants to, of course," said David dully. "I can get
+along by myself for a spell."
+
+"There's no need of your getting along by yourself," said Josephine,
+more crossly than ever. "I'll--I'll come here and keep house for you
+if you like."
+
+David looked at her uncomprehendingly.
+
+"Wouldn't people kind of gossip?" he asked hesitatingly. "Not but
+what--"
+
+"I don't see what they'd have to gossip about," broke in Josephine,
+"if we were--married."
+
+David sprang to his feet with such haste that he almost upset the
+table.
+
+"Josephine, do you mean that?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Of course I mean it," she said, in a perfectly savage tone. "Now, for
+pity's sake, don't say another word about it just now. I can't discuss
+it for a spell. Go out to your work. I want to be alone for awhile."
+
+For the first and last time David disobeyed her. Instead of going out,
+he strode around the table, caught Josephine masterfully in his arms,
+and kissed her. And Josephine, after a second's hesitation, kissed him
+in return.
+
+
+
+
+Aunt Philippa and the Men
+
+
+I knew quite well why Father sent me to Prince Edward Island to visit
+Aunt Philippa that summer. He told me he was sending me there "to
+learn some sense"; and my stepmother, of whom I was very fond, told me
+she was sure the sea air would do me a world of good. I did not want
+to learn sense or be done a world of good; I wanted to stay in
+Montreal and go on being foolish--and make up my quarrel with Mark
+Fenwick. Father and Mother did not know anything about this quarrel;
+they thought I was still on good terms with him--and that is why they
+sent me to Prince Edward Island.
+
+I was very miserable. I did not want to go to Aunt Philippa's. It was
+not because I feared it would be dull--for without Mark, Montreal was
+just as much of a howling wilderness as any other place. But it was so
+horribly far away. When the time came for Mark to want to make up--as
+come I knew it would--how could he do it if I were seven hundred miles
+away?
+
+Nevertheless, I went to Prince Edward Island. In all my eighteen years
+I had never once disobeyed Father. He is a very hard man to disobey. I
+knew I should have to make a beginning some time if I wanted to marry
+Mark, so I saved all my little courage up for that and didn't waste
+any of it opposing the visit to Aunt Philippa.
+
+I couldn't understand Father's point of view. Of course, he hated old
+John Fenwick, who had once sued him for libel and won the case. Father
+had written an indiscreet editorial in the excitement of a red-hot
+political contest--and was made to understand that there are some
+things you can't say of another man even at election time. But then,
+he need not have hated Mark because of that; Mark was not even born
+when it happened.
+
+Old John Fenwick was not much better pleased about Mark and me than
+Father was, though he didn't go to the length of forbidding it; he
+just acted grumpily and disagreeably. Things were unpleasant enough
+all round without a quarrel between Mark and me; yet quarrel we
+did--and over next to nothing, too, you understand. And now I had to
+set out for Prince Edward Island without even seeing him, for he was
+away in Toronto on business.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When my train reached Copely the next afternoon, Aunt Philippa was
+waiting for me. There was nobody else in sight, but I would have known
+her had there been a thousand. Nobody but Aunt Philippa could have
+that determined mouth, those piercing grey eyes, and that pronounced,
+unmistakable Goodwin nose. And certainly nobody but Aunt Philippa
+would have come to meet me arrayed in a wrapper of chocolate print
+with huge yellow roses scattered over it, and a striped blue-and-white
+apron!
+
+She welcomed me kindly but absent-mindedly, her thoughts evidently
+being concentrated on the problem of getting my trunk home. I had only
+the one, and in Montreal it had seemed to be of moderate size; but on
+the platform of Copely station, sized up by Aunt Philippa's merciless
+eye, it certainly looked huge.
+
+"I thought we could a-took it along tied on the back of the buggy,"
+she said disapprovingly, "but I guess we'll have to leave it, and I'll
+send the hired boy over for it tonight. You can get along without it
+till then, I s'pose?"
+
+There was a fine irony in her tone. I hastened to assure her meekly
+that I could, and that it did not matter if my trunk could not be
+taken up till next day.
+
+"Oh, Jerry can come for it tonight as well as not," said Aunt
+Philippa, as we climbed into her buggy. "I'd a good notion to send him
+to meet you, for he isn't doing much today, and I wanted to go to Mrs.
+Roderick MacAllister's funeral. But my head was aching me so bad I
+thought I wouldn't enjoy the funeral if I did go. My head is better
+now, so I kind of wish I had gone. She was a hundred and four years
+old and I'd always promised myself that I'd go to her funeral."
+
+Aunt Philippa's tone was melancholy. She did not recover her good
+spirits until we were out on the pretty, grassy, elm-shaded country
+road, garlanded with its ribbon of buttercups. Then she suddenly
+turned around and looked me over scrutinizingly.
+
+"You're not as good-looking as I expected from your picture, but them
+photographs always flatter. That's the reason I never had any took.
+You're rather thin and brown. But you've good eyes and you look
+clever. Your father writ me you hadn't much sense, though. He wants me
+to teach you some, but it's a thankless business. People would rather
+be fools."
+
+Aunt Philippa struck her steed smartly with the whip and controlled
+his resultant friskiness with admirable skill.
+
+"Well, you know it's pleasanter," I said, wickedly. "Just think what a
+doleful world it would be if everybody were sensible."
+
+Aunt Philippa looked at me out of the corner of her eye and disdained
+any skirmish of flippant epigram.
+
+"So you want to get married?" she said. "You'd better wait till you're
+grown up."
+
+"How old must a person be before she is grown up?" I asked gravely.
+
+"Humph! That depends. Some are grown up when they're born, and others
+ain't grown up when they're eighty. That same Mrs. Roderick I was
+speaking of never grew up. She was as foolish when she was a hundred
+as when she was ten."
+
+"Perhaps that's why she lived so long," I suggested. All thought of
+seeking sympathy in Aunt Philippa had vanished. I resolved I would not
+even mention Mark's name.
+
+"Mebbe 'twas," admitted Aunt Philippa with a grim smile. "_I'd_ rather
+live fifty sensible years than a hundred foolish ones."
+
+Much to my relief, she made no further reference to my affairs. As we
+rounded a curve in the road where two great over-arching elms met, a
+buggy wheeled by us, occupied by a young man in clerical costume. He
+had a pleasant boyish face, and he touched his hat courteously. Aunt
+Philippa nodded very frostily and gave her horse a quite undeserved
+cut.
+
+"There's a man you don't want to have much to do with," she said
+portentously. "He's a Methodist minister."
+
+"Why, Auntie, the Methodists are a very nice denomination," I
+protested. "My stepmother is a Methodist, you know."
+
+"No, I didn't know, but I'd believe anything of a stepmother. I've no
+use for Methodists or their ministers. This fellow just came last
+spring, and it's _my_ opinion he smokes. And he thinks every girl who
+looks at him falls in love with him--as if a Methodist minister was
+any prize! Don't you take much notice of him, Ursula."
+
+"I'll not be likely to have the chance," I said, with an amused smile.
+
+"Oh, you'll see enough of him. He boards at Mrs. John Callman's, just
+across the road from us, and he's always out sunning himself on her
+verandah. Never studies, of course. Last Sunday they say he preached
+on the iron that floated. If he'd confine himself to the Bible and
+leave sensational subjects alone it would be better for him and his
+poor congregation, and so I told Mrs. John Callman to her face. I
+should think _she_ would have had enough of his sex by this time. She
+married John Callman against her father's will, and he had delirious
+trembles for years. That's the men for you."
+
+"They're not _all_ like that, Aunt Philippa," I protested.
+
+"Most of 'em are. See that house over there? Mrs. Jane Harrison lives
+there. Her husband took tantrums every few days or so and wouldn't get
+out of bed. She had to do all the barn work till he'd got over his
+spell. That's men for you. When he died, people writ her letters of
+condolence but _I_ just sot down and writ her one of congratulation.
+There's the Presbyterian manse in the hollow. Mr. Bentwell's our
+minister. He's a good man and he'd be a rather nice one if he didn't
+think it was his duty to be a little miserable all the time. He won't
+let his wife wear a fashionable hat, and his daughter can't fix her
+hair the way she wants to. Even being a minister can't prevent a man
+from being a crank. Here's Ebenezer Milgrave coming. You take a good
+look at him. He used to be insane for years. He believed he was dead
+and used to rage at his wife because she wouldn't bury him. _I'd_
+a-done it."
+
+Aunt Philippa looked so determinedly grim that I could almost see her
+with a spade in her hand. I laughed aloud at the picture summoned up.
+
+"Yes, it's funny, but I guess his poor wife didn't find it very
+humorsome. He's been pretty sane for some years now, but you never can
+tell when he'll break out again. He's got a brother, Albert Milgrave,
+who's been married twice. They say he was courting his second wife
+while his first was dying. Let that be as it may, he used his first
+wife's wedding ring to marry the second. That's the men for you."
+
+"Don't you know _any_ good husbands, Aunt Philippa?" I asked
+desperately.
+
+"Oh, yes, lots of 'em--over there," said Aunt Philippa sardonically,
+waving her whip in the direction of a little country graveyard on a
+distant hill.
+
+"Yes, but _living_--walking about in the flesh?"
+
+"Precious few. Now and again you'll come across a man whose wife won't
+put up with any nonsense and he _has_ to be respectable. But the most
+of 'em are poor bargains--poor bargains."
+
+"And are all the wives saints?" I persisted.
+
+"Laws, no, but they're too good for the men," retorted Aunt Philippa,
+as she turned in at her own gate. Her house was close to the road and
+was painted such a vivid green that the landscape looked faded by
+contrast. Across the gable end of it was the legend, "Philippa's
+Farm," emblazoned in huge black letters two feet long. All its
+surroundings were very neat. On the kitchen doorstep a patchwork cat
+was making a grave toilet. The groundwork of the cat was white, and
+its spots were black, yellow, grey, and brown.
+
+"There's Joseph," said Aunt Philippa. "I call him that because his
+coat is of many colours. But I ain't no lover of cats. They're too
+much like the men to suit me."
+
+"Cats have always been supposed to be peculiarly feminine," I said,
+descending.
+
+"'Twas a man that supposed it, then," retorted Aunt Philippa,
+beckoning to her hired boy. "Here, Jerry, put Prince away. Jerry's a
+good sort of boy," she confided to me as we went into the house. "I
+had Jim Spencer last summer and the only good thing about _him_ was
+his appetite. I put up with him till harvest was in, and then one day
+my patience give out. He upsot a churnful of cream in the back
+yard--and was just as cool as a cowcumber over it--laughed and said it
+was good for the land. I told him I wasn't in the habit of fertilizing
+my back yard with cream. But that's the men for you. Come in. I'll
+have tea ready in no time. I sot the table before I left. There's
+lemon pie. Mrs. John Cantwell sent it over. I never make lemon pie
+myself. Ten years ago I took the prize for lemon pies at the county
+fair, and I've never made any since for fear I'd lose my reputation
+for them."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The first month of my stay passed not unpleasantly. The summer weather
+was delightful, and the sea air was certainly splendid. Aunt
+Philippa's little farm ran right down to the shore, and I spent much
+of my time there. There were also several families of cousins to be
+visited in the farmhouses that dotted the pretty, seaward-sloping
+valley, and they came back to see me at "Philippa's Farm." I picked
+spruce gum and berries and ferns, and Aunt Philippa taught me to make
+butter. It was all very idyllic--or would have been if Mark had
+written. But Mark did not write. I supposed he must be very angry
+because I had run off to Prince Edward Island without so much as a
+note of goodbye. But I had been so sure he would understand!
+
+Aunt Philippa never made any further reference to the reason Father
+had sent me to her, but she allowed no day to pass without holding up
+to me some horrible example of matrimonial infelicity. The number of
+unhappy wives who walked or drove past "Philippa's Farm" every
+afternoon, as we sat on the verandah, was truly pitiable.
+
+We always sat on the verandah in the afternoon, when we were not
+visiting or being visited. I made a pretence of fancy work, and Aunt
+Philippa spun diligently on a little old-fashioned spinning-wheel that
+had been her grandmother's. She always sat before the wood stand which
+held her flowers, and the gorgeous blots of geranium blossom and big
+green leaves furnished a pretty background. She always wore her
+shapeless but clean print wrappers, and her iron-grey hair was always
+combed neatly down over her ears. Joseph sat between us, sleeping or
+purring. She spun so expertly that she could keep a close watch on the
+road as well, and I got the biography of every individual who went by.
+As for the poor young Methodist minister, who liked to read or walk on
+the verandah of our neighbour's house, Aunt Philippa never had a good
+word for him. I had met him once or twice socially and had liked him.
+I wanted to ask him to call but dared not--Aunt Philippa had vowed he
+should never enter her house.
+
+"If I was dead and he came to my funeral I'd rise up and order him
+out," she said.
+
+"I thought he made a very nice prayer at Mrs. Seaman's funeral the
+other day," I said.
+
+"Oh, I've no doubt he can pray. I never heard anyone make more
+beautiful prayers than old Simon Kennedy down at the harbour, who was
+always drunk or hoping to be--and the drunker he was the better he
+prayed. It ain't no matter how well a man prays if his preaching isn't
+right. That Methodist man preaches a lot of things that ain't true,
+and what's worse they ain't sound doctrine. At least, that's what I've
+heard. I never was in a Methodist church, thank goodness."
+
+"Don't you think Methodists go to heaven as well as Presbyterians,
+Aunt Philippa?" I asked gravely.
+
+"That ain't for us to decide," said Aunt Philippa solemnly. "It's in
+higher hands than ours. But I ain't going to associate with them on
+_earth_, whatever I may have to do in heaven. The folks round here
+mostly don't make much difference and go to the Methodist church quite
+often. But _I_ say if you are a Presbyterian, _be_ a Presbyterian. Of
+course, if you ain't, it don't matter much what you do. As for that
+minister man, he has a grand-uncle who was sent to the penitentiary
+for embezzlement. I found out _that_ much."
+
+And evidently Aunt Philippa had taken an unholy joy in finding it out.
+
+"I dare say some of our own ancestors deserved to go to the
+penitentiary, even if they never did," I remarked. "Who is that woman
+driving past, Aunt Philippa? She must have been very pretty once."
+
+"She was--and that was all the good it did her. 'Favour is deceitful
+and beauty is vain,' Ursula. She was Sarah Pyatt and she married Fred
+Proctor. He was one of your wicked, fascinating men. After she married
+him he give up being fascinating but he kept on being wicked. _That's_
+the men for you. Her sister Flora weren't much luckier. _Her_ man was
+that domineering she couldn't call her soul her own. Finally he
+couldn't get his own way over something and he just suicided by
+jumping into the well. A good riddance--but of course the well was
+spoiled. Flora could never abide the thought of using it again, poor
+thing. _That's_ men for you.
+
+"And there's that old Enoch Allan on his way to the station. He's
+ninety if he's a day. You can't kill some folks with a meat axe. His
+wife died twenty years ago. He'd been married when he was twenty so
+they'd lived together for fifty years. She was a faithful,
+hard-working creature and kept him out of the poorhouse, for he was a
+shiftless soul, not lazy, exactly, but just too fond of sitting. But
+he weren't grateful. She had a kind of bitter tongue and they did use
+to fight scandalous. O' course it was all his fault. Well, she died,
+and old Enoch and my father drove together to the graveyard. Old Enoch
+was awful quiet all the way there and back, but just afore they got
+home, he says solemnly to Father: 'You mayn't believe it, Henry, but
+this is the happiest day of my life.' _That's_ men for you. His
+brother, Scotty Allan, was the meanest man ever lived in these parts.
+When his wife died she was buried with a little gold brooch in her
+collar unbeknownst to him. When he found it out he went one night to
+the graveyard and opened up the grave and the casket to get that
+brooch."
+
+"Oh, Aunt Philippa, that is a horrible story," I cried, recoiling with
+a shiver over the gruesomeness of it.
+
+"'Course it is, but what would you expect of a man?" retorted Aunt
+Philippa.
+
+Somehow, her stories began to affect me in spite of myself. There were
+times when I felt very dreary. Perhaps Aunt Philippa was right.
+Perhaps men possessed neither truth nor constancy. Certainly Mark had
+forgotten me. I was ashamed of myself because this hurt me so much,
+but I could not help it. I grew pale and listless. Aunt Philippa
+sometimes peered at me sharply, but she held her peace. I was grateful
+for this.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But one day a letter did come from Mark. I dared not read it until I
+was safely in my own room. Then I opened it with trembling fingers.
+
+The letter was a little stiff. Evidently Mark was feeling sore enough
+over things. He made no reference to our quarrel or to my sojourn in
+Prince Edward Island. He wrote that his firm was sending him to South
+Africa to take charge of their interests there. He would leave in
+three weeks' time and could not return for five years. If I still
+cared anything for him, would I meet him in Halifax, marry him, and go
+to South Africa with him? If I would not, he would understand that I
+had ceased to love him and that all was over between us.
+
+That, boiled down, was the gist of Mark's letter. When I had read it I
+cast myself on the bed and wept out all the tears I had refused to let
+myself shed during my weeks of exile.
+
+For I could not do what Mark asked--I _could not_. I couldn't run away
+to be married in that desolate, unbefriended fashion. It would be a
+disgrace. I would feel ashamed of it all my life and be unhappy over
+it. I thought that Mark was rather unreasonable. He knew what my
+feelings about run-away marriages were. And was it absolutely
+necessary for him to go to South Africa? Of course his father was
+behind it somewhere, but surely he could have got out of it if he had
+really tried.
+
+Well, if he went to South Africa he must go alone. But my heart would
+break.
+
+I cried the whole afternoon, cowering among my pillows. I never wanted
+to go out of that room again. I never wanted to see anybody again. I
+hated the thought of facing Aunt Philippa with her cold eyes and her
+miserable stories that seemed to strip life of all beauty and love of
+all reality. I could hear her scornful, "That's the men for you," if
+she heard what was in Mark's letter.
+
+"What is the matter, Ursula?"
+
+Aunt Philippa was standing by my bed. I was too abject to resent her
+coming in without knocking.
+
+"Nothing," I said spiritlessly.
+
+"If you've been crying for three mortal hours over nothing you want a
+good spanking and you'll get it," observed Aunt Philippa placidly,
+sitting down on my trunk. "Get right up off that bed this minute and
+tell me what the trouble is. I'm bound to know, for I'm in your
+father's place at present."
+
+"There, then!" I flung her Mark's letter. There wasn't anything in it
+that it was sacrilege to let another person see. That was one reason
+why I had been crying.
+
+Aunt Philippa read it over twice. Then she folded it up deliberately
+and put it back in the envelope.
+
+"What are you going to do?" she asked in a matter-of-fact tone.
+
+"I'm not going to run away to be married," I answered sullenly.
+
+"Well, no, I wouldn't advise you to," said Aunt Philippa reflectively.
+"It's a kind of low-down thing to do, though there's been a terrible
+lot of romantic nonsense talked and writ about eloping. It may be a
+painful necessity sometimes, but it ain't in this case. You write to
+your young man and tell him to come here and be married respectable
+under my roof, same as a Goodwin ought to."
+
+I sat up and stared at Aunt Philippa. I was so amazed that it is
+useless to try to express my amazement.
+
+"Aunt--Philippa," I gasped. "I thought--I thought--"
+
+"You thought I was a hard old customer, and so I am," said Aunt
+Philippa. "But I don't take my opinions from your father nor anybody
+else. It didn't prejudice me any against your young man that your
+father didn't like him. I knew your father of old. I have some other
+friends in Montreal and I writ to them and asked them what he was
+like. From what they said I judged he was decent enough as men go.
+You're too young to be married, but if you let him go off to South
+Africa he'll slip through your fingers for sure, and I s'pose you're
+like some of the rest of us--nobody'll do you but the one. So tell him
+to come here and be married."
+
+"I don't see how I can," I gasped. "I can't get ready to be married in
+three weeks. I can't--"
+
+"I should think you have enough clothes in that trunk to do you for a
+spell," said Aunt Philippa sarcastically. "You've more than my mother
+ever had in all her life. We'll get you a wedding dress of some kind.
+You can get it made in Charlottetown, if country dressmakers aren't
+good enough for you, and I'll bake you a wedding cake that'll taste as
+good as anything you could get in Montreal, even if it won't look so
+stylish."
+
+"What will Father say?" I questioned.
+
+"Lots o' things," conceded Aunt Philippa grimly. "But I don't see as
+it matters when neither you nor me'll be there to have our feelings
+hurt. I'll write a few things to your father. He hasn't got much
+sense. He ought to be thankful to get a decent young man for his
+son-in-law in a world where most every man is a wolf in sheep's
+clothing. But that's the men for you."
+
+And that was Aunt Philippa for you. For the next three weeks she was a
+blissfully excited, busy woman. I was allowed to choose the material
+and fashion of my wedding suit and hat myself, but almost everything
+else was settled by Aunt Philippa. I didn't mind; it was a relief to
+be rid of all responsibility; I did protest when she declared her
+intention of having a big wedding and asking all the cousins and
+semi-cousins on the island, but Aunt Philippa swept my objections
+lightly aside.
+
+"I'm bound to have one good wedding in this house," she said. "Not
+likely I'll ever have another chance."
+
+She found time amid all the baking and concocting to warn me
+frequently not to take it too much to heart if Mark failed to come
+after all.
+
+"I know a man who jilted a girl on her wedding day. That's the men for
+you. It's best to be prepared."
+
+But Mark did come, getting there the evening before our wedding day.
+And then a severe blow fell on Aunt Philippa. Word came from the manse
+that Mr. Bentwell had been suddenly summoned to Nova Scotia to his
+mother's deathbed; he had started that night.
+
+"That's the men for you," said Aunt Philippa bitterly. "Never can
+depend on one of them, not even on a minister. What's to be done now?"
+
+"Get another minister," said Mark easily.
+
+"Where'll you get him?" demanded Aunt Philippa. "The minister at
+Cliftonville is away on his vacation, and Mercer is vacant, and that
+leaves none nearer than town. It won't do to depend on a town minister
+being able to come. No, there's no help for it. You'll have to have
+that Methodist man."
+
+Aunt Philippa's tone was tragic. Plainly she thought the ceremony
+would scarcely be legal if that Methodist man married us. But neither
+Mark nor I cared. We were too happy to be disturbed by any such
+trifles.
+
+The young Methodist minister married us the next day in the presence
+of many beaming guests. Aunt Philippa, splendid in black silk and
+point-lace collar, neither of which lost a whit of dignity or lustre
+by being made ten years before, was composure itself while the
+ceremony was going on. But no sooner had the minister pronounced us
+man and wife than she spoke up.
+
+"Now that's over I want someone to go right out and put out the fire
+on the kitchen roof. It's been on fire for the last ten minutes."
+
+Minister and bridegroom headed the emergency brigade, and Aunt
+Philippa pumped the water for them. In a short time the fire was out,
+all was safe, and we were receiving our deferred congratulations.
+
+"Now, young man," said Aunt Philippa solemnly as she shook hands with
+Mark, "don't you ever try to get out of this, even if a Methodist
+minister did marry you."
+
+She insisted on driving us to the train and said goodbye to us as we
+stood on the car steps. She had caught more of the shower of rice than
+I had, and as the day was hot and sunny she had tied over her head,
+atop of that festal silk dress, a huge, home-made, untrimmed straw
+hat. But she did not look ridiculous. There was a certain dignity
+about Aunt Philippa in any costume and under any circumstance.
+
+"Aunt Philippa," I said, "tell me this: why have you helped me to be
+married?"
+
+The train began to move.
+
+"I refused once to run away myself, and I've repented it ever since."
+Then, as the train gathered speed and the distance between us widened,
+she shouted after us, "But I s'pose if I had run away I'd have
+repented of that too."
+
+
+
+
+Bessie's Doll
+
+
+Tommy Puffer, sauntering up the street, stopped to look at Miss
+Octavia's geraniums. Tommy never could help stopping to look at Miss
+Octavia's flowers, much as he hated Miss Octavia. Today they were
+certainly worth looking at. Miss Octavia had set them all out on her
+verandah--rows upon rows of them, overflowing down the steps in waves
+of blossom and colour. Miss Octavia's geraniums were famous in
+Arundel, and she was very proud of them. But it was her garden which
+was really the delight of her heart. Miss Octavia always had the
+prettiest garden in Arundel, especially as far as annuals were
+concerned. Just now it was like faith--the substance of things hoped
+for. The poppies and nasturtiums and balsams and morning glories and
+sweet peas had been sown in the brown beds on the lawn, but they had
+not yet begun to come up.
+
+Tommy was still feasting his eyes on the geraniums when Miss Octavia
+herself came around the corner of the house. Her face darkened the
+minute she saw Tommy. Most people's did. Tommy had the reputation of
+being a very bad, mischievous boy; he was certainly very poor and
+ragged, and Miss Octavia disapproved of poverty and rags on principle.
+Nobody, she argued, not even a boy of twelve, need be poor and ragged
+if he is willing to work.
+
+"Here, you, get away out of this," she said sharply. "I'm not going to
+have you hanging over my palings."
+
+"I ain't hurting your old palings," retorted Tommy sullenly. "I was
+jist a-looking at the flowers."
+
+"Yes, and picking out the next one to throw a stone at," said Miss
+Octavia sarcastically. "It was you who threw that stone and broke my
+big scarlet geranium clear off the other day."
+
+"It wasn't--I never chucked a stone at your flowers," said Tommy.
+
+"Don't tell me any falsehoods, Tommy Puffer. It was you. Didn't I
+catch you firing stones at my cat a dozen times?"
+
+"I might have fired 'em at an old cat, but I wouldn't tech a flower,"
+avowed Tommy boldly--brazenly, Miss Octavia thought.
+
+"You clear out of this or I'll make you," she said warningly.
+
+Tommy had had his ears boxed by Miss Octavia more than once. He had no
+desire to have the performance repeated, so he stuck his tongue out at
+Miss Octavia and then marched up the street with his hands in his
+pockets, whistling jauntily.
+
+"He's the most impudent brat I ever saw in my life," muttered Miss
+Octavia wrathfully. There was a standing feud between her and all the
+Arundel small boys, but Tommy was her special object of dislike.
+
+Tommy's heart was full of wrath and bitterness as he marched away. He
+hated Miss Octavia; he wished something would happen to every one of
+her flowers; he knew it was Ned Williams who had thrown that stone,
+and he hoped Ned would throw some more and smash all the flowers. So
+Tommy raged along the street until he came to Mr. Blacklock's store,
+and in the window of it he saw something that put Miss Octavia and her
+disagreeable remarks quite out of his tow-coloured head.
+
+This was nothing more or less than a doll. Now, Tommy was not a judge
+of dolls and did not take much interest in them, but he felt quite
+sure that this was a very fine one. It was so big; it was beautifully
+dressed in blue silk, with a ruffled blue silk hat; it had lovely long
+golden hair and big brown eyes and pink cheeks; and it stood right up
+in the showcase and held out its hands winningly.
+
+"Gee, ain't it a beauty!" said Tommy admiringly. "It looks 'sif it was
+alive, and it's as big as a baby. I must go an' bring Bessie to see
+it."
+
+Tommy at once hurried away to the shabby little street where what he
+called "home" was. Tommy's home was a very homeless-looking sort of
+place. It was the smallest, dingiest, most slatternly house on a
+street noted for its dingy and slatternly houses. It was occupied by a
+slatternly mother and a drunken father, as well as by Tommy; and
+neither the father nor the mother took much notice of Tommy except to
+scold or nag him. So it is hardly to be wondered at if Tommy was the
+sort of boy who was frowned upon by respectable citizens.
+
+But one little white blossom of pure affection bloomed in the arid
+desert of Tommy's existence for all that. In the preceding fall a new
+family had come to Arundel and moved into the tiny house next to the
+Puffers'. It was a small, dingy house, just like the others, but
+before long a great change took place in it. The new family were
+thrifty, industrious folks, although they were very poor. The little
+house was white-washed, the paling neatly mended, the bit of a yard
+cleaned of all its rubbish. Muslin curtains appeared in the windows,
+and rows of cans, with blossoming plants, adorned the sills.
+
+There were just three people in the Knox family--a thin little mother,
+who went out scrubbing and took in washing, a boy of ten, who sold
+newspapers and ran errands--and Bessie.
+
+Bessie was eight years old and walked with a crutch, but she was a
+smart little lassie and kept the house wonderfully neat and tidy while
+her mother was away. The very first time she had seen Tommy she had
+smiled at him sweetly and said, "Good morning." From that moment Tommy
+was her devoted slave. Nobody had ever spoken like that to him before;
+nobody had ever smiled so at him. Tommy would have given his useless
+little life for Bessie, and thenceforth the time he was not devising
+mischief he spent in bringing little pleasures into her life. It was
+Tommy's delight to bring that smile to her pale little face and a look
+of pleasure into her big, patient blue eyes. The other boys on the
+street tried to tease Bessie at first and shouted "Cripple!" after her
+when she limped out. But they soon stopped it. Tommy thrashed them
+all one after another for it, and Bessie was left in peace. She would
+have had a very lonely life if it had not been for Tommy, for she
+could not play with the other children. But Tommy was as good as a
+dozen playmates, and Bessie thought him the best boy in the world.
+Tommy, whatever he might be with others, was very careful to be good
+when he was with Bessie. He never said a rude word in her hearing, and
+he treated her as if she were a little princess. Miss Octavia would
+have been amazed beyond measure if she had seen how tender and
+thoughtful and kind and chivalrous that neglected urchin of a Tommy
+could be when he tried.
+
+Tommy found Bessie sitting by the kitchen window, looking dreamily out
+of it. For just a moment Tommy thought uneasily that Bessie was
+looking very pale and thin this spring.
+
+"Bessie, come for a walk up to Mr. Blacklock's store," he said
+eagerly. "There is something there I want to show you."
+
+"What is it?" Bessie wanted to know. But Tommy only winked
+mysteriously.
+
+"Ah, I ain't going to tell you. But it's something awful pretty. Just
+you wait."
+
+Bessie reached for her crutch and the two went up to the store, Tommy
+carefully suiting his steps to Bessie's slow ones. Just before they
+reached the store he made her shut her eyes and led her to the window.
+
+"Now--look!" he commanded dramatically.
+
+Bessie looked and Tommy was rewarded. She flushed pinkly with delight
+and clasped her hands in ecstasy.
+
+"Oh, Tommy, isn't she perfectly beautiful?" she breathed. "Oh, she's
+the very loveliest dolly I ever saw. Oh, Tommy!"
+
+"I thought you'd like her," said Tommy exultantly. "Don't you wish you
+had a doll like that of your very own, Bessie?"
+
+Bessie looked almost rebuking, as if Tommy had asked her if she
+wouldn't like a golden crown or a queen's palace.
+
+"Of course I could never have a dolly like that," she said. "She must
+cost an awful lot. But it's enough just to look at her. Tommy, will
+you bring me up here every day just to look at her?"
+
+"'Course," said Tommy.
+
+Bessie talked about the blue-silk doll all the way home and dreamed of
+her every night. "I'm going to call her Roselle Geraldine," she said.
+After that she went up to see Roselle Geraldine every day, gazing at
+her for long moments in silent rapture. Tommy almost grew jealous of
+her; he thought Bessie liked the doll better than she did him.
+
+"But it don't matter a bit if she does," he thought loyally, crushing
+down the jealousy. "If she likes to like it better than me, it's all
+right."
+
+Sometimes, though, Tommy felt uneasy. It was plain to be seen that
+Bessie had set her heart on that doll. And what would she do when the
+doll was sold, as would probably happen soon? Tommy thought Bessie
+would feel awful sad, and he would be responsible for it.
+
+What Tommy feared came to pass. One afternoon, when they went up to
+Mr. Blacklock's store, the doll was not in the window.
+
+"Oh," cried Bessie, bursting into tears, "she's gone--Roselle
+Geraldine is gone."
+
+"Perhaps she isn't sold," said Tommy comfortingly. "Maybe they only
+took her out of the window 'cause the blue silk would fade. I'll go in
+and ask."
+
+A minute later Tommy came out looking sober.
+
+"Yes, she's sold, Bessie," he said. "Mr. Blacklock sold her to a lady
+yesterday. Don't cry, Bessie--maybe they'll put another in the window
+'fore long."
+
+"It won't be mine," sobbed Bessie. "It won't be Roselle Geraldine. It
+won't have a blue silk hat and such cunning brown eyes."
+
+Bessie cried quietly all the way home, and Tommy could not comfort
+her. He wished he had never shown her the doll in the window.
+
+From that day Bessie drooped, and Tommy watched her in agony. She grew
+paler and thinner. She was too tired to go out walking, and too tired
+to do the little household tasks she had delighted in. She never spoke
+about Roselle Geraldine, but Tommy knew she was fretting about her.
+Mrs. Knox could not think what ailed the child.
+
+"She don't take a bit of interest in nothing," she complained to Mrs.
+Puffer. "She don't eat enough for a bird. The doctor, he says there
+ain't nothing the matter with her as he can find out, but she's just
+pining away."
+
+Tommy heard this, and a queer, big lump came up in his throat. He had
+a horrible fear that he, Tommy Puffer, was going to cry. To prevent it
+he began to whistle loudly. But the whistle was a failure, very unlike
+the real Tommy-whistle. Bessie was sick--and it was all his fault,
+Tommy believed. If he had never taken her to see that hateful,
+blue-silk doll, she would never have got so fond of it as to be
+breaking her heart because it was sold.
+
+"If I was only rich," said Tommy miserably, "I'd buy her a cartload of
+dolls, all dressed in blue silk and all with brown eyes. But I can't
+do nothing."
+
+By this time Tommy had reached the paling in front of Miss Octavia's
+lawn, and from force of habit he stopped to look over it. But there
+was not much to see this time, only the little green rows and circles
+in the brown, well-weeded beds, and the long curves of dahlia plants,
+which Miss Octavia had set out a few days before. All the geraniums
+were carried in, and the blinds were down. Tommy knew Miss Octavia was
+away. He had seen her depart on the train that morning, and heard her
+tell a friend that she was going down to Chelton to visit her
+brother's folks and wouldn't be back until the next day.
+
+Tommy was still leaning moodily against the paling when Mrs. Jenkins
+and Mrs. Reid came by, and they too paused to look at the garden.
+
+"Dear me, how cold it is!" shivered Mrs. Reid. "There's going to be a
+hard frost tonight. Octavia's flowers will be nipped as sure as
+anything. It's a wonder she'd stay away from them overnight when her
+heart's so set on them."
+
+"Her brother's wife is sick," said Mrs. Jenkins. "We haven't had any
+frost this spring, and I suppose Octavia never thought of such a
+thing. She'll feel awful bad if her flowers get frosted, especially
+them dahlias. Octavia sets such store by her dahlias."
+
+Mrs. Jenkins and Mrs. Reid moved away, leaving Tommy by the paling. It
+was cold--there was going to be a hard frost--and Miss Octavia's
+plants and flowers would certainly be spoiled. Tommy thought he ought
+to be glad, but he wasn't. He was sorry--not for Miss Octavia, but for
+her flowers. Tommy had a queer, passionate love for flowers in his
+twisted little soul. It was a shame that they should be nipped--that
+all the glory of crimson and purple and gold hidden away in those
+little green rows and circles should never have a chance to blossom
+out royally. Tommy could never have put this thought into words, but
+it was there in his heart. He wished he could save the flowers. And
+couldn't he? Newspapers spread over the beds and tied around the
+dahlias would save them, Tommy knew. He had seen Miss Octavia doing it
+other springs. And he knew there was a big box of newspapers in a
+little shed in her backyard. Ned Williams had told him there was, and
+that the shed was never locked.
+
+Tommy hurried home as quickly as he could and got a ball of twine out
+of his few treasures. Then he went back to Miss Octavia's garden.
+
+The next forenoon Miss Octavia got off the train at the Arundel
+station with a very grim face. There had been an unusually severe
+frost for the time of year. All along the road Miss Octavia had seen
+gardens frosted and spoiled. She knew what she should see when she got
+to her own--the dahlia stalks drooping and black and limp, the
+nasturtiums and balsams and poppies and pansies all withered and
+ruined.
+
+But she didn't. Instead she saw every dahlia carefully tied up in a
+newspaper, and over all the beds newspapers spread out and held neatly
+in place with pebbles. Miss Octavia flew into her garden with a
+radiant face. Everything was safe--nothing was spoiled.
+
+But who could have done it? Miss Octavia was puzzled. On one side of
+her lived Mrs. Kennedy, who had just moved in and, being a total
+stranger, would not be likely to think of Miss Octavia's flowers. On
+the other lived Miss Matheson, who was a "shut-in" and spent all her
+time on the sofa. But to Miss Matheson Miss Octavia went.
+
+"Rachel, do you know who covered my plants up last night?"
+
+Miss Matheson nodded. "Yes, it was Tommy Puffer. I saw him working
+away there with papers and twine. I thought you'd told him to do it."
+
+"For the land's sake!" ejaculated Miss Octavia. "Tommy Puffer! Well,
+wonders will never cease."
+
+Miss Octavia went back to her house feeling rather ashamed of herself
+when she remembered how she had always treated Tommy Puffer.
+
+"But there must be some good in the child, or he wouldn't have done
+this," she said to herself. "I've been real mean, but I'll make it up
+to him."
+
+Miss Octavia did not see Tommy that day, but when he passed the next
+morning she ran to the door and called him.
+
+"Tommy, Tommy Puffer, come in here!"
+
+Tommy came reluctantly. He didn't like Miss Octavia any better than he
+had, and he didn't know what she wanted of him. But Miss Octavia soon
+informed him without loss of words.
+
+"Tommy, Miss Matheson tells me that it was you who saved my flowers
+from the frost the other night. I'm very much obliged to you indeed.
+Whatever made you think of doing it?"
+
+"I hated to see the flowers spoiled," muttered Tommy, who was feeling
+more uncomfortable than he had ever felt in his life.
+
+"Well, it was real thoughtful of you. I'm sorry I've been so hard on
+you, Tommy, and I believe now you didn't break my scarlet geranium. Is
+there anything I can do for you--anything you'd like to have? If it's
+in reason I'll get it for you, just to pay my debt."
+
+Tommy stared at Miss Octavia with a sudden hopeful inspiration. "Oh,
+Miss Octavia," he cried eagerly, "will you buy a doll and give it to
+me?"
+
+"Well, for the land's sake!" ejaculated Miss Octavia, unable to
+believe her ears. "A doll! What on earth do you want of a doll?"
+
+"It's for Bessie," said Tommy eagerly. "You see, it's this way."
+
+Then Tommy told Miss Octavia the whole story. Miss Octavia listened
+silently, sometimes nodding her head. When he had finished she went
+out of the room and soon returned, bringing with her the very
+identical doll that had been in Mr. Blacklock's window.
+
+"I guess this is the doll," she said. "I bought it to give to a small
+niece of mine, but I can get another for her. You may take this to
+Bessie."
+
+It would be of no use to try to describe Bessie's joy when Tommy
+rushed in and put Roselle Geraldine in her arms with a breathless
+account of the wonderful story. But from that moment Bessie began to
+pick up again, and soon she was better than she had ever been and the
+happiest little lassie in Arundel.
+
+When a week had passed, Miss Octavia again called Tommy in; Tommy
+went more willingly this time. He had begun to like Miss Octavia.
+
+That lady looked him over sharply and somewhat dubiously. He was
+certainly very ragged and unkempt. But Miss Octavia saw what she had
+never noticed before--that Tommy's eyes were bright and frank, that
+Tommy's chin was a good chin, and that Tommy's smile had something
+very pleasant about it.
+
+"You're fond of flowers, aren't you, Tommy?" she asked.
+
+"You bet," was Tommy's inelegant but heartfelt answer.
+
+"Well," said Miss Octavia slowly, "I have a brother down at Chelton
+who is a florist. He wants a boy of your age to do handy jobs and run
+errands about his establishment, and he wants one who is fond of
+flowers and would like to learn the business. He asked me to recommend
+him one, and I promised to look out for a suitable boy. Would you like
+the place, Tommy? And will you promise to be a very good boy and learn
+to be respectable if I ask my brother to give you a trial and a chance
+to make something of yourself?"
+
+"Oh, Miss Octavia!" gasped Tommy. He wondered if he were simply having
+a beautiful dream.
+
+But it was no dream. And it was all arranged later on. No one rejoiced
+more heartily in Tommy's success than Bessie.
+
+"But I'll miss you dreadfully, Tommy," she said wistfully.
+
+"Oh, I'll be home every Saturday night, and we'll have Sunday
+together, except when I've got to go to Sunday school. 'Cause Miss
+Octavia says I must," said Tommy comfortingly. "And the rest of the
+time you'll have Roselle Geraldine."
+
+"Yes, I know," said Bessie, giving the blue-silk doll a fond kiss,
+"and she's just lovely. But she ain't as nice as you, Tommy, for all."
+
+Then was Tommy's cup of happiness full.
+
+
+
+
+Charlotte's Ladies
+
+
+Just as soon as dinner was over at the asylum, Charlotte sped away to
+the gap in the fence--the northwest corner gap. There was a gap in the
+southeast corner, too--the asylum fence was in a rather poor
+condition--but the southeast gap was interesting only after tea, and
+it was never at any time quite as interesting as the northwest gap.
+
+Charlotte ran as fast as her legs could carry her, for she did not
+want any of the other orphans to see her. As a rule, Charlotte liked
+the company of the other orphans and was a favourite with them. But,
+somehow, she did not want them to know about the gaps. She was sure
+they would not understand.
+
+Charlotte had discovered the gaps only a week before. They had not
+been there in the autumn, but the snowdrifts had lain heavily against
+the fence all winter, and one spring day when Charlotte was creeping
+through the shrubbery in the northwest corner in search of the little
+yellow daffodils that always grew there in spring, she found a
+delightful space where a board had fallen off, whence she could look
+out on a bit of woodsy road with a little footpath winding along by
+the fence under the widespreading boughs of the asylum trees.
+Charlotte felt a wild impulse to slip out and run fast and far down
+that lovely, sunny, tempting, fenceless road. But that would have been
+wrong, for it was against the asylum rules, and Charlotte, though she
+hated most of the asylum rules with all her heart, never disobeyed or
+broke them. So she subdued the vagrant longing with a sigh and sat
+down among the daffodils to peer wistfully out of the gap and feast
+her eyes on this glimpse of a world where there were no brick walls
+and prim walks and never-varying rules.
+
+Then, as Charlotte watched, the Pretty Lady with the Blue Eyes came
+along the footpath. Charlotte had never seen her before and hadn't the
+slightest idea in the world who she was, but that was what she called
+her as soon as she saw her. The lady was so pretty, with lovely blue
+eyes that were very sad, although somehow as you looked at them you
+felt that they ought to be laughing, merry eyes instead. At least
+Charlotte thought so and wished at once that she knew how to make them
+laugh. Besides, the Lady had lovely golden hair and the most beautiful
+pink cheeks, and Charlotte, who had mouse-coloured hair and any number
+of freckles, had an unbounded admiration for golden locks and roseleaf
+complexions. The Lady was dressed in black, which Charlotte didn't
+like, principally because the matron of the asylum wore black and
+Charlotte didn't--exactly--like the matron.
+
+When the Pretty Lady with the Blue Eyes had gone by, Charlotte drew a
+long breath.
+
+"If I could pick out a mother I'd pick out one that looked just like
+her," she said.
+
+Nice things sometimes happen close together, even in an orphan asylum,
+and that very evening Charlotte discovered the southeast gap and found
+herself peering into the most beautiful garden you could imagine, a
+garden where daffodils and tulips grew in great ribbon-like beds, and
+there were hedges of white and purple lilacs, and winding paths under
+blossoming trees. It was such a garden as Charlotte had pictured in
+happy dreams and never expected to see in real life. And yet here it
+had been all the time, divided from her only by a high board fence.
+
+"I wouldn't have s'posed there could be such a lovely place so near an
+orphan asylum," mused Charlotte. "It's the very loveliest place I ever
+saw. Oh, I do wish I could go and walk in it. Well, I do declare! If
+there isn't a lady in it, too!"
+
+Sure enough, there was a lady, helping an unruly young vine to run in
+the way it should go over a little arbour. Charlotte instantly named
+her the Tall Lady with the Black Eyes. She was not nearly so young or
+so pretty as the Lady with the Blue Eyes, but she looked very kind and
+jolly.
+
+I'd like her for an aunt, reflected Charlotte. Not for a mother--oh,
+no, not for a mother, but for an aunt. I know she'd make a splendid
+aunt. And, oh, just look at her cat!
+
+Charlotte looked at the cat with all her might and main. She loved
+cats, but cats were not allowed in an orphan asylum, although
+Charlotte sometimes wondered if there were no orphan kittens in the
+world which would be appropriate for such an institution.
+
+The Tall Lady's cat was so big and furry, with a splendid tail and
+elegant stripes. A Very Handsome Cat, Charlotte called him mentally,
+seeing the capitals as plainly as if they had been printed out.
+Charlotte's fingers tingled to stroke his glossy coat, but she folded
+them sternly together.
+
+"You know you can't," she said to herself reproachfully, "so what is
+the use of wanting to, Charlotte Turner? You ought to be thankful just
+to see the garden and the Very Handsome Cat."
+
+Charlotte watched the Tall Lady and the Cat until they went away into
+a fine, big house further up the garden, then she sighed and went back
+through the cherry trees to the asylum playground, where the other
+orphans were playing games. But, somehow, games had lost their flavour
+compared with those fascinating gaps.
+
+It did not take Charlotte long to discover that the Pretty Lady always
+walked past the northwest gap about one o'clock every day and never at
+any other time--at least at no other time when Charlotte was free to
+watch her; and that the Tall Lady was almost always in her garden at
+five in the afternoon, accompanied by the Very Handsome Cat, pruning
+and trimming some of her flowers. Charlotte never missed being at the
+gaps at the proper times, if she could possibly manage it, and her
+heart was full of dreams about her two Ladies. But the other orphans
+thought all the fun had gone out of her, and the matron noticed her
+absent-mindedness and dosed her with sulphur and molasses for it.
+Charlotte took the dose meekly, as she took everything else. It was
+all part and parcel with being an orphan in an asylum.
+
+"But if the Pretty Lady with the Blue Eyes was my mother, she wouldn't
+make me swallow such dreadful stuff," sighed Charlotte. "I don't
+believe even the Tall Lady with the Black Eyes would--though perhaps
+she might, aunts not being quite as good as mothers."
+
+"Do you know," said Maggie Brunt, coming up to Charlotte at this
+moment, "that Lizzie Parker is going to be adopted? A lady is going to
+adopt her."
+
+"Oh!" cried Charlotte breathlessly. An adoption was always a wonderful
+event in the asylum, as well as a somewhat rare one. "Oh, how
+splendid!"
+
+"Yes, isn't it?" said Maggie enviously. "She picked out Lizzie because
+she was pretty and had curls. I don't think it is fair."
+
+Charlotte sighed. "Nobody will ever want to adopt me, because I've
+mousy hair and freckles," she said. "But somebody may want you some
+day, Maggie. You have such lovely black hair."
+
+"But it isn't curly," said Maggie forlornly. "And the matron won't let
+me put it up in curl papers at night. I just wish I was Lizzie."
+
+Charlotte shook her head. "I don't. I'd love to be adopted, but I
+wouldn't really like to be anybody but myself, even if I am homely.
+It's better to be yourself with mousy hair and freckles than somebody
+else who is ever so beautiful. But I do envy Lizzie, though the
+matron says it is wicked to envy anyone."
+
+Envy of the fortunate Lizzie did not long possess Charlotte's mind,
+however, for that very day a wonderful thing happened at noon hour by
+the northwest gap. Charlotte had always been very careful not to let
+the Pretty Lady see her, but today, after the Pretty Lady had gone
+past, Charlotte leaned out of the gap to watch her as far as she
+could. And just at that very moment the Pretty Lady looked back; and
+there, peering at her from the asylum fence, was a little scrap of a
+girl, with mouse-coloured hair and big freckles, and the sweetest,
+brightest, most winsome little face the Pretty Lady had ever seen. The
+Pretty Lady smiled right down at Charlotte and for just a moment her
+eyes looked as Charlotte had always known they ought to look.
+Charlotte was feeling rather frightened down in her heart but she
+smiled bravely back.
+
+"Are you thinking of running away?" said the Pretty Lady, and, oh,
+what a sweet voice she had--sweet and tender, just like a mother's
+voice ought to be!
+
+"No," said Charlotte, shaking her head gravely. "I should like to run
+away but it would be of no use, because there is no place to run to."
+
+"Why would you like to run away?" asked the Pretty Lady, still
+smiling. "Don't you like living here?"
+
+Charlotte opened her big eyes very widely. "Why, it's an orphan
+asylum!" she exclaimed. "Nobody could like living in an orphan asylum.
+But, of course, orphans should be very thankful to have any place to
+live in and I _am_ thankful. I'd be thankfuller still if the matron
+wouldn't make me take sulphur and molasses. If you had a little girl,
+would you make her take sulphur and molasses?"
+
+"I didn't when I had a little girl," said the Pretty Lady wistfully,
+and her eyes were sad again.
+
+"Oh, did you really have a little girl once?" asked Charlotte softly.
+
+"Yes, and she died," said the Pretty Lady in a trembling voice.
+
+"Oh, I am sorry," said Charlotte, more softly still. "Did she--did she
+have lovely golden hair and pink cheeks like yours?"
+
+"No," the Pretty Lady smiled again, though it was a very sad smile.
+"No, she had mouse-coloured hair and freckles."
+
+"Oh! And weren't you sorry?"
+
+"No, I was glad of it, because it made her look like her father. I've
+always loved little girls with mouse-coloured hair and freckles ever
+since. Well, I must hurry along. I'm late now, and schools have a
+dreadful habit of going in sharp on time. If you should happen to be
+here tomorrow, I'm going to stop and ask your name."
+
+Of course Charlotte was at the gap the next day and they had a lovely
+talk. In a week they were the best of friends. Charlotte soon found
+out that she could make the Pretty Lady's eyes look as they ought to
+for a little while at least, and she spent all her spare time and lay
+awake at nights devising speeches to make the Pretty Lady laugh.
+
+Then another wonderful thing happened. One evening when Charlotte went
+to the southeast gap, the Tall Lady with the Black Eyes was not in the
+garden--at least, Charlotte thought she wasn't. But the Very Handsome
+Cat was, sitting gravely under a syringa bush and looking quite proud
+of himself for being a cat.
+
+"You Very Handsome Cat," said Charlotte, "won't you come here and let
+me stroke you?"
+
+The Very Handsome Cat did come, just as if he understood English, and
+he purred with delight when Charlotte took him in her arms and buried
+her face in his fur. Then--Charlotte thought she would really sink
+into the ground, for the Tall Lady herself came around a lilac bush
+and stood before the gap.
+
+"Please, ma'am," stammered Charlotte in an agony of embarrassment, "I
+wasn't meaning to do any harm to your Very Handsome Cat. I just wanted
+to pat him. I--I am very fond of cats and they are not allowed in
+orphan asylums."
+
+"I've always thought asylums weren't run on proper principles," said
+the Tall Lady briskly. "Bless your heart, child, don't look so scared.
+You're welcome to pat the cat all you like. Come in and I'll give you
+some flowers."
+
+"Thank you, but I am not allowed to go off the grounds," said
+Charlotte firmly, "and I think I'd rather not have any flowers because
+the matron might want to know where I got them, and then she would
+have this gap closed up. I live in mortal dread for fear it will be
+closed anyhow. It's very uncomfortable--living in mortal dread."
+
+The Tall Lady laughed a very jolly laugh. "Yes, I should think it
+would be," she agreed. "I haven't had that experience."
+
+Then they had a jolly talk, and every evening after that Charlotte
+went to the gap and stroked the Very Handsome Cat and chatted to the
+Tall Lady.
+
+"Do you live all alone in that big house?" she asked wonderingly one
+day.
+
+"All alone," said the Tall Lady.
+
+"Did you always live alone?"
+
+"No. I had a sister living with me once. But I don't want to talk
+about her. You'll oblige me, Charlotte, by _not_ talking about her."
+
+"I won't then," agreed Charlotte. "I can understand why people don't
+like to have their sisters talked about sometimes. Lily Mitchell has a
+big sister who was sent to jail for stealing. Of course Lily doesn't
+like to talk about her."
+
+The Tall Lady laughed a little bitterly. "My sister didn't steal. She
+married a man I detested, that's all."
+
+"Did he drink?" asked Charlotte gravely. "The matron's husband drank
+and that was why she left him and took to running an orphan asylum. I
+think I'd rather put up with a drunken husband than live in an orphan
+asylum."
+
+"My sister's husband didn't drink," said the Tall Lady grimly. "He was
+beneath her, that was all. I told her I'd never forgive her and I
+never shall. He's dead now--he died a year after she married him--and
+she's working for her living. I dare say she doesn't find it very
+pleasant. She wasn't brought up to that. Here, Charlotte, is a
+turnover for you. I made it on purpose for you. Eat it and tell me if
+you don't think I'm a good cook. I'm dying for a compliment. I never
+get any now that I've got old. It's a dismal thing to get old and have
+nobody to love you except a cat, Charlotte."
+
+"I think it is just as bad to be young and have nobody to love you,
+not _even_ a cat," sighed Charlotte, enjoying the turnover,
+nevertheless.
+
+"I dare say it is," agreed the Tall Lady, looking as if she had been
+struck by a new and rather startling idea.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I like the tall lady with the Black Eyes ever so much, thought
+Charlotte that night as she lay in bed, but I love the Pretty Lady. I
+have more fun with the Tall Lady and the Very Handsome Cat, but I
+always feel nicer with the Pretty Lady. Oh, I'm so glad her little
+girl had mouse-coloured hair.
+
+Then the most wonderful thing of all happened. One day a week later
+the Pretty Lady said, "Would you like to come and live with me,
+Charlotte?"
+
+Charlotte looked at her. "Are you in earnest?" she asked in a whisper.
+
+"Indeed I am. I want you for my little girl, and if you'd like to
+come, you shall. I'm poor, Charlotte, really, I'm dreadfully poor, but
+I can make my salary stretch far enough for two, and we'll love each
+other enough to cover the thin spots. Will you come?"
+
+"Well, I should just think I will!" said Charlotte emphatically. "Oh,
+I wish I was sure I'm not dreaming. I do love you so much, and it will
+be so delightful to be your little girl."
+
+"Very well, sweetheart. I'll come tomorrow afternoon--it is Saturday,
+so I'll have the whole blessed day off--and see the matron about it.
+Oh, we'll have lovely times together, dearest. I only wish I'd
+discovered you long ago."
+
+Charlotte may have eaten and studied and played and kept rules the
+rest of that day and part of the next, but, if so, she has no
+recollection of it. She went about like a girl in a dream, and the
+matron concluded that something more than sulphur and molasses was
+needed and decided to speak to the doctor about her. But she never
+did, because a lady came that afternoon and told her she wanted to
+adopt Charlotte.
+
+Charlotte obeyed the summons to the matron's room in a tingle of
+excitement. But when she went in, she saw only the matron and the Tall
+Lady with the Black Eyes. Before Charlotte could look around for the
+Pretty Lady the matron said, "Charlotte, this lady, Miss Herbert,
+wishes to adopt you. It is a splendid thing for you, and you ought to
+be a very thankful little girl."
+
+Charlotte's head fairly whirled. She clasped her hands and the tears
+brimmed up in her eyes.
+
+"Oh, I like the Tall Lady," she gasped, "but I _love_ the Pretty Lady
+and I promised her I'd be her little girl. I can't break my promise."
+
+"What on earth is the child talking about?" said the mystified matron.
+
+And just then the maid showed in the Pretty Lady. Charlotte flew to
+her and flung her arms about her.
+
+"Oh, tell them I am your little girl!" she begged. "Tell them I
+promised you first. I don't want to hurt the Tall Lady's feelings
+because I truly do like her so very much. But I want to be your little
+girl."
+
+The Pretty Lady had given one glance at the Tall Lady and flushed red.
+The Tall Lady, on the contrary, had grown very pale. The matron felt
+uncomfortable. Everybody knew that Miss Herbert and Mrs. Bond hadn't
+spoken to each other for years, even if they were sisters and alone in
+the world except for each other.
+
+Mrs. Bond turned to the matron. "I have come to ask permission to
+adopt this little girl," she said.
+
+"Oh, I'm very sorry," stammered the matron, "but Miss Herbert has just
+asked for her, and I have consented."
+
+Charlotte gave a great gulp of disappointment, but the Pretty Lady
+suddenly wheeled around to face the Tall Lady, with quivering lips and
+tearful eyes.
+
+"Don't take her from me, Alma," she pleaded humbly. "She--she is so
+like my own baby and I'm so lonely. Any other child will suit you as
+well."
+
+"Not at all," said the Tall Lady brusquely. "Not at all, Anna. No
+other child will suit me at all. And may I ask what you intend to keep
+her on? I know your salary is barely enough for yourself."
+
+"That is my concern," said the Pretty Lady a little proudly.
+
+"Humph!" The Tall Lady shrugged her shoulders. "Just as independent as
+ever, Anna, I see. Well, child, what do _you_ say? Which of us will
+you come with? Remember, I have the cat on my side, and Anna can't
+make half as good turnovers as I can. Remember all this, Charlotte."
+
+"Oh, I--I like you so much," stammered Charlotte, "and I wish I could
+live with you both. But since I can't, I must go with the Pretty Lady,
+because I promised, and because I loved her first."
+
+"And best?" queried the Tall Lady.
+
+"And best," admitted Charlotte, bound to be truthful, even at the risk
+of hurting the Tall Lady's feelings. "But I _do_ like you, too--next
+best. And you really don't need me as much as she does, for you have
+your Very Handsome Cat and she hasn't anything."
+
+"A cat no longer satisfies the aching void in my soul," said the Tall
+Lady stubbornly. "Nothing will satisfy it but a little girl with
+mouse-coloured hair and freckles. No, Anna, I've got to have
+Charlotte. But I think that with her usual astuteness, she has already
+solved the problem for us by saying she'd like to live with us both.
+Why can't she? You just come back home and we'll let bygones be
+bygones. We both have something to forgive, but I was an obstinate old
+fool and I've known it for years, though I never confessed it to
+anybody but the cat."
+
+The Pretty Lady softened, trembled, smiled. She went right up to the
+Tall Lady and put her arms about her neck.
+
+"Oh, I've wanted so much to be friends with you again," she sobbed.
+"But I thought you would never relent--and--and--I've been so
+lonely--"
+
+"There, there," whispered the Tall Lady, "don't cry under the matron's
+eye. Wait till we get home. I may have some crying to do myself then.
+Charlotte, go and get your hat and come right over with us. We can
+sign the necessary papers later on, but we must have you right off.
+The cat is waiting for you on the back porch, and there is a turnover
+cooling on the pantry window that is just your size."
+
+"I am so happy," remarked Charlotte, "that I feel like crying
+myself."
+
+
+
+
+Christmas at Red Butte
+
+
+"Of course Santa Claus will come," said Jimmy Martin confidently.
+Jimmy was ten, and at ten it is easy to be confident. "Why, he's _got_
+to come because it is Christmas Eve, and he always _has_ come. You
+know that, twins."
+
+Yes, the twins knew it and, cheered by Jimmy's superior wisdom, their
+doubts passed away. There had been one terrible moment when Theodora
+had sighed and told them they mustn't be too much disappointed if
+Santa Claus did not come this year because the crops had been poor,
+and he mightn't have had enough presents to go around.
+
+"That doesn't make any difference to Santa Claus," scoffed Jimmy. "You
+know as well as I do, Theodora Prentice, that Santa Claus is rich
+whether the crops fail or not. They failed three years ago, before
+Father died, but Santa Claus came all the same. Prob'bly you don't
+remember it, twins, 'cause you were too little, but I do. Of course
+he'll come, so don't you worry a mite. And he'll bring my skates and
+your dolls. He knows we're expecting them, Theodora, 'cause we wrote
+him a letter last week, and threw it up the chimney. And there'll be
+candy and nuts, of course, and Mother's gone to town to buy a turkey.
+I tell you we're going to have a ripping Christmas."
+
+"Well, don't use such slangy words about it, Jimmy-boy," sighed
+Theodora. She couldn't bear to dampen their hopes any further, and
+perhaps Aunt Elizabeth might manage it if the colt sold well. But
+Theodora had her painful doubts, and she sighed again as she looked
+out of the window far down the trail that wound across the prairie,
+red-lighted by the declining sun of the short wintry afternoon.
+
+"Do people always sigh like that when they get to be sixteen?" asked
+Jimmy curiously. "You didn't sigh like that when you were only
+fifteen, Theodora. I wish you wouldn't. It makes me feel funny--and
+it's not a nice kind of funniness either."
+
+"It's a bad habit I've got into lately," said Theodora, trying to
+laugh. "Old folks are dull sometimes, you know, Jimmy-boy."
+
+"Sixteen _is_ awful old, isn't it?" said Jimmy reflectively. "I'll
+tell you what _I'm_ going to do when I'm sixteen, Theodora. I'm going
+to pay off the mortgage, and buy mother a silk dress, and a piano for
+the twins. Won't that be elegant? I'll be able to do that 'cause I'm a
+man. Of course if I was only a girl I couldn't."
+
+"I hope you'll be a good kind brave man and a real help to your
+mother," said Theodora softly, sitting down before the cosy fire and
+lifting the fat little twins into her lap.
+
+"Oh, I'll be good to her, never you fear," assured Jimmy, squatting
+comfortably down on the little fur rug before the stove--the skin of
+the coyote his father had killed four years ago. "I believe in being
+good to your mother when you've only got the one. Now tell us a story,
+Theodora--a real jolly story, you know, with lots of fighting in it.
+Only please don't kill anybody. I like to hear about fighting, but I
+like to have all the people come out alive."
+
+Theodora laughed, and began a story about the Riel Rebellion of '85--a
+story which had the double merit of being true and exciting at the
+same time. It was quite dark when she finished, and the twins were
+nodding, but Jimmy's eyes were wide open and sparkling.
+
+"That was great," he said, drawing a long breath. "Tell us another."
+
+"No, it's bedtime for you all," said Theodora firmly. "One story at a
+time is my rule, you know."
+
+"But I want to sit up till Mother comes home," objected Jimmy.
+
+"You can't. She may be very late, for she would have to wait to see
+Mr. Porter. Besides, you don't know what time Santa Claus might
+come--if he comes at all. If he were to drive along and see you
+children up instead of being sound asleep in bed, he might go right on
+and never call at all."
+
+This argument was too much for Jimmy.
+
+"All right, we'll go. But we have to hang up our stockings first.
+Twins, get yours."
+
+The twins toddled off in great excitement, and brought back their
+Sunday stockings, which Jimmy proceeded to hang along the edge of the
+mantel shelf. This done, they all trooped obediently off to bed.
+Theodora gave another sigh, and seated herself at the window, where
+she could watch the moonlit prairie for Mrs. Martin's homecoming and
+knit at the same time.
+
+I am afraid that you will think from all the sighing Theodora was
+doing that she was a very melancholy and despondent young lady. You
+couldn't think anything more unlike the real Theodora. She was the
+jolliest, bravest girl of sixteen in all Saskatchewan, as her shining
+brown eyes and rosy, dimpled cheeks would have told you; and her sighs
+were not on her own account, but simply for fear the children were
+going to be disappointed. She knew that they would be almost
+heartbroken if Santa Claus did not come, and that this would hurt the
+patient hardworking little mother more than all else.
+
+Five years before this, Theodora had come to live with Uncle George
+and Aunt Elizabeth in the little log house at Red Butte. Her own
+mother had just died, and Theodora had only her big brother Donald
+left, and Donald had Klondike fever. The Martins were poor, but they
+had gladly made room for their little niece, and Theodora had lived
+there ever since, her aunt's right-hand girl and the beloved playmate
+of the children. They had been very happy until Uncle George's death
+two years before this Christmas Eve; but since then there had been
+hard times in the little log house, and though Mrs. Martin and
+Theodora did their best, it was a woefully hard task to make both ends
+meet, especially this year when their crops had been poor. Theodora
+and her aunt had made every sacrifice possible for the children's
+sake, and at least Jimmy and the twins had not felt the pinch very
+severely yet.
+
+At seven Mrs. Martins bells jingled at the door and Theodora flew out.
+"Go right in and get warm, Auntie," she said briskly. "I'll take Ned
+away and unharness him."
+
+"It's a bitterly cold night," said Mrs. Martin wearily. There was a
+note of discouragement in her voice that struck dismay to Theodora's
+heart.
+
+"I'm afraid it means no Christmas for the children tomorrow," she
+thought sadly, as she led Ned away to the stable. When she returned to
+the kitchen Mrs. Martin was sitting by the fire, her face in her
+chilled hand, sobbing convulsively.
+
+"Auntie--oh, Auntie, don't!" exclaimed Theodora impulsively. It was
+such a rare thing to see her plucky, resolute little aunt in tears.
+"You're cold and tired--I'll have a nice cup of tea for you in a
+trice."
+
+"No, it isn't that," said Mrs. Martin brokenly "It was seeing those
+stockings hanging there. Theodora, I couldn't get a thing for the
+children--not a single thing. Mr. Porter would only give forty dollars
+for the colt, and when all the bills were paid there was barely enough
+left for such necessaries as we must have. I suppose I ought to feel
+thankful I could get those. But the thought of the children's
+disappointment tomorrow is more than I can bear. It would have been
+better to have told them long ago, but I kept building on getting more
+for the colt. Well, it's weak and foolish to give way like this. We'd
+better both take a cup of tea and go to bed. It will save fuel."
+
+When Theodora went up to her little room her face was very thoughtful.
+She took a small box from her table and carried it to the window. In
+it was a very pretty little gold locket hung on a narrow blue ribbon.
+Theodora held it tenderly in her fingers, and looked out over the
+moonlit prairie with a very sober face. Could she give up her dear
+locket--the locket Donald had given her just before he started for the
+Klondike? She had never thought she could do such a thing. It was
+almost the only thing she had to remind her of Donald--handsome,
+merry, impulsive, warmhearted Donald, who had gone away four years ago
+with a smile on his bonny face and splendid hope in his heart.
+
+"Here's a locket for you, Gift o' God," he had said gaily--he had such
+a dear loving habit of calling her by the beautiful meaning of her
+name. A lump came into Theodora's throat as she remembered it. "I
+couldn't afford a chain too, but when I come back I'll bring you a
+rope of Klondike nuggets for it."
+
+Then he had gone away. For two years letters had come from him
+regularly. Then he wrote that he had joined a prospecting party to a
+remote wilderness. After that was silence, deepening into anguish of
+suspense that finally ended in hopelessness. A rumour came that Donald
+Prentice was dead. None had returned from the expedition he had
+joined. Theodora had long ago given up all hope of ever seeing Donald
+again. Hence her locket was doubly dear to her.
+
+But Aunt Elizabeth had always been so good and loving and kind to her.
+Could she not make the sacrifice for her sake? Yes, she could and
+would. Theodora flung up her head with a gesture that meant decision.
+She took out of the locket the bits of hair--her mother's and
+Donald's--which it contained (perhaps a tear or two fell as she did
+so) and then hastily donned her warmest cap and wraps. It was only
+three miles to Spencer; she could easily walk it in an hour and, as it
+was Christmas Eve, the shops would be open late. She muse walk, for
+Ned could not be taken out again, and the mare's foot was sore.
+Besides, Aunt Elizabeth must not know until it was done.
+
+As stealthily as if she were bound on some nefarious errand, Theodora
+slipped downstairs and out of the house. The next minute she was
+hurrying along the trail in the moonlight. The great dazzling prairie
+was around her, the mystery and splendour of the northern night all
+about her. It was very calm and cold, but Theodora walked so briskly
+that she kept warm. The trail from Red Butte to Spencer was a lonely
+one. Mr. Lurgan's house, halfway to town, was the only dwelling on it.
+
+When Theodora reached Spencer she made her way at once to the only
+jewellery store the little town contained. Mr. Benson, its owner, had
+been a friend of her uncle's, and Theodora felt sure that he would
+buy her locket. Nevertheless her heart beat quickly, and her breath
+came and went uncomfortably fast as she went in. Suppose he wouldn't
+buy it. Then there would be no Christmas for the children at Red
+Butte.
+
+"Good evening, Miss Theodora," said Mr. Benson briskly. "What can I do
+for you?"
+
+"I'm afraid I'm not a very welcome sort of customer, Mr. Benson," said
+Theodora, with an uncertain smile. "I want to sell, not buy. Could
+you--will you buy this locket?"
+
+Mr. Benson pursed up his lips, took up the locket, and examined it.
+"Well, I don't often buy second-hand stuff," he said, after some
+reflection, "but I don't mind obliging you, Miss Theodora. I'll give
+you four dollars for this trinket."
+
+Theodora knew the locket had cost a great deal more than that, but
+four dollars would get what she wanted, and she dared not ask for
+more. In a few minutes the locket was in Mr. Benson's possession, and
+Theodora, with four crisp new bills in her purse, was hurrying to the
+toy store. Half an hour later she was on her way back to Red Butte,
+with as many parcels as she could carry--Jimmy's skates, two lovely
+dolls for the twins, packages of nuts and candy, and a nice plump
+turkey. Theodora beguiled her lonely tramp by picturing the children's
+joy in the morning.
+
+About a quarter of a mile past Mr. Lurgan's house the trail curved
+suddenly about a bluff of poplars. As Theodora rounded the turn she
+halted in amazement. Almost at her feet the body of a man was lying
+across the road. He was clad in a big fur coat, and had a fur cap
+pulled well down over his forehead and ears. Almost all of him that
+could be seen was a full bushy beard. Theodora had no idea who he was,
+or where he had come from. But she realized that he was unconscious,
+and that he would speedily freeze to death if help were not brought.
+The footprints of a horse galloping across the prairie suggested a
+fall and a runaway, but Theodora did not waste time in speculation.
+She ran back at full speed to Mr. Lurgan's, and roused the household.
+In a few minutes Mr. Lurgan and his son had hitched a horse to a
+wood-sleigh, and hurried down the trail to the unfortunate man.
+
+Theodora, knowing that her assistance was not needed, and that she
+ought to get home as quickly as possible, went on her way as soon as
+she had seen the stranger in safe keeping. When she reached the little
+log house she crept in, cautiously put the children's gifts in their
+stockings, placed the turkey on the table where Aunt Elizabeth would
+see it the first thing in the morning, and then slipped off to bed, a
+very weary but very happy girl.
+
+The joy that reigned in the little log house the next day more than
+repaid Theodora for her sacrifice.
+
+"Whoopee, didn't I tell you that Santa Claus would come all right!"
+shouted the delighted Jimmy. "Oh, what splendid skates!"
+
+The twins hugged their dolls in silent rapture, but Aunt Elizabeth's
+face was the best of all.
+
+Then the dinner had to be prepared, and everybody had a hand in that.
+Just as Theodora, after a grave peep into the oven, had announced that
+the turkey was done, a sleigh dashed around the house. Theodora flew
+to answer the knock at the door, and there stood Mr. Lurgan and a big,
+bewhiskered, fur-coated fellow whom Theodora recognized as the
+stranger she had found on the trail. But--_was_ he a stranger? There
+was something oddly familiar in those merry brown eyes. Theodora felt
+herself growing dizzy.
+
+"Donald!" she gasped. "Oh, Donald!"
+
+And then she was in the big fellow's arms, laughing and crying at the
+same time.
+
+Donald it was indeed. And then followed half an hour during which
+everybody talked at once, and the turkey would have been burned to a
+crisp had it not been for the presence of mind of Mr. Lurgan who,
+being the least excited of them all, took it out of the oven, and set
+it on the back of the stove.
+
+"To think that it was you last night, and that I never dreamed it,"
+exclaimed Theodora. "Oh, Donald, if I hadn't gone to town!"
+
+"I'd have frozen to death, I'm afraid," said Donald soberly. "I got
+into Spencer on the last train last night. I felt that I must come
+right out--I couldn't wait till morning. But there wasn't a team to be
+got for love or money--it was Christmas Eve and all the livery rigs
+were out. So I came on horseback. Just by that bluff something
+frightened my horse, and he shied violently. I was half asleep and
+thinking of my little sister, and I went off like a shot. I suppose I
+struck my head against a tree. Anyway, I knew nothing more until I
+came to in Mr. Lurgan's kitchen. I wasn't much hurt--feel none the
+worse of it except for a sore head and shoulder. But, oh, Gift o' God,
+how you have grown! I can't realize that you are the little sister I
+left four years ago. I suppose you have been thinking I was dead?"
+
+"Yes, and, oh, Donald, where _have_ you been?"
+
+"Well, I went way up north with a prospecting party. We had a tough
+time the first year, I can tell you, and some of us never came back.
+We weren't in a country where post offices were lying round loose
+either, you see. Then at last, just as we were about giving up in
+despair, we struck it rich. I've brought a snug little pile home with
+me, and things are going to look up in this log house, Gift o' God.
+There'll be no more worrying for you dear people over mortgages."
+
+"I'm so glad--for Auntie's sake," said Theodora, with shining eyes.
+"But, oh, Donald, it's best of all just to have you back. I'm so
+perfectly happy that I don't know what to do or say."
+
+"Well, I think you might have dinner," said Jimmy in an injured tone.
+"The turkey's getting stone cold, and I'm most starving. I just can't
+stand it another minute."
+
+So, with a laugh, they all sat down to the table and ate the merriest
+Christmas dinner the little log house had ever known.
+
+
+
+
+How We Went to the Wedding
+
+
+"If it were to clear up I wouldn't know how to behave, it would seem
+so unnatural," said Kate. "Do you, by any chance, remember what the
+sun looks like, Phil?"
+
+"Does the sun ever shine in Saskatchewan anyhow?" I asked with assumed
+sarcasm, just to make Kate's big, bonny black eyes flash.
+
+They did flash; but Kate laughed immediately after, as she sat down on
+a chair in front of me and cradled her long, thin, spirited dark face
+in her palms.
+
+"We have more sunny weather in Saskatchewan than in all the rest of
+Canada put together, in an average year," she said, clicking her
+strong, white teeth and snapping her eyes at me. "But I can't blame
+you for feeling sceptical about it, Phil. If I went to a new country
+and it rained every day--all day--all night--after I got there for
+three whole weeks I'd think things not lawful to be uttered about the
+climate too. So, little cousin, I forgive you. Remember that 'into
+each life some rain must fall, some days must be dark and dreary.' Oh,
+if you'd only come to visit me last fall. We had such a bee-yew-tiful
+September last year. We were drowned in sunshine. This fall we're
+drowned in water. Old settlers tell of a similar visitation in '72,
+though they claim even that wasn't quite as bad as this."
+
+I was sitting rather disconsolately by an upper window of Uncle
+Kenneth Morrison's log house at Arrow Creek. Below was what in dry
+weather--so, at least, I was told--was merely a pretty, grassy little
+valley, but which was now a considerable creek of muddy yellow water,
+rising daily. Beyond was a cheerless prospect of sodden prairie and
+dripping "bluff."
+
+"It would be a golden, mellow land, with purple hazes over the bluffs,
+in a normal fall," assured Kate. "Even now if the sun were just to
+shine out for a day and a good 'chinook' blow you'd see a surprising
+change. I feel like chanting continually that old rhyme I learned in
+the first primer,
+
+    'Rain, rain, go away,
+    Come again some other day:
+    --some other day next summer--
+    Phil and Katie want to play.'
+
+Philippa, dear girl, don't look so dismal. It's bound to clear up
+sometime."
+
+"I wish the 'sometime' would come soon, then," I said, rather
+grumpily.
+
+"You know it hasn't really rained for three days," protested Kate.
+"It's been damp and horrid and threatening, but it hasn't rained. I
+defy you to say that it has actually rained."
+
+"When it's so wet underfoot that you can't stir out without rubber
+boots it might as well be wet overhead too," I said, still grumpily.
+
+"I believe you're homesick, girl," said Kate anxiously.
+
+"No, I'm not," I answered, laughing, and feeling ashamed of my
+ungraciousness. "Nobody could be homesick with such a jolly good
+fellow as you around, Kate. It's only that this weather is getting on
+my nerves a bit. I'm fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils. If your
+chinook doesn't come soon, Kitty, I'll do something quite desperate."
+
+"I feel that way myself," admitted Kate. "Real reckless, Phil. Anyhow,
+let's put on our despised rubber boots and sally out for a wade."
+
+"Here's Jim Nash coming on horseback down the trail," I said. "Let's
+wait and see if he's got the mail."
+
+We hurried down, Kate humming, "Somewhere the sun is shining," solely,
+I believe, because she knew it aggravated me. At any other time I
+should probably have thrown a pillow at her, but just now I was too
+eager to see if Jim Nash had brought any mail.
+
+I had come from Ontario, the first of September, to visit Uncle
+Kenneth Morrison's family. I had been looking forward to the trip for
+several years. My cousin Kate and I had always corresponded since they
+had "gone west" ten years before; and Kate, who revelled in the
+western life, had sung the praises of her adopted land rapturously and
+constantly. It was quite a joke on her that, when I did finally come
+to visit her, I should have struck the wettest autumn ever recorded in
+the history of the west. A wet September in Saskatchewan is no joke,
+however. The country was almost "flooded out." The trails soon became
+nearly impassable. All our plans for drives and picnics and
+inter-neighbour visiting--at that time a neighbour meant a man who
+lived at least six miles away--had to be given up. Yet I was not
+lonesome, and I enjoyed my visit in spite of everything. Kate was a
+host in herself. She was twenty-eight years old--eight years my
+senior--but the difference in our ages had never been any barrier to
+our friendship. She was a jolly, companionable, philosophical soul,
+with a jest for every situation, and a merry solution for every
+perplexity. The only fault I had to find with her was her tendency to
+make parodies. Kate's parodies were perfectly awful and always got on
+my nerves.
+
+She was dreadfully ashamed of the way the Saskatchewan weather was
+behaving after all her boasting. She was thin at the best of times,
+but now she grew positively scraggy with the worry of it. I am afraid
+I took an unholy delight in teasing her, and abused the western
+weather even more than was necessary.
+
+Jim Nash--the lank youth who was hired to look after the place during
+Uncle Kenneth's absence on a prolonged threshing expedition--had
+brought some mail. Kate's share was a letter, postmarked Bothwell, a
+rising little town about one hundred and twenty miles from Arrow
+Creek. Kate had several friends there, and one of our plans had been
+to visit Bothwell and spend a week with them. We had meant to drive,
+of course, since there was no other way of getting there, and equally
+of course the plan had been abandoned because of the wet weather.
+
+"Mother," exclaimed Kate, "Mary Taylor is going to be married in a
+fortnight's time! She wants Phil and me to go up to Bothwell for the
+wedding."
+
+"What a pity you can't go," remarked Aunt Jennie placidly. Aunt Jennie
+was always a placid little soul, with a most enviable knack of taking
+everything easy. Nothing ever worried her greatly, and when she had
+decided that a thing was inevitable it did not worry her at all.
+
+"But I am going," cried Kate. "I will go--I must go. I positively
+cannot let Mary Taylor--my own beloved Molly--go and perpetrate
+matrimony without my being on hand to see it. Yes, I'm going--and if
+Phil has a spark of the old Blair pioneer spirit in her, she'll go
+too."
+
+"Of course I'll go if you go," I said.
+
+Aunt Jennie did not think we were in earnest, so she merely laughed at
+first, and said, "How do you propose to go? Fly--or swim?"
+
+"We'll drive, as usual," said Kate calmly. "I'd feel more at home in
+that way of locomotion. We'll borrow Jim Nash's father's democrat, and
+take the ponies. We'll put on old clothes, raincoats, rubber caps and
+boots, and we'll start tomorrow. In an ordinary time we could easily
+do it in six days or less, but this fall we'll probably need ten or
+twelve."
+
+"You don't really mean to go, Kate!" said Aunt Jennie, beginning to
+perceive that Kate did mean it.
+
+"I do," said Kate, in a convincing tone.
+
+Aunt Jennie felt a little worried--as much as she could feel worried
+over anything--and she tried her best to dissuade Kate, although she
+plainly did not have much hope of doing so, having had enough
+experience with her determined daughter to realize that when Kate said
+she was going to do a thing she did it. It was rather funny to listen
+to the ensuing dialogue.
+
+"Kate, you can't do it. It's a crazy idea! The road is one hundred and
+twenty miles long."
+
+"I've driven it twice, Mother."
+
+"Yes, but not in such a wet year. The trail is impassable in places."
+
+"Oh, there are always plenty of dry spots to be found if you only look
+hard for them."
+
+"But you don't know where to look for them, and goodness knows what
+you'll get into while you are looking."
+
+"We'll call at the M.P. barracks and get an Indian to guide us.
+Indians always know the dry spots."
+
+"The stage driver has decided not to make another trip till the
+October frosts set in."
+
+"But he always has such a heavy load. It will be quite different with
+us, you must remember. We'll travel light--just our provisions and a
+valise containing our wedding garments."
+
+"What will you do if you get mired twenty miles from a human being?"
+
+"But we won't. I'm a good driver and I haven't nerves--but I have
+nerve. Besides, you forget that we'll have an Indian guide with us."
+
+"There was a company of Hudson Bay freighters ambushed and killed
+along that very trail by Blackfoot Indians in 1839," said Aunt Jennie
+dolefully.
+
+"Fifty years ago! Their ghosts must have ceased to haunt it by this
+time," said Kate flippantly.
+
+"Well, you'll get wet through and catch your deaths of cold,"
+protested Aunt Jennie.
+
+"No fear of it. We'll be cased in rubber. And we'll borrow a good
+tight tent from the M.P.s. Besides, I'm sure it's not going to rain
+much more. I know the signs."
+
+"At least wait for a day or two until you're sure that it has cleared
+up," implored Aunt Jennie.
+
+"Which being interpreted means, 'Wait for a day or two, because then
+your father may be home and he'll squelch your mad expedition,'" said
+Kate, with a sly glance at me. "No, no, my mother, your wiles are in
+vain. We'll hit the trail tomorrow at sunrise. So just be good,
+darling, and help us pack up some provisions. I'll send Jim for his
+father's democrat."
+
+Aunt Jennie resigned herself to the inevitable and betook herself to
+the pantry with the air of a woman who washes her hands of the
+consequences. I flew upstairs to pack some finery. I was wild with
+delight over the proposed outing. I did not realize what it actually
+meant, and I had perfect confidence in Kate, who was an expert driver,
+an experienced camper out, and an excellent manager. If I could have
+seen what was ahead of us I would certainly not have been quite so
+jubilant and reckless, but I would have gone all the same. I would not
+miss the laughter-provoking memories of that trip out of my life for
+anything. I have always been glad I went.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We left at sunrise the next morning; there was a sunrise that morning,
+for a wonder. The sun came up in a pinky-saffron sky and promised us a
+fine day. Aunt Jennie bade us goodbye and, estimable woman that she
+was, did not trouble us with advice or forebodings.
+
+Mr. Nash had sent over his "democrat," a light wagon with springs; and
+Kate's "shaganappies," Tom and Jerry--native ponies, the toughest
+horse flesh to be found in the world--were hitched to it. Kate and I
+were properly accoutred for our trip and looked--but I try to forget
+how we looked! The memory is not flattering.
+
+We drove off in the gayest of spirits. Our difficulties began at the
+start, for we had to drive a mile before we could find a place to ford
+the creek. Beyond that, however, we had a passable trail for three
+miles to the little outpost of the Mounted Police, where five or six
+men were stationed on detachment duty.
+
+"Sergeant Baker is a friend of mine," said Kate. "He'll be only too
+glad to lend me all we require."
+
+The sergeant was a friend of Kate's, but he looked at her as if he
+thought she was crazy when she told him where we were going.
+
+"You'd better take a canoe instead of a team," he said sarcastically.
+"I've a good notion to arrest you both as horse thieves and prevent
+you from going on such a mad expedition."
+
+"You know nothing short of arrest would stop me," said Kate, nodding
+at him with laughing eyes, "and you really won't go to such an
+extreme, I know. So please be nice, even if it comes hard, and lend us
+some things. I've come a-borrying."
+
+"I won't lend you a thing," declared the sergeant. "I won't aid and
+abet you in any such freak as this. Go home now, like a good girl."
+
+"I'm not going home," said Kate. "I'm not a 'good girl'--I'm a wicked
+old maid, and I'm going to Bothwell. If you won't lend us a tent we'll
+go without--and sleep in the open--and our deaths will lie forever at
+your door. I'll come back and haunt you, if you don't lend me a tent.
+I'll camp on your very threshold and you won't be able to go out of
+your door without falling over my spook."
+
+"I've more fear of being accountable for your death if I do let you
+go," said Sergeant Baker dubiously. "However, I see that nothing but
+physical force will prevent you. What do you want?"
+
+"I want," said Kate, "a cavalry tent, a sheet-iron camp stove, and a
+good Indian guide--old Peter Crow for choice. He's such a
+respectable-looking old fellow, and his wife often works for us."
+
+The sergeant gave us the tent and stove, and sent a man down to the
+Reserve for Peter Crow. Moreover, he vindicated his title of friend by
+making us take a dozen prairie chickens and a large ham--besides any
+quantity of advice. We didn't want the advice but we hugely welcomed
+the ham. Presently our guide appeared--quite a spruce old Indian, as
+Indians go. I had never been able to shake off my childhood conviction
+that an Indian was a fearsome creature, hopelessly addicted to
+scalping knives and tomahawks, and I secretly felt quite horrified at
+the idea of two defenceless females starting out on a lonely prairie
+trail with an Indian for guide. Even old Peter Crow's meek appearance
+did not quite reassure me; but I kept my qualms to myself, for I knew
+Kate would only laugh at me.
+
+It was ten when we finally got away from the M.P. outpost. Sergeant
+Baker bade us goodbye in a tone which seemed to intimate that he never
+expected to see either of us again. What with his dismal predictions
+and my secret horror of Indians, I was beginning to feel anything but
+jubilant over our expedition. Kate, however, was as blithe and buoyant
+as usual. She knew no fear, being one of those enviable folk who can
+because they think they can. One hundred and twenty miles of
+half-flooded prairie trail--camping out at night in the solitude of
+the Great Lone Land--rain--muskegs--Indian guides--nothing had any
+terror for my dauntless cousin.
+
+For the next three hours, however, we got on beautifully. The trail
+was fair, though somewhat greasy; the sun shone, though with a
+somewhat watery gleam, through the mists; and Peter Crow, coiled up on
+the folded tent behind the seat, slept soundly and snored
+mellifluously. That snore reassured me greatly. I had never thought of
+Indians as snoring. Surely one who did couldn't be dreaded greatly.
+
+We stopped at one o'clock and had a cold lunch, sitting in our wagon,
+while Peter Crow wakened up and watered the ponies. We did not get on
+so well in the afternoon. The trail descended into low-lying ground
+where travelling was very difficult. I had to admit old Peter Crow
+was quite invaluable. He knew, as Kate had foretold, "all the dry
+spots"--that is to say, spots less wet than others. But, even so, we
+had to make so many detours that by sunset we were little more than
+six miles distant from our noon halting place.
+
+"We'd better set camp now, before it gets any darker," said Kate.
+"There's a capital spot over there, by that bluff of dead poplar. The
+ground seems pretty dry too. Peter, cut us a set of tent poles and
+kindle a fire."
+
+"Want my dollar first," said old Peter stolidly.
+
+We had agreed to pay him a dollar a day for the trip, but none of the
+money was to be paid until we got to Bothwell. Kate told him this. But
+all the reply she got was a stolid, "Want dollar. No make fire without
+dollar."
+
+We were getting cold and it was getting dark, so finally Kate, under
+the law of necessity, paid him his dollar. Then he carried out our
+orders at his own sweet leisure. In course of time he got a fire
+lighted, and while we cooked supper he set up the tent and prepared
+our beds, by cutting piles of brush and covering them with rugs.
+
+Kate and I had a hilarious time cooking that supper. It was my first
+experience of camping out and, as I had become pretty well convinced
+that Peter Crow was not the typical Indian of old romance, I enjoyed
+it all hugely. But we were both very tired, and as soon as we had
+finished eating we betook ourselves to our tent and found our brush
+beds much more comfortable than I had expected. Old Peter coiled up on
+his blanket outside by the fire, and the great silence of a windless
+prairie enwrapped us. In a few minutes we were sound asleep and never
+wakened until seven o'clock.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When we arose and lifted the flap of the tent we saw a peculiar sight.
+The little elevation on which we had pitched our camp seemed to be an
+island in a vast sea of white mist, dotted here and there with other
+islands. On every hand to the far horizon stretched that strange,
+phantasmal ocean, and a hazy sun looked over the shifting billows. I
+had never seen a western mist before and I thought it extremely
+beautiful; but Kate, to whom it was no novelty, was more cumbered with
+breakfast cares.
+
+"I'm ravenous," she said, as she bustled about among our stores.
+"Camping out always does give one such an appetite. Aren't you hungry,
+Phil?"
+
+"Comfortably so," I admitted. "But where are our ponies? And where is
+Peter Crow?"
+
+"Probably the ponies have strayed away looking for pea vines. They
+love and adore pea vines," said Kate, stirring up the fire from under
+its blanket of grey ashes. "And Peter Crow has gone to look for them,
+good old fellow. When you do get a conscientious Indian there is no
+better guide in the world, but they are rare. Now, Philippa-girl, just
+pry out the sergeant's ham and shave a few slices off it for our
+breakfast. Some savoury fried ham always goes well on the prairie."
+
+I went for the ham but could not find it. A thorough search among our
+effects revealed it not.
+
+"Kate, I can't find the ham," I called out. "It must have fallen out
+somewhere on the trail."
+
+Kate ceased wrestling with the fire and came to help in the search for
+the missing delicacy.
+
+"It couldn't have fallen out," she said incredulously. "That is
+impossible. The tent was fastened securely over everything. Nothing
+could have jolted out."
+
+"Well, then, where is the ham?" I said.
+
+That question was unanswerable, as Kate discovered after another
+thorough search. The ham was gone--that much was certain.
+
+"I believe Peter Crow has levanted with the ham," I said decidedly.
+
+"I don't believe Peter Crow could be so dishonest," said Kate rather
+shortly. "His wife has worked for us for years, and she's as honest as
+the sunlight."
+
+"Honesty isn't catching," I remarked, but I said nothing more just
+then, for Kate's black eyes were snapping.
+
+"Anyway, we can't have ham for breakfast," she said, twitching out the
+frying pan rather viciously. "We'll have to put up with canned
+chicken--if the cans haven't disappeared too."
+
+They hadn't, and we soon produced a very tolerable breakfast. But
+neither of us had much appetite.
+
+"Do you suppose Peter Crow has taken the horses as well as the ham?" I
+asked.
+
+"No," gloomily responded Kate, who had evidently been compelled by the
+logic of hard facts to believe in Peter's guilt, "he would hardly dare
+to do that, because he couldn't dispose of them without being found
+out. They've probably strayed away on their own account when Peter
+decamped. As soon as this mist lifts I'll have a look for them. They
+can't have gone far."
+
+We were spared this trouble, however, for when we were washing up the
+dishes the ponies returned of their own accord. Kate caught them and
+harnessed them.
+
+"Are we going on?" I asked mildly.
+
+"Of course we're going on," said Kate, her good humour entirely
+restored. "Do you suppose I'm going to be turned from my purpose by
+the defection of a miserable old Indian? Oh, wait till he comes round
+in the winter, begging."
+
+"Will he come?" I asked.
+
+"Will he? Yes, my dear, he will--with a smooth, plausible story to
+account for his desertion and a bland denial of ever having seen our
+ham. I shall know how to deal with him then, the old scamp."
+
+"When you do get a conscientious Indian there's no better guide in the
+world, but they are rare," I remarked with a far-away look.
+
+Kate laughed.
+
+"Don't rub it in, Phil. Come, help me to break camp. We'll have to
+work harder and hustle for ourselves, that's all."
+
+"But is it safe to go on without a guide?" I inquired dubiously. I
+hadn't felt very safe with Peter Crow, but I felt still more unsafe
+without him.
+
+"Safe! Of course, it's safe--perfectly safe. I know the trail, and
+we'll just have to drive around the wet places. It would have been
+easier with Peter, and we'd have had less work to do, but we'll get
+along well enough without him. I don't think I'd have bothered with
+him at all, only I wanted to set Mother's mind at rest. She'll never
+know he isn't with us till the trip is over, so that is all right.
+We're going to have a glorious day. But, oh, for our lost ham! 'The
+Ham That Was Never Eaten.' There's a subject for a poem, Phil. You
+write one when we get back to civilization. Methinks I can sniff the
+savoury odour of that lost ham on all the prairie breezes."
+
+    "Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
+    The saddest are these--it might have been,"
+
+I quoted, beginning to wash the dishes.
+
+    "Saw ye my wee ham, saw ye my ain ham,
+        Saw ye my pork ham down on yon lea?
+    Crossed it the prairie last night in the darkness
+        Borne by an old and unprincipled Cree?"
+
+sang Kate, loosening the tent ropes. Altogether, we got a great deal
+more fun out of that ham than if we had eaten it.
+
+As Kate had predicted, the day was glorious. The mists rolled away and
+the sun shone brightly. We drove all day without stopping, save for
+dinner--when the lost ham figured largely in our conversation--of
+course. We said so many witty things about it--at least, we thought
+them witty--that we laughed continuously through the whole meal,
+which we ate with prodigious appetite.
+
+But with all our driving we were not getting on very fast. The country
+was exceedingly swampy and we had to make innumerable detours.
+
+"'The longest way round is the shortest way to Bothwell,'" said Kate,
+when we drove five miles out of our way to avoid a muskeg. By evening
+we had driven fully twenty-five miles, but we were only ten miles
+nearer Bothwell than when we had broken camp in the morning.
+
+"We'll have to camp soon," sighed Kate. "I believe around this bluff
+will be a good place. Oh, Phil, I'm tired--dead tired! My very
+thoughts are tired. I can't even think anything funny about the ham.
+And yet we've got to set up the tent ourselves, and attend to the
+horses; and we'll have to scrape some of the mud off this beautiful
+vehicle."
+
+"We can leave that till the morning," I suggested.
+
+"No, it will be too hard and dry then. Here we are--and here are two
+tepees of Indians also!"
+
+There they were, right around the bluff. The inmates were standing in
+a group before them, looking at us as composedly as if we were not at
+all an unusual sight.
+
+"I'm going to stay here anyhow," said Kate doggedly.
+
+"Oh, don't," I said in alarm. "They're such a villainous-looking
+lot--so dirty--and they've got so little clothing on. I wouldn't sleep
+a wink near them. Look at that awful old squaw with only one eye.
+They'd steal everything we've got left, Kate. Remember the ham--oh,
+pray remember the fate of our beautiful ham."
+
+"I shall never forget that ham," said Kate wearily, "but, Phil, we
+can't drive far enough to be out of their reach if they really want to
+steal our provisions. But I don't believe they will. I believe they
+have plenty of food--Indians in tepees mostly have. The men hunt, you
+know. Their looks are probably the worst of them. Anyhow, you can't
+judge Indians by appearances. Peter Crow looked respectable--and he
+was a whited sepulchre. Now, these Indians look as bad as Indians can
+look--so they may turn out to be angels in disguise."
+
+"Very much disguised, certainly," I acquiesced satirically. "They seem
+to me to belong to the class of a neighbour of ours down east. Her
+family is always in rags, because she says, 'a hole is an accident, a
+patch is a disgrace,' Set camp here if you like, Kate. But I'll not
+sleep a wink with such neighbours."
+
+I cheerfully ate my words later on. Never were appearances more
+deceptive than in the case of those Stoneys. There is an old saying
+that many a kind heart beats behind a ragged coat. The Indians had no
+coats for their hearts to beat behind--nothing but shirts--some of
+them hadn't even shirts! But the shirts were certainly ragged enough,
+and their hearts were kind.
+
+Those Indians were gentlemen. They came forward and unhitched our
+horses, fed, and watered them; they pitched our tent, and built us a
+fire, and cut brush for our beds. Kate and I had simply nothing to do
+except sit on our rugs and tell them what we wanted done. They would
+have cooked our supper for us if we had allowed it. But, tired as we
+were, we drew the line at that. Their hearts were pure gold, but their
+hands! No, Kate and I dragged ourselves up and cooked our own suppers.
+And while we ate it, those Indians fell to and cleaned all the mud off
+our democrat for us. To crown all--it is almost unbelievable but it is
+true, I solemnly avow--they wouldn't take a cent of payment for it
+all, urge them as we might and did.
+
+"Well," said Kate, as we curled up on our brush beds that night,
+"there certainly is a special Providence for unprotected females. I'd
+forgive Peter Crow for deserting us for the sake of those Indians, if
+he hadn't stolen our lovely ham into the bargain. That was altogether
+unpardonable."
+
+In the morning the Indians broke camp for us and harnessed our
+shaganappies. We drove off, waving our hands to them, the delightful
+creatures. We never saw any of them again. I fear their kind is
+scarce, but as long as I live I shall remember those Stoneys with
+gratitude.
+
+We got on fairly well that third day, and made about fifteen miles
+before dinner time. We ate three of the sergeant's prairie chickens
+for dinner, and enjoyed them.
+
+"But only think how delicious the ham would have been," said Kate.
+
+Our real troubles began that afternoon. We had not been driving long
+when the trail swooped down suddenly into a broad depression--a swamp,
+so full of mud-holes that there didn't seem to be anything but
+mud-holes. We pulled through six of them--but in the seventh we stuck,
+hard and fast. Pull as our ponies could and did, they could not pull
+us out.
+
+"What are we to do?" I said, becoming horribly frightened all at once.
+It seemed to me that our predicament was a dreadful one.
+
+"Keep cool," said Kate. She calmly took off her shoes and stockings,
+tucked up her skirt, and waded to the horses' heads.
+
+"Can't I do anything?" I implored.
+
+"Yes, take the whip and spare it not," said Kate. "I'll encourage them
+here with sundry tugs and inspiriting words. You urge them behind with
+a good lambasting."
+
+Accordingly we encouraged and urged, tugged and lambasted, with a
+right good will, but all to no effect. Our ponies did their best, but
+they could not pull the democrat out of that slough.
+
+"Oh, what--" I began, and then I stopped. I resolved that I would not
+ask that question again in that tone in that scrape. I would be
+cheerful and courageous like Kate--splendid Kate!
+
+"I shall have to unhitch them, tie one of them to that stump, and ride
+off on the other for help," said Kate.
+
+"Where to?" I asked.
+
+"Till I find it," grinned Kate, who seemed to think the whole
+disaster a capital joke. "I may have to go clean back to the
+tepees--and further. For that matter, I don't believe there were any
+tepees. Those Indians were too good to be true--they were phantoms of
+delight--such stuff as dreams are made of. But even if they were real
+they won't be there now--they'll have folded their tents like the
+Arabs and as silently stolen away. But I'll find help somewhere."
+
+"I can't stay here alone. You may be gone for hours," I cried,
+forgetting all my resolutions of courage and cheerfulness in an access
+of panic.
+
+"Then ride the other pony and come with me," suggested Kate.
+
+"I can't ride bareback," I moaned.
+
+"Then you'll have to stay here," said Kate decidedly. "There's nothing
+to hurt you, Phil. Sit in the wagon and keep dry. Eat something if you
+get hungry. I may not be very long."
+
+I realized that there was nothing else to do; and, rather ashamed of
+my panic, I resigned myself to the inevitable and saw Kate off with
+a smile of encouragement. Then I waited. I was tired and
+frightened--horribly frightened. I sat there and imagined scores of
+gruesome possibilities. It was no use telling myself to be brave. I
+couldn't be brave. I never was in such a blue funk before or since.
+Suppose Kate got lost--suppose she couldn't find me again--suppose
+something happened to her--suppose she couldn't get help--suppose it
+came on night and I there all alone--suppose Indians--not gentlemanly
+Stoneys or even Peter Crows, but genuine, old-fashioned
+Indians--should come along--suppose it began to pour rain!
+
+It did begin to rain, the only one of my suppositions which came true.
+I hoisted an umbrella and sat there grimly, in that horseless wagon in
+the mud-hole.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Many a time since have I laughed over the memory of the appearance I
+must have presented sitting in that mud-hole, but there was nothing in
+the least funny about it at the time. The worst feature of it all was
+the uncertainty. I could have waited patiently enough and conquered my
+fears if I had known that Kate would find help and return within a
+reasonable time--at least before dark. But everything was doubtful. I
+was not composed of the stuff out of which heroines are fashioned and
+I devoutly wished we had never left Arrow Creek.
+
+Shouts--calls--laughter--Kate's dear voice in an encouraging cry from
+the hill behind me!
+
+"Halloo, honey! Hold the fort a few minutes longer. Here we are. Bless
+her, hasn't she been a brick to stay here all alone like this--and a
+tenderfoot at that?"
+
+I could have cried with joy. But I saw that there were men with
+Kate--two men--white men--and I laughed instead. I had not been
+brave--I had been an arrant little coward, but I vowed that nobody,
+not even Kate, should suspect it. Later on Kate told me how she had
+fared in her search for assistance.
+
+"When I left you, Phil, I felt much more anxious than I wanted to let
+you see. I had no idea where to go. I knew there were no houses along
+our trail and I might have to go clean back to the tepees--fifteen
+miles bareback. I didn't dare try any other trail, for I knew nothing
+of them and wasn't sure that there were even tepees on them. But when
+I had gone about six miles I saw a welcome sight--nothing less than a
+spiral of blue, homely-looking smoke curling up from the prairie far
+off to my right. I decided to turn off and investigate. I rode two
+miles and finally I came to a little log shack. There was a
+bee-yew-tiful big horse in a corral close by. My heart jumped with
+joy. But suppose the inmates of the shack were half-breeds! You can't
+realize how relieved I felt when the door opened and two white men
+came out. In a few minutes everything was explained. They knew who I
+was and what I wanted, and I knew that they were Mr. Lonsdale and Mr.
+Hopkins, owners of a big ranch over by Deer Run. They were 'shacking
+out' to put up some hay and Mrs. Hopkins was keeping house for them.
+She wanted me to stop and have a cup of tea right off, but I thought
+of you, Phil, and declined. As soon as they heard of our predicament
+those lovely men got their two biggest horses and came right with me."
+
+It was not long before our democrat was on solid ground once more, and
+then our rescuers insisted that we go back to the shack with them for
+the night. Accordingly we drove back to the shack, attended by our two
+gallant deliverers on white horses. Mrs. Hopkins was waiting for us, a
+trim, dark-haired little lady in a very pretty gown, which she had
+donned in our honour. Kate and I felt like perfect tramps beside her
+in our muddy old raiment, with our hair dressed by dead reckoning--for
+we had not included a mirror in our baggage. There was a mirror in the
+shack, however--small but good--and we quickly made ourselves tidy at
+least, and Kate even went to the length of curling her bangs--bangs
+were in style then and Kate had long, thick ones--using the stem of a
+broken pipe of Mr. Hopkins's for a curler. I was so tired that my
+vanity was completely crushed out--for the time being--and I simply
+pinned my bangs back. Later on, when I discovered that Mr. Lonsdale
+was really the younger son of an English earl, I wished I had curled
+them, but it was too late then.
+
+He didn't look in the least like a scion of aristocracy. He wore a
+cowboy rig and had a scrubby beard of a week's growth. But he was very
+jolly and played the violin beautifully. After tea--and a lovely tea
+it was, although, as Kate remarked to me later, there was no ham--we
+had an impromptu concert. Mr. Lonsdale played the violin; Mrs.
+Hopkins, who sang, was a graduate of a musical conservatory; Mr.
+Hopkins gave a comic recitation and did a Cree war-dance; Kate gave a
+spirited account of our adventures since leaving home and mother; and
+I described--with trimmings--how I felt sitting alone in the democrat
+in a mud-hole, in a pouring rain on a vast prairie.
+
+Mrs. Hopkins, Kate, and I slept in the one bed the shack boasted,
+screened off from public view by a calico curtain. Mr. Lonsdale
+reposed in his accustomed bunk by the stove, but poor Mr. Hopkins had
+to sleep on the floor. He must have been glad Kate and I stayed only
+one night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The fourth morning found us blithely hitting the trail in renewed
+confidence and spirits. We parted from our kind friends in the shack
+with mutual regret. Mr. Hopkins gave us a haunch of jumping deer and
+Mrs. Hopkins gave us a box of home-made cookies. Mr. Lonsdale at first
+thought he couldn't give us anything, for he said all he had with him
+was his pipe and his fiddle; but later on he said he felt so badly to
+see us go without any token of his good will that he felt constrained
+to ask us to accept a piece of rope that he had tied his outfit
+together with.
+
+The fourth day we got on so nicely that it was quite monotonous. The
+sun shone, the chinook blew, our ponies trotted over the trail
+gallantly. Kate and I sang, told stories, and laughed immoderately
+over everything. Even a poor joke seems to have a subtle flavour on
+the prairie. For the first time I began to think Saskatchewan
+beautiful, with those far-reaching parklike meadows dotted with the
+white-stemmed poplars, the distant bluffs bannered with the airiest of
+purple hazes, and the little blue lakes that sparkled and shimmered in
+the sunlight on every hand.
+
+The only thing approaching an adventure that day happened in the
+afternoon when we reached a creek which had to be crossed.
+
+"We must investigate," said Kate decidedly. "It would never do to risk
+getting mired here, for this country is unsettled and we must be
+twenty miles from another human being."
+
+Kate again removed her shoes and stockings and puddled about that
+creek until she found a safe fording place. I am afraid I must admit
+that I laughed most heartlessly at the spectacle she presented while
+so employed.
+
+"Oh, for a camera, Kate!" I said, between spasms.
+
+Kate grinned. "I don't care what I look like," she said, "but I feel
+wretchedly unpleasant. This water is simply swarming with wigglers."
+
+"Goodness, what are they?" I exclaimed.
+
+"Oh, they're tiny little things like leeches," responded Kate. "I
+believe they develop into mosquitoes later on, bad 'cess to them. What
+Mr. Nash would call my pedal extremities are simply being devoured by
+the brutes. Ugh! I believe the bottom of this creek is all soft mud.
+We may have to drive--no, as I'm a living, wiggler-haunted human
+being, here's firm bottom. Hurrah, Phil, we're all right!"
+
+In a few minutes we were past the creek and bowling merrily on our
+way. We had a beautiful camping ground that night--a fairylike little
+slope of white poplars with a blue lake at its foot. When the sun went
+down a milk-white mist hung over the prairie, with a young moon
+kissing it. We boiled some slices of our jumping deer and ate them in
+the open around a cheery camp-fire. Then we sought our humble couches,
+where we slept the sleep of just people who had been driving over the
+prairie all day. Once in the night I wakened. It was very dark. The
+unearthly stillness of a great prairie was all around me. In that vast
+silence Kate's soft breathing at my side seemed an intrusion of sound
+where no sound should be.
+
+"Philippa Blair, can you believe it's yourself?" I said mentally.
+"Here you are, lying on a brush bed on a western prairie in the middle
+of the night, at least twenty miles from any human being except
+another frail creature of your own sex. Yet you're not even
+frightened. You are very comfy and composed, and you're going right to
+sleep again."
+
+And right to sleep again I went.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our fifth day began ominously. We had made an early start and had
+driven about six miles when the calamity occurred. Kate turned a
+corner too sharply, to avoid a big boulder; there was a heart-breaking
+sound.
+
+"The tongue of the wagon is broken," cried Kate in dismay. All too
+surely it was. We looked at each other blankly.
+
+"What can we do?" I said.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know," said Kate helplessly. When Kate felt helpless
+I thought things must be desperate indeed. We got out and investigated
+the damage.
+
+"It's not a clean break," said Kate. "It's a long, slanting break. If
+we had a piece of rope I believe I could fix it."
+
+"Mr. Lonsdale's piece of rope!" I cried.
+
+"The very thing," said Kate, brightening up.
+
+The rope was found and we set to work. With the aid of some willow
+withes and that providential rope we contrived to splice the tongue
+together in some shape.
+
+Although the trail was good we made only twelve miles the rest of the
+day, so slowly did we have to drive. Besides, we were continually
+expecting that tongue to give way again, and the strain was bad for
+our nerves. When we came at sunset to the junction of the Black River
+trail with ours, Kate resolutely turned the shaganappies down it.
+
+"We'll go and spend the night with the Brewsters," she said. "They
+live only ten miles down this trail. I went to school in Regina with
+Hannah Brewster, and though I haven't seen her for ten years I know
+she'll be glad to see us. She's a lovely person, and her husband is a
+very nice man. I visited them once after they were married."
+
+We soon arrived at the Brewster place. It was a trim, white-washed
+little log house in a grove of poplars. But all the blinds were down
+and we discovered the door was locked. Evidently the Brewsters were
+not at home.
+
+"Never mind," said Kate cheerfully, "we'll light a fire outside and
+cook our supper and then we'll spend the night in the barn. A bed of
+prairie hay will be just the thing."
+
+But the barn was locked too. It was now dark and our plight was rather
+desperate.
+
+"I'm going to get into the house if I have to break a window," said
+Kate resolutely. "Hannah would want us to do that. She'd never get
+over it, if she heard we came to her house and couldn't get in."
+
+Fortunately we did not have to go to the length of breaking into
+Hannah's house. The kitchen window went up quite easily. We turned the
+shaganappies loose to forage for themselves, grass and water being
+abundant. Then we climbed in at the window, lighted our lantern, and
+found ourselves in a very snug little kitchen. Opening off it on one
+side was a trim, nicely furnished parlour and on the other a
+well-stocked pantry.
+
+"We'll light the fire in the stove in a jiffy and have a real good
+supper," said Kate exultantly. "Here's cold roast beef--and preserves
+and cookies and cheese and butter."
+
+Before long we had supper ready and we did full justice to the absent
+Hannah's excellent cheer. After all, it was quite nice to sit down
+once more to a well-appointed table and eat in civilized fashion.
+
+Then we washed up all the dishes and made everything snug and tidy. I
+shall never be sufficiently thankful that we did so.
+
+Kate piloted me upstairs to the spare room.
+
+"This is fixed up much nicer than it was when I was here before," she
+said, looking around. "Of course, Hannah and Ted were just starting
+out then and they had to be economical. They must have prospered, to
+be able to afford such furniture as this. Well, turn in, Phil. Won't
+it be rather jolly to sleep between sheets once more?"
+
+We slept long and soundly until half-past eight the next morning; and
+dear knows if we would have wakened then of our own accord. But I
+heard somebody saying in a very harsh, gruff voice, "Here, you two,
+wake up! I want to know what this means."
+
+We two did wake up, promptly and effectually. I never wakened up so
+thoroughly in my life before. Standing in our room were three people,
+one of them a man. He was a big, grey-haired man with a bushy black
+beard and an angry scowl. Beside him was a woman--a tall, thin,
+angular personage with red hair and an indescribable bonnet. She
+looked even crosser and more amazed than the man, if that were
+possible. In the background was another woman--a tiny old lady who
+must have been at least eighty. She was, in spite of her tininess, a
+very striking-looking personage; she was dressed all in black, and had
+snow-white hair, a dead-white face, and snapping, vivid, coal-black
+eyes. She looked as amazed as the other two, but she didn't look
+cross.
+
+I knew something must be wrong--fearfully wrong--but I didn't know
+what. Even in my confusion, I found time to think that if that
+disagreeable-looking red-haired woman was Hannah Brewster, Kate must
+have had a queer taste in school friends. Then the man said, more
+gruffly than ever, "Come now. Who are you and what business have you
+here?"
+
+Kate raised herself on one elbow. She looked very wild. I heard the
+old black-and-white lady in the background chuckle to herself.
+
+"Isn't this Theodore Brewster's place?" gasped Kate.
+
+"No," said the big woman, speaking for the first time. "This place
+belongs to us. We bought it from the Brewsters in the spring. They
+moved over to Black River Forks. Our name is Chapman."
+
+Poor Kate fell back on the pillow, quite overcome. "I--I beg your
+pardon," she said. "I--I thought the Brewsters lived here. Mrs.
+Brewster is a friend of mine. My cousin and I are on our way to
+Bothwell and we called here to spend the night with Hannah. When we
+found everyone away we just came in and made ourselves at home."
+
+"A likely story," said the red woman.
+
+"We weren't born yesterday," said the man.
+
+Madam Black-and-White didn't say anything, but when the other two had
+made their pretty speeches she doubled up in a silent convulsion of
+mirth, shaking her head from side to side and beating the air with her
+hands.
+
+If they had been nice to us, Kate would probably have gone on feeling
+confused and ashamed. But when they were so disagreeable she quickly
+regained her self-possession. She sat up again and said in her
+haughtiest voice, "I do not know when you were born, or where, but it
+must have been somewhere where very peculiar manners were taught. If
+you will have the decency to leave our room--this room--until we can
+get up and dress we will not transgress upon your hospitality" (Kate
+put a most satirical emphasis on that word) "any longer. And we shall
+pay you amply for the food we have eaten and the night's lodging we
+have taken."
+
+The black-and-white apparition went through the motion of clapping her
+hands, but not a sound did she make. Whether he was cowed by Kate's
+tone, or appeased by the prospect of payment, I know not, but Mr.
+Chapman spoke more civilly. "Well, that's fair. If you pay up it's all
+right."
+
+"They shall do no such thing as pay you," said Madam Black-and-White
+in a surprisingly clear, resolute, authoritative voice. "If you
+haven't any shame for yourself, Robert Chapman, you've got a
+mother-in-law who can be ashamed for you. No strangers shall be
+charged for food or lodging in any house where Mrs. Matilda Pitman
+lives. Remember that I've come down in the world, but I haven't forgot
+all decency for all that. I knew you was a skinflint when Amelia
+married you and you've made her as bad as yourself. But I'm boss here
+yet. Here, you, Robert Chapman, take yourself out of here and let
+those girls get dressed. And you, Amelia, go downstairs and cook a
+breakfast for them."
+
+I never, in all my life, saw anything like the abject meekness with
+which those two big people obeyed that mite. They went, and stood not
+upon the order of their going. As the door closed behind them, Mrs.
+Matilda Pitman laughed silently, and rocked from side to side in her
+merriment.
+
+"Ain't it funny?" she said. "I mostly lets them run the length of
+their tether but sometimes I has to pull them up, and then I does it
+with a jerk. Now, you can take your time about dressing, my dears, and
+I'll go down and keep them in order, the mean scalawags."
+
+When we descended the stairs we found a smoking-hot breakfast on the
+table. Mr. Chapman was nowhere to be seen, and Mrs. Chapman was
+cutting bread with a sulky air. Mrs. Matilda Pitman was sitting in an
+armchair, knitting. She still wore her bonnet and her triumphant
+expression. "Set right in, dears, and make a good breakfast," she
+said.
+
+"We are not hungry," said Kate, almost pleadingly. "I don't think we
+can eat anything. And it's time we were on the trail. Please excuse us
+and let us go on."
+
+Mrs. Matilda Pitman shook a knitting needle playfully at Kate. "Sit
+down and take your breakfast," she commanded. "Mrs. Matilda Pitman
+commands you. Everybody obeys Mrs. Matilda Pitman--even Robert and
+Amelia. You must obey her too."
+
+We did obey her. We sat down and, such was the influence of her
+mesmeric eyes, we ate a tolerable breakfast. The obedient Amelia never
+spoke; Mrs. Matilda Pitman did not speak either, but she knitted
+furiously and chuckled. When we had finished Mrs. Matilda Pitman
+rolled up her knitting. "Now, you can go if you want to," she said,
+"but you don't have to go. You can stay here as long as you like, and
+I'll make them cook your meals for you."
+
+I never saw Kate so thoroughly cowed.
+
+"Thank you," she said faintly. "You are very kind, but we must go."
+
+"Well, then," said Mrs. Matilda Pitman, throwing open the door, "your
+team is ready for you. I made Robert catch your ponies and harness
+them. And I made him fix that broken tongue properly. I enjoy making
+Robert do things. It's almost the only sport I have left. I'm eighty
+and most things have lost their flavour, except bossing Robert."
+
+Our democrat and ponies were outside the door, but Robert was nowhere
+to be seen; in fact, we never saw him again.
+
+"I do wish," said Kate, plucking up what little spirit she had left,
+"that you would let us--ah--uh"--Kate quailed before Mrs. Matilda
+Pitman's eye--"recompense you for our entertainment."
+
+"Mrs. Matilda Pitman said before--and meant it--that she doesn't take
+pay for entertaining strangers, nor let other people where she lives
+do it, much as their meanness would like to do it."
+
+We got away. The sulky Amelia had vanished, and there was nobody to
+see us off except Mrs. Matilda Pitman.
+
+"Don't forget to call the next time you come this way," she said
+cheerfully, waving her knitting at us. "I hope you'll get safe to
+Bothwell. If I was ten years younger I vow I'd pack a grip and go
+along with you. I like your spunk. Most of the girls nowadays is such
+timid, skeery critters. When I was a girl I wasn't afraid of nothing
+or nobody."
+
+We said and did nothing until we had driven out of sight and earshot.
+Then Kate laid down the reins and laughed until the tears came.
+
+"Oh, Phil, Phil, will you ever forget this adventure?" she gasped.
+
+"I shall never forget Mrs. Matilda Pitman," I said emphatically.
+
+We had no further adventures that day. Robert Chapman had fixed the
+tongue so well--probably under Mrs. Matilda Pitman's watchful
+eyes--that we could drive as fast as we liked; and we made good
+progress. But when we pitched camp that night Kate scanned the sky
+with an anxious expression. "I don't like the look of it," she said.
+"I'm afraid we're going to have a bad day tomorrow."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We had. When we awakened in the morning rain was pouring down. This in
+itself might not have prevented us from travelling, but the state of
+the trail did. It had been raining the greater part of the night and
+the trail was little more than a ditch of slimy, greasy, sticky mud.
+
+If we could have stayed in the tent the whole time it would not have
+been quite so bad. But we had to go out twice to take the ponies to
+the nearest pond and water them; moreover, we had to collect pea vines
+for them, which was not an agreeable occupation in a pouring rain. The
+day was very cold too, but fortunately there was plenty of dead poplar
+right by our camp. We kept a good fire on in the camp stove and were
+quite dry and comfortable as long as we stayed inside. Even when we
+had to go out we did not get very wet, as we were well protected. But
+it was a long dreary day. Finally when the dark came down and supper
+was over Kate grew quite desperate. "Let's have a game of checkers,"
+she suggested.
+
+"Where is your checkerboard?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, I'll soon furnish that," said Kate.
+
+She cut out a square of brown paper, in which a biscuit box had been
+wrapped, and marked squares off on it with a pencil. Then she produced
+some red and white high-bush cranberries for men. A cranberry split in
+two was a king.
+
+We played nine games of checkers by the light of our smoky lantern.
+Our enjoyment of the game was heightened by the fact that it had
+ceased raining. Nevertheless, when morning came the trail was so
+drenched that it was impossible to travel on it.
+
+"We must wait till noon," said Kate.
+
+"That trail won't be dry enough to travel on for a week," I said
+disconsolately.
+
+"My dear; the chinook is blowing up," said Kate. "You don't know how
+quickly a trail dries in a chinook. It's like magic."
+
+I did not believe a chinook or anything else could dry up that trail
+by noon sufficiently for us to travel on. But it did. As Kate said, it
+seemed like magic. By one o'clock we were on our way again, the
+chinook blowing merrily against our faces. It was a wind that blew
+straight from the heart of the wilderness and had in it all the potent
+lure of the wild. The yellow prairie laughed and glistened in the sun.
+
+We made twenty-five miles that afternoon and, as we were again
+fortunate enough to find a bluff of dead poplar near which to camp, we
+built a royal camp-fire which sent its flaming light far and wide over
+the dark prairie.
+
+We were in jubilant spirits. If the next day were fine and nothing
+dreadful happened to us, we would reach Bothwell before night.
+
+But our ill luck was not yet at an end. The next morning was
+beautiful. The sun shone warm and bright; the chinook blew balmily and
+alluringly; the trail stretched before us dry and level. But we sat
+moodily before our tent, not even having sufficient heart to play
+checkers. Tom had gone lame--so lame that there was no use in thinking
+of trying to travel with him. Kate could not tell what was the matter.
+
+"There is no injury that I can see," she said. "He must have sprained
+his foot somehow."
+
+Wait we did, with all the patience we could command. But the day was
+long and wearisome, and at night Tom's foot did not seem a bit better.
+
+We went to bed gloomily, but joy came with the morning. Tom's foot was
+so much improved that Kate decided we could go on, though we would
+have to drive slowly.
+
+"There's no chance of making Bothwell today," she said, "but at least
+we shall be getting a little nearer to it."
+
+"I don't believe there is such a place as Bothwell, or any other
+town," I said pessimistically. "There's nothing in the world but
+prairie, and we'll go on driving over it forever, like a couple of
+female Wandering Jews. It seems years since we left Arrow Creek."
+
+"Well, we've had lots of fun out of it all, you know," said Kate.
+"Mrs. Matilda Pitman alone was worth it. She will be an amusing memory
+all our lives. Are you sorry you came?"
+
+"No, I'm not," I concluded, after honest, soul-searching reflection.
+"No, I'm glad, Kate. But I think we were crazy to attempt it, as
+Sergeant Baker said. Think of all the might-have-beens."
+
+"Nothing else will happen," said Kate. "I feel in my bones that our
+troubles are over."
+
+Kate's bones proved true prophets. Nevertheless, that day was a weary
+one. There was no scenery. We had got into a barren, lakeless,
+treeless district where the world was one monotonous expanse of
+grey-brown prairie. We just crawled along. Kate had her hands full
+driving those ponies. Jerry was in capital fettle and couldn't
+understand why he mightn't tear ahead at full speed. He was so much
+disgusted over being compelled to walk that he was very fractious.
+Poor Tom limped patiently along. But by night his lameness had quite
+disappeared, and although we were still a good twenty-five miles from
+Bothwell we could see it quite distinctly far ahead on the level
+prairie.
+
+"'Tis a sight for sore eyes, isn't it?" said Kate, as we pitched camp.
+
+There is little more to be told. Next day at noon we rattled through
+the main and only street of Bothwell. Curious sights are frequent in
+prairie towns, so we did not attract much attention. When we drew up
+before Mr. Taylor's house Mary Taylor flew out and embraced Kate
+publicly.
+
+"You darling! I knew you'd get here if anyone could. They telegraphed
+us you were on the way. You're a brick--two bricks."
+
+"No, I'm not a brick at all, Miss Taylor," I confessed frankly. "I've
+been an arrant coward and a doubting Thomas and a wet blanket all
+through the expedition. But Kate is a brick and a genius and an
+all-round, jolly good fellow."
+
+"Mary," said Kate in a tragic whisper,
+"have--you--any--ham--in--the--house?"
+
+
+
+
+Jessamine
+
+
+When the vegetable-man knocked, Jessamine went to the door wearily.
+She felt quite well acquainted with him. He had been coming all the
+spring, and his cheery greeting always left a pleasant afterglow
+behind him. But it was not the vegetable-man after all--at least, not
+the right one. This one was considerably younger. He was tall and
+sunburned, with a ruddy, smiling face, and keen, pleasant blue eyes;
+and he had a spray of honeysuckle pinned on his coat.
+
+"Want any garden stuff this morning?"
+
+Jessamine shook her head. "We always get ours from Mr. Bell. This is
+his day to come."
+
+"Well, I guess you won't see Mr. Bell for a spell. He fell off a loft
+out at his place yesterday and broke his leg. I'm his nephew, and I'm
+going to fill his place till he gets 'round again."
+
+"Oh, I'm so sorry--for Mr. Bell, I mean. Have you any green peas?"
+
+"Yes, heaps of them. I'll bring them in. Anything else?"
+
+"Not today," said Jessamine, with a wistful glance at the honeysuckle.
+
+Mr. Bell, junior, saw it. In an instant the honeysuckle was unpinned
+and handed to her. "If you like posies, you're welcome to this. I
+guess you're fond of flowers," he added, as he noted the flash of
+delight that passed over her pale face.
+
+"Yes, indeed; they put me so in mind of home--of the country. Oh, how
+sweet this is!"
+
+"You're country-bred, then? Been in the city long?"
+
+"Since last fall. I was born and brought up in the country. I wish I
+was back. I can't get over being homesick. This honeysuckle seems to
+bring it right back. We had honeysuckles around our porch at home."
+
+"You don't like the city, then?"
+
+"Oh, no. I sometimes feel as if I should smother here. I shall never
+feel at home, I am afraid."
+
+"Where did you live before you came here?"
+
+"Up at Middleton. It was an old-fashioned place, but pretty--our house
+was covered with vines, and there were trees all about it, and great
+green fields beyond. But I don't know what makes me tell you this. I
+forgot I was talking to a stranger."
+
+"Pretty little woman," soliloquized Andrew Bell, as he drove away.
+"She doesn't look happy, though. I suppose she's married some city
+chap and has to live in town. I guess it don't agree with her. Her
+eyes had a real hungry look in them over that honeysuckle. She seemed
+near about crying when she talked of the country."
+
+Jessamine felt more like crying than ever when she went back to her
+work. Her head ached and she was very tired. The tiny kitchen was hot
+and stifling. How she longed for the great, roomy kitchen in her old
+home, with its spotless floors and floods of sunshine streaming in
+through the maples outside. There was room to live and breathe there,
+and from the door one looked out over green wind-rippled meadows,
+under a glorious arch of pure blue sky, away to the purple hills in
+the distance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jessamine Stacy had always lived in the country. When her sister died
+and the old home had to go, Jessamine could only accept the shelter
+offered by her brother, John Stacy, who did business in the city.
+
+Of her stylish sister-in-law Jessamine was absolutely in awe. At first
+Mrs. John was by no means pleased at the necessity of taking a country
+sister into her family circle. But one day, when the servant girl took
+a tantrum and left, Mrs. John found it very convenient to have in the
+house a person who could step into Eliza's place as promptly and
+efficiently as Jessamine could.
+
+Indeed, she found it so convenient that Eliza never had a successor.
+Jessamine found herself in the position of maid-of-all-work and
+kitchen drudge for board and clothes.
+
+She never complained, but she grew thinner and paler as the winter
+went by. She had worked as hard on the farm, but it was the close
+confinement and weary routine that told on her. Mrs. John was exacting
+and querulous. John was absorbed in his business worries and had no
+time to waste on his sister. Now, when the summer had come, her
+homesickness was almost unbearable.
+
+The next day Mr. Bell came he handed her a big bunch of sweet-brier
+roses.
+
+"Here you are," he said heartily. "I took the liberty to bring you
+these today, seeing you're so fond of posies. The country roads are
+pink with them now. Why don't you get your husband to bring you out
+for a drive some day? You'd be as welcome as a lark at my farm."
+
+"I will when he comes along, but I haven't seen him yet."
+
+Mr. Bell gave a prolonged whistle. "Excuse me. I thought you were Mrs.
+Something-or-other for sure. Aren't you mistress here?"
+
+"Oh, no. My brother's wife is the mistress here. I'm only Jessamine."
+
+She laughed again. She was holding the roses against her face, and her
+eyes sparkled over them roguishly. The vegetable-man looked at her
+admiringly.
+
+"You're a country rose yourself, miss, and you ought to be blooming
+out in the fields, instead of wilting in here."
+
+"I wish I was. Thank you so much for the roses, Mr. ---- Mr. ----"
+
+"Bell--Andrew Bell, that's my name. I live out at Pine Pastures. We're
+all Bells out there--can't throw a stone without hitting one. Glad you
+like the roses."
+
+After that the vegetable-man brought Jessamine a bouquet every trip.
+Now it was a big bunch of field-daisies or golden buttercups, now a
+green glory of spicy ferns, now a cluster of old-fashioned garden
+flowers.
+
+"They keep life in me," Jessamine told him.
+
+They were great friends by this time. True, she knew little about him
+but she felt instinctively that he was manly and kind-hearted.
+
+One day when he came Jessamine met him almost gleefully. "No, nothing
+today. There is no dinner to cook."
+
+"You don't say. Where are the folks?"
+
+"Gone on an excursion. They won't be back until tonight."
+
+"They won't? Well, I'll tell you what to do. You get ready, and when
+I'm through my rounds we'll go for a drive up the country."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Bell! But won't it be too much bother for you?"
+
+"Well, I reckon not! You want an excursion as well as other folks, and
+you shall have it."
+
+"Oh, thank you so much. Yes, I'll be ready. You don't know how much it
+means to me."
+
+"Poor little creature," said Mr. Bell, as he drove away. "It's
+downright cruelty, that's what it is, to keep her penned up like that.
+You might as well coop up a lark in a hen-house and expect it to
+thrive and sing. I'd like to give that brother of hers a piece of my
+mind."
+
+When he lifted her up to the high seat of his express wagon that
+afternoon he said, "Now, I want you to do something. Just shut your
+eyes and don't open them again until I tell you to."
+
+Jessamine laughed and obeyed. Finally she heard him say, "Look."
+
+Jessamine opened her eyes with a little cry. They were on a remote
+country road, cool and dim and quiet, in the very heart of the beech
+woods. Long banners of light fell athwart the grey boles. Along the
+roadsides grew sheets of feathery ferns. Above the sky was gloriously
+blue. The air was sweet with the wild woodsy smell of the forest.
+
+Jessamine lifted and clasped her hands in rapture. "Oh, how lovely!"
+
+"Do you know where we're going?" said Mr. Bell delightedly. "Out to my
+farm at Pine Pastures. My aunt keeps house for me, and she'll be real
+glad to see you. You're just going to have a real good time this
+afternoon."
+
+They had a delightful drive to begin with, and presently Mr. Bell
+turned into a wide lane.
+
+"This is Cloverside Farm. I'm proud of it, I'll admit. There isn't a
+finer place in the county. What do you think of it?"
+
+"Oh, it is lovely--it is like home. Look at those great fields. I'd
+like to go and lie down in that clover."
+
+Mr. Bell lifted her from the wagon and marched her up a flowery garden
+path. "You shall do it, and everything else you want to. Here, Aunt,
+this is the young lady I spoke of. Make her at home while I tend to
+the horses."
+
+Miss Bell was a pleasant-faced woman with silver hair and kind blue
+eyes. She took Jessamine's hand in a friendly fashion.
+
+"Come in, dear. You're welcome as a June rose."
+
+When Mr. Bell returned, he found Jessamine standing on the porch with
+her hands full of honeysuckle and her cheeks pink with excitement.
+
+"I declare, you've got roses already," he exclaimed. "If they'd only
+stay now, and not bleach out again. What's first now?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know. There are so many things I want to do. Those
+flowers in the garden are calling me--and I want to go down to that
+hollow and pick buttercups--and I want to stay right here and look at
+things."
+
+Mr. Bell laughed. "Come with me to the pasture and see my Jersey
+calves. They're something worth seeing. Come, Aunt. This way, Miss
+Stacy."
+
+He led the way down the lane, the two women following together.
+Jessamine thought she must be in a pleasant dream. The whole afternoon
+was a feast of delight to her starved heart. When sunset came she sat
+down, tired out, but radiant, on the porch steps. Her hat had slipped
+back and her hair was curling around her face. Her dark eyes were
+aglow; the roses still bloomed in her cheeks.
+
+Mr. Bell looked at her admiringly. "If a man could see that pretty
+sight every night!" he thought. "And, Great Scott, why can't he?
+What's to prevent, I'd like to know?"
+
+When the moon rose, Mr. Bell brought his team around and they drove
+back through the clear night, past the wonderful stillness of the
+great beech woods and the wide fields. The farmer looked sideways at
+his companion.
+
+"The little thing wants to be petted and looked after," he thought.
+"She's just pining away for home and love. And why can't she have it?
+She's dying by inches in that hole back in town."
+
+Jessamine, quite unsuspecting the farmer's meditations, was living
+over again in fancy the joys of the afternoon: the ramble in the
+pasture, the drink of water from the spring under the hillside pines,
+the bountiful, old-fashioned country supper in the vine-shaded
+dining-room, the cup of new milk in the dairy at sunset, and all the
+glory of skies and meadows and trees. How could she go back to her
+cage again?
+
+
+The next week Mr. Bell, senior, resumed his visits, and the young
+farmer came no more to the side door of No. 49. Jessamine missed him
+greatly. Mr. Bell, senior, never brought her clover or honeysuckle.
+
+But one day his nephew suddenly reappeared. Jessamine opened the door
+for him, and her face lighted up, but Mr. Bell saw that she had been
+crying.
+
+"Did you think I had forgotten you?" he asked. "Not a bit of it.
+Harvest was on and I couldn't get clear before. I've come to ask you
+when you intend to take another drive to Cloverside Farm. What have
+you been up to? You look as if you'd been working too hard."
+
+"I--I--haven't felt very well. I'm glad you came today, Mr. Bell.
+Perhaps I shall not see you again, and I wanted to say goodbye and
+thank you for all your kindness."
+
+"Goodbye? Why, where are you going?"
+
+"My brother went west a week ago," faltered Jessamine. She could not
+bring herself to tell the clear-eyed farmer that John Stacy had failed
+and had been obliged to start for the west without saying goodbye to
+his creditors. "His wife and I--are going too--next week."
+
+"Oh, Jessamine," exclaimed Mr. Bell in despair, "don't go--you
+mustn't. I want you at Cloverside Farm. I came today on purpose to ask
+you. I love you and I'll make you happy if you'll marry me. What do
+you say, Jessamine?"
+
+Jessamine, by way of answer, sat down on the nearest chair and began
+to cry.
+
+"Oh, don't," said the wooer in distress. "I didn't want to make you
+feel bad. If you don't like the idea, I won't mention it again."
+
+"Oh, it isn't that--but I--I thought nobody cared what became of me.
+You are so kind--I'm afraid I'd only be a bother to you...."
+
+"I'll risk that. You shall have a happy home, little girl. Will you
+come to it?"
+
+"Ye-e-e-s." It was very indistinct and faltering, but Mr. Bell heard
+it and considered it a most eloquent answer.
+
+Mrs. John fumed and sulked and chose to consider herself hoodwinked
+and injured. But Mr. Bell was a resolute man, and a few days later he
+came for the last time to No. 49 and took his bride away with him.
+
+As they drove through the beech woods he put his arm tenderly around
+the shy, smiling little woman beside him and said, "You'll never be
+sorry for this, my dear."
+
+And she never was.
+
+
+
+
+Miss Sally's Letter
+
+
+Miss Sally peered sharply at Willard Stanley, first through her
+gold-rimmed glasses and then over them. Willard continued to look very
+innocent. Joyce got up abruptly and went out of the room.
+
+"So you have bought that queer little house with the absurd name?"
+said Miss Sally.
+
+"You surely don't call Eden an absurd name," protested Willard.
+
+"I do--for a house. Particularly such a house as that. Eden! There are
+no Edens on earth. And what are you going to do with it?"
+
+"Live in it."
+
+"Alone?"
+
+Miss Sally looked at him suspiciously.
+
+"No. The truth is, Miss Sally, I am hoping to be married in the fall
+and I want to fix up Eden for my bride."
+
+"Oh!" Miss Sally drew a long breath, partly it seemed of relief and
+partly of triumph, and looked at Joyce, who had returned, with an
+expression that said, "I told you so"; but Joyce, whose eyes were cast
+down, did not see it.
+
+"And," went on Willard calmly, "I want you to help me fix it up, Miss
+Sally. I don't know much about such things and you know everything.
+You will be able to tell me just what to do to make Eden habitable."
+
+Miss Sally looked as pleased as she ever allowed herself to look over
+anything a man suggested. It was the delight of her heart to plan and
+decorate and contrive. Her own house was a model of comfort and good
+taste, and Miss Sally was quite ready for new worlds to conquer.
+Instantly Eden assumed importance in her eyes. She might be sorry for
+the misguided bride who was rashly going to trust her life's keeping
+to a man, but she would see, at least, that the poor thing should have
+a decent place to begin her martyrdom in.
+
+"I'll be pleased to help you all I can," she said graciously.
+
+Miss Sally could speak very graciously when she chose, even to men.
+You would not have thought she hated them, but she did. In all
+sincerity, too. Also, she had brought her niece up to hate and
+distrust them. Or, she had tried to do so. But at times Miss Sally was
+troubled with an uncomfortable suspicion that Joyce did not hate and
+distrust men quite as thoroughly as she ought. The suspicion had
+recurred several times this summer since Willard Stanley had come to
+take charge of the biological station at the harbour. Miss Sally did
+not distrust Willard on his own account. She merely distrusted him on
+principle and on Joyce's account. Nevertheless, she was rather nice to
+him. Miss Sally, dear, trim, dainty Miss Sally, with her snow-white
+curls and her big girlish black eyes, couldn't help being nice, even
+to a man.
+
+Willard had come a great deal to Miss Sally's. If it were Joyce he
+were after Miss Sally blocked his schemes with much enjoyment. He
+never saw Joyce alone--that Miss Sally knew of, at least--and he did
+not make much apparent headway. But now all danger was removed, Miss
+Sally thought. He was going to be married to somebody else, and Joyce
+was safe.
+
+"Thank you," said Willard. "I'll come up tomorrow afternoon, and you
+and I will take a prowl about Eden and see what must be done. I'm ever
+so much obliged, Miss Sally."
+
+"I wonder who he is going to marry," said Miss Sally, careless of
+grammar, after he had gone. "Poor, poor girl!"
+
+"I don't see why you should pity her," said Joyce, not looking up from
+her embroidery. There was just the merest tremor in her voice. Miss
+Sally looked at her sharply.
+
+"I pity any woman who is foolish enough to marry," she said solemnly.
+"No man is to be trusted, Joyce--no man. They are all ready to break a
+trusting woman's heart for the sport of it. Never you allow any man
+the chance to break yours, Joyce. I shall never consent to your
+marrying anybody, so mind you don't take any such notion into your
+head. There oughtn't to be any danger, for I have instilled correct
+ideas on this subject into you from childhood. But girls are such
+fools. I know, because I was one myself once."
+
+"Of course, I would never marry without your consent, Aunt Sally,"
+said Joyce, smiling faintly but affectionately at her aunt. Joyce
+loved Miss Sally with her whole heart. Everybody did who knew her.
+There never was a more lovable creature than this pretty little old
+maid who hated the men so bitterly.
+
+"That's a good girl," said Miss Sally approvingly. "I own that I have
+been a little afraid that this Willard Stanley was coming here to see
+you. But my mind is set at rest on that point now, and I shall help
+him fix up his doll house with a clear conscience. Eden, indeed!"
+
+Miss Sally sniffed and tripped out of the room to hunt up a furniture
+catalogue. Joyce sighed and let her embroidery slip to the floor.
+
+"Oh, I'm afraid Willard's plan won't succeed," she murmured. "I'm
+afraid Aunt Sally will never consent to our marriage. And I can't and
+won't marry him unless she does, for she would never forgive me and I
+couldn't bear that. I wonder what makes her so bitter against men. She
+is so sweet and loving, it seems simply unnatural that she should have
+such a feeling so deeply rooted in her. Oh, what will she say when she
+finds out--dear little Aunt Sally? I couldn't bear to have her angry
+with me."
+
+The next day Willard came up from the harbour and took Miss Sally down
+to see Eden. Eden was a tiny, cornery, gabled grey house just across
+the road and down a long, twisted windy lane, skirting the edge of a
+beech wood. Nobody had lived in it for four years, and it had a
+neglected, out-at-elbow appearance.
+
+"It's rather a box of a place, isn't it?" said Willard slowly. "I'm
+afraid she will think so. But it is all I can afford just now. I
+dream of giving her a palace some day, of course. But we'll have to
+begin humbly. Do you think anything can be made of it?"
+
+Miss Sally was busily engaged in sizing up the possibilities of the
+place.
+
+"It is pretty small," she said meditatively. "And the yard is small
+too--and there are far too many trees and shrubs all messed up
+together. They must be thinned out--and that paling taken down. I
+think a good deal can be done with it. As for the house--well, let us
+see the inside."
+
+Willard unlocked the door and showed Miss Sally over the place. Miss
+Sally poked and pried and sniffed and wrinkled her forehead, and
+finally stood on the stairs and delivered her ultimatum.
+
+"This house can be done up very nicely. Paint and paper will work
+wonders. But I wouldn't paint it outside. Leave it that pretty silver
+weather-grey and plant vines to run over it. Oh, we'll see what we can
+do. Of course it is small--a kitchen, a dining room, a living room,
+and two bedrooms. You won't want anything stuffy. You can do the
+painting yourself, and I'll help you hang the paper. How much money
+can you spend on it?"
+
+Willard named the sum. It was not a large one.
+
+"But I think it will do," mused Miss Sally. "We'll _make_ it do.
+There's such satisfaction getting as much as you possibly can out of a
+dollar, and twice as much as anybody else would get. I enjoy that sort
+of thing. This will be a game, and we'll play it with a right good
+will. But I do wish you would give the place a sensible name."
+
+"I think Eden is the most appropriate name in the world," laughed
+Willard. "It will be Eden for me when she comes."
+
+"I suppose you tell her all that and she believes it," said Miss Sally
+sarcastically. "You'll both find out that there is a good deal more
+prose than poetry in life."
+
+"But we'll find it out _together_," said Willard tenderly. "Won't
+that be worth something, Miss Sally? Prose, rightly written and read,
+is sometimes as beautiful as poetry."
+
+Miss Sally deigned no reply. She carefully gathered up her grey silken
+skirts from the dusty floor and walked out. "Get Christina Bowes to
+come up tomorrow and scrub this place out," she said practically. "We
+can go to town and select paint and paper. I should like the dining
+room done in pale green and the living room in creamy tones, ranging
+from white to almost golden brown. But perhaps my taste won't be
+hers."
+
+"Oh, yes, it will," said Willard with assurance. "I am quite certain
+she will like everything you like. I can never thank you enough for
+helping me. If you hadn't consented I should have had to put it into
+the hands of some outsider whom I couldn't have helped at all. And I
+_wanted_ to help. I wanted to have a finger in everything, because it
+is for her, you see, Miss Sally. It will be such a delight to fix up
+this little house, knowing that she is coming to live in it."
+
+"I wonder if you really mean it," said Miss Sally bitterly. "Oh, I
+dare say you think you do. But _do_ you? Perhaps you do. Perhaps you
+are the exception that proves the rule."
+
+This was a great admission for Miss Sally to make.
+
+For the next two months Miss Sally was happy. Even Willard himself was
+not more keenly interested in Eden and its development. Miss Sally did
+wonders with his money. She was an expert at bargain hunting, and her
+taste was excellent. A score of times she mercilessly nipped Willard's
+suggestions in the bud. "Lace curtains for the living room--never!
+They would be horribly out of place in such a house. You don't want
+curtains at all--just a frill is all that quaint window needs, with a
+shelf above it for a few bits of pottery. I picked up a love of a
+brass platter in town yesterday--got it for next to nothing from that
+old Jew who would really rather _give_ you a thing than suffer you to
+escape without taking something. Oh, I know how to manage them."
+
+"You certainly do," laughed Willard. "It amazes me to see how far you
+can stretch a dollar."
+
+Willard did the painting under Miss Sally's watchful eye, and they
+hung the paper together. Together they made trips to town or junketed
+over the country in search of furniture and dishes of which Miss Sally
+had heard. Day by day the little house blossomed into a home, and day
+by day Miss Sally's interest in it grew. She began to have a personal
+affection for its quaint rooms and their adornments. Moreover, in
+spite of herself, she felt a growing interest in Willard's bride. He
+never told her the name of the girl he hoped to bring to Eden, and
+Miss Sally never asked it. But he talked of her a great deal, in a
+shy, reverent, tender way.
+
+"He certainly seems to be very much in love with her," Miss Sally told
+Joyce one evening when she returned from Eden. "I would believe in him
+if it were possible for me to believe in a man. Anyway, she will have
+a dear little home. I've almost come to love that Eden house. Why
+don't you come down and see it, Joyce?"
+
+"Oh, I'll come some day--I hope," said Joyce lightly. "I think I'd
+rather not see it until it is finished."
+
+"Willard is a nice boy," said Miss Sally suddenly. "I don't think I
+ever did him justice before. The finer qualities of his character come
+out in these simple, homely little doings and tasks. He is certainly
+very thoughtful and kind. Oh, I suppose he'll make a good husband, as
+husbands go. But he doesn't know the first thing about managing. If
+his wife isn't a good manager, I don't know what they'll do. And
+perhaps she won't like the way we've done up Eden. Willard says she
+will, of course, because he thinks her perfection. But she may have
+dreadful taste and want the lace curtains and that nightmare of a pink
+rug Willard admired, and I dare say she'd rather have a new flaunting
+set of china with rosebuds on it than that dear old dull blue I picked
+up for a mere song down at the Aldenbury auction. I stood in the rain
+for two mortal hours to make sure of it, and it was really worth all
+that Willard has spent on the dining room put together. It will break
+my heart if she sets to work altering Eden. It's simply perfect as it
+is--though I suppose I shouldn't say it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In another week Eden was finished. Miss Sally stood in the tiny hall
+and looked about her.
+
+"Well, it is done," she said with a sigh. "I'm sorry. I have enjoyed
+fixing it up tremendously, and now I feel that my occupation is gone.
+I hope you are satisfied, Willard."
+
+"Satisfied is too mild a word, Miss Sally. I am delighted. I knew you
+could accomplish wonders, but I never hoped for _this_. Eden is a
+dream--the dearest, quaintest, sweetest little home that ever waited
+for a bride. When I bring her here--oh, Miss Sally, do you know what
+that thought means to me?"
+
+Miss Sally looked curiously at the young man. His face was flushed and
+his voice trembled a little. There was a far-away shining look in his
+eyes as if he saw a vision.
+
+"I hope you and she will be happy," said Miss Sally slowly. "When will
+she be coming, Willard?"
+
+The flush went out of Willard's face, leaving it pale and determined.
+
+"That is for her--and you--to say," he answered steadily.
+
+"Me!" exclaimed Miss Sally. "What have I to do with it?"
+
+"A great deal--for unless you consent she will never come here at
+all."
+
+"Willard Stanley," said Miss Sally, with ominous calm, "who is the
+girl you mean to marry?"
+
+"The girl I _hope_ to marry is Joyce, Miss Sally. Wait--don't say
+anything till you hear me out." He came close to her and caught her
+hands in a boyish grip. "Joyce and I have loved each other ever since
+we met. But we despaired of winning your consent, and Joyce will not
+marry me without it. I thought if I could get you to help me fix up my
+little home that you might get so interested in it--and so well
+acquainted with me--that you would trust me with Joyce. Please do,
+Miss Sally. I love her so truly and I know I can make her happy. If
+you don't, Eden shall never have a mistress. I'll shut it up, just as
+it is, and leave it sacred to the dead hope of a bride that will never
+come to it."
+
+"Oh, you wouldn't," protested Miss Sally. "It would be a shame--such a
+dear little house--and after all the trouble I've taken. But you have
+tricked me--oh, you men couldn't be straightforward in anything--"
+
+"Wasn't it a fair device for a desperate lover, Miss Sally?"
+interrupted Willard. "Oh, you mustn't hold spite because of it, dear;
+And you will give me Joyce, won't you? Because if you don't, I really
+will shut up Eden forever."
+
+Miss Sally looked wistfully around her. Through the open door on her
+left she saw the little living room with its quaint, comfortable
+furniture, its dainty pictures and adornments. Through the front door
+she saw the trim, velvet-swarded little lawn. Upstairs were two white
+rooms that only wanted a woman's living presence to make them jewels.
+And the kitchen on which she had expended so much thought and
+ingenuity--the kitchen furnished to the last detail, even to the
+kindling in the range and the match Willard had laid ready to light
+it! It gave Miss Sally a pang to think of that altar fire never being
+lighted. It was really the thought of the kitchen that finished Miss
+Sally.
+
+"You've tricked me," she said again reproachfully. "You've tricked me
+into loving this house so much that I cannot bear the thought of it
+never living. You'll have to have Joyce, I suppose. And I believe I'm
+glad that it isn't a stranger who is to be the mistress of Eden. Joyce
+won't hanker after pink rugs and lace curtains. And her taste in china
+is the same as mine. In one way it's a great relief to my mind. But
+it's a fearful risk--a fearful risk. To think that you may make my
+dear child miserable!"
+
+"You know you don't think that I will, Miss Sally. I'm not really such
+a bad fellow, now, am I?"
+
+"You are a man--and I have no confidence whatever in men," declared
+Miss Sally, wiping some very real tears from her eyes with a very
+unreal sort of handkerchief--one of the cobwebby affairs of lace her
+daintiness demanded.
+
+"Miss Sally, why have you such a rooted distrust of men?" demanded
+Willard curiously. "Somehow, it seems so foreign to your character."
+
+"I suppose you think I am a perfect crank," said Miss Sally, sighing.
+"Well, I'll tell you why I don't trust men. I have a very good reason
+for it. A man broke my heart and embittered my life. I've never spoken
+about it to a living soul, but if you want to hear about it, you
+shall."
+
+Miss Sally sat down on the second step of the stairs and tucked her
+wet handkerchief away. She clasped her slender white hands over her
+knee. In spite of her silvery hair and the little lines on her face
+she looked girlish and youthful. There was a pink flush on her cheeks,
+and her big black eyes sparkled with the anger her memories aroused in
+her.
+
+"I was a young girl of twenty when I met him," she said, "and I was
+just as foolish as all young girls are--foolish and romantic and
+sentimental. He was very handsome and I thought him--but there, I
+won't go into that. It vexes me to recall my folly. But I loved
+him--yes, I did, with all my heart--with all there was of me to love.
+He made me love him. He deliberately set himself to win my love. For a
+whole summer he flirted with me. I didn't know he was flirting--I
+thought him in earnest. Oh, I was such a little fool--and so happy.
+Then--he went away. Went away suddenly without even a word of goodbye.
+But he had been summoned home by his father's serious illness, and I
+thought he would write--I waited--I hoped. I never heard from
+him--never saw him again. He had tired of his plaything and flung it
+aside. That is all," concluded Miss Sally passionately. "I never
+trusted any man again. When my sister died and gave me her baby, I
+determined to bring the dear child up safely, training her to avoid
+the danger I had fallen into. Well, I've failed. But perhaps it will
+be all right--perhaps there are some men who are true, though Stephen
+Merritt was false."
+
+"Stephen--who?" demanded Willard abruptly. Miss Sally coloured.
+
+"I didn't mean to tell you his name," she said, getting up. "It was a
+slip of the tongue. Never mind--forget it and him. He was not worthy
+of remembrance--and yet I do remember him. I can't forget him--and I
+hate him all the more for it--for having entered so deeply into my
+life that I could not cast him out when I knew him unworthy. It is
+humiliating. There--let us lock up Eden and go home. I suppose you are
+dying to see Joyce and tell her your precious plot has succeeded."
+
+Willard did not appear to be at all impatient. He had relapsed into a
+brown study, during which he let Miss Sally lock up the house. Then he
+walked silently home with her. Miss Sally was silent too. Perhaps she
+was repenting her confidence--or perhaps she was thinking of her false
+lover. There was a pathetic droop to her lips, and her black eyes were
+sad and dreamy.
+
+"Miss Sally," said Willard at last, as they neared her house, "had
+Stephen Merritt any sisters?"
+
+Miss Sally threw him a puzzled glance.
+
+"He had one--Jean Merritt--whom I disliked and who disliked me," she
+said crisply. "I don't want to talk of her--she was the only woman I
+ever hated. I never met any of the other members of his family--his
+home was in a distant part of the state."
+
+Willard stayed with Joyce so brief a time that Miss Sally viewed his
+departure with suspicion. This was not very lover-like conduct.
+
+"I dare say he's like all the rest--when his aim is attained the
+prize loses its value," reflected Miss Sally pessimistically. "Poor
+Joyce--poor child! But there--there isn't a single inharmonious thing
+in his house--that is one comfort. I'm so thankful I didn't let
+Willard buy those brocade chairs he wanted. They would have given
+Joyce the nightmare."
+
+Meanwhile, Willard rushed down to the biological station and from
+there drove furiously to the station to catch the evening express. He
+did not return until three days later, when he appeared at Miss
+Sally's, dusty and triumphant.
+
+"Joyce is out," said Miss Sally.
+
+"I'm glad of it," said Willard recklessly. "It's you I want to see,
+Miss Sally. I have something to show you. I've been all the way home
+to get it."
+
+From his pocketbook Willard drew something folded and creased and
+yellow that looked like a letter. He opened it carefully and, holding
+it in his fingers, looked over it at Miss Sally.
+
+"My grandmother's maiden name was Jean Merritt," he said deliberately,
+"and Stephen Merritt was my great-uncle. I never saw him--he died when
+I was a child--but I've heard my father speak of him often."
+
+Miss Sally turned very pale. She passed her cobwebby handkerchief
+across her lips and her hand trembled. Willard went on.
+
+"My uncle never married. He and his sister Jean lived together until
+her late marriage. I was not very fond of my grandmother. She was a
+selfish, domineering woman--very unlike the grandmother of tradition.
+When she died everything she possessed came to me, as my father, her
+only child, was then dead. In looking over a box of old papers I found
+a letter--an old love letter. I read it with some interest, wondering
+whose it could be and how it came among Grandmother's private letters.
+It was signed 'Stephen,' so that I guessed my great-uncle had been the
+writer, but I had no idea who the Sally was to whom it was written,
+until the other day. Then I knew it was you--and I went home to bring
+you your letter--the letter you should have received long ago. Why
+you did not receive it I cannot explain. I fear that my grandmother
+must have been to blame for that--she must have intercepted and kept
+the letter in order to part her brother and you. In so far as I can I
+wish to repair the wrong she has done you. I know it can never be
+repaired--but at least I think this letter will take the bitterness
+out of the memory of your lover."
+
+He dropped the letter in Miss Sally's lap and went away.
+
+Pale, Miss Sally picked it up and read it. It was from Stephen Merritt
+to "dearest Sally," and contained a frank, manly avowal of love. Would
+she be his wife? If she would, let her write and tell him so. But if
+she did not and could not love him, let her silence reveal the bitter
+fact; he would wish to spare her the pain of putting her refusal into
+words, and if she did not write he would understand that she was not
+for him.
+
+When Willard and Joyce came back into the twilight room they found
+Miss Sally still sitting by the table, her head leaning pensively on
+her hand. She had been crying--the cobwebby handkerchief lay beside
+her, wrecked and ruined forever--but she looked very happy.
+
+"I wonder if you know what you have done for me," she said to Willard.
+"But no--you can't know--you can't realize it fully. It means
+everything to me. You have taken away my humiliation and restored to
+me my pride of womanhood. He really loved me--he was not false--he was
+what I believed him to be. Nothing else matters to me at all now. Oh,
+I am very happy--but it would never have been if I had not consented
+to give you Joyce."
+
+She rose and took their hands in hers, joining them.
+
+"God bless you, dears," she said softly. "I believe you will be happy
+and that your love for each other will always be true and faithful and
+tender. Willard, I give you my dear child in perfect trust and
+confidence."
+
+With her yellowed love letter clasped to her heart, and a raptured
+shining in her eyes, Miss Sally went out of the room.
+
+
+
+
+My Lady Jane
+
+
+The boat got into Broughton half an hour after the train had gone. We
+had been delayed by some small accident to the machinery; hence that
+lost half-hour, which meant a night's sojourn for me in Broughton. I
+am ashamed of the things I thought and said. When I think that fate
+might have taken me at my word and raised up a special train, or some
+such miracle, by which I might have got away from Broughton that
+night, I experience a cold chill. Out of gratitude I have never sworn
+over missing connections since.
+
+At the time, however, I felt thoroughly exasperated. I was in a hurry
+to get on. Important business engagements would be unhinged by the
+delay. I was a stranger in Broughton. It looked like a stupid, stuffy
+little town. I went to a hotel in an atrocious humor. After I had
+fumed until I wanted a change, it occurred to me that I might as well
+hunt up Clark Oliver by way of passing the time. I had never been
+overly fond of Clark Oliver, although he was my cousin. He was a bit
+of a cad, and stupider than anyone belonging to our family had a right
+to be. Moreover, he was in politics, and I detest politics. But I
+rather wanted to see if he looked as much like me as he used to. I
+hadn't seen him for three years and I hoped that the time might have
+differentiated us to a saving degree. It was over a year since I had
+last been blown up by some unknown, excited individual on the ground
+that I was that scoundrel Oliver--politically speaking. I thought that
+was a good omen.
+
+I went to Clark's office, found he had left, and followed him to his
+rooms. The minute I saw him I experienced the same nasty feeling of
+lost or bewildered individuality which always overcame me in his
+presence. He was so absurdly like me. I felt as if I were looking into
+a mirror where my reflection persisted in doing things I didn't do,
+thereby producing a most uncanny sensation.
+
+Clark pretended he was glad to see me. He really couldn't have been,
+because his Great Idea hadn't struck him then, and we had always
+disliked each other.
+
+"Hello, Elliott," he said, shaking me by the hand with a twist he had
+learned in election campaigns, whereby something like heartiness was
+simulated. "Glad to see you, old fellow. Gad, you're as like me as
+ever. Where did you drop from?"
+
+I explained my predicament and we talked amiably and harmlessly for
+awhile about family gossip. I abhor family gossip, but it is a shade
+better than politics, and those two subjects are the only ones on
+which Clark can converse at all. I described Mary Alice's wedding, and
+Florence's new young man, and Tom-and-Kate's twins. Clark tried to be
+interested but I saw he had something on what serves him for a mind.
+After awhile it came out. He looked at his watch with a frown.
+
+"I'm in a bit of a puzzle," he said. "The Mark Kennedys are giving a
+dinner to-night. You don't know them, of course. They're the big
+people of Broughton. Kennedy runs the politics of the place, and Mrs.
+K. makes or mars people socially. It's my first invitation there and
+it's necessary I should accept it--necessary every way. Mrs. K. would
+never forgive me if I disappointed her at the last moment. Not that I,
+personally, am of much account--yet--to her. But it would leave a
+vacant place. Mrs. K. would never notice me again and, as she bosses
+Kennedy, I can't afford to offend her. Besides, there's a girl who'll
+be there. I've met her once. I want to meet her again. She's a beauty
+and no mistake. Toplofty as they make 'em, though. However, I think
+I've made an impression on her. It was at the Harvey's dance last
+week. She was the handsomest woman there, and she never took her eyes
+off me. I've given Mrs. Kennedy a pretty broad hint that I want to
+take her in to dinner. If I don't go I'll miss all round."
+
+"Well, what is there to prevent you from going?" I asked, squiffily. I
+never could endure the way Clark talked about girls and hinted at his
+conquests.
+
+"Just this. Herbert Bronson came to town this afternoon and is leaving
+on the 10.30 train to-night. He's sent me word to meet him at his
+hotel this evening and talk over a mining deal I've been trying to
+pull off. I simply must go. It's my one chance to corral Bronson. If I
+lose him it'll be all up, and I'll be thousands out of pocket."
+
+"Well, you _are_ in rather a predicament," I agreed, with the
+philosophical acceptance of the situation that marks the outsider. _I_
+wasn't hampered by the multiplicity of my business and social
+engagements that evening, so I could afford to pity Clark. It is
+always rather nice to be able to pity a person you dislike.
+
+"I should say so. I can't make up my mind what to do. Hang it. I'll
+_have_ to see Bronson. There's no question about that. A man ought to
+keep an understood substitute on hand to send to dinners when he can't
+go. By Jove! Elliott!"
+
+Clark's Great Idea had arrived. He bounced up eagerly.
+
+"Elliott, will _you_ go to the Kennedys' in my place? They'll never
+know the difference. Do, now--there's a good fellow!"
+
+"Nonsense!" I said.
+
+"It isn't nonsense. The resemblance between us was foreordained for
+this hour. I'll lend you my dress suit--it'll fit you--your figure is
+as much like mine as your face. You've nothing to do with yourself
+this evening. I offer you a good dinner and an agreeable partner. Come
+now, to oblige me. You know you owe me a good turn for that Mulhenen
+business."
+
+The Mulhenen business clinched the matter. Until he mentioned it I
+had no notion whatever of masquerading as Clark Oliver at the
+Kennedys' dinner. But, as Clark so delicately put it, he had done me a
+good turn in that affair and the obligation had rankled ever since. It
+is beastly to be indebted for a favor to a man you detest. Now was my
+chance to pay it off and I took it without more ado.
+
+"But," I said doubtfully, "I don't know the Kennedys--nor any of the
+social stunts that are doing in Broughton; I won't dare to talk about
+anything, and I'll seem so stupid, even if I don't actually make some
+irremediable blunder, that the Kennedys will be disgusted with you. It
+will probably do your prospects more harm than your absence would."
+
+"Not at all. Keep your mouth shut when you can and talk generalities
+when you can't, and you'll pass. If you take that girl in she's a
+stranger in Broughton and won't suspect your ignorance of what's going
+on. Nobody will suspect you. Nobody here knows I have a cousin so like
+me. Our own mothers haven't always been able to tell us apart. Our
+very voices are alike. Come now, get into my dinner togs. You haven't
+much time and Mrs. K. doesn't like late comers."
+
+There seemed to be a number of things that Mrs. Kennedy did not like.
+I thought my chance of pleasing that critical lady extremely small,
+especially when I had to live up to Clark Oliver's personality.
+However, I dressed as expeditiously as possible. The novelty of the
+adventure rather pleased me. I always liked doing unusual things.
+Anything was better than lounging away the evening at my hotel. It
+couldn't do any harm. I owed Clark Oliver a good turn and I would save
+Mrs. Kennedy the annoyance of a vacant chair.
+
+There was no disputing the fact that I looked most disgustingly like
+Clark when I got into his clothes. I actually felt a grudge against
+them for their excellent fit.
+
+"You'll do," said Clark. "Remember you're a Conservative to-night and
+don't let your rank Liberal views crop out, or you'll queer me for
+all time with the great and only Mark. He doesn't talk politics at his
+dinners, though, so you're not likely to have trouble on that score.
+Mrs. Kennedy has a weakness for beer mugs. Her collection is
+considered very fine. Scandal whispers that Miss Harvey has a budding
+interest in settlement work--"
+
+"Miss who?" I said sharply.
+
+"Harvey. Christian name unknown. That's the girl I mentioned. You'll
+probably take her in. Be nice to her even if you have to make an
+effort. She's the one I've picked out as your future cousin, you know,
+so I don't want you to spoil her good opinion of me in any way."
+
+The name had given me a jump. Once, in another world, I had known a
+Jane Harvey. But Clark's Miss Harvey couldn't be Jane. A month before
+I had read a newspaper item to the effect that Jane was on the Pacific
+coast. Moreover, Jane, when I knew her, had certainly no manifest
+vocation for settlement work. I didn't think two years could have
+worked such a transformation. Two years! Was it only two years? It
+seemed more like two centuries.
+
+I went to the Kennedys' in a pleasantly excited frame of mind and a
+cab. I just missed being late by a hairbreadth. The house was a big
+one, and everybody pertaining to it was big, except the host. Mark
+Kennedy was a little, thin man with a bald head. He didn't look like a
+political power, but that was all the more reason for his being one in
+a world where things are not what they seem.
+
+Mrs. Kennedy greeted me cordially and told me significantly that she
+had granted my request. This meant, as my card had already informed
+me, that I was to take Miss Harvey out. Of course there would be no
+introduction since Clark Oliver was already acquainted with the lady.
+I was wondering how I was to locate her when I got a shock that made
+me dizzy. Jane was over in a corner looking at me.
+
+There was no time to collect my wits. The guests were moving out to
+the dining-room. I took my nerve in my hand, crossed the room, bowed,
+and the next moment was walking through the hall with Jane's hand on
+my arm. The hall was a good long one; I blessed the architect who had
+planned it. It gave me time to sort out my ideas.
+
+Jane here! Jane going out to dinner with me, believing me to be Clark
+Oliver! Jane--but it was incredible! The whole thing was a dream--or I
+had gone crazy!
+
+I looked at her sideways when we had got into our places at the table.
+She was more beautiful than ever, that tall, brown-haired, disdainful
+Jane. The settlement work story I was inclined to dismiss as a myth.
+Settlement work in a beautiful woman generally means crowsfeet or a
+broken heart. Jane, according to my sight and belief, possessed
+neither.
+
+Once upon a time I had been engaged to Jane. I had been idiotically in
+love with her in those days and still more idiotically believed that
+she loved me. The trouble was that, although I had been cured of the
+latter phase of my idiocy, the former had become chronic. I had never
+been able to get over loving Jane. All through those two years I had
+hugged the fond hope that sometime I might stumble across her in a
+mild mood and make matters up. There was no such thing as seeking her
+out or writing to her, since she had icily forbidden me to do so, and
+Jane had a most detestable habit--in a woman--of meaning what she
+said. But the deity I had invoked was the god of chance--and this was
+how he had answered my prayers. I was eating my dinner beside Jane,
+who supposed me to be Clark Oliver!
+
+What should I do? Confess the truth and plead my cause while she had
+to sit beside me? That would never do. Someone might overhear us. And,
+in any case, it would be no passport to Jane's favor that I was a
+guest in the house under false pretences. She would be certain to
+disapprove strongly. It was a maddening situation.
+
+Jane, who was calmly eating soup--she was the only woman I had ever
+seen who could eat soup and look like a goddess at the same
+time--glanced around and caught me studying her profile. I thought she
+blushed slightly and I raged inwardly to think that blush was meant
+for Clark Oliver--Clark Oliver who had told me he thought Jane was
+smitten on him! Jane! On him!
+
+"Do you know, Mr. Oliver," said Jane slowly, "that you are startlingly
+like a--a person I used to know? When I first saw you the other night
+I took you for him."
+
+A _person_ you used to know! Oh, Jane, that was the most unkindest cut
+of all.
+
+"My cousin, Elliott Cameron, I suppose?" I answered as indifferently
+as I could. "We resemble each other very closely. You were acquainted
+with Cameron, Miss Harvey?"
+
+"Slightly," said Jane.
+
+"A fine fellow," I said unblushingly.
+
+"A-h," said Jane.
+
+"My favorite relative," I went on brazenly. "He's a thoroughly good
+sort--rather dull now to what he used to be, though. He had an
+unfortunate love affair two years ago and has never got over it."
+
+"Indeed?" said Jane coldly, crumbling a bit of bread between her
+fingers. Her face was expressionless and her voice ditto; but I had
+heard her criticize nervous people who did things like that at table.
+
+"I fear poor Elliott's life has been completely spoiled," I said, with
+a sigh. "It's a shame."
+
+"Did he confide the affair to you?" asked Jane, a little scornfully.
+
+"Well, after a fashion. He said enough for me to guess the rest. He
+never told me the lady's name. She was very beautiful, I understand,
+and very heartless. Oh, she used him very badly."
+
+"Did he tell you that, too?" asked Jane.
+
+"Not he. He won't listen to a word against her. But a chap can draw
+his own conclusions, you know."
+
+"What went wrong between them?" asked Jane. She smiled at a lady
+across the table, as if she were merely asking questions to make
+conversation, but she went on crumbling bread.
+
+"Simply a very stiff quarrel, I believe. Elliott never went into
+details. The lady was flirting with somebody else, I fancy."
+
+"People have such different ideas about flirting," said Jane,
+languidly. "What one would call mere simple friendliness another
+construes into flirting. Possibly your friend--or is it your
+cousin?--is one of those men who become insanely jealous over every
+trifle and attempt to exert authority before they have any to exert. A
+woman of spirit would hardly fail to resent that."
+
+"Of course Elliott was jealous," I admitted. "But then, you know, Miss
+Harvey, that jealousy is said to be the measure of a man's love. If he
+went beyond his rights I am sure he is bitterly sorry for it."
+
+"Does he really care about her still?" asked Jane, eating most
+industriously, although somehow the contents of her plate did not grow
+noticeably less. As for me, I didn't pretend to eat. I simply pecked.
+
+"He loves her with all his heart," I answered fervently. "There never
+has been and never will be any other woman for Elliott Cameron."
+
+"Why doesn't he go and tell her so?" inquired Jane, as if she felt
+rather bored over the whole subject.
+
+"He doesn't dare to. She forbade him ever to cross her path again.
+Told him she hated him and always would hate him as long as she
+lived."
+
+"She must have been an unpleasantly emphatic young woman," commented
+Jane.
+
+"I'd like to hear anyone say so to Elliott," I responded. "He
+considers her perfection. I'm sorry for Elliott. His life is wrecked."
+
+"Do you know," said Jane slowly, as if poking about in the recesses of
+her memory for something half forgotten. "I believe I know the--the
+girl in question."
+
+"Really?" I said.
+
+"Yes, she is a friend of mine. She--she never told me his name, but
+putting two and two together, I believe it must have been your cousin.
+But she--she thinks she was the one to blame."
+
+"Does she?" It was my turn to ask questions now, but my heart thumped
+so that I could hardly speak.
+
+"Yes, she says she was too hasty and unreasonable. She didn't mean to
+flirt at all--and she never cared for anyone but--him. But his
+jealousy irritated her. I suppose she said things to him she didn't
+really mean. She--she never supposed he was going to take her at her
+word."
+
+"Do you think she cares for him still?" Considering what was at stake,
+I think I asked the question very well.
+
+"I think she must," said Jane languidly. "She has never looked at any
+other man. She devotes most of her time to charitable work, but I feel
+sure she isn't really happy."
+
+So the settlement story was true. Oh, Jane!
+
+"What would you advise my cousin to do?" I asked. "Do you think he
+should go boldly to her? Would she listen to him--forgive him?"
+
+"She might," said Jane.
+
+"Have I your permission to tell Elliott Cameron this?" I demanded.
+
+Jane selected and ate an olive with maddening deliberation.
+
+"I suppose you may--if you are really convinced that he wants to hear
+it," she said at last, as if barely recollecting that I had asked the
+question two minutes previously.
+
+"I'll tell him as soon as I go home," I said.
+
+I had the satisfaction of startling Jane at last. She turned her head
+and looked at me. I got a good, square, satisfying gaze into her big,
+blackish-blue eyes.
+
+"Yes," I said, compelling myself to look away. "He came in on the boat
+this afternoon too late for his train. Has to stay over till to-morrow
+night. I left him in my rooms when I came away. Doubtless to-morrow
+will see him speeding recklessly to his dear divinity. I wonder if he
+knows where she is at present."
+
+"If he doesn't," said Jane, with the air of dismissing the subject
+once and forever from her mind, "I can give him the information. You
+may tell him I'm staying with the Duncan Moores, and shall be leaving
+day after to-morrow. By the way, have you seen Mrs. Kennedy's
+collection of steins? It is a remarkably fine one."
+
+Clark Oliver couldn't come to our wedding--or wouldn't. Jane has never
+met him since, but she cannot understand why I have such an aversion to
+him, especially when he has such a good opinion of me. She says she
+thought him charming, and one of the most interesting conversationalists
+she ever went out to dinner with.
+
+
+
+
+Robert Turner's Revenge
+
+
+When Robert Turner came to the green, ferny triangle where the station
+road forked to the right and left under the birches, he hesitated as
+to which direction he would take. The left led out to the old Turner
+homestead, where he had spent his boyhood and where his cousin still
+lived; the right led down to the Cove shore where the Jameson property
+was situated. Since he had stopped off at Chiswick for the purpose of
+looking this property over before foreclosing the mortgage on it he
+concluded that he might as well take the Cove road; he could go around
+by the shore afterward--he had not forgotten the way even in forty
+years--and so on up through the old spruce wood in Alec Martin's
+field--if the spruces were there still and the field still Alec
+Martin's--to his cousin's place. He would just about have time to make
+the round before the early country supper hour. Then a brief visit
+with Tom--Tom had always been a good sort of a fellow although
+woefully dull and slow-going--and the evening express for Montreal. He
+swung with a businesslike stride into the Cove road.
+
+As he went on, however, the stride insensibly slackened into an
+unaccustomed saunter. How well he remembered that old road, although
+it was forty years since he had last traversed it, a set-lipped boy of
+fifteen, cast on the world by the indifference of an uncle. The years
+had made surprisingly little difference in it or in the surrounding
+scenery. True, the hills and fields and lanes seemed lower and smaller
+and narrower than he remembered them; there were some new houses along
+the road, and the belt of woods along the back of the farms had become
+thinner in most places. But that was all. He had no difficulty in
+picking out the old familiar spots. There was the big cherry orchard
+on the Milligan place which had been so famous in his boyhood. It was
+snow-white with blossoms, as if the trees were possessed of eternal
+youth; they had been in blossom the last time he had seen them. Well,
+time had not stood still with him as it had with Luke Milligan's
+cherry orchard, he reflected grimly. His springtime had long gone by.
+
+The few people he met on the road looked at him curiously, for
+strangers were not commonplace in Chiswick. He recognized some of the
+older among them but none of them knew him. He had been an awkward,
+long-limbed lad with fresh boyish colour and crisp black curls when he
+had left Chiswick. He returned to it a somewhat portly figure of a
+man, with close-cropped, grizzled hair, and a face that looked as if
+it might be carved out of granite, so immobile and unyielding it
+was--the face of a man who never faltered or wavered, who stuck at
+nothing that might advance his plans and purposes, a face known and
+dreaded in the business world where he reigned master. It was a cold,
+hard, selfish face, but the face of the boy of forty years ago had
+been neither cold nor hard nor selfish.
+
+Presently the homesteads and orchard lands grew fewer and then ceased
+altogether. The fields were long and low-lying, sloping down to the
+misty blue rim of sea. A turn of the road brought him in sudden sight
+of the Cove, and there below him was the old Jameson homestead, built
+almost within wave-lap of the pebbly shore and shut away into a lonely
+grey world of its own by the sea and sands and those long slopes of
+tenantless fields.
+
+He paused at the sagging gate that opened into the long, deep-rutted
+lane and, folding his arms on it, looked earnestly and scrutinizingly
+over the buildings. They were grey and faded, lacking the prosperous
+appearance that had characterized them once. There was an air of
+failure about the whole place as if the very land had become
+disheartened and discouraged.
+
+Long ago, Neil Jameson, senior, had been a well-to-do man. The big
+Cove farm had been one of the best in Chiswick then. As for Neil
+Jameson, Junior, Robert Turner's face always grew something grimmer
+when he recalled him--the one person, boy and man, whom he had really
+hated in the world. They had been enemies from childhood, and once in
+a bout of wrestling at the Chiswick school Neil had thrown him by an
+unfair trick and taunted him continually thereafter on his defeat.
+Robert had made a compact with himself that some day he would pay Neil
+Jameson back. He had not forgotten it--he never forgot such
+things--but he had never seen or heard of Neil Jameson after leaving
+Chiswick. He might have been dead for anything Robert Turner knew.
+Then, when John Kesley failed and his effects turned over to his
+creditors, of whom Robert Turner was the chief, a mortgage on the Cove
+farm at Chiswick, owned by Neil Jameson, had been found among his
+assets. Inquiry revealed the fact that Neil Jameson was dead and that
+the farm was run by his widow. Turner felt a pang of disappointment.
+What satisfaction was there in wreaking revenge on a dead man? But at
+least his wife and children should suffer. That debt of his to Jameson
+for an ill-won victory and many a sneer must be paid in full, if not
+to him, why, then to his heirs.
+
+His lawyers reported that Mrs. Jameson was two years behind with her
+interest. Turner instructed them to foreclose the mortgage promptly.
+Then he took it into his head to revisit Chiswick and have a good look
+at the Cove farm and other places he knew so well. He had a notion
+that it might be a decent place to spend a summer month or two in. His
+wife went to seaside and mountain resorts, but he liked something
+quieter. There was good fishing at the Cove and in Chiswick pond, as
+he remembered. If he liked the farm as well as his memory promised him
+he would do, he would bid it in himself. It would make Neil Jameson
+turn in his grave if the penniless lad he had jeered at came into the
+possession of his old ancestral property that had been owned by a
+Jameson for over one hundred years. There was a flavour in such a
+revenge that pleased Robert Turner. He smiled one of his occasional
+grim smiles over it. When Robert Turner smiled, weather prophets of
+the business sky foretold squalls.
+
+Presently he opened the gate and went through. Halfway down the lane
+forked, one branch going over to the house, the other slanting across
+the field to the cove. Turner took the latter and soon found himself
+on the grey shore where the waves were tumbling in creamy foam just as
+he remembered them long ago. Nothing about the old cove had changed;
+he walked around a knobby headland, weather-worn with the wind and
+spray of years, which cut him off from sight of the Jameson house, and
+sat down on a rock. He thought himself alone and was annoyed to find a
+boy sitting on the opposite ledge with a book on his knee.
+
+The lad lifted his eyes and looked Turner over with a clear, direct
+gaze. He was about twelve years old, tall for his age, slight, with a
+delicate, clear-cut face--a face that was oddly familiar to Turner,
+although he was sure he had never seen it before. The boy had oval
+cheeks, finely tinted with colour, big, shy blue eyes quilled about
+with long black lashes, and silvery-golden hair lying over his head in
+soft ringlets like a girl's. What girl's? Something far back in Robert
+Turner's dreamlike boyhood seemed to call to him like a note of a
+forgotten melody, sweet yet stirring like a pain. The more he looked
+at the boy the stronger the impression of a resemblance grew in every
+feature but the mouth. That was alien to his recollection of the face,
+yet there was something about it, when taken by itself, that seemed
+oddly familiar also--yes, and unpleasantly familiar, although the
+mouth was a good one--finely cut and possessing more firmness than was
+found in all the other features put together.
+
+"It's a good place for reading, sonny, isn't it?" he inquired, more
+genially than he had spoken to a child for years. In fact, having no
+children of his own, he so seldom spoke to a child that his voice and
+manner when he did so were generally awkward and rusty.
+
+The boy nodded a quick little nod. Somehow, Turner had expected that
+nod and the glimmer of a smile that accompanied it.
+
+"What book are you reading?" he asked.
+
+The boy held it out; it was an old _Robinson Crusoe_, that classic of
+boyhood.
+
+"It's splendid," he said. "Billy Martin lent it to me and I have to
+finish it today because Ned Josephs is to have it next and he's in a
+hurry for it."
+
+"It's a good while since I read _Robinson Crusoe_," said Turner
+reflectively. "But when I did it was on this very shore a little
+further along below the Miller place. There was a Martin and a Josephs
+in the partnership then too--the fathers, I dare say, of Billy and
+Ned. What is your name, my boy?"
+
+"Paul Jameson, sir."
+
+The name was a shock to Turner. This boy a Jameson--Neil Jameson's
+son? Why, yes, he had Neil's mouth. Strange he had nothing else in
+common with the black-browed, black-haired Jamesons. What business had
+a Jameson with those blue eyes and silvery-golden curls? It was
+flagrant forgery on Nature's part to fashion such things and label
+them Jameson by a mouth.
+
+Hated Neil Jameson's son! Robert Turner's face grew so grey and hard
+that the boy involuntarily glanced upward to see if a cloud had
+crossed the sun.
+
+"Your father was Neil Jameson, I suppose?" Turner said abruptly.
+
+Paul nodded. "Yes, but he is dead. He has been dead for eight years. I
+don't remember him."
+
+"Have you any brothers or sisters?"
+
+"I have a little sister a year younger than I am. The other four are
+dead. They died long ago. I'm the only boy Mother had. Oh, I do so
+wish I was bigger and older! If I was I could do something to save the
+place--I'm sure I could. It is breaking Mother's heart to have to
+leave it."
+
+"So she has to leave it, has she?" said Turner grimly, with the old
+hatred stirring in his heart.
+
+"Yes. There is a mortgage on it and we're to be sold out very soon--so
+the lawyers told us. Mother has tried so hard to make the farm pay but
+she couldn't. I could if I was bigger--I know I could. If they would
+only wait a few years! But there is no use hoping for that. Mother
+cries all the time about it. She has lived at the Cove farm for over
+thirty years and she says she can't live away from it now.
+Elsie--that's my sister--and I do all we can to cheer her up, but we
+can't do much. Oh, if I was only a man!"
+
+The lad shut his lips together--how much his mouth was like his
+father's--and looked out seaward with troubled blue eyes. Turner
+smiled another grim smile. Oh, Neil Jameson, your old score was being
+paid now!
+
+Yet something embittered the sweetness of revenge. That boy's face--he
+could not hate it as he had accustomed himself to hate the memory of
+Neil Jameson and all connected with him.
+
+"What was your mother's name before she married your father?" he
+demanded abruptly.
+
+"Lisbeth Miller," answered the boy, still frowning seaward over his
+secret thoughts.
+
+Turner started again. Lisbeth Miller! He might have known it. What
+woman in all the world save Lisbeth Miller could have given her son
+those eyes and curls? So Lisbeth had married Neil Jameson--little
+Lisbeth Miller, his schoolboy sweetheart. He had forgotten her--or
+thought he had; certainly he had not thought of her for years. But the
+memory of her came back now with a rush.
+
+Little Lisbeth--pretty little Lisbeth--merry little Lisbeth! How
+clearly he remembered her! The old Miller place had adjoined his
+uncle's farm. Lisbeth and he had played together from babyhood. How he
+had worshipped her! When they were six years old they had solemnly
+promised to marry each other when they grew up, and Lisbeth had let
+him kiss her as earnest of their compact, made under a bloom-white
+apple tree in the Miller orchard. Yet she would always blush furiously
+and deny it ever afterwards; it made her angry to be reminded of it.
+
+He saw himself going to school, carrying her books for her, the envied
+of all the boys. He remembered how he had fought Tony Josephs because
+Tony had the presumption to bring her spice apples: he had thrashed
+him too, so soundly that from that time forth none of the schoolboys
+presumed to rival him in Lisbeth's affections--roguish little Lisbeth!
+who grew prettier and saucier every year.
+
+He recalled the keen competition of the old days when to be "head of
+the class" seemed the highest honour within mortal reach, and was
+striven after with might and main. He had seldom attained to it
+because he would never "go up past" Lisbeth. If she missed a word, he,
+Robert, missed it too, no matter how well he knew it. It was sweet to
+be thought a dunce for her dear sake. It was all the reward he asked
+to see her holding her place at the head of the class, her cheeks
+flushed pink and her eyes starry with her pride of position. And how
+sweetly she would lecture him on the way home from school about
+learning his spellings better, and wind up her sermon with the frank
+avowal, uttered with deliciously downcast lids, that she liked him
+better than any of the other boys after all, even if he couldn't spell
+as well as they could. Nothing of success that he had won since had
+ever thrilled him as that admission of little Lisbeth's!
+
+She had been such a sympathetic little sweetheart too, never weary of
+listening to his dreams and ambitions, his plans for the future. She
+had always assured him that she knew he would succeed. Well, he had
+succeeded--and now one of the uses he was going to make of his success
+was to turn Lisbeth and her children out of their home by way of
+squaring matters with a dead man!
+
+Lisbeth had been away from home on a long visit to an aunt when he had
+left Chiswick. She was growing up and the childish intimacy was
+fading. Perhaps, under other circumstances, it might have ripened into
+fruit, but he had gone away and forgotten her; the world had claimed
+him; he had lost all active remembrance of Lisbeth and, before this
+late return to Chiswick, he had not even known if she were living. And
+she was Neil Jameson's widow!
+
+He was silent for a long time, while the waves purred about the base
+of the big red sandstone rock and the boy returned to his _Crusoe_.
+Finally Robert Turner roused himself from his reverie.
+
+"I used to know your mother long ago when she was a little girl," he
+said. "I wonder if she remembers me. Ask her when you go home if she
+remembers Bobby Turner."
+
+"Won't you come up to the house and see her, sir?" asked Paul
+politely. "Mother is always glad to see her old friends."
+
+"No, I haven't time today." Robert Turner was not going to tell Neil
+Jameson's son that he did not care to look for the little Lisbeth of
+long ago in Neil Jameson's widow. The name spoiled her for him, just
+as the Jameson mouth spoiled her son for him. "But you may tell her
+something else. The mortgage will not be foreclosed. I was the power
+behind the lawyers, but I did not know that the present owner of the
+Cove farm was my little playmate, Lisbeth Miller. You and she shall
+have all the time you want. Tell her Bobby Turner does this in return
+for what she gave him under the big sweeting apple tree on her sixth
+birthday. I think she will remember and understand. As for you, Paul,
+be a good boy and good to your mother. I hope you'll succeed in your
+ambition of making the farm pay when you are old enough to take it in
+hand. At any rate, you'll not be disturbed in your possession of it."
+
+"Oh, sir! oh, sir!" stammered Paul in an agony of embarrassed
+gratitude and delight. "Oh, it seems too good to be true. Do you
+really mean that we're not to be sold out? Oh, won't you come and tell
+Mother yourself? She'll be so happy--so grateful. Do come and let her
+thank you."
+
+"Not today. I haven't time. Give her my message, that's all. There,
+run; the sooner she gets the news the better."
+
+Turner watched the boy as he bounded away, until the headland hid him
+from sight.
+
+"There goes my revenge--and a fine bit of property eminently suited
+for a summer residence--all for a bit of old, rusty sentiment," he
+said with a shrug. "I didn't suppose I was capable of such a mood. But
+then--little Lisbeth. There never was a sweeter girl. I'm glad I
+didn't go with the boy to see her. She's an old woman now--and Neil
+Jameson's widow. I prefer to keep my old memories of her
+undisturbed--little Lisbeth of the silvery-golden curls and the
+roguish blue eyes. Little Lisbeth of the old time! I'm glad to be able
+to have done you the small service of securing your home to you. It is
+my thanks to you for the friendship and affection you gave my lonely
+boyhood--my tribute to the memory of my first sweetheart."
+
+He walked away with a smile, whose amusement presently softened to an
+expression that would have amazed his business cronies. Later on he
+hummed the air of an old love song as he climbed the steep spruce road
+to Tom's.
+
+
+
+
+The Fillmore Elderberries
+
+
+"I expected as much," said Timothy Robinson. His tone brought the
+blood into Ellis Duncan's face. The lad opened his lips quickly, as if
+for an angry retort, but as quickly closed them again with a set
+firmness oddly like Timothy Robinson's own.
+
+"When I heard that lazy, worthless father of yours was dead, I
+expected you and your mother would be looking to me for help," Timothy
+Robinson went on harshly. "But you're mistaken if you think I'll give
+it. You've no claim on me, even if your father was my half-brother--no
+claim at all. And I'm not noted for charity."
+
+Timothy Robinson smiled grimly. It was very true that he was far from
+being noted for charity. His neighbours called him "close" and "near."
+Some even went so far as to call him "a miserly skinflint." But this
+was not true. It was, however, undeniable that Timothy Robinson kept a
+tight clutch on his purse-strings, and although he sometimes gave
+liberally enough to any cause which really appealed to him, such
+causes were few and far between.
+
+"I am not asking for charity, Uncle Timothy," said Ellis quietly. He
+passed over the slur at his father in silence, deeply as he felt it,
+for, alas, he knew that it was only too true. "I expect to support my
+mother by hard and honest work. And I am not asking you for work on
+the ground of our relationship. I heard you wanted a hired man, and I
+have come to you, as I should have gone to any other man about whom I
+had heard it, to ask you to hire me."
+
+"Yes, I do want a man," said Uncle Timothy drily. "A _man_--not a
+half-grown boy of fourteen, not worth his salt. I want somebody able
+and willing to work."
+
+Again Ellis flushed deeply and again he controlled himself. "I am
+willing to work, Uncle Timothy, and I think you would find me able
+also if you would try me. I'd work for less than a man's wages at
+first, of course."
+
+"You won't work for any sort of wages from me," interrupted Timothy
+Robinson decidedly. "I tell you plainly that I won't hire you. You're
+the wrong man's son for that. Your father was lazy and incompetent
+and, worst of all, untrustworthy. I did try to help him once, and all
+I got was loss and ingratitude. I want none of his kind around my
+place. I don't believe in you, so you may as well take yourself off,
+Ellis. I've no more time to waste."
+
+Ellis took himself off, his ears tingling. As he walked homeward his
+thoughts were very bitter. All Uncle Timothy had said about his father
+was true, and Ellis realized what a count it was against him in his
+efforts to obtain employment. Nobody wanted to be bothered with "Old
+Sam Duncan's son," though nobody had been so brutally outspoken as his
+Uncle Timothy.
+
+Sam Duncan and Timothy Robinson had been half-brothers. Sam, the
+older, had been the son of Mrs. Robinson's former marriage. Never were
+two lads more dissimilar. Sam was a lazy, shiftless fellow, deserving
+all the hard things that came to be said of him. He would not work and
+nobody could depend on him, but he was a handsome lad with rather
+taking ways in his youth, and at first people had liked him better
+than the close, blunt, industrious Timothy. Their mother had died in
+their childhood, but Mr. Robinson had been fond of Sam and the boy had
+a good home. When he was twenty-two and Timothy eighteen, Mr. Robinson
+had died very suddenly, leaving no will. Everything he possessed went
+to Timothy. Sam immediately left. He said he would not stay there to
+be "bossed" by Timothy.
+
+He rented a little house in the village, married a girl "far too good
+for him," and started in to support himself and his wife by days'
+work. He had lounged, borrowed, and shirked through life. Once Timothy
+Robinson, perhaps moved by pity for Sam's wife and baby, had hired him
+for a year at better wages than most hired men received in Dalrymple.
+Sam idled through a month of it, then got offended and left in the
+middle of haying. Timothy Robinson washed his hands of him after that.
+
+When Ellis was fourteen Sam Duncan died, after a lingering illness of
+a year. During this time the family were kept by the charity of
+pitying neighbours, for Ellis could not be spared from attendance on
+his father to make any attempt at earning money. Mrs. Duncan was a
+fragile little woman, worn out with her hard life, and not strong
+enough to wait on her husband alone.
+
+When Sam Duncan was dead and buried, Ellis straightened his shoulders
+and took counsel with himself. He must earn a livelihood for his
+mother and himself, and he must begin at once. He was tall and strong
+for his age, and had a fairly good education, his mother having
+determinedly kept him at school when he had pleaded to be allowed to
+go to work. He had always been a quiet fellow, and nobody in Dalrymple
+knew much about him. But they knew all about his father, and nobody
+would hire Ellis unless he were willing to work for a pittance that
+would barely clothe him.
