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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Eunice, by Margaret Murray Robertson
+
+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: Eunice
+
+Author: Margaret Murray Robertson
+
+Release Date: December 3, 2011 [EBook #38196]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EUNICE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
+
+
+
+
+Eunice
+By Margaret Murray Robertson
+Published by Hodder and Stoughton, 27 Paternoster Row, London.
+This edition dated 1890.
+
+Eunice, by Margaret Murray Robertson.
+
+________________________________________________________________________
+
+________________________________________________________________________
+EUNICE, BY MARGARET MURRAY ROBERTSON.
+
+CHAPTER ONE.
+
+GOING HOME.
+
+One fair morning, a good many years ago, a number of schoolgirls were
+waiting at a little wayside station on the banks of the Connecticut
+River.  They had crossed the river in a ferry-boat and were waiting for
+more of their number who were coming after them.
+
+They were waiting patiently enough.  It was a good place in which to
+wait, for the scene around them was very lovely.  They were standing at
+the foot of Mount Tom, glorious in the morning sunshine, and looking
+over on the shadows which still lingered on the face of Mount Holyoke.
+
+From the far north flows the Connecticut River broadening on its way, as
+Green Mountain and White send down on either hand, from melting
+snow-drifts and hidden springs, their tribute to its waters.  Through
+forests and broken hill country, through meadows, sometimes broad and
+sometimes narrow, past town and village and lonely farmhouse, it flows
+before it makes a bend to pass between Mounts Tom and Holyoke, but in
+all its course it flows through no fairer landscape than that which
+spreads itself around the base of these two historic mountains.
+
+Over all the land lay the promise of spring in the glory of cloudless
+sunshine.  Only the promise as yet.  The mountains were still bare and
+brown, with patches of snow lingering in hollow and crevice; and the
+great elms that were everywhere--in the village streets, along the roads
+that wound between the hills, and around the white farmhouses--showed no
+tinge of green as yet, but their brown buds were ready and waiting to
+burst; the meadows were growing green and the catkins were large and
+full on the willows by the brooks that hastened through them to the
+river.  There was a soft tinge, half green, half golden, on earlier
+trees growing in sheltered places; and the promise of the spring was
+everywhere--more joyfully welcomed after a long winter than spring in
+the full glory of leaf and blossom.
+
+They were thinking and speaking of other things--these waiting
+schoolgirls.  Some of them walked about, softly speaking last words to
+each other, and some of them were watching the coming of the boat over
+the swollen waters of the river.  But the beauty around them, the
+sweetness of the spring morning, the restful quiet on mountain and
+valley, were present with them all.
+
+"Nellie Austin," said a voice from the group that watched the boat, "do
+you see?  Your `Faithful' is coming after all."
+
+"My Faithful!"--and a young girl sprang forward as the boat touched the
+bank.
+
+A slender girl, very plainly dressed, stepped out first--a girl with
+grave dark eyes and a firm mouth, which yet trembled a little as she
+answered her companion's greeting.
+
+"Faithful! my Faithful! you are coming home with me after all?"
+
+"No, dear; I am going home to my Eunice.  I thought I had better."
+
+"Have you heard again?  Is she not well?"
+
+"I have not heard again; but she is not very well, I am afraid.  I must
+go and see."
+
+"But you will come back again?  You will never, never think of not
+coming back!"
+
+"Oh, yes, I hope so!  I think so--unless she is really sick."
+
+"Oh, she is not so very sick, or you would have heard!  What should I
+ever do without you?  Now you must sit with me as far as I go.  Here are
+the cars!"
+
+There was no time to lose.  The "cars" had come which were to carry the
+schoolgirls home for a fortnight's rest and holiday.  From the windows a
+good many people looked out with interest on the group of girls, and one
+said to his friend--
+
+"They are from the seminary over the river yonder.  We saw it as we came
+on."
+
+"Schoolgirls?  No; they don't look like schoolgirls.  The greater part
+of them must be out of their teens, I should say."
+
+"Possibly, but all the same they are schoolgirls, though there may be a
+teacher or two among them."
+
+"Well, friend, after all that you have been telling me about your
+wonderful common school system, I should have supposed that the
+education of these sedate young persons might have been finished before
+the age of twenty."
+
+"Oh, I have no doubt that these young persons have had the benefit of
+common school and high school too, before they aspired to a place in the
+seminary over yonder; and the chances are that some of them since then
+have earned, either with hands or head, the means to carry them further
+on; and for these there can be no better place than the plain brick
+seminary on the other side of the river!"
+
+"Well," said his friend, "I can only repeat what I have said to you more
+than once already--you are a curious people in some ways--with your boys
+who are men, and your prim grave-faced young women who are schoolgirls.
+I should like to put a question or two to some of them, if I might."
+
+His friend shook his head.
+
+"You may have a chance to do so before you leave the country, but not
+to-day, I think.  You have no grown-up schoolgirls in _Old_ England?
+Out of _New_ England I don't suppose we have so very many even in this
+country; and there are probably more in the seminary over there than in
+schools generally among us.  It was built by special means for a special
+purpose.  A woman built it--a woman who never owned a dollar that she
+had not first earned--a great and good woman.  She gave herself, body,
+soul, and spirit, to the work of helping her countrywomen--her sisters,
+she called them all--who were hungering and thirsting, as she herself in
+her youth had hungered and thirsted, for knowledge."
+
+"With a view to making learned ladies of them all?"
+
+"Learned ladies?  Well, yes, perhaps--as a means to an end.  You may
+think it strange, as others have thought; but this woman really believed
+His word who said, `Ye are not your own.  Ye are bought with a price.'
+`None of us liveth to himself.'"
+
+"In a way, we all believe them, I suppose."
+
+"Yes, in a way.  Well, she believed them in another way.  She believed
+them and lived them all her life long.  Learned ladies!  Yes; but the
+keynote of all her teaching was this: `Not your own, but His who bought
+you.  His for service or for suffering, for watching or warfare, for
+life or death.'"
+
+"Well?" said his friend, as the speaker paused.
+
+"Well, she is dead, and `her works do follow her.'"
+
+There was no time for more.  The train stopped, and several of the
+"schoolgirls" rose to leave.  The travellers heard one "Good-bye"
+spoken.
+
+"Oh, if you would come with me even yet, dear Faithful!"
+
+"Another time I hope to go with you; but not this time."
+
+"Well, good-bye, my Faithful, good-bye.  No, I am not going to cry, but
+I _will_ kiss you, whatever any one may think about it."
+
+And then the speaker was gone.  No one saw her companion's face for some
+time after that.  Nor did she see the receding mountains on which she
+seemed to be gazing.  Her eyes were dim with tears which must not be
+allowed to fall.
+
+"Fidelia Marsh," said her companion at last, "what are you thinking
+about?  Not little Nellie Austin all this time, surely?"
+
+The young girl turned round.  "I was trying to think how it would seem
+if I were never to see her or any of you all again;" and then she turned
+her face to the window, and sat silent till her turn had come to say
+"Good-bye."
+
+"Yes, this is my stopping-place."
+
+She smiled and nodded to those who were not within reach of her hand,
+and seemed to be cheerful enough in her good-bye, but she did not linger
+near the window when she reached the platform, as Nellie Austin and her
+friend had done.
+
+It was a dreary little station, standing at the foot of a broken stony
+slope, with only one unfurnished house in sight.  One lank official
+moved about at his leisure, and one embryo trader hastened to display
+his boxes of lozenges, and his basket of unwholesome peanuts and last
+year's apples.  There were doubtless prosperous villages along the wide
+road that crossed the railway, and pleasant farmhouses amid the high
+pastures and moist meadow lands hid away among the hills beyond; but the
+dingy house and the dull little station were all that could be seen from
+the windows of the cars, and Fidelia's companions said to one another
+that the place looked forlorn.
+
+"And poor dear Fidelia!  Does she not look forlorn as well?"
+
+They had time to watch her as she went to claim her trunk, and they saw
+her shake hands with the leisurely official, who was evidently an
+acquaintance.  But when she turned at last to the window she did not
+look "forlorn."  A beautiful face looked up from under a big bonnet--a
+rarely beautiful face, delicate yet strong.  There were slight hollows
+and a darkened shade beneath the lovely grey eyes set wide apart under a
+low broad forehead, and the pale rose-tint on her cheeks might have been
+deeper with advantage.  The look of delicacy was due to the hard work
+she had been doing, but the strength was real, and she would last
+through harder work than ever she was likely to have at school.
+
+Forlorn?  No.  Her face was radiant!  The solemn-looking station-master
+had wrought the change.
+
+"Well, Fidelia, you've got home, haven't you?  Folks don't expect you,
+do they?"
+
+"I didn't write that I was coming.  I was not sure till the last minute.
+Are they all well about here?"
+
+"Yes, I guess so.  Eunice is well, any way.  She was to meeting Sunday;
+and seems to me Lucinda said she was at the sewing-circle at the
+doctor's the other day.  She'll be glad to see _you_, sick or well."
+
+"I'm glad and thankful that she is well," said Fidelia softly.  "I must
+say good-bye to the girls."
+
+She turned quickly towards the faces at the windows.
+
+"Have you heard good news, Fidelia?" called some one.
+
+There was no time for words, but the joy on the girl's upturned face was
+better than any last words could have been, even though her lips
+trembled and her eyes were dim with tears.
+
+And then the train swept on among the hills, and she who had been called
+"Faithful" turned her face toward her home, to get the first glimpse of
+the work which awaited her there.  Not the work which she had been
+planning for herself during the last year, but her work all the same--
+the work which God had appointed her to do.
+
+Declining the station-master's invitation to "go in and see Lucinda and
+wait for a chance to ride home," she went on her way with a cheerful
+heart.  She followed the wide road, leading westward, only a little way.
+Then she went in at an open gate, and across a stony pasture, till she
+came to a narrow road leading at first through a thicket of spruce and
+cedar, where it was necessary carefully to pick her steps over the wet
+moss and stones, and over the network of brown roots which the spring
+freshets had laid bare.  After a while the road began to ascend, and
+then the cedars and spruces were left behind, and birch and poplar and
+dogwood, but chiefly great maple trees, with branches high above all the
+rest, covered the hillside.  It was up hill and down again all the way
+after that till the journey was done.
+
+But she did not mind the hills or the roughness of the way.  The fresh
+air and the free movement were delightful to her in her new freedom, and
+everything about her seemed beautiful.  She caught sight of many a green
+thing growing among the dead leaves; and more than once she paused and
+stopped as if she would have liked to pick them.  But her hands were
+full, and the nearer she drew to her home the more eager she grew to
+reach it.  "I'll come again," she murmured.  "Oh, I am so glad that
+Eunice is well!"
+
+She reached the top of a hill steeper and higher than the rest, at a
+point from which could be seen a few miles of the railway, passing along
+the valley.  Her thoughts came back to her companions, and she sighed,
+and all at once began to feel tired; and then she sat down to rest, and,
+as she rested, she took a book from the bag which she had been carrying
+in her hand.
+
+"I am so glad that Eunice is well," she said to herself as she turned
+over the leaves.  "She was at meeting, he said, and at the
+sewing-circle.  Well, I am glad I came home all the same.  And I can do
+something at `The Evidences' while I am here."
+
+She glanced on a page or two, and in her interest in them she might have
+forgotten her haste, and lingered, had not the sound of approaching
+wheels disturbed the silence a little.  She rose in time to see the
+leisurely approach of an old grey horse and an old-fashioned
+weather-stained chaise.  They were familiar objects to her, and some of
+the pleasantest associations of her life were connected with them; but
+her heart beat hard and her face grew pale as she watched their slow
+approach.
+
+"Dr Everett," said she, "are you going to see Eunice?"
+
+"Is it you, Fidelia?  Are you just come home?  No, I am not going to see
+Eunice.  Is she not well?  She'll be glad to see _you_, sick or well,"
+added the doctor, as her other friend had done.
+
+He was out of the chaise by this time, and offering his hand to help her
+over the crooked fence.  But, instead of taking it, she gave one glance
+in the kind good face, and laid her own down on the rough bark of the
+cedar rail and burst out crying.
+
+"It was full time for you to come home, I think, if that is the best
+greeting you have to give your friends.  You've been overdoing, and have
+got nervous, I guess," said the doctor, moving aside first one rail and
+then another from the fence, to make it easier for her to get over.
+
+"Oh, no, Dr Everett, it is not that!  Nervous indeed!  I don't know
+what it means.  Only I'm so glad to get home, and--so glad that Eunice
+is well--"
+
+If she had said another word she must have cried again.
+
+"Well, never mind.  Get into the chaise, and I'll drive you home; and
+then I'll see about Eunice and you too."
+
+It was ridiculous, Fidelia told herself.  It had never happened in all
+her life before.  But it was more than she could do for awhile to
+command her voice or stop her tears.  The doctor made himself busy with
+the harness for a little, and, having left his whip behind him, he cut a
+switch from a hickory-tree beside the road; and by the time he was ready
+to get into the chaise Fidelia was herself again.
+
+"Have you been having a good time?" asked the doctor presently.
+
+"Yes, indeed!  I have enjoyed every minute of it.  And I have been
+perfectly well, Dr Everett.  I have never lost one recitation."
+
+"I suppose you have been at the head of the class and have got the
+medal."
+
+Fidelia laughed.  "I'm not the best scholar by a good many.  But I have
+got on pretty well."
+
+"Well, you have got up a step, I hear."
+
+"I have been taking some of the studies of the second year.  My Latin
+helped me on, and--other things.  And--I mean to graduate next year."
+
+"Do in two years what other girls are expected to do in three or four,
+and injure your health for life doing it?  That would be a poor kind of
+wisdom, little girl."
+
+"Oh, I haven't been doing too much, and I don't mean to!  But you know,
+two years means more to Eunice and me than it does to most people.  Oh,
+it will be all easy enough!  I was well prepared.  You see Eunice knew
+just what was needed."
+
+"Yes, and Eunice is a good teacher."
+
+"Isn't she?" said Fidelia eagerly.  "I haven't seen one yet to compare
+with her.  Oh, if Eunice had only had my chance!"
+
+"Softly, little girl!  Your chance, indeed!  Dear Eunice is far beyond
+all that sort of thing.  She has had better teaching."
+
+"Yes; but Eunice would have liked it.  You know she was at the seminary
+one of its first years.  And she would have gone on.  She told me the
+last night I was at home that it was years before she could quite give
+up the hope of going there again.  And I don't see why she shouldn't.
+She is not thirty-two years old yet; and it was not just for young girls
+that the seminary was built; and--"
+
+"My dear, Eunice has got past the need of all that.  It would be like
+sending you and Susie back again to the old red schoolhouse, to send
+Eunice there."
+
+The doctor had cut his hickory stick, but he had not used it, and old
+Grey had been moving on but slowly.  There was still a long hill to
+climb before they reached the spot where Fidelia could catch a first
+glimpse of home.  Old Grey moved slowly still, but neither of them spoke
+another word till he stood still at the door.
+
+It was a low wooden house, which had once been painted brown; but the
+weather-stains on the walls, and the green moss and the lichens on the
+roof, made its only colouring now.  It had wide eaves, and many
+small-paned windows, and a broad porch before the door.  A wild vine
+covered the porch and one of the windows, and the buds were beginning to
+show green upon it.  The house stood in a large garden, which might be a
+pretty garden in the summer-time, but nothing had been done to it yet.
+The sunshine was on it, however, and it was beautiful in Fidelia's eyes.
+She had lived in this old brown house more than half of the eighteen
+years of her life; she had been faithfully cared for and dearly loved;
+and there were tears in her eyes, though her face was bright, as she
+went in at the door.
+
+"You are coming in, Dr Everett?" said she.
+
+"Yes, I am coming in.  Do you suppose Eunice has a glass of buttermilk
+for me this morning?"
+
+"If she has not, she has got cream for you, I am quite sure," said she,
+laughing.
+
+Then they went in, and, finding no one, they went through the house to
+the garden beyond, where a woman with a large white sun-bonnet on her
+head was stooping over some budding thing at her feet.  She raised
+herself up in a little, and came towards them, closely examining
+something which she held in her hand.  So she did not see them till she
+came near the door where they stood.  As she glanced up and saw them a
+shadow seemed to pass over her face.  The doctor saw it; but Fidelia
+only saw the smile that chased it away.
+
+"My little girl!" said Eunice softly.
+
+Fidelia hid her face on her sister's shoulder, and no word was spoken
+for a minute or two.  Then they went into the house, and Fidelia said,
+with a little laugh,--
+
+"I got homesick at the last minute, dear, and so I came home."
+
+"All right, dear.  If you could spare the time, it was right to come.  I
+am very glad."
+
+The doctor got his buttermilk and cream as well, but he sat still,
+seeming in no hurry to go away.  He listened, and put in a word now and
+then, but listened chiefly.  He lost no tone or movement of either; and
+when Fidelia went, at her sister's bidding, to take off her bonnet and
+shawl, he rose and took the elder sister's hand, putting his finger on
+her pulse.
+
+"Are you as well as usual these days, Eunice?" said he.
+
+For an instant she seemed to shrink away from him, and would not meet
+his eye.  Then she said, speaking very slowly and gently,--
+
+"I cannot say that I am quite as well as usual.  I meant to see you in a
+day or two.  Now I will wait a little longer."
+
+"Had you better wait?"
+
+"Yes, I think so.  I am not going to spoil Fidelia's pleasure, now that
+she is at home for a few days, and I will wait.  It won't really make
+any difference."
+
+"Eunice," said the doctor gravely, "are you afraid of--anything?"
+
+A sudden wave of colour made her face for the moment beautiful.  Tears
+came into her eyes, but she smiled as she said,--
+
+"No, not afraid; I hope I should not be afraid even if I should be going
+to suffer all that I saw her suffer."
+
+"Eunice, why have you not told me before?  It was hardly friendly to be
+silent with any such thought in your mind."
+
+"Well, it is as I said.  A little sooner or later could make no
+difference."
+
+"And because you did not like to make your friends unhappy you ran this
+risk."
+
+The doctor was standing with his face to the door at which Fidelia at
+the moment entered, and his tone changed.
+
+"Well, to-morrow you must send your little girl down to see my little
+girls, unless they should hear of her home-coming, and be up here this
+afternoon.  No; they shall not come, nor any one else.  You shall have
+this day to yourselves.  And mind one thing--there must be no
+school-books about during vacation time.  Miss Eunice, I will trust to
+you to see to that."
+
+And then he went away.
+
+CHAPTER TWO.
+
+THE SISTERS.
+
+"Are you really well, Eunice?  You don't look very well," said Fidelia,
+kneeling down beside her sister, and looking wistfully into her face.
+"Are you sure that you are well?"
+
+"I am pretty well, dear.  I have been about all the winter pretty much
+as usual.  Who has been telling that I have not been well?"
+
+"No one has written, in so many words, that you were sick.  But you
+don't seem to have been about among the neighbours as much as usual, and
+you have given up your class in the Sunday school."
+
+"Yes, I gave it up for a while, but I have taken it again.  I thought I
+had better give it up in the beginning of the winter, as I could not be
+quite regular, because of the bad roads.  And Mr Fuller--the new
+teacher--could take it as well as not.  He was glad to take it; and he
+is a born teacher.  He has done good work among the boys on Sundays and
+week-days too.  But he has gone away, and I have my class again.  Was it
+because you thought I was sick that you came home, dear?"
+
+"Well, I wanted to be sure about you.  And I got homesick when I saw the
+other girls going.  I am glad I came: I can help in the garden."
+
+"Yes; and ten days in the garden will do more good to your summer work
+than ten days at your books could do.  I am very glad you have come
+home."
+
+"I only brought one book.  I must take a little time for it.  Now I will
+get dinner if you will tell me what to do.  I am hungry."
+
+"Of course you are.  And I can scarcely wait to hear all you have to
+tell me."
+
+She did not need to wait.  Fidelia laid the table, talking all the time
+as she went from pantry to cupboard; and Eunice listened as she prepared
+the dinner with her own hands--as she did every day, for there was no
+"help" in the house.  It was a very simple meal, and it was spread in
+the room in which it was prepared.
+
+It was the winter kitchen and the summer dining-room--a beautiful room,
+perfect in neatness and simplicity, and in the tasteful arrangement of
+its old-fashioned furniture.  There was a "secretary" of dark wood,
+which might have "come over in the _Mayflower_" between the windows,
+with a bookcase above it; there were a tall clock and two carved
+armchairs, a chintz-covered sofa which looked new beside the rest of the
+things, and a rocking-chair or two.  There were pretty muslin curtains
+on the windows, and pictures on the walls; and except for the stove that
+stood against the chimney-place one might easily have mistaken the room,
+and called it the parlour, for there was no trace of kitchen utensil or
+kitchen soil to be seen.  The utensils were all in the "sink room" which
+opened near the back door, and the soil was nowhere.
+
+All the house was beautiful in its perfect neatness.  Everything in it
+was old, and some of the things were ancient, and had a history.  A
+story could be told of oak chest and bookcase and bureau.  Some
+association, sad or sweet, clung to every old-fashioned ornament and to
+every picture on the wall.
+
+"I don't believe there is so pleasant a house in all the state as this
+is," said Fidelia gravely.
+
+Her sister smiled.  "You have not seen many of the houses in the state,"
+said she.
+
+"But I have seen several.  And I think I know."
+
+They had the long afternoon to themselves.  The elder sister had
+something to tell about the quiet winter days, many of which she had
+spent alone.  She said nothing of loneliness, however; she called it
+restful quiet.  She had had visitors enough, and every one had been
+mindful and kind, from Judge Leonard, who had sent his sleigh to take
+her to church on stormy Sundays, to Jabez Ainsworth, who had shovelled
+her paths and fed her hens and cow all the winter, and left her nothing
+troublesome or toilsome to do.  She told of the work which had occupied
+her, the books she had read, and the letters she had received and
+written, and enlarged on several items of neighbourhood news which she
+had only had time to mention in her letter.
+
+Then Fidelia had her turn: nothing that she could tell could fail to
+interest her sister as to the months in which they had been separated.
+Her studies, her friends, her room-mate, little Nellie Austin, the
+youngest pupil in the school; the teachers, the school routine,
+household affairs--all were full of interest to Eunice, who had been a
+pupil herself long ago; but she listened in silence to it all.  Even
+when Fidelia began to plan a new life for them when her school days
+should be over, and she ready for work, she only said "Yes" and "No,"
+and "We must wait and see."  Fidelia was too eager in her speech and in
+her plans to notice the silence at the moment, but she remembered it
+afterwards.
+
+The next morning Fidelia was awakened by a kiss from the smiling lips of
+her sister.
+
+"Breakfast is ready," said she.
+
+"You don't say so?  And I meant to be up to get the breakfast myself?"
+
+"You did better to sleep on."
+
+"I woke at five; and, oh, it did seem so good to shut my eyes with no
+dread of the bell, and so I went to sleep again!"
+
+Eunice went out and in while her sister dressed; and the talk flowed on
+till breakfast was over and all the things put away.  Eunice listened to
+it all with mingled feelings, rejoicing in her sister's eager interest
+and in her success, but at the same time missing something for which she
+had longed and prayed, and for which she was telling herself that she
+must wait patiently a while.
+
+Then Fidelia went out to the garden to see what was to be done there.
+She walked up and down the broad path, considering ways and means of
+planning how the very most could be accomplished during the fortnight of
+her stay.
+
+"It will take most of my time; but I am glad I came, and I shan't
+oversleep another day.  For, whatever Eunice may say, she is not
+strong."
+
+The garden could not be neglected.  Half their living came from the
+garden and the adjoining fields, where their pretty brown cow was
+patiently searching among the last year's tufts of grass for some
+sweeter morsel.  The pretty creature came to the fence to be petted and
+praised, and her mistress did not disappoint her.
+
+"How much do you suppose your cow understands of all you're sayin' to
+her?" said a voice at her elbow.
+
+Fidelia started.
+
+"Oh, she understands!  Good morning, Jabez;" and she held out her hand
+to a tall loose-jointed lad, with a sunburnt, boyish, but very pleasant
+face, who had come up the hill from the meadow unseen by her.
+
+"You look _well_," said he, after a moment's examination of her face.
+
+"Thank you," said Fidelia, laughing.
+
+"I mean, you don't look sick," said he.
+
+"Why should I?  What have _you_ been doing this winter?"
+
+"I have been at school.  We had a new teacher--a chap from Amherst--one
+who has to teach and pay his own way.  Yes, I got along pretty well--
+studied hard, if you can believe it."
+
+"Well, what have you done?"
+
+"_Oh_, a little Latin and history of the United States!  I could pass on
+that _now_, I guess.  And I've got through the first three books of
+Euclid, and in Algebra I got through quadratic equations."
+
+She had spoken in a cool, indifferent way, but his eyes sparkled as he
+looked up.
+
+"Well done, Jabez!  I am glad.  I must examine you some day."
+
+"Come on!" cried Jabez, throwing down the hoe he had been carrying.
+"I'm ready.  Examine all you want to."
+
+"Oh, I don't mean just this minute, but some time before I go!  How is
+your grandmother these days?"
+
+"She's pretty well.  And that makes me think that I promised her to help
+churn; I'll have to be going.  I came up to talk a little to Miss Eunice
+and you about the garden.  I don't suppose she'll do much in it this
+year, since you won't be here."
+
+"I shall help to make it while I am at home, if the weather will let me.
+But your help will be needed after.  Come and speak to my sister."
+
+They went into the house, and found Eunice preparing to make the bread
+which she had mixed early in the morning.  Fidelia set the rocking-chair
+for her sister, and took the making of the bread into her own hands.
+
+"About the garden, Miss Eunice?  What are you going to do about it?"
+said Jabez.
+
+"I shall want some help, I suppose--a good deal of help.  Can I depend
+on you, Jabez?"
+
+"Well, I've been talking a little with grandpa about what I want to do
+this summer.  He wants me to work along with Mr Grimes for a spell.
+You know, Fidelia, Grimes has got grandpa's farm on shares this year,
+and he would like to hire me."
+
+"Well, and why not?"
+
+"I can do better--that's about it."
+
+"And what do you wish to do?"
+
+"Well, that's just what I want to talk about."
+
+"I shall be glad to have your help when you can be spared," said Eunice.
+
+Jabez seemed to have a difficulty in sitting quietly in his chair.  He
+fidgeted about, and let his hoe fall, and then picked it up and carried
+it out into the porch; then laid his cap on the floor, and straightened
+himself up, and said gravely,--
+
+"Look here, Miss Eunice, I guess it won't hurt anybody just to have a
+little talk about it.  I want you to let me have your garden this
+summer--on shares if you say so; but I'd rather pay rent for it."
+
+"Why, Jabez, you surprise me!" said Eunice gently.
+
+Fidelia laughed.
+
+"Go on, Jabez.  Tell us all about it."
+
+"Well, I will.  In the first place, I want to show grandpa that I _can_
+do something; and, in the second place, I want to make some money this
+summer.  I think I see my way clear to do both, if things happen right."
+
+"And what do you want money for?" asked Fidelia.
+
+"Oh, well, I guess 'most everybody wants money!  But look here now.  I
+have not told grandpa yet--it wouldn't help me with him, but I'd as lief
+tell _you_ two as not.  Supposin' we have Mr Fuller here again next
+winter, I'm willing to go to school here, and do chores for Miss Eunice
+and at grandpa's next winter, as I have this winter.  But if he doesn't
+come here, I'm going to Scranton Academy.  And if I _do_ go, I expect
+I'll have to help pay my own way."
+
+Fidelia nodded and smiled.
+
+"But your grandfather?  You must consult him, Jabez," said Miss Eunice,
+gravely.
+
+"I mean to--after a spell.  But it isn't best to worry him with too many
+new ideas at once.  Now see here, Miss Eunice--this is the whole
+concern.  There was a lot of city company in our town last summer, and
+the cry among them was for fresh fruit and garden sass.  There's going
+to be more of them here this summer, down the street in the hotel, and
+over at the Corners, and all around.  This part of the state's got to be
+quite popular with city folks, and I should like to have the chance to
+supply them early."
+
+"But do you know anything about a garden?" asked Fidelia, greatly
+interested.
+
+"Well, yes.  Grandpa has kept me pretty close to work in ours.  I've
+been down to the judge's some, too; and Sandy Scott, his gardener, has
+given me a good many hints, and has promised to see to my work a little.
+I am not afraid, not a mite.  And if you'll let me have your garden,
+grandpa'll let me have his, I guess; and between the two I can make
+something, I know."
+
+"I should have to think about it first, Jabez."
+
+"Oh, yes.  I am not in a hurry for a day or two."
+
+"And I shouldn't like to do anything that your grandfather might object
+to.  I should have to talk with him about it."
+
+"And what about your grandmother's churn in the meantime?"  Fidelia
+added.
+
+"That's so!  I'd 'most forgot it.  I must hurry up.  Here's the doctor!"
+
+Fidelia was gently patting the loaf she had just put into the pan as the
+doctor came in.
+
+"Good morning, Miss Eunice!  Fidelia, _that_ is after all the true
+woman's work.  `Loaf-maker'--or is it loaf-giver?--is the true
+derivation of `lady,' they say.  But I hope you have nearly done.  Her
+mother could not spare Susie to come up this morning, so I promised I
+would send you down."
+
+"I should like to go, but--"
+
+"Cannot you spare her, Miss Eunice?  You can walk, Fidelia, you know,
+and when I come back from the Corners I'll bring your sister down with
+me, if she will let me; and Susie shall drive you both home in the
+evening."
+
+When the doctor had driven off, Jabez once more looked in at the door.
+
+"There is no particular hurry, Miss Eunice.  Only I've had my hot-beds
+all agoing three weeks ago, and I'd like to know as soon as ever you've
+made up your mind."
+
+"To-morrow, perhaps, I'll let you know about it," said Miss Eunice.
+
+When her sister had gone, Eunice moved about the house, giving a touch
+here and another there, till her bread was ready for the oven; and then
+she set the front door wide open and sat down in the porch, for the day
+was as bright and warmer than yesterday had been.  She had much to think
+about.  It did not take her long to decide that Jabez should have the
+garden, if his grandfather did not object.  She had not strength for the
+garden now, and Fidelia would have a better visit.  How bright and eager
+the child was, and how much she had accomplished!
+
+"I knew she would do well; and I must not be discouraged, though she has
+not yet caught the spirit of the place.  She has been so intent on her
+work, that she has given herself no time to think of higher things.  But
+His time will come.  `One thing have I desired of the Lord' for my
+darling, and He will grant it, _that_ I know, whether I shall see it in
+this world, or wait till we meet in the next, where her mother and mine
+await us both."
+
+She closed her eyes, and sat motionless till the sound of wheels reached
+her ears.
+
+"The doctor!  I will not go down with him, and I hope he will be willing
+to wait till Fidelia goes before he speaks.  I will go out to the gate,
+and he may not come in to-day."
+
+She rose and stood waiting for him at the gate.
+
+"Well, Miss Eunice, what do you think about going down with me?  Do you
+feel like it?"
+
+Eunice smiled, and shook her head.
+
+"I think not, doctor.  My bread is not all baked yet."
+
+"What is this I hear about the garden?  Are you going to let Jabez have
+it, as he wishes it so much?"
+
+"Hadn't I better, doctor?  Without Fidelia it would be too much for me,
+I am afraid.  I could work in it a little for exercise, even if Jabez
+had it."
+
+"Yes, I see.  I should not wonder," said the doctor; but his eyes were
+turned to the clouds that hung over the distant mountains, and he was
+thinking not at all of Jabez and the garden.  His face was very grave.
+
+"What a good face it is!" thought Eunice, as she watched it--"a true
+friend's face!"
+
+It was a good face, strong and kindly--a face to inspire confidence.  It
+was brown and weather-beaten, and showed many wrinkles, and the soft
+waving hair above it was as white as snow.  But it was not an old face.
+The eyes were soft and bright, and the smile that came and went so
+readily upon it gave it a look of youth.  Eunice could not remember the
+time when he had not been good and kind to her, and she loved him
+dearly.  But she was a little afraid of him to-day.  In a little, his
+eyes returned to her, standing at the gate.
+
+"Miss Eunice, what am I thinking about?  You must not stand there in the
+wind.  I will go in with you.  I am not in haste to-day.  What is this I
+hear about your garden?"
+
+But Eunice knew that it was not of Jabez or the garden he was thinking,
+as he followed her into the house.  She went out of the room, and
+returned with a glass of milk on a tray, and her hand trembled as she
+set it down.
+
+It was of Jabez and the garden that they spoke first, however.  Eunice
+told all that he had said, and the good reason he had for wishing to
+make money during the summer.
+
+"And he'll do it too--school and college and all--I should not wonder!"
+said the doctor.  "There seems to be a terrible hunger for knowledge
+among our young people these days.  I am not sure that I like it.  I am
+afraid of it."
+
+"Oh, doctor, you do not mean that?" said Eunice.
+
+"In a way I do.  Knowledge!  No, I don't object to the knowledge.  But I
+have a great respect for many of the tanned faces about us, and for the
+hands that have been hardened by the plough and the axe.  `The profit of
+the earth is for all.  The king himself is served by the field.'  And I
+have no respect at all for those lads who take to their books and to a
+profession because it seems a step upward, or because such a life seems
+to promise an easier time.  I don't like to see our farmers' boys
+turning their backs on the fields their fathers have tilled."
+
+"But there are more boys than there are farms, I doubt," said Eunice,
+with a smile.
+
+"Yes, that is so.  But there are farms enough in the country for them
+all.  And there is no one to take the deacon's farm but Jabez.  However,
+we may hope that `the profit of the earth' will seem more to him after
+he has sowed and reaped for his own benefit."
+
+"I think Jabez would make a scholar.  It is in him to succeed."
+
+"Possibly.  Oh, yes, he is a smart boy!  If he has got the notion, he'll
+go ahead with it.  He's not a bad boy either, though the grandfather has
+had--or rather has dreaded--trouble with him!"
+
+And so they talked on for a while about the garden and other things,
+till the doctor rose as if to go away; and then he said, speaking very
+gently, just what Eunice had all along known that he came to say--"Do
+you think you had better wait any longer, Eunice?"
+
+"I suppose it will make me no worse to know just how it is," she said
+faintly.
+
+"It will be far better to know all that can be known.  I cannot but
+think you may be dreading what will never come to you.  You have had a
+lonesome winter.  And you have had a hard life, dear."  Eunice smiled,
+but shook her head.  "I don't think I have been very lonesome.  And I
+have not had a hard life--taking it all together.  Think how happy my
+life was till I was twenty!"
+
+"Yes, dear, I know.  And since then it has been more than happy.  It has
+been a blessed life of help to others.  But it has been a hard life too,
+in one way.  Let us see now how it is with you."
+
+"But first let me say one word," said Eunice, laying her hand on the
+doctor's arm.  "I don't think I am afraid.  I think I am willing that it
+shall be as God wills.  But it may be long; and I will not, while I can
+help it, have my Fidelia know what is before me.  And, doctor, I shall
+need your silence and your help--"
+
+"To deceive her?"
+
+The doctor sat down again and covered his eyes with his hand for a
+moment.
+
+"To deceive her," repeated he, "and to break her heart afterwards with
+unavailing regret?"
+
+"Oh, she will have to know after a while, but--not as long as we can
+keep it from her!"  There was silence for a minute or two.  "Well, we
+will wait and see.  I will not speak to her till you shall give me leave
+to do so."
+
+Then there were a few grave questions, and a few quiet replies; and then
+the doctor said,--
+
+"Take courage, Eunice!  I would say to almost any one else, `There is no
+cause for anxiety.'  But having known so well the last years of your
+grandmother's life, I can hardly say you have nothing to fear from the
+disease that was fatal to her; but I do say that, as far as I can judge
+from your present condition, you may reasonably hope for a good many
+years of comfortable health.  You should have spoken to me sooner, and
+spared yourself a time of anxiety."
+
+He did not see the look of relief on which he had counted--at least he
+did not see it for a moment.
+
+"Thank you, Dr Everett," she said at last.  "And now nothing need be
+said to Fidelia."
+
+"Why do you fear for Fidelia?  Your sister is braver and stronger than
+you think."
+
+"Oh, I think she is brave and strong!  It is not that.  But I want her
+to have two or three untroubled years before the work of her life
+begins; and then--"
+
+"And what is the work of her life to be?  Is she to choose it for
+herself, or is it to be chosen for her, as your work has been?  Eunice,
+don't you think you may be too tender with your sister?  Don't you think
+that the Lord has her and her life in His keeping, and that you need not
+take that burden on you?"
+
+Eunice smiled.  "We are bidden to `bear one another's burdens,' you
+know."
+
+"Yes; and we are told that `every one shall bear his own burden.'  You
+cannot shield your sister from all the troubles of life, and it is not
+well that she should be so shielded.  However, all this will keep for
+another time; and I am more than thankful that there is nothing
+specially painful to tell her now."  And then he asked--"Will you come
+down with me, as I promised the girls you should?"
+
+"Not to-day, I think.  I will rest, and be ready for Fidelia."
+
+She was very tired, the doctor knew by the wavering colour on her cheek;
+and he shrank from the thought of telling her something which he wished
+no one but himself to tell.  Afterwards, when he had spoken, he said to
+himself that he need not have been so much afraid.
