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diff --git a/28307-8.txt b/28307-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c6a7990 --- /dev/null +++ b/28307-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4791 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Christmas Accident and Other Stories, by +Annie Eliot Trumbull + +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: A Christmas Accident and Other Stories + +Author: Annie Eliot Trumbull + +Release Date: March 11, 2009 [EBook #28307] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHRISTMAS ACCIDENT *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Emmy and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + + + + + + + + + + +A CHRISTMAS ACCIDENT + +AND OTHER STORIES + +[Illustration] + +BY +ANNIE ELIOT TRUMBULL + + + + +A Christmas Accident + + + + +STORIES BY + +ANNIE ELIOT TRUMBULL + +[Illustration: Leaf] + + A CHRISTMAS ACCIDENT AND OTHER + STORIES. 16mo. Cloth $1.00 + + ROD'S SALVATION AND OTHER STORIES. + 16mo. Cloth 1.00 + + A CAPE COD WEEK. 16mo. Cloth 1.00 + + MISTRESS CONTENT CRADOCK. + Cloth. 16mo. 1.00 + +[Illustration: Leaf] + + A. S. BARNES & CO., PUBLISHERS, + _New York_. + + + + +A Christmas Accident + +_And Other Stories_ + +By + +Annie Eliot Trumbull + +Author of "White Birches," "A Masque of Culture," etc. + +[Illustration: Emblem] + + New York + A. S. Barnes and Company + 1900 + + + _Copyright, 1897_, + BY A. S. BARNES AND COMPANY. + + + + =University Press:= + JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. + + + + +OF the stories included in this volume, the first originally appeared in +the _Hartford Courant_; "After--the Deluge," in the _Atlantic Monthly_; +"Mary A. Twining," in the _Home Maker_; "A Postlude" and "Her Neighbor's +Landmark," in the _Outlook_; "The 'Daily Morning Chronicle,'" in _The +New England Magazine_; and "Hearts Unfortified," in _McClure's +Magazine_. To the courtesy of the editors of these periodicals I am +indebted for permission to reprint them. + + A. E. T. + + + + +Contents + + + Page + + A CHRISTMAS ACCIDENT 1 + + AFTER--THE DELUGE 32 + + MEMOIR OF MARY TWINING 67 + + A POSTLUDE 99 + + THE "DAILY MORNING CHRONICLE" 139 + + HEARTS UNFORTIFIED 177 + + HER NEIGHBOR'S LANDMARK 210 + + + + +A Christmas Accident + +[Illustration: Leaf] + + +AT first the two yards were as much alike as the two houses, each house +being the exact copy of the other. They were just two of those little +red brick dwellings that one is always seeing side by side in the +outskirts of a city, and looking as if the occupants must be alike too. +But these two families were quite different. Mr. Gilton, who lived in +one, was a pretty cross sort of man, and was quite well-to-do, as cross +people sometimes are. He and his wife lived alone, and they did not have +much going out and coming in, either. Mrs. Gilton would have liked more +of it, but she had given up thinking about it, for her husband had said +so many times that it was women's tomfoolery to want to have people, +whom you weren't anything to and who weren't anything to you, ringing +your doorbell all the time and bothering around in your +dining-room,--which of course it was; and she would have believed it if +a woman ever did believe anything a man says a great many times. + +In the other house there were five children, and, as Mr. Gilton said, +they made too large a family, and they ought to have gone somewhere +else. Possibly they would have gone had it not been for the fence; but +when Mr. Gilton put it up and Mr. Bilton told him it was three inches +too far on his land, and Mr. Gilton said he could go to law about it, +expressing the idea forcibly, Mr. Bilton was foolish enough to take his +advice. The decision went against him, and a good deal of his money went +with it, for it was a long, teasing lawsuit, and instead of being three +inches of made ground it might have been three degrees of the Arctic +Circle for the trouble there was in getting at it. So Mr. Bilton had to +stay where he was. + +It was then that the yards began to take on those little differences +that soon grew to be very marked. Neither family would plant any vines +because they would have been certain to heedlessly beautify the other +side, and consequently the fence, in all its primitive boldness, stood +out uncompromisingly, and the one or two little bits of trees grew +carefully on the farther side of the enclosure so as not to be mixed up +in the trouble at all. But Mr. Gilton's grass was cut smoothly by the +man who made the fires, while Mr. Bilton only found a chance to cut his +himself once in two weeks. Then, by and by, Mr. Gilton bought a red +garden bench and put it under the tree that was nearest to the fence. No +one ever went out and sat on it, to be sure, but to the Bilton children +it represented the visible flush of prosperity. Particularly was Cora +Cordelia wont to peer through the fence and gaze upon that red bench, +thinking it a charming place in which to play house, ignorant of the +fact that much of the red paint would have come off on her back. Cora +Cordelia was the youngest of the five. All the rest had very simple +names,--John, Walter, Fanny, and Susan,--but when it came to Cora +Cordelia, luxuries were beginning to get very scarce in the Bilton +family, and Mrs. Bilton felt that she must make up for it by being +lavish, in one direction or another. She had wished to name Fanny, Cora, +and Susan, Cordelia, but she had yielded to her husband, and called one +after his mother and one after herself, and then gave both her favorite +names to the youngest of all. Cora Cordelia was a pretty little girl, +prettier even than both her names put together. + +After the red bench came a quicksilver ball, that was put in the middle +of the yard and reflected all the glory of its owner, albeit in a +somewhat distorted form. This effort of human ingenuity filled the +Bilton children with admiration bordering on awe; Cora Cordelia spent +hours gazing at it, until called in and reproved by her mother for +admiring so much things she could not afford to have. After this, she +only admired it covertly. + +Small distinctions like these barbed the arrows of contrast and +comparison and kept the disadvantages of neighborhood ever present. + +Then, it was a constant annoyance to have their surnames so much alike. +Matters were made more unpleasant by mistakes of the butcher, the +grocer, and so on,--Gilton, 79 Holmes Avenue, was so much like Bilton, +77 Holmes Avenue. Gilton changed his butcher every time he sent his +dinner to Bilton; and though the mistakes were generally rectified, +neither of the two families ever forgot the time the Biltons ate, +positively ate, the Gilton dinner, under a misapprehension. Mrs. Bilton +apologized, and Mrs. Gilton boldly told her husband that she was glad +they'd had it, and she hoped they'd enjoyed it, which only made matters +worse; and altogether it was a dark day, the only joy of it being that +fearful one snatched by John, Walter, Susan, Fanny, and Cora Cordelia +from the undoubted excellence of the roast. + +Of course there was an assortment of minor difficulties. The smoke from +the Biltons' kitchen blew in through the windows of the Giltons' +sitting-room when the wind was in one direction, and, when it was in the +other, many of the clothes from the Giltons' clothesline were blown into +the Biltons' yard, and Fanny, Susan, or Cora Cordelia had to be sent out +to pick them up and drop them over the fence again, which Mrs. Bilton +said was very wearing, as of course it must have been. Things like this +were always happening, but matters reached a climax when it came to the +dog. It wasn't a large dog, but it was a tiresome one. It got up early +in the morning and barked. Now we all know that early rising is a good +thing and honorable among all men, but it is something that ought to be +done quietly, out of regard to the weaker vessels; and a dog that barks +between five and seven in the morning, continuously, certainly ought to +be suppressed, even if it be necessary to use force. Everybody agreed +with the Biltons about that,--everybody except the Giltons themselves, +who, by some one of nature's freaks, didn't mind it. Mrs. Bilton often +said she wished Mrs. Gilton could be a light sleeper for a week and see +what it was like. So, too, everybody thought that Mr. Bilton had right +on his side when he complained that this same dog came into his yard, +being apparently indifferent to any coolness between the estate owners, +and ran over a bed of geraniums and one thing and another, that was the +small Bilton offset to the Gilton bench and ball. But when one morning, +for the first time, that dog remained quiet and restful, and was found +cold and poisoned, and Mr. Gilton was loud in his accusations of the +Bilton boys and their father, public opinion wavered for a moment. After +that accident, no member of either family spoke to any member of the +other. That was the way matters stood the day before Christmas. + + * * * * * + +It was snowing hard, and the afternoon grew dark rapidly, and the +whirling flakes pursued a blinding career. In spite of that, everybody +was out doing the last thing. Mrs. Gilton was not, to be sure. Of course +they would have a big dinner, but even that was all arranged for, +although the turkey hadn't come and her husband was going to stop and +see about it on his way home. She shuddered as the possibility of its +having gone to the Biltons occurred to her. But she didn't believe it +had,--they hadn't the same butcher any longer. Meanwhile there was so +little to do. It was too dark to read or sew, and she sat idly at the +window looking out at the passers and the driving snow. Everybody else +was in a hurry. She wished she, too, had occasion to hasten down for a +last purchase, or to light the lamp in order to finish a last bit of +dainty sewing, as she used to do when she was a girl. She seemed to have +so few friends now with whom she exchanged Christmas greetings. Was it +then only for children and youth, this Christmas cheer? And must she +necessarily have left it behind her with her girlhood? No, she knew +better than that. She felt that there was a deeper significance in the +Christmas-tide than can come home to the hearts of children and +unthoughtfulness, and yet it had grown to be so painfully like other +days,--an occasion for a little bigger dinner, that was about all. With +an unconscious sigh she looked across to the Bilton house. Plenty of +people over there to make merry. Five stockings to hang up. She wished +she might have sent something in. To be sure, there was the dog, but +that was some time ago. Very likely the dog would have been dead now, +anyhow. She felt, herself, that this logic was not irrefutable, but she +wished she could have sent some paper parcels just the same. So strong +had this impulse been that she had said to her husband somewhat timidly +that morning,-- + +"There are a good many of those Bilton children to get presents for." + +"More fools they that get 'em presents, then," he had pleasantly +replied. + +"I don't suppose he has much to buy them with," she continued. + +"He had enough to buy poison for my dog," exclaimed her husband, giving +his newspaper an angry shake. + +"I'd almost like to send them in some cheap little toys." + +"Well, as long as you don't quite like to, it won't do any harm," he +said with some violence, laying down his newspaper, and looking at her +in a manner not to be misunderstood. "But you see that the liking +doesn't get any farther." + +"It's Christmas, you know," said his plucky wife. + +"Oh, no, I don't know it!" he replied gruffly. "I haven't fallen over +forty children a minute in the street with their ridiculous parcels, and +I haven't had women drop brown-paper bundles that come undone all over +me when they crowd into the horse car, and I haven't found it impossible +to get to the shirt-collar counter on account of Christmas novelties! +Oh, no, I didn't know it was Christmas!" + +After that there was really not much to be said, for we all know +Christmas is dreadfully annoying, and the last thing a man in this sort +of temper wants to hear about is peace and good will. + +Notwithstanding the fact that Mrs. Gilton looked over to her neighbors' +with an envious feeling this dark afternoon, their Christmas cheer was +not so abounding as it had been in more prosperous times. There was not +very much money to be spent this year, and they were obliged to give up +something. Mr. and Mrs. Bilton had decided that it should be the +Christmas dinner; they would have a simple luncheon, and let all the +money that could be spared go for the stockings. Each child had its own +sum to invest for others, and there was still a small amount for the +older members of the family. That it was a small amount Mrs. Bilton felt +strongly, as she went from shop to shop. But when she reached home again +she was somewhat encouraged; there was such an air of joyous expectation +in the house, and her purchases looked larger now that they were away +from the glittering counters. Then each of the five children came to her +separately and confided to her the nothing less than wonderful results +of judicious bargaining which had enabled them to buy useful and +beautiful presents for each of the others out of the sums intrusted to +their care, ranging in amount from the two dollars of John to the fifty +cents of Cora Cordelia. She felt sure that there were further secrets +yet; secrets attended by brown paper and string, which she had taken the +greatest care for the last two weeks not heedlessly to expose,--riddles +of which the solution lay perilously near her eyes, which would be +revealed to her astonished gaze the next morning. + +She had reason to believe that even Cora Cordelia was making something +for her, and though it was difficult for her to ignore the fact that it +was a knit washcloth, she had hitherto avoided absolute certainty on the +subject. So that altogether it was a pretty cheerful afternoon at the +Biltons'. + +Meanwhile, down in the main street of the city it was a confusing scene. +It was darker there than where the streets were more open; and although +there were several daring spirits of that adventurous turn of mind which +leads people into byways of discovery, who asserted that the street +lamps were lighted, it was not generally believed. The snow was blowing +down and up and across, and getting more and more unmanageable under the +feet of foot passengers every moment. It was cold and windy and blinding +and crowded, and a good many other disconcerting things, all of which +Mr. Gilton felt the full force of as he stood on the corner where he had +just bought his turkey. It was a fine turkey, and had been a good +bargain, and though he had to carry it home himself, there was nothing +derogatory in that. If it had been anybody else he would have been +thrilled with a glow of satisfaction, but Mr. Gilton was long past glows +of satisfaction--it was years since he had permitted himself to have +such things. + +"Jour--our--nal! fi-i-i-ve cents!" screamed an intermittent newsboy in +his ear. + +"Get out!" replied Mr. Gilton, the uncompromising nature of his +language being intensified by the fact that he jumped nearly two feet +from the suddenness of the newsboy's attack. Even the newsboy, inured to +the short words of an unfriendly world, and usually quite indifferent +thereto, was impressed by the asperity of the suggestion and moved +somewhat hastily on. Possibly his cold, wet little existence had been +rendered morbidly susceptible by the general good feeling of the hour, +one lady having even spontaneously given him five cents. + +After this exchange of amenities Mr. Gilton stepped into his horse car. +It was crowded, of course, as horse cars that are small and run once in +half an hour are apt to be, and he had to stand up, and the turkey legs +stuck out of the brown paper in a very conspicuous way. If Mr. Gilton +had been anybody else he would have been chaffed about his turkey, +because to make up for the conveniences that the horse car line did not +furnish the public, the large-hearted public furnished the horse car +line with an unusual amount of friendliness. There was almost always +something going on in these horse cars. Their social privileges were +quite a feature. To-night they were in unusual force on account of the +season. But nobody said anything to Mr. Gilton. Only when he jerked the +bell and stepped off, one stout man with his overcoat collar turned up +to his ears said, without turning his head:-- + +"I supposed of course he was going to give the turkey to the conductor." + +Everybody laughed in that end of the car except one small old lady in +the corner, who was a stranger and visiting, and who was left with the +impression that the gentleman who got off must be a very kind man. It +was darker and blowier and snowier than when he had left the corner, and +Mr. Gilton floundered through the unbroken drifts up the little path to +the door with increasing grudges in his heart against the difficulties +of Christmas. The lock was off, and he went in slamming the door after +him. There was no light in the hall, and he murmured loudly against the +inconvenience. + +"Confound it!" he said, "why didn't they light the gas? I'm not one of +those confounded Biltons; I can afford to pay for what I don't get;" +and, without pausing to take off his hat and coat, he strode to the +sitting-room door and flung it open. That was an awful moment. The +sudden change from the cold and darkness almost blinded him, and +confirmed the impression that he was the victim of an illusion. The +sound of many voices, and then the hush of sudden consternation, was in +his ears. There was a lamp and there was a fire, and there between them +sat Mr. Bilton on one side and Mrs. Bilton on the other, and round +about, in various unconventional attitudes, sat four Bilton children. +And there in the very midst of them, in his heavy overcoat, with snow +melting on his hat, his beard, and his shoulders, stood Mr. Gilton. The +unexpected scene, the amazed faces gazing into his, rendered him +speechless; he wondered vaguely if he were losing his reason. Then, in a +flush of enlightenment, he realized what had happened; thanks to the +storm outside, he had come into the wrong house. Naturally his first +impulse was towards flight, but as his bewildered gaze slipped about the +room it fell upon five stockings hung against the mantelpiece, and +stayed there fascinated. Five foolish, limp, expressionless +stockings,--it was long since he had seen such an unreasonable +spectacle. Then he recollected himself and looked around him. Perhaps +even then, if he had made a dash for the door, he might have escaped and +matters have been none the worse. But in that instant of hesitation +caused by the sudden sight of those five stockings something dreadful +occurred. It must be premised that Cora Cordelia did not know Mr. Gilton +very well by sight, being in the first place small and not noticing, +and in the second, filled with an unreasoning fear that caused her to +flee whenever she had seen him approach. This is the only excuse for +what she did; for while her mother was feebly murmuring, as if in +extenuation, "We thought it was John coming in," Cora Cordelia clasped +her hands in delirious delight, and cried aloud, "It's Santa Claus! Oh, +it's Santa Claus!" Could anything more awful happen to a cross man, a +very cross man, than to be taken for Santa Claus! + +Mr. Gilton looked at Cora Cordelia, and wondered why she had not been +slaughtered in her cradle. + +"And," exclaimed Susan Bilton, with sudden communicative fervor, "he has +come and brought us a turkey for to-morrow's dinner!" + +The truth was that Susan had been coming to the age that is sceptical +about Santa Claus, but she could not resist this sudden appearance. + +No one could appreciate the nonsense of the whole situation better than +Mr. Gilton; and yet, strangely enough, together with his annoyance was +mingled a touch of the strange feeling that had dawned upon him first +when he saw the stockings. To be sure, it only added to his annoyance, +but it was there. By this time--it was really a very short time--Mrs. +Bilton had recovered herself and risen, and Mr. Bilton had risen too. + +"Hush, children; it is not Santa Claus," she said, "it is Mr. Gilton. We +are glad to see you, Mr. Gilton;" and she held out her hand to him. +"Won't you sit down?" She felt that he had come in the Christmas spirit, +and she was anxious to meet him half-way. + +"Yes," said her husband, coming forward, and instantly taking his cue +from his wife,--for he was really a very nice man,--"we are very glad." +To be sure, in his manner there was a certain stiffness, for a man +cannot always change completely in a moment, as a woman can; but Mr. +Gilton was too perplexed to notice this. In the incomprehensible way +that one's mind has of clinging to unimportant things at great crises, +while he was fuming with rage and bothered with this strange feeling +which was not precisely rage, he was wondering how in the world he was +going to sit down with that ridiculous turkey, with its ridiculous legs, +in his arms, and not look more absurd than he did now. In this moment of +absentmindedness he had mechanically taken Mrs. Bilton's hand and shaken +it, and after that of course there was nothing to do except to shake Mr. +Bilton's. Then he began to know it was all up. He had not spoken yet, +but now he made a frantic effort to save what might be left besides +honor. "I came--" he began, "I came--came to your house--" There he +paused a moment, and that unlucky child with that tendency to be +possessed by one idea, which is characteristic of small and trivial +minds, and for which she should have been shaken, burst in with, "And +did the reindeer bring you, and are they outside?" + +He almost groaned, so overwhelmed was he by this new idiocy. Reindeer! +If those overworked, struggling car-horses could have heard that! Then +Mrs. Bilton, pitying his evident confusion, came to his assistance. + +"Don't mind the children, Mr. Gilton," she said, her cheeks flushing, +and looking very pretty with the excitement of the unusual +circumstances, "we are glad you came, however you made your way here. I +think we may thank Christmas Eve for it. Now do take off your overcoat +and sit down." + +Oh, mispraised woman's tact! What complications you may produce! That +finished it, of course. He sat down. In those few moments that strange +feeling had grown marvellously stronger. It seemed to be made up of the +most diverse elements,--a mixture of green wreaths and his own +childhood, and his mother, and a top he had not thought of for years, +and the wide fireplace at home, and a stable with a child in it, and a +picture, in a book he used to read, of a lot of angels in the sky, one +particular one in the middle, and underneath it some words--what were +the words? He'd forgotten they had anything to do with Christmas, +anyway. + +"But you _did_ bring us the turkey, didn't you?" said Cora Cordelia, +helping her mother on. + +To do the child justice,--for even Cora Cordelia has a right to demand +justice,--her manners were corrupted by Christmas expectancy. + +"Cora Cordelia, I'm ashamed of you," said Mrs. Bilton. + +"Yes," said Mr. Gilton, the words wrung from his lips, while beads stood +on his forehead,--"yes, I brought you the turkey." + +"Did you really?" exclaimed Mrs. Bilton, who thought he had all the +time. "That was very kind of you." + +"Will you please take it--take it away?" he said, with that wish to have +something over which we associate with the dentist. So Mrs. Bilton took +the turkey and thanked him, and gave it to Fanny, who carried it out to +the kitchen, and Mr. Gilton gave one last look at its legs as it went +through the door, feeling that now he must wake up from this nightmare. +But things only went farther and became more incredible and upsetting, +only that, strangely enough, that feeling of horror began to wear off, +and that singular strain of association with all sorts of Christmas +things to grow stronger. He himself could hardly believe that it was no +worse, when he found himself seated by the littered table, with Mrs. +Bilton near and Mr. Bilton over by the fire again, listening to first +one and then the other, and occasionally letting fall a word himself, +his conversational powers seeming to thaw out along with the snow on +his greatcoat. These words themselves were a surprise to him. He was +quite sure that he started them with a creditable gruffness, but the +Christmas air mellowed them in a highly unsatisfactory fashion, so that +they fell on his own ears quite otherwise than as he had meant they +should sound. Moreover the general tenor of the conversation was +exceedingly perplexing. It was all about how fine it was of him to come +this evening, and how they had often regretted the hard feeling, and how +things always did get exaggerated. Of course he would not have believed +a word of it, if he had been able to get any grip on the situation, but +he wasn't, and he just went on assenting to it all as if it were true. +There came a time when Mr. Bilton cleared his throat, hesitated a +moment, and then said boldly,-- + +"I think I ought to tell you, Mr. Gilton, that I had nothing whatever to +do with the death of your dog." Mr. Gilton felt the ground slipping +away from under his very feet. That dog had been his piece of +resistance, as it were. "I wouldn't have poisoned him," went on Mr. +Bilton, "for a hundred dollars. But," he added, with a queer little +smile, "I wasn't going to tell you so, you know." + +"Of course you wasn't," exclaimed Mr. Gilton, hurriedly, with a touch of +that unholy excitement that a lapse from grammar imparts. + +"We wouldn't any of us," asserted Walter. + +"No," said Susan, Fanny, and Cora Cordelia. + +Then it came out that the whole family had rather admired the dog than +otherwise. It was here that John did really come in, his entrance +sounding very much as had Mr. Gilton's. He nearly fell over when he saw +the visitor, but he had time to pull himself together, for Cora Cordelia +had snatched that moment for showing Mr. Gilton her gifts for the +family, and he was bound hand and foot with helplessness. Then they all +came and showed him their gifts. While he examined them Mr. and Mrs. +Bilton carefully averted their eyes and gazed hard at the opposite wall, +while Cora Cordelia urged him, in stage whispers, not to let them +suspect. It was pitiable the state to which he was reduced. Of course +resisting this Christmas enthusiasm was out of the question. To be sure +it came over him once with startling force, as she showed him a toy +water-wheel, that went by sand,--which she had purchased for her father +at a phenomenally low rate because the wheel could not be made to +go,--that Cora Cordelia was the very child that he had fallen over as +she came hastening out of a toy-shop with a queerly shaped bundle, the +day before, and so been further imbittered towards Christmas. Susan had +purchased a cup and ball for her mother, and as she went out of the room +for a moment, insisted upon Mr. Gilton's trying to do it and see what +fun it was. If Mr. Gilton lives to be a hundred he will never forget the +mingled feelings with which he awkwardly tried to get that senseless +ball into that idiotic cup. At last he stood up to go--it was after six +o'clock--and they went with him to the door, and wished him Merry +Christmas, and sent Merry Christmas to Mrs. Gilton, and said good-night +several times, and he stumbled on through the snow, this time towards +his own door. It had stopped snowing as suddenly and quietly as it had +begun, and the stars had come out. He gazed up at them,--something he +very rarely did. They seemed a part of Christmas. Just before he turned +in at his own gate, he looked back at the Bilton house and shook his +fist at it, but the expression on his face was such that the very same +newsboy who had accosted him earlier failed utterly to recognize him and +was emboldened to offer him a paper. He too was pushing his way home +with two papers left, in a somewhat dispirited way. + +"I'll take 'em both," said this singular customer. "Here's a +quarter--never mind the change. It's Christmas Eve, I believe--" and +this when he knew perfectly well that a copy of that very same journal +was waiting for him on his table. The boy looked at his quarter and +looked again at his customer, and recognized him, and made up his mind +to buy a couple of hot sausages on the corner, and went on his way +feeling that there was a new heaven and a new earth. Mrs. Gilton was +standing at the parlor window, peering out anxiously as he came up the +path. She was in the hall as he entered. + +"Why, Reuben," she said, "I was afraid something had happened." + +Goodness gracious! As if something hadn't happened! He turned away to +hang up his overcoat and tried to speak crossly. + +"Well," he said, "I've lost my turkey. That's happened." + +"Never mind," said Mrs. Gilton, quickly; "the other one came later, the +first one, you know--so--so the Biltons didn't get it this time." + +"They got the second one, though," said Reuben, hanging up his hat. + +"Oh, dear, did they!" said Mrs. Gilton. Then she went on, "Well, I don't +care if they did, so there! I guess they need it for their Christmas +dinner." + +"No, they don't," said Reuben, turning around and facing her, "because +they are going to eat part of ours. They are coming in to-morrow to have +dinner with us,--every one of them!" he asserted more loudly, on account +of the expression on his wife's face. "Bilton, and his wife, and all the +five children, down to Cora Cordelia! So we'll have to have something +for them to eat." + +If Mr. Gilton will never forget the cup and ball, Mrs. Gilton will never +forget that moment. She went all over it in her mind whether she could +manage him herself to-night, or whether to send Bridget right away then +for the doctor, and if she hadn't better say a policeman too, and +whether he could be kept for the future in a private house, or would +have to be confined in an asylum. She was inclining towards the asylum +when he, who was going into the sitting-room before her, turned round +and laughed an odd little laugh. She began to think then that a private +house would do. + +The next day they all dined together, which proved that it was not all a +Christmas Eve illusion. There is a report in the neighborhood that the +fence between the houses is to be taken down to make room for a tennis +court for the Bilton children, but of course this may not be true. It +would have to be done in the summer, and if the effect of Christmas +could be depended upon to last into the summer this would be a very +different sort of world. + + + + +After--the Deluge + + +THE sombre tints of Grayhead were slightly suffused by a pink light +sifting from the west through the clear air. The yachts in the harbor +lay idly beneath the mellow influences of the passing of the summer +day,--idly as only sailboats can lie, a bit of loose sail or cordage now +and then flapping inconsistently in a breath of wind, which seemed to +come out of the west for no other purpose, and to retire into the east +afterward, its whole duty done. On board, men were moving about, hanging +lanterns, making taut here, setting free there, all with an air of utter +peace and repose such as is found only on placid waterways beneath a +setting sun. Occasionally an oar dipped in the still water, a hint of +action, modified, softened into repose. Along one of the quaint streets +of the irregular town, winding where it would, climbing where it +climbed, hurried an angular figure,--that of a woman of about fifty +years, whose tense expression suggested an unrest at variance with the +keen calmness of that of the other faces about the streets and doorways. +Not that it was feverish in its intensity; rather, it was an expression +of resolution, undeviating and persistent, but not sure of sympathy or +support. + +"They've gone down yonder, t'other side of the wharf, Mis' Pember," said +a middle-aged sea captain, whose interest in his kind had not been +obliterated by the forced loneliness of northern voyages. + +The woman paused and glanced doubtfully down one of the byways that led +between small, weather-beaten houses and around disconcerting abutments +to the water, and then forward, straight along the way she had been +travelling, which led out of the town. + +"I'd rather fixed on their going down Point-ways this evening," she +said. + +"Well, they ain't," rejoined Captain Phippeny, with that absence of mere +rhetoric characteristic of people whose solid work is done otherwise +than by speech. + +Mrs. Pember nodded, at once in acknowledgment and farewell, and, turning +about, followed the path he had indicated, her gait acquiring a certain +precipitancy as she went down the rough, stony slope. At the foot of the +descent she paused again, and looked to the right and left. Captain +Phippeny was watching her from his vantage ground above. His figure was +one unmistakably of the seaboard. His trousers were of a singular cut, +probably after a pattern evolved in all its originality by Mrs. +Phippeny, her active imagination working towards practical effect. In +addition, he wore a yellow flannel shirt ribbed with purple, which would +hopelessly have jaundiced a rose-leaf complexion, but which, having +exhausted its malignancy without producing any particular effect, ended +by gently harmonizing with the captain's sandy hair, reddish beard, and +tanned skin. His mouth was like a badly made buttonhole, which gaped a +little when he smiled. He had a nose like a parrot's beak, and his eyes +were blue, kindly, and wise in their straightforwardness. When he would +render his costume absolutely _de rigueur_, he wore a leathern jacket +with manifold pockets, from one to another of which trailed a gold +watch-chain with a dangling horseshoe charm. + +"I wonder the old woman don't take a dog with her and trace 'em out, she +spends so much time on the hunt," he said to himself. "I declare for't, +it's a sing'lar thing the way she everlastin' does get onto them +'prentices; ain't old enough to talk about settin' sail by themselves." + +His quid of tobacco again resumed its claim to his undivided attention, +and he leaned back against the fence and waited as idly as the drooping +sails for a breath of something stirring. By and by it appeared in the +shape of another old sailor, between whom and himself there was the +likeness of two peas, save for a slight discrepancy of feature useful +for purposes of identification. + +"You told her where they'd gone, I reckon," he remarked, with a slight +chuckle, as he too leaned up against the fence and looked out over the +harbor. + +"Yes, I did," replied Captain Phippeny. "I didn't have no call to tell +her a lie." + +"Kinder hard on the young uns," observed the new-comer. + +"They ain't ever anythin' as hard on the young uns as on the old uns," +asserted Captain Phippeny, "because--well, because they're _young_, I +guess. That's Chivy's yacht that came in just at sundown, ain't it?" + +"Yare. They say she's seen dirty weather since she was here last." + +"Has? Well, you can't stay in harbor allers, and git your livin' at the +same time. She's got toler'ble good men to handle her." + +There was a pause. The soft twilight was battening down the hatches of +the day, to drop into the parlance of the locality. + +"Well, I do suppose old Pember warn't an easy shipmate, blow or no +blow," observed Captain Smart. He was a small, keen-eyed, quickly moving +old man, seasoned with salt. + +"I reckon he warn't. And she thinks she can keep that girl of hers out +of the same kind of discipline that she had to take,--that's the truth +of it." + +"Cur'ous, ain't it?" ruminated Captain Smart. "A woman's bound to take +it one way or 'nother; there seems to be more sorts of belayin' pins to +knock 'em over with than they, any on 'em, kinder cal'late on at first." + +"So there be," assented Captain Phippeny. + +Near the water, with its fading, rose-colored reflections, not so far +from the anchored vessels but they might, had they chosen, have spoken +across to those on board, the monotonous, austere, and yet vaguely soft +gray of the old town rising behind them against the melting sky, sat +Mellony Pember and Ira Baldwin. + +"If you'd only make up your mind, Mellony," urged the young man. + +"I can't, Ira; don't ask me." The young girl's face, which was delicate +in outline, was troubled, and the sensitive curves of her lips trembled. +The faded blue of her dress harmonized with the soft tones of the scene; +her hat lay beside her, an uncurled, articulated ostrich feather +standing up in it like an exclamation point of brilliant red. + +The young man pulled his hat over his eyes and looked over to the +nearest boat. Mellony glanced at him timidly. + +"You see, I'm all she's got," she said. + +"I ain't goin' to take you away from her, unless you want to go," he +replied, without looking at her. + +"She thinks I'll be happier if I don't--if I don't marry." + +"Happier!"--he paused in scorn--"and she badgerin' you all the time if +you take a walk with me, and watchin' us as if we were thieves! You +ain't happy now, are you?" + +"No." Mellony's eyes filled, and a sigh caught and became almost a sob. + +"Well, I wish she'd give me a try at makin' you happy, that's all." His +would-be sulkiness softened into a tender sense of injury. Mellony +twisted her hands together, and looked over beyond the vessels to the +long, narrow neck of land with its clustering houses, beyond which +again, unseen, were booming the waves of the Atlantic. + +"Oh, if I only knew what to do!" she exclaimed,--"if I only knew what to +do!" + +"I'll tell you what to do, Mellony," he began. + +"There's ma, now," she interrupted. + +Ira turned quickly and looked over his shoulder. Across the uneven +ground, straight towards them, came the figure of Mrs. Pember. The +tenseness of her expression had further yielded to resolution, which had +in turn taken on a stolidity which declared itself unassailable. No one +of the three spoke as she seated herself on a bit of timber near them, +and, folding her hands, waited with the immobility and the apparent +impartiality of Fate itself. At last Mellony spoke, for of the three she +was the most acutely sensitive to the situation, and the least capable +of enduring it silently. + +"Which way did you come, ma?" she asked. + +"I come down Rosaly's Lane," Mrs. Pember answered. "I met Cap'n +Phippeny, and he told me you was down here." + +"I'm obligated to Cap'n Phippeny," observed Ira, bitterly. + +"I dono as he's partickler to have you," remarked Mrs. Pember, +imperturbably. + +There was another silence. Mrs. Pember's voice had a marked sweetness +when she spoke to her daughter, which it lost entirely when she +addressed her daughter's companion, but always it was penetrated by the +timbre of a certain inflexibility. + +The shadows grew deeper on the water, the glow-worms of lanterns +glimmered more sharply, and the softness of the night grew more +palpable. + +"I guess I may as well go back, ma," said Mellony, rising. + +"I was wonderin' when you cal'lated on going," remarked her mother, as +she rose too, more slowly and stiffly, and straightened her decent black +bonnet. + +"I suppose you was afraid Mellony wouldn't get back safe without you +came after her," broke out Ira. + +"I guess I can look after Mellony better than anybody else can, and I +count on doing it, and doing it right along," she replied. + +"Come, ma," said Mellony, impatiently; but she waited a moment and let +her mother pass her, while she looked back at Ira, who stood, angry and +helpless, kicking at the rusted timbers. + +"Are you coming, too, Ira?" she asked in a low voice. + +"No," he exclaimed, "I ain't coming! I don't want to go along back with +your mother and you, as if we weren't old enough to be out by ourselves. +I might as well be handcuffed, and so might you! If you'll come round +with me the way we came, and let her go the way she came, I'll go with +you fast enough." + +Mellony's eyes grew wet again, as she looked from him to her mother, and +again at him. Mrs. Pember had paused, also, and stood a little in +advance of them. Her stolidity showed no anxiety; she was too sure of +the result. + +"No,"--Mellony's lips framed the words with an accustomed but grievous +patience,--"I can't to-night, Ira; I must go with ma." + +"It's to-night that'll be the last chance there'll be, maybe," he +muttered, as he flung himself off in the other direction. + +The two women walked together up the rough ascent, and turned into +Rosaly's Lane. Mellony walked wearily, her eyes down, the red feather, +in its uncurled, unlovely assertiveness, looking more like the oriflamme +of a forlorn hope than ever. But Mrs. Pember held herself erect, and as +if she were obliged carefully to repress what might have been the signs +of an ill-judged triumph. + +Ira prolonged his walk beyond the limits of the little gray town, goaded +by the irritating pricks of resentment. He would bear it no longer, so +he told himself. Mellony could take him or leave him. He would be a +laughing-stock not another week, not another day. If Mellony would not +assert herself against her tyrannical old mother, he would go away and +leave her! And then he paused, as he had paused so often in the flood of +his anger, faced by the realization that this was just what Mrs. Pember +wanted, just what would satisfy her, what she had been waiting +for,--that he should go away and leave Mellony alone. It was an +exasperating dilemma, his abdication and her triumph, or his uncertainty +and her anxiety. + +Mellony and her mother passed Captain Phippeny and Captain Smart, who +still stood talking in the summer evening, the fence continuing to +supply all the support their stalwart frames needed in this their hour +of ease. Captain Smart nudged Captain Phippeny as the two figures turned +the corner of Rosaly's Lane. + +"So you found 'em, Mis' Pember," remarked Captain Phippeny. He spoke to +the mother, but he looked, not without sympathy at the daughter. + +"Yes, I found 'em." + +"You reckoned on fetchin' only one of 'em home, I take it," said Captain +Smart. + +"I ain't responsible but for one of 'em," replied Mrs. Pember with some +grimness, but with her eyes averted from Mellony's crimsoning face. + +"Come, ma," said Mellony again, and they passed on. + +"Mis' Pember is likely enough lookin' woman herself," observed Captain +Smart; "it's kind of cur'ous she should be so set agen marryin,' just +_as_ marryin'." + +"'Tis so," assented Captain Phippeny, thoughtfully, looking after the +two women. + +Without speaking, Mellony and her mother entered the little house where +they lived, and the young girl sank down in the stiff, high-backed +rocker, with its thin calico-covered cushion tied with red braid, that +stood by the window. Outside, the summer night buzzed and hummed, and +breathed sweet odors. Mrs. Pember moved about the room, slightly +altering its arrangements, now and then looking at her daughter half +furtively, as if waiting for her to speak; but Mellony's head was not +turned from the open window, and she was utterly silent. At last this +immobility had a sympathetic effect upon the mother, and she seated +herself not far from the girl, her hands, with their prominent knuckles +and shrunken flesh, folded in unaccustomed idleness, and waited, while +in the room dusk grew to dark. To Mellony the hour was filled with +suggestions that emphasized and defined her misery. In her not turbulent +or passionate nature, the acme of its capacity for emotional suffering +had been reached. Hitherto this suffering had been of the perplexed, +patient, submissive kind; to-night, the beauty of the softly descending +gloom, the gentle freedom of the placid harbor, the revolt of her +usually yielding lover, deepened it into something more acute. + +"Mellony," said her mother, with a touch of that timidity which appeared +only in her speech with her daughter, "did you count on going over to +the Neck to-morrow, as you promised?" + +"I'll never count on doing anything again," said Mellony, in a voice she +tried to make cold and even, but which vibrated notwithstanding,--"never, +so long as I live. I'll never think, or plan, or--or speak, if I can +help it--of what I mean to do. I'll never do anything but just work and +shut my eyes and--and live, if I've got to!" Her voice broke, and she +turned her head away from the open window and looked straight before her +into the shadowed room. Her mother moved uneasily, and her knotted hands +grasped the arms of the stiff chair in which she sat. + +"Mellony," she said again, "you've no call to talk so." + +"I've no call to talk at all. I've no place anywhere. I'm not anybody. I +haven't any life of my own." The keen brutality of the thoughtlessness +of youth, and its ignoring of all claims but those of its own happiness, +came oddly from the lips of submissive Mellony. Mrs. Pember quivered +under it. + +"You know you're my girl, Mellony," she answered gently. "You're all +I've got." + +"Yes," the other answered indifferently, "that's all I am,--Mellony +Pember, Mrs. Pember's girl,--just that." + +"Ain't that enough? Ain't that something to be,--all I plan for and work +for? Ain't that enough for a girl to be?" + +Mellony turned her eyes from emptiness, and fixed them upon her mother's +face, dimly outlined in the vagueness. + +"Is that all you've been," she asked, "just somebody's daughter?" + +It was as if a heavy weight fell from her lips and settled upon her +mother's heart. There was a silence. Mellony's eyes, though she could +not see them, seemed to Mrs. Pember to demand an answer in an +imperative fashion unlike their usual mildness. + +"It's because I've been,--it's because I'd save you from what I have +been that I--do as I do. You know that," she said. + +"I don't want to be saved," returned the other, quickly and sharply. + +The older woman was faced by a situation she had never dreamed of,--a +demand to be allowed to suffer! The guardian had not expected this from +her carefully shielded charge. + +"I want you to have a happy life," she added. + +"A happy life!" flashed the girl. "And you're keeping me from any life +at all! That's what I want,--life, my own life, not what anybody else +gives me of theirs. Why shouldn't I have what they have, even if it's +bad now and then? Don't save me in spite of myself! Nobody likes to be +saved in spite of themselves." + +It was a long speech for Mellony. A large moon had risen, and from the +low horizon sent golden shafts of light almost into the room; it was as +if the placidity of the night were suddenly penetrated by something more +glowing. Mellony stood looking down at her mother, like a judge. Mrs. +Pember gazed at her steadily. + +"I'm going to save you, Mellony," she said, her indomitable will making +her voice harsher than it had been, "whether you want to be saved or +not. I'm not going to have you marry, and be sworn at and cuffed." +Mellony moved to protest, but her strength was futility beside her +mother's at a time like this. "I'm not going to have you slave and grub, +and get blows for your pains. I'm going to follow you about and set +wherever you be, whenever you go off with Ira Baldwin, if that'll stop +it; and if that won't, I'll try some other way,--I know other ways. I'm +not going to have you marry! I'm going to have you stay along with me!" + +With a slight gesture of despair, Mellony turned away. The flash had +burned itself out. The stronger nature had reasserted itself. Silently, +feeling her helplessness, frightened at her own rebellion now that it +was over, she went out of the room to her own smaller one, and closed +the door. + +Mrs. Pember sat silent in her turn, reviewing her daughter's resentment, +but the matter admitted no modifications in her mind; her duty was +clear, and her determination had been taken long ago. Neither did she +fear anything like persistent opposition; she knew her daughter's +submissive nature well. + +Brought up in a country village, an earnest and somewhat apprehensive +member of the church, Mrs. Pember had married the captain early in life, +under what she had since grown to consider a systematic illusion +conceived and maintained by the Evil One, but which was, perhaps, more +logically due to the disconcerting good looks and decorously restrained +impetuosity of Captain Pember himself. Possibly he had been the victim +of an illusion too, not believing that austerity of principle could +exist with such bright eyes and red cheeks as charmed him in the country +girl. At least, he never hesitated subsequently, not only to imply, but +to state baldly, a sense of the existence of injury. Captain Phippeny +was one of those sailors whom the change of scene, the wide knowledge of +men and of things, the hardships and dangers of a sea life, broaden and +render tolerant and somewhat wise. Pember had been brutalized by these +same things. + +The inhabitants of Grayhead were distinguished by the breadth and +suggestiveness of their profanity, and Captain Pember had been a past +master of the accomplishment. Praise from Sir Hubert Stanley could have +been no more discriminating than the local acknowledgment of his +proficiency in this line. No wonder Mrs. Pember looked back at the ten +years of her married life with a shudder. With the rigid training of +her somewhat dogmatic communion still potent, she listened in a +horrified expectancy, rather actual than figurative, for the heavens to +strike or the earth to swallow up her nonchalant husband. Nor was this +all. The weakness for grog, unfortunately supposed to be inherent in a +nautical existence, was carried by Captain Pember to an extent +inconsiderate even in the eyes of a seafaring public; and when, under +its genial influence, he knocked his wife down and tormented Mellony, +the opinion of this same public declared itself on the side of the +victims with a unanimity which is not always to be counted upon in such +cases. + +In fact, her married life had, as it were, formalized many hitherto +somewhat vague details of Mrs. Pember's conception of the place of +future punishment; and when her husband died in an appropriate and +indecorous fashion as the result of a brawl, he continued to mitigate +the relief of the event by leaving in his wife's heart a haunting fear, +begotten of New England conscientiousness, that perhaps she ought not to +be so unmistakably glad of it. It was thus that, with Mellony's growth +from childhood to womanhood, the burning regret for her former unmarried +state, whose difficulties had been mainly theological, had become a no +less burning resolve that her child should never suffer as she had +suffered, but should be guarded from matrimony as from death. That she +failed to distinguish between individuals, that she failed to see that +young Baldwin was destitute of those traits which her sharpened vision +would now have detected in Pember's youth, was both the fault of her +perceptive qualities and the fruit of her impregnable resolve. She had +been hurt by Mellony's rebellion, but not influenced by so much as a +hair's-breadth. + +Early one morning, two or three days later, Mrs. Pember, lying awake +waiting for the light to grow brighter that she might begin her day, +heard a slight sound outside, of a certain incisiveness out of +proportion to its volume. With an idleness that visited her only at +early day-break, she wondered what it was. It was repeated, and this +time, moved by an insistent curiosity blended with the recognition of +its probable cause, she rose and looked out of the window which was +close to the head of her bed. A little pier was a stone's throw from the +house on that side, at which were moored several boats belonging to the +fishermen about. It was as she thought; a stooping figure, dim and hazy +in the morning fog, which blurred the nearest outlines and veiled the +more distant, was untying one of the boats, and had slipped the oars +into the rowlocks. + +"Going fishing early," she said to herself. "I wonder which of 'em it +is. They are all alike in this light." + +Then she stood and looked out upon the morning world. It would soon be +sunrise. Meanwhile, the earth was silent, save for the soft rippling of +the untired waves that scarcely rose and fell in this sheltered harbor; +the land had been at rest through the short night, but they had climbed +and lapsed again steadily through its hours; the paling stars would soon +have faded into the haze. The expectation of the creature waited for the +manifestation. + +Softly the boat floated away from its moorings. It seemed propelled +without effort, so quietly it slipped through the water. In the bottom +lay the sail and the nets, a shadowy mass; the boat itself was little +more than a shadow, as it glided on into the thicker fog which received +and enveloped it, as into an unknown vague future which concealed and +yet held promise and welcome. + +Mrs. Pember glanced at the clock. It was very early, but to go back to +bed was hardly worth while. The sun was already beginning to glint +through the fog. She dressed, and, passing softly the door of the room +where Mellony slept,--rather fitfully of late,--began to make the fire. + +The morning broadened and blazed into the day, and the whole town was +making ready for its breakfast. Mellony was later than usual,--her +mother did not hear her moving about, even; but she was unwilling to +disturb her; she would wait a while longer before calling her. At last, +however, the conviction of the immorality of late rising could no longer +be ignored, and she turned the knob of Mellony's door and stepped into +the room. + +She had been mistaken in supposing that Mellony was asleep; the girl +must have risen early and slipped out, for the room was empty, and Mrs. +Pember paused, surprised that she had not heard her go. It must have +been while she was getting kindling-wood in the yard that Mellony had +left by the street door. And what could she have wanted so early in the +village?