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diff --git a/5343-0.txt~ b/5343-0.txt~ deleted file mode 100644 index e2d49d4..0000000 --- a/5343-0.txt~ +++ /dev/null @@ -1,9409 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Rainbow Valley, by Lucy Maud Montgomery - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Rainbow Valley - -Author: Lucy Maud Montgomery - -Release Date: July 3, 2002 [eBook #5343] -[Most recently updated: May 5, 2021] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Bernard J. Farber, Carmen Baxter, Dona Rucci, Elizabeth -Morton, Rebekah Neely, Joe Johnson, Joan Chovan, Judith Fetterolf, -Mary Nuzzo, Sally Drake, Sally Starks, Steve Callis, Virginia -Mohlere-Dellinger, Mary Mark Ockerbloom, Ben Crowder and David Widger - - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RAINBOW VALLEY *** - - - - -[Illustration] - - - - -Rainbow Valley - -by Lucy Maud Montgomery - -Author of “Anne of Green Gables,” “Anne of the -Island,” - -“Anne’s House of Dreams,” “The Story Girl,” -“The Watchman,” etc. - -“The thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.” -—LONGFELLOW - -TO THE MEMORY OF - -GOLDWIN LAPP, ROBERT BROOKES AND MORLEY SHIER - -WHO MADE THE SUPREME SACRIFICE THAT THE HAPPY VALLEYS OF THEIR HOME -LAND MIGHT BE KEPT SACRED FROM THE RAVAGE OF THE INVADER - - -Contents - - I. HOME AGAIN - II. SHEER GOSSIP - III. THE INGLESIDE CHILDREN - IV. THE MANSE CHILDREN - V. THE ADVENT OF MARY VANCE - VI. MARY STAYS AT THE MANSE - VII. A FISHY EPISODE - VIII. MISS CORNELIA INTERVENES - IX. UNA INTERVENES - X. THE MANSE GIRLS CLEAN HOUSE - XI. A DREADFUL DISCOVERY - XII. AN EXPLANATION AND A DARE - XIII. THE HOUSE ON THE HILL - XIV. MRS. ALEC DAVIS MAKES A CALL - XV. MORE GOSSIP - XVI. TIT FOR TAT - XVII. A DOUBLE VICTORY - XVIII. MARY BRINGS EVIL TIDINGS - XIX. POOR ADAM! - XX. FAITH MAKES A FRIEND - XXI. THE IMPOSSIBLE WORD - XXII. ST. GEORGE KNOWS ALL ABOUT IT - XXIII. THE GOOD-CONDUCT CLUB - XXIV. A CHARITABLE IMPULSE - XXV. ANOTHER SCANDAL AND ANOTHER “EXPLANATION” - XXVI. MISS CORNELIA GETS A NEW POINT OF VIEW - XXVII. A SACRED CONCERT - XXVIII. A FAST DAY - XXIX. A WEIRD TALE - XXX. THE GHOST ON THE DYKE - XXXI. CARL DOES PENANCE - XXXII. TWO STUBBORN PEOPLE - XXXIII. CARL IS—NOT—WHIPPED - XXXIV. UNA VISITS THE HILL - XXXV. “LET THE PIPER COME” - - - - -RAINBOW VALLEY - - - - -CHAPTER I. -HOME AGAIN - - -It was a clear, apple-green evening in May, and Four Winds Harbour was -mirroring back the clouds of the golden west between its softly dark -shores. The sea moaned eerily on the sand-bar, sorrowful even in -spring, but a sly, jovial wind came piping down the red harbour road -along which Miss Cornelia’s comfortable, matronly figure was making its -way towards the village of Glen St. Mary. Miss Cornelia was rightfully -Mrs. Marshall Elliott, and had been Mrs. Marshall Elliott for thirteen -years, but even yet more people referred to her as Miss Cornelia than -as Mrs. Elliott. The old name was dear to her old friends, only one of -them contemptuously dropped it. Susan Baker, the gray and grim and -faithful handmaiden of the Blythe family at Ingleside, never lost an -opportunity of calling her “Mrs. Marshall Elliott,” with the most -killing and pointed emphasis, as if to say “You wanted to be Mrs. and -Mrs. you shall be with a vengeance as far as I am concerned.” - -Miss Cornelia was going up to Ingleside to see Dr. and Mrs. Blythe, who -were just home from Europe. They had been away for three months, having -left in February to attend a famous medical congress in London; and -certain things, which Miss Cornelia was anxious to discuss, had taken -place in the Glen during their absence. For one thing, there was a new -family in the manse. And such a family! Miss Cornelia shook her head -over them several times as she walked briskly along. - -Susan Baker and the Anne Shirley of other days saw her coming, as they -sat on the big veranda at Ingleside, enjoying the charm of the cat’s -light, the sweetness of sleepy robins whistling among the twilit -maples, and the dance of a gusty group of daffodils blowing against the -old, mellow, red brick wall of the lawn. - -Anne was sitting on the steps, her hands clasped over her knee, -looking, in the kind dusk, as girlish as a mother of many has any right -to be; and the beautiful gray-green eyes, gazing down the harbour road, -were as full of unquenchable sparkle and dream as ever. Behind her, in -the hammock, Rilla Blythe was curled up, a fat, roly-poly little -creature of six years, the youngest of the Ingleside children. She had -curly red hair and hazel eyes that were now buttoned up after the -funny, wrinkled fashion in which Rilla always went to sleep. - -Shirley, “the little brown boy,” as he was known in the family “Who’s -Who,” was asleep in Susan’s arms. He was brown-haired, brown-eyed and -brown-skinned, with very rosy cheeks, and he was Susan’s especial love. -After his birth Anne had been very ill for a long time, and Susan -“mothered” the baby with a passionate tenderness which none of the -other children, dear as they were to her, had ever called out. Dr. -Blythe had said that but for her he would never have lived. - -“I gave him life just as much as you did, Mrs. Dr. dear,” Susan was -wont to say. “He is just as much my baby as he is yours.” And, indeed, -it was always to Susan that Shirley ran, to be kissed for bumps, and -rocked to sleep, and protected from well-deserved spankings. Susan had -conscientiously spanked all the other Blythe children when she thought -they needed it for their souls’ good, but she would not spank Shirley -nor allow his mother to do it. Once, Dr. Blythe had spanked him and -Susan had been stormily indignant. - -“That man would spank an angel, Mrs. Dr. dear, that he would,” she had -declared bitterly; and she would not make the poor doctor a pie for -weeks. - -She had taken Shirley with her to her brother’s home during his -parents’ absence, while all the other children had gone to Avonlea, and -she had three blessed months of him all to herself. Nevertheless, Susan -was very glad to find herself back at Ingleside, with all her darlings -around her again. Ingleside was her world and in it she reigned -supreme. Even Anne seldom questioned her decisions, much to the disgust -of Mrs. Rachel Lynde of Green Gables, who gloomily told Anne, whenever -she visited Four Winds, that she was letting Susan get to be entirely -too much of a boss and would live to rue it. - -“Here is Cornelia Bryant coming up the harbour road, Mrs. Dr. dear,” -said Susan. “She will be coming up to unload three months’ gossip on -us.” - -“I hope so,” said Anne, hugging her knees. “I’m starving for Glen St. -Mary gossip, Susan. I hope Miss Cornelia can tell me everything that -has happened while we’ve been away—_everything_—who has got born, or -married, or drunk; who has died, or gone away, or come, or fought, or -lost a cow, or found a beau. It’s so delightful to be home again with -all the dear Glen folks, and I want to know all about them. Why, I -remember wondering, as I walked through Westminster Abbey which of her -two especial beaux Millicent Drew would finally marry. Do you know, -Susan, I have a dreadful suspicion that I love gossip.” - -“Well, of course, Mrs. Dr. dear,” admitted Susan, “every proper woman -likes to hear the news. I am rather interested in Millicent Drew’s case -myself. I never had a beau, much less two, and I do not mind now, for -being an old maid does not hurt when you get used to it. Millicent’s -hair always looks to me as if she had swept it up with a broom. But the -men do not seem to mind that.” - -“They see only her pretty, piquant, mocking, little face, Susan.” - -“That may very well be, Mrs. Dr. dear. The Good Book says that favour -is deceitful and beauty is vain, but I should not have minded finding -that out for myself, if it had been so ordained. I have no doubt we -will all be beautiful when we are angels, but what good will it do us -then? Speaking of gossip, however, they do say that poor Mrs. Harrison -Miller over harbour tried to hang herself last week.” - -“Oh, Susan!” - -“Calm yourself, Mrs. Dr. dear. She did not succeed. But I really do not -blame her for trying, for her husband is a terrible man. But she was -very foolish to think of hanging herself and leaving the way clear for -him to marry some other woman. If I had been in her shoes, Mrs. Dr. -dear, I would have gone to work to worry him so that he would try to -hang himself instead of me. Not that I hold with people hanging -themselves under any circumstances, Mrs. Dr. dear.” - -“What is the matter with Harrison Miller, anyway?” said Anne -impatiently. “He is always driving some one to extremes.” - -“Well, some people call it religion and some call it cussedness, -begging your pardon, Mrs. Dr. dear, for using such a word. It seems -they cannot make out which it is in Harrison’s case. There are days -when he growls at everybody because he thinks he is fore-ordained to -eternal punishment. And then there are days when he says he does not -care and goes and gets drunk. My own opinion is that he is not sound in -his intellect, for none of that branch of the Millers were. His -grandfather went out of his mind. He thought he was surrounded by big -black spiders. They crawled over him and floated in the air about him. -I hope I shall never go insane, Mrs. Dr. dear, and I do not think I -will, because it is not a habit of the Bakers. But, if an all-wise -Providence should decree it, I hope it will not take the form of big -black spiders, for I loathe the animals. As for Mrs. Miller, I do not -know whether she really deserves pity or not. There are some who say -she just married Harrison to spite Richard Taylor, which seems to me a -very peculiar reason for getting married. But then, of course, _I_ am -no judge of things matrimonial, Mrs. Dr. dear. And there is Cornelia -Bryant at the gate, so I will put this blessed brown baby on his bed -and get my knitting.” - - - - -CHAPTER II. -SHEER GOSSIP - - -“Where are the other children?” asked Miss Cornelia, when the first -greetings—cordial on her side, rapturous on Anne’s, and dignified on -Susan’s—were over. - -“Shirley is in bed and Jem and Walter and the twins are down in their -beloved Rainbow Valley,” said Anne. “They just came home this -afternoon, you know, and they could hardly wait until supper was over -before rushing down to the valley. They love it above every spot on -earth. Even the maple grove doesn’t rival it in their affections.” - -“I am afraid they love it too well,” said Susan gloomily. “Little Jem -said once he would rather go to Rainbow Valley than to heaven when he -died, and that was not a proper remark.” - -“I suppose they had a great time in Avonlea?” said Miss Cornelia. - -“Enormous. Marilla does spoil them terribly. Jem, in particular, can do -no wrong in her eyes.” - -“Miss Cuthbert must be an old lady now,” said Miss Cornelia, getting -out her knitting, so that she could hold her own with Susan. Miss -Cornelia held that the woman whose hands were employed always had the -advantage over the woman whose hands were not. - -“Marilla is eighty-five,” said Anne with a sigh. “Her hair is -snow-white. But, strange to say, her eyesight is better than it was -when she was sixty.” - -“Well, dearie, I’m real glad you’re all back. I’ve been dreadful -lonesome. But we haven’t been dull in the Glen, believe _me_. There -hasn’t been such an exciting spring in my time, as far as church -matters go. We’ve got settled with a minister at last, Anne dearie.” - -“The Reverend John Knox Meredith, Mrs. Dr. dear,” said Susan, resolved -not to let Miss Cornelia tell all the news. - -“Is he nice?” asked Anne interestedly. - -Miss Cornelia sighed and Susan groaned. - -“Yes, he’s nice enough if that were all,” said the former. “He is -_very_ nice—and very learned—and very spiritual. But, oh Anne dearie, -he has no common sense! - -“How was it you called him, then?” - -“Well, there’s no doubt he is by far the best preacher we ever had in -Glen St. Mary church,” said Miss Cornelia, veering a tack or two. “I -suppose it is because he is so moony and absent-minded that he never -got a town call. His trial sermon was simply wonderful, believe _me_. -Every one went mad about it—and his looks.” - -“He is _very_ comely, Mrs. Dr. dear, and when all is said and done, I -_do_ like to see a well-looking man in the pulpit,” broke in Susan, -thinking it was time she asserted herself again. - -“Besides,” said Miss Cornelia, “we were anxious to get settled. And Mr. -Meredith was the first candidate we were all agreed on. Somebody had -some objection to all the others. There was some talk of calling Mr. -Folsom. He was a good preacher, too, but somehow people didn’t care for -his appearance. He was too dark and sleek.” - -“He looked exactly like a great black tomcat, that he did, Mrs. Dr. -dear,” said Susan. “I never could abide such a man in the pulpit every -Sunday.” - -“Then Mr. Rogers came and he was like a chip in porridge—neither harm -nor good,” resumed Miss Cornelia. “But if he had preached like Peter -and Paul it would have profited him nothing, for that was the day old -Caleb Ramsay’s sheep strayed into church and gave a loud ‘ba-a-a’ just -as he announced his text. Everybody laughed, and poor Rogers had no -chance after that. Some thought we ought to call Mr. Stewart, because -he was so well educated. He could read the New Testament in five -languages.” - -“But I do not think he was any surer than other men of getting to -heaven because of that,” interjected Susan. - -“Most of us didn’t like his delivery,” said Miss Cornelia, ignoring -Susan. “He talked in grunts, so to speak. And Mr. Arnett couldn’t -preach _at all_. And he picked about the worst candidating text there -is in the Bible—‘Curse ye Meroz.’” - -“Whenever he got stuck for an idea, he would bang the Bible and shout -very bitterly, ‘Curse ye Meroz.’ Poor Meroz got thoroughly cursed that -day, whoever he was, Mrs. Dr. dear,” said Susan. - -“The minister who is candidating can’t be too careful what text he -chooses,” said Miss Cornelia solemnly. “I believe Mr. Pierson would -have got the call if he had picked a different text. But when he -announced ‘I will lift my eyes to the hills’ _he_ was done for. Every -one grinned, for every one knew that those two Hill girls from the -Harbour Head have been setting their caps for every single minister who -came to the Glen for the last fifteen years. And Mr. Newman had too -large a family.” - -“He stayed with my brother-in-law, James Clow,” said Susan. “‘How many -children have you got?’ I asked him. ‘Nine boys and a sister for each -of them,’ he said. ‘Eighteen!’ said I. ‘Dear me, what a family!’ And -then he laughed and laughed. But I do not know why, Mrs. Dr. dear, and -I am certain that eighteen children would be too many for any manse.” - -“He had only ten children, Susan,” explained Miss Cornelia, with -contemptuous patience. “And ten good children would not be much worse -for the manse and congregation than the four who are there now. Though -I wouldn’t say, Anne dearie, that they are so bad, either. I like -them—everybody likes them. It’s impossible to help liking them. They -would be real nice little souls if there was anyone to look after their -manners and teach them what is right and proper. For instance, at -school the teacher says they are model children. But at home they -simply run wild.” - -“What about Mrs. Meredith?” asked Anne. - -“There’s _no_ Mrs. Meredith. That is just the trouble. Mr. Meredith is -a widower. His wife died four years ago. If we had known that I don’t -suppose we would have called him, for a widower is even worse in a -congregation than a single man. But he was heard to speak of his -children and we all supposed there was a mother, too. And when they -came there was nobody but old Aunt Martha, as they call her. She’s a -cousin of Mr. Meredith’s mother, I believe, and he took her in to save -her from the poorhouse. She is seventy-five years old, half blind, and -very deaf and very cranky.” - -“And a very poor cook, Mrs. Dr. dear.” - -“The worst possible manager for a manse,” said Miss Cornelia bitterly. -“Mr. Meredith won’t get any other housekeeper because he says it would -hurt Aunt Martha’s feelings. Anne dearie, believe me, the state of that -manse is something terrible. Everything is thick with dust and nothing -is ever in its place. And we had painted and papered it all so nice -before they came.” - -“There are four children, you say?” asked Anne, beginning to mother -them already in her heart. - -“Yes. They run up just like the steps of a stair. Gerald’s the oldest. -He’s twelve and they call him Jerry. He’s a clever boy. Faith is -eleven. She is a regular tomboy but pretty as a picture, I must say.” - -“She looks like an angel but she is a holy terror for mischief, Mrs. -Dr. dear,” said Susan solemnly. “I was at the manse one night last week -and Mrs. James Millison was there, too. She had brought them up a dozen -eggs and a little pail of milk—a _very_ little pail, Mrs. Dr. dear. -Faith took them and whisked down the cellar with them. Near the bottom -of the stairs she caught her toe and fell the rest of the way, milk and -eggs and all. You can imagine the result, Mrs. Dr. dear. But that child -came up laughing. ‘I don’t know whether I’m myself or a custard pie,’ -she said. And Mrs. James Millison was very angry. She said she would -never take another thing to the manse if it was to be wasted and -destroyed in that fashion.” - -“Maria Millison never hurt herself taking things to the manse,” sniffed -Miss Cornelia. “She just took them that night as an excuse for -curiosity. But poor Faith is always getting into scrapes. She is so -heedless and impulsive.” - -“Just like me. I’m going to like your Faith,” said Anne decidedly. - -“She is full of spunk—and I do like spunk, Mrs. Dr. dear,” admitted -Susan. - -“There’s something taking about her,” conceded Miss Cornelia. “You -never see her but she’s laughing, and somehow it always makes you want -to laugh too. She can’t even keep a straight face in church. Una is -ten—she’s a sweet little thing—not pretty, but sweet. And Thomas -Carlyle is nine. They call him Carl, and he has a regular mania for -collecting toads and bugs and frogs and bringing them into the house.” - -“I suppose he was responsible for the dead rat that was lying on a -chair in the parlour the afternoon Mrs. Grant called. It gave her a -turn,” said Susan, “and I do not wonder, for manse parlours are no -places for dead rats. To be sure it may have been the cat who left it, -there. _He_ is as full of the old Nick as he can be stuffed, Mrs. Dr. -dear. A manse cat should at least _look_ respectable, in my opinion, -whatever he really is. But I never saw such a rakish-looking beast. And -he walks along the ridgepole of the manse almost every evening at -sunset, Mrs. Dr. dear, and waves his tail, and that is not becoming.” - -“The worst of it is, they are _never_ decently dressed,” sighed Miss -Cornelia. “And since the snow went they go to school barefooted. Now, -you know Anne dearie, that isn’t the right thing for manse -children—especially when the Methodist minister’s little girl always -wears such nice buttoned boots. And I _do_ wish they wouldn’t play in -the old Methodist graveyard.” - -“It’s very tempting, when it’s right beside the manse,” said Anne. -“I’ve always thought graveyards must be delightful places to play in.” - -“Oh, no, you did not, Mrs. Dr. dear,” said loyal Susan, determined to -protect Anne from herself. “You have too much good sense and decorum.” - -“Why did they ever build that manse beside the graveyard in the first -place?” asked Anne. “Their lawn is so small there is no place for them -to play except in the graveyard.” - -“It _was_ a mistake,” admitted Miss Cornelia. “But they got the lot -cheap. And no other manse children ever thought of playing there. Mr. -Meredith shouldn’t allow it. But he has always got his nose buried in a -book, when he is home. He reads and reads, or walks about in his study -in a day-dream. So far he hasn’t forgotten to be in church on Sundays, -but twice he has forgotten about the prayer-meeting and one of the -elders had to go over to the manse and remind him. And he forgot about -Fanny Cooper’s wedding. They rang him up on the ‘phone and then he -rushed right over, just as he was, carpet slippers and all. One -wouldn’t mind if the Methodists didn’t laugh so about it. But there’s -one comfort—they can’t criticize his sermons. He wakes up when he’s in -the pulpit, believe _me_. And the Methodist minister can’t preach at -all—so they tell me. _I_ have never heard him, thank goodness.” - -Miss Cornelia’s scorn of men had abated somewhat since her marriage, -but her scorn of Methodists remained untinged of charity. Susan smiled -slyly. - -“They do say, Mrs. Marshall Elliott, that the Methodists and -Presbyterians are talking of uniting,” she said. - -“Well, all I hope is that I’ll be under the sod if that ever comes to -pass,” retorted Miss Cornelia. “I shall never have truck or trade with -Methodists, and Mr. Meredith will find that he’d better steer clear of -them, too. He is entirely too sociable with them, believe _me_. Why, he -went to the Jacob Drews’ silver-wedding supper and got into a nice -scrape as a result.” - -“What was it?” - -“Mrs. Drew asked him to carve the roast goose—for Jacob Drew never did -or could carve. Well, Mr. Meredith tackled it, and in the process he -knocked it clean off the platter into Mrs. Reese’s lap, who was sitting -next him. And he just said dreamily. ‘Mrs. Reese, will you kindly -return me that goose?’ Mrs. Reese ‘returned’ it, as meek as Moses, but -she must have been furious, for she had on her new silk dress. The -worst of it is, she was a Methodist.” - -“But I think that is better than if she was a Presbyterian,” -interjected Susan. “If she had been a Presbyterian she would mostly -likely have left the church and we cannot afford to lose our members. -And Mrs. Reese is not liked in her own church, because she gives -herself such great airs, so that the Methodists would be rather pleased -that Mr. Meredith spoiled her dress.” - -“The point is, he made himself ridiculous, and _I_, for one, do not -like to see my minister made ridiculous in the eyes of the Methodists,” -said Miss Cornelia stiffly. “If he had had a wife it would not have -happened.” - -“I do not see if he had a dozen wives how they could have prevented -Mrs. Drew from using up her tough old gander for the wedding-feast,” -said Susan stubbornly. - -“They say that was her husband’s doing,” said Miss Cornelia. “Jacob -Drew is a conceited, stingy, domineering creature.” - -“And they do say he and his wife detest each other—which does not seem -to me the proper way for married folks to get along. But then, of -course, I have had no experience along that line,” said Susan, tossing -her head. “And _I_ am not one to blame everything on the men. Mrs. Drew -is mean enough herself. They say that the only thing she was ever known -to give away was a crock of butter made out of cream a rat had fell -into. She contributed it to a church social. Nobody found out about the -rat until afterwards.” - -“Fortunately, all the people the Merediths have offended so far are -Methodists,” said Miss Cornelia. “That Jerry went to the Methodist -prayer-meeting one night about a fortnight ago and sat beside old -William Marsh who got up as usual and testified with fearful groans. -‘Do you feel any better now?’ whispered Jerry when William sat down. -Poor Jerry meant to be sympathetic, but Mr. Marsh thought he was -impertinent and is furious at him. Of course, Jerry had no business to -be in a Methodist prayer-meeting at all. But they go where they like.” - -“I hope they will not offend Mrs. Alec Davis of the Harbour Head,” said -Susan. “She is a very touchy woman, I understand, but she is very well -off and pays the most of any one to the salary. I have heard that she -says the Merediths are the worst brought up children she ever saw.” - -“Every word you say convinces me more and more that the Merediths -belong to the race that knows Joseph,” said Mistress Anne decidedly. - -“When all is said and done, they _do_,” admitted Miss Cornelia. “And -that balances everything. Anyway, we’ve got them now and we must just -do the best we can by them and stick up for them to the Methodists. -Well, I suppose I must be getting down harbour. Marshall will soon be -home—he went over-harbour to-day—and wanting his super, man-like. I’m -sorry I haven’t seen the other children. And where’s the doctor?” - -“Up at the Harbour Head. We’ve only been home three days and in that -time he has spent three hours in his own bed and eaten two meals in his -own house.” - -“Well, everybody who has been sick for the last six weeks has been -waiting for him to come home—and I don’t blame them. When that -over-harbour doctor married the undertaker’s daughter at Lowbridge -people felt suspicious of him. It didn’t look well. You and the doctor -must come down soon and tell us all about your trip. I suppose you’ve -had a splendid time.” - -“We had,” agreed Anne. “It was the fulfilment of years of dreams. The -old world is very lovely and very wonderful. But we have come back very -well satisfied with our own land. Canada is the finest country in the -world, Miss Cornelia.” - -“Nobody ever doubted that,” said Miss Cornelia, complacently. - -“And old P.E.I. is the loveliest province in it and Four Winds the -loveliest spot in P.E.I.,” laughed Anne, looking adoringly out over the -sunset splendour of glen and harbour and gulf. She waved her hand at -it. “I saw nothing more beautiful than that in Europe, Miss Cornelia. -Must you go? The children will be sorry to have missed you.” - -“They must come and see me soon. Tell them the doughnut jar is always -full.” - -“Oh, at supper they were planning a descent on you. They’ll go soon; -but they must settle down to school again now. And the twins are going -to take music lessons.” - -“Not from the Methodist minister’s wife, I hope?” said Miss Cornelia -anxiously. - -“No—from Rosemary West. I was up last evening to arrange it with her. -What a pretty girl she is!” - -“Rosemary holds her own well. She isn’t as young as she once was.” - -“I thought her very charming. I’ve never had any real acquaintance with -her, you know. Their house is so out of the way, and I’ve seldom ever -seen her except at church.” - -“People always have liked Rosemary West, though they don’t understand -her,” said Miss Cornelia, quite unconscious of the high tribute she was -paying to Rosemary’s charm. “Ellen has always kept her down, so to -speak. She has tyrannized over her, and yet she has always indulged her -in a good many ways. Rosemary was engaged once, you know—to young -Martin Crawford. His ship was wrecked on the Magdalens and all the crew -were drowned. Rosemary was just a child—only seventeen. But she was -never the same afterwards. She and Ellen have stayed very close at home -since their mother’s death. They don’t often get to their own church at -Lowbridge and I understand Ellen doesn’t approve of going too often to -a Presbyterian church. To the Methodist she _never_ goes, I’ll say that -much for her. That family of Wests have always been strong -Episcopalians. Rosemary and Ellen are pretty well off. Rosemary doesn’t -really need to give music lessons. She does it because she likes to. -They are distantly related to Leslie, you know. Are the Fords coming to -the harbour this summer?” - -“No. They are going on a trip to Japan and will probably be away for a -year. Owen’s new novel is to have a Japanese setting. This will be the -first summer that the dear old House of Dreams will be empty since we -left it.” - -“I should think Owen Ford might find enough to write about in Canada -without dragging his wife and his innocent children off to a heathen -country like Japan,” grumbled Miss Cornelia. “_The Life Book_ was the -best book he’s ever written and he got the material for that right here -in Four Winds.” - -“Captain Jim gave him the most of that, you know. And he collected it -all over the world. But Owen’s books are all delightful, I think.” - -“Oh, they’re well enough as far as they go. I make it a point to read -every one he writes, though I’ve always held, Anne dearie, that reading -novels is a sinful waste of time. I shall write and tell him my opinion -of this Japanese business, believe _me_. Does he want Kenneth and -Persis to be converted into pagans?” - -With which unanswerable conundrum Miss Cornelia took her departure. -Susan proceeded to put Rilla in bed and Anne sat on the veranda steps -under the early stars and dreamed her incorrigible dreams and learned -all over again for the hundredth happy time what a moonrise splendour -and sheen could be on Four Winds Harbour. - - - - -CHAPTER III. -THE INGLESIDE CHILDREN - - -In daytime the Blythe children liked very well to play in the rich, -soft greens and glooms of the big maple grove between Ingleside and the -Glen St. Mary pond; but for evening revels there was no place like the -little valley behind the maple grove. It was a fairy realm of romance -to them. Once, looking from the attic windows of Ingleside, through the -mist and aftermath of a summer thunderstorm, they had seen the beloved -spot arched by a glorious rainbow, one end of which seemed to dip -straight down to where a corner of the pond ran up into the lower end -of the valley. - -“Let us call it Rainbow Valley,” said Walter delightedly, and Rainbow -Valley thenceforth it was. - -Outside of Rainbow Valley the wind might be rollicking and boisterous. -Here it always went gently. Little, winding, fairy paths ran here and -there over spruce roots cushioned with moss. Wild cherry trees, that in -blossom time would be misty white, were scattered all over the valley, -mingling with the dark spruces. A little brook with amber waters ran -through it from the Glen village. The houses of the village were -comfortably far away; only at the upper end of the valley was a little -tumble-down, deserted cottage, referred to as “the old Bailey house.” -It had not been occupied for many years, but a grass-grown dyke -surrounded it and inside was an ancient garden where the Ingleside -children could find violets and daisies and June lilies still blooming -in season. For the rest, the garden was overgrown with caraway that -swayed and foamed in the moonshine of summer eves like seas of silver. - -To the sought lay the pond and beyond it the ripened distance lost -itself in purple woods, save where, on a high hill, a solitary old gray -homestead looked down on glen and harbour. There was a certain wild -woodsiness and solitude about Rainbow Valley, in spite of its nearness -to the village, which endeared it to the children of Ingleside. - -The valley was full of dear, friendly hollows and the largest of these -was their favourite stamping ground. Here they were assembled on this -particular evening. There was a grove of young spruces in this hollow, -with a tiny, grassy glade in its heart, opening on the bank of the -brook. By the brook grew a silver birch-tree, a young, incredibly -straight thing which Walter had named the “White Lady.” In this glade, -too, were the “Tree Lovers,” as Walter called a spruce and maple which -grew so closely together that their boughs were inextricably -intertwined. Jem had hung an old string of sleigh-bells, given him by -the Glen blacksmith, on the Tree Lovers, and every visitant breeze -called out sudden fairy tinkles from it. - -“How nice it is to be back!” said Nan. “After all, none of the Avonlea -places are quite as nice as Rainbow Valley.” - -But they were very fond of the Avonlea places for all that. A visit to -Green Gables was always considered a great treat. Aunt Marilla was very -good to them, and so was Mrs. Rachel Lynde, who was spending the -leisure of her old age in knitting cotton-warp quilts against the day -when Anne’s daughters should need a “setting-out.” There were jolly -playmates there, too—“Uncle” Davy’s children and “Aunt” Diana’s -children. They knew all the spots their mother had loved so well in her -girlhood at old Green Gables—the long Lover’s Lane, that was -pink-hedged in wild-rose time, the always neat yard, with its willows -and poplars, the Dryad’s Bubble, lucent and lovely as of yore, the Lake -of Shining Waters, and Willowmere. The twins had their mother’s old -porch-gable room, and Aunt Marilla used to come in at night, when she -thought they were asleep, to gloat over them. But they all knew she -loved Jem the best. - -Jem was at present busily occupied in frying a mess of small trout -which he had just caught in the pond. His stove consisted of a circle -of red stones, with a fire kindled in it, and his culinary utensils -were an old tin can, hammered out flat, and a fork with only one tine -left. Nevertheless, ripping good meals had before now been thus -prepared. - -Jem was the child of the House of Dreams. All the others had been born -at Ingleside. He had curly red hair, like his mother’s, and frank hazel -eyes, like his father’s; he had his mother’s fine nose and his father’s -steady, humorous mouth. And he was the only one of the family who had -ears nice enough to please Susan. But he had a standing feud with Susan -because she would not give up calling him Little Jem. It was -outrageous, thought thirteen-year-old Jem. Mother had more sense. - -“I’m _not_ little any more, Mother,” he had cried indignantly, on his -eighth birthday. “I’m _awful_ big.” - -Mother had sighed and laughed and sighed again; and she never called -him Little Jem again—in his hearing at least. - -He was and always had been a sturdy, reliable little chap. He never -broke a promise. He was not a great talker. His teachers did not think -him brilliant, but he was a good, all-round student. He never took -things on faith; he always liked to investigate the truth of a -statement for himself. Once Susan had told him that if he touched his -tongue to a frosty latch all the skin would tear off it. Jem had -promptly done it, “just to see if it was so.” He found it was “so,” at -the cost of a very sore tongue for several days. But Jem did not grudge -suffering in the interests of science. By constant experiment and -observation he learned a great deal and his brothers and sisters -thought his extensive knowledge of their little world quite wonderful. -Jem always knew where the first and ripest berries grew, where the -first pale violets shyly wakened from their winter’s sleep, and how -many blue eggs were in a given robin’s nest in the maple grove. He -could tell fortunes from daisy petals and suck honey from red clovers, -and grub up all sorts of edible roots on the banks of the pond, while -Susan went in daily fear that they would all be poisoned. He knew where -the finest spruce-gum was to be found, in pale amber knots on the -lichened bark, he knew where the nuts grew thickest in the beechwoods -around the Harbour Head, and where the best trouting places up the -brooks were. He could mimic the call of any wild bird or beast in Four -Winds and he knew the haunt of every wild flower from spring to autumn. - -Walter Blythe was sitting under the White Lady, with a volume of poems -lying beside him, but he was not reading. He was gazing now at the -emerald-misted willows by the pond, and now at a flock of clouds, like -little silver sheep, herded by the wind, that were drifting over -Rainbow Valley, with rapture in his wide splendid eyes. Walter’s eyes -were very wonderful. All the joy and sorrow and laughter and loyalty -and aspiration of many generations lying under the sod looked out of -their dark gray depths. - -Walter was a “hop out of kin,” as far as looks went. He did not -resemble any known relative. He was quite the handsomest of the -Ingleside children, with straight black hair and finely modelled -features. But he had all his mother’s vivid imagination and passionate -love of beauty. Frost of winter, invitation of spring, dream of summer -and glamour of autumn, all meant much to Walter. - -In school, where Jem was a chieftain, Walter was not thought highly of. -He was supposed to be “girly” and milk-soppish, because he never fought -and seldom joined in the school sports, preferring to herd by himself -in out of the way corners and read books—especially “po’try books.” -Walter loved the poets and pored over their pages from the time he -could first read. Their music was woven into his growing soul—the music -of the immortals. Walter cherished the ambition to be a poet himself -some day. The thing could be done. A certain Uncle Paul—so called out -of courtesy—who lived now in that mysterious realm called “the States,” -was Walter’s model. Uncle Paul had once been a little school boy in -Avonlea and now his poetry was read everywhere. But the Glen schoolboys -did not know of Walter’s dreams and would not have been greatly -impressed if they had. In spite of his lack of physical prowess, -however, he commanded a certain unwilling respect because of his power -of “talking book talk.” Nobody in Glen St. Mary school could talk like -him. He “sounded like a preacher,” one boy said; and for this reason he -was generally left alone and not persecuted, as most boys were who were -suspected of disliking or fearing fisticuffs. - -The ten year old Ingleside twins violated twin tradition by not looking -in the least alike. Anne, who was always called Nan, was very pretty, -with velvety nut-brown eyes and silky nut-brown hair. She was a very -blithe and dainty little maiden—Blythe by name and blithe by nature, -one of her teachers had said. Her complexion was quite faultless, much -to her mother’s satisfaction. - -“I’m so glad I have one daughter who can wear pink,” Mrs. Blythe was -wont to say jubilantly. - -Diana Blythe, known as Di, was very like her mother, with gray-green -eyes that always shone with a peculiar lustre and brilliancy in the -dusk, and red hair. Perhaps this was why she was her father’s -favourite. She and Walter were especial chums; Di was the only one to -whom he would ever read the verses he wrote himself—the only one who -knew that he was secretly hard at work on an epic, strikingly -resembling “Marmion” in some things, if not in others. She kept all his -secrets, even from Nan, and told him all hers. - -“Won’t you soon have those fish ready, Jem?” said Nan, sniffing with -her dainty nose. “The smell makes me awfully hungry.” - -“They’re nearly ready,” said Jem, giving one a dexterous turn. “Get out -the bread and the plates, girls. Walter, wake up.” - -“How the air shines to-night,” said Walter dreamily. Not that he -despised fried trout either, by any means; but with Walter food for the -soul always took first place. “The flower angel has been walking over -the world to-day, calling to the flowers. I can see his blue wings on -that hill by the woods.” - -“Any angels’ wings I ever saw were white,” said Nan. - -“The flower angel’s aren’t. They are a pale misty blue, just like the -haze in the valley. Oh, how I wish I could fly. It must be glorious.” - -“One does fly in dreams sometimes,” said Di. - -“I never dream that I’m flying exactly,” said Walter. “But I often -dream that I just rise up from the ground and float over the fences and -the trees. It’s delightful—and I always think, ‘This _isn’t_ a dream -like it’s always been before. _This_ is real’—and then I wake up after -all, and it’s heart-breaking.” - -“Hurry up, Nan,” ordered Jem. - -Nan had produced the banquet-board—a board literally as well as -figuratively—from which many a feast, seasoned as no viands were -elsewhere, had been eaten in Rainbow Valley. It was converted into a -table by propping it on two large, mossy stones. Newspapers served as -tablecloth, and broken plates and handleless cups from Susan’s discard -furnished the dishes. From a tin box secreted at the root of a spruce -tree Nan brought forth bread and salt. The brook gave Adam’s ale of -unsurpassed crystal. For the rest, there was a certain sauce, -compounded of fresh air and appetite of youth, which gave to everything -a divine flavour. To sit in Rainbow Valley, steeped in a twilight half -gold, half amethyst, rife with the odours of balsam-fir and woodsy -growing things in their springtime prime, with the pale stars of wild -strawberry blossoms all around you, and with the sough of the wind and -tinkle of bells in the shaking tree tops, and eat fried trout and dry -bread, was something which the mighty of earth might have envied them. - -“Sit in,” invited Nan, as Jem placed his sizzling tin platter of trout -on the table. “It’s your turn to say grace, Jem.” - -“I’ve done my part frying the trout,” protested Jem, who hated saying -grace. “Let Walter say it. He _likes_ saying grace. And cut it short, -too, Walt. I’m starving.” - -But Walter said no grace, short or long, just then. An interruption -occurred. - -“Who’s coming down from the manse hill?” said Di. - - - - -CHAPTER IV. -THE MANSE CHILDREN - - -Aunt Martha might be, and was, a very poor housekeeper; the Rev. John -Knox Meredith might be, and was, a very absent-minded, indulgent man. -But it could not be denied that there was something very homelike and -lovable about the Glen St. Mary manse in spite of its untidiness. Even -the critical housewives of the Glen felt it, and were unconsciously -mellowed in judgment because of it. Perhaps its charm was in part due -to accidental circumstances—the luxuriant vines clustering over its -gray, clap-boarded walls, the friendly acacias and balm-of-gileads that -crowded about it with the freedom of old acquaintance, and the -beautiful views of harbour and sand-dunes from its front windows. But -these things had been there in the reign of Mr. Meredith’s predecessor, -when the manse had been the primmest, neatest, and dreariest house in -the Glen. So much of the credit must be given to the personality of its -new inmates. There was an atmosphere of laughter and comradeship about -it; the doors were always open; and inner and outer worlds joined -hands. Love was the only law in Glen St. Mary manse. - -The people of his congregation said that Mr. Meredith spoiled his -children. Very likely he did. It is certain that he could not bear to -scold them. “They have no mother,” he used to say to himself, with a -sigh, when some unusually glaring peccadillo forced itself upon his -notice. But he did not know the half of their goings-on. He belonged to -the sect of dreamers. The windows of his study looked out on the -graveyard but, as he paced up and down the room, reflecting deeply on -the immortality of the soul, he was quite unaware that Jerry and Carl -were playing leap-frog hilariously over the flat stones in that abode -of dead Methodists. Mr. Meredith had occasional acute realizations that -his children were not so well looked after, physically or morally, as -they had been before his wife died, and he had always a dim -sub-consciousness that house and meals were very different under Aunt -Martha’s management from what they had been under Cecilia’s. For the -rest, he lived in a world of books and abstractions; and, therefore, -although his clothes were seldom brushed, and although the Glen -housewives concluded, from the ivory-like pallor of his clear-cut -features and slender hands, that he never got enough to eat, he was not -an unhappy man. - -If ever a graveyard could be called a cheerful place, the old Methodist -graveyard at Glen St. Mary might be so called. The new graveyard, at -the other side of the Methodist church, was a neat and proper and -doleful spot; but the old one had been left so long to Nature’s kindly -and gracious ministries that it had become very pleasant. - -It was surrounded on three sides by a dyke of stones and sod, topped by -a gray and uncertain paling. Outside the dyke grew a row of tall fir -trees with thick, balsamic boughs. The dyke, which had been built by -the first settlers of the Glen, was old enough to be beautiful, with -mosses and green things growing out of its crevices, violets purpling -at its base in the early spring days, and asters and golden-rod making -an autumnal glory in its corners. Little ferns clustered companionably -between its stones, and here and there a big bracken grew. - -On the eastern side there was neither fence nor dyke. The graveyard -there straggled off into a young fir plantation, ever pushing nearer to -the graves and deepening eastward into a thick wood. The air was always -full of the harp-like voices of the sea, and the music of gray old -trees, and in the spring mornings the choruses of birds in the elms -around the two churches sang of life and not of death. The Meredith -children loved the old graveyard. - -Blue-eyed ivy, “garden-spruce,” and mint ran riot over the sunken -graves. Blueberry bushes grew lavishly in the sandy corner next to the -fir wood. The varying fashions of tombstones for three generations were -to be found there, from the flat, oblong, red sandstone slabs of old -settlers, down through the days of weeping willows and clasped hands, -to the latest monstrosities of tall “monuments” and draped urns. One of -the latter, the biggest and ugliest in the graveyard, was sacred to the -memory of a certain Alec Davis who had been born a Methodist but had -taken to himself a Presbyterian bride of the Douglas clan. She had made -him turn Presbyterian and kept him toeing the Presbyterian mark all his -life. But when he died she did not dare to doom him to a lonely grave -in the Presbyterian graveyard over-harbour. His people were all buried -in the Methodist cemetery; so Alec Davis went back to his own in death -and his widow consoled herself by erecting a monument which cost more -than any of the Methodists could afford. The Meredith children hated -it, without just knowing why, but they loved the old, flat, bench-like -stones with the tall grasses growing rankly about them. They made jolly -seats for one thing. They were all sitting on one now. Jerry, tired of -leap frog, was playing on a jew’s-harp. Carl was lovingly poring over a -strange beetle he had found; Una was trying to make a doll’s dress, and -Faith, leaning back on her slender brown wrists, was swinging her bare -feet in lively time to the jew’s-harp. - -Jerry had his father’s black hair and large black eyes, but in him the -latter were flashing instead of dreamy. Faith, who came next to him, -wore her beauty like a rose, careless and glowing. She had golden-brown -eyes, golden-brown curls and crimson cheeks. She laughed too much to -please her father’s congregation and had shocked old Mrs. Taylor, the -disconsolate spouse of several departed husbands, by saucily -declaring—in the church-porch at that—“The world _isn’t_ a vale of -tears, Mrs. Taylor. It’s a world of laughter.” - -Little dreamy Una was not given to laughter. Her braids of straight, -dead-black hair betrayed no lawless kinks, and her almond-shaped, -dark-blue eyes had something wistful and sorrowful in them. Her mouth -had a trick of falling open over her tiny white teeth, and a shy, -meditative smile occasionally crept over her small face. She was much -more sensitive to public opinion than Faith, and had an uneasy -consciousness that there was something askew in their way of living. -She longed to put it right, but did not know how. Now and then she -dusted the furniture—but it was so seldom she could find the duster -because it was never in the same place twice. And when the -clothes-brush was to be found she tried to brush her father’s best suit -on Saturdays, and once sewed on a missing button with coarse white -thread. When Mr. Meredith went to church next day every female eye saw -that button and the peace of the Ladies’ Aid was upset for weeks. - -Carl had the clear, bright, dark-blue eyes, fearless and direct, of his -dead mother, and her brown hair with its glints of gold. He knew the -secrets of bugs and had a sort of freemasonry with bees and beetles. -Una never liked to sit near him because she never knew what uncanny -creature might be secreted about him. Jerry refused to sleep with him -because Carl had once taken a young garter snake to bed with him; so -Carl slept in his old cot, which was so short that he could never -stretch out, and had strange bed-fellows. Perhaps it was just as well -that Aunt Martha was half blind when she made that bed. Altogether they -were a jolly, lovable little crew, and Cecilia Meredith’s heart must -have ached bitterly when she faced the knowledge that she must leave -them. - -“Where would you like to be buried if you were a Methodist?” asked -Faith cheerfully. - -This opened up an interesting field of speculation. - -“There isn’t much choice. The place is full,” said Jerry. “_I’d_ like -that corner near the road, I guess. I could hear the teams going past -and the people talking.” - -“I’d like that little hollow under the weeping birch,” said Una. “That -birch is such a place for birds and they sing like mad in the -mornings.” - -“I’d take the Porter lot where there’s so many children buried. _I_ -like lots of company,” said Faith. “Carl, where’d you?” - -“I’d rather not be buried at all,” said Carl, “but if I had to be I’d -like the ant-bed. Ants are _awf’ly_ int’resting.” - -“How very good all the people who are buried here must have been,” said -Una, who had been reading the laudatory old epitaphs. “There doesn’t -seem to be a single bad person in the whole graveyard. Methodists must -be better than Presbyterians after all.” - -“Maybe the Methodists bury their bad people just like they do cats,” -suggested Carl. “Maybe they don’t bother bringing them to the graveyard -at all.” - -“Nonsense,” said Faith. “The people that are buried here weren’t any -better than other folks, Una. But when anyone is dead you mustn’t say -anything of him but good or he’ll come back and ha’nt you. Aunt Martha -told me that. I asked father if it was true and he just looked through -me and muttered, ‘True? True? What is truth? What _is_ truth, O jesting -Pilate?’ I concluded from that it must be true.” - -“I wonder if Mr. Alec Davis would come back and ha’nt me if I threw a -stone at the urn on top of his tombstone,” said Jerry. - -“Mrs. Davis would,” giggled Faith. “She just watches us in church like -a cat watching mice. Last Sunday I made a face at her nephew and he -made one back at me and you should have seen her glare. I’ll bet she -boxed _his_ ears when they got out. Mrs. Marshall Elliott told me we -mustn’t offend her on any account or I’d have made a face at her, too!” - -“They say Jem Blythe stuck out his tongue at her once and she would -never have his father again, even when her husband was dying,” said -Jerry. “I wonder what the Blythe gang will be like.” - -“I liked their looks,” said Faith. The manse children had been at the -station that afternoon when the Blythe small fry had arrived. “I liked -Jem’s looks _especially_.” - -“They say in school that Walter’s a sissy,” said Jerry. - -“I don’t believe it,” said Una, who had thought Walter very handsome. - -“Well, he writes poetry, anyhow. He won the prize the teacher offered -last year for writing a poem, Bertie Shakespeare Drew told me. Bertie’s -mother thought _he_ should have got the prize because of his name, but -Bertie said he couldn’t write poetry to save his soul, name or no -name.” - -“I suppose we’ll get acquainted with them as soon as they begin going -to school,” mused Faith. “I hope the girls are nice. I don’t like most -of the girls round here. Even the nice ones are poky. But the Blythe -twins look jolly. I thought twins always looked alike, but they don’t. -I think the red-haired one is the nicest.” - -“I liked their mother’s looks,” said Una with a little sigh. Una envied -all children their mothers. She had been only six when her mother died, -but she had some very precious memories, treasured in her soul like -jewels, of twilight cuddlings and morning frolics, of loving eyes, a -tender voice, and the sweetest, gayest laugh. - -“They say she isn’t like other people,” said Jerry. - -“Mrs. Elliot says that is because she never really grew up,” said -Faith. - -“She’s taller than Mrs. Elliott.” - -“Yes, yes, but it is inside—Mrs. Elliot says Mrs. Blythe just stayed a -little girl inside.” - -“What do I smell?” interrupted Carl, sniffing. - -They all smelled it now. A most delectable odour came floating up on -the still evening air from the direction of the little woodsy dell -below the manse hill. - -“That makes me hungry,” said Jerry. - -“We had only bread and molasses for supper and cold ditto for dinner,” -said Una plaintively. - -Aunt Martha’s habit was to boil a large slab of mutton early in the -week and serve it up every day, cold and greasy, as long as it lasted. -To this Faith, in a moment of inspiration, had give the name of -“ditto”, and by this it was invariably known at the manse. - -“Let’s go and see where that smell is coming from,” said Jerry. - -They all sprang up, frolicked over the lawn with the abandon of young -puppies, climbed a fence, and tore down the mossy slope, guided by the -savory lure that ever grew stronger. A few minutes later they arrived -breathlessly in the sanctum sanctorum of Rainbow Valley where the -Blythe children were just about to give thanks and eat. - -They halted shyly. Una wished they had not been so precipitate: but Di -Blythe was equal to that and any occasion. She stepped forward, with a -comrade’s smile. - -“I guess I know who you are,” she said. “You belong to the manse, don’t -you?” - -Faith nodded, her face creased by dimples. - -“We smelled your trout cooking and wondered what it was.” - -“You must sit down and help us eat them,” said Di. - -“Maybe you haven’t more than you want yourselves,” said Jerry, looking -hungrily at the tin platter. - -“We’ve heaps—three apiece,” said Jem. “Sit down.” - -No more ceremony was necessary. Down they all sat on mossy stones. -Merry was that feast and long. Nan and Di would probably have died of -horror had they known what Faith and Una knew perfectly well—that Carl -had two young mice in his jacket pocket. But they never knew it, so it -never hurt them. Where can folks get better acquainted than over a meal -table? When the last trout had vanished, the manse children and the -Ingleside children were sworn friends and allies. They had always known -each other and always would. The race of Joseph recognized its own. - -They poured out the history of their little pasts. The manse children -heard of Avonlea and Green Gables, of Rainbow Valley traditions, and of -the little house by the harbour shore where Jem had been born. The -Ingleside children heard of Maywater, where the Merediths had lived -before coming to the Glen, of Una’s beloved, one-eyed doll and Faith’s -pet rooster. - -Faith was inclined to resent the fact that people laughed at her for -petting a rooster. She liked the Blythes because they accepted it -without question. - -“A handsome rooster like Adam is just as nice a pet as a dog or cat, -_I_ think,” she said. “If he was a canary nobody would wonder. And I -brought him up from a little, wee, yellow chicken. Mrs. Johnson at -Maywater gave him to me. A weasel had killed all his brothers and -sisters. I called him after her husband. I never liked dolls or cats. -Cats are too sneaky and dolls are _dead_.” - -“Who lives in that house away up there?” asked Jerry. - -“The Miss Wests—Rosemary and Ellen,” answered Nan. “Di and I are going -to take music lessons from Miss Rosemary this summer.” - -Una gazed at the lucky twins with eyes whose longing was too gentle for -envy. Oh, if she could only have music lessons! It was one of the -dreams of her little hidden life. But nobody ever thought of such a -thing. - -“Miss Rosemary is so sweet and she always dresses so pretty,” said Di. -“Her hair is just the colour of new molasses taffy,” she added -wistfully—for Di, like her mother before her, was not resigned to her -own ruddy tresses. - -“I like Miss Ellen, too,” said Nan. “She always used to give me candies -when she came to church. But Di is afraid of her.” - -“Her brows are so black and she has such a great deep voice,” said Di. -“Oh, how scared of her Kenneth Ford used to be when he was little! -Mother says the first Sunday Mrs. Ford brought him to church Miss Ellen -happened to be there, sitting right behind them. And the minute Kenneth -saw her he just screamed and screamed until Mrs. Ford had to carry him -out.” - -“Who is Mrs. Ford?” asked Una wonderingly. - -“Oh, the Fords don’t live here. They only come here in the summer. And -they’re not coming this summer. They live in that little house ‘way, -‘way down on the harbour shore where father and mother used to live. I -wish you could see Persis Ford. She is just like a picture.” - -“I’ve heard of Mrs. Ford,” broke in Faith. “Bertie Shakespeare Drew -told me about her. She was married fourteen years to a dead man and -then he came to life.” - -“Nonsense,” said Nan. “That isn’t the way it goes at all. Bertie -Shakespeare can never get anything straight. I know the whole story and -I’ll tell it to you some time, but not now, for it’s too long and it’s -time for us to go home. Mother doesn’t like us to be out late these -damp evenings.” - -Nobody cared whether the manse children were out in the damp or not. -Aunt Martha was already in bed and the minister was still too deeply -lost in speculations concerning the immortality of the soul to remember -the mortality of the body. But they went home, too, with visions of -good times coming in their heads. - -“I think Rainbow Valley is even nicer than the graveyard,” said Una. -“And I just love those dear Blythes. It’s _so_ nice when you can love -people because so often you _can’t_. Father said in his sermon last -Sunday that we should love everybody. But how can we? How could we love -Mrs. Alec Davis?” - -“Oh, father only said that in the pulpit,” said Faith airily. “He has -more sense than to really think it outside.” - -The Blythe children went up to Ingleside, except Jem, who slipped away -for a few moments on a solitary expedition to a remote corner of -Rainbow Valley. Mayflowers grew there and Jem never forgot to take his -mother a bouquet as long as they lasted. - - - - -CHAPTER V. -THE ADVENT OF MARY VANCE - - -“This is just the sort of day you feel as if things might happen,” said -Faith, responsive to the lure of crystal air and blue hills. She hugged -herself with delight and danced a hornpipe on old Hezekiah Pollock’s -bench tombstone, much to the horror of two ancient maidens who happened -to be driving past just as Faith hopped on one foot around the stone, -waving the other and her arms in the air. - -“And that,” groaned one ancient maiden, “is our minister’s daughter.” - -“What else could you expect of a widower’s family?” groaned the other -ancient maiden. And then they both shook their heads. - -It was early on Saturday morning and the Merediths were out in the -dew-drenched world with a delightful consciousness of the holiday. They -had never had anything to do on a holiday. Even Nan and Di Blythe had -certain household tasks for Saturday mornings, but the daughters of the -manse were free to roam from blushing morn to dewy eve if so it pleased -them. It _did_ please Faith, but Una felt a secret, bitter humiliation -because they never learned to do anything. The other girls in her class -at school could cook and sew and knit; she only was a little ignoramus. - -Jerry suggested that they go exploring; so they went lingeringly -through the fir grove, picking up Carl on the way, who was on his knees -in the dripping grass studying his darling ants. Beyond the grove they -came out in Mr. Taylor’s pasture field, sprinkled over with the white -ghosts of dandelions; in a remote corner was an old tumbledown barn, -where Mr. Taylor sometimes stored his surplus hay crop but which was -never used for any other purpose. Thither the Meredith children -trooped, and prowled about the ground floor for several minutes. - -“What was that?” whispered Una suddenly. - -They all listened. There was a faint but distinct rustle in the hayloft -above. The Merediths looked at each other. - -“There’s something up there,” breathed Faith. - -“I’m going up to see what it is,” said Jerry resolutely. - -“Oh, don’t,” begged Una, catching his arm. - -“I’m going.” - -“We’ll all go, too, then,” said Faith. - -The whole four climbed the shaky ladder, Jerry and Faith quite -dauntless, Una pale from fright, and Carl rather absent-mindedly -speculating on the possibility of finding a bat up in the loft. He -longed to see a bat in daylight. - -When they stepped off the ladder they saw what had made the rustle and -the sight struck them dumb for a few moments. - -In a little nest in the hay a girl was curled up, looking as if she had -just wakened from sleep. When she saw them she stood up, rather -shakily, as it seemed, and in the bright sunlight that streamed through -the cobwebbed window behind her, they saw that her thin, sunburned face -was very pale under its tan. She had two braids of lank, thick, -tow-coloured hair and very odd eyes—“white eyes,” the manse children -thought, as she stared at them half defiantly, half piteously. They -were really of so pale a blue that they did seem almost white, -especially when contrasted with the narrow black ring that circled the -iris. She was barefooted and bareheaded, and was clad in a faded, -ragged, old plaid dress, much too short and tight for her. As for -years, she might have been almost any age, judging from her wizened -little face, but her height seemed to be somewhere in the neighbourhood -of twelve. - -“Who are you?” asked Jerry. - -The girl looked about her as if seeking a way of escape. Then she -seemed to give in with a little shiver of despair. - -“I’m Mary Vance,” she said. - -“Where’d you come from?” pursued Jerry. - -Mary, instead of replying, suddenly sat, or fell, down on the hay and -began to cry. Instantly Faith had flung herself down beside her and put -her arm around the thin, shaking shoulders. - -“You stop bothering her,” she commanded Jerry. Then she hugged the -waif. “Don’t cry, dear. Just tell us what’s the matter. _We’re_ -friends.” - -“I’m so—so—hungry,” wailed Mary. “I—I hain’t had a thing to eat since -Thursday morning, ‘cept a little water from the brook out there.” - -The manse children gazed at each other in horror. Faith sprang up. - -“You come right up to the manse and get something to eat before you say -another word.” - -Mary shrank. - -“Oh—I can’t. What will your pa and ma say? Besides, they’d send me -back.” - -“We’ve no mother, and father won’t bother about you. Neither will Aunt -Martha. Come, I say.” Faith stamped her foot impatiently. Was this -queer girl going to insist on starving to death almost at their very -door? - -Mary yielded. She was so weak that she could hardly climb down the -ladder, but somehow they got her down and over the field and into the -manse kitchen. Aunt Martha, muddling through her Saturday cooking, took -no notice of her. Faith and Una flew to the pantry and ransacked it for -such eatables as it contained—some “ditto,” bread, butter, milk and a -doubtful pie. Mary Vance attacked the food ravenously and uncritically, -while the manse children stood around and watched her. Jerry noticed -that she had a pretty mouth and very nice, even, white teeth. Faith -decided, with secret horror, that Mary had not one stitch on her except -that ragged, faded dress. Una was full of pure pity, Carl of amused -wonder, and all of them of curiosity. - -“Now come out to the graveyard and tell us about yourself,” ordered -Faith, when Mary’s appetite showed signs of failing her. Mary was now -nothing loath. Food had restored her natural vivacity and unloosed her -by no means reluctant tongue. - -“You won’t tell your pa or anybody if I tell you?” she stipulated, when -she was enthroned on Mr. Pollock’s tombstone. Opposite her the manse -children lined up on another. Here was spice and mystery and adventure. -Something _had_ happened. - -“No, we won’t.” - -“Cross your hearts?” - -“Cross our hearts.” - -“Well, I’ve run away. I was living with Mrs. Wiley over-harbour. Do you -know Mrs. Wiley?” - -“No.” - -“Well, you don’t want to know her. She’s an awful woman. My, how I hate -her! She worked me to death and wouldn’t give me half enough to eat, -and she used to larrup me ‘most every day. Look a-here.” - -Mary rolled up her ragged sleeves, and held up her scrawny arms and -thin hands, chapped almost to rawness. They were black with bruises. -The manse children shivered. Faith flushed crimson with indignation. -Una’s blue eyes filled with tears. - -“She licked me Wednesday night with a stick,” said Mary, indifferently. -“It was ‘cause I let the cow kick over a pail of milk. How’d I know the -darn old cow was going to kick?” - -A not unpleasant thrill ran over her listeners. They would never dream -of using such dubious words, but it was rather titivating to hear -someone else use them—and a girl, at that. Certainly this Mary Vance -was an interesting creature. - -“I don’t blame you for running away,” said Faith. - -“Oh, I didn’t run away ‘cause she licked me. A licking was all in the -day’s work with me. I was darn well used to it. Nope, I’d meant to run -away for a week ‘cause I’d found out that Mrs. Wiley was going to rent -her farm and go to Lowbridge to live and give me to a cousin of hers up -Charlottetown way. I wasn’t going to stand for _that_. She was a worse -sort than Mrs. Wiley even. Mrs. Wiley lent me to her for a month last -summer and I’d rather live with the devil himself.” - -Sensation number two. But Una looked doubtful. - -“So I made up my mind I’d beat it. I had seventy cents saved up that -Mrs. John Crawford give me in the spring for planting potatoes for her. -Mrs. Wiley didn’t know about it. She was away visiting her cousin when -I planted them. I thought I’d sneak up here to the Glen and buy a -ticket to Charlottetown and try to get work there. I’m a hustler, let -me tell you. There ain’t a lazy bone in _my_ body. So I lit out -Thursday morning ‘fore Mrs. Wiley was up and walked to the Glen—six -miles. And when I got to the station I found I’d lost my money. Dunno -how—dunno where. Anyhow, it was gone. I didn’t know what to do. If I -went back to old Lady Wiley she’d take the hide off me. So I went and -hid in that old barn.” - -“And what will you do now?” asked Jerry. - -“Dunno. I s’pose I’ll have to go back and take my medicine. Now that -I’ve got some grub in my stomach I guess I can stand it.” - -But there was fear behind the bravado in Mary’s eyes. Una suddenly -slipped from the one tombstone to the other and put her arm about Mary. - -“Don’t go back. Just stay here with us.” - -“Oh, Mrs. Wiley’ll hunt me up,” said Mary. “It’s likely she’s on my -trail before this. I might stay here till she finds me, I s’pose, if -your folks don’t mind. I was a darn fool ever to think of skipping out. -She’d run a weasel to earth. But I was so misrebul.” - -Mary’s voice quivered, but she was ashamed of showing her weakness. - -“I hain’t had the life of a dog for these four years,” she explained -defiantly. - -“You’ve been four years with Mrs. Wiley?” - -“Yip. She took me out of the asylum over in Hopetown when I was eight.” - -“That’s the same place Mrs. Blythe came from,” exclaimed Faith. - -“I was two years in the asylum. I was put there when I was six. My ma -had hung herself and my pa had cut his throat.” - -“Holy cats! Why?” said Jerry. - -“Booze,” said Mary laconically. - -“And you’ve no relations?” - -“Not a darn one that I know of. Must have had some once, though. I was -called after half a dozen of them. My full name is Mary Martha Lucilla -Moore Ball Vance. Can you beat that? My grandfather was a rich man. -I’ll bet he was richer than _your_ grandfather. But pa drunk it all up -and ma, she did her part. _They_ used to beat me, too. Laws, I’ve been -licked so much I kind of like it.” - -Mary tossed her head. She divined that the manse children were pitying -her for her many stripes and she did not want pity. She wanted to be -envied. She looked gaily about her. Her strange eyes, now that the -dullness of famine was removed from them, were brilliant. She would -show these youngsters what a personage she was. - -“I’ve been sick an awful lot,” she said proudly. “There’s not many kids -could have come through what I have. I’ve had scarlet fever and measles -and ersipelas and mumps and whooping cough and pewmonia.” - -“Were you ever fatally sick?” asked Una. - -“I don’t know,” said Mary doubtfully. - -“Of course she wasn’t,” scoffed Jerry. “If you’re fatally sick you -die.” - -“Oh, well, I never died exactly,” said Mary, “but I come blamed near it -once. They thought I was dead and they were getting ready to lay me out -when I up and come to.” - -“What is it like to be half dead?” asked Jerry curiously. - -“Like nothing. I didn’t know it for days afterwards. It was when I had -the pewmonia. Mrs. Wiley wouldn’t have the doctor—said she wasn’t going -to no such expense for a home girl. Old Aunt Christina MacAllister -nursed me with poultices. She brung me round. But sometimes I wish I’d -just died the other half and done with it. I’d been better off.” - -“If you went to heaven I s’pose you would,” said Faith, rather -doubtfully. - -“Well, what other place is there to go to?” demanded Mary in a puzzled -voice. - -“There’s hell, you know,” said Una, dropping her voice and hugging Mary -to lessen the awfulness of the suggestion. - -“Hell? What’s that?” - -“Why, it’s where the devil lives,” said Jerry. “You’ve heard of him—you -spoke about him.” - -“Oh, yes, but I didn’t know he lived anywhere. I thought he just roamed -round. Mr. Wiley used to mention hell when he was alive. He was always -telling folks to go there. I thought it was some place over in New -Brunswick where he come from.” - -“Hell is an awful place,” said Faith, with the dramatic enjoyment that -is born of telling dreadful things. “Bad people go there when they die -and burn in fire for ever and ever and ever.” - -“Who told you that?” demanded Mary incredulously. - -“It’s in the Bible. And Mr. Isaac Crothers at Maywater told us, too, in -Sunday School. He was an elder and a pillar in the church and knew all -about it. But you needn’t worry. If you’re good you’ll go to heaven and -if you’re bad I guess you’d rather go to hell.” - -“I wouldn’t,” said Mary positively. “No matter how bad I was I wouldn’t -want to be burned and burned. _I_ know what it’s like. I picked up a -red hot poker once by accident. What must you do to be good?” - -“You must go to church and Sunday School and read your Bible and pray -every night and give to missions,” said Una. - -“It sounds like a large order,” said Mary. “Anything else?” - -“You must ask God to forgive the sins you’ve committed. - -“But I’ve never com—committed any,” said Mary. “What’s a sin any way?” - -“Oh, Mary, you must have. Everybody does. Did you never tell a lie?” - -“Heaps of ‘em,” said Mary. - -“That’s a dreadful sin,” said Una solemnly. - -“Do you mean to tell me,” demanded Mary, “that I’d be sent to hell for -telling a lie now and then? Why, I _had_ to. Mr. Wiley would have -broken every bone in my body one time if I hadn’t told him a lie. Lies -have saved me many a whack, I can tell you.” - -Una sighed. Here were too many difficulties for her to solve. She -shuddered as she thought of being cruelly whipped. Very likely she -would have lied too. She squeezed Mary’s little calloused hand. - -“Is that the only dress you’ve got?” asked Faith, whose joyous nature -refused to dwell on disagreeable subjects. - -“I just put on this dress because it was no good,” cried Mary flushing. -“Mrs. Wiley’d bought my clothes and I wasn’t going to be beholden to -her for anything. And I’m honest. If I was going to run away I wasn’t -going to take what belong to _her_ that was worth anything. When I grow -up I’m going to have a blue sating dress. Your own clothes don’t look -so stylish. I thought ministers’ children were always dressed up.” - -It was plain that Mary had a temper and was sensitive on some points. -But there was a queer, wild charm about her which captivated them all. -She was taken to Rainbow Valley that afternoon and introduced to the -Blythes as “a friend of ours from over-harbour who is visiting us.” The -Blythes accepted her unquestioningly, perhaps because she was fairly -respectable now. After dinner—through which Aunt Martha had mumbled and -Mr. Meredith had been in a state of semi-unconsciousness while brooding -his Sunday sermon—Faith had prevailed on Mary to put on one of her -dresses, as well as certain other articles of clothing. With her hair -neatly braided Mary passed muster tolerably well. She was an acceptable -playmate, for she knew several new and exciting games, and her -conversation lacked not spice. In fact, some of her expressions made -Nan and Di look at her rather askance. They were not quite sure what -their mother would have thought of her, but they knew quite well what -Susan would. However, she was a visitor at the manse, so she must be -all right. - -When bedtime came there was the problem of where Mary should sleep. - -“We can’t put her in the spare room, you know,” said Faith perplexedly -to Una. - -“I haven’t got anything in my head,” cried Mary in an injured tone. - -“Oh, I didn’t mean _that_,” protested Faith. “The spare room is all -torn up. The mice have gnawed a big hole in the feather tick and made a -nest in it. We never found it out till Aunt Martha put the Rev. Mr. -Fisher from Charlottetown there to sleep last week. _He_ soon found it -out. Then father had to give him his bed and sleep on the study lounge. -Aunt Martha hasn’t had time to fix the spare room bed up yet, so she -says; so _nobody_ can sleep there, no matter how clean their heads are. -And our room is so small, and the bed so small you can’t sleep with -us.” - -“I can go back to the hay in the old barn for the night if you’ll lend -me a quilt,” said Mary philosophically. “It was kind of chilly last -night, but ‘cept for that I’ve had worse beds.” - -“Oh, no, no, you mustn’t do that,” said Una. “I’ve thought of a plan, -Faith. You know that little trestle bed in the garret room, with the -old mattress on it, that the last minister left there? Let’s take up -the spare room bedclothes and make Mary a bed there. You won’t mind -sleeping in the garret, will you, Mary? It’s just above our room.” - -“Any place’ll do me. Laws, I never had a decent place to sleep in my -life. I slept in the loft over the kitchen at Mrs. Wiley’s. The roof -leaked rain in the summer and the snow druv in in winter. My bed was a -straw tick on the floor. You won’t find me a mite huffy about where _I_ -sleep.” - -The manse garret was a long, low, shadowy place, with one gable end -partitioned off. Here a bed was made up for Mary of the dainty -hemstitched sheets and embroidered spread which Cecilia Meredith had -once so proudly made for her spare-room, and which still survived Aunt -Martha’s uncertain washings. The good nights were said and silence fell -over the manse. Una was just falling asleep when she heard a sound in -the room just above that made her sit up suddenly. - -“Listen, Faith—Mary’s crying,” she whispered. Faith replied not, being -already asleep. Una slipped out of bed, and made her way in her little -white gown down the hall and up the garret stairs. The creaking floor -gave ample notice of her coming, and when she reached the corner room -all was moonlit silence and the trestle bed showed only a hump in the -middle. - -“Mary,” whispered Una. - -There was no response. - -Una crept close to the bed and pulled at the spread. “Mary, I know you -are crying. I heard you. Are you lonesome?” - -Mary suddenly appeared to view but said nothing. - -“Let me in beside you. I’m cold,” said Una shivering in the chilly air, -for the little garret window was open and the keen breath of the north -shore at night blew in. - -Mary moved over and Una snuggled down beside her. - -“_Now_ you won’t be lonesome. We shouldn’t have left you here alone the -first night.” - -“I wasn’t lonesome,” sniffed Mary. - -“What were you crying for then?” - -“Oh, I just got to thinking of things when I was here alone. I thought -of having to go back to Mrs. Wiley—and of being licked for running -away—and—and—and of going to hell for telling lies. It all worried me -something scandalous.” - -“Oh, Mary,” said poor Una in distress. “I don’t believe God will send -you to hell for telling lies when you didn’t know it was wrong. He -_couldn’t_. Why, He’s kind and good. Of course, you mustn’t tell any -more now that you know it’s wrong.” - -“If I can’t tell lies what’s to become of me?” said Mary with a sob. -“_You_ don’t understand. You don’t know anything about it. You’ve got a -home and a kind father—though it does seem to me that he isn’t more’n -about half there. But anyway he doesn’t lick you, and you get enough to -eat such as it is—though that old aunt of yours doesn’t know _anything_ -about cooking. Why, this is the first day I ever remember of feeling -‘sif I’d enough to eat. I’ve been knocked about all of my life, ‘cept -for the two years I was at the asylum. They didn’t lick me there and it -wasn’t too bad, though the matron was cross. She always looked ready to -bite my head off a nail. But Mrs. Wiley is a holy terror, that’s what -_she_ is, and I’m just scared stiff when I think of going back to her.” - -“Perhaps you won’t have to. Perhaps we’ll be able to think of a way -out. Let’s both ask God to keep you from having to go back to Mrs. -Wiley. You say your prayers, don’t you Mary?” - -“Oh, yes, I always go over an old rhyme ‘fore I get into bed,” said -Mary indifferently. “I never thought of asking for anything in -particular though. Nobody