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+Project Gutenberg's And So They Were Married, by Florence Morse Kingsley
+
+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: And So They Were Married
+
+Author: Florence Morse Kingsley
+
+Illustrator: W. B. King
+
+Release Date: January 3, 2012 [EBook #38490]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AND SO THEY WERE MARRIED ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Annie R. McGuire. This book was produced from
+scanned images of public domain material from the Google
+Print archive.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Book Cover]
+
+
+
+
+And So They Were Married
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "'It isn't your husband's place to do your work and his
+own, too, my dear'" (p. 126)]
+
+
+
+
+And So They Were
+Married
+
+
+_By_
+Florence Morse Kingsley
+
+Author of "Titus," "The
+Singular Miss Smith," "The
+Resurrection of Miss Cynthia"
+
+
+With Illustrations
+By W. B. King
+
+
+New York
+Dodd, Mead & Company
+1908
+
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1908
+By THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1908
+By FLORENCE MORSE KINGSLEY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+Dr. North's wife, attired in her dressing-gown and slippers, noiselessly
+tilted the shutter of the old-fashioned inside blind and peered
+cautiously out. The moon was shining splendidly in the dark sky, and the
+empty street seemed almost as light as day. It had been snowing earlier
+in the evening, Mrs. North observed absent-mindedly, and the clinging
+drifts weighed the dark evergreens on either side of the gate almost to
+the ground. A dog barked noisily from his kennel in a neighbouring yard,
+and a chorus of answering barks acknowledged the signal; some one was
+coming along the moonlit street. There were two figures, as Mrs. North
+had expected; she craned her plump neck anxiously forward as the gate
+clicked and a light girlish laugh floated up on the frosty air.
+
+"Dear, dear!" she murmured, "I do hope Bessie will come right into the
+house. It is too cold to stand outside talking."
+
+Apparently the young persons below did not think so. They stood in the
+bright moonlight in full view of the anxious watcher behind the shutter,
+the man's tall figure bent eagerly toward the girl, whose delicate
+profile Mrs. North could see distinctly under the coquettish sweep of
+the broad hat-brim.
+
+"The child ought to have worn her high overshoes," she was thinking,
+when she was startled by the vision of the tall, broad figure stooping
+over the short, slight one.
+
+Then the key clicked in the lock and the front door opened softly; the
+sound was echoed by the closing gate, as the tall figure tramped briskly
+away over the creaking snow. The neighbour's dog barked again,
+perfunctorily this time, as if acknowledging the entire respectability
+of the passer-by; all the other dogs in town responded in kind, and
+again there was silence broken only by the sound of a light foot on the
+carpeted stair.
+
+Mrs. North opened her door softly. "Is that you, Bessie?"
+
+"Yes, mother."
+
+"Isn't it very late, child?"
+
+"It is only half past eleven."
+
+"Did Louise go with you?"
+
+"No, mother; she had a sore throat, and it was snowing; so her aunt
+wouldn't allow her to go."
+
+"Oh!" Mrs. North's voice expressed a faint disapproval.
+
+"Of course we couldn't help it; besides, all the other girls were there
+just with their escorts. You and grandma are so--old-fashioned. I'm sure
+I don't see why I always have to have some other girl along--and Louise
+Glenny of all persons! I couldn't help being just a little bit glad that
+she couldn't go."
+
+"Did you have a nice time, dear?"
+
+The girl turned a radiant face upon her mother. "Oh, we had a _lovely_
+time!" she murmured. "I--I'll tell you about it to-morrow. Is father
+home?"
+
+"Yes; he came in early to-night and went right to bed. I hope the
+telephone bell won't ring again before morning."
+
+The girl laughed softly. "You might take off the receiver," she
+suggested. "Poor daddy!"
+
+"Oh, no; I couldn't do that. Your father would never forgive me. But I
+told him not to have it on his mind; I'll watch out for it and answer
+it, and if it's Mrs. Salter again with one of her imaginary sinking
+spells I'm going to tell her the doctor won't be in before six in the
+morning. I do hope it isn't wrong to deceive that much; but your father
+isn't made of iron, whatever some people may think."
+
+The girl laughed again, a low murmur of joy. "Good-night, dear little
+mother," she said caressingly. "You are always watching and waiting for
+some one; aren't you? But you needn't have worried about _me_." She
+stooped and kissed her mother, her eyes shining like stars; then hurried
+away to hide the blush which swept her face and neck.
+
+"Dear, dear!" sighed Mrs. North, as she crept back to her couch drawn
+close to the muffled telephone, "I suppose I ought to have spoken to
+her father before this; but he is always so busy; I hardly have time to
+say two words to him. Besides, he thinks Bessie is only a child, and he
+would have laughed at me."
+
+The girl was taking off her hat and cloak in her own room. How long ago
+it seemed since she had put them on. She smoothed out her white gloves
+with caressing fingers. "I shall always keep them," she thought. She was
+still conscious of his first kisses, and looked in her glass, as if half
+expecting to see some visible token of them.
+
+"I am so happy--so happy!" she murmured to the radiant reflection which
+smiled back at her from out its shadowy depths. She leaned forward and
+touched the cold smooth surface with her lips in a sudden passion of
+gratitude for the fair, richly tinted skin, the large bright eyes with
+their long curling lashes, the masses of brown waving hair, and the
+pliant beauty of the strong young figure in the mirror.
+
+"If I had been freckled and stoop-shouldered and awkward, like Louise
+Glenny, he _couldn't_ have loved me," she was thinking.
+
+She sank to her knees after awhile and buried her face in the coverlid
+of her little bed. But she could think only of the look in his eyes when
+he had said "I love you," and of the thrilling touch of his lips on
+hers. She crept into bed and lay there in a wide-eyed rapture, while the
+village clock struck one, and after a long, blissful hour, two. Then she
+fell asleep, and did not hear the telephone bell which called her tired
+father from his bed in the dim, cold hour between three and four.
+
+She was still rosily asleep and dreaming when Mrs. North came softly
+into the room in the broad sunlight of the winter morning.
+
+"Isn't Lizzie awake yet?" inquired a brisk voice from the hall. "My,
+_my_! but girls are idle creatures nowadays!"
+
+The owner of the voice followed this dictum with a quick patter of
+softly shod feet.
+
+"I didn't like to call her, mother," apologised Mrs. North. "She came in
+late, and----"
+
+Grandmother Carroll pursed up her small, wise mouth. "I heard her," she
+said, "and that young man with her. I don't know, daughter, but what we
+ought to inquire into his prospects and character a little more
+carefully, if he's to be allowed to come here so constant. Lizzie's very
+young, and----"
+
+"Oh, grandma!" protested a drowsy voice from the pillows; "I'm twenty!"
+
+"Twenty; yes, I know you're twenty, my dear; quite old enough, I should
+say, to be out of bed before nine in the morning."
+
+"It wasn't her fault, mother; I didn't call her."
+
+The girl was gazing at the two round matronly figures at the foot of the
+bed, her laughing eyes grown suddenly serious. "I'll get up at once,"
+she said with decision, "and I'll eat bread and milk for breakfast; I
+sha'n't mind."
+
+"She's got something on her mind," whispered Mrs. North to her mother,
+as the two pattered softly downstairs.
+
+"I shouldn't wonder," responded Grandmother Carroll briskly. "Girls of
+her age are pretty likely to have, and I mistrust but what that young
+Bowser may have been putting notions into her head. I hope you'll be
+firm with her, daughter; she's much too young for anything of that
+sort."
+
+"You were married when you were eighteen, mother; and I was barely
+twenty, you know."
+
+"I was a very different girl at eighteen from what Lizzie is," Mrs.
+Carroll said warmly. "She's been brought up differently. In my time
+healthy girls didn't lie in bed till ten o'clock. Many and many's the
+time I've danced till twelve o'clock and been up in the morning at five
+'tending to my work. You indulge Lizzie too much; and if that young
+Bixler----"
+
+"His name is Brewster, mother; don't you remember? and they say he comes
+of a fine old Boston family."
+
+"Well, Brewster or Bixler; it will make no difference to Lizzie, you'll
+find. I've been watching her for more than a month back, and I'll tell
+you, daughter, when a girl like Lizzie offers to eat bread and milk for
+breakfast you can expect almost anything. Her mind is on other things.
+I'll never forget the way you ate a boiled egg for breakfast every
+morning for a week--and you couldn't bear eggs--about the time the
+doctor was getting serious. I mistrusted there was something to pay, and
+I wasn't mistaken."
+
+Mrs. North sighed vaguely. Then her tired brown eyes lighted up with a
+smile. "I had letters from both the boys this morning," she said; "don't
+you want to read them, mother? Frank has passed all his mid-year
+examinations, and Elliot says he has just made the 'varsity gym' team."
+
+"Made the _what_?"
+
+"I don't quite understand myself," acknowledged Mrs. North; "but that's
+what he said. He said he'd have his numerals to show us when he came
+home Easter."
+
+"Hum!" murmured Mrs. Carroll dubiously; "I'm sure I hope he won't break
+his neck in any foolish way. Did he say anything about his lessons?"
+
+"Not much; he never was such a student as Frank; but he'll do well,
+mother."
+
+Elizabeth North, fresh as a dewy rose and radiant with her new
+happiness, came into the room just as Mrs. Carroll folded the last sheet
+of the college letters. "I'll ask Lizzie," she said. "Lizzie, what is a
+g-y-m team?"
+
+"Oh, grandma!" protested the girl, "_please_ don't call me _Lizzie_.
+Bessie is bad enough; but _Lizzie_! I always think of that absurd old
+Mother Goose rhyme, 'Elizabeth, Lizzie, Betsey and Bess, all went
+hunting to find a bird's nest'; and, besides, you promised me you
+wouldn't."
+
+"Lizzie was a good enough name for your mother," said grandma briskly.
+"Your father courted and married her under that name, and he didn't
+mind." Her keen old eyes behind their shining glasses dwelt triumphantly
+on the girl's changing colour. "You needn't tell _me_!" she finished
+irrelevantly.
+
+But Elizabeth had possessed herself of the letters, and was already deep
+in a laughing perusal of Elliot's scrawl. "Oh, how splendid!" she cried;
+"he's made the Varsity, on his ring work, too!"
+
+"I don't pretend to understand what particular _work_ Elliot is
+referring to," observed grandma, with studied mildness. "Is it some sort
+of mathematics?"
+
+Elizabeth sprang up and flung both arms about the smiling old lady. "You
+dear little hypocritical grandma!" she said; "you know perfectly well
+that it isn't any study at all, but just gymnastic work--all sorts of
+stunts, swinging on rings and doing back and front levers and shoulder
+stands and all that sort of thing. Elliot has such magnificent muscles
+he can do anything, and better than any one else, and that's why he's on
+the varsity, you see!"
+
+"Thank you, Elizabeth," said grandma tranquilly. "I'd entirely forgotten
+that young men don't go to college now to study their lessons. My memory
+is certainly getting poor."
+
+"No, grandma dear; it isn't. You remember everything a thousand times
+better than any one else, and what is more, you know it. But of course
+Elliot studies; he has to. Mr. Brewster says he thinks Elliot is one of
+the finest boys he knows. He thinks he would make a splendid engineer.
+He admires Frank, too, immensely, and----"
+
+"What does the young man think of Elizabeth?" asked Mrs. Carroll with a
+wise smile.
+
+"He--oh, grandma; I--didn't mean to tell just yet; but he--I----"
+
+"There, there, child! Better go and find your mother. I mistrust she's
+getting you a hot breakfast." She drew the girl into her soft old arms
+and kissed her twice.
+
+Elizabeth sprang up all in a lovely flame of blushes and ran out of the
+room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+When Samuel Herrick Brewster, B.S. and Civil Engineer, late of the
+Massachusetts School of Technology, came to Innisfield for the purpose
+of joining the corps of engineers already at work on a new and improved
+system of water-works, he had not the slightest intention of falling
+seriously in love. By "seriously" Sam Brewster himself might have told
+you--as he told his married sister living in Saginaw, Mich., and
+anxiously solicitous of the young man's general well-being--that he
+meant that sort and quality of affection which would naturally and
+inevitably lead a man into matrimony. He had always been fond of the
+society of pretty and amiable women, and well used to it, too. His
+further ideas with regard to matrimony, though delightfully vague in
+their general character, were sufficiently clear-cut and decided in one
+important particular, which he had been careful to expound at length to
+those impetuous undergraduates of his fraternity who had appeared to
+need friendly counsel from their elders. "A man," said young Brewster,
+conclusively, "has no business to marry till he can feel solid ground
+under his feet. He should be thoroughly established in his profession,
+and well able to pay the shot."
+
+When this sapient young gentleman first met Elizabeth North at a picnic
+given by the leading citizens of Innisfield to celebrate the completion
+of the new aqueduct he was disposed to regard her as a very nice,
+intelligent sort of a girl, with remarkably handsome brown eyes. On the
+occasion of his third meeting with the young lady he found himself,
+rather to his surprise, telling her about his successful work in the
+"Tech," and of how he hoped to "get somewhere" in his profession some
+day. Elizabeth in her turn had confided to him her disappointment in not
+being able to go to Wellesley, and her ambitious attempts to keep up
+with Marian Evans, who was in the Sophomore year, in literature and
+music. She played Chopin's Fantasia Impromptu for him on Mrs. North's
+garrulous old piano; and as her slender fingers twinkled over the yellow
+keys he caught himself wondering how much a first-class instrument would
+cost. In the course of a month he had fallen into the habit of strolling
+home with Elizabeth after church, and twice Mrs. North, in the kindness
+of her motherly heart, had asked him to dinner. She was afraid, she told
+Grandma Carroll, that the table board at Mrs. Bentwick's was none of the
+best. She spoke of him further as "that nice, good-looking boy," and
+hoped he wouldn't be too lonely in Innisfield, away from all his
+friends.
+
+As for Dr. North, that overworked physician was seldom to be seen, being
+apparently in a chronic state of hastily and energetically climbing into
+his gig, and as energetically and hastily climbing out again. He had
+hurriedly shaken hands with young Brewster, and made him welcome to his
+house in one of the brief intervals between office hours and the
+ever-waiting gig, with its imperturbable brown horse, who appeared to
+know quite as well as the doctor where the sick were to be found. After
+that, it is fair to state, the worthy doctor had completely forgotten
+that such a person as Samuel Herrick Brewster, B.S., C.E. existed. One
+may judge therefore of his feelings when his wife chose a moment of
+relaxation between a carefully cooked dinner and an expected summons by
+telephone to acquaint him with the fact of their daughter's engagement.
+
+"_Engaged?_" exclaimed the doctor, starting out of his chair.
+"Bess--engaged! Oh, I guess not. I sha'n't allow anything of the sort;
+she's nothing but a child, and as for this young fellow--what 'd you say
+his name was? We don't know him!"
+
+"You don't, you mean, papa," his wife corrected him gently. "The rest of
+us have seen a good deal of Mr. Brewster, and I'm sure Bessie----"
+
+[Illustration: "'Oh, daddy, he's the dearest person in the world!'"]
+
+"Now, mother, what made you? I wanted to tell daddy myself. Oh, daddy,
+he's the dearest person in the world!" Then as Elizabeth caught the
+hurt, bewildered look in her father's eyes she perched on his knee in
+the old familiar fashion. "It seems sudden--to you, I know," she
+murmured; "but really it isn't, daddy; as he will tell you if he can
+ever find you at home to talk to. Why, we've known each other since last
+summer!"
+
+"I'm afraid I'm very stupid, child; but I don't believe I understand.
+You don't mean to tell me that you have been thinking of--of getting
+married and to a man I don't know even." Dr. North shook his head
+decidedly.
+
+"But you do know him, daddy; he's been here ever so many times. Of
+course"--she added with a touch of laughing malice--"he's perfectly
+well, and you seldom notice well people, even when they're in your own
+family."
+
+"I don't have time, Bess," admitted the doctor soberly, "there are too
+many of the other sort. But now about this young man--Brewster--eh? You
+have him come 'round in office hours, say, and I'll----"
+
+"Now, daddy, _please_ don't straighten out your mouth like that; it
+isn't a bit becoming. Naturally you've got the sweetest, kindest look
+in the world, and you mustn't spoil it, especially when you are talking
+about Sam."
+
+The doctor pinched his daughter's pink ear. "I'm sorry to appear such an
+ogre," he said with a touch of grimness, "but I know too much about the
+world in general, and the business of getting married in particular, to
+allow my one daughter to go into it blindly. I'll be obliged to make the
+young man's further acquaintance, Bess, before we talk about an
+engagement."
