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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Old Friends and New, by Sarah Orne Jewett
+
+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: Old Friends and New
+
+Author: Sarah Orne Jewett
+
+Release Date: May 15, 2010 [EBook #32382]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD FRIENDS AND NEW ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by James Adcock. Special thanks to The Internet
+Archive: American Libraries.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+   Books by Sarah Orne Jewett
+
+   STORIES AND TALES. 7 vols. Illustrated.
+   THE LETTERS OF SARAH ORNE JEWETT. Illustrated.
+   THE TORY LOVER. Illustrated.
+   THE QUEEN'S TWIN AND OTHER STORIES.
+   THE COUNTRY OF THE POINTED FIRS.
+   DEEPHAVEN.
+   _Holiday Edition._ With 52 illustrations.  Attractively bound.
+   OLD FRIENDS AND NEW.
+   COUNTRY BY-WAYS.
+   THE MATE OF THE DAYLIGHT, AND FRIENDS ASHORE.
+   A COUNTRY DOCTOR. A Novel.
+   A MARSH ISLAND. A Novel.
+   A WHITE HERON AND OTHER STORIES.
+   THE KING OF FOLLY ISLAND, AND OTHER PEOPLE.
+   STRANGERS AND WAYFARERS.
+   A NATIVE OF WINBY, AND OTHER TALES.
+   THE LIFE OF NANCY.
+   TALES OF NEW ENGLAND.
+   The Same. In Riverside Aldine Series   In Riverside School Library.
+   PLAY-DAYS. Stories for Girls.
+   BETTY LEICESTER. A Story for Girls.
+   BETTY LEICESTER'S CHRISTMAS. Illustrated.
+
+   HOUGHTON MIFFLIN AND COMPANY,
+   Boston and New York
+
+
+
+
+   OLD FRIENDS AND NEW
+
+   BY
+
+   SARAH O. JEWETT
+
+
+   BOSTON AND NEW YORK
+   HOUGHTON MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
+   The Riverside Press Cambridge
+
+   COPYRIGHT 1879 BY HOUGHTON, OSGOOD AND COMPANY
+   COPYRIGHT 1907 BY SARAH ORNE JEWETT
+
+   ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
+
+
+   OLD FRIENDS AND NEW
+
+   CONTENTS.
+
+
+   ------
+
+
+   A LOST LOVER
+
+   A SORROWFUL GUEST
+
+   A LATE SUPPER
+
+   MR. BRUCE
+
+   MISS SYDNEY'S FLOWERS
+
+   LADY FERRY
+
+   A BIT OF SHORE LIFE
+
+   ------
+
+
+
+
+A LOST LOVER.
+
+
+For a great many years it had been understood in Longfield that Miss
+Horatia Dane once had a lover, and that he had been lost at sea. By
+little and little, in one way and another, her acquaintances had found
+out or made up the whole story; and Miss Dane stood in the position,
+not of an unmarried woman exactly, but rather of having spent most of
+her life in a long and lonely widowhood. She looked like a person with
+a history, strangers often said (as if we each did not have a
+history); and her own unbroken reserve about this romance of hers gave
+everybody the more respect for it.
+
+The Longfield people paid willing deference to Miss Dane: her family
+had always been one that could be liked and respected, and she was the
+last that was left in the old home of which she was so fond. This was
+a high, square house, with a row of pointed windows in its roof, a
+peaked porch in front, with some lilac-bushes around it; and down by
+the road was a long, orderly procession of poplars, like a row of
+sentinels standing guard. She had lived here alone since her father's
+death, twenty years before. She was a kind, just woman, whose
+pleasures were of a stately and sober sort; and she seemed not unhappy
+in her loneliness, though she sometimes said gravely that she was the
+last of her family, as if the fact had a great sadness for her.
+
+She had some middle-aged and elderly cousins living at a distance, and
+they came occasionally to see her; but there had been no young people
+staying in the house for many years until this summer, when the
+daughter of her youngest cousin had written to ask if she might come
+to make a visit. She was a motherless girl of twenty, both older and
+younger than her years. Her father and brother, who were civil
+engineers, had taken some work upon the line of a railway in the far
+Western country. Nelly had made many long journeys with them before
+and since she had left school, and she had meant to follow them now,
+after she had spent a fortnight with the old cousin whom she had not
+seen since her childhood. Her father had laughed at the visit as a
+freak, and had warned her of the dulness and primness of Longfield;
+but the result was that the girl found herself very happy in the
+comfortable home. She was still her own free, unfettered, lucky, and
+sunshiny self; and the old house was so much pleasanter for the
+girlish face and life, that Miss Horatia had, at first timidly and
+then most heartily, begged her to stay for the whole summer, or even
+the autumn, until her father was ready to come East. The name of Dane
+was very dear to Miss Horatia, and she grew fonder of her guest. When
+the village-people saw her glance at the girl affectionately, as they
+sat together in the family-pew of a Sunday, or saw them walking
+together after tea, they said it was a good thing for Miss Horatia;
+how bright she looked; and no doubt she would leave all her money to
+Nelly Dane, if she played her cards well.
+
+But we will do Nelly justice, and say that she was not mercenary: she
+would have scorned such a thought. She had grown to have a great love
+for her cousin Horatia, and she liked to please her. She idealized
+her, I have no doubt; and her repression, her grave courtesy and rare
+words of approval, had a great fascination for a girl who had just
+been used to people who chattered, and were upon most intimate terms
+with you directly, and could forget you with equal ease. And Nelly
+liked having so admiring and easily pleased an audience as Miss Dane
+and her old servant Melissa. She liked to be queen of her company: she
+had so many gay, bright stories of what had happened to herself and
+her friends. Besides, she was clever with her needle, and had all
+those practical gifts which elderly women approve so heartily in
+girls. They liked her pretty clothes; she was sensible and economical
+and busy; they praised her to each other and to the world, and even
+stubborn old Andrew, the man, to whom Miss Horatia herself spoke with
+deference, would do any thing she asked. Nelly would by no means
+choose so dull a life as this for the rest of her days; but she
+enjoyed it immensely for the time being. She instinctively avoided all
+that would shock the grave dignity and old-school ideas of Miss Dane;
+and somehow she never had felt happier or better satisfied with life.
+I think it was because she was her best and most lady-like self. It
+was not long before she knew the village-people almost as well as Miss
+Dane did, and she became a very great favorite, as a girl so easily
+can who is good-natured and pretty, and well versed in city fashions;
+who has that tact and cleverness that come to such a nature from going
+about the world and knowing many people.
+
+She had not been in Longfield many weeks before she heard something of
+Miss Dane's love-story; for one of her new friends said, in a
+confidential moment, "Does your cousin ever speak to you about the
+young man to whom she was engaged to be married?" And Nelly answered,
+"No," with great wonder, and not without regret at her own ignorance.
+After this she kept her eyes and ears open for whatever news of this
+lover's existence might be found.
+
+At last it happened one day that she had a good chance for a friendly
+talk with Melissa; for who should know about the family affairs better
+than she? Miss Horatia had taken her second-best parasol, with a deep
+fringe, and had gone majestically down the street to do some morning
+errands which she could trust to no one. Melissa was shelling peas at
+the shady kitchen-doorstep, and Nelly came strolling round from the
+garden, along the clean-swept flag-stones, and sat down to help her.
+Melissa moved along, with a grim smile, to make room for her. "You
+needn't bother yourself," said she: "I've nothing else to do. You'll
+green your fingers all over." But she was evidently pleased to have
+company.
+
+"My fingers will wash," said Nelly, "and I've nothing else to do
+either. Please push the basket this way a little, or I shall scatter
+the pods, and then you will scold." She went to work busily, while she
+tried to think of the best way to find out the story she wished to
+hear.
+
+"There!" said Melissa, "I never told Miss H'ratia to get some citron,
+and I settled yesterday to make some pound-cake this forenoon after I
+got dinner along a piece. She's most out o' mustard too; she's set
+about having mustard to eat with her beef, just as the old colonel was
+before her. I never saw any other folks eat mustard with their roast
+beef; but every family has their own tricks. I tied a thread round my
+left-hand little finger purpose to remember that citron before she
+came down this morning. I hope I ain't losing my fac'lties." It was
+seldom that Melissa was so talkative as this at first. She was clearly
+in a talkative mood.
+
+"Melissa," asked Nelly, with great bravery, after a minute or two of
+silence, "who was it that my cousin Horatia was going to many? It's
+odd that I shouldn't know; but I don't remember father's ever speaking
+of it, and I shouldn't think of asking her."
+
+"I s'pose it'll seem strange to you," said Melissa, beginning to shell
+the peas a great deal faster, "but, as many years as I have lived in
+this house with her,--her mother, the old lady, fetched me up,--I
+never knew Miss H'ratia to say a word about him. But there! she knows
+I know, and we've got an understanding on many things we never talk
+over as some folks would. I've heard about it from other folks. She
+was visiting her great-aunt in Salem when she met with him. His name
+was Carrick, and it was presumed they was going to be married when he
+came home from the voyage he was lost on. He had the promise of going
+out master of a new ship. They didn't keep company long: it was made
+up of a sudden, and folks here didn't get hold of the story till some
+time after. I've heard some that ought to know say it was only talk,
+and they never were engaged to be married no more than I am."
+
+"You say he was lost at sea?" asked Nelly.
+
+"The ship never was heard from. They supposed she was run down in the
+night out in the South Seas somewhere. It was a good while before they
+gave up expecting news; but none ever come. I think she set every
+thing by him, and took it very hard losing of him. But there! she'd
+never say a word. You're the freest-spoken Dane I ever saw; but you
+may take it from 'our mother's folks. I know he gave her that whale's
+tooth with the ship drawn on it that's on the mantel-piece in her
+room. She may have a sight of other keepsakes, for all I know; but it
+ain't likely." And here there was a pause, in which Nelly grew
+sorrowful as she thought of the long waiting for tidings of the
+missing ship, and of her cousin's solitary life. It was very odd to
+think of prim Miss Horatia's being in love with a sailor. There was a
+young lieutenant in the navy whom Nelly herself liked dearly, and he
+had gone away on a long voyage. "Perhaps she's been just as well off,"
+said Melissa. "She's dreadful set, y'r cousin H'ratia is, and sailors
+is high-tempered men. I've heard it hinted that he was a fast fellow;
+and if a woman's got a good home like this, and's able to do for
+herself, she'd better stay there. I ain't going to give up a certainty
+for an uncertainty,--that's what _I_ always tell 'em," added Melissa,
+with great decision, as if she were besieged by lovers; but Nelly
+smiled inwardly as she thought of the courage it would take to support
+any one who wished to offer her companion his heart and hand. It would
+need desperate energy to scale the walls of that garrison.
+
+The green peas were all shelled presently, and Melissa said gravely
+that she should have to be lazy now until it was time to put in the
+meat. She wasn't used to being helped, unless there was extra work,
+and she calculated to have one piece of work join on to another.
+However, it was no account, and she was obliged for the company; and
+Nelly laughed merrily as she stood washing her hands in the shining
+old copper basin at the sink. The sun would not be round that side of
+the house for a long time yet, and the pink and blue morning-glories
+were still in their full bloom and freshness. They grew over the
+window, twined on strings exactly the same distance apart. There was a
+box crowded full of green houseleeks down at the side of the door:
+they were straying over the edge, and Melissa stooped stiffly down
+with an air of disapproval at their untidiness. "They straggle all
+over every thing," said she, "and they're no kind of use, only Miss's
+mother she set every thing by 'em. She fetched 'em from home with her
+when she was married, her mother kep' a box, and they came from
+England. Folks used to say they was good for bee-stings." Then she
+went into the inner kitchen, and Nelly went slowly away along the
+flag-stones to the garden from whence she had come. The garden-gate
+opened with a tired creak, and shut with a clack; and she noticed how
+smooth and shiny the wood was where the touch of so many hands had
+worn it. There was a great pleasure to this girl in finding herself
+among such old and well-worn things. She had been for a long time in
+cities or at the West; and among the old fashions and ancient
+possessions of Long-field it seemed to her that every thing had its
+story, and she liked the quietness and unchangeableness with which
+life seemed to go on from year to year. She had seen many a dainty or
+gorgeous garden, but never one that she had liked so well as this,
+with its herb-bed and its broken rows of currant-bushes, its tall
+stalks of white lilies and its wandering rose-bushes and honeysuckles,
+that had bloomed beside the straight paths for so many more summers
+than she herself had lived. She picked a little nosegay of late red
+roses, and carried it into the house to put on the parlor-table. The
+wide hall-door was standing open, with its green outer blinds closed,
+and the old hall was dim and cool. Miss Horatia did not like a glare
+of sunlight, and she abhorred flies with her whole heart. Nelly could
+hardly see her way through the rooms, it had been so bright out of
+doors; but she brought the tall champagne-glass of water from the
+dining-room and put the flowers in their place. Then she looked at two
+silhouettes which stood on the mantel in carved ebony frames. They
+were portraits of an uncle of Miss Dane and his wife. Miss Dane had
+thought Nelly looked like this uncle the evening before. She could not
+see the likeness herself; but the pictures suggested something else,
+and she turned suddenly, and went hurrying up the stairs to Miss
+Horatia's own room, where she remembered to have seen a group of
+silhouettes fastened to the wall. There were seven or eight, and she
+looked at the young men among them most carefully; but they were all
+marked with the name of Dane: they were Miss Horatia's brothers, and
+our friend hung them on their little brass hooks again with a feeling
+of disappointment. Perhaps her cousin had a quaint miniature of the
+lover, painted on ivory, and shut in a worn red morocco case; she
+hoped she should get a sight of it some day. This story of the lost
+sailor had a wonderful charm for the girl. Miss Horatia had never been
+so interesting to her before. How she must have mourned for the lover,
+and missed him, and hoped there would yet be news from the ship! Nelly
+thought she would tell her her own little love-story some day, though
+there was not much to tell yet, in spite of there being so much to
+think about. She built a little castle in Spain as she sat in the
+front-window-seat of the upper hall, and dreamed pleasant stories for
+herself until the sharp noise of the front-gate-latch waked her; and
+she looked out through the blind to see her cousin coming up the walk.
+
+Miss Horatia looked hot and tired, and her thoughts were not of any
+fashion of romance. "It is going to be very warm," said she. "I have
+been worrying ever since I have been gone, because I forgot to ask
+Andrew to pick those white currants for the minister's wife. I
+promised that she should have them early this morning. Would you go
+out to the kitchen, and ask Melissa to step in for a moment, my dear?"
+
+Melissa was picking over red currants to make a pie, and rose from her
+chair with a little unwillingness. "I guess they could wait until
+afternoon," said she, as she came back. "Miss H'ratia's in a fret
+because she forgot about sending some white currants to the
+minister's. I told her that Andrew had gone to have the horses shod,
+and wouldn't be back till near noon. I don't see why part of the folks
+in the world should kill themselves trying to suit the rest. As long
+as I haven't got any citron for the cake, I suppose I might go out and
+pick 'em," added Melissa ungraciously. "I'll get some to set away for
+tea anyhow."
+
+Miss Dane had a letter to write after she had rested from her walk;
+and Nelly soon left her in the dark parlor, and went back to the
+sunshiny garden to help Melissa, who seemed to be taking life with
+more than her usual disapproval. She was sheltered by an enormous
+gingham sunbonnet.
+
+"I set out to free my mind to your cousin H'ratia this morning," said
+she, as Nelly crouched down at the opposite side of the bush where she
+was picking; "but we can't agree on that p'int, and it's no use. I
+don't say nothing. You might's well ask the moon to face about and
+travel the other way as to try to change Miss H'ratia's mind. I ain't
+going to argue it with her: it ain't my place; I know that as well as
+anybody. She'd run her feet off for the minister's folks any day; and,
+though I do say he's a fair preacher, they haven't got a speck o'
+consideration nor fac'lty; they think the world was made for them, but
+I think likely they'll find out it wasn't; most folks do. When he
+first was settled here, I had a fit o' sickness, and he come to see me
+when I was getting over the worst of it. He did the best he could, I
+always took it very kind of him; but he made a prayer, and he kep'
+sayin' 'this aged handmaid,' I should think, a dozen times. Aged
+handmaid!" said Melissa scornfully: "I don't call myself aged yet, and
+that was more than ten years ago. I never made pretensions to being
+younger than I am; but you'd 'a' thought I was a topplin' old creatur'
+going on a hundred."
+
+Nelly laughed; Melissa looked cross, and moved on to the next
+currant-bush. "So that's why you don't like the minister?" But the
+question did not seem to please.
+
+"I hope I never should be set against a preacher by such as that." And
+Nelly hastened to change the subject; but there was to be a last word:
+"I like to see a minister that's solid minister right straight
+through, not one of these veneered folks. But old Parson Croden spoilt
+me for setting under any other preaching."
+
+"I wonder," said Nelly, after a little, "if Cousin Horatia has any
+picture of that Captain Carrick."
+
+"He wasn't captain," said Melissa. "I never heard that it was any more
+than they talked of giving him a ship next voyage."
+
+"And you never saw him? He never came here to see her?"
+
+"Bless you, no! She met with him at Salem, where she was spending the
+winter, and he went right away to sea. I've heard a good deal more
+about it of late years than I ever did at the time. I suppose the
+Salem folks talked about it enough. All I know is, there was other
+good matches that offered to her since, and couldn't get her; and I
+suppose it was on account of her heart's being buried in the deep with
+him." And this unexpected bit of sentiment, spoken in Melissa's
+grummest tone, seemed so funny to her young companion, that she bent
+very low to pick from a currant-twig close to the ground, and could
+not ask any more questions for some time.
+
+"I have seen her a sight o' times when I knew she was thinking about
+him," Melissa went on presently, this time with a tenderness in her
+voice that touched Nelly's heart. "She's been dreadful lonesome. She
+and the old colonel, her father, wasn't much company to each other,
+and she always kep' every thing to herself. The only time she ever
+said a word to me was one night six or seven years ago this Christmas.
+They got up a Christmas-tree in the vestry, and she went, and I did
+too; I guess everybody in the whole church and parish that could crawl
+turned out to go. The children they made a dreadful racket. I'd ha'
+got my ears took off if I had been so forth-putting when I was little.
+I was looking round for Miss H'ratia 'long at the last of the evening,
+and somebody said they'd seen her go home. I hurried, and I couldn't
+see any light in the house; and I was afraid she was sick or
+something. She come and let me in, and I see she had been a-cryin'. I
+says, 'Have you heard any bad news?' But she says, 'No,' and began to
+cry again, real pitiful. 'I never felt so lonesome in my life,' says
+she, 'as I did down there. It's a dreadful thing to be left all alone
+in the world.' I did feel for her; but I couldn't seem to say a word.
+I put some pine-chips I had handy for morning on the kitchen-fire, and
+I made her up a cup o' good hot tea quick's I could, and took it to
+her; and I guess she felt better. She never went to bed till three
+o'clock that night. I couldn't shut my eyes till I heard her come
+upstairs. There! I set every thing by Miss H'ratia. I haven't got no
+folks either. I was left an orphan over to Deerfield, where Miss's
+mother come from, and she took me out o' the town-farm to bring up. I
+remember, when I come here, I was so small I had a box to stand up on
+when I helped wash the dishes. There's nothing I ain't had to make me
+comfortable, and I do just as I'm a mind to, and call in extra help
+every day of the week if I give the word; but I've had my lonesome
+times, and I guess Miss H'ratia knew."
+
+Nelly was very much touched by this bit of a story, it was a new idea
+to her that Melissa should have so much affection and be so
+sympathetic. People never will get over being surprised that
+chestnut-burrs are not as rough inside as they are outside, and the
+girl's heart warmed toward the old woman who had spoken with such
+unlooked-for sentiment and pathos. Melissa went to the house with her
+basket, and Nelly also went in, but only to put on another hat, and
+see if it were straight, in a minute spent before the old mirror, and
+then she hurried down the long elm-shaded street to buy a pound of
+citron for the cake. She left it on the kitchen-table when she came
+back, and nobody ever said any thing about it; only there were two
+delicious pound-cakes--a heart and a round--on a little blue china
+plate beside Nelly's plate at tea.
+
+After tea Nelly and Miss Dane sat in the front-doorway,--the elder
+woman in a high-backed arm-chair, and the younger on the doorstep. The
+tree-toads and crickets were tuning up heartily, the stars showed a
+little through the trees, and the elms looked heavy and black against
+the sky. The fragrance of the white lilies in the garden blew through
+the hall. Miss Horatia was tapping the ends of her fingers together.
+Probably she was not thinking of any thing in particular. She had had
+a very peaceful day, with the exception of the currants; and they had,
+after all, gone to the parsonage some time before noon. Beside this,
+the minister had sent word that the delay made no trouble; for his
+wife had unexpectedly gone to Downton to pass the day and night. Miss
+Horatia had received the business-letter for which she had been
+looking for several days; so there was nothing to regret deeply for
+that day, and there seemed to be nothing for one to dread on the
+morrow.
+
+"Cousin Horatia," asked Nelly, "are you sure you like having me here?
+Are you sure I don't trouble you?"
+
+"Of course not," said Miss Dane, without a bit of sentiment in her
+tone: "I find it very pleasant having young company, though I am used
+to being alone; and I don't mind it so much as I suppose you would."
+
+"I should mind it very much," said the girl softly.
+
+"You would get used to it, as I have," said Miss Dane. "Yes, dear, I
+like having you here better and better. I hate to think of your going
+away." And she smoothed Nelly's hair as if she thought she might have
+spoken coldly at first, and wished to make up for it. This rare caress
+was not without its effect.
+
+"I don't miss father and Dick so very much," owned Nelly frankly,
+"because I have grown used to their coming and going; but sometimes I
+miss people--Cousin Horatia, did I ever say any thing to you about
+George Forest?"
+
+"I think I remember the name," answered Miss Dane.
+
+"He is in the navy, and he has gone a long voyage, and--I think every
+thing of him. I missed him awfully; but it is almost time to get a
+letter from him."
+
+"Does your father approve of him?" asked Miss Dane, with great
+propriety. "You are very young yet, and you must not think of such a
+thing carelessly. I should be so much grieved if you threw away your
+happiness."
+
+"Oh! we are not really engaged," said Nelly, who felt a little
+chilled. "I suppose we are, too: only nobody knows yet. Yes, father
+knows him as well as I do, and he is very fond of him. Of course I
+should not keep it from father; but he guessed at it himself. Only
+it's such a long cruise, Cousin Horatia,--three years, I
+suppose,--away off in China and Japan."
+
+"I have known longer voyages than that," said Miss Dane, with a quiver
+in her voice; and she rose suddenly, and walked away, this grave,
+reserved woman, who seemed so contented and so comfortable. But, when
+she came back, she asked Nelly a great deal about her lover, and
+learned more of the girl's life than she ever had before. And they
+talked together in the pleasantest way about this pleasant subject,
+which was so close to Nelly's heart, until Melissa brought the candles
+at ten o'clock, that being the hour of Miss Dane's bed-time.
+
+But that night Miss Dane did not go to bed at ten: she sat by the
+window in her room, thinking. The moon rose late; and after a little
+while she blew out her candles, which were burning low. I suppose that
+the years which had come and gone since the young sailor went away on
+that last voyage of his had each added to her affection for him. She
+was a person who clung the more fondly to youth as she left it the
+farther behind.
+
+This is such a natural thing: the great sorrows of our youth sometimes
+become the amusements of our later years; we can only remember them
+with a smile. We find that our lives look fairer to us, and we forget
+what used to trouble us so much when we look back. Miss Dane certainly
+had come nearer to truly loving the sailor than she had any one else;
+and the more she had thought of it, the more it became the romance of
+her life. She no longer asked herself, as she often had done in middle
+life, whether, if he had lived and had come home, she would have loved
+and married him. She had minded less and less, year by year, knowing
+that her friends and neighbors thought her faithful to the love of her
+youth. Poor, gay, handsome Joe Carrick! how fond he had been of her,
+and how he had looked at her that day he sailed away out of Salem
+Harbor on the ship Chevalier! If she had only known that she never
+should see him again, poor fellow!
+
+But, as usual, her thoughts changed their current a little at the end
+of her reverie. Perhaps, after all, loneliness was not so hard to bear
+as other sorrows. She had had a pleasant life, God had been very good
+to her, and had spared her many trials, and granted her many
+blessings. She would try and serve him better. "I am an old woman
+now," she said to herself. "Things are better as they are; God knows
+best, and I never should have liked to be interfered with."
+
+Then she shut out the moonlight, and lighted her candles again, with
+an almost guilty feeling. "What should I say if Nelly sat up till
+nearly midnight looking out at the moon?" thought she. "It is very
+silly; but it is such a beautiful night. I should like to have her see
+the moon shining through the tops of the trees." But Nelly was
+sleeping the sleep of the just and sensible in her own room.
+
+Next morning at breakfast Nelly was a little conscious of there having
+been uncommon confidences the night before; but Miss Dane was her
+usual calm and somewhat formal self, and proposed their making a few
+calls after dinner, if the weather were not too hot. Nelly at once
+wondered what she had better wear. There was a certain black grenadine
+which Miss Horatia had noticed with approval, and she remembered that
+the lower ruffle needed hemming, and made up her mind that she would
+devote most of the time before dinner to that and to some other
+repairs. So, after breakfast was over, she brought the dress
+downstairs, with her work-box, and settled herself in the dining-room.
+Miss Dane usually sat there in the morning, it was a pleasant room,
+and she could keep an unsuspected watch over the kitchen and Melissa,
+who did not need watching in the least. I dare say it was for the sake
+of being within the sound of a voice.
+
+Miss Dane marched in and out that morning; she went upstairs, and came
+down again, and she was busy for a while in the parlor. Nelly was
+sewing steadily by a window, where one of the blinds was a little way
+open, and tethered in its place by a string. She hummed a tune to
+herself over and over:--
+
+   "What will you do, love, when I am going,
+    With white sails flowing, the seas beyond?"
+
+And old Melissa, going to and fro at her work in the kitchen, grumbled
+out bits of an ancient psalm-tune at intervals. There seemed to be
+some connection between these fragments in her mind; it was like a
+ledge of rock in a pasture, that sometimes runs under the ground, and
+then crops out again. I think it was the tune of Windham.
+
+Nelly found there was a good deal to be done to the grenadine dress
+when she looked it over critically, and she was very diligent. It was
+quiet in and about the house for a long time, until suddenly she heard
+the sound of heavy footsteps coming in from the road. The side-door
+was in a little entry between the room where Nelly sat and the
+kitchen, and the new-comer knocked loudly. "A tramp," said Nelly to
+herself; while Melissa came to open the door, wiping her hands
+hurriedly on her apron.
+
+"I wonder if you couldn't give me something to eat," said the man.
+
+"I suppose I could," answered Melissa. "Will you step in?" Beggars
+were very few in Longfield, and Miss Dane never wished anybody to go
+away hungry from her house. It was off the grand highway of tramps;
+but they were by no means unknown.
+
+Melissa searched among her stores, and Nelly heard her putting one
+plate after another on the kitchen-table, and thought that the
+breakfast promised to be a good one, if it were late.
+
+"Don't put yourself out," said the man, as he moved his chair nearer.
+"I put up at an old barn three or four miles above here last night,
+and there didn't seem to be very good board there."
+
+"Going far?" inquired Melissa concisely.
+
+"Boston," said the man. "I'm a little too old to travel afoot. Now, if
+I could go by water, it would seem nearer. I'm more used to the water.
+This is a royal good piece o' beef. I suppose couldn't put your hand
+on a mug of cider?" This was said humbly; but the tone failed to touch
+Melissa's heart.
+
+"No, I couldn't," said she decisively; so there was an end of that,
+and the conversation seemed to flag for a time.
+
+Presently Melissa came to speak to Miss Dane, who had just come
+downstairs. "Could you stay in the kitchen a few minutes?" she
+whispered. "There's an old creatur' there that looks foreign. He came
+to the door for something to eat, and I gave it to him; but he's
+miser'ble looking, and I don't like to leave him alone. I'm just in
+the midst o' dressing the chickens. He'll be through pretty quick,
+according to the way he's eating now."
+
+Miss Dane followed her without a word; and the man half rose, and
+said, "Good-morning, madam!" with unusual courtesy. And, when Melissa
+was out of hearing, he spoke again: "I suppose you haven't any cider?"
+to which his hostess answered, "I couldn't give you any this morning,"
+in a tone that left no room for argument. He looked as if he had had a
+great deal too much to drink already.
+
+"How far do you call it from here to Boston?" he asked, and was told
+that it was eighty miles.
+
+"I'm a slow traveller," said he: "sailors don't take much to walking."
+Miss Dane asked him if he had been a sailor. "Nothing else," replied
+the man, who seemed much inclined to talk. He had been eating like a
+hungry dog, as if he were half-starved,--a slouching, red-faced,
+untidy-looking old man, with some traces of former good looks still to
+be discovered in his face. "Nothing else. I ran away to sea when I was
+a boy, and I followed it until I got so old they wouldn't ship me even
+for cook." There was something in his being for once so
+comfortable--perhaps it was being with a lady like Miss Dane, who
+pitied him--that lifted his thoughts a little from their usual low
+level. "It's drink that's been the ruin of me," said he. "I ought to
+have been somebody. I was nobody's fool when I was young. I got to be
+mate of a first-rate ship, and there was some talk o' my being captain
+before long. She was lost that voyage, and three of us were all that
+was saved; we got picked up by a Chinese junk. She had the plague
+aboard of her, and my mates died of it, and I was sick. It was a hell
+of a place to be in. When I got ashore I shipped on an old bark that
+pretended to be coming round the Cape, and she turned out to be a
+pirate. I just went to the dogs, and I've been from bad to worse ever
+since."
+
+"It's never too late to mend," said Melissa, who came into the kitchen
+just then for a string to tie the chickens.
+
+"Lord help us, yes, it is!" said the sailor. "It's easy for you to say
+that. I'm too old. I ain't been master of this craft for a good
+while." And he laughed at his melancholy joke.
+
+"Don't say that," said Miss Dane.
+
+"Well, now, what could an old wrack like me do to earn a living? and
+who'd want me if I could? You wouldn't. I don't know when I've been
+treated so decent as this before. I'm all broke down." But his tone
+was no longer sincere; he had fallen back on his profession of beggar.
+
+"Couldn't you get into some asylum or--there's the Sailors' Snug
+Harbor, isn't that for men like you? It seems such a pity for a man of
+your years to be homeless and a wanderer. Haven't you any friends at
+all?" And here, suddenly, Miss Dane's face altered, and she grew very
+white; something startled her. She looked as one might who saw a
+fearful ghost.
+
+"No," said the man; "but my folks used to be some of the best in
+Salem. I haven't shown my head there this good while. I was an orphan.
+My grandmother brought me up. Why, I didn't come back to the States
+for thirty or forty years. Along at the first of it I used to see men
+in port that I used to know; but I always dodged 'em, and I was way
+off in outlandish places. I've got an awful sight to answer for. I
+used to have a good wife when I was in Australia. I don't know where I
+haven't been, first and last. I was always a hard fellow. I've spent
+as much as a couple o' fortunes, and here I am. Devil take it!"
+
+Nelly was still sewing in the dining-room; but, soon after Miss Dane
+had gone out to the kitchen, one of the doors between had slowly
+closed itself with a plaintive whine. The round stone that Melissa
+used to keep it open had been pushed away. Nelly was a little annoyed:
+she liked to hear what was going on; but she was just then holding her
+work with great care in a place that was hard to sew; so she did not
+move. She heard the murmur of voices, and thought, after a while, that
+the old vagabond ought to go away by this time. What could be making
+her cousin Horatia talk so long with him? It was not like her at all.
+He would beg for money, of course, and she hoped Miss Horatia would
+not give him a single cent.
+
+It was some time before the kitchen-door opened, and the man came out
+with clumsy, stumbling steps. "I'm much obliged to you," he said, "and
+I don't know but it is the last time I'll get treated as if I was a
+gentleman. Is there any thing I could do for you round the place?" he
+asked hesitatingly, and as if he hoped that his offer would not be
+accepted.
+
+"No," answered Miss Dane. "No, thank you. Good-by!" and he went away.
+
+I said he had been lifted a little above his low life; he fell back
+again directly before he was out of the gate. "I'm blessed if she
+didn't give me a ten-dollar bill!" said he. "She must have thought it
+was one. I'll get out o' call as quick as I can, hope she won't find
+it out, and send anybody after me." Visions of unlimited drinks, and
+other things in which the old sailor found pleasure, flitted through
+his stupid mind. "How the old lady stared at me once!" he thought.
+"Wonder if she was anybody I used to know? 'Downton?' I don't know as
+I ever heard of the place." And he scuffed along the dusty road; and
+that night he was very drunk, and the next day he went wandering on,
+God only knows where.