+
+"Eunice, I heard from my brother Justin lately.  He is coming home.  He
+is on his way.  He may be here any day."
+
+"Is he coming home at last?  I am glad--for you especially.  All his
+friends will be glad to see him again."
+
+She spoke quietly and cordially, just as any of his friends might have
+spoken.  Then there were a few more words, and then he went away.
+
+Eunice waited till she heard the latch of the gate fall, and waited
+still till the sounds of his wheels died away in the distance.  Then she
+rose and took her last loaves from the oven, and carried them away to
+their own place.  Then she went slowly upstairs and laid herself down on
+her bed to rest.  And there Fidelia found her sleeping, with the traces
+of tears on her face, but with God's own peace resting upon it also.
+
+CHAPTER THREE.
+
+EUNICE.
+
+Eunice Marsh might well say that the first seventeen years of her life
+had been happy years.  Her father, a man useful and much beloved, had
+during that time been minister of the only church in Hopeville, a town
+in the southern part of the state.  She had lost her mother when she was
+a little child, but her loss had been well supplied by the love and care
+of her mother's mother, with whom she had lived, in the house that was
+now her home, till the time of her father's second marriage.
+
+Her new mother did not love her own little daughter, when she came, more
+dearly than she loved Eunice, and so the happy years moved on to a
+sorrowful ending.  Suddenly, in the midst of happiness and usefulness,
+with no warning which those who loved him could understand, the minister
+died.  Then Eunice returned to her grandparents home on the hill, and
+her stepmother, with her little daughter, came there also, to stay for a
+little while; and they never went away again.
+
+It was not a very large house, and the old people were far from being
+rich, but they offered the widow a home while she needed one.  She did
+not need it long.  She never quite recovered from the shock of her
+husband's death, and she died within the year, leaving her little girl
+to her sister Eunice, "to love and care for always--to be her very own."
+
+"And, dear, I am not afraid to leave my little darling with you," said
+the dying mother with a smile.
+
+After a while happy days came again to Eunice.  Why should she not be
+happy?  Those who had gone from her had only "gone before," and those
+who remained were very dear; and life was before her--a mystery!--but a
+mystery of gladness and blessing, as she believed.
+
+Dr Everett had been the minister's classmate in college, and his
+life-long friend; and when the minister died, he became the guardian and
+the life-long friend of his daughters.  In his house they found a second
+home, and from him Eunice had the counsel and the guidance which in
+their old age, and with their failing powers, her grandparents could no
+longer give her.
+
+Strong, eager, ambitious, it would have pleased the girl well to be
+allowed to choose her own lot and work, and to make her own way in the
+world.  But she was dutiful, and she loved her little sister dearly, and
+so she was willing to be restrained and guided, and to give herself to
+work which seemed at first very humble work, which almost any one might
+do, but which was God-given work--a blessing to others and to herself,
+as time went on.
+
+Happy?  Looking back over those first years, Eunice told herself that no
+one could have been happier than she was then.  Yes, and afterwards
+also.  For that which made much of the happiness was not taken from her
+at a single blow, nor was she called upon to choose between her duty and
+her happiness all at once.  She knew there was no choice for her.
+
+When Justin Everett, the doctor's youngest brother--and, like him, a
+physician--saw his way open to go West to an uncle, to establish himself
+with him in his profession, Eunice might have gone with him as his wife,
+if circumstances at home had been different.  But it was impossible.
+There was no choice to be made, and nothing to be said.
+
+Her grandfather had been stricken helpless, with little hope of ever
+being otherwise than helpless.  Over her grandmother, younger than him
+by many years, hung an awful dread.  She too must die, but she might be
+years in dying.  Some one would have to watch by her dying bed, as she
+in her youth had watched by the dying bed of her own mother, till the
+slow months wore on to years, before her tired eyes closed at last in
+painless rest.
+
+No one needed to say to Eunice that she could not leave her grandmother
+to be cared for by others while she went away to find her own happiness.
+She never even paused to consider the matter.  It was impossible.  Her
+lover thought quite otherwise, and pleaded with her with words which
+made her glad, and which hurt her sorely, but which did not move her
+from her purpose.  Over one thing only she hesitated.  Should she give
+him back his word before he went away?
+
+"No," said Dr Everett; "you are both young.  Wait."
+
+And so she waited, and was not unhappy.  No woman can be unhappy whose
+life is lived not to herself but to others.  Her service was truly
+willing service, and was its own reward.  She had cares many and heavy,
+weary nights and anxious days, but she had kind friends who took care
+for her and helped her; and her cares, and labours, and daily
+self-denials, and the hourly sight of her grandmother's faith and
+patience, and of her joyful release at last, did for heart and soul more
+than many prosperous years of untroubled happiness could have done.
+
+The long suffering came to an end at last.  Her grandmother died, and
+Eunice was left so spent with doing and watching, and so glad for the
+blessed release of her whom she loved so well, that she hardly seemed to
+feel the pain of the bitter blow that smote her afterwards--at least
+that was what her friends whispered among themselves.  Even Dr Everett
+took comfort in the thought that she might have outgrown her girlish
+fancy during these long years that had changed her into a woman.  But
+Dr Everett did not know then that the news of his brother's engagement
+and approaching marriage had come to her two days before it had reached
+him, and that during these two days no one but her paralytic grandfather
+had seen her face and heard her voice.  Even the child Fidelia had been
+sent away "for a change," as she had more than once been sent away
+during the last months of the grandmother's life; and Eunice's battle
+with herself--if there was a battle--had been fought alone.
+
+But, whichever way it was, it was not a matter about which many words
+could be spoken.  She made no moan and she claimed no sympathy.  She was
+"just as usual," as far as he could tell, Dr Everett said, in answer to
+his wife's questions when he returned from his first visit to the house
+after the news had been received.  Even to her old friend she had made
+neither complaint nor confession; but he knew that she suffered, though
+she kept silence.
+
+"It will make it easier for Eunice in one way," the neighbours said to
+one another.  "Eunice could hardly have gone away while her grandfather
+lived, and this has made the path of duty plain before her."
+
+But whether "the path of duty" was rough or smooth to the weary feet of
+Eunice no one ever knew from her lips.  She was not unhappy, that was
+certain.  She had the daily and hourly care of her grandfather to fill
+her thoughts and occupy her hands, and when he died she had an easier
+time and could rest.  And she had Fidelia.
+
+She had an easier life; but she could not sit idle at home, or go
+elsewhere for change or pleasure, as others might who had not their
+daily bread to earn.  The means which her grandparents had provided for
+their old age had been nearly spent during their long illness.  There
+was the house and garden and a field or two, and that was almost all;
+and Eunice chose to stay at home and make the best of them, rather than
+do any of the things which her friends were so ready to advise, and
+which she might have done.  She might have nursed the sick, or taught a
+school, or worked with her capable hands or her clear head in one of the
+many ways open to New England girls; but she would not be separated from
+her sister, and she chose to stay at home.
+
+"I will stay for awhile at least," she said to Dr Everett when he spoke
+to her about her plans, and hinted that a change might be desirable for
+various reasons.  "There is no hurry about it, I think; and just for the
+present I would rather stay at home."
+
+And the time had never come for her to go elsewhere, or to change her
+manner of life in any way, and it had lately been gradually revealing
+itself to her that the time could never come.  She was beginning to say
+to herself: "That which I greatly feared has come upon me."
+
+All the long suffering through which she had seen her grandmother pass
+seemed to lie like a thick darkness upon her.  Even before the departure
+of her sister for school she had felt or imagined symptoms, which she
+thought she could not mistake, of the terrible disease which had
+appeared at intervals in some member of her mother's family for several
+generations; and there is no wonder that for a time her courage, and
+even her faith, failed her.
+
+She was wrong to conceal her fears from Dr Everett.  But she said to
+herself: "He cannot help me.  If I am mistaken--if I am only nervous and
+over-anxious, it will pass away in time, with suffering to no one but
+myself.  If the danger is real, nothing--no one can help me, not even my
+dear old friend."
+
+Even more than she dreaded the long suffering she dreaded the
+helplessness and weariness of illness, and the dependence upon others
+which it must involve.  She shrank morbidly from the thought of becoming
+a centre of painful interest to her friends and to the neighbourhood;
+and she resolved to say nothing either of her suffering or her fears
+while concealment was possible.  So, during the first months of winter,
+making an excuse of the cold, she stayed at home, and, when chance
+visitors came to her, exhausted herself with efforts to seem well and
+cheerful in their presence, and bore the long suffering of suspense
+alone.
+
+Alone?  Well, she thought so for a time.  She wrote herself down as "a
+woman desolate and forsaken," and it went ill with her--but only for a
+time.  Even in her darkest moments she had never quite forgotten the
+refuge to which she might betake herself, and she found it at last.
+
+After a time light broke through the darkness, and she caught a
+glimpse--not of the way--but of His face whose hand was leading her.
+The way mattered little.  He knew every step of it, and its ending and
+the rest to which it led, and why should she fear?
+
+It cannot be said that she no longer shrank from the thought of the
+long, slow suffering that might be before her; but she could after this
+leave it all with Him "who loved her and gave Himself for her," and who
+would give her strength to bear His will.
+
+When the sharpest winter weather was over, and the days began to grow
+long, she fell into her old cheerful ways again.  She busied herself
+with her housework and her needlework, and went to church and to the
+sewing-circle, as the man at the station had said.  She saw her friends
+more frequently; and the neighbours, seeing the sweet content on her
+face, "guessed likely that she was having a good time all by herself up
+there on the hill."  And so she was; and neither friend nor neighbour
+imagined that she had anything to conceal.  Nor did Dr Everett himself,
+until the day when he met Fidelia, and brought her home.  Then he lost
+no time in finding out all there was to know.
+
+That morning, as he went slowly down the hill to his home, he more than
+once repeated to himself the words he had spoken to Eunice,--
+
+"I see no special cause for anxiety,"--but each time he added
+gravely--"as yet."  And then he lost himself in musing on the terrible
+mystery of inherited disease and suffering, and only came back to Eunice
+again when he caught sight of the bright face of Fidelia standing at his
+own gate.
+
+"Poor soul!  Poor Eunice!  So good and wise and lovely!  What a fate is
+to be feared for her!  And yet I am not sure that her strong and
+beautiful sister is so happy as she."
+
+And Eunice was smiling a little over the words which the doctor had
+tried to make so hopeful, scarcely taking from them the comfort which he
+meant her to take.
+
+"No anxiety!" repeated she.  "Well, it is quite true.  Why should I be
+anxious?  It will be all right.  I am glad he came, and that the visit
+is well over."
+
+And then she put away the last of her warm white loaves, and went slowly
+upstairs to rest for awhile.
+
+When Fidelia came home in the afternoon she found her sister sleeping,
+and she saw something which she had rarely seen before--the traces of
+tears upon her cheeks.  But as she stood looking down upon her--even
+before her eyes opened--a smile came to her lips.
+
+"Well," she said softly, as Fidelia stooped to kiss her, "have you had a
+good time?"
+
+"Don't you feel well, Eunice?"
+
+"Just as usual.  Why have you come home so early?"
+
+"It is not so very early.  We had tea sooner than usual, because--Lie
+still awhile, and I will make your tea."
+
+"I must have slept long, if it is time for tea.  Oh, yes, I feel quite
+well!  You must tell me all about your visit when I come down."
+
+Fidelia went to the window, and as she rolled up the blind and let the
+light of the sunset into the room, she said, without looking round,--
+
+"Eunice, who do you think has come to Dr Everett's?  His brother
+Justin."
+
+"Has he come already?  The doctor told me this morning that he expected
+him, but he did not say when."
+
+She came forward to the glass and began to arrange her hair, which had
+fallen down, with the full light of the evening sunshine on her face.
+Fidelia made herself busy about the room for a minute, and then, turning
+to the window, stood regarding her sister.
+
+Eunice was just as usual, except for the traces of tears upon her
+cheeks; and Fidelia was not even sure of the tears now.
+
+"And did you see him?  Has he changed much?  Do you like him?" asked
+Eunice, busy still with her hair.
+
+"Yes, I saw him.  Changed?  I can't say.  I don't remember him.  No;
+upon the whole, I don't think I shall like him much."
+
+Eunice turned and looked at her, smiling.
+
+"Oh, you'll like him!  I am not afraid of that."
+
+"Eunice, did you know that Justin Everett was coming home?"
+
+"His brother told me this, morning.  Of course I knew that he would come
+some time.  I shall be glad to see him."
+
+"Will she be glad?"  Fidelia was saying to herself, while she made ready
+her sister's tea.  "Will she truly be glad?  Has she forgiven him, or
+has she forgotten him?  I would give a great deal to know her thoughts
+this minute.  Oh, I hope I shall be with her when he comes to see her
+first!"
+
+A single word had done this--her sister's name, spoken by Mrs Everett,
+when her husband told her that his brother was coming home.  They did
+not know that she heard it.  She was greatly startled and a little
+angry, though she could not have told why.  In that friendly
+neighbourhood she could hardly have lived so many years without hearing
+some hint of the trial through which her sister had passed in her youth;
+and imagination came to the help of memory, and made her more angry
+still.  She would not have remained to give the new-comer welcome if he
+had not taken them all by surprise.  She only saw him at the tea-table,
+where he sat, grave and almost silent, scarcely raising his eyes from
+his plate.  She had not lingered a moment after the tea was over.
+
+She was present at the first meeting between Eunice and Justin Everett,
+as she had hoped she would be, but it did not tell her much.  It took
+place in unfortunate circumstances.  He came up next morning, and,
+finding no one in the house, passed through into the garden, where he
+found Deacon Ainsworth and his grandson Jabez discussing with the
+sisters the important question, "Should Jabez have the garden?"
+
+Jabez had intimated to his grandfather that Miss Eunice would like to
+see him about business if he could "step up" there some morning pretty
+soon; and the deacon had lost no time, and Jabez "had thought best to
+happen along so as to see the thing through," as he told Fidelia in
+confidence.  They had "talked the matter over" in the house without his
+help; now they were talking it over with it in the garden.  In the house
+the deacon had got so far as to acknowledge that he saw no vital
+objection to Miss Eunice letting her garden to his grandson.  In the
+garden he was not so certain.  It would need steadiness and
+perseverance, and these Jabez might fail in, even with himself to keep
+the boy up to the mark.
+
+"And if he should fail in doing well by you, Miss Eunice, I should
+rather feel as if you'd expect me to make it good to you.  And I don't
+know but I should feel as if I ought;" and so on.  And then Dr Justin
+appeared.
+
+The greetings all round were pleasant and cordial; and then it was
+supposed by Fidelia that the deacon would go away.  But he had known
+Justin Everett all his life, or at least his "youthful years," as he
+said, and never doubted that it was his duty and his privilege to give
+him welcome in his neighbour's house as if it had been his own.  So he
+rather took matters into his own hand, and "led the meeting," as Jabez
+afterwards said.  Fidelia was indignant.  Eunice was not indignant.  She
+was in her heart grateful to the good deacon for "assisting" at the
+occasion, though she might not have been quite pleased with his motives.
+
+"I kind o' wanted to know how it was going to be with Eunice, so I
+stayed," he told his wife afterwards; but he owned that he didn't know
+much about it after all.  "If it had been the old doctor himself, I
+don't know how she could have talked any other way to him.  Friendly?
+Oh, yes, she was friendly and cool, but not too cool nor too friendly!
+Be you certain that Justin Everett's wife is dead, Asubah?"
+
+"Well, I declare for it!  How you talk!" exclaimed Mrs Ainsworth.  "As
+if you don't know as well as I do that she's been dead these two years
+and more!  I hope to mercy you didn't go to saying anything of that kind
+up there.  I _should_ like to see Fidelia Marsh's eyes if she heard any
+such insinuations about her sister."
+
+But the deacon, though he had taken the lead in the conversation, said
+nothing indiscreet to Fidelia or any one else, and he rose to go at
+last, but not until Dr Everett came to take his brother away to see a
+patient.
+
+Jabez in the meantime had, by an effective movement on the onion-bed,
+taken formal possession of the garden.  He did not see, or he did not
+seem to see, his grandfather set out for home, and continued his work
+then and afterwards to such good purpose, that he had so strengthened
+his position as to leave nothing more to be said or done when in a few
+days his grandfather "stepped up" again, to talk the matter over.
+Fidelia was for many reasons glad that it was in his hands, but she
+could not reconcile herself to the deacon for having so utterly spoiled
+to them all the first visit of Dr Justin.
+
+And she was not at home when Dr Justin made his second visit, and his
+last at that time.  One night she came home from a long walk with her
+friend, Susie, to find her sister, as she almost always found her in the
+twilight, resting on the sofa, and this time again she thought there
+were traces of tears on her cheeks.  After a little she was not so sure
+about the tears, but she was sure of the peaceful brightness of her
+sister's smile of welcome, and of the sweet words with which she greeted
+her.
+
+CHAPTER FOUR.
+
+A VISIT.
+
+"A good place to rest in," Fidelia Marsh was saying to herself, as she
+passed with her friend Nellie Austin under the great elms whose boughs
+met over the one long street which makes the larger part of the inland
+town of Eastwood.  "A good place to rest in," she repeated, when the
+chaise drew up before the door of the large house which was her friend's
+home.
+
+The house was one of the great square homesteads, built in the early
+days of the Commonwealth, and it stood in the morning sunshine just
+beyond the flickering shadows of the elm-trees in the street.  It stood
+at a point where two ways met; and the south door opened on the wide
+road that led away to the hilly country beyond, and there were great
+elms there, too, to cast their shadows over porch and doorway when the
+room grew hot.  A wonderful old grape-vine covered the porch, and there
+were lilac and locust-trees and rose-bushes by the white fence which
+enclosed a smooth green yard on three sides of the house.  Beyond was a
+garden with fruit-trees and tall hollyhocks and great bunches of phlox,
+and a row of bee-hives facing the south; and that was all that Fidelia
+saw before she passed into the porch, to meet a kindly welcome.
+
+Only at the last moment had she accepted her friend's oft-repeated
+invitation to visit her in her home, and she had accepted for the same
+reason which had made her refuse it before.  It was for the sake of
+Eunice.  Fidelia had done well at the seminary during the summer term as
+far as study was concerned.  She had done "splendidly," her classmates
+declared with admiring exaggeration; but all the same, she was beginning
+to think she had done foolishly--to say no worse.
+
+She had undertaken too much for her summer's work, and had been allowed
+to go on with it as perhaps no other girl there would have been allowed.
+Study seemed so easy to her, she was so ready and strong and cheerful,
+and altogether so sensible, that she had been left to pursue her own way
+with less close oversight as to health and strength than was usual at
+the seminary, and she had not proved herself worthy of being trusted in
+that direction.  She had not needed to relight her lamp when the house
+was at last silent, nor to study by moonlight, but she had often stolen
+hours from her morning slumbers, and had carried her book to her walks
+and into her hours of recreation, and even into the morning and evening
+"half-hour" which is supposed by all concerned to be given to higher
+things.
+
+Of course she had overdone it, and had failed at last.  Or she thought
+she had failed, because she had at last done wearily and with an effort
+what she might have done easily and with secret triumph if she had been
+strong and well, "with all her wits about her."  She had not failed in
+the opinion of her classmates, or even of her teachers.  She had at
+examinations done as well as the rest--better than most; but she had
+taken little pleasure in her success, and she was afraid of what Eunice
+might think of it all.
+
+For of course Eunice must hear all there was to tell.  She could keep
+nothing back from Eunice, even if she would; and in her heart she knew
+that her sister's thought would be, that she had missed more than she
+had gained by her over-eagerness to succeed.  And, looking at her pale
+cheeks and her big eyes in the glass, she determined at least to spare
+her sister the pain of seeing her till she had rested awhile, and looked
+like herself again.  So she had at the last moment written to Eunice,
+and had made Nellie Austin happy by coming home with her.
+
+She was heartily welcomed by all in the house, and not as a stranger.
+For Dr Austin had known her father and mother long ago, and Dr Everett
+was also a friend of his.
+
+It was a good house in which to rest--cool and quiet and well-regulated,
+stirred only by the mild excitement which the comings and goings of
+Nellie's three young brothers made.
+
+But though Fidelia rested she was hardly content.  She was not at peace
+with herself nor at ease in her pleasant surroundings.  Nellie had many
+friends to see after her long absence, and went here and there as happy
+as a bird, but, cautioned by her father, she did not urge her friend to
+go with her, and for the first few days left her much to herself.  Dr
+Austin watched Fidelia quietly during this time, wondering a little
+where the charm was which had caught the heart of his volatile little
+daughter.  This pale listless girl was little like the bright scholar
+who had carried all before her in her classes, and whose kindness and
+cheerfulness had been a help and refuge for the homesick and the easily
+discouraged among them.  But he waited patiently.  She had been doing
+too much, and needed rest and quiet and fresh air.  If her lassitude
+continued many days longer, then, he told his wife, he would have
+something to say to her.
+
+In the meantime Fidelia, half conscious of their observation of her and
+of their disappointment in her, was much ashamed of herself and anything
+but happy, and wished with all her heart that she had gone straight home
+to Eunice.
+
+"At home, with something to do, I should never have been so stupid.
+To-morrow I will find some work.  It is because, for the first time in
+my life, I have nothing to do that I feel so good-for-nothing."
+
+"Suppose you go a-fishing with the boys to-morrow.  They will like to
+have you go, and it will do you good," said a cheerful voice behind her,
+when she had got thus far.
+
+Fidelia rose from the doorstep, and faced the speaker.  It was cousin
+Abby Chase, who had come into the porch, and seated herself in a low
+chair with a bowl of raisins in her hand.
+
+"I was just wishing for something to do; let me help you," said Fidelia.
+
+"Well, if you would like to, I shall be glad of your help."
+
+She took off her own spotless apron and gave it to Fidelia, and soon
+returned with another.  Cousin Abby was a distant relation of the Austin
+family, who had come to live in the house in the young days of the
+doctor's mother, first as help and then as housekeeper, and always as
+valued friend.  She was an old woman now, and blest with a wisdom which
+does not always come with years.  She was willing to place herself
+aside, and to acknowledge that the work which she had done so long could
+be done better by others now.
+
+If it had cost her anything to give up the work and the responsibilities
+which had filled her life for so many years, no one knew it from any
+word of hers.  She was sweet-tempered and intelligent.  She had always
+"loved good reading," as she said, and within certain limits she was
+well read.  In the course of many Sunday afternoons she had read--a
+chapter or two at a time--the books of such of the grand old Puritans as
+found a place in the doctor's library.  The "Missionary Herald" and "The
+Puritan" were always sent first to cousin Abby's room, and there were
+few of the questions, sectional or doctrinal, discussed in the one, and
+few of the missionaries or mission-fields presented in the other, during
+the last twenty years, with which she was not familiar.  In the
+labourers in more than one mission-field she took personal interest, and
+gave good help to them in many ways.  Her Christian influence was felt
+in the family, and extended beyond it.  There was no one in the town of
+Eastwood who held a higher place in the general esteem or who deserved
+it more than did cousin Abby Chase.
+
+"We are expecting company," said cousin Abby; "and Mattie had a bigger
+wash than ordinary, and so I thought I'd better set to and make some
+cake and things to-day, to help along."
+
+"Company?" said Fidelia, her face betraying her doubt as to the pleasure
+of the prospect.
+
+"Yes.  We generally do have considerable company, summers, though we
+have been alone for a spell lately.  We don't trouble about company
+much.  They take us as they find us mostly; but just to-day they are
+Boston folks that are coming, and I wish we had known it sooner.  Mrs
+Austin had a little rather be prepared for such folks."
+
+"You must let me help you," said Fidelia.  "I don't know much about such
+things--except just plain cooking; but I can do as you tell me."
+
+And so she did, to good purpose.
+
+"You take hold as if you knew how," said Miss Abby admiringly.
+
+They had a long busy morning together in the front kitchen, and amidst
+the beating of eggs and the rolling of paste much pleasant talk went on
+between them.  It was almost as good for Fidelia as a talk with Eunice
+would have been.  When, later, Dr Austin passed through the room, he
+stopped a moment to shake his head at the array of good things which
+greeted both nose and eyes.
+
+"They look good, don't they?" said Fidelia.
+
+"Y-es," said the doctor, with a shrug.  "The question is, are they
+wholesome?"
+
+"Oh, yes; they are the best of their kind!  If they are used in
+moderation, they won't hurt anybody," said cousin Abby.  "Miss Fidelia
+must be a good scholar if she studies as well as she works."
+
+"Do you?" said the doctor.  "Well, never mind.  The work has done you
+good; and I hope Abby will take you in hand and find you more to do
+another day."
+
+The work had really done Fidelia good.  She folded her apron, and turned
+to her favourite seat in the south porch with a lighter heart than she
+had had for a long time.  But her spirits fell again as she reached the
+door.
+
+"The company" had arrived--"and a great deal of it," Fidelia thought, at
+the first glimpse of the flowing garments of a group of ladies who had
+just alighted from a carriage, and were lingering on the lawn.  She
+glanced down at her faded alpaca, which had been her second-best dress
+during the whole of the school year, and wished herself at home.
+
+She was hot and tired after her work; and when she heard Nellie Austin's
+voice calling her name, she made haste to get upstairs before she should
+be seen.  But she could not resist the temptation to turn into cousin
+Abby's room, from the window of which she could get another glimpse of
+the strangers.
+
+They were not all strangers.  By the side of one of the ladies, carrying
+her parasol and shawl, walked Dr Justin Everett.  But it was a
+different Dr Justin from him who had sat constrained and silent at his
+brother's table that first night, and who had responded so gravely the
+next day to Deacon Ainsworth's untimely congratulations and questions.
+His high head was bowed as he listened, and he responded with smiles to
+his companion.
+
+Then Nellie's voice was heard again, calling,--"Faithful, my Faithful,
+where are you?" and what Fidelia would have liked to do would have been
+to hide in cousin Abby's closet, or to run down the back stairs and take
+refuge in the kitchen again.  She did not do either.  She laid herself
+down on cousin Abby's sofa, and shaded her face with a big feather fan
+that lay at hand.  Nellie entered the room on tiptoe.
+
+"Are you asleep, Fie?  Are you sick?" said she softly.
+
+"I am neither the one nor the other, though I might have dropped off in
+a minute or two if you had not come in to disturb me.  Have you been in
+the front kitchen?  Have you seen the nice things that cousin Abby and I
+have been making?  I am a little hot and tired, that's all."
+
+"Tired!  I should think so!  I am ashamed that I was not here to help
+you.  You ought to rest; but it is nearly dinner-time.  And, oh,
+Fidelia, I wish you would put on your white dress!"
+
+"My white dress, indeed!  That would be striking twelve o'clock too
+early in the day, my dear.  I must save my white gown for Sunday.  Yes,
+I know you want to show your friend at her best.  It's very good of you.
+But I shall do you more credit in my every-day wear.  And, after all,
+don't you think my gown looks as well as yours?"
+
+"But they have seen me before; and, besides, I'm nobody."
+
+Fidelia laughed.
+
+"Well, I don't feel as if I was anybody in particular.  No, dear, I'm
+not cross.  I am going to be as entertaining as possible, and do you
+credit.  And, besides, there's the dinner-bell.  It is too late now to
+think of changing anything."
+
+A pleasant surprise awaited her, and she found it easy not to be cross.
+Not only Dr Justin was there, but Dr Everett himself, returning home
+with his brother from the first brief holiday they had enjoyed together
+for many a year.  She came into the dining-room with him, and sat beside
+him, and feared no stranger of them all.
+
+"Tell me about my Eunice," she said softly, as the talk flowed on around
+them.
+
+"Eunice is all right.  I am not sure that I shall be justified in saying
+the same to her about you.  Are you well, child?"
+
+"As well as well can be.  Yes, I got thin and pale; but so did a good
+many others.  It is a way they have over there, towards the end of the
+year.  I came here to freshen myself up a little before showing myself
+to Eunice.  When are you going home, Dr Everett?"
+
+"I am going to-morrow.  No, you cannot go with me.  I am going round by
+W--, and shall not see home for two days yet."
+
+"Oh, dear, I am sorry--that I can't go with you, I mean!  It would be a
+good excuse to get away--to go with you.  I promised to stay ten days,
+but I am getting homesick."
+
+"You had better keep your promise.  Your sister has company just now,
+and does not need you."
+
+"Yes, I know; but that is one reason why I should be at home.  Eunice
+must have too much to do."
+
+"No, she has not.  It is Ruby Stone who is doing now.  Don't worry about
+Eunice.  She is in good hands.  Mrs Stone loved your sister before you
+were born; Eunice is all right."
+
+There was nothing more to be said, but Fidelia was by no means sure that
+she would not shorten her visit; and her next thought was that she need
+not see much of the visitors while she stayed.  But she did see a good
+deal of them.
+
+That night it rained.  There could be no wandering under the elms by
+moonlight.  It grew dark early, and chilly, and a fire of dry wood was
+made in the sitting-room, partly for the warmth and partly for
+brightness.  The elder people gathered round it, and a great deal of
+pleasant talk went on among them.
+
+The visitors--besides the two doctors--were Mr and Mrs Abner Kent,
+their daughter Ella, and their niece Miss Avery.  They were from Boston,
+and belonged to one of the "first families" of that chief city.  They
+were rich--so rich that, like the king and preacher, they might have
+possessed themselves of "whatsoever their eyes desired."  They had done
+something in that direction, their neighbours were inclined to think,
+for they had travelled much on both sides of the sea, and had brought
+home many of the rare and beautiful things which only much money can
+buy.  Miss Kent was tall and dark, with a good face; Miss Avery was
+beautiful--small and fair, with shining curls, and pretty, coaxing ways;
+but Fidelia liked Miss Kent's face best.
+
+By-and-by several friends of the Austins came--the Rev Mr Porson and
+his daughters, whom Fidelia had seen before, and others whom she had not
+seen.  From the corner where she sat in the shadow she watched them all
+with great interest.  She was listening to the talk that was going on
+between Dr Everett and the minister, but she lost nothing of all that
+was passing before her eyes, and all the time she was having her own
+thoughts about these people.
+
+They were not just like Halsey folks, among whom she and Eunice had
+passed all their lives.  It had been said of the town of Halsey that
+there were more good people in it, in proportion to its population, than
+in any other town in the county--perhaps even in the state; and Fidelia
+was of course bound to believe it.  But though the Halsey people might
+be very good, they lacked something, Fidelia acknowledged, which these
+people had.
+
+She thought of her friends at home, and tried to imagine one and another
+of them--Deacon Ainsworth and his wife, and Miss Green and her uncle the
+squire, sitting in the midst of these people.  Eunice, with her plain
+dress and her plain ways, would have small chance of being understood or
+appreciated among them.
+
+But Fidelia pulled herself up mentally when she had got thus far.
+Eunice, indeed!  In all that was worth knowing or being, which of these
+ladies could compare with Eunice?
+
+And yet it must make a difference to live such a life as most of these
+people lived--a life without hard work or pressing care, with time to
+enjoy reading, and study, and travel, with a chance to enjoy the sight
+of all that is grand and beautiful in nature and art.  Even Eunice,
+good, and sweet, and superior to most people as she was--even Eunice
+would have been a little different in such a life.
+
+Standing at the other end of the living room, smiling down upon Miss
+Avery, who had touched his arm to attract his attention, stood Dr
+Justin Everett.  Miss Avery had a request to make, it seemed, and when
+he shook his head, seeming to refuse it, she clasped her pretty hands,
+and urged it eagerly.  Whether her request was ultimately to be granted
+or not, did not appear.  In the meantime they seated themselves in the
+window-seat, a little withdrawn from the rest, evidently content.
+
+Fidelia could not withdraw her attention from them.  She watched them
+with a feeling in which was both anger and pain rising in her heart.
+"Eunice," she thought--"would Eunice care?" and she hated herself for
+thinking it, and put up her hands to hide the angry colour that she felt
+rising to her cheeks.
+
+"Miss Faithful," said a voice near her, "cousin Abby says you want to go
+fishing with us to-morrow.  Do you?"
+
+"Yes, indeed I do," said Fidelia, rising and turning to the boy who had
+spoken.
+
+"You have got a new name, my dear," said Dr Everett, who had been
+watching her face unseen--"a new name and a good one."
+
+Fidelia nodded.
+
+"Amos wants to see you, if you do," said the boy.  "He is in cousin
+Abby's room.  Can you catch fish?"
+
+"I have done so, but I cannot boast of much skill," said Fidelia.  "I
+would like to try.  Let us go and see Amos."
+
+So they went together to cousin Abby's room.  It did not take long to
+make all necessary arrangements.  The chief thing was, that an early
+start should be made, and also that a good lunch should be put up.
+Fidelia laughed at the idea of her being too tired to follow the brook--
+to its source even, if that should be necessary; and she quite won the
+hearts of the three boys by her delight at the prospect of the day's
+pleasure.
+
+"Nellie ought to go," said Amos.  "She would like to go, I'm sure, but
+she can't leave her company.  They might go too, I suppose; but I guess
+city girls wouldn't care about fishing."
+
+"I think it will be better for us to go by ourselves to-morrow," said
+Fidelia.  "It doesn't do for too many people to go fishing together."
+
+"And girls especially.  They will talk," said Amos.
+
+Fidelia laughed.  "I won't talk.  You'll see how quiet I can be."
+
+CHAPTER FIVE.
+
+A DAY'S FISHING.
+
+An early start to Smellie's Brook was accomplished, and in circumstances
+even more favourable than had been anticipated.  Dr Everett had risen
+early and breakfasted with the fishing party, and he volunteered to
+drive as many as could "pile in" to the double buggy to the nearest
+point on Smellie's Hill that could be reached on wheels.  The elder boys
+were inclined to refuse the offer; but the doctor said,--
+
+"The fields are wet with dew, and the lunch-basket is heavy; and you
+must consider that you have a lady with you."
+
+"Well, I guess we'd better go in the buggy a part of the way," said
+Amos, the leader, after awhile.
+
+The dewy fields would not have been agreeable to walk in, but they were
+beautiful to see, and so were the woods, into which after awhile the
+narrow road took them.  The boys' eyes were quick to see and their ears
+to hear, and the sights and sounds of the early morning were not lost
+upon them.  Fidelia was silent, but her spirits rose as she listened to
+the talk between the doctor and the boys; and she laughed as merrily as
+any of them before they reached Smellie's Hill.
+
+"If you don't feel as if you were going to have a good time, Fidelia,
+you can drive back again with me, and let the boys go on alone," said
+Dr Everett, as he stopped at the steepest part of the hill to let the
+boys alight.
+
+"Go back with you!  No, indeed!  I _am_ going to have a good time.  I
+feel better already."
+
+"You look better.  I am glad you came.  And look here, little girl,
+don't you worry about Eunice.  Don't you know that nothing in the world
+can hurt Eunice?  If there is any room for anxiety between you, it is
+Eunice who might worry about you.  But she doesn't, and need not, I
+hope.  At any rate all is well with Eunice."
+
+A shadow fell on Fidelia's face, and her eyes drooped beneath the
+doctor's glance.
+
+"Yes; she tells me she is pretty well now, but--"
+
+The colour which the morning air had brought to her cheeks deepened as
+she looked up and met the doctor's eye, but she said no more, nor did
+he.  They had by this time reached Smellie's Hill, and the doctor was
+going no further.
+
+"If I had had time to think about things, I believe I should have taken
+the day and gone with you to the brook," said he, as the boys were
+taking basket and rods from the buggy.
+
+"Oh, couldn't you possibly come?" said Fidelia eagerly; and the boys
+joined their entreaties to hers.  It was not to be thought of, however,
+for he "was due elsewhere."  They watched him as he drove down the hill,
+and he would have smiled if he had heard all that was said of him before
+they took up their baskets and rods again.
+
+Then they turned and took the path through Smellie's pasture that leads
+to the woods and the rocky ledge beyond; and when they came within sound
+of the murmur of the brook, they hastened their steps.
+
+"Fall and spring it is like a river, though it doesn't look much now,"
+said Amos, as they came in sight of it.
+
+It did not "look much" truly.  A brooklet winding its way among rocks
+and stones, over which one might leap or even step at most places, but
+with here and there a pool which looked dark and deep enough to be the
+hiding-place of many a speckled beauty.  And they had good proof of this
+before the day was done.
+
+It was a good day for Fidelia; in the success and in the enjoyment she
+had a full share, though she acknowledged to herself that she did not
+deserve either.  As the time went on she became more and more ashamed of
+the morbid feelings which had made her so eager to get away from the
+house and from all who were in it.
+
+What was the matter with her?  Was she envious of those other girls, who
+led such easy lives and had so many advantages?  Could it be that she
+was so utterly ungrateful as to forget how full of good things her life
+had been made by the sister who had had so little in her own life but
+labour and care for others, yet who had accepted her lot, not with
+submission merely, but with sweet content and cheerfulness?  Was it for
+Eunice she was jealous?  Remembering the sudden indignation which had
+seized her at the first glimpse she had got of Dr Justin, smiling down
+on the pretty upturned face of Miss Avery, she could not deny it.  Even
+now she grew angry as she thought about it.