+
+Ellis had not gone to his Uncle Timothy until he had lost all hope of
+getting a place elsewhere. Now this hope too had gone. It was nearly
+the end of June and everybody who wanted help had secured it. Look
+where he would, Ellis could see no prospect of employment.
+
+"If I could only get a chance!" he thought miserably. "I know I am not
+idle or lazy--I know I can work--if I could get a chance to prove it."
+
+He was sitting on the fence of the Fillmore elderberry pasture as he
+said it, having taken a short cut across the fields. This pasture was
+rather noted in Dalrymple. Originally a mellow and fertile field, it
+had been almost ruined by a persistent, luxuriant growth of elderberry
+bushes. Old Thomas Fillmore had at first tried to conquer them by
+mowing them down "in the dark of the moon." But the elderberries did
+not seem to mind either moon or mowing, and flourished alike in all
+the quarters. For the past two years Old Thomas had given up the
+contest, and the elderberries had it all their own sweet way.
+
+Thomas Fillmore, a bent old man with a shrewd, nutcracker face, came
+through the bushes while Ellis was sitting on the fence.
+
+"Howdy, Ellis. Seen anything of my spotted calves? I've been looking
+for 'em for over an hour."
+
+"No, I haven't seen any calves--but a good many might be in this
+pasture without being visible to the naked eye," said Ellis, with a
+smile.
+
+Old Thomas shook his head ruefully. "Them elders have been too many
+for me," he said. "Did you ever see a worse-looking place? You'd
+hardly believe that twenty years ago there wasn't a better piece of
+land in Dalrymple than this lot, would ye? Such grass as grew here!"
+
+"The soil must be as good as ever if anything had a chance to grow on
+it," said Ellis. "Couldn't those elders be rooted out?"
+
+"It'd be a back-breaking job, but I reckon it could be done if anyone
+had the muscle and patience and time to tackle it. I haven't the first
+at my age, and my hired man hasn't the last. And nobody would do it
+for what I could afford to pay."
+
+"What will you give me if I undertake to clean the elders out of this
+field for you, Mr. Fillmore?" asked Ellis quietly.
+
+Old Thomas looked at him with a surprised face, which gradually
+reverted to its original shrewdness when he saw that Ellis was in
+earnest. "You must be hard up for a job," he said.
+
+"I am," was Ellis's laconic answer.
+
+"Well, lemme see." Old Thomas calculated carefully. He never paid a
+cent more for anything than he could help, and was noted for hard
+bargaining. "I'll give ye sixteen dollars if you clean out the whole
+field," he said at length.
+
+Ellis looked at the pasture. He knew something about cleaning out
+elderberry brush, and he also knew that sixteen dollars would be very
+poor pay for it. Most of the elders were higher than a man's head,
+with big roots, thicker than his wrist, running deep into the ground.
+
+"It's worth more, Mr. Fillmore," he said.
+
+"Not to me," responded Old Thomas drily. "I've plenty more land and
+I'm an old fellow without any sons. I ain't going to pay out money for
+the benefit of some stranger who'll come after me. You can take it or
+leave it at sixteen dollars."
+
+Ellis shrugged his shoulders. He had no prospect of anything else, and
+sixteen dollars were better than nothing. "Very well, I'll take it,"
+he said.
+
+"Well, now, look here," said Old Thomas shrewdly, "I'll expect you to
+do the work thoroughly, young man. Them roots ain't to be cut off,
+remember; they'll have to be dug out. And I'll expect you to finish
+the job if you undertake it too, and not drop it halfway through if
+you get a chance for a better one."
+
+"I'll finish with your elderberries before I leave them," promised
+Ellis.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ellis went to work the next day. His first move was to chop down all
+the brush and cart it into heaps for burning. This took two days and
+was comparatively easy work. The third day Ellis tackled the roots. By
+the end of the forenoon he had discovered just what cleaning out an
+elderberry pasture meant, but he set his teeth and resolutely
+persevered. During the afternoon Timothy Robinson, whose farm adjoined
+the Fillmore place, wandered by and halted with a look of astonishment
+at the sight of Ellis, busily engaged in digging and tearing out huge,
+tough, stubborn elder roots. The boy did not see his uncle, but worked
+away with a vim and vigour that were not lost on the latter.
+
+"He never got that muscle from Sam," reflected Timothy. "Sam would
+have fainted at the mere thought of stumping elders. Perhaps I've been
+mistaken in the boy. Well, well, we'll see if he holds out."
+
+Ellis did hold out. The elderberries tried to hold out too, but they
+were no match for the lad's perseverance. It was a hard piece of work,
+however, and Ellis never forgot it. Week after week he toiled in the
+hot summer sun, digging, cutting, and dragging out roots. The job
+seemed endless, and his progress each day was discouragingly slow. He
+had expected to get through in a month, but he soon found it would
+take two. Frequently Timothy Robinson wandered by and looked at the
+increasing pile of roots and the slowly extending stretch of cleared
+land. But he never spoke to Ellis and made no comment on the matter to
+anybody.
+
+One evening, when the field was about half done, Ellis went home more
+than usually tired. It had been a very hot day. Every bone and muscle
+in him ached. He wondered dismally if he would ever get to the end of
+that wretched elderberry field. When he reached home Jacob Green from
+Westdale was there. Jacob lost no time in announcing his errand.
+
+"My hired boy's broke his leg, and I must fill his place right off.
+Somebody referred me to you. Guess I'll try you. Twelve dollars a
+month, board, and lodging. What say?"
+
+For a moment Ellis's face flushed with delight. Twelve dollars a month
+and permanent employment! Then he remembered his promise to Mr.
+Fillmore. For a moment he struggled with the temptation. Then he
+mastered it. Perhaps the discipline of his many encounters with those
+elderberry roots helped him to do so.
+
+"I'm sorry, Mr. Green," he said reluctantly. "I'd like to go, but I
+can't. I promised Mr. Fillmore that I'd finish cleaning up his
+elderberry pasture when I'd once begun it, and I shan't be through for
+a month yet."
+
+"Well, I'd see myself turning down a good offer for Old Tom Fillmore,"
+said Jacob Green.
+
+"It isn't for Mr. Fillmore--it's for myself," said Ellis steadily. "I
+promised and I must keep my word."
+
+Jacob drove away grumblingly. On the road he met Timothy Robinson and
+stopped to relate his grievances.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It must be admitted that there were times during the next month when
+Ellis was tempted to repent having refused Jacob Green's offer. But at
+the end of the month the work was done and the Fillmore elderberry
+pasture was an elderberry pasture no longer. All that remained of the
+elders, root and branch, was piled into a huge heap ready for burning.
+
+"And I'll come up and set fire to it when it's dry enough," Ellis told
+Mr. Fillmore. "I claim the satisfaction of that."
+
+"You've done the job thoroughly," said Old Thomas. "There's your
+sixteen dollars, and every cent of it was earned, if ever money was,
+I'll say that much for you. There ain't a lazy bone in your body. If
+you ever want a recommendation just you come to me."
+
+As Ellis passed Timothy Robinson's place on the way home that worthy
+himself appeared, strolling down his lane. "Ah, Ellis," he said,
+speaking to his nephew for the first time since their interview two
+months before, "so you've finished with your job?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Got your sixteen dollars, I suppose? It was worth four times that.
+Old Tom cheated you. You were foolish not to have gone to Green when
+you had the chance."
+
+"I'd promised Mr. Fillmore to finish with his pasture, sir!"
+
+"Humph! Well, what are you going to do now?"
+
+"I don't know. Harvest will be on next week. I may get in somewhere as
+an extra hand for a spell."
+
+"Ellis," said his uncle abruptly, after a moment's silence, "I'm
+going to discharge my man. He's no earthly good. Will you take his
+place? I'll give you fifteen dollars a month and found."
+
+Ellis stared at Timothy Robinson. "I thought you told me that you had
+no place for my father's son," he said slowly.
+
+"I've changed my mind. I've seen how you went at that elderberry job.
+Great snakes, there couldn't be a better test for anybody than rooting
+out them things. I know you can work. When Jacob Green told me why
+you'd refused his offer I knew you could be depended on. You come to
+me and I'll do well by you. I've no kith or kin of my own except you.
+And look here, Ellis. I'm tired of hired housekeepers. Will your
+mother come up and live with us and look after things a bit? I've a
+good girl, and she won't have to work hard, but there must be somebody
+at the head of a household. She must have a good headpiece--for you
+have inherited good qualities from someone, and goodness knows it
+wasn't from your father."
+
+"Uncle Timothy," said Ellis respectfully but firmly, "I'll accept your
+offer gratefully, and I am sure Mother will too. But there is one
+thing I must say. Perhaps my father deserves all you say of him--but
+he is dead--and if I come to you it must be with the understanding
+that nothing more is ever to be said against him."
+
+Timothy Robinson smiled--a queer, twisted smile that yet had a hint of
+affection and comprehension in it. "Very well," he said. "I'll never
+cast his shortcomings up to you again. Come to me--and if I find you
+always as industrious and reliable as you've proved yourself to be
+negotiating them elders, I'll most likely forget that you ain't my own
+son some of these days."
+
+
+
+
+The Finished Story
+
+
+She always sat in a corner of the west veranda at the hotel, knitting
+something white and fluffy, or pink and fluffy, or pale blue and
+fluffy--always fluffy, at least, and always dainty. Shawls and scarfs
+and hoods the things were, I believe. When she finished one she gave
+it to some girl and began another. Every girl at Harbour Light that
+summer wore some distracting thing that had been fashioned by Miss
+Sylvia's slim, tireless, white fingers.
+
+She was old, with that beautiful, serene old age which is as beautiful
+in its way as youth. Her girlhood and womanhood must have been very
+lovely to have ripened into such a beauty of sixty years. It was a
+surprise to everyone who heard her called _Miss_ Sylvia. She looked so
+like a woman who ought to have stalwart, grown sons and dimpled little
+grandchildren.
+
+For the first two days after the arrival at the hotel she sat in her
+corner alone. There was always a circle of young people around her;
+old folks and middle-aged people would have liked to join it, but Miss
+Sylvia, while she was gracious to all, let it be distinctly understood
+that her sympathies were with youth. She sat among the boys and girls,
+young men and maidens, like a fine white queen. Her dress was always
+the same and somewhat old-fashioned, but nothing else would have
+suited her half so well; she wore a lace cap on her snowy hair and a
+heliotrope shawl over her black silk shoulders. She knitted
+continually and talked a good deal, but listened more. We sat around
+her at all hours of the day and told her everything.
+
+When you were first introduced to her you called her Miss
+Stanleymain. Her endurance of that was limited to twenty-four hours.
+Then she begged you to call her Miss Sylvia, and as Miss Sylvia you
+spoke and thought of her forevermore.
+
+Miss Sylvia liked us all, but I was her favourite. She told us so
+frankly and let it be understood that when I was talking to her and
+her heliotrope shawl was allowed to slip under one arm it was a sign
+that we were not to be interrupted. I was as vain of her favour as any
+lovelorn suitor whose lady had honoured him, not knowing, as I came to
+know later, the reason for it.
+
+Although Miss Sylvia had an unlimited capacity for receiving
+confidences, she never gave any. We were all sure that there must be
+some romance in her life, but our efforts to discover it were
+unsuccessful. Miss Sylvia parried tentative questions so skilfully
+that we knew she had something to defend. But one evening, when I had
+known her a month, as time is reckoned, and long years as affection
+and understanding are computed, she told me her story--at least, what
+there was to tell of it. The last chapter was missing.
+
+We were sitting together on the veranda at sunset. Most of the hotel
+people had gone for a harbour sail; a few forlorn mortals prowled
+about the grounds and eyed our corner wistfully, but by the sign of
+the heliotrope shawl knew it was not for them.
+
+I was reading one of my stories to Miss Sylvia. In my own excuse I
+must allege that she tempted me to do it. I did not go around with
+manuscripts under my arm, inflicting them on defenceless females. But
+Miss Sylvia had discovered that I was a magazine scribbler, and
+moreover, that I had shut myself up in my room that very morning and
+perpetrated a short story. Nothing would do but that I read it to her.
+
+It was a rather sad little story. The hero loved the heroine, and she
+loved him. There was no reason why he should not love her, but there
+was a reason why he could not marry her. When he found that he loved
+her he knew that he must go away. But might he not, at least, tell her
+his love? Might he not, at least, find out for his consolation if she
+cared for him? There was a struggle; he won, and went away without a
+word, believing it to be the more manly course. When I began to read
+Miss Sylvia was knitting, a pale green something this time, of the
+tender hue of young leaves in May. But after a little her knitting
+slipped unheeded to her lap and her hands folded idly above it. It was
+the most subtle compliment I had ever received.
+
+When I turned the last page of the manuscript and looked up, Miss
+Sylvia's soft brown eyes were full of tears. She lifted her hands,
+clasped them together and said in an agitated voice:
+
+"Oh, no, no; don't let him go away without telling her--just telling
+her. Don't let him do it!"
+
+"But, you see, Miss Sylvia," I explained, flattered beyond measure
+that my characters had seemed so real to her, "that would spoil the
+story. It would have no reason for existence then. Its _motif_ is
+simply his mastery over self. He believes it to be the nobler course."
+
+"No, no, it wasn't--if he loved her he should have told her. Think of
+her shame and humiliation--she loved him, and he went without a word
+and she could never know he cared for her. Oh, you must change it--you
+must, indeed! I cannot bear to think of her suffering what I have
+suffered."
+
+Miss Sylvia broke down and sobbed. To appease her, I promised that I
+would remodel the story, although I knew that the doing so would leave
+it absolutely pointless.
+
+"Oh, I'm so glad," said Miss Sylvia, her eyes shining through her
+tears. "You see, I know it would make her happier--I know it. I'm
+going to tell you my poor little story to convince you. But you--you
+must not tell it to any of the others."
+
+"I am sorry you think the admonition necessary," I said
+reproachfully.
+
+"Oh, I do not, indeed I do not," she hastened to assure me. "I know I
+can trust you. But it's such a poor little story. You mustn't laugh at
+it--it is all the romance I had. Years ago--forty years ago--when I
+was a young girl of twenty, I--learned to care very much for somebody.
+I met him at a summer resort like this. I was there with my aunt and
+he was there with his mother, who was delicate. We saw a great deal of
+each other for a little while. He was--oh, he was like no other man I
+had ever seen. You remind me of him somehow. That is partly why I like
+you so much. I noticed the resemblance the first time I saw you. I
+don't know in just what it consists--in your expression and the way
+you carry your head, I think. He was not strong--he coughed a good
+deal. Then one day he went away--suddenly. I had thought he cared for
+me, but he never said so--just went away. Oh, the shame of it! After a
+time I heard that he had been ordered to California for his health.
+And he died out there the next spring. My heart broke then, I never
+cared for anybody again--I couldn't. I have always loved him. But it
+would have been so much easier to bear if I had only known that he
+loved me--oh, it would have made all the difference in the world. And
+the sting of it has been there all these years. I can't even permit
+myself the joy of dwelling on his memory because of the thought that
+perhaps he did not care."
+
+"He must have cared," I said warmly. "He couldn't have helped it, Miss
+Sylvia."
+
+Miss Sylvia shook her head with a sad smile.
+
+"I cannot be sure. Sometimes I think he did. But then the doubt creeps
+back again. I would give almost anything to know that he did--to know
+that I have not lavished all the love of my life on a man who did not
+want it. And I never can know, never--I can hope and almost believe,
+but I can never know. Oh, you don't understand--a man couldn't fully
+understand what my pain has been over it. You see now why I want you
+to change the story. I am sorry for that poor girl, but if you only
+let her know that he really loves her she will not mind all the rest
+so very much; she will be able to bear the pain of even life-long
+separation if she only knows."
+
+Miss Sylvia picked up her knitting and went away. As for me, I thought
+savagely of the dead man she loved and called him a cad, or at best, a
+fool.
+
+Next day Miss Sylvia was her serene, smiling self once more, and she
+did not again make any reference to what she had told me. A fortnight
+later she returned home and I went my way back to the world. During
+the following winter I wrote several letters to Miss Sylvia and
+received replies from her. Her letters were very like herself. When I
+sent her the third-rate magazine containing my story--nothing but a
+third-rate magazine would take it in its rewritten form--she wrote to
+say that she was so glad that I had let the poor girl know.
+
+Early in April I received a letter from an aunt of mine in the
+country, saying that she intended to sell her place and come to the
+city to live. She asked me to go out to Sweetwater for a few weeks and
+assist her in the business of settling up the estate and disposing of
+such things as she did not wish to take with her.
+
+When I arrived at Sweetwater I found it moist and chill with the sunny
+moisture and teasing chill of our Canadian springs. They are long and
+fickle and reluctant, these springs of ours, but, oh, the unnamable
+charm of them! There was something even in the red buds of the maples
+at Sweetwater and in the long, smoking stretches of hillside fields
+that sent a thrill through my veins, finer and subtler than any given
+by old wine.
+
+A week after my arrival, when we had got the larger affairs pretty
+well straightened out, Aunt Mary suggested that I had better overhaul
+Uncle Alan's room.
+
+"The things there have never been meddled with since he died," she
+said. "In particular, there's an old trunk full of his letters and his
+papers. It was brought home from California after his death. I've
+never examined them. I don't suppose there is anything of any
+importance among them. But I'm not going to carry all that old rubbish
+to town. So I wish you would look over them and see if there is
+anything that should be kept. The rest may be burned."
+
+I felt no particular interest in the task. My Uncle Alan Blair was a
+mere name to me. He was my mother's eldest brother and had died years
+before I was born. I had heard that he had been very clever and that
+great things had been expected of him. But I anticipated no pleasure
+from exploring musty old letters and papers of forty neglected years.
+
+I went up to Uncle Alan's room at dusk that night. We had been having
+a day of warm spring rain, but it had cleared away and the bare maple
+boughs outside the window were strung with glistening drops. The room
+looked to the north and was always dim by reason of the close-growing
+Sweetwater pines. A gap had been cut through them to the northwest,
+and in it I had a glimpse of the sea Uncle Alan had loved, and above
+it a wondrous sunset sky fleeced over with little clouds, pale and
+pink and golden and green, that suddenly reminded me of Miss Sylvia
+and her fluffy knitting. It was with the thought of her in my mind
+that I lighted a lamp and began the task of grubbing into Uncle Alan's
+trunkful of papers. Most of these were bundles of yellowed letters, of
+no present interest, from his family and college friends. There were
+several college theses and essays, and a lot of loose miscellania
+pertaining to boyish school days. I went through the collection
+rapidly, until at the bottom of the trunk, I came to a small book
+bound in dark-green leather. It proved to be a sort of journal, and I
+began to glance over it with a languid interest.
+
+It had been begun in the spring after he had graduated from college.
+Although suspected only by himself, the disease which was to end his
+life had already fastened upon him. The entries were those of a doomed
+man, who, feeling the curse fall on him like a frost, blighting all
+the fair hopes and promises of life, seeks some help and consolation
+in the outward self-communing of a journal. There was nothing morbid,
+nothing unmanly in the record. As I read, I found myself liking Uncle
+Alan, wishing that he might have lived and been my friend.
+
+His mother had not been well that summer and the doctor ordered her to
+the seashore. Alan accompanied her. Here occurred a hiatus in the
+journal. No leaves had been torn out, but a quire or so of them had
+apparently become loosened from the threads that held them in place. I
+found them later on in the trunk, but at the time I passed to the next
+page. It began abruptly:
+
+    This girl is the sweetest thing that God ever made. I had not
+    known a woman could be so fair and sweet. Her beauty awes me,
+    the purity of her soul shines so clearly through it like an
+    illuminating lamp. I love her with all my power of loving and
+    I am thankful that it is so. It would have been hard to die
+    without having known love. I am glad that it has come to me,
+    even if its price is unspeakable bitterness. A man has not
+    lived for nothing who has known and loved Sylvia Stanleymain.
+
+    I must not seek her love--that is denied me. If I were well
+    and strong I should win it; yes, I believe I could win it, and
+    nothing in the world would prevent me from trying, but, as
+    things are, it would be the part of a coward to try. Yet I
+    cannot resist the delight of being with her, of talking to
+    her, of watching her wonderful face. She is in my thoughts day
+    and night, she dwells in my dreams. O, Sylvia, I love you, my
+    sweet!
+
+A week later there was another entry:
+
+
+                                 July Seventeenth.
+
+    I am afraid. To-day I met Sylvia's eyes. In them was a look
+    which at first stirred my heart to its deeps with tumultuous
+    delight, and then I remembered. I must spare her that
+    suffering, at whatever cost to myself. I must not let myself
+    dwell on the dangerous sweetness of the thought that her heart
+    is turning to me. What would be the crowning joy to another
+    man could be only added sorrow to me.
+
+Then:
+
+
+                                  July Eighteenth.
+
+    This morning I took the train to the city. I was determined to
+    know the worst once for all. The time had come when I must. My
+    doctor at home had put me off with vague hopes and perhapses.
+    So I went to a noted physician in the city. I told him I
+    wanted the whole truth--I made him tell it. Stripped of all
+    softening verbiage it is this: I have perhaps eight months or
+    a year to live--no more!
+
+    I had expected it, although not quite so soon. Yet the
+    certainty was none the less bitter. But this is no time for
+    self-pity. It is of Sylvia I must think now. I shall go away
+    at once, before the sweet fancy which is possibly budding in
+    her virgin heart shall have bloomed into a flower that might
+    poison some of her fair years.
+
+
+
+                                  July Nineteenth.
+
+    It is over. I said good-bye to her to-day before others, for I
+    dared not trust myself to see her alone. She looked hurt and
+    startled, as if someone had struck her. But she will soon
+    forget, even if I have not been mistaken in the reading of her
+    eyes. As for me, the bitterness of death is already over in
+    that parting. All that now remains is to play the man to the
+    end.
+
+From further entries in the journal I learned that Alan Blair had
+returned to Sweetwater and later on had been ordered to California.
+The entries during his sojourn there were few and far between. In all
+of them he spoke of Sylvia. Finally, after a long silence, he had
+written:
+
+    I think the end is not far off now. I am not sorry for my
+    suffering has been great of late. Last night I was easier. I
+    slept and dreamed that I saw Sylvia. Once or twice I thought
+    that I would arrange to have this book sent to her after my
+    death. But I have decided that it would be unwise. It would
+    only pain her, so I shall destroy it when I feel the time has
+    come.
+
+    It is sunset in this wonderful summer land. At home in
+    Sweetwater it is only early spring as yet, with snow lingering
+    along the edges of the woods. The sunsets there will be
+    creamy-yellow and pale red now. If I could but see them once
+    more! And  Sylvia--
+
+There was a little blot where the pen had fallen. Evidently the end
+had been nearer than Alan Blair had thought. At least, there were no
+more entries, and the little green book had not been destroyed. I was
+glad that it had not been; and I felt glad that it was thus put in my
+power to write the last chapter of Miss Sylvia's story for her.
+
+As soon as I could leave Sweetwater I went to the city, three hundred
+miles away, where Miss Sylvia lived. I found her in her library, in
+her black silk dress and heliotrope shawl, knitting up cream wool, for
+all the world as if she had just been transplanted from the veranda
+corner of Harbour Light.
+
+"My dear boy!" she said.
+
+"Do you know why I have come?" I asked.
+
+"I am vain enough to think it was because you wanted to see me," she
+smiled.
+
+"I did want to see you; but I would have waited until summer if it had
+not been that I wished to bring you the missing chapter of your story,
+dear lady."
+
+"I--I--don't understand," said Miss Sylvia, starting slightly.
+
+"I had an uncle, Alan Blair, who died forty years ago in California,"
+I said quietly. "Recently I have had occasion to examine some of his
+papers. I found a journal among them and I have brought it to you
+because I think that you have the best right to it."
+
+I dropped the parcel in her lap. She was silent with surprise and
+bewilderment.
+
+"And now," I added, "I am going away. You won't want to see me or
+anyone for a while after you have read this book. But I will come up
+to see you to-morrow."
+
+When I went the next day Miss Sylvia herself met me at the door. She
+caught my hand and drew me into the hall. Her eyes were softly
+radiant.
+
+"Oh, you have made me so happy!" she said tremulously. "Oh, you can
+never know how happy! Nothing hurts now--nothing ever can hurt,
+because I know he did care."
+
+She laid her face down on my shoulder, as a girl might have nestled to
+her lover, and I bent and kissed her for Uncle Alan.
+
+
+
+
+The Garden of Spices
+
+
+Jims tried the door of the blue room. Yes, it was locked. He had hoped
+Aunt Augusta _might_ have forgotten to lock it; but when did Aunt
+Augusta forget anything? Except, perhaps, that little boys were not
+born grown-ups--and _that_ was something she never remembered. To be
+sure, she was only a half-aunt. Whole aunts probably had more
+convenient memories.
+
+Jims turned and stood with his back against the door. It was better
+that way; he could not imagine things behind him then. And the blue
+room was so big and dim that a dreadful number of things could be
+imagined in it. All the windows were shuttered but one, and that one
+was so darkened by a big pine tree branching right across it that it
+did not let in much light.
+
+Jims looked very small and lost and lonely as he shrank back against
+the door--so small and lonely that one might have thought that even
+the sternest of half-aunts should have thought twice before shutting
+him up in that room and telling him he must stay there the whole
+afternoon instead of going out for a promised ride. Jims hated being
+shut up alone--especially in the blue room. Its bigness and dimness
+and silence filled his sensitive little soul with vague horror.
+Sometimes he became almost sick with fear in it. To do Aunt Augusta
+justice, she never suspected this. If she had she would not have
+decreed this particular punishment, because she knew Jims was delicate
+and must not be subjected to any great physical or mental strain. That
+was why she shut him up instead of whipping him. But how was she to
+know it? Aunt Augusta was one of those people who never know anything
+unless it is told them in plain language and then hammered into their
+heads. There was no one to tell her but Jims, and Jims would have died
+the death before he would have told Aunt Augusta, with her cold,
+spectacled eyes and thin, smileless mouth, that he was desperately
+frightened when he was shut in the blue room. So he was always shut in
+it for punishment; and the punishments came very often, for Jims was
+always doing things that Aunt Augusta considered naughty. At first,
+this time, Jims did not feel quite so frightened as usual because he
+was very angry. As he put it, he was very mad at Aunt Augusta. He
+hadn't _meant_ to spill his pudding over the floor and the tablecloth
+and his clothes; and how such a little bit of pudding--Aunt Augusta
+was mean with desserts--could ever have spread itself over so much
+territory Jims could not understand. But he had made a terrible mess
+and Aunt Augusta had been very angry and had said he must be cured of
+such carelessness. She said he must spend the afternoon in the blue
+room instead of going for a ride with Mrs. Loring in her new car.
+
+Jims was bitterly disappointed. If Uncle Walter had been home Jims
+would have appealed to him--for when Uncle Walter could be really
+wakened up to a realization of his small nephew's presence in his
+home, he was very kind and indulgent. But it was so hard to waken him
+up that Jims seldom attempted it. He liked Uncle Walter, but as far as
+being acquainted with him went he might as well have been the
+inhabitant of a star in the Milky Way. Jims was just a lonely,
+solitary little creature, and sometimes he felt so friendless that his
+eyes smarted, and several sobs had to be swallowed.
+
+There were no sobs just now, though--Jims was still too angry. It
+wasn't fair. It was so seldom he got a car ride. Uncle Walter was
+always too busy, attending to sick children all over the town, to take
+him. It was only once in a blue moon Mrs. Loring asked him to go out
+with her. But she always ended up with ice cream or a movie, and
+to-day Jims had had strong hopes that both were on the programme.
+
+"I hate Aunt Augusta," he said aloud; and then the sound of his voice
+in that huge, still room scared him so that he only thought the rest.
+"I won't have any fun--and she won't feed my gobbler, either."
+
+Jims had shrieked "Feed my gobbler," to the old servant as he had been
+hauled upstairs. But he didn't think Nancy Jane had heard him, and
+nobody, not even Jims, could imagine Aunt Augusta feeding the gobbler.
+It was always a wonder to him that she ate, herself. It seemed really
+too human a thing for her to do.
+
+"I wish I had spilled that pudding _on purpose_," Jims said
+vindictively, and with the saying his anger evaporated--Jims never
+could stay angry long--and left him merely a scared little fellow,
+with velvety, nut-brown eyes full of fear that should have no place in
+a child's eyes. He looked so small and helpless as he crouched against
+the door that one might have wondered if even Aunt Augusta would not
+have relented had she seen him.
+
+How that window at the far end of the room rattled! It sounded
+terribly as if somebody--or _something_--were trying to get in. Jims
+looked desperately at the unshuttered window. He must get to it; once
+there, he could curl up in the window seat, his back to the wall, and
+forget the shadows by looking out into the sunshine and loveliness of
+the garden over the wall. Jims would have likely have been found dead
+of fright in that blue room some time had it not been for the garden
+over the wall.
+
+But to get to the window Jims must cross the room and pass by the bed.
+Jims held that bed in special dread. It was the oldest fashioned thing
+in the old-fashioned, old-furnitured house. It was high and rigid, and
+hung with gloomy blue curtains. _Anything_ might jump out of such a
+bed.
+
+Jims gave a gasp and ran madly across the room. He reached the window
+and flung himself upon the seat. With a sigh of relief he curled down
+in the corner. Outside, over the high brick wall, was a world where
+his imagination could roam, though his slender little body was pent a
+prisoner in the blue room.
+
+Jims had loved that garden from his first sight of it. He called it
+the Garden of Spices and wove all sorts of yarns in fancy--yarns gay
+and tragic--about it. He had only known it for a few weeks. Before
+that, they had lived in a much smaller house away at the other side of
+the town. Then Uncle Walter's uncle--who had brought him up just as he
+was bringing up Jims--had died, and they had all come to live in Uncle
+Walter's old home. Somehow, Jims had an idea that Uncle Walter wasn't
+very glad to come back there. But he had to, according to
+great-uncle's will. Jims himself didn't mind much. He liked the
+smaller rooms in their former home better, but the Garden of Spices
+made up for all.
+
+It was such a beautiful spot. Just inside the wall was a row of aspen
+poplars that always talked in silvery whispers and shook their dainty,
+heart-shaped leaves at him. Beyond them, under scattered pines, was a
+rockery where ferns and wild things grew. It was almost as good as a
+bit of woods--and Jims loved the woods, though he scarcely ever saw
+them. Then, past the pines, were roses just breaking into June
+bloom--roses in such profusion as Jims hadn't known existed, with dear
+little paths twisting about among the bushes. It seemed to be a garden
+where no frost could blight or rough wind blow. When rain fell it must
+fall very gently. Past the roses one saw a green lawn, sprinkled over
+now with the white ghosts of dandelions, and dotted with ornamental
+trees. The trees grew so thickly that they almost hid the house to
+which the garden pertained. It was a large one of grey-black stone,
+with stacks of huge chimneys. Jims had no idea who lived there. He had
+asked Aunt Augusta and Aunt Augusta had frowned and told him it did
+not matter who lived there and that he must never, on any account,
+mention the next house or its occupant to Uncle Walter. Jims would
+never have thought of mentioning them to Uncle Walter. But the
+prohibition filled him with an unholy and unsubduable curiosity. He
+was devoured by the desire to find out who the folks in that tabooed
+house were.
+
+And he longed to have the freedom of that garden. Jims loved gardens.
+There had been a garden at the little house but there was none
+here--nothing but an old lawn that had been fine once but was now
+badly run to seed. Jims had heard Uncle Walter say that he was going
+to have it attended to but nothing had been done yet. And meanwhile
+here was a beautiful garden over the wall which looked as if it should
+be full of children. But no children were ever in it--or anybody else
+apparently. And so, in spite of its beauty, it had a lonely look that
+hurt Jims. He _wanted_ his Garden of Spices to be full of laughter. He
+pictured himself running in it with imaginary playmates--and there was
+a mother in it--or a big sister--or, at the least, a whole aunt who
+would let you hug her and would never dream of shutting you up in
+chilly, shadowy, horrible blue rooms.
+
+"It seems to me," said Jims, flattening his nose against the pane,
+"that I must get into that garden or bust."
+
+Aunt Augusta would have said icily, "We do not use such expressions,
+James," but Aunt Augusta was not there to hear.
+
+"I'm afraid the Very Handsome Cat isn't coming to-day," sighed Jims.
+Then he brightened up; the Very Handsome Cat was coming across the
+lawn. He was the only living thing, barring birds and butterflies,
+that Jims ever saw in the garden. Jims worshipped that cat. He was jet
+black, with white paws and dickey, and he had as much dignity as ten
+cats. Jims' fingers tingled to stroke him. Jims had never been allowed
+to have even a kitten because Aunt Augusta had a horror of cats. And
+you cannot stroke gobblers!
+
+The Very Handsome Cat came through the rose garden paths on his
+beautiful paws, ambled daintily around the rockery, and sat down in a
+shady spot under a pine tree, right where Jims could see him, through
+a gap in the little poplars. He looked straight up at Jims and winked.
+At least, Jims always believed and declared he did. And that wink
+said, or seemed to say, plainly:
+
+"Be a sport. Come down here and play with me. A fig for your Aunt
+Augusta!"
+
+A wild, daring, absurd idea flashed into Jims' brain. Could he? He
+could! He would! He knew it would be easy. He had thought it all out
+many times, although until now he had never dreamed of really doing
+it. To unhook the window and swing it open, to step out on the pine
+bough and from it to another that hung over the wall and dropped
+nearly to the ground, to spring from it to the velvet sward under the
+poplars--why, it was all the work of a minute. With a careful,
+repressed whoop Jims ran towards the Very Handsome Cat.
+
+The cat rose and retreated in deliberate haste; Jims ran after him.
+The cat dodged through the rose paths and eluded Jims' eager hands,
+just keeping tantalizingly out of reach. Jims had forgotten everything
+except that he must catch the cat. He was full of a fearful joy, with
+an elfin delight running through it. He had escaped from the blue room
+and its ghosts; he was in his Garden of Spices; he had got the better
+of mean old Aunt Augusta. But he _must_ catch the cat.
+
+The cat ran over the lawn and Jims pursued it through the green gloom
+of the thickly clustering trees. Beyond them came a pool of sunshine
+in which the old stone house basked like a huge grey cat itself. More
+garden was before it and beyond it, wonderful with blossom. Under a
+huge spreading beech tree in the centre of it was a little tea table;
+sitting by the table reading was a lady in a black dress.
+
+The cat, having lured Jims to where he wanted him, sat down and began
+to lick his paws. He was quite willing to be caught now; but Jims had
+no longer any idea of catching him. He stood very still, looking at
+the lady. She did not see him then and Jims could only see her
+profile, which he thought very beautiful. She had wonderful ropes of
+blue-black hair wound around her head. She looked so sweet that Jims'
+heart beat. Then she lifted her head and turned her face and saw him.
+Jims felt something of a shock. She was not pretty after all. One side
+of her face was marked by a dreadful red scar. It quite spoilt her
+good looks, which Jims thought a great pity; but nothing could spoil
+the sweetness of her face or the loveliness of her peculiar soft,
+grey-blue eyes. Jims couldn't remember his mother and had no idea what
+she looked like, but the thought came into his head that he would have
+liked her to have eyes like that. After the first moment Jims did not
+mind the scar at all.
+
+But perhaps that first moment had revealed itself in his face, for a
+look of pain came into the lady's eyes and, almost involuntarily it
+seemed, she put her hand up to hide the scar. Then she pulled it away
+again and sat looking at Jims half defiantly, half piteously. Jims
+thought she must be angry because he had chased her cat.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said gravely, "I didn't mean to hurt your cat.
+I just wanted to play with him. He is _such_ a very handsome cat."
+
+"But where did you come from?" said the lady. "It is so long since I
+saw a child in this garden," she added, as if to herself. Her voice
+was as sweet as her face. Jims thought he was mistaken in thinking her
+angry and plucked up heart of grace. Shyness was no fault of Jims.
+
+"I came from the house over the wall," he said. "My name is James
+Brander Churchill. Aunt Augusta shut me up in the blue room because I
+spilled my pudding at dinner. I hate to be shut up. And I was to have
+had a ride this afternoon--and ice cream--and _maybe_ a movie. So I
+was mad. And when your Very Handsome Cat came and looked at me I just
+got out and climbed down."
+
+He looked straight at her and smiled. Jims had a very dear little
+smile. It seemed a pity there was no mother alive to revel in it. The
+lady smiled back.
+
+"I think you did right," she said.
+
+"_You_ wouldn't shut a little boy up if you had one, would you?" said
+Jims.
+
+"No--no, dear heart, I wouldn't," said the lady. She said it as if
+something hurt her horribly. She smiled again gallantly.
+
+"Will you come here and sit down?" she added, pulling a chair out from
+the table.
+
+"Thank you. I'd rather sit here," said Jims, plumping down on the
+grass at her feet. "Then maybe your cat will come to me."
+
+The cat came over promptly and rubbed his head against Jims' knee.
+Jims stroked him delightedly; how lovely his soft fur felt and his
+round velvety head.
+
+"I like cats," explained Jims, "and I have nothing but a gobbler. This
+is such a Very Handsome Cat. What is his name, please?"
+
+"Black Prince. He loves me," said the lady. "He always comes to my bed
+in the morning and wakes me by patting my face with his paw. _He_
+doesn't mind my being ugly."
+
+She spoke with a bitterness Jims couldn't understand.
+
+"But you are not ugly," he said.
+
+"Oh, I _am_ ugly--I _am_ ugly," she cried. "Just look at me--right at
+me. Doesn't it hurt you to look at me?"
+
+Jims looked at her gravely and dispassionately.
+
+"No, it doesn't," he said. "Not a bit," he added, after some further
+exploration of his consciousness.
+
+Suddenly the lady laughed beautifully. A faint rosy flush came into
+her unscarred cheek.
+
+"James, I believe you mean it."
+
+"Of course I mean it. And, if you don't mind, please call me Jims.
+Nobody calls me James but Aunt Augusta. She isn't my whole aunt. She
+is just Uncle Walter's half-sister. _He_ is my whole uncle."
+
+"What does he call you?" asked the lady. She looked away as she asked
+it.
+
+"Oh, Jims, when he thinks about me. He doesn't often think about me.
+He has too many sick children to think about. Sick children are all
+Uncle Walter cares about. He's the greatest children's doctor in the
+Dominion, Mr. Burroughs says. But he is a woman-hater."
+
+"How do you know that?"
+
+"Oh, I heard Mr. Burroughs say it. Mr. Burroughs is my tutor, you
+know. I study with him from nine till one. I'm not allowed to go to
+the public school. I'd like to, but Uncle Walter thinks I'm not strong
+enough yet. I'm going next year, though, when I'm ten. I have holidays
+now. Mr. Burroughs always goes away the first of June."
+
+"How came he to tell you your uncle was a woman-hater?" persisted the
+lady.
+
+"Oh, he didn't tell me. He was talking to a friend of his. He thought
+I was reading my book. So I was--but I heard it all. It was more
+interesting than my book. Uncle Walter was engaged to a lady, long,
+long ago, when he was a young man. She was devilishly pretty."
+
+"Oh, Jims!"
+
+"Mr. Burroughs said so. I'm only quoting," said Jims easily. "And
+Uncle Walter just worshipped her. And all at once she just jilted him
+without a word of explanation, Mr. Burroughs said. So that is why he
+hates women. It isn't any wonder, is it?"
+
+"I suppose not," said the lady with a sigh. "Jims, are you hungry?"
+
+"Yes, I am. You see, the pudding was spilled. But how did you know?"
+
+"Oh, boys always used to be hungry when I knew them long ago. I
+thought they hadn't changed. I shall tell Martha to bring out
+something to eat and we'll have it here under this tree. You sit
+here--I'll sit there. Jims, it's so long since I talked to a little
+boy that I'm not sure that I know how."
+
+"You know how, all right," Jims assured her. "But what am I to call
+you, please?"
+
+"My name is Miss Garland," said the lady a little hesitatingly. But
+she saw the name meant nothing to Jims. "I would like you to call me
+Miss Avery. Avery is my first name and I never hear it nowadays. Now
+for a jamboree! I can't offer you a movie--and I'm afraid there isn't
+any ice cream either. I could have had some if I'd known you were
+coming. But I think Martha will be able to find something good."
+
+A very old woman, who looked at Jims with great amazement, came out to
+set the table. Jims thought she must be as old as Methusaleh. But he
+did not mind her. He ran races with Black Prince while tea was being
+prepared, and rolled the delighted cat over and over in the grass. And
+he discovered a fragrant herb-garden in a far corner and was
+delighted. Now it was truly a garden of spices.
+
+"Oh, it is so beautiful here," he told Miss Avery, who sat and looked
+at his revels with a hungry expression in her lovely eyes. "I wish I
+could come often."
+
+"Why can't you?" said Miss Avery.
+
+The two looked at each other with sly intelligence.
+
+"I could come whenever Aunt Augusta shuts me up in the blue room,"
+said Jims.
+
+"Yes," said Miss Avery. Then she laughed and held out her arms. Jims
+flew into them. He put his arms about her neck and kissed her scarred
+face.
+
+"Oh, I wish _you_ were my aunt," he said.
+
+Miss Avery suddenly pushed him away. Jims was horribly afraid he had
+offended her. But she took his hand.
+
+"We'll just be chums, Jims," she said. "That's really better than
+being relations, after all. Come and have tea."
+
+Over that glorious tea-table they became life-long friends. They had
+always known each other and always would. The Black Prince sat between
+them and was fed tit-bits. There was such a lot of good things on the
+table and nobody to say "You have had enough, James." James ate until
+_he_ thought he had enough. Aunt Augusta would have thought he was
+doomed, could she have seen him.
+
+"I suppose I must go back," said Jims with a sigh. "It will be our
+supper time in half an hour and Aunt Augusta will come to take me
+out."
+
+"But you'll come again?"
+
+"Yes, the first time she shuts me up. And if she doesn't shut me up
+pretty soon I'll be so bad she'll have to shut me up."
+
+"I'll always set a place for you at the tea-table after this, Jims.
+And when you're not here I'll pretend you are. And when you can't come
+here write me a letter and bring it when you do come."
+
+"Good-bye," said Jims. He took her hand and kissed it. He had read of
+a young knight doing that and had always thought he would like to try
+it if he ever got a chance. But who could dream of kissing Aunt
+Augusta's hands?
+
+"You dear, funny thing," said Miss Avery. "Have you thought of how you
+are to get back? Can you reach that pine bough from the ground?"
+
+"Maybe I can jump," said Jims dubiously.
+
+"I'm afraid not. I'll give you a stool and you can stand on it. Just
+leave it there for future use. Good-bye, Jims. Jims, two hours ago I
+didn't know there was such a person in the world as you--and now I
+love you--I love you."
+
+Jims' heart filled with a great warm gush of gladness. He had always
+wanted to be loved. And no living creature, he felt sure, loved him,
+except his gobbler--and a gobbler's love is not very satisfying,
+though it is better than nothing. He was blissfully happy as he
+carried his stool across the lawn. He climbed his pine and went in at
+the window and curled up on the seat in a maze of delight. The blue
+room was more shadowy than ever but that did not matter. Over in the
+Garden of Spices was friendship and laughter and romance galore. The
+whole world was transformed for Jims.
+
+From that time Jims lived a shamelessly double life. Whenever he was
+shut in the blue room he escaped to the Garden of Spices--and he was
+shut in very often, for, Mr. Burroughs being away, he got into a good
+deal of what Aunt Augusta called mischief. Besides, it is a sad truth
+that Jims didn't try very hard to be good now. He thought it paid
+better to be bad and be shut up. To be sure there was always a fly in
+the ointment. He was haunted by a vague fear that Aunt Augusta might
+relent and come to the blue room before supper time to let him out.
+
+"And _then_ the fat would be in the fire," said Jims.
+
+But he had a glorious summer and throve so well on his new diet of
+love and companionship that one day Uncle Walter, with fewer sick
+children to think about than usual, looked at him curiously and said:
+
+"Augusta, that boy seems to be growing much stronger. He has a good
+color and his eyes are getting to look more like a boy's eyes should.
+We'll make a man of you yet, Jims."
+
+"He may be getting stronger but he's getting naughtier, too," said
+Aunt Augusta, grimly. "I am sorry to say, Walter, that he behaves very
+badly."
+
+"We were all young once," said Uncle Walter indulgently.
+
+"Were _you_?" asked Jims in blank amazement.
+
+Uncle Walter laughed.
+
+"Do you think me an antediluvian, Jims?"
+
+"I don't know what _that_ is. But your hair is gray and your eyes are
+tired," said Jims uncompromisingly.
+
+Uncle Walter laughed again, tossed Jims a quarter, and went out.
+
+"Your uncle is only forty-five and in his prime," said Aunt Augusta
+dourly.
+
+Jims deliberately ran across the room to the window and, under
+pretence of looking out, knocked down a flower pot. So he was exiled
+to the blue room and got into his beloved Garden of Spices where Miss
+Avery's beautiful eyes looked love into his and the Black Prince was a
+jolly playmate and old Martha petted and spoiled him to her heart's
+content.
+
+Jims never asked questions but he was a wide-awake chap, and, taking
+one thing with another, he found out a good deal about the occupants
+of the old stone house. Miss Avery never went anywhere and no one ever
+went there. She lived all alone with two old servants, man and maid.
+Except these two and Jims nobody had ever seen her for twenty years.
+Jims didn't know why, but he thought it must be because of the scar on
+her face.
+
+He never referred to it, but one day Miss Avery told him what caused
+it.
+
+"I dropped a lamp and my dress caught fire and burned my face, Jims.
+It made me hideous. I was beautiful before that--very beautiful.
+Everybody said so. Come in and I will show you my picture."
+
+She took him into her big parlor and showed him the picture hanging on
+the wall between the two high windows. It was of a young girl in
+white. She certainly was very lovely, with her rose-leaf skin and
+laughing eyes. Jims looked at the pictured face gravely, with his
+hands in his pockets and his head on one side. Then he looked at Miss
+Avery.
+
+"You were prettier then--yes," he said, judicially, "but I like your
+face ever so much better now."
+
+"Oh, Jims, you can't," she protested.
+
+"Yes, I do," persisted Jims. "You look kinder and--nicer now."
+
+It was the nearest Jims could get to expressing what he felt as he
+looked at the picture. The young girl was beautiful, but her face was
+a little hard. There was pride and vanity and something of the
+insolence of great beauty in it. There was nothing of that in Miss
+Avery's face now--nothing but sweetness and tenderness, and a motherly
+yearning to which every fibre of Jims' small being responded. How they
+loved each other, those two! And how they understood each other! To
+_love_ is easy, and therefore common; but to _understand_--how rare
+that is! And oh! such good times as they had! They made taffy. Jims
+had always longed to make taffy, but Aunt Augusta's immaculate kitchen
+and saucepans might not be so desecrated. They read fairy tales
+together. Mr. Burroughs had disapproved of fairy tales. They blew
+soap-bubbles out on the lawn and let them float away over the garden
+and the orchard like fairy balloons. They had glorious afternoon teas
+under the beech tree. They made ice cream themselves. Jims even slid
+down the bannisters when he wanted to. And he could try out a slang
+word or two occasionally without anybody dying of horror. Miss Avery
+did not seem to mind it a bit.
+
+At first Miss Avery always wore dark sombre dresses. But one day Jims
+found her in a pretty gown of pale primrose silk. It was very old and
+old-fashioned, but Jims did not know that. He capered round her in
+delight.
+
+"You like me better in this?" she asked, wistfully.
+
+"I like you just as well, no matter what you wear," said Jims, "but
+that dress is awfully pretty."
+
+"Would you like me to wear bright colors, Jims?"
+
+"You bet I would," said Jims emphatically.
+
+After that she always wore them--pink and primrose and blue and white;
+and she let Jims wreathe flowers in her splendid hair. He had quite a
+knack of it. She never wore any jewelry except, always, a little gold
+ring with a design of two clasped hands.
+
+"A friend gave that to me long ago when we were boy and girl together
+at school," she told Jims once. "I never take it off, night or day.
+When I die it is to be buried with me."
+
+"You mustn't die till I do," said Jims in dismay.
+
+"Oh, Jims, if we could only _live_ together nothing else would
+matter," she said hungrily. "Jims--Jims--I see so little of you
+really--and some day soon you'll be going to school--and I'll lose
+you."
+
+"I've got to think of some way to prevent it," cried Jims. "I won't
+have it. I won't--I won't."
+
+But his heart sank notwithstanding.
+
+One day Jims slipped from the blue room, down the pine and across the
+lawn with a tear-stained face.
+
+"Aunt Augusta is going to kill my gobbler," he sobbed in Miss Avery's
+arms. "She says she isn't going to bother with him any longer--and
+he's getting old--and he's to be killed. And that gobbler is the only
+friend I have in the world except you. Oh, I can't _stand_ it, Miss
+Avery."
+
+Next day Aunt Augusta told him the gobbler had been sold and taken
+away. And Jims flew into a passion of tears and protest about it and
+was promptly incarcerated in the blue room. A few minutes later a
+sobbing boy plunged through the trees--and stopped abruptly. Miss
+Avery was reading under the beech and the Black Prince was snoozing on
+her knee--and a big, magnificent, bronze turkey was parading about on
+the lawn, twisting his huge fan of a tail this way and that.
+
+"_My_ gobbler!" cried Jims.
+
+"Yes. Martha went to your uncle's house and bought him. Oh, she didn't
+betray you. She told Nancy Jane she wanted a gobbler and, having seen
+one over there, thought perhaps she could get him. See, here's your
+pet, Jims, and here he shall live till he dies of old age. And I have
+something else for you--Edward and Martha went across the river
+yesterday to the Murray Kennels and got it for you."
+
+"Not a dog?" exclaimed Jims.
+
+"Yes--a dear little bull pup. He shall be your very own, Jims, and I
+only stipulate that you reconcile the Black Prince to him."
+
+It was something of a task but Jims succeeded. Then followed a month
+of perfect happiness. At least three afternoons a week they contrived
+to be together. It was all too good to be true, Jims felt. Something
+would happen soon to spoil it. Just _suppose_ Aunt Augusta grew
+tender-hearted and ceased to punish! Or suppose she suddenly
+discovered that he was growing too big to be shut up! Jims began to
+stint himself in eating lest he grew too fast. And then Aunt Augusta
+worried about his loss of appetite and suggested to Uncle Walter that
+he should be sent to the country till the hot weather was over. Jims
+didn't want to go to the country now because his heart was elsewhere.
+He must eat again, if he grew like a weed. It was all very harassing.
+
+Uncle Walter looked at him keenly.
+
+"It seems to me you're looking pretty fit, Jims. Do you want to go to
+the country?"
+
+"No, please."
+
+"Are you happy, Jims?"
+
+"Sometimes."
+
+"A boy should be happy all the time, Jims."
+
+"If I had a mother and someone to play with I would be."
+
+"I have tried to be a mother to you, Jims," said Aunt Augusta, in an
+offended tone. Then she addressed Uncle Walter. "A younger woman would
+probably understand him better. And I feel that the care of this big
+place is too much for me. I would prefer to go to my own old home. If
+you had married long ago, as you should, Walter, James would have had
+a mother and some cousins to play with. I have always been of this
+opinion."
+
+Uncle Walter frowned and got up.
+
+"Just because one woman played you false is no good reason for
+spoiling your life," went on Aunt Augusta severely. "I have kept
+silence all these years but now I am going to speak--and speak
+plainly. You should marry, Walter. You are young enough yet and you
+owe it to your name."
+
+"Listen, Augusta," said Uncle Walter sternly. "I loved a woman once. I
+believed she loved me. She sent me back my ring one day and with it a
+message saying she had ceased to care for me and bidding me never to
+try to look upon her face again. Well, I have obeyed her, that is
+all."
+
+"There was something strange about all that, Walter. The life she has
+since led proves that. So you should not let it embitter you against
+all women."
+
+"I haven't. It's nonsense to say I'm a woman-hater, Augusta. But that
+experience has robbed me of the power to care for another woman."
+
+"Well, this isn't a proper conversation for a child to hear," said
+Aunt Augusta, recollecting herself. "Jims, go out."
+
+Jims would have given one of his ears to stay and listen with the
+other. But he went obediently.
+
+And then, the very next day, the dreaded something happened.
+
+It was the first of August and very, very hot. Jims was late coming to
+dinner and Aunt Augusta reproved him and Jims, deliberately, and with
+malice aforethought, told her he thought she was a nasty old woman. He
+had never been saucy to Aunt Augusta before. But it was three days
+since he had seen Miss Avery and the Black Prince and Nip and he was
+desperate. Aunt Augusta crimsoned with anger and doomed Jims to an
+afternoon in the blue room for impertinence.
+
+"And I shall tell your uncle when he comes home," she added.
+
+That rankled, for Jims didn't want Uncle Walter to think him
+impertinent. But he forgot all his worries as he scampered through the
+Garden of Spices to the beech tree. And there Jims stopped as if he
+had been shot. Prone on the grass under the beech tree, white and cold
+and still, lay his Miss Avery--dead, stone dead!
+
+At least Jims drought she was dead. He flew into the house like a mad
+thing, shrieking for Martha. Nobody answered. Jims recollected, with a
+rush of sickening dread, that Miss Avery had told him Martha and
+Edward were going away that day to visit a sister. He rushed blindly
+across the lawn again, through the little side gate he had never
+passed before and down the street home. Uncle Walter was just opening
+the door of his car.
+
+"Uncle Walter--come--come," sobbed Jims, clutching frantically at his
+hand. "Miss Avery's dead--dead--oh, come quick."
+
+"_Who_ is dead?"
+
+"Miss Avery--Miss Avery Garland. She's lying on the grass over there
+in her garden. And I love her so--and I'll die, too--oh, Uncle Walter,
+_come_."
+
+Uncle Walter looked as if he wanted to ask some questions, but he said
+nothing. With a strange face he hurried after Jims. Miss Avery was
+still lying there. As Uncle Walter bent over her he saw the broad red
+scar and started back with an exclamation.
+
+"She is dead?" gasped Jims.
+
+"No," said Uncle Walter, bending down again--"no, she has only
+fainted, Jims--overcome by the heat, I suppose. I want help. Go and
+call somebody."
+
+"There's no one home here to-day," said Jims, in a spasm of joy so
+great that it shook him like a leaf.
+
+"Then go home and telephone over to Mr. Loring's. Tell them I want the
+nurse who is there to come here for a few minutes."
+
+Jims did his errand. Uncle Walter and the nurse carried Miss Avery
+into the house and then Jims went back to the blue room. He was so
+unhappy he didn't care where he went. He wished something _would_ jump
+at him out of the bed and put an end to him. Everything was discovered
+now and he would never see Miss Avery again. Jims lay very still on
+the window seat. He did not even cry. He had come to one of the griefs
+that lie too deep for tears.
+
+"I think I must have been put under a curse at birth," thought poor
+Jims.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Over at the stone house Miss Avery was lying on the couch in her room.
+The nurse had gone away and Dr. Walter was sitting looking at her. He
+leaned forward and pulled away the hand with which she was hiding the
+scar on her face. He looked first at the little gold ring on the hand
+and then at the scar.
+
+"Don't," she said piteously.
+
+"Avery--why did you do it?--_why_ did you do it?"
+
+"Oh, you know--you must know now, Walter."
+
+"Avery, did you break my heart and spoil my life--and your own--simply
+because your face was scarred?"
+
+"I couldn't bear to have you see me hideous," she moaned. "You had
+been so proud of my beauty. I--I--thought you couldn't love me any
+more--I couldn't bear the thought of looking in your eyes and seeing
+aversion there."
+
+Walter Grant leaned forward.
+
+"Look in my eyes, Avery. Do you see any aversion?"
+
+Avery forced herself to look. What she saw covered her face with a hot
+blush.
+
+"Did you think my love such a poor and superficial thing, Avery," he
+said sternly, "that it must vanish because a blemish came on your
+fairness? Do you think _that_ would change me? Was your own love for
+me so slight?"
+
+"No--no," she sobbed. "I have loved you every moment of my life,
+Walter. Oh, don't look at me so sternly."
+
+"If you had even told me," he said. "You said I was never to try to
+look on your face again--and they told me you had gone away. You sent
+me back my ring."
+
+"I kept the old one," she interrupted, holding out her hand, "the
+first one you ever gave me--do you remember, Walter? When we were boy
+and girl."
+
+"You robbed me of all that made life worth while, Avery. Do you wonder
+that I've been a bitter man?"
+
+"I was wrong--I was wrong," she sobbed. "I should have believed in
+you. But don't you think I've paid, too? Forgive me, Walter--it's too
+late to atone--but forgive me."
+
+"_Is_ it too late?" he asked gravely.
+
+She pointed to the scar.
+
+"Could you endure seeing this opposite to you every day at your
+table?" she asked bitterly.
+
+"Yes--if I could see your sweet eyes and your beloved smile with it,
+Avery," he answered passionately. "Oh, Avery, it was _you_ I
+loved--not your outward favor. Oh, how foolish you were--foolish and
+morbid! You always put too high a value on beauty, Avery. If I had
+dreamed of the true state of the case--if I had known you were here
+all these years--why I heard a rumor long ago that you had married,
+Avery--but if I had known I would have come to you and _made_ you
+be--sensible."
+
+She gave a little laugh at his lame conclusion. That was so like the
+old Walter. Then her eyes filled with tears as he took her in his
+arms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The door of the blue room opened. Jims did not look up. It was Aunt
+Augusta, of course--and she had heard the whole story.
+
+"Jims, boy."
+
+Jims lifted his miserable eyes. It was Uncle Walter--but a different
+Uncle Walter--an Uncle Walter with laughing eyes and a strange
+radiance of youth about him.
+
+"Poor, lonely little fellow," said Uncle Walter unexpectedly. "Jims,
+would you like Miss Avery to come _here_--and live with us always--and
+be your real aunt?"
+
+"Great snakes!" said Jims, transformed in a second. "Is there any
+chance of _that_?"
+
+"There is a certainty, thanks to you," said Uncle Walter. "You can go
+over to see her for a little while. Don't talk her to death--she's
+weak yet--and attend to that menagerie of yours over there--she's
+worrying because the bull dog and gobbler weren't fed--and Jims--"
+
+But Jims had swung down through the pine and was tearing across the
+Garden of Spices.
+
+
+
+
+The Girl and the Photograph
+
+
+When I heard that Peter Austin was in Vancouver I hunted him up. I had
+met Peter ten years before when I had gone east to visit my father's
+people and had spent a few weeks with an uncle in Croyden. The Austins
+lived across the street from Uncle Tom, and Peter and I had struck up
+a friendship, although he was a hobbledehoy of awkward sixteen and I,
+at twenty-two, was older and wiser and more dignified than I've ever
+been since or ever expect to be again. Peter was a jolly little round
+freckled chap. He was all right when no girls were around; when they
+were he retired within himself like a misanthropic oyster, and was
+about as interesting. This was the one point upon which we always
+disagreed. Peter couldn't endure girls; I was devoted to them by the
+wholesale. The Croyden girls were pretty and vivacious. I had a score
+of flirtations during my brief sojourn among them.
+
+But when I went away the face I carried in my memory was not that of
+any girl with whom I had walked and driven and played the game of
+hearts.
+
+It was ten years ago, but I had never been quite able to forget that
+girl's face. Yet I had seen it but once and then only for a moment. I
+had gone for a solitary ramble in the woods over the river and, in a
+lonely little valley dim with pines, where I thought myself alone, I
+had come suddenly upon her, standing ankle-deep in fern on the bank of
+a brook, the late evening sunshine falling yellowly on her uncovered
+dark hair. She was very young--no more than sixteen; yet the face and
+eyes were already those of a woman. Such a face! Beautiful? Yes, but I
+thought of that afterward, when I was alone. With that face before my
+eyes I thought only of its purity and sweetness, of the lovely soul
+and rich mind looking out of the great, greyish-blue eyes which, in
+the dimness of the pine shadows, looked almost black. There was
+something in the face of that child-woman I had never seen before and
+was destined never to see again in any other face. Careless boy
+though I was, it stirred me to the deeps. I felt that she must have
+been waiting forever in that pine valley for me and that, in finding
+her, I had found all of good that life could offer me.
+
+I would have spoken to her, but before I could shape my greeting into
+words that should not seem rude or presumptuous, she had turned and
+gone, stepping lightly across the brook and vanishing in the maple
+copse beyond. For no more than ten seconds had I gazed into her face,
+and the soul of her, the real woman behind the fair outwardness, had
+looked back into my eyes; but I had never been able to forget it.
+
+When I returned home I questioned my cousins diplomatically as to who
+she might be. I felt strangely reluctant to do so--it seemed in some
+way sacrilege; yet only by so doing could I hope to discover her. They
+could tell me nothing; nor did I meet her again during the remainder
+of my stay in Croyden, although I never went anywhere without looking
+for her, and haunted the pine valley daily, in the hope of seeing her
+again. My disappointment was so bitter that I laughed at myself.
+
+I thought I was a fool to feel thus about a girl I had met for a
+moment in a chance ramble--a mere child at that, with her hair still
+hanging in its long glossy schoolgirl braid. But when I remembered her
+eyes, my wisdom forgave me.
+
+Well, that was ten years ago; in those ten years the memory had, I
+must confess, grown dimmer. In our busy western life a man had not
+much time for sentimental recollections. Yet I had never been able to
+care for another woman. I wanted to; I wanted to marry and settle
+down. I had come to the time of life when a man wearies of drifting
+and begins to hanker for a calm anchorage in some snug haven of his
+own. But, somehow, I shirked the matter. It seemed rather easier to
+let things slide.
+
+At this stage Peter came west. He was something in a bank, and was as
+round and jolly as ever; but he had evidently changed his attitude
+towards girls, for his rooms were full of their photos. They were
+stuck around everywhere and they were all pretty. Either Peter had
+excellent taste, or the Croyden photographers knew how to flatter. But
+there was one on the mantel which attracted my attention especially.
+If the photo were to be trusted the girl was quite the prettiest I had
+ever seen.
+
+"Peter, what pretty girl's picture is this on your mantel?" I called
+out to Peter, who was in his bedroom, donning evening dress for some
+function.
+
+"That's my cousin, Marian Lindsay," he answered. "She _is_ rather
+nice-looking, isn't she. Lives in Croyden now--used to live up the
+river at Chiselhurst. Didn't you ever chance across her when you were
+in Croyden?"
+
+"No," I said. "If I had I wouldn't have forgotten her face."
+
+"Well, she'd be only a kid then, of course. She's twenty-six now.
+Marian is a mighty nice girl, but she's bound to be an old maid. She's
+got notions--ideals, she calls 'em. All the Croyden fellows have been
+in love with her at one time or another but they might as well have
+made up to a statue. Marian really hasn't a spark of feeling or
+sentiment in her. Her looks are the best part of her, although she's
+confoundedly clever."
+
+Peter spoke rather squiffily. I suspected that he had been one of the
+smitten swains himself. I looked at the photo for a few minutes
+longer, admiring it more every minute and, when I heard Peter coming
+out, I did an unjustifiable thing--I took that photo and put it in my
+pocket.
+
+I expected Peter would make a fuss when he missed it, but that very
+night the house in which he lived was burned to the ground. Peter
+escaped with the most important of his goods and chattels, but all the
+counterfeit presentments of his dear divinities went up in smoke. If
+he ever thought particularly of Marian Lindsay's photograph he must
+have supposed that it shared the fate of the others.
+
+As for me, I propped my ill-gotten treasure up on my mantel and
+worshipped it for a fortnight. At the end of that time I went boldly
+to Peter and told him I wanted him to introduce me by letter to his
+dear cousin and ask her to agree to a friendly correspondence with me.
+
+Oddly enough, I did not do this without some reluctance, in spite of
+the fact that I was as much in love with Marian Lindsay as it was
+possible to be through the medium of a picture. I thought of the girl
+I had seen in the pine wood and felt an inward shrinking from a step
+that might divide me from her forever. But I rated myself for this
+nonsense. It was in the highest degree unlikely that I should ever
+meet the girl of the pines again. If she were still living she was
+probably some other man's wife. I would think no more about it.
+
+Peter whistled when he heard what I had to say.
+
+"Of course I'll do it, old man," he said obligingly. "But I warn you I
+don't think it will be much use. Marian isn't the sort of girl to open
+up a correspondence in such a fashion. However, I'll do the best I can
+for you."
+
+"Do. Tell her I'm a respectable fellow with no violent bad habits and
+all that. I'm in earnest, Peter. I want to make that girl's
+acquaintance, and this seems the only way at present. I can't get off
+just now for a trip east. Explain all this, and use your cousinly
+influence in my behalf if you possess any."
+
+Peter grinned.
+
+"It's not the most graceful job in the world you are putting on me,
+Curtis," he said. "I don't mind owning up now that I was pretty far
+gone on Marian myself two years ago. It's all over now, but it was bad
+while it lasted. Perhaps Marian will consider your request more
+favourably if I put it in the light of a favour to myself. She must
+feel that she owes me something for wrecking my life."
+
+Peter grinned again and looked at the one photo he had contrived to
+rescue from the fire. It was a pretty, snub-nosed little girl. She
+would never have consoled me for the loss of Marian Lindsay, but every
+man to his taste.
+
+In due time Peter sought me out to give me his cousin's answer.
+
+"Congratulations, Curtis. You've out-Caesared Caesar. You've conquered
+without even going and seeing. Marian agrees to a friendly
+correspondence with you. I am amazed, I admit--even though I did paint
+you up as a sort of Sir Galahad and Lancelot combined. I'm not used to
+seeing proud Marian do stunts like that, and it rather takes my
+breath."
+
+I wrote to Marian Lindsay after one farewell dream of the girl under
+the pines. When Marian's letters began to come regularly I forgot the
+other one altogether.
+
+Such letters--such witty, sparkling, clever, womanly, delightful
+letters! They completed the conquest her picture had begun. Before we
+had corresponded six months I was besottedly in love with this woman
+whom I had never seen. Finally, I wrote and told her so, and I asked
+her to be my wife.
+
+A fortnight later her answer came. She said frankly that she believed
+she had learned to care for me during our correspondence, but that she
+thought we should meet in person, before coming to any definite
+understanding. Could I not arrange to visit Croyden in the summer?
+Until then we would better continue on our present footing.
+
+I agreed to this, but I considered myself practically engaged, with
+the personal meeting merely to be regarded as a sop to the Cerberus of
+conventionality. I permitted myself to use a decidedly lover-like tone
+in my letters henceforth, and I hailed it as a favourable omen that I
+was not rebuked for this, although Marian's own letters still retained
+their pleasant, simple friendliness.
+
+Peter had at first tormented me mercilessly about the affair, but when
+he saw I did not like his chaff he stopped it. Peter was always a good
+fellow. He realized that I regarded the matter seriously, and he saw
+me off when I left for the east with a grin tempered by honest
+sympathy and understanding.
+
+"Good luck to you," he said. "If you win Marian Lindsay you'll win a
+pearl among women. I haven't been able to grasp her taking to you in
+this fashion, though. It's so unlike Marian. But, since she
+undoubtedly has, you are a lucky man."
+
+I arrived in Croyden at dusk and went to Uncle Tom's. There I found
+them busy with preparations for a party to be given that night in
+honour of a girl friend who was visiting my cousin Edna. I was
+secretly annoyed, for I wanted to hasten at once to Marian. But I
+couldn't decently get away, and on second thoughts I was consoled by
+the reflection that she would probably come to the party. I knew she
+belonged to the same social set as Uncle Tom's girls. I should,
+however, have preferred our meeting to have been under different
+circumstances.
+
+From my stand behind the palms in a corner I eagerly scanned the
+guests as they arrived. Suddenly my heart gave a bound. Marian Lindsay
+had just come in.
+
+I recognized her at once from her photograph. It had not flattered her
+in the least; indeed, it had not done her justice, for her exquisite
+colouring of hair and complexion were quite lost in it. She was,
+moreover, gowned with a taste and smartness eminently admirable in the
+future Mrs. Eric Curtis. I felt a thrill of proprietary pride as I
+stepped out from behind the palms. She was talking to Aunt Grace; but
+her eyes fell on me. I expected a little start of recognition, for I
+had sent her an excellent photograph of myself; but her gaze was one
+of blankest unconsciousness.
+
+I felt something like disappointment at her non-recognition, but I
+consoled myself by the reflection that people often fail to recognize
+other people whom they have seen only in photographs, no matter how
+good the likeness may be. I waylaid Edna, who was passing at that
+time, and said, "Edna I want you to introduce me to the girl who is
+talking to your mother."
+
+Edna laughed.
+
+"So you have succumbed at first sight to our Croyden beauty? Of course
+I'll introduce you, but I warn you beforehand that she is the most
+incorrigible flirt in Croyden or out of it. So take care."
+
+It jarred on me to hear Marian called a flirt. It seemed so out of
+keeping with her letters and the womanly delicacy and fineness
+revealed in them. But I reflected that women sometimes find it hard to
+forgive another woman who absorbs more than her share of lovers, and
+generally take their revenge by dubbing her a flirt, whether she
+deserves the name or not.
+
+We had crossed the room during this reflection. Marian turned and
+stood before us, smiling at Edna, but evincing no recognition whatever
+of myself. It is a piquant experience to find yourself awaiting an
+introduction to a girl to whom you are virtually engaged.
+
+"Dorothy dear," said Edna, "this is my cousin, Mr. Curtis, from
+Vancouver. Eric, this is Miss Armstrong."
+
+I suppose I bowed. Habit carries us mechanically through many
+impossible situations. I don't know what I looked like or what I said,
+if I said anything. I don't suppose I betrayed my dire confusion, for
+Edna went off unconcernedly without another glance at me.
+
+Dorothy Armstrong! Gracious powers--who--where--why? If this girl was
+Dorothy Armstrong who was Marian Lindsay? To whom was I engaged? There
+was some awful mistake somewhere, for it could not be possible that
+there were two girls in Croyden who looked exactly like the photograph
+reposing in my valise at that very moment. I stammered like a
+schoolboy.
+
+"I--oh--I--your face seems familiar to me, Miss Armstrong. I--I--think
+I must have seen your photograph somewhere."
+
+"Probably in Peter Austin's collection," smiled Miss Armstrong. "He
+had one of mine before he was burned out. How is he?"
+
+"Peter? Oh, he's well," I replied vaguely. I was thinking a hundred
+words to the second, but my thoughts arrived nowhere. I was staring at
+Miss Armstrong like a man bewitched. She must have thought me a
+veritable booby. "Oh, by the way--can you tell me--do you know a Miss
+Lindsay in Croyden?"
+
+Miss Armstrong looked surprised and a little bored. Evidently she was
+not used to having newly introduced young men inquiring about another
+girl.
+
+"Marian Lindsay? Oh, yes."
+
+"Is she here tonight?" I said.
+
+"No, Marian is not going to parties just now, owing to the recent
+death of her aunt, who lived with them."
+
+"Does she--oh--does she look like you at all?" I inquired idiotically.
+
+Amusement glimmered but over Miss Armstrong's boredom. She probably
+concluded that I was some harmless lunatic.
+
+"Like me? Not at all. There couldn't be two people more dissimilar.
+Marian is quite dark. I am fair. And our features are altogether
+unlike. Why, good evening, Jack. Yes, I believe I did promise you this
+dance."
+
+She bowed to me and skimmed away with Jack. I saw Aunt Grace bearing
+down upon me and fled incontinently. In my own room I flung myself on
+a chair and tried to think the matter out. Where did the mistake come
+in? How had it happened? I shut my eyes and conjured up the vision of
+Peter's room that day. I remembered vaguely that, when I had picked up
+Dorothy Armstrong's picture, I had noticed another photograph that had
+fallen face downward beside it. That must have been Marian Lindsay's,
+and Peter had thought I meant it.
+
+And now what a position I was in! I was conscious of bitter
+disappointment. I had fallen in love with Dorothy Armstrong's
+photograph. As far as external semblance goes it was she whom I loved.
+I was practically engaged to another woman--a woman who, in spite of
+our correspondence, seemed to me now, in the shock of this discovery,
+a stranger. It was useless to tell myself that it was the mind and
+soul revealed in those letters that I loved, and that that mind and
+soul were Marian Lindsay's. It was useless to remember that Peter had
+said she was pretty. Exteriorly, she was a stranger to me; hers was
+not the face which had risen before me for nearly a year as the face
+of the woman I loved. Was ever unlucky wretch in such a predicament
+before?
+
+Well, there was only one thing to do. I must stand by my word. Marian
+Lindsay was the woman I had asked to marry me, whose answer I must
+shortly go to receive. If that answer were "yes" I must accept the
+situation and banish all thought of Dorothy Armstrong's pretty face.
+
+Next evening at sunset I went to "Glenwood," the Lindsay place.
+Doubtless, an eager lover might have gone earlier, but an eager lover
+I certainly was not. Probably Marian was expecting me and had given
+orders concerning me, for the maid who came to the door conveyed me to
+a little room behind the stairs--a room which, as I felt as soon as I
+entered it, was a woman's pet domain. In its books and pictures and
+flowers it spoke eloquently of dainty femininity. Somehow, it suited
+the letters. I did not feel quite so much the stranger as I had felt.
+Nevertheless, when I heard a light footfall on the stairs my heart
+beat painfully. I stood up and turned to the door, but I could not
+look up. The footsteps came nearer; I knew that a white hand swept
+aside the _portière_ at the entrance; I knew that she had entered the
+room and was standing before me.
+
+With an effort I raised my eyes and looked at her. She stood, tall and
+gracious, in a ruby splendour of sunset falling through the window
+beside her. The light quivered like living radiance over a dark proud
+head, a white throat, and a face before whose perfect loveliness the
+memory of Dorothy Armstrong's laughing prettiness faded like a star in
+the sunrise, nevermore in the fullness of the day to be remembered.
+Yet it was not of her beauty I thought as I stood spellbound before
+her. I seemed to see a dim little valley full of whispering pines, and
+a girl standing under their shadows, looking at me with the same
+great, greyish-blue eyes which gazed upon me now from Marian Lindsay's
+face--the same face, matured into gracious womanhood, that I had seen
+ten years ago; and loved--aye, loved--ever since. I took an unsteady
+step forward.
+
+"Marian?" I said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When I got home that night I burned Dorothy Armstrong's photograph.
+The next day I went to my cousin Tom, who owns the fashionable studio
+of Croyden and, binding him over to secrecy, sought one of Marian's
+latest photographs from him. It is the only secret I have ever kept
+from my wife.
+
+Before we were married Marian told me something.
+
+"I always remembered you as you looked that day under the pines," she
+said. "I was only a child, but I think I loved you then and ever
+afterwards. When I dreamed my girl's dream of love your face rose up
+before me. I had the advantage of you that I knew your name--I had
+heard of you. When Peter wrote about you I knew who you were. That was
+why I agreed to correspond with you. I was afraid it was a forward--an
+unwomanly thing to do. But it seemed my chance for happiness and I
+took it. I am glad I did."
+
+I did not answer in words, but lovers will know how I did answer.
+
+
+
+
+The Gossip of Valley View
+
+
+It was the first of April, and Julius Barrett, aged fourteen, perched
+on his father's gatepost, watched ruefully the low descending sun, and
+counted that day lost. He had not succeeded in "fooling" a single
+person, although he had tried repeatedly. One and all, old and young,
+of his intended victims had been too wary for Julius. Hence, Julius
+was disgusted and ready for anything in the way of a stratagem or a
+spoil.
+
+The Barrett gatepost topped the highest hill in Valley View. Julius
+could see the entire settlement, from "Young" Thomas Everett's farm, a
+mile to the west, to Adelia Williams's weather-grey little house on a
+moonrise slope to the east. He was gazing moodily down the muddy road
+when Dan Chester, homeward bound from the post office, came riding
+sloppily along on his grey mare and pulled up by the Barrett gate to
+hand a paper to Julius.
+
+Dan was a young man who took life and himself very seriously. He
+seldom smiled, never joked, and had a Washingtonian reputation for
+veracity. Dan had never told a conscious falsehood in his life; he
+never even exaggerated.
+
+Julius, beholding Dan's solemn face, was seized with a perfectly
+irresistible desire to "fool" him. At the same moment his eye caught
+the dazzling reflection of the setting sun on the windows of Adelia
+Williams's house, and he had an inspiration little short of
+diabolical. "Have you heard the news, Dan?" he asked.
+
+"No, what is it?" asked Dan.
+
+"I dunno's I ought to tell it," said Julius reflectively. "It's kind
+of a family affair, but then Adelia didn't say not to, and anyway
+it'll be all over the place soon. So I'll tell you, Dan, if you'll
+promise never to tell who told you. Adelia Williams and Young Thomas
+Everett are going to be married."
+
+Julius delivered himself of this tremendous lie with a transparently
+earnest countenance. Yet Dan, credulous as he was, could not believe
+it all at once.
+
+"Git out," he said.
+
+"It's true, 'pon my word," protested Julius. "Adelia was up last night
+and told Ma all about it. Ma's her cousin, you know. The wedding is to
+be in June, and Adelia asked Ma to help her get her quilts and things
+ready."
+
+Julius reeled all this off so glibly that Dan finally believed the
+story, despite the fact that the people thus coupled together in
+prospective matrimony were the very last people in Valley View who
+could have been expected to marry each other. Young Thomas was a
+confirmed bachelor of fifty, and Adelia Williams was forty; they were
+not supposed to be even well acquainted, as the Everetts and the
+Williamses had never been very friendly, although no open feud existed
+between them.
+
+Nevertheless, in view of Julius's circumstantial statements, the
+amazing news must be true, and Dan was instantly agog to carry it
+further. Julius watched Dan and the grey mare out of sight, fairly
+writhing with ecstasy. Oh, but Dan had been easy! The story would be
+all over Valley View in twenty-four hours. Julius laughed until he
+came near to falling off the gatepost.
+
+At this point Julius and Danny drop out of our story, and Young Thomas
+enters.
+
+It was two days later when Young Thomas heard that he was to be
+married to Adelia Williams in June. Eben Clark, the blacksmith, told
+him when he went to the forge to get his horse shod. Young Thomas
+laughed his big jolly laugh. Valley View gossip had been marrying him
+off for the last thirty years, although never before to Adelia
+Williams.
+
+"It's news to me," he said tolerantly.
+
+Eben grinned broadly. "Ah, you can't bluff it off like that, Tom," he
+said. "The news came too straight this time. Well, I was glad to hear
+it, although I was mighty surprised. I never thought of you and
+Adelia. But she's a fine little woman and will make you a capital
+wife."
+
+Young Thomas grunted and drove away. He had a good deal of business to
+do that day, involving calls at various places--the store for
+molasses, the mill for flour, Jim Bentley's for seed grain, the
+doctor's for toothache drops for his housekeeper, the post office for
+mail--and at each and every place he was joked about his approaching
+marriage. In the end it rather annoyed Young Thomas. He drove home at
+last in what was for him something of a temper. How on earth had that
+fool story started? With such detailed circumstantiality of rugs and
+quilts, too? Adelia Williams must be going to marry somebody, and the
+Valley View gossips, unable to locate the man, had guessed Young
+Thomas.
+
+When he reached home, tired, mud-bespattered, and hungry, his
+housekeeper, who was also his hired man's wife, asked him if it was
+true that he was going to be married. Young Thomas, taking in at a
+glance the ill-prepared, half-cold supper on the table, felt more
+annoyed than ever, and said it wasn't, with a strong expression--not
+quite an oath--for Young Thomas never swore, unless swearing be as
+much a matter of intonation as of words.
+
+Mrs. Dunn sighed, patted her swelled face, and said she was sorry; she
+had hoped it was true, for her man had decided to go west. They were
+to go in a month's time. Young Thomas sat down to his supper with the
+prospect of having to look up another housekeeper and hired man before
+planting to destroy his appetite.
+
+Next day, three people who came to see Young Thomas on business
+congratulated him on his approaching marriage. Young Thomas, who had
+recovered his usual good humour, merely laughed. There was no use in
+being too earnest in denial, he thought. He knew that his unusual fit
+of petulance with his housekeeper had only convinced her that the
+story was true. It would die away in time, as other similar stories
+had died, he thought. Valley View gossip was imaginative.
+
+Young Thomas looked rather serious, however, when the minister and his
+wife called that evening and referred to the report. Young Thomas
+gravely said that it was unfounded. The minister looked graver still
+and said he was sorry--he had hoped it was true. His wife glanced
+significantly about Young Thomas's big, untidy sitting-room, where
+there were cobwebs on the ceiling and fluff in the corners and dust on
+the mop-board, and said nothing, but looked volumes.
+
+"Dang it all," said Young Thomas, as they drove away, "they'll marry
+me yet in spite of myself."
+
+The gossip made him think about Adelia Williams. He had never thought
+about her before; he was barely acquainted with her. Now he remembered
+that she was a plump, jolly-looking little woman, noted for being a
+good housekeeper. Then Young Thomas groaned, remembering that he must
+start out looking for a housekeeper soon; and housekeepers were not
+easily found, as Young Thomas had discovered several times since his
+mother's death ten years before.
+
+Next Sunday in church Young Thomas looked at Adelia Williams. He
+caught Adelia looking at him. Adelia blushed and looked guiltily away.
+
+"Dang it all," reflected Young Thomas, forgetting that he was in
+church. "I suppose she has heard that fool story too. I'd like to know
+the person who started it; man or woman, I'd punch their head."
+
+Nevertheless, Young Thomas went on looking at Adelia by fits and
+starts, although he did not again catch Adelia looking at him. He
+noticed that she had round rosy cheeks and twinkling brown eyes. She
+did not look like an old maid, and Young Thomas wondered that she had
+been allowed to become one. Sarah Barnett, now, to whom report had
+married him a year ago, looked like a dried sour apple.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For the next four weeks the story haunted Young Thomas like a spectre.
+Down it would not. Everywhere he went he was joked about it. It
+gathered fresh detail every week. Adelia was getting her clothes
+ready; she was to be married in seal-brown cashmere; Vinnie Lawrence
+at Valley Centre was making it for her; she had got a new hat with a
+long ostrich plume; some said white, some said grey.
+
+Young Thomas kept wondering who the man could be, for he was convinced
+that Adelia was going to marry somebody. More than that, once he
+caught himself wondering enviously. Adelia was a nice-looking woman,
+and he had not so far heard of any probable housekeeper.
+
+"Dang it all," said Young Thomas to himself in desperation. "I
+wouldn't care if it was true."
+
+His married sister from Carlisle heard the story and came over to
+investigate. Young Thomas denied it shortly, and his sister scolded.
+She had devoutly hoped it was true, she said, and it would have been a
+great weight off her mind.
+
+"This house is in a disgraceful condition, Thomas," she said severely.
+"It would break Mother's heart if she could rise out of her grave to
+see it. And Adelia Williams is a perfect housekeeper."
+
+"You didn't use to think so much of the Williams crowd," said Young
+Thomas drily.
+
+"Oh, some of them don't amount to much," admitted Maria, "but Adelia
+is all right."
+
+Catching sight of an odd look on Young Thomas's face, she added
+hastily, "Thomas Everett, I believe it's true after all. Now, is it?
+For mercy's sake don't be so sly. You might tell me, your own and only
+sister, if it is."
+
+"Oh, shut up," was Young Thomas's unfeeling reply to his own and only
+sister.
+
+Young Thomas told himself that night that Valley View gossip would
+drive him into an asylum yet if it didn't let up. He also wondered if
+Adelia was as much persecuted as himself. No doubt she was. He never
+could catch her eye in church now, but he would have been surprised
+had he realized how many times he tried to.
+
+The climax came the third week in May, when Young Thomas, who had been
+keeping house for himself for three weeks, received a letter and an
+express box from his cousin, Charles Everett, out in Manitoba. Charles
+and he had been chums in their boyhood. They corresponded occasionally
+still, although it was twenty years since Charles had gone west.
+
+The letter was to congratulate Young Thomas on his approaching
+marriage. Charles had heard of it through some Valley View
+correspondents of his wife. He was much pleased; he had always liked
+Adelia, he said--had been an old beau of hers, in fact. Thomas might
+give her a kiss for him if he liked. He forwarded a wedding present by
+express and hoped they would be very happy, etc.
+
+The present was an elaborate hatrack of polished buffalo horns,
+mounted on red plush, with an inset mirror. Young Thomas set it up on
+the kitchen table and scowled moodily at his reflection in the mirror.
+If wedding presents were beginning to come, it was high time something
+was done. The matter was past being a joke. This affair of the present
+would certainly get out--things always got out in Valley View, dang it
+all--and he would never hear the last of it.
+
+"I'll marry," said Young Thomas decisively. "If Adelia Williams won't
+have me, I'll marry the first woman who will, if it's Sarah Barnett
+herself."
+
+Young Thomas shaved and put on his Sunday suit. As soon as it was
+safely dark, he hied him away to Adelia Williams. He felt very
+doubtful about his reception, but the remembrance of the twinkle in
+Adelia's brown eyes comforted him. She looked like a woman who had a
+sense of humour; she might not take him, but she would not feel
+offended or insulted because he asked her.
+
+"Dang it all, though, I hope she will take me," said Young Thomas.
+"I'm in for getting married now and no mistake. And I can't get Adelia
+out of my head. I've been thinking of her steady ever since that
+confounded gossip began."
+
+When he knocked at Adelia's door he discovered that his face was wet
+with perspiration. Adelia opened the door and started when she saw
+him; then she turned very red and stiffly asked him in. Young Thomas
+went in and sat down, wondering if all men felt so horribly
+uncomfortable when they went courting.
+
+Adelia stooped low over the woodbox to put a stick of wood in the
+stove, for the May evening was chilly. Her shoulders were shaking; the
+shaking grew worse; suddenly Adelia laughed hysterically and, sitting
+down on the woodbox, continued to laugh. Young Thomas eyed her with a
+friendly grin.
+
+"Oh, do excuse me," gasped poor Adelia, wiping tears from her eyes.
+"This is--dreadful--I didn't mean to laugh--I don't know why I'm
+laughing--but--I--can't help it."
+
+She laughed helplessly again. Young Thomas laughed too. His
+embarrassment vanished in the mellowness of that laughter. Presently
+Adelia composed herself and removed from the woodbox to a chair, but
+there was still a suspicious twitching about the corners of her mouth.
+
+"I suppose," said Young Thomas, determined to have it over with before
+the ice could form again, "I suppose, Adelia, you've heard the story
+that's been going about you and me of late?"
+
+Adelia nodded. "I've been persecuted to the verge of insanity with
+it," she said. "Every soul I've seen has tormented me about it, and
+people have written me about it. I've denied it till I was black in
+the face, but nobody believed me. I can't find out how it started. I
+hope you believe, Mr. Everett, that it couldn't possibly have arisen
+from anything I said. I've felt dreadfully worried for fear you might
+think it did. I heard that my cousin, Lucilla Barrett, said I told
+her, but Lucilla vowed to me that she never said such a thing or even
+dreamed of it. I've felt dreadful bad over the whole affair. I even
+gave up the idea of making a quilt after a lovely new pattern I've got
+because they made such a talk about my brown dress."
+
+"I've been kind of supposing that you must be going to marry somebody,
+and folks just guessed it was me," said Young Thomas--he said it
+anxiously.
+
+"No, I'm not going to be married to anybody," said Adelia with a
+laugh, taking up her knitting.
+
+"I'm glad of that," said Young Thomas gravely. "I mean," he hastened
+to add, seeing the look of astonishment on Adelia's face, "that I'm
+glad there isn't any other man because--because I want you myself,
+Adelia."
+
+Adelia laid down her knitting and blushed crimson. But she looked at
+Young Thomas squarely and reproachfully.
+
+"You needn't think you are bound to say that because of the gossip,
+Mr. Everett," she said quietly.
+
+"Oh, I don't," said Young Thomas earnestly. "But the truth is, the
+story set me to thinking about you, and from that I got to wishing it
+was true--honest, I did--I couldn't get you out of my head, and at
+last I didn't want to. It just seemed to me that you were the very
+woman for me if you'd only take me. Will you, Adelia? I've got a good
+farm and house, and I'll try to make you happy."
+
+It was not a very romantic wooing, perhaps. But Adelia was forty and
+had never been a romantic little body even in the heyday of youth. She
+was a practical woman, and Young Thomas was a fine looking man of his
+age with abundance of worldly goods. Besides, she liked him, and the
+gossip had made her think a good deal about him of late. Indeed, in a
+moment of candour she had owned to herself the very last Sunday in
+church that she wouldn't mind if the story were true.
+
+"I'll--I'll think of it," she said.
+
+This was practically an acceptance, and Young Thomas so understood
+it. Without loss of time he crossed the kitchen, sat down beside
+Adelia, and put his arms about her plump waist.
+
+"Here's a kiss Charlie sent me to give you," he said, giving it.
+
+
+
+
+The Letters
+
+
+Just before the letter was brought to me that evening I was watching
+the red November sunset from the library window. It was a stormy,
+unrestful sunset, gleaming angrily through the dark fir boughs that
+were now and again tossed suddenly and distressfully in a fitful gust
+of wind. Below, in the garden, it was quite dark, and I could only see
+dimly the dead leaves that were whirling and dancing uncannily over
+the roseless paths. The poor dead leaves--yet not quite dead! There
+was still enough unquiet life left in them to make them restless and
+forlorn. They hearkened yet to every call of the wind, who cared for
+them no longer but only played freakishly with them and broke their
+rest. I felt sorry for the leaves as I watched them in that dull,
+weird twilight, and angry--in a petulant fashion that almost made me
+laugh--with the wind that would not leave them in peace. Why should
+they--and I--be vexed with these transient breaths of desire for a
+life that had passed us by?
+
+I was in the grip of a bitter loneliness that evening--so bitter and
+so insistent that I felt I could not face the future at all, even with
+such poor fragments of courage as I had gathered about me after
+Father's death, hoping that they would, at least, suffice for my
+endurance, if not for my content. But now they fell away from me at
+sight of the emptiness of life.
+
+The emptiness! Ah, it was from that I shrank. I could have faced pain
+and anxiety and heartbreak undauntedly, but I could not face that
+terrible, yawning, barren emptiness. I put my hands over my eyes to
+shut it out, but it pressed in upon my consciousness insistently, and
+would not be ignored longer.
+
+The moment when a woman realizes that she has nothing to live
+for--neither love nor purpose nor duty--holds for her the bitterness
+of death. She is a brave woman indeed who can look upon such a
+prospect unquailingly, and I was not brave. I was weak and timid. Had
+not Father often laughed mockingly at me because of it?
+
+It was three weeks since Father had died--my proud, handsome,
+unrelenting old father, whom I had loved so intensely and who had
+never loved me. I had always accepted this fact unresentfully and
+unquestioningly, but it had steeped my whole life in its tincture of
+bitterness. Father had never forgiven me for two things. I had cost my
+mother's life and I was not a son to perpetuate the old name and carry
+on the family feud with the Frasers.
+
+I was a very lonely child, with no playmates or companions of any
+sort, and my girlhood was lonelier still. The only passion in my life
+was my love for my father. I would have done and suffered anything to
+win his affection in return. But all I ever did win was an amused
+tolerance--and I was grateful for that--almost content. It was much to
+have something to love and be permitted to love it.
+
+If I had been a beautiful and spirited girl I think Father might have
+loved me, but I was neither. At first I did not think or care about my
+lack of beauty; then one day I was alone in the beech wood; I was
+trying to disentangle my skirt which had caught on some thorny
+underbrush. A young man came around the curve of the path and, seeing
+my predicament, bent with murmured apology to help me. He had to kneel
+to do it, and I saw a ray of sunshine falling through the beeches
+above us strike like a lance of light athwart the thick brown hair
+that pushed out from under his cap. Before I thought I put out my hand
+and touched it softly, then I blushed crimson with shame over what I
+had done. But he did not know--he never knew.
+
+When he had released my dress he rose and our eyes met for a moment as
+I timidly thanked him. I saw that he was good to look upon--tall and
+straight, with broad, stalwart shoulders and a dark, clean-cut face.
+He had a firm, sensitive mouth and kindly, pleasant, dark blue eyes. I
+never quite forgot the look in those eyes. It made my heart beat
+strangely, but it was only for a moment, and the next he had lifted
+his cap and passed on.
+
+As I went homeward I wondered who he might be. He must be a stranger,
+I thought--probably a visitor in some of our few neighbouring
+families. I wondered too if I should meet him again, and found the
+thought very pleasant.
+
+I knew few men and they were all old, like Father, or at least
+elderly. They were the only people who ever came to our house, and
+they either teased me or overlooked me. None of them was at all like
+this young man I had met in the beech wood, nor ever could have been,
+I thought.
+
+When I reached home I stopped before the big mirror that hung in the
+hall and did what I had never done before in my life--looked at myself
+very scrutinizingly and wondered if I had any beauty. I could only
+sorrowfully conclude that I had not--I was so slight and pale, and the
+thick black hair and dark eyes that might have been pretty in another
+woman seemed only to accentuate the lack of spirit and regularity in
+my features. I was still standing there, gazing wistfully at my
+mirrored face with a strange sinking of spirit, when Father came
+through the hall, his riding whip in his hand. Seeing me, he laughed.
+
+"Don't waste your time gazing into mirrors, Isobel," he said
+carelessly. "That might have been excusable in former ladies of
+Shirley whose beauty might pardon and even adorn vanity, but with you
+it is only absurd. The needle and the cookbook are all that you need
+concern yourself with."
+
+I was accustomed to such speeches from him, but they had never hurt me
+so cruelly before. At that moment I would have given all the world
+only to be beautiful.
+
+The next Sunday I looked across the church, and in the Fraser pew I
+saw the young man I had met in the wood. He was looking at me with his
+arms folded over his breast and on his brow a little frown that seemed
+somehow indicative of pain and surprise. I felt a miserable sense of
+disappointment. If he were the Frasers' guest I could not expect to
+meet him again. Father hated the Frasers, all the Shirleys hated them;
+it was an old feud, bitter and lasting, that had been as much our
+inheritance for generations as land and money. The only thing Father
+had ever taken pains to teach me was detestation of the Frasers and
+all their works. I accepted this as I accepted all the other
+traditions of my race. I thought it did not matter much. The Frasers
+were not likely to come my way, and hatred was a good satisfying
+passion in the lack of all else. I think I rather took a pride in
+hating them as became my blood.
+
+I did not look at the Fraser pew again, but outside, under the elms,
+we met him, standing in the dappling light and shadow. He looked very
+handsome and a little sad. I could not help glancing back over my
+shoulder as Father and I walked to the gate, and I saw him looking
+after us with that little frown which again made me think something
+had hurt him. I liked better the smile he had worn in the beech wood,
+but I had an odd liking for the frown too, and I think I had a foolish
+longing to go back to him, put up my fingers and smooth it away.
+
+"So Alan Fraser has come home," said my father.
+
+"Alan Fraser?" I repeated, with a strange, horrible feeling of
+coldness and chill coming over me like a shadow on a bright day. Alan
+Fraser, the son of old Malcolm Fraser of Glenellyn! The son of our
+enemy! He had been living since childhood with his dead mother's
+people, so much I knew. And this was he! Something stung and smarted
+in my eyes. I think the sting and smart might have turned to tears if
+Father had not been looking down at me.
+
+"Yes. Didn't you see him in his father's pew? But I forgot. You are
+too demure to be looking at the young men in preaching--or out of it,
+Isobel. You are a model young woman. Odd that the men never like the
+model young women! Curse old Malcolm Fraser! What right has he to have
+a son like that when I have nothing but a puling girl? Remember,
+Isobel, that if you ever meet that young man you are not to speak to
+or look at him, or even intimate that you are aware of his existence.
+He is your enemy and the enemy of your race. You will show him that
+you realize this."
+
+Of course that ended it all--though just what there had been to end
+would have been hard to say. Not long afterwards I met Alan Fraser
+again, when I was out for a canter on my mare. He was strolling
+through the beech wood with a couple of big collies, and he stopped
+short as I drew near. I had to do it--Father had decreed--my Shirley
+pride demanded--that I should do it. I looked him unseeingly in the
+face, struck my mare a blow with my whip, and dashed past him. I even
+felt angry, I think, that a Fraser should have the power to make me
+feel so badly in doing my duty.
+
+After that I had forgotten. There was nothing to make me remember, for
+I never met Alan Fraser again. The years slipped by, one by one, so
+like each other in their colourlessness that I forgot to take account
+of them. I only knew that I grew older and that it did not matter
+since there was nobody to care. One day they brought Father in,
+white-lipped and groaning. His mare had thrown him, and he was never
+to walk again, although he lived for five years. Those five years had
+been the happiest of my life. For the first time I was necessary to
+someone--there was something for me to do which nobody else could do
+so well. I was Father's nurse and companion; and I found my pleasure
+in tending him and amusing him, soothing his hours of pain and
+brightening his hours of ease. People said I "did my duty" toward him.
+I had never liked that word "duty," since the day I had ridden past
+Alan Fraser in the beech wood. I could not connect it with what I did
+for Father. It was my delight because I loved him. I did not mind the
+moods and the irritable outbursts that drove others from him.
+
+But now he was dead, and I sat in the sullen dusk, wishing that I need
+not go on with life either. The loneliness of the big echoing house
+weighed on my spirit. I was solitary, without companionship. I looked
+out on the outside world where the only sign of human habitation
+visible to my eyes was the light twinkling out from the library window
+of Glenellyn on the dark fir hill two miles away. By that light I knew
+Alan Fraser must have returned from his long sojourn abroad, for it
+only shone when he was at Glenellyn. He still lived there, something
+of a hermit, people said; he had never married, and he cared nothing
+for society. His companions were books and dogs and horses; he was
+given to scientific researches and wrote much for the reviews; he
+travelled a great deal. So much I knew in a vague way. I even saw him
+occasionally in church, and never thought the years had changed him
+much, save that his face was sadder and sterner than of old and his
+hair had become iron-grey. People said that he had inherited and
+cherished the old hatred of the Shirleys--that he was very bitter
+against us. I believed it. He had the face of a good hater--or
+lover--a man who could play with no emotion but must take it in all
+earnestness and intensity.
+
+When it was quite dark the housekeeper brought in the lights and
+handed me a letter which, she said, a man had just brought up from the
+village post office. I looked at it curiously before I opened it,
+wondering from whom it was. It was postmarked from a city several
+miles away, and the firm, decided, rather peculiar handwriting was
+strange to me. I had no correspondents. After Father's death I had
+received a few perfunctory notes of condolence from distant relatives
+and family friends. They had hurt me cruelly, for they seemed to
+exhale a subtle spirit of congratulation on my being released from a
+long and unpleasant martyrdom of attendance on an invalid, that quite
+overrode the decorous phrases of conventional sympathy in which they
+were expressed. I hated those letters for their implied injustice. I
+was not thankful for my "release." I missed Father miserably and
+longed passionately for the very tasks and vigils that had evoked
+their pity.
+
+This letter did not seem like one of those. I opened it and took out
+some stiff, blackly written sheets. They were undated and, turning to
+the last, I saw that they were unsigned. With a not unpleasant
+tingling of interest I sat down by my desk to read. The letter began
+abruptly:
+
+    You will not know by whom this is written. Do not seek to
+    know--now or ever. It is only from behind the veil of your
+    ignorance of my identity that I can ever write to you fully
+    and freely as I wish to write--can say what I wish to say in
+    words denied to a formal and conventional expression of
+    sympathy. Dear lady, let me say to you thus what is in my
+    heart.
+
+    I know what your sorrow is, and I think I know what your
+    loneliness must be--the sorrow of a broken tie, the loneliness
+    of a life thrown emptily back on itself. I know how you loved
+    your father--how you must have loved him if those eyes and
+    brow and mouth speak truth, for they tell of a nature divinely
+    rich and deep, giving of its wealth and tenderness
+    ungrudgingly to those who are so happy as to be the objects of
+    its affection. To such a nature bereavement must bring a depth
+    and an agony of grief unknown to shallower souls.
+
+    I know what your father's helplessness and need of you meant
+    to you. I know that now life must seem to you a broken and
+    embittered thing and, knowing this, I venture to send this
+    greeting across the gulf of strangerhood between us, telling
+    you that my understanding sympathy is fully and freely yours,
+    and bidding you take heart for the future, which now, it may
+    be, looks so heartless and hopeless to you.
+
+    Believe me, dear lady, it will be neither. Courage will come
+    to you with the kind days. You will find noble tasks to do,
+    beautiful and gracious duties waiting along your path. The
+    pain and suffering of the world never dies, and while it
+    lives there will be work for such as you to do, and in the
+    doing of it you will find comfort and strength and the highest
+    joy of living. I believe in you. I believe you will make of
+    your life a beautiful and worthy thing. I give you Godspeed
+    for the years to come. Out of my own loneliness I, an unknown
+    friend, who has never clasped your hand, send this message to
+    you. I understand--I have always understood--and I say to you:
+    "Be of good cheer."
+
+To say that this strange letter was a mystery to me seems an
+inadequate way of stating the matter. I was completely bewildered, nor
+could I even guess who the writer might be, think and ponder as I
+might.
+
+The letter itself implied that the writer was a stranger. The
+handwriting was evidently that of a man, and I knew no man who could
+or would have sent such a letter to me.
+
+The very mystery stung me to interest. As for the letter itself, it
+brought me an uplift of hope and inspiration such as I would not have
+believed possible an hour earlier. It rang so truly and sincerely, and
+the mere thought that somewhere I had a friend who cared enough to
+write it, even in such odd fashion, was so sweet that I was half
+ashamed of the difference it made in my outlook. Sitting there, I took
+courage and made a compact with myself that I would justify the
+writer's faith in me--that I would take up my life as something to be
+worthily lived for all good, to the disregard of my own selfish sorrow
+and shrinking. I would seek for something to do--for interests which
+would bind me to my fellow-creatures--for tasks which would lessen the
+pains and perils of humankind. An hour before, this would not have
+seemed to me possible; now it seemed the right and natural thing to
+do.
+
+A week later another letter came. I welcomed it with an eagerness
+which I feared was almost childish. It was a much longer letter than
+the first and was written in quite a different strain. There was no
+apology for or explanation of the motive for writing. It was as if the
+letter were merely one of a permitted and established correspondence
+between old friends. It began with a witty, sparkling review of a new
+book the writer had just read, and passed from this to crisp comments
+on the great events, political, scientific, artistic, of the day. The
+whole letter was pungent, interesting, delightful--an impersonal essay
+on a dozen vital topics of life and thought. Only at the end was a
+personal note struck.
+
+"Are you interested in these things?" ran the last paragraph. "In what
+is being done and suffered and attained in the great busy world? I
+think you must be--for I have seen you and read what is written in
+your face. I believe you care for these things as I do--that your
+being thrills to the 'still, sad music of humanity'--that the songs of
+the poets I love find an echo in your spirit and the aspirations of
+all struggling souls a sympathy in your heart. Believing this, I have
+written freely to you, taking a keen pleasure in thus revealing my
+thoughts and visions to one who will understand. For I too am
+friendless, in the sense of one standing alone, shut out from the
+sweet, intimate communion of feeling and opinion that may be held with
+the heart's friends. Shall you have read this as a friend, I wonder--a
+candid, uncritical, understanding friend? Let me hope it, dear lady."
+
+I was expecting the third letter when it came--but not until it did
+come did I realize what my disappointment would have been if it had
+not. After that every week brought me a letter; soon those letters
+were the greatest interest in my life. I had given up all attempts to
+solve the mystery of their coming and was content to enjoy them for
+themselves alone. From week to week I looked forward to them with an
+eagerness that I would hardly confess, even to myself.
+
+And such letters as they were, growing longer and fuller and freer as
+time went on--such wise, witty, brilliant, pungent letters,
+stimulating all my torpid life into tingling zest! I had begun to
+look abroad in my small world for worthy work and found plenty to do.
+My unknown friend evidently kept track of my expanding efforts, for he
+commented and criticized, encouraged and advised freely. There was a
+humour in his letters that I liked; it leavened them with its sanity
+and reacted on me most wholesomely, counteracting many of the morbid
+tendencies and influences of my life. I found myself striving to live
+up to the writer's ideal of philosophy and ambition, as pictured,
+often unconsciously, in his letters.
+
+They were an intellectual stimulant as well. To understand them fully
+I found it necessary to acquaint myself thoroughly with the literature
+and art, the science and the politics they touched upon. After every
+letter there was something new for me to hunt out and learn and
+assimilate, until my old narrow mental attitude had so broadened and
+deepened, sweeping out into circles of thought I had never known or
+imagined, that I hardly knew myself.
+
+They had been coming for a year before I began to reply to them. I had
+often wished to do so--there were so many things I wanted to say and
+discuss, but it seemed foolish to write letters that could not be
+sent. One day a letter came that kindled my imagination and stirred my
+heart and soul so deeply that they insistently demanded answering
+expression. I sat down at my desk and wrote a full reply to it. Safe
+in the belief that the mysterious friend to whom it was written would
+never see it, I wrote with a perfect freedom and a total lack of
+self-consciousness that I could never have attained otherwise. The
+writing of that letter gave me a pleasure second only to that which
+the reading of his brought. For the first time I discovered the
+delight of revealing my thought unhindered by the conventions. Also, I
+understood better why the writer of those letters had written them.
+Doubtless he had enjoyed doing so and was not impelled thereto simply
+by a purely philanthropic wish to help me.
+
+When my letter was finished I sealed it up and locked it away in my
+desk with a smile at my middle-aged folly. What, I wondered, would all
+my sedate, serious friends, my associates of mission and hospital
+committees think if they knew. Well, everybody has, or should have, a
+pet nonsense in her life. I did not think mine was any sillier than
+some others I knew, and to myself I admitted that it was very sweet. I
+knew if those letters ceased to come all savour would go out of my
+life.
+
+After that I wrote a reply to every letter I received and kept them
+all locked up together. It was delightful. I wrote out all my doings
+and perplexities and hopes and plans and wishes--yes, and my dreams.
+The secret romance of it all made me look on existence with joyous,
+contented eyes.
+
+Gradually a change crept over the letters I received. Without ever
+affording the slightest clue to the identity of their writer they grew
+more intimate and personal. A subtle, caressing note of tenderness
+breathed from them and thrilled my heart curiously. I felt as if I
+were being drawn into the writer's life, admitted into the most sacred
+recesses of his thoughts and feelings. Yet it was all done so subtly,
+so delicately, that I was unconscious of the change until I discovered
+it in reading over the older letters and comparing them with the later
+ones.
+
+Finally a letter came--my first love letter, and surely never was a
+love letter received under stranger circumstances. It began abruptly
+as all the letters had begun, plunging into the middle of the writer's
+strain of thought without any preface. The first words drove the blood
+to my heart and then sent it flying hotly all over my face.
+
+    I love you. I must say it at last. Have you not guessed it
+    before? It has trembled on my pen in every line I have written
+    to you--yet I have never dared to shape it into words before.
+    I know not how I dare now. I only know that I must. What a
+    delight to write it out and know that you will read it.
+    Tonight the mood is on me to tell it to you recklessly and
+    lavishly, never pausing to stint or weigh words. Sweetheart, I
+    love you--love you--love you--dear true, faithful woman soul,
+    I love you with all the heart of a man.
+
+    Ever since I first saw you I have loved you. I can never come
+    to tell you so in spoken words; I can only love you from afar
+    and tell my love under the guise of impersonal friendship. It
+    matters not to you, but it matters more than all else in life
+    to me. I am glad that I love you, dear--glad, glad, glad.
+
+There was much more, for it was a long letter. When I had read it I
+buried my burning face in my hands, trembling with happiness. This
+strange confession of love meant so much to me; my heart leaped forth
+to meet it with answering love. What mattered it that we could never
+meet--that I could not even guess who my lover was? Somewhere in the
+world was a love that was mine alone and mine wholly and mine forever.
+What mattered his name or his station, or the mysterious barrier
+between us? Spirit leaped to spirit unhindered over the fettering
+bounds of matter and time. I loved and was beloved. Nothing else
+mattered.
+
+I wrote my answer to his letter. I wrote it fearlessly and
+unstintedly. Perhaps I could not have written so freely if the letter
+were to have been read by him; as it was, I poured out the riches of
+my love as fully as he had done. I kept nothing back, and across the
+gulf between us I vowed a faithful and enduring love in response to
+his.
+
+The next day I went to town on business with my lawyers. Neither of
+the members of the firm was in when I called, but I was an old client,
+and one of the clerks showed me into the private office to wait. As I
+sat down my eyes fell on a folded letter lying on the table beside
+me. With a shock of surprise I recognized the writing. I could not be
+mistaken--I should have recognized it anywhere.
+
+The letter was lying by its envelope, so folded that only the middle
+third of the page was visible. An irresistible impulse swept over me.
+Before I could reflect that I had no business to touch the letter,
+that perhaps it was unfair to my unknown friend to seek to discover
+his identity when he wished to hide it, I had turned the letter over
+and seen the signature.
+
+I laid it down again and stood up, dizzy, breathless, unseeing. Like a
+woman in a dream I walked through the outer office and into the
+street. I must have walked on for blocks before I became conscious of
+my surroundings. The name I had seen signed to that letter was Alan
+Fraser!
+
+No doubt the reader has long ago guessed it--has wondered why I had
+not. The fact remains that I had not. Out of the whole world Alan
+Fraser was the last man whom I should have suspected to be the writer
+of those letters--Alan Fraser, my hereditary enemy, who, I had been
+told, cherished the old feud so faithfully and bitterly, and hated our
+very name.
+
+And yet I now wondered at my long blindness. No one else could have
+written those letters--no one but him. I read them over one by one
+when I reached home and, now that I possessed the key, he revealed
+himself in every line, expression, thought. And he loved me!
+
+I thought of the old feud and hatred; I thought of my pride and
+traditions. They seemed like the dust and ashes of outworn
+things--things to be smiled at and cast aside. I took out all the
+letters I had written--all except the last one--sealed them up in a
+parcel and directed it to Alan Fraser. Then, summoning my groom, I
+bade him ride to Glenellyn with it. His look of amazement almost made
+me laugh, but after he was gone I felt dizzy and frightened at my own
+daring.
+
+When the autumn darkness came down I went to my room and dressed as
+the woman dresses who awaits the one man of all the world. I hardly
+knew what I hoped or expected, but I was all athrill with a nameless,
+inexplicable happiness. I admit I looked very eagerly into the mirror
+when I was done, and I thought that the result was not unpleasing.
+Beauty had never been mine, but a faint reflection of it came over me
+in the tremulous flush and excitement of the moment. Then the maid
+came up to tell me that Alan Fraser was in the library.
+
+I went down with my cold hands tightly clasped behind me. He was
+standing by the library table, a tall, broad-shouldered man, with the
+light striking upward on his dark, sensitive face and iron-grey hair.
+When he saw me he came quickly forward.
+
+"So you know--and you are not angry--your letters told me so much. I
+have loved you since that day in the beech wood, Isobel--Isobel."
+
+His eyes were kindling into mine. He held my hands in a close,
+impetuous clasp. His voice was infinitely caressing as he pronounced
+my name. I had never heard it since Father died--I had never heard it
+at all so musically and tenderly uttered. My ancestors might have
+turned in their graves just then--but it mattered not. Living love had
+driven out dead hatred.
+
+"Isobel," he went on, "there was _one_ letter unanswered--the last."
+
+I went to my desk, took out the last letter I had written and gave it
+to him in silence. While he read it I stood in a shadowy corner and
+watched him, wondering if life could always be as sweet as this. When
+he had finished he turned to me and held out his arms. I went to them
+as a bird to her nest, and with his lips against mine the old feud was
+blotted out forever.
+
+
+
+
+The Life-Book of Uncle Jesse
+
+
+Uncle Jesse! The name calls up the vision of him as I saw him so often
+in those two enchanted summers at Golden Gate; as I saw him the first
+time, when he stood in the open doorway of the little low-eaved
+cottage on the harbour shore, welcoming us to our new domicile with
+the gentle, unconscious courtesy that became him so well. A tall,
+ungainly figure, somewhat stooped, yet suggestive of great strength
+and endurance; a clean-shaven old face deeply lined and bronzed; a
+thick mane of iron-grey hair falling quite to his shoulders; and a
+pair of remarkably blue, deep-set eyes, which sometimes twinkled and
+sometimes dreamed, but oftener looked out seaward with a wistful
+question in them, as of one seeking something precious and lost. I was
+to learn one day what it was for which Uncle Jesse looked.
+
+It cannot be denied that Uncle Jesse was a homely man. His spare jaws,
+rugged mouth, and square brow were not fashioned on the lines of
+beauty, but though at first sight you thought him plain you never
+thought anything more about it--the spirit shining through that rugged
+tenement beautified it so wholly.
+
+Uncle Jesse was quite keenly aware of his lack of outward comeliness
+and lamented it, for he was a passionate worshipper of beauty in
+everything. He told Mother once that he'd rather like to be made over
+again and made handsome.
+
+"Folks say I'm good," he remarked whimsically, "but I sometimes wish
+the Lord had made me only half as good and put the rest of it into
+looks. But I reckon He knew what He was about, as a good Captain
+should. Some of us have to be homely or the purty ones--like Miss Mary
+there--wouldn't show up so well."
+
+I was not in the least pretty but Uncle Jesse was always telling me I
+was--and I loved him for it. He told the fib so prettily and sincerely
+that he almost made me believe it for the time being, and I really
+think he believed it himself. All women were lovely and of good report
+in his eyes, because of one he had loved. The only time I ever saw
+Uncle Jesse really angered was when someone in his hearing cast an
+aspersion on the character of a shore girl. The wretched man who did
+it fairly cringed when Uncle Jesse turned on him with lightning of eye
+and thundercloud of brow. At that moment I no longer found it hard to
+reconcile Uncle Jesse's simple, kindly personality with the wild,
+adventurous life he had lived.
+
+We went to Golden Gate in the spring. Mother's health had not been
+good and her doctor recommended sea air and quiet. Uncle James, when
+he heard it, proposed that we take possession of a small cottage at
+Golden Gate, to which he had recently fallen heir by the death of an
+old aunt who had lived in it.
+
+"I haven't been up to see it," he said, "but it is just as Aunt
+Elizabeth left it and she was the pink of neatness. The key is in the
+possession of an old sailor living nearby--Jesse Boyd is the name, I
+think. I imagine you can be very comfortable in it. It is built right
+on the harbour shore, inside the bar, and it is within five minutes'
+walk of the outside shore."
+
+Uncle James's offer fitted in very opportunely with our limp family
+purse, and we straightway betook ourselves to Golden Gate. We
+telegraphed to Jesse Boyd to have the house opened for us and, one
+crisp spring day, when a rollicking wind was scudding over the harbour
+and the dunes, whipping the water into white caps and washing the
+sandshore with long lines of silvery breakers, we alighted at the
+little station and walked the half mile to our new home, leaving our
+goods and chattels to be carted over in the evening by an obliging
+station agent's boy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our first glimpse of Aunt Elizabeth's cottage was a delight to soul
+and sense; it looked so like a big grey seashell stranded on the
+shore. Between it and the harbour was only a narrow strip of shingle,
+and behind it was a gnarled and battered fir wood where the winds were
+in the habit of harping all sorts of weird and haunting music. Inside,
+it was to prove even yet more quaint and delightful, with its low,
+dark-beamed ceilings and square, deep-set windows by which, whether
+open or shut, sea breezes entered at their own sweet will. The view
+from our door was magnificent, taking in the big harbour and sweeps of
+purple hills beyond. The entrance of the harbour gave it its name--a
+deep, narrow channel between the bar of sand dunes on the one side and
+a steep, high, frowning red sandstone cliff on the other. We
+appreciated its significance the first time we saw a splendid golden
+sunrise flooding it, coming out of the wonderful sea and sky beyond
+and billowing through that narrow passage in waves of light. Truly, it
+was a golden gate through which one might sail to "faerie lands
+forlorn."
+
+As we went along the path to our little house we were agreeably
+surprised to see a blue spiral of smoke curling up from its big,
+square chimney, and the next moment Uncle Jesse (we were calling him
+Uncle Jesse half an hour after we met him, so it seems scarcely
+worthwhile to begin with anything else) came to the door.
+
+"Welcome, ladies," he said, holding out a big, hard, but scrupulously
+clean hand. "I thought you'd be feeling a bit tired and hungry, maybe,
+so when I came over to open up I put on a fire and brewed you up a cup
+of tea. I just delight in being neighbourly and 'tain't often I have
+the chance."
+
+We found that Uncle Jesse's "cup of tea" meant a veritable spread. He
+had aired the little dining room, set out the table daintily with Aunt
+Elizabeth's china and linen--"knowed jest where to put my hands on
+'em--often and often helped old Miss Kennedy wash 'em. We were
+cronies, her and me. I miss her terrible"--and adorned it with
+mayflowers which, as we afterwards discovered, he had tramped several
+miles to gather. There was good bread and butter, "store" biscuits, a
+dish of tea fit for the gods on high Olympus, and a platter of the
+most delicious sea trout, done to a turn.
+
+"Thought they'd be tasty after travelling," said Uncle Jesse. "They're
+fresh as trout can be, ma'am. Two hours ago they was swimming in
+Johnson's pond yander. I caught 'em--yes, ma'am. It's about all I'm
+good for now, catching trout and cod occasional. But 'tweren't always
+so--not by no manner of means. I used to do other things, as you'd
+admit if you saw my life-book."
+
+I was so hungry and tired that I did not then "rise to the bait" of
+Uncle Jesse's "life-book." I simply wanted to begin on those trout.
+Mother insisted that Uncle Jesse sit down and help us eat the repast
+he had prepared, and he assented without undue coaxing.
+
+"Thank ye kindly. 'Twill be a real treat. I mostly has to eat my meals
+alone, with the reflection of my ugly old phiz in a looking glass
+opposite for company. 'Tisn't often I have the chance to sit down with
+two such sweet purty ladies."
+
+Uncle Jesse's compliments look bald enough on paper, but he paid them
+with such gracious, gentle deference of tone and look that the woman
+who received them felt that she was being offered a queen's gift in
+kingly fashion.
+
+He broke bread with us and from that moment we were all friends
+together and forever. After we had eaten all we could, we sat at our
+table for an hour and listened to Uncle Jesse telling us stories of
+his life.
+
+"If I talk too much you must jest check me," he said seriously, but
+with a twinkle in his eyes. "When I do get a chance to talk to anyone
+I'm apt to run on terrible."
+
+He had been a sailor from the time he was ten years old, and some of
+his adventures had such a marvellous edge that I secretly wondered if
+Uncle Jesse were not drawing a rather long bow at our credulous
+expense. But in this, as I found later, I did him injustice. His tales
+were all literally true, and Uncle Jesse had the gift of the born
+story-teller, whereby "unhappy, far-off things" can be brought vividly
+before the hearer and made to live again in all their pristine
+poignancy.
+
+Mother and I laughed and shivered over Uncle Jesse's tales, and once
+we found ourselves crying. Uncle Jesse surveyed our tears with
+pleasure shining out through his face like an illuminating lamp.
+
+"I like to make folks cry that way," he remarked. "It's a compliment.
+But I can't do justice to the things I've seen and helped do. I've got
+'em all jotted down in my life-book but I haven't got the knack of
+writing them out properly. If I had, I could make a great book, if I
+had the knack of hitting on just the right words and stringing
+everything together proper on paper. But I can't. It's in this poor
+human critter," Uncle Jesse patted his breast sorrowfully, "but he
+can't get it out."
+
+When Uncle Jesse went home that evening Mother asked him to come often
+to see us.
+
+"I wonder if you'd give that invitation if you knew how likely I'd be
+to accept it," he remarked whimsically.
+
+"Which is another way of saying you wonder if I meant it," smiled
+Mother. "I do, most heartily and sincerely."
+
+"Then I'll come. You'll likely be pestered with me at any hour. And
+I'd be proud to have you drop over to visit me now and then too. I
+live on that point yander. Neither me nor my house is worth coming to
+see. It's only got one room and a loft and a stovepipe sticking out of
+the roof for a chimney. But I've got a few little things lying around
+that I picked up in the queer corners I used to be poking my nose
+into. Mebbe they'd interest you."
+
+Uncle Jesse's "few little things" turned out to be the most
+interesting collection of curios I had ever seen. His one neat little
+living room was full of them--beautiful, hideous or quaint as the case
+might be, and almost all having some weird or exciting story attached.
+
+Mother and I had a beautiful summer at Golden Gate. We lived the life
+of two children with Uncle Jesse as a playmate. Our housekeeping was
+of the simplest description and we spent our hours rambling along the
+shores, reading on the rocks or sailing over the harbour in Uncle
+Jesse's trim little boat. Every day we loved the simple-souled, true,
+manly old sailor more and more. He was as refreshing as a sea breeze,
+as interesting as some ancient chronicle. We never tired of listening
+to his stories, and his quaint remarks and comments were a continual
+delight to us. Uncle Jesse was one of those interesting and rare
+people who, in the picturesque phraseology of the shore folks, "never
+speak but they say something." The milk of human kindness and the
+wisdom of the serpent were mingled in Uncle Jesse's composition in
+delightful proportions.
+
+One day he was absent all day and returned at nightfall.
+
+"Took a tramp back yander." "Back yander" with Uncle Jesse might mean
+the station hamlet or the city a hundred miles away or any place
+between--"to carry Mr. Kimball a mess of trout. He likes one
+occasional and it's all I can do for a kindness he did me once. I
+stayed all day to talk to him. He likes to talk to me, though he's an
+eddicated man, because he's one of the folks that's _got_ to talk or
+they're miserable, and he finds listeners scarce 'round here. The
+folks fight shy of him because they think he's an infidel. He ain't
+_that_ far gone exactly--few men is, I reckon--but he's what you might
+call a heretic. Heretics are wicked but they're mighty interesting.
+It's just that they've got sorter lost looking for God, being under
+the impression that He's hard to find--which He ain't, never. Most of
+'em blunder to Him after a while I guess. I don't think listening to
+Mr. Kimball's arguments is likely to do _me_ much harm. Mind you, I
+believe what I was brought up to believe. It saves a vast of
+trouble--and back of it all, God is good. The trouble with Mr. Kimball
+is, he's a leetle _too_ clever. He thinks he's bound to live up to
+his cleverness and that it's smarter to thrash out some new way of
+getting to heaven than to go by the old track the common, ignorant
+folks is travelling. But he'll get there sometime all right and then
+he'll laugh at himself."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nothing ever seemed to put Uncle Jesse out or depress him in any way.
+
+"I've kind of contracted a habit of enjoying things," he remarked
+once, when Mother had commented on his invariable cheerfulness. "It's
+got so chronic that I believe I even enjoy the disagreeable things.
+It's great fun thinking they can't last. 'Old rheumatiz,' I says, when
+it grips me hard, 'you've _got_ to stop aching sometime. The worse you
+are the sooner you'll stop, perhaps. I'm bound to get the better of
+you in the long run, whether in the body or out of the body.'"
+
+Uncle Jesse seldom came to our house without bringing us something,
+even if it were only a bunch of sweet grass.
+
+"I favour the smell of sweet grass," he said. "It always makes me
+think of my mother."
+
+"She was fond of it?"
+
+"Not that I knows on. Dunno's she ever saw any sweet grass. No, it's
+because it has a kind of motherly perfume--not too young, you
+understand--something kind of seasoned and wholesome and
+dependable--just like a mother."
+
+Uncle Jesse was a very early riser. He seldom missed a sunrise.
+
+"I've seen all kinds of sunrises come in through that there Gate," he
+said dreamily one morning when I myself had made a heroic effort at
+early rising and joined him on the rocks halfway between his house and
+ours. "I've been all over the world and, take it all in all, I've
+never seen a finer sight than a summer sunrise out there beyant the
+Gate. A man can't pick his time for dying, Mary--jest got to go when
+the Captain gives his sailing orders. But if I could I'd go out when
+the morning comes in there at the Gate. I've watched it a many times
+and thought what a thing it would be to pass out through that great
+white glory to whatever was waiting beyant, on a sea that ain't mapped
+out on any airthly chart. I think, Mary, I'd find lost Margaret
+there."
+
+He had already told me the story of "lost Margaret," as he always
+called her. He rarely spoke of her, but when he did his love for her
+trembled in every tone--a love that had never grown faint or
+forgetful. Uncle Jesse was seventy; it was fifty years since lost
+Margaret had fallen asleep one day in her father's dory and
+drifted--as was supposed, for nothing was ever known certainly of her
+fate--across the harbour and out of the Gate, to perish in the black
+thunder squall that had come up suddenly that long-ago afternoon. But
+to Uncle Jesse those fifty years were but as yesterday when it is
+past.
+
+"I walked the shore for months after that," he said sadly, "looking to
+find her dear, sweet little body, but the sea never gave her back to
+me. But I'll find her sometime. I wisht I could tell you just how she
+looked but I can't. I've seen a fine silvery mist hanging over the
+Gate at sunrise that seemed like her--and then again I've seen a white
+birch in the woods back yander that made me think of her. She had pale
+brown hair and a little white face, and long slender fingers like
+yours, Mary, only browner, for she was a shore girl. Sometimes I wake
+up in the night and hear the sea calling to me in the old way and it
+seems as if lost Margaret called in it. And when there's a storm and
+the waves are sobbing and moaning I hear her lamenting among them. And
+when they laugh on a gay day it's _her_ laugh--lost Margaret's sweet
+little laugh. The sea took her from me but some day I'll find her,
+Mary. It can't keep us apart forever."
+
+I had not been long at Golden Gate before I saw Uncle Jesse's
+"life-book," as he quaintly called it. He needed no coaxing to show it
+and he proudly gave it to me to read. It was an old leather-bound book
+filled with the record of his voyages and adventures. I thought what a
+veritable treasure trove it would be to a writer. Every sentence was a
+nugget. In itself the book had no literary merit; Uncle Jesse's charm
+of story-telling failed him when he came to pen and ink; he could only
+jot down roughly the outlines of his famous tales, and both spelling
+and grammar were sadly askew. But I felt that if anyone possessing the
+gift could take that simple record of a brave, adventurous life,
+reading between the bald lines the tale of dangers staunchly faced and
+duties manfully done, a wonderful story might be made from it. Pure
+comedy and thrilling tragedy were both lying hidden in Uncle Jesse's
+"life-book," waiting for the touch of the magician's hand to waken the
+laughter and grief and horror of thousands. I thought of my cousin,
+Robert Kennedy, who juggled with words in a masterly fashion, but
+complained that he found it hard to create incidents or characters.
+Here were both ready to his hand, but Robert was in Japan in the
+interests of his paper.
+
+In the fall, when the harbour lay black and sullen under November
+skies, Mother and I went back to town, parting with Uncle Jesse
+regretfully. We wanted him to visit us in town during the winter but
+he shook his head.
+
+"It's too far away, Mary. If lost Margaret called me I mightn't hear
+her there. I must be here when my time comes. It can't be very far off
+now."
+
+I wrote often to Uncle Jesse through the winter and sent him books and
+magazines. He enjoyed them but he thought--and truly enough--that none
+of them came up to his life-book for real interest.
+
+"If my life-book could be took and writ by someone that knowed how, it
+would beat them holler," he wrote in one of his few letters to me.
+
+In the spring we returned joyfully to Golden Gate. It was as golden as
+ever and the harbour as blue; the winds still rollicked as gaily and
+sweetly and the breakers boomed outside the bar as of yore. All was
+unchanged save Uncle Jesse. He had aged greatly and seemed frail and
+bent. After he had gone home from his first call on us, Mother cried.
+
+"Uncle Jesse will soon be going to seek lost Margaret," she said.
+
+In June Robert came. I took him promptly over to see Uncle Jesse, who
+was very much excited when he found that Robert was a "real writing
+man."
+
+"Robert wants to hear some of your stories, Uncle Jesse," I said.
+"Tell him the one about the captain who went crazy and imagined he was
+the Flying Dutchman."
+
+This was Uncle Jesse's best story. It was a compound of humour and
+horror, and though I had heard it several times, I laughed as heartily
+and shivered as fearsomely over it as Robert did. Other tales
+followed; Uncle Jesse told how his vessel had been run down by a
+steamer, how he had been boarded by Malay pirates, how his ship had
+caught fire, how he had helped a political prisoner escape from a
+South American republic. He never said a boastful word, but it was
+impossible to help seeing what a hero the man had been--brave, true,
+resourceful, unselfish, skilful. He sat there in his poor little room
+and made those things live again for us. By a lift of the eyebrow, a
+twist of the lip, a gesture, a word, he painted some whole scene or
+character so that we saw it as it was.
+
+Finally, he lent Robert his life-book. Robert sat up all night reading
+it and came to the breakfast table in great excitement.
+
+"Mary, this is a wonderful book. If I could take it and garb it
+properly--work it up into a systematic whole and string it on the
+thread of Uncle Jesse's romance of lost Margaret, it would be the
+novel of the year. Do you suppose he would let me do it?"
+
+"Let you! I think he would be delighted," I answered.
+
+And he was. He was as excited as a schoolboy over it. At last his
+cherished dream was to be realized and his life-book given to the
+world.
+
+"We'll collaborate," said Robert. "You will give the soul and I the
+body. Oh, we'll write a famous book between us, Uncle Jesse. And we'll
+get right to work."
+
+Uncle Jesse was a happy man that summer. He looked upon the little
+back room we gave up to Robert for a study as a sacred shrine. Robert
+talked everything over with Uncle Jesse but would not let him see the
+manuscript. "You must wait till it is published," he said. "Then
+you'll get it all at once in its best shape."
+
+Robert delved into the treasures of the life-book and used them
+freely. He dreamed and brooded over lost Margaret until she became a
+vivid reality to him and lived in his pages. As the book progressed it
+took possession of him and he worked at it with feverish eagerness. He
+let me read the manuscript and criticize it; and the concluding
+chapter of the book, which the critics later on were pleased to call
+idyllic, was modelled after my suggestions, so that I felt as if I had
+a share in it too.
+
+It was autumn when the book was finished. Robert went back to town,
+but Mother and I decided to stay at Golden Gate all winter. We loved
+the spot and, besides, I wished to remain for Uncle Jesse's sake. He
+was failing all the time, and after Robert went and the excitement of
+the book-making was past, he failed still more rapidly. His tramping
+expeditions were over and he seldom went out in his boat. Neither did
+he talk a great deal. He liked to come over and sit silently for hours
+at our seaward window, looking out wistfully toward the Gate with his
+swiftly whitening head leaning on his hand. The only keen interest he
+still had was in Robert's book. He waited and watched impatiently for
+its publication.
+
+"I want to live till I see it," he said, "just that long--then I'll be
+ready to go. He said it would be out in the spring--I must hang on
+till it comes, Mary."
+
+There were times when I doubted sadly if he would "hang on." As the
+winter wore away he grew frailer and frailer. But ever he looked
+forward to the coming of spring and "the book," _his_ book,
+transformed and glorified.
+
+One day in young April the book came at last. Uncle Jesse had gone to
+the post office faithfully every day for a month, expecting it, but
+this day he was too feeble to go and I went for him. The book was
+there. It was called simply, _The Life-Book of Jesse Boyd_, and on the
+title page the names of Robert Kennedy and Jesse Boyd were printed as
+collaborators.
+
+I shall never forget Uncle Jesse's face as I handed it to him. I came
+away and left him reading it, oblivious to all else. All night the
+light burned in his window, and I looked out across the sands to it
+and pictured the delight of the old man poring over the printed pages
+whereon his own life was portrayed. I wondered how he would like the
+ending--the ending I had suggested. I was never to know.
+
+After breakfast I went over to Uncle Jesse's house, taking some little
+delicacy Mother had cooked for him. It was an exquisite morning, full
+of delicate spring tints and sounds. The harbour was sparkling and
+dimpling like a girl, the winds were playing hide and seek roguishly
+among the stunted firs, and the silver-flashing gulls were soaring
+over the bar. Beyond the Gate was a shining, wonderful sea.
+
+When I reached the little house on the point I saw the lamp still
+burning wanly in the window. A quick alarm struck at my heart. Without
+waiting to knock, I lifted the latch, and entered.
+
+Uncle Jesse was lying on the old sofa by the window, with the book
+clasped to his heart. His eyes were closed and on his face was a look
+of the most perfect peace and happiness--the look of one who has long
+sought and found at last.
+
+We could not know at what hour he had died, but somehow I think he had
+his wish and went out when the morning came in through the Golden
+Gate. Out on that shining tide his spirit drifted, over the sunrise
+sea of pearl and silver, to the haven where lost Margaret waited
+beyond the storms and calms.
+
+
+
+
+The Little Black Doll
+
+
+Everybody in the Marshall household was excited on the evening of the
+concert at the Harbour Light Hotel--everybody, even to Little Joyce,
+who couldn't go to the concert because there wasn't anybody else to
+stay with Denise. Perhaps Denise was the most excited of them
+all--Denise, who was slowly dying of consumption in the Marshall
+kitchen chamber because there was no other place in the world for her
+to die in, or anybody to trouble about her. Mrs. Roderick Marshall
+thought it very good of herself to do so much for Denise. To be sure,
+Denise was not much bother, and Little Joyce did most of the waiting
+on her.
+
+At the tea table nothing was talked of but the concert; for was not
+Madame Laurin, the great French Canadian prima donna, at the hotel,
+and was she not going to sing? It was the opportunity of a
+lifetime--the Marshalls would not have missed it for anything.
+Stately, handsome old Grandmother Marshall was going, and Uncle
+Roderick and Aunt Isabella, and of course Chrissie, who was always
+taken everywhere because she was pretty and graceful, and everything
+that Little Joyce was not.
+
+Little Joyce would have liked to go to the concert, for she was very
+fond of music; and, besides, she wanted to be able to tell Denise all
+about it. But when you are shy and homely and thin and awkward, your
+grandmother never takes you anywhere. At least, such was Little
+Joyce's belief.
+
+Little Joyce knew quite well that Grandmother Marshall did not like
+her. She thought it was because she was so plain and awkward--and in
+part it was. Grandmother Marshall cared very little for granddaughters
+who did not do her credit. But Little Joyce's mother had married a
+poor man in the face of her family's disapproval, and then both she
+and her husband had been inconsiderate enough to die and leave a
+small orphan without a penny to support her. Grandmother Marshall fed
+and clothed the child, but who could make anything of such a shy
+creature with no gifts or graces whatever? Grandmother Marshall had no
+intention of trying. Chrissie, the golden-haired and pink-cheeked, was
+Grandmother Marshall's pet.
+
+Little Joyce knew this. She did not envy Chrissie but, oh, how she
+wished Grandmother Marshall would love her a little, too! Nobody loved
+her but Denise and the little black doll. And Little Joyce was
+beginning to understand that Denise would not be in the kitchen
+chamber very much longer, and the little black doll couldn't _tell_
+you she loved you--although she did, of course. Little Joyce had no
+doubt at all on this point.
+
+Little Joyce sighed so deeply over this thought that Uncle Roderick
+smiled at her. Uncle Roderick _did_ smile at her sometimes.
+
+"What is the matter, Little Joyce?" he asked.
+
+"I was thinking about my black doll," said Little Joyce timidly.
+
+"Ah, your black doll. If Madame Laurin were to see it, she'd likely
+want it. She makes a hobby of collecting dolls all over the world, but
+I doubt if she has in her collection a doll that served to amuse a
+little girl four thousand years ago in the court of the Pharaohs."
+
+"I think Joyce's black doll is very ugly," said Chrissie. "My wax doll
+with the yellow hair is ever so much prettier."
+
+"My black doll isn't ugly," cried Little Joyce indignantly. She could
+endure to be called ugly herself, but she could not bear to have her
+darling black doll called ugly. In her excitement she upset her cup of
+tea over the tablecloth. Aunt Isabella looked angry, and Grandmother
+Marshall said sharply: "Joyce, leave the table. You grow more awkward
+and careless every day."
+
+Little Joyce, on the verge of tears, crept away and went up the
+kitchen stairs to Denise to be comforted. But Denise herself had been
+crying. She lay on her little bed by the low window, where the glow of
+the sunset was coming in; her hollow cheeks were scarlet with fever.
+
+"Oh! I want so much to hear Madame Laurin sing," she sobbed. "I feel
+lak I could die easier if I hear her sing just one leetle song. She is
+Frenchwoman, too, and she sing all de ole French songs--de ole songs
+my mudder sing long 'go. Oh! I so want to hear Madame Laurin sing."
+
+"But you can't, dear Denise," said Little Joyce very softly, stroking
+Denise's hot forehead with her cool, slender hand. Little Joyce had
+very pretty hands, only nobody had ever noticed them. "You are not
+strong enough to go to the concert. I'll sing for you, if you like. Of
+course, I can't sing very well, but I'll do my best."
+
+"You sing lak a sweet bird, but you are not Madame Laurin," said
+Denise restlessly. "It is de great Madame I want to hear. I haf not
+long to live. Oh, I know, Leetle Joyce--I know what de doctor look
+lak--and I want to hear Madame Laurin sing 'fore I die. I know it is
+impossible--but I long for it so--just one leetle song."
+
+Denise put her thin hands over her face and sobbed again. Little Joyce
+went and sat down by the window, looking out into the white birches.
+Her heart ached bitterly. Dear Denise was going to die soon--oh, very
+soon! Little Joyce, wise and knowing beyond her years, saw that. And
+Denise wanted to hear Madame Laurin sing. It seemed a foolish thing to
+think of, but Little Joyce thought hard about it; and when she had
+finished thinking, she got her little black doll and took it to bed
+with her, and there she cried herself to sleep.
+
+At the breakfast table next morning the Marshalls talked about the
+concert and the wonderful Madame Laurin. Little Joyce listened in her
+usual silence; her crying the night before had not improved her looks
+any. Never, thought handsome Grandmother Marshall, had she appeared so
+sallow and homely. Really, Grandmother Marshall could not have the
+patience to look at her. She decided that she would not take Joyce
+driving with her and Chrissie that afternoon, as she had thought of,
+after all.
+
+In the forenoon it was discovered that Denise was much worse, and the
+doctor was sent for. He came, and shook his head, that being really
+all he could do under the circumstances. When he went away, he was
+waylaid at the back door by a small gypsy with big, black, serious
+eyes and long black hair.
+
+"Is Denise going to die?" Little Joyce asked in the blunt,
+straightforward fashion Grandmother Marshall found so trying.
+
+The doctor looked at her from under his shaggy brows and decided that
+here was one of the people to whom you might as well tell the truth
+first as last, because they are bound to have it.
+
+"Yes," he said.
+
+"Soon?"
+
+"Very soon, I'm afraid. In a few days at most."
+
+"Thank you," said Little Joyce gravely.
+
+She went to her room and did something with the black doll. She did
+not cry, but if you could have seen her face you would have wished she
+would cry.
+
+After dinner Grandmother Marshall and Chrissie drove away, and Uncle
+Roderick and Aunt Isabella went away, too. Little Joyce crept up to
+the kitchen chamber. Denise was lying in an uneasy sleep, with tear
+stains on her face. Then Little Joyce tiptoed down and sped away to
+the hotel.
+
+She did not know just what she would say or do when she got there, but
+she thought hard all the way to the end of the shore road. When she
+came out to the shore, a lady was sitting alone on a big rock--a lady
+with a dark, beautiful face and wonderful eyes. Little Joyce stopped
+before her and looked at her meditatively. Perhaps it would be well to
+ask advice of this lady.
+
+"If you please," said Little Joyce, who was never shy with strangers,
+for whose opinion she didn't care at all, "I want to see Madame Laurin
+at the hotel and ask her to do me a very great favour. Will you tell
+me the best way to go about seeing her? I shall be much obliged to
+you."
+
+"What is the favour you want to ask of Madame Laurin?" inquired the
+lady, smiling.
+
+"I want to ask her if she will come and sing for Denise before she
+dies--before Denise dies, I mean. Denise is our French girl, and the
+doctor says she cannot live very long, and she wishes with all her
+heart to hear Madame Laurin sing. It is very bitter, you know, to be
+dying and want something very much and not be able to get it."
+
+"Do you think Madame Laurin will go?" asked the lady.
+
+"I don't know. I am going to offer her my little black doll. If she
+will not come for that, there is nothing else I can do."
+
+A flash of interest lighted up the lady's brown eyes. She bent
+forward.
+
+"Is it your doll you have in that box? Will you let me see it?"
+
+Little Joyce nodded. Mutely she opened the box and took out the black
+doll. The lady gave an exclamation of amazed delight and almost
+snatched it from Little Joyce. It was a very peculiar little doll
+indeed, carved out of some black polished wood.
+
+"Child, where in the world did you get this?" she cried.
+
+"Father got it out of a grave in Egypt," said Little Joyce. "It was
+buried with the mummy of a little girl who lived four thousand years
+ago, Uncle Roderick says. She must have loved her doll very much to
+have had it buried with her, mustn't she? But she could not have loved
+it any more than I do."
+
+"And yet you are going to give it away?" said the lady, looking at her
+keenly.
+
+"For Denise's sake," explained Little Joyce. "I would do anything for
+Denise because I love her and she loves me. When the only person in
+the world who loves you is going to die, there is nothing you would
+not do for her if you could. Denise was so good to me before she took
+sick. She used to kiss me and play with me and make little cakes for
+me and tell me beautiful stories."
+
+The lady put the little black doll back in the box. Then she stood up
+and held out her hand.
+
+"Come," she said. "I am Madame Laurin, and I shall go and sing for
+Denise."
+
+Little Joyce piloted Madame Laurin home and into the kitchen and up
+the back stairs to the kitchen chamber--a proceeding which would have
+filled Aunt Isabella with horror if she had known. But Madame Laurin
+did not seem to mind, and Little Joyce never thought about it at all.
+It was Little Joyce's awkward, unMarshall-like fashion to go to a
+place by the shortest way there, even if it was up the kitchen stairs.
+
+Madame Laurin stood in the bare little room and looked pityingly at
+the wasted, wistful face on the pillow.
+
+"This is Madame Laurin, and she is going to sing for you, Denise,"
+whispered Little Joyce.
+
+Denise's face lighted up, and she clasped her hands.
+
+"If you please," she said faintly. "A French song, Madame--de ole
+French song dey sing long 'go."
+
+Then did Madame Laurin sing. Never had that kitchen chamber been so
+filled with glorious melody. Song after song she sang--the old
+folklore songs of the _habitant_, the songs perhaps that Evangeline
+listened to in her childhood.
+
+Little Joyce knelt by the bed, her eyes on the singer like one
+entranced. Denise lay with her face full of joy and rapture--such joy
+and rapture! Little Joyce did not regret the sacrifice of her black
+doll--never could regret it, as long as she remembered Denise's look.
+
+"T'ank you, Madame," said Denise brokenly, when Madame ceased. "Dat
+was so beautiful--de angel, dey cannot sing more sweet. I love music
+so much, Madame. Leetle Joyce, she sing to me often and often--she
+sing sweet, but not lak you--oh, not lak you."
+
+"Little Joyce must sing for me," said Madame, smiling, as she sat down
+by the window. "I always like to hear fresh, childish voices. Will
+you, Little Joyce?"
+
+"Oh, yes." Little Joyce was quite unembarrassed and perfectly willing
+to do anything she could for this wonderful woman who had brought that
+look to Denise's face. "I will sing as well as I can for you. Of
+course, I can't sing very well and I don't know anything but hymns. I
+always sing hymns for Denise, although she is a Catholic and the hymns
+are Protestant. But her priest told her it was all right, because all
+music was of God. Denise's priest is a very nice man, and I like him.
+He thought my little black doll--_your_ little black doll--was
+splendid. I'll sing 'Lead, Kindly Light.' That is Denise's favourite
+hymn."
+
+Then Little Joyce, slipping her hand into Denise's, began to sing. At
+the first note Madame Laurin, who had been gazing out of the window
+with a rather listless smile, turned quickly and looked at Little
+Joyce with amazed eyes. Delight followed amazement, and when Little
+Joyce had finished, the great Madame rose impulsively, her face and
+eyes glowing, stepped swiftly to Little Joyce and took the thin dark
+face between her gemmed hands.
+
+"Child, do you know what a wonderful voice you have--what a marvellous
+voice? It is--it is--I never heard such a voice in a child of your
+age. Mine was nothing to it--nothing at all. You will be a great
+singer some day--far greater than I--yes. But you must have the
+training. Where are your parents? I must see them."
+
+"I have no parents," said the bewildered Little Joyce. "I belong to
+Grandmother Marshall, and she is out driving."
+
+"Then I shall wait until your Grandmother Marshall comes home from her
+drive," said Madame Laurin decidedly.
+
+Half an hour later a very much surprised old lady was listening to
+Madame Laurin's enthusiastic statements.
+
+"How is it I have never heard you sing, if you can sing so well?"
+asked Grandmother Marshall, looking at Little Joyce with something in
+her eyes that had never been in them before--as Little Joyce instantly
+felt to the core of her sensitive soul. But Little Joyce hung her
+head. It had never occurred to her to sing in Grandmother Marshall's
+presence.
+
+"This child must be trained by-and-by," said Madame Laurin. "If you
+cannot afford it, Mrs. Marshall, I will see to it. Such a voice must
+not be wasted."
+
+"Thank you, Madame Laurin," said Grandmother Marshall with a gracious
+dignity, "but I am quite able to give my granddaughter all the
+necessary advantages for the development of her gift. And I thank you
+very much for telling me of it."
+
+Madame Laurin bent and kissed Little Joyce's brown cheek.
+
+"Little gypsy, good-by. But come every day to this hotel to see me.
+And next summer I shall be back. I like you--because some day you will
+be a great singer and because today you are a loving, unselfish baby."
+
+"You have forgotten the little black doll, Madame," said Little Joyce
+gravely.
+
+Madame threw up her hands, laughing. "No, no, I shall not take your
+little black doll of the four thousand years. Keep it for a mascot. A
+great singer always needs a mascot. But do not, I command you, take it
+out of the box till I am gone, for if I were to see it again, I might
+not be able to resist the temptation. Some day I shall show you _my_
+dolls, but there is not such a gem among them."
+
+When Madame Laurin had gone, Grandmother Marshall looked at Little
+Joyce.
+
+"Come to my room, Joyce. I want to see if we cannot find a more
+becoming way of arranging your hair. It has grown so thick and long. I
+had no idea how thick and long. Yes, we must certainly find a better
+way than that stiff braid. Come!"
+
+Little Joyce, taking Grandmother Marshall's extended hand, felt very
+happy. She realized that this strange, stately old lady, who never
+liked little girls unless they were pretty or graceful or clever, was
+beginning to love her at last.
+
+
+
+
+The Man on the Train
+
+
+When the telegram came from William George, Grandma Sheldon was all
+alone with Cyrus and Louise. And Cyrus and Louise, aged respectively
+twelve and eleven, were not very much good, Grandma thought, when it
+came to advising what was to be done. Grandma was "all in a flutter,
+dear, oh dear," as she said.
+
+The telegram said that Delia, William George's wife, was seriously ill
+down at Green Village, and William George wanted Samuel to bring
+Grandma down immediately. Delia had always thought there was nobody
+like Grandma when it came to nursing sick folks.
+
+But Samuel and his wife were both away--had been away for two days and
+intended to be away for five more. They had driven to Sinclair, twenty
+miles away, to visit with Mrs. Samuel's folks for a week.
+
+"Dear, oh dear, what shall I do?" said Grandma.
+
+"Go right to Green Village on the evening train," said Cyrus briskly.
+
+"Dear, oh dear, and leave you two alone!" cried Grandma.
+
+"Louise and I will do very well until tomorrow," said Cyrus sturdily.
+"We will send word to Sinclair by today's mail, and Father and Mother
+will be home by tomorrow night."
+
+"But I never was on the cars in my life," protested Grandma nervously.
+"I'm--I'm so frightened to start alone. And you never know what kind
+of people you may meet on the train."
+
+"You'll be all right, Grandma. I'll drive you to the station, get you
+your ticket, and put you on the train. Then you'll have nothing to do
+until the train gets to Green Village. I'll send a telegram to Uncle
+William George to meet you."
+
+"I shall fall and break my neck getting off the train," said Grandma
+pessimistically. But she was wondering at the same time whether she
+had better take the black valise or the yellow, and whether William
+George would be likely to have plenty of flaxseed in the house.
+
+It was six miles to the station, and Cyrus drove Grandma over in time
+to catch a train that reached Green Village at nine o'clock.
+
+"Dear, oh dear," said Grandma, "what if William George's folks ain't
+there to meet me? It's all very well, Cyrus, to say that they will be
+there, but you don't know. And it's all very well to say not to be
+nervous because everything will be all right. If you were seventy-five
+years old and had never set foot on the cars in your life you'd be
+nervous too, and you can't be sure that everything will be all right.
+You never know what sort of people you'll meet on the train. I may get
+on the wrong train or lose my ticket or get carried past Green Village
+or get my pocket picked. Well, no, I won't do that, for not one cent
+will I carry with me. You shall take back home all the money you don't
+need to get my ticket. Then I shall be easier in my mind. Dear, oh
+dear, if it wasn't that Delia is so seriously ill I wouldn't go one
+step."
+
+"Oh, you'll be all right, Grandma," assured Cyrus.
+
+He got Grandma's ticket for her and Grandma tied it up in the corner
+of her handkerchief. Then the train came in and Grandma, clinging
+closely to Cyrus, was put on it. Cyrus found a comfortable seat for
+her and shook hands cheerily.
+
+"Good-bye, Grandma. Don't be frightened. Here's the _Weekly Argus_. I
+got it at the store. You may like to look over it."
+
+Then Cyrus was gone, and in a minute the station house and platform
+began to glide away.
+
+Dear, oh dear, what has happened to it? thought Grandma in dismay. The
+next moment she exclaimed aloud, "Why, it's us that's moving, not it!"
+
+Some of the passengers smiled pleasantly at Grandma. She was the
+variety of old lady at which people do smile pleasantly; a grandma
+with round, pink cheeks, soft, brown eyes, and lovely snow-white curls
+is a nice person to look at wherever she is found.
+
+After a while Grandma, to her amazement, discovered that she liked
+riding on the cars. It was not at all the disagreeable experience she
+had expected it to be. Why, she was just as comfortable as if she were
+in her own rocking chair at home! And there was such a lot of people
+to look at, and many of the ladies had such beautiful dresses and
+hats. After all, the people you met on a train, thought Grandma, are
+surprisingly like the people you meet off it. If it had not been for
+wondering how she would get off at Green Village, Grandma would have
+enjoyed herself thoroughly.
+
+Four or five stations farther on the train halted at a lonely-looking
+place consisting of the station house and a barn, surrounded by scrub
+woods and blueberry barrens. One passenger got on and, finding only
+one vacant seat in the crowded car, sat right down beside Grandma
+Sheldon.
+
+Grandma Sheldon held her breath while she looked him over. Was he a
+pickpocket? He didn't appear like one, but you can never be sure of
+the people you meet on the train. Grandma remembered with a sigh of
+thankfulness that she had no money.
+
+Besides, he seemed really very respectable and harmless. He was
+quietly dressed in a suit of dark-blue serge with a black overcoat. He
+wore his hat well down on his forehead and was clean shaven. His hair
+was very black, but his eyes were blue--nice eyes, Grandma thought.
+She always felt great confidence in a man who had bright, open, blue
+eyes. Grandpa Sheldon, who had died so long ago, four years after
+their marriage, had had bright blue eyes.
+
+To be sure, he had fair hair, reflected Grandma. It's real odd to see
+such black hair with such light blue eyes. Well, he's real nice
+looking, and I don't believe there's a mite of harm in him.
+
+The early autumn night had now fallen and Grandma could not amuse
+herself by watching the scenery. She bethought herself of the paper
+Cyrus had given her and took it out of her basket. It was an old
+weekly a fortnight back. On the first page was a long account of a
+murder case with scare heads, and into this Grandma plunged eagerly.
+Sweet old Grandma Sheldon, who would not have harmed a fly and hated
+to see even a mousetrap set, simply revelled in the newspaper accounts
+of murders. And the more shocking and cold-blooded they were, the more
+eagerly did Grandma read of them.
+
+This murder story was particularly good from Grandma's point of view;
+it was full of "thrills." A man had been shot down, apparently in cold
+blood, and his supposed murderer was still at large and had eluded all
+the efforts of justice to capture him. His name was Mark Hartwell, and
+he was described as a tall, fair man, with full auburn beard and
+curly, light hair.
+
+"What a shocking thing!" said Grandma aloud.
+
+Her companion looked at her with a kindly, amused smile.
+
+"What is it?" he asked.
+
+"Why, this murder at Charlotteville," answered Grandma, forgetting, in
+her excitement, that it was not safe to talk to people you meet on the
+train. "It just makes my blood run cold to read about it. And to think
+that the man who did it is still around the country somewhere--plotting
+other murders, I haven't a doubt. What is the good of the police?"
+
+"They're dull fellows," agreed the dark man.
+
+"But I don't envy that man his conscience," said Grandma solemnly--and
+somewhat inconsistently, in view of her statement about the other
+murders that were being plotted. "What must a man feel like who has
+the blood of a fellow creature on his hands? Depend upon it, his
+punishment has begun already, caught or not."
+
+"That is true," said the dark man quietly.
+
+"Such a good-looking man too," said Grandma, looking wistfully at the
+murderer's picture. "It doesn't seem possible that he can have killed
+anybody. But the paper says there isn't a doubt."
+
+"He is probably guilty," said the dark man, "but nothing is known of
+his provocation. The affair may not have been so cold-blooded as the
+accounts state. Those newspaper fellows never err on the side of
+undercolouring."
+
+"I really think," said Grandma slowly, "that I would like to see a
+murderer--just one. Whenever I say anything like that, Adelaide--Adelaide
+is Samuel's wife--looks at me as if she thought there was something
+wrong about me. And perhaps there is, but I do, all the same. When I
+was a little girl, there was a man in our settlement who was suspected
+of poisoning his wife. She died very suddenly. I used to look at him
+with such interest. But it wasn't satisfactory, because you could never
+be sure whether he was really guilty or not. I never could believe that
+he was, because he was such a nice man in some ways and so good and
+kind to children. I don't believe a man who was bad enough to poison
+his wife could have any good in him."
+
+"Perhaps not," agreed the dark man. He had absent-mindedly folded up
+Grandma's old copy of the _Argus_ and put it in his pocket. Grandma
+did not like to ask him for it, although she would have liked to see
+if there were any more murder stories in it. Besides, just at that
+moment the conductor came around for tickets.
+
+Grandma looked in the basket for her handkerchief. It was not there.
+She looked on the floor and on the seat and under the seat. It was not
+there. She stood up and shook herself--still no handkerchief.
+
+"Dear, oh dear," exclaimed Grandma wildly, "I've lost my ticket--I
+always knew I would--I told Cyrus I would! Oh, where can it be?"
+
+The conductor scowled unsympathetically. The dark man got up and
+helped Grandma search, but no ticket was to be found.
+
+"You'll have to pay the money then, and something extra," said the
+conductor gruffly.
+
+"I can't--I haven't a cent of money," wailed Grandma. "I gave it all
+to Cyrus because I was afraid my pocket would be picked. Oh, what
+shall I do?"
+
+"Don't worry. I'll make it all right," said the dark man. He took out
+his pocketbook and handed the conductor a bill. That functionary
+grumblingly made the change and marched onward, while Grandma, pale
+with excitement and relief, sank back into her seat.
+
+"I can't tell you how much I am obliged to you, sir," she said
+tremulously. "I don't know what I should have done. Would he have put
+me off right here in the snow?"
+
+"I hardly think he would have gone to such lengths," said the dark man
+with a smile. "But he's a cranky, disobliging fellow enough--I know
+him of old. And you must not feel overly grateful to me. I am glad of
+the opportunity to help you. I had an old grandmother myself once,"
+he added with a sigh.
+
+"You must give me your name and address, of course," said Grandma,
+"and my son--Samuel Sheldon of Midverne--will see that the money is
+returned to you. Well, this is a lesson to me! I'll never trust myself
+on a train again, and all I wish is that I was safely off this one.
+This fuss has worked my nerves all up again."
+
+"Don't worry, Grandma. I'll see you safely off the train when we get
+to Green Village."
+
+"Will you, though? Will you, now?" said Grandma eagerly. "I'll be real
+easy in my mind, then," she added with a returning smile. "I feel as
+if I could trust you for anything--and I'm a real suspicious person
+too."
+
+They had a long talk after that--or, rather, Grandma talked and the
+dark man listened and smiled. She told him all about William George
+and Delia and their baby and about Samuel and Adelaide and Cyrus and
+Louise and the three cats and the parrot. He seemed to enjoy her
+accounts of them too.
+
+When they reached Green Village station he gathered up Grandma's
+parcels and helped her tenderly off the train.
+
+"Anybody here to meet Mrs. Sheldon?" he asked of the station master.
+
+The latter shook his head. "Don't think so. Haven't seen anybody here
+to meet anybody tonight."
+
+"Dear, oh dear," said poor Grandma. "This is just what I expected.
+They've never got Cyrus's telegram. Well, I might have known it. What
+shall I do?"
+
+"How far is it to your son's?" asked the dark man.
+
+"Only half a mile--just over the hill there. But I'll never get there
+alone this dark night."
+
+"Of course not. But I'll go with you. The road is good--we'll do
+finely."
+
+"But that train won't wait for you," gasped Grandma, half in protest.
+
+"It doesn't matter. The Starmont freight passes here in half an hour
+and I'll go on her. Come along, Grandma."
+
+"Oh, but you're good," said Grandma. "Some woman is proud to have you
+for a son."
+
+The man did not answer. He had not answered any of the personal
+remarks Grandma had made to him in her conversation.
+
+They were not long in reaching William George Sheldon's house, for the
+village road was good and Grandma was smart on her feet. She was
+welcomed with eagerness and surprise.
+
+"To think that there was no one to meet you!" exclaimed William
+George. "But I never dreamed of your coming by train, knowing how you
+were set against it. Telegram? No, I got no telegram. S'pose Cyrus
+forgot to send it. I'm most heartily obliged to you, sir, for looking
+after my mother so kindly."
+
+"It was a pleasure," said the dark man courteously. He had taken off
+his hat, and they saw a curious scar, shaped like a large, red
+butterfly, high up on his forehead under his hair. "I am delighted to
+have been of any assistance to her."
+
+He would not wait for supper--the next train would be in and he must
+not miss it.
+
+"There are people looking for me," he said with his curious smile.
+"They will be much disappointed if they do not find me."
+
+He had gone, and the whistle of the Starmont freight had blown before
+Grandma remembered that he had not given her his name and address.
+
+"Dear, oh dear, how are we ever going to send that money to him?" she
+exclaimed. "And he so nice and goodhearted!"
+
+Grandma worried over this for a week in the intervals of looking after
+Delia. One day William George came in with a large city daily in his
+hands. He looked curiously at Grandma and then showed her the
+front-page picture of a man, clean-shaven, with an oddly shaped scar
+high up on his forehead.
+
+"Did you ever see that man, Mother?" he asked.
+
+"Of course I did," said Grandma excitedly. "Why, it's the man I met on
+the train. Who is he? What is his name? Now, we'll know where to
+send--"
+
+"That is Mark Hartwell, who shot Amos Gray at Charlotteville three
+weeks ago," said William George quietly.
+
+Grandma looked at him blankly for a moment.
+
+"It couldn't be," she gasped at last. "That man a murderer! I'll never
+believe it!"
+
+"It's true enough, Mother. The whole story is here. He had shaved his
+beard and dyed his hair and came near getting clear out of the
+country. They were on his trail the day he came down in the train with
+you and lost it because of his getting off to bring you here. His
+disguise was so perfect that there was little fear of his being
+recognized so long as he hid that scar. But it was seen in Montreal
+and he was run to earth there. He has made a full confession."
+
+"I don't care," cried Grandma valiantly. "I'll never believe he was
+all bad--a man who would do what he did for a poor old woman like me,
+when he was flying for his life too. No, no, there was good in him
+even if he did kill that man. And I'm sure he must feel terrible over
+it."
+
+In this view Grandma persisted. She never would say or listen to a
+word against Mark Hartwell, and she had only pity for him whom
+everyone else condemned. With her own trembling hands she wrote him a
+letter to accompany the money Samuel sent before Hartwell was taken to
+the penitentiary for life. She thanked him again for his kindness to
+her and assured him that she knew he was sorry for what he had done
+and that she would pray for him every night of her life. Mark Hartwell
+had been hard and defiant enough, but the prison officials told that
+he cried like a child over Grandma Sheldon's little letter.
+
+"There's nobody all bad," says Grandma when she relates the story. "I
+used to believe a murderer must be, but I know better now. I think of
+that poor man often and often. He was so kind and gentle to me--he
+must have been a good boy once. I write him a letter every Christmas
+and I send him tracts and papers. He's my own little charity. But I've
+never been on the cars since and I never will be again. You never can
+tell what will happen to you or what sort of people you'll meet if you
+trust yourself on a train."
+
+
+
+
+The Romance of Jedediah
+
+
+Jedediah was not a name that savoured of romance. His last name was
+Crane, which is little better. And it would be no use to call this
+story "Mattie Adams's Romance" because Mattie Adams is not a romantic
+name either. But names have really nothing to do with romance. The
+most exciting and tragic affair I ever knew was between a man named
+Silas Putdammer and a woman named Kezia Cullen--which has nothing to
+do with the present story.
+
+Jedediah, to all outward seeming, did not appear to be any more
+romantic than his name. He looked distinctly commonplace as he rode
+comfortably along the winding country road that was dreaming in the
+haze and sunshine of a midsummer afternoon. He was perched on the
+seat of a bright red pedlar's wagon, above and behind a dusty,
+ambling, red pony of that peculiar gait and appearance pertaining to
+the ponies of country pedlars--a certain placid, unhasting leanness,
+as of a nag that has encountered troubles of his own and has lived
+them down by sheer patience and staying power. From the bright red
+wagon proceeded a certain metallic rumbling and clinking as it bowled
+along, and two or three nests of tin pans on its flat rope-encircled
+top flashed back the light so dazzlingly that Jedediah seemed the
+beaming sun of a little planetary system all his own. A new broom
+sticking up aggressively at each of the four corners gave the wagon a
+resemblance to a triumphal chariot.
+
+Jedediah himself had not been in the tin-peddling business long enough
+to acquire the apologetic, out-at-elbows appearance which
+distinguishes a tin pedlar from other kinds of pedlars. In fact, this
+was his maiden venture in this line; hence he still looked plump and
+self-respecting. He had a round red face under his plug hat, twinkling
+blue eyes, and a little pursed-up mouth, the shape of which was partly
+due to nature and partly to much whistling. Jedediah's pudgy body was
+clothed in a suit of large, light checks, and he wore a bright pink
+necktie and an amethyst pin. Will I still be believed when I assert
+that, in spite of all this, Jedediah was full of, and bubbling over
+with, romance?
+
+Romance cares not for appearances and apparently delights in
+contradictions. The homely shambling man you pass unnoticed on the
+street may have, tucked away in his past, a story more exciting and
+thrilling than anything you have ever read in fiction. So it was, in a
+measure, with Jedediah; poor, unknown to fame, afflicted with a double
+chin and bald spot, reduced to driving a tin-wagon for a living, he
+yet had his romance and he was still romantic.
+
+As Jedediah rode through Amberley he looked about him with interest.
+He knew it well, although it was fifteen years since he had seen it.
+He had been born and brought up in Amberley; he had left it at the age
+of twenty-five to make his fortune. But Amberley was Amberley still.
+Jedediah found it hard to believe that it or himself was fifteen years
+older.
+
+"There's the Stanton place," he said. "Charlie has painted the house
+yellow--it used to be white; and Bob Hollman has cut the trees down
+behind the blacksmith forge. Bob never had any poetry in his soul--no
+romance, as you might say. He was what you might call a plodder--you
+might call him that. Get up, my nag, get up. There's the old Harkness
+place--seems to be spruced up considerable. Folks used to say if ye
+wanted to see how the world looked the morning after the flood just go
+into George Harkness's barn-yard on a rainy day. The pond and the old
+hills ain't changed any. Get up, my nag, get up. There's the Adams
+homestead. Do I really behold it again?"
+
+Jedediah thought the moment deliciously romantic. He revelled in it
+and, to match his exhilarated mood, he touched the pony with his whip
+and went clinking and glittering down the hill under the poplars at a
+dashing rate. He had not intended to offer his wares in Amberley that
+day. He meant to break the ice in Occidental, the village beyond. But
+he could not pass the Adams place. When he came to the open gate he
+turned in under the willows and drove down the wide, shady lane, girt
+on both sides with a trim white paling smothered in lavish sweetbriar
+bushes that were gay with bloom. Jedediah's heart was beating
+furiously under his checks.
+
+"What a fool you are, Jed Crane," he told himself. "You used to be a
+young fool, and now you're an old one. Sad, that! Get up, my nag, get
+up. It's a poor lookout for a man of your years, Jed. Don't get
+excited. It ain't the least likely that Mattie Adams is here yet.
+She's married and gone years ago, no doubt. It's probable there's no
+Adamses here at all now. But it's romantic, yes, it's romantic. It's
+splendid. Get up, my nag, get up."
+
+The Adams place itself was not unromantic. The house was a large,
+old-fashioned white one, with green shutters and a front porch with
+Grecian columns. These were thought very elegant in Amberley. Mrs.
+Carmody said they gave a house such a classical air. In this instance
+the classical effect was somewhat smothered in honeysuckle, which
+rioted over the whole porch and hung in pale yellow, fragrant
+festoons over the rows of potted scarlet geraniums that flanked the
+green steps. Beyond the house a low-boughed orchard covered the slope
+between it and the main road, and behind it there was a revel of
+colour betokening a flower garden.
+
+Jedediah climbed down from his lofty seat and walked dubiously to a
+side door that looked more friendly, despite its prim screen, than the
+classical front porch. As he drew near he saw a woman sitting behind
+the screen--a woman who rose as he approached and opened the door.
+Jedediah's heart had been beating a wild tattoo as he crossed the
+yard. It now stopped altogether--at least he declared in later years
+it did.
+
+The woman was Mattie Adams--Mattie Adams fifteen years older than when
+he had seen her last, plumper, rosier, somewhat broader-faced, but
+still unmistakably Mattie Adams. Jedediah felt that the situation was
+delicious.
+
+"Mattie," he said, holding out his hand.
+
+"Why, Jed, how are you?" said Mattie, as if they had parted the week
+before. It had always taken a great deal to disturb Mattie. Whatever
+happened she was calm. Even an old lover, and the only one she had
+ever possessed at that, dropping, so to speak, from the skies, after
+fifteen years' disappearance, did not ruffle her placidity.
+
+"I didn't suppose you'd know me, Mattie," said Jedediah, still holding
+her hand foolishly.
+
+"I knew you the minute I set eyes on you," returned Mattie. "You're
+some fatter and older--like myself--but you're Jed still. Where have
+you been all these years?"
+
+"Pretty near everywhere, Mattie--pretty near everywhere. And ye see
+what it's come to--here I be driving a tin-wagon for Boone Brothers.
+Business is business--don't you want to buy some new tinware?"
+
+To himself, Jed thought it was romantic, asking a woman whom he had
+loved all his life to buy tins on the occasion of their first meeting
+after fifteen years' separation.
+
+"I don't know but I do want a quart measure," said Mattie, in her
+sweet, unchanged voice, "but all in good time. You must stay and have
+tea with me, Jed. I'm all alone now--Mother and Father have gone.
+Unhitch your horse and put him in the third stall in the stable."
+
+Jed hesitated.
+
+"I ought to be getting on, I s'pose," he said wistfully. "I hain't
+done much today--"
+
+"You must stay to tea," interrupted Mattie. "Why, Jed, there's ever so
+much to tell and ask. And we can't stand here in the yard and talk.
+Look at Selena. There she is, watching us from the kitchen window.
+She'll watch as long as we stand here."
+
+Jed swung himself around. Over the little valley below the Adams
+homestead was a steep, treeless hill, and on its crest was perched a
+bare farmhouse with windows stuck lavishly all over it. At one of them
+a long, pale face was visible.
+
+"Has Selena been pasted up at that window ever since the last time we
+stood here and talked, Mattie?" asked Jed, half resentfully, half
+amusedly. It was characteristic of Mattie to laugh first at the
+question, and then blush over the memory it revived.
+
+"Most of the time, I guess," she said shortly. "But come--come in. I
+never could talk under Selena's eyes, even if they were four hundred
+yards away."
+
+Jed went in and stayed to tea. The old Adams pantry had not failed,
+nor apparently the Adams skill in cooking. After tea Jed hung around
+till sunset and drove away with a warm invitation from Mattie to call
+every time his rounds took him through Amberley. As he went, Selena's
+face appeared at the window of the house over the valley.
+
+When he had gone Mattie went around to the classical porch and sat
+herself down under the honeysuckle festoons that dangled above her
+smooth braids of fawn-coloured hair. She knew Selena would be down
+posthaste presently, agog with curiosity to find out who the pedlar
+was whom Mattie had delighted to honour with an invitation to tea.
+Mattie preferred to meet Selena out of doors. It was easier to thrust
+and parry there. Meanwhile, she wanted to think over things.
+
+Fifteen years before Jedediah Crane had been Mattie Adams's beau.
+Jedediah was romantic even then, but, as he was a slim young fellow at
+the time, with an abundance of fair, curly hair and innocent blue
+eyes, his romance was rather an attraction than not. At least the then
+young and pretty Mattie had found it so.
+
+The Adamses looked with no favour on the match. They were a thrifty,
+well-to-do folk. As for the Cranes--well, they were lazy and
+shiftless, for the most part. It would be a _mésalliance_ for an Adams
+to marry a Crane. Still, it would doubtless have happened--for Mattie,
+though a meek-looking damsel, had a mind of her own--had it not been
+for Selena Ford, Mattie's older sister.
+
+Selena, people said, had married James Ford for no other reason than
+that his house commanded a view of nearly every dooryard in Amberley.
+This may or may not have been sheer malice. Certainly nothing that
+went on in the Adams yard escaped Selena.
+
+She watched Mattie and Jed in the moonlight one night. She saw Jed
+kiss Mattie. It was the first time he had ever done so--and the last,
+poor fellow. For Selena swooped down on her parents the next day. Such
+a storm did she brew up that Mattie was forbidden to speak to Jed
+again. Selena herself gave Jed a piece of her mind. Jed usually was
+not afflicted with undue sensitiveness. But he had some slumbering
+pride at the basis of his character and it was very stubborn when
+roused. Selena roused it. Jed vowed he would never creep and crawl at
+the feet of the Adamses, and he went west forthwith, determined, as
+aforesaid, to make his fortune and hurl Selena's scorn back in her
+face.
+
+And now he had come home, driving a tin-wagon. Mattie smiled to think
+of it. She bore Jed no ill will for his failure. She felt sorry for
+him and inclined to think that fate had used him hardly--fate and
+Selena together. Mattie had never had another beau. People thought she
+was engaged to Jed Crane until her time for beaus went by. Mattie did
+not mind; she had never liked anybody so well as Jed. To be sure, she
+had not thought of him for years. It was strange he should come back
+like this--"romantic," as he said himself.
+
+Mattie's reverie was interrupted by Selena. Angular, pale-eyed Mrs.
+Ford was as unlike the plump, rosy Mattie as a sister could be.
+Perhaps her chronic curiosity, which would not let her rest, was
+accountable for her excessive leanness.
+
+"Who was that pedlar that was here this afternoon, Mattie?" she
+demanded as soon as she arrived.
+
+Mattie smiled. "Jed Crane," she said. "He's home from the West and
+driving a tin-wagon for the Boones."
+
+Selena gave a little gasp. She sat down on the lowest step and untied
+her bonnet strings.
+
+"Mattie Adams! And you kept him hanging about the whole afternoon."
+
+"Why not?" said Mattie wickedly. She liked to alarm Selena. "Jed and I
+were always beaus, you know."
+
+"Mattie Adams! You don't mean to say you're going to make a fool of
+yourself over Jed Crane again? A woman of your age!"
+
+"Don't get excited, Selena," implored Mattie. In the old days Selena
+could cow her, but that time was past. "I never saw the like of you
+for getting stirred up over nothing."
+
+"I'm not excited. I'm perfectly calm. But I might well be excited over
+your folly, Mattie Adams. The idea of your taking up again with old
+Jed Crane!"
+
+"He's fifteen years younger than Jim," said Mattie, giving thrust for
+thrust.
+
+When Selena had come over Mattie had not the slightest idea of
+resuming her former relationship with the romantic Jedediah. She had
+merely shown him kindness for old friendship's sake. But so well did
+the unconscious Selena work in Jed's behalf that when she flounced off
+home in a pet Mattie was resolved that she would take Jed back if he
+wanted to come. She wasn't going to put up with Selena's everlasting
+interference. She would show her that she was independent.
+
+When a week had passed Jed came again. He sold Mattie a stew-pan and
+he would not go in to tea this time, but they stood and talked in the
+yard for the best part of an hour, while Selena glared at them from
+her kitchen window. Their conversation was most innocent and harmless,
+being mainly gossip about what had come and gone during Jed's exile.
+But Mattie knew that Selena thought that she and Jed were making love
+to each other in this shameless, public fashion. When Jed went,
+Mattie, more for Selena's benefit than his, broke off some sprays of
+honeysuckle and pinned them on his coat. The fragrance went with
+Jedediah as he drove through Amberley, and pleasant thoughts were born
+of it.
+
+"It's romantic," he told the pony. "Blessed if it ain't romantic! Not
+that Mattie cares anything about me now. I know she don't. But it's
+just her kind way. She wants to cheer me up and let me know I've a
+friend still. Get up, my nag, get up. I ain't one to persoom on her
+kindness neither; I know my place. But still, say what you will, it's
+romantic--this sitooation. This is it. Here I be, loving the ground
+she walks on, as I've always done, and I can't let on that I do
+because I'm a poor ne'er-do-well as ain't fit to look at her, an
+independent woman with property. And she's a-showing kindness to me
+for old times' sake, and piercing my heart all the time, not knowing.
+Why, it's romance with a vengeance, that's what it is. Get up, my nag,
+get up."
+
+Thereafter Jed called at the Adams place every week. Generally he
+stayed to tea. Mattie always bought something of him to colour an
+excuse. Her kitchen fairly glittered with new tinware. She gave Selena
+the overflow by way of heaping coals of fire.
+
+After every visit Jedediah held stern counsel with himself and decided
+that he must not call to see Mattie again--at least, not for a long
+time; then he must not stay to tea. He would struggle with himself all
+the way down the poplar hill--not without a comforting sense of the
+romance of the struggle--but it always ended the same way. He turned
+in under the willows and clinked musically into Mattie's yard. At
+least, the rattle of the tin-wagon sounded musically to Mattie.
+
+Meanwhile, Selena watched from her window and raged.
+
+Amberley people shrugged their shoulders when gossip noised the matter
+abroad. But, being good-humoured in the main, they forebore to do more
+than say that Mattie Adams was free to make a goose of herself if it
+pleased her, and that Jed Crane wasn't such a fool as he looked. The
+Adams farm was one of the best in Amberley, and it had not grown any
+poorer under Mattie's management.
+
+"If Jed walks in there and hangs up his hat he'll have done well for
+himself after all."
+
+This was Selena's view of it also, barring the good nature. She was
+furious at the whole affair, and she did her best to make Mattie's
+life a burden to her with slurs and thrusts. But they all misjudged
+Jed. He had no intention of "walking in and hanging up his hat"--or
+trying to. Romantic as he was, it never occurred to him that Mattie
+might be as romantic as himself. She did not care for him, and anyhow
+he, Jed, had a little too much pride to ask her, a rich woman, to
+marry him, a poor man who had lost all caste he ever possessed by
+taking up tin-peddling. Jed was determined not to "persoom." And, oh,
+how deliciously romantic it all was! He hugged himself with sorrowful
+delight over it.
+
+As the summer waned and the long yellow leaves began to fall thickly
+from the willows in the Adams lane Jed began to talk of going out
+west again. Tin-peddling was not possible in winter, and he didn't
+think he would try it another summer. Mattie listened with dismay in
+her heart. All summer she had made much of Jed, by way of tormenting
+Selena. But now she realized what he really meant to her. The old love
+had wakened to life in her heart; she could not let Jed go out of her
+life again, leaving her to the old loneliness. If Jed went away
+everything would be flat, stale, and unprofitable.
+
+She knew him to be at heart the kindest, most gentle of human beings,
+and the mere fact of his having been unsuccessful, even what some of
+his old neighbours might call stupid, did not change her feelings
+toward him in the least. He was Jed--that was sufficient for her, and
+she had business capability enough for both, when it came to that.
+
+Mattie began to drop hints. But Jed would not take them. True, once or
+twice he thought that perhaps Mattie did care a little for him yet.
+But it would not do for him to take advantage of that.
+
+"No, I just couldn't do that," he told the pony. "I worship the ground
+that woman treads on, but it ain't for the likes of me to tell her so,
+not now. Get up, my nag, get up. This has been a mighty pleasant
+summer with that visit to look forward to every week. But it's about
+over now and you must tramp, Jed."
+
+Jed sighed. He remembered that it was more romantic than ever, but all
+at once this failed to comfort him. Romance up to a certain point was
+food; beyond that it palled, so to speak. Jed's romance failed him
+just when he needed it most.
+
+Mattie, meanwhile, was forced to the dismal conclusion that her hints
+were thrown away. Jed was plainly determined not to speak. Mattie felt
+half angry with him. She did not choose to make a martyr of herself to
+romance, and surely the man didn't expect her to ask him to marry her.
+
+"I'm sure and certain he's as fond of me as ever he was," she mused.
+"I suppose he's got some ridiculous notion about being too poor to
+aspire to me. Jed always had more pride than a Crane could carry.
+Well, I've done all I can--all I'm going to do. If Jed's determined to
+go, he must go, I s'pose."
+
+Mattie would not let herself cry, although she felt like it. She went
+out and picked apples instead.
+
+Mattie might have remained so and Jedediah's romance might never have
+reached a better ending, if it had not been for Selena, who came over
+just then to help Mattie pick the golden russets. Fate had evidently
+destined her as Jed's best helper. All summer she had been fairly
+goading Mattie into love with Jedediah and now she was moved to add
+the last spur.
+
+"Jed Crane's going away, I hear," she said maliciously. "Seems to me
+you're bound to be jilted again, Mattie."
+
+Mattie had no answer ready. Selena went on undauntedly.
+
+"You've made a nice fool of yourself all summer, I vow. Throwing
+yourself at Jed's head--and he doesn't want you, even with all your
+property."
+
+"He does want me," said Mattie calmly. Her lips were very firm and her
+cheeks scarlet. "He is not going away. We are to be married about
+Christmas, and Jed will take charge of the farm for me."
+
+"Matilda Adams!" said Selena. It was all she was capable of saying.
+
+The rest of the golden russets were picked in a dead silence, Mattie
+working with an unusually high colour in her cheeks, while Selena's
+thin lips were pressed so closely together as to be little else than a
+hair line.
+
+After Selena had gone home, sulking, Mattie picked on with a very
+determined face. The die was cast; she could not bear Selena's slurs
+and she would not. And she had not told a lie either. Her words were
+true; she would make them true. All the Adams determination--and that
+was not a little--was roused in her.
+
+"If Jed jilts me, he'll do it to my face, clean and clever," she said
+viciously.
+
+When Jed came again he was very solemn. He thought it would be his
+last visit, but Mattie felt differently. She had dressed herself with
+unusual care and crimped her hair. Her cheeks were scarlet and her
+eyes bright. Jed thought she looked younger and prettier than ever.
+The thought that this was the last time he would see her for many a
+long day to come grew more and more unbearable, yet he firmly
+determined he would let no presuming word pass his lips. Mattie had
+been so kind to him. It was only honourable of him in return not to
+let her throw herself away on a poor failure like himself.
+
+"I suppose this is your last round with the wagon," she said. She had
+taken him out into the garden to say it. The garden was out of view
+from the Ford place. Propose she must, but she drew the line at
+proposing under Selena's eyes.
+
+Jed nodded dully. "Yes, and then I must toddle off and look for
+something else to do. You see, I haven't much of a gift so to speak
+for business, Mattie, and it takes me so long to get worked into an
+understanding of a business or trade that I'm generally asked to quit
+before you might say I've really commenced. It's been a mighty happy
+summer for me, though I can't say I've done much in the selling line
+except to you, Mattie. What with your kindness and these little visits
+you've been good enough to let me make every week, I feel I may say
+it's been the happiest summer of my life, and I'm never going to
+forget it, but as I said, it's time for me to be moving on elsewhere
+and finding something else to do."
+
+"There is something for you to do right here--if you will do it," said
+Mattie faintly. For a moment she felt as if she could not go on; Jed
+and the garden and the scarf of late asters whirled around her
+dizzily. She held by the sweet-pea trellis to steady herself.
+
+"I--I said a terrible thing to Selena the other day. I--I don't know
+what I'll do about it if--if--you don't help me out, Jed."
+
+"I'll do anything I can," said Jed, with hearty sympathy. "You know
+that, Mattie. What is the trouble?"
+
+His kindly voice and the good will and affection beaming in his honest
+blue eyes gave Mattie renewed courage to go on with her self-imposed
+and most embarrassing task, although before she ended her voice shook
+and dwindled away to such a low whisper that Jed had to bend his head
+close to hers to hear what she was saying.
+
+"I--I said--she goaded me into saying it, Jed--slighting and
+slurring--jeering at me because you were going away. I just got mad,
+Jed--and I told her you weren't going--that you and I--that we were to
+be--married."
+
+"Mattie, did you mean that?" he cried. "If you did, I'm the happiest
+man alive. I didn't dare persoom--I didn't s'pose you thought anything
+of me. But if you do--and if you want me--here's all there is of me,
+heart and soul and body, forever and ever, as I've been all my life."
+
+Thinking over this speech afterwards Jed was dissatisfied with it. He
+thought he might have made it much more eloquent and romantic than it
+was. But it served the purpose very well. It was convincing--it came
+straight from his honest, stupid heart, and Mattie knew it. She held
+out her hands and Jed gathered her into his arms.
+
+It was certainly a most fortunate circumstance that the garden was
+well out of the range of Selena's vision, or the sight of her sister
+and the remaining member of the despised Crane family repeating their
+foolish performance, which many years previous had resulted in Jed's
+long banishment, might have caused her to commit almost any unheard-of
+act of spite as an outlet for her jealous anger. But only the few
+remaining garden flowers were witness to the lovers' indiscretion, and
+they kept their own counsel after the manner of flowers, so Selena's
+feelings were mercifully spared this further outrage.
+
+That evening Jed drove slowly away through the twilight, mounted for
+the last time on the tin-wagon. He was so happy that he bore no grudge
+against even Selena Ford. As the pony climbed the poplar hill Jed drew
+a long breath and freed his mind to the surrounding landscape and to
+his faithful and slow-plodding steed that had been one of the main
+factors in this love affair, having patiently carried him to and from
+the abode of his lady-love throughout the summer just passed. Jedediah
+was as brimful of happiness as mortal man could be, and his rosy
+thoughts flowed forth in a kind of triumphant chant which would have
+driven Selena stark distracted had she been within hearing distance.
+What he said too was but a poor expression of what he thought, but to
+the trees and fields and pony he chanted,
+
+"Well, this _is_ romance. What else would you call it now? Me, poor,
+scared to speak--and Mattie ups and does it for me, bless her. Yes,
+I've been longing for romance all my life, and I've got it at last.
+None of your commonplace courtships for me, I always said. Them was my
+very words. And I guess this has been a little uncommon--I guess it
+has. Anyhow, I'm uncommon happy. I never felt so romantic before. Get
+up, my nag, get up."
+
+
+
+
+The Tryst of the White Lady
+
+
+"I wisht ye'd git married, Roger," said Catherine Ames. "I'm gitting
+too old to work--seventy last April--and who's going to look after ye
+when I'm gone. Git married, b'y--git married."
+
+Roger Temple winced. His aunt's harsh, disagreeable voice always
+jarred horribly on his sensitive nerves. He was fond of her after a
+fashion, but always that voice made him wonder if there could be
+anything harder to endure.
+
+Then he gave a bitter little laugh.
+
+"Who'd have me, Aunt Catherine?" he asked.
+
+Catherine Ames looked at him critically across the supper table. She
+loved him in her way, with all her heart, but she was not in the least
+blind to his defects. She did not mince matters with herself or with
+other people. Roger was a sallow, plain-featured fellow, small and
+insignificant looking. And, as if this were not bad enough, he walked
+with a slight limp and had one thin shoulder a little higher than the
+other--"Jarback" Temple he had been called in school, and the name
+still clung to him. To be sure, he had very fine grey eyes, but their
+dreamy brilliance gave his dull face an uncanny look which girls did
+not like, and so made matters rather worse than better. Of course
+looks didn't matter so much in the case of a man; Steve Millar was
+homely enough, and all marked up with smallpox to boot, yet he had got
+for wife the prettiest and smartest girl in South Bay. But Steve was
+rich. Roger was poor and always would be. He worked his stony little
+farm, from which his father and grandfather had wrested a fair living,
+after a fashion, but Nature had not cut him out for a successful
+farmer. He hadn't the strength for it and his heart wasn't in it. He'd
+rather be hanging over a book. Catherine secretly thought Roger's
+matrimonial chances very poor, but it would not do to discourage the
+b'y. What he needed was spurring on.
+
+"Ye'll git someone if ye don't fly too high," she announced loudly and
+cheerfully. "Thar's always a gal or two here and thar that's glad to
+marry for a home. 'Tain't no use for _you_ to be settin' your thoughts
+on anyone young and pretty. Ye wouldn't git her and ye'd be worse off
+if ye did. Your grandfather married for looks, and a nice useless wife
+he got--sick half her time. Git a good strong girl that ain't afraid
+of work, that'll hold things together when ye're reading
+po'try--that's as much as you kin expect. And the sooner the better.
+I'm done--last winter's rheumatiz has about finished _me_. An' we
+can't afford hired help."
+
+Roger felt as if his raw, quivering soul were being seared. He looked
+at his aunt curiously--at her broad, flat face with the mole on the
+end of her dumpy nose, the bristling hairs on her chin, the wrinkled
+yellow neck, the pale, protruding eyes, the coarse, good-humoured
+mouth. She was so extremely ugly--and he had seen her across the table
+all his life. For twenty-five years he had looked at her so. Must he
+continue to go on looking at ugliness in the shape of a wife all the
+rest of his life--he, who worshipped beauty in everything?
+
+"Did my mother look like you, Aunt Catherine?" he asked abruptly.
+
+His aunt stared--and snorted. Her snort was meant to express kindly
+amusement, but it sounded like derision and contempt.
+
+"Yer ma wasn't so humly as me," she said cheerfully, "but she wan't no
+beauty either. None of the Temples was ever better lookin' than was
+necessary. We was _workers_. Yer pa wa'n't bad looking. You're humlier
+than either of 'em. Some ways ye take after yer grandma--though _she_
+was counted pretty at one time. She was yaller and spindlin' like you,
+and you've got her eyes. What yer so int'rested in yer ma's looks all
+at once fer?"
+
+"I was wondering," said Roger coolly, "if Father ever looked at her
+across the table and wished she were prettier."
+
+Catherine giggled. Her giggle was ugly and disagreeable like
+everything else about her--everything except a certain odd, loving,
+loyal old heart buried deep in her bosom, for the sake of which Roger
+endured the giggle and all the rest.
+
+"Dessay he did--dessay he did. Men al'ays has a hankerin' for good
+looks. But ye've got to cut yer coat 'cording to yer cloth. As for yer
+poor ma, she didn't live long enough to git as ugly as me. When I
+come here to keep house for yer pa, folks said as it wouldn't be long
+'fore he married me. _I_ wouldn't a-minded. But yer pa never hinted
+it. S'pose he'd had enough of ugly women likely."
+
+Catherine snorted amiably again. Roger got up--he couldn't endure any
+more just then. He must escape.
+
+"Now you think over what I've said," his aunt called after him. "Ye've
+gotter git a wife soon, however ye manage it. 'Twon't be so hard if
+ye're reasonable. Don't stay out as late as ye did last night. Ye
+coughed all night. Where was ye--down at the shore?"
+
+"No," said Roger, who always answered her questions even when he hated
+to. "I was down at Aunt Isabel's grave."
+
+"Till eleven o'clock! Ye ain't wise! I dunno what hankering ye have
+after that unchancy place. _I_ ain't been near it for twenty year. I
+wonder ye ain't scairt. What'd ye think ye'd do if ye saw her ghost?"
+
+Catherine looked curiously at Roger. She was very superstitious and
+she believed firmly in ghosts, and saw no absurdity in her question.
+
+"I wish I _could_ see it," said Roger, his great eyes flashing. He
+believed in ghosts too, at least in Isabel Temple's ghost. His uncle
+had seen it; his grandfather had seen it; he believed he would see
+it--the beautiful, bewitching, mocking, luring ghost of lovely Isabel
+Temple.
+
+"Don't wish such stuff," said Catherine. "Nobody ain't never the same
+after they've seen her."
+
+"Was Uncle different?" Roger had come back into the kitchen and was
+looking curiously at his aunt.
+
+"Diff'rent? He was another man. He didn't even _look_ the same. Sich
+eyes! Al'ays looking past ye at something behind ye. They'd give
+anyone creeps. He never had any notion of flesh-and-blood women after
+that--said a man wouldn't, after seeing Isabel. His life was plumb
+ruined. Lucky he died young. I hated to be in the same room with
+him--he wa'n't canny, that was all there was to it. _You_ keep away
+from that grave--_you_ don't want to look odder than ye are by nature.
+And when ye git married, ye'll have to give up roamin' about half the
+night in graveyards. A wife wouldn't put up with it, as I've done."
+
+"I'll never get as good a wife as you, Aunt Catherine," said Roger
+with a little whimsical smile that gave him the look of an amused
+gnome.
+
+"Dessay you won't. But someone ye have to have. Why'n't ye try 'Liza
+Adams. She _might_ have ye--she's gittin' on."
+
+"'Liza ... Adams!"