+
+But Nelly and Melissa both had heard a strange noise in the kitchen,
+as if some one had fallen, and had found that Miss Horatia had fainted
+dead away. It was partly the heat, she said, when she saw their
+anxious faces as she came to herself; she had had a little headache
+all the morning; it was very hot and close in the kitchen, and the
+faintness had come upon her suddenly. They helped her walk into the
+cool parlor presently, and Melissa brought her a glass of wine, and
+Nelly sat beside her on a footstool as she lay on the sofa, and fanned
+her. Once she held her cheek against Miss Horatia's hand for a minute,
+and she will never know as long as she lives what a comfort she was
+that day.
+
+Every one but Miss Dane forgot the old sailor-tramp in this excitement
+that followed his visit. Do you guess already who he was? But the
+certainty could not come to you with the chill and horror it did to
+Miss Dane. There had been something familiar in his look and voice
+from the first, and then she had suddenly known him, her lost lover.
+It was an awful change that the years had made in him. He had truly
+called himself a wreck: he was like some dreary wreck in its decay and
+utter ruin, its miserable ugliness and worthlessness, falling to
+pieces in the slow tides of a lifeless southern sea.
+
+And he had once been her lover, Miss Dane thought many times in the
+days that came after. Not that there was ever any thing asked or
+promised between them, but they had liked each other dearly, and had
+parted with deep sorrow. She had thought of him all these years so
+tenderly; she had believed always that his love had been greater than
+her own, and never once had doubted that the missing ship Chevalier
+had carried with it down into the sea a heart that was true to her.
+
+By little and little this all grew familiar, and she accustomed
+herself to the knowledge of her new secret. She shuddered at the
+thought of the misery of a life with him, and she thanked God for
+sparing her such shame and despair. The distance between them seemed
+immense. She had been a person of so much consequence among her
+friends, and so dutiful and irreproachable a woman. She had not begun
+to understand what dishonor is in the world; her life had been shut in
+by safe and orderly surroundings. It was a strange chance that had
+brought this wanderer to her door. She remembered his wretched
+untidiness. She would not have liked even to touch him. She had never
+imagined him grown old: he had always been young to her. It was a
+great mercy he had not known her; it would have been a most miserable
+position for them both; and yet she thought, with sad surprise, that
+she had not known she had changed so entirely. She thought of the
+different ways their roads in life had gone; she pitied him; she cried
+about him more than once; and she wished that she could know he was
+dead. He might have been such a brave, good man, with his strong will
+and resolute courage. God forgive him for the wickedness which his
+strength had been made to serve! "God forgive him!" said Miss Horatia
+to herself sadly over and over again. She wondered if she ought to
+have let him go away, and so have lost sight of him; but she could not
+do any thing else. She suffered terribly on his account; she had a
+pity, such as God's pity must be, for even his wilful sins.
+
+So her romance was all over with; yet the towns-people still whispered
+it to strangers, and even Melissa and Nelly never knew how she had
+lost her lover in so strange and sad a way in her latest years. Nobody
+noticed much change; but Melissa saw that the whale's tooth had
+disappeared from its place in Miss Horatia's room, and her old friends
+said to each other that she began to show her age a great deal. She
+seemed really like an old woman now; she was not the woman she had
+been a year ago.
+
+This is all of the story; but I so often wish when a story comes to an
+end that I knew what became of the people afterward. Shall I tell you
+that Miss Horatia clings more and more fondly to her young cousin
+Nelly; and that Nelly will stay with her a great deal before she
+marries, and sometimes afterward, when the lieutenant goes away to
+sea? Shall I say that Miss Dane seems as well satisfied and
+comfortable as ever, though she acknowledges she is not so young as
+she used to be, and somehow misses something out of her life? It is
+the contentment of winter rather than that of summer: the flowers are
+out of bloom for her now, and under the snow. And Melissa, will not
+she always be the same, with a quaintness and freshness and toughness
+like a cedar-tree, to the end of her days? Let us hope they will live
+on together and be untroubled this long time yet, the two good women;
+and let us wish Nelly much pleasure, and a sweet soberness and
+fearlessness as she grows older and finds life a harder thing to
+understand and a graver thing to know.
+
+
+
+
+A SORROWFUL GUEST.
+
+
+Dear Helen,--What do you say to our going to housekeeping together?
+I'm a very old bachelor, with many whims; but I'm your brother, and I
+don't know that there was ever an act of Parliament that we should
+spend our lives on opposite shores of the Atlantic. The Athertons'
+lease of our house is out next month, and I have a fancy for taking it
+myself. We will call it merely an experiment, if you like; but I'm
+tired of the way I live now. I'm growing gray, and I shall be
+dreadfully glad to see you. We will make a real home of it, and see
+something of each other; you must not ask for any more pathos than
+this. Pick up whatever you can to make the house look fine, but don't
+feel in the least obliged to come, or put it off until the spring. Do
+just as you like. I hear the Duncans are coming home in October;
+perhaps you could take passage on the same steamer. I can't believe it
+is three years since I went over last. Do you think we shall know each
+other? _"L'absence diminue les petits amours et augmente les grandes,
+comme le vent qui eteint les bougies et rallume la feu."_ I met that
+sentiment in a story I was reading to-day, and I thought it would seem
+very gallant and alluring if I put it into my letter. I think you will
+not be homesick here: you will find more friends than seems possible
+at first thought. I'm in a hurry to-day; but I'm none the less
+
+Your very affectionate brother,
+
+   JOHN AINSLIE.
+
+Boston, Aug. 2, 1877.
+
+This was a letter which came to me one morning a year or two ago from
+my only brother. We had been separated most of the time since our
+childhood; for my father and mother both died then, and our home was
+broken up, as Jack was to be away at school and college. During the
+war he was fired with a love of his country and a longing for military
+glory, and entered the army with many of his fellow-students at
+Harvard. I was at school for a time, but afterwards went to live with
+an aunt, whose winter home was in Florence; and when Jack left the
+army he came to Europe to go on with his professional studies. He was
+most of the time in Dublin and London and Paris at the medical
+schools; but we were together a good deal, and he went off for several
+long journeys with my aunt and me before he went back to America. I
+always hoped that we might some day live together: but my aunt wished
+me never to leave her; for she was somewhat of an invalid, and had
+grown to depend on me more or less in many ways. She could not live in
+Boston, for the climate did not suit her. If Jack and I had not
+written each other so often, we should have drifted far apart; but, as
+it was, I think our love and friendship grew closer year by year. I
+should have begged him to come to live with me; but he was always in a
+hurry to get back to his own city and his own friends when he
+sometimes came over to pay us a visit in my aunt's lifetime, and I
+knew he would not be contented in Florence.
+
+At Aunt Alice's death I went on with the same old life for a time from
+force of habit; and it was just then, when I was with some friends in
+the Tyrol, and had been wondering what plans I should make for the
+winter,--whether to go to Egypt again, or to have some English friends
+come to me in Florence,--that Jack's letter came. I was only too glad
+that he made the proposal, and I could not resist sending him a cable
+despatch to say, "Hurrah!" I had not realized before how lonely and
+adrift I had felt since Aunt Alice died. I had a host of kind friends;
+but there is nothing like being with one's own kindred, and having
+one's own home. It was very hard work to say so many good-byes; and my
+heart had almost failed me when I saw some of my friends for, it might
+be, the last time, as some of them were old people. And, though I said
+over and over again that I should come back in a year or two, who
+could be certain that I should take up the dear familiar life again?
+But, though I had been so many long years away from dear old Boston, I
+never had been so glad in my life to catch sight of any city as I was
+that chilly, late October morning, when I came on deck, and somebody
+pointed out to me a dull glitter of something that looked higher and
+brighter than the land, and said it was the dome of the State House.
+
+I felt more sure than ever that I was going home when I saw my brother
+standing on the wharf, and I remembered so clearly many of the streets
+we drove through; and when we came to the house itself, and the
+carriage had gone, and we stood in the library together where the very
+same books were in the cases, and the same dim old Turkey carpet on
+the floor, the years seemed suddenly to vanish, and it was like the
+dear old childish days again: only where were my mother and my father?
+And Jack was growing gray, as he had written me, and so much had
+happened to me since I had been in that room last! I sat down before
+the wood-fire; and the queer brass dragons on the andirons made me
+smile, just as they always used. Jack stood at the window, looking
+out; and neither of us had a word to say, though we had chattered at
+each other every minute as we drove over from the steamer.
+
+That first evening at dinner I looked across the table at my brother:
+and our eyes met, and we both laughed heartily for very contentment
+and delight.
+
+"I'm sure Aunt Marion ought to be here to matronize you," said Jack.
+Neither of us like Aunt Marion very well; and this was a great joke,
+especially as she was ushered in directly to welcome me home.
+
+Jack had been living at the house for a few weeks already; but it was
+great fun, this beginning our housekeeping together, and we were busy
+enough for some time. I had brought over a good many things that my
+aunt had had in Florence, and to which I had become attached; and in
+the course of many journeys both Jack and I had accumulated a great
+many large and small treasures, some of which had not been unpacked
+for years. I very soon knew my brother's best friends; and we both
+tried to make our home not only cheerful and bright and pleasant in
+every way, but we wished also to make it a home-like place, where
+people might be sure of finding at least some sympathy and true
+friendliness and help as well as pleasure. Mamma's old friends were
+charmingly kind and polite to me; and, as Jack had foretold, I found
+more acquaintances of my own than I had the least idea I should. I had
+met abroad a great many of the people who came to see me; but the
+strangest thing was to meet those whom I remembered as my playmates
+and schoolmates, and to find them so entirely grown up, most of them
+married, and with homes and children of their own instead of the
+playhouses and dolls which I remembered.
+
+We soon fell into a most comfortable fashion of living, we were both
+very fond of giving quiet little dinners, my brother often brought
+home a friend or two, and we were charmingly independent; life never
+went better with two people than it did with Jack and me. We often had
+some old friends of the family come to stay with us, and I sent hither
+and yon for my own old cronies, with some of whom I had kept up our
+friendship since school-days; and, while it was not a little sad to
+meet some of them again, with others I felt as if we had only parted
+yesterday.
+
+I had been curious to know many things about Jack, and I found I had
+been right in supposing that his profession was by no means a burden
+to him. I was told again and again that he was a wonderfully
+successful and daring surgeon; but he confessed to me that his dislike
+to such work continually increased, and could only be overcome in the
+excitement of some desperate emergency. It seemed to me at first that
+he ought not to let his skill lie useless and idle; but he insisted
+that the other doctors did as well as he, that they sent for him if
+they wanted him, and he did not care for a practice of his own. So he
+had grown into a way of helping his friends with their business; and
+he was a microscopist of some renown, and a scientific man, instead of
+the practical man he ought to have been,--though his was, after all,
+by no means an idle nor a useless life, dear old Jack! He did a great
+deal of good shyly and quietly; he was often at the hospitals, and his
+friends seemed very fond of him, and said he had too little confidence
+in himself. I have often wondered why he did not marry; but I doubt if
+he ever tells me, though he knows well enough my own story, and that
+there is a quiet grave in Florence which is always in sight, no matter
+how far away from it I go, while sometimes I think I know every
+ivy-leaf that falls on it from the wall near by.
+
+As I have said, my brother was constantly meeting some one of his old
+classmates or army comrades or school friends during that first
+winter; and, while sometimes he would ask them to dine at his club, he
+oftener brought them home to dine or to lunch; for we were both
+possessed with an amazing spirit of hospitality. I wish I could
+remember half the stories I have heard, or could keep track of the
+lives in which I often grew much interested. There is one curious
+story which I knew, and which seems very well worth telling,--an
+instance of the curious entanglement of two lives, and of those
+strange experiences which some people call supernatural, and others
+think simple enough and perfectly reasonable and explainable.
+
+One short, snowy December day, just as it was growing dark, I was
+sitting alone in the library, and was surprised to hear my brother's
+latch-key click in the hall-door; for he had told me, when he went out
+after our very late breakfast, that he should not be in before six,
+and perhaps dinner had better wait until seven. He threw off his wet
+ulster, and was talking for some time to the man, and at last came in
+to me.
+
+"What brings you home so early?" said I.
+
+"I'm going to have two or three friends to dine. I suppose it'll be
+all right about the dinner? That was not why I came home, though: I
+had some letters to write which must go by the steamer, and I didn't
+go to Cambridge after all. The snow-storm was too much for me, I
+wanted a good light there."
+
+"Sit down a while," said I. "You have time enough for your letters;
+it's only a little after four." Jack hated to write at the
+library-table, and always went to the desk in his own book-room if he
+had any thing to do. He seemed a little tired, and threw me some
+letters the postman had given him as he came in at the door; then he
+sat down in his great chair near me, and seemed to be lost in thought.
+He was immensely interesting to me then; for we had only been together
+a few weeks, and I was often curious about his moods, and was apt to
+be much pained myself if any thing seemed to trouble him. I was always
+wishing we had not been separated so much, and I was afraid I might be
+wanting in insight and sympathy; but I think the truth has been that
+we are much more intimate, and are far better friends, and have less
+restraint, because we had seen so little of one another in the years
+that had passed. But we were terribly afraid of interfering with each
+other at first, and were so distractingly polite that we bored each
+other not a little; though that did not last long, happily, after we
+had convinced each other that we could behave well.
+
+"You say it'll be all right about dinner?" repeated my brother.
+
+"Oh, yes!" said I, "unless you wish for something very grand. Would
+you like to have me put on my crown and sceptre?"
+
+"There has never been a day yet when I should have been sorry to have
+brought a friend home," said Jack, with a good deal of enthusiasm, and
+I was at once puffed up with pride; for Jack, though an uncomplaining
+soul, was also fastidious, and his praise was not given often enough
+to be unnoticed.
+
+"I met an old classmate just now," said he presently, rousing himself
+from his reverie. "I haven't seen him for years before. He went out to
+South America just after the war, and I supposed he was there still.
+He used to be one of the best fellows in the class; and he enlisted
+when I did, though we did not belong to the same company. I heard once
+he was rather a failure; but something has broken him down horribly.
+He doesn't look as if he drank," said my brother, half to himself. "I
+met him over on Tremont Street, and I think he meant to avoid me; but
+I made him walk across the Common with me, for he was coming this way.
+He promised to come to dinner this evening; and I stopped at the club
+a few minutes as I came down the street, and luckily found George
+Sheffield, and he is coming round too. I told him seven o'clock, but I
+told Whiston we dined at six, without thinking; so he will be here
+early. Never mind: I'll be ready, and we will take care of ourselves.
+I must finish my letters, though," and he rose from his chair to go
+upstairs. "It is dreadful to see a man change so," said Jack, still
+lingering. "He used to be one of the friskiest fellows in college. I
+hope he'll come. I didn't exactly like to ask where I could find him."
+
+Then he went away: and I waited awhile, looking out at the snow, and
+thinking idly enough, until Patrick came silently in, and surprised me
+with a sudden blaze of gas; when I went upstairs to dress for dinner,
+as there didn't seem to be any thing else to do. I was a little sorry
+that any one was coming. Jack and I had arranged for a quiet evening
+together, and he was reading some new book aloud in which I was much
+interested. His reading was a perfect delight to me. He did not force
+you to think how well he read, but rather how charming the story or
+the poem was; and I always liked Jack's voice.
+
+I found something to be busy about in my room, and did not come down
+again until some time after six. When I entered the parlor, Jack arose
+with a satisfied smile, and presented Mr. Whiston; and I was
+pleasantly surprised, for I had half expected to see a most
+forlorn-looking man, perhaps even out at elbows, from what Jack had
+said. He was very pale indeed, and looked like an invalid; and he
+certainly looked frightened and miserable. He had a hunted look. It
+was the face I should imagine one would have who was haunted by the
+memory of some awful crime; but I both pitied him and liked him very
+much.
+
+He said he remembered seeing me one day out at Cambridge with my
+brother when I was hardly more than a child; and we talked about those
+old days until my cousin George Sheffield came, Jack's best friend,
+who had also been Mr. Whiston's classmate.
+
+I fancied, as we went out to dinner, that our guest would enjoy the
+evening, his friends were giving him so hearty and cordial a welcome;
+and I was glad the table looked so bright with its roses and fruit,
+and its glittering glass. I somehow looked at it through his eyes. His
+face lighted a little, as if he thought he should dine to his liking.
+He looked as if he were poor; but he was most carefully dressed, and I
+grew more and more curious about him, while I liked him better and
+better for the grace of his good manners, and for his charmingly
+bright and clever way of talking. He spoke freely of his
+South-American life, and of being in Europe; but there was something
+about him which made neither of his friends dare to ask him many
+questions. I could see that my cousin George was in a great hurry to
+know more of his history, for they had been very good friends, and he
+had lost sight of Mr. Whiston years before, and had been amazed when
+he was asked to meet him that evening. They talked a great deal about
+their Harvard days, and grew more and more merry with each other; but,
+when Mr. Whiston's face was quiet, the look of fear and melancholy was
+always noticeable.
+
+When dinner was over, I went away to see one of my friends who came in
+just then. I could hear the gentlemen laughing together, and I stood
+talking in the hall some time with my friend before she went away; but
+at last I went back to the dining-room, for I always liked my tea
+there with Jack better than in the parlor. I took my chair again; and
+I was glad to find I did not interrupt them, of which I had a sudden
+fear as I entered the door.
+
+They were talking over their army life; and my brother said, "That was
+the same day poor Fred Hathaway was killed, wasn't it? I never shall
+forget seeing his dead face. We had thrown a dozen or more men in a
+pile, and meant to bury them; but there was an alarm, and we had to
+hurry forward again, what there was left of us. I caught sight of
+Fred, and I remember now just how he looked. You know what yellow hair
+he had, and we used to call him The Pretty Saxon. I know there were
+one or two men in that pile still alive, and moving a little. I hardly
+thought of the horror of it as I went by. How used we were to such
+sights in those days! and now sometimes they come to me like horrid
+nightmares. Dunster was killed that day too. Somebody saw him fall,
+and I suppose he was thrown in a hurry into one of the trenches; but
+he was put down as missing in the reports. You know they drove us back
+toward night, and held that piece of cleared land and the pine-woods
+for two days."
+
+"It all seems like a dream to me now," said George Sheffield. "What
+boys we were too! But I believe I never shall feel so old again."
+
+"You are such comfortable people in these days," said I, "that I can't
+imagine you as soldiers living such a rough and cruel life as that
+must have been."
+
+I happened to look up at Mr. Whiston; and to my dismay he looked paler
+than ever, and was uneasy. He looked over his shoulder as if he knew a
+ghost was standing there, and he followed something with his eyes for
+a moment or two in a way that gave me a little chill of fear. I looked
+over at Jack to know if he was watching also, and I was rejoiced when
+he suddenly nodded to me, and asked George Sheffield something about
+the cigars; and George, who had also noticed, answered him, and began
+to talk to me about an opera which we had both heard the evening
+before. I did not know whether they had chanced upon an unlucky
+subject, or whether Mr. Whiston was crazy; but at any rate he seemed
+ill at ease, and was not inclined to talk any more. He looked gloomier
+and more frightened than ever. I went into the library, and presently
+they followed me; and Mr. Whiston came to say goodnight, though, when
+Jack insisted that he should not go away so early,--for it was only
+half-past nine,--he sat down again with a half-sigh, as if it made
+little difference to him where he was.
+
+"You're not well, I'm afraid, Whiston," said my brother in his most
+professional tone. "I think I shall have to look after you a little.
+By the way, are you at a hotel? I wish you would come to us for a few
+days. I'll drive you to Cambridge, and you know there are a good many
+of your old friends here in town." And I seconded this invitation,
+though I most devoutly hoped it would not be accepted. I had a
+suspicion that he would be a most uncomfortable guest.
+
+"Thank you, Miss Ainslie," said he, with a quick, pleasant smile, that
+brought back my first liking for him. "You're very good, but I'm not
+exactly in trim for paying visits. I will come to you for to-morrow
+night, Ainslie, if you like. I should be glad to see you and Sheffield
+again--to say good-by. I am going out in the Marathon on Saturday."
+
+Later, when he had gone, Jack and my cousin and I had a talk about
+this strange guest of ours. "Is he crazy?" said I to begin with; "and
+did you see him look at a ghost at dinner? I'm sure it was a ghost."
+And George Sheffield laughed; but one of us was as much puzzled as the
+other. "I thought at first he was melodramatic," said he; "but there's
+something wrong about him. Is he crazy, do you think, Jack? You're
+lucky in having a doctor in the house, Helen, if he does come back."
+
+"He's not crazy," said Jack; "at least I think not. I have been
+watching him. But he is no doubt shattered; he may have some
+monomania, and I'm afraid he takes opium."
+
+"I should urge him to spend the winter," said George serenely, "and
+what's the difference between having a monomania and being crazy?
+Couldn't he take a new fancy, and do some mischief or other some day?"
+But Jack only laughed, and went to a book-case; while I thought he had
+been very inconsiderate, and yet I wished Mr. Whiston to come again. I
+hoped he would tell us what it was he saw.
+
+"Here's Bucknill and Tuke," said my brother, coming close to the
+drop-light, and turning over the pages;  "and now you'll always know
+what I mean when I say 'monomania.' 'Characterized by some particular
+illusion impressed on the understanding, and giving rise to a partial
+aberration of judgment: the individual affected is rendered incapable
+of thinking correctly on subjects connected by the particular
+illusion, while in other respects he betrays no palpable disorder of
+the mind.' That's quoted from Prichard." And he shut the book again,
+and went back to put it in its place; but my cousin asked for it, and
+turned to another page with an air of triumph. "'An object may appear
+to be present before his eyes which has no existence whatever there....
+If unable to correct or recognize it when an appeal is made to
+reason, he is insane.' What do you think of that?" said he. "You had
+better be on your guard, Jack. I'm very wise just now. I have been
+studying up on insanity for a case of mine that's to be tried next
+month,--at least I devoutly hope it is."
+
+"But tell me something about Mr. Whiston," said I. "Do you suppose he
+has no friends? He seems to have been wandering about the world for
+years."
+
+"I remember his telling me, when we were in college, that he had no
+relatives except an old aunt, and a cousin, Henry Dunster, whom we
+spoke of to-night, who was killed in the war. Whiston was very fond of
+him; but I always thought Dunster was entirely unworthy his
+friendship. Whiston was thought to be rich. His father left him a very
+good property at any rate, and he was always a generous fellow.
+Dunster made away with a good deal, I imagine; they roomed together,
+and Whiston paid most of the bills. There was something weak and
+out-of-the-way about him then, I remember thinking, but he was a
+fairly good scholar, and he made a fine soldier. He was promoted fast;
+but you know he resigned long before the rest of us were mustered out.
+Had a fever, didn't he?"
+
+"I believe so," said the judge, as his friends always called my
+cousin. "The snow will reach my ears by this time. I must go home.
+What a storm it is! No, I can't stay later. All night! no, indeed.
+I'll come round late to-morrow evening if I can; but it will not be
+likely. Now, if you had only been sensible and studied law, Jack, you
+wouldn't have missed the festivities: it's too bad. To tell the truth,
+I wish I could make some excuse, and come here instead. I'm very much
+excited about Whiston." And with a "good-night" to us, and a fresh
+cigar which he was sure the snow-storm would put out, he went
+away,--my lucky, easy-going cousin George Sheffield, whose cigars
+never did go out at inopportune times, and who never was excited about
+any thing. It always seemed refreshing to find in this age of hurry
+and dash and anxiety so calm and comfortable and satisfied a soul.
+
+I was in doubt whether we should see any more of our sorrowful guest:
+but he appeared late the next afternoon; and, when I came in from my
+walk, I saw a much-used portmanteau being taken upstairs by Patrick,
+who told me that there were some flowers in the parlor that
+Mr. Whiston had brought. So I went in to see them, and my heart went
+out to the giver at once; for had he not chosen the most exquisite
+roses,--my favorite roses,--and more like Italy than any thing I had
+seen in a long day? Patrick had crammed them into exactly the wrong
+vase; but I thanked him for that, since it gave me a chance of
+handling all the beautiful heavy flowers, and making them comfortable
+myself, which was certainly a pleasure.
+
+I found Mr. Whiston evidently in better spirits than he had been the
+night before, and I was not sorry when I found we were to be by
+ourselves at dinner. I had not asked any one myself, you may be sure.
+My brother and I have a fashion of lingering long at the table, unless
+I am going out for the evening; and that night he and his friend lit
+their cigars, and went on with their talk of old times, while I
+listened and read the Transcript by turns. Presently there were a few
+minutes of silence, and then Jack said,--
+
+"There was a strange case brought into the city hospital to-day,--a
+poor young fellow who had been literally almost frightened to death.
+One of his fellow-clerks, who boarded with him, went into his room the
+night before in a horrible mask, and wrapped in a sheet, and stood
+near him in the moonlight, watching him until he woke. He did it for a
+joke, of course, and is said to be in agonies of penitence; but I'm
+afraid the poor victim will lose his wits entirely, if he doesn't die,
+which I think he will. I don't know what they can do with him. He had
+one fit after another. He may rally; but he looked to me as if he
+wouldn't hold out till morning. A nervous, slight fellow, it was a
+cruel thing to do. Somebody told me he belonged somewhere up in New
+Hampshire, and that his mother was almost entirely dependent upon
+him."
+
+Mr. Whiston listened eagerly. "Poor fellow! I hope he will die," said
+he sadly; and then, hesitating a moment: "Do you believe in ghosts,
+Ainslie?"
+
+"No," said Jack, with the least flicker of a smile as I caught his
+eye; "that is, I've never seen one myself. But there are very strange
+things that one can't explain to one's satisfaction."
+
+"I know that the dead come back," said Mr. Whiston, speaking very low,
+and not looking at either of us. "John Ainslie," said he suddenly, "I
+never shall see you again. I'm not going to live long at any rate, and
+you and your sister have given me more of the old-time feeling than I
+have had for many a day before. It seems as if I were at home with
+you. I suppose you will say I am a monomaniac at the very least; but
+I'm going to tell you what it is that has been slowly killing me.
+You're a doctor, and you may put any name to it you like, and call it
+a disease of the brain; but Henry Dunster follows me."
+
+Jack and I stole a glance at each other, and I felt the strongest
+temptation to look over my shoulder. Jack reached over, and filled
+Mr. Whiston's glass; and the Transcript startled me by sliding to the
+floor.
+
+"I don't often speak of it now: people only laugh at the idea," said
+our guest, with a faint smile. "But it is most horribly real to me. It
+sometimes seems the only thing that is real." And this is the story he
+told:--
+
+"When I was in college, you know, Henry roomed with me; and at one
+time we were greatly interested in what we called then superstition
+and foolishness. We thought ourselves very wise, and thought we could
+explain every thing. There was a craze among some of the students
+about spirit-rappings, and that sort of thing; and we went through
+with a good deal of nonsense, and wasted a good deal of time, in
+trying to ravel out mysteries, and to explain things that no mortal
+man has ever yet understood. One night very late we were talking, and
+grew much excited; and we promised each other solemnly that the one
+who died first would appear to the other, if such a thing were
+possible, and would at least warn him in a way that should be
+unmistakable of his death. We were half in fun and half in earnest,
+God forgive us! and we made that awful promise to each other. Then we
+went into the army, and I don't remember thinking of it once until the
+very night before he was killed. We were sitting together under a
+tree, after a hard day's fight, and Dunster said to me, laughing, 'Do
+you remember we promised each other, that whoever died first would
+appear to the other, and follow him?' I laughed,--you know how
+reckless we were in those days when death and dying were so horribly
+familiar,--and I said the same shell might kill us both, which would
+be a great pity. We were very merry and foolish; and I should have
+said Henry had been drinking, but there had been nothing to drink and
+hardly any thing to eat: you remember we were cut off from our
+supplies, and the men had very little in their haversacks. Next day
+the fight was hotter than ever, and we were being driven back, when I
+saw him toss up his hands, and fall. He must have been trodden to
+death at any rate. When we regained that little field beyond the woods
+some days afterward, they had dragged off the wounded, and buried the
+dead in shallow trenches. I knew Dunster was dead; and I stood on
+picket near a trench which was just about where he fell, and I cried
+in the dark like a girl. I loved Dunster. You know he was the only
+near relative I had in the world whom I cared any thing for, and ours
+wasn't a bonfire friendship. He had his faults, I know he wasn't liked
+in the class. He was a brilliant fellow; but I used to be afraid he
+might go to the bad. Do you remember that night, Ainslie? The men were
+so tired that they had dropped down anywhere in the mud to sleep, and
+there was some kind of a bird in the woods that gave a lonely, awful
+cry once in a while."
+
+"I remember it," said my brother, moving uneasily in his chair, and
+this time I had to look behind me, there was no help for it.
+
+"I went to the hospital soon after that," Mr. Whiston said next. "I
+was not badly wounded at all, but the exposure in that rainy weather
+played the mischief with me, and I was discharged, and, before you
+were mustered out, I went to South America, where a friend of mine
+wished me to go into business with him. I did capitally well, and I
+grew very strong. The climate suited me, and I used to go on those
+long horseback rides into the interior among the plantations that I
+told you about last night. My partner disliked that branch of the
+business far more than I did; so he left it almost wholly to me. I did
+not think often about Henry, though I mourned so much over his death
+at first, and I never was less nervous in my life.
+
+"One evening I had just returned to Rio after an absence of several
+weeks, and I went to dine with some friends of mine. It was a terribly
+hot night, and after dinner we went out in the harbor for a sail, as
+the moon would be up later. There was not much wind, however; and the
+two boatmen took the oars, and we struck out farther, hoping to catch
+a breeze beyond the shipping. It was very dark, and suddenly there
+came by a large, heavy boat which nearly ran us down. Our men shouted
+angrily, and the other sailors swore; but there was no accident after
+all. They seemed to be drunk, and we were all in the shadow of a brig
+that was lying at anchor; but, Ainslie! as that boat slid by--I was
+half lying in the stern of ours, and so close that I could have
+touched it--I saw Henry Dunster's face as plainly as I see yours now.
+It turned me cold for a minute, and gave me an awful shock. I told the
+men to give chase; and they, thinking I was angry at the carelessness,
+bent to their oars with a will, and overhauled them. There were two
+men on board,--one a negro, and the other an old gray-haired
+sailor,--not in the least like Henry. And I said I had been half
+asleep, and dreamed it was his face. But there was no mistaking him;
+it was the most vivid thing; it was the man himself I saw for that one
+horrible minute. And late the next night I was sitting in my own
+sleeping-room. I had reasoned myself out of the thing as well as I
+could, and said I was tired, and not as well as usual, and all that;
+and I had thought of it as calmly as possible. I sat with my back
+toward the window; but I was facing a mirror, and suddenly I had a
+strange feeling, and looked up to see in the mirror Dunster's face at
+the window looking in. It was staring straight at me; and I met the
+eyes, and that was the last I knew: I lost my senses. Only a monkey
+could have climbed there. There was a frail vine that clung to the
+stone, and in the morning there was no trace of any creature.
+
+"And since then he follows me. I saw that haggard, wretched face of
+his last night when I sat here at the table; and I see him watching me
+if I look among a crowd of people, and, if I look back along a street,
+he is always coming towards me; but, when he gets near, he vanishes,
+and sometimes at the theatre he will be among the actors all the
+evening. Nobody sees him but me, but every month I see him oftener,
+and his face grows out of the darkness at night; and sometimes, when I
+talk with any one, the face will fade out, and Dunster's comes in its
+place. It is killing me, Ainslie. I have fought against it; I have
+wandered half over the world trying to get rid of it, but it is no
+use. For a few days in a strange place, sometimes for weeks, I did not
+see him at first; but I know he is always watching me now, and I see
+him every day."
+
+I can give you no idea how thrilling it was to listen to this unhappy
+man, who seemed so pitifully cowed and broken, so helpless and
+hopeless. Whether there had been any thing supernatural, or whether it
+was merely the workings of a diseased brain, it was horribly real to
+him; and his life had been spoiled.
+
+"Whiston, my dear fellow," said my brother, "I'm not going to believe
+in ghosts if I can possibly help it. Could you be perfectly sure that
+you did not see Dunster himself at first? You know he was counted
+among the missing only, there is no positive proof that he died,
+though I admit there was only a chance he was not killed outright. We
+never saw him buried," said Jack, with unsympathetic persistence. "I'm
+sorry for you; but you mustn't give way to this thing. You have
+thought about it until you can't forget it at all. Such cases are not
+uncommon: it's simply a hallucination. I'll give you proofs enough
+tomorrow. Have some more claret, won't you?" Jack spoke eagerly, with
+the kindest tone; and his guest could not help responding by a faint,
+dreary little smile. "Do you like music as much as ever? Suppose we go
+over into the parlor, and my sister will play for us; won't you,
+Helen?" which was asking a great deal of me just then.
+
+And we apparently forgot all about Mr. Dunster for the rest of the
+evening. And, when Jack asked Mr. Whiston if he remembered a song he
+used to sing in college, to my delight he went at once to the piano,
+and sang it with a very pleasant tenor voice; and when he ended, and
+my brother applauded, he struck some new chords, and began to sing a
+little Florentine street-song, which was always a great favorite of
+mine. It is a sweet, piteous little song; and it bewitched me then as
+much as it did the very first time I had heard some boys sing it, as
+they went under our windows at night, when I was first in Florence
+years ago.