--for to the village she must have gone; she was nowhere about +the little place, whose flatness dropped, treeless, to the shore. Her +mother went again to the kitchen, and glanced up and down the waterside. +There was no one on the little wooden pier, and the boats swung gently +by its side, their own among them, so Mellony had not gone out in that. +Yes, she must have gone to the village, and Mrs. Pember opened the front +door and scanned the wandering little street. It was almost empty; the +early morning activity of the place was in other directions. + +With the vague uneasiness that unaccustomed and unexplained absence +always produces, but with no actual apprehension, Mrs. Pember went back +to her work. Mellony had certain mild whims of her own, but it was +surprising that she should have left her room in disorder, the bed +unmade; that was not like her studious neatness. With a certain grimness +Mrs. Pember ate her breakfast alone. Of course no harm had come to +Mellony, but where was she? Unacknowledged, the shadow of Ira Baldwin +fell across her wonder. Had Mellony cared so much for him that her +disappointment had driven her to something wild and fatal? She did not +ask the question, but her lips grew white and stiff at the faintest +suggestion of it. Several times she went to the door, meaning to go out, +and up the street to look for her daughter, but each time something +withheld her. Instead, with that determination that distinguished her, +she busied herself with trifling duties. It was quite nine o'clock when +she saw Captain Phippeny coming up the street. She stood still and +watched him approach. His gait was more rolling than ever, as he came +slowly towards her, and he glanced furtively ahead at her house, and +then dropped his eyes and pretended not to have seen her. She grew +impatient to have him reach her, but she only pressed her lips together +and stood the more rigidly still. At last he stood in front of her +doorstone, his hat in his hand. The yellow shirt and the leathern jacket +were more succinctly audacious than ever, but doubt and irresolution in +every turn of his blue eyes and line of his weather-beaten face had +taken the place of the tolerant kindliness. + +"It's a warm mornin', Mis' Pember," he observed, more disconcerted than +ever by her unsmiling alertness. + +"You came a good ways to tell me that, Captain Phippeny." + +"Yes, I did. Leastways I didn't," he responded. "I come to tell you +about--about Mellony." + +"What about Mellony, Captain Phippeny?" she demanded, pale, but +uncompromising. "What have you got to tell me about Mellony Pember?" she +reiterated as he paused. + +"Not Mellony Pember," gasped the captain, a three-cornered smile trying +to make headway against his embarrassment as he recalled the ancient +tale of breaking the news to the Widow Smith; "Mellony Baldwin." + +"Mellony Baldwin!" repeated Mrs. Pember, stonily, not yet fully +comprehending. + +The captain grew more and more nervous. + +"Yes," he proceeded, with the haste of despair, "yes. Mis' Pember, you +see Mellony--Mellony's married." + +"Mellony married!" Strangely enough she had not thought of that. She +grasped the doorpost for support. + +"Yes, she up and married him," went on the captain more blithely. "I +hardly thought it of Mellony," he added in not unpleasurable reflection, +"nor yet of Ira." + +"Nor I either." Mrs. Pember's lips moved with difficulty. Mellony +married! The structure reared with tears and prayers, the structure of +Mellony's happiness, seemed to crumble before her eyes. + +"And I was to give you this;" and from the lining of his hat the +captain drew forth a folded paper. + +"Then you knew about it?" said Mrs. Pember, in a flash of cold wrath. + +"No, no, I didn't. My daughter's boy brought this to me, and I was to +tell you they was married. And why they set the job onto me the Lord he +only knows!" and Captain Phippeny wiped his heated forehead with +feeling; "but that's all _I_ know." + +Slowly, her fingers trembling, she unfolded the note. + +"I have married Ira, mother," she read. "He took me away in a boat early +this morning. It was the only way. I will come back when you want me. If +I am to be unhappy, I'd rather be unhappy this way. I can't be unhappy +your way any longer. I'm sorry to go against you, mother; but it's my +life, after all, not yours, MELLONY." + +As Mrs. Pember's hands fell to her side and the note slipped from her +fingers, the daily tragedy of her married life seemed to pass before +her eyes. She saw Captain Pember reel into the house, she shuddered at +his blasphemy, she felt the sting of the first blow he had given her, +she cowered as he roughly shook Mellony's little frame by her childish +arm. + +"She'd better be dead!" she murmured. "I wish she was dead." + +Captain Phippeny pulled himself together. "No, she hadn't,--no, you +don't, Mis' Pember," he declared stoutly. "You're making a mistake. You +don't want to see Mellony dead any more'n I do. She's only got married, +when all's said and done, and there's a sight of folks gets married and +none the worse for it. Ira Baldwin ain't any great shakes,--I dono as he +is; he's kinder light complected and soft spoken,--but he ain't a born +fool, and that's a good deal, Mis' Pember." He paused impressively, but +she did not speak. "And he ain't goin' to beat Mellony, either; he ain't +that sort. I guess Mellony could tackle him, if it came to that, +anyhow. I tell you, Mis' Pember, there's one thing you don't take no +reckonin' on,--there's a difference in husbands, there's a ter'ble +difference in 'em!" Mrs. Pember looked at him vaguely. Why did he go on +talking? Mellony was married. "Mellony's got one kind, and you--well," +he went on, with cautious delicacy, "somehow you got another. I tell you +it's husbands as makes the difference to a woman when it comes to +marryin'." + +Mrs. Pember stooped, picked up the note, turned and walked into the +living-room and sat down. She looked about her with that sense of +unreality that visits us at times. There was the chair in which Mellony +sat the night of her rebellious outbreak,--Mellony, her daughter, her +married daughter. Other women talked about their "married daughters" +easily enough, and she had pitied them; now she would have to talk so, +too. She felt unutterably lonely. Her household, like her hope, was +shattered. She looked up and saw that Captain Phippeny had followed her +in and was standing before her, turning his hat in his brown, tattooed +hands. + +"Mis' Pember," he said, "I thought, mebbe, now Mellony was married, +you'd be thinkin' of matrimony yourself agen." As Mrs. Pember gazed at +him dumbly it seemed as if she must all at once have become another +person. Matrimony had suddenly become domesticated, as it were. Her eyes +travelled over the horseshoe charm and the long gold chain, as she +listened, and from pocket to pocket. "And so I wanted to say that I'd +like to have you think of me, if you was making out the papers for +another v'yage. The first mate I sailed with, she says to me when she +died, 'You've been a good husband, Phippeny,' says she. I wouldn't say +anythin' to you, I wouldn't take the resk, if she hadn't said that to +me. Mis' Pember, and I'm tellin' it to you now because there's such a +difference; and I feel kinder encouraged by it to ask you to try me. I'd +like to have you marry me, Mis' Pember." + +It was a long speech, and the captain was near to suffocation when it +was finished, but he watched her with anxious keenness as he waited for +her to reply. The stern lines of her mouth relaxed slowly. A brilliant +red geranium in the window glowed in the sunlight which had just reached +it. The world was not all dark. The room seemed less lonely with the +captain in it, as she glanced around it a second time. She scanned his +face: the buttonhole of a mouth had a kindly twist; he did not look in +the least like handsome Dick Pember. Mellony had married, and her world +was in fragments, and something must come after. + +"I never heard as you weren't a good husband to Mis' Phippeny," she said +calmly, "and I dono as anybody'll make any objection if I marry you, +Captain Phippeny." + + + + +Memoir of Mary Twining + + +THE other day I spent several hours in looking over a lot of dusty +volumes which had fallen to me in the way of inheritance. In the +somewhat heterogeneous collection I came upon a brief memoir which, +after a glance within, I laid aside as worthy, at least, of perusal. The +other books were of little value of any sort--an orthodox commentary, an +odd volume of a county history, one or two cook-books, a worn and broken +set of certain standard British authors,--the usual assortment to be +found in a country farmhouse, whose occupants soon ceased to keep up +with the times. But this little book seemed to me unusual,--an opinion +subsequently confirmed by examination. I had long ago discovered the +fallacy of that tradition of early youth that a memoir is, of necessity, +dull, and I was in nowise unfavorably affected by the title, "Memoir of +Mary Twining." There proved to be something to me singularly quaint and +charming in this little sketch, something fresh and new in this voice +from bygone years. The subject of the memoir attracted me powerfully, +both from the simplicity and naturalness of her own words, and the +freedom and occasional depth of both thought and expression, in a day +when freedom and thinking for one's self were less the fashion of New +England maidens than they have since become. Or, it may be that the +Editor, notwithstanding an occasional stiffness and apparent want of +sympathy, has so well done his work, has understood so well what to give +us and what to keep from us, that the reader's interest is skilfully +fostered from the start. Be this as it may, I have not been able to +resist the temptation to write, myself, a little of this memoir and its +subject, to make a little wider, if I may, the public who have been told +the story of this life. Not that it was an exciting or an eventful one, +though lived in stirring times, but as I have already said, it seems to +have a certain charm which should not be left forgotten in country +garrets or unnoticed in second-hand bookstores. With no further apology +for this review of it, I shall let the book, as far as possible, speak +for itself. + +Mary Twining was born in Middleport, Massachusetts, June 27, 1757. Her +father fought with Colonel Washington in the French and Indian War, and +subsequently under General Washington in a later disturbance. Her mother +was a granddaughter of one of the early colonial governors. Mary seems +to have come naturally enough by fine impulses and good breeding. + +"It is not," says the conscientious biographer, "from any vain +Partiality for high-sounding names, or any poor Pretense of good blood, +which were most out of place in this our Republic, made so by the Genius +and enduring Fortitude of all classes of Men, that I claim for Mary +Twining stately Lineage, but that when such Accidents fall in the lives +of Human Beings, it is not a thing to make light of, but worthy of study +in its Results. Besides which is General Washington none the less a Good +Soldier in that he is a Gentleman." + +I suspect the traditions of a loyal Englishman had not been wholly +eradicated from the mind of this biographer by a few years of plebeian +institutions. With equal truth he goes on, however, to say that what was +"of an Importance swallowing up the Lesser Matter of Lineage and +Station, Richard Twining was an upright and a God-fearing man, and Mary, +his wife, patterned in all things after the Behaviour of her godly +Ancestor." Either Richard or Mary, his wife, must have something +"patterned" after a liberal and occasionally self-willed model, else +whence came the spice of independence in the little Mary's character? +She was an only child, and only children were probably in the middle of +the eighteenth very much what they are in the close of the nineteenth +century,--little beings allowed greater liberties, and burdened with +heavier accountabilities, than where there are more to divide both. +There are several incidents told of her childhood, not particularly +remarkable, perhaps, but showing that her mind and her imagination were +alive. She was not by any means a precocious child; her mind was but +little, if at all, in advance of her years. If one may judge from +detached anecdotes and descriptions, she showed no more than the +receptivity and quickness natural to a bright and somewhat unusually +clear intellect. Through all these anecdotes there runs a vein denoting +what is less common in childhood than a certain precocity,--a keen sense +of justice. She appears to have reasoned of many things, usually taken +by childhood for granted, and assented to their results only if they +seemed to her childishness just. If after life showed her that the +affairs of this life can be but seldom regulated according to the ideas +of finite justice, she never seems to have lost a certain fairness of +judgment and opinion, which is rare in one of her sex and circumstances. +When five years old, her mother, wishing her to give up a pet doll to a +little crippled friend, told her that sympathy should suggest her doing +it; that it was a privilege to make another happy; that it was +selfishness to prefer her own pleasure of possession to that of another. +But Mary listened unmoved to these arguments. Nevertheless the struggle +was not a long one. With a good grace, after a few moments of silence, +she carried the doll to her unfortunate friend. "Mamma," she said +soberly, "she shall have it, for it is right that she should. I feel it. +I shall have many things that she can never have." + +For the logic of five years it was no small thing to have settled this +question in this way. It would take too much time and too much space to +dwell on the anecdotes of her childhood. Indeed, the biographer does not +linger on them long himself. + +"It is meet," he says, "to speak of these early Years, not from a desire +to show that there was aught in the Childhood of Mary Twining remarkable +or unnatural, that should be the Cause of Wonder or Admiration. But the +rather that there may be evinced the Presence, even in the Germ, of +certain Qualities of Soundness of Judgment and of Thoughtfulness unusual +in a Female, which grew with her Growth, and which were in later Years, +developed into stronger Traits by no unnatural means." + +In 1773 she was sent away to a school in which she remained three years, +varied by occasional visits at home. She made several friends here, and +here, for the first time, kept a methodical and somewhat extended +diary. From this diary her biographer makes copious extracts. In fact, +from this period the memoir is chiefly made up from her several +journals, in whose continuity there are now and then large gaps, with +occasional notes. I shall make less copious extracts, principally those +bearing upon that matter of which we always, more or less consciously, +seek traces in the lives of individuals, distinguished or obscure, the +love story. But first for her school life, into which few whispers of +sentiment penetrated. It was no fashionable boarding-school to which she +was sent, attended by young ladies whose dreams of what they will soon +be doing in society monopolize the hours nominally devoted to literature +and the sciences. An old friend of her mother opened her house to a few +representatives of those families with whom she was acquainted, where, +under the best teachers the country afforded, they were trained in such +acquirements as were prescribed by the canons of the day. On the +fifteenth of September she says:-- + +"I have been something more than a week at the good School which my kind +Parents have chosen for me. There seems, after all, to be little doing +here. The few exercises in Mathematics, and the selections from the +works of the most Highly Endowed of the Authors of England appear to me +to be the most Profitable. As for the matter of Embroidery, I worked +with Patience, ten years ago, a Sampler which was not considered +discreditable, and it seems to me that of the multiplying of Stitches +there is no end, and it were, perhaps, as well to go no farther. My +daily Practice on the Spinet, may, perhaps, be the means of giving +Pleasure at some Future Time, but it is the Occasion of but little +Benefit in the Present, and of the Future can we be never certain." + +The question of profitableness of a good many of her employments was +often in her mind during these three years. She cannot help feeling +that there are times when it is hard to contentedly fold the hands over +even the worsted marvels of a "not discreditable" sampler. A year later, +she says again:-- + +"More Practice and more Embroidery this afternoon. There are those of my +Companions who ask nothing better than such unvarying Exercises. In them +they find room for the employing of their Imagination and their Spirit. +I wonder if it be so great a Fault in me, that I find them wearying. It +is not that they are in themselves so distasteful, as it is that there +seemeth much work waiting to be done, which a woman's Hands might well +do, were it not reckoned somewhat unseemly." + +"Her's was a somewhat restless Soul," says her biographer, "perplexing +itself with Questions which it was not for her to answer." + +Yes, with questions with which many a restless woman's soul has since +perplexed itself, and which are now only beginning to attain solution. +It is pleasant to find, in these early times, when we fancy New England +maidens well content with their spinning and bread-making, hints that +there were enterprising spirits who thought the prescribed round a too +narrow one. + +She finds some fault with one of her teachers for being too lenient with +her. + +"I received no Reproof," she says, "to-day when I most Richly deserved +it. A Disturbance in the Hour for Study was entirely of my own making, +but the Person who is Master at that Hour refused, with Persistence, to +see it. I made it most evident, but he remarked, with a frown for a less +Offender, that he should hold Mistress Twining excused. I shall find +Occasion to address him on this Subject, for if I receive due Credit for +that which I do that is Well Done, I shall show no unwillingness to bear +the Brunt of my Superior's Displeasure for what is Ill Done. Moreover, I +will not have it otherwise." + +"It were better," is the brief comment, "it were better had Mary +Twining shown more Regret for what she herself confesses was ill done, +rather than that she should take upon herself to correct the Faults of +those towards whom she was somewhat lacking in Reverence." But it is +droll enough to fancy the scene--the pretty schoolgirl gravely rebuking +her delinquent master for the too great partiality her own bright eyes +had won for her. Poor man! His was no sinecure. To hold rule over a +parcel of unruly girls, with the graces of one so tugging at his +heartstrings! His path might at least have been spared the thorn of +having his fault denounced by the very voice that had done the mischief. + +During the last year of her stay she writes less. Did the objectlessness +of this education of hers pall upon the energy of her nature more and +more? Or was her woman's heart preparing the way for the answer to this +restless questioning? It is only now and then that we catch a glimpse of +this development, which was singularly mature and singularly free from +restriction. + +"I have read many Tales," she says, "how true, in my small Experience, I +know not, of the aptitude of Women, particularly those young women whose +characters are in a state of most Imperfect Development, to yield in +matters essential to their best Happiness to the Opposing Wishes of +Parents and Guardians. I speak of those Matters, perhaps not the most +fitting for the Speculations of a but Partially-schooled Maiden--Love, +and the Choosing of a Husband. While in these matters, as in all others, +the Wishes of Wise and Fond Parents and Guardians are the only safe +Guides for a young and Untrained Spirit, there are other Cases where +Injustice and a Desire to Rule are but slender Grounds for the exercise +of Authority. I know that my Boldness in this Opinion cannot pass even +my own mind unchallenged, but when I read of Unwilling Maids forced to +the very Church Door or Languishing under unmerited sternness, and +Yielding up their own Happiness, and that of another (though he be a +Man) into the Hands of an unwise Judge through inability to resist such +unloving Pressure, my Nature rebels against it. It would seem to me +cause for a Glad and an Unfaltering Resistance. For a Husband is, after +all, a Matter for a Maid's own choosing." + +"The beaten path," says the biographer, "had ever but little attraction +for Mary Twining. It had been well had she been less fain to seek +Opportunity for a Lawful Resistance to Bonds. It seemeth ever to the +Young that such opportunities are not long in coming." + +It was not only from the consciences of the colonial fathers that the +stirrings of independence went forth. Apparently there was a spirit +abroad that breathed now and then from the lips of but partially-schooled +maidens. Still, it is not unruliness, this protest of a young and +independent spirit against the slavishness now and then upheld in +certain forms of literature. There is little revolutionary, after all, +in Mary's sentiment that "a Husband is a matter for a Maid's own +choosing." + +But we must pass over the last few notes of her school life. At nineteen +she left school forever. + +"I am about to leave this little Life of School," she writes, "for a +larger Life of Home, and mayhap a Taste of that Life which is called of +the World. And if I be not now, at the age of Nineteen years, equipped +for the change and able to comport myself with a becoming Discretion and +Dignity, then such equipment is not to be found within these Four Walls +or in daily Practice of Music and Mathematics. Which, though I be filled +with no over-weening Distrust of my own Capabilities, seemeth to my eyes +of some Doubt and Difference of Opinion." + +"On a certain day of June," her biographer goes on to state, "Mistress +Mary Twining was placed in the Coach which should take her a Two Days' +Journey to her Father's House. She was in Company with an old and +Reverend Gentleman of friendly Disposition, who was well known to her +Father and held in excellent esteem of him. The Fairness of a Maid is +but a vain Toy, but," declares this most staid biographer, with a +refreshing candor, "as it is a matter which is not without its effect on +the Fortunes of many, it is not always to be passed over in the Silence +which would befit a Sober Pen. Mary Twining's Hair was of a golden +Colour and wound itself in small, and not always tidy, Rings about her +Neck and Forehead. Her eyes were of a darker appearance than is common, +and her Mouth, though not without a certain Winsomeness, gave Promise of +a Firmness of Opinion and an Independence which was perhaps but a Sign +of the Times, which her small and shrewdly-set Nose did not deny." + +I more than suspect that, disclaim it as he may, our discreet biographer +was in nowise loath to dwell a little on this vain toy of Mary's +personal appearance. I even fancy that he was tempted to employ greater +latitude of expression, which only his stern sense of his +responsibilities led him to reject, in the description of that +uncompromising mouth, not to mention the spice of naughtiness involved +in that nose so "shrewdly set." + +Not an unattractive picture in the coach window, this June day, is this +of Mary Twining, in her big poke bonnet, white kerchief and +short-waisted gown. And who is this, who, coming at the last moment, +springs into a vacant place at her side, under the very eyes of the +reverend old gentleman, her father's friend? The three-cornered hat +which he doffs with ceremonious courtesy to the fair vision before him, +the powdered queue, the high boots with jingling spurs, the sword at his +side, are not unpicturesque items in our nineteenth-century eyes. Were +they likely to be so in the eyes of this nineteen-year-old maiden just +out of boarding-school? + +"As it happened," says the biographer, "there went down the same day, +and by the same Coach, one of the young Aids of our General. He was a +personable Youth, and the Arrangement of the many Fripperies of the +Costume of a young Gallant did naught to take away from the Face and +Figure which Providence had accorded him. It were better had he or Mary +Twining chosen another Time for the Journey." + +Neither, probably, did a natural timidity of disposition do aught to +lessen the impression which a personable young man has it in his power +in any century to make upon a fair and observing girl. Mary herself +says:-- + +"There rode down with us a young gallant of most holiday Appearance, but +not ignorant withal of the working days of a Soldier. It was not long +before he had entered into Conversation with Mr. Edwards, who had +knowledge of the young Man's Parents, from which Conversation I learned +something of himself, though most modestly told. He would fain have +opened the Way for me to join in my Guardian's Questioning, but I bore +in Mind the Unseemliness of an unwarranted Acquaintanceship, and sought +rather to avoid than to court the Glances which he was not over cautious +in sending in my Direction." + +"A Maid's avoidance," observes the biographer, "of a Youth's Glances, is +not of that Nature that is the Cutting off of all Hope." + +And Fortune, too, was not of so perverse a disposition in this June +weather as she is sometimes. For, on the second day, when probably +glances, so conscientiously evaded, had become but the accompaniment of +spoken words, there was an accident. The coach, as coaches are apt to +do, was upset, and its occupants "made haste rather as they could than +as they would," to leave it. In the confusion and tumbling about of +heavy boxes Mary might have been badly hurt, had not the young gallant, +quickly springing to his feet, caught her as she was thrown forward by a +second lurch of the unwieldy thing, and, lifting her up, carried her out +of the way of falling luggage and struggling horses to a place of +safety. + +"He lifted me as though I had been but a Feather's weight, showing a +Strength which is indeed Goodly in the Sons of Men," says Mary demurely, +"and which was most grateful in the Stress and Confusion, and in its +display most Timely, though perhaps," she adds, with delicious +frankness, "he was not over ready to put me down that he might hasten +back to be of further help." + +"My Bonnet was awry," she continues, "my Hair in sad confusion, and my +Face a Milkmaid Red, so that I said with but little Grace, 'Sir, I fear +you have found me