+
+The girl's scarlet lips were set in firm lines, which strongly resembled
+the paternal expression to which she had objected; she kissed her father
+dutifully. "I want you to get acquainted with him, daddy," she said
+sweetly; "but we _are_ engaged."
+
+That same afternoon Dr. North, looking worried and anxious after a
+prolonged conference with the village hypochrondriac, who had come to
+the office fully charged with symptoms of a new and distinguished
+disease lately imported from Europe, found himself face to face with a
+tall, fresh-faced young man. This new visitor came into the office
+bringing with him a breath of the wintry air and a general appearance of
+breezy health which caused the hypochondriac to look up sourly in the
+act of putting on her rubbers.
+
+"If that new medicine doesn't relieve that terrible feelin' in my
+epigastrium, doctor--an' I don't believe it's a-goin' to--I'll let you
+know," she remarked acidly. "You needn't be surprised to be called most
+any time between now an' mornin'; for, as I told Mr. Salter, I ain't
+a-goin' to suffer as I did last night for nobody."
+
+"_Good_-afternoon, Mrs. Salter," said the doctor emphatically. "Now
+then, young man, what can I do for you?"
+
+The young man in question coloured boyishly. "I shouldn't have ventured
+to call upon you during your office hours, Dr. North; but I understood
+from Elizabeth that you could be seen at no other time; so I'm here."
+
+"Elizabeth--eh? Yes, yes; I see. I--er--didn't recall your face for the
+moment. Just come into my private office for a minute or two, Mr.
+Brewster; these--er--other patients will wait a bit, I fancy."
+
+The worthy doctor handed his visitor a chair facing the light, which he
+further increased by impatiently shoving the shades to the top of the
+windows. Then he seated himself and stared keenly at the young engineer,
+who on his part bore the scrutiny with a sturdy self-possession which
+pleased the doctor in spite of himself.
+
+"Elizabeth told you of our engagement, I believe, sir?"
+
+[Illustration: "'I said to her that I couldn't and wouldn't consider an
+engagement between you at present'"]
+
+"She told me something of the sort--yes," admitted the doctor testily.
+"I said to her that I couldn't and wouldn't consider an engagement
+between you at present. Did she tell you that?"
+
+"I was told that you wished to make my further acquaintance. I should
+like, if you have the time, to tell you something about myself. You have
+the right to know."
+
+The doctor nodded frowningly. "If you expect me--at any time in the
+future, you understand--to give you my only daughter, I certainly am
+entitled to know--everything."
+
+The young man looked the doctor squarely in the eyes during the longish
+pause that followed. "There isn't much to tell," he said. "My father and
+mother are dead. I have one sister, older than I, married to one of the
+best fellows in the world and living West. I made my home with them till
+I came to the Tech. You can ask any of the professors there about me.
+They'll tell you that I worked. I graduated a year ago last June. Since
+then I've been at work at my profession. I'm getting twelve hundred a
+year now; but----"
+
+"Stop right there. Why did you ask my girl to marry you?"
+
+"Because I loved her."
+
+"Hum! And she--er--fancies that she loves you--eh?"
+
+A dark flush swept over Samuel Brewster's ingenuous young face. "She
+does love me," was all he said. But he said it in a tone which suddenly
+brought back the older man's vanished youth.
+
+There was a short silence; then the doctor arose so abruptly that he
+nearly upset his chair. "_Well_," he said, "I've got to go to Boston
+to-morrow on a case, and I'll see those professors of yours, for one
+thing; I know Collins well. Not that he or anybody else can tell me all
+about you--not by a long shot; I know boys and young men well enough for
+that. But you see, sir, I--love my girl too, and I--I'll say
+_good_-afternoon, sir."
+
+He threw the door wide with an impatient hand. "Ah, Mrs. Tewksbury;
+you're next, I believe. Walk right in."
+
+An hour later, when the door had finally closed on his last patient, Dr.
+North sat still in his chair, apparently lost in thought. His dinner was
+waiting, he knew, and a round of visits must be made immediately
+thereafter, yet he did not stir. He was thinking, curiously enough, of
+the time when his daughter Elizabeth was a baby. What a round, pink
+little face she had, to be sure, and what a strong, healthy, plump
+little body. He could almost hear the unsteady feet toddling across the
+breadth of dingy oilcloth which carpeted his office floor. "Daddy,
+daddy!" her sweet, imperious voice was crying, "I'm tomin' to see you,
+daddy!"
+
+His eyes were wet when he finally stumbled to his feet. Then suddenly he
+felt a pair of warm arms about his neck, and a dozen butterfly kisses
+dropped on his cheeks, his hair, his forehead. "Daddy, dear, he came;
+didn't he? I saw him go away. I hope you weren't--cruel to him, oh,
+daddy!"
+
+"No, daughter; I wasn't exactly cruel to him. But didn't the young man
+stop to talk it over with you?"
+
+"No, daddy; I thought he would of course; but he just waved his hand for
+good-bye, and I--was frightened for fear----"
+
+"Didn't stop to talk it over--eh? Say, I like that! To tell you the
+truth, Bess, I--rather like him. Good, clear, steady eyes; good all
+'round constitution, I should say; and if--Oh, come, come, child; we'd
+better be getting in to dinner or your mother will be anxious. But I
+want you to understand, miss, that your old daddy has no notion of
+playing second fiddle to any youngster's first, however tall and
+good-looking he may be."
+
+And singularly enough, Elizabeth appeared to be perfectly satisfied with
+this paternal dictum. "I knew you'd like him," she said, slipping her
+small hand into her father's big one, in the little girl fashion she had
+never lost. "Why, daddy, he's the best man I ever knew--except you, of
+course. He told me"--the girl's voice dropped to an awed whisper--"that
+he promised his mother when she was dying that he would never do a mean
+or dishonest thing. And--and he says, daddy, that whenever he has been
+tempted to do wrong he has felt his mother's eyes looking at him, so
+that he couldn't. Anybody would know he was good just from seeing him."
+
+"Hum! Well, well, that may be so. I'll talk to Collins and see what he
+has to say. Collins is a man of very good judgment; I value his opinion
+highly."
+
+"Don't you value mine, daddy?" asked Elizabeth, with an irresistible
+dimple appearing and disappearing at the corner of her mouth.
+
+"On some subjects, my dear," replied the doctor soberly; "but--er--on
+this particular one I fancy you may be slightly prejudiced."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+The question of "wherewithal shall we be clothed," which has vexed the
+world since its beginning in the garden "planted eastward in Eden,"
+confronts the children of Eve so persistently at every serious crisis of
+life that one is forced to the conclusion that clothes sustain a very
+real and vital relation to destiny. Even Solomon in all his glory must
+earnestly have considered the colour and texture of his famous robes of
+state when he was making ready to dazzle the eyes of the Queen of Sheba,
+and the Jewish Esther's royal apparel and Joseph's coat of many colours
+played important parts in the history of a nation.
+
+Elizabeth North had been engaged to be married to Samuel Brewster
+exactly a fortnight when the age-long question presented itself to her
+attention. It was perhaps inevitable that she should have thought
+speculatively of her wedding gown; what girl would not? But in the
+sweet amaze of her new and surprising happiness she might have gone on
+wearing her simple girlish frocks quite unaware of its relation to her
+wardrobe. She owed her awakening to Miss Evelyn Tripp.
+
+Elizabeth had known Evelyn Tripp in a distant fashion suited to the
+great gulf which appeared to exist between the fashionable lady from
+Boston, who was in the habit of paying semi-annual visits to Innisfield,
+and the young daughter of the country doctor. She had always regarded
+Miss Tripp as the epitome of all possible elegance, and vaguely
+associated her with undreamed-of festivities and privileges peculiar to
+the remote circles in which she moved when absent from Innisfield.
+
+Miss Tripp explained her presence in the quiet village after one formula
+which had grown familiar to every one. "I was _completely_ worn out, my
+dear; I've just run away from a perfect whirl of receptions, teas,
+luncheons and musicales; really, I was _on the verge_ of a nervous
+breakdown when my physician simply _insisted_ upon my leaving it all. I
+_do_ find dear, quiet Innisfield so _relaxing_ after the social strain."
+
+Miss Tripp's heavily italicised remarks were invariably accompanied by
+uplifted eyebrows, and a sweetly serious expression, alternating with
+flashing glimpses of very white teeth, and further accented by
+numberless little movements of her hands and shoulders which suggested
+deeper meanings than her words often conveyed.
+
+Ill-natured people, such as Mrs. Buckthorn and Electa Pratt, declared
+that Evelyn Tripp was thirty-five if she was a day, though she dressed
+like sixteen; and furthermore that her social popularity in Boston was a
+figment of her own vivid imagination. Elizabeth North, however, had
+always admired her almost reverently, in the shy, distant fashion of the
+young, country-bred girl.
+
+Miss Tripp was unquestionably elegant, and her smart gowns and the large
+picture hats she affected had created quite their usual sensation in
+Innisfield, where the slow-spreading ripples of fashion were viewed
+with a certain stern disfavour as being linked in some vague manner with
+irreligion of a dangerous sort. "She's too stylish to be good for much,"
+being the excellent Mrs. Buckthorn's severe corollary.
+
+Miss Tripp had been among the first to press friendly congratulations
+upon young Brewster, who on his part received them with the engaging
+awkwardness of the unaccustomed bachelor.
+
+"You are certainly the _most_ fortunate of men to have won that sweet,
+simple Elizabeth North! I've known her since she was quite a
+child--since we were both children, in fact, and she was always the same
+unspoiled, unaffected girl, so different from the young women one meets
+in society circles."
+
+"She's all of that," quoth the fortunate engineer, vaguely aware of a
+lack of flavour in Miss Tripp's encomium, "and--er--more."
+
+Whereat Miss Tripp laughed archly and playfully shook a daintily gloved
+finger at him. "I can see that you think no one is capable of
+appreciating your prize; but I assure you _I do_! You shall see!" This
+last was a favourite phrase, and conveyed quite an alluring sense of
+mystery linked with vague promise of unstinted benevolences on the part
+of Miss Tripp. "Do you know," she added seriously, "I am told that you
+are closely related to Mrs. J. Mortimer Van Duser. She is a wonderful
+woman, so prominent in the best circles and interested in so many
+important charities."
+
+Samuel Brewster shook his head. "The relationship is hardly worth
+mentioning," he said. "Mrs. Van Duser was a distant relative of my
+mother's."
+
+"But of course you see a great deal of her when you are in Boston; do
+you not?" persisted the lady.
+
+"I dined there once," acknowledged the young man, vaguely uneasy and
+rather too obviously anxious to make his escape, "but I dare say she has
+forgotten my existence by this time. Mrs. Van Duser is, as you say, a
+very--er--active woman."
+
+On the following day Elizabeth North encountered Miss Tripp on the
+street. She was about to pass her after a shy salutation, when Miss
+Tripp held out both hands in a pretty, impulsive gesture. "I was just on
+my way to see you, dear; but if you are going out, of course I'll wait
+till another day. My dear, he's _simply_ perfect! and I really
+_couldn't_ wait to tell you so. Do tell me when you are to be married?
+In June, I hope, for then I shall be here to help."
+
+Elizabeth blushed prettily, her shy gaze taking in the details of Miss
+Tripp's modish costume. She was wondering if a jacket made like the one
+Miss Tripp was wearing would be becoming. "I--we haven't thought so far
+ahead as that," she said. Then with a sudden access of her new dignity.
+"Mr. Brewster expects to return to Boston in the spring. The work here
+will be finished by that time."
+
+Miss Tripp's eyes brightened with a speculative gleam. "Oh, then you
+will live in _Boston_! How _delighted_ I am to hear _that_! Did you
+know your _fiancé_ is related to Mrs. Mortimer Van Duser? and that he
+has _dined_ there? _You didn't?_ But of course you must have heard of
+Mrs. Van Duser; I believe your minister's wife is a relative of hers.
+But Mrs. Van Duser doesn't approve of Mrs. Pettibone, I'm told; her
+opinions are so odd. But I _am_ so glad for you, my dear; if everything
+is managed properly you will have an _entrée_ to the most exclusive
+circles." Miss Tripp's eyebrows and shoulders expressed such unfeigned
+interest and delight in her prospects that Elizabeth beamed and smiled
+in her turn. She wished confusedly that Miss Tripp would not talk to her
+about her engagement; it was too sacred, too wonderful a thing to
+discuss on the street with a mere acquaintance like Miss Tripp. Yet all
+the while she was rosily conscious of her new ring, which she could feel
+under her glove, and a childish desire to uncover its astonishing
+brilliancy before such warmly appreciative eyes presently overcame her
+desire to escape. "Won't you walk home with me?" she asked; "mother will
+be so glad to see you."
+
+"Oh, _thank_ you! Indeed I was coming to condole with your dear mother
+and to wish you all sorts of happiness. I've so often spoken of you to
+my friends in Boston."
+
+Elizabeth wondered what Miss Tripp could possibly have said about her to
+her friends in Boston. But she was assured by Miss Tripp's brilliant
+smile that it had been something agreeable. When she came into the room
+after removing her hat and cloak she found her mother deep in
+conversation with the visitor, who made room for her on the sofa with a
+smile and a graceful tilt of her plumed head.
+
+"We've been talking about you every minute, dear child. You'll see what
+a _sweet_ wedding you'll have. Everything must be of the very latest;
+and it isn't a minute too soon to begin on your trousseau. You really
+ought to have everything hand-embroidered, you know; those flimsy laces
+and machine-made edges are so common, you won't _think_ of them; and
+they don't wear a bit well, either."
+
+Mrs. North glanced appealingly at her daughter. "Oh," she said, in a
+bewildered tone, "I guess Elizabeth isn't intending to be married for a
+long, long time yet; I--we can't spare her."
+
+Miss Tripp laughed airily. "_Poor_ mamma," she murmured with a look of
+deep sympathy, "it _is_ too bad; isn't it? But, really, I'm sure you're
+to be congratulated on your future son-in-law. He belongs to a _very_
+aristocratic family--Mrs. Mortimer Van Duser is a relative, you know;
+and dear Betty must have everything _suitable_. I'll do some pretty
+things, dear; I'd love to, and I'll begin this very day, though the
+doctor has absolutely forbidden me to use my eyes; but I simply can't
+resist the temptation."
+
+Then she had exclaimed over the sparkle of Elizabeth's modest diamond,
+which caught her eyes at the moment, and presently in a perfumed rush of
+silken skirts and laces and soft furs Miss Tripp swept away, chatting to
+the outermost verge of the frosty air in her sweet-toned drawling voice,
+so different from the harsh nasal accents familiar to Innisfield ears.
+
+Elizabeth drew a deep breath as she watched the slim, erect figure move
+lightly away. She felt somehow very ignorant and countrified and totally
+unfit for her high destiny as a member of Boston's select circles. As a
+result of these unwonted stirrings in her young heart she went up to her
+room and began to look over her wardrobe with growing dissatisfaction.
+
+Her mother hearing the sound of opening and shutting drawers came into
+the room and stood looking on with what appeared to the girl a
+provokingly indifferent expression on her plump middle-aged face.
+
+"It is really too soon to begin worrying about wedding clothes, Bessie,"
+observed Mrs. North with a show of maternal authority. "Of
+course"--after a doubtful silence--"we might begin to make up some new
+underclothes. I've a good firm piece of cotton in the house, and we can
+buy some edges."
+
+The girl suddenly faced her mother, her pink lips thrust forward in an
+unbecoming pout. "Why, mother," she said, "don't you know people don't
+wear things made out of common cotton cloth now; everything has to be as
+fine and delicate as a cobweb almost, and--hand-embroidered. You can
+make them or buy them in the stores. Marian had some lovely things when
+she went to college. All the girls wear them--except me. Of course I've
+never had anything of the sort; but I suppose I'll have to now!"
+
+She shut her bureau drawer with an air of finality and leaned her
+puckered forehead upon her hand while the new diamond flashed its blue
+and white fires into her mother's perplexed eyes.
+
+"We'll do the very best we can, dear," Mrs. North said after a
+lengthening pause; "but your father's patients don't pay their bills
+very promptly, and there are the boys' college expenses to be met; we'll
+have to think of that."
+
+This conversation marked the beginning of many interviews, gradually
+increasing in poignant interest to both mother and daughter. It appeared
+that "Sam," as Elizabeth now called her lover with a pretty hesitancy
+which the young man found adorable, wished to be married in June, so as
+to take his bride with him on a trip West, in which business and
+pleasure might be profitably combined.
+
+Mrs. North demurred weakly; but Dr. North was found to be on the side of
+the young man. "I don't believe in long engagements myself," he had
+said, with a certain suspicious gruffness in his tones. "I hoped we
+should have our daughter to ourselves for a while longer; but she's
+chosen otherwise, and there is no use and no need to wait. We'll have to
+let her go, wife, and the sooner the better, for both of them."