+
+He said no more about the ghost; but later that night, when I happened
+to wake, I wondered if the poor man was keeping his anxious watch, and
+listening in a strange house to hear the hours struck one by one. He
+went away soon after breakfast; and, though he promised to come in
+again to say good-by, that was the last we saw of him, and we did not
+see his name on the steamer list either, so we were much puzzled, and
+we talked about him a great deal, and told George Sheffield the story,
+which he wished he had heard himself.
+
+"Of course it is a hallucination," said Jack: "they are by no means
+uncommon. I can read you accounts of any number of such cases. There
+is a good deal about them in Griesinger's book,--the chapter called
+'Elementary Disorders in Mental Disease,' Helen, if you care to look
+at it, or any of those books on insanity. Didn't you have Dr. Elam's
+'A Physician's Problems' a while ago? He has an essay there which is
+very good."
+
+"I was reading his essay on 'Moral and Criminal Epidemics,'" said I,
+"that was all. It's a cheerful thing too!"
+
+"Isn't there such a thing as these visions coming before slight
+attacks of epilepsy?" said George. And my brother said yes; but
+Mr. Whiston had nothing of that kind, he had taken pains to find out.
+There was no hope of a cure, he feared; he was not wise in such cases.
+But the trouble had gone too far, there were bad symptoms, and he
+confesses he has hurt himself with opium during the last year or two.
+"He will not live long at any rate," said Jack; "and I think the
+sooner the end comes the better. He has a predisposition to mental
+disease, and he was always a frail, curious make-up. But I don't
+know--'There are more things in heaven and earth,' George Sheffield;
+and I wish you had heard him tell his story."
+
+And we talked over some strange, unaccountable things; and each told
+stories which could neither be doubted nor explained. I had been
+readier to believe in such things since I was warned myself before the
+greatest sorrow I had ever known. I was by the sea; and one of my
+friends and I were walking slowly toward home one dark and windy
+evening, when suddenly we both heard a terrible low cry of fear and
+horror close beside us. It was hardly a cry, it was no noise that
+either of us had ever heard before; and we stopped for an instant,
+because we were too frightened to move. And the noise came again. We
+were in an open place, and there was nothing to be seen; but we both
+felt there was something there, and that the cry had some awful
+meaning. And it was not many days before I had reason to remember that
+cry; for the trouble came. I do not know what it might have been that
+I heard; but I knew it had the saddest meaning.
+
+Two or three weeks after we saw Mr. Whiston, my brother came in one
+afternoon; and I saw he could hardly wait for some friends to go away,
+who were paying me a call.
+
+"I have found poor Whiston," said he, when I joined him in the library
+at last: "he is at the Carney Hospital. It seems he was ill for a few
+days at his hotel, and the servant, who was very kind to him, advised
+him to go there. He insists that he is very comfortable, and that he
+has money enough. I wished to bring him over here at first; but I saw
+that it was no use, and I asked him why he didn't let me know, but he
+is completely wrecked; I doubt if he lives more than a day or two, he
+was wandering half the time I was there. He said he should be very
+glad if you would come to see him, and I told him I was sure you
+would."
+
+I went to see him with my brother the next day, and I saw that Jack
+was shocked at the change that had come already. There was that
+peculiar, worried, anxious look in his face, that one only sees in
+people who are very near death, and his fingers were picking at the
+blanket. I do not believe he knew me; but he smiled,--he had a most
+beautiful smile,--and I gave him some grapes, and wished I could make
+him a little more comfortable. The sister came just afterward on her
+round, and gave him his medicine, and raised him with a strong arm,
+while she turned his pillow in a business-like way, and I thought what
+a lonely place it was to be ill and die in; and I was more glad than
+ever that Jack and I had a home, and were always to be together. I
+left Jack to stay the night, and, as I came away, I had more and more
+compassion for the man who was dying; yet I was glad to think so sad a
+life was almost over with. His days had been all winter days in this
+world, it seemed to me, and I hoped some wonderful, blessed spring was
+waiting for him in the next.
+
+When I went over in the morning, it was cheerless enough. The rain was
+falling fast and the snow melting in the streets. My brother was
+watching for me, and came out at once. "Poor Whiston is dead," said
+he, as he shut the carriage-door. "He wished me to thank you for your
+kindness to him," and I saw the tears in Jack's eyes. "There's another
+star for the catalogue,--how small the class is growing! Poor fellow!
+I didn't know he had gone, I thought he was asleep, for we were
+talking together only a few minutes before. He was not at all
+bewildered, as you saw him yesterday."
+
+I heard this case talked over more than once by my brother, and one or
+two professional friends of his who came often to the house. Nobody
+was ready to believe that Mr. Whiston had seen an apparition; but the
+truth always remained that the man's nerves were so shocked by what he
+believed to be the appearance of a ghost, that he had become the prey
+of a monomania, and had by little and little grown incapable of
+distinguishing between real things and the creations and projections
+of his own unsteady brain. _Il s'ecoutait vivre_, as the French phrase
+has it; and, having nothing to live for but this, it was well that
+life was over for him. I suppose the acute disease of which he died
+met with little resistance, for he looked so ill when we first saw
+him; but it would have been sadder if he had lingered a few more
+years, so miserable as he was,--hardly fit either for the inside of an
+asylum or the outside,--to die at last without money or friends to
+give him the last of this world's comforts, perhaps without mind
+enough left to miss them.
+
+Strangely enough, some months after this, when it was spring, my
+brother found Dunster at the Marine Hospital in Chelsea, where he had
+gone with another surgeon to see a curious operation in which he felt
+a great interest. He was walking through the accident ward when
+somebody called him from one of the cots,--a wretched-looking
+vagabond, whom at first he did not recognize. But it was Dunster, and
+he tried to put on something of his old manner, which made him seem
+like a wretched copy of his former self.
+
+Jack made him give an account of himself. It seemed that he had been
+thrown among the dead in that battle when he was supposed to have been
+killed; but he had recovered his senses, and crawled from the place
+where he had fallen farther into the enemy's lines, and he had been
+sent to the rear. He had nearly died from the effects of his wounds,
+and it was evident that he had been very intemperate. He had drifted
+to New Orleans, and lead a most wretched life there; and at times he
+had gone to sea. My brother asked him if he was ever in Rio; and at
+first he denied it, and afterward confessed that he was there once,
+and had seen Whiston in a boat, and had dropped over the side in the
+dark to evade him, but when Jack questioned him about being at the
+window, he denied it utterly. He said his ship sailed that day. It
+might have been that he meant to commit a robbery, or that he really
+told the truth, and that it was the first of poor Whiston's illusions.
+Of course it was possible that Dunster might have swung himself down
+from the flat roof by a rope, and they might have really met at other
+times, it was not unlikely. But one can hardly conceive of
+Mr. Whiston's perfect certainty, in such a case, that the glimpse he
+had of his cousin's face was a supernatural vision.
+
+My brother said, "I did not tell him what wreck and ruin he had made
+unconsciously of Whiston's life,--at least the part he had played in
+it; it would do no good, and indeed he is hardly sane, I think. It
+would be curious if they had both inherited from their common ancestry
+the mental weakness which shows itself so differently in the two
+lives,--Whiston's, so cowardly and shrinking and weak; and Dunster's,
+so horribly low and brutal. There is not much the matter with him, he
+had a fall on board ship. The nurse told me he was very troublesome,
+and had fairly insulted the chaplain, who had said a kind word to him.
+It is a pity that shot had not killed him; and I suppose most of the
+class who ever think of him will say he was a hero, and died on the
+field of honor."
+
+And my brother and I talked gravely about the two men. God help us!
+what sin and crime may be charged to any of us who take the wrong way
+in life! The possibilities of wickedness and goodness in us are both
+unlimited. I said, how many lives must be like these which seemed such
+wretched failures and imperfections! One cannot help having a great
+pity for such men, in whom common courage, and the power of
+resistance, and the ordinary amount of will seem to have been wanting.
+Warped and incapable, or brutal and shameful, one cannot pity them
+enough. It is like the gnarled and worthless fruit that grows among
+the fair and well-rounded,--the useless growth that is despised and
+thrown away scornfully.
+
+But God must always know what blighted and hindered any life or growth
+of His; and let us believe that He sometimes saves and pities what we
+have scorned and blamed.
+
+
+
+
+A LATE SUPPER.
+
+
+The story begins one afternoon in June just after dinner. Miss
+Catherine Spring was the heroine; and she lived alone in her house,
+which stood on the long village street in Brookton,--up in the country
+city people would say,--a town certainly not famous, but pleasant
+enough because it was on the outer edge of the mountain region, near
+some great hills. One never hears much about Brookton when one is away
+from it, but, for all that, life is as important and exciting there as
+it is anywhere; and it is like every other town, a miniature world,
+with its great people and small people, bad people and good people,
+its jealousy and rivalry, kindness and patient heroism.
+
+Miss Spring had finished her dinner that day, and had washed the few
+dishes, and put them away. She never could get used to there being so
+few, because she had been one of a large family. She had put on the
+gray alpaca dress which she wore afternoons at home, and had taken her
+sewing, and sat down at one of the front windows in the sitting-room,
+which was shaded by a green old lilac-bush. But she did not sew as if
+she were much interested in the work, or were in any hurry; and
+presently she laid it down altogether, and tapped on the window-sill
+with her thimble, looking as if she were lost in not very pleasant
+thought. She was a very good woman, and a very pleasant woman; a good
+neighbor all the people would tell you; and they would add also, very
+comfortably left. But of late she had been somewhat troubled; to tell
+the truth, her money affairs had gone wrong, and just now she did not
+exactly know what to do. She felt more solitary than she had for a
+long time before. Her father, the last of the family except herself,
+had been dead for many years; and she had been living alone, growing
+more and more contented in the comfortable, prim, white house, after
+the first sharp grief of her loneliness had worn away into a more
+resigned and familiar sorrow. It is, after all, a great satisfaction
+to do as one pleases.
+
+Now, as I have said, she had lost part of her already small income,
+and she did not know what to do. The first loss could be borne; but
+the second seemed to put housekeeping out of the question, and this
+was a dreadful thing to think of. She knew no other way of living,
+beside having her own house and her own fashion of doing things. If it
+had been possible, she would have liked to take some boarders; but
+summer boarders had not yet found out Brookton. Mr. Elden, the kind
+old lawyer who was her chief adviser, had told her to put an
+advertisement in one of the Boston papers, and she had done so; but it
+never had been answered, which was not only a disappointment but a
+mortification as well. Her money was not actually lost: it was the
+failure of a certain railway to pay its dividend, that was making her
+so much trouble.
+
+Miss Spring tapped her thimble still faster on the window-sill, and
+thought busily. "I'm going to think it out, and settle it this
+afternoon," said she to herself. "I must settle it somehow, I will not
+live on here any longer as if I could afford it." There was a niece of
+hers who lived in Lowell, who was married and not at all strong. There
+were three children, with nobody in particular to look after them.
+Miss Catherine was sure this niece would like nothing better than to
+have her come to stay with her. She thought with satisfaction how well
+she could manage there, and how well her housekeeping capabilities
+would come into play. It had grieved her in her last visit to see the
+house half cared for, and she remembered the wistful way Mary had
+said, "How I wish I could have you here all the time, Aunt Catherine!"
+and at once Aunt Catherine went on to build a little castle in the
+air, until she had a chilly consciousness that her own house was to be
+shut up. She compared the attractions of Lowell and Brookton most
+disdainfully: the dread came over her that most elderly people feel at
+leaving their familiar homes and the surroundings to which they have
+grown used. But she bravely faced all this, and resolved to write Mary
+that evening, so the letter could go by the morning's mail. If Mary
+liked the plan, which Miss Catherine never for an instant doubted, she
+would stay through the early fall at any rate, and then see what was
+best to be done.
+
+She took up her sewing again, and looked critically at it through her
+spectacles, and then went on with her stitching, feeling
+lighter-hearted now that the question was decided. The tall clock
+struck three slowly; and she said to herself how fast the last hour
+had gone. There was a little breeze outside which came rustling
+through the lilac-leaves. The wide street was left to itself, nobody
+had driven by since she had sat at the window. She heard some children
+laughing and calling to each other where they were at play in a yard
+not far away, and smiled in sympathy; for her heart had never grown
+old. The smell of the roses by the gate came blowing in sweet and
+fresh, and she could see the great red peonies in generous bloom on
+the borders each side the front walk. And, when she looked round the
+room, it seemed very pleasant to her, the clock ticked steadily; and
+the old-fashioned chairs, and the narrow high mirror with the gilt
+eagle at the top, the stiff faded portraits of her father and mother
+in their young days, the wide old brass-nailed sofa with its dim
+worsted-worked cushion at either end,--how comfortable it all was! and
+a great thrill of fondness for the room and the house came over our
+friend. "I didn't know I cared so much about the old place," said she.
+"'There's no place like home.'--I believe I never knew that meant so
+much before;" and she laid down her sewing again, and fell into a
+reverie.
+
+In a little while she heard the click of the gate-latch; and, with the
+start and curiosity a village woman instinctively feels at the
+knowledge of somebody's coming in at the front-door, she hurried to
+the other front-window to take a look at her visitor through the
+blinds. It was only a child, and Miss Catherine did not wait for her
+to rap with the high and heavy knocker, but was standing in the open
+doorway when the little girl reached the steps.
+
+"Come in, dear!" said Miss Catherine kindly, "did you come of an
+errand?"
+
+"I wanted to ask you something," said the child, following her into
+the sitting-room, and taking the chair next the door with a shy smile
+that had something appealing about it. "I came to ask you if you want
+a girl this summer."
+
+"Why, no, I never keep help," said Miss Spring. "There is a woman who
+comes Mondays and Tuesdays, and other days when I need her. Who is it
+that wants to come?"
+
+"It's only me," said the child. "I'm small of my age; but I'm past
+ten, and I can work real smart about house." A great cloud of
+disappointment came over her face.
+
+"Whose child are you?"
+
+"I'm Katy Dunning, and I live with my aunt down by Sandy-river Bridge.
+Her girl is big enough to help round now, and she said I must find a
+place. She would keep me if she could," said the little girl in a
+grown-up, old-fashioned way; "but times are going to be dreadful hard,
+they say, and it takes a good deal to keep so many."
+
+"What made you come here?" asked Miss Catherine, whose heart went out
+toward this hard-worked, womanly little thing. It seemed so pitiful
+that so young a child, who ought to be still at play, should already
+know about hard times, and have begun to fight the battle of life. A
+year ago she had thought of taking just such a girl to save steps, and
+for the sake of having somebody in the house; but it never could be
+more out of the question than now. "What made you come to me?"
+
+"Mr. Rand, at the post-office, told aunt that perhaps you might want
+me: he couldn't think of anybody else."
+
+She was such a neat-looking, well-mended child, and looked Miss
+Catherine in the face so honestly! She might cry a little after she
+was outside the gate, but not now.
+
+"I'm really sorry," said Miss Spring; "but you see, I'm thinking about
+shutting my house up this summer." She would not allow to herself that
+it was for any longer. "But you keep up a good heart. I know a good
+many folks, and perhaps I can hear of a place for you. I suppose you
+could mind a baby, couldn't you? No: you sit still a minute!" as the
+child thanked her, and rose to go away; and she went out to her
+dining-room closet to a deep jar, and took out two of her best
+pound-cakes, which she made so seldom now, and saved with great care.
+She put these on a pretty pink-and-white china plate, and filled a mug
+with milk. "Here," said she, as she came back, "I want you to eat
+these cakes. You have walked a long ways, and it'll do you good. Sit
+right up to the table, and I'll spread a newspaper over the cloth."
+
+Katy looked at her with surprise and gratitude. "I'm very much
+obliged," said she; and her first bite of the cake seemed the most
+delicious thing she had ever tasted.
+
+Yes, I suppose bread and butter would have been quite as good for her,
+and much less extravagant on Miss Catherine's part; but of all the
+people who had praised her pound-cakes, nobody had so delighted in
+their goodness as this hungry little girl, who had hardly ever eaten
+any thing but bread all her days, and not very good bread at that.
+
+"Don't hurry," said Miss Spring kindly, "you're a good girl, and I
+wish I could take you,--I declare I do." And, with a little sigh, she
+sat down by the window again, and took up the much-neglected sewing,
+looking up now and then at her happy guest. When she saw the mug was
+empty, and that Katy looked at it wistfully as she put it down, she
+took it without a word, and went to the shelf in the cellar-way where
+the cream-pitcher stood, and poured out every drop that was in it,
+afterward filling the mug to the brim with milk, for her little
+pitcher did not hold much. "I'll get along one night without cream in
+my tea," said she to herself. "That was only skim-milk she had first,
+and she looks hungry."
+
+"It's real pleasant here," said Katy, "you're so good! Aunt said I
+could tell you, if you wanted to take me, that I don't tear my
+clothes, and I'm careful about the dishes. She thought I wouldn't be a
+bother. Would you tell the other people? I should be real glad to get
+a place."
+
+"I'll tell 'em you're a good girl," said Miss Catherine; "and I'll get
+you a good home if I can." For she thought of her niece in Lowell, and
+how much trouble there was when she was there about getting a careful
+young girl to take care of the smallest child. Then it occurred to her
+that Katy was very small herself, and did not look very strong, and
+Mary might not hear to it; so, after Katy had gone, she began to be
+sorrowful again, and to wish she had promised less, and need not
+disappoint the little thing.
+
+Another hour had gone, and it was four o'clock now, and in a few
+minutes she heard a carriage stop at the gate. She heard several
+voices, and was discouraged for a minute. Three people were coming in;
+and she was so glad when she saw it was a nephew and his wife from a
+town a dozen miles away, and a friend with them whom she had often
+seen at their house. They came in with good-natured chatter and much
+laughing. They had started out for a drive early after dinner, and had
+found the weather so pleasant that they had kept on to Brookton.
+
+"I don't know what the folks will think," said they: "we meant to be
+back right away."--"Well," said the niece, "I'm so glad we found you
+at home; and how well you do look, Aunt Catherine! I declare, you're
+smarter than any of us."
+
+"I guess she is," said her nephew, who was a great favorite. "I tell
+you she's the salt of the earth." And he gave her a most affectionate
+and resounding great kiss, and then they were all merrier than ever.
+
+"What are you sitting down for, without laying off your bonnets?"
+asked the hostess. "You must stay and get supper before you ride home.
+I'll have it early, and there's a moon. You take the horse right round
+into the yard, Joseph: there's some more of that old hay in the barn;
+you know where to find it." And, after some persuasion, the visitors
+yielded, and settled themselves quietly for the rest of the afternoon.
+They had said, as they came over, that they were sure Aunt Catherine
+would ask them to stay until evening, and she always had such good
+suppers. Miss Stanby had never been at the house before, and only once
+as far as Brookton; and she seemed very pleased. She took care of her
+step-mother, who was very old, and a great deal crosser than there was
+any need of being. This little excursion would do her a world of good;
+and luckily her married sister happened to be at home for a day or
+two's visit, so she did not feel anxious about being away. She was a
+sharp-faced, harassed-looking little woman, who might have been pretty
+if she had been richer and less worried and disappointed. She was a
+pleasant and patient soul, and this drive and visit were more to her
+than a journey to Boston would be to her companions. They were
+well-to-do village people, comfortable and happy and unenvious as it
+is possible for village people, or any other people, to be.
+
+Miss Spring was a little distracted and a bit formal for a few
+minutes, while she was thinking what she could get for tea; but that
+being settled, she gave her whole mind to enjoying the guests. She
+regretted the absence of the two pound-cakes Katy Dunning had eaten,
+but it was only for an instant. She could make out with new
+gingerbread, and no matter if she couldn't! It was all very pleasant
+and sociable: and they talked together for a while busily, telling the
+news and asking and answering questions; and, by and by, Joseph took
+his hat, saying that he must go down to the post-office to see
+Mr. Rand, the storekeeper. Soon after this it was time to get supper.
+Just as Miss Spring was going out, her niece said, "I had a letter
+from Lowell yesterday, from Mary."
+
+"How is she now?" Miss Spring meant to talk over her plans a little
+with Joseph after supper, but was silent enough about them now.
+
+"Her husband's oldest sister is coming to stay all summer with them.
+She is a widow, and has been living out West. It'll be a great help to
+Mary, and John sets every thing by this sister. She is a good deal
+older than he, and brought him up."
+
+"It is a good thing," said Miss Catherine emphatically, and with
+perfect composure. "I have been thinking about Mary lately. I pitied
+her so when I was there. I have had half a mind to go and stay with
+her a while myself."
+
+"You might have got sick going to Lowell in hot weather. Sha'n't I
+come out and help you, Aunt Catherine?" who said, "No indeed;" and
+went out to the kitchen, and dropped into a chair. "Oh, what am I
+going to do?" said she; for she never had felt so helpless and
+hopeless in her life.
+
+The old clock gave its quick little cluck, by way of reminder that in
+five minutes it would be five o'clock. She had promised to have tea
+early; so she opened a drawer to take out a big calico apron, and went
+to work. Her eyes were full of tears. Poor woman! she felt as if she
+had come face to face with a great wall, but she bravely went to work
+to make the cream-tartar biscuit. Somehow she couldn't remember how
+much to take of any thing. She was quite confused when she tried to
+remember the familiar rule. It was silly!--she had made them hundreds
+of times, and was celebrated for her skill. Cream-tartar biscuit, and
+some cold bread, and some preserved plums; or was it citron-melon she
+meant to have?--and some of that cold meat she had for dinner, for a
+relish, with a bit of cheese.
+
+She would have felt much more miserable if she had not had to hurry;
+and after a few minutes, when the first shock of her bad news had been
+dulled a little, she was herself again; and tea was nearly ready, the
+biscuits baking in the oven, and some molasses gingerbread beside,
+when she happened to remember that there was not a drop of cream in
+the cream-pitcher, she had given it all to poor little Katy. Joseph
+was very particular about having cream in his tea; so she called her
+niece Martha to the kitchen, and asked her to watch the oven while she
+went down the road to a neighbor's. She did not stop even to take her
+sun-bonnet: it was not a great way, and shady under the elms; so away
+she went with the pitcher. Mrs. Hilton, the neighbor, was a generous
+soul, and when she heard of the unexpected company, with ready
+sympathy and interest she said; "Now, what did you bring such a mite
+of a pitcher for? Do take this one of mine. I'd just as soon you'd
+have the cream as not. I don't calculate to make any butter this week,
+and it'll be well to have it to eat with your preserves. It's nice and
+sweet as ever you saw."
+
+"I'm sure you are kind," said Miss Spring; and with a word or two more
+she went hurrying home. As I have said, it was not far; but the
+railroad came between, and our friend had to cross the track. It
+seemed very provoking that a long train should be standing across the
+road. It seemed to be waiting for something; an accident might have
+happened, for the station was a little distance back.
+
+Miss Catherine waited in great anxiety; she could not afford to waste
+a minute. She would have to cross an impossible culvert in going
+around the train either way. She saw some passengers or brakemen
+walking about on the other side, and with great heroism mounted the
+high step of the platform with the full intention of going down the
+other side, when, to her horror, the train suddenly moved. She
+screamed, "Stop! stop!" but nobody saw her, and nobody heard her; and
+off she went, cream-pitcher and all, without a bit of a bonnet. It was
+simply awful.
+
+The car behind her was the smoking-car, and the one on which she stood
+happened to be the Pullman. She was dizzy, and did not dare to stay
+where she was; so she opened the door and went in. There was a young
+lady standing in the passage-way, getting a drink of water for some
+one in a dainty little tumbler; and she looked over her shoulder,
+thinking Miss Spring was the conductor, to whom she wished to speak;
+and she smiled, for who could help it?
+
+"I'm carried off," said poor Aunt Catherine hysterically. "I had
+company come to tea unexpectedly, and I was all out of cream, and I
+went out to Mrs. Hilton's, and I was in a great hurry to get back, and
+there seemed no sign in the world of the cars starting. I wish we
+never had sold our land for the track! Oh! what shall I do? I'm a mile
+from home already; they'll be frightened to death, and I wanted to
+have supper early for them, so they could start for home; it's a long
+ride. And the biscuit ought to be eaten hot. Dear me! they'll be so
+worried!"
+
+"I'm very sorry, indeed," said the young lady, who was quivering with
+laughter in spite of her heartfelt sympathy for such a calamity as
+this. "I suppose you will have to go on to the next station; is it
+very far?"
+
+"Half an hour," said Miss Spring despairingly; "and the down train
+doesn't get into Brookton until seven; and I haven't a cent of money
+with me, either. I shall be crazy! I don't see why I didn't get off;
+but it took all my wits away the minute I found I was going."
+
+"I'm so glad you didn't try to get off," said the girl gravely: "you
+might have been terribly hurt. Won't you come into the compartment
+just here with my aunt and me? She is an invalid, and we are all by
+ourselves; you need not see any one else. Let me take your pitcher."
+And Miss Spring, glad to find so kind a friend in such an emergency,
+followed her.
+
+There were two sofas running the length of the compartment, and on one
+of these was lying a most kind and refined-looking woman, with gray
+hair and the sweetest eyes. Poor Aunt Catherine somehow felt comforted
+at once; and when this new friend looked up wonderingly, and her niece
+tried to keep from even smiling while she told the story discreetly,
+she began to laugh at herself heartily.
+
+"I know you want to laugh, dear," said she. "It's ridiculous, only I'm
+so afraid they'll be worried about me at home. If anybody had only
+seen me as I rode off, and could tell them!"
+
+Miss Ashton had not laughed so much in a long time, the fun of the
+thing outweighed the misery, and they were all very merry for a few
+minutes. There was something straightforward and homelike and pleasant
+in Miss Catherine's face, and the other travellers liked her at once,
+as she did them. They were going to a town nearer the mountains for
+the summer. Miss Ashton was just getting over a severe illness; and
+they asked about the place to which they were bound, but Miss Spring
+could tell them little about it.
+
+"The country is beautiful around here, isn't it?" said Alice West,
+when there was a pause: the shadows were growing long, and the sun was
+almost ready to go down among the hills. "Brookton! didn't you notice
+an advertisement of some one who wanted boarders there, aunty? You
+thought it was hardly near enough to the mountains, didn't you? but
+this is beautiful."
+
+"Why, that was my notice," said Miss Spring; and then she stopped, and
+flushed a little. I believe, if she had thought a moment, she would
+not have spoken; but Miss Ashton saw the hesitation and the flush.
+
+"I wish I were going to spend the summer with you," said she by and
+by, in her frank, pleasant way. And Miss Catherine said, "I wish you
+were," and sighed quietly; she felt wonderfully at home with these
+strangers, and, in spite of her annoyance when she thought of her
+guests, she was enjoying herself. "I live all alone," she said once,
+in speaking of something else; and, if she had been alone with Miss
+Ashton, I think she would have told her something of her troubles, of
+which we know her heart was very full. Everybody found it easy to talk
+to Miss Ashton, but there was the niece; and Miss Catherine, like most
+elderly women of strong character who live alone, was used to keeping
+her affairs to herself, and felt a certain pride in being
+uncommunicative.
+
+When the conductor looked in, with surprise at seeing the new
+passenger, Alice West asked him the fare to Hillsfield, the next
+station; and, after paying him, gave as much money to Miss Spring, who
+took it reluctantly, though there was nothing else to be done.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know how to thank you," said she; "but you must tell
+me how to direct to you and I will send the money back tomorrow."
+
+"No, indeed!" said the girl: but Miss Spring looked unhappy; and Miss
+Ashton, with truer kindness, gave her the direction, saying,--
+
+"Please tell us how you found your friends at home; because Alice and
+I will wish very much to know what they thought."
+
+"You have been so kind; I sha'n't forget it," said Miss Catherine,
+with a little shake in her voice that was not made by the cars.
+
+Alice had taken from her travelling-bag a little white hood which she
+had seen in a drawer that morning after her trunk was locked and
+strapped, and had put it over Miss Catherine's head. It was very
+becoming, and it did not look at all unsuitable for an elderly woman
+to wear in the evening, just from one station to the next. And she was
+going to wrap the cream-pitcher in some paper, when Miss Catherine
+said softly,--
+
+"Does your aunty care any thing about cream?"
+
+"She likes it dearly," said the girl, looking so much pleased. "I had
+half a mind to ask you if you could spare just a little;" and Miss
+Ashton's little tumbler was at once delightedly filled to the very
+brim.
+
+Its owner said she had not tasted any thing so delicious in a long
+time; and would not Miss Spring take some little biscuit and some
+grapes to eat while she waited in the station? Yes, indeed: they had
+more than they wanted, and she must not forget it was tea-time
+already. Alice would wrap some up for her in a paper.
+
+And at last they shook hands most cordially, and were so sorry to say
+good-by.
+
+"I never shall forget your kindness as long as I live," said Miss
+Catherine; and Alice helped her off the car, and nodded good-by as it
+started.
+
+"I wish with all my heart we could board with that dear good soul this
+summer," said Miss Ashton, "and I believe she has been dreadfully
+grieved because her advertisement was not answered; perhaps it may be
+yet. She looked sad and worried, and it was something besides this
+mishap. What a kind face she had! I wish we knew more about her. I'm
+so glad we happened to be just here, and that she didn't have to go
+into the car."
+
+"Yes," said Alice; "but, aunty, I think it was the funniest thing I
+ever saw in my life, when she appeared to me with that horror-stricken
+face and her cream-pitcher."
+
+And Miss Catherine, as she seated herself in the little station to
+wait for the down-train, said to herself, "God bless them! how good
+they were! How I should have hated to go into the car with all the
+people, and be stared at and made fun of." They had been so courteous
+and simple and kind: why are there not more such people in the world?
+And she thought about them, and ate her crackers and the hot-house
+grapes, and was very comfortable. It might have been such a
+disagreeable experience, yet she had really enjoyed herself. It did
+not seem long before she again took her seat in the cars, with the
+cream-pitcher respectably disguised in white paper, and herself
+looking well enough in the soft little white hood, with its corner
+just in the middle of her gray hair over her forehead; she paid her
+fare as if her pocket were full of money, and watched the other people
+in the car; and by the time she reached home she was her own composed
+and reliable self again.
+
+There had been a great excitement at her house. The biscuit were done
+and the gingerbread; and the niece took them out of the oven, and
+thought her aunt was gone a good while, and went back to the
+sitting-room. After a few minutes she went to the front-gate to look
+down the street. Miss Stanby joined her; and they stood watching until
+Joseph Spring came hurrying back, thinking he was late, and ready with
+his apologies, when they told him how long Miss Catherine had been
+gone.
+
+"She's stopped for something or other: they're always asking her
+advice about things," said he carelessly. "She will be along soon."
+And then they went into the house; and nobody said much, and the tall
+clock ticked louder and louder; and Joseph began to whistle and drum
+with his fingers, meaning to show his unconcern, but in reality
+betraying the opposite feeling.
+
+"You don't suppose she's sick, do you?" asked Miss Stanby timidly.
+
+"More likely somebody else is," said Mr. Spring. "Did you say she had
+gone to Mrs. Hilton's, Martha? I'll walk down there, and see what the
+matter is."
+
+"I wish you would," said his wife. "It's after six o'clock."
+
+"Hasn't got home yet!" said Mrs. Hilton in dismay. "Why, what can have
+become of her? She came in before half-past five, in a great hurry;
+and she left her pitcher here on the table. I suppose she forgot it. I
+lent her mine, because it was bigger. There's no house between but the
+Donalds', and they're all off at his mother's funeral to Lancaster.
+You don't suppose the cars run over her?"
+
+"I don't know," said Miss Spring's nephew, in real trouble by this
+time.
+
+They went out together, and looked everywhere along the road,
+apologizing to each other as they did so. They went up and down the
+railroad for some little distance, and it was a great relief not to
+find her there. Joseph asked some men if they had seen his aunt; and
+when they said no, wonderingly, and expected an explanation, he did
+not give it, he hardly knew why. They went to the house beyond Miss
+Catherine's, though Martha and Miss Stanby were sure she had not gone
+by. They looked in the barn even: they went out into the garden and
+through the house, for she might possibly have come in without being
+seen; but she had apparently disappeared from the face of the earth.
+
+It had seemed so foolish at first to tell the neighbors; but by seven
+o'clock, or nearly that, Martha Spring said decisively, "She cannot
+have gone far unless she has been carried off. I think you had better
+get some men, and have a regular hunt for her before it gets any
+darker. I'm not going home to-night until we find her." And they owned
+to each other that it was a very serious and frightful thing. Miss
+Stanby looked most concerned and apprehensive of the three, and
+suggested what had been uppermost in her mind all the time,--that it
+would be so awful if poor Miss Spring had been murdered, or could she
+have killed herself? There was something so uncharacteristic in the
+idea of Miss Catherine's committing suicide, that for a moment her
+nephew could not resist a smile; but he was grave enough again
+directly, for it might be true, after all, and he remembered with a
+thrill of horror that old Mr. Elden, the lawyer, had told him in
+confidence, that Miss Spring was somewhat pinched for money,--that her
+affairs were in rather a bad way, and perhaps he had better talk with
+her, as he himself did not like to have all the responsibility of
+advising her.