in this world ever bothered themselves about -me so I didn’t s’pose God would. He _might_ take more trouble for you, -seeing you’re a minister’s daughter.” - -“He’d take every bit as much trouble for you, Mary, I’m sure,” said -Una. “It doesn’t matter whose child you are. You just ask Him—and I -will, too.” - -“All right,” agreed Mary. “It won’t do any harm if it doesn’t do much -good. If you knew Mrs. Wiley as well as I do you wouldn’t think God -would want to meddle with her. Anyhow, I won’t cry any more about it. -This is a big sight better’n last night down in that old barn, with the -mice running about. Look at the Four Winds light. Ain’t it pretty?” - -“This is the only window we can see it from,” said Una. “I love to -watch it.” - -“Do you? So do I. I could see it from the Wiley loft and it was the -only comfort I had. When I was all sore from being licked I’d watch it -and forget about the places that hurt. I’d think of the ships sailing -away and away from it and wish I was on one of them sailing far away -too—away from everything. On winter nights when it didn’t shine, I just -felt real lonesome. Say, Una, what makes all you folks so kind to me -when I’m just a stranger?” - -“Because it’s right to be. The bible tells us to be kind to everybody.” - -“Does it? Well, I guess most folks don’t mind it much then. I never -remember of any one being kind to me before—true’s you live I don’t. -Say, Una, ain’t them shadows on the walls pretty? They look just like a -flock of little dancing birds. And say, Una, I like all you folks and -them Blythe boys and Di, but I don’t like that Nan. She’s a proud one.” - -“Oh, no, Mary, she isn’t a bit proud,” said Una eagerly. “Not a single -bit.” - -“Don’t tell me. Any one that holds her head like that _is_ proud. I -don’t like her.” - -“_We_ all like her very much.” - -“Oh, I s’pose you like her better’n me?” said Mary jealously. “Do you?” - -“Why, Mary—we’ve known her for weeks and we’ve only known you a few -hours,” stammered Una. - -“So you do like her better then?” said Mary in a rage. “All right! Like -her all you want to. _I_ don’t care. _I_ can get along without you.” - -She flung herself over against the wall of the garret with a slam. - -“Oh, Mary,” said Una, pushing a tender arm over Mary’s uncompromising -back, “don’t talk like that. I _do_ like you ever so much. And you make -me feel so bad.” - -No answer. Presently Una gave a sob. Instantly Mary squirmed around -again and engulfed Una in a bear’s hug. - -“Hush up,” she ordered. “Don’t go crying over what I said. I was as -mean as the devil to talk that way. I orter to be skinned alive—and you -all so good to me. I should think you _would_ like any one better’n me. -I deserve every licking I ever got. Hush, now. If you cry any more I’ll -go and walk right down to the harbour in this night-dress and drown -myself.” - -This terrible threat made Una choke back her sobs. Her tears were wiped -away by Mary with the lace frill of the spare-room pillow and forgiver -and forgiven cuddled down together again, harmony restored, to watch -the shadows of the vine leaves on the moonlit wall until they fell -asleep. - -And in the study below Rev. John Meredith walked the floor with rapt -face and shining eyes, thinking out his message of the morrow, and knew -not that under his own roof there was a little forlorn soul, stumbling -in darkness and ignorance, beset by terror and compassed about with -difficulties too great for it to grapple in its unequal struggle with a -big indifferent world. - - - - -CHAPTER VI. -MARY STAYS AT THE MANSE - - -The manse children took Mary Vance to church with them the next day. At -first Mary objected to the idea. - -“Didn’t you go to church over-harbour?” asked Una. - -“You bet. Mrs. Wiley never troubled church much, but I went every -Sunday I could get off. I was mighty thankful to go to some place where -I could sit down for a spell. But I can’t go to church in this old -ragged dress.” - -This difficulty was removed by Faith offering the loan of her second -best dress. - -“It’s faded a little and two of the buttons are off, but I guess it’ll -do.” - -“I’ll sew the buttons on in a jiffy,” said Mary. - -“Not on Sunday,” said Una, shocked. - -“Sure. The better the day the better the deed. You just gimme a needle -and thread and look the other way if you’re squeamish.” - -Faith’s school boots, and an old black velvet cap that had once been -Cecilia Meredith’s, completed Mary’s costume, and to church she went. -Her behaviour was quite conventional, and though some wondered who the -shabby little girl with the manse children was she did not attract much -attention. She listened to the sermon with outward decorum and joined -lustily in the singing. She had, it appeared, a clear, strong voice and -a good ear. - -“His blood can make the _violets_ clean,” carolled Mary blithely. Mrs. -Jimmy Milgrave, whose pew was just in front of the manse pew, turned -suddenly and looked the child over from top to toe. Mary, in a mere -superfluity of naughtiness, stuck out her tongue at Mrs. Milgrave, much -to Una’s horror. - -“I couldn’t help it,” she declared after church. “What’d she want to -stare at me like that for? Such manners! I’m _glad_ stuck my tongue out -at her. I wish I’d stuck it farther out. Say, I saw Rob MacAllister -from over-harbour there. Wonder if he’ll tell Mrs. Wiley on me.” - -No Mrs. Wiley appeared, however, and in a few day the children forgot -to look for her. Mary was apparently a fixture at the manse. But she -refused to go to school with the others. - -“Nope. I’ve finished my education,” she said, when Faith urged her to -go. “I went to school four winters since I come to Mrs. Wiley’s and -I’ve had all I want of _that_. I’m sick and tired of being -everlastingly jawed at ‘cause I didn’t get my home-lessons done. _I’d_ -no time to do home-lessons.” - -“Our teacher won’t jaw you. He is awfully nice,” said Faith. - -“Well, I ain’t going. I can read and write and cipher up to fractions. -That’s all I want. You fellows go and I’ll stay home. You needn’t be -scared I’ll steal anything. I swear I’m honest.” - -Mary employed herself while the others were at school in cleaning up -the manse. In a few days it was a different place. Floors were swept, -furniture dusted, everything straightened out. She mended the -spare-room bed-tick, she sewed on missing buttons, she patched clothes -neatly, she even invaded the study with broom and dustpan and ordered -Mr. Meredith out while she put it to rights. But there was one -department with which Aunt Martha refused to let her interfere. Aunt -Martha might be deaf and half blind and very childish, but she was -resolved to keep the commissariat in her own hands, in spite of all -Mary’s wiles and stratagems. - -“I can tell you if old Martha’d let _me_ cook you’d have some decent -meals,” she told the manse children indignantly. “There’d be no more -‘ditto’—and no more lumpy porridge and blue milk either. What _does_ -she do with all the cream?” - -“She gives it to the cat. He’s hers, you know,” said Faith. - -“I’d like to _cat_ her,” exclaimed Mary bitterly. “I’ve no use for cats -anyhow. They belong to the old Nick. You can tell that by their eyes. -Well, if old Martha won’t, she won’t, I s’pose. But it gits on my -nerves to see good vittles spoiled.” - -When school came out they always went to Rainbow Valley. Mary refused -to play in the graveyard. She declared she was afraid of ghosts. - -“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” declared Jem Blythe. - -“Oh, ain’t there?” - -“Did you ever see any?” - -“Hundreds of ‘em,” said Mary promptly. - -“What are they like?” said Carl. - -“Awful-looking. Dressed all in white with skellington hands and heads,” -said Mary. - -“What did you do?” asked Una. - -“Run like the devil,” said Mary. Then she caught Walter’s eyes and -blushed. Mary was a good deal in awe of Walter. She declared to the -manse girls that his eyes made her nervous. - -“I think of all the lies I’ve ever told when I look into them,” she -said, “and I wish I hadn’t.” - -Jem was Mary’s favourite. When he took her to the attic at Ingleside -and showed her the museum of curios that Captain Jim Boyd had -bequeathed to him she was immensely pleased and flattered. She also won -Carl’s heart entirely by her interest in his beetles and ants. It could -not be denied that Mary got on rather better with the boys than with -the girls. She quarrelled bitterly with Nan Blythe the second day. - -“Your mother is a witch,” she told Nan scornfully. “Red-haired women -are always witches.” Then she and Faith fell out about the rooster. -Mary said its tail was too short. Faith angrily retorted that she -guessed God know what length to make a rooster’s tail. They did not -“speak” for a day over this. Mary treated Una’s hairless, one-eyed doll -with consideration; but when Una showed her other prized treasure—a -picture of an angel carrying a baby, presumably to heaven, Mary -declared that it looked too much like a ghost for her. Una crept away -to her room and cried over this, but Mary hunted her out, hugged her -repentantly and implored forgiveness. No one could keep up a quarrel -long with Mary—not even Nan, who was rather prone to hold grudges and -never quite forgave the insult to her mother. Mary was jolly. She could -and did tell the most thrilling ghost stories. Rainbow Valley seances -were undeniably more exciting after Mary came. She learned to play on -the jew’s-harp and soon eclipsed Jerry. - -“Never struck anything yet I couldn’t do if I put my mind to it,” she -declared. Mary seldom lost a chance of tooting her own horn. She taught -them how to make “blow-bags” out of the thick leaves of the -“live-forever” that flourished in the old Bailey garden, she initiated -them into the toothsome qualities of the “sours” that grew in the -niches of the graveyard dyke, and she could make the most wonderful -shadow pictures on the walls with her long, flexible fingers. And when -they all went picking gum in Rainbow Valley Mary always got “the -biggest chew” and bragged about it. There were times when they hated -her and times when they loved her. But at all times they found her -interesting. So they submitted quite meekly to her bossing, and by the -end of a fortnight had come to feel that she must always have been with -them. - -“It’s the queerest thing that Mrs. Wiley hain’t been after me,” said -Mary. “I can’t understand it.” - -“Maybe she isn’t going to bother about you at all,” said Una. “Then you -can just go on staying here.” - -“This house ain’t hardly big enough for me and old Martha,” said Mary -darkly. “It’s a very fine thing to have enough to eat—I’ve often -wondered what it would be like—but I’m p’ticler about my cooking. And -Mrs. Wiley’ll be here yet. _She’s_ got a rod in pickle for me all -right. I don’t think about it so much in daytime but say, girls, up -there in that garret at night I git to thinking and thinking of it, -till I just almost wish she’d come and have it over with. I dunno’s one -real good whipping would be much worse’n all the dozen I’ve lived -through in my mind ever since I run away. Were any of you ever licked?” - -“No, of course not,” said Faith indignantly. “Father would never do -such a thing.” - -“You don’t know you’re alive,” said Mary with a sigh half of envy, half -of superiority. “You don’t know what I’ve come through. And I s’pose -the Blythes were never licked either?” - -“No-o-o, I guess not. But I _think_ they were sometimes spanked when -they were small.” - -“A spanking doesn’t amount to anything,” said Mary contemptuously. “If -my folks had just spanked me I’d have thought they were petting me. -Well, it ain’t a fair world. I wouldn’t mind taking my share of -wallopings but I’ve had a darn sight too many.” - -“It isn’t right to say that word, Mary,” said Una reproachfully. “You -promised me you wouldn’t say it.” - -“G’way,” responded Mary. “If you knew some of the words I _could_ say -if I liked you wouldn’t make such a fuss over darn. And you know very -well I hain’t ever told any lies since I come here.” - -“What about all those ghosts you said you saw?” asked Faith. - -Mary blushed. - -“That was diff’runt,” she said defiantly. “I knew you wouldn’t believe -them yarns and I didn’t intend you to. And I really did see something -queer one night when I was passing the over-harbour graveyard, true’s -you live. I dunno whether ‘twas a ghost or Sandy Crawford’s old white -nag, but it looked blamed queer and I tell you I scooted at the rate of -no man’s business.” - - - - -CHAPTER VII. -A FISHY EPISODE - - -Rilla Blythe walked proudly, and perhaps a little primly, through the -main “street” of the Glen and up the manse hill, carefully carrying a -small basketful of early strawberries, which Susan had coaxed into -lusciousness in one of the sunny nooks of Ingleside. Susan had charged -Rilla to give the basket to nobody except Aunt Martha or Mr. Meredith, -and Rilla, very proud of being entrusted with such an errand, was -resolved to carry out her instructions to the letter. - -Susan had dressed her daintily in a white, starched, and embroidered -dress, with sash of blue and beaded slippers. Her long ruddy curls were -sleek and round, and Susan had let her put on her best hat, out of -compliment to the manse. It was a somewhat elaborate affair, wherein -Susan’s taste had had more to say than Anne’s, and Rilla’s small soul -gloried in its splendours of silk and lace and flowers. She was very -conscious of her hat, and I am afraid she strutted up the manse hill. -The strut, or the hat, or both, got on the nerves of Mary Vance, who -was swinging on the lawn gate. Mary’s temper was somewhat ruffled just -then, into the bargain. Aunt Martha had refused to let her peel the -potatoes and had ordered her out of the kitchen. - -“Yah! You’ll bring the potatoes to the table with strips of skin -hanging to them and half boiled as usual! My, but it’ll be nice to go -to your funeral,” shrieked Mary. She went out of the kitchen, giving -the door such a bang that even Aunt Martha heard it, and Mr. Meredith -in his study felt the vibration and thought absently that there must -have been a slight earthquake shock. Then he went on with his sermon. - -Mary slipped from the gate and confronted the spick-and-span damsel of -Ingleside. - -“What you got there?” she demanded, trying to take the basket. - -Rilla resisted. “It’th for Mithter Meredith,” she lisped. - -“Give it to me. _I’ll_ give it to him,” said Mary. - -“No. Thuthan thaid that I wathn’t to give it to anybody but Mithter -Mer’dith or Aunt Martha,” insisted Rilla. - -Mary eyed her sourly. - -“You think you’re something, don’t you, all dressed up like a doll! -Look at me. My dress is all rags and _I_ don’t care! I’d rather be -ragged than a doll baby. Go home and tell them to put you in a glass -case. Look at me—look at me—look at me!” - -Mary executed a wild dance around the dismayed and bewildered Rilla, -flirting her ragged skirt and vociferating “Look at me—look at me” -until poor Rilla was dizzy. But as the latter tried to edge away -towards the gate Mary pounced on her again. - -“You give me that basket,” she ordered with a grimace. Mary was past -mistress in the art of “making faces.” She could give her countenance a -most grotesque and unearthly appearance out of which her strange, -brilliant, white eyes gleamed with weird effect. - -“I won’t,” gasped Rilla, frightened but staunch. “You let me go, Mary -Vanth.” - -Mary let go for a minute and looked around her. Just inside the gate -was a small “flake,” on which a half a dozen large codfish were drying. -One of Mr. Meredith’s parishioners had presented him with them one day, -perhaps in lieu of the subscription he was supposed to pay to the -stipend and never did. Mr. Meredith had thanked him and then forgotten -all about the fish, which would have promptly spoiled had not the -indefatigable Mary prepared them for drying and rigged up the “flake” -herself on which to dry them. - -Mary had a diabolical inspiration. She flew to the “flake” and seized -the largest fish there—a huge, flat thing, nearly as big as herself. -With a whoop she swooped down on the terrified Rilla, brandishing her -weird missile. Rilla’s courage gave way. To be lambasted with a dried -codfish was such an unheard-of thing that Rilla could not face it. With -a shriek she dropped her basket and fled. The beautiful berries, which -Susan had so tenderly selected for the minister, rolled in a rosy -torrent over the dusty road and were trodden on by the flying feet of -pursuer and pursued. The basket and contents were no longer in Mary’s -mind. She thought only of the delight of giving Rilla Blythe the scare -of her life. She would teach _her_ to come giving herself airs because -of her fine clothes. - -Rilla flew down the hill and along the street. Terror lent wings to her -feet, and she just managed to keep ahead of Mary, who was somewhat -hampered by her own laughter, but who had breath enough to give -occasional blood-curdling whoops as she ran, flourishing her codfish in -the air. Through the Glen street they swept, while everybody ran to the -windows and gates to see them. Mary felt she was making a tremendous -sensation and enjoyed it. Rilla, blind with terror and spent of breath, -felt that she could run no longer. In another instant that terrible -girl would be on her with the codfish. At this point the poor mite -stumbled and fell into the mud-puddle at the end of the street just as -Miss Cornelia came out of Carter Flagg’s store. - -Miss Cornelia took the whole situation in at a glance. So did Mary. The -latter stopped short in her mad career and before Miss Cornelia could -speak she had whirled around and was running up as fast as she had run -down. Miss Cornelia’s lips tightened ominously, but she knew it was no -use to think of chasing her. So she picked up poor, sobbing, -dishevelled Rilla instead and took her home. Rilla was heart-broken. -Her dress and slippers and hat were ruined and her six year old pride -had received terrible bruises. - -Susan, white with indignation, heard Miss Cornelia’s story of Mary -Vance’s exploit. - -“Oh, the hussy—oh, the littly hussy!” she said, as she carried Rilla -away for purification and comfort. - -“This thing has gone far enough, Anne dearie,” said Miss Cornelia -resolutely. “Something must be done. _Who_ is this creature who is -staying at the manse and where does she come from?” - -“I understood she was a little girl from over-harbour who was visiting -at the manse,” answered Anne, who saw the comical side of the codfish -chase and secretly thought Rilla was rather vain and needed a lesson or -two. - -“I know all the over-harbour families who come to our church and that -imp doesn’t belong to any of them,” retorted Miss Cornelia. “She is -almost in rags and when she goes to church she wears Faith Meredith’s -old clothes. There’s some mystery here, and I’m going to investigate -it, since it seems nobody else will. I believe she was at the bottom of -their goings-on in Warren Mead’s spruce bush the other day. Did you -hear of their frightening his mother into a fit?” - -“No. I knew Gilbert had been called to see her, but I did not hear what -the trouble was.” - -“Well, you know she has a weak heart. And one day last week, when she -was all alone on the veranda, she heard the most awful shrieks of -‘murder’ and ‘help’ coming from the bush—positively frightful sounds, -Anne dearie. Her