+
+Would Eunice have been angry if she had seen them?  Had she suffered
+very much in giving up her happy prospects long ago?  And afterwards,
+when she knew that another had taken the place in Justin Everett's home
+which ought to have been hers, had she suffered?  Had she forgiven him,
+or had she forgotten him?  They seemed to be friends now--she knew that
+from her sister's letters: would they ever be more than friends?  That
+would be the right ending, Fidelia thought, but the thought did not give
+her unmixed pleasure.
+
+"I should lose Eunice," she said to herself; "and I am not sure that I
+like her Dr Justin very well."  And then she laughed--"I am getting on
+pretty fast, I think.  Well, I can wait.  Eunice will tell me at the
+right time if there be anything to tell.  I won't worry about her.  Dr
+Everett is right.  Nothing in the world can hurt Eunice much.  I only
+wish that I were like her."
+
+Did she really wish it?  She was not sure, and she was not ready to
+consider the question at that moment.
+
+All these thoughts had been passing through her mind as she followed
+Amos along the margin of the brook; and when they stopped at Big Rock to
+arrange where each one was to go, not one was more eager and pleased
+with the prospects of the day than she.
+
+The sky became overcast, which was a matter of rejoicing; the same could
+not be said of the threatening rain.  But not enough fell to do any
+harm, and for fishing the day was pronounced perfect.  When there are
+four rods, and only one basket for the fish, even moderate success tells
+quickly; and before Franky "guessed it was most time for lunch," there
+was a good show of trout.
+
+It was decided that, to save time, they should not make a fire and feed
+upon the fish, but content themselves with what was to be found in
+cousin Abby's basket, which they might very well do.  But they forgot
+about saving time, for they fell into a real boys' talk,--about hunting
+and fishing and adventures of all kinds, which made them forget how time
+was passing, and then they found that Franky had fallen asleep with his
+head on Fidelia's lap.
+
+"I think we must let him have his sleep out," said Fidelia; "you
+remember, cousin Abby said we must be careful not to let him get too
+tired.  You two go away to your fishing, and when Franky wakes we will
+follow you up the brook."
+
+"But it is too bad you should lose your sport," said Ned.
+
+"He won't sleep long.  And, see, I have a book."
+
+So the boys set off, and Fidelia had a quiet two hours with her book,--
+which ought to have been Butler's "Analogy," considering her next year's
+work at the seminary, but which was "Astoria"--much more appropriate for
+the time and place.  Franky woke rested and much the better for his nap,
+but indignant at being allowed to lose so much time.  But he forgot his
+vexation in the pleasure of listening to a story Fidelia told, and which
+lasted till they came in sight of Amos, happy and successful as ever,
+but a little tired also.  So they sat down to rest and enjoy another
+lunch, and to talk about things in general.
+
+Fidelia knew how to talk to boys.  She knew every tree in the woods, and
+the note of every bird which chirped among the branches.  She knew
+something about most plants that grew in field or wood, so there was no
+danger of falling out of talk.  The boys were interested in what they
+heard, and each had something to tell.  By-and-by Franky said--
+
+"How many brothers have you, Miss Faithful?"
+
+"Not one!  I never had a brother."
+
+"Well, they would have had good times, if you had."
+
+Fidelia laughed--"I am not so sure.  I have one sister."
+
+"Yes, I know--Miss Eunice," said Amos.
+
+"Yes, my Eunice.  She is all I have got, and she is better to me than
+two or three brothers."
+
+"Yes, I know," said Amos, nodding his head; "I heard Dr Everett talking
+about her with father.  Oh, no, it wasn't doctor's talk; only how good
+she is, and how much she thinks of you!"
+
+"Why do they call you Faithful?" asked Ned.
+
+"No one calls me that but Nellie, and you must ask her why."
+
+"I suppose it is because you never shirk," said Amos.
+
+Fidelia looked grave.
+
+"I don't deserve it for that reason," said she.
+
+"You know Jabez Ainsworth, don't you?" said Amos.
+
+"Oh, yes; I have always known him!  We are good friends."
+
+"He is a smart boy, isn't he?"
+
+"Yes, he is smart, and good, though he gets into trouble now and then.
+He is seventeen."
+
+She told them an amusing story or two about Jabez--about adventures
+which he had had and trouble into which he had fallen when he was a
+little fellow, because of a determination to get his own way.  She ended
+with an account of his last venture in taking Eunice's garden for the
+summer, so as to make some money, because he "was bound to put himself
+through college, and _be_ somebody."
+
+Amos listened in silence.
+
+"Do you suppose he'll do it?" said Ned.
+
+"I think so.  Oh, yes, he is sure to succeed!  His grandfather will help
+him, perhaps, when he sees that he is determined to be educated.  But,
+whether he helps him or not, Jabez is bound to succeed."
+
+"I wonder if the hardest things aren't the easiest after all!" said
+Amos.  "I mean, that we don't always care much about what we can get
+without much trouble."
+
+"He means, _he_ don't care about going to college," said Ned; "but
+father means he shall."
+
+"Oh, yes, I suppose I shall go!  But I'd a good deal rather go West to
+Uncle John's great farm."
+
+"You can do both," said Fidelia.
+
+"It takes five years to get through Amherst College."
+
+"Well, you can spare them.  You are young.  How old are you?"
+
+"I was fifteen in May."
+
+"Only fifteen!  I thought you were older than that."
+
+Amos looked pleased.
+
+"How nearly are you ready for college?"
+
+"I might go this fall; but father thinks I had better wait a year.  I
+don't care."
+
+"I think so too--if you don't care.  Next year Jabez may go too.  I only
+wish he had your chance--and yet I am not sure.  He may do all the
+better for having to work his way through.  But for one to have your
+chance, and not to care for it, that I cannot understand!" added Fidelia
+gravely.
+
+"My father is not a rich man," said Amos.
+
+"No--not as Mr Kent is rich.  But an education such as he is able and
+willing to give his boys will be worth more--if they take the good of
+it--than all Mr Kent's money would be.  You don't realise, your
+privileges, young man."
+
+She said a good deal more than that.  Amos had heard much of it before,
+but somehow it sounded differently repeated by this girl with laughing
+lips and shining eyes, and with now and then a touch of only
+half-conscious scorn for the eyes that would not see and the hands that
+did not care to seize the chances for which others were eager to strive.
+Amos had not much to say as they rose and turned homewards.
+
+By-and-by they stopped to rest, leaning for a little on the crooked
+fence on the brow of the hill, from which more than one tree-shaded town
+could be seen, and many cultivated fields and rough pastures, and broken
+stretches of woodland, with the light of a wonderful sunset lying on
+them all.  It was a fair scene, suggestive of peace and plenty and
+contentment; and, looking on it, Fidelia lifted up her voice and sang--
+
+"My country, 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty--Of thee I sing!" and
+so on to the end.  Amos looked up amazed, and at the second verse struck
+in a true boy's second.  So did Ned; and even Franky, climbing up to the
+top rail of the fence, tuned his shrill pipe with the rest.
+
+Of course they sang "My Country" to the tune which belongs to it--a tune
+which with these words, and with other words, has stirred and thrilled
+patriotic breasts on both sides of the sea for many a year and day.
+Fidelia and the Austin boys called it "America," but on the other side
+of the sea it is called "God save the Queen."  They sang it there on the
+hill-top, with all their hearts.  Then they sang "The Star-spangled
+Banner" and "Hail!  Columbia!" as they took their way through field and
+wood; and more besides, till tired old ladies, rocking themselves in
+their chairs and taking their rest at open doors caught the sound and
+smiled; and boys and girls, milking their cows in pasture corners,
+paused in their work to listen.
+
+Tired?  That was the very last thing they were thinking of as they
+passed the south porch, on their way to the kitchen with their fish.
+Fidelia nodded and smiled to the party sitting there, waiting to be
+called to tea, but passed on to the kitchen with the boys, where the
+fish was displayed to the admiring eyes of cousin Abby and the doctor.
+
+"And so Miss Fidelia did not scare away the fishes, as girls generally
+do?" said cousin Abby.
+
+"I guess she didn't.  I tell you, she knows how!" said Ned.
+
+"She's first-rate," said Frank.
+
+Fidelia laughed--"I have had a good time.  I should like to go again
+some day."
+
+"And why should you not?  And Nellie shall go next time.  I don't
+believe she has had so good a time at home," said the doctor, as his
+daughter came in.
+
+"Oh, yes, I have had a pretty good time!  But I should like to go
+fishing with the boys and Fidelia next time.  You feel better, don't
+you, Fie?" said Nellie, as they went upstairs together; and her friend
+assured her that the day's tramp with the boys had done her good.
+
+On the bed, as smooth as cousin Abby's skill in ironing could make it,
+and adorned with here and there a knot of ribbon which Fidelia had not
+put on, lay the white dress which was "to be kept for Sunday."
+
+"I thought I had better have it all ready," said Nellie hurriedly, "as I
+thought you might be late.  We are going to have company this evening--
+just the Newtons, and Conways, and a few others.  Mother thought she
+would like Mrs Kent and the girls to see some of our friends, and this
+was the best night for them to come.  I am sorry it happened so, for you
+must be tired--though you don't look tired."
+
+"I am not a bit tired.  And don't look so troubled, child.  Oh, yes,
+I'll wear the white gown--red ribbons and all!  I'll do my best to do
+you credit."
+
+"How you talk, Fidelia!  But I do want you to look nice.  Father says--"
+
+But what her father said Fidelia was not to hear.  A knock came to the
+door, and cousin Abby entered with a tray.
+
+"Doctor said Miss Fidelia had better have her tea up here, and rest a
+spell till the company come.  She mustn't get too tired, you know," said
+the old lady, smiling.
+
+"Well, there!  I might have had the sense to think of that myself, and
+saved you the trouble," said the delighted Nellie.
+
+Fidelia said nothing, but she cleared a place on the table for the tray,
+and thanked the old lady with a kiss.
+
+"If you should drop asleep for half an hour it wouldn't hurt you any,"
+said Cousin Abby as she closed the door.
+
+And, in the midst of her questioning as to why these people should be so
+kind to her, Fidelia did fall asleep, and woke only when, an hour later,
+Nellie returned ready dressed and eager to help her--
+
+"You look quite nice!" was all Nellie allowed herself to say to her
+friend as they went downstairs together.  "Now they'll see for
+themselves whether she is beautiful or not," she was saying to herself;
+but she knew it would not be wise to say it to Fidelia.
+
+Of course Miss Austin had to be ready to receive their friends; and
+Fidelia fortunately found Amos entertaining the minister with an account
+of the day's sport and the pleasures of a day among the hills.
+
+"Here is Miss Fidelia.  She knows all about it," said the boy; and they
+had a pleasant half-hour together.
+
+Nellie's triumph began when Judge Newton asked her whether the tall girl
+standing talking to the minister was the beautiful Miss Avery they had
+heard so much about.  More than one asked the same question.
+
+"Oh, no," said Nellie demurely, "that is only my room-mate, Fidelia
+Marsh!  Wait till you see Miss Avery."
+
+And she had another little triumph when, drawn towards the piano by the
+exquisite touch of Miss Kent, Fidelia almost unconsciously put out her
+hand to turn the page of the difficult music she was playing, and kept
+on turning it to the end.  It was the look of surprise which passed
+between Miss Kent and her cousin that delighted Fidelia's friend.
+
+"You play, do you not?" said Miss Kent, rising.
+
+"Not as you play.  Oh, please don't go yet!" said Fidelia earnestly.
+
+"Sing something, Ella," said her cousin.  "Sing this"--laying a song
+open before her.  "No, Miss Marsh.  I will turn the music.  You must
+only enjoy it."
+
+And Fidelia did enjoy it, as she had seldom enjoyed music before;
+growing pale and red by turns, as the thrilling voice rose and fell.
+For the moment the enjoyment was perfect.  When it ceased, Fidelia would
+have slipped quietly out of the room.  Miss Kent rose.
+
+"You sing, I am sure, Miss Marsh?"
+
+"No," said Fidelia gravely; "I do not sing."
+
+"Fidelia!" exclaimed Nellie.
+
+"No," repeated Fidelia; "I don't sing.  I have only just found it out."
+
+"And what is this Amos has been telling us about your starting the
+echoes among the hills on your way home to-night?" said Dr Everett, who
+had drawn near.
+
+"_I_ think you can sing," said Amos.  "Oh, yes, I can sing to please
+Amos!" said Fidelia, trying to speak lightly, but troubled under the
+eyes of those who had gathered round the piano, and more troubled still
+by the rush of her own vexed thoughts.
+
+"Is it envy?" she was saying to herself.  "Is it pride and jealousy and
+discontent?  Am I going to disappoint Eunice, after all?  Oh, I am not
+good!"
+
+She did not know who proposed it, or how it happened, but in a little
+Miss Kent seated herself at the piano again, and the young people
+gathered round her, "to sing something they all could sing,"--a much
+more enjoyable affair to most uneducated singers than just to sit and
+listen to fine music.  Of course they began with "The Star-spangled
+Banner;" and if Fidelia's voice did not ring out quite as it had rung
+out to please the boys among the hills, it still caused the Boston
+cousins to exchange surprised glances, thus giving the watchful Nellie
+another moment of delight.  They did not sing long, however; and when
+Miss Kent rose again, Fidelia moved away to the other end of the room,
+believing that the pleasure of the evening was over for her.
+
+But it was not.  She found herself in a little listening with much
+interest to the minister and the judge as they discussed a question
+which had come up before the last ministerial association of the county,
+and thinking it would be something to tell Eunice about when she went
+home.  In the midst of it a voice said,--
+
+"Miss Fidelia, I have a message for you from your sister."
+
+"From Eunice?"--and she turned to see Dr Justin Everett standing beside
+her.
+
+"Yes.  I went to Halsey with my brother this morning, and have only just
+returned.  We called to see your sister on our way."
+
+"She is well?"
+
+"That is part of the message she sent to you.  She says you are not to
+hurry home, as my brother seemed to think you meant to do.  You are to
+stay and have a good time.  She does not need you in the least.  No;
+that is not part of her message.  But she is going with Mrs Stone to
+pay a visit of a week over in Northwood, and you are to stay here till
+that is over.  She will write fully to-morrow."
+
+"I am glad she is strong enough even to think of a visit to Northwood."
+
+"Yes; and Mrs Stone will take excellent care of her.  The change will
+do her good.  And your change will do you good also."
+
+"It has done me good already."
+
+Then he gave her another message from his niece, Susie Everett, and told
+her several items of Halsey news; and then some one came to interrupt
+their talk; and then the evening went on as all such evenings do, until
+the guests rose to go away.  And Fidelia was saying to herself, while
+she listened to Nellie's remarks on things in general, that Eunice and
+Dr Justin were good friends again, and she was not sure whether she was
+glad or sorry that it should be so.
+
+CHAPTER SIX.
+
+DISCONTENT.
+
+In looking back on it afterwards, and in talking it all over with her
+sister, Fidelia could hardly decide whether she had had more pain or
+pleasure in the week which followed.  It was a time she did not like to
+think about.  There had been no real cause for pain, she acknowledged.
+She had acknowledged as much as that at the time, and she had known that
+she ought to be ashamed of herself.
+
+That she--Fidelia Marsh--should have a single uncomfortable moment over
+a faded dress, or the appearance of a last summer's bonnet, was
+humiliating--she who had never cared about her clothes!  She had never
+thought much about her clothes in any way.  Eunice had always done that
+for her, as she had done other things.  At home she had thought herself
+as well dressed as her neighbours.  At the seminary there had been no
+time to think about dress; and there had been other faded alpacas there
+as well as hers.  Why should she think about her clothes now?  She was
+ashamed of herself.  But it was not clothes altogether.  She did not
+"fit in" among these people.  They were different from her--or, rather,
+she was different from them.
+
+Everybody was pleasant and kind.  Miss Avery even, whom she liked least,
+was especially friendly--she seemed to seek her out always.  She sat
+with her on the lawn in the morning, and in the evenings brought a stool
+and sat at her feet, while they listened to Miss Kent's music.  They
+walked and talked together; and why should she not like Miss Avery, who
+seemed to like her and to wish to be with her?  Why should she shrink
+from her questions about Eunice and their home life, and their
+friendship with the Everetts, and answer them briefly, and go over all
+that had been spoken between them in her own thoughts afterwards, in
+fear of having said something that she ought not to have said?
+
+She liked Miss Kent, though she was a grave and silent person who did
+not seem to have much to say to any one.  They had their love of music
+in common, and Fidelia was grateful for Miss Kent's quietly given hints
+on that subject, and profited by them.  She was at her ease with her,
+but she was not at ease with Miss Avery.
+
+"And why not?" asked Nellie Austin, to whom she one day made the
+admission.  "I'm sure she seems to think everything that is good about
+you.  To-night, when you were sitting together, before the lamps were
+brought in, Mrs Kent said what friends you seemed to be; and Dr Justin
+said what a picture you made, sitting there in the fire-light."
+
+"Yes, I guess so!  The picture of a hen and a humming-bird!" said
+Fidelia, laughing.  "If he saw anything but Miss Avery and a feather
+duster it is a wonder.  I have no doubt Miss Avery realised how pretty
+the picture was, as well as he.  No, I am not cross nor sarcastic
+either, and I am willing to act as a set-off to her now and then, if it
+is to do her any good.  But I can't just say I like quite so much of
+that kind of thing."
+
+"Fidelia," said Nellie gravely, "we shall have to let you go fishing
+again with the boys."
+
+"Yes, let us go.  Is it too late to make a plan for to-morrow?  We
+should have to make an early start."
+
+"It is too late to plan for to-morrow.  Amos has gone to bed.  And,
+besides, we couldn't go to-morrow; we are going to Colonel Green's.  And
+the day after to-morrow we are all going to the Summit; and those who
+like can go by the way of Smellie's Brook, and go to the Summit by the
+other path."
+
+"Well, I will go with the boys, and you had better come with us.  That
+was the most delightful day I have had in Eastwood--the day I had with
+Amos and his brothers at the brook."
+
+"Thank you, for myself and all the rest.  Faithful, what is the matter
+with you these days?" said Nellie, laying her hand gently on her
+friend's hair, "There is something the matter, is there not, dear?"
+
+"There must be, if you say so; but I can't tell you what it is.  I must
+be `gettin' kind o' nervous,' as Deacon Ainsworth says of his wife.
+It's queer, isn't it?  I, who never knew there were nerves, until I
+learned it out of a school-book!  I guess I want Eunice.  She'll set me
+all right.  I never had any bad feelings yet that she couldn't deliver
+me from, in one way or another.  Oh, yes; I shall be all right as soon
+as I see my Eunice!"
+
+But she was not quite sure of it, even when she said it.
+
+The next day, instead of going with the rest to pay a visit to friends
+in a neighbouring town, Fidelia chose to stay at home and help cousin
+Abby with her preparations for the expedition to the Summit, as the
+highest hill in the neighbourhood was called, and had a better time than
+if she had gone with the rest.  She enjoyed helping Miss Abby, and she
+enjoyed her talk while the work went on.  For Miss Abby Chase saw
+clearly--had all her life seen clearly--many things which eyes intent
+only on personal interests might easily have overlooked.  Her talk did
+not flow on in "a straight stream," so as to become wearisome; but now
+and then a remark was made, or a word of advice given, or a bit of
+personal experience told, of which Fidelia made a note, saying to
+herself: "I must remember to tell Eunice that.  How Eunice would like to
+hear cousin Abby talk!"
+
+They had not, for various reasons, been ready to begin "in the cool of
+the morning," as was Miss Abby's custom when there was anything special
+to do.  The day was warm, and, though the work was pleasant work, it was
+hard work too in a way.  But no feeling of weariness could interfere
+with the satisfaction with which they viewed results.  The success was
+complete.
+
+"They will spoil a good housekeeper if they make a schoolmistress of
+you!"--as Fidelia stood folding her apron, and regarding with admiring
+eyes a big chicken-pie which Mattie had just brought in from the oven.
+"But I don't suppose you'd care about spending your life as a
+housekeeper, when you might have higher work to do."
+
+"Higher work?  Yes, I suppose so.  Teaching is either the highest work,
+or it is drudgery.  I suppose it depends upon the teacher," said Fidelia
+gravely.  "But any sort of work is good if it is needed, and if it is
+well done--as we have done our work to-day," added she, smiling.
+
+"Yes; and it is something to do well the humblest work, when others are
+helped by it to do the highest.  And then the Lord doesn't always see
+`high' and `low' just as we do.  And those who just help other folks'
+works, and come into other folks' lives, without having much of a life
+of their very own, may have a good time too--yes, and a good reward."
+
+"Yes," said Fidelia, thinking of her sister.  "Miss Abby, don't you go
+visiting sometimes?  Won't you come to our house and see my sister?  She
+would like to have you, and I am sure you would like each other."
+
+"I should be pleased to visit you and your sister.  Yes, I should like
+her.  I like what I have heard about her.  I saw her once--she visited
+here a long time ago."
+
+"Did she?  I don't think I ever knew it.  Was she a little girl?  Was it
+with our father that she came?"
+
+"No; she was a grown woman--a sweet and beautiful young woman.  She
+stayed two or three days.  There was company in the house, and I
+remember they all went one day to the Summit.  It was with Dr Justin
+Everett that she came."
+
+"Ah!" said Fidelia, sitting suddenly down on the window-seat.
+
+They had come into Miss Abby's room by this time, and the old lady was
+resting in the rocking-chair while Fidelia lingered, going on with their
+talk.
+
+"It was just about the time when her grandmother grew worse.  No, I
+didn't see much of her; I had more to do in those days.  I saw her, but
+we did not speak together, and I have nothing special to tell you about
+her, dear, only that I saw her when she came.  I have often thought of
+her since."
+
+Fidelia sat still, with her chin on her hand and her eyes fixed on the
+far-away hills; and Miss Abby could not but see the change that had
+passed over her face.  But she did not speak.
+
+The old trouble about Eunice was stirring at her heart.  Eunice had
+always helped others; she had only come in for "a part in other folks'
+lives," as Miss Abby had said.  Had Eunice "had a good time and a good
+reward?"  She had been at least content during the last few years.  Was
+she content still?  Was she grieving over the past, or was she wishing
+for that which could never be hers?--"for that which is really not worth
+having or grieving for, if she only knew it!" thought Fidelia, with an
+angry flush rising to her cheeks, as the thought of Miss Avery, and the
+interest which Dr Justin seemed to take in her, came to her mind.
+
+"She doesn't care.  I don't think she would care; but, oh, I wish I were
+quite sure!  Surely the Lord would never let that trouble come into her
+life again, after all she has done and suffered."
+
+She sat long with her eyes fixed on the hills beyond the river, on which
+the glory of the sunset lay; and when at last she turned to meet the
+grave looks of Miss Abby, she started and grew red, with a feeling that
+the old lady must know her thoughts.  But Miss Abby only said,--
+
+"Think of it!  I had forgotten all about the eggs.  I must go down
+again."  And when she had gone out and shut the door, she opened it
+again to say,--"You had better stay right here in my room, hadn't you,
+and rest?  There will be some noise in the other part of the house when
+they all get home.  I may go over to see Sally Hanson a minute; I have
+something to take to her.  But I guess you had better stay here."
+
+Whether she went to see Sally Hanson or not, she stayed away a good
+while, and it was growing dark when she returned.  Fidelia still sat
+with her cheek on her hand, and her eyes on the hills, hardly seen now
+in the gathering gloom.
+
+"Well, dear, are you rested?  You have been having a quiet time, haven't
+you?"
+
+"Oh, yes!  I was not tired--only lazy.  I suppose I ought to go and
+brush my hair and change my dress before they all come home.  I wonder
+if I need go down at all?  They will be tired enough not to wish to see
+any one."
+
+"Well, yes, I'd go down a spell, if I were you, for the sake of being
+friendly."
+
+"Do you suppose I should be missed?" said Fidelia, with a laugh which
+did not sound so pleasantly to the old lady as Fidelia's laugh usually
+did.
+
+"You don't feel very well to-night, do you, dear?  I guess you are
+over-tired, though you don't know it.  Or is there anything else the
+matter with you, Miss Fidelia?"
+
+"If there is I don't know, or at least I can't talk about it."
+
+She rose and approached Miss Abby as she spoke, conscious that her words
+might sound strange; but turned to the window again, and stood looking
+out into the gloom, and there was silence for a time.  Then Miss Abby
+said gently,--
+
+"But you know just where to carry your trouble, dear.  Whatever it may
+be, it isn't beyond help, is it?  How can it be to a Christian?"
+
+Fidelia made no answer to this.
+
+"Have you been living up to your privileges over there in the seminary,
+dear?  I have always heard that it was a good place in which to grow in
+knowledge and in grace.  You haven't been so much taken up with your
+books as to neglect better things, have you?  Fidelia, are you a
+Christian?"
+
+There was a moment's silence before Fidelia answered.
+
+"I once thought I was a Christian.  Now I do not know--I am not sure."
+
+"And so you got kind of down and discouraged, and no wonder, dear."
+
+Fidelia had to resist a strong impulse to rush away, when Miss Abby rose
+and came to the window.
+
+"But you needn't be discouraged.  If you are not sure of your hope, you
+must just let it go, and come again to Him who is our only hope, and it
+will be all right with you.  If you have fallen back, it must be because
+you have failed to ask His help, or your heart has been after other
+things.  But you haven't done anything, or neglected anything that He
+will not be glad to forgive if you'll tell Him of it, dear.  You needn't
+be a mite discouraged.  I'd be glad to help you if I could," said Miss
+Abby, laying her hand gently on that of the girl.  "I'm an old woman
+now, and I've seen a good many things in my time, and I have suffered
+some, too, but not any more than I'm glad to look back upon now.
+Anyhow, it never pays to get discouraged."
+
+"Discouraged!" thought Fidelia.  "Why, I think I am wrong all through.
+I am not sure that even Eunice can set me right now."  Aloud she
+said--"No; it does no good to be discouraged."
+
+Then they heard the south gate open, and knew that the young people had
+returned; and, before Fidelia had time to escape, Nellie was calling her
+name on the stairs, and there was no time for more.
+
+Of course they went downstairs together, and heard all about the visit,
+and whom they had seen, and what they had said and heard and done, and
+how sorry every one was that Miss Marsh had not gone with them.  And no
+one would have suspected that Miss Marsh was "discouraged," or even
+tired, so interested was she in it all.  Indeed, she seemed to have more
+to say than usual, and even became boastful, as Nellie declared, when
+allusion was made to the preparations for next day's expedition to the
+Summit.
+
+Miss Avery was even more demonstrative in her friendliness than usual
+that night; and as she was so much fatigued that she found it necessary
+to recline on the sofa, she would have Fidelia bring a low seat and sit
+beside her, saying she had seen enough of all the rest for one day.
+Fidelia sat down willingly enough, but she would not give up her hand to
+be caressed, as Miss Avery desired; she was busy covering a ball for
+Franky; and in a little she found it necessary to go nearer the light,
+but not before Miss Avery had whispered a few words in her ear.
+
+"What a good woman your sister must be!  How lovely she must have been
+when she was young!  Dr Justin Everett thinks her nearly perfect."
+
+She had no time to say more.  Fidelia rose suddenly, and, without a
+glance toward her, walked across the room; and Dr Justin, coming in
+with letters in his hand, alone saw the paleness of her face and the
+anger in her eyes.  Miss Avery rose from the sofa, and in her pretty
+eager way came forward to claim her letters.
+
+"Now, Dr Justin, there must be one at least for me!  Do say you have
+got one for me this time," said she, clasping her hands imploringly.
+
+The doctor laid the letters on the table without a word.  It was Nellie
+who distributed them, and the last one was for Fidelia.
+
+"Now you will be happy!  It is from your sister," said she.
+
+There were letters for several of the others; and in the interest of
+receiving and opening them, Fidelia was allowed to slip out of the room
+unnoticed, and only returned in time to say good-night.
+
+"And it must be `good-bye' too, I am afraid, as I must go home to-morrow
+morning.  Eunice wants me.  No; she is not sick, but she wants me.  I
+have told Mrs Austin all about it, and she says I ought to go.  Amos
+has promised to take me to the depot in the morning."
+
+"But our trip to the Summit?"
+
+"You must stay for that!"
+
+"One day can make no difference!"
+
+Fidelia was sorry to miss the day's pleasure, but a day would make much
+difference.  The letter had been delayed one day already, and her sister
+had several reasons for wishing her to come home at once.
+
+"But your packing!  You will have to be up all night.  You must let me
+help you, Miss Marsh!  Now say you will," pleaded Miss Avery with pretty
+beseeching gestures.
+
+Fidelia laughed.
+
+"My packing!  It is all done already, thank you.  You will see the last
+of me to-night."
+
+It was not quite the last to several of the party.  The departure was
+not so early but that all the family were down, and even Miss Avery had
+a chance to say good-bye again from the window, as Fidelia and Amos
+drove off.  She proposed that they should wait a little, that she might
+drive with them, but this was not to be thought of.
+
+"Dr Justin wanted to drive you down, but I said I had promised," said
+Amos gravely; "you don't care, do you?"
+
+"I should have been very sorry if you had forgotten your promise or
+broken your word.  I would not have cared to trouble Dr Justin
+Everett."
+
+"Oh, it wouldn't have troubled him any!  He'd as lief come with you as
+not, I guess.  If any one had come, it ought to have been Nellie; but I
+told her I had something to tell you, and she was very good about it.
+As for Miss Avery, I guess she didn't care much about going.  You like
+Miss Avery pretty well, don't you?"
+
+"Oh, yes!  Not as I like Nellie, you know.  But Miss Avery has been--
+very--"
+
+"Kind and condescending!" said Amos, as Fidelia paused for a word.
+
+They both laughed a little, but nothing more was said about Miss Avery.
+A good deal was said about things in general, but not a word which
+Nellie and all the rest of them might not have heard; and Fidelia began
+to think she had misunderstood the boy as to his having something to say
+to her.  But when the horse had been securely fastened at a safe
+distance from the track, they turned to walk up and down the platform.
+During the few minutes that remained, Amos said,--
+
+"I am going to tell father that I am going to college this fall or next,
+just as he thinks best."
+
+"Yes, of course," said Fidelia.  "Well?"
+
+"That is all; and it isn't `of course' by a good deal.  I had about made
+up my mind for something else.  I was going West, to see how it looked
+out there, any way."
+
+"Not without your father's knowledge?"
+
+"No--I don't know as I should have gone with his knowledge and consent.
+But he'd have let me go, I guess, if I had kept at him, even if he had
+hated to."
+
+Fidelia shook her head.
+
+"That is not the kind of talk I should expect to hear from you, Amos,
+with such a father as you have."  Amos hung his head, but said,--"Well,
+I've changed my mind.  I am going to college, and I am going to do my
+best.  Yes; it is partly to please father, and partly because I see
+things a little differently.  Do you remember what you said to me that
+day on the hill?"
+
+"I am afraid I talked a good deal that day.  I don't think I remember
+anything particular."
+
+"It was about the honour of having a part in the highest work of all,
+and about the duty of preparing one's self to do it in the best way.  I
+am going to have a try for it, any way," said Amos, with a break in his
+voice.
+
+Fidelia put out her hand and touched his, but she did not speak for a
+full minute.  She was thinking,--"A word of mine!  That can't be--
+discontented, worldly-minded girl that I have proved myself to be!  I am
+not worthy."  Aloud she said,--"I am glad, Amos.  Tell me more."
+
+"It was only a word you said, but it set me thinking; though I don't see
+why it should, for mother, and cousin Abby, and even Nellie, have said
+about the same to me often.  I suppose it was because it seemed new as
+you said it; and I had got kind of used to cousin Abby's good advice,
+and even to mother's.  But I made up my mind that I would see the thing
+through this time, and decide one way or another.  What Dr Justin said
+helped me some.  I mean to try and be a good man--a servant of God,"
+added the boy, speaking with difficulty.
+
+"Amos," said Fidelia, "do you mean that you have become a Christian?"
+
+"I mean that I wish to be a Christian, and to have a part in the very
+highest work, if the Lord will have me for His servant."
+
+"_If_, Amos?  There is no `if' on the Lord's side."
+
+Then she paused, telling herself that she too had desired to have a
+share in the highest work, and asking herself whether she had not drawn
+back.  She did not know.  She only knew that she was all wrong, and that
+she too must begin again.
+
+"I, too, shall have to decide once for all.  Oh, I must!"
+
+There was no time for more, for the shriek of the engine was heard in
+the distance.
+
+"Amos, I am so glad!  And I am glad you have told me.  I wish I knew
+just the right thing to say to you.  I can only say I am glad.  I wish
+you could come and talk with my Eunice.  Oh, dear--just as if you hadn't
+your father and mother, and cousin Abby!  But my first thought is always
+of my Eunice," added Fidelia, with an uncertain smile.  "Good-bye, dear
+Amos.  Everybody in your home has been so good to me; and I am glad for
+them all.  They will be very happy."
+
+There was not time for another word.  As Amos turned from the window as
+the train moved on, he stumbled on some one--or, rather, some one
+stumbled on him--and he had no idea who it was till a voice called
+out,--
+
+"Just in time, Amos!  A miss is as good as a mile;" and he ran forward
+in time to catch a glimpse of Dr Justin Everett on the platform of the
+cars as the train moved on.
+
+Fidelia had not seen the approach of Dr Justin; and it was a surprise,
+to say the least, when he entered the car, and, bidding her "Good
+morning," took his seat beside her, as if that had been the most natural
+thing in the world to do.
+
+"I did not know you thought of going to Halsey this morning.  What about
+the Summit?" said Fidelia.
+
+"It looks ungrateful to leave them, does it not?  But it could not be
+helped; I did not know till late last night that I was expected
+elsewhere this morning.  And I am at least no more to blame than you
+are."
+
+Fidelia made no answer to that.  They could see the Summit as they
+turned a curve among the hills.
+
+"It looks pleasant up there!" said she.
+
+"Yes, with the morning sunshine on it."
+
+"I am sorry it happened that I could not go up with Nellie and the rest.
+I should have enjoyed it, and it would have been something always to
+remember."
+
+"Yes, it would have been something to remember," said Dr Justin.
+
+The sound of his voice had quite changed, and the look on his face also,
+Fidelia thought, as she glanced up at him.
+
+"Have you ever been at the Summit?" said she; and then she remembered.
+
+"Yes.  Once I was on the Summit," he answered gravely; and he did not
+remove his eyes from the mountain while it was in sight, nor did a word
+pass between them for some time after that.  It was Dr Justin who spoke
+first, and his first words were about her friend Amos.
+
+"I should like to take him West with me; and your friend Jabez Ainsworth
+as well.  They are bound to go there first or last."
+
+"Oh, but you must not think of such a thing!  His father would not like
+it.  Amos is going to please his father now, he says, and go to college.
+Don't speak of his going West, please."
+
+"Well, no; not just at present; but when these boys are `thoroughly
+furnished,' as there is good hope they may be in time, the great West is
+the place for them, and for many more of their sort.  They are needed
+there now, and will be needed still more in the future."
+
+"I like Amos.  He will do his part well wherever he is," said Fidelia.
+
+"Yes, I am sure he will."
+
+"And Jabez, too, in a different way.  Jabez and I have always been good
+friends."
+
+"Yes, I know.  You have helped them both."
+
+"I have helped Jabez with his arithmetic and grammar, and with good
+advice, too, sometimes," added she, laughing; "but as for Amos, if I
+have ever helped him, it has been without knowing it."
+
+"That is the best kind of help to give, I think," said Dr Justin,
+smiling.
+
+The Austin family was a safe subject to discuss, and they held to it for
+awhile.  Fidelia told about her good fortune in having Nellie for her
+room-mate at the seminary, and of the many pleasant things they had
+enjoyed together during the year.  When she thought about it afterwards,
+she wondered at the ease with which she had talked with him, and hoped
+she had not talked too much.
+
+As they drew near to the last stopping-place before reaching Halsey, Dr
+Justin stooped to lift his handbag, saying,--
+
+"My brother is waiting for me here, I think.  We are going to M--to see
+a patient of his, about whom he is anxious.  Have you a message to send
+to any one in Eastwood: I go back there to-night."
+
+"I shall send a message to-morrow by mail, I thank you," said Fidelia a
+little stiffly.  She was indignant with herself in feeling a little
+disappointed that he was not going on to Halsey.
+
+"Well, good-bye.  We ought to be friends, you and I, and we shall be
+friends in time."  And then he was gone.
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN.
+
+HOME AGAIN.
+
+Fidelia did not have to take her homeward way through fields and woods
+this time.  Jabez was waiting with his grandfather's "team," which was
+more than capable of taking her and all her belongings.
+
+"All well, Jabez?" said Fidelia, as she caught sight of his smiling
+sunburnt face.
+
+"Oh, yes, pretty much as usual!  Miss Eunice is first-rate;" and with
+this satisfactory though rather indefinite assurance Fidelia had to
+content herself till all things were safely bestowed in the wagon, and
+they were on their way home.  Then she did not need to ask questions.