+
+"Poor old lady!" thought Joseph Spring, who was a tender-hearted man.
+"She looked to-day as if she felt bad about something. She has grown
+old this last year, that's a fact!" It seemed to him as if she were in
+truth dead already. "You had better look all over the house," said he
+to his wife. "Did you look in the garret?" He remembered the story
+that his great-grandfather had been found hanging there, and could not
+have gone to the garret himself to save his life.
+
+He went hurrying out of the house, determined now to make the
+disappearance public. He would go to the depot, there were always some
+men there at this time. The church-bell began to ring for
+Wednesday-evening meeting, and she had always gone so regularly; he
+would hurry back there, and tell the people as they came. The train
+went by slowly to stop at the station, it was a little behind time. He
+hurried on, looking down as he walked. To tell the truth, he was
+thinking about the funeral, and suddenly he heard a familiar voice
+say,--
+
+"Well, Joseph! I suppose you thought I was lost!"
+
+"Heavens and earth, Aunt Catherine! Where have you been?" And he
+caught her by the shoulder, and felt suddenly like crying and laughing
+together. "I never had any thing come over me so in all my life," said
+he to his wife and Miss Stanby, as they went home later that evening.
+"I declare, it took the wits right out of me."
+
+Miss Catherine looked brighter than she had that afternoon, the
+excitement really had done her good; she told her adventure as they
+hurried home together. When they reached the house Martha Spring and
+Miss Stanby kissed her, and cried as if their hearts would break.
+Joseph looked out of the window a few minutes, and then announced that
+he would go out and see to the horse.
+
+The tears were soon over with; and, as soon as it seemed decent,
+Mrs. Martha said, "Aunt Catherine, do tell me where you got that
+pretty hood! I wish I had seen it when I first got here, to take the
+pattern. Isn't it a new stitch?"
+
+"Dear me! haven't I taken it off?" said Miss Catherine. "Well, you
+must excuse me if I am scatter-witted. I feel as if I had been gone a
+week."
+
+They had supper directly--that very late supper! They were all as
+hungry as hunters, even poor little Miss Stanby; and the re-action
+from such suspense made the guests merry enough, while, as was often
+said, Miss Catherine was always good company. The cream-tartar
+biscuits were none the less good for being cold. Joseph hadn't eaten
+such gingerbread since he was there before; and the tea was made fresh
+over a dry-shingle fire, which blazes in a minute, as every one knows.
+There were more than enough pound-cakes; and Martha asked all over
+again how Miss Catherine made her preserves, for somehow hers were
+never so good; while Miss Catherine meekly said that she had not had
+such good luck as usual with the last she made.
+
+At last they drove off down the road. The moon had come up, and was
+shining through the trees. It was so cool and fresh and bright an
+evening, with a little yellow still lingering in the west after the
+sunset! The guests went away very happy and light-hearted, for it
+seemed as if they had been spared a terrible sorrow.
+
+"I saw the prettiest little old-fashioned table up in the garret,"
+said Mrs. Martha. "It only needs fixing up a little. I mean to ask
+your Aunt Catherine if I can't have it when I go over again."
+
+"No, you won't," said her husband, with more authority than was usual
+with him.
+
+Miss Catherine stood watching at the gate until they were out of
+sight. "I must settle down," said she. "I feel as if it had been a
+wedding or a funeral or something; and I declare if it isn't Wednesday
+evening, and what will they think has become of me at meeting?" though
+she could have trusted Mrs. Hilton to spread the story far and
+wide--by which you must not suppose that good Mrs. Hilton was a
+naughty gossip.
+
+The next morning Miss Catherine waked up even more heavy-hearted than
+she had been the day before. I suppose she was tired after the unusual
+excitement. She wished she had talked to Joseph, she must talk with
+somebody. She wished she had not been such a fool as to get on those
+cars, for she was sure she never should hear the last of the joke;
+and, after the morning work was done, she sat down in the sitting-room
+with the clock ticking mockingly, and that intolerable feeling of
+despair and disgust came over her; there is nothing much harder to
+bear than that, if you know what it is I am sure you will pity her.
+
+The afternoon seemed very long. It rained; and nobody came in until
+the evening, when Mrs. Hilton's boy came with a letter. Miss Catherine
+had been to the post-office just before dinner, to send the money to
+Miss Ashton; and this surprised her very much. "It must have come by
+the seven-o'clock train," said she. "I never get letters from that
+way;" and she took it to the window, and looked curiously at the
+address, and at last she opened it. It was a pretty letter to look at,
+and it proved a pleasant one to read. It was from Alice West, Miss
+Ashton's niece; and Miss Catherine read it slowly, and felt as if she
+were in a dream.
+
+"My Dear Miss Spring,--My aunt, Miss Ashton, wishes me to write to
+you, to ask if it would be convenient for you to take us to board. We
+are very much disappointed here, and are glad we did not positively
+engage our rooms until we had seen them. It is a very damp house, and
+I am sure my aunt ought not to stay, and would be uncomfortable in
+many ways. We should like two rooms close to each other, and we were
+each to pay ten dollars a week here, but are perfectly willing to pay
+more than that. We are almost certain that we shall like your house;
+but perhaps it will be the better way for me to come down and see you,
+and then I can make all the arrangements. If Brookton suits my aunt,
+we may wish to stay as late as October; and should you mind if one of
+my friends comes to stay with us by and by? She would share my room.
+If you will write me to-morrow morning, and if you think you can take
+us, I will go down in the early afternoon train.
+
+"We hope you reached home all right, and that your friends were not
+much worried. We begin to think that your adventure was a fortunate
+thing for us. With kind regards from us both,
+
+   "Yours sincerely,
+
+      "Alice West."
+
+Did you ever know any thing more fortunate than this? Poor Miss
+Catherine sat down and cried about it; and the cat came and rubbed
+against her foot, and purred sympathizingly, and was taken up and wept
+over, which I believe had never happened to her before. Of all people,
+who could be pleasanter boarders than these? They had won her heart in
+the half-hour she had already spent with them. She had wished then
+that they were coming to her: it would be such a pleasure to make them
+comfortable. And twenty dollars a week,--that would surely be more
+than enough for them all to live upon with what she had beside. And
+there was Katy, who could save so many steps, and could wait on Miss
+Ashton; she would have the child come at once. She could have
+Mrs. Brown come every day for a while, beside Mondays and Tuesdays;
+and how glad she would be of the extra pay! Miss Catherine even went
+up stairs in the late June twilight, to look at the two familiar
+front-chambers, with only the small square hall separating them. They
+looked so pleasant, and were so airy and of such good size, they could
+not help being suited. She patted the pillow of her best bed
+affectionately, and thought with pride that they would find no fault
+with her way of cooking, and her house never was damp; there was not a
+better house in Brookton. Life had rarely looked brighter to Miss
+Catherine than it did that night.
+
+Alice West came down the next afternoon, and found the house and the
+rooms and Miss Catherine herself were all exactly what wise Miss
+Ashton had said they would be. And the two boarders thought themselves
+lucky to have found such a pleasant house for the summer; they were so
+considerate, and became favorites with many people beside their
+hostess. They brought a great deal of pleasure and good-will to sober
+little Brookton, as two cultivated, thoughtful, helpful women may make
+any place pleasanter if they choose. Miss Ashton is a help and a
+comfort and a pleasure wherever she goes, while Alice West is learning
+to be like her more and more every year. Miss Catherine remembered
+sometimes with great thankfulness, that it was the loss of her money
+for a while that had brought her these friends. Katy Dunning was so
+happy to go to live at Miss Spring's after all, and did her very
+best,--a patient, steady, willing little creature she was! and I am
+sure she never had had so many good times in her life as she did that
+summer.
+
+I might tell you so much more about these people, but a story must end
+somewhere. You may hope that Miss Catherine's fortunes bettered, and
+that she never will have to give up her home; that she can keep Katy
+all the time; that Miss Ashton will come back to Brookton the next
+year, and the next.
+
+I am sure you will think, in reading all this, just what I have
+thought as I told it,--and what Miss Catherine herself felt,--that it
+was such a wonderfully linked-together chain. All the time she thought
+she was going wrong, that it was a series of mistakes. "I never will
+be so miserable again," said she. "It was all ordered for the best;
+and may the Lord forgive me for doubting his care and goodness as I
+did that day!" It went straight to her heart the next Sunday, when the
+old minister said in his sermon, "Dear friends, do not let us forget
+what the Psalmist says, that the steps of a good man are ordered by
+the Lord. He plans the way we go; and so let us always try to see what
+he means in sending us this way or that. Do not let us go astray from
+wilfulness, or blame him for the work he gives us to do, or the
+burdens he gives us to carry, since he knows best."
+
+So often, in looking back, we find that what seemed the unluckiest day
+of the week really proved most fortunate, and what we called bad luck
+proved just the other thing. We trace out the good results of what we
+thought must make every thing go wrong: we say, "If it had not been
+for this or that, I should have missed and lost so much." I once
+happened to open a book of sermons, and to see the title of one,
+"Every Man's Life a Plan of God." I did not read the sermon itself,
+and have never seen the book again; but I have thought of it a great
+many times. Since it is true that our lives are planned with the
+greatest love and wisdom, must it not be that our sorrows and
+hindrances come just from our taking things wrong?
+
+And here, for the last of the story, is a verse that Robert Browning
+wrote, that Miss Ashton said one morning, and Miss Catherine liked:--
+
+     "Grow old along with me!
+      The best is yet to be,
+   The last of life, for which the first was made:
+      Our times are in His hand
+      Who saith 'A whole I planned,
+   Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!'"
+
+
+
+
+MR. BRUCE.
+
+
+Last summer (said Aunt Mary), while you were with your father in
+Canada, I met for the first time Miss Margaret Tennant of Boston, whom
+I had for years a great desire to see and know. My dear friend, Anne
+Langdon, has had from her girlhood two very intimate friends; and Miss
+Tennant is one, and I the other. Though we each had known the other
+through Anne, we had never seen each other before.
+
+I was at the mountains, and upon our being introduced we became very
+good friends immediately; and, from at first holding complimentary and
+interesting conversations concerning Anne in the hotel parlor, we came
+to taking long walks, and spending the most of our time together; and
+now we are as fond of each other as possible. When we parted in
+September, I had promised to visit her at her house in Boston in the
+winter; and, when she was ready for it, I was too.
+
+To my great delight, I found Anne there; and we three old maiden
+ladies enjoyed ourselves quite as well as if we were your age, my
+dear, with the world before us. Miss Margaret Tennant certainly keeps
+house most delightfully.
+
+She lives alone in the old Tennant house, in a pleasant street; and I
+think most of the Tennants, for a dozen generations back, must have
+been maiden ladies with exquisite taste and deep purses, just like
+herself; for every thing there is perfect of its kind, and its kind
+the right kind. Then she is such a popular person: it is charming to
+see the delight her friends have in her. For one thing, all the young
+ladies of her acquaintance--not to mention her nieces, who seem to bow
+down and worship her--are her devoted friends; and she often gives
+them dinners and tea parties, takes them to plays and concerts,
+matronizes them in the summer, takes them to drive in her handsome
+carriages, and is the repository of all their joys and sorrows, and, I
+have no doubt, knows them better than their fathers and mothers do,
+and has nearly as much influence over them. Elly, my dear, I wish you
+were one of the clan; for I'm afraid, between your careless papa and
+your wicked aunty, you haven't had the most irreproachable bringing
+up! But, she is coming to visit me in June, and we'll see what she can
+do for you!
+
+One night, while I was there, we were just home from a charming
+dinner-party at the house of her sister, Mrs. Bruce; and, as it was a
+very stormy night, we had come away early. Not being in the least
+tired, we sat ourselves down in our accustomed easy-chairs before the
+fire, for a talk, and were lazily making plans for the morrow; Miss
+Tennant telling us she should have the eight young ladies whom she
+knew best; the Quadrille as she calls them; to dine with us. I must
+tell you about that party some day, Elly. It was the nicest affair in
+its way I ever saw, and the girls were all such dear ones! I spoke of
+the company we had just left, and of my admiration of the Bruce family
+in general, and Mrs. Bruce in particular, and of my enjoyment of the
+evening.
+
+
+"Yes," said Margaret,  "I think Kitty is quite as young as her two
+daughters, and at their age she was more brilliant than either." She
+stopped talking for a moment, and then said, "Girls, are you in a
+hurry for bed?" (Elly! you ought to be ashamed of yourself for
+laughing! Just as if Anne Langdon and I were not as young as you and
+Nelly Cameron. There's no difference, sometimes, if we are fifty, and
+you twenty!)
+
+We were not in a hurry, and told her so.
+
+ "Then," said Margaret, "I will tell you a story. Anne knows it, or
+used to; but I doubt if she has thought of it these dozen years, and I
+do not think she will mind hearing it again. It is about Kitty and
+Mr. Bruce, and their first meeting; also divers singular
+misunderstandings which followed, finally ending in their peaceful
+wedding in this very room."
+
+Anne laughed; and I settled myself contentedly in my chair, for I had
+already found out that Miss Tennant possesses the art of telling a
+story capitally.
+
+"Kitty Bruce is three years older than I," said Margaret,--"though I
+dare say you do not believe me,--and consequently, at the time I was
+fifteen she was eighteen; and whereas I was in my first year at
+boarding-school, she was about finishing. I was at Mrs. Walkintwo's,
+where you and I met, Anne; and that, as you know, was a quiet place,
+where we were taught history and arithmetic, and the other 'solids,'
+and from which she had graduated the year before, and gone to Madame
+Riche's to acquire the extras and be 'finished.' Her beauty was very
+striking, and she was quite as entertaining and agreeable as she is
+now,--very witty and original, with the kindest heart in the world,
+and enjoying life to the utmost. In the Easter vacation of that year
+we were at home together; and one morning I was sitting with her in
+her chamber, and she was confiding to me some of the state secrets of
+her room at school, to my inexpressible delight, for it was my great
+ambition to be intimate with Kitty; and, you know, that elder sisters
+are often strangely blind to the virtues of the younger.
+
+"Mamma came in in the midst of it, with her usually cheerful face
+exceedingly clouded, so much so that both of us immediately asked what
+had happened.
+
+"'Happened!' said poor mamma, sitting down disconsolately on Kitty's
+bed, and helping herself, by way of relief, from a box of candy which
+lay there. 'I'm sure I don't know what I'm to do. Your father has just
+sent me a note from the office, saying he has invited four gentlemen
+to dine, and wishes to have every thing as nice as possible. I can
+send John for the dinner; and, of course, I don't mind that part of
+it, for there is time enough and to spare, and Peggy never fails me;
+but you know Hannah is away; and this morning a small Irish boy came
+for Ann, saying his sister is sick and she went away with him. About
+an hour ago another little wretch came to say she was obliged to go to
+Salem with the sister, and would be back to breakfast. Now, children,
+what shall I do for some one to wait on the table?
+
+"Kitty and I were as much posed as mamma. John, our coachman, was an
+immense Englishman, and perfectly unavailable as to taking upon
+himself any of Ann's duties save waiting upon the door. His daughter,
+who had been our nurse and was at that time seamstress, might have
+done very well, but she was away at Portsmouth; and as for Peggy, our
+dear old black cook, though I never knew any one to equal her in her
+realm, the kitchen, she had no idea of any thing out of it, and never
+had done any thing of this kind. It was raining in torrents, and none
+of us could go out; and we sat and looked at each other.
+
+"Suddenly Kitty clapped her hands. 'Mamma,' said she, 'read us their
+names again.'
+
+"So mamma read the names of two gentlemen from South America, and one
+from New Orleans, and that of Mr. Philip Bruce of London.
+
+"'All perfect strangers except to papa,' said Kitty joyfully; 'and
+they're interested in that South-American business of his, and are all
+on their way there very likely; and we shall never see them again.'
+
+"'Well, child, what has all this to do with Ann's being gone?'
+
+"'I'll tell you, mamma: I have the jolliest plan, and it will be such
+fun! I shall be so disappointed if you say no to me. It isn't the
+least harm, and I know it will make no trouble. Just let me wear one
+of Ann's white aprons and look stupid, you call me Katherine, and I'll
+wait on the table as well as she could. No one ever notices the
+servants, and I'm not like you or papa or Margaret. You can turn my
+portrait to the wall in the drawing-room, and they'll think it's
+somebody that is disinherited. Those gentlemen haven't the least
+particle of information concerning papa's family; they may be
+possessed of the delusion that he is a bachelor in lodgings, for all
+we know; and if any thing is said about your children, tell them that
+your sons are in college and your eldest daughter with a friend. Of
+course I shall be, whether I am with Peggy in the kitchen or standing
+behind you. Oh! I'd like it so much better than sitting at the table;
+and Peggy will never tell. Who will be the wiser?'
+
+"Mamma at first, though very much amused, shook her head, and said it
+was too foolish to be thought of; we could explain our troubles to the
+gentlemen, and get on as best we could; but Kate would not give up.
+Mamma gave some very good reasons; what should we do without Kitty to
+help entertain them? And any one,--though she knew it wouldn't be
+considered proper conduct in a mother to make such a remark,--any one
+would know Kate was not a servant. Papa, too, would want her to sing
+for them in the evening (for, though her voice is wonderfully sweet
+now, then she sang like a bird; and we were all very proud of the
+girl, as well we might be).
+
+"But she upset all mamma's arguments, asking her how in the world she
+entertained so much company unaided, during the years she was unable
+to appear on account of extreme youth. She was charmed to hear her say
+she was too good looking; but as to her being wanted to sing, just see
+if the whole five didn't go directly to the library, and if the
+waste-paper basket wasn't filled with papers covered with figures in
+the morning!
+
+"And so the end was, that mamma very reluctantly yielded to our
+teasing. Peggy, to whom the secret was instantly confided, nearly went
+into fits with laughing; and the more we all thought of it the more we
+were amused. Kitty suggested our total discomfiture in case papa
+brought home some one who knew her. I suggested, that, if it were any
+one we were intimate with, we take them into the secret, for I wished
+to see how Kate would carry it out; and if it were not, we might--and
+thereby I nearly ruined the whole affair--send for the 'lending' of
+Mrs. Duncan's Mary,--Mrs. Duncan being a great friend of ours, who
+lived only a door or two away. Such a pull as Kitty gave my dress when
+I mentioned it!
+
+"However, in due season papa appeared with the four strangers, who had
+been at the office with him all day, and, luckily, no one with them.
+He was duly made acquainted with the programme for the evening; and
+finding the plans all settled, and Kitty's heart evidently set upon
+them, he made but little opposition, considering the disappointment it
+probably was to him not to show his uncommonly nice little daughter.
+We three could hardly conceal our amusement when Kate entered the
+drawing-room to announce dinner; and it was made the harder for us by
+the queer little Irish brogue she had assumed for the occasion. The
+guests--one in particular--could evidently not account for so striking
+a display of beauty and grace in so humble a position.
+
+"The dinner went off capitally. Kitty was perfection; and the only way
+I could see that she betrayed herself was in having, for a moment or
+two, the most interested expression during a conversation we were all
+very much interested in. She told me afterward that she came very near
+giving her opinion,--and I know it would have been very sensible and
+original,--in the most decided manner. Wouldn't it have been shocking?
+
+"We sat a much longer time than usual. The three gentlemen from the
+South were middle-aged, and evidently absorbed in business; but the
+Englishman was not over thirty, and as handsome and agreeable as
+possible. He watched Kitty as often as he dared, to our great
+amusement; and once, as she left the room, seemed on the point of
+asking us about her. My dears, what could mamma have said?
+
+"Papa was overflowing with fun, and enjoyed it all very much. I could
+see he was nearly choking sometimes at Kitty's unnecessary 'Yis,
+sur-rs.' She never passed me a plate without giving me a poke; and, I
+dare say, reminded papa and mamma of her existence in the same way.
+
+"As she had prophesied, they excused themselves after dinner, and went
+to the library,--all but Mr. Bruce, who had no interest in South
+America. He had an engagement, and so left us in the course of half an
+hour. Conceive our amusement, when, just after we left the table,
+Kitty entered with a note on a waiter, and a message purporting to be
+from Miss Harriet Wolfe, to the effect that she would call for mamma
+to go to an afternoon concert the next day. I was just leaving the
+room as she entered; and I can tell you I hurried a bit after that;
+and, as I looked around at mamma to see how she bore it, she was
+holding a fan before her face, in a perfect convulsion of laughter;
+and there stood that wicked Kate, with her hands folded, waiting
+solemnly for the answer. Poor Miss Wolfe had died some years before,
+and had been stone-deaf at that! How mamma gave the answer, or excused
+her amusement, I have forgotten. Kitty did it, as she said then, for a
+grand finale to her masquerading; but as she says now, and I firmly
+believed at the time, for a parting look at the Englishman.
+
+"He went away, and Kitty came into the parlor, and we had a great
+laugh over our dinner-party; and the next day it was told to an
+admiring audience of three,--grandmamma and my two aunts; but I think
+the story never went any farther, as we did not even dare to tell my
+brothers. Ann probably wonders to this day who took her place.
+
+"The next Monday we went back to our two boarding-schools, and after a
+while we forgot the whole affair. Kitty finished school with high
+honors in July, and 'came out' in November, and was a great belle in
+Boston all that winter. I, in durance vile at Mrs. Walkintwo's, read
+her journal-letters to a select circle of friends; and they were a
+green spot in our so-considered desert of life.
+
+"Towards the last of the winter, papa's sister, for whom Kate was
+named, and who was very fond of her, sent for my sister to come to her
+for a visit of a few weeks during my uncle's absence. She wrote she
+would not have to suspend her pleasure in the least, as there had
+never been more gayety in Baltimore than at that time; and some young
+friends of Kitty's had that very day come from Europe, which was a
+great inducement. Baltimore was a kind of paradise to her, and her
+friends there were very dear ones. Her room-mate at Madame Riche's,
+who was her very best friend, lived quite near my uncle Hunter's, and
+she had not seen her for months. Besides, Boston was getting dull, and
+she was tired, and Baltimore air always made her well. So it was
+settled, and Kitty went.
+
+"Papa carried her on; and for the first week she had a cold, and was
+not out of the house. However, her letters were very happy ones; the
+contents being mostly abstracts of conversations between herself and
+the dear Alice Thornton, and bits of Baltimore gossip, in which I
+wasn't particularly interested. But the cold got better, and her
+letters grew rather shorter as she got farther into the round of
+parties and pleasure.
+
+"Finally there came a very thick letter, and there was something new
+on the stage. She wrote to me somewhat after this fashion, while
+staying with Miss Thornton:--
+
+"'You're not to tell this, Margie; but I'm getting involved in what
+seems to be a mystery. Ever since I've been here, the girls have
+talked to me of the most charming gentleman ever seen in Baltimore,
+and they all declared I must be introduced; so at last I got up quite
+a curiosity. They said he was an Englishman, very rich, and so
+handsome! why! if one were to believe their stories, he might be
+carried about for a show! He was said to be very reserved, and to pay
+very little attention to any of the young ladies. He knows
+Mr. Thornton, Alice's father; and they are good friends, so Alice has
+seen a good deal of him, and he has been more polite to her than to
+any one else.
+
+"'She had told him of me, and he seemed quite anxious to know me. She
+had promised to present him the very first chance, and that was last
+night at her party.
+
+"'I wish I had time to tell you about it. Every one says it was one of
+the most delightful ones ever given in Baltimore, and I did enjoy it
+wonderfully. But do let me tell you about the Englishman. It was about
+eleven before he came, and every thing was at its height. I was
+dancing with Mr. Dent; and the moment I stopped, up came Alice, with
+the most elegant-looking man I ever saw; and the strangest thing is,
+that I think now, and thought then, I have seen him somewhere before.
+He watched me intently as he crossed the room, and asked Alice, as she
+has told me to-day, who I was; and when she said, "That is Kitty
+Tennant," he looked as pleased as Punch. Don't tell mamma,' said
+Kitty. I keep wondering where it is I have met him; but I know I
+cannot have, for they say he is just from England. But you don't know
+how queerly he acted. All at once he looked as puzzled as could be;
+and by the time he was close to me he stared in the queerest way; and
+when Alice introduced us, he bowed, and said, "Haven't we met before,
+Miss Tennant?" I said, "I think so;" and said I wished he would help
+me remember, for I was very certain I had seen him.
+
+"'Suddenly it seemed to flash into his mind; and he said to himself,
+"It couldn't be." But I heard him; and after that he was a perfect
+icicle; and I didn't have the courage to ask him any questions, for I
+knew it was something horrid by his looks. He evidently mistakes me
+for some one, and it is so queer that I firmly believe I have seen
+him. He went away from me in a very few minutes, and staid only a
+half-hour or so, avoiding Alice all the time. I had promised all the
+dances, and was desperately' busy all night, having such a good time
+that I quite forgot this unpleasant affair. Alice came to me after the
+people were gone away, and said, "Kate Tennant, what did you say to
+the poor man?" And she seemed so utterly astonished when I told her
+what had happened. She cannot account for it any more than I can, and
+says it is as unlike him as possible. I don't know whether I have told
+you his name: it is Bruce.'"
+
+When Miss Tennant reached this point in her story, I laughed heartily
+(said Aunt Mary); and Anne and she laughed with me. "Why in the world
+didn't she know him," said I: "I should have thought the circumstances
+would have made her remember him always."
+
+Miss Tennant said, "Indeed, I should have thought so too. I know I
+should have recognized him myself if I had seen him; but Kitty was
+always the very worst person in the world to remember people, and it
+had happened a year before nearly. We always had a great many guests.
+
+"When I answered her letter, I said nothing about him; for I must
+confess that I did not recollect that the gentleman who stared so at
+Kitty the night she played waiter was Mr. Bruce of London; and,
+indeed, I didn't feel particularly interested; and my reply was
+probably filled as usual with an account of the exciting things that
+had happened to me at the school from which I so earnestly longed for
+deliverance.
+
+"Kitty wrote me very often; and once in a while she mentioned this
+strange Mr. Bruce, and finally it occurred to me that my sister was
+getting very much interested in him; and as I had a woeful dread of
+losing her, I expostulated with her concerning the foolishness of
+caring any thing for a man who had treated her in so uncourteous a
+way, and I laughed at her.
+
+"For some time after that she did not allude to him, and I had nearly
+forgotten him. At last there came a letter in which Kitty said, "I
+must tell you more of Mr. Bruce, if you _are_ tired to death hearing
+of him; for it is really a perfect mystery. I have seen him at a
+number of parties, watching me in the most earnest way, as if he
+enjoyed it and still was rather ashamed. But when we meet he is just
+as cool and distant as possible. Alice and I have missed his calls;
+and all the way he has betrayed the slightest interest in me to any
+one else is that he met a Miss Burt, who has only lived here a short
+time, and to whom he had been presented a night or two before. He
+asked her incidentally if she knew Miss Alice Thornton; and, when she
+said she did a very little, he asked who the young lady was visiting
+her. Miss Burt said she never had seen her, but some one had told her
+it was a young lady Miss Thornton had met at boarding-school. "Then
+she has never been here before?" said he. And Miss Burt thought not,
+indeed was quite sure, as she never had heard of me. Isn't it a pity
+he didn't ask some one who could tell him all about me?--and then he
+could know whether he had met me, of course.'
+
+"Now Kitty, in that same letter, confessed to me that she liked
+Mr. Bruce better than any one she had ever seen, which alarmed me so
+much that I remember I wrote her the most shocking scolding."
+
+And here Miss Tennant was silent for a little while, and, when she
+spoke, said,--
+
+"I see by your faces you're quite interested; and I think the rest of
+the story cannot be better told than by my reading you some of the
+letters Kitty wrote to me at the time. I'd like to look them over
+myself; and, if you are not in the least sleepy, I will go up to my
+room and get them."
+
+In a few minutes she returned; and after making the gas and fire a
+little brighter, and taking an observation on the state of the
+weather, she began to read:--
+
+   "Baltimore, Friday.
+
+"My forlorn young sister, are you mourning over the inconstancy of
+woman in general, and your sister Kitty in particular? I own up to
+being very naughty, and on my knees I ask your pardon for not having
+written all these days. I cannot tell you, as you invariably do me,
+that I have had nothing to write; for my time has been more fully
+occupied than usual. Tuesday night was Miss Carroll's party; and I
+wasn't home till--really not early, but late, in the morning. That
+party very nearly made me late to breakfast. Mr. Davenport was my
+'devotedest,' and has called since, which Alice and I think very
+remarkable. My dear Meg, he's the queerest man! He has the most
+dejected expression, as if life were the most terrible bore. One would
+think he had been all through with it before, and didn't enjoy it the
+first time. He seems to have an exceedingly well-developed taste for
+grief, and talks in the saddest way about things in general. I think
+lately his object in life has been to make me think he has some
+dreadful hidden sorrow. I know he hasn't, by his way; and I talk more
+nonsense to him in an hour than I ever did to any one else in a day. I
+cannot help 'taking rises' out of him, as we used to say at school.
+But he dances well, and knows every thing apparently; and he is ever
+so much more entertaining to me than the people who are just like
+every one else. Wednesday he sent me the most exquisite bouquet: it
+came while Alice and I were out walking. It was raining a little; but
+we were tired of the house, and went ever so far, having the most
+delightful talk. You ought to have seen Alice; for the mist gave her
+more color than usual, and she looked like a beauty, as she is. Oh how
+I want you to know her, Maggie! I never have said a word hardly about
+the delightful visit I am having here. Alice's mother, you know, died
+so long ago that she doesn't remember her at all; and she lived with
+her aunt till she was old enough for school, and her father travelled
+and boarded. Now he has taken this delightful house, and she is
+mistress of it. How she knows the first thing about housekeeping, I
+cannot imagine! But she certainly succeeds admirably. There never was
+a girl who had her own way so thoroughly: but her way is always very
+sensible; and, though she has had the most remarkable chance for
+becoming a spoiled child, she is the farthest from it. However, I will
+not expatiate. Thursday night Mr. Thornton gave a whist-party; and--do
+you think! one of the gentlemen was my Mr. Bruce. I dare say you are
+making the most awful face, Maggie, but I _will_ tell you about him;
+and why you scold me so I cannot imagine, for I think it is very
+exciting; and I know there is some good reason for his conduct, for he
+is a perfect gentleman, every one says; and my only fear is, that I
+shall never find out about it. I am constantly expecting to hear he is
+gone: I heard he was to sail last Monday positively. I should feel
+horridly. When Alice and I found Mr. Thornton had invited him, we laid
+a bet whether he would accept; but I was right. Mr. Thornton's
+invitations are seldom refused; but I don't think that was his motive.
+I won the bet. Yes, he really came, and that wretch of an Alice had
+the audacity to seat us side by side at supper. He was perfectly
+polite, but talked very little. I caught him watching me ever and ever
+so many times; and Alice declares he is in love with me. I wish he
+would tell me what is the matter with me, for I like him more and
+more; but don't tell mamma. I have scarcely mentioned him, because I
+know papa would tell me not to take any notice of him,--and I cannot
+help it. It is so nice I have you to tell about him. The only queer
+thing that happened was, in the course of the supper I was saying
+something to Mr. Dent, who was on my left, about Boston, in answer to
+some question. Mr. Bruce said, 'Did you ever live in Boston, Miss
+Tennant?' I answered that our family had always lived there, and I
+meant to; I had been away at school, however, most of the time for
+four years. 'Oh!' said he, and began to ask me something else, and
+stopped suddenly. I wish he had gone on, though perhaps it was only
+about some Boston people whom he met abroad. He never has been in this
+country before, you know. And he went on talking with Mr. Bowler, who
+sat just beyond him, and I found Mr. Dent was talking with
+Mr. Thornton; so I was left to myself, and was busy for a while over
+my oysters. I listened to Mr. Bowler and Mr. Bruce, talking about
+Mr. John Keith's marriage with his mother's nursery-maid, whom he had
+very sensibly fallen in love with. Mr. Bowler was saying that he had
+met her, and that she was remarkably ladylike, and did her teacher,
+whoever she might be, great credit. Mr. Bruce looked up, and saw I was
+listening,--everybody has been interested in the affair,--and said,
+'Oh, yes! I have known several instances of persons, having naturally
+a great deal of refinement, being taken from a low position when quite
+grown up, with their tastes and habits apparently firmly established;
+and, upon their being educated, one could scarcely tell that they had
+not always been used to the society they were in.' He appealed to me
+to know if I had not known such cases. I answered that I never had
+seen any such person myself, but that I had not the least doubt of its
+being possible. He looked at me a moment, and then said, carelessly as
+he could, 'Of course you haven't.' And it seemed to me he emphasized
+the 'you' just the least bit. One might have inferred I was just such
+a person myself. My dear little sister, what an enormous letter this
+is. Forgive me if you are bored; and love me dearly, as I do you.
+Alice sent her love before she went to sleep, where I shall follow her
+directly. She has been sweetly unconscious of the perplexing Mr. Bruce
+for at least an hour. I'll tell you every thing else that has happened
+in my next letter; and do you write very soon to your naughty sister
+
+   "KITTY."