heart gave out at once. Warren heard them himself at -the barn, and went straight to the bush to investigate, and there he -found all the manse children sitting on a fallen tree and screaming -‘murder’ at the top of their lungs. They told him they were only in fun -and didn’t think anyone would hear them. They were just playing Indian -ambush. Warren went back to the house and found his poor mother -unconscious on the veranda.” - -Susan, who had returned, sniffed contemptuously. - -“I think she was very far from being unconscious, Mrs. Marshall -Elliott, and that you may tie to. I have been hearing of Amelia -Warren’s weak heart for forty years. She had it when she was twenty. -She enjoys making a fuss and having the doctor, and any excuse will -do.” - -“I don’t think Gilbert thought her attack very serious,” said Anne. - -“Oh, that may very well be,” said Miss Cornelia. “But the matter has -made an awful lot of talk and the Meads being Methodists makes it that -much worse. What is going to become of those children? Sometimes I -can’t sleep at nights for thinking about them, Anne dearie. I really do -question if they get enough to eat, even, for their father is so lost -in dreams that he doesn’t often remember he has a stomach, and that -lazy old woman doesn’t bother cooking what she ought. They are just -running wild and now that school is closing they’ll be worse than -ever.” - -“They do have jolly times,” said Anne, laughing over the recollections -of some Rainbow Valley happenings that had come to her ears. “And they -are all brave and frank and loyal and truthful.” - -“That’s a true word, Anne dearie, and when you come to think of all the -trouble in the church those two tattling, deceitful youngsters of the -last minister’s made, I’m inclined to overlook a good deal in the -Merediths.” - -“When all is said and done, Mrs. Dr. dear, they are very nice -children,” said Susan. “They have got plenty of original sin in them -and that I will admit, but maybe it is just as well, for if they had -not they might spoil from over-sweetness. Only I do think it is not -proper for them to play in a graveyard and that I will maintain.” - -“But they really play quite quietly there,” excused Anne. “They don’t -run and yell as they do elsewhere. Such howls as drift up here from -Rainbow Valley sometimes! Though I fancy my own small fry bear a -valiant part in them. They had a sham battle there last night and had -to ‘roar’ themselves, because they had no artillery to do it, so Jem -says. Jem is passing through the stage where all boys hanker to be -soldiers.” - -“Well, thank goodness, he’ll never be a soldier,” said Miss Cornelia. -“I never approved of our boys going to that South African fracas. But -it’s over, and not likely anything of the kind will ever happen again. -I think the world is getting more sensible. As for the Merediths, I’ve -said many a time and I say it again, if Mr. Meredith had a wife all -would be well.” - -“He called twice at the Kirks’ last week, so I am told,” said Susan. - -“Well,” said Miss Cornelia thoughtfully, “as a rule, I don’t approve of -a minister marrying in his congregation. It generally spoils him. But -in this case it would do no harm, for every one likes Elizabeth Kirk -and nobody else is hankering for the job of stepmothering those -youngsters. Even the Hill girls balk at that. They haven’t been found -laying traps for Mr. Meredith. Elizabeth would make him a good wife if -he only thought so. But the trouble is, she really is homely and, Anne -dearie, Mr. Meredith, abstracted as he is, has an eye for a -good-looking woman, man-like. He isn’t _so_ other-worldly when it comes -to that, believe _me_.” - -“Elizabeth Kirk is a very nice person, but they do say that people have -nearly frozen to death in her mother’s spare-room bed before now, Mrs. -Dr. dear,” said Susan darkly. “If I felt I had any right to express an -opinion concerning such a solemn matter as a minister’s marriage I -would say that I think Elizabeth’s cousin Sarah, over-harbour, would -make Mr. Meredith a better wife.” - -“Why, Sarah Kirk is a Methodist,” said Miss Cornelia, much as if Susan -had suggested a Hottentot as a manse bride. - -“She would likely turn Presbyterian if she married Mr. Meredith,” -retorted Susan. - -Miss Cornelia shook her head. Evidently with her it was, once a -Methodist, always a Methodist. - -“Sarah Kirk is entirely out of the question,” she said positively. “And -so is Emmeline Drew—though the Drews are all trying to make the match. -They are literally throwing poor Emmeline at his head, and he hasn’t -the least idea of it.” - -“Emmeline Drew has no gumption, I must allow,” said Susan. “She is the -kind of woman, Mrs. Dr. dear, who would put a hot-water bottle in your -bed on a dog-night and then have her feelings hurt because you were not -grateful. And her mother was a very poor housekeeper. Did you ever hear -the story of her dishcloth? She lost her dishcloth one day. But the -next day she found it. Oh, yes, Mrs. Dr. dear, she found it, in the -goose at the dinner-table, mixed up with the stuffing. Do you think a -woman like that would do for a minister’s mother-in-law? I do not. But -no doubt I would be better employed in mending little Jem’s trousers -than in talking gossip about my neighbours. He tore them something -scandalous last night in Rainbow Valley.” - -“Where is Walter?” asked Anne. - -“He is up to no good, I fear, Mrs. Dr. dear. He is in the attic writing -something in an exercise book. And he has not done as well in -arithmetic this term as he should, so the teacher tells me. Too well I -know the reason why. He has been writing silly rhymes when he should -have been doing his sums. I am afraid that boy is going to be a poet, -Mrs. Dr. dear.” - -“He is a poet now, Susan.” - -“Well, you take it real calm, Mrs. Dr. dear. I suppose it is the best -way, when a person has the strength. I had an uncle who began by being -a poet and ended up by being a tramp. Our family were dreadfully -ashamed of him.” - -“You don’t seem to think very highly of poets, Susan,” said Anne, -laughing. - -“Who does, Mrs. Dr. dear?” asked Susan in genuine astonishment. - -“What about Milton and Shakespeare? And the poets of the Bible?” - -“They tell me Milton could not get along with his wife, and Shakespeare -was no more than respectable by times. As for the Bible, of course -things were different in those sacred days—although I never had a high -opinion of King David, say what you will. I never knew any good to come -of writing poetry, and I hope and pray that blessed boy will outgrow -the tendency. If he does not—we must see what emulsion of cod-liver oil -will do.” - - - - -CHAPTER VIII. -MISS CORNELIA INTERVENES - - -Miss Cornelia descended upon the manse the next day and -cross-questioned Mary, who, being a young person of considerable -discernment and astuteness, told her story simple and truthfully, with -an entire absence of complaint or bravado. Miss Cornelia was more -favourably impressed than she had expected to be, but deemed it her -duty to be severe. - -“Do you think,” she said sternly, “that you showed your gratitude to -this family, who have been far too kind to you, by insulting and -chasing one of their little friends as you did yesterday?” - -“Say, it was rotten mean of me,” admitted Mary easily. “I dunno what -possessed me. That old codfish seemed to come in so blamed handy. But I -was awful sorry—I cried last night after I went to bed about it, honest -I did. You ask Una if I didn’t. I wouldn’t tell her what for ‘cause I -was ashamed of it, and then she cried, too, because she was afraid -someone had hurt my feelings. Laws, _I_ ain’t got any feelings to hurt -worth speaking of. What worries me is why Mrs. Wiley hain’t been -hunting for me. It ain’t like her.” - -Miss Cornelia herself thought it rather peculiar, but she merely -admonished Mary sharply not to take any further liberties with the -minister’s codfish, and went to report progress at Ingleside. - -“If the child’s story is true the matter ought to be looked into,” she -said. “I know something about that Wiley woman, believe _me_. Marshall -used to be well acquainted with her when he lived over-harbour. I heard -him say something last summer about her and a home child she had—likely -this very Mary-creature. He said some one told him she was working the -child to death and not half feeding and clothing it. You know, Anne -dearie, it has always been my habit neither to make nor meddle with -those over-harbour folks. But I shall send Marshall over to-morrow to -find out the rights of this if he can. And _then_ I’ll speak to the -minister. Mind you, Anne dearie, the Merediths found this girl -literally starving in James Taylor’s old hay barn. She had been there -all night, cold and hungry and alone. And us sleeping warm in our beds -after good suppers.” - -“The poor little thing,” said Anne, picturing one of her own dear -babies, cold and hungry and alone in such circumstances. “If she has -been ill-used, Miss Cornelia, she mustn’t be taken back to such a -place. _I_ was an orphan once in a very similar situation.” - -“We’ll have to consult the Hopetown asylum folks,” said Miss Cornelia. -“Anyway, she can’t be left at the manse. Dear knows what those poor -children might learn from her. I understand that she has been known to -swear. But just think of her being there two whole weeks and Mr -Meredith never waking up to it! What business has a man like that to -have a family? Why, Anne dearie, he ought to be a monk.” - -Two evenings later Miss Cornelia was back at Ingleside. - -“It’s the most amazing thing!” she said. “Mrs. Wiley was found dead in -her bed the very morning after this Mary-creature ran away. She has had -a bad heart for years and the doctor had warned her it might happen at -any time. She had sent away her hired man and there was nobody in the -house. Some neighbours found her the next day. They missed the child, -it seems, but supposed Mrs. Wiley had sent her to her cousin near -Charlottetown as she had said she was going to do. The cousin didn’t -come to the funeral and so nobody ever knew that Mary wasn’t with her. -The people Marshall talked to told him some things about the way Mrs. -Wiley used this Mary that made his blood boil, so he declares. You -know, it puts Marshall in a regular fury to hear of a child being -ill-used. They said she whipped her mercilessly for every little fault -or mistake. Some folks talked of writing to the asylum authorities but -everybody’s business is nobody’s business and it was never done.” - -“I am sorry that Wiley person is dead,” said Susan fiercely. “I should -like to go over-harbour and give her a piece of my mind. Starving and -beating a child, Mrs. Dr. dear! As you know, I hold with lawful -spanking, but I go no further. And what is to become of this poor child -now, Mrs. Marshall Elliott?” - -“I suppose she must be sent back to Hopetown,” said Miss Cornelia. “I -think every one hereabouts who wants a home child has one. I’ll see Mr. -Meredith to-morrow and tell him my opinion of the whole affair.” - -“And no doubt she will, Mrs. Dr. dear,” said Susan, after Miss Cornelia -had gone. “She would stick at nothing, not even at shingling the church -spire if she took it into her head. But I cannot understand how even -Cornelia Bryant can talk to a minister as she does. You would think he -was just any common person.” - -When Miss Cornelia had gone, Nan Blythe uncurled herself from the -hammock where she had been studying her lessons and slipped away to -Rainbow Valley. The others were already there. Jem and Jerry were -playing quoits with old horseshoes borrowed from the Glen blacksmith. -Carl was stalking ants on a sunny hillock. Walter, lying on his stomach -among the fern, was reading aloud to Mary and Di and Faith and Una from -a wonderful book of myths wherein were fascinating accounts of Prester -John and the Wandering Jew, divining rods and tailed men, of Schamir, -the worm that split rocks and opened the way to golden treasure, of -Fortunate Isles and swan-maidens. It was a great shock to Walter to -learn that William Tell and Gelert were myths also; and the story of -Bishop Hatto was to keep him awake all that night; but best of all he -loved the stories of the Pied Piper and the San Greal. He read them -thrillingly, while the bells on the Tree Lovers tinkled in the summer -wind and the coolness of the evening shadows crept across the valley. - -“Say, ain’t them in’resting lies?” said Mary admiringly when Walter had -closed the book. - -“They aren’t lies,” said Di indignantly. - -“You don’t mean they’re true?” asked Mary incredulously. - -“No—not exactly. They’re like those ghost-stories of yours. They -weren’t true—but you didn’t expect us to believe them, so they weren’t -lies.” - -“That yarn about the divining rod is no lie, anyhow,” said Mary. “Old -Jake Crawford over-harbour can work it. They send for him from -everywhere when they want to dig a well. And I believe I know the -Wandering Jew.” - -“Oh, Mary,” said Una, awe-struck. - -“I do—true’s you’re alive. There was an old man at Mrs. Wiley’s one day -last fall. He looked old enough to be _anything_. She was asking him -about cedar posts, if he thought they’d last well. And he said, ‘Last -well? They’ll last a thousand years. I know, for I’ve tried them -twice.’ Now, if he was two thousand years old who was he but your -Wandering Jew?” - -“I don’t believe the Wandering Jew would associate with a person like -Mrs. Wiley,” said Faith decidedly. - -“I love the Pied Piper story,” said Di, “and so does mother. I always -feel so sorry for the poor little lame boy who couldn’t keep up with -the others and got shut out of the mountain. He must have been so -disappointed. I think all the rest of his life he’d be wondering what -wonderful thing he had missed and wishing he could have got in with the -others.” - -“But how glad his mother must have been,” said Una softly. “I think she -had been sorry all her life that he was lame. Perhaps she even used to -cry about it. But she would never be sorry again—never. She would be -glad he was lame because that was why she hadn’t lost him.” - -“Some day,” said Walter dreamily, looking afar into the sky, “the Pied -Piper will come over the hill up there and down Rainbow Valley, piping -merrily and sweetly. And I will follow him—follow him down to the -shore—down to the sea—away from you all. I don’t think I’ll want to -go—Jem will want to go—it will be such an adventure—but I won’t. Only -I’ll _have_ to—the music will call and call and call me until I _must_ -follow.” - -“We’ll all go,” cried Di, catching fire at the flame of Walter’s fancy, -and half-believing she could see the mocking, retreating figure of the -mystic piper in the far, dim end of the valley. - -“No. You’ll sit here and wait,” said Walter, his great, splendid eyes -full of strange glamour. “You’ll wait for us to come back. And we may -not come—for we cannot come as long as the Piper plays. He may pipe us -round the world. And still you’ll sit here and wait—and _wait_.” - -“Oh, dry up,” said Mary, shivering. “Don’t look like that, Walter -Blythe. You give me the creeps. Do you want to set me bawling? I could -just see that horrid old Piper going away on, and you boys following -him, and us girls sitting here waiting all alone. I dunno why it is—I -never was one of the blubbering kind—but as soon as you start your -spieling I always want to cry.” - -Walter smiled in triumph. He liked to exercise this power of his over -his companions—to play on their feelings, waken their fears, thrill -their souls. It satisfied some dramatic instinct in him. But under his -triumph was a queer little chill of some mysterious dread. The Pied -Piper had seemed very real to him—as if the fluttering veil that hid -the future had for a moment been blown aside in the starlit dusk of -Rainbow Valley and some dim glimpse of coming years granted to him. - -Carl, coming up to their group with a report of the doings in ant-land, -brought them all back to the realm of facts. - -“Ants _are_ darned in’resting,” exclaimed Mary, glad to escape the -shadowy Piper’s thrall. “Carl and me watched that bed in the graveyard -all Saturday afternoon. I never thought there was so much in bugs. Say, -but they’re quarrelsome little cusses—some of ‘em like to start a fight -‘thout any reason, far’s we could see. And some of ‘em are cowards. -They got so scared they just doubled theirselves up into a ball and let -the other fellows bang ‘em. They wouldn’t put up a fight at all. Some -of ‘em are lazy and won’t work. We watched ‘em shirking. And there was -one ant died of grief ‘cause another ant got killed—wouldn’t -work—wouldn’t eat—just died—it did, honest to Go—oodness.” - -A shocked silence prevailed. Every one knew that Mary had not started -out to say “goodness.” Faith and Di exchanged glances that would have -done credit to Miss Cornelia herself. Walter and Carl looked -uncomfortable and Una’s lip trembled. - -Mary squirmed uncomfortably. - -“That slipped out ‘fore I thought—it did, honest to—I mean, true’s you -live, and I swallowed half of it. You folks over here are mighty -squeamish seems to me. Wish you could have heard the Wileys when they -had a fight.” - -“Ladies don’t say such things,” said Faith, very primly for her. - -“It isn’t right,” whispered Una. - -“I ain’t a lady,” said Mary. “What chance’ve I ever had of being a -lady? But I won’t say that again if I can help it. I promise you.” - -“Besides,” said Una, “you can’t expect God to answer your prayers if -you take His name in vain, Mary.” - -“I don’t expect Him to answer ‘em anyhow,” said Mary of little faith. -“I’ve been asking Him for a week to clear up this Wiley affair and He -hasn’t done a thing. I’m going to give up.” - -At this juncture Nan arrived breathless. - -“Oh, Mary, I’ve news for you. Mrs. Elliott has been over-harbour and -what do you think she found out? Mrs. Wiley is dead—she was found dead -in bed the morning after you ran away. So you’ll never have to go back -to her.” - -“Dead!” said Mary stupefied. Then she shivered. - -“Do you s’pose my praying had anything to do with that?” she cried -imploringly to Una. “If it had I’ll never pray again as long as I live. -Why, she may come back and ha’nt me.” - -“No, no, Mary,” said Una comfortingly, “it hadn’t. Why, Mrs. Wiley died -long before you ever began to pray about it at all.” - -“That’s so,” said Mary recovering from her panic. “But I tell you it -gave me a start. I wouldn’t like to think I’d prayed anybody to death. -I never thought of such a thing as her dying when I was praying. She -didn’t seem much like the dying kind. Did Mrs. Elliott say anything -about me?” - -“She said you would likely have to go back to the asylum.” - -“I thought as much,” said Mary drearily. “And then they’ll give me out -again—likely to some one just like Mrs. Wiley. Well, I s’pose I can -stand it. I’m tough.” - -“I’m going to pray that you won’t have to go back,” whispered Una, as -she and Mary walked home to the manse. - -“You can do as you like,” said Mary decidedly, “but I vow _I_ won’t. -I’m good and scared of this praying business. See what’s come of it. If -Mrs. Wiley _had_ died after I started praying it would have been my -doings.” - -“Oh, no, it wouldn’t,” said Una. “I wish I could explain things -better—father could, I know, if you’d talk to him, Mary.” - -“Catch me! I don’t know what to make of your father, that’s the