+
+"That's what I said. Ye needn't repeat it--'Liza ... Adams--'s if I'd
+mentioned a hippopotamus. I git out of patience with ye. I b'lieve in
+my heart ye think ye ought to git a wife that'd look like a picter."
+
+"I do, Aunt Catherine. That's just the kind of wife I want--grace and
+beauty and charm. Nothing less than that will ever content me."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Roger laughed bitterly again and went out. It was sunset. There was no
+work to do that night except to milk the cows, and his little home boy
+could do that. He felt a glad freedom. He put his hand in his pocket
+to see if his beloved Wordsworth was there and then he took his way
+across the fields, under a sky of purple and amber, walking quickly
+despite his limp. He wanted to get to some solitary place where he
+could forget Aunt Catherine and her abominable suggestions and escape
+into the world of dreams where he habitually lived and where he found
+the loveliness he had not found nor could hope to find in his real
+world.
+
+Roger's mother had died when he was three and his father when he was
+eight. His little, old, bedridden grandmother had lived until he was
+twelve. He had loved her passionately. She had not been pretty in his
+remembrance--a tiny, shrunken, wrinkled thing--but she had beautiful
+grey eyes that never grew old and a soft, gentle voice--the only
+woman's voice he had ever heard with pleasure. He was very critical as
+regards women's voices and very sensitive to them. Nothing hurt him
+quite so much as an unlovely voice--not even unloveliness of face. Her
+death had left him desolate. She was the only human being who had ever
+understood him. He could never, he thought, have got through his
+tortured school days without her. After she died he would not go to
+school. He was not in any sense educated. His father and grandfather
+had been illiterate men and he had inherited their underdeveloped
+brain cells. But he loved poetry and read all he could get of it. It
+overlaid his primitive nature with a curious iridescence of fancy and
+furnished him with ideals and hungers his environment could never
+satisfy. He loved beauty in everything. Moonrises hurt him with their
+loveliness and he could sit for hours gazing at a white
+narcissus--much to his aunt's exasperation. He was solitary by nature.
+He felt horribly alone in a crowded building but never in the woods or
+in the wild places along the shore. It was because of this that his
+aunt could not get him to go to church--which was a horror to her
+orthodox soul. He told her he would like to go to church if it were
+empty but he could not bear it when it was full--full of smug, ugly
+people. Most people, he thought, were ugly--though not so ugly as he
+was--and ugliness made him sick with repulsion. Now and then he saw a
+pretty girl at whom he liked to look but he never saw one that wholly
+pleased him. To him, the homely, crippled, poverty-stricken Roger
+Temple whom they all would have scorned, there was always a certain
+subtle something wanting, and the lack of it kept him heartwhole. He
+knew that this probably saved him from much suffering, but for all
+that he regretted it. He wanted to love, even vainly; he wanted to
+experience this passion of which the poets sang so much. Without it he
+felt he lacked the key to a world of wonder. He even tried to fall in
+love; he went to church for several Sundays and sat where he could see
+beautiful Elsa Carey. She was lovely--it gave him pleasure to look at
+her; the gold of her hair was so bright and living; the pink of her
+cheek so pure, the curve of her neck so flawless, the lashes of her
+eyes so dark and silken. But he looked at her as at a picture. When he
+tried to think and dream of her, it bored him. Besides, he knew she
+had a rather nasal voice. He used to laugh sarcastically to himself
+over Elsa's feelings if she had known how desperately he was trying to
+fall in love with her and failing--Elsa the queen of hearts, who
+believed she had only to look to reign. He gave up trying at last, but
+he still longed to love. He knew he would never marry; he could not
+marry plainness, and beauty would have none of him; but he did not want
+to miss everything and he had moments when he was very bitter and
+rebellious because he felt he must miss it forever.
+
+He went straight to Isabel Temple's grave in the remote shore field of
+his farm. Isabel Temple had lived and died eighty years ago. She had
+been very lovely, very wilful, very fond of playing with the hearts of
+men. She had married William Temple, the brother of his
+great-grandfather, and as she stood in her white dress beside her
+bridegroom, at the conclusion of the wedding ceremony, a jilted lover,
+crazed by despair, had entered the house and shot her dead. She had
+been buried in the shore field, where a square space had been dyked
+off in the centre for a burial lot because the church was then so far
+away. With the passage of years the lot had grown up so thickly with
+fir and birch and wild cherry that it looked like a compact grove. A
+winding path led through it to its heart where Isabel Temple's grave
+was, thickly overgrown with long, silken, pale green grass. Roger
+hurried along the path and sat down on the big grey boulder by the
+grave, looking about him with a long breath of delight. How
+lovely--and witching--and unearthly it was here. Little ferns were
+growing in the hollows and cracks of the big boulder where clay had
+lodged. Over Isabel Temple's crooked, lichened gravestone hung a young
+wild cherry in its delicate bloom. Above it, in a little space of sky
+left by the slender tree tops, was a young moon. It was too dark here
+after all to read Wordsworth, but that did not matter. The place, with
+its moist air, its tang of fir balsam, was like a perfumed room where
+a man might dream dreams and see visions. There was a soft murmur of
+wind in the boughs over him, and the faraway moan of the sea on the
+bar crept in. Roger surrendered himself utterly to the charm of the
+place. When he entered that grove, he had left behind the realm of
+daylight and things known and come into the realm of shadow and
+mystery and enchantment. Anything might happen--anything might be
+true.
+
+Eighty long years had come and gone, but Isabel Temple, thus cruelly
+torn from life at the moment when it had promised her most, did not
+even yet rest calmly in her grave; such at least was the story, and
+Roger believed it. It was in his blood to believe it. The Temples were
+a superstitious family, and there was nothing in Roger's upbringing to
+correct the tendency. His was not a sceptical or scientific mind. He
+was ignorant and poetical and credulous. He had always accepted
+unquestioningly the tale that Isabel Temple had been seen on earth
+long after the red clay was heaped over her murdered body. Her
+bridegroom had seen her, when he went to visit her on the eve of his
+second and unhappy marriage; his grandfather had seen her. His
+grandmother, who had told him Isabel's story, had told him this too,
+and believed it. She had added, with a bitterness foreign to his idea
+of her, that her husband had never been the same to her afterwards;
+his uncle had seen her--and had lived and died a haunted man. It was
+only to men the lovely, restless ghost appeared, and her appearance
+boded no good to him who saw. Roger knew this, but he had a curious
+longing to see her. He had never avoided her grave as others of his
+tribe did. He loved the spot, and he believed that some time he would
+see Isabel Temple there. She came, so the story went, to one in each
+generation of the family.
+
+He gazed down at her sunken grave; a little wind, that came stealing
+along the floor of the grove, raised and swayed the long, hair-like
+grass on it, giving the curious suggestion of something prisoned under
+it trying to draw a long breath and float upward.
+
+Then, when he lifted his eyes again, he saw her!
+
+She was standing behind the gravestone, under the cherry tree, whose
+long white branches touched her head; standing there, with her head
+drooping a little, but looking steadily at him. It was just between
+dusk and dark now, but he saw her very plainly. She was dressed in
+white, with some filmy scarf over her head, and her hair hung in a
+dark heavy braid over her shoulder. Her face was small and
+ivory-white, and her eyes were very large and dark. Roger looked
+straight into them and they did something to him--drew something out
+of him that was never to be his again--his heart? his soul? He did not
+know. He only knew that lovely Isabel Temple had now come to him and
+that he was hers forever.
+
+For a few moments that seemed years he looked at her--looked till the
+lure of her eyes drew him to his feet as a man rises in sleep-walking.
+As he slowly stood up, the low-hanging bough of a fir tree pushed his
+cap down over his face and blinded him. When he snatched it off, she
+was gone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Roger Temple did not go home that night till the spring dawn was in
+the sky. Catherine was sleepless with anxiety about him. When she
+heard him come up the stairs, she opened her door and peeped out.
+Roger went along the hall without seeing her. His brilliant eyes
+stared straight before him, and there was something in his face that
+made Catherine steal back to her bed with a little shiver of fear. He
+looked like his uncle. She did not ask him, when they met at
+breakfast, where or how he had spent the night. He had been dreading
+the question and was relieved beyond measure when it was not asked.
+But, apart from that, he was hardly conscious of her presence. He ate
+and drank mechanically and voicelessly. When he had gone out,
+Catherine wagged her uncomely grey head ominously.
+
+"He's bewitched," she muttered. "I know the signs. He's seen her--drat
+her! It's time she gave up that kind of work. Well, I dunno what to
+do--thar ain't anything I can do, I reckon. He'll never marry now--I'm
+as sure of that as of any mortal thing. He's in love with a ghost."
+
+It had not yet occurred to Roger that he was in love. He thought of
+nothing but Isabel Temple--her lovely, lovely face, sweeter than any
+picture he had ever seen or any ideal he had dreamed, her long dark
+hair, her slim form and, more than all, her compelling eyes. He saw
+them wherever he looked--they drew him--he would have followed them to
+the end of the world, heedless of all else.
+
+He longed for night, that he might again steal to the grave in the
+haunted grove. She might come again--who knew? He felt no fear,
+nothing but a terrible hunger to see her again. But she did not come
+that night--nor the next--nor the next. Two weeks went by and he had
+not seen her. Perhaps he would never see her again--the thought filled
+him with anguish not to be borne. He knew now that he loved
+her--Isabel Temple, dead for eighty years. This was love--this
+searing, torturing, intolerably sweet thing--this possession of body
+and soul and spirit. The poets had sung but weakly of it. He could
+tell them better if he could find words. Could other men have loved at
+all--could any man love those blowzy, common girls of earth? It seemed
+impossible--absurd. There was only one thing that could be loved--that
+white spirit. No wonder his uncle had died. He, Roger Temple, would
+soon die too. That would be well. Only the dead could woo Isabel.
+Meanwhile he revelled in his torment and his happiness--so madly
+commingled that he never knew whether he was in heaven or hell. It was
+beautiful--and dreadful--and wonderful--and exquisite--oh, so
+exquisite. Mortal love could never be so exquisite. He had never lived
+before--now he lived in every fibre of his being.
+
+He was glad Aunt Catherine did not worry him with questions. He had
+feared she would. But she never asked any questions now and she was
+afraid of Roger, as she had been afraid of his uncle. She dared not
+ask questions. It was a thing that must not be tampered with. Who knew
+what she might hear if she asked him questions? She was very unhappy.
+Something dreadful had happened to her poor boy--he had been bewitched
+by that hussy--he would die as his uncle had died.
+
+"Mebbe it's best," she muttered. "He's the last of the Temples, so
+mebbe she'll rest in her grave when she's killed 'em all. I dunno what
+she's sich a spite at _them_ for--there'd be more sense if she'd haunt
+the Mortons, seein' as a Morton killed her. Well, I'm mighty old and
+tired and worn out. It don't seem that it's been much use, the way
+I've slaved and fussed to bring that b'y up and keep things together
+for him--and now the ghost's got him. I might as well have let him die
+when he was a sickly baby."
+
+If this had been said to Roger he would have retorted that it was
+worthwhile to have lived long enough to feel what he was feeling now.
+He would not have missed it for a score of other men's lives. He had
+drunk of some immortal wine and was as a god. Even if she never came
+again, he had seen her once, and she had taught him life's great
+secret in that one unforgettable exchange of eyes. She was his--his in
+spite of his ugliness and his crooked shoulder. No man could ever take
+her from him.
+
+But she did come again. One evening, when the darkening grove was full
+of magic in the light of the rising yellow moon shining across the
+level field, Roger sat on the big boulder by the grave. The evening
+was very still; there was no sound save the echoes of noisy laughter
+that seemed to come up from the bay shore--drunken fishermen, likely
+as not. Roger resented the intrusion of such a sound in such a
+place--it was a sacrilege. When he came here to dream of her, only the
+loveliest of muted sounds should be heard--the faintest whisper of
+trees, the half-heard, half-felt moan of surf, the airiest sigh of
+wind. He never read Wordsworth now or any other book. He only sat
+there and thought of her, his great eyes alight, his pale face flushed
+with the wonder of his love.
+
+She slipped through the dark boughs like a moonbeam and stood by the
+stone. Again he saw her quite plainly--saw and drank her in with his
+eyes. He did not feel surprise--something in him had known she would
+come again. He would not move a muscle lest he lose her as he had lost
+her before. They looked at each other--for how long? He did not know;
+and then--a horrible thing happened. Into that place of wonder and
+revelation and mystery reeled a hiccoughing, laughing creature, a
+drunken sailor from a harbour ship, with a leering face and
+desecrating breath.
+
+"Oh, you're here, my dear--I thought I'd catch you yet," he said.
+
+He caught hold of her. She screamed. Roger sprang forward and struck
+him in the face. In his fury of sudden rage the strength of ten seemed
+to animate his slender body and pass into his blow. The sailor reeled
+back and put up his hands. He was a coward--and even a brave man might
+have been daunted by that terrible white face and those blazing eyes.
+He backed down the path.
+
+"Shorry--shorry," he muttered. "Didn't know she was your girl--shorry
+I butted in. Shentlemans never butt in--shorry--shir--shorry."
+
+He kept repeating his ridiculous "shorry" until he was out of the
+grove. Then he turned and ran stumblingly across the field. Roger did
+not follow; he went back to Isabel Temple's grave. The girl was lying
+across it; he thought she was unconscious. He stooped and picked her
+up--she was light and small, but she was warm flesh and blood; she
+clung uncertainly to him for a moment and he felt her breath on his
+face. He did not speak--he was too sick at heart. She did not speak
+either. He did not think this strange until afterwards. He was
+incapable of thinking just then; he was dazed, wretched, lost.
+Presently he became aware that she was timidly pulling his arm. It
+seemed that she wanted him to go with her--she was evidently
+frightened of that brute--he must take her to safety. And then--
+
+She moved on down the little path and he followed. Out in the moonlit
+field he saw her clearly. With her drooping head, her flowing dark
+hair, her great brown eyes, she looked like the nymph of a wood-brook,
+a haunter of shadows, a creature sprung from the wild. But she was
+mortal maid, and he--what a fool he had been! Presently he would laugh
+at himself, when this dazed agony should clear away from his brain. He
+followed her down the long field to the bay shore. Now and then she
+paused and looked back to see if he were coming, but she never spoke.
+When she reached the shore road she turned and went along it until
+they came to an old grey house fronting the calm grey harbour. At its
+gate she paused. Roger knew now who she was. Catherine had told him
+about her a month ago.
+
+She was Lilith Barr, a girl of eighteen, who had come to live with her
+uncle and aunt. Her father had died some months before. She was
+absolutely deaf as the result of some accident in childhood, and she
+was, as his own eyes told him, exquisitely lovely in her white,
+haunting style. But she was not Isabel Temple; he had tricked
+himself--he had lived in a fool's paradise--oh, he must get away and
+laugh at himself. He left her at her gate, disregarding the little
+hand she put timidly out--but he did not laugh at himself. He went
+back to Isabel Temple's grave and flung himself down on it and cried
+like a boy. He wept his stormy, anguished soul out on it; and when he
+rose and went away, he believed it was forever. He thought he could
+never, never go there again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Catherine looked at him curiously the next morning. He looked
+wretched--haggard and hollow-eyed. She knew he had not come in till
+the summer dawn. But he had lost the rapt, uncanny look she hated;
+suddenly she no longer felt afraid of him. With this, she began to ask
+questions again.
+
+"What kept ye out so late again last night, b'y?" she said
+reproachfully.
+
+Roger looked at her in her morning ugliness. He had not really seen
+her for weeks. Now she smote on his tortured senses, so long drugged
+with beauty, like a physical blow. He suddenly burst into a laughter
+that frightened her.
+
+"Preserve's, b'y, have ye gone mad? Or," she added, "have ye seen
+Isabel Temple's ghost?"
+
+"No," said Roger loudly and explosively. "Don't talk any more about
+that damned ghost. Nobody ever saw it. The whole story is balderdash."
+
+He got up and went violently out, leaving Catherine aghast. Was it
+possible Roger had sworn? What on earth had come over the b'y? But
+come what had or come what would, he no longer looked _fey_--there was
+that much to be thankful for. Even an occasional oath was better than
+that. Catherine went stiffly about her dish-washing, resolving to have
+'Liza Adams to supper some night.
+
+For a week Roger lived in agony--an agony of shame and humiliation and
+self-contempt. Then, when the edge of his bitter disappointment wore
+away, he made another dreadful discovery. He still loved her and
+longed for her just as keenly as before. He wanted madly to see
+her--her flower-like face, her great, asking eyes, the sleek, braided
+flow of her hair. Ghost or woman--spirit or flesh--it mattered not. He
+could not live without her. At last his hunger for her drew him to the
+old grey house on the bay shore. He knew he was a fool--she would
+never look at him; he was only feeding the flame that must consume
+him. But go he must and did, seeking for his lost paradise.
+
+He did not see her when he went in, but Mrs. Barr received him kindly
+and talked about her in a pleasant garrulous fashion which jarred on
+Roger, yet he listened greedily. Lilith, her aunt told him, had been
+made deaf by the accidental explosion of a gun when she was eight
+years old. She could not hear a sound but she could talk.
+
+"A little, that is--not much, but enough to get along with. But she
+don't like talking somehow--dunno why. She's shy--and we think maybe
+she don't like to talk much because she can't hear her own voice. She
+don't ever speak except just when she has to. But she's been trained
+to lip-reading something wonderful--she can understand anything that's
+said when she can see the person that's talking. Still, it's a
+terrible drawback for the poor child--she's never had any real
+girl-life and she's dreadful sensitive and retiring. We can't get her
+to go out anywhere, only for lonely walks along shore by herself.
+We're much obliged for what you did the other night. It ain't safe for
+her to wander about alone as she does, but it ain't often anybody from
+the harbour gets up this far. She was dreadful upset about it--hasn't
+got over her scare yet."
+
+When Lilith came in, her ivory-white face went scarlet all over at the
+sight of Roger. She sat down in a shadowy corner. Mrs. Barr got up
+and went out. Roger was mute; he could find nothing to say. He could
+have talked glibly enough to Isabel Temple's ghost in some unearthly
+tryst by her grave, but he could not find a word to say to this slip
+of flesh and blood. He felt very foolish and absurd, and very
+conscious of his twisted shoulder. What a fool he had been to come!
+
+Then Lilith looked up at him--and smiled. A little shy, friendly
+smile. Roger suddenly saw her not as the tantalizing, unreal, mystic
+thing of the twilit grove, but as a little human creature, exquisitely
+pretty in her young-moon beauty, longing for companionship. He got up,
+forgetting his ugliness, and went across the room to her.
+
+"Will you come for a walk," he said eagerly. He held out his hand like
+a child; as a child she stood up and took it; like two children they
+went out and down the sunset shore. Roger was again incredibly happy.
+It was not the same happiness as had been his in that vanished
+fortnight; it was a homelier happiness with its feet on the earth. The
+amazing thing was that he felt she was happy too--happy because she
+was walking with _him_, "Jarback" Temple, whom no girl had even
+thought about. A certain secret well-spring of fancy that had seemed
+dry welled up in him sparklingly again.
+
+Through the summer weeks the odd courtship went on. Roger talked to
+her as he had never talked to anyone. He did not find it in the least
+hard to talk to her, though her necessity of watching his face so
+closely while he talked bothered him occasionally. He felt that her
+intent gaze was reading his soul as well as his lips. She never talked
+much herself; what she did say she spoke so low that it was hardly
+above a whisper, but she had a voice as lovely as her face--sweet,
+cadenced, haunting. Roger was quite mad about her, and he was horribly
+afraid that he could never get up enough courage to ask her to marry
+him. And he was afraid that if he did, she would never consent. In
+spite of her shy, eager welcomes he could not believe she could care
+for him--for _him_. She liked him, she was sorry for him, but it was
+unthinkable that she, white, exquisite Lilith, could marry him and sit
+at his table and his hearth. He was a fool to dream of it.
+
+To the existence of romance and glamour in which he lived, no gossip
+of the countryside penetrated. Yet much gossip there was, and at last
+it came blundering in on Roger to destroy his fairy world a second
+time. He came downstairs one night in the twilight, ready to go to
+Lilith. His aunt and an old crony were talking in the kitchen; the
+crony was old, and Catherine, supposing Roger was out of the house,
+was talking loudly in that horrible voice of hers with still more
+horrible zest and satisfaction.
+
+"Yes, I'm guessing it'll be a match as ye say. Oh the b'y's doing
+well. He ain't for every market, as I'm bound to admit. Ef she wan't
+deaf she wouldn't look at him, no doubt. But she has scads of
+money--they won't need to do a tap of work unless they like--and she's
+a good housekeeper too her aunt tells me. She's pretty enough to suit
+him--he's as particular as never was--and he wan't crooked and she
+wan't deaf when they was born, so it's likely their children will be
+all right. I'm that proud when I think of the match."
+
+Roger fled out of the house, white of face and sick of heart. He went,
+not to the bay shore, but to Isabel Temple's grave. He had never been
+there since the night when he had rescued Lilith, but now he rushed to
+it in his new agony. His aunt's horrible practicalities had filled him
+with disgust--they dragged his love in the dust of sordid things. And
+Lilith was rich; he had never known that--never suspected it. He could
+never ask her to marry him now; he must never see her again. For the
+second time he had lost her, and this second losing could not be
+borne.
+
+He sat down on the big boulder by the grave and dropped his poor grey
+face in his hands, moaning in anguish. Nothing was left him, not even
+dreams. He hoped he could soon die.
+
+He did not know how long he sat there--he did not know when she came.
+But when he lifted his miserable eyes, he saw her, sitting just a
+little way from him on the big stone and looking at him with something
+in her face that made his heart beat madly. He forgot Aunt Catherine's
+sacrilege--he forgot that he was a presumptuous fool. He bent forward
+and kissed her lips for the first time. The wonder of it loosed his
+bound tongue.
+
+"Lilith," he gasped, "I love you."
+
+She put her hand into his and nestled closer to him.
+
+"I thought you would have told me that long ago," she said.
+
+
+
+
+Uncle Richard's New Year's Dinner
+
+
+Prissy Baker was in Oscar Miller's store New Year's morning, buying
+matches--for New Year's was not kept as a business holiday in
+Quincy--when her uncle, Richard Baker, came in. He did not look at
+Prissy, nor did she wish him a happy New Year; she would not have
+dared. Uncle Richard had not been on speaking terms with her or her
+father, his only brother, for eight years.
+
+He was a big, ruddy, prosperous-looking man--an uncle to be proud of,
+Prissy thought wistfully, if only he were like other people's uncles,
+or, indeed, like what he used to be himself. He was the only uncle
+Prissy had, and when she had been a little girl they had been great
+friends; but that was before the quarrel, in which Prissy had had no
+share, to be sure, although Uncle Richard seemed to include her in his
+rancour.
+
+Richard Baker, so he informed Mr. Miller, was on his way to Navarre
+with a load of pork.
+
+"I didn't intend going over until the afternoon," he said, "but Joe
+Hemming sent word yesterday he wouldn't be buying pork after twelve
+today. So I have to tote my hogs over at once. I don't care about
+doing business New Year's morning."
+
+"Should think New Year's would be pretty much the same as any other
+day to you," said Mr. Miller, for Richard Baker was a bachelor, with
+only old Mrs. Janeway to keep house for him.
+
+"Well, I always like a good dinner on New Year's," said Richard Baker.
+"It's about the only way I can celebrate. Mrs. Janeway wanted to spend
+the day with her son's family over at Oriental, so I was laying out to
+cook my own dinner. I got everything ready in the pantry last night,
+'fore I got word about the pork. I won't get back from Navarre before
+one o'clock, so I reckon I'll have to put up with a cold bite."
+
+After her Uncle Richard had driven away, Prissy walked thoughtfully
+home. She had planned to spend a nice, lazy holiday with the new book
+her father had given her at Christmas and a box of candy. She did not
+even mean to cook a dinner, for her father had had to go to town that
+morning to meet a friend and would be gone the whole day. There was
+nobody else to cook dinner for. Prissy's mother had died when Prissy
+was a baby. She was her father's housekeeper, and they had jolly times
+together.
+
+But as she walked home, she could not help thinking about Uncle
+Richard. He would certainly have cold New Year cheer, enough to chill
+the whole coming year. She felt sorry for him, picturing him returning
+from Navarre, cold and hungry, to find a fireless house and an
+uncooked dinner in the pantry.
+
+Suddenly an idea popped into Prissy's head. Dared she? Oh, she never
+could! But he would never know--there would be plenty of time--she
+would!
+
+Prissy hurried home, put her matches away, took a regretful peep at
+her unopened book, then locked the door and started up the road to
+Uncle Richard's house half a mile away. She meant to go and cook Uncle
+Richard's dinner for him, get it all beautifully ready, then slip away
+before he came home. He would never suspect her of it. Prissy would
+not have him suspect for the world; she thought he would be more
+likely to throw a dinner of her cooking out of doors than to eat it.
+
+Eight years before this, when Prissy had been nine years old, Richard
+and Irving Baker had quarrelled over the division of a piece of
+property. The fault had been mainly on Richard's side, and that very
+fact made him all the more unrelenting and stubborn. He had never
+spoken to his brother since, and he declared he never would. Prissy
+and her father felt very badly over it, but Uncle Richard did not seem
+to feel badly at all. To all appearance he had completely forgotten
+that there were such people in the world as his brother Irving and his
+niece Prissy.
+
+Prissy had no trouble in breaking into Uncle Richard's house, for the
+woodshed door was unfastened. She tripped into the hostile kitchen
+with rosy cheeks and mischief sparkling in her eyes. This was an
+adventure--this was fun! She would tell her father all about it when
+he came home at night and what a laugh they would have!
+
+There was still a good fire in the stove, and in the pantry Prissy
+found the dinner in its raw state--a fine roast of fresh pork,
+potatoes, cabbage, turnips and the ingredients of a raisin pudding,
+for Richard Baker was fond of raisin puddings, and could make them as
+well as Mrs. Janeway could, if that was anything to boast of.
+
+In a short time the kitchen was full of bubbling and hissings and
+appetizing odours. Prissy enjoyed herself hugely, and the raisin
+pudding, which she rather doubtfully mixed up, behaved itself
+beautifully.
+
+"Uncle Richard said he'd be home by one," said Prissy to herself, as
+the clock struck twelve, "so I'll set the table now, dish up the
+dinner, and leave it where it will keep warm until he gets here. Then
+I'll slip away home. I'd like to see his face when he steps in. I
+suppose he'll think one of the Jenner girls across the street has
+cooked his dinner."
+
+Prissy soon had the table set, and she was just peppering the turnips
+when a gruff voice behind her said:
+
+"Well, well, what does this mean?"
+
+Prissy whirled around as if she had been shot, and there stood Uncle
+Richard in the woodshed door!
+
+Poor Prissy! She could not have looked or felt more guilty if Uncle
+Richard had caught her robbing his desk. She did not drop the turnips
+for a wonder; but she was too confused to set them down, so she stood
+there holding them, her face crimson, her heart thumping, and a
+horrible choking in her throat.
+
+"I--I--came up to cook your dinner for you, Uncle Richard," she
+stammered. "I heard you say--in the store--that Mrs. Janeway had gone
+home and that you had nobody to cook your New Year's dinner for you.
+So I thought I'd come and do it, but I meant to slip away before you
+came home."
+
+Poor Prissy felt that she would never get to the end of her
+explanation. Would Uncle Richard be angry? Would he order her from the
+house?
+
+"It was very kind of you," said Uncle Richard drily. "It's a wonder
+your father let you come."
+
+"Father was not home, but I am sure he would not have prevented me if
+he had been. Father has no hard feelings against you, Uncle Richard."
+
+"Humph!" said Uncle Richard. "Well, since you've cooked the dinner you
+must stop and help me eat it. It smells good, I must say. Mrs. Janeway
+always burns pork when she roasts it. Sit down, Prissy. I'm hungry."
+
+They sat down. Prissy felt quite giddy and breathless, and could
+hardly eat for excitement; but Uncle Richard had evidently brought
+home a good appetite from Navarre, and he did full justice to his New
+Year's dinner. He talked to Prissy too, quite kindly and politely, and
+when the meal was over he said slowly:
+
+"I'm much obliged to you, Prissy, and I don't mind owning to you that
+I'm sorry for my share in the quarrel, and have wanted for a long time
+to be friends with your father again, but I was too ashamed and proud
+to make the first advance. You can tell him so for me, if you like.
+And if he's willing to let bygones be bygones, tell him I'd like him
+to come up here with you tonight when he gets home and spend the
+evening with me."
+
+"Oh, he will come, I know!" cried Prissy joyfully. "He has felt so
+badly about not being friendly with you, Uncle Richard. I'm as glad as
+can be."
+
+Prissy ran impulsively around the table and kissed Uncle Richard. He
+looked up at his tall, girlish niece with a smile of pleasure.
+
+"You're a good girl, Prissy, and a kind-hearted one too, or you'd
+never have come up here to cook a dinner for a crabbed old uncle who
+deserved to eat cold dinners for his stubbornness. It made me cross
+today when folks wished me a happy New Year. It seemed like mockery
+when I hadn't a soul belonging to me to make it happy. But it has
+brought me happiness already, and I believe it will be a happy year
+all the way through."
+
+"Indeed it will!" laughed Prissy. "I'm so happy now I could sing. I
+believe it was an inspiration--my idea of coming up here to cook your
+dinner for you."
+
+"You must promise to come and cook my New Year's dinner for me every
+New Year we live near enough together," said Uncle Richard.
+
+And Prissy promised.
+
+
+
+
+White Magic
+
+
+One September afternoon in the year of grace 1840 Avery and Janet
+Sparhallow were picking apples in their Uncle Daniel Sparhallow's big
+orchard. It was an afternoon of mellow sunshine; about them, beyond
+the orchard, were old harvest fields, mellowly bright and serene, and
+beyond the fields the sapphire curve of the St. Lawrence Gulf was
+visible through the groves of spruce and birch. There was a soft
+whisper of wind in the trees, and the pale purple asters that
+feathered the orchard grass swayed gently towards each other. Janet
+Sparhallow, who loved the outdoor world and its beauty, was, for the
+time being at least, very happy, as her little brown face, with its
+fine, satiny skin, plainly showed. Avery Sparhallow did not seem so
+happy. She worked rather abstractedly and frowned oftener than she
+smiled.
+
+Avery Sparhallow was conceded to be a beauty, and had no rival in
+Burnley Beach. She was very pretty, with the obvious, indisputable
+prettiness of rich black hair, vivid, certain colour, and laughing,
+brilliant eyes. Nobody ever called Janet a beauty, or even thought her
+pretty. She was only seventeen--five years younger than Avery--and was
+rather lanky and weedy, with a rope of straight dark-brown hair, long,
+narrow, shining brown eyes and very black lashes, and a crooked,
+clever little mouth. She had visitations of beauty when excited,
+because then she flushed deeply, and colour made all the difference in
+the world to her; but she had never happened to look in the glass when
+excited, so that she had never seen herself beautiful; and hardly
+anybody else had ever seen her so, because she was always too shy and
+awkward and tongue-tied in company to feel excited over anything. Yet
+very little could bring that transforming flush to her face: a wind
+off the gulf, a sudden glimpse of blue upland, a flame-red poppy, a
+baby's laugh, a certain footstep. As for Avery Sparhallow, she never
+got excited over anything--not even her wedding dress, which had come
+from Charlottetown that day, and was incomparably beyond anything that
+had ever been seen in Burnley Beach before. For it was made of an
+apple-green silk, sprayed over with tiny rosebuds, which had been
+specially sent for to England, where Aunt Matilda Sparhallow had a
+brother in the silk trade. Avery Sparhallow's wedding dress was making
+far more of a sensation in Burnley Beach than her wedding itself was
+making. For Randall Burnley had been dangling after her for three
+years, and everybody knew that there was nobody for a Sparhallow to
+marry except a Burnley and nobody for a Burnley to marry except a
+Sparhallow.
+
+"Only one silk dress--and I want a dozen," Avery had said scornfully.
+
+"What would you do with a dozen silk dresses on a farm?" Janet asked
+wonderingly.
+
+"Oh--what indeed?" agreed Avery, with an impatient laugh.
+
+"Randall will think just as much of you in drugget as in silk," said
+Janet, meaning to comfort.
+
+Again Avery laughed.
+
+"That is true. Randall never notices what a woman has on. I like a man
+who does notice--and tells me about it. I like a man who likes me
+better in silk than in drugget. I will wear this rosebud silk when I'm
+married, and it will be supposed to last me the rest of my life and be
+worn on all state occasions, and in time become an heirloom like Aunt
+Matilda's hideous blue satin. I want a new silk dress every month."
+
+Janet paid little attention to this kind of raving. Avery had always
+been more or less discontented. She would be contented enough after
+she was married. Nobody could be discontented who was Randall
+Burnley's wife. Janet was sure of that.
+
+Janet liked picking apples; Avery did not like it; but Aunt Matilda
+had decreed that the red apples should be picked that afternoon, and
+Aunt Matilda's word was law at the Sparhallow farm, even for wilful
+Avery. So they worked and talked as they worked--of Avery's wedding,
+which was to be as soon as Bruce Gordon should arrive from Scotland.
+
+"I wonder what Bruce will be like," said Avery. "It is eight years
+since he went home to Scotland. He was sixteen then--he will be
+twenty-four now. He went away a boy--he will come back a man."
+
+"I don't remember much about him," said Janet. "I was only nine when
+he went away. He used to tease me--I do remember that." There was a
+little resentment in her voice. Janet had never liked being teased.
+Avery laughed.
+
+"You were so touchy, Janet. Touchy people always get teased. Bruce was
+very handsome--and as nice as he was handsome. Those two years he was
+here were the nicest, gayest time I ever had. I wish he had stayed in
+Canada. But of course he wouldn't do that. His father was a rich man
+and Bruce was ambitious. Oh, Janet, I wish I could live in the old
+land. That would be life."
+
+Janet had heard all this before and could not understand it. She had
+no hankering for either Scotland or England. She loved the new land
+and its wild, virgin beauty. She yearned to the future, never to the
+past.
+
+"I'm tired of Burnley Beach," Avery went on passionately, shaking
+apples wildly off a laden bough by way of emphasis. "I know all the
+people--what they are--what they can be. It's like reading a book for
+the twentieth time. I know where I was born and who I'll marry--and
+where I'll be buried. That's knowing too much. All my days will be
+alike when I marry Randall. There will never be anything unexpected or
+surprising about them. I tell you Janet," Avery seized another bough
+and shook it with a vengeance, "I hate the very thought of it."
+
+"The thought of--what?" said Janet in bewilderment.
+
+"Of marrying Randall Burnley--or marrying anybody down here--and
+settling down on a farm for life."
+
+Then Avery sat down on the rung of her ladder and laughed at Janet's
+face.
+
+"You look stunned, Janet. Did you really think I wanted to marry
+Randall?"
+
+Janet was stunned, and she did think that. How could any girl not want
+to marry Randall Burnley if she had the chance?
+
+"Don't you love him?" she asked stupidly.
+
+Avery bit into a nut-sweet apple.
+
+"No," she said frankly. "Oh, I don't hate him, of course. I like him
+well enough. I like him very well. But we'll quarrel all our lives."
+
+"Then what are you marrying him for?" asked Janet.
+
+"Why, I'm getting on--twenty-two--all the girls of my age are married
+already. I won't be an old maid, and there's nobody but Randall.
+Nobody good enough for a Sparhallow, that is. You wouldn't want me to
+marry Ned Adams or John Buchanan, would you?"
+
+"No," said Janet, who had her full share of the Sparhallow pride.
+
+"Well, then, of course I must marry Randall. That's settled and
+there's no use making faces over the notion. I'm not making faces, but
+I'm tired of hearing you talk as if you thought I adored him and must
+be in the seventh heaven because I was going to marry him, you
+romantic child."
+
+"Does Randall know you feel like this?" asked Janet in a low tone.
+
+"No. Randall is like all men--vain and self-satisfied--and believes
+I'm crazy about him. It's just as well to let him think so, until
+we're safely married anyhow. Randall has some romantic notions too,
+and I'm not sure that he'd marry me if he knew, in spite of his three
+years' devotion. And I have no intention of being jilted three weeks
+before my wedding day."
+
+Avery laughed again, and tossed away the core of her apple.
+
+Janet, who had been very pale, went crimson and lovely. She could not
+endure hearing Randall criticized. "Vain and self-satisfied"--when
+there was never a man less so! She was horrified to feel that she
+almost hated Avery--Avery who did not love Randall.
+
+"What a pity Randall didn't take a fancy to you instead of me, Janet,"
+said Avery teasingly. "Wouldn't you like to marry him, Janet? Wouldn't
+you now?"
+
+"No," cried Janet angrily. "I just like Randall, I've liked him ever
+since that day when I was a little thing and he came here and saved me
+from being shut up all day in that dreadful dark closet because I
+broke Aunt Matilda's blue cup--when I hadn't meant to break it. He
+wouldn't let her shut me up! He is like that--he understands! I want
+you to marry him because he wants you, and it isn't fair that
+you--that you--"
+
+"Nothing is fair in this world, child. Is it fair that I, who am so
+pretty--you know I am pretty, Janet--and who love life and excitement,
+should have to be buried on a P.E. Island farm all my days? Or else be
+an old maid because a Sparhallow mustn't marry beneath her? Come,
+Janet, don't look so woebegone. I wouldn't have told you if I'd
+thought you'd take it so much to heart. I'll be a good wife to
+Randall, never fear, and I'll keep him up to the notch of prosperity
+much better than if I thought him a little lower than the angels. It
+doesn't do to think a man perfection, Janet, because he thinks so too,
+and when he finds someone who agrees with him he is inclined to rest
+on his oars."
+
+"At any rate, you don't care for anyone else," said Janet hopefully.
+
+"Not I. I like Randall as well as I like anybody."
+
+"Randall won't be satisfied with that," muttered Janet. But Avery did
+not hear her, having picked up her basket of apples and gone. Janet
+sat down on the lower rung of the ladder and gave herself up to an
+unpleasant reverie. Oh, how the world had changed in half an hour! She
+had never been so worried in her life. She was so fond of Randall--she
+had always been fond of him--why, he was just like a brother to her!
+She couldn't possibly love a brother more. And Avery was going to hurt
+him; it would hurt him horribly when he found out she did not love
+him. Janet could not bear the thought of Randall being hurt; it made
+her fairly savage. He must not be hurt--Avery must love him. Janet
+could not understand why she did not.
+
+Surely everyone must love Randall. It had never occurred to Janet to
+ask herself, as Avery had asked, if she would like to marry Randall.
+Randall could never fancy her--a little plain, brown thing, only half
+grown. Nobody could think of her beside beautiful, rose-faced Avery.
+Janet accepted this fact unquestioningly. She had never been jealous.
+She only felt that she wanted Randall to have everything he wanted--to
+be perfectly happy. Why, it would be dreadful if he did not marry
+Avery--if he went and married some other girl. She would never see
+him then, never have any more delightful talks with him about all the
+things they both loved so much--winds and delicate dawns, mysterious
+woods in moonlight and starry midnights, silver-white sails going out
+of the harbour in the magic of morning, and the grey of gulf storms.
+There would be nothing in life; it would just be one great, unbearable
+emptiness; for she, herself, would never marry. There was nobody for
+her to marry--and she didn't care. If she could have Randall for a
+real brother, she would not mind a bit being an old maid. And there
+was that beautiful new frame house Randall had built for his bride,
+which she, Janet, had helped him build, because Avery would not
+condescend to details of pantry and linen closet and cupboards. Janet
+and Randall had had such fun over the cupboards. No stranger must ever
+come to be mistress of that house. Randall must marry Avery, and she
+must love him. Could anything be done to make her love him?
+
+"I believe I'll go and see Granny Thomas," said Janet desperately.
+
+She thought this was a silly idea, but it still haunted her and would
+not be shaken off. Granny Thomas was a very old woman who lived at
+Burnley Cove and was reputed to be something of a witch. That is,
+people who were not Sparhallows or Burnleys gave her that name.
+Sparhallows or Burnleys, of course, were above believing in such
+nonsense. Janet was above believing it; but still--the sailors along
+shore were careful to "keep on the good side" of Granny Thomas, lest
+she brew an unfavourable wind for them, and there was much talk of
+love potions. Janet knew that people said Peggy Buchanan would never
+have got Jack McLeod if Granny had not given her a love potion. Jack
+had never looked at Peggy, though she was after him for years; and
+then, all at once, he was quite mad about her--and married her--and
+wore her life out with jealousy. And Peggy, the homeliest of all the
+Buchanan girls! There must be something in it. Janet made a sudden
+desperate resolve. She would go to Granny and ask her for a love
+potion to make Avery love Randall. If Granny couldn't do any good, she
+couldn't do any harm. Janet was a little afraid of her, and had never
+been near her house, but what wouldn't she do for Randall?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Janet never lost much time in carrying out any resolution she made.
+The next afternoon she slipped away to visit Granny Thomas. She put on
+her longest dress and did her hair up for the first time. Granny must
+not think her a child. She rowed herself down the long pond to the row
+of golden-brown sand dunes that parted it from the gulf. It was a
+wonderful autumn day. There were wild growths and colours and scents
+in sweet procession all around the pond. Every curve in it revealed
+some little whim of loveliness. On the left bank, in a grove of birch,
+was Randall's new house, waiting to be sanctified by love and joy and
+birth. Janet loved to be alone thus with the delightful day. She was
+sorry when she had walked over the stretch of windy weedy sea fields
+and reached Granny's little tumbledown house at the Cove--sorry and a
+little frightened as well. But only a little; there was good stuff in
+Janet; she lifted the latch boldly and walked in when Granny bade.
+Granny was curled up on a stool by her fireplace, and if ever anybody
+did look like a witch, she did. She waved her pipe at another stool,
+and Janet sat down, gazing a little curiously at Granny, whom she had
+never seen at such close quarters before.
+
+Will I look like that when I am very old? she thought, beholding
+Granny's wizened, marvellously wrinkled face. I wonder if anybody will
+be sorry when you die.
+
+"Staring wasn't thought good manners in my time," said Granny. Then,
+as Janet blushed crimson under the rebuke, she added, "Keep red like
+that instead o' white, and you won't need no love ointment."
+
+Janet felt a little cold thrill. How did Granny know what she had come
+for? Was she a real witch after all? For a moment she wished she
+hadn't come. Perhaps it was not right to tamper with the powers of
+darkness. Peggy Buchanan was notoriously unhappy. If Janet had known
+how to get herself away, she would have gone without asking for
+anything.
+
+Then a sound came from the lean-to behind the house.
+
+"S-s-h. I hear the devil grunting like a pig," muttered Granny,
+looking very impish.
+
+But Janet smiled a little contemptuously. She knew it was a pig and no
+devil. Granny Thomas was only an old fraud. Her awe passed away and
+left her cool Sparhallow.
+
+"Can you," she said with her own directness, "make a--a person care
+for another person--care--very much?"
+
+Granny removed her pipe and chuckled.
+
+"What you want is toad ointment," she said.
+
+Toad ointment! Janet shuddered. That did not sound very nice. Granny
+noticed the shudder.
+
+"Nothing like it," she said, nodding her crone-like old grey head.
+"There's other things, but noan so sure. Put a li'l bit--oh, such a
+li'l bit--on his eyelids, and he's yourn for life. You need something
+powerful--you're noan so pretty--only when you're blushing."
+
+Janet was blushing again. So Granny thought she wanted the charm for
+herself! Well, what did it matter? Randall was the only one to be
+considered.
+
+"Is it very--expensive?" she faltered. She had not much money. Money
+was no plentiful thing on a P.E.I. farm in 1840.
+
+"Oh, noa--oh, noa," Granny leered. "I don't sell it. I gives it. I
+like to see young folks happy. You don't need much, as I've said--just
+a li'l smootch and you'll have your man, and send old Granny a bite o'
+the wedding cake and fig o' baccy for luck, and a bid to the fir-r-st
+christening! Doan't forget that, dearie."
+
+Janet was cold again with anger. She hated old Granny Thomas. She
+would never come near her again.
+
+"I'd rather pay you its worth," she said coldly.
+
+"You couldn't, dearie. What money could be eno' for such a treasure?
+But that's the Sparhallow pride. Well, go, see if the Sparhallow pride
+and the Sparhallow money will buy you your lad's love."
+
+Granny looked so angry that Janet hastened to appease her.
+
+"Oh, please forgive me--I meant no offence. Only--it must have cost
+you much trouble to make it."
+
+Granny chuckled again. She was vastly pleased to see a Sparhallow
+suing to her--a Sparhallow!
+
+"Toads am cheap," she said. "It's all in the knowing how and the time
+o' the moon. Here, take this li'l pill box--there's eno' in it--and
+put a li'l bit on his eyelids when you've getten the chance--and when
+he looks at you, he'll love you. Mind you, though, that he looks at no
+other first--it's the first one he sees that he'll love. That's the
+way it works."
+
+"Thank you." Janet took the little box. She wished she dared to go at
+once. But perhaps this would anger Granny. Granny looked at her with a
+twinkle in her little, incredibly old eyes.
+
+"Be off," she said. "You're in a hurry to go--you're as proud as any
+of the proud Sparhallows. But I bear you no grudge. I likes proud
+people--when they have to come to me to get help."
+
+Janet found herself outside with a relieved heart in her bosom and her
+little box in her hand. For a moment she was tempted to throw it away.
+But no--Randall would be so unhappy if he found out Avery didn't love
+him! She would try the ointment at least--she would try to forget
+about the toads and not let herself think how it was made--something
+might come of it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Janet hurried home along the shore, where a silvery wave broke in a
+little lovely silvery curve on the sand. She was so happy that her
+cheeks burned, and Randall Burnley, who was sitting on the edge of her
+flat when she reached the pond, looked at her with admiration. Janet
+dropped her box into her pocket stealthily when she saw him. What with
+her guilty secret, she hardly knew whether she was glad or not when
+he said he was going to row her up the pond.
+
+"I saw you go down an hour ago and I've been waiting ever since," he
+said. "Where have you been?"
+
+"Oh--I just--wanted a walk--this lovely day," said Janet miserably.
+She felt that she was telling an untruth and this hurt her
+horribly--especially when it was to Randall. This was what came of
+truck with witches--you were led into falsehood and deception
+straightaway. Again Janet was tempted to drop Granny's pill box into
+the depths of Burnley Pond--and again she decided not to because she
+saw Randall Burnley's deep-set, blue-grey eyes, that could look tender
+or sorrowful or passionate or whimsical as he willed, and thought how
+they would look when he found Avery did not love him.
+
+So Janet drowned the voice of conscience and was brazenly happy--happy
+because Randall Burnley rowed her up the pond--happy because he walked
+halfway home with her over the autumnal fields--happy because he
+talked of the day and the sea and the golden weather, as only Randall
+could talk. But she thought she was happy because she had in her
+pocket what might make Avery love him.
+
+Randall went as far as the stile in the birch wood between the Burnley
+and the Sparhallow land--and he kept her there talking for another
+half-hour--and though he talked only of a book he had read and a new
+puppy he was training, Janet listened with her soul in her ears. She
+talked too--quite freely; she was never in the least shy or
+tongue-tied or awkward in Randall's company. There she was always at
+her best, with a delightful feeling of being understood. She wondered
+if he noticed she had her hair done up. Her eyes shone and her brown
+face was full of rosy, kissable hues. When he finally turned away
+homeward, life went flat. Janet decided she was very tired after her
+long walk and her trying interview. But it did not matter, since she
+had her love potion. That was so much nicer a name than toad ointment.
+
+That night Janet rubbed mutton tallow on her hands. She had never done
+that before--she had thought it vain and foolish--though Avery did it
+every night. But that afternoon on the pond Randall had said something
+about the beautiful shape of her pretty slender hands. He had never
+paid her a compliment before. Her hands were brown and a little
+hard--not soft and white like Avery's. So Janet resorted to the mutton
+tallow. If one had a scrap of beauty, if only in one's hands, one
+might as well take care of it.
+
+Having got her ointment, the next thing was to make use of it. This
+was not so easy--because, in the first place, it must not be done when
+there was any danger of Avery's seeing some other than Randall
+first--and it must be done without Avery's knowing it. The two
+problems combined were almost too much for Janet. She bided her chance
+like a watchful cat--but it did not come. Two weeks went by and it had
+not come. Janet was getting very desperate. The wedding day was only a
+week away. The bride's cake was made and the turkeys fattened. The
+invitations were sent out. Janet's own bridesmaid dress was ready. And
+still the little pill box in the till of Janet's blue chest was
+unopened. She had never even opened it, lest virtue escape.
+
+Then her chance came at last, unexpectedly. One evening at dusk, when
+Janet was crossing the little dark upstairs hall, Aunt Matilda called
+up to her.
+
+"Janet, send Avery down. There is a young man wanting to see her."
+
+Aunt Matilda was laughing a little--as she always did when Randall
+came. It was a habit with her, hanging over from the early days of
+Randall's courtship. Janet went on into their room to tell Avery. And
+lo, Avery was lying asleep on her bed, tired out from her busy day.
+Janet, after one glance, flew to her chest. She took out her pill box
+and opened it, a little fearfully. The toad ointment was there, dark
+and unpleasant enough to view. Janet tiptoed breathlessly to the bed
+and gingerly scraped the tip of her finger in the ointment.
+
+She said so little would be enough--oh, I hope I'm not doing wrong.
+
+Trembling with excitement, she brushed lightly the white lids of
+Avery's eyes. Avery stirred and opened them. Janet guiltily thrust her
+pill box behind her.
+
+"Randall is downstairs asking for you, Avery."
+
+Avery sat up, looking annoyed. She had not expected Randall that
+evening and would greatly have preferred a continuance of her nap. She
+went down crossly enough, but looking very lovely, flushed from sleep.
+Janet stood in their room, clasping her cold hands nervously over her
+breast. Would the charm work? Oh, she must know--she must know. She
+could not wait. After a few moments that seemed like years she crept
+down the stairs and out into the dusk of the June-warm September
+night. Like a shadow she slipped up to the open parlour window and
+looked cautiously in between the white muslin curtains. The next
+minute she had fallen on her knees in the mint bed. She wished she
+could die then and there.
+
+The young man in the parlour was not Randall Burnley. He was dark and
+smart and handsome; he was sitting on the sofa by Avery's side,
+holding her hands in his, smiling into her rosy, delighted, excited
+face. And he was Bruce Gordon--no doubt of that. Bruce Gordon, the
+expected cousin from Scotland!
+
+"Oh, what have I done? What have I done?" moaned poor Janet, wringing
+her hands. She had seen Avery's face quite plainly--had seen the look
+in her eyes. Avery had never looked at Randall Burnley like that.
+Granny Thomas' abominable ointment had worked all right--and Avery had
+fallen in love with the wrong man.
+
+Janet, cold with horror and remorse, dragged herself up to the window
+again and listened. She must know--she must be sure. She could hear
+only a word here and there, but that word was enough.
+
+"I thought you promised to wait for me, Avery," Bruce said
+reproachfully.
+
+"You were so long in coming back--I thought you had forgotten me,"
+cried Avery.
+
+"I think I did forget a little, Avery. I was such a boy. But
+now--well, thank Heaven, I haven't come too late."
+
+There was a silence, and shameless Janet, peering above the window
+sill, saw what she saw. It was enough. She crept away upstairs to her
+room. She was lying there across the bed when Avery swept in--a
+splendid, transfigured Avery, flushed triumphant. Janet sat up,
+pallid, tear-stained, and looked at her.
+
+"Janet," said Avery, "I am going to marry Bruce Gordon next Wednesday
+night instead of Randall Burnley."
+
+Janet sprang forward and caught Avery's hand.
+
+"You must not," she cried wildly. "It's all my fault--oh, if I could
+only die--I got the love ointment from Granny Thomas to rub on your
+eyes to make you love the first man you would see. I meant it to be
+Randall--I thought it was Randall--oh, Avery!"
+
+Avery had been listening, between amazement and anger. Now anger
+mastered amazement.
+
+"Janet Sparhallow," she cried, "are you crazy? Or do you mean that you
+went to Granny Thomas--you, a Sparhallow!--and asked her for a love
+philtre to make me love Randall Burnley?"
+
+"I didn't tell her it was for you--she thought I wanted it for
+myself," moaned Janet. "Oh, we must undo it--I'll go to her again--no
+doubt she knows of some way to undo the spell--"
+
+Avery, whose rages never lasted long, threw back her dark head and
+laughed ringingly.
+
+"Janet Sparhallow, you talk as if you lived in the dark ages! The idea
+of supposing that horrid old woman could give you love philtres! Why,
+girl, I've always loved Bruce--always. But I thought he'd forgotten
+me. And tonight when he came I found he hadn't. There's the whole
+thing in a nutshell. I'm going to marry him and go home with him to
+Scotland."
+
+"And what about Randall?" said Janet, corpse-white.
+
+"Oh, Randall--pooh! Do you suppose I'm worrying about Randall? But
+you must go to him tomorrow and tell him for me, Janet."
+
+"I will not--I will not."
+
+"Then I'll tell him myself--and I'll tell him about you going to
+Granny," said Avery cruelly. "Janet, don't stand there looking like
+that. I've no patience with you. I shall be perfectly happy with
+Bruce--I would have been miserable with Randall. I know I shan't sleep
+a wink tonight--I'm so excited. Why, Janet, I'll be Mrs. Gordon of
+Gordon Brae--and I'll have everything heart can desire and the man of
+my heart to boot. What has lanky Randall Burnley with his little
+six-roomed house to set against that?"
+
+If Avery did not sleep, neither did Janet. She lay awake till dawn,
+suffering such misery as she had never endured in her life before. She
+knew she must go to Randall Burnley tomorrow and break his heart. If
+she did not, Avery would tell him--tell him what Janet had done. And
+he must not know that--he must not. Janet could not bear that thought.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a pallid, dull-eyed Janet who went through the birch wood to
+the Burnley farm next afternoon, leaving behind her an excited
+household where the sudden change of bridegrooms, as announced by
+Avery, had rather upset everybody. Janet found Randall working in the
+garden of his new house--setting out rosebushes for Avery--Avery, who
+was to jilt him at the very altar, so to speak. He came over to open
+the gate for Janet, smiling his dear smile. It was a dear smile--Janet
+caught her breath over the dearness of it--and she was going to blot
+it off his face.
+
+She spoke out, with plainness and directness. When you had to deal a
+mortal blow, why try to lighten it?
+
+"Avery sent me to tell you that she is going to marry Bruce Gordon
+instead of you. He came last night--and she says that she has always
+liked him best."
+
+A very curious change came over Randall's face--but not the change
+Janet had expected to see. Instead of turning pale Randall flushed;
+and instead of a sharp cry of pain and incredulity, Randall said in no
+uncertain tones, "Thank God!"
+
+Janet wondered if she were dreaming. Granny Thomas' love potion seemed
+to have turned the world upside down. For Randall's arms were about
+her and Randall was pressing his lean bronzed cheek to hers and
+Randall was saying:
+
+"Now I can tell you, Janet, how much I love you."
+
+"Me? Me!" choked Janet.
+
+"You. Why, you're in the very core of my heart, girl. Don't tell me
+you can't love me--you can--you must--why, Janet," for his eyes had
+caught and locked with hers for a minute, "you do!"
+
+There were five minutes about which nobody can tell anything, for even
+Randall and Janet never knew clearly just what happened in those five
+minutes. Then Janet, feeling somehow as if she had died and then come
+back to life, found her tongue.
+
+"Three years ago you came courting Avery," she said reproachfully.
+
+"Three years ago you were a child. I did not think about you. I wanted
+a wife--and Avery was pretty. I thought I was in love with her. Then
+you grew up all at once--and we were such good friends--I never could
+talk to Avery--she wasn't interested in anything I said--and you have
+eyes that catch a man--I've always thought of your eyes. But I was
+honour-bound to Avery--I didn't dream you cared. You must marry me
+next Wednesday, Janet--we'll have a double wedding. You won't
+mind--being married--so soon?"
+
+"Oh, no--I won't--mind," said Janet dazedly. "Only--oh, Randall--I
+must tell you--I didn't mean to tell you--I'd have rather died--but
+now--I must tell you about it now--because I can't bear anything
+hidden between us. I went to old Granny Thomas--and got a love
+ointment from her--to make Avery love you, because I knew she
+didn't--and I wanted you to be happy--Randall, don't--I can't talk
+when you do that! Do you think Granny's ointment could have made her
+care for Bruce?"
+
+Randall laughed--the little, low laugh of the triumphant lover.
+
+"If it did, I'm glad of it. But I need no such ointment on my eyes to
+make me love you--you carry your philtre in that elfin little face of
+yours, Janet."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories,
+1909 to 1922, by Lucy Maud Montgomery
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MONTGOMERY SHORT STORIES ***
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+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Short Stories 1909 To 1922, by Lucy Maud Montgomery.
+    </title>
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to
+1922, by Lucy Maud Montgomery
+
+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: Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922
+
+Author: Lucy Maud Montgomery
+
+Release Date: March 19, 2008 [EBook #24878]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MONTGOMERY SHORT STORIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Alicia Williams, Jeannie Howse and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<h2>Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922</h2>
+<br />
+
+<div class="block2">
+<p>Lucy Maud Montgomery was born at Clifton (now New London), Prince
+Edward Island, Canada, on November 30, 1874. She achieved
+international fame in her lifetime, putting Prince Edward Island and
+Canada on the world literary map. Best known for her "Anne of Green
+Gables" books, she was also a prolific writer of short stories and
+poetry. She published some 500 short stories and poems and twenty
+novels before her death in 1942. The Project Gutenberg collection of
+her short stories was gathered from numerous sources and is presented
+in chronological publishing order:</p>
+
+<div class="block2">
+<p class="noin">Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901<br />
+Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903<br />
+Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904<br />
+Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906<br />
+Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908<br />
+Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="toc" id="toc"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+
+<h2>Short Stories 1909 to 1922</h2>
+<br />
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="50%" summary="List of Stories">
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#A_Golden_Wedding">A Golden Wedding</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">1909</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl" width="80%"><a href="#A_Redeeming_Sacrifice">A Redeeming Sacrifice</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr" width="20%">1909</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#A_Soul_That_Was_Not_at_Home">A Soul that Was Not At Home</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">1915</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#Abel_and_His_Great_Adventure">Abel And His Great Adventure</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">1917</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#Akin_To_Love">Akin to Love</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">1909</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#Aunt_Philippa_and_the_Men">Aunt Philippa and the Men</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">1915</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#Bessies_Doll">Bessie's Doll</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">1914</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#Charlottes_Ladies">Charlotte's Ladies</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">1911</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#Christmas_at_Red_Butte">Christmas at Red Butte</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">1909</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#How_We_Went_to_the_Wedding">How We Went to the Wedding</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">1913</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#Jessamine">Jessamine</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">1909</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#Miss_Sallys_Letter">Miss Sally's Letter</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">1910</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#My_Lady_Jane">My Lady Jane</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">1915</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#Robert_Turners_Revenge">Robert Turner's Revenge</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">1909</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#The_Fillmore_Elderberries">The Fillmore Elderberries</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">1909</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#The_Finished_Story">The Finished Story</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">1912</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#The_Garden_of_Spices">The Garden of Spices</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">1918</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#The_Girl_and_the_Photograph">The Girl and the Photograph</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">1915</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#The_Gossip_of_Valley_View">The Gossip of Valley View</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">1910</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#The_Letters">The Letters</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">1910</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#The_Life-Book_of_Uncle_Jesse">The Life-Book of Uncle Jesse</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">1909</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#The_Little_Black_Doll">The Little Black Doll</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">1909</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#The_Man_on_the_Train">The Man on the Train</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">1914</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#The_Romance_of_Jedediah">The Romance of Jedediah</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">1912</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#The_Tryst_of_the_White_Lady">The Tryst of the White Lady</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">1922</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#Uncle_Richards_New_Years_Dinner">Uncle Richard's New Year Dinner</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">1910</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#White_Magic">White Magic</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">1921</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="A_Golden_Wedding" id="A_Golden_Wedding"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<h2>A Golden Wedding<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">[ToC]</a></span></h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>The land dropped abruptly down from the gate, and a thick, shrubby
+growth of young apple orchard almost hid the little weather-grey house
+from the road. This was why the young man who opened the sagging gate
+could not see that it was boarded up, and did not cease his cheerful
+whistling until he had pressed through the crowding trees and found
+himself almost on the sunken stone doorstep over which in olden days
+honeysuckle had been wont to arch. Now only a few straggling,
+uncared-for vines clung forlornly to the shingles, and the windows
+were, as has been said, all boarded up.</p>
+
+<p>The whistle died on the young man's lips and an expression of blank
+astonishment and dismay settled down on his face&mdash;a good, kindly,
+honest face it was, although perhaps it did not betoken any pronounced
+mental gifts on the part of its owner.</p>
+
+<p>"What can have happened?" he said to himself. "Uncle Tom and Aunt
+Sally can't be dead&mdash;I'd have seen their deaths in the paper if they
+was. And I'd a-thought if they'd moved away it'd been printed too.
+They can't have been gone long&mdash;that flower-bed must have been made up
+last spring. Well, this is a kind of setback for a fellow. Here I've
+been tramping all the way from the station, a-thinking how good it
+would be to see Aunt Sally's sweet old face again, and hear Uncle
+Tom's laugh, and all I find is a boarded-up house going to seed.
+S'pose I might as well toddle over to Stetsons' and inquire if they
+haven't disappeared, too."</p>
+
+<p>He went through the old firs back of the lot and across the field to a
+rather shabby house beyond. A cheery-faced woman answered his knock
+and looked at him in a puzzled fashion. "Have you forgot me, Mrs.
+Stetson? Don't you remember Lovell Stevens and how you used to give
+him plum tarts when he'd bring your turkeys home?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Stetson caught both his hands in a hearty clasp.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess I haven't forgotten!" she declared. "Well, well, and you're
+Lovell! I think I ought to know your face, though you've changed a
+lot. Fifteen years have made a big difference in you. Come right in.
+Pa, this is Lovell&mdash;you mind Lovell, the boy Aunt Sally and Uncle Tom
+had for years?"</p>
+
+<p>"Reckon I do," drawled Jonah Stetson with a friendly grin. "Ain't
+likely to forget some of the capers you used to be cutting up. You've
+filled out considerable. Where have you been for the last ten years?
+Aunt Sally fretted a lot over you, thinking you was dead or gone to
+the bad."</p>
+
+<p>Lovell's face clouded.</p>
+
+<p>"I know I ought to have written," he said repentantly, "but you know
+I'm a terrible poor scholar, and I'd do most anything than try to
+write a letter. But where's Uncle Tom and Aunt Sally gone? Surely they
+ain't dead?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Jonah Stetson slowly, "no&mdash;but I guess they'd rather be.
+They're in the poorhouse."</p>
+
+<p>"The poorhouse! Aunt Sally in the poorhouse!" exclaimed Lovell.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and it's a burning shame," declared Mrs. Stetson. "Aunt Sally's
+just breaking her heart from the disgrace of it. But it didn't seem as
+if it could be helped. Uncle Tom got so crippled with rheumatism he
+couldn't work and Aunt Sally was too frail to do anything. They hadn't
+any relations and there was a mortgage on the house."</p>
+
+<p>"There wasn't any when I went away."</p>
+
+<p>"No; they had to borrow money six years ago when Uncle Tom had his
+first spell of rheumatic fever. This spring it was clear that there
+was nothing for them but the poorhouse. They went three months ago and
+terrible hard they took it, especially Aunt Sally, I felt awful about
+it myself. Jonah and I would have took them if we could, but we just
+couldn't&mdash;we've nothing but Jonah's wages and we have eight children
+and not a bit of spare room. I go over to see Aunt Sally as often as I
+can and take her some little thing, but I dunno's she wouldn't rather
+not see anybody than see them in the poorhouse."</p>
+
+<p>Lovell weighed his hat in his hands and frowned over it reflectively.</p>
+
+<p>"Who owns the house now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Peter Townley. He held the mortgage. And all the old furniture was
+sold too, and that most killed Aunt Sally. But do you know what she's
+fretting over most of all? She and Uncle Tom will have been married
+fifty years in a fortnight's time and Aunt Sally thinks it's awful to
+have to spend their golden wedding anniversary in the poorhouse. She
+talks about it all the time. You're not going, Lovell"&mdash;for Lovell had
+risen&mdash;"you must stop with us, since your old home is closed up. We'll
+scare you up a shakedown to sleep on and you're welcome as welcome. I
+haven't forgot the time you caught Mary Ellen just as she was tumbling
+into the well."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, I'll stay to tea," said Lovell, sitting down again, "but I
+guess I'll make my headquarters up at the station hotel as long as I
+stay round here. It's kind of more central."</p>
+
+<p>"Got on pretty well out west, hey?" queried Jonah.</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty well for a fellow who had nothing but his two hands to depend
+on when he went out," said Lovell cautiously. "I've only been a
+labouring man, of course, but I've saved up enough to start a little
+store when I go back. That's why I came east for a trip now&mdash;before
+I'd be tied down to business. I was hankering to see Aunt Sally and
+Uncle Tom once more. I'll never forget how kind and good they was to
+me. There I was, when Dad died, a little sinner of eleven, just
+heading for destruction. They give me a home and all the schooling I
+ever had and all the love I ever got. It was Aunt Sally's teachings
+made as much a man of me as I am. I never forgot 'em and I've tried to
+live up to 'em."</p>
+
+<p>After tea Lovell said he thought he'd stroll up the road and pay Peter
+Townley a call. Jonah Stetson and his wife looked at each other when
+he had gone.</p>
+
+<p>"Got something in his eye," nodded Jonah. "Him and Peter weren't never
+much of friends."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe Aunt Sally's bread is coming back to her after all," said his
+wife. "People used to be hard on Lovell. But I always liked him and
+I'm real glad he's turned out so well."</p>
+
+<p>Lovell came back to the Stetsons' the next evening. In the interval he
+had seen Aunt Sally and Uncle Tom. The meeting had been both glad and
+sad. Lovell had also seen other people.</p>
+
+<p>"I've bought Uncle Tom's old house from Peter Townley," he said
+quietly, "and I want you folks to help me out with my plans. Uncle Tom
+and Aunt Sally ain't going to spend their golden wedding in the
+poorhouse&mdash;no, sir. They'll spend it in their own home with their old
+friends about them. But they're not to know anything about it till the
+very night. Do you s'pose any of the old furniture could be got back?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe every stick of it could," said Mrs. Stetson excitedly.
+"Most of it was bought by folks living handy and I don't believe one
+of them would refuse to sell it back. Uncle Tom's old chair is here to
+begin with&mdash;Aunt Sally give me that herself. She said she couldn't
+bear to have it sold. Mrs. Isaac Appleby at the station bought the set
+of pink-sprigged china and James Parker bought the grandfather's clock
+and the whatnot is at the Stanton Grays'."</p>
+
+<p>For the next fortnight Lovell and Mrs. Stetson did so much travelling
+round together that Jonah said genially he might as well be a bachelor
+as far as meals and buttons went. They visited every house where a bit
+of Aunt Sally's belongings could be found. Very successful they were
+too, and at the end of their jaunting the interior of the little house
+behind the apple trees looked very much as it had looked when Aunt
+Sally and Uncle Tom lived there.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Mrs. Stetson had been revolving a design in her mind, and
+one afternoon she did some canvassing on her own account. The next
+time she saw Lovell she said:</p>
+
+<p>"We ain't going to let you do it all. The women folks around here are
+going to furnish the refreshments for the golden wedding and the girls
+are going to decorate the house with golden rod."</p>
+
+<p>The evening of the wedding anniversary came. Everybody in Blair was in
+the plot, including the matron of the poorhouse. That night Aunt Sally
+watched the sunset over the hills through bitter tears.</p>
+
+<p>"I never thought I'd be celebrating my golden wedding in the
+poorhouse," she sobbed. Uncle Tom put his twisted hand on her shaking
+old shoulder, but before he could utter any words of comfort Lovell
+Stevens stood before them.</p>
+
+<p>"Just get your bonnet on, Aunt Sally," he cried jovially, "and both of
+you come along with me. I've got a buggy here for you ... and you
+might as well say goodbye to this place, for you're not coming back to
+it any more."</p>
+
+<p>"Lovell, oh, what do you mean?" said Aunt Sally tremulously.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll explain what I mean as we drive along. Hurry up&mdash;the folks are
+waiting."</p>
+
+<p>When they reached the little old house, it was all aglow with light.
+Aunt Sally gave a cry as she entered it. All her old household goods
+were back in their places. There were some new ones too, for Lovell
+had supplied all that was lacking. The house was full of their old
+friends and neighbours. Mrs. Stetson welcomed them home again.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Tom," whispered Aunt Sally, tears of happiness streaming down her
+old face, "oh, Tom, isn't God good?"</p>
+
+<p>They had a right royal celebration, and a supper such as the Blair
+housewives could produce. There were speeches and songs and tales.
+Lovell kept himself in the background and helped Mrs. Stetson cut cake
+in the pantry all the evening. But when the guests had gone, he went
+to Aunt Sally and Uncle Tom, who were sitting by the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's a little golden wedding present for you," he said awkwardly,
+putting a purse into Aunt Sally's hand. "I reckon there's enough there
+to keep you from ever having to go to the poorhouse again and if not,
+there'll be more where that comes from when it's done."</p>
+
+<p>There were twenty-five bright twenty-dollar gold pieces in the purse.</p>
+
+<p>"We can't take it, Lovell," protested Aunt Sally. "You can't afford
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you worry about that," laughed Lovell. "Out west men don't
+think much of a little wad like that. I owe you far more than can be
+paid in cash, Aunt Sally. You must take it&mdash;I want to know there's a
+little home here for me and two kind hearts in it, no matter where I
+roam."</p>
+
+<p>"God bless you, Lovell," said Uncle Tom huskily. "You don't know what
+you've done for Sally and me."</p>
+
+<p>That night, when Lovell went to the little bedroom off the
+parlour&mdash;for Aunt Sally, rejoicing in the fact that she was again
+mistress of a spare room, would not hear of his going to the station
+hotel&mdash;he gazed at his reflection in the gilt-framed mirror soberly.</p>
+
+<p>"You've just got enough left to pay your passage back west, old
+fellow," he said, "and then it's begin all over again just where you
+begun before. But Aunt Sally's face was worth it all&mdash;yes, sir. And
+you've got your two hands still and an old couple's prayers and
+blessings. Not such a bad capital, Lovell, not such a bad capital."</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="A_Redeeming_Sacrifice" id="A_Redeeming_Sacrifice"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<h2>A Redeeming Sacrifice<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">[ToC]</a></span></h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>The dance at Byron Lyall's was in full swing. Toff Leclerc, the best
+fiddler in three counties, was enthroned on the kitchen table and from
+the glossy brown violin, which his grandfather brought from Grand Pr&eacute;,
+was conjuring music which made even stiff old Aunt Phemy want to show
+her steps. Around the kitchen sat a row of young men and women, and
+the open sitting-room doorway was crowded with the faces of
+non-dancing guests who wanted to watch the sets.</p>
+
+<p>An eight-hand reel had just been danced and the girls, giddy from the
+much swinging of the final figure, had been led back to their seats.
+Mattie Lyall came out with a dipper of water and sprinkled the floor,
+from which a fine dust was rising. Toff's violin purred under his
+hands as he waited for the next set to form. The dancers were slow
+about it. There was not the rush for the floor that there had been
+earlier in the evening, for the supper table was now spread in the
+dining-room and most of the guests were hungry.</p>
+
+<p>"Fill up dere, boys," shouted the fiddler impatiently. "Bring out your
+gals for de nex' set."</p>
+
+<p>After a moment Paul King led out Joan Shelley from the shadowy corner
+where they had been sitting. They had already danced several sets
+together; Joan had not danced with anybody else that evening. As they
+stood together under the light from the lamp on the shelf above them,
+many curious and disapproving eyes watched them. Connor Mitchell, who
+had been standing in the open outer doorway with the moonlight behind
+him, turned abruptly on his heel and went out.</p>
+
+<p>Paul King leaned his head against the wall and watched the watchers
+with a smiling, defiant face as they waited for the set to form. He
+was a handsome fellow, with the easy, winning ways that women love.
+His hair curled in bronze masses about his head; his dark eyes were
+long and drowsy and laughing; there was a swarthy bloom on his round
+cheeks; and his lips were as red and beguiling as a girl's. A bad egg
+was Paul King, with a bad past and a bad future. He was shiftless and
+drunken; ugly tales were told of him. Not a man in Lyall's house that
+night but grudged him the privilege of standing up with Joan Shelley.</p>
+
+<p>Joan was a slight, blossom-like girl in white, looking much like the
+pale, sweet-scented house rose she wore in her dark hair. Her face was
+colourless and young, very pure and softly curved. She had wonderfully
+sweet, dark blue eyes, generally dropped down, with notably long black
+lashes. There were many showier girls in the groups around her, but
+none half so lovely. She made all the rosy-cheeked beauties seem
+coarse and over-blown.</p>
+
+<p>She left in Paul's clasp the hand by which he had led her out on the
+floor. Now and then he shifted his gaze from the faces before him to
+hers. When he did, she always looked up and they exchanged glances as
+if they had been utterly alone. Three other couples gradually took the
+floor and the reel began. Joan drifted through the figures with the
+grace of a wind-blown leaf. Paul danced with rollicking abandon,
+seldom taking his eyes from Joan's face. When the last mad whirl was
+over, Joan's brother came up and told her in an angry tone to go into
+the next room and dance no more, since she would dance with only one
+man. Joan looked at Paul. That look meant that she would do as he, and
+none other, told her. Paul nodded easily&mdash;he did not want any fuss
+just then&mdash;and the girl went obediently into the room. As she turned
+from him, Paul coolly reached out his hand and took the rose from her
+hair; then, with a triumphant glance around the room, he went out.</p>
+
+<p>The autumn night was very clear and chill, with a faint, moaning wind
+blowing up from the northwest over the sea that lay shimmering before
+the door. Out beyond the cove the boats were nodding and curtsying on
+the swell, and over the shore fields the great red star of the
+lighthouse flared out against the silvery sky. Paul, with a whistle,
+sauntered down the sandy lane, thinking of Joan. How mightily he loved
+her&mdash;he, Paul King, who had made a mock of so many women and had never
+loved before! Ah, and she loved him. She had never said so in words,
+but eyes and tones had said it&mdash;she, Joan Shelley, the pick and pride
+of the Harbour girls, whom so many men had wooed, winning their
+trouble for their pains. He had won her; she was his and his only, for
+the asking. His heart was seething with pride and triumph and passion
+as he strode down to the shore and flung himself on the cold sand in
+the black shadow of Michael Brown's beached boat.</p>
+
+<p>Byron Lyall, a grizzled, elderly man, half farmer, half fisherman, and
+Maxwell Holmes, the Prospect schoolteacher, came up to the boat
+presently. Paul lay softly and listened to what they were saying. He
+was not troubled by any sense of dishonour. Honour was something Paul
+King could not lose since it was something he had never possessed.
+They were talking of him and Joan.</p>
+
+<p>"What a shame that a girl like Joan Shelley should throw herself away
+on a man like that," Holmes said.</p>
+
+<p>Byron Lyall removed the pipe he was smoking and spat reflectively at
+his shadow.</p>
+
+<p>"Darned shame," he agreed. "That girl's life will be ruined if she
+marries him, plum' ruined, and marry him she will. He's bewitched
+her&mdash;darned if I can understand it. A dozen better men have wanted
+her&mdash;Connor Mitchell for one. And he's a honest, steady fellow with a
+good home to offer her. If King had left her alone, she'd have taken
+Connor. She used to like him well enough. But that's all over. She's
+infatuated with King, the worthless scamp. She'll marry him and be
+sorry for it to her last day. He's bad clear through and always will
+be. Why, look you, Teacher, most men pull up a bit when they're
+courting a girl, no matter how wild they've been and will be again.
+Paul hasn't. It hasn't made any difference. He was dead drunk night
+afore last at the Harbour head, and he hasn't done a stroke of work
+for a month. And yet Joan Shelley'll take him."</p>
+
+<p>"What are her people thinking of to let her go with him?" asked
+Holmes.</p>
+
+<p>"She hasn't any but her brother. He's against Paul, of course, but it
+won't matter. The girl's fancy's caught and she'll go her own gait to
+ruin. Ruin, I tell ye. If she marries that handsome ne'er-do-well,
+she'll be a wretched woman all her days and none to pity her."</p>
+
+<p>The two moved away then, and Paul lay motionless, face downward on the
+sand, his lips pressed against Joan's sweet, crushed rose. He felt no
+anger over Byron Lyall's unsparing condemnation. He knew it was true,
+every word of it. He <i>was</i> a worthless scamp and always would be. He
+knew that perfectly well. It was in his blood. None of his race had
+ever been respectable and he was worse than them all. He had no
+intention of trying to reform because he could not and because he did
+not even want to. He was not fit to touch Joan's hand. Yet he had
+meant to marry her!</p>
+
+<p>But to spoil her life! Would it do that? Yes, it surely would. And if
+he were out of the way, taking his baleful charm out of her life,
+Connor Mitchell might and doubtless would win her yet and give her all
+he could not.</p>
+
+<p>The man suddenly felt his eyes wet with tears. He had never shed a
+tear in his daredevil life before, but they came hot and stinging now.
+Something he had never known or thought of before entered into his
+passion and purified it. He loved Joan. Did he love her well enough to
+stand aside and let another take the sweetness and grace that was now
+his own? Did he love her well enough to save her from the
+poverty-stricken, shamed life she must lead with him? Did he love her
+better than himself?</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't fit to think of her," he groaned. "I never did a decent thing
+in my life, as they say. But how can I give her up&mdash;God, how can I?"</p>
+
+<p>He lay still a long time after that, until the moonlight crept around
+the boat and drove away the shadow. Then he got up and went slowly
+down to the water's edge with Joan's rose, all wet with his
+unaccustomed tears, in his hands. Slowly and reverently he plucked off
+the petals and scattered them on the ripples, where they drifted
+lightly off like fairy shallops on moonshine. When the last one had
+fluttered from his fingers, he went back to the house and hunted up
+Captain Alec Matheson, who was smoking his pipe in a corner of the
+verandah and watching the young folks dancing through the open door.
+The two men talked together for some time.</p>
+
+<p>When the dance broke up and the guests straggled homeward, Paul sought
+Joan. Rob Shelley had his own girl to see home and relinquished the
+guardianship of his sister with a scowl. Paul strode out of the
+kitchen and down the steps at the side of Joan, smiling with his usual
+daredeviltry. He whistled noisily all the way up the lane.</p>
+
+<p>"Great little dance," he said. "My last in Prospect for a spell, I
+guess."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" asked Joan wonderingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm going to take a run down to South America in Matheson's
+schooner. Lord knows when I'll come back. This old place has got too
+deadly dull to suit me. I'm going to look for something livelier."</p>
+
+<p>Joan's lips turned ashen under the fringes of her white fascinator.
+She trembled violently and put one of her small brown hands up to her
+throat. "You&mdash;you are not coming back?" she said faintly.</p>
+
+<p>"Not likely. I'm pretty well tired of Prospect and I haven't got
+anything to hold me here. Things'll be livelier down south."</p>
+
+<p>Joan said nothing more. They walked along the spruce-fringed roads
+where the moonbeams laughed down through the thick, softly swaying
+boughs. Paul whistled one rollicking tune after another. The girl bit
+her lips and clenched her hands. He cared nothing for her&mdash;he had been
+making a mock of her as of others. Hurt pride and wounded love fought
+each other in her soul. Pride conquered. She would not let him, or
+anyone, see that she cared. She would <i>not</i> care!</p>
+
+<p>At her gate Paul held out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, good-bye, Joan. I'm sailing tomorrow so I won't see you
+again&mdash;not for years likely. You will be some sober old married woman
+when I come back to Prospect, if I ever do."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye," said Joan steadily. She gave him her cold hand and looked
+calmly into his face without quailing. She had loved him with all her
+heart, but now a fatal scorn of him was already mingling with her
+love. He was what they said he was, a scamp without principle or
+honour.</p>
+
+<p>Paul whistled himself out of the Shelley lane and over the hill. Then
+he flung himself down under the spruces, crushed his face into the
+spicy frosted ferns, and had his black hour alone.</p>
+
+<p>But when Captain Alec's schooner sailed out of the harbour the next
+day, Paul King was on board of her, the wildest and most hilarious of
+a wild and hilarious crew. Prospect people nodded their satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>"Good riddance," they said. "Paul King is black to the core. He never
+did a decent thing in his life."</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="A_Soul_That_Was_Not_at_Home" id="A_Soul_That_Was_Not_at_Home"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<h2>A Soul That Was Not at Home<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">[ToC]</a></span></h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>There was a very fine sunset on the night Paul and Miss Trevor first
+met, and she had lingered on the headland beyond Noel's Cove to
+delight in it. The west was splendid in daffodil and rose; away to the
+north there was a mackerel sky of little fiery golden clouds; and
+across the water straight from Miss Trevor's feet ran a sparkling path
+of light to the sun, whose rim had just touched the throbbing edge of
+the purple sea. Off to the left were softly swelling violet hills and
+beyond the sandshore, where little waves were crisping and silvering,
+there was a harbour where scores of slender masts were nodding against
+the gracious horizon.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Trevor sighed with sheer happiness in all the wonderful,
+fleeting, elusive loveliness of sky and sea. Then she turned to look
+back at Noel's Cove, dim and shadowy in the gloom of the tall
+headlands, and she saw Paul.</p>
+
+<p>It did not occur to her that he could be a shore boy&mdash;she knew the
+shore type too well. She thought his coming mysterious, for she was
+sure he had not come along the sand, and the tide was too high for him
+to have come past the other headland. Yet there he was, sitting on a
+red sandstone boulder, with his bare, bronzed, shapely little legs
+crossed in front of him and his hands clasped around his knee. He was
+not looking at Miss Trevor but at the sunset&mdash;or, rather, it seemed as
+if he were looking through the sunset to still grander and more
+radiant splendours beyond, of which the things seen were only the pale
+reflections, not worthy of attention from those who had the gift of
+further sight.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Trevor looked him over carefully with eyes that had seen a good
+many people in many parts of the world for more years than she found
+it altogether pleasant to acknowledge, and she concluded that he was
+quite the handsomest lad she had ever seen. He had a lithe, supple
+body, with sloping shoulders and a brown, satin throat. His hair was
+thick and wavy, of a fine reddish chestnut; his brows were very
+straight and much darker than his hair; and his eyes were large and
+grey and meditative. The modelling of chin and jaw was perfect and his
+mouth was delicious, being full without pouting, the crimson lips just
+softly touching, and curving into finely finished little corners that
+narrowly escaped being dimpled.</p>
+
+<p>His attire was a blue cotton shirt and a pair of scanty corduroy
+knickerbockers, but he wore it with such an unconscious air of purple
+and fine linen that Miss Trevor was tricked into believing him much
+better dressed than he really was.</p>
+
+<p>Presently he smiled dreamily, and the smile completed her subjugation.
+It was not merely an affair of lip and eye, as are most smiles; it
+seemed an illumination of his whole body, as if some lamp had
+suddenly burst into flame inside of him, irradiating him from his
+chestnut crown to the tips of his unspoiled toes. Best of all, it was
+involuntary, born of no external effort or motive, but simply the
+outflashing of some wild, delicious thought that was as untrammelled
+and freakish as the wind of the sea.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Trevor made up her mind that she must find out all about him, and
+she stepped out from the shadows of the rocks into the vivid, eerie
+light that was glowing all along the shore. The boy turned his head
+and looked at her, first with surprise, then with inquiry, then with
+admiration. Miss Trevor, in a white dress with a lace scarf on her
+dark, stately head, was well worth admiring. She smiled at him and
+Paul smiled back. It was not quite up to his first smile, having more
+of the effect of being put on from the outside, but at least it
+conveyed the subtly flattering impression that it had been put on
+solely for her, and they were as good friends from that moment as if
+they had known each other for a hundred years. Miss Trevor had enough
+discrimination to realize this and know that she need not waste time
+in becoming acquainted.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to know your name and where you live and what you were looking
+at beyond the sunset," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"My name is Paul Hubert. I live over there. And I can't tell just what
+I saw in the sunset, but when I go home I'm going to write it all in
+my foolscap book."</p>
+
+<p>In her surprise over the second clause of his answer, Miss Trevor
+forgot, at first, to appreciate the last. "Over there," according to
+his gesture, was up at the head of Noel's Cove, where there was a
+little grey house perched on the rocks and looking like a large
+seashell cast up by the tide. The house had a stovepipe coming out of
+its roof in lieu of a chimney, and two of its window panes were
+replaced by shingles. Could this boy, who looked as young princes
+should&mdash;and seldom do&mdash;live there? Then he was a shore boy after all.</p>
+
+<p>"Who lives there with you?" she asked. "You see"&mdash;plaintively&mdash;"I must
+ask questions about you. I know we like each other, and that is all
+that really matters. But there are some tiresome items which it would
+be convenient to know. For example, have you a father&mdash;a mother? Are
+there any more of you? How long have you been yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>Paul did not reply immediately. He clasped his hands behind him and
+looked at her affectionately.</p>
+
+<p>"I like the way you talk," he said. "I never knew anybody did talk
+like that except folks in books and my rock people."</p>
+
+<p>"Your rock people?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm eleven years old. I haven't any father or mother, they're dead. I
+live over there with Stephen Kane. Stephen is splendid. He plays the
+violin and takes me fishing in his boat. When I get bigger he's going
+shares with me. I love him, and I love my rock people too."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by your rock people?" asked Miss Trevor, enjoying
+herself hugely. This was the only child she had ever met who talked as
+she wanted children to talk and who understood her remarks without
+having to have them translated.</p>
+
+<p>"Nora is one of them," said Paul, "the best one of them. I love her
+better than all the others because she came first. She lives around
+that point and she has black eyes and black hair and she knows all
+about the mermaids and water kelpies. You ought to hear the stories
+she can tell. Then there are the Twin Sailors. They don't live
+anywhere&mdash;they sail all the time, but they often come ashore to talk
+to me. They are a pair of jolly tars and they have seen everything in
+the world&mdash;and more than what's in the world, if you only knew it. Do
+you know what happened to the Youngest Twin Sailor once? He was
+sailing and he sailed right into a moonglade. A moonglade is the track
+the full moon makes on the water when it is rising from the sea, you
+know. Well, the Youngest Twin Sailor sailed along the moonglade till
+he came right up to the moon, and there was a little golden door in
+the moon and he opened it and sailed right through. He had some
+wonderful adventures inside the moon&mdash;I've got them all written down
+in my foolscap book. Then there is the Golden Lady of the Cave. One
+day I found a big cave down the shore and I went in and in and in&mdash;and
+after a while I found the Golden Lady. She has golden hair right down
+to her feet, and her dress is all glittering and glistening like gold
+that is alive. And she has a golden harp and she plays all day long on
+it&mdash;you might hear the music if you'd listen carefully, but prob'bly
+you'd think it was only the wind among the rocks. I've never told Nora
+about the Golden Lady, because I think it would hurt her feelings. It
+even hurts her feelings when I talk too long with the Twin Sailors.
+And I hate to hurt Nora's feelings, because I do love her best of all
+my rock people."</p>
+
+<p>"Paul! How much of this is true?" gasped Miss Trevor.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, none of it!" said Paul, opening his eyes widely and
+reproachfully. "I thought you would know that. If I'd s'posed you
+wouldn't I'd have warned you there wasn't any of it true. I thought
+you were one of the kind that would know."</p>
+
+<p>"I am. Oh, I am!" said Miss Trevor eagerly. "I really would have known
+if I had stopped to think. Well, it's getting late now. I must go
+back, although I don't want to. But I'm coming to see you again. Will
+you be here tomorrow afternoon?"</p>
+
+<p>Paul nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I promised to meet the Youngest Twin Sailor down at the striped
+rocks tomorrow afternoon, but the day after will do just as well. That
+is the beauty of the rock people, you know. You can always depend on
+them to be there just when you want them. The Youngest Twin Sailor
+won't mind&mdash;he's very good-tempered. If it was the Oldest Twin I dare
+say he'd be cross. I have my suspicions about that Oldest Twin
+sometimes. I b'lieve he'd be a pirate if he dared. You don't know how
+fierce he can look at times. There's really something very mysterious
+about him."</p>
+
+<p>On her way back to the hotel Miss Trevor remembered the foolscap book.</p>
+
+<p>"I must get him to show it to me," she mused, smiling. "Why, the boy
+is a born genius&mdash;and to think he should be a shore boy! I can't
+understand it. And here I am loving him already. Well, a woman has to
+love something&mdash;and you don't have to know people for years before you
+can love them."</p>
+
+<p>Paul was waiting on the Noel's Cove rocks for Miss Trevor the next
+afternoon. He was not alone; a tall man, with a lined, strong-featured
+face and a grey beard, was with him. The man was clad in a rough suit
+and looked what he was, a 'longshore fisherman. But he had deep-set,
+kindly eyes, and Miss Trevor liked his face. He moved off to one side
+when she came and stood there for a little, apparently gazing out to
+sea, while Paul and Miss Trevor talked. Then he walked away up the
+cove and disappeared in his little grey house.</p>
+
+<p>"Stephen came down to see if you were a suitable person for me to talk
+to," said Paul gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope he thinks I am," said Miss Trevor, amused.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he does! He wouldn't have gone away and left us alone if he
+didn't. Stephen is very particular who he lets me 'sociate with. Why,
+even the rock people now&mdash;I had to promise I'd never let the Twin
+Sailors swear before he'd allow me to be friends with them. Sometimes
+I know by the look of the Oldest Twin that he's just dying to swear,
+but I never let him, because I promised Stephen. I'd do anything for
+Stephen. He's awful good to me. Stephen's bringing me up, you know,
+and he's bound to do it well. We're just perfectly happy here, only I
+wish I'd more books to read. We go fishing, and when we come home at
+night I help Stephen clean the fish and then we sit outside the door
+and he plays the violin for me. We sit there for hours sometimes. We
+never talk much&mdash;Stephen isn't much of a hand for talking&mdash;but we just
+sit and think. There's not many men like Stephen, I can tell you."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Trevor did not get a glimpse of the foolscap book that day, nor
+for many days after. Paul blushed all over his beautiful face whenever
+she mentioned it.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I couldn't show you that," he said uncomfortably. "Why, I've
+never even showed it to Stephen&mdash;or Nora. Let me tell you something
+else instead, something that happened to me once long ago. You'll find
+it more interesting than the foolscap book, only you must remember it
+isn't true! You won't forget that, will you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll try to remember," Miss Trevor agreed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I was sitting here one evening just like I was last night, and
+the sun was setting. And an enchanted boat came sailing over the sea
+and I got into her. The boat was all pearly like the inside of the
+mussel shells, and her sail was like moonshine. Well, I sailed right
+across to the sunset. Think of that&mdash;I've been in the sunset! And what
+do you suppose it is? The sunset is a land all flowers, like a great
+garden, and the clouds are beds of flowers. We sailed into a great big
+harbour, a thousand times bigger than the harbour over there at your
+hotel, and I stepped out of the boat on a 'normous meadow all roses. I
+stayed there for ever so long. It seemed almost a year, but the
+Youngest Twin Sailor says I was only away a few hours or so. You see,
+in Sunset Land the time is ever so much longer than it is here. But I
+was glad to come back too. I'm always glad to come back to the cove
+and Stephen. Now, you know this never really happened."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Trevor would not give up the foolscap book so easily, but for a
+long time Paul refused to show it to her. She came to the cove every
+day, and every day Paul seemed more delightful to her. He was so
+quaint, so clever, so spontaneous. Yet there was nothing premature or
+unnatural about him. He was wholly boy, fond of fun and frolic, not
+too good for little spurts of quick temper now and again, though, as
+he was careful to explain to Miss Trevor, he never showed them to a
+lady.</p>
+
+<p>"I get real mad with the Twin Sailors sometimes, and even with
+Stephen, for all he's so good to me. But I couldn't be mad with you or
+Nora or the Golden Lady. It would never do."</p>
+
+<p>Every day he had some new story to tell of a wonderful adventure on
+rock or sea, always taking the precaution of assuring her beforehand
+that it wasn't true. The boy's fancy was like a prism, separating
+every ray that fell upon it into rainbows. He was passionately fond of
+the shore and water. The only world for him beyond Noel's Cove was the
+world of his imagination. He had no companions except Stephen and the
+"rock people."</p>
+
+<p>"And now you," he told Miss Trevor. "I love you too, but I know you'll
+be going away before long, so I don't let myself love you as
+much&mdash;quite&mdash;as Stephen and the rock people."</p>
+
+<p>"But you could, couldn't you?" pleaded Miss Trevor. "If you and I were
+to go on being together every day, you could love me just as well as
+you love them, couldn't you?"</p>
+
+<p>Paul considered in a charming way he had.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I could love you better than the Twin Sailors and the
+Golden Lady," he announced finally. "And I think perhaps I could love
+you as much as I love Stephen. But not as much as Nora&mdash;oh, no, I
+wouldn't love you quite as much as Nora. She was first, you see; she's
+always been there. I feel sure I couldn't ever love anybody as much as
+Nora."</p>
+
+<p>One day when Stephen was out to the mackerel grounds, Paul took Miss
+Trevor into the little grey house and showed her his treasures. They
+climbed the ladder in one corner to the loft where Paul slept. The
+window of it, small and square-paned, looked seaward, and the moan of
+the sea and the pipe of the wind sounded there night and day. Paul had
+many rare shells and seaweeds, curious flotsam and jetsam of shore
+storms, and he had a small shelf full of books.</p>
+
+<p>"They're splendid," he said enthusiastically. "Stephen brought me them
+all. Every time Stephen goes to town to ship his mackerel he brings me
+home a new book."</p>
+
+<p>"Were you ever in town yourself?" asked Miss Trevor.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, twice. Stephen took me. It was a wonderful place. I tell
+you, when I next met the Twin Sailors it was me did the talking then.
+I had to tell them about all I saw and all that had happened. And Nora
+was ever so interested too. The Golden Lady wasn't, though&mdash;she didn't
+hardly listen. Golden people are like that."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you like," said Miss Trevor, watching him closely, "to live
+always in a town and have all the books you wanted and play with real
+girls and boys&mdash;and visit those strange lands your twin sailors tell
+you of?"</p>
+
+<p>Paul looked startled.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;don't&mdash;know," he said doubtfully. "I don't think I'd like it very
+well if Stephen and Nora weren't there too."</p>
+
+<p>But the new thought remained in his mind. It came back to him at
+intervals, seeming less new and startling every time.</p>
+
+<p>"And why not?" Miss Trevor asked herself. "The boy should have a
+chance. I shall never have a son of my own&mdash;he shall be to me in the
+place of one."</p>
+
+<p>The day came when Paul at last showed her the foolscap book. He
+brought it to her as she sat on the rocks of the headland.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to run around and talk to Nora while you read it," he said.
+"I'm afraid I've been neglecting her lately&mdash;and I think she feels
+it."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Trevor took the foolscap book. It was made of several sheets of
+paper sewed together and encased in an oilcloth cover. It was nearly
+filled with writing in a round childish hand and it was very neat,
+although the orthography was rather wild and the punctuation
+capricious. Miss Trevor read it through in no very long time. It was a
+curious medley of quaint thoughts and fancies. Conversations with the
+Twin Sailors filled many of the pages; accounts of Paul's "adventures"
+occupied others. Sometimes it seemed impossible that a child of eleven
+should have written them, then would come an expression so boyish and
+naive that Miss Trevor laughed delightedly over it. When she finished
+the book and closed it she found Stephen Kane at her elbow. He
+removed his pipe and nodded at the foolscap book.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think of it?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I think it is wonderful. Paul is a very clever child."</p>
+
+<p>"I've often thought so," said Stephen laconically. He thrust his hands
+into his pockets and gazed moodily out to sea. Miss Trevor had never
+before had an opportunity to talk to him in Paul's absence and she
+determined to make the most of it.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to know something about Paul," she said, "all about him. Is he
+any relation to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. I expected to marry his mother once, though," said Stephen
+unemotionally. His hand in his pocket was clutching his pipe fiercely,
+but Miss Trevor could not know that. "She was a shore girl and very
+pretty. Well, she fell in love with a young fellow that came teaching
+up t' the harbour school and he with her. They got married and she
+went away with him. He was a good enough sort of chap. I know that
+now, though once I wasn't disposed to think much good of him. But
+'twas a mistake all the same; Rachel couldn't live away from the
+shore. She fretted and pined and broke her heart for it away there in
+his world. Finally her husband died and she came back&mdash;but it was too
+late for her. She only lived a month&mdash;and there was Paul, a baby of
+two. I took him. There was nobody else. Rachel had no relatives nor
+her husband either. I've done what I could for him&mdash;not that it's been
+much, perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure you have done a great deal for him," said Miss Trevor
+rather patronizingly. "But I think he should have more than you can
+give him now. He should be sent to school."</p>
+
+<p>Stephen nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe. He never went to school. The harbour school was too far away.
+I taught him to read and write and bought him all the books I could
+afford. But I can't do any more for him."</p>
+
+<p>"But I can," said Miss Trevor, "and I want to. Will you give Paul to
+me, Mr. Kane? I love him dearly and he shall have every advantage. I'm
+rich&mdash;I can do a great deal for him."</p>
+
+<p>Stephen continued to gaze out to sea with an expressionless face.
+Finally he said: "I've been expecting to hear you say something of the
+sort. I don't know. If you took Paul away, he'd grow to be a cleverer
+man and a richer man maybe, but would he be any better&mdash;or happier?
+He's his mother's son&mdash;he loves the sea and its ways. There's nothing
+of his father in him except his hankering after books. But I won't
+choose for him&mdash;he can go if he likes&mdash;he can go if he likes."</p>
+
+<p>In the end Paul "liked," since Stephen refused to influence him by so
+much as a word. Paul thought Stephen didn't seem to care much whether
+he went or stayed, and he was dazzled by Miss Trevor's charm and the
+lure of books and knowledge she held out to him.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go, I guess," he said, with a long sigh.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Trevor clasped him close to her and kissed him maternally. Paul
+kissed her cheek shyly in return. He thought it very wonderful that he
+was to live with her always. He felt happy and excited&mdash;so happy and
+excited that the parting when it came slipped over him lightly. Miss
+Trevor even thought he took it too easily and had a vague wish that he
+had shown more sorrow. Stephen said farewell to the boy he loved
+better than life with no visible emotion.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, Paul. Be a good boy and learn all you can." He hesitated a
+moment and then said slowly, "If you don't like it, come back."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you bid good-bye to your rock people?" Miss Trevor asked him with
+a smile as they drove away.</p>
+
+<p>"No. I&mdash;couldn't&mdash;I&mdash;I&mdash;didn't even tell them I was going away. Nora
+would break her heart. I'd rather not talk of them anymore, if you
+please. Maybe I won't want them when I've plenty of books and lots of
+other boys and girls&mdash;real ones&mdash;to play with."</p>
+
+<p>They drove the ten miles to the town where they were to take the train
+the next day. Paul enjoyed the drive and the sights of the busy
+streets at its end. He was all excitement and animation. After they
+had had tea at the house of the friend where Miss Trevor meant to
+spend the night, they went for a walk in the park. Paul was tired and
+very quiet when they came back. He was put away to sleep in a bedroom
+whose splendours frightened him, and left alone.</p>
+
+<p>At first Paul lay very still on his luxurious perfumed pillows. It was
+the first night he had ever spent away from the little seaward-looking
+loft where he could touch the rafters with his hands. He thought of it
+now and a lump came into his throat and a strange, new, bitter longing
+came into his heart. He missed the sea plashing on the rocks below
+him&mdash;he could not sleep without that old lullaby. He turned his face
+into the pillow, and the longing and loneliness grew worse and hurt
+him until he moaned. Oh, he wanted to be back home! Surely he had not
+left it&mdash;he could never have meant to leave it. Out there the stars
+would be shining over the harbour. Stephen would be sitting at the
+door, all alone, with his violin. But he would not be playing it&mdash;all
+at once Paul knew he would not be playing it. He would be sitting
+there with his head bowed and the loneliness in his heart calling to
+the loneliness in Paul's heart over all the miles between them. Oh, he
+could never have really meant to leave Stephen.</p>
+
+<p>And Nora? Nora would be down on the rocks waiting for him&mdash;for him,
+Paul, who would never come to her more. He could see her elfin little
+face peering around the point, watching for him wistfully.</p>
+
+<p>Paul sat up in bed, choking with tears. Oh, what were books and
+strange countries?&mdash;what was even Miss Trevor, the friend of a
+month?&mdash;to the call of the sea and Stephen's kind, deep eyes and his
+dear rock people? He could not stay away from them&mdash;never&mdash;never.</p>
+
+<p>He slipped out of bed very softly and dressed in the dark. Then he
+lighted the lamp timidly and opened the little brown chest Stephen had
+given him. It held his books and his treasures, but he took out only a
+pencil, a bit of paper and the foolscap book. With a hand shaking in
+his eagerness, he wrote:</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p class="noin"><i>dear miss Trever</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Im going back home, dont be fritened about me because I know
+the way. Ive got to go. something is calling me. dont be
+cross. I love you, but I cant stay. Im leaving my foolscap
+book for you, you can keep it always but I must go back to
+Stephen and nora</i></p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Paul</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>He put the note on the foolscap book and laid them on the table. Then
+he blew out the light, took his cap and went softly out. The house was
+very still. Holding his breath, he tiptoed downstairs and opened the
+front door. Before it ran the street which went, he knew, straight out
+to the country road that led home. Paul closed the door and stole down
+the steps, his heart beating painfully, but when he reached the
+sidewalk he broke into a frantic run under the limes. It was late and
+no one was out on that quiet street. He ran until his breath gave
+out, then walked miserably until he recovered it, and then ran again.
+He dared not stop running until he was out of that horrible town,
+which seemed like a prison closing around him, where the houses shut
+out the stars and the wind could only creep in a narrow space like a
+fettered, cringing thing, instead of sweeping grandly over great salt
+wastes of sea.</p>
+
+<p>At last the houses grew few and scattered, and finally he left them
+behind. He drew a long breath; this was better&mdash;rather smothering yet,
+of course, with nothing but hills and fields and dark woods all about
+him, but at least his own sky was above him, looking just the same as
+it looked out home at Noel's Cove. He recognized the stars as friends;
+how often Stephen had pointed them out to him as they sat at night by
+the door of the little house.</p>
+
+<p>He was not at all frightened now. He knew the way home and the kind
+night was before him. Every step was bringing him nearer to Stephen
+and Nora and the Twin Sailors. He whistled as he walked sturdily
+along.</p>
+
+<p>The dawn was just breaking when he reached Noel's Cove. The eastern
+sky was all pale rose and silver, and the sea was mottled over with
+dear grey ripples. In the west over the harbour the sky was a very
+fine ethereal blue and the wind blew from there, salt and bracing.
+Paul was tired, but he ran lightly down the shelving rocks to the
+cove. Stephen was getting ready to launch his boat. When he saw Paul
+he started and a strange, vivid, exultant expression flashed across
+his face.</p>
+
+<p>Paul felt a sudden chill&mdash;the upspringing fountain of his gladness was
+checked in mid-leap. He had known no doubt on the way home&mdash;all that
+long, weary walk he had known no doubt&mdash;but now?</p>
+
+<p>"Stephen," he cried. "I've come back! I had to! Stephen, are you
+glad&mdash;are you glad?"</p>
+
+<p>Stephen's face was as emotionless as ever. The burst of feeling which
+had frightened Paul by its unaccustomedness had passed like a fleeting
+outbreak of sunshine between dull clouds.</p>
+
+<p>"I reckon I am," he said. "Yes, I reckon I am. I kind of&mdash;hoped&mdash;you
+would come back. You'd better go in and get some breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>Paul's eyes were as radiant as the deepening dawn. He knew Stephen was
+glad and he knew there was nothing more to be said about it. They were
+back just where they were before Miss Trevor came&mdash;back in their
+perfect, unmarred, sufficient comradeship.</p>
+
+<p>"I must just run around and see Nora first," said Paul.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="Abel_and_His_Great_Adventure" id="Abel_and_His_Great_Adventure"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<h2>Abel and His Great Adventure<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">[ToC]</a></span></h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>"Come out of doors, master&mdash;come out of doors. I can't talk or think
+right with walls around me&mdash;never could. Let's go out to the garden."
+These were almost the first words I ever heard Abel Armstrong say. He
+was a member of the board of school trustees in Stillwater, and I had
+not met him before this late May evening, when I had gone down to
+confer with him upon some small matter of business. For I was "the new
+schoolmaster" in Stillwater, having taken the school for the summer
+term.</p>
+
+<p>It was a rather lonely country district&mdash;a fact of which I was glad,
+for life had been going somewhat awry with me and my heart was sore
+and rebellious over many things that have nothing to do with this
+narration. Stillwater offered time and opportunity for healing and
+counsel. Yet, looking back, I doubt if I should have found either had
+it not been for Abel and his beloved garden.</p>
+
+<p>Abel Armstrong (he was always called "Old Abel", though he was barely
+sixty) lived in a quaint, gray house close by the harbour shore. I
+heard a good deal about him before I saw him. He was called "queer",
+but Stillwater folks seemed to be very fond of him. He and his sister,
+Tamzine, lived together; she, so my garrulous landlady informed me,
+had not been sound of mind at times for many years; but she was all
+right now, only odd and quiet. Abel had gone to college for a year
+when he was young, but had given it up when Tamzine "went crazy".
+There was no one else to look after her. Abel had settled down to it
+with apparent content: at least he had never complained.</p>
+
+<p>"Always took things easy, Abel did," said Mrs. Campbell. "Never
+seemed to worry over disappointments and trials as most folks do.
+Seems to me that as long as Abel Armstrong can stride up and down in
+that garden of his, reciting poetry and speeches, or talking to that
+yaller cat of his as if it was a human, he doesn't care much how the
+world wags on. He never had much git-up-and-git. His father was a
+hustler, but the family didn't take after him. They all favoured the
+mother's people&mdash;sorter shiftless and dreamy. 'Taint the way to git on
+in this world."</p>
+
+<p>No, good and worthy Mrs. Campbell. It was not the way to get on in
+your world; but there are other worlds where getting on is estimated
+by different standards, and Abel Armstrong lived in one of these&mdash;a
+world far beyond the ken of the thrifty Stillwater farmers and
+fishers. Something of this I had sensed, even before I saw him; and
+that night in his garden, under a sky of smoky red, blossoming into
+stars above the harbour, I found a friend whose personality and
+philosophy were to calm and harmonize and enrich my whole existence.
+This sketch is my grateful tribute to one of the rarest and finest
+souls God ever clothed with clay.</p>
+
+<p>He was a tall man, somewhat ungainly of figure and homely of face. But
+his large, deep eyes of velvety nut-brown were very beautiful and
+marvellously bright and clear for a man of his age. He wore a little
+pointed, well-cared-for beard, innocent of gray; but his hair was
+grizzled, and altogether he had the appearance of a man who had passed
+through many sorrows which had marked his body as well as his soul.
+Looking at him, I doubted Mrs. Campbell's conclusion that he had not
+"minded" giving up college. This man had given up much and felt it
+deeply; but he had outlived the pain and the blessing of sacrifice had
+come to him. His voice was very melodious and beautiful, and the brown
+hand he held out to me was peculiarly long and shapely and flexible.</p>
+
+<p>We went out to the garden in the scented moist air of a maritime
+spring evening. Behind the garden was a cloudy pine wood; the house
+closed it in on the left, while in front and on the right a row of
+tall Lombardy poplars stood out in stately purple silhouette against
+the sunset sky.</p>
+
+<p>"Always liked Lombardies," said Abel, waving a long arm at them. "They
+are the trees of princesses. When I was a boy they were fashionable.
+Anyone who had any pretensions to gentility had a row of Lombardies at
+the foot of his lawn or up his lane, or at any rate one on either side
+of his front door. They're out of fashion now. Folks complain they die
+at the top and get ragged-looking. So they do&mdash;so they do, if you
+don't risk your neck every spring climbing up a light ladder to trim
+them out as I do. My neck isn't worth much to anyone, which, I
+suppose, is why I've never broken it; and <i>my</i> Lombardies never look
+out-at-elbows. My mother was especially fond of them. She liked their
+dignity and their stand-offishness. <i>They</i> don't hobnob with every
+Tom, Dick and Harry. If it's pines for company, master, it's
+Lombardies for society."</p>
+
+<p>We stepped from the front doorstone into the garden. There was another
+entrance&mdash;a sagging gate flanked by two branching white lilacs. From
+it a little dappled path led to a huge apple-tree in the centre, a
+great swelling cone of rosy blossom with a mossy circular seat around
+its trunk. But Abel's favourite seat, so he told me, was lower down
+the slope, under a little trellis overhung with the delicate emerald
+of young hop-vines. He led me to it and pointed proudly to the fine
+view of the harbour visible from it. The early sunset glow of rose and
+flame had faded out of the sky; the water was silvery and mirror-like;
+dim sails drifted along by the darkening shore. A bell was ringing in
+a small Catholic chapel across the harbour. Mellowly and dreamily
+sweet the chime floated through the dusk, blent with the moan of the
+sea. The great revolving light at the channel trembled and flashed
+against the opal sky, and far out, beyond the golden sand-dunes of the
+bar, was the crinkled gray ribbon of a passing steamer's smoke.</p>
+
+<p>"There, isn't that view worth looking at?" said old Abel, with a
+loving, proprietary pride. "You don't have to pay anything for it,
+either. All that sea and sky free&mdash;'without money and without price'.
+Let's sit down here in the hop-vine arbour, master. There'll be a
+moonrise presently. I'm never tired of finding out what a moonrise
+sheen can be like over that sea. There's a surprise in it every time.
+Now, master, you're getting your mouth in the proper shape to talk
+business&mdash;but don't you do it. Nobody should talk business when he's
+expecting a moonrise. Not that I like talking business at any time."</p>
+
+<p>"Unfortunately it has to be talked of sometimes, Mr. Armstrong," I
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it seems to be a necessary evil, master," he acknowledged. "But
+I know what business you've come upon, and we can settle it in five
+minutes after the moon's well up. I'll just agree to everything you
+and the other two trustees want. Lord knows why they ever put me on
+the school board. Maybe it's because I'm so ornamental. They wanted
+one good-looking man, I reckon."</p>
+
+<p>His low chuckle, so full of mirth and so free from malice, was
+infectious. I laughed also, as I sat down in the hop-vine arbour.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, you needn't talk if you don't want to," he said. "And I won't.
+We'll just sit here, sociable like, and if we think of anything worth
+while to say we'll say it. Otherwise, not. If you can sit in silence
+with a person for half an hour and feel comfortable, you and that
+person can be friends. If you can't, friends you'll never be, and you
+needn't waste time in trying."</p>
+
+<p>Abel and I passed successfully the test of silence that evening in the
+hop-vine arbour. I was strangely content to sit and think&mdash;something I
+had not cared to do lately. A peace, long unknown to my stormy soul,
+seemed hovering near it. The garden was steeped in it; old Abel's
+personality radiated it. I looked about me and wondered whence came
+the charm of that tangled, unworldly spot.</p>
+
+<p>"Nice and far from the market-place isn't it?" asked Abel suddenly,
+as if he had heard my unasked question. "No buying and selling and
+getting gain here. Nothing was ever sold out of <i>this</i> garden. Tamzine
+has her vegetable plot over yonder, but what we don't eat we give
+away. Geordie Marr down the harbour has a big garden like this and he
+sells heaps of flowers and fruit and vegetables to the hotel folks. He
+thinks I'm an awful fool because I won't do the same. Well, he gets
+money out of his garden and I get happiness out of mine. That's the
+difference. S'posing I could make more money&mdash;what then? I'd only be
+taking it from people that needed it more. There's enough for Tamzine
+and me. As for Geordie Marr, there isn't a more unhappy creature on
+God's earth&mdash;he's always stewing in a broth of trouble, poor man. O'
+course, he brews up most of it for himself, but I reckon that doesn't
+make it any easier to bear. Ever sit in a hop-vine arbour before,
+master?"</p>
+
+<p>I was to grow used to Abel's abrupt change of subject. I answered that
+I never had.</p>
+
+<p>"Great place for dreaming," said Abel complacently. "Being young, no
+doubt, you dream a-plenty."</p>
+
+<p>I answered hotly and bitterly that I had done with dreams.</p>
+
+<p>"No, you haven't," said Abel meditatively. "You may <i>think</i> you have.
+What then? First thing you know you'll be dreaming again&mdash;thank the
+Lord for it. I ain't going to ask you what's soured you on dreaming
+just now. After awhile you'll begin again, especially if you come to
+this garden as much as I hope you will. It's chockful of dreams&mdash;<i>any</i>
+kind of dreams. You take your choice. Now, <i>I</i> favour dreams of
+adventures, if you'll believe it. I'm sixty-one and I never do anything
+rasher than go out cod-fishing on a fine day, but I still lust after
+adventures. Then I dream I'm an awful fellow&mdash;blood-thirsty."</p>
+
+<p>I burst out laughing. Perhaps laughter was somewhat rare in that old
+garden. Tamzine, who was weeding at the far end, lifted her head in a
+startled fashion and walked past us into the house. She did not look
+at us or speak to us. She was reputed to be abnormally shy. She was
+very stout and wore a dress of bright red-and-white striped material.
+Her face was round and blank, but her reddish hair was abundant and
+beautiful. A huge, orange-coloured cat was at her heels; as she passed
+us he bounded over to the arbour and sprang up on Abel's knee. He was
+a gorgeous brute, with vivid green eyes, and immense white double
+paws.</p>
+
+<p>"Captain Kidd, Mr. Woodley." He introduced us as seriously as if the
+cat had been a human being. Neither Captain Kidd nor I responded very
+enthusiastically.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't like cats, I reckon, master," said Abel, stroking the
+Captain's velvet back. "I don't blame you. I was never fond of them
+myself until I found the Captain. I saved his life and when you've
+saved a creature's life you're bound to love it. It's next thing to
+giving it life. There are some terrible thoughtless people in the
+world, master. Some of those city folks who have summer homes down the
+harbour are so thoughtless that they're cruel. It's the worst kind of
+cruelty, I think&mdash;the thoughtless kind. You can't cope with it. They
+keep cats there in the summer and feed them and pet them and doll them
+up with ribbons and collars; and then in the fall they go off and
+leave them to starve or freeze. It makes my blood boil, master."</p>
+
+<p>"One day last winter I found a poor old mother cat dead on the shore,
+lying against the skin and bone bodies of her three little kittens.
+She had died trying to shelter them. She had her poor stiff claws
+around them. Master, I cried. Then I swore. Then I carried those poor
+little kittens home and fed 'hem up and found good homes for them. I
+know the woman who left the cat. When she comes back this summer I'm
+going to go down and tell her my opinion of her. It'll be rank
+meddling, but, lord, how I love meddling in a good cause."</p>
+
+<p>"Was Captain Kidd one of the forsaken?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I found him one bitter cold day in winter caught in the
+branches of a tree by his darn-fool ribbon collar. He was almost
+starving. Lord, if you could have seen his eyes! He was nothing but a
+kitten, and he'd got his living somehow since he'd been left till he
+got hung up. When I loosed him he gave my hand a pitiful swipe with
+his little red tongue. He wasn't the prosperous free-booter you behold
+now. He was meek as Moses. That was nine years ago. His life has been
+long in the land for a cat. He's a good old pal, the Captain is."</p>
+
+<p>"I should have expected you to have a dog," I said.</p>
+
+<p>Abel shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I had a dog once. I cared so much for him that when he died I
+couldn't bear the thought of ever getting another in his place. He was
+a <i>friend</i>&mdash;you understand? The Captain's only a pal. I'm fond of the
+Captain&mdash;all the fonder because of the spice of deviltry there is in
+all cats. But I <i>loved</i> my dog. There isn't any devil in a good dog.
+That's why they're more lovable than cats&mdash;but I'm darned if they're
+as interesting."</p>
+
+<p>I laughed as I rose regretfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Must you go, master? And we haven't talked any business after all. I
+reckon it's that stove matter you've come about. It's like those two
+fool trustees to start up a stove sputter in spring. It's a wonder
+they didn't leave it till dog-days and begin then."</p>
+
+<p>"They merely wished me to ask you if you approved of putting in a new
+stove."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell them to put in a new stove&mdash;any kind of a new stove&mdash;and be
+hanged to them," rejoined Abel. "As for you, master, you're welcome to
+this garden any time. If you're tired or lonely, or too ambitious or
+angry, come here and sit awhile, master. Do you think any man could
+keep mad if he sat and looked into the heart of a pansy for ten
+minutes? When you feel like talking, I'll talk, and when you feel like
+thinking, I'll let you. I'm a great hand to leave folks alone."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I'll come often," I said, "perhaps too often."</p>
+
+<p>"Not likely, master&mdash;not likely&mdash;not after we've watched a moonrise
+contentedly together. It's as good a test of compatibility as any I
+know. You're young and I'm old, but our souls are about the same age,
+I reckon, and we'll find lots to say to each other. Are you going
+straight home from here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'm going to bother you to stop for a moment at Mary Bascom's
+and give her a bouquet of my white lilacs. She loves 'em and I'm not
+going to wait till she's dead to send her flowers."</p>
+
+<p>"She's very ill just now, isn't she?"</p>
+
+<p>"She's got the Bascom consumption. That means she may die in a month,
+like her brother, or linger on for twenty years, like her father. But
+long or short, white lilac in spring is sweet, and I'm sending her a
+fresh bunch every day while it lasts. It's a rare night, master. I
+envy you your walk home in the moonlight along that shore."</p>
+
+<p>"Better come part of the way with me," I suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"No." Abel glanced at the house. "Tamzine never likes to be alone o'
+nights. So I take my moonlight walks in the garden. The moon's a great
+friend of mine, master. I've loved her ever since I can remember. When
+I was a little lad of eight I fell asleep in the garden one evening
+and wasn't missed. I woke up alone in the night and I was most scared
+to death, master. Lord, what shadows and queer noises there were! I
+darsn't move. I just sat there quaking, poor small mite. Then all at
+once I saw the moon looking down at me through the pine boughs, just
+like an old friend. I was comforted right off. Got up and walked to
+the house as brave as a lion, looking at her. Goodnight, master. Tell
+Mary the lilacs'll last another week yet."</p>
+
+<p>From that night Abel and I were cronies. We walked and talked and kept
+silence and fished cod together. Stillwater people thought it very
+strange that I should prefer his society to that of the young fellows
+of my own age. Mrs. Campbell was quite worried over it, and opined
+that there had always been something queer about me. "Birds of a
+feather."</p>
+
+<p>I loved that old garden by the harbour shore. Even Abel himself, I
+think, could hardly have felt a deeper affection for it. When its gate
+closed behind me it shut out the world and my corroding memories and
+discontents. In its peace my soul emptied itself of the bitterness
+which had been filling and spoiling it, and grew normal and healthy
+again, aided thereto by Abel's wise words. He never preached, but he
+radiated courage and endurance and a frank acceptance of the hard
+things of life, as well as a cordial welcome of its pleasant things.
+He was the sanest soul I ever met. He neither minimized ill nor
+exaggerated good, but he held that we should never be controlled by
+either. Pain should not depress us unduly, nor pleasure lure us into
+forgetfulness and sloth. All unknowingly he made me realize that I had
+been a bit of a coward and a shirker. I began to understand that my
+personal woes were not the most important things in the universe, even
+to myself. In short, Abel taught me to laugh again; and when a man can
+laugh wholesomely things are not going too badly with him.</p>
+
+<p>That old garden was always such a cheery place. Even when the east
+wind sang in minor and the waves on the gray shore were sad, hints of
+sunshine seemed to be lurking all about it. Perhaps this was because
+there were so many yellow flowers in it. Tamzine liked yellow flowers.
+Captain Kidd, too, always paraded it in panoply of gold. He was so
+large and effulgent that one hardly missed the sun. Considering his
+presence I wondered that the garden was always so full of singing
+birds. But the Captain never meddled with them. Probably he understood
+that his master would not have tolerated it for a moment. So there was
+always a song or a chirp somewhere. Overhead flew the gulls and the
+cranes. The wind in the pines always made a glad salutation. Abel and
+I paced the walks, in high converse on matters beyond the ken of cat
+or king.</p>
+
+<p>"I liked to ponder on all problems, though I can never solve them,"
+Abel used to say. "My father held that we should never talk of things
+we couldn't understand. But, lord, master, if we didn't the subjects
+for conversation would be mighty few. I reckon the gods laugh many a
+time to hear us, but what matter? So long as we remember that we're
+only men, and don't take to fancying ourselves gods, really knowing
+good and evil, I reckon our discussions won't do us or anyone much
+harm. So we'll have another whack at the origin of evil this evening,
+master."</p>
+
+<p>Tamzine forgot to be shy with me at last, and gave me a broad smile of
+welcome every time I came. But she rarely spoke to me. She spent all
+her spare time weeding the garden, which she loved as well as Abel
+did. She was addicted to bright colours and always wore wrappers of
+very gorgeous print. She worshipped Abel and his word was a law unto
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"I am very thankful Tamzine is so well," said Abel one evening as we
+watched the sunset. The day had begun sombrely in gray cloud and mist,
+but it ended in a pomp of scarlet and gold. "There was a time when she
+wasn't, master&mdash;you've heard? But for years now she has been quite
+able to look after herself. And so, if I fare forth on the last great
+adventure some of these days Tamzine will not be left helpless."</p>
+
+<p>"She is ten years older than you. It is likely she will go before
+you," I said.</p>
+
+<p>Abel shook his head and stroked his smart beard. I always suspected
+that beard of being Abel's last surviving vanity. It was always so
+carefully groomed, while I had no evidence that he ever combed his
+grizzled mop of hair.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Tamzine will outlive me. She's got the Armstrong heart. I have
+the Marwood heart&mdash;my mother was a Marwood. We don't live to be old,
+and we go quick and easy. I'm glad of it. I don't think I'm a coward,
+master, but the thought of a lingering death gives me a queer sick
+feeling of horror. There, I'm not going to say any more about it. I
+just mentioned it so that some day when you hear that old Abel
+Armstrong has been found dead, you won't feel sorry. You'll remember I
+wanted it that way. Not that I'm tired of life either. It's very
+pleasant, what with my garden and Captain Kidd and the harbour out
+there. But it's a trifle monotonous at times and death will be
+something of a change, master. I'm real curious about it."</p>
+
+<p>"I hate the thought of death," I said gloomily.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you're young. The young always do. Death grows friendlier as we
+grow older. Not that one of us really wants to die, though, master.
+Tennyson spoke truth when he said that. There's old Mrs. Warner at the
+Channel Head. She's had heaps of trouble all her life, poor soul, and
+she's lost almost everyone she cared about. She's always saying that
+she'll be glad when her time comes, and she doesn't want to live any
+longer in this vale of tears. But when she takes a sick spell, lord,
+what a fuss she makes, master! Doctors from town and a trained nurse
+and enough medicine to kill a dog! Life may be a vale of tears, all
+right, master, but there are some folks who enjoy weeping, I reckon."</p>
+
+<p>Summer passed through the garden with her procession of roses and
+lilies and hollyhocks and golden glow. The golden glow was
+particularly fine that year. There was a great bank of it at the lower
+end of the garden, like a huge billow of sunshine. Tamzine revelled in
+it, but Abel liked more subtly-tinted flowers. There was a certain
+dark wine-hued hollyhock which was a favourite with him. He would sit
+for hours looking steadfastly into one of its shallow satin cups. I
+found him so one afternoon in the hop-vine arbour.</p>
+
+<p>"This colour always has a soothing effect on me," he explained.
+"Yellow excites me too much&mdash;makes me restless&mdash;makes me want to sail
+'beyond the bourne of sunset'. I looked at that surge of golden glow
+down there today till I got all worked up and thought my life had been
+an awful failure. I found a dead butterfly and had a little
+funeral&mdash;buried it in the fern corner. And I thought I hadn't been
+any more use in the world than that poor little butterfly. Oh, I was
+woeful, master. Then I got me this hollyhock and sat down here to look
+at it alone. When a man's alone, master, he's most with God&mdash;or with
+the devil. The devil rampaged around me all the time I was looking at
+that golden glow; but God spoke to me through the hollyhock. And it
+seemed to me that a man who's as happy as I am and has got such a
+garden has made a real success of living."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope I'll be able to make as much of a success," I said sincerely.</p>
+
+<p>"I want you to make a different kind of success, though, master," said
+Abel, shaking his head. "I want you to <i>do</i> things&mdash;the things I'd
+have tried to do if I'd had the chance. It's in you to do them&mdash;if you
+set your teeth and go ahead."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe I <i>can</i> set my teeth and go ahead now, thanks to you, Mr.
+Armstrong," I said. "I was heading straight for failure when I came
+here last spring; but you've changed my course."</p>
+
+<p>"Given you a sort of compass to steer by, haven't I?" queried Abel
+with a smile. "I ain't too modest to take some credit for it. I saw I
+could do <i>you</i> some good. But my garden has done more than I did, if
+you'll believe it. It's wonderful what a garden can do for a man when
+he lets it have its way. Come, sit down here and bask, master. The
+sunshine may be gone to-morrow. Let's just sit and think."</p>
+
+<p>We sat and thought for a long while. Presently Abel said abruptly:</p>
+
+<p>"You don't see the folks I see in this garden, master. You don't see
+anybody but me and old Tamzine and Captain Kidd. I see all who used to
+be here long ago. It was a lively place then. There were plenty of us
+and we were as gay a set of youngsters as you'd find anywhere. We
+tossed laughter backwards and forwards here like a ball. And now old
+Tamzine and older Abel are all that are left."</p>
+
+<p>He was silent a moment, looking at the phantoms of memory that paced
+invisibly to me the dappled walks and peeped merrily through the
+swinging boughs. Then he went on:</p>
+
+<p>"Of all the folks I see here there are two that are more vivid and
+real than all the rest, master. One is my sister Alice. She died
+thirty years ago. She was very beautiful. You'd hardly believe that to
+look at Tamzine and me, would you? But it is true. We always called
+her Queen Alice&mdash;she was so stately and handsome. She had brown eyes
+and red gold hair, just the colour of that nasturtium there. She was
+father's favourite. The night she was born they didn't think my mother
+would live. Father walked this garden all night. And just under that
+old apple-tree he knelt at sunrise and thanked God when they came to
+tell him that all was well.</p>
+
+<p>"Alice was always a creature of joy. This old garden rang with her
+laughter in those years. She seldom walked&mdash;she ran or danced. She
+only lived twenty years, but nineteen of them were so happy I've never
+pitied her over much. She had everything that makes life worth
+living&mdash;laughter and love, and at the last sorrow. James Milburn was
+her lover. It's thirty-one years since his ship sailed out of that
+harbour and Alice waved him good-bye from this garden. He never came
+back. His ship was never heard of again.</p>
+
+<p>"When Alice gave up hope that it would be, she died of a broken heart.
+They say there's no such thing; but nothing else ailed Alice. She
+stood at yonder gate day after day and watched the harbour; and when
+at last she gave up hope life went with it. I remember the day: she
+had watched until sunset. Then she turned away from the gate. All the
+unrest and despair had gone out of her eyes. There was a terrible
+peace in them&mdash;the peace of the dead. 'He will never come back now,
+Abel,' she said to me.</p>
+
+<p>"In less than a week she was dead. The others mourned her, but I
+didn't, master. She had sounded the deeps of living and there was
+nothing else to linger through the years for. <i>My</i> grief had spent
+itself earlier, when I walked this garden in agony because I could
+not help her. But often, on these long warm summer afternoons, I seem
+to hear Alice's laughter all over this garden; though she's been dead
+so long."</p>
+
+<p>He lapsed into a reverie which I did not disturb, and it was not until
+another day that I learned of the other memory that he cherished. He
+reverted to it suddenly as we sat again in the hop-vine arbour,
+looking at the glimmering radiance of the September sea.</p>
+
+<p>"Master, how many of us are sitting here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Two in the flesh. How many in the spirit I know not," I answered,
+humouring his mood.</p>
+
+<p>"There is one&mdash;the other of the two I spoke of the day I told you
+about Alice. It's harder for me to speak of this one."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't speak of it if it hurts you," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"But I want to. It's a whim of mine. Do you know why I told you of
+Alice and why I'm going to tell you of Mercedes? It's because I want
+someone to remember them and think of them sometimes after I'm gone. I
+can't bear that their names should be utterly forgotten by all living
+souls.</p>
+
+<p>"My older brother, Alec, was a sailor, and on his last voyage to the
+West Indies he married and brought home a Spanish girl. My father and
+mother didn't like the match. Mercedes was a foreigner and a Catholic,
+and differed from us in every way. But I never blamed Alec after I saw
+her. It wasn't that she was so very pretty. She was slight and dark
+and ivory-coloured. But she was very graceful, and there was a charm
+about her, master&mdash;a mighty and potent charm. The women couldn't
+understand it. They wondered at Alec's infatuation for her. I never
+did. I&mdash;I loved her, too, master, before I had known her a day. Nobody
+ever knew it. Mercedes never dreamed of it. But it's lasted me all my
+life. I never wanted to think of any other woman. She spoiled a man
+for any other kind of woman&mdash;that little pale, dark-eyed Spanish girl.
+To love her was like drinking some rare sparkling wine. You'd never
+again have any taste for a commoner draught.</p>
+
+<p>"I think she was very happy the year she spent here. Our thrifty
+women-folk in Stillwater jeered at her because she wasn't what they
+called capable. They said she couldn't do anything. But she could do
+one thing well&mdash;she could love. She worshipped Alec. I used to hate
+him for it. Oh, my heart has been very full of black thoughts in its
+time, master. But neither Alec nor Mercedes ever knew. And I'm
+thankful now that they were so happy. Alec made this arbour for
+Mercedes&mdash;at least he made the trellis, and she planted the vines.</p>
+
+<p>"She used to sit here most of the time in summer. I suppose that's why
+I like to sit here. Her eyes would be dreamy and far-away until Alec
+would flash his welcome. How that used to torture me! But now I like
+to remember it. And her pretty soft foreign voice and little white
+hands. She died after she had lived here a year. They buried her and
+her baby in the graveyard of that little chapel over the harbour where
+the bell rings every evening. She used to like sitting here and
+listening to it. Alec lived a long while after, but he never married
+again. He's gone now, and nobody remembers Mercedes but me."</p>
+
+<p>Abel lapsed into a reverie&mdash;a tryst with the past which I would not
+disturb. I thought he did not notice my departure, but as I opened the
+gate he stood up and waved his hand.</p>
+
+<p>Three days later I went again to the old garden by the harbour shore.
+There was a red light on a distant sail. In the far west a sunset city
+was built around a great deep harbour of twilight. Palaces were there
+and bannered towers of crimson and gold. The air was full of music;
+there was one music of the wind and another of the waves, and still
+another of the distant bell from the chapel near which Mercedes slept.
+The garden was full of ripe odours and warm colours. The Lombardies
+around it were tall and sombre like the priestly forms of some mystic
+band. Abel was sitting in the hop-vine arbour; beside him Captain
+Kidd slept. I thought Abel was asleep, too; his head leaned against
+the trellis and his eyes were shut.</p>
+
+<p>But when I reached the arbour I saw that he was not asleep. There was
+a strange, wise little smile on his lips as if he had attained to the
+ultimate wisdom and were laughing in no unkindly fashion at our old
+blind suppositions and perplexities.</p>
+
+<p>Abel had gone on his Great Adventure.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="Akin_To_Love" id="Akin_To_Love"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<h2>Akin To Love<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">[ToC]</a></span></h2>
+<br />
+
+
+<p>David Hartley had dropped in to pay a neighbourly call on Josephine
+Elliott. It was well along in the afternoon, and outside, in the clear
+crispness of a Canadian winter, the long blue shadows from the tall
+firs behind the house were falling over the snow.</p>
+
+<p>It was a frosty day, and all the windows of every room where there was
+no fire were covered with silver palms. But the big, bright kitchen
+was warm and cosy, and somehow seemed to David more tempting than ever
+before, and that is saying a good deal. He had an uneasy feeling that
+he had stayed long enough and ought to go. Josephine was knitting at a
+long gray sock with doubly aggressive energy, and that was a sign that
+she was talked out. As long as Josephine had plenty to say, her plump
+white fingers, where her mother's wedding ring was lost in dimples,
+moved slowly among her needles. When conversation flagged she fell to
+her work as furiously as if a husband and half a dozen sons were
+waiting for its completion. David often wondered in his secret soul
+what Josephine did with all the interminable gray socks she knitted.
+Sometimes he concluded that she put them in the home missionary
+barrels; again, that she sold them to her hired man. At any rate, they
+were very warm and comfortable looking, and David sighed as he thought
+of the deplorable state his own socks were generally in.</p>
+
+<p>When David sighed Josephine took alarm. She was afraid David was going
+to have one of his attacks of foolishness. She must head him off
+someway, so she rolled up the gray sock, stabbed the big pudgy ball
+with her needles, and said she guessed she'd get the tea.</p>
+
+<p>David got up.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, you're not going before tea?" said Josephine hospitably. "I'll
+have it all ready in no time."</p>
+
+<p>"I ought to go home, I s'pose," said David, with the air and tone of a
+man dallying with a great temptation. "Zillah'll be waiting tea for
+me; and there's the stock to tend to."</p>
+
+<p>"I guess Zillah won't wait long," said Josephine. She did not intend
+it at all, but there was a certain scornful ring in her voice. "You
+must stay. I've a fancy for company to tea."</p>
+
+<p>David sat down again. He looked so pleased that Josephine went down on
+her knees behind the stove, ostensibly to get a stick of firewood, but
+really to hide her smile.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose he's tickled to death to think of getting a good square
+meal, after the starvation rations Zillah puts him on," she thought.</p>
+
+<p>But Josephine misjudged David just as much as he misjudged her. She
+had really asked him to stay to tea out of pity, but David thought it
+was because she was lonesome, and he hailed that as an encouraging
+sign. And he was not thinking about getting a good meal either,
+although his dinner had been such a one as only Zillah Hartley could
+get up. As he leaned back in his cushioned chair and watched Josephine
+bustling about the kitchen, he was glorying in the fact that he could
+spend another hour with her, and sit opposite to her at the table
+while she poured his tea for him and passed him the biscuits, just as
+if&mdash;just as if&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Here Josephine looked straight at him with such intent and stern brown
+eyes that David felt she must have read his thoughts, and he colored
+guiltily. But Josephine did not even notice that he was blushing. She
+had only paused to wonder whether she would bring out cherry or
+strawberry preserve; and, having decided on the cherry, took her
+piercing gaze from David without having seen him at all. But he
+allowed his thoughts no more vagaries.</p>
+
+<p>Josephine set the table with her mother's wedding china. She used it
+because it was the anniversary of her mother's wedding day, but David
+thought it was out of compliment to him. And, as he knew quite well
+that Josephine prized that china beyond all her other earthly
+possessions, he stroked his smooth-shaven, dimpled chin with the air
+of a man to whom is offered a very subtly sweet homage.</p>
+
+<p>Josephine whisked in and out of the pantry, and up and down cellar,
+and with every whisk a new dainty was added to the table. Josephine,
+as everybody in Meadowby admitted, was past mistress in the noble art
+of cookery. Once upon a time rash matrons and ambitious young wives
+had aspired to rival her, but they had long ago realised the vanity of
+such efforts and dropped comfortably back to second place.</p>
+
+<p>Josephine felt an artist's pride in her table when she set the teapot
+on its stand and invited David to sit in. There were pink slices of
+cold tongue, and crisp green pickles and spiced gooseberry, the recipe
+for which Josephine had invented herself, and which had taken first
+prize at the Provincial Exhibition for six successive years; there was
+a lemon pie which was a symphony in gold and silver, biscuits as light
+and white as snow, and moist, plummy cubes of fruit cake. There was
+the ruby-tinted cherry preserve, a mound of amber jelly, and, to crown
+all, steaming cups of tea, in flavour and fragrance unequalled.</p>
+
+<p>And Josephine, too, sitting at the head of the table, with her smooth,
+glossy crimps of black hair and cheeks as rosy clear as they had been
+twenty years ago, when she had been a slender slip of girlhood and
+bashful young David Hartley had looked at her over his hymn-book in
+prayer-meeting and tramped all the way home a few feet behind her,
+because he was too shy to go boldly up and ask if he might see her
+home.</p>
+
+<p>All taken together, what wonder if David lost his head over that
+tea-table and determined to ask Josephine the same old question once
+more? It was eighteen years since he had asked it for the first time,
+and two years since the last. He would try his luck again; Josephine
+was certainly more gracious than he remembered her to ever have been
+before.</p>
+
+<p>When the meal was over Josephine cleared the table and washed the
+dishes. When she had taken a dry towel and sat down by the window to
+polish her china David understood that his opportunity had come. He
+moved over and sat down beside her on the sofa by the window.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the sun was setting in a magnificent arch of light and colour
+over the snow-clad hills and deep blue St. Lawrence gulf. David
+grasped at the sunset as an introductory factor.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't that fine, Josephine?" he said admiringly. "It makes me think
+of that piece of poetry that used to be in the old Fifth Reader when
+we went to school. D'ye mind how the teacher used to drill us up in it
+on Friday afternoons? It begun</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Slow sinks more lovely ere his race is run<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Along Morea's hills the setting sun.'"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Then David declaimed the whole passage in a sing-song tone,
+accompanied by a few crude gestures recalled from long-ago school-boy
+elocution. Josephine knew what was coming. Every time David proposed
+to her he had begun by reciting poetry. She twirled her towel around
+the last plate resignedly. If it had to come, the sooner it was over
+the better. Josephine knew by experience that there was no heading
+David off, despite his shyness, when he had once got along as far as
+the poetry.</p>
+
+<p>"But it's going to be for the last time," she said determinedly. "I'm
+going to settle this question so decidedly to-night that there'll
+never be a repetition."</p>
+
+<p>When David had finished his quotation he laid his hand on Josephine's
+plump arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Josephine," he said huskily, "I s'pose you couldn't&mdash;could you
+now?&mdash;make up your mind to have me. I wish you would, Josephine&mdash;I
+wish you would. Don't you think you could, Josephine?"</p>
+
+<p>Josephine folded up her towel, crossed her hands on it, and looked her
+wooer squarely in the eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"David Hartley," she said deliberately, "what makes you go on asking
+me to marry you every once in a while when I've told you times out of
+mind that I can't and won't?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I can't help hoping that you'll change your mind through
+time," David replied meekly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you just listen to me. I will not marry you. That is in the
+first place. And in the second, this is to be final. It has to be. You
+are never to ask me this again under any circumstances. If you do I
+will not answer you&mdash;I will not let on I hear you at all; but (and
+Josephine spoke very slowly and impressively) I will never speak to
+you again&mdash;never. We are good friends now, and I like you real well,
+and like to have you drop in for a neighbourly chat as often as you
+wish to, but there'll be an end, short and sudden, to that, if you
+don't mind what I say."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Josephine, ain't that rather hard?" protested David feebly. It
+seemed terrible to be cut off from all hope with such finality as
+this.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean every word of it," returned Josephine calmly. "You'd better go
+home now, David. I always feel as if I'd like to be alone for a spell
+after a disagreeable experience."</p>
+
+<p>David obeyed sadly and put on his cap and overcoat. Josephine kindly
+warned him not to slip and break his legs on the porch, because the
+floor was as icy as anything; and she even lighted a candle and held
+it up at the kitchen door to guide him safely out. David, as he
+trudged sorrowfully homeward across the fields, carried with him the
+mental picture of a plump, sonsy woman, in a trim dress of
+plum-coloured homespun and ruffled blue-check apron, haloed by
+candlelight. It was not a very romantic vision, perhaps, but to David
+it was more beautiful than anything else in the world.</p>
+
+<p>When David was gone Josephine shut the door with a little shiver. She
+blew out the candle, for it was not yet dark enough to justify
+artificial light to her thrifty mind. She thought the big, empty
+house, in which she was the only living thing, was very lonely. It was
+so still, except for the slow tick of the "grandfather's clock" and
+the soft purr and crackle of the wood in the stove. Josephine sat down
+by the window.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish some of the Sentners would run down," she said aloud. "If
+David hadn't been so ridiculous I'd have got him to stay the evening.
+He can be good company when he likes&mdash;he's real well-read and
+intelligent. And he must have dismal times at home there with nobody
+but Zillah."</p>
+
+<p>She looked across the yard to the little house at the other side of
+it, where her French-Canadian hired man lived, and watched the purple
+spiral of smoke from its chimney curling up against the crocus sky.
+Would she run over and see Mrs. Leon Poirier and her little
+black-eyed, brown-skinned baby? No, they never knew what to say to
+each other.</p>
+
+<p>"If 'twasn't so cold I'd go up and see Ida," she said. "As it is, I
+guess I'd better fall back on my knitting, for I saw Jimmy Sentner's
+toes sticking through his socks the other day. How setback poor David
+did look, to be sure! But I think I've settled that marrying notion of
+his once for all and I'm glad of it."</p>
+
+<p>She said the same thing next day to Mrs. Tom Sentner, who had come
+down to help her pick her geese. They were at work in the kitchen with
+a big tubful of feathers between them, and on the table a row of dead
+birds, which Leon had killed and brought in. Josephine was enveloped
+in a shapeless print wrapper, and had an apron tied tightly around her
+head to keep the down out of her beautiful hair, of which she was
+rather proud.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think, Ida?" she said, with a hearty laugh at the
+recollection. "David Hartley was here to tea last night, and asked me
+to marry him again. There's a persistent man for you. I can't brag of
+ever having had many beaux, but I've certainly had my fair share of
+proposals."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Tom did not laugh. Her thin little face, with its faded
+prettiness, looked as if she never laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Why won't you marry him?" she said fretfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I?" retorted Josephine. "Tell me that, Ida Sentner."</p>
+
+<p>"Because it is high time you were married," said Mrs. Tom decisively.
+"I don't believe in women living single. And I don't see what better
+you can do than take David Hartley."</p>
+
+<p>Josephine looked at her sister with the interested expression of a
+person who is trying to understand some mental attitude in another
+which is a standing puzzle to her. Ida's evident wish to see her
+married always amused Josephine. Ida had married very young and for
+fifteen years her life had been one of drudgery and ill-health. Tom
+Sentner was a lazy, shiftless fellow. He neglected his family and was
+drunk half his time. Meadowby people said that he beat his wife when
+"on the spree," but Josephine did not believe that, because she did
+not think that Ida could keep from telling her if it were so. Ida
+Sentner was not given to bearing her trials in silence.</p>
+
+<p>Had it not been for Josephine's assistance, Tom Sentner's family would
+have stood an excellent chance of starvation. Josephine practically
+kept them, and her generosity never failed or stinted. She fed and
+clothed her nephews and nieces, and all the gray socks whose
+destination puzzled David so much went to the Sentners.</p>
+
+<p>As for Josephine herself, she had a good farm, a comfortable house, a
+plump bank account, and was an independent, unworried woman. And yet,
+in the face of all this, Mrs. Tom Sentner could bewail the fact that
+Josephine had no husband to look out for her. Josephine shrugged her
+shoulders and gave up the conundrum, merely saying ironically, in
+reply to her sister's remark:</p>
+
+<p>"And go to live with Zillah Hartley?"</p>
+
+<p>"You know very well you wouldn't have to do that. Ever since John
+Hartley's wife at the Creek died he's been wanting Zillah to go and
+keep house for him, and if David got married Zillah'd go quick. Catch
+her staying there if you were mistress! And David has such a beautiful
+house! It's ten times finer than yours, though I don't deny yours is
+comfortable. And his farm is the best in Meadowby and joins yours.
+Think what a beautiful property they'd make together. You're all right
+now, Josephine, but what will you do when you get old and have nobody
+to take care of you? I declare the thought worries me at night till I
+can't sleep."</p>
+
+<p>"I should have thought you had enough worries of your own to keep you
+awake at nights without taking over any of mine," said Josephine
+drily. "As for old age, it's a good ways off for me yet. When your
+Jack gets old enough to have some sense he can come here and live with
+me. But I'm not going to marry David Hartley, you can depend on that,
+Ida, my dear. I wish you could have heard him rhyming off that poetry
+last night. It doesn't seem to matter much what piece he
+recites&mdash;first thing that comes into his head, I reckon. I remember
+one time he went clean through that hymn beginning, 'Hark from the
+tombs a doleful sound,' and two years ago it was 'To Mary in Heaven,'
+as lackadaisical as you please. I never had such a time to keep from
+laughing, but I managed it, for I wouldn't hurt his feelings for the
+world. No, I haven't any intention of marrying anybody, but if I had
+it wouldn't be dear old sentimental, easy-going David."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Tom thumped a plucked goose down on the bench with an expression
+which said that she, for one, wasn't going to waste any more words on
+an idiot. Easy-going, indeed! Did Josephine consider that a drawback?
+Mrs. Tom sighed. If Josephine, she thought, had put up with Tom
+Sentner's tempers for fifteen years she would know how to appreciate a
+good-natured man at his real value.</p>
+
+<p>The cold snap which had set in on the day of David's call lasted and
+deepened for a week. On Saturday evening, when Mrs. Tom came down for
+a jug of cream, the mercury of the little thermometer thumping against
+Josephine's porch was below zero. The gulf was no longer blue, but
+white with ice. Everything outdoors was crackling and snapping. Inside
+Josephine had kept roaring fires all through the house but the only
+place really warm was the kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>"Wrap your head up well, Ida," she said anxiously, when Mrs. Tom rose
+to go. "You've got a bad cold."</p>
+
+<p>"There's a cold going," said Mrs. Tom. "Everyone has it. David Hartley
+was up at our place to-day barking terrible&mdash;a real churchyard cough,
+as I told him. He never takes any care of himself. He said Zillah had
+a bad cold, too. Won't she be cranky while it lasts?"</p>
+
+<p>Josephine sat up late that night to keep fires on. She finally went to
+bed in the little room opposite the big hall stove, and she slept at
+once, and dreamed that the thumps of the thermometer flapping in the
+wind against the wall outside grew louder and more insistent until
+they woke her up. Some one was pounding on the porch door.</p>
+
+<p>Josephine sprang out of bed and hurried on her wrapper and felt shoes.
+She had no doubt that some of the Sentners were sick. They had a habit
+of getting sick about that time of night. She hurried out and opened
+the door, expecting to see hulking Tom Sentner, or perhaps Ida
+herself, big-eyed and hysterical.</p>
+
+<p>But David Hartley stood there, panting for breath. The clear moonlight
+showed that he had no overcoat on, and he was coughing hard.
+Josephine, before she spoke a word, clutched him by the arm and pulled
+him in out of the wind.</p>
+
+<p>"For pity's sake, David Hartley, what is the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Zillah's awful sick," he gasped. "I came here because 'twas nearest.
+Oh, won't you come over, Josephine? I've got to go for the doctor and
+I can't leave her alone. She's suffering dreadful. I know you and her
+ain't on good terms, but you'll come, won't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I will," said Josephine sharply. "I'm not a barbarian, I
+hope, to refuse to go to the help of a sick person, if 'twas my worst
+enemy. I'll go in and get ready and you go straight to the hall stove
+and warm yourself. There's a good fire in it yet. What on earth do you
+mean, starting out on a bitter night like this without an overcoat or
+even mittens, and you with a cold like that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I never thought of them, I was so frightened," said David
+apologetically. "I just lit up a fire in the kitchen stove as quick's
+I could and run. It rattled me to hear Zillah moaning so's you could
+hear her all over the house."</p>
+
+<p>"You need someone to look after you as bad as Zillah does," said
+Josephine severely.</p>
+
+<p>In a very few minutes she was ready, with a basket packed full of
+homely remedies, "for like as not there'll be no putting one's hand on
+anything there," she muttered. She insisted on wrapping her big plaid
+shawl around David's head and neck, and made him put on a pair of
+mittens she had knitted for Jack Sentner. Then she locked the door and
+they started across the gleaming, crusted field. It was so slippery
+that Josephine had to cling to David's arm to keep her feet. In the
+rapture of supporting her David almost forgot everything else.</p>
+
+<p>In a few minutes they had passed under the bare, glistening boughs of
+the poplars on David's lawn, and for the first time Josephine crossed
+the threshold of David Hartley's house.</p>
+
+<p>Years ago, in her girlhood, when the Hartley's lived in the old house
+and there were half a dozen girls at home, Josephine had frequently
+visited there. All the Hartley girls liked her except Zillah. She and
+Zillah never "got on" together. When the other girls had married and
+gone, Josephine gave up visiting there. She had never been inside the
+new house, and she and Zillah had not spoken to each other for years.</p>
+
+<p>Zillah was a sick woman&mdash;too sick to be anything but civil to
+Josephine. David started at once for the doctor at the Creek, and
+Josephine saw that he was well wrapped up before she let him go. Then
+she mixed up a mustard plaster for Zillah and sat down by the bedside
+to wait.</p>
+
+<p>When Mrs. Tom Sentner came down the next day she found Josephine busy
+making flaxseed poultices, with her lips set in a line that betokened
+she had made up her mind to some disagreeable course of duty.</p>
+
+<p>"Zillah has got pneumonia bad," she said, in reply to Mrs. Tom's
+inquiries. "The Doctor is here and Mary Bell from the Creek. She'll
+wait on Zillah, but there'll have to be another woman here to see to
+the work. I reckon I'll stay. I suppose it's my duty and I don't see
+who else could be got. You can send Mamie and Jack down to stay at my
+house until I can go back. I'll run over every day and keep an eye on
+things."</p>
+
+<p>At the end of a week Zillah was out of danger. Saturday afternoon
+Josephine went over home to see how Mamie and Jack were getting on.
+She found Mrs. Tom there, and the latter promptly despatched Jack and
+Mamie to the post-office that she might have an opportunity to hear
+Josephine's news.</p>
+
+<p>"I've had an awful week of it, Ida," said Josephine solemnly, as she
+sat down by the stove and put her feet up on the glowing hearth.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose Zillah is pretty cranky to wait on," said Mrs. Tom
+sympathetically.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it isn't Zillah. Mary Bell looks after her. No, it's the house. I
+never lived in such a place of dust and disorder in my born days. I'm
+sorrier for David Hartley than I ever was for anyone before."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose he's used to it," said Mrs. Tom with a shrug.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see how anyone could ever get used to it," groaned Josephine.
+"And David used to be so particular when he was a boy. The minute I
+went there the other night I took in that kitchen with a look. I don't
+believe the paint has even been washed since the house was built. I
+honestly don't. And I wouldn't like to be called upon to swear when
+the floor was scrubbed either. The corners were just full of rolls of
+dust&mdash;you could have shovelled it out. I swept it out next day and I
+thought I'd be choked. As for the pantry&mdash;well, the less said about
+<i>that</i> the better. And it's the same all through the house. You could
+write your name on everything. I couldn't so much as clean up. Zillah
+was so sick there couldn't be a bit of noise made. I did manage to
+sweep and dust, and I cleaned out the pantry. And, of course, I saw
+that the meals were nice and well cooked. You should have seen David's
+face. He looked as if he couldn't get used to having things clean and
+tasty. I darned his socks&mdash;he hadn't a whole pair to his name&mdash;and
+I've done everything I could to give him a little comfort. Not that I
+could do much. If Zillah heard me moving round she'd send Mary Bell
+out to ask what the matter was. When I wanted to go upstairs I'd have
+to take off my shoes and tiptoe up on my stocking feet, so's she
+wouldn't know it. And I'll have to stay there another fortnight yet.
+Zillah won't be able to sit up till then. I don't really know if I can
+stand it without falling to and scrubbing the house from garret to
+cellar in spite of her."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Tom Sentner did not say much to Josephine. To herself she said
+complacently:</p>
+
+<p>"She's sorry for David. Well, I've always heard that pity was akin to
+love. We'll see what comes of this."</p>
+
+<p>Josephine did manage to live through that fortnight. One morning she
+remarked to David at the breakfast table:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I think that Mary Bell will be able to attend to the work after
+today, David. I guess I'll go home tonight."</p>
+
+<p>David's face clouded over.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I s'pose we oughtn't to keep you any longer, Josephine. I'm
+sure it's been awful good of you to stay this long. I don't know what
+we'd have done without you."</p>
+
+<p>"You're welcome," said Josephine shortly.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't go for to walk home," said David; "the snow is too deep. I'll
+drive you over when you want to go."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll not go before the evening," said Josephine slowly.</p>
+
+<p>David went out to his work gloomily. For three weeks he had been
+living in comfort. His wants were carefully attended to; his meals
+were well cooked and served, and everything was bright and clean. And
+more than all, Josephine had been there, with her cheerful smile and
+companionable ways. Well, it was all ended now.</p>
+
+<p>Josephine sat at the breakfast table long after David had gone out.
+She scowled at the sugar-bowl and shook her head savagely at the
+tea-pot.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll have to do it," she said at last.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm so sorry for him that I can't do anything else."</p>
+
+<p>She got up and went to the window, looking across the snowy field to
+her own home, nestled between the grove of firs and the orchard.</p>
+
+<p>"It's awful snug and comfortable," she said regretfully, "and I've
+always felt set on being free and independent. But it's no use. I'd
+never have a minute's peace of mind again, thinking of David living
+here in dirt and disorder, and him so particular and tidy by nature.
+No, it's my duty, plain and clear, to come here and make things
+pleasant for him&mdash;the pointing of Providence, as you might say. The
+worst of it is, I'll have to tell him so myself. He'll never dare to
+mention the subject again, after what I said to him that night he
+proposed last. I wish I hadn't been so dreadful emphatic. Now I've got
+to say it myself if it is ever said. But I'll not begin by quoting
+poetry, that's one thing sure!"</p>
+
+<p>Josephine threw back her head, crowned with its shining braids of
+jet-black hair, and laughed heartily. She bustled back to the stove
+and poked up the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll have a bit of corned beef and cabbage for dinner," she said,
+"and I'll make David that pudding he's so fond of. After all, it's
+kind of nice to have someone to plan and think for. It always did seem
+like a waste of energy to fuss over cooking things when there was
+nobody but myself to eat them."</p>
+
+<p>Josephine sang over her work all day, and David went about his with
+the face of a man who is going to the gallows without benefit of
+clergy. When he came in to supper at sunset his expression was so
+woe-begone that Josephine had to dodge into the pantry to keep from
+laughing outright. She relieved her feelings by pounding the dresser
+with the potato masher, and then went primly out and took her place at
+the table.</p>
+
+<p>The meal was not a success from a social point of view. Josephine was
+nervous and David glum. Mary Bell gobbled down her food with her usual
+haste, and then went away to carry Zillah hers. Then David said
+reluctantly:</p>
+
+<p>"If you want to go home now, Josephine, I'll hitch up Red Rob and
+drive you over."</p>
+
+<p>Josephine began to plait the tablecloth. She wished again that she had
+not been so emphatic on the occasion of his last proposal. Without
+replying to David's suggestion she said crossly (Josephine always
+spoke crossly when she was especially in earnest):</p>
+
+<p>"I want to tell you what I think about Zillah. She's getting better,
+but she's had a terrible shaking up, and it's my opinion that she
+won't be good for much all winter. She won't be able to do any hard
+work, that's certain. If you want my advice, I tell you fair and
+square that I think she'd better go off for a visit as soon as she's
+fit. She thinks so herself. Clementine wants her to go and stay a
+spell with her in town. 'Twould be just the thing for her."</p>
+
+<p>"She can go if she wants to, of course," said David dully. "I can get
+along by myself for a spell."</p>
+
+<p>"There's no need of your getting along by yourself," said Josephine,
+more crossly than ever. "I'll&mdash;I'll come here and keep house for you
+if you like."</p>
+
+<p>David looked at her uncomprehendingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Wouldn't people kind of gossip?" he asked hesitatingly. "Not but
+what&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see what they'd have to gossip about," broke in Josephine,
+"if we were&mdash;married."</p>
+
+<p>David sprang to his feet with such haste that he almost upset the
+table.</p>
+
+<p>"Josephine, do you mean that?" he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I mean it," she said, in a perfectly savage tone. "Now, for
+pity's sake, don't say another word about it just now. I can't discuss
+it for a spell. Go out to your work. I want to be alone for awhile."</p>
+
+<p>For the first and last time David disobeyed her. Instead of going out,
+he strode around the table, caught Josephine masterfully in his arms,
+and kissed her. And Josephine, after a second's hesitation, kissed him
+in return.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="Aunt_Philippa_and_the_Men" id="Aunt_Philippa_and_the_Men"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<h2>Aunt Philippa and the Men<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">[ToC]</a></span></h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>I knew quite well why Father sent me to Prince Edward Island to visit
+Aunt Philippa that summer. He told me he was sending me there "to
+learn some sense"; and my stepmother, of whom I was very fond, told me
+she was sure the sea air would do me a world of good. I did not want
+to learn sense or be done a world of good; I wanted to stay in
+Montreal and go on being foolish&mdash;and make up my quarrel with Mark
+Fenwick. Father and Mother did not know anything about this quarrel;
+they thought I was still on good terms with him&mdash;and that is why they
+sent me to Prince Edward Island.</p>
+
+<p>I was very miserable. I did not want to go to Aunt Philippa's. It was
+not because I feared it would be dull&mdash;for without Mark, Montreal was
+just as much of a howling wilderness as any other place. But it was so
+horribly far away. When the time came for Mark to want to make up&mdash;as
+come I knew it would&mdash;how could he do it if I were seven hundred miles
+away?</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, I went to Prince Edward Island. In all my eighteen years
+I had never once disobeyed Father. He is a very hard man to disobey. I
+knew I should have to make a beginning some time if I wanted to marry
+Mark, so I saved all my little courage up for that and didn't waste
+any of it opposing the visit to Aunt Philippa.</p>
+
+<p>I couldn't understand Father's point of view. Of course, he hated old
+John Fenwick, who had once sued him for libel and won the case. Father
+had written an indiscreet editorial in the excitement of a red-hot
+political contest&mdash;and was made to understand that there are some
+things you can't say of another man even at election time. But then,
+he need not have hated Mark because of that; Mark was not even born
+when it happened.</p>
+
+<p>Old John Fenwick was not much better pleased about Mark and me than
+Father was, though he didn't go to the length of forbidding it; he
+just acted grumpily and disagreeably. Things were unpleasant enough
+all round without a quarrel between Mark and me; yet quarrel we
+did&mdash;and over next to nothing, too, you understand. And now I had to
+set out for Prince Edward Island without even seeing him, for he was
+away in Toronto on business.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>When my train reached Copely the next afternoon, Aunt Philippa was
+waiting for me. There was nobody else in sight, but I would have known
+her had there been a thousand. Nobody but Aunt Philippa could have
+that determined mouth, those piercing grey eyes, and that pronounced,
+unmistakable Goodwin nose. And certainly nobody but Aunt Philippa
+would have come to meet me arrayed in a wrapper of chocolate print
+with huge yellow roses scattered over it, and a striped blue-and-white
+apron!</p>
+
+<p>She welcomed me kindly but absent-mindedly, her thoughts evidently
+being concentrated on the problem of getting my trunk home. I had only
+the one, and in Montreal it had seemed to be of moderate size; but on
+the platform of Copely station, sized up by Aunt Philippa's merciless
+eye, it certainly looked huge.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought we could a-took it along tied on the back of the buggy,"
+she said disapprovingly, "but I guess we'll have to leave it, and I'll
+send the hired boy over for it tonight. You can get along without it
+till then, I s'pose?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a fine irony in her tone. I hastened to assure her meekly
+that I could, and that it did not matter if my trunk could not be
+taken up till next day.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Jerry can come for it tonight as well as not," said Aunt
+Philippa, as we climbed into her buggy. "I'd a good notion to send him
+to meet you, for he isn't doing much today, and I wanted to go to Mrs.
+Roderick MacAllister's funeral. But my head was aching me so bad I
+thought I wouldn't enjoy the funeral if I did go. My head is better
+now, so I kind of wish I had gone. She was a hundred and four years
+old and I'd always promised myself that I'd go to her funeral."</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Philippa's tone was melancholy. She did not recover her good
+spirits until we were out on the pretty, grassy, elm-shaded country
+road, garlanded with its ribbon of buttercups. Then she suddenly
+turned around and looked me over scrutinizingly.</p>
+
+<p>"You're not as good-looking as I expected from your picture, but them
+photographs always flatter. That's the reason I never had any took.
+You're rather thin and brown. But you've good eyes and you look
+clever. Your father writ me you hadn't much sense, though. He wants me
+to teach you some, but it's a thankless business. People would rather
+be fools."</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Philippa struck her steed smartly with the whip and controlled
+his resultant friskiness with admirable skill.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you know it's pleasanter," I said, wickedly. "Just think what a
+doleful world it would be if everybody were sensible."</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Philippa looked at me out of the corner of her eye and disdained
+any skirmish of flippant epigram.</p>
+
+<p>"So you want to get married?" she said. "You'd better wait till you're
+grown up."</p>
+
+<p>"How old must a person be before she is grown up?" I asked gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Humph! That depends. Some are grown up when they're born, and others
+ain't grown up when they're eighty. That same Mrs. Roderick I was
+speaking of never grew up. She was as foolish when she was a hundred
+as when she was ten."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps that's why she lived so long," I suggested. All thought of
+seeking sympathy in Aunt Philippa had vanished. I resolved I would not
+even mention Mark's name.</p>
+
+<p>"Mebbe 'twas," admitted Aunt Philippa with a grim smile. "<i>I'd</i> rather
+live fifty sensible years than a hundred foolish ones."</p>
+
+<p>Much to my relief, she made no further reference to my affairs. As we
+rounded a curve in the road where two great over-arching elms met, a
+buggy wheeled by us, occupied by a young man in clerical costume. He
+had a pleasant boyish face, and he touched his hat courteously. Aunt
+Philippa nodded very frostily and gave her horse a quite undeserved
+cut.</p>
+
+<p>"There's a man you don't want to have much to do with," she said
+portentously. "He's a Methodist minister."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Auntie, the Methodists are a very nice denomination," I
+protested. "My stepmother is a Methodist, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I didn't know, but I'd believe anything of a stepmother. I've no
+use for Methodists or their ministers. This fellow just came last
+spring, and it's <i>my</i> opinion he smokes. And he thinks every girl who
+looks at him falls in love with him&mdash;as if a Methodist minister was
+any prize! Don't you take much notice of him, Ursula."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll not be likely to have the chance," I said, with an amused smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you'll see enough of him. He boards at Mrs. John Callman's, just
+across the road from us, and he's always out sunning himself on her
+verandah. Never studies, of course. Last Sunday they say he preached
+on the iron that floated. If he'd confine himself to the Bible and
+leave sensational subjects alone it would be better for him and his
+poor congregation, and so I told Mrs. John Callman to her face. I
+should think <i>she</i> would have had enough of his sex by this time. She
+married John Callman against her father's will, and he had delirious
+trembles for years. That's the men for you."</p>
+
+<p>"They're not <i>all</i> like that, Aunt Philippa," I protested.</p>
+
+<p>"Most of 'em are. See that house over there? Mrs. Jane Harrison lives
+there. Her husband took tantrums every few days or so and wouldn't get
+out of bed. She had to do all the barn work till he'd got over his
+spell. That's men for you. When he died, people writ her letters of
+condolence but <i>I</i> just sot down and writ her one of congratulation.
+There's the Presbyterian manse in the hollow. Mr. Bentwell's our
+minister. He's a good man and he'd be a rather nice one if he didn't
+think it was his duty to be a little miserable all the time. He won't
+let his wife wear a fashionable hat, and his daughter can't fix her
+hair the way she wants to. Even being a minister can't prevent a man
+from being a crank. Here's Ebenezer Milgrave coming. You take a good
+look at him. He used to be insane for years. He believed he was dead
+and used to rage at his wife because she wouldn't bury him. <i>I'd</i>
+a-done it."</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Philippa looked so determinedly grim that I could almost see her
+with a spade in her hand. I laughed aloud at the picture summoned up.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it's funny, but I guess his poor wife didn't find it very
+humorsome. He's been pretty sane for some years now, but you never can
+tell when he'll break out again. He's got a brother, Albert Milgrave,
+who's been married twice. They say he was courting his second wife
+while his first was dying. Let that be as it may, he used his first
+wife's wedding ring to marry the second. That's the men for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you know <i>any</i> good husbands, Aunt Philippa?" I asked
+desperately.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, lots of 'em&mdash;over there," said Aunt Philippa sardonically,
+waving her whip in the direction of a little country graveyard on a
+distant hill.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but <i>living</i>&mdash;walking about in the flesh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Precious few. Now and again you'll come across a man whose wife won't
+put up with any nonsense and he <i>has</i> to be respectable. But the most
+of 'em are poor bargains&mdash;poor bargains."</p>
+
+<p>"And are all the wives saints?" I persisted.</p>
+
+<p>"Laws, no, but they're too good for the men," retorted Aunt Philippa,
+as she turned in at her own gate. Her house was close to the road and
+was painted such a vivid green that the landscape looked faded by
+contrast. Across the gable end of it was the legend, "Philippa's
+Farm," emblazoned in huge black letters two feet long. All its
+surroundings were very neat. On the kitchen doorstep a patchwork cat
+was making a grave toilet. The groundwork of the cat was white, and
+its spots were black, yellow, grey, and brown.</p>
+
+<p>"There's Joseph," said Aunt Philippa. "I call him that because his
+coat is of many colours. But I ain't no lover of cats. They're too
+much like the men to suit me."</p>
+
+<p>"Cats have always been supposed to be peculiarly feminine," I said,
+descending.</p>
+
+<p>"'Twas a man that supposed it, then," retorted Aunt Philippa,
+beckoning to her hired boy. "Here, Jerry, put Prince away. Jerry's a
+good sort of boy," she confided to me as we went into the house. "I
+had Jim Spencer last summer and the only good thing about <i>him</i> was
+his appetite. I put up with him till harvest was in, and then one day
+my patience give out. He upsot a churnful of cream in the back
+yard&mdash;and was just as cool as a cowcumber over it&mdash;laughed and said it
+was good for the land. I told him I wasn't in the habit of fertilizing
+my back yard with cream. But that's the men for you. Come in. I'll
+have tea ready in no time. I sot the table before I left. There's
+lemon pie. Mrs. John Cantwell sent it over. I never make lemon pie
+myself. Ten years ago I took the prize for lemon pies at the county
+fair, and I've never made any since for fear I'd lose my reputation
+for them."</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>The first month of my stay passed not unpleasantly. The summer weather
+was delightful, and the sea air was certainly splendid. Aunt
+Philippa's little farm ran right down to the shore, and I spent much
+of my time there. There were also several families of cousins to be
+visited in the farmhouses that dotted the pretty, seaward-sloping
+valley, and they came back to see me at "Philippa's Farm." I picked
+spruce gum and berries and ferns, and Aunt Philippa taught me to make
+butter. It was all very idyllic&mdash;or would have been if Mark had
+written. But Mark did not write. I supposed he must be very angry
+because I had run off to Prince Edward Island without so much as a
+note of goodbye. But I had been so sure he would understand!</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Philippa never made any further reference to the reason Father
+had sent me to her, but she allowed no day to pass without holding up
+to me some horrible example of matrimonial infelicity. The number of
+unhappy wives who walked or drove past "Philippa's Farm" every
+afternoon, as we sat on the verandah, was truly pitiable.</p>
+
+<p>We always sat on the verandah in the afternoon, when we were not
+visiting or being visited. I made a pretence of fancy work, and Aunt
+Philippa spun diligently on a little old-fashioned spinning-wheel that
+had been her grandmother's. She always sat before the wood stand which
+held her flowers, and the gorgeous blots of geranium blossom and big
+green leaves furnished a pretty background. She always wore her
+shapeless but clean print wrappers, and her iron-grey hair was always
+combed neatly down over her ears. Joseph sat between us, sleeping or
+purring. She spun so expertly that she could keep a close watch on the
+road as well, and I got the biography of every individual who went by.
+As for the poor young Methodist minister, who liked to read or walk on
+the verandah of our neighbour's house, Aunt Philippa never had a good
+word for him. I had met him once or twice socially and had liked him.
+I wanted to ask him to call but dared not&mdash;Aunt Philippa had vowed he
+should never enter her house.</p>
+
+<p>"If I was dead and he came to my funeral I'd rise up and order him
+out," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought he made a very nice prayer at Mrs. Seaman's funeral the
+other day," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I've no doubt he can pray. I never heard anyone make more
+beautiful prayers than old Simon Kennedy down at the harbour, who was
+always drunk or hoping to be&mdash;and the drunker he was the better he
+prayed. It ain't no matter how well a man prays if his preaching isn't
+right. That Methodist man preaches a lot of things that ain't true,
+and what's worse they ain't sound doctrine. At least, that's what I've
+heard. I never was in a Methodist church, thank goodness."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think Methodists go to heaven as well as Presbyterians,
+Aunt Philippa?" I asked gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"That ain't for us to decide," said Aunt Philippa solemnly. "It's in
+higher hands than ours. But I ain't going to associate with them on
+<i>earth</i>, whatever I may have to do in heaven. The folks round here
+mostly don't make much difference and go to the Methodist church quite
+often. But <i>I</i> say if you are a Presbyterian, <i>be</i> a Presbyterian. Of
+course, if you ain't, it don't matter much what you do. As for that
+minister man, he has a grand-uncle who was sent to the penitentiary
+for embezzlement. I found out <i>that</i> much."</p>
+
+<p>And evidently Aunt Philippa had taken an unholy joy in finding it out.</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say some of our own ancestors deserved to go to the
+penitentiary, even if they never did," I remarked. "Who is that woman
+driving past, Aunt Philippa? She must have been very pretty once."</p>
+
+<p>"She was&mdash;and that was all the good it did her. 'Favour is deceitful
+and beauty is vain,' Ursula. She was Sarah Pyatt and she married Fred
+Proctor. He was one of your wicked, fascinating men. After she married
+him he give up being fascinating but he kept on being wicked. <i>That's</i>
+the men for you. Her sister Flora weren't much luckier. <i>Her</i> man was
+that domineering she couldn't call her soul her own. Finally he
+couldn't get his own way over something and he just suicided by
+jumping into the well. A good riddance&mdash;but of course the well was
+spoiled. Flora could never abide the thought of using it again, poor
+thing. <i>That's</i> men for you.</p>
+
+<p>"And there's that old Enoch Allan on his way to the station. He's
+ninety if he's a day. You can't kill some folks with a meat axe. His
+wife died twenty years ago. He'd been married when he was twenty so
+they'd lived together for fifty years. She was a faithful,
+hard-working creature and kept him out of the poorhouse, for he was a
+shiftless soul, not lazy, exactly, but just too fond of sitting. But
+he weren't grateful. She had a kind of bitter tongue and they did use
+to fight scandalous. O' course it was all his fault. Well, she died,
+and old Enoch and my father drove together to the graveyard. Old Enoch
+was awful quiet all the way there and back, but just afore they got
+home, he says solemnly to Father: 'You mayn't believe it, Henry, but
+this is the happiest day of my life.' <i>That's</i> men for you. His
+brother, Scotty Allan, was the meanest man ever lived in these parts.
+When his wife died she was buried with a little gold brooch in her
+collar unbeknownst to him. When he found it out he went one night to
+the graveyard and opened up the grave and the casket to get that
+brooch."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Aunt Philippa, that is a horrible story," I cried, recoiling with
+a shiver over the gruesomeness of it.</p>
+
+<p>"'Course it is, but what would you expect of a man?" retorted Aunt
+Philippa.</p>
+
+<p>Somehow, her stories began to affect me in spite of myself. There were
+times when I felt very dreary. Perhaps Aunt Philippa was right.
+Perhaps men possessed neither truth nor constancy. Certainly Mark had
+forgotten me. I was ashamed of myself because this hurt me so much,
+but I could not help it. I grew pale and listless. Aunt Philippa
+sometimes peered at me sharply, but she held her peace. I was grateful
+for this.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>But one day a letter did come from Mark. I dared not read it until I
+was safely in my own room. Then I opened it with trembling fingers.</p>
+
+<p>The letter was a little stiff. Evidently Mark was feeling sore enough
+over things. He made no reference to our quarrel or to my sojourn in
+Prince Edward Island. He wrote that his firm was sending him to South
+Africa to take charge of their interests there. He would leave in
+three weeks' time and could not return for five years. If I still
+cared anything for him, would I meet him in Halifax, marry him, and go
+to South Africa with him? If I would not, he would understand that I
+had ceased to love him and that all was over between us.</p>
+
+<p>That, boiled down, was the gist of Mark's letter. When I had read it I
+cast myself on the bed and wept out all the tears I had refused to let
+myself shed during my weeks of exile.</p>
+
+<p>For I could not do what Mark asked&mdash;I <i>could not</i>. I couldn't run away
+to be married in that desolate, unbefriended fashion. It would be a
+disgrace. I would feel ashamed of it all my life and be unhappy over
+it. I thought that Mark was rather unreasonable. He knew what my
+feelings about run-away marriages were. And was it absolutely
+necessary for him to go to South Africa? Of course his father was
+behind it somewhere, but surely he could have got out of it if he had
+really tried.</p>
+
+<p>Well, if he went to South Africa he must go alone. But my heart would
+break.</p>
+
+<p>I cried the whole afternoon, cowering among my pillows. I never wanted
+to go out of that room again. I never wanted to see anybody again. I
+hated the thought of facing Aunt Philippa with her cold eyes and her
+miserable stories that seemed to strip life of all beauty and love of
+all reality. I could hear her scornful, "That's the men for you," if
+she heard what was in Mark's letter.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter, Ursula?"</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Philippa was standing by my bed. I was too abject to resent her
+coming in without knocking.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing," I said spiritlessly.</p>
+
+<p>"If you've been crying for three mortal hours over nothing you want a
+good spanking and you'll get it," observed Aunt Philippa placidly,
+sitting down on my trunk. "Get right up off that bed this minute and
+tell me what the trouble is. I'm bound to know, for I'm in your
+father's place at present."</p>
+
+<p>"There, then!" I flung her Mark's letter. There wasn't anything in it
+that it was sacrilege to let another person see. That was one reason
+why I had been crying.</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Philippa read it over twice. Then she folded it up deliberately
+and put it back in the envelope.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to do?" she asked in a matter-of-fact tone.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not going to run away to be married," I answered sullenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no, I wouldn't advise you to," said Aunt Philippa reflectively.
+"It's a kind of low-down thing to do, though there's been a terrible
+lot of romantic nonsense talked and writ about eloping. It may be a
+painful necessity sometimes, but it ain't in this case. You write to
+your young man and tell him to come here and be married respectable
+under my roof, same as a Goodwin ought to."</p>
+
+<p>I sat up and stared at Aunt Philippa. I was so amazed that it is
+useless to try to express my amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt&mdash;Philippa," I gasped. "I thought&mdash;I thought&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You thought I was a hard old customer, and so I am," said Aunt
+Philippa. "But I don't take my opinions from your father nor anybody
+else. It didn't prejudice me any against your young man that your
+father didn't like him. I knew your father of old. I have some other
+friends in Montreal and I writ to them and asked them what he was
+like. From what they said I judged he was decent enough as men go.
+You're too young to be married, but if you let him go off to South
+Africa he'll slip through your fingers for sure, and I s'pose you're
+like some of the rest of us&mdash;nobody'll do you but the one. So tell him
+to come here and be married."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see how I can," I gasped. "I can't get ready to be married in
+three weeks. I can't&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I should think you have enough clothes in that trunk to do you for a
+spell," said Aunt Philippa sarcastically. "You've more than my mother
+ever had in all her life. We'll get you a wedding dress of some kind.
+You can get it made in Charlottetown, if country dressmakers aren't
+good enough for you, and I'll bake you a wedding cake that'll taste as
+good as anything you could get in Montreal, even if it won't look so
+stylish."</p>
+
+<p>"What will Father say?" I questioned.</p>
+
+<p>"Lots o' things," conceded Aunt Philippa grimly. "But I don't see as
+it matters when neither you nor me'll be there to have our feelings
+hurt. I'll write a few things to your father. He hasn't got much
+sense. He ought to be thankful to get a decent young man for his
+son-in-law in a world where most every man is a wolf in sheep's
+clothing. But that's the men for you."</p>
+
+<p>And that was Aunt Philippa for you. For the next three weeks she was a
+blissfully excited, busy woman. I was allowed to choose the material
+and fashion of my wedding suit and hat myself, but almost everything
+else was settled by Aunt Philippa. I didn't mind; it was a relief to
+be rid of all responsibility; I did protest when she declared her
+intention of having a big wedding and asking all the cousins and
+semi-cousins on the island, but Aunt Philippa swept my objections
+lightly aside.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm bound to have one good wedding in this house," she said. "Not
+likely I'll ever have another chance."</p>
+
+<p>She found time amid all the baking and concocting to warn me
+frequently not to take it too much to heart if Mark failed to come
+after all.</p>
+
+<p>"I know a man who jilted a girl on her wedding day. That's the men for
+you. It's best to be prepared."</p>
+
+<p>But Mark did come, getting there the evening before our wedding day.
+And then a severe blow fell on Aunt Philippa. Word came from the manse
+that Mr. Bentwell had been suddenly summoned to Nova Scotia to his
+mother's deathbed; he had started that night.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the men for you," said Aunt Philippa bitterly. "Never can
+depend on one of them, not even on a minister. What's to be done now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Get another minister," said Mark easily.</p>
+
+<p>"Where'll you get him?" demanded Aunt Philippa. "The minister at
+Cliftonville is away on his vacation, and Mercer is vacant, and that
+leaves none nearer than town. It won't do to depend on a town minister
+being able to come. No, there's no help for it. You'll have to have
+that Methodist man."</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Philippa's tone was tragic. Plainly she thought the ceremony
+would scarcely be legal if that Methodist man married us. But neither
+Mark nor I cared. We were too happy to be disturbed by any such
+trifles.</p>
+
+<p>The young Methodist minister married us the next day in the presence
+of many beaming guests. Aunt Philippa, splendid in black silk and
+point-lace collar, neither of which lost a whit of dignity or lustre
+by being made ten years before, was composure itself while the
+ceremony was going on. But no sooner had the minister pronounced us
+man and wife than she spoke up.</p>
+
+<p>"Now that's over I want someone to go right out and put out the fire
+on the kitchen roof. It's been on fire for the last ten minutes."</p>
+
+<p>Minister and bridegroom headed the emergency brigade, and Aunt
+Philippa pumped the water for them. In a short time the fire was out,
+all was safe, and we were receiving our deferred congratulations.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, young man," said Aunt Philippa solemnly as she shook hands with
+Mark, "don't you ever try to get out of this, even if a Methodist
+minister did marry you."</p>
+
+<p>She insisted on driving us to the train and said goodbye to us as we
+stood on the car steps. She had caught more of the shower of rice than
+I had, and as the day was hot and sunny she had tied over her head,
+atop of that festal silk dress, a huge, home-made, untrimmed straw
+hat. But she did not look ridiculous. There was a certain dignity
+about Aunt Philippa in any costume and under any circumstance.</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt Philippa," I said, "tell me this: why have you helped me to be
+married?"</p>
+
+<p>The train began to move.</p>
+
+<p>"I refused once to run away myself, and I've repented it ever since."
+Then, as the train gathered speed and the distance between us widened,
+she shouted after us, "But I s'pose if I had run away I'd have
+repented of that too."</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="Bessies_Doll" id="Bessies_Doll"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<h2>Bessie's Doll<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">[ToC]</a></span></h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>Tommy Puffer, sauntering up the street, stopped to look at Miss
+Octavia's geraniums. Tommy never could help stopping to look at Miss
+Octavia's flowers, much as he hated Miss Octavia. Today they were
+certainly worth looking at. Miss Octavia had set them all out on her
+verandah&mdash;rows upon rows of them, overflowing down the steps in waves
+of blossom and colour. Miss Octavia's geraniums were famous in
+Arundel, and she was very proud of them. But it was her garden which
+was really the delight of her heart. Miss Octavia always had the
+prettiest garden in Arundel, especially as far as annuals were
+concerned. Just now it was like faith&mdash;the substance of things hoped
+for. The poppies and nasturtiums and balsams and morning glories and
+sweet peas had been sown in the brown beds on the lawn, but they had
+not yet begun to come up.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy was still feasting his eyes on the geraniums when Miss Octavia
+herself came around the corner of the house. Her face darkened the
+minute she saw Tommy. Most people's did. Tommy had the reputation of
+being a very bad, mischievous boy; he was certainly very poor and
+ragged, and Miss Octavia disapproved of poverty and rags on principle.
+Nobody, she argued, not even a boy of twelve, need be poor and ragged
+if he is willing to work.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, you, get away out of this," she said sharply. "I'm not going to
+have you hanging over my palings."</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't hurting your old palings," retorted Tommy sullenly. "I was
+jist a-looking at the flowers."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and picking out the next one to throw a stone at," said Miss
+Octavia sarcastically. "It was you who threw that stone and broke my
+big scarlet geranium clear off the other day."</p>
+
+<p>"It wasn't&mdash;I never chucked a stone at your flowers," said Tommy.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't tell me any falsehoods, Tommy Puffer. It was you. Didn't I
+catch you firing stones at my cat a dozen times?"</p>
+
+<p>"I might have fired 'em at an old cat, but I wouldn't tech a flower,"
+avowed Tommy boldly&mdash;brazenly, Miss Octavia thought.</p>
+
+<p>"You clear out of this or I'll make you," she said warningly.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy had had his ears boxed by Miss Octavia more than once. He had no
+desire to have the performance repeated, so he stuck his tongue out at
+Miss Octavia and then marched up the street with his hands in his
+pockets, whistling jauntily.</p>
+
+<p>"He's the most impudent brat I ever saw in my life," muttered Miss
+Octavia wrathfully. There was a standing feud between her and all the
+Arundel small boys, but Tommy was her special object of dislike.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy's heart was full of wrath and bitterness as he marched away. He
+hated Miss Octavia; he wished something would happen to every one of
+her flowers; he knew it was Ned Williams who had thrown that stone,
+and he hoped Ned would throw some more and smash all the flowers. So
+Tommy raged along the street until he came to Mr. Blacklock's store,
+and in the window of it he saw something that put Miss Octavia and her
+disagreeable remarks quite out of his tow-coloured head.</p>
+
+<p>This was nothing more or less than a doll. Now, Tommy was not a judge
+of dolls and did not take much interest in them, but he felt quite
+sure that this was a very fine one. It was so big; it was beautifully
+dressed in blue silk, with a ruffled blue silk hat; it had lovely long
+golden hair and big brown eyes and pink cheeks; and it stood right up
+in the showcase and held out its hands winningly.</p>
+
+<p>"Gee, ain't it a beauty!" said Tommy admiringly. "It looks 'sif it was
+alive, and it's as big as a baby. I must go an' bring Bessie to see
+it."</p>
+
+<p>Tommy at once hurried away to the shabby little street where what he
+called "home" was. Tommy's home was a very homeless-looking sort of
+place. It was the smallest, dingiest, most slatternly house on a
+street noted for its dingy and slatternly houses. It was occupied by a
+slatternly mother and a drunken father, as well as by Tommy; and
+neither the father nor the mother took much notice of Tommy except to
+scold or nag him. So it is hardly to be wondered at if Tommy was the
+sort of boy who was frowned upon by respectable citizens.</p>
+
+<p>But one little white blossom of pure affection bloomed in the arid
+desert of Tommy's existence for all that. In the preceding fall a new
+family had come to Arundel and moved into the tiny house next to the
+Puffers'. It was a small, dingy house, just like the others, but
+before long a great change took place in it. The new family were
+thrifty, industrious folks, although they were very poor. The little
+house was white-washed, the paling neatly mended, the bit of a yard
+cleaned of all its rubbish. Muslin curtains appeared in the windows,
+and rows of cans, with blossoming plants, adorned the sills.</p>
+
+<p>There were just three people in the Knox family&mdash;a thin little mother,
+who went out scrubbing and took in washing, a boy of ten, who sold
+newspapers and ran errands&mdash;and Bessie.</p>
+
+<p>Bessie was eight years old and walked with a crutch, but she was a
+smart little lassie and kept the house wonderfully neat and tidy while
+her mother was away. The very first time she had seen Tommy she had
+smiled at him sweetly and said, "Good morning." From that moment Tommy
+was her devoted slave. Nobody had ever spoken like that to him before;
+nobody had ever smiled so at him. Tommy would have given his useless
+little life for Bessie, and thenceforth the time he was not devising
+mischief he spent in bringing little pleasures into her life. It was
+Tommy's delight to bring that smile to her pale little face and a look
+of pleasure into her big, patient blue eyes. The other boys on the
+street tried to tease Bessie at first and shouted "Cripple!" after her
+when she limped out. But they soon stopped it. Tommy thrashed them
+all one after another for it, and Bessie was left in peace. She would
+have had a very lonely life if it had not been for Tommy, for she
+could not play with the other children. But Tommy was as good as a
+dozen playmates, and Bessie thought him the best boy in the world.
+Tommy, whatever he might be with others, was very careful to be good
+when he was with Bessie. He never said a rude word in her hearing, and
+he treated her as if she were a little princess. Miss Octavia would
+have been amazed beyond measure if she had seen how tender and
+thoughtful and kind and chivalrous that neglected urchin of a Tommy
+could be when he tried.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy found Bessie sitting by the kitchen window, looking dreamily out
+of it. For just a moment Tommy thought uneasily that Bessie was
+looking very pale and thin this spring.</p>
+
+<p>"Bessie, come for a walk up to Mr. Blacklock's store," he said
+eagerly. "There is something there I want to show you."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" Bessie wanted to know. But Tommy only winked
+mysteriously.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, I ain't going to tell you. But it's something awful pretty. Just
+you wait."</p>
+
+<p>Bessie reached for her crutch and the two went up to the store, Tommy
+carefully suiting his steps to Bessie's slow ones. Just before they
+reached the store he made her shut her eyes and led her to the window.</p>
+
+<p>"Now&mdash;look!" he commanded dramatically.</p>
+
+<p>Bessie looked and Tommy was rewarded. She flushed pinkly with delight
+and clasped her hands in ecstasy.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Tommy, isn't she perfectly beautiful?" she breathed. "Oh, she's
+the very loveliest dolly I ever saw. Oh, Tommy!"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you'd like her," said Tommy exultantly. "Don't you wish you
+had a doll like that of your very own, Bessie?"</p>
+
+<p>Bessie looked almost rebuking, as if Tommy had asked her if she
+wouldn't like a golden crown or a queen's palace.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I could never have a dolly like that," she said. "She must
+cost an awful lot. But it's enough just to look at her. Tommy, will
+you bring me up here every day just to look at her?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Course," said Tommy.</p>
+
+<p>Bessie talked about the blue-silk doll all the way home and dreamed of
+her every night. "I'm going to call her Roselle Geraldine," she said.
+After that she went up to see Roselle Geraldine every day, gazing at
+her for long moments in silent rapture. Tommy almost grew jealous of
+her; he thought Bessie liked the doll better than she did him.</p>
+
+<p>"But it don't matter a bit if she does," he thought loyally, crushing
+down the jealousy. "If she likes to like it better than me, it's all
+right."</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes, though, Tommy felt uneasy. It was plain to be seen that
+Bessie had set her heart on that doll. And what would she do when the
+doll was sold, as would probably happen soon? Tommy thought Bessie
+would feel awful sad, and he would be responsible for it.</p>
+
+<p>What Tommy feared came to pass. One afternoon, when they went up to
+Mr. Blacklock's store, the doll was not in the window.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," cried Bessie, bursting into tears, "she's gone&mdash;Roselle
+Geraldine is gone."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps she isn't sold," said Tommy comfortingly. "Maybe they only
+took her out of the window 'cause the blue silk would fade. I'll go in
+and ask."</p>
+
+<p>A minute later Tommy came out looking sober.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, she's sold, Bessie," he said. "Mr. Blacklock sold her to a lady
+yesterday. Don't cry, Bessie&mdash;maybe they'll put another in the window
+'fore long."</p>
+
+<p>"It won't be mine," sobbed Bessie. "It won't be Roselle Geraldine. It
+won't have a blue silk hat and such cunning brown eyes."</p>
+
+<p>Bessie cried quietly all the way home, and Tommy could not comfort
+her. He wished he had never shown her the doll in the window.</p>
+
+<p>From that day Bessie drooped, and Tommy watched her in agony. She grew
+paler and thinner. She was too tired to go out walking, and too tired
+to do the little household tasks she had delighted in. She never spoke
+about Roselle Geraldine, but Tommy knew she was fretting about her.
+Mrs. Knox could not think what ailed the child.</p>
+
+<p>"She don't take a bit of interest in nothing," she complained to Mrs.