+Jabez had the faculty of putting a good deal of information into a few
+words; and as she listened, Fidelia got a summary of all that had been
+said and done--or at least attempted--in town-meeting, church-meeting,
+and even in school meeting, with personal and domestic items of the
+neighbours thrown in here and there as he went on.  He had an interested
+and appreciative listener, and he knew it and did his best to be at the
+same time comprehensive and brief.
+
+"And the garden, Jabez?  I hope that has been a success," said Fidelia
+at last.
+
+"Well, yes--pretty middling;" and then a brief but clear and
+satisfactory statement of the sowing and planting, the transplanting,
+watering, and hoeing which had followed; of what the bugs and worms had
+taken, and what had come to maturity; of how all had in general been
+disposed of, and the net results in dollars and cents.
+
+It was not a large sum, but it was the first money that Jabez had ever
+earned--that is, it was the first he had earned for himself, though he
+had done a good many fair days' work for his grandfather.  He had all he
+needed as to food, clothes, and schooling.  He had been as well off as
+most boys in the state; and the boys in the state where Jabez lived were
+bound to believe that nowhere in the world were the boys better off than
+they were.  But Jabez had never before owned a tenth of the money which
+by cents and dimes he had been accumulating through the summer; and his
+dollars meant more to him by a great deal than his first ten thousand--
+should he ever possess such a sum--could possibly do.
+
+"It isn't so much, but it is a beginning.  I tell you, Fidelia, it feels
+good to be earning money for yourself--to be independent and to kind o'
+see your way clear.  If I were to set out for it, I could be a rich man
+before I died."
+
+"Would it pay, do you suppose?" said Fidelia gravely.
+
+"Well, judging by the pains folks take to get rich, it ought to pay.
+There would have to be a good many other things along with it to make it
+amount to--well, to satisfaction."
+
+Fidelia laughed, partly at his way of expressing himself, and partly at
+the extreme gravity of his countenance.
+
+"I expect more from you, Jabez, than just to die a rich man.  Many can
+do as much as that."
+
+"Oh, well, I say before I die; but I mean a good while before, so that I
+should have the benefit a spell!  I say I _could_ do it."
+
+"I hope you haven't let your lettuce and cucumbers put your Nepos and
+Euclid out of your head.  If I were you, I would make up my mind to be a
+learned man rather than a rich man, though, as you remarked, there would
+have to be something else along, to make even that amount to
+satisfaction."
+
+"And better be a wise man than either one or the other.  That would be
+about the right thing to end off with, wouldn't it?" said Jabez, looking
+up with a smile.  "But about Nepos--I've tackled him; and I find him
+pretty tough.  As for Euclid--I've walked through the first four books
+without a hitch.  I've had considerable satisfaction out of him.  Give
+me any proposition you like--well, some time, as we've got almost home.
+And I've never asked you a word about what _you_ have been doing.  I
+have thought about you often enough."
+
+"That may wait too; I haven't done very much."
+
+"But if Miss Eunice keep so pretty well, you're going back again, aren't
+you?"
+
+Fidelia turned on him a startled look.  She had been at ease of late
+with regard to her sister, partly because she had been much occupied,
+and partly because of the cheerful tone of her sister's letters.
+Jabez's words were spoken just as they had reached the top of the hill,
+where, on her last return home, she had caught sight of Dr Everett; and
+a sudden pang of the fear that had seized her then came back upon her
+now.  She forgot to answer the lad's question, and took little heed of
+all that he was saying as they went down the hill.
+
+But when they turned the little curve which the road made round a
+projecting rock, and came in sight of the house, her heart leaped up
+with a sense of relief, and a rush of happy tears came to her eyes.  For
+at the gate, serene and smiling, stood Eunice, waiting.  The light which
+fell on the expressive face came trembling through the boughs of the elm
+which waved and murmured above.  But Fidelia only saw the face.
+Afterwards it all came back to her--the vine and the pale blossoms that
+lingered, and the flickering shadows never to be forgotten; but it was
+her sister's face that she saw first.
+
+She might have been more beautiful in her youth which was past, but now
+she was more than beautiful.  The "afterwards" had come--of the
+chastening, "not joyous, but grievous," which she had endured in her
+youth; and the "peaceable fruits" of the promise were appearing.  Very
+fragile she looked, but cheerful and bright.
+
+"To think that I ever should have been afraid for my Eunice!" said
+Fidelia with a sob, before her foot touched the ground.
+
+"Well, dear, safe home!" was her sister's gentle greeting.
+
+"Home at last!"  Fidelia answered.
+
+Few words were spoken, either of welcome or rejoicing.  Few were needed.
+It was not the way of either of them to say out easily all that was in
+her heart; and in a little they were sitting as quietly as they sat that
+last day, when Dr Everett brought Fidelia home.  It was spring-time
+then; and now the summer was nearly over--the summer which had done
+something for Eunice, as her sister clearly saw, but which, even to
+herself, she could not name.
+
+She was not so much stronger as Fidelia had hoped to find her.  There
+was the same paleness, with the same quick flush coming and going on her
+cheek when anything moved her, beautiful but sad to see.  She had been
+peaceful then, even cheerful, but there had been some tokens that the
+peace had been striven for, and had come slowly, perhaps to go away
+again.  Now it was assured.  And Fidelia said again to herself, "How
+could I have been afraid?"
+
+As Eunice went on to tell how, after all, Mrs Stone had decided not to
+delay her departure after the day appointed, Fidelia was recalling with
+sorrowful amazement her troubled thoughts about Dr Justin and Miss
+Avery, and her doubts as to how Eunice might feel when she came to know.
+Neither the one nor the other, nor both together, could harm her, nor
+even trouble her peace.  "Nor any one or anything else in the world,"
+she added in her heart.
+
+"I think I am a little glad that Mrs Stone went, after all," Eunice was
+saying, when Fidelia came back to the present again.  "I am glad to have
+you to myself a little while: you must have a great deal to tell me
+after so long a time, and we won't hurry over it.  It is good to have
+you at home again."
+
+"It is good to be at home, though they were all very good to me in
+Eastwood."
+
+"You are not looking very rosy even yet," said Eunice gravely.
+
+"Oh, I am perfectly well; and so I was when I went there, only I was
+tired.  Yes, I liked every one of them.  They were all very good to me."
+
+"And the visitors?"
+
+"I liked them pretty well.  I envied them a little, I am afraid.  It was
+silly of me, wasn't it, and wicked?  But I have got over it, and I don't
+suppose I shall ever be exposed to the same temptation again--I mean, I
+have seen the last, of them, I guess--of Miss Avery at any rate.  I am
+glad too that Mrs Stone went away for awhile, though I would like to
+see her.  What is she like?"
+
+"She is good, and sensible, and strong.  Some people might think her
+hard at first not knowing her well--but she is not hard.  She has been
+in some hard spots since she used to take care of me as a baby, and she
+might have grown hard and sour also, if it had not been, as she says,
+`for the grace of God.'  But, hard or not, I love her dearly.  She suits
+me."
+
+"You must have been glad to see her again."
+
+"Yes; when she came I was glad.  I was not altogether glad at the
+thought of her coming.  I suppose I was afraid a little of the old times
+coming back too clearly, and that I might be troubled and unsettled by
+the sight of her.  But it has not been so--far otherwise," added Eunice
+with a smile.
+
+A momentary shadow had passed over her face, but Fidelia forgot it in
+seeing the brightness that followed it; and she sat thinking about it in
+silence, till the gate opened, and Susie Everett came in.  But as they
+sat the next morning in the back porch, looking out on the large garden,
+the subject of Mrs Stone's relations to them was renewed.
+
+"I don't suppose that Ruby will be away long, and before she comes I
+want you to understand how it is with her, and just what she would like
+to do.  Of course you are going back to the seminary next year?"
+
+"Of course I would like to go, if ways and means will permit I would
+like to graduate with my class."
+
+"I am afraid you have worked too hard, dear."
+
+"No, not too hard; but I don't think I worked in the best way.  I should
+do differently next year.  At least I should try."
+
+"Tell me about it, dear."
+
+Fidelia sat silent a minute or two, then she said:--
+
+"Some time I will tell you about it--not to-day.  But about `ways and
+means.'  Perhaps I had better teach this year, as I meant to do at
+first."
+
+But Eunice had a plan to unfold, by which, should Fidelia approve, all
+would be made easy for them both.  Mrs Stone wished to stay in Halsey
+for a time.  The place was more like home than any other place could
+ever be to her, and she would like to share the home of the sisters for
+a time.
+
+"Would you like it, Eunice?" asked Fidelia a little anxiously.
+
+"Yes; for some reasons I would like it.  Mrs Stone is kind and good,
+and she does not seem like a stranger to me, though she has been away so
+many years.  She is capable too, and I am not so strong as I used to
+be."
+
+"But you are well, Eunice?  You are not afraid any more--of--"
+
+Fidelia could not utter the word which rose to her lips--a word which,
+indeed, had never been uttered between them.
+
+"Yes, I am well--for me.  No, I am not afraid any more.  But, dear, I
+own to have been lonesome last winter, and a little downhearted
+sometimes."
+
+"I ought to have been at home."
+
+"No, dear.  It was all right; and it is best that you should go again
+next year for various reasons, rather than to wait.  And, besides--"
+
+Then Eunice went on to explain that, though not a rich woman, Mrs Stone
+had enough for her own wants, and more.  She had no near ties of
+kindred, and no special work in the world to look forward to, and work
+she could find in Halsey more easily than anywhere else.
+
+"And, dear, if I had been asked to plan for my own comfort, and for a
+chance to make going away again easy for you at the same time, I could
+not have asked for anything more suitable than this.  The obligation and
+the comfort will be mutual.  Yes, I like the plan."
+
+"Would it be for always, Eunice?"
+
+Eunice smiled and shook her head.
+
+"Dear, I don't much believe in making plans for always.  `Short views'
+are best, you know.  We might try it for a year, and then decide."
+
+"Eunice, if I liked to take it, I might have the school at the Corners
+this winter; and I could be at home."
+
+"Yes; and that would be pleasant all round, if it were necessary.  But I
+think it would be wiser for you to go back to the seminary this winter."
+
+Fidelia did not answer immediately.  Indeed, she rose and went the
+length of the garden, and stood looking over the fields to the river and
+the hills, and she was saying some hard things to herself as she stood
+there.  In a little she turned and came slowly back again.
+
+"Well, dear, what do you say?" said Eunice gently.
+
+"I say that the plan is good, if you like it.  It is I who am all wrong.
+It is hateful in me, I know, but, Eunice, I could not have any one come
+between you and me.  Not _any one_, Eunice."
+
+"But, my darling," cried Eunice, laughing a little, and stretching out
+her hands, "that could never be!  Why, you are all I have got!"
+
+Fidelia sat down on the step, and laid her face for a minute on her
+sister's lap.
+
+"I never knew till lately that I had an envious and jealous
+disposition," said she in a little.
+
+"But you need not be jealous of Ruby Stone, or of any one else, as far
+as I am concerned, dear.  I am almost sorry now, that she did not stay
+another day, so that you might have seen her.  Oh, you will like her, I
+am sure!--she is so sincere and simple, and so much in earnest."
+
+A great deal more was said about their plans, and about Mrs Stone, but
+not a word about Dr Justin Everett.
+
+It was good to be at home again.  A great many people, young and old,
+came to see Fidelia within the next three days.  In the meantime Mrs
+Stone returned, and all necessary arrangements for the year were made
+between her and the sisters.  Mrs Stone would have liked to rent the
+place or to buy it; but it was not to be thought of that the sisters
+should give up their home altogether, and so their plans were made for
+the year only.
+
+Mrs Stone was a small dark-eyed woman, thin and brown, with deeper
+wrinkles between her eyes than her forty years should have shown.  When
+she sat with her eyes cast down on her work, and her lips firmly shut,
+one who did not know her well might be excused for saying that she
+looked "hard."  But when she looked up, and spoke, or smiled, her face
+changed.  She had a good and pleasant face, with some signs of trouble
+upon it.
+
+Her married life had been a time of discipline to her, she owned to
+Eunice, when they first met, and to her she spoke of the troubles of the
+time; but she spoke to no one else of it.  She was capable and active,
+and did what was to be done in the house with such evident pleasure and
+success that the housekeeping gradually fell into her hands, and Fidelia
+had more liberty than ever she had at home before.  And she made a good
+use of her liberty.  She had preparations for next year to make, and
+friends to visit, and began to feel more light-hearted--more like
+herself--than she had done for a good while.
+
+There was much going on to make the time pass pleasantly.  Nellie Austin
+and her brother Amos were visiting the Everetts; and in whatever was
+planned for their pleasure and the pleasure of the household Fidelia had
+a share.  There were fishing parties and berrying expeditions; and they
+went sometimes to the woods, or to visit some mountain or waterfall, or
+chasm among the hills.
+
+Dr Everett himself, when one of his rare days of leisure came, liked
+nothing better than to go with the young folks; and it was a day to be
+marked with a white stone when he could make one of the party.  Dr
+Justin had more leisure, and could go oftener.  Dr Everett was as merry
+and as eager for adventures as any of them.  Dr Justin was quiet, and
+took the place of a looker-on rather than a sharer in the amusements of
+the young people.  Privately some of them were inclined to think him
+something of a tyrant, for he kept them in order, and did not hesitate
+to assume and exercise authority when occasion called for it, nor to
+reprove--and that with sufficient emphasis--any of them who through
+thoughtlessness or selfishness interfered with the pleasure of the rest.
+But this did not often happen, and he was a favourite among them all.
+
+Fidelia came to like Dr Justin better than at Eastwood she would have
+supposed possible.  She went very often with the rest of the young
+people, and no one of them all enjoyed the delights of woods and fields
+and mountains more than she.  Nellie Austin declared that she hardly
+recognised in her the dull, determined student of the first part of the
+year.  She was light-hearted and happy; and she told Nellie, and herself
+as well, that she had good cause.
+
+Eunice was well, and every day made it more clear to them that they had
+made no mistake in deciding to share their home with Mrs Stone.  And
+then she was going back to the seminary and her beloved studies again.
+
+Yes, Eunice was very well--"for her," Fidelia sometimes added with a
+sigh, which meant that Eunice might never be altogether well and strong
+again.  But she was happy--there could be no doubt about that.  Dr
+Justin came sometimes as a visitor to the house, quiet and grave there
+as elsewhere; and his quietness and gravity was the reason that Fidelia
+liked him better than she had liked him at Eastwood, she told herself.
+Nothing could be more evident than that he exerted no disturbing
+influence on Eunice.  They were friendly--they were even confidential,
+Fidelia sometimes thought.  But she never spoke of Dr Justin to her
+sister, except as his name came in the account which Eunice always liked
+to hear of the expeditions in which she could take no part; and she day
+by day grew less afraid lest her sister might have something to tell her
+of him that she would not like to hear.
+
+But she liked Mr Justin, she owned to herself; and after awhile she
+began to see that, though he had less to say to her than to Nellie and
+the rest, he was not less mindful of her than of them--that though he
+amused himself with them, and submitted to be teased by them, and even
+condescended to tease them in return, he had only grave respectful words
+for her, and indeed carried himself towards her as though he thought she
+might not care for friendly advances on his part; but he was always
+careful for her safety and comfort, and one day he told her why.
+
+"I promised your sister that I would take care of you," said he one day,
+when he found it necessary to insist on helping her, as well as the
+others, over some difficulty in the way.
+
+"Eunice?" said Fidelia, startled.  "Eunice knows that I am quite able to
+take care of myself."
+
+"But I thought you had been taken care of all your life?" said Dr
+Justin as she slowly followed the others up the steep ascent.
+
+"By my Eunice!  Yes."
+
+It would not have been easy for either of them to say much of Eunice, so
+they were silent as they went slowly on.
+
+This was one of the marked days of that happy time to them all.  The
+young people had made their arrangements for a blackberrying excursion;
+but when it proved that Dr Everett had a day of leisure, and could go
+with them, it was proposed that the blackberries should be left for
+another day, and that they should all go to the Peak to see the view.
+The young Austins were still there, and all the Everetts were to go
+except the mother.  Jabez and young Mr Fuller, who had been teacher of
+last winter's school, and a few others, made up the party.  To climb
+"the Peak" was a thing to be done at least once or twice in the lifetime
+of every dweller in Halsey, and it was worth the trouble it cost.
+
+At the last moment Mrs Stone declared her intention of joining the
+party--"just to see how it would seem to be there again;" and Deacon
+Ainsworth for a minute or two entertained the idea of going also, but
+thought better of it.  He had serious doubts as to the moral effect of
+so much tramping up hill and down again, just to look at things, in a
+world where there is so much work that needed to be done.  Blackberrying
+parties and fishing expeditions he could understand; but to give so much
+time to pleasure which generally turned out to be hard work that did not
+pay, was a doubtful matter to him.
+
+All this was said to Jabez, who would have done better, he declared, to
+stick to the work he had undertaken.  It would pay better.
+
+"Well, but I don't seem to have anything that needs to be done just
+to-day, grandpa.  And it will pay to go there.  Oh, yes, it will pay to
+go up there with the two doctors!  They'll have something to say about a
+good many things we'll see up there--botany, geology, mineralogy, and
+all the rest of it.  Why, you would enjoy it, grandpa!  If it wasn't for
+your rheumatism, I'd say, `Go.'  I expect to have a real good time."
+
+So did they all.  They made an early start, driving as far as horses
+could be taken; then, taking an irregular course northwards along the
+western side of the mountain, they gradually reached a point from which
+could be seen the commencement of the two mountain ranges which extend
+through two neighbouring states.  It was early still, and here they were
+to rest for awhile.  The real climbing of the day was still before them.
+The view which they had come to see, was the view eastward from the
+Peak--the view of a long reach of the river, and the valley and the
+cultivated hill country beyond.  Here they sat in the shadow of a great
+rock, looking northwards to the mountains.
+
+There was little variety in the view--only a wide stretch of broken hill
+country, with the grey rock showing through in wide irregular patches,
+and along the dry water-courses--all changing into a haze of smoky blue
+in the distance, where the mountains seemed to touch the sky.  Dr
+Justin and a friend, who in their boyish days had been often at the
+Peak, and through all the hills within sight of it, pointed out to each
+other, the position of their old familiar haunts--the best trout stream,
+Silver Lake, the Glen and the Gorge, and by the help of a field-glass
+tried to point them out to the others.  They could see gleams of blue
+water here and there between the nearer hills; and higher up, a tinge of
+bright colour where the early frost had already been, but almost
+everywhere the summer green prevailed.  It was a scene strange and
+beautiful; and to those who looked upon it for the first time, the charm
+and interest lay in its wide extent and in the utter silence and
+solitude resting upon it.  There were farms and cottage homes, and even
+towns and mills and churches, scattered out of sight among the hills;
+workers and pleasure-seekers--the busy and idle--were going to and fro
+among them; but the only signs of human life or labour which came up to
+those who were gazing down on the wide expanse were the shriek of the
+locomotive and the wisp of vaunting vapour which for a moment lingered
+on its track.
+
+Mrs Stone sat a little withdrawn from the rest, looking northward also,
+with a strange fixed look on her face--the look which made people who
+did not know her very well say she was hard.  She shook her head,
+smiling a little, when Fidelia asked her if she would not like to look
+at the mountains through the glass.
+
+"Well, no, I don't seem to care much about it.  I didn't come to see
+anything in particular.  I wanted to see how it would seem to be up here
+again--that is all."
+
+"And how does it seem?" asked Dr Justin, who had drawn near with his
+glass in his hand.
+
+"Well, I don't know as I could tell you.  I am not sorry I came.  I
+guess I have thought about this place as often as about any other place
+in the state in the last ten years.  No; I am not sorry I came.  I don't
+know as I'm sorry I came last time.  It is all right, I expect."
+
+"Tell us about last time," said Fidelia softly.
+
+"Some time I'll tell you, maybe.  I guess I shall need all my breath
+before I get up the Peak.  I am not so spry as I was last time I came."
+
+"I'll help you up," said Fidelia.
+
+"Oh, I guess I shan't need any help!  I'll start now, and take it
+slowly.  I don't suppose I shall miss the way."
+
+"I will go with you," said Fidelia.
+
+Dr Justin looked as if he would like to go too, but he did not.  He
+shut the glass with a snap, and turned to the group still standing on
+the edge of the rock looking northwards; and the two set off together.
+
+They went on slowly and silently till they came to a point where the
+path they had followed became two paths, the one going up the steep side
+of the mountain, the other holding northward along the ledge.
+
+"Now I ought to know which path to take, but I don't feel sure about
+this," said Mrs Stone meditatively.  "They say the longest way round is
+the nearest way home; and according to that we should hold on round the
+ledge.  The path will take us somewhere."
+
+But it did not seem to do so, for in a little they came up against a
+steep rock, and Mrs Stone owned herself at a loss and out of breath.
+Fidelia proposed that she should sit down and rest, while she went alone
+in search of the path.
+
+"No; we'll keep together.  I don't suppose we can be lost; at any rate
+two people are not so lost as one alone would be.  We'll keep together."
+
+They must have turned themselves round in some way, for they could not
+find the point where they had left the ascending path.  By-and-by they
+came to a shelving rock where the bushes had been recently pressed down;
+some broken branches, still unwithered, lay near.
+
+"This must be the near way that Jabez and the boys took," said Fidelia,
+"We ought to be able to find our way now."
+
+But they did not find it after several attempts.  Mrs Stone was firm in
+refusing to let Fidelia separate from her.
+
+"Two are better than one," said she.
+
+At last they came to a point where they got a glimpse of the valley
+lying west of the mountain.  The land-marks were familiar, only it
+seemed as though north and south had changed places, Mrs Stone said.
+Another attempt brought them back to the place where they had found the
+broken branches, and they had fancied themselves going in the other
+direction.
+
+"Well, there!  I guess we'd better sit down till some one comes to find
+us.  Not that we are lost.  I never heard yet of any one being lost on
+Shattuck Peak for more than an hour or two.  Why didn't I think of it
+before, dear?  Are you too hungry and tired to sing, Fidelia?  I
+shouldn't wonder if they were beginning to worry about us up there.
+They'll be listening."
+
+Fidelia clambered a little higher, and sang "The Star-spangled Banner,"
+smiling a little at the thought of the time when she sang it with the
+boys on Eastwood Hill.  She wondered that she had not thought of lifting
+up her voice sooner.
+
+But nothing came of it.  Fidelia amused herself gathering some late
+flowers, and in searching about for other wild wood treasures, and then
+she sang again, and listened for an answering voice; but she listened in
+vain.
+
+"I expect we _are_ lost for the time being," said Mrs Stone composedly.
+"We'd as well make the best of it, and see what we can do to pass the
+time.  I wish I had brought my knitting.  They'll miss us pretty soon,
+and come to find us."
+
+"Tell me about the last time you were on the mountain," said Fidelia.
+
+"To pass the time?  Well, that may do as well as anything.  But it isn't
+much of a story, and what is of it is not very pleasant to tell or to
+hear."
+
+The telling of that story involved the telling of much more; but there
+was time enough, before an answer came to Fidelia's next song, for all
+Mrs Stone had to tell.
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT.
+
+MRS STONE.
+
+Mrs Stone did not tell her story straight on as she sat waiting there
+on the mountain side, but with many a break and pause, and with now and
+then an exclamation of wonder or indignation at her own foolishness, or
+the foolishness of some one else.  But she told it quietly--making no
+moan for herself, though the troubles of her life had been neither light
+nor few.
+
+"Yes, I have had a share of trouble, but no more than my share; and,
+take it altogether, I have had considerable enjoyment, too.  There was
+Eunice--I could never tell the comfort I took with her when she was a
+little child.  I was only a child myself--little more than twelve or
+thirteen years old--when my sister Myra let me go to take care of Eunice
+for a spell, when she came home, a motherless baby, to live with her
+grandmother Peabody on the hill.  Her grandmother was a busy woman in
+those days, with many duties at home and elsewhere; and Eunice was a
+healthy, happy little creature; and after awhile she was mostly left to
+me night and day for years; and I did my very best for her, and we were
+very happy together till your father married again and took her home.
+
+"I ought by rights to have gone with her, as they all wanted to have me;
+but sister Myra was married by this time, and lived on father's old
+place, and she wanted me to come and make my home with her, as I had a
+good right to do, seeing the farm was as much mine as hers, by our
+father's will.  So I tried it a spell.  She had two babies by this time,
+and I was good with babies, and could have helped her, and been
+contented after awhile.
+
+"But Ezra Stone, Myra's husband, wasn't--well, he was peculiar.  He was
+close--he came from a stingy family, and I don't suppose he was more to
+blame for his stinginess than other folks are for being extravagant--he
+inherited it.  Well, he thought I wasn't needed there: he thought his
+wife hadn't any too much to do with her babies, and her cows, and her
+housework--no more than other folks had, he said; and he said I might do
+better for myself some where else.  And he kept at it in his worrying
+way, till he rather wore us out at last.  And so, when Squire Peabody
+came over one day to say that his wife was sick and much in need of
+help, Myra said I had better go.  I'd have a better time than I'd ever
+be likely to have in her house; and maybe after awhile I might be able
+to help her and the children more than I could now.  So I went, and I
+stayed there till--well, till I was married."
+
+There was a long pause here, and Mrs Stone spoke very softly when she
+went on again.
+
+"I didn't see so much of Myra after that, as I ought to have done.  I
+used to see her Sundays at meetings, and we met at some of the
+neighbours' houses sometimes; but I did not go often to her house.  I
+knew she wasn't very happy.  She was different from her husband.  She
+had a big heart and a free hand, and hated his small ways.  She was
+nervous too, and high strung; and when she had anything on her mind, it
+had to come out when occasion called for it.  Yes, she could say hard
+things!
+
+"But what she said touched her husband just as the water in the brook
+touches the stones in its bed.  It never moved him; and she wore herself
+out at last.  She had held out through a good deal for the sake of her
+boys; and when she gave up at last, the end was pretty near.  I was with
+her the last few weeks.  She hadn't strength to say much, but it
+was--`My boys, Ruby!  Keep them in mind and help them all you can,'
+whenever we were alone together.
+
+"I think if she had asked me to come and take care of them, and make my
+home with them, I must have done it.  But she didn't.  Ezra's mother was
+living there then, and his sister Susan, and I wasn't needed.  But I did
+pity those pretty slender boys, and the baby between them all.  But I
+couldn't do anything about it, and I didn't see much of them for a good
+while.
+
+"Well, next June I got a letter, which I knew was from Ezra before I
+opened it; and I said to myself, `He wants me to sell out my share of
+the farm, or maybe sign off altogether for the benefit of Myra's boys.
+I have been expecting it all along, and I shan't do it.'
+
+"But I was mistaken.  That hadn't come yet.  It was a queer composition,
+that letter.  It was to tell me that there was going to be a picnic at
+the Peak for two or three of the Sunday schools in the neighbourhood;
+and two of his boys were to be there, and wouldn't I go and see them?
+There might be a good many easier ways to see them, I thought, than to
+go up the mountain to do it.  However, some of the neighbours were
+going, so I said I would go."
+
+There was another pause here.
+
+"I was in some trouble about that time myself.  I never said anything to
+anybody, and I don't suppose anybody suspected it.  I had lost my sister
+lately, and that might well account for having less to say than usual.
+But I had lost another friend--one that would have been more than a
+friend if he had lived.  We were not to say engaged.  We hadn't even
+kept company much; but when Jim Sedley died down there at Lowell it went
+hard with me, and for awhile the world seemed to have come to an end for
+me.
+
+"But I went to the picnic with the rest, and I saw the boys and had a
+little talk with them, just long enough to find out that they missed
+their mother dreadfully, and that they were much in need of a mother's
+care; and my heart ached for the little fellows; and, when they were
+called away to join in some play with the rest, I slipped off into the
+woods, so as to get away from the talk, and to think it all over by
+myself.  But thinking didn't help me much.  There was one thing I could
+do.  I could marry Ezra Stone, and so try to be a mother to them; and as
+the thought was in my mind I heard Ezra's voice close to me.  I would
+have hid myself or run away if I could have done it, for I was afraid
+that I would do or say something that I would be sorry for all my life.
+But I couldn't get away; and there was Ezra saying how glad he was to
+see me, and that he had come to the Peak on purpose, and a lot more of
+the same kind.
+
+"I was thinking about it all as I sat down there this morning," said
+Mrs Stone after a little pause.  "A hundred times in the days that
+followed I asked myself whether I could believe that the Lord was taking
+care of me that day, according to His promise.  It was a great while
+before I could see it so.  But I expect He was, though I never should
+have married Ezra Stone if I hadn't gone up the Peak that day.  At least
+I don't believe I should.
+
+"He didn't begin about that, but about business.  His sister Susan was
+going to be married to Nathan Pease, whose farm joined father's old
+place; and he wanted to buy it, and would I be willing to sell my half
+of it?  I never had calculated much on anything which was likely to come
+to me from the place; but Myra had always advised me to hold on to my
+share, and so I said I should have to think about it before I could say
+whether I would sell or not.
+
+"There is no call to tell you all his talk.  He didn't seem to care
+about the place since Myra had gone, he said; and there did not seem to
+be much chance for him and his boys at the East.  What he wanted to do
+was to take what he had and go West with them.  There was the best of
+land to be had there cheap, and no such hard work needed, and a better
+climate.  He knew just the place he could have out there in Wisconsin,
+and with a little money he could do well for his boys and himself; and
+he ended by asking if I would go West with him and help him do for
+Myra's boys?
+
+"He knew pretty well what my opinion of him was.  I didn't need to say
+anything about that.  My sister hadn't been much more than six months in
+her grave, and I didn't waste words upon him.  But all the time it was
+borne in upon me that it had got to be, and that it would come to that
+at last.
+
+"`It isn't so much a wife that I want as a mother for Myra's children,'
+he said; `and I hope, when you come to think of it, you'll see it your
+duty to come West with them.  If you change your mind, you can let me
+know.'
+
+"`It isn't very likely,' said I; but all the time I felt that I would be
+as likely to go as not.  I told him I would talk over business matters
+with Squire Peabody, and that I would sign any papers the squire told me
+to sign, when the right time came; but I let him understand that I meant
+to have the full value of my share.  It would, I thought, be as safe for
+Myra's boys in my hands as in his, though I didn't just say that to him.
+
+"Well, he went away, and I sat there thinking it all over, just on the
+spot where I sat to-day when you and the other girls were looking
+through Dr Justin's spy-glass; and I told myself that I hadn't much of
+anything to look forward to, and that, after all, I might as well do one
+thing as another.  Life didn't seem worth much to me, but I might make
+my life worth something to Myra's boys.  There is always duty left when
+hope is gone, and if I owed duty to any one, surely it was to my
+sister's children--so I reasoned.  I would wait and see.
+
+"Well, the children came back, and had something more to eat, and sang
+some hymns, and then it was time to go.  The boys kept close to me as we
+all went down to the place where the trains were waiting; and the poor
+little fellows cried, and did seem so forlorn when they went away, that
+I just couldn't get them out of my thoughts for a long time.
+
+"I didn't think the sale of the farm would come off for awhile, but I
+was mistaken.  Ezra came over to see the squire one day in October, and
+they talked it over, and matters were settled, and papers signed, and my
+share of the price of the land made over to me; and Ezra was to go away
+at the end of the month.  The boys were to be left till spring, till he
+could make some kind of a home for them, and he said he depended more on
+me than on any one else to see that they were well done by till then:
+`For they are more and nearer to you than to any one else except
+myself,' he said.
+
+"`It is not likely that I can do much for them while they are in your
+mother's keeping,' I said.
+
+"`Oh, mother thinks everything of you!' he said, with a foolish laugh;
+`and you've got your share all right.  Squire Peabody has seen to that.'
+
+"That was the first winter that Mrs Peabody's health began to fail.  It
+wasn't long before your father died, and the squire took her South for
+the winter, and the house was left to my care; and they said, if I
+liked, I might have one or two of Myra's children to keep me company.
+So I went over and got Jim, the eldest, so as to give him a chance at
+our winter school, and the baby, as everybody called him, though he was
+nearly four years old.
+
+"You've heard me tell about my Davie before.  I needn't say much about
+him.  The very first feeling of rest and comfort that had come to me,
+after months of lonesome pain, came the first time he fell asleep in my
+arms, with his little chapped hand upon my cheek: it was like the coming
+back of the time when I had baby Eunice to care for; but it was
+different; too, in some ways.  Jim was as good and as bright a boy as
+need be, and we had a happy winter together.
+
+"Well, in the spring the squire and his wife came home, and she seemed
+better.  They hadn't been home long when a letter came from Ezra, saying
+he wanted the boys to be sent out to him.  He couldn't, without
+considerable loss of time, go for them, but there were chances every day
+of people coming West, who would look after them all they needed.  A
+chance of any one willing to trouble himself with the care of four boys,
+one of them little more than a baby, wasn't likely to come very soon,
+and the summer was over before we heard again; and all that time Jim and
+Davie had stayed on with me.  Then there came another letter, saying
+that the boys were to be sent on alone.  Nothing would be likely to
+happen to them, as they needn't change cars more than once before they
+reached Chicago, and he would meet them there.
+
+"Then I wrote, saying the rest of them might go so, and I would keep
+Davie for some better chance; or, if his father said so, I would keep
+him altogether, and do for him till he was old enough to do for himself.
+Well, quicker than ever an answer came before, a letter came, saying
+`No!'--Davie must come with the rest.  He saw his way clear to do well
+by all his boys.  Farming was a better thing out West than in New
+England.  He wanted all his boys.
+
+"Afterwards I thought of two or three ways I might have taken to keep
+the child with me, but nobody encouraged me much to undertake it; and I
+saw no better way at the time than just to go with them myself a part of
+the way, especially as a gentleman, who had to do with western
+railroads, offered me a free ticket to Chicago and back.  The squire and
+Mrs Peabody said all they could to put me off the notion.
+
+"`Ruby,' said she, `if you go, you'll marry Ezra Stone.'
+
+"`That's his idea, anyway,' said the squire; `and Ruby, don't you do
+it.'
+
+"`I know Ezra Stone,' said I, thinking all the time that what they said
+might be true.  And so it was.
+
+"Ezra met us at Chicago; and as soon as I saw his face I felt sick at
+the thought of letting Myra's children go off with him alone.  `What
+kind of a woman will he put over them?' said I to myself.
+
+"Well, you know all about it.  I did marry him, right there in Chicago.
+He didn't say much.  Nothing he could have said would have had much
+influence with me one way or another.  But I saw Myra's eyes looking at
+me every time that Jim or the baby smiled at me, and I couldn't let them
+all go away alone to I didn't know who or what.  No, he didn't say much;
+and afterwards he rather twitted me with being ready the minute I was
+asked.  I don't suppose I should have done any different if I had known
+just all that was before me.  I wasn't a free agent in the matter.
+
+"Yes--oh, yes!--I laid the matter before the Lord, or I thought I did.
+I knew that I wasn't going to have any easy time, and that it wasn't my
+own pleasure I was seeking; and that made me feel as though I was just
+trying to do my duty, and that the Lord would see me through.  Yes, I
+was self-willed about it.  I was faithless, I suppose, and afraid just
+to leave the boys in God's hands.  Oh, yes, He did see me through; and
+more than made up for the trouble I had to endure, and I wouldn't have
+anything different from all that He sent me!  But I am making a long
+story, and there isn't really much to tell.
+
+"The next three years was just a dead level.  Nothing happened but just
+summer and winter, and seed-time and harvest.  But such harvests!  Full
+and rich beyond any experience we had ever had of harvests.  High prices
+were given too, and much money must have come in.  But with that part of
+it the boys and I had nothing to do.  There was nothing but hard work,
+early and late, to show as far as we were concerned.
+
+"I did my best for them.  I kept them at their books, Sundays and rainy
+days, and winter evenings; and they were smart boys and learnt well.
+They were good boys and pleasant-natured, taking after their mother, and
+I took comfort with them in many ways.  They were good boys to work too.
+There wasn't a lazy bone in one of them; and, while they did the work
+that was expected of them, everything went well between them and their
+father.  He let them pretty much alone at other times.  His heart was
+set on just one thing, and that was making money, and the more he got
+the more he wanted.  He didn't spare himself, and he didn't spare any
+one else, if the chance to make a dollar came along.
+
+"Jim was doing the work of a man before he was fifteen; and every year
+brought more to be done, for more land was taken up as fast as it could
+be paid for.  Ezra did have wonderful success.  After the narrow stony
+fields of the old place, it was a sight to see the scores of acres of
+wheat growing so full and strong.  It was threshed right there on the
+ground, and sometimes it was sold there; and if he had only been content
+with moderate success, he might have been living now, and well-to-do.
+
+"I blame myself when I think of those times--the times that came after
+the first three years.  I think maybe, if I had done differently, things
+might have turned out differently for us all.  In this third spring my
+Eunice was born--my only baby, and while she stayed with us she made the
+world a better place for us all.  The boys did think everything of her,
+and her father too.  But she died of croup.  If we had had a doctor near
+us, or if I had known better how to deal with it, she might have lived,
+I thought, and that made it very hard to bear.  Ezra felt so about it
+too, and we had a dark winter.