+
+[In the next three or four letters, there is hardly enough mention of
+Mr. Bruce for me to copy them all out. He seems to be growing more and
+more agreeable, in spite of his evident determination to the contrary;
+and as for Miss Kitty, her letters show very plainly what her feelings
+were toward him; and here is the last of the letters which Miss
+Margaret Tennant brought, which explains the whole matter, to the
+great satisfaction of all concerned:--]
+
+"Maggy, my cross young sister,--I declare, I'm muddled, as the
+chambermaid used to say at school. I have fallen into a chronic state
+of laughter, I'm dying to tell Alice, and have sent for her; but she
+has callers, and I will begin this very minute to tell you. It is the
+middle of the morning, but I am just down: I was up very late last
+night; and oh, we had such fun! Just to think how poor Mr. Bruce and I
+have puzzled our brains about each other! It is all out now, and I'm
+so greatly relieved. I never knew how much I cared about it till now.
+I didn't stop to date my letter, but to-day is Thursday; and Monday
+morning, as you already know, Aunt Kate came home, to my great
+delight, though I was broken-hearted to leave Alice's, where I have
+had such a charming time. Uncle Rob's mother is very much better; and
+aunty doesn't think she will have to go back, and says I must finish
+my visit. But I cannot stop to write about that. I came back here in
+the afternoon; and, Tuesday morning, who should appear but uncle Rob
+from Savannah, two weeks before we expected him. That night, when he
+came home to dinner, he said with great glee, 'Kate, I saw young Bruce
+down town to-day, whom I met in London, and liked so very much. I have
+invited him to dine with us to-morrow. He is a capital young fellow;
+and I'm glad we have this young niece to help us entertain him. Have
+you never met him, Kitty? I'm not going to ask any one else, so I can
+have him all to myself. I want to ask him about my friends in London;
+and he tells me he has some letters and messages for me, with which he
+called at my office, probably just after I went South.' So he rattled
+on,--you know how fast he talks,--and presently Aunt Kate introduced
+some other subject, and I wasn't obliged to tell the state of affairs
+between us. I supposed, of course, Mr. Bruce would treat me in a
+proper and becoming manner in my uncle's house; and I thought--which
+proved true--that he might not know I was uncle's niece; and that it
+might help the matter a little. Oh, it is too funny, Meg! How you will
+laugh! About dinner-time Mr. Bruce came in with Uncle Rob, and he
+looked so astonished to see me there; and before uncle Rob had time to
+get any farther in the introduction than 'Mr. Bruce,' he said, 'Oh,
+yes! I have met Miss Tennant very often. Is Miss Thornton with you?'
+Uncle said, 'Kitty, why haven't you told me?' Mr. Bruce looked more
+surprised when uncle called me 'Kitty;' and, after that, he got more
+and more involved, as he saw me whisper to aunty, and take some work
+from a little cabinet, and act as if I belonged here. I explained to
+Uncle Rob that he had talked so fast the night before, that he didn't
+give me time to say I knew Mr. Bruce. We didn't wait long for dinner;
+and the way it was all explained was by my saying, 'Uncle Rob, if you
+please, I'll have some pepper.' Mr. Bruce started, and really was
+pale. He looked at me and at Uncle Rob and aunty. I never saw such an
+expression on any one's face. 'Will you allow me to ask what may seem
+a very impertinent question?' said he, 'are you Mr. Hunter's niece,
+Miss Tennant?'--'No,' I answered, 'but I'm Mrs. Hunter's.'--'Oh!' said
+he, 'I'm inexpressibly relieved: and yet I'm sure it was you; I cannot
+have been mistaken. There never could be another person so exactly
+like you, and I remember your face perfectly.' Here he blushed
+furiously; and, I regret to say, I did too. 'It's a dreadful question
+to have to ask Mrs. Robert Hunter's niece, and I beg you not to be
+offended with me; but was it you, or your wraith, who waited upon the
+table at a house where I dined, just a year ago, in Boston? I haven't
+the faintest idea what the name was. It was a gentleman to whom I had
+letters from my father, who had some business with him. He was
+exceedingly kind to me, and his house was charming; and he had such a
+pretty little daughter,'--hear that, Meg!--'and I have remembered the
+table-girl ever since. It cannot have been you; for I have heard you
+say you were always away at school, except in the summer; and yet I am
+so sure of your face and figure and hair and every thing about you,
+only you have lost a strong brogue you had then. Not you, of course,
+but the person I saw. I have been so foolishly sure about it, and
+supposed some one had become interested in you, as I was at the
+time,'--here he blushed again,--'and had educated you where you met
+Miss Thornton, and that you had a vast deal of tact, and were deluding
+her and her friends. I have treated you dreadfully, and Miss Alice
+too; and only the other night I had the most supreme contempt for you,
+because you were apparently so innocent concerning young women being
+raised above their station, and all that sort of thing. It would come
+over me once in a while that you could not be carrying this all out,
+and I didn't believe in my previous idea at all; and yet the face is
+the same. I am as much in the dark as ever,' said the poor man
+solemnly.
+
+
+"All this time I was pinching my fingers under the table to keep from
+laughing; but when he stopped, looking to me for a solution of all his
+troubles, with that ridiculously perplexed face, and I saw uncle Rob's
+and aunt Kitty's faces, it _would_ come, and I fairly shrieked, and
+rushed from the table into the library, and threw myself into an
+easy-chair; and I truly never laughed so in my life. I believe I had
+hysterics at last, and they came in in dismay. _Don't_ you know what
+it was, Margaret? _Don't_ you remember the day, last Easter vacation,
+when Ann had gone down to Salem with her sister, and papa had four
+strange gentlemen to dine with him, and I put on one of Ann's aprons,
+and waited on the table for fun? I think it was idiotic in me not to
+have recognized Mr. Bruce before. Only think how much it would have
+saved us! He was the handsome young Englishman who went to the
+drawing-room with you and mamma, instead of the library, and then went
+away early. You remember all about him now, don't you? I went back to
+the dining-room, and told the whole story from beginning to end, and
+if we didn't enjoy ourselves over it! Poor uncle Rob made himself ill
+with the extent of his laughter, and Mr. Bruce and I are the best of
+friends. Did you ever know any thing funnier to happen at
+Mrs. Walkintwo's? If you did, do write me. How I shall enjoy telling
+papa and mamma! There's Alice coming. Good-by, my dear. But wasn't he
+a goose?"
+
+"Knowing," said Miss Margaret, "that Kitty has been Mrs. Bruce for
+nearly thirty years, you can imagine what followed. Mr. Bruce made
+full amends for his rudeness, and after a while it came to their
+having long walks and talks together. Uncle Rob approved the match;
+and, when it was time for her to come home, Mr. Bruce wisely concluded
+to sail from Boston, and to serve as escort to Aunt Kate and Kitty. So
+he was all ready to ask papa's consent when he arrived, and it was
+readily given. He became his father's American partner, and they were
+married in a year or so, and settled down in the house we left
+to-night; for Kitty was always loyal to Boston, like the true Tennant
+that she is. And they have always been the happiest couple in the
+world, and Kitty's little personification of the absent Ann turned out
+more happily than her reluctant mamma had any idea of.
+
+"And now," said Miss Margaret, "the storm and the story are both over.
+It's nearly twelve, and the fire is low. Suppose we go up stairs."
+
+
+
+
+MISS SYDNEY'S FLOWERS.
+
+
+However sensible it may have been considered by other people, it
+certainly was a disagreeable piece of news to Miss Sydney, that the
+city authorities had decided to open a new street from St. Mary Street
+to Jefferson. It seemed a most unwarrantable thing to her that they
+had a right to buy her property against her will. It was so provoking,
+that, after so much annoyance from the noise of St. Mary Street during
+the last dozen years, she must submit to having another public
+thoroughfare at the side of her house also. If it had only been at the
+other side, she would not have minded it particularly; for she rarely
+sat in her drawing-room, which was at the left of the hall. On the
+right was the library, stately, dismal, and apt to be musty in damp
+weather; and it would take many bright people, and a blazing
+wood-fire, and a great deal of sunshine, to make it pleasant. Behind
+this was the dining-room, which was really bright and sunny, and which
+opened by wide glass doors into a conservatory. The rattle and clatter
+of St. Mary Street was not at all troublesome here; and by little and
+little Miss Sydney had gathered her favorite possessions from other
+parts of the house, and taken one end of it for her sitting-room. The
+most comfortable chairs had found their way here, and a luxurious
+great sofa which had once been in the library, as well as the bookcase
+which held her favorite books.
+
+The house had been built by Miss Sydney's grandfather, and in his day
+it had seemed nearly out of the city: now there was only one other
+house left near it; for one by one the quiet, aristocratic old street
+had seen its residences give place to shops and warehouses, and Miss
+Sydney herself had scornfully refused many offers of many thousand
+dollars for her home. It was so changed! It made her so sad to think
+of the dear old times, and to see the houses torn down, or the
+small-paned windows and old-fashioned front-doors replaced with French
+plate-glass to display better the wares which were to take the places
+of the quaint furniture and well-known faces of her friends! But Miss
+Sydney was an old woman, and her friends had diminished sadly. "It
+seems to me that my invitations are all for funerals in these days,"
+said she to her venerable maid Hannah, who had helped her dress for
+her parties fifty years before. She had given up society little by
+little. Her friends had died, or she had allowed herself to drift away
+from them, while the acquaintances from whom she might have filled
+their places were only acquaintances still. She was the last of her
+own family, and, for years before her father died, he had lived mainly
+in his library, avoiding society and caring for nothing but books; and
+this, of course, was a check upon his daughter's enjoyment of
+visitors. Being left to herself, she finally became content with her
+own society, and since his death, which followed a long illness, she
+had refused all invitations; and with the exception of the interchange
+of occasional ceremonious calls with perhaps a dozen families, and her
+pretty constant attendance at church, you rarely were reminded of her
+existence. And I must tell the truth: it was not easy to be intimate
+with her. She was a good woman in a negative kind of way. One never
+heard of any thing wrong she had done; and if she chose to live alone,
+and have nothing to do with people, why, it was her own affair. You
+never seemed to know her any better after a long talk. She had a very
+fine, courteous way of receiving her guests,--a way of making you feel
+at your ease more than you imagined you should when with her,--and a
+stately kind of tact that avoided skilfully much mention of
+personalities on either side. But mere hospitality is not attractive,
+for it may be given grudgingly, or, as in her case, from mere habit;
+for Miss Sydney would never consciously be rude to any one in her own
+house--or out of it, for that matter. She very rarely came in contact
+with children; she was not a person likely to be chosen for a
+confidante by a young girl; she was so cold and reserved, the elder
+ladies said. She never asked a question about the winter fashions,
+except of her dressmaker, and she never met with reverses in
+housekeeping affairs, and these two facts rendered her unsympathetic
+to many. She was fond of reading, and enjoyed heartily the pleasant
+people she met in books. She appreciated their good qualities, their
+thoughtfulness, kindness, wit, or sentiment; but the thought never
+suggested itself to her mind that there were living people not far
+away, who could give her all this, and more.
+
+If calling were not a regulation of society, if one only went to see
+the persons one really cared for, I am afraid Miss Sydney would soon
+have been quite forgotten. Her character would puzzle many people. She
+put no visible hinderance in your way; for I do not think she was
+consciously reserved and cold. She was thoroughly well-bred, rich, and
+in her way charitable; that is, she gave liberally to public
+subscriptions which came under her notice, and to church
+contributions. But she got on, somehow, without having friends; and,
+though the loss of one had always been a real grief, she learned
+without much trouble the way of living the lonely, comfortable, but
+very selfish life, and the way of being the woman I have tried to
+describe. There were occasional days when she was tired of herself,
+and life seemed an empty, formal, heartless discipline. Her wisest
+acquaintances pitied her loneliness; and busy, unselfish people
+wondered how she could be deaf to the teachings of her good clergyman,
+and blind to all the chances of usefulness and happiness which the
+world afforded her; and others still envied her, and wondered to whom
+she meant to leave all her money.
+
+I began by telling you of the new street. It was suggested that it
+should bear the name of Sydney; but the authorities decided finally to
+compliment the country's chief magistrate, and call it Grant Place.
+Miss Sydney did not like the sound of it. Her family had always been
+indifferent to politics, and indeed the kite of the Sydneys had flown
+for many years high above the winds that affect commonplace people.
+The new way from Jefferson Street to St. Mary was a great convenience,
+and it seemed to our friend that all the noisiest vehicles in the city
+had a preference for going back and forth under her windows. You see
+she did not suspect, what afterward became so evident, that there was
+to be a way opened into her own heart also, and that she should
+confess one day, long after, that she might have died a selfish old
+woman, and not have left one sorry face behind her, if it had not been
+for the cutting of Grant Place.
+
+The side of her conservatory was now close upon the sidewalk, and this
+certainly was not agreeable. She could not think of putting on her big
+gardening-apron, and going in to work among her dear plants any more,
+with all the world staring in at her as it went by. John the coachman,
+who had charge of the greenhouse, was at first very indignant; but,
+after he found that his flowers were noticed and admired, his anger
+was turned into an ardent desire to merit admiration, and he kept his
+finest plants next the street. It was a good thing for the greenhouse,
+because it had never been so carefully tended; and plant after plant
+was forced into luxuriant foliage and blossom. He and Miss Sydney had
+planned at first to have close wire screens made to match those in the
+dining-room; but now, when she spoke of his hurrying the workmen, whom
+she supposed had long since been ordered to make them, John said,
+"Indeed, mum, it would be the ruin of the plants shutting out the
+light; and they would all be rusted with the showerings I gives them
+every day." And Miss Sydney smiled, and said no more.
+
+The street was opened late in October, and, soon after, cold weather
+began in real earnest. Down in that business part of the city it was
+the strangest, sweetest surprise to come suddenly upon the long line
+of blooming plants and tall green lily-leaves under a roof festooned
+with roses and trailing vines. For the first two or three weeks,
+almost everybody stopped, if only for a moment. Few of Miss Sydney's
+own friends even had ever seen her greenhouse; for they were almost
+invariably received in the drawing-room. Gentlemen stopped the thought
+of business affairs, and went on down the street with a fresher,
+happier feeling. And the tired shop-girls lingered longest. Many a man
+and woman thought of some sick person to whom a little handful of the
+green leaves and bright blossoms, with their coolness and freshness,
+would bring so much happiness. And it was found, long months
+afterward, that a young man had been turned back from a plan of wicked
+mischief by the sight of a tall, green geranium, like one that bloomed
+in his mother's sitting-room way up in the country. He had not
+thought, for a long time before, of the dear old woman who supposed
+her son was turning his wits to good account in the  city. But Miss
+Sydney did not know how much he wished for a bit to put in his
+buttonhole when she indignantly went back to the dining-room to wait
+until that impertinent fellow stopped staring in.
+
+
+II.
+
+
+It was just about this time that Mrs. Marley made a change in her
+place of business. She had sold candy round the corner in Jefferson
+Street for a great many years; but she had suffered terribly from
+rheumatism all the winter before. She was nicely sheltered from too
+much sun in the summer; but the north winds of winter blew straight
+toward her; and after much deliberation, and many fears and
+questionings as to the propriety of such an act, she had decided to
+find another stand. You or I would think at first that it could make
+no possible difference where she sat in the street with her goods; but
+in fact one has regular customers in that business, as well as in the
+largest wholesale enterprise. There was some uncertainty whether these
+friends would follow her if she went away. Mrs. Marley's specialty was
+molasses-candy; and I am sure, if you ever chanced to eat any of it,
+you would look out for the old lady next time you went along the
+street. Times seemed very hard this winter. Not that trade had
+seriously diminished; but still the outlook was very dark. Mrs. Marley
+was old, and had been so for some years, so she was used to that; but
+somehow this fall she seemed to be growing very much older all of a
+sudden. She found herself very tired at night, and she was apt to lose
+her breath if she moved quickly; besides this, the rheumatism tortured
+her. She had saved only a few dollars, though she and her sister had
+had a comfortable living,--what they had considered comfortable, at
+least, though they sometimes had been hungry, and very often cold.
+They would surely go to the almshouse sooner or later,--she and her
+lame old sister Polly.
+
+It was Polly who made the candy which Mrs. Marley sold. Their two
+little rooms were up three flights of stairs; and Polly, being too
+lame to go down herself, had not been out of doors in seven years.
+There was nothing but roofs and sky to be seen from the windows; and,
+as there was a manufactory near, the sky was apt to be darkened by its
+smoke. Some of the neighbors dried their clothes on the roofs, and
+Polly used to be very familiar with the apparel of the old residents,
+and exceedingly interested when a strange family came, and she saw
+something new. There was a little bright pink dress that the trig
+young French woman opposite used to hang out to dry; and somehow poor
+old Polly used always to be brightened and cheered by the sight of it.
+Once in a while she caught a glimpse of the child who wore it. She
+hardly ever thought now of the outside world when left to herself, and
+on the whole she was not discontented. Sister Becky used to have a
+great deal to tell her sometimes of an evening. When Mrs. Marley told
+her in the spring twilight that the grass in the square was growing
+green, and that she had heard a robin, it used to make Polly feel
+homesick; for she was apt to think much of her childhood, and she had
+been born in the country. She was very deaf, poor soul, and her world
+was a very forlorn one. It was nearly always quite silent, it was very
+small and smoky out of doors, and very dark and dismal within.
+Sometimes it was a hopeless world, because the candy burnt; and if
+there had not been her Bible and hymn-book, and a lame pigeon that lit
+on the window-sill to be fed every morning, Miss Polly would have
+found her time go heavily.
+
+One night Mrs. Marley came into the room with a cheerful face, and
+said very loud, "Polly, I've got some news!" Polly knew by her
+speaking so loud that she was in good-humor. When any thing
+discouraging had happened, Becky spoke low, and then was likely to be
+irritated when asked to repeat her remark.
+
+"Dear heart!" said Mrs. Marley, "now I am glad you had something hot
+for supper. I was turning over in my mind what we could cook up, for I
+feel real hollow. It's a kind of chilly day." And she sat down by the
+stove, while Polly hobbled to the table, with one hand to her ear to
+catch the first sound of the good news, and the other holding some
+baked potatoes in her apron. That hand was twisted with rheumatism,
+for the disease ran in the family. She was afraid every day that she
+should have to give up making the candy on the next; for it hurt her
+so to use it. She was continually being harrowed by the idea of its
+becoming quite useless, and that the candy might not be so good; and
+then what would become of them? Becky Marley was often troubled by the
+same thought. Yet they were almost always good-natured, poor old
+women; and, though Polly Sharpe's pleasures and privileges were by far
+the fewest of anybody's I ever knew, I think she was as glad in those
+days to know the dandelions were in bloom as if she could see them;
+and she got more good from the fragments of the Sunday-morning sermon
+that sister Becky brought home than many a listener did from the whole
+service.
+
+The potatoes were done to a turn, Mrs. Marley shouted; and then Polly
+sat down close by her to hear the news.
+
+"You know I have been worrying about the cold weather a-coming, and my
+rheumatics; and I was afeared to change my stand, on account of losing
+custom. Well, to-day it all come over me to once that I might move
+down a piece on Grant Place,--that new street that's cut through to
+St. Mary. I've noticed for some time past that almost all my reg'lar
+customers turns down that way, so this morning I thought I'd step down
+that way too, and see if there was a chance. And after I gets into the
+street I sees people stopping and looking at something as they went
+along; and so I goes down to see; and it is one of them hothouses,
+full of plants a-growing like it was mid-summer. It belongs to the big
+Sydney house on the corner. There's a good place to sit right at the
+corner of it, and I'm going to move over there to-morrow. I thought as
+how I wouldn't leave Jefferson Street to-day, for it was too sudden.
+You see folks stops and looks at the plants, and there wasn't any wind
+there to-day. There! I wish you could see them flowers."
+
+Sister Polly was very pleased, and, after the potatoes and bread were
+eaten, she brought on an apple pie that had been sent up by
+Mrs. Welch, the washer-woman who lived on the floor next but one
+below. She was going away for three or four days, having been offered
+good pay to do some cleaning in a new house, and her board besides,
+near her work. So you see that evening was quite a jubilee.
+
+The next day Mrs. Marley's wildest expectations were realized; for she
+was warm as toast the whole morning, and sold all her candy, and went
+home by two o'clock. That had never happened but once or twice before.
+"Why, I shouldn't wonder if we could lay up considerable this winter,"
+said she to Polly.
+
+Miss Sydney did not like the idea of the old candy-woman's being
+there. Children came to buy of her, and the street seemed noisier than
+ever at times. Perhaps she might have to leave the house, after all.
+But one may get used to almost any thing; and as the days went by she
+was surprised to find that she was not half so much annoyed as at
+first; and one afternoon she found herself standing at one of the
+dining-room windows, and watching the people go by. I do not think she
+had shown so much interest as this in the world at large for many
+years. I think it must have been from noticing the pleasure her
+flowers gave the people who stopped to look at them that she began to
+think herself selfish, and to be aware how completely indifferent she
+had grown to any claims the world might have upon her. And one
+morning, when she heard somebody say, "Why, it's like a glimpse into
+the tropics! Oh! I wish I could have such a conservatory!" she
+thought, "Here I have kept this all to myself for all these years,
+when so many others might have enjoyed it too!" But then the old
+feeling of independence came over her. The greenhouse was out of
+people's way; she surely couldn't have let people in whom she didn't
+know; however, she was glad, now that the street was cut, that some
+one had more pleasure, if she had not. After all, it was a
+satisfaction to our friend; and from this time the seeds of kindness
+and charity and helpfulness began to show themselves above the ground
+in the almost empty garden of her heart. I will tell you how they grew
+and blossomed; and as strangers came to see her real flowers, and to
+look in at the conservatory windows from the cold city street, instead
+of winter to see a bit of imprisoned summer, so friend after friend
+came to find there was another garden in her own heart, and Miss
+Sydney learned the blessedness there is in loving and giving and
+helping.
+
+For it is sure we never shall know what it is to lack friends, if we
+keep our hearts ready to receive them. If we are growing good and kind
+and helpful, those who wish for help and kindness will surely find us
+out. A tree covered with good fruit is never unnoticed in the fields.
+If we bear thorns and briers, we can't expect people to take very
+great pains to come and gather them. It is thought by many persons to
+be not only a bad plan, but an ill-bred thing, to give out to more
+than a few carefully selected friends. But it came to her more and
+more that there was great selfishness and short-sightedness in this.
+One naturally has a horror of dragging the secrets and treasures of
+one's heart and thought out to the light of day. One may be willing to
+go without the good that may come to one's own self through many
+friendships; but, after all, God does not teach us, and train our
+lives, only that we may come to something ourselves. He helps men most
+through other men's lives; and we must take from him, and give out
+again, all we can, wherever we can, remembering that the great God is
+always trying to be the friend of the least of us. The danger is, that
+we oftenest give our friendship selfishly; we do not think of our
+friends, but of ourselves. One never can find one's self beggared;
+love is a treasure that does not lessen, but grows, as we spend it.
+
+The passers-by seemed so delighted with some new plants which she and
+John had arranged one day, that, as she was going out in the afternoon
+to drive, she stopped just as she was going to step into the carriage,
+and said she thought she would go round and look at the conservatory
+from the outside. So John turned the horses, and followed. It was a
+very cold day, and there were few people in the street. Every thing
+was so cheerless out of doors, and the flowers looked so summer-like!
+No wonder the people liked to stop, poor souls! For the richer, more
+comfortable ones lived farther up town. It was not in the shopping
+region; and, except the business-men who went by morning and evening,
+almost every one was poor.
+
+Miss Sydney had never known what the candy-woman sold before, for she
+could not see any thing but the top of her rusty black bonnet from the
+window. But now she saw that the candy was exactly like that she and
+her sister used to buy years upon years ago; and she stopped to speak
+to the old woman, and to buy some, to the utter amazement of her
+coachman. Mrs. Marley was excited by so grand a customer, and was a
+great while counting out the drumsticks, and wrapping them up. While
+Miss Sydney stood there, a thin, pitiful little girl came along,
+carrying a clumsy baby. They stopped, and the baby tried to reach down
+for a piece. The girl was quite as wistful; but she pulled him back,
+and walked on to the flowers. "Oh! pitty, pitty!" said the baby, while
+the dirty little hands patted the glass delightedly.
+
+"Move along there," said John gruffly; for it was his business to keep
+that glass clean and bright.
+
+The girl looked round, frightened, and, seeing that the coachman was
+big and cross-looking, the forlorn little soul went away. "Baby want
+to walk? You're so heavy!" said she in a fretful, tired way. But the
+baby was half crying, and held her tight. He had meant to stay some
+time longer, and look at those pretty, bright things, since he could
+not have the candy.
+
+Mrs. Marley felt as if her customer might think her stingy, and
+proceeded to explain that she couldn't think of giving her candy away.
+"Bless you, ma'am, I wouldn't have a stick left by nine o'clock."
+
+Miss Sydney "never gave money to street-beggars." But these children
+had not begged, and somehow she pitied them very much, they looked so
+hungry. And she called them back. There was a queer tone to her voice;
+and she nearly cried after she had given the package of candy to them,
+and thrown a dollar upon the board in front of Mrs. Marley, and found
+herself in the carriage, driving away. Had she been very silly? and
+what could John have thought? But the children were so glad; and the
+old candy-woman had said, "God bless you, mum!"
+
+After this, Miss Sydney could not keep up her old interest in her own
+affairs. She felt restless and dissatisfied, and wondered how she
+could have done the same things over and over so contentedly for so
+many years. You may be sure, that, if Grant Place had been unthought
+of, she would have lived on in the same fashion to the end of her
+days. But after this she used to look out of the window; and she sat a
+great deal in the conservatory, when it was not too warm there, behind
+some tall callas. The servants found her usually standing in the
+dining-room; for she listened for footsteps, and was half-ashamed to
+have them notice that she had changed in the least. We are all given
+to foolish behavior of this kind once in a while. We are often
+restrained because we feel bound to conform to people's idea of us. We
+must be such persons as we imagine our friends think us to be. They
+believe that we have made up our minds about them, and are apt to show
+us only that behavior which they think we expect. They are afraid of
+us sometimes. They think we cannot sympathize with them. Our friend
+felt almost as if she were yielding to some sin in this strange
+interest in the passers-by. She had lived so monotonous a life, that
+any change could not have failed to be somewhat alarming. She told
+Bessie Thorne afterward, that one day she came upon that verse of
+Keble's Hymn for St. Matthew's Day. Do you remember it?--
+
+  "There are, in this loud, stunning tide
+      Of human care and crime,
+   With whom the melodies abide
+      Of the everlasting chime;
+   Who carry music in their heart
+   Through dusky lane and wrangling mart,
+      Plying their daily task with busier feet
+      Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat."
+
+It seemed as if it were a message to herself, and she could not help
+going to the window a few minutes afterward. The faces were mostly
+tired-looking and dissatisfied. Some people looked very eager and
+hurried, but none very contented. It was the literal daily bread they
+thought of; and, when two fashionably-dressed ladies chanced to go by
+the window, their faces were strangely like their poorer neighbors in
+expression. Miss Sydney wondered what the love for one's neighbor
+could be; if she could ever feel it herself. She did not even like
+these people whom she watched, and yet every day, for years and years,
+she had acknowledged them her brothers and sisters when she said, "Our
+Father who art in heaven."
+
+It seemed as if Miss Sydney, of all people, might have been
+independent and unfettered. It is so much harder for us who belong to
+a family for we are hindered by the thought of people's noticing our
+attempts at reform. It is like surrendering some opinion ignominiously
+which we have fought for. It is a kind of "giving in." But when she
+had acknowledged to herself that she had been in the wrong, that she
+was a selfish, thoughtless old woman, that she was alone, without
+friends, and it had been her own fault, she was puzzled to know how to
+do better. She could not begin to be very charitable all at once. The
+more she realized what her own character had become, the more hopeless
+and necessary seemed reform.
+
+Such times as this come to many of us, both in knowing ourselves and
+our friends. An awakening, one might call it,--an opening of the blind
+eyes of our spiritual selves. And our ears are open to some of the
+voices which call us; while others might as well be silent, for all
+the heed we give them. We go on, from day to day, doing, with more or
+less faithfulness, that part of our work we have wit enough to
+comprehend; but one day suddenly we are shown a broader field,
+stretching out into the distance, and know that from this also we may
+bring in a harvest by and by, and with God's help.
+
+Miss Sydney meant to be better,--not alone for the sake of having
+friends, not alone to quiet her conscience, but because she knew she
+had been so far from living a Christian life, and she was bitterly
+ashamed. This was all she needed,--all any of us need,--to know that
+we must be better men and women for God's sake; that we cannot be
+better without his help, and that his help may be had for the asking.
+But where should she begin? She had always treated her servants
+kindly, and they were the people she knew best. She would surely try
+to be more interested in the friends she met; but it was nearly
+Christmas time, and people rarely came to call. Every one was busy.
+Becky Marley's cheery face haunted her; and one day after having
+looked down from the window on the top of her bonnet, she remembered
+that she did not get any candy, after all, and she would go round to
+see the old lady again, she looked poor, and she would give her some
+money. Miss Sydney dressed herself for the street, and closed the door
+behind her very carefully, as if she were a mischievous child running
+away. It was very cold, and there were hardly a dozen persons to be
+seen in the streets, and Mrs. Marley had evidently been crying.
+
+"I should like some of your candy," said our friend. "You know I
+didn't take any, after all, the other day." And then she felt very
+conscious and awkward, fearing that the candy-woman thought she wished
+to remind her of her generosity.
+
+"Two of the large packages, if you please. But, dear me! aren't you
+very cold, sitting here in the wind?" and Miss Sydney shivered, in
+spite of her warm wrappings.
+
+It was the look of sympathy that was answered first, for it was more
+comforting than even the prospect of money, sorely as Mrs. Marley
+needed that.
+
+"Yes, mum, I've had the rheumatics this winter awful. But the wind
+here!--why, it ain't nothing to what it blows round in Jefferson
+Street, where I used to sit. I shouldn't be out to-day, but I was
+called upon sudden to pay my molasses bill, when I'd just paid my
+rent; and I don't know how ever I can. There's sister Polly--she's
+dead lame and deaf. I s'pose we'll both be in the almshouse afore
+spring. I'm an old woman to be earning a living out o' doors in winter
+weather."
+
+There was no mistaking the fact that Miss Sydney was in earnest when
+she said, "I'm so sorry! Can't I help you?"
+
+Somehow she did not feel so awkward, and she enjoyed very much hearing
+this bit of confidence.
+
+"But my trade has improved wonderful since I came here. People mostly
+stops to see them beautiful flowers; and then they sees me, and stops
+and buys something. Well, there's some days when I gets down-hearted,
+and I just looks up there, and sees them flowers blooming so cheerful,
+and I says, 'There! this world ain't all cold and poor and old, like I
+be; and the Lord he ain't never tired of us, with our worrying about
+what he's a-doing with us; and heaven's a-coming before long anyhow!'"
+And the Widow Marley stopped to dry her eyes with the corner of her
+shawl.
+
+Miss Sydney asked her to go round to the kitchen, and warm herself;
+and, on finding out more of her new acquaintance's difficulties, she
+sent her home happy, with money enough to pay the dreaded bill, and a
+basket of good things which furnished such a supper for herself and
+sister Polly as they had not seen for a long time. And their fortunes
+were bettered from that day. "If it hadn't been for the flowers, I
+should ha' been freezing my old bones on Jefferson Street this minute,
+I s'pose," said the Widow Marley.
+
+Miss Sydney went back to the dining-room after her _protegee_ had
+gone, and felt a comfortable sense of satisfaction in what she had
+done. It had all come about in such an easy way too! A little later
+she went into the conservatory, and worked among her plants. She
+really felt so much younger and happier; and once, as she stood still,
+looking at some lilies-of-the-valley that John had been forcing into
+bloom, she did not notice that a young lady was looking through the
+window at her very earnestly.
+
+
+III.
+
+
+That same evening Mrs. Thorne and Bessie were sitting up late in their
+library. It was snowing very fast, and had been since three o'clock;
+and no one had called. They had begun the evening by reading and
+writing, and now were ending it with a talk.
+
+"Mamma," said Bessie, after there had been a pause, "whom do you
+suppose I have taken a fancy to? And do you know, I pity her so
+much!--Miss Sydney."
+
+"But I don't know that she is so much to be pitied," said Mrs. Thorne,
+smiling at the enthusiastic tone. "She must have every thing she
+wants. She lives all alone, and hasn't any intimate friends, but, if a
+person chooses such a life, why, what can we do? What made you think
+of her?"
+
+"I have been trying to think of one real friend she has. Everybody is
+polite enough to her, and I never heard that any one disliked her; but
+she must be forlorn sometimes. I came through that new street by her
+house to-day: that's how I happened to think of her. Her greenhouse is
+perfectly beautiful, and I stopped to look in. I always supposed she
+was cold as ice (I'm sure she looks so); but she was standing out in
+one corner, looking down at some flowers with just the sweetest face.