+Puffer. "She don't eat enough for a bird. The doctor, he says there
+ain't nothing the matter with her as he can find out, but she's just
+pining away."</p>
+
+<p>Tommy heard this, and a queer, big lump came up in his throat. He had
+a horrible fear that he, Tommy Puffer, was going to cry. To prevent it
+he began to whistle loudly. But the whistle was a failure, very unlike
+the real Tommy-whistle. Bessie was sick&mdash;and it was all his fault,
+Tommy believed. If he had never taken her to see that hateful,
+blue-silk doll, she would never have got so fond of it as to be
+breaking her heart because it was sold.</p>
+
+<p>"If I was only rich," said Tommy miserably, "I'd buy her a cartload of
+dolls, all dressed in blue silk and all with brown eyes. But I can't
+do nothing."</p>
+
+<p>By this time Tommy had reached the paling in front of Miss Octavia's
+lawn, and from force of habit he stopped to look over it. But there
+was not much to see this time, only the little green rows and circles
+in the brown, well-weeded beds, and the long curves of dahlia plants,
+which Miss Octavia had set out a few days before. All the geraniums
+were carried in, and the blinds were down. Tommy knew Miss Octavia was
+away. He had seen her depart on the train that morning, and heard her
+tell a friend that she was going down to Chelton to visit her
+brother's folks and wouldn't be back until the next day.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy was still leaning moodily against the paling when Mrs. Jenkins
+and Mrs. Reid came by, and they too paused to look at the garden.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me, how cold it is!" shivered Mrs. Reid. "There's going to be a
+hard frost tonight. Octavia's flowers will be nipped as sure as
+anything. It's a wonder she'd stay away from them overnight when her
+heart's so set on them."</p>
+
+<p>"Her brother's wife is sick," said Mrs. Jenkins. "We haven't had any
+frost this spring, and I suppose Octavia never thought of such a
+thing. She'll feel awful bad if her flowers get frosted, especially
+them dahlias. Octavia sets such store by her dahlias."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Jenkins and Mrs. Reid moved away, leaving Tommy by the paling. It
+was cold&mdash;there was going to be a hard frost&mdash;and Miss Octavia's
+plants and flowers would certainly be spoiled. Tommy thought he ought
+to be glad, but he wasn't. He was sorry&mdash;not for Miss Octavia, but for
+her flowers. Tommy had a queer, passionate love for flowers in his
+twisted little soul. It was a shame that they should be nipped&mdash;that
+all the glory of crimson and purple and gold hidden away in those
+little green rows and circles should never have a chance to blossom
+out royally. Tommy could never have put this thought into words, but
+it was there in his heart. He wished he could save the flowers. And
+couldn't he? Newspapers spread over the beds and tied around the
+dahlias would save them, Tommy knew. He had seen Miss Octavia doing it
+other springs. And he knew there was a big box of newspapers in a
+little shed in her backyard. Ned Williams had told him there was, and
+that the shed was never locked.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy hurried home as quickly as he could and got a ball of twine out
+of his few treasures. Then he went back to Miss Octavia's garden.</p>
+
+<p>The next forenoon Miss Octavia got off the train at the Arundel
+station with a very grim face. There had been an unusually severe
+frost for the time of year. All along the road Miss Octavia had seen
+gardens frosted and spoiled. She knew what she should see when she got
+to her own&mdash;the dahlia stalks drooping and black and limp, the
+nasturtiums and balsams and poppies and pansies all withered and
+ruined.</p>
+
+<p>But she didn't. Instead she saw every dahlia carefully tied up in a
+newspaper, and over all the beds newspapers spread out and held neatly
+in place with pebbles. Miss Octavia flew into her garden with a
+radiant face. Everything was safe&mdash;nothing was spoiled.</p>
+
+<p>But who could have done it? Miss Octavia was puzzled. On one side of
+her lived Mrs. Kennedy, who had just moved in and, being a total
+stranger, would not be likely to think of Miss Octavia's flowers. On
+the other lived Miss Matheson, who was a "shut-in" and spent all her
+time on the sofa. But to Miss Matheson Miss Octavia went.</p>
+
+<p>"Rachel, do you know who covered my plants up last night?"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Matheson nodded. "Yes, it was Tommy Puffer. I saw him working
+away there with papers and twine. I thought you'd told him to do it."</p>
+
+<p>"For the land's sake!" ejaculated Miss Octavia. "Tommy Puffer! Well,
+wonders will never cease."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Octavia went back to her house feeling rather ashamed of herself
+when she remembered how she had always treated Tommy Puffer.</p>
+
+<p>"But there must be some good in the child, or he wouldn't have done
+this," she said to herself. "I've been real mean, but I'll make it up
+to him."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Octavia did not see Tommy that day, but when he passed the next
+morning she ran to the door and called him.</p>
+
+<p>"Tommy, Tommy Puffer, come in here!"</p>
+
+<p>Tommy came reluctantly. He didn't like Miss Octavia any better than he
+had, and he didn't know what she wanted of him. But Miss Octavia soon
+informed him without loss of words.</p>
+
+<p>"Tommy, Miss Matheson tells me that it was you who saved my flowers
+from the frost the other night. I'm very much obliged to you indeed.
+Whatever made you think of doing it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hated to see the flowers spoiled," muttered Tommy, who was feeling
+more uncomfortable than he had ever felt in his life.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it was real thoughtful of you. I'm sorry I've been so hard on
+you, Tommy, and I believe now you didn't break my scarlet geranium. Is
+there anything I can do for you&mdash;anything you'd like to have? If it's
+in reason I'll get it for you, just to pay my debt."</p>
+
+<p>Tommy stared at Miss Octavia with a sudden hopeful inspiration. "Oh,
+Miss Octavia," he cried eagerly, "will you buy a doll and give it to
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, for the land's sake!" ejaculated Miss Octavia, unable to
+believe her ears. "A doll! What on earth do you want of a doll?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's for Bessie," said Tommy eagerly. "You see, it's this way."</p>
+
+<p>Then Tommy told Miss Octavia the whole story. Miss Octavia listened
+silently, sometimes nodding her head. When he had finished she went
+out of the room and soon returned, bringing with her the very
+identical doll that had been in Mr. Blacklock's window.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess this is the doll," she said. "I bought it to give to a small
+niece of mine, but I can get another for her. You may take this to
+Bessie."</p>
+
+<p>It would be of no use to try to describe Bessie's joy when Tommy
+rushed in and put Roselle Geraldine in her arms with a breathless
+account of the wonderful story. But from that moment Bessie began to
+pick up again, and soon she was better than she had ever been and the
+happiest little lassie in Arundel.</p>
+
+<p>When a week had passed, Miss Octavia again called Tommy in; Tommy
+went more willingly this time. He had begun to like Miss Octavia.</p>
+
+<p>That lady looked him over sharply and somewhat dubiously. He was
+certainly very ragged and unkempt. But Miss Octavia saw what she had
+never noticed before&mdash;that Tommy's eyes were bright and frank, that
+Tommy's chin was a good chin, and that Tommy's smile had something
+very pleasant about it.</p>
+
+<p>"You're fond of flowers, aren't you, Tommy?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"You bet," was Tommy's inelegant but heartfelt answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Miss Octavia slowly, "I have a brother down at Chelton
+who is a florist. He wants a boy of your age to do handy jobs and run
+errands about his establishment, and he wants one who is fond of
+flowers and would like to learn the business. He asked me to recommend
+him one, and I promised to look out for a suitable boy. Would you like
+the place, Tommy? And will you promise to be a very good boy and learn
+to be respectable if I ask my brother to give you a trial and a chance
+to make something of yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Miss Octavia!" gasped Tommy. He wondered if he were simply having
+a beautiful dream.</p>
+
+<p>But it was no dream. And it was all arranged later on. No one rejoiced
+more heartily in Tommy's success than Bessie.</p>
+
+<p>"But I'll miss you dreadfully, Tommy," she said wistfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'll be home every Saturday night, and we'll have Sunday
+together, except when I've got to go to Sunday school. 'Cause Miss
+Octavia says I must," said Tommy comfortingly. "And the rest of the
+time you'll have Roselle Geraldine."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know," said Bessie, giving the blue-silk doll a fond kiss,
+"and she's just lovely. But she ain't as nice as you, Tommy, for all."</p>
+
+<p>Then was Tommy's cup of happiness full.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="Charlottes_Ladies" id="Charlottes_Ladies"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<h2>Charlotte's Ladies<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">[ToC]</a></span></h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>Just as soon as dinner was over at the asylum, Charlotte sped away to
+the gap in the fence&mdash;the northwest corner gap. There was a gap in the
+southeast corner, too&mdash;the asylum fence was in a rather poor
+condition&mdash;but the southeast gap was interesting only after tea, and
+it was never at any time quite as interesting as the northwest gap.</p>
+
+<p>Charlotte ran as fast as her legs could carry her, for she did not
+want any of the other orphans to see her. As a rule, Charlotte liked
+the company of the other orphans and was a favourite with them. But,
+somehow, she did not want them to know about the gaps. She was sure
+they would not understand.</p>
+
+<p>Charlotte had discovered the gaps only a week before. They had not
+been there in the autumn, but the snowdrifts had lain heavily against
+the fence all winter, and one spring day when Charlotte was creeping
+through the shrubbery in the northwest corner in search of the little
+yellow daffodils that always grew there in spring, she found a
+delightful space where a board had fallen off, whence she could look
+out on a bit of woodsy road with a little footpath winding along by
+the fence under the widespreading boughs of the asylum trees.
+Charlotte felt a wild impulse to slip out and run fast and far down
+that lovely, sunny, tempting, fenceless road. But that would have been
+wrong, for it was against the asylum rules, and Charlotte, though she
+hated most of the asylum rules with all her heart, never disobeyed or
+broke them. So she subdued the vagrant longing with a sigh and sat
+down among the daffodils to peer wistfully out of the gap and feast
+her eyes on this glimpse of a world where there were no brick walls
+and prim walks and never-varying rules.</p>
+
+<p>Then, as Charlotte watched, the Pretty Lady with the Blue Eyes came
+along the footpath. Charlotte had never seen her before and hadn't the
+slightest idea in the world who she was, but that was what she called
+her as soon as she saw her. The lady was so pretty, with lovely blue
+eyes that were very sad, although somehow as you looked at them you
+felt that they ought to be laughing, merry eyes instead. At least
+Charlotte thought so and wished at once that she knew how to make them
+laugh. Besides, the Lady had lovely golden hair and the most beautiful
+pink cheeks, and Charlotte, who had mouse-coloured hair and any number
+of freckles, had an unbounded admiration for golden locks and roseleaf
+complexions. The Lady was dressed in black, which Charlotte didn't
+like, principally because the matron of the asylum wore black and
+Charlotte didn't&mdash;exactly&mdash;like the matron.</p>
+
+<p>When the Pretty Lady with the Blue Eyes had gone by, Charlotte drew a
+long breath.</p>
+
+<p>"If I could pick out a mother I'd pick out one that looked just like
+her," she said.</p>
+
+<p>Nice things sometimes happen close together, even in an orphan asylum,
+and that very evening Charlotte discovered the southeast gap and found
+herself peering into the most beautiful garden you could imagine, a
+garden where daffodils and tulips grew in great ribbon-like beds, and
+there were hedges of white and purple lilacs, and winding paths under
+blossoming trees. It was such a garden as Charlotte had pictured in
+happy dreams and never expected to see in real life. And yet here it
+had been all the time, divided from her only by a high board fence.</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't have s'posed there could be such a lovely place so near an
+orphan asylum," mused Charlotte. "It's the very loveliest place I ever
+saw. Oh, I do wish I could go and walk in it. Well, I do declare! If
+there isn't a lady in it, too!"</p>
+
+<p>Sure enough, there was a lady, helping an unruly young vine to run in
+the way it should go over a little arbour. Charlotte instantly named
+her the Tall Lady with the Black Eyes. She was not nearly so young or
+so pretty as the Lady with the Blue Eyes, but she looked very kind and
+jolly.</p>
+
+<p>I'd like her for an aunt, reflected Charlotte. Not for a mother&mdash;oh,
+no, not for a mother, but for an aunt. I know she'd make a splendid
+aunt. And, oh, just look at her cat!</p>
+
+<p>Charlotte looked at the cat with all her might and main. She loved
+cats, but cats were not allowed in an orphan asylum, although
+Charlotte sometimes wondered if there were no orphan kittens in the
+world which would be appropriate for such an institution.</p>
+
+<p>The Tall Lady's cat was so big and furry, with a splendid tail and
+elegant stripes. A Very Handsome Cat, Charlotte called him mentally,
+seeing the capitals as plainly as if they had been printed out.
+Charlotte's fingers tingled to stroke his glossy coat, but she folded
+them sternly together.</p>
+
+<p>"You know you can't," she said to herself reproachfully, "so what is
+the use of wanting to, Charlotte Turner? You ought to be thankful just
+to see the garden and the Very Handsome Cat."</p>
+
+<p>Charlotte watched the Tall Lady and the Cat until they went away into
+a fine, big house further up the garden, then she sighed and went back
+through the cherry trees to the asylum playground, where the other
+orphans were playing games. But, somehow, games had lost their flavour
+compared with those fascinating gaps.</p>
+
+<p>It did not take Charlotte long to discover that the Pretty Lady always
+walked past the northwest gap about one o'clock every day and never at
+any other time&mdash;at least at no other time when Charlotte was free to
+watch her; and that the Tall Lady was almost always in her garden at
+five in the afternoon, accompanied by the Very Handsome Cat, pruning
+and trimming some of her flowers. Charlotte never missed being at the
+gaps at the proper times, if she could possibly manage it, and her
+heart was full of dreams about her two Ladies. But the other orphans
+thought all the fun had gone out of her, and the matron noticed her
+absent-mindedness and dosed her with sulphur and molasses for it.
+Charlotte took the dose meekly, as she took everything else. It was
+all part and parcel with being an orphan in an asylum.</p>
+
+<p>"But if the Pretty Lady with the Blue Eyes was my mother, she wouldn't
+make me swallow such dreadful stuff," sighed Charlotte. "I don't
+believe even the Tall Lady with the Black Eyes would&mdash;though perhaps
+she might, aunts not being quite as good as mothers."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know," said Maggie Brunt, coming up to Charlotte at this
+moment, "that Lizzie Parker is going to be adopted? A lady is going to
+adopt her."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" cried Charlotte breathlessly. An adoption was always a wonderful
+event in the asylum, as well as a somewhat rare one. "Oh, how
+splendid!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, isn't it?" said Maggie enviously. "She picked out Lizzie because
+she was pretty and had curls. I don't think it is fair."</p>
+
+<p>Charlotte sighed. "Nobody will ever want to adopt me, because I've
+mousy hair and freckles," she said. "But somebody may want you some
+day, Maggie. You have such lovely black hair."</p>
+
+<p>"But it isn't curly," said Maggie forlornly. "And the matron won't let
+me put it up in curl papers at night. I just wish I was Lizzie."</p>
+
+<p>Charlotte shook her head. "I don't. I'd love to be adopted, but I
+wouldn't really like to be anybody but myself, even if I am homely.
+It's better to be yourself with mousy hair and freckles than somebody
+else who is ever so beautiful. But I do envy Lizzie, though the
+matron says it is wicked to envy anyone."</p>
+
+<p>Envy of the fortunate Lizzie did not long possess Charlotte's mind,
+however, for that very day a wonderful thing happened at noon hour by
+the northwest gap. Charlotte had always been very careful not to let
+the Pretty Lady see her, but today, after the Pretty Lady had gone
+past, Charlotte leaned out of the gap to watch her as far as she
+could. And just at that very moment the Pretty Lady looked back; and
+there, peering at her from the asylum fence, was a little scrap of a
+girl, with mouse-coloured hair and big freckles, and the sweetest,
+brightest, most winsome little face the Pretty Lady had ever seen. The
+Pretty Lady smiled right down at Charlotte and for just a moment her
+eyes looked as Charlotte had always known they ought to look.
+Charlotte was feeling rather frightened down in her heart but she
+smiled bravely back.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you thinking of running away?" said the Pretty Lady, and, oh,
+what a sweet voice she had&mdash;sweet and tender, just like a mother's
+voice ought to be!</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Charlotte, shaking her head gravely. "I should like to run
+away but it would be of no use, because there is no place to run to."</p>
+
+<p>"Why would you like to run away?" asked the Pretty Lady, still
+smiling. "Don't you like living here?"</p>
+
+<p>Charlotte opened her big eyes very widely. "Why, it's an orphan
+asylum!" she exclaimed. "Nobody could like living in an orphan asylum.
+But, of course, orphans should be very thankful to have any place to
+live in and I <i>am</i> thankful. I'd be thankfuller still if the matron
+wouldn't make me take sulphur and molasses. If you had a little girl,
+would you make her take sulphur and molasses?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't when I had a little girl," said the Pretty Lady wistfully,
+and her eyes were sad again.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, did you really have a little girl once?" asked Charlotte softly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and she died," said the Pretty Lady in a trembling voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I am sorry," said Charlotte, more softly still. "Did she&mdash;did she
+have lovely golden hair and pink cheeks like yours?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," the Pretty Lady smiled again, though it was a very sad smile.
+"No, she had mouse-coloured hair and freckles."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! And weren't you sorry?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I was glad of it, because it made her look like her father. I've
+always loved little girls with mouse-coloured hair and freckles ever
+since. Well, I must hurry along. I'm late now, and schools have a
+dreadful habit of going in sharp on time. If you should happen to be
+here tomorrow, I'm going to stop and ask your name."</p>
+
+<p>Of course Charlotte was at the gap the next day and they had a lovely
+talk. In a week they were the best of friends. Charlotte soon found
+out that she could make the Pretty Lady's eyes look as they ought to
+for a little while at least, and she spent all her spare time and lay
+awake at nights devising speeches to make the Pretty Lady laugh.</p>
+
+<p>Then another wonderful thing happened. One evening when Charlotte went
+to the southeast gap, the Tall Lady with the Black Eyes was not in the
+garden&mdash;at least, Charlotte thought she wasn't. But the Very Handsome
+Cat was, sitting gravely under a syringa bush and looking quite proud
+of himself for being a cat.</p>
+
+<p>"You Very Handsome Cat," said Charlotte, "won't you come here and let
+me stroke you?"</p>
+
+<p>The Very Handsome Cat did come, just as if he understood English, and
+he purred with delight when Charlotte took him in her arms and buried
+her face in his fur. Then&mdash;Charlotte thought she would really sink
+into the ground, for the Tall Lady herself came around a lilac bush
+and stood before the gap.</p>
+
+<p>"Please, ma'am," stammered Charlotte in an agony of embarrassment, "I
+wasn't meaning to do any harm to your Very Handsome Cat. I just wanted
+to pat him. I&mdash;I am very fond of cats and they are not allowed in
+orphan asylums."</p>
+
+<p>"I've always thought asylums weren't run on proper principles," said
+the Tall Lady briskly. "Bless your heart, child, don't look so scared.
+You're welcome to pat the cat all you like. Come in and I'll give you
+some flowers."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, but I am not allowed to go off the grounds," said
+Charlotte firmly, "and I think I'd rather not have any flowers because
+the matron might want to know where I got them, and then she would
+have this gap closed up. I live in mortal dread for fear it will be
+closed anyhow. It's very uncomfortable&mdash;living in mortal dread."</p>
+
+<p>The Tall Lady laughed a very jolly laugh. "Yes, I should think it
+would be," she agreed. "I haven't had that experience."</p>
+
+<p>Then they had a jolly talk, and every evening after that Charlotte
+went to the gap and stroked the Very Handsome Cat and chatted to the
+Tall Lady.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you live all alone in that big house?" she asked wonderingly one
+day.</p>
+
+<p>"All alone," said the Tall Lady.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you always live alone?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. I had a sister living with me once. But I don't want to talk
+about her. You'll oblige me, Charlotte, by <i>not</i> talking about her."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't then," agreed Charlotte. "I can understand why people don't
+like to have their sisters talked about sometimes. Lily Mitchell has a
+big sister who was sent to jail for stealing. Of course Lily doesn't
+like to talk about her."</p>
+
+<p>The Tall Lady laughed a little bitterly. "My sister didn't steal. She
+married a man I detested, that's all."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he drink?" asked Charlotte gravely. "The matron's husband drank
+and that was why she left him and took to running an orphan asylum. I
+think I'd rather put up with a drunken husband than live in an orphan
+asylum."</p>
+
+<p>"My sister's husband didn't drink," said the Tall Lady grimly. "He was
+beneath her, that was all. I told her I'd never forgive her and I
+never shall. He's dead now&mdash;he died a year after she married him&mdash;and
+she's working for her living. I dare say she doesn't find it very
+pleasant. She wasn't brought up to that. Here, Charlotte, is a
+turnover for you. I made it on purpose for you. Eat it and tell me if
+you don't think I'm a good cook. I'm dying for a compliment. I never
+get any now that I've got old. It's a dismal thing to get old and have
+nobody to love you except a cat, Charlotte."</p>
+
+<p>"I think it is just as bad to be young and have nobody to love you,
+not <i>even</i> a cat," sighed Charlotte, enjoying the turnover,
+nevertheless.</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say it is," agreed the Tall Lady, looking as if she had been
+struck by a new and rather startling idea.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>I like the tall lady with the Black Eyes ever so much, thought
+Charlotte that night as she lay in bed, but I love the Pretty Lady. I
+have more fun with the Tall Lady and the Very Handsome Cat, but I
+always feel nicer with the Pretty Lady. Oh, I'm so glad her little
+girl had mouse-coloured hair.</p>
+
+<p>Then the most wonderful thing of all happened. One day a week later
+the Pretty Lady said, "Would you like to come and live with me,
+Charlotte?"</p>
+
+<p>Charlotte looked at her. "Are you in earnest?" she asked in a whisper.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed I am. I want you for my little girl, and if you'd like to
+come, you shall. I'm poor, Charlotte, really, I'm dreadfully poor, but
+I can make my salary stretch far enough for two, and we'll love each
+other enough to cover the thin spots. Will you come?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I should just think I will!" said Charlotte emphatically. "Oh,
+I wish I was sure I'm not dreaming. I do love you so much, and it will
+be so delightful to be your little girl."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, sweetheart. I'll come tomorrow afternoon&mdash;it is Saturday,
+so I'll have the whole blessed day off&mdash;and see the matron about it.
+Oh, we'll have lovely times together, dearest. I only wish I'd
+discovered you long ago."</p>
+
+<p>Charlotte may have eaten and studied and played and kept rules the
+rest of that day and part of the next, but, if so, she has no
+recollection of it. She went about like a girl in a dream, and the
+matron concluded that something more than sulphur and molasses was
+needed and decided to speak to the doctor about her. But she never
+did, because a lady came that afternoon and told her she wanted to
+adopt Charlotte.</p>
+
+<p>Charlotte obeyed the summons to the matron's room in a tingle of
+excitement. But when she went in, she saw only the matron and the Tall
+Lady with the Black Eyes. Before Charlotte could look around for the
+Pretty Lady the matron said, "Charlotte, this lady, Miss Herbert,
+wishes to adopt you. It is a splendid thing for you, and you ought to
+be a very thankful little girl."</p>
+
+<p>Charlotte's head fairly whirled. She clasped her hands and the tears
+brimmed up in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I like the Tall Lady," she gasped, "but I <i>love</i> the Pretty Lady
+and I promised her I'd be her little girl. I can't break my promise."</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth is the child talking about?" said the mystified matron.</p>
+
+<p>And just then the maid showed in the Pretty Lady. Charlotte flew to
+her and flung her arms about her.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, tell them I am your little girl!" she begged. "Tell them I
+promised you first. I don't want to hurt the Tall Lady's feelings
+because I truly do like her so very much. But I want to be your little
+girl."</p>
+
+<p>The Pretty Lady had given one glance at the Tall Lady and flushed red.
+The Tall Lady, on the contrary, had grown very pale. The matron felt
+uncomfortable. Everybody knew that Miss Herbert and Mrs. Bond hadn't
+spoken to each other for years, even if they were sisters and alone in
+the world except for each other.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Bond turned to the matron. "I have come to ask permission to
+adopt this little girl," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm very sorry," stammered the matron, "but Miss Herbert has just
+asked for her, and I have consented."</p>
+
+<p>Charlotte gave a great gulp of disappointment, but the Pretty Lady
+suddenly wheeled around to face the Tall Lady, with quivering lips and
+tearful eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't take her from me, Alma," she pleaded humbly. "She&mdash;she is so
+like my own baby and I'm so lonely. Any other child will suit you as
+well."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," said the Tall Lady brusquely. "Not at all, Anna. No
+other child will suit me at all. And may I ask what you intend to keep
+her on? I know your salary is barely enough for yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"That is my concern," said the Pretty Lady a little proudly.</p>
+
+<p>"Humph!" The Tall Lady shrugged her shoulders. "Just as independent as
+ever, Anna, I see. Well, child, what do <i>you</i> say? Which of us will
+you come with? Remember, I have the cat on my side, and Anna can't
+make half as good turnovers as I can. Remember all this, Charlotte."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I&mdash;I like you so much," stammered Charlotte, "and I wish I could
+live with you both. But since I can't, I must go with the Pretty Lady,
+because I promised, and because I loved her first."</p>
+
+<p>"And best?" queried the Tall Lady.</p>
+
+<p>"And best," admitted Charlotte, bound to be truthful, even at the risk
+of hurting the Tall Lady's feelings. "But I <i>do</i> like you, too&mdash;next
+best. And you really don't need me as much as she does, for you have
+your Very Handsome Cat and she hasn't anything."</p>
+
+<p>"A cat no longer satisfies the aching void in my soul," said the Tall
+Lady stubbornly. "Nothing will satisfy it but a little girl with
+mouse-coloured hair and freckles. No, Anna, I've got to have
+Charlotte. But I think that with her usual astuteness, she has already
+solved the problem for us by saying she'd like to live with us both.
+Why can't she? You just come back home and we'll let bygones be
+bygones. We both have something to forgive, but I was an obstinate old
+fool and I've known it for years, though I never confessed it to
+anybody but the cat."</p>
+
+<p>The Pretty Lady softened, trembled, smiled. She went right up to the
+Tall Lady and put her arms about her neck.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I've wanted so much to be friends with you again," she sobbed.
+"But I thought you would never relent&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;I've been so
+lonely&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There, there," whispered the Tall Lady, "don't cry under the matron's
+eye. Wait till we get home. I may have some crying to do myself then.
+Charlotte, go and get your hat and come right over with us. We can
+sign the necessary papers later on, but we must have you right off.
+The cat is waiting for you on the back porch, and there is a turnover
+cooling on the pantry window that is just your size."</p>
+
+<p>"I am so happy," remarked Charlotte, "that I feel like crying
+myself."</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="Christmas_at_Red_Butte" id="Christmas_at_Red_Butte"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<h2>Christmas at Red Butte<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">[ToC]</a></span></h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>"Of course Santa Claus will come," said Jimmy Martin confidently.
+Jimmy was ten, and at ten it is easy to be confident. "Why, he's <i>got</i>
+to come because it is Christmas Eve, and he always <i>has</i> come. You
+know that, twins."</p>
+
+<p>Yes, the twins knew it and, cheered by Jimmy's superior wisdom, their
+doubts passed away. There had been one terrible moment when Theodora
+had sighed and told them they mustn't be too much disappointed if
+Santa Claus did not come this year because the crops had been poor,
+and he mightn't have had enough presents to go around.</p>
+
+<p>"That doesn't make any difference to Santa Claus," scoffed Jimmy. "You
+know as well as I do, Theodora Prentice, that Santa Claus is rich
+whether the crops fail or not. They failed three years ago, before
+Father died, but Santa Claus came all the same. Prob'bly you don't
+remember it, twins, 'cause you were too little, but I do. Of course
+he'll come, so don't you worry a mite. And he'll bring my skates and
+your dolls. He knows we're expecting them, Theodora, 'cause we wrote
+him a letter last week, and threw it up the chimney. And there'll be
+candy and nuts, of course, and Mother's gone to town to buy a turkey.
+I tell you we're going to have a ripping Christmas."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, don't use such slangy words about it, Jimmy-boy," sighed
+Theodora. She couldn't bear to dampen their hopes any further, and
+perhaps Aunt Elizabeth might manage it if the colt sold well. But
+Theodora had her painful doubts, and she sighed again as she looked
+out of the window far down the trail that wound across the prairie,
+red-lighted by the declining sun of the short wintry afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>"Do people always sigh like that when they get to be sixteen?" asked
+Jimmy curiously. "You didn't sigh like that when you were only
+fifteen, Theodora. I wish you wouldn't. It makes me feel funny&mdash;and
+it's not a nice kind of funniness either."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a bad habit I've got into lately," said Theodora, trying to
+laugh. "Old folks are dull sometimes, you know, Jimmy-boy."</p>
+
+<p>"Sixteen <i>is</i> awful old, isn't it?" said Jimmy reflectively. "I'll
+tell you what <i>I'm</i> going to do when I'm sixteen, Theodora. I'm going
+to pay off the mortgage, and buy mother a silk dress, and a piano for
+the twins. Won't that be elegant? I'll be able to do that 'cause I'm a
+man. Of course if I was only a girl I couldn't."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you'll be a good kind brave man and a real help to your
+mother," said Theodora softly, sitting down before the cosy fire and
+lifting the fat little twins into her lap.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'll be good to her, never you fear," assured Jimmy, squatting
+comfortably down on the little fur rug before the stove&mdash;the skin of
+the coyote his father had killed four years ago. "I believe in being
+good to your mother when you've only got the one. Now tell us a story,
+Theodora&mdash;a real jolly story, you know, with lots of fighting in it.
+Only please don't kill anybody. I like to hear about fighting, but I
+like to have all the people come out alive."</p>
+
+<p>Theodora laughed, and began a story about the Riel Rebellion of '85&mdash;a
+story which had the double merit of being true and exciting at the
+same time. It was quite dark when she finished, and the twins were
+nodding, but Jimmy's eyes were wide open and sparkling.</p>
+
+<p>"That was great," he said, drawing a long breath. "Tell us another."</p>
+
+<p>"No, it's bedtime for you all," said Theodora firmly. "One story at a
+time is my rule, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"But I want to sit up till Mother comes home," objected Jimmy.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't. She may be very late, for she would have to wait to see
+Mr. Porter. Besides, you don't know what time Santa Claus might
+come&mdash;if he comes at all. If he were to drive along and see you
+children up instead of being sound asleep in bed, he might go right on
+and never call at all."</p>
+
+<p>This argument was too much for Jimmy.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, we'll go. But we have to hang up our stockings first.
+Twins, get yours."</p>
+
+<p>The twins toddled off in great excitement, and brought back their
+Sunday stockings, which Jimmy proceeded to hang along the edge of the
+mantel shelf. This done, they all trooped obediently off to bed.
+Theodora gave another sigh, and seated herself at the window, where
+she could watch the moonlit prairie for Mrs. Martin's homecoming and
+knit at the same time.</p>
+
+<p>I am afraid that you will think from all the sighing Theodora was
+doing that she was a very melancholy and despondent young lady. You
+couldn't think anything more unlike the real Theodora. She was the
+jolliest, bravest girl of sixteen in all Saskatchewan, as her shining
+brown eyes and rosy, dimpled cheeks would have told you; and her sighs
+were not on her own account, but simply for fear the children were
+going to be disappointed. She knew that they would be almost
+heartbroken if Santa Claus did not come, and that this would hurt the
+patient hardworking little mother more than all else.</p>
+
+<p>Five years before this, Theodora had come to live with Uncle George
+and Aunt Elizabeth in the little log house at Red Butte. Her own
+mother had just died, and Theodora had only her big brother Donald
+left, and Donald had Klondike fever. The Martins were poor, but they
+had gladly made room for their little niece, and Theodora had lived
+there ever since, her aunt's right-hand girl and the beloved playmate
+of the children. They had been very happy until Uncle George's death
+two years before this Christmas Eve; but since then there had been
+hard times in the little log house, and though Mrs. Martin and
+Theodora did their best, it was a woefully hard task to make both ends
+meet, especially this year when their crops had been poor. Theodora
+and her aunt had made every sacrifice possible for the children's
+sake, and at least Jimmy and the twins had not felt the pinch very
+severely yet.</p>
+
+<p>At seven Mrs. Martins bells jingled at the door and Theodora flew out.
+"Go right in and get warm, Auntie," she said briskly. "I'll take Ned
+away and unharness him."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a bitterly cold night," said Mrs. Martin wearily. There was a
+note of discouragement in her voice that struck dismay to Theodora's
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid it means no Christmas for the children tomorrow," she
+thought sadly, as she led Ned away to the stable. When she returned to
+the kitchen Mrs. Martin was sitting by the fire, her face in her
+chilled hand, sobbing convulsively.</p>
+
+<p>"Auntie&mdash;oh, Auntie, don't!" exclaimed Theodora impulsively. It was
+such a rare thing to see her plucky, resolute little aunt in tears.
+"You're cold and tired&mdash;I'll have a nice cup of tea for you in a
+trice."</p>
+
+<p>"No, it isn't that," said Mrs. Martin brokenly "It was seeing those
+stockings hanging there. Theodora, I couldn't get a thing for the
+children&mdash;not a single thing. Mr. Porter would only give forty dollars
+for the colt, and when all the bills were paid there was barely enough
+left for such necessaries as we must have. I suppose I ought to feel
+thankful I could get those. But the thought of the children's
+disappointment tomorrow is more than I can bear. It would have been
+better to have told them long ago, but I kept building on getting more
+for the colt. Well, it's weak and foolish to give way like this. We'd
+better both take a cup of tea and go to bed. It will save fuel."</p>
+
+<p>When Theodora went up to her little room her face was very thoughtful.
+She took a small box from her table and carried it to the window. In
+it was a very pretty little gold locket hung on a narrow blue ribbon.
+Theodora held it tenderly in her fingers, and looked out over the
+moonlit prairie with a very sober face. Could she give up her dear
+locket&mdash;the locket Donald had given her just before he started for the
+Klondike? She had never thought she could do such a thing. It was
+almost the only thing she had to remind her of Donald&mdash;handsome,
+merry, impulsive, warmhearted Donald, who had gone away four years ago
+with a smile on his bonny face and splendid hope in his heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's a locket for you, Gift o' God," he had said gaily&mdash;he had such
+a dear loving habit of calling her by the beautiful meaning of her
+name. A lump came into Theodora's throat as she remembered it. "I
+couldn't afford a chain too, but when I come back I'll bring you a
+rope of Klondike nuggets for it."</p>
+
+<p>Then he had gone away. For two years letters had come from him
+regularly. Then he wrote that he had joined a prospecting party to a
+remote wilderness. After that was silence, deepening into anguish of
+suspense that finally ended in hopelessness. A rumour came that Donald
+Prentice was dead. None had returned from the expedition he had
+joined. Theodora had long ago given up all hope of ever seeing Donald
+again. Hence her locket was doubly dear to her.</p>
+
+<p>But Aunt Elizabeth had always been so good and loving and kind to her.
+Could she not make the sacrifice for her sake? Yes, she could and
+would. Theodora flung up her head with a gesture that meant decision.
+She took out of the locket the bits of hair&mdash;her mother's and
+Donald's&mdash;which it contained (perhaps a tear or two fell as she did
+so) and then hastily donned her warmest cap and wraps. It was only
+three miles to Spencer; she could easily walk it in an hour and, as it
+was Christmas Eve, the shops would be open late. She muse walk, for
+Ned could not be taken out again, and the mare's foot was sore.
+Besides, Aunt Elizabeth must not know until it was done.</p>
+
+<p>As stealthily as if she were bound on some nefarious errand, Theodora
+slipped downstairs and out of the house. The next minute she was
+hurrying along the trail in the moonlight. The great dazzling prairie
+was around her, the mystery and splendour of the northern night all
+about her. It was very calm and cold, but Theodora walked so briskly
+that she kept warm. The trail from Red Butte to Spencer was a lonely
+one. Mr. Lurgan's house, halfway to town, was the only dwelling on it.</p>
+
+<p>When Theodora reached Spencer she made her way at once to the only
+jewellery store the little town contained. Mr. Benson, its owner, had
+been a friend of her uncle's, and Theodora felt sure that he would
+buy her locket. Nevertheless her heart beat quickly, and her breath
+came and went uncomfortably fast as she went in. Suppose he wouldn't
+buy it. Then there would be no Christmas for the children at Red
+Butte.</p>
+
+<p>"Good evening, Miss Theodora," said Mr. Benson briskly. "What can I do
+for you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid I'm not a very welcome sort of customer, Mr. Benson," said
+Theodora, with an uncertain smile. "I want to sell, not buy. Could
+you&mdash;will you buy this locket?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Benson pursed up his lips, took up the locket, and examined it.
+"Well, I don't often buy second-hand stuff," he said, after some
+reflection, "but I don't mind obliging you, Miss Theodora. I'll give
+you four dollars for this trinket."</p>
+
+<p>Theodora knew the locket had cost a great deal more than that, but
+four dollars would get what she wanted, and she dared not ask for
+more. In a few minutes the locket was in Mr. Benson's possession, and
+Theodora, with four crisp new bills in her purse, was hurrying to the
+toy store. Half an hour later she was on her way back to Red Butte,
+with as many parcels as she could carry&mdash;Jimmy's skates, two lovely
+dolls for the twins, packages of nuts and candy, and a nice plump
+turkey. Theodora beguiled her lonely tramp by picturing the children's
+joy in the morning.</p>
+
+<p>About a quarter of a mile past Mr. Lurgan's house the trail curved
+suddenly about a bluff of poplars. As Theodora rounded the turn she
+halted in amazement. Almost at her feet the body of a man was lying
+across the road. He was clad in a big fur coat, and had a fur cap
+pulled well down over his forehead and ears. Almost all of him that
+could be seen was a full bushy beard. Theodora had no idea who he was,
+or where he had come from. But she realized that he was unconscious,
+and that he would speedily freeze to death if help were not brought.
+The footprints of a horse galloping across the prairie suggested a
+fall and a runaway, but Theodora did not waste time in speculation.
+She ran back at full speed to Mr. Lurgan's, and roused the household.
+In a few minutes Mr. Lurgan and his son had hitched a horse to a
+wood-sleigh, and hurried down the trail to the unfortunate man.</p>
+
+<p>Theodora, knowing that her assistance was not needed, and that she
+ought to get home as quickly as possible, went on her way as soon as
+she had seen the stranger in safe keeping. When she reached the little
+log house she crept in, cautiously put the children's gifts in their
+stockings, placed the turkey on the table where Aunt Elizabeth would
+see it the first thing in the morning, and then slipped off to bed, a
+very weary but very happy girl.</p>
+
+<p>The joy that reigned in the little log house the next day more than
+repaid Theodora for her sacrifice.</p>
+
+<p>"Whoopee, didn't I tell you that Santa Claus would come all right!"
+shouted the delighted Jimmy. "Oh, what splendid skates!"</p>
+
+<p>The twins hugged their dolls in silent rapture, but Aunt Elizabeth's
+face was the best of all.</p>
+
+<p>Then the dinner had to be prepared, and everybody had a hand in that.
+Just as Theodora, after a grave peep into the oven, had announced that
+the turkey was done, a sleigh dashed around the house. Theodora flew
+to answer the knock at the door, and there stood Mr. Lurgan and a big,
+bewhiskered, fur-coated fellow whom Theodora recognized as the
+stranger she had found on the trail. But&mdash;<i>was</i> he a stranger? There
+was something oddly familiar in those merry brown eyes. Theodora felt
+herself growing dizzy.</p>
+
+<p>"Donald!" she gasped. "Oh, Donald!"</p>
+
+<p>And then she was in the big fellow's arms, laughing and crying at the
+same time.</p>
+
+<p>Donald it was indeed. And then followed half an hour during which
+everybody talked at once, and the turkey would have been burned to a
+crisp had it not been for the presence of mind of Mr. Lurgan who,
+being the least excited of them all, took it out of the oven, and set
+it on the back of the stove.</p>
+
+<p>"To think that it was you last night, and that I never dreamed it,"
+exclaimed Theodora. "Oh, Donald, if I hadn't gone to town!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'd have frozen to death, I'm afraid," said Donald soberly. "I got
+into Spencer on the last train last night. I felt that I must come
+right out&mdash;I couldn't wait till morning. But there wasn't a team to be
+got for love or money&mdash;it was Christmas Eve and all the livery rigs
+were out. So I came on horseback. Just by that bluff something
+frightened my horse, and he shied violently. I was half asleep and
+thinking of my little sister, and I went off like a shot. I suppose I
+struck my head against a tree. Anyway, I knew nothing more until I
+came to in Mr. Lurgan's kitchen. I wasn't much hurt&mdash;feel none the
+worse of it except for a sore head and shoulder. But, oh, Gift o' God,
+how you have grown! I can't realize that you are the little sister I
+left four years ago. I suppose you have been thinking I was dead?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and, oh, Donald, where <i>have</i> you been?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I went way up north with a prospecting party. We had a tough
+time the first year, I can tell you, and some of us never came back.
+We weren't in a country where post offices were lying round loose
+either, you see. Then at last, just as we were about giving up in
+despair, we struck it rich. I've brought a snug little pile home with
+me, and things are going to look up in this log house, Gift o' God.
+There'll be no more worrying for you dear people over mortgages."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm so glad&mdash;for Auntie's sake," said Theodora, with shining eyes.
+"But, oh, Donald, it's best of all just to have you back. I'm so
+perfectly happy that I don't know what to do or say."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I think you might have dinner," said Jimmy in an injured tone.
+"The turkey's getting stone cold, and I'm most starving. I just can't
+stand it another minute."</p>
+
+<p>So, with a laugh, they all sat down to the table and ate the merriest
+Christmas dinner the little log house had ever known.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="How_We_Went_to_the_Wedding" id="How_We_Went_to_the_Wedding"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<h2>How We Went to the Wedding<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">[ToC]</a></span></h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>"If it were to clear up I wouldn't know how to behave, it would seem
+so unnatural," said Kate. "Do you, by any chance, remember what the
+sun looks like, Phil?"</p>
+
+<p>"Does the sun ever shine in Saskatchewan anyhow?" I asked with assumed
+sarcasm, just to make Kate's big, bonny black eyes flash.</p>
+
+<p>They did flash; but Kate laughed immediately after, as she sat down on
+a chair in front of me and cradled her long, thin, spirited dark face
+in her palms.</p>
+
+<p>"We have more sunny weather in Saskatchewan than in all the rest of
+Canada put together, in an average year," she said, clicking her
+strong, white teeth and snapping her eyes at me. "But I can't blame
+you for feeling sceptical about it, Phil. If I went to a new country
+and it rained every day&mdash;all day&mdash;all night&mdash;after I got there for
+three whole weeks I'd think things not lawful to be uttered about the
+climate too. So, little cousin, I forgive you. Remember that 'into
+each life some rain must fall, some days must be dark and dreary.' Oh,
+if you'd only come to visit me last fall. We had such a bee-yew-tiful
+September last year. We were drowned in sunshine. This fall we're
+drowned in water. Old settlers tell of a similar visitation in '72,
+though they claim even that wasn't quite as bad as this."</p>
+
+<p>I was sitting rather disconsolately by an upper window of Uncle
+Kenneth Morrison's log house at Arrow Creek. Below was what in dry
+weather&mdash;so, at least, I was told&mdash;was merely a pretty, grassy little
+valley, but which was now a considerable creek of muddy yellow water,
+rising daily. Beyond was a cheerless prospect of sodden prairie and
+dripping "bluff."</p>
+
+<p>"It would be a golden, mellow land, with purple hazes over the bluffs,
+in a normal fall," assured Kate. "Even now if the sun were just to
+shine out for a day and a good 'chinook' blow you'd see a surprising
+change. I feel like chanting continually that old rhyme I learned in
+the first primer,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Rain, rain, go away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Come again some other day:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&mdash;some other day next summer&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Phil and Katie want to play.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Philippa, dear girl, don't look so dismal. It's bound to clear up
+sometime."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish the 'sometime' would come soon, then," I said, rather
+grumpily.</p>
+
+<p>"You know it hasn't really rained for three days," protested Kate.
+"It's been damp and horrid and threatening, but it hasn't rained. I
+defy you to say that it has actually rained."</p>
+
+<p>"When it's so wet underfoot that you can't stir out without rubber
+boots it might as well be wet overhead too," I said, still grumpily.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you're homesick, girl," said Kate anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm not," I answered, laughing, and feeling ashamed of my
+ungraciousness. "Nobody could be homesick with such a jolly good
+fellow as you around, Kate. It's only that this weather is getting on
+my nerves a bit. I'm fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils. If your
+chinook doesn't come soon, Kitty, I'll do something quite desperate."</p>
+
+<p>"I feel that way myself," admitted Kate. "Real reckless, Phil. Anyhow,
+let's put on our despised rubber boots and sally out for a wade."</p>
+
+<p>"Here's Jim Nash coming on horseback down the trail," I said. "Let's
+wait and see if he's got the mail."</p>
+
+<p>We hurried down, Kate humming, "Somewhere the sun is shining," solely,
+I believe, because she knew it aggravated me. At any other time I
+should probably have thrown a pillow at her, but just now I was too
+eager to see if Jim Nash had brought any mail.</p>
+
+<p>I had come from Ontario, the first of September, to visit Uncle
+Kenneth Morrison's family. I had been looking forward to the trip for
+several years. My cousin Kate and I had always corresponded since they
+had "gone west" ten years before; and Kate, who revelled in the
+western life, had sung the praises of her adopted land rapturously and
+constantly. It was quite a joke on her that, when I did finally come
+to visit her, I should have struck the wettest autumn ever recorded in
+the history of the west. A wet September in Saskatchewan is no joke,
+however. The country was almost "flooded out." The trails soon became
+nearly impassable. All our plans for drives and picnics and
+inter-neighbour visiting&mdash;at that time a neighbour meant a man who
+lived at least six miles away&mdash;had to be given up. Yet I was not
+lonesome, and I enjoyed my visit in spite of everything. Kate was a
+host in herself. She was twenty-eight years old&mdash;eight years my
+senior&mdash;but the difference in our ages had never been any barrier to
+our friendship. She was a jolly, companionable, philosophical soul,
+with a jest for every situation, and a merry solution for every
+perplexity. The only fault I had to find with her was her tendency to
+make parodies. Kate's parodies were perfectly awful and always got on
+my nerves.</p>
+
+<p>She was dreadfully ashamed of the way the Saskatchewan weather was
+behaving after all her boasting. She was thin at the best of times,
+but now she grew positively scraggy with the worry of it. I am afraid
+I took an unholy delight in teasing her, and abused the western
+weather even more than was necessary.</p>
+
+<p>Jim Nash&mdash;the lank youth who was hired to look after the place during
+Uncle Kenneth's absence on a prolonged threshing expedition&mdash;had
+brought some mail. Kate's share was a letter, postmarked Bothwell, a
+rising little town about one hundred and twenty miles from Arrow
+Creek. Kate had several friends there, and one of our plans had been
+to visit Bothwell and spend a week with them. We had meant to drive,
+of course, since there was no other way of getting there, and equally
+of course the plan had been abandoned because of the wet weather.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother," exclaimed Kate, "Mary Taylor is going to be married in a
+fortnight's time! She wants Phil and me to go up to Bothwell for the
+wedding."</p>
+
+<p>"What a pity you can't go," remarked Aunt Jennie placidly. Aunt Jennie
+was always a placid little soul, with a most enviable knack of taking
+everything easy. Nothing ever worried her greatly, and when she had
+decided that a thing was inevitable it did not worry her at all.</p>
+
+<p>"But I am going," cried Kate. "I will go&mdash;I must go. I positively
+cannot let Mary Taylor&mdash;my own beloved Molly&mdash;go and perpetrate
+matrimony without my being on hand to see it. Yes, I'm going&mdash;and if
+Phil has a spark of the old Blair pioneer spirit in her, she'll go
+too."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I'll go if you go," I said.</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Jennie did not think we were in earnest, so she merely laughed at
+first, and said, "How do you propose to go? Fly&mdash;or swim?"</p>
+
+<p>"We'll drive, as usual," said Kate calmly. "I'd feel more at home in
+that way of locomotion. We'll borrow Jim Nash's father's democrat, and
+take the ponies. We'll put on old clothes, raincoats, rubber caps and
+boots, and we'll start tomorrow. In an ordinary time we could easily
+do it in six days or less, but this fall we'll probably need ten or
+twelve."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't really mean to go, Kate!" said Aunt Jennie, beginning to
+perceive that Kate did mean it.</p>
+
+<p>"I do," said Kate, in a convincing tone.</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Jennie felt a little worried&mdash;as much as she could feel worried
+over anything&mdash;and she tried her best to dissuade Kate, although she
+plainly did not have much hope of doing so, having had enough
+experience with her determined daughter to realize that when Kate said
+she was going to do a thing she did it. It was rather funny to listen
+to the ensuing dialogue.</p>
+
+<p>"Kate, you can't do it. It's a crazy idea! The road is one hundred and
+twenty miles long."</p>
+
+<p>"I've driven it twice, Mother."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but not in such a wet year. The trail is impassable in places."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, there are always plenty of dry spots to be found if you only look
+hard for them."</p>
+
+<p>"But you don't know where to look for them, and goodness knows what
+you'll get into while you are looking."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll call at the M.P. barracks and get an Indian to guide us.
+Indians always know the dry spots."</p>
+
+<p>"The stage driver has decided not to make another trip till the
+October frosts set in."</p>
+
+<p>"But he always has such a heavy load. It will be quite different with
+us, you must remember. We'll travel light&mdash;just our provisions and a
+valise containing our wedding garments."</p>
+
+<p>"What will you do if you get mired twenty miles from a human being?"</p>
+
+<p>"But we won't. I'm a good driver and I haven't nerves&mdash;but I have
+nerve. Besides, you forget that we'll have an Indian guide with us."</p>
+
+<p>"There was a company of Hudson Bay freighters ambushed and killed
+along that very trail by Blackfoot Indians in 1839," said Aunt Jennie
+dolefully.</p>
+
+<p>"Fifty years ago! Their ghosts must have ceased to haunt it by this
+time," said Kate flippantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you'll get wet through and catch your deaths of cold,"
+protested Aunt Jennie.</p>
+
+<p>"No fear of it. We'll be cased in rubber. And we'll borrow a good
+tight tent from the M.P.s. Besides, I'm sure it's not going to rain
+much more. I know the signs."</p>
+
+<p>"At least wait for a day or two until you're sure that it has cleared
+up," implored Aunt Jennie.</p>
+
+<p>"Which being interpreted means, 'Wait for a day or two, because then
+your father may be home and he'll squelch your mad expedition,'" said
+Kate, with a sly glance at me. "No, no, my mother, your wiles are in
+vain. We'll hit the trail tomorrow at sunrise. So just be good,
+darling, and help us pack up some provisions. I'll send Jim for his
+father's democrat."</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Jennie resigned herself to the inevitable and betook herself to
+the pantry with the air of a woman who washes her hands of the
+consequences. I flew upstairs to pack some finery. I was wild with
+delight over the proposed outing. I did not realize what it actually
+meant, and I had perfect confidence in Kate, who was an expert driver,
+an experienced camper out, and an excellent manager. If I could have
+seen what was ahead of us I would certainly not have been quite so
+jubilant and reckless, but I would have gone all the same. I would not
+miss the laughter-provoking memories of that trip out of my life for
+anything. I have always been glad I went.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>We left at sunrise the next morning; there was a sunrise that morning,
+for a wonder. The sun came up in a pinky-saffron sky and promised us a
+fine day. Aunt Jennie bade us goodbye and, estimable woman that she
+was, did not trouble us with advice or forebodings.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Nash had sent over his "democrat," a light wagon with springs; and
+Kate's "shaganappies," Tom and Jerry&mdash;native ponies, the toughest
+horse flesh to be found in the world&mdash;were hitched to it. Kate and I
+were properly accoutred for our trip and looked&mdash;but I try to forget
+how we looked! The memory is not flattering.</p>
+
+<p>We drove off in the gayest of spirits. Our difficulties began at the
+start, for we had to drive a mile before we could find a place to ford
+the creek. Beyond that, however, we had a passable trail for three
+miles to the little outpost of the Mounted Police, where five or six
+men were stationed on detachment duty.</p>
+
+<p>"Sergeant Baker is a friend of mine," said Kate. "He'll be only too
+glad to lend me all we require."</p>
+
+<p>The sergeant was a friend of Kate's, but he looked at her as if he
+thought she was crazy when she told him where we were going.</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better take a canoe instead of a team," he said sarcastically.
+"I've a good notion to arrest you both as horse thieves and prevent
+you from going on such a mad expedition."</p>
+
+<p>"You know nothing short of arrest would stop me," said Kate, nodding
+at him with laughing eyes, "and you really won't go to such an
+extreme, I know. So please be nice, even if it comes hard, and lend us
+some things. I've come a-borrying."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't lend you a thing," declared the sergeant. "I won't aid and
+abet you in any such freak as this. Go home now, like a good girl."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not going home," said Kate. "I'm not a 'good girl'&mdash;I'm a wicked
+old maid, and I'm going to Bothwell. If you won't lend us a tent we'll
+go without&mdash;and sleep in the open&mdash;and our deaths will lie forever at
+your door. I'll come back and haunt you, if you don't lend me a tent.
+I'll camp on your very threshold and you won't be able to go out of
+your door without falling over my spook."</p>
+
+<p>"I've more fear of being accountable for your death if I do let you
+go," said Sergeant Baker dubiously. "However, I see that nothing but
+physical force will prevent you. What do you want?"</p>
+
+<p>"I want," said Kate, "a cavalry tent, a sheet-iron camp stove, and a
+good Indian guide&mdash;old Peter Crow for choice. He's such a
+respectable-looking old fellow, and his wife often works for us."</p>
+
+<p>The sergeant gave us the tent and stove, and sent a man down to the
+Reserve for Peter Crow. Moreover, he vindicated his title of friend by
+making us take a dozen prairie chickens and a large ham&mdash;besides any
+quantity of advice. We didn't want the advice but we hugely welcomed
+the ham. Presently our guide appeared&mdash;quite a spruce old Indian, as
+Indians go. I had never been able to shake off my childhood conviction
+that an Indian was a fearsome creature, hopelessly addicted to
+scalping knives and tomahawks, and I secretly felt quite horrified at
+the idea of two defenceless females starting out on a lonely prairie
+trail with an Indian for guide. Even old Peter Crow's meek appearance
+did not quite reassure me; but I kept my qualms to myself, for I knew
+Kate would only laugh at me.</p>
+
+<p>It was ten when we finally got away from the M.P. outpost. Sergeant
+Baker bade us goodbye in a tone which seemed to intimate that he never
+expected to see either of us again. What with his dismal predictions
+and my secret horror of Indians, I was beginning to feel anything but
+jubilant over our expedition. Kate, however, was as blithe and buoyant
+as usual. She knew no fear, being one of those enviable folk who can
+because they think they can. One hundred and twenty miles of
+half-flooded prairie trail&mdash;camping out at night in the solitude of
+the Great Lone Land&mdash;rain&mdash;muskegs&mdash;Indian guides&mdash;nothing had any
+terror for my dauntless cousin.</p>
+
+<p>For the next three hours, however, we got on beautifully. The trail
+was fair, though somewhat greasy; the sun shone, though with a
+somewhat watery gleam, through the mists; and Peter Crow, coiled up on
+the folded tent behind the seat, slept soundly and snored
+mellifluously. That snore reassured me greatly. I had never thought of
+Indians as snoring. Surely one who did couldn't be dreaded greatly.</p>
+
+<p>We stopped at one o'clock and had a cold lunch, sitting in our wagon,
+while Peter Crow wakened up and watered the ponies. We did not get on
+so well in the afternoon. The trail descended into low-lying ground
+where travelling was very difficult. I had to admit old Peter Crow
+was quite invaluable. He knew, as Kate had foretold, "all the dry
+spots"&mdash;that is to say, spots less wet than others. But, even so, we
+had to make so many detours that by sunset we were little more than
+six miles distant from our noon halting place.</p>
+
+<p>"We'd better set camp now, before it gets any darker," said Kate.
+"There's a capital spot over there, by that bluff of dead poplar. The
+ground seems pretty dry too. Peter, cut us a set of tent poles and
+kindle a fire."</p>
+
+<p>"Want my dollar first," said old Peter stolidly.</p>
+
+<p>We had agreed to pay him a dollar a day for the trip, but none of the
+money was to be paid until we got to Bothwell. Kate told him this. But
+all the reply she got was a stolid, "Want dollar. No make fire without
+dollar."</p>
+
+<p>We were getting cold and it was getting dark, so finally Kate, under
+the law of necessity, paid him his dollar. Then he carried out our
+orders at his own sweet leisure. In course of time he got a fire
+lighted, and while we cooked supper he set up the tent and prepared
+our beds, by cutting piles of brush and covering them with rugs.</p>
+
+<p>Kate and I had a hilarious time cooking that supper. It was my first
+experience of camping out and, as I had become pretty well convinced
+that Peter Crow was not the typical Indian of old romance, I enjoyed
+it all hugely. But we were both very tired, and as soon as we had
+finished eating we betook ourselves to our tent and found our brush
+beds much more comfortable than I had expected. Old Peter coiled up on
+his blanket outside by the fire, and the great silence of a windless
+prairie enwrapped us. In a few minutes we were sound asleep and never
+wakened until seven o'clock.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>When we arose and lifted the flap of the tent we saw a peculiar sight.
+The little elevation on which we had pitched our camp seemed to be an
+island in a vast sea of white mist, dotted here and there with other
+islands. On every hand to the far horizon stretched that strange,
+phantasmal ocean, and a hazy sun looked over the shifting billows. I
+had never seen a western mist before and I thought it extremely
+beautiful; but Kate, to whom it was no novelty, was more cumbered with
+breakfast cares.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm ravenous," she said, as she bustled about among our stores.
+"Camping out always does give one such an appetite. Aren't you hungry,
+Phil?"</p>
+
+<p>"Comfortably so," I admitted. "But where are our ponies? And where is
+Peter Crow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Probably the ponies have strayed away looking for pea vines. They
+love and adore pea vines," said Kate, stirring up the fire from under
+its blanket of grey ashes. "And Peter Crow has gone to look for them,
+good old fellow. When you do get a conscientious Indian there is no
+better guide in the world, but they are rare. Now, Philippa-girl, just
+pry out the sergeant's ham and shave a few slices off it for our
+breakfast. Some savoury fried ham always goes well on the prairie."</p>
+
+<p>I went for the ham but could not find it. A thorough search among our
+effects revealed it not.</p>
+
+<p>"Kate, I can't find the ham," I called out. "It must have fallen out
+somewhere on the trail."</p>
+
+<p>Kate ceased wrestling with the fire and came to help in the search for
+the missing delicacy.</p>
+
+<p>"It couldn't have fallen out," she said incredulously. "That is
+impossible. The tent was fastened securely over everything. Nothing
+could have jolted out."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, where is the ham?" I said.</p>
+
+<p>That question was unanswerable, as Kate discovered after another
+thorough search. The ham was gone&mdash;that much was certain.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe Peter Crow has levanted with the ham," I said decidedly.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe Peter Crow could be so dishonest," said Kate rather
+shortly. "His wife has worked for us for years, and she's as honest as
+the sunlight."</p>
+
+<p>"Honesty isn't catching," I remarked, but I said nothing more just
+then, for Kate's black eyes were snapping.</p>
+
+<p>"Anyway, we can't have ham for breakfast," she said, twitching out the
+frying pan rather viciously. "We'll have to put up with canned
+chicken&mdash;if the cans haven't disappeared too."</p>
+
+<p>They hadn't, and we soon produced a very tolerable breakfast. But
+neither of us had much appetite.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you suppose Peter Crow has taken the horses as well as the ham?" I
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No," gloomily responded Kate, who had evidently been compelled by the
+logic of hard facts to believe in Peter's guilt, "he would hardly dare
+to do that, because he couldn't dispose of them without being found
+out. They've probably strayed away on their own account when Peter
+decamped. As soon as this mist lifts I'll have a look for them. They
+can't have gone far."</p>
+
+<p>We were spared this trouble, however, for when we were washing up the
+dishes the ponies returned of their own accord. Kate caught them and
+harnessed them.</p>
+
+<p>"Are we going on?" I asked mildly.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course we're going on," said Kate, her good humour entirely
+restored. "Do you suppose I'm going to be turned from my purpose by
+the defection of a miserable old Indian? Oh, wait till he comes round
+in the winter, begging."</p>
+
+<p>"Will he come?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Will he? Yes, my dear, he will&mdash;with a smooth, plausible story to
+account for his desertion and a bland denial of ever having seen our
+ham. I shall know how to deal with him then, the old scamp."</p>
+
+<p>"When you do get a conscientious Indian there's no better guide in the
+world, but they are rare," I remarked with a far-away look.</p>
+
+<p>Kate laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't rub it in, Phil. Come, help me to break camp. We'll have to
+work harder and hustle for ourselves, that's all."</p>
+
+<p>"But is it safe to go on without a guide?" I inquired dubiously. I
+hadn't felt very safe with Peter Crow, but I felt still more unsafe
+without him.</p>
+
+<p>"Safe! Of course, it's safe&mdash;perfectly safe. I know the trail, and
+we'll just have to drive around the wet places. It would have been
+easier with Peter, and we'd have had less work to do, but we'll get
+along well enough without him. I don't think I'd have bothered with
+him at all, only I wanted to set Mother's mind at rest. She'll never
+know he isn't with us till the trip is over, so that is all right.
+We're going to have a glorious day. But, oh, for our lost ham! 'The
+Ham That Was Never Eaten.' There's a subject for a poem, Phil. You
+write one when we get back to civilization. Methinks I can sniff the
+savoury odour of that lost ham on all the prairie breezes."</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Of all sad words of tongue or pen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The saddest are these&mdash;it might have been,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>I quoted, beginning to wash the dishes.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Saw ye my wee ham, saw ye my ain ham,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Saw ye my pork ham down on yon lea?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Crossed it the prairie last night in the darkness<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Borne by an old and unprincipled Cree?"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>sang Kate, loosening the tent ropes. Altogether, we got a great deal
+more fun out of that ham than if we had eaten it.</p>
+
+<p>As Kate had predicted, the day was glorious. The mists rolled away and
+the sun shone brightly. We drove all day without stopping, save for
+dinner&mdash;when the lost ham figured largely in our conversation&mdash;of
+course. We said so many witty things about it&mdash;at least, we thought
+them witty&mdash;that we laughed continuously through the whole meal,
+which we ate with prodigious appetite.</p>
+
+<p>But with all our driving we were not getting on very fast. The country
+was exceedingly swampy and we had to make innumerable detours.</p>
+
+<p>"'The longest way round is the shortest way to Bothwell,'" said Kate,
+when we drove five miles out of our way to avoid a muskeg. By evening
+we had driven fully twenty-five miles, but we were only ten miles
+nearer Bothwell than when we had broken camp in the morning.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll have to camp soon," sighed Kate. "I believe around this bluff
+will be a good place. Oh, Phil, I'm tired&mdash;dead tired! My very
+thoughts are tired. I can't even think anything funny about the ham.
+And yet we've got to set up the tent ourselves, and attend to the
+horses; and we'll have to scrape some of the mud off this beautiful
+vehicle."</p>
+
+<p>"We can leave that till the morning," I suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"No, it will be too hard and dry then. Here we are&mdash;and here are two
+tepees of Indians also!"</p>
+
+<p>There they were, right around the bluff. The inmates were standing in
+a group before them, looking at us as composedly as if we were not at
+all an unusual sight.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to stay here anyhow," said Kate doggedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't," I said in alarm. "They're such a villainous-looking
+lot&mdash;so dirty&mdash;and they've got so little clothing on. I wouldn't sleep
+a wink near them. Look at that awful old squaw with only one eye.
+They'd steal everything we've got left, Kate. Remember the ham&mdash;oh,
+pray remember the fate of our beautiful ham."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall never forget that ham," said Kate wearily, "but, Phil, we
+can't drive far enough to be out of their reach if they really want to
+steal our provisions. But I don't believe they will. I believe they
+have plenty of food&mdash;Indians in tepees mostly have. The men hunt, you
+know. Their looks are probably the worst of them. Anyhow, you can't
+judge Indians by appearances. Peter Crow looked respectable&mdash;and he
+was a whited sepulchre. Now, these Indians look as bad as Indians can
+look&mdash;so they may turn out to be angels in disguise."</p>
+
+<p>"Very much disguised, certainly," I acquiesced satirically. "They seem
+to me to belong to the class of a neighbour of ours down east. Her
+family is always in rags, because she says, 'a hole is an accident, a
+patch is a disgrace,' Set camp here if you like, Kate. But I'll not
+sleep a wink with such neighbours."</p>
+
+<p>I cheerfully ate my words later on. Never were appearances more
+deceptive than in the case of those Stoneys. There is an old saying
+that many a kind heart beats behind a ragged coat. The Indians had no
+coats for their hearts to beat behind&mdash;nothing but shirts&mdash;some of
+them hadn't even shirts! But the shirts were certainly ragged enough,
+and their hearts were kind.</p>
+
+<p>Those Indians were gentlemen. They came forward and unhitched our
+horses, fed, and watered them; they pitched our tent, and built us a
+fire, and cut brush for our beds. Kate and I had simply nothing to do
+except sit on our rugs and tell them what we wanted done. They would
+have cooked our supper for us if we had allowed it. But, tired as we
+were, we drew the line at that. Their hearts were pure gold, but their
+hands! No, Kate and I dragged ourselves up and cooked our own suppers.
+And while we ate it, those Indians fell to and cleaned all the mud off
+our democrat for us. To crown all&mdash;it is almost unbelievable but it is
+true, I solemnly avow&mdash;they wouldn't take a cent of payment for it
+all, urge them as we might and did.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Kate, as we curled up on our brush beds that night,
+"there certainly is a special Providence for unprotected females. I'd
+forgive Peter Crow for deserting us for the sake of those Indians, if
+he hadn't stolen our lovely ham into the bargain. That was altogether
+unpardonable."</p>
+
+<p>In the morning the Indians broke camp for us and harnessed our
+shaganappies. We drove off, waving our hands to them, the delightful
+creatures. We never saw any of them again. I fear their kind is
+scarce, but as long as I live I shall remember those Stoneys with
+gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>We got on fairly well that third day, and made about fifteen miles
+before dinner time. We ate three of the sergeant's prairie chickens
+for dinner, and enjoyed them.</p>
+
+<p>"But only think how delicious the ham would have been," said Kate.</p>
+
+<p>Our real troubles began that afternoon. We had not been driving long
+when the trail swooped down suddenly into a broad depression&mdash;a swamp,
+so full of mud-holes that there didn't seem to be anything but
+mud-holes. We pulled through six of them&mdash;but in the seventh we stuck,
+hard and fast. Pull as our ponies could and did, they could not pull
+us out.</p>
+
+<p>"What are we to do?" I said, becoming horribly frightened all at once.
+It seemed to me that our predicament was a dreadful one.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep cool," said Kate. She calmly took off her shoes and stockings,
+tucked up her skirt, and waded to the horses' heads.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't I do anything?" I implored.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, take the whip and spare it not," said Kate. "I'll encourage them
+here with sundry tugs and inspiriting words. You urge them behind with
+a good lambasting."</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly we encouraged and urged, tugged and lambasted, with a
+right good will, but all to no effect. Our ponies did their best, but
+they could not pull the democrat out of that slough.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, what&mdash;" I began, and then I stopped. I resolved that I would not
+ask that question again in that tone in that scrape. I would be
+cheerful and courageous like Kate&mdash;splendid Kate!</p>
+
+<p>"I shall have to unhitch them, tie one of them to that stump, and ride
+off on the other for help," said Kate.</p>
+
+<p>"Where to?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Till I find it," grinned Kate, who seemed to think the whole
+disaster a capital joke. "I may have to go clean back to the
+tepees&mdash;and further. For that matter, I don't believe there were any
+tepees. Those Indians were too good to be true&mdash;they were phantoms of
+delight&mdash;such stuff as dreams are made of. But even if they were real
+they won't be there now&mdash;they'll have folded their tents like the
+Arabs and as silently stolen away. But I'll find help somewhere."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't stay here alone. You may be gone for hours," I cried,
+forgetting all my resolutions of courage and cheerfulness in an access
+of panic.</p>
+
+<p>"Then ride the other pony and come with me," suggested Kate.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't ride bareback," I moaned.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you'll have to stay here," said Kate decidedly. "There's nothing
+to hurt you, Phil. Sit in the wagon and keep dry. Eat something if you
+get hungry. I may not be very long."</p>
+
+<p>I realized that there was nothing else to do; and, rather ashamed of
+my panic, I resigned myself to the inevitable and saw Kate off with
+a smile of encouragement. Then I waited. I was tired and
+frightened&mdash;horribly frightened. I sat there and imagined scores of
+gruesome possibilities. It was no use telling myself to be brave. I
+couldn't be brave. I never was in such a blue funk before or since.
+Suppose Kate got lost&mdash;suppose she couldn't find me again&mdash;suppose
+something happened to her&mdash;suppose she couldn't get help&mdash;suppose it
+came on night and I there all alone&mdash;suppose Indians&mdash;not gentlemanly
+Stoneys or even Peter Crows, but genuine, old-fashioned
+Indians&mdash;should come along&mdash;suppose it began to pour rain!</p>
+
+<p>It did begin to rain, the only one of my suppositions which came true.
+I hoisted an umbrella and sat there grimly, in that horseless wagon in
+the mud-hole.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>Many a time since have I laughed over the memory of the appearance I
+must have presented sitting in that mud-hole, but there was nothing in
+the least funny about it at the time. The worst feature of it all was
+the uncertainty. I could have waited patiently enough and conquered my
+fears if I had known that Kate would find help and return within a
+reasonable time&mdash;at least before dark. But everything was doubtful. I
+was not composed of the stuff out of which heroines are fashioned and
+I devoutly wished we had never left Arrow Creek.</p>
+
+<p>Shouts&mdash;calls&mdash;laughter&mdash;Kate's dear voice in an encouraging cry from
+the hill behind me!</p>
+
+<p>"Halloo, honey! Hold the fort a few minutes longer. Here we are. Bless
+her, hasn't she been a brick to stay here all alone like this&mdash;and a
+tenderfoot at that?"</p>
+
+<p>I could have cried with joy. But I saw that there were men with
+Kate&mdash;two men&mdash;white men&mdash;and I laughed instead. I had not been
+brave&mdash;I had been an arrant little coward, but I vowed that nobody,
+not even Kate, should suspect it. Later on Kate told me how she had
+fared in her search for assistance.</p>
+
+<p>"When I left you, Phil, I felt much more anxious than I wanted to let
+you see. I had no idea where to go. I knew there were no houses along
+our trail and I might have to go clean back to the tepees&mdash;fifteen
+miles bareback. I didn't dare try any other trail, for I knew nothing
+of them and wasn't sure that there were even tepees on them. But when
+I had gone about six miles I saw a welcome sight&mdash;nothing less than a
+spiral of blue, homely-looking smoke curling up from the prairie far
+off to my right. I decided to turn off and investigate. I rode two
+miles and finally I came to a little log shack. There was a
+bee-yew-tiful big horse in a corral close by. My heart jumped with
+joy. But suppose the inmates of the shack were half-breeds! You can't
+realize how relieved I felt when the door opened and two white men
+came out. In a few minutes everything was explained. They knew who I
+was and what I wanted, and I knew that they were Mr. Lonsdale and Mr.
+Hopkins, owners of a big ranch over by Deer Run. They were 'shacking
+out' to put up some hay and Mrs. Hopkins was keeping house for them.
+She wanted me to stop and have a cup of tea right off, but I thought
+of you, Phil, and declined. As soon as they heard of our predicament
+those lovely men got their two biggest horses and came right with me."</p>
+
+<p>It was not long before our democrat was on solid ground once more, and
+then our rescuers insisted that we go back to the shack with them for
+the night. Accordingly we drove back to the shack, attended by our two
+gallant deliverers on white horses. Mrs. Hopkins was waiting for us, a
+trim, dark-haired little lady in a very pretty gown, which she had
+donned in our honour. Kate and I felt like perfect tramps beside her
+in our muddy old raiment, with our hair dressed by dead reckoning&mdash;for
+we had not included a mirror in our baggage. There was a mirror in the
+shack, however&mdash;small but good&mdash;and we quickly made ourselves tidy at
+least, and Kate even went to the length of curling her bangs&mdash;bangs
+were in style then and Kate had long, thick ones&mdash;using the stem of a
+broken pipe of Mr. Hopkins's for a curler. I was so tired that my
+vanity was completely crushed out&mdash;for the time being&mdash;and I simply
+pinned my bangs back. Later on, when I discovered that Mr. Lonsdale
+was really the younger son of an English earl, I wished I had curled
+them, but it was too late then.</p>
+
+<p>He didn't look in the least like a scion of aristocracy. He wore a
+cowboy rig and had a scrubby beard of a week's growth. But he was very
+jolly and played the violin beautifully. After tea&mdash;and a lovely tea
+it was, although, as Kate remarked to me later, there was no ham&mdash;we
+had an impromptu concert. Mr. Lonsdale played the violin; Mrs.
+Hopkins, who sang, was a graduate of a musical conservatory; Mr.
+Hopkins gave a comic recitation and did a Cree war-dance; Kate gave a
+spirited account of our adventures since leaving home and mother; and
+I described&mdash;with trimmings&mdash;how I felt sitting alone in the democrat
+in a mud-hole, in a pouring rain on a vast prairie.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Hopkins, Kate, and I slept in the one bed the shack boasted,
+screened off from public view by a calico curtain. Mr. Lonsdale
+reposed in his accustomed bunk by the stove, but poor Mr. Hopkins had
+to sleep on the floor. He must have been glad Kate and I stayed only
+one night.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>The fourth morning found us blithely hitting the trail in renewed
+confidence and spirits. We parted from our kind friends in the shack
+with mutual regret. Mr. Hopkins gave us a haunch of jumping deer and
+Mrs. Hopkins gave us a box of home-made cookies. Mr. Lonsdale at first
+thought he couldn't give us anything, for he said all he had with him
+was his pipe and his fiddle; but later on he said he felt so badly to
+see us go without any token of his good will that he felt constrained
+to ask us to accept a piece of rope that he had tied his outfit
+together with.</p>
+
+<p>The fourth day we got on so nicely that it was quite monotonous. The
+sun shone, the chinook blew, our ponies trotted over the trail
+gallantly. Kate and I sang, told stories, and laughed immoderately
+over everything. Even a poor joke seems to have a subtle flavour on
+the prairie. For the first time I began to think Saskatchewan
+beautiful, with those far-reaching parklike meadows dotted with the
+white-stemmed poplars, the distant bluffs bannered with the airiest of
+purple hazes, and the little blue lakes that sparkled and shimmered in
+the sunlight on every hand.</p>
+
+<p>The only thing approaching an adventure that day happened in the
+afternoon when we reached a creek which had to be crossed.</p>
+
+<p>"We must investigate," said Kate decidedly. "It would never do to risk
+getting mired here, for this country is unsettled and we must be
+twenty miles from another human being."</p>
+
+<p>Kate again removed her shoes and stockings and puddled about that
+creek until she found a safe fording place. I am afraid I must admit
+that I laughed most heartlessly at the spectacle she presented while
+so employed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, for a camera, Kate!" I said, between spasms.</p>
+
+<p>Kate grinned. "I don't care what I look like," she said, "but I feel
+wretchedly unpleasant. This water is simply swarming with wigglers."</p>
+
+<p>"Goodness, what are they?" I exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, they're tiny little things like leeches," responded Kate. "I
+believe they develop into mosquitoes later on, bad 'cess to them. What
+Mr. Nash would call my pedal extremities are simply being devoured by
+the brutes. Ugh! I believe the bottom of this creek is all soft mud.
+We may have to drive&mdash;no, as I'm a living, wiggler-haunted human
+being, here's firm bottom. Hurrah, Phil, we're all right!"</p>
+
+<p>In a few minutes we were past the creek and bowling merrily on our
+way. We had a beautiful camping ground that night&mdash;a fairylike little
+slope of white poplars with a blue lake at its foot. When the sun went
+down a milk-white mist hung over the prairie, with a young moon
+kissing it. We boiled some slices of our jumping deer and ate them in
+the open around a cheery camp-fire. Then we sought our humble couches,
+where we slept the sleep of just people who had been driving over the
+prairie all day. Once in the night I wakened. It was very dark. The
+unearthly stillness of a great prairie was all around me. In that vast
+silence Kate's soft breathing at my side seemed an intrusion of sound
+where no sound should be.</p>
+
+<p>"Philippa Blair, can you believe it's yourself?" I said mentally.
+"Here you are, lying on a brush bed on a western prairie in the middle
+of the night, at least twenty miles from any human being except
+another frail creature of your own sex. Yet you're not even
+frightened. You are very comfy and composed, and you're going right to
+sleep again."</p>
+
+<p>And right to sleep again I went.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>Our fifth day began ominously. We had made an early start and had
+driven about six miles when the calamity occurred. Kate turned a
+corner too sharply, to avoid a big boulder; there was a heart-breaking
+sound.</p>
+
+<p>"The tongue of the wagon is broken," cried Kate in dismay. All too
+surely it was. We looked at each other blankly.</p>
+
+<p>"What can we do?" I said.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure I don't know," said Kate helplessly. When Kate felt helpless
+I thought things must be desperate indeed. We got out and investigated
+the damage.</p>
+
+<p>"It's not a clean break," said Kate. "It's a long, slanting break. If
+we had a piece of rope I believe I could fix it."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Lonsdale's piece of rope!" I cried.</p>
+
+<p>"The very thing," said Kate, brightening up.</p>
+
+<p>The rope was found and we set to work. With the aid of some willow
+withes and that providential rope we contrived to splice the tongue
+together in some shape.</p>
+
+<p>Although the trail was good we made only twelve miles the rest of the
+day, so slowly did we have to drive. Besides, we were continually
+expecting that tongue to give way again, and the strain was bad for
+our nerves. When we came at sunset to the junction of the Black River
+trail with ours, Kate resolutely turned the shaganappies down it.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll go and spend the night with the Brewsters," she said. "They
+live only ten miles down this trail. I went to school in Regina with
+Hannah Brewster, and though I haven't seen her for ten years I know
+she'll be glad to see us. She's a lovely person, and her husband is a
+very nice man. I visited them once after they were married."</p>
+
+<p>We soon arrived at the Brewster place. It was a trim, white-washed
+little log house in a grove of poplars. But all the blinds were down
+and we discovered the door was locked. Evidently the Brewsters were
+not at home.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind," said Kate cheerfully, "we'll light a fire outside and
+cook our supper and then we'll spend the night in the barn. A bed of
+prairie hay will be just the thing."</p>
+
+<p>But the barn was locked too. It was now dark and our plight was rather
+desperate.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to get into the house if I have to break a window," said
+Kate resolutely. "Hannah would want us to do that. She'd never get
+over it, if she heard we came to her house and couldn't get in."</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately we did not have to go to the length of breaking into
+Hannah's house. The kitchen window went up quite easily. We turned the
+shaganappies loose to forage for themselves, grass and water being
+abundant. Then we climbed in at the window, lighted our lantern, and
+found ourselves in a very snug little kitchen. Opening off it on one
+side was a trim, nicely furnished parlour and on the other a
+well-stocked pantry.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll light the fire in the stove in a jiffy and have a real good
+supper," said Kate exultantly. "Here's cold roast beef&mdash;and preserves
+and cookies and cheese and butter."</p>
+
+<p>Before long we had supper ready and we did full justice to the absent
+Hannah's excellent cheer. After all, it was quite nice to sit down
+once more to a well-appointed table and eat in civilized fashion.</p>
+
+<p>Then we washed up all the dishes and made everything snug and tidy. I
+shall never be sufficiently thankful that we did so.</p>
+
+<p>Kate piloted me upstairs to the spare room.</p>
+
+<p>"This is fixed up much nicer than it was when I was here before," she
+said, looking around. "Of course, Hannah and Ted were just starting
+out then and they had to be economical. They must have prospered, to
+be able to afford such furniture as this. Well, turn in, Phil. Won't
+it be rather jolly to sleep between sheets once more?"</p>
+
+<p>We slept long and soundly until half-past eight the next morning; and
+dear knows if we would have wakened then of our own accord. But I
+heard somebody saying in a very harsh, gruff voice, "Here, you two,
+wake up! I want to know what this means."</p>
+
+<p>We two did wake up, promptly and effectually. I never wakened up so
+thoroughly in my life before. Standing in our room were three people,
+one of them a man. He was a big, grey-haired man with a bushy black
+beard and an angry scowl. Beside him was a woman&mdash;a tall, thin,
+angular personage with red hair and an indescribable bonnet. She
+looked even crosser and more amazed than the man, if that were
+possible. In the background was another woman&mdash;a tiny old lady who
+must have been at least eighty. She was, in spite of her tininess, a
+very striking-looking personage; she was dressed all in black, and had
+snow-white hair, a dead-white face, and snapping, vivid, coal-black
+eyes. She looked as amazed as the other two, but she didn't look
+cross.</p>
+
+<p>I knew something must be wrong&mdash;fearfully wrong&mdash;but I didn't know
+what. Even in my confusion, I found time to think that if that
+disagreeable-looking red-haired woman was Hannah Brewster, Kate must
+have had a queer taste in school friends. Then the man said, more
+gruffly than ever, "Come now. Who are you and what business have you
+here?"</p>
+
+<p>Kate raised herself on one elbow. She looked very wild. I heard the
+old black-and-white lady in the background chuckle to herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't this Theodore Brewster's place?" gasped Kate.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said the big woman, speaking for the first time. "This place
+belongs to us. We bought it from the Brewsters in the spring. They
+moved over to Black River Forks. Our name is Chapman."</p>
+
+<p>Poor Kate fell back on the pillow, quite overcome. "I&mdash;I beg your
+pardon," she said. "I&mdash;I thought the Brewsters lived here. Mrs.
+Brewster is a friend of mine. My cousin and I are on our way to
+Bothwell and we called here to spend the night with Hannah. When we
+found everyone away we just came in and made ourselves at home."</p>
+
+<p>"A likely story," said the red woman.</p>
+
+<p>"We weren't born yesterday," said the man.</p>
+
+<p>Madam Black-and-White didn't say anything, but when the other two had
+made their pretty speeches she doubled up in a silent convulsion of
+mirth, shaking her head from side to side and beating the air with her
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>If they had been nice to us, Kate would probably have gone on feeling
+confused and ashamed. But when they were so disagreeable she quickly
+regained her self-possession. She sat up again and said in her
+haughtiest voice, "I do not know when you were born, or where, but it
+must have been somewhere where very peculiar manners were taught. If
+you will have the decency to leave our room&mdash;this room&mdash;until we can
+get up and dress we will not transgress upon your hospitality" (Kate
+put a most satirical emphasis on that word) "any longer. And we shall
+pay you amply for the food we have eaten and the night's lodging we
+have taken."</p>
+
+<p>The black-and-white apparition went through the motion of clapping her
+hands, but not a sound did she make. Whether he was cowed by Kate's
+tone, or appeased by the prospect of payment, I know not, but Mr.
+Chapman spoke more civilly. "Well, that's fair. If you pay up it's all
+right."</p>
+
+<p>"They shall do no such thing as pay you," said Madam Black-and-White
+in a surprisingly clear, resolute, authoritative voice. "If you
+haven't any shame for yourself, Robert Chapman, you've got a
+mother-in-law who can be ashamed for you. No strangers shall be
+charged for food or lodging in any house where Mrs. Matilda Pitman
+lives. Remember that I've come down in the world, but I haven't forgot
+all decency for all that. I knew you was a skinflint when Amelia
+married you and you've made her as bad as yourself. But I'm boss here
+yet. Here, you, Robert Chapman, take yourself out of here and let
+those girls get dressed. And you, Amelia, go downstairs and cook a
+breakfast for them."</p>
+
+<p>I never, in all my life, saw anything like the abject meekness with
+which those two big people obeyed that mite. They went, and stood not
+upon the order of their going. As the door closed behind them, Mrs.
+Matilda Pitman laughed silently, and rocked from side to side in her
+merriment.</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't it funny?" she said. "I mostly lets them run the length of
+their tether but sometimes I has to pull them up, and then I does it
+with a jerk. Now, you can take your time about dressing, my dears, and
+I'll go down and keep them in order, the mean scalawags."</p>
+
+<p>When we descended the stairs we found a smoking-hot breakfast on the
+table. Mr. Chapman was nowhere to be seen, and Mrs. Chapman was
+cutting bread with a sulky air. Mrs. Matilda Pitman was sitting in an
+armchair, knitting. She still wore her bonnet and her triumphant
+expression. "Set right in, dears, and make a good breakfast," she
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"We are not hungry," said Kate, almost pleadingly. "I don't think we
+can eat anything. And it's time we were on the trail. Please excuse us
+and let us go on."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Matilda Pitman shook a knitting needle playfully at Kate. "Sit
+down and take your breakfast," she commanded. "Mrs. Matilda Pitman
+commands you. Everybody obeys Mrs. Matilda Pitman&mdash;even Robert and
+Amelia. You must obey her too."</p>
+
+<p>We did obey her. We sat down and, such was the influence of her
+mesmeric eyes, we ate a tolerable breakfast. The obedient Amelia never
+spoke; Mrs. Matilda Pitman did not speak either, but she knitted
+furiously and chuckled. When we had finished Mrs. Matilda Pitman
+rolled up her knitting. "Now, you can go if you want to," she said,
+"but you don't have to go. You can stay here as long as you like, and
+I'll make them cook your meals for you."</p>
+
+<p>I never saw Kate so thoroughly cowed.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," she said faintly. "You are very kind, but we must go."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then," said Mrs. Matilda Pitman, throwing open the door, "your
+team is ready for you. I made Robert catch your ponies and harness
+them. And I made him fix that broken tongue properly. I enjoy making
+Robert do things. It's almost the only sport I have left. I'm eighty
+and most things have lost their flavour, except bossing Robert."</p>
+
+<p>Our democrat and ponies were outside the door, but Robert was nowhere
+to be seen; in fact, we never saw him again.</p>
+
+<p>"I do wish," said Kate, plucking up what little spirit she had left,
+"that you would let us&mdash;ah&mdash;uh"&mdash;Kate quailed before Mrs. Matilda
+Pitman's eye&mdash;"recompense you for our entertainment."</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Matilda Pitman said before&mdash;and meant it&mdash;that she doesn't take
+pay for entertaining strangers, nor let other people where she lives
+do it, much as their meanness would like to do it."</p>
+
+<p>We got away. The sulky Amelia had vanished, and there was nobody to
+see us off except Mrs. Matilda Pitman.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't forget to call the next time you come this way," she said
+cheerfully, waving her knitting at us. "I hope you'll get safe to
+Bothwell. If I was ten years younger I vow I'd pack a grip and go
+along with you. I like your spunk. Most of the girls nowadays is such
+timid, skeery critters. When I was a girl I wasn't afraid of nothing
+or nobody."</p>
+
+<p>We said and did nothing until we had driven out of sight and earshot.
+Then Kate laid down the reins and laughed until the tears came.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Phil, Phil, will you ever forget this adventure?" she gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall never forget Mrs. Matilda Pitman," I said emphatically.</p>
+
+<p>We had no further adventures that day. Robert Chapman had fixed the
+tongue so well&mdash;probably under Mrs. Matilda Pitman's watchful
+eyes&mdash;that we could drive as fast as we liked; and we made good
+progress. But when we pitched camp that night Kate scanned the sky
+with an anxious expression. "I don't like the look of it," she said.
+"I'm afraid we're going to have a bad day tomorrow."</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>We had. When we awakened in the morning rain was pouring down. This in
+itself might not have prevented us from travelling, but the state of
+the trail did. It had been raining the greater part of the night and
+the trail was little more than a ditch of slimy, greasy, sticky mud.</p>
+
+<p>If we could have stayed in the tent the whole time it would not have
+been quite so bad. But we had to go out twice to take the ponies to
+the nearest pond and water them; moreover, we had to collect pea vines
+for them, which was not an agreeable occupation in a pouring rain. The
+day was very cold too, but fortunately there was plenty of dead poplar
+right by our camp. We kept a good fire on in the camp stove and were
+quite dry and comfortable as long as we stayed inside. Even when we
+had to go out we did not get very wet, as we were well protected. But
+it was a long dreary day. Finally when the dark came down and supper
+was over Kate grew quite desperate. "Let's have a game of checkers,"
+she suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is your checkerboard?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'll soon furnish that," said Kate.</p>
+
+<p>She cut out a square of brown paper, in which a biscuit box had been
+wrapped, and marked squares off on it with a pencil. Then she produced
+some red and white high-bush cranberries for men. A cranberry split in
+two was a king.</p>
+
+<p>We played nine games of checkers by the light of our smoky lantern.
+Our enjoyment of the game was heightened by the fact that it had
+ceased raining. Nevertheless, when morning came the trail was so
+drenched that it was impossible to travel on it.</p>
+
+<p>"We must wait till noon," said Kate.</p>
+
+<p>"That trail won't be dry enough to travel on for a week," I said
+disconsolately.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear; the chinook is blowing up," said Kate. "You don't know how
+quickly a trail dries in a chinook. It's like magic."</p>
+
+<p>I did not believe a chinook or anything else could dry up that trail
+by noon sufficiently for us to travel on. But it did. As Kate said, it
+seemed like magic. By one o'clock we were on our way again, the
+chinook blowing merrily against our faces. It was a wind that blew
+straight from the heart of the wilderness and had in it all the potent
+lure of the wild. The yellow prairie laughed and glistened in the sun.</p>
+
+<p>We made twenty-five miles that afternoon and, as we were again
+fortunate enough to find a bluff of dead poplar near which to camp, we
+built a royal camp-fire which sent its flaming light far and wide over
+the dark prairie.</p>
+
+<p>We were in jubilant spirits. If the next day were fine and nothing
+dreadful happened to us, we would reach Bothwell before night.</p>
+
+<p>But our ill luck was not yet at an end. The next morning was
+beautiful. The sun shone warm and bright; the chinook blew balmily and
+alluringly; the trail stretched before us dry and level. But we sat
+moodily before our tent, not even having sufficient heart to play
+checkers. Tom had gone lame&mdash;so lame that there was no use in thinking
+of trying to travel with him. Kate could not tell what was the matter.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no injury that I can see," she said. "He must have sprained
+his foot somehow."</p>
+
+<p>Wait we did, with all the patience we could command. But the day was
+long and wearisome, and at night Tom's foot did not seem a bit better.</p>
+
+<p>We went to bed gloomily, but joy came with the morning. Tom's foot was
+so much improved that Kate decided we could go on, though we would
+have to drive slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"There's no chance of making Bothwell today," she said, "but at least
+we shall be getting a little nearer to it."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe there is such a place as Bothwell, or any other
+town," I said pessimistically. "There's nothing in the world but
+prairie, and we'll go on driving over it forever, like a couple of
+female Wandering Jews. It seems years since we left Arrow Creek."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we've had lots of fun out of it all, you know," said Kate.
+"Mrs. Matilda Pitman alone was worth it. She will be an amusing memory
+all our lives. Are you sorry you came?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm not," I concluded, after honest, soul-searching reflection.
+"No, I'm glad, Kate. But I think we were crazy to attempt it, as
+Sergeant Baker said. Think of all the might-have-beens."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing else will happen," said Kate. "I feel in my bones that our
+troubles are over."</p>
+
+<p>Kate's bones proved true prophets. Nevertheless, that day was a weary
+one. There was no scenery. We had got into a barren, lakeless,
+treeless district where the world was one monotonous expanse of
+grey-brown prairie. We just crawled along. Kate had her hands full
+driving those ponies. Jerry was in capital fettle and couldn't
+understand why he mightn't tear ahead at full speed. He was so much
+disgusted over being compelled to walk that he was very fractious.
+Poor Tom limped patiently along. But by night his lameness had quite
+disappeared, and although we were still a good twenty-five miles from
+Bothwell we could see it quite distinctly far ahead on the level
+prairie.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis a sight for sore eyes, isn't it?" said Kate, as we pitched camp.</p>
+
+<p>There is little more to be told. Next day at noon we rattled through
+the main and only street of Bothwell. Curious sights are frequent in
+prairie towns, so we did not attract much attention. When we drew up
+before Mr. Taylor's house Mary Taylor flew out and embraced Kate
+publicly.</p>
+
+<p>"You darling! I knew you'd get here if anyone could. They telegraphed
+us you were on the way. You're a brick&mdash;two bricks."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm not a brick at all, Miss Taylor," I confessed frankly. "I've
+been an arrant coward and a doubting Thomas and a wet blanket all
+through the expedition. But Kate is a brick and a genius and an
+all-round, jolly good fellow."</p>
+
+<p>"Mary," said Kate in a tragic whisper,
+"have&mdash;you&mdash;any&mdash;ham&mdash;in&mdash;the&mdash;house?"</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="Jessamine" id="Jessamine"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<h2>Jessamine<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">[ToC]</a></span></h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>When the vegetable-man knocked, Jessamine went to the door wearily.
+She felt quite well acquainted with him. He had been coming all the
+spring, and his cheery greeting always left a pleasant afterglow
+behind him. But it was not the vegetable-man after all&mdash;at least, not
+the right one. This one was considerably younger. He was tall and
+sunburned, with a ruddy, smiling face, and keen, pleasant blue eyes;
+and he had a spray of honeysuckle pinned on his coat.</p>
+
+<p>"Want any garden stuff this morning?"</p>
+
+<p>Jessamine shook her head. "We always get ours from Mr. Bell. This is
+his day to come."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I guess you won't see Mr. Bell for a spell. He fell off a loft
+out at his place yesterday and broke his leg. I'm his nephew, and I'm
+going to fill his place till he gets 'round again."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm so sorry&mdash;for Mr. Bell, I mean. Have you any green peas?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, heaps of them. I'll bring them in. Anything else?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not today," said Jessamine, with a wistful glance at the honeysuckle.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bell, junior, saw it. In an instant the honeysuckle was unpinned
+and handed to her. "If you like posies, you're welcome to this. I
+guess you're fond of flowers," he added, as he noted the flash of
+delight that passed over her pale face.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed; they put me so in mind of home&mdash;of the country. Oh, how
+sweet this is!"</p>
+
+<p>"You're country-bred, then? Been in the city long?"</p>
+
+<p>"Since last fall. I was born and brought up in the country. I wish I
+was back. I can't get over being homesick. This honeysuckle seems to
+bring it right back. We had honeysuckles around our porch at home."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't like the city, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no. I sometimes feel as if I should smother here. I shall never
+feel at home, I am afraid."</p>
+
+<p>"Where did you live before you came here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Up at Middleton. It was an old-fashioned place, but pretty&mdash;our house
+was covered with vines, and there were trees all about it, and great
+green fields beyond. But I don't know what makes me tell you this. I
+forgot I was talking to a stranger."</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty little woman," soliloquized Andrew Bell, as he drove away.
+"She doesn't look happy, though. I suppose she's married some city
+chap and has to live in town. I guess it don't agree with her. Her
+eyes had a real hungry look in them over that honeysuckle. She seemed
+near about crying when she talked of the country."</p>
+
+<p>Jessamine felt more like crying than ever when she went back to her
+work. Her head ached and she was very tired. The tiny kitchen was hot
+and stifling. How she longed for the great, roomy kitchen in her old
+home, with its spotless floors and floods of sunshine streaming in
+through the maples outside. There was room to live and breathe there,
+and from the door one looked out over green wind-rippled meadows,
+under a glorious arch of pure blue sky, away to the purple hills in
+the distance.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>Jessamine Stacy had always lived in the country. When her sister died
+and the old home had to go, Jessamine could only accept the shelter
+offered by her brother, John Stacy, who did business in the city.</p>
+
+<p>Of her stylish sister-in-law Jessamine was absolutely in awe. At first
+Mrs. John was by no means pleased at the necessity of taking a country
+sister into her family circle. But one day, when the servant girl took
+a tantrum and left, Mrs. John found it very convenient to have in the
+house a person who could step into Eliza's place as promptly and
+efficiently as Jessamine could.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, she found it so convenient that Eliza never had a successor.
+Jessamine found herself in the position of maid-of-all-work and
+kitchen drudge for board and clothes.</p>
+
+<p>She never complained, but she grew thinner and paler as the winter
+went by. She had worked as hard on the farm, but it was the close
+confinement and weary routine that told on her. Mrs. John was exacting
+and querulous. John was absorbed in his business worries and had no
+time to waste on his sister. Now, when the summer had come, her
+homesickness was almost unbearable.</p>
+
+<p>The next day Mr. Bell came he handed her a big bunch of sweet-brier
+roses.</p>
+
+<p>"Here you are," he said heartily. "I took the liberty to bring you
+these today, seeing you're so fond of posies. The country roads are
+pink with them now. Why don't you get your husband to bring you out
+for a drive some day? You'd be as welcome as a lark at my farm."</p>
+
+<p>"I will when he comes along, but I haven't seen him yet."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bell gave a prolonged whistle. "Excuse me. I thought you were Mrs.
+Something-or-other for sure. Aren't you mistress here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no. My brother's wife is the mistress here. I'm only Jessamine."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed again. She was holding the roses against her face, and her
+eyes sparkled over them roguishly. The vegetable-man looked at her
+admiringly.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a country rose yourself, miss, and you ought to be blooming
+out in the fields, instead of wilting in here."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I was. Thank you so much for the roses, Mr. &mdash;&mdash; Mr. &mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Bell&mdash;Andrew Bell, that's my name. I live out at Pine Pastures. We're
+all Bells out there&mdash;can't throw a stone without hitting one. Glad you
+like the roses."</p>
+
+<p>After that the vegetable-man brought Jessamine a bouquet every trip.
+Now it was a big bunch of field-daisies or golden buttercups, now a
+green glory of spicy ferns, now a cluster of old-fashioned garden
+flowers.</p>
+
+<p>"They keep life in me," Jessamine told him.</p>
+
+<p>They were great friends by this time. True, she knew little about him
+but she felt instinctively that he was manly and kind-hearted.</p>
+
+<p>One day when he came Jessamine met him almost gleefully. "No, nothing
+today. There is no dinner to cook."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't say. Where are the folks?"</p>
+
+<p>"Gone on an excursion. They won't be back until tonight."</p>
+
+<p>"They won't? Well, I'll tell you what to do. You get ready, and when
+I'm through my rounds we'll go for a drive up the country."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mr. Bell! But won't it be too much bother for you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I reckon not! You want an excursion as well as other folks, and
+you shall have it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, thank you so much. Yes, I'll be ready. You don't know how much it
+means to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor little creature," said Mr. Bell, as he drove away. "It's
+downright cruelty, that's what it is, to keep her penned up like that.
+You might as well coop up a lark in a hen-house and expect it to
+thrive and sing. I'd like to give that brother of hers a piece of my
+mind."</p>
+
+<p>When he lifted her up to the high seat of his express wagon that
+afternoon he said, "Now, I want you to do something. Just shut your
+eyes and don't open them again until I tell you to."</p>
+
+<p>Jessamine laughed and obeyed. Finally she heard him say, "Look."</p>
+
+<p>Jessamine opened her eyes with a little cry. They were on a remote
+country road, cool and dim and quiet, in the very heart of the beech
+woods. Long banners of light fell athwart the grey boles. Along the
+roadsides grew sheets of feathery ferns. Above the sky was gloriously
+blue. The air was sweet with the wild woodsy smell of the forest.</p>
+
+<p>Jessamine lifted and clasped her hands in rapture. "Oh, how lovely!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know where we're going?" said Mr. Bell delightedly. "Out to my
+farm at Pine Pastures. My aunt keeps house for me, and she'll be real
+glad to see you. You're just going to have a real good time this
+afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>They had a delightful drive to begin with, and presently Mr. Bell
+turned into a wide lane.</p>
+
+<p>"This is Cloverside Farm. I'm proud of it, I'll admit. There isn't a
+finer place in the county. What do you think of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it is lovely&mdash;it is like home. Look at those great fields. I'd
+like to go and lie down in that clover."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bell lifted her from the wagon and marched her up a flowery garden
+path. "You shall do it, and everything else you want to. Here, Aunt,
+this is the young lady I spoke of. Make her at home while I tend to
+the horses."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Bell was a pleasant-faced woman with silver hair and kind blue
+eyes. She took Jessamine's hand in a friendly fashion.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in, dear. You're welcome as a June rose."</p>
+
+<p>When Mr. Bell returned, he found Jessamine standing on the porch with
+her hands full of honeysuckle and her cheeks pink with excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"I declare, you've got roses already," he exclaimed. "If they'd only
+stay now, and not bleach out again. What's first now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't know. There are so many things I want to do. Those
+flowers in the garden are calling me&mdash;and I want to go down to that
+hollow and pick buttercups&mdash;and I want to stay right here and look at
+things."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bell laughed. "Come with me to the pasture and see my Jersey
+calves. They're something worth seeing. Come, Aunt. This way, Miss
+Stacy."</p>
+
+<p>He led the way down the lane, the two women following together.
+Jessamine thought she must be in a pleasant dream. The whole afternoon
+was a feast of delight to her starved heart. When sunset came she sat
+down, tired out, but radiant, on the porch steps. Her hat had slipped
+back and her hair was curling around her face. Her dark eyes were
+aglow; the roses still bloomed in her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bell looked at her admiringly. "If a man could see that pretty
+sight every night!" he thought. "And, Great Scott, why can't he?
+What's to prevent, I'd like to know?"</p>
+
+<p>When the moon rose, Mr. Bell brought his team around and they drove
+back through the clear night, past the wonderful stillness of the
+great beech woods and the wide fields. The farmer looked sideways at
+his companion.</p>
+
+<p>"The little thing wants to be petted and looked after," he thought.
+"She's just pining away for home and love. And why can't she have it?
+She's dying by inches in that hole back in town."</p>
+
+<p>Jessamine, quite unsuspecting the farmer's meditations, was living
+over again in fancy the joys of the afternoon: the ramble in the
+pasture, the drink of water from the spring under the hillside pines,
+the bountiful, old-fashioned country supper in the vine-shaded
+dining-room, the cup of new milk in the dairy at sunset, and all the
+glory of skies and meadows and trees. How could she go back to her
+cage again?</p>
+
+
+<p>The next week Mr. Bell, senior, resumed his visits, and the young
+farmer came no more to the side door of No. 49. Jessamine missed him
+greatly. Mr. Bell, senior, never brought her clover or honeysuckle.</p>
+
+<p>But one day his nephew suddenly reappeared. Jessamine opened the door
+for him, and her face lighted up, but Mr. Bell saw that she had been
+crying.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you think I had forgotten you?" he asked. "Not a bit of it.
+Harvest was on and I couldn't get clear before. I've come to ask you
+when you intend to take another drive to Cloverside Farm. What have
+you been up to? You look as if you'd been working too hard."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I&mdash;haven't felt very well. I'm glad you came today, Mr. Bell.
+Perhaps I shall not see you again, and I wanted to say goodbye and
+thank you for all your kindness."</p>
+
+<p>"Goodbye? Why, where are you going?"</p>
+
+<p>"My brother went west a week ago," faltered Jessamine. She could not
+bring herself to tell the clear-eyed farmer that John Stacy had failed
+and had been obliged to start for the west without saying goodbye to
+his creditors. "His wife and I&mdash;are going too&mdash;next week."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Jessamine," exclaimed Mr. Bell in despair, "don't go&mdash;you
+mustn't. I want you at Cloverside Farm. I came today on purpose to ask
+you. I love you and I'll make you happy if you'll marry me. What do
+you say, Jessamine?"</p>
+
+<p>Jessamine, by way of answer, sat down on the nearest chair and began
+to cry.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't," said the wooer in distress. "I didn't want to make you
+feel bad. If you don't like the idea, I won't mention it again."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it isn't that&mdash;but I&mdash;I thought nobody cared what became of me.
+You are so kind&mdash;I'm afraid I'd only be a bother to you...."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll risk that. You shall have a happy home, little girl. Will you
+come to it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ye-e-e-s." It was very indistinct and faltering, but Mr. Bell heard
+it and considered it a most eloquent answer.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. John fumed and sulked and chose to consider herself hoodwinked
+and injured. But Mr. Bell was a resolute man, and a few days later he
+came for the last time to No. 49 and took his bride away with him.</p>
+
+<p>As they drove through the beech woods he put his arm tenderly around
+the shy, smiling little woman beside him and said, "You'll never be
+sorry for this, my dear."</p>
+
+<p>And she never was.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="Miss_Sallys_Letter" id="Miss_Sallys_Letter"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<h2>Miss Sally's Letter<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">[ToC]</a></span></h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>Miss Sally peered sharply at Willard Stanley, first through her
+gold-rimmed glasses and then over them. Willard continued to look very
+innocent. Joyce got up abruptly and went out of the room.</p>
+
+<p>"So you have bought that queer little house with the absurd name?"
+said Miss Sally.</p>
+
+<p>"You surely don't call Eden an absurd name," protested Willard.</p>
+
+<p>"I do&mdash;for a house. Particularly such a house as that. Eden! There are
+no Edens on earth. And what are you going to do with it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Live in it."</p>
+
+<p>"Alone?"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Sally looked at him suspiciously.</p>
+
+<p>"No. The truth is, Miss Sally, I am hoping to be married in the fall
+and I want to fix up Eden for my bride."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" Miss Sally drew a long breath, partly it seemed of relief and
+partly of triumph, and looked at Joyce, who had returned, with an
+expression that said, "I told you so"; but Joyce, whose eyes were cast
+down, did not see it.</p>
+
+<p>"And," went on Willard calmly, "I want you to help me fix it up, Miss
+Sally. I don't know much about such things and you know everything.
+You will be able to tell me just what to do to make Eden habitable."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Sally looked as pleased as she ever allowed herself to look over
+anything a man suggested. It was the delight of her heart to plan and
+decorate and contrive. Her own house was a model of comfort and good
+taste, and Miss Sally was quite ready for new worlds to conquer.
+Instantly Eden assumed importance in her eyes. She might be sorry for
+the misguided bride who was rashly going to trust her life's keeping
+to a man, but she would see, at least, that the poor thing should have
+a decent place to begin her martyrdom in.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll be pleased to help you all I can," she said graciously.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Sally could speak very graciously when she chose, even to men.
+You would not have thought she hated them, but she did. In all
+sincerity, too. Also, she had brought her niece up to hate and
+distrust them. Or, she had tried to do so. But at times Miss Sally was
+troubled with an uncomfortable suspicion that Joyce did not hate and
+distrust men quite as thoroughly as she ought. The suspicion had
+recurred several times this summer since Willard Stanley had come to
+take charge of the biological station at the harbour. Miss Sally did
+not distrust Willard on his own account. She merely distrusted him on
+principle and on Joyce's account. Nevertheless, she was rather nice to
+him. Miss Sally, dear, trim, dainty Miss Sally, with her snow-white
+curls and her big girlish black eyes, couldn't help being nice, even
+to a man.</p>
+
+<p>Willard had come a great deal to Miss Sally's. If it were Joyce he
+were after Miss Sally blocked his schemes with much enjoyment. He
+never saw Joyce alone&mdash;that Miss Sally knew of, at least&mdash;and he did
+not make much apparent headway. But now all danger was removed, Miss
+Sally thought. He was going to be married to somebody else, and Joyce
+was safe.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," said Willard. "I'll come up tomorrow afternoon, and you
+and I will take a prowl about Eden and see what must be done. I'm ever
+so much obliged, Miss Sally."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder who he is going to marry," said Miss Sally, careless of
+grammar, after he had gone. "Poor, poor girl!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see why you should pity her," said Joyce, not looking up from
+her embroidery. There was just the merest tremor in her voice. Miss
+Sally looked at her sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"I pity any woman who is foolish enough to marry," she said solemnly.
+"No man is to be trusted, Joyce&mdash;no man. They are all ready to break a
+trusting woman's heart for the sport of it. Never you allow any man
+the chance to break yours, Joyce. I shall never consent to your
+marrying anybody, so mind you don't take any such notion into your
+head. There oughtn't to be any danger, for I have instilled correct
+ideas on this subject into you from childhood. But girls are such
+fools. I know, because I was one myself once."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, I would never marry without your consent, Aunt Sally,"
+said Joyce, smiling faintly but affectionately at her aunt. Joyce
+loved Miss Sally with her whole heart. Everybody did who knew her.
+There never was a more lovable creature than this pretty little old
+maid who hated the men so bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a good girl," said Miss Sally approvingly. "I own that I have
+been a little afraid that this Willard Stanley was coming here to see
+you. But my mind is set at rest on that point now, and I shall help
+him fix up his doll house with a clear conscience. Eden, indeed!"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Sally sniffed and tripped out of the room to hunt up a furniture
+catalogue. Joyce sighed and let her embroidery slip to the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm afraid Willard's plan won't succeed," she murmured. "I'm
+afraid Aunt Sally will never consent to our marriage. And I can't and
+won't marry him unless she does, for she would never forgive me and I
+couldn't bear that. I wonder what makes her so bitter against men. She
+is so sweet and loving, it seems simply unnatural that she should have
+such a feeling so deeply rooted in her. Oh, what will she say when she
+finds out&mdash;dear little Aunt Sally? I couldn't bear to have her angry
+with me."</p>
+
+<p>The next day Willard came up from the harbour and took Miss Sally down
+to see Eden. Eden was a tiny, cornery, gabled grey house just across
+the road and down a long, twisted windy lane, skirting the edge of a
+beech wood. Nobody had lived in it for four years, and it had a
+neglected, out-at-elbow appearance.</p>
+
+<p>"It's rather a box of a place, isn't it?" said Willard slowly. "I'm
+afraid she will think so. But it is all I can afford just now. I
+dream of giving her a palace some day, of course. But we'll have to
+begin humbly. Do you think anything can be made of it?"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Sally was busily engaged in sizing up the possibilities of the
+place.</p>
+
+<p>"It is pretty small," she said meditatively. "And the yard is small
+too&mdash;and there are far too many trees and shrubs all messed up
+together. They must be thinned out&mdash;and that paling taken down. I
+think a good deal can be done with it. As for the house&mdash;well, let us
+see the inside."</p>
+
+<p>Willard unlocked the door and showed Miss Sally over the place. Miss
+Sally poked and pried and sniffed and wrinkled her forehead, and
+finally stood on the stairs and delivered her ultimatum.</p>
+
+<p>"This house can be done up very nicely. Paint and paper will work
+wonders. But I wouldn't paint it outside. Leave it that pretty silver
+weather-grey and plant vines to run over it. Oh, we'll see what we can
+do. Of course it is small&mdash;a kitchen, a dining room, a living room,
+and two bedrooms. You won't want anything stuffy. You can do the
+painting yourself, and I'll help you hang the paper. How much money
+can you spend on it?"</p>
+
+<p>Willard named the sum. It was not a large one.</p>
+
+<p>"But I think it will do," mused Miss Sally. "We'll <i>make</i> it do.
+There's such satisfaction getting as much as you possibly can out of a
+dollar, and twice as much as anybody else would get. I enjoy that sort
+of thing. This will be a game, and we'll play it with a right good
+will. But I do wish you would give the place a sensible name."</p>
+
+<p>"I think Eden is the most appropriate name in the world," laughed
+Willard. "It will be Eden for me when she comes."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you tell her all that and she believes it," said Miss Sally
+sarcastically. "You'll both find out that there is a good deal more
+prose than poetry in life."</p>
+
+<p>"But we'll find it out <i>together</i>," said Willard tenderly. "Won't
+that be worth something, Miss Sally? Prose, rightly written and read,
+is sometimes as beautiful as poetry."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Sally deigned no reply. She carefully gathered up her grey silken
+skirts from the dusty floor and walked out. "Get Christina Bowes to
+come up tomorrow and scrub this place out," she said practically. "We
+can go to town and select paint and paper. I should like the dining
+room done in pale green and the living room in creamy tones, ranging
+from white to almost golden brown. But perhaps my taste won't be
+hers."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, it will," said Willard with assurance. "I am quite certain
+she will like everything you like. I can never thank you enough for
+helping me. If you hadn't consented I should have had to put it into
+the hands of some outsider whom I couldn't have helped at all. And I
+<i>wanted</i> to help. I wanted to have a finger in everything, because it
+is for her, you see, Miss Sally. It will be such a delight to fix up
+this little house, knowing that she is coming to live in it."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if you really mean it," said Miss Sally bitterly. "Oh, I
+dare say you think you do. But <i>do</i> you? Perhaps you do. Perhaps you
+are the exception that proves the rule."</p>
+
+<p>This was a great admission for Miss Sally to make.</p>
+
+<p>For the next two months Miss Sally was happy. Even Willard himself was
+not more keenly interested in Eden and its development. Miss Sally did
+wonders with his money. She was an expert at bargain hunting, and her
+taste was excellent. A score of times she mercilessly nipped Willard's
+suggestions in the bud. "Lace curtains for the living room&mdash;never!
+They would be horribly out of place in such a house. You don't want
+curtains at all&mdash;just a frill is all that quaint window needs, with a
+shelf above it for a few bits of pottery. I picked up a love of a
+brass platter in town yesterday&mdash;got it for next to nothing from that
+old Jew who would really rather <i>give</i> you a thing than suffer you to
+escape without taking something. Oh, I know how to manage them."</p>
+
+<p>"You certainly do," laughed Willard. "It amazes me to see how far you
+can stretch a dollar."</p>
+
+<p>Willard did the painting under Miss Sally's watchful eye, and they
+hung the paper together. Together they made trips to town or junketed
+over the country in search of furniture and dishes of which Miss Sally
+had heard. Day by day the little house blossomed into a home, and day
+by day Miss Sally's interest in it grew. She began to have a personal
+affection for its quaint rooms and their adornments. Moreover, in
+spite of herself, she felt a growing interest in Willard's bride. He
+never told her the name of the girl he hoped to bring to Eden, and
+Miss Sally never asked it. But he talked of her a great deal, in a
+shy, reverent, tender way.</p>
+
+<p>"He certainly seems to be very much in love with her," Miss Sally told
+Joyce one evening when she returned from Eden. "I would believe in him
+if it were possible for me to believe in a man. Anyway, she will have
+a dear little home. I've almost come to love that Eden house. Why
+don't you come down and see it, Joyce?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'll come some day&mdash;I hope," said Joyce lightly. "I think I'd
+rather not see it until it is finished."</p>
+
+<p>"Willard is a nice boy," said Miss Sally suddenly. "I don't think I
+ever did him justice before. The finer qualities of his character come
+out in these simple, homely little doings and tasks. He is certainly
+very thoughtful and kind. Oh, I suppose he'll make a good husband, as
+husbands go. But he doesn't know the first thing about managing. If
+his wife isn't a good manager, I don't know what they'll do. And
+perhaps she won't like the way we've done up Eden. Willard says she
+will, of course, because he thinks her perfection. But she may have
+dreadful taste and want the lace curtains and that nightmare of a pink
+rug Willard admired, and I dare say she'd rather have a new flaunting
+set of china with rosebuds on it than that dear old dull blue I picked
+up for a mere song down at the Aldenbury auction. I stood in the rain
+for two mortal hours to make sure of it, and it was really worth all
+that Willard has spent on the dining room put together. It will break
+my heart if she sets to work altering Eden. It's simply perfect as it
+is&mdash;though I suppose I shouldn't say it."</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>In another week Eden was finished. Miss Sally stood in the tiny hall
+and looked about her.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it is done," she said with a sigh. "I'm sorry. I have enjoyed
+fixing it up tremendously, and now I feel that my occupation is gone.
+I hope you are satisfied, Willard."</p>
+
+<p>"Satisfied is too mild a word, Miss Sally. I am delighted. I knew you
+could accomplish wonders, but I never hoped for <i>this</i>. Eden is a
+dream&mdash;the dearest, quaintest, sweetest little home that ever waited
+for a bride. When I bring her here&mdash;oh, Miss Sally, do you know what
+that thought means to me?"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Sally looked curiously at the young man. His face was flushed and
+his voice trembled a little. There was a far-away shining look in his
+eyes as if he saw a vision.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you and she will be happy," said Miss Sally slowly. "When will
+she be coming, Willard?"</p>
+
+<p>The flush went out of Willard's face, leaving it pale and determined.</p>
+
+<p>"That is for her&mdash;and you&mdash;to say," he answered steadily.</p>
+
+<p>"Me!" exclaimed Miss Sally. "What have I to do with it?"</p>
+
+<p>"A great deal&mdash;for unless you consent she will never come here at
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"Willard Stanley," said Miss Sally, with ominous calm, "who is the
+girl you mean to marry?"</p>
+
+<p>"The girl I <i>hope</i> to marry is Joyce, Miss Sally. Wait&mdash;don't say
+anything till you hear me out." He came close to her and caught her
+hands in a boyish grip. "Joyce and I have loved each other ever since
+we met. But we despaired of winning your consent, and Joyce will not
+marry me without it. I thought if I could get you to help me fix up my
+little home that you might get so interested in it&mdash;and so well
+acquainted with me&mdash;that you would trust me with Joyce. Please do,
+Miss Sally. I love her so truly and I know I can make her happy. If
+you don't, Eden shall never have a mistress. I'll shut it up, just as
+it is, and leave it sacred to the dead hope of a bride that will never
+come to it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you wouldn't," protested Miss Sally. "It would be a shame&mdash;such a
+dear little house&mdash;and after all the trouble I've taken. But you have
+tricked me&mdash;oh, you men couldn't be straightforward in anything&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Wasn't it a fair device for a desperate lover, Miss Sally?"
+interrupted Willard. "Oh, you mustn't hold spite because of it, dear;
+And you will give me Joyce, won't you? Because if you don't, I really
+will shut up Eden forever."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Sally looked wistfully around her. Through the open door on her
+left she saw the little living room with its quaint, comfortable
+furniture, its dainty pictures and adornments. Through the front door
+she saw the trim, velvet-swarded little lawn. Upstairs were two white
+rooms that only wanted a woman's living presence to make them jewels.
+And the kitchen on which she had expended so much thought and
+ingenuity&mdash;the kitchen furnished to the last detail, even to the
+kindling in the range and the match Willard had laid ready to light
+it! It gave Miss Sally a pang to think of that altar fire never being
+lighted. It was really the thought of the kitchen that finished Miss
+Sally.</p>
+
+<p>"You've tricked me," she said again reproachfully. "You've tricked me
+into loving this house so much that I cannot bear the thought of it
+never living. You'll have to have Joyce, I suppose. And I believe I'm
+glad that it isn't a stranger who is to be the mistress of Eden. Joyce
+won't hanker after pink rugs and lace curtains. And her taste in china
+is the same as mine. In one way it's a great relief to my mind. But
+it's a fearful risk&mdash;a fearful risk. To think that you may make my
+dear child miserable!"</p>
+
+<p>"You know you don't think that I will, Miss Sally. I'm not really such
+a bad fellow, now, am I?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are a man&mdash;and I have no confidence whatever in men," declared
+Miss Sally, wiping some very real tears from her eyes with a very
+unreal sort of handkerchief&mdash;one of the cobwebby affairs of lace her
+daintiness demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Sally, why have you such a rooted distrust of men?" demanded
+Willard curiously. "Somehow, it seems so foreign to your character."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you think I am a perfect crank," said Miss Sally, sighing.
+"Well, I'll tell you why I don't trust men. I have a very good reason
+for it. A man broke my heart and embittered my life. I've never spoken
+about it to a living soul, but if you want to hear about it, you
+shall."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Sally sat down on the second step of the stairs and tucked her
+wet handkerchief away. She clasped her slender white hands over her
+knee. In spite of her silvery hair and the little lines on her face
+she looked girlish and youthful. There was a pink flush on her cheeks,
+and her big black eyes sparkled with the anger her memories aroused in
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"I was a young girl of twenty when I met him," she said, "and I was
+just as foolish as all young girls are&mdash;foolish and romantic and
+sentimental. He was very handsome and I thought him&mdash;but there, I
+won't go into that. It vexes me to recall my folly. But I loved
+him&mdash;yes, I did, with all my heart&mdash;with all there was of me to love.
+He made me love him. He deliberately set himself to win my love. For a
+whole summer he flirted with me. I didn't know he was flirting&mdash;I
+thought him in earnest. Oh, I was such a little fool&mdash;and so happy.
+Then&mdash;he went away. Went away suddenly without even a word of goodbye.
+But he had been summoned home by his father's serious illness, and I
+thought he would write&mdash;I waited&mdash;I hoped. I never heard from
+him&mdash;never saw him again. He had tired of his plaything and flung it
+aside. That is all," concluded Miss Sally passionately. "I never
+trusted any man again. When my sister died and gave me her baby, I
+determined to bring the dear child up safely, training her to avoid
+the danger I had fallen into. Well, I've failed. But perhaps it will
+be all right&mdash;perhaps there are some men who are true, though Stephen
+Merritt was false."</p>
+
+<p>"Stephen&mdash;who?" demanded Willard abruptly. Miss Sally coloured.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't mean to tell you his name," she said, getting up. "It was a
+slip of the tongue. Never mind&mdash;forget it and him. He was not worthy
+of remembrance&mdash;and yet I do remember him. I can't forget him&mdash;and I
+hate him all the more for it&mdash;for having entered so deeply into my
+life that I could not cast him out when I knew him unworthy. It is
+humiliating. There&mdash;let us lock up Eden and go home. I suppose you are
+dying to see Joyce and tell her your precious plot has succeeded."</p>
+
+<p>Willard did not appear to be at all impatient. He had relapsed into a
+brown study, during which he let Miss Sally lock up the house. Then he
+walked silently home with her. Miss Sally was silent too. Perhaps she
+was repenting her confidence&mdash;or perhaps she was thinking of her false
+lover. There was a pathetic droop to her lips, and her black eyes were
+sad and dreamy.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Sally," said Willard at last, as they neared her house, "had
+Stephen Merritt any sisters?"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Sally threw him a puzzled glance.</p>
+
+<p>"He had one&mdash;Jean Merritt&mdash;whom I disliked and who disliked me," she
+said crisply. "I don't want to talk of her&mdash;she was the only woman I
+ever hated. I never met any of the other members of his family&mdash;his
+home was in a distant part of the state."</p>
+
+<p>Willard stayed with Joyce so brief a time that Miss Sally viewed his
+departure with suspicion. This was not very lover-like conduct.</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say he's like all the rest&mdash;when his aim is attained the
+prize loses its value," reflected Miss Sally pessimistically. "Poor
+Joyce&mdash;poor child! But there&mdash;there isn't a single inharmonious thing
+in his house&mdash;that is one comfort. I'm so thankful I didn't let
+Willard buy those brocade chairs he wanted. They would have given
+Joyce the nightmare."</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Willard rushed down to the biological station and from
+there drove furiously to the station to catch the evening express. He
+did not return until three days later, when he appeared at Miss
+Sally's, dusty and triumphant.</p>
+
+<p>"Joyce is out," said Miss Sally.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad of it," said Willard recklessly. "It's you I want to see,
+Miss Sally. I have something to show you. I've been all the way home
+to get it."</p>
+
+<p>From his pocketbook Willard drew something folded and creased and
+yellow that looked like a letter. He opened it carefully and, holding
+it in his fingers, looked over it at Miss Sally.</p>
+
+<p>"My grandmother's maiden name was Jean Merritt," he said deliberately,
+"and Stephen Merritt was my great-uncle. I never saw him&mdash;he died when
+I was a child&mdash;but I've heard my father speak of him often."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Sally turned very pale. She passed her cobwebby handkerchief
+across her lips and her hand trembled. Willard went on.</p>
+
+<p>"My uncle never married. He and his sister Jean lived together until
+her late marriage. I was not very fond of my grandmother. She was a
+selfish, domineering woman&mdash;very unlike the grandmother of tradition.
+When she died everything she possessed came to me, as my father, her
+only child, was then dead. In looking over a box of old papers I found
+a letter&mdash;an old love letter. I read it with some interest, wondering
+whose it could be and how it came among Grandmother's private letters.
+It was signed 'Stephen,' so that I guessed my great-uncle had been the
+writer, but I had no idea who the Sally was to whom it was written,
+until the other day. Then I knew it was you&mdash;and I went home to bring
+you your letter&mdash;the letter you should have received long ago. Why
+you did not receive it I cannot explain. I fear that my grandmother
+must have been to blame for that&mdash;she must have intercepted and kept
+the letter in order to part her brother and you. In so far as I can I
+wish to repair the wrong she has done you. I know it can never be
+repaired&mdash;but at least I think this letter will take the bitterness
+out of the memory of your lover."</p>
+
+<p>He dropped the letter in Miss Sally's lap and went away.</p>
+
+<p>Pale, Miss Sally picked it up and read it. It was from Stephen Merritt
+to "dearest Sally," and contained a frank, manly avowal of love. Would
+she be his wife? If she would, let her write and tell him so. But if
+she did not and could not love him, let her silence reveal the bitter
+fact; he would wish to spare her the pain of putting her refusal into
+words, and if she did not write he would understand that she was not
+for him.</p>
+
+<p>When Willard and Joyce came back into the twilight room they found
+Miss Sally still sitting by the table, her head leaning pensively on
+her hand. She had been crying&mdash;the cobwebby handkerchief lay beside
+her, wrecked and ruined forever&mdash;but she looked very happy.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if you know what you have done for me," she said to Willard.
+"But no&mdash;you can't know&mdash;you can't realize it fully. It means
+everything to me. You have taken away my humiliation and restored to
+me my pride of womanhood. He really loved me&mdash;he was not false&mdash;he was
+what I believed him to be. Nothing else matters to me at all now. Oh,
+I am very happy&mdash;but it would never have been if I had not consented
+to give you Joyce."</p>
+
+<p>She rose and took their hands in hers, joining them.</p>
+
+<p>"God bless you, dears," she said softly. "I believe you will be happy
+and that your love for each other will always be true and faithful and
+tender. Willard, I give you my dear child in perfect trust and
+confidence."</p>
+
+<p>With her yellowed love letter clasped to her heart, and a raptured
+shining in her eyes, Miss Sally went out of the room.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="My_Lady_Jane" id="My_Lady_Jane"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<h2>My Lady Jane<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">[ToC]</a></span></h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>The boat got into Broughton half an hour after the train had gone. We
+had been delayed by some small accident to the machinery; hence that
+lost half-hour, which meant a night's sojourn for me in Broughton. I
+am ashamed of the things I thought and said. When I think that fate
+might have taken me at my word and raised up a special train, or some
+such miracle, by which I might have got away from Broughton that
+night, I experience a cold chill. Out of gratitude I have never sworn
+over missing connections since.</p>
+
+<p>At the time, however, I felt thoroughly exasperated. I was in a hurry
+to get on. Important business engagements would be unhinged by the
+delay. I was a stranger in Broughton. It looked like a stupid, stuffy
+little town. I went to a hotel in an atrocious humor. After I had
+fumed until I wanted a change, it occurred to me that I might as well
+hunt up Clark Oliver by way of passing the time. I had never been
+overly fond of Clark Oliver, although he was my cousin. He was a bit
+of a cad, and stupider than anyone belonging to our family had a right
+to be. Moreover, he was in politics, and I detest politics. But I
+rather wanted to see if he looked as much like me as he used to. I
+hadn't seen him for three years and I hoped that the time might have
+differentiated us to a saving degree. It was over a year since I had
+last been blown up by some unknown, excited individual on the ground
+that I was that scoundrel Oliver&mdash;politically speaking. I thought that
+was a good omen.</p>
+
+<p>I went to Clark's office, found he had left, and followed him to his
+rooms. The minute I saw him I experienced the same nasty feeling of
+lost or bewildered individuality which always overcame me in his
+presence. He was so absurdly like me. I felt as if I were looking into
+a mirror where my reflection persisted in doing things I didn't do,
+thereby producing a most uncanny sensation.</p>
+
+<p>Clark pretended he was glad to see me. He really couldn't have been,
+because his Great Idea hadn't struck him then, and we had always
+disliked each other.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Elliott," he said, shaking me by the hand with a twist he had
+learned in election campaigns, whereby something like heartiness was
+simulated. "Glad to see you, old fellow. Gad, you're as like me as
+ever. Where did you drop from?"</p>
+
+<p>I explained my predicament and we talked amiably and harmlessly for
+awhile about family gossip. I abhor family gossip, but it is a shade
+better than politics, and those two subjects are the only ones on
+which Clark can converse at all. I described Mary Alice's wedding, and
+Florence's new young man, and Tom-and-Kate's twins. Clark tried to be
+interested but I saw he had something on what serves him for a mind.
+After awhile it came out. He looked at his watch with a frown.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm in a bit of a puzzle," he said. "The Mark Kennedys are giving a
+dinner to-night. You don't know them, of course. They're the big
+people of Broughton. Kennedy runs the politics of the place, and Mrs.
+K. makes or mars people socially. It's my first invitation there and
+it's necessary I should accept it&mdash;necessary every way. Mrs. K. would
+never forgive me if I disappointed her at the last moment. Not that I,
+personally, am of much account&mdash;yet&mdash;to her. But it would leave a
+vacant place. Mrs. K. would never notice me again and, as she bosses
+Kennedy, I can't afford to offend her. Besides, there's a girl who'll
+be there. I've met her once. I want to meet her again. She's a beauty
+and no mistake. Toplofty as they make 'em, though. However, I think
+I've made an impression on her. It was at the Harvey's dance last
+week. She was the handsomest woman there, and she never took her eyes
+off me. I've given Mrs. Kennedy a pretty broad hint that I want to
+take her in to dinner. If I don't go I'll miss all round."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what is there to prevent you from going?" I asked, squiffily. I
+never could endure the way Clark talked about girls and hinted at his
+conquests.</p>
+
+<p>"Just this. Herbert Bronson came to town this afternoon and is leaving
+on the 10.30 train to-night. He's sent me word to meet him at his
+hotel this evening and talk over a mining deal I've been trying to
+pull off. I simply must go. It's my one chance to corral Bronson. If I
+lose him it'll be all up, and I'll be thousands out of pocket."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you <i>are</i> in rather a predicament," I agreed, with the
+philosophical acceptance of the situation that marks the outsider. <i>I</i>
+wasn't hampered by the multiplicity of my business and social
+engagements that evening, so I could afford to pity Clark. It is
+always rather nice to be able to pity a person you dislike.</p>
+
+<p>"I should say so. I can't make up my mind what to do. Hang it. I'll
+<i>have</i> to see Bronson. There's no question about that. A man ought to
+keep an understood substitute on hand to send to dinners when he can't
+go. By Jove! Elliott!"</p>
+
+<p>Clark's Great Idea had arrived. He bounced up eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"Elliott, will <i>you</i> go to the Kennedys' in my place? They'll never
+know the difference. Do, now&mdash;there's a good fellow!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!" I said.</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't nonsense. The resemblance between us was foreordained for
+this hour. I'll lend you my dress suit&mdash;it'll fit you&mdash;your figure is
+as much like mine as your face. You've nothing to do with yourself
+this evening. I offer you a good dinner and an agreeable partner. Come
+now, to oblige me. You know you owe me a good turn for that Mulhenen
+business."</p>
+
+<p>The Mulhenen business clinched the matter. Until he mentioned it I
+had no notion whatever of masquerading as Clark Oliver at the
+Kennedys' dinner. But, as Clark so delicately put it, he had done me a
+good turn in that affair and the obligation had rankled ever since. It
+is beastly to be indebted for a favor to a man you detest. Now was my
+chance to pay it off and I took it without more ado.</p>
+
+<p>"But," I said doubtfully, "I don't know the Kennedys&mdash;nor any of the
+social stunts that are doing in Broughton; I won't dare to talk about
+anything, and I'll seem so stupid, even if I don't actually make some
+irremediable blunder, that the Kennedys will be disgusted with you. It
+will probably do your prospects more harm than your absence would."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all. Keep your mouth shut when you can and talk generalities
+when you can't, and you'll pass. If you take that girl in she's a
+stranger in Broughton and won't suspect your ignorance of what's going
+on. Nobody will suspect you. Nobody here knows I have a cousin so like
+me. Our own mothers haven't always been able to tell us apart. Our
+very voices are alike. Come now, get into my dinner togs. You haven't
+much time and Mrs. K. doesn't like late comers."</p>
+
+<p>There seemed to be a number of things that Mrs. Kennedy did not like.
+I thought my chance of pleasing that critical lady extremely small,
+especially when I had to live up to Clark Oliver's personality.
+However, I dressed as expeditiously as possible. The novelty of the
+adventure rather pleased me. I always liked doing unusual things.
+Anything was better than lounging away the evening at my hotel. It
+couldn't do any harm. I owed Clark Oliver a good turn and I would save
+Mrs. Kennedy the annoyance of a vacant chair.</p>
+
+<p>There was no disputing the fact that I looked most disgustingly like
+Clark when I got into his clothes. I actually felt a grudge against
+them for their excellent fit.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll do," said Clark. "Remember you're a Conservative to-night and
+don't let your rank Liberal views crop out, or you'll queer me for
+all time with the great and only Mark. He doesn't talk politics at his
+dinners, though, so you're not likely to have trouble on that score.
+Mrs. Kennedy has a weakness for beer mugs. Her collection is
+considered very fine. Scandal whispers that Miss Harvey has a budding
+interest in settlement work&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss who?" I said sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"Harvey. Christian name unknown. That's the girl I mentioned. You'll
+probably take her in. Be nice to her even if you have to make an
+effort. She's the one I've picked out as your future cousin, you know,
+so I don't want you to spoil her good opinion of me in any way."</p>
+
+<p>The name had given me a jump. Once, in another world, I had known a
+Jane Harvey. But Clark's Miss Harvey couldn't be Jane. A month before
+I had read a newspaper item to the effect that Jane was on the Pacific
+coast. Moreover, Jane, when I knew her, had certainly no manifest
+vocation for settlement work. I didn't think two years could have
+worked such a transformation. Two years! Was it only two years? It
+seemed more like two centuries.</p>
+
+<p>I went to the Kennedys' in a pleasantly excited frame of mind and a
+cab. I just missed being late by a hairbreadth. The house was a big
+one, and everybody pertaining to it was big, except the host. Mark
+Kennedy was a little, thin man with a bald head. He didn't look like a
+political power, but that was all the more reason for his being one in
+a world where things are not what they seem.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Kennedy greeted me cordially and told me significantly that she
+had granted my request. This meant, as my card had already informed
+me, that I was to take Miss Harvey out. Of course there would be no
+introduction since Clark Oliver was already acquainted with the lady.
+I was wondering how I was to locate her when I got a shock that made
+me dizzy. Jane was over in a corner looking at me.</p>
+
+<p>There was no time to collect my wits. The guests were moving out to
+the dining-room. I took my nerve in my hand, crossed the room, bowed,
+and the next moment was walking through the hall with Jane's hand on
+my arm. The hall was a good long one; I blessed the architect who had
+planned it. It gave me time to sort out my ideas.</p>
+
+<p>Jane here! Jane going out to dinner with me, believing me to be Clark
+Oliver! Jane&mdash;but it was incredible! The whole thing was a dream&mdash;or I
+had gone crazy!</p>
+
+<p>I looked at her sideways when we had got into our places at the table.
+She was more beautiful than ever, that tall, brown-haired, disdainful
+Jane. The settlement work story I was inclined to dismiss as a myth.
+Settlement work in a beautiful woman generally means crowsfeet or a
+broken heart. Jane, according to my sight and belief, possessed
+neither.</p>
+
+<p>Once upon a time I had been engaged to Jane. I had been idiotically in
+love with her in those days and still more idiotically believed that
+she loved me. The trouble was that, although I had been cured of the
+latter phase of my idiocy, the former had become chronic. I had never
+been able to get over loving Jane. All through those two years I had
+hugged the fond hope that sometime I might stumble across her in a
+mild mood and make matters up. There was no such thing as seeking her
+out or writing to her, since she had icily forbidden me to do so, and
+Jane had a most detestable habit&mdash;in a woman&mdash;of meaning what she
+said. But the deity I had invoked was the god of chance&mdash;and this was
+how he had answered my prayers. I was eating my dinner beside Jane,
+who supposed me to be Clark Oliver!</p>
+
+<p>What should I do? Confess the truth and plead my cause while she had
+to sit beside me? That would never do. Someone might overhear us. And,
+in any case, it would be no passport to Jane's favor that I was a
+guest in the house under false pretences. She would be certain to
+disapprove strongly. It was a maddening situation.</p>
+
+<p>Jane, who was calmly eating soup&mdash;she was the only woman I had ever
+seen who could eat soup and look like a goddess at the same
+time&mdash;glanced around and caught me studying her profile. I thought she
+blushed slightly and I raged inwardly to think that blush was meant
+for Clark Oliver&mdash;Clark Oliver who had told me he thought Jane was
+smitten on him! Jane! On him!</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know, Mr. Oliver," said Jane slowly, "that you are startlingly
+like a&mdash;a person I used to know? When I first saw you the other night
+I took you for him."</p>
+
+<p>A <i>person</i> you used to know! Oh, Jane, that was the most unkindest cut
+of all.</p>
+
+<p>"My cousin, Elliott Cameron, I suppose?" I answered as indifferently
+as I could. "We resemble each other very closely. You were acquainted
+with Cameron, Miss Harvey?"</p>
+
+<p>"Slightly," said Jane.</p>
+
+<p>"A fine fellow," I said unblushingly.</p>
+
+<p>"A-h," said Jane.</p>
+
+<p>"My favorite relative," I went on brazenly. "He's a thoroughly good
+sort&mdash;rather dull now to what he used to be, though. He had an
+unfortunate love affair two years ago and has never got over it."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed?" said Jane coldly, crumbling a bit of bread between her
+fingers. Her face was expressionless and her voice ditto; but I had
+heard her criticize nervous people who did things like that at table.</p>
+
+<p>"I fear poor Elliott's life has been completely spoiled," I said, with
+a sigh. "It's a shame."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he confide the affair to you?" asked Jane, a little scornfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, after a fashion. He said enough for me to guess the rest. He
+never told me the lady's name. She was very beautiful, I understand,
+and very heartless. Oh, she used him very badly."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he tell you that, too?" asked Jane.</p>
+
+<p>"Not he. He won't listen to a word against her. But a chap can draw
+his own conclusions, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"What went wrong between them?" asked Jane. She smiled at a lady
+across the table, as if she were merely asking questions to make
+conversation, but she went on crumbling bread.</p>
+
+<p>"Simply a very stiff quarrel, I believe. Elliott never went into
+details. The lady was flirting with somebody else, I fancy."</p>
+
+<p>"People have such different ideas about flirting," said Jane,
+languidly. "What one would call mere simple friendliness another
+construes into flirting. Possibly your friend&mdash;or is it your
+cousin?&mdash;is one of those men who become insanely jealous over every
+trifle and attempt to exert authority before they have any to exert. A
+woman of spirit would hardly fail to resent that."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course Elliott was jealous," I admitted. "But then, you know, Miss
+Harvey, that jealousy is said to be the measure of a man's love. If he
+went beyond his rights I am sure he is bitterly sorry for it."</p>
+
+<p>"Does he really care about her still?" asked Jane, eating most
+industriously, although somehow the contents of her plate did not grow
+noticeably less. As for me, I didn't pretend to eat. I simply pecked.</p>
+
+<p>"He loves her with all his heart," I answered fervently. "There never
+has been and never will be any other woman for Elliott Cameron."</p>
+
+<p>"Why doesn't he go and tell her so?" inquired Jane, as if she felt
+rather bored over the whole subject.</p>
+
+<p>"He doesn't dare to. She forbade him ever to cross her path again.
+Told him she hated him and always would hate him as long as she
+lived."</p>
+
+<p>"She must have been an unpleasantly emphatic young woman," commented
+Jane.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd like to hear anyone say so to Elliott," I responded. "He
+considers her perfection. I'm sorry for Elliott. His life is wrecked."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know," said Jane slowly, as if poking about in the recesses of
+her memory for something half forgotten. "I believe I know the&mdash;the
+girl in question."</p>
+
+<p>"Really?" I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, she is a friend of mine. She&mdash;she never told me his name, but
+putting two and two together, I believe it must have been your cousin.
+But she&mdash;she thinks she was the one to blame."</p>
+
+<p>"Does she?" It was my turn to ask questions now, but my heart thumped
+so that I could hardly speak.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, she says she was too hasty and unreasonable. She didn't mean to
+flirt at all&mdash;and she never cared for anyone but&mdash;him. But his
+jealousy irritated her. I suppose she said things to him she didn't
+really mean. She&mdash;she never supposed he was going to take her at her
+word."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think she cares for him still?" Considering what was at stake,
+I think I asked the question very well.</p>
+
+<p>"I think she must," said Jane languidly. "She has never looked at any
+other man. She devotes most of her time to charitable work, but I feel
+sure she isn't really happy."</p>
+
+<p>So the settlement story was true. Oh, Jane!</p>
+
+<p>"What would you advise my cousin to do?" I asked. "Do you think he
+should go boldly to her? Would she listen to him&mdash;forgive him?"</p>
+
+<p>"She might," said Jane.</p>
+
+<p>"Have I your permission to tell Elliott Cameron this?" I demanded.</p>
+
+<p>Jane selected and ate an olive with maddening deliberation.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you may&mdash;if you are really convinced that he wants to hear
+it," she said at last, as if barely recollecting that I had asked the
+question two minutes previously.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell him as soon as I go home," I said.</p>
+
+<p>I had the satisfaction of startling Jane at last. She turned her head
+and looked at me. I got a good, square, satisfying gaze into her big,
+blackish-blue eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said, compelling myself to look away. "He came in on the boat
+this afternoon too late for his train. Has to stay over till to-morrow
+night. I left him in my rooms when I came away. Doubtless to-morrow
+will see him speeding recklessly to his dear divinity. I wonder if he
+knows where she is at present."</p>
+
+<p>"If he doesn't," said Jane, with the air of dismissing the subject
+once and forever from her mind, "I can give him the information. You
+may tell him I'm staying with the Duncan Moores, and shall be leaving
+day after to-morrow. By the way, have you seen Mrs. Kennedy's
+collection of steins? It is a remarkably fine one."</p>
+
+<p>Clark Oliver couldn't come to our wedding&mdash;or wouldn't. Jane has never
+met him since, but she cannot understand why I have such an aversion to
+him, especially when he has such a good opinion of me. She says she
+thought him charming, and one of the most interesting conversationalists
+she ever went out to dinner with.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="Robert_Turners_Revenge" id="Robert_Turners_Revenge"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<h2>Robert Turner's Revenge<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">[ToC]</a></span></h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>When Robert Turner came to the green, ferny triangle where the station
+road forked to the right and left under the birches, he hesitated as
+to which direction he would take. The left led out to the old Turner
+homestead, where he had spent his boyhood and where his cousin still
+lived; the right led down to the Cove shore where the Jameson property
+was situated. Since he had stopped off at Chiswick for the purpose of
+looking this property over before foreclosing the mortgage on it he
+concluded that he might as well take the Cove road; he could go around
+by the shore afterward&mdash;he had not forgotten the way even in forty
+years&mdash;and so on up through the old spruce wood in Alec Martin's
+field&mdash;if the spruces were there still and the field still Alec
+Martin's&mdash;to his cousin's place. He would just about have time to make
+the round before the early country supper hour. Then a brief visit
+with Tom&mdash;Tom had always been a good sort of a fellow although
+woefully dull and slow-going&mdash;and the evening express for Montreal. He
+swung with a businesslike stride into the Cove road.</p>
+
+<p>As he went on, however, the stride insensibly slackened into an
+unaccustomed saunter. How well he remembered that old road, although
+it was forty years since he had last traversed it, a set-lipped boy of
+fifteen, cast on the world by the indifference of an uncle. The years
+had made surprisingly little difference in it or in the surrounding
+scenery. True, the hills and fields and lanes seemed lower and smaller
+and narrower than he remembered them; there were some new houses along
+the road, and the belt of woods along the back of the farms had become
+thinner in most places. But that was all. He had no difficulty in
+picking out the old familiar spots. There was the big cherry orchard
+on the Milligan place which had been so famous in his boyhood. It was
+snow-white with blossoms, as if the trees were possessed of eternal
+youth; they had been in blossom the last time he had seen them. Well,
+time had not stood still with him as it had with Luke Milligan's
+cherry orchard, he reflected grimly. His springtime had long gone by.</p>
+
+<p>The few people he met on the road looked at him curiously, for
+strangers were not commonplace in Chiswick. He recognized some of the
+older among them but none of them knew him. He had been an awkward,
+long-limbed lad with fresh boyish colour and crisp black curls when he
+had left Chiswick. He returned to it a somewhat portly figure of a
+man, with close-cropped, grizzled hair, and a face that looked as if
+it might be carved out of granite, so immobile and unyielding it
+was&mdash;the face of a man who never faltered or wavered, who stuck at
+nothing that might advance his plans and purposes, a face known and
+dreaded in the business world where he reigned master. It was a cold,
+hard, selfish face, but the face of the boy of forty years ago had
+been neither cold nor hard nor selfish.</p>
+
+<p>Presently the homesteads and orchard lands grew fewer and then ceased
+altogether. The fields were long and low-lying, sloping down to the
+misty blue rim of sea. A turn of the road brought him in sudden sight
+of the Cove, and there below him was the old Jameson homestead, built
+almost within wave-lap of the pebbly shore and shut away into a lonely
+grey world of its own by the sea and sands and those long slopes of
+tenantless fields.</p>
+
+<p>He paused at the sagging gate that opened into the long, deep-rutted
+lane and, folding his arms on it, looked earnestly and scrutinizingly
+over the buildings. They were grey and faded, lacking the prosperous
+appearance that had characterized them once. There was an air of
+failure about the whole place as if the very land had become
+disheartened and discouraged.</p>
+
+<p>Long ago, Neil Jameson, senior, had been a well-to-do man. The big
+Cove farm had been one of the best in Chiswick then. As for Neil
+Jameson, Junior, Robert Turner's face always grew something grimmer
+when he recalled him&mdash;the one person, boy and man, whom he had really
+hated in the world. They had been enemies from childhood, and once in
+a bout of wrestling at the Chiswick school Neil had thrown him by an
+unfair trick and taunted him continually thereafter on his defeat.
+Robert had made a compact with himself that some day he would pay Neil
+Jameson back. He had not forgotten it&mdash;he never forgot such
+things&mdash;but he had never seen or heard of Neil Jameson after leaving
+Chiswick. He might have been dead for anything Robert Turner knew.
+Then, when John Kesley failed and his effects turned over to his
+creditors, of whom Robert Turner was the chief, a mortgage on the Cove
+farm at Chiswick, owned by Neil Jameson, had been found among his
+assets. Inquiry revealed the fact that Neil Jameson was dead and that
+the farm was run by his widow. Turner felt a pang of disappointment.
+What satisfaction was there in wreaking revenge on a dead man? But at
+least his wife and children should suffer. That debt of his to Jameson
+for an ill-won victory and many a sneer must be paid in full, if not
+to him, why, then to his heirs.</p>
+
+<p>His lawyers reported that Mrs. Jameson was two years behind with her
+interest. Turner instructed them to foreclose the mortgage promptly.
+Then he took it into his head to revisit Chiswick and have a good look
+at the Cove farm and other places he knew so well. He had a notion
+that it might be a decent place to spend a summer month or two in. His
+wife went to seaside and mountain resorts, but he liked something
+quieter. There was good fishing at the Cove and in Chiswick pond, as
+he remembered. If he liked the farm as well as his memory promised him
+he would do, he would bid it in himself. It would make Neil Jameson
+turn in his grave if the penniless lad he had jeered at came into the
+possession of his old ancestral property that had been owned by a
+Jameson for over one hundred years. There was a flavour in such a
+revenge that pleased Robert Turner. He smiled one of his occasional
+grim smiles over it. When Robert Turner smiled, weather prophets of
+the business sky foretold squalls.</p>
+
+<p>Presently he opened the gate and went through. Halfway down the lane
+forked, one branch going over to the house, the other slanting across
+the field to the cove. Turner took the latter and soon found himself
+on the grey shore where the waves were tumbling in creamy foam just as
+he remembered them long ago. Nothing about the old cove had changed;
+he walked around a knobby headland, weather-worn with the wind and
+spray of years, which cut him off from sight of the Jameson house, and
+sat down on a rock. He thought himself alone and was annoyed to find a
+boy sitting on the opposite ledge with a book on his knee.</p>
+
+<p>The lad lifted his eyes and looked Turner over with a clear, direct
+gaze. He was about twelve years old, tall for his age, slight, with a
+delicate, clear-cut face&mdash;a face that was oddly familiar to Turner,
+although he was sure he had never seen it before. The boy had oval
+cheeks, finely tinted with colour, big, shy blue eyes quilled about
+with long black lashes, and silvery-golden hair lying over his head in
+soft ringlets like a girl's. What girl's? Something far back in Robert
+Turner's dreamlike boyhood seemed to call to him like a note of a
+forgotten melody, sweet yet stirring like a pain. The more he looked
+at the boy the stronger the impression of a resemblance grew in every
+feature but the mouth. That was alien to his recollection of the face,
+yet there was something about it, when taken by itself, that seemed
+oddly familiar also&mdash;yes, and unpleasantly familiar, although the
+mouth was a good one&mdash;finely cut and possessing more firmness than was
+found in all the other features put together.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a good place for reading, sonny, isn't it?" he inquired, more
+genially than he had spoken to a child for years. In fact, having no
+children of his own, he so seldom spoke to a child that his voice and
+manner when he did so were generally awkward and rusty.</p>
+
+<p>The boy nodded a quick little nod. Somehow, Turner had expected that
+nod and the glimmer of a smile that accompanied it.</p>
+
+<p>"What book are you reading?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>The boy held it out; it was an old <i>Robinson Crusoe</i>, that classic of
+boyhood.</p>
+
+<p>"It's splendid," he said. "Billy Martin lent it to me and I have to
+finish it today because Ned Josephs is to have it next and he's in a
+hurry for it."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a good while since I read <i>Robinson Crusoe</i>," said Turner
+reflectively. "But when I did it was on this very shore a little
+further along below the Miller place. There was a Martin and a Josephs
+in the partnership then too&mdash;the fathers, I dare say, of Billy and
+Ned. What is your name, my boy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Paul Jameson, sir."</p>
+
+<p>The name was a shock to Turner. This boy a Jameson&mdash;Neil Jameson's
+son? Why, yes, he had Neil's mouth. Strange he had nothing else in
+common with the black-browed, black-haired Jamesons. What business had
+a Jameson with those blue eyes and silvery-golden curls? It was
+flagrant forgery on Nature's part to fashion such things and label
+them Jameson by a mouth.</p>
+
+<p>Hated Neil Jameson's son! Robert Turner's face grew so grey and hard
+that the boy involuntarily glanced upward to see if a cloud had
+crossed the sun.</p>
+
+<p>"Your father was Neil Jameson, I suppose?" Turner said abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>Paul nodded. "Yes, but he is dead. He has been dead for eight years. I
+don't remember him."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you any brothers or sisters?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have a little sister a year younger than I am. The other four are
+dead. They died long ago. I'm the only boy Mother had. Oh, I do so
+wish I was bigger and older! If I was I could do something to save the
+place&mdash;I'm sure I could. It is breaking Mother's heart to have to
+leave it."</p>
+
+<p>"So she has to leave it, has she?" said Turner grimly, with the old
+hatred stirring in his heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. There is a mortgage on it and we're to be sold out very soon&mdash;so
+the lawyers told us. Mother has tried so hard to make the farm pay but
+she couldn't. I could if I was bigger&mdash;I know I could. If they would
+only wait a few years! But there is no use hoping for that. Mother
+cries all the time about it. She has lived at the Cove farm for over
+thirty years and she says she can't live away from it now.
+Elsie&mdash;that's my sister&mdash;and I do all we can to cheer her up, but we
+can't do much. Oh, if I was only a man!"</p>
+
+<p>The lad shut his lips together&mdash;how much his mouth was like his
+father's&mdash;and looked out seaward with troubled blue eyes. Turner
+smiled another grim smile. Oh, Neil Jameson, your old score was being
+paid now!</p>
+
+<p>Yet something embittered the sweetness of revenge. That boy's face&mdash;he
+could not hate it as he had accustomed himself to hate the memory of
+Neil Jameson and all connected with him.</p>
+
+<p>"What was your mother's name before she married your father?" he
+demanded abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>"Lisbeth Miller," answered the boy, still frowning seaward over his
+secret thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>Turner started again. Lisbeth Miller! He might have known it. What
+woman in all the world save Lisbeth Miller could have given her son
+those eyes and curls? So Lisbeth had married Neil Jameson&mdash;little
+Lisbeth Miller, his schoolboy sweetheart. He had forgotten her&mdash;or
+thought he had; certainly he had not thought of her for years. But the
+memory of her came back now with a rush.</p>
+
+<p>Little Lisbeth&mdash;pretty little Lisbeth&mdash;merry little Lisbeth! How
+clearly he remembered her! The old Miller place had adjoined his
+uncle's farm. Lisbeth and he had played together from babyhood. How he
+had worshipped her! When they were six years old they had solemnly
+promised to marry each other when they grew up, and Lisbeth had let
+him kiss her as earnest of their compact, made under a bloom-white
+apple tree in the Miller orchard. Yet she would always blush furiously
+and deny it ever afterwards; it made her angry to be reminded of it.</p>
+
+<p>He saw himself going to school, carrying her books for her, the envied
+of all the boys. He remembered how he had fought Tony Josephs because
+Tony had the presumption to bring her spice apples: he had thrashed
+him too, so soundly that from that time forth none of the schoolboys
+presumed to rival him in Lisbeth's affections&mdash;roguish little Lisbeth!
+who grew prettier and saucier every year.</p>
+
+<p>He recalled the keen competition of the old days when to be "head of
+the class" seemed the highest honour within mortal reach, and was
+striven after with might and main. He had seldom attained to it
+because he would never "go up past" Lisbeth. If she missed a word, he,
+Robert, missed it too, no matter how well he knew it. It was sweet to
+be thought a dunce for her dear sake. It was all the reward he asked
+to see her holding her place at the head of the class, her cheeks
+flushed pink and her eyes starry with her pride of position. And how
+sweetly she would lecture him on the way home from school about
+learning his spellings better, and wind up her sermon with the frank
+avowal, uttered with deliciously downcast lids, that she liked him
+better than any of the other boys after all, even if he couldn't spell
+as well as they could. Nothing of success that he had won since had
+ever thrilled him as that admission of little Lisbeth's!</p>
+
+<p>She had been such a sympathetic little sweetheart too, never weary of
+listening to his dreams and ambitions, his plans for the future. She
+had always assured him that she knew he would succeed. Well, he had
+succeeded&mdash;and now one of the uses he was going to make of his success
+was to turn Lisbeth and her children out of their home by way of
+squaring matters with a dead man!</p>
+
+<p>Lisbeth had been away from home on a long visit to an aunt when he had
+left Chiswick. She was growing up and the childish intimacy was
+fading. Perhaps, under other circumstances, it might have ripened into
+fruit, but he had gone away and forgotten her; the world had claimed
+him; he had lost all active remembrance of Lisbeth and, before this
+late return to Chiswick, he had not even known if she were living. And
+she was Neil Jameson's widow!</p>
+
+<p>He was silent for a long time, while the waves purred about the base
+of the big red sandstone rock and the boy returned to his <i>Crusoe</i>.
+Finally Robert Turner roused himself from his reverie.</p>
+
+<p>"I used to know your mother long ago when she was a little girl," he
+said. "I wonder if she remembers me. Ask her when you go home if she
+remembers Bobby Turner."</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you come up to the house and see her, sir?" asked Paul
+politely. "Mother is always glad to see her old friends."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I haven't time today." Robert Turner was not going to tell Neil
+Jameson's son that he did not care to look for the little Lisbeth of
+long ago in Neil Jameson's widow. The name spoiled her for him, just
+as the Jameson mouth spoiled her son for him. "But you may tell her
+something else. The mortgage will not be foreclosed. I was the power
+behind the lawyers, but I did not know that the present owner of the
+Cove farm was my little playmate, Lisbeth Miller. You and she shall
+have all the time you want. Tell her Bobby Turner does this in return
+for what she gave him under the big sweeting apple tree on her sixth
+birthday. I think she will remember and understand. As for you, Paul,
+be a good boy and good to your mother. I hope you'll succeed in your
+ambition of making the farm pay when you are old enough to take it in
+hand. At any rate, you'll not be disturbed in your possession of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, sir! oh, sir!" stammered Paul in an agony of embarrassed
+gratitude and delight. "Oh, it seems too good to be true. Do you
+really mean that we're not to be sold out? Oh, won't you come and tell
+Mother yourself? She'll be so happy&mdash;so grateful. Do come and let her
+thank you."</p>
+
+<p>"Not today. I haven't time. Give her my message, that's all. There,
+run; the sooner she gets the news the better."</p>
+
+<p>Turner watched the boy as he bounded away, until the headland hid him
+from sight.</p>
+
+<p>"There goes my revenge&mdash;and a fine bit of property eminently suited
+for a summer residence&mdash;all for a bit of old, rusty sentiment," he
+said with a shrug. "I didn't suppose I was capable of such a mood. But
+then&mdash;little Lisbeth. There never was a sweeter girl. I'm glad I
+didn't go with the boy to see her. She's an old woman now&mdash;and Neil
+Jameson's widow. I prefer to keep my old memories of her
+undisturbed&mdash;little Lisbeth of the silvery-golden curls and the
+roguish blue eyes. Little Lisbeth of the old time! I'm glad to be able
+to have done you the small service of securing your home to you. It is
+my thanks to you for the friendship and affection you gave my lonely
+boyhood&mdash;my tribute to the memory of my first sweetheart."</p>
+
+<p>He walked away with a smile, whose amusement presently softened to an
+expression that would have amazed his business cronies. Later on he
+hummed the air of an old love song as he climbed the steep spruce road
+to Tom's.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="The_Fillmore_Elderberries" id="The_Fillmore_Elderberries"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<h2>The Fillmore Elderberries<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">[ToC]</a></span></h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>"I expected as much," said Timothy Robinson. His tone brought the
+blood into Ellis Duncan's face. The lad opened his lips quickly, as if
+for an angry retort, but as quickly closed them again with a set
+firmness oddly like Timothy Robinson's own.</p>
+
+<p>"When I heard that lazy, worthless father of yours was dead, I
+expected you and your mother would be looking to me for help," Timothy
+Robinson went on harshly. "But you're mistaken if you think I'll give
+it. You've no claim on me, even if your father was my half-brother&mdash;no
+claim at all. And I'm not noted for charity."</p>
+
+<p>Timothy Robinson smiled grimly. It was very true that he was far from
+being noted for charity. His neighbours called him "close" and "near."
+Some even went so far as to call him "a miserly skinflint." But this
+was not true. It was, however, undeniable that Timothy Robinson kept a
+tight clutch on his purse-strings, and although he sometimes gave
+liberally enough to any cause which really appealed to him, such
+causes were few and far between.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not asking for charity, Uncle Timothy," said Ellis quietly. He
+passed over the slur at his father in silence, deeply as he felt it,
+for, alas, he knew that it was only too true. "I expect to support my
+mother by hard and honest work. And I am not asking you for work on
+the ground of our relationship. I heard you wanted a hired man, and I
+have come to you, as I should have gone to any other man about whom I
+had heard it, to ask you to hire me."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I do want a man," said Uncle Timothy drily. "A <i>man</i>&mdash;not a
+half-grown boy of fourteen, not worth his salt. I want somebody able
+and willing to work."</p>
+
+<p>Again Ellis flushed deeply and again he controlled himself. "I am
+willing to work, Uncle Timothy, and I think you would find me able
+also if you would try me. I'd work for less than a man's wages at
+first, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"You won't work for any sort of wages from me," interrupted Timothy
+Robinson decidedly. "I tell you plainly that I won't hire you. You're
+the wrong man's son for that. Your father was lazy and incompetent
+and, worst of all, untrustworthy. I did try to help him once, and all
+I got was loss and ingratitude. I want none of his kind around my
+place. I don't believe in you, so you may as well take yourself off,
+Ellis. I've no more time to waste."</p>
+
+<p>Ellis took himself off, his ears tingling. As he walked homeward his
+thoughts were very bitter. All Uncle Timothy had said about his father
+was true, and Ellis realized what a count it was against him in his
+efforts to obtain employment. Nobody wanted to be bothered with "Old
+Sam Duncan's son," though nobody had been so brutally outspoken as his
+Uncle Timothy.</p>
+
+<p>Sam Duncan and Timothy Robinson had been half-brothers. Sam, the
+older, had been the son of Mrs. Robinson's former marriage. Never were
+two lads more dissimilar. Sam was a lazy, shiftless fellow, deserving
+all the hard things that came to be said of him. He would not work and
+nobody could depend on him, but he was a handsome lad with rather
+taking ways in his youth, and at first people had liked him better
+than the close, blunt, industrious Timothy. Their mother had died in
+their childhood, but Mr. Robinson had been fond of Sam and the boy had
+a good home. When he was twenty-two and Timothy eighteen, Mr. Robinson
+had died very suddenly, leaving no will. Everything he possessed went
+to Timothy. Sam immediately left. He said he would not stay there to
+be "bossed" by Timothy.</p>
+
+<p>He rented a little house in the village, married a girl "far too good
+for him," and started in to support himself and his wife by days'
+work. He had lounged, borrowed, and shirked through life. Once Timothy
+Robinson, perhaps moved by pity for Sam's wife and baby, had hired him
+for a year at better wages than most hired men received in Dalrymple.
+Sam idled through a month of it, then got offended and left in the
+middle of haying. Timothy Robinson washed his hands of him after that.</p>
+
+<p>When Ellis was fourteen Sam Duncan died, after a lingering illness of
+a year. During this time the family were kept by the charity of
+pitying neighbours, for Ellis could not be spared from attendance on
+his father to make any attempt at earning money. Mrs. Duncan was a
+fragile little woman, worn out with her hard life, and not strong
+enough to wait on her husband alone.</p>
+
+<p>When Sam Duncan was dead and buried, Ellis straightened his shoulders
+and took counsel with himself. He must earn a livelihood for his
+mother and himself, and he must begin at once. He was tall and strong
+for his age, and had a fairly good education, his mother having
+determinedly kept him at school when he had pleaded to be allowed to
+go to work. He had always been a quiet fellow, and nobody in Dalrymple
+knew much about him. But they knew all about his father, and nobody
+would hire Ellis unless he were willing to work for a pittance that
+would barely clothe him.</p>
+
+<p>Ellis had not gone to his Uncle Timothy until he had lost all hope of
+getting a place elsewhere. Now this hope too had gone. It was nearly
+the end of June and everybody who wanted help had secured it. Look
+where he would, Ellis could see no prospect of employment.</p>
+
+<p>"If I could only get a chance!" he thought miserably. "I know I am not
+idle or lazy&mdash;I know I can work&mdash;if I could get a chance to prove it."</p>
+
+<p>He was sitting on the fence of the Fillmore elderberry pasture as he
+said it, having taken a short cut across the fields. This pasture was
+rather noted in Dalrymple. Originally a mellow and fertile field, it
+had been almost ruined by a persistent, luxuriant growth of elderberry
+bushes. Old Thomas Fillmore had at first tried to conquer them by
+mowing them down "in the dark of the moon." But the elderberries did
+not seem to mind either moon or mowing, and flourished alike in all
+the quarters. For the past two years Old Thomas had given up the
+contest, and the elderberries had it all their own sweet way.</p>
+
+<p>Thomas Fillmore, a bent old man with a shrewd, nutcracker face, came
+through the bushes while Ellis was sitting on the fence.</p>
+
+<p>"Howdy, Ellis. Seen anything of my spotted calves? I've been looking
+for 'em for over an hour."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I haven't seen any calves&mdash;but a good many might be in this
+pasture without being visible to the naked eye," said Ellis, with a
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>Old Thomas shook his head ruefully. "Them elders have been too many
+for me," he said. "Did you ever see a worse-looking place? You'd
+hardly believe that twenty years ago there wasn't a better piece of
+land in Dalrymple than this lot, would ye? Such grass as grew here!"</p>
+
+<p>"The soil must be as good as ever if anything had a chance to grow on
+it," said Ellis. "Couldn't those elders be rooted out?"</p>
+
+<p>"It'd be a back-breaking job, but I reckon it could be done if anyone
+had the muscle and patience and time to tackle it. I haven't the first
+at my age, and my hired man hasn't the last. And nobody would do it
+for what I could afford to pay."</p>
+
+<p>"What will you give me if I undertake to clean the elders out of this
+field for you, Mr. Fillmore?" asked Ellis quietly.</p>
+
+<p>Old Thomas looked at him with a surprised face, which gradually
+reverted to its original shrewdness when he saw that Ellis was in
+earnest. "You must be hard up for a job," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I am," was Ellis's laconic answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, lemme see." Old Thomas calculated carefully. He never paid a
+cent more for anything than he could help, and was noted for hard
+bargaining. "I'll give ye sixteen dollars if you clean out the whole
+field," he said at length.</p>
+
+<p>Ellis looked at the pasture. He knew something about cleaning out
+elderberry brush, and he also knew that sixteen dollars would be very
+poor pay for it. Most of the elders were higher than a man's head,
+with big roots, thicker than his wrist, running deep into the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"It's worth more, Mr. Fillmore," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Not to me," responded Old Thomas drily. "I've plenty more land and
+I'm an old fellow without any sons. I ain't going to pay out money for
+the benefit of some stranger who'll come after me. You can take it or
+leave it at sixteen dollars."</p>
+
+<p>Ellis shrugged his shoulders. He had no prospect of anything else, and
+sixteen dollars were better than nothing. "Very well, I'll take it,"
+he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, now, look here," said Old Thomas shrewdly, "I'll expect you to
+do the work thoroughly, young man. Them roots ain't to be cut off,
+remember; they'll have to be dug out. And I'll expect you to finish
+the job if you undertake it too, and not drop it halfway through if
+you get a chance for a better one."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll finish with your elderberries before I leave them," promised
+Ellis.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>Ellis went to work the next day. His first move was to chop down all
+the brush and cart it into heaps for burning. This took two days and
+was comparatively easy work. The third day Ellis tackled the roots. By
+the end of the forenoon he had discovered just what cleaning out an
+elderberry pasture meant, but he set his teeth and resolutely
+persevered. During the afternoon Timothy Robinson, whose farm adjoined
+the Fillmore place, wandered by and halted with a look of astonishment
+at the sight of Ellis, busily engaged in digging and tearing out huge,
+tough, stubborn elder roots. The boy did not see his uncle, but worked
+away with a vim and vigour that were not lost on the latter.</p>
+
+<p>"He never got that muscle from Sam," reflected Timothy. "Sam would
+have fainted at the mere thought of stumping elders. Perhaps I've been
+mistaken in the boy. Well, well, we'll see if he holds out."</p>
+
+<p>Ellis did hold out. The elderberries tried to hold out too, but they
+were no match for the lad's perseverance. It was a hard piece of work,
+however, and Ellis never forgot it. Week after week he toiled in the
+hot summer sun, digging, cutting, and dragging out roots. The job
+seemed endless, and his progress each day was discouragingly slow. He
+had expected to get through in a month, but he soon found it would
+take two. Frequently Timothy Robinson wandered by and looked at the
+increasing pile of roots and the slowly extending stretch of cleared
+land. But he never spoke to Ellis and made no comment on the matter to
+anybody.</p>
+
+<p>One evening, when the field was about half done, Ellis went home more
+than usually tired. It had been a very hot day. Every bone and muscle
+in him ached. He wondered dismally if he would ever get to the end of
+that wretched elderberry field. When he reached home Jacob Green from
+Westdale was there. Jacob lost no time in announcing his errand.</p>
+
+<p>"My hired boy's broke his leg, and I must fill his place right off.
+Somebody referred me to you. Guess I'll try you. Twelve dollars a
+month, board, and lodging. What say?"</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Ellis's face flushed with delight. Twelve dollars a month
+and permanent employment! Then he remembered his promise to Mr.
+Fillmore. For a moment he struggled with the temptation. Then he
+mastered it. Perhaps the discipline of his many encounters with those
+elderberry roots helped him to do so.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry, Mr. Green," he said reluctantly. "I'd like to go, but I
+can't. I promised Mr. Fillmore that I'd finish cleaning up his
+elderberry pasture when I'd once begun it, and I shan't be through for
+a month yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'd see myself turning down a good offer for Old Tom Fillmore,"
+said Jacob Green.</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't for Mr. Fillmore&mdash;it's for myself," said Ellis steadily. "I
+promised and I must keep my word."</p>
+
+<p>Jacob drove away grumblingly. On the road he met Timothy Robinson and
+stopped to relate his grievances.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>It must be admitted that there were times during the next month when
+Ellis was tempted to repent having refused Jacob Green's offer. But at
+the end of the month the work was done and the Fillmore elderberry
+pasture was an elderberry pasture no longer. All that remained of the
+elders, root and branch, was piled into a huge heap ready for burning.</p>
+
+<p>"And I'll come up and set fire to it when it's dry enough," Ellis told
+Mr. Fillmore. "I claim the satisfaction of that."</p>
+
+<p>"You've done the job thoroughly," said Old Thomas. "There's your
+sixteen dollars, and every cent of it was earned, if ever money was,
+I'll say that much for you. There ain't a lazy bone in your body. If
+you ever want a recommendation just you come to me."</p>
+
+<p>As Ellis passed Timothy Robinson's place on the way home that worthy
+himself appeared, strolling down his lane. "Ah, Ellis," he said,
+speaking to his nephew for the first time since their interview two
+months before, "so you've finished with your job?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Got your sixteen dollars, I suppose? It was worth four times that.
+Old Tom cheated you. You were foolish not to have gone to Green when
+you had the chance."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd promised Mr. Fillmore to finish with his pasture, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>"Humph! Well, what are you going to do now?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. Harvest will be on next week. I may get in somewhere as
+an extra hand for a spell."</p>
+
+<p>"Ellis," said his uncle abruptly, after a moment's silence, "I'm
+going to discharge my man. He's no earthly good. Will you take his
+place? I'll give you fifteen dollars a month and found."</p>
+
+<p>Ellis stared at Timothy Robinson. "I thought you told me that you had
+no place for my father's son," he said slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"I've changed my mind. I've seen how you went at that elderberry job.
+Great snakes, there couldn't be a better test for anybody than rooting
+out them things. I know you can work. When Jacob Green told me why
+you'd refused his offer I knew you could be depended on. You come to
+me and I'll do well by you. I've no kith or kin of my own except you.
+And look here, Ellis. I'm tired of hired housekeepers. Will your
+mother come up and live with us and look after things a bit? I've a
+good girl, and she won't have to work hard, but there must be somebody
+at the head of a household. She must have a good headpiece&mdash;for you
+have inherited good qualities from someone, and goodness knows it
+wasn't from your father."</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle Timothy," said Ellis respectfully but firmly, "I'll accept your
+offer gratefully, and I am sure Mother will too. But there is one
+thing I must say. Perhaps my father deserves all you say of him&mdash;but
+he is dead&mdash;and if I come to you it must be with the understanding
+that nothing more is ever to be said against him."</p>
+
+<p>Timothy Robinson smiled&mdash;a queer, twisted smile that yet had a hint of
+affection and comprehension in it. "Very well," he said. "I'll never
+cast his shortcomings up to you again. Come to me&mdash;and if I find you
+always as industrious and reliable as you've proved yourself to be
+negotiating them elders, I'll most likely forget that you ain't my own
+son some of these days."</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="The_Finished_Story" id="The_Finished_Story"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<h2>The Finished Story<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">[ToC]</a></span></h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>She always sat in a corner of the west veranda at the hotel, knitting
+something white and fluffy, or pink and fluffy, or pale blue and
+fluffy&mdash;always fluffy, at least, and always dainty. Shawls and scarfs
+and hoods the things were, I believe. When she finished one she gave
+it to some girl and began another. Every girl at Harbour Light that
+summer wore some distracting thing that had been fashioned by Miss
+Sylvia's slim, tireless, white fingers.</p>
+
+<p>She was old, with that beautiful, serene old age which is as beautiful
+in its way as youth. Her girlhood and womanhood must have been very
+lovely to have ripened into such a beauty of sixty years. It was a
+surprise to everyone who heard her called <i>Miss</i> Sylvia. She looked so
+like a woman who ought to have stalwart, grown sons and dimpled little
+grandchildren.</p>
+
+<p>For the first two days after the arrival at the hotel she sat in her
+corner alone. There was always a circle of young people around her;
+old folks and middle-aged people would have liked to join it, but Miss
+Sylvia, while she was gracious to all, let it be distinctly understood
+that her sympathies were with youth. She sat among the boys and girls,
+young men and maidens, like a fine white queen. Her dress was always
+the same and somewhat old-fashioned, but nothing else would have
+suited her half so well; she wore a lace cap on her snowy hair and a
+heliotrope shawl over her black silk shoulders. She knitted
+continually and talked a good deal, but listened more. We sat around
+her at all hours of the day and told her everything.</p>
+
+<p>When you were first introduced to her you called her Miss
+Stanleymain. Her endurance of that was limited to twenty-four hours.
+Then she begged you to call her Miss Sylvia, and as Miss Sylvia you
+spoke and thought of her forevermore.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Sylvia liked us all, but I was her favourite. She told us so
+frankly and let it be understood that when I was talking to her and
+her heliotrope shawl was allowed to slip under one arm it was a sign
+that we were not to be interrupted. I was as vain of her favour as any
+lovelorn suitor whose lady had honoured him, not knowing, as I came to
+know later, the reason for it.</p>
+
+<p>Although Miss Sylvia had an unlimited capacity for receiving
+confidences, she never gave any. We were all sure that there must be
+some romance in her life, but our efforts to discover it were
+unsuccessful. Miss Sylvia parried tentative questions so skilfully
+that we knew she had something to defend. But one evening, when I had
+known her a month, as time is reckoned, and long years as affection
+and understanding are computed, she told me her story&mdash;at least, what
+there was to tell of it. The last chapter was missing.</p>
+
+<p>We were sitting together on the veranda at sunset. Most of the hotel
+people had gone for a harbour sail; a few forlorn mortals prowled
+about the grounds and eyed our corner wistfully, but by the sign of
+the heliotrope shawl knew it was not for them.</p>
+
+<p>I was reading one of my stories to Miss Sylvia. In my own excuse I
+must allege that she tempted me to do it. I did not go around with
+manuscripts under my arm, inflicting them on defenceless females. But
+Miss Sylvia had discovered that I was a magazine scribbler, and
+moreover, that I had shut myself up in my room that very morning and
+perpetrated a short story. Nothing would do but that I read it to her.</p>
+
+<p>It was a rather sad little story. The hero loved the heroine, and she
+loved him. There was no reason why he should not love her, but there
+was a reason why he could not marry her. When he found that he loved
+her he knew that he must go away. But might he not, at least, tell her
+his love? Might he not, at least, find out for his consolation if she
+cared for him? There was a struggle; he won, and went away without a
+word, believing it to be the more manly course. When I began to read
+Miss Sylvia was knitting, a pale green something this time, of the
+tender hue of young leaves in May. But after a little her knitting
+slipped unheeded to her lap and her hands folded idly above it. It was
+the most subtle compliment I had ever received.</p>
+
+<p>When I turned the last page of the manuscript and looked up, Miss
+Sylvia's soft brown eyes were full of tears. She lifted her hands,
+clasped them together and said in an agitated voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, no; don't let him go away without telling her&mdash;just telling
+her. Don't let him do it!"</p>
+
+<p>"But, you see, Miss Sylvia," I explained, flattered beyond measure
+that my characters had seemed so real to her, "that would spoil the
+story. It would have no reason for existence then. Its <i>motif</i> is
+simply his mastery over self. He believes it to be the nobler course."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, it wasn't&mdash;if he loved her he should have told her. Think of
+her shame and humiliation&mdash;she loved him, and he went without a word
+and she could never know he cared for her. Oh, you must change it&mdash;you
+must, indeed! I cannot bear to think of her suffering what I have
+suffered."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Sylvia broke down and sobbed. To appease her, I promised that I
+would remodel the story, although I knew that the doing so would leave
+it absolutely pointless.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm so glad," said Miss Sylvia, her eyes shining through her
+tears. "You see, I know it would make her happier&mdash;I know it. I'm
+going to tell you my poor little story to convince you. But you&mdash;you
+must not tell it to any of the others."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry you think the admonition necessary," I said
+reproachfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I do not, indeed I do not," she hastened to assure me. "I know I
+can trust you. But it's such a poor little story. You mustn't laugh at
+it&mdash;it is all the romance I had. Years ago&mdash;forty years ago&mdash;when I
+was a young girl of twenty, I&mdash;learned to care very much for somebody.
+I met him at a summer resort like this. I was there with my aunt and
+he was there with his mother, who was delicate. We saw a great deal of
+each other for a little while. He was&mdash;oh, he was like no other man I
+had ever seen. You remind me of him somehow. That is partly why I like
+you so much. I noticed the resemblance the first time I saw you. I
+don't know in just what it consists&mdash;in your expression and the way
+you carry your head, I think. He was not strong&mdash;he coughed a good
+deal. Then one day he went away&mdash;suddenly. I had thought he cared for
+me, but he never said so&mdash;just went away. Oh, the shame of it! After a
+time I heard that he had been ordered to California for his health.
+And he died out there the next spring. My heart broke then, I never
+cared for anybody again&mdash;I couldn't. I have always loved him. But it
+would have been so much easier to bear if I had only known that he
+loved me&mdash;oh, it would have made all the difference in the world. And
+the sting of it has been there all these years. I can't even permit
+myself the joy of dwelling on his memory because of the thought that
+perhaps he did not care."</p>
+
+<p>"He must have cared," I said warmly. "He couldn't have helped it, Miss
+Sylvia."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Sylvia shook her head with a sad smile.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot be sure. Sometimes I think he did. But then the doubt creeps
+back again. I would give almost anything to know that he did&mdash;to know
+that I have not lavished all the love of my life on a man who did not
+want it. And I never can know, never&mdash;I can hope and almost believe,
+but I can never know. Oh, you don't understand&mdash;a man couldn't fully
+understand what my pain has been over it. You see now why I want you
+to change the story. I am sorry for that poor girl, but if you only
+let her know that he really loves her she will not mind all the rest
+so very much; she will be able to bear the pain of even life-long
+separation if she only knows."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Sylvia picked up her knitting and went away. As for me, I thought
+savagely of the dead man she loved and called him a cad, or at best, a
+fool.</p>
+
+<p>Next day Miss Sylvia was her serene, smiling self once more, and she
+did not again make any reference to what she had told me. A fortnight
+later she returned home and I went my way back to the world. During
+the following winter I wrote several letters to Miss Sylvia and
+received replies from her. Her letters were very like herself. When I
+sent her the third-rate magazine containing my story&mdash;nothing but a
+third-rate magazine would take it in its rewritten form&mdash;she wrote to
+say that she was so glad that I had let the poor girl know.</p>
+
+<p>Early in April I received a letter from an aunt of mine in the
+country, saying that she intended to sell her place and come to the
+city to live. She asked me to go out to Sweetwater for a few weeks and
+assist her in the business of settling up the estate and disposing of
+such things as she did not wish to take with her.</p>
+
+<p>When I arrived at Sweetwater I found it moist and chill with the sunny
+moisture and teasing chill of our Canadian springs. They are long and
+fickle and reluctant, these springs of ours, but, oh, the unnamable
+charm of them! There was something even in the red buds of the maples
+at Sweetwater and in the long, smoking stretches of hillside fields
+that sent a thrill through my veins, finer and subtler than any given
+by old wine.</p>
+
+<p>A week after my arrival, when we had got the larger affairs pretty
+well straightened out, Aunt Mary suggested that I had better overhaul
+Uncle Alan's room.</p>
+
+<p>"The things there have never been meddled with since he died," she
+said. "In particular, there's an old trunk full of his letters and his
+papers. It was brought home from California after his death. I've
+never examined them. I don't suppose there is anything of any
+importance among them. But I'm not going to carry all that old rubbish
+to town. So I wish you would look over them and see if there is
+anything that should be kept. The rest may be burned."</p>
+
+<p>I felt no particular interest in the task. My Uncle Alan Blair was a
+mere name to me. He was my mother's eldest brother and had died years
+before I was born. I had heard that he had been very clever and that
+great things had been expected of him. But I anticipated no pleasure
+from exploring musty old letters and papers of forty neglected years.</p>
+
+<p>I went up to Uncle Alan's room at dusk that night. We had been having
+a day of warm spring rain, but it had cleared away and the bare maple
+boughs outside the window were strung with glistening drops. The room
+looked to the north and was always dim by reason of the close-growing
+Sweetwater pines. A gap had been cut through them to the northwest,
+and in it I had a glimpse of the sea Uncle Alan had loved, and above
+it a wondrous sunset sky fleeced over with little clouds, pale and
+pink and golden and green, that suddenly reminded me of Miss Sylvia
+and her fluffy knitting. It was with the thought of her in my mind
+that I lighted a lamp and began the task of grubbing into Uncle Alan's
+trunkful of papers. Most of these were bundles of yellowed letters, of
+no present interest, from his family and college friends. There were
+several college theses and essays, and a lot of loose miscellania
+pertaining to boyish school days. I went through the collection
+rapidly, until at the bottom of the trunk, I came to a small book
+bound in dark-green leather. It proved to be a sort of journal, and I
+began to glance over it with a languid interest.</p>
+
+<p>It had been begun in the spring after he had graduated from college.
+Although suspected only by himself, the disease which was to end his
+life had already fastened upon him. The entries were those of a doomed
+man, who, feeling the curse fall on him like a frost, blighting all
+the fair hopes and promises of life, seeks some help and consolation
+in the outward self-communing of a journal. There was nothing morbid,
+nothing unmanly in the record. As I read, I found myself liking Uncle
+Alan, wishing that he might have lived and been my friend.</p>
+
+<p>His mother had not been well that summer and the doctor ordered her to
+the seashore. Alan accompanied her. Here occurred a hiatus in the
+journal. No leaves had been torn out, but a quire or so of them had
+apparently become loosened from the threads that held them in place. I
+found them later on in the trunk, but at the time I passed to the next
+page. It began abruptly:</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p>This girl is the sweetest thing that God ever made. I had not
+known a woman could be so fair and sweet. Her beauty awes me,
+the purity of her soul shines so clearly through it like an
+illuminating lamp. I love her with all my power of loving and
+I am thankful that it is so. It would have been hard to die
+without having known love. I am glad that it has come to me,
+even if its price is unspeakable bitterness. A man has not
+lived for nothing who has known and loved Sylvia Stanleymain.</p>
+
+<p>I must not seek her love&mdash;that is denied me. If I were well
+and strong I should win it; yes, I believe I could win it, and
+nothing in the world would prevent me from trying, but, as
+things are, it would be the part of a coward to try. Yet I
+cannot resist the delight of being with her, of talking to
+her, of watching her wonderful face. She is in my thoughts day
+and night, she dwells in my dreams. O, Sylvia, I love you, my
+sweet!</p></div>
+
+<p>A week later there was another entry:</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p class="cen">July Seventeenth.</p>
+
+<p>I am afraid. To-day I met Sylvia's eyes. In them was a look
+which at first stirred my heart to its deeps with tumultuous
+delight, and then I remembered. I must spare her that
+suffering, at whatever cost to myself. I must not let myself
+dwell on the dangerous sweetness of the thought that her heart
+is turning to me. What would be the crowning joy to another
+man could be only added sorrow to me.</p></div>
+
+<p>Then:</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p class="cen">July Eighteenth.</p>
+
+<p>This morning I took the train to the city. I was determined to
+know the worst once for all. The time had come when I must. My
+doctor at home had put me off with vague hopes and perhapses.
+So I went to a noted physician in the city. I told him I
+wanted the whole truth&mdash;I made him tell it. Stripped of all
+softening verbiage it is this: I have perhaps eight months or
+a year to live&mdash;no more!</p>
+
+<p>I had expected it, although not quite so soon. Yet the
+certainty was none the less bitter. But this is no time for
+self-pity. It is of Sylvia I must think now. I shall go away
+at once, before the sweet fancy which is possibly budding in
+her virgin heart shall have bloomed into a flower that might
+poison some of her fair years.</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="block"><p class="cen">July Nineteenth.</p>
+
+<p>It is over. I said good-bye to her to-day before others, for I
+dared not trust myself to see her alone. She looked hurt and
+startled, as if someone had struck her. But she will soon
+forget, even if I have not been mistaken in the reading of her
+eyes. As for me, the bitterness of death is already over in
+that parting. All that now remains is to play the man to the
+end.</p></div>
+
+<p>From further entries in the journal I learned that Alan Blair had
+returned to Sweetwater and later on had been ordered to California.
+The entries during his sojourn there were few and far between. In all
+of them he spoke of Sylvia. Finally, after a long silence, he had
+written:</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p>I think the end is not far off now. I am not sorry for my
+suffering has been great of late. Last night I was easier. I
+slept and dreamed that I saw Sylvia. Once or twice I thought
+that I would arrange to have this book sent to her after my
+death. But I have decided that it would be unwise. It would
+only pain her, so I shall destroy it when I feel the time has
+come.</p>
+
+<p>It is sunset in this wonderful summer land. At home in
+Sweetwater it is only early spring as yet, with snow lingering
+along the edges of the woods. The sunsets there will be
+creamy-yellow and pale red now. If I could but see them once
+more! And  Sylvia&mdash;</p></div>
+
+<p>There was a little blot where the pen had fallen. Evidently the end
+had been nearer than Alan Blair had thought. At least, there were no
+more entries, and the little green book had not been destroyed. I was
+glad that it had not been; and I felt glad that it was thus put in my
+power to write the last chapter of Miss Sylvia's story for her.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as I could leave Sweetwater I went to the city, three hundred
+miles away, where Miss Sylvia lived. I found her in her library, in
+her black silk dress and heliotrope shawl, knitting up cream wool, for
+all the world as if she had just been transplanted from the veranda
+corner of Harbour Light.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear boy!" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know why I have come?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I am vain enough to think it was because you wanted to see me," she
+smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"I did want to see you; but I would have waited until summer if it had
+not been that I wished to bring you the missing chapter of your story,
+dear lady."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I&mdash;don't understand," said Miss Sylvia, starting slightly.</p>
+
+<p>"I had an uncle, Alan Blair, who died forty years ago in California,"
+I said quietly. "Recently I have had occasion to examine some of his
+papers. I found a journal among them and I have brought it to you
+because I think that you have the best right to it."</p>
+
+<p>I dropped the parcel in her lap. She was silent with surprise and
+bewilderment.</p>
+
+<p>"And now," I added, "I am going away. You won't want to see me or
+anyone for a while after you have read this book. But I will come up
+to see you to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>When I went the next day Miss Sylvia herself met me at the door. She
+caught my hand and drew me into the hall. Her eyes were softly
+radiant.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you have made me so happy!" she said tremulously. "Oh, you can
+never know how happy! Nothing hurts now&mdash;nothing ever can hurt,
+because I know he did care."</p>
+
+<p>She laid her face down on my shoulder, as a girl might have nestled to
+her lover, and I bent and kissed her for Uncle Alan.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="The_Garden_of_Spices" id="The_Garden_of_Spices"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<h2>The Garden of Spices<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">[ToC]</a></span></h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>Jims tried the door of the blue room. Yes, it was locked. He had hoped
+Aunt Augusta <i>might</i> have forgotten to lock it; but when did Aunt
+Augusta forget anything? Except, perhaps, that little boys were not
+born grown-ups&mdash;and <i>that</i> was something she never remembered. To be
+sure, she was only a half-aunt. Whole aunts probably had more
+convenient memories.</p>
+
+<p>Jims turned and stood with his back against the door. It was better
+that way; he could not imagine things behind him then. And the blue
+room was so big and dim that a dreadful number of things could be
+imagined in it. All the windows were shuttered but one, and that one
+was so darkened by a big pine tree branching right across it that it
+did not let in much light.</p>
+
+<p>Jims looked very small and lost and lonely as he shrank back against
+the door&mdash;so small and lonely that one might have thought that even
+the sternest of half-aunts should have thought twice before shutting
+him up in that room and telling him he must stay there the whole
+afternoon instead of going out for a promised ride. Jims hated being
+shut up alone&mdash;especially in the blue room. Its bigness and dimness
+and silence filled his sensitive little soul with vague horror.
+Sometimes he became almost sick with fear in it. To do Aunt Augusta
+justice, she never suspected this. If she had she would not have
+decreed this particular punishment, because she knew Jims was delicate
+and must not be subjected to any great physical or mental strain. That
+was why she shut him up instead of whipping him. But how was she to
+know it? Aunt Augusta was one of those people who never know anything
+unless it is told them in plain language and then hammered into their
+heads. There was no one to tell her but Jims, and Jims would have died
+the death before he would have told Aunt Augusta, with her cold,
+spectacled eyes and thin, smileless mouth, that he was desperately
+frightened when he was shut in the blue room. So he was always shut in
+it for punishment; and the punishments came very often, for Jims was
+always doing things that Aunt Augusta considered naughty. At first,
+this time, Jims did not feel quite so frightened as usual because he
+was very angry. As he put it, he was very mad at Aunt Augusta. He
+hadn't <i>meant</i> to spill his pudding over the floor and the tablecloth
+and his clothes; and how such a little bit of pudding&mdash;Aunt Augusta
+was mean with desserts&mdash;could ever have spread itself over so much
+territory Jims could not understand. But he had made a terrible mess
+and Aunt Augusta had been very angry and had said he must be cured of
+such carelessness. She said he must spend the afternoon in the blue
+room instead of going for a ride with Mrs. Loring in her new car.</p>
+
+<p>Jims was bitterly disappointed. If Uncle Walter had been home Jims
+would have appealed to him&mdash;for when Uncle Walter could be really
+wakened up to a realization of his small nephew's presence in his
+home, he was very kind and indulgent. But it was so hard to waken him
+up that Jims seldom attempted it. He liked Uncle Walter, but as far as
+being acquainted with him went he might as well have been the
+inhabitant of a star in the Milky Way. Jims was just a lonely,
+solitary little creature, and sometimes he felt so friendless that his
+eyes smarted, and several sobs had to be swallowed.</p>
+
+<p>There were no sobs just now, though&mdash;Jims was still too angry. It
+wasn't fair. It was so seldom he got a car ride. Uncle Walter was
+always too busy, attending to sick children all over the town, to take
+him. It was only once in a blue moon Mrs. Loring asked him to go out
+with her. But she always ended up with ice cream or a movie, and
+to-day Jims had had strong hopes that both were on the programme.</p>
+
+<p>"I hate Aunt Augusta," he said aloud; and then the sound of his voice
+in that huge, still room scared him so that he only thought the rest.
+"I won't have any fun&mdash;and she won't feed my gobbler, either."</p>
+
+<p>Jims had shrieked "Feed my gobbler," to the old servant as he had been
+hauled upstairs. But he didn't think Nancy Jane had heard him, and
+nobody, not even Jims, could imagine Aunt Augusta feeding the gobbler.