+
+"But spring came, and the work had to be done.  We couldn't get all the
+help we wanted; and from daylight till dark Jim and his brothers had to
+be in the fields.  Even little Davie had his share to do; and, though
+they were not inclined to shirk their work, it was hard for them, and
+they did sometimes complain.  I complained for them, but I might just as
+well have held my tongue, and I did after awhile.  They grew fast.  Jim
+was as tall as his father when he was sixteen, and if he had had any
+chance he would have been a strong man in a few years.  But he was slim
+and stooping, and had little flesh on his bones, and I worried about him
+a good deal; and one day I asked his father how many acres of wheat he
+supposed it would take to pay for the life and health of a boy like Jim.
+
+"`He's _my_ boy,' said he, `and not yours, and it ain't worth while for
+you to make the calculation.  I know all about it.'
+
+"`He is my boy more than yours,' said I, `if love means anything.  I
+can't make you answer me, but some time pretty soon you'll have to
+answer his Maker and yours, and you'd best reckon up in time, for as
+sure as you go on as you are going now, you'll have to bury him; and
+that's my last word.'
+
+"He gave an angry laugh at that, and said my last words came pretty
+often; but I saw him looking curiously at Jim that night, and I guess
+he'd have let him take it easier for a spell if Jim had known how to
+take it easy.  But there was just so much to do, and he kept on along
+with the rest.  It was Asher, the second one, who gave out first.
+
+"Once or twice he had complained to me that he had dizzy turns, when he
+kind of lost himself, and I had doctored him a little, not thinking him
+very sick, till one day they brought him home from the field insensible;
+and, if he ever knew any of us again, he could never tell us so, and he
+died in just a week after he was brought home.  Yes, we had a doctor.
+Jim went twenty miles for one without asking any one's leave.  He came
+twice, but he couldn't help him.  All the time he was sick I never spoke
+a word to his father about him unless he first spoke to me, till one
+day, when he came in from his work, he found his boy lying still and
+white, with his hands clasped on his breast, dressed ready for the
+grave.
+
+"`He'll never be tired any more,' I said.
+
+"He turned and went out without a word; and Asher's name was never
+spoken between us for years after that.
+
+"It was different with Jim.  He kept on till the winter he was eighteen;
+and I shall always be glad to remember how easy and pleasant his last
+days were made to him.  It was a mild winter, and he kept about doing
+something or other most of the time.  His father, let him do pretty much
+as he liked, and went on hoping that the spring would make him all right
+again.  He even talked of sending him back to the old place for a change
+when the summer came; and Jim used to listen, and sometimes said what he
+would do when he got there.  But he knew better.  He knew he was dying,
+and he was not afraid.  But he had something he wanted to do before he
+could be quite willing to go.
+
+"One day, after he had been sitting beside me quietly thinking for
+awhile, he said--`It's hard on father.'
+
+"`Has anything happened to the fall wheat, or to any of the horses?
+What is it that is hard on him?' said I.
+
+"He shook his head, turning to me with a strange grieved look in his
+eyes.
+
+"`It is hard that he should have to lose another of his boys,' said he.
+
+"`He should have taken better care of them, and he might have kept
+them,' said I.
+
+"`Mother,' said Jim, `I think _you_ are hard on father sometimes.'
+
+"`Am I?  Oh, well, I guess nothing that I'm likely to say or do will
+ever hurt him much!'  But I knew he was right in a way.
+
+"`Mother, come in here.  I want you to lie down on the bed, and I will
+sit beside you.  You are all tired out.  And I have got something that I
+want to tell you.'
+
+"What came into my mind when I turned and looked at him was a kind of
+wonder what the world would be like to me when he had gone out of it;
+but what I said was--`I don't feel more tired than common.  You lie down
+on the bed, and I'll get Davie's jacket and mend it while we have a
+little talk.'  So I got the jacket and held it, though I couldn't put a
+stitch in.  My hands shook so that I couldn't thread my needle.  Jim
+took and threaded it for me.  And then he lay still, with a look of
+trouble on his face that made me say at last,--
+
+"`I think I know what you are going to say, Jim.  It will be a dreadful
+trouble to me and your father; but you oughtn't to be troubled about it,
+Jim.  You are going to a better place: you are not afraid, Jim?'
+
+"`No, dear mother, not for myself--nor for you.  You'll get over it
+after awhile, and you'll come too--you and the boys.  But, mother, I
+want father to come too.'
+
+"I hadn't a word to say.  I must have been a wicked woman.  For half a
+minute it seemed to me that heaven itself would be spoiled if Ezra Stone
+were there.
+
+"`And you must help him, mother,' said Jim.
+
+"`I haven't helped him much lately about anything,' I said.
+
+"`No; I think you're a little hard on father, mother;' and then he
+turned on his pillow and put his two arms round my neck, and drew my
+face down to his.  His words hurt me dreadfully.
+
+"`The Lord Himself will have to take hold to change him,' I said.
+
+"`Yes, of course, mother; and you'll help him.'
+
+"He didn't say any more; and in awhile he fell asleep, and neither of us
+stirred till I heard his father's step on the floor.  I did not stir
+then, though it had been our way all those years to keep out of his
+sight any special sign of affection between us.
+
+"He came in and stood a spell looking at us, I suppose; and then he went
+out, knowing for certain the thing which in his heart he had been
+dreading all along, for he must have seen the signs of death on his
+boy's face that day.
+
+"Jim lived full three weeks after that, and he was a very happy boy.
+His fear of his father had all gone.  Jim showed how glad he was every
+time he came into the room; and he would smile, and hold his hand, and
+speak softly to him, words which the rest of us could not hear, till he
+could stand it no longer.  Then Ezra would rise and go out alone.  He
+never came to me for comfort, and, if he had, I had none to give.
+
+"Just once I heard Jim say, `You will, won't you, father?  God will help
+you, and--mother.'
+
+"His father groaned, and with good reason, for God seemed far away from
+him, and he could not count much on help from me.
+
+"Well, Jim died in his sleep, and we buried him near the other two; and
+it was very quiet in the house for a spell, and then everything fell
+into place again, and all went on as before, as far as those looking on
+could see."
+
+CHAPTER NINE.
+
+MRS STONE.
+
+"That was the poorest summer I ever had as to health.  Jim's sickness
+had run me down, and then I missed him dreadfully, but what really ailed
+me was a heavy heart.  I had lost my hope.  I had been a Christian for a
+good many years, or thought I had.  I had joined the Church when I was
+young, and had tried to live up to my profession, as far as I knew how.
+I had enjoyed religion in a way, and got real help in trouble from my
+Saviour.  But that seemed all gone.  I didn't enjoy it that summer, and
+hadn't for a great while.
+
+"I had thought all along that I was doing the best I could, and that I
+did well to be angry with my husband's ways and to hate them.  But Jim
+had left it to me to help his father; and how was I to help him, when I
+hated not only his ways but himself, as I began to fear?  I hated his
+greed, and his love of money, and his hardness, which had killed his
+boys; and I couldn't separate the man from his sins, and yet I knew I
+ought.  I was all wrong for awhile, and I knew it, but I didn't know how
+to put myself right.
+
+"Time went on, and a little help came to me after awhile in a way I
+never would have thought of.  It was one Sunday.  They had all gone to
+meeting, and I was alone in the house; and I got my courage up to look
+over Jim's box and the few things that were his very own.  Among them I
+found a little book, such as you've seen, that has a Bible verse for
+every day of the year, and after each verse a few words to explain it,
+or to send it home to the heart, and maybe a verse of a hymn after that.
+I knew it the minute I saw it.  It was one Myra had had when she was a
+girl.  It lay on her bureau always, and she read in it every night.
+
+"She had given it to Jim.  Their two names stood together on the first
+page, and Jim had kept it safe all this time, as I believe, for my help.
+For when I turned over the leaves, after awhile I found the text for
+that day, and it was this: `Fear not, daughter of Zion.  Behold, thy
+King cometh unto thee!  He is just, and having salvation.'  And then,
+among the words that came after to enforce the Scripture were these:
+`However strong thine inward enemies, thy corruptions, fear not and be
+not discouraged.  Thy King is bound by His office, by His love, and by
+His promises, to help thee with strength to overcome.'
+
+"They do not sound much as I say them to you, do they?--but to me they
+seemed to come like a voice from heaven.  I had nothing to say for
+myself.  I had been all wrong for a great while.  And I knew I could do
+nothing now to put myself right.  But, according to this, the King
+Himself was `bound to help me with strength to overcome.'  So I
+said--`I'll just let go, and see what He'll do about it.  He may guide
+me where He will.'  For I had lost my way; and if ever a poor soul knew
+herself to be `helpless, and blind, and naked,' I did that day.
+
+"I had a long spell of sickness after that I was run down, and needed
+rest rather than medicine, the doctor said, and I was left pretty much
+to myself; and, as we had good help at that time, my sickness didn't
+make much difference in the house.  Mind and body were better for the
+rest, and I rose in a month or two a happier, and, I hope, a better
+woman than I was when I lay down.  I could not speak about myself or my
+feelings easily to anybody, and I couldn't say a word to Ezra.  But I
+think he saw the difference.  There never was a day after that, that I
+did not try to say something pleasant to him; and he got none of the
+sharp answers of which he used to be afraid.
+
+"Things went on pretty much in the old way for a year or two, but better
+in some respects.  We had a new house built, and everything more
+comfortable about us.  A good many people had come to the
+neighbourhood--well-to-do people; and Ezra had pride enough to wish to
+`keep up with the times,' as he said.  We had a school too within a
+reasonable distance, and meetings almost every Sunday; and there was
+some talk of having a meeting-house built: and, to my surprise, Ezra was
+the one to offer a lot of land to build it on.
+
+"There was talk of a railroad coming our way, which would bring markets
+nearer, and increase the value of property; and all this did not make
+him less eager about making money, but more so.  I _did_ try to get on
+better terms with him these days, and I could see that anything I said
+had more influence with him, though he would not own it in words.  My
+pride was broken as far as he was concerned; the hard feeling against
+him had gone out of my heart.  I could pray for him, and hope for him,
+and I had peace in my own soul, which made all the difference.  The boys
+were good boys too, and had an easier time than their brothers had had,
+and were growing up like other folks' children--manly little fellows,
+afraid of nothing--and I did not fret about them as I had done about the
+others.  We might have gone on like this for years if something had not
+happened."
+
+Mrs Stone paused, and leaned back against the rock with her face turned
+away for a little while.  Then she said--
+
+"It did seem even to me, for a while, that the Lord was dealing hardly
+by Ezra, and that his heart was hardening rather than softening under
+the hand that was laid upon him.  The harvest time had come again, and
+there had been more than the usual trouble about getting men to help
+with it.  The boys had been kept steadily at work, but made no
+complaint; and their father, as the hired men declared, had done the
+work of two.  He was the first up in the morning and the last to go to
+rest at night, and sometimes even had his food carried to the field to
+him, rather than lose the time coming to the house.  So one morning it
+gave me quite a start to see him coming toward the house about ten
+o'clock, and I laid down my work and waited till he came in; and,
+whatever I forget before I die, I shall never forget the look on his
+face as he came near.  I saw that he staggered as he walked, and that
+his right arm hung helpless by his side.
+
+"`What is it?'  I cried out, running toward him, He put out his left
+hand as if to keep me off, and I saw that he moved his lips as though he
+were speaking, but he uttered no sound.
+
+"`You are hurt!'  I said; and I took his arm, and he stumbled into the
+house, and fell across the bed in a dead faint.  We did what we could
+for him--Prissy and I--and in the midst of our trouble I heard steps and
+voices coming towards the house; and, for the first time, the thought
+that something worse might have happened came to me.  I turned round and
+saw the two hired men bringing something in on a board.  My Davie!  I
+had no power to cry out when I saw him--bruised, broken, and bleeding to
+death!  I had just sense enough left to make them carry him into another
+room, so that the eyes of his father might not fall on him when they
+opened; and so they laid him down.
+
+"`It'll only hurt him to try to do anything for him, Mrs Stone,' said
+one of the men, with a break in his voice.  `Speak to him.  He has got
+something he wants to tell you.  All he has said since it happened
+is--"I must tell mother."'
+
+"So I knelt down beside him, and put a little water on his face, and
+rubbed his hands, and whispered--`Davie dear, tell mother.'
+
+"And then he opened his eyes and said faintly,--`It doesn't hurt much;
+and, mother dear, father wasn't to blame.'
+
+"`And you're not afraid, my Davie?'  I asked; and he said--
+
+"`No, I needn't be, need I, mother?  Jim's gone there, and baby--and
+Jesus died.  Pray, mother!'
+
+"And so I did, a few broken words; and then he died with a smile on his
+face, which hadn't left it when we covered it for the last time."
+
+The pause was longer this time.  Fidelia rose and moved away, and stood
+looking over to the hills on the other side of the valley for a little
+while, and when she came back Mrs Stone's face was quite calm, though
+there were traces of tears upon it.
+
+"It wasn't till after some time that I heard just how it happened.  The
+boy whose business it was to drive the team of the reaping machine
+hadn't come, and Davie was only too proud and happy to be just in his
+place.  His father had been loth to let him try at first, but he
+consented, and all went well for a while.  But the horses were young,
+and took fright--at what no one knew--and they ran away, with my Davie
+sitting where he never ought to have been.  His father met them at a
+corner of the fence which they had tried to get over, and by sheer
+strength held them there till the man came to take the child from the
+wreck.  Ezra never knew that he was hurt till he tried to lift his boy.
+He knew Davie was in a bad case, even before the men got him out from
+the ruins of the machine.  But he did not think he was going to die till
+they laid him down on an armful of the fallen wheat; and then he came
+home, and the men followed with the poor little boy.
+
+"Well, we had a sad time after that.  The harvest was long over before
+my husband was able to go to the fields again.  Besides his broken arm
+he was hurt inwardly, and his nerves gave way.  It was weeks before he
+could look out on the sunshiny fields without a shudder.  But he
+gradually got better after awhile.  The harvest didn't suffer.  The men
+worked well, and the neighbours helped, and it was all saved and well
+sold, and a great deal of money--or what seemed a great deal to me--came
+in for it, and passed through my hands.  It was the first time I had
+ever had a chance to know anything about Ezra's money matters; but he
+was glad of my help now, and didn't resent my having to do with it, as I
+was afraid he might.  But he saw that the money didn't mean all to me
+that it meant to him: it wasn't much to me just then, for my boy's death
+had been a hard blow to me.  I was worn out with Ezra too.  A man just
+well enough to be able to be about, and too sick to do as he has been
+used to, is a dead weight on a woman's hands, I can tell you.
+
+"I did the best I could for him, and was not so impatient with his
+fancies, or with the fretfulness and fault-finding that filled the days
+for a while; for by this time I had come to see some things differently.
+I had come over some rough places, but the Lord had been leading me,
+and I didn't rebel under Davie's loss as I had when we lost the others.
+I didn't make much headway with my husband.  It was only once in a great
+while that I could say or do anything to please him, but I laid it to
+his state of mind and body; and I took some comfort, in knowing that he
+was a little less miserable when I was by than when I was away.
+
+"Dan wasn't just like the other boys.  He wasn't so bright, for one
+thing.  He was the least like his mother of any of them.  He was shy,
+and hadn't as much to say for himself as Jim had had; but he helped his
+father a good deal at this time.  He took notice of all that was done or
+that needed to be done on the place, and coaxed his father out to see to
+things which he couldn't do himself.  And this took the poor man's
+thoughts off from himself, and did him good in other ways.
+
+"He had been much hurt, and he knew that he would never be the same man
+again; and for a while--and that was the worst time of all--he couldn't
+but feel that he might be going to die, and he knew he wasn't ready.  I
+knew what his thoughts were, only by words muttered when he thought I
+was asleep, or out of the way.  I read to him, and I prayed for him
+every hour of the day; but I hadn't the faculty of speech on the subject
+nearest my heart.  When I did say a word he never answered me, and there
+was no one else to say much to him.
+
+"Early in the fall he had a letter from John Martin, who had been a
+neighbour when he lived at the old place.  He wanted Ezra to come home
+and visit him.  He had heard of his troubles and his poor health, and he
+said how good it would be for him to come home, and see his old friends
+and relations again.  Of course I was included in the invitation, and
+Dan; and, after a little, Ezra said, if I wanted to go he would go too.
+But I did not think that would be the best thing to do.  We had pretty
+good help as long as there was any one to do the planning; and I made
+Ezra see that, though he might be spared for a while, it would be better
+for me to stay at home while he was away; and he made up his mind to
+take Dan and go, for a month or two at least.
+
+"As for me, I felt as if the rest and quiet I should have at home all
+alone would do me more good than anything else.  But afterwards I was
+sorry enough that I had not gone with them, though it might not have
+made any difference in the end.
+
+"Well, they went, and had a good time, and started for home--and you
+know the rest.  They got safely enough to within fifty miles of home,
+and then an accident happened to the cars.  Many were hurt, and among
+them was Dan; and I only just got where he was in time to see him alive;
+and we brought him home in his coffin, and laid him down with the rest.
+And again did it seem even to me as if the Lord was hard on Ezra, taking
+his last child in that terrible way.
+
+"Well, I never could tell you just how we got through the next year.
+Angry and rebellious!  That tells all that could be told of Ezra Stone
+for that year.  He stuck closer than ever, if that could be, to his farm
+work; and, though he could not do so much with his own hands, his eye
+was never off the work that was going on, and the crops were as good as
+ever.  He boasted a little about his crops, and the prices he got; but
+he did not take the comfort of his success as he had done in former
+years.  He did not say it to me, but I am sure he said to himself many a
+time--`What does it all amount to?'  It did not seem to make much
+difference--the adding of a thousand, or maybe two, to the dollars he
+had already, since there were none to come after him.
+
+"Well, his health failed again that winter, and he was in the house a
+good deal of his time.  I made it my whole business to see to him, and
+to make the time pass as easily as might be.  I read the papers to him--
+he had always liked that--and after a while I read other things; and
+once a day, and sometimes twice, I read the Bible to him.  I had
+promised Jim I would do that whenever I could, and I guess he had
+promised Jim to let me; and sometimes he took pleasure in it; and I have
+thought since, if I had been different--if I could have showed him the
+longing I had to do him good, if I could have spoken to him oftener of
+the Saviour and His love, that which I had longed for and prayed for all
+these years since Jim died might have come sooner.  It came at last.
+
+"`Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not
+enter into the kingdom of heaven!'  The Lord Himself said that.  And it
+was just that which happened to my husband.  The man who for so many
+years had seemed to me to have the hardest heart and the narrowest mind
+that mortal could have, was just made over anew.  He became a little
+child.  There is no other way of putting it.  He was gentle and
+teachable--yes, and lovable; and that last year with him seemed to more
+than make up to us both for all the suffering of our married life.  Yes,
+I did come to love my husband; and, what seemed stranger to me, he came
+to love me those last years, and if I had been different he might have
+loved me from the first.  My mistake was--but there, I do not need to
+tell you that, seeing I have told you so much--more than I have ever
+told even Eunice, I declare.  And you needn't be too sorry for me."
+
+There had been tears in Fidelia's eyes many times while the story went
+on, and there were tears still as she stooped to kiss her.
+
+"I am more glad for you than sorry.  It all ended well, Aunt Ruby."
+
+"Yes; as well as well could be for them, and well for me too.  I don't
+feel as if I ever could be faithless or afraid again--but there's no
+telling.  And now, dear, had you not better sing something again?  It
+seems as though they must have missed us before now; and some of them
+will likely be looking for us."
+
+So Fidelia kissed her old friend again; and, going a short distance up
+the steep side of the mountain, she placed herself on a high rock near
+the ascending path, and sung with a voice both strong and clear:--
+
+  "How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
+  Is laid for your faith in His excellent word!"
+
+till she came to the last line, which she repeated over and over:--
+
+"I'll never--no, never--no, never forsake!"  Before she had ended a hand
+was laid on hers, and she turned to see the moved face of Dr Justin.
+"Faithful," he said--"Faithful!"  He was pale, and his lips trembled,
+and so did the hand that touched hers.
+
+"Oh, I'm so glad!" said Fidelia; and then she drew back a little,
+startled by his pale face, and added--"Were you afraid about us?  Did
+you think we might be lost?"
+
+"Not afraid--there was no danger of your being lost very long," said Dr
+Justin, pulling himself together and trying to speak quietly.  "You have
+not been afraid?"
+
+"No; and I think I could have found my way to the Peak; but Mrs Stone
+would not let us separate, and she grew very tired.  So we sat down and
+waited, and I have been singing every now and then, hoping that some one
+might hear.  Mrs Stone is a few steps below us."
+
+He took her hand to help her down from the rock, and held it firmly till
+they came to the place where Mrs Stone was waiting.  She greeted him
+joyfully.
+
+"Well, there!  I _am_ glad to see you, Dr Justin.  Who would have
+thought that we two were not able to take care of ourselves?"
+
+"And I am afraid we have spoiled the pleasure of all the rest," said
+Fidelia.  "Are they all scattered over the mountain looking for us?  I
+am ashamed of myself."
+
+"No; only Jabez and I were despatched in search of you.  And you have
+not been missed long.  In going up the mountain the company got
+separated into different parties, and you were not missed till all came
+together at the top.  Then Jabez and I undertook to find you."
+
+"And have you been searching long?"
+
+"No, not long--though it seemed long.  Are you too tired to go up the
+Peak?  Because if you are we can send Jabez up to say so."
+
+"Tired?  No.  But is there time?  I should hate to have to go home and
+own that I had not been up the mountain after all," said Mrs Stone.  "I
+do hate to be beat when I set out for anything."
+
+"There is plenty of time, and they will all be disappointed if you do
+not go.  I must signal to Jabez first, however.  He must be somewhere
+within sight or hearing, I should think."
+
+So he was, and came rushing down through bushes and over rocks and
+stones, at a headlong pace.
+
+"Well, I declare!  I knew pretty likely somebody would get into a scrape
+in the course of the day.  But I didn't think of its being either of
+you."
+
+"You were to make us your special care, you remember, Jabez," said Mrs
+Stone.
+
+"Yes, you promised Eunice," said Fidelia, laughing.  "What became of
+you?  Did you think about us at all?"
+
+"Why, yes!  I thought about you more than once.  But there were other
+folks missing too, and I expected you'd all turn up together," said
+Jabez, giving a glance toward Dr Justin.
+
+"If we are going up the Peak, the sooner we start the better," said Dr
+Justin.
+
+"Well, yes; but Dr Everett told me that if I came across the strayed
+ones, I must give them this the first thing," said Jabez, presenting a
+little basket to Mrs Stone.  "He said you'd got to eat something before
+you start, and take plenty of time.  It takes Dr Everett himself to
+think of everything."
+
+"Which cannot be said of all the doctors," said Dr Justin, laughing.
+"So you must sit down and enjoy your lunch before you go farther;" and
+he unfolded a snowy napkin and presented a sandwich to each.
+
+They were soon on their way, however.  Jabez privately promised Fidelia
+that he would take her to the Peak by a short cut, which was also a
+little the steepest, he acknowledged.  So they set off together, and Dr
+Justin, with Mrs Stone, followed a more circuitous path.
+
+But the shortest way proved the longest this time also, for Mrs Stone
+had time to tell Dr Everett and the girls the history of the morning,
+and their wanderings here and there in search of the path, before
+Fidelia, panting and breathless after her scramble over rocks and
+through thickets of bramble and berry bushes of various sorts, made her
+appearance.
+
+It was not so late as they supposed.  The lunch was the first thing to
+be considered, and this was done thoroughly by all.
+
+Then, when that was over, they had the measure of enjoyment which is
+usually to be had on such occasions.  They went here and there
+separately or in groups, and examined, and wondered, and wished, and,
+above all, determined and declared that it would not be long before they
+came up there again.  They stayed a little longer than was quite wise,
+perhaps, to watch the lengthening of the western shadows, and the bright
+reflections which a wonderful sunset sent over to the eastern hills.
+And then it was full time to go home.
+
+Dr Everett undertook the marshalling of the company, and this time he
+arranged that they should divide into parties of three or four, each
+member of a party being responsible for the safe home-getting and
+general well-being of each in that party, and of no one else.
+
+"And as Mrs Stone and Fidelia seem to be the difficult case this time,
+we must see to them especially.  So, Dr Justin, you take charge of Mrs
+Stone and one of the little girls, with Susie to help you, and I will
+take the other little girl with Fidelia, Nellie Austin being my helper.
+Yes, that is quite the best way to arrange," said he, nodding to his
+brother, who did not seem so sure of it.
+
+They got safely to the foot of the mountain, and safely home--tired
+enough, but cheerful, already eagerly discussing what was to be done on
+the doctor's next day of leisure, which, however, was not likely to come
+very soon.
+
+CHAPTER TEN.
+
+A BAD DREAM.
+
+"Eunice," said Mrs Stone, "there is something I want to say to you,
+only I am afraid you won't like it."
+
+"Even if I shouldn't like it, I don't know that that would be a good
+reason why you shouldn't say it," responded Eunice, with a smile.
+
+They were sitting together in the front porch, into which the sun was
+shining brightly; and in September days, when the afternoons are
+shortening, the sunshine is welcome among these hills, for warmth as
+well as brightness.  They had been sitting there for an hour or two,
+sometimes exchanging a word about their work, or their neighbours, or
+the passers-by, but on the whole inclined to silence.  Eunice had a book
+on her lap, and her sewing also, but they had both been neglected for a
+while.  Mrs Stone was knitting steadily on, as if there were nothing
+more interesting to her at the moment than her monotonous work.
+
+Fidelia had gone with the Everett children and their mother, and several
+other young people, on the long-talked-of blackberrying expedition,
+which had been delayed so often for one reason and another that the
+chances were against success, as far as the fruit was concerned.  There
+had been some discussion as to the wisdom of calling it a nutting
+expedition instead, though it was early yet to think of getting nuts.
+But it did not really matter about either the one or the other.  The
+chances were they would find that which they were seeking, though they
+should get neither nuts nor berries.
+
+The young people had gone in Deacon Ainsworth's hay-cart, seated on a
+pile of fragrant hay, and with Jabez in charge of the oxen.  Mrs Stone
+had been invited to go with them, but she had declined.
+
+"Mother is coming in the chaise, and Uncle Justin," said Susie Everett.
+"Mother was afraid of the hay-cart.  If you can drive, you might go with
+mother, Mrs Stone.  Uncle Justin wouldn't mind going in the cart, I am
+sure."
+
+"No, I don't much believe he would, under the circumstances," Mrs Stone
+had answered; but she still declined.  The invitation had been renewed
+when the chaise passed half-an-hour afterwards, but had been again
+declined.
+
+"I should have liked to go, just to know how it would seem to be there
+again," said she.  But she had a stronger reason for staying than for
+going.  She had something to say to Eunice which it would be as well to
+say when Fidelia was not within call.
+
+"Well?" said Eunice, after a pause.
+
+"Well; it isn't so much that I am afraid you won't like it, as that I
+shall hurt you."
+
+"But if it is to do me good, I shall not mind the hurt after a little."
+
+"But then I should feel dreadfully if you were to turn round and tell me
+I'd better mind my own business."
+
+"A good deal of my business is yours now, Ruby," said Eunice, smiling
+still, but with a slow rising of colour to her cheeks.
+
+"Well, I don't know, certainly, that you will think this is; but I know
+that I mean you nothing but good, and her too."
+
+"Fidelia!  Say what you have to say, Ruby."
+
+"Well, I will.  Hasn't it ever come into your mind that Justin Everett
+was letting his thoughts turn towards Fidelia?"
+
+"Justin Everett!--Fidelia!"
+
+There was not another word spoken for a good many minutes.  Eunice sat
+with her eyes cast down and with her colour coming and going; and Mrs
+Stone, seemingly intent on her knitting, noted every change on the
+beautiful face.  But she waited for Eunice to speak first, and in a
+little she did so quietly enough.
+
+"I cannot say that I have never thought such a thing possible; but I
+have never seen any reason to make me think that it had happened.  Have
+you, Ruby?"
+
+"Well, if anybody--say Mrs Holt or Mrs Ainsworth--were to come and
+tell me all that I could tell you, I expect as likely as not I should
+tell _them_ that all that amounted to nothing.  It does not seem
+anything to tell.  Well, a glance maybe, or a long look at her when he
+never supposed there was any one to take notice!  It does not seem much
+to tell it, but the thought has come into my mind."
+
+"And Fidelia?"
+
+"Oh, as to Fidelia--I guess she's all right!  I can't tell you anything
+about Fidelia.  She didn't like him at first--anybody could see that.
+They are friendly now.  Oh, yes, quite friendly! but I guess, Eunice, it
+is as your friend that Fidelia thinks of Justin Everett."
+
+"He _is_ my friend," said Eunice gravely.  And after a little she
+added--"We will not speak any more about this just now, Ruby.  By-and-by
+perhaps I may.  No, you haven't hurt me.  And I could bear to be hurt by
+you, Ruby, for my good or for Fidelia's."
+
+And not another word was spoken on the subject for a long time after
+that.
+
+The sun was set, but the moon was up before the young people came home.
+The chaise came first, and was stopped a minute at the gate.  Eunice
+stayed in the porch, but Mrs Stone went down to speak to Mrs Everett
+at the gate.
+
+"I have got Fidelia with me," said Mrs Everett.  "I wanted Justin to
+stay to take care of the young people.  I should have been troubled
+about them; they are so full of frolic that they forget to take care of
+themselves.  And I knew I should feel safe with Fidelia driving."
+
+"I am going to drive Mrs Everett all the way home, Eunice," said
+Fidelia.
+
+"There is no need.  I guess I can drive myself the rest of the way."
+
+But, knowing the lady's timidity, Eunice told Fidelia she had better go
+on.
+
+"And I will send Jotham back with her at once," said Mrs Everett.
+
+And so she did; and the chaise had not gone again before the sound of
+voices singing told that the party in the hay-cart were drawing near.
+There was a general outcry when it was discovered that Fidelia had not
+remained at Dr Everett's, where the young people were to have tea, and
+spend the evening.  She was intreated to return with them.  Dr Justin
+had gone to the door to speak to Eunice, and Susie followed him, begging
+him to ask permission for Fidelia to go.  But Eunice said, in her
+gentlest voice, that she would like Fidelia to stay at home; and Dr
+Justin said nothing.
+
+"Would you like to have gone, Fidelia?" asked Eunice, as they went into
+the house.
+
+"No; I didn't care about going.  I have had enough of noise and nonsense
+for one day.  Oh, yes, I enjoyed it!  We didn't get many berries; and--
+there!--they have carried mine off with them.  I am hungry.  I will tell
+you all about it by-and-by."
+
+But there was nothing of very much interest to tell.  Dr Justin's name
+came in with the rest, rather more readily than had been the case when
+she first came home, and neither of her listeners lost word, or tone, or
+gesture.  But Fidelia had nothing of special interest to tell, and
+certainly she had nothing to conceal.
+
+"She does not care for him.  She is not thinking about him," said Eunice
+to herself.
+
+"She does not care for him, or she does not know it," thought Mrs
+Stone; and both women were glad in their hearts that Dr Justin's visit
+was drawing to a close.
+
+And so were others among his friends.  At that moment Dr Everett and
+his wife were saying a few words to one another on the same subject.
+
+"I am afraid he is thinking about her--that he does care for her," said
+the gentle little lady, who, much against her will, had been induced to
+go with the young people in the afternoon, because her husband had said
+it was the right thing to do.  "No; I am quite sure he has not spoken,
+and I don't think Fidelia has the least thought of such a thing."
+
+"And he mustn't speak.  I would not have Miss Eunice troubled now for
+more than I can say.  No he must not speak; and yet I don't see how I
+can tell him so, unless he first speaks to me."
+
+"But, husband, do you think it would trouble her?  I think Eunice Marsh
+is far beyond all such trouble now.  And if--"
+
+"We will not speak about it.  Eunice is very near heaven, as I believe;
+but she can never be beyond caring for what must affect her sister's
+happiness.  Justin must not speak.  It would be the same sad story over
+again.  Fidelia would never leave her sister if she knew her state.  And
+she would have to know it.  I do not think Justin will speak--now--
+unless he should be betrayed into it.  But one can never tell.  I am
+thankful he has but another day."
+
+"But another day!"  Dr Justin had said those words a good many times to
+himself during the afternoon, but he had not said them, as his brother
+did, with thankfulness.  He did not mean to speak to Fidelia.  He told
+himself that he must not speak; that speaking to her now could do no
+good--only evil.  He wished the day well over, and for the moment he did
+not care to look beyond it.
+
+They all said--"Only another day!"  But much, either for good or ill,
+may happen in one day--even in one moment.  And the next day it happened
+to Fidelia that the knowledge came to her, not of Justin Everett's
+secret, but of her own.  It was nobody's fault, but it was a great
+misfortune; and it happened in this way.
+
+In the afternoon, while the sisters and Mrs Stone were sitting in the
+porch in the sunshine, Jabez Ainsworth passed in the doctor's chaise,
+and he stopped to tell them that he was going down to the depot to see
+about Dr Justin's filly.
+
+"Dr Justin will be along in a few minutes riding her.  She must be
+aboard the cars to-night, they say, and I am to stay with her to see
+that she doesn't get scared or anything.  Dr Justin will drive home in
+the chaise."  And Jabez went on.
+
+Before a word was spoken Dr Justin came in sight.
+
+"Eunice," said Fidelia eagerly, "come down to the gate and see Dolly.
+She is the most beautiful creature, and gentle as a lamb.  She minds Dr
+Justin's least word."
+
+They went down to the gate, and Mrs Stone followed, much interested for
+various reasons.  A beautiful brown creature was Dolly, gentle and full
+of spirit, with shy, bright eyes, and a mouth which answered to the
+slightest touch.  She was duly praised and petted, and all expressed the
+hope that she might reach her new home in safety, and be happy there.
+
+"You are not in danger of being too late, are you?" asked Mrs Stone, in
+a tone which might imply that she thought the danger certain.
+
+"We don't go to-night--I mean Dolly does not go to-night.  Miss Eunice,
+you promised to give me the address of your friend," said Dr Justin,
+taking his note-book and pencil from his pocket.  He was riding his
+beautiful mare as he used to ride the horses in the pasture when he was
+a boy--with a bridle, but with no saddle, and he dropped the rein on the
+creature's neck as he prepared to write.
+
+"There come the cars!" said Mrs Stone in a whisper, and the shriek of
+the engine rose and echoed and re-echoed among the hills.  Neither of
+the women for months heard the sound without a thrill of pain.  For it
+startled the pretty, gentle creature into terror which the loose rein
+gave Dr Justin no power for the moment to soothe or to control, and she
+sprang forward with a bound which, happily, failed to unseat her rider,
+and was out of sight round the corner of the road in a moment.
+
+"Come, Aunt Ruby!  No--stay with Eunice!" cried Fidelia; and she flew
+rather than ran up the hill, and out of sight.  To see--what?  Dr
+Justin standing with his arm thrown over the neck of his favourite,
+while, with hand and voice, he soothed her into quiet again.
+
+The sudden relief moved Fidelia as the sight of no catastrophe could
+have moved her.  With a cry she sprang forward, clasping with both hers
+the hand he held out to her; and, in the single instant of meeting, his
+eyes read in hers the secret which she herself had not known.
+
+"My Faithful!" he breathed.  She cared for him.  He had but to speak the
+word, and she would be his for ever.
+
+But he did not speak it.  Something--was it a sense of honour, or an old
+memory, or was it the sudden change in the beautiful moved face that
+kept him silent?
+
+"Eunice!--I must go and tell Eunice!  We were all so frightened," she
+said hurriedly.
+
+"I was in no danger.  I hope your sister has not been startled.  I will
+go back with you."
+
+"No, no!  There is no need;" and she waited to hear no more.  She was
+out of sight in a moment.  She met Mrs Stone toiling slowly up the
+hill.
+
+"It is all right," said Fidelia.  "He is walking and leading Dolly up
+the hill.  We got our fright for nothing."
+
+"And a good thing, thank God!" said Mrs Stone.  "Now, Eunice, hadn't
+you better go and lie down?  You have had enough excitement for one
+night," she added, as they entered the gate.
+
+Eunice was pale, but quite calm.  She was thinking, not of herself, but
+of her sister.
+
+"You ran too fast, Fidelia."
+
+"A great deal too fast.  And up the hill too.  And then to see him
+standing there--all right--with his arm over Dolly's neck, as cool as a
+cucumber!  It was an anti-climax, Aunt Ruby, if you know what that is."
+
+"Well, you didn't stay long to sympathise with him, did you?" said Mrs
+Stone.
+
+"He didn't need it; and it was Eunice I was thinking of;" and Fidelia,
+who did not yet understand what had happened to her, looked at her
+sister with wondering eyes.  "Were you frightened, Eunice?  Is your
+heart beating in that uncomfortable way again?  Come in and lie down, as
+Aunt Ruby says."
+
+They went in, but Eunice did not lie down.  They had tea as usual, and
+then Fidelia moved about, a little restless for a time; and then she sat
+down quietly with her work, and a book on the table beside her.  It was
+Mrs Stone who went to the door when Jabez stopped to ask for Miss
+Eunice, and to explain that it had been thought best to give the mare a
+quiet night after her fright before beginning her journey, and that she
+was to leave at four the next day, and that Dr Justin was to travel a
+certain distance in the slow train with her, till he saw how it was to
+be.