a grievous Weight.' Whereupon he answered me that so +light was my weight, that his Heart was the Heavier for the Putting of +me down, which was a Conceit not reasonable but most kindly intended. +Whereon I thanked him, and he vowed such a Burden would he gladly carry +to the World's End had he but Leave given." + +Another picture not unpleasant to the mind's eye, the overturned coach, +the esteemed guardian of the youthful beauty delaying a little in its +immediate neighborhood, perhaps to secure the safety of some precious +package, the farm laborers in the green adjacent fields dropping their +tools and running forward to help, the outcry and confusion, and apart, +in the summer sunshine, the handsome fellow with the flashing sword by +his side, listening with bent head and admiring eyes to the thanks which +Mistress Mary, with her untidy hair and lifted eyes, was tendering with +"but little Grace." + +"Such chance meeting of the Sexes," says our astute commentator, "where +appear what is most commanding in the One and most dependent in the +Other, are but ill advised. The Uttering of such vain proffers as the +carrying the Burden of Mary Twining to the World's End, and other +Foolishness, hath then a Savour of Reality which concealeth the vain +Delusion." + +We have delayed too long over these extracts, and though I am tempted to +delay yet longer, so quaint is the contrast between Mary Twining's +youthful and feminine pen and that of her critical biographer, I pass on +to a time some months after her arrival home. Indeed, she writes little +in the interval. The coming into a new and wider circle, the adapting +herself to new conditions, leave her scant time for writing. There is a +rapid noting of events, for it was an eventful time,--the mention of a +few distinguished names, and that is all. But in order to follow the +thread of Mary Twining's romance, we must pause at the account of a ball +given to one of General Washington's regiments at a time before the +rigor of war had quenched all thoughts of merry-making. It was not her +first ball. She had mixed freely in society, and had measured herself +with the men and women about her,--always an interesting experience to +the free, unprejudiced and thoughtful girl. + +"It was a joyous Scene enough," she writes, "but I myself not quite in +the Humour for such Junketing. I had a gloomy Fancy that Reason would +not dismiss, that in these Troublous Times there were Things outside of +the Ball room Door, striving to enter, which having done, they would +have proved of singular Inappositeness. None the less I danced with +those who solicited me in due Form, and gave Heed to little else than +the manner of the Solicitation. Not that there was Lack of Goodly +Partners, but I was mindful of nothing beyond the Observance of the +Courtesies of the Occasion. The only Annoyance of which I was sensible +was the marked Attention of my Cousin Eustace Fleming, who is but +recently come into this our Part of the Country, and claimeth +Relationship. He is a most excellent Young Gentleman, but one who is +likely to weary me with his over Appreciation of my own Qualities. It is +but a Sign of my Stubbornness and Unregeneracy of Heart that, in that he +is most approved and commended of my Parents, he wearieth me the more. I +was fain to tell him, when he asked me a third Time to join the Dance, +that there were fairer Maidens in the Hall who would be less loth to +accord him the Favour, but as this would but have drawn from him a +laboured compliment to my own Person, I prudently refrained." + +It was in the weariness of this very encounter that, looking up, she saw +approaching her the hero of her adventure in the coach, the impulsive +youth whose former foolishness had won for him the semi-disapproval of +our commentator. It seems possible that the gloomy fancies of shadowy +things outside lightened a little, and the war ceased to be a background +only for shapes of evil. + +"It required not the space of a moment for me to recognize him, though +his Attire had changed with the Circumstance, but as my Father's Friend, +Mr. Edwards, had not deemed it of sufficient Importance to mention our +former Rencontre, it now seemed to me useless to publicly recall that +Incident. Particularly as being now duly presented to me in the Presence +of my Parents, and with due Vouchers of his Credit, our Acquaintance +could make such Progress as we should mutually consider profitable." + +Prudent Mistress Mary and delinquent Mr. Edwards! + +"After the Cotillion for which he had asked the Honour of my Hand, he +led me to my Seat, but by a somewhat indirect Route. Upon my remarking +upon which, he found Occasion to say that all Ways were short to him now +after traversing the long and difficult one which he had followed that +he might gain Admission to my Presence. I, laughing, said that my +Presence were hardly worth such effort in Gaining, and that it was +generally attained with more Ease, and he, replying with a Grace of +Manner it were impossible not to remark, said hastily that he was well +aware that he had found it easier to enter than he should to again +forsake it." + +"And so on with such Vanities," says the biographer, "as pass Current +with young Men and Maidens in their shortsighted Enjoyment of the +moment, and with which Mary Twining was but too fain to dally." + +Yes, and so on, the old story. For there follow the frequent meetings, +known and not unapproved of by the watchful parents, the half +confessions, the vague wonderment, and at last the pledge given and +received, and Mary Twining became the affianced wife of the handsome +young officer. All this we trace in her journal, with satiric comments, +now and then, of the Editor; but it is all so familiar that we will not +dwell on it, pretty as it is. Only one shadow seems to have fallen on +the lovers,--that of Mr. Eustace Fleming, the worthy cousin, whose +importunities in the ball-room so tired the patience of Mistress Mary. +The parentally favored candidate for Mary's hand, he finds it, +evidently, too hard to give it up without a struggle. With a lack of +that wisdom unfortunate lovers find it so hard to supply, he disturbed +their interviews, forced himself on Mary's society, yet with no +insolence and no self-betrayal that could lead to an outbreak. He is +apparently a self-contained, and not a bad man, who finds it impossible +to see that he is beaten. Of this period I make one or two extracts from +Mary's journal, and then go on to the end. + +"If I once marvelled at the yielding of those weak Women who find it +easier to relinquish the Happiness that they find in the Love of Those +bound to them by mutual attraction, than to contest the matter with all +Dignity, Forbearance, Firmness and Patience, how much the more do I +marvel now at their Shortsightedness! Were he, whom I gladly call my +Betrothed, to be the Victim of Oppression or of Malice, it would seem to +me but the throwing down of the Glove--a challenge to Battle, rather +than a demand for Submission. Methinks it were not as a Suppliant that I +should stoop to pick it up. But why talk of fighting, who am a peaceful +Maid, who would labour, were it but Honourable towards her dear Country, +to remove the Sound of Battle far from her Lover. For indeed he is more +ready to fight than am I to have him. He would see an Opportunity to +strike a Blow in my Cause where is none, so anxious is he to draw his +Sword in my Behalf. Indeed so excellent an Opinion doth he entertain of +my Person and my Mind and my Conditions, that he would not be long in +finding one who should most justly contest the same. Heaven send that he +may hold to the Opinion and forget the Wish to make Proselytes! + +"It would seem that some men were created but as a sort of Makeweight, +who, without active Hindrance, make it more difficult to row one's Boat +up the Stream of Life. Of such kind is my Cousin Eustace Fleming. His +most mistaken Admiration of me (for that in him is a Mistake which in +Another is but a most fitting and a most reverenced Creed) serves but to +make a Let and Hindrance where my satisfaction is concerned. I would +that he could more easily learn the Lesson I have been at such Pains to +mark out for him." + +"It were vain," is the comment on the last passage, "to expect a +Recognition of sober worth in the Day of Love and Ambition. And +Mistress Twining, after the manner of her kind, pays but little Heed to +lasting Affection before the Time comes when it shall be of Use to Her." + +The wedding day approaches. Mary Twining does not lose her independence, +though, woman like, she seems to enjoy losing herself in the love +lavished upon her. Here and there are passages which show that in the +warmth of her romance she thinks and judges and acts for herself, as she +did in her school days. Mary Twining will never merge her individuality +in that of another, however dear to her. + +The entries grow briefer and more infrequent, as the month fixed upon +for the marriage draws near. It is to be in June,--two years from that +June when she rode down by coach, in the care of her father's friend. + +"The day is fixed for the twenty-seventh of June," is the last entry but +two in her journal. "Two years ago, Fate gave my Life into his Hands. +At least, in giving it to him a second Time, Fate and I are at one." + +The next entry is a month later. It is simply the statement,-- + +"May 24th. I have done my Cousin Eustace wrong." Then on-- + +"July 27th. And I am but twenty-one!" + +And June comes and goes, and there is no word on her bridal day, no +breathings of her new happiness from her ready pen. Is the book closed? +Yes, but her biographer has a word to say. + +"On the twenty-seventh of June, Mary A. Twining became the wife of her +Cousin Eustace Fleming. Their Betrothal was but a short one, but in the +eyes of her judicious Parents, there was no unseemly Haste. It had long +been a cherished wish of their Hearts, and Eustace Fleming was a young +man of Promise and of rare Discretion." + +There it ends. The record of Mary Twining is finished. With Mary +Fleming he has nothing to do. But where is the girl of ripened +understanding, of freedom of thought, of directness of purpose? We do +not know, for our biographer does not tell us. Was there a tragedy, and +were the details too heart-breaking for even the stoical Editor to +maintain his critical attitude? + +Where is the gallant cavalier with his picturesque devotion, and his +vain toys of pretty speech and gesture and his fiery and over-weening +love and admiration for Mistress Mary Twining? He seemed to me a brave +and loyal sort of young fellow enough. I cannot tell. Put the quaint old +book back on the shelf, and let her romance rest again. But +notwithstanding her husband of such promise and rare discretion, I +cannot help sighing, "Poor Mary Twining!" + +Fate and she had a difference, after all. And she was but twenty-one! + + + + +A Postlude + + +IT was almost time for the train to leave the station, and the seats +were filling rapidly. The Irishwoman, with four children so near of a +size that they seemed to be distinguished only by the variety of eatable +each one was consuming, had entered the car and deposited her large +newspaper bundle just inside the door, and driven her flock all into the +little end seat, where they were stowed uncomfortably, one on top of +another, gazing stolidly about the car. The young girl from the country +who had been spending Sunday in town, and who was, consequently, +somewhat overdressed for Monday morning, was wandering elegantly up and +down the aisle, losing each possible place for a prospective better one, +which became impossible before she reached it. The woman with a bag too +large for her to carry, rested it on the arm of an occupied seat while +she gazed vaguely about, indifferent to the fact that a crowd of +impatient travellers of more concrete intentions were being delayed by +her indecision. Meanwhile, among these disturbers of travel the man with +a large bag passed rapidly along, found a place, put the bag in the +rack, seated himself, and took out his newspaper. There is something in +a man's management of a large travelling-bag in a railway train that +leads the most unwilling to grudgingly yield him a certain superiority +of sex. + +An exchange of good-bys, low-voiced but with a decided note of hilarity, +took place at the door, and two women entered the car, one looking back +and nodding a final smiling farewell before she gave her mind to the +matter in hand. They were attractive women, of late middle age, perhaps, +not yet to be called old. One was large, with fine curves, gray bands of +hair under her autumnal bonnet, and a dignity of bearing which suited +her ample figure and melodious, rather deep voice; the other was paler, +more fragile, her light hair only streaked with gray, and her blue eyes +still shaded with a half-wistful uncertainty of what might be before +her, which the years had not been able to turn altogether into +self-confidence. + +"You go on, Lucy," said the former, in her full, decided tones, pausing +at the first vacant seat, "and see if there's a place for us to sit +together farther down. I'll hold this for one of us. You take up less +room than I do, you know, and it's easier for you to slip about;" and +she laughed a little. There was a suggestion of laughter in the eyes and +around the mouth of each of them. It indicated a subdued exhilaration +unusual in the setting forth of women of their years and dignity. Lucy +hesitated a moment, and then moved on somewhat timidly; but she had +taken only a step when the man near whom they stood rose, and, lifting +his hat, said: "Allow me, madam, to give you this seat for yourself and +your friend. I can easily find another." + +"Thank you; you are very good," replied the larger of the two women, her +kindly gray eyes meeting his with an expression that led him to pause +and put their umbrellas in the rack and depart, wondering what it was +about some women that made a man always glad to do anything for +them,--and it didn't make any difference how old they were, either. + +"How nice people are!" said the one who had already spoken as they +settled themselves. "That man, now--there wasn't any need of his doing +that." + +"He seemed to really want to," rejoined Lucy. "People always like to do +things for you, Mary Leonard, I believe," she added, looking at her +companion with affectionate admiration. + +"I like to hear you talk," returned Mary Leonard, laughing. "If there +ever was anybody that just went through the world having people do +things for 'em, it's you, Lucy Eastman, and you know it." + +"Oh, but I know so few people," said the other, hastily. "I'm not +ungrateful--I'm sure I've no call to be; but I know so few people, and +they've known me all my life; it's not like strangers." + +"That hasn't anything to do with it," affirmed Mary Leonard, stoutly; +"if there were more, it would be the same way. But I will say," she went +on, "that I never could see why a woman travelling alone should ever +have any trouble--officials and everybody are so polite about telling +you the same thing over. I don't know why it is, but I always seem to +expect the next one I ask to tell me something different about a train; +and then everybody you meet seems just as pleasant as can be." + +"Yes," assented Lucy Eastman, "like that baggageman. Did you notice how +polite the baggageman was?" + +"Notice it! Why, of course I did. And our trunks _were_ late, and it +was my fault, and so I told him, and he just hurried to pull them around +and check them, and I was so confused, you know, that I made him check +the wrong ones twice." + +"Well, they were just like ours," said Lucy Eastman, sympathetically. + +"Well, they were, weren't they? But of course I ought to have known. And +he never swore at all. I was dreadfully afraid he'd swear, Lucy." + +"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Lucy Eastman, distressed, "what would you have +done if he'd sworn?" + +"I'm sure I don't know," asserted Mary Leonard, with conviction, "but +fortunately he didn't." + +"He got very warm," said Lucy, reminiscently. "I saw him wiping his brow +as we came away." + +"I don't blame him the least in the world. I think he was a wonderfully +nice baggageman, for men of that class are so apt to swear when they get +very warm,--at least, so I've heard. And did you hear--" + +"Tickets, ma'am," observed the conductor. + +"There, I didn't mean to keep you waiting a minute;" and Mary Leonard +opened her pocketbook, "but I forgot all about the tickets. Oh, Lucy, I +gave you the tickets, and I took the checks." + +"Yes, to be sure," said Lucy, opening her pocketbook. + +"I'll put them in the seat for you, ladies, like this," said the +conductor, smiling, "and then you won't have any more trouble." + +"Oh, yes, thank you," said Lucy Eastman. + +"What a nice conductor!" observed Mary Leonard. + +"Did I hear what, Mary?--you were telling me something." + +"Oh, about the baggageman. I heard him say to his assistant, 'Don't you +ever git mad with women, Bobby. It ain't no use. If it was always the +same woman and the same trunk, perhaps you could learn her sometime; but +it ain't, and you've got to take 'em just as they come, and get rid of +'em the best way you can--they don't bear instruction.'" + +Mary Leonard and Lucy Eastman threw back their heads and laughed; it was +genuine, low, fresh laughter, and a good thing to hear. After that there +was silence for a few moments as the train sped on its way. + +"I declare," said Mary Leonard, at last, "I don't know when I've been in +the cars before." + +"I was just thinking I haven't been in the cars since Sister Eliza died, +and we all went to the funeral," said Lucy Eastman. + +"Why, that's--let me see--eight years ago, isn't it?" + +"Eight and a half." + +"Well, I'm glad you'll have a pleasanter trip to look back on after +this." + +"So am I; and I am enjoying this--every minute of it. Only there's so +much to see. Just look at the people looking out of the windows of that +manufactory! Shouldn't you think they'd roast?" + +"Yes, they must be hotter than a fritter such a day as this." + +"How long is it since you've been to Englefield, Mary?" asked Lucy +Eastman, after another pause. + +"Why, that's what I meant to tell you. Do you know, after I saw you, and +we decided to go there for our holiday, I began to think it over, and I +haven't been there since we went together the last time." + +"Why, Mary Leonard! I had an idea you'd been there time and again, +though you said you hadn't seen the old place for a long time." + +"Well, I was surprised myself when I realized it. But the next year my +cousins all moved away, and I've thought of it over and over, but I +haven't _been_. I dare say if we'd lived in the same town we'd have +gone together before this, but we haven't, and there it is." + +"That's thirty-five years ago, Mary," said Lucy Eastman, thoughtfully. + +"Thirty-five years! I declare, it still makes me jump to hear about +thirty-five years--just as if I hadn't known all about 'em!" and Mary +Leonard laughed her comfortable laugh again. "You don't say it's +thirty-five years, Lucy! I guess you're right, though." + +There was a moment's pause, and the laugh died away into a little sigh. + +"We didn't think then--we didn't really _think_--we'd ever be talking +about what happened thirty-five years ago, did we, Lucy? We didn't think +we'd have interest enough to care." + +"No," said Lucy, soberly, "we didn't." + +"And I care just as much as I ever did about things," went on the other, +thoughtfully, "only there seem more doors for satisfaction to come in at +nowadays. It isn't quite the same sort of satisfaction, perhaps, that +it used to be, not so pressed down and running over, but there's more of +it, after all, and it doesn't slip out so easily." + +"No, the bottom of things doesn't fall out at once, as it used to, and +leave nothing in our empty hands." + +"That sounds almost sad. Don't you be melancholy, Lucy Eastman." + +"I'm not, Mary--I'm not a bit. I'm only remembering that I used to be." + +"We used to go to the well with a sieve instead of a pitcher; that's +really the difference," said Mary Leonard. "We've learned not to be +wasteful, that's all." + +"What fun we used to have," said Lucy, her eyes shining, "visiting your +cousins!" + +"It _was_ fun!" said the other. "Do you remember the husking party at +the Kendals' barn?" + +"Of course I do, and the red ears that that Chickering girl was always +finding! I think she picked them out on purpose, so that Tom Endover +would kiss her. It was just like those Chickerings!" There was a gentle +venom in Lucy Eastman's tones that made Mary Leonard laugh till the +tears came into her eyes. + +"Minnie Chickering wasn't the only girl that Tom Endover kissed, if I +remember right," she said, with covert intention. + +"Well, he put the red ear into my hands himself, and I just husked it +without thinking anything about it," retorted Lucy Eastman, with spirit. + +"Of course you did, of course you did," asseverated Mary Leonard, +whereupon the other laughed too, but with reservation. + +"And do you remember old Miss Pinsett's, where we used to go to act +charades?" + +"Yes, indeed, in the old white house at the foot of the hill, with a +cupola. She seemed so old; I wonder how old she was?" + +"Perhaps we shouldn't think her so old to-day. People used to wear caps +earlier then than they do now. I think when they were disappointed in +love they put on caps! Miss Pinsett had been disappointed in love, so +they said." + +"They will have old maids disappointed in love," said Lucy, with some +asperity. "They will have me--some people--and I never was." + +"I know you weren't. But I don't think it's as usual as it was to say +that about old maids. It's more the fashion now to be disappointed in +marriage." + +There had been several stops at the stations along the road. The day was +wearing on. Suddenly Lucy Eastman turned to her companion. + +"Mary," she said, "let's play we were girls again, and going to +Englefield just as we used to go--thirty-five years ago. Let's pretend +that we're going to do the same things and see the same people and have +the same fun. We're off by ourselves, just you and I, and why shouldn't +we? We're the same girls, after all," and she smiled apologetically. + +"Of course we are. We'll do it," said Mary Leonard, decidedly; "let's +pretend." + +But, having made the agreement, it was not so easy to begin. The stream +of reminiscence had been checked, and a chasm of thirty-five years is +not instantly bridged, even in thought. + +"I hope they won't meet us at the station," said Mary Leonard, after a +while, in a matter-of-fact voice. "We know the way so well there is no +need of it." + +"I hope not. I feel just like walking up myself," answered Lucy. "We can +send our trunks by the man that comes from the hotel, just as usual, and +it'll be cool walking toward evening." + +"I'm glad we put off coming till the fall. The country's beautiful, and +there isn't so much dust in case we"--she hesitated a moment--"in case +we go on a picnic." + +"Yes," replied Lucy, readily; "to the old fort. I hope we'll have a +picnic to the old fort. I guess all the girls will like to go. It's just +the time to take that drive over the hill." + +"If we go," said Mary Leonard, slowly and impressively, "you'll have to +drive with Samuel Hatt." + +"Oh, I went with him last time," broke in Lucy, apprehensively. "It's +your turn." + +"But you know I just won't," said Mary Leonard, her eyes sparkling, and +the dimples that, like Miss Jessie Brown, she had not left off, +appearing and disappearing. "And somebody _has_ to go with him." + +"Perhaps they won't ask him." + +"Oh, but they will. They always do, on account of his horses. It +wouldn't be a picnic without Samuel Hatt." + +Just then the train drew up at a small station. Lucy Eastman started as +she read the name of the place as it passed before her eyes. + +"Mary," said she, "this is where Mr. Hatt always used to get on the +train. There are the Hatt Mills, and he goes up and down every +day,--don't you remember? And how we were--we are--always afraid we'll +meet him on the train." + +"Of course," said Mary Leonard, leaning forward and scanning the +platform with its row of idlers and its few travellers. "Well, he isn't +here now. We are going to escape him this time. But my heart was in my +mouth! I don't want Samuel Hatt to be the first Englefield person we +meet." + +They looked up with careless curiosity at the people who entered the +train. There was a little girl with a bunch of common garden flowers +following close behind a tired-looking woman, who had been, obviously, +"spending the day;" a florid old gentleman with gold spectacles, who +revealed a bald head as he removed his hat and used it for a fan,--they +had seen him hurrying to the platform just before the train moved out; +a commercial traveller, and a schoolboy. + +"No," said Mary Leonard, "he isn't here this time." + +The florid old gentleman took a seat in front of them and continued to +fan himself. The conductor came through the car. + +"Warm spell we're having for October, Mr. Hatt," he said, as he punched +the commutation-ticket that was offered him. + +Mary Leonard and Lucy Eastman gazed spellbound at the back of Mr. Hatt's +bald head. They were too amazed to look away from it at each other. + +"It--it must be his father," gasped Lucy Eastman. "He looks--a +little--like him." + +"Then it's his father come back!" returned Mary in an impatient whisper. +"His father died before we ever went to Englefield; and, don't you +remember, he was always fanning himself?" + +Their fascinated gaze left the shiny pink surface of Samuel Hatt's head, +and their eyes met. + +"I hope he won't see us," giggled Lucy. + +"I hope not. Let's look the other way." + +In a few minutes Mr. Hatt rose slowly and portentously, and, turning, +made a solemn but wavering way down the car to greet a man who sat just +across the aisle from Mary Leonard. Both the women avoided his eyes, +blushing a little and with the fear of untimely mirth about their lips. + +As he talked with their neighbor, however, they ventured to look at him, +and as he turned to go back his slow, deliberate glance fell upon them, +rested a moment, and, without a flicker of recognition, passed on, and +he resumed his place. + +There was almost a shadow in the eyes that met again, as the women +turned towards one another. + +"I--I know it's funny," said Lucy, a little tremulously, "but I don't +quite like it that we look to him just as he does to us." + +"We have hair on our heads," said Mary Leonard. "But," she added, less +aggressively, "we needn't have worried about his speaking to us." + +"Englefield," shouted the brakeman, and the train rumbled into a covered +station. Mary Leonard started to her feet, and then paused and looked +down at her companion. This Englefield! This the quiet little place +where the man from the hotel