long -and short of it. He goes by me and never sees me in broad daylight. I -ain’t proud—but I ain’t a door-mat, neither!” - -“Oh, Mary, it’s just father’s way. Most of the time he never sees us, -either. He is thinking deeply, that is all. And I _am_ going to pray -that God will keep you in Four Winds—because I like you, Mary.” - -“All right. Only don’t let me hear of any more people dying on account -of it,” said Mary. “I’d like to stay in Four Winds fine. I like it and -I like the harbour and the light house—and you and the Blythes. You’re -the only friends I ever had and I’d hate to leave you.” - - - - -CHAPTER IX. -UNA INTERVENES - - -Miss Cornelia had an interview with Mr. Meredith which proved something -of a shock to that abstracted gentleman. She pointed out to him, none -too respectfully, his dereliction of duty in allowing a waif like Mary -Vance to come into his family and associate with his children without -knowing or learning anything about her. - -“I don’t say there is much harm done, of course,” she concluded. “This -Mary-creature isn’t what you might call bad, when all is said and done. -I’ve been questioning your children and the Blythes, and from what I -can make out there’s nothing much to be said against the child except -that she’s slangy and doesn’t use very refined language. But think what -might have happened if she’d been like some of those home children we -know of. You know yourself what that poor little creature the Jim -Flaggs’ had, taught and told the Flagg children.” - -Mr. Meredith did know and was honestly shocked over his own -carelessness in the matter. - -“But what is to be done, Mrs. Elliott?” he asked helplessly. “We can’t -turn the poor child out. She must be cared for.” - -“Of course. We’d better write to the Hopetown authorities at once. -Meanwhile, I suppose she might as well stay here for a few more days -till we hear from them. But keep your eyes and ears open, Mr. -Meredith.” - -Susan would have died of horror on the spot if she had heard Miss -Cornelia so admonishing a minister. But Miss Cornelia departed in a -warm glow of satisfaction over duty done, and that night Mr. Meredith -asked Mary to come into his study with him. Mary obeyed, looking -literally ghastly with fright. But she got the surprise of her poor, -battered little life. This man, of whom she had stood so terribly in -awe, was the kindest, gentlest soul she had ever met. Before she knew -what happened Mary found herself pouring all her troubles into his ear -and receiving in return such sympathy and tender understanding as it -had never occurred to her to imagine. Mary left the study with her face -and eyes so softened that Una hardly knew her. - -“Your father’s all right, when he does wake up,” she said with a sniff -that just escaped being a sob. “It’s a pity he doesn’t wake up oftener. -He said I wasn’t to blame for Mrs. Wiley dying, but that I must try to -think of her good points and not of her bad ones. I dunno what good -points she had, unless it was keeping her house clean and making -first-class butter. I know I ‘most wore my arms out scrubbing her old -kitchen floor with the knots in it. But anything your father says goes -with me after this.” - -Mary proved a rather dull companion in the following days, however. She -confided to Una that the more she thought of going back to the asylum -the more she hated it. Una racked her small brains for some way of -averting it, but it was Nan Blythe who came to the rescue with a -somewhat startling suggestion. - -“Mrs. Elliott might take Mary herself. She has a great big house and -Mr. Elliott is always wanting her to have help. It would be just a -splendid place for Mary. Only she’d have to behave herself.” - -“Oh, Nan, do you think Mrs. Elliott would take her?” - -“It wouldn’t do any harm if you asked her,” said Nan. At first Una did -not think she could. She was so shy that to ask a favour of anybody was -agony to her. And she was very much in awe of the bustling, energetic -Mrs. Elliott. She liked her very much and always enjoyed a visit to her -house; but to go and ask her to adopt Mary Vance seemed such a height -of presumption that Una’s timid spirit quailed. - -When the Hopetown authorities wrote to Mr. Meredith to send Mary to -them without delay Mary cried herself to sleep in the manse attic that -night and Una found a desperate courage. The next evening she slipped -away from the manse to the harbour road. Far down in Rainbow Valley she -heard joyous laughter but her way lay not there. She was terribly pale -and terribly in earnest—so much so that she took no notice of the -people she met—and old Mrs. Stanley Flagg was quite huffed and said Una -Meredith would be as absentminded as her father when she grew up. - -Miss Cornelia lived half way between the Glen and Four Winds Point, in -a house whose original glaring green hue had mellowed down to an -agreeable greenish gray. Marshall Elliott had planted trees about it -and set out a rose garden and a spruce hedge. It was quite a different -place from what it had been in years agone. The manse children and the -Ingleside children liked to go there. It was a beautiful walk down the -old harbour road, and there was always a well-filled cooky jar at the -end. - -The misty sea was lapping softly far down on the sands. Three big boats -were skimming down the harbour like great white sea-birds. A schooner -was coming up the channel. The world of Four Winds was steeped in -glowing colour, and subtle music, and strange glamour, and everybody -should have been happy in it. But when Una turned in at Miss Cornelia’s -gate her very legs had almost refused to carry her. - -Miss Cornelia was alone on the veranda. Una had hoped Mr. Elliott would -be there. He was so big and hearty and twinkly that there would be -encouragement in his presence. She sat on the little stool Miss -Cornelia brought out and tried to eat the doughnut Miss Cornelia gave -her. It stuck in her throat, but she swallowed desperately lest Miss -Cornelia be offended. She could not talk; she was still pale; and her -big, dark-blue eyes looked so piteous that Miss Cornelia concluded the -child was in some trouble. - -“What’s on your mind, dearie?” she asked. “There’s something, that’s -plain to be seen.” - -Una swallowed the last twist of doughnut with a desperate gulp. - -“Mrs. Elliott, won’t you take Mary Vance?” she said beseechingly. - -Miss Cornelia stared blankly. - -“Me! Take Mary Vance! Do you mean keep her?” - -“Yes—keep her—adopt her,” said Una eagerly, gaining courage now that -the ice was broken. “Oh, Mrs. Elliott, _please_ do. She doesn’t want to -go back to the asylum—she cries every night about it. She’s so afraid -of being sent to another hard place. And she’s _so_ smart—there isn’t -anything she can’t do. I know you wouldn’t be sorry if you took her.” - -“I never thought of such a thing,” said Miss Cornelia rather -helplessly. - -“_Won’t_ you think of it?” implored Una. - -“But, dearie, I don’t want help. I’m quite able to do all the work -here. And I never thought I’d like to have a home girl if I did need -help.” - -The light went out of Una’s eyes. Her lips trembled. She sat down on -her stool again, a pathetic little figure of disappointment, and began -to cry. - -“Don’t—dearie—don’t,” exclaimed Miss Cornelia in distress. She could -never bear to hurt a child. “I don’t say I _won’t_ take her—but the -idea is so new it has just kerflummuxed me. I must think it over.” - -“Mary is _so_ smart,” said Una again. - -“Humph! So I’ve heard. I’ve heard she swears, too. Is that true?” - -“I’ve never heard her swear _exactly_,” faltered Una uncomfortably. -“But I’m afraid she _could_.” - -“I believe you! Does she always tell the truth?” - -“I think she does, except when she’s afraid of a whipping.” - -“And yet you want me to take her!” - -“_Some one_ has to take her,” sobbed Una. “_Some one_ has to look after -her, Mrs. Elliott.” - -“That’s true. Perhaps it _is_ my duty to do it,” said Miss Cornelia -with a sigh. “Well, I’ll have to talk it over with Mr. Elliott. So -don’t say anything about it just yet. Take another doughnut, dearie.” - -Una took it and ate it with a better appetite. - -“I’m very fond of doughnuts,” she confessed “Aunt Martha never makes -any. But Miss Susan at Ingleside does, and sometimes she lets us have a -plateful in Rainbow Valley. Do you know what I do when I’m hungry for -doughnuts and can’t get any, Mrs. Elliott?” - -“No, dearie. What?” - -“I get out mother’s old cook book and read the doughnut recipe—and the -other recipes. They sound _so_ nice. I always do that when I’m -hungry—especially after we’ve had ditto for dinner. _Then_ I read the -fried chicken and the roast goose recipes. Mother could make all those -nice things.” - -“Those manse children will starve to death yet if Mr. Meredith doesn’t -get married,” Miss Cornelia told her husband indignantly after Una had -gone. “And he won’t—and what’s to be done? And _shall_ we take this -Mary-creature, Marshall?” - -“Yes, take her,” said Marshall laconically. - -“Just like a man,” said his wife, despairingly. “‘Take her’—as if that -was all. There are a hundred things to be considered, believe _me_.” - -“Take her—and we’ll consider them afterwards, Cornelia,” said her -husband. - -In the end Miss Cornelia did take her and went up to announce her -decision to the Ingleside people first. - -“Splendid!” said Anne delightedly. “I’ve been hoping you would do that -very thing, Miss Cornelia. I want that poor child to get a good home. I -was a homeless little orphan just like her once.” - -“I don’t think this Mary-creature is or ever will be much like you,” -retorted Miss Cornelia gloomily. “She’s a cat of another colour. But -she’s also a human being with an immortal soul to save. I’ve got a -shorter catechism and a small tooth comb and I’m going to do my duty by -her, now that I’ve set my hand to the plough, believe me.” - -Mary received the news with chastened satisfaction. - -“It’s better luck than I expected,” she said. - -“You’ll have to mind your p’s and q’s with Mrs. Elliott,” said Nan. - -“Well, I can do that,” flashed Mary. “I know how to behave when I want -to just as well as you, Nan Blythe.” - -“You mustn’t use bad words, you know, Mary,” said Una anxiously. - -“I s’pose she’d die of horror if I did,” grinned Mary, her white eyes -shining with unholy glee over the idea. “But you needn’t worry, Una. -Butter won’t melt in my mouth after this. I’ll be all prunes and -prisms.” - -“Nor tell lies,” added Faith. - -“Not even to get off from a whipping?” pleaded Mary. - -“Mrs. Elliott will _never_ whip you—_never_,” exclaimed Di. - -“Won’t she?” said Mary skeptically. “If I ever find myself in a place -where I ain’t licked I’ll think it’s heaven all right. No fear of me -telling lies then. I ain’t fond of telling ‘em—I’d ruther not, if it -comes to that.” - -The day before Mary’s departure from the manse they had a picnic in her -honour in Rainbow Valley, and that evening all the manse children gave -her something from their scanty store of treasured things for a -keepsake. Carl gave her his Noah’s ark and Jerry his second best -jew’s-harp. Faith gave her a little hairbrush with a mirror in the back -of it, which Mary had always considered very wonderful. Una hesitated -between an old beaded purse and a gay picture of Daniel in the lion’s -den, and finally offered Mary her choice. Mary really hankered after -the beaded purse, but she knew Una loved it, so she said, - -“Give me Daniel. I’d rusher have it ‘cause I’m partial to lions. Only I -wish they’d et Daniel up. It would have been more exciting.” - -At bedtime Mary coaxed Una to sleep with her. - -“It’s for the last time,” she said, “and it’s raining tonight, and I -hate sleeping up there alone when it’s raining on account of that -graveyard. I don’t mind it on fine nights, but a night like this I -can’t see anything but the rain pouring down on them old white stones, -and the wind round the window sounds as if them dead people were trying -to get in and crying ‘cause they couldn’t.” - -“I like rainy nights,” said Una, when they were cuddled down together -in the little attic room, “and so do the Blythe girls.” - -“I don’t mind ‘em when I’m not handy to graveyards,” said Mary. “If I -was alone here I’d cry my eyes out I’d be so lonesome. I feel awful bad -to be leaving you all.” - -“Mrs. Elliott will let you come up and play in Rainbow Valley quite -often I’m sure,” said Una. “And you _will_ be a good girl, won’t you, -Mary?” - -“Oh, I’ll try,” sighed Mary. “But it won’t be as easy for me to be -good—inside, I mean, as well as outside—as it is for you. You hadn’t -such scalawags of relations as I had.” - -“But your people must have had some good qualities as well as bad -ones,” argued Una. “You must live up to them and never mind their bad -ones.” - -“I don’t believe they had any good qualities,” said Mary gloomily. “I -never heard of any. My grandfather had money, but they say he was a -rascal. No, I’ll just have to start out on my own hook and do the best -I can.” - -“And God will help you, you know, Mary, if you ask Him.” - -“I don’t know about that.” - -“Oh, Mary. You know we asked God to get a home for you and He did.” - -“I don’t see what He had to do with it,” retorted Mary. “It was you put -it into Mrs. Elliott’s head.” - -“But God put it into her _heart_ to take you. All my putting it into -her _head_ wouldn’t have done any good if He hadn’t.” - -“Well, there may be something in that,” admitted Mary. “Mind you, I -haven’t got anything against God, Una. I’m willing to give Him a -chance. But, honest, I think He’s an awful lot like your father—just -absent-minded and never taking any notice of a body most of the time, -but sometimes waking up all of a suddent and being awful good and kind -and sensible.” - -“Oh, Mary, no!” exclaimed horrified Una. “God isn’t a bit like father—I -mean He’s a thousand times better and kinder.” - -“If He’s as good as your father He’ll do for me,” said Mary. “When your -father was talking to me I felt as if I never could be bad any more.” - -“I wish you’d talk to father about Him,” sighed Una. “He can explain it -all so much better than I can.” - -“Why, so I will, next time he wakes up,” promised Mary. “That night he -talked to me in the study he showed me real clear that my praying -didn’t kill Mrs. Wiley. My mind’s been easy since, but I’m real -cautious about praying. I guess the old rhyme is the safest. Say, Una, -it seems to me if one has to pray to anybody it’d be better to pray to -the devil than to God. God’s good, anyhow so you say, so He won’t do -you any harm, but from all I can make out the devil needs to be -pacified. I think the sensible way would be to say to _him_, ‘Good -devil, please don’t tempt me. Just leave me alone, please.’ Now, don’t -you?” - -“Oh, no, no, Mary. I’m sure it couldn’t be right to pray to the devil. -And it wouldn’t do any good because he’s bad. It might aggravate him -and he’d be worse than ever.” - -“Well, as to this God-matter,” said Mary stubbornly, “since you and I -can’t settle it, there ain’t no use in talking more about it until -we’ve a chanct to find out the rights of it. I’ll do the best I can -alone till then.” - -“If mother was alive she could tell us everything,” said Una with a -sigh. - -“I wisht she was alive,” said Mary. “I don’t know what’s going to -become of you youngsters when I’m gone. Anyhow, _do_ try and keep the -house a little tidy. The way people talks about it is scandalous. And -the first thing you know your father will be getting married again and -then your noses will be out of joint.” - -Una was startled. The idea of her father marrying again had never -presented itself to her before. She did not like it and she lay silent -under the chill of it. - -“Stepmothers are _awful_ creatures,” Mary went on. “I could make your -blood run cold if I was to tell you all I know about ‘em. The Wilson -kids across the road from Wiley’s had a stepmother. She was just as bad -to ‘em as Mrs. Wiley was to me. It’ll be awful if you get a -stepmother.” - -“I’m sure we won’t,” said Una tremulously. “Father won’t marry anybody -else.” - -“He’ll be hounded into it, I expect,” said Mary darkly. “All the old -maids in the settlement are after him. There’s no being up to them. And -the worst of stepmothers is, they always set your father against you. -He’d never care anything about you again. He’d always take her part and -her children’s part. You see, she’d make him believe you were all bad.” - -“I wish you hadn’t told me this, Mary,” cried Una. “It makes me feel so -unhappy.” - -“I only wanted to warn you,” said Mary, rather repentantly. “Of course, -your father’s so absent-minded he mightn’t happen to think of getting -married again. But it’s better to be prepared.” - -Long after Mary slept serenely little Una lay awake, her eyes smarting -with tears. On, how dreadful it would be if her father should marry -somebody who would make him hate her and Jerry and Faith and Carl! She -couldn’t bear it—she couldn’t! - -Mary had not instilled any poison of the kind Miss Cornelia had feared -into the manse children’s minds. Yet she had certainly contrived to do -a little mischief with the best of intentions. But she slept -dreamlessly, while Una lay awake and the rain fell and the wind wailed -around the old gray manse. And the Rev. John Meredith forgot to go to -bed at all because he was absorbed in reading a life of St. Augustine. -It was gray dawn when he finished it and went upstairs, wrestling with -the problems of two thousand years ago. The door of the girls’ room was -open and he saw Faith lying asleep, rosy and beautiful. He wondered -where Una was. Perhaps she had gone over to “stay all night” with the -Blythe girls. She did this occasionally, deeming it a great treat. John -Meredith sighed. He felt that Una’s whereabouts ought not to be a -mystery to him. Cecelia would have looked after her better than that. - -If only Cecelia were still with him! How pretty and gay she had been! -How the old manse up at Maywater had echoed to her songs! And she had -gone away so suddenly, taking her laughter and music and leaving -silence—so suddenly that he had never quite got over his feeling of -amazement. How could _she_, the beautiful and vivid, have died? - -The idea of a second marriage had never presented itself seriously to -John Meredith. He had loved his wife so deeply that he believed he -could never care for any woman again. He had a vague idea that before -very long Faith would be old enough to take her mother’s place. Until -then, he must do the best he could alone. He sighed and went to his -room, where the bed was still unmade. Aunt Martha had forgotten it, and -Mary had not dared to make it because Aunt Martha had forbidden her to -meddle with anything in the minister’s room. But Mr. Meredith did not -notice that it was unmade. His last thoughts were of St. Augustine. - - - - -CHAPTER X. -THE MANSE GIRLS CLEAN HOUSE - - -“Ugh,” said Faith, sitting up in bed with a shiver. “It’s raining. I do -hate a rainy Sunday. Sunday is dull enough even when it’s fine.” - -“We oughtn’t to find Sunday dull,” said Una sleepily, trying to pull -her drowsy wits together with an uneasy conviction that they had -overslept. - -“But we _do_, you know,” said Faith candidly. “Mary Vance says most -Sundays are so dull she could hang herself.” - -“We ought to like Sunday better than Mary Vance,” said Una -remorsefully. “We’re the