+
+"To-morrow afternoon they go.  Were you scared Mrs Stone?  And how is
+Miss Eunice?"
+
+"Miss Eunice is all right, and so is Fidelia.  Yes, I was scared a
+little, but not enough to hurt me; and I hope this is the last of Dr
+Justin for to-night anyway."
+
+But it was not.  Fidelia heard his voice at the door after she had gone
+to her room for the night.  She did not hear what he said, but she heard
+Mrs Stone's answer.
+
+"Yes, you did give us a scare.  But there is no harm done.  At least I
+hope not.  They've both gone to bed anyhow.  You can't very well see
+either of them to-night."
+
+"I will call to-morrow, if possible.  But if I should not see them again
+to-morrow--"
+
+That was all Fidelia heard.
+
+"Not see him to-morrow!  No, nor the next day, nor the next--nor ever
+again, I hope and pray," said Fidelia, hiding her face in her hands.
+For she was beginning to understand what had come upon her.  And had she
+been a traitor to herself as well as to Eunice?  Had she read aright the
+triumph in his eyes?  And was he a traitor too?
+
+"And, oh, Eunice--Eunice--Eunice!"
+
+That was the burden of her thoughts, through many weary hours.  She
+slept towards morning, and woke with a burden of shame and anger, and
+sorrow and dread, which made all trouble which she had passed through;
+or which she dreaded, seem as nothing to her.
+
+But one night of sleepless misery does not pale the face, or dim the
+eye, or quell the courage of a healthy girl of eighteen; and she rose
+early and did all that she usually did in the morning, and, for all that
+Mrs Stone's watchful eyes could see, enjoyed her breakfast as usual.
+
+The morning passed as other mornings had, except that, perhaps, the time
+given upstairs to her books was a little longer than she gave on most
+days.  But she came down in the middle of her work to read a bit to
+Eunice, as she sometimes did, either that she might claim admiration for
+something which she herself admired, or to ask an explanation of
+something which she did not quite understand.  After dinner, she
+declared herself inclined to go and see old Mrs Belknap, which, she
+owned, she ought to have done long ago.
+
+"Will you go with me, Mrs Stone?"
+
+Mrs Stone hesitated.
+
+"Well, no; I guess I'll stay with Eunice.  Oh, yes, she's well enough!--
+but I guess I'll stay.  If you'll wait till to-morrow I'll try to go."
+
+"But I am going somewhere else to-morrow.  I guess I'll go."
+
+"You'll miss seeing the last of Dr Justin if you go.  He goes at five."
+
+"Oh, I can be back long before five!  I don't mean to stay to tea, even
+if she should ask me, which is not likely.  I wonder if there is
+anything I could carry to the poor old lady."
+
+"I thought of sending her the stockings I finished last.  And you might
+take her a bottle of pickles.  I'll put them in the basket if you are
+bound to go."
+
+"Why, Fidelia, you'll miss saying good-bye to Dr Justin," said Eunice
+also, when Fidelia went into her room before starting.
+
+"I can be back before five.  Three hours--nearly four.  Oh, yes, I can
+be back!  If I don't go to see the old lady to-day I can't this week,
+and perhaps not at all.  I think I had better go, Eunice.  I'll take the
+near way through the woods."
+
+She went slowly up the hill, pausing a moment before passing the big
+rock, then hurried on till she came to the place where she entered the
+woods.  She lingered there, making believe that she was enjoying the
+sunshine and the pleasant air, and singing as she crossed the level to
+the grey solitary house standing where two roads met.
+
+Her visit was as successful as visits to Mrs Belknap usually were, but
+she did not linger over it.  She should have taken sweetmeats instead of
+pickles to the old lady, she told Mrs Stone afterwards, for she was
+sharp and sour enough by nature.  But she told her a good many things
+about the seminary, and about her visit at Dr Austin's, and about
+getting lost on the mountain with Mrs Stone.  She answered many
+questions also, some of which were not very easy to answer, and on the
+whole mollified the old lady before she went away.
+
+"And how is Eunice these days?  Yes, I know she looks pretty well.  I
+worried considerable about her when I heard that Justin Everett was
+coming home.  But I always thought she showed her sense by letting him
+go away, and staying herself.  I guess she'll let him go again.  What do
+you think of him?  Has he changed any?  He hasn't as much as looked at
+my place since he came."
+
+"That is strange!" said Fidelia.  "I don't remember him before he went
+away.  Yes, he is going away pretty soon.  Mrs Belknap, when are you
+coming over to see Eunice and Mrs Stone?"
+
+"Ruby Peck that was?  She was a pretty smart girl when I used to know
+her, and I expect she did a pretty smart thing when she married Ezra
+Stone.  Folks say she's got enough to keep her all her life, which is
+more than can be said of me; and Ezra Stone could not hold a candle to
+the kind of man _my_ husband was!" and so on.
+
+Fidelia heard it all, and remembered it, and made Eunice and Mrs Stone
+smile by repeating some of the old lady's words, but all the time she
+was saying to herself--
+
+"Shall I hurry home--or shall I stay till it is too late?  Oh, I must
+go!  No, I must not go."
+
+She went at last hurrying over the meadow and through the wood, till she
+came breathless to the gap in the fence by the road, and then she sat
+down to rest.  And then slowly up the hill came the doctor's old Grey,
+as usual, choosing his own pace.  She did not see him, but she knew it
+was old Grey, and then she heard a voice say--"Let him breathe a
+minute;" and the old horse stood still.
+
+Fidelia held her breath lest she should be discovered, then watched them
+as they went on, till the old chaise passed out of sight.  Then she
+turned homewards, pausing at the spot near the big rock where last night
+she had seen Justin Everett soothing his frightened mare with hand and
+voice.
+
+"Only last night!" she repeated.  "It was a dream--only a dream; and
+everything shall be as before--yes, everything!  Only I wish Eunice
+would tell me--"
+
+To outward seeming, all was as before.  And, though every thought of Dr
+Justin hurt her, it was chiefly because of her own treachery to Eunice,
+as she angrily called it.  And so a few days passed, and she grew afraid
+of the dull, persistent pain at last, and said--"I will speak to
+Eunice."
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN.
+
+A SAD REALITY.
+
+So one afternoon, when Eunice had gone to her room to rest, Fidelia
+followed her softly.  As she paused a moment at the door, wondering if
+she were asleep, Eunice said--
+
+"I see you, Fidelia; come in."  So Fidelia went in, and, as she stood
+over her sister, her trouble showed in her face.  "What is it, dear?
+Are you not well?"
+
+"Yes, I am well.  But I am naughty, Eunice, and discontented, as I used
+sometimes to be when I was a little girl, and you used to send me away
+for a change."
+
+"Well, I am going to send you away again--too soon for my own pleasure;
+but, since it will be for your good, my darling, I must let you go."
+
+"I hope it may be for my good, Eunice.  I am not good, but I will try to
+be good."
+
+"Fidelia, what is it?  Something troubles you.  Why, you are trembling!
+Are you cold?  Sit down here beside me, and tell me what is the matter."
+
+"Well, we must speak softly, or we shall have Mrs Stone in upon us.
+Yes, I want to speak to you, and I have been trying to `dodge' her all
+day.  I hardly ever get you to myself now--not at the right time, when I
+have something to say."
+
+Fidelia spoke rapidly, as though she hardly considered what she was
+saying.
+
+"Is that the trouble, dear?  I am sorry," said Eunice, gravely.
+
+"You needn't be sorry.  Aunt Ruby is not the trouble.  I am glad she is
+here."
+
+"Well, dear, tell me.  You are making me anxious."
+
+"Something is the matter, Eunice.  I do feel troubled.  I feel as if
+there were something--something that I ought to be told.  If you say
+there is nothing, Eunice, that will be enough."
+
+Eunice sat for a long time without a word, and Fidelia was saying to
+herself--
+
+"When she has told me, I shall be able to forget these last few
+miserable days, and be as I was before.  It is a bad dream, that is all,
+and I must forget it."
+
+"Yes, I will tell you.  I have always wished to tell you.  It is best, I
+am sure; and, though I may give you pain, you will be glad afterwards."
+
+"Yes," said Fidelia faintly--"glad afterwards."
+
+"Fidelia, I may tell you now how unhappy I was for a time last year.
+Not unhappy exactly, but anxious and afraid--"
+
+"And you sent me away?"
+
+"Yes, dear, as was best.  And when you came home, the worst was nearly
+over.  Dr Everett came next day and gave me hope, and then Dr Justin
+came, and I was not afraid any more.  He seemed to know--to understand
+better even than Dr Everett.  Oh, Fidelia, I never can tell you the
+thankfulness of my heart!  I wonder I didn't sing it out to you a
+hundred times.  But they seemed to think it was best not to say anything
+to you, as I had not spoken before.  But I am glad to speak now, though
+I am afraid you will be startled."
+
+Fidelia rose and placed herself with her face turned from the light.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Fidelia, you remember grandmother--how very patiently she suffered, and
+how long?  Oh, no one but Dr Everett and myself knows what she
+suffered!  It was a long and terrible time.  Every night we used to pray
+together--she and I--that she might be patient to the end, and that, if
+it were God's will, the end might be hastened.  And so, when I thought--
+when the awful fear first came to me that I had all that to go through--
+well, for a while my faith failed me.  I did not tell any one, not even
+Dr Everett.  That was last year.  Then you went away, and the winter
+was long and lonesome; but I was helped, and strengthened, and
+comforted, even at the worst time.
+
+"It was not all fancy, dear.  I had some cause for fear, but the danger
+for me is not that.  I shall have no long time of suffering, they say;
+and, though I can never hope to be very strong again, I may live and
+have such health as I have now for years.  And, Fidelia, you must not
+say that I should have told you, and that I should not have let you go
+away.  I could not have you suffer in seeing my suffering as long as I
+could keep it from you; and you see it was better so.  You must have
+known after a time, if my fears had been realised, but not too soon."
+
+Fidelia had listened like one in a dream.  Her fears had touched nothing
+like this.  All the time she had been thinking of quite other things.
+She sank down on her knees, and laid her face on her sister's lap with a
+cry.
+
+"Oh, my Eunice--my Eunice!"  Eunice laid her hand on her bowed head, but
+she did not speak for a while.  By-and-by she said, gently--
+
+"Fidelia, listen to me.  There is nothing to grieve for.  Think how
+different it might have been, and what a happy summer I have had!
+Neither pain, nor fear of pain--only a quiet mind, and rest, and peace.
+Tell me, dear, have you not sometimes been afraid of me, that I might
+have long suffering before me?  And are you not glad and thankful with
+me?  There is nothing to grieve for--nothing.  Fidelia, have you never
+been afraid?"  Fidelia raised her head.
+
+"Yes, I have been afraid that perhaps, when you came to be an old woman
+like grandmother, you might have to suffer; but--"
+
+"Well, you need not be afraid any more," said Eunice, leaning back as
+though there was nothing more to be said.
+
+"And are you well, Eunice?  And have you nothing else to tell me?"
+
+"I am well--for me.  You must see that yourself, dear.  I don't expect
+ever to be very strong.  I don't think I was ever one of the strong
+women; and the strain of nursing and anxiety told more on me than it
+would on some women.  But if I take care of myself now, I shall have
+strength to do a great deal; and now that Mrs Stone is here, to take
+the housekeeping when you are away, I shall have leisure for reading and
+other pleasant things.  And I have my Sunday-school class, and I can
+visit my friends, and, though I can never do much at nursing again, I
+can go to see sick and sorrowful people, and help and comfort them a
+little perhaps.  And I can always speak a word for my Lord and Master.
+My darling, I can see such a happy, restful life before me!"
+
+"Oh, my Eunice--my Eunice!"  Fidelia's face was hidden again.  "A happy
+life before her!" repeated she; and the thought of her own impatience
+and discontent, her envyings and her small ambitions, made her ashamed.
+"Oh, I am not a good girl!  I am all wrong, all wrong!"
+
+All thoughts of her "bad dream" had passed out of her mind till Eunice
+spoke again.
+
+"Have I nothing else to tell?  Nothing, I think, which you have not
+guessed already.  And it may not come so soon as they think.  But I
+think it need not trouble you.  The thought of it does not trouble me
+any more except for your sake.  And even to you the sorrow will only be
+for a little while, and the gladness will come after."
+
+Fidelia raised her head, and looked with beseeching eyes into the face
+of her sister.
+
+"Eunice, tell me!"
+
+Eunice stooped and kissed her with a smile on her lips, though they
+trembled a little.
+
+"Dear, do you remember our father, and how he died?  Well, it may be
+that the end will come to me as it came to him.  That is what Dr
+Everett thinks, and Dr Justin.  They cannot tell me when.  I may live
+for years--but, there, I may not.  Is it cruel to tell you?  But
+afterwards you would grieve not to have known.  And you are a woman now,
+my darling, and you know that our life is not given just to take our
+pleasure in, but that the world is meant to be a place of discipline and
+of work for our fellow-creatures and for the Lord."
+
+Eunice paused a moment.
+
+"I hoped to work too, and at first I murmured, but I am quite content
+now, as you will be by-and-by.  And you will never forget me, in the
+happy life which I hope--which I believe lies before you."
+
+Fidelia put up her hands with a cry.  "Hush!" she cried.  "I cannot bear
+it; I cannot believe it.  Oh, Eunice, how can you say it, smiling like
+that, when you know that I have no one in the world but you?"
+
+"Does it seem so to you, dear?  You have no other sister; but so many
+love you--and--you have our Lord and Saviour, whom you love, and whom
+you seek to serve; and you will not forget me.  I shall be something in
+your life always, and to your children; and, dear, we will not speak any
+more--I am very tired."
+
+Fidelia rose without a word.  She made her sister lie down, and brought
+her water to drink, and bathed her face; and then Mrs Stone's step was
+heard on the stairs, and Eunice said--
+
+"Go away for a little while.  Go out for a walk through the woods, and
+think it all over, and ask our Father to give you a little glimpse of
+all the blessing He intends to give you through your sorrow.  My
+darling, I have gone through the suffering.  Yes, I know that parting is
+not so hard for the one who goes.  But it is all as good and right as
+God can make it for His children, and you will see it so in a little
+while."
+
+"Oh, Eunice, I am not good!  You do not know--"
+
+"But He knows, dear.  Tell it all to Him, who loves you even better than
+I love you."
+
+There was no time for more, and Fidelia went out at one door as Mrs
+Stone came in at the other.  She was bewildered and helpless for the
+moment.  Her first impulse was to throw herself on the bed in an utter
+abandonment of sorrow, and, alas! of rebellion, under the hand that
+touched her.  But Eunice had said--"Go out into the woods," and she must
+go.  So she rose and bathed her face, and, wrapping herself in her
+shawl, went out through the garden to the fields, and then to the woods,
+walking rapidly.
+
+It was not grief alone which worried her.  She was amazed and
+rebellious, and sought to see nothing beyond the desolation of being
+left without her sister.  She was very selfish in the first shock of
+surprise and pain, and it was an hour of bitterness that she passed
+beneath the cedars by the brook; and, alas for her! she took both pain
+and bitterness home with her again.
+
+Remembering her own time of trouble, Eunice had patience with her,
+knowing that light and help would come.  She waited long, but she waited
+patiently, and help came at last.
+
+"Fidelia," said Mrs Stone, one night soon after this, "are you thinking
+of going to conference meeting to-night?"
+
+"No; I can't say I am.  Mr Runkin is not at home."
+
+"Unless he came this morning, which is not likely.  But there'll be
+somebody there to lead the meeting, I expect."
+
+"Deacon Ainsworth, I guess," said Fidelia, with a shrug.  "I don't feel
+as if it would pay to go to hear him."
+
+"No, I don't suppose it would pay to go to hear him, if that were all
+you went for, or to hear anybody else.  But don't you know that to `two
+or three gathered together' in His name the promise is given?"
+
+"There will be two or three and more there, without me; and I shouldn't
+help much, Aunt Ruby."
+
+"But you might be helped if the Lord Himself were there.  I'd guess
+you'd better go.  If you go, you'd better take down this book to the
+doctor.  He left it here by mistake, I expect, since it is in a strange
+tongue.  I presume he thinks he lost it out of his chaise, and he'll be
+glad to get it again.  If you do go, Jabez'll be along at the right time
+to come home with you."  All this Mrs Stone said, seeing, but not
+seeming to sea, the cloud that lay darkly on Fidelia's face.
+
+One thought which had a little hope in it had come to Fidelia that day
+under the cedars--"Dr Everett will know.  I will ask Dr Everett."  But
+she had never done so; and Mrs Stone's insistence about the meeting and
+the doctor's book gave the needed impulse; and she said she would go.
+
+She was a little late; but so were Dr Everett and his daughters, who
+were just coming out of their own gate when she came in sight.
+
+"It won't be the deacon, at any rate," thought Fidelia.
+
+They waited for her, and she gave the book.  It was as Mrs Stone had
+said--the doctor had thought the book lost, and was glad to see it
+again.
+
+"Thank you, Miss Faithful.  You generally do bring pleasant things and
+thoughts when you come.  And how is Miss Eunice?"  But, seeing her face,
+he did not wait for the answer.  "Of course she is well, or you would
+not be here;" and they moved down the street together.
+
+Afterwards, when Mrs Stone asked Fidelia if they had a good meeting,
+she said--"Oh, yes, I guess so!  Dr Everett took the lead."  But that
+was all she could tell.  She did not even remember the hymns that were
+sung, because she did not sing them.  When she left the schoolroom her
+heart was beating so heavily, that she had to wait till they reached the
+house before she found voice to say--
+
+"Are you busy, Dr Everett?  I should like to speak to you before I go
+home."
+
+Dr Everett opened the door of his office, and she went in there.  He
+lighted a lamp, and sat down opposite to her.
+
+"Well, dear, what have you to say to me?"
+
+"You know--Eunice--"
+
+There is no need to go over it all again.  What could the doctor say
+that Eunice had not said before?  That they should be glad and thankful
+that no time of terrible suffering lay before her--that years of happy
+life might remain to her, though she could never be strong.  That was
+his brother's opinion, decidedly.  And then he added a few words of
+sympathy and encouragement.
+
+"Eunice was right to tell you.  You are no longer a child, Fidelia; and
+doing God's will is best, whether we see it now or not;" and much more
+he said.
+
+Fidelia sat silent and tearless through all, and when he ceased she
+said--
+
+"You have told me your brother's opinion, now tell me yours."
+
+"It is the same as his, only I know better than he could know how great
+was the strain of the watching, and the anxiety, and the sight of
+terrible suffering which she bore for years; and I believe that the end
+may be nearer than he thinks."
+
+"Yes, Eunice says so.  That is what I wished to know," said Fidelia,
+rising.  "Now I must go."
+
+"You need not hurry; Jabez has not come."
+
+Fidelia sat down without a word.  All this was not like her.  The doctor
+would have liked to see her tears; but perhaps they might as well wait
+till she was at home.  He had a word to say as to what was best for
+Eunice.
+
+"Mrs Stone is a good nurse, and she loves your sister, and when you are
+away--"
+
+"I am not going away," said she.
+
+"To the seminary?  Does Eunice know?"
+
+"I have not told her, but I think she must know that it is impossible."
+
+"She has greatly desired for you the privileges of the place.  She will
+be disappointed."
+
+"I cannot go."
+
+"I think, if I were you, I would leave it to your sister to say.  And,
+remember, she must not be excited or troubled."
+
+"I know."
+
+"And you must know that Mrs Stone is not just a nurse, but a friend
+whom your sister loves and trusts, and you must trust her too."
+
+"I know," repeated Fidelia.
+
+"If you were to ask my advice, I should say--Let there be no change in
+your plans; go as you intended to go, and--"
+
+"But I am not going to ask your advice, nor the advice of any one.  You
+must think me a poor creature, Dr Everett, if you can believe that I
+could leave my sister, now that I know!"
+
+"My dear, you know better than that."
+
+"Eunice did not go away when--Oh, Dr Everett, I am so miserable!  She
+is all I have--all I have!"
+
+The tears came now in a flood.
+
+"That is better," said the doctor to himself.  To Fidelia he said
+nothing for awhile, but let her tears have way.  There was no time for
+more words, for Jabez had come.
+
+Strange to say, there was not a word spoken between Fidelia and the lad
+till they reached home.  Jabez had "thought over" a good many things he
+meant to ask about, as to his recent reading, but he had caught a
+glimpse of her face by the light of the doctor's lamp, and the questions
+were kept for another time.
+
+"Miss Eunice is not worse, is she, Fidelia?" said he as they entered the
+gate.
+
+"No, Jabez; but--good-night."
+
+One word of Dr Everett's stayed with Fidelia.  Eunice must not be
+excited or troubled.  Still many days must not pass before her decision
+to stay at home was made known to her.  Would it grieve and trouble her
+very much?
+
+In her perplexity Fidelia spoke first to Mrs Stone, who listened in
+silence to all she had to say.
+
+"Is it that which has been troubling you all these days?" said she, with
+the air of one relieved.  "Let's talk it over and find out what is best,
+before we say a word to Eunice about it.  Is it of her you are thinking,
+or yourself?  Before we go further you must settle that."
+
+"It isn't that I think Eunice needs me at home, if that is what you
+mean."
+
+"Yes; you know I will take good care of her.  I love her, and I have
+nursed sick folks before.  She'll miss you?  Yes; but then she has set
+her heart on your getting the good of another year at the seminary, and
+she may feel worse about your having to lose that than about her having
+to lose your company.  And she begins this winter with better health and
+better courage than she did last winter."
+
+"And do you think I would have gone away last winter if I had known?  I
+know she has you now.  Yes, Aunt Ruby, it is of myself I am thinking.
+She is all I've got, and I must stay with her while she is here.  Months
+or years--what is the difference?"
+
+"I understand your feeling."  There was a long silence, and then Mrs
+Stone added--"I don't know that I am capable of realising all the good a
+year at the seminary would do you.  I think you couldn't fail to get
+much good for this world, and for the next as well, from the company of
+your sister.  But if she has set her heart on your going away, I don't
+see but you must go, dear."
+
+"I cannot, Aunt Ruby."
+
+"I know that's your feeling.  But you mustn't be wilful about it,
+Fidelia."
+
+"I cannot go."
+
+"Have you spoken to Dr Everett?"
+
+"Yes, but he didn't help me any."
+
+"Well, I don't see but you'll have to talk to Eunice about it.  Only you
+must make up your mind to do just as she says.  And you must lay it all
+before the Lord.  It is His will you must seek to know."
+
+"You will have to do that for me, Aunt Ruby.  I don't seem to have any
+right to do that."
+
+"Because you can't submit.  But, child, you may set your heart on
+getting your own will, and you may get it; and, if you do, it will be
+bitterness to you.  Give up your will to be guided by the Lord, and then
+you will know what it is to be content."
+
+"How can it be His will that I should leave her who has been more than a
+mother to me all my life, now that she is so near--Oh, Aunt Ruby, I
+cannot go!"
+
+To say that Fidelia was heart-sick these days, is not saying too much.
+She grieved over Eunice; and all her sorrow and her love were embittered
+by the memory of the "bad dream" which would return; and she hated it
+and herself, traitor as she called herself.  She did not sleep at night,
+and she was restless and listless by day; her face grew pale, and her
+eyes grew large and full of anxious pain; and her sister, who had
+watched her through it all, could keep silence no longer, and so she
+spoke.
+
+Fidelia had come down as usual with her book in her hand, but, seated at
+the window, with her eyes on the fading vine-leaves that fluttered about
+it, she seemed to have forgotten her book and the reading which Eunice
+had prepared herself to hear.
+
+"Are you ready, dear?" said Eunice.
+
+"Ready?" repeated Fidelia.  "I don't know.  I don't seem to care much
+about it to-day, or about anything else."
+
+"Fidelia, come and sit here by me.  Never mind the book, dear.  What is
+it that troubles you?  Is it the thought of going away?"
+
+"I don't think I can go, Eunice.  I don't think I had better go."
+
+"Will you tell me all about it, dear?" said Eunice, speaking very
+gently.  "Come and sit by me."
+
+Fidelia rose and went slowly to her sister's side.
+
+"For one thing, I don't feel as if I could leave you," said she, putting
+great restraint upon herself, that she might speak quietly.
+
+"Well, and what else?"
+
+"I should have to work even harder that I did last year in order to
+graduate.  It is quite doubtful whether I could if I should do my best;
+and I don't seem to care about it enough to try."
+
+"You might feel differently when you were there among the rest of the
+pupils."
+
+Fidelia shook her head.
+
+"I think perhaps I should study at home, and perhaps teach awhile, as we
+first intended; and I might go next year.  I don't seem to have the
+ambition I used to have about it.  Going to the seminary isn't
+everything.  I guess you had better let me stay at home."
+
+"I will think about it, dear.  I am sorry you feel so," said Eunice
+gravely.
+
+Of course Fidelia had her own way.  After much consideration of the
+matter by Eunice and her two counsellors, Mrs Stone and the doctor, it
+was thought best that it should be so.  She was too unhappy and
+indifferent to appreciate or to profit by the advantages to be enjoyed
+at the seminary, and for the present she would be better at home.  She
+could still go there later, if the way should open; and so it was left.
+
+Jabez's plans were not settled for the next summer yet; but, whether he
+was to rent Miss Eunice's garden or not, it must be planted and sowed by
+some one; and the more there was done in the fall the less there would
+be to do in the spring.
+
+"And I consider that it was in the contract that I should leave it all
+straight," said Jabez; and so he worked faithfully, and Fidelia worked
+with him; and the sharp autumn winds brought a tinge of colour to her
+pale face, and now and then the sound of her laugh brought a thrill of
+pleasure to the hearts of the two women sitting within.
+
+She was very gentle and loving with Eunice all this time, watching over
+her, and anticipating her wishes in many sweet and unexpected ways.  She
+was helpful to Mrs Stone also--indeed, showing a little wilfulness in
+the constant taking of the least pleasant part of the household work
+into her own hands.  She was trying to be good, but she was not happy.
+She might have known--she did know, that without submission to the will
+of God no one could be either truly happy or good; and she was not
+submissive.  Things had gone sadly wrong with their happy life, and for
+her she saw no chance happiness again.
+
+Poor foolish child!--that she could not see, because she shut her eyes
+to the light.
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE.
+
+THE WINTER SCHOOL.
+
+Fidelia had too much real strength of character long to yield willingly
+to sorrow or to the pain of rebellion.  She had the sense to see that
+her sadness depressed her sister, and did her harm.
+
+She could not "make believe" to be happy and light-hearted as of old,
+but after a time she did try to accept the circumstances of her life as
+it seemed to lie before her, and to determine to make the best of it;
+and Eunice was content to wait patiently till a better peace on a surer
+foundation should be hers.  And help came to Fidelia, after a time, in a
+way not foreseen.
+
+They were all expected to spend Thanksgiving Day at Dr Everett's.  That
+is, they were to go to church in the morning, and return to dine early
+with the Everetts, intending to be home before dark.  There was a little
+change in the plan, however.  At the church they met Mrs Pease, the
+sister of Ezra Stone, who invited Mrs Stone to go home with her and
+keep Thanksgiving with "her own folks at the old place;" and Mrs Stone
+accepted the invitation, though it seemed rather like leaving "her own
+folks" to do so.
+
+Mrs Pease had not been any too friendly hitherto and her sister-in-law
+was too glad to meet her halfway.  So she gave up the pleasure she had
+been promising herself at Dr Everett's, and went with her.  Her kind
+heart had been touched by the sight of the boys growing up there "on
+father's old place," as she always called it to herself, and she longed
+for a chance to do them good, for the sake of the boys she had lost, and
+who were lying beside their father and their little sister far away in
+the West.  So she gladly went.
+
+All Thanksgiving Days and dinners are alike in most respects in homes
+were nothing very sorrowful has happened since the last one.  It was in
+all respects a delightful day at Dr Everett's.  It was very mild for
+the season, and the young people went out and in, and amused themselves
+in various ways, and, without making any definite plan to that end, had
+a good time.
+
+"Fidelia seems to be growing more cheerful again," said the doctor, as
+the sound of gay voices came to them where they were sitting in the
+house.
+
+"Yes; I hope it will be well with her after awhile.  I am not afraid for
+her," said Eunice.  But though she smiled she sighed also; and then she
+added--"I would have liked to live a little longer for her sake."
+
+"You may live many years yet, as Justin says.  With a quiet life, such
+as you live, you may be well, though not strong, for years to come.  You
+may see your sister's children yet before you die."
+
+Eunice shook her head.
+
+"No; I do not look for that.  And I don't think Justin quite knows."
+
+"You are not feeling worse, Eunice?"
+
+"No--oh, no!  I am better in many ways.  I do not trouble myself about
+my health any more.  I hope I am willing either to stay or to go.  As
+for my Fidelia--why, she will be as safe, and by-and-by she will be as
+happy without me as with me, thank God!"
+
+There was a pause of several minutes, and then Dr Everett said--
+
+"I had a letter from Justin the other day.  Yes--I know Mary showed it
+to you.  There was a private note in it that Mary did not see.  Eunice,
+Justin wrote to me about Fidelia."
+
+He had moved away a little, and was watching Miss Eunice's face with
+some anxiety.  She was silent a moment, and she said gravely--"I am not
+sure that it was wise in him to do so."
+
+"You are not surprised?"
+
+"I am surprised that he should have written to you.  I am not surprised
+at what he had to say--if it is as I think.  He spoke to me before he
+went away."
+
+"He spoke to you?" said the doctor in astonishment, coming forward and
+sitting down again.  "And Fidelia?"
+
+"No," answered Eunice gravely; "she is too young.  I would not let him
+speak; and indeed he had not the chance.  I would not have her disturbed
+by any such thoughts."
+
+"You are right.  Justin was a bold man to venture to speak to you--about
+your sister.  She is worth waiting for, if he have the courage to wait
+this time.  Forgive me, Eunice--but I am angry with him."
+
+"You must not be angry with Justin for my sake.  That is all past, Dr
+Everett--quite past.  I did not quite know it myself until I saw him.
+Yes, I own I was a little afraid at the thought of his coming.  But he
+was quite changed--another man.  A better man perhaps than the Justin I
+loved when I was young, but different.  Oh, yes, I love him still, in
+another way!  You must see how differently, since I can say this to
+you."
+
+Dr Everett rose and walked several times up and down the room.  Then
+Eunice spoke again.
+
+"There is something which I ought to have told you long ago, for I have
+seen that you have been feeling hard toward your brother because of me.
+I had written to set him free from his promise to me, long before I
+heard that he was going to be married.  I could not leave them, you
+know, and could not bear that he should feel himself bound to me and
+regret it.  I do not deny that I felt his marriage as a blow.  But all
+that has been long past.  I never grudged him any happiness he may have
+had, nor any happiness that may come to him.  But I will not have my
+Fidelia disturbed by thoughts of him, for years to come.  Why did he
+write to you?"
+
+"He gave me no particular reason.  I think it was partly because he was
+not happy in keeping a secret from me.  Foolish fellow!  I knew how it
+was with him before he knew it himself.  I was anxious only to get him
+away before he should betray himself to her."
+
+"He did not speak to her."
+
+"No.  I think, too, he wished to bespeak for her a brother's care, now
+and always.  That was foolish too.  I do not think I love my own
+daughters better than I love Fidelia."
+
+"I know it.  I am sure of it; and I shall feel thankful that when I
+leave her she will be in your care."
+
+There was silence between them for awhile.  Then Eunice said--
+
+"Dr Everett, had you any special reason for telling me this?"
+
+"For a time I hesitated, lest I might hurt you.  But I felt that it
+would be wrong to conceal from you anything that might affect your
+sister's future."
+
+"It is all in God's hands.  I leave it there.  But I will not have
+Fidelia disturbed now, nor for years to come," repeated Eunice.
+
+"But not for _many_ years, Eunice?  Still, you are wise.  If he were to
+speak now, or soon, it would end all for him.  Fidelia would be shocked
+and offended for your sake.  And indeed it would be wrong for other
+reasons."
+
+"We will leave it all, Dr Everett.  We will not speak of this again.
+Say to Justin,--if you say anything,--that he must wait."
+
+"Eunice, will you let me say one thing more?  I confess that I was hard
+on Justin long ago.  I did not know that you had set him free from his
+promise, and I wrote to him, telling him that it would not be wise for
+himself or pleasant for me that he should bring his wife to visit us at
+that time, as he spoke of doing.  I was hard on him.  He did not write
+for a long time, but he forgave me and wrote first.  I thought then he
+was not happy in his marriage.  He told me something about it when he
+came home last.  His wife was the adopted daughter of our uncle--a
+spoiled child, I fear.  She loved him, and, I suppose, let him see it.
+His uncle wished for the marriage, and `it did not seem to matter much,'
+he said, which was wrong.  And so it came to pass.  He tried to make her
+happy while she lived, he said.  You are right, Eunice.  Justin is a
+better and a stronger man than his youth promised.  Yes, it is right
+that he should wait, though, waiting, he may lose the prize he covets.
+Other eyes are on the child; but to speak now would be to lose her."
+
+"We will not say anything more," said Eunice.
+
+Indeed there was no chance to say anything more at that time.  A
+pleasant clamour had arisen in the front yard, where the young people
+had been moving about quietly enough until Jabez came.  Jabez had been
+eating his Thanksgiving dinner at his grandfather's, with uncles aunts,
+and cousins, as was the thing to do, and had enjoyed it all, it is to be
+supposed.  But that something was the matter Fidelia saw the moment he
+came near.
+
+"I have been to the office, and I have got the letters--one for Miss
+Eunice, and one for you.  I got one for myself too, and I wish I hadn't,
+though that would not have helped me any."
+
+"Who is the letter from?"
+
+"And what is the trouble?"
+
+"If it isn't a secret?" said several voices in chorus.
+
+"It isn't a secret.  My letter is from Mr Fuller.  And the trouble is,
+that he is not coming to Halsey this winter.  Oh, yes, he's all right!
+His uncle has died and left him some money, and he doesn't need to teach
+this winter.  But his uncle has put a spoke in _my_ wheel.  I have a
+good mind to go to Scranton on my own hook, and take my chance."
+
+"But there may be as good a teacher as Mr Fuller here.  You had better
+wait and see."
+
+"Not a chance of it.  Unless you'll take the school Fidelia?"
+
+Then came the merry uproar which had interrupted the conversation
+within; and the laughter and chatter and noise increased till they were
+called into the house by the mother.  The "What is the trouble?" of Dr
+Everett was answered by half a dozen voices at once.  But it was Jabez
+who made the matter clear to their elders.
+
+"Mr Fuller isn't coming back this winter, and we all agree that Miss
+Fidelia ought to teach our school.  Know enough?  I guess so!  And as
+for government--I should just like to see the first one try to make her
+trouble in school.  There wouldn't be any second time, I don't believe."
+
+Jabez turned, quite fierce in looks, to the Everett boys, who, to tell
+the truth, were neither the most studious nor the most submissive to
+school discipline.  Ned took refuge behind his father, and made believe
+to be very much afraid.  Dr Everett had his own thoughts about the
+matter, but he did not commit himself that night.  When he said it would
+be worth while for the school committee to take the matter into
+consideration, they all thought he was "only joking," as Ned said.
+
+However, it came to pass that the school was offered to Fidelia.  Jabez
+had moved the doctor, and the doctor had moved the school committee.  A
+woman had never taught the winter school in Halsey before, but there was
+no reason why a woman should not teach it this winter.  Fidelia Marsh
+had been the best scholar in the school when she attended it.  She had
+studied since at home, and she had been a year in Holyoke seminary.  If
+anything had been needed to turn the scale of opinion in her favour, it
+was the suggestion made by Deacon Ainsworth, that being a woman they
+could get her to teach five months for as little, may be for less, than
+Mr Fuller or any other young man would expect for four months.  It was
+the deacon who was appointed to see Miss Fidelia; and Dr Everett went
+with him "to help talk the matter over."
+
+Miss Eunice and Dr Everett had not waited for the assistance of Deacon
+Ainsworth before they talked the matter over, however; and after a good
+deal of anxious consideration they agreed to leave the decision to
+Fidelia herself, as to whether she would teach the school or not.  To
+her it did not seem so very grave a matter.
+
+"I might try it," said she; "only, if I fail, I will never be able to
+hold up my head in Halsey again."
+
+But she had no thought of failing.  After the weary time of depression
+through which she had been passing, it was real pleasure to throw
+herself into the work she had undertaken.  The fact that she knew every
+boy and girl in the place, and that some of the elder ones among her
+pupils had been her schoolmates only a few years ago, made the teaching
+and even the government of the school easier in some respects than they
+would have been to a stranger.  For she knew all their weak points both
+in scholarship and in temper--"their easily besetting sins," as the
+deacon called them--and she could guide and restrain them accordingly,
+better than a stranger might have done, and she did succeed well with
+them all.