consented to look after their trunks while +their cousins drove them up in the wagon--this noisy station with two or +three hotel stages and shouting drivers of public carriages! + +"Lucy," said she, sitting down again in momentary despair, "we've gone +back thirty-five years, but we forgot to take Englefield with us!" + +It did not take long, however, to adapt themselves to the new +conditions. They arranged to stay at the inn that was farthest from the +centre of things, and the drive out restored some of the former look of +the place. It was near sunset; the road looked pink before them as they +left the city. The boys had set fire to little piles of early fallen +leaves along the sides of the streets, and a faint, pungent smoke hung +about and melted into the twilight, and the flame leaped forth vividly +now and then from the dusky heaps. As they left the paved city for the +old inn which modern travel and enterprise had left on the outskirts, +the sky showed lavender through a mistiness that was hardly palpable +enough for haze. The browns and reds of the patches of woods in the near +distance seemed the paler, steadier reproduction of the flames behind +them. Low on the horizon the clouds lay in purple waves, deepening and +darkening into brown. + +"Mary," said Lucy Eastman, in a low tone, laying her hand on her +companion's arm, "it's just the way it looked when we came the first +time of all; do you remember?" + +"Remember? It's as if it were yesterday! Oh, Lucy, I don't know about a +new heaven, but I'm glad, I'm glad it isn't a 'new earth' quite yet!" +There was a mistiness in the eyes of the women that none of the changes +they had marked had brought there. They were moved by the sudden sweet +recognition that seemed sadder than any change. + +The next morning they left the house early, that they might have long +hours in which to hunt up old haunts and renew former associations. +Again the familiar look of things departed as they wandered about the +wider, gayer streets. The house in which Mary Leonard's cousins had +lived had been long in other hands, and the occupants had cut down the +finest of the old trees to make room for an addition, and a woman whose +face seemed provokingly foreign to the scene came out with the air of a +proprietor and entered her carriage as they passed. + +At another place which they used to visit on summer afternoons, and +which had been approached by a little lane, making it seem isolated and +distant, the beautiful turf had been removed to prepare a bald and +barren tennis court, and they reached it by an electric car. Even the +little candy-shop had become a hardware store. + +"Of course, when one thinks of the Gibraltars and Jackson balls, it does +not seem such a revolution," said Mary Leonard; but she spoke forlornly, +and did not care much for her own joke. It looked almost as if their +holiday was to be turned into a day of mourning; there was depression in +the air of the busy, bustling active streets, through which the +gray-haired women wandered, handsome, alert, attentive, but haunted by +the sense of familiarity that made things unfamiliar and the knowledge +of every turn and direction that yet was not knowledge, but ignorance. + +"Look here, Lucy Eastman," said Mary Leonard at last, stopping +decisively in front of what used to be the Baptist Church, but which +was now a business block and a drug-store where you could get peach +phosphate, "we can't stand this any longer. Let's get into a carriage +right away and go to the old fort; that can't have changed much; it used +to be dismantled, and I don't believe they've had time, with all they've +done here, to--to mantle it again." + +They moved towards a cab-stand--of course it was an added grievance that +there was a cab-stand--but the wisdom of the prudent is to understand +his way. + +"Mary," said Lucy Eastman, detaining her, "wait a minute. Do you think +we might--it's a lovely day--and--there's a grocer right there--and +dinner is late at the hotel"--She checked her incoherence and looked +wistfully at Mary Leonard. + +"Lucy, I think we might do anything, if you don't lose your mind first. +What is it, for pity's sake, that you want to do?" + +"Take our luncheon; we always used to, you know. And we can have a hot +dinner at the hotel when we come back." + +Without replying, Mary Leonard led the way to the grocer's, and they +bought lavish supplies there and at the bakery opposite. Then they +called the cab. + +"Do you remember, Lucy, we used to have to think twice about calling a +cab, when we used to travel together, on account of the expense," said +Mary Leonard, as they waited for it to draw up at the curbstone. + +"Yes," answered Lucy; "we don't have to now." And then they both sighed +a little. + +But their smiles returned as they drove into the enclosure of the old +fort. There they lay in the peaceful sun--the gray stones, the few +cannon-balls, sunk in the caressing grass, with here and there a rusty +gun, like a once grim, sharp-tongued, cruel man who has fallen somehow +into an amiable senility. + +"I read an article in one of the magazines about our coast defences," +said Lucy Eastman, breathlessly; "how they ought to be strengthened and +repaired and all, and I was quite excited about it and wanted to give a +little money towards it, but I wouldn't for anything now, enemy or no +enemy." + +"Nor I, either," said Mary Leonard, after she had dismissed the driver +with orders to call for them later in the day. They walked on over the +crisp dry grass, and seated themselves on a bit of the fallen masonry. +The reaches of the placid river lay before them, and the hum of the +alert cricket was in their ears. Now and then a bird flew +surreptitiously from one bush to another, with the stealthy, swift +motion of flight in autumn, so different from the heedless, fluttering, +hither-and-yon vagaries of the spring and early summer. The time for +frivolity is over; the flashes of wings have a purpose now; the +possibility of cold is in the air, and what is to be done must be done +quickly. + +"We almost always used to come in summer," said Lucy Eastman, "but I +think it's every bit as pretty in the fall." + +"So do I," assented Mary Leonard, as she looked down into a hollow where +the purple asters grew so thick that in the half-dusk of the shadow they +looked like magnified snowflakes powdered thickly on the sward. "And it +hasn't changed an atom," she went on, as her eyes roamed over the +unevenness of this combination of man's and nature's handiwork. "It's +just as quiet and disorderly and upset and peaceful as it was then." + +"Yes, look up there;" and Lucy Eastman pointed to the higher ramparts, +on the edge of which the long grass wavered in the wind with the +glancing uncertainty of a conflagration. "The last time I was here I +remember saying that that looked like a fire." + +After they had eaten their luncheon, which brought with it echoes of +the laughter which had accompanied the picnic supper eaten in that very +corner years ago, they seated themselves in a sheltered spot to wait. It +really seemed as if the old gray walls retained some of the spirit of +those earlier days, so gentle, so mirth-inspiring was the sunshine that +warmed them. + +"I'm so glad we came," said Mary,--they had both said it before,--as the +sunny peace penetrated their very souls. + +Four o'clock brought the cab, and they drove down the long hills, +looking back often for a final glimpse of the waving grass and the gray +stones. As they turned a sharp corner and lost sight of the old fort, +Mary Leonard glanced furtively at her companion. Her own eyes for the +second time that day were not quite clear, and she was not sorry to +detect an added wistfulness in Lucy Eastman's gaze. + +"Lucy," said she, and her voice shook a little, "I'm tired." + +"So am I," murmured Lucy. + +"And I don't ever remember to have been tired after a picnic at the old +fort before." + +"No more do I," said Lucy; and it was a moment before their sadness, as +usual, trembled into laughter. + +"Lucy Eastman," said Mary Leonard, suddenly, "this is the street that +old Miss Pinsett used to live on--lives on, I mean. What do you say? +Shall we stop and see Miss Pinsett?" The dimples had come back again, +and her eyes danced. + +Lucy caught her breath. + +"Oh, Mary, if only she--" her sentence was left unfinished. + +"I'll find out," said Mary Leonard, and put her head out of the window. +"Driver," she called out, "stop at Miss Pinsett's." + +The driver nodded and drove on, and she sank back pleased with her own +temerity. + +The cab stopped in front of the same square white house, with the +cupola, and the same great trees in the front yard. Mary Leonard and +Lucy Eastman clasped each other's hands in silent delight as they walked +up the box-bordered path. + +"Tell Miss Pinsett that Lucy Eastman and--and Mary Greenleaf have come +to see her," they said to the elderly respectable maid. Then they went +into the dim shaded parlor and waited. There were the old piano and the +Japanese vases, and the picture of Washington which they had always +laughed at because he looked as if he were on stilts and could step +right across the Delaware, and they could hear their hearts beat, for +there was a rustle outside the door--old Miss Pinsett's gowns always +rustled--and it opened. + +"Why, _girls_!" exclaimed old Miss Pinsett as she glided into the room. + +Mary Leonard and Lucy Eastman declared, then and afterward, that she +wasn't a day older than when they said good-by to her thirty-five years +ago. She wore the same gray curls and the same kind of cap. Also, they +both declared that this was the climax, and that they should have wept +aloud if it had not been so evident that to Miss Pinsett there was +nothing in the meeting but happiness and good fortune, so they did not. + +"Why, girls," said old Miss Pinsett again, clasping both their hands, +"how glad I am to see you, and how well you are both looking!" + +Then she insisted on their laying off their things, and they laid them +off because they always had when she asked them. + +"You've grown stout, Mary Greenleaf," said old Miss Pinsett. + +"I know I have," she answered, "and I'm not Mary Greenleaf, though I +sent that name up to you--I'm Mary Leonard." + +"I wondered if neither of you were married." + +"I'm a widow, Miss Pinsett," said Mary Leonard, soberly. "My husband +only lived three years." + +"Poor girl, poor girl!" said Miss Pinsett, patting her hand, and then +she looked at the other. + +"I'm Lucy Eastman still," she said; "just the same Lucy Eastman." + +"And a very good thing to be, too," said Miss Pinsett, nodding her +delicate old head kindly. "But," and she scanned her face, "but, now +that I look at you, not quite the same Lucy Eastman--not quite the +same." + +"Older and plainer," she sighed. + +"Of all the nonsense!" exclaimed old Miss Pinsett. "You're not quite so +shy, that's all, my dear." + +"I'm shy now," asserted Lucy. + +"Very likely, but not quite so shy as you were, for all that. Don't tell +me! I've a quick eye for changes, and so I can see changes in you two +when it may be another wouldn't." + +Before the excitement of her welcome had been subdued into mere +gladness, there was a discreet tap at the door, and the respectable +maid came in with a tray of sherry-glasses and cake. Mary Leonard and +Lucy Eastman looked at each other brimming over with smiles. It was the +same kind of cake, and might have been cut off the same loaf. + +"Never any cake like yours," said Mary Leonard. + +"I remember you like my cake," said old Miss Pinsett, smiling; "take a +bigger piece, child." + +They wanted to know many things about the people and the town, all of +which Miss Pinsett could tell them. + +The shadows grew longer, the room dimmer, and Miss Pinsett had the maid +throw open the blinds to let in the western sunlight. A shaft of +illumination fell across one of the Japanese vases, and a dragon +blinked, and the smooth round head of a mandarin gleamed. There was an +old-fashioned trumpet-creeper outside the window. + +"But we must go," exclaimed Mary Leonard at last, rising and taking up +her bonnet. "Oh, no, thank you, we must not stay. Miss Pinsett; we are +going to-morrow, and we are tired with all the pleasure of to-day, and +we have so much--so much to talk over. We shall talk all night, as we +used to, I am afraid." + +"But before you go, girls," said Miss Pinsett, laying a fragile, white +slender hand on each, "you must sing for me some of the songs you used +to sing--you know some very pretty duets." + +Mary Leonard and Lucy Eastman paused, amazed, and looked into each +other's faces in dismay. Sing?--had they ever sung duets? They had not +sung a note for years, except in church. + +"But I don't know any songs, Miss Pinsett," stammered Mary Leonard. + +"I have forgotten all I ever knew," echoed Lucy Eastman. + +"No excuses, now--no excuses! You were always great for excuses, but +you would always sing for me. I want 'County Guy,' to begin with." + +By a common impulse the visitors moved slowly towards the piano; they +would try, at least, since Miss Pinsett wanted them to. Lucy seated +herself and struck a few uncertain chords. Possibly the once familiar +room, Mary Leonard at her side, Miss Pinsett listening in her own +high-backed chair, the scent of the mignonette in the blue +bowl--possibly one or all of these things brought back the old tune. + + "Ah, County Guy, + The hour is nigh, + The sun has left the lea." + +The sweet, slender voice floated through the room, and Mary Leonard's +deeper contralto joined and strengthened it. + +"Now, I will have 'Flow Gently, Sweet Afton,'" said Miss Pinsett, quite +as if it were a matter of course. And they sang "Flow Gently, Sweet +Afton." It was during the last verse that the parlor door opened +softly, and a tall, fine-looking man, erect, with beautiful silver +curling hair, and firm lines about the handsome, clean-shaven mouth, +appeared on the threshold and stood waiting. As the singing finished, +Miss Pinsett shook her head at him. + +"You were always coming in and breaking up the singing, Tom Endover," +she said. + +The two women left the piano and came forward. + +"You used to know Mary Greenleaf,--she's Mrs. Leonard now,--and Lucy +Eastman, Tom," she went on. + +Apparently Mr. Endover was not heeding the introduction, but was coming +towards them with instant recognition and outstretched hand. They often +discussed afterward if he would have known them without Miss Pinsett. +Mary Leonard thought he would, but Lucy Eastman did not always agree +with her. + +"You don't have to tell me who they are," he said, grasping their hands +cordially. "Telling Tom Endover who Mary Greenleaf and Lucy Eastman are, +indeed!" There was a mingling of courteous deference and frank, not to +be repressed, good comradeship in his manner which was delightful. Mary +Leonard's dimples came and went, and delicate waves of color flowed and +ebbed in Lucy Eastman's soft cheeks. + +"I'm too old always to remember that there's no telling a United States +senator anything," retorted Miss Pinsett, with a keen glance from her +dimmed but penetrating eyes. + +"As to that, I don't believe I'd ever have been a United States senator +if it wasn't for what you've told me, Miss Pinsett," laughed Endover. +"I'm always coming here to be taken down, Mary," he went on; "she does +it just as she used to." + +Mary Leonard caught her breath a little at the sound of her Christian +name, but "I didn't know there was any taking you down, Tom Endover," +she retorted before she thought; and they all laughed. + +They found many things to say in the few minutes longer that they +stayed, before Mr. Endover took them out and put them in their cab. He +insisted upon coming the next morning to take them to the station in his +own carriage, and regretted very much that his wife was out of town, so +that she could not have the pleasure of meeting his old friends. + +"He's just the same, isn't he?" exclaimed Mary Leonard, delightedly, as +they drove away. + +"Yes," assented Lucy Eastman, slowly; "I think he is; and yet he's +different." + +"Oh, yes, he's different," replied Mary Leonard, readily. Both were +quite unconscious of any discrepancy in their statements as they +silently thought over the impression he had made. He was the same +handsome, confident Tom Endover, but there was something gone,--and was +there not something in its place? Had that gay courtesy, that debonair +good fellowship, changed into something more finished, but harder and +more conscious? Was there a suggestion that his old careless charm had +become a calculated and a clearly appreciated facility? Lucy Eastman did +not formulate the question, and it did not even vaguely present itself +to Mary Leonard, so it troubled the pleasure of neither. + +"What a day we have had!" they sighed in concert as they drove up again +to the entrance of the inn. + +"Lucy," called Mary Leonard, a little later, from one of their +connecting rooms to the other, "I'm going to put on my best black net, +because Tom Endover may call to-night." Then she paused to catch Lucy +Eastman's prompt reply. + +"And I shall put on my lavender lawn, but it'll be just our luck to have +it Samuel Hatt." + +The next morning Mr. Endover called for them, and they were driven to +the station in his brougham. + +He put them on the train, and bought the magazines for them, and waved +his hand to the car window. + +"You know, Lucy," said Mary Leonard, as the train pulled out, "Tom +Endover always used to come to see us off." + +"Of course he did," said Lucy. + +"Do you know, I'm rather glad his wife was out of town," went on Mary +Leonard, after a pause. "I should like to have seen her well enough, but +you know she wasn't an Englefield girl." + +"What can she know about old Englefield!" said Lucy, with mild contempt. +"I'm very glad she was out of town." + +As they left the city behind them, the early morning sun shone forth +with vivid brilliancy. Against the western sky the buildings stood out +with a peculiar distinctness, as if the yellow light shining upon them +was an illumination inherent in themselves, singling them out of the +landscape, and leaving untouched the cold gray behind them. The lines of +brick and stone had the clearness and precision of a photograph, and yet +were idealized, so that in the yellow, mellow, transparent light a tall, +smoke-begrimed chimney of a distant furnace looked airy and delicate as +an Italian tower. + + + + +The "Daily Morning Chronicle" + + +THE village lay still and silent under the observant sun. The village +street stretched in one direction down the hill to the two-miles-off +railway station, and in the other to the large white house with pillared +portico, from which there was a fine view of the sunset, and beyond +which it still continued, purposeful but lonely, until it came suddenly +upon half a dozen houses which turned out to be another village. + +Not a man, woman, or child crossed from one house to another; not a dog +or a cat wandered about in the sunshine. The white houses looked as if +no one lived in them; the white church, with its sloping approach, +looked as if no one ever preached in it and no one ever came to it to +listen. It seemed to Lucyet Stevens, as she sat at the little window of +the post-office, behind which her official face looked so much more +important than it ever did anywhere else, as if the village street +itself were listening for the arrival of the noon mail. For it was +nearly time for the daily period of almost feverish activity. By and by +from the station would come Truman Hanks with the leather bag which, in +village and city alike, is the outward and visible sign of the fidelity +of the government. It is probable that he will bring it up in a single +carriage, for though sometimes he takes the two-seated one, in case +there should be a human arrival who would like to be driven up, this +possibility was so slight a one at this time of year that it was hardly +worth considering. Then the village will awake; the two little girls who +live down below the saw-mill will come up together, confiding on the way +a secret or two, for which the past twenty-four hours would seem to +have afforded slender material. Then old John Thomas will come limping +across from his small house back of the church, to see if there is a +letter for "her,"--she being his wife, and in occasional communication +with their daughter in the city. Then the good-looking, roughly clad +young farmer who takes care of the fine place with the pillared portico +on the hill will saunter down to see if "the folks have sent any word +about coming up for the summer." Then Miss Granger, who lives almost +next door, will throw a shawl over her head and run in to see who has +letters and, incidentally, if she has any herself; and then one or two +wagons will draw up in front of the little store, and the men will come +in for their daily papers. + +As Lucyet came around to the daily papers she flushed and looked +impatiently out of the door down the street. Not that the thought of the +daily paper had not been all the time in the background of her mind, +but having allowed her fancy to wander towards the attitude of the +village and its prospective disturbance, she returned to the imminence +of the daily paper again with a thrill of emotion. It was not one of the +metropolitan journals which, as a body, the village subscribed for, nor +was it one of the more widely known of those issued in smaller cities; +it was an unpretentious sheet, neither very ably edited nor extensively +circulated,--the chief spokesman of the nearest county town. But with +all its limitations, its readers represented to Lucyet the great harsh, +unknowing, and yet irresistibly attractive public. + +It was not the first time that she had thus watched for it with mute +excitement. Such episodes, though infrequent, had marked her otherwise +uneventful existence at irregular intervals for more than a year. It +would be more correct to say that they had altered its entire course; +that such episodes had given to her life a double character,--one side +of calmness, secrecy, indifference, and the other of delight, +absorption, thrilled with a breathless excitement and uncertainty. But +this time there was a greater than ordinary interest. The verses that +she had sent last were more ambitious in conception; they had +description in them, and mental analysis, and several other things which +very likely she would not have called by their right names, though she +felt their presence: her other contributions had belonged rather to the +poetry of comment. She was sure, almost sure, that they had accepted +these. + +Unsophisticated Lucyet never dreamed of enclosing postage for return, so +she could only breathlessly search the printed page to discover whether +her lines were there or in the waste-basket. Friday's edition of the +"Daily Morning Chronicle" was more or less given over to the feeble +claims of general literature. To-day was Friday. Lucyet glanced through +her little window--the tastefully disposed corner of which was +dedicated to the postal service--at the tin of animal crackers, the jar +of prunes, the suspended bacon, and the box of Spanish licorice, and +pondered, half contemptuously, half pitifully, on what had been her life +before she had written poems and sent them to the "Daily Morning +Chronicle." Then her outlook had seemed scarcely wider than that of the +animal crackers with their counterfeit vitality; now it seemed extended +to the horizon of all humanity. + +There was the sound of horses' feet coming over the hill. Was it the +mail wagon? No, it was a heavier vehicle; and the voice of the farmer, +slow and lumbering as the animals it encouraged, sounded down the +village street. Over the crest of the hill appeared the summit of a load +of hay going to the scales in front of the tavern to be weighed. So +silent were the place and the hour, that it was like a commotion when +the cart drew up, and the horses were unhitched and weighed, and then +the load driven on, and the owner and the hotel-keeper exchanged +observations of a genial nature. Finally the horses and the wagon +creaked along the hot street down the road which led by the pillared +white house, and again the village was at peace. Lucyet glanced at the +clock. Was the mail going to be late this morning? No. The creaking of +the hay wagon had but just lost itself in the silence, when her quick +ear caught the rattle of the lighter carriage. Her first impulse was to +step to the door and wait for it there, but she did not yield to it; she +would do just as usual, neither more nor less. She would not for worlds +have Truman Hanks suspect any special interest on her part. He might try +to find out its cause; and a hot blush enveloped Lucyet as she +contemplated the possibility of his assigning it to the true one. Only +one person in all the village knew that Lucyet Stevens wrote poetry. + +"Most time for the mail to be gittin' heavy," said Truman, as he handed +over the limp receptacle; "the summer boarders'll be along now, before +long." + +"Yes, I s'pose they will," answered Lucyet, her fingers trembling as +they unlocked the bag. + +"It's a backward season, though," he went on, watching her. + +"Yes, it is uncommon backward; the apple blossoms aren't but just +beginning to come out." + +It seemed to her that there was suspicion in his observation. He leaned +lazily over the counter, while she took out the mail within the little +office with its front of letter-boxes. + +"This hot spell'll bring 'em out. It's the first _hot_ spell we've +had." + +"Yes," she assented, blushing again, "it will." + +She had spoken of the tardy apple blossoms in her poem,--it was entitled +"Spring." Two or three people, having seen the mail go by, dropped in +and disposed themselves in various attitudes to wait for it to be +distributed. She hurried through the work, her fingers tingling to open +each copy of the newspaper as she laid it in its place. At last it was +done; the little window which had been shut to produce official +seclusion was reopened; and the people came up, one by one, without much +haste, and received the papers and now and then a letter. It did not +take long; and afterward they stood about and talked and traded a +little, their papers unopened in their hands. It was not likely that the +news from outside was going to affect any one of them very much; they +could wait for it; and reading matter was for careful attention at home, +not for skimming over in public places. + +Lucyet found their indifference phenomenal; they did not know what might +be waiting for them in the first column of the third page. Was it +waiting for them? The suspense was almost overwhelming; and yet she did +not like to open the copy which lay at her disposal until the store was +empty; she had a nervous feeling that they would all know what she was +looking for. Slowly the group melted away, till there was no one left +except the proprietor, who