+It was always a wonder to him that she ate, herself. It seemed really
+too human a thing for her to do.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I had spilled that pudding <i>on purpose</i>," Jims said
+vindictively, and with the saying his anger evaporated&mdash;Jims never
+could stay angry long&mdash;and left him merely a scared little fellow,
+with velvety, nut-brown eyes full of fear that should have no place in
+a child's eyes. He looked so small and helpless as he crouched against
+the door that one might have wondered if even Aunt Augusta would not
+have relented had she seen him.</p>
+
+<p>How that window at the far end of the room rattled! It sounded
+terribly as if somebody&mdash;or <i>something</i>&mdash;were trying to get in. Jims
+looked desperately at the unshuttered window. He must get to it; once
+there, he could curl up in the window seat, his back to the wall, and
+forget the shadows by looking out into the sunshine and loveliness of
+the garden over the wall. Jims would have likely have been found dead
+of fright in that blue room some time had it not been for the garden
+over the wall.</p>
+
+<p>But to get to the window Jims must cross the room and pass by the bed.
+Jims held that bed in special dread. It was the oldest fashioned thing
+in the old-fashioned, old-furnitured house. It was high and rigid, and
+hung with gloomy blue curtains. <i>Anything</i> might jump out of such a
+bed.</p>
+
+<p>Jims gave a gasp and ran madly across the room. He reached the window
+and flung himself upon the seat. With a sigh of relief he curled down
+in the corner. Outside, over the high brick wall, was a world where
+his imagination could roam, though his slender little body was pent a
+prisoner in the blue room.</p>
+
+<p>Jims had loved that garden from his first sight of it. He called it
+the Garden of Spices and wove all sorts of yarns in fancy&mdash;yarns gay
+and tragic&mdash;about it. He had only known it for a few weeks. Before
+that, they had lived in a much smaller house away at the other side of
+the town. Then Uncle Walter's uncle&mdash;who had brought him up just as he
+was bringing up Jims&mdash;had died, and they had all come to live in Uncle
+Walter's old home. Somehow, Jims had an idea that Uncle Walter wasn't
+very glad to come back there. But he had to, according to
+great-uncle's will. Jims himself didn't mind much. He liked the
+smaller rooms in their former home better, but the Garden of Spices
+made up for all.</p>
+
+<p>It was such a beautiful spot. Just inside the wall was a row of aspen
+poplars that always talked in silvery whispers and shook their dainty,
+heart-shaped leaves at him. Beyond them, under scattered pines, was a
+rockery where ferns and wild things grew. It was almost as good as a
+bit of woods&mdash;and Jims loved the woods, though he scarcely ever saw
+them. Then, past the pines, were roses just breaking into June
+bloom&mdash;roses in such profusion as Jims hadn't known existed, with dear
+little paths twisting about among the bushes. It seemed to be a garden
+where no frost could blight or rough wind blow. When rain fell it must
+fall very gently. Past the roses one saw a green lawn, sprinkled over
+now with the white ghosts of dandelions, and dotted with ornamental
+trees. The trees grew so thickly that they almost hid the house to
+which the garden pertained. It was a large one of grey-black stone,
+with stacks of huge chimneys. Jims had no idea who lived there. He had
+asked Aunt Augusta and Aunt Augusta had frowned and told him it did
+not matter who lived there and that he must never, on any account,
+mention the next house or its occupant to Uncle Walter. Jims would
+never have thought of mentioning them to Uncle Walter. But the
+prohibition filled him with an unholy and unsubduable curiosity. He
+was devoured by the desire to find out who the folks in that tabooed
+house were.</p>
+
+<p>And he longed to have the freedom of that garden. Jims loved gardens.
+There had been a garden at the little house but there was none
+here&mdash;nothing but an old lawn that had been fine once but was now
+badly run to seed. Jims had heard Uncle Walter say that he was going
+to have it attended to but nothing had been done yet. And meanwhile
+here was a beautiful garden over the wall which looked as if it should
+be full of children. But no children were ever in it&mdash;or anybody else
+apparently. And so, in spite of its beauty, it had a lonely look that
+hurt Jims. He <i>wanted</i> his Garden of Spices to be full of laughter. He
+pictured himself running in it with imaginary playmates&mdash;and there was
+a mother in it&mdash;or a big sister&mdash;or, at the least, a whole aunt who
+would let you hug her and would never dream of shutting you up in
+chilly, shadowy, horrible blue rooms.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems to me," said Jims, flattening his nose against the pane,
+"that I must get into that garden or bust."</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Augusta would have said icily, "We do not use such expressions,
+James," but Aunt Augusta was not there to hear.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid the Very Handsome Cat isn't coming to-day," sighed Jims.
+Then he brightened up; the Very Handsome Cat was coming across the
+lawn. He was the only living thing, barring birds and butterflies,
+that Jims ever saw in the garden. Jims worshipped that cat. He was jet
+black, with white paws and dickey, and he had as much dignity as ten
+cats. Jims' fingers tingled to stroke him. Jims had never been allowed
+to have even a kitten because Aunt Augusta had a horror of cats. And
+you cannot stroke gobblers!</p>
+
+<p>The Very Handsome Cat came through the rose garden paths on his
+beautiful paws, ambled daintily around the rockery, and sat down in a
+shady spot under a pine tree, right where Jims could see him, through
+a gap in the little poplars. He looked straight up at Jims and winked.
+At least, Jims always believed and declared he did. And that wink
+said, or seemed to say, plainly:</p>
+
+<p>"Be a sport. Come down here and play with me. A fig for your Aunt
+Augusta!"</p>
+
+<p>A wild, daring, absurd idea flashed into Jims' brain. Could he? He
+could! He would! He knew it would be easy. He had thought it all out
+many times, although until now he had never dreamed of really doing
+it. To unhook the window and swing it open, to step out on the pine
+bough and from it to another that hung over the wall and dropped
+nearly to the ground, to spring from it to the velvet sward under the
+poplars&mdash;why, it was all the work of a minute. With a careful,
+repressed whoop Jims ran towards the Very Handsome Cat.</p>
+
+<p>The cat rose and retreated in deliberate haste; Jims ran after him.
+The cat dodged through the rose paths and eluded Jims' eager hands,
+just keeping tantalizingly out of reach. Jims had forgotten everything
+except that he must catch the cat. He was full of a fearful joy, with
+an elfin delight running through it. He had escaped from the blue room
+and its ghosts; he was in his Garden of Spices; he had got the better
+of mean old Aunt Augusta. But he <i>must</i> catch the cat.</p>
+
+<p>The cat ran over the lawn and Jims pursued it through the green gloom
+of the thickly clustering trees. Beyond them came a pool of sunshine
+in which the old stone house basked like a huge grey cat itself. More
+garden was before it and beyond it, wonderful with blossom. Under a
+huge spreading beech tree in the centre of it was a little tea table;
+sitting by the table reading was a lady in a black dress.</p>
+
+<p>The cat, having lured Jims to where he wanted him, sat down and began
+to lick his paws. He was quite willing to be caught now; but Jims had
+no longer any idea of catching him. He stood very still, looking at
+the lady. She did not see him then and Jims could only see her
+profile, which he thought very beautiful. She had wonderful ropes of
+blue-black hair wound around her head. She looked so sweet that Jims'
+heart beat. Then she lifted her head and turned her face and saw him.
+Jims felt something of a shock. She was not pretty after all. One side
+of her face was marked by a dreadful red scar. It quite spoilt her
+good looks, which Jims thought a great pity; but nothing could spoil
+the sweetness of her face or the loveliness of her peculiar soft,
+grey-blue eyes. Jims couldn't remember his mother and had no idea what
+she looked like, but the thought came into his head that he would have
+liked her to have eyes like that. After the first moment Jims did not
+mind the scar at all.</p>
+
+<p>But perhaps that first moment had revealed itself in his face, for a
+look of pain came into the lady's eyes and, almost involuntarily it
+seemed, she put her hand up to hide the scar. Then she pulled it away
+again and sat looking at Jims half defiantly, half piteously. Jims
+thought she must be angry because he had chased her cat.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon," he said gravely, "I didn't mean to hurt your cat.
+I just wanted to play with him. He is <i>such</i> a very handsome cat."</p>
+
+<p>"But where did you come from?" said the lady. "It is so long since I
+saw a child in this garden," she added, as if to herself. Her voice
+was as sweet as her face. Jims thought he was mistaken in thinking her
+angry and plucked up heart of grace. Shyness was no fault of Jims.</p>
+
+<p>"I came from the house over the wall," he said. "My name is James
+Brander Churchill. Aunt Augusta shut me up in the blue room because I
+spilled my pudding at dinner. I hate to be shut up. And I was to have
+had a ride this afternoon&mdash;and ice cream&mdash;and <i>maybe</i> a movie. So I
+was mad. And when your Very Handsome Cat came and looked at me I just
+got out and climbed down."</p>
+
+<p>He looked straight at her and smiled. Jims had a very dear little
+smile. It seemed a pity there was no mother alive to revel in it. The
+lady smiled back.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you did right," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i> wouldn't shut a little boy up if you had one, would you?" said
+Jims.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;no, dear heart, I wouldn't," said the lady. She said it as if
+something hurt her horribly. She smiled again gallantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you come here and sit down?" she added, pulling a chair out from
+the table.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you. I'd rather sit here," said Jims, plumping down on the
+grass at her feet. "Then maybe your cat will come to me."</p>
+
+<p>The cat came over promptly and rubbed his head against Jims' knee.
+Jims stroked him delightedly; how lovely his soft fur felt and his
+round velvety head.</p>
+
+<p>"I like cats," explained Jims, "and I have nothing but a gobbler. This
+is such a Very Handsome Cat. What is his name, please?"</p>
+
+<p>"Black Prince. He loves me," said the lady. "He always comes to my bed
+in the morning and wakes me by patting my face with his paw. <i>He</i>
+doesn't mind my being ugly."</p>
+
+<p>She spoke with a bitterness Jims couldn't understand.</p>
+
+<p>"But you are not ugly," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I <i>am</i> ugly&mdash;I <i>am</i> ugly," she cried. "Just look at me&mdash;right at
+me. Doesn't it hurt you to look at me?"</p>
+
+<p>Jims looked at her gravely and dispassionately.</p>
+
+<p>"No, it doesn't," he said. "Not a bit," he added, after some further
+exploration of his consciousness.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the lady laughed beautifully. A faint rosy flush came into
+her unscarred cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"James, I believe you mean it."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I mean it. And, if you don't mind, please call me Jims.
+Nobody calls me James but Aunt Augusta. She isn't my whole aunt. She
+is just Uncle Walter's half-sister. <i>He</i> is my whole uncle."</p>
+
+<p>"What does he call you?" asked the lady. She looked away as she asked
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Jims, when he thinks about me. He doesn't often think about me.
+He has too many sick children to think about. Sick children are all
+Uncle Walter cares about. He's the greatest children's doctor in the
+Dominion, Mr. Burroughs says. But he is a woman-hater."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I heard Mr. Burroughs say it. Mr. Burroughs is my tutor, you
+know. I study with him from nine till one. I'm not allowed to go to
+the public school. I'd like to, but Uncle Walter thinks I'm not strong
+enough yet. I'm going next year, though, when I'm ten. I have holidays
+now. Mr. Burroughs always goes away the first of June."</p>
+
+<p>"How came he to tell you your uncle was a woman-hater?" persisted the
+lady.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he didn't tell me. He was talking to a friend of his. He thought
+I was reading my book. So I was&mdash;but I heard it all. It was more
+interesting than my book. Uncle Walter was engaged to a lady, long,
+long ago, when he was a young man. She was devilishly pretty."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Jims!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Burroughs said so. I'm only quoting," said Jims easily. "And
+Uncle Walter just worshipped her. And all at once she just jilted him
+without a word of explanation, Mr. Burroughs said. So that is why he
+hates women. It isn't any wonder, is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose not," said the lady with a sigh. "Jims, are you hungry?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I am. You see, the pudding was spilled. But how did you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, boys always used to be hungry when I knew them long ago. I
+thought they hadn't changed. I shall tell Martha to bring out
+something to eat and we'll have it here under this tree. You sit
+here&mdash;I'll sit there. Jims, it's so long since I talked to a little
+boy that I'm not sure that I know how."</p>
+
+<p>"You know how, all right," Jims assured her. "But what am I to call
+you, please?"</p>
+
+<p>"My name is Miss Garland," said the lady a little hesitatingly. But
+she saw the name meant nothing to Jims. "I would like you to call me
+Miss Avery. Avery is my first name and I never hear it nowadays. Now
+for a jamboree! I can't offer you a movie&mdash;and I'm afraid there isn't
+any ice cream either. I could have had some if I'd known you were
+coming. But I think Martha will be able to find something good."</p>
+
+<p>A very old woman, who looked at Jims with great amazement, came out to
+set the table. Jims thought she must be as old as Methusaleh. But he
+did not mind her. He ran races with Black Prince while tea was being
+prepared, and rolled the delighted cat over and over in the grass. And
+he discovered a fragrant herb-garden in a far corner and was
+delighted. Now it was truly a garden of spices.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it is so beautiful here," he told Miss Avery, who sat and looked
+at his revels with a hungry expression in her lovely eyes. "I wish I
+could come often."</p>
+
+<p>"Why can't you?" said Miss Avery.</p>
+
+<p>The two looked at each other with sly intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>"I could come whenever Aunt Augusta shuts me up in the blue room,"
+said Jims.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Miss Avery. Then she laughed and held out her arms. Jims
+flew into them. He put his arms about her neck and kissed her scarred
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I wish <i>you</i> were my aunt," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Avery suddenly pushed him away. Jims was horribly afraid he had
+offended her. But she took his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll just be chums, Jims," she said. "That's really better than
+being relations, after all. Come and have tea."</p>
+
+<p>Over that glorious tea-table they became life-long friends. They had
+always known each other and always would. The Black Prince sat between
+them and was fed tit-bits. There was such a lot of good things on the
+table and nobody to say "You have had enough, James." James ate until
+<i>he</i> thought he had enough. Aunt Augusta would have thought he was
+doomed, could she have seen him.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose I must go back," said Jims with a sigh. "It will be our
+supper time in half an hour and Aunt Augusta will come to take me
+out."</p>
+
+<p>"But you'll come again?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, the first time she shuts me up. And if she doesn't shut me up
+pretty soon I'll be so bad she'll have to shut me up."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll always set a place for you at the tea-table after this, Jims.
+And when you're not here I'll pretend you are. And when you can't come
+here write me a letter and bring it when you do come."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye," said Jims. He took her hand and kissed it. He had read of
+a young knight doing that and had always thought he would like to try
+it if he ever got a chance. But who could dream of kissing Aunt
+Augusta's hands?</p>
+
+<p>"You dear, funny thing," said Miss Avery. "Have you thought of how you
+are to get back? Can you reach that pine bough from the ground?"</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe I can jump," said Jims dubiously.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid not. I'll give you a stool and you can stand on it. Just
+leave it there for future use. Good-bye, Jims. Jims, two hours ago I
+didn't know there was such a person in the world as you&mdash;and now I
+love you&mdash;I love you."</p>
+
+<p>Jims' heart filled with a great warm gush of gladness. He had always
+wanted to be loved. And no living creature, he felt sure, loved him,
+except his gobbler&mdash;and a gobbler's love is not very satisfying,
+though it is better than nothing. He was blissfully happy as he
+carried his stool across the lawn. He climbed his pine and went in at
+the window and curled up on the seat in a maze of delight. The blue
+room was more shadowy than ever but that did not matter. Over in the
+Garden of Spices was friendship and laughter and romance galore. The
+whole world was transformed for Jims.</p>
+
+<p>From that time Jims lived a shamelessly double life. Whenever he was
+shut in the blue room he escaped to the Garden of Spices&mdash;and he was
+shut in very often, for, Mr. Burroughs being away, he got into a good
+deal of what Aunt Augusta called mischief. Besides, it is a sad truth
+that Jims didn't try very hard to be good now. He thought it paid
+better to be bad and be shut up. To be sure there was always a fly in
+the ointment. He was haunted by a vague fear that Aunt Augusta might
+relent and come to the blue room before supper time to let him out.</p>
+
+<p>"And <i>then</i> the fat would be in the fire," said Jims.</p>
+
+<p>But he had a glorious summer and throve so well on his new diet of
+love and companionship that one day Uncle Walter, with fewer sick
+children to think about than usual, looked at him curiously and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Augusta, that boy seems to be growing much stronger. He has a good
+color and his eyes are getting to look more like a boy's eyes should.
+We'll make a man of you yet, Jims."</p>
+
+<p>"He may be getting stronger but he's getting naughtier, too," said
+Aunt Augusta, grimly. "I am sorry to say, Walter, that he behaves very
+badly."</p>
+
+<p>"We were all young once," said Uncle Walter indulgently.</p>
+
+<p>"Were <i>you</i>?" asked Jims in blank amazement.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Walter laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think me an antediluvian, Jims?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what <i>that</i> is. But your hair is gray and your eyes are
+tired," said Jims uncompromisingly.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Walter laughed again, tossed Jims a quarter, and went out.</p>
+
+<p>"Your uncle is only forty-five and in his prime," said Aunt Augusta
+dourly.</p>
+
+<p>Jims deliberately ran across the room to the window and, under
+pretence of looking out, knocked down a flower pot. So he was exiled
+to the blue room and got into his beloved Garden of Spices where Miss
+Avery's beautiful eyes looked love into his and the Black Prince was a
+jolly playmate and old Martha petted and spoiled him to her heart's
+content.</p>
+
+<p>Jims never asked questions but he was a wide-awake chap, and, taking
+one thing with another, he found out a good deal about the occupants
+of the old stone house. Miss Avery never went anywhere and no one ever
+went there. She lived all alone with two old servants, man and maid.
+Except these two and Jims nobody had ever seen her for twenty years.
+Jims didn't know why, but he thought it must be because of the scar on
+her face.</p>
+
+<p>He never referred to it, but one day Miss Avery told him what caused
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"I dropped a lamp and my dress caught fire and burned my face, Jims.
+It made me hideous. I was beautiful before that&mdash;very beautiful.
+Everybody said so. Come in and I will show you my picture."</p>
+
+<p>She took him into her big parlor and showed him the picture hanging on
+the wall between the two high windows. It was of a young girl in
+white. She certainly was very lovely, with her rose-leaf skin and
+laughing eyes. Jims looked at the pictured face gravely, with his
+hands in his pockets and his head on one side. Then he looked at Miss
+Avery.</p>
+
+<p>"You were prettier then&mdash;yes," he said, judicially, "but I like your
+face ever so much better now."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Jims, you can't," she protested.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I do," persisted Jims. "You look kinder and&mdash;nicer now."</p>
+
+<p>It was the nearest Jims could get to expressing what he felt as he
+looked at the picture. The young girl was beautiful, but her face was
+a little hard. There was pride and vanity and something of the
+insolence of great beauty in it. There was nothing of that in Miss
+Avery's face now&mdash;nothing but sweetness and tenderness, and a motherly
+yearning to which every fibre of Jims' small being responded. How they
+loved each other, those two! And how they understood each other! To
+<i>love</i> is easy, and therefore common; but to <i>understand</i>&mdash;how rare
+that is! And oh! such good times as they had! They made taffy. Jims
+had always longed to make taffy, but Aunt Augusta's immaculate kitchen
+and saucepans might not be so desecrated. They read fairy tales
+together. Mr. Burroughs had disapproved of fairy tales. They blew
+soap-bubbles out on the lawn and let them float away over the garden
+and the orchard like fairy balloons. They had glorious afternoon teas
+under the beech tree. They made ice cream themselves. Jims even slid
+down the bannisters when he wanted to. And he could try out a slang
+word or two occasionally without anybody dying of horror. Miss Avery
+did not seem to mind it a bit.</p>
+
+<p>At first Miss Avery always wore dark sombre dresses. But one day Jims
+found her in a pretty gown of pale primrose silk. It was very old and
+old-fashioned, but Jims did not know that. He capered round her in
+delight.</p>
+
+<p>"You like me better in this?" she asked, wistfully.</p>
+
+<p>"I like you just as well, no matter what you wear," said Jims, "but
+that dress is awfully pretty."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you like me to wear bright colors, Jims?"</p>
+
+<p>"You bet I would," said Jims emphatically.</p>
+
+<p>After that she always wore them&mdash;pink and primrose and blue and white;
+and she let Jims wreathe flowers in her splendid hair. He had quite a
+knack of it. She never wore any jewelry except, always, a little gold
+ring with a design of two clasped hands.</p>
+
+<p>"A friend gave that to me long ago when we were boy and girl together
+at school," she told Jims once. "I never take it off, night or day.
+When I die it is to be buried with me."</p>
+
+<p>"You mustn't die till I do," said Jims in dismay.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Jims, if we could only <i>live</i> together nothing else would
+matter," she said hungrily. "Jims&mdash;Jims&mdash;I see so little of you
+really&mdash;and some day soon you'll be going to school&mdash;and I'll lose
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"I've got to think of some way to prevent it," cried Jims. "I won't
+have it. I won't&mdash;I won't."</p>
+
+<p>But his heart sank notwithstanding.</p>
+
+<p>One day Jims slipped from the blue room, down the pine and across the
+lawn with a tear-stained face.</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt Augusta is going to kill my gobbler," he sobbed in Miss Avery's
+arms. "She says she isn't going to bother with him any longer&mdash;and
+he's getting old&mdash;and he's to be killed. And that gobbler is the only
+friend I have in the world except you. Oh, I can't <i>stand</i> it, Miss
+Avery."</p>
+
+<p>Next day Aunt Augusta told him the gobbler had been sold and taken
+away. And Jims flew into a passion of tears and protest about it and
+was promptly incarcerated in the blue room. A few minutes later a
+sobbing boy plunged through the trees&mdash;and stopped abruptly. Miss
+Avery was reading under the beech and the Black Prince was snoozing on
+her knee&mdash;and a big, magnificent, bronze turkey was parading about on
+the lawn, twisting his huge fan of a tail this way and that.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>My</i> gobbler!" cried Jims.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Martha went to your uncle's house and bought him. Oh, she didn't
+betray you. She told Nancy Jane she wanted a gobbler and, having seen
+one over there, thought perhaps she could get him. See, here's your
+pet, Jims, and here he shall live till he dies of old age. And I have
+something else for you&mdash;Edward and Martha went across the river
+yesterday to the Murray Kennels and got it for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a dog?" exclaimed Jims.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;a dear little bull pup. He shall be your very own, Jims, and I
+only stipulate that you reconcile the Black Prince to him."</p>
+
+<p>It was something of a task but Jims succeeded. Then followed a month
+of perfect happiness. At least three afternoons a week they contrived
+to be together. It was all too good to be true, Jims felt. Something
+would happen soon to spoil it. Just <i>suppose</i> Aunt Augusta grew
+tender-hearted and ceased to punish! Or suppose she suddenly
+discovered that he was growing too big to be shut up! Jims began to
+stint himself in eating lest he grew too fast. And then Aunt Augusta
+worried about his loss of appetite and suggested to Uncle Walter that
+he should be sent to the country till the hot weather was over. Jims
+didn't want to go to the country now because his heart was elsewhere.
+He must eat again, if he grew like a weed. It was all very harassing.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Walter looked at him keenly.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems to me you're looking pretty fit, Jims. Do you want to go to
+the country?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, please."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you happy, Jims?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes."</p>
+
+<p>"A boy should be happy all the time, Jims."</p>
+
+<p>"If I had a mother and someone to play with I would be."</p>
+
+<p>"I have tried to be a mother to you, Jims," said Aunt Augusta, in an
+offended tone. Then she addressed Uncle Walter. "A younger woman would
+probably understand him better. And I feel that the care of this big
+place is too much for me. I would prefer to go to my own old home. If
+you had married long ago, as you should, Walter, James would have had
+a mother and some cousins to play with. I have always been of this
+opinion."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Walter frowned and got up.</p>
+
+<p>"Just because one woman played you false is no good reason for
+spoiling your life," went on Aunt Augusta severely. "I have kept
+silence all these years but now I am going to speak&mdash;and speak
+plainly. You should marry, Walter. You are young enough yet and you
+owe it to your name."</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Augusta," said Uncle Walter sternly. "I loved a woman once. I
+believed she loved me. She sent me back my ring one day and with it a
+message saying she had ceased to care for me and bidding me never to
+try to look upon her face again. Well, I have obeyed her, that is
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"There was something strange about all that, Walter. The life she has
+since led proves that. So you should not let it embitter you against
+all women."</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't. It's nonsense to say I'm a woman-hater, Augusta. But that
+experience has robbed me of the power to care for another woman."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, this isn't a proper conversation for a child to hear," said
+Aunt Augusta, recollecting herself. "Jims, go out."</p>
+
+<p>Jims would have given one of his ears to stay and listen with the
+other. But he went obediently.</p>
+
+<p>And then, the very next day, the dreaded something happened.</p>
+
+<p>It was the first of August and very, very hot. Jims was late coming to
+dinner and Aunt Augusta reproved him and Jims, deliberately, and with
+malice aforethought, told her he thought she was a nasty old woman. He
+had never been saucy to Aunt Augusta before. But it was three days
+since he had seen Miss Avery and the Black Prince and Nip and he was
+desperate. Aunt Augusta crimsoned with anger and doomed Jims to an
+afternoon in the blue room for impertinence.</p>
+
+<p>"And I shall tell your uncle when he comes home," she added.</p>
+
+<p>That rankled, for Jims didn't want Uncle Walter to think him
+impertinent. But he forgot all his worries as he scampered through the
+Garden of Spices to the beech tree. And there Jims stopped as if he
+had been shot. Prone on the grass under the beech tree, white and cold
+and still, lay his Miss Avery&mdash;dead, stone dead!</p>
+
+<p>At least Jims drought she was dead. He flew into the house like a mad
+thing, shrieking for Martha. Nobody answered. Jims recollected, with a
+rush of sickening dread, that Miss Avery had told him Martha and
+Edward were going away that day to visit a sister. He rushed blindly
+across the lawn again, through the little side gate he had never
+passed before and down the street home. Uncle Walter was just opening
+the door of his car.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle Walter&mdash;come&mdash;come," sobbed Jims, clutching frantically at his
+hand. "Miss Avery's dead&mdash;dead&mdash;oh, come quick."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Who</i> is dead?"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Avery&mdash;Miss Avery Garland. She's lying on the grass over there
+in her garden. And I love her so&mdash;and I'll die, too&mdash;oh, Uncle Walter,
+<i>come</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Walter looked as if he wanted to ask some questions, but he said
+nothing. With a strange face he hurried after Jims. Miss Avery was
+still lying there. As Uncle Walter bent over her he saw the broad red
+scar and started back with an exclamation.</p>
+
+<p>"She is dead?" gasped Jims.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Uncle Walter, bending down again&mdash;"no, she has only
+fainted, Jims&mdash;overcome by the heat, I suppose. I want help. Go and
+call somebody."</p>
+
+<p>"There's no one home here to-day," said Jims, in a spasm of joy so
+great that it shook him like a leaf.</p>
+
+<p>"Then go home and telephone over to Mr. Loring's. Tell them I want the
+nurse who is there to come here for a few minutes."</p>
+
+<p>Jims did his errand. Uncle Walter and the nurse carried Miss Avery
+into the house and then Jims went back to the blue room. He was so
+unhappy he didn't care where he went. He wished something <i>would</i> jump
+at him out of the bed and put an end to him. Everything was discovered
+now and he would never see Miss Avery again. Jims lay very still on
+the window seat. He did not even cry. He had come to one of the griefs
+that lie too deep for tears.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I must have been put under a curse at birth," thought poor
+Jims.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>Over at the stone house Miss Avery was lying on the couch in her room.
+The nurse had gone away and Dr. Walter was sitting looking at her. He
+leaned forward and pulled away the hand with which she was hiding the
+scar on her face. He looked first at the little gold ring on the hand
+and then at the scar.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't," she said piteously.</p>
+
+<p>"Avery&mdash;why did you do it?&mdash;<i>why</i> did you do it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you know&mdash;you must know now, Walter."</p>
+
+<p>"Avery, did you break my heart and spoil my life&mdash;and your own&mdash;simply
+because your face was scarred?"</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't bear to have you see me hideous," she moaned. "You had
+been so proud of my beauty. I&mdash;I&mdash;thought you couldn't love me any
+more&mdash;I couldn't bear the thought of looking in your eyes and seeing
+aversion there."</p>
+
+<p>Walter Grant leaned forward.</p>
+
+<p>"Look in my eyes, Avery. Do you see any aversion?"</p>
+
+<p>Avery forced herself to look. What she saw covered her face with a hot
+blush.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you think my love such a poor and superficial thing, Avery," he
+said sternly, "that it must vanish because a blemish came on your
+fairness? Do you think <i>that</i> would change me? Was your own love for
+me so slight?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;no," she sobbed. "I have loved you every moment of my life,
+Walter. Oh, don't look at me so sternly."</p>
+
+<p>"If you had even told me," he said. "You said I was never to try to
+look on your face again&mdash;and they told me you had gone away. You sent
+me back my ring."</p>
+
+<p>"I kept the old one," she interrupted, holding out her hand, "the
+first one you ever gave me&mdash;do you remember, Walter? When we were boy
+and girl."</p>
+
+<p>"You robbed me of all that made life worth while, Avery. Do you wonder
+that I've been a bitter man?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was wrong&mdash;I was wrong," she sobbed. "I should have believed in
+you. But don't you think I've paid, too? Forgive me, Walter&mdash;it's too
+late to atone&mdash;but forgive me."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Is</i> it too late?" he asked gravely.</p>
+
+<p>She pointed to the scar.</p>
+
+<p>"Could you endure seeing this opposite to you every day at your
+table?" she asked bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;if I could see your sweet eyes and your beloved smile with it,
+Avery," he answered passionately. "Oh, Avery, it was <i>you</i> I
+loved&mdash;not your outward favor. Oh, how foolish you were&mdash;foolish and
+morbid! You always put too high a value on beauty, Avery. If I had
+dreamed of the true state of the case&mdash;if I had known you were here
+all these years&mdash;why I heard a rumor long ago that you had married,
+Avery&mdash;but if I had known I would have come to you and <i>made</i> you
+be&mdash;sensible."</p>
+
+<p>She gave a little laugh at his lame conclusion. That was so like the
+old Walter. Then her eyes filled with tears as he took her in his
+arms.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>The door of the blue room opened. Jims did not look up. It was Aunt
+Augusta, of course&mdash;and she had heard the whole story.</p>
+
+<p>"Jims, boy."</p>
+
+<p>Jims lifted his miserable eyes. It was Uncle Walter&mdash;but a different
+Uncle Walter&mdash;an Uncle Walter with laughing eyes and a strange
+radiance of youth about him.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor, lonely little fellow," said Uncle Walter unexpectedly. "Jims,
+would you like Miss Avery to come <i>here</i>&mdash;and live with us always&mdash;and
+be your real aunt?"</p>
+
+<p>"Great snakes!" said Jims, transformed in a second. "Is there any
+chance of <i>that</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"There is a certainty, thanks to you," said Uncle Walter. "You can go
+over to see her for a little while. Don't talk her to death&mdash;she's
+weak yet&mdash;and attend to that menagerie of yours over there&mdash;she's
+worrying because the bull dog and gobbler weren't fed&mdash;and Jims&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But Jims had swung down through the pine and was tearing across the
+Garden of Spices.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="The_Girl_and_the_Photograph" id="The_Girl_and_the_Photograph"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<h2>The Girl and the Photograph<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">[ToC]</a></span></h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>When I heard that Peter Austin was in Vancouver I hunted him up. I had
+met Peter ten years before when I had gone east to visit my father's
+people and had spent a few weeks with an uncle in Croyden. The Austins
+lived across the street from Uncle Tom, and Peter and I had struck up
+a friendship, although he was a hobbledehoy of awkward sixteen and I,
+at twenty-two, was older and wiser and more dignified than I've ever
+been since or ever expect to be again. Peter was a jolly little round
+freckled chap. He was all right when no girls were around; when they
+were he retired within himself like a misanthropic oyster, and was
+about as interesting. This was the one point upon which we always
+disagreed. Peter couldn't endure girls; I was devoted to them by the
+wholesale. The Croyden girls were pretty and vivacious. I had a score
+of flirtations during my brief sojourn among them.</p>
+
+<p>But when I went away the face I carried in my memory was not that of
+any girl with whom I had walked and driven and played the game of
+hearts.</p>
+
+<p>It was ten years ago, but I had never been quite able to forget that
+girl's face. Yet I had seen it but once and then only for a moment. I
+had gone for a solitary ramble in the woods over the river and, in a
+lonely little valley dim with pines, where I thought myself alone, I
+had come suddenly upon her, standing ankle-deep in fern on the bank of
+a brook, the late evening sunshine falling yellowly on her uncovered
+dark hair. She was very young&mdash;no more than sixteen; yet the face and
+eyes were already those of a woman. Such a face! Beautiful? Yes, but I
+thought of that afterward, when I was alone. With that face before my
+eyes I thought only of its purity and sweetness, of the lovely soul
+and rich mind looking out of the great, greyish-blue eyes which, in
+the dimness of the pine shadows, looked almost black. There was
+something in the face of that child-woman I had never seen before and
+was destined never to see again in any other face. Careless boy
+though I was, it stirred me to the deeps. I felt that she must have
+been waiting forever in that pine valley for me and that, in finding
+her, I had found all of good that life could offer me.</p>
+
+<p>I would have spoken to her, but before I could shape my greeting into
+words that should not seem rude or presumptuous, she had turned and
+gone, stepping lightly across the brook and vanishing in the maple
+copse beyond. For no more than ten seconds had I gazed into her face,
+and the soul of her, the real woman behind the fair outwardness, had
+looked back into my eyes; but I had never been able to forget it.</p>
+
+<p>When I returned home I questioned my cousins diplomatically as to who
+she might be. I felt strangely reluctant to do so&mdash;it seemed in some
+way sacrilege; yet only by so doing could I hope to discover her. They
+could tell me nothing; nor did I meet her again during the remainder
+of my stay in Croyden, although I never went anywhere without looking
+for her, and haunted the pine valley daily, in the hope of seeing her
+again. My disappointment was so bitter that I laughed at myself.</p>
+
+<p>I thought I was a fool to feel thus about a girl I had met for a
+moment in a chance ramble&mdash;a mere child at that, with her hair still
+hanging in its long glossy schoolgirl braid. But when I remembered her
+eyes, my wisdom forgave me.</p>
+
+<p>Well, that was ten years ago; in those ten years the memory had, I
+must confess, grown dimmer. In our busy western life a man had not
+much time for sentimental recollections. Yet I had never been able to
+care for another woman. I wanted to; I wanted to marry and settle
+down. I had come to the time of life when a man wearies of drifting
+and begins to hanker for a calm anchorage in some snug haven of his
+own. But, somehow, I shirked the matter. It seemed rather easier to
+let things slide.</p>
+
+<p>At this stage Peter came west. He was something in a bank, and was as
+round and jolly as ever; but he had evidently changed his attitude
+towards girls, for his rooms were full of their photos. They were
+stuck around everywhere and they were all pretty. Either Peter had
+excellent taste, or the Croyden photographers knew how to flatter. But
+there was one on the mantel which attracted my attention especially.
+If the photo were to be trusted the girl was quite the prettiest I had
+ever seen.</p>
+
+<p>"Peter, what pretty girl's picture is this on your mantel?" I called
+out to Peter, who was in his bedroom, donning evening dress for some
+function.</p>
+
+<p>"That's my cousin, Marian Lindsay," he answered. "She <i>is</i> rather
+nice-looking, isn't she. Lives in Croyden now&mdash;used to live up the
+river at Chiselhurst. Didn't you ever chance across her when you were
+in Croyden?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said. "If I had I wouldn't have forgotten her face."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, she'd be only a kid then, of course. She's twenty-six now.
+Marian is a mighty nice girl, but she's bound to be an old maid. She's
+got notions&mdash;ideals, she calls 'em. All the Croyden fellows have been
+in love with her at one time or another but they might as well have
+made up to a statue. Marian really hasn't a spark of feeling or
+sentiment in her. Her looks are the best part of her, although she's
+confoundedly clever."</p>
+
+<p>Peter spoke rather squiffily. I suspected that he had been one of the
+smitten swains himself. I looked at the photo for a few minutes
+longer, admiring it more every minute and, when I heard Peter coming
+out, I did an unjustifiable thing&mdash;I took that photo and put it in my
+pocket.</p>
+
+<p>I expected Peter would make a fuss when he missed it, but that very
+night the house in which he lived was burned to the ground. Peter
+escaped with the most important of his goods and chattels, but all the
+counterfeit presentments of his dear divinities went up in smoke. If
+he ever thought particularly of Marian Lindsay's photograph he must
+have supposed that it shared the fate of the others.</p>
+
+<p>As for me, I propped my ill-gotten treasure up on my mantel and
+worshipped it for a fortnight. At the end of that time I went boldly
+to Peter and told him I wanted him to introduce me by letter to his
+dear cousin and ask her to agree to a friendly correspondence with me.</p>
+
+<p>Oddly enough, I did not do this without some reluctance, in spite of
+the fact that I was as much in love with Marian Lindsay as it was
+possible to be through the medium of a picture. I thought of the girl
+I had seen in the pine wood and felt an inward shrinking from a step
+that might divide me from her forever. But I rated myself for this
+nonsense. It was in the highest degree unlikely that I should ever
+meet the girl of the pines again. If she were still living she was
+probably some other man's wife. I would think no more about it.</p>
+
+<p>Peter whistled when he heard what I had to say.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I'll do it, old man," he said obligingly. "But I warn you I
+don't think it will be much use. Marian isn't the sort of girl to open
+up a correspondence in such a fashion. However, I'll do the best I can
+for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Do. Tell her I'm a respectable fellow with no violent bad habits and
+all that. I'm in earnest, Peter. I want to make that girl's
+acquaintance, and this seems the only way at present. I can't get off
+just now for a trip east. Explain all this, and use your cousinly
+influence in my behalf if you possess any."</p>
+
+<p>Peter grinned.</p>
+
+<p>"It's not the most graceful job in the world you are putting on me,
+Curtis," he said. "I don't mind owning up now that I was pretty far
+gone on Marian myself two years ago. It's all over now, but it was bad
+while it lasted. Perhaps Marian will consider your request more
+favourably if I put it in the light of a favour to myself. She must
+feel that she owes me something for wrecking my life."</p>
+
+<p>Peter grinned again and looked at the one photo he had contrived to
+rescue from the fire. It was a pretty, snub-nosed little girl. She
+would never have consoled me for the loss of Marian Lindsay, but every
+man to his taste.</p>
+
+<p>In due time Peter sought me out to give me his cousin's answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Congratulations, Curtis. You've out-Caesared Caesar. You've conquered
+without even going and seeing. Marian agrees to a friendly
+correspondence with you. I am amazed, I admit&mdash;even though I did paint
+you up as a sort of Sir Galahad and Lancelot combined. I'm not used to
+seeing proud Marian do stunts like that, and it rather takes my
+breath."</p>
+
+<p>I wrote to Marian Lindsay after one farewell dream of the girl under
+the pines. When Marian's letters began to come regularly I forgot the
+other one altogether.</p>
+
+<p>Such letters&mdash;such witty, sparkling, clever, womanly, delightful
+letters! They completed the conquest her picture had begun. Before we
+had corresponded six months I was besottedly in love with this woman
+whom I had never seen. Finally, I wrote and told her so, and I asked
+her to be my wife.</p>
+
+<p>A fortnight later her answer came. She said frankly that she believed
+she had learned to care for me during our correspondence, but that she
+thought we should meet in person, before coming to any definite
+understanding. Could I not arrange to visit Croyden in the summer?
+Until then we would better continue on our present footing.</p>
+
+<p>I agreed to this, but I considered myself practically engaged, with
+the personal meeting merely to be regarded as a sop to the Cerberus of
+conventionality. I permitted myself to use a decidedly lover-like tone
+in my letters henceforth, and I hailed it as a favourable omen that I
+was not rebuked for this, although Marian's own letters still retained
+their pleasant, simple friendliness.</p>
+
+<p>Peter had at first tormented me mercilessly about the affair, but when
+he saw I did not like his chaff he stopped it. Peter was always a good
+fellow. He realized that I regarded the matter seriously, and he saw
+me off when I left for the east with a grin tempered by honest
+sympathy and understanding.</p>
+
+<p>"Good luck to you," he said. "If you win Marian Lindsay you'll win a
+pearl among women. I haven't been able to grasp her taking to you in
+this fashion, though. It's so unlike Marian. But, since she
+undoubtedly has, you are a lucky man."</p>
+
+<p>I arrived in Croyden at dusk and went to Uncle Tom's. There I found
+them busy with preparations for a party to be given that night in
+honour of a girl friend who was visiting my cousin Edna. I was
+secretly annoyed, for I wanted to hasten at once to Marian. But I
+couldn't decently get away, and on second thoughts I was consoled by
+the reflection that she would probably come to the party. I knew she
+belonged to the same social set as Uncle Tom's girls. I should,
+however, have preferred our meeting to have been under different
+circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>From my stand behind the palms in a corner I eagerly scanned the
+guests as they arrived. Suddenly my heart gave a bound. Marian Lindsay
+had just come in.</p>
+
+<p>I recognized her at once from her photograph. It had not flattered her
+in the least; indeed, it had not done her justice, for her exquisite
+colouring of hair and complexion were quite lost in it. She was,
+moreover, gowned with a taste and smartness eminently admirable in the
+future Mrs. Eric Curtis. I felt a thrill of proprietary pride as I
+stepped out from behind the palms. She was talking to Aunt Grace; but
+her eyes fell on me. I expected a little start of recognition, for I
+had sent her an excellent photograph of myself; but her gaze was one
+of blankest unconsciousness.</p>
+
+<p>I felt something like disappointment at her non-recognition, but I
+consoled myself by the reflection that people often fail to recognize
+other people whom they have seen only in photographs, no matter how
+good the likeness may be. I waylaid Edna, who was passing at that
+time, and said, "Edna I want you to introduce me to the girl who is
+talking to your mother."</p>
+
+<p>Edna laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"So you have succumbed at first sight to our Croyden beauty? Of course
+I'll introduce you, but I warn you beforehand that she is the most
+incorrigible flirt in Croyden or out of it. So take care."</p>
+
+<p>It jarred on me to hear Marian called a flirt. It seemed so out of
+keeping with her letters and the womanly delicacy and fineness
+revealed in them. But I reflected that women sometimes find it hard to
+forgive another woman who absorbs more than her share of lovers, and
+generally take their revenge by dubbing her a flirt, whether she
+deserves the name or not.</p>
+
+<p>We had crossed the room during this reflection. Marian turned and
+stood before us, smiling at Edna, but evincing no recognition whatever
+of myself. It is a piquant experience to find yourself awaiting an
+introduction to a girl to whom you are virtually engaged.</p>
+
+<p>"Dorothy dear," said Edna, "this is my cousin, Mr. Curtis, from
+Vancouver. Eric, this is Miss Armstrong."</p>
+
+<p>I suppose I bowed. Habit carries us mechanically through many
+impossible situations. I don't know what I looked like or what I said,
+if I said anything. I don't suppose I betrayed my dire confusion, for
+Edna went off unconcernedly without another glance at me.</p>
+
+<p>Dorothy Armstrong! Gracious powers&mdash;who&mdash;where&mdash;why? If this girl was
+Dorothy Armstrong who was Marian Lindsay? To whom was I engaged? There
+was some awful mistake somewhere, for it could not be possible that
+there were two girls in Croyden who looked exactly like the photograph
+reposing in my valise at that very moment. I stammered like a
+schoolboy.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;oh&mdash;I&mdash;your face seems familiar to me, Miss Armstrong. I&mdash;I&mdash;think
+I must have seen your photograph somewhere."</p>
+
+<p>"Probably in Peter Austin's collection," smiled Miss Armstrong. "He
+had one of mine before he was burned out. How is he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Peter? Oh, he's well," I replied vaguely. I was thinking a hundred
+words to the second, but my thoughts arrived nowhere. I was staring at
+Miss Armstrong like a man bewitched. She must have thought me a
+veritable booby. "Oh, by the way&mdash;can you tell me&mdash;do you know a Miss
+Lindsay in Croyden?"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Armstrong looked surprised and a little bored. Evidently she was
+not used to having newly introduced young men inquiring about another
+girl.</p>
+
+<p>"Marian Lindsay? Oh, yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Is she here tonight?" I said.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Marian is not going to parties just now, owing to the recent
+death of her aunt, who lived with them."</p>
+
+<p>"Does she&mdash;oh&mdash;does she look like you at all?" I inquired idiotically.</p>
+
+<p>Amusement glimmered but over Miss Armstrong's boredom. She probably
+concluded that I was some harmless lunatic.</p>
+
+<p>"Like me? Not at all. There couldn't be two people more dissimilar.
+Marian is quite dark. I am fair. And our features are altogether
+unlike. Why, good evening, Jack. Yes, I believe I did promise you this
+dance."</p>
+
+<p>She bowed to me and skimmed away with Jack. I saw Aunt Grace bearing
+down upon me and fled incontinently. In my own room I flung myself on
+a chair and tried to think the matter out. Where did the mistake come
+in? How had it happened? I shut my eyes and conjured up the vision of
+Peter's room that day. I remembered vaguely that, when I had picked up
+Dorothy Armstrong's picture, I had noticed another photograph that had
+fallen face downward beside it. That must have been Marian Lindsay's,
+and Peter had thought I meant it.</p>
+
+<p>And now what a position I was in! I was conscious of bitter
+disappointment. I had fallen in love with Dorothy Armstrong's
+photograph. As far as external semblance goes it was she whom I loved.
+I was practically engaged to another woman&mdash;a woman who, in spite of
+our correspondence, seemed to me now, in the shock of this discovery,
+a stranger. It was useless to tell myself that it was the mind and
+soul revealed in those letters that I loved, and that that mind and
+soul were Marian Lindsay's. It was useless to remember that Peter had
+said she was pretty. Exteriorly, she was a stranger to me; hers was
+not the face which had risen before me for nearly a year as the face
+of the woman I loved. Was ever unlucky wretch in such a predicament
+before?</p>
+
+<p>Well, there was only one thing to do. I must stand by my word. Marian
+Lindsay was the woman I had asked to marry me, whose answer I must
+shortly go to receive. If that answer were "yes" I must accept the
+situation and banish all thought of Dorothy Armstrong's pretty face.</p>
+
+<p>Next evening at sunset I went to "Glenwood," the Lindsay place.
+Doubtless, an eager lover might have gone earlier, but an eager lover
+I certainly was not. Probably Marian was expecting me and had given
+orders concerning me, for the maid who came to the door conveyed me to
+a little room behind the stairs&mdash;a room which, as I felt as soon as I
+entered it, was a woman's pet domain. In its books and pictures and
+flowers it spoke eloquently of dainty femininity. Somehow, it suited
+the letters. I did not feel quite so much the stranger as I had felt.
+Nevertheless, when I heard a light footfall on the stairs my heart
+beat painfully. I stood up and turned to the door, but I could not
+look up. The footsteps came nearer; I knew that a white hand swept
+aside the <i>porti&egrave;re</i> at the entrance; I knew that she had entered the
+room and was standing before me.</p>
+
+<p>With an effort I raised my eyes and looked at her. She stood, tall and
+gracious, in a ruby splendour of sunset falling through the window
+beside her. The light quivered like living radiance over a dark proud
+head, a white throat, and a face before whose perfect loveliness the
+memory of Dorothy Armstrong's laughing prettiness faded like a star in
+the sunrise, nevermore in the fullness of the day to be remembered.
+Yet it was not of her beauty I thought as I stood spellbound before
+her. I seemed to see a dim little valley full of whispering pines, and
+a girl standing under their shadows, looking at me with the same
+great, greyish-blue eyes which gazed upon me now from Marian Lindsay's
+face&mdash;the same face, matured into gracious womanhood, that I had seen
+ten years ago; and loved&mdash;aye, loved&mdash;ever since. I took an unsteady
+step forward.</p>
+
+<p>"Marian?" I said.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>When I got home that night I burned Dorothy Armstrong's photograph.
+The next day I went to my cousin Tom, who owns the fashionable studio
+of Croyden and, binding him over to secrecy, sought one of Marian's
+latest photographs from him. It is the only secret I have ever kept
+from my wife.</p>
+
+<p>Before we were married Marian told me something.</p>
+
+<p>"I always remembered you as you looked that day under the pines," she
+said. "I was only a child, but I think I loved you then and ever
+afterwards. When I dreamed my girl's dream of love your face rose up
+before me. I had the advantage of you that I knew your name&mdash;I had
+heard of you. When Peter wrote about you I knew who you were. That was
+why I agreed to correspond with you. I was afraid it was a forward&mdash;an
+unwomanly thing to do. But it seemed my chance for happiness and I
+took it. I am glad I did."</p>
+
+<p>I did not answer in words, but lovers will know how I did answer.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="The_Gossip_of_Valley_View" id="The_Gossip_of_Valley_View"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<h2>The Gossip of Valley View<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">[ToC]</a></span></h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>It was the first of April, and Julius Barrett, aged fourteen, perched
+on his father's gatepost, watched ruefully the low descending sun, and
+counted that day lost. He had not succeeded in "fooling" a single
+person, although he had tried repeatedly. One and all, old and young,
+of his intended victims had been too wary for Julius. Hence, Julius
+was disgusted and ready for anything in the way of a stratagem or a
+spoil.</p>
+
+<p>The Barrett gatepost topped the highest hill in Valley View. Julius
+could see the entire settlement, from "Young" Thomas Everett's farm, a
+mile to the west, to Adelia Williams's weather-grey little house on a
+moonrise slope to the east. He was gazing moodily down the muddy road
+when Dan Chester, homeward bound from the post office, came riding
+sloppily along on his grey mare and pulled up by the Barrett gate to
+hand a paper to Julius.</p>
+
+<p>Dan was a young man who took life and himself very seriously. He
+seldom smiled, never joked, and had a Washingtonian reputation for
+veracity. Dan had never told a conscious falsehood in his life; he
+never even exaggerated.</p>
+
+<p>Julius, beholding Dan's solemn face, was seized with a perfectly
+irresistible desire to "fool" him. At the same moment his eye caught
+the dazzling reflection of the setting sun on the windows of Adelia
+Williams's house, and he had an inspiration little short of
+diabolical. "Have you heard the news, Dan?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No, what is it?" asked Dan.</p>
+
+<p>"I dunno's I ought to tell it," said Julius reflectively. "It's kind
+of a family affair, but then Adelia didn't say not to, and anyway
+it'll be all over the place soon. So I'll tell you, Dan, if you'll
+promise never to tell who told you. Adelia Williams and Young Thomas
+Everett are going to be married."</p>
+
+<p>Julius delivered himself of this tremendous lie with a transparently
+earnest countenance. Yet Dan, credulous as he was, could not believe
+it all at once.</p>
+
+<p>"Git out," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"It's true, 'pon my word," protested Julius. "Adelia was up last night
+and told Ma all about it. Ma's her cousin, you know. The wedding is to
+be in June, and Adelia asked Ma to help her get her quilts and things
+ready."</p>
+
+<p>Julius reeled all this off so glibly that Dan finally believed the
+story, despite the fact that the people thus coupled together in
+prospective matrimony were the very last people in Valley View who
+could have been expected to marry each other. Young Thomas was a
+confirmed bachelor of fifty, and Adelia Williams was forty; they were
+not supposed to be even well acquainted, as the Everetts and the
+Williamses had never been very friendly, although no open feud existed
+between them.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, in view of Julius's circumstantial statements, the
+amazing news must be true, and Dan was instantly agog to carry it
+further. Julius watched Dan and the grey mare out of sight, fairly
+writhing with ecstasy. Oh, but Dan had been easy! The story would be
+all over Valley View in twenty-four hours. Julius laughed until he
+came near to falling off the gatepost.</p>
+
+<p>At this point Julius and Danny drop out of our story, and Young Thomas
+enters.</p>
+
+<p>It was two days later when Young Thomas heard that he was to be
+married to Adelia Williams in June. Eben Clark, the blacksmith, told
+him when he went to the forge to get his horse shod. Young Thomas
+laughed his big jolly laugh. Valley View gossip had been marrying him
+off for the last thirty years, although never before to Adelia
+Williams.</p>
+
+<p>"It's news to me," he said tolerantly.</p>
+
+<p>Eben grinned broadly. "Ah, you can't bluff it off like that, Tom," he
+said. "The news came too straight this time. Well, I was glad to hear
+it, although I was mighty surprised. I never thought of you and
+Adelia. But she's a fine little woman and will make you a capital
+wife."</p>
+
+<p>Young Thomas grunted and drove away. He had a good deal of business to
+do that day, involving calls at various places&mdash;the store for
+molasses, the mill for flour, Jim Bentley's for seed grain, the
+doctor's for toothache drops for his housekeeper, the post office for
+mail&mdash;and at each and every place he was joked about his approaching
+marriage. In the end it rather annoyed Young Thomas. He drove home at
+last in what was for him something of a temper. How on earth had that
+fool story started? With such detailed circumstantiality of rugs and
+quilts, too? Adelia Williams must be going to marry somebody, and the
+Valley View gossips, unable to locate the man, had guessed Young
+Thomas.</p>
+
+<p>When he reached home, tired, mud-bespattered, and hungry, his
+housekeeper, who was also his hired man's wife, asked him if it was
+true that he was going to be married. Young Thomas, taking in at a
+glance the ill-prepared, half-cold supper on the table, felt more
+annoyed than ever, and said it wasn't, with a strong expression&mdash;not
+quite an oath&mdash;for Young Thomas never swore, unless swearing be as
+much a matter of intonation as of words.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Dunn sighed, patted her swelled face, and said she was sorry; she
+had hoped it was true, for her man had decided to go west. They were
+to go in a month's time. Young Thomas sat down to his supper with the
+prospect of having to look up another housekeeper and hired man before
+planting to destroy his appetite.</p>
+
+<p>Next day, three people who came to see Young Thomas on business
+congratulated him on his approaching marriage. Young Thomas, who had
+recovered his usual good humour, merely laughed. There was no use in
+being too earnest in denial, he thought. He knew that his unusual fit
+of petulance with his housekeeper had only convinced her that the
+story was true. It would die away in time, as other similar stories
+had died, he thought. Valley View gossip was imaginative.</p>
+
+<p>Young Thomas looked rather serious, however, when the minister and his
+wife called that evening and referred to the report. Young Thomas
+gravely said that it was unfounded. The minister looked graver still
+and said he was sorry&mdash;he had hoped it was true. His wife glanced
+significantly about Young Thomas's big, untidy sitting-room, where
+there were cobwebs on the ceiling and fluff in the corners and dust on
+the mop-board, and said nothing, but looked volumes.</p>
+
+<p>"Dang it all," said Young Thomas, as they drove away, "they'll marry
+me yet in spite of myself."</p>
+
+<p>The gossip made him think about Adelia Williams. He had never thought
+about her before; he was barely acquainted with her. Now he remembered
+that she was a plump, jolly-looking little woman, noted for being a
+good housekeeper. Then Young Thomas groaned, remembering that he must
+start out looking for a housekeeper soon; and housekeepers were not
+easily found, as Young Thomas had discovered several times since his
+mother's death ten years before.</p>
+
+<p>Next Sunday in church Young Thomas looked at Adelia Williams. He
+caught Adelia looking at him. Adelia blushed and looked guiltily away.</p>
+
+<p>"Dang it all," reflected Young Thomas, forgetting that he was in
+church. "I suppose she has heard that fool story too. I'd like to know
+the person who started it; man or woman, I'd punch their head."</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, Young Thomas went on looking at Adelia by fits and
+starts, although he did not again catch Adelia looking at him. He
+noticed that she had round rosy cheeks and twinkling brown eyes. She
+did not look like an old maid, and Young Thomas wondered that she had
+been allowed to become one. Sarah Barnett, now, to whom report had
+married him a year ago, looked like a dried sour apple.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>For the next four weeks the story haunted Young Thomas like a spectre.
+Down it would not. Everywhere he went he was joked about it. It
+gathered fresh detail every week. Adelia was getting her clothes
+ready; she was to be married in seal-brown cashmere; Vinnie Lawrence
+at Valley Centre was making it for her; she had got a new hat with a
+long ostrich plume; some said white, some said grey.</p>
+
+<p>Young Thomas kept wondering who the man could be, for he was convinced
+that Adelia was going to marry somebody. More than that, once he
+caught himself wondering enviously. Adelia was a nice-looking woman,
+and he had not so far heard of any probable housekeeper.</p>
+
+<p>"Dang it all," said Young Thomas to himself in desperation. "I
+wouldn't care if it was true."</p>
+
+<p>His married sister from Carlisle heard the story and came over to
+investigate. Young Thomas denied it shortly, and his sister scolded.
+She had devoutly hoped it was true, she said, and it would have been a
+great weight off her mind.</p>
+
+<p>"This house is in a disgraceful condition, Thomas," she said severely.
+"It would break Mother's heart if she could rise out of her grave to
+see it. And Adelia Williams is a perfect housekeeper."</p>
+
+<p>"You didn't use to think so much of the Williams crowd," said Young
+Thomas drily.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, some of them don't amount to much," admitted Maria, "but Adelia
+is all right."</p>
+
+<p>Catching sight of an odd look on Young Thomas's face, she added
+hastily, "Thomas Everett, I believe it's true after all. Now, is it?
+For mercy's sake don't be so sly. You might tell me, your own and only
+sister, if it is."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, shut up," was Young Thomas's unfeeling reply to his own and only
+sister.</p>
+
+<p>Young Thomas told himself that night that Valley View gossip would
+drive him into an asylum yet if it didn't let up. He also wondered if
+Adelia was as much persecuted as himself. No doubt she was. He never
+could catch her eye in church now, but he would have been surprised
+had he realized how many times he tried to.</p>
+
+<p>The climax came the third week in May, when Young Thomas, who had been
+keeping house for himself for three weeks, received a letter and an
+express box from his cousin, Charles Everett, out in Manitoba. Charles
+and he had been chums in their boyhood. They corresponded occasionally
+still, although it was twenty years since Charles had gone west.</p>
+
+<p>The letter was to congratulate Young Thomas on his approaching
+marriage. Charles had heard of it through some Valley View
+correspondents of his wife. He was much pleased; he had always liked
+Adelia, he said&mdash;had been an old beau of hers, in fact. Thomas might
+give her a kiss for him if he liked. He forwarded a wedding present by
+express and hoped they would be very happy, etc.</p>
+
+<p>The present was an elaborate hatrack of polished buffalo horns,
+mounted on red plush, with an inset mirror. Young Thomas set it up on
+the kitchen table and scowled moodily at his reflection in the mirror.
+If wedding presents were beginning to come, it was high time something
+was done. The matter was past being a joke. This affair of the present
+would certainly get out&mdash;things always got out in Valley View, dang it
+all&mdash;and he would never hear the last of it.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll marry," said Young Thomas decisively. "If Adelia Williams won't
+have me, I'll marry the first woman who will, if it's Sarah Barnett
+herself."</p>
+
+<p>Young Thomas shaved and put on his Sunday suit. As soon as it was
+safely dark, he hied him away to Adelia Williams. He felt very
+doubtful about his reception, but the remembrance of the twinkle in
+Adelia's brown eyes comforted him. She looked like a woman who had a
+sense of humour; she might not take him, but she would not feel
+offended or insulted because he asked her.</p>
+
+<p>"Dang it all, though, I hope she will take me," said Young Thomas.
+"I'm in for getting married now and no mistake. And I can't get Adelia
+out of my head. I've been thinking of her steady ever since that
+confounded gossip began."</p>
+
+<p>When he knocked at Adelia's door he discovered that his face was wet
+with perspiration. Adelia opened the door and started when she saw
+him; then she turned very red and stiffly asked him in. Young Thomas
+went in and sat down, wondering if all men felt so horribly
+uncomfortable when they went courting.</p>
+
+<p>Adelia stooped low over the woodbox to put a stick of wood in the
+stove, for the May evening was chilly. Her shoulders were shaking; the
+shaking grew worse; suddenly Adelia laughed hysterically and, sitting
+down on the woodbox, continued to laugh. Young Thomas eyed her with a
+friendly grin.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, do excuse me," gasped poor Adelia, wiping tears from her eyes.
+"This is&mdash;dreadful&mdash;I didn't mean to laugh&mdash;I don't know why I'm
+laughing&mdash;but&mdash;I&mdash;can't help it."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed helplessly again. Young Thomas laughed too. His
+embarrassment vanished in the mellowness of that laughter. Presently
+Adelia composed herself and removed from the woodbox to a chair, but
+there was still a suspicious twitching about the corners of her mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose," said Young Thomas, determined to have it over with before
+the ice could form again, "I suppose, Adelia, you've heard the story
+that's been going about you and me of late?"</p>
+
+<p>Adelia nodded. "I've been persecuted to the verge of insanity with
+it," she said. "Every soul I've seen has tormented me about it, and
+people have written me about it. I've denied it till I was black in
+the face, but nobody believed me. I can't find out how it started. I
+hope you believe, Mr. Everett, that it couldn't possibly have arisen
+from anything I said. I've felt dreadfully worried for fear you might
+think it did. I heard that my cousin, Lucilla Barrett, said I told
+her, but Lucilla vowed to me that she never said such a thing or even
+dreamed of it. I've felt dreadful bad over the whole affair. I even
+gave up the idea of making a quilt after a lovely new pattern I've got
+because they made such a talk about my brown dress."</p>
+
+<p>"I've been kind of supposing that you must be going to marry somebody,
+and folks just guessed it was me," said Young Thomas&mdash;he said it
+anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm not going to be married to anybody," said Adelia with a
+laugh, taking up her knitting.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad of that," said Young Thomas gravely. "I mean," he hastened
+to add, seeing the look of astonishment on Adelia's face, "that I'm
+glad there isn't any other man because&mdash;because I want you myself,
+Adelia."</p>
+
+<p>Adelia laid down her knitting and blushed crimson. But she looked at
+Young Thomas squarely and reproachfully.</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't think you are bound to say that because of the gossip,
+Mr. Everett," she said quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't," said Young Thomas earnestly. "But the truth is, the
+story set me to thinking about you, and from that I got to wishing it
+was true&mdash;honest, I did&mdash;I couldn't get you out of my head, and at
+last I didn't want to. It just seemed to me that you were the very
+woman for me if you'd only take me. Will you, Adelia? I've got a good
+farm and house, and I'll try to make you happy."</p>
+
+<p>It was not a very romantic wooing, perhaps. But Adelia was forty and
+had never been a romantic little body even in the heyday of youth. She
+was a practical woman, and Young Thomas was a fine looking man of his
+age with abundance of worldly goods. Besides, she liked him, and the
+gossip had made her think a good deal about him of late. Indeed, in a
+moment of candour she had owned to herself the very last Sunday in
+church that she wouldn't mind if the story were true.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll&mdash;I'll think of it," she said.</p>
+
+<p>This was practically an acceptance, and Young Thomas so understood
+it. Without loss of time he crossed the kitchen, sat down beside
+Adelia, and put his arms about her plump waist.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's a kiss Charlie sent me to give you," he said, giving it.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="The_Letters" id="The_Letters"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<h2>The Letters<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">[ToC]</a></span></h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>Just before the letter was brought to me that evening I was watching
+the red November sunset from the library window. It was a stormy,
+unrestful sunset, gleaming angrily through the dark fir boughs that
+were now and again tossed suddenly and distressfully in a fitful gust
+of wind. Below, in the garden, it was quite dark, and I could only see
+dimly the dead leaves that were whirling and dancing uncannily over
+the roseless paths. The poor dead leaves&mdash;yet not quite dead! There
+was still enough unquiet life left in them to make them restless and
+forlorn. They hearkened yet to every call of the wind, who cared for
+them no longer but only played freakishly with them and broke their
+rest. I felt sorry for the leaves as I watched them in that dull,
+weird twilight, and angry&mdash;in a petulant fashion that almost made me
+laugh&mdash;with the wind that would not leave them in peace. Why should
+they&mdash;and I&mdash;be vexed with these transient breaths of desire for a
+life that had passed us by?</p>
+
+<p>I was in the grip of a bitter loneliness that evening&mdash;so bitter and
+so insistent that I felt I could not face the future at all, even with
+such poor fragments of courage as I had gathered about me after
+Father's death, hoping that they would, at least, suffice for my
+endurance, if not for my content. But now they fell away from me at
+sight of the emptiness of life.</p>
+
+<p>The emptiness! Ah, it was from that I shrank. I could have faced pain
+and anxiety and heartbreak undauntedly, but I could not face that
+terrible, yawning, barren emptiness. I put my hands over my eyes to
+shut it out, but it pressed in upon my consciousness insistently, and
+would not be ignored longer.</p>
+
+<p>The moment when a woman realizes that she has nothing to live
+for&mdash;neither love nor purpose nor duty&mdash;holds for her the bitterness
+of death. She is a brave woman indeed who can look upon such a
+prospect unquailingly, and I was not brave. I was weak and timid. Had
+not Father often laughed mockingly at me because of it?</p>
+
+<p>It was three weeks since Father had died&mdash;my proud, handsome,
+unrelenting old father, whom I had loved so intensely and who had
+never loved me. I had always accepted this fact unresentfully and
+unquestioningly, but it had steeped my whole life in its tincture of
+bitterness. Father had never forgiven me for two things. I had cost my
+mother's life and I was not a son to perpetuate the old name and carry
+on the family feud with the Frasers.</p>
+
+<p>I was a very lonely child, with no playmates or companions of any
+sort, and my girlhood was lonelier still. The only passion in my life
+was my love for my father. I would have done and suffered anything to
+win his affection in return. But all I ever did win was an amused
+tolerance&mdash;and I was grateful for that&mdash;almost content. It was much to
+have something to love and be permitted to love it.</p>
+
+<p>If I had been a beautiful and spirited girl I think Father might have
+loved me, but I was neither. At first I did not think or care about my
+lack of beauty; then one day I was alone in the beech wood; I was
+trying to disentangle my skirt which had caught on some thorny
+underbrush. A young man came around the curve of the path and, seeing
+my predicament, bent with murmured apology to help me. He had to kneel
+to do it, and I saw a ray of sunshine falling through the beeches
+above us strike like a lance of light athwart the thick brown hair
+that pushed out from under his cap. Before I thought I put out my hand
+and touched it softly, then I blushed crimson with shame over what I
+had done. But he did not know&mdash;he never knew.</p>
+
+<p>When he had released my dress he rose and our eyes met for a moment as
+I timidly thanked him. I saw that he was good to look upon&mdash;tall and
+straight, with broad, stalwart shoulders and a dark, clean-cut face.
+He had a firm, sensitive mouth and kindly, pleasant, dark blue eyes. I
+never quite forgot the look in those eyes. It made my heart beat
+strangely, but it was only for a moment, and the next he had lifted
+his cap and passed on.</p>
+
+<p>As I went homeward I wondered who he might be. He must be a stranger,
+I thought&mdash;probably a visitor in some of our few neighbouring
+families. I wondered too if I should meet him again, and found the
+thought very pleasant.</p>
+
+<p>I knew few men and they were all old, like Father, or at least
+elderly. They were the only people who ever came to our house, and
+they either teased me or overlooked me. None of them was at all like
+this young man I had met in the beech wood, nor ever could have been,
+I thought.</p>
+
+<p>When I reached home I stopped before the big mirror that hung in the
+hall and did what I had never done before in my life&mdash;looked at myself
+very scrutinizingly and wondered if I had any beauty. I could only
+sorrowfully conclude that I had not&mdash;I was so slight and pale, and the
+thick black hair and dark eyes that might have been pretty in another
+woman seemed only to accentuate the lack of spirit and regularity in
+my features. I was still standing there, gazing wistfully at my
+mirrored face with a strange sinking of spirit, when Father came
+through the hall, his riding whip in his hand. Seeing me, he laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't waste your time gazing into mirrors, Isobel," he said
+carelessly. "That might have been excusable in former ladies of
+Shirley whose beauty might pardon and even adorn vanity, but with you
+it is only absurd. The needle and the cookbook are all that you need
+concern yourself with."</p>
+
+<p>I was accustomed to such speeches from him, but they had never hurt me
+so cruelly before. At that moment I would have given all the world
+only to be beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>The next Sunday I looked across the church, and in the Fraser pew I
+saw the young man I had met in the wood. He was looking at me with his
+arms folded over his breast and on his brow a little frown that seemed
+somehow indicative of pain and surprise. I felt a miserable sense of
+disappointment. If he were the Frasers' guest I could not expect to
+meet him again. Father hated the Frasers, all the Shirleys hated them;
+it was an old feud, bitter and lasting, that had been as much our
+inheritance for generations as land and money. The only thing Father
+had ever taken pains to teach me was detestation of the Frasers and
+all their works. I accepted this as I accepted all the other
+traditions of my race. I thought it did not matter much. The Frasers
+were not likely to come my way, and hatred was a good satisfying
+passion in the lack of all else. I think I rather took a pride in
+hating them as became my blood.</p>
+
+<p>I did not look at the Fraser pew again, but outside, under the elms,
+we met him, standing in the dappling light and shadow. He looked very
+handsome and a little sad. I could not help glancing back over my
+shoulder as Father and I walked to the gate, and I saw him looking
+after us with that little frown which again made me think something
+had hurt him. I liked better the smile he had worn in the beech wood,
+but I had an odd liking for the frown too, and I think I had a foolish
+longing to go back to him, put up my fingers and smooth it away.</p>
+
+<p>"So Alan Fraser has come home," said my father.</p>
+
+<p>"Alan Fraser?" I repeated, with a strange, horrible feeling of
+coldness and chill coming over me like a shadow on a bright day. Alan
+Fraser, the son of old Malcolm Fraser of Glenellyn! The son of our
+enemy! He had been living since childhood with his dead mother's
+people, so much I knew. And this was he! Something stung and smarted
+in my eyes. I think the sting and smart might have turned to tears if
+Father had not been looking down at me.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Didn't you see him in his father's pew? But I forgot. You are
+too demure to be looking at the young men in preaching&mdash;or out of it,
+Isobel. You are a model young woman. Odd that the men never like the
+model young women! Curse old Malcolm Fraser! What right has he to have
+a son like that when I have nothing but a puling girl? Remember,
+Isobel, that if you ever meet that young man you are not to speak to
+or look at him, or even intimate that you are aware of his existence.
+He is your enemy and the enemy of your race. You will show him that
+you realize this."</p>
+
+<p>Of course that ended it all&mdash;though just what there had been to end
+would have been hard to say. Not long afterwards I met Alan Fraser
+again, when I was out for a canter on my mare. He was strolling
+through the beech wood with a couple of big collies, and he stopped
+short as I drew near. I had to do it&mdash;Father had decreed&mdash;my Shirley
+pride demanded&mdash;that I should do it. I looked him unseeingly in the
+face, struck my mare a blow with my whip, and dashed past him. I even
+felt angry, I think, that a Fraser should have the power to make me
+feel so badly in doing my duty.</p>
+
+<p>After that I had forgotten. There was nothing to make me remember, for
+I never met Alan Fraser again. The years slipped by, one by one, so
+like each other in their colourlessness that I forgot to take account
+of them. I only knew that I grew older and that it did not matter
+since there was nobody to care. One day they brought Father in,
+white-lipped and groaning. His mare had thrown him, and he was never
+to walk again, although he lived for five years. Those five years had
+been the happiest of my life. For the first time I was necessary to
+someone&mdash;there was something for me to do which nobody else could do
+so well. I was Father's nurse and companion; and I found my pleasure
+in tending him and amusing him, soothing his hours of pain and
+brightening his hours of ease. People said I "did my duty" toward him.
+I had never liked that word "duty," since the day I had ridden past
+Alan Fraser in the beech wood. I could not connect it with what I did
+for Father. It was my delight because I loved him. I did not mind the
+moods and the irritable outbursts that drove others from him.</p>
+
+<p>But now he was dead, and I sat in the sullen dusk, wishing that I need
+not go on with life either. The loneliness of the big echoing house
+weighed on my spirit. I was solitary, without companionship. I looked
+out on the outside world where the only sign of human habitation
+visible to my eyes was the light twinkling out from the library window
+of Glenellyn on the dark fir hill two miles away. By that light I knew
+Alan Fraser must have returned from his long sojourn abroad, for it
+only shone when he was at Glenellyn. He still lived there, something
+of a hermit, people said; he had never married, and he cared nothing
+for society. His companions were books and dogs and horses; he was
+given to scientific researches and wrote much for the reviews; he
+travelled a great deal. So much I knew in a vague way. I even saw him
+occasionally in church, and never thought the years had changed him
+much, save that his face was sadder and sterner than of old and his
+hair had become iron-grey. People said that he had inherited and
+cherished the old hatred of the Shirleys&mdash;that he was very bitter
+against us. I believed it. He had the face of a good hater&mdash;or
+lover&mdash;a man who could play with no emotion but must take it in all
+earnestness and intensity.</p>
+
+<p>When it was quite dark the housekeeper brought in the lights and
+handed me a letter which, she said, a man had just brought up from the
+village post office. I looked at it curiously before I opened it,
+wondering from whom it was. It was postmarked from a city several
+miles away, and the firm, decided, rather peculiar handwriting was
+strange to me. I had no correspondents. After Father's death I had
+received a few perfunctory notes of condolence from distant relatives
+and family friends. They had hurt me cruelly, for they seemed to
+exhale a subtle spirit of congratulation on my being released from a
+long and unpleasant martyrdom of attendance on an invalid, that quite
+overrode the decorous phrases of conventional sympathy in which they
+were expressed. I hated those letters for their implied injustice. I
+was not thankful for my "release." I missed Father miserably and
+longed passionately for the very tasks and vigils that had evoked
+their pity.</p>
+
+<p>This letter did not seem like one of those. I opened it and took out
+some stiff, blackly written sheets. They were undated and, turning to
+the last, I saw that they were unsigned. With a not unpleasant
+tingling of interest I sat down by my desk to read. The letter began
+abruptly:</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p>You will not know by whom this is written. Do not seek to
+know&mdash;now or ever. It is only from behind the veil of your
+ignorance of my identity that I can ever write to you fully
+and freely as I wish to write&mdash;can say what I wish to say in
+words denied to a formal and conventional expression of
+sympathy. Dear lady, let me say to you thus what is in my
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>I know what your sorrow is, and I think I know what your
+loneliness must be&mdash;the sorrow of a broken tie, the loneliness
+of a life thrown emptily back on itself. I know how you loved
+your father&mdash;how you must have loved him if those eyes and
+brow and mouth speak truth, for they tell of a nature divinely
+rich and deep, giving of its wealth and tenderness
+ungrudgingly to those who are so happy as to be the objects of
+its affection. To such a nature bereavement must bring a depth
+and an agony of grief unknown to shallower souls.</p>
+
+<p>I know what your father's helplessness and need of you meant
+to you. I know that now life must seem to you a broken and
+embittered thing and, knowing this, I venture to send this
+greeting across the gulf of strangerhood between us, telling
+you that my understanding sympathy is fully and freely yours,
+and bidding you take heart for the future, which now, it may
+be, looks so heartless and hopeless to you.</p>
+
+<p>Believe me, dear lady, it will be neither. Courage will come
+to you with the kind days. You will find noble tasks to do,
+beautiful and gracious duties waiting along your path. The
+pain and suffering of the world never dies, and while it
+lives there will be work for such as you to do, and in the
+doing of it you will find comfort and strength and the highest
+joy of living. I believe in you. I believe you will make of
+your life a beautiful and worthy thing. I give you Godspeed
+for the years to come. Out of my own loneliness I, an unknown
+friend, who has never clasped your hand, send this message to
+you. I understand&mdash;I have always understood&mdash;and I say to you:
+"Be of good cheer."</p></div>
+
+<p>To say that this strange letter was a mystery to me seems an
+inadequate way of stating the matter. I was completely bewildered, nor
+could I even guess who the writer might be, think and ponder as I
+might.</p>
+
+<p>The letter itself implied that the writer was a stranger. The
+handwriting was evidently that of a man, and I knew no man who could
+or would have sent such a letter to me.</p>
+
+<p>The very mystery stung me to interest. As for the letter itself, it
+brought me an uplift of hope and inspiration such as I would not have
+believed possible an hour earlier. It rang so truly and sincerely, and
+the mere thought that somewhere I had a friend who cared enough to
+write it, even in such odd fashion, was so sweet that I was half
+ashamed of the difference it made in my outlook. Sitting there, I took
+courage and made a compact with myself that I would justify the
+writer's faith in me&mdash;that I would take up my life as something to be
+worthily lived for all good, to the disregard of my own selfish sorrow
+and shrinking. I would seek for something to do&mdash;for interests which
+would bind me to my fellow-creatures&mdash;for tasks which would lessen the
+pains and perils of humankind. An hour before, this would not have
+seemed to me possible; now it seemed the right and natural thing to
+do.</p>
+
+<p>A week later another letter came. I welcomed it with an eagerness
+which I feared was almost childish. It was a much longer letter than
+the first and was written in quite a different strain. There was no
+apology for or explanation of the motive for writing. It was as if the
+letter were merely one of a permitted and established correspondence
+between old friends. It began with a witty, sparkling review of a new
+book the writer had just read, and passed from this to crisp comments
+on the great events, political, scientific, artistic, of the day. The
+whole letter was pungent, interesting, delightful&mdash;an impersonal essay
+on a dozen vital topics of life and thought. Only at the end was a
+personal note struck.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you interested in these things?" ran the last paragraph. "In what
+is being done and suffered and attained in the great busy world? I
+think you must be&mdash;for I have seen you and read what is written in
+your face. I believe you care for these things as I do&mdash;that your
+being thrills to the 'still, sad music of humanity'&mdash;that the songs of
+the poets I love find an echo in your spirit and the aspirations of
+all struggling souls a sympathy in your heart. Believing this, I have
+written freely to you, taking a keen pleasure in thus revealing my
+thoughts and visions to one who will understand. For I too am
+friendless, in the sense of one standing alone, shut out from the
+sweet, intimate communion of feeling and opinion that may be held with
+the heart's friends. Shall you have read this as a friend, I wonder&mdash;a
+candid, uncritical, understanding friend? Let me hope it, dear lady."</p>
+
+<p>I was expecting the third letter when it came&mdash;but not until it did
+come did I realize what my disappointment would have been if it had
+not. After that every week brought me a letter; soon those letters
+were the greatest interest in my life. I had given up all attempts to
+solve the mystery of their coming and was content to enjoy them for
+themselves alone. From week to week I looked forward to them with an
+eagerness that I would hardly confess, even to myself.</p>
+
+<p>And such letters as they were, growing longer and fuller and freer as
+time went on&mdash;such wise, witty, brilliant, pungent letters,
+stimulating all my torpid life into tingling zest! I had begun to
+look abroad in my small world for worthy work and found plenty to do.
+My unknown friend evidently kept track of my expanding efforts, for he
+commented and criticized, encouraged and advised freely. There was a
+humour in his letters that I liked; it leavened them with its sanity
+and reacted on me most wholesomely, counteracting many of the morbid
+tendencies and influences of my life. I found myself striving to live
+up to the writer's ideal of philosophy and ambition, as pictured,
+often unconsciously, in his letters.</p>
+
+<p>They were an intellectual stimulant as well. To understand them fully
+I found it necessary to acquaint myself thoroughly with the literature
+and art, the science and the politics they touched upon. After every
+letter there was something new for me to hunt out and learn and
+assimilate, until my old narrow mental attitude had so broadened and
+deepened, sweeping out into circles of thought I had never known or
+imagined, that I hardly knew myself.</p>
+
+<p>They had been coming for a year before I began to reply to them. I had
+often wished to do so&mdash;there were so many things I wanted to say and
+discuss, but it seemed foolish to write letters that could not be
+sent. One day a letter came that kindled my imagination and stirred my
+heart and soul so deeply that they insistently demanded answering
+expression. I sat down at my desk and wrote a full reply to it. Safe
+in the belief that the mysterious friend to whom it was written would
+never see it, I wrote with a perfect freedom and a total lack of
+self-consciousness that I could never have attained otherwise. The
+writing of that letter gave me a pleasure second only to that which
+the reading of his brought. For the first time I discovered the
+delight of revealing my thought unhindered by the conventions. Also, I
+understood better why the writer of those letters had written them.
+Doubtless he had enjoyed doing so and was not impelled thereto simply
+by a purely philanthropic wish to help me.</p>
+
+<p>When my letter was finished I sealed it up and locked it away in my
+desk with a smile at my middle-aged folly. What, I wondered, would all
+my sedate, serious friends, my associates of mission and hospital
+committees think if they knew. Well, everybody has, or should have, a
+pet nonsense in her life. I did not think mine was any sillier than
+some others I knew, and to myself I admitted that it was very sweet. I
+knew if those letters ceased to come all savour would go out of my
+life.</p>
+
+<p>After that I wrote a reply to every letter I received and kept them
+all locked up together. It was delightful. I wrote out all my doings
+and perplexities and hopes and plans and wishes&mdash;yes, and my dreams.
+The secret romance of it all made me look on existence with joyous,
+contented eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually a change crept over the letters I received. Without ever
+affording the slightest clue to the identity of their writer they grew
+more intimate and personal. A subtle, caressing note of tenderness
+breathed from them and thrilled my heart curiously. I felt as if I
+were being drawn into the writer's life, admitted into the most sacred
+recesses of his thoughts and feelings. Yet it was all done so subtly,
+so delicately, that I was unconscious of the change until I discovered
+it in reading over the older letters and comparing them with the later
+ones.</p>
+
+<p>Finally a letter came&mdash;my first love letter, and surely never was a
+love letter received under stranger circumstances. It began abruptly
+as all the letters had begun, plunging into the middle of the writer's
+strain of thought without any preface. The first words drove the blood
+to my heart and then sent it flying hotly all over my face.</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p>I love you. I must say it at last. Have you not guessed it
+before? It has trembled on my pen in every line I have written
+to you&mdash;yet I have never dared to shape it into words before.
+I know not how I dare now. I only know that I must. What a
+delight to write it out and know that you will read it.
+Tonight the mood is on me to tell it to you recklessly and
+lavishly, never pausing to stint or weigh words. Sweetheart, I
+love you&mdash;love you&mdash;love you&mdash;dear true, faithful woman soul,
+I love you with all the heart of a man.</p>
+
+<p>Ever since I first saw you I have loved you. I can never come
+to tell you so in spoken words; I can only love you from afar
+and tell my love under the guise of impersonal friendship. It
+matters not to you, but it matters more than all else in life
+to me. I am glad that I love you, dear&mdash;glad, glad, glad.</p></div>
+
+<p>There was much more, for it was a long letter. When I had read it I
+buried my burning face in my hands, trembling with happiness. This
+strange confession of love meant so much to me; my heart leaped forth
+to meet it with answering love. What mattered it that we could never
+meet&mdash;that I could not even guess who my lover was? Somewhere in the
+world was a love that was mine alone and mine wholly and mine forever.
+What mattered his name or his station, or the mysterious barrier
+between us? Spirit leaped to spirit unhindered over the fettering
+bounds of matter and time. I loved and was beloved. Nothing else
+mattered.</p>
+
+<p>I wrote my answer to his letter. I wrote it fearlessly and
+unstintedly. Perhaps I could not have written so freely if the letter
+were to have been read by him; as it was, I poured out the riches of
+my love as fully as he had done. I kept nothing back, and across the
+gulf between us I vowed a faithful and enduring love in response to
+his.</p>
+
+<p>The next day I went to town on business with my lawyers. Neither of
+the members of the firm was in when I called, but I was an old client,
+and one of the clerks showed me into the private office to wait. As I
+sat down my eyes fell on a folded letter lying on the table beside
+me. With a shock of surprise I recognized the writing. I could not be
+mistaken&mdash;I should have recognized it anywhere.</p>
+
+<p>The letter was lying by its envelope, so folded that only the middle
+third of the page was visible. An irresistible impulse swept over me.
+Before I could reflect that I had no business to touch the letter,
+that perhaps it was unfair to my unknown friend to seek to discover
+his identity when he wished to hide it, I had turned the letter over
+and seen the signature.</p>
+
+<p>I laid it down again and stood up, dizzy, breathless, unseeing. Like a
+woman in a dream I walked through the outer office and into the
+street. I must have walked on for blocks before I became conscious of
+my surroundings. The name I had seen signed to that letter was Alan
+Fraser!</p>
+
+<p>No doubt the reader has long ago guessed it&mdash;has wondered why I had
+not. The fact remains that I had not. Out of the whole world Alan
+Fraser was the last man whom I should have suspected to be the writer
+of those letters&mdash;Alan Fraser, my hereditary enemy, who, I had been
+told, cherished the old feud so faithfully and bitterly, and hated our
+very name.</p>
+
+<p>And yet I now wondered at my long blindness. No one else could have
+written those letters&mdash;no one but him. I read them over one by one
+when I reached home and, now that I possessed the key, he revealed
+himself in every line, expression, thought. And he loved me!</p>
+
+<p>I thought of the old feud and hatred; I thought of my pride and
+traditions. They seemed like the dust and ashes of outworn
+things&mdash;things to be smiled at and cast aside. I took out all the
+letters I had written&mdash;all except the last one&mdash;sealed them up in a
+parcel and directed it to Alan Fraser. Then, summoning my groom, I
+bade him ride to Glenellyn with it. His look of amazement almost made
+me laugh, but after he was gone I felt dizzy and frightened at my own
+daring.</p>
+
+<p>When the autumn darkness came down I went to my room and dressed as
+the woman dresses who awaits the one man of all the world. I hardly
+knew what I hoped or expected, but I was all athrill with a nameless,
+inexplicable happiness. I admit I looked very eagerly into the mirror
+when I was done, and I thought that the result was not unpleasing.
+Beauty had never been mine, but a faint reflection of it came over me
+in the tremulous flush and excitement of the moment. Then the maid
+came up to tell me that Alan Fraser was in the library.</p>
+
+<p>I went down with my cold hands tightly clasped behind me. He was
+standing by the library table, a tall, broad-shouldered man, with the
+light striking upward on his dark, sensitive face and iron-grey hair.
+When he saw me he came quickly forward.</p>
+
+<p>"So you know&mdash;and you are not angry&mdash;your letters told me so much. I
+have loved you since that day in the beech wood, Isobel&mdash;Isobel."</p>
+
+<p>His eyes were kindling into mine. He held my hands in a close,
+impetuous clasp. His voice was infinitely caressing as he pronounced
+my name. I had never heard it since Father died&mdash;I had never heard it
+at all so musically and tenderly uttered. My ancestors might have
+turned in their graves just then&mdash;but it mattered not. Living love had
+driven out dead hatred.</p>
+
+<p>"Isobel," he went on, "there was <i>one</i> letter unanswered&mdash;the last."</p>
+
+<p>I went to my desk, took out the last letter I had written and gave it
+to him in silence. While he read it I stood in a shadowy corner and
+watched him, wondering if life could always be as sweet as this. When
+he had finished he turned to me and held out his arms. I went to them
+as a bird to her nest, and with his lips against mine the old feud was
+blotted out forever.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="The_Life-Book_of_Uncle_Jesse" id="The_Life-Book_of_Uncle_Jesse"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<h2>The Life-Book of Uncle Jesse<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">[ToC]</a></span></h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>Uncle Jesse! The name calls up the vision of him as I saw him so often
+in those two enchanted summers at Golden Gate; as I saw him the first
+time, when he stood in the open doorway of the little low-eaved
+cottage on the harbour shore, welcoming us to our new domicile with
+the gentle, unconscious courtesy that became him so well. A tall,
+ungainly figure, somewhat stooped, yet suggestive of great strength
+and endurance; a clean-shaven old face deeply lined and bronzed; a
+thick mane of iron-grey hair falling quite to his shoulders; and a
+pair of remarkably blue, deep-set eyes, which sometimes twinkled and
+sometimes dreamed, but oftener looked out seaward with a wistful
+question in them, as of one seeking something precious and lost. I was
+to learn one day what it was for which Uncle Jesse looked.</p>
+
+<p>It cannot be denied that Uncle Jesse was a homely man. His spare jaws,
+rugged mouth, and square brow were not fashioned on the lines of
+beauty, but though at first sight you thought him plain you never
+thought anything more about it&mdash;the spirit shining through that rugged
+tenement beautified it so wholly.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Jesse was quite keenly aware of his lack of outward comeliness
+and lamented it, for he was a passionate worshipper of beauty in
+everything. He told Mother once that he'd rather like to be made over
+again and made handsome.</p>
+
+<p>"Folks say I'm good," he remarked whimsically, "but I sometimes wish
+the Lord had made me only half as good and put the rest of it into
+looks. But I reckon He knew what He was about, as a good Captain
+should. Some of us have to be homely or the purty ones&mdash;like Miss Mary
+there&mdash;wouldn't show up so well."</p>
+
+<p>I was not in the least pretty but Uncle Jesse was always telling me I
+was&mdash;and I loved him for it. He told the fib so prettily and sincerely
+that he almost made me believe it for the time being, and I really
+think he believed it himself. All women were lovely and of good report
+in his eyes, because of one he had loved. The only time I ever saw
+Uncle Jesse really angered was when someone in his hearing cast an
+aspersion on the character of a shore girl. The wretched man who did
+it fairly cringed when Uncle Jesse turned on him with lightning of eye
+and thundercloud of brow. At that moment I no longer found it hard to
+reconcile Uncle Jesse's simple, kindly personality with the wild,
+adventurous life he had lived.</p>
+
+<p>We went to Golden Gate in the spring. Mother's health had not been
+good and her doctor recommended sea air and quiet. Uncle James, when
+he heard it, proposed that we take possession of a small cottage at
+Golden Gate, to which he had recently fallen heir by the death of an
+old aunt who had lived in it.</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't been up to see it," he said, "but it is just as Aunt
+Elizabeth left it and she was the pink of neatness. The key is in the
+possession of an old sailor living nearby&mdash;Jesse Boyd is the name, I
+think. I imagine you can be very comfortable in it. It is built right
+on the harbour shore, inside the bar, and it is within five minutes'
+walk of the outside shore."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle James's offer fitted in very opportunely with our limp family
+purse, and we straightway betook ourselves to Golden Gate. We
+telegraphed to Jesse Boyd to have the house opened for us and, one
+crisp spring day, when a rollicking wind was scudding over the harbour
+and the dunes, whipping the water into white caps and washing the
+sandshore with long lines of silvery breakers, we alighted at the
+little station and walked the half mile to our new home, leaving our
+goods and chattels to be carted over in the evening by an obliging
+station agent's boy.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>Our first glimpse of Aunt Elizabeth's cottage was a delight to soul
+and sense; it looked so like a big grey seashell stranded on the
+shore. Between it and the harbour was only a narrow strip of shingle,
+and behind it was a gnarled and battered fir wood where the winds were
+in the habit of harping all sorts of weird and haunting music. Inside,
+it was to prove even yet more quaint and delightful, with its low,
+dark-beamed ceilings and square, deep-set windows by which, whether
+open or shut, sea breezes entered at their own sweet will. The view
+from our door was magnificent, taking in the big harbour and sweeps of
+purple hills beyond. The entrance of the harbour gave it its name&mdash;a
+deep, narrow channel between the bar of sand dunes on the one side and
+a steep, high, frowning red sandstone cliff on the other. We
+appreciated its significance the first time we saw a splendid golden
+sunrise flooding it, coming out of the wonderful sea and sky beyond
+and billowing through that narrow passage in waves of light. Truly, it
+was a golden gate through which one might sail to "faerie lands
+forlorn."</p>
+
+<p>As we went along the path to our little house we were agreeably
+surprised to see a blue spiral of smoke curling up from its big,
+square chimney, and the next moment Uncle Jesse (we were calling him
+Uncle Jesse half an hour after we met him, so it seems scarcely
+worthwhile to begin with anything else) came to the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Welcome, ladies," he said, holding out a big, hard, but scrupulously
+clean hand. "I thought you'd be feeling a bit tired and hungry, maybe,
+so when I came over to open up I put on a fire and brewed you up a cup
+of tea. I just delight in being neighbourly and 'tain't often I have
+the chance."</p>
+
+<p>We found that Uncle Jesse's "cup of tea" meant a veritable spread. He
+had aired the little dining room, set out the table daintily with Aunt
+Elizabeth's china and linen&mdash;"knowed jest where to put my hands on
+'em&mdash;often and often helped old Miss Kennedy wash 'em. We were
+cronies, her and me. I miss her terrible"&mdash;and adorned it with
+mayflowers which, as we afterwards discovered, he had tramped several
+miles to gather. There was good bread and butter, "store" biscuits, a
+dish of tea fit for the gods on high Olympus, and a platter of the
+most delicious sea trout, done to a turn.</p>
+
+<p>"Thought they'd be tasty after travelling," said Uncle Jesse. "They're
+fresh as trout can be, ma'am. Two hours ago they was swimming in
+Johnson's pond yander. I caught 'em&mdash;yes, ma'am. It's about all I'm
+good for now, catching trout and cod occasional. But 'tweren't always
+so&mdash;not by no manner of means. I used to do other things, as you'd
+admit if you saw my life-book."</p>
+
+<p>I was so hungry and tired that I did not then "rise to the bait" of
+Uncle Jesse's "life-book." I simply wanted to begin on those trout.
+Mother insisted that Uncle Jesse sit down and help us eat the repast
+he had prepared, and he assented without undue coaxing.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank ye kindly. 'Twill be a real treat. I mostly has to eat my meals
+alone, with the reflection of my ugly old phiz in a looking glass
+opposite for company. 'Tisn't often I have the chance to sit down with
+two such sweet purty ladies."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Jesse's compliments look bald enough on paper, but he paid them
+with such gracious, gentle deference of tone and look that the woman
+who received them felt that she was being offered a queen's gift in
+kingly fashion.</p>
+
+<p>He broke bread with us and from that moment we were all friends
+together and forever. After we had eaten all we could, we sat at our
+table for an hour and listened to Uncle Jesse telling us stories of
+his life.</p>
+
+<p>"If I talk too much you must jest check me," he said seriously, but
+with a twinkle in his eyes. "When I do get a chance to talk to anyone
+I'm apt to run on terrible."</p>
+
+<p>He had been a sailor from the time he was ten years old, and some of
+his adventures had such a marvellous edge that I secretly wondered if
+Uncle Jesse were not drawing a rather long bow at our credulous
+expense. But in this, as I found later, I did him injustice. His tales
+were all literally true, and Uncle Jesse had the gift of the born
+story-teller, whereby "unhappy, far-off things" can be brought vividly
+before the hearer and made to live again in all their pristine
+poignancy.</p>
+
+<p>Mother and I laughed and shivered over Uncle Jesse's tales, and once
+we found ourselves crying. Uncle Jesse surveyed our tears with
+pleasure shining out through his face like an illuminating lamp.</p>
+
+<p>"I like to make folks cry that way," he remarked. "It's a compliment.
+But I can't do justice to the things I've seen and helped do. I've got
+'em all jotted down in my life-book but I haven't got the knack of
+writing them out properly. If I had, I could make a great book, if I
+had the knack of hitting on just the right words and stringing
+everything together proper on paper. But I can't. It's in this poor
+human critter," Uncle Jesse patted his breast sorrowfully, "but he
+can't get it out."</p>
+
+<p>When Uncle Jesse went home that evening Mother asked him to come often
+to see us.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if you'd give that invitation if you knew how likely I'd be
+to accept it," he remarked whimsically.</p>
+
+<p>"Which is another way of saying you wonder if I meant it," smiled
+Mother. "I do, most heartily and sincerely."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'll come. You'll likely be pestered with me at any hour. And
+I'd be proud to have you drop over to visit me now and then too. I
+live on that point yander. Neither me nor my house is worth coming to
+see. It's only got one room and a loft and a stovepipe sticking out of
+the roof for a chimney. But I've got a few little things lying around
+that I picked up in the queer corners I used to be poking my nose
+into. Mebbe they'd interest you."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Jesse's "few little things" turned out to be the most
+interesting collection of curios I had ever seen. His one neat little
+living room was full of them&mdash;beautiful, hideous or quaint as the case
+might be, and almost all having some weird or exciting story attached.</p>
+
+<p>Mother and I had a beautiful summer at Golden Gate. We lived the life
+of two children with Uncle Jesse as a playmate. Our housekeeping was
+of the simplest description and we spent our hours rambling along the
+shores, reading on the rocks or sailing over the harbour in Uncle
+Jesse's trim little boat. Every day we loved the simple-souled, true,
+manly old sailor more and more. He was as refreshing as a sea breeze,
+as interesting as some ancient chronicle. We never tired of listening
+to his stories, and his quaint remarks and comments were a continual
+delight to us. Uncle Jesse was one of those interesting and rare
+people who, in the picturesque phraseology of the shore folks, "never
+speak but they say something." The milk of human kindness and the
+wisdom of the serpent were mingled in Uncle Jesse's composition in
+delightful proportions.</p>
+
+<p>One day he was absent all day and returned at nightfall.</p>
+
+<p>"Took a tramp back yander." "Back yander" with Uncle Jesse might mean
+the station hamlet or the city a hundred miles away or any place
+between&mdash;"to carry Mr. Kimball a mess of trout. He likes one
+occasional and it's all I can do for a kindness he did me once. I
+stayed all day to talk to him. He likes to talk to me, though he's an
+eddicated man, because he's one of the folks that's <i>got</i> to talk or
+they're miserable, and he finds listeners scarce 'round here. The
+folks fight shy of him because they think he's an infidel. He ain't
+<i>that</i> far gone exactly&mdash;few men is, I reckon&mdash;but he's what you might
+call a heretic. Heretics are wicked but they're mighty interesting.
+It's just that they've got sorter lost looking for God, being under
+the impression that He's hard to find&mdash;which He ain't, never. Most of
+'em blunder to Him after a while I guess. I don't think listening to
+Mr. Kimball's arguments is likely to do <i>me</i> much harm. Mind you, I
+believe what I was brought up to believe. It saves a vast of
+trouble&mdash;and back of it all, God is good. The trouble with Mr. Kimball
+is, he's a leetle <i>too</i> clever. He thinks he's bound to live up to
+his cleverness and that it's smarter to thrash out some new way of
+getting to heaven than to go by the old track the common, ignorant
+folks is travelling. But he'll get there sometime all right and then
+he'll laugh at himself."</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>Nothing ever seemed to put Uncle Jesse out or depress him in any way.</p>
+
+<p>"I've kind of contracted a habit of enjoying things," he remarked
+once, when Mother had commented on his invariable cheerfulness. "It's
+got so chronic that I believe I even enjoy the disagreeable things.
+It's great fun thinking they can't last. 'Old rheumatiz,' I says, when
+it grips me hard, 'you've <i>got</i> to stop aching sometime. The worse you
+are the sooner you'll stop, perhaps. I'm bound to get the better of
+you in the long run, whether in the body or out of the body.'"</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Jesse seldom came to our house without bringing us something,
+even if it were only a bunch of sweet grass.</p>
+
+<p>"I favour the smell of sweet grass," he said. "It always makes me
+think of my mother."</p>
+
+<p>"She was fond of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not that I knows on. Dunno's she ever saw any sweet grass. No, it's
+because it has a kind of motherly perfume&mdash;not too young, you
+understand&mdash;something kind of seasoned and wholesome and
+dependable&mdash;just like a mother."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Jesse was a very early riser. He seldom missed a sunrise.</p>
+
+<p>"I've seen all kinds of sunrises come in through that there Gate," he
+said dreamily one morning when I myself had made a heroic effort at
+early rising and joined him on the rocks halfway between his house and
+ours. "I've been all over the world and, take it all in all, I've
+never seen a finer sight than a summer sunrise out there beyant the
+Gate. A man can't pick his time for dying, Mary&mdash;jest got to go when
+the Captain gives his sailing orders. But if I could I'd go out when
+the morning comes in there at the Gate. I've watched it a many times
+and thought what a thing it would be to pass out through that great
+white glory to whatever was waiting beyant, on a sea that ain't mapped
+out on any airthly chart. I think, Mary, I'd find lost Margaret
+there."</p>
+
+<p>He had already told me the story of "lost Margaret," as he always
+called her. He rarely spoke of her, but when he did his love for her
+trembled in every tone&mdash;a love that had never grown faint or
+forgetful. Uncle Jesse was seventy; it was fifty years since lost
+Margaret had fallen asleep one day in her father's dory and
+drifted&mdash;as was supposed, for nothing was ever known certainly of her
+fate&mdash;across the harbour and out of the Gate, to perish in the black
+thunder squall that had come up suddenly that long-ago afternoon. But
+to Uncle Jesse those fifty years were but as yesterday when it is
+past.</p>
+
+<p>"I walked the shore for months after that," he said sadly, "looking to
+find her dear, sweet little body, but the sea never gave her back to
+me. But I'll find her sometime. I wisht I could tell you just how she
+looked but I can't. I've seen a fine silvery mist hanging over the
+Gate at sunrise that seemed like her&mdash;and then again I've seen a white
+birch in the woods back yander that made me think of her. She had pale
+brown hair and a little white face, and long slender fingers like
+yours, Mary, only browner, for she was a shore girl. Sometimes I wake
+up in the night and hear the sea calling to me in the old way and it
+seems as if lost Margaret called in it. And when there's a storm and
+the waves are sobbing and moaning I hear her lamenting among them. And
+when they laugh on a gay day it's <i>her</i> laugh&mdash;lost Margaret's sweet
+little laugh. The sea took her from me but some day I'll find her,
+Mary. It can't keep us apart forever."</p>
+
+<p>I had not been long at Golden Gate before I saw Uncle Jesse's
+"life-book," as he quaintly called it. He needed no coaxing to show it
+and he proudly gave it to me to read. It was an old leather-bound book
+filled with the record of his voyages and adventures. I thought what a
+veritable treasure trove it would be to a writer. Every sentence was a
+nugget. In itself the book had no literary merit; Uncle Jesse's charm
+of story-telling failed him when he came to pen and ink; he could only
+jot down roughly the outlines of his famous tales, and both spelling
+and grammar were sadly askew. But I felt that if anyone possessing the
+gift could take that simple record of a brave, adventurous life,
+reading between the bald lines the tale of dangers staunchly faced and
+duties manfully done, a wonderful story might be made from it. Pure
+comedy and thrilling tragedy were both lying hidden in Uncle Jesse's
+"life-book," waiting for the touch of the magician's hand to waken the
+laughter and grief and horror of thousands. I thought of my cousin,
+Robert Kennedy, who juggled with words in a masterly fashion, but
+complained that he found it hard to create incidents or characters.
+Here were both ready to his hand, but Robert was in Japan in the
+interests of his paper.</p>
+
+<p>In the fall, when the harbour lay black and sullen under November
+skies, Mother and I went back to town, parting with Uncle Jesse
+regretfully. We wanted him to visit us in town during the winter but
+he shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"It's too far away, Mary. If lost Margaret called me I mightn't hear
+her there. I must be here when my time comes. It can't be very far off
+now."</p>
+
+<p>I wrote often to Uncle Jesse through the winter and sent him books and
+magazines. He enjoyed them but he thought&mdash;and truly enough&mdash;that none
+of them came up to his life-book for real interest.</p>
+
+<p>"If my life-book could be took and writ by someone that knowed how, it
+would beat them holler," he wrote in one of his few letters to me.</p>
+
+<p>In the spring we returned joyfully to Golden Gate. It was as golden as
+ever and the harbour as blue; the winds still rollicked as gaily and
+sweetly and the breakers boomed outside the bar as of yore. All was
+unchanged save Uncle Jesse. He had aged greatly and seemed frail and
+bent. After he had gone home from his first call on us, Mother cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle Jesse will soon be going to seek lost Margaret," she said.</p>
+
+<p>In June Robert came. I took him promptly over to see Uncle Jesse, who
+was very much excited when he found that Robert was a "real writing
+man."</p>
+
+<p>"Robert wants to hear some of your stories, Uncle Jesse," I said.
+"Tell him the one about the captain who went crazy and imagined he was
+the Flying Dutchman."</p>
+
+<p>This was Uncle Jesse's best story. It was a compound of humour and
+horror, and though I had heard it several times, I laughed as heartily
+and shivered as fearsomely over it as Robert did. Other tales
+followed; Uncle Jesse told how his vessel had been run down by a
+steamer, how he had been boarded by Malay pirates, how his ship had
+caught fire, how he had helped a political prisoner escape from a
+South American republic. He never said a boastful word, but it was
+impossible to help seeing what a hero the man had been&mdash;brave, true,
+resourceful, unselfish, skilful. He sat there in his poor little room
+and made those things live again for us. By a lift of the eyebrow, a
+twist of the lip, a gesture, a word, he painted some whole scene or
+character so that we saw it as it was.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, he lent Robert his life-book. Robert sat up all night reading
+it and came to the breakfast table in great excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"Mary, this is a wonderful book. If I could take it and garb it
+properly&mdash;work it up into a systematic whole and string it on the
+thread of Uncle Jesse's romance of lost Margaret, it would be the
+novel of the year. Do you suppose he would let me do it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let you! I think he would be delighted," I answered.</p>
+
+<p>And he was. He was as excited as a schoolboy over it. At last his
+cherished dream was to be realized and his life-book given to the
+world.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll collaborate," said Robert. "You will give the soul and I the
+body. Oh, we'll write a famous book between us, Uncle Jesse. And we'll
+get right to work."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Jesse was a happy man that summer. He looked upon the little
+back room we gave up to Robert for a study as a sacred shrine. Robert
+talked everything over with Uncle Jesse but would not let him see the
+manuscript. "You must wait till it is published," he said. "Then
+you'll get it all at once in its best shape."</p>
+
+<p>Robert delved into the treasures of the life-book and used them
+freely. He dreamed and brooded over lost Margaret until she became a
+vivid reality to him and lived in his pages. As the book progressed it
+took possession of him and he worked at it with feverish eagerness. He
+let me read the manuscript and criticize it; and the concluding
+chapter of the book, which the critics later on were pleased to call
+idyllic, was modelled after my suggestions, so that I felt as if I had
+a share in it too.</p>
+
+<p>It was autumn when the book was finished. Robert went back to town,
+but Mother and I decided to stay at Golden Gate all winter. We loved
+the spot and, besides, I wished to remain for Uncle Jesse's sake. He
+was failing all the time, and after Robert went and the excitement of
+the book-making was past, he failed still more rapidly. His tramping
+expeditions were over and he seldom went out in his boat. Neither did
+he talk a great deal. He liked to come over and sit silently for hours
+at our seaward window, looking out wistfully toward the Gate with his
+swiftly whitening head leaning on his hand. The only keen interest he
+still had was in Robert's book. He waited and watched impatiently for
+its publication.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to live till I see it," he said, "just that long&mdash;then I'll be
+ready to go. He said it would be out in the spring&mdash;I must hang on
+till it comes, Mary."</p>
+
+<p>There were times when I doubted sadly if he would "hang on." As the
+winter wore away he grew frailer and frailer. But ever he looked
+forward to the coming of spring and "the book," <i>his</i> book,
+transformed and glorified.</p>
+
+<p>One day in young April the book came at last. Uncle Jesse had gone to
+the post office faithfully every day for a month, expecting it, but
+this day he was too feeble to go and I went for him. The book was
+there. It was called simply, <i>The Life-Book of Jesse Boyd</i>, and on the
+title page the names of Robert Kennedy and Jesse Boyd were printed as
+collaborators.</p>
+
+<p>I shall never forget Uncle Jesse's face as I handed it to him. I came
+away and left him reading it, oblivious to all else. All night the
+light burned in his window, and I looked out across the sands to it
+and pictured the delight of the old man poring over the printed pages
+whereon his own life was portrayed. I wondered how he would like the
+ending&mdash;the ending I had suggested. I was never to know.</p>
+
+<p>After breakfast I went over to Uncle Jesse's house, taking some little
+delicacy Mother had cooked for him. It was an exquisite morning, full
+of delicate spring tints and sounds. The harbour was sparkling and
+dimpling like a girl, the winds were playing hide and seek roguishly
+among the stunted firs, and the silver-flashing gulls were soaring
+over the bar. Beyond the Gate was a shining, wonderful sea.</p>
+
+<p>When I reached the little house on the point I saw the lamp still
+burning wanly in the window. A quick alarm struck at my heart. Without
+waiting to knock, I lifted the latch, and entered.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Jesse was lying on the old sofa by the window, with the book
+clasped to his heart. His eyes were closed and on his face was a look
+of the most perfect peace and happiness&mdash;the look of one who has long
+sought and found at last.</p>
+
+<p>We could not know at what hour he had died, but somehow I think he had
+his wish and went out when the morning came in through the Golden
+Gate. Out on that shining tide his spirit drifted, over the sunrise
+sea of pearl and silver, to the haven where lost Margaret waited
+beyond the storms and calms.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="The_Little_Black_Doll" id="The_Little_Black_Doll"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<h2>The Little Black Doll<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">[ToC]</a></span></h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>Everybody in the Marshall household was excited on the evening of the
+concert at the Harbour Light Hotel&mdash;everybody, even to Little Joyce,
+who couldn't go to the concert because there wasn't anybody else to
+stay with Denise. Perhaps Denise was the most excited of them
+all&mdash;Denise, who was slowly dying of consumption in the Marshall
+kitchen chamber because there was no other place in the world for her
+to die in, or anybody to trouble about her. Mrs. Roderick Marshall
+thought it very good of herself to do so much for Denise. To be sure,
+Denise was not much bother, and Little Joyce did most of the waiting
+on her.</p>
+
+<p>At the tea table nothing was talked of but the concert; for was not
+Madame Laurin, the great French Canadian prima donna, at the hotel,
+and was she not going to sing? It was the opportunity of a
+lifetime&mdash;the Marshalls would not have missed it for anything.
+Stately, handsome old Grandmother Marshall was going, and Uncle
+Roderick and Aunt Isabella, and of course Chrissie, who was always
+taken everywhere because she was pretty and graceful, and everything
+that Little Joyce was not.</p>
+
+<p>Little Joyce would have liked to go to the concert, for she was very
+fond of music; and, besides, she wanted to be able to tell Denise all
+about it. But when you are shy and homely and thin and awkward, your
+grandmother never takes you anywhere. At least, such was Little
+Joyce's belief.</p>
+
+<p>Little Joyce knew quite well that Grandmother Marshall did not like
+her. She thought it was because she was so plain and awkward&mdash;and in
+part it was. Grandmother Marshall cared very little for granddaughters
+who did not do her credit. But Little Joyce's mother had married a
+poor man in the face of her family's disapproval, and then both she
+and her husband had been inconsiderate enough to die and leave a
+small orphan without a penny to support her. Grandmother Marshall fed
+and clothed the child, but who could make anything of such a shy
+creature with no gifts or graces whatever? Grandmother Marshall had no
+intention of trying. Chrissie, the golden-haired and pink-cheeked, was
+Grandmother Marshall's pet.</p>
+
+<p>Little Joyce knew this. She did not envy Chrissie but, oh, how she
+wished Grandmother Marshall would love her a little, too! Nobody loved
+her but Denise and the little black doll. And Little Joyce was
+beginning to understand that Denise would not be in the kitchen
+chamber very much longer, and the little black doll couldn't <i>tell</i>
+you she loved you&mdash;although she did, of course. Little Joyce had no
+doubt at all on this point.</p>
+
+<p>Little Joyce sighed so deeply over this thought that Uncle Roderick
+smiled at her. Uncle Roderick <i>did</i> smile at her sometimes.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter, Little Joyce?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I was thinking about my black doll," said Little Joyce timidly.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, your black doll. If Madame Laurin were to see it, she'd likely
+want it. She makes a hobby of collecting dolls all over the world, but
+I doubt if she has in her collection a doll that served to amuse a
+little girl four thousand years ago in the court of the Pharaohs."</p>
+
+<p>"I think Joyce's black doll is very ugly," said Chrissie. "My wax doll
+with the yellow hair is ever so much prettier."</p>
+
+<p>"My black doll isn't ugly," cried Little Joyce indignantly. She could
+endure to be called ugly herself, but she could not bear to have her
+darling black doll called ugly. In her excitement she upset her cup of
+tea over the tablecloth. Aunt Isabella looked angry, and Grandmother
+Marshall said sharply: "Joyce, leave the table. You grow more awkward
+and careless every day."</p>
+
+<p>Little Joyce, on the verge of tears, crept away and went up the
+kitchen stairs to Denise to be comforted. But Denise herself had been
+crying. She lay on her little bed by the low window, where the glow of
+the sunset was coming in; her hollow cheeks were scarlet with fever.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I want so much to hear Madame Laurin sing," she sobbed. "I feel
+lak I could die easier if I hear her sing just one leetle song. She is
+Frenchwoman, too, and she sing all de ole French songs&mdash;de ole songs
+my mudder sing long 'go. Oh! I so want to hear Madame Laurin sing."</p>
+
+<p>"But you can't, dear Denise," said Little Joyce very softly, stroking
+Denise's hot forehead with her cool, slender hand. Little Joyce had
+very pretty hands, only nobody had ever noticed them. "You are not
+strong enough to go to the concert. I'll sing for you, if you like. Of
+course, I can't sing very well, but I'll do my best."</p>
+
+<p>"You sing lak a sweet bird, but you are not Madame Laurin," said
+Denise restlessly. "It is de great Madame I want to hear. I haf not
+long to live. Oh, I know, Leetle Joyce&mdash;I know what de doctor look
+lak&mdash;and I want to hear Madame Laurin sing 'fore I die. I know it is
+impossible&mdash;but I long for it so&mdash;just one leetle song."</p>
+
+<p>Denise put her thin hands over her face and sobbed again. Little Joyce
+went and sat down by the window, looking out into the white birches.
+Her heart ached bitterly. Dear Denise was going to die soon&mdash;oh, very
+soon! Little Joyce, wise and knowing beyond her years, saw that. And
+Denise wanted to hear Madame Laurin sing. It seemed a foolish thing to
+think of, but Little Joyce thought hard about it; and when she had
+finished thinking, she got her little black doll and took it to bed
+with her, and there she cried herself to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>At the breakfast table next morning the Marshalls talked about the
+concert and the wonderful Madame Laurin. Little Joyce listened in her
+usual silence; her crying the night before had not improved her looks
+any. Never, thought handsome Grandmother Marshall, had she appeared so
+sallow and homely. Really, Grandmother Marshall could not have the
+patience to look at her. She decided that she would not take Joyce
+driving with her and Chrissie that afternoon, as she had thought of,
+after all.</p>
+
+<p>In the forenoon it was discovered that Denise was much worse, and the
+doctor was sent for. He came, and shook his head, that being really
+all he could do under the circumstances. When he went away, he was
+waylaid at the back door by a small gypsy with big, black, serious
+eyes and long black hair.</p>
+
+<p>"Is Denise going to die?" Little Joyce asked in the blunt,
+straightforward fashion Grandmother Marshall found so trying.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor looked at her from under his shaggy brows and decided that
+here was one of the people to whom you might as well tell the truth
+first as last, because they are bound to have it.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Soon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very soon, I'm afraid. In a few days at most."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," said Little Joyce gravely.</p>
+
+<p>She went to her room and did something with the black doll. She did
+not cry, but if you could have seen her face you would have wished she
+would cry.</p>
+
+<p>After dinner Grandmother Marshall and Chrissie drove away, and Uncle
+Roderick and Aunt Isabella went away, too. Little Joyce crept up to
+the kitchen chamber. Denise was lying in an uneasy sleep, with tear
+stains on her face. Then Little Joyce tiptoed down and sped away to
+the hotel.</p>
+
+<p>She did not know just what she would say or do when she got there, but
+she thought hard all the way to the end of the shore road. When she
+came out to the shore, a lady was sitting alone on a big rock&mdash;a lady
+with a dark, beautiful face and wonderful eyes. Little Joyce stopped
+before her and looked at her meditatively. Perhaps it would be well to
+ask advice of this lady.</p>
+
+<p>"If you please," said Little Joyce, who was never shy with strangers,
+for whose opinion she didn't care at all, "I want to see Madame Laurin
+at the hotel and ask her to do me a very great favour. Will you tell
+me the best way to go about seeing her? I shall be much obliged to
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"What is the favour you want to ask of Madame Laurin?" inquired the
+lady, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to ask her if she will come and sing for Denise before she
+dies&mdash;before Denise dies, I mean. Denise is our French girl, and the
+doctor says she cannot live very long, and she wishes with all her
+heart to hear Madame Laurin sing. It is very bitter, you know, to be
+dying and want something very much and not be able to get it."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think Madame Laurin will go?" asked the lady.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. I am going to offer her my little black doll. If she
+will not come for that, there is nothing else I can do."</p>
+
+<p>A flash of interest lighted up the lady's brown eyes. She bent
+forward.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it your doll you have in that box? Will you let me see it?"</p>
+
+<p>Little Joyce nodded. Mutely she opened the box and took out the black
+doll. The lady gave an exclamation of amazed delight and almost
+snatched it from Little Joyce. It was a very peculiar little doll
+indeed, carved out of some black polished wood.</p>
+
+<p>"Child, where in the world did you get this?" she cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Father got it out of a grave in Egypt," said Little Joyce. "It was
+buried with the mummy of a little girl who lived four thousand years
+ago, Uncle Roderick says. She must have loved her doll very much to
+have had it buried with her, mustn't she? But she could not have loved
+it any more than I do."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet you are going to give it away?" said the lady, looking at her
+keenly.</p>
+
+<p>"For Denise's sake," explained Little Joyce. "I would do anything for
+Denise because I love her and she loves me. When the only person in
+the world who loves you is going to die, there is nothing you would
+not do for her if you could. Denise was so good to me before she took
+sick. She used to kiss me and play with me and make little cakes for
+me and tell me beautiful stories."</p>
+
+<p>The lady put the little black doll back in the box. Then she stood up
+and held out her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," she said. "I am Madame Laurin, and I shall go and sing for
+Denise."</p>
+
+<p>Little Joyce piloted Madame Laurin home and into the kitchen and up
+the back stairs to the kitchen chamber&mdash;a proceeding which would have
+filled Aunt Isabella with horror if she had known. But Madame Laurin
+did not seem to mind, and Little Joyce never thought about it at all.
+It was Little Joyce's awkward, unMarshall-like fashion to go to a
+place by the shortest way there, even if it was up the kitchen stairs.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Laurin stood in the bare little room and looked pityingly at
+the wasted, wistful face on the pillow.</p>
+
+<p>"This is Madame Laurin, and she is going to sing for you, Denise,"
+whispered Little Joyce.</p>
+
+<p>Denise's face lighted up, and she clasped her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"If you please," she said faintly. "A French song, Madame&mdash;de ole
+French song dey sing long 'go."</p>
+
+<p>Then did Madame Laurin sing. Never had that kitchen chamber been so
+filled with glorious melody. Song after song she sang&mdash;the old
+folklore songs of the <i>habitant</i>, the songs perhaps that Evangeline
+listened to in her childhood.</p>
+
+<p>Little Joyce knelt by the bed, her eyes on the singer like one
+entranced. Denise lay with her face full of joy and rapture&mdash;such joy
+and rapture! Little Joyce did not regret the sacrifice of her black
+doll&mdash;never could regret it, as long as she remembered Denise's look.</p>
+
+<p>"T'ank you, Madame," said Denise brokenly, when Madame ceased. "Dat
+was so beautiful&mdash;de angel, dey cannot sing more sweet. I love music
+so much, Madame. Leetle Joyce, she sing to me often and often&mdash;she
+sing sweet, but not lak you&mdash;oh, not lak you."</p>
+
+<p>"Little Joyce must sing for me," said Madame, smiling, as she sat down
+by the window. "I always like to hear fresh, childish voices. Will
+you, Little Joyce?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes." Little Joyce was quite unembarrassed and perfectly willing
+to do anything she could for this wonderful woman who had brought that
+look to Denise's face. "I will sing as well as I can for you. Of
+course, I can't sing very well and I don't know anything but hymns. I
+always sing hymns for Denise, although she is a Catholic and the hymns
+are Protestant. But her priest told her it was all right, because all
+music was of God. Denise's priest is a very nice man, and I like him.
+He thought my little black doll&mdash;<i>your</i> little black doll&mdash;was
+splendid. I'll sing 'Lead, Kindly Light.' That is Denise's favourite
+hymn."</p>
+
+<p>Then Little Joyce, slipping her hand into Denise's, began to sing. At
+the first note Madame Laurin, who had been gazing out of the window
+with a rather listless smile, turned quickly and looked at Little
+Joyce with amazed eyes. Delight followed amazement, and when Little
+Joyce had finished, the great Madame rose impulsively, her face and
+eyes glowing, stepped swiftly to Little Joyce and took the thin dark
+face between her gemmed hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Child, do you know what a wonderful voice you have&mdash;what a marvellous
+voice? It is&mdash;it is&mdash;I never heard such a voice in a child of your
+age. Mine was nothing to it&mdash;nothing at all. You will be a great
+singer some day&mdash;far greater than I&mdash;yes. But you must have the
+training. Where are your parents? I must see them."</p>
+
+<p>"I have no parents," said the bewildered Little Joyce. "I belong to
+Grandmother Marshall, and she is out driving."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I shall wait until your Grandmother Marshall comes home from her
+drive," said Madame Laurin decidedly.</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later a very much surprised old lady was listening to
+Madame Laurin's enthusiastic statements.</p>
+
+<p>"How is it I have never heard you sing, if you can sing so well?"
+asked Grandmother Marshall, looking at Little Joyce with something in
+her eyes that had never been in them before&mdash;as Little Joyce instantly
+felt to the core of her sensitive soul. But Little Joyce hung her
+head. It had never occurred to her to sing in Grandmother Marshall's
+presence.</p>
+
+<p>"This child must be trained by-and-by," said Madame Laurin. "If you
+cannot afford it, Mrs. Marshall, I will see to it. Such a voice must
+not be wasted."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, Madame Laurin," said Grandmother Marshall with a gracious
+dignity, "but I am quite able to give my granddaughter all the
+necessary advantages for the development of her gift. And I thank you
+very much for telling me of it."</p>
+
+<p>Madame Laurin bent and kissed Little Joyce's brown cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"Little gypsy, good-by. But come every day to this hotel to see me.
+And next summer I shall be back. I like you&mdash;because some day you will
+be a great singer and because today you are a loving, unselfish baby."</p>
+
+<p>"You have forgotten the little black doll, Madame," said Little Joyce
+gravely.</p>
+
+<p>Madame threw up her hands, laughing. "No, no, I shall not take your
+little black doll of the four thousand years. Keep it for a mascot. A
+great singer always needs a mascot. But do not, I command you, take it
+out of the box till I am gone, for if I were to see it again, I might
+not be able to resist the temptation. Some day I shall show you <i>my</i>
+dolls, but there is not such a gem among them."</p>
+
+<p>When Madame Laurin had gone, Grandmother Marshall looked at Little
+Joyce.</p>
+
+<p>"Come to my room, Joyce. I want to see if we cannot find a more
+becoming way of arranging your hair. It has grown so thick and long. I
+had no idea how thick and long. Yes, we must certainly find a better
+way than that stiff braid. Come!"</p>
+
+<p>Little Joyce, taking Grandmother Marshall's extended hand, felt very
+happy. She realized that this strange, stately old lady, who never
+liked little girls unless they were pretty or graceful or clever, was
+beginning to love her at last.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="The_Man_on_the_Train" id="The_Man_on_the_Train"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<h2>The Man on the Train<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">[ToC]</a></span></h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>When the telegram came from William George, Grandma Sheldon was all
+alone with Cyrus and Louise. And Cyrus and Louise, aged respectively
+twelve and eleven, were not very much good, Grandma thought, when it
+came to advising what was to be done. Grandma was "all in a flutter,
+dear, oh dear," as she said.</p>
+
+<p>The telegram said that Delia, William George's wife, was seriously ill
+down at Green Village, and William George wanted Samuel to bring
+Grandma down immediately. Delia had always thought there was nobody
+like Grandma when it came to nursing sick folks.</p>
+
+<p>But Samuel and his wife were both away&mdash;had been away for two days and
+intended to be away for five more. They had driven to Sinclair, twenty
+miles away, to visit with Mrs. Samuel's folks for a week.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear, oh dear, what shall I do?" said Grandma.</p>
+
+<p>"Go right to Green Village on the evening train," said Cyrus briskly.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear, oh dear, and leave you two alone!" cried Grandma.</p>
+
+<p>"Louise and I will do very well until tomorrow," said Cyrus sturdily.
+"We will send word to Sinclair by today's mail, and Father and Mother
+will be home by tomorrow night."</p>
+
+<p>"But I never was on the cars in my life," protested Grandma nervously.
+"I'm&mdash;I'm so frightened to start alone. And you never know what kind
+of people you may meet on the train."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll be all right, Grandma. I'll drive you to the station, get you
+your ticket, and put you on the train. Then you'll have nothing to do
+until the train gets to Green Village. I'll send a telegram to Uncle
+William George to meet you."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall fall and break my neck getting off the train," said Grandma
+pessimistically. But she was wondering at the same time whether she
+had better take the black valise or the yellow, and whether William
+George would be likely to have plenty of flaxseed in the house.</p>
+
+<p>It was six miles to the station, and Cyrus drove Grandma over in time
+to catch a train that reached Green Village at nine o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear, oh dear," said Grandma, "what if William George's folks ain't
+there to meet me? It's all very well, Cyrus, to say that they will be
+there, but you don't know. And it's all very well to say not to be
+nervous because everything will be all right. If you were seventy-five
+years old and had never set foot on the cars in your life you'd be
+nervous too, and you can't be sure that everything will be all right.
+You never know what sort of people you'll meet on the train. I may get
+on the wrong train or lose my ticket or get carried past Green Village
+or get my pocket picked. Well, no, I won't do that, for not one cent
+will I carry with me. You shall take back home all the money you don't
+need to get my ticket. Then I shall be easier in my mind. Dear, oh
+dear, if it wasn't that Delia is so seriously ill I wouldn't go one
+step."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you'll be all right, Grandma," assured Cyrus.</p>
+
+<p>He got Grandma's ticket for her and Grandma tied it up in the corner
+of her handkerchief. Then the train came in and Grandma, clinging
+closely to Cyrus, was put on it. Cyrus found a comfortable seat for
+her and shook hands cheerily.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, Grandma. Don't be frightened. Here's the <i>Weekly Argus</i>. I
+got it at the store. You may like to look over it."</p>
+
+<p>Then Cyrus was gone, and in a minute the station house and platform
+began to glide away.</p>
+
+<p>Dear, oh dear, what has happened to it? thought Grandma in dismay. The
+next moment she exclaimed aloud, "Why, it's us that's moving, not it!"</p>
+
+<p>Some of the passengers smiled pleasantly at Grandma. She was the
+variety of old lady at which people do smile pleasantly; a grandma
+with round, pink cheeks, soft, brown eyes, and lovely snow-white curls
+is a nice person to look at wherever she is found.</p>
+
+<p>After a while Grandma, to her amazement, discovered that she liked
+riding on the cars. It was not at all the disagreeable experience she
+had expected it to be. Why, she was just as comfortable as if she were
+in her own rocking chair at home! And there was such a lot of people
+to look at, and many of the ladies had such beautiful dresses and
+hats. After all, the people you met on a train, thought Grandma, are
+surprisingly like the people you meet off it. If it had not been for
+wondering how she would get off at Green Village, Grandma would have
+enjoyed herself thoroughly.</p>
+
+<p>Four or five stations farther on the train halted at a lonely-looking
+place consisting of the station house and a barn, surrounded by scrub
+woods and blueberry barrens. One passenger got on and, finding only
+one vacant seat in the crowded car, sat right down beside Grandma
+Sheldon.</p>
+
+<p>Grandma Sheldon held her breath while she looked him over. Was he a
+pickpocket? He didn't appear like one, but you can never be sure of
+the people you meet on the train. Grandma remembered with a sigh of
+thankfulness that she had no money.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, he seemed really very respectable and harmless. He was
+quietly dressed in a suit of dark-blue serge with a black overcoat. He
+wore his hat well down on his forehead and was clean shaven. His hair
+was very black, but his eyes were blue&mdash;nice eyes, Grandma thought.
+She always felt great confidence in a man who had bright, open, blue
+eyes. Grandpa Sheldon, who had died so long ago, four years after
+their marriage, had had bright blue eyes.</p>
+
+<p>To be sure, he had fair hair, reflected Grandma. It's real odd to see
+such black hair with such light blue eyes. Well, he's real nice
+looking, and I don't believe there's a mite of harm in him.</p>
+
+<p>The early autumn night had now fallen and Grandma could not amuse
+herself by watching the scenery. She bethought herself of the paper
+Cyrus had given her and took it out of her basket. It was an old
+weekly a fortnight back. On the first page was a long account of a
+murder case with scare heads, and into this Grandma plunged eagerly.
+Sweet old Grandma Sheldon, who would not have harmed a fly and hated
+to see even a mousetrap set, simply revelled in the newspaper accounts
+of murders. And the more shocking and cold-blooded they were, the more
+eagerly did Grandma read of them.</p>
+
+<p>This murder story was particularly good from Grandma's point of view;
+it was full of "thrills." A man had been shot down, apparently in cold
+blood, and his supposed murderer was still at large and had eluded all
+the efforts of justice to capture him. His name was Mark Hartwell, and
+he was described as a tall, fair man, with full auburn beard and
+curly, light hair.</p>
+
+<p>"What a shocking thing!" said Grandma aloud.</p>
+
+<p>Her companion looked at her with a kindly, amused smile.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, this murder at Charlotteville," answered Grandma, forgetting, in
+her excitement, that it was not safe to talk to people you meet on the
+train. "It just makes my blood run cold to read about it. And to think
+that the man who did it is still around the country somewhere&mdash;plotting
+other murders, I haven't a doubt. What is the good of the police?"</p>
+
+<p>"They're dull fellows," agreed the dark man.</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't envy that man his conscience," said Grandma solemnly&mdash;and
+somewhat inconsistently, in view of her statement about the other
+murders that were being plotted. "What must a man feel like who has
+the blood of a fellow creature on his hands? Depend upon it, his
+punishment has begun already, caught or not."</p>
+
+<p>"That is true," said the dark man quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"Such a good-looking man too," said Grandma, looking wistfully at the
+murderer's picture. "It doesn't seem possible that he can have killed
+anybody. But the paper says there isn't a doubt."</p>
+
+<p>"He is probably guilty," said the dark man, "but nothing is known of
+his provocation. The affair may not have been so cold-blooded as the
+accounts state. Those newspaper fellows never err on the side of
+undercolouring."</p>
+
+<p>"I really think," said Grandma slowly, "that I would like to see a
+murderer&mdash;just one. Whenever I say anything like that, Adelaide&mdash;Adelaide
+is Samuel's wife&mdash;looks at me as if she thought there was something
+wrong about me. And perhaps there is, but I do, all the same. When I
+was a little girl, there was a man in our settlement who was suspected
+of poisoning his wife. She died very suddenly. I used to look at him
+with such interest. But it wasn't satisfactory, because you could never
+be sure whether he was really guilty or not. I never could believe that
+he was, because he was such a nice man in some ways and so good and
+kind to children. I don't believe a man who was bad enough to poison
+his wife could have any good in him."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not," agreed the dark man. He had absent-mindedly folded up
+Grandma's old copy of the <i>Argus</i> and put it in his pocket. Grandma
+did not like to ask him for it, although she would have liked to see
+if there were any more murder stories in it. Besides, just at that
+moment the conductor came around for tickets.</p>
+
+<p>Grandma looked in the basket for her handkerchief. It was not there.
+She looked on the floor and on the seat and under the seat. It was not
+there. She stood up and shook herself&mdash;still no handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear, oh dear," exclaimed Grandma wildly, "I've lost my ticket&mdash;I
+always knew I would&mdash;I told Cyrus I would! Oh, where can it be?"</p>
+
+<p>The conductor scowled unsympathetically. The dark man got up and
+helped Grandma search, but no ticket was to be found.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll have to pay the money then, and something extra," said the
+conductor gruffly.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't&mdash;I haven't a cent of money," wailed Grandma. "I gave it all
+to Cyrus because I was afraid my pocket would be picked. Oh, what
+shall I do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't worry. I'll make it all right," said the dark man. He took out
+his pocketbook and handed the conductor a bill. That functionary
+grumblingly made the change and marched onward, while Grandma, pale
+with excitement and relief, sank back into her seat.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't tell you how much I am obliged to you, sir," she said
+tremulously. "I don't know what I should have done. Would he have put
+me off right here in the snow?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hardly think he would have gone to such lengths," said the dark man
+with a smile. "But he's a cranky, disobliging fellow enough&mdash;I know
+him of old. And you must not feel overly grateful to me. I am glad of
+the opportunity to help you. I had an old grandmother myself once,"
+he added with a sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"You must give me your name and address, of course," said Grandma,
+"and my son&mdash;Samuel Sheldon of Midverne&mdash;will see that the money is
+returned to you. Well, this is a lesson to me! I'll never trust myself
+on a train again, and all I wish is that I was safely off this one.
+This fuss has worked my nerves all up again."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't worry, Grandma. I'll see you safely off the train when we get
+to Green Village."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you, though? Will you, now?" said Grandma eagerly. "I'll be real
+easy in my mind, then," she added with a returning smile. "I feel as
+if I could trust you for anything&mdash;and I'm a real suspicious person
+too."</p>
+
+<p>They had a long talk after that&mdash;or, rather, Grandma talked and the
+dark man listened and smiled. She told him all about William George
+and Delia and their baby and about Samuel and Adelaide and Cyrus and
+Louise and the three cats and the parrot. He seemed to enjoy her
+accounts of them too.</p>
+
+<p>When they reached Green Village station he gathered up Grandma's
+parcels and helped her tenderly off the train.</p>
+
+<p>"Anybody here to meet Mrs. Sheldon?" he asked of the station master.</p>
+
+<p>The latter shook his head. "Don't think so. Haven't seen anybody here
+to meet anybody tonight."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear, oh dear," said poor Grandma. "This is just what I expected.
+They've never got Cyrus's telegram. Well, I might have known it. What
+shall I do?"</p>
+
+<p>"How far is it to your son's?" asked the dark man.</p>
+
+<p>"Only half a mile&mdash;just over the hill there. But I'll never get there
+alone this dark night."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not. But I'll go with you. The road is good&mdash;we'll do
+finely."</p>
+
+<p>"But that train won't wait for you," gasped Grandma, half in protest.</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't matter. The Starmont freight passes here in half an hour
+and I'll go on her. Come along, Grandma."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but you're good," said Grandma. "Some woman is proud to have you
+for a son."</p>
+
+<p>The man did not answer. He had not answered any of the personal
+remarks Grandma had made to him in her conversation.</p>
+
+<p>They were not long in reaching William George Sheldon's house, for the
+village road was good and Grandma was smart on her feet. She was
+welcomed with eagerness and surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"To think that there was no one to meet you!" exclaimed William
+George. "But I never dreamed of your coming by train, knowing how you
+were set against it. Telegram? No, I got no telegram. S'pose Cyrus
+forgot to send it. I'm most heartily obliged to you, sir, for looking
+after my mother so kindly."</p>
+
+<p>"It was a pleasure," said the dark man courteously. He had taken off
+his hat, and they saw a curious scar, shaped like a large, red
+butterfly, high up on his forehead under his hair. "I am delighted to
+have been of any assistance to her."</p>
+
+<p>He would not wait for supper&mdash;the next train would be in and he must
+not miss it.</p>
+
+<p>"There are people looking for me," he said with his curious smile.
+"They will be much disappointed if they do not find me."</p>
+
+<p>He had gone, and the whistle of the Starmont freight had blown before
+Grandma remembered that he had not given her his name and address.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear, oh dear, how are we ever going to send that money to him?" she
+exclaimed. "And he so nice and goodhearted!"</p>
+
+<p>Grandma worried over this for a week in the intervals of looking after
+Delia. One day William George came in with a large city daily in his
+hands. He looked curiously at Grandma and then showed her the
+front-page picture of a man, clean-shaven, with an oddly shaped scar
+high up on his forehead.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever see that man, Mother?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I did," said Grandma excitedly. "Why, it's the man I met on
+the train. Who is he? What is his name? Now, we'll know where to
+send&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That is Mark Hartwell, who shot Amos Gray at Charlotteville three
+weeks ago," said William George quietly.</p>
+
+<p>Grandma looked at him blankly for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"It couldn't be," she gasped at last. "That man a murderer! I'll never
+believe it!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's true enough, Mother. The whole story is here. He had shaved his
+beard and dyed his hair and came near getting clear out of the
+country. They were on his trail the day he came down in the train with
+you and lost it because of his getting off to bring you here. His
+disguise was so perfect that there was little fear of his being
+recognized so long as he hid that scar. But it was seen in Montreal
+and he was run to earth there. He has made a full confession."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care," cried Grandma valiantly. "I'll never believe he was
+all bad&mdash;a man who would do what he did for a poor old woman like me,
+when he was flying for his life too. No, no, there was good in him
+even if he did kill that man. And I'm sure he must feel terrible over
+it."</p>
+
+<p>In this view Grandma persisted. She never would say or listen to a
+word against Mark Hartwell, and she had only pity for him whom
+everyone else condemned. With her own trembling hands she wrote him a
+letter to accompany the money Samuel sent before Hartwell was taken to
+the penitentiary for life. She thanked him again for his kindness to
+her and assured him that she knew he was sorry for what he had done
+and that she would pray for him every night of her life. Mark Hartwell
+had been hard and defiant enough, but the prison officials told that
+he cried like a child over Grandma Sheldon's little letter.</p>
+
+<p>"There's nobody all bad," says Grandma when she relates the story. "I
+used to believe a murderer must be, but I know better now. I think of
+that poor man often and often. He was so kind and gentle to me&mdash;he
+must have been a good boy once. I write him a letter every Christmas
+and I send him tracts and papers. He's my own little charity. But I've
+never been on the cars since and I never will be again. You never can
+tell what will happen to you or what sort of people you'll meet if you
+trust yourself on a train."</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="The_Romance_of_Jedediah" id="The_Romance_of_Jedediah"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<h2>The Romance of Jedediah<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">[ToC]</a></span></h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>Jedediah was not a name that savoured of romance. His last name was
+Crane, which is little better. And it would be no use to call this
+story "Mattie Adams's Romance" because Mattie Adams is not a romantic
+name either. But names have really nothing to do with romance. The
+most exciting and tragic affair I ever knew was between a man named
+Silas Putdammer and a woman named Kezia Cullen&mdash;which has nothing to
+do with the present story.</p>
+
+<p>Jedediah, to all outward seeming, did not appear to be any more
+romantic than his name. He looked distinctly commonplace as he rode
+comfortably along the winding country road that was dreaming in the
+haze and sunshine of a midsummer afternoon. He was perched on the
+seat of a bright red pedlar's wagon, above and behind a dusty,
+ambling, red pony of that peculiar gait and appearance pertaining to
+the ponies of country pedlars&mdash;a certain placid, unhasting leanness,
+as of a nag that has encountered troubles of his own and has lived
+them down by sheer patience and staying power. From the bright red
+wagon proceeded a certain metallic rumbling and clinking as it bowled
+along, and two or three nests of tin pans on its flat rope-encircled
+top flashed back the light so dazzlingly that Jedediah seemed the
+beaming sun of a little planetary system all his own. A new broom
+sticking up aggressively at each of the four corners gave the wagon a
+resemblance to a triumphal chariot.</p>
+
+<p>Jedediah himself had not been in the tin-peddling business long enough
+to acquire the apologetic, out-at-elbows appearance which
+distinguishes a tin pedlar from other kinds of pedlars. In fact, this
+was his maiden venture in this line; hence he still looked plump and
+self-respecting. He had a round red face under his plug hat, twinkling
+blue eyes, and a little pursed-up mouth, the shape of which was partly
+due to nature and partly to much whistling. Jedediah's pudgy body was
+clothed in a suit of large, light checks, and he wore a bright pink
+necktie and an amethyst pin. Will I still be believed when I assert
+that, in spite of all this, Jedediah was full of, and bubbling over
+with, romance?</p>
+
+<p>Romance cares not for appearances and apparently delights in
+contradictions. The homely shambling man you pass unnoticed on the
+street may have, tucked away in his past, a story more exciting and
+thrilling than anything you have ever read in fiction. So it was, in a
+measure, with Jedediah; poor, unknown to fame, afflicted with a double
+chin and bald spot, reduced to driving a tin-wagon for a living, he
+yet had his romance and he was still romantic.</p>
+
+<p>As Jedediah rode through Amberley he looked about him with interest.
+He knew it well, although it was fifteen years since he had seen it.
+He had been born and brought up in Amberley; he had left it at the age
+of twenty-five to make his fortune. But Amberley was Amberley still.
+Jedediah found it hard to believe that it or himself was fifteen years
+older.</p>
+
+<p>"There's the Stanton place," he said. "Charlie has painted the house
+yellow&mdash;it used to be white; and Bob Hollman has cut the trees down
+behind the blacksmith forge. Bob never had any poetry in his soul&mdash;no
+romance, as you might say. He was what you might call a plodder&mdash;you
+might call him that. Get up, my nag, get up. There's the old Harkness
+place&mdash;seems to be spruced up considerable. Folks used to say if ye
+wanted to see how the world looked the morning after the flood just go
+into George Harkness's barn-yard on a rainy day. The pond and the old
+hills ain't changed any. Get up, my nag, get up. There's the Adams
+homestead. Do I really behold it again?"</p>
+
+<p>Jedediah thought the moment deliciously romantic. He revelled in it
+and, to match his exhilarated mood, he touched the pony with his whip
+and went clinking and glittering down the hill under the poplars at a
+dashing rate. He had not intended to offer his wares in Amberley that
+day. He meant to break the ice in Occidental, the village beyond. But
+he could not pass the Adams place. When he came to the open gate he
+turned in under the willows and drove down the wide, shady lane, girt
+on both sides with a trim white paling smothered in lavish sweetbriar
+bushes that were gay with bloom. Jedediah's heart was beating
+furiously under his checks.</p>
+
+<p>"What a fool you are, Jed Crane," he told himself. "You used to be a
+young fool, and now you're an old one. Sad, that! Get up, my nag, get
+up. It's a poor lookout for a man of your years, Jed. Don't get
+excited. It ain't the least likely that Mattie Adams is here yet.
+She's married and gone years ago, no doubt. It's probable there's no
+Adamses here at all now. But it's romantic, yes, it's romantic. It's
+splendid. Get up, my nag, get up."</p>
+
+<p>The Adams place itself was not unromantic. The house was a large,
+old-fashioned white one, with green shutters and a front porch with
+Grecian columns. These were thought very elegant in Amberley. Mrs.
+Carmody said they gave a house such a classical air. In this instance
+the classical effect was somewhat smothered in honeysuckle, which
+rioted over the whole porch and hung in pale yellow, fragrant
+festoons over the rows of potted scarlet geraniums that flanked the
+green steps. Beyond the house a low-boughed orchard covered the slope
+between it and the main road, and behind it there was a revel of
+colour betokening a flower garden.</p>
+
+<p>Jedediah climbed down from his lofty seat and walked dubiously to a
+side door that looked more friendly, despite its prim screen, than the
+classical front porch. As he drew near he saw a woman sitting behind
+the screen&mdash;a woman who rose as he approached and opened the door.
+Jedediah's heart had been beating a wild tattoo as he crossed the
+yard. It now stopped altogether&mdash;at least he declared in later years
+it did.</p>
+
+<p>The woman was Mattie Adams&mdash;Mattie Adams fifteen years older than when
+he had seen her last, plumper, rosier, somewhat broader-faced, but
+still unmistakably Mattie Adams. Jedediah felt that the situation was
+delicious.</p>
+
+<p>"Mattie," he said, holding out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Jed, how are you?" said Mattie, as if they had parted the week
+before. It had always taken a great deal to disturb Mattie. Whatever
+happened she was calm. Even an old lover, and the only one she had
+ever possessed at that, dropping, so to speak, from the skies, after
+fifteen years' disappearance, did not ruffle her placidity.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't suppose you'd know me, Mattie," said Jedediah, still holding
+her hand foolishly.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew you the minute I set eyes on you," returned Mattie. "You're
+some fatter and older&mdash;like myself&mdash;but you're Jed still. Where have
+you been all these years?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty near everywhere, Mattie&mdash;pretty near everywhere. And ye see
+what it's come to&mdash;here I be driving a tin-wagon for Boone Brothers.
+Business is business&mdash;don't you want to buy some new tinware?"</p>
+
+<p>To himself, Jed thought it was romantic, asking a woman whom he had
+loved all his life to buy tins on the occasion of their first meeting
+after fifteen years' separation.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know but I do want a quart measure," said Mattie, in her
+sweet, unchanged voice, "but all in good time. You must stay and have
+tea with me, Jed. I'm all alone now&mdash;Mother and Father have gone.
+Unhitch your horse and put him in the third stall in the stable."</p>
+
+<p>Jed hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"I ought to be getting on, I s'pose," he said wistfully. "I hain't
+done much today&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You must stay to tea," interrupted Mattie. "Why, Jed, there's ever so
+much to tell and ask. And we can't stand here in the yard and talk.
+Look at Selena. There she is, watching us from the kitchen window.
+She'll watch as long as we stand here."</p>
+
+<p>Jed swung himself around. Over the little valley below the Adams
+homestead was a steep, treeless hill, and on its crest was perched a
+bare farmhouse with windows stuck lavishly all over it. At one of them
+a long, pale face was visible.</p>
+
+<p>"Has Selena been pasted up at that window ever since the last time we
+stood here and talked, Mattie?" asked Jed, half resentfully, half
+amusedly. It was characteristic of Mattie to laugh first at the
+question, and then blush over the memory it revived.</p>
+
+<p>"Most of the time, I guess," she said shortly. "But come&mdash;come in. I
+never could talk under Selena's eyes, even if they were four hundred
+yards away."</p>
+
+<p>Jed went in and stayed to tea. The old Adams pantry had not failed,
+nor apparently the Adams skill in cooking. After tea Jed hung around
+till sunset and drove away with a warm invitation from Mattie to call
+every time his rounds took him through Amberley. As he went, Selena's
+face appeared at the window of the house over the valley.</p>
+
+<p>When he had gone Mattie went around to the classical porch and sat
+herself down under the honeysuckle festoons that dangled above her
+smooth braids of fawn-coloured hair. She knew Selena would be down
+posthaste presently, agog with curiosity to find out who the pedlar
+was whom Mattie had delighted to honour with an invitation to tea.
+Mattie preferred to meet Selena out of doors. It was easier to thrust
+and parry there. Meanwhile, she wanted to think over things.</p>
+
+<p>Fifteen years before Jedediah Crane had been Mattie Adams's beau.
+Jedediah was romantic even then, but, as he was a slim young fellow at
+the time, with an abundance of fair, curly hair and innocent blue
+eyes, his romance was rather an attraction than not. At least the then
+young and pretty Mattie had found it so.</p>
+
+<p>The Adamses looked with no favour on the match. They were a thrifty,
+well-to-do folk. As for the Cranes&mdash;well, they were lazy and
+shiftless, for the most part. It would be a <i>m&eacute;salliance</i> for an Adams
+to marry a Crane. Still, it would doubtless have happened&mdash;for Mattie,
+though a meek-looking damsel, had a mind of her own&mdash;had it not been
+for Selena Ford, Mattie's older sister.</p>
+
+<p>Selena, people said, had married James Ford for no other reason than
+that his house commanded a view of nearly every dooryard in Amberley.
+This may or may not have been sheer malice. Certainly nothing that
+went on in the Adams yard escaped Selena.</p>
+
+<p>She watched Mattie and Jed in the moonlight one night. She saw Jed
+kiss Mattie. It was the first time he had ever done so&mdash;and the last,
+poor fellow. For Selena swooped down on her parents the next day. Such
+a storm did she brew up that Mattie was forbidden to speak to Jed
+again. Selena herself gave Jed a piece of her mind. Jed usually was
+not afflicted with undue sensitiveness. But he had some slumbering
+pride at the basis of his character and it was very stubborn when
+roused. Selena roused it. Jed vowed he would never creep and crawl at
+the feet of the Adamses, and he went west forthwith, determined, as
+aforesaid, to make his fortune and hurl Selena's scorn back in her
+face.</p>
+
+<p>And now he had come home, driving a tin-wagon. Mattie smiled to think
+of it. She bore Jed no ill will for his failure. She felt sorry for
+him and inclined to think that fate had used him hardly&mdash;fate and
+Selena together. Mattie had never had another beau. People thought she
+was engaged to Jed Crane until her time for beaus went by. Mattie did
+not mind; she had never liked anybody so well as Jed. To be sure, she
+had not thought of him for years. It was strange he should come back
+like this&mdash;"romantic," as he said himself.</p>
+
+<p>Mattie's reverie was interrupted by Selena. Angular, pale-eyed Mrs.
+Ford was as unlike the plump, rosy Mattie as a sister could be.
+Perhaps her chronic curiosity, which would not let her rest, was
+accountable for her excessive leanness.</p>
+
+<p>"Who was that pedlar that was here this afternoon, Mattie?" she
+demanded as soon as she arrived.</p>
+
+<p>Mattie smiled. "Jed Crane," she said. "He's home from the West and
+driving a tin-wagon for the Boones."</p>
+
+<p>Selena gave a little gasp. She sat down on the lowest step and untied
+her bonnet strings.</p>
+
+<p>"Mattie Adams! And you kept him hanging about the whole afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" said Mattie wickedly. She liked to alarm Selena. "Jed and I
+were always beaus, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Mattie Adams! You don't mean to say you're going to make a fool of
+yourself over Jed Crane again? A woman of your age!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't get excited, Selena," implored Mattie. In the old days Selena
+could cow her, but that time was past. "I never saw the like of you
+for getting stirred up over nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not excited. I'm perfectly calm. But I might well be excited over
+your folly, Mattie Adams. The idea of your taking up again with old
+Jed Crane!"</p>
+
+<p>"He's fifteen years younger than Jim," said Mattie, giving thrust for
+thrust.</p>
+
+<p>When Selena had come over Mattie had not the slightest idea of
+resuming her former relationship with the romantic Jedediah. She had
+merely shown him kindness for old friendship's sake. But so well did
+the unconscious Selena work in Jed's behalf that when she flounced off
+home in a pet Mattie was resolved that she would take Jed back if he
+wanted to come. She wasn't going to put up with Selena's everlasting
+interference. She would show her that she was independent.</p>
+
+<p>When a week had passed Jed came again. He sold Mattie a stew-pan and
+he would not go in to tea this time, but they stood and talked in the
+yard for the best part of an hour, while Selena glared at them from
+her kitchen window. Their conversation was most innocent and harmless,
+being mainly gossip about what had come and gone during Jed's exile.
+But Mattie knew that Selena thought that she and Jed were making love
+to each other in this shameless, public fashion. When Jed went,
+Mattie, more for Selena's benefit than his, broke off some sprays of
+honeysuckle and pinned them on his coat. The fragrance went with
+Jedediah as he drove through Amberley, and pleasant thoughts were born
+of it.</p>
+
+<p>"It's romantic," he told the pony. "Blessed if it ain't romantic! Not
+that Mattie cares anything about me now. I know she don't. But it's
+just her kind way. She wants to cheer me up and let me know I've a
+friend still. Get up, my nag, get up. I ain't one to persoom on her
+kindness neither; I know my place. But still, say what you will, it's
+romantic&mdash;this sitooation. This is it. Here I be, loving the ground
+she walks on, as I've always done, and I can't let on that I do
+because I'm a poor ne'er-do-well as ain't fit to look at her, an
+independent woman with property. And she's a-showing kindness to me
+for old times' sake, and piercing my heart all the time, not knowing.
+Why, it's romance with a vengeance, that's what it is. Get up, my nag,
+get up."</p>
+
+<p>Thereafter Jed called at the Adams place every week. Generally he
+stayed to tea. Mattie always bought something of him to colour an
+excuse. Her kitchen fairly glittered with new tinware. She gave Selena
+the overflow by way of heaping coals of fire.</p>
+
+<p>After every visit Jedediah held stern counsel with himself and decided
+that he must not call to see Mattie again&mdash;at least, not for a long
+time; then he must not stay to tea. He would struggle with himself all
+the way down the poplar hill&mdash;not without a comforting sense of the
+romance of the struggle&mdash;but it always ended the same way. He turned
+in under the willows and clinked musically into Mattie's yard. At
+least, the rattle of the tin-wagon sounded musically to Mattie.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Selena watched from her window and raged.</p>
+
+<p>Amberley people shrugged their shoulders when gossip noised the matter
+abroad. But, being good-humoured in the main, they forebore to do more
+than say that Mattie Adams was free to make a goose of herself if it
+pleased her, and that Jed Crane wasn't such a fool as he looked. The
+Adams farm was one of the best in Amberley, and it had not grown any
+poorer under Mattie's management.</p>
+
+<p>"If Jed walks in there and hangs up his hat he'll have done well for
+himself after all."</p>
+
+<p>This was Selena's view of it also, barring the good nature. She was
+furious at the whole affair, and she did her best to make Mattie's
+life a burden to her with slurs and thrusts. But they all misjudged
+Jed. He had no intention of "walking in and hanging up his hat"&mdash;or
+trying to. Romantic as he was, it never occurred to him that Mattie
+might be as romantic as himself. She did not care for him, and anyhow
+he, Jed, had a little too much pride to ask her, a rich woman, to
+marry him, a poor man who had lost all caste he ever possessed by
+taking up tin-peddling. Jed was determined not to "persoom." And, oh,
+how deliciously romantic it all was! He hugged himself with sorrowful
+delight over it.</p>
+
+<p>As the summer waned and the long yellow leaves began to fall thickly
+from the willows in the Adams lane Jed began to talk of going out
+west again. Tin-peddling was not possible in winter, and he didn't
+think he would try it another summer. Mattie listened with dismay in
+her heart. All summer she had made much of Jed, by way of tormenting
+Selena. But now she realized what he really meant to her. The old love
+had wakened to life in her heart; she could not let Jed go out of her
+life again, leaving her to the old loneliness. If Jed went away
+everything would be flat, stale, and unprofitable.</p>
+
+<p>She knew him to be at heart the kindest, most gentle of human beings,
+and the mere fact of his having been unsuccessful, even what some of
+his old neighbours might call stupid, did not change her feelings
+toward him in the least. He was Jed&mdash;that was sufficient for her, and
+she had business capability enough for both, when it came to that.</p>
+
+<p>Mattie began to drop hints. But Jed would not take them. True, once or
+twice he thought that perhaps Mattie did care a little for him yet.
+But it would not do for him to take advantage of that.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I just couldn't do that," he told the pony. "I worship the ground
+that woman treads on, but it ain't for the likes of me to tell her so,
+not now. Get up, my nag, get up. This has been a mighty pleasant
+summer with that visit to look forward to every week. But it's about
+over now and you must tramp, Jed."</p>
+
+<p>Jed sighed. He remembered that it was more romantic than ever, but all
+at once this failed to comfort him. Romance up to a certain point was
+food; beyond that it palled, so to speak. Jed's romance failed him
+just when he needed it most.</p>
+
+<p>Mattie, meanwhile, was forced to the dismal conclusion that her hints
+were thrown away. Jed was plainly determined not to speak. Mattie felt
+half angry with him. She did not choose to make a martyr of herself to
+romance, and surely the man didn't expect her to ask him to marry her.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure and certain he's as fond of me as ever he was," she mused.
+"I suppose he's got some ridiculous notion about being too poor to
+aspire to me. Jed always had more pride than a Crane could carry.
+Well, I've done all I can&mdash;all I'm going to do. If Jed's determined to
+go, he must go, I s'pose."</p>
+
+<p>Mattie would not let herself cry, although she felt like it. She went
+out and picked apples instead.</p>
+
+<p>Mattie might have remained so and Jedediah's romance might never have
+reached a better ending, if it had not been for Selena, who came over
+just then to help Mattie pick the golden russets. Fate had evidently
+destined her as Jed's best helper. All summer she had been fairly
+goading Mattie into love with Jedediah and now she was moved to add
+the last spur.</p>
+
+<p>"Jed Crane's going away, I hear," she said maliciously. "Seems to me
+you're bound to be jilted again, Mattie."</p>
+
+<p>Mattie had no answer ready. Selena went on undauntedly.</p>
+
+<p>"You've made a nice fool of yourself all summer, I vow. Throwing
+yourself at Jed's head&mdash;and he doesn't want you, even with all your
+property."</p>
+
+<p>"He does want me," said Mattie calmly. Her lips were very firm and her
+cheeks scarlet. "He is not going away. We are to be married about
+Christmas, and Jed will take charge of the farm for me."</p>
+
+<p>"Matilda Adams!" said Selena. It was all she was capable of saying.</p>
+
+<p>The rest of the golden russets were picked in a dead silence, Mattie
+working with an unusually high colour in her cheeks, while Selena's
+thin lips were pressed so closely together as to be little else than a
+hair line.</p>
+
+<p>After Selena had gone home, sulking, Mattie picked on with a very
+determined face. The die was cast; she could not bear Selena's slurs
+and she would not. And she had not told a lie either. Her words were
+true; she would make them true. All the Adams determination&mdash;and that
+was not a little&mdash;was roused in her.</p>
+
+<p>"If Jed jilts me, he'll do it to my face, clean and clever," she said
+viciously.</p>
+
+<p>When Jed came again he was very solemn. He thought it would be his
+last visit, but Mattie felt differently. She had dressed herself with
+unusual care and crimped her hair. Her cheeks were scarlet and her
+eyes bright. Jed thought she looked younger and prettier than ever.
+The thought that this was the last time he would see her for many a
+long day to come grew more and more unbearable, yet he firmly
+determined he would let no presuming word pass his lips. Mattie had
+been so kind to him. It was only honourable of him in return not to
+let her throw herself away on a poor failure like himself.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose this is your last round with the wagon," she said. She had
+taken him out into the garden to say it. The garden was out of view
+from the Ford place. Propose she must, but she drew the line at
+proposing under Selena's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Jed nodded dully. "Yes, and then I must toddle off and look for
+something else to do. You see, I haven't much of a gift so to speak
+for business, Mattie, and it takes me so long to get worked into an
+understanding of a business or trade that I'm generally asked to quit
+before you might say I've really commenced. It's been a mighty happy
+summer for me, though I can't say I've done much in the selling line
+except to you, Mattie. What with your kindness and these little visits
+you've been good enough to let me make every week, I feel I may say
+it's been the happiest summer of my life, and I'm never going to
+forget it, but as I said, it's time for me to be moving on elsewhere
+and finding something else to do."</p>
+
+<p>"There is something for you to do right here&mdash;if you will do it," said
+Mattie faintly. For a moment she felt as if she could not go on; Jed
+and the garden and the scarf of late asters whirled around her
+dizzily. She held by the sweet-pea trellis to steady herself.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I said a terrible thing to Selena the other day. I&mdash;I don't know
+what I'll do about it if&mdash;if&mdash;you don't help me out, Jed."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll do anything I can," said Jed, with hearty sympathy. "You know
+that, Mattie. What is the trouble?"</p>
+
+<p>His kindly voice and the good will and affection beaming in his honest
+blue eyes gave Mattie renewed courage to go on with her self-imposed
+and most embarrassing task, although before she ended her voice shook
+and dwindled away to such a low whisper that Jed had to bend his head
+close to hers to hear what she was saying.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I said&mdash;she goaded me into saying it, Jed&mdash;slighting and
+slurring&mdash;jeering at me because you were going away. I just got mad,
+Jed&mdash;and I told her you weren't going&mdash;that you and I&mdash;that we were to
+be&mdash;married."</p>
+
+<p>"Mattie, did you mean that?" he cried. "If you did, I'm the happiest
+man alive. I didn't dare persoom&mdash;I didn't s'pose you thought anything
+of me. But if you do&mdash;and if you want me&mdash;here's all there is of me,
+heart and soul and body, forever and ever, as I've been all my life."</p>
+
+<p>Thinking over this speech afterwards Jed was dissatisfied with it. He
+thought he might have made it much more eloquent and romantic than it
+was. But it served the purpose very well. It was convincing&mdash;it came
+straight from his honest, stupid heart, and Mattie knew it. She held
+out her hands and Jed gathered her into his arms.</p>
+
+<p>It was certainly a most fortunate circumstance that the garden was
+well out of the range of Selena's vision, or the sight of her sister
+and the remaining member of the despised Crane family repeating their
+foolish performance, which many years previous had resulted in Jed's
+long banishment, might have caused her to commit almost any unheard-of
+act of spite as an outlet for her jealous anger. But only the few
+remaining garden flowers were witness to the lovers' indiscretion, and
+they kept their own counsel after the manner of flowers, so Selena's
+feelings were mercifully spared this further outrage.</p>
+
+<p>That evening Jed drove slowly away through the twilight, mounted for
+the last time on the tin-wagon. He was so happy that he bore no grudge
+against even Selena Ford. As the pony climbed the poplar hill Jed drew
+a long breath and freed his mind to the surrounding landscape and to
+his faithful and slow-plodding steed that had been one of the main
+factors in this love affair, having patiently carried him to and from
+the abode of his lady-love throughout the summer just passed. Jedediah
+was as brimful of happiness as mortal man could be, and his rosy
+thoughts flowed forth in a kind of triumphant chant which would have
+driven Selena stark distracted had she been within hearing distance.
+What he said too was but a poor expression of what he thought, but to
+the trees and fields and pony he chanted,</p>
+
+<p>"Well, this <i>is</i> romance. What else would you call it now? Me, poor,
+scared to speak&mdash;and Mattie ups and does it for me, bless her. Yes,
+I've been longing for romance all my life, and I've got it at last.
+None of your commonplace courtships for me, I always said. Them was my
+very words. And I guess this has been a little uncommon&mdash;I guess it
+has. Anyhow, I'm uncommon happy. I never felt so romantic before. Get
+up, my nag, get up."</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="The_Tryst_of_the_White_Lady" id="The_Tryst_of_the_White_Lady"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<h2>The Tryst of the White Lady<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">[ToC]</a></span></h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>"I wisht ye'd git married, Roger," said Catherine Ames. "I'm gitting
+too old to work&mdash;seventy last April&mdash;and who's going to look after ye
+when I'm gone. Git married, b'y&mdash;git married."</p>
+
+<p>Roger Temple winced. His aunt's harsh, disagreeable voice always
+jarred horribly on his sensitive nerves. He was fond of her after a
+fashion, but always that voice made him wonder if there could be
+anything harder to endure.</p>
+
+<p>Then he gave a bitter little laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Who'd have me, Aunt Catherine?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Catherine Ames looked at him critically across the supper table. She
+loved him in her way, with all her heart, but she was not in the least
+blind to his defects. She did not mince matters with herself or with
+other people. Roger was a sallow, plain-featured fellow, small and
+insignificant looking. And, as if this were not bad enough, he walked
+with a slight limp and had one thin shoulder a little higher than the
+other&mdash;"Jarback" Temple he had been called in school, and the name
+still clung to him. To be sure, he had very fine grey eyes, but their
+dreamy brilliance gave his dull face an uncanny look which girls did
+not like, and so made matters rather worse than better. Of course
+looks didn't matter so much in the case of a man; Steve Millar was
+homely enough, and all marked up with smallpox to boot, yet he had got
+for wife the prettiest and smartest girl in South Bay. But Steve was
+rich. Roger was poor and always would be. He worked his stony little
+farm, from which his father and grandfather had wrested a fair living,
+after a fashion, but Nature had not cut him out for a successful
+farmer. He hadn't the strength for it and his heart wasn't in it. He'd
+rather be hanging over a book. Catherine secretly thought Roger's
+matrimonial chances very poor, but it would not do to discourage the
+b'y. What he needed was spurring on.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye'll git someone if ye don't fly too high," she announced loudly and
+cheerfully. "Thar's always a gal or two here and thar that's glad to
+marry for a home. 'Tain't no use for <i>you</i> to be settin' your thoughts
+on anyone young and pretty. Ye wouldn't git her and ye'd be worse off
+if ye did. Your grandfather married for looks, and a nice useless wife
+he got&mdash;sick half her time. Git a good strong girl that ain't afraid
+of work, that'll hold things together when ye're reading
+po'try&mdash;that's as much as you kin expect. And the sooner the better.
+I'm done&mdash;last winter's rheumatiz has about finished <i>me</i>. An' we
+can't afford hired help."</p>
+
+<p>Roger felt as if his raw, quivering soul were being seared. He looked
+at his aunt curiously&mdash;at her broad, flat face with the mole on the
+end of her dumpy nose, the bristling hairs on her chin, the wrinkled
+yellow neck, the pale, protruding eyes, the coarse, good-humoured
+mouth. She was so extremely ugly&mdash;and he had seen her across the table
+all his life. For twenty-five years he had looked at her so. Must he
+continue to go on looking at ugliness in the shape of a wife all the
+rest of his life&mdash;he, who worshipped beauty in everything?</p>
+
+<p>"Did my mother look like you, Aunt Catherine?" he asked abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>His aunt stared&mdash;and snorted. Her snort was meant to express kindly
+amusement, but it sounded like derision and contempt.</p>
+
+<p>"Yer ma wasn't so humly as me," she said cheerfully, "but she wan't no
+beauty either. None of the Temples was ever better lookin' than was
+necessary. We was <i>workers</i>. Yer pa wa'n't bad looking. You're humlier
+than either of 'em. Some ways ye take after yer grandma&mdash;though <i>she</i>
+was counted pretty at one time. She was yaller and spindlin' like you,
+and you've got her eyes. What yer so int'rested in yer ma's looks all
+at once fer?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was wondering," said Roger coolly, "if Father ever looked at her
+across the table and wished she were prettier."</p>
+
+<p>Catherine giggled. Her giggle was ugly and disagreeable like
+everything else about her&mdash;everything except a certain odd, loving,
+loyal old heart buried deep in her bosom, for the sake of which Roger
+endured the giggle and all the rest.</p>
+
+<p>"Dessay he did&mdash;dessay he did. Men al'ays has a hankerin' for good
+looks. But ye've got to cut yer coat 'cording to yer cloth. As for yer
+poor ma, she didn't live long enough to git as ugly as me. When I
+come here to keep house for yer pa, folks said as it wouldn't be long
+'fore he married me. <i>I</i> wouldn't a-minded. But yer pa never hinted
+it. S'pose he'd had enough of ugly women likely."</p>
+
+<p>Catherine snorted amiably again. Roger got up&mdash;he couldn't endure any
+more just then. He must escape.</p>
+
+<p>"Now you think over what I've said," his aunt called after him. "Ye've
+gotter git a wife soon, however ye manage it. 'Twon't be so hard if
+ye're reasonable. Don't stay out as late as ye did last night. Ye
+coughed all night. Where was ye&mdash;down at the shore?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Roger, who always answered her questions even when he hated
+to. "I was down at Aunt Isabel's grave."</p>
+
+<p>"Till eleven o'clock! Ye ain't wise! I dunno what hankering ye have
+after that unchancy place. <i>I</i> ain't been near it for twenty year. I
+wonder ye ain't scairt. What'd ye think ye'd do if ye saw her ghost?"</p>
+
+<p>Catherine looked curiously at Roger. She was very superstitious and
+she believed firmly in ghosts, and saw no absurdity in her question.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I <i>could</i> see it," said Roger, his great eyes flashing. He
+believed in ghosts too, at least in Isabel Temple's ghost. His uncle
+had seen it; his grandfather had seen it; he believed he would see
+it&mdash;the beautiful, bewitching, mocking, luring ghost of lovely Isabel
+Temple.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't wish such stuff," said Catherine. "Nobody ain't never the same
+after they've seen her."</p>
+
+<p>"Was Uncle different?" Roger had come back into the kitchen and was
+looking curiously at his aunt.</p>
+
+<p>"Diff'rent? He was another man. He didn't even <i>look</i> the same. Sich
+eyes! Al'ays looking past ye at something behind ye. They'd give
+anyone creeps. He never had any notion of flesh-and-blood women after
+that&mdash;said a man wouldn't, after seeing Isabel. His life was plumb
+ruined. Lucky he died young. I hated to be in the same room with
+him&mdash;he wa'n't canny, that was all there was to it. <i>You</i> keep away
+from that grave&mdash;<i>you</i> don't want to look odder than ye are by nature.
+And when ye git married, ye'll have to give up roamin' about half the
+night in graveyards. A wife wouldn't put up with it, as I've done."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll never get as good a wife as you, Aunt Catherine," said Roger
+with a little whimsical smile that gave him the look of an amused
+gnome.</p>
+
+<p>"Dessay you won't. But someone ye have to have. Why'n't ye try 'Liza
+Adams. She <i>might</i> have ye&mdash;she's gittin' on."</p>
+
+<p>"'Liza ... Adams!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I said. Ye needn't repeat it&mdash;'Liza ... Adams&mdash;'s if I'd
+mentioned a hippopotamus. I git out of patience with ye. I b'lieve in
+my heart ye think ye ought to git a wife that'd look like a picter."</p>
+
+<p>"I do, Aunt Catherine. That's just the kind of wife I want&mdash;grace and
+beauty and charm. Nothing less than that will ever content me."</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>Roger laughed bitterly again and went out. It was sunset. There was no
+work to do that night except to milk the cows, and his little home boy
+could do that. He felt a glad freedom. He put his hand in his pocket
+to see if his beloved Wordsworth was there and then he took his way
+across the fields, under a sky of purple and amber, walking quickly
+despite his limp. He wanted to get to some solitary place where he
+could forget Aunt Catherine and her abominable suggestions and escape
+into the world of dreams where he habitually lived and where he found
+the loveliness he had not found nor could hope to find in his real
+world.</p>
+
+<p>Roger's mother had died when he was three and his father when he was
+eight. His little, old, bedridden grandmother had lived until he was
+twelve. He had loved her passionately. She had not been pretty in his
+remembrance&mdash;a tiny, shrunken, wrinkled thing&mdash;but she had beautiful
+grey eyes that never grew old and a soft, gentle voice&mdash;the only
+woman's voice he had ever heard with pleasure. He was very critical as
+regards women's voices and very sensitive to them. Nothing hurt him
+quite so much as an unlovely voice&mdash;not even unloveliness of face. Her
+death had left him desolate. She was the only human being who had ever
+understood him. He could never, he thought, have got through his
+tortured school days without her. After she died he would not go to
+school. He was not in any sense educated. His father and grandfather
+had been illiterate men and he had inherited their underdeveloped
+brain cells. But he loved poetry and read all he could get of it. It
+overlaid his primitive nature with a curious iridescence of fancy and
+furnished him with ideals and hungers his environment could never
+satisfy. He loved beauty in everything. Moonrises hurt him with their
+loveliness and he could sit for hours gazing at a white
+narcissus&mdash;much to his aunt's exasperation. He was solitary by nature.
+He felt horribly alone in a crowded building but never in the woods or
+in the wild places along the shore. It was because of this that his
+aunt could not get him to go to church&mdash;which was a horror to her
+orthodox soul. He told her he would like to go to church if it were
+empty but he could not bear it when it was full&mdash;full of smug, ugly
+people. Most people, he thought, were ugly&mdash;though not so ugly as he
+was&mdash;and ugliness made him sick with repulsion. Now and then he saw a
+pretty girl at whom he liked to look but he never saw one that wholly
+pleased him. To him, the homely, crippled, poverty-stricken Roger
+Temple whom they all would have scorned, there was always a certain
+subtle something wanting, and the lack of it kept him heartwhole. He
+knew that this probably saved him from much suffering, but for all
+that he regretted it. He wanted to love, even vainly; he wanted to
+experience this passion of which the poets sang so much. Without it he
+felt he lacked the key to a world of wonder. He even tried to fall in
+love; he went to church for several Sundays and sat where he could see
+beautiful Elsa Carey. She was lovely&mdash;it gave him pleasure to look at
+her; the gold of her hair was so bright and living; the pink of her
+cheek so pure, the curve of her neck so flawless, the lashes of her
+eyes so dark and silken. But he looked at her as at a picture. When he
+tried to think and dream of her, it bored him. Besides, he knew she
+had a rather nasal voice. He used to laugh sarcastically to himself
+over Elsa's feelings if she had known how desperately he was trying to
+fall in love with her and failing&mdash;Elsa the queen of hearts, who
+believed she had only to look to reign. He gave up trying at last, but
+he still longed to love. He knew he would never marry; he could not
+marry plainness, and beauty would have
+none of him; but he did not want to miss everything and he had moments
+when he was very bitter and rebellious because he felt he must miss it
+forever.</p>
+
+<p>He went straight to Isabel Temple's grave in the remote shore field of
+his farm. Isabel Temple had lived and died eighty years ago. She had
+been very lovely, very wilful, very fond of playing with the hearts of
+men. She had married William Temple, the brother of his
+great-grandfather, and as she stood in her white dress beside her
+bridegroom, at the conclusion of the wedding ceremony, a jilted lover,
+crazed by despair, had entered the house and shot her dead. She had
+been buried in the shore field, where a square space had been dyked
+off in the centre for a burial lot because the church was then so far
+away. With the passage of years the lot had grown up so thickly with
+fir and birch and wild cherry that it looked like a compact grove. A
+winding path led through it to its heart where Isabel Temple's grave
+was, thickly overgrown with long, silken, pale green grass. Roger
+hurried along the path and sat down on the big grey boulder by the
+grave, looking about him with a long breath of delight. How
+lovely&mdash;and witching&mdash;and unearthly it was here. Little ferns were
+growing in the hollows and cracks of the big boulder where clay had
+lodged. Over Isabel Temple's crooked, lichened gravestone hung a young
+wild cherry in its delicate bloom. Above it, in a little space of sky
+left by the slender tree tops, was a young moon. It was too dark here
+after all to read Wordsworth, but that did not matter. The place, with
+its moist air, its tang of fir balsam, was like a perfumed room where
+a man might dream dreams and see visions. There was a soft murmur of
+wind in the boughs over him, and the faraway moan of the sea on the
+bar crept in. Roger surrendered himself utterly to the charm of the
+place. When he entered that grove, he had left behind the realm of
+daylight and things known and come into the realm of shadow and
+mystery and enchantment. Anything might happen&mdash;anything might be
+true.</p>
+
+<p>Eighty long years had come and gone, but Isabel Temple, thus cruelly
+torn from life at the moment when it had promised her most, did not
+even yet rest calmly in her grave; such at least was the story, and
+Roger believed it. It was in his blood to believe it. The Temples were
+a superstitious family, and there was nothing in Roger's upbringing to
+correct the tendency. His was not a sceptical or scientific mind. He
+was ignorant and poetical and credulous. He had always accepted
+unquestioningly the tale that Isabel Temple had been seen on earth
+long after the red clay was heaped over her murdered body. Her
+bridegroom had seen her, when he went to visit her on the eve of his
+second and unhappy marriage; his grandfather had seen her. His
+grandmother, who had told him Isabel's story, had told him this too,
+and believed it. She had added, with a bitterness foreign to his idea
+of her, that her husband had never been the same to her afterwards;
+his uncle had seen her&mdash;and had lived and died a haunted man. It was
+only to men the lovely, restless ghost appeared, and her appearance
+boded no good to him who saw. Roger knew this, but he had a curious
+longing to see her. He had never avoided her grave as others of his
+tribe did. He loved the spot, and he believed that some time he would
+see Isabel Temple there. She came, so the story went, to one in each
+generation of the family.</p>
+
+<p>He gazed down at her sunken grave; a little wind, that came stealing
+along the floor of the grove, raised and swayed the long, hair-like
+grass on it, giving the curious suggestion of something prisoned under
+it trying to draw a long breath and float upward.</p>
+
+<p>Then, when he lifted his eyes again, he saw her!</p>
+
+<p>She was standing behind the gravestone, under the cherry tree, whose
+long white branches touched her head; standing there, with her head
+drooping a little, but looking steadily at him. It was just between
+dusk and dark now, but he saw her very plainly. She was dressed in
+white, with some filmy scarf over her head, and her hair hung in a
+dark heavy braid over her shoulder. Her face was small and
+ivory-white, and her eyes were very large and dark. Roger looked
+straight into them and they did something to him&mdash;drew something out
+of him that was never to be his again&mdash;his heart? his soul? He did not
+know. He only knew that lovely Isabel Temple had now come to him and
+that he was hers forever.</p>
+
+<p>For a few moments that seemed years he looked at her&mdash;looked till the
+lure of her eyes drew him to his feet as a man rises in sleep-walking.
+As he slowly stood up, the low-hanging bough of a fir tree pushed his
+cap down over his face and blinded him. When he snatched it off, she
+was gone.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>Roger Temple did not go home that night till the spring dawn was in
+the sky. Catherine was sleepless with anxiety about him. When she
+heard him come up the stairs, she opened her door and peeped out.
+Roger went along the hall without seeing her. His brilliant eyes
+stared straight before him, and there was something in his face that
+made Catherine steal back to her bed with a little shiver of fear. He
+looked like his uncle. She did not ask him, when they met at
+breakfast, where or how he had spent the night. He had been dreading
+the question and was relieved beyond measure when it was not asked.
+But, apart from that, he was hardly conscious of her presence. He ate
+and drank mechanically and voicelessly. When he had gone out,
+Catherine wagged her uncomely grey head ominously.</p>
+
+<p>"He's bewitched," she muttered. "I know the signs. He's seen her&mdash;drat
+her! It's time she gave up that kind of work. Well, I dunno what to
+do&mdash;thar ain't anything I can do, I reckon. He'll never marry now&mdash;I'm
+as sure of that as of any mortal thing. He's in love with a ghost."</p>
+
+<p>It had not yet occurred to Roger that he was in love. He thought of
+nothing but Isabel Temple&mdash;her lovely, lovely face, sweeter than any
+picture he had ever seen or any ideal he had dreamed, her long dark
+hair, her slim form and, more than all, her compelling eyes. He saw
+them wherever he looked&mdash;they drew him&mdash;he would have followed them to
+the end of the world, heedless of all else.</p>
+
+<p>He longed for night, that he might again steal to the grave in the
+haunted grove. She might come again&mdash;who knew? He felt no fear,
+nothing but a terrible hunger to see her again. But she did not come
+that night&mdash;nor the next&mdash;nor the next. Two weeks went by and he had
+not seen her. Perhaps he would never see her again&mdash;the thought filled
+him with anguish not to be borne. He knew now that he loved
+her&mdash;Isabel Temple, dead for eighty years. This was love&mdash;this
+searing, torturing, intolerably sweet thing&mdash;this possession of body
+and soul and spirit. The poets had sung but weakly of it. He could
+tell them better if he could find words. Could other men have loved at
+all&mdash;could any man love those blowzy, common girls of earth? It seemed
+impossible&mdash;absurd. There was only one thing that could be loved&mdash;that
+white spirit. No wonder his uncle had died. He, Roger Temple, would
+soon die too. That would be well. Only the dead could woo Isabel.
+Meanwhile he revelled in his torment and his happiness&mdash;so madly
+commingled that he never knew whether he was in heaven or hell. It was
+beautiful&mdash;and dreadful&mdash;and wonderful&mdash;and exquisite&mdash;oh, so
+exquisite. Mortal love could never be so exquisite. He had never lived
+before&mdash;now he lived in every fibre of his being.</p>
+
+<p>He was glad Aunt Catherine did not worry him with questions. He had
+feared she would. But she never asked any questions now and she was
+afraid of Roger, as she had been afraid of his uncle. She dared not
+ask questions. It was a thing that must not be tampered with. Who knew
+what she might hear if she asked him questions? She was very unhappy.
+Something dreadful had happened to her poor boy&mdash;he had been bewitched
+by that hussy&mdash;he would die as his uncle had died.</p>
+
+<p>"Mebbe it's best," she muttered. "He's the last of the Temples, so
+mebbe she'll rest in her grave when she's killed 'em all. I dunno what
+she's sich a spite at <i>them</i> for&mdash;there'd be more sense if she'd haunt
+the Mortons, seein' as a Morton killed her. Well, I'm mighty old and
+tired and worn out. It don't seem that it's been much use, the way
+I've slaved and fussed to bring that b'y up and keep things together
+for him&mdash;and now the ghost's got him. I might as well have let him die
+when he was a sickly baby."</p>
+
+<p>If this had been said to Roger he would have retorted that it was
+worthwhile to have lived long enough to feel what he was feeling now.
+He would not have missed it for a score of other men's lives. He had
+drunk of some immortal wine and was as a god. Even if she never came
+again, he had seen her once, and she had taught him life's great
+secret in that one unforgettable exchange of eyes. She was his&mdash;his in
+spite of his ugliness and his crooked shoulder. No man could ever take
+her from him.</p>
+
+<p>But she did come again. One evening, when the darkening grove was full
+of magic in the light of the rising yellow moon shining across the
+level field, Roger sat on the big boulder by the grave. The evening
+was very still; there was no sound save the echoes of noisy laughter
+that seemed to come up from the bay shore&mdash;drunken fishermen, likely
+as not. Roger resented the intrusion of such a sound in such a
+place&mdash;it was a sacrilege. When he came here to dream of her, only the
+loveliest of muted sounds should be heard&mdash;the faintest whisper of
+trees, the half-heard, half-felt moan of surf, the airiest sigh of
+wind. He never read Wordsworth now or any other book. He only sat
+there and thought of her, his great eyes alight, his pale face flushed
+with the wonder of his love.</p>
+
+<p>She slipped through the dark boughs like a moonbeam and stood by the
+stone. Again he saw her quite plainly&mdash;saw and drank her in with his
+eyes. He did not feel surprise&mdash;something in him had known she would
+come again. He would not move a muscle lest he lose her as he had lost
+her before. They looked at each other&mdash;for how long? He did not know;
+and then&mdash;a horrible thing happened. Into that place of wonder and
+revelation and mystery reeled a hiccoughing, laughing creature, a
+drunken sailor from a harbour ship, with a leering face and
+desecrating breath.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you're here, my dear&mdash;I thought I'd catch you yet," he said.</p>
+
+<p>He caught hold of her. She screamed. Roger sprang forward and struck
+him in the face. In his fury of sudden rage the strength of ten seemed
+to animate his slender body and pass into his blow. The sailor reeled
+back and put up his hands. He was a coward&mdash;and even a brave man might
+have been daunted by that terrible white face and those blazing eyes.
+He backed down the path.</p>
+
+<p>"Shorry&mdash;shorry," he muttered. "Didn't know she was your girl&mdash;shorry
+I butted in. Shentlemans never butt in&mdash;shorry&mdash;shir&mdash;shorry."</p>
+
+<p>He kept repeating his ridiculous "shorry" until he was out of the
+grove. Then he turned and ran stumblingly across the field. Roger did
+not follow; he went back to Isabel Temple's grave. The girl was lying
+across it; he thought she was unconscious. He stooped and picked her
+up&mdash;she was light and small, but she was warm flesh and blood; she
+clung uncertainly to him for a moment and he felt her breath on his
+face. He did not speak&mdash;he was too sick at heart. She did not speak
+either. He did not think this strange until afterwards. He was
+incapable of thinking just then; he was dazed, wretched, lost.
+Presently he became aware that she was timidly pulling his arm. It
+seemed that she wanted him to go with her&mdash;she was evidently
+frightened of that brute&mdash;he must take her to safety. And then&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>She moved on down the little path and he followed. Out in the moonlit
+field he saw her clearly. With her drooping head, her flowing dark
+hair, her great brown eyes, she looked like the nymph of a wood-brook,
+a haunter of shadows, a creature sprung from the wild. But she was
+mortal maid, and he&mdash;what a fool he had been! Presently he would laugh
+at himself, when this dazed agony should clear away from his brain. He
+followed her down the long field to the bay shore. Now and then she
+paused and looked back to see if he were coming, but she never spoke.
+When she reached the shore road she turned and went along it until
+they came to an old grey house fronting the calm grey harbour. At its
+gate she paused. Roger knew now who she was. Catherine had told him
+about her a month ago.</p>
+
+<p>She was Lilith Barr, a girl of eighteen, who had come to live with her
+uncle and aunt. Her father had died some months before. She was
+absolutely deaf as the result of some accident in childhood, and she
+was, as his own eyes told him, exquisitely lovely in her white,
+haunting style. But she was not Isabel Temple; he had tricked
+himself&mdash;he had lived in a fool's paradise&mdash;oh, he must get away and
+laugh at himself. He left her at her gate, disregarding the little
+hand she put timidly out&mdash;but he did not laugh at himself. He went
+back to Isabel Temple's grave and flung himself down on it and cried
+like a boy. He wept his stormy, anguished soul out on it; and when he
+rose and went away, he believed it was forever. He thought he could
+never, never go there again.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>Catherine looked at him curiously the next morning. He looked
+wretched&mdash;haggard and hollow-eyed. She knew he had not come in till
+the summer dawn. But he had lost the rapt, uncanny look she hated;
+suddenly she no longer felt afraid of him. With this, she began to ask
+questions again.</p>
+
+<p>"What kept ye out so late again last night, b'y?" she said
+reproachfully.</p>
+
+<p>Roger looked at her in her morning ugliness. He had not really seen
+her for weeks. Now she smote on his tortured senses, so long drugged
+with beauty, like a physical blow. He suddenly burst into a laughter
+that frightened her.</p>
+
+<p>"Preserve's, b'y, have ye gone mad? Or," she added, "have ye seen
+Isabel Temple's ghost?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Roger loudly and explosively. "Don't talk any more about
+that damned ghost. Nobody ever saw it. The whole story is balderdash."</p>
+
+<p>He got up and went violently out, leaving Catherine aghast. Was it
+possible Roger had sworn? What on earth had come over the b'y? But
+come what had or come what would, he no longer looked <i>fey</i>&mdash;there was
+that much to be thankful for. Even an occasional oath was better than
+that. Catherine went stiffly about her dish-washing, resolving to have
+'Liza Adams to supper some night.</p>
+
+<p>For a week Roger lived in agony&mdash;an agony of shame and humiliation and
+self-contempt. Then, when the edge of his bitter disappointment wore
+away, he made another dreadful discovery. He still loved her and
+longed for her just as keenly as before. He wanted madly to see
+her&mdash;her flower-like face, her great, asking eyes, the sleek, braided
+flow of her hair. Ghost or woman&mdash;spirit or flesh&mdash;it mattered not. He
+could not live without her. At last his hunger for her drew him to the
+old grey house on the bay shore. He knew he was a fool&mdash;she would
+never look at him; he was only feeding the flame that must consume
+him. But go he must and did, seeking for his lost paradise.</p>
+
+<p>He did not see her when he went in, but Mrs. Barr received him kindly
+and talked about her in a pleasant garrulous fashion which jarred on
+Roger, yet he listened greedily. Lilith, her aunt told him, had been
+made deaf by the accidental explosion of a gun when she was eight
+years old. She could not hear a sound but she could talk.</p>
+
+<p>"A little, that is&mdash;not much, but enough to get along with. But she
+don't like talking somehow&mdash;dunno why. She's shy&mdash;and we think maybe
+she don't like to talk much because she can't hear her own voice. She
+don't ever speak except just when she has to. But she's been trained
+to lip-reading something wonderful&mdash;she can understand anything that's
+said when she can see the person that's talking. Still, it's a
+terrible drawback for the poor child&mdash;she's never had any real
+girl-life and she's dreadful sensitive and retiring. We can't get her
+to go out anywhere, only for lonely walks along shore by herself.
+We're much obliged for what you did the other night. It ain't safe for
+her to wander about alone as she does, but it ain't often anybody from
+the harbour gets up this far. She was dreadful upset about it&mdash;hasn't
+got over her scare yet."</p>
+
+<p>When Lilith came in, her ivory-white face went scarlet all over at the
+sight of Roger. She sat down in a shadowy corner. Mrs. Barr got up
+and went out. Roger was mute; he could find nothing to say. He could
+have talked glibly enough to Isabel Temple's ghost in some unearthly
+tryst by her grave, but he could not find a word to say to this slip
+of flesh and blood. He felt very foolish and absurd, and very
+conscious of his twisted shoulder. What a fool he had been to come!</p>
+
+<p>Then Lilith looked up at him&mdash;and smiled. A little shy, friendly
+smile. Roger suddenly saw her not as the tantalizing, unreal, mystic
+thing of the twilit grove, but as a little human creature, exquisitely
+pretty in her young-moon beauty, longing for companionship. He got up,
+forgetting his ugliness, and went across the room to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you come for a walk," he said eagerly. He held out his hand like
+a child; as a child she stood up and took it; like two children they
+went out and down the sunset shore. Roger was again incredibly happy.