+
+But she might have had some trouble in governing the bright, eager
+little men and women committed to her care, many of whom were in the
+habit of assuming a share of family government at home, if she had not
+been "well backed," as Jabez called it.  Of this backing Jabez did his
+share, both by precept and example.  The respectful deference of his
+behaviour to the teacher, and the strict obedience he rendered, both in
+spirit and in letter, to the school rules, some of which were meant
+chiefly for the guidance of small boys who needed "line upon line,"
+helped her greatly, though, in observing him, Fidelia had sometimes much
+difficulty in preserving her gravity before the rest of her pupils.
+
+He helped her in other ways too.  When Master Vanburen Swift, the son of
+one of the few rich men in Halsey, had been more than usually
+troublesome in school, and had answered Jabez's mild expostulation by
+demanding to be told "who Fidelia Marsh was, anyway?" his sled was
+forthwith taken possession of and impounded for the space of twenty-four
+hours.  As it was after the first heavy fall of snow, and the long hill
+"just splendid" for coasting, it was a severe punishment, and all the
+more so that it was gravely suggested to his companions that loyalty to
+their teacher forbade the loan of any one's sled to the bad boy who
+would not do his duty.  Of course the boy complained to his father, and
+his father complained to various people--to the school committee and the
+teacher--to Deacon Ainsworth, and to Jabez himself.  Jabez acknowledged
+his part in the transaction, and promised not to repeat it--till the
+next time.  But the next time never came.  Young Van, as the boys called
+him, had had his lesson.
+
+Other people helped also.  School committees, from time immemorial, have
+acknowledged it to be their duty to visit the schools under their care,
+in order to encourage both teacher and pupils; but the duty had been
+rather neglected in Halsey.  They did visit the school this winter,
+however.  So did the minister, so did Dr Everett; and altogether it was
+agreed that, as a teacher, Fidelia Marsh might be considered a success.
+Work went on wonderfully well day by day, and there were now and then
+evening spelling schools, conducted in the usual energetic manner, and
+there were "speaking pieces," and "they did considerable more singing,
+first and last, than was generally done in schools," Deacon Ainsworth
+remarked in the course of a little speech he made one day when he came
+with the rest.  He left his hearers in doubt of his entire approval of
+so much singing; but he declared himself "satisfied on the whole," which
+was encouraging.
+
+Everything went smoothly.  The scholars learned their lessons well, and
+they learned also some things not in the text-books.  For Fidelia threw
+herself into her work with an earnestness and skill which could not but
+win from the bright scholars and the well-disposed among her pupils a
+cheerful response; but she did none of them more good than she received
+herself.
+
+Not only was she able to throw off the sadness and depression which had
+fallen upon her when she had been told of the state of her sister's
+health, but she advanced a good many steps towards real womanhood.
+Before the winter was over, the neighbours "expected that there was
+considerable more in Fidelia Marsh than folks had generally thought,"
+and gave themselves leave to hope that the softness of Miss Eunice in
+bringing her up had not altogether spoiled her.  She was going to do
+some good work in the world, it was owned, if the work she was doing in
+Halsey was a fair sample.
+
+And Fidelia herself began to think this possible.
+
+"I like it, Eunice.  I feel that I can teach those things that I know
+well.  And, when I have learned more, I hope I shall be successful in
+higher teaching."
+
+"If there is any teaching higher, in the best sense, than the teaching
+of the little children," replied her sister.  "Remember, it is easier to
+bend the twig than the tall sapling; and what you teach them out of
+their school-books makes but a small part of what they must learn from
+you."
+
+"Yes, if I were good--like you," said Fidelia gravely.
+
+But she did try to be faithful in all her teaching.  To do their work
+well and honestly, to hate a lie, to live by the "golden rule," and to
+remember everywhere and always, "Thou God seest me!" was the sum of her
+moral teaching as given to the school.  Now and then a word was spoken
+quietly to one and another who seemed to need it, which went deeper than
+that, though Fidelia was not sure that she had a right to urge on others
+the duty and privilege of living up to the teaching and spirit of the
+Gospel, when she was not sure that she was so living herself.
+
+But she came to surer and happier knowledge as the months went on.  In
+her troubled moments, before she came home, she had said to herself that
+she needed Eunice, and she was right.  And now she had Eunice, and her
+sweet words, dropped only now and then, did her good, and her beautiful
+life day by day did more.  Her full content in that which God's will had
+assigned to her, though it had brought loss and pain in the past, and
+involved now a daily expectation of death, wrought, with higher teaching
+still, to bring Fidelia to clearer light and stronger faith than she had
+ever yet enjoyed.  And with these came first submission, and then joy in
+God's will, for them both.  But this came later, when her school-keeping
+days were over; and to the end, so greatly to be desired, Jabez helped a
+little, as well as Eunice.
+
+For three whole months school life had gone on "without a hitch," as
+Jabez said triumphantly, and the pupils and teacher together were
+beginning to discuss the propriety of giving a little time to special
+preparation for the closing examination, when something happened.  A
+thaw came--a sudden fall of warm rain, which lasted a day and a night,
+and covered the ice on the mill-pond with water, and the neighbouring
+meadows as well.  And then the frost came again strong and sharp, making
+mill-pond and meadows sheets of shining silver; and for once everything
+happened just right, for it was full moon, with clear skies--the
+brightest of moonlight.
+
+Of course every scholar in the school was bound to be on the ice, and a
+great many besides; and Jabez and a few others voted themselves into the
+office of a safety committee to see to the rest, to keep the naughty
+ones out of mischief and the heedless ones out of danger.  There were
+not skates enough in the town of Halsey for half who were there, but
+there were a good many pairs, and there were sleds, and those who had
+neither skates nor sleds could slide on their own feet; and all expected
+a good time, and most of them had it.
+
+Fidelia was not there the first night, but, yielding to entreaty, she
+came the second night, and enjoyed it as well as any of them all.  But
+she was not there on the third night, when something happened.  No one
+else ought to have been there, for the frost had gone, and there was
+water over the ice on some parts of the pond.  The meadow ice was safe
+enough, but on the pond, where the water was not, the ice was like
+glass, and thinner than they knew.
+
+Especially was this the case where the weir brook fell into the pond, a
+little below the bridge, at the place where the boys had taken their
+sleds to "coast" down the hill and over the sloping bank with an impetus
+which sent them flying over to the other side of the pond.  Young Van,
+preferring to-night his sled to his skates, was there with the rest, and
+either through bravado or want of skill, steered, or let his sled take
+its own way, to the open water where the brook came in.  A cry from his
+companions came too late to warn him, but it warned the others at a
+distance that some one was in danger; and several were on the spot in a
+minute or two, and among the rest Jabez.
+
+"Who is it?  Young Van?  Yes, he is just the fellow for such a job,"
+said he, taking off his skates and plunging into the water where the
+boy's sled was floating, the ice cracking and crumbling beneath his feet
+as he ran.  The water was not very deep, and young Van, gasping and
+shivering with terror and cold, was passed over to the hands waiting for
+him.
+
+"And I say, you boys, keep back.  The ice at the edge is none too strong
+to bear the half of you.  Be off home, or your mothers will be here
+before you know it.  I mean to go the other way, if I can, and save a
+journey."
+
+All this time Jabez was struggling, and always into deeper water, with
+the ice that would not bear his weight when he let himself rest upon it.
+He could land easily on the other side, he knew, but then he must go
+home by the bridge, a good half-mile and more, which he did not care to
+do.  He struggled awhile, cheered by the voices of his companions; but
+he had to give it up at last, as he owned afterwards he should have done
+at first; and he was chilled to the bone before he reached home.
+
+The next day young Van was at school--"as smart as ever," the boys
+declared--and so was Jabez, but Jabez was not as smart as ever.  He
+shivered and burned alternately till noon, and then he went home; and
+that was the last that was seen of Jabez in the school that winter.
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
+
+GOOD SEED AND GOOD FRUIT.
+
+There was a hard time before Jabez.  Rheumatic fever was among the least
+of the troubles suggested as possible in his case by his grandfather,
+when he came shivering home from the mill-pond that night.  But that was
+happily averted by the prompt and skilful treatment of Dr Everett,
+after just enough of suffering to make Jabez ever for the future rather
+more sympathetic with the aches and pains of his grandfather.
+
+Jabez, however, was not to escape his share of discipline; and his
+trouble came, as most people's troubles seem to come, in the way which
+is hardest to bear.  He did not have "the long spell of rheumatism"
+which his grandfather had predicted, but he had what was worse.
+Inflammation settled in the lad's eyes, and for a time he suffered great
+pain.  He could have borne the pain patiently, even cheerfully.  That
+which tried his courage and brought him low was the darkness--the
+darkness and the horrible doubt whether he was ever to see the light
+again.
+
+He need not have suffered from this fear.  Dr Everett never really
+feared blindness for him, and always spoke cheerfully to him about soon
+being well again.
+
+"But that is the way the doctors have of letting a fellow down easy,"
+thought Jabez, taking less comfort than he might have done from the
+doctor's words.
+
+No visitors were admitted except those whom the doctor allowed to come,
+and every day seemed like a week to Jabez, and the nights were longer
+still.  In the daytime he could hear his grandmother moving about the
+rooms, and the voices of chance comers and goers to the house.  At night
+there was no sound but the rush of the wind, or the barking of his dog
+Buff outside; and within the ceaseless tick-tack of the tall clock in
+the corner, which said to him all manner of solemn things which he could
+not forget.
+
+His grandmother made him nice things to eat, and his grandfather sat
+beside him a little while many times a day, and both were as good to him
+as good could be.  His grandfather was faithful as well as kind, and
+reminded him of past misdeeds--the sins of his youth, he called them--
+and warned him of worse things that were in store for him unless he
+turned from his evil ways.  It was "hitting a fellow when he was down,"
+Jabez thought, but he listened in silence to all he had to say.  Indeed,
+through all these dark days he lay without a word, fighting his battle
+with his fears and his rebellious murmurs alone, asking help from no
+one.
+
+Fidelia came in to see him for a minute or two every night on her way
+home from school, and gave him a summary of school work and school
+events generally, and enlarged more than would have been wise at another
+time on the amusing incidents of the day, for the sake of bringing a
+smile to his sober face.  But even Fidelia got few words from him, and
+it was a good while before she came to see how miserable the poor fellow
+was in his solitude; and even when she saw it she did not know how to
+help him.
+
+"What are you thinking about, Jabez?" said she one night, when she had
+scarcely got from him even the usual response.  Seeing the look on his
+face, she did not wait for an answer.  "To-morrow is Saturday.  I shall
+bring down the books and have school here, if doctor will let me.  Or
+shall I bring Eunice?  Yes, if it is a fine day I will bring Eunice.
+She has wanted to come for ever so long, but she has waited till she
+should be able to have a good long visit with you.  If any one can do
+you good, Eunice can," added Fidelia, laughing, though, seeing Jabez's
+sober face, she did not feel much like it.
+
+"I shall be glad to have Miss Eunice come and see me," said Jabez
+gravely.
+
+A good while after that, Jabez told Fidelia what he had been thinking
+about that afternoon, and indeed what he had been thinking about most of
+the time during these sorrowful nights and days.
+
+"The `blackness of darkness for ever.'  Yes, I did feel hard.  I thought
+I was going to be blind; and I would a great deal rather have died, only
+I was afraid."
+
+Eunice came to see him, but even Eunice did not seem to help him much on
+her first visit.  Before her second visit, something had happened.  Mr
+Swift had paid Dr Everett a visit, and they had had a little talk
+together.
+
+The doctor owned that he was anxious about Jabez.  No, he was not afraid
+he was going to die.  It was his eyes he was in doubt about.
+
+"Blind?" said Mr Swift.  "He'd better die."
+
+"Only one can't die till his time comes.  Blind?  No, I am not afraid of
+utter blindness.  But I almost think it would be easier for Jabez to
+find himself blind than with just sight enough to potter about and do a
+little.  He is a bright boy, Jabez, and ambitious."
+
+"Dr Everett, do you suppose you know all that is to be known about the
+eye and its diseases?  Hadn't you better have help?"
+
+"I'd be glad to have help.  No; I don't know about the eye, as one who
+has made it the study of his life must know it.  If Jabez could only
+pick up a little strength I would take him to Boston, and hear what Dr
+Blake would have to say about him.  It would be too great a risk just
+now."
+
+"Send for Dr Blake--why can't you?" said Mr Swift.
+
+Dr Everett shook his head.
+
+"I should like to.  But it would cost a good deal; and Deacon Ainsworth
+is not a rich man."
+
+"Send for him.  I'll stand the fee."
+
+"It may be a big one."
+
+"It won't cost more than my boy's funeral would have done," said Mr
+Swift huskily.  "Jabez saved me that, they say."
+
+It was a queer way to put it, Dr Everett thought.  Mr Swift went on--
+
+"I'll go on to Boston and fetch him straight on here.  Days are precious
+when a man's eyesight is to be considered."
+
+And he was as good as his word.  Dr Everett saw him in a little while
+driving his sleigh at a great pace, over half-bare roads, in order to
+catch the afternoon train.
+
+"He is something more than just a rich man," said he to himself, "though
+I never thought it before."
+
+The next day Dr Blake came.  He was an old man to look at, but he spoke
+like a young man, and had the quick, cheerful ways of youth; and he had
+wonderful bright eyes of his own.  He saw a good deal more in Deacon
+Ainsworth's house than the eyes of Jabez, which he had come to see, and
+his prescription went beyond them.  He spoke encouragingly of the eyes,
+and gave a word of advice about other matters.
+
+Jabez was to do his best to get strong and well, and he must be cheerful
+and hopeful.  Nothing was so bad for a fellow as letting himself be
+downhearted.  His eyesight was safe, as the doctor believed, but it
+would depend on the state of the patient's general health as to how soon
+and how rapid the change for the better in the eyes would be--and so on.
+To Dr Everett he said--
+
+"A solemn sort of place, Deacon Ainsworth's house, isn't it?  The lad
+ought to get a change.  Is there nowhere you could send him after a
+little while?"
+
+He said this at Dr Everett's tea-table, where on that occasion Fidelia
+was seated with the rest.
+
+"Let Eunice have him for a little while," said she to Dr Everett.
+
+"All right," said he, and explained the situation to Dr Blake.
+
+"I have no doubt such a change will do all that can be wished, if Miss
+Eunice is at all like her sister," said he politely.
+
+So to Eunice Jabez came after awhile; and doubtless Eunice felt it to be
+her duty to improve the occasion also.  But her way was not quite the
+deacon's way.  It went farther, and circumstances gave it a better
+chance.  For Jabez had got a glimpse of daylight by this time, and the
+change was wonderfully pleasant to him.  His heart was tender too, and
+the good seed of the Word which Miss Eunice let fall now and then, fell
+into ground prepared for it, and in course of time it took root there
+and sprang up, and, though Eunice did not live to see it, bore fruit a
+hundred-fold.  Through the ministry of pain and a terrible dread, the
+Lord Himself had dealt with him, and a great light had begun to shine
+through the darkness, even before he knew that that which he feared was
+not to come upon him.
+
+It was a good while before he told this to any one but Miss Eunice.  It
+was years before he put into words, for other men to hear, the vow which
+he uttered to the Lord on the very first day when, standing by the fence
+in Miss Eunice's garden, he could look over the field and the river to
+the hills beyond--the vow to be His servant for ever.
+
+In the meantime the winter school, in which Fidelia had won golden
+opinions, came to an end; and the leisure which this brought to her was
+as good for her as the constant occupation of teaching had been when the
+winter school began.  She hardly knew what to do with her new liberty at
+first.  She made plans for the wise disposal of her time, but these were
+for the future.  For the present time she was content to go out and in,
+to read or work, to visit or receive visitors with a free mind; and her
+chief work which was also her chief pleasure, was taking care of Eunice.
+
+Not that Eunice was supposed to need especial care just then.  She was
+not strong, but her strength was not tried.  Household matters were
+altogether in the hands of Mrs Stone, and in better hands they could
+not have been.  Eunice was quite content that it should be so--a sign,
+if Fidelia had considered it, that she was no longer able for the
+lightest of her household work, which she had made her pleasure during
+all the years which they had been alone together.  But Fidelia, at this
+time, had no thought of fear.  It seemed to her almost as if the old
+happy days, when she, at least, had no dread of coming sorrow, had come
+again, with only the comfortable difference which the presence of Mrs
+Stone made in the house; and she saw no reason why this quiet happy life
+might not continue for years.
+
+Jabez came often up the hill, after his return home, as soon as he had
+strength to do so--a little too often, his grandfather was afraid.
+
+"Don't you wear your welcome out up there," said he.  "Why don't you
+go--" here or there, or to the other place which the deacon named.
+
+Jabez troubled no one by his frequent comings and goings, for which his
+studies, to which he had returned with quiet determination, made reason
+sufficient.  He had had a talk with his grandfather about this in the
+beginning of the winter.  He was going to college--that was certain.
+No, he did not quite know what was to come after.  He "was going to be
+President of the United States maybe," he said gravely; and at any rate
+he was going to make himself fit for it.
+
+His grandfather was by no means convinced of the wisdom of the boy's
+resolution--indeed, he "worried about it considerable," as Mrs
+Ainsworth had occasion to know.  He could not refuse to let him attend
+the winter school, though he had told him it would pay him better to be
+splitting reeds in Weir's swamp than in going to a woman's school--and
+"only a girl at that," said the deacon, with good-humoured contempt.
+
+Since his illness Jabez had been allowed to do as he pleased, but his
+grandfather worried about him still.  Few boys had a better chance than
+Jabez had.  There was the farm--not a large one, but as good land as any
+in Halsey--which might be his as soon as ever the old folks were gone.
+It might be his now as far as management and profits were concerned.
+All the old folks would want was a home there while they lived.  Jabez
+did not know his privileges--and so on.
+
+"You go and talk with the doctor about it, and with Miss Eunice," said
+his wife, a little weary of the constant theme.  So the deacon "freed
+his mind" to Miss Eunice, making a grievance of his idea that she and
+Fidelia encouraged Jabez in his determination to turn his back on the
+old place.
+
+"Not directly, may be," said he, qualifying his words after a glance at
+Fidelia's face.  "But you set so much by books, and a chance of getting
+an education, and all that--nothing else seems to count, and Jabez has
+always thought so much of you both.  Well, I am not blaming you.  But
+when a boy like Jabez begins to talk of going to college and being
+President of the United States, there does not seem to be much hope of
+him."
+
+"Why not?" said Fidelia, throwing down the gauntlet, or, rather taking
+it up.  "All the Presidents of the United States were boys once, and a
+good many of them were just such boys as Jabez--farmers' boys or poor
+men's sons who had to push their own way."
+
+"But that is just what Jabez needn't do.  I am not rich, but neither am
+I so poor that there need be any hardship in getting along right here in
+Halsey.  The fact is, he is a sight too ambitious.  He thinks all he's
+got to do is to go to college and come out again, and things will fix
+themselves to suit him.  But he'll fail as like as not; and then where
+will he be?"
+
+"He can come home then to the farm," said Fidelia, laughing.  "But he is
+not going to fail."
+
+"Deacon Ainsworth," said Miss Eunice gently, "I am sorry you feel so
+about Jabez.  I know it will be a trouble to you if he should go."
+
+"Oh, well, as to that, I have other grandsons!"
+
+"Yes, and I am glad for your sake it is so.  Jabez, is not going to be
+President.  But if you think of it, almost all the men of mark in our
+country that you or I know much about have begun by being just such boys
+as Jabez."
+
+"Yes, indeed!" said Fidelia; and she went over the names of half a dozen
+who were prominent men in the State, and in other States.
+
+"Yes, and even better men and greater men, in your opinion and in mine,
+than some of these," said Miss Eunice gently; and in her turn she gave
+the names of a good many distinguished ministers who had begun life as
+farmers' boys, and the names of missionaries in whom they took interest
+for their work's sake, as well.
+
+Deacon Ainsworth did not get much help from Miss Eunice, nor from Dr
+Everett either.
+
+"Whether Jabez is fit to make a scholar remains to be seen," said the
+doctor.  "But he has the fever on him, and he is bound to try."
+
+"I know he is a smart boy," said the deacon dolefully.
+
+"He isn't a boy any longer.  And I think he sees his way clear before
+him.  You can't keep him at home on the farm, deacon, and you may as
+well let him go, and help him along all you can."
+
+All this had been at the beginning of the winter.  Jabez had gone to
+school, and in the spring the deacon saw that he must let him go his own
+way.  As to helping him along--that had to be considered.  But in the
+meantime, till he should get strong again, Jabez was permitted to do as
+he liked.  He had changed very much since the beginning of the winter,
+especially since his illness.  He looked less like an overgrown boy, and
+more like a lank and loose-jointed young man, who did not know quite
+what to do with his hands or feet in certain circumstances, and who was
+in danger of slouching somewhat, and of getting a stoop in his
+shoulders, unless some one took him in hand.  Mrs Stone did him this
+kindness, and to good purpose.
+
+He changed in other ways.  He talked less, and it is to be supposed,
+thought more.  But, though he was rather silent than otherwise, he was
+as cheerful as ever, and more gentle and considerate at home.  His
+grandfather could see the difference, and acknowledged a hope that with
+his help the boy might come out right at last.  His help at this time
+was given in a way that Jabez could appreciate.
+
+It was the grandfather this time who proposed to Miss Eunice that she
+should let Jabez have her garden again.  He was afraid of the mischief
+found for idle hands, and he could not be satisfied that in his books
+Jabez might find enough work to keep him out of any temptation to
+idleness.  So the proposal about the garden was made by him.
+
+Jabez had no objection.  The garden had paid well last year, and would
+do better this year, he thought; and he knew that as much as he ought to
+do with his eyes, in the way of study, would not be hindered by the work
+of the garden.  So he sat and listened while his grandfather set the
+matter in all lights, and assented quietly to all arrangements made.
+Fidelia was listening also, and watching Jabez.  His silent and smiling
+assent to all that was agreed on,--so different from the boyish
+self-assertion which had amused them last year,--made her wonder.  His
+manner to his grandfather also was very different.
+
+"Yes," said Eunice, when Fidelia spoke of this to her, "Jabez is
+changed.  His sickness has been blessed to him."
+
+"His sickness, or something else, is making a man of him," said Mrs
+Stone.  "The world will hear of Jabez before he dies."
+
+"He is going to be President," said Fidelia laughing.  "One thing is
+sure.  He is getting beyond _my_ teaching.  I shall have to look out, or
+I shall be left behind."
+
+There was more truth in Fidelia's admission than she knew.  Jabez had
+indeed "taken a new departure."  He had a new motive for work, and he
+worked better.  He had no troubled thoughts as to what he was to do, or
+as to how he was to do it.  He knew all would go well with him, because
+his life's work, and his life itself, belonged to Him who had all things
+at His disposal, and Whose promise was sure that "all things shall work
+together for good" to His children.
+
+He could speak to Miss Eunice about these things when she encouraged him
+to do so; he could not so easily speak to Fidelia.  It was about their
+reading, as it had always been, and about the garden, that he had much
+to say to her for a time, and there was enough to say about both.
+
+Gardening was pleasant enough work as they did it.  They did not make
+hard work of it.  Jabez sowed and planted; and, when the time came for
+the disposal of the products of the garden, he was as pleased with the
+results as he had been last year, though he did not show his pleasure
+quite in the same way.  His success meant even more to him than it had
+done the last year, for he saw more clearly the way before him, and the
+end of the way.
+
+And, after all, the real work of the summer was not done in the garden.
+A good deal of it was done in his grandfather's old buggy, which carried
+here and there the garden products for the benefit of the summer
+visitors, who were this year more numerous than ever.  One book, and
+sometimes more than one, in covers of thick brown paper, found a place
+beneath the cushion; and the deacon's trustworthy old horse was allowed
+to take his own way, and to choose his own pace along the hilly road
+between Halsey Centre and Halsey Corners, while Jabez read or pondered
+the wise words which they contained.
+
+And more was done in the back porch when the time came for a pause in
+the work of the garden.  There on fine mornings Miss Eunice sat with her
+needlework, and Fidelia with her books; and it was her part usually to
+read for the benefit of the three.  In this way were gone through a good
+many books, and, among the rest, Fidelia's text-book on "The Evidences,"
+which she acknowledged had been gone over rather hurriedly; and Butler's
+"Analogy," which was one of the studies of the last year in the
+seminary, to which she was beginning to think she might possibly go
+again.  Neither of these would help Jabez in the preliminary
+examinations to which he looked forward.  They might come in afterwards;
+and he took part in the reading, and in the talk which grew out of it,
+with an eagerness and a just appreciation which astonished the sisters.
+All enjoyed these mornings.  Even Mrs Stone brought sometimes her peas
+to shell, or her beans to pick over, so that she might share the
+pleasure and the profit of the reading with the rest.
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
+
+"SO HE GIVETH HIS BELOVED SLEEP."
+
+And so the spring days passed, and the summer days shone over a happy
+homestead.  Many a time Fidelia said to herself that she desired no
+other work and no other pleasure than just to live as they were living
+now.  And it did seem as though God was going to permit it for a time.
+Her "bad dream" had vanished; if the thought of it came back now and
+then, the sharpness had gone out of the pain which still touched her a
+little.  She had not forgotten altogether.  Dr Justin had not allowed
+her to forget.
+
+He had written frequently--not to her, but to her sister--kind, pleasant
+letters; the excuse for the first being to send her tidings of the
+friend whose address had been asked and given on that last day, and whom
+he had visited at her request.
+
+He had found her a cripple and nearly helpless, but striving to do her
+part still in the great educational institution to which her health and
+strength had been given in her youth.  Then he added a few good and true
+words about the hope and the help which had sustained this friend amid
+all her labours and suffering--"as they are doubtless sustaining you,
+dear Eunice, in the quiet of your favoured home."
+
+Then he sent his respects to Mrs Stone, and added--"I was not surprised
+to hear that Miss Faithful had chosen to remain at home with you; and
+may the comfort and joy which her presence must give you be given to her
+by the best Comforter when her day of trial shall come!"  In a little
+while he wrote again, sending also a book which he was sure Eunice would
+like; and after that he wrote with no excuse at all.
+
+He told them about his new work in the college to which he had been
+appointed professor, and about his friends, and his pleasant social
+relations, and his outside work.  Eunice did not answer all his letters,
+but she took pleasure in receiving them.  Kind brotherly letters they
+were, which Fidelia read, and which they discussed a little, as they
+might have discussed the letters of Dr Everett himself, if he had been
+away from and had written, to them.
+
+So the spring passed, and the summer wore on, till August came with
+burning days and sultry nights, which told on the strength of Eunice,
+already failing, so slowly that the eyes that watched her so lovingly
+did not see it for a time.  Even Dr Everett saw no cause for alarm, nor
+Mrs Stone, who watched her more closely than he did.
+
+But Eunice knew that the end was drawing near.  Afterwards they all
+wondered that they had not seen more clearly, remembering looks and
+words which they might have taken for a sign that the joy of heaven was
+not far away.  But so quietly passed the days, with so little to disturb
+or tire her, that she herself did not know how rapidly her strength was
+passing from her.
+
+The close days of early August oppressed her, and made the change for
+the worse suddenly visible to them all.  The end did not come without a
+warning, as Dr Everett had thought it might come.  There were days and
+nights of waiting before her still, when even Fidelia saw the tokens of
+the last change.  There was no great suffering, only weariness and
+exhaustion, borne sweetly and patiently, and a joyful waiting for "the
+rest which remains."
+
+There was a word spoken now and then to console or to encourage her
+sister, who waited quietly beside her.
+
+"You know all I wish for you, dear; I am not afraid for you.  You are in
+a Father's loving hand, and by-and-by, when your work is done, you will
+come to me there," she said to her, murmuring the sentences at
+intervals, as she had the strength to speak; and Fidelia could answer
+firmly and smile brightly.  For so deep was the peace and so sure the
+trust of the dying, and so near the glory awaiting her, that no thought
+of herself or her loss, or the lonely days that were before her, could
+move her from the calm which had fallen upon her.  All was peace with
+her also.
+
+Once, at the beginning of these last days, a word was spoken by Mrs
+Stone.
+
+"About Fidelia, Eunice?  The time may come when she will long to know
+what your wish would have been--have you ever said a word to her about--
+Justin Everett?"
+
+"No; I think there is nothing to be said.  Yes, I know--afterwards she
+would give heed to any word of mine.  But it might not be the right
+word.  No; I can leave this, with all else that concerns her, in the
+hands of a loving Father.  He will guide her in this as in all things."
+
+And so no care nor shadow of care came to darken these last days.  Truly
+her eyes said to them, when her lips could not utter the words: "I will
+fear no evil, for Thou art with me."  And, waiting and watching beside
+her, Fidelia was for the time lifted above all fear or care or sorrow
+for herself, and rejoiced in her sister's joy.
+
+Thus quietly one summer morning she passed away.  So quietly, they--
+
+  "Thought her dying when she slept,
+  And sleeping when she died."
+
+They buried her beside her kinsfolk in the little graveyard of Halsey;
+and her memory still lives in the hearts of her friends and neighbours
+who knew and loved her so well.
+
+Then, for a time, life and all its interests seemed to stand still for
+Fidelia.  She was weary and spent, and they left her alone to rest and
+grow strong again.  By-and-by, with no word of appeal or entreaty from
+any one, she came back to her old ways, and tried to take up her work
+again.  It was not easy for her to do this, but it was easier than it
+would have been had her loss come a year sooner.
+
+"It is God's will that I should go first; and, dear, though you cannot
+see it now, God's will in this, as in all things, is best," Eunice had
+said to her many times; and she knew in her heart that it was true.
+
+"And, oh, how much the best for my Eunice!" she said with many tears,
+yet with submission also.
+
+But her occupation was gone; and, though friends and neighbours did what
+kind friends and neighbours may do at such a time, to cheer her, the
+days passed slowly and heavily, till one night Jabez came up "to have a
+little talk" with her.  She had not seen much of him since her sister's
+death.  He had kept away, he told her, "because it hurt him dreadfully
+to see her in trouble that he could not help."  It cannot be said that
+she had missed him much, but she was glad to see him when he came.
+
+Jabez's "little talk" was about himself, and nothing could have been
+farther from his thoughts than a desire to give a lesson to his teacher.
+But she got her lesson all the same.  They sat for awhile in the front
+porch, which was bright with the glory of the sunset.  Mrs Stone was
+there as well as Fidelia, and they spoke about various matters at first;
+and a few words were said about Eunice.  When Mrs Stone rose to go
+about some household duty, the others rose also, and went through the
+house into the garden, and down the walk between the tall hollyhocks, to
+the fence, where there was an opening between the apple-trees--a spot
+where Fidelia always stood a minute or two whenever she came there.
+They lingered for awhile in silence, looking down over the river flowing
+softly between wide irregular meadows, and over to the broken hill
+country beyond, beautiful now in the glow that fell on it from the west.
+
+Something--perhaps it was the familiar voice of White Star coming
+suddenly to her ear--brought back to Fidelia the remembrance of the time
+when she stood there petting the pretty creature, the day after her
+first return from the seminary--the day when Jabez came up to speak
+about the garden.  It came back so vividly that when Jabez began to
+speak his first words were lost in the surprise which seized her when
+she turned towards him.
+
+What had happened to the lad since then?  He was a boy no longer, for
+one thing.  As he stood there regarding her with grave eyes, speaking
+quietly and earnestly, he was very different from the lad who had come
+whistling up the field, with his hoe over his shoulder, to greet her
+that day.  A man?  Well, hardly that yet; but with the promise of
+manhood on his good and pleasant face, to which, though she was tall
+herself, she had to look up now!  A shadow passed over his face, and he
+ceased speaking and looked away, as a smile, of which she was quite
+unconscious, parted Fidelia's lips.
+
+"I thought maybe you would like to hear about it," said he in a little,
+without turning round.
+
+"Of course I shall like to hear about it.  Excuse me; I was thinking
+about something else.  You must begin again.  Do you know, Jabez, that
+you are changed lately.  You are not a boy any longer; you are a man,
+and I have only just found it out."
+
+"A man!  No, not quite; but I mean to be a man one of these days," said
+Jabez gravely.  "And I think now I can see my way."
+
+"Well!  Tell me all about it."
+
+There was not much to tell, but it took some time to tell it.  A letter
+had come from an uncle of Jabez--his mother's only brother--written in
+answer to one sent to him by Deacon Ainsworth, asking advice about the
+future career of his grandson.  The uncle was a minister, living in the
+far West.  He could do nothing for Jabez as to money, for he was a poor
+man, but he believed that he could better help the lad to help himself,
+in the part of the country where his home was, than could be done for
+him in New England.  His own son, he said, with but little help from any
+one, had paid his way through college; and he did not doubt that Jabez,
+if he were the bright boy his grandfather described him to be, could do
+the same.
+
+"And so," said he, "you had better send him on.  This is a good country
+for head-work and for handwork too--whichever he may prove himself best
+fitted for--and we shall all be glad to see him when he comes."
+
+"And," said Jabez gravely, "I think I'll go and have a try at it."
+
+"But surely your grandfather might help you a little?  And Amhurst or
+Harvard is the right place for you, Jabez.  Why do you wish to go so far
+away?"
+
+"About grandfather's help--no.  If I go I suppose Cousin Calvin will
+come and take my place, and have the farm by-and-by, which is all right.
+And grandfather will pay my way out there, he says.  And, as I expect
+my life's work will be done out West, the preparation for it may as well
+be done there too.  There is a good chance out there, uncle says."
+
+"Why should your life's work be done in the West?  And what is it to
+be?"
+
+Jabez answered the last question first.
+
+"Maybe you will think it presumptuous in me to talk of going in for the
+highest work of all.  But I talked with Miss Eunice about it, and she
+said she was glad.  If it hadn't been for Miss Eunice I shouldn't have
+thought of it.  `Entire consecration to the highest work of all.'  That
+was her idea, and it is mine."
+
+There were tears in Fidelia's eyes, but there were smiles on her face as
+well.  She did not speak, however, and Jabez went on.
+
+"I don't just know what I'm fit for yet, but I do know that I don't feel
+like holding back; and the Master will see about the rest.  He has all
+kinds of work to be done in His world, and I will find something to do."
+
+"Yes; and He has work to be done here in New England.  Why are you so
+glad to go away?"
+
+"Oh, I am not glad to go away!  But I am glad that I see my way to make
+a beginning; and I mean to do my best.  It may not be a great deal that
+I can ever do, but the Lord will accept the best I have to give."
+
+"Yes; I am not afraid for you."
+
+"And about going West.  A great country is being opened up there, and it
+is being filled with all sorts of people in a wonderful way.  New towns,
+and even cities, are springing up everywhere; and my uncle says that
+what this wide land needs for true greatness is that the light of the
+glorious Gospel of the blessed God should shine through every corner of
+it.  I shall like uncle, I am sure," said Jabez.
+
+"And you want to have a share in making the country great?"
+
+"I want to do my part for my country and the world.  It is God's work,
+and there doesn't seem to be anything else worth doing in comparison
+with this `holding forth the Word of Life,' as uncle calls it, does
+there?"
+
+Jabez spoke with eager voice and shining eyes, and Fidelia listened
+amazed.  And then she asked herself: "Why should she be amazed?"
+
+It was true.  Jabez was right and wise in his choice.  What else was
+there worth doing in comparison with the honour and blessedness of
+having a part in this work?
+
+"_And so far_," she said to herself, "I have neither part nor lot in the
+matter."  Her face grew grave as she stood looking away to the darkening
+hills.  Hitherto she had lived for herself and for Eunice.  Now Eunice
+was gone, what was she going to do with her life?  What would Eunice
+have liked her to do?
+
+"Miss Fidelia," said Jabez in a little, "you'll be going back to the
+seminary this fall, I suppose.  It is a good place to go to, I guess.
+And it would be lonesome here now."
+
+"Yes, it would be lonesome here.  Yes, I think I may go back again.
+There seems to be nothing better to do than to go there.  Eunice always
+wished me to go."
+
+But she spoke sadly, and evidently without much interest.
+
+"You will like it when you are fairly there, and have begun at your
+books again," said Jabez.
+
+"Yes, I suppose so.  It is best to go any way.  Eunice wished it."
+
+"I am glad of one thing--I shall be gone first," said Jabez.
+
+"Shall you?  When do you go?"
+
+"Next week, if grandma can get my things ready.  Time is precious."
+
+"She must let us help her," said Fidelia; and then there was silence
+between them.  Fidelia was thinking of a letter which she had received a
+day or two since, which must be answered soon.  Miss Kent had written to
+her, inviting her to visit her in Boston for as long a time as she could
+stay.  It was such a letter as it is good to write and to receive.
+There were a few words of sympathy in her sorrow for her sister's loss,
+and a few more as to the pleasant things to be done and seen and enjoyed
+during the visit; but the best of it was the evident kindness and
+sincerity of the writer in all she said.
+
+Fidelia's desire to accept the invitation had been growing since the day
+it came.  She longed for a change of some sort, and she needed it.  The
+thought of the seminary and her books gave her very little pleasure.
+
+"It is because you are tired," said Mrs Stone; but she did not, as it
+was her first impulse to do, remind her that it had been her sister's
+wish that the next year should be passed at the seminary.  "She will
+think of it herself by-and-by."