+Perhaps she is shy. She used to be very good-natured to me when I was
+a child, and used to go there with you. I don't think she knows me
+since I came home: at any rate, I mean to go to see her some day."
+
+"I certainly would," said Mrs. Thorne. "She will be perfectly polite
+to you, at all events. And perhaps she may be lonely, though I rather
+doubt it; not that I wish to discourage you, my dear. I haven't seen
+her in a long time, for we have missed each other's calls. She never
+went into society much; but she used to be a very elegant woman, and
+is now, for that matter."
+
+"I pity her," said Bessie persistently. "I think I should be very fond
+of her if she would let me. She looked so kind as she stood among the
+flowers to-day! I wonder what she was thinking about. Oh! do you think
+she would mind if I asked her to give me some flowers for the
+hospital?"
+
+Bessie Thorne is a very dear girl. Miss Sydney must have been
+hard-hearted if she had received her coldly one afternoon a few days
+afterward, she seemed so refreshingly young and girlish a guest as she
+rose to meet the mistress of that solemn, old-fashioned drawing-room.
+Miss Sydney had had a re-action from the pleasure her charity had
+given her, and was feeling bewildered, unhappy, and old that day.
+"What can she wish to see me for, I wonder?" thought she, as she
+closed her book, and looked at Miss Thorne's card herself, to be sure
+the servant had read it right. But, when she saw the girl herself, her
+pleasure showed itself unmistakably in her face.
+
+"Are you really glad to see me?" said Bessie in her frankest way, with
+a very gratified smile. "I was afraid you might think it was very odd
+in me to come. I used to like so much to call upon you with mamma when
+I was a little girl! And the other day I saw you in your conservatory,
+and I have wished to come and see you ever since."
+
+"I am very glad to see you, my dear," said Miss Sydney, for the second
+time. "I have been quite forgotten by the young people of late years.
+I was sorry to miss Mrs. Thorne's call. Is she quite well? I meant to
+return it one day this week, and I thought only last night I would ask
+about you. You have been abroad, I think?"
+
+Was not this an auspicious beginning? I cannot tell you all that
+happened that afternoon, for I have told so long a story already. But
+you will imagine it was the beginning of an intimacy that gave great
+pleasure, and did great good, to both the elder woman and the younger.
+It is hard to tell the pleasure which the love and friendship of a
+fresh, bright girl like Bessie Thorne, may give an older person. There
+is such a satisfaction in being convinced that one is still
+interesting and still lovable, though the years that are gone have
+each kept some gift or grace, and the possibilities of life seem to
+have been realized and decided. There are days of our old age when
+there seems so little left in life, that living is a mere formality.
+This busy world seems done with the old, however dear their memories
+of it, however strong their claims upon it. They are old: their life
+now is only waiting and resting. It may be quite right that we
+sometimes speak of second childhood, because we must be children
+before we are grown; and the life to come must find us, will find us,
+ready for service. Our old people have lived in the world so long;
+they think they know it so well: but the young man is master of the
+trade of living, and the old man only his blundering apprentice.
+
+Miss Sydney's solemnest and most unprepared servant was startled to
+find Bessie Thorne and his mistress sitting cosily together before the
+dining-room fire. Bessie had a paper full of cut flowers to leave at
+the Children's Hospital on her way home. Miss Sydney had given
+liberally to the contribution for that object; but she never had
+suspected how interesting it was until Bessie told her, and she said
+she should like to go some day, and see the building and its occupants
+for herself. And the girl told her of other interests that were near
+her kind young heart,--not all charitable interests,--and they parted
+intimate friends.
+
+"I never felt such a charming certainty of being agreeable," wrote
+Bessie that night to a friend of hers. "She seemed so interested in
+every thing, and, as I told you, so pleased with my coming to see her.
+I have promised to go there very often. She told me in the saddest way
+that she had been feeling so old and useless and friendless, and she
+was very confidential. Imagine her being confidential with me! She
+seemed to me just like myself as I was last year,--you remember,--just
+beginning to realize what life ought to be, and trying, in a
+frightened, blind kind of way, to be good and useful. She said she was
+just beginning to understand her selfishness. She told me I had done
+her ever so much good; and I couldn't help the tears coming into my
+eyes. I wished so much you were there, or some one who could help her
+more; but I suppose God knew when he sent me. Doesn't it seem strange
+that an old woman should talk to me in this way, and come to me for
+help? I am afraid people would laugh at the very idea. And only to
+think of her living on and on, year after year, and then being changed
+so! She kissed me when I came away, and I carried the flowers to the
+hospital. I shall always be fond of that conservatory, because, if I
+hadn't stopped to look in that day, I might never have thought of her.
+
+"There was one strange thing happened, which I must tell you about,
+though it is so late. She has grown very much interested in an old
+candy-woman, and told me about her; and do you know that this evening
+uncle Jack came in, and asked if we knew of anybody who would do for
+janitress--at the Natural History rooms, I think he said. There is
+good pay, and she would just sell catalogues, and look after things a
+little. Of course the candy-woman may not be competent; but, from what
+Miss Sydney told me, I think she is just the person."
+
+The next Sunday the minister read this extract from "Queen's Gardens"
+in his sermon. Two of his listeners never had half understood its
+meaning before as they did then. Bessie was in church, and Miss Sydney
+suddenly turned her head, and smiled at her young friend, to the great
+amazement of the people who sat in the pews near by. What _could_ have
+come over Miss Sydney?
+
+"The path of a good woman is strewn with flowers; but they rise
+_behind_ her steps, not before them. 'Her feet have touched the
+meadow, and left the daisies rosy.' Flowers flourish in the garden of
+one who loves them. A pleasant magic it would be if you could flush
+flowers into brighter bloom by a kind look upon them; nay, more, if a
+look had the power not only to cheer but to guard them. This you would
+think a great thing? And do you think it not a greater thing that all
+this, and more than this, you can do for fairer flowers than
+these,--flowers that could bless you for having blessed them, and will
+love you for having loved them,--flowers that have eyes like yours,
+and thoughts like yours, and lives like yours?"
+
+
+
+
+LADY FERRY.
+
+
+We have an instinctive fear of death; yet we have a horror of a life
+prolonged far beyond the average limit: it is sorrowful; it is
+pitiful; it has no attractions.
+
+This world is only a schoolroom for the larger life of the next. Some
+leave it early, and some late: some linger long after they seem to
+have learned all its lessons. This world is no heaven: its pleasures
+do not last even through our little lifetimes.
+
+There are many fables of endless life, which in all ages have caught
+the attention of men; we are familiar with the stories of the old
+patriarchs who lived their hundreds of years: but one thinks of them
+wearily, and without envy.
+
+-----
+
+When I was a child, it was necessary that my father and mother should
+take a long sea-voyage. I never had been separated from them before;
+but at this time they thought it best to leave me behind, as I was not
+strong, and the life on board ship did not suit me. When I was told of
+this decision, I was very sorry, and at once thought I should be
+miserable without my mother; besides, I pitied myself exceedingly for
+losing the sights I had hoped to see in the country which they were to
+visit. I had an uncontrollable dislike to being sent to school, having
+in some way been frightened by a maid of my mother's, who had put many
+ideas and aversions into my head which I was many years in outgrowing.
+Having dreaded this possibility, it was a great relief to know that I
+was not to be sent to school at all, but to be put under the charge of
+two elderly cousins of my father,--a gentleman and his wife whom I had
+once seen, and liked dearly. I knew that their home was at a fine
+old-fashioned country-place, far from town, and close beside a river,
+and I was pleased with this prospect, and at once began to make
+charming plans for the new life.
+
+I had lived always with grown people, and seldom had had any thing to
+do with children. I was very small for my age, and a strange mixture
+of childishness and maturity; and, having the appearance of being
+absorbed in my own affairs, no one ever noticed me much, or seemed to
+think it better that I should not listen to the conversation. In spite
+of considerable curiosity, I followed an instinct which directed me
+never to ask questions at these times: so I often heard stray
+sentences which puzzled me, and which really would have been made
+simple and commonplace at once, if I had only asked their meaning. I
+was, for the most of the time, in a world of my own. I had a great
+deal of imagination, and was always telling myself stories; and my
+mind was adrift in these so much, that my real absent-mindedness was
+mistaken for childish unconcern. Yet I was a thoroughly simple,
+unaffected child. My dreams and thoughtfulness gave me a certain tact
+and perception unusual in a child; but my pleasures were as deep in
+simple things as heart could wish.
+
+It happened that our cousin Matthew was to come to the city on
+business the week that the ship was to sail, and that I could stay
+with my father and mother to the very last day, and then go home with
+him. This was much pleasanter than leaving sooner under the care of an
+utter stranger, as was at first planned. My cousin Agnes wrote a kind
+letter about my coming which seemed to give her much pleasure. She
+remembered me very well, and sent me a message which made me feel of
+consequence; and I was delighted with the plan of making her so long a
+visit.
+
+One evening I was reading a story-book, and I heard my father say in
+an undertone, "How long has madam been at the ferry this last time?
+Eight or ten years, has she not? I suppose she is there yet?"--"Oh,
+yes!" said my mother, "or Agnes would have told us. She spoke of her
+in the last letter you had, while we were in Sweden."
+
+"I should think she would be glad to have a home at last, after her
+years of wandering about. Not that I should be surprised now to hear
+that she had disappeared again. When I was staying there while I was
+young, we thought she had drowned herself, and even had the men search
+for her along the shore of the river; but after a time cousin Matthew
+heard of her alive and well in Salem; and I believe she appeared again
+this last time as suddenly as she went away."
+
+"I suppose she will never die," said my mother gravely. "She must be
+terribly old," said my father. "When I saw her last, she had scarcely
+changed at all from the way she looked when I was a boy. She is even
+more quiet and gentle than she used to be. There is no danger that the
+child will have any fear of her; do you think so?"--"Oh, no! but I
+think I will tell her that madam is a very old woman, and that I hope
+she will be very kind, and try not to annoy her; and that she must not
+be frightened at her strange notions. I doubt if she knows what
+craziness is."--"She would be wise if she could define it," said my
+father with a smile. "Perhaps we had better say nothing about the old
+lady. It is probable that she stays altogether in her own room, and
+that the child will rarely see her. I never have realized until lately
+the horror of such a long life as hers, living on and on, with one's
+friends gone long ago: such an endless life in this world!"
+
+Then there was a mysterious old person living at the ferry, and there
+was a question whether I would not be "afraid" of her. She "had not
+changed" since my father was a boy: "it was horrible to have one's
+life endless in this world!"
+
+The days went quickly by. My mother, who was somewhat of an invalid,
+grew sad as the time drew near for saying good-by to me, and was more
+tender and kind than ever before, and more indulgent of every wish and
+fancy of mine. We had been together all my life, and now it was to be
+long months before she could possibly see my face again, and perhaps
+she was leaving me forever. Her time was all spent, I believe, in
+thoughts for me, and in making arrangements for my comfort. I did see
+my mother again; but the tears fill my eyes when I think how dear we
+became to each other before that first parting, and with what a
+lingering, loving touch, she herself packed my boxes, and made sure,
+over and over again, that I had whatever I should need; and I remember
+how close she used to hold me when I sat in her lap in the evening,
+saying that she was afraid I should have grown too large to be held
+when she came back again. We had more to say to each other than ever
+before, and I think, until then, that my mother never had suspected
+how much I observed of life and of older people in a certain way; that
+I was something more than a little child who went from one interest to
+another carelessly. I have known since that my mother's childhood was
+much like mine. She, however, was timid, while I had inherited from my
+father his fearlessness, and lack of suspicion; and these qualities,
+like a fresh wind, swept away any cobwebs of nervous anticipation and
+sensitiveness. Every one was kind to me, partly, I think because I
+interfered with no one. I was glad of the kindness, and, with my
+unsuspected dreaming and my happy childishness, I had gone through
+life with almost perfect contentment, until this pain of my first real
+loneliness came into my heart.
+
+It was a day's journey to cousin Matthew's house, mostly by rail;
+though, toward the end, we had to travel a considerable distance by
+stage, and at last were left on the river-bank opposite my new home,
+and I saw a boat waiting to take us across. It was just at sunset, and
+I remember wondering if my father and mother were out of sight of
+land, and if they were watching the sky; if my father would remember
+that only the evening before we had gone out for a walk together, and
+there had been a sunset so much like this. It somehow seemed long ago.
+Cousin Matthew was busy talking with the ferryman; and indeed he had
+found acquaintances at almost every part of the journey, and had not
+been much with me, though he was kind and attentive in his courteous,
+old-fashioned way, treating me with the same ceremonious politeness
+which he had shown my mother. He pointed out the house to me: it was
+but a little way from the edge of the river. It was very large and
+irregular, with great white chimneys; and, while the river was all in
+shadow, the upper windows of two high gables were catching the last
+red glow of the sun. On the opposite side of a green from the house
+were the farm-house and buildings; and the green sloped down to the
+water, where there was a wharf and an ancient-looking storehouse.
+There were some old boats and long sticks of timber lying on the
+shore; and I saw a flock of white geese march solemnly up toward the
+barns. From the open green I could see that a road went up the hill
+beyond. The trees in the garden and orchard were the richest green;
+their round tops were clustered thick together; and there were some
+royal great elms near the house. The fiery red faded from the high
+windows as we came near the shore, and cousin Agnes was ready to meet
+me; and when she put her arms round me as kindly as my mother would
+have done, and kissed me twice in my father's fashion, was sure that I
+loved her, and would be contented. Her hair was very gray; but she did
+not look, after all, so very old. Her face was a grave one, as if she
+had had many cares; yet they had all made her stronger, and there had
+been some sweetness, and something to be glad about, and to thank God
+for, in every sorrow. I had a feeling always that she was my sure
+defence and guard. I was safe and comfortable with her: it was the
+same feeling which one learns to have toward God more and more, as one
+grows older.
+
+We went in through a wide hall, and up stairs, through a long passage,
+to my room, which was in a corner of one of the gables. Two windows
+looked on the garden and the river: another looked across to the other
+gable, and into the square, grassy court between. It was a rambling,
+great house, and seemed like some English houses I had seen. It would
+be great fun to go into all the rooms some day soon.
+
+"How much you are like your father!" said cousin Agnes, stooping to
+kiss me again, with her hand on my shoulder. I had a sudden
+consciousness of my bravery in having behaved so well all day; then I
+remembered that my father and mother were at every instant being
+carried farther and farther away. I could almost hear the waves dash
+about the ship; and I could not help crying a little. "Poor little
+girl!" said cousin Agnes: "I am very sorry." And she sat down, and
+took me in her lap for a few minutes. She was tall, and held me so
+comfortably, and I soon was almost happy again; for she hoped I would
+not be lonely with her, and that I would not think she was a stranger,
+for she had known and loved my father so well; and it would make
+cousin Matthew so disappointed and uneasy if I were discontented; and
+would I like some bread and milk with my supper, in the same blue
+china bowl, with the dragon on it, which my father used to have when
+he was a boy? These arguments were by no means lost upon me, and I was
+ready to smile presently; and then we went down to the dining-room,
+which had some solemn-looking portraits on the walls, and heavy, stiff
+furniture; and there was an old-fashioned woman standing ready to
+wait, whom cousin Agnes called Deborah, and who smiled at me
+graciously.
+
+Cousin Matthew talked with his wife for a time about what had happened
+to him and to her during his absence; and then he said, "And how is
+madam to-day? you have not spoken of her."--"She is not so well as
+usual," said cousin Agnes. "She has had one of her sorrowful times
+since you went away. I have sat with her for several hours to-day; but
+she has hardly spoken to me." And then cousin Matthew looked at me,
+and cousin Agnes hesitated for a minute. Deborah had left the room.
+
+"We speak of a member of our family whom you have not seen, although
+you may have heard your father speak of her. She is called Lady Ferry
+by most people who know of her; but you may say madam when you speak
+to her. She is very old, and her mind wanders, so that she has many
+strange fancies; but you must not be afraid, for she is very gentle
+and harmless. She is not used to children; but I know you will not
+annoy her, and I dare say you can give her much pleasure." This was
+all that was said; but I wished to know more. It seemed to me that
+there was a reserve about this person, and the old house itself was
+the very place for a mystery. As I went through some of the other
+rooms with cousin Agnes in the summer twilight, I half expected to
+meet Lady Ferry in every shadowy corner; but I did not dare to ask a
+question. My father's words came to me,--"Such an endless life," and
+"living on and on." And why had he and my mother never spoken to me
+afterward of my seeing her? They had talked about it again, perhaps,
+and did not mean to tell me, after all.
+
+I saw something of the house that night, the great kitchen, with its
+huge fireplace, and other rooms up stairs and down; and cousin Agnes
+told me, that by daylight I should go everywhere, except to Madam's
+rooms: I must wait for an invitation there.
+
+The house had been built a hundred and fifty years before, by Colonel
+Haverford, an Englishman, whom no one knew much about, except that he
+lived like a prince, and would never tell his history. He and his sons
+died; and after the Revolution the house was used for a tavern for
+many years,--the Ferry Tavern,--and the place was busy enough. Then
+there was a bridge built down the river, and the old ferry fell into
+disuse; and the owner of the house died, and his family also died, or
+went away; and then the old place, for a long time, was either vacant,
+or in the hands of different owners. It was going to ruin at length,
+when cousin Matthew bought it, and came there from the city to live
+years before. He was a strange man; indeed, I know now that all the
+possessors of the Ferry farm must have been strange men. One often
+hears of the influence of climate upon character; there is a strong
+influence of place; and the inanimate things which surround us indoors
+and out make us follow out in our lives their own silent
+characteristics. We unconsciously catch the tone of every house in
+which we live, and of every view of the outward, material world which
+grows familiar to us, and we are influenced by surroundings nearer and
+closer still than the climate or the country which we inhabit. At the
+old Haverford house it was mystery which one felt when one entered the
+door; and when one came away, after cordiality, and days of sunshine
+and pleasant hospitality, it was still with a sense of this mystery,
+and of something unseen and unexplained. Not that there was any thing
+covered and hidden necessarily; but it was the quiet undertone in the
+house which had grown to be so old, and had known the magnificent
+living of Colonel Haverford's time, and afterward the struggles of
+poor gentlemen and women, who had hardly warmed its walls with their
+pitiful fires, and shivering, hungry lives; then the long procession
+of travellers who had been sheltered there in its old tavern days;
+finally, my cousin Matthew and his wife, who had made it their home,
+when, with all their fortune, they felt empty-handed, and as if their
+lives were ended, because their only son had died. Here they had
+learned to be happy again in a quiet sort of way, and had become older
+and serener, loving this lovable place by the river, and keepers of
+its secret--whatever that might be.
+
+I was wide awake that first evening: I was afraid of being sent to
+bed, and, to show cousin Agnes that I was not sleepy, I chattered far
+more than usual. It was warm, and the windows of the parlor where we
+sat looked upon the garden. The moon had risen, and it was light out
+of doors. I caught every now and then the faint smell of honeysuckle,
+and presently I asked if I might go into the garden a while; and
+cousin Agnes gave me leave, adding that I must soon go to bed, else I
+would be very tired next day. She noticed that I looked grave, and
+said that I must not dread being alone in the strange room, for it was
+so near her own. This was a great consolation; and after I had been
+told that the tide was in, and I must be careful not to go too near
+the river wall, I went out through the tall glass door, and slowly
+down the wide garden-walk, from which now and then narrower walks
+branched off at right angles. It was the pride of the place, this
+garden; and the box-borders especially were kept with great care. They
+had partly been trimmed that day; and the evening dampness brought out
+the faint, solemn odor of the leaves, which I never have noticed since
+without thinking of that night. The roses were in bloom, and the
+snowball-bushes were startlingly white, and there was a long border
+filled with lilies-of-the-valley. The other flowers of the season were
+all there and in blossom; yet I could see none well but the white
+ones, which looked like bits of snow and ice in the summer
+shadows,--ghostly flowers which one could see at night.
+
+It was still in the garden, except once I heard a bird twitter
+sleepily, and once or twice a breeze came across the river, rustling
+the leaves a little. The small-paned windows glistened in the
+moonlight, and seemed like the eyes of the house watching me, the
+unknown new-comer.
+
+For a while I wandered about, exploring the different paths, some of
+which were arched over by the tall lilacs, or by arbors where the
+grape-leaves did not seem fully grown. I wondered if my mother would
+miss me. It seemed impossible that I should have seen her only that
+morning; and suddenly I had a consciousness that she was thinking of
+me, and she seemed so close to me, that it would not be strange if she
+could hear what I said. And I called her twice softly; but the sound
+of my unanswered voice frightened me. I saw some round white flowers
+at my feet, looking up mockingly. The smell of the earth and the new
+grass seemed to smother me. I was afraid to be there all alone in the
+wide open air; and all the tall bushes that were so still around me
+took strange shapes, and seemed to be alive. I was so terribly far
+away from the mother whom I had called; the pleasure of my journey,
+and my coming to cousin Agnes, faded from my mind, and that
+indescribable feeling of hopelessness and dread, and of having made an
+irreparable mistake, came in its place. The thorns of a straying
+slender branch of a rose-bush caught my sleeve maliciously as I turned
+to hurry away, and then I caught sight of a person in the path just
+before me. It was such a relief to see some one, that I was not
+frightened when I saw that it must be Lady Ferry.
+
+She was bent, but very tall and slender, and was walking slowly with a
+cane. Her head was covered with a great hood or wrapping of some kind,
+which she pushed back when she saw me. Some faint whitish figures on
+her dress looked like frost in the moonlight; and the dress itself was
+made of some strange stiff silk, which rustled softly like dry rushes
+and grasses in the autumn,--a rustling noise that carries a chill with
+it. She came close to me, a sorrowful little figure very dreary at
+heart, standing still as the flowers themselves; and for several
+minutes she did not speak, but watched me, until I began to be afraid
+of her. Then she held out her hand, which trembled as if it were
+trying to shake off its rings. "My dear," said she "I bid you welcome:
+I have known your father. I was told of your coming. Perhaps you will
+walk with me? I did not think to find you here alone." There was a
+fascinating sweetness in Madam's voice, and I at once turned to walk
+beside her, holding her hand fast, and keeping pace with her feeble
+steps. "Then you are not afraid of me?" asked the old lady, with a
+strange quiver in her voice. "It is a long time since I have seen a
+child."--"No," said I, "I am not afraid of you. I was frightened
+before I saw you, because I was all alone, and I wished I could see my
+father and mother;" and I hung my head so that my new friend could not
+see the tears in my eyes, for she watched me curiously. "All alone:
+that is like me," said she to herself. "All alone? a child is not all
+alone, but there is no one like me. I am something alone: there is
+nothing else of my fashion, a creature who lives forever!" and Lady
+Ferry sighed pitifully. Did she mean that she never was going to die
+like other people? But she was silent, and I did not dare to ask for
+any explanation as we walked back and forward. Her fingers kept moving
+round my wrist, smoothing it as if she liked to feel it, and to keep
+my hand in hers. It seemed to give her pleasure to have me with her,
+and I felt quite at my ease presently, and began to talk a little,
+assuring her that I did not mind having taken the journey of that day.
+I had taken some long journeys: I had been to China once, and it took
+a great while to get there; but London was the nicest place I had ever
+seen; had Lady Ferry ever been in London? And I was surprised to hear
+her say drearily that she had been in London; she had been everywhere.
+
+"Did you go to Westminster Abbey?" I asked, going on with the
+conversation childishly. "And did you see where Queen Elizabeth and
+Mary Queen of Scots are buried? Mamma had told me all about them."
+
+"Buried, did you say? Are they dead too?" asked Madam eagerly. "Yes,
+indeed!" said I: "they have been dead a long time."--"Ah! I had
+forgotten," answered my strange companion. "Do you know of any one
+else who has died beside them? I have not heard of any one's dying and
+going home for so long! Once every one died but me--except some young
+people; and I do not know them."--"Why, every one must die," said I
+wonderingly. "There is a funeral somewhere every day, I
+suppose."--"Every one but me," Madam repeated sadly,--"every one but
+me, and I am alone."
+
+Just now cousin Agnes came to the door, and called me. "Go in now,
+child," said Lady Ferry. "You may come and sit with me to-morrow if
+you choose." And I said good-night, while she turned, and went down
+the walk with feeble, lingering steps. She paced to and fro, as I
+often saw her afterwards, on the flag-stones; and some bats flew that
+way like ragged bits of darkness, holding somehow a spark of life. I
+watched her for a minute: she was like a ghost, I thought, but not a
+fearful ghost,--poor Lady Ferry!
+
+"Have you had a pleasant walk?" asked cousin Matthew politely.
+"To-morrow I will give you a border for your own, and some plants for
+it, if you like gardening." I joyfully answered that I should like it
+very much, and so I began to feel already the pleasure of being in a
+real home, after the wandering life to which I had become used. I went
+close to cousin Agnes's chair to tell her confidentially that I had
+been walking with Madam in the garden, and she was very good to me,
+and asked me to come to sit with her the next day; but she said very
+odd things.
+
+"You must not mind what she says," said cousin Agnes; "and I would
+never dispute with her, or even seem surprised, if I were you. It
+hurts and annoys her, and she soon forgets her strange fancies. I
+think you seem a very sensible little girl, and I have told you about
+this poor friend of ours as if you were older. But you understand, do
+you not?" And then she kissed me good-night, and I went up stairs,
+contented with her assurance that she would come to me before I went
+to sleep.
+
+I found a pleasant-faced young girl busy putting away some of my
+clothing. I had seen her just after supper, and had fancied her very
+much, partly because she was not so old as the rest of the servants.
+We were friendly at once, and I found her very talkative; so finally I
+asked the question which was uppermost in my mind,--Did she know any
+thing about Madam?
+
+"Lady Ferry, folks call her," said Martha, much interested. "I never
+have seen her close to, only from the other side of the garden, where
+she walks at night. She never goes out by day. Deborah waits upon her.
+I haven't been here long; but I have always heard about Madam, bless
+you! Folks tell all kinds of strange stories. She's fearful old, and
+there's many believes she never will die; and where she came from
+nobody knows. I've heard that her folks used to live here; but nobody
+can remember them, and she used to wander about; and once before she
+was here,--a good while ago; but this last time she come was nine
+years ago; one stormy night she came across the ferry, and scared them
+to death, looking in at the window like a ghost. She said she used to
+live here in Colonel Haverford's time. They saw she wasn't right in
+her head--the ferry-men did. But she came up to the house, and they
+let her in, and she went straight to the rooms in the north gable, and
+she never has gone away; it was in an awful storm she come, I've
+heard, and she looked just the same as she does now. There! I can't
+tell half the stories I've heard, and Deborah she most took my head
+off," said Martha, "because, when I first came, I was asking about
+her; and she said it was a sin to gossip about a harmless old creature
+whose mind was broke, but I guess most everybody thinks there's
+something mysterious. There's my grandmother--grandmother her mind is
+failing her; but she never had such ways! And then those clothes that
+my lady in the gable wears: they're unearthly looking; and I heard a
+woman say once, that they come out of a chest in the big garret, and
+they belonged to a Mistress Haverford who was hung for a witch, but
+there's no knowing that there is any truth in it." And Martha would
+have gone on with her stories, if just then we had not heard cousin
+Agnes's step on the stairway, and I hurried into bed.
+
+But my bright eyes and excited look betrayed me. Cousin Agnes said she
+had hoped I would be asleep. And Martha said perhaps it was her fault;
+but I seemed wakeful, and she had talked with me a bit, to keep my
+spirits up, coming to a new, strange place. The apology was accepted,
+but Martha evidently had orders before I next saw her; for I never
+could get her to discuss Lady Ferry again; and she carefully told me
+that she should not have told those foolish stories, which were not
+true: but I knew that she still had her thoughts and suspicions as
+well as I. Once, when I asked her if Lady Ferry were Madam's real
+name, she answered with a guilty flush, "That's what the folks
+hereabout called her, because they didn't know any other at first."
+And this to me was another mystery. It was strongly impressed upon my
+mind that I must ask no questions, and that Madam was not to be
+discussed. No one distinctly forbade this; but I felt that it would
+not do. In every other way I was sure that I was allowed perfect
+liberty, so I soon ceased to puzzle myself or other people, and
+accepted Madam's presence as being perfectly explainable and
+natural,--just as the rest of the household did,--except once in a
+while something would set me at work romancing and wondering; and I
+read some stories in one of the books in the library,--of Peter Rugg
+the missing man, whom one may always meet riding from Salem to Boston
+in every storm, and of the Flying Dutchman and the Wandering Jew, and
+some terrible German stories of doomed people, and curses that were
+fulfilled. These made a great impression upon me; still I was not
+afraid, for all such things were far outside the boundaries of my safe
+little world; and I played by myself along the shore of the river and
+in the garden; and I had my lessons with cousin Agnes, and drives with
+cousin Matthew who was nearly always silent, but very kind to me. The
+house itself was an unfailing entertainment, with its many rooms, most
+of which were never occupied, and its quaint, sober furnishings, some
+of which were as old as the house itself. It was like a story-book;
+and no one minded my going where I pleased.
+
+I missed my father and mother; but the only time I was really unhappy
+was the first morning after my arrival. Cousin Agnes was ill with a
+severe headache; cousin Matthew had ridden away to attend to some
+business; and, being left to myself, I had a most decided re-action
+from my unnaturally bright feelings of the day before. I began to
+write a letter to my mother; but unluckily I knew how many weeks must
+pass before she saw it, and it was useless to try to go on. I was
+lonely and homesick. The rain fell heavily, and the garden looked
+forlorn, and so unlike the enchanting moonlighted place where I had
+been in the evening! The walks were like little canals; and the
+rose-bushes looked wet and chilly, like some gay young lady who had
+been caught in the rain in party-dress. It was low-tide in the middle
+of the day, and the river-flats looked dismal. I fed cousin Agnes'
+flock of tame sparrows which came around the windows, and afterward
+some robins. I found some books and some candy which had come in my
+trunk, but my heart was very sad; and just after noon I was overjoyed
+when one of the servants told me that cousin Agnes would like to have
+me come to her room.
+
+She was even kinder to me than she had been the night before; but she
+looked very ill, and at first I felt awkward, and did not know what to
+say. "I am afraid you have been very dull, dearie," said she, reaching
+out her hand to me. "I am sorry, and my headache hardly lets me think
+at all yet. But we will have better times to-morrow--both of us. You
+must ask for what you want; and you may come and spend this evening
+with me, for I shall be getting well then. It does me good to see your
+kind little face. Suppose you make Madam a call this afternoon. She
+told me last night that she wished for you, and I was so glad. Deborah
+will show you the way."
+
+Deborah talked to me softly, out of deference to her mistress's
+headache, as we went along the crooked passages. "Don't you mind what
+Madam says, leastways don't you dispute her. She's got a funeral going
+on to-day;" and the grave woman smiled grimly at me. "It's curious
+she's taken to you so; for she never will see any strange folks.
+Nobody speaks to her about new folks lately," she added warningly, as
+she tapped at the door, and Madam asked, "Is it the child?" And
+Deborah lifted the latch. When I was fairly inside, my interest in
+life came back redoubled, and I was no longer sad, but looked round
+eagerly. Madam spoke to me, with her sweet old voice, in her courtly,
+quiet way, and stood looking out of the window.
+
+There were two tall chests of drawers in the room, with shining brass
+handles and ornaments; and at one side, near the door, was a heavy
+mahogany table, on which I saw a large leather-covered Bible, a
+decanter of wine and some glasses, beside some cakes in a queer old
+tray. And there was no other furniture but a great number of chairs
+which seemed to have been collected from different parts of the house.
+
+With these the room was almost filled, except an open space in the
+centre, toward which they all faced. One window was darkened; but
+Madam had pushed back the shutter of the other, and stood looking down
+at the garden. I waited for her to speak again after the first
+salutation, and presently she said I might be seated; and I took the
+nearest chair, and again waited her pleasure. It was gloomy enough,
+with the silence and the twilight in the room; and the rain and wind
+out of doors sounded louder than they had in cousin Agnes's room; but
+soon Lady Ferry came toward me.
+
+"So you did not forget the old woman," said she, with a strange
+emphasis on the word old, as if that were her title and her chief
+characteristic. "And were not you afraid? I am glad it seemed worth
+while; for to-morrow would have been too late. You may like to
+remember by and by that you came. And my funeral is to be to-morrow,
+at last. You see the room is in readiness. You will care to be here, I
+hope. I would have ordered you some gloves if I had known; but these
+are all too large for your little hands. You shall have a ring; I will
+leave a command for that;" and Madam seated herself near me in a
+curious, high-backed chair. She was dressed that day in a maroon
+brocade, figured with bunches of dim pink flowers; and some of these
+flowers looked to me like wicked little faces. It was a mocking, silly
+creature that I saw at the side of every prim bouquet, and I looked at
+the faded little imps, until they seemed as much alive as Lady Ferry
+herself.