had gone into the back room to look after +some seed corn, and Silas, the young farmer, who had thrown himself down +into a chair to read his paper at his leisure, and was not noticing +Lucyet. Eagerly she opened the printed sheet. She caught her breath in +the joy of assurance. There it was--"Spring." It stood out as if it were +printed all in capitals. After a furtive look out at the quiet street, +where, in a rusty wagon, an old man was just picking up his reins and +preparing to jog away from the post-office door, and a side glance at +Silas's broad back over by the farther window, Lucyet read over her own +lines. How different they looked from the copy in her own distinct, +formal little handwriting! They had gained something,--but they had +lost something too. They seemed unabashed, almost declamatory, in their +sentiment. They had acquired a new and positive importance; it was as if +the assertions they made had all at once become truths, had ceased to be +tentative. She read them over again. No, they did not tell it all, all +that she meant to say; but they brought back the day, and she was glad +she had written them,--glad with an agitated, inexpressible gladness. +She would like to know what people said of them; for a moment it seemed +to her that she would not mind if they knew that she wrote them. + +"Well," said Silas, laying down his paper and standing up, "there isn't +a blamed thing in that paper!" + +Lucyet looked up at him startled. Had she heard aright? Then the color +slowly receded from her face and left it pale. Silas was quite +unconscious of having made an unusual statement. + +"Well, Lucyet," he went on, "going to the Christian Endeavor to-night?" + +"I don't know," she stammered. "No," she added suddenly, "I am not." All +endeavor was a mockery to her stunned soul. + +"I dunno as I will either," he observed carelessly as he lounged out. + +It was nothing to her whether he went or not, though once it might have +been. She sat still for some minutes after he had gone, looking blankly +at the paper. The page which a few minutes ago had seemed fairly to glow +with interest had become mere columns of print concerning trivial +things; for an instant she saw it with Silas's eyes. John Thomas came +limping for his mail. He had been detained on the way, he explained, and +was late. She handed him his paper through the window, dully, +indifferently. She was suffering a measure of that disappointment which +comes with what we have grown to believe attainment, and is so much more +bitter than that of failure. But the revolt against this unnatural state +of mind came before long. The elasticity of her own enthusiasm +reasserted itself. It could not be that there was nothing in her poem. +She read the lines over again. Two or three were not quite what they +ought to be, somehow; but the rest of them the world would lay hold +of,--that big sympathetic world which knew so much more than Silas +Stevens. + +When the hour came to close the office at noon, she locked the drawer +and passed out of the door to the footpath with a sense of triumph under +the habitual shyness of her manner. She still shrank from the publicity +she had achieved, but she was conscious of an undercurrent of desire +that her achievement, since it was real, should be recognized. + +When the old postmaster died, leaving Lucyet, his only child, alone in +the world, and interest in official quarters had procured for her the +appointment in her father's place, a home had also been offered her at +Miss Flood's; and it was thither that Lucyet now went for her noonday +meal. Miss Delia Flood was of most kindly disposition and literary +tastes. That these tastes were somewhat prescribed in their +manifestation was no witness against their genuineness. It must be +confessed that Miss Delia's preference was for the sentimental,--though +she would have modestly shrunk from hearing it thus baldly stated,--and, +naturally, for poetry above prose. The modern respect for "strength" in +literature would have impressed her most painfully had she known of it. +The mind turns aside from the contemplation of the effect that a story +or two of Kipling's would have produced upon her could she have grasped +their vocabulary; she would probably have taken to her bed in sheer +fright, as she did in a thunderstorm. Poetry of the heart and emotions, +which never verged, even most distantly, upon what her traditions and +her susceptibilities told her was the indecorous, satisfied her highest +demands, and the less said about nature, except by way of an occasional +willow, or the sad, sweet scent of a jasmine flower, the better. Miss +Delia had fostered Lucyet's love for literature; and it was to Miss +Delia that Lucyet hastened with the great news of the publication of her +poem. It was for this acute pleasure that she had hitherto kept the +knowledge of her attempt from her,--and, too, that her joy might be +full, and that she would not have to suffer the alternating phases of +hope and fear through which Lucyet herself had passed. + +As she entered the room where dinner stood on the table and Miss Delia +waited to eat it with her, she suppressed the trembling excitement which +threatened to make itself visible in her manner now that the words were +upon her very lips. They seated themselves at the table. Miss Delia was +small and wiry and grave, and never spilled anything on the tablecloth +when helping. + +"Miss Delia," said Lucyet, "I've written a poem." + +Her companion looked at her and smiled a shrewd little smile. "I've +guessed as much before now," she said. + +"But," said Lucyet, laying down her knife and fork, "it has been +printed." + +"Printed, child!" exclaimed Miss Delia, almost dropping hers. At last +the cup of satisfaction was at Lucyet's lips; at least she had not +overestimated the purport of the event to one human being. + +"Printed," repeated Lucyet, smiling softly. "Here it is in the paper." + +Miss Delia pushed aside her plate, seized the paper, and, opening it, +searched its columns. She had not to look long; there was but one poem. +Lucyet watched with shining eyes. This is what it meant; this was the +realization of her dreams--to see the reader pass over the rest of the +page as trivial, to be arrested with spellbound interest at the word +"Spring," to know that the words that held that absorbed attention were +her words--her own. + +As Miss Delia read, gradually her expression changed; from eagerness it +faded into perplexity. Lucyet watched her breathlessly, her hands +clasped, her thin arms and somewhat angular elbows resting on the coarse +tablecloth. From perplexity Miss Delia's look was chilled into what the +observant girl recognized, with a dull pain at her heart, as +disappointment. Lucyet averted her gaze to a dish of ill-shaped boiled +potatoes; there was no need of watching longer the face opposite. Miss +Delia read it all through again, dwelling on certain lines, which she +indicated by her forefinger, with special attention; then she looked up +timidly. She met Lucyet's unsmiling eyes for a moment; then she, too, +looked away, hurriedly, helplessly, to the dish of boiled potatoes. + +"I'm sure it is very nice--very nice indeed, Lucyet," she said. + +"But you don't like it," said Lucyet. + +"Oh, yes, I do," poor Miss Delia hastened to say. "I do like it; the +rhymes are in the right places, and all, and it looks so nice in the +column." Mechanically she pulled her plate back again, and Lucyet did +the same. "I'm proud of you, Lucyet," she went on with a forced little +smile, "that you can write real poetry like that." + +"But what if it isn't real poetry?" said Lucyet. + +The doubt was wrung from her by the overwhelming bitterness of her +disappointment. A rush of tears was smarting behind her rather +inexpressive eyes; but she held them back. Miss Delia was thoroughly +distressed. She put aside her own serious misgivings. + +"But it must be," she argued eagerly, "or they wouldn't have printed +it." + +Lucyet shook her head as she forced herself to eat a morsel of bread. +How unconvincing sounded the argument from another's lips! and yet she +knew now that secretly it had carried with it more weight than she had +realized. Miss Delia glanced apprehensively at the folded paper as it +lay on the table. She herself was disappointed, deeply disappointed; she +had expected much, and this,--why, this was, most of it, just what any +one could find out for herself. But she must say something more. +Lucyet's patient silence as she went on with her dinner, never raising +the eyes which had so shone when she first spoke, demanded speech from +her more urgently than louder claims. + +"I suppose I thought perhaps there would be more about--about +misfortune, and scattered leaves, and dells,"--poor Miss Delia smiled +deprecatingly, while she felt wildly about for more tangible +reminiscences of her favorite poets, that she might respond to the +unuttered questioning of Lucyet,--"and"--she dropped her eyes--"lovers." + +"I don't know anything about dells and lovers," said Lucyet, simply; +"how should I?" + +Miss Delia started a little. It had never occurred to her that one must +know about things personally in order to write poetry about them. If it +had, she would never have dreamed of mentioning lovers. + +"No, of course not," she said hastily; "but writing about a thing isn't +like knowing about it." + +Lucyet was not experienced enough to detect any fallacy in this, and she +dumbly acquiesced. + +"You have in all the grass and trees and--and such things as you have +in--very nicely, I'm sure," went on Miss Delia; "only next time"--and +she smiled brightly--"next time you must put in what we don't see every +day--like islands and reefs and such things. I know you could write a +beautiful poem about a reef--a coral reef." + +Lucyet tried to smile hopefully in return, but the attempt was a +failure. She had finished her dinner, and she longed to get away; she +was so hurt that she must be alone to see how it was to be borne. She +helped Miss Delia clear the table and wash the dishes, almost in +silence. Two or three times they exchanged words on indifferent +subjects; Miss Delia asked who had had letters, and Lucyet told her, but +it was hard work for both. When it was over, Lucyet paused in the +doorway, putting on her straw hat to go back to the post-office. + +Miss Delia stood a moment irresolute, and then stepped to her side. +"Lucyet," she said, her voice trembling, "I don't understand it exactly. +It isn't like the poetry I've been used to. There are things in it that +I don't know what they mean. To be sure, that's so with all poetry that +we do like,"--the tears were in her eyes; it is not an easy thing to +disappoint one's best friend and to be conscious of it,--"but it isn't +like what I thought it was going to be, just about what we see out of +the window. But it's my fault, just as likely as not,"--she laid her +hand on Lucyet's arm,--"that's what I want to say; you mustn't take it +to heart--just 's likely 's not, it's my fault." + +Miss Delia did not believe a word of what she was saying, which made it +difficult for her to articulate; but she was making a brave effort in +her sensitive loyalty. + +"I know," said Lucyet, gently; "but I guess it isn't your fault;" and +she slipped out to the road on her way to the post-office. Miss Delia +went back, picked up the paper, and, seating herself at the window, she +read "Spring" all through again, word by word; then she laid it aside +again, shaking her head sadly. + +Lucyet went quietly behind her little window. Her disappointment +amounted to actual physical pain. She found no comfort, as a wiser +person might have done, in certain of Miss Delia's expressions; she only +realized that her best friend and her most generous critic could find +nothing good in what she had done. Her duty this afternoon was only to +make up the mail for the down train; then her time was her own till the +next mail train came up at half-past five. At two o'clock she closed the +office again and started on a long walk. She longed for the comfort of +the solitary hillsides, where warm patches of sunlight lay at the foot +of ragged stone walls, and there were long stretches of plain and meadow +to be looked over, and rolling hills to comfort the soul. As she climbed +a hill just before the place where a weedy untravelled road turned off +from the highway leading between closely growing underbrush and stone +walls, where now and then a shy bird rustled suddenly and invisibly +among last year's dried leaves, she saw three countrymen standing by the +wayside and talking with as near an approach to earnestness as ever +visits the colloquies of the ordinary unemotional New Englander. One of +them held a copy of the "Daily Chronicle," gesturing with it somewhat +jerkily as he spoke. + +For a moment the hope that it is hard to make away with revived in +Lucyet's breast. Were they talking of the poem, she wondered, with a +certain weary interest. She dreaded a fresh disappointment so keenly +that it pained her to speculate much on the chance of it. It was not +impossible that they were saying such meaningless stuff ought never to +have been printed. As the pale girl drew near with the plodding, patient +step which so often proclaims that walking is not a pleasure, but a +necessity, of country life, the men did not lower their voices, which +she heard distinctly as she passed. + +"Wal, I tell you, 't was that," said one of them. "He didn't live more'n +a little time after he took it." + +"Mebbe he wouldn't have lived anyhow." + +"Wal, mebbe he wouldn't. 'T ain't for me to say," responded the first +speaker, evincing a certain piety, which, however, was not to be +construed as at variance with his first statement. + +"Wal, 't wa'n't this he took, was it?" demanded the man with the +"Chronicle," waving it wildly. + +"Wal, no, 't wa'n't," responded the other, reasonably. The third member +of the party maintained an air of not being in a position to judge, and +regarded Lucyet stolidly as she approached. + +"Do, Lucyet?" he observed, unnoticed of the other two. + +"I tell you this'll cure him. It'll cure anybody. Just read them +testimonies,"--and he pressed the paper into the other's meagre hand. +"Read that one, 'Rheumatiz of thirty years' standin',--it'll interest +ye." + +Lucyet went on up the hill, and turned into the weedy road. She had not +a keen sense of the ridiculous. It did not strike her as funny that they +should have been discussing a patent medicine instead of the verses on +"Spring;" but her shrinking sense of defeat was deepened, and she felt, +with an unconscious resentment, that most people cared very little about +poetry. She wondered, without bitterness, and with a saddened distrust +of her own power, if she could write an advertisement. Once within the +precincts of the tangled road, her disquieted soul rejoiced in the +freedom from observation. She felt as bruised and sore from the +unsympathetic contact of her world as if it had been a larger one; and +with the depression had come a startled sense of the irrevocableness of +what she had done. Those printed words seemed so swift, so tangible. +They would go so far, and afford such opportunity for the grasp of +indifference, of ridicule! If she could only have them again, spoken, +perhaps, but unheard! + +Yet here, at least, where the enterprising grass grew in the rugged cart +track, and the branches drooped impertinently before the face of the +wayfarer, no one but herself need know that she was very near to tears. +And as she came out of the shut-in portion of the road to a stretch of +open country, where the warm light lay on the hillsides, and the air was +sweetened by the breath of pines, her depression gave way to a keen +sense of elation. She turned aside and, crossing a bit of elastic, dry +grass, climbed to the top of the stone wall and looked about her. Her +heart throbbed with confidence, doubly grateful for the previous +distrust. Her own lines came back to her; it was this that somehow, +imperfectly, but somehow, she had put into words. It was still spring, a +late New England spring, though the unseasonable warmth of the day made +it seem summer. The landscape bore the coloring of autumn rather than +that of the earlier year. The trees were red and brown and yellow in +their incipient leafage. Now and then, among the sere fields, there was +a streak of vivid green, or a mound of rich brown, freshly turned earth; +but for the most part they were bare. Here and there was the crimson of +a new maple; in the distance were the reds and brown of new, not old, +life. Only the birds sang as they never sing in autumn, a burst of +clear, joyous anticipation--the trill of the meadowlark, the "sweet, +sweet, piercing sweet" of the flashing oriole, the call of the catbird, +and the melody of the white-bosomed thrush. And here and there a +fountain of white bloom showed itself amid the sombreness of the fields, +a pear or cherry tree decked from head to foot in bridal white, like a +bit of fleecy cloud dropped from the floating masses above to the +discouraged earth; along the wayside the white stars of the anemone, the +wasteful profusion of the eyebright, and the sweet blue of the violet; +and in solemn little clusters, the curled up fronds of the ferns, +uttering a protest against longer imprisonment--let wind and sun look +out! they would uncurl to-morrow! All these things set the barely +blossomed branches, the barely clothed hillsides, at defiance. It was +the beginning, not the end, the promise, not the regret--it was life, +not death. Summer was afoot, not winter. + +It was worth a longer walk, that half hour on the hillside; for it +restored, in a measure, her sense of enjoyment, and substituted for the +burden of defeat the exultation of expression, however faulty and +however limited. But like other moods, this one was temporary; and as +she retraced her steps and turned into the village street, she felt +again the lassitude which follows the extinction of hope and the +inexorable narrowing of the horizon which she had fancied extended. + +It was usual for her at this hour to stop at the tavern for the mail +which might be ready there, and herself take it to the post-office. In +midsummer this mail was quite an important item, but at this time of +year it amounted to little; nevertheless, she followed what had become +the custom. She found one of the daughters of the house in the throes +of composition. + +"Oh, Lucyet," she exclaimed, "you don't say that's you! I want this to +go to-night the worst way. Ain't you early?" + +"Yes, I guess I am," said Lucyet, rather wearily. + +"If you'll set on the piazzer and wait, I'll finish up in just a minute. +You see we had to get dinner for two gentlemen as came down to go +fishin' to-morrer, and it sorter put me back. I wish you'd wait." + +"Well, I guess I can wait a few minutes," said Lucyet, the line between +her personal and her official capacity being sometimes a difficult one +to maintain rigidly. She seated herself on the piazza, not observing +that she was just outside of the window of the room within which the two +fishermen were smoking and talking in a desultory fashion. Later their +voices fell idly on her ear, speaking a language she only half +understood, blending with the few lazy sounds of the afternoon. The +conversation was really extremely desultory, being chiefly maintained by +the younger man of the two, who lounged on the sofa of unoriental luxury +with a thorough-going perversion of the maker's plan,--his head being +where his feet ought to have been and his feet hanging over the portion +originally intended for the back of his head. The other man wore the +frown of absorption as, a pencil in his hand, he worried through some +pages of manuscript. + +"Oh, I say," observed the idler, "ain't you 'most through slaughtering +the innocents? I want to take that walk." + +"I told you half an hour ago that if I could have a few uninterrupted +minutes I'd be with you," answered the other man, without looking up. +"They haven't fallen in my way yet." + +"It's pity that moves me to speech," rejoined the first speaker, rising +and sauntering to the window,--not that one outside of which Lucyet was +sitting,--"pity for those young souls throbbing with the consciousness +of power who may have forgotten to enclose a stamp for return. I feel +when I interrupt you as if I were holding back the remorseless wheel of +fate." + +His companion allowed this speculative remark to pass without reply. The +idler sauntered back to the table. + +"What'll you bet, now, before you go any further, that it'll go into the +waste-basket?" + +"Stamped and addressed envelope enclosed," observed the patient editor, +absently. + +"Well, what odds will you give me of its being not necessarily devoid of +literary merit, but unfitted for the special uses of your magazine?" + +The other was still silent as he laid aside another page. + +"Half the time," continued the idler, "to look at you, you wouldn't +believe that you speak the truth when you express your thanks for the +pleasure of reading their manuscripts. It would seem that that, too, +was simulated." + +The older man picked up a soft felt hat and threw it across the room at +his companion, without taking his eyes from the page. + +"Oh, well," went on the other, "I can read the newspaper. I can read +what is printed, while you're reading what ought to be. Of course you +and I know the things are never the same." + +Picking up the paper, he resumed, approximately, his former attitude, +and applied himself to its columns for a few moments of silence. Outside +Lucyet sat quietly, her head resting against the white wooden wall of +the house; and the editor made a mark or two. + +"Now this is what the public want to know," resumed the idler, with a +gratuitous air of having been pressed for his opinion. "You editors have +a ridiculous way of talking about the public--" + +"It strikes me that it is not I who have been making myself ridiculous +talking about anything." + +"The public! You just tell the great innocent public that you are giving +them the sort of thing they like, and half the time they believe you, +and half the time they don't. Now this man"--and he tapped the +"Chronicle"--"knows an editor's business." + +"Which is more than you do," interpolated the goaded man. + +"'The frame for William Brown's new house is up. William may be trusted +to finish as well as he has begun,'" read the idler, imperturbably. +"'Miss Sophie Brown is visiting friends in Albany. The boys will be glad +to see her back.' 'Fruit of all kinds will be scarce, though berries +will be abundant.'" + +The older man stood up, his pencil in his mouth. "Confound you, +Richards! Either you keep still or I go to my room and lock the door." + +"Oh, I'll keep still," said Richards, as if it was the first time it +had been suggested. Again there was a silence. + +The letter must be to Ada's young man, who was doing a good business in +cash registers, it took so long to write it. It was within five minutes +of the time Lucyet should be at the office. She moved to leave the +piazza, when a not loud exclamation from Richards fell on her ear with +unusual distinctness. + +"By Jove! I say, just listen to this." + +The editor looked up threateningly, and went back to his work again +without a word. + +"No, but really--it's quite in your line. Listen." + +Lucyet had moved forward a step or two, when she stood motionless. The +words that floated through the window were her own. Richards had an +unusually sweet voice, and he was reading in a way entirely different +from that in which he had rattled off the "personals." There seemed a +new sweetness in every syllable; the warmth of the hillside, the +perfume of opening apple blossoms, breathed between the lines. He read +slowly, and the words fell on the still air that seemed waiting +breathless to hear them. When he finished, Lucyet was leaning against +the side of the house, her hand on her heart, her eyes shining,--and the +editor was looking at the reader. + +"There," he concluded, "ain't there something of the 'blackbird's tune +and the beanflower's boon' in that?" + +"Copied, of course?" inquired the editor, briefly. + +"No. 'Written for the Daily Chronicle,' and signed 'L.' Not bad, are +they? Of course I don't know," Richards scoffed, "and the public +wouldn't know if it read them, but you know--" + +"Read 'em again." + +A second time, with increased expression, half mischievous now in its +fervor, the lines on Spring fell in musical tones from Richards's lips. +Still Lucyet stood breathless, her whole being thrilled with an impulse +of exultant, inexpressible delight, listening as she had never listened +before. It was as if she stood in the midst of a shining mist. + +"She's got it in her, hasn't she?" Richards added, after a pause. + +"Yes," said his companion, slowly. "She's got it in her fast enough;" +and he returned to his page of manuscript. "Much good may it do her!" he +added, with weary cynicism. + +Richards laughed, and pulled a pack of cards out of his pocket. "I'll +play solitaire," he said. + +"Thank Heaven!" murmured the other, devoutly. + +Ada arrived breathless. "Here 'tis," said she. "Did you think I was +never comin'? You've got time enough; they ain't very prompt. There +ain't anythin' the matter, is there?" she asked. + +Lucyet took the letter mechanically. "No," she said, "there isn't +anything the matter." + +As she went swiftly toward the little post-office the rhythm of those +lines was in her ears; the assured, incisive tones of that man's voice +pulsed through her very soul. She was conscious of no hope for the +future; she had no regret for the past; the present was a glory. In that +moment Lucyet had taken a long, dizzying draught from the cup of +success. + + + + +Hearts Unfortified + + +THE observation train wound its way in clumsy writhings along the bank +of the river, upon which the afternoon light fell in modified brilliancy +as the west kindled towards the sunset. But if the sheen and sparkle of +the earlier day had passed into something more subdued and less +exhilarating, the difference was made up in the shifting action and +color that moved and glowed and flashed on, above and beside the soft +clearness of the stream. The sunlight caught the turn of the wet oars +and outlined the brown muscular backs of the young athletes who were +pulling the narrow shells. The Yale blue spread itself in blocks and +patches along the train, and the Harvard crimson burned in vivid +stretches by its side, and all the blue and crimson seemed instinct +with animation as they floated, quivered, and waved in the thrilled +interest of hundreds of men and women who followed with eager eyes the +knife-blades of boats cleaving the water in a quick, silent ripple of +foam. The crowd of launches, tugs, yachts, and steamers pushed up the +river, keeping their distance with difficulty, and from them as well as +from the banks sounded the fluctuating yet unbroken cheers of +encouragement and exhortation, rising and falling in rhythmic measure, +guided by public-spirited enthusiasts, or breaking out in purely +individual tribute to the grand chorus of partisanship. It had been a +close start, and the furor of excitement had spent itself, somewhat, +during the first seconds, and now made itself felt more like the quick +heart-beats of restrained emotion as the issue seemed to grow less +doubtful, though reaching now and then climaxes of renewed expression. + +"Alas for advancing age!" sighed a woman into the ear of her neighbor, +as their eyes followed the crews, but without that fevered intensity +which marked some other glances. + +"By all means," he answered. "But why, particularly, just now? I was +beginning to fancy myself young under the stress of present +circumstances." + +"Because even if one continues to keep one's emotions +creditably--effervescent--one loses early the single-minded glow of +contest." + +"A single-minded glow is a thing that should be retained, even at +considerable cost." + +"And what is worse yet, one grows critical about language," she +continued calmly, "and gives free rein to a naturally unpleasant +disposition under cover of a refined and sensitive taste." + +Ellis Arnold smiled tolerantly. + +"They are pretty sure to keep their lead now," he said. "The other boat +is more than a length behind, and losing. They are not pulling badly, +either," he added. "You were saying?"