+
+The important question being thus finally decided, not only Miss Tripp
+but the Norths' whole circle of acquaintances in Innisfield, as well as
+the female relations, near and far, were found ready and anxious to
+engage heart and soul in Elizabeth's preparations for her wedding, which
+had now begun in what might be well termed solemn earnest.
+
+"Are we going to--keep house?" Elizabeth asked her lover in the first
+inrush of this new tide of experience which was soon to bear her far
+from the old life.
+
+"To keep house, dear, with you would be pretty close to my idea of
+heaven," the young man had declared with all the fervour of the
+inexperienced bachelor. "I've boarded for nearly six years now with
+barely a taste of home between whiles, and I'm tired of it. Don't you
+want to keep house, dear?"
+
+And Elizabeth answered quite sweetly and truly that she did. "I can
+cook," she said, proud of her old-fashioned accomplishment in the light
+of her new happiness. "We will have just a little house to begin with,
+and then I can do everything."
+
+But a suitable house of any size in Boston was found to be quite out of
+the question. "It will have to be an apartment, my dear," the
+experienced Miss Tripp declared; "and I believe I know the very one in a
+_really good_ neighbourhood. I'll write at once. You mustn't _think_ of
+South Boston, even if it is more convenient for Mr. Brewster. It is so
+important to begin right; and you know, my dear, you couldn't expect any
+one to come to see you in South Boston."
+
+Mrs. Carroll, who chanced to be present, was observed to compress her
+lips firmly. "Lizzie," she said, when the fashionable Miss Tripp had
+finally taken her departure, after much voluble advice on the subject of
+the going-away gown, coupled with a spirited discussion of the rival
+merits of a church wedding and "just a pretty, simple home affair," "if
+I were you I shouldn't let that Evelina Kipp decide everything for me.
+You'd better make up your mind what you want to do, and what you can
+afford to do, and then do it without asking her leave. It seems to me
+her notions are extravagant and foolish."
+
+"Why, grandma!" pouted Elizabeth. "I think it is perfectly dear of Miss
+Tripp to take such an interest in my wedding. I shouldn't have known
+what to do about lots of things, and I'm sure you and mother haven't an
+idea." The girl's pretty lips curled and she moved her slim shoulders
+gently.
+
+"Your mother and I both managed to get married without Miss Fripp's
+advice," retorted grandma tranquilly. "I may not have an 'idea,' as you
+call it, but I can't see why you should have ruffled silk petticoats to
+all your dresses. One good moreen skirt did me, with a quilted alpaca
+for every-day wear and two white ones for best. And as for a dozen sets
+of underclothes, that won't wear once they see the washtub, they look
+foolish to me. More than all that, your father can't afford it, and you
+ought to consider him."
+
+Elizabeth looked up with a worried pucker between her girlish brows. "I
+don't see how I am going to help it, grandma," she sighed; "I really
+must have suitable clothes."
+
+"I agree with you there, Lizzie," said Mrs. Carroll, eyeing her
+granddaughter keenly over the top of her spectacles; "but you aren't
+going to have them, if you let that Sipp girl tell you what to buy."
+
+"It isn't _Sipp_, grandma, it's Tripp. T-r-i-p-p," said Elizabeth, in a
+long-suffering tone; "and she knows better than any one in Innisfield
+possibly can what I am going to need in Boston."
+
+"You'll find the people in Boston won't take any particular interest in
+your petticoats, Lizzie," her grandmother told her pointedly. But the
+girl had spied her lover coming up the walk toward the house and had
+flown to meet him.
+
+"What's the matter, sweetheart?" asked the young man, examining his
+treasure with the keen eyes of love. "You look tired and--er--worried.
+Anything wrong, little girl?"
+
+"N-no," denied Elizabeth evasively. "Only grandma has such queer,
+old-fashioned ideas about--clothes. And she thinks I ought to have just
+what she had when she was married to grandfather fifty years ago. Of
+course I want to have everything nice and--suitable for Boston, you
+know."
+
+"What you are wearing now is pretty enough for anywhere," declared Sam
+Brewster, with masculine obtuseness. "Don't you bother one minute about
+clothes, darling; you'd look lovely in anything."
+
+Then he kissed her faintly smiling lips with the fatuous idea that the
+final word as to wedding finery had been said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+"If you can give me just a minute, Richard, before you go out." It was
+Mrs. North's timidly apologetic voice which broke in upon her husband's
+hasty preparations for a day's professional engagements.
+
+Dr. North faced about with a laughing twinkle in his eyes. "I know your
+minutes, Lizzie," he said, absent-mindedly sniffling at the cork of a
+half-emptied bottle. "This gentian's no good; I've a mind to ship it
+back to Avery's and tell them what I think of the firm for selling
+adulterated drugs. It's an outrage on suffering humanity. I'll write to
+them anyway." And he began to rummage his desk in quest of stationery.
+
+"I wanted to speak to you about Bessie's things," persisted Mrs. North.
+"You know you gave me some money for her wedding clothes last month; but
+it isn't--it won't be nearly enough."
+
+"What on earth have you been buying for the child?" asked her husband.
+"I should think with what she has already the money I gave you would go
+quite a ways."
+
+"That's just it," sighed Mrs. North. "Bessie thinks none of the things
+she has are--suitable." She hesitated a little over the hard-worked
+word. "Of course living in Boston, and----"
+
+"Pooh! Boston's no different from any other town," put in the doctor.
+"You tell Bess I said so. She doesn't need to worry about _Boston_!" He
+plumped down in his office chair and began an indignant protest
+addressed to the firm of Avery & Co., Wholesale Druggists and Dealers in
+Surgical Supplies.
+
+"I haven't bought any of her best dresses yet," sighed Mrs. North; "and
+she wants an all-over lace for her wedding dress. Miss Tripp says
+they're very much worn now."
+
+She paused suggestively while the doctor's pen raced busily over his
+page.
+
+"You didn't hear what I said, did you, Richard?" she ventured after a
+while.
+
+"Yes, m' dear; heard every word; you were saying you'd bought Bess a
+lace wedding dress, and that Miss Tripp says they're very much worn,"
+replied her husband, fixing on a stamp with a sounding thump of his big
+fist. "Glad to hear it. Well, I'll have to be moving now. Good-bye, m'
+dear; home to dinner if I can; if not----"
+
+"If you could let me have two hundred and fifty dollars, Richard," said
+Mrs. North rather faintly, "we'll try to manage with that for the
+present."
+
+"Well, now, Lizzie, when it comes to your wanting anything I always get
+it for you--if I can; and you know that; but I sent off cheques to Frank
+and Elliot this morning, and I'm what you'd call strapped."
+
+"Couldn't you collect----"
+
+The doctor kissed his wife cheerfully. "How can I, wifey, when folks
+leave their doctor's bills till the last cent's paid to everybody else?
+Don't know as I blame 'em; it's hard enough to be sick without having to
+pay out money for it; now, isn't it?"
+
+"Oh, Dick; if that isn't just like you! But I--I've thought of a way."
+
+"Good! What is it?"
+
+"We might--borrow some money on the house. Other people do, and----"
+
+"Mortgage our house for wedding finery? I guess you're joking, Lizzie.
+At any rate, I'll call it a joke and let it pass! Good-bye!" The quick
+slam of the office door put a conclusive finish to the doctor's words,
+and his wife went back to her work on one of Elizabeth's elaborate
+garments with a heavy heart.
+
+"What did Richard say?" Grandma Carroll wanted to know, when the girl
+had gone into another room to be fitted.
+
+"He said he couldn't possibly let me have anything more just now," said
+Richard's wife with a shade of reserve in her voice. "You know, mother,
+people are so slow in paying their bills. The doctor has any amount
+outstanding if he could only get it."
+
+"Such folks had ought to be made to pay before they get 'ary a pill or a
+powder, same 's they do for what made 'em sick. They'd find money for
+the doctor quick enough once they had a right sharp pain from
+over-eating," was grandma's trenchant opinion. "But I expected he'd say
+that all along, and I wanted to give you this for Lizzie."
+
+She slipped a little roll of bills into her daughter's lap. "Don't say
+anything to the child about it," she whispered, nodding her kind old
+head; "it would worry her. Besides I don't approve of the amount of
+money she's putting into perishable things. I meant to buy her a real
+good clock or a nice solid piece of furniture; but if she'd rather have
+lace frills that'll fall to pieces in the washtub, I'm willing she
+should learn by experience, same 's we've had to do before her."
+
+Mrs. North's eyes were moist and shining. "It's what you've been putting
+by for years, mother," she whispered, "for----"
+
+"Hush!" said grandma. "I guess when it comes right down to it I'm full
+as foolish as Lizzie. Once I set foot in the golden streets I know I
+sha'n't mind whether I leave a marble monument in the cemetery or not;
+and you don't need to either, daughter. Now remember!"
+
+Upon this hushed conversation entered Elizabeth in a flutter of
+excitement and rosy pleasure over a letter which the postman had just
+handed her. "It is from Evelyn Tripp," she said, "and she wants me to
+come to Boston and stay a week with her; she says she will help me pick
+out all my dresses, and I'd better have my wedding dress and my
+going-away gown made there, anyway. Isn't that lovely?"
+
+Then, as she met her mother's dubious gaze, "You know Malvina Bennett
+hasn't a particle of style; and we don't know anything about the best
+places to buy things in Boston; or the dressmakers, or anything."
+
+"I've shopped in Boston for years," said Mrs. North, with a show of
+firmness, "and I'm sure everything at Cooper's gives perfect
+satisfaction."
+
+"Oh, _Cooper's_?" laughed the girl. "Why, mother, _dear_, nobody goes to
+Cooper's nowadays. It's just for country people from out of town."
+
+"What are we, I'd like to know?" Grandma Carroll wanted to know, with a
+humorous twinkle in her shrewd eyes. "I shouldn't wonder if you'd better
+do your shopping with your mother, Lizzie; her judgment would likely be
+quite as good as that Tipp girl's, and more in a line with what you can
+afford. You should remember that Samuel isn't a rich man, and you'll
+need good, substantial dresses that'll last. I remember I had a blue
+Russell-cord poplin when I was married that I wore for _fifteen years_;
+then I made it over for your mother, and she looked as pretty as a pink
+in it for two more; then she outgrew it and I gave it away; but the
+cloth in it was as good as new. A dress like that _pays_!"
+
+Elizabeth laughed somewhat impatiently. "I've heard about that wonderful
+poplin ever since I can remember," she said. "I wonder you didn't save
+it for me. But I don't want to buy any dresses that will last for
+fifteen years. I'm sure Sam can buy me more dresses when I want them. I
+may go to Boston; mayn't I, mother?"
+
+Mrs. North looked wistfully at the pretty, eager face. She had looked
+forward with pleasure--somewhat tempered, it is true, by the knowledge
+of her meagre resources, yet still with pleasure--to the choosing of her
+daughter's wedding gown, with all its dainty accessories of tulle and
+lace. "I had thought of a silk muslin," she said rather faintly, "or
+perhaps a cream satin--if you'd like it better, dear, and----"
+
+"I shouldn't like either of those," said the girl decidedly, "and
+there's so much to do that it will really save time if you don't have to
+bother with any of that; Evelyn (it was Evelyn and Elizabeth now) says
+chiffon over liberty satin would be lovely if I can't afford the lace.
+Of course I wouldn't buy a _cheap lace_."
+
+That night when Dr. North came home he tossed a handful of bills into
+his daughter's lap. "For the wedding gown, Bess," he said; "worse luck
+that you want one!"
+
+"Oh, why do you say that, you darling daddy?" murmured the girl, "when
+I'm going to be so happy!" She was radiantly happy now, it appeared,
+and the doctor's keen eyes grew moist as he looked at her.
+
+"Guess I was thinking about myself principally," he confessed gruffly,
+"and about your mother. We're going to be lonesome; and I--don't like to
+think of it."
+
+The girl's bright face clouded. "The boys will be at home summers," she
+said, "and I'll come back to--visit often, you know. I sha'n't be far
+away, daddy." She clung to him for a minute without a word, a faint
+realisation of the irrevocable change so near at hand sweeping over her.
+
+"Of course you _will_, Betsey Jane!" vociferated the doctor, affecting a
+vast jocularity for the purpose of concealing his feelings, which
+threatened to become unmanageable. "If you don't show up in Innisfield
+about once in so often I'll come to Boston with my bag and give that
+young robber a dose that will make his hair curl."
+
+The next day the bride-elect journeyed to Boston carrying what appeared
+to her a small fortune in her little hand-bag. "You've all been so
+good!" she said. "I can just buy everything I need with all this."
+
+Evelyn Tripp met Elizabeth in South Station with open arms. "How well
+you are looking, you _darling_!" she exclaimed effusively. "Now if we
+can only keep those roses through all the shopping and dressmaking. It
+is so exhausting; but I've everything planned for you down to the last
+frill, and Madame Pryse has at last consented to make your gowns! If you
+_knew_ what I've been through with that woman! She simply will _not_
+take a new customer; but when I mentioned the fact that you were to
+marry a nephew of Mrs. Mortimer Van Duser she _finally_ capitulated. I
+could have _embraced_ her!"
+
+"But Sam isn't Mrs. Van Duser's nephew, Evelyn. I believe his mother was
+Mrs. Van Duser's second cousin."
+
+"Oh, well, that doesn't signify. I'm sure, I had to say something
+convincing, and Mrs. Van Duser was my _dernier resort_. Pryse will do
+anything for you now, you'll see, my dear! And, oh, Betty dear, when I
+was in at Altford's yesterday I just chanced upon the most _wonderful_
+bargain in a lace robe, and had it sent up on approval. The most
+exquisite thing, and marked down from a hundred and twenty-seven dollars
+to--what do you think?--only eighty-nine, fifty! I was _so_ pleased; for
+I am sure it is _just_ what you want. I got samples, too, of the most
+bewitching silks for your dinner gown--you must have at least _one_, you
+know, a simple, pretty crêpe de chine or something of the sort; and then
+with a little frock or two for luncheons and card parties, your
+tailor-made--that _must_ be _good_--and your wedding gown for evening
+affairs you will do nicely."
+
+"But, Evelyn," interrupted Elizabeth timidly, "I'm afraid I can't-- You
+know I didn't expect to buy but two dresses in Boston. Malvina Bennett
+is making me a black silk, and----"
+
+Miss Tripp paused to smile and bow at a passing acquaintance; then she
+turned protesting eyes upon the girl. "You _dear_ child," she murmured,
+"you're not to worry about a _single_ thing. That's _just_ what I mean
+to spare you. I am determined you shall have just what you are going to
+_need_; and if you haven't enough money with you, I can arrange
+everything at Altford's without a bit of trouble; and of course you will
+pay Pryse _her_ bill when it is _perfectly_ convenient for _you_. She
+doesn't _expect_ to be paid promptly. Really, I don't believe she would
+have a particle of respect for a patron who insisted upon paying for a
+gown the minute it was finished. First-class modistes and milliners,
+too, are _all_ that way; they know better than to send their bills too
+soon. So _that_ needn't bother you, dear; and of course Pryse _finds_
+everything, which will save enormously on your outlay."
+
+Elizabeth felt very meek and hopelessly countrified as she laid off her
+wraps in Miss Tripp's rather stuffy but ornate little apartment. Mrs.
+Tripp, a faded, apologetic person smelling of rice-powder and sachet,
+smiled vaguely upon her and murmured something about "Evy's wonderful
+taste!"
+
+One thing at least was clear to Elizabeth as she lay wide-eyed in the
+darkness that night, after an evening spent in the confusing examination
+and comparison of fashion-plates and samples, and that was the
+conviction that the "fortune" with which she had joyfully set forth that
+morning had dwindled to a pitiful insufficiency before the multiplied
+necessities imposed upon it by Miss Tripp's undeniable taste and
+knowledge.
+
+She almost wished she had chosen to do her shopping with her mother and
+Grandma Carroll, as she realised that she would be obliged to write home
+for more money. But it was too late to change her mind now; and, after
+all, Evelyn knew best as to what a bride about to move in polite circles
+in Boston would require. She went to sleep at last and dreamed of
+standing up to be married in a Russell-cord poplin (whatever that
+wonderful fabric might be) which had already done duty for fifteen
+years, and was "as good as new."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+As the twenty-first day of June drew on apace, Fate, in the slim, active
+personality of Miss Evelyn Tripp, appeared to have taken the entire
+North household firmly in hand. Events marched on in orderly, if
+surprising sequence, beginning with the issuing of the invitations
+bearing the name of Boston's most expensive firm of engravers on the
+flap of the inner envelope.