+It was not the same happiness as had been his in that vanished
+fortnight; it was a homelier happiness with its feet on the earth. The
+amazing thing was that he felt she was happy too&mdash;happy because she
+was walking with <i>him</i>, "Jarback" Temple, whom no girl had even
+thought about. A certain secret well-spring of fancy that had seemed
+dry welled up in him sparklingly again.</p>
+
+<p>Through the summer weeks the odd courtship went on. Roger talked to
+her as he had never talked to anyone. He did not find it in the least
+hard to talk to her, though her necessity of watching his face so
+closely while he talked bothered him occasionally. He felt that her
+intent gaze was reading his soul as well as his lips. She never talked
+much herself; what she did say she spoke so low that it was hardly
+above a whisper, but she had a voice as lovely as her face&mdash;sweet,
+cadenced, haunting. Roger was quite mad about her, and he was horribly
+afraid that he could never get up enough courage to ask her to marry
+him. And he was afraid that if he did, she would never consent. In
+spite of her shy, eager welcomes he could not believe she could care
+for him&mdash;for <i>him</i>. She liked him, she was sorry for him, but it was
+unthinkable that she, white, exquisite Lilith, could marry him and sit
+at his table and his hearth. He was a fool to dream of it.</p>
+
+<p>To the existence of romance and glamour in which he lived, no gossip
+of the countryside penetrated. Yet much gossip there was, and at last
+it came blundering in on Roger to destroy his fairy world a second
+time. He came downstairs one night in the twilight, ready to go to
+Lilith. His aunt and an old crony were talking in the kitchen; the
+crony was old, and Catherine, supposing Roger was out of the house,
+was talking loudly in that horrible voice of hers with still more
+horrible zest and satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I'm guessing it'll be a match as ye say. Oh the b'y's doing
+well. He ain't for every market, as I'm bound to admit. Ef she wan't
+deaf she wouldn't look at him, no doubt. But she has scads of
+money&mdash;they won't need to do a tap of work unless they like&mdash;and she's
+a good housekeeper too her aunt tells me. She's pretty enough to suit
+him&mdash;he's as particular as never was&mdash;and he wan't crooked and she
+wan't deaf when they was born, so it's likely their children will be
+all right. I'm that proud when I think of the match."</p>
+
+<p>Roger fled out of the house, white of face and sick of heart. He went,
+not to the bay shore, but to Isabel Temple's grave. He had never been
+there since the night when he had rescued Lilith, but now he rushed to
+it in his new agony. His aunt's horrible practicalities had filled him
+with disgust&mdash;they dragged his love in the dust of sordid things. And
+Lilith was rich; he had never known that&mdash;never suspected it. He could
+never ask her to marry him now; he must never see her again. For the
+second time he had lost her, and this second losing could not be
+borne.</p>
+
+<p>He sat down on the big boulder by the grave and dropped his poor grey
+face in his hands, moaning in anguish. Nothing was left him, not even
+dreams. He hoped he could soon die.</p>
+
+<p>He did not know how long he sat there&mdash;he did not know when she came.
+But when he lifted his miserable eyes, he saw her, sitting just a
+little way from him on the big stone and looking at him with something
+in her face that made his heart beat madly. He forgot Aunt Catherine's
+sacrilege&mdash;he forgot that he was a presumptuous fool. He bent forward
+and kissed her lips for the first time. The wonder of it loosed his
+bound tongue.</p>
+
+<p>"Lilith," he gasped, "I love you."</p>
+
+<p>She put her hand into his and nestled closer to him.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you would have told me that long ago," she said.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="Uncle_Richards_New_Years_Dinner" id="Uncle_Richards_New_Years_Dinner"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<h2>Uncle Richard's New Year's Dinner<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">[ToC]</a></span></h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>Prissy Baker was in Oscar Miller's store New Year's morning, buying
+matches&mdash;for New Year's was not kept as a business holiday in
+Quincy&mdash;when her uncle, Richard Baker, came in. He did not look at
+Prissy, nor did she wish him a happy New Year; she would not have
+dared. Uncle Richard had not been on speaking terms with her or her
+father, his only brother, for eight years.</p>
+
+<p>He was a big, ruddy, prosperous-looking man&mdash;an uncle to be proud of,
+Prissy thought wistfully, if only he were like other people's uncles,
+or, indeed, like what he used to be himself. He was the only uncle
+Prissy had, and when she had been a little girl they had been great
+friends; but that was before the quarrel, in which Prissy had had no
+share, to be sure, although Uncle Richard seemed to include her in his
+rancour.</p>
+
+<p>Richard Baker, so he informed Mr. Miller, was on his way to Navarre
+with a load of pork.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't intend going over until the afternoon," he said, "but Joe
+Hemming sent word yesterday he wouldn't be buying pork after twelve
+today. So I have to tote my hogs over at once. I don't care about
+doing business New Year's morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Should think New Year's would be pretty much the same as any other
+day to you," said Mr. Miller, for Richard Baker was a bachelor, with
+only old Mrs. Janeway to keep house for him.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I always like a good dinner on New Year's," said Richard Baker.
+"It's about the only way I can celebrate. Mrs. Janeway wanted to spend
+the day with her son's family over at Oriental, so I was laying out to
+cook my own dinner. I got everything ready in the pantry last night,
+'fore I got word about the pork. I won't get back from Navarre before
+one o'clock, so I reckon I'll have to put up with a cold bite."</p>
+
+<p>After her Uncle Richard had driven away, Prissy walked thoughtfully
+home. She had planned to spend a nice, lazy holiday with the new book
+her father had given her at Christmas and a box of candy. She did not
+even mean to cook a dinner, for her father had had to go to town that
+morning to meet a friend and would be gone the whole day. There was
+nobody else to cook dinner for. Prissy's mother had died when Prissy
+was a baby. She was her father's housekeeper, and they had jolly times
+together.</p>
+
+<p>But as she walked home, she could not help thinking about Uncle
+Richard. He would certainly have cold New Year cheer, enough to chill
+the whole coming year. She felt sorry for him, picturing him returning
+from Navarre, cold and hungry, to find a fireless house and an
+uncooked dinner in the pantry.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly an idea popped into Prissy's head. Dared she? Oh, she never
+could! But he would never know&mdash;there would be plenty of time&mdash;she
+would!</p>
+
+<p>Prissy hurried home, put her matches away, took a regretful peep at
+her unopened book, then locked the door and started up the road to
+Uncle Richard's house half a mile away. She meant to go and cook Uncle
+Richard's dinner for him, get it all beautifully ready, then slip away
+before he came home. He would never suspect her of it. Prissy would
+not have him suspect for the world; she thought he would be more
+likely to throw a dinner of her cooking out of doors than to eat it.</p>
+
+<p>Eight years before this, when Prissy had been nine years old, Richard
+and Irving Baker had quarrelled over the division of a piece of
+property. The fault had been mainly on Richard's side, and that very
+fact made him all the more unrelenting and stubborn. He had never
+spoken to his brother since, and he declared he never would. Prissy
+and her father felt very badly over it, but Uncle Richard did not seem
+to feel badly at all. To all appearance he had completely forgotten
+that there were such people in the world as his brother Irving and his
+niece Prissy.</p>
+
+<p>Prissy had no trouble in breaking into Uncle Richard's house, for the
+woodshed door was unfastened. She tripped into the hostile kitchen
+with rosy cheeks and mischief sparkling in her eyes. This was an
+adventure&mdash;this was fun! She would tell her father all about it when
+he came home at night and what a laugh they would have!</p>
+
+<p>There was still a good fire in the stove, and in the pantry Prissy
+found the dinner in its raw state&mdash;a fine roast of fresh pork,
+potatoes, cabbage, turnips and the ingredients of a raisin pudding,
+for Richard Baker was fond of raisin puddings, and could make them as
+well as Mrs. Janeway could, if that was anything to boast of.</p>
+
+<p>In a short time the kitchen was full of bubbling and hissings and
+appetizing odours. Prissy enjoyed herself hugely, and the raisin
+pudding, which she rather doubtfully mixed up, behaved itself
+beautifully.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle Richard said he'd be home by one," said Prissy to herself, as
+the clock struck twelve, "so I'll set the table now, dish up the
+dinner, and leave it where it will keep warm until he gets here. Then
+I'll slip away home. I'd like to see his face when he steps in. I
+suppose he'll think one of the Jenner girls across the street has
+cooked his dinner."</p>
+
+<p>Prissy soon had the table set, and she was just peppering the turnips
+when a gruff voice behind her said:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well, what does this mean?"</p>
+
+<p>Prissy whirled around as if she had been shot, and there stood Uncle
+Richard in the woodshed door!</p>
+
+<p>Poor Prissy! She could not have looked or felt more guilty if Uncle
+Richard had caught her robbing his desk. She did not drop the turnips
+for a wonder; but she was too confused to set them down, so she stood
+there holding them, her face crimson, her heart thumping, and a
+horrible choking in her throat.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I&mdash;came up to cook your dinner for you, Uncle Richard," she
+stammered. "I heard you say&mdash;in the store&mdash;that Mrs. Janeway had gone
+home and that you had nobody to cook your New Year's dinner for you.
+So I thought I'd come and do it, but I meant to slip away before you
+came home."</p>
+
+<p>Poor Prissy felt that she would never get to the end of her
+explanation. Would Uncle Richard be angry? Would he order her from the
+house?</p>
+
+<p>"It was very kind of you," said Uncle Richard drily. "It's a wonder
+your father let you come."</p>
+
+<p>"Father was not home, but I am sure he would not have prevented me if
+he had been. Father has no hard feelings against you, Uncle Richard."</p>
+
+<p>"Humph!" said Uncle Richard. "Well, since you've cooked the dinner you
+must stop and help me eat it. It smells good, I must say. Mrs. Janeway
+always burns pork when she roasts it. Sit down, Prissy. I'm hungry."</p>
+
+<p>They sat down. Prissy felt quite giddy and breathless, and could
+hardly eat for excitement; but Uncle Richard had evidently brought
+home a good appetite from Navarre, and he did full justice to his New
+Year's dinner. He talked to Prissy too, quite kindly and politely, and
+when the meal was over he said slowly:</p>
+
+<p>"I'm much obliged to you, Prissy, and I don't mind owning to you that
+I'm sorry for my share in the quarrel, and have wanted for a long time
+to be friends with your father again, but I was too ashamed and proud
+to make the first advance. You can tell him so for me, if you like.
+And if he's willing to let bygones be bygones, tell him I'd like him
+to come up here with you tonight when he gets home and spend the
+evening with me."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he will come, I know!" cried Prissy joyfully. "He has felt so
+badly about not being friendly with you, Uncle Richard. I'm as glad as
+can be."</p>
+
+<p>Prissy ran impulsively around the table and kissed Uncle Richard. He
+looked up at his tall, girlish niece with a smile of pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a good girl, Prissy, and a kind-hearted one too, or you'd
+never have come up here to cook a dinner for a crabbed old uncle who
+deserved to eat cold dinners for his stubbornness. It made me cross
+today when folks wished me a happy New Year. It seemed like mockery
+when I hadn't a soul belonging to me to make it happy. But it has
+brought me happiness already, and I believe it will be a happy year
+all the way through."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed it will!" laughed Prissy. "I'm so happy now I could sing. I
+believe it was an inspiration&mdash;my idea of coming up here to cook your
+dinner for you."</p>
+
+<p>"You must promise to come and cook my New Year's dinner for me every
+New Year we live near enough together," said Uncle Richard.</p>
+
+<p>And Prissy promised.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="White_Magic" id="White_Magic"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<h2>White Magic<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">[ToC]</a></span></h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>One September afternoon in the year of grace 1840 Avery and Janet
+Sparhallow were picking apples in their Uncle Daniel Sparhallow's big
+orchard. It was an afternoon of mellow sunshine; about them, beyond
+the orchard, were old harvest fields, mellowly bright and serene, and
+beyond the fields the sapphire curve of the St. Lawrence Gulf was
+visible through the groves of spruce and birch. There was a soft
+whisper of wind in the trees, and the pale purple asters that
+feathered the orchard grass swayed gently towards each other. Janet
+Sparhallow, who loved the outdoor world and its beauty, was, for the
+time being at least, very happy, as her little brown face, with its
+fine, satiny skin, plainly showed. Avery Sparhallow did not seem so
+happy. She worked rather abstractedly and frowned oftener than she
+smiled.</p>
+
+<p>Avery Sparhallow was conceded to be a beauty, and had no rival in
+Burnley Beach. She was very pretty, with the obvious, indisputable
+prettiness of rich black hair, vivid, certain colour, and laughing,
+brilliant eyes. Nobody ever called Janet a beauty, or even thought her
+pretty. She was only seventeen&mdash;five years younger than Avery&mdash;and was
+rather lanky and weedy, with a rope of straight dark-brown hair, long,
+narrow, shining brown eyes and very black lashes, and a crooked,
+clever little mouth. She had visitations of beauty when excited,
+because then she flushed deeply, and colour made all the difference in
+the world to her; but she had never happened to look in the glass when
+excited, so that she had never seen herself beautiful; and hardly
+anybody else had ever seen her so, because she was always too shy and
+awkward and tongue-tied in company to feel excited over anything. Yet
+very little could bring that transforming flush to her face: a wind
+off the gulf, a sudden glimpse of blue upland, a flame-red poppy, a
+baby's laugh, a certain footstep. As for Avery Sparhallow, she never
+got excited over anything&mdash;not even her wedding dress, which had come
+from Charlottetown that day, and was incomparably beyond anything that
+had ever been seen in Burnley Beach before. For it was made of an
+apple-green silk, sprayed over with tiny rosebuds, which had been
+specially sent for to England, where Aunt Matilda Sparhallow had a
+brother in the silk trade. Avery Sparhallow's wedding dress was making
+far more of a sensation in Burnley Beach than her wedding itself was
+making. For Randall Burnley had been dangling after her for three
+years, and everybody knew that there was nobody for a Sparhallow to
+marry except a Burnley and nobody for a Burnley to marry except a
+Sparhallow.</p>
+
+<p>"Only one silk dress&mdash;and I want a dozen," Avery had said scornfully.</p>
+
+<p>"What would you do with a dozen silk dresses on a farm?" Janet asked
+wonderingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;what indeed?" agreed Avery, with an impatient laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Randall will think just as much of you in drugget as in silk," said
+Janet, meaning to comfort.</p>
+
+<p>Again Avery laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"That is true. Randall never notices what a woman has on. I like a man
+who does notice&mdash;and tells me about it. I like a man who likes me
+better in silk than in drugget. I will wear this rosebud silk when I'm
+married, and it will be supposed to last me the rest of my life and be
+worn on all state occasions, and in time become an heirloom like Aunt
+Matilda's hideous blue satin. I want a new silk dress every month."</p>
+
+<p>Janet paid little attention to this kind of raving. Avery had always
+been more or less discontented. She would be contented enough after
+she was married. Nobody could be discontented who was Randall
+Burnley's wife. Janet was sure of that.</p>
+
+<p>Janet liked picking apples; Avery did not like it; but Aunt Matilda
+had decreed that the red apples should be picked that afternoon, and
+Aunt Matilda's word was law at the Sparhallow farm, even for wilful
+Avery. So they worked and talked as they worked&mdash;of Avery's wedding,
+which was to be as soon as Bruce Gordon should arrive from Scotland.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder what Bruce will be like," said Avery. "It is eight years
+since he went home to Scotland. He was sixteen then&mdash;he will be
+twenty-four now. He went away a boy&mdash;he will come back a man."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't remember much about him," said Janet. "I was only nine when
+he went away. He used to tease me&mdash;I do remember that." There was a
+little resentment in her voice. Janet had never liked being teased.
+Avery laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"You were so touchy, Janet. Touchy people always get teased. Bruce was
+very handsome&mdash;and as nice as he was handsome. Those two years he was
+here were the nicest, gayest time I ever had. I wish he had stayed in
+Canada. But of course he wouldn't do that. His father was a rich man
+and Bruce was ambitious. Oh, Janet, I wish I could live in the old
+land. That would be life."</p>
+
+<p>Janet had heard all this before and could not understand it. She had
+no hankering for either Scotland or England. She loved the new land
+and its wild, virgin beauty. She yearned to the future, never to the
+past.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm tired of Burnley Beach," Avery went on passionately, shaking
+apples wildly off a laden bough by way of emphasis. "I know all the
+people&mdash;what they are&mdash;what they can be. It's like reading a book for
+the twentieth time. I know where I was born and who I'll marry&mdash;and
+where I'll be buried. That's knowing too much. All my days will be
+alike when I marry Randall. There will never be anything unexpected or
+surprising about them. I tell you Janet," Avery seized another bough
+and shook it with a vengeance, "I hate the very thought of it."</p>
+
+<p>"The thought of&mdash;what?" said Janet in bewilderment.</p>
+
+<p>"Of marrying Randall Burnley&mdash;or marrying anybody down here&mdash;and
+settling down on a farm for life."</p>
+
+<p>Then Avery sat down on the rung of her ladder and laughed at Janet's
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"You look stunned, Janet. Did you really think I wanted to marry
+Randall?"</p>
+
+<p>Janet was stunned, and she did think that. How could any girl not want
+to marry Randall Burnley if she had the chance?</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you love him?" she asked stupidly.</p>
+
+<p>Avery bit into a nut-sweet apple.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she said frankly. "Oh, I don't hate him, of course. I like him
+well enough. I like him very well. But we'll quarrel all our lives."</p>
+
+<p>"Then what are you marrying him for?" asked Janet.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I'm getting on&mdash;twenty-two&mdash;all the girls of my age are married
+already. I won't be an old maid, and there's nobody but Randall.
+Nobody good enough for a Sparhallow, that is. You wouldn't want me to
+marry Ned Adams or John Buchanan, would you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Janet, who had her full share of the Sparhallow pride.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, of course I must marry Randall. That's settled and
+there's no use making faces over the notion. I'm not making faces, but
+I'm tired of hearing you talk as if you thought I adored him and must
+be in the seventh heaven because I was going to marry him, you
+romantic child."</p>
+
+<p>"Does Randall know you feel like this?" asked Janet in a low tone.</p>
+
+<p>"No. Randall is like all men&mdash;vain and self-satisfied&mdash;and believes
+I'm crazy about him. It's just as well to let him think so, until
+we're safely married anyhow. Randall has some romantic notions too,
+and I'm not sure that he'd marry me if he knew, in spite of his three
+years' devotion. And I have no intention of being jilted three weeks
+before my wedding day."</p>
+
+<p>Avery laughed again, and tossed away the core of her apple.</p>
+
+<p>Janet, who had been very pale, went crimson and lovely. She could not
+endure hearing Randall criticized. "Vain and self-satisfied"&mdash;when
+there was never a man less so! She was horrified to feel that she
+almost hated Avery&mdash;Avery who did not love Randall.</p>
+
+<p>"What a pity Randall didn't take a fancy to you instead of me, Janet,"
+said Avery teasingly. "Wouldn't you like to marry him, Janet? Wouldn't
+you now?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," cried Janet angrily. "I just like Randall, I've liked him ever
+since that day when I was a little thing and he came here and saved me
+from being shut up all day in that dreadful dark closet because I
+broke Aunt Matilda's blue cup&mdash;when I hadn't meant to break it. He
+wouldn't let her shut me up! He is like that&mdash;he understands! I want
+you to marry him because he wants you, and it isn't fair that
+you&mdash;that you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing is fair in this world, child. Is it fair that I, who am so
+pretty&mdash;you know I am pretty, Janet&mdash;and who love life and excitement,
+should have to be buried on a P.E. Island farm all my days? Or else be
+an old maid because a Sparhallow mustn't marry beneath her? Come,
+Janet, don't look so woebegone. I wouldn't have told you if I'd
+thought you'd take it so much to heart. I'll be a good wife to
+Randall, never fear, and I'll keep him up to the notch of prosperity
+much better than if I thought him a little lower than the angels. It
+doesn't do to think a man perfection, Janet, because he thinks so too,
+and when he finds someone who agrees with him he is inclined to rest
+on his oars."</p>
+
+<p>"At any rate, you don't care for anyone else," said Janet hopefully.</p>
+
+<p>"Not I. I like Randall as well as I like anybody."</p>
+
+<p>"Randall won't be satisfied with that," muttered Janet. But Avery did
+not hear her, having picked up her basket of apples and gone. Janet
+sat down on the lower rung of the ladder and gave herself up to an
+unpleasant reverie. Oh, how the world had changed in half an hour! She
+had never been so worried in her life. She was so fond of Randall&mdash;she
+had always been fond of him&mdash;why, he was just like a brother to her!
+She couldn't possibly love a brother more. And Avery was going to hurt
+him; it would hurt him horribly when he found out she did not love
+him. Janet could not bear the thought of Randall being hurt; it made
+her fairly savage. He must not be hurt&mdash;Avery must love him. Janet
+could not understand why she did not.</p>
+
+<p>Surely everyone must love Randall. It had never occurred to Janet to
+ask herself, as Avery had asked, if she would like to marry Randall.
+Randall could never fancy her&mdash;a little plain, brown thing, only half
+grown. Nobody could think of her beside beautiful, rose-faced Avery.
+Janet accepted this fact unquestioningly. She had never been jealous.
+She only felt that she wanted Randall to have everything he wanted&mdash;to
+be perfectly happy. Why, it would be dreadful if he did not marry
+Avery&mdash;if he went and married some other girl. She would never see
+him then, never have any more delightful talks with him about all the
+things they both loved so much&mdash;winds and delicate dawns, mysterious
+woods in moonlight and starry midnights, silver-white sails going out
+of the harbour in the magic of morning, and the grey of gulf storms.
+There would be nothing in life; it would just be one great, unbearable
+emptiness; for she, herself, would never marry. There was nobody for
+her to marry&mdash;and she didn't care. If she could have Randall for a
+real brother, she would not mind a bit being an old maid. And there
+was that beautiful new frame house Randall had built for his bride,
+which she, Janet, had helped him build, because Avery would not
+condescend to details of pantry and linen closet and cupboards. Janet
+and Randall had had such fun over the cupboards. No stranger must ever
+come to be mistress of that house. Randall must marry Avery, and she
+must love him. Could anything be done to make her love him?</p>
+
+<p>"I believe I'll go and see Granny Thomas," said Janet desperately.</p>
+
+<p>She thought this was a silly idea, but it still haunted her and would
+not be shaken off. Granny Thomas was a very old woman who lived at
+Burnley Cove and was reputed to be something of a witch. That is,
+people who were not Sparhallows or Burnleys gave her that name.
+Sparhallows or Burnleys, of course, were above believing in such
+nonsense. Janet was above believing it; but still&mdash;the sailors along
+shore were careful to "keep on the good side" of Granny Thomas, lest
+she brew an unfavourable wind for them, and there was much talk of
+love potions. Janet knew that people said Peggy Buchanan would never
+have got Jack McLeod if Granny had not given her a love potion. Jack
+had never looked at Peggy, though she was after him for years; and
+then, all at once, he was quite mad about her&mdash;and married her&mdash;and
+wore her life out with jealousy. And Peggy, the homeliest of all the
+Buchanan girls! There must be something in it. Janet made a sudden
+desperate resolve. She would go to Granny and ask her for a love
+potion to make Avery love Randall. If Granny couldn't do any good, she
+couldn't do any harm. Janet was a little afraid of her, and had never
+been near her house, but what wouldn't she do for Randall?</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>Janet never lost much time in carrying out any resolution she made.
+The next afternoon she slipped away to visit Granny Thomas. She put on
+her longest dress and did her hair up for the first time. Granny must
+not think her a child. She rowed herself down the long pond to the row
+of golden-brown sand dunes that parted it from the gulf. It was a
+wonderful autumn day. There were wild growths and colours and scents
+in sweet procession all around the pond. Every curve in it revealed
+some little whim of loveliness. On the left bank, in a grove of birch,
+was Randall's new house, waiting to be sanctified by love and joy and
+birth. Janet loved to be alone thus with the delightful day. She was
+sorry when she had walked over the stretch of windy weedy sea fields
+and reached Granny's little tumbledown house at the Cove&mdash;sorry and a
+little frightened as well. But only a little; there was good stuff in
+Janet; she lifted the latch boldly and walked in when Granny bade.
+Granny was curled up on a stool by her fireplace, and if ever anybody
+did look like a witch, she did. She waved her pipe at another stool,
+and Janet sat down, gazing a little curiously at Granny, whom she had
+never seen at such close quarters before.</p>
+
+<p>Will I look like that when I am very old? she thought, beholding
+Granny's wizened, marvellously wrinkled face. I wonder if anybody will
+be sorry when you die.</p>
+
+<p>"Staring wasn't thought good manners in my time," said Granny. Then,
+as Janet blushed crimson under the rebuke, she added, "Keep red like
+that instead o' white, and you won't need no love ointment."</p>
+
+<p>Janet felt a little cold thrill. How did Granny know what she had come
+for? Was she a real witch after all? For a moment she wished she
+hadn't come. Perhaps it was not right to tamper with the powers of
+darkness. Peggy Buchanan was notoriously unhappy. If Janet had known
+how to get herself away, she would have gone without asking for
+anything.</p>
+
+<p>Then a sound came from the lean-to behind the house.</p>
+
+<p>"S-s-h. I hear the devil grunting like a pig," muttered Granny,
+looking very impish.</p>
+
+<p>But Janet smiled a little contemptuously. She knew it was a pig and no
+devil. Granny Thomas was only an old fraud. Her awe passed away and
+left her cool Sparhallow.</p>
+
+<p>"Can you," she said with her own directness, "make a&mdash;a person care
+for another person&mdash;care&mdash;very much?"</p>
+
+<p>Granny removed her pipe and chuckled.</p>
+
+<p>"What you want is toad ointment," she said.</p>
+
+<p>Toad ointment! Janet shuddered. That did not sound very nice. Granny
+noticed the shudder.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing like it," she said, nodding her crone-like old grey head.
+"There's other things, but noan so sure. Put a li'l bit&mdash;oh, such a
+li'l bit&mdash;on his eyelids, and he's yourn for life. You need something
+powerful&mdash;you're noan so pretty&mdash;only when you're blushing."</p>
+
+<p>Janet was blushing again. So Granny thought she wanted the charm for
+herself! Well, what did it matter? Randall was the only one to be
+considered.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it very&mdash;expensive?" she faltered. She had not much money. Money
+was no plentiful thing on a P.E.I. farm in 1840.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, noa&mdash;oh, noa," Granny leered. "I don't sell it. I gives it. I
+like to see young folks happy. You don't need much, as I've said&mdash;just
+a li'l smootch and you'll have your man, and send old Granny a bite o'
+the wedding cake and fig o' baccy for luck, and a bid to the fir-r-st
+christening! Doan't forget that, dearie."</p>
+
+<p>Janet was cold again with anger. She hated old Granny Thomas. She
+would never come near her again.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd rather pay you its worth," she said coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"You couldn't, dearie. What money could be eno' for such a treasure?
+But that's the Sparhallow pride. Well, go, see if the Sparhallow pride
+and the Sparhallow money will buy you your lad's love."</p>
+
+<p>Granny looked so angry that Janet hastened to appease her.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, please forgive me&mdash;I meant no offence. Only&mdash;it must have cost
+you much trouble to make it."</p>
+
+<p>Granny chuckled again. She was vastly pleased to see a Sparhallow
+suing to her&mdash;a Sparhallow!</p>
+
+<p>"Toads am cheap," she said. "It's all in the knowing how and the time
+o' the moon. Here, take this li'l pill box&mdash;there's eno' in it&mdash;and
+put a li'l bit on his eyelids when you've getten the chance&mdash;and when
+he looks at you, he'll love you. Mind you, though, that he looks at no
+other first&mdash;it's the first one he sees that he'll love. That's the
+way it works."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you." Janet took the little box. She wished she dared to go at
+once. But perhaps this would anger Granny. Granny looked at her with a
+twinkle in her little, incredibly old eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Be off," she said. "You're in a hurry to go&mdash;you're as proud as any
+of the proud Sparhallows. But I bear you no grudge. I likes proud
+people&mdash;when they have to come to me to get help."</p>
+
+<p>Janet found herself outside with a relieved heart in her bosom and her
+little box in her hand. For a moment she was tempted to throw it away.
+But no&mdash;Randall would be so unhappy if he found out Avery didn't love
+him! She would try the ointment at least&mdash;she would try to forget
+about the toads and not let herself think how it was made&mdash;something
+might come of it.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>Janet hurried home along the shore, where a silvery wave broke in a
+little lovely silvery curve on the sand. She was so happy that her
+cheeks burned, and Randall Burnley, who was sitting on the edge of her
+flat when she reached the pond, looked at her with admiration. Janet
+dropped her box into her pocket stealthily when she saw him. What with
+her guilty secret, she hardly knew whether she was glad or not when
+he said he was going to row her up the pond.</p>
+
+<p>"I saw you go down an hour ago and I've been waiting ever since," he
+said. "Where have you been?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;I just&mdash;wanted a walk&mdash;this lovely day," said Janet miserably.
+She felt that she was telling an untruth and this hurt her
+horribly&mdash;especially when it was to Randall. This was what came of
+truck with witches&mdash;you were led into falsehood and deception
+straightaway. Again Janet was tempted to drop Granny's pill box into
+the depths of Burnley Pond&mdash;and again she decided not to because she
+saw Randall Burnley's deep-set, blue-grey eyes, that could look tender
+or sorrowful or passionate or whimsical as he willed, and thought how
+they would look when he found Avery did not love him.</p>
+
+<p>So Janet drowned the voice of conscience and was brazenly happy&mdash;happy
+because Randall Burnley rowed her up the pond&mdash;happy because he walked
+halfway home with her over the autumnal fields&mdash;happy because he
+talked of the day and the sea and the golden weather, as only Randall
+could talk. But she thought she was happy because she had in her
+pocket what might make Avery love him.</p>
+
+<p>Randall went as far as the stile in the birch wood between the Burnley
+and the Sparhallow land&mdash;and he kept her there talking for another
+half-hour&mdash;and though he talked only of a book he had read and a new
+puppy he was training, Janet listened with her soul in her ears. She
+talked too&mdash;quite freely; she was never in the least shy or
+tongue-tied or awkward in Randall's company. There she was always at
+her best, with a delightful feeling of being understood. She wondered
+if he noticed she had her hair done up. Her eyes shone and her brown
+face was full of rosy, kissable hues. When he finally turned away
+homeward, life went flat. Janet decided she was very tired after her
+long walk and her trying interview. But it did not matter, since she
+had her love potion. That was so much nicer a name than toad ointment.</p>
+
+<p>That night Janet rubbed mutton tallow on her hands. She had never done
+that before&mdash;she had thought it vain and foolish&mdash;though Avery did it
+every night. But that afternoon on the pond Randall had said something
+about the beautiful shape of her pretty slender hands. He had never
+paid her a compliment before. Her hands were brown and a little
+hard&mdash;not soft and white like Avery's. So Janet resorted to the mutton
+tallow. If one had a scrap of beauty, if only in one's hands, one
+might as well take care of it.</p>
+
+<p>Having got her ointment, the next thing was to make use of it. This
+was not so easy&mdash;because, in the first place, it must not be done when
+there was any danger of Avery's seeing some other than Randall
+first&mdash;and it must be done without Avery's knowing it. The two
+problems combined were almost too much for Janet. She bided her chance
+like a watchful cat&mdash;but it did not come. Two weeks went by and it had
+not come. Janet was getting very desperate. The wedding day was only a
+week away. The bride's cake was made and the turkeys fattened. The
+invitations were sent out. Janet's own bridesmaid dress was ready. And
+still the little pill box in the till of Janet's blue chest was
+unopened. She had never even opened it, lest virtue escape.</p>
+
+<p>Then her chance came at last, unexpectedly. One evening at dusk, when
+Janet was crossing the little dark upstairs hall, Aunt Matilda called
+up to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Janet, send Avery down. There is a young man wanting to see her."</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Matilda was laughing a little&mdash;as she always did when Randall
+came. It was a habit with her, hanging over from the early days of
+Randall's courtship. Janet went on into their room to tell Avery. And
+lo, Avery was lying asleep on her bed, tired out from her busy day.
+Janet, after one glance, flew to her chest. She took out her pill box
+and opened it, a little fearfully. The toad ointment was there, dark
+and unpleasant enough to view. Janet tiptoed breathlessly to the bed
+and gingerly scraped the tip of her finger in the ointment.</p>
+
+<p>She said so little would be enough&mdash;oh, I hope I'm not doing wrong.</p>
+
+<p>Trembling with excitement, she brushed lightly the white lids of
+Avery's eyes. Avery stirred and opened them. Janet guiltily thrust her
+pill box behind her.</p>
+
+<p>"Randall is downstairs asking for you, Avery."</p>
+
+<p>Avery sat up, looking annoyed. She had not expected Randall that
+evening and would greatly have preferred a continuance of her nap. She
+went down crossly enough, but looking very lovely, flushed from sleep.
+Janet stood in their room, clasping her cold hands nervously over her
+breast. Would the charm work? Oh, she must know&mdash;she must know. She
+could not wait. After a few moments that seemed like years she crept
+down the stairs and out into the dusk of the June-warm September
+night. Like a shadow she slipped up to the open parlour window and
+looked cautiously in between the white muslin curtains. The next
+minute she had fallen on her knees in the mint bed. She wished she
+could die then and there.</p>
+
+<p>The young man in the parlour was not Randall Burnley. He was dark and
+smart and handsome; he was sitting on the sofa by Avery's side,
+holding her hands in his, smiling into her rosy, delighted, excited
+face. And he was Bruce Gordon&mdash;no doubt of that. Bruce Gordon, the
+expected cousin from Scotland!</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, what have I done? What have I done?" moaned poor Janet, wringing
+her hands. She had seen Avery's face quite plainly&mdash;had seen the look
+in her eyes. Avery had never looked at Randall Burnley like that.
+Granny Thomas' abominable ointment had worked all right&mdash;and Avery had
+fallen in love with the wrong man.</p>
+
+<p>Janet, cold with horror and remorse, dragged herself up to the window
+again and listened. She must know&mdash;she must be sure. She could hear
+only a word here and there, but that word was enough.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you promised to wait for me, Avery," Bruce said
+reproachfully.</p>
+
+<p>"You were so long in coming back&mdash;I thought you had forgotten me,"
+cried Avery.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I did forget a little, Avery. I was such a boy. But
+now&mdash;well, thank Heaven, I haven't come too late."</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence, and shameless Janet, peering above the window
+sill, saw what she saw. It was enough. She crept away upstairs to her
+room. She was lying there across the bed when Avery swept in&mdash;a
+splendid, transfigured Avery, flushed triumphant. Janet sat up,
+pallid, tear-stained, and looked at her.</p>
+
+<p>"Janet," said Avery, "I am going to marry Bruce Gordon next Wednesday
+night instead of Randall Burnley."</p>
+
+<p>Janet sprang forward and caught Avery's hand.</p>
+
+<p>"You must not," she cried wildly. "It's all my fault&mdash;oh, if I could
+only die&mdash;I got the love ointment from Granny Thomas to rub on your
+eyes to make you love the first man you would see. I meant it to be
+Randall&mdash;I thought it was Randall&mdash;oh, Avery!"</p>
+
+<p>Avery had been listening, between amazement and anger. Now anger
+mastered amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"Janet Sparhallow," she cried, "are you crazy? Or do you mean that you
+went to Granny Thomas&mdash;you, a Sparhallow!&mdash;and asked her for a love
+philtre to make me love Randall Burnley?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't tell her it was for you&mdash;she thought I wanted it for
+myself," moaned Janet. "Oh, we must undo it&mdash;I'll go to her again&mdash;no
+doubt she knows of some way to undo the spell&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Avery, whose rages never lasted long, threw back her dark head and
+laughed ringingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Janet Sparhallow, you talk as if you lived in the dark ages! The idea
+of supposing that horrid old woman could give you love philtres! Why,
+girl, I've always loved Bruce&mdash;always. But I thought he'd forgotten
+me. And tonight when he came I found he hadn't. There's the whole
+thing in a nutshell. I'm going to marry him and go home with him to
+Scotland."</p>
+
+<p>"And what about Randall?" said Janet, corpse-white.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Randall&mdash;pooh! Do you suppose I'm worrying about Randall? But
+you must go to him tomorrow and tell him for me, Janet."</p>
+
+<p>"I will not&mdash;I will not."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'll tell him myself&mdash;and I'll tell him about you going to
+Granny," said Avery cruelly. "Janet, don't stand there looking like
+that. I've no patience with you. I shall be perfectly happy with
+Bruce&mdash;I would have been miserable with Randall. I know I shan't sleep
+a wink tonight&mdash;I'm so excited. Why, Janet, I'll be Mrs. Gordon of
+Gordon Brae&mdash;and I'll have everything heart can desire and the man of
+my heart to boot. What has lanky Randall Burnley with his little
+six-roomed house to set against that?"</p>
+
+<p>If Avery did not sleep, neither did Janet. She lay awake till dawn,
+suffering such misery as she had never endured in her life before. She
+knew she must go to Randall Burnley tomorrow and break his heart. If
+she did not, Avery would tell him&mdash;tell him what Janet had done. And
+he must not know that&mdash;he must not. Janet could not bear that thought.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>It was a pallid, dull-eyed Janet who went through the birch wood to
+the Burnley farm next afternoon, leaving behind her an excited
+household where the sudden change of bridegrooms, as announced by
+Avery, had rather upset everybody. Janet found Randall working in the
+garden of his new house&mdash;setting out rosebushes for Avery&mdash;Avery, who
+was to jilt him at the very altar, so to speak. He came over to open
+the gate for Janet, smiling his dear smile. It was a dear smile&mdash;Janet
+caught her breath over the dearness of it&mdash;and she was going to blot
+it off his face.</p>
+
+<p>She spoke out, with plainness and directness. When you had to deal a
+mortal blow, why try to lighten it?</p>
+
+<p>"Avery sent me to tell you that she is going to marry Bruce Gordon
+instead of you. He came last night&mdash;and she says that she has always
+liked him best."</p>
+
+<p>A very curious change came over Randall's face&mdash;but not the change
+Janet had expected to see. Instead of turning pale Randall flushed;
+and instead of a sharp cry of pain and incredulity, Randall said in no
+uncertain tones, "Thank God!"</p>
+
+<p>Janet wondered if she were dreaming. Granny Thomas' love potion seemed
+to have turned the world upside down. For Randall's arms were about
+her and Randall was pressing his lean bronzed cheek to hers and
+Randall was saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Now I can tell you, Janet, how much I love you."</p>
+
+<p>"Me? Me!" choked Janet.</p>
+
+<p>"You. Why, you're in the very core of my heart, girl. Don't tell me
+you can't love me&mdash;you can&mdash;you must&mdash;why, Janet," for his eyes had
+caught and locked with hers for a minute, "you do!"</p>
+
+<p>There were five minutes about which nobody can tell anything, for even
+Randall and Janet never knew clearly just what happened in those five
+minutes. Then Janet, feeling somehow as if she had died and then come
+back to life, found her tongue.</p>
+
+<p>"Three years ago you came courting Avery," she said reproachfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Three years ago you were a child. I did not think about you. I wanted
+a wife&mdash;and Avery was pretty. I thought I was in love with her. Then
+you grew up all at once&mdash;and we were such good friends&mdash;I never could
+talk to Avery&mdash;she wasn't interested in anything I said&mdash;and you have
+eyes that catch a man&mdash;I've always thought of your eyes. But I was
+honour-bound to Avery&mdash;I didn't dream you cared. You must marry me
+next Wednesday, Janet&mdash;we'll have a double wedding. You won't
+mind&mdash;being married&mdash;so soon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no&mdash;I won't&mdash;mind," said Janet dazedly. "Only&mdash;oh, Randall&mdash;I
+must tell you&mdash;I didn't mean to tell you&mdash;I'd have rather died&mdash;but
+now&mdash;I must tell you about it now&mdash;because I can't bear anything
+hidden between us. I went to old Granny Thomas&mdash;and got a love
+ointment from her&mdash;to make Avery love you, because I knew she
+didn't&mdash;and I wanted you to be happy&mdash;Randall, don't&mdash;I can't talk
+when you do that! Do you think Granny's ointment could have made her
+care for Bruce?"</p>
+
+<p>Randall laughed&mdash;the little, low laugh of the triumphant lover.</p>
+
+<p>"If it did, I'm glad of it. But I need no such ointment on my eyes to
+make me love you&mdash;you carry your philtre in that elfin little face of
+yours, Janet."</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories,
+1909 to 1922, by Lucy Maud Montgomery
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to
+1922, by Lucy Maud Montgomery
+
+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: Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922
+
+Author: Lucy Maud Montgomery
+
+Release Date: March 19, 2008 [EBook #24878]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MONTGOMERY SHORT STORIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Alicia Williams, Jeannie Howse and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922
+
+
+Lucy Maud Montgomery was born at Clifton (now New London), Prince
+Edward Island, Canada, on November 30, 1874. She achieved
+international fame in her lifetime, putting Prince Edward Island and
+Canada on the world literary map. Best known for her "Anne of Green
+Gables" books, she was also a prolific writer of short stories and
+poetry. She published some 500 short stories and poems and twenty
+novels before her death in 1942. The Project Gutenberg collection of
+her short stories was gathered from numerous sources and is presented
+in chronological publishing order:
+
+Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901
+Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903
+Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904
+Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906
+Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908
+Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Short Stories 1909 to 1922
+
+    A Golden Wedding                                         1909
+    A Redeeming Sacrifice                                    1909
+    A Soul that Was Not At Home                              1909
+    Abel And His Great Adventure                             1917
+    Akin to Love                                             1909
+    Aunt Philippa and the Men                                1915
+    Bessie's Doll                                            1914
+    Charlotte's Ladies                                       1911
+    Christmas at Red Butte                                   1909
+    How We Went to the Wedding                               1913
+    Jessamine                                                1909
+    Miss Sally's Letter                                      1910
+    My Lady Jane                                             1915
+    Robert Turner's Revenge                                  1909
+    The Fillmore Elderberries                                1909
+    The Finished Story                                       1912
+    The Garden of Spices                                     1918
+    The Girl and the Photograph                              1915
+    The Gossip of Valley View                                1910
+    The Letters                                              1910
+    The Life-Book of Uncle Jesse                             1909
+    The Little Black Doll                                    1909
+    The Man on the Train                                     1914
+    The Romance of Jedediah                                  1912
+    The Tryst of the White Lady                              1922
+    Uncle Richard's New Year Dinner                          1910
+    White Magic                                              1921
+
+
+
+
+A Golden Wedding
+
+
+The land dropped abruptly down from the gate, and a thick, shrubby
+growth of young apple orchard almost hid the little weather-grey house
+from the road. This was why the young man who opened the sagging gate
+could not see that it was boarded up, and did not cease his cheerful
+whistling until he had pressed through the crowding trees and found
+himself almost on the sunken stone doorstep over which in olden days
+honeysuckle had been wont to arch. Now only a few straggling,
+uncared-for vines clung forlornly to the shingles, and the windows
+were, as has been said, all boarded up.
+
+The whistle died on the young man's lips and an expression of blank
+astonishment and dismay settled down on his face--a good, kindly,
+honest face it was, although perhaps it did not betoken any pronounced
+mental gifts on the part of its owner.
+
+"What can have happened?" he said to himself. "Uncle Tom and Aunt
+Sally can't be dead--I'd have seen their deaths in the paper if they
+was. And I'd a-thought if they'd moved away it'd been printed too.
+They can't have been gone long--that flower-bed must have been made up
+last spring. Well, this is a kind of setback for a fellow. Here I've
+been tramping all the way from the station, a-thinking how good it
+would be to see Aunt Sally's sweet old face again, and hear Uncle
+Tom's laugh, and all I find is a boarded-up house going to seed.
+S'pose I might as well toddle over to Stetsons' and inquire if they
+haven't disappeared, too."
+
+He went through the old firs back of the lot and across the field to a
+rather shabby house beyond. A cheery-faced woman answered his knock
+and looked at him in a puzzled fashion. "Have you forgot me, Mrs.
+Stetson? Don't you remember Lovell Stevens and how you used to give
+him plum tarts when he'd bring your turkeys home?"
+
+Mrs. Stetson caught both his hands in a hearty clasp.
+
+"I guess I haven't forgotten!" she declared. "Well, well, and you're
+Lovell! I think I ought to know your face, though you've changed a
+lot. Fifteen years have made a big difference in you. Come right in.
+Pa, this is Lovell--you mind Lovell, the boy Aunt Sally and Uncle Tom
+had for years?"
+
+"Reckon I do," drawled Jonah Stetson with a friendly grin. "Ain't
+likely to forget some of the capers you used to be cutting up. You've
+filled out considerable. Where have you been for the last ten years?
+Aunt Sally fretted a lot over you, thinking you was dead or gone to
+the bad."
+
+Lovell's face clouded.
+
+"I know I ought to have written," he said repentantly, "but you know
+I'm a terrible poor scholar, and I'd do most anything than try to
+write a letter. But where's Uncle Tom and Aunt Sally gone? Surely they
+ain't dead?"
+
+"No," said Jonah Stetson slowly, "no--but I guess they'd rather be.
+They're in the poorhouse."
+
+"The poorhouse! Aunt Sally in the poorhouse!" exclaimed Lovell.
+
+"Yes, and it's a burning shame," declared Mrs. Stetson. "Aunt Sally's
+just breaking her heart from the disgrace of it. But it didn't seem as
+if it could be helped. Uncle Tom got so crippled with rheumatism he
+couldn't work and Aunt Sally was too frail to do anything. They hadn't
+any relations and there was a mortgage on the house."
+
+"There wasn't any when I went away."
+
+"No; they had to borrow money six years ago when Uncle Tom had his
+first spell of rheumatic fever. This spring it was clear that there
+was nothing for them but the poorhouse. They went three months ago and
+terrible hard they took it, especially Aunt Sally, I felt awful about
+it myself. Jonah and I would have took them if we could, but we just
+couldn't--we've nothing but Jonah's wages and we have eight children
+and not a bit of spare room. I go over to see Aunt Sally as often as I
+can and take her some little thing, but I dunno's she wouldn't rather
+not see anybody than see them in the poorhouse."
+
+Lovell weighed his hat in his hands and frowned over it reflectively.
+
+"Who owns the house now?"
+
+"Peter Townley. He held the mortgage. And all the old furniture was
+sold too, and that most killed Aunt Sally. But do you know what she's
+fretting over most of all? She and Uncle Tom will have been married
+fifty years in a fortnight's time and Aunt Sally thinks it's awful to
+have to spend their golden wedding anniversary in the poorhouse. She
+talks about it all the time. You're not going, Lovell"--for Lovell had
+risen--"you must stop with us, since your old home is closed up. We'll
+scare you up a shakedown to sleep on and you're welcome as welcome. I
+haven't forgot the time you caught Mary Ellen just as she was tumbling
+into the well."
+
+"Thank you, I'll stay to tea," said Lovell, sitting down again, "but I
+guess I'll make my headquarters up at the station hotel as long as I
+stay round here. It's kind of more central."
+
+"Got on pretty well out west, hey?" queried Jonah.
+
+"Pretty well for a fellow who had nothing but his two hands to depend
+on when he went out," said Lovell cautiously. "I've only been a
+labouring man, of course, but I've saved up enough to start a little
+store when I go back. That's why I came east for a trip now--before
+I'd be tied down to business. I was hankering to see Aunt Sally and
+Uncle Tom once more. I'll never forget how kind and good they was to
+me. There I was, when Dad died, a little sinner of eleven, just
+heading for destruction. They give me a home and all the schooling I
+ever had and all the love I ever got. It was Aunt Sally's teachings
+made as much a man of me as I am. I never forgot 'em and I've tried to
+live up to 'em."
+
+After tea Lovell said he thought he'd stroll up the road and pay Peter
+Townley a call. Jonah Stetson and his wife looked at each other when
+he had gone.
+
+"Got something in his eye," nodded Jonah. "Him and Peter weren't never
+much of friends."
+
+"Maybe Aunt Sally's bread is coming back to her after all," said his
+wife. "People used to be hard on Lovell. But I always liked him and
+I'm real glad he's turned out so well."
+
+Lovell came back to the Stetsons' the next evening. In the interval he
+had seen Aunt Sally and Uncle Tom. The meeting had been both glad and
+sad. Lovell had also seen other people.
+
+"I've bought Uncle Tom's old house from Peter Townley," he said
+quietly, "and I want you folks to help me out with my plans. Uncle Tom
+and Aunt Sally ain't going to spend their golden wedding in the
+poorhouse--no, sir. They'll spend it in their own home with their old
+friends about them. But they're not to know anything about it till the
+very night. Do you s'pose any of the old furniture could be got back?"
+
+"I believe every stick of it could," said Mrs. Stetson excitedly.
+"Most of it was bought by folks living handy and I don't believe one
+of them would refuse to sell it back. Uncle Tom's old chair is here to
+begin with--Aunt Sally give me that herself. She said she couldn't
+bear to have it sold. Mrs. Isaac Appleby at the station bought the set
+of pink-sprigged china and James Parker bought the grandfather's clock
+and the whatnot is at the Stanton Grays'."
+
+For the next fortnight Lovell and Mrs. Stetson did so much travelling
+round together that Jonah said genially he might as well be a bachelor
+as far as meals and buttons went. They visited every house where a bit
+of Aunt Sally's belongings could be found. Very successful they were
+too, and at the end of their jaunting the interior of the little house
+behind the apple trees looked very much as it had looked when Aunt
+Sally and Uncle Tom lived there.
+
+Meanwhile, Mrs. Stetson had been revolving a design in her mind, and
+one afternoon she did some canvassing on her own account. The next
+time she saw Lovell she said:
+
+"We ain't going to let you do it all. The women folks around here are
+going to furnish the refreshments for the golden wedding and the girls
+are going to decorate the house with golden rod."
+
+The evening of the wedding anniversary came. Everybody in Blair was in
+the plot, including the matron of the poorhouse. That night Aunt Sally
+watched the sunset over the hills through bitter tears.
+
+"I never thought I'd be celebrating my golden wedding in the
+poorhouse," she sobbed. Uncle Tom put his twisted hand on her shaking
+old shoulder, but before he could utter any words of comfort Lovell
+Stevens stood before them.
+
+"Just get your bonnet on, Aunt Sally," he cried jovially, "and both of
+you come along with me. I've got a buggy here for you ... and you
+might as well say goodbye to this place, for you're not coming back to
+it any more."
+
+"Lovell, oh, what do you mean?" said Aunt Sally tremulously.
+
+"I'll explain what I mean as we drive along. Hurry up--the folks are
+waiting."
+
+When they reached the little old house, it was all aglow with light.
+Aunt Sally gave a cry as she entered it. All her old household goods
+were back in their places. There were some new ones too, for Lovell
+had supplied all that was lacking. The house was full of their old
+friends and neighbours. Mrs. Stetson welcomed them home again.
+
+"Oh, Tom," whispered Aunt Sally, tears of happiness streaming down her
+old face, "oh, Tom, isn't God good?"
+
+They had a right royal celebration, and a supper such as the Blair
+housewives could produce. There were speeches and songs and tales.
+Lovell kept himself in the background and helped Mrs. Stetson cut cake
+in the pantry all the evening. But when the guests had gone, he went
+to Aunt Sally and Uncle Tom, who were sitting by the fire.
+
+"Here's a little golden wedding present for you," he said awkwardly,
+putting a purse into Aunt Sally's hand. "I reckon there's enough there
+to keep you from ever having to go to the poorhouse again and if not,
+there'll be more where that comes from when it's done."
+
+There were twenty-five bright twenty-dollar gold pieces in the purse.
+
+"We can't take it, Lovell," protested Aunt Sally. "You can't afford
+it."
+
+"Don't you worry about that," laughed Lovell. "Out west men don't
+think much of a little wad like that. I owe you far more than can be
+paid in cash, Aunt Sally. You must take it--I want to know there's a
+little home here for me and two kind hearts in it, no matter where I
+roam."
+
+"God bless you, Lovell," said Uncle Tom huskily. "You don't know what
+you've done for Sally and me."
+
+That night, when Lovell went to the little bedroom off the
+parlour--for Aunt Sally, rejoicing in the fact that she was again
+mistress of a spare room, would not hear of his going to the station
+hotel--he gazed at his reflection in the gilt-framed mirror soberly.
+
+"You've just got enough left to pay your passage back west, old
+fellow," he said, "and then it's begin all over again just where you
+begun before. But Aunt Sally's face was worth it all--yes, sir. And
+you've got your two hands still and an old couple's prayers and
+blessings. Not such a bad capital, Lovell, not such a bad capital."
+
+
+
+
+A Redeeming Sacrifice
+
+
+The dance at Byron Lyall's was in full swing. Toff Leclerc, the best
+fiddler in three counties, was enthroned on the kitchen table and from
+the glossy brown violin, which his grandfather brought from Grand Pre,
+was conjuring music which made even stiff old Aunt Phemy want to show
+her steps. Around the kitchen sat a row of young men and women, and
+the open sitting-room doorway was crowded with the faces of
+non-dancing guests who wanted to watch the sets.
+
+An eight-hand reel had just been danced and the girls, giddy from the
+much swinging of the final figure, had been led back to their seats.
+Mattie Lyall came out with a dipper of water and sprinkled the floor,
+from which a fine dust was rising. Toff's violin purred under his
+hands as he waited for the next set to form. The dancers were slow
+about it. There was not the rush for the floor that there had been
+earlier in the evening, for the supper table was now spread in the
+dining-room and most of the guests were hungry.
+
+"Fill up dere, boys," shouted the fiddler impatiently. "Bring out your
+gals for de nex' set."
+
+After a moment Paul King led out Joan Shelley from the shadowy corner
+where they had been sitting. They had already danced several sets
+together; Joan had not danced with anybody else that evening. As they
+stood together under the light from the lamp on the shelf above them,
+many curious and disapproving eyes watched them. Connor Mitchell, who
+had been standing in the open outer doorway with the moonlight behind
+him, turned abruptly on his heel and went out.
+
+Paul King leaned his head against the wall and watched the watchers
+with a smiling, defiant face as they waited for the set to form. He
+was a handsome fellow, with the easy, winning ways that women love.
+His hair curled in bronze masses about his head; his dark eyes were
+long and drowsy and laughing; there was a swarthy bloom on his round
+cheeks; and his lips were as red and beguiling as a girl's. A bad egg
+was Paul King, with a bad past and a bad future. He was shiftless and
+drunken; ugly tales were told of him. Not a man in Lyall's house that
+night but grudged him the privilege of standing up with Joan Shelley.
+
+Joan was a slight, blossom-like girl in white, looking much like the
+pale, sweet-scented house rose she wore in her dark hair. Her face was
+colourless and young, very pure and softly curved. She had wonderfully
+sweet, dark blue eyes, generally dropped down, with notably long black
+lashes. There were many showier girls in the groups around her, but
+none half so lovely. She made all the rosy-cheeked beauties seem
+coarse and over-blown.
+
+She left in Paul's clasp the hand by which he had led her out on the
+floor. Now and then he shifted his gaze from the faces before him to
+hers. When he did, she always looked up and they exchanged glances as
+if they had been utterly alone. Three other couples gradually took the
+floor and the reel began. Joan drifted through the figures with the
+grace of a wind-blown leaf. Paul danced with rollicking abandon,
+seldom taking his eyes from Joan's face. When the last mad whirl was
+over, Joan's brother came up and told her in an angry tone to go into
+the next room and dance no more, since she would dance with only one
+man. Joan looked at Paul. That look meant that she would do as he, and
+none other, told her. Paul nodded easily--he did not want any fuss
+just then--and the girl went obediently into the room. As she turned
+from him, Paul coolly reached out his hand and took the rose from her
+hair; then, with a triumphant glance around the room, he went out.
+
+The autumn night was very clear and chill, with a faint, moaning wind
+blowing up from the northwest over the sea that lay shimmering before
+the door. Out beyond the cove the boats were nodding and curtsying on
+the swell, and over the shore fields the great red star of the
+lighthouse flared out against the silvery sky. Paul, with a whistle,
+sauntered down the sandy lane, thinking of Joan. How mightily he loved
+her--he, Paul King, who had made a mock of so many women and had never
+loved before! Ah, and she loved him. She had never said so in words,
+but eyes and tones had said it--she, Joan Shelley, the pick and pride
+of the Harbour girls, whom so many men had wooed, winning their
+trouble for their pains. He had won her; she was his and his only, for
+the asking. His heart was seething with pride and triumph and passion
+as he strode down to the shore and flung himself on the cold sand in
+the black shadow of Michael Brown's beached boat.
+
+Byron Lyall, a grizzled, elderly man, half farmer, half fisherman, and
+Maxwell Holmes, the Prospect schoolteacher, came up to the boat
+presently. Paul lay softly and listened to what they were saying. He
+was not troubled by any sense of dishonour. Honour was something Paul
+King could not lose since it was something he had never possessed.
+They were talking of him and Joan.
+
+"What a shame that a girl like Joan Shelley should throw herself away
+on a man like that," Holmes said.
+
+Byron Lyall removed the pipe he was smoking and spat reflectively at
+his shadow.
+
+"Darned shame," he agreed. "That girl's life will be ruined if she
+marries him, plum' ruined, and marry him she will. He's bewitched
+her--darned if I can understand it. A dozen better men have wanted
+her--Connor Mitchell for one. And he's a honest, steady fellow with a
+good home to offer her. If King had left her alone, she'd have taken
+Connor. She used to like him well enough. But that's all over. She's
+infatuated with King, the worthless scamp. She'll marry him and be
+sorry for it to her last day. He's bad clear through and always will
+be. Why, look you, Teacher, most men pull up a bit when they're
+courting a girl, no matter how wild they've been and will be again.
+Paul hasn't. It hasn't made any difference. He was dead drunk night
+afore last at the Harbour head, and he hasn't done a stroke of work
+for a month. And yet Joan Shelley'll take him."
+
+"What are her people thinking of to let her go with him?" asked
+Holmes.
+
+"She hasn't any but her brother. He's against Paul, of course, but it
+won't matter. The girl's fancy's caught and she'll go her own gait to
+ruin. Ruin, I tell ye. If she marries that handsome ne'er-do-well,
+she'll be a wretched woman all her days and none to pity her."
+
+The two moved away then, and Paul lay motionless, face downward on the
+sand, his lips pressed against Joan's sweet, crushed rose. He felt no
+anger over Byron Lyall's unsparing condemnation. He knew it was true,
+every word of it. He _was_ a worthless scamp and always would be. He
+knew that perfectly well. It was in his blood. None of his race had
+ever been respectable and he was worse than them all. He had no
+intention of trying to reform because he could not and because he did
+not even want to. He was not fit to touch Joan's hand. Yet he had
+meant to marry her!
+
+But to spoil her life! Would it do that? Yes, it surely would. And if
+he were out of the way, taking his baleful charm out of her life,
+Connor Mitchell might and doubtless would win her yet and give her all
+he could not.
+
+The man suddenly felt his eyes wet with tears. He had never shed a
+tear in his daredevil life before, but they came hot and stinging now.
+Something he had never known or thought of before entered into his
+passion and purified it. He loved Joan. Did he love her well enough to
+stand aside and let another take the sweetness and grace that was now
+his own? Did he love her well enough to save her from the
+poverty-stricken, shamed life she must lead with him? Did he love her
+better than himself?
+
+"I ain't fit to think of her," he groaned. "I never did a decent thing
+in my life, as they say. But how can I give her up--God, how can I?"
+
+He lay still a long time after that, until the moonlight crept around
+the boat and drove away the shadow. Then he got up and went slowly
+down to the water's edge with Joan's rose, all wet with his
+unaccustomed tears, in his hands. Slowly and reverently he plucked off
+the petals and scattered them on the ripples, where they drifted
+lightly off like fairy shallops on moonshine. When the last one had
+fluttered from his fingers, he went back to the house and hunted up
+Captain Alec Matheson, who was smoking his pipe in a corner of the
+verandah and watching the young folks dancing through the open door.
+The two men talked together for some time.
+
+When the dance broke up and the guests straggled homeward, Paul sought
+Joan. Rob Shelley had his own girl to see home and relinquished the
+guardianship of his sister with a scowl. Paul strode out of the
+kitchen and down the steps at the side of Joan, smiling with his usual
+daredeviltry. He whistled noisily all the way up the lane.
+
+"Great little dance," he said. "My last in Prospect for a spell, I
+guess."
+
+"Why?" asked Joan wonderingly.
+
+"Oh, I'm going to take a run down to South America in Matheson's
+schooner. Lord knows when I'll come back. This old place has got too
+deadly dull to suit me. I'm going to look for something livelier."
+
+Joan's lips turned ashen under the fringes of her white fascinator.
+She trembled violently and put one of her small brown hands up to her
+throat. "You--you are not coming back?" she said faintly.
+
+"Not likely. I'm pretty well tired of Prospect and I haven't got
+anything to hold me here. Things'll be livelier down south."
+
+Joan said nothing more. They walked along the spruce-fringed roads
+where the moonbeams laughed down through the thick, softly swaying
+boughs. Paul whistled one rollicking tune after another. The girl bit
+her lips and clenched her hands. He cared nothing for her--he had been
+making a mock of her as of others. Hurt pride and wounded love fought
+each other in her soul. Pride conquered. She would not let him, or
+anyone, see that she cared. She would _not_ care!
+
+At her gate Paul held out his hand.
+
+"Well, good-bye, Joan. I'm sailing tomorrow so I won't see you
+again--not for years likely. You will be some sober old married woman
+when I come back to Prospect, if I ever do."
+
+"Good-bye," said Joan steadily. She gave him her cold hand and looked
+calmly into his face without quailing. She had loved him with all her
+heart, but now a fatal scorn of him was already mingling with her
+love. He was what they said he was, a scamp without principle or
+honour.
+
+Paul whistled himself out of the Shelley lane and over the hill. Then
+he flung himself down under the spruces, crushed his face into the
+spicy frosted ferns, and had his black hour alone.
+
+But when Captain Alec's schooner sailed out of the harbour the next
+day, Paul King was on board of her, the wildest and most hilarious of
+a wild and hilarious crew. Prospect people nodded their satisfaction.
+
+"Good riddance," they said. "Paul King is black to the core. He never
+did a decent thing in his life."
+
+
+
+
+A Soul That Was Not at Home
+
+
+There was a very fine sunset on the night Paul and Miss Trevor first
+met, and she had lingered on the headland beyond Noel's Cove to
+delight in it. The west was splendid in daffodil and rose; away to the
+north there was a mackerel sky of little fiery golden clouds; and
+across the water straight from Miss Trevor's feet ran a sparkling path
+of light to the sun, whose rim had just touched the throbbing edge of
+the purple sea. Off to the left were softly swelling violet hills and
+beyond the sandshore, where little waves were crisping and silvering,
+there was a harbour where scores of slender masts were nodding against
+the gracious horizon.
+
+Miss Trevor sighed with sheer happiness in all the wonderful,
+fleeting, elusive loveliness of sky and sea. Then she turned to look
+back at Noel's Cove, dim and shadowy in the gloom of the tall
+headlands, and she saw Paul.
+
+It did not occur to her that he could be a shore boy--she knew the
+shore type too well. She thought his coming mysterious, for she was
+sure he had not come along the sand, and the tide was too high for him
+to have come past the other headland. Yet there he was, sitting on a
+red sandstone boulder, with his bare, bronzed, shapely little legs
+crossed in front of him and his hands clasped around his knee. He was
+not looking at Miss Trevor but at the sunset--or, rather, it seemed as
+if he were looking through the sunset to still grander and more
+radiant splendours beyond, of which the things seen were only the pale
+reflections, not worthy of attention from those who had the gift of
+further sight.
+
+Miss Trevor looked him over carefully with eyes that had seen a good
+many people in many parts of the world for more years than she found
+it altogether pleasant to acknowledge, and she concluded that he was
+quite the handsomest lad she had ever seen. He had a lithe, supple
+body, with sloping shoulders and a brown, satin throat. His hair was
+thick and wavy, of a fine reddish chestnut; his brows were very
+straight and much darker than his hair; and his eyes were large and
+grey and meditative. The modelling of chin and jaw was perfect and his
+mouth was delicious, being full without pouting, the crimson lips just
+softly touching, and curving into finely finished little corners that
+narrowly escaped being dimpled.
+
+His attire was a blue cotton shirt and a pair of scanty corduroy
+knickerbockers, but he wore it with such an unconscious air of purple
+and fine linen that Miss Trevor was tricked into believing him much
+better dressed than he really was.
+
+Presently he smiled dreamily, and the smile completed her subjugation.
+It was not merely an affair of lip and eye, as are most smiles; it
+seemed an illumination of his whole body, as if some lamp had
+suddenly burst into flame inside of him, irradiating him from his
+chestnut crown to the tips of his unspoiled toes. Best of all, it was
+involuntary, born of no external effort or motive, but simply the
+outflashing of some wild, delicious thought that was as untrammelled
+and freakish as the wind of the sea.
+
+Miss Trevor made up her mind that she must find out all about him, and
+she stepped out from the shadows of the rocks into the vivid, eerie
+light that was glowing all along the shore. The boy turned his head
+and looked at her, first with surprise, then with inquiry, then with
+admiration. Miss Trevor, in a white dress with a lace scarf on her
+dark, stately head, was well worth admiring. She smiled at him and
+Paul smiled back. It was not quite up to his first smile, having more
+of the effect of being put on from the outside, but at least it
+conveyed the subtly flattering impression that it had been put on
+solely for her, and they were as good friends from that moment as if
+they had known each other for a hundred years. Miss Trevor had enough
+discrimination to realize this and know that she need not waste time
+in becoming acquainted.
+
+"I want to know your name and where you live and what you were looking
+at beyond the sunset," she said.
+
+"My name is Paul Hubert. I live over there. And I can't tell just what
+I saw in the sunset, but when I go home I'm going to write it all in
+my foolscap book."
+
+In her surprise over the second clause of his answer, Miss Trevor
+forgot, at first, to appreciate the last. "Over there," according to
+his gesture, was up at the head of Noel's Cove, where there was a
+little grey house perched on the rocks and looking like a large
+seashell cast up by the tide. The house had a stovepipe coming out of
+its roof in lieu of a chimney, and two of its window panes were
+replaced by shingles. Could this boy, who looked as young princes
+should--and seldom do--live there? Then he was a shore boy after all.
+
+"Who lives there with you?" she asked. "You see"--plaintively--"I must
+ask questions about you. I know we like each other, and that is all
+that really matters. But there are some tiresome items which it would
+be convenient to know. For example, have you a father--a mother? Are
+there any more of you? How long have you been yourself?"
+
+Paul did not reply immediately. He clasped his hands behind him and
+looked at her affectionately.
+
+"I like the way you talk," he said. "I never knew anybody did talk
+like that except folks in books and my rock people."
+
+"Your rock people?"
+
+"I'm eleven years old. I haven't any father or mother, they're dead. I
+live over there with Stephen Kane. Stephen is splendid. He plays the
+violin and takes me fishing in his boat. When I get bigger he's going
+shares with me. I love him, and I love my rock people too."
+
+"What do you mean by your rock people?" asked Miss Trevor, enjoying
+herself hugely. This was the only child she had ever met who talked as
+she wanted children to talk and who understood her remarks without
+having to have them translated.
+
+"Nora is one of them," said Paul, "the best one of them. I love her
+better than all the others because she came first. She lives around
+that point and she has black eyes and black hair and she knows all
+about the mermaids and water kelpies. You ought to hear the stories
+she can tell. Then there are the Twin Sailors. They don't live
+anywhere--they sail all the time, but they often come ashore to talk
+to me. They are a pair of jolly tars and they have seen everything in
+the world--and more than what's in the world, if you only knew it. Do
+you know what happened to the Youngest Twin Sailor once? He was
+sailing and he sailed right into a moonglade. A moonglade is the track
+the full moon makes on the water when it is rising from the sea, you
+know. Well, the Youngest Twin Sailor sailed along the moonglade till
+he came right up to the moon, and there was a little golden door in
+the moon and he opened it and sailed right through. He had some
+wonderful adventures inside the moon--I've got them all written down
+in my foolscap book. Then there is the Golden Lady of the Cave. One
+day I found a big cave down the shore and I went in and in and in--and
+after a while I found the Golden Lady. She has golden hair right down
+to her feet, and her dress is all glittering and glistening like gold
+that is alive. And she has a golden harp and she plays all day long on
+it--you might hear the music if you'd listen carefully, but prob'bly
+you'd think it was only the wind among the rocks. I've never told Nora
+about the Golden Lady, because I think it would hurt her feelings. It
+even hurts her feelings when I talk too long with the Twin Sailors.
+And I hate to hurt Nora's feelings, because I do love her best of all
+my rock people."
+
+"Paul! How much of this is true?" gasped Miss Trevor.
+
+"Why, none of it!" said Paul, opening his eyes widely and
+reproachfully. "I thought you would know that. If I'd s'posed you
+wouldn't I'd have warned you there wasn't any of it true. I thought
+you were one of the kind that would know."
+
+"I am. Oh, I am!" said Miss Trevor eagerly. "I really would have known
+if I had stopped to think. Well, it's getting late now. I must go
+back, although I don't want to. But I'm coming to see you again. Will
+you be here tomorrow afternoon?"
+
+Paul nodded.
+
+"Yes. I promised to meet the Youngest Twin Sailor down at the striped
+rocks tomorrow afternoon, but the day after will do just as well. That
+is the beauty of the rock people, you know. You can always depend on
+them to be there just when you want them. The Youngest Twin Sailor
+won't mind--he's very good-tempered. If it was the Oldest Twin I dare
+say he'd be cross. I have my suspicions about that Oldest Twin
+sometimes. I b'lieve he'd be a pirate if he dared. You don't know how
+fierce he can look at times. There's really something very mysterious
+about him."
+
+On her way back to the hotel Miss Trevor remembered the foolscap book.
+
+"I must get him to show it to me," she mused, smiling. "Why, the boy
+is a born genius--and to think he should be a shore boy! I can't
+understand it. And here I am loving him already. Well, a woman has to
+love something--and you don't have to know people for years before you
+can love them."
+
+Paul was waiting on the Noel's Cove rocks for Miss Trevor the next
+afternoon. He was not alone; a tall man, with a lined, strong-featured
+face and a grey beard, was with him. The man was clad in a rough suit
+and looked what he was, a 'longshore fisherman. But he had deep-set,
+kindly eyes, and Miss Trevor liked his face. He moved off to one side
+when she came and stood there for a little, apparently gazing out to
+sea, while Paul and Miss Trevor talked. Then he walked away up the
+cove and disappeared in his little grey house.
+
+"Stephen came down to see if you were a suitable person for me to talk
+to," said Paul gravely.
+
+"I hope he thinks I am," said Miss Trevor, amused.
+
+"Oh, he does! He wouldn't have gone away and left us alone if he
+didn't. Stephen is very particular who he lets me 'sociate with. Why,
+even the rock people now--I had to promise I'd never let the Twin
+Sailors swear before he'd allow me to be friends with them. Sometimes
+I know by the look of the Oldest Twin that he's just dying to swear,
+but I never let him, because I promised Stephen. I'd do anything for
+Stephen. He's awful good to me. Stephen's bringing me up, you know,
+and he's bound to do it well. We're just perfectly happy here, only I
+wish I'd more books to read. We go fishing, and when we come home at
+night I help Stephen clean the fish and then we sit outside the door
+and he plays the violin for me. We sit there for hours sometimes. We
+never talk much--Stephen isn't much of a hand for talking--but we just
+sit and think. There's not many men like Stephen, I can tell you."
+
+Miss Trevor did not get a glimpse of the foolscap book that day, nor
+for many days after. Paul blushed all over his beautiful face whenever
+she mentioned it.
+
+"Oh, I couldn't show you that," he said uncomfortably. "Why, I've
+never even showed it to Stephen--or Nora. Let me tell you something
+else instead, something that happened to me once long ago. You'll find
+it more interesting than the foolscap book, only you must remember it
+isn't true! You won't forget that, will you?"
+
+"I'll try to remember," Miss Trevor agreed.
+
+"Well, I was sitting here one evening just like I was last night, and
+the sun was setting. And an enchanted boat came sailing over the sea
+and I got into her. The boat was all pearly like the inside of the
+mussel shells, and her sail was like moonshine. Well, I sailed right
+across to the sunset. Think of that--I've been in the sunset! And what
+do you suppose it is? The sunset is a land all flowers, like a great
+garden, and the clouds are beds of flowers. We sailed into a great big
+harbour, a thousand times bigger than the harbour over there at your
+hotel, and I stepped out of the boat on a 'normous meadow all roses. I
+stayed there for ever so long. It seemed almost a year, but the
+Youngest Twin Sailor says I was only away a few hours or so. You see,
+in Sunset Land the time is ever so much longer than it is here. But I
+was glad to come back too. I'm always glad to come back to the cove
+and Stephen. Now, you know this never really happened."
+
+Miss Trevor would not give up the foolscap book so easily, but for a
+long time Paul refused to show it to her. She came to the cove every
+day, and every day Paul seemed more delightful to her. He was so
+quaint, so clever, so spontaneous. Yet there was nothing premature or
+unnatural about him. He was wholly boy, fond of fun and frolic, not
+too good for little spurts of quick temper now and again, though, as
+he was careful to explain to Miss Trevor, he never showed them to a
+lady.
+
+"I get real mad with the Twin Sailors sometimes, and even with
+Stephen, for all he's so good to me. But I couldn't be mad with you or
+Nora or the Golden Lady. It would never do."
+
+Every day he had some new story to tell of a wonderful adventure on
+rock or sea, always taking the precaution of assuring her beforehand
+that it wasn't true. The boy's fancy was like a prism, separating
+every ray that fell upon it into rainbows. He was passionately fond of
+the shore and water. The only world for him beyond Noel's Cove was the
+world of his imagination. He had no companions except Stephen and the
+"rock people."
+
+"And now you," he told Miss Trevor. "I love you too, but I know you'll
+be going away before long, so I don't let myself love you as
+much--quite--as Stephen and the rock people."
+
+"But you could, couldn't you?" pleaded Miss Trevor. "If you and I were
+to go on being together every day, you could love me just as well as
+you love them, couldn't you?"
+
+Paul considered in a charming way he had.
+
+"Of course I could love you better than the Twin Sailors and the
+Golden Lady," he announced finally. "And I think perhaps I could love
+you as much as I love Stephen. But not as much as Nora--oh, no, I
+wouldn't love you quite as much as Nora. She was first, you see; she's
+always been there. I feel sure I couldn't ever love anybody as much as
+Nora."
+
+One day when Stephen was out to the mackerel grounds, Paul took Miss
+Trevor into the little grey house and showed her his treasures. They
+climbed the ladder in one corner to the loft where Paul slept. The
+window of it, small and square-paned, looked seaward, and the moan of
+the sea and the pipe of the wind sounded there night and day. Paul had
+many rare shells and seaweeds, curious flotsam and jetsam of shore
+storms, and he had a small shelf full of books.
+
+"They're splendid," he said enthusiastically. "Stephen brought me them
+all. Every time Stephen goes to town to ship his mackerel he brings me
+home a new book."
+
+"Were you ever in town yourself?" asked Miss Trevor.
+
+"Oh, yes, twice. Stephen took me. It was a wonderful place. I tell
+you, when I next met the Twin Sailors it was me did the talking then.
+I had to tell them about all I saw and all that had happened. And Nora
+was ever so interested too. The Golden Lady wasn't, though--she didn't
+hardly listen. Golden people are like that."
+
+"Would you like," said Miss Trevor, watching him closely, "to live
+always in a town and have all the books you wanted and play with real
+girls and boys--and visit those strange lands your twin sailors tell
+you of?"
+
+Paul looked startled.
+
+"I--don't--know," he said doubtfully. "I don't think I'd like it very
+well if Stephen and Nora weren't there too."
+
+But the new thought remained in his mind. It came back to him at
+intervals, seeming less new and startling every time.
+
+"And why not?" Miss Trevor asked herself. "The boy should have a
+chance. I shall never have a son of my own--he shall be to me in the
+place of one."
+
+The day came when Paul at last showed her the foolscap book. He
+brought it to her as she sat on the rocks of the headland.
+
+"I'm going to run around and talk to Nora while you read it," he said.
+"I'm afraid I've been neglecting her lately--and I think she feels
+it."
+
+Miss Trevor took the foolscap book. It was made of several sheets of
+paper sewed together and encased in an oilcloth cover. It was nearly
+filled with writing in a round childish hand and it was very neat,
+although the orthography was rather wild and the punctuation
+capricious. Miss Trevor read it through in no very long time. It was a
+curious medley of quaint thoughts and fancies. Conversations with the
+Twin Sailors filled many of the pages; accounts of Paul's "adventures"
+occupied others. Sometimes it seemed impossible that a child of eleven
+should have written them, then would come an expression so boyish and
+naive that Miss Trevor laughed delightedly over it. When she finished
+the book and closed it she found Stephen Kane at her elbow. He
+removed his pipe and nodded at the foolscap book.
+
+"What do you think of it?" he said.
+
+"I think it is wonderful. Paul is a very clever child."
+
+"I've often thought so," said Stephen laconically. He thrust his hands
+into his pockets and gazed moodily out to sea. Miss Trevor had never
+before had an opportunity to talk to him in Paul's absence and she
+determined to make the most of it.
+
+"I want to know something about Paul," she said, "all about him. Is he
+any relation to you?"
+
+"No. I expected to marry his mother once, though," said Stephen
+unemotionally. His hand in his pocket was clutching his pipe fiercely,
+but Miss Trevor could not know that. "She was a shore girl and very
+pretty. Well, she fell in love with a young fellow that came teaching
+up t' the harbour school and he with her. They got married and she
+went away with him. He was a good enough sort of chap. I know that
+now, though once I wasn't disposed to think much good of him. But
+'twas a mistake all the same; Rachel couldn't live away from the
+shore. She fretted and pined and broke her heart for it away there in
+his world. Finally her husband died and she came back--but it was too
+late for her. She only lived a month--and there was Paul, a baby of
+two. I took him. There was nobody else. Rachel had no relatives nor
+her husband either. I've done what I could for him--not that it's been
+much, perhaps."
+
+"I am sure you have done a great deal for him," said Miss Trevor
+rather patronizingly. "But I think he should have more than you can
+give him now. He should be sent to school."
+
+Stephen nodded.
+
+"Maybe. He never went to school. The harbour school was too far away.
+I taught him to read and write and bought him all the books I could
+afford. But I can't do any more for him."
+
+"But I can," said Miss Trevor, "and I want to. Will you give Paul to
+me, Mr. Kane? I love him dearly and he shall have every advantage. I'm
+rich--I can do a great deal for him."
+
+Stephen continued to gaze out to sea with an expressionless face.
+Finally he said: "I've been expecting to hear you say something of the
+sort. I don't know. If you took Paul away, he'd grow to be a cleverer
+man and a richer man maybe, but would he be any better--or happier?
+He's his mother's son--he loves the sea and its ways. There's nothing
+of his father in him except his hankering after books. But I won't
+choose for him--he can go if he likes--he can go if he likes."
+
+In the end Paul "liked," since Stephen refused to influence him by so
+much as a word. Paul thought Stephen didn't seem to care much whether
+he went or stayed, and he was dazzled by Miss Trevor's charm and the
+lure of books and knowledge she held out to him.
+
+"I'll go, I guess," he said, with a long sigh.
+
+Miss Trevor clasped him close to her and kissed him maternally. Paul
+kissed her cheek shyly in return. He thought it very wonderful that he
+was to live with her always. He felt happy and excited--so happy and
+excited that the parting when it came slipped over him lightly. Miss
+Trevor even thought he took it too easily and had a vague wish that he
+had shown more sorrow. Stephen said farewell to the boy he loved
+better than life with no visible emotion.
+
+"Good-bye, Paul. Be a good boy and learn all you can." He hesitated a
+moment and then said slowly, "If you don't like it, come back."
+
+"Did you bid good-bye to your rock people?" Miss Trevor asked him with
+a smile as they drove away.
+
+"No. I--couldn't--I--I--didn't even tell them I was going away. Nora
+would break her heart. I'd rather not talk of them anymore, if you
+please. Maybe I won't want them when I've plenty of books and lots of
+other boys and girls--real ones--to play with."
+
+They drove the ten miles to the town where they were to take the train
+the next day. Paul enjoyed the drive and the sights of the busy
+streets at its end. He was all excitement and animation. After they
+had had tea at the house of the friend where Miss Trevor meant to
+spend the night, they went for a walk in the park. Paul was tired and
+very quiet when they came back. He was put away to sleep in a bedroom
+whose splendours frightened him, and left alone.
+
+At first Paul lay very still on his luxurious perfumed pillows. It was
+the first night he had ever spent away from the little seaward-looking
+loft where he could touch the rafters with his hands. He thought of it
+now and a lump came into his throat and a strange, new, bitter longing
+came into his heart. He missed the sea plashing on the rocks below
+him--he could not sleep without that old lullaby. He turned his face
+into the pillow, and the longing and loneliness grew worse and hurt
+him until he moaned. Oh, he wanted to be back home! Surely he had not
+left it--he could never have meant to leave it. Out there the stars
+would be shining over the harbour. Stephen would be sitting at the
+door, all alone, with his violin. But he would not be playing it--all
+at once Paul knew he would not be playing it. He would be sitting
+there with his head bowed and the loneliness in his heart calling to
+the loneliness in Paul's heart over all the miles between them. Oh, he
+could never have really meant to leave Stephen.
+
+And Nora? Nora would be down on the rocks waiting for him--for him,
+Paul, who would never come to her more. He could see her elfin little
+face peering around the point, watching for him wistfully.
+
+Paul sat up in bed, choking with tears. Oh, what were books and
+strange countries?--what was even Miss Trevor, the friend of a
+month?--to the call of the sea and Stephen's kind, deep eyes and his
+dear rock people? He could not stay away from them--never--never.
+
+He slipped out of bed very softly and dressed in the dark. Then he
+lighted the lamp timidly and opened the little brown chest Stephen had
+given him. It held his books and his treasures, but he took out only a
+pencil, a bit of paper and the foolscap book. With a hand shaking in
+his eagerness, he wrote:
+
+    _dear miss Trever_
+
+    _Im going back home, dont be fritened about me because I know
+    the way. Ive got to go. something is calling me. dont be
+    cross. I love you, but I cant stay. Im leaving my foolscap
+    book for you, you can keep it always but I must go back to
+    Stephen and nora_
+
+                                                 _Paul_
+
+He put the note on the foolscap book and laid them on the table. Then
+he blew out the light, took his cap and went softly out. The house was
+very still. Holding his breath, he tiptoed downstairs and opened the
+front door. Before it ran the street which went, he knew, straight out
+to the country road that led home. Paul closed the door and stole down
+the steps, his heart beating painfully, but when he reached the
+sidewalk he broke into a frantic run under the limes. It was late and
+no one was out on that quiet street. He ran until his breath gave
+out, then walked miserably until he recovered it, and then ran again.
+He dared not stop running until he was out of that horrible town,
+which seemed like a prison closing around him, where the houses shut
+out the stars and the wind could only creep in a narrow space like a
+fettered, cringing thing, instead of sweeping grandly over great salt
+wastes of sea.
+
+At last the houses grew few and scattered, and finally he left them
+behind. He drew a long breath; this was better--rather smothering yet,
+of course, with nothing but hills and fields and dark woods all about
+him, but at least his own sky was above him, looking just the same as
+it looked out home at Noel's Cove. He recognized the stars as friends;
+how often Stephen had pointed them out to him as they sat at night by
+the door of the little house.
+
+He was not at all frightened now. He knew the way home and the kind
+night was before him. Every step was bringing him nearer to Stephen
+and Nora and the Twin Sailors. He whistled as he walked sturdily
+along.
+
+The dawn was just breaking when he reached Noel's Cove. The eastern
+sky was all pale rose and silver, and the sea was mottled over with
+dear grey ripples. In the west over the harbour the sky was a very
+fine ethereal blue and the wind blew from there, salt and bracing.
+Paul was tired, but he ran lightly down the shelving rocks to the
+cove. Stephen was getting ready to launch his boat. When he saw Paul
+he started and a strange, vivid, exultant expression flashed across
+his face.
+
+Paul felt a sudden chill--the upspringing fountain of his gladness was
+checked in mid-leap. He had known no doubt on the way home--all that
+long, weary walk he had known no doubt--but now?
+
+"Stephen," he cried. "I've come back! I had to! Stephen, are you
+glad--are you glad?"
+
+Stephen's face was as emotionless as ever. The burst of feeling which
+had frightened Paul by its unaccustomedness had passed like a fleeting
+outbreak of sunshine between dull clouds.
+
+"I reckon I am," he said. "Yes, I reckon I am. I kind of--hoped--you
+would come back. You'd better go in and get some breakfast."
+
+Paul's eyes were as radiant as the deepening dawn. He knew Stephen was
+glad and he knew there was nothing more to be said about it. They were
+back just where they were before Miss Trevor came--back in their
+perfect, unmarred, sufficient comradeship.
+
+"I must just run around and see Nora first," said Paul.
+
+
+
+
+Abel and His Great Adventure
+
+
+"Come out of doors, master--come out of doors. I can't talk or think
+right with walls around me--never could. Let's go out to the garden."
+These were almost the first words I ever heard Abel Armstrong say. He
+was a member of the board of school trustees in Stillwater, and I had
+not met him before this late May evening, when I had gone down to
+confer with him upon some small matter of business. For I was "the new
+schoolmaster" in Stillwater, having taken the school for the summer
+term.
+
+It was a rather lonely country district--a fact of which I was glad,
+for life had been going somewhat awry with me and my heart was sore
+and rebellious over many things that have nothing to do with this
+narration. Stillwater offered time and opportunity for healing and
+counsel. Yet, looking back, I doubt if I should have found either had
+it not been for Abel and his beloved garden.
+
+Abel Armstrong (he was always called "Old Abel", though he was barely
+sixty) lived in a quaint, gray house close by the harbour shore. I
+heard a good deal about him before I saw him. He was called "queer",
+but Stillwater folks seemed to be very fond of him. He and his sister,
+Tamzine, lived together; she, so my garrulous landlady informed me,
+had not been sound of mind at times for many years; but she was all
+right now, only odd and quiet. Abel had gone to college for a year
+when he was young, but had given it up when Tamzine "went crazy".
+There was no one else to look after her. Abel had settled down to it
+with apparent content: at least he had never complained.
+
+"Always took things easy, Abel did," said Mrs. Campbell. "Never
+seemed to worry over disappointments and trials as most folks do.
+Seems to me that as long as Abel Armstrong can stride up and down in
+that garden of his, reciting poetry and speeches, or talking to that
+yaller cat of his as if it was a human, he doesn't care much how the
+world wags on. He never had much git-up-and-git. His father was a
+hustler, but the family didn't take after him. They all favoured the
+mother's people--sorter shiftless and dreamy. 'Taint the way to git on
+in this world."
+
+No, good and worthy Mrs. Campbell. It was not the way to get on in
+your world; but there are other worlds where getting on is estimated
+by different standards, and Abel Armstrong lived in one of these--a
+world far beyond the ken of the thrifty Stillwater farmers and
+fishers. Something of this I had sensed, even before I saw him; and
+that night in his garden, under a sky of smoky red, blossoming into
+stars above the harbour, I found a friend whose personality and
+philosophy were to calm and harmonize and enrich my whole existence.
+This sketch is my grateful tribute to one of the rarest and finest
+souls God ever clothed with clay.
+
+He was a tall man, somewhat ungainly of figure and homely of face. But
+his large, deep eyes of velvety nut-brown were very beautiful and
+marvellously bright and clear for a man of his age. He wore a little
+pointed, well-cared-for beard, innocent of gray; but his hair was
+grizzled, and altogether he had the appearance of a man who had passed
+through many sorrows which had marked his body as well as his soul.
+Looking at him, I doubted Mrs. Campbell's conclusion that he had not
+"minded" giving up college. This man had given up much and felt it
+deeply; but he had outlived the pain and the blessing of sacrifice had
+come to him. His voice was very melodious and beautiful, and the brown
+hand he held out to me was peculiarly long and shapely and flexible.
+
+We went out to the garden in the scented moist air of a maritime
+spring evening. Behind the garden was a cloudy pine wood; the house
+closed it in on the left, while in front and on the right a row of
+tall Lombardy poplars stood out in stately purple silhouette against
+the sunset sky.
+
+"Always liked Lombardies," said Abel, waving a long arm at them. "They
+are the trees of princesses. When I was a boy they were fashionable.
+Anyone who had any pretensions to gentility had a row of Lombardies at
+the foot of his lawn or up his lane, or at any rate one on either side
+of his front door. They're out of fashion now. Folks complain they die
+at the top and get ragged-looking. So they do--so they do, if you
+don't risk your neck every spring climbing up a light ladder to trim
+them out as I do. My neck isn't worth much to anyone, which, I
+suppose, is why I've never broken it; and _my_ Lombardies never look
+out-at-elbows. My mother was especially fond of them. She liked their
+dignity and their stand-offishness. _They_ don't hobnob with every
+Tom, Dick and Harry. If it's pines for company, master, it's
+Lombardies for society."
+
+We stepped from the front doorstone into the garden. There was another
+entrance--a sagging gate flanked by two branching white lilacs. From
+it a little dappled path led to a huge apple-tree in the centre, a
+great swelling cone of rosy blossom with a mossy circular seat around
+its trunk. But Abel's favourite seat, so he told me, was lower down
+the slope, under a little trellis overhung with the delicate emerald
+of young hop-vines. He led me to it and pointed proudly to the fine
+view of the harbour visible from it. The early sunset glow of rose and
+flame had faded out of the sky; the water was silvery and mirror-like;
+dim sails drifted along by the darkening shore. A bell was ringing in
+a small Catholic chapel across the harbour. Mellowly and dreamily
+sweet the chime floated through the dusk, blent with the moan of the
+sea. The great revolving light at the channel trembled and flashed
+against the opal sky, and far out, beyond the golden sand-dunes of the
+bar, was the crinkled gray ribbon of a passing steamer's smoke.
+
+"There, isn't that view worth looking at?" said old Abel, with a
+loving, proprietary pride. "You don't have to pay anything for it,
+either. All that sea and sky free--'without money and without price'.
+Let's sit down here in the hop-vine arbour, master. There'll be a
+moonrise presently. I'm never tired of finding out what a moonrise
+sheen can be like over that sea. There's a surprise in it every time.
+Now, master, you're getting your mouth in the proper shape to talk
+business--but don't you do it. Nobody should talk business when he's
+expecting a moonrise. Not that I like talking business at any time."
+
+"Unfortunately it has to be talked of sometimes, Mr. Armstrong," I
+said.
+
+"Yes, it seems to be a necessary evil, master," he acknowledged. "But
+I know what business you've come upon, and we can settle it in five
+minutes after the moon's well up. I'll just agree to everything you
+and the other two trustees want. Lord knows why they ever put me on
+the school board. Maybe it's because I'm so ornamental. They wanted
+one good-looking man, I reckon."
+
+His low chuckle, so full of mirth and so free from malice, was
+infectious. I laughed also, as I sat down in the hop-vine arbour.
+
+"Now, you needn't talk if you don't want to," he said. "And I won't.
+We'll just sit here, sociable like, and if we think of anything worth
+while to say we'll say it. Otherwise, not. If you can sit in silence
+with a person for half an hour and feel comfortable, you and that
+person can be friends. If you can't, friends you'll never be, and you
+needn't waste time in trying."
+
+Abel and I passed successfully the test of silence that evening in the
+hop-vine arbour. I was strangely content to sit and think--something I
+had not cared to do lately. A peace, long unknown to my stormy soul,
+seemed hovering near it. The garden was steeped in it; old Abel's
+personality radiated it. I looked about me and wondered whence came
+the charm of that tangled, unworldly spot.
+
+"Nice and far from the market-place isn't it?" asked Abel suddenly,
+as if he had heard my unasked question. "No buying and selling and
+getting gain here. Nothing was ever sold out of _this_ garden. Tamzine
+has her vegetable plot over yonder, but what we don't eat we give
+away. Geordie Marr down the harbour has a big garden like this and he
+sells heaps of flowers and fruit and vegetables to the hotel folks. He
+thinks I'm an awful fool because I won't do the same. Well, he gets
+money out of his garden and I get happiness out of mine. That's the
+difference. S'posing I could make more money--what then? I'd only be
+taking it from people that needed it more. There's enough for Tamzine
+and me. As for Geordie Marr, there isn't a more unhappy creature on
+God's earth--he's always stewing in a broth of trouble, poor man. O'
+course, he brews up most of it for himself, but I reckon that doesn't
+make it any easier to bear. Ever sit in a hop-vine arbour before,
+master?"
+
+I was to grow used to Abel's abrupt change of subject. I answered that
+I never had.
+
+"Great place for dreaming," said Abel complacently. "Being young, no
+doubt, you dream a-plenty."
+
+I answered hotly and bitterly that I had done with dreams.
+
+"No, you haven't," said Abel meditatively. "You may _think_ you have.
+What then? First thing you know you'll be dreaming again--thank the
+Lord for it. I ain't going to ask you what's soured you on dreaming
+just now. After awhile you'll begin again, especially if you come to
+this garden as much as I hope you will. It's chockful of dreams--_any_
+kind of dreams. You take your choice. Now, _I_ favour dreams of
+adventures, if you'll believe it. I'm sixty-one and I never do anything
+rasher than go out cod-fishing on a fine day, but I still lust after
+adventures. Then I dream I'm an awful fellow--blood-thirsty."
+
+I burst out laughing. Perhaps laughter was somewhat rare in that old
+garden. Tamzine, who was weeding at the far end, lifted her head in a
+startled fashion and walked past us into the house. She did not look
+at us or speak to us. She was reputed to be abnormally shy. She was
+very stout and wore a dress of bright red-and-white striped material.
+Her face was round and blank, but her reddish hair was abundant and
+beautiful. A huge, orange-coloured cat was at her heels; as she passed
+us he bounded over to the arbour and sprang up on Abel's knee. He was
+a gorgeous brute, with vivid green eyes, and immense white double
+paws.
+
+"Captain Kidd, Mr. Woodley." He introduced us as seriously as if the
+cat had been a human being. Neither Captain Kidd nor I responded very
+enthusiastically.
+
+"You don't like cats, I reckon, master," said Abel, stroking the
+Captain's velvet back. "I don't blame you. I was never fond of them
+myself until I found the Captain. I saved his life and when you've
+saved a creature's life you're bound to love it. It's next thing to
+giving it life. There are some terrible thoughtless people in the
+world, master. Some of those city folks who have summer homes down the
+harbour are so thoughtless that they're cruel. It's the worst kind of
+cruelty, I think--the thoughtless kind. You can't cope with it. They
+keep cats there in the summer and feed them and pet them and doll them
+up with ribbons and collars; and then in the fall they go off and
+leave them to starve or freeze. It makes my blood boil, master."
+
+"One day last winter I found a poor old mother cat dead on the shore,
+lying against the skin and bone bodies of her three little kittens.
+She had died trying to shelter them. She had her poor stiff claws
+around them. Master, I cried. Then I swore. Then I carried those poor
+little kittens home and fed 'hem up and found good homes for them. I
+know the woman who left the cat. When she comes back this summer I'm
+going to go down and tell her my opinion of her. It'll be rank
+meddling, but, lord, how I love meddling in a good cause."
+
+"Was Captain Kidd one of the forsaken?" I asked.
+
+"Yes. I found him one bitter cold day in winter caught in the
+branches of a tree by his darn-fool ribbon collar. He was almost
+starving. Lord, if you could have seen his eyes! He was nothing but a
+kitten, and he'd got his living somehow since he'd been left till he
+got hung up. When I loosed him he gave my hand a pitiful swipe with
+his little red tongue. He wasn't the prosperous free-booter you behold
+now. He was meek as Moses. That was nine years ago. His life has been
+long in the land for a cat. He's a good old pal, the Captain is."
+
+"I should have expected you to have a dog," I said.
+
+Abel shook his head.
+
+"I had a dog once. I cared so much for him that when he died I
+couldn't bear the thought of ever getting another in his place. He was
+a _friend_--you understand? The Captain's only a pal. I'm fond of the
+Captain--all the fonder because of the spice of deviltry there is in
+all cats. But I _loved_ my dog. There isn't any devil in a good dog.
+That's why they're more lovable than cats--but I'm darned if they're
+as interesting."
+
+I laughed as I rose regretfully.
+
+"Must you go, master? And we haven't talked any business after all. I
+reckon it's that stove matter you've come about. It's like those two
+fool trustees to start up a stove sputter in spring. It's a wonder
+they didn't leave it till dog-days and begin then."
+
+"They merely wished me to ask you if you approved of putting in a new
+stove."
+
+"Tell them to put in a new stove--any kind of a new stove--and be
+hanged to them," rejoined Abel. "As for you, master, you're welcome to
+this garden any time. If you're tired or lonely, or too ambitious or
+angry, come here and sit awhile, master. Do you think any man could
+keep mad if he sat and looked into the heart of a pansy for ten
+minutes? When you feel like talking, I'll talk, and when you feel like
+thinking, I'll let you. I'm a great hand to leave folks alone."
+
+"I think I'll come often," I said, "perhaps too often."
+
+"Not likely, master--not likely--not after we've watched a moonrise
+contentedly together. It's as good a test of compatibility as any I
+know. You're young and I'm old, but our souls are about the same age,
+I reckon, and we'll find lots to say to each other. Are you going
+straight home from here?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then I'm going to bother you to stop for a moment at Mary Bascom's
+and give her a bouquet of my white lilacs. She loves 'em and I'm not
+going to wait till she's dead to send her flowers."
+
+"She's very ill just now, isn't she?"
+
+"She's got the Bascom consumption. That means she may die in a month,
+like her brother, or linger on for twenty years, like her father. But
+long or short, white lilac in spring is sweet, and I'm sending her a
+fresh bunch every day while it lasts. It's a rare night, master. I
+envy you your walk home in the moonlight along that shore."
+
+"Better come part of the way with me," I suggested.
+
+"No." Abel glanced at the house. "Tamzine never likes to be alone o'
+nights. So I take my moonlight walks in the garden. The moon's a great
+friend of mine, master. I've loved her ever since I can remember. When
+I was a little lad of eight I fell asleep in the garden one evening
+and wasn't missed. I woke up alone in the night and I was most scared
+to death, master. Lord, what shadows and queer noises there were! I
+darsn't move. I just sat there quaking, poor small mite. Then all at
+once I saw the moon looking down at me through the pine boughs, just
+like an old friend. I was comforted right off. Got up and walked to
+the house as brave as a lion, looking at her. Goodnight, master. Tell
+Mary the lilacs'll last another week yet."
+
+From that night Abel and I were cronies. We walked and talked and kept
+silence and fished cod together. Stillwater people thought it very
+strange that I should prefer his society to that of the young fellows
+of my own age. Mrs. Campbell was quite worried over it, and opined
+that there had always been something queer about me. "Birds of a
+feather."
+
+I loved that old garden by the harbour shore. Even Abel himself, I
+think, could hardly have felt a deeper affection for it. When its gate
+closed behind me it shut out the world and my corroding memories and
+discontents. In its peace my soul emptied itself of the bitterness
+which had been filling and spoiling it, and grew normal and healthy
+again, aided thereto by Abel's wise words. He never preached, but he
+radiated courage and endurance and a frank acceptance of the hard
+things of life, as well as a cordial welcome of its pleasant things.
+He was the sanest soul I ever met. He neither minimized ill nor
+exaggerated good, but he held that we should never be controlled by
+either. Pain should not depress us unduly, nor pleasure lure us into
+forgetfulness and sloth. All unknowingly he made me realize that I had
+been a bit of a coward and a shirker. I began to understand that my
+personal woes were not the most important things in the universe, even
+to myself. In short, Abel taught me to laugh again; and when a man can
+laugh wholesomely things are not going too badly with him.
+
+That old garden was always such a cheery place. Even when the east
+wind sang in minor and the waves on the gray shore were sad, hints of
+sunshine seemed to be lurking all about it. Perhaps this was because
+there were so many yellow flowers in it. Tamzine liked yellow flowers.
+Captain Kidd, too, always paraded it in panoply of gold. He was so
+large and effulgent that one hardly missed the sun. Considering his
+presence I wondered that the garden was always so full of singing
+birds. But the Captain never meddled with them. Probably he understood
+that his master would not have tolerated it for a moment. So there was
+always a song or a chirp somewhere. Overhead flew the gulls and the
+cranes. The wind in the pines always made a glad salutation. Abel and
+I paced the walks, in high converse on matters beyond the ken of cat
+or king.
+
+"I liked to ponder on all problems, though I can never solve them,"
+Abel used to say. "My father held that we should never talk of things
+we couldn't understand. But, lord, master, if we didn't the subjects
+for conversation would be mighty few. I reckon the gods laugh many a
+time to hear us, but what matter? So long as we remember that we're
+only men, and don't take to fancying ourselves gods, really knowing
+good and evil, I reckon our discussions won't do us or anyone much
+harm. So we'll have another whack at the origin of evil this evening,
+master."
+
+Tamzine forgot to be shy with me at last, and gave me a broad smile of
+welcome every time I came. But she rarely spoke to me. She spent all
+her spare time weeding the garden, which she loved as well as Abel
+did. She was addicted to bright colours and always wore wrappers of
+very gorgeous print. She worshipped Abel and his word was a law unto
+her.
+
+"I am very thankful Tamzine is so well," said Abel one evening as we
+watched the sunset. The day had begun sombrely in gray cloud and mist,
+but it ended in a pomp of scarlet and gold. "There was a time when she
+wasn't, master--you've heard? But for years now she has been quite
+able to look after herself. And so, if I fare forth on the last great
+adventure some of these days Tamzine will not be left helpless."
+
+"She is ten years older than you. It is likely she will go before
+you," I said.
+
+Abel shook his head and stroked his smart beard. I always suspected
+that beard of being Abel's last surviving vanity. It was always so
+carefully groomed, while I had no evidence that he ever combed his
+grizzled mop of hair.
+
+"No, Tamzine will outlive me. She's got the Armstrong heart. I have
+the Marwood heart--my mother was a Marwood. We don't live to be old,
+and we go quick and easy. I'm glad of it. I don't think I'm a coward,
+master, but the thought of a lingering death gives me a queer sick
+feeling of horror. There, I'm not going to say any more about it. I
+just mentioned it so that some day when you hear that old Abel
+Armstrong has been found dead, you won't feel sorry. You'll remember I
+wanted it that way. Not that I'm tired of life either. It's very
+pleasant, what with my garden and Captain Kidd and the harbour out
+there. But it's a trifle monotonous at times and death will be
+something of a change, master. I'm real curious about it."
+
+"I hate the thought of death," I said gloomily.
+
+"Oh, you're young. The young always do. Death grows friendlier as we
+grow older. Not that one of us really wants to die, though, master.
+Tennyson spoke truth when he said that. There's old Mrs. Warner at the
+Channel Head. She's had heaps of trouble all her life, poor soul, and
+she's lost almost everyone she cared about. She's always saying that
+she'll be glad when her time comes, and she doesn't want to live any
+longer in this vale of tears. But when she takes a sick spell, lord,
+what a fuss she makes, master! Doctors from town and a trained nurse
+and enough medicine to kill a dog! Life may be a vale of tears, all
+right, master, but there are some folks who enjoy weeping, I reckon."
+
+Summer passed through the garden with her procession of roses and
+lilies and hollyhocks and golden glow. The golden glow was
+particularly fine that year. There was a great bank of it at the lower
+end of the garden, like a huge billow of sunshine. Tamzine revelled in
+it, but Abel liked more subtly-tinted flowers. There was a certain
+dark wine-hued hollyhock which was a favourite with him. He would sit
+for hours looking steadfastly into one of its shallow satin cups. I
+found him so one afternoon in the hop-vine arbour.
+
+"This colour always has a soothing effect on me," he explained.
+"Yellow excites me too much--makes me restless--makes me want to sail
+'beyond the bourne of sunset'. I looked at that surge of golden glow
+down there today till I got all worked up and thought my life had been
+an awful failure. I found a dead butterfly and had a little
+funeral--buried it in the fern corner. And I thought I hadn't been
+any more use in the world than that poor little butterfly. Oh, I was
+woeful, master. Then I got me this hollyhock and sat down here to look
+at it alone. When a man's alone, master, he's most with God--or with
+the devil. The devil rampaged around me all the time I was looking at
+that golden glow; but God spoke to me through the hollyhock. And it
+seemed to me that a man who's as happy as I am and has got such a
+garden has made a real success of living."
+
+"I hope I'll be able to make as much of a success," I said sincerely.
+
+"I want you to make a different kind of success, though, master," said
+Abel, shaking his head. "I want you to _do_ things--the things I'd
+have tried to do if I'd had the chance. It's in you to do them--if you
+set your teeth and go ahead."
+
+"I believe I _can_ set my teeth and go ahead now, thanks to you, Mr.
+Armstrong," I said. "I was heading straight for failure when I came
+here last spring; but you've changed my course."
+
+"Given you a sort of compass to steer by, haven't I?" queried Abel
+with a smile. "I ain't too modest to take some credit for it. I saw I
+could do _you_ some good. But my garden has done more than I did, if
+you'll believe it. It's wonderful what a garden can do for a man when
+he lets it have its way. Come, sit down here and bask, master. The
+sunshine may be gone to-morrow. Let's just sit and think."
+
+We sat and thought for a long while. Presently Abel said abruptly:
+
+"You don't see the folks I see in this garden, master. You don't see
+anybody but me and old Tamzine and Captain Kidd. I see all who used to
+be here long ago. It was a lively place then. There were plenty of us
+and we were as gay a set of youngsters as you'd find anywhere. We
+tossed laughter backwards and forwards here like a ball. And now old
+Tamzine and older Abel are all that are left."
+
+He was silent a moment, looking at the phantoms of memory that paced
+invisibly to me the dappled walks and peeped merrily through the
+swinging boughs. Then he went on:
+
+"Of all the folks I see here there are two that are more vivid and
+real than all the rest, master. One is my sister Alice. She died
+thirty years ago. She was very beautiful. You'd hardly believe that to
+look at Tamzine and me, would you? But it is true. We always called
+her Queen Alice--she was so stately and handsome. She had brown eyes
+and red gold hair, just the colour of that nasturtium there. She was
+father's favourite. The night she was born they didn't think my mother
+would live. Father walked this garden all night. And just under that
+old apple-tree he knelt at sunrise and thanked God when they came to
+tell him that all was well.
+
+"Alice was always a creature of joy. This old garden rang with her
+laughter in those years. She seldom walked--she ran or danced. She
+only lived twenty years, but nineteen of them were so happy I've never
+pitied her over much. She had everything that makes life worth
+living--laughter and love, and at the last sorrow. James Milburn was
+her lover. It's thirty-one years since his ship sailed out of that
+harbour and Alice waved him good-bye from this garden. He never came
+back. His ship was never heard of again.
+
+"When Alice gave up hope that it would be, she died of a broken heart.
+They say there's no such thing; but nothing else ailed Alice. She
+stood at yonder gate day after day and watched the harbour; and when
+at last she gave up hope life went with it. I remember the day: she
+had watched until sunset. Then she turned away from the gate. All the
+unrest and despair had gone out of her eyes. There was a terrible
+peace in them--the peace of the dead. 'He will never come back now,
+Abel,' she said to me.
+
+"In less than a week she was dead. The others mourned her, but I
+didn't, master. She had sounded the deeps of living and there was
+nothing else to linger through the years for. _My_ grief had spent
+itself earlier, when I walked this garden in agony because I could
+not help her. But often, on these long warm summer afternoons, I seem
+to hear Alice's laughter all over this garden; though she's been dead
+so long."
+
+He lapsed into a reverie which I did not disturb, and it was not until
+another day that I learned of the other memory that he cherished. He
+reverted to it suddenly as we sat again in the hop-vine arbour,
+looking at the glimmering radiance of the September sea.
+
+"Master, how many of us are sitting here?"
+
+"Two in the flesh. How many in the spirit I know not," I answered,
+humouring his mood.
+
+"There is one--the other of the two I spoke of the day I told you
+about Alice. It's harder for me to speak of this one."
+
+"Don't speak of it if it hurts you," I said.
+
+"But I want to. It's a whim of mine. Do you know why I told you of
+Alice and why I'm going to tell you of Mercedes? It's because I want
+someone to remember them and think of them sometimes after I'm gone. I
+can't bear that their names should be utterly forgotten by all living
+souls.
+
+"My older brother, Alec, was a sailor, and on his last voyage to the
+West Indies he married and brought home a Spanish girl. My father and
+mother didn't like the match. Mercedes was a foreigner and a Catholic,
+and differed from us in every way. But I never blamed Alec after I saw
+her. It wasn't that she was so very pretty. She was slight and dark
+and ivory-coloured. But she was very graceful, and there was a charm
+about her, master--a mighty and potent charm. The women couldn't
+understand it. They wondered at Alec's infatuation for her. I never
+did. I--I loved her, too, master, before I had known her a day. Nobody
+ever knew it. Mercedes never dreamed of it. But it's lasted me all my
+life. I never wanted to think of any other woman. She spoiled a man
+for any other kind of woman--that little pale, dark-eyed Spanish girl.
+To love her was like drinking some rare sparkling wine. You'd never
+again have any taste for a commoner draught.
+
+"I think she was very happy the year she spent here. Our thrifty
+women-folk in Stillwater jeered at her because she wasn't what they
+called capable. They said she couldn't do anything. But she could do
+one thing well--she could love. She worshipped Alec. I used to hate
+him for it. Oh, my heart has been very full of black thoughts in its
+time, master. But neither Alec nor Mercedes ever knew. And I'm
+thankful now that they were so happy. Alec made this arbour for
+Mercedes--at least he made the trellis, and she planted the vines.
+
+"She used to sit here most of the time in summer. I suppose that's why
+I like to sit here. Her eyes would be dreamy and far-away until Alec
+would flash his welcome. How that used to torture me! But now I like
+to remember it. And her pretty soft foreign voice and little white
+hands. She died after she had lived here a year. They buried her and
+her baby in the graveyard of that little chapel over the harbour where
+the bell rings every evening. She used to like sitting here and
+listening to it. Alec lived a long while after, but he never married
+again. He's gone now, and nobody remembers Mercedes but me."
+
+Abel lapsed into a reverie--a tryst with the past which I would not
+disturb. I thought he did not notice my departure, but as I opened the
+gate he stood up and waved his hand.
+
+Three days later I went again to the old garden by the harbour shore.
+There was a red light on a distant sail. In the far west a sunset city
+was built around a great deep harbour of twilight. Palaces were there
+and bannered towers of crimson and gold. The air was full of music;
+there was one music of the wind and another of the waves, and still
+another of the distant bell from the chapel near which Mercedes slept.
+The garden was full of ripe odours and warm colours. The Lombardies
+around it were tall and sombre like the priestly forms of some mystic
+band. Abel was sitting in the hop-vine arbour; beside him Captain
+Kidd slept. I thought Abel was asleep, too; his head leaned against
+the trellis and his eyes were shut.
+
+But when I reached the arbour I saw that he was not asleep. There was
+a strange, wise little smile on his lips as if he had attained to the
+ultimate wisdom and were laughing in no unkindly fashion at our old
+blind suppositions and perplexities.
+
+Abel had gone on his Great Adventure.
+
+
+
+
+
+Akin To Love
+
+
+David Hartley had dropped in to pay a neighbourly call on Josephine
+Elliott. It was well along in the afternoon, and outside, in the clear
+crispness of a Canadian winter, the long blue shadows from the tall
+firs behind the house were falling over the snow.
+
+It was a frosty day, and all the windows of every room where there was
+no fire were covered with silver palms. But the big, bright kitchen
+was warm and cosy, and somehow seemed to David more tempting than ever
+before, and that is saying a good deal. He had an uneasy feeling that
+he had stayed long enough and ought to go. Josephine was knitting at a
+long gray sock with doubly aggressive energy, and that was a sign that
+she was talked out. As long as Josephine had plenty to say, her plump
+white fingers, where her mother's wedding ring was lost in dimples,
+moved slowly among her needles. When conversation flagged she fell to
+her work as furiously as if a husband and half a dozen sons were
+waiting for its completion. David often wondered in his secret soul
+what Josephine did with all the interminable gray socks she knitted.
+Sometimes he concluded that she put them in the home missionary
+barrels; again, that she sold them to her hired man. At any rate, they
+were very warm and comfortable looking, and David sighed as he thought
+of the deplorable state his own socks were generally in.
+
+When David sighed Josephine took alarm. She was afraid David was going
+to have one of his attacks of foolishness. She must head him off
+someway, so she rolled up the gray sock, stabbed the big pudgy ball
+with her needles, and said she guessed she'd get the tea.
+
+David got up.
+
+"Now, you're not going before tea?" said Josephine hospitably. "I'll
+have it all ready in no time."
+
+"I ought to go home, I s'pose," said David, with the air and tone of a
+man dallying with a great temptation. "Zillah'll be waiting tea for
+me; and there's the stock to tend to."
+
+"I guess Zillah won't wait long," said Josephine. She did not intend
+it at all, but there was a certain scornful ring in her voice. "You
+must stay. I've a fancy for company to tea."
+
+David sat down again. He looked so pleased that Josephine went down on
+her knees behind the stove, ostensibly to get a stick of firewood, but
+really to hide her smile.
+
+"I suppose he's tickled to death to think of getting a good square
+meal, after the starvation rations Zillah puts him on," she thought.
+
+But Josephine misjudged David just as much as he misjudged her. She
+had really asked him to stay to tea out of pity, but David thought it
+was because she was lonesome, and he hailed that as an encouraging
+sign. And he was not thinking about getting a good meal either,
+although his dinner had been such a one as only Zillah Hartley could
+get up. As he leaned back in his cushioned chair and watched Josephine
+bustling about the kitchen, he was glorying in the fact that he could
+spend another hour with her, and sit opposite to her at the table
+while she poured his tea for him and passed him the biscuits, just as
+if--just as if--
+
+Here Josephine looked straight at him with such intent and stern brown
+eyes that David felt she must have read his thoughts, and he colored
+guiltily. But Josephine did not even notice that he was blushing. She
+had only paused to wonder whether she would bring out cherry or
+strawberry preserve; and, having decided on the cherry, took her
+piercing gaze from David without having seen him at all. But he
+allowed his thoughts no more vagaries.
+
+Josephine set the table with her mother's wedding china. She used it
+because it was the anniversary of her mother's wedding day, but David
+thought it was out of compliment to him. And, as he knew quite well
+that Josephine prized that china beyond all her other earthly
+possessions, he stroked his smooth-shaven, dimpled chin with the air
+of a man to whom is offered a very subtly sweet homage.
+
+Josephine whisked in and out of the pantry, and up and down cellar,
+and with every whisk a new dainty was added to the table. Josephine,
+as everybody in Meadowby admitted, was past mistress in the noble art
+of cookery. Once upon a time rash matrons and ambitious young wives
+had aspired to rival her, but they had long ago realised the vanity of
+such efforts and dropped comfortably back to second place.
+
+Josephine felt an artist's pride in her table when she set the teapot
+on its stand and invited David to sit in. There were pink slices of
+cold tongue, and crisp green pickles and spiced gooseberry, the recipe
+for which Josephine had invented herself, and which had taken first
+prize at the Provincial Exhibition for six successive years; there was
+a lemon pie which was a symphony in gold and silver, biscuits as light
+and white as snow, and moist, plummy cubes of fruit cake. There was
+the ruby-tinted cherry preserve, a mound of amber jelly, and, to crown
+all, steaming cups of tea, in flavour and fragrance unequalled.
+
+And Josephine, too, sitting at the head of the table, with her smooth,
+glossy crimps of black hair and cheeks as rosy clear as they had been
+twenty years ago, when she had been a slender slip of girlhood and
+bashful young David Hartley had looked at her over his hymn-book in
+prayer-meeting and tramped all the way home a few feet behind her,
+because he was too shy to go boldly up and ask if he might see her
+home.
+
+All taken together, what wonder if David lost his head over that
+tea-table and determined to ask Josephine the same old question once
+more? It was eighteen years since he had asked it for the first time,
+and two years since the last. He would try his luck again; Josephine
+was certainly more gracious than he remembered her to ever have been
+before.
+
+When the meal was over Josephine cleared the table and washed the
+dishes. When she had taken a dry towel and sat down by the window to
+polish her china David understood that his opportunity had come. He
+moved over and sat down beside her on the sofa by the window.
+
+Outside the sun was setting in a magnificent arch of light and colour
+over the snow-clad hills and deep blue St. Lawrence gulf. David
+grasped at the sunset as an introductory factor.
+
+"Isn't that fine, Josephine?" he said admiringly. "It makes me think
+of that piece of poetry that used to be in the old Fifth Reader when
+we went to school. D'ye mind how the teacher used to drill us up in it
+on Friday afternoons? It begun
+
+    'Slow sinks more lovely ere his race is run
+    Along Morea's hills the setting sun.'"
+
+Then David declaimed the whole passage in a sing-song tone,
+accompanied by a few crude gestures recalled from long-ago school-boy
+elocution. Josephine knew what was coming. Every time David proposed
+to her he had begun by reciting poetry. She twirled her towel around
+the last plate resignedly. If it had to come, the sooner it was over
+the better. Josephine knew by experience that there was no heading
+David off, despite his shyness, when he had once got along as far as
+the poetry.
+
+"But it's going to be for the last time," she said determinedly. "I'm
+going to settle this question so decidedly to-night that there'll
+never be a repetition."
+
+When David had finished his quotation he laid his hand on Josephine's
+plump arm.
+
+"Josephine," he said huskily, "I s'pose you couldn't--could you
+now?--make up your mind to have me. I wish you would, Josephine--I
+wish you would. Don't you think you could, Josephine?"
+
+Josephine folded up her towel, crossed her hands on it, and looked her
+wooer squarely in the eyes.
+
+"David Hartley," she said deliberately, "what makes you go on asking
+me to marry you every once in a while when I've told you times out of
+mind that I can't and won't?"
+
+"Because I can't help hoping that you'll change your mind through
+time," David replied meekly.
+
+"Well, you just listen to me. I will not marry you. That is in the
+first place. And in the second, this is to be final. It has to be. You
+are never to ask me this again under any circumstances. If you do I
+will not answer you--I will not let on I hear you at all; but (and
+Josephine spoke very slowly and impressively) I will never speak to
+you again--never. We are good friends now, and I like you real well,
+and like to have you drop in for a neighbourly chat as often as you
+wish to, but there'll be an end, short and sudden, to that, if you
+don't mind what I say."
+
+"Oh, Josephine, ain't that rather hard?" protested David feebly. It
+seemed terrible to be cut off from all hope with such finality as
+this.
+
+"I mean every word of it," returned Josephine calmly. "You'd better go
+home now, David. I always feel as if I'd like to be alone for a spell
+after a disagreeable experience."
+
+David obeyed sadly and put on his cap and overcoat. Josephine kindly
+warned him not to slip and break his legs on the porch, because the
+floor was as icy as anything; and she even lighted a candle and held
+it up at the kitchen door to guide him safely out. David, as he
+trudged sorrowfully homeward across the fields, carried with him the
+mental picture of a plump, sonsy woman, in a trim dress of
+plum-coloured homespun and ruffled blue-check apron, haloed by
+candlelight. It was not a very romantic vision, perhaps, but to David
+it was more beautiful than anything else in the world.
+
+When David was gone Josephine shut the door with a little shiver. She
+blew out the candle, for it was not yet dark enough to justify
+artificial light to her thrifty mind. She thought the big, empty
+house, in which she was the only living thing, was very lonely. It was
+so still, except for the slow tick of the "grandfather's clock" and
+the soft purr and crackle of the wood in the stove. Josephine sat down
+by the window.
+
+"I wish some of the Sentners would run down," she said aloud. "If
+David hadn't been so ridiculous I'd have got him to stay the evening.
+He can be good company when he likes--he's real well-read and
+intelligent. And he must have dismal times at home there with nobody
+but Zillah."
+
+She looked across the yard to the little house at the other side of
+it, where her French-Canadian hired man lived, and watched the purple
+spiral of smoke from its chimney curling up against the crocus sky.
+Would she run over and see Mrs. Leon Poirier and her little
+black-eyed, brown-skinned baby? No, they never knew what to say to
+each other.
+
+"If 'twasn't so cold I'd go up and see Ida," she said. "As it is, I
+guess I'd better fall back on my knitting, for I saw Jimmy Sentner's
+toes sticking through his socks the other day. How setback poor David
+did look, to be sure! But I think I've settled that marrying notion of
+his once for all and I'm glad of it."
+
+She said the same thing next day to Mrs. Tom Sentner, who had come
+down to help her pick her geese. They were at work in the kitchen with
+a big tubful of feathers between them, and on the table a row of dead
+birds, which Leon had killed and brought in. Josephine was enveloped
+in a shapeless print wrapper, and had an apron tied tightly around her
+head to keep the down out of her beautiful hair, of which she was
+rather proud.
+
+"What do you think, Ida?" she said, with a hearty laugh at the
+recollection. "David Hartley was here to tea last night, and asked me
+to marry him again. There's a persistent man for you. I can't brag of
+ever having had many beaux, but I've certainly had my fair share of
+proposals."
+
+Mrs. Tom did not laugh. Her thin little face, with its faded
+prettiness, looked as if she never laughed.
+
+"Why won't you marry him?" she said fretfully.
+
+"Why should I?" retorted Josephine. "Tell me that, Ida Sentner."
+
+"Because it is high time you were married," said Mrs. Tom decisively.
+"I don't believe in women living single. And I don't see what better
+you can do than take David Hartley."
+
+Josephine looked at her sister with the interested expression of a
+person who is trying to understand some mental attitude in another
+which is a standing puzzle to her. Ida's evident wish to see her
+married always amused Josephine. Ida had married very young and for
+fifteen years her life had been one of drudgery and ill-health. Tom
+Sentner was a lazy, shiftless fellow. He neglected his family and was
+drunk half his time. Meadowby people said that he beat his wife when
+"on the spree," but Josephine did not believe that, because she did
+not think that Ida could keep from telling her if it were so. Ida
+Sentner was not given to bearing her trials in silence.
+
+Had it not been for Josephine's assistance, Tom Sentner's family would
+have stood an excellent chance of starvation. Josephine practically
+kept them, and her generosity never failed or stinted. She fed and
+clothed her nephews and nieces, and all the gray socks whose
+destination puzzled David so much went to the Sentners.
+
+As for Josephine herself, she had a good farm, a comfortable house, a
+plump bank account, and was an independent, unworried woman. And yet,
+in the face of all this, Mrs. Tom Sentner could bewail the fact that
+Josephine had no husband to look out for her. Josephine shrugged her
+shoulders and gave up the conundrum, merely saying ironically, in
+reply to her sister's remark:
+
+"And go to live with Zillah Hartley?"
+
+"You know very well you wouldn't have to do that. Ever since John
+Hartley's wife at the Creek died he's been wanting Zillah to go and
+keep house for him, and if David got married Zillah'd go quick. Catch
+her staying there if you were mistress! And David has such a beautiful
+house! It's ten times finer than yours, though I don't deny yours is
+comfortable. And his farm is the best in Meadowby and joins yours.
+Think what a beautiful property they'd make together. You're all right
+now, Josephine, but what will you do when you get old and have nobody
+to take care of you? I declare the thought worries me at night till I
+can't sleep."
+
+"I should have thought you had enough worries of your own to keep you
+awake at nights without taking over any of mine," said Josephine
+drily. "As for old age, it's a good ways off for me yet. When your
+Jack gets old enough to have some sense he can come here and live with
+me. But I'm not going to marry David Hartley, you can depend on that,
+Ida, my dear. I wish you could have heard him rhyming off that poetry
+last night. It doesn't seem to matter much what piece he
+recites--first thing that comes into his head, I reckon. I remember
+one time he went clean through that hymn beginning, 'Hark from the
+tombs a doleful sound,' and two years ago it was 'To Mary in Heaven,'
+as lackadaisical as you please. I never had such a time to keep from
+laughing, but I managed it, for I wouldn't hurt his feelings for the
+world. No, I haven't any intention of marrying anybody, but if I had
+it wouldn't be dear old sentimental, easy-going David."
+
+Mrs. Tom thumped a plucked goose down on the bench with an expression
+which said that she, for one, wasn't going to waste any more words on
+an idiot. Easy-going, indeed! Did Josephine consider that a drawback?
+Mrs. Tom sighed. If Josephine, she thought, had put up with Tom
+Sentner's tempers for fifteen years she would know how to appreciate a
+good-natured man at his real value.
+
+The cold snap which had set in on the day of David's call lasted and
+deepened for a week. On Saturday evening, when Mrs. Tom came down for
+a jug of cream, the mercury of the little thermometer thumping against
+Josephine's porch was below zero. The gulf was no longer blue, but
+white with ice. Everything outdoors was crackling and snapping. Inside
+Josephine had kept roaring fires all through the house but the only
+place really warm was the kitchen.
+
+"Wrap your head up well, Ida," she said anxiously, when Mrs. Tom rose
+to go. "You've got a bad cold."
+
+"There's a cold going," said Mrs. Tom. "Everyone has it. David Hartley
+was up at our place to-day barking terrible--a real churchyard cough,
+as I told him. He never takes any care of himself. He said Zillah had
+a bad cold, too. Won't she be cranky while it lasts?"
+
+Josephine sat up late that night to keep fires on. She finally went to
+bed in the little room opposite the big hall stove, and she slept at
+once, and dreamed that the thumps of the thermometer flapping in the
+wind against the wall outside grew louder and more insistent until
+they woke her up. Some one was pounding on the porch door.
+
+Josephine sprang out of bed and hurried on her wrapper and felt shoes.
+She had no doubt that some of the Sentners were sick. They had a habit
+of getting sick about that time of night. She hurried out and opened
+the door, expecting to see hulking Tom Sentner, or perhaps Ida
+herself, big-eyed and hysterical.
+
+But David Hartley stood there, panting for breath. The clear moonlight
+showed that he had no overcoat on, and he was coughing hard.
+Josephine, before she spoke a word, clutched him by the arm and pulled
+him in out of the wind.
+
+"For pity's sake, David Hartley, what is the matter?"
+
+"Zillah's awful sick," he gasped. "I came here because 'twas nearest.
+Oh, won't you come over, Josephine? I've got to go for the doctor and
+I can't leave her alone. She's suffering dreadful. I know you and her
+ain't on good terms, but you'll come, won't you?"
+
+"Of course I will," said Josephine sharply. "I'm not a barbarian, I
+hope, to refuse to go to the help of a sick person, if 'twas my worst
+enemy. I'll go in and get ready and you go straight to the hall stove
+and warm yourself. There's a good fire in it yet. What on earth do you
+mean, starting out on a bitter night like this without an overcoat or
+even mittens, and you with a cold like that?"
+
+"I never thought of them, I was so frightened," said David
+apologetically. "I just lit up a fire in the kitchen stove as quick's
+I could and run. It rattled me to hear Zillah moaning so's you could
+hear her all over the house."
+
+"You need someone to look after you as bad as Zillah does," said
+Josephine severely.
+
+In a very few minutes she was ready, with a basket packed full of
+homely remedies, "for like as not there'll be no putting one's hand on
+anything there," she muttered. She insisted on wrapping her big plaid
+shawl around David's head and neck, and made him put on a pair of
+mittens she had knitted for Jack Sentner. Then she locked the door and
+they started across the gleaming, crusted field. It was so slippery
+that Josephine had to cling to David's arm to keep her feet. In the
+rapture of supporting her David almost forgot everything else.
+
+In a few minutes they had passed under the bare, glistening boughs of
+the poplars on David's lawn, and for the first time Josephine crossed
+the threshold of David Hartley's house.
+
+Years ago, in her girlhood, when the Hartley's lived in the old house
+and there were half a dozen girls at home, Josephine had frequently
+visited there. All the Hartley girls liked her except Zillah. She and
+Zillah never "got on" together. When the other girls had married and
+gone, Josephine gave up visiting there. She had never been inside the
+new house, and she and Zillah had not spoken to each other for years.
+
+Zillah was a sick woman--too sick to be anything but civil to
+Josephine. David started at once for the doctor at the Creek, and
+Josephine saw that he was well wrapped up before she let him go. Then
+she mixed up a mustard plaster for Zillah and sat down by the bedside
+to wait.
+
+When Mrs. Tom Sentner came down the next day she found Josephine busy
+making flaxseed poultices, with her lips set in a line that betokened
+she had made up her mind to some disagreeable course of duty.
+
+"Zillah has got pneumonia bad," she said, in reply to Mrs. Tom's
+inquiries. "The Doctor is here and Mary Bell from the Creek. She'll
+wait on Zillah, but there'll have to be another woman here to see to
+the work. I reckon I'll stay. I suppose it's my duty and I don't see
+who else could be got. You can send Mamie and Jack down to stay at my
+house until I can go back. I'll run over every day and keep an eye on
+things."
+
+At the end of a week Zillah was out of danger. Saturday afternoon
+Josephine went over home to see how Mamie and Jack were getting on.
+She found Mrs. Tom there, and the latter promptly despatched Jack and
+Mamie to the post-office that she might have an opportunity to hear
+Josephine's news.
+
+"I've had an awful week of it, Ida," said Josephine solemnly, as she
+sat down by the stove and put her feet up on the glowing hearth.
+
+"I suppose Zillah is pretty cranky to wait on," said Mrs. Tom
+sympathetically.
+
+"Oh, it isn't Zillah. Mary Bell looks after her. No, it's the house. I
+never lived in such a place of dust and disorder in my born days. I'm
+sorrier for David Hartley than I ever was for anyone before."
+
+"I suppose he's used to it," said Mrs. Tom with a shrug.
+
+"I don't see how anyone could ever get used to it," groaned Josephine.
+"And David used to be so particular when he was a boy. The minute I
+went there the other night I took in that kitchen with a look. I don't
+believe the paint has even been washed since the house was built. I
+honestly don't. And I wouldn't like to be called upon to swear when
+the floor was scrubbed either. The corners were just full of rolls of
+dust--you could have shovelled it out. I swept it out next day and I
+thought I'd be choked. As for the pantry--well, the less said about
+_that_ the better. And it's the same all through the house. You could
+write your name on everything. I couldn't so much as clean up. Zillah
+was so sick there couldn't be a bit of noise made. I did manage to
+sweep and dust, and I cleaned out the pantry. And, of course, I saw
+that the meals were nice and well cooked. You should have seen David's
+face. He looked as if he couldn't get used to having things clean and
+tasty. I darned his socks--he hadn't a whole pair to his name--and
+I've done everything I could to give him a little comfort. Not that I
+could do much. If Zillah heard me moving round she'd send Mary Bell
+out to ask what the matter was. When I wanted to go upstairs I'd have
+to take off my shoes and tiptoe up on my stocking feet, so's she
+wouldn't know it. And I'll have to stay there another fortnight yet.
+Zillah won't be able to sit up till then. I don't really know if I can
+stand it without falling to and scrubbing the house from garret to
+cellar in spite of her."
+
+Mrs. Tom Sentner did not say much to Josephine. To herself she said
+complacently:
+
+"She's sorry for David. Well, I've always heard that pity was akin to
+love. We'll see what comes of this."
+
+Josephine did manage to live through that fortnight. One morning she
+remarked to David at the breakfast table:
+
+"Well, I think that Mary Bell will be able to attend to the work after
+today, David. I guess I'll go home tonight."
+
+David's face clouded over.
+
+"Well, I s'pose we oughtn't to keep you any longer, Josephine. I'm
+sure it's been awful good of you to stay this long. I don't know what
+we'd have done without you."
+
+"You're welcome," said Josephine shortly.
+
+"Don't go for to walk home," said David; "the snow is too deep. I'll
+drive you over when you want to go."
+
+"I'll not go before the evening," said Josephine slowly.
+
+David went out to his work gloomily. For three weeks he had been
+living in comfort. His wants were carefully attended to; his meals
+were well cooked and served, and everything was bright and clean. And
+more than all, Josephine had been there, with her cheerful smile and
+companionable ways. Well, it was all ended now.
+
+Josephine sat at the breakfast table long after David had gone out.
+She scowled at the sugar-bowl and shook her head savagely at the
+tea-pot.
+
+"I'll have to do it," she said at last.
+
+"I'm so sorry for him that I can't do anything else."
+
+She got up and went to the window, looking across the snowy field to
+her own home, nestled between the grove of firs and the orchard.
+
+"It's awful snug and comfortable," she said regretfully, "and I've
+always felt set on being free and independent. But it's no use. I'd
+never have a minute's peace of mind again, thinking of David living
+here in dirt and disorder, and him so particular and tidy by nature.
+No, it's my duty, plain and clear, to come here and make things
+pleasant for him--the pointing of Providence, as you might say. The
+worst of it is, I'll have to tell him so myself. He'll never dare to
+mention the subject again, after what I said to him that night he
+proposed last. I wish I hadn't been so dreadful emphatic. Now I've got
+to say it myself if it is ever said. But I'll not begin by quoting
+poetry, that's one thing sure!"
+
+Josephine threw back her head, crowned with its shining braids of
+jet-black hair, and laughed heartily. She bustled back to the stove
+and poked up the fire.
+
+"I'll have a bit of corned beef and cabbage for dinner," she said,
+"and I'll make David that pudding he's so fond of. After all, it's
+kind of nice to have someone to plan and think for. It always did seem
+like a waste of energy to fuss over cooking things when there was
+nobody but myself to eat them."
+
+Josephine sang over her work all day, and David went about his with
+the face of a man who is going to the gallows without benefit of
+clergy. When he came in to supper at sunset his expression was so
+woe-begone that Josephine had to dodge into the pantry to keep from
+laughing outright. She relieved her feelings by pounding the dresser
+with the potato masher, and then went primly out and took her place at
+the table.
+
+The meal was not a success from a social point of view. Josephine was
+nervous and David glum. Mary Bell gobbled down her food with her usual
+haste, and then went away to carry Zillah hers. Then David said
+reluctantly:
+
+"If you want to go home now, Josephine, I'll hitch up Red Rob and
+drive you over."
+
+Josephine began to plait the tablecloth. She wished again that she had
+not been so emphatic on the occasion of his last proposal. Without
+replying to David's suggestion she said crossly (Josephine always
+spoke crossly when she was especially in earnest):
+
+"I want to tell you what I think about Zillah. She's getting better,
+but she's had a terrible shaking up, and it's my opinion that she
+won't be good for much all winter. She won't be able to do any hard
+work, that's certain. If you want my advice, I tell you fair and
+square that I think she'd better go off for a visit as soon as she's
+fit. She thinks so herself. Clementine wants her to go and stay a
+spell with her in town. 'Twould be just the thing for her."
+
+"She can go if she wants to, of course," said David dully. "I can get
+along by myself for a spell."
+
+"There's no need of your getting along by yourself," said Josephine,
+more crossly than ever. "I'll--I'll come here and keep house for you
+if you like."
+
+David looked at her uncomprehendingly.
+
+"Wouldn't people kind of gossip?" he asked hesitatingly. "Not but
+what--"
+
+"I don't see what they'd have to gossip about," broke in Josephine,
+"if we were--married."
+
+David sprang to his feet with such haste that he almost upset the
+table.
+
+"Josephine, do you mean that?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Of course I mean it," she said, in a perfectly savage tone. "Now, for
+pity's sake, don't say another word about it just now. I can't discuss
+it for a spell. Go out to your work. I want to be alone for awhile."
+
+For the first and last time David disobeyed her. Instead of going out,
+he strode around the table, caught Josephine masterfully in his arms,
+and kissed her. And Josephine, after a second's hesitation, kissed him
+in return.
+
+
+
+
+Aunt Philippa and the Men
+
+
+I knew quite well why Father sent me to Prince Edward Island to visit
+Aunt Philippa that summer. He told me he was sending me there "to
+learn some sense"; and my stepmother, of whom I was very fond, told me
+she was sure the sea air would do me a world of good. I did not want
+to learn sense or be done a world of good; I wanted to stay in
+Montreal and go on being foolish--and make up my quarrel with Mark
+Fenwick. Father and Mother did not know anything about this quarrel;
+they thought I was still on good terms with him--and that is why they
+sent me to Prince Edward Island.
+
+I was very miserable. I did not want to go to Aunt Philippa's. It was
+not because I feared it would be dull--for without Mark, Montreal was
+just as much of a howling wilderness as any other place. But it was so
+horribly far away. When the time came for Mark to want to make up--as
+come I knew it would--how could he do it if I were seven hundred miles
+away?
+
+Nevertheless, I went to Prince Edward Island. In all my eighteen years
+I had never once disobeyed Father. He is a very hard man to disobey. I
+knew I should have to make a beginning some time if I wanted to marry
+Mark, so I saved all my little courage up for that and didn't waste
+any of it opposing the visit to Aunt Philippa.
+
+I couldn't understand Father's point of view. Of course, he hated old
+John Fenwick, who had once sued him for libel and won the case. Father
+had written an indiscreet editorial in the excitement of a red-hot
+political contest--and was made to understand that there are some
+things you can't say of another man even at election time. But then,
+he need not have hated Mark because of that; Mark was not even born
+when it happened.
+
+Old John Fenwick was not much better pleased about Mark and me than
+Father was, though he didn't go to the length of forbidding it; he
+just acted grumpily and disagreeably. Things were unpleasant enough
+all round without a quarrel between Mark and me; yet quarrel we
+did--and over next to nothing, too, you understand. And now I had to
+set out for Prince Edward Island without even seeing him, for he was
+away in Toronto on business.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When my train reached Copely the next afternoon, Aunt Philippa was
+waiting for me. There was nobody else in sight, but I would have known
+her had there been a thousand. Nobody but Aunt Philippa could have
+that determined mouth, those piercing grey eyes, and that pronounced,
+unmistakable Goodwin nose. And certainly nobody but Aunt Philippa
+would have come to meet me arrayed in a wrapper of chocolate print
+with huge yellow roses scattered over it, and a striped blue-and-white
+apron!
+
+She welcomed me kindly but absent-mindedly, her thoughts evidently
+being concentrated on the problem of getting my trunk home. I had only
+the one, and in Montreal it had seemed to be of moderate size; but on
+the platform of Copely station, sized up by Aunt Philippa's merciless
+eye, it certainly looked huge.
+
+"I thought we could a-took it along tied on the back of the buggy,"
+she said disapprovingly, "but I guess we'll have to leave it, and I'll
+send the hired boy over for it tonight. You can get along without it
+till then, I s'pose?"
+
+There was a fine irony in her tone. I hastened to assure her meekly
+that I could, and that it did not matter if my trunk could not be
+taken up till next day.
+
+"Oh, Jerry can come for it tonight as well as not," said Aunt
+Philippa, as we climbed into her buggy. "I'd a good notion to send him
+to meet you, for he isn't doing much today, and I wanted to go to Mrs.
+Roderick MacAllister's funeral. But my head was aching me so bad I
+thought I wouldn't enjoy the funeral if I did go. My head is better
+now, so I kind of wish I had gone. She was a hundred and four years
+old and I'd always promised myself that I'd go to her funeral."
+
+Aunt Philippa's tone was melancholy. She did not recover her good
+spirits until we were out on the pretty, grassy, elm-shaded country
+road, garlanded with its ribbon of buttercups. Then she suddenly
+turned around and looked me over scrutinizingly.
+
+"You're not as good-looking as I expected from your picture, but them
+photographs always flatter. That's the reason I never had any took.
+You're rather thin and brown. But you've good eyes and you look
+clever. Your father writ me you hadn't much sense, though. He wants me
+to teach you some, but it's a thankless business. People would rather
+be fools."
+
+Aunt Philippa struck her steed smartly with the whip and controlled
+his resultant friskiness with admirable skill.
+
+"Well, you know it's pleasanter," I said, wickedly. "Just think what a
+doleful world it would be if everybody were sensible."
+
+Aunt Philippa looked at me out of the corner of her eye and disdained
+any skirmish of flippant epigram.
+
+"So you want to get married?" she said. "You'd better wait till you're
+grown up."
+
+"How old must a person be before she is grown up?" I asked gravely.
+
+"Humph! That depends. Some are grown up when they're born, and others
+ain't grown up when they're eighty. That same Mrs. Roderick I was
+speaking of never grew up. She was as foolish when she was a hundred
+as when she was ten."
+
+"Perhaps that's why she lived so long," I suggested. All thought of
+seeking sympathy in Aunt Philippa had vanished. I resolved I would not
+even mention Mark's name.
+
+"Mebbe 'twas," admitted Aunt Philippa with a grim smile. "_I'd_ rather
+live fifty sensible years than a hundred foolish ones."
+
+Much to my relief, she made no further reference to my affairs. As we
+rounded a curve in the road where two great over-arching elms met, a
+buggy wheeled by us, occupied by a young man in clerical costume. He
+had a pleasant boyish face, and he touched his hat courteously. Aunt
+Philippa nodded very frostily and gave her horse a quite undeserved
+cut.
+
+"There's a man you don't want to have much to do with," she said
+portentously. "He's a Methodist minister."
+
+"Why, Auntie, the Methodists are a very nice denomination," I
+protested. "My stepmother is a Methodist, you know."
+
+"No, I didn't know, but I'd believe anything of a stepmother. I've no
+use for Methodists or their ministers. This fellow just came last
+spring, and it's _my_ opinion he smokes. And he thinks every girl who
+looks at him falls in love with him--as if a Methodist minister was
+any prize! Don't you take much notice of him, Ursula."
+
+"I'll not be likely to have the chance," I said, with an amused smile.
+
+"Oh, you'll see enough of him. He boards at Mrs. John Callman's, just
+across the road from us, and he's always out sunning himself on her
+verandah. Never studies, of course. Last Sunday they say he preached
+on the iron that floated. If he'd confine himself to the Bible and
+leave sensational subjects alone it would be better for him and his
+poor congregation, and so I told Mrs. John Callman to her face. I
+should think _she_ would have had enough of his sex by this time. She
+married John Callman against her father's will, and he had delirious
+trembles for years. That's the men for you."
+
+"They're not _all_ like that, Aunt Philippa," I protested.
+
+"Most of 'em are. See that house over there? Mrs. Jane Harrison lives
+there. Her husband took tantrums every few days or so and wouldn't get
+out of bed. She had to do all the barn work till he'd got over his
+spell. That's men for you. When he died, people writ her letters of
+condolence but _I_ just sot down and writ her one of congratulation.
+There's the Presbyterian manse in the hollow. Mr. Bentwell's our
+minister. He's a good man and he'd be a rather nice one if he didn't
+think it was his duty to be a little miserable all the time. He won't
+let his wife wear a fashionable hat, and his daughter can't fix her
+hair the way she wants to. Even being a minister can't prevent a man
+from being a crank. Here's Ebenezer Milgrave coming. You take a good
+look at him. He used to be insane for years. He believed he was dead
+and used to rage at his wife because she wouldn't bury him. _I'd_
+a-done it."
+
+Aunt Philippa looked so determinedly grim that I could almost see her
+with a spade in her hand. I laughed aloud at the picture summoned up.
+
+"Yes, it's funny, but I guess his poor wife didn't find it very
+humorsome. He's been pretty sane for some years now, but you never can
+tell when he'll break out again. He's got a brother, Albert Milgrave,
+who's been married twice. They say he was courting his second wife
+while his first was dying. Let that be as it may, he used his first
+wife's wedding ring to marry the second. That's the men for you."
+
+"Don't you know _any_ good husbands, Aunt Philippa?" I asked
+desperately.
+
+"Oh, yes, lots of 'em--over there," said Aunt Philippa sardonically,
+waving her whip in the direction of a little country graveyard on a
+distant hill.
+
+"Yes, but _living_--walking about in the flesh?"
+
+"Precious few. Now and again you'll come across a man whose wife won't
+put up with any nonsense and he _has_ to be respectable. But the most
+of 'em are poor bargains--poor bargains."
+
+"And are all the wives saints?" I persisted.
+
+"Laws, no, but they're too good for the men," retorted Aunt Philippa,
+as she turned in at her own gate. Her house was close to the road and
+was painted such a vivid green that the landscape looked faded by
+contrast. Across the gable end of it was the legend, "Philippa's
+Farm," emblazoned in huge black letters two feet long. All its
+surroundings were very neat. On the kitchen doorstep a patchwork cat
+was making a grave toilet. The groundwork of the cat was white, and
+its spots were black, yellow, grey, and brown.
+
+"There's Joseph," said Aunt Philippa. "I call him that because his
+coat is of many colours. But I ain't no lover of cats. They're too
+much like the men to suit me."
+
+"Cats have always been supposed to be peculiarly feminine," I said,
+descending.
+
+"'Twas a man that supposed it, then," retorted Aunt Philippa,
+beckoning to her hired boy. "Here, Jerry, put Prince away. Jerry's a
+good sort of boy," she confided to me as we went into the house. "I
+had Jim Spencer last summer and the only good thing about _him_ was
+his appetite. I put up with him till harvest was in, and then one day
+my patience give out. He upsot a churnful of cream in the back
+yard--and was just as cool as a cowcumber over it--laughed and said it
+was good for the land. I told him I wasn't in the habit of fertilizing
+my back yard with cream. But that's the men for you. Come in. I'll
+have tea ready in no time. I sot the table before I left. There's
+lemon pie. Mrs. John Cantwell sent it over. I never make lemon pie
+myself. Ten years ago I took the prize for lemon pies at the county
+fair, and I've never made any since for fear I'd lose my reputation
+for them."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The first month of my stay passed not unpleasantly. The summer weather
+was delightful, and the sea air was certainly splendid. Aunt
+Philippa's little farm ran right down to the shore, and I spent much
+of my time there. There were also several families of cousins to be
+visited in the farmhouses that dotted the pretty, seaward-sloping
+valley, and they came back to see me at "Philippa's Farm." I picked
+spruce gum and berries and ferns, and Aunt Philippa taught me to make
+butter. It was all very idyllic--or would have been if Mark had
+written. But Mark did not write. I supposed he must be very angry
+because I had run off to Prince Edward Island without so much as a
+note of goodbye. But I had been so sure he would understand!
+
+Aunt Philippa never made any further reference to the reason Father
+had sent me to her, but she allowed no day to pass without holding up
+to me some horrible example of matrimonial infelicity. The number of
+unhappy wives who walked or drove past "Philippa's Farm" every
+afternoon, as we sat on the verandah, was truly pitiable.
+
+We always sat on the verandah in the afternoon, when we were not
+visiting or being visited. I made a pretence of fancy work, and Aunt
+Philippa spun diligently on a little old-fashioned spinning-wheel that
+had been her grandmother's. She always sat before the wood stand which
+held her flowers, and the gorgeous blots of geranium blossom and big
+green leaves furnished a pretty background. She always wore her
+shapeless but clean print wrappers, and her iron-grey hair was always
+combed neatly down over her ears. Joseph sat between us, sleeping or
+purring. She spun so expertly that she could keep a close watch on the
+road as well, and I got the biography of every individual who went by.
+As for the poor young Methodist minister, who liked to read or walk on
+the verandah of our neighbour's house, Aunt Philippa never had a good
+word for him. I had met him once or twice socially and had liked him.
+I wanted to ask him to call but dared not--Aunt Philippa had vowed he
+should never enter her house.
+
+"If I was dead and he came to my funeral I'd rise up and order him
+out," she said.
+
+"I thought he made a very nice prayer at Mrs. Seaman's funeral the
+other day," I said.
+
+"Oh, I've no doubt he can pray. I never heard anyone make more
+beautiful prayers than old Simon Kennedy down at the harbour, who was
+always drunk or hoping to be--and the drunker he was the better he
+prayed. It ain't no matter how well a man prays if his preaching isn't
+right. That Methodist man preaches a lot of things that ain't true,
+and what's worse they ain't sound doctrine. At least, that's what I've
+heard. I never was in a Methodist church, thank goodness."
+
+"Don't you think Methodists go to heaven as well as Presbyterians,
+Aunt Philippa?" I asked gravely.
+
+"That ain't for us to decide," said Aunt Philippa solemnly. "It's in
+higher hands than ours. But I ain't going to associate with them on
+_earth_, whatever I may have to do in heaven. The folks round here
+mostly don't make much difference and go to the Methodist church quite
+often. But _I_ say if you are a Presbyterian, _be_ a Presbyterian. Of
+course, if you ain't, it don't matter much what you do. As for that
+minister man, he has a grand-uncle who was sent to the penitentiary
+for embezzlement. I found out _that_ much."
+
+And evidently Aunt Philippa had taken an unholy joy in finding it out.
+
+"I dare say some of our own ancestors deserved to go to the
+penitentiary, even if they never did," I remarked. "Who is that woman
+driving past, Aunt Philippa? She must have been very pretty once."
+
+"She was--and that was all the good it did her. 'Favour is deceitful
+and beauty is vain,' Ursula. She was Sarah Pyatt and she married Fred
+Proctor. He was one of your wicked, fascinating men. After she married
+him he give up being fascinating but he kept on being wicked. _That's_
+the men for you. Her sister Flora weren't much luckier. _Her_ man was
+that domineering she couldn't call her soul her own. Finally he
+couldn't get his own way over something and he just suicided by
+jumping into the well. A good riddance--but of course the well was
+spoiled. Flora could never abide the thought of using it again, poor
+thing. _That's_ men for you.
+
+"And there's that old Enoch Allan on his way to the station. He's
+ninety if he's a day. You can't kill some folks with a meat axe. His
+wife died twenty years ago. He'd been married when he was twenty so
+they'd lived together for fifty years. She was a faithful,
+hard-working creature and kept him out of the poorhouse, for he was a
+shiftless soul, not lazy, exactly, but just too fond of sitting. But
+he weren't grateful. She had a kind of bitter tongue and they did use
+to fight scandalous. O' course it was all his fault. Well, she died,
+and old Enoch and my father drove together to the graveyard. Old Enoch
+was awful quiet all the way there and back, but just afore they got
+home, he says solemnly to Father: 'You mayn't believe it, Henry, but
+this is the happiest day of my life.' _That's_ men for you. His
+brother, Scotty Allan, was the meanest man ever lived in these parts.
+When his wife died she was buried with a little gold brooch in her
+collar unbeknownst to him. When he found it out he went one night to
+the graveyard and opened up the grave and the casket to get that
+brooch."
+
+"Oh, Aunt Philippa, that is a horrible story," I cried, recoiling with
+a shiver over the gruesomeness of it.
+
+"'Course it is, but what would you expect of a man?" retorted Aunt
+Philippa.
+
+Somehow, her stories began to affect me in spite of myself. There were
+times when I felt very dreary. Perhaps Aunt Philippa was right.
+Perhaps men possessed neither truth nor constancy. Certainly Mark had
+forgotten me. I was ashamed of myself because this hurt me so much,
+but I could not help it. I grew pale and listless. Aunt Philippa
+sometimes peered at me sharply, but she held her peace. I was grateful
+for this.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But one day a letter did come from Mark. I dared not read it until I
+was safely in my own room. Then I opened it with trembling fingers.
+
+The letter was a little stiff. Evidently Mark was feeling sore enough
+over things. He made no reference to our quarrel or to my sojourn in
+Prince Edward Island. He wrote that his firm was sending him to South
+Africa to take charge of their interests there. He would leave in
+three weeks' time and could not return for five years. If I still
+cared anything for him, would I meet him in Halifax, marry him, and go
+to South Africa with him? If I would not, he would understand that I
+had ceased to love him and that all was over between us.
+
+That, boiled down, was the gist of Mark's letter. When I had read it I
+cast myself on the bed and wept out all the tears I had refused to let
+myself shed during my weeks of exile.
+
+For I could not do what Mark asked--I _could not_. I couldn't run away
+to be married in that desolate, unbefriended fashion. It would be a
+disgrace. I would feel ashamed of it all my life and be unhappy over
+it. I thought that Mark was rather unreasonable. He knew what my
+feelings about run-away marriages were. And was it absolutely
+necessary for him to go to South Africa? Of course his father was
+behind it somewhere, but surely he could have got out of it if he had
+really tried.
+
+Well, if he went to South Africa he must go alone. But my heart would
+break.
+
+I cried the whole afternoon, cowering among my pillows. I never wanted
+to go out of that room again. I never wanted to see anybody again. I
+hated the thought of facing Aunt Philippa with her cold eyes and her
+miserable stories that seemed to strip life of all beauty and love of
+all reality. I could hear her scornful, "That's the men for you," if
+she heard what was in Mark's letter.
+
+"What is the matter, Ursula?"
+
+Aunt Philippa was standing by my bed. I was too abject to resent her
+coming in without knocking.
+
+"Nothing," I said spiritlessly.
+
+"If you've been crying for three mortal hours over nothing you want a
+good spanking and you'll get it," observed Aunt Philippa placidly,
+sitting down on my trunk. "Get right up off that bed this minute and
+tell me what the trouble is. I'm bound to know, for I'm in your
+father's place at present."
+
+"There, then!" I flung her Mark's letter. There wasn't anything in it
+that it was sacrilege to let another person see. That was one reason
+why I had been crying.
+
+Aunt Philippa read it over twice. Then she folded it up deliberately
+and put it back in the envelope.
+
+"What are you going to do?" she asked in a matter-of-fact tone.
+
+"I'm not going to run away to be married," I answered sullenly.
+
+"Well, no, I wouldn't advise you to," said Aunt Philippa reflectively.
+"It's a kind of low-down thing to do, though there's been a terrible
+lot of romantic nonsense talked and writ about eloping. It may be a
+painful necessity sometimes, but it ain't in this case. You write to
+your young man and tell him to come here and be married respectable
+under my roof, same as a Goodwin ought to."
+
+I sat up and stared at Aunt Philippa. I was so amazed that it is
+useless to try to express my amazement.
+
+"Aunt--Philippa," I gasped. "I thought--I thought--"
+
+"You thought I was a hard old customer, and so I am," said Aunt
+Philippa. "But I don't take my opinions from your father nor anybody
+else. It didn't prejudice me any against your young man that your
+father didn't like him. I knew your father of old. I have some other
+friends in Montreal and I writ to them and asked them what he was
+like. From what they said I judged he was decent enough as men go.
+You're too young to be married, but if you let him go off to South
+Africa he'll slip through your fingers for sure, and I s'pose you're
+like some of the rest of us--nobody'll do you but the one. So tell him
+to come here and be married."
+
+"I don't see how I can," I gasped. "I can't get ready to be married in
+three weeks. I can't--"
+
+"I should think you have enough clothes in that trunk to do you for a
+spell," said Aunt Philippa sarcastically. "You've more than my mother
+ever had in all her life. We'll get you a wedding dress of some kind.
+You can get it made in Charlottetown, if country dressmakers aren't
+good enough for you, and I'll bake you a wedding cake that'll taste as
+good as anything you could get in Montreal, even if it won't look so
+stylish."
+
+"What will Father say?" I questioned.
+
+"Lots o' things," conceded Aunt Philippa grimly. "But I don't see as
+it matters when neither you nor me'll be there to have our feelings
+hurt. I'll write a few things to your father. He hasn't got much
+sense. He ought to be thankful to get a decent young man for his
+son-in-law in a world where most every man is a wolf in sheep's
+clothing. But that's the men for you."
+
+And that was Aunt Philippa for you. For the next three weeks she was a
+blissfully excited, busy woman. I was allowed to choose the material
+and fashion of my wedding suit and hat myself, but almost everything
+else was settled by Aunt Philippa. I didn't mind; it was a relief to
+be rid of all responsibility; I did protest when she declared her
+intention of having a big wedding and asking all the cousins and
+semi-cousins on the island, but Aunt Philippa swept my objections
+lightly aside.
+
+"I'm bound to have one good wedding in this house," she said. "Not
+likely I'll ever have another chance."
+
+She found time amid all the baking and concocting to warn me
+frequently not to take it too much to heart if Mark failed to come
+after all.
+
+"I know a man who jilted a girl on her wedding day. That's the men for
+you. It's best to be prepared."
+
+But Mark did come, getting there the evening before our wedding day.
+And then a severe blow fell on Aunt Philippa. Word came from the manse
+that Mr. Bentwell had been suddenly summoned to Nova Scotia to his
+mother's deathbed; he had started that night.
+
+"That's the men for you," said Aunt Philippa bitterly. "Never can
+depend on one of them, not even on a minister. What's to be done now?"
+
+"Get another minister," said Mark easily.
+
+"Where'll you get him?" demanded Aunt Philippa. "The minister at
+Cliftonville is away on his vacation, and Mercer is vacant, and that
+leaves none nearer than town. It won't do to depend on a town minister
+being able to come. No, there's no help for it. You'll have to have
+that Methodist man."
+
+Aunt Philippa's tone was tragic. Plainly she thought the ceremony
+would scarcely be legal if that Methodist man married us. But neither
+Mark nor I cared. We were too happy to be disturbed by any such
+trifles.
+
+The young Methodist minister married us the next day in the presence
+of many beaming guests. Aunt Philippa, splendid in black silk and
+point-lace collar, neither of which lost a whit of dignity or lustre
+by being made ten years before, was composure itself while the
+ceremony was going on. But no sooner had the minister pronounced us
+man and wife than she spoke up.
+
+"Now that's over I want someone to go right out and put out the fire
+on the kitchen roof. It's been on fire for the last ten minutes."
+
+Minister and bridegroom headed the emergency brigade, and Aunt
+Philippa pumped the water for them. In a short time the fire was out,
+all was safe, and we were receiving our deferred congratulations.
+
+"Now, young man," said Aunt Philippa solemnly as she shook hands with
+Mark, "don't you ever try to get out of this, even if a Methodist
+minister did marry you."
+
+She insisted on driving us to the train and said goodbye to us as we
+stood on the car steps. She had caught more of the shower of rice than
+I had, and as the day was hot and sunny she had tied over her head,
+atop of that festal silk dress, a huge, home-made, untrimmed straw
+hat. But she did not look ridiculous. There was a certain dignity
+about Aunt Philippa in any costume and under any circumstance.
+
+"Aunt Philippa," I said, "tell me this: why have you helped me to be
+married?"
+
+The train began to move.
+
+"I refused once to run away myself, and I've repented it ever since."
+Then, as the train gathered speed and the distance between us widened,
+she shouted after us, "But I s'pose if I had run away I'd have
+repented of that too."
+
+
+
+
+Bessie's Doll
+
+
+Tommy Puffer, sauntering up the street, stopped to look at Miss
+Octavia's geraniums. Tommy never could help stopping to look at Miss
+Octavia's flowers, much as he hated Miss Octavia. Today they were
+certainly worth looking at. Miss Octavia had set them all out on her
+verandah--rows upon rows of them, overflowing down the steps in waves
+of blossom and colour. Miss Octavia's geraniums were famous in
+Arundel, and she was very proud of them. But it was her garden which
+was really the delight of her heart. Miss Octavia always had the
+prettiest garden in Arundel, especially as far as annuals were
+concerned. Just now it was like faith--the substance of things hoped
+for. The poppies and nasturtiums and balsams and morning glories and
+sweet peas had been sown in the brown beds on the lawn, but they had
+not yet begun to come up.
+
+Tommy was still feasting his eyes on the geraniums when Miss Octavia
+herself came around the corner of the house. Her face darkened the
+minute she saw Tommy. Most people's did. Tommy had the reputation of
+being a very bad, mischievous boy; he was certainly very poor and
+ragged, and Miss Octavia disapproved of poverty and rags on principle.
+Nobody, she argued, not even a boy of twelve, need be poor and ragged
+if he is willing to work.
+
+"Here, you, get away out of this," she said sharply. "I'm not going to
+have you hanging over my palings."
+
+"I ain't hurting your old palings," retorted Tommy sullenly. "I was
+jist a-looking at the flowers."
+
+"Yes, and picking out the next one to throw a stone at," said Miss
+Octavia sarcastically. "It was you who threw that stone and broke my
+big scarlet geranium clear off the other day."
+
+"It wasn't--I never chucked a stone at your flowers," said Tommy.
+
+"Don't tell me any falsehoods, Tommy Puffer. It was you. Didn't I
+catch you firing stones at my cat a dozen times?"
+
+"I might have fired 'em at an old cat, but I wouldn't tech a flower,"
+avowed Tommy boldly--brazenly, Miss Octavia thought.
+
+"You clear out of this or I'll make you," she said warningly.
+
+Tommy had had his ears boxed by Miss Octavia more than once. He had no
+desire to have the performance repeated, so he stuck his tongue out at
+Miss Octavia and then marched up the street with his hands in his
+pockets, whistling jauntily.
+
+"He's the most impudent brat I ever saw in my life," muttered Miss
+Octavia wrathfully. There was a standing feud between her and all the
+Arundel small boys, but Tommy was her special object of dislike.
+
+Tommy's heart was full of wrath and bitterness as he marched away. He
+hated Miss Octavia; he wished something would happen to every one of
+her flowers; he knew it was Ned Williams who had thrown that stone,
+and he hoped Ned would throw some more and smash all the flowers. So
+Tommy raged along the street until he came to Mr. Blacklock's store,
+and in the window of it he saw something that put Miss Octavia and her
+disagreeable remarks quite out of his tow-coloured head.
+
+This was nothing more or less than a doll. Now, Tommy was not a judge
+of dolls and did not take much interest in them, but he felt quite
+sure that this was a very fine one. It was so big; it was beautifully
+dressed in blue silk, with a ruffled blue silk hat; it had lovely long
+golden hair and big brown eyes and pink cheeks; and it stood right up
+in the showcase and held out its hands winningly.
+
+"Gee, ain't it a beauty!" said Tommy admiringly. "It looks 'sif it was
+alive, and it's as big as a baby. I must go an' bring Bessie to see
+it."
+
+Tommy at once hurried away to the shabby little street where what he
+called "home" was. Tommy's home was a very homeless-looking sort of
+place. It was the smallest, dingiest, most slatternly house on a
+street noted for its dingy and slatternly houses. It was occupied by a
+slatternly mother and a drunken father, as well as by Tommy; and
+neither the father nor the mother took much notice of Tommy except to
+scold or nag him. So it is hardly to be wondered at if Tommy was the
+sort of boy who was frowned upon by respectable citizens.
+
+But one little white blossom of pure affection bloomed in the arid
+desert of Tommy's existence for all that. In the preceding fall a new
+family had come to Arundel and moved into the tiny house next to the
+Puffers'. It was a small, dingy house, just like the others, but
+before long a great change took place in it. The new family were
+thrifty, industrious folks, although they were very poor. The little
+house was white-washed, the paling neatly mended, the bit of a yard
+cleaned of all its rubbish. Muslin curtains appeared in the windows,
+and rows of cans, with blossoming plants, adorned the sills.
+
+There were just three people in the Knox family--a thin little mother,
+who went out scrubbing and took in washing, a boy of ten, who sold
+newspapers and ran errands--and Bessie.
+
+Bessie was eight years old and walked with a crutch, but she was a
+smart little lassie and kept the house wonderfully neat and tidy while
+her mother was away. The very first time she had seen Tommy she had
+smiled at him sweetly and said, "Good morning." From that moment Tommy
+was her devoted slave. Nobody had ever spoken like that to him before;
+nobody had ever smiled so at him. Tommy would have given his useless
+little life for Bessie, and thenceforth the time he was not devising
+mischief he spent in bringing little pleasures into her life. It was
+Tommy's delight to bring that smile to her pale little face and a look
+of pleasure into her big, patient blue eyes. The other boys on the
+street tried to tease Bessie at first and shouted "Cripple!" after her
+when she limped out. But they soon stopped it. Tommy thrashed them
+all one after another for it, and Bessie was left in peace. She would
+have had a very lonely life if it had not been for Tommy, for she
+could not play with the other children. But Tommy was as good as a
+dozen playmates, and Bessie thought him the best boy in the world.
+Tommy, whatever he might be with others, was very careful to be good
+when he was with Bessie. He never said a rude word in her hearing, and
+he treated her as if she were a little princess. Miss Octavia would
+have been amazed beyond measure if she had seen how tender and
+thoughtful and kind and chivalrous that neglected urchin of a Tommy
+could be when he tried.
+
+Tommy found Bessie sitting by the kitchen window, looking dreamily out
+of it. For just a moment Tommy thought uneasily that Bessie was
+looking very pale and thin this spring.
+
+"Bessie, come for a walk up to Mr. Blacklock's store," he said
+eagerly. "There is something there I want to show you."
+
+"What is it?" Bessie wanted to know. But Tommy only winked
+mysteriously.
+
+"Ah, I ain't going to tell you. But it's something awful pretty. Just
+you wait."
+
+Bessie reached for her crutch and the two went up to the store, Tommy
+carefully suiting his steps to Bessie's slow ones. Just before they
+reached the store he made her shut her eyes and led her to the window.
+
+"Now--look!" he commanded dramatically.
+
+Bessie looked and Tommy was rewarded. She flushed pinkly with delight
+and clasped her hands in ecstasy.
+
+"Oh, Tommy, isn't she perfectly beautiful?" she breathed. "Oh, she's
+the very loveliest dolly I ever saw. Oh, Tommy!"
+
+"I thought you'd like her," said Tommy exultantly. "Don't you wish you
+had a doll like that of your very own, Bessie?"
+
+Bessie looked almost rebuking, as if Tommy had asked her if she
+wouldn't like a golden crown or a queen's palace.
+
+"Of course I could never have a dolly like that," she said. "She must
+cost an awful lot. But it's enough just to look at her. Tommy, will
+you bring me up here every day just to look at her?"
+
+"'Course," said Tommy.
+
+Bessie talked about the blue-silk doll all the way home and dreamed of
+her every night. "I'm going to call her Roselle Geraldine," she said.
+After that she went up to see Roselle Geraldine every day, gazing at
+her for long moments in silent rapture. Tommy almost grew jealous of
+her; he thought Bessie liked the doll better than she did him.
+
+"But it don't matter a bit if she does," he thought loyally, crushing
+down the jealousy. "If she likes to like it better than me, it's all
+right."
+
+Sometimes, though, Tommy felt uneasy. It was plain to be seen that
+Bessie had set her heart on that doll. And what would she do when the
+doll was sold, as would probably happen soon? Tommy thought Bessie
+would feel awful sad, and he would be responsible for it.
+
+What Tommy feared came to pass. One afternoon, when they went up to
+Mr. Blacklock's store, the doll was not in the window.
+
+"Oh," cried Bessie, bursting into tears, "she's gone--Roselle
+Geraldine is gone."
+
+"Perhaps she isn't sold," said Tommy comfortingly. "Maybe they only
+took her out of the window 'cause the blue silk would fade. I'll go in
+and ask."
+
+A minute later Tommy came out looking sober.
+
+"Yes, she's sold, Bessie," he said. "Mr. Blacklock sold her to a lady
+yesterday. Don't cry, Bessie--maybe they'll put another in the window
+'fore long."
+
+"It won't be mine," sobbed Bessie. "It won't be Roselle Geraldine. It
+won't have a blue silk hat and such cunning brown eyes."
+
+Bessie cried quietly all the way home, and Tommy could not comfort
+her. He wished he had never shown her the doll in the window.
+
+From that day Bessie drooped, and Tommy watched her in agony. She grew
+paler and thinner. She was too tired to go out walking, and too tired
+to do the little household tasks she had delighted in. She never spoke
+about Roselle Geraldine, but Tommy knew she was fretting about her.
+Mrs. Knox could not think what ailed the child.
+
+"She don't take a bit of interest in nothing," she complained to Mrs.
+Puffer. "She don't eat enough for a bird. The doctor, he says there
+ain't nothing the matter with her as he can find out, but she's just
+pining away."
+
+Tommy heard this, and a queer, big lump came up in his throat. He had
+a horrible fear that he, Tommy Puffer, was going to cry. To prevent it
+he began to whistle loudly. But the whistle was a failure, very unlike
+the real Tommy-whistle. Bessie was sick--and it was all his fault,
+Tommy believed. If he had never taken her to see that hateful,
+blue-silk doll, she would never have got so fond of it as to be
+breaking her heart because it was sold.
+
+"If I was only rich," said Tommy miserably, "I'd buy her a cartload of
+dolls, all dressed in blue silk and all with brown eyes. But I can't
+do nothing."
+
+By this time Tommy had reached the paling in front of Miss Octavia's
+lawn, and from force of habit he stopped to look over it. But there
+was not much to see this time, only the little green rows and circles
+in the brown, well-weeded beds, and the long curves of dahlia plants,
+which Miss Octavia had set out a few days before. All the geraniums
+were carried in, and the blinds were down. Tommy knew Miss Octavia was
+away. He had seen her depart on the train that morning, and heard her
+tell a friend that she was going down to Chelton to visit her
+brother's folks and wouldn't be back until the next day.
+
+Tommy was still leaning moodily against the paling when Mrs. Jenkins
+and Mrs. Reid came by, and they too paused to look at the garden.
+
+"Dear me, how cold it is!" shivered Mrs. Reid. "There's going to be a
+hard frost tonight. Octavia's flowers will be nipped as sure as
+anything. It's a wonder she'd stay away from them overnight when her
+heart's so set on them."
+
+"Her brother's wife is sick," said Mrs. Jenkins. "We haven't had any
+frost this spring, and I suppose Octavia never thought of such a
+thing. She'll feel awful bad if her flowers get frosted, especially
+them dahlias. Octavia sets such store by her dahlias."
+
+Mrs. Jenkins and Mrs. Reid moved away, leaving Tommy by the paling. It
+was cold--there was going to be a hard frost--and Miss Octavia's
+plants and flowers would certainly be spoiled. Tommy thought he ought
+to be glad, but he wasn't. He was sorry--not for Miss Octavia, but for
+her flowers. Tommy had a queer, passionate love for flowers in his
+twisted little soul. It was a shame that they should be nipped--that
+all the glory of crimson and purple and gold hidden away in those
+little green rows and circles should never have a chance to blossom
+out royally. Tommy could never have put this thought into words, but
+it was there in his heart. He wished he could save the flowers. And
+couldn't he? Newspapers spread over the beds and tied around the
+dahlias would save them, Tommy knew. He had seen Miss Octavia doing it
+other springs. And he knew there was a big box of newspapers in a
+little shed in her backyard. Ned Williams had told him there was, and
+that the shed was never locked.
+
+Tommy hurried home as quickly as he could and got a ball of twine out
+of his few treasures. Then he went back to Miss Octavia's garden.
+
+The next forenoon Miss Octavia got off the train at the Arundel
+station with a very grim face. There had been an unusually severe
+frost for the time of year. All along the road Miss Octavia had seen
+gardens frosted and spoiled. She knew what she should see when she got
+to her own--the dahlia stalks drooping and black and limp, the
+nasturtiums and balsams and poppies and pansies all withered and
+ruined.
+
+But she didn't. Instead she saw every dahlia carefully tied up in a
+newspaper, and over all the beds newspapers spread out and held neatly
+in place with pebbles. Miss Octavia flew into her garden with a
+radiant face. Everything was safe--nothing was spoiled.
+
+But who could have done it? Miss Octavia was puzzled. On one side of
+her lived Mrs. Kennedy, who had just moved in and, being a total
+stranger, would not be likely to think of Miss Octavia's flowers. On
+the other lived Miss Matheson, who was a "shut-in" and spent all her
+time on the sofa. But to Miss Matheson Miss Octavia went.
+
+"Rachel, do you know who covered my plants up last night?"
+
+Miss Matheson nodded. "Yes, it was Tommy Puffer. I saw him working
+away there with papers and twine. I thought you'd told him to do it."
+
+"For the land's sake!" ejaculated Miss Octavia. "Tommy Puffer! Well,
+wonders will never cease."
+
+Miss Octavia went back to her house feeling rather ashamed of herself
+when she remembered how she had always treated Tommy Puffer.
+
+"But there must be some good in the child, or he wouldn't have done
+this," she said to herself. "I've been real mean, but I'll make it up
+to him."
+
+Miss Octavia did not see Tommy that day, but when he passed the next
+morning she ran to the door and called him.
+
+"Tommy, Tommy Puffer, come in here!"
+
+Tommy came reluctantly. He didn't like Miss Octavia any better than he
+had, and he didn't know what she wanted of him. But Miss Octavia soon
+informed him without loss of words.
+
+"Tommy, Miss Matheson tells me that it was you who saved my flowers
+from the frost the other night. I'm very much obliged to you indeed.
+Whatever made you think of doing it?"
+
+"I hated to see the flowers spoiled," muttered Tommy, who was feeling
+more uncomfortable than he had ever felt in his life.
+
+"Well, it was real thoughtful of you. I'm sorry I've been so hard on
+you, Tommy, and I believe now you didn't break my scarlet geranium. Is
+there anything I can do for you--anything you'd like to have? If it's
+in reason I'll get it for you, just to pay my debt."
+
+Tommy stared at Miss Octavia with a sudden hopeful inspiration. "Oh,
+Miss Octavia," he cried eagerly, "will you buy a doll and give it to
+me?"
+
+"Well, for the land's sake!" ejaculated Miss Octavia, unable to
+believe her ears. "A doll! What on earth do you want of a doll?"
+
+"It's for Bessie," said Tommy eagerly. "You see, it's this way."
+
+Then Tommy told Miss Octavia the whole story. Miss Octavia listened
+silently, sometimes nodding her head. When he had finished she went
+out of the room and soon returned, bringing with her the very
+identical doll that had been in Mr. Blacklock's window.
+
+"I guess this is the doll," she said. "I bought it to give to a small
+niece of mine, but I can get another for her. You may take this to
+Bessie."
+
+It would be of no use to try to describe Bessie's joy when Tommy
+rushed in and put Roselle Geraldine in her arms with a breathless
+account of the wonderful story. But from that moment Bessie began to
+pick up again, and soon she was better than she had ever been and the
+happiest little lassie in Arundel.
+
+When a week had passed, Miss Octavia again called Tommy in; Tommy
+went more willingly this time. He had begun to like Miss Octavia.
+
+That lady looked him over sharply and somewhat dubiously. He was
+certainly very ragged and unkempt. But Miss Octavia saw what she had
+never noticed before--that Tommy's eyes were bright and frank, that
+Tommy's chin was a good chin, and that Tommy's smile had something
+very pleasant about it.
+
+"You're fond of flowers, aren't you, Tommy?" she asked.
+
+"You bet," was Tommy's inelegant but heartfelt answer.
+
+"Well," said Miss Octavia slowly, "I have a brother down at Chelton
+who is a florist. He wants a boy of your age to do handy jobs and run
+errands about his establishment, and he wants one who is fond of
+flowers and would like to learn the business. He asked me to recommend
+him one, and I promised to look out for a suitable boy. Would you like
+the place, Tommy? And will you promise to be a very good boy and learn
+to be respectable if I ask my brother to give you a trial and a chance
+to make something of yourself?"
+
+"Oh, Miss Octavia!" gasped Tommy. He wondered if he were simply having
+a beautiful dream.
+
+But it was no dream. And it was all arranged later on. No one rejoiced
+more heartily in Tommy's success than Bessie.
+
+"But I'll miss you dreadfully, Tommy," she said wistfully.
+
+"Oh, I'll be home every Saturday night, and we'll have Sunday
+together, except when I've got to go to Sunday school. 'Cause Miss
+Octavia says I must," said Tommy comfortingly. "And the rest of the
+time you'll have Roselle Geraldine."
+
+"Yes, I know," said Bessie, giving the blue-silk doll a fond kiss,
+"and she's just lovely. But she ain't as nice as you, Tommy, for all."
+
+Then was Tommy's cup of happiness full.
+
+
+
+
+Charlotte's Ladies
+
+
+Just as soon as dinner was over at the asylum, Charlotte sped away to
+the gap in the fence--the northwest corner gap. There was a gap in the
+southeast corner, too--the asylum fence was in a rather poor
+condition--but the southeast gap was interesting only after tea, and
+it was never at any time quite as interesting as the northwest gap.
+
+Charlotte ran as fast as her legs could carry her, for she did not
+want any of the other orphans to see her. As a rule, Charlotte liked
+the company of the other orphans and was a favourite with them. But,
+somehow, she did not want them to know about the gaps. She was sure
+they would not understand.
+
+Charlotte had discovered the gaps only a week before. They had not
+been there in the autumn, but the snowdrifts had lain heavily against
+the fence all winter, and one spring day when Charlotte was creeping
+through the shrubbery in the northwest corner in search of the little
+yellow daffodils that always grew there in spring, she found a
+delightful space where a board had fallen off, whence she could look
+out on a bit of woodsy road with a little footpath winding along by
+the fence under the widespreading boughs of the asylum trees.
+Charlotte felt a wild impulse to slip out and run fast and far down
+that lovely, sunny, tempting, fenceless road. But that would have been
+wrong, for it was against the asylum rules, and Charlotte, though she
+hated most of the asylum rules with all her heart, never disobeyed or
+broke them. So she subdued the vagrant longing with a sigh and sat
+down among the daffodils to peer wistfully out of the gap and feast
+her eyes on this glimpse of a world where there were no brick walls
+and prim walks and never-varying rules.
+
+Then, as Charlotte watched, the Pretty Lady with the Blue Eyes came
+along the footpath. Charlotte had never seen her before and hadn't the
+slightest idea in the world who she was, but that was what she called
+her as soon as she saw her. The lady was so pretty, with lovely blue
+eyes that were very sad, although somehow as you looked at them you
+felt that they ought to be laughing, merry eyes instead. At least
+Charlotte thought so and wished at once that she knew how to make them
+laugh. Besides, the Lady had lovely golden hair and the most beautiful
+pink cheeks, and Charlotte, who had mouse-coloured hair and any number
+of freckles, had an unbounded admiration for golden locks and roseleaf
+complexions. The Lady was dressed in black, which Charlotte didn't
+like, principally because the matron of the asylum wore black and
+Charlotte didn't--exactly--like the matron.
+
+When the Pretty Lady with the Blue Eyes had gone by, Charlotte drew a
+long breath.
+
+"If I could pick out a mother I'd pick out one that looked just like
+her," she said.
+
+Nice things sometimes happen close together, even in an orphan asylum,
+and that very evening Charlotte discovered the southeast gap and found
+herself peering into the most beautiful garden you could imagine, a
+garden where daffodils and tulips grew in great ribbon-like beds, and
+there were hedges of white and purple lilacs, and winding paths under
+blossoming trees. It was such a garden as Charlotte had pictured in
+happy dreams and never expected to see in real life. And yet here it
+had been all the time, divided from her only by a high board fence.
+
+"I wouldn't have s'posed there could be such a lovely place so near an
+orphan asylum," mused Charlotte. "It's the very loveliest place I ever
+saw. Oh, I do wish I could go and walk in it. Well, I do declare! If
+there isn't a lady in it, too!"
+
+Sure enough, there was a lady, helping an unruly young vine to run in
+the way it should go over a little arbour. Charlotte instantly named
+her the Tall Lady with the Black Eyes. She was not nearly so young or
+so pretty as the Lady with the Blue Eyes, but she looked very kind and
+jolly.
+
+I'd like her for an aunt, reflected Charlotte. Not for a mother--oh,
+no, not for a mother, but for an aunt. I know she'd make a splendid
+aunt. And, oh, just look at her cat!
+
+Charlotte looked at the cat with all her might and main. She loved
+cats, but cats were not allowed in an orphan asylum, although
+Charlotte sometimes wondered if there were no orphan kittens in the
+world which would be appropriate for such an institution.
+
+The Tall Lady's cat was so big and furry, with a splendid tail and
+elegant stripes. A Very Handsome Cat, Charlotte called him mentally,
+seeing the capitals as plainly as if they had been printed out.
+Charlotte's fingers tingled to stroke his glossy coat, but she folded
+them sternly together.
+
+"You know you can't," she said to herself reproachfully, "so what is
+the use of wanting to, Charlotte Turner? You ought to be thankful just
+to see the garden and the Very Handsome Cat."
+
+Charlotte watched the Tall Lady and the Cat until they went away into
+a fine, big house further up the garden, then she sighed and went back
+through the cherry trees to the asylum playground, where the other
+orphans were playing games. But, somehow, games had lost their flavour
+compared with those fascinating gaps.
+
+It did not take Charlotte long to discover that the Pretty Lady always
+walked past the northwest gap about one o'clock every day and never at
+any other time--at least at no other time when Charlotte was free to
+watch her; and that the Tall Lady was almost always in her garden at
+five in the afternoon, accompanied by the Very Handsome Cat, pruning
+and trimming some of her flowers. Charlotte never missed being at the
+gaps at the proper times, if she could possibly manage it, and her
+heart was full of dreams about her two Ladies. But the other orphans
+thought all the fun had gone out of her, and the matron noticed her
+absent-mindedness and dosed her with sulphur and molasses for it.
+Charlotte took the dose meekly, as she took everything else. It was
+all part and parcel with being an orphan in an asylum.
+
+"But if the Pretty Lady with the Blue Eyes was my mother, she wouldn't
+make me swallow such dreadful stuff," sighed Charlotte. "I don't
+believe even the Tall Lady with the Black Eyes would--though perhaps
+she might, aunts not being quite as good as mothers."
+
+"Do you know," said Maggie Brunt, coming up to Charlotte at this
+moment, "that Lizzie Parker is going to be adopted? A lady is going to
+adopt her."
+
+"Oh!" cried Charlotte breathlessly. An adoption was always a wonderful
+event in the asylum, as well as a somewhat rare one. "Oh, how
+splendid!"
+
+"Yes, isn't it?" said Maggie enviously. "She picked out Lizzie because
+she was pretty and had curls. I don't think it is fair."
+
+Charlotte sighed. "Nobody will ever want to adopt me, because I've
+mousy hair and freckles," she said. "But somebody may want you some
+day, Maggie. You have such lovely black hair."
+
+"But it isn't curly," said Maggie forlornly. "And the matron won't let
+me put it up in curl papers at night. I just wish I was Lizzie."
+
+Charlotte shook her head. "I don't. I'd love to be adopted, but I
+wouldn't really like to be anybody but myself, even if I am homely.
+It's better to be yourself with mousy hair and freckles than somebody
+else who is ever so beautiful. But I do envy Lizzie, though the
+matron says it is wicked to envy anyone."
+
+Envy of the fortunate Lizzie did not long possess Charlotte's mind,
+however, for that very day a wonderful thing happened at noon hour by
+the northwest gap. Charlotte had always been very careful not to let
+the Pretty Lady see her, but today, after the Pretty Lady had gone
+past, Charlotte leaned out of the gap to watch her as far as she
+could. And just at that very moment the Pretty Lady looked back; and
+there, peering at her from the asylum fence, was a little scrap of a
+girl, with mouse-coloured hair and big freckles, and the sweetest,
+brightest, most winsome little face the Pretty Lady had ever seen. The
+Pretty Lady smiled right down at Charlotte and for just a moment her
+eyes looked as Charlotte had always known they ought to look.
+Charlotte was feeling rather frightened down in her heart but she
+smiled bravely back.
+
+"Are you thinking of running away?" said the Pretty Lady, and, oh,
+what a sweet voice she had--sweet and tender, just like a mother's
+voice ought to be!
+
+"No," said Charlotte, shaking her head gravely. "I should like to run
+away but it would be of no use, because there is no place to run to."
+
+"Why would you like to run away?" asked the Pretty Lady, still
+smiling. "Don't you like living here?"
+
+Charlotte opened her big eyes very widely. "Why, it's an orphan
+asylum!" she exclaimed. "Nobody could like living in an orphan asylum.
+But, of course, orphans should be very thankful to have any place to
+live in and I _am_ thankful. I'd be thankfuller still if the matron
+wouldn't make me take sulphur and molasses. If you had a little girl,
+would you make her take sulphur and molasses?"
+
+"I didn't when I had a little girl," said the Pretty Lady wistfully,
+and her eyes were sad again.
+
+"Oh, did you really have a little girl once?" asked Charlotte softly.
+
+"Yes, and she died," said the Pretty Lady in a trembling voice.
+
+"Oh, I am sorry," said Charlotte, more softly still. "Did she--did she
+have lovely golden hair and pink cheeks like yours?"
+
+"No," the Pretty Lady smiled again, though it was a very sad smile.
+"No, she had mouse-coloured hair and freckles."
+
+"Oh! And weren't you sorry?"
+
+"No, I was glad of it, because it made her look like her father. I've
+always loved little girls with mouse-coloured hair and freckles ever
+since. Well, I must hurry along. I'm late now, and schools have a
+dreadful habit of going in sharp on time. If you should happen to be
+here tomorrow, I'm going to stop and ask your name."
+
+Of course Charlotte was at the gap the next day and they had a lovely
+talk. In a week they were the best of friends. Charlotte soon found
+out that she could make the Pretty Lady's eyes look as they ought to
+for a little while at least, and she spent all her spare time and lay
+awake at nights devising speeches to make the Pretty Lady laugh.
+
+Then another wonderful thing happened. One evening when Charlotte went
+to the southeast gap, the Tall Lady with the Black Eyes was not in the
+garden--at least, Charlotte thought she wasn't. But the Very Handsome
+Cat was, sitting gravely under a syringa bush and looking quite proud
+of himself for being a cat.
+
+"You Very Handsome Cat," said Charlotte, "won't you come here and let
+me stroke you?"
+
+The Very Handsome Cat did come, just as if he understood English, and
+he purred with delight when Charlotte took him in her arms and buried
+her face in his fur. Then--Charlotte thought she would really sink
+into the ground, for the Tall Lady herself came around a lilac bush
+and stood before the gap.
+
+"Please, ma'am," stammered Charlotte in an agony of embarrassment, "I
+wasn't meaning to do any harm to your Very Handsome Cat. I just wanted
+to pat him. I--I am very fond of cats and they are not allowed in
+orphan asylums."
+
+"I've always thought asylums weren't run on proper principles," said
+the Tall Lady briskly. "Bless your heart, child, don't look so scared.
+You're welcome to pat the cat all you like. Come in and I'll give you
+some flowers."
+
+"Thank you, but I am not allowed to go off the grounds," said
+Charlotte firmly, "and I think I'd rather not have any flowers because
+the matron might want to know where I got them, and then she would
+have this gap closed up. I live in mortal dread for fear it will be
+closed anyhow. It's very uncomfortable--living in mortal dread."
+
+The Tall Lady laughed a very jolly laugh. "Yes, I should think it
+would be," she agreed. "I haven't had that experience."
+
+Then they had a jolly talk, and every evening after that Charlotte
+went to the gap and stroked the Very Handsome Cat and chatted to the
+Tall Lady.
+
+"Do you live all alone in that big house?" she asked wonderingly one
+day.
+
+"All alone," said the Tall Lady.
+
+"Did you always live alone?"
+
+"No. I had a sister living with me once. But I don't want to talk
+about her. You'll oblige me, Charlotte, by _not_ talking about her."
+
+"I won't then," agreed Charlotte. "I can understand why people don't
+like to have their sisters talked about sometimes. Lily Mitchell has a
+big sister who was sent to jail for stealing. Of course Lily doesn't
+like to talk about her."
+
+The Tall Lady laughed a little bitterly. "My sister didn't steal. She
+married a man I detested, that's all."
+
+"Did he drink?" asked Charlotte gravely. "The matron's husband drank
+and that was why she left him and took to running an orphan asylum. I
+think I'd rather put up with a drunken husband than live in an orphan
+asylum."
+
+"My sister's husband didn't drink," said the Tall Lady grimly. "He was
+beneath her, that was all. I told her I'd never forgive her and I
+never shall. He's dead now--he died a year after she married him--and
+she's working for her living. I dare say she doesn't find it very
+pleasant. She wasn't brought up to that. Here, Charlotte, is a
+turnover for you. I made it on purpose for you. Eat it and tell me if
+you don't think I'm a good cook. I'm dying for a compliment. I never
+get any now that I've got old. It's a dismal thing to get old and have
+nobody to love you except a cat, Charlotte."
+
+"I think it is just as bad to be young and have nobody to love you,
+not _even_ a cat," sighed Charlotte, enjoying the turnover,
+nevertheless.
+
+"I dare say it is," agreed the Tall Lady, looking as if she had been
+struck by a new and rather startling idea.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I like the tall lady with the Black Eyes ever so much, thought
+Charlotte that night as she lay in bed, but I love the Pretty Lady. I
+have more fun with the Tall Lady and the Very Handsome Cat, but I
+always feel nicer with the Pretty Lady. Oh, I'm so glad her little
+girl had mouse-coloured hair.
+
+Then the most wonderful thing of all happened. One day a week later
+the Pretty Lady said, "Would you like to come and live with me,
+Charlotte?"
+
+Charlotte looked at her. "Are you in earnest?" she asked in a whisper.
+
+"Indeed I am. I want you for my little girl, and if you'd like to
+come, you shall. I'm poor, Charlotte, really, I'm dreadfully poor, but
+I can make my salary stretch far enough for two, and we'll love each
+other enough to cover the thin spots. Will you come?"
+
+"Well, I should just think I will!" said Charlotte emphatically. "Oh,
+I wish I was sure I'm not dreaming. I do love you so much, and it will
+be so delightful to be your little girl."
+
+"Very well, sweetheart. I'll come tomorrow afternoon--it is Saturday,
+so I'll have the whole blessed day off--and see the matron about it.
+Oh, we'll have lovely times together, dearest. I only wish I'd
+discovered you long ago."
+
+Charlotte may have eaten and studied and played and kept rules the
+rest of that day and part of the next, but, if so, she has no
+recollection of it. She went about like a girl in a dream, and the
+matron concluded that something more than sulphur and molasses was
+needed and decided to speak to the doctor about her. But she never
+did, because a lady came that afternoon and told her she wanted to
+adopt Charlotte.
+
+Charlotte obeyed the summons to the matron's room in a tingle of
+excitement. But when she went in, she saw only the matron and the Tall
+Lady with the Black Eyes. Before Charlotte could look around for the
+Pretty Lady the matron said, "Charlotte, this lady, Miss Herbert,
+wishes to adopt you. It is a splendid thing for you, and you ought to
+be a very thankful little girl."
+
+Charlotte's head fairly whirled. She clasped her hands and the tears
+brimmed up in her eyes.
+
+"Oh, I like the Tall Lady," she gasped, "but I _love_ the Pretty Lady
+and I promised her I'd be her little girl. I can't break my promise."
+
+"What on earth is the child talking about?" said the mystified matron.
+
+And just then the maid showed in the Pretty Lady. Charlotte flew to
+her and flung her arms about her.
+
+"Oh, tell them I am your little girl!" she begged. "Tell them I
+promised you first. I don't want to hurt the Tall Lady's feelings
+because I truly do like her so very much. But I want to be your little
+girl."
+
+The Pretty Lady had given one glance at the Tall Lady and flushed red.
+The Tall Lady, on the contrary, had grown very pale. The matron felt
+uncomfortable. Everybody knew that Miss Herbert and Mrs. Bond hadn't
+spoken to each other for years, even if they were sisters and alone in
+the world except for each other.
+
+Mrs. Bond turned to the matron. "I have come to ask permission to
+adopt this little girl," she said.
+
+"Oh, I'm very sorry," stammered the matron, "but Miss Herbert has just
+asked for her, and I have consented."
+
+Charlotte gave a great gulp of disappointment, but the Pretty Lady
+suddenly wheeled around to face the Tall Lady, with quivering lips and
+tearful eyes.
+
+"Don't take her from me, Alma," she pleaded humbly. "She--she is so
+like my own baby and I'm so lonely. Any other child will suit you as
+well."