--and he turned towards her for the +first time since the start. + +She was a handsome blonde-haired woman, perfectly dressed, with the seal +of distinction set upon features, figure, and expression. + +"That was what I was saying," she replied, "that the ones that are +behind are not pulling badly." + +"More sphinx-like than ever," he murmured. "I perceive that you speak in +parables." + +Miss Normaine laughed a little. The conversation was decidedly +intermittent. They dropped it entirely at times, and then took it up as +if there had been no pause. It was after a brief silence that she went +on: "But you and I can see both boats--the success, and the +disappointment too. And we can't, for the life of us, help feeling that +it's hard on those who have put forth all their strength for defeat." + +"But it isn't so bad as if it were our boat that was behind," he said +sensibly. + +"Oh, no; of course not. But I maintain that it injures the _fine fleur_ +of enjoyment to remember that there are two participants in a contest." + +"I suppose it is useless to expect you to be logical--" + +"Quite. I know enough to be entirely sure I'd rather be picturesque." + +"But let me assure you, that in desiring that there should be but one +participant in a contest, you are striking at the very root of all +successful athletic exhibitions." + +She shrugged her shoulders a little. + +"Oh, well, if you like to air your powers of irony at the expense of +such painful literalness!" + +"The exuberance of my style has been pruned down to literalness by the +relentless shears of a cold world. With you, of course,"--but he was +interrupted by the shouts of the crowd, as the winning boat neared the +goal. The former enthusiasm had been the soft breathings of approval +compared to this outbreak of the victorious. Flags, hats, handkerchiefs +rose in the air, and the university cheer echoed, re-echoed, and began +again. + +Arnold cheered also, with an energy not to be deduced from his hitherto +calm exterior, standing up on the seat and shouting with undivided +attention; and Miss Normaine waved her silk handkerchief and laughed in +response to the bursts of youthful joy from the seat in front of her. + +"Oh, well," said Arnold, sitting down again, "sport is sport for both +sides, whoever wins--or else it isn't sport at all." + +"Ah, how many crimes have been committed in thy name!" murmured Miss +Normaine. + +"Katharine, I think you have turned sentimentalist." + +"No, it's age, I tell you. I'm thinking more now of the accessories +than I am of the race. That's a sure sign of age, to have time to notice +the accessories." + +Arnold nodded. + +"There's compensation in it, though. If we lose a little of the drama of +conflict on these occasions, we gain something in recognizing the style +of presentation." + +"Yes," and she glanced down at her niece, whose pretty eyes were making +short work of the sunburned, broad-shouldered, smooth-faced, handsome +boy, who was entirely willing to close the festivities of Commencement +week subjected to the ravages of a grand, even if a hopeless, passion. + +From her she looked out upon the now darkening river. There had been +some delay before the train could begin to move back, and the summer +twilight had fallen; for the race had been at the last available moment. +Though it was far from quiet, the relief from the tension of the +previous moments added to the placidity of the scene. The opposite +banks were dim and shadowy, and the water was growing vague; there were +lights on some of the craft; a star came out, and then another; there +were no hard suggestions, no sordid reminders. It was a beautiful world, +filled with happy people, united in a common healthy interest; the +outlines of separation were softened into ambiguity and the differences +veiled by good breeding. + +"It is only a mimic struggle, after all," she said at last. "The stage +is well set, and now that the curtain is down, there is no special +bitterness at the way the play ended." + +"There you exaggerate, as usual," he replied, "and of course in another +direction from that in which you exaggerated last time." + +"The pursuit of literature has made you not only precise but didactic," +she observed. + +"There is a good deal, if not of bitterness, of very real +disappointment, and some depression." + +"Which will be all gone long before the curtain goes up for the next +performance." + +"Ah, yes, to be sure; but nevertheless you underrate the disappointments +of youth,--because they are not tragic you think they are not +bitter,--you have always underrated them." + +She met his eyes calmly, though he had spoken with a certain emphasis. + +"We are talking in a circle," she replied. "That was what I said in the +first place--that as we grow older we have more sympathy with defeat." + +"You are incorrigible," he said, smiling; "you will accept neither +consolation nor reproof." + +"Life brings enough of both," she answered; "it does not need to be +supplemented by one's friends." + +The train was moving very slowly; people were laughing and talking gayly +all about them; more lights had come out on the water, and a gentle +breeze had suddenly sprung up. + +"Just what do you mean by that, I wonder?" he said slowly. + +"Not much," she answered lightly. "But I do mean," she added, as he +looked away from her, "that, whether it be the consequence of the +altruism of the day, or of advancing age, as I said at first, it has +grown to be provokingly difficult to ignore those who lose more serious +things than a college championship. Verestchagin and such people have +spoiled history for us. Who cares who won a great battle now?--it is +such a small thing to our consciousness compared to the number of people +who were killed--and on one side as well as the other." + +"Except, of course, where there is a great principle, not great +possessions, at stake?" + +"Yes," she assented, but somewhat doubtfully, "yes, of course." + +"But it shows a terrible dearth of interest when we get down to +principles." + +"Yes," she said again, laughing. Meanwhile Miss Normaine's niece was +pursuing her own ends with that directness which, though lacking the +evasive subtlety of maturer years, is at once effective and commendable. + +"It was nothing but a box of chocolate peppermints," she insisted. "I'd +never be so reckless as to wager anything more without thinking it over. +I have an allowance, and I'm obliged to be careful what I spend." + +He looked her over with approval. + +"You spend it well," he asserted. + +"I have to," she returned, "or else boys like you would never look at me +twice." + +"I don't know about that." He spoke as one who, though convinced, is not +a bigot. + +"It's fortunate that I do," she replied decidedly. "I'm mortifyingly +dependent on my clothes. There's my Aunt Katharine now,--she has an air +in anything." + +"I like you better than your aunt," he confessed. + +"Of course you do. I've taken pains to have you. But it was just as much +as ever that you looked at me twice last night." + +"I was afraid of making you too conspicuous." + +"A lot you were!" she retorted rudely. "Who was that girl you danced +with?" + +He smiled wearily. + +"Tommy Renwick's cousin from the West." + +"She is pretty." + +"Very good goods." + +"Is she as nice as Tommy?" + +"No. There are not many girls as nearly right as Tommy." + +"Except me." + +"Well, perhaps, except you." + +"But then, I'm not many." + +"No, separate wrapper, only one in a box," he admitted handsomely. + +Miss Normaine's niece had dark eyes, brown hair that curled in small +inadvertent rings, and a rich warm complexion through which the crimson +glowed in her round cheeks. She was so pretty that she ought to have +been suppressed, and had a way of speaking that made her charming all +over again. + +"It was not chocolate peppermints, and you know quite well it wasn't," +he said, with the finished boldness compatible with hair parted exactly +in the middle and a wide experience. Miss Normaine's niece opened her +eyes wide. + +"What was it?" + +"Nothing but your heart." + +She considered the matter seriously. + +"Was it really?" + +"It was really." + +"And I've lost," she pondered aloud. + +"And you've lost." + +She raised her eyes with a glance in which he could read perfect faith, +glad acknowledgment, and entire surrender. + +"Do you want me to keep telling you?" she demanded with adorable +petulance. + +"There is Henry Donald!" exclaimed Miss Normaine. "I didn't see him +before. He has grown stout, hasn't he?" + +"Yes, and bald." + +"Isn't he young to be bald and stout too? Do tell me that he is," urged +Miss Normaine with pathos. "He seems just out of college to me, and I +don't like to think that I've lost all sense of proportion." + +"Oh, no, you haven't," said Arnold, consolingly. "It's only he that has +lost his. He doesn't take exercise enough. He's coming this way to speak +to you. You had better think of something more flattering to say." + +"I never thought Harry Donald would get stout and bald," went on Miss +Normaine, to herself. "There was a period when I let my fancy play +about him, most of the time too, but I never thought of that." + +"Who's that man squeezing through the crowd to speak to Aunt Katharine?" +asked Alice. + +"That? Oh, that's one of the old boys." + +"I can see that for myself." + +"He's a Judge Donald of Wisconsin. He's pretty well on, but he's a +Jim-dandy after-dinner speaker. Made a smooth speech at his class +reunion." + +"They still like to come to the race and things, don't they?" + +"Oh, yes, and they're right into it all while they're here too." + +Unhappily unconscious of the kindly feeling being extended to him from +the bench in front, Judge Donald seated himself by Katharine, just as +they drew slowly into the station. + +"You haven't been on for some years, have you?" she asked him. + +"No," he answered, "I've been busy." + +"Oh, we know you've been busy," she interpolated, smiling. + +"You're the same Katharine Normaine," he rejoined. "I thought you were, +by the looks, and now I'm sure. You don't really know that I've ever had +a case, but you make me feel that my name echoes through two worlds at +the very least." + +"And you are still Harry Donald, suspicious of the gifts that are tossed +into your lap," and they both laughed. + +"This is the man of the class," went on Judge Donald, turning to Ellis, +who had taken a seat above them. "Your books have gotten out to +Wisconsin, and that's fame enough for any man." + +"Have they really?" said Arnold. "I supposed they only wrote notices of +them in the papers." + +"Oh, yes," murmured Miss Normaine. "Ellis has turned out clever,--one +never knows." + +"I guess they're good, too," went on Donald; "I tell 'em I used to think +you wrote well in college." + +"I thought I did, too," answered Arnold. "I don't believe we're either +of us quite so sure I write well now." + +They had delayed their steps to keep out of the crowd, for the people +were leaving the train, some hurrying to catch other trains, some +stopping to greet friends and acquaintances; there was a general rushing +to and fro, the clamor of well-bred voices, the calling out of names in +surprised accost, the frou-frou of gowns and the fragrance of flowers, +in the bare and untidy station. + +At last the party of which Miss Normaine was one left the car, and with +the two men she made her way down the platform, through the midst of the +hubbub, which waxed more insistent every moment. + +"It is with a somewhat fevered anxiety that I am keeping my eye on +Alice," she said. + +"She is with a young man," said Judge Donald. + +"That statement has not the merit of affording information. She has been +with a young man ever since we left home." + +"It isn't the same one, either," supplemented Arnold. + +"It never is the same one," said Miss Normaine, somewhat impatiently. "I +am under no obligation to look after or even differentiate the young +men. I simply have to see that the child doesn't get lost with any one +of them." + +"She won't get lost with one," said Arnold, reassuringly, as they were +separated by a cross-current of determined humanity. "She has three now, +and they are all shaking hands at a terrible rate." + +Judge Donald departed on a tour of investigation, and returned to say +that there was no chance just at present of their getting away. It was a +scene of confusion which only patience and time could elucidate. The +omniscience of officials had given place to a less satisfactory if more +human ignorance; last come was first served, and a seat in a train +seemed by no means to insure transportation. It was as well to wait for +a while outside as in; so with many others they strolled up and down, +until their car should be more easily accessible. + +"Alice is an example of the profound truths we have been enunciating, +Ellis," said Miss Normaine. "She has an ardent admirer on the defeated +crew. At one time I did not know but his devotion might shake her +lifelong allegiance to the other university; but now that victory has +fairly perched, you observe she has small thought for the bearers of +captured banners. We were saying, Mr. Arnold and I," she explained to +Donald, "that it is at our time of life that people begin to remember +that when somebody beats, there is somebody else beaten." + +Donald grew grave,--as grave as a man can be with the feathers of an +unconscious girl tickling one ear and a fleeting chorus of the latest +"catchy" song penetrating the other. + +"Arnold and I can appreciate it better than you, I guess," he said, +"because there have been times when we thought it highly probable we +might get beaten ourselves." + +"Highly," assented Arnold. + +"But you, Miss Normaine, you've never had any difficulty in getting in +on the first floor," went on the other. "You've quaffed the foam of the +beaker and eaten the peach from the sunniest side of the wall right +along--I'm quite sure of it just to look at you." + +"The Scripture moveth us in sundry places," said Katharine, with a +lightness that did not entirely veil something serious, "not to put too +much faith in appearances. Even I am not above learning a lesson now and +then." + +He looked at her curiously. + +"I'd like to know by what right you haven't changed more," he said. + +"Did you expect to find me in ruins, after--let me see, how many years?" +she laughed. "The hand of Time is heavy, but not necessarily +obliterating. _What_ has become of Alice?" + +"She can't have gone far," said Arnold. "She was with us a moment ago." + +"There she is with some of the rest of your party--I caught a glimpse of +her just now," added Donald. "She's quite safe." + +Alice stood talking with a girl of her own age and two or three +undergraduates, on the outskirts of the crowd. One of the youths wore in +his buttonhole the losing color, but he bore himself with a proud +dignity that forbade casual condolences. Alice's eyes were bright, and +her pretty laugh rippled forth with readily communicated mirth, while +the very roses of her hat nodded with the spirit of unthinking gayety. + +"There's the car that belongs to our fellows," said, half to himself, +the person of sympathies alien to those of his present companions. "They +must be about--yes, they're getting on," he added, as a car which had +been propelled from a neighboring switch stopped at the farther end of +the station. Alice's head turned with a swiftness of motion that set the +roses vibrating as if a sudden breeze had ruffled their petals. + +"The crew?" she asked. + +"Yes," assented the young man. + +She turned more definitely towards him, away from the rest of the group, +whose attention was called in another direction. + +"Will you do something for me, Mr. Francis?" + +"Why, of course." + +Alice had not anticipated refusal, and her directions were prompt and +lucid. + +"Please go into that car and ask Mr. Herbert to come out to the +platform, at the other end, to speak to me. There isn't much time to +lose, so please be quick." + +As he lifted his hat and moved away, she joined in the conversation of +the others, which seemed to be largely metaphorical. + +"So he got it that time," one of the young men was explaining, "where +Katy wore the beads." + +"Well, it served him quite right," said Alice, with the generosity of +ignorance. Her whole attention was apparently given to the matter in +hand, but she was standing so that she could see the somewhat vague +vestibule of the brilliant but curtained car. + +"Oh, yes, but it wasn't on the tintype that the other fellow should have +been there at all." + +"No, to be sure, but that made it all the better," said Alice's friend, +with sympathetic vision. + +"Why, there's Eugene Herbert!" exclaimed Alice. "I really must go and +tell him that he pulled beautifully, if he didn't win, and comforting +things like that! Don't go off without me." + +Before comment could be framed upon their lips, she had left her +companions and was slipping quickly down the platform. + +"She knows him very well," said the other girl; "she'll be back in a +minute." + +"She must have sharp eyes," said another of the group, as he looked +after her. But too many people were about for fixed attention to be +bestowed upon a single figure. There was but one light under the roof of +that part of the station where a young man was standing, looking rather +sulkily up and down. Alice was a little breathless with her rapid walk +when she reached him. + +"I thought Francis was giving me a song and dance," he said, as he +grasped the hand she held out. + +"No, I sent him," she explained hurriedly. "And I wanted to say--" She +paused an instant as she looked up at him. + +He was serious, and wore a look of fatigue, in spite of the superb +physical health of his whole appearance. The light fell across her face +under the dark brim of her hat, and touched its beauty into something +vividly apart from the shadows and sordidness of the place, yet paler +than its sunlit brilliancy. + +"I wanted to say," she went on bravely, "that I've changed my mind. At +least, I didn't really have any mind at all. And if you still want me +to--" she paused again, but something in his eyes reassured her--"I +will--I'd really _like_ to, you know, and _please_ be quiet, there isn't +but a minute to say it in--and I'd never have told you--at least not for +years and _years_--if you had won the race. Now let go of my hand--there +are _hundreds_ of people all about--and you can come and see me +to-morrow." + +It was all over in a moment. She had snatched her hand away, and was +speeding back with a clear-eyed look of conscious rectitude, and he had +responded to the exhortations of divers occupants of the car, backed by +a disinterested brakeman, and stepped aboard. + +"Oh, well, there's another race next year," he said to somebody who +spoke to him as he sat down in the end seat. It was early for such +optimism, and they thought Herbert had a disgustingly cheerful +temperament. + +Alice returned just as Miss Normaine and Arnold came up, and they all +went back together, collecting the rest of the party as they went to +their train. It was a vivacious progress along the homeward route. Pæans +of victory and the flash of Roman candles filled the air. At one time, +when some particular demonstration was absorbing the attention of the +men, Miss Normaine found her niece at her side. + +"Aunt Katharine, you know I've always adored you," she said, with a +repose of manner that disguised a trifle of apprehension. + +"Yes, I know, Alice, but I really can't promise to take you anywhere +to-morrow. I--" + +"I don't want you to--I only want to confide in you." + +"Oh, dear, what have you been doing now?" + +"I think," replied Alice, while the chorus of sound about them swelled +almost to sublimity, "that I've been getting engaged--to Eugene Herbert, +you know." + +"Only to Eugene Herbert," breathed Miss Normaine. "I'm glad it occurred +to you to mention it. But why didn't you say so before?" + +"It didn't--it wasn't--before," said Alice, faltering an instant under +the calmly judicial eye of her aunt. "You see," she went on quickly, "it +was because they lost the race. It wouldn't have been at all--not anyway +for a long time,"--and again her mental glance swept the vista of the +years she had mentioned to Herbert himself,--"if it hadn't been for +that; but I couldn't let him go back without either the race or--or +me," she concluded ingenuously. + +Arnold had been talking with a man of his own age, and hearing things +that were very pleasant to hear about his latest work, and yet, as he +leaned back in his chair and looked across at Katharine Normaine, whose +own expression was a little pensive, he sighed. It was a great deal--he +told himself it was nearly everything--to have what he had now in the +line of effort which he loved and had chosen. It was not so good as the +work itself, of course, but the recognition was grateful. And as his +eyes dwelt again upon the distinction of Miss Normaine's profile, with +the knot of blonde hair at the back of her well-held head, he sighed +again, as he rose and went over to her. She looked up at him, and her +eyes were not quite so calm as usual. + +"I am sitting," she said, "among the ruins." + +"Indeed?" he said. "Is there room upon a fallen column or a broken +plinth for me?" + +"Oh, yes," she answered, "but it is not for a successful man like you, +whose name is upon the public lips, to gaze with me upon demolished +theories." + +"I have taken my time in gazing upon them before now," he observed. + +"Everybody is talking about your book," she said. + +"Oh, no, only a very few people. But about your theories--which of them +has proved itself unable to bear the weight of experience?" + +"You may remember I dwelt somewhat at length upon the indifference of +happy youth to the stings of outrageous fortune when supported by some +one else?" + +"I remember. I regard it as the lesson for the day." + +"It's early to mention it, but I am obliged to give you the evidence of +my error--honor demands it--and Alice will not mind, even if she sees +fit to contradict it to-morrow;" and she told him what had just been +told her. + +He smiled as she concluded her statement, and she, meeting his glance in +all seriousness, broke down into a moment's laughter. + +"'She does not know anything but that her side is beating,'" he quoted +meditatively. + +"I thought my generosity in confession might at least forestall +sarcasm," she said severely. + +"It ought to do so," he admitted. + +There was a moment's pause. + +"Has youth itself changed with the times, I wonder?" he speculated. +"Certainly you did not sympathize overmuch with defeat at Alice's age." + +She did not answer, and she was looking away from him through the glass, +beyond which the darkness was pierced now and then by a shaft of +illumination. The pensiveness that had rested on her face, when he had +looked across the car at her, had deepened almost into sadness. + +"And now," he went on, "you have called me successful--which shuts me +out from your more mature sympathy." + +Still she did not answer. He bent a little nearer to her. + +"Believe me, Katharine," he said, "my success is not so very +intoxicating after all. I need sympathy of a certain kind as much as I +did twenty years ago." + +She glanced at him. + +"Is that all you want?" she asked with a swift smile. + +"No," he returned boldly; and she looked away again, out into the +darkness through which they were rushing. + +"I had hoped," he went on, "that my so-called success might be something +to offer you after all this time--something you would care for--and now +I find that your ideals are all reversed. I have not won much, but I +have won a little, and you tell me to-day that it is only extreme youth +that cares for the winners." + +"And that I have found out that I was mistaken." Her voice was low, but +quite clear. "Have I not told you that, too?" + +"And about experience of life making us care the more for those who fail +in everything?"