+
+"Every one looks for that the very first thing," Miss Tripp had
+announced conclusively; "and one simply _couldn't_ have the name of a
+department store or a cheap engraver!" The correct Miss Tripp shuddered
+at the awful picture.
+
+"But these are so much more expensive than I had expected," demurred
+Mrs. North, with a worried sigh. "I had intended ordering them at
+Cooper's; they do them just as well there. Don't they sometimes leave
+off the name?"
+
+Miss Tripp bestowed a pitying smile upon the questioner. "Indeed they
+do, dear Mrs. North," she replied indulgently; "but _that_ is merely a
+subterfuge; one always suspects the worst when there is no name. It
+_pays_ to have the _best_."
+
+This latter undeniable dictum was found to be entirely applicable to
+every detail of the forthcoming festivities, and involved such a
+multiplicity of expensive items that Grandma Carroll was openly
+indignant, and her more pliant daughter reduced to a state of bewildered
+apathy.
+
+"I've been wanting to say to you for a long time, Miss Phipps, that our
+Lizzie isn't a fashionable girl, and that her father is a poor man and
+can't afford such doings," Mrs. Carroll protested in no uncertain tones.
+"Now I can't for the life of me see why we should have an organist from
+Boston to play the wedding march, when Liddy Green can do it just as
+well, and her feelings is going to be hurt if she doesn't; and as for a
+florist from Newton Centre to decorate the church, the young folks in
+the Sunday-school would be glad to go to the woods after greens, and
+they'll put 'em up for nothing. It's going to cost enough, the land
+knows, but there's no use of piling up unnecessary expenses."
+
+Miss Tripp smiled winningly upon the exasperated old lady. "_Nothing_ is
+too good for dear Elizabeth _now_," she murmured, "and you know, dear
+Mrs. Carroll, that a number of Boston people will be here--Mrs. Van
+Duser, we _hope_, and--others."
+
+Grandma Carroll fixed piercing eyes upon the indefatigable Evelyn. "Of
+course you _mean_ well," she said crisply; "but if I was you I'd take a
+rest; I'm afraid you're getting all tuckered out doing so much. And
+considering that you ain't any relation I guess I'd let Lizzie's own
+folks 'tend to the wedding from now on."
+
+There was no mistaking the meaning of this plain speech. For an instant
+Evelyn Tripp's faded cheeks glowed with mortified colour; then she
+recovered herself with a shrug of her elegant shoulders. Who, after all,
+was Mrs. Carroll to interfere in this unwarranted manner?
+
+"It is _so_ sweet of you to think of poor little me, dear Mrs. Carroll,"
+she said caressingly. "And indeed I _am_ worn _almost_ to a fringe; but
+I am promising myself a good, long rest after everything is over.
+Nothing would induce me to leave dear Elizabeth _now_. She couldn't
+possibly get along without me." She dropped a forgiving kiss on top of
+Grandma Carroll's cap and flitted away before that justly indignant lady
+could reply.
+
+Miss Tripp was right. It would have been impossible for the
+unsophisticated Norths to have completed the arrangements for the
+entirely "correct" wedding which Miss Tripp had planned and was carrying
+through in the face of unnumbered obstacles. As to the motives which
+upheld her in her altruistic efforts in behalf of Elizabeth North Miss
+Tripp was not entirely clear. It is not always desirable, if possible,
+to classify and label one's actual motives, and Miss Tripp, for one,
+rarely attempted the task. A vague emptiness of purpose, a vast
+weariness of the unending routine of her own somewhat disappointing
+career, a real, if superficial kindness of heart, and back of all an
+entirely unacknowledged ambition to attain to that sacred inner circle
+of Boston society wherein revolved the august Mrs. Mortimer Van Duser,
+with other lesser luminaries, about the acknowledged "hub" of the
+universe; toward which Miss Tripp had hitherto gravitated like a humble
+asteroid, small, unnoticed, yet aspiring. One of the irreproachable
+invitations had been duly sent to Mrs. Van Duser; but as yet there had
+been no visible token that it had been received.
+
+"_Won't_ you ask Mr. Brewster if he will not add a personal invitation?"
+entreated Miss Tripp of the bride-elect, who had appeared alarmingly
+indifferent when the importance of this hoped-for guest was duly set
+forth in her hearing. "You don't seem to _realise_ what it would mean to
+you both to have Mrs. Van Duser present. Let me persuade him to
+write--or perhaps better to call; one cannot be _too_ attentive to a
+person in her position."
+
+But Sam Brewster had merely laughed and pulled the little curl behind
+his sweetheart's ear when she spoke of Mrs. Van Duser. "Really, I don't
+care whether the old lady comes or not," he said, without meaning any
+disrespect. "She's a stiff, uncomfortable sort of person; you wouldn't
+like her, Betty. I went there to dinner once, and, my word, it was
+enough for me!"
+
+"But," persisted Elizabeth, mindful of Miss Tripp's solemn exhortations,
+"if she's a relation of yours, oughtn't you to----"
+
+"She was mother's second cousin, I believe; not much of a relation to
+me, you see. And seriously, little girl, we can't travel in her class at
+all; and we don't want to, even if we could."
+
+"But why?" demanded Elizabeth, slightly piqued by his tone; "don't you
+think I am good enough?"
+
+"You're a hundred times too good, in my opinion!" And the young engineer
+kissed the pouting lips with an earnestness which admitted of no teasing
+doubts. "It's only that Mrs. Van D. is rich and proud and--er--queer,
+and that she won't take any notice of us. I'm glad you sent her an
+invitation, though; that was a civil acknowledgment of a slight
+obligation on my side. I hope she won't send us a present, and--I don't
+believe she will."
+
+The two were examining the bewildering array of glittering objects which
+had been arriving steadily for a week past, by mail and express; in
+cases left by Boston firms, and in dainty boxes tied with white ribbons
+from near-by friends and neighbours. The nebulous reports of Elizabeth's
+wedding outfit, circulated from mouth to mouth and expanding in rainbow
+tints as they travelled, were reflected in the shining cut glass and
+silver which was spread out before the wondering eyes of the young
+couple.
+
+When Aunt Miranda Carroll heard that Elizabeth's trousseau included a
+dozen of everything (all hand-embroidered), a lace wedding-dress that
+cost over a hundred dollars and a pale blue velvet dinner gown lined
+with taffeta, she instantly abandoned the idea she had in mind of four
+dozen fine cotton sheets, six dozen pillow-slips and fifty good,
+substantial huck towels in favour of a cut-glass punch-bowl of gigantic
+proportions. "It would be just the thing for parties in Boston," her
+daughter Marian thought.
+
+And Uncle Caleb North, at the urgent advice of his wife (who had heard
+in the meantime from Aunt Miranda), exchanged his cheque for a hundred
+dollars for a chest of silver knives with mother-of-pearl handles. They
+looked so much richer than the cheque, which would have to be concealed
+in an inconspicuous envelope. Following the shining example of Aunt
+Miranda and Uncle Caleb, other relatives of lesser substance contributed
+cut-glass bowls and dishes of every conceivable design and for every
+known contingency; silver forks and spoons of singular shapes and sizes,
+suggesting elaborate course luncheons and fashionable dinners. While of
+lace-trimmed and embroidered centre-pieces and doylies there was a
+plenitude which would have set forth a modest linen draper. Fragile
+vases, hand-painted fans, perfume bottles, silver trifles of unimagined
+uses, sofa pillows and gilt clocks crowded the tables and overflowed
+onto the floor and mantelpiece.
+
+Elizabeth surveyed the collection with sparkling eyes. "Aren't they
+lovely?" she demanded, slipping her hand within her lover's arm; "and
+aren't you surprised, Sam, to see how many friends we have?"
+
+"Yes, I am--awfully surprised," acknowledged the young man. His brows
+were drawn over meditative eyes as he examined a shining carving-set
+with impossible ivory handles. "What are we going to do with them all?"
+he propounded at length.
+
+"Do with them? Why use them, I suppose," responded Elizabeth vaguely.
+"Do see these darling little cups, all gold and roses, and these
+coffee-spoons with enamelled handles--these make eight dozen
+coffee-spoons, Sam!"
+
+"Hum!" mused the unappreciative engineer. "We might set up a restaurant,
+as far as coffee-spoons go."
+
+Elizabeth was bending rapturously over a lace fan, sewn thick with
+spangles. "I feel so rich with all these lovely things," she murmured.
+"I never dreamed of having so many."
+
+She made such an exquisite picture in her glowing youth amid the sparkle
+and glitter of the dainty trifles that it is little wonder that Samuel
+Brewster lost his usually level head for the moment. "You ought always
+to have all the pretty things you want, darling," he whispered; "for you
+are the prettiest and sweetest girl alive."
+
+Later in the day the ubiquitous Miss Tripp was discovered in the act of
+artfully concealing Mrs. Carroll's gift, made by her own faithful hands,
+under a profusion of lace-edged doylies lately arrived from a distant
+cousin. "There!" she exclaimed, with an air of relief, "those big
+gingham aprons and the dish-towels and dusters did look so absurd with
+all the other lovely things; they won't show now." And she planted a
+silver fern-dish in the midst and surveyed the effect with her head
+tilted thoughtfully. "Wasn't it _quaint_ of Mrs. Carroll to make all
+those useful things? You can give them to your maid afterward; they
+always expect to be found in aprons nowadays--if not frocks. Really, I
+draw the line at frocks, with the wages one is obliged to pay; and I
+should advise you to."
+
+"I'm not going to have a maid," said Elizabeth. "I can cook, and I like
+to."
+
+Miss Tripp whirled about and caught the girl in her arms with an amused
+laugh. "You dear, romantic child!" she cried. "Did it have the
+_prettiest_ dreams about love in a cottage, and the young wife with her
+sleeves rolled up cooking delicious impossibilities for a doting
+husband? That's all very well, my dear; but, seriously, it won't do in a
+Boston apartment-house. You won't have a minute to yourself after the
+season once begins, and of course after a while you'll be expected to
+entertain--quite simply, you know, a luncheon or two, with cards;
+possibly a dinner; you can do it beautifully with all these lovely
+things for your table. _I'll_ help you; so don't get frightened at the
+idea. But _fancy_ your doing all that without a maid! You mustn't
+_think_ of it! And I am sure dear Mrs. Van Duser will give you the same
+advice."
+
+The soft pink in Elizabeth's cheeks deepened to rose. "Mrs. Van Duser
+isn't coming to the wedding," she said, in a faintly defiant tone.
+
+"Oh! Did she send you----"
+
+"She sent regrets," said Elizabeth coldly.
+
+Miss Tripp's eyebrows expressed the profoundest disappointment. "I am so
+_sorry_," she murmured, suddenly aware that she was exceedingly weary of
+the North wedding. "It will _spoil everything_."
+
+"I can't see why," returned Elizabeth with spirit, not realising that
+Miss Tripp's comment applied solely to her own feelings. "It won't
+prevent my being married to Sam; and Sam says he is glad she is not
+coming. She must be a stiff, pokey sort of a person, and I am sure it
+will be pleasanter without her. She isn't hardly any relation to Sam,
+anyway, and I don't think I care to know her."
+
+"My _dear_!" expostulated Miss Tripp, "you'll see things _very_
+differently some day, I _hope_. And I am glad to say that these
+relationships _do_ count in Boston, if not in other parts of the world,
+and you cannot prevent people from knowing that they exist."
+
+Like a skilful general Miss Tripp was sweeping her field clear of her
+disappointment, preparatory to marshalling her forces for a new
+campaign. "Did Mrs. Van Duser send cards, or did she----"
+
+"She wrote a note--a stiff, disagreeable note."
+
+"Would you mind showing it to me, dear?"
+
+Elizabeth produced a thick white envelope from the little embroidered
+pocket at her belt. "You may read it," she said; "then I mean to tear it
+up."
+
+Miss Tripp bent almost worshipful eyes upon the large, square sheet.
+"Mrs. J. Mortimer Van Duser" (she read) "begs to convey her
+acknowledgments to Dr. and Mrs. North for their invitation to the
+marriage of their daughter, and regrets that she cannot be present. Mrs.
+Van Duser begs to add that she will communicate further with Mr. and
+Mrs. Samuel Brewster upon their arrival in Boston upon a matter of
+moment to them both."
+
+"Isn't that a disagreeable-sounding note?" demanded Elizabeth, her
+pretty chin tilted at an aggressive angle. "I just know I shouldn't like
+her from that letter. But I'm sure I can't think what she wants to say
+to us 'upon our arrival in Boston.'"
+
+"_My dear!_" exclaimed Miss Tripp, with a horrified stare, "what _can_
+you be thinking of? That note is in the most perfect form. I am _so_
+glad you showed it to me! 'Something of moment to you both,' what can it
+mean but a gift--perhaps a generous cheque, and _undoubtedly_ a
+reception to introduce you. My _dear_! Mrs. Van Duser is said to be
+worth _millions_, and what is more, and far, _far_ better, she moves in
+the most _exclusive_ society. You dear, lucky girl, I _congratulate_ you
+upon the recognition you have received. _Tear it up_--indeed, you will
+do nothing of the sort! I'll put it here right by this cut-glass vase,
+where every one will see it."
+
+Elizabeth pouted. "Mother didn't like it," she said, "and grandma
+laughed over it, and Sam told me to forget it; I don't see why you----"
+
+"_Because I know_," intoned Miss Tripp solemnly. "I only hope you won't
+forget poor little me when you're fairly launched in Mrs. Van Duser's
+set."
+
+Elizabeth gazed reflectively at her friend. "Oh, I couldn't forget you,"
+she said; "you've been so good to me. But," she added, with what Miss
+Tripp mentally termed delicious naïveté, "I don't suppose we shall give
+many large parties, just at first."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+"I am of the opinion," wrote the sapient Dr. Johnson, "that marriages
+would in general be as happy, and often more so, if they were all made
+by the Lord Chancellor, upon a due consideration of the circumstances
+and characters, without the parties thereto having any choice in the
+matter."
+
+That this radical matrimonial reform did not find favour in the eyes of
+his own or any succeeding generation brands it as visionary,
+impracticable, not to be seriously entertained, in short, by any one not
+a philosopher and not himself in love. But could the benevolent shade of
+Dr. Johnson be let into the details of a fashionable modern wedding, it
+is safe to predict that he might recommend a new civic function to be
+administered either by the Lord Chancellor, or by some equally
+responsible person for the purpose of regulating by sumptuary law the
+bridal trousseau and the wedding presents. The renowned Georgian sage
+could not fail to recognise the relation which these too often
+unconsidered items bear to the welfare of the private citizen in
+particular and to the weal of mankind in general. And who can deny that
+all legislation is, or should be, centred chiefly on these very ends.
+
+[Illustration: "Never had there been such a wedding in Innisfield"]
+
+Such sober reflections as the above, though perhaps forming an
+unavoidable background in the minds of several of the older persons
+present, did not cloud the rapturous happiness of Elizabeth Carroll
+North, as she paced slowly up the aisle of the Innisfield Presbyterian
+church on the arm of her father, the folds of her "Pryse gown," as Miss
+Tripp was careful to designate it, sweeping gracefully behind her. The
+bridesmaids in pale rose-colour and the maid of honour in white; the
+tiny flower-girls bearing baskets of roses; the ushers with their
+boutonnières of orange buds; the waving palms and the sounding music
+each represented a separate Waterloo, fought and won by the Napoleonic
+Miss Tripp, who looked on, wan but self-satisfied, from a modest
+position in the audience. Never had there been such a wedding in
+Innisfield. Everybody said so in loud, buzzing whispers. Sadie
+Buckthorn, who was engaged to Milton Scrymger, informed her mamma that
+she should be married in church in October, and that her bridesmaids
+should wear yellow. And Bob Garrett, a clerk in a Boston department
+store, told his sweetheart that he guessed the wedding was about their
+speed, and added that he knew a swell floor-walker who would look simply
+great as best man.
+
+As for the young couple chiefly concerned they might have walked on air
+instead of on the roses strewed in their path by the little
+flower-girls; and the hundreds of curious eyes fastened upon them were
+as dim, painted eyes upon a tapestried wall. They only saw each other
+and the gate of that ancient Eden of the race opening before them.
+
+That same evening, after all was over, and when, as the village reporter
+phrased it with happy originality, "the young couple had departed upon
+their wedding journey amid showers of rice and roses," Dr. North sought
+his tired wife, busy clearing away the tokens of the late festivities.
+
+"Come, Lizzie," he said kindly, "we may as well get what rest we can;
+to-morrow'll be another day, and we've got to go jogging on about our
+middle-aged business as usual."