+
+Her head nodded continually, as if it were keeping time to an
+inaudible tune, as she sat there stiffly erect. Her skin was pale and
+withered; and her cheeks were wrinkled in fine lines, like the
+crossings of a cobweb. Her eyes might once have been blue; but they
+had become nearly colorless, and, looking at her, one might easily
+imagine that she was blind. She had a singularly sweet smile, and a
+musical voice, which, though sad, had no trace of whining. If it had
+not been for her smile and her voice, I think madam would have been a
+terror to me. I noticed to-day, for the first time, a curious
+fragrance, which seemed to come from her old brocades and silks. It
+was very sweet, but unlike any thing I had ever known before; and it
+was by reason of this that afterward I often knew, with a little
+flutter at my heart, she had been in some other rooms of the great
+house beside her own. This perfume seemed to linger for a little while
+wherever she had been, and yet it was so faint! I used to go into the
+darkened chambers often, or even stay for a while by myself in the
+unoccupied lower rooms, and I would find this fragrance, and wonder if
+she were one of the oldtime fairies, who could vanish at their own
+will and pleasure, and wonder, too, why she had come to the room. But
+I never met her at all.
+
+That first visit to her and the strange fancy she had about the
+funeral I have always remembered distinctly.
+
+"I am glad you came," Madam repeated: "I was finding the day long. I
+am all ready,  you see. I shall place a little chair which is in the
+next room, beside your cousin's seat for you. Mrs. Agnes is ill, I
+hear; but I think she will come to-morrow. Have you heard any one say
+if many guests are expected?"--"No, Madam," I answered, "no one has
+told me;" and just then the thought flitted through my head that she
+had said the evening before that all her friends were gone. Perhaps
+she expected their ghosts: that would not be stranger than all the
+rest.
+
+The open space where Lady Ferry had left room for her coffin began to
+be a horror to me, and I wished Deborah would come back, or that my
+hostess would open the shutters; and it was a great relief when she
+rose and went into the adjoining room, bidding me follow her, and
+there opened a drawer containing some old jewelry; there were also
+some queer Chinese carvings, yellow with age,--just the things a child
+would enjoy. I looked at them delightedly. This was coming back to
+more familiar life; and I soon felt more at ease, and chattered to
+Lady Ferry of my own possessions, and some coveted treasures of my
+mother's, which were to be mine when I grew older.
+
+Madam stood beside me patiently, and listened with a half smile to my
+whispered admiration. In the clearer light I could see her better, and
+she seemed older,--so old, so old! and my father's words came to me
+again. She had not changed since he was a boy; living on and on, and
+the 'horror of an endless life in this world!' And I remembered what
+Martha had said to me, and the consciousness of this mystery was a
+great weight upon me of a sudden. Why was she living so long? and what
+had happened to her? and how long could it be since she was a child?
+
+There was something in her manner which made me behave, even in my
+pleasure, as if her imagined funeral were there in reality, and as if,
+in spite of my being amused and tearless, the solemn company of
+funeral guests already sat in the next room to us with bowed heads,
+and all the shadows in the world had assembled there materialized into
+the tangible form of crape. I opened and closed the boxes gently, and,
+when I had seen every thing, I looked up with a sigh to think that
+such a pleasure was ended, and asked if I might see them again some
+day. But the look in her face made me recollect myself, and my own
+grew crimson, for it seemed at that moment as real to me as to Lady
+Ferry herself that this was her last day of mortal life. She walked
+away, but presently came back, while I was wondering if I might not
+go, and opened the drawer again. It creaked, and the brass handles
+clacked in a startling way, and she took out a little case, and said I
+might keep it to remember her by. It held a little vinaigrette,--a
+tiny silver box with a gold one inside, in which I found a bit of fine
+sponge, dark brown with age, and still giving a faint, musty perfume
+and spiciness. The outside was rudely chased, and was worn as if it
+had been carried for years in somebody's pocket. It had a spring, the
+secret of which Lady Ferry showed me. I was delighted, and
+instinctively lifted my face to kiss her. She bent over me, and waited
+an instant for me to kiss her again. "Oh!" said she softly, "it is so
+long since a child has kissed me! I pray God not to leave you
+lingering like me, apart from all your kindred, and your life so long
+that you forget you ever were a child."--"I will kiss you every day,"
+said I, and then again remembered that there were to be no more days
+according to her plan; but she did not seem to notice my mistake. And
+after this I used to go to see Madam often. For a time there was
+always the same gloom and hushed way of speaking, and the funeral
+services were to be on the morrow; but at last one day I found Deborah
+sedately putting the room in order, and Lady Ferry apologized for its
+being in such confusion; the idea of the funeral had utterly vanished,
+and I hurried to tell cousin Agnes with great satisfaction. I think
+that both she and cousin Matthew had a dislike for my being too much
+with Madam. I was kept out of doors as much as possible because it was
+much better for my health; and through the long summer days I strayed
+about wherever I chose. The country life was new and delightful to me.
+At home, Lady Ferry's vagaries were carelessly spoken of, and often
+smiled at; but I gained the idea that they disguised the truth, and
+were afraid of my being frightened. She often talked about persons who
+had been dead a very long time,--familiar characters in history, and,
+though cousin Agnes had said that she used to be fond of reading, it
+seemed to me that Madam might have known these men and women after
+all.
+
+Once a middle-aged gentleman, an acquaintance of cousin Matthew's,
+came to pass a day and night at the ferry, and something happened then
+which seemed wonderful to me. It was early in the evening after tea,
+and we were in the parlor; from my seat by cousin Agnes I could look
+out into the garden, and presently, with the gathering darkness, came
+Lady Ferry, silent as a shadow herself, to walk to and fro on the
+flagstones. The windows were all open, and the guest had a clear, loud
+voice, and pleasant, hearty laugh; and, as he talked earnestly with
+cousin Matthew, I noticed that Lady Ferry stood still, as if she were
+listening. Then I was attracted by some story which was being told,
+and forgot her, but afterward turned with a start, feeling that there
+was some one watching; and, to my astonishment, Madam had come to the
+long window by which one went out to the garden. She stood there a
+moment, looking puzzled and wild; then she smiled, and, entering,
+walked in most stately fashion down the long room, toward the
+gentlemen, before whom she courtesied with great elegance, while the
+stranger stopped speaking, and looked at her with amazement, as he
+rose, and returned her greeting.
+
+"My dear Captain Jack McAllister!" said she; "what a surprise! and are
+you not home soon from your voyage? This is indeed a pleasure." And
+Lady Ferry seated herself, motioning to him to take the chair beside
+her. She looked younger than I had ever seen her; a bright color came
+into her cheeks; and she talked so gayly, in such a different manner
+from her usual mournful gentleness. She must have been a beautiful
+woman; indeed she was that still.
+
+"And did the good ship Starlight make a prosperous voyage? and had you
+many perils?--do you bring much news to us from the Spanish Main? We
+have missed you sadly at the assemblies; but there must be a dance in
+your honor. And your wife; is she not overjoyed at the sight of you? I
+think you have grown old and sedate since you went away. You do not
+look the gay sailor, or seem so light-hearted."
+
+"I do not understand you, madam," said the stranger. "I am certainly
+John McAllister; but I am no captain, neither have I been at sea. Good
+God! is it my grandfather whom you confuse me with?" cried he. "He was
+Jack McAllister, and was lost at sea more than seventy years ago,
+while my own father was a baby. I am told that I am wonderfully like
+his portrait; but he was a younger man than I when he died. This is
+some masquerade."
+
+Lady Ferry looked at him intently, but the light in her face was fast
+fading out. "Lost at sea,--lost at sea, were you, Jack McAllister,
+seventy years ago? I know nothing of years; one of my days is like
+another, and they are gray days, they creep away and hide, and
+sometimes one comes back to mock me. I have lived a thousand years; do
+you know it? Lost at sea--captain of the ship Starlight? Whom did you
+say?--Jack McAllister, yes, I knew him well--pardon me; good-evening;"
+and my lady rose, and with her head nodding and drooping, with a
+sorrowful, hunted look in her eyes, went out again into the shadows.
+She had had a flash of youth, the candle had blazed up brilliantly;
+but it went out again as suddenly, with flickering and smoke.
+
+"I was startled when I saw her beside me," said Mr. McAllister. "Pray,
+who is she? she is like no one I have ever seen. I have been told that
+I am like my grandfather in looks and in voice; but it is years since
+I have seen any one who knew him well. And did you hear her speak of
+dancing? It is like seeing one who has risen from the dead. How old
+can she be?"--"I do not know," said cousin Matthew, "one can only
+guess at her age."--"Would not she come back? I should like to
+question her," asked the other. But cousin Matthew answered that she
+always refused to see strangers, and it would be no use to urge her,
+she would not answer him.
+
+"Who is she? Is she any kin of yours?" asked Mr. McAllister.
+
+"Oh, no!" said my cousin Agnes: "she has had no relatives since I have
+known her, and I think she has no friends now but ourselves. She has
+been with us a long time, and once before this house was her home for
+a time,--many years since. I suppose no one will ever know the whole
+history of her life; I wish often that she had power to tell it. We
+are glad to give shelter, and the little care she will accept, to the
+poor soul, God only knows where she has strayed and what she has seen.
+It is an enormous burden,--so long a life, and such a weight of
+memories; but I think it is seldom now that she feels its
+heaviness.--Go out to her, Marcia my dear, and see if she seems
+troubled. She always has a welcome for the child," cousin Agnes added,
+as I unwillingly went away.
+
+I found Lady Ferry in the garden; I stole my hand into hers, and,
+after a few minutes of silence, I was not surprised to hear her say
+that they had killed the Queen of France, poor Marie Antoinette! she
+had known her well in her childhood, before she was a queen at all--"a
+sad fate, a sad fate," said Lady Ferry. We went far down the gardens
+and by the river-wall, and when we were again near the house, and
+could hear Mr. McAllister's voice as cheery as ever, madam took no
+notice of it. I had hoped she would go into the parlor again, and I
+wished over and over that I could have waited to hear the secrets
+which I was sure must have been told after cousin Agnes had sent me
+away.
+
+One day I thought I had made a wonderful discovery. I was fond of
+reading, and found many books which interested me in cousin Matthew's
+fine library; but I took great pleasure also in hunting through a
+collection of old volumes which had been cast aside, either by him, or
+by some former owner of the house, and which were piled in a corner of
+the great garret. They were mostly yellow with age, and had dark brown
+leather or shabby paper bindings; the pictures in some were very
+amusing to me. I used often to find one which I appropriated and
+carried down stairs; and on this day I came upon a dusty, odd-shaped
+little book, for which I at once felt an affection. I looked at it a
+little. It seemed to be a journal, there were some stories of the
+Indians, and next I saw some reminiscences of the town of Boston,
+where, among other things, the author was told the marvellous story of
+one Mistress Honor Warburton, who was cursed, and doomed to live in
+this world forever. This was startling. I at once thought of Madam,
+and was reading on further to know the rest of the story, when some
+one called me, and I foolishly did not dare to carry my book with me.
+I was afraid I should not find it if I left it in sight; I saw an
+opening near me at the edge of the floor by the eaves, and I carefully
+laid my treasure inside. But, alas! I was not to be sure of its safe
+hiding-place in a way that I fancied, for the book fell down between
+the boarding of the thick walls, and I heard it knock as it fell, and
+knew by the sound that it must be out of reach. I grieved over this
+loss for a long time; and I felt that it had been most unkindly taken
+out of my hand. I wished heartily that I could know the rest of the
+story; and I tried to summon courage to ask Madam, when we were by
+ourselves, if she had heard of Honor Warburton, but something held me
+back. There were two other events just at this time which made this
+strange old friend of mine seem stranger than ever to me. I had a
+dream one night, which I took for a vision and a reality at the time.
+I thought I looked out of my window in the night, and there was bright
+moonlight, and I could see the other gable plainly; and I looked in at
+the windows of an unoccupied parlor which I never had seen open
+before, under Lady Ferry's own rooms. The shutters were pushed back,
+and there were candles burning; and I heard voices, and presently some
+tinkling music, like that of a harpsichord I had once heard in a very
+old house where I had been in England with my mother. I saw several
+couples go through with a slow, stately dance; and, when they stopped
+and seated themselves, I could hear their voices; but they spoke low,
+these midnight guests. I watched until the door was opened which led
+into the garden, and the company came out and stood for a few minutes
+on the little lawn, making their adieus, bowing low, and behaving with
+astonishing courtesy and elegance: finally the last good-nights were
+said, and they went away. Lady Ferry stood under the pointed porch,
+looking after them, and I could see her plainly in her brocade gown,
+with the impish flowers, a tall quaint cap, and a high lace frill at
+her throat, whiter than any lace I had ever seen, with a glitter on
+it; and there was a glitter on her face too. One of the other ladies
+was dressed in velvet, and I thought she looked beautiful: their eyes
+were all like sparks of fire. The gentlemen wore cloaks and ruffs, and
+high-peaked hats with wide brims, such as I had seen in some very old
+pictures which hung on the walls of the long west room. These were not
+pilgrims or Puritans, but gay gentlemen; and soon I heard the noise of
+their boats on the pebbles as they pushed off shore, and the splash of
+the oars in the water. Lady Ferry waved her hand, and went in at the
+door; and I found myself standing by the window in the chilly, cloudy
+night: the opposite gable, the garden, and the river, were
+indistinguishable in the darkness. I stole back to bed in an agony of
+fear; for it had been very real, that dream. I surely was at the
+window, for my hand had been on the sill when I waked; and I heard a
+church-bell ring two o'clock in a town far up the river. I never had
+heard this solemn bell before, and it seemed frightful; but I knew
+afterward that in the silence of a misty night the sound of it came
+down along the water.
+
+In the morning I found that there had been a gale in the night; and
+cousin Matthew said at breakfast time that the tide had risen so that
+it had carried off two old boats that had been left on the shore to go
+to pieces. I sprang to the window, and sure enough they had
+disappeared. I had played in one of them the day before. Should I tell
+cousin Matthew what I had seen or dreamed? But I was too sure that he
+would only laugh at me; and yet I was none the less sure that those
+boats had carried passengers.
+
+When I went out to the garden, I hurried to the porch, and saw, to my
+disappointment, that there were great spiders' webs in the corners of
+the door, and around the latch, and that it had not been opened since
+I was there before. But I saw something shining in the grass, and
+found it was a silver knee-buckle. It must have belonged to one of the
+ghostly guests, and my faith in them came back for a while, in spite
+of the cobwebs. By and by I bravely carried it up to Madam, and asked
+if it were hers. Sometimes she would not answer for a long time, when
+one rudely broke in upon her reveries, and she hesitated now, looking
+at me with singular earnestness. Deborah was in the room; and, when
+she saw the buckle, she quietly said that it had been on the
+window-ledge the day before, and must have slipped out. "I found it
+down  by the doorstep in the grass," said I humbly; and then I offered
+Lady Ferry some strawberries which I had picked for her on a broad
+green leaf, and came away again.
+
+A day or two after this, while my dream was still fresh in my mind, I
+went with Martha to her own home, which was a mile or two distant,--a
+comfortable farmhouse for those days, where I was always made welcome.
+The servants were all very kind to me: as I recall it now, they seemed
+to have a pity for me, because I was the only child perhaps. I was
+very happy, that is certain, and I enjoyed my childish amusements as
+heartily as if there were no unfathomable mysteries or perplexities or
+sorrows anywhere in the world.
+
+I was sitting by the fireplace at Martha's, and her grandmother, who
+was very old, and who was fast losing her wits, had been talking to me
+about Madam. I do not remember what she said, at least, it made little
+impression; but her grandson, a worthless fellow, sauntered in, and
+began to tell a story of his own, hearing of whom we spoke. "I was
+coming home late last night," said he, "and, as I was in that dark
+place along by the Noroway pines, old Lady Ferry she went by me, and I
+was near scared to death. She looked fearful tall--towered way up
+above me. Her face was all lit up with blue light, and her feet didn't
+touch the ground. She wasn't taking steps, she wasn't walking, but
+movin' along like a sail-boat before the wind. I dodged behind some
+little birches, and I was scared she'd see me; but she went right out
+o' sight up the road. She ain't mortal."
+
+"Don't scare the child with such foolishness," said his aunt
+disdainfully. "You'll be seein' worse things a-dancin' before your
+eyes than that poor, harmless old creatur' if you don't quit the ways
+you've been following lately. If that was last night, you were too
+drunk to see any thing;" and the fellow muttered, and went out,
+banging the door. But the story had been told, and I was stiffened and
+chilled with fright; and all the way home I was in terror, looking
+fearfully behind me again and again.
+
+When I saw cousin Agnes, I felt safer, and since cousin Matthew was
+not at home, and we were alone, I could not resist telling her what I
+had heard. She listened to me kindly, and seemed so confident that my
+story was idle nonsense, that my fears were quieted. She talked to me
+until I no longer was a believer in there being any unhappy mystery or
+harmfulness; but I could not get over the fright, and I dreaded my
+lonely room, and I was glad enough when cousin Agnes, with her
+unfailing thoughtfulness, asked if I would like to have her come to
+sleep with me, and even went up stairs with me at my own early
+bedtime, saying that she should find it dull to sit all alone in the
+parlor. So I went to sleep, thinking of what I had heard, it is true,
+but no longer unhappy, because her dear arm was over me, and I was
+perfectly safe. I waked up for a little while in the night, and it was
+light in the room, so that I could see her face, fearless and sweet
+and sad, and I wondered, in my blessed sense of security, if she were
+ever afraid of any thing, and why I myself had been afraid of Lady
+Ferry.
+
+I will not tell other stories: they are much alike, all my memories of
+those weeks and months at the ferry, and I have no wish to be
+wearisome. The last time I saw Madam she was standing in the garden
+door at dusk. I was going away before daylight in the morning. It was
+in the autumn: some dry leaves flittered about on the stone at her
+feet, and she was watching them. I said good-by again, and she did not
+answer me; but I think she knew I was going away, and I am sure she
+was sorry, for we had been a great deal together; and, child as I was,
+I thought to how many friends she must have had to say farewell.
+
+Although I wished to see my father and mother, I cried as if my heart
+would break because I had to leave the ferry. The time spent there had
+been the happiest time of all my life, I think. I was old enough to
+enjoy, but not to suffer much, and there was singularly little to
+trouble one. I did not know that my life was ever to be different. I
+have learned, since those childish days, that one must battle against
+storms if one would reach the calm which is to follow them. I have
+learned also that anxiety, sorrow, and regret fall to the lot of every
+one, and that there is always underlying our lives, this mysterious
+and frightful element of existence; an uncertainty at times, though we
+do trust every thing to God. Under the best-loved and most beautiful
+face we know, there is hidden a skull as ghastly as that from which we
+turn aside with a shudder in the anatomist's cabinet. We smile, and
+are gay enough; God pity us! We try to forget our heart-aches and
+remorse. We even call our lives commonplace, and, bearing our own
+heaviest burdens silently, we try to keep the commandment, and to bear
+one another's also. There is One who knows: we look forward, as he
+means we shall, and there is always a hand ready to help us, though we
+reach out for it doubtfully in the dark.
+
+For many years after this summer was over, I lived in a distant,
+foreign country; at last my father and I were to go back to America.
+Cousin Agnes and cousin Matthew, and my mother, were all long since
+dead, and I rarely thought of my childhood, for in an eventful and
+hurried life the present claims one almost wholly. We were travelling
+in Europe, and it happened that one day I was in a bookshop in
+Amsterdam, waiting for an acquaintance whom I was to meet, and who was
+behind time.
+
+The shop was a quaint place, and I amused myself by looking over an
+armful of old English books which a boy had thrown down near me,
+raising a cloud of dust which was plain evidence of their antiquity. I
+came to one, almost the last, which had a strangely familiar look, and
+I found that it was a copy of the same book which I had lost in the
+wall at the ferry. I bought it for a few coppers with the greatest
+satisfaction, and began at once to read it. It had been published in
+England early in the eighteenth century, and was written by one
+Mr. Thomas Highward of Chester,--a journal of his travels among some
+of the English colonists of North America, containing much curious and
+desirable knowledge, with some useful advice to those persons having
+intentions of emigrating. I looked at the prosy pages here and there,
+and finally found again those reminiscences of the town of Boston and
+the story of Mistress Honor Warburton, who was cursed, and doomed to
+live in this world to the end of time. She had lately been in Boston,
+but had disappeared again; she endeavored to disguise herself, and
+would not stay long in one place if she feared that her story was
+known, and that she was recognized. One Mr. Fleming, a man of good
+standing and repute, and an officer of Her Majesty Queen Anne, had
+sworn to Mr. Thomas Highward that his father, a person of great age,
+had once seen Mistress Warburton in his youth; that she then bore
+another name, but had the same appearance. "Not wishing to seem unduly
+credulous," said Mr. Highward, "I disputed this tale; but there was
+some considerable evidence in its favour, and at least this woman was
+of vast age, and was spoken of with extreme wonder by the town's
+folk."
+
+I could not help thinking of my old childish suspicions of Lady Ferry,
+though I smiled at the folly of them and of this story more than once.
+I tried to remember if I had heard of her death; but I was still a
+child when my cousin Agnes had died. Had poor Lady Ferry survived her?
+and what could have become of her? I asked my father, but he could
+remember nothing, if indeed he ever had heard of her death at all. He
+spoke of our cousins' kindness to this forlorn soul, and that,
+learning her desolation and her piteous history (and being the more
+pitiful because of her shattered mind), when she had last wandered to
+their door, they had cared for the old gentlewoman to the end of her
+days--"for I do not think she can be living yet," said my father, with
+a merry twinkle in his eyes: "she must have been nearly a hundred
+years old when you saw her. She belonged to a fine old family which
+had gone to wreck and ruin. She strayed about for years, and it was a
+godsend to her to have found such a home in her last days."
+
+That same summer we reached America, and for the first time since I
+had left it I went to the ferry. The house was still imposing, the
+prestige of the Haverford grandeur still lingered; but it looked
+forlorn and uncared for. It seemed very familiar; but the months I had
+spent there were so long ago, that they seemed almost to belong to
+another life. I sat alone on the doorstep for a long time, where I
+used often to watch for Lady Ferry; and forgotten thoughts and dreams
+of my childhood came back to me. The river was the only thing that
+seemed as young as ever. I looked in at some of the windows where the
+shutters were pushed back, and I walked about the garden, where I
+could hardly trace the walks, all overgrown with thick, short grass,
+though there were a few ragged lines of box, and some old rose-bushes;
+and I saw the very last of the flowers,--a bright red poppy, which had
+bloomed under a lilac-tree among the weeds.
+
+Out beyond the garden, on a slope by the river, I saw the family
+burying-ground, and it was with a comfortable warmth at my heart that
+I stood inside the familiar old enclosure. There was my Lady Ferry's
+grave; there could be no mistake about it, and she was dead. I smiled
+at my satisfaction and at my foolish childish thoughts, and thanked
+God that there could be no truth in them, and that death comes
+surely,--say, rather, that the better life comes surely,--though it
+comes late.
+
+The sad-looking, yellow-topped cypress, which only seems to feel quite
+at home in country burying-grounds, had kindly spread itself like a
+coverlet over the grave, which already looked like a very old grave;
+and the headstone was leaning a little, not to be out of the fashion
+of the rest. I traced again the words of old Colonel Haverford's
+pompous epitaph, and idly read some others. I remembered the old days
+so vividly there; I thought of my cousin Agnes, and wished that I
+could see her; and at last, as the daylight faded, I came away. When I
+crossed the river, the ferry-man looked at me wonderingly, for my eyes
+were filled with tears. Although we were in shadow on the water, the
+last red glow of the sun blazed on the high gable-windows, just as it
+did the first time I crossed over,--only a child then, with my life
+before me.
+
+I asked the ferry-man some questions, but he could tell me nothing; he
+was a new-comer to that part of the country. He was sorry that the
+boat was not in better order; but there were almost never any
+passengers. The great house was out of repair: people would not live
+there, for they said it was haunted. Oh, yes! he had heard of Lady
+Ferry. She had lived to be very ancient; but she was dead.
+
+"Yes," said I, "she is dead."
+
+
+
+
+A BIT OF SHORE LIFE.
+
+
+I often think of a boy with whom I made friends last summer, during
+some idle, pleasant days that I spent by the sea. I was almost always
+out of doors, and I used to watch the boats go out and come in; and I
+had a hearty liking for the good-natured fishermen, who were lazy and
+busy by turns, who waited for the wind to change, and waited for the
+tide to turn, and waited for the fish to bite, and were always ready
+to gossip about the weather, and the fish, and the wonderful events
+that had befallen them and their friends.
+
+Georgie was the only boy of whom I ever saw much at the shore. The few
+young people there were all went to school through the hot summer days
+at a little weather-beaten schoolhouse a mile or two inland. There
+were few houses to be seen, at any rate, and Georgie's house was the
+only one so close to the water. He looked already nothing but a
+fisherman; his clothes were covered with an oil-skin suit, which had
+evidently been awkwardly cut down for him from one of his father's, of
+whom he was a curious little likeness. I could hardly believe that he
+was twelve years old, he was so stunted and small; yet he was a strong
+little fellow; his hands were horny and hard from handling the clumsy
+oars, and his face was so brown and dry from the hot sun and chilly
+spray, that he looked even older when one came close to him. The first
+time I saw him was one evening just at night-fall. I was sitting on
+the pebbles, and he came down from the fish-house with some
+lobster-nets, and a bucket with some pieces of fish in it for bait,
+and put them into the stern of one of the boats which lay just at the
+edge of the rising tide. He looked at the clouds over the sea, and at
+the open sky overhead, in an old, wise way, and then, as if satisfied
+with the weather, began to push off his boat. It dragged on the
+pebbles; it was a heavy thing, and he could not get it far enough out
+to be floated by the low waves, so I went down to help him. He looked
+amazed that a girl should have thought of it, and as if he wished to
+ask me what good I supposed I could do, though I was twice his size.
+But the boat grated and slid down toward the sand, and I gave her a
+last push as the boy perched with one knee on her gunwale and let the
+other foot drag in the water for a minute. He was afloat after all;
+and he took the oars, and pulled manfully out toward the moorings,
+where the whale-boats and a sail-boat or two were swaying about in the
+wind, which was rising a little since the sun had set. He did not say
+a word to me, or I to him. I watched him go out into the
+twilight,--such a little fellow, between those two great oars! But the
+boat could not drift or loiter with his steady stroke, and out he
+went, until I could only see the boat at last, lifting and sinking on
+the waves beyond the reef outside the moorings. I asked one of the
+fishermen whom I knew very well, "Who is that little fellow? Ought he
+to be out by himself, it is growing dark so fast?"
+
+"Why, that's _Georgie!_" said my friend, with his grim smile. "Bless
+ye! he's like a duck; ye can't drown him. He won't be in until ten
+o'clock, like's not. He'll go way out to the far ledges when the tide
+covers them too deep where he is now. Lobsters he's after."
+
+"Whose boy is he?" said I.
+
+"Why, Andrer's, up here to the fish-house. _She's_ dead, and him and
+the boy get along together somehow or 'nother. They've both got
+something saved up, and Andrer's a clever fellow; took it very hard,
+losing of his wife. I was telling of him the other day: 'Andrer,' says
+I, 'ye ought to look up somebody or 'nother, and not live this way.
+There's plenty o' smart, stirring women that would mend ye up, and
+cook for ye, and do well by ye.'--'No,' says he; 'I've hed my wife,
+and I've lost her.'--'Well, now,' says I, 'ye've shown respect, and
+there's the boy a-growin' up, and if either of you was took sick, why,
+here ye be.'--'Yes,' says he, 'here I be, sure enough;' and he drawed
+a long breath, 's if he felt bad; so that's all I said. But it's no
+way for a man to get along, and he ought to think of the boy. He owned
+a good house about half a mile up the road; but he moved right down
+here after she died, and his cousin took it, and it burnt up in the
+winter. Four year ago that was. I was down to the Georges Banks."
+
+Some other men came down toward the water, and took a boat that was
+waiting, already fitted out with a trawl coiled in two tubs, and some
+hand-lines and bait for rock-cod and haddock, and my friend joined
+them; they were going out for a night's fishing. I watched them hoist
+the little sprit-sail, and drift a little until they caught the wind,
+and then I looked again for Georgie, whose boat was like a black spot
+on the water.
+
+I knew him better soon after that. I used to go out with him for
+lobsters, or to catch cunners, and it was strange that he never had
+any cronies, and would hardly speak to the other children. He was very
+shy; but he had put all his heart into his work,--a man's hard work,
+which he had taken from choice. His father was kind to him; but he had
+a sorry home, and no mother,--the brave, fearless, steady little soul!
+
+He looked forward to going one day (I hope that day has already
+dawned) to see the shipyards at a large seaport some twenty miles
+away. His face lit up when he told me of it, as some other child's
+would who had been promised a day in fairy-land. And he confided to me
+that he thought he should go to the Banks that coming winter. "But
+it's so cold!" said I: "should you really like it?"--"Cold!" said
+Georgie. "Ho! rest of the men never froze." That was it,--the "rest of
+the men;" and he would work until he dropped, or tend a line until his
+fingers froze, for the sake of that likeness,--the grave, slow little
+man, who has so much business with the sea, and who trusts himself
+with touching confidence to its treacherous keeping and favor.
+
+Andrew West, Georgie's father, was almost as silent as his son at
+first, but it was not long before we were very good friends, and I
+went out with him at four o'clock one morning, to see him set his
+trawl. I remember there was a thin mist over the sea, and the air was
+almost chilly; but, as the sun came up, it changed the color of every
+thing to the most exquisite pink,--the smooth, slow waves, and the
+mist that blew over them as if it were a cloud that had fallen down
+out of the sky. The world just then was like the hollow of a great
+pink sea-shell; and we could only hear the noise of it, the dull sound
+of the waves among the outer ledges.
+
+We had to drift about for an hour or two when the trawl was set; and
+after a while the fog shut down again gray and close, so we could not
+see either the sun or the shore. We were a little more than four miles
+out, and we had put out more than half a mile of lines. It is very
+interesting to see the different fish that come up on the
+hooks,--worthless sculpin and dog-fish, and good rock-cod and haddock,
+and curious stray creatures which often even the fisherman do not
+know. We had capital good luck that morning, and Georgie and Andrew
+and I were all pleased. I had a hand-line, and was fishing part of the
+time, and Georgie thought very well of me when he found I was not
+afraid of a big fish, and, besides that, I had taken the oars while he
+tended the sail, though there was hardly wind enough to make it worth
+his while. It was about eight o'clock when we came in, and there was a
+horse and wagon standing near the landing; and we saw a woman come out
+of Andrew's little house. "There's your aunt Hannah a'ready," said he
+to Georgie; and presently she came down the pebbles to meet the boat,
+looking at me with much wonder as I jumped ashore.
+
+"I sh'd think you might a' cleaned up your boat, Andrer, if you was
+going to take ladies out," said she graciously. And the fisherman
+rejoined, that perhaps she would have thought it looked better when it
+went out than it did then; he never had got a better fare o' fish
+unless the trawls had been set over night.
+
+There certainly had been a good haul; and, when Andrew carefully put
+those I had caught with the hand-line by themselves, I asked his
+sister to take them, if she liked. "Bless you!" said she, much
+pleased, "we couldn't eat one o' them big rock-cod in a week. I'll
+take a little ha'dick, if Andrer 'll pick me one out."
+
+She was a tall, large woman, who had a direct, business-like
+manner,--what the country people would call a master smart woman, or a
+regular driver,--and I liked her. She said something to her brother
+about some clothes she had been making for him or for Georgie, and I
+went off to the house where I was boarding for my breakfast. I was
+hungry enough, since I had had only a hurried lunch a good while
+before sunrise. I came back late in the morning, and found that
+Georgie's aunt was just going away. I think my friends must have
+spoken well of me, for she came out to meet me as I nodded in going
+by, and said, "I suppose ye drive about some? We should be pleased to
+have ye come up to see us. We live right 'mongst the woods; it ain't
+much of a place to ask anybody to." And she added that she might have
+done a good deal better for herself to have staid off. But there! they
+had the place, and she supposed she and Cynthy had done as well there
+as anywhere. Cynthy--well, she wasn't one of your pushing kind; but I
+should have some flowers, and perhaps it would be a change for me. I
+thanked her, and said I should be delighted to go. Georgie and I would
+make her a call together some afternoon when he wasn't busy; and
+Georgie actually smiled when I looked at him, and said, "All right,"
+and then hurried off down the shore. "Ain't he an odd boy?" said Miss
+Hannah West, with a shadow of disapproval in her face. "But he's just
+like his father and grandfather before him; you wouldn't think they
+had no gratitude nor feelin', but I s'pose they have. They used to say
+my father never'd forgit a friend, or forgive an enemy. Well, I'm much
+obliged to you, I'm sure, for taking an interest in the boy." I said I
+liked him; I only wished I could do something for him. And then she
+said good-day, and drove off. I felt as if we were already good
+friends. "I'm much obliged for the fish," she turned round to say to
+me again, as she went away.