+
+Fidelia thought of it now.  "Time is precious," Jabez had said.  Surely
+time ought to be precious to her as well!  She ought to go to the
+seminary this year, if ever she meant to go; and, if so, there was no
+time to lose.
+
+And, besides, she knew on which side temptation lay for her.  An easy,
+pleasant life among people who knew no other kind of existence; a chance
+to see and hear and enjoy the beautiful and wonderful things of which
+she knew little, except from books, would be delightful; but would it be
+good for her?  Would it be a preparation for the work of which she and
+Eunice used to talk and plan?--"the highest of all work," as Jabez had
+called it, and "entire consecration to God's service."
+
+"I must be a poor creature to have any other desire," she told herself.
+
+In a little Jabez said--
+
+"Miss Eunice said something to me once.  She said it made her glad to
+think that I might be permitted to do some of the work for the Lord
+which she would have been so glad to do.  Does it seem presumptuous in
+me to say it, Fidelia?  I would not say it to any one but you," said
+Jabez humbly; "and I owe everything to Miss Eunice."
+
+"And what do I not owe to my Eunice?" said Fidelia to herself.  To Jabez
+she said--"Yes, I know it made her last days happy to feel that perhaps
+she had helped you a little.  And we must both honour her memory by
+trying to do in the world what she would have loved to do.  I only
+wish--"
+
+Fidelia did not put her wish into words for Jabez's hearing.  It was
+growing dark, and Mrs Stone's white cap at the porch door had been more
+than once visible as a reminder that the dew was beginning to fall; and
+they knew it was time to go into the house.
+
+But Jabez had one thing more to say, over which he hesitated a moment.
+
+"Fidelia, I want to say one thing more, if I may.  It was Miss Eunice
+that made me think more about it, so I hope you won't be vexed.  You
+haven't any brother, and I haven't any sister.  Suppose we--adopt one
+another," said Jabez, with a laugh which had the sound of a sob in it.
+"Miss Eunice told me more than once, that if ever the time came when I
+saw you in trouble I must help you, if I had a chance, for her sake."
+
+"Oh, my Eunice!" cried Fidelia; and she held out her hand to the lad.
+And then, to her amazement, he stooped and touched it with his lips
+before he took it in his own.
+
+There were not many words spoken after that.  This was their real
+parting.  They met several times before Jabez went away; but it was this
+half-hour under the apple-trees that Fidelia always remembered, when the
+thought of Jabez came back to her, with all the other memories of these
+last days at home.  For these were "last days."
+
+Fidelia came back again when her year at the seminary was ended.  Mrs
+Stone was still in the old brown house, which in most respects looked
+just as it had looked when she came home the first time, to find Eunice
+waiting for her.  It was good to see her old friend standing to welcome
+her at the gate, but her old friend was not Eunice.  And, though she
+wondered that it should be so, and grieved over it, the house in which
+the greater part of her life had been passed never seemed quite like
+home again.
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
+
+FIDELIA'S PERPLEXITY.
+
+This year in the seminary was far more profitable to Fidelia than the
+former year had been.  The work which she had done so faithfully at home
+told now.  She was not pressed or hurried by overwork in preparing for
+her classes, and had time to take the good of other things besides
+study.
+
+Under the Christian influence lovingly and judiciously exercised over
+them, not even the careless or unimpressionable among the pupils could
+remain altogether untouched by some sense of their responsibility to the
+Lord Jesus, or to the claims which He had on them to be workers together
+with Him in the world which He came to save.  Fidelia, with softened
+heart and awakened conscience, was now open to that influence, and
+yielded to it as she had not done before.  There was no neglect or
+misappropriation of the "quiet half-hour" morning and evening now, nor
+of any other of the many means of grace provided for the benefit of all.
+
+The scope and sense of all the teaching, as to duty, of the noble woman
+through whose labours and self-denials the seminary was founded had
+been--"Ye are not your own: ye are bought with a price; therefore
+glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's."
+
+"No man liveth to himself."  One of her last utterances to the pupils
+whom she loved and for whom she laboured was this: "There is nothing in
+the universe that I fear, but that I shall not know all my duty, or
+shall fail to do it."  She was dead, but her works and words still lived
+and spoke through those who had come after her, and through them there
+came richly to Fidelia the blessing which above all other blessings she
+desired for herself--the wish and the power to consecrate her life to
+the work which is the highest of all.  So she came back to her home in a
+different state of heart and mind this time--she herself did not know
+how different till she was among old familiar friends and circumstances
+again, looking over the past and on to the future with other hopes and
+aspirations than those which had made her discontented about the time of
+her last coming home.
+
+It did not seem quite like home to her in Halsey any more.  But she told
+herself she would wait patiently and do faithfully the work which came
+to her hand, till some opening should come to her of higher work in a
+larger field as a teacher, and then she would strive to be such a
+teacher as Eunice might have been in her youth, had not other work
+fallen to her hand.
+
+By-and-by something happened.  A letter came to her from Dr Justin
+Everett which surprised her.  It was not the first time that he had
+written to her.  After the death of her sister he had written a letter
+of sympathy which she had answered briefly.  She had not answered other
+letters which had followed, but this one must be answered.  It was a
+long letter, telling her something of his youth and of his engagement to
+her sister, and of the disappointment and pain which their necessary
+separation had caused to them both.
+
+He said he had returned to Halsey two years ago, hoping to carry Eunice
+back with him as his wife; but in her state of health they had both seen
+this to be impossible.  Then he went on to say how unconsciously at
+first his heart had turned to the sister of the woman he had loved so
+dearly in his youth, and how Eunice had not refused to sanction his
+love, though she had utterly forbidden him to speak then or for some
+time to come.  "Has the time come now when I may speak?  And will you
+not listen to me?"  That was the sum of what followed, though many words
+were used in saying it; and it must be owned that Fidelia was moved by
+them--for a time.  If he had come himself it would have been a much more
+troublesome matter.  But her dream had passed, and so had the pain it
+had caused her, though it took a little time to make her sure that it
+was so.  After reading her letter over again, she wrapped a shawl about
+her, and went up the hill till she came to the turn of the road where
+she had seen Dr Justin standing soothing his startled mare.  She could
+think of it all quietly enough now, and her calmness might have helped
+her to the knowledge of what her answer ought to be.  But she allowed
+herself to ponder over it.  It was a pleasant life that was set before
+her.  She might have a charming home, intellectual society, a chance to
+improve herself, a chance also to do good to others.  There would be the
+happy mean--neither poverty nor riches, and a home of her own; and for a
+time she was not aware how the possibility of taking all this into
+consideration, and of weighing it all quietly, proved that she did not
+care for Justin Everett as she ought to do before she answered him,
+"Yes."  There was the further question, though she scarcely dared to
+pursue it.  Was the man who could thus transfer his affections really
+worthy of her trust?  She shrank back when she thought of the past, as
+if she were wronging her sister's memory.
+
+"You are not worrying about anything, are you, Fidelia?" said Mrs Stone
+at last.
+
+"Worrying?  No; I hope not.  I don't think so.  Why do you ask?"
+
+"Was the big letter that Calvin brought you the other day from Dr
+Justin Everett?"
+
+"Yes, it was," answered Fidelia, with a touch of vexation in her voice.
+
+"I wouldn't have asked only--"
+
+"Oh, there is no harm done!" said Fidelia, laughing.  "I hope not," said
+Mrs Stone gravely.  "I have been expecting it ever since you came here.
+You mustn't think I want to meddle, dear.  I want just to tell you
+something that Eunice said to me.  Oh, yes!  She knew it might come some
+time.  But she would not say a word about it.  She said that the Lord
+would guide you right in this and in all other things.  And so He will,
+if you ask Him."
+
+Mrs Stone gathered up her work, and rose to leave the room.
+
+"Tell me about it, Aunt Ruby," said Fidelia gently.
+
+There was not much to tell.  For herself, Mrs Stone had not a word to
+say.  Even when Fidelia asked her advice, she replied quietly--
+
+"It seems to me you ought to have known what answer to send to that
+letter as soon as ever you read it."  And then she went away, leaving
+Fidelia to ponder her words.  She came back to add another word,
+however.
+
+"Let your answer, whether it be Yes or No, be final.  Don't let there be
+any half-and-half doings--any waiting to find out what your real
+feelings are.  You ought to know this minute all you need to know.  Say
+it once for all."
+
+That very day another letter came, not so long as the other, but it
+brought help to Fidelia, in a way unexpected.  This letter was from
+"Ella Wainright."  Fidelia knew that Miss Kent had married; but she did
+not know that she had married a widower with children.  The letter told
+her this, and it told her also that the two little girls who had fallen
+into her hands more than filled them.  They had been spoiled all their
+lives by two loving grandmothers and several aunts, all of whom had the
+best intentions with regard to the motherless children.
+
+"As for me," wrote Mrs Wainright, "I am to them the cruel or
+indifferent stepmother of the story-books, and I should not have a
+chance with them, even if I had any faculty with children, which I have
+not.  They are bright girls of nine and twelve.  I might leave them in
+school while I go to Europe with my husband, but that would not be good
+for them nor right for me, and it would only be postponing, perhaps
+increasing, the trouble.  I know you mean to teach, and I have heard
+from your friend Nelly Austin that you covet hard work; and here it is,
+ready to your hand.  You may name your salary.  You will earn it,
+whatever it is.  We shall be in Europe two years at least, perhaps
+longer.  You will have a chance to see much that every one wishes to
+see, and you can improve yourself in your music, and learn a language or
+two; and you can help me to do the same.  Do not decide against me till
+you come over to Eastwood to see me."  And so on.
+
+Fidelia came into the room where Mrs Stone was sitting with her letter
+in her hand.
+
+"Aunt Ruby, listen, and tell me what I had better do."  Then she read
+the letter.
+
+Mrs Stone listened, but she did not need to advise.  She saw that,
+though she was not aware of it herself, Fidelia had almost made up her
+mind to go.
+
+"I think I would go over to Eastwood and see Mrs Wainright, and talk it
+over with her."  And she would have liked to add--"You may as well write
+your letter to Dr Justin before you go," but she did not.  "It is all
+right, I guess; and I, for one, am glad of it."
+
+Fidelia went to Eastwood.  If she had been inclined to hesitate over her
+decision, she could hardly have done so.  Mrs Wainright took possession
+of her at once.
+
+"If it is a chance to do good that you desire, it is the very place for
+you, for the children need you sorely."  And Miss Abby Chase, who had
+seen the children, said the same.  Mrs Austin wished her to go because
+of Mrs Wainright, who was not strong, and who did not seem to have a
+chance with the children; and Nellie enlarged upon the delights of
+travel, and the opportunities for self-improvement which she would
+enjoy.  There was, besides, little time for hesitation.  Within ten days
+they were to sail.  So Fidelia went home and wrote her letter to Dr
+Justin, and set her house in order, and was ready to depart.
+
+"Halsey will always be your home while you own this place, and so you
+must keep it," said Mrs Stone.  "I don't know a more forlorn feeling
+than for such a home-bird as you have always been than to find herself
+without a nest.  We talked it all over, Eunice and I.  I'd as lief live
+in your house as in my own, and I will pay you rent.  It's paid already
+in a way.  Eunice had a little change of investment to make, under Dr
+Everett's advice, about the time I came here, and I put something with
+what she had in your name--just about enough to make the interest pay
+rent for your house and land.  I'll keep up the place as well as I know
+how; the rent may be put with the rest while you don't want, and it will
+be handy when you do.  I thought it would be better to fix it so than to
+put you in my will, because of Ezra's folks.  No; there is nothing to be
+said.  Eunice knew all about it; and you can just think of me as keeping
+house for you till you come home."
+
+Fidelia did not say much, but she said just the right thing in the right
+way when the time came.  It was the night before she left.
+
+"Aunt Ruby, let us go down to the graveyard now.  We can go by the old
+road, where we shall not likely to meet any one, and come home by
+moonlight."
+
+So together they stood beside the grave of Eunice, and spoke lovingly
+and thankfully of her, and prayed in silence for each other.  And there
+was no bitterness in Fidelia's tears, though they came in a flood as she
+turned away.  For it was well with Eunice, and she knew they would meet
+again.  She turned back when she had gone a little way toward the gate,
+and, kneeling once more, kissed the dear name carved on the stone, and
+prayed with all her heart that by God's grace she might be kept
+unspotted from the world, till the time came when she should meet her
+sister again.
+
+And so Fidelia left her home--sad, but hopeful.
+
+One untoward event happened before she set sail.  She had to meet Dr
+Justin face-to-face, and give him his answer.  She was not many minutes
+in his company, but they were full of pain to her.
+
+Strangely enough, she caught her first glimpse of him from a window, as
+she had done that day in Eastwood from Miss Abby's room; and, more
+strangely still, he was walking as he had been walking that day, by Miss
+Avery's side, looking down upon her, while she, with smiles and pretty
+eager gestures, looked up at him.  For a minute Fidelia was not sure of
+the nature of the feelings which the sight awoke within her; but she was
+quite sure of one thing--she did not intend to break her engagement to
+go with her friend and schoolmate, Mary Holbrook, to Cambridge, to see
+at least the outside of the poet's house before she went away.  She
+listened till she heard them enter the house; and, when she knew them to
+be safe in the parlour, she went softly downstairs and out into the
+street; and, though she felt a little ashamed of herself for running
+away, she laughed heartily as she hastened on.  She enjoyed every minute
+of the day, she told Mrs Wainright when--rather late in the evening--
+she came home.  She had seen, not only the outside of the poet's house,
+but also, through the kindness of a friend of Miss Holbrook, the inside
+of it, and Mr Longfellow himself as well; and the day was a day to be
+remembered for many reasons.
+
+She saw Dr Justin in the morning, however, though she hoped she need
+not.  There was not time for many words between them; but Fidelia's
+words were spoken with sufficient decision.  Dr Justin had not received
+her letter.  He had heard from his niece Susie that her friend was going
+away, and he hastened to see her before her departure.  He asked for
+nothing that would make it necessary for her to break her engagement
+with Mrs Wainright.  He only asked her promise to return at the end of
+the year, and give him her answer then.  But she refused to make the
+promise, or even to correspond with him while she was away.
+
+"I have spoken too soon; I will wait and come again," said he.
+
+"You will not be wise to wait or to come again," said Fidelia gravely.
+
+He came to the steamer with other friends of the Wainrights to see the
+last of them.  Miss Avery was there among the rest; and, as Fidelia
+watched them moving away together, she said to herself, that the chances
+were few that Dr Justin would either wait or return to her again.
+
+And so it proved.  Before the first year of her absence was quite over
+there came to Mrs Wainright a letter from her cousin, telling her of
+her engagement to Dr Justin Everett, and trusting that they might meet
+them in Europe before many months.
+
+"And so _that_ is well over," said Fidelia.
+
+Fidelia's desire for real work by which she might do some good in the
+world was granted during the next three years, and besides her work she
+had both pleasure and profit; and little more than this can be told of
+the time she spent away from her home, on the other side of the sea.
+Her pupils respected her always, and by-and-by they loved her dearly;
+and her influence over them was altogether good and happy to body, mind,
+and spirit.  And as much as that can be said as regarded her influence
+over their mother also.  During a long and tedious illness, which came
+upon Mrs Wainright in Switzerland, Fidelia nursed and comforted her as
+she could not have done had there not been mutual respect as well as
+love between them; and to both mother and daughters her influence and
+example was a source of blessing which did not cease when the time came
+that they were called to separate.
+
+This time came when they returned to America, for on going home to
+Halsey Fidelia found Mrs Stone--not ill, but ailing; and she made up
+her mind that it was her duty to remain with her old friend during the
+winter.  Her pupils were to be sent to school, and needed her no longer.
+Their mother needed her very much, or she thought she did, and
+entreated her to return.  But, even if Fidelia had not thought it her
+duty to remain with Mrs Stone, she would have hesitated about
+returning, for she had not been long in Halsey before she made a
+discovery which surprised her, and which made her ashamed.
+
+After the first joy of welcome from old friends, and the first glad
+renewal of old associations well over, she could not but own to herself
+that she did not find life in Halsey altogether to her mind.  This was
+not her discovery.  She had hardly expected to find it so.  She had had
+some such thought before she left it.  Her surprise was, to find that
+she missed--even greatly missed--the pleasant things which she had
+become accustomed to during the last three years--the new books, the
+music, the sight and touch of rare and beautiful things; all the
+luxuries and the ease-giving which wealth dispensed judiciously,
+sometimes lavishly, had secured to her friend's household, and to her
+with the rest.  She missed the movement and the change made by the
+coming and going of the many friends of the household--not merely the
+ordinary friends and neighbours, but people of whom the world had
+heard--men and women whom it was good to see and know.
+
+The life had suited her.  It was not surprising that she should regret
+many things which she had enjoyed while with the Wainrights.  Was it
+wrong to regret them?  She might enjoy them all again in somewhat
+different circumstances.  Would it be right and wise for her to return
+at the entreaty of her friend?
+
+"I must settle the question once for all," she said to herself.  And she
+did settle it; and with it she settled another question which went
+farther and deeper.  "Ye are not your own; ye are bought with a price:
+therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are
+God's."  Would a chance to lead an easy, pleasant, even useful life in
+the house of her friend cover for her all the ground which this command
+covered?  She did not need a long time to consider the answer.  The past
+she did not regret.  It was well that she had gone with Mrs Wainright.
+She knew that she had helped the mother and the children to a better
+knowledge of each other, and she trusted also that she had done
+something towards encouraging in them a desire for a higher knowledge--
+the knowledge which God alone can give.  She was glad in looking back;
+but could she look forward and see that she had any special work for
+these young people which their mother might not do better than she did?
+And might she not be taking out of the mother's hands work the doing of
+which would be for her good as well as for theirs?
+
+And then as to herself.  Was "an easy time," with only light duties--
+which could hardly be called work in any right sense, amid the luxury
+which she had learned to like so well that now she missed it--was this
+what she ought to accept for herself as the best and highest?  Did she
+owe no more than this to Him Who had bought her with a price?  She was,
+in a sense, quite alone, and at her own disposal, free from all ties of
+relationship or friendship, such as might interfere with any work to
+which she gave herself.  She could teach.  That had been her plan
+always, and her sister's plan for her, because teaching undertaken and
+pursued in a right spirit might be made a part of the highest work of
+all.  This Eunice had coveted for her; she had coveted it for herself.
+
+Yes; the faithful doing of such work might be made work for the Master.
+Had she lost her desire to have a part in this work? she asked herself.
+Had her easy life among the pleasant things of the last few years done
+her this evil?  She had many thoughts about it, and, after a time, she
+had some talk with Mrs Stone about it also.
+
+"No; I don't think you are spoiled.  Your life could not have been a
+very easy one.  Anyway, it hasn't spoiled you.  You had good work to do
+over there and you did it pretty well, I expect, or they wouldn't want
+you back again.  In one way it has helped you.  Yes, I think you could
+now do good work in a better way for the advantages you have had, and
+you are bound to do it.  If you don't, your privileges may become a
+snare to you, and you may get to be satisfied with a kind of work lower
+than the highest you are capable of.  `No man liveth to himself,' you
+must remember."
+
+"And the highest work I seem to be capable of, is to teach."
+
+"There is no higher work, if it is done in the right spirit.  And it is
+the work you have prepared yourself for.  If you are better fitted for
+other work, you'll have a chance to try it.  It seems to be your work in
+the meantime.  You may marry."
+
+Fidelia shook her head.
+
+"I am not sure about other work.  I know I can teach."
+
+And so for the next few years she did teach.  In one of those large
+seminaries which the Christian beneficence of many wise men of moderate
+means, with the help of a few rich men, has established for the higher
+education of the young women of the country, Fidelia found her work.
+She was one of many who there worked willingly and well, in a field
+where good and willing work rarely fails to give a full return.
+
+It would take a long chapter to give even a glimpse of her experiences
+during those years.  She was not without her troubles and anxieties, but
+on the whole they were happy years.  For to be successful in good work
+which one loves, and which one can do well, comes as near to true
+happiness as most people ever come in this world.  Day by day, as time
+went on, she was permitted to see the springing up of some "plant of
+grace" from the seed which she had sown; and she had good cause to hope
+that there were more to follow, for such plants do not die out, but
+increase, and bear fruit abundantly as the years go by.  Once in a
+while, but not often, she paused amid her work, to ask herself whether
+she would be quite content in it all her life long.  It was a question
+which did not need an answer, as she was quite satisfied with the
+present; and the future, she believed, would be guided and guarded by
+the Hand of love which had led her during the past.
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
+
+THANKSGIVING.
+
+Fidelia had not lost sight of her friends during these years in the
+seminary.  A few weeks of every summer were given to Mrs Stone and her
+Halsey friends, and as many to Mrs Wainright and her daughters, either
+in their own home, or at the seaside, or among the mountains, wherever
+they chanced to be passing the summer.  The change and the happy renewal
+of old associations did her good, and kept her interested in other
+matters than those which concerned her daily life and duties.  Her
+friends did not allow her to forget them.  Even Mrs Stone wrote
+frequently to her, though the writing of a letter cost her more labour
+than a day's housework did.  One or other of Dr Everett's family wrote
+now and then, and so did the Austins.  With Mrs Wainright the
+correspondence was constant.
+
+"Come home to Thanksgiving," wrote that lady soon after the work of
+Fidelia's fourth year in the seminary had commenced.  She had written
+the same thing every year, but Fidelia had never been able to accept the
+invitation.  This year she had a great desire to accept it, for various
+reasons; so, though the journey was long, and the time she could give
+for the visit was short, she found herself in her friend's house on the
+eve of Thanksgiving Day; and among the many thousands who, throughout
+the land, had that day turned their faces homeward, few could have been
+welcomed more kindly than she.
+
+Thanksgiving Day was kept in the town of C--much as it is kept
+everywhere throughout the country, in which there is so much over which
+a thankful people may rejoice.  Everybody, except the anxious
+housekeepers who had dinner on their minds, was expected to go to church
+in the early part of the day, and join in thanksgiving with their
+neighbours.  The Wainrights all went, and so did Fidelia.  There were
+many people present.  The service was simple and devout; the sermon was
+appropriate; and all things went as usual till it came to the singing of
+the thanksgiving anthem, and that went better than usual, because
+Fidelia joined in it, and put all her glad and thankful heart into her
+wonderful voice as she sang.
+
+She even sang the "solo" which Mrs Wainright was expected to sing.  But
+a whispered entreaty from her friend, which there was time neither to
+answer nor to refuse, gave the honour to Fidelia.  Clear and full and
+sweet rose her voice, and filled the house, thrilling and satisfying all
+the listening hearts and ears with the melody, till the saintly old
+souls among them asked themselves whether even the heavenly music could
+be sweeter.
+
+Some one sitting near the door rose when the other voices came in again,
+and walked up the aisle till he came to a point where, looking up, the
+choir in the gallery could be seen.  There he stood till the anthem was
+ended, and then moved quietly away.  He was a stranger, and no one took
+much notice of him at the moment, though some among them remembered him
+afterwards.  Lucy Wainright noticed him, and spoke of it when she came
+home.
+
+"It must have been some stranger.  No one of our people would have done
+such a thing," said she.
+
+"It must have been that he wanted to see where the voice came from,"
+said her sister.
+
+"I do not wonder," said their father.  "Miss Marsh, how came you to take
+the place of honour to-day?"
+
+"I don't know," said Fidelia.
+
+Mrs Wainright laughed.
+
+"I don't know either.  I did not think of it a second before I spoke.
+It was a risk, I acknowledge--or it would have been with any one but
+Fidelia."
+
+"A risk!  It might have caused a breakdown.  She might have refused."
+
+"No; I was sure of Fidelia!"
+
+And while they went on talking the door-bell rang, and the maid brought
+in a card and gave it to Mrs Wainright.
+
+"A stranger?  Did he ask for me?  I do not know the name.  Jabez
+Ainsworth!"
+
+Fidelia uttered an exclamation, holding out her hand for the card.
+
+"I know him well.  He is one of my oldest friends, though I have not
+seen him for years.  Shall I go and see him?"
+
+"Do go," said Mr Wainright; "and, if he is a friend of yours, ask him
+to stay to eat his Thanksgiving dinner with us.  He will have something
+to be thankful for when he sees you, I should say."
+
+"Of course--ask him to stay.  And don't be long about it, for dinner is
+ready."
+
+So Fidelia went in quickly, with both hands stretched out in eager
+welcome to the friend whom she had not seen for so many years.
+
+"Can it be Jabez?" she said softly, pausing before she came near.
+
+"I need not ask if it can be Fidelia.  You haven't changed, except to
+grow a little like your sister."
+
+"Ah, my Eunice!"
+
+Was it the dear name that brought the tears to Fidelia's eyes, and the
+memory of so many sad and happy days?  She could not hide them except by
+turning her face away, for Jabez held her hands firmly in his, and her
+smiles came quickly as she looked up at him.
+
+"You are a happy woman, Fidelia.  Your face tells me that before a word
+is spoken."
+
+"Happy!  Yes; and so glad to see you.  How can it have happened that we
+have never met all these long years--never once since you left Halsey?"
+
+"I have only been once in Halsey since I left it, and then you were on
+the other side of the sea, where I have been since."
+
+They ought to have had much to say to each other after so long a time,
+but there was not much said for awhile.  Fidelia looked on the face and
+listened to the voice at once so strange and so familiar, saying to
+herself how changed he was--and yet he seemed the same.  He was a large
+man now, dark and strong, not at all in these respects like the slender
+sallow boy who had loitered about the garden in Halsey.  But it was
+Jabez all the same.  He was very grave and silent for a time, and walked
+up and down the room once or twice, pausing at the window which looked
+out upon the street, as though he had something to consider or to
+conquer before he could either listen or speak.  After a little he came
+and sat down beside her.
+
+"Well, Fidelia, you are a happy woman.  You have lived through your
+troubles, and have come safely to the other side, thank God!"
+
+"But, Jabez, it does not seem like trouble to look back upon it now.
+Only think of my Eunice safe and blessed all these years.  Why, I have
+not shed a tear for a long time--in sorrow!"
+
+She might well add the word, for there were tears in her eyes and on her
+cheeks while she spoke; but there were smiles on her face as well, which
+made Jabez say--
+
+"I thank God that you are happy now."
+
+There was no time for more.  The door opened and Mrs Wainright entered,
+followed by her husband.  She did not need an introduction.
+
+"I am glad to see you, Mr Ainsworth, and sorry to interrupt you so
+soon, but dinner is ready, and there will be time to visit afterwards."
+
+Then she introduced her husband, whose welcome, though quiet, was
+sufficiently cordial.  Then he said:
+
+"I hope you have no other Thanksgiving dinner in view, for I think ours
+is to be a good one; and we are very happy to see you."
+
+"I supposed that I was to spend Thanksgiving in Halsey, but a mistake as
+to connection, and then a breakdown on the road, left me here for the
+day.  I shall be glad to give thanks with you, and with--Fidelia."
+
+"I am sorry for your grandmother," said Fidelia.
+
+"You need not be sorry.  My visit was to be a surprise to them.  It must
+wait till next summer now.  I am going West again."
+
+"Well, we will go to dinner now," said Mr Wainright, offering his arm
+to his wife.  "Miss Marsh, you must show Mr Ainsworth the way."
+
+"Miss Marsh?" said Jabez, turning astonished eyes upon her, as the
+others passed out at the door.
+
+"Why, who did you suppose me to be?" said Fidelia, laughing.
+
+"I--I don't know.  I asked the door-keeper at the church who was the
+singer to-day, and he said it was Mrs Wainright.  But I am very glad he
+was mistaken."
+
+"I sang to-day--"
+
+"You cannot imagine how strange it was--how wonderful.  I had been
+thinking about you all the morning--never supposing that you were within
+hundreds of miles of me--and I heard your voice, Fidelia," he added,
+taking both her hands in his.  "It is Thanksgiving Day indeed with me
+to-day."
+
+"And with me too," it was on Fidelia's lips to say, but she only said it
+in her heart.  The joy that shone in her friend's eyes kept her silent,
+though why it should do so she could hardly have told.
+
+They went very soberly into the dining-room, where a few friends besides
+the family were assembled.  Fidelia sat between the two girls as usual,
+and Lucy whispered that her friend was the stranger who walked up the
+aisle, and that it must have been to to see where the voice came from,
+as Lena had said.
+
+And Lena said: "How tall he is, and how strong!  He is not the least
+like the lanky boy about whom you used to tell us funny stories."
+
+Fidelia laughed and said softly, "Yes, he has changed--almost as much as
+the little girls to whom the stories were told.  It is a long time ago,
+you must remember."
+
+Mr Wainright was not mistaken.  The dinner was a very good one, and
+passed off, as all Mrs Wainright's dinners did, quite successfully.  So
+did the evening with music and pleasant talk, and all else that was
+required for success.  But it is not to be supposed that all this was
+quite satisfactory to Fidelia and her friend.
+
+"There were so many things I wanted to hear about," said Mr Ainsworth.
+
+"And I too," said Fidelia.
+
+"I shall see you in the morning before I leave, if possible," said he.
+
+He came in the morning, and he stayed all day.
+
+He could, by travelling all night, get to M--in time to meet an
+engagement on Monday.  He should have had to do so if he had gone to
+Halsey.
+
+He had something to tell and much to hear.  He had, he thought, a right
+to say that he had been fairly successful as a student.  He had had to
+help himself, and had done so in various ways, but not more than was
+right, or than had been good for him.  His last two years had been spent
+in Germany.  He had gone there in charge of two lads, sons of a German
+merchant in the West.  Of course he had availed himself of the
+opportunity to go on with his own studies at the university, and now he
+was going West to find his work.
+
+It was a very poor sort of work in the opinion of Mr Wainright, who,
+coming in at the moment, heard him say that the next few months were to
+be spent in travelling through some of the newer states in the service
+of one of the great missionary societies, with a view to the
+encouragement and aid of weak Churches, and the establishment of new
+ones, in the small settlements springing up everywhere.
+
+"It will be hard work," said Mrs Wainright.  "And do you really suppose
+it will pay?  Don't you think that all that sort of thing might be
+safely left to the people themselves?"
+
+"It seems to be the work laid out for me just now," said Jabez, not
+caring to get into any discussion of the question.
+
+"You might do far better work in an older community.  It is the majority
+of the dwellers in our great cities which need most the civilising--or,
+if you like it better, the Christianising--influence which strong and
+good men can exercise in a community.  It is from our great cities that
+power for good or for evil is sent out over all the land, in ways of
+which I need not tell you.  If you have the will and the power to work
+for your fellow-men, it is not to these remote and sparsely-settled
+parts of the country that you should go.  You are needed more where
+crowds would gather to hear you."
+
+But Mr Ainsworth shook his head.
+
+"I have the will to work, and I trust, by God's grace, to have also the
+power.  But I think I am best fitted for such work as is needed out in
+our newer settlements.  It will be hard work, perhaps, but it will be
+work, direct and simple, for the good of men and the glory of God.  I
+don't think I am so made and fashioned as to be likely to be very useful
+among such men as fill our great cities."
+
+"There are all sorts of men in our great cities; and you can hardly tell
+what sort of work you are good for yet, till you try."
+
+"And as to the importance of my work out there--it would be a good work,
+wouldn't it, to help to educate and influence some of the boys who come
+from country places to make the business men and the professional men of
+the great cities?  Yes, and our senators and the governors of our
+states.  You must know several country boys who have come to that."
+
+"I know several certainly; and you may be right.  We have a great
+country out there, which is getting filled up in a wonderful way with
+all sorts of people.  God knows, some strong influence for good is
+needed among them."
+
+"Yes, that is our hope--God knows," said Mr Ainsworth gravely.
+
+This was the beginning of a long conversation, during which each man
+surprised the other, and each learned something from the other which
+bore fruit in the life of both in after years.
+
+East and West, North and South, the past, the present, and the future of
+all sections of the country--all "the burning questions" of the day were
+discussed.  Fidelia listened with shining eyes and changing colour, and
+dropped a strong word in now and then; and all the time she was saying
+to herself--
+
+"To think that Jabez should have grown to be just the best sort of man!
+And what a life lies before him!  I wonder if my Eunice knows?"
+
+And Jabez, seeing her softened glance, knew as well as if she had spoken
+her name that it was of her sister that she thought.
+
+It rained all the morning, so that there was nothing said about showing
+the town and the surrounding country to the visitor; and there was all
+the more time for the talk which seemed to interest them all.  The rain
+ceased, and the sky cleared a little in the afternoon, and a walk was
+proposed.  Mr Ainsworth rose at once and looked at Miss Marsh.
+
+"I shall be glad to take a walk," said she.  "I have heard so much talk
+to-day that I need to rest my mind by tiring my body.  Come, Lucy and
+Lena, get your wrappers and let us go.  Will you come with us, Mrs
+Wainright?"
+
+"No, I think not; and I am not sure about its being best for the girls
+to go.  Had they better, Fidelia?"
+
+"Because of the dampness?  It will do Lucy no harm.  Lena, perhaps, had
+better not go."
+
+"Oh, if one goes, they may both go!  I guess the damp won't hurt them,"
+said Mrs Wainright.  And to her husband she said--"And if he has
+anything to say to her, I guess he'll find a chance to say it."
+
+Apparently Mr Ainsworth had nothing particular to say--at least nothing
+which Lucy and Lena might not hear, for they all walked on together till
+they came to the church.  It was a new and fine church, and visitors in
+C--were often taken to see and to admire it; so when Mr Ainsworth
+proposed that they should go into it, the girls at once set off to get
+the keys.  They returned almost immediately, and with them came a
+gentleman who told Mr Ainsworth, after he had been introduced, that he
+knew more about the church than any one in C--, and could give them the
+history of every nail and stone, window and door.  He did not quite do
+that, but he gave them many interesting particulars as to construction
+and cost, and the special advantages of the building generally over all
+the other churches in the town, or, in fact, any other town.  Mr
+Ainsworth listened and kept silence in a way which won the respect of
+the pleased narrator, who probably was not always so fortunate in his
+listeners.  He got through at last, or had another engagement and went
+away; and then Jabez said softly--
+
+"Miss Fidelia, do you know why I wanted to come in here?  I want to hear
+you sing again, `For His merciful kindness is great toward us, and the
+truth of the Lord endureth for ever.'"
+
+"Of course I will sing it.  But I might have done that at home, and
+saved you the deacon's lecture on architecture.  Oh, I must go up into
+the gallery, must I?"
+
+"Yes; and I will stand here, where I first caught sight of your face."
+
+So Fidelia went up and sang with a glad heart, not the solo only, but
+the whole Thanksgiving anthem, the two girls doing their best to help.
+They did not linger long after that; and when they had left the church,
+and the girls had gone to carry back the key, Jabez said gravely--
+
+"I shall have that always to think about, till I see you again."
+
+"And I hope that will not be so very long this time," said Fidelia.
+
+It was not very long.  They met the next summer in Halsey.  There he
+found her one summer morning standing in the garden, at the opening
+under the apple-trees, looking down on the river and the meadows and the
+hills beyond, thinking of many things.  There he found courage to say to
+her all that was in his heart.
+
+Not at that first meeting, however; though even then it would not have
+surprised her or found her unready with her answer.  For they had
+written to one another constantly since their first meeting at that glad
+Thanksgiving time; and Fidelia knew all that letters frequent and long
+could tell her about the work which he had found ready for hand, head,
+and heart in the far West.  Now he had more to tell her.  He had been
+called by the Church in M--, in the state of W--, to be their pastor,
+and he had accepted the call.
+
+There were just fifteen members in the Church, but they were all New
+England men and women, of the right sort.  M--was only a small place as
+yet, but the prospects were fair that it would be a city within twenty
+years.  It would one day be a great commercial centre for a grand
+stretch of country; and the faithful fifteen who had made their home
+there meant that, in so far as it should be in their power to make it
+so, it should be a centre of influence for good in the state, and in the
+whole great country; and their pastor elect meant no less than that
+also.  And when he had got thus far, he said gravely--
+
+"Fidelia, will you come with me, and help in this great work?"
+
+And Fidelia put her hand in his and said quietly--"Jabez, I shall be
+glad to go."  And let the wise men of this world, and the rich men and
+the mighty, say what they will, there is no greater or grander work to
+be done under the sun than the work which these two, standing under the
+apple-trees, agreed to help one another to do.  There is no work whose
+success can avail so much for the happiness of the individual soul, for
+the household, or for the community, and there is none whose success can
+bring such wealth and honour and stability to the nation, as that
+through which the hearts of men are taught to believe and know, and the
+eyes of men are enlightened to see, that it is "righteousness which
+exalteth a nation," and that "sin is a reproach to any people."
+
+"Fidelia," said Jabez in a little, "do you suppose that Eunice knows?"
+
+And Fidelia answered softly,--"If she knows, I am pure she is glad."
+Before the summer was quite over these two happy people went West to
+begin their work together.  A good many years have passed since then.
+The place in which "the faithful fifteen" set up the standard is a great
+city now.  They, and those who have joined themselves to them since
+then, have kept the promise made in these early days to their Lord and
+to each other.  And He who said, "Them that honour Me I will honour,"
+has kept His promise to them.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Eunice, by Margaret Murray Robertson
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