+
+Mrs. North looked up at him with tearful eyes. "I can't seem to realise
+that Bessie's gone to stay," she said tremulously. "I just caught myself
+thinking what I'd say to her when she came home, and what we'd----"
+
+Richard North passed his arm about the wife of his youth. "I--hope he'll
+be good to her," he said, his voice shaken with feeling. "I--I believe
+he's all right. If he isn't I'll--" He shrugged his broad shoulders
+impatiently.
+
+"Oh, I'm not a bit worried about _Sam_," said Mrs. North; "I know enough
+about men. But, O Dick, I'm going to miss my--baby!"
+
+He held her close for a minute while she sobbed on his shoulder; then
+the two went slowly up the stairs together, leaving the disordered
+rooms and the fading roses in the luminous dark of the June night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Boston apartment to which young Samuel Brewster brought his bride in
+the early part of September was of Miss Evelyn Tripp's choosing. The
+engineer had demurred at its distance from his work, but Elizabeth had
+said she preferred to be near Evelyn; and Evelyn said that the location,
+if not strictly fashionable, was at least _near_ the people they ought
+to know.
+
+The rent was thirty-eight dollars a month. And the rooms were small,
+inconvenient and old-fashioned. "But," as Miss Tripp kindly pointed out,
+"if one is obliged to choose between a small, old-fashioned suite in a
+really good locality and a light airy one in the unfashionable suburbs
+of South Boston one _ought_ not to hesitate."
+
+Mrs. North and Grandma Carroll had seen to putting the furnishings in
+place; and when the two arrived at the close of a hot afternoon they
+found everything in the exquisite order with which Elizabeth had been
+happily familiar all her life.
+
+She ran from room to room laughing and crying in the same breath. "Oh,
+Sam, dear, do see, there is ice in the refrigerator and a cunning little
+jar of cream and a print of butter; and here is a roast chicken and some
+of grandma's rolls and one of mother's delicious lemon pies! How hard
+they must have worked. I'll put on one of these big aprons, and we'll
+have supper in no time!"
+
+And Sam Brewster, as he watched his wife's pretty little figure moving
+lightly about her new kitchen, heaved a mighty sigh of content. "It
+seems almost too good to be true!" he murmured. "And to think it is for
+always!"
+
+It was not until they had eaten their first blissful meal together, and
+had washed the dishes, also together, in the dark little kitchen--an
+operation in which the young engineer covered himself with glory in his
+masterly handling of the dish-towel--that Elizabeth discovered a large
+square envelope, bearing the Van Duser crest, and addressed to herself.
+
+She opened it in the circle of Sam's arms, as the two reposed on their
+one small sofa in the room bearing the dignified title of reception
+hall.
+
+"Why--what in the name of common sense is she giving us?" was Sam
+Brewster's startled exclamation as his quick eye took in the contents of
+the sheet.
+
+"I--I don't understand," gasped Elizabeth, growing hot and cold and
+faint, "I can't think--how it could have happened."
+
+Yet Mrs. Van Duser's words, though few, were sufficiently succinct. They
+were inspired, as she afterward confided to her rector, Dr. Gallatin, by
+the most altruistic sentiments of which the human heart is capable.
+"Truth," Mrs. Van Duser had enunciated majestically, "never finds itself
+at a loss. And in administering so just a rebuke to a young person
+manifestly appointed to fill a humble station in life I feel that I am
+in a measure assuming the prerogatives of Providence."
+
+In this exalted rôle Mrs. Van Duser had written to Elizabeth North,
+whose miserable, shamed eyes avoided those of her husband after she had
+realised its contents. The letter enclosed a bill for one hundred and
+twenty-five dollars from Madame Léonie Pryse, for the material, making
+and findings for one blue velvet reception gown. There was a pencilled
+note attached, to the effect that as Madame Pryse had been referred to
+Mrs. Van Duser, she begged to present the bill, with the hope that it
+would be settled at an early date. Mrs. Van Duser's own majestic hand
+had added a brief communication, over which the young engineer scowled
+fiercely. He read:
+
+     "As Mrs. Brewster's personal expenses, either before or after her
+     marriage, can have no possible interest for Mrs. Van Duser, Mrs.
+     Van Duser begs to bring to Mrs. Brewster's attention the enclosed
+     statement. Mrs. Van Duser wishes to inform Mrs. Brewster that she
+     has taken the pains to send for the tradeswoman in question, and
+     that she has elicited from her facts which seem to show an entire
+     misapprehension of the commoner ethical requirements on the part of
+     the person addressed.
+
+     "Mrs. Van Duser begs to add in the interests of society at large
+     and of the person in whom, as a distant relative, she has
+     interested herself somewhat, that she distinctly frowns upon all
+     extravagance. Mrs. Van Duser trusts that this communication, which
+     she begs to assure Mrs. Brewster is penned in a spirit of Christian
+     charity, will effectually prevent further errors on the part of so
+     young and inexperienced a person as Mrs. Brewster appears to be."
+
+"Well?" Samuel Brewster's blue eyes, grown unexpectedly keen and
+penetrating, rested questioningly upon his bride.
+
+"Don't look at me like that--please, Sam!" faltered Elizabeth. "I--I
+didn't mean to buy that dress; truly I didn't. I had paid for all the
+others, and I had twenty-seven dollars left, and Evelyn told me that
+Madame Pryse had a--a remnant of blue velvet which she would make up for
+me for a song. And--I--let her do it. I thought she would send the bill
+to me, and I would----"
+
+"Did she send it to you?"
+
+"Y-yes, twice. But Evelyn said for me not to worry. She said Madame
+Pryse's customers never paid her right away, and there was so much
+else--just at the last, I didn't like to ask daddy; Uncle Caleb always
+gives me fifty dollars for my birthday, and I thought--" Elizabeth's
+voice had grown fainter as she proceeded with her halting explanations.
+But she started up with a little cry, "Oh, Sam! what are you going to
+do?"
+
+For her husband was examining the bill with an expression about his
+mouth which she had never seen there before. "I don't see that you have
+been credited with the twenty-seven dollars," he said quietly. Then with
+a sorry attempt at a smile, "These _mesdames_ appear to pile up the
+items sky-high when it comes to building a gown; better have a cast-iron
+contract with 'em, I should say, and pay up when the job's finished."
+
+Elizabeth's tear-stained face was hidden on her husband's shoulder.
+"I--I spent the twenty-seven dollars for--for gloves," she confessed.
+"Evelyn said I didn't have enough long--ones."
+
+"_Confound Evelyn!_" said the young man strongly. "Come, Betty, dear,
+you're not to let this thing bother you, it isn't worth it. I'll pay
+this bill to-morrow. It's lucky I've the money in the bank; and I'll
+write to Mrs. Van D., too." He clenched his fist as though he would like
+to use something more powerful than his pen.
+
+"But, Sam, you oughtn't to--I can't let you pay--for----"
+
+"Well, I guess I can buy my wife a dress if I want to, and that blue
+velvet's a stunner. You haven't worn it yet, have you, dear? but when
+you do you'll look like a posy in it. Come, sweetheart, this was a tough
+proposition, I'll admit, but don't you let it bowl you over completely.
+And, Betty, you won't tell the Tripp lady about it, will you?
+I--er--couldn't stand for that, you know."
+
+Elizabeth stole one look at the strong, kind face bent toward her. For
+the first time, though happily not for the last, she was realising the
+immense, the immeasurable comfort to be found in her husband's love.
+"I'll never--do such a thing again," she quavered. "I knew all the time
+I was being extravagant; but I didn't expect--I never supposed----"
+
+"You couldn't very well have foreseen the Pryse woman's astonishing
+business methods, nor Mrs. Van D.'s Christian forbearance." His tone was
+bitter as he spoke the last words. "But what I can't seem to understand
+is how that bill ever found its way to my esteemed sixteenth cousin."
+
+Elizabeth's eyes overflowed again. "I'm afraid it was Evelyn," she
+stammered. "She--told Madame Pryse that you--were Mrs. Van Duser's
+nephew."
+
+Sam Brewster whistled. Then he fell into a fit of revery so prolonged
+that Elizabeth nestled uneasily in the strong circle of his arm. He was
+reviewing the events of the immediate past in the cold light of the
+present, and the result was not altogether complimentary to Miss Tripp.
+
+"I say, little girl," he said at length, looking down at the
+tear-stained face against his shoulder, "I don't want to be
+disagreeable, but--er--I can't for the life of me see why Miss Tripp
+should interest herself so--intimately--in our affairs. Don't you think
+you might--er--discourage her a bit?"
+
+Elizabeth sighed reminiscently. "I wouldn't hurt Evelyn's feelings for
+the world," she said, "but I--I'll try."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+The very next morning as Elizabeth was engaged in putting the finishing
+touches upon the arrangements of her new home, with all the keen delight
+of nest-building, so strong in some women and so utterly lacking in
+others, Miss Evelyn Tripp was announced, and a moment later stepped
+airily from the laborious little elevator. "Oh, here you are _at last_,
+you _darling_ girl!" she exclaimed, clasping and kissing Elizabeth with
+_empressement_. "I knew you were expected last night--indeed, I was here
+all the morning helping, but as I told your mother and that dear, quaint
+grandmamma of yours, I wouldn't have intruded upon your very first
+evening _for the world_! How delightfully well and pretty you are
+looking, and isn't this the _sweetest_ little place? and oh! I nearly
+forgot, _did_ you find Mrs. Van Duser's note? I assure you I pounced
+upon _that_, and took good care to put it where you would both see it
+the _very_ first thing. I don't mind confessing that I am simply
+devoured with _curiosity_. _Was_ it a cheque, dear? And _is_ she going
+to do something nice for you in a social way?"
+
+Elizabeth's cheeks burned uncomfortably. "It was only a--a friendly--at
+least I think--I am sure she meant it to be a friendly letter. She said
+so, anyway. Sam put it in his pocket and took it away with him," she
+made haste to add, forestalling the urgent appeal in Miss Tripp's
+luminous gaze.
+
+"Well, I am sure that was _most_ sweet and gracious of Mrs. Van Duser.
+Didn't you find it so, my dear? So _dear_ of her to personally welcome
+you to _Boston_! You'll call, of course, as soon as she returns from her
+country place. She will expect it, I am sure; such women are _most_
+punctilious in their code of social requirements, and you can't be _too_
+careful not to offend. You'll forgive me for saying this much, won't
+you, dear?"
+
+Elizabeth was conscious of a distinct sense of displeasure as she met
+Miss Tripp's anxiously solicitous eyes. "You are very good, Evelyn,"
+she said, "but Sam--Mr. Brewster--thinks it will be best for us not
+to--" She paused, her candid face suffused with blushes. "I'd--prefer
+not to talk about Mrs. Van Duser, if you please. We don't _ever_ expect
+to go and see her."
+
+The tactful Miss Tripp looked sadly puzzled, but she felt that it would
+not be the part of wisdom to press the issue for the moment. Her face
+wreathed itself anew in forgiving smiles as she flitted about the little
+rooms. "_Isn't_ this the most convenient, cosy little apartment?" she
+twittered. "I am _so_ glad I was able to secure it for you; I assure you
+I was obliged to use all of my diplomacy with the agent. And your pretty
+things _do_ light up the dark corners so nicely. And speaking of corners
+somehow reminds me, I have found you a _perfect treasure_ of a maid; but
+you must take her at once. She's a cousin of our Marie, and has always
+been employed by the best people. She was with Mrs. Paget Smythe last, I
+believe. She told Marie last night that she would be willing to come to
+you for only twenty dollars a month, and that's _very_ reasonable,
+considering the fact that she is willing to do part of the laundry
+work,--the towels, sheets and plain things, you know. _Expensive?_
+Indeed it's not, dear--for _Boston_. Why, I could tell you of plenty of
+people who are _glad_ to pay twenty-five and put all their laundry out.
+I'd advise you to engage Annita without delay. Really, you couldn't do
+better."
+
+Elizabeth shook her head. "I mean to do my own work," she said
+decidedly. "I shall want something to do while Sam is away, and why not
+this when I--like it?"
+
+"But you won't like it after a while, my poor child, when the shine is
+once worn off your new pans and things, and _think_ of your hands! It's
+absolutely impossible to keep one's nails in any sort of condition, and
+besides the heat from the gas-range is simply _ruinous_ for the
+complexion. Didn't you _know_ that? Of course you are all milk and roses
+now, but how long do you suppose that will last, if you are to be
+cooped up in a hot, stuffy little kitchen from morning till night?" Miss
+Tripp paused dramatically, her eyes wide with sympathy and apprehension.
+
+"But we--I am sure we oughtn't to afford to keep a maid," demurred
+Elizabeth in a small, weak voice. "So please don't----"
+
+"Oh, of course, it is nothing to me, my dear," and Miss Tripp arose with
+a justly offended air. "I _thought_ I was doing you a kindness when I
+asked Annita to call and see you this morning. It will be perfectly easy
+for you to tell her that you don't care to engage her. But when it comes
+to _affording_, _I_ think you can scarcely afford to waste your good
+looks over a cooking range. It is your duty to your husband to keep
+yourself young and lovely as long as you possibly can. It is only _too_
+easy to lose it all, and then--" Miss Tripp concluded her remarks with a
+shrug of her shapely shoulders, which aroused the too impressionable
+Elizabeth to vague alarms.
+
+"I am sure," faltered the bride of two months, "that Sam would like me
+just as well even if I----"
+
+"Of course you _think_ so, dear, every woman does till it is _too
+late_," observed Miss Tripp plaintively. "I'm sure I _hope_ it will turn
+out differently in your case. But I could tell you things about some of
+my married friends that would-- Well, all I have to say is that _I_
+never dared try it--matrimony, I mean--and if I were in your place-- But
+there! I _mustn't_ meddle. I solemnly promised myself years and years
+ago that I wouldn't. The trouble with me is that I love my friends _too_
+fondly, and I simply cannot endure to see them making mistakes which
+might _so easily_ have been avoided. I'm coming to take you out
+to-morrow, and we'll lunch down town in the nicest, most inexpensive
+little place. And--_dear_, if you finally decide _not_ to engage Annita,
+_would_ you mind telling her that through a _slight misunderstanding_
+you had secured some one else? These high-class servants are _so easily_
+offended, you know, and on account of _our Marie_--a perfect
+_treasure_ Oh, _thank_ you! _Au revoir_--till to-morrow!"
+
+Perhaps it is not altogether to be wondered at that immediately after
+Miss Tripp's departure Elizabeth found occasion to glance into her
+mirror. Yes, she was undoubtedly prettier than ever, she decided, but
+suppose it should be true about the withering heat of the gas-range; and
+then there were the rose-tinted, polished nails, to which Elizabeth had
+only lately begun to pay particular attention. The day's work had
+already left perceptible blemishes upon their dainty perfection.
+Elizabeth recalled her mother's hands, marred with constant household
+labour, with a kind of terror. Her own would look the same before many
+years had passed, and would Sam--_could_ he love her just the same when
+the delicate beauty of which he was so fond and proud had faded? And
+what, after all, was twenty dollars a month when one looked upon it as
+the price of one's happiness?
+
+Elizabeth sat down soberly with pencil and paper to contemplate the
+matter arithmetically. Thirty-eight dollars for rent, and twenty
+dollars for a maid, subtracted from one hundred and twenty--the latter
+sum representing the young engineer's monthly salary--left an undeniable
+balance of sixty-two dollars to be expended in food, clothing and other
+expenses. After half an hour of careful calculation, based on what she
+could remember of Innisfield prices, Elizabeth had reached very
+satisfactory conclusions. Clothing would cost next to nothing--for the
+first year, at least, and food for two came to a ridiculously small sum.
+There appeared, in short, to be a very handsome remainder left over for
+what Sam called "contingencies." This would include, of course, the
+fixed amount which they had prudently resolved to lay by on the arrival
+of every cheque. This much had already been settled between them. Sam
+had a promising nest-egg in a Boston bank, and both had dreams of its
+ultimate hatching into a house and lot, or into some comfortable
+interest-bearing bonds. Elizabeth was firmly resolved to be prudent and
+helpful to her husband in every possible way; but was it not her duty
+to keep herself young and lovely as long as possible? The idea so
+cogently presented to her attention by Miss Tripp not an hour since
+appeared to have become so much her own that she did not recognise it as
+borrowed property.
+
+It was at this psychological instant that a second summons announced the
+presence of a certain Annita McMurtry in the entrance hall below. "Did
+Mrs. Brewster wish to see this person?"
+
+Elizabeth hesitated for the fraction of a minute. "You may tell her to
+come up," was the message that finally found its way to the hall-boy's
+attentive ear.