+
+One morning, not very long afterward, I asked Georgie if he could
+possibly leave his business that afternoon, and he gravely answered me
+that he could get away just as well as not, for the tide would not be
+right for lobsters until after supper.
+
+"I should like to go up and see your aunt," said I. "You know she
+asked me to come the other day when she was here."
+
+"I'd like to go," said Georgie sedately. "Father was going up this
+week; but the mackerel struck in, and we couldn't leave. But it's
+better'n six miles up there."
+
+"That's not far," said I. "I'm going to have Captain Donnell's horse
+and wagon;" and Georgie looked much interested.
+
+I wondered if he would wear his oil-skin suit; but I was much amazed,
+and my heart was touched, at seeing how hard he had tried to put
+himself in trim for the visit. He had on his best jacket and trousers
+(which might have been most boys' worst), and a clean calico shirt;
+and he had scrubbed his freckled, honest little face and his hard
+little hands, until they were as clean as possible; and either he or
+his father had cut his hair. I should think it had been done with a
+knife, and it looked as if a rat had gnawed it. He had such a holiday
+air! He really looked very well; but still, if I were to have a
+picture of Georgie, it should be in the oil-skin fishing-suit. He had
+gone out to his box, which was anchored a little way out in the cove,
+and had chosen two fine lobsters which he had tied together with a bit
+of fish-line. They were lazily moving their claws and feelers; and his
+father, who had come in with his boat not long before, added from his
+fare of fish three plump mackerel.
+
+"They're always glad to get new fish," said he. "The girls can't abide
+a fish that's corned, and I haven't had a chance to send 'em up any
+mackerel before. Ye see, they live on a cross-road, and the fish-carts
+don't go by." And I told him I was very glad to carry them, or any
+thing else he would like to send. "Mind your manners, now, Georgie,"
+said he, "and don't be forrard. You might split up some kindlin's for
+y'r aunts, and do whatever they want of ye. Boys ain't made just to
+look at, so ye be handy, will ye?" And Georgie nodded solemnly. They
+seemed very fond of each other, and I looked back some time afterward
+to see the fisherman still standing there to watch his boy. He was
+used to his being out at sea alone for hours; but this might be a
+great risk to let him go off inland to stay all the afternoon.
+
+The road crossed the salt-marshes for the first mile, and, when we had
+struck the higher land, we soon entered the pine-woods, which cover a
+great part of that country. It had been raining in the morning for a
+little while; and the trunks of the trees were still damp, and the
+underbrush was shining wet, and sent out a sweet, fresh smell. I spoke
+of it, and Georgie told me that sometimes this fragrance blew far out
+to sea, and then you knew the wind was north-west.
+
+"There's the big pine you sight Minister's Ledge by," said he, "when
+that comes in range over the white schoolhouse, about two miles out."
+
+The lobsters were clashing their pegged claws together in the back of
+the wagon, and Georgie sometimes looked over at them to be sure they
+were all right. Of course I had given him the reins when we first
+started, and he was delighted because we saw some squirrels, and even
+a rabbit, which scurried across the road as if I had been a fiery
+dragon, and Georgie something worse.
+
+We presently came in sight of a house close by the road,--an
+old-looking place, with a ledgy, forlorn field stretching out behind
+it toward some low woods. There were high white-birch poles holding up
+thick tangles of hop-vines, and at the side there were sunflowers
+straggling about as if they had come up from seed scattered by the
+wind. Some of them were close together, as if they were whispering to
+each other; and their big, yellow faces were all turned toward the
+front of the house, where people were already collected as if there
+were a funeral.
+
+"It's the auction," said Georgie with great satisfaction. "I heard 'em
+talking about it down at the shore this morning. There's 'Lisha Downs
+now. He started off just before we did. That's his fish-cart over by
+the well."
+
+"What is going to be sold?" said I.
+
+"All the stuff," said Georgie, as if he were much pleased. "She's
+going off up to Boston with her son."
+
+"I think we had better stop," said I, for I saw Mrs. 'Lisha Downs, who
+was one of my acquaintances at the shore, and I wished to see what was
+going on, besides giving Georgie a chance at the festivities. So we
+tied the horse, and went toward the house, and I found several people
+whom I knew a little. Mrs. Downs shook hands with me as formally as if
+we had not talked for some time as I went by her house to the shore,
+just after breakfast. She presented me to several of her friends with
+whom she had been talking as I came up. "Let me make you acquainted,"
+she said; and every time I bowed she bowed too, unconsciously, and
+seemed a little ill at ease and embarrassed, but luckily the ceremony
+was soon over. "I thought I would stop for a few minutes," said I by
+way of apology. "I didn't know why the people were here until Georgie
+told me."
+
+"She's going to move up to Boston 'long of her son," said one of the
+women, who looked very pleasant and very tired. "I think myself it's a
+bad plan to pull old folks up by the roots. There's a niece o' hers
+that would have been glad to stop with her, and do for the old lady.
+But John, he's very high-handed, and wants it his way, and he says his
+mother sha'n't live in no such a place as this. He makes a sight o'
+money. He's got out a patent, and they say he's just bought a new
+house that cost him eleven thousand dollars. But old Mis' Wallis,
+she's wonted here; and she was telling of me yesterday she was only
+going to please John. He says he wants her up there, where she'll be
+more comfortable, and see something."
+
+"He means well," said another woman whom I did not know; "but folks
+about here never thought no great of his judgment. He's put up some
+splendid stones in the burying-lot to his father and his sister
+Miranda that died. I used to go to school 'long of Miranda. She'd have
+been pleased to go to Boston; she was that kind. But there! mother was
+saying last night, what if his business took a turn, and he lost every
+thing! Mother's took it dreadfully to heart; she and Mis' Wallis was
+always mates as long ago as they can recollect."
+
+It was evident that the old widow was both pitied and envied by her
+friends on account of her bettered fortunes, and they came up to speak
+to her with more or less seriousness, as befitted the occasion. She
+looked at me with great curiosity, but Mrs. Downs told her who I was,
+and I had a sudden instinct to say how sorry I was for her, but I was
+afraid it might appear intrusive on so short an acquaintance. She was
+a thin old soul who looked as if she had had a good deal of trouble in
+her day, and as if she had been very poor and very anxious. "Yes,"
+said she to some one who had come from a distance, "it does come hard
+to go off. Home is home, and I seem to hate to sell off my things; but
+I suppose they would look queer up to Boston. John Bays says I won't
+have no idea of the house until I see it;" and she looked proud and
+important for a minute, but, as some one brought an old chair out at
+the door, her face fell again. "Oh, dear!" said she, "I should like to
+keep that! it belonged to my mother. It's most wore out anyway. I
+guess I'll let somebody keep it for me;" and she hurried off
+despairingly to find her son, while we went into the house.
+
+There is so little to interest the people who live on those quiet,
+secluded farms, that an event of this kind gives great pleasure. I
+know they have not done talking yet about the sale, of the bargains
+that were made, or the goods that brought more than they were worth.
+And then the women had the chance of going all about the house, and
+committing every detail of its furnishings to their tenacious
+memories. It is a curiosity one grows more and more willing to pardon,
+for there is so little to amuse them in every-day life. I wonder if
+any one has not often been struck, as I have, by the sadness and
+hopelessness which seems to overshadow many of the people who live on
+the lonely farms in the outskirts of small New-England villages. It is
+most noticeable among the elderly women. Their talk is very cheerless,
+and they have a morbid interest in sicknesses and deaths; they tell
+each other long stories about such things; they are very forlorn; they
+dwell persistently upon any troubles which they have; and their petty
+disputes with each other have a tragic hold upon their thoughts,
+sometimes being handed down from one generation to the next. Is it
+because their world is so small, and life affords so little amusement
+and pleasure, and is at best such a dreary round of the dullest
+housekeeping? There is a lack of real merriment, and the fun is an
+odd, rough way of joking; it is a stupid, heavy sort of fun, though
+there is much of a certain quaint humor, and once in a while a flash
+of wit. I came upon a short, stout old sister in one room, making all
+the effort she possibly could to see what was on the upper shelves of
+a closet. We were the only persons there, and she looked longingly at
+a convenient chair, and I know she wished I would go away. But my
+heart suddenly went out toward an old dark-green Delft bowl which I
+saw, and I asked her if she would be kind enough to let me take it, as
+if I thought she were there for the purpose. "I'll bring you a chair,"
+said I; and she said, "Certain, dear." And I helped her up, and I'm
+sure she had the good look she had coveted while I took the bowl to
+the window. It was badly cracked, and had been mended with putty; but
+the rich, dull color of it was exquisite. One often comes across a
+beautiful old stray bit of china in such a place as this, and I
+imagined it filled with apple-blossoms or wild roses. Mrs. Wallis
+wished to give it to me, she said it wasn't good for any thing; and,
+finding she did not care for it, I bought it; and now it is perched
+high in my room, with the cracks discreetly turned to the wall. "Seems
+to me she never had thrown away nothing," said my friend, whom I found
+still standing on the chair when I came back. "Here's some pieces of a
+pitcher: I wonder when she broke it! I've heard her say it was one her
+grandmother give her, though. The old lady bought it to a vandoo down
+at old Mis' Walton Peters's after she died, so Mis' Wallis said. I
+guess I'll speak to her, and see if she wants every thing sold that's
+here."
+
+There was a very great pathos to me about this old home. It must have
+been a hard place to get a living in, both for men and women, with its
+wretched farming-land, and the house itself so cold and thin and worn
+out. I could understand that the son was in a hurry to get his mother
+away from it. I was sure that the boyhood he had spent there must have
+been uncomfortable, and that he did not look back to it with much
+pleasure. There is an immense contrast between even a moderately
+comfortable city house and such a place as this. No wonder that he
+remembered the bitter cold mornings, the frost and chill, and the
+dark, and the hard work, and wished his mother to leave them all
+behind, as he had done! He did not care for the few plain bits of
+furniture; why should he? and he had been away so long, that he had
+lost his interest in the neighbors. Perhaps this might come back to
+him again as he grew older; but now he moved about among them, in his
+handsome but somewhat flashy clothes, with a look that told me he felt
+conscious of his superior station in life. I did not altogether like
+his looks, though somebody said admiringly, as he went by, "They say
+he's worth as much as thirty thousand dollars a'ready. He's smart as a
+whip." But, while I did not wonder at the son's wishing his mother to
+go away, I also did not wonder at her being unwilling to leave the
+dull little house where she had spent so much of her life. I was
+afraid no other house in the world would ever seem like home to her:
+she was a part of the old place; she had worn the doors smooth by the
+touch of her hands, and she had scrubbed the floors, and walked over
+them, until the knots stood up high in the pine boards. The old clock
+had been unscrewed from the wall, and stood on a table; and when I
+heard its loud and anxious tick, my first thought was one of pity for
+the poor thing, for fear it might be homesick, like its mistress. When
+I went out again, I was very sorry for old Mrs. Wallis; she looked so
+worried and excited, and as if this new turn of affairs in her life
+was too strange and unnatural; it bewildered her, and she could not
+understand it; she only knew every thing was going to be different.
+
+Georgie was by himself, as usual, looking grave and intent. He had
+gone aloft on the wheel of a clumsy great ox-cart in which some of the
+men had come to the auction, and he was looking over people's heads,
+and seeing every thing that was sold. I saw he was not ready to come
+away, so I was not in a hurry. I heard Mrs. Wallis say to one of her
+friends, "You just go in and take that rug with the flowers on't, and
+go and put it in your wagon. It's right beside my chist that's packed
+ready to go. John told me to give away any thing I had a mind to. He
+don't care nothing about the money. I hooked that rug four year ago;
+it's most new; the red of the roses was made out of a dress of
+Miranda's. I kept it a good while after she died; but it was no use to
+let it lay. I've given a good deal to my sister Stiles: she was over
+here helping me yesterday. There! it's all come upon me so sudden! I
+s'pose I shall wish, after I get away, that I had done things
+different; but, after I knew the farm was goin' to be sold, I didn't
+seem to realize I was goin' to break up, until John came, day before
+yesterday."
+
+She was very friendly with me, when I said I should think she would be
+sorry to go away; but she seemed glad to find I had been in Boston a
+great deal, and that I was not at all unhappy there. "But I suppose
+you have folks there," said she, "though I never supposed they was so
+sociable as they be here, and I ain't one that's easy to make
+acquaintance. It's different with young folks; and then in case
+o'sickness I should hate to have strange folks round me. It seems as
+if I never set so much by the old place as I do now I'm goin' away. I
+used to wish 'he' would sell, and move over to the Port, it was such
+hard work getting along when the child'n was small. And there's one of
+my boys that run away to sea, and never was heard from. I've always
+thought he might come back, though everybody give him up years ago. I
+can't help thinking what if he should come back, and find I wa'n't
+here! There! I'm glad to please John: he sets everything by me, and I
+s'pose he thinks he's going to make a spry young woman of me. Well,
+it's natural. Every thing looks fair to him, and he thinks he can have
+the world just as he wants it; but _I_ know it's a world o' change,--a
+world o' change and loss. And, you see, I shall have to go to a
+strange meetin' up there.--Why, Mis' Sands! I am pleased to see you.
+How did you get word?" And then Mrs. Wallis made another careful
+apology for moving away. She seemed to be so afraid some one would
+think she had not been satisfied with the neighborhood.
+
+The auctioneer was a disagreeable-looking man, with a most unpleasant
+voice, which gave me a sense of discomfort, the little old house and
+its surroundings seemed so grave and silent and lonely. It was like
+having all the noise and confusion on a Sunday. The house was so shut
+in by the trees, that the only outlook to the world beyond was a
+narrow gap in the pines, through which one could see the sea, bright,
+blue and warm with sunshine, that summer day.
+
+There was something wistful about the place, as there must have been
+about the people who had lived there; yet, hungry and unsatisfied as
+her life might have been in many ways, the poor old woman dreaded the
+change.
+
+The thought flashed through my mind that we all have more or less of
+this same feeling about leaving this world for a better one. We have
+the certainty that we shall be a great deal happier in heaven; but we
+cling despairingly to the familiar things of this life. God pity the
+people who find it so hard to believe what he says, and who are afraid
+to die, and are afraid of the things they do not understand! I kept
+thinking over and over of what Mrs. Wallis had said: 'A world of
+change and loss!' What should we do if we did not have God's love to
+make up for it, and if we did not know something of heaven already?
+
+It seemed very doleful that everybody should look on the dark side of
+the Widow Wallis's flitting, and I tried to suggest to her some of the
+pleasures and advantages of it, once when I had a chance. And indeed
+she was proud enough to be going away with her rich son; it was not
+like selling her goods because she was too poor to keep the old home
+any longer. I hoped the son would always be prosperous, and that the
+son's wife would always be kind, and not be ashamed of her, or think
+she was in the way. But I am afraid it may be a somewhat uneasy
+idleness, and that there will not be much beside her knitting-work to
+remind her of the old routine. She will even miss going back and
+forward from the old well in storm and sunshine; she will miss looking
+after the chickens, and her slow walks about the little place, or out
+to a neighbor's for a bit of gossip, with the old brown checked
+handkerchief over her head; and when the few homely, faithful old
+flowers come up next year by the doorstep, there will be nobody to
+care any thing about them.
+
+I said good-by, and got into the wagon, and Georgie clambered in after
+me with a look of great importance, and we drove away. He was very
+talkative; the unusual excitement of the day was not without its
+effect. He had a good deal to tell me about the people I had seen,
+though I had to ask a good many questions.
+
+"Who was the thin old fellow, with the black coat, faded yellow-green
+on the shoulders, who was talking to Skipper Downs about the
+dog-fish?"
+
+"That's old Cap'n Abiah Lane," said Georgie; "lives over toward Little
+Beach,--him that was cast away in the fog in a dory down to the Banks
+once; like to have starved to death before he got picked up. I've
+heard him tell all about it. Don't look as if he'd ever had enough to
+eat since!" said the boy grimly. "He used to come over a good deal
+last winter, and go out after cod 'long o' father and me. His boats
+all went adrift in the big storm in November, and he never heard
+nothing about 'em; guess they got stove against the rocks."
+
+We had still more than three miles to drive over a lonely part of the
+road, where there was scarcely a house, and where the woods had been
+cut off more or less, so there was nothing to be seen but the uneven
+ground, which was not fit for even a pasture yet. But it was not
+without a beauty of its own; for the little hills and hollows were
+covered thick with brakes and ferns and bushes, and in the swamps the
+cat-tails and all the rushes were growing in stiff and stately ranks,
+so green and tall; while the birds flew up, or skimmed across them as
+we went by. It was like a town of birds, there were so many. It is
+strange how one is always coming upon families and neighborhoods of
+wild creatures in the unsettled country places; it is so much like
+one's going on longer journeys about the world, and finding town after
+town with its own interests, each so sufficient for itself.
+
+We struck the edge of the farming-land again, after a while, and I saw
+three great pines that had been born to good luck in this world, since
+they had sprouted in good soil, and had been left to grow as fast as
+they pleased. They lifted their heads proudly against the blue sky,
+these rich trees, and I admired them as much as they could have
+expected. They must have been a landmark for many miles to the
+westward, for they grew on high land, and they could pity, from a
+distance, any number of their poor relations who were just able to
+keep body and soul together, and had grown up thin and hungry in
+crowded woods. But, though their lower branches might snap and crackle
+at a touch, their tops were brave and green, and they kept up
+appearances, at any rate; these poorer pines.
+
+Georgie pointed out his aunts' house to me, after a while. It was not
+half so forlorn-looking as the others, for there were so many flowers
+in bloom about it of the gayest kind, and a little yellow-and-white
+dog came down the road to bark at us; but his manner was such that it
+seemed like an unusually cordial welcome rather than an indignant
+repulse. I noticed four jolly old apple-trees near by, which looked as
+if they might be the last of a once flourishing orchard. They were
+standing in a row, in exactly the same position, with their heads
+thrown gayly back, as if they were all dancing in an old-fashioned
+reel; and, after the forward and back, one might expect them to turn
+partners gallantly. I laughed aloud when I caught sight of them: there
+was something very funny in their looks, so jovial and whole-hearted,
+with a sober, cheerful pleasure, as if they gave their whole minds to
+it. It was like some old gentlemen and ladies who catch the spirit of
+the thing, and dance with the rest at a Christmas party.
+
+Miss Hannah West first looked out of the window, and then came to meet
+us, looking as if she were glad to see us. Georgie had nothing
+whatever to say; but, after I had followed his aunt into the house, he
+began to work like a beaver at once, as if it were any thing but a
+friendly visit that could be given up to such trifles as conversation,
+or as if he were any thing but a boy. He brought the fish and lobsters
+into the outer kitchen, though I was afraid our loitering at the
+auction must have cost them their first freshness; and then he carried
+the axe to the wood-pile, and began to chop up the small white-pine
+sticks and brush which form the summer fire-wood at the
+farm-houses,--crow-sticks and underbrush, a good deal of it,--but it
+makes a hot little blaze while it lasts.
+
+I had not seen Miss Cynthia West, the younger sister, before, and I
+found the two women very unlike. Miss Hannah was evidently the capable
+business-member of the household, and she had a loud voice, and went
+about as if she were in a hurry. Poor Cynthia! I saw at first that she
+was one of the faded-looking country-women who have a hard time, and
+who, if they had grown up in the midst of a more luxurious way of
+living, would have been frail and delicate and refined, and entirely
+lady-like. But, as it was, she was somewhat in the shadow of her
+sister, and felt as if she were not of very much use or consequence in
+the world, I have no doubt. She showed me some pretty picture-frames
+she had made out of pine-cones and hemlock-cones and alder-burs; but
+her chief glory and pride was a silly little model of a house, in
+perforated card-board, which she had cut and worked after a pattern
+that came in a magazine. It must have cost her a great deal of work;
+but it partly satisfied her great longing for pretty things, and for
+the daintiness and art that she had an instinct toward, and never had
+known. It stood on the best-room table, with a few books, which I
+suppose she had read over and over again; and in the room, beside,
+were green paper curtains with a landscape on the outside, and some
+chairs ranged stiffly against the walls, some shells, and an ostrich's
+egg, with a ship drawn on it, on the mantel-shelf, and ever so many
+rugs on the floor, of most ambitious designs, which they had made in
+winter. I know the making of them had been a great pleasure to Miss
+Cynthia, and I was sure it was she who had taken care of the garden,
+and was always at much pains to get seeds and slips in the spring.
+
+She told me how much they had wished that Georgie had come to live
+with them after his mother died. It would have been very handy for
+them to have him in winter too; but it was no use trying to get him
+away from his father; and neither of them were contented if they were
+out of sight of the sea. "He's a dreadful odd boy, and so old for his
+years. Hannah, she says he's older now than I be," and she blushed a
+little as she looked up at me; while for a moment the tears came into
+my eyes, as I thought of this poor, plain woman, who had such a
+capacity for enjoyment, and whose life had been so dull, and far apart
+from the pleasures and satisfactions which had made so much of my own
+life. It seemed to me as if I had had a great deal more than I
+deserved, while this poor soul was almost beggared. I seemed to know
+all about her life in a flash, and pitied her from the bottom of my
+heart. Yet I suppose she would not have changed places with me for any
+thing, or with anybody else, for that matter.
+
+Miss Cynthia had a good deal to say about her mother, who had been a
+schoolmate of Mrs. Wallis's--I had been telling them what I could
+about the auction. She told me that she had died the spring before,
+and said how much they missed her; and Hannah broke in upon her
+regrets in her brusque, downright way: "I should have liked to kep'
+her if she'd lived to be a hundred, but I don't wish her back. She'd
+had considerable many strokes, and she couldn't help herself much of
+any. She'd got to be rising eighty, and her mind was a good deal
+broke," she added conclusively, after a short silence; while Cynthia
+looked sorrowfully out of the window, and we heard the sound of
+Georgie's axe at the other side of the house, and the wild, sweet
+whistle of a bird that flew overhead. I suppose one of the sisters was
+just as sorry as the other in reality.
+
+"Now I want you and Georgie to stop and have some tea. I'll get it
+good and early," said Hannah, starting suddenly from her chair, and
+beginning to bustle about again, after she had asked me about some
+people at home whom she knew. "Cynthy! Perhaps she'd like to walk
+round out doors a spell. It's breezing up, and it'll be cooler than it
+is in the house.--No: you needn't think I shall be put out by your
+stopping; but you'll have to take us just as we be. Georgie always
+calculates to stop when he comes up. I guess he's made off for the
+woods. I see him go across the lot a few minutes ago."
+
+So Cynthia put on a discouraged-looking gingham sun-bonnet, which
+drooped over her face, and gave her a more appealing look than ever,
+and we went over to the pine-woods, which were beautiful that day. She
+showed me a little waterfall made by a brook that came over a high
+ledge of rock covered with moss, and here and there tufts of fresh
+green ferns. It grew late in the afternoon, and it was pleasant there
+in the shade, with the noise of the brook and the wind in the pines,
+that sounded like the sea. The wood-thrushes began to sing,--and who
+could have better music?
+
+Miss Cynthia told me that it always made her think of once when she
+was a little girl to hear the thrushes. She had run away, and fallen
+into the ma'sh; and her mother had sent her to bed quick as she got
+home, though it was only four o'clock. And she was so ashamed, because
+there was company there,--some of her father's folks from over to
+Eliot; and then she heard the thrushes begin to call after a while,
+and she thought they were talking about her, and they knew she had
+been whipped and sent to bed. "I'd been gone all day since morning. I
+had a great way of straying off in the woods," said she. "I suppose
+mother was put to it when she see me coming in, all bog-mud, right
+before the company."
+
+We came by my friends, the apple-trees, on our return, and I saw a row
+of old-fashioned square bee-hives near them, which I had not noticed
+before. Miss Cynthia told me that the bee money was always hers; but
+she lost a good many swarms on account of the woods being so near, and
+they had a trick of swarming Sundays, after she'd gone to meeting;
+and, besides, the miller-bugs spoilt 'em; and some years they didn't
+make enough honey to live on, so she didn't get any at all. I saw some
+bits of black cloth fluttering over the little doors where the bees
+went in and out, and the sight touched me strangely. I did not know
+that the old custom still lingered of putting the hives in mourning,
+and telling the bees when there had been a death in the family, so
+they would not fly away. I said, half to myself, a line or two from
+Whittier's poem, which I always thought one of the loveliest in the
+world, and this seemed almost the realization of it. Miss Cynthia
+asked me wistfully, "Is that in a book?" I told her yes, and that she
+should have it next time I came up, or had a chance of sending it.
+"I've seen a good many pieces of poetry that Mr. Whittier wrote," said
+she. "I've got some that I cut out of the paper a good while ago. I
+think every thing of 'em."
+
+"I put the black on the hives myself," said she. "It was for mother,
+you know. She did it when father died. But when my brother was lost,
+we didn't, because we never knew just when it was; the schooner was
+missing, and it was a good while before they give her up."
+
+"I wish we had some neighbors in sight," said she once. "I'd like to
+see a light when I look out after dark. Now, at my aunt's, over to
+Eliot, the house stands high, and when it's coming dark you can see
+all the folks lighting up. It seems real sociable."
+
+We lingered a little while under the apple-trees, and watched the wise
+little bees go and come; and Miss Cynthia told me how much Georgie was
+like his grandfather, who was so steady and quiet, and always right
+after his business. "He never was ugly to us, as I know of," said she;
+"but I was always sort of 'fraid of father. Hannah, she used to talk
+to him free's she would to me; and he thought, 's long's Hannah did
+any thing, it was all right. I always held by my mother the most; and
+when father was took sick,--that was in the winter,--I sent right off
+for Hannah to come home. I used to be scared to death, when he'd want
+any thing done, for fear I shouldn't do it right. Mother, she'd had a
+fall, and couldn't get about very well. Hannah had good advantages.
+She went off keeping school when she wasn't but seventeen, and she
+saved up some money, and boarded over to the Port after a while, and
+learned the tailoress trade. She was always called very smart,--you
+see she's got ways different from me; and she was over to the Port
+several winters. She never said a word about it, but there was a young
+man over there that wanted to keep company with her. He was going out
+first mate of a new ship that was building. But, when she got word
+from me about father, she come right home, and that was the end of it.
+It seemed to be a pity. I used to think perhaps he'd come and see her
+some time, between voyages, and that he'd get to be cap'n, and they'd
+go off and take me with 'em. I always wanted to see something of the
+world. I never have been but dreadful little ways from home. I used to
+wish I could keep school; and once my uncle was agent for his
+district, and he said I could have a chance; but the folks laughed to
+think o' me keeping school, and I never said any thing more about it.
+But you see it might 'a' led to something. I always wished I could go
+to Boston. I suppose you've been there? There! I couldn't live out o'
+sight o' the woods, I don't believe."
+
+"I can understand that," said I, and half with a wish to show her I
+had some troubles, though I had so many pleasures that she did not, I
+told her that the woods I loved best had all been cut down the winter
+before. I had played under the great pines when I was a child, and I
+had spent many a long afternoon under them since. There never will be
+such trees for me any more in the world. I knew where the flowers grew
+under them, and where the ferns were greenest, and it was as much home
+to me as my own house. They grew on the side of a hill, and the sun
+always shone through the tops of the trees as it went down, while
+below it was all in shadow--and I had been there with so many dear
+friends who have died, or who are very far away. I told Miss Cynthia,
+what I never had told anybody else, that I loved those trees so much
+that I went over the hill on the frozen snow to see them one sunny
+winter afternoon, to say good-by, as if I were sure they could hear
+me, and looked back again and again, as I came away, to be sure I
+should remember how they looked. And it seemed as if they knew as well
+as I that it was the last time, and they were going to be cut down. It
+was a Sunday afternoon, and I was all alone, and the farewell was a
+reality and a sad thing to me. It was saying good-by to a great deal
+besides the pines themselves.
+
+We stopped a while in the little garden, where Miss Cynthia gave me
+some magnificent big marigolds to put away for seed, and was much
+pleased because I was so delighted with her flowers. It was a gorgeous
+little garden to look at, with its red poppies, and blue larkspur, and
+yellow marigolds, and old-fashioned sweet, straying things,--all
+growing together in a tangle of which my friend seemed ashamed. She
+told me that it looked as ordered as could be, until the things begun
+to grow so fast she couldn't do any thing with 'em. She was very proud
+of one little pink-and-white verbena which somebody had given her. It
+was not growing very well; but it had not disappointed her about
+blooming.
+
+Georgie had come back from his ramble some time before. He had cracked
+the lobster which Miss Hannah had promptly put on to boil, and I saw
+the old gray cat having a capital lunch off the shells; while the
+horse looked meeker than ever, with his headstall thrown back on his
+shoulders, eating his supper of hay by the fence; for Miss Hannah was
+a hospitable soul. She was tramping about in the house, getting
+supper, and we went in to find the table already pulled out into the
+floor. So Miss Cynthia hastened to set it. I could see she was very
+much ashamed of having been gone so long. Neither of us knew it was so
+late. But Miss Hannah said it didn't make a mite o' difference, there
+was next to nothing to do, and looked at me with a little smile, which
+said, "You see how it is. I'm the one who has faculty, and I favor
+her."
+
+I was very hungry; and, though it was not yet six, it seemed a whole
+day since dinner-time. Miss Hannah made many apologies; and said, if I
+had only set a day, she would have had things as they ought to be. But
+it was a very good supper, and she knew it! She didn't know but I was
+tired o' lobsters. And when I had eaten two of the biscuit, and had
+begun an attack on the hot gingerbread, she said humbly that she
+didn't know when she had had such bad luck, though Georgie and I were
+both satisfied. He did not speak more than once or twice during the
+meal. I do not think he was afraid of me, for we had had many a lunch
+together when he had taken me out fishing; but this was an occasion,
+and there was at first the least possible restraint over all the
+company, though I'm glad to say it soon vanished. We had two kinds of
+preserves, and some honey beside, and there was a pie with a pale,
+smooth crust, and three cuts in the top. It looked like a very good
+pie of its kind; but one can't eat every thing, though one does one's
+best. And we had big cups of tea; and, though Miss Hannah supposed I
+had never eaten with any thing but silver forks before, it happened
+luckily that I had, and we were very merry indeed. Miss Hannah told us
+several stories of the time she kept school, and gave us some
+reminiscences of her life at the Port; and Miss Cynthia looked at me
+as if she had heard them before, and wished to say, "I know she's
+having a good time." I think Miss Cynthia felt, after we were out in
+the woods, as if I were her company, and she was responsible for me.
+
+I thanked them heartily when I came away, for I had had such a
+pleasant time. Miss Cynthia picked me a huge nosegay of her flowers,
+and whispered that she hoped I wouldn't forget about lending her the
+book. Poor woman! she was so young,--only a girl yet, in spite of her
+having lived more than fifty years in that plain, dull home of hers,
+in spite of her faded face and her grayish hair. We came away in the
+rattling wagon. Georgie sat up in his place with a steady hand on the
+reins, and keeping a careful lookout ahead, as if he were steering a
+boat through a rough sea.
+
+We passed the house where the auction had been, and it was all shut
+up. The cat sat on the doorstep waiting patiently, and I felt very
+sorry for her; but Georgie said there were neighbors not far off, and
+she was a master hand for squirrels. I was glad to get sight of the
+sea again, and to smell the first stray whiff of salt air that blew in
+to meet us as we crossed the marshes. I think the life in me must be
+next of kin to the life of the sea, for it is drawn toward it
+strangely, as a little drop of quicksilver grows uneasy just out of
+reach of a greater one.
+
+"Good-night, Georgie!" said I; and he nodded his head a little as he
+drove away to take the horse home. "Much obliged to you for my ride,"
+said he, and I knew in a minute that his father or one of the aunts
+had cautioned him not to forget to make his acknowledgments. He had
+told me on the way down that he had baited his nets all ready to set
+that evening. I knew he was in a hurry to go out, and it was not long
+before I saw his boat pushing off. It was after eight o'clock, and the
+moon was coming up pale and white out of the sea, while the west was
+still bright after the clear sunset.
+
+I have a little model of a fishing dory that Georgie made for me, with
+its sprit-sail and killick and painter and oars and gaff all cleverly
+cut with the clumsiest of jackknives. I care a great deal for the
+little boat; and I gave him a better knife before I came away, to
+remember me by; but I am afraid its shininess and trig shape may have
+seemed a trifle unmanly to him. His father's had been sharpened on the
+beach-stones to clean many a fish, and it was notched and dingy; but
+this would cut; there was no doubt about that. I hope Georgie was
+sorry when we said good-by. I'm sure I was.
+
+A solemn, careful, contented young life, with none of the playfulness
+or childishness that belong to it,--this is my little fisherman, whose
+memory already fades of whatever tenderness his dead mother may have
+given him. But he is lucky in this, that he has found his work and
+likes it; and so I say, 'May the sea prove kind to him! and may he
+find the Friend those other fishermen found, who were mending their
+nets on the shores of Galilee! and may he make the harbor of heaven by
+and by after a stormy voyage or a quiet one, whichever pleases God!
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Old Friends and New, by Sarah Orne Jewett
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD FRIENDS AND NEW ***
+
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