--he waited a moment. "You have not mentioned that that +was a mistake also. I wish you'd stop looking out of that confounded +window," he added irritably, "and look at me. Heaven knows I've failed +in some things!" + +She laughed a little at his tone, but she did not follow his suggestion. + +"Oh, no," she said, "you have succeeded." + +"And that means--what?" + +"I told you I was sitting among the ruins of my theories," she said, +while a faint color, which he saw with sudden pleasure, rose in her +cheek. + +"That adverse theory--has that gone too?" + +"I have had enough of theories," she declared softly. "What I really +care for is success." + + + + +Her Neighbors' Landmark + + +THE sun had not quite disappeared behind the horizon, though the days no +longer extended themselves into the long, murmurous twilight of summer; +instead, the evening fell with a certain definiteness, precursor of the +still later year. + +On the step of the door that led directly into the living-room of his +rambling house sat Reuben Granger, an old man, bent with laborious +seasons, and not untouched by rheumatism. The wrinkles on his face were +many and curiously intertwined; his weather-beaten straw hat seemed to +supply any festal deficiency indicated by the shirt-sleeves; and his dim +eyes blinked with shrewdness upon the dusty road, along which, at +intervals, a belated wagon passed, clattering. His days of usefulness +were not over, but he had reached the age when one is willing to spend +more time looking on. He had always been tired at this hour of the day, +but it was only of late that fatigue had had a certain numbing effect, +which disinclined him to think of the tasks of tomorrow. He came to this +period of repose rather earlier nowadays, and after less sturdy +labor--somehow, a great deal of the sturdy labor got itself done without +him; and there was an acquiescence in even this dispensation perceptible +in the fall of his knotted hands and the tranquil gaze of his faded +eyes. + +About a dozen yards beyond him, on the doorstep leading directly into +the living-room of a house which joined the other, midway between two +windows (the union marked by a third doorway unused and boarded up, +around whose stone was the growth of decades), sat Stephen Granger. His +weather-beaten straw hat shaded eyes dim also, but still keen; and a +network of curious wrinkles wandered over his tanned and sun-dried +skin. Upon his features, too, dwelt that look of patient tolerance that +is not indifference, that only the "wise years" can bring; and on his +face as well as his brother's certain lines about the puckered mouth +went far to contradict it. If one saw only one of the old men, there was +nothing grim in the spectacle--that of a weary farmer looking out upon +the highroad from the shelter of his own doorway; but the sight of them +both together took on suddenly a forbidding air, a suggestion of +sullenness, of dogged resolution; they were so precisely alike, and they +sat so near one another on thresholds of the same long, low building, +and they seemed so unconscious the one of the other. It was impossible +not to believe the unconsciousness wilful and deliberate. A heavily +freighted and loose-jointed wagon rattled noisily but slowly along the +road. + +"Howaryer?" called out one of its occupants. + +"'Are yer?" returned Stephen Granger. + +Reuben had opened his mouth to speak, but closed it in silence, while he +gazed straight before him, unseeing, apparently, and unheeding. The +leisurely driver checked his horse, which responded instantly to the +welcome indication. Behind him in the wagon two calves looked somewhat +perplexedly forth, their mild eyes, with but slightly accentuated +curiosity, surveying the Grangers and the landscape from the durance of +the cart. + +"Been tradin'?" asked Stephen. + +"Wal, yes, I have," answered the other, with that lingering intonation +that seems to modify even the most unconditional assent. + +"Got a good bargain?" + +"Wal, so-so." + +"Many folks down to the store this evenin'?" + +"Wal, considerable." + +"Ain't any news?" + +"Not any as I know on." + +Stephen nodded his acceptance of this state of things. The other nodded, +too. There was a pause. + +"G'long," said the trader, as if he would have said it before if he had +thought of it. But the horse had taken but a few steps when another +voice greeted him. + +"Howaryer, Monroe?" said Reuben Granger. + +"Whoa," said Monroe. "Howaryer?" + +"Been down to the Centre?" asked Reuben. + +"Yare." + +"Got some calves in there, I see." + +"Wal, yes; been doin' some tradin'." + +Reuben nodded. "Ain't any news, I take it?" + +"None in partickler." Another exchange of nods followed. + +"G'long," said Monroe, after a short silence, during which the calves +looked more bored than usual. But the shaky wheels had made but a few +revolutions before the owner of the wagon reined in again. + +"Say," he called back, twisting himself around and resting his hand on +the bar that confined the calves. "They've took down the shed back of +the meetin'-house. Said 'twas fallin' to pieces. Might 'a' come down on +the heads of the hosses. Goin' to put up a new one." Then, as his steed +recommenced its modest substitute for a trot, unseen of the Grangers he +permitted himself an undemonstrative chuckle. "They can sorter divide +that piece of news between 'em," he said to his companion, who had been +the silent auditor of the conversation. A moment of indecision on the +part of the Grangers had given him time to make this observation, but it +was not concluded when Reuben's cracked voice sang out cheerfully, "Ye +don't say!" A slight contraction passed over Stephen's face. Much as he +would have liked to mark the bit of information for his own, now that it +had been appropriated by another, he gave no further sign. The noise of +the wagon died along the road, and still Reuben and Stephen Granger sat +gazing straight before them at the hill which faced them from the other +side of the way, at the foot of which the darkness was falling fast. By +and by a lamp was lighted in one half of the house, and a moment later +there was a flash through the window of the other, and slowly and +stiffly the two old men rose and went inside, each closing his door +behind him. + +"Them's the Granger twins," had said the owner of the calves in answer +to his companion's question as soon as they were out of hearing. "Yes, +they be sort of odd. Don't have nothin' to say to one another, and +they've lived next door to each other ever since they haven't lived +_with_ each other. It's goin' on thirty years since they've spoke. Yes, +they do look alike--I don't see no partickler difference myself, and it +would make it kinder awk'ard if they expected folks to know which one +he's talkin' to. But they don't. They're kinder sensible about that. +They're real sensible 'bout some things," he added tolerantly. "Oh, they +was powerful fond of each other at first--twins, y' know. They was +always together, and when each of 'em set up housekeepin', nothin' would +do for it but they should jine their houses and live side by side--they +knew enough not to live together, seein' as how, though they was twins, +their wives wasn't. So they took and added on to the old homestead, and +each of 'em took an end. Wal, I dunno how it began--no, it wasn't their +wives--it don't seem hardly human natur', but it wasn't their wives." +The speaker sighed a little. He was commonly supposed to have gained +more experience than felicity through matrimony. "I've heard it said +that it was hoss-reddish that begun it. You see, they used to eat +together, and Stephen he used to like a little hoss-reddish along with +his victuals in the spring, and Reuben, he said 't was a pizen weed. +But there! you can never tell; they're both of 'em just as sot as--as +erysipelas; and when that's so, somethin' or other is sure to come. I +know for a fact that Reuben always wanted a taste of molasses in his +beans, and Stephen couldn't abide anythin' but vinegar. So, bymeby, they +took to havin' their meals separate. You know it ain't in human natur' +to see other folks puttin' things in their mouths that don't taste good +to yours, and keep still about it." + +His companion admitted the truth of this statement. + +"Sometimes I think," went on Monroe, musingly, "that if they'd begun by +eatin' separate they might have got along, 'cause it's only His saints +that the Lord has made pleasant-tempered enough to stand bein' pestered +with three meals a day, unless they're busy enough not to have time to +think about anythin' but swallerin'. Hayin'-time most men is kinder +pleasant 'bout their food--so long 's it's ready. Wal, however it was, +after they eat separate there was other things. There was the weather. +They always read the weather signs different. And each of 'em had that +way of speakin' 'bout the weather as if it was a little contrivance of +his own, and he was the only person who could give a hint how 'twas run, +or had any natural means of findin' out if 'twas hot, or cold, or +middlin', 'less he took hold and told 'em. It's a powerful tryin' sort +of way, and finally it come so that, if Reuben said we was in for a wet +spell, Stephen'd start right off and begin to mow his medder grass, and +if Stephen 'lowed there was a sharp thunder-shower comin' up, inside of +ten minutes, Reuben'd go and git his waterin'-pot and water every blamed +thing he had in his garden. I dunno when it was they stopped speakin', +but that was about all there was to it--little things like that. They +didn't either of 'em have any children; sometimes I've thought if they +had, the kids might sort of brought 'em together--they couldn't have +kep' 'em apart without they moved away, and of course they wouldn't +either of 'em give in to the other enough to move away from the old +farm. Then their wives died 'bout a year from each other. They kep' kind +o' friendly to the last, but they couldn't stir their husbands no more'n +if they was safes--it seems, sometimes, as if husbands and wives was +sort o' too near one another, when it comes to movin', to git any kind +of a purchase. When Reuben's wife died, folks said they'd have to git +reconciled now; and when Stephen's died, there didn't seem anythin' else +for 'em to do; but folks didn't know 'em. Stephen went up country where +his wife come from and brought home a little gal, that was her niece, to +keep house for him; and then what did Reuben do but go down to Zoar, +where _his_ wife come from, and git her half-sister--both of 'em young, +scart little things, and no kin to one another--and _they_ can't do +nothin' even if they wanted to. Bad-tempered? Wal, no. I wouldn't say +the Granger twins was bad-tempered;" and the biographer dexterously +removed a fly from his horse's patient back. "They're sot, of course, +but they ain't what they used to be--I guess it's been a sort of +discipline to 'em--livin' next door and never takin' no kind of notice. +They're pleasant folks to have dealin's with, and I've had both of 'em +ask me if I cal'lated it was goin' to rain, when I've been goin' +by--different times, o' course--but it 'most knocked the wind out of me +when they done it, 'stead of givin' me p'inters. Yes, you never can +speak to 'em both at once, 'cause the other one never hears if ye do; +but there! it ain't much trouble to say a thing over twice--most of us +say it more'n that 'fore we can git it 'tended to; and," he added, as he +leaned forward and dropped the whip into its socket preparatory to +turning into his own yard, "most of us hears it more'n once." + +"Monroe," called a voice from the porch, "did you bring them calves?" + +"Yare," said Monroe. + +"I told you if you stopped to bring 'em, you wouldn't be home till after +dark." + +"Wal?" + +"I told you 't would be dark and you'd be late to supper." + +"Wal?" and Monroe took down the end of the wagon, and persuaded out the +calves. + +The person who was Monroe's companion and the recipient of his +confidences was a young woman who was an inmate of his house for the +present month of September. + +Confident and somewhat audacious in her conduct of life, Cynthia Gardner +had felt that this September existence lacked a motive for energy before +it brought her into contact with the Granger twins. + +"They are so interesting," she said to Monroe, a day or two later. + +"Wal, I guess they be," answered Monroe, amiably. The quality of being +interesting did not assume to his vision the proportions it presented to +Cynthia Gardner's, but he saw no reason to deny its existence. Cynthia +cast a backward glance from the wagon as she spoke, and saw Reuben +slowly and stiffly gathering up dry stalks in his garden, while Stephen +propped up the declining side of a water-butt in his adjoining domain, +one man's back carefully turned to the other. + +She walked back from the Centre, and stopped to talk with the twins in a +casual manner. But no careful inadvertence drew them, at this or any +later time when their social relations had become firmly established, +into a triangular conversation. They greeted her with cordiality, +responded to her advances, talked to her with the tolerant and humorous +shrewdness that lurked in their dim eyes, but it was always one at a +time. If, with disarming naïveté, she appealed to Stephen, Reuben turned +into a graven image; and if she chaffed with Reuben, Stephen became as +one who having eyes seeth not, and having ears heareth not. But she +persisted with a zeal which, if not according to knowledge, was the +result of a firm belief in the possibility of a final adjustment of +differences. She did not know, herself, what led her into such +earnestness,--a caprice, or the lingering pathos of two lonely, barren +lives. + +Monroe watched her proceedings with tolerant kindliness. It was not his +business to discourage her. He knew what it was to be discouraged, and +he felt that there was quite enough discouragement going about in life +without his adding to it. + +"I tell you they would like to be reconciled, Mr. Monroe," said Cynthia. +"They don't know they would like it, but they would." + +"Wal, mebbe they would. They're gittin' to be old men. And when you git +along as far as that, you don't, perhaps, worry so much about _bein'_ +reconciled, but neither does it seem as worth while _not_ to. There's a +good deal that's sort of instructive about gittin' old," he ruminated. + +"It's very lonely for them both, I think;" and Cynthia's voice fell into +the ready accents of youthful pity. + +"Their quarrel's been kinder comp'ny for 'em," suggested Monroe. + +"It's overstayed its time," asserted Cynthia. + +"Mebbe," answered Monroe. + +The crisis--for Cynthia had been looking for a crisis--came, after all, +unexpectedly. She had been for the mail, and as she drove the amenable +horse over the homeward road she strained her eyes to read the last page +of an unusually absorbing letter, for it was again sundown, and the +Granger twins again sat in their doorways. There was a decided chill in +the air, this late afternoon. The old men, though they were sturdy +still, had put on their coats, and from behind them the comfortable glow +of two stove doors promised a later hour of warmth and comfort. Their +aspect was more melancholy than usual, whether it were that the +bleakness of winter seemed pressing close upon the bleakness of lonely +age, or that there was an added weariness in the droop of the thin +shoulders and the fixed eyes--it was certain that the picture had gained +a shadow of depression. + +For once, Cynthia was not thinking of them as she drew near. The reins +were loose in her hand, and as she bent to catch the waning light, an +open newspaper, which she had laid carelessly on the seat beside her, +was lifted by a transient gust of wind and tossed almost over her +horse's head. No horse, of whatever serenity, can be thus treated +without resentment. He jerked the reins from her heedless hands, made a +sharp turn to avoid the white, wavering, inconsequent thing at his feet, +a wheel caught in a neighboring boulder, and Cynthia was spilled out +just in front of the Granger house and midway between the twins. In a +common impulse of fright the two old men started to their feet. For an +instant they paused to judge of the situation, but it was no time for +fine distinctions. The accident had, to all appearances, happened as +near one as the other, and meanwhile a young and pretty woman lay +unsuccored upon the ground. It became a point of honor to yield nothing +to an ignored companion. As speedily as their years allowed, Stephen and +Reuben marched to the rescue. The horse, meanwhile, had dragged the +overturned wagon but a few yards, and had stopped of his own reasonable +accord. As Cynthia raised herself rather confusedly and quite convinced +that she was killed, her first impression was that the angels were older +than she had fancied, and looked very much like the Granger twins. But +in a few seconds her balance of mind was restored, she realized that +while there was life there was hope, and that for the first time in her +experience the eyes of Reuben and Stephen were fixed solicitously upon a +common object, that each of them had stretched out to her a helping +hand, and that two voices with precisely the same anxious intonation +were saying,-- + +"Be ye hurt?" + +It was a solemn moment, but Cynthia Gardner was of the stuff that +recognizes opportunity. She laid a hand upon each rugged arm, and +steadied herself between them; she perceived that they trembled under +her touch, and she felt that the instant in which they stood side by +side was dramatic. + +"I declare, 'twas too bad," said Reuben. + +"'Twas too bad," said Stephen. + +"Is the horse all right?" asked Cynthia, feebly. + +"Yes, Johnny Allen got him," said Stephen. + +"Johnny Allen came along," said Reuben, as if Stephen had not spoken, +"and he's got him." + +"I can walk," she said, with not unconscious pathos, "if you will walk +with me, but I must go in and rest a moment;" and the three moved slowly +straight forward. + +A few steps brought them to the point at which they must turn aside to +reach either entrance. Before them rose the old boarded-up, dismal +doorway, weather-beaten, stained, repellent as bitterness. There was +another fateful pause. Cynthia felt the quiver that ran through the +frames of the old men as for the first time in long years they stood +side by side before the doorway about which as children they had played, +and through which as boys they had rushed together. In Cynthia's +drooping head plans were rapidly forming themselves, but she had time to +be thankful that she did not know which was Reuben and which was +Stephen--it saved her the anxiety of decision; instinctively she turned +to the right, a small brown hand clutching impartially either rough and +shabby sleeve. + +The man on her right swerved in an impulse of desertion, but her grasp +did not relax. + +"Is the judgment of Solomon to be pronounced!" she said to herself, half +hysterically, for her nerves were a little shaken. + +"Oh, I hope I sha'n't faint!" she exclaimed aloud. + +Beneath Reuben's rustic exterior beat the American heart that cannot +desert an elegant female in distress. He followed the inclination of the +other two to Stephen's door, and in another never-to-be-forgotten moment +he stepped inside his brother's house. + +Stephen's deceased wife's niece was so overcome by the spectacle that +she retained barely enough presence of mind to drag forward a wooden +chair upon which Cynthia sank in a condition evidently bordering upon +syncope. It was a critical moment; she must not give the intruder an +opportunity to escape. She knew the intruder by that impulse of +desertion, and she clung the tighter to his arm when she murmured +pitifully, "If you could get me some water, Mr. Granger." + +Stephen hastened towards the kitchen pump--the sight of Reuben in his +side of the house, after thirty years, set old chords vibrating with a +suddenness that threatened to snap some disused string, and his +perceptions were not as clear as usual. He seized the dipper, filled it, +and looked about him. + +"Where's the tumbler, Jenny?" he called impatiently. + +"It's right there," answered the girl, with the explicitness of +agitation. + +"Whar?" he demanded with asperity. + +"Settin' on the side--right back of the molasses jug." + +"Molasses jug!" he exclaimed. "Nice place for the molasses jug!" + +"We was goin' to have baked beans for supper," said the trembling Jenny, +feeling that it was best to be tentative about even a trifling matter +within the area of this convulsion, "and you always want it handy." + +It was a simple statement, but it laid a finger upon the past and upon +the future. Cynthia, through her half-closed eyes, saw one old man with +disturbed features, standing with his hand upon her chair, while another +old man shuffled toward her with a glass of water, which spilled a +little in his shaking hand as he came across the humble kitchen. Most +inadequate dramatic elements, yet they held the tragedy of nearly a +lifetime, and the comedy, though more evident, was cast by it in the +shade, and she neither laughed nor cried. + +Within a few moments more she was on her homeward way, a trifling break +in the harness tied up with twine, and Johnny Allen in the seat beside +her as guard of honor. + +The next evening the people, driving home from the Centre, were saved +from some active demonstration only by the repression of the New England +temperament. Some of them even, after driving past, invented an errand +to drive back again, so as to make sure. For the Granger twins sat side +by side in front of the disused doorway, and their straw hats were +turned sociably towards one another, now and then, as they exchanged a +syllable or two, and there was a mild luminousness of pleasure in the +recesses of their pale-blue eyes. The evening darkened fast into night. +The plaintive half-chirp, half-whistle of a tree-toad fell in monotonous +repetition upon the ear. + +"Hear them little fellers!" said Stephen, ruminantly. "I reckon they +think it's goin' to rain." + +"Yare," said Reuben. "And," he went on, pushing back his straw hat and +looking up into the sky, "I wouldn't wonder if they was right." + +"Mostly are," said Stephen. + + + + +_Miss Trumbull's New Story_ + + * * * * * + +Mistress Content Cradock + +AN HISTORICAL TALE OF NEW ENGLAND LIFE IN THE TIME OF GOVERNOR WINTHROP +AND ROGER WILLIAMS + +By ANNIE ELIOT TRUMBULL + +_Author of "A Cape Cod Week," "Rod's Salvation," "A Christmas Accident," +etc._ + +_1 vol. 12mo., cloth. Illustrated. Price, $1.00._ + + * * * * * + + A charming colonial romance.--_The + Congregationalist._ + + It is in a word a fascinating, strong, well-told + story.--_The Church Review._ + + It is a delightful way to study history--one of + the best of ways--to read a book written by one + whose historical information is accurate.--_Boston + Advertiser._ + + The thread of romance and love is rendered most + attractive by the author's well-known bright and + attractive style, her delicately fashioned + descriptions, and her entertaining dialogue.--_N. + Y. Times._ + + Winsome and captivating, Content pleases us of + to-day as she did the lover who patiently waited + to obtain the gift of her not too easily engaged + heart, and the quiet story of her fortunes is well + worth following.--_Literature._ + + * * * * * + +_For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid, on receipt of price, by +the Publishers,_ + + A. S. BARNES & CO. + 156 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK + + + + +Rod's Salvation. + +BY + +ANNIE ELIOT TRUMBULL. + +Illustrated by Charles Copeland. 12mo, cloth, 285 pages. $1.00. + + * * * * * + + The volume entitled "Rod's Salvation," contains + four short stories, some of which are long enough + to be fairly called novelets.... "Rod's Salvation" + is a good picture of 'longshore life, telling of + the devotion of a sister to a scapegrace brother + and well worthy a reading.--_Springfield + Republican._ + + Miss Trumbull is blessed by a most delightful and + unpretentious gift of story-telling. Her work + suggests a twilight musician; she has a certain + dainty humor in her touch.--_The Citizen._ + + "Rod's Salvation" appears to us the most + interesting sketch of the four in the present + volume. It proves a thorough comprehension of the + noblest characteristics of the inhabitants of the + typical New England fishing village. The author + shows us diamonds in the rough, and with a most + happy talent, suddenly reveals to us the gleaming + beauties beneath their rude exterior. "Rod's + Salvation" is an inspiring story, the pathos of + which is accentuated by the delicate satire, + exquisite humor, and touches of kindly human + nature which lead one up to the unexpected + climax.--_The Church Review._ + + + + +A +Cape Cod Week. + +BY +ANNIE ELIOT TRUMBULL. + +12mo, cloth, 170 pages. $1.00. + + * * * * * + + The keenness, quickness, and acuteness of the New + England mind were, perhaps, never better + illustrated than in her stories. Her conversations + are at times almost supernaturally bright; such + talk as one hears from witty, brilliant, and + cultivated American women--talk notable for + insight, subtle discriminations, unexpected and + surprised terms and persuasive humor. + + "A Cape Cod Week" contains an account of the + adventures and achievements of three young women + who sought the seclusion, silence, and scenery of + Cape Cod, and who enlivened that remote and + restful country by flashes of talk often + brilliant, almost always entertaining. Miss + Trumbull's work is delightful reading: the + sameness of the commonplace and the obvious is so + entirely absent from it.--_The Outlook._ + + Annie Eliot Trumbull delights in fine descriptions + of nature as it exists. The book is capital + reading and its merits can be appreciated the + whole year round.--_New York Times._ + + A delightful, gossipy little sketch of a week's + holiday on Cape Cod. It is full of bright things, + imaginative to a degree, and yet based on facts as + we have all seen them on the sands of the Cape. + The book is beautifully printed and + bound.--_Boston Globe._ + + + + +The "Annie Eliot" Stories + +FIVE NEW BOOKS + +BY ANNIE ELIOT TRUMBULL + + MISTRESS CONTENT CRADOCK. Illustrated by Chas. + Copeland. 12mo, cloth, 306 pages. $1.00. + + A CHRISTMAS ACCIDENT AND OTHER STORIES. 12mo, + cloth, 234 pages. $1.00. + + A CAPE COD WEEK, 12mo, cloth, 170 pages. $1.00. + + ROD'S SALVATION. Illustrated by Charles Copeland. + 12mo, cloth, 285 pages. $1.00. + + AN HOUR'S PROMISE. _New Edition_. 12mo, cloth. + $1.00. + + * * * * * + + The reader will enjoy the wit, the delicate + satire, the happy bits of nature description.--_S. + S. Times._ + + They are New England stories and exhibit a + delicate comprehension of many types of New + England character. They are delightfully readable, + and the books ought to be favorites.--_The + Congregationalist._ + + Miss Trumbull's claim to the attention of her + readers is undisputed. Her short stories possess a + freshness, a poignancy and underlying quick-witted + penetration into human feelings, motives and + experiences that give them a peculiar charm. Her + choice of themes is such as appeals to a wide + circle and her handling of the persons of her + imagination is exquisite.--_Hartford Post._ + + * * * * * + +_For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid, on receipt of price, by +the Publishers,_ + + A. S. BARNES & CO. + 156 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK + + * * * * * + +Transcriber's Notes: + +Obvious punctuation errors repaired. + +Page 108. "did'nt" changed to "didn't" (We didn't really think then) + +Page 108, "appened" changed to "happened" (what happened thirty-five) + +Page 135, "hey" changed to "they" (that they stayed) + +Page 149, "aquired" changed to "acquired" (They had acquired a) + +Page 156, "colyum" changed to "column" (so nice in the column) + +Page 238, "CRADDOCK" changed to "CRADOCK" (CRADOCK. Illustrated) + +Page 235, "Literature" was obscurred (worth following.--_Literature._) + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Christmas Accident and Other Stories, by +Annie Eliot Trumbull + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHRISTMAS ACCIDENT *** + +***** This file should be named 28307-8.txt or 28307-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/8/3/0/28307/ + +Produced by David Edwards, Emmy and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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