+
+Annita McMurtry was a neatly attired young woman, with a penetrating
+black eye, a ready smile and a well-poised, not to say supercilious
+bearing. In response to Elizabeth's timid questions she vouchsafed the
+explanation that she could "do everything" and was prepared "to take
+full charge."
+
+"And by that you mean?"
+
+"I mean that the lady where I work doesn't have to worry herself about
+anything. I take full charge of everything--ordering, cooking, laundry
+and waiting on table, and I don't mind wiping up the floors in a small
+apartment like this. Window-cleaning and rugs the janitor attends to, of
+course."
+
+"When--could you come, if I--decide to engage you?" asked Elizabeth,
+finding herself vaguely uncomfortable under the scrutiny of the alert
+black eyes.
+
+"If you please, madam, I'd rather speak first about wages and days out.
+I'd like my alternate Thursdays and three evenings a week; and will you
+be going to theatres often with supper parties after? I don't care for
+that, unless I get paid extra. I left my last place on account of it; I
+can't stand it to be up all hours of the night and do my work next day."
+
+"I should think not!" returned Elizabeth, with ready sympathy. "We
+should not require anything of the sort. As to wages, Miss Tripp said
+you would be willing to come for twenty dollars. It seemed very high to
+me for only two in the family." Elizabeth spoke in a very dignified way;
+she felt that she appeared quite the experienced housekeeper in the eyes
+of the maid, who was surveying her with a faint, inscrutable smile.
+
+"I never work for a family where there is more than two," said Miss
+McMurtry pointedly. "I could make my thirty-five a month easy if I
+would. But Miss Tripp must have misunderstood me; twenty-two was what I
+said, but you'll find I earn it. I'll come to-morrow morning about this
+time, and thank you kindly, madam." The young woman arose with a proud
+composure of manner, which put the finishing touch upon the interview,
+and accomplished her exit with the practised ease of a society woman.
+
+"I wonder if I ought to have done it? And what will Sam say?" Elizabeth
+asked herself, ready to run undignifiedly after the girl, whose retiring
+footsteps were already dying away down the corridor. But Sam was found
+to be of the opinion that his Elizabeth had done exactly right. He
+hadn't thought of hiring a servant, to be sure, but he ought,
+manifestly, to have been reminded of his omission. It was surely not to
+be expected that a man's wife should spend her time and strength toiling
+over his food in a dark little den of a kitchen. No decent fellow would
+stand for that sort of thing. He wanted his wife to have time to go out,
+he said; to enjoy herself; to see pictures and hear music. As for the
+expense, he guessed they could swing it; he was sure to get another rise
+in salary before long. And much more of the same sort, all of which
+proved pleasantly soothing to Elizabeth's somewhat disturbed conscience.
+
+"I suppose Grandma Carroll would say I was a lazy girl," she sighed.
+
+"You didn't marry Grandma Carroll, dear," Sam told her, with a humorous
+twinkle in his eyes which Elizabeth thought delightfully witty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Whatever the opinion of the unthinking many on the subject of honest
+work as related to the happiness of the individual, there can be but one
+just conclusion as to the effect of continued idleness, whether it be
+illustrated in the person of the perennially tired gentleman who
+frequents our back doors at certain seasons of the year, or in the
+refined woman who has emptied her hands of all rightful activities.
+
+At the end of her first week's experience with her new maid Elizabeth
+found herself for the first time in her wholesome, well-ordered life at
+a loss for something to do. When Miss McMurtry stated that she would
+take full charge of Mrs. Brewster's ménage she meant what she said, and
+Elizabeth's inexperienced efforts to play the rôle of mistress, as she
+had conceived it, met with a civil but firm resistance on the part of
+the maid.
+
+"Yes, Mrs. Brewster, I had expected to wipe up the dining-room floor
+this morning, after I have finished my kitchen work," she would announce
+frostily, in response to Elizabeth's timid suggestion. "I have my
+regular days for things, an' I don't need to be told. I've already
+spoken to the janitor's boy about the rugs, an' you'll please to leave
+some money with me to pay him. Just put it on the kitchen dresser." And
+"No, madam, I shall not have time to make an apple-pie this morning; I
+generally order pastry of the baker when it's called for. Yes, Mrs.
+Brewster, those were baker's rolls you had on the breakfast-table. I
+ordered the man to stop regularly. You prefer home-made bread, you say?
+I'm sorry, but I never bake. It is quite unnecessary in the city."
+
+The young woman's emphasis on the last word delicately conveyed her
+knowledge of Mrs. Brewster's country origin, and her pitying disapproval
+of it.
+
+Miss Tripp, to whom Elizabeth confided her new perplexities, merely
+laughed indulgently. "You mustn't interfere, if you want Annita to stay
+with you," she counselled. "Just keep religiously out of your kitchen,
+my dear, and everything will go on peacefully. We never think of such a
+thing as dictating to Marie, and we're careful not to make too many
+suggestions. Of course you don't know what a perfectly _dreadful_ time
+people are having with servants here in town. My _dear_, I could tell
+you things that would frighten you! Just fancy having your prettiest
+_lingerie_ disappear bit by bit, and your silk stockings worn to rags,
+and not _daring_ to say a word!"
+
+"I have lost two handkerchiefs since Annita came," said Elizabeth
+doubtfully.
+
+"Oh, _handkerchiefs_, nobody expects to keep those forever. Really, do
+you know when I treat myself to a half dozen new ones I conceal them
+from Marie as long as I possibly can, for fear she'll decide I have too
+many."
+
+Elizabeth's artlessly inquiring gaze provoked another burst of well-bred
+merriment. "You dear little innocent, you _do_ amuse me so! Don't you
+see our good Marie doesn't propose to encourage me in senseless
+extravagance in laundry; you see there is no telling to what lengths I
+might go if left to myself, and it all takes Marie's time. No, I don't
+pretend to know what she does with them all. Gives them to her
+relations, perhaps. She _couldn't_ use them all, and I give her a half
+dozen at Christmas every year. Why, they're all that way, and both Marie
+and Annita would draw the line at one's best silk stockings, I am sure.
+We think Marie _perfectly honest_; that is to say, I would trust her
+with everything I have, feeling sure that she would use her discretion
+in selecting for herself only the things I ought not to want any longer.
+_They know_, I can tell you, and they despise parsimonious people who
+try to make their old things do forever. You may as well make up your
+mind to it, my dear, and when you are fortunate enough to secure a
+really good, competent servant like Annita, you _mustn't_ see _too_
+much."
+
+Just why Elizabeth upon the heels of this enlightening conversation
+should have elected to purchase for herself two new handkerchiefs of a
+somewhat newer pattern than the ones she had lost was not entirely clear
+even to herself.
+
+There had been a new, crisp bill in her purse for a number of weeks
+nestling comfortably against the twin gold pieces her father had given
+her on the day of her wedding. Sam had put it there himself, and had
+joked with her on her economical habits when he had found it unbroken on
+what he laughingly called her next pay day. "Seriously, though, little
+wife of mine, I never want you to be out of money," he had said; "if I
+am cad enough to forget you mustn't hesitate to remind me. And you need
+never feel obliged to tell me what you've done with it."
+
+This wasn't the ideal arrangement for either; but neither husband nor
+wife was aware of it, nor of the fact that in the small, dainty purse
+which lay open between them lurked a possible danger to their common
+happiness. Elizabeth had been brought up in the old-fashioned way, her
+wants supplied by her careful mother, and an occasional pocket-piece by
+her overworked father, who always referred to the coins transferred
+from his pocket to her own as "money to buy a stick of candy with." The
+sum represented by the twin gold pieces and the crisp bills appeared to
+contain unlimited opportunities for enjoyment. A bunch of carnations for
+the dining table and a box of bonbons excused the long stroll down
+Tremont Street, during which Miss Tripp carried on the education of her
+protégée on subjects urban without interruption.
+
+"If I had only thought to stop at the bank this morning," observed Miss
+Tripp regretfully, "I should simply have insisted upon your lunching
+with me at Purcell's; then we might have gone to the matinée afterward;
+there is the dearest, brightest little piece on now--'Mademoiselle
+Rosette.' You haven't heard it? What a pity! This is the very last
+matinée. Never mind, dear, I sha'n't be so thoughtless another day."
+
+"But why shouldn't I--" began Elizabeth tardily; then with a deep blush.
+"I have plenty of money with me, and I should be so happy if you would
+lunch with me, and----"
+
+"My dear, I couldn't _think_ of it! I _mustn't_ allow you to be
+extravagant," demurred Miss Tripp. But in the end she yielded prettily,
+and Elizabeth forthwith tasted a new pleasure, which is irresistibly
+alluring to most generous women.
+
+That evening at dinner her eyes were so bright and her laughing mouth so
+red that her young husband surveyed her with new admiration. "What did
+you find to amuse you to-day in this big, dull town?" he wanted to know.
+
+"It isn't dull at all, Sam, and I've had the loveliest time with
+Evelyn," she told him, and added a spirited account of the opera seen
+with the unjaded eyes of the country-bred girl. "I've never had an
+opportunity to go to theatres and operas before," she concluded, "and
+Evelyn thinks I ought to see all the best things as a matter of
+education."
+
+"I think so too," beamed the unselfish Sam, "and I hope you'll go often
+now that you have the chance."
+
+"I may as well, I suppose, now that I have Annita," Elizabeth said.
+"It's dreadfully dull here at home when you are gone. I've nothing to do
+at all."
+
+Sam pinched her pink ear gently as the two strolled away from the table.
+"How does the new kitchen mechanic suit you?" he asked. The meat had
+been overdone, the vegetables watery and the coffee of an indifferent
+colour and flavour, he thought privately.
+
+"Why, she seems to know exactly what to do, and when to do it,"
+Elizabeth said rather discontentedly, "and she's very neat; but did you
+like that custard, Sam? I thought it was horrid; I'm sure she didn't
+strain it, and it was cooked too much."
+
+"Since you put it to me so pointedly, I'm bound to confess that the
+present incumbent isn't a patch on the last lady who cooked for me,"
+confessed her husband, laughing at the puzzled look in her eyes.
+
+"Oh, you mean me! I'm glad you like my cooking, Sam. I should feel
+dreadfully if you didn't. But about Annita, I am afraid she won't allow
+me to teach her any of the things I know; and when I said I meant to
+make a sponge-cake this morning, she said she was going to use the oven.
+But she wasn't, for I went out and looked afterward. Then she said right
+out that she wasn't used to having ladies in her kitchen, and that it
+made her nervous."
+
+"Hum!" commented the mere man; "you'd better ask your father to
+prescribe for the young person; and in the meanwhile I should frequent
+'her kitchen' till she had gradually accustomed herself to the idea."
+
+"She would leave if I did that, Sam."
+
+"There are others."
+
+"Not like Annita," objected Elizabeth, with the chastened air of a
+three-dimensioned experience. "You've no idea of the dreadful times
+people have with servants here in Boston. And, really, one oughtn't to
+expect an angel to work in one's kitchen for twenty-two dollars a month;
+do you think so, Sam?"
+
+Her uplifted eyes and earnest lips and rose-tinted cheeks were so
+altogether charming as she propounded this somewhat absurd question
+that Sam said, "Speaking of angels puts me in mind of the fact that I
+have one right in hand," and much more of the good, old-fashioned
+nonsense which makes the heart beat quicker and the eyes glow and
+sparkle with unreasoning joy when the heart is young.
+
+Half an hour had passed in this agreeable manner when Elizabeth
+bethought herself to ask, "What had I better do about the butcher's and
+grocer's slips, Sam dear? Annita says that in all the places where she
+has worked they always run bills; but if we aren't to do that----"
+
+"And we're not, you know; we agreed about that, Elizabeth?"
+
+"Yes, of course; but Annita brought me several when I came in to-day; I
+had forgotten all about them. Do you think I ought to stay at home every
+day till after the butcher and grocer and baker have been here?
+Sometimes they don't call till after twelve o'clock."
+
+This was manifestly absurd, and he said so emphatically. The result of
+his subsequent cogitations was an order to Annita to leave the slips on
+his desk, where they would be attended to each evening. "Mind," he said,
+"I don't want Mrs. Brewster annoyed with anything of the sort."
+
+"Indeed, sir, I can see that Mrs. Brewster has not been used to being
+worrited about anything, an' no more she ought," the young woman had
+replied with an air of respectful affection for her mistress which
+struck Sam as being no less than admirable. It materially assisted him
+in his efforts to swallow Annita's muddy coffee of a morning and her
+leaden puddings at night. All this, while Elizabeth light-heartedly
+entered upon what Miss Tripp was pleased to call her "first Boston
+season."
+
+There was so much to be learned, so much to be seen, so much to enjoy;
+and the new gowns and hats and gloves were so exactly the thing for the
+matinées, teas, card-parties and luncheons to which she found herself
+asked with unlooked-for cordiality. She could hardly have been expected
+to know that her open sesame to even this circle without a circle
+consisted in a low-voiced allusion to the sidereally remote Mrs. Van
+Duser, "a connection by marriage, my dear."
+
+It was on a stormy afternoon in late February when Dr. North,
+unannounced and disdaining the noisy little elevator, climbed the three
+flights of stairs to his daughter's apartment and tapped lightly on the
+corridor door. His summons was answered by an alert young woman in a
+frilled cap and apron. Mrs. Brewster was giving a luncheon, she informed
+him, and could see no one.
+
+"But I am Mrs. Brewster's father, and she'll want to see me," the good
+doctor had insisted, sniffing delicately at the odours of salad and
+coffee which floated out to him from the gingerly opened door. "Go tell
+your mistress that Dr. North is here and would like to see her."
+
+In another minute a fashionable little figure in palest rose-colour had
+thrown two pretty lace-clad arms about his neck. "Oh, you dear, old
+darling daddy! why _didn't_ you let me know you were coming? Now I've
+this luncheon party, with bridge after it, and I can't-- But you must
+come in and wait; I'll tuck you away somewhere--in my bedroom, or----"
+
+"I can't stay, Bess--at least not long. I've a consultation at the
+hospital at three. But I'll tell you, I'll be back at five; how'll that
+do? I've a message from your mother, and----"
+
+Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders distractedly. "They won't go a minute
+before six," she said; "but come then--to dinner. Be sure now!"
+
+The doctor was hungry, he had had no lunch, and despite the warmth of
+his welcome there was a perceptible chill about his aging heart as he
+slowly made his way down the stairs.
+
+"I'm afraid I'll not be able to make it," he told himself; "my train
+goes at six-fifty, and--bless me! I've just time for a bite at a
+restaurant before I'm due at the hospital."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+A loving letter from his daughter followed Dr. North to Innisfield. In
+it Elizabeth had described her disappointment in not being able to see
+more of her darling daddy. They had waited dinner for him that night,
+she said, and Sam was dreadfully put out about it. "He _almost_ scolded
+me for not bringing you right in. But how could I, with all those women?
+You wouldn't have enjoyed it, daddy dear; I know you too well. Next
+time--and I hope it will be soon--you must telephone me. We have a
+'phone in our apartment now, and I'm sure I don't know how we ever lived
+without it. You see I have so many engagements that even if I didn't
+happen to be entertaining, I might not be at home, which would be just
+as bad."
+
+The rest of the sheet was filled with a gay description of the
+automobile show, which was "really quite a function this year," and of
+her success as a hostess. "Evelyn says I've made immense progress, and
+she's quite proud of me."
+
+There was a short silence as Mrs. North folded the letter and slipped it
+into its envelope.
+
+"But I don't understand why you didn't go back and take dinner with
+them, as Bessie asked you to do," she said at last, in a reproachful
+tone. "You ought to have made an effort, Richard."
+
+The doctor's grizzled brows lifted humorously as he glanced across the
+breakfast table at his wife's worried face. "Ought to have made an
+effort--eh?" he repeated. "Well, didn't I? I wanted to see Bess the
+worst way, but it seems she didn't want to see me--at least not at the
+time I arrived. So I went my way, got my lunch, met Grayson at the
+hospital at two-thirty, finished the operation at four, ran over to
+Avery's and left an order, then----"
+
+"But why----"
+
+"I could have gone back to Bess then, and I wanted to; but she didn't
+invite me to come till six, and I knew I must make that six-twenty
+train, for I'd promised Mrs. Baxter I'd call in the evening. So you see,
+my dear, I was up against it, as the boys say."
+
+"Did she look well, Richard?" asked his wife anxiously.
+
+"Perfectly well, I should say."
+
+"And did she tell you when we might expect her at home for a little
+visit?"
+
+The doctor shook his head. "I didn't have a chance to ask any questions,
+my dear." He arose and pushed back his chair. "Well, I must be going.
+When you write to Bess tell her it's all right, and she's not to worry.
+I'll take care to let her know next time I'm coming." He went out and
+closed the door heavily behind him.