+
+"Not at all," said the Tall Lady brusquely. "Not at all, Anna. No
+other child will suit me at all. And may I ask what you intend to keep
+her on? I know your salary is barely enough for yourself."
+
+"That is my concern," said the Pretty Lady a little proudly.
+
+"Humph!" The Tall Lady shrugged her shoulders. "Just as independent as
+ever, Anna, I see. Well, child, what do _you_ say? Which of us will
+you come with? Remember, I have the cat on my side, and Anna can't
+make half as good turnovers as I can. Remember all this, Charlotte."
+
+"Oh, I--I like you so much," stammered Charlotte, "and I wish I could
+live with you both. But since I can't, I must go with the Pretty Lady,
+because I promised, and because I loved her first."
+
+"And best?" queried the Tall Lady.
+
+"And best," admitted Charlotte, bound to be truthful, even at the risk
+of hurting the Tall Lady's feelings. "But I _do_ like you, too--next
+best. And you really don't need me as much as she does, for you have
+your Very Handsome Cat and she hasn't anything."
+
+"A cat no longer satisfies the aching void in my soul," said the Tall
+Lady stubbornly. "Nothing will satisfy it but a little girl with
+mouse-coloured hair and freckles. No, Anna, I've got to have
+Charlotte. But I think that with her usual astuteness, she has already
+solved the problem for us by saying she'd like to live with us both.
+Why can't she? You just come back home and we'll let bygones be
+bygones. We both have something to forgive, but I was an obstinate old
+fool and I've known it for years, though I never confessed it to
+anybody but the cat."
+
+The Pretty Lady softened, trembled, smiled. She went right up to the
+Tall Lady and put her arms about her neck.
+
+"Oh, I've wanted so much to be friends with you again," she sobbed.
+"But I thought you would never relent--and--and--I've been so
+lonely--"
+
+"There, there," whispered the Tall Lady, "don't cry under the matron's
+eye. Wait till we get home. I may have some crying to do myself then.
+Charlotte, go and get your hat and come right over with us. We can
+sign the necessary papers later on, but we must have you right off.
+The cat is waiting for you on the back porch, and there is a turnover
+cooling on the pantry window that is just your size."
+
+"I am so happy," remarked Charlotte, "that I feel like crying
+myself."
+
+
+
+
+Christmas at Red Butte
+
+
+"Of course Santa Claus will come," said Jimmy Martin confidently.
+Jimmy was ten, and at ten it is easy to be confident. "Why, he's _got_
+to come because it is Christmas Eve, and he always _has_ come. You
+know that, twins."
+
+Yes, the twins knew it and, cheered by Jimmy's superior wisdom, their
+doubts passed away. There had been one terrible moment when Theodora
+had sighed and told them they mustn't be too much disappointed if
+Santa Claus did not come this year because the crops had been poor,
+and he mightn't have had enough presents to go around.
+
+"That doesn't make any difference to Santa Claus," scoffed Jimmy. "You
+know as well as I do, Theodora Prentice, that Santa Claus is rich
+whether the crops fail or not. They failed three years ago, before
+Father died, but Santa Claus came all the same. Prob'bly you don't
+remember it, twins, 'cause you were too little, but I do. Of course
+he'll come, so don't you worry a mite. And he'll bring my skates and
+your dolls. He knows we're expecting them, Theodora, 'cause we wrote
+him a letter last week, and threw it up the chimney. And there'll be
+candy and nuts, of course, and Mother's gone to town to buy a turkey.
+I tell you we're going to have a ripping Christmas."
+
+"Well, don't use such slangy words about it, Jimmy-boy," sighed
+Theodora. She couldn't bear to dampen their hopes any further, and
+perhaps Aunt Elizabeth might manage it if the colt sold well. But
+Theodora had her painful doubts, and she sighed again as she looked
+out of the window far down the trail that wound across the prairie,
+red-lighted by the declining sun of the short wintry afternoon.
+
+"Do people always sigh like that when they get to be sixteen?" asked
+Jimmy curiously. "You didn't sigh like that when you were only
+fifteen, Theodora. I wish you wouldn't. It makes me feel funny--and
+it's not a nice kind of funniness either."
+
+"It's a bad habit I've got into lately," said Theodora, trying to
+laugh. "Old folks are dull sometimes, you know, Jimmy-boy."
+
+"Sixteen _is_ awful old, isn't it?" said Jimmy reflectively. "I'll
+tell you what _I'm_ going to do when I'm sixteen, Theodora. I'm going
+to pay off the mortgage, and buy mother a silk dress, and a piano for
+the twins. Won't that be elegant? I'll be able to do that 'cause I'm a
+man. Of course if I was only a girl I couldn't."
+
+"I hope you'll be a good kind brave man and a real help to your
+mother," said Theodora softly, sitting down before the cosy fire and
+lifting the fat little twins into her lap.
+
+"Oh, I'll be good to her, never you fear," assured Jimmy, squatting
+comfortably down on the little fur rug before the stove--the skin of
+the coyote his father had killed four years ago. "I believe in being
+good to your mother when you've only got the one. Now tell us a story,
+Theodora--a real jolly story, you know, with lots of fighting in it.
+Only please don't kill anybody. I like to hear about fighting, but I
+like to have all the people come out alive."
+
+Theodora laughed, and began a story about the Riel Rebellion of '85--a
+story which had the double merit of being true and exciting at the
+same time. It was quite dark when she finished, and the twins were
+nodding, but Jimmy's eyes were wide open and sparkling.
+
+"That was great," he said, drawing a long breath. "Tell us another."
+
+"No, it's bedtime for you all," said Theodora firmly. "One story at a
+time is my rule, you know."
+
+"But I want to sit up till Mother comes home," objected Jimmy.
+
+"You can't. She may be very late, for she would have to wait to see
+Mr. Porter. Besides, you don't know what time Santa Claus might
+come--if he comes at all. If he were to drive along and see you
+children up instead of being sound asleep in bed, he might go right on
+and never call at all."
+
+This argument was too much for Jimmy.
+
+"All right, we'll go. But we have to hang up our stockings first.
+Twins, get yours."
+
+The twins toddled off in great excitement, and brought back their
+Sunday stockings, which Jimmy proceeded to hang along the edge of the
+mantel shelf. This done, they all trooped obediently off to bed.
+Theodora gave another sigh, and seated herself at the window, where
+she could watch the moonlit prairie for Mrs. Martin's homecoming and
+knit at the same time.
+
+I am afraid that you will think from all the sighing Theodora was
+doing that she was a very melancholy and despondent young lady. You
+couldn't think anything more unlike the real Theodora. She was the
+jolliest, bravest girl of sixteen in all Saskatchewan, as her shining
+brown eyes and rosy, dimpled cheeks would have told you; and her sighs
+were not on her own account, but simply for fear the children were
+going to be disappointed. She knew that they would be almost
+heartbroken if Santa Claus did not come, and that this would hurt the
+patient hardworking little mother more than all else.
+
+Five years before this, Theodora had come to live with Uncle George
+and Aunt Elizabeth in the little log house at Red Butte. Her own
+mother had just died, and Theodora had only her big brother Donald
+left, and Donald had Klondike fever. The Martins were poor, but they
+had gladly made room for their little niece, and Theodora had lived
+there ever since, her aunt's right-hand girl and the beloved playmate
+of the children. They had been very happy until Uncle George's death
+two years before this Christmas Eve; but since then there had been
+hard times in the little log house, and though Mrs. Martin and
+Theodora did their best, it was a woefully hard task to make both ends
+meet, especially this year when their crops had been poor. Theodora
+and her aunt had made every sacrifice possible for the children's
+sake, and at least Jimmy and the twins had not felt the pinch very
+severely yet.
+
+At seven Mrs. Martins bells jingled at the door and Theodora flew out.
+"Go right in and get warm, Auntie," she said briskly. "I'll take Ned
+away and unharness him."
+
+"It's a bitterly cold night," said Mrs. Martin wearily. There was a
+note of discouragement in her voice that struck dismay to Theodora's
+heart.
+
+"I'm afraid it means no Christmas for the children tomorrow," she
+thought sadly, as she led Ned away to the stable. When she returned to
+the kitchen Mrs. Martin was sitting by the fire, her face in her
+chilled hand, sobbing convulsively.
+
+"Auntie--oh, Auntie, don't!" exclaimed Theodora impulsively. It was
+such a rare thing to see her plucky, resolute little aunt in tears.
+"You're cold and tired--I'll have a nice cup of tea for you in a
+trice."
+
+"No, it isn't that," said Mrs. Martin brokenly "It was seeing those
+stockings hanging there. Theodora, I couldn't get a thing for the
+children--not a single thing. Mr. Porter would only give forty dollars
+for the colt, and when all the bills were paid there was barely enough
+left for such necessaries as we must have. I suppose I ought to feel
+thankful I could get those. But the thought of the children's
+disappointment tomorrow is more than I can bear. It would have been
+better to have told them long ago, but I kept building on getting more
+for the colt. Well, it's weak and foolish to give way like this. We'd
+better both take a cup of tea and go to bed. It will save fuel."
+
+When Theodora went up to her little room her face was very thoughtful.
+She took a small box from her table and carried it to the window. In
+it was a very pretty little gold locket hung on a narrow blue ribbon.
+Theodora held it tenderly in her fingers, and looked out over the
+moonlit prairie with a very sober face. Could she give up her dear
+locket--the locket Donald had given her just before he started for the
+Klondike? She had never thought she could do such a thing. It was
+almost the only thing she had to remind her of Donald--handsome,
+merry, impulsive, warmhearted Donald, who had gone away four years ago
+with a smile on his bonny face and splendid hope in his heart.
+
+"Here's a locket for you, Gift o' God," he had said gaily--he had such
+a dear loving habit of calling her by the beautiful meaning of her
+name. A lump came into Theodora's throat as she remembered it. "I
+couldn't afford a chain too, but when I come back I'll bring you a
+rope of Klondike nuggets for it."
+
+Then he had gone away. For two years letters had come from him
+regularly. Then he wrote that he had joined a prospecting party to a
+remote wilderness. After that was silence, deepening into anguish of
+suspense that finally ended in hopelessness. A rumour came that Donald
+Prentice was dead. None had returned from the expedition he had
+joined. Theodora had long ago given up all hope of ever seeing Donald
+again. Hence her locket was doubly dear to her.
+
+But Aunt Elizabeth had always been so good and loving and kind to her.
+Could she not make the sacrifice for her sake? Yes, she could and
+would. Theodora flung up her head with a gesture that meant decision.
+She took out of the locket the bits of hair--her mother's and
+Donald's--which it contained (perhaps a tear or two fell as she did
+so) and then hastily donned her warmest cap and wraps. It was only
+three miles to Spencer; she could easily walk it in an hour and, as it
+was Christmas Eve, the shops would be open late. She muse walk, for
+Ned could not be taken out again, and the mare's foot was sore.
+Besides, Aunt Elizabeth must not know until it was done.
+
+As stealthily as if she were bound on some nefarious errand, Theodora
+slipped downstairs and out of the house. The next minute she was
+hurrying along the trail in the moonlight. The great dazzling prairie
+was around her, the mystery and splendour of the northern night all
+about her. It was very calm and cold, but Theodora walked so briskly
+that she kept warm. The trail from Red Butte to Spencer was a lonely
+one. Mr. Lurgan's house, halfway to town, was the only dwelling on it.
+
+When Theodora reached Spencer she made her way at once to the only
+jewellery store the little town contained. Mr. Benson, its owner, had
+been a friend of her uncle's, and Theodora felt sure that he would
+buy her locket. Nevertheless her heart beat quickly, and her breath
+came and went uncomfortably fast as she went in. Suppose he wouldn't
+buy it. Then there would be no Christmas for the children at Red
+Butte.
+
+"Good evening, Miss Theodora," said Mr. Benson briskly. "What can I do
+for you?"
+
+"I'm afraid I'm not a very welcome sort of customer, Mr. Benson," said
+Theodora, with an uncertain smile. "I want to sell, not buy. Could
+you--will you buy this locket?"
+
+Mr. Benson pursed up his lips, took up the locket, and examined it.
+"Well, I don't often buy second-hand stuff," he said, after some
+reflection, "but I don't mind obliging you, Miss Theodora. I'll give
+you four dollars for this trinket."
+
+Theodora knew the locket had cost a great deal more than that, but
+four dollars would get what she wanted, and she dared not ask for
+more. In a few minutes the locket was in Mr. Benson's possession, and
+Theodora, with four crisp new bills in her purse, was hurrying to the
+toy store. Half an hour later she was on her way back to Red Butte,
+with as many parcels as she could carry--Jimmy's skates, two lovely
+dolls for the twins, packages of nuts and candy, and a nice plump
+turkey. Theodora beguiled her lonely tramp by picturing the children's
+joy in the morning.
+
+About a quarter of a mile past Mr. Lurgan's house the trail curved
+suddenly about a bluff of poplars. As Theodora rounded the turn she
+halted in amazement. Almost at her feet the body of a man was lying
+across the road. He was clad in a big fur coat, and had a fur cap
+pulled well down over his forehead and ears. Almost all of him that
+could be seen was a full bushy beard. Theodora had no idea who he was,
+or where he had come from. But she realized that he was unconscious,
+and that he would speedily freeze to death if help were not brought.
+The footprints of a horse galloping across the prairie suggested a
+fall and a runaway, but Theodora did not waste time in speculation.
+She ran back at full speed to Mr. Lurgan's, and roused the household.
+In a few minutes Mr. Lurgan and his son had hitched a horse to a
+wood-sleigh, and hurried down the trail to the unfortunate man.
+
+Theodora, knowing that her assistance was not needed, and that she
+ought to get home as quickly as possible, went on her way as soon as
+she had seen the stranger in safe keeping. When she reached the little
+log house she crept in, cautiously put the children's gifts in their
+stockings, placed the turkey on the table where Aunt Elizabeth would
+see it the first thing in the morning, and then slipped off to bed, a
+very weary but very happy girl.
+
+The joy that reigned in the little log house the next day more than
+repaid Theodora for her sacrifice.
+
+"Whoopee, didn't I tell you that Santa Claus would come all right!"
+shouted the delighted Jimmy. "Oh, what splendid skates!"
+
+The twins hugged their dolls in silent rapture, but Aunt Elizabeth's
+face was the best of all.
+
+Then the dinner had to be prepared, and everybody had a hand in that.
+Just as Theodora, after a grave peep into the oven, had announced that
+the turkey was done, a sleigh dashed around the house. Theodora flew
+to answer the knock at the door, and there stood Mr. Lurgan and a big,
+bewhiskered, fur-coated fellow whom Theodora recognized as the
+stranger she had found on the trail. But--_was_ he a stranger? There
+was something oddly familiar in those merry brown eyes. Theodora felt
+herself growing dizzy.
+
+"Donald!" she gasped. "Oh, Donald!"
+
+And then she was in the big fellow's arms, laughing and crying at the
+same time.
+
+Donald it was indeed. And then followed half an hour during which
+everybody talked at once, and the turkey would have been burned to a
+crisp had it not been for the presence of mind of Mr. Lurgan who,
+being the least excited of them all, took it out of the oven, and set
+it on the back of the stove.
+
+"To think that it was you last night, and that I never dreamed it,"
+exclaimed Theodora. "Oh, Donald, if I hadn't gone to town!"
+
+"I'd have frozen to death, I'm afraid," said Donald soberly. "I got
+into Spencer on the last train last night. I felt that I must come
+right out--I couldn't wait till morning. But there wasn't a team to be
+got for love or money--it was Christmas Eve and all the livery rigs
+were out. So I came on horseback. Just by that bluff something
+frightened my horse, and he shied violently. I was half asleep and
+thinking of my little sister, and I went off like a shot. I suppose I
+struck my head against a tree. Anyway, I knew nothing more until I
+came to in Mr. Lurgan's kitchen. I wasn't much hurt--feel none the
+worse of it except for a sore head and shoulder. But, oh, Gift o' God,
+how you have grown! I can't realize that you are the little sister I
+left four years ago. I suppose you have been thinking I was dead?"
+
+"Yes, and, oh, Donald, where _have_ you been?"
+
+"Well, I went way up north with a prospecting party. We had a tough
+time the first year, I can tell you, and some of us never came back.
+We weren't in a country where post offices were lying round loose
+either, you see. Then at last, just as we were about giving up in
+despair, we struck it rich. I've brought a snug little pile home with
+me, and things are going to look up in this log house, Gift o' God.
+There'll be no more worrying for you dear people over mortgages."
+
+"I'm so glad--for Auntie's sake," said Theodora, with shining eyes.
+"But, oh, Donald, it's best of all just to have you back. I'm so
+perfectly happy that I don't know what to do or say."
+
+"Well, I think you might have dinner," said Jimmy in an injured tone.
+"The turkey's getting stone cold, and I'm most starving. I just can't
+stand it another minute."
+
+So, with a laugh, they all sat down to the table and ate the merriest
+Christmas dinner the little log house had ever known.
+
+
+
+
+How We Went to the Wedding
+
+
+"If it were to clear up I wouldn't know how to behave, it would seem
+so unnatural," said Kate. "Do you, by any chance, remember what the
+sun looks like, Phil?"
+
+"Does the sun ever shine in Saskatchewan anyhow?" I asked with assumed
+sarcasm, just to make Kate's big, bonny black eyes flash.
+
+They did flash; but Kate laughed immediately after, as she sat down on
+a chair in front of me and cradled her long, thin, spirited dark face
+in her palms.
+
+"We have more sunny weather in Saskatchewan than in all the rest of
+Canada put together, in an average year," she said, clicking her
+strong, white teeth and snapping her eyes at me. "But I can't blame
+you for feeling sceptical about it, Phil. If I went to a new country
+and it rained every day--all day--all night--after I got there for
+three whole weeks I'd think things not lawful to be uttered about the
+climate too. So, little cousin, I forgive you. Remember that 'into
+each life some rain must fall, some days must be dark and dreary.' Oh,
+if you'd only come to visit me last fall. We had such a bee-yew-tiful
+September last year. We were drowned in sunshine. This fall we're
+drowned in water. Old settlers tell of a similar visitation in '72,
+though they claim even that wasn't quite as bad as this."
+
+I was sitting rather disconsolately by an upper window of Uncle
+Kenneth Morrison's log house at Arrow Creek. Below was what in dry
+weather--so, at least, I was told--was merely a pretty, grassy little
+valley, but which was now a considerable creek of muddy yellow water,
+rising daily. Beyond was a cheerless prospect of sodden prairie and
+dripping "bluff."
+
+"It would be a golden, mellow land, with purple hazes over the bluffs,
+in a normal fall," assured Kate. "Even now if the sun were just to
+shine out for a day and a good 'chinook' blow you'd see a surprising
+change. I feel like chanting continually that old rhyme I learned in
+the first primer,
+
+    'Rain, rain, go away,
+    Come again some other day:
+    --some other day next summer--
+    Phil and Katie want to play.'
+
+Philippa, dear girl, don't look so dismal. It's bound to clear up
+sometime."
+
+"I wish the 'sometime' would come soon, then," I said, rather
+grumpily.
+
+"You know it hasn't really rained for three days," protested Kate.
+"It's been damp and horrid and threatening, but it hasn't rained. I
+defy you to say that it has actually rained."
+
+"When it's so wet underfoot that you can't stir out without rubber
+boots it might as well be wet overhead too," I said, still grumpily.
+
+"I believe you're homesick, girl," said Kate anxiously.
+
+"No, I'm not," I answered, laughing, and feeling ashamed of my
+ungraciousness. "Nobody could be homesick with such a jolly good
+fellow as you around, Kate. It's only that this weather is getting on
+my nerves a bit. I'm fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils. If your
+chinook doesn't come soon, Kitty, I'll do something quite desperate."
+
+"I feel that way myself," admitted Kate. "Real reckless, Phil. Anyhow,
+let's put on our despised rubber boots and sally out for a wade."
+
+"Here's Jim Nash coming on horseback down the trail," I said. "Let's
+wait and see if he's got the mail."
+
+We hurried down, Kate humming, "Somewhere the sun is shining," solely,
+I believe, because she knew it aggravated me. At any other time I
+should probably have thrown a pillow at her, but just now I was too
+eager to see if Jim Nash had brought any mail.
+
+I had come from Ontario, the first of September, to visit Uncle
+Kenneth Morrison's family. I had been looking forward to the trip for
+several years. My cousin Kate and I had always corresponded since they
+had "gone west" ten years before; and Kate, who revelled in the
+western life, had sung the praises of her adopted land rapturously and
+constantly. It was quite a joke on her that, when I did finally come
+to visit her, I should have struck the wettest autumn ever recorded in
+the history of the west. A wet September in Saskatchewan is no joke,
+however. The country was almost "flooded out." The trails soon became
+nearly impassable. All our plans for drives and picnics and
+inter-neighbour visiting--at that time a neighbour meant a man who
+lived at least six miles away--had to be given up. Yet I was not
+lonesome, and I enjoyed my visit in spite of everything. Kate was a
+host in herself. She was twenty-eight years old--eight years my
+senior--but the difference in our ages had never been any barrier to
+our friendship. She was a jolly, companionable, philosophical soul,
+with a jest for every situation, and a merry solution for every
+perplexity. The only fault I had to find with her was her tendency to
+make parodies. Kate's parodies were perfectly awful and always got on
+my nerves.
+
+She was dreadfully ashamed of the way the Saskatchewan weather was
+behaving after all her boasting. She was thin at the best of times,
+but now she grew positively scraggy with the worry of it. I am afraid
+I took an unholy delight in teasing her, and abused the western
+weather even more than was necessary.
+
+Jim Nash--the lank youth who was hired to look after the place during
+Uncle Kenneth's absence on a prolonged threshing expedition--had
+brought some mail. Kate's share was a letter, postmarked Bothwell, a
+rising little town about one hundred and twenty miles from Arrow
+Creek. Kate had several friends there, and one of our plans had been
+to visit Bothwell and spend a week with them. We had meant to drive,
+of course, since there was no other way of getting there, and equally
+of course the plan had been abandoned because of the wet weather.
+
+"Mother," exclaimed Kate, "Mary Taylor is going to be married in a
+fortnight's time! She wants Phil and me to go up to Bothwell for the
+wedding."
+
+"What a pity you can't go," remarked Aunt Jennie placidly. Aunt Jennie
+was always a placid little soul, with a most enviable knack of taking
+everything easy. Nothing ever worried her greatly, and when she had
+decided that a thing was inevitable it did not worry her at all.
+
+"But I am going," cried Kate. "I will go--I must go. I positively
+cannot let Mary Taylor--my own beloved Molly--go and perpetrate
+matrimony without my being on hand to see it. Yes, I'm going--and if
+Phil has a spark of the old Blair pioneer spirit in her, she'll go
+too."
+
+"Of course I'll go if you go," I said.
+
+Aunt Jennie did not think we were in earnest, so she merely laughed at
+first, and said, "How do you propose to go? Fly--or swim?"
+
+"We'll drive, as usual," said Kate calmly. "I'd feel more at home in
+that way of locomotion. We'll borrow Jim Nash's father's democrat, and
+take the ponies. We'll put on old clothes, raincoats, rubber caps and
+boots, and we'll start tomorrow. In an ordinary time we could easily
+do it in six days or less, but this fall we'll probably need ten or
+twelve."
+
+"You don't really mean to go, Kate!" said Aunt Jennie, beginning to
+perceive that Kate did mean it.
+
+"I do," said Kate, in a convincing tone.
+
+Aunt Jennie felt a little worried--as much as she could feel worried
+over anything--and she tried her best to dissuade Kate, although she
+plainly did not have much hope of doing so, having had enough
+experience with her determined daughter to realize that when Kate said
+she was going to do a thing she did it. It was rather funny to listen
+to the ensuing dialogue.
+
+"Kate, you can't do it. It's a crazy idea! The road is one hundred and
+twenty miles long."
+
+"I've driven it twice, Mother."
+
+"Yes, but not in such a wet year. The trail is impassable in places."
+
+"Oh, there are always plenty of dry spots to be found if you only look
+hard for them."
+
+"But you don't know where to look for them, and goodness knows what
+you'll get into while you are looking."
+
+"We'll call at the M.P. barracks and get an Indian to guide us.
+Indians always know the dry spots."
+
+"The stage driver has decided not to make another trip till the
+October frosts set in."
+
+"But he always has such a heavy load. It will be quite different with
+us, you must remember. We'll travel light--just our provisions and a
+valise containing our wedding garments."
+
+"What will you do if you get mired twenty miles from a human being?"
+
+"But we won't. I'm a good driver and I haven't nerves--but I have
+nerve. Besides, you forget that we'll have an Indian guide with us."
+
+"There was a company of Hudson Bay freighters ambushed and killed
+along that very trail by Blackfoot Indians in 1839," said Aunt Jennie
+dolefully.
+
+"Fifty years ago! Their ghosts must have ceased to haunt it by this
+time," said Kate flippantly.
+
+"Well, you'll get wet through and catch your deaths of cold,"
+protested Aunt Jennie.
+
+"No fear of it. We'll be cased in rubber. And we'll borrow a good
+tight tent from the M.P.s. Besides, I'm sure it's not going to rain
+much more. I know the signs."
+
+"At least wait for a day or two until you're sure that it has cleared
+up," implored Aunt Jennie.
+
+"Which being interpreted means, 'Wait for a day or two, because then
+your father may be home and he'll squelch your mad expedition,'" said
+Kate, with a sly glance at me. "No, no, my mother, your wiles are in
+vain. We'll hit the trail tomorrow at sunrise. So just be good,
+darling, and help us pack up some provisions. I'll send Jim for his
+father's democrat."
+
+Aunt Jennie resigned herself to the inevitable and betook herself to
+the pantry with the air of a woman who washes her hands of the
+consequences. I flew upstairs to pack some finery. I was wild with
+delight over the proposed outing. I did not realize what it actually
+meant, and I had perfect confidence in Kate, who was an expert driver,
+an experienced camper out, and an excellent manager. If I could have
+seen what was ahead of us I would certainly not have been quite so
+jubilant and reckless, but I would have gone all the same. I would not
+miss the laughter-provoking memories of that trip out of my life for
+anything. I have always been glad I went.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We left at sunrise the next morning; there was a sunrise that morning,
+for a wonder. The sun came up in a pinky-saffron sky and promised us a
+fine day. Aunt Jennie bade us goodbye and, estimable woman that she
+was, did not trouble us with advice or forebodings.
+
+Mr. Nash had sent over his "democrat," a light wagon with springs; and
+Kate's "shaganappies," Tom and Jerry--native ponies, the toughest
+horse flesh to be found in the world--were hitched to it. Kate and I
+were properly accoutred for our trip and looked--but I try to forget
+how we looked! The memory is not flattering.
+
+We drove off in the gayest of spirits. Our difficulties began at the
+start, for we had to drive a mile before we could find a place to ford
+the creek. Beyond that, however, we had a passable trail for three
+miles to the little outpost of the Mounted Police, where five or six
+men were stationed on detachment duty.
+
+"Sergeant Baker is a friend of mine," said Kate. "He'll be only too
+glad to lend me all we require."
+
+The sergeant was a friend of Kate's, but he looked at her as if he
+thought she was crazy when she told him where we were going.
+
+"You'd better take a canoe instead of a team," he said sarcastically.
+"I've a good notion to arrest you both as horse thieves and prevent
+you from going on such a mad expedition."
+
+"You know nothing short of arrest would stop me," said Kate, nodding
+at him with laughing eyes, "and you really won't go to such an
+extreme, I know. So please be nice, even if it comes hard, and lend us
+some things. I've come a-borrying."
+
+"I won't lend you a thing," declared the sergeant. "I won't aid and
+abet you in any such freak as this. Go home now, like a good girl."
+
+"I'm not going home," said Kate. "I'm not a 'good girl'--I'm a wicked
+old maid, and I'm going to Bothwell. If you won't lend us a tent we'll
+go without--and sleep in the open--and our deaths will lie forever at
+your door. I'll come back and haunt you, if you don't lend me a tent.
+I'll camp on your very threshold and you won't be able to go out of
+your door without falling over my spook."
+
+"I've more fear of being accountable for your death if I do let you
+go," said Sergeant Baker dubiously. "However, I see that nothing but
+physical force will prevent you. What do you want?"
+
+"I want," said Kate, "a cavalry tent, a sheet-iron camp stove, and a
+good Indian guide--old Peter Crow for choice. He's such a
+respectable-looking old fellow, and his wife often works for us."
+
+The sergeant gave us the tent and stove, and sent a man down to the
+Reserve for Peter Crow. Moreover, he vindicated his title of friend by
+making us take a dozen prairie chickens and a large ham--besides any
+quantity of advice. We didn't want the advice but we hugely welcomed
+the ham. Presently our guide appeared--quite a spruce old Indian, as
+Indians go. I had never been able to shake off my childhood conviction
+that an Indian was a fearsome creature, hopelessly addicted to
+scalping knives and tomahawks, and I secretly felt quite horrified at
+the idea of two defenceless females starting out on a lonely prairie
+trail with an Indian for guide. Even old Peter Crow's meek appearance
+did not quite reassure me; but I kept my qualms to myself, for I knew
+Kate would only laugh at me.
+
+It was ten when we finally got away from the M.P. outpost. Sergeant
+Baker bade us goodbye in a tone which seemed to intimate that he never
+expected to see either of us again. What with his dismal predictions
+and my secret horror of Indians, I was beginning to feel anything but
+jubilant over our expedition. Kate, however, was as blithe and buoyant
+as usual. She knew no fear, being one of those enviable folk who can
+because they think they can. One hundred and twenty miles of
+half-flooded prairie trail--camping out at night in the solitude of
+the Great Lone Land--rain--muskegs--Indian guides--nothing had any
+terror for my dauntless cousin.
+
+For the next three hours, however, we got on beautifully. The trail
+was fair, though somewhat greasy; the sun shone, though with a
+somewhat watery gleam, through the mists; and Peter Crow, coiled up on
+the folded tent behind the seat, slept soundly and snored
+mellifluously. That snore reassured me greatly. I had never thought of
+Indians as snoring. Surely one who did couldn't be dreaded greatly.
+
+We stopped at one o'clock and had a cold lunch, sitting in our wagon,
+while Peter Crow wakened up and watered the ponies. We did not get on
+so well in the afternoon. The trail descended into low-lying ground
+where travelling was very difficult. I had to admit old Peter Crow
+was quite invaluable. He knew, as Kate had foretold, "all the dry
+spots"--that is to say, spots less wet than others. But, even so, we
+had to make so many detours that by sunset we were little more than
+six miles distant from our noon halting place.
+
+"We'd better set camp now, before it gets any darker," said Kate.
+"There's a capital spot over there, by that bluff of dead poplar. The
+ground seems pretty dry too. Peter, cut us a set of tent poles and
+kindle a fire."
+
+"Want my dollar first," said old Peter stolidly.
+
+We had agreed to pay him a dollar a day for the trip, but none of the
+money was to be paid until we got to Bothwell. Kate told him this. But
+all the reply she got was a stolid, "Want dollar. No make fire without
+dollar."
+
+We were getting cold and it was getting dark, so finally Kate, under
+the law of necessity, paid him his dollar. Then he carried out our
+orders at his own sweet leisure. In course of time he got a fire
+lighted, and while we cooked supper he set up the tent and prepared
+our beds, by cutting piles of brush and covering them with rugs.
+
+Kate and I had a hilarious time cooking that supper. It was my first
+experience of camping out and, as I had become pretty well convinced
+that Peter Crow was not the typical Indian of old romance, I enjoyed
+it all hugely. But we were both very tired, and as soon as we had
+finished eating we betook ourselves to our tent and found our brush
+beds much more comfortable than I had expected. Old Peter coiled up on
+his blanket outside by the fire, and the great silence of a windless
+prairie enwrapped us. In a few minutes we were sound asleep and never
+wakened until seven o'clock.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When we arose and lifted the flap of the tent we saw a peculiar sight.
+The little elevation on which we had pitched our camp seemed to be an
+island in a vast sea of white mist, dotted here and there with other
+islands. On every hand to the far horizon stretched that strange,
+phantasmal ocean, and a hazy sun looked over the shifting billows. I
+had never seen a western mist before and I thought it extremely
+beautiful; but Kate, to whom it was no novelty, was more cumbered with
+breakfast cares.
+
+"I'm ravenous," she said, as she bustled about among our stores.
+"Camping out always does give one such an appetite. Aren't you hungry,
+Phil?"
+
+"Comfortably so," I admitted. "But where are our ponies? And where is
+Peter Crow?"
+
+"Probably the ponies have strayed away looking for pea vines. They
+love and adore pea vines," said Kate, stirring up the fire from under
+its blanket of grey ashes. "And Peter Crow has gone to look for them,
+good old fellow. When you do get a conscientious Indian there is no
+better guide in the world, but they are rare. Now, Philippa-girl, just
+pry out the sergeant's ham and shave a few slices off it for our
+breakfast. Some savoury fried ham always goes well on the prairie."
+
+I went for the ham but could not find it. A thorough search among our
+effects revealed it not.
+
+"Kate, I can't find the ham," I called out. "It must have fallen out
+somewhere on the trail."
+
+Kate ceased wrestling with the fire and came to help in the search for
+the missing delicacy.
+
+"It couldn't have fallen out," she said incredulously. "That is
+impossible. The tent was fastened securely over everything. Nothing
+could have jolted out."
+
+"Well, then, where is the ham?" I said.
+
+That question was unanswerable, as Kate discovered after another
+thorough search. The ham was gone--that much was certain.
+
+"I believe Peter Crow has levanted with the ham," I said decidedly.
+
+"I don't believe Peter Crow could be so dishonest," said Kate rather
+shortly. "His wife has worked for us for years, and she's as honest as
+the sunlight."
+
+"Honesty isn't catching," I remarked, but I said nothing more just
+then, for Kate's black eyes were snapping.
+
+"Anyway, we can't have ham for breakfast," she said, twitching out the
+frying pan rather viciously. "We'll have to put up with canned
+chicken--if the cans haven't disappeared too."
+
+They hadn't, and we soon produced a very tolerable breakfast. But
+neither of us had much appetite.
+
+"Do you suppose Peter Crow has taken the horses as well as the ham?" I
+asked.
+
+"No," gloomily responded Kate, who had evidently been compelled by the
+logic of hard facts to believe in Peter's guilt, "he would hardly dare
+to do that, because he couldn't dispose of them without being found
+out. They've probably strayed away on their own account when Peter
+decamped. As soon as this mist lifts I'll have a look for them. They
+can't have gone far."
+
+We were spared this trouble, however, for when we were washing up the
+dishes the ponies returned of their own accord. Kate caught them and
+harnessed them.
+
+"Are we going on?" I asked mildly.
+
+"Of course we're going on," said Kate, her good humour entirely
+restored. "Do you suppose I'm going to be turned from my purpose by
+the defection of a miserable old Indian? Oh, wait till he comes round
+in the winter, begging."
+
+"Will he come?" I asked.
+
+"Will he? Yes, my dear, he will--with a smooth, plausible story to
+account for his desertion and a bland denial of ever having seen our
+ham. I shall know how to deal with him then, the old scamp."
+
+"When you do get a conscientious Indian there's no better guide in the
+world, but they are rare," I remarked with a far-away look.
+
+Kate laughed.
+
+"Don't rub it in, Phil. Come, help me to break camp. We'll have to
+work harder and hustle for ourselves, that's all."
+
+"But is it safe to go on without a guide?" I inquired dubiously. I
+hadn't felt very safe with Peter Crow, but I felt still more unsafe
+without him.
+
+"Safe! Of course, it's safe--perfectly safe. I know the trail, and
+we'll just have to drive around the wet places. It would have been
+easier with Peter, and we'd have had less work to do, but we'll get
+along well enough without him. I don't think I'd have bothered with
+him at all, only I wanted to set Mother's mind at rest. She'll never
+know he isn't with us till the trip is over, so that is all right.
+We're going to have a glorious day. But, oh, for our lost ham! 'The
+Ham That Was Never Eaten.' There's a subject for a poem, Phil. You
+write one when we get back to civilization. Methinks I can sniff the
+savoury odour of that lost ham on all the prairie breezes."
+
+    "Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
+    The saddest are these--it might have been,"
+
+I quoted, beginning to wash the dishes.
+
+    "Saw ye my wee ham, saw ye my ain ham,
+        Saw ye my pork ham down on yon lea?
+    Crossed it the prairie last night in the darkness
+        Borne by an old and unprincipled Cree?"
+
+sang Kate, loosening the tent ropes. Altogether, we got a great deal
+more fun out of that ham than if we had eaten it.
+
+As Kate had predicted, the day was glorious. The mists rolled away and
+the sun shone brightly. We drove all day without stopping, save for
+dinner--when the lost ham figured largely in our conversation--of
+course. We said so many witty things about it--at least, we thought
+them witty--that we laughed continuously through the whole meal,
+which we ate with prodigious appetite.
+
+But with all our driving we were not getting on very fast. The country
+was exceedingly swampy and we had to make innumerable detours.
+
+"'The longest way round is the shortest way to Bothwell,'" said Kate,
+when we drove five miles out of our way to avoid a muskeg. By evening
+we had driven fully twenty-five miles, but we were only ten miles
+nearer Bothwell than when we had broken camp in the morning.
+
+"We'll have to camp soon," sighed Kate. "I believe around this bluff
+will be a good place. Oh, Phil, I'm tired--dead tired! My very
+thoughts are tired. I can't even think anything funny about the ham.
+And yet we've got to set up the tent ourselves, and attend to the
+horses; and we'll have to scrape some of the mud off this beautiful
+vehicle."
+
+"We can leave that till the morning," I suggested.
+
+"No, it will be too hard and dry then. Here we are--and here are two
+tepees of Indians also!"
+
+There they were, right around the bluff. The inmates were standing in
+a group before them, looking at us as composedly as if we were not at
+all an unusual sight.
+
+"I'm going to stay here anyhow," said Kate doggedly.
+
+"Oh, don't," I said in alarm. "They're such a villainous-looking
+lot--so dirty--and they've got so little clothing on. I wouldn't sleep
+a wink near them. Look at that awful old squaw with only one eye.
+They'd steal everything we've got left, Kate. Remember the ham--oh,
+pray remember the fate of our beautiful ham."
+
+"I shall never forget that ham," said Kate wearily, "but, Phil, we
+can't drive far enough to be out of their reach if they really want to
+steal our provisions. But I don't believe they will. I believe they
+have plenty of food--Indians in tepees mostly have. The men hunt, you
+know. Their looks are probably the worst of them. Anyhow, you can't
+judge Indians by appearances. Peter Crow looked respectable--and he
+was a whited sepulchre. Now, these Indians look as bad as Indians can
+look--so they may turn out to be angels in disguise."
+
+"Very much disguised, certainly," I acquiesced satirically. "They seem
+to me to belong to the class of a neighbour of ours down east. Her
+family is always in rags, because she says, 'a hole is an accident, a
+patch is a disgrace,' Set camp here if you like, Kate. But I'll not
+sleep a wink with such neighbours."
+
+I cheerfully ate my words later on. Never were appearances more
+deceptive than in the case of those Stoneys. There is an old saying
+that many a kind heart beats behind a ragged coat. The Indians had no
+coats for their hearts to beat behind--nothing but shirts--some of
+them hadn't even shirts! But the shirts were certainly ragged enough,
+and their hearts were kind.
+
+Those Indians were gentlemen. They came forward and unhitched our
+horses, fed, and watered them; they pitched our tent, and built us a
+fire, and cut brush for our beds. Kate and I had simply nothing to do
+except sit on our rugs and tell them what we wanted done. They would
+have cooked our supper for us if we had allowed it. But, tired as we
+were, we drew the line at that. Their hearts were pure gold, but their
+hands! No, Kate and I dragged ourselves up and cooked our own suppers.
+And while we ate it, those Indians fell to and cleaned all the mud off
+our democrat for us. To crown all--it is almost unbelievable but it is
+true, I solemnly avow--they wouldn't take a cent of payment for it
+all, urge them as we might and did.
+
+"Well," said Kate, as we curled up on our brush beds that night,
+"there certainly is a special Providence for unprotected females. I'd
+forgive Peter Crow for deserting us for the sake of those Indians, if
+he hadn't stolen our lovely ham into the bargain. That was altogether
+unpardonable."
+
+In the morning the Indians broke camp for us and harnessed our
+shaganappies. We drove off, waving our hands to them, the delightful
+creatures. We never saw any of them again. I fear their kind is
+scarce, but as long as I live I shall remember those Stoneys with
+gratitude.
+
+We got on fairly well that third day, and made about fifteen miles
+before dinner time. We ate three of the sergeant's prairie chickens
+for dinner, and enjoyed them.
+
+"But only think how delicious the ham would have been," said Kate.
+
+Our real troubles began that afternoon. We had not been driving long
+when the trail swooped down suddenly into a broad depression--a swamp,
+so full of mud-holes that there didn't seem to be anything but
+mud-holes. We pulled through six of them--but in the seventh we stuck,
+hard and fast. Pull as our ponies could and did, they could not pull
+us out.
+
+"What are we to do?" I said, becoming horribly frightened all at once.
+It seemed to me that our predicament was a dreadful one.
+
+"Keep cool," said Kate. She calmly took off her shoes and stockings,
+tucked up her skirt, and waded to the horses' heads.
+
+"Can't I do anything?" I implored.
+
+"Yes, take the whip and spare it not," said Kate. "I'll encourage them
+here with sundry tugs and inspiriting words. You urge them behind with
+a good lambasting."
+
+Accordingly we encouraged and urged, tugged and lambasted, with a
+right good will, but all to no effect. Our ponies did their best, but
+they could not pull the democrat out of that slough.
+
+"Oh, what--" I began, and then I stopped. I resolved that I would not
+ask that question again in that tone in that scrape. I would be
+cheerful and courageous like Kate--splendid Kate!
+
+"I shall have to unhitch them, tie one of them to that stump, and ride
+off on the other for help," said Kate.
+
+"Where to?" I asked.
+
+"Till I find it," grinned Kate, who seemed to think the whole
+disaster a capital joke. "I may have to go clean back to the
+tepees--and further. For that matter, I don't believe there were any
+tepees. Those Indians were too good to be true--they were phantoms of
+delight--such stuff as dreams are made of. But even if they were real
+they won't be there now--they'll have folded their tents like the
+Arabs and as silently stolen away. But I'll find help somewhere."
+
+"I can't stay here alone. You may be gone for hours," I cried,
+forgetting all my resolutions of courage and cheerfulness in an access
+of panic.
+
+"Then ride the other pony and come with me," suggested Kate.
+
+"I can't ride bareback," I moaned.
+
+"Then you'll have to stay here," said Kate decidedly. "There's nothing
+to hurt you, Phil. Sit in the wagon and keep dry. Eat something if you
+get hungry. I may not be very long."
+
+I realized that there was nothing else to do; and, rather ashamed of
+my panic, I resigned myself to the inevitable and saw Kate off with
+a smile of encouragement. Then I waited. I was tired and
+frightened--horribly frightened. I sat there and imagined scores of
+gruesome possibilities. It was no use telling myself to be brave. I
+couldn't be brave. I never was in such a blue funk before or since.
+Suppose Kate got lost--suppose she couldn't find me again--suppose
+something happened to her--suppose she couldn't get help--suppose it
+came on night and I there all alone--suppose Indians--not gentlemanly
+Stoneys or even Peter Crows, but genuine, old-fashioned
+Indians--should come along--suppose it began to pour rain!
+
+It did begin to rain, the only one of my suppositions which came true.
+I hoisted an umbrella and sat there grimly, in that horseless wagon in
+the mud-hole.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Many a time since have I laughed over the memory of the appearance I
+must have presented sitting in that mud-hole, but there was nothing in
+the least funny about it at the time. The worst feature of it all was
+the uncertainty. I could have waited patiently enough and conquered my
+fears if I had known that Kate would find help and return within a
+reasonable time--at least before dark. But everything was doubtful. I
+was not composed of the stuff out of which heroines are fashioned and
+I devoutly wished we had never left Arrow Creek.
+
+Shouts--calls--laughter--Kate's dear voice in an encouraging cry from
+the hill behind me!
+
+"Halloo, honey! Hold the fort a few minutes longer. Here we are. Bless
+her, hasn't she been a brick to stay here all alone like this--and a
+tenderfoot at that?"
+
+I could have cried with joy. But I saw that there were men with
+Kate--two men--white men--and I laughed instead. I had not been
+brave--I had been an arrant little coward, but I vowed that nobody,
+not even Kate, should suspect it. Later on Kate told me how she had
+fared in her search for assistance.
+
+"When I left you, Phil, I felt much more anxious than I wanted to let
+you see. I had no idea where to go. I knew there were no houses along
+our trail and I might have to go clean back to the tepees--fifteen
+miles bareback. I didn't dare try any other trail, for I knew nothing
+of them and wasn't sure that there were even tepees on them. But when
+I had gone about six miles I saw a welcome sight--nothing less than a
+spiral of blue, homely-looking smoke curling up from the prairie far
+off to my right. I decided to turn off and investigate. I rode two
+miles and finally I came to a little log shack. There was a
+bee-yew-tiful big horse in a corral close by. My heart jumped with
+joy. But suppose the inmates of the shack were half-breeds! You can't
+realize how relieved I felt when the door opened and two white men
+came out. In a few minutes everything was explained. They knew who I
+was and what I wanted, and I knew that they were Mr. Lonsdale and Mr.
+Hopkins, owners of a big ranch over by Deer Run. They were 'shacking
+out' to put up some hay and Mrs. Hopkins was keeping house for them.
+She wanted me to stop and have a cup of tea right off, but I thought
+of you, Phil, and declined. As soon as they heard of our predicament
+those lovely men got their two biggest horses and came right with me."
+
+It was not long before our democrat was on solid ground once more, and
+then our rescuers insisted that we go back to the shack with them for
+the night. Accordingly we drove back to the shack, attended by our two
+gallant deliverers on white horses. Mrs. Hopkins was waiting for us, a
+trim, dark-haired little lady in a very pretty gown, which she had
+donned in our honour. Kate and I felt like perfect tramps beside her
+in our muddy old raiment, with our hair dressed by dead reckoning--for
+we had not included a mirror in our baggage. There was a mirror in the
+shack, however--small but good--and we quickly made ourselves tidy at
+least, and Kate even went to the length of curling her bangs--bangs
+were in style then and Kate had long, thick ones--using the stem of a
+broken pipe of Mr. Hopkins's for a curler. I was so tired that my
+vanity was completely crushed out--for the time being--and I simply
+pinned my bangs back. Later on, when I discovered that Mr. Lonsdale
+was really the younger son of an English earl, I wished I had curled
+them, but it was too late then.
+
+He didn't look in the least like a scion of aristocracy. He wore a
+cowboy rig and had a scrubby beard of a week's growth. But he was very
+jolly and played the violin beautifully. After tea--and a lovely tea
+it was, although, as Kate remarked to me later, there was no ham--we
+had an impromptu concert. Mr. Lonsdale played the violin; Mrs.
+Hopkins, who sang, was a graduate of a musical conservatory; Mr.
+Hopkins gave a comic recitation and did a Cree war-dance; Kate gave a
+spirited account of our adventures since leaving home and mother; and
+I described--with trimmings--how I felt sitting alone in the democrat
+in a mud-hole, in a pouring rain on a vast prairie.
+
+Mrs. Hopkins, Kate, and I slept in the one bed the shack boasted,
+screened off from public view by a calico curtain. Mr. Lonsdale
+reposed in his accustomed bunk by the stove, but poor Mr. Hopkins had
+to sleep on the floor. He must have been glad Kate and I stayed only
+one night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The fourth morning found us blithely hitting the trail in renewed
+confidence and spirits. We parted from our kind friends in the shack
+with mutual regret. Mr. Hopkins gave us a haunch of jumping deer and
+Mrs. Hopkins gave us a box of home-made cookies. Mr. Lonsdale at first
+thought he couldn't give us anything, for he said all he had with him
+was his pipe and his fiddle; but later on he said he felt so badly to
+see us go without any token of his good will that he felt constrained
+to ask us to accept a piece of rope that he had tied his outfit
+together with.
+
+The fourth day we got on so nicely that it was quite monotonous. The
+sun shone, the chinook blew, our ponies trotted over the trail
+gallantly. Kate and I sang, told stories, and laughed immoderately
+over everything. Even a poor joke seems to have a subtle flavour on
+the prairie. For the first time I began to think Saskatchewan
+beautiful, with those far-reaching parklike meadows dotted with the
+white-stemmed poplars, the distant bluffs bannered with the airiest of
+purple hazes, and the little blue lakes that sparkled and shimmered in
+the sunlight on every hand.
+
+The only thing approaching an adventure that day happened in the
+afternoon when we reached a creek which had to be crossed.
+
+"We must investigate," said Kate decidedly. "It would never do to risk
+getting mired here, for this country is unsettled and we must be
+twenty miles from another human being."
+
+Kate again removed her shoes and stockings and puddled about that
+creek until she found a safe fording place. I am afraid I must admit
+that I laughed most heartlessly at the spectacle she presented while
+so employed.
+
+"Oh, for a camera, Kate!" I said, between spasms.
+
+Kate grinned. "I don't care what I look like," she said, "but I feel
+wretchedly unpleasant. This water is simply swarming with wigglers."
+
+"Goodness, what are they?" I exclaimed.
+
+"Oh, they're tiny little things like leeches," responded Kate. "I
+believe they develop into mosquitoes later on, bad 'cess to them. What
+Mr. Nash would call my pedal extremities are simply being devoured by
+the brutes. Ugh! I believe the bottom of this creek is all soft mud.
+We may have to drive--no, as I'm a living, wiggler-haunted human
+being, here's firm bottom. Hurrah, Phil, we're all right!"
+
+In a few minutes we were past the creek and bowling merrily on our
+way. We had a beautiful camping ground that night--a fairylike little
+slope of white poplars with a blue lake at its foot. When the sun went
+down a milk-white mist hung over the prairie, with a young moon
+kissing it. We boiled some slices of our jumping deer and ate them in
+the open around a cheery camp-fire. Then we sought our humble couches,
+where we slept the sleep of just people who had been driving over the
+prairie all day. Once in the night I wakened. It was very dark. The
+unearthly stillness of a great prairie was all around me. In that vast
+silence Kate's soft breathing at my side seemed an intrusion of sound
+where no sound should be.
+
+"Philippa Blair, can you believe it's yourself?" I said mentally.
+"Here you are, lying on a brush bed on a western prairie in the middle
+of the night, at least twenty miles from any human being except
+another frail creature of your own sex. Yet you're not even
+frightened. You are very comfy and composed, and you're going right to
+sleep again."
+
+And right to sleep again I went.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our fifth day began ominously. We had made an early start and had
+driven about six miles when the calamity occurred. Kate turned a
+corner too sharply, to avoid a big boulder; there was a heart-breaking
+sound.
+
+"The tongue of the wagon is broken," cried Kate in dismay. All too
+surely it was. We looked at each other blankly.
+
+"What can we do?" I said.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know," said Kate helplessly. When Kate felt helpless
+I thought things must be desperate indeed. We got out and investigated
+the damage.
+
+"It's not a clean break," said Kate. "It's a long, slanting break. If
+we had a piece of rope I believe I could fix it."
+
+"Mr. Lonsdale's piece of rope!" I cried.
+
+"The very thing," said Kate, brightening up.
+
+The rope was found and we set to work. With the aid of some willow
+withes and that providential rope we contrived to splice the tongue
+together in some shape.
+
+Although the trail was good we made only twelve miles the rest of the
+day, so slowly did we have to drive. Besides, we were continually
+expecting that tongue to give way again, and the strain was bad for
+our nerves. When we came at sunset to the junction of the Black River
+trail with ours, Kate resolutely turned the shaganappies down it.
+
+"We'll go and spend the night with the Brewsters," she said. "They
+live only ten miles down this trail. I went to school in Regina with
+Hannah Brewster, and though I haven't seen her for ten years I know
+she'll be glad to see us. She's a lovely person, and her husband is a
+very nice man. I visited them once after they were married."
+
+We soon arrived at the Brewster place. It was a trim, white-washed
+little log house in a grove of poplars. But all the blinds were down
+and we discovered the door was locked. Evidently the Brewsters were
+not at home.
+
+"Never mind," said Kate cheerfully, "we'll light a fire outside and
+cook our supper and then we'll spend the night in the barn. A bed of
+prairie hay will be just the thing."
+
+But the barn was locked too. It was now dark and our plight was rather
+desperate.
+
+"I'm going to get into the house if I have to break a window," said
+Kate resolutely. "Hannah would want us to do that. She'd never get
+over it, if she heard we came to her house and couldn't get in."
+
+Fortunately we did not have to go to the length of breaking into
+Hannah's house. The kitchen window went up quite easily. We turned the
+shaganappies loose to forage for themselves, grass and water being
+abundant. Then we climbed in at the window, lighted our lantern, and
+found ourselves in a very snug little kitchen. Opening off it on one
+side was a trim, nicely furnished parlour and on the other a
+well-stocked pantry.
+
+"We'll light the fire in the stove in a jiffy and have a real good
+supper," said Kate exultantly. "Here's cold roast beef--and preserves
+and cookies and cheese and butter."
+
+Before long we had supper ready and we did full justice to the absent
+Hannah's excellent cheer. After all, it was quite nice to sit down
+once more to a well-appointed table and eat in civilized fashion.
+
+Then we washed up all the dishes and made everything snug and tidy. I
+shall never be sufficiently thankful that we did so.
+
+Kate piloted me upstairs to the spare room.
+
+"This is fixed up much nicer than it was when I was here before," she
+said, looking around. "Of course, Hannah and Ted were just starting
+out then and they had to be economical. They must have prospered, to
+be able to afford such furniture as this. Well, turn in, Phil. Won't
+it be rather jolly to sleep between sheets once more?"
+
+We slept long and soundly until half-past eight the next morning; and
+dear knows if we would have wakened then of our own accord. But I
+heard somebody saying in a very harsh, gruff voice, "Here, you two,
+wake up! I want to know what this means."
+
+We two did wake up, promptly and effectually. I never wakened up so
+thoroughly in my life before. Standing in our room were three people,
+one of them a man. He was a big, grey-haired man with a bushy black
+beard and an angry scowl. Beside him was a woman--a tall, thin,
+angular personage with red hair and an indescribable bonnet. She
+looked even crosser and more amazed than the man, if that were
+possible. In the background was another woman--a tiny old lady who
+must have been at least eighty. She was, in spite of her tininess, a
+very striking-looking personage; she was dressed all in black, and had
+snow-white hair, a dead-white face, and snapping, vivid, coal-black
+eyes. She looked as amazed as the other two, but she didn't look
+cross.
+
+I knew something must be wrong--fearfully wrong--but I didn't know
+what. Even in my confusion, I found time to think that if that
+disagreeable-looking red-haired woman was Hannah Brewster, Kate must
+have had a queer taste in school friends. Then the man said, more
+gruffly than ever, "Come now. Who are you and what business have you
+here?"
+
+Kate raised herself on one elbow. She looked very wild. I heard the
+old black-and-white lady in the background chuckle to herself.
+
+"Isn't this Theodore Brewster's place?" gasped Kate.
+
+"No," said the big woman, speaking for the first time. "This place
+belongs to us. We bought it from the Brewsters in the spring. They
+moved over to Black River Forks. Our name is Chapman."
+
+Poor Kate fell back on the pillow, quite overcome. "I--I beg your
+pardon," she said. "I--I thought the Brewsters lived here. Mrs.
+Brewster is a friend of mine. My cousin and I are on our way to
+Bothwell and we called here to spend the night with Hannah. When we
+found everyone away we just came in and made ourselves at home."
+
+"A likely story," said the red woman.
+
+"We weren't born yesterday," said the man.
+
+Madam Black-and-White didn't say anything, but when the other two had
+made their pretty speeches she doubled up in a silent convulsion of
+mirth, shaking her head from side to side and beating the air with her
+hands.
+
+If they had been nice to us, Kate would probably have gone on feeling
+confused and ashamed. But when they were so disagreeable she quickly
+regained her self-possession. She sat up again and said in her
+haughtiest voice, "I do not know when you were born, or where, but it
+must have been somewhere where very peculiar manners were taught. If
+you will have the decency to leave our room--this room--until we can
+get up and dress we will not transgress upon your hospitality" (Kate
+put a most satirical emphasis on that word) "any longer. And we shall
+pay you amply for the food we have eaten and the night's lodging we
+have taken."
+
+The black-and-white apparition went through the motion of clapping her
+hands, but not a sound did she make. Whether he was cowed by Kate's
+tone, or appeased by the prospect of payment, I know not, but Mr.
+Chapman spoke more civilly. "Well, that's fair. If you pay up it's all
+right."
+
+"They shall do no such thing as pay you," said Madam Black-and-White
+in a surprisingly clear, resolute, authoritative voice. "If you
+haven't any shame for yourself, Robert Chapman, you've got a
+mother-in-law who can be ashamed for you. No strangers shall be
+charged for food or lodging in any house where Mrs. Matilda Pitman
+lives. Remember that I've come down in the world, but I haven't forgot
+all decency for all that. I knew you was a skinflint when Amelia
+married you and you've made her as bad as yourself. But I'm boss here
+yet. Here, you, Robert Chapman, take yourself out of here and let
+those girls get dressed. And you, Amelia, go downstairs and cook a
+breakfast for them."
+
+I never, in all my life, saw anything like the abject meekness with
+which those two big people obeyed that mite. They went, and stood not
+upon the order of their going. As the door closed behind them, Mrs.
+Matilda Pitman laughed silently, and rocked from side to side in her
+merriment.
+
+"Ain't it funny?" she said. "I mostly lets them run the length of
+their tether but sometimes I has to pull them up, and then I does it
+with a jerk. Now, you can take your time about dressing, my dears, and
+I'll go down and keep them in order, the mean scalawags."
+
+When we descended the stairs we found a smoking-hot breakfast on the
+table. Mr. Chapman was nowhere to be seen, and Mrs. Chapman was
+cutting bread with a sulky air. Mrs. Matilda Pitman was sitting in an
+armchair, knitting. She still wore her bonnet and her triumphant
+expression. "Set right in, dears, and make a good breakfast," she
+said.
+
+"We are not hungry," said Kate, almost pleadingly. "I don't think we
+can eat anything. And it's time we were on the trail. Please excuse us
+and let us go on."
+
+Mrs. Matilda Pitman shook a knitting needle playfully at Kate. "Sit
+down and take your breakfast," she commanded. "Mrs. Matilda Pitman
+commands you. Everybody obeys Mrs. Matilda Pitman--even Robert and
+Amelia. You must obey her too."
+
+We did obey her. We sat down and, such was the influence of her
+mesmeric eyes, we ate a tolerable breakfast. The obedient Amelia never
+spoke; Mrs. Matilda Pitman did not speak either, but she knitted
+furiously and chuckled. When we had finished Mrs. Matilda Pitman
+rolled up her knitting. "Now, you can go if you want to," she said,
+"but you don't have to go. You can stay here as long as you like, and
+I'll make them cook your meals for you."
+
+I never saw Kate so thoroughly cowed.
+
+"Thank you," she said faintly. "You are very kind, but we must go."
+
+"Well, then," said Mrs. Matilda Pitman, throwing open the door, "your
+team is ready for you. I made Robert catch your ponies and harness
+them. And I made him fix that broken tongue properly. I enjoy making
+Robert do things. It's almost the only sport I have left. I'm eighty
+and most things have lost their flavour, except bossing Robert."
+
+Our democrat and ponies were outside the door, but Robert was nowhere
+to be seen; in fact, we never saw him again.
+
+"I do wish," said Kate, plucking up what little spirit she had left,
+"that you would let us--ah--uh"--Kate quailed before Mrs. Matilda
+Pitman's eye--"recompense you for our entertainment."
+
+"Mrs. Matilda Pitman said before--and meant it--that she doesn't take
+pay for entertaining strangers, nor let other people where she lives
+do it, much as their meanness would like to do it."
+
+We got away. The sulky Amelia had vanished, and there was nobody to
+see us off except Mrs. Matilda Pitman.
+
+"Don't forget to call the next time you come this way," she said
+cheerfully, waving her knitting at us. "I hope you'll get safe to
+Bothwell. If I was ten years younger I vow I'd pack a grip and go
+along with you. I like your spunk. Most of the girls nowadays is such
+timid, skeery critters. When I was a girl I wasn't afraid of nothing
+or nobody."
+
+We said and did nothing until we had driven out of sight and earshot.
+Then Kate laid down the reins and laughed until the tears came.
+
+"Oh, Phil, Phil, will you ever forget this adventure?" she gasped.
+
+"I shall never forget Mrs. Matilda Pitman," I said emphatically.
+
+We had no further adventures that day. Robert Chapman had fixed the
+tongue so well--probably under Mrs. Matilda Pitman's watchful
+eyes--that we could drive as fast as we liked; and we made good
+progress. But when we pitched camp that night Kate scanned the sky
+with an anxious expression. "I don't like the look of it," she said.
+"I'm afraid we're going to have a bad day tomorrow."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We had. When we awakened in the morning rain was pouring down. This in
+itself might not have prevented us from travelling, but the state of
+the trail did. It had been raining the greater part of the night and
+the trail was little more than a ditch of slimy, greasy, sticky mud.
+
+If we could have stayed in the tent the whole time it would not have
+been quite so bad. But we had to go out twice to take the ponies to
+the nearest pond and water them; moreover, we had to collect pea vines
+for them, which was not an agreeable occupation in a pouring rain. The
+day was very cold too, but fortunately there was plenty of dead poplar
+right by our camp. We kept a good fire on in the camp stove and were
+quite dry and comfortable as long as we stayed inside. Even when we
+had to go out we did not get very wet, as we were well protected. But
+it was a long dreary day. Finally when the dark came down and supper
+was over Kate grew quite desperate. "Let's have a game of checkers,"
+she suggested.
+
+"Where is your checkerboard?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, I'll soon furnish that," said Kate.
+
+She cut out a square of brown paper, in which a biscuit box had been
+wrapped, and marked squares off on it with a pencil. Then she produced
+some red and white high-bush cranberries for men. A cranberry split in
+two was a king.
+
+We played nine games of checkers by the light of our smoky lantern.
+Our enjoyment of the game was heightened by the fact that it had
+ceased raining. Nevertheless, when morning came the trail was so
+drenched that it was impossible to travel on it.
+
+"We must wait till noon," said Kate.
+
+"That trail won't be dry enough to travel on for a week," I said
+disconsolately.
+
+"My dear; the chinook is blowing up," said Kate. "You don't know how
+quickly a trail dries in a chinook. It's like magic."
+
+I did not believe a chinook or anything else could dry up that trail
+by noon sufficiently for us to travel on. But it did. As Kate said, it
+seemed like magic. By one o'clock we were on our way again, the
+chinook blowing merrily against our faces. It was a wind that blew
+straight from the heart of the wilderness and had in it all the potent
+lure of the wild. The yellow prairie laughed and glistened in the sun.
+
+We made twenty-five miles that afternoon and, as we were again
+fortunate enough to find a bluff of dead poplar near which to camp, we
+built a royal camp-fire which sent its flaming light far and wide over
+the dark prairie.
+
+We were in jubilant spirits. If the next day were fine and nothing
+dreadful happened to us, we would reach Bothwell before night.
+
+But our ill luck was not yet at an end. The next morning was
+beautiful. The sun shone warm and bright; the chinook blew balmily and
+alluringly; the trail stretched before us dry and level. But we sat
+moodily before our tent, not even having sufficient heart to play
+checkers. Tom had gone lame--so lame that there was no use in thinking
+of trying to travel with him. Kate could not tell what was the matter.
+
+"There is no injury that I can see," she said. "He must have sprained
+his foot somehow."
+
+Wait we did, with all the patience we could command. But the day was
+long and wearisome, and at night Tom's foot did not seem a bit better.
+
+We went to bed gloomily, but joy came with the morning. Tom's foot was
+so much improved that Kate decided we could go on, though we would
+have to drive slowly.
+
+"There's no chance of making Bothwell today," she said, "but at least
+we shall be getting a little nearer to it."
+
+"I don't believe there is such a place as Bothwell, or any other
+town," I said pessimistically. "There's nothing in the world but
+prairie, and we'll go on driving over it forever, like a couple of
+female Wandering Jews. It seems years since we left Arrow Creek."
+
+"Well, we've had lots of fun out of it all, you know," said Kate.
+"Mrs. Matilda Pitman alone was worth it. She will be an amusing memory
+all our lives. Are you sorry you came?"
+
+"No, I'm not," I concluded, after honest, soul-searching reflection.
+"No, I'm glad, Kate. But I think we were crazy to attempt it, as
+Sergeant Baker said. Think of all the might-have-beens."
+
+"Nothing else will happen," said Kate. "I feel in my bones that our
+troubles are over."
+
+Kate's bones proved true prophets. Nevertheless, that day was a weary
+one. There was no scenery. We had got into a barren, lakeless,
+treeless district where the world was one monotonous expanse of
+grey-brown prairie. We just crawled along. Kate had her hands full
+driving those ponies. Jerry was in capital fettle and couldn't
+understand why he mightn't tear ahead at full speed. He was so much
+disgusted over being compelled to walk that he was very fractious.
+Poor Tom limped patiently along. But by night his lameness had quite
+disappeared, and although we were still a good twenty-five miles from
+Bothwell we could see it quite distinctly far ahead on the level
+prairie.
+
+"'Tis a sight for sore eyes, isn't it?" said Kate, as we pitched camp.
+
+There is little more to be told. Next day at noon we rattled through
+the main and only street of Bothwell. Curious sights are frequent in
+prairie towns, so we did not attract much attention. When we drew up
+before Mr. Taylor's house Mary Taylor flew out and embraced Kate
+publicly.
+
+"You darling! I knew you'd get here if anyone could. They telegraphed
+us you were on the way. You're a brick--two bricks."
+
+"No, I'm not a brick at all, Miss Taylor," I confessed frankly. "I've
+been an arrant coward and a doubting Thomas and a wet blanket all
+through the expedition. But Kate is a brick and a genius and an
+all-round, jolly good fellow."
+
+"Mary," said Kate in a tragic whisper,
+"have--you--any--ham--in--the--house?"
+
+
+
+
+Jessamine
+
+
+When the vegetable-man knocked, Jessamine went to the door wearily.
+She felt quite well acquainted with him. He had been coming all the
+spring, and his cheery greeting always left a pleasant afterglow
+behind him. But it was not the vegetable-man after all--at least, not
+the right one. This one was considerably younger. He was tall and
+sunburned, with a ruddy, smiling face, and keen, pleasant blue eyes;
+and he had a spray of honeysuckle pinned on his coat.
+
+"Want any garden stuff this morning?"
+
+Jessamine shook her head. "We always get ours from Mr. Bell. This is
+his day to come."
+
+"Well, I guess you won't see Mr. Bell for a spell. He fell off a loft
+out at his place yesterday and broke his leg. I'm his nephew, and I'm
+going to fill his place till he gets 'round again."
+
+"Oh, I'm so sorry--for Mr. Bell, I mean. Have you any green peas?"
+
+"Yes, heaps of them. I'll bring them in. Anything else?"
+
+"Not today," said Jessamine, with a wistful glance at the honeysuckle.
+
+Mr. Bell, junior, saw it. In an instant the honeysuckle was unpinned
+and handed to her. "If you like posies, you're welcome to this. I
+guess you're fond of flowers," he added, as he noted the flash of
+delight that passed over her pale face.
+
+"Yes, indeed; they put me so in mind of home--of the country. Oh, how
+sweet this is!"
+
+"You're country-bred, then? Been in the city long?"
+
+"Since last fall. I was born and brought up in the country. I wish I
+was back. I can't get over being homesick. This honeysuckle seems to
+bring it right back. We had honeysuckles around our porch at home."
+
+"You don't like the city, then?"
+
+"Oh, no. I sometimes feel as if I should smother here. I shall never
+feel at home, I am afraid."
+
+"Where did you live before you came here?"
+
+"Up at Middleton. It was an old-fashioned place, but pretty--our house
+was covered with vines, and there were trees all about it, and great
+green fields beyond. But I don't know what makes me tell you this. I
+forgot I was talking to a stranger."
+
+"Pretty little woman," soliloquized Andrew Bell, as he drove away.
+"She doesn't look happy, though. I suppose she's married some city
+chap and has to live in town. I guess it don't agree with her. Her
+eyes had a real hungry look in them over that honeysuckle. She seemed
+near about crying when she talked of the country."
+
+Jessamine felt more like crying than ever when she went back to her
+work. Her head ached and she was very tired. The tiny kitchen was hot
+and stifling. How she longed for the great, roomy kitchen in her old
+home, with its spotless floors and floods of sunshine streaming in
+through the maples outside. There was room to live and breathe there,
+and from the door one looked out over green wind-rippled meadows,
+under a glorious arch of pure blue sky, away to the purple hills in
+the distance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jessamine Stacy had always lived in the country. When her sister died
+and the old home had to go, Jessamine could only accept the shelter
+offered by her brother, John Stacy, who did business in the city.
+
+Of her stylish sister-in-law Jessamine was absolutely in awe. At first
+Mrs. John was by no means pleased at the necessity of taking a country
+sister into her family circle. But one day, when the servant girl took
+a tantrum and left, Mrs. John found it very convenient to have in the
+house a person who could step into Eliza's place as promptly and
+efficiently as Jessamine could.
+
+Indeed, she found it so convenient that Eliza never had a successor.
+Jessamine found herself in the position of maid-of-all-work and
+kitchen drudge for board and clothes.
+
+She never complained, but she grew thinner and paler as the winter
+went by. She had worked as hard on the farm, but it was the close
+confinement and weary routine that told on her. Mrs. John was exacting
+and querulous. John was absorbed in his business worries and had no
+time to waste on his sister. Now, when the summer had come, her
+homesickness was almost unbearable.
+
+The next day Mr. Bell came he handed her a big bunch of sweet-brier
+roses.
+
+"Here you are," he said heartily. "I took the liberty to bring you
+these today, seeing you're so fond of posies. The country roads are
+pink with them now. Why don't you get your husband to bring you out
+for a drive some day? You'd be as welcome as a lark at my farm."
+
+"I will when he comes along, but I haven't seen him yet."
+
+Mr. Bell gave a prolonged whistle. "Excuse me. I thought you were Mrs.
+Something-or-other for sure. Aren't you mistress here?"
+
+"Oh, no. My brother's wife is the mistress here. I'm only Jessamine."
+
+She laughed again. She was holding the roses against her face, and her
+eyes sparkled over them roguishly. The vegetable-man looked at her
+admiringly.
+
+"You're a country rose yourself, miss, and you ought to be blooming
+out in the fields, instead of wilting in here."
+
+"I wish I was. Thank you so much for the roses, Mr. ---- Mr. ----"
+
+"Bell--Andrew Bell, that's my name. I live out at Pine Pastures. We're
+all Bells out there--can't throw a stone without hitting one. Glad you
+like the roses."
+
+After that the vegetable-man brought Jessamine a bouquet every trip.
+Now it was a big bunch of field-daisies or golden buttercups, now a
+green glory of spicy ferns, now a cluster of old-fashioned garden
+flowers.
+
+"They keep life in me," Jessamine told him.
+
+They were great friends by this time. True, she knew little about him
+but she felt instinctively that he was manly and kind-hearted.
+
+One day when he came Jessamine met him almost gleefully. "No, nothing
+today. There is no dinner to cook."
+
+"You don't say. Where are the folks?"
+
+"Gone on an excursion. They won't be back until tonight."
+
+"They won't? Well, I'll tell you what to do. You get ready, and when
+I'm through my rounds we'll go for a drive up the country."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Bell! But won't it be too much bother for you?"
+
+"Well, I reckon not! You want an excursion as well as other folks, and
+you shall have it."
+
+"Oh, thank you so much. Yes, I'll be ready. You don't know how much it
+means to me."
+
+"Poor little creature," said Mr. Bell, as he drove away. "It's
+downright cruelty, that's what it is, to keep her penned up like that.
+You might as well coop up a lark in a hen-house and expect it to
+thrive and sing. I'd like to give that brother of hers a piece of my
+mind."
+
+When he lifted her up to the high seat of his express wagon that
+afternoon he said, "Now, I want you to do something. Just shut your
+eyes and don't open them again until I tell you to."
+
+Jessamine laughed and obeyed. Finally she heard him say, "Look."
+
+Jessamine opened her eyes with a little cry. They were on a remote
+country road, cool and dim and quiet, in the very heart of the beech
+woods. Long banners of light fell athwart the grey boles. Along the
+roadsides grew sheets of feathery ferns. Above the sky was gloriously
+blue. The air was sweet with the wild woodsy smell of the forest.
+
+Jessamine lifted and clasped her hands in rapture. "Oh, how lovely!"
+
+"Do you know where we're going?" said Mr. Bell delightedly. "Out to my
+farm at Pine Pastures. My aunt keeps house for me, and she'll be real
+glad to see you. You're just going to have a real good time this
+afternoon."
+
+They had a delightful drive to begin with, and presently Mr. Bell
+turned into a wide lane.
+
+"This is Cloverside Farm. I'm proud of it, I'll admit. There isn't a
+finer place in the county. What do you think of it?"
+
+"Oh, it is lovely--it is like home. Look at those great fields. I'd
+like to go and lie down in that clover."
+
+Mr. Bell lifted her from the wagon and marched her up a flowery garden
+path. "You shall do it, and everything else you want to. Here, Aunt,
+this is the young lady I spoke of. Make her at home while I tend to
+the horses."
+
+Miss Bell was a pleasant-faced woman with silver hair and kind blue
+eyes. She took Jessamine's hand in a friendly fashion.
+
+"Come in, dear. You're welcome as a June rose."
+
+When Mr. Bell returned, he found Jessamine standing on the porch with
+her hands full of honeysuckle and her cheeks pink with excitement.
+
+"I declare, you've got roses already," he exclaimed. "If they'd only
+stay now, and not bleach out again. What's first now?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know. There are so many things I want to do. Those
+flowers in the garden are calling me--and I want to go down to that
+hollow and pick buttercups--and I want to stay right here and look at
+things."
+
+Mr. Bell laughed. "Come with me to the pasture and see my Jersey
+calves. They're something worth seeing. Come, Aunt. This way, Miss
+Stacy."
+
+He led the way down the lane, the two women following together.
+Jessamine thought she must be in a pleasant dream. The whole afternoon
+was a feast of delight to her starved heart. When sunset came she sat
+down, tired out, but radiant, on the porch steps. Her hat had slipped
+back and her hair was curling around her face. Her dark eyes were
+aglow; the roses still bloomed in her cheeks.
+
+Mr. Bell looked at her admiringly. "If a man could see that pretty
+sight every night!" he thought. "And, Great Scott, why can't he?
+What's to prevent, I'd like to know?"
+
+When the moon rose, Mr. Bell brought his team around and they drove
+back through the clear night, past the wonderful stillness of the
+great beech woods and the wide fields. The farmer looked sideways at
+his companion.
+
+"The little thing wants to be petted and looked after," he thought.
+"She's just pining away for home and love. And why can't she have it?
+She's dying by inches in that hole back in town."
+
+Jessamine, quite unsuspecting the farmer's meditations, was living
+over again in fancy the joys of the afternoon: the ramble in the
+pasture, the drink of water from the spring under the hillside pines,
+the bountiful, old-fashioned country supper in the vine-shaded
+dining-room, the cup of new milk in the dairy at sunset, and all the
+glory of skies and meadows and trees. How could she go back to her
+cage again?
+
+
+The next week Mr. Bell, senior, resumed his visits, and the young
+farmer came no more to the side door of No. 49. Jessamine missed him
+greatly. Mr. Bell, senior, never brought her clover or honeysuckle.
+
+But one day his nephew suddenly reappeared. Jessamine opened the door
+for him, and her face lighted up, but Mr. Bell saw that she had been
+crying.
+
+"Did you think I had forgotten you?" he asked. "Not a bit of it.
+Harvest was on and I couldn't get clear before. I've come to ask you
+when you intend to take another drive to Cloverside Farm. What have
+you been up to? You look as if you'd been working too hard."
+
+"I--I--haven't felt very well. I'm glad you came today, Mr. Bell.
+Perhaps I shall not see you again, and I wanted to say goodbye and
+thank you for all your kindness."
+
+"Goodbye? Why, where are you going?"
+
+"My brother went west a week ago," faltered Jessamine. She could not
+bring herself to tell the clear-eyed farmer that John Stacy had failed
+and had been obliged to start for the west without saying goodbye to
+his creditors. "His wife and I--are going too--next week."
+
+"Oh, Jessamine," exclaimed Mr. Bell in despair, "don't go--you
+mustn't. I want you at Cloverside Farm. I came today on purpose to ask
+you. I love you and I'll make you happy if you'll marry me. What do
+you say, Jessamine?"
+
+Jessamine, by way of answer, sat down on the nearest chair and began
+to cry.
+
+"Oh, don't," said the wooer in distress. "I didn't want to make you
+feel bad. If you don't like the idea, I won't mention it again."
+
+"Oh, it isn't that--but I--I thought nobody cared what became of me.
+You are so kind--I'm afraid I'd only be a bother to you...."
+
+"I'll risk that. You shall have a happy home, little girl. Will you
+come to it?"
+
+"Ye-e-e-s." It was very indistinct and faltering, but Mr. Bell heard
+it and considered it a most eloquent answer.
+
+Mrs. John fumed and sulked and chose to consider herself hoodwinked
+and injured. But Mr. Bell was a resolute man, and a few days later he
+came for the last time to No. 49 and took his bride away with him.
+
+As they drove through the beech woods he put his arm tenderly around
+the shy, smiling little woman beside him and said, "You'll never be
+sorry for this, my dear."
+
+And she never was.
+
+
+
+
+Miss Sally's Letter
+
+
+Miss Sally peered sharply at Willard Stanley, first through her
+gold-rimmed glasses and then over them. Willard continued to look very
+innocent. Joyce got up abruptly and went out of the room.
+
+"So you have bought that queer little house with the absurd name?"
+said Miss Sally.
+
+"You surely don't call Eden an absurd name," protested Willard.
+
+"I do--for a house. Particularly such a house as that. Eden! There are
+no Edens on earth. And what are you going to do with it?"
+
+"Live in it."
+
+"Alone?"
+
+Miss Sally looked at him suspiciously.
+
+"No. The truth is, Miss Sally, I am hoping to be married in the fall
+and I want to fix up Eden for my bride."
+
+"Oh!" Miss Sally drew a long breath, partly it seemed of relief and
+partly of triumph, and looked at Joyce, who had returned, with an
+expression that said, "I told you so"; but Joyce, whose eyes were cast
+down, did not see it.
+
+"And," went on Willard calmly, "I want you to help me fix it up, Miss
+Sally. I don't know much about such things and you know everything.
+You will be able to tell me just what to do to make Eden habitable."
+
+Miss Sally looked as pleased as she ever allowed herself to look over
+anything a man suggested. It was the delight of her heart to plan and
+decorate and contrive. Her own house was a model of comfort and good
+taste, and Miss Sally was quite ready for new worlds to conquer.
+Instantly Eden assumed importance in her eyes. She might be sorry for
+the misguided bride who was rashly going to trust her life's keeping
+to a man, but she would see, at least, that the poor thing should have
+a decent place to begin her martyrdom in.
+
+"I'll be pleased to help you all I can," she said graciously.
+
+Miss Sally could speak very graciously when she chose, even to men.
+You would not have thought she hated them, but she did. In all
+sincerity, too. Also, she had brought her niece up to hate and
+distrust them. Or, she had tried to do so. But at times Miss Sally was
+troubled with an uncomfortable suspicion that Joyce did not hate and
+distrust men quite as thoroughly as she ought. The suspicion had
+recurred several times this summer since Willard Stanley had come to
+take charge of the biological station at the harbour. Miss Sally did
+not distrust Willard on his own account. She merely distrusted him on
+principle and on Joyce's account. Nevertheless, she was rather nice to
+him. Miss Sally, dear, trim, dainty Miss Sally, with her snow-white
+curls and her big girlish black eyes, couldn't help being nice, even
+to a man.
+
+Willard had come a great deal to Miss Sally's. If it were Joyce he
+were after Miss Sally blocked his schemes with much enjoyment. He
+never saw Joyce alone--that Miss Sally knew of, at least--and he did
+not make much apparent headway. But now all danger was removed, Miss
+Sally thought. He was going to be married to somebody else, and Joyce
+was safe.
+
+"Thank you," said Willard. "I'll come up tomorrow afternoon, and you
+and I will take a prowl about Eden and see what must be done. I'm ever
+so much obliged, Miss Sally."
+
+"I wonder who he is going to marry," said Miss Sally, careless of
+grammar, after he had gone. "Poor, poor girl!"
+
+"I don't see why you should pity her," said Joyce, not looking up from
+her embroidery. There was just the merest tremor in her voice. Miss
+Sally looked at her sharply.
+
+"I pity any woman who is foolish enough to marry," she said solemnly.
+"No man is to be trusted, Joyce--no man. They are all ready to break a
+trusting woman's heart for the sport of it. Never you allow any man
+the chance to break yours, Joyce. I shall never consent to your
+marrying anybody, so mind you don't take any such notion into your
+head. There oughtn't to be any danger, for I have instilled correct
+ideas on this subject into you from childhood. But girls are such
+fools. I know, because I was one myself once."
+
+"Of course, I would never marry without your consent, Aunt Sally,"
+said Joyce, smiling faintly but affectionately at her aunt. Joyce
+loved Miss Sally with her whole heart. Everybody did who knew her.
+There never was a more lovable creature than this pretty little old
+maid who hated the men so bitterly.
+
+"That's a good girl," said Miss Sally approvingly. "I own that I have
+been a little afraid that this Willard Stanley was coming here to see
+you. But my mind is set at rest on that point now, and I shall help
+him fix up his doll house with a clear conscience. Eden, indeed!"
+
+Miss Sally sniffed and tripped out of the room to hunt up a furniture
+catalogue. Joyce sighed and let her embroidery slip to the floor.
+
+"Oh, I'm afraid Willard's plan won't succeed," she murmured. "I'm
+afraid Aunt Sally will never consent to our marriage. And I can't and
+won't marry him unless she does, for she would never forgive me and I
+couldn't bear that. I wonder what makes her so bitter against men. She
+is so sweet and loving, it seems simply unnatural that she should have
+such a feeling so deeply rooted in her. Oh, what will she say when she
+finds out--dear little Aunt Sally? I couldn't bear to have her angry
+with me."
+
+The next day Willard came up from the harbour and took Miss Sally down
+to see Eden. Eden was a tiny, cornery, gabled grey house just across
+the road and down a long, twisted windy lane, skirting the edge of a
+beech wood. Nobody had lived in it for four years, and it had a
+neglected, out-at-elbow appearance.
+
+"It's rather a box of a place, isn't it?" said Willard slowly. "I'm
+afraid she will think so. But it is all I can afford just now. I
+dream of giving her a palace some day, of course. But we'll have to
+begin humbly. Do you think anything can be made of it?"
+
+Miss Sally was busily engaged in sizing up the possibilities of the
+place.
+
+"It is pretty small," she said meditatively. "And the yard is small
+too--and there are far too many trees and shrubs all messed up
+together. They must be thinned out--and that paling taken down. I
+think a good deal can be done with it. As for the house--well, let us
+see the inside."
+
+Willard unlocked the door and showed Miss Sally over the place. Miss
+Sally poked and pried and sniffed and wrinkled her forehead, and
+finally stood on the stairs and delivered her ultimatum.
+
+"This house can be done up very nicely. Paint and paper will work
+wonders. But I wouldn't paint it outside. Leave it that pretty silver
+weather-grey and plant vines to run over it. Oh, we'll see what we can
+do. Of course it is small--a kitchen, a dining room, a living room,
+and two bedrooms. You won't want anything stuffy. You can do the
+painting yourself, and I'll help you hang the paper. How much money
+can you spend on it?"
+
+Willard named the sum. It was not a large one.
+
+"But I think it will do," mused Miss Sally. "We'll _make_ it do.
+There's such satisfaction getting as much as you possibly can out of a
+dollar, and twice as much as anybody else would get. I enjoy that sort
+of thing. This will be a game, and we'll play it with a right good
+will. But I do wish you would give the place a sensible name."
+
+"I think Eden is the most appropriate name in the world," laughed
+Willard. "It will be Eden for me when she comes."
+
+"I suppose you tell her all that and she believes it," said Miss Sally
+sarcastically. "You'll both find out that there is a good deal more
+prose than poetry in life."
+
+"But we'll find it out _together_," said Willard tenderly. "Won't
+that be worth something, Miss Sally? Prose, rightly written and read,
+is sometimes as beautiful as poetry."
+
+Miss Sally deigned no reply. She carefully gathered up her grey silken
+skirts from the dusty floor and walked out. "Get Christina Bowes to
+come up tomorrow and scrub this place out," she said practically. "We
+can go to town and select paint and paper. I should like the dining
+room done in pale green and the living room in creamy tones, ranging
+from white to almost golden brown. But perhaps my taste won't be
+hers."
+
+"Oh, yes, it will," said Willard with assurance. "I am quite certain
+she will like everything you like. I can never thank you enough for
+helping me. If you hadn't consented I should have had to put it into
+the hands of some outsider whom I couldn't have helped at all. And I
+_wanted_ to help. I wanted to have a finger in everything, because it
+is for her, you see, Miss Sally. It will be such a delight to fix up
+this little house, knowing that she is coming to live in it."
+
+"I wonder if you really mean it," said Miss Sally bitterly. "Oh, I
+dare say you think you do. But _do_ you? Perhaps you do. Perhaps you
+are the exception that proves the rule."
+
+This was a great admission for Miss Sally to make.
+
+For the next two months Miss Sally was happy. Even Willard himself was
+not more keenly interested in Eden and its development. Miss Sally did
+wonders with his money. She was an expert at bargain hunting, and her
+taste was excellent. A score of times she mercilessly nipped Willard's
+suggestions in the bud. "Lace curtains for the living room--never!
+They would be horribly out of place in such a house. You don't want
+curtains at all--just a frill is all that quaint window needs, with a
+shelf above it for a few bits of pottery. I picked up a love of a
+brass platter in town yesterday--got it for next to nothing from that
+old Jew who would really rather _give_ you a thing than suffer you to
+escape without taking something. Oh, I know how to manage them."
+
+"You certainly do," laughed Willard. "It amazes me to see how far you
+can stretch a dollar."
+
+Willard did the painting under Miss Sally's watchful eye, and they
+hung the paper together. Together they made trips to town or junketed
+over the country in search of furniture and dishes of which Miss Sally
+had heard. Day by day the little house blossomed into a home, and day
+by day Miss Sally's interest in it grew. She began to have a personal
+affection for its quaint rooms and their adornments. Moreover, in
+spite of herself, she felt a growing interest in Willard's bride. He
+never told her the name of the girl he hoped to bring to Eden, and
+Miss Sally never asked it. But he talked of her a great deal, in a
+shy, reverent, tender way.
+
+"He certainly seems to be very much in love with her," Miss Sally told
+Joyce one evening when she returned from Eden. "I would believe in him
+if it were possible for me to believe in a man. Anyway, she will have
+a dear little home. I've almost come to love that Eden house. Why
+don't you come down and see it, Joyce?"
+
+"Oh, I'll come some day--I hope," said Joyce lightly. "I think I'd
+rather not see it until it is finished."
+
+"Willard is a nice boy," said Miss Sally suddenly. "I don't think I
+ever did him justice before. The finer qualities of his character come
+out in these simple, homely little doings and tasks. He is certainly
+very thoughtful and kind. Oh, I suppose he'll make a good husband, as
+husbands go. But he doesn't know the first thing about managing. If
+his wife isn't a good manager, I don't know what they'll do. And
+perhaps she won't like the way we've done up Eden. Willard says she
+will, of course, because he thinks her perfection. But she may have
+dreadful taste and want the lace curtains and that nightmare of a pink
+rug Willard admired, and I dare say she'd rather have a new flaunting
+set of china with rosebuds on it than that dear old dull blue I picked
+up for a mere song down at the Aldenbury auction. I stood in the rain
+for two mortal hours to make sure of it, and it was really worth all
+that Willard has spent on the dining room put together. It will break
+my heart if she sets to work altering Eden. It's simply perfect as it
+is--though I suppose I shouldn't say it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In another week Eden was finished. Miss Sally stood in the tiny hall
+and looked about her.
+
+"Well, it is done," she said with a sigh. "I'm sorry. I have enjoyed
+fixing it up tremendously, and now I feel that my occupation is gone.
+I hope you are satisfied, Willard."
+
+"Satisfied is too mild a word, Miss Sally. I am delighted. I knew you
+could accomplish wonders, but I never hoped for _this_. Eden is a
+dream--the dearest, quaintest, sweetest little home that ever waited
+for a bride. When I bring her here--oh, Miss Sally, do you know what
+that thought means to me?"
+
+Miss Sally looked curiously at the young man. His face was flushed and
+his voice trembled a little. There was a far-away shining look in his
+eyes as if he saw a vision.
+
+"I hope you and she will be happy," said Miss Sally slowly. "When will
+she be coming, Willard?"
+
+The flush went out of Willard's face, leaving it pale and determined.
+
+"That is for her--and you--to say," he answered steadily.
+
+"Me!" exclaimed Miss Sally. "What have I to do with it?"
+
+"A great deal--for unless you consent she will never come here at
+all."
+
+"Willard Stanley," said Miss Sally, with ominous calm, "who is the
+girl you mean to marry?"
+
+"The girl I _hope_ to marry is Joyce, Miss Sally. Wait--don't say
+anything till you hear me out." He came close to her and caught her
+hands in a boyish grip. "Joyce and I have loved each other ever since
+we met. But we despaired of winning your consent, and Joyce will not
+marry me without it. I thought if I could get you to help me fix up my
+little home that you might get so interested in it--and so well
+acquainted with me--that you would trust me with Joyce. Please do,
+Miss Sally. I love her so truly and I know I can make her happy. If
+you don't, Eden shall never have a mistress. I'll shut it up, just as
+it is, and leave it sacred to the dead hope of a bride that will never
+come to it."
+
+"Oh, you wouldn't," protested Miss Sally. "It would be a shame--such a
+dear little house--and after all the trouble I've taken. But you have
+tricked me--oh, you men couldn't be straightforward in anything--"
+
+"Wasn't it a fair device for a desperate lover, Miss Sally?"
+interrupted Willard. "Oh, you mustn't hold spite because of it, dear;
+And you will give me Joyce, won't you? Because if you don't, I really
+will shut up Eden forever."
+
+Miss Sally looked wistfully around her. Through the open door on her
+left she saw the little living room with its quaint, comfortable
+furniture, its dainty pictures and adornments. Through the front door
+she saw the trim, velvet-swarded little lawn. Upstairs were two white
+rooms that only wanted a woman's living presence to make them jewels.
+And the kitchen on which she had expended so much thought and
+ingenuity--the kitchen furnished to the last detail, even to the
+kindling in the range and the match Willard had laid ready to light
+it! It gave Miss Sally a pang to think of that altar fire never being
+lighted. It was really the thought of the kitchen that finished Miss
+Sally.
+
+"You've tricked me," she said again reproachfully. "You've tricked me
+into loving this house so much that I cannot bear the thought of it
+never living. You'll have to have Joyce, I suppose. And I believe I'm
+glad that it isn't a stranger who is to be the mistress of Eden. Joyce
+won't hanker after pink rugs and lace curtains. And her taste in china
+is the same as mine. In one way it's a great relief to my mind. But
+it's a fearful risk--a fearful risk. To think that you may make my
+dear child miserable!"
+
+"You know you don't think that I will, Miss Sally. I'm not really such
+a bad fellow, now, am I?"
+
+"You are a man--and I have no confidence whatever in men," declared
+Miss Sally, wiping some very real tears from her eyes with a very
+unreal sort of handkerchief--one of the cobwebby affairs of lace her
+daintiness demanded.
+
+"Miss Sally, why have you such a rooted distrust of men?" demanded
+Willard curiously. "Somehow, it seems so foreign to your character."
+
+"I suppose you think I am a perfect crank," said Miss Sally, sighing.
+"Well, I'll tell you why I don't trust men. I have a very good reason
+for it. A man broke my heart and embittered my life. I've never spoken
+about it to a living soul, but if you want to hear about it, you
+shall."
+
+Miss Sally sat down on the second step of the stairs and tucked her
+wet handkerchief away. She clasped her slender white hands over her
+knee. In spite of her silvery hair and the little lines on her face
+she looked girlish and youthful. There was a pink flush on her cheeks,
+and her big black eyes sparkled with the anger her memories aroused in
+her.
+
+"I was a young girl of twenty when I met him," she said, "and I was
+just as foolish as all young girls are--foolish and romantic and
+sentimental. He was very handsome and I thought him--but there, I
+won't go into that. It vexes me to recall my folly. But I loved
+him--yes, I did, with all my heart--with all there was of me to love.
+He made me love him. He deliberately set himself to win my love. For a
+whole summer he flirted with me. I didn't know he was flirting--I
+thought him in earnest. Oh, I was such a little fool--and so happy.
+Then--he went away. Went away suddenly without even a word of goodbye.
+But he had been summoned home by his father's serious illness, and I
+thought he would write--I waited--I hoped. I never heard from
+him--never saw him again. He had tired of his plaything and flung it
+aside. That is all," concluded Miss Sally passionately. "I never
+trusted any man again. When my sister died and gave me her baby, I
+determined to bring the dear child up safely, training her to avoid
+the danger I had fallen into. Well, I've failed. But perhaps it will
+be all right--perhaps there are some men who are true, though Stephen
+Merritt was false."
+
+"Stephen--who?" demanded Willard abruptly. Miss Sally coloured.
+
+"I didn't mean to tell you his name," she said, getting up. "It was a
+slip of the tongue. Never mind--forget it and him. He was not worthy
+of remembrance--and yet I do remember him. I can't forget him--and I
+hate him all the more for it--for having entered so deeply into my
+life that I could not cast him out when I knew him unworthy. It is
+humiliating. There--let us lock up Eden and go home. I suppose you are
+dying to see Joyce and tell her your precious plot has succeeded."
+
+Willard did not appear to be at all impatient. He had relapsed into a
+brown study, during which he let Miss Sally lock up the house. Then he
+walked silently home with her. Miss Sally was silent too. Perhaps she
+was repenting her confidence--or perhaps she was thinking of her false
+lover. There was a pathetic droop to her lips, and her black eyes were
+sad and dreamy.
+
+"Miss Sally," said Willard at last, as they neared her house, "had
+Stephen Merritt any sisters?"
+
+Miss Sally threw him a puzzled glance.
+
+"He had one--Jean Merritt--whom I disliked and who disliked me," she
+said crisply. "I don't want to talk of her--she was the only woman I
+ever hated. I never met any of the other members of his family--his
+home was in a distant part of the state."
+
+Willard stayed with Joyce so brief a time that Miss Sally viewed his
+departure with suspicion. This was not very lover-like conduct.
+
+"I dare say he's like all the rest--when his aim is attained the
+prize loses its value," reflected Miss Sally pessimistically. "Poor
+Joyce--poor child! But there--there isn't a single inharmonious thing
+in his house--that is one comfort. I'm so thankful I didn't let
+Willard buy those brocade chairs he wanted. They would have given
+Joyce the nightmare."
+
+Meanwhile, Willard rushed down to the biological station and from
+there drove furiously to the station to catch the evening express. He
+did not return until three days later, when he appeared at Miss
+Sally's, dusty and triumphant.
+
+"Joyce is out," said Miss Sally.
+
+"I'm glad of it," said Willard recklessly. "It's you I want to see,
+Miss Sally. I have something to show you. I've been all the way home
+to get it."
+
+From his pocketbook Willard drew something folded and creased and
+yellow that looked like a letter. He opened it carefully and, holding
+it in his fingers, looked over it at Miss Sally.
+
+"My grandmother's maiden name was Jean Merritt," he said deliberately,
+"and Stephen Merritt was my great-uncle. I never saw him--he died when
+I was a child--but I've heard my father speak of him often."
+
+Miss Sally turned very pale. She passed her cobwebby handkerchief
+across her lips and her hand trembled. Willard went on.
+
+"My uncle never married. He and his sister Jean lived together until
+her late marriage. I was not very fond of my grandmother. She was a
+selfish, domineering woman--very unlike the grandmother of tradition.
+When she died everything she possessed came to me, as my father, her
+only child, was then dead. In looking over a box of old papers I found
+a letter--an old love letter. I read it with some interest, wondering
+whose it could be and how it came among Grandmother's private letters.
+It was signed 'Stephen,' so that I guessed my great-uncle had been the
+writer, but I had no idea who the Sally was to whom it was written,
+until the other day. Then I knew it was you--and I went home to bring
+you your letter--the letter you should have received long ago. Why
+you did not receive it I cannot explain. I fear that my grandmother
+must have been to blame for that--she must have intercepted and kept
+the letter in order to part her brother and you. In so far as I can I
+wish to repair the wrong she has done you. I know it can never be
+repaired--but at least I think this letter will take the bitterness
+out of the memory of your lover."
+
+He dropped the letter in Miss Sally's lap and went away.
+
+Pale, Miss Sally picked it up and read it. It was from Stephen Merritt
+to "dearest Sally," and contained a frank, manly avowal of love. Would
+she be his wife? If she would, let her write and tell him so. But if
+she did not and could not love him, let her silence reveal the bitter
+fact; he would wish to spare her the pain of putting her refusal into
+words, and if she did not write he would understand that she was not
+for him.
+
+When Willard and Joyce came back into the twilight room they found
+Miss Sally still sitting by the table, her head leaning pensively on
+her hand. She had been crying--the cobwebby handkerchief lay beside
+her, wrecked and ruined forever--but she looked very happy.
+
+"I wonder if you know what you have done for me," she said to Willard.
+"But no--you can't know--you can't realize it fully. It means
+everything to me. You have taken away my humiliation and restored to
+me my pride of womanhood. He really loved me--he was not false--he was
+what I believed him to be. Nothing else matters to me at all now. Oh,
+I am very happy--but it would never have been if I had not consented
+to give you Joyce."
+
+She rose and took their hands in hers, joining them.
+
+"God bless you, dears," she said softly. "I believe you will be happy
+and that your love for each other will always be true and faithful and
+tender. Willard, I give you my dear child in perfect trust and
+confidence."
+
+With her yellowed love letter clasped to her heart, and a raptured
+shining in her eyes, Miss Sally went out of the room.
+
+
+
+
+My Lady Jane
+
+
+The boat got into Broughton half an hour after the train had gone. We
+had been delayed by some small accident to the machinery; hence that
+lost half-hour, which meant a night's sojourn for me in Broughton. I
+am ashamed of the things I thought and said. When I think that fate
+might have taken me at my word and raised up a special train, or some
+such miracle, by which I might have got away from Broughton that
+night, I experience a cold chill. Out of gratitude I have never sworn
+over missing connections since.
+
+At the time, however, I felt thoroughly exasperated. I was in a hurry
+to get on. Important business engagements would be unhinged by the
+delay. I was a stranger in Broughton. It looked like a stupid, stuffy
+little town. I went to a hotel in an atrocious humor. After I had
+fumed until I wanted a change, it occurred to me that I might as well
+hunt up Clark Oliver by way of passing the time. I had never been
+overly fond of Clark Oliver, although he was my cousin. He was a bit
+of a cad, and stupider than anyone belonging to our family had a right
+to be. Moreover, he was in politics, and I detest politics. But I
+rather wanted to see if he looked as much like me as he used to. I
+hadn't seen him for three years and I hoped that the time might have
+differentiated us to a saving degree. It was over a year since I had
+last been blown up by some unknown, excited individual on the ground
+that I was that scoundrel Oliver--politically speaking. I thought that
+was a good omen.
+
+I went to Clark's office, found he had left, and followed him to his
+rooms. The minute I saw him I experienced the same nasty feeling of
+lost or bewildered individuality which always overcame me in his
+presence. He was so absurdly like me. I felt as if I were looking into
+a mirror where my reflection persisted in doing things I didn't do,
+thereby producing a most uncanny sensation.
+
+Clark pretended he was glad to see me. He really couldn't have been,
+because his Great Idea hadn't struck him then, and we had always
+disliked each other.
+
+"Hello, Elliott," he said, shaking me by the hand with a twist he had
+learned in election campaigns, whereby something like heartiness was
+simulated. "Glad to see you, old fellow. Gad, you're as like me as
+ever. Where did you drop from?"
+
+I explained my predicament and we talked amiably and harmlessly for
+awhile about family gossip. I abhor family gossip, but it is a shade
+better than politics, and those two subjects are the only ones on
+which Clark can converse at all. I described Mary Alice's wedding, and
+Florence's new young man, and Tom-and-Kate's twins. Clark tried to be
+interested but I saw he had something on what serves him for a mind.
+After awhile it came out. He looked at his watch with a frown.
+
+"I'm in a bit of a puzzle," he said. "The Mark Kennedys are giving a
+dinner to-night. You don't know them, of course. They're the big
+people of Broughton. Kennedy runs the politics of the place, and Mrs.
+K. makes or mars people socially. It's my first invitation there and
+it's necessary I should accept it--necessary every way. Mrs. K. would
+never forgive me if I disappointed her at the last moment. Not that I,
+personally, am of much account--yet--to her. But it would leave a
+vacant place. Mrs. K. would never notice me again and, as she bosses
+Kennedy, I can't afford to offend her. Besides, there's a girl who'll
+be there. I've met her once. I want to meet her again. She's a beauty
+and no mistake. Toplofty as they make 'em, though. However, I think
+I've made an impression on her. It was at the Harvey's dance last
+week. She was the handsomest woman there, and she never took her eyes
+off me. I've given Mrs. Kennedy a pretty broad hint that I want to
+take her in to dinner. If I don't go I'll miss all round."
+
+"Well, what is there to prevent you from going?" I asked, squiffily. I
+never could endure the way Clark talked about girls and hinted at his
+conquests.
+
+"Just this. Herbert Bronson came to town this afternoon and is leaving
+on the 10.30 train to-night. He's sent me word to meet him at his
+hotel this evening and talk over a mining deal I've been trying to
+pull off. I simply must go. It's my one chance to corral Bronson. If I
+lose him it'll be all up, and I'll be thousands out of pocket."
+
+"Well, you _are_ in rather a predicament," I agreed, with the
+philosophical acceptance of the situation that marks the outsider. _I_
+wasn't hampered by the multiplicity of my business and social
+engagements that evening, so I could afford to pity Clark. It is
+always rather nice to be able to pity a person you dislike.
+
+"I should say so. I can't make up my mind what to do. Hang it. I'll
+_have_ to see Bronson. There's no question about that. A man ought to
+keep an understood substitute on hand to send to dinners when he can't
+go. By Jove! Elliott!"
+
+Clark's Great Idea had arrived. He bounced up eagerly.
+
+"Elliott, will _you_ go to the Kennedys' in my place? They'll never
+know the difference. Do, now--there's a good fellow!"
+
+"Nonsense!" I said.
+
+"It isn't nonsense. The resemblance between us was foreordained for
+this hour. I'll lend you my dress suit--it'll fit you--your figure is
+as much like mine as your face. You've nothing to do with yourself
+this evening. I offer you a good dinner and an agreeable partner. Come
+now, to oblige me. You know you owe me a good turn for that Mulhenen
+business."
+
+The Mulhenen business clinched the matter. Until he mentioned it I
+had no notion whatever of masquerading as Clark Oliver at the
+Kennedys' dinner. But, as Clark so delicately put it, he had done me a
+good turn in that affair and the obligation had rankled ever since. It
+is beastly to be indebted for a favor to a man you detest. Now was my
+chance to pay it off and I took it without more ado.
+
+"But," I said doubtfully, "I don't know the Kennedys--nor any of the
+social stunts that are doing in Broughton; I won't dare to talk about
+anything, and I'll seem so stupid, even if I don't actually make some
+irremediable blunder, that the Kennedys will be disgusted with you. It
+will probably do your prospects more harm than your absence would."
+
+"Not at all. Keep your mouth shut when you can and talk generalities
+when you can't, and you'll pass. If you take that girl in she's a
+stranger in Broughton and won't suspect your ignorance of what's going
+on. Nobody will suspect you. Nobody here knows I have a cousin so like
+me. Our own mothers haven't always been able to tell us apart. Our
+very voices are alike. Come now, get into my dinner togs. You haven't
+much time and Mrs. K. doesn't like late comers."
+
+There seemed to be a number of things that Mrs. Kennedy did not like.
+I thought my chance of pleasing that critical lady extremely small,
+especially when I had to live up to Clark Oliver's personality.
+However, I dressed as expeditiously as possible. The novelty of the
+adventure rather pleased me. I always liked doing unusual things.
+Anything was better than lounging away the evening at my hotel. It
+couldn't do any harm. I owed Clark Oliver a good turn and I would save
+Mrs. Kennedy the annoyance of a vacant chair.
+
+There was no disputing the fact that I looked most disgustingly like
+Clark when I got into his clothes. I actually felt a grudge against
+them for their excellent fit.
+
+"You'll do," said Clark. "Remember you're a Conservative to-night and
+don't let your rank Liberal views crop out, or you'll queer me for
+all time with the great and only Mark. He doesn't talk politics at his
+dinners, though, so you're not likely to have trouble on that score.
+Mrs. Kennedy has a weakness for beer mugs. Her collection is
+considered very fine. Scandal whispers that Miss Harvey has a budding
+interest in settlement work--"
+
+"Miss who?" I said sharply.
+
+"Harvey. Christian name unknown. That's the girl I mentioned. You'll
+probably take her in. Be nice to her even if you have to make an
+effort. She's the one I've picked out as your future cousin, you know,
+so I don't want you to spoil her good opinion of me in any way."
+
+The name had given me a jump. Once, in another world, I had known a
+Jane Harvey. But Clark's Miss Harvey couldn't be Jane. A month before
+I had read a newspaper item to the effect that Jane was on the Pacific
+coast. Moreover, Jane, when I knew her, had certainly no manifest
+vocation for settlement work. I didn't think two years could have
+worked such a transformation. Two years! Was it only two years? It
+seemed more like two centuries.
+
+I went to the Kennedys' in a pleasantly excited frame of mind and a
+cab. I just missed being late by a hairbreadth. The house was a big
+one, and everybody pertaining to it was big, except the host. Mark
+Kennedy was a little, thin man with a bald head. He didn't look like a
+political power, but that was all the more reason for his being one in
+a world where things are not what they seem.
+
+Mrs. Kennedy greeted me cordially and told me significantly that she
+had granted my request. This meant, as my card had already informed
+me, that I was to take Miss Harvey out. Of course there would be no
+introduction since Clark Oliver was already acquainted with the lady.
+I was wondering how I was to locate her when I got a shock that made
+me dizzy. Jane was over in a corner looking at me.
+
+There was no time to collect my wits. The guests were moving out to
+the dining-room. I took my nerve in my hand, crossed the room, bowed,
+and the next moment was walking through the hall with Jane's hand on
+my arm. The hall was a good long one; I blessed the architect who had
+planned it. It gave me time to sort out my ideas.
+
+Jane here! Jane going out to dinner with me, believing me to be Clark
+Oliver! Jane--but it was incredible! The whole thing was a dream--or I
+had gone crazy!
+
+I looked at her sideways when we had got into our places at the table.
+She was more beautiful than ever, that tall, brown-haired, disdainful
+Jane. The settlement work story I was inclined to dismiss as a myth.
+Settlement work in a beautiful woman generally means crowsfeet or a
+broken heart. Jane, according to my sight and belief, possessed
+neither.
+
+Once upon a time I had been engaged to Jane. I had been idiotically in
+love with her in those days and still more idiotically believed that
+she loved me. The trouble was that, although I had been cured of the
+latter phase of my idiocy, the former had become chronic. I had never
+been able to get over loving Jane. All through those two years I had
+hugged the fond hope that sometime I might stumble across her in a
+mild mood and make matters up. There was no such thing as seeking her
+out or writing to her, since she had icily forbidden me to do so, and
+Jane had a most detestable habit--in a woman--of meaning what she
+said. But the deity I had invoked was the god of chance--and this was
+how he had answered my prayers. I was eating my dinner beside Jane,
+who supposed me to be Clark Oliver!
+
+What should I do? Confess the truth and plead my cause while she had
+to sit beside me? That would never do. Someone might overhear us. And,
+in any case, it would be no passport to Jane's favor that I was a
+guest in the house under false pretences. She would be certain to
+disapprove strongly. It was a maddening situation.
+
+Jane, who was calmly eating soup--she was the only woman I had ever
+seen who could eat soup and look like a goddess at the same
+time--glanced around and caught me studying her profile. I thought she
+blushed slightly and I raged inwardly to think that blush was meant
+for Clark Oliver--Clark Oliver who had told me he thought Jane was
+smitten on him! Jane! On him!
+
+"Do you know, Mr. Oliver," said Jane slowly, "that you are startlingly
+like a--a person I used to know? When I first saw you the other night
+I took you for him."
+
+A _person_ you used to know! Oh, Jane, that was the most unkindest cut
+of all.
+
+"My cousin, Elliott Cameron, I suppose?" I answered as indifferently
+as I could. "We resemble each other very closely. You were acquainted
+with Cameron, Miss Harvey?"
+
+"Slightly," said Jane.
+
+"A fine fellow," I said unblushingly.
+
+"A-h," said Jane.
+
+"My favorite relative," I went on brazenly. "He's a thoroughly good
+sort--rather dull now to what he used to be, though. He had an
+unfortunate love affair two years ago and has never got over it."
+
+"Indeed?" said Jane coldly, crumbling a bit of bread between her
+fingers. Her face was expressionless and her voice ditto; but I had
+heard her criticize nervous people who did things like that at table.
+
+"I fear poor Elliott's life has been completely spoiled," I said, with
+a sigh. "It's a shame."
+
+"Did he confide the affair to you?" asked Jane, a little scornfully.
+
+"Well, after a fashion. He said enough for me to guess the rest. He
+never told me the lady's name. She was very beautiful, I understand,
+and very heartless. Oh, she used him very badly."
+
+"Did he tell you that, too?" asked Jane.
+
+"Not he. He won't listen to a word against her. But a chap can draw
+his own conclusions, you know."
+
+"What went wrong between them?" asked Jane. She smiled at a lady
+across the table, as if she were merely asking questions to make
+conversation, but she went on crumbling bread.
+
+"Simply a very stiff quarrel, I believe. Elliott never went into
+details. The lady was flirting with somebody else, I fancy."
+
+"People have such different ideas about flirting," said Jane,
+languidly. "What one would call mere simple friendliness another
+construes into flirting. Possibly your friend--or is it your
+cousin?--is one of those men who become insanely jealous over every
+trifle and attempt to exert authority before they have any to exert. A
+woman of spirit would hardly fail to resent that."
+
+"Of course Elliott was jealous," I admitted. "But then, you know, Miss
+Harvey, that jealousy is said to be the measure of a man's love. If he
+went beyond his rights I am sure he is bitterly sorry for it."
+
+"Does he really care about her still?" asked Jane, eating most
+industriously, although somehow the contents of her plate did not grow
+noticeably less. As for me, I didn't pretend to eat. I simply pecked.
+
+"He loves her with all his heart," I answered fervently. "There never
+has been and never will be any other woman for Elliott Cameron."
+
+"Why doesn't he go and tell her so?" inquired Jane, as if she felt
+rather bored over the whole subject.
+
+"He doesn't dare to. She forbade him ever to cross her path again.
+Told him she hated him and always would hate him as long as she
+lived."
+
+"She must have been an unpleasantly emphatic young woman," commented
+Jane.
+
+"I'd like to hear anyone say so to Elliott," I responded. "He
+considers her perfection. I'm sorry for Elliott. His life is wrecked."
+
+"Do you know," said Jane slowly, as if poking about in the recesses of
+her memory for something half forgotten. "I believe I know the--the
+girl in question."
+
+"Really?" I said.
+
+"Yes, she is a friend of mine. She--she never told me his name, but
+putting two and two together, I believe it must have been your cousin.
+But she--she thinks she was the one to blame."
+
+"Does she?" It was my turn to ask questions now, but my heart thumped
+so that I could hardly speak.
+
+"Yes, she says she was too hasty and unreasonable. She didn't mean to
+flirt at all--and she never cared for anyone but--him. But his
+jealousy irritated her. I suppose she said things to him she didn't
+really mean. She--she never supposed he was going to take her at her
+word."
+
+"Do you think she cares for him still?" Considering what was at stake,
+I think I asked the question very well.
+
+"I think she must," said Jane languidly. "She has never looked at any
+other man. She devotes most of her time to charitable work, but I feel
+sure she isn't really happy."
+
+So the settlement story was true. Oh, Jane!
+
+"What would you advise my cousin to do?" I asked. "Do you think he
+should go boldly to her? Would she listen to him--forgive him?"
+
+"She might," said Jane.
+
+"Have I your permission to tell Elliott Cameron this?" I demanded.
+
+Jane selected and ate an olive with maddening deliberation.
+
+"I suppose you may--if you are really convinced that he wants to hear
+it," she said at last, as if barely recollecting that I had asked the
+question two minutes previously.
+
+"I'll tell him as soon as I go home," I said.
+
+I had the satisfaction of startling Jane at last. She turned her head
+and looked at me. I got a good, square, satisfying gaze into her big,
+blackish-blue eyes.
+
+"Yes," I said, compelling myself to look away. "He came in on the boat
+this afternoon too late for his train. Has to stay over till to-morrow
+night. I left him in my rooms when I came away. Doubtless to-morrow
+will see him speeding recklessly to his dear divinity. I wonder if he
+knows where she is at present."
+
+"If he doesn't," said Jane, with the air of dismissing the subject
+once and forever from her mind, "I can give him the information. You
+may tell him I'm staying with the Duncan Moores, and shall be leaving
+day after to-morrow. By the way, have you seen Mrs. Kennedy's
+collection of steins? It is a remarkably fine one."
+
+Clark Oliver couldn't come to our wedding--or wouldn't. Jane has never
+met him since, but she cannot understand why I have such an aversion to
+him, especially when he has such a good opinion of me. She says she
+thought him charming, and one of the most interesting conversationalists
+she ever went out to dinner with.
+
+
+
+
+Robert Turner's Revenge
+
+
+When Robert Turner came to the green, ferny triangle where the station
+road forked to the right and left under the birches, he hesitated as
+to which direction he would take. The left led out to the old Turner
+homestead, where he had spent his boyhood and where his cousin still
+lived; the right led down to the Cove shore where the Jameson property
+was situated. Since he had stopped off at Chiswick for the purpose of
+looking this property over before foreclosing the mortgage on it he
+concluded that he might as well take the Cove road; he could go around
+by the shore afterward--he had not forgotten the way even in forty
+years--and so on up through the old spruce wood in Alec Martin's
+field--if the spruces were there still and the field still Alec
+Martin's--to his cousin's place. He would just about have time to make
+the round before the early country supper hour. Then a brief visit
+with Tom--Tom had always been a good sort of a fellow although
+woefully dull and slow-going--and the evening express for Montreal. He
+swung with a businesslike stride into the Cove road.
+
+As he went on, however, the stride insensibly slackened into an
+unaccustomed saunter. How well he remembered that old road, although
+it was forty years since he had last traversed it, a set-lipped boy of
+fifteen, cast on the world by the indifference of an uncle. The years
+had made surprisingly little difference in it or in the surrounding
+scenery. True, the hills and fields and lanes seemed lower and smaller
+and narrower than he remembered them; there were some new houses along
+the road, and the belt of woods along the back of the farms had become
+thinner in most places. But that was all. He had no difficulty in
+picking out the old familiar spots. There was the big cherry orchard
+on the Milligan place which had been so famous in his boyhood. It was
+snow-white with blossoms, as if the trees were possessed of eternal
+youth; they had been in blossom the last time he had seen them. Well,
+time had not stood still with him as it had with Luke Milligan's
+cherry orchard, he reflected grimly. His springtime had long gone by.
+
+The few people he met on the road looked at him curiously, for
+strangers were not commonplace in Chiswick. He recognized some of the
+older among them but none of them knew him. He had been an awkward,
+long-limbed lad with fresh boyish colour and crisp black curls when he
+had left Chiswick. He returned to it a somewhat portly figure of a
+man, with close-cropped, grizzled hair, and a face that looked as if
+it might be carved out of granite, so immobile and unyielding it
+was--the face of a man who never faltered or wavered, who stuck at
+nothing that might advance his plans and purposes, a face known and
+dreaded in the business world where he reigned master. It was a cold,
+hard, selfish face, but the face of the boy of forty years ago had
+been neither cold nor hard nor selfish.
+
+Presently the homesteads and orchard lands grew fewer and then ceased
+altogether. The fields were long and low-lying, sloping down to the
+misty blue rim of sea. A turn of the road brought him in sudden sight
+of the Cove, and there below him was the old Jameson homestead, built
+almost within wave-lap of the pebbly shore and shut away into a lonely
+grey world of its own by the sea and sands and those long slopes of
+tenantless fields.
+
+He paused at the sagging gate that opened into the long, deep-rutted
+lane and, folding his arms on it, looked earnestly and scrutinizingly
+over the buildings. They were grey and faded, lacking the prosperous
+appearance that had characterized them once. There was an air of
+failure about the whole place as if the very land had become
+disheartened and discouraged.
+
+Long ago, Neil Jameson, senior, had been a well-to-do man. The big
+Cove farm had been one of the best in Chiswick then. As for Neil
+Jameson, Junior, Robert Turner's face always grew something grimmer
+when he recalled him--the one person, boy and man, whom he had really
+hated in the world. They had been enemies from childhood, and once in
+a bout of wrestling at the Chiswick school Neil had thrown him by an
+unfair trick and taunted him continually thereafter on his defeat.
+Robert had made a compact with himself that some day he would pay Neil
+Jameson back. He had not forgotten it--he never forgot such
+things--but he had never seen or heard of Neil Jameson after leaving
+Chiswick. He might have been dead for anything Robert Turner knew.
+Then, when John Kesley failed and his effects turned over to his
+creditors, of whom Robert Turner was the chief, a mortgage on the Cove
+farm at Chiswick, owned by Neil Jameson, had been found among his
+assets. Inquiry revealed the fact that Neil Jameson was dead and that
+the farm was run by his widow. Turner felt a pang of disappointment.
+What satisfaction was there in wreaking revenge on a dead man? But at
+least his wife and children should suffer. That debt of his to Jameson
+for an ill-won victory and many a sneer must be paid in full, if not
+to him, why, then to his heirs.
+
+His lawyers reported that Mrs. Jameson was two years behind with her
+interest. Turner instructed them to foreclose the mortgage promptly.
+Then he took it into his head to revisit Chiswick and have a good look
+at the Cove farm and other places he knew so well. He had a notion
+that it might be a decent place to spend a summer month or two in. His
+wife went to seaside and mountain resorts, but he liked something
+quieter. There was good fishing at the Cove and in Chiswick pond, as
+he remembered. If he liked the farm as well as his memory promised him
+he would do, he would bid it in himself. It would make Neil Jameson
+turn in his grave if the penniless lad he had jeered at came into the
+possession of his old ancestral property that had been owned by a
+Jameson for over one hundred years. There was a flavour in such a
+revenge that pleased Robert Turner. He smiled one of his occasional
+grim smiles over it. When Robert Turner smiled, weather prophets of
+the business sky foretold squalls.
+
+Presently he opened the gate and went through. Halfway down the lane
+forked, one branch going over to the house, the other slanting across
+the field to the cove. Turner took the latter and soon found himself
+on the grey shore where the waves were tumbling in creamy foam just as
+he remembered them long ago. Nothing about the old cove had changed;
+he walked around a knobby headland, weather-worn with the wind and
+spray of years, which cut him off from sight of the Jameson house, and
+sat down on a rock. He thought himself alone and was annoyed to find a
+boy sitting on the opposite ledge with a book on his knee.
+
+The lad lifted his eyes and looked Turner over with a clear, direct
+gaze. He was about twelve years old, tall for his age, slight, with a
+delicate, clear-cut face--a face that was oddly familiar to Turner,
+although he was sure he had never seen it before. The boy had oval
+cheeks, finely tinted with colour, big, shy blue eyes quilled about
+with long black lashes, and silvery-golden hair lying over his head in
+soft ringlets like a girl's. What girl's? Something far back in Robert
+Turner's dreamlike boyhood seemed to call to him like a note of a
+forgotten melody, sweet yet stirring like a pain. The more he looked
+at the boy the stronger the impression of a resemblance grew in every
+feature but the mouth. That was alien to his recollection of the face,
+yet there was something about it, when taken by itself, that seemed
+oddly familiar also--yes, and unpleasantly familiar, although the
+mouth was a good one--finely cut and possessing more firmness than was
+found in all the other features put together.
+
+"It's a good place for reading, sonny, isn't it?" he inquired, more
+genially than he had spoken to a child for years. In fact, having no
+children of his own, he so seldom spoke to a child that his voice and
+manner when he did so were generally awkward and rusty.
+
+The boy nodded a quick little nod. Somehow, Turner had expected that
+nod and the glimmer of a smile that accompanied it.
+
+"What book are you reading?" he asked.
+
+The boy held it out; it was an old _Robinson Crusoe_, that classic of
+boyhood.
+
+"It's splendid," he said. "Billy Martin lent it to me and I have to
+finish it today because Ned Josephs is to have it next and he's in a
+hurry for it."
+
+"It's a good while since I read _Robinson Crusoe_," said Turner
+reflectively. "But when I did it was on this very shore a little
+further along below the Miller place. There was a Martin and a Josephs
+in the partnership then too--the fathers, I dare say, of Billy and
+Ned. What is your name, my boy?"
+
+"Paul Jameson, sir."
+
+The name was a shock to Turner. This boy a Jameson--Neil Jameson's
+son? Why, yes, he had Neil's mouth. Strange he had nothing else in
+common with the black-browed, black-haired Jamesons. What business had
+a Jameson with those blue eyes and silvery-golden curls? It was
+flagrant forgery on Nature's part to fashion such things and label
+them Jameson by a mouth.
+
+Hated Neil Jameson's son! Robert Turner's face grew so grey and hard
+that the boy involuntarily glanced upward to see if a cloud had
+crossed the sun.
+
+"Your father was Neil Jameson, I suppose?" Turner said abruptly.
+
+Paul nodded. "Yes, but he is dead. He has been dead for eight years. I
+don't remember him."
+
+"Have you any brothers or sisters?"
+
+"I have a little sister a year younger than I am. The other four are
+dead. They died long ago. I'm the only boy Mother had. Oh, I do so
+wish I was bigger and older! If I was I could do something to save the
+place--I'm sure I could. It is breaking Mother's heart to have to
+leave it."
+
+"So she has to leave it, has she?" said Turner grimly, with the old
+hatred stirring in his heart.
+
+"Yes. There is a mortgage on it and we're to be sold out very soon--so
+the lawyers told us. Mother has tried so hard to make the farm pay but
+she couldn't. I could if I was bigger--I know I could. If they would
+only wait a few years! But there is no use hoping for that. Mother
+cries all the time about it. She has lived at the Cove farm for over
+thirty years and she says she can't live away from it now.
+Elsie--that's my sister--and I do all we can to cheer her up, but we
+can't do much. Oh, if I was only a man!"
+
+The lad shut his lips together--how much his mouth was like his
+father's--and looked out seaward with troubled blue eyes. Turner
+smiled another grim smile. Oh, Neil Jameson, your old score was being
+paid now!
+
+Yet something embittered the sweetness of revenge. That boy's face--he
+could not hate it as he had accustomed himself to hate the memory of
+Neil Jameson and all connected with him.
+
+"What was your mother's name before she married your father?" he
+demanded abruptly.
+
+"Lisbeth Miller," answered the boy, still frowning seaward over his
+secret thoughts.
+
+Turner started again. Lisbeth Miller! He might have known it. What
+woman in all the world save Lisbeth Miller could have given her son
+those eyes and curls? So Lisbeth had married Neil Jameson--little
+Lisbeth Miller, his schoolboy sweetheart. He had forgotten her--or
+thought he had; certainly he had not thought of her for years. But the
+memory of her came back now with a rush.
+
+Little Lisbeth--pretty little Lisbeth--merry little Lisbeth! How
+clearly he remembered her! The old Miller place had adjoined his
+uncle's farm. Lisbeth and he had played together from babyhood. How he
+had worshipped her! When they were six years old they had solemnly
+promised to marry each other when they grew up, and Lisbeth had let
+him kiss her as earnest of their compact, made under a bloom-white
+apple tree in the Miller orchard. Yet she would always blush furiously
+and deny it ever afterwards; it made her angry to be reminded of it.
+
+He saw himself going to school, carrying her books for her, the envied
+of all the boys. He remembered how he had fought Tony Josephs because
+Tony had the presumption to bring her spice apples: he had thrashed
+him too, so soundly that from that time forth none of the schoolboys
+presumed to rival him in Lisbeth's affections--roguish little Lisbeth!
+who grew prettier and saucier every year.
+
+He recalled the keen competition of the old days when to be "head of
+the class" seemed the highest honour within mortal reach, and was
+striven after with might and main. He had seldom attained to it
+because he would never "go up past" Lisbeth. If she missed a word, he,
+Robert, missed it too, no matter how well he knew it. It was sweet to
+be thought a dunce for her dear sake. It was all the reward he asked
+to see her holding her place at the head of the class, her cheeks
+flushed pink and her eyes starry with her pride of position. And how
+sweetly she would lecture him on the way home from school about
+learning his spellings better, and wind up her sermon with the frank
+avowal, uttered with deliciously downcast lids, that she liked him
+better than any of the other boys after all, even if he couldn't spell
+as well as they could. Nothing of success that he had won since had
+ever thrilled him as that admission of little Lisbeth's!
+
+She had been such a sympathetic little sweetheart too, never weary of
+listening to his dreams and ambitions, his plans for the future. She
+had always assured him that she knew he would succeed. Well, he had
+succeeded--and now one of the uses he was going to make of his success
+was to turn Lisbeth and her children out of their home by way of
+squaring matters with a dead man!
+
+Lisbeth had been away from home on a long visit to an aunt when he had
+left Chiswick. She was growing up and the childish intimacy was
+fading. Perhaps, under other circumstances, it might have ripened into
+fruit, but he had gone away and forgotten her; the world had claimed
+him; he had lost all active remembrance of Lisbeth and, before this
+late return to Chiswick, he had not even known if she were living. And
+she was Neil Jameson's widow!
+
+He was silent for a long time, while the waves purred about the base
+of the big red sandstone rock and the boy returned to his _Crusoe_.
+Finally Robert Turner roused himself from his reverie.
+
+"I used to know your mother long ago when she was a little girl," he
+said. "I wonder if she remembers me. Ask her when you go home if she
+remembers Bobby Turner."
+
+"Won't you come up to the house and see her, sir?" asked Paul
+politely. "Mother is always glad to see her old friends."
+
+"No, I haven't time today." Robert Turner was not going to tell Neil
+Jameson's son that he did not care to look for the little Lisbeth of
+long ago in Neil Jameson's widow. The name spoiled her for him, just
+as the Jameson mouth spoiled her son for him. "But you may tell her
+something else. The mortgage will not be foreclosed. I was the power
+behind the lawyers, but I did not know that the present owner of the
+Cove farm was my little playmate, Lisbeth Miller. You and she shall
+have all the time you want. Tell her Bobby Turner does this in return
+for what she gave him under the big sweeting apple tree on her sixth
+birthday. I think she will remember and understand. As for you, Paul,
+be a good boy and good to your mother. I hope you'll succeed in your
+ambition of making the farm pay when you are old enough to take it in
+hand. At any rate, you'll not be disturbed in your possession of it."
+
+"Oh, sir! oh, sir!" stammered Paul in an agony of embarrassed
+gratitude and delight. "Oh, it seems too good to be true. Do you
+really mean that we're not to be sold out? Oh, won't you come and tell
+Mother yourself? She'll be so happy--so grateful. Do come and let her
+thank you."
+
+"Not today. I haven't time. Give her my message, that's all. There,
+run; the sooner she gets the news the better."
+
+Turner watched the boy as he bounded away, until the headland hid him
+from sight.
+
+"There goes my revenge--and a fine bit of property eminently suited
+for a summer residence--all for a bit of old, rusty sentiment," he
+said with a shrug. "I didn't suppose I was capable of such a mood. But
+then--little Lisbeth. There never was a sweeter girl. I'm glad I
+didn't go with the boy to see her. She's an old woman now--and Neil
+Jameson's widow. I prefer to keep my old memories of her
+undisturbed--little Lisbeth of the silvery-golden curls and the
+roguish blue eyes. Little Lisbeth of the old time! I'm glad to be able
+to have done you the small service of securing your home to you. It is
+my thanks to you for the friendship and affection you gave my lonely
+boyhood--my tribute to the memory of my first sweetheart."
+
+He walked away with a smile, whose amusement presently softened to an
+expression that would have amazed his business cronies. Later on he
+hummed the air of an old love song as he climbed the steep spruce road
+to Tom's.
+
+
+
+
+The Fillmore Elderberries
+
+
+"I expected as much," said Timothy Robinson. His tone brought the
+blood into Ellis Duncan's face. The lad opened his lips quickly, as if
+for an angry retort, but as quickly closed them again with a set
+firmness oddly like Timothy Robinson's own.
+
+"When I heard that lazy, worthless father of yours was dead, I
+expected you and your mother would be looking to me for help," Timothy
+Robinson went on harshly. "But you're mistaken if you think I'll give
+it. You've no claim on me, even if your father was my half-brother--no
+claim at all. And I'm not noted for charity."
+
+Timothy Robinson smiled grimly. It was very true that he was far from
+being noted for charity. His neighbours called him "close" and "near."
+Some even went so far as to call him "a miserly skinflint." But this
+was not true. It was, however, undeniable that Timothy Robinson kept a
+tight clutch on his purse-strings, and although he sometimes gave
+liberally enough to any cause which really appealed to him, such
+causes were few and far between.
+
+"I am not asking for charity, Uncle Timothy," said Ellis quietly. He
+passed over the slur at his father in silence, deeply as he felt it,
+for, alas, he knew that it was only too true. "I expect to support my
+mother by hard and honest work. And I am not asking you for work on
+the ground of our relationship. I heard you wanted a hired man, and I
+have come to you, as I should have gone to any other man about whom I
+had heard it, to ask you to hire me."
+
+"Yes, I do want a man," said Uncle Timothy drily. "A _man_--not a
+half-grown boy of fourteen, not worth his salt. I want somebody able
+and willing to work."
+
+Again Ellis flushed deeply and again he controlled himself. "I am
+willing to work, Uncle Timothy, and I think you would find me able
+also if you would try me. I'd work for less than a man's wages at
+first, of course."
+
+"You won't work for any sort of wages from me," interrupted Timothy
+Robinson decidedly. "I tell you plainly that I won't hire you. You're
+the wrong man's son for that. Your father was lazy and incompetent
+and, worst of all, untrustworthy. I did try to help him once, and all
+I got was loss and ingratitude. I want none of his kind around my
+place. I don't believe in you, so you may as well take yourself off,
+Ellis. I've no more time to waste."
+
+Ellis took himself off, his ears tingling. As he walked homeward his
+thoughts were very bitter. All Uncle Timothy had said about his father
+was true, and Ellis realized what a count it was against him in his
+efforts to obtain employment. Nobody wanted to be bothered with "Old
+Sam Duncan's son," though nobody had been so brutally outspoken as his
+Uncle Timothy.
+
+Sam Duncan and Timothy Robinson had been half-brothers. Sam, the
+older, had been the son of Mrs. Robinson's former marriage. Never were
+two lads more dissimilar. Sam was a lazy, shiftless fellow, deserving
+all the hard things that came to be said of him. He would not work and
+nobody could depend on him, but he was a handsome lad with rather
+taking ways in his youth, and at first people had liked him better
+than the close, blunt, industrious Timothy. Their mother had died in
+their childhood, but Mr. Robinson had been fond of Sam and the boy had
+a good home. When he was twenty-two and Timothy eighteen, Mr. Robinson
+had died very suddenly, leaving no will. Everything he possessed went
+to Timothy. Sam immediately left. He said he would not stay there to
+be "bossed" by Timothy.
+
+He rented a little house in the village, married a girl "far too good
+for him," and started in to support himself and his wife by days'
+work. He had lounged, borrowed, and shirked through life. Once Timothy
+Robinson, perhaps moved by pity for Sam's wife and baby, had hired him
+for a year at better wages than most hired men received in Dalrymple.
+Sam idled through a month of it, then got offended and left in the
+middle of haying. Timothy Robinson washed his hands of him after that.
+
+When Ellis was fourteen Sam Duncan died, after a lingering illness of
+a year. During this time the family were kept by the charity of
+pitying neighbours, for Ellis could not be spared from attendance on
+his father to make any attempt at earning money. Mrs. Duncan was a
+fragile little woman, worn out with her hard life, and not strong
+enough to wait on her husband alone.
+
+When Sam Duncan was dead and buried, Ellis straightened his shoulders
+and took counsel with himself. He must earn a livelihood for his
+mother and himself, and he must begin at once. He was tall and strong
+for his age, and had a fairly good education, his mother having
+determinedly kept him at school when he had pleaded to be allowed to
+go to work. He had always been a quiet fellow, and nobody in Dalrymple
+knew much about him. But they knew all about his father, and nobody
+would hire Ellis unless he were willing to work for a pittance that
+would barely clothe him.
+
+Ellis had not gone to his Uncle Timothy until he had lost all hope of
+getting a place elsewhere. Now this hope too had gone. It was nearly
+the end of June and everybody who wanted help had secured it. Look
+where he would, Ellis could see no prospect of employment.
+
+"If I could only get a chance!" he thought miserably. "I know I am not
+idle or lazy--I know I can work--if I could get a chance to prove it."
+
+He was sitting on the fence of the Fillmore elderberry pasture as he
+said it, having taken a short cut across the fields. This pasture was
+rather noted in Dalrymple. Originally a mellow and fertile field, it
+had been almost ruined by a persistent, luxuriant growth of elderberry
+bushes. Old Thomas Fillmore had at first tried to conquer them by
+mowing them down "in the dark of the moon." But the elderberries did
+not seem to mind either moon or mowing, and flourished alike in all
+the quarters. For the past two years Old Thomas had given up the
+contest, and the elderberries had it all their own sweet way.
+
+Thomas Fillmore, a bent old man with a shrewd, nutcracker face, came
+through the bushes while Ellis was sitting on the fence.
+
+"Howdy, Ellis. Seen anything of my spotted calves? I've been looking
+for 'em for over an hour."
+
+"No, I haven't seen any calves--but a good many might be in this
+pasture without being visible to the naked eye," said Ellis, with a
+smile.
+
+Old Thomas shook his head ruefully. "Them elders have been too many
+for me," he said. "Did you ever see a worse-looking place? You'd
+hardly believe that twenty years ago there wasn't a better piece of
+land in Dalrymple than this lot, would ye? Such grass as grew here!"
+
+"The soil must be as good as ever if anything had a chance to grow on
+it," said Ellis. "Couldn't those elders be rooted out?"
+
+"It'd be a back-breaking job, but I reckon it could be done if anyone
+had the muscle and patience and time to tackle it. I haven't the first
+at my age, and my hired man hasn't the last. And nobody would do it
+for what I could afford to pay."
+
+"What will you give me if I undertake to clean the elders out of this
+field for you, Mr. Fillmore?" asked Ellis quietly.
+
+Old Thomas looked at him with a surprised face, which gradually
+reverted to its original shrewdness when he saw that Ellis was in
+earnest. "You must be hard up for a job," he said.
+
+"I am," was Ellis's laconic answer.
+
+"Well, lemme see." Old Thomas calculated carefully. He never paid a
+cent more for anything than he could help, and was noted for hard
+bargaining. "I'll give ye sixteen dollars if you clean out the whole
+field," he said at length.
+
+Ellis looked at the pasture. He knew something about cleaning out
+elderberry brush, and he also knew that sixteen dollars would be very
+poor pay for it. Most of the elders were higher than a man's head,
+with big roots, thicker than his wrist, running deep into the ground.
+
+"It's worth more, Mr. Fillmore," he said.
+
+"Not to me," responded Old Thomas drily. "I've plenty more land and
+I'm an old fellow without any sons. I ain't going to pay out money for
+the benefit of some stranger who'll come after me. You can take it or
+leave it at sixteen dollars."
+
+Ellis shrugged his shoulders. He had no prospect of anything else, and
+sixteen dollars were better than nothing. "Very well, I'll take it,"
+he said.
+
+"Well, now, look here," said Old Thomas shrewdly, "I'll expect you to
+do the work thoroughly, young man. Them roots ain't to be cut off,
+remember; they'll have to be dug out. And I'll expect you to finish
+the job if you undertake it too, and not drop it halfway through if
+you get a chance for a better one."
+
+"I'll finish with your elderberries before I leave them," promised
+Ellis.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ellis went to work the next day. His first move was to chop down all
+the brush and cart it into heaps for burning. This took two days and
+was comparatively easy work. The third day Ellis tackled the roots. By
+the end of the forenoon he had discovered just what cleaning out an
+elderberry pasture meant, but he set his teeth and resolutely
+persevered. During the afternoon Timothy Robinson, whose farm adjoined
+the Fillmore place, wandered by and halted with a look of astonishment
+at the sight of Ellis, busily engaged in digging and tearing out huge,
+tough, stubborn elder roots. The boy did not see his uncle, but worked
+away with a vim and vigour that were not lost on the latter.
+
+"He never got that muscle from Sam," reflected Timothy. "Sam would
+have fainted at the mere thought of stumping elders. Perhaps I've been
+mistaken in the boy. Well, well, we'll see if he holds out."
+
+Ellis did hold out. The elderberries tried to hold out too, but they
+were no match for the lad's perseverance. It was a hard piece of work,
+however, and Ellis never forgot it. Week after week he toiled in the
+hot summer sun, digging, cutting, and dragging out roots. The job
+seemed endless, and his progress each day was discouragingly slow. He
+had expected to get through in a month, but he soon found it would
+take two. Frequently Timothy Robinson wandered by and looked at the
+increasing pile of roots and the slowly extending stretch of cleared
+land. But he never spoke to Ellis and made no comment on the matter to
+anybody.
+
+One evening, when the field was about half done, Ellis went home more
+than usually tired. It had been a very hot day. Every bone and muscle
+in him ached. He wondered dismally if he would ever get to the end of
+that wretched elderberry field. When he reached home Jacob Green from
+Westdale was there. Jacob lost no time in announcing his errand.
+
+"My hired boy's broke his leg, and I must fill his place right off.
+Somebody referred me to you. Guess I'll try you. Twelve dollars a
+month, board, and lodging. What say?"
+
+For a moment Ellis's face flushed with delight. Twelve dollars a month
+and permanent employment! Then he remembered his promise to Mr.
+Fillmore. For a moment he struggled with the temptation. Then he
+mastered it. Perhaps the discipline of his many encounters with those
+elderberry roots helped him to do so.
+
+"I'm sorry, Mr. Green," he said reluctantly. "I'd like to go, but I
+can't. I promised Mr. Fillmore that I'd finish cleaning up his
+elderberry pasture when I'd once begun it, and I shan't be through for
+a month yet."
+
+"Well, I'd see myself turning down a good offer for Old Tom Fillmore,"
+said Jacob Green.
+
+"It isn't for Mr. Fillmore--it's for myself," said Ellis steadily. "I
+promised and I must keep my word."
+
+Jacob drove away grumblingly. On the road he met Timothy Robinson and
+stopped to relate his grievances.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It must be admitted that there were times during the next month when
+Ellis was tempted to repent having refused Jacob Green's offer. But at
+the end of the month the work was done and the Fillmore elderberry
+pasture was an elderberry pasture no longer. All that remained of the
+elders, root and branch, was piled into a huge heap ready for burning.
+
+"And I'll come up and set fire to it when it's dry enough," Ellis told
+Mr. Fillmore. "I claim the satisfaction of that."
+
+"You've done the job thoroughly," said Old Thomas. "There's your
+sixteen dollars, and every cent of it was earned, if ever money was,
+I'll say that much for you. There ain't a lazy bone in your body. If
+you ever want a recommendation just you come to me."
+
+As Ellis passed Timothy Robinson's place on the way home that worthy
+himself appeared, strolling down his lane. "Ah, Ellis," he said,
+speaking to his nephew for the first time since their interview two
+months before, "so you've finished with your job?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Got your sixteen dollars, I suppose? It was worth four times that.
+Old Tom cheated you. You were foolish not to have gone to Green when
+you had the chance."
+
+"I'd promised Mr. Fillmore to finish with his pasture, sir!"
+
+"Humph! Well, what are you going to do now?"
+
+"I don't know. Harvest will be on next week. I may get in somewhere as
+an extra hand for a spell."
+
+"Ellis," said his uncle abruptly, after a moment's silence, "I'm
+going to discharge my man. He's no earthly good. Will you take his
+place? I'll give you fifteen dollars a month and found."
+
+Ellis stared at Timothy Robinson. "I thought you told me that you had
+no place for my father's son," he said slowly.
+
+"I've changed my mind. I've seen how you went at that elderberry job.
+Great snakes, there couldn't be a better test for anybody than rooting
+out them things. I know you can work. When Jacob Green told me why
+you'd refused his offer I knew you could be depended on. You come to
+me and I'll do well by you. I've no kith or kin of my own except you.
+And look here, Ellis. I'm tired of hired housekeepers. Will your
+mother come up and live with us and look after things a bit? I've a
+good girl, and she won't have to work hard, but there must be somebody
+at the head of a household. She must have a good headpiece--for you
+have inherited good qualities from someone, and goodness knows it
+wasn't from your father."
+
+"Uncle Timothy," said Ellis respectfully but firmly, "I'll accept your
+offer gratefully, and I am sure Mother will too. But there is one
+thing I must say. Perhaps my father deserves all you say of him--but
+he is dead--and if I come to you it must be with the understanding
+that nothing more is ever to be said against him."
+
+Timothy Robinson smiled--a queer, twisted smile that yet had a hint of
+affection and comprehension in it. "Very well," he said. "I'll never
+cast his shortcomings up to you again. Come to me--and if I find you
+always as industrious and reliable as you've proved yourself to be
+negotiating them elders, I'll most likely forget that you ain't my own
+son some of these days."
+
+
+
+
+The Finished Story
+
+
+She always sat in a corner of the west veranda at the hotel, knitting
+something white and fluffy, or pink and fluffy, or pale blue and
+fluffy--always fluffy, at least, and always dainty. Shawls and scarfs
+and hoods the things were, I believe. When she finished one she gave
+it to some girl and began another. Every girl at Harbour Light that
+summer wore some distracting thing that had been fashioned by Miss
+Sylvia's slim, tireless, white fingers.
+
+She was old, with that beautiful, serene old age which is as beautiful
+in its way as youth. Her girlhood and womanhood must have been very
+lovely to have ripened into such a beauty of sixty years. It was a
+surprise to everyone who heard her called _Miss_ Sylvia. She looked so
+like a woman who ought to have stalwart, grown sons and dimpled little
+grandchildren.
+
+For the first two days after the arrival at the hotel she sat in her
+corner alone. There was always a circle of young people around her;
+old folks and middle-aged people would have liked to join it, but Miss
+Sylvia, while she was gracious to all, let it be distinctly understood
+that her sympathies were with youth. She sat among the boys and girls,
+young men and maidens, like a fine white queen. Her dress was always
+the same and somewhat old-fashioned, but nothing else would have
+suited her half so well; she wore a lace cap on her snowy hair and a
+heliotrope shawl over her black silk shoulders. She knitted
+continually and talked a good deal, but listened more. We sat around
+her at all hours of the day and told her everything.
+
+When you were first introduced to her you called her Miss
+Stanleymain. Her endurance of that was limited to twenty-four hours.
+Then she begged you to call her Miss Sylvia, and as Miss Sylvia you
+spoke and thought of her forevermore.
+
+Miss Sylvia liked us all, but I was her favourite. She told us so
+frankly and let it be understood that when I was talking to her and
+her heliotrope shawl was allowed to slip under one arm it was a sign
+that we were not to be interrupted. I was as vain of her favour as any
+lovelorn suitor whose lady had honoured him, not knowing, as I came to
+know later, the reason for it.
+
+Although Miss Sylvia had an unlimited capacity for receiving
+confidences, she never gave any. We were all sure that there must be
+some romance in her life, but our efforts to discover it were
+unsuccessful. Miss Sylvia parried tentative questions so skilfully
+that we knew she had something to defend. But one evening, when I had
+known her a month, as time is reckoned, and long years as affection
+and understanding are computed, she told me her story--at least, what
+there was to tell of it. The last chapter was missing.
+
+We were sitting together on the veranda at sunset. Most of the hotel
+people had gone for a harbour sail; a few forlorn mortals prowled
+about the grounds and eyed our corner wistfully, but by the sign of
+the heliotrope shawl knew it was not for them.
+
+I was reading one of my stories to Miss Sylvia. In my own excuse I
+must allege that she tempted me to do it. I did not go around with
+manuscripts under my arm, inflicting them on defenceless females. But
+Miss Sylvia had discovered that I was a magazine scribbler, and
+moreover, that I had shut myself up in my room that very morning and
+perpetrated a short story. Nothing would do but that I read it to her.
+
+It was a rather sad little story. The hero loved the heroine, and she
+loved him. There was no reason why he should not love her, but there
+was a reason why he could not marry her. When he found that he loved
+her he knew that he must go away. But might he not, at least, tell her
+his love? Might he not, at least, find out for his consolation if she
+cared for him? There was a struggle; he won, and went away without a
+word, believing it to be the more manly course. When I began to read
+Miss Sylvia was knitting, a pale green something this time, of the
+tender hue of young leaves in May. But after a little her knitting
+slipped unheeded to her lap and her hands folded idly above it. It was
+the most subtle compliment I had ever received.
+
+When I turned the last page of the manuscript and looked up, Miss
+Sylvia's soft brown eyes were full of tears. She lifted her hands,
+clasped them together and said in an agitated voice:
+
+"Oh, no, no; don't let him go away without telling her--just telling
+her. Don't let him do it!"
+
+"But, you see, Miss Sylvia," I explained, flattered beyond measure
+that my characters had seemed so real to her, "that would spoil the
+story. It would have no reason for existence then. Its _motif_ is
+simply his mastery over self. He believes it to be the nobler course."
+
+"No, no, it wasn't--if he loved her he should have told her. Think of
+her shame and humiliation--she loved him, and he went without a word
+and she could never know he cared for her. Oh, you must change it--you
+must, indeed! I cannot bear to think of her suffering what I have
+suffered."
+
+Miss Sylvia broke down and sobbed. To appease her, I promised that I
+would remodel the story, although I knew that the doing so would leave
+it absolutely pointless.
+
+"Oh, I'm so glad," said Miss Sylvia, her eyes shining through her
+tears. "You see, I know it would make her happier--I know it. I'm
+going to tell you my poor little story to convince you. But you--you
+must not tell it to any of the others."
+
+"I am sorry you think the admonition necessary," I said
+reproachfully.
+
+"Oh, I do not, indeed I do not," she hastened to assure me. "I know I
+can trust you. But it's such a poor little story. You mustn't laugh at
+it--it is all the romance I had. Years ago--forty years ago--when I
+was a young girl of twenty, I--learned to care very much for somebody.
+I met him at a summer resort like this. I was there with my aunt and
+he was there with his mother, who was delicate. We saw a great deal of
+each other for a little while. He was--oh, he was like no other man I
+had ever seen. You remind me of him somehow. That is partly why I like
+you so much. I noticed the resemblance the first time I saw you. I
+don't know in just what it consists--in your expression and the way
+you carry your head, I think. He was not strong--he coughed a good
+deal. Then one day he went away--suddenly. I had thought he cared for
+me, but he never said so--just went away. Oh, the shame of it! After a
+time I heard that he had been ordered to California for his health.
+And he died out there the next spring. My heart broke then, I never
+cared for anybody again--I couldn't. I have always loved him. But it
+would have been so much easier to bear if I had only known that he
+loved me--oh, it would have made all the difference in the world. And
+the sting of it has been there all these years. I can't even permit
+myself the joy of dwelling on his memory because of the thought that
+perhaps he did not care."
+
+"He must have cared," I said warmly. "He couldn't have helped it, Miss
+Sylvia."
+
+Miss Sylvia shook her head with a sad smile.
+
+"I cannot be sure. Sometimes I think he did. But then the doubt creeps
+back again. I would give almost anything to know that he did--to know
+that I have not lavished all the love of my life on a man who did not
+want it. And I never can know, never--I can hope and almost believe,
+but I can never know. Oh, you don't understand--a man couldn't fully
+understand what my pain has been over it. You see now why I want you
+to change the story. I am sorry for that poor girl, but if you only
+let her know that he really loves her she will not mind all the rest
+so very much; she will be able to bear the pain of even life-long
+separation if she only knows."
+
+Miss Sylvia picked up her knitting and went away. As for me, I thought
+savagely of the dead man she loved and called him a cad, or at best, a
+fool.
+
+Next day Miss Sylvia was her serene, smiling self once more, and she
+did not again make any reference to what she had told me. A fortnight
+later she returned home and I went my way back to the world. During
+the following winter I wrote several letters to Miss Sylvia and
+received replies from her. Her letters were very like herself. When I
+sent her the third-rate magazine containing my story--nothing but a
+third-rate magazine would take it in its rewritten form--she wrote to
+say that she was so glad that I had let the poor girl know.
+
+Early in April I received a letter from an aunt of mine in the
+country, saying that she intended to sell her place and come to the
+city to live. She asked me to go out to Sweetwater for a few weeks and
+assist her in the business of settling up the estate and disposing of
+such things as she did not wish to take with her.
+
+When I arrived at Sweetwater I found it moist and chill with the sunny
+moisture and teasing chill of our Canadian springs. They are long and
+fickle and reluctant, these springs of ours, but, oh, the unnamable
+charm of them! There was something even in the red buds of the maples
+at Sweetwater and in the long, smoking stretches of hillside fields
+that sent a thrill through my veins, finer and subtler than any given
+by old wine.
+
+A week after my arrival, when we had got the larger affairs pretty
+well straightened out, Aunt Mary suggested that I had better overhaul
+Uncle Alan's room.
+
+"The things there have never been meddled with since he died," she
+said. "In particular, there's an old trunk full of his letters and his
+papers. It was brought home from California after his death. I've
+never examined them. I don't suppose there is anything of any
+importance among them. But I'm not going to carry all that old rubbish
+to town. So I wish you would look over them and see if there is
+anything that should be kept. The rest may be burned."
+
+I felt no particular interest in the task. My Uncle Alan Blair was a
+mere name to me. He was my mother's eldest brother and had died years
+before I was born. I had heard that he had been very clever and that
+great things had been expected of him. But I anticipated no pleasure
+from exploring musty old letters and papers of forty neglected years.
+
+I went up to Uncle Alan's room at dusk that night. We had been having
+a day of warm spring rain, but it had cleared away and the bare maple
+boughs outside the window were strung with glistening drops. The room
+looked to the north and was always dim by reason of the close-growing
+Sweetwater pines. A gap had been cut through them to the northwest,
+and in it I had a glimpse of the sea Uncle Alan had loved, and above
+it a wondrous sunset sky fleeced over with little clouds, pale and
+pink and golden and green, that suddenly reminded me of Miss Sylvia
+and her fluffy knitting. It was with the thought of her in my mind
+that I lighted a lamp and began the task of grubbing into Uncle Alan's
+trunkful of papers. Most of these were bundles of yellowed letters, of
+no present interest, from his family and college friends. There were
+several college theses and essays, and a lot of loose miscellania
+pertaining to boyish school days. I went through the collection
+rapidly, until at the bottom of the trunk, I came to a small book
+bound in dark-green leather. It proved to be a sort of journal, and I
+began to glance over it with a languid interest.
+
+It had been begun in the spring after he had graduated from college.
+Although suspected only by himself, the disease which was to end his
+life had already fastened upon him. The entries were those of a doomed
+man, who, feeling the curse fall on him like a frost, blighting all
+the fair hopes and promises of life, seeks some help and consolation
+in the outward self-communing of a journal. There was nothing morbid,
+nothing unmanly in the record. As I read, I found myself liking Uncle
+Alan, wishing that he might have lived and been my friend.
+
+His mother had not been well that summer and the doctor ordered her to
+the seashore. Alan accompanied her. Here occurred a hiatus in the
+journal. No leaves had been torn out, but a quire or so of them had
+apparently become loosened from the threads that held them in place. I
+found them later on in the trunk, but at the time I passed to the next
+page. It began abruptly:
+
+    This girl is the sweetest thing that God ever made. I had not
+    known a woman could be so fair and sweet. Her beauty awes me,
+    the purity of her soul shines so clearly through it like an
+    illuminating lamp. I love her with all my power of loving and
+    I am thankful that it is so. It would have been hard to die
+    without having known love. I am glad that it has come to me,
+    even if its price is unspeakable bitterness. A man has not
+    lived for nothing who has known and loved Sylvia Stanleymain.
+
+    I must not seek her love--that is denied me. If I were well
+    and strong I should win it; yes, I believe I could win it, and
+    nothing in the world would prevent me from trying, but, as
+    things are, it would be the part of a coward to try. Yet I
+    cannot resist the delight of being with her, of talking to
+    her, of watching her wonderful face. She is in my thoughts day
+    and night, she dwells in my dreams. O, Sylvia, I love you, my
+    sweet!
+
+A week later there was another entry:
+
+
+                                 July Seventeenth.
+
+    I am afraid. To-day I met Sylvia's eyes. In them was a look
+    which at first stirred my heart to its deeps with tumultuous
+    delight, and then I remembered. I must spare her that
+    suffering, at whatever cost to myself. I must not let myself
+    dwell on the dangerous sweetness of the thought that her heart
+    is turning to me. What would be the crowning joy to another
+    man could be only added sorrow to me.
+
+Then:
+
+
+                                  July Eighteenth.
+
+    This morning I took the train to the city. I was determined to
+    know the worst once for all. The time had come when I must. My
+    doctor at home had put me off with vague hopes and perhapses.
+    So I went to a noted physician in the city. I told him I
+    wanted the whole truth--I made him tell it. Stripped of all
+    softening verbiage it is this: I have perhaps eight months or
+    a year to live--no more!
+
+    I had expected it, although not quite so soon. Yet the
+    certainty was none the less bitter. But this is no time for
+    self-pity. It is of Sylvia I must think now. I shall go away
+    at once, before the sweet fancy which is possibly budding in
+    her virgin heart shall have bloomed into a flower that might
+    poison some of her fair years.
+
+
+
+                                  July Nineteenth.
+
+    It is over. I said good-bye to her to-day before others, for I
+    dared not trust myself to see her alone. She looked hurt and
+    startled, as if someone had struck her. But she will soon
+    forget, even if I have not been mistaken in the reading of her
+    eyes. As for me, the bitterness of death is already over in
+    that parting. All that now remains is to play the man to the
+    end.
+
+From further entries in the journal I learned that Alan Blair had
+returned to Sweetwater and later on had been ordered to California.
+The entries during his sojourn there were few and far between. In all
+of them he spoke of Sylvia. Finally, after a long silence, he had
+written:
+
+    I think the end is not far off now. I am not sorry for my
+    suffering has been great of late. Last night I was easier. I
+    slept and dreamed that I saw Sylvia. Once or twice I thought
+    that I would arrange to have this book sent to her after my
+    death. But I have decided that it would be unwise. It would
+    only pain her, so I shall destroy it when I feel the time has
+    come.
+
+    It is sunset in this wonderful summer land. At home in
+    Sweetwater it is only early spring as yet, with snow lingering
+    along the edges of the woods. The sunsets there will be
+    creamy-yellow and pale red now. If I could but see them once
+    more! And  Sylvia--
+
+There was a little blot where the pen had fallen. Evidently the end
+had been nearer than Alan Blair had thought. At least, there were no
+more entries, and the little green book had not been destroyed. I was
+glad that it had not been; and I felt glad that it was thus put in my
+power to write the last chapter of Miss Sylvia's story for her.
+
+As soon as I could leave Sweetwater I went to the city, three hundred
+miles away, where Miss Sylvia lived. I found her in her library, in
+her black silk dress and heliotrope shawl, knitting up cream wool, for
+all the world as if she had just been transplanted from the veranda
+corner of Harbour Light.
+
+"My dear boy!" she said.
+
+"Do you know why I have come?" I asked.
+
+"I am vain enough to think it was because you wanted to see me," she
+smiled.
+
+"I did want to see you; but I would have waited until summer if it had
+not been that I wished to bring you the missing chapter of your story,
+dear lady."
+
+"I--I--don't understand," said Miss Sylvia, starting slightly.
+
+"I had an uncle, Alan Blair, who died forty years ago in California,"
+I said quietly. "Recently I have had occasion to examine some of his
+papers. I found a journal among them and I have brought it to you
+because I think that you have the best right to it."
+
+I dropped the parcel in her lap. She was silent with surprise and
+bewilderment.
+
+"And now," I added, "I am going away. You won't want to see me or
+anyone for a while after you have read this book. But I will come up
+to see you to-morrow."
+
+When I went the next day Miss Sylvia herself met me at the door. She
+caught my hand and drew me into the hall. Her eyes were softly
+radiant.
+
+"Oh, you have made me so happy!" she said tremulously. "Oh, you can
+never know how happy! Nothing hurts now--nothing ever can hurt,
+because I know he did care."
+
+She laid her face down on my shoulder, as a girl might have nestled to
+her lover, and I bent and kissed her for Uncle Alan.
+
+
+
+
+The Garden of Spices
+
+
+Jims tried the door of the blue room. Yes, it was locked. He had hoped
+Aunt Augusta _might_ have forgotten to lock it; but when did Aunt
+Augusta forget anything? Except, perhaps, that little boys were not
+born grown-ups--and _that_ was something she never remembered. To be
+sure, she was only a half-aunt. Whole aunts probably had more
+convenient memories.
+
+Jims turned and stood with his back against the door. It was better
+that way; he could not imagine things behind him then. And the blue
+room was so big and dim that a dreadful number of things could be
+imagined in it. All the windows were shuttered but one, and that one
+was so darkened by a big pine tree branching right across it that it
+did not let in much light.
+
+Jims looked very small and lost and lonely as he shrank back against
+the door--so small and lonely that one might have thought that even
+the sternest of half-aunts should have thought twice before shutting
+him up in that room and telling him he must stay there the whole
+afternoon instead of going out for a promised ride. Jims hated being
+shut up alone--especially in the blue room. Its bigness and dimness
+and silence filled his sensitive little soul with vague horror.
+Sometimes he became almost sick with fear in it. To do Aunt Augusta
+justice, she never suspected this. If she had she would not have
+decreed this particular punishment, because she knew Jims was delicate
+and must not be subjected to any great physical or mental strain. That
+was why she shut him up instead of whipping him. But how was she to
+know it? Aunt Augusta was one of those people who never know anything
+unless it is told them in plain language and then hammered into their
+heads. There was no one to tell her but Jims, and Jims would have died
+the death before he would have told Aunt Augusta, with her cold,
+spectacled eyes and thin, smileless mouth, that he was desperately
+frightened when he was shut in the blue room. So he was always shut in
+it for punishment; and the punishments came very often, for Jims was
+always doing things that Aunt Augusta considered naughty. At first,
+this time, Jims did not feel quite so frightened as usual because he
+was very angry. As he put it, he was very mad at Aunt Augusta. He
+hadn't _meant_ to spill his pudding over the floor and the tablecloth
+and his clothes; and how such a little bit of pudding--Aunt Augusta
+was mean with desserts--could ever have spread itself over so much
+territory Jims could not understand. But he had made a terrible mess
+and Aunt Augusta had been very angry and had said he must be cured of
+such carelessness. She said he must spend the afternoon in the blue
+room instead of going for a ride with Mrs. Loring in her new car.
+
+Jims was bitterly disappointed. If Uncle Walter had been home Jims
+would have appealed to him--for when Uncle Walter could be really
+wakened up to a realization of his small nephew's presence in his
+home, he was very kind and indulgent. But it was so hard to waken him
+up that Jims seldom attempted it. He liked Uncle Walter, but as far as
+being acquainted with him went he might as well have been the
+inhabitant of a star in the Milky Way. Jims was just a lonely,
+solitary little creature, and sometimes he felt so friendless that his
+eyes smarted, and several sobs had to be swallowed.
+
+There were no sobs just now, though--Jims was still too angry. It
+wasn't fair. It was so seldom he got a car ride. Uncle Walter was
+always too busy, attending to sick children all over the town, to take
+him. It was only once in a blue moon Mrs. Loring asked him to go out
+with her. But she always ended up with ice cream or a movie, and
+to-day Jims had had strong hopes that both were on the programme.
+
+"I hate Aunt Augusta," he said aloud; and then the sound of his voice
+in that huge, still room scared him so that he only thought the rest.
+"I won't have any fun--and she won't feed my gobbler, either."
+
+Jims had shrieked "Feed my gobbler," to the old servant as he had been
+hauled upstairs. But he didn't think Nancy Jane had heard him, and
+nobody, not even Jims, could imagine Aunt Augusta feeding the gobbler.
+It was always a wonder to him that she ate, herself. It seemed really
+too human a thing for her to do.
+
+"I wish I had spilled that pudding _on purpose_," Jims said
+vindictively, and with the saying his anger evaporated--Jims never
+could stay angry long--and left him merely a scared little fellow,
+with velvety, nut-brown eyes full of fear that should have no place in
+a child's eyes. He looked so small and helpless as he crouched against
+the door that one might have wondered if even Aunt Augusta would not
+have relented had she seen him.
+
+How that window at the far end of the room rattled! It sounded
+terribly as if somebody--or _something_--were trying to get in. Jims
+looked desperately at the unshuttered window. He must get to it; once
+there, he could curl up in the window seat, his back to the wall, and
+forget the shadows by looking out into the sunshine and loveliness of
+the garden over the wall. Jims would have likely have been found dead
+of fright in that blue room some time had it not been for the garden
+over the wall.
+
+But to get to the window Jims must cross the room and pass by the bed.
+Jims held that bed in special dread. It was the oldest fashioned thing
+in the old-fashioned, old-furnitured house. It was high and rigid, and
+hung with gloomy blue curtains. _Anything_ might jump out of such a
+bed.
+
+Jims gave a gasp and ran madly across the room. He reached the window
+and flung himself upon the seat. With a sigh of relief he curled down
+in the corner. Outside, over the high brick wall, was a world where
+his imagination could roam, though his slender little body was pent a
+prisoner in the blue room.
+
+Jims had loved that garden from his first sight of it. He called it
+the Garden of Spices and wove all sorts of yarns in fancy--yarns gay
+and tragic--about it. He had only known it for a few weeks. Before
+that, they had lived in a much smaller house away at the other side of
+the town. Then Uncle Walter's uncle--who had brought him up just as he
+was bringing up Jims--had died, and they had all come to live in Uncle
+Walter's old home. Somehow, Jims had an idea that Uncle Walter wasn't
+very glad to come back there. But he had to, according to
+great-uncle's will. Jims himself didn't mind much. He liked the
+smaller rooms in their former home better, but the Garden of Spices
+made up for all.
+
+It was such a beautiful spot. Just inside the wall was a row of aspen
+poplars that always talked in silvery whispers and shook their dainty,
+heart-shaped leaves at him. Beyond them, under scattered pines, was a
+rockery where ferns and wild things grew. It was almost as good as a
+bit of woods--and Jims loved the woods, though he scarcely ever saw
+them. Then, past the pines, were roses just breaking into June
+bloom--roses in such profusion as Jims hadn't known existed, with dear
+little paths twisting about among the bushes. It seemed to be a garden
+where no frost could blight or rough wind blow. When rain fell it must
+fall very gently. Past the roses one saw a green lawn, sprinkled over
+now with the white ghosts of dandelions, and dotted with ornamental
+trees. The trees grew so thickly that they almost hid the house to
+which the garden pertained. It was a large one of grey-black stone,
+with stacks of huge chimneys. Jims had no idea who lived there. He had
+asked Aunt Augusta and Aunt Augusta had frowned and told him it did
+not matter who lived there and that he must never, on any account,
+mention the next house or its occupant to Uncle Walter. Jims would
+never have thought of mentioning them to Uncle Walter. But the
+prohibition filled him with an unholy and unsubduable curiosity. He
+was devoured by the desire to find out who the folks in that tabooed
+house were.
+
+And he longed to have the freedom of that garden. Jims loved gardens.
+There had been a garden at the little house but there was none
+here--nothing but an old lawn that had been fine once but was now
+badly run to seed. Jims had heard Uncle Walter say that he was going
+to have it attended to but nothing had been done yet. And meanwhile
+here was a beautiful garden over the wall which looked as if it should
+be full of children. But no children were ever in it--or anybody else
+apparently. And so, in spite of its beauty, it had a lonely look that
+hurt Jims. He _wanted_ his Garden of Spices to be full of laughter. He
+pictured himself running in it with imaginary playmates--and there was
+a mother in it--or a big sister--or, at the least, a whole aunt who
+would let you hug her and would never dream of shutting you up in
+chilly, shadowy, horrible blue rooms.
+
+"It seems to me," said Jims, flattening his nose against the pane,
+"that I must get into that garden or bust."
+
+Aunt Augusta would have said icily, "We do not use such expressions,
+James," but Aunt Augusta was not there to hear.
+
+"I'm afraid the Very Handsome Cat isn't coming to-day," sighed Jims.
+Then he brightened up; the Very Handsome Cat was coming across the
+lawn. He was the only living thing, barring birds and butterflies,
+that Jims ever saw in the garden. Jims worshipped that cat. He was jet
+black, with white paws and dickey, and he had as much dignity as ten
+cats. Jims' fingers tingled to stroke him. Jims had never been allowed
+to have even a kitten because Aunt Augusta had a horror of cats. And
+you cannot stroke gobblers!
+
+The Very Handsome Cat came through the rose garden paths on his
+beautiful paws, ambled daintily around the rockery, and sat down in a
+shady spot under a pine tree, right where Jims could see him, through
+a gap in the little poplars. He looked straight up at Jims and winked.
+At least, Jims always believed and declared he did. And that wink
+said, or seemed to say, plainly:
+
+"Be a sport. Come down here and play with me. A fig for your Aunt
+Augusta!"
+
+A wild, daring, absurd idea flashed into Jims' brain. Could he? He
+could! He would! He knew it would be easy. He had thought it all out
+many times, although until now he had never dreamed of really doing
+it. To unhook the window and swing it open, to step out on the pine
+bough and from it to another that hung over the wall and dropped
+nearly to the ground, to spring from it to the velvet sward under the
+poplars--why, it was all the work of a minute. With a careful,
+repressed whoop Jims ran towards the Very Handsome Cat.
+
+The cat rose and retreated in deliberate haste; Jims ran after him.
+The cat dodged through the rose paths and eluded Jims' eager hands,
+just keeping tantalizingly out of reach. Jims had forgotten everything
+except that he must catch the cat. He was full of a fearful joy, with
+an elfin delight running through it. He had escaped from the blue room
+and its ghosts; he was in his Garden of Spices; he had got the better
+of mean old Aunt Augusta. But he _must_ catch the cat.
+
+The cat ran over the lawn and Jims pursued it through the green gloom
+of the thickly clustering trees. Beyond them came a pool of sunshine
+in which the old stone house basked like a huge grey cat itself. More
+garden was before it and beyond it, wonderful with blossom. Under a
+huge spreading beech tree in the centre of it was a little tea table;
+sitting by the table reading was a lady in a black dress.
+
+The cat, having lured Jims to where he wanted him, sat down and began
+to lick his paws. He was quite willing to be caught now; but Jims had
+no longer any idea of catching him. He stood very still, looking at
+the lady. She did not see him then and Jims could only see her
+profile, which he thought very beautiful. She had wonderful ropes of
+blue-black hair wound around her head. She looked so sweet that Jims'
+heart beat. Then she lifted her head and turned her face and saw him.
+Jims felt something of a shock. She was not pretty after all. One side
+of her face was marked by a dreadful red scar. It quite spoilt her
+good looks, which Jims thought a great pity; but nothing could spoil
+the sweetness of her face or the loveliness of her peculiar soft,
+grey-blue eyes. Jims couldn't remember his mother and had no idea what
+she looked like, but the thought came into his head that he would have
+liked her to have eyes like that. After the first moment Jims did not
+mind the scar at all.
+
+But perhaps that first moment had revealed itself in his face, for a
+look of pain came into the lady's eyes and, almost involuntarily it
+seemed, she put her hand up to hide the scar. Then she pulled it away
+again and sat looking at Jims half defiantly, half piteously. Jims
+thought she must be angry because he had chased her cat.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said gravely, "I didn't mean to hurt your cat.
+I just wanted to play with him. He is _such_ a very handsome cat."
+
+"But where did you come from?" said the lady. "It is so long since I
+saw a child in this garden," she added, as if to herself. Her voice
+was as sweet as her face. Jims thought he was mistaken in thinking her
+angry and plucked up heart of grace. Shyness was no fault of Jims.
+
+"I came from the house over the wall," he said. "My name is James
+Brander Churchill. Aunt Augusta shut me up in the blue room because I
+spilled my pudding at dinner. I hate to be shut up. And I was to have
+had a ride this afternoon--and ice cream--and _maybe_ a movie. So I
+was mad. And when your Very Handsome Cat came and looked at me I just
+got out and climbed down."
+
+He looked straight at her and smiled. Jims had a very dear little
+smile. It seemed a pity there was no mother alive to revel in it. The
+lady smiled back.
+
+"I think you did right," she said.
+
+"_You_ wouldn't shut a little boy up if you had one, would you?" said
+Jims.
+
+"No--no, dear heart, I wouldn't," said the lady. She said it as if
+something hurt her horribly. She smiled again gallantly.
+
+"Will you come here and sit down?" she added, pulling a chair out from
+the table.
+
+"Thank you. I'd rather sit here," said Jims, plumping down on the
+grass at her feet. "Then maybe your cat will come to me."
+
+The cat came over promptly and rubbed his head against Jims' knee.
+Jims stroked him delightedly; how lovely his soft fur felt and his
+round velvety head.
+
+"I like cats," explained Jims, "and I have nothing but a gobbler. This
+is such a Very Handsome Cat. What is his name, please?"
+
+"Black Prince. He loves me," said the lady. "He always comes to my bed
+in the morning and wakes me by patting my face with his paw. _He_
+doesn't mind my being ugly."
+
+She spoke with a bitterness Jims couldn't understand.
+
+"But you are not ugly," he said.
+
+"Oh, I _am_ ugly--I _am_ ugly," she cried. "Just look at me--right at
+me. Doesn't it hurt you to look at me?"
+
+Jims looked at her gravely and dispassionately.
+
+"No, it doesn't," he said. "Not a bit," he added, after some further
+exploration of his consciousness.
+
+Suddenly the lady laughed beautifully. A faint rosy flush came into
+her unscarred cheek.
+
+"James, I believe you mean it."
+
+"Of course I mean it. And, if you don't mind, please call me Jims.
+Nobody calls me James but Aunt Augusta. She isn't my whole aunt. She
+is just Uncle Walter's half-sister. _He_ is my whole uncle."
+
+"What does he call you?" asked the lady. She looked away as she asked
+it.
+
+"Oh, Jims, when he thinks about me. He doesn't often think about me.
+He has too many sick children to think about. Sick children are all
+Uncle Walter cares about. He's the greatest children's doctor in the
+Dominion, Mr. Burroughs says. But he is a woman-hater."
+
+"How do you know that?"
+
+"Oh, I heard Mr. Burroughs say it. Mr. Burroughs is my tutor, you
+know. I study with him from nine till one. I'm not allowed to go to
+the public school. I'd like to, but Uncle Walter thinks I'm not strong
+enough yet. I'm going next year, though, when I'm ten. I have holidays
+now. Mr. Burroughs always goes away the first of June."
+
+"How came he to tell you your uncle was a woman-hater?" persisted the
+lady.
+
+"Oh, he didn't tell me. He was talking to a friend of his. He thought
+I was reading my book. So I was--but I heard it all. It was more
+interesting than my book. Uncle Walter was engaged to a lady, long,
+long ago, when he was a young man. She was devilishly pretty."
+
+"Oh, Jims!"
+
+"Mr. Burroughs said so. I'm only quoting," said Jims easily. "And
+Uncle Walter just worshipped her. And all at once she just jilted him
+without a word of explanation, Mr. Burroughs said. So that is why he
+hates women. It isn't any wonder, is it?"
+
+"I suppose not," said the lady with a sigh. "Jims, are you hungry?"
+
+"Yes, I am. You see, the pudding was spilled. But how did you know?"
+
+"Oh, boys always used to be hungry when I knew them long ago. I
+thought they hadn't changed. I shall tell Martha to bring out
+something to eat and we'll have it here under this tree. You sit
+here--I'll sit there. Jims, it's so long since I talked to a little
+boy that I'm not sure that I know how."
+
+"You know how, all right," Jims assured her. "But what am I to call
+you, please?"
+
+"My name is Miss Garland," said the lady a little hesitatingly. But
+she saw the name meant nothing to Jims. "I would like you to call me
+Miss Avery. Avery is my first name and I never hear it nowadays. Now
+for a jamboree! I can't offer you a movie--and I'm afraid there isn't
+any ice cream either. I could have had some if I'd known you were
+coming. But I think Martha will be able to find something good."
+
+A very old woman, who looked at Jims with great amazement, came out to
+set the table. Jims thought she must be as old as Methusaleh. But he
+did not mind her. He ran races with Black Prince while tea was being
+prepared, and rolled the delighted cat over and over in the grass. And
+he discovered a fragrant herb-garden in a far corner and was
+delighted. Now it was truly a garden of spices.
+
+"Oh, it is so beautiful here," he told Miss Avery, who sat and looked
+at his revels with a hungry expression in her lovely eyes. "I wish I
+could come often."
+
+"Why can't you?" said Miss Avery.
+
+The two looked at each other with sly intelligence.
+
+"I could come whenever Aunt Augusta shuts me up in the blue room,"
+said Jims.
+
+"Yes," said Miss Avery. Then she laughed and held out her arms. Jims
+flew into them. He put his arms about her neck and kissed her scarred
+face.
+
+"Oh, I wish _you_ were my aunt," he said.
+
+Miss Avery suddenly pushed him away. Jims was horribly afraid he had
+offended her. But she took his hand.
+
+"We'll just be chums, Jims," she said. "That's really better than
+being relations, after all. Come and have tea."
+
+Over that glorious tea-table they became life-long friends. They had
+always known each other and always would. The Black Prince sat between
+them and was fed tit-bits. There was such a lot of good things on the
+table and nobody to say "You have had enough, James." James ate until
+_he_ thought he had enough. Aunt Augusta would have thought he was
+doomed, could she have seen him.
+
+"I suppose I must go back," said Jims with a sigh. "It will be our
+supper time in half an hour and Aunt Augusta will come to take me
+out."
+
+"But you'll come again?"
+
+"Yes, the first time she shuts me up. And if she doesn't shut me up
+pretty soon I'll be so bad she'll have to shut me up."
+
+"I'll always set a place for you at the tea-table after this, Jims.
+And when you're not here I'll pretend you are. And when you can't come
+here write me a letter and bring it when you do come."
+
+"Good-bye," said Jims. He took her hand and kissed it. He had read of
+a young knight doing that and had always thought he would like to try
+it if he ever got a chance. But who could dream of kissing Aunt
+Augusta's hands?
+
+"You dear, funny thing," said Miss Avery. "Have you thought of how you
+are to get back? Can you reach that pine bough from the ground?"
+
+"Maybe I can jump," said Jims dubiously.
+
+"I'm afraid not. I'll give you a stool and you can stand on it. Just
+leave it there for future use. Good-bye, Jims. Jims, two hours ago I
+didn't know there was such a person in the world as you--and now I
+love you--I love you."
+
+Jims' heart filled with a great warm gush of gladness. He had always
+wanted to be loved. And no living creature, he felt sure, loved him,
+except his gobbler--and a gobbler's love is not very satisfying,
+though it is better than nothing. He was blissfully happy as he
+carried his stool across the lawn. He climbed his pine and went in at
+the window and curled up on the seat in a maze of delight. The blue
+room was more shadowy than ever but that did not matter. Over in the
+Garden of Spices was friendship and laughter and romance galore. The
+whole world was transformed for Jims.
+
+From that time Jims lived a shamelessly double life. Whenever he was
+shut in the blue room he escaped to the Garden of Spices--and he was
+shut in very often, for, Mr. Burroughs being away, he got into a good
+deal of what Aunt Augusta called mischief. Besides, it is a sad truth
+that Jims didn't try very hard to be good now. He thought it paid
+better to be bad and be shut up. To be sure there was always a fly in
+the ointment. He was haunted by a vague fear that Aunt Augusta might
+relent and come to the blue room before supper time to let him out.
+
+"And _then_ the fat would be in the fire," said Jims.
+
+But he had a glorious summer and throve so well on his new diet of
+love and companionship that one day Uncle Walter, with fewer sick
+children to think about than usual, looked at him curiously and said:
+
+"Augusta, that boy seems to be growing much stronger. He has a good
+color and his eyes are getting to look more like a boy's eyes should.
+We'll make a man of you yet, Jims."
+
+"He may be getting stronger but he's getting naughtier, too," said
+Aunt Augusta, grimly. "I am sorry to say, Walter, that he behaves very
+badly."
+
+"We were all young once," said Uncle Walter indulgently.
+
+"Were _you_?" asked Jims in blank amazement.
+
+Uncle Walter laughed.
+
+"Do you think me an antediluvian, Jims?"
+
+"I don't know what _that_ is. But your hair is gray and your eyes are
+tired," said Jims uncompromisingly.
+
+Uncle Walter laughed again, tossed Jims a quarter, and went out.
+
+"Your uncle is only forty-five and in his prime," said Aunt Augusta
+dourly.
+
+Jims deliberately ran across the room to the window and, under
+pretence of looking out, knocked down a flower pot. So he was exiled
+to the blue room and got into his beloved Garden of Spices where Miss
+Avery's beautiful eyes looked love into his and the Black Prince was a
+jolly playmate and old Martha petted and spoiled him to her heart's
+content.
+
+Jims never asked questions but he was a wide-awake chap, and, taking
+one thing with another, he found out a good deal about the occupants
+of the old stone house. Miss Avery never went anywhere and no one ever
+went there. She lived all alone with two old servants, man and maid.
+Except these two and Jims nobody had ever seen her for twenty years.
+Jims didn't know why, but he thought it must be because of the scar on
+her face.
+
+He never referred to it, but one day Miss Avery told him what caused
+it.
+
+"I dropped a lamp and my dress caught fire and burned my face, Jims.
+It made me hideous. I was beautiful before that--very beautiful.
+Everybody said so. Come in and I will show you my picture."
+
+She took him into her big parlor and showed him the picture hanging on
+the wall between the two high windows. It was of a young girl in
+white. She certainly was very lovely, with her rose-leaf skin and
+laughing eyes. Jims looked at the pictured face gravely, with his
+hands in his pockets and his head on one side. Then he looked at Miss
+Avery.
+
+"You were prettier then--yes," he said, judicially, "but I like your
+face ever so much better now."
+
+"Oh, Jims, you can't," she protested.
+
+"Yes, I do," persisted Jims. "You look kinder and--nicer now."
+
+It was the nearest Jims could get to expressing what he felt as he
+looked at the picture. The young girl was beautiful, but her face was
+a little hard. There was pride and vanity and something of the
+insolence of great beauty in it. There was nothing of that in Miss
+Avery's face now--nothing but sweetness and tenderness, and a motherly
+yearning to which every fibre of Jims' small being responded. How they
+loved each other, those two! And how they understood each other! To
+_love_ is easy, and therefore common; but to _understand_--how rare
+that is! And oh! such good times as they had! They made taffy. Jims
+had always longed to make taffy, but Aunt Augusta's immaculate kitchen
+and saucepans might not be so desecrated. They read fairy tales
+together. Mr. Burroughs had disapproved of fairy tales. They blew
+soap-bubbles out on the lawn and let them float away over the garden
+and the orchard like fairy balloons. They had glorious afternoon teas
+under the beech tree. They made ice cream themselves. Jims even slid
+down the bannisters when he wanted to. And he could try out a slang
+word or two occasionally without anybody dying of horror. Miss Avery
+did not seem to mind it a bit.
+
+At first Miss Avery always wore dark sombre dresses. But one day Jims
+found her in a pretty gown of pale primrose silk. It was very old and
+old-fashioned, but Jims did not know that. He capered round her in
+delight.
+
+"You like me better in this?" she asked, wistfully.
+
+"I like you just as well, no matter what you wear," said Jims, "but
+that dress is awfully pretty."
+
+"Would you like me to wear bright colors, Jims?"
+
+"You bet I would," said Jims emphatically.
+
+After that she always wore them--pink and primrose and blue and white;
+and she let Jims wreathe flowers in her splendid hair. He had quite a
+knack of it. She never wore any jewelry except, always, a little gold
+ring with a design of two clasped hands.
+
+"A friend gave that to me long ago when we were boy and girl together
+at school," she told Jims once. "I never take it off, night or day.
+When I die it is to be buried with me."
+
+"You mustn't die till I do," said Jims in dismay.
+
+"Oh, Jims, if we could only _live_ together nothing else would
+matter," she said hungrily. "Jims--Jims--I see so little of you
+really--and some day soon you'll be going to school--and I'll lose
+you."
+
+"I've got to think of some way to prevent it," cried Jims. "I won't
+have it. I won't--I won't."
+
+But his heart sank notwithstanding.
+
+One day Jims slipped from the blue room, down the pine and across the
+lawn with a tear-stained face.
+
+"Aunt Augusta is going to kill my gobbler," he sobbed in Miss Avery's
+arms. "She says she isn't going to bother with him any longer--and
+he's getting old--and he's to be killed. And that gobbler is the only
+friend I have in the world except you. Oh, I can't _stand_ it, Miss
+Avery."
+
+Next day Aunt Augusta told him the gobbler had been sold and taken
+away. And Jims flew into a passion of tears and protest about it and
+was promptly incarcerated in the blue room. A few minutes later a
+sobbing boy plunged through the trees--and stopped abruptly. Miss
+Avery was reading under the beech and the Black Prince was snoozing on
+her knee--and a big, magnificent, bronze turkey was parading about on
+the lawn, twisting his huge fan of a tail this way and that.
+
+"_My_ gobbler!" cried Jims.
+
+"Yes. Martha went to your uncle's house and bought him. Oh, she didn't
+betray you. She told Nancy Jane she wanted a gobbler and, having seen
+one over there, thought perhaps she could get him. See, here's your
+pet, Jims, and here he shall live till he dies of old age. And I have
+something else for you--Edward and Martha went across the river
+yesterday to the Murray Kennels and got it for you."
+
+"Not a dog?" exclaimed Jims.
+
+"Yes--a dear little bull pup. He shall be your very own, Jims, and I
+only stipulate that you reconcile the Black Prince to him."
+
+It was something of a task but Jims succeeded. Then followed a month
+of perfect happiness. At least three afternoons a week they contrived
+to be together. It was all too good to be true, Jims felt. Something
+would happen soon to spoil it. Just _suppose_ Aunt Augusta grew
+tender-hearted and ceased to punish! Or suppose she suddenly
+discovered that he was growing too big to be shut up! Jims began to
+stint himself in eating lest he grew too fast. And then Aunt Augusta
+worried about his loss of appetite and suggested to Uncle Walter that
+he should be sent to the country till the hot weather was over. Jims
+didn't want to go to the country now because his heart was elsewhere.
+He must eat again, if he grew like a weed. It was all very harassing.
+
+Uncle Walter looked at him keenly.
+
+"It seems to me you're looking pretty fit, Jims. Do you want to go to
+the country?"
+
+"No, please."
+
+"Are you happy, Jims?"
+
+"Sometimes."
+
+"A boy should be happy all the time, Jims."
+
+"If I had a mother and someone to play with I would be."
+
+"I have tried to be a mother to you, Jims," said Aunt Augusta, in an
+offended tone. Then she addressed Uncle Walter. "A younger woman would
+probably understand him better. And I feel that the care of this big
+place is too much for me. I would prefer to go to my own old home. If
+you had married long ago, as you should, Walter, James would have had
+a mother and some cousins to play with. I have always been of this
+opinion."
+
+Uncle Walter frowned and got up.
+
+"Just because one woman played you false is no good reason for
+spoiling your life," went on Aunt Augusta severely. "I have kept
+silence all these years but now I am going to speak--and speak
+plainly. You should marry, Walter. You are young enough yet and you
+owe it to your name."
+
+"Listen, Augusta," said Uncle Walter sternly. "I loved a woman once. I
+believed she loved me. She sent me back my ring one day and with it a
+message saying she had ceased to care for me and bidding me never to
+try to look upon her face again. Well, I have obeyed her, that is
+all."
+
+"There was something strange about all that, Walter. The life she has
+since led proves that. So you should not let it embitter you against
+all women."
+
+"I haven't. It's nonsense to say I'm a woman-hater, Augusta. But that
+experience has robbed me of the power to care for another woman."
+
+"Well, this isn't a proper conversation for a child to hear," said
+Aunt Augusta, recollecting herself. "Jims, go out."
+
+Jims would have given one of his ears to stay and listen with the
+other. But he went obediently.
+
+And then, the very next day, the dreaded something happened.
+
+It was the first of August and very, very hot. Jims was late coming to
+dinner and Aunt Augusta reproved him and Jims, deliberately, and with
+malice aforethought, told her he thought she was a nasty old woman. He
+had never been saucy to Aunt Augusta before. But it was three days
+since he had seen Miss Avery and the Black Prince and Nip and he was
+desperate. Aunt Augusta crimsoned with anger and doomed Jims to an
+afternoon in the blue room for impertinence.
+
+"And I shall tell your uncle when he comes home," she added.
+
+That rankled, for Jims didn't want Uncle Walter to think him
+impertinent. But he forgot all his worries as he scampered through the
+Garden of Spices to the beech tree. And there Jims stopped as if he
+had been shot. Prone on the grass under the beech tree, white and cold
+and still, lay his Miss Avery--dead, stone dead!
+
+At least Jims drought she was dead. He flew into the house like a mad
+thing, shrieking for Martha. Nobody answered. Jims recollected, with a
+rush of sickening dread, that Miss Avery had told him Martha and
+Edward were going away that day to visit a sister. He rushed blindly
+across the lawn again, through the little side gate he had never
+passed before and down the street home. Uncle Walter was just opening
+the door of his car.
+
+"Uncle Walter--come--come," sobbed Jims, clutching frantically at his
+hand. "Miss Avery's dead--dead--oh, come quick."
+
+"_Who_ is dead?"
+
+"Miss Avery--Miss Avery Garland. She's lying on the grass over there
+in her garden. And I love her so--and I'll die, too--oh, Uncle Walter,
+_come_."
+
+Uncle Walter looked as if he wanted to ask some questions, but he said
+nothing. With a strange face he hurried after Jims. Miss Avery was
+still lying there. As Uncle Walter bent over her he saw the broad red
+scar and started back with an exclamation.
+
+"She is dead?" gasped Jims.
+
+"No," said Uncle Walter, bending down again--"no, she has only
+fainted, Jims--overcome by the heat, I suppose. I want help. Go and
+call somebody."
+
+"There's no one home here to-day," said Jims, in a spasm of joy so
+great that it shook him like a leaf.
+
+"Then go home and telephone over to Mr. Loring's. Tell them I want the
+nurse who is there to come here for a few minutes."
+
+Jims did his errand. Uncle Walter and the nurse carried Miss Avery
+into the house and then Jims went back to the blue room. He was so
+unhappy he didn't care where he went. He wished something _would_ jump
+at him out of the bed and put an end to him. Everything was discovered
+now and he would never see Miss Avery again. Jims lay very still on
+the window seat. He did not even cry. He had come to one of the griefs
+that lie too deep for tears.
+
+"I think I must have been put under a curse at birth," thought poor
+Jims.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Over at the stone house Miss Avery was lying on the couch in her room.
+The nurse had gone away and Dr. Walter was sitting looking at her. He
+leaned forward and pulled away the hand with which she was hiding the
+scar on her face. He looked first at the little gold ring on the hand
+and then at the scar.
+
+"Don't," she said piteously.
+
+"Avery--why did you do it?--_why_ did you do it?"
+
+"Oh, you know--you must know now, Walter."
+
+"Avery, did you break my heart and spoil my life--and your own--simply
+because your face was scarred?"
+
+"I couldn't bear to have you see me hideous," she moaned. "You had
+been so proud of my beauty. I--I--thought you couldn't love me any
+more--I couldn't bear the thought of looking in your eyes and seeing
+aversion there."
+
+Walter Grant leaned forward.
+
+"Look in my eyes, Avery. Do you see any aversion?"
+
+Avery forced herself to look. What she saw covered her face with a hot
+blush.
+
+"Did you think my love such a poor and superficial thing, Avery," he
+said sternly, "that it must vanish because a blemish came on your
+fairness? Do you think _that_ would change me? Was your own love for
+me so slight?"
+
+"No--no," she sobbed. "I have loved you every moment of my life,
+Walter. Oh, don't look at me so sternly."
+
+"If you had even told me," he said. "You said I was never to try to
+look on your face again--and they told me you had gone away. You sent
+me back my ring."
+
+"I kept the old one," she interrupted, holding out her hand, "the
+first one you ever gave me--do you remember, Walter? When we were boy
+and girl."
+
+"You robbed me of all that made life worth while, Avery. Do you wonder
+that I've been a bitter man?"
+
+"I was wrong--I was wrong," she sobbed. "I should have believed in
+you. But don't you think I've paid, too? Forgive me, Walter--it's too
+late to atone--but forgive me."
+
+"_Is_ it too late?" he asked gravely.
+
+She pointed to the scar.