+
+Grandma Carroll, who had listened to the conversation without comment,
+pursed up her small, wise mouth. "That reminds me, daughter, I think I
+shall go to Boston to-day," she observed briskly.
+
+"To Boston--to-day?" echoed her daughter in surprise. "I don't believe
+I can possibly get away to go with you, mother. Malvina Bennett is
+coming to fix my black skirt; besides, there's the baking and----"
+
+"You needn't to feel that you must put yourself out on my account,
+Lizzie," Mrs. Carroll replied with a slightly offended air. "I am quite
+capable of going to China if it was necessary. I hadn't thought to
+mention it to you yesterday, but there's some shopping I want to do, so
+I'll get right off on the morning train."
+
+"Will you have time to get around to see Bessie?"
+
+"I'll make time," said grandma trenchantly. "I want to see what she's
+doing with my own eyes. I don't know what _you_ think about her not
+asking her father in to her table, but I know what _I_ think."
+
+"Oh, mother, I hope you won't----"
+
+"You needn't to worry a mite about what I'll say or do, I shan't be
+hasty; but I mistrust that Sipp woman is leading Lizzie into
+extravagance and foolishness, and I mean to find out. I shall probably
+stay all night, and maybe all day to-morrow."
+
+"But it might not be convenient for Bessie," hesitated Mrs. North, "you
+know what she said about telephoning; I guess I'd better let her know
+you're coming."
+
+"Hump!" ejaculated grandma, "it wasn't always convenient for me to be up
+nights with her when she had whooping-cough and measles, but I did it
+just the same. I don't want you should telephone, daughter. I don't know
+just when I shall get around to Lizzie's house; when I do, I'll stay
+till I get ready to come home, you can depend upon that, if all the
+folks in Boston are there a-visiting. I'll go right in and visit with
+them. I'm going to take my best silk dress and my point lace collar, so
+I guess I'll be full as dressy as any of 'em."
+
+Mrs. North sighed apprehensively, but in the end she saw Mrs. Carroll
+onto the train with a wondering sense of relief. "Mother always did know
+how to manage Bessie better than I did," she told herself vaguely.
+
+When Mrs. Carroll arrived at her destination the whistles were
+proclaiming the hour of noon. "I'm just in time for dinner, I guess,"
+she observed cheerfully to the elevator boy, who grinned his
+appreciation. But there was no token of occupancy about the Brewster
+apartment when Mrs. Carroll rapped smartly upon the door.
+
+"The missis is out," volunteered the boy, who had lingered to watch the
+progress of the pink-cheeked, smiling old lady; "but the girl's there. I
+seen her go in not fifteen minutes ago."
+
+Thus encouraged Mrs. Carroll repeated her summons. After what seemed a
+second interminable silence the door opened, disclosing an alert
+presence in an immaculate cap and apron.
+
+"How do you do?" said grandma pleasantly. "This boy here says Mrs.
+Brewster isn't at home; but I'll come in and wait till she does. I'm her
+grandmother, Mrs. Carroll; you've probably heard her speak of me, and I
+guess you're the girl she tells about in her letters sometimes. You've
+got a pretty name, my dear, and you look real neat and clean. Now if
+you'll just take my bag, it's pretty heavy, and----"
+
+Annita had not taken her beady black eyes off the little presence. "I
+never let strangers in when Mrs. Brewster's not at home," she said
+stolidly. "It ain't to be expected that I should. I guess you'll have to
+come again, about four this afternoon, maybe."
+
+"I like to see a hired girl careful and watchful," said grandma
+approvingly, "but if you look in the photograph album I gave my
+grandaughter Lizzie, on her sixteenth birthday, you'll see my picture on
+the front page, and that'll relieve you of all responsibility." She
+pushed determinedly past the astonished Annita, and was laying off her
+bonnet in the front room before that young person could collect her
+forces for a second protest.
+
+"So your mistress isn't coming home for dinner?" Mrs. Carroll's voice
+full of kindly inflections pursued Miss McMurtry to her final
+stronghold. "My! I'd forgotten what a small kitchen this was. Dark,
+isn't it? I'm afraid that's what makes you look so pale. Now if you'll
+just make me a cup of tea--or let me do it if you're busy; I'm used to
+waiting on myself. I suppose I'll find the tea-caddy in here."
+
+"You--let--my place alone--you!" hissed Annita, livid with rage, as
+Grandma Carroll laid her hand on the door of the cupboard. But she was
+too late; the open door disclosed a large frosted cake, a heap of
+delicately browned rolls and a roasted chicken.
+
+"Well, well! your cooking looks very nice indeed. I suppose you're
+expecting company; but if you can spare me one of those tasty rolls I
+shall make out nicely with the tea. Be sure and have it hot, my dear."
+And grandma pattered gently back into the dining-room, smiling wisely to
+herself.
+
+Just how many of Miss McMurtry's plans went awry that afternoon it would
+be hard to say. At three o'clock, when a mysterious black-robed elderly
+person carrying a capacious basket came up in the elevator she was met
+in the corridor by a white-visaged fury in a frilled cap and apron, who
+implored her distractedly to go away.
+
+"An' phwat for should I go away; ain't the things ready as usual?"
+demanded the lady with the basket. "I'd like me cup o' tea, too; I'm
+that tired an' cold."
+
+Miss McMurtry almost wept on the maternal shoulder. "I've got a lovely
+chicken," she whispered, "an' a cake, besides the rolls you was hungry
+for, an' the groceries; but her gran'mother, bad luck to her, come this
+mornin' from the country, an' she's helpin' me _clean my kitchen_."
+
+"Phwat for 'd you let her into your kitchen?" demanded the elder
+McMurtry indignantly. "I'm surprised at ye, Annie."
+
+"I didn't let her in, she walked right out and poked her nose into me
+cupboard without so much as sayin' by your leave. I think I'll be
+leavin' my place; I won't wait t' be trowed out by her." Miss McMurtry's
+tone was bitter. "They ain't much anyway. I'd rather go where there was
+more to do with."
+
+"Right you are, Annie, my girl, I've towld you that same many's the
+time. But if you're leavin' the night be sure--" The woman's voice
+dropped to a hissing whisper.
+
+"I'll do it sure, and maybe--" The girl's black eyes gleamed wickedly as
+she caught the creak and rattle of the ascending elevator "--I can do
+better than what you said in the end. It's safe enough with the likes o'
+them. They're easy."
+
+At six o'clock in fluttered Elizabeth, a vision of elegant femininity in
+her soft furs and plumes and trailing skirts. Darling grandmamma was
+kissed and embraced quite in the latest fashion, and the two sat down
+cosily to visit while Annita set the table for dinner with stony
+composure.
+
+"I've been here since noon," said grandma, complacently, "and I've been
+putting in my time helping your hired girl clean her cupboards."
+
+"What! Annita? You've been helping Annita?"
+
+"Why, yes; I didn't have anything else to do, and the cupboards
+certainly did need cleaning. Seems to me, Lizzie, you keep a big stock
+of all sorts of groceries on hand for so small a family as yours."
+
+"Do we?" asked Elizabeth, yawning daintily. "I'm sure I don't know what
+we have. Annita is perfectly competent to attend to everything in the
+kitchen, and I never interfere. She doesn't like it, and so why should
+I."
+
+"What are you paying for butter this winter?" grandma wanted to know,
+after a thoughtful pause.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know, the usual price, I suppose. Sam attends to the
+bills. He looks them over every night when he comes home, and gives
+Annita the money to pay them with."
+
+"Hum!" commented grandma, surveying her granddaughter keenly over the
+top of her spectacles; "that's a new way to keep house, seems to me."
+
+"It's a nice way, I know that," laughed Elizabeth.
+
+She had changed subtly from the shy, undeveloped girl who had left
+Innisfield less than a year ago into a luxuriance of bloom and beauty
+which astonished the older woman. There was an air of poise, of
+elegance, of assured dignity about her slender figure which fitted her
+as did her gown.
+
+"It must be easy, certainly," agreed Mrs. Carroll, sniffing delicately,
+after a well-remembered fashion.
+
+Elizabeth laughed and shrugged her shoulders in a way she had caught
+from Evelyn Tripp. "Now you know you are dying to lecture me, grandma,"
+she said caressingly; "but you see, dear, that things are decidedly
+different here in Boston, and-- But here comes Sam; he'll be so glad to
+see you."
+
+Mrs. Carroll was very cheerful and chatty with the young people that
+evening. She told them all the Innisfield news in her most spirited
+fashion, and never once by word or look expressed her growing
+disapproval of what her shrewd old eyes were telling her.
+
+Miss McMurtry, who stood with her ear glued to the crack of the door for
+a long half hour, finally retired with a contemptuous toss of her black
+head. Then, the coast being clear, she found opportunity to convey to
+their destination the comestibles dutifully provided for maternal
+consumption. "She's full as easy as the young one for all her meddlin'
+ways," said Miss McMurtry, "an' she'll be leavin' in the mornin', so
+there'll be no back talk comin' from her."
+
+But for once Annita was mistaken in her premises. Mrs. Carroll, it is
+true, made no immediate reference to the disclosures afforded by her
+daring invasion of the kitchen fastnesses, nor did she even remotely
+allude to the probable date of her departure for Innisfield.
+
+"I don't want you should make company of me, Lizzie," she said
+pleasantly, "or put yourself out a mite. I'll just join right in and do
+whatever you're planning to do."
+
+Elizabeth puckered her pretty forehead perplexedly; she was thinking
+that Grandma Carroll's unannounced visit would necessitate the hasty
+giving up of a gay luncheon and theatre party planned for that very
+afternoon. Tears of vexation sparkled in her brown eyes, as she took
+down the telephone receiver.
+
+Mrs. Carroll listened to the one-sided conversation which followed
+without visible discomfiture. "Now that's too bad," she observed
+sympathetically. "Why didn't you tell me you wanted to go, and I'd have
+eaten my lunch right here at home. There's plenty of cooked victuals in
+your kitchen pantry; I saw 'em yesterday whilst I was out helping
+around. I suppose your hired girl cooked that roast chicken and the
+layer-cake and the rolls for Samuel's noonings. I hope you'll see to it,
+Lizzie, that he takes a good, tasty lunch to work every day. But of
+course you do."
+
+Elizabeth stared. "Why, grandma," she said, "Sam doesn't carry his lunch
+like a common workman. He eats it at a restaurant in South Boston."
+
+"Hum!" mused Mrs. Carroll, "I wonder if he gets anything fit to eat
+there? Samuel appears to have gone off in his weight considerable since
+I saw him last," she added, shaking her head wisely. "He needs a
+gentian tonic, I should say, or--something."
+
+"You're mistaken, grandma," Elizabeth said, with an air of offended
+wifely dignity. "Sam isn't the least bit ill. Of course he works hard,
+but I should be the first to notice it if there was anything the matter
+with my husband."
+
+"Care killed a cat," quoted grandma sententiously, "and you appear to be
+pretty much occupied with other things. Home ought to come first, my
+dear; I hope you aren't forgetting that."
+
+Elizabeth's pretty face was a study; she bit her lip to keep back the
+petulant words that trembled on her tongue. "Evelyn is coming, grandma,"
+she said hurriedly, "and please don't--discuss things before her."
+
+Miss Tripp was unaffectedly surprised and, as she declared, "_charmed_"
+to see dear Mrs. Carroll in Boston. "I didn't suppose," she said, "that
+you ever _could_ bring yourself to leave dear, quiet Innisfield."
+
+Mrs. Carroll, on her part, exhibited a smiling blandness of demeanour
+which served as an incentive to the lively, if somewhat one-sided
+conversation which followed; a shrewd question now and then on the part
+of Mrs. Carroll eliciting numerous facts all bearing on the varied
+social activities of "_dear_ Elizabeth."
+
+"I'm positively looking forward to Lent," sighed Miss Tripp; "for really
+I'm _worn_ to a _fringe_, but dear Elizabeth never seems tired, no
+matter how many engagements she has. It is a perfect _delight_ to look
+at her, isn't it, dear Mrs. Carroll?"
+
+"Lizzie certainly does look healthy," admitted the smiling old lady,
+"but it beats me how she finds time to look after her husband and her
+hired girl with so many parties."
+
+The result of Mrs. Carroll's subsequent observations and conclusions
+were summed up in the few trenchant remarks addressed to her
+granddaughter the following day, as she was tying on her bonnet
+preparatory to taking the train for Innisfield.
+
+"I hope you'll come again soon, grandma," Elizabeth said dutifully.
+
+"I mistrust you don't mean that, Lizzie," replied Mrs. Carroll, facing
+about and gazing keenly at the young matron, "and I may as well say that
+I'm not likely to interfere with your plans often. I like my own bed and
+my own rocking-chair too well to be going about the country much. But I
+couldn't make out from what your father said just what the matter was."
+
+Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders with a pretty air of forbearance. "I
+was awfully sorry about daddy," she murmured; "but I don't see how I
+could have done anything else under the circumstances."
+
+"Well, _I_ do," said Grandma Carroll severely. She buttoned her gloves
+energetically as she went on in no uncertain tones. "I've always been a
+great believer in everybody minding their own business, but there's
+times when a little plain speech won't hurt anybody. Things aren't going
+right in your house, Lizzie; I can see that without half looking. _I
+warn you to keep an eye on your kitchen pantry._ I mistrust there's a
+leak there."
+
+"I trust Annita perfectly," said Elizabeth, her round chin tilted
+aggressively. "And I'm sure I ought to know by this time."
+
+"I agree with you there, Lizzie, you ought to know, but you don't. That
+girl is carrying things out of your kitchen as fast as the grocer and
+the butcher can bring them in; I don't think you can afford to let her
+spend your husband's money as she pleases, and that is what it amounts
+to the way you're managing now."
+
+"But grandma," protested Elizabeth, "Sam looks over every one of the
+bills himself before he pays them."
+
+"It isn't your husband's place to do your work and his own too, my
+dear."
+
+Elizabeth hung her head, her face flaming with angry colour.
+
+"You've been brought up to be a sensible, industrious, economical
+woman," pursued Mrs. Carroll earnestly; "but from what that Tipp girl
+said yesterday, I should imagine you'd taken leave of your senses. What
+does Samuel say to your spending so much money and being out so
+constant?"
+
+"He--he likes to have me have a good time."
+
+"Well, I'll lose my guess if _he's_ having one," said grandma pointedly.
+"Samuel looked worried to death last night when Terita brought him the
+bills. And I took notice he didn't eat scarcely anything at dinner. For
+that matter, I didn't myself; there wasn't a thing on the table cooked
+properly. Now, Lizzie, I've said my say, and I'm going." She kissed her
+granddaughter heartily. "Take time to think it over, child, and mind you
+don't tell the Fripp girl what I've said. She could talk a bird off a
+bush without a bit of trouble."
+
+"I wonder if everybody gets as queer and unreasonable as grandma when
+they are old," mused Elizabeth, as she picked her way daintily through
+the sloppy streets. "I'm sure I hope I sha'n't. Of course Sam is all
+right. I guess he'd tell me the very first thing if he wasn't."
+
+Nevertheless, Mrs. Carroll's significant words had left an unpleasant
+echo in her mind which haunted her at intervals all day. Under its
+influence she made a bold incursion into her kitchen, after a luncheon
+of chipped beef, dry toast and indifferent baker's cake.
+
+"Have we any cold chicken, Annita?" she asked hesitatingly. "I--that is,
+I am expecting a few friends this afternoon, and I thought----"
+
+Miss McMurtry faced about and eyed her mistress with lowering brows.
+"There ain't any chicken in the place, Mrs. Brewster," she said stonily;
+"an' as I ain't in the habit of havin' parties sprung on me unbeknownst,
+I'll be leaving at the end of my month, which is to-morrow--_if_ you
+please."
+
+Elizabeth's new-found dignity enabled her to face the woman's angry
+looks without visible discomfiture. "Very well, Annita," she said
+quietly. "Perhaps that will be best for both of us."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Elizabeth greeted her husband that night with a speculative anxiety in
+her eyes born of the uncomfortable misgivings which had haunted her
+during the day. And when after dinner he dropped asleep over his evening
+paper she perceived with a sharp pang of apprehension that his face was
+thinner than she had ever seen it, that his healthy colour had paled
+somewhat, and that hitherto unnoticed lines had begun to show themselves
+about his mouth and eyes.
+
+She reached for his hand which hung idly by his side, and the light
+touch awakened him. "Oh, Sam," she began, "Grandma Carroll insisted upon
+it that you were looking ill, and I wanted to see if you had any fever;
+working over there in that unhealthy part of town, you might have caught
+something."