+
+"Could you endure seeing this opposite to you every day at your
+table?" she asked bitterly.
+
+"Yes--if I could see your sweet eyes and your beloved smile with it,
+Avery," he answered passionately. "Oh, Avery, it was _you_ I
+loved--not your outward favor. Oh, how foolish you were--foolish and
+morbid! You always put too high a value on beauty, Avery. If I had
+dreamed of the true state of the case--if I had known you were here
+all these years--why I heard a rumor long ago that you had married,
+Avery--but if I had known I would have come to you and _made_ you
+be--sensible."
+
+She gave a little laugh at his lame conclusion. That was so like the
+old Walter. Then her eyes filled with tears as he took her in his
+arms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The door of the blue room opened. Jims did not look up. It was Aunt
+Augusta, of course--and she had heard the whole story.
+
+"Jims, boy."
+
+Jims lifted his miserable eyes. It was Uncle Walter--but a different
+Uncle Walter--an Uncle Walter with laughing eyes and a strange
+radiance of youth about him.
+
+"Poor, lonely little fellow," said Uncle Walter unexpectedly. "Jims,
+would you like Miss Avery to come _here_--and live with us always--and
+be your real aunt?"
+
+"Great snakes!" said Jims, transformed in a second. "Is there any
+chance of _that_?"
+
+"There is a certainty, thanks to you," said Uncle Walter. "You can go
+over to see her for a little while. Don't talk her to death--she's
+weak yet--and attend to that menagerie of yours over there--she's
+worrying because the bull dog and gobbler weren't fed--and Jims--"
+
+But Jims had swung down through the pine and was tearing across the
+Garden of Spices.
+
+
+
+
+The Girl and the Photograph
+
+
+When I heard that Peter Austin was in Vancouver I hunted him up. I had
+met Peter ten years before when I had gone east to visit my father's
+people and had spent a few weeks with an uncle in Croyden. The Austins
+lived across the street from Uncle Tom, and Peter and I had struck up
+a friendship, although he was a hobbledehoy of awkward sixteen and I,
+at twenty-two, was older and wiser and more dignified than I've ever
+been since or ever expect to be again. Peter was a jolly little round
+freckled chap. He was all right when no girls were around; when they
+were he retired within himself like a misanthropic oyster, and was
+about as interesting. This was the one point upon which we always
+disagreed. Peter couldn't endure girls; I was devoted to them by the
+wholesale. The Croyden girls were pretty and vivacious. I had a score
+of flirtations during my brief sojourn among them.
+
+But when I went away the face I carried in my memory was not that of
+any girl with whom I had walked and driven and played the game of
+hearts.
+
+It was ten years ago, but I had never been quite able to forget that
+girl's face. Yet I had seen it but once and then only for a moment. I
+had gone for a solitary ramble in the woods over the river and, in a
+lonely little valley dim with pines, where I thought myself alone, I
+had come suddenly upon her, standing ankle-deep in fern on the bank of
+a brook, the late evening sunshine falling yellowly on her uncovered
+dark hair. She was very young--no more than sixteen; yet the face and
+eyes were already those of a woman. Such a face! Beautiful? Yes, but I
+thought of that afterward, when I was alone. With that face before my
+eyes I thought only of its purity and sweetness, of the lovely soul
+and rich mind looking out of the great, greyish-blue eyes which, in
+the dimness of the pine shadows, looked almost black. There was
+something in the face of that child-woman I had never seen before and
+was destined never to see again in any other face. Careless boy
+though I was, it stirred me to the deeps. I felt that she must have
+been waiting forever in that pine valley for me and that, in finding
+her, I had found all of good that life could offer me.
+
+I would have spoken to her, but before I could shape my greeting into
+words that should not seem rude or presumptuous, she had turned and
+gone, stepping lightly across the brook and vanishing in the maple
+copse beyond. For no more than ten seconds had I gazed into her face,
+and the soul of her, the real woman behind the fair outwardness, had
+looked back into my eyes; but I had never been able to forget it.
+
+When I returned home I questioned my cousins diplomatically as to who
+she might be. I felt strangely reluctant to do so--it seemed in some
+way sacrilege; yet only by so doing could I hope to discover her. They
+could tell me nothing; nor did I meet her again during the remainder
+of my stay in Croyden, although I never went anywhere without looking
+for her, and haunted the pine valley daily, in the hope of seeing her
+again. My disappointment was so bitter that I laughed at myself.
+
+I thought I was a fool to feel thus about a girl I had met for a
+moment in a chance ramble--a mere child at that, with her hair still
+hanging in its long glossy schoolgirl braid. But when I remembered her
+eyes, my wisdom forgave me.
+
+Well, that was ten years ago; in those ten years the memory had, I
+must confess, grown dimmer. In our busy western life a man had not
+much time for sentimental recollections. Yet I had never been able to
+care for another woman. I wanted to; I wanted to marry and settle
+down. I had come to the time of life when a man wearies of drifting
+and begins to hanker for a calm anchorage in some snug haven of his
+own. But, somehow, I shirked the matter. It seemed rather easier to
+let things slide.
+
+At this stage Peter came west. He was something in a bank, and was as
+round and jolly as ever; but he had evidently changed his attitude
+towards girls, for his rooms were full of their photos. They were
+stuck around everywhere and they were all pretty. Either Peter had
+excellent taste, or the Croyden photographers knew how to flatter. But
+there was one on the mantel which attracted my attention especially.
+If the photo were to be trusted the girl was quite the prettiest I had
+ever seen.
+
+"Peter, what pretty girl's picture is this on your mantel?" I called
+out to Peter, who was in his bedroom, donning evening dress for some
+function.
+
+"That's my cousin, Marian Lindsay," he answered. "She _is_ rather
+nice-looking, isn't she. Lives in Croyden now--used to live up the
+river at Chiselhurst. Didn't you ever chance across her when you were
+in Croyden?"
+
+"No," I said. "If I had I wouldn't have forgotten her face."
+
+"Well, she'd be only a kid then, of course. She's twenty-six now.
+Marian is a mighty nice girl, but she's bound to be an old maid. She's
+got notions--ideals, she calls 'em. All the Croyden fellows have been
+in love with her at one time or another but they might as well have
+made up to a statue. Marian really hasn't a spark of feeling or
+sentiment in her. Her looks are the best part of her, although she's
+confoundedly clever."
+
+Peter spoke rather squiffily. I suspected that he had been one of the
+smitten swains himself. I looked at the photo for a few minutes
+longer, admiring it more every minute and, when I heard Peter coming
+out, I did an unjustifiable thing--I took that photo and put it in my
+pocket.
+
+I expected Peter would make a fuss when he missed it, but that very
+night the house in which he lived was burned to the ground. Peter
+escaped with the most important of his goods and chattels, but all the
+counterfeit presentments of his dear divinities went up in smoke. If
+he ever thought particularly of Marian Lindsay's photograph he must
+have supposed that it shared the fate of the others.
+
+As for me, I propped my ill-gotten treasure up on my mantel and
+worshipped it for a fortnight. At the end of that time I went boldly
+to Peter and told him I wanted him to introduce me by letter to his
+dear cousin and ask her to agree to a friendly correspondence with me.
+
+Oddly enough, I did not do this without some reluctance, in spite of
+the fact that I was as much in love with Marian Lindsay as it was
+possible to be through the medium of a picture. I thought of the girl
+I had seen in the pine wood and felt an inward shrinking from a step
+that might divide me from her forever. But I rated myself for this
+nonsense. It was in the highest degree unlikely that I should ever
+meet the girl of the pines again. If she were still living she was
+probably some other man's wife. I would think no more about it.
+
+Peter whistled when he heard what I had to say.
+
+"Of course I'll do it, old man," he said obligingly. "But I warn you I
+don't think it will be much use. Marian isn't the sort of girl to open
+up a correspondence in such a fashion. However, I'll do the best I can
+for you."
+
+"Do. Tell her I'm a respectable fellow with no violent bad habits and
+all that. I'm in earnest, Peter. I want to make that girl's
+acquaintance, and this seems the only way at present. I can't get off
+just now for a trip east. Explain all this, and use your cousinly
+influence in my behalf if you possess any."
+
+Peter grinned.
+
+"It's not the most graceful job in the world you are putting on me,
+Curtis," he said. "I don't mind owning up now that I was pretty far
+gone on Marian myself two years ago. It's all over now, but it was bad
+while it lasted. Perhaps Marian will consider your request more
+favourably if I put it in the light of a favour to myself. She must
+feel that she owes me something for wrecking my life."
+
+Peter grinned again and looked at the one photo he had contrived to
+rescue from the fire. It was a pretty, snub-nosed little girl. She
+would never have consoled me for the loss of Marian Lindsay, but every
+man to his taste.
+
+In due time Peter sought me out to give me his cousin's answer.
+
+"Congratulations, Curtis. You've out-Caesared Caesar. You've conquered
+without even going and seeing. Marian agrees to a friendly
+correspondence with you. I am amazed, I admit--even though I did paint
+you up as a sort of Sir Galahad and Lancelot combined. I'm not used to
+seeing proud Marian do stunts like that, and it rather takes my
+breath."
+
+I wrote to Marian Lindsay after one farewell dream of the girl under
+the pines. When Marian's letters began to come regularly I forgot the
+other one altogether.
+
+Such letters--such witty, sparkling, clever, womanly, delightful
+letters! They completed the conquest her picture had begun. Before we
+had corresponded six months I was besottedly in love with this woman
+whom I had never seen. Finally, I wrote and told her so, and I asked
+her to be my wife.
+
+A fortnight later her answer came. She said frankly that she believed
+she had learned to care for me during our correspondence, but that she
+thought we should meet in person, before coming to any definite
+understanding. Could I not arrange to visit Croyden in the summer?
+Until then we would better continue on our present footing.
+
+I agreed to this, but I considered myself practically engaged, with
+the personal meeting merely to be regarded as a sop to the Cerberus of
+conventionality. I permitted myself to use a decidedly lover-like tone
+in my letters henceforth, and I hailed it as a favourable omen that I
+was not rebuked for this, although Marian's own letters still retained
+their pleasant, simple friendliness.
+
+Peter had at first tormented me mercilessly about the affair, but when
+he saw I did not like his chaff he stopped it. Peter was always a good
+fellow. He realized that I regarded the matter seriously, and he saw
+me off when I left for the east with a grin tempered by honest
+sympathy and understanding.
+
+"Good luck to you," he said. "If you win Marian Lindsay you'll win a
+pearl among women. I haven't been able to grasp her taking to you in
+this fashion, though. It's so unlike Marian. But, since she
+undoubtedly has, you are a lucky man."
+
+I arrived in Croyden at dusk and went to Uncle Tom's. There I found
+them busy with preparations for a party to be given that night in
+honour of a girl friend who was visiting my cousin Edna. I was
+secretly annoyed, for I wanted to hasten at once to Marian. But I
+couldn't decently get away, and on second thoughts I was consoled by
+the reflection that she would probably come to the party. I knew she
+belonged to the same social set as Uncle Tom's girls. I should,
+however, have preferred our meeting to have been under different
+circumstances.
+
+From my stand behind the palms in a corner I eagerly scanned the
+guests as they arrived. Suddenly my heart gave a bound. Marian Lindsay
+had just come in.
+
+I recognized her at once from her photograph. It had not flattered her
+in the least; indeed, it had not done her justice, for her exquisite
+colouring of hair and complexion were quite lost in it. She was,
+moreover, gowned with a taste and smartness eminently admirable in the
+future Mrs. Eric Curtis. I felt a thrill of proprietary pride as I
+stepped out from behind the palms. She was talking to Aunt Grace; but
+her eyes fell on me. I expected a little start of recognition, for I
+had sent her an excellent photograph of myself; but her gaze was one
+of blankest unconsciousness.
+
+I felt something like disappointment at her non-recognition, but I
+consoled myself by the reflection that people often fail to recognize
+other people whom they have seen only in photographs, no matter how
+good the likeness may be. I waylaid Edna, who was passing at that
+time, and said, "Edna I want you to introduce me to the girl who is
+talking to your mother."
+
+Edna laughed.
+
+"So you have succumbed at first sight to our Croyden beauty? Of course
+I'll introduce you, but I warn you beforehand that she is the most
+incorrigible flirt in Croyden or out of it. So take care."
+
+It jarred on me to hear Marian called a flirt. It seemed so out of
+keeping with her letters and the womanly delicacy and fineness
+revealed in them. But I reflected that women sometimes find it hard to
+forgive another woman who absorbs more than her share of lovers, and
+generally take their revenge by dubbing her a flirt, whether she
+deserves the name or not.
+
+We had crossed the room during this reflection. Marian turned and
+stood before us, smiling at Edna, but evincing no recognition whatever
+of myself. It is a piquant experience to find yourself awaiting an
+introduction to a girl to whom you are virtually engaged.
+
+"Dorothy dear," said Edna, "this is my cousin, Mr. Curtis, from
+Vancouver. Eric, this is Miss Armstrong."
+
+I suppose I bowed. Habit carries us mechanically through many
+impossible situations. I don't know what I looked like or what I said,
+if I said anything. I don't suppose I betrayed my dire confusion, for
+Edna went off unconcernedly without another glance at me.
+
+Dorothy Armstrong! Gracious powers--who--where--why? If this girl was
+Dorothy Armstrong who was Marian Lindsay? To whom was I engaged? There
+was some awful mistake somewhere, for it could not be possible that
+there were two girls in Croyden who looked exactly like the photograph
+reposing in my valise at that very moment. I stammered like a
+schoolboy.
+
+"I--oh--I--your face seems familiar to me, Miss Armstrong. I--I--think
+I must have seen your photograph somewhere."
+
+"Probably in Peter Austin's collection," smiled Miss Armstrong. "He
+had one of mine before he was burned out. How is he?"
+
+"Peter? Oh, he's well," I replied vaguely. I was thinking a hundred
+words to the second, but my thoughts arrived nowhere. I was staring at
+Miss Armstrong like a man bewitched. She must have thought me a
+veritable booby. "Oh, by the way--can you tell me--do you know a Miss
+Lindsay in Croyden?"
+
+Miss Armstrong looked surprised and a little bored. Evidently she was
+not used to having newly introduced young men inquiring about another
+girl.
+
+"Marian Lindsay? Oh, yes."
+
+"Is she here tonight?" I said.
+
+"No, Marian is not going to parties just now, owing to the recent
+death of her aunt, who lived with them."
+
+"Does she--oh--does she look like you at all?" I inquired idiotically.
+
+Amusement glimmered but over Miss Armstrong's boredom. She probably
+concluded that I was some harmless lunatic.
+
+"Like me? Not at all. There couldn't be two people more dissimilar.
+Marian is quite dark. I am fair. And our features are altogether
+unlike. Why, good evening, Jack. Yes, I believe I did promise you this
+dance."
+
+She bowed to me and skimmed away with Jack. I saw Aunt Grace bearing
+down upon me and fled incontinently. In my own room I flung myself on
+a chair and tried to think the matter out. Where did the mistake come
+in? How had it happened? I shut my eyes and conjured up the vision of
+Peter's room that day. I remembered vaguely that, when I had picked up
+Dorothy Armstrong's picture, I had noticed another photograph that had
+fallen face downward beside it. That must have been Marian Lindsay's,
+and Peter had thought I meant it.
+
+And now what a position I was in! I was conscious of bitter
+disappointment. I had fallen in love with Dorothy Armstrong's
+photograph. As far as external semblance goes it was she whom I loved.
+I was practically engaged to another woman--a woman who, in spite of
+our correspondence, seemed to me now, in the shock of this discovery,
+a stranger. It was useless to tell myself that it was the mind and
+soul revealed in those letters that I loved, and that that mind and
+soul were Marian Lindsay's. It was useless to remember that Peter had
+said she was pretty. Exteriorly, she was a stranger to me; hers was
+not the face which had risen before me for nearly a year as the face
+of the woman I loved. Was ever unlucky wretch in such a predicament
+before?
+
+Well, there was only one thing to do. I must stand by my word. Marian
+Lindsay was the woman I had asked to marry me, whose answer I must
+shortly go to receive. If that answer were "yes" I must accept the
+situation and banish all thought of Dorothy Armstrong's pretty face.
+
+Next evening at sunset I went to "Glenwood," the Lindsay place.
+Doubtless, an eager lover might have gone earlier, but an eager lover
+I certainly was not. Probably Marian was expecting me and had given
+orders concerning me, for the maid who came to the door conveyed me to
+a little room behind the stairs--a room which, as I felt as soon as I
+entered it, was a woman's pet domain. In its books and pictures and
+flowers it spoke eloquently of dainty femininity. Somehow, it suited
+the letters. I did not feel quite so much the stranger as I had felt.
+Nevertheless, when I heard a light footfall on the stairs my heart
+beat painfully. I stood up and turned to the door, but I could not
+look up. The footsteps came nearer; I knew that a white hand swept
+aside the _portiere_ at the entrance; I knew that she had entered the
+room and was standing before me.
+
+With an effort I raised my eyes and looked at her. She stood, tall and
+gracious, in a ruby splendour of sunset falling through the window
+beside her. The light quivered like living radiance over a dark proud
+head, a white throat, and a face before whose perfect loveliness the
+memory of Dorothy Armstrong's laughing prettiness faded like a star in
+the sunrise, nevermore in the fullness of the day to be remembered.
+Yet it was not of her beauty I thought as I stood spellbound before
+her. I seemed to see a dim little valley full of whispering pines, and
+a girl standing under their shadows, looking at me with the same
+great, greyish-blue eyes which gazed upon me now from Marian Lindsay's
+face--the same face, matured into gracious womanhood, that I had seen
+ten years ago; and loved--aye, loved--ever since. I took an unsteady
+step forward.
+
+"Marian?" I said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When I got home that night I burned Dorothy Armstrong's photograph.
+The next day I went to my cousin Tom, who owns the fashionable studio
+of Croyden and, binding him over to secrecy, sought one of Marian's
+latest photographs from him. It is the only secret I have ever kept
+from my wife.
+
+Before we were married Marian told me something.
+
+"I always remembered you as you looked that day under the pines," she
+said. "I was only a child, but I think I loved you then and ever
+afterwards. When I dreamed my girl's dream of love your face rose up
+before me. I had the advantage of you that I knew your name--I had
+heard of you. When Peter wrote about you I knew who you were. That was
+why I agreed to correspond with you. I was afraid it was a forward--an
+unwomanly thing to do. But it seemed my chance for happiness and I
+took it. I am glad I did."
+
+I did not answer in words, but lovers will know how I did answer.
+
+
+
+
+The Gossip of Valley View
+
+
+It was the first of April, and Julius Barrett, aged fourteen, perched
+on his father's gatepost, watched ruefully the low descending sun, and
+counted that day lost. He had not succeeded in "fooling" a single
+person, although he had tried repeatedly. One and all, old and young,
+of his intended victims had been too wary for Julius. Hence, Julius
+was disgusted and ready for anything in the way of a stratagem or a
+spoil.
+
+The Barrett gatepost topped the highest hill in Valley View. Julius
+could see the entire settlement, from "Young" Thomas Everett's farm, a
+mile to the west, to Adelia Williams's weather-grey little house on a
+moonrise slope to the east. He was gazing moodily down the muddy road
+when Dan Chester, homeward bound from the post office, came riding
+sloppily along on his grey mare and pulled up by the Barrett gate to
+hand a paper to Julius.
+
+Dan was a young man who took life and himself very seriously. He
+seldom smiled, never joked, and had a Washingtonian reputation for
+veracity. Dan had never told a conscious falsehood in his life; he
+never even exaggerated.
+
+Julius, beholding Dan's solemn face, was seized with a perfectly
+irresistible desire to "fool" him. At the same moment his eye caught
+the dazzling reflection of the setting sun on the windows of Adelia
+Williams's house, and he had an inspiration little short of
+diabolical. "Have you heard the news, Dan?" he asked.
+
+"No, what is it?" asked Dan.
+
+"I dunno's I ought to tell it," said Julius reflectively. "It's kind
+of a family affair, but then Adelia didn't say not to, and anyway
+it'll be all over the place soon. So I'll tell you, Dan, if you'll
+promise never to tell who told you. Adelia Williams and Young Thomas
+Everett are going to be married."
+
+Julius delivered himself of this tremendous lie with a transparently
+earnest countenance. Yet Dan, credulous as he was, could not believe
+it all at once.
+
+"Git out," he said.
+
+"It's true, 'pon my word," protested Julius. "Adelia was up last night
+and told Ma all about it. Ma's her cousin, you know. The wedding is to
+be in June, and Adelia asked Ma to help her get her quilts and things
+ready."
+
+Julius reeled all this off so glibly that Dan finally believed the
+story, despite the fact that the people thus coupled together in
+prospective matrimony were the very last people in Valley View who
+could have been expected to marry each other. Young Thomas was a
+confirmed bachelor of fifty, and Adelia Williams was forty; they were
+not supposed to be even well acquainted, as the Everetts and the
+Williamses had never been very friendly, although no open feud existed
+between them.
+
+Nevertheless, in view of Julius's circumstantial statements, the
+amazing news must be true, and Dan was instantly agog to carry it
+further. Julius watched Dan and the grey mare out of sight, fairly
+writhing with ecstasy. Oh, but Dan had been easy! The story would be
+all over Valley View in twenty-four hours. Julius laughed until he
+came near to falling off the gatepost.
+
+At this point Julius and Danny drop out of our story, and Young Thomas
+enters.
+
+It was two days later when Young Thomas heard that he was to be
+married to Adelia Williams in June. Eben Clark, the blacksmith, told
+him when he went to the forge to get his horse shod. Young Thomas
+laughed his big jolly laugh. Valley View gossip had been marrying him
+off for the last thirty years, although never before to Adelia
+Williams.
+
+"It's news to me," he said tolerantly.
+
+Eben grinned broadly. "Ah, you can't bluff it off like that, Tom," he
+said. "The news came too straight this time. Well, I was glad to hear
+it, although I was mighty surprised. I never thought of you and
+Adelia. But she's a fine little woman and will make you a capital
+wife."
+
+Young Thomas grunted and drove away. He had a good deal of business to
+do that day, involving calls at various places--the store for
+molasses, the mill for flour, Jim Bentley's for seed grain, the
+doctor's for toothache drops for his housekeeper, the post office for
+mail--and at each and every place he was joked about his approaching
+marriage. In the end it rather annoyed Young Thomas. He drove home at
+last in what was for him something of a temper. How on earth had that
+fool story started? With such detailed circumstantiality of rugs and
+quilts, too? Adelia Williams must be going to marry somebody, and the
+Valley View gossips, unable to locate the man, had guessed Young
+Thomas.
+
+When he reached home, tired, mud-bespattered, and hungry, his
+housekeeper, who was also his hired man's wife, asked him if it was
+true that he was going to be married. Young Thomas, taking in at a
+glance the ill-prepared, half-cold supper on the table, felt more
+annoyed than ever, and said it wasn't, with a strong expression--not
+quite an oath--for Young Thomas never swore, unless swearing be as
+much a matter of intonation as of words.
+
+Mrs. Dunn sighed, patted her swelled face, and said she was sorry; she
+had hoped it was true, for her man had decided to go west. They were
+to go in a month's time. Young Thomas sat down to his supper with the
+prospect of having to look up another housekeeper and hired man before
+planting to destroy his appetite.
+
+Next day, three people who came to see Young Thomas on business
+congratulated him on his approaching marriage. Young Thomas, who had
+recovered his usual good humour, merely laughed. There was no use in
+being too earnest in denial, he thought. He knew that his unusual fit
+of petulance with his housekeeper had only convinced her that the
+story was true. It would die away in time, as other similar stories
+had died, he thought. Valley View gossip was imaginative.
+
+Young Thomas looked rather serious, however, when the minister and his
+wife called that evening and referred to the report. Young Thomas
+gravely said that it was unfounded. The minister looked graver still
+and said he was sorry--he had hoped it was true. His wife glanced
+significantly about Young Thomas's big, untidy sitting-room, where
+there were cobwebs on the ceiling and fluff in the corners and dust on
+the mop-board, and said nothing, but looked volumes.
+
+"Dang it all," said Young Thomas, as they drove away, "they'll marry
+me yet in spite of myself."
+
+The gossip made him think about Adelia Williams. He had never thought
+about her before; he was barely acquainted with her. Now he remembered
+that she was a plump, jolly-looking little woman, noted for being a
+good housekeeper. Then Young Thomas groaned, remembering that he must
+start out looking for a housekeeper soon; and housekeepers were not
+easily found, as Young Thomas had discovered several times since his
+mother's death ten years before.
+
+Next Sunday in church Young Thomas looked at Adelia Williams. He
+caught Adelia looking at him. Adelia blushed and looked guiltily away.
+
+"Dang it all," reflected Young Thomas, forgetting that he was in
+church. "I suppose she has heard that fool story too. I'd like to know
+the person who started it; man or woman, I'd punch their head."
+
+Nevertheless, Young Thomas went on looking at Adelia by fits and
+starts, although he did not again catch Adelia looking at him. He
+noticed that she had round rosy cheeks and twinkling brown eyes. She
+did not look like an old maid, and Young Thomas wondered that she had
+been allowed to become one. Sarah Barnett, now, to whom report had
+married him a year ago, looked like a dried sour apple.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For the next four weeks the story haunted Young Thomas like a spectre.
+Down it would not. Everywhere he went he was joked about it. It
+gathered fresh detail every week. Adelia was getting her clothes
+ready; she was to be married in seal-brown cashmere; Vinnie Lawrence
+at Valley Centre was making it for her; she had got a new hat with a
+long ostrich plume; some said white, some said grey.
+
+Young Thomas kept wondering who the man could be, for he was convinced
+that Adelia was going to marry somebody. More than that, once he
+caught himself wondering enviously. Adelia was a nice-looking woman,
+and he had not so far heard of any probable housekeeper.
+
+"Dang it all," said Young Thomas to himself in desperation. "I
+wouldn't care if it was true."
+
+His married sister from Carlisle heard the story and came over to
+investigate. Young Thomas denied it shortly, and his sister scolded.
+She had devoutly hoped it was true, she said, and it would have been a
+great weight off her mind.
+
+"This house is in a disgraceful condition, Thomas," she said severely.
+"It would break Mother's heart if she could rise out of her grave to
+see it. And Adelia Williams is a perfect housekeeper."
+
+"You didn't use to think so much of the Williams crowd," said Young
+Thomas drily.
+
+"Oh, some of them don't amount to much," admitted Maria, "but Adelia
+is all right."
+
+Catching sight of an odd look on Young Thomas's face, she added
+hastily, "Thomas Everett, I believe it's true after all. Now, is it?
+For mercy's sake don't be so sly. You might tell me, your own and only
+sister, if it is."
+
+"Oh, shut up," was Young Thomas's unfeeling reply to his own and only
+sister.
+
+Young Thomas told himself that night that Valley View gossip would
+drive him into an asylum yet if it didn't let up. He also wondered if
+Adelia was as much persecuted as himself. No doubt she was. He never
+could catch her eye in church now, but he would have been surprised
+had he realized how many times he tried to.
+
+The climax came the third week in May, when Young Thomas, who had been
+keeping house for himself for three weeks, received a letter and an
+express box from his cousin, Charles Everett, out in Manitoba. Charles
+and he had been chums in their boyhood. They corresponded occasionally
+still, although it was twenty years since Charles had gone west.
+
+The letter was to congratulate Young Thomas on his approaching
+marriage. Charles had heard of it through some Valley View
+correspondents of his wife. He was much pleased; he had always liked
+Adelia, he said--had been an old beau of hers, in fact. Thomas might
+give her a kiss for him if he liked. He forwarded a wedding present by
+express and hoped they would be very happy, etc.
+
+The present was an elaborate hatrack of polished buffalo horns,
+mounted on red plush, with an inset mirror. Young Thomas set it up on
+the kitchen table and scowled moodily at his reflection in the mirror.
+If wedding presents were beginning to come, it was high time something
+was done. The matter was past being a joke. This affair of the present
+would certainly get out--things always got out in Valley View, dang it
+all--and he would never hear the last of it.
+
+"I'll marry," said Young Thomas decisively. "If Adelia Williams won't
+have me, I'll marry the first woman who will, if it's Sarah Barnett
+herself."
+
+Young Thomas shaved and put on his Sunday suit. As soon as it was
+safely dark, he hied him away to Adelia Williams. He felt very
+doubtful about his reception, but the remembrance of the twinkle in
+Adelia's brown eyes comforted him. She looked like a woman who had a
+sense of humour; she might not take him, but she would not feel
+offended or insulted because he asked her.
+
+"Dang it all, though, I hope she will take me," said Young Thomas.
+"I'm in for getting married now and no mistake. And I can't get Adelia
+out of my head. I've been thinking of her steady ever since that
+confounded gossip began."
+
+When he knocked at Adelia's door he discovered that his face was wet
+with perspiration. Adelia opened the door and started when she saw
+him; then she turned very red and stiffly asked him in. Young Thomas
+went in and sat down, wondering if all men felt so horribly
+uncomfortable when they went courting.
+
+Adelia stooped low over the woodbox to put a stick of wood in the
+stove, for the May evening was chilly. Her shoulders were shaking; the
+shaking grew worse; suddenly Adelia laughed hysterically and, sitting
+down on the woodbox, continued to laugh. Young Thomas eyed her with a
+friendly grin.
+
+"Oh, do excuse me," gasped poor Adelia, wiping tears from her eyes.
+"This is--dreadful--I didn't mean to laugh--I don't know why I'm
+laughing--but--I--can't help it."
+
+She laughed helplessly again. Young Thomas laughed too. His
+embarrassment vanished in the mellowness of that laughter. Presently
+Adelia composed herself and removed from the woodbox to a chair, but
+there was still a suspicious twitching about the corners of her mouth.
+
+"I suppose," said Young Thomas, determined to have it over with before
+the ice could form again, "I suppose, Adelia, you've heard the story
+that's been going about you and me of late?"
+
+Adelia nodded. "I've been persecuted to the verge of insanity with
+it," she said. "Every soul I've seen has tormented me about it, and
+people have written me about it. I've denied it till I was black in
+the face, but nobody believed me. I can't find out how it started. I
+hope you believe, Mr. Everett, that it couldn't possibly have arisen
+from anything I said. I've felt dreadfully worried for fear you might
+think it did. I heard that my cousin, Lucilla Barrett, said I told
+her, but Lucilla vowed to me that she never said such a thing or even
+dreamed of it. I've felt dreadful bad over the whole affair. I even
+gave up the idea of making a quilt after a lovely new pattern I've got
+because they made such a talk about my brown dress."
+
+"I've been kind of supposing that you must be going to marry somebody,
+and folks just guessed it was me," said Young Thomas--he said it
+anxiously.
+
+"No, I'm not going to be married to anybody," said Adelia with a
+laugh, taking up her knitting.
+
+"I'm glad of that," said Young Thomas gravely. "I mean," he hastened
+to add, seeing the look of astonishment on Adelia's face, "that I'm
+glad there isn't any other man because--because I want you myself,
+Adelia."
+
+Adelia laid down her knitting and blushed crimson. But she looked at
+Young Thomas squarely and reproachfully.
+
+"You needn't think you are bound to say that because of the gossip,
+Mr. Everett," she said quietly.
+
+"Oh, I don't," said Young Thomas earnestly. "But the truth is, the
+story set me to thinking about you, and from that I got to wishing it
+was true--honest, I did--I couldn't get you out of my head, and at
+last I didn't want to. It just seemed to me that you were the very
+woman for me if you'd only take me. Will you, Adelia? I've got a good
+farm and house, and I'll try to make you happy."
+
+It was not a very romantic wooing, perhaps. But Adelia was forty and
+had never been a romantic little body even in the heyday of youth. She
+was a practical woman, and Young Thomas was a fine looking man of his
+age with abundance of worldly goods. Besides, she liked him, and the
+gossip had made her think a good deal about him of late. Indeed, in a
+moment of candour she had owned to herself the very last Sunday in
+church that she wouldn't mind if the story were true.
+
+"I'll--I'll think of it," she said.
+
+This was practically an acceptance, and Young Thomas so understood
+it. Without loss of time he crossed the kitchen, sat down beside
+Adelia, and put his arms about her plump waist.
+
+"Here's a kiss Charlie sent me to give you," he said, giving it.
+
+
+
+
+The Letters
+
+
+Just before the letter was brought to me that evening I was watching
+the red November sunset from the library window. It was a stormy,
+unrestful sunset, gleaming angrily through the dark fir boughs that
+were now and again tossed suddenly and distressfully in a fitful gust
+of wind. Below, in the garden, it was quite dark, and I could only see
+dimly the dead leaves that were whirling and dancing uncannily over
+the roseless paths. The poor dead leaves--yet not quite dead! There
+was still enough unquiet life left in them to make them restless and
+forlorn. They hearkened yet to every call of the wind, who cared for
+them no longer but only played freakishly with them and broke their
+rest. I felt sorry for the leaves as I watched them in that dull,
+weird twilight, and angry--in a petulant fashion that almost made me
+laugh--with the wind that would not leave them in peace. Why should
+they--and I--be vexed with these transient breaths of desire for a
+life that had passed us by?
+
+I was in the grip of a bitter loneliness that evening--so bitter and
+so insistent that I felt I could not face the future at all, even with
+such poor fragments of courage as I had gathered about me after
+Father's death, hoping that they would, at least, suffice for my
+endurance, if not for my content. But now they fell away from me at
+sight of the emptiness of life.
+
+The emptiness! Ah, it was from that I shrank. I could have faced pain
+and anxiety and heartbreak undauntedly, but I could not face that
+terrible, yawning, barren emptiness. I put my hands over my eyes to
+shut it out, but it pressed in upon my consciousness insistently, and
+would not be ignored longer.
+
+The moment when a woman realizes that she has nothing to live
+for--neither love nor purpose nor duty--holds for her the bitterness
+of death. She is a brave woman indeed who can look upon such a
+prospect unquailingly, and I was not brave. I was weak and timid. Had
+not Father often laughed mockingly at me because of it?
+
+It was three weeks since Father had died--my proud, handsome,
+unrelenting old father, whom I had loved so intensely and who had
+never loved me. I had always accepted this fact unresentfully and
+unquestioningly, but it had steeped my whole life in its tincture of
+bitterness. Father had never forgiven me for two things. I had cost my
+mother's life and I was not a son to perpetuate the old name and carry
+on the family feud with the Frasers.
+
+I was a very lonely child, with no playmates or companions of any
+sort, and my girlhood was lonelier still. The only passion in my life
+was my love for my father. I would have done and suffered anything to
+win his affection in return. But all I ever did win was an amused
+tolerance--and I was grateful for that--almost content. It was much to
+have something to love and be permitted to love it.
+
+If I had been a beautiful and spirited girl I think Father might have
+loved me, but I was neither. At first I did not think or care about my
+lack of beauty; then one day I was alone in the beech wood; I was
+trying to disentangle my skirt which had caught on some thorny
+underbrush. A young man came around the curve of the path and, seeing
+my predicament, bent with murmured apology to help me. He had to kneel
+to do it, and I saw a ray of sunshine falling through the beeches
+above us strike like a lance of light athwart the thick brown hair
+that pushed out from under his cap. Before I thought I put out my hand
+and touched it softly, then I blushed crimson with shame over what I
+had done. But he did not know--he never knew.
+
+When he had released my dress he rose and our eyes met for a moment as
+I timidly thanked him. I saw that he was good to look upon--tall and
+straight, with broad, stalwart shoulders and a dark, clean-cut face.
+He had a firm, sensitive mouth and kindly, pleasant, dark blue eyes. I
+never quite forgot the look in those eyes. It made my heart beat
+strangely, but it was only for a moment, and the next he had lifted
+his cap and passed on.
+
+As I went homeward I wondered who he might be. He must be a stranger,
+I thought--probably a visitor in some of our few neighbouring
+families. I wondered too if I should meet him again, and found the
+thought very pleasant.
+
+I knew few men and they were all old, like Father, or at least
+elderly. They were the only people who ever came to our house, and
+they either teased me or overlooked me. None of them was at all like
+this young man I had met in the beech wood, nor ever could have been,
+I thought.
+
+When I reached home I stopped before the big mirror that hung in the
+hall and did what I had never done before in my life--looked at myself
+very scrutinizingly and wondered if I had any beauty. I could only
+sorrowfully conclude that I had not--I was so slight and pale, and the
+thick black hair and dark eyes that might have been pretty in another
+woman seemed only to accentuate the lack of spirit and regularity in
+my features. I was still standing there, gazing wistfully at my
+mirrored face with a strange sinking of spirit, when Father came
+through the hall, his riding whip in his hand. Seeing me, he laughed.
+
+"Don't waste your time gazing into mirrors, Isobel," he said
+carelessly. "That might have been excusable in former ladies of
+Shirley whose beauty might pardon and even adorn vanity, but with you
+it is only absurd. The needle and the cookbook are all that you need
+concern yourself with."
+
+I was accustomed to such speeches from him, but they had never hurt me
+so cruelly before. At that moment I would have given all the world
+only to be beautiful.
+
+The next Sunday I looked across the church, and in the Fraser pew I
+saw the young man I had met in the wood. He was looking at me with his
+arms folded over his breast and on his brow a little frown that seemed
+somehow indicative of pain and surprise. I felt a miserable sense of
+disappointment. If he were the Frasers' guest I could not expect to
+meet him again. Father hated the Frasers, all the Shirleys hated them;
+it was an old feud, bitter and lasting, that had been as much our
+inheritance for generations as land and money. The only thing Father
+had ever taken pains to teach me was detestation of the Frasers and
+all their works. I accepted this as I accepted all the other
+traditions of my race. I thought it did not matter much. The Frasers
+were not likely to come my way, and hatred was a good satisfying
+passion in the lack of all else. I think I rather took a pride in
+hating them as became my blood.
+
+I did not look at the Fraser pew again, but outside, under the elms,
+we met him, standing in the dappling light and shadow. He looked very
+handsome and a little sad. I could not help glancing back over my
+shoulder as Father and I walked to the gate, and I saw him looking
+after us with that little frown which again made me think something
+had hurt him. I liked better the smile he had worn in the beech wood,
+but I had an odd liking for the frown too, and I think I had a foolish
+longing to go back to him, put up my fingers and smooth it away.
+
+"So Alan Fraser has come home," said my father.
+
+"Alan Fraser?" I repeated, with a strange, horrible feeling of
+coldness and chill coming over me like a shadow on a bright day. Alan
+Fraser, the son of old Malcolm Fraser of Glenellyn! The son of our
+enemy! He had been living since childhood with his dead mother's
+people, so much I knew. And this was he! Something stung and smarted
+in my eyes. I think the sting and smart might have turned to tears if
+Father had not been looking down at me.
+
+"Yes. Didn't you see him in his father's pew? But I forgot. You are
+too demure to be looking at the young men in preaching--or out of it,
+Isobel. You are a model young woman. Odd that the men never like the
+model young women! Curse old Malcolm Fraser! What right has he to have
+a son like that when I have nothing but a puling girl? Remember,
+Isobel, that if you ever meet that young man you are not to speak to
+or look at him, or even intimate that you are aware of his existence.
+He is your enemy and the enemy of your race. You will show him that
+you realize this."
+
+Of course that ended it all--though just what there had been to end
+would have been hard to say. Not long afterwards I met Alan Fraser
+again, when I was out for a canter on my mare. He was strolling
+through the beech wood with a couple of big collies, and he stopped
+short as I drew near. I had to do it--Father had decreed--my Shirley
+pride demanded--that I should do it. I looked him unseeingly in the
+face, struck my mare a blow with my whip, and dashed past him. I even
+felt angry, I think, that a Fraser should have the power to make me
+feel so badly in doing my duty.
+
+After that I had forgotten. There was nothing to make me remember, for
+I never met Alan Fraser again. The years slipped by, one by one, so
+like each other in their colourlessness that I forgot to take account
+of them. I only knew that I grew older and that it did not matter
+since there was nobody to care. One day they brought Father in,
+white-lipped and groaning. His mare had thrown him, and he was never
+to walk again, although he lived for five years. Those five years had
+been the happiest of my life. For the first time I was necessary to
+someone--there was something for me to do which nobody else could do
+so well. I was Father's nurse and companion; and I found my pleasure
+in tending him and amusing him, soothing his hours of pain and
+brightening his hours of ease. People said I "did my duty" toward him.
+I had never liked that word "duty," since the day I had ridden past
+Alan Fraser in the beech wood. I could not connect it with what I did
+for Father. It was my delight because I loved him. I did not mind the
+moods and the irritable outbursts that drove others from him.
+
+But now he was dead, and I sat in the sullen dusk, wishing that I need
+not go on with life either. The loneliness of the big echoing house
+weighed on my spirit. I was solitary, without companionship. I looked
+out on the outside world where the only sign of human habitation
+visible to my eyes was the light twinkling out from the library window
+of Glenellyn on the dark fir hill two miles away. By that light I knew
+Alan Fraser must have returned from his long sojourn abroad, for it
+only shone when he was at Glenellyn. He still lived there, something
+of a hermit, people said; he had never married, and he cared nothing
+for society. His companions were books and dogs and horses; he was
+given to scientific researches and wrote much for the reviews; he
+travelled a great deal. So much I knew in a vague way. I even saw him
+occasionally in church, and never thought the years had changed him
+much, save that his face was sadder and sterner than of old and his
+hair had become iron-grey. People said that he had inherited and
+cherished the old hatred of the Shirleys--that he was very bitter
+against us. I believed it. He had the face of a good hater--or
+lover--a man who could play with no emotion but must take it in all
+earnestness and intensity.
+
+When it was quite dark the housekeeper brought in the lights and
+handed me a letter which, she said, a man had just brought up from the
+village post office. I looked at it curiously before I opened it,
+wondering from whom it was. It was postmarked from a city several
+miles away, and the firm, decided, rather peculiar handwriting was
+strange to me. I had no correspondents. After Father's death I had
+received a few perfunctory notes of condolence from distant relatives
+and family friends. They had hurt me cruelly, for they seemed to
+exhale a subtle spirit of congratulation on my being released from a
+long and unpleasant martyrdom of attendance on an invalid, that quite
+overrode the decorous phrases of conventional sympathy in which they
+were expressed. I hated those letters for their implied injustice. I
+was not thankful for my "release." I missed Father miserably and
+longed passionately for the very tasks and vigils that had evoked
+their pity.
+
+This letter did not seem like one of those. I opened it and took out
+some stiff, blackly written sheets. They were undated and, turning to
+the last, I saw that they were unsigned. With a not unpleasant
+tingling of interest I sat down by my desk to read. The letter began
+abruptly:
+
+    You will not know by whom this is written. Do not seek to
+    know--now or ever. It is only from behind the veil of your
+    ignorance of my identity that I can ever write to you fully
+    and freely as I wish to write--can say what I wish to say in
+    words denied to a formal and conventional expression of
+    sympathy. Dear lady, let me say to you thus what is in my
+    heart.
+
+    I know what your sorrow is, and I think I know what your
+    loneliness must be--the sorrow of a broken tie, the loneliness
+    of a life thrown emptily back on itself. I know how you loved
+    your father--how you must have loved him if those eyes and
+    brow and mouth speak truth, for they tell of a nature divinely
+    rich and deep, giving of its wealth and tenderness
+    ungrudgingly to those who are so happy as to be the objects of
+    its affection. To such a nature bereavement must bring a depth
+    and an agony of grief unknown to shallower souls.
+
+    I know what your father's helplessness and need of you meant
+    to you. I know that now life must seem to you a broken and
+    embittered thing and, knowing this, I venture to send this
+    greeting across the gulf of strangerhood between us, telling
+    you that my understanding sympathy is fully and freely yours,
+    and bidding you take heart for the future, which now, it may
+    be, looks so heartless and hopeless to you.
+
+    Believe me, dear lady, it will be neither. Courage will come
+    to you with the kind days. You will find noble tasks to do,
+    beautiful and gracious duties waiting along your path. The
+    pain and suffering of the world never dies, and while it
+    lives there will be work for such as you to do, and in the
+    doing of it you will find comfort and strength and the highest
+    joy of living. I believe in you. I believe you will make of
+    your life a beautiful and worthy thing. I give you Godspeed
+    for the years to come. Out of my own loneliness I, an unknown
+    friend, who has never clasped your hand, send this message to
+    you. I understand--I have always understood--and I say to you:
+    "Be of good cheer."
+
+To say that this strange letter was a mystery to me seems an
+inadequate way of stating the matter. I was completely bewildered, nor
+could I even guess who the writer might be, think and ponder as I
+might.
+
+The letter itself implied that the writer was a stranger. The
+handwriting was evidently that of a man, and I knew no man who could
+or would have sent such a letter to me.
+
+The very mystery stung me to interest. As for the letter itself, it
+brought me an uplift of hope and inspiration such as I would not have
+believed possible an hour earlier. It rang so truly and sincerely, and
+the mere thought that somewhere I had a friend who cared enough to
+write it, even in such odd fashion, was so sweet that I was half
+ashamed of the difference it made in my outlook. Sitting there, I took
+courage and made a compact with myself that I would justify the
+writer's faith in me--that I would take up my life as something to be
+worthily lived for all good, to the disregard of my own selfish sorrow
+and shrinking. I would seek for something to do--for interests which
+would bind me to my fellow-creatures--for tasks which would lessen the
+pains and perils of humankind. An hour before, this would not have
+seemed to me possible; now it seemed the right and natural thing to
+do.
+
+A week later another letter came. I welcomed it with an eagerness
+which I feared was almost childish. It was a much longer letter than
+the first and was written in quite a different strain. There was no
+apology for or explanation of the motive for writing. It was as if the
+letter were merely one of a permitted and established correspondence
+between old friends. It began with a witty, sparkling review of a new
+book the writer had just read, and passed from this to crisp comments
+on the great events, political, scientific, artistic, of the day. The
+whole letter was pungent, interesting, delightful--an impersonal essay
+on a dozen vital topics of life and thought. Only at the end was a
+personal note struck.
+
+"Are you interested in these things?" ran the last paragraph. "In what
+is being done and suffered and attained in the great busy world? I
+think you must be--for I have seen you and read what is written in
+your face. I believe you care for these things as I do--that your
+being thrills to the 'still, sad music of humanity'--that the songs of
+the poets I love find an echo in your spirit and the aspirations of
+all struggling souls a sympathy in your heart. Believing this, I have
+written freely to you, taking a keen pleasure in thus revealing my
+thoughts and visions to one who will understand. For I too am
+friendless, in the sense of one standing alone, shut out from the
+sweet, intimate communion of feeling and opinion that may be held with
+the heart's friends. Shall you have read this as a friend, I wonder--a
+candid, uncritical, understanding friend? Let me hope it, dear lady."
+
+I was expecting the third letter when it came--but not until it did
+come did I realize what my disappointment would have been if it had
+not. After that every week brought me a letter; soon those letters
+were the greatest interest in my life. I had given up all attempts to
+solve the mystery of their coming and was content to enjoy them for
+themselves alone. From week to week I looked forward to them with an
+eagerness that I would hardly confess, even to myself.
+
+And such letters as they were, growing longer and fuller and freer as
+time went on--such wise, witty, brilliant, pungent letters,
+stimulating all my torpid life into tingling zest! I had begun to
+look abroad in my small world for worthy work and found plenty to do.
+My unknown friend evidently kept track of my expanding efforts, for he
+commented and criticized, encouraged and advised freely. There was a
+humour in his letters that I liked; it leavened them with its sanity
+and reacted on me most wholesomely, counteracting many of the morbid
+tendencies and influences of my life. I found myself striving to live
+up to the writer's ideal of philosophy and ambition, as pictured,
+often unconsciously, in his letters.
+
+They were an intellectual stimulant as well. To understand them fully
+I found it necessary to acquaint myself thoroughly with the literature
+and art, the science and the politics they touched upon. After every
+letter there was something new for me to hunt out and learn and
+assimilate, until my old narrow mental attitude had so broadened and
+deepened, sweeping out into circles of thought I had never known or
+imagined, that I hardly knew myself.
+
+They had been coming for a year before I began to reply to them. I had
+often wished to do so--there were so many things I wanted to say and
+discuss, but it seemed foolish to write letters that could not be
+sent. One day a letter came that kindled my imagination and stirred my
+heart and soul so deeply that they insistently demanded answering
+expression. I sat down at my desk and wrote a full reply to it. Safe
+in the belief that the mysterious friend to whom it was written would
+never see it, I wrote with a perfect freedom and a total lack of
+self-consciousness that I could never have attained otherwise. The
+writing of that letter gave me a pleasure second only to that which
+the reading of his brought. For the first time I discovered the
+delight of revealing my thought unhindered by the conventions. Also, I
+understood better why the writer of those letters had written them.
+Doubtless he had enjoyed doing so and was not impelled thereto simply
+by a purely philanthropic wish to help me.
+
+When my letter was finished I sealed it up and locked it away in my
+desk with a smile at my middle-aged folly. What, I wondered, would all
+my sedate, serious friends, my associates of mission and hospital
+committees think if they knew. Well, everybody has, or should have, a
+pet nonsense in her life. I did not think mine was any sillier than
+some others I knew, and to myself I admitted that it was very sweet. I
+knew if those letters ceased to come all savour would go out of my
+life.
+
+After that I wrote a reply to every letter I received and kept them
+all locked up together. It was delightful. I wrote out all my doings
+and perplexities and hopes and plans and wishes--yes, and my dreams.
+The secret romance of it all made me look on existence with joyous,
+contented eyes.
+
+Gradually a change crept over the letters I received. Without ever
+affording the slightest clue to the identity of their writer they grew
+more intimate and personal. A subtle, caressing note of tenderness
+breathed from them and thrilled my heart curiously. I felt as if I
+were being drawn into the writer's life, admitted into the most sacred
+recesses of his thoughts and feelings. Yet it was all done so subtly,
+so delicately, that I was unconscious of the change until I discovered
+it in reading over the older letters and comparing them with the later
+ones.
+
+Finally a letter came--my first love letter, and surely never was a
+love letter received under stranger circumstances. It began abruptly
+as all the letters had begun, plunging into the middle of the writer's
+strain of thought without any preface. The first words drove the blood
+to my heart and then sent it flying hotly all over my face.
+
+    I love you. I must say it at last. Have you not guessed it
+    before? It has trembled on my pen in every line I have written
+    to you--yet I have never dared to shape it into words before.
+    I know not how I dare now. I only know that I must. What a
+    delight to write it out and know that you will read it.
+    Tonight the mood is on me to tell it to you recklessly and
+    lavishly, never pausing to stint or weigh words. Sweetheart, I
+    love you--love you--love you--dear true, faithful woman soul,
+    I love you with all the heart of a man.
+
+    Ever since I first saw you I have loved you. I can never come
+    to tell you so in spoken words; I can only love you from afar
+    and tell my love under the guise of impersonal friendship. It
+    matters not to you, but it matters more than all else in life
+    to me. I am glad that I love you, dear--glad, glad, glad.
+
+There was much more, for it was a long letter. When I had read it I
+buried my burning face in my hands, trembling with happiness. This
+strange confession of love meant so much to me; my heart leaped forth
+to meet it with answering love. What mattered it that we could never
+meet--that I could not even guess who my lover was? Somewhere in the
+world was a love that was mine alone and mine wholly and mine forever.
+What mattered his name or his station, or the mysterious barrier
+between us? Spirit leaped to spirit unhindered over the fettering
+bounds of matter and time. I loved and was beloved. Nothing else
+mattered.
+
+I wrote my answer to his letter. I wrote it fearlessly and
+unstintedly. Perhaps I could not have written so freely if the letter
+were to have been read by him; as it was, I poured out the riches of
+my love as fully as he had done. I kept nothing back, and across the
+gulf between us I vowed a faithful and enduring love in response to
+his.
+
+The next day I went to town on business with my lawyers. Neither of
+the members of the firm was in when I called, but I was an old client,
+and one of the clerks showed me into the private office to wait. As I
+sat down my eyes fell on a folded letter lying on the table beside
+me. With a shock of surprise I recognized the writing. I could not be
+mistaken--I should have recognized it anywhere.
+
+The letter was lying by its envelope, so folded that only the middle
+third of the page was visible. An irresistible impulse swept over me.
+Before I could reflect that I had no business to touch the letter,
+that perhaps it was unfair to my unknown friend to seek to discover
+his identity when he wished to hide it, I had turned the letter over
+and seen the signature.
+
+I laid it down again and stood up, dizzy, breathless, unseeing. Like a
+woman in a dream I walked through the outer office and into the
+street. I must have walked on for blocks before I became conscious of
+my surroundings. The name I had seen signed to that letter was Alan
+Fraser!
+
+No doubt the reader has long ago guessed it--has wondered why I had
+not. The fact remains that I had not. Out of the whole world Alan
+Fraser was the last man whom I should have suspected to be the writer
+of those letters--Alan Fraser, my hereditary enemy, who, I had been
+told, cherished the old feud so faithfully and bitterly, and hated our
+very name.
+
+And yet I now wondered at my long blindness. No one else could have
+written those letters--no one but him. I read them over one by one
+when I reached home and, now that I possessed the key, he revealed
+himself in every line, expression, thought. And he loved me!
+
+I thought of the old feud and hatred; I thought of my pride and
+traditions. They seemed like the dust and ashes of outworn
+things--things to be smiled at and cast aside. I took out all the
+letters I had written--all except the last one--sealed them up in a
+parcel and directed it to Alan Fraser. Then, summoning my groom, I
+bade him ride to Glenellyn with it. His look of amazement almost made
+me laugh, but after he was gone I felt dizzy and frightened at my own
+daring.
+
+When the autumn darkness came down I went to my room and dressed as
+the woman dresses who awaits the one man of all the world. I hardly
+knew what I hoped or expected, but I was all athrill with a nameless,
+inexplicable happiness. I admit I looked very eagerly into the mirror
+when I was done, and I thought that the result was not unpleasing.
+Beauty had never been mine, but a faint reflection of it came over me
+in the tremulous flush and excitement of the moment. Then the maid
+came up to tell me that Alan Fraser was in the library.
+
+I went down with my cold hands tightly clasped behind me. He was
+standing by the library table, a tall, broad-shouldered man, with the
+light striking upward on his dark, sensitive face and iron-grey hair.
+When he saw me he came quickly forward.
+
+"So you know--and you are not angry--your letters told me so much. I
+have loved you since that day in the beech wood, Isobel--Isobel."
+
+His eyes were kindling into mine. He held my hands in a close,
+impetuous clasp. His voice was infinitely caressing as he pronounced
+my name. I had never heard it since Father died--I had never heard it
+at all so musically and tenderly uttered. My ancestors might have
+turned in their graves just then--but it mattered not. Living love had
+driven out dead hatred.
+
+"Isobel," he went on, "there was _one_ letter unanswered--the last."
+
+I went to my desk, took out the last letter I had written and gave it
+to him in silence. While he read it I stood in a shadowy corner and
+watched him, wondering if life could always be as sweet as this. When
+he had finished he turned to me and held out his arms. I went to them
+as a bird to her nest, and with his lips against mine the old feud was
+blotted out forever.
+
+
+
+
+The Life-Book of Uncle Jesse
+
+
+Uncle Jesse! The name calls up the vision of him as I saw him so often
+in those two enchanted summers at Golden Gate; as I saw him the first
+time, when he stood in the open doorway of the little low-eaved
+cottage on the harbour shore, welcoming us to our new domicile with
+the gentle, unconscious courtesy that became him so well. A tall,
+ungainly figure, somewhat stooped, yet suggestive of great strength
+and endurance; a clean-shaven old face deeply lined and bronzed; a
+thick mane of iron-grey hair falling quite to his shoulders; and a
+pair of remarkably blue, deep-set eyes, which sometimes twinkled and
+sometimes dreamed, but oftener looked out seaward with a wistful
+question in them, as of one seeking something precious and lost. I was
+to learn one day what it was for which Uncle Jesse looked.
+
+It cannot be denied that Uncle Jesse was a homely man. His spare jaws,
+rugged mouth, and square brow were not fashioned on the lines of
+beauty, but though at first sight you thought him plain you never
+thought anything more about it--the spirit shining through that rugged
+tenement beautified it so wholly.
+
+Uncle Jesse was quite keenly aware of his lack of outward comeliness
+and lamented it, for he was a passionate worshipper of beauty in
+everything. He told Mother once that he'd rather like to be made over
+again and made handsome.
+
+"Folks say I'm good," he remarked whimsically, "but I sometimes wish
+the Lord had made me only half as good and put the rest of it into
+looks. But I reckon He knew what He was about, as a good Captain
+should. Some of us have to be homely or the purty ones--like Miss Mary
+there--wouldn't show up so well."
+
+I was not in the least pretty but Uncle Jesse was always telling me I
+was--and I loved him for it. He told the fib so prettily and sincerely
+that he almost made me believe it for the time being, and I really
+think he believed it himself. All women were lovely and of good report
+in his eyes, because of one he had loved. The only time I ever saw
+Uncle Jesse really angered was when someone in his hearing cast an
+aspersion on the character of a shore girl. The wretched man who did
+it fairly cringed when Uncle Jesse turned on him with lightning of eye
+and thundercloud of brow. At that moment I no longer found it hard to
+reconcile Uncle Jesse's simple, kindly personality with the wild,
+adventurous life he had lived.
+
+We went to Golden Gate in the spring. Mother's health had not been
+good and her doctor recommended sea air and quiet. Uncle James, when
+he heard it, proposed that we take possession of a small cottage at
+Golden Gate, to which he had recently fallen heir by the death of an
+old aunt who had lived in it.
+
+"I haven't been up to see it," he said, "but it is just as Aunt
+Elizabeth left it and she was the pink of neatness. The key is in the
+possession of an old sailor living nearby--Jesse Boyd is the name, I
+think. I imagine you can be very comfortable in it. It is built right
+on the harbour shore, inside the bar, and it is within five minutes'
+walk of the outside shore."
+
+Uncle James's offer fitted in very opportunely with our limp family
+purse, and we straightway betook ourselves to Golden Gate. We
+telegraphed to Jesse Boyd to have the house opened for us and, one
+crisp spring day, when a rollicking wind was scudding over the harbour
+and the dunes, whipping the water into white caps and washing the
+sandshore with long lines of silvery breakers, we alighted at the
+little station and walked the half mile to our new home, leaving our
+goods and chattels to be carted over in the evening by an obliging
+station agent's boy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our first glimpse of Aunt Elizabeth's cottage was a delight to soul
+and sense; it looked so like a big grey seashell stranded on the
+shore. Between it and the harbour was only a narrow strip of shingle,
+and behind it was a gnarled and battered fir wood where the winds were
+in the habit of harping all sorts of weird and haunting music. Inside,
+it was to prove even yet more quaint and delightful, with its low,
+dark-beamed ceilings and square, deep-set windows by which, whether
+open or shut, sea breezes entered at their own sweet will. The view
+from our door was magnificent, taking in the big harbour and sweeps of
+purple hills beyond. The entrance of the harbour gave it its name--a
+deep, narrow channel between the bar of sand dunes on the one side and
+a steep, high, frowning red sandstone cliff on the other. We
+appreciated its significance the first time we saw a splendid golden
+sunrise flooding it, coming out of the wonderful sea and sky beyond
+and billowing through that narrow passage in waves of light. Truly, it
+was a golden gate through which one might sail to "faerie lands
+forlorn."
+
+As we went along the path to our little house we were agreeably
+surprised to see a blue spiral of smoke curling up from its big,
+square chimney, and the next moment Uncle Jesse (we were calling him
+Uncle Jesse half an hour after we met him, so it seems scarcely
+worthwhile to begin with anything else) came to the door.
+
+"Welcome, ladies," he said, holding out a big, hard, but scrupulously
+clean hand. "I thought you'd be feeling a bit tired and hungry, maybe,
+so when I came over to open up I put on a fire and brewed you up a cup
+of tea. I just delight in being neighbourly and 'tain't often I have
+the chance."
+
+We found that Uncle Jesse's "cup of tea" meant a veritable spread. He
+had aired the little dining room, set out the table daintily with Aunt
+Elizabeth's china and linen--"knowed jest where to put my hands on
+'em--often and often helped old Miss Kennedy wash 'em. We were
+cronies, her and me. I miss her terrible"--and adorned it with
+mayflowers which, as we afterwards discovered, he had tramped several
+miles to gather. There was good bread and butter, "store" biscuits, a
+dish of tea fit for the gods on high Olympus, and a platter of the
+most delicious sea trout, done to a turn.
+
+"Thought they'd be tasty after travelling," said Uncle Jesse. "They're
+fresh as trout can be, ma'am. Two hours ago they was swimming in
+Johnson's pond yander. I caught 'em--yes, ma'am. It's about all I'm
+good for now, catching trout and cod occasional. But 'tweren't always
+so--not by no manner of means. I used to do other things, as you'd
+admit if you saw my life-book."
+
+I was so hungry and tired that I did not then "rise to the bait" of
+Uncle Jesse's "life-book." I simply wanted to begin on those trout.
+Mother insisted that Uncle Jesse sit down and help us eat the repast
+he had prepared, and he assented without undue coaxing.
+
+"Thank ye kindly. 'Twill be a real treat. I mostly has to eat my meals
+alone, with the reflection of my ugly old phiz in a looking glass
+opposite for company. 'Tisn't often I have the chance to sit down with
+two such sweet purty ladies."
+
+Uncle Jesse's compliments look bald enough on paper, but he paid them
+with such gracious, gentle deference of tone and look that the woman
+who received them felt that she was being offered a queen's gift in
+kingly fashion.
+
+He broke bread with us and from that moment we were all friends
+together and forever. After we had eaten all we could, we sat at our
+table for an hour and listened to Uncle Jesse telling us stories of
+his life.
+
+"If I talk too much you must jest check me," he said seriously, but
+with a twinkle in his eyes. "When I do get a chance to talk to anyone
+I'm apt to run on terrible."
+
+He had been a sailor from the time he was ten years old, and some of
+his adventures had such a marvellous edge that I secretly wondered if
+Uncle Jesse were not drawing a rather long bow at our credulous
+expense. But in this, as I found later, I did him injustice. His tales
+were all literally true, and Uncle Jesse had the gift of the born
+story-teller, whereby "unhappy, far-off things" can be brought vividly
+before the hearer and made to live again in all their pristine
+poignancy.
+
+Mother and I laughed and shivered over Uncle Jesse's tales, and once
+we found ourselves crying. Uncle Jesse surveyed our tears with
+pleasure shining out through his face like an illuminating lamp.
+
+"I like to make folks cry that way," he remarked. "It's a compliment.
+But I can't do justice to the things I've seen and helped do. I've got
+'em all jotted down in my life-book but I haven't got the knack of
+writing them out properly. If I had, I could make a great book, if I
+had the knack of hitting on just the right words and stringing
+everything together proper on paper. But I can't. It's in this poor
+human critter," Uncle Jesse patted his breast sorrowfully, "but he
+can't get it out."
+
+When Uncle Jesse went home that evening Mother asked him to come often
+to see us.
+
+"I wonder if you'd give that invitation if you knew how likely I'd be
+to accept it," he remarked whimsically.
+
+"Which is another way of saying you wonder if I meant it," smiled
+Mother. "I do, most heartily and sincerely."
+
+"Then I'll come. You'll likely be pestered with me at any hour. And
+I'd be proud to have you drop over to visit me now and then too. I
+live on that point yander. Neither me nor my house is worth coming to
+see. It's only got one room and a loft and a stovepipe sticking out of
+the roof for a chimney. But I've got a few little things lying around
+that I picked up in the queer corners I used to be poking my nose
+into. Mebbe they'd interest you."
+
+Uncle Jesse's "few little things" turned out to be the most
+interesting collection of curios I had ever seen. His one neat little
+living room was full of them--beautiful, hideous or quaint as the case
+might be, and almost all having some weird or exciting story attached.
+
+Mother and I had a beautiful summer at Golden Gate. We lived the life
+of two children with Uncle Jesse as a playmate. Our housekeeping was
+of the simplest description and we spent our hours rambling along the
+shores, reading on the rocks or sailing over the harbour in Uncle
+Jesse's trim little boat. Every day we loved the simple-souled, true,
+manly old sailor more and more. He was as refreshing as a sea breeze,
+as interesting as some ancient chronicle. We never tired of listening
+to his stories, and his quaint remarks and comments were a continual
+delight to us. Uncle Jesse was one of those interesting and rare
+people who, in the picturesque phraseology of the shore folks, "never
+speak but they say something." The milk of human kindness and the
+wisdom of the serpent were mingled in Uncle Jesse's composition in
+delightful proportions.
+
+One day he was absent all day and returned at nightfall.
+
+"Took a tramp back yander." "Back yander" with Uncle Jesse might mean
+the station hamlet or the city a hundred miles away or any place
+between--"to carry Mr. Kimball a mess of trout. He likes one
+occasional and it's all I can do for a kindness he did me once. I
+stayed all day to talk to him. He likes to talk to me, though he's an
+eddicated man, because he's one of the folks that's _got_ to talk or
+they're miserable, and he finds listeners scarce 'round here. The
+folks fight shy of him because they think he's an infidel. He ain't
+_that_ far gone exactly--few men is, I reckon--but he's what you might
+call a heretic. Heretics are wicked but they're mighty interesting.
+It's just that they've got sorter lost looking for God, being under
+the impression that He's hard to find--which He ain't, never. Most of
+'em blunder to Him after a while I guess. I don't think listening to
+Mr. Kimball's arguments is likely to do _me_ much harm. Mind you, I
+believe what I was brought up to believe. It saves a vast of
+trouble--and back of it all, God is good. The trouble with Mr. Kimball
+is, he's a leetle _too_ clever. He thinks he's bound to live up to
+his cleverness and that it's smarter to thrash out some new way of
+getting to heaven than to go by the old track the common, ignorant
+folks is travelling. But he'll get there sometime all right and then
+he'll laugh at himself."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nothing ever seemed to put Uncle Jesse out or depress him in any way.
+
+"I've kind of contracted a habit of enjoying things," he remarked
+once, when Mother had commented on his invariable cheerfulness. "It's
+got so chronic that I believe I even enjoy the disagreeable things.
+It's great fun thinking they can't last. 'Old rheumatiz,' I says, when
+it grips me hard, 'you've _got_ to stop aching sometime. The worse you
+are the sooner you'll stop, perhaps. I'm bound to get the better of
+you in the long run, whether in the body or out of the body.'"
+
+Uncle Jesse seldom came to our house without bringing us something,
+even if it were only a bunch of sweet grass.
+
+"I favour the smell of sweet grass," he said. "It always makes me
+think of my mother."
+
+"She was fond of it?"
+
+"Not that I knows on. Dunno's she ever saw any sweet grass. No, it's
+because it has a kind of motherly perfume--not too young, you
+understand--something kind of seasoned and wholesome and
+dependable--just like a mother."
+
+Uncle Jesse was a very early riser. He seldom missed a sunrise.
+
+"I've seen all kinds of sunrises come in through that there Gate," he
+said dreamily one morning when I myself had made a heroic effort at
+early rising and joined him on the rocks halfway between his house and
+ours. "I've been all over the world and, take it all in all, I've
+never seen a finer sight than a summer sunrise out there beyant the
+Gate. A man can't pick his time for dying, Mary--jest got to go when
+the Captain gives his sailing orders. But if I could I'd go out when
+the morning comes in there at the Gate. I've watched it a many times
+and thought what a thing it would be to pass out through that great
+white glory to whatever was waiting beyant, on a sea that ain't mapped
+out on any airthly chart. I think, Mary, I'd find lost Margaret
+there."
+
+He had already told me the story of "lost Margaret," as he always
+called her. He rarely spoke of her, but when he did his love for her
+trembled in every tone--a love that had never grown faint or
+forgetful. Uncle Jesse was seventy; it was fifty years since lost
+Margaret had fallen asleep one day in her father's dory and
+drifted--as was supposed, for nothing was ever known certainly of her
+fate--across the harbour and out of the Gate, to perish in the black
+thunder squall that had come up suddenly that long-ago afternoon. But
+to Uncle Jesse those fifty years were but as yesterday when it is
+past.
+
+"I walked the shore for months after that," he said sadly, "looking to
+find her dear, sweet little body, but the sea never gave her back to
+me. But I'll find her sometime. I wisht I could tell you just how she
+looked but I can't. I've seen a fine silvery mist hanging over the
+Gate at sunrise that seemed like her--and then again I've seen a white
+birch in the woods back yander that made me think of her. She had pale
+brown hair and a little white face, and long slender fingers like
+yours, Mary, only browner, for she was a shore girl. Sometimes I wake
+up in the night and hear the sea calling to me in the old way and it
+seems as if lost Margaret called in it. And when there's a storm and
+the waves are sobbing and moaning I hear her lamenting among them. And
+when they laugh on a gay day it's _her_ laugh--lost Margaret's sweet
+little laugh. The sea took her from me but some day I'll find her,
+Mary. It can't keep us apart forever."
+
+I had not been long at Golden Gate before I saw Uncle Jesse's
+"life-book," as he quaintly called it. He needed no coaxing to show it
+and he proudly gave it to me to read. It was an old leather-bound book
+filled with the record of his voyages and adventures. I thought what a
+veritable treasure trove it would be to a writer. Every sentence was a
+nugget. In itself the book had no literary merit; Uncle Jesse's charm
+of story-telling failed him when he came to pen and ink; he could only
+jot down roughly the outlines of his famous tales, and both spelling
+and grammar were sadly askew. But I felt that if anyone possessing the
+gift could take that simple record of a brave, adventurous life,
+reading between the bald lines the tale of dangers staunchly faced and
+duties manfully done, a wonderful story might be made from it. Pure
+comedy and thrilling tragedy were both lying hidden in Uncle Jesse's
+"life-book," waiting for the touch of the magician's hand to waken the
+laughter and grief and horror of thousands. I thought of my cousin,
+Robert Kennedy, who juggled with words in a masterly fashion, but
+complained that he found it hard to create incidents or characters.
+Here were both ready to his hand, but Robert was in Japan in the
+interests of his paper.
+
+In the fall, when the harbour lay black and sullen under November
+skies, Mother and I went back to town, parting with Uncle Jesse
+regretfully. We wanted him to visit us in town during the winter but
+he shook his head.
+
+"It's too far away, Mary. If lost Margaret called me I mightn't hear
+her there. I must be here when my time comes. It can't be very far off
+now."
+
+I wrote often to Uncle Jesse through the winter and sent him books and
+magazines. He enjoyed them but he thought--and truly enough--that none
+of them came up to his life-book for real interest.
+
+"If my life-book could be took and writ by someone that knowed how, it
+would beat them holler," he wrote in one of his few letters to me.
+
+In the spring we returned joyfully to Golden Gate. It was as golden as
+ever and the harbour as blue; the winds still rollicked as gaily and
+sweetly and the breakers boomed outside the bar as of yore. All was
+unchanged save Uncle Jesse. He had aged greatly and seemed frail and
+bent. After he had gone home from his first call on us, Mother cried.
+
+"Uncle Jesse will soon be going to seek lost Margaret," she said.
+
+In June Robert came. I took him promptly over to see Uncle Jesse, who
+was very much excited when he found that Robert was a "real writing
+man."
+
+"Robert wants to hear some of your stories, Uncle Jesse," I said.
+"Tell him the one about the captain who went crazy and imagined he was
+the Flying Dutchman."
+
+This was Uncle Jesse's best story. It was a compound of humour and
+horror, and though I had heard it several times, I laughed as heartily
+and shivered as fearsomely over it as Robert did. Other tales
+followed; Uncle Jesse told how his vessel had been run down by a
+steamer, how he had been boarded by Malay pirates, how his ship had
+caught fire, how he had helped a political prisoner escape from a
+South American republic. He never said a boastful word, but it was
+impossible to help seeing what a hero the man had been--brave, true,
+resourceful, unselfish, skilful. He sat there in his poor little room
+and made those things live again for us. By a lift of the eyebrow, a
+twist of the lip, a gesture, a word, he painted some whole scene or
+character so that we saw it as it was.
+
+Finally, he lent Robert his life-book. Robert sat up all night reading
+it and came to the breakfast table in great excitement.
+
+"Mary, this is a wonderful book. If I could take it and garb it
+properly--work it up into a systematic whole and string it on the
+thread of Uncle Jesse's romance of lost Margaret, it would be the
+novel of the year. Do you suppose he would let me do it?"
+
+"Let you! I think he would be delighted," I answered.
+
+And he was. He was as excited as a schoolboy over it. At last his
+cherished dream was to be realized and his life-book given to the
+world.
+
+"We'll collaborate," said Robert. "You will give the soul and I the
+body. Oh, we'll write a famous book between us, Uncle Jesse. And we'll
+get right to work."
+
+Uncle Jesse was a happy man that summer. He looked upon the little
+back room we gave up to Robert for a study as a sacred shrine. Robert
+talked everything over with Uncle Jesse but would not let him see the
+manuscript. "You must wait till it is published," he said. "Then
+you'll get it all at once in its best shape."
+
+Robert delved into the treasures of the life-book and used them
+freely. He dreamed and brooded over lost Margaret until she became a
+vivid reality to him and lived in his pages. As the book progressed it
+took possession of him and he worked at it with feverish eagerness. He
+let me read the manuscript and criticize it; and the concluding
+chapter of the book, which the critics later on were pleased to call
+idyllic, was modelled after my suggestions, so that I felt as if I had
+a share in it too.
+
+It was autumn when the book was finished. Robert went back to town,
+but Mother and I decided to stay at Golden Gate all winter. We loved
+the spot and, besides, I wished to remain for Uncle Jesse's sake. He
+was failing all the time, and after Robert went and the excitement of
+the book-making was past, he failed still more rapidly. His tramping
+expeditions were over and he seldom went out in his boat. Neither did
+he talk a great deal. He liked to come over and sit silently for hours
+at our seaward window, looking out wistfully toward the Gate with his
+swiftly whitening head leaning on his hand. The only keen interest he
+still had was in Robert's book. He waited and watched impatiently for
+its publication.
+
+"I want to live till I see it," he said, "just that long--then I'll be
+ready to go. He said it would be out in the spring--I must hang on
+till it comes, Mary."
+
+There were times when I doubted sadly if he would "hang on." As the
+winter wore away he grew frailer and frailer. But ever he looked
+forward to the coming of spring and "the book," _his_ book,
+transformed and glorified.
+
+One day in young April the book came at last. Uncle Jesse had gone to
+the post office faithfully every day for a month, expecting it, but
+this day he was too feeble to go and I went for him. The book was
+there. It was called simply, _The Life-Book of Jesse Boyd_, and on the
+title page the names of Robert Kennedy and Jesse Boyd were printed as
+collaborators.
+
+I shall never forget Uncle Jesse's face as I handed it to him. I came
+away and left him reading it, oblivious to all else. All night the
+light burned in his window, and I looked out across the sands to it
+and pictured the delight of the old man poring over the printed pages
+whereon his own life was portrayed. I wondered how he would like the
+ending--the ending I had suggested. I was never to know.
+
+After breakfast I went over to Uncle Jesse's house, taking some little
+delicacy Mother had cooked for him. It was an exquisite morning, full
+of delicate spring tints and sounds. The harbour was sparkling and
+dimpling like a girl, the winds were playing hide and seek roguishly
+among the stunted firs, and the silver-flashing gulls were soaring
+over the bar. Beyond the Gate was a shining, wonderful sea.
+
+When I reached the little house on the point I saw the lamp still
+burning wanly in the window. A quick alarm struck at my heart. Without
+waiting to knock, I lifted the latch, and entered.
+
+Uncle Jesse was lying on the old sofa by the window, with the book
+clasped to his heart. His eyes were closed and on his face was a look
+of the most perfect peace and happiness--the look of one who has long
+sought and found at last.
+
+We could not know at what hour he had died, but somehow I think he had
+his wish and went out when the morning came in through the Golden
+Gate. Out on that shining tide his spirit drifted, over the sunrise
+sea of pearl and silver, to the haven where lost Margaret waited
+beyond the storms and calms.
+
+
+
+
+The Little Black Doll
+
+
+Everybody in the Marshall household was excited on the evening of the
+concert at the Harbour Light Hotel--everybody, even to Little Joyce,
+who couldn't go to the concert because there wasn't anybody else to
+stay with Denise. Perhaps Denise was the most excited of them
+all--Denise, who was slowly dying of consumption in the Marshall
+kitchen chamber because there was no other place in the world for her
+to die in, or anybody to trouble about her. Mrs. Roderick Marshall
+thought it very good of herself to do so much for Denise. To be sure,
+Denise was not much bother, and Little Joyce did most of the waiting
+on her.
+
+At the tea table nothing was talked of but the concert; for was not
+Madame Laurin, the great French Canadian prima donna, at the hotel,
+and was she not going to sing? It was the opportunity of a
+lifetime--the Marshalls would not have missed it for anything.
+Stately, handsome old Grandmother Marshall was going, and Uncle
+Roderick and Aunt Isabella, and of course Chrissie, who was always
+taken everywhere because she was pretty and graceful, and everything
+that Little Joyce was not.
+
+Little Joyce would have liked to go to the concert, for she was very
+fond of music; and, besides, she wanted to be able to tell Denise all
+about it. But when you are shy and homely and thin and awkward, your
+grandmother never takes you anywhere. At least, such was Little
+Joyce's belief.
+
+Little Joyce knew quite well that Grandmother Marshall did not like
+her. She thought it was because she was so plain and awkward--and in
+part it was. Grandmother Marshall cared very little for granddaughters
+who did not do her credit. But Little Joyce's mother had married a
+poor man in the face of her family's disapproval, and then both she
+and her husband had been inconsiderate enough to die and leave a
+small orphan without a penny to support her. Grandmother Marshall fed
+and clothed the child, but who could make anything of such a shy
+creature with no gifts or graces whatever? Grandmother Marshall had no
+intention of trying. Chrissie, the golden-haired and pink-cheeked, was
+Grandmother Marshall's pet.
+
+Little Joyce knew this. She did not envy Chrissie but, oh, how she
+wished Grandmother Marshall would love her a little, too! Nobody loved
+her but Denise and the little black doll. And Little Joyce was
+beginning to understand that Denise would not be in the kitchen
+chamber very much longer, and the little black doll couldn't _tell_
+you she loved you--although she did, of course. Little Joyce had no
+doubt at all on this point.
+
+Little Joyce sighed so deeply over this thought that Uncle Roderick
+smiled at her. Uncle Roderick _did_ smile at her sometimes.
+
+"What is the matter, Little Joyce?" he asked.
+
+"I was thinking about my black doll," said Little Joyce timidly.
+
+"Ah, your black doll. If Madame Laurin were to see it, she'd likely
+want it. She makes a hobby of collecting dolls all over the world, but
+I doubt if she has in her collection a doll that served to amuse a
+little girl four thousand years ago in the court of the Pharaohs."
+
+"I think Joyce's black doll is very ugly," said Chrissie. "My wax doll
+with the yellow hair is ever so much prettier."
+
+"My black doll isn't ugly," cried Little Joyce indignantly. She could
+endure to be called ugly herself, but she could not bear to have her
+darling black doll called ugly. In her excitement she upset her cup of
+tea over the tablecloth. Aunt Isabella looked angry, and Grandmother
+Marshall said sharply: "Joyce, leave the table. You grow more awkward
+and careless every day."
+
+Little Joyce, on the verge of tears, crept away and went up the
+kitchen stairs to Denise to be comforted. But Denise herself had been
+crying. She lay on her little bed by the low window, where the glow of
+the sunset was coming in; her hollow cheeks were scarlet with fever.
+
+"Oh! I want so much to hear Madame Laurin sing," she sobbed. "I feel
+lak I could die easier if I hear her sing just one leetle song. She is
+Frenchwoman, too, and she sing all de ole French songs--de ole songs
+my mudder sing long 'go. Oh! I so want to hear Madame Laurin sing."
+
+"But you can't, dear Denise," said Little Joyce very softly, stroking
+Denise's hot forehead with her cool, slender hand. Little Joyce had
+very pretty hands, only nobody had ever noticed them. "You are not
+strong enough to go to the concert. I'll sing for you, if you like. Of
+course, I can't sing very well, but I'll do my best."
+
+"You sing lak a sweet bird, but you are not Madame Laurin," said
+Denise restlessly. "It is de great Madame I want to hear. I haf not
+long to live. Oh, I know, Leetle Joyce--I know what de doctor look
+lak--and I want to hear Madame Laurin sing 'fore I die. I know it is
+impossible--but I long for it so--just one leetle song."
+
+Denise put her thin hands over her face and sobbed again. Little Joyce
+went and sat down by the window, looking out into the white birches.
+Her heart ached bitterly. Dear Denise was going to die soon--oh, very
+soon! Little Joyce, wise and knowing beyond her years, saw that. And
+Denise wanted to hear Madame Laurin sing. It seemed a foolish thing to
+think of, but Little Joyce thought hard about it; and when she had
+finished thinking, she got her little black doll and took it to bed
+with her, and there she cried herself to sleep.
+
+At the breakfast table next morning the Marshalls talked about the
+concert and the wonderful Madame Laurin. Little Joyce listened in her
+usual silence; her crying the night before had not improved her looks
+any. Never, thought handsome Grandmother Marshall, had she appeared so
+sallow and homely. Really, Grandmother Marshall could not have the
+patience to look at her. She decided that she would not take Joyce
+driving with her and Chrissie that afternoon, as she had thought of,
+after all.
+
+In the forenoon it was discovered that Denise was much worse, and the
+doctor was sent for. He came, and shook his head, that being really
+all he could do under the circumstances. When he went away, he was
+waylaid at the back door by a small gypsy with big, black, serious
+eyes and long black hair.
+
+"Is Denise going to die?" Little Joyce asked in the blunt,
+straightforward fashion Grandmother Marshall found so trying.
+
+The doctor looked at her from under his shaggy brows and decided that
+here was one of the people to whom you might as well tell the truth
+first as last, because they are bound to have it.
+
+"Yes," he said.
+
+"Soon?"
+
+"Very soon, I'm afraid. In a few days at most."
+
+"Thank you," said Little Joyce gravely.
+
+She went to her room and did something with the black doll. She did
+not cry, but if you could have seen her face you would have wished she
+would cry.
+
+After dinner Grandmother Marshall and Chrissie drove away, and Uncle
+Roderick and Aunt Isabella went away, too. Little Joyce crept up to
+the kitchen chamber. Denise was lying in an uneasy sleep, with tear
+stains on her face. Then Little Joyce tiptoed down and sped away to
+the hotel.
+
+She did not know just what she would say or do when she got there, but
+she thought hard all the way to the end of the shore road. When she
+came out to the shore, a lady was sitting alone on a big rock--a lady
+with a dark, beautiful face and wonderful eyes. Little Joyce stopped
+before her and looked at her meditatively. Perhaps it would be well to
+ask advice of this lady.
+
+"If you please," said Little Joyce, who was never shy with strangers,
+for whose opinion she didn't care at all, "I want to see Madame Laurin
+at the hotel and ask her to do me a very great favour. Will you tell
+me the best way to go about seeing her? I shall be much obliged to
+you."
+
+"What is the favour you want to ask of Madame Laurin?" inquired the
+lady, smiling.
+
+"I want to ask her if she will come and sing for Denise before she
+dies--before Denise dies, I mean. Denise is our French girl, and the
+doctor says she cannot live very long, and she wishes with all her
+heart to hear Madame Laurin sing. It is very bitter, you know, to be
+dying and want something very much and not be able to get it."
+
+"Do you think Madame Laurin will go?" asked the lady.
+
+"I don't know. I am going to offer her my little black doll. If she
+will not come for that, there is nothing else I can do."
+
+A flash of interest lighted up the lady's brown eyes. She bent
+forward.
+
+"Is it your doll you have in that box? Will you let me see it?"
+
+Little Joyce nodded. Mutely she opened the box and took out the black
+doll. The lady gave an exclamation of amazed delight and almost
+snatched it from Little Joyce. It was a very peculiar little doll
+indeed, carved out of some black polished wood.
+
+"Child, where in the world did you get this?" she cried.
+
+"Father got it out of a grave in Egypt," said Little Joyce. "It was
+buried with the mummy of a little girl who lived four thousand years
+ago, Uncle Roderick says. She must have loved her doll very much to
+have had it buried with her, mustn't she? But she could not have loved
+it any more than I do."
+
+"And yet you are going to give it away?" said the lady, looking at her
+keenly.
+
+"For Denise's sake," explained Little Joyce. "I would do anything for
+Denise because I love her and she loves me. When the only person in
+the world who loves you is going to die, there is nothing you would
+not do for her if you could. Denise was so good to me before she took
+sick. She used to kiss me and play with me and make little cakes for
+me and tell me beautiful stories."
+
+The lady put the little black doll back in the box. Then she stood up
+and held out her hand.
+
+"Come," she said. "I am Madame Laurin, and I shall go and sing for
+Denise."
+
+Little Joyce piloted Madame Laurin home and into the kitchen and up
+the back stairs to the kitchen chamber--a proceeding which would have
+filled Aunt Isabella with horror if she had known. But Madame Laurin
+did not seem to mind, and Little Joyce never thought about it at all.
+It was Little Joyce's awkward, unMarshall-like fashion to go to a
+place by the shortest way there, even if it was up the kitchen stairs.
+
+Madame Laurin stood in the bare little room and looked pityingly at
+the wasted, wistful face on the pillow.
+
+"This is Madame Laurin, and she is going to sing for you, Denise,"
+whispered Little Joyce.
+
+Denise's face lighted up, and she clasped her hands.
+
+"If you please," she said faintly. "A French song, Madame--de ole
+French song dey sing long 'go."
+
+Then did Madame Laurin sing. Never had that kitchen chamber been so
+filled with glorious melody. Song after song she sang--the old
+folklore songs of the _habitant_, the songs perhaps that Evangeline
+listened to in her childhood.
+
+Little Joyce knelt by the bed, her eyes on the singer like one
+entranced. Denise lay with her face full of joy and rapture--such joy
+and rapture! Little Joyce did not regret the sacrifice of her black
+doll--never could regret it, as long as she remembered Denise's look.
+
+"T'ank you, Madame," said Denise brokenly, when Madame ceased. "Dat
+was so beautiful--de angel, dey cannot sing more sweet. I love music
+so much, Madame. Leetle Joyce, she sing to me often and often--she
+sing sweet, but not lak you--oh, not lak you."
+
+"Little Joyce must sing for me," said Madame, smiling, as she sat down
+by the window. "I always like to hear fresh, childish voices. Will
+you, Little Joyce?"
+
+"Oh, yes." Little Joyce was quite unembarrassed and perfectly willing
+to do anything she could for this wonderful woman who had brought that
+look to Denise's face. "I will sing as well as I can for you. Of
+course, I can't sing very well and I don't know anything but hymns. I
+always sing hymns for Denise, although she is a Catholic and the hymns
+are Protestant. But her priest told her it was all right, because all
+music was of God. Denise's priest is a very nice man, and I like him.
+He thought my little black doll--_your_ little black doll--was
+splendid. I'll sing 'Lead, Kindly Light.' That is Denise's favourite
+hymn."
+
+Then Little Joyce, slipping her hand into Denise's, began to sing. At
+the first note Madame Laurin, who had been gazing out of the window
+with a rather listless smile, turned quickly and looked at Little
+Joyce with amazed eyes. Delight followed amazement, and when Little
+Joyce had finished, the great Madame rose impulsively, her face and
+eyes glowing, stepped swiftly to Little Joyce and took the thin dark
+face between her gemmed hands.
+
+"Child, do you know what a wonderful voice you have--what a marvellous
+voice? It is--it is--I never heard such a voice in a child of your
+age. Mine was nothing to it--nothing at all. You will be a great
+singer some day--far greater than I--yes. But you must have the
+training. Where are your parents? I must see them."
+
+"I have no parents," said the bewildered Little Joyce. "I belong to
+Grandmother Marshall, and she is out driving."
+
+"Then I shall wait until your Grandmother Marshall comes home from her
+drive," said Madame Laurin decidedly.
+
+Half an hour later a very much surprised old lady was listening to
+Madame Laurin's enthusiastic statements.
+
+"How is it I have never heard you sing, if you can sing so well?"
+asked Grandmother Marshall, looking at Little Joyce with something in
+her eyes that had never been in them before--as Little Joyce instantly
+felt to the core of her sensitive soul. But Little Joyce hung her
+head. It had never occurred to her to sing in Grandmother Marshall's
+presence.
+
+"This child must be trained by-and-by," said Madame Laurin. "If you
+cannot afford it, Mrs. Marshall, I will see to it. Such a voice must
+not be wasted."
+
+"Thank you, Madame Laurin," said Grandmother Marshall with a gracious
+dignity, "but I am quite able to give my granddaughter all the
+necessary advantages for the development of her gift. And I thank you
+very much for telling me of it."
+
+Madame Laurin bent and kissed Little Joyce's brown cheek.
+
+"Little gypsy, good-by. But come every day to this hotel to see me.
+And next summer I shall be back. I like you--because some day you will
+be a great singer and because today you are a loving, unselfish baby."
+
+"You have forgotten the little black doll, Madame," said Little Joyce
+gravely.
+
+Madame threw up her hands, laughing. "No, no, I shall not take your
+little black doll of the four thousand years. Keep it for a mascot. A
+great singer always needs a mascot. But do not, I command you, take it
+out of the box till I am gone, for if I were to see it again, I might
+not be able to resist the temptation. Some day I shall show you _my_
+dolls, but there is not such a gem among them."
+
+When Madame Laurin had gone, Grandmother Marshall looked at Little
+Joyce.
+
+"Come to my room, Joyce. I want to see if we cannot find a more
+becoming way of arranging your hair. It has grown so thick and long. I
+had no idea how thick and long. Yes, we must certainly find a better
+way than that stiff braid. Come!"
+
+Little Joyce, taking Grandmother Marshall's extended hand, felt very
+happy. She realized that this strange, stately old lady, who never
+liked little girls unless they were pretty or graceful or clever, was
+beginning to love her at last.
+
+
+
+
+The Man on the Train
+
+
+When the telegram came from William George, Grandma Sheldon was all
+alone with Cyrus and Louise. And Cyrus and Louise, aged respectively
+twelve and eleven, were not very much good, Grandma thought, when it
+came to advising what was to be done. Grandma was "all in a flutter,
+dear, oh dear," as she said.
+
+The telegram said that Delia, William George's wife, was seriously ill
+down at Green Village, and William George wanted Samuel to bring
+Grandma down immediately. Delia had always thought there was nobody
+like Grandma when it came to nursing sick folks.
+
+But Samuel and his wife were both away--had been away for two days and
+intended to be away for five more. They had driven to Sinclair, twenty
+miles away, to visit with Mrs. Samuel's folks for a week.
+
+"Dear, oh dear, what shall I do?" said Grandma.
+
+"Go right to Green Village on the evening train," said Cyrus briskly.
+
+"Dear, oh dear, and leave you two alone!" cried Grandma.
+
+"Louise and I will do very well until tomorrow," said Cyrus sturdily.
+"We will send word to Sinclair by today's mail, and Father and Mother
+will be home by tomorrow night."
+
+"But I never was on the cars in my life," protested Grandma nervously.
+"I'm--I'm so frightened to start alone. And you never know what kind
+of people you may meet on the train."
+
+"You'll be all right, Grandma. I'll drive you to the station, get you
+your ticket, and put you on the train. Then you'll have nothing to do
+until the train gets to Green Village. I'll send a telegram to Uncle
+William George to meet you."
+
+"I shall fall and break my neck getting off the train," said Grandma
+pessimistically. But she was wondering at the same time whether she
+had better take the black valise or the yellow, and whether William
+George would be likely to have plenty of flaxseed in the house.
+
+It was six miles to the station, and Cyrus drove Grandma over in time
+to catch a train that reached Green Village at nine o'clock.
+
+"Dear, oh dear," said Grandma, "what if William George's folks ain't
+there to meet me? It's all very well, Cyrus, to say that they will be
+there, but you don't know. And it's all very well to say not to be
+nervous because everything will be all right. If you were seventy-five
+years old and had never set foot on the cars in your life you'd be
+nervous too, and you can't be sure that everything will be all right.
+You never know what sort of people you'll meet on the train. I may get
+on the wrong train or lose my ticket or get carried past Green Village
+or get my pocket picked. Well, no, I won't do that, for not one cent
+will I carry with me. You shall take back home all the money you don't
+need to get my ticket. Then I shall be easier in my mind. Dear, oh
+dear, if it wasn't that Delia is so seriously ill I wouldn't go one
+step."
+
+"Oh, you'll be all right, Grandma," assured Cyrus.
+
+He got Grandma's ticket for her and Grandma tied it up in the corner
+of her handkerchief. Then the train came in and Grandma, clinging
+closely to Cyrus, was put on it. Cyrus found a comfortable seat for
+her and shook hands cheerily.
+
+"Good-bye, Grandma. Don't be frightened. Here's the _Weekly Argus_. I
+got it at the store. You may like to look over it."
+
+Then Cyrus was gone, and in a minute the station house and platform
+began to glide away.
+
+Dear, oh dear, what has happened to it? thought Grandma in dismay. The
+next moment she exclaimed aloud, "Why, it's us that's moving, not it!"
+
+Some of the passengers smiled pleasantly at Grandma. She was the
+variety of old lady at which people do smile pleasantly; a grandma
+with round, pink cheeks, soft, brown eyes, and lovely snow-white curls
+is a nice person to look at wherever she is found.
+
+After a while Grandma, to her amazement, discovered that she liked
+riding on the cars. It was not at all the disagreeable experience she
+had expected it to be. Why, she was just as comfortable as if she were
+in her own rocking chair at home! And there was such a lot of people
+to look at, and many of the ladies had such beautiful dresses and
+hats. After all, the people you met on a train, thought Grandma, are
+surprisingly like the people you meet off it. If it had not been for
+wondering how she would get off at Green Village, Grandma would have
+enjoyed herself thoroughly.
+
+Four or five stations farther on the train halted at a lonely-looking
+place consisting of the station house and a barn, surrounded by scrub
+woods and blueberry barrens. One passenger got on and, finding only
+one vacant seat in the crowded car, sat right down beside Grandma
+Sheldon.
+
+Grandma Sheldon held her breath while she looked him over. Was he a
+pickpocket? He didn't appear like one, but you can never be sure of
+the people you meet on the train. Grandma remembered with a sigh of
+thankfulness that she had no money.
+
+Besides, he seemed really very respectable and harmless. He was
+quietly dressed in a suit of dark-blue serge with a black overcoat. He
+wore his hat well down on his forehead and was clean shaven. His hair
+was very black, but his eyes were blue--nice eyes, Grandma thought.
+She always felt great confidence in a man who had bright, open, blue
+eyes. Grandpa Sheldon, who had died so long ago, four years after
+their marriage, had had bright blue eyes.
+
+To be sure, he had fair hair, reflected Grandma. It's real odd to see
+such black hair with such light blue eyes. Well, he's real nice
+looking, and I don't believe there's a mite of harm in him.
+
+The early autumn night had now fallen and Grandma could not amuse
+herself by watching the scenery. She bethought herself of the paper
+Cyrus had given her and took it out of her basket. It was an old
+weekly a fortnight back. On the first page was a long account of a
+murder case with scare heads, and into this Grandma plunged eagerly.
+Sweet old Grandma Sheldon, who would not have harmed a fly and hated
+to see even a mousetrap set, simply revelled in the newspaper accounts
+of murders. And the more shocking and cold-blooded they were, the more
+eagerly did Grandma read of them.
+
+This murder story was particularly good from Grandma's point of view;
+it was full of "thrills." A man had been shot down, apparently in cold
+blood, and his supposed murderer was still at large and had eluded all
+the efforts of justice to capture him. His name was Mark Hartwell, and
+he was described as a tall, fair man, with full auburn beard and
+curly, light hair.
+
+"What a shocking thing!" said Grandma aloud.
+
+Her companion looked at her with a kindly, amused smile.
+
+"What is it?" he asked.
+
+"Why, this murder at Charlotteville," answered Grandma, forgetting, in
+her excitement, that it was not safe to talk to people you meet on the
+train. "It just makes my blood run cold to read about it. And to think
+that the man who did it is still around the country somewhere--plotting
+other murders, I haven't a doubt. What is the good of the police?"
+
+"They're dull fellows," agreed the dark man.
+
+"But I don't envy that man his conscience," said Grandma solemnly--and
+somewhat inconsistently, in view of her statement about the other
+murders that were being plotted. "What must a man feel like who has
+the blood of a fellow creature on his hands? Depend upon it, his
+punishment has begun already, caught or not."
+
+"That is true," said the dark man quietly.
+
+"Such a good-looking man too," said Grandma, looking wistfully at the
+murderer's picture. "It doesn't seem possible that he can have killed
+anybody. But the paper says there isn't a doubt."
+
+"He is probably guilty," said the dark man, "but nothing is known of
+his provocation. The affair may not have been so cold-blooded as the
+accounts state. Those newspaper fellows never err on the side of
+undercolouring."
+
+"I really think," said Grandma slowly, "that I would like to see a
+murderer--just one. Whenever I say anything like that, Adelaide--Adelaide
+is Samuel's wife--looks at me as if she thought there was something
+wrong about me. And perhaps there is, but I do, all the same. When I
+was a little girl, there was a man in our settlement who was suspected
+of poisoning his wife. She died very suddenly. I used to look at him
+with such interest. But it wasn't satisfactory, because you could never
+be sure whether he was really guilty or not. I never could believe that
+he was, because he was such a nice man in some ways and so good and
+kind to children. I don't believe a man who was bad enough to poison
+his wife could have any good in him."
+
+"Perhaps not," agreed the dark man. He had absent-mindedly folded up
+Grandma's old copy of the _Argus_ and put it in his pocket. Grandma
+did not like to ask him for it, although she would have liked to see
+if there were any more murder stories in it. Besides, just at that
+moment the conductor came around for tickets.
+
+Grandma looked in the basket for her handkerchief. It was not there.
+She looked on the floor and on the seat and under the seat. It was not
+there. She stood up and shook herself--still no handkerchief.
+
+"Dear, oh dear," exclaimed Grandma wildly, "I've lost my ticket--I
+always knew I would--I told Cyrus I would! Oh, where can it be?"
+
+The conductor scowled unsympathetically. The dark man got up and
+helped Grandma search, but no ticket was to be found.
+
+"You'll have to pay the money then, and something extra," said the
+conductor gruffly.
+
+"I can't--I haven't a cent of money," wailed Grandma. "I gave it all
+to Cyrus because I was afraid my pocket would be picked. Oh, what
+shall I do?"
+
+"Don't worry. I'll make it all right," said the dark man. He took out
+his pocketbook and handed the conductor a bill. That functionary
+grumblingly made the change and marched onward, while Grandma, pale
+with excitement and relief, sank back into her seat.
+
+"I can't tell you how much I am obliged to you, sir," she said
+tremulously. "I don't know what I should have done. Would he have put
+me off right here in the snow?"
+
+"I hardly think he would have gone to such lengths," said the dark man
+with a smile. "But he's a cranky, disobliging fellow enough--I know
+him of old. And you must not feel overly grateful to me. I am glad of
+the opportunity to help you. I had an old grandmother myself once,"
+he added with a sigh.
+
+"You must give me your name and address, of course," said Grandma,
+"and my son--Samuel Sheldon of Midverne--will see that the money is
+returned to you. Well, this is a lesson to me! I'll never trust myself
+on a train again, and all I wish is that I was safely off this one.
+This fuss has worked my nerves all up again."
+
+"Don't worry, Grandma. I'll see you safely off the train when we get
+to Green Village."
+
+"Will you, though? Will you, now?" said Grandma eagerly. "I'll be real
+easy in my mind, then," she added with a returning smile. "I feel as
+if I could trust you for anything--and I'm a real suspicious person
+too."
+
+They had a long talk after that--or, rather, Grandma talked and the
+dark man listened and smiled. She told him all about William George
+and Delia and their baby and about Samuel and Adelaide and Cyrus and
+Louise and the three cats and the parrot. He seemed to enjoy her
+accounts of them too.
+
+When they reached Green Village station he gathered up Grandma's
+parcels and helped her tenderly off the train.
+
+"Anybody here to meet Mrs. Sheldon?" he asked of the station master.
+
+The latter shook his head. "Don't think so. Haven't seen anybody here
+to meet anybody tonight."
+
+"Dear, oh dear," said poor Grandma. "This is just what I expected.
+They've never got Cyrus's telegram. Well, I might have known it. What
+shall I do?"
+
+"How far is it to your son's?" asked the dark man.
+
+"Only half a mile--just over the hill there. But I'll never get there
+alone this dark night."
+
+"Of course not. But I'll go with you. The road is good--we'll do
+finely."
+
+"But that train won't wait for you," gasped Grandma, half in protest.
+
+"It doesn't matter. The Starmont freight passes here in half an hour
+and I'll go on her. Come along, Grandma."
+
+"Oh, but you're good," said Grandma. "Some woman is proud to have you
+for a son."
+
+The man did not answer. He had not answered any of the personal
+remarks Grandma had made to him in her conversation.
+
+They were not long in reaching William George Sheldon's house, for the
+village road was good and Grandma was smart on her feet. She was
+welcomed with eagerness and surprise.
+
+"To think that there was no one to meet you!" exclaimed William
+George. "But I never dreamed of your coming by train, knowing how you
+were set against it. Telegram? No, I got no telegram. S'pose Cyrus
+forgot to send it. I'm most heartily obliged to you, sir, for looking
+after my mother so kindly."
+
+"It was a pleasure," said the dark man courteously. He had taken off
+his hat, and they saw a curious scar, shaped like a large, red
+butterfly, high up on his forehead under his hair. "I am delighted to
+have been of any assistance to her."
+
+He would not wait for supper--the next train would be in and he must
+not miss it.
+
+"There are people looking for me," he said with his curious smile.
+"They will be much disappointed if they do not find me."
+
+He had gone, and the whistle of the Starmont freight had blown before
+Grandma remembered that he had not given her his name and address.
+
+"Dear, oh dear, how are we ever going to send that money to him?" she
+exclaimed. "And he so nice and goodhearted!"
+
+Grandma worried over this for a week in the intervals of looking after
+Delia. One day William George came in with a large city daily in his
+hands. He looked curiously at Grandma and then showed her the
+front-page picture of a man, clean-shaven, with an oddly shaped scar
+high up on his forehead.
+
+"Did you ever see that man, Mother?" he asked.
+
+"Of course I did," said Grandma excitedly. "Why, it's the man I met on
+the train. Who is he? What is his name? Now, we'll know where to
+send--"
+
+"That is Mark Hartwell, who shot Amos Gray at Charlotteville three
+weeks ago," said William George quietly.
+
+Grandma looked at him blankly for a moment.
+
+"It couldn't be," she gasped at last. "That man a murderer! I'll never
+believe it!"
+
+"It's true enough, Mother. The whole story is here. He had shaved his
+beard and dyed his hair and came near getting clear out of the
+country. They were on his trail the day he came down in the train with
+you and lost it because of his getting off to bring you here. His
+disguise was so perfect that there was little fear of his being
+recognized so long as he hid that scar. But it was seen in Montreal
+and he was run to earth there. He has made a full confession."
+
+"I don't care," cried Grandma valiantly. "I'll never believe he was
+all bad--a man who would do what he did for a poor old woman like me,
+when he was flying for his life too. No, no, there was good in him
+even if he did kill that man. And I'm sure he must feel terrible over
+it."
+
+In this view Grandma persisted. She never would say or listen to a
+word against Mark Hartwell, and she had only pity for him whom
+everyone else condemned. With her own trembling hands she wrote him a
+letter to accompany the money Samuel sent before Hartwell was taken to
+the penitentiary for life. She thanked him again for his kindness to
+her and assured him that she knew he was sorry for what he had done
+and that she would pray for him every night of her life. Mark Hartwell
+had been hard and defiant enough, but the prison officials told that
+he cried like a child over Grandma Sheldon's little letter.
+
+"There's nobody all bad," says Grandma when she relates the story. "I
+used to believe a murderer must be, but I know better now. I think of
+that poor man often and often. He was so kind and gentle to me--he
+must have been a good boy once. I write him a letter every Christmas
+and I send him tracts and papers. He's my own little charity. But I've
+never been on the cars since and I never will be again. You never can
+tell what will happen to you or what sort of people you'll meet if you
+trust yourself on a train."
+
+
+
+
+The Romance of Jedediah
+
+
+Jedediah was not a name that savoured of romance. His last name was
+Crane, which is little better. And it would be no use to call this
+story "Mattie Adams's Romance" because Mattie Adams is not a romantic
+name either. But names have really nothing to do with romance. The
+most exciting and tragic affair I ever knew was between a man named
+Silas Putdammer and a woman named Kezia Cullen--which has nothing to
+do with the present story.
+
+Jedediah, to all outward seeming, did not appear to be any more
+romantic than his name. He looked distinctly commonplace as he rode
+comfortably along the winding country road that was dreaming in the
+haze and sunshine of a midsummer afternoon. He was perched on the
+seat of a bright red pedlar's wagon, above and behind a dusty,
+ambling, red pony of that peculiar gait and appearance pertaining to
+the ponies of country pedlars--a certain placid, unhasting leanness,
+as of a nag that has encountered troubles of his own and has lived
+them down by sheer patience and staying power. From the bright red
+wagon proceeded a certain metallic rumbling and clinking as it bowled
+along, and two or three nests of tin pans on its flat rope-encircled
+top flashed back the light so dazzlingly that Jedediah seemed the
+beaming sun of a little planetary system all his own. A new broom
+sticking up aggressively at each of the four corners gave the wagon a
+resemblance to a triumphal chariot.
+
+Jedediah himself had not been in the tin-peddling business long enough
+to acquire the apologetic, out-at-elbows appearance which
+distinguishes a tin pedlar from other kinds of pedlars. In fact, this
+was his maiden venture in this line; hence he still looked plump and
+self-respecting. He had a round red face under his plug hat, twinkling
+blue eyes, and a little pursed-up mouth, the shape of which was partly
+due to nature and partly to much whistling. Jedediah's pudgy body was
+clothed in a suit of large, light checks, and he wore a bright pink
+necktie and an amethyst pin. Will I still be believed when I assert
+that, in spite of all this, Jedediah was full of, and bubbling over
+with, romance?
+
+Romance cares not for appearances and apparently delights in
+contradictions. The homely shambling man you pass unnoticed on the
+street may have, tucked away in his past, a story more exciting and
+thrilling than anything you have ever read in fiction. So it was, in a
+measure, with Jedediah; poor, unknown to fame, afflicted with a double
+chin and bald spot, reduced to driving a tin-wagon for a living, he
+yet had his romance and he was still romantic.
+
+As Jedediah rode through Amberley he looked about him with interest.
+He knew it well, although it was fifteen years since he had seen it.
+He had been born and brought up in Amberley; he had left it at the age
+of twenty-five to make his fortune. But Amberley was Amberley still.
+Jedediah found it hard to believe that it or himself was fifteen years
+older.
+
+"There's the Stanton place," he said. "Charlie has painted the house
+yellow--it used to be white; and Bob Hollman has cut the trees down
+behind the blacksmith forge. Bob never had any poetry in his soul--no
+romance, as you might say. He was what you might call a plodder--you
+might call him that. Get up, my nag, get up. There's the old Harkness
+place--seems to be spruced up considerable. Folks used to say if ye
+wanted to see how the world looked the morning after the flood just go
+into George Harkness's barn-yard on a rainy day. The pond and the old
+hills ain't changed any. Get up, my nag, get up. There's the Adams
+homestead. Do I really behold it again?"
+
+Jedediah thought the moment deliciously romantic. He revelled in it
+and, to match his exhilarated mood, he touched the pony with his whip
+and went clinking and glittering down the hill under the poplars at a
+dashing rate. He had not intended to offer his wares in Amberley that
+day. He meant to break the ice in Occidental, the village beyond. But
+he could not pass the Adams place. When he came to the open gate he
+turned in under the willows and drove down the wide, shady lane, girt
+on both sides with a trim white paling smothered in lavish sweetbriar
+bushes that were gay with bloom. Jedediah's heart was beating
+furiously under his checks.
+
+"What a fool you are, Jed Crane," he told himself. "You used to be a
+young fool, and now you're an old one. Sad, that! Get up, my nag, get
+up. It's a poor lookout for a man of your years, Jed. Don't get
+excited. It ain't the least likely that Mattie Adams is here yet.
+She's married and gone years ago, no doubt. It's probable there's no
+Adamses here at all now. But it's romantic, yes, it's romantic. It's
+splendid. Get up, my nag, get up."
+
+The Adams place itself was not unromantic. The house was a large,
+old-fashioned white one, with green shutters and a front porch with
+Grecian columns. These were thought very elegant in Amberley. Mrs.
+Carmody said they gave a house such a classical air. In this instance
+the classical effect was somewhat smothered in honeysuckle, which
+rioted over the whole porch and hung in pale yellow, fragrant
+festoons over the rows of potted scarlet geraniums that flanked the
+green steps. Beyond the house a low-boughed orchard covered the slope
+between it and the main road, and behind it there was a revel of
+colour betokening a flower garden.
+
+Jedediah climbed down from his lofty seat and walked dubiously to a
+side door that looked more friendly, despite its prim screen, than the
+classical front porch. As he drew near he saw a woman sitting behind
+the screen--a woman who rose as he approached and opened the door.
+Jedediah's heart had been beating a wild tattoo as he crossed the
+yard. It now stopped altogether--at least he declared in later years
+it did.
+
+The woman was Mattie Adams--Mattie Adams fifteen years older than when
+he had seen her last, plumper, rosier, somewhat broader-faced, but
+still unmistakably Mattie Adams. Jedediah felt that the situation was
+delicious.
+
+"Mattie," he said, holding out his hand.
+
+"Why, Jed, how are you?" said Mattie, as if they had parted the week
+before. It had always taken a great deal to disturb Mattie. Whatever
+happened she was calm. Even an old lover, and the only one she had
+ever possessed at that, dropping, so to speak, from the skies, after
+fifteen years' disappearance, did not ruffle her placidity.
+
+"I didn't suppose you'd know me, Mattie," said Jedediah, still holding
+her hand foolishly.
+
+"I knew you the minute I set eyes on you," returned Mattie. "You're
+some fatter and older--like myself--but you're Jed still. Where have
+you been all these years?"
+
+"Pretty near everywhere, Mattie--pretty near everywhere. And ye see
+what it's come to--here I be driving a tin-wagon for Boone Brothers.
+Business is business--don't you want to buy some new tinware?"
+
+To himself, Jed thought it was romantic, asking a woman whom he had
+loved all his life to buy tins on the occasion of their first meeting
+after fifteen years' separation.
+
+"I don't know but I do want a quart measure," said Mattie, in her
+sweet, unchanged voice, "but all in good time. You must stay and have
+tea with me, Jed. I'm all alone now--Mother and Father have gone.
+Unhitch your horse and put him in the third stall in the stable."
+
+Jed hesitated.
+
+"I ought to be getting on, I s'pose," he said wistfully. "I hain't
+done much today--"
+
+"You must stay to tea," interrupted Mattie. "Why, Jed, there's ever so
+much to tell and ask. And we can't stand here in the yard and talk.
+Look at Selena. There she is, watching us from the kitchen window.
+She'll watch as long as we stand here."
+
+Jed swung himself around. Over the little valley below the Adams
+homestead was a steep, treeless hill, and on its crest was perched a
+bare farmhouse with windows stuck lavishly all over it. At one of them
+a long, pale face was visible.
+
+"Has Selena been pasted up at that window ever since the last time we
+stood here and talked, Mattie?" asked Jed, half resentfully, half
+amusedly. It was characteristic of Mattie to laugh first at the
+question, and then blush over the memory it revived.
+
+"Most of the time, I guess," she said shortly. "But come--come in. I
+never could talk under Selena's eyes, even if they were four hundred
+yards away."
+
+Jed went in and stayed to tea. The old Adams pantry had not failed,
+nor apparently the Adams skill in cooking. After tea Jed hung around
+till sunset and drove away with a warm invitation from Mattie to call
+every time his rounds took him through Amberley. As he went, Selena's
+face appeared at the window of the house over the valley.
+
+When he had gone Mattie went around to the classical porch and sat
+herself down under the honeysuckle festoons that dangled above her
+smooth braids of fawn-coloured hair. She knew Selena would be down
+posthaste presently, agog with curiosity to find out who the pedlar
+was whom Mattie had delighted to honour with an invitation to tea.
+Mattie preferred to meet Selena out of doors. It was easier to thrust
+and parry there. Meanwhile, she wanted to think over things.
+
+Fifteen years before Jedediah Crane had been Mattie Adams's beau.
+Jedediah was romantic even then, but, as he was a slim young fellow at
+the time, with an abundance of fair, curly hair and innocent blue
+eyes, his romance was rather an attraction than not. At least the then
+young and pretty Mattie had found it so.
+
+The Adamses looked with no favour on the match. They were a thrifty,
+well-to-do folk. As for the Cranes--well, they were lazy and
+shiftless, for the most part. It would be a _mesalliance_ for an Adams
+to marry a Crane. Still, it would doubtless have happened--for Mattie,
+though a meek-looking damsel, had a mind of her own--had it not been
+for Selena Ford, Mattie's older sister.
+
+Selena, people said, had married James Ford for no other reason than
+that his house commanded a view of nearly every dooryard in Amberley.
+This may or may not have been sheer malice. Certainly nothing that
+went on in the Adams yard escaped Selena.
+
+She watched Mattie and Jed in the moonlight one night. She saw Jed
+kiss Mattie. It was the first time he had ever done so--and the last,
+poor fellow. For Selena swooped down on her parents the next day. Such
+a storm did she brew up that Mattie was forbidden to speak to Jed
+again. Selena herself gave Jed a piece of her mind. Jed usually was
+not afflicted with undue sensitiveness. But he had some slumbering
+pride at the basis of his character and it was very stubborn when
+roused. Selena roused it. Jed vowed he would never creep and crawl at
+the feet of the Adamses, and he went west forthwith, determined, as
+aforesaid, to make his fortune and hurl Selena's scorn back in her
+face.
+
+And now he had come home, driving a tin-wagon. Mattie smiled to think
+of it. She bore Jed no ill will for his failure. She felt sorry for
+him and inclined to think that fate had used him hardly--fate and
+Selena together. Mattie had never had another beau. People thought she
+was engaged to Jed Crane until her time for beaus went by. Mattie did
+not mind; she had never liked anybody so well as Jed. To be sure, she
+had not thought of him for years. It was strange he should come back
+like this--"romantic," as he said himself.
+
+Mattie's reverie was interrupted by Selena. Angular, pale-eyed Mrs.
+Ford was as unlike the plump, rosy Mattie as a sister could be.
+Perhaps her chronic curiosity, which would not let her rest, was
+accountable for her excessive leanness.
+
+"Who was that pedlar that was here this afternoon, Mattie?" she
+demanded as soon as she arrived.
+
+Mattie smiled. "Jed Crane," she said. "He's home from the West and
+driving a tin-wagon for the Boones."
+
+Selena gave a little gasp. She sat down on the lowest step and untied
+her bonnet strings.
+
+"Mattie Adams! And you kept him hanging about the whole afternoon."
+
+"Why not?" said Mattie wickedly. She liked to alarm Selena. "Jed and I
+were always beaus, you know."
+
+"Mattie Adams! You don't mean to say you're going to make a fool of
+yourself over Jed Crane again? A woman of your age!"
+
+"Don't get excited, Selena," implored Mattie. In the old days Selena
+could cow her, but that time was past. "I never saw the like of you
+for getting stirred up over nothing."
+
+"I'm not excited. I'm perfectly calm. But I might well be excited over
+your folly, Mattie Adams. The idea of your taking up again with old
+Jed Crane!"
+
+"He's fifteen years younger than Jim," said Mattie, giving thrust for
+thrust.
+
+When Selena had come over Mattie had not the slightest idea of
+resuming her former relationship with the romantic Jedediah. She had
+merely shown him kindness for old friendship's sake. But so well did
+the unconscious Selena work in Jed's behalf that when she flounced off
+home in a pet Mattie was resolved that she would take Jed back if he
+wanted to come. She wasn't going to put up with Selena's everlasting
+interference. She would show her that she was independent.
+
+When a week had passed Jed came again. He sold Mattie a stew-pan and
+he would not go in to tea this time, but they stood and talked in the
+yard for the best part of an hour, while Selena glared at them from
+her kitchen window. Their conversation was most innocent and harmless,
+being mainly gossip about what had come and gone during Jed's exile.
+But Mattie knew that Selena thought that she and Jed were making love
+to each other in this shameless, public fashion. When Jed went,
+Mattie, more for Selena's benefit than his, broke off some sprays of
+honeysuckle and pinned them on his coat. The fragrance went with
+Jedediah as he drove through Amberley, and pleasant thoughts were born
+of it.
+
+"It's romantic," he told the pony. "Blessed if it ain't romantic! Not
+that Mattie cares anything about me now. I know she don't. But it's
+just her kind way. She wants to cheer me up and let me know I've a
+friend still. Get up, my nag, get up. I ain't one to persoom on her
+kindness neither; I know my place. But still, say what you will, it's
+romantic--this sitooation. This is it. Here I be, loving the ground
+she walks on, as I've always done, and I can't let on that I do
+because I'm a poor ne'er-do-well as ain't fit to look at her, an
+independent woman with property. And she's a-showing kindness to me
+for old times' sake, and piercing my heart all the time, not knowing.
+Why, it's romance with a vengeance, that's what it is. Get up, my nag,
+get up."
+
+Thereafter Jed called at the Adams place every week. Generally he
+stayed to tea. Mattie always bought something of him to colour an
+excuse. Her kitchen fairly glittered with new tinware. She gave Selena
+the overflow by way of heaping coals of fire.
+
+After every visit Jedediah held stern counsel with himself and decided
+that he must not call to see Mattie again--at least, not for a long
+time; then he must not stay to tea. He would struggle with himself all
+the way down the poplar hill--not without a comforting sense of the
+romance of the struggle--but it always ended the same way. He turned
+in under the willows and clinked musically into Mattie's yard. At
+least, the rattle of the tin-wagon sounded musically to Mattie.
+
+Meanwhile, Selena watched from her window and raged.
+
+Amberley people shrugged their shoulders when gossip noised the matter
+abroad. But, being good-humoured in the main, they forebore to do more
+than say that Mattie Adams was free to make a goose of herself if it
+pleased her, and that Jed Crane wasn't such a fool as he looked. The
+Adams farm was one of the best in Amberley, and it had not grown any
+poorer under Mattie's management.
+
+"If Jed walks in there and hangs up his hat he'll have done well for
+himself after all."
+
+This was Selena's view of it also, barring the good nature. She was
+furious at the whole affair, and she did her best to make Mattie's
+life a burden to her with slurs and thrusts. But they all misjudged
+Jed. He had no intention of "walking in and hanging up his hat"--or
+trying to. Romantic as he was, it never occurred to him that Mattie
+might be as romantic as himself. She did not care for him, and anyhow
+he, Jed, had a little too much pride to ask her, a rich woman, to
+marry him, a poor man who had lost all caste he ever possessed by
+taking up tin-peddling. Jed was determined not to "persoom." And, oh,
+how deliciously romantic it all was! He hugged himself with sorrowful
+delight over it.
+
+As the summer waned and the long yellow leaves began to fall thickly
+from the willows in the Adams lane Jed began to talk of going out
+west again. Tin-peddling was not possible in winter, and he didn't
+think he would try it another summer. Mattie listened with dismay in
+her heart. All summer she had made much of Jed, by way of tormenting
+Selena. But now she realized what he really meant to her. The old love
+had wakened to life in her heart; she could not let Jed go out of her
+life again, leaving her to the old loneliness. If Jed went away
+everything would be flat, stale, and unprofitable.
+
+She knew him to be at heart the kindest, most gentle of human beings,
+and the mere fact of his having been unsuccessful, even what some of
+his old neighbours might call stupid, did not change her feelings
+toward him in the least. He was Jed--that was sufficient for her, and
+she had business capability enough for both, when it came to that.
+
+Mattie began to drop hints. But Jed would not take them. True, once or
+twice he thought that perhaps Mattie did care a little for him yet.
+But it would not do for him to take advantage of that.
+
+"No, I just couldn't do that," he told the pony. "I worship the ground
+that woman treads on, but it ain't for the likes of me to tell her so,
+not now. Get up, my nag, get up. This has been a mighty pleasant
+summer with that visit to look forward to every week. But it's about
+over now and you must tramp, Jed."
+
+Jed sighed. He remembered that it was more romantic than ever, but all
+at once this failed to comfort him. Romance up to a certain point was
+food; beyond that it palled, so to speak. Jed's romance failed him
+just when he needed it most.
+
+Mattie, meanwhile, was forced to the dismal conclusion that her hints
+were thrown away. Jed was plainly determined not to speak. Mattie felt
+half angry with him. She did not choose to make a martyr of herself to
+romance, and surely the man didn't expect her to ask him to marry her.
+
+"I'm sure and certain he's as fond of me as ever he was," she mused.
+"I suppose he's got some ridiculous notion about being too poor to
+aspire to me. Jed always had more pride than a Crane could carry.
+Well, I've done all I can--all I'm going to do. If Jed's determined to
+go, he must go, I s'pose."
+
+Mattie would not let herself cry, although she felt like it. She went
+out and picked apples instead.
+
+Mattie might have remained so and Jedediah's romance might never have
+reached a better ending, if it had not been for Selena, who came over
+just then to help Mattie pick the golden russets. Fate had evidently
+destined her as Jed's best helper. All summer she had been fairly
+goading Mattie into love with Jedediah and now she was moved to add
+the last spur.
+
+"Jed Crane's going away, I hear," she said maliciously. "Seems to me
+you're bound to be jilted again, Mattie."
+
+Mattie had no answer ready. Selena went on undauntedly.
+
+"You've made a nice fool of yourself all summer, I vow. Throwing
+yourself at Jed's head--and he doesn't want you, even with all your
+property."
+
+"He does want me," said Mattie calmly. Her lips were very firm and her
+cheeks scarlet. "He is not going away. We are to be married about
+Christmas, and Jed will take charge of the farm for me."
+
+"Matilda Adams!" said Selena. It was all she was capable of saying.
+
+The rest of the golden russets were picked in a dead silence, Mattie
+working with an unusually high colour in her cheeks, while Selena's
+thin lips were pressed so closely together as to be little else than a
+hair line.
+
+After Selena had gone home, sulking, Mattie picked on with a very
+determined face. The die was cast; she could not bear Selena's slurs
+and she would not. And she had not told a lie either. Her words were
+true; she would make them true. All the Adams determination--and that
+was not a little--was roused in her.
+
+"If Jed jilts me, he'll do it to my face, clean and clever," she said
+viciously.
+
+When Jed came again he was very solemn. He thought it would be his
+last visit, but Mattie felt differently. She had dressed herself with
+unusual care and crimped her hair. Her cheeks were scarlet and her
+eyes bright. Jed thought she looked younger and prettier than ever.
+The thought that this was the last time he would see her for many a
+long day to come grew more and more unbearable, yet he firmly
+determined he would let no presuming word pass his lips. Mattie had
+been so kind to him. It was only honourable of him in return not to
+let her throw herself away on a poor failure like himself.
+
+"I suppose this is your last round with the wagon," she said. She had
+taken him out into the garden to say it. The garden was out of view
+from the Ford place. Propose she must, but she drew the line at
+proposing under Selena's eyes.
+
+Jed nodded dully. "Yes, and then I must toddle off and look for
+something else to do. You see, I haven't much of a gift so to speak
+for business, Mattie, and it takes me so long to get worked into an
+understanding of a business or trade that I'm generally asked to quit
+before you might say I've really commenced. It's been a mighty happy
+summer for me, though I can't say I've done much in the selling line
+except to you, Mattie. What with your kindness and these little visits
+you've been good enough to let me make every week, I feel I may say
+it's been the happiest summer of my life, and I'm never going to
+forget it, but as I said, it's time for me to be moving on elsewhere
+and finding something else to do."
+
+"There is something for you to do right here--if you will do it," said
+Mattie faintly. For a moment she felt as if she could not go on; Jed
+and the garden and the scarf of late asters whirled around her
+dizzily. She held by the sweet-pea trellis to steady herself.
+
+"I--I said a terrible thing to Selena the other day. I--I don't know
+what I'll do about it if--if--you don't help me out, Jed."
+
+"I'll do anything I can," said Jed, with hearty sympathy. "You know
+that, Mattie. What is the trouble?"
+
+His kindly voice and the good will and affection beaming in his honest
+blue eyes gave Mattie renewed courage to go on with her self-imposed
+and most embarrassing task, although before she ended her voice shook
+and dwindled away to such a low whisper that Jed had to bend his head
+close to hers to hear what she was saying.
+
+"I--I said--she goaded me into saying it, Jed--slighting and
+slurring--jeering at me because you were going away. I just got mad,
+Jed--and I told her you weren't going--that you and I--that we were to
+be--married."
+
+"Mattie, did you mean that?" he cried. "If you did, I'm the happiest
+man alive. I didn't dare persoom--I didn't s'pose you thought anything
+of me. But if you do--and if you want me--here's all there is of me,
+heart and soul and body, forever and ever, as I've been all my life."
+
+Thinking over this speech afterwards Jed was dissatisfied with it. He
+thought he might have made it much more eloquent and romantic than it
+was. But it served the purpose very well. It was convincing--it came
+straight from his honest, stupid heart, and Mattie knew it. She held
+out her hands and Jed gathered her into his arms.
+
+It was certainly a most fortunate circumstance that the garden was
+well out of the range of Selena's vision, or the sight of her sister
+and the remaining member of the despised Crane family repeating their
+foolish performance, which many years previous had resulted in Jed's
+long banishment, might have caused her to commit almost any unheard-of
+act of spite as an outlet for her jealous anger. But only the few
+remaining garden flowers were witness to the lovers' indiscretion, and
+they kept their own counsel after the manner of flowers, so Selena's
+feelings were mercifully spared this further outrage.
+
+That evening Jed drove slowly away through the twilight, mounted for
+the last time on the tin-wagon. He was so happy that he bore no grudge
+against even Selena Ford. As the pony climbed the poplar hill Jed drew
+a long breath and freed his mind to the surrounding landscape and to
+his faithful and slow-plodding steed that had been one of the main
+factors in this love affair, having patiently carried him to and from
+the abode of his lady-love throughout the summer just passed. Jedediah
+was as brimful of happiness as mortal man could be, and his rosy
+thoughts flowed forth in a kind of triumphant chant which would have
+driven Selena stark distracted had she been within hearing distance.
+What he said too was but a poor expression of what he thought, but to
+the trees and fields and pony he chanted,
+
+"Well, this _is_ romance. What else would you call it now? Me, poor,
+scared to speak--and Mattie ups and does it for me, bless her. Yes,
+I've been longing for romance all my life, and I've got it at last.
+None of your commonplace courtships for me, I always said. Them was my
+very words. And I guess this has been a little uncommon--I guess it
+has. Anyhow, I'm uncommon happy. I never felt so romantic before. Get
+up, my nag, get up."
+
+
+
+
+The Tryst of the White Lady
+
+
+"I wisht ye'd git married, Roger," said Catherine Ames. "I'm gitting
+too old to work--seventy last April--and who's going to look after ye
+when I'm gone. Git married, b'y--git married."
+
+Roger Temple winced. His aunt's harsh, disagreeable voice always
+jarred horribly on his sensitive nerves. He was fond of her after a
+fashion, but always that voice made him wonder if there could be
+anything harder to endure.
+
+Then he gave a bitter little laugh.
+
+"Who'd have me, Aunt Catherine?" he asked.
+
+Catherine Ames looked at him critically across the supper table. She
+loved him in her way, with all her heart, but she was not in the least
+blind to his defects. She did not mince matters with herself or with
+other people. Roger was a sallow, plain-featured fellow, small and
+insignificant looking. And, as if this were not bad enough, he walked
+with a slight limp and had one thin shoulder a little higher than the
+other--"Jarback" Temple he had been called in school, and the name
+still clung to him. To be sure, he had very fine grey eyes, but their
+dreamy brilliance gave his dull face an uncanny look which girls did
+not like, and so made matters rather worse than better. Of course
+looks didn't matter so much in the case of a man; Steve Millar was
+homely enough, and all marked up with smallpox to boot, yet he had got
+for wife the prettiest and smartest girl in South Bay. But Steve was
+rich. Roger was poor and always would be. He worked his stony little
+farm, from which his father and grandfather had wrested a fair living,
+after a fashion, but Nature had not cut him out for a successful
+farmer. He hadn't the strength for it and his heart wasn't in it. He'd
+rather be hanging over a book. Catherine secretly thought Roger's
+matrimonial chances very poor, but it would not do to discourage the
+b'y. What he needed was spurring on.
+
+"Ye'll git someone if ye don't fly too high," she announced loudly and
+cheerfully. "Thar's always a gal or two here and thar that's glad to
+marry for a home. 'Tain't no use for _you_ to be settin' your thoughts
+on anyone young and pretty. Ye wouldn't git her and ye'd be worse off
+if ye did. Your grandfather married for looks, and a nice useless wife
+he got--sick half her time. Git a good strong girl that ain't afraid
+of work, that'll hold things together when ye're reading
+po'try--that's as much as you kin expect. And the sooner the better.
+I'm done--last winter's rheumatiz has about finished _me_. An' we
+can't afford hired help."
+
+Roger felt as if his raw, quivering soul were being seared. He looked
+at his aunt curiously--at her broad, flat face with the mole on the
+end of her dumpy nose, the bristling hairs on her chin, the wrinkled
+yellow neck, the pale, protruding eyes, the coarse, good-humoured
+mouth. She was so extremely ugly--and he had seen her across the table
+all his life. For twenty-five years he had looked at her so. Must he
+continue to go on looking at ugliness in the shape of a wife all the
+rest of his life--he, who worshipped beauty in everything?
+
+"Did my mother look like you, Aunt Catherine?" he asked abruptly.
+
+His aunt stared--and snorted. Her snort was meant to express kindly
+amusement, but it sounded like derision and contempt.
+
+"Yer ma wasn't so humly as me," she said cheerfully, "but she wan't no
+beauty either. None of the Temples was ever better lookin' than was
+necessary. We was _workers_. Yer pa wa'n't bad looking. You're humlier
+than either of 'em. Some ways ye take after yer grandma--though _she_
+was counted pretty at one time. She was yaller and spindlin' like you,
+and you've got her eyes. What yer so int'rested in yer ma's looks all
+at once fer?"
+
+"I was wondering," said Roger coolly, "if Father ever looked at her
+across the table and wished she were prettier."
+
+Catherine giggled. Her giggle was ugly and disagreeable like
+everything else about her--everything except a certain odd, loving,
+loyal old heart buried deep in her bosom, for the sake of which Roger
+endured the giggle and all the rest.
+
+"Dessay he did--dessay he did. Men al'ays has a hankerin' for good
+looks. But ye've got to cut yer coat 'cording to yer cloth. As for yer
+poor ma, she didn't live long enough to git as ugly as me. When I
+come here to keep house for yer pa, folks said as it wouldn't be long
+'fore he married me. _I_ wouldn't a-minded. But yer pa never hinted
+it. S'pose he'd had enough of ugly women likely."
+
+Catherine snorted amiably again. Roger got up--he couldn't endure any
+more just then. He must escape.
+
+"Now you think over what I've said," his aunt called after him. "Ye've
+gotter git a wife soon, however ye manage it. 'Twon't be so hard if
+ye're reasonable. Don't stay out as late as ye did last night. Ye
+coughed all night. Where was ye--down at the shore?"
+
+"No," said Roger, who always answered her questions even when he hated
+to. "I was down at Aunt Isabel's grave."
+
+"Till eleven o'clock! Ye ain't wise! I dunno what hankering ye have
+after that unchancy place. _I_ ain't been near it for twenty year. I
+wonder ye ain't scairt. What'd ye think ye'd do if ye saw her ghost?"
+
+Catherine looked curiously at Roger. She was very superstitious and
+she believed firmly in ghosts, and saw no absurdity in her question.
+
+"I wish I _could_ see it," said Roger, his great eyes flashing. He
+believed in ghosts too, at least in Isabel Temple's ghost. His uncle
+had seen it; his grandfather had seen it; he believed he would see
+it--the beautiful, bewitching, mocking, luring ghost of lovely Isabel
+Temple.
+
+"Don't wish such stuff," said Catherine. "Nobody ain't never the same
+after they've seen her."
+
+"Was Uncle different?" Roger had come back into the kitchen and was
+looking curiously at his aunt.
+
+"Diff'rent? He was another man. He didn't even _look_ the same. Sich
+eyes! Al'ays looking past ye at something behind ye. They'd give
+anyone creeps. He never had any notion of flesh-and-blood women after
+that--said a man wouldn't, after seeing Isabel. His life was plumb
+ruined. Lucky he died young. I hated to be in the same room with
+him--he wa'n't canny, that was all there was to it. _You_ keep away
+from that grave--_you_ don't want to look odder than ye are by nature.
+And when ye git married, ye'll have to give up roamin' about half the
+night in graveyards. A wife wouldn't put up with it, as I've done."
+
+"I'll never get as good a wife as you, Aunt Catherine," said Roger
+with a little whimsical smile that gave him the look of an amused
+gnome.
+
+"Dessay you won't. But someone ye have to have. Why'n't ye try 'Liza
+Adams. She _might_ have ye--she's gittin' on."
+
+"'Liza ... Adams!"
+
+"That's what I said. Ye needn't repeat it--'Liza ... Adams--'s if I'd
+mentioned a hippopotamus. I git out of patience with ye. I b'lieve in
+my heart ye think ye ought to git a wife that'd look like a picter."
+
+"I do, Aunt Catherine. That's just the kind of wife I want--grace and
+beauty and charm. Nothing less than that will ever content me."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Roger laughed bitterly again and went out. It was sunset. There was no
+work to do that night except to milk the cows, and his little home boy
+could do that. He felt a glad freedom. He put his hand in his pocket
+to see if his beloved Wordsworth was there and then he took his way
+across the fields, under a sky of purple and amber, walking quickly
+despite his limp. He wanted to get to some solitary place where he
+could forget Aunt Catherine and her abominable suggestions and escape
+into the world of dreams where he habitually lived and where he found
+the loveliness he had not found nor could hope to find in his real
+world.
+
+Roger's mother had died when he was three and his father when he was
+eight. His little, old, bedridden grandmother had lived until he was
+twelve. He had loved her passionately. She had not been pretty in his
+remembrance--a tiny, shrunken, wrinkled thing--but she had beautiful
+grey eyes that never grew old and a soft, gentle voice--the only
+woman's voice he had ever heard with pleasure. He was very critical as
+regards women's voices and very sensitive to them. Nothing hurt him
+quite so much as an unlovely voice--not even unloveliness of face. Her
+death had left him desolate. She was the only human being who had ever
+understood him. He could never, he thought, have got through his
+tortured school days without her. After she died he would not go to
+school. He was not in any sense educated. His father and grandfather
+had been illiterate men and he had inherited their underdeveloped
+brain cells. But he loved poetry and read all he could get of it. It
+overlaid his primitive nature with a curious iridescence of fancy and
+furnished him with ideals and hungers his environment could never
+satisfy. He loved beauty in everything. Moonrises hurt him with their
+loveliness and he could sit for hours gazing at a white
+narcissus--much to his aunt's exasperation. He was solitary by nature.
+He felt horribly alone in a crowded building but never in the woods or
+in the wild places along the shore. It was because of this that his
+aunt could not get him to go to church--which was a horror to her
+orthodox soul. He told her he would like to go to church if it were
+empty but he could not bear it when it was full--full of smug, ugly
+people. Most people, he thought, were ugly--though not so ugly as he
+was--and ugliness made him sick with repulsion. Now and then he saw a
+pretty girl at whom he liked to look but he never saw one that wholly
+pleased him. To him, the homely, crippled, poverty-stricken Roger
+Temple whom they all would have scorned, there was always a certain
+subtle something wanting, and the lack of it kept him heartwhole. He
+knew that this probably saved him from much suffering, but for all
+that he regretted it. He wanted to love, even vainly; he wanted to
+experience this passion of which the poets sang so much. Without it he
+felt he lacked the key to a world of wonder. He even tried to fall in
+love; he went to church for several Sundays and sat where he could see
+beautiful Elsa Carey. She was lovely--it gave him pleasure to look at
+her; the gold of her hair was so bright and living; the pink of her
+cheek so pure, the curve of her neck so flawless, the lashes of her
+eyes so dark and silken. But he looked at her as at a picture. When he
+tried to think and dream of her, it bored him. Besides, he knew she
+had a rather nasal voice. He used to laugh sarcastically to himself
+over Elsa's feelings if she had known how desperately he was trying to
+fall in love with her and failing--Elsa the queen of hearts, who
+believed she had only to look to reign. He gave up trying at last, but
+he still longed to love. He knew he would never marry; he could not
+marry plainness, and beauty would have none of him; but he did not want
+to miss everything and he had moments when he was very bitter and
+rebellious because he felt he must miss it forever.
+
+He went straight to Isabel Temple's grave in the remote shore field of
+his farm. Isabel Temple had lived and died eighty years ago. She had
+been very lovely, very wilful, very fond of playing with the hearts of
+men. She had married William Temple, the brother of his
+great-grandfather, and as she stood in her white dress beside her
+bridegroom, at the conclusion of the wedding ceremony, a jilted lover,
+crazed by despair, had entered the house and shot her dead. She had
+been buried in the shore field, where a square space had been dyked
+off in the centre for a burial lot because the church was then so far
+away. With the passage of years the lot had grown up so thickly with
+fir and birch and wild cherry that it looked like a compact grove. A
+winding path led through it to its heart where Isabel Temple's grave
+was, thickly overgrown with long, silken, pale green grass. Roger
+hurried along the path and sat down on the big grey boulder by the
+grave, looking about him with a long breath of delight. How
+lovely--and witching--and unearthly it was here. Little ferns were
+growing in the hollows and cracks of the big boulder where clay had
+lodged. Over Isabel Temple's crooked, lichened gravestone hung a young
+wild cherry in its delicate bloom. Above it, in a little space of sky
+left by the slender tree tops, was a young moon. It was too dark here
+after all to read Wordsworth, but that did not matter. The place, with
+its moist air, its tang of fir balsam, was like a perfumed room where
+a man might dream dreams and see visions. There was a soft murmur of
+wind in the boughs over him, and the faraway moan of the sea on the
+bar crept in. Roger surrendered himself utterly to the charm of the
+place. When he entered that grove, he had left behind the realm of
+daylight and things known and come into the realm of shadow and
+mystery and enchantment. Anything might happen--anything might be
+true.
+
+Eighty long years had come and gone, but Isabel Temple, thus cruelly
+torn from life at the moment when it had promised her most, did not
+even yet rest calmly in her grave; such at least was the story, and
+Roger believed it. It was in his blood to believe it. The Temples were
+a superstitious family, and there was nothing in Roger's upbringing to
+correct the tendency. His was not a sceptical or scientific mind. He
+was ignorant and poetical and credulous. He had always accepted
+unquestioningly the tale that Isabel Temple had been seen on earth
+long after the red clay was heaped over her murdered body. Her
+bridegroom had seen her, when he went to visit her on the eve of his
+second and unhappy marriage; his grandfather had seen her. His
+grandmother, who had told him Isabel's story, had told him this too,
+and believed it. She had added, with a bitterness foreign to his idea
+of her, that her husband had never been the same to her afterwards;
+his uncle had seen her--and had lived and died a haunted man. It was
+only to men the lovely, restless ghost appeared, and her appearance
+boded no good to him who saw. Roger knew this, but he had a curious
+longing to see her. He had never avoided her grave as others of his
+tribe did. He loved the spot, and he believed that some time he would
+see Isabel Temple there. She came, so the story went, to one in each
+generation of the family.
+
+He gazed down at her sunken grave; a little wind, that came stealing
+along the floor of the grove, raised and swayed the long, hair-like
+grass on it, giving the curious suggestion of something prisoned under
+it trying to draw a long breath and float upward.
+
+Then, when he lifted his eyes again, he saw her!
+
+She was standing behind the gravestone, under the cherry tree, whose
+long white branches touched her head; standing there, with her head
+drooping a little, but looking steadily at him. It was just between
+dusk and dark now, but he saw her very plainly. She was dressed in
+white, with some filmy scarf over her head, and her hair hung in a
+dark heavy braid over her shoulder. Her face was small and
+ivory-white, and her eyes were very large and dark. Roger looked
+straight into them and they did something to him--drew something out
+of him that was never to be his again--his heart? his soul? He did not
+know. He only knew that lovely Isabel Temple had now come to him and
+that he was hers forever.
+
+For a few moments that seemed years he looked at her--looked till the
+lure of her eyes drew him to his feet as a man rises in sleep-walking.
+As he slowly stood up, the low-hanging bough of a fir tree pushed his
+cap down over his face and blinded him. When he snatched it off, she
+was gone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Roger Temple did not go home that night till the spring dawn was in
+the sky. Catherine was sleepless with anxiety about him. When she
+heard him come up the stairs, she opened her door and peeped out.
+Roger went along the hall without seeing her. His brilliant eyes
+stared straight before him, and there was something in his face that
+made Catherine steal back to her bed with a little shiver of fear. He
+looked like his uncle. She did not ask him, when they met at
+breakfast, where or how he had spent the night. He had been dreading
+the question and was relieved beyond measure when it was not asked.
+But, apart from that, he was hardly conscious of her presence. He ate
+and drank mechanically and voicelessly. When he had gone out,
+Catherine wagged her uncomely grey head ominously.
+
+"He's bewitched," she muttered. "I know the signs. He's seen her--drat
+her! It's time she gave up that kind of work. Well, I dunno what to
+do--thar ain't anything I can do, I reckon. He'll never marry now--I'm
+as sure of that as of any mortal thing. He's in love with a ghost."
+
+It had not yet occurred to Roger that he was in love. He thought of
+nothing but Isabel Temple--her lovely, lovely face, sweeter than any
+picture he had ever seen or any ideal he had dreamed, her long dark
+hair, her slim form and, more than all, her compelling eyes. He saw
+them wherever he looked--they drew him--he would have followed them to
+the end of the world, heedless of all else.
+
+He longed for night, that he might again steal to the grave in the
+haunted grove. She might come again--who knew? He felt no fear,
+nothing but a terrible hunger to see her again. But she did not come
+that night--nor the next--nor the next. Two weeks went by and he had
+not seen her. Perhaps he would never see her again--the thought filled
+him with anguish not to be borne. He knew now that he loved
+her--Isabel Temple, dead for eighty years. This was love--this
+searing, torturing, intolerably sweet thing--this possession of body
+and soul and spirit. The poets had sung but weakly of it. He could
+tell them better if he could find words. Could other men have loved at
+all--could any man love those blowzy, common girls of earth? It seemed
+impossible--absurd. There was only one thing that could be loved--that
+white spirit. No wonder his uncle had died. He, Roger Temple, would
+soon die too. That would be well. Only the dead could woo Isabel.
+Meanwhile he revelled in his torment and his happiness--so madly
+commingled that he never knew whether he was in heaven or hell. It was
+beautiful--and dreadful--and wonderful--and exquisite--oh, so
+exquisite. Mortal love could never be so exquisite. He had never lived
+before--now he lived in every fibre of his being.
+
+He was glad Aunt Catherine did not worry him with questions. He had
+feared she would. But she never asked any questions now and she was
+afraid of Roger, as she had been afraid of his uncle. She dared not
+ask questions. It was a thing that must not be tampered with. Who knew
+what she might hear if she asked him questions? She was very unhappy.
+Something dreadful had happened to her poor boy--he had been bewitched
+by that hussy--he would die as his uncle had died.
+
+"Mebbe it's best," she muttered. "He's the last of the Temples, so
+mebbe she'll rest in her grave when she's killed 'em all. I dunno what
+she's sich a spite at _them_ for--there'd be more sense if she'd haunt
+the Mortons, seein' as a Morton killed her. Well, I'm mighty old and
+tired and worn out. It don't seem that it's been much use, the way
+I've slaved and fussed to bring that b'y up and keep things together
+for him--and now the ghost's got him. I might as well have let him die
+when he was a sickly baby."
+
+If this had been said to Roger he would have retorted that it was
+worthwhile to have lived long enough to feel what he was feeling now.
+He would not have missed it for a score of other men's lives. He had
+drunk of some immortal wine and was as a god. Even if she never came
+again, he had seen her once, and she had taught him life's great
+secret in that one unforgettable exchange of eyes. She was his--his in
+spite of his ugliness and his crooked shoulder. No man could ever take
+her from him.
+
+But she did come again. One evening, when the darkening grove was full
+of magic in the light of the rising yellow moon shining across the
+level field, Roger sat on the big boulder by the grave. The evening
+was very still; there was no sound save the echoes of noisy laughter
+that seemed to come up from the bay shore--drunken fishermen, likely
+as not. Roger resented the intrusion of such a sound in such a
+place--it was a sacrilege. When he came here to dream of her, only the
+loveliest of muted sounds should be heard--the faintest whisper of
+trees, the half-heard, half-felt moan of surf, the airiest sigh of
+wind. He never read Wordsworth now or any other book. He only sat
+there and thought of her, his great eyes alight, his pale face flushed
+with the wonder of his love.
+
+She slipped through the dark boughs like a moonbeam and stood by the
+stone. Again he saw her quite plainly--saw and drank her in with his
+eyes. He did not feel surprise--something in him had known she would
+come again. He would not move a muscle lest he lose her as he had lost
+her before. They looked at each other--for how long? He did not know;
+and then--a horrible thing happened. Into that place of wonder and
+revelation and mystery reeled a hiccoughing, laughing creature, a
+drunken sailor from a harbour ship, with a leering face and
+desecrating breath.
+
+"Oh, you're here, my dear--I thought I'd catch you yet," he said.
+
+He caught hold of her. She screamed. Roger sprang forward and struck
+him in the face. In his fury of sudden rage the strength of ten seemed
+to animate his slender body and pass into his blow. The sailor reeled
+back and put up his hands. He was a coward--and even a brave man might
+have been daunted by that terrible white face and those blazing eyes.
+He backed down the path.
+
+"Shorry--shorry," he muttered. "Didn't know she was your girl--shorry
+I butted in. Shentlemans never butt in--shorry--shir--shorry."
+
+He kept repeating his ridiculous "shorry" until he was out of the
+grove. Then he turned and ran stumblingly across the field. Roger did
+not follow; he went back to Isabel Temple's grave. The girl was lying
+across it; he thought she was unconscious. He stooped and picked her
+up--she was light and small, but she was warm flesh and blood; she
+clung uncertainly to him for a moment and he felt her breath on his
+face. He did not speak--he was too sick at heart. She did not speak
+either. He did not think this strange until afterwards. He was
+incapable of thinking just then; he was dazed, wretched, lost.
+Presently he became aware that she was timidly pulling his arm. It
+seemed that she wanted him to go with her--she was evidently
+frightened of that brute--he must take her to safety. And then--
+
+She moved on down the little path and he followed. Out in the moonlit
+field he saw her clearly. With her drooping head, her flowing dark
+hair, her great brown eyes, she looked like the nymph of a wood-brook,
+a haunter of shadows, a creature sprung from the wild. But she was
+mortal maid, and he--what a fool he had been! Presently he would laugh
+at himself, when this dazed agony should clear away from his brain. He
+followed her down the long field to the bay shore. Now and then she
+paused and looked back to see if he were coming, but she never spoke.
+When she reached the shore road she turned and went along it until
+they came to an old grey house fronting the calm grey harbour. At its
+gate she paused. Roger knew now who she was. Catherine had told him
+about her a month ago.
+
+She was Lilith Barr, a girl of eighteen, who had come to live with her
+uncle and aunt. Her father had died some months before. She was
+absolutely deaf as the result of some accident in childhood, and she
+was, as his own eyes told him, exquisitely lovely in her white,
+haunting style. But she was not Isabel Temple; he had tricked
+himself--he had lived in a fool's paradise--oh, he must get away and
+laugh at himself. He left her at her gate, disregarding the little
+hand she put timidly out--but he did not laugh at himself. He went
+back to Isabel Temple's grave and flung himself down on it and cried
+like a boy. He wept his stormy, anguished soul out on it; and when he
+rose and went away, he believed it was forever. He thought he could
+never, never go there again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Catherine looked at him curiously the next morning. He looked
+wretched--haggard and hollow-eyed. She knew he had not come in till
+the summer dawn. But he had lost the rapt, uncanny look she hated;
+suddenly she no longer felt afraid of him. With this, she began to ask
+questions again.
+
+"What kept ye out so late again last night, b'y?" she said
+reproachfully.
+
+Roger looked at her in her morning ugliness. He had not really seen
+her for weeks. Now she smote on his tortured senses, so long drugged
+with beauty, like a physical blow. He suddenly burst into a laughter
+that frightened her.
+
+"Preserve's, b'y, have ye gone mad? Or," she added, "have ye seen
+Isabel Temple's ghost?"
+
+"No," said Roger loudly and explosively. "Don't talk any more about
+that damned ghost. Nobody ever saw it. The whole story is balderdash."
+
+He got up and went violently out, leaving Catherine aghast. Was it
+possible Roger had sworn? What on earth had come over the b'y? But
+come what had or come what would, he no longer looked _fey_--there was
+that much to be thankful for. Even an occasional oath was better than
+that. Catherine went stiffly about her dish-washing, resolving to have
+'Liza Adams to supper some night.
+
+For a week Roger lived in agony--an agony of shame and humiliation and
+self-contempt. Then, when the edge of his bitter disappointment wore
+away, he made another dreadful discovery. He still loved her and
+longed for her just as keenly as before. He wanted madly to see
+her--her flower-like face, her great, asking eyes, the sleek, braided
+flow of her hair. Ghost or woman--spirit or flesh--it mattered not. He
+could not live without her. At last his hunger for her drew him to the
+old grey house on the bay shore. He knew he was a fool--she would
+never look at him; he was only feeding the flame that must consume
+him. But go he must and did, seeking for his lost paradise.
+
+He did not see her when he went in, but Mrs. Barr received him kindly
+and talked about her in a pleasant garrulous fashion which jarred on
+Roger, yet he listened greedily. Lilith, her aunt told him, had been
+made deaf by the accidental explosion of a gun when she was eight
+years old. She could not hear a sound but she could talk.
+
+"A little, that is--not much, but enough to get along with. But she
+don't like talking somehow--dunno why. She's shy--and we think maybe
+she don't like to talk much because she can't hear her own voice. She
+don't ever speak except just when she has to. But she's been trained
+to lip-reading something wonderful--she can understand anything that's
+said when she can see the person that's talking. Still, it's a
+terrible drawback for the poor child--she's never had any real
+girl-life and she's dreadful sensitive and retiring. We can't get her
+to go out anywhere, only for lonely walks along shore by herself.
+We're much obliged for what you did the other night. It ain't safe for
+her to wander about alone as she does, but it ain't often anybody from
+the harbour gets up this far. She was dreadful upset about it--hasn't
+got over her scare yet."
+
+When Lilith came in, her ivory-white face went scarlet all over at the
+sight of Roger. She sat down in a shadowy corner. Mrs. Barr got up
+and went out. Roger was mute; he could find nothing to say. He could
+have talked glibly enough to Isabel Temple's ghost in some unearthly
+tryst by her grave, but he could not find a word to say to this slip
+of flesh and blood. He felt very foolish and absurd, and very
+conscious of his twisted shoulder. What a fool he had been to come!
+
+Then Lilith looked up at him--and smiled. A little shy, friendly
+smile. Roger suddenly saw her not as the tantalizing, unreal, mystic
+thing of the twilit grove, but as a little human creature, exquisitely
+pretty in her young-moon beauty, longing for companionship. He got up,
+forgetting his ugliness, and went across the room to her.
+
+"Will you come for a walk," he said eagerly. He held out his hand like
+a child; as a child she stood up and took it; like two children they
+went out and down the sunset shore. Roger was again incredibly happy.
+It was not the same happiness as had been his in that vanished
+fortnight; it was a homelier happiness with its feet on the earth. The
+amazing thing was that he felt she was happy too--happy because she
+was walking with _him_, "Jarback" Temple, whom no girl had even
+thought about. A certain secret well-spring of fancy that had seemed
+dry welled up in him sparklingly again.
+
+Through the summer weeks the odd courtship went on. Roger talked to
+her as he had never talked to anyone. He did not find it in the least
+hard to talk to her, though her necessity of watching his face so
+closely while he talked bothered him occasionally. He felt that her
+intent gaze was reading his soul as well as his lips. She never talked
+much herself; what she did say she spoke so low that it was hardly
+above a whisper, but she had a voice as lovely as her face--sweet,
+cadenced, haunting. Roger was quite mad about her, and he was horribly
+afraid that he could never get up enough courage to ask her to marry
+him. And he was afraid that if he did, she would never consent. In
+spite of her shy, eager welcomes he could not believe she could care
+for him--for _him_. She liked him, she was sorry for him, but it was
+unthinkable that she, white, exquisite Lilith, could marry him and sit
+at his table and his hearth. He was a fool to dream of it.
+
+To the existence of romance and glamour in which he lived, no gossip
+of the countryside penetrated. Yet much gossip there was, and at last
+it came blundering in on Roger to destroy his fairy world a second
+time. He came downstairs one night in the twilight, ready to go to
+Lilith. His aunt and an old crony were talking in the kitchen; the
+crony was old, and Catherine, supposing Roger was out of the house,
+was talking loudly in that horrible voice of hers with still more
+horrible zest and satisfaction.
+
+"Yes, I'm guessing it'll be a match as ye say. Oh the b'y's doing
+well. He ain't for every market, as I'm bound to admit. Ef she wan't
+deaf she wouldn't look at him, no doubt. But she has scads of
+money--they won't need to do a tap of work unless they like--and she's
+a good housekeeper too her aunt tells me. She's pretty enough to suit
+him--he's as particular as never was--and he wan't crooked and she
+wan't deaf when they was born, so it's likely their children will be
+all right. I'm that proud when I think of the match."
+
+Roger fled out of the house, white of face and sick of heart. He went,
+not to the bay shore, but to Isabel Temple's grave. He had never been
+there since the night when he had rescued Lilith, but now he rushed to
+it in his new agony. His aunt's horrible practicalities had filled him
+with disgust--they dragged his love in the dust of sordid things. And
+Lilith was rich; he had never known that--never suspected it. He could
+never ask her to marry him now; he must never see her again. For the
+second time he had lost her, and this second losing could not be
+borne.
+
+He sat down on the big boulder by the grave and dropped his poor grey
+face in his hands, moaning in anguish. Nothing was left him, not even
+dreams. He hoped he could soon die.
+
+He did not know how long he sat there--he did not know when she came.
+But when he lifted his miserable eyes, he saw her, sitting just a
+little way from him on the big stone and looking at him with something
+in her face that made his heart beat madly. He forgot Aunt Catherine's
+sacrilege--he forgot that he was a presumptuous fool. He bent forward
+and kissed her lips for the first time. The wonder of it loosed his
+bound tongue.
+
+"Lilith," he gasped, "I love you."
+
+She put her hand into his and nestled closer to him.
+
+"I thought you would have told me that long ago," she said.
+
+
+
+
+Uncle Richard's New Year's Dinner
+
+
+Prissy Baker was in Oscar Miller's store New Year's morning, buying
+matches--for New Year's was not kept as a business holiday in
+Quincy--when her uncle, Richard Baker, came in. He did not look at
+Prissy, nor did she wish him a happy New Year; she would not have
+dared. Uncle Richard had not been on speaking terms with her or her
+father, his only brother, for eight years.
+
+He was a big, ruddy, prosperous-looking man--an uncle to be proud of,
+Prissy thought wistfully, if only he were like other people's uncles,
+or, indeed, like what he used to be himself. He was the only uncle
+Prissy had, and when she had been a little girl they had been great
+friends; but that was before the quarrel, in which Prissy had had no
+share, to be sure, although Uncle Richard seemed to include her in his
+rancour.
+
+Richard Baker, so he informed Mr. Miller, was on his way to Navarre
+with a load of pork.
+
+"I didn't intend going over until the afternoon," he said, "but Joe
+Hemming sent word yesterday he wouldn't be buying pork after twelve
+today. So I have to tote my hogs over at once. I don't care about
+doing business New Year's morning."
+
+"Should think New Year's would be pretty much the same as any other
+day to you," said Mr. Miller, for Richard Baker was a bachelor, with
+only old Mrs. Janeway to keep house for him.
+
+"Well, I always like a good dinner on New Year's," said Richard Baker.
+"It's about the only way I can celebrate. Mrs. Janeway wanted to spend
+the day with her son's family over at Oriental, so I was laying out to
+cook my own dinner. I got everything ready in the pantry last night,
+'fore I got word about the pork. I won't get back from Navarre before
+one o'clock, so I reckon I'll have to put up with a cold bite."
+
+After her Uncle Richard had driven away, Prissy walked thoughtfully
+home. She had planned to spend a nice, lazy holiday with the new book
+her father had given her at Christmas and a box of candy. She did not
+even mean to cook a dinner, for her father had had to go to town that
+morning to meet a friend and would be gone the whole day. There was
+nobody else to cook dinner for. Prissy's mother had died when Prissy
+was a baby. She was her father's housekeeper, and they had jolly times
+together.
+
+But as she walked home, she could not help thinking about Uncle
+Richard. He would certainly have cold New Year cheer, enough to chill
+the whole coming year. She felt sorry for him, picturing him returning
+from Navarre, cold and hungry, to find a fireless house and an
+uncooked dinner in the pantry.
+
+Suddenly an idea popped into Prissy's head. Dared she? Oh, she never
+could! But he would never know--there would be plenty of time--she
+would!
+
+Prissy hurried home, put her matches away, took a regretful peep at
+her unopened book, then locked the door and started up the road to
+Uncle Richard's house half a mile away. She meant to go and cook Uncle
+Richard's dinner for him, get it all beautifully ready, then slip away
+before he came home. He would never suspect her of it. Prissy would
+not have him suspect for the world; she thought he would be more
+likely to throw a dinner of her cooking out of doors than to eat it.
+
+Eight years before this, when Prissy had been nine years old, Richard
+and Irving Baker had quarrelled over the division of a piece of
+property. The fault had been mainly on Richard's side, and that very
+fact made him all the more unrelenting and stubborn. He had never
+spoken to his brother since, and he declared he never would. Prissy
+and her father felt very badly over it, but Uncle Richard did not seem
+to feel badly at all. To all appearance he had completely forgotten
+that there were such people in the world as his brother Irving and his
+niece Prissy.
+
+Prissy had no trouble in breaking into Uncle Richard's house, for the
+woodshed door was unfastened. She tripped into the hostile kitchen
+with rosy cheeks and mischief sparkling in her eyes. This was an
+adventure--this was fun! She would tell her father all about it when
+he came home at night and what a laugh they would have!
+
+There was still a good fire in the stove, and in the pantry Prissy
+found the dinner in its raw state--a fine roast of fresh pork,
+potatoes, cabbage, turnips and the ingredients of a raisin pudding,
+for Richard Baker was fond of raisin puddings, and could make them as
+well as Mrs. Janeway could, if that was anything to boast of.
+
+In a short time the kitchen was full of bubbling and hissings and
+appetizing odours. Prissy enjoyed herself hugely, and the raisin
+pudding, which she rather doubtfully mixed up, behaved itself
+beautifully.
+
+"Uncle Richard said he'd be home by one," said Prissy to herself, as
+the clock struck twelve, "so I'll set the table now, dish up the
+dinner, and leave it where it will keep warm until he gets here. Then
+I'll slip away home. I'd like to see his face when he steps in. I
+suppose he'll think one of the Jenner girls across the street has
+cooked his dinner."
+
+Prissy soon had the table set, and she was just peppering the turnips
+when a gruff voice behind her said:
+
+"Well, well, what does this mean?"
+
+Prissy whirled around as if she had been shot, and there stood Uncle
+Richard in the woodshed door!
+
+Poor Prissy! She could not have looked or felt more guilty if Uncle
+Richard had caught her robbing his desk. She did not drop the turnips
+for a wonder; but she was too confused to set them down, so she stood
+there holding them, her face crimson, her heart thumping, and a
+horrible choking in her throat.
+
+"I--I--came up to cook your dinner for you, Uncle Richard," she
+stammered. "I heard you say--in the store--that Mrs. Janeway had gone
+home and that you had nobody to cook your New Year's dinner for you.
+So I thought I'd come and do it, but I meant to slip away before you
+came home."
+
+Poor Prissy felt that she would never get to the end of her
+explanation. Would Uncle Richard be angry? Would he order her from the
+house?
+
+"It was very kind of you," said Uncle Richard drily. "It's a wonder
+your father let you come."
+
+"Father was not home, but I am sure he would not have prevented me if
+he had been. Father has no hard feelings against you, Uncle Richard."
+
+"Humph!" said Uncle Richard. "Well, since you've cooked the dinner you
+must stop and help me eat it. It smells good, I must say. Mrs. Janeway
+always burns pork when she roasts it. Sit down, Prissy. I'm hungry."
+
+They sat down. Prissy felt quite giddy and breathless, and could
+hardly eat for excitement; but Uncle Richard had evidently brought
+home a good appetite from Navarre, and he did full justice to his New
+Year's dinner. He talked to Prissy too, quite kindly and politely, and
+when the meal was over he said slowly:
+
+"I'm much obliged to you, Prissy, and I don't mind owning to you that
+I'm sorry for my share in the quarrel, and have wanted for a long time
+to be friends with your father again, but I was too ashamed and proud
+to make the first advance. You can tell him so for me, if you like.
+And if he's willing to let bygones be bygones, tell him I'd like him
+to come up here with you tonight when he gets home and spend the
+evening with me."
+
+"Oh, he will come, I know!" cried Prissy joyfully. "He has felt so
+badly about not being friendly with you, Uncle Richard. I'm as glad as
+can be."
+
+Prissy ran impulsively around the table and kissed Uncle Richard. He
+looked up at his tall, girlish niece with a smile of pleasure.
+
+"You're a good girl, Prissy, and a kind-hearted one too, or you'd
+never have come up here to cook a dinner for a crabbed old uncle who
+deserved to eat cold dinners for his stubbornness. It made me cross
+today when folks wished me a happy New Year. It seemed like mockery
+when I hadn't a soul belonging to me to make it happy. But it has
+brought me happiness already, and I believe it will be a happy year
+all the way through."
+
+"Indeed it will!" laughed Prissy. "I'm so happy now I could sing. I
+believe it was an inspiration--my idea of coming up here to cook your
+dinner for you."
+
+"You must promise to come and cook my New Year's dinner for me every
+New Year we live near enough together," said Uncle Richard.
+
+And Prissy promised.
+
+
+
+
+White Magic
+
+
+One September afternoon in the year of grace 1840 Avery and Janet
+Sparhallow were picking apples in their Uncle Daniel Sparhallow's big
+orchard. It was an afternoon of mellow sunshine; about them, beyond
+the orchard, were old harvest fields, mellowly bright and serene, and
+beyond the fields the sapphire curve of the St. Lawrence Gulf was
+visible through the groves of spruce and birch. There was a soft
+whisper of wind in the trees, and the pale purple asters that
+feathered the orchard grass swayed gently towards each other. Janet
+Sparhallow, who loved the outdoor world and its beauty, was, for the
+time being at least, very happy, as her little brown face, with its
+fine, satiny skin, plainly showed. Avery Sparhallow did not seem so
+happy. She worked rather abstractedly and frowned oftener than she
+smiled.
+
+Avery Sparhallow was conceded to be a beauty, and had no rival in
+Burnley Beach. She was very pretty, with the obvious, indisputable
+prettiness of rich black hair, vivid, certain colour, and laughing,
+brilliant eyes. Nobody ever called Janet a beauty, or even thought her
+pretty. She was only seventeen--five years younger than Avery--and was
+rather lanky and weedy, with a rope of straight dark-brown hair, long,
+narrow, shining brown eyes and very black lashes, and a crooked,
+clever little mouth. She had visitations of beauty when excited,
+because then she flushed deeply, and colour made all the difference in
+the world to her; but she had never happened to look in the glass when
+excited, so that she had never seen herself beautiful; and hardly
+anybody else had ever seen her so, because she was always too shy and
+awkward and tongue-tied in company to feel excited over anything. Yet
+very little could bring that transforming flush to her face: a wind
+off the gulf, a sudden glimpse of blue upland, a flame-red poppy, a
+baby's laugh, a certain footstep. As for Avery Sparhallow, she never
+got excited over anything--not even her wedding dress, which had come
+from Charlottetown that day, and was incomparably beyond anything that
+had ever been seen in Burnley Beach before. For it was made of an
+apple-green silk, sprayed over with tiny rosebuds, which had been
+specially sent for to England, where Aunt Matilda Sparhallow had a
+brother in the silk trade. Avery Sparhallow's wedding dress was making
+far more of a sensation in Burnley Beach than her wedding itself was
+making. For Randall Burnley had been dangling after her for three
+years, and everybody knew that there was nobody for a Sparhallow to
+marry except a Burnley and nobody for a Burnley to marry except a
+Sparhallow.
+
+"Only one silk dress--and I want a dozen," Avery had said scornfully.
+
+"What would you do with a dozen silk dresses on a farm?" Janet asked
+wonderingly.
+
+"Oh--what indeed?" agreed Avery, with an impatient laugh.
+
+"Randall will think just as much of you in drugget as in silk," said
+Janet, meaning to comfort.
+
+Again Avery laughed.
+
+"That is true. Randall never notices what a woman has on. I like a man
+who does notice--and tells me about it. I like a man who likes me
+better in silk than in drugget. I will wear this rosebud silk when I'm
+married, and it will be supposed to last me the rest of my life and be
+worn on all state occasions, and in time become an heirloom like Aunt
+Matilda's hideous blue satin. I want a new silk dress every month."
+
+Janet paid little attention to this kind of raving. Avery had always
+been more or less discontented. She would be contented enough after
+she was married. Nobody could be discontented who was Randall
+Burnley's wife. Janet was sure of that.
+
+Janet liked picking apples; Avery did not like it; but Aunt Matilda
+had decreed that the red apples should be picked that afternoon, and
+Aunt Matilda's word was law at the Sparhallow farm, even for wilful
+Avery. So they worked and talked as they worked--of Avery's wedding,
+which was to be as soon as Bruce Gordon should arrive from Scotland.
+
+"I wonder what Bruce will be like," said Avery. "It is eight years
+since he went home to Scotland. He was sixteen then--he will be
+twenty-four now. He went away a boy--he will come back a man."
+
+"I don't remember much about him," said Janet. "I was only nine when
+he went away. He used to tease me--I do remember that." There was a
+little resentment in her voice. Janet had never liked being teased.
+Avery laughed.
+
+"You were so touchy, Janet. Touchy people always get teased. Bruce was
+very handsome--and as nice as he was handsome. Those two years he was
+here were the nicest, gayest time I ever had. I wish he had stayed in
+Canada. But of course he wouldn't do that. His father was a rich man
+and Bruce was ambitious. Oh, Janet, I wish I could live in the old
+land. That would be life."
+
+Janet had heard all this before and could not understand it. She had
+no hankering for either Scotland or England. She loved the new land
+and its wild, virgin beauty. She yearned to the future, never to the
+past.
+
+"I'm tired of Burnley Beach," Avery went on passionately, shaking
+apples wildly off a laden bough by way of emphasis. "I know all the
+people--what they are--what they can be. It's like reading a book for
+the twentieth time. I know where I was born and who I'll marry--and
+where I'll be buried. That's knowing too much. All my days will be
+alike when I marry Randall. There will never be anything unexpected or
+surprising about them. I tell you Janet," Avery seized another bough
+and shook it with a vengeance, "I hate the very thought of it."
+
+"The thought of--what?" said Janet in bewilderment.
+
+"Of marrying Randall Burnley--or marrying anybody down here--and
+settling down on a farm for life."
+
+Then Avery sat down on the rung of her ladder and laughed at Janet's
+face.
+
+"You look stunned, Janet. Did you really think I wanted to marry
+Randall?"
+
+Janet was stunned, and she did think that. How could any girl not want
+to marry Randall Burnley if she had the chance?
+
+"Don't you love him?" she asked stupidly.
+
+Avery bit into a nut-sweet apple.
+
+"No," she said frankly. "Oh, I don't hate him, of course. I like him
+well enough. I like him very well. But we'll quarrel all our lives."
+
+"Then what are you marrying him for?" asked Janet.
+
+"Why, I'm getting on--twenty-two--all the girls of my age are married
+already. I won't be an old maid, and there's nobody but Randall.
+Nobody good enough for a Sparhallow, that is. You wouldn't want me to
+marry Ned Adams or John Buchanan, would you?"
+
+"No," said Janet, who had her full share of the Sparhallow pride.
+
+"Well, then, of course I must marry Randall. That's settled and
+there's no use making faces over the notion. I'm not making faces, but
+I'm tired of hearing you talk as if you thought I adored him and must
+be in the seventh heaven because I was going to marry him, you
+romantic child."
+
+"Does Randall know you feel like this?" asked Janet in a low tone.
+
+"No. Randall is like all men--vain and self-satisfied--and believes
+I'm crazy about him. It's just as well to let him think so, until
+we're safely married anyhow. Randall has some romantic notions too,
+and I'm not sure that he'd marry me if he knew, in spite of his three
+years' devotion. And I have no intention of being jilted three weeks
+before my wedding day."
+
+Avery laughed again, and tossed away the core of her apple.
+
+Janet, who had been very pale, went crimson and lovely. She could not
+endure hearing Randall criticized. "Vain and self-satisfied"--when
+there was never a man less so! She was horrified to feel that she
+almost hated Avery--Avery who did not love Randall.
+
+"What a pity Randall didn't take a fancy to you instead of me, Janet,"
+said Avery teasingly. "Wouldn't you like to marry him, Janet? Wouldn't
+you now?"
+
+"No," cried Janet angrily. "I just like Randall, I've liked him ever
+since that day when I was a little thing and he came here and saved me
+from being shut up all day in that dreadful dark closet because I
+broke Aunt Matilda's blue cup--when I hadn't meant to break it. He
+wouldn't let her shut me up! He is like that--he understands! I want
+you to marry him because he wants you, and it isn't fair that
+you--that you--"
+
+"Nothing is fair in this world, child. Is it fair that I, who am so
+pretty--you know I am pretty, Janet--and who love life and excitement,
+should have to be buried on a P.E. Island farm all my days? Or else be
+an old maid because a Sparhallow mustn't marry beneath her? Come,
+Janet, don't look so woebegone. I wouldn't have told you if I'd
+thought you'd take it so much to heart. I'll be a good wife to
+Randall, never fear, and I'll keep him up to the notch of prosperity
+much better than if I thought him a little lower than the angels. It
+doesn't do to think a man perfection, Janet, because he thinks so too,
+and when he finds someone who agrees with him he is inclined to rest
+on his oars."
+
+"At any rate, you don't care for anyone else," said Janet hopefully.
+
+"Not I. I like Randall as well as I like anybody."
+
+"Randall won't be satisfied with that," muttered Janet. But Avery did
+not hear her, having picked up her basket of apples and gone. Janet
+sat down on the lower rung of the ladder and gave herself up to an
+unpleasant reverie. Oh, how the world had changed in half an hour! She
+had never been so worried in her life. She was so fond of Randall--she
+had always been fond of him--why, he was just like a brother to her!
+She couldn't possibly love a brother more. And Avery was going to hurt
+him; it would hurt him horribly when he found out she did not love
+him. Janet could not bear the thought of Randall being hurt; it made
+her fairly savage. He must not be hurt--Avery must love him. Janet
+could not understand why she did not.
+
+Surely everyone must love Randall. It had never occurred to Janet to
+ask herself, as Avery had asked, if she would like to marry Randall.
+Randall could never fancy her--a little plain, brown thing, only half
+grown. Nobody could think of her beside beautiful, rose-faced Avery.
+Janet accepted this fact unquestioningly. She had never been jealous.
+She only felt that she wanted Randall to have everything he wanted--to
+be perfectly happy. Why, it would be dreadful if he did not marry
+Avery--if he went and married some other girl. She would never see
+him then, never have any more delightful talks with him about all the
+things they both loved so much--winds and delicate dawns, mysterious
+woods in moonlight and starry midnights, silver-white sails going out
+of the harbour in the magic of morning, and the grey of gulf storms.
+There would be nothing in life; it would just be one great, unbearable
+emptiness; for she, herself, would never marry. There was nobody for
+her to marry--and she didn't care. If she could have Randall for a
+real brother, she would not mind a bit being an old maid. And there
+was that beautiful new frame house Randall had built for his bride,
+which she, Janet, had helped him build, because Avery would not
+condescend to details of pantry and linen closet and cupboards. Janet
+and Randall had had such fun over the cupboards. No stranger must ever
+come to be mistress of that house. Randall must marry Avery, and she
+must love him. Could anything be done to make her love him?
+
+"I believe I'll go and see Granny Thomas," said Janet desperately.
+
+She thought this was a silly idea, but it still haunted her and would
+not be shaken off. Granny Thomas was a very old woman who lived at
+Burnley Cove and was reputed to be something of a witch. That is,
+people who were not Sparhallows or Burnleys gave her that name.
+Sparhallows or Burnleys, of course, were above believing in such
+nonsense. Janet was above believing it; but still--the sailors along
+shore were careful to "keep on the good side" of Granny Thomas, lest
+she brew an unfavourable wind for them, and there was much talk of
+love potions. Janet knew that people said Peggy Buchanan would never
+have got Jack McLeod if Granny had not given her a love potion. Jack
+had never looked at Peggy, though she was after him for years; and
+then, all at once, he was quite mad about her--and married her--and
+wore her life out with jealousy. And Peggy, the homeliest of all the
+Buchanan girls! There must be something in it. Janet made a sudden
+desperate resolve. She would go to Granny and ask her for a love
+potion to make Avery love Randall. If Granny couldn't do any good, she
+couldn't do any harm. Janet was a little afraid of her, and had never
+been near her house, but what wouldn't she do for Randall?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Janet never lost much time in carrying out any resolution she made.
+The next afternoon she slipped away to visit Granny Thomas. She put on
+her longest dress and did her hair up for the first time. Granny must
+not think her a child. She rowed herself down the long pond to the row
+of golden-brown sand dunes that parted it from the gulf. It was a
+wonderful autumn day. There were wild growths and colours and scents
+in sweet procession all around the pond. Every curve in it revealed
+some little whim of loveliness. On the left bank, in a grove of birch,
+was Randall's new house, waiting to be sanctified by love and joy and
+birth. Janet loved to be alone thus with the delightful day. She was
+sorry when she had walked over the stretch of windy weedy sea fields
+and reached Granny's little tumbledown house at the Cove--sorry and a
+little frightened as well. But only a little; there was good stuff in
+Janet; she lifted the latch boldly and walked in when Granny bade.
+Granny was curled up on a stool by her fireplace, and if ever anybody
+did look like a witch, she did. She waved her pipe at another stool,
+and Janet sat down, gazing a little curiously at Granny, whom she had
+never seen at such close quarters before.
+
+Will I look like that when I am very old? she thought, beholding
+Granny's wizened, marvellously wrinkled face. I wonder if anybody will
+be sorry when you die.
+
+"Staring wasn't thought good manners in my time," said Granny. Then,
+as Janet blushed crimson under the rebuke, she added, "Keep red like
+that instead o' white, and you won't need no love ointment."
+
+Janet felt a little cold thrill. How did Granny know what she had come
+for? Was she a real witch after all? For a moment she wished she
+hadn't come. Perhaps it was not right to tamper with the powers of
+darkness. Peggy Buchanan was notoriously unhappy. If Janet had known
+how to get herself away, she would have gone without asking for
+anything.
+
+Then a sound came from the lean-to behind the house.
+
+"S-s-h. I hear the devil grunting like a pig," muttered Granny,
+looking very impish.
+
+But Janet smiled a little contemptuously. She knew it was a pig and no
+devil. Granny Thomas was only an old fraud. Her awe passed away and
+left her cool Sparhallow.
+
+"Can you," she said with her own directness, "make a--a person care
+for another person--care--very much?"
+
+Granny removed her pipe and chuckled.
+
+"What you want is toad ointment," she said.
+
+Toad ointment! Janet shuddered. That did not sound very nice. Granny
+noticed the shudder.
+
+"Nothing like it," she said, nodding her crone-like old grey head.
+"There's other things, but noan so sure. Put a li'l bit--oh, such a
+li'l bit--on his eyelids, and he's yourn for life. You need something
+powerful--you're noan so pretty--only when you're blushing."
+
+Janet was blushing again. So Granny thought she wanted the charm for
+herself! Well, what did it matter? Randall was the only one to be
+considered.
+
+"Is it very--expensive?" she faltered. She had not much money. Money
+was no plentiful thing on a P.E.I. farm in 1840.
+
+"Oh, noa--oh, noa," Granny leered. "I don't sell it. I gives it. I
+like to see young folks happy. You don't need much, as I've said--just
+a li'l smootch and you'll have your man, and send old Granny a bite o'
+the wedding cake and fig o' baccy for luck, and a bid to the fir-r-st
+christening! Doan't forget that, dearie."
+
+Janet was cold again with anger. She hated old Granny Thomas. She
+would never come near her again.
+
+"I'd rather pay you its worth," she said coldly.
+
+"You couldn't, dearie. What money could be eno' for such a treasure?
+But that's the Sparhallow pride. Well, go, see if the Sparhallow pride
+and the Sparhallow money will buy you your lad's love."
+
+Granny looked so angry that Janet hastened to appease her.
+
+"Oh, please forgive me--I meant no offence. Only--it must have cost
+you much trouble to make it."
+
+Granny chuckled again. She was vastly pleased to see a Sparhallow
+suing to her--a Sparhallow!
+
+"Toads am cheap," she said. "It's all in the knowing how and the time
+o' the moon. Here, take this li'l pill box--there's eno' in it--and
+put a li'l bit on his eyelids when you've getten the chance--and when
+he looks at you, he'll love you. Mind you, though, that he looks at no
+other first--it's the first one he sees that he'll love. That's the
+way it works."
+
+"Thank you." Janet took the little box. She wished she dared to go at
+once. But perhaps this would anger Granny. Granny looked at her with a
+twinkle in her little, incredibly old eyes.
+
+"Be off," she said. "You're in a hurry to go--you're as proud as any
+of the proud Sparhallows. But I bear you no grudge. I likes proud
+people--when they have to come to me to get help."
+
+Janet found herself outside with a relieved heart in her bosom and her
+little box in her hand. For a moment she was tempted to throw it away.
+But no--Randall would be so unhappy if he found out Avery didn't love
+him! She would try the ointment at least--she would try to forget
+about the toads and not let herself think how it was made--something
+might come of it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Janet hurried home along the shore, where a silvery wave broke in a
+little lovely silvery curve on the sand. She was so happy that her
+cheeks burned, and Randall Burnley, who was sitting on the edge of her
+flat when she reached the pond, looked at her with admiration. Janet
+dropped her box into her pocket stealthily when she saw him. What with
+her guilty secret, she hardly knew whether she was glad or not when
+he said he was going to row her up the pond.
+
+"I saw you go down an hour ago and I've been waiting ever since," he
+said. "Where have you been?"
+
+"Oh--I just--wanted a walk--this lovely day," said Janet miserably.
+She felt that she was telling an untruth and this hurt her
+horribly--especially when it was to Randall. This was what came of
+truck with witches--you were led into falsehood and deception
+straightaway. Again Janet was tempted to drop Granny's pill box into
+the depths of Burnley Pond--and again she decided not to because she
+saw Randall Burnley's deep-set, blue-grey eyes, that could look tender
+or sorrowful or passionate or whimsical as he willed, and thought how
+they would look when he found Avery did not love him.
+
+So Janet drowned the voice of conscience and was brazenly happy--happy
+because Randall Burnley rowed her up the pond--happy because he walked
+halfway home with her over the autumnal fields--happy because he
+talked of the day and the sea and the golden weather, as only Randall
+could talk. But she thought she was happy because she had in her
+pocket what might make Avery love him.
+
+Randall went as far as the stile in the birch wood between the Burnley
+and the Sparhallow land--and he kept her there talking for another
+half-hour--and though he talked only of a book he had read and a new
+puppy he was training, Janet listened with her soul in her ears. She
+talked too--quite freely; she was never in the least shy or
+tongue-tied or awkward in Randall's company. There she was always at
+her best, with a delightful feeling of being understood. She wondered
+if he noticed she had her hair done up. Her eyes shone and her brown
+face was full of rosy, kissable hues. When he finally turned away
+homeward, life went flat. Janet decided she was very tired after her
+long walk and her trying interview. But it did not matter, since she
+had her love potion. That was so much nicer a name than toad ointment.
+
+That night Janet rubbed mutton tallow on her hands. She had never done
+that before--she had thought it vain and foolish--though Avery did it
+every night. But that afternoon on the pond Randall had said something
+about the beautiful shape of her pretty slender hands. He had never
+paid her a compliment before. Her hands were brown and a little
+hard--not soft and white like Avery's. So Janet resorted to the mutton
+tallow. If one had a scrap of beauty, if only in one's hands, one
+might as well take care of it.
+
+Having got her ointment, the next thing was to make use of it. This
+was not so easy--because, in the first place, it must not be done when
+there was any danger of Avery's seeing some other than Randall
+first--and it must be done without Avery's knowing it. The two
+problems combined were almost too much for Janet. She bided her chance
+like a watchful cat--but it did not come. Two weeks went by and it had
+not come. Janet was getting very desperate. The wedding day was only a
+week away. The bride's cake was made and the turkeys fattened. The
+invitations were sent out. Janet's own bridesmaid dress was ready. And
+still the little pill box in the till of Janet's blue chest was
+unopened. She had never even opened it, lest virtue escape.
+
+Then her chance came at last, unexpectedly. One evening at dusk, when
+Janet was crossing the little dark upstairs hall, Aunt Matilda called
+up to her.
+
+"Janet, send Avery down. There is a young man wanting to see her."
+
+Aunt Matilda was laughing a little--as she always did when Randall
+came. It was a habit with her, hanging over from the early days of
+Randall's courtship. Janet went on into their room to tell Avery. And
+lo, Avery was lying asleep on her bed, tired out from her busy day.
+Janet, after one glance, flew to her chest. She took out her pill box
+and opened it, a little fearfully. The toad ointment was there, dark
+and unpleasant enough to view. Janet tiptoed breathlessly to the bed
+and gingerly scraped the tip of her finger in the ointment.
+
+She said so little would be enough--oh, I hope I'm not doing wrong.
+
+Trembling with excitement, she brushed lightly the white lids of
+Avery's eyes. Avery stirred and opened them. Janet guiltily thrust her
+pill box behind her.
+
+"Randall is downstairs asking for you, Avery."
+
+Avery sat up, looking annoyed. She had not expected Randall that
+evening and would greatly have preferred a continuance of her nap. She
+went down crossly enough, but looking very lovely, flushed from sleep.
+Janet stood in their room, clasping her cold hands nervously over her
+breast. Would the charm work? Oh, she must know--she must know. She
+could not wait. After a few moments that seemed like years she crept
+down the stairs and out into the dusk of the June-warm September
+night. Like a shadow she slipped up to the open parlour window and
+looked cautiously in between the white muslin curtains. The next
+minute she had fallen on her knees in the mint bed. She wished she
+could die then and there.
+
+The young man in the parlour was not Randall Burnley. He was dark and
+smart and handsome; he was sitting on the sofa by Avery's side,
+holding her hands in his, smiling into her rosy, delighted, excited
+face. And he was Bruce Gordon--no doubt of that. Bruce Gordon, the
+expected cousin from Scotland!
+
+"Oh, what have I done? What have I done?" moaned poor Janet, wringing
+her hands. She had seen Avery's face quite plainly--had seen the look
+in her eyes. Avery had never looked at Randall Burnley like that.
+Granny Thomas' abominable ointment had worked all right--and Avery had
+fallen in love with the wrong man.
+
+Janet, cold with horror and remorse, dragged herself up to the window
+again and listened. She must know--she must be sure. She could hear
+only a word here and there, but that word was enough.
+
+"I thought you promised to wait for me, Avery," Bruce said
+reproachfully.
+
+"You were so long in coming back--I thought you had forgotten me,"
+cried Avery.
+
+"I think I did forget a little, Avery. I was such a boy. But
+now--well, thank Heaven, I haven't come too late."
+
+There was a silence, and shameless Janet, peering above the window
+sill, saw what she saw. It was enough. She crept away upstairs to her
+room. She was lying there across the bed when Avery swept in--a
+splendid, transfigured Avery, flushed triumphant. Janet sat up,
+pallid, tear-stained, and looked at her.
+
+"Janet," said Avery, "I am going to marry Bruce Gordon next Wednesday
+night instead of Randall Burnley."
+
+Janet sprang forward and caught Avery's hand.
+
+"You must not," she cried wildly. "It's all my fault--oh, if I could
+only die--I got the love ointment from Granny Thomas to rub on your
+eyes to make you love the first man you would see. I meant it to be
+Randall--I thought it was Randall--oh, Avery!"
+
+Avery had been listening, between amazement and anger. Now anger
+mastered amazement.
+
+"Janet Sparhallow," she cried, "are you crazy? Or do you mean that you
+went to Granny Thomas--you, a Sparhallow!--and asked her for a love
+philtre to make me love Randall Burnley?"
+
+"I didn't tell her it was for you--she thought I wanted it for
+myself," moaned Janet. "Oh, we must undo it--I'll go to her again--no
+doubt she knows of some way to undo the spell--"
+
+Avery, whose rages never lasted long, threw back her dark head and
+laughed ringingly.
+
+"Janet Sparhallow, you talk as if you lived in the dark ages! The idea
+of supposing that horrid old woman could give you love philtres! Why,
+girl, I've always loved Bruce--always. But I thought he'd forgotten
+me. And tonight when he came I found he hadn't. There's the whole
+thing in a nutshell. I'm going to marry him and go home with him to
+Scotland."
+
+"And what about Randall?" said Janet, corpse-white.
+
+"Oh, Randall--pooh! Do you suppose I'm worrying about Randall? But
+you must go to him tomorrow and tell him for me, Janet."
+
+"I will not--I will not."
+
+"Then I'll tell him myself--and I'll tell him about you going to
+Granny," said Avery cruelly. "Janet, don't stand there looking like
+that. I've no patience with you. I shall be perfectly happy with
+Bruce--I would have been miserable with Randall. I know I shan't sleep
+a wink tonight--I'm so excited. Why, Janet, I'll be Mrs. Gordon of
+Gordon Brae--and I'll have everything heart can desire and the man of
+my heart to boot. What has lanky Randall Burnley with his little
+six-roomed house to set against that?"
+
+If Avery did not sleep, neither did Janet. She lay awake till dawn,
+suffering such misery as she had never endured in her life before. She
+knew she must go to Randall Burnley tomorrow and break his heart. If
+she did not, Avery would tell him--tell him what Janet had done. And
+he must not know that--he must not. Janet could not bear that thought.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a pallid, dull-eyed Janet who went through the birch wood to
+the Burnley farm next afternoon, leaving behind her an excited
+household where the sudden change of bridegrooms, as announced by
+Avery, had rather upset everybody. Janet found Randall working in the
+garden of his new house--setting out rosebushes for Avery--Avery, who
+was to jilt him at the very altar, so to speak. He came over to open
+the gate for Janet, smiling his dear smile. It was a dear smile--Janet
+caught her breath over the dearness of it--and she was going to blot
+it off his face.
+
+She spoke out, with plainness and directness. When you had to deal a
+mortal blow, why try to lighten it?
+
+"Avery sent me to tell you that she is going to marry Bruce Gordon
+instead of you. He came last night--and she says that she has always
+liked him best."
+
+A very curious change came over Randall's face--but not the change
+Janet had expected to see. Instead of turning pale Randall flushed;
+and instead of a sharp cry of pain and incredulity, Randall said in no
+uncertain tones, "Thank God!"
+
+Janet wondered if she were dreaming. Granny Thomas' love potion seemed
+to have turned the world upside down. For Randall's arms were about
+her and Randall was pressing his lean bronzed cheek to hers and
+Randall was saying:
+
+"Now I can tell you, Janet, how much I love you."
+
+"Me? Me!" choked Janet.
+
+"You. Why, you're in the very core of my heart, girl. Don't tell me
+you can't love me--you can--you must--why, Janet," for his eyes had
+caught and locked with hers for a minute, "you do!"
+
+There were five minutes about which nobody can tell anything, for even
+Randall and Janet never knew clearly just what happened in those five
+minutes. Then Janet, feeling somehow as if she had died and then come
+back to life, found her tongue.
+
+"Three years ago you came courting Avery," she said reproachfully.
+
+"Three years ago you were a child. I did not think about you. I wanted
+a wife--and Avery was pretty. I thought I was in love with her. Then
+you grew up all at once--and we were such good friends--I never could
+talk to Avery--she wasn't interested in anything I said--and you have
+eyes that catch a man--I've always thought of your eyes. But I was
+honour-bound to Avery--I didn't dream you cared. You must marry me
+next Wednesday, Janet--we'll have a double wedding. You won't
+mind--being married--so soon?"
+
+"Oh, no--I won't--mind," said Janet dazedly. "Only--oh, Randall--I
+must tell you--I didn't mean to tell you--I'd have rather died--but
+now--I must tell you about it now--because I can't bear anything
+hidden between us. I went to old Granny Thomas--and got a love
+ointment from her--to make Avery love you, because I knew she
+didn't--and I wanted you to be happy--Randall, don't--I can't talk
+when you do that! Do you think Granny's ointment could have made her
+care for Bruce?"
+
+Randall laughed--the little, low laugh of the triumphant lover.
+
+"If it did, I'm glad of it. But I need no such ointment on my eyes to
+make me love you--you carry your philtre in that elfin little face of
+yours, Janet."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories,
+1909 to 1922, by Lucy Maud Montgomery
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MONTGOMERY SHORT STORIES ***
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