+
+"Who told you it was unhealthy?" he wanted to know. "It really isn't at
+all, little girl, and you're not to worry about me--or anything."
+
+At just what point in his career Samuel Brewster had acquired the
+Quixotic idea that a woman, and particularly a young and beautiful
+woman, should not be allowed to taste the smallest drop of the world's
+bitterness he could not have explained. But the notion, albeit a
+mistaken one, was as much a part of himself as the blue of his steadfast
+eyes or the bronzy brown of his crisp locks.
+
+"You're not," he repeated positively, "to give yourself the slightest
+anxiety about me. I never felt better in my life." And he smiled
+determinedly.
+
+"But, Sam dear, I shall be obliged to worry if you are going to be ill,
+or if--" a misty light breaking in upon her confused thoughts, "you are
+keeping anything from me that I ought to know. I've been thinking about
+it all day, and I've been wondering if--" she lowered her voice
+cautiously--"Annita is perfectly reliable. I've always thought so till
+to-day. Anyway, she's going to leave to-morrow, and you'll be obliged
+to go back to my cooking for a while, till I can get some one else."
+
+The somewhat vague explanations which followed called for an examination
+of grocer's and butcher's accounts; and the two heads were bent so
+closely over the parti-coloured slips that neither heard the hasty
+preparations for departure going on in the rear.
+
+"It looks to me as if our domestic had been spoiling the Egyptians,"
+hazarded Sam, after half an hour of unsatisfactory work. "But I really
+don't know how much meat, groceries and stuff we ought to be using."
+
+"I might have found out," murmured Elizabeth contritely. "I've just gone
+on enjoying myself like a child, and--and I'm afraid I've spent too much
+money. I haven't kept any count."
+
+Her husband glanced at her pretty worried face with a frown of
+perplexity and annoyance between his honest eyes. "The fact is, Betty,"
+he burst out, "a poor man has no business to marry and make a woman
+uncomfortable and unhappy. You haven't spent but a trifle, dear, and
+all on the simplest, most innocent pleasures; yet it does count up so
+confoundedly. I wanted you to have a good time, dear, and I
+couldn't--bear--" He dropped into a chair and thrust his hands deep into
+his pockets.
+
+"Then we _have_ been spending too much on--contingencies; why didn't you
+tell me before?"
+
+He bit his lip. "We've spent nearly every dollar of our reserve, Betty,"
+he said slowly, "and this month I'm afraid--I don't see how I am going
+to meet all of the bills."
+
+"Oh, Sam!" gasped Elizabeth, turning pale.
+
+A voice from the softly opened kitchen door broke in upon, this crucial
+conversation. "You'll please to excuse me, Mrs. Brewster, but I've had
+word that my mother is sick, an' I'll have to be leaving at once. My
+month's up in the morning anyway, an' I hope you'll not mind paying me
+my wages to-night."
+
+Her lip curled scornfully as she glanced at the tradesmen's slips
+scattered on the table. Miss McMurtry openly despised people who, as
+she expressed it, were always "trying to save a copper cent on their
+meat and groceries." She herself felt quite above such economies. One
+could always change one's place, and being somewhat versed in common
+law, she felt reasonably secure in such small pecadilloes as she had
+seen fit to commit while in the employ of the Brewsters.
+
+"I should like to ask you a few questions first about these accounts,"
+said the inexperienced head of the house sternly. "How does it happen
+that you ordered fifteen pounds of sugar, seven pounds of butter and two
+of coffee last week? Surely Mrs. Brewster and I never consumed such an
+amount of provisions as I see we have paid for."
+
+Miss McMurtry's elbows vibrated slightly. "I only ordered what was
+needed, sir," she replied in a high, shrill voice. "Sure, you told me
+yourself not to bother the madame."
+
+"I did tell you that, I know. I thought you were to be trusted, but this
+doesn't look like it."
+
+A fearsome change came over the countenance of the respectable young
+person in the frilled apron. "Are you meaning to insinooate that _I_
+took them groceries?" she demanded fiercely. "I'll ask you to prove that
+same. Prove it, I say! It's a lie, an' I'd be willin' to swear to it in
+a court of justice. That's what comes of me workin' for poor folks that
+can't pay their bills!" Miss McMurtry swung about on her heels and
+included Elizabeth in the lightning of her gaze. "I come here to
+accomydate her, thinkin' she was a perfec' lady, an' I've slaved night
+an' day in her kitchen a-tryin' my best to please her, an' this is what
+I gets for it! But you can't take my character away that easy; I've the
+best of references; an' I'll trouble you for my wages--if you can pay
+'em. If not, there's ways I can collect 'em."
+
+"Pay her, Sam, and let her go, do!" begged Elizabeth in a frightened
+whisper.
+
+"I ought not to pay the girl, I'm sure of that; but to save you further
+annoyance, my dear--" He counted out twenty-two dollars, and pushed the
+little pile of bills across the table. "Take it," he said peremptorily,
+"and go."
+
+The two gazed at each other in silence while the loud trampling
+footsteps of the erstwhile gentle and noiseless Annita sounded in the
+rear. Then, when a violent and expressive bang of the kitchen door
+announced the fact that their domestic had finally shaken off the dust
+of her departure against them, Elizabeth burst into a relieved laugh.
+She came presently and perched on her husband's knee.
+
+"Sam, dear," she murmured, "it is all my fault, every bit of it. No;
+don't contradict me--nor interrupt--please! We can't afford to go on
+this way, and we're not going to. We'll begin over again, just as we
+meant to before I--" she paused while a flood of shamed colour swept
+over her drooped face "--tried to be fashionable. It isn't really so
+very much fun to go to card-parties and teas and luncheons, and I don't
+care a bit about it all, especially if--if it is going to cost us too
+much; and I--can see that it has already."
+
+All her little newly acquired graces and affectations dropped away as
+she spoke, and her husband saw the sweet, womanly soul he had loved and
+longed for in the beginning looking out of her brown eyes. He kissed her
+thankfully, almost solemnly. "Dear Betty," he whispered.
+
+"Couldn't we--go away from this place?" she went on after a while. "It
+isn't very pleasant, is it? and--I'm almost ashamed to say it--but
+Evelyn Tripp has such a way of making things look different to one. What
+she says sounds so--so _sensible_ that I can't--at least I haven't done
+as I intended in hardly anything."
+
+"There's a little red cottage to let, with a pocket-handkerchief lawn in
+front and room for a garden behind, not half a mile from where we are
+working," Sam told her, "but I haven't mentioned it because it's a long
+way to Tremont Street and--Evelyn." His blue eyes were full of the
+laughing light she had missed vaguely for more weeks than she cared to
+remember.
+
+"Let's engage it to-morrow!" exclaimed Elizabeth. "Why, Sam dear, we
+could have roses and strawberries and all sorts of fun out there!"
+
+When, after missing her friend for several days, Miss Tripp called at
+the Brewster apartment she was astonished beyond measure to find her
+dearest Elizabeth busy packing some last trifles, while several brawny
+men were engaged in taking away the furniture.
+
+"_My dear!_" she exclaimed. "What _are_ you doing?"
+
+"We're moving," said Elizabeth tranquilly. "You know I never cared
+particularly for this apartment, the rooms are so dark and unpleasant;
+besides the rent is too high for us."
+
+"But _where_----"
+
+"I was just going to tell you; we've taken a little house away over near
+the new water-works." Then as Miss Tripp's eyebrows and shoulders
+expressed a surprise bordering on distraction, "I felt that it would be
+better for us both to be nearer Sam's work. He can come home to luncheon
+now, and I--we shall like that immensely."
+
+"But you're going _out of the world_; do you _realise_ that, my dear?
+And _just_ as you were beginning to be known, too; and when I've tried
+so hard to--" Miss Tripp's voice broke, and she touched her eyelids
+delicately with her handkerchief. "Oh, _why_ didn't you consult _me_
+before taking such an irrevocable step? I'm sure I could have persuaded
+you to change your mind."
+
+Elizabeth opened her lips to reply; then she hesitated at sight of
+Evelyn's wan face, whereon the lavishly applied rice powder failed to
+conceal the traces of the multiplied fatigues and disappointments of a
+purely artificial life.
+
+"You'll be glad you didn't try to make me change my mind when you see
+our house," she said gaily. "It has all been painted and papered, and
+everything about the place is as fresh and sunny and delightful as this
+place is dark and dingy and disagreeable. Only think, Evelyn, there is a
+real fireplace in the living room, where we are going to burn real wood
+of an evening, and the bay-window in the dining-room looks out on a
+grass-plot bordered with rose-bushes!"
+
+"But the neighbourhood, dear!" wailed Evelyn. "Only think what a social
+Sahara you are going into!"
+
+"I don't know about that," Elizabeth told her calmly. "Several of the
+engineers who are working with Sam live near with their families, and
+Sam thinks we are going to enjoy it immensely. He is so glad we are
+going."
+
+Evelyn had folded her hands in her lap and sat looking hopelessly about
+the dismantled rooms. "You don't seem to think about me, Betty," she
+said, after a while. "I--I am going to miss you terribly." Tears shone
+in her faded eyes and her voice trembled.
+
+Elizabeth's warm heart was touched. "You've been very good to me,
+Evelyn," she said. "I shall never forget all that I've--learned from
+you. But we're really not going out of the world, and you shall come and
+see us whenever you will, and bye and bye we shall have strawberries and
+roses to offer you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+The roses on the tiny lawn of which Sam had spoken were in full bud, and
+Elizabeth was searching eagerly for the first streak of pink in the
+infant blossoms when she was surprised by the sight of an imposing
+equipage drawing up at the curb. The fat black horses pawed the gravel
+disdainfully, shaking their jingling harness, as the liveried footman
+dismounted from his perch and approached the mistress of the house.
+
+"I beg pawdon, miss," he said loftily; "but can you tell me
+where--aw--Mrs. Samuel Brewster lives?"
+
+"I am Mrs. Brewster." Elizabeth told him.
+
+Whereupon the man presented a card with an air of haughty humility.
+
+Elizabeth's wondering eyes uprose from its perusal to the vision of a
+tall, stout lady attired in purple broadcloth who was being assisted
+from the carriage. The hot colour flamed over her fair face, and for an
+instant she was tempted to run into the house and hide herself and the
+neat checked gingham gown she was wearing. Then she gripped her courage
+with both hands and came forward smiling determinedly.
+
+The august personage in purple paused at sight of the slender,
+blue-frocked figure, and raising a gold-mounted lorgnette to her eyes
+deliberately inspected it. "You are--Samuel Brewster's wife?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, Mrs. Van Duser." Elizabeth's voice trembled in spite of herself,
+but her eyes were calmly bright. "Won't you come in?" she added
+politely.
+
+The lady breathed somewhat heavily as she mounted the vine-wreathed
+porch. "I will sit down here," she announced magisterially; "the air is
+pleasant in the country."
+
+Elizabeth's brief experience in Boston society came to her assistance,
+enabling her to reply suitably to this undeniable statement of fact.
+Then an awesome silence ensued, broken only by the bold chirp of an
+unabashed robin successfully hunting worms in the grass-plot.
+
+"Where is your husband?" suddenly propounded the visitor.
+
+"Mr. Brewster is engaged in making a topographical map for the city; I
+do not know exactly where he is this afternoon," replied Elizabeth, her
+colour paling, then rising as she recalled the too well-remembered words
+of Mrs. Van Duser's late communication. "Did you wish to see him?"
+
+Mrs. Van Duser was apparently engaged in a severe inspection of the
+adventurous robin. She did not at once reply.
+
+Elizabeth looked down at the toe of her shabby little shoe. "Sam--comes
+home to lunch now," she faltered. "I--he hasn't been gone long."
+
+"Ah!" intoned Mrs. Van Duser, majestically transferring her attention
+from the daring robin to Elizabeth's crimson face.
+
+"Samuel has neglected to call upon me since his return to Boston," was
+Mrs. Van Duser's next remark, delivered in an awe-inspiring contralto;
+"though it is evident that he owes me an acknowledgment of his present
+good fortune."
+
+Elizabeth fixed round eyes of astonishment upon her visitor. "I can't
+think what you mean," she exclaimed unguardedly.
+
+"And yet I find you here, in this sylvan spot, far removed from the
+follies and temptations of your former position, and--I
+trust--prospering in a modest way."
+
+"Thank you," murmured Elizabeth, pink with indignation, "we are getting
+on very well."
+
+"What rent do you pay?"
+
+Elizabeth looked about rather wildly, as if searching for a way of
+escape. The robin had swallowed his latest find with an air of huge
+satisfaction, and now flew away with a ringing summons to his mate. "We
+pay thirty dollars, Mrs. Van Duser," she said slowly, "by the month."
+
+"Um! Why don't you buy the place?"
+
+"I don't think--I'm sure we--couldn't--" hesitated Elizabeth.
+
+"You are wrong," said Mrs. Van Duser, again raising her lorgnette to her
+eyes; "if you can afford to pay three hundred and sixty dollars in rent
+you can afford to own a home, and you should do so. Tell Samuel I said
+so."
+
+"Yes, Mrs. Van Duser," murmured Elizabeth in a depressed monotone.
+
+"Do you keep a maid?"
+
+"No, Mrs. Van Duser, I do my own housework." Elizabeth's brown eyes
+sparkled defiantly as she added, "I was brought up to work, and I like
+to do it."
+
+Mrs. Van Duser's large solemn countenance relaxed into a smile as she
+gazed into the ingenuous young face at her side.
+
+"Ah, my dear," she sighed, "I envy you your happiness, though I had it
+myself once upon a time. I don't often speak of those days, but John Van
+Duser was a poor man when I married him, and we lived in a little house
+not unlike this, and I did the cooking. Do you think you could give me a
+cup of tea, my dear?"
+
+When Samuel Brewster came home from his work at an unexpectedly early
+hour that afternoon he was astonished to find an imposing coupé, drawn
+by two fat, shining horses, being driven slowly up and down before his
+door; and further, as he entered the house, by the cheerful sound of
+clinking silver and china and low-voiced conversation. Elizabeth,
+pink-cheeked and smiling, met him with an exclamation of happy surprise.
+
+"I am so glad you came home, Sam dear," she said. "Mrs. Van Duser was
+hoping to see you before she went."
+
+And Mrs. Van Duser, looking very much at home and very comfortable
+indeed in Sam's own big wicker chair, proffered him a large white
+jewelled hand, while she bade him give an account of himself quite in
+the tone of an affectionate relative.
+
+"You have a charming and sensible wife, Samuel, and a well-conducted
+home," said the great lady. "I have seen the whole house, cellar,
+kitchen and all," she added with a reminiscent sigh, "and it has carried
+me back to the happiest days I ever spent."
+
+The young engineer passed his arm about his Elizabeth's shoulders as the
+two stood at the gate watching the stately departure of the Van Duser
+equipage. "Well, Betty," he said, "so the mountain came to Mahomet? But
+the mountain doesn't seem such a bad sort, after all. I liked the way
+she kissed you good-bye, though I should never have guessed she was
+capable of it."
+
+Elizabeth drew a deep breath. "I never was so frightened in my life as
+when she first came," she confessed. "But she is kind, Sam, in her way,
+though at first I thought it wasn't a pleasant way. And O, Sam dear, she
+thinks we gave up our flat and came out here just because she wrote us
+that letter; she was as complacent as could be when she spoke of it."
+
+"Did you undeceive her?"
+
+"N-no, dear, I didn't even try. Perhaps it was the letter--partly, and
+anyway I felt sure I couldn't make her think any differently whatever I
+might say. But I did tell her about Annita and about how thoughtless and
+selfish I was, and----"
+
+"Did you tell her about the Tripp lady?" he suggested teasingly.
+
+"No," she said gravely. "Evelyn meant to be kind, too; I am sure of
+that."
+
+"O benevolent Betty!" he exclaimed with mock gravity. "O most sapient
+Elizabeth! I perceive that in gaining a new friend thou hast not lost an
+old one! I suppose from now on you will begin to model your small self
+on the Van Duser pattern. My lady will see to it that you do, if you see
+much of her."
+
+Elizabeth looked up at her tall husband, her brown eyes brimming with
+thoughtful light. "It is good to have friends," she said slowly; "but,
+Sam dear, we must never allow any--_friend_ to come between us again. We
+must live our own lives, and solve our own problems, even if we make an
+occasional blunder doing it."
+
+"We've solved our problems already," he said confidently, "and I'm not
+afraid of the blunders, thanks to the dearest and best little wife a man
+ever had."
+
+And Elizabeth smiled back at him, knowing in her wiser woman's heart
+that there were yet many problems to be solved, but not fearful of what
+the future would bring in the light of his loving eyes.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of And So They Were Married, by 
+Florence Morse Kingsley
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