minister’s children.” - -“I wish we were a blacksmith’s children,” protested Faith angrily, -hunting for her stockings. “_Then_ people wouldn’t expect us to be -better than other children. _Just_ look at the holes in my heels. Mary -darned them all up before she went away, but they’re as bad as ever -now. Una, get up. I can’t get the breakfast alone. Oh, dear. I wish -father and Jerry were home. You wouldn’t think we’d miss father much—we -don’t see much of him when he is home. And yet _everything_ seems gone. -I must run in and see how Aunt Martha is.” - -“Is she any better?” asked Una, when Faith returned. - -“No, she isn’t. She’s groaning with the misery still. Maybe we ought to -tell Dr. Blythe. But she says not—she never had a doctor in her life -and she isn’t going to begin now. She says doctors just live by -poisoning people. Do you suppose they do?” - -“No, of course not,” said Una indignantly. “I’m sure Dr. Blythe -wouldn’t poison anybody.” - -“Well, we’ll have to rub Aunt Martha’s back again after breakfast. We’d -better not make the flannels as hot as we did yesterday.” - -Faith giggled over the remembrance. They had nearly scalded the skin -off poor Aunt Martha’s back. Una sighed. Mary Vance would have known -just what the precise temperature of flannels for a misery back should -be. Mary knew everything. They knew nothing. And how could they learn, -save by bitter experience for which, in this instance, unfortunate Aunt -Martha had paid? - -The preceding Monday Mr. Meredith had left for Nova Scotia to spend his -short vacation, taking Jerry with him. On Wednesday Aunt Martha was -suddenly seized with a recurring and mysterious ailment which she -always called “the misery,” and which was tolerably certain to attack -her at the most inconvenient times. She could not rise from her bed, -any movement causing agony. A doctor she flatly refused to have. Faith -and Una cooked the meals and waited on her. The less said about the -meals the better—yet they were not much worse than Aunt Martha’s had -been. There were many women in the village who would have been glad to -come and help, but Aunt Martha refused to let her plight be known. - -“You must worry on till I kin git around,” she groaned. “Thank -goodness, John isn’t here. There’s a plenty o’ cold biled meat and -bread and you kin try your hand at making porridge.” - -The girls had tried their hand, but so far without much success. The -first day it had been too thin. The next day so thick that you could -cut it in slices. And both days it had been burned. - -“I hate porridge,” said Faith viciously. “When I have a house of my own -I’m _never_ going to have a single bit of porridge in it.” - -“What’ll your children do then?” asked Una. “Children have to have -porridge or they won’t grow. Everybody says so.” - -“They’ll have to get along without it or stay runts,” retorted Faith -stubbornly. “Here, Una, you stir it while I set the table. If I leave -it for a minute the horrid stuff will burn. It’s half past nine. We’ll -be late for Sunday School.” - -“I haven’t seen anyone going past yet,” said Una. “There won’t likely -be many out. Just see how it’s pouring. And when there’s no preaching -the folks won’t come from a distance to bring the children.” - -“Go and call Carl,” said Faith. - -Carl, it appeared, had a sore throat, induced by getting wet in the -Rainbow Valley marsh the previous evening while pursuing dragon-flies. -He had come home with dripping stockings and boots and had sat out the -evening in them. He could not eat any breakfast and Faith made him go -back to bed again. She and Una left the table as it was and went to -Sunday School. There was no one in the school room when they got there -and no one came. They waited until eleven and then went home. - -“There doesn’t seem to be anybody at the Methodist Sunday School -either,” said Una. - -“I’m _glad_,” said Faith. “I’d hate to think the Methodists were better -at going to Sunday School on rainy Sundays than the Presbyterians. But -there’s no preaching in their Church to-day, either, so likely their -Sunday School is in the afternoon.” - -Una washed the dishes, doing them quite nicely, for so much had she -learned from Mary Vance. Faith swept the floor after a fashion and -peeled the potatoes for dinner, cutting her finger in the process. - -“I wish we had something for dinner besides ditto,” sighed Una. “I’m so -tired of it. The Blythe children don’t know what ditto is. And we -_never_ have any pudding. Nan says Susan would faint if they had no -pudding on Sundays. Why aren’t we like other people, Faith?” - -“I don’t want to be like other people,” laughed Faith, tying up her -bleeding finger. “I like being myself. It’s more interesting. Jessie -Drew is as good a housekeeper as her mother, but would you want to be -as stupid as she is?” - -“But our house isn’t right. Mary Vance says so. She says people talk -about it being so untidy.” - -Faith had an inspiration. - -“We’ll clean it all up,” she cried. “We’ll go right to work to-morrow. -It’s a real good chance when Aunt Martha is laid up and can’t interfere -with us. We’ll have it all lovely and clean when father comes home, -just like it was when Mary went away. _any one_ can sweep and dust and -wash windows. People won’t be able to talk about us any more. Jem -Blythe says it’s only old cats that talk, but their talk hurts just as -much as anybody’s.” - -“I hope it will be fine to-morrow,” said Una, fired with enthusiasm. -“Oh, Faith, it will be splendid to be all cleaned up and like other -people.” - -“I hope Aunt Martha’s misery will last over to-morrow,” said Faith. “If -it doesn’t we won’t get a single thing done.” - -Faith’s amiable wish was fulfilled. The next day found Aunt Martha -still unable to rise. Carl, too, was still sick and easily prevailed on -to stay in bed. Neither Faith nor Una had any idea how sick the boy -really was; a watchful mother would have had a doctor without delay; -but there was no mother, and poor little Carl, with his sore throat and -aching head and crimson cheeks, rolled himself up in his twisted -bedclothes and suffered alone, somewhat comforted by the companionship -of a small green lizard in the pocket of his ragged nighty. - -The world was full of summer sunshine after the rain. It was a peerless -day for house-cleaning and Faith and Una went gaily to work. - -“We’ll clean the dining-room and the parlour,” said Faith. “It wouldn’t -do to meddle with the study, and it doesn’t matter much about the -upstairs. The first thing is to take everything out.” - -Accordingly, everything was taken out. The furniture was piled on the -veranda and lawn and the Methodist graveyard fence was gaily draped -with rugs. An orgy of sweeping followed, with an attempt at dusting on -Una’s part, while Faith washed the windows of the dining-room, breaking -one pane and cracking two in the process. Una surveyed the streaked -result dubiously. - -“They don’t look right, somehow,” she said. “Mrs. Elliott’s and Susan’s -windows just shine and sparkle.” - -“Never mind. They let the sunshine through just as well,” said Faith -cheerfully. “They _must_ be clean after all the soap and water I’ve -used, and that’s the main thing. Now, it’s past eleven, so I’ll wipe up -this mess on the floor and we’ll go outside. You dust the furniture and -I’ll shake the rugs. I’m going to do it in the graveyard. I don’t want -to send dust flying all over the lawn.” - -Faith enjoyed the rug shaking. To stand on Hezekiah Pollock’s -tombstone, flapping and shaking rugs, was real fun. To be sure, Elder -Abraham Clow and his wife, driving past in their capacious -double-seated buggy, seemed to gaze at her in grim disapproval. - -“Isn’t that a terrible sight?” said Elder Abraham solemnly. - -“I would never have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes,” -said Mrs. Elder Abraham, more solemnly still. - -Faith waved a door mat cheerily at the Clow party. It did not worry her -that the elder and his wife did not return her greeting. Everybody knew -that Elder Abraham had never been known to smile since he had been -appointed Superintendent of the Sunday School fourteen years -previously. But it hurt her that Minnie and Adella Clow did not wave -back. Faith liked Minnie and Adella. Next to the Blythes, they were her -best friends in school and she always helped Adella with her sums. This -was gratitude for you. Her friends cut her because she was shaking rugs -in an old graveyard where, as Mary Vance said, not a living soul had -been buried for years. Faith flounced around to the veranda, where she -found Una grieved in spirit because the Clow girls had not waved to -her, either. - -“I suppose they’re mad over something,” said Faith. “Perhaps they’re -jealous because we play so much in Rainbow Valley with the Blythes. -Well, just wait till school opens and Adella wants me to show her how -to do her sums! We’ll get square then. Come on, let’s put the things -back in. I’m tired to death and I don’t believe the rooms will look -much better than before we started—though I shook out pecks of dust in -the graveyard. I _hate_ house-cleaning.” - -It was two o’clock before the tired girls finished the two rooms. They -got a dreary bite in the kitchen and intended to wash the dishes at -once. But Faith happened to pick up a new story-book Di Blythe had lent -her and was lost to the world until sunset. Una took a cup of rank tea -up to Carl but found him asleep; so she curled herself up on Jerry’s -bed and went to sleep too. Meanwhile, a weird story flew through Glen -St. Mary and folks asked each other seriously what was to be done with -those manse youngsters. - -“That is past laughing at, believe _me_,” said Miss Cornelia to her -husband, with a heavy sigh. “I couldn’t believe it at first. Miranda -Drew brought the story home from the Methodist Sunday School this -afternoon and I simply scoffed at it. But Mrs. Elder Abraham says she -and the Elder saw it with their own eyes.” - -“Saw what?” asked Marshall. - -“Faith and Una Meredith stayed home from Sunday School this morning and -_cleaned house_,” said Miss Cornelia, in accents of despair. “When -Elder Abraham went home from the church—he had stayed behind to -straighten out the library books—he saw them shaking rugs in the -Methodist graveyard. I can never look a Methodist in the face again. -Just think what a scandal it will make!” - -A scandal it assuredly did make, growing more scandalous as it spread, -until the over-harbour people heard that the manse children had not -only cleaned house and put out a washing on Sunday, but had wound up -with an afternoon picnic in the graveyard while the Methodist Sunday -School was going on. The only household which remained in blissful -ignorance of the terrible thing was the manse itself; on what Faith and -Una fondly believed to be Tuesday it rained again; for the next three -days it rained; nobody came near the manse; the manse folk went -nowhere; they might have waded through the misty Rainbow Valley up to -Ingleside, but all the Blythe family, save Susan and the doctor, were -away on a visit to Avonlea. - -“This is the last of our bread,” said Faith, “and the ditto is done. If -Aunt Martha doesn’t get better soon _what_ will we do?” - -“We can buy some bread in the village and there’s the codfish Mary -dried,” said Una. “But we don’t know how to cook it.” - -“Oh, that’s easy,” laughed Faith. “You just boil it.” - -Boil it they did; but as it did not occur to them to soak it beforehand -it was too salty to eat. That night they were very hungry; but by the -following day their troubles were over. Sunshine returned to the world; -Carl was well and Aunt Martha’s misery left her as suddenly as it had -come; the butcher called at the manse and chased famine away. To crown -all, the Blythes returned home, and that evening they and the manse -children and Mary Vance kept sunset tryst once more in Rainbow Valley, -where the daisies were floating upon the grass like spirits of the dew -and the bells on the Tree Lovers rang like fairy chimes in the scented -twilight. - - - - -CHAPTER XI. -A DREADFUL DISCOVERY - - -“Well, you kids have gone and done it now,” was Mary’s greeting, as she -joined them in the Valley. Miss Cornelia was up at Ingleside, holding -agonized conclave with Anne and Susan, and Mary hoped that the session -might be a long one, for it was all of two weeks since she had been -allowed to revel with her chums in the dear valley of rainbows. - -“Done what?” demanded everybody but Walter, who was day-dreaming as -usual. - -“It’s you manse young ones, I mean,” said Mary. “It was just awful of -you. _I_ wouldn’t have done such a thing for the world, and _I_ weren’t -brought up in a manse—weren’t brought up _anywhere_—just _come_ up.” - -“What have _we_ done?” asked Faith blankly. - -“Done! You’d _better_ ask! The talk is something terrible. I expect -it’s ruined your father in this congregation. He’ll never be able to -live it down, poor man! Everybody blames him for it, and that isn’t -fair. But nothing _is_ fair in this world. You ought to be ashamed of -yourselves.” - -“What _have_ we done?” asked Una again, despairingly. Faith said -nothing, but her eyes flashed golden-brown scorn at Mary. - -“Oh, don’t pretend innocence,” said Mary, witheringly. “Everybody knows -what you have done.” - -“_I_ don’t,” interjected Jem Blythe indignantly. “Don’t let me catch -you making Una cry, Mary Vance. What are you talking about?” - -“I s’pose you don’t know, since you’re just back from up west,” said -Mary, somewhat subdued. Jem could always manage her. “But everybody -else knows, you’d better believe.” - -“Knows what?” - -“That Faith and Una stayed home from Sunday School last Sunday and -_cleaned house_.” - -“We didn’t,” cried Faith and Una, in passionate denial. - -Mary looked haughtily at them. - -“I didn’t suppose you’d deny it, after the way you’ve combed _me_ down -for lying,” she said. “What’s the good of saying you didn’t? Everybody -knows you _did_. Elder Clow and his wife saw you. Some people say it -will break up the church, but _I_ don’t go that far. You _are_ nice -ones.” - -Nan Blythe stood up and put her arms around the dazed Faith and Una. - -“They were nice enough to take you in and feed you and clothe you when -you were starving in Mr. Taylor’s barn, Mary Vance,” she said. “You are -_very_ grateful, I must say.” - -“I _am_ grateful,” retorted Mary. “You’d know it if you’d heard me -standing up for Mr. Meredith through thick and thin. I’ve blistered my -tongue talking for him this week. I’ve said again and again that he -isn’t to blame if his young ones did clean house on Sunday. He was -away—and they knew better.” - -“But we didn’t,” protested Una. “It was _Monday_ we cleaned house. -Wasn’t it, Faith?” - -“Of course it was,” said Faith, with flashing eyes. “We went to Sunday -School in spite of the rain—and no one came—not even Elder Abraham, for -all his talk about fair-weather Christians.” - -“It was Saturday it rained,” said Mary. “Sunday was as fine as silk. I -wasn’t at Sunday School because I had toothache, but every one else was -and they saw all your stuff out on the lawn. And Elder Abraham and Mrs. -Elder Abraham saw you shaking rugs in the graveyard.” - -Una sat down among the daisies and began to cry. - -“Look here,” said Jem resolutely, “this thing must be cleared up. -_Somebody_ has made a mistake. Sunday _was_ fine, Faith. How could you -have thought Saturday was Sunday?” - -“Prayer-meeting was Thursday night,” cried Faith, “and Adam flew into -the soup-pot on Friday when Aunt Martha’s cat chased him, and spoiled -our dinner; and Saturday there was a snake in the cellar and Carl -caught it with a forked stick and carried it out, and Sunday it rained. -So there!” - -“Prayer-meeting was Wednesday night,” said Mary. “Elder Baxter was to -lead and he couldn’t go Thursday night and it was changed to Wednesday. -You were just a day out, Faith Meredith, and you _did_ work on Sunday.” - -Suddenly Faith burst into a peal of laughter. - -“I suppose we did. What a joke!” - -“It isn’t much of a joke for your father,” said Mary sourly. - -“It’ll be all right when people find out it was just a mistake,” said -Faith carelessly. “We’ll explain.” - -“You can explain till you’re black in the face,” said Mary, “but a lie -like that’ll travel faster’n further than you ever will. I’VE seen more -of the world than you and _I_ know. Besides, there are plenty of folks -won’t believe it was a mistake.” - -“They will if I tell them,” said Faith. - -“You can’t tell everybody,” said Mary. “No, I tell you you’ve disgraced -your father.” - -Una’s evening was spoiled by this dire reflection, but Faith refused to -be made uncomfortable. Besides, she had a plan that would put -everything right. So she put the past with its mistake behind her and -gave herself over to enjoyment of the present. Jem went away to fish -and Walter came out of his reverie and proceeded to describe the woods -of heaven. Mary pricked up her ears and listened respectfully. Despite -her awe of Walter she revelled in his “book talk.” It always gave her a -delightful sensation. Walter had been reading his Coleridge that day, -and he pictured a heaven where - -“There were gardens bright with sinuous rills -Where blossomed many an incense bearing tree, -And there were forests ancient as the hills -Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.” - -“I didn’t know there was any woods in heaven,” said Mary, with a long -breath. “I thought it was all streets—and streets—_and_ streets.” - -“Of course there are woods,” said Nan. “Mother can’t live without trees -and I can’t, so what would be the use of going to heaven if there -weren’t any trees?” - -“There are cities, too,” said the young dreamer, “splendid -cities—coloured just like the sunset, with sapphire towers and rainbow -domes. They are built of gold and diamonds—whole streets of diamonds, -flashing like the sun. In the squares there are crystal fountains -kissed by the light, and everywhere the asphodel blooms—the flower of -heaven.” - -“Fancy!” said Mary. “I saw the main street in Charlottetown once and I -thought it was real grand, but I s’pose it’s nothing to heaven. Well, -it all sounds gorgeous the way you tell it, but won’t it be kind of -dull, too?” - -“Oh, I guess we can have some fun when the angels’ backs are turned,” -said Faith comfortably. - -“Heaven is _all_ fun,” declared Di. - -“The Bible doesn’t say so,” cried Mary, who had read so much of the -Bible on Sunday afternoons under Miss Cornelia’s eye that she now -considered herself quite an authority on it. - -“Mother says the Bible language is figurative,” said Nan. - -“Does that mean that it isn’t true?” asked Mary hopefully. - -“No—not exactly—but I think it means that heaven will be just like what -you’d like it to be.” - -“I’d like it to be just like Rainbow Valley,” said Mary, “with all you -kids to gas and play with. _That’s_ good enough for me. Anyhow, we -can’t go to heaven till we’re dead and maybe not then, so what’s the -use of worrying? Here’s Jem with a string of trout and it’s my turn to -fry them.” - -“We ought to know more about heaven than Walter does when we’re the -minister’s family,” said Una, as they walked home that night. - -“We _know_ just as much, but Walter can _imagine_,” said Faith. “Mrs. -Elliott says he gets it from his mother.” - -“I do wish we hadn’t made that mistake about Sunday,” sighed Una. - -“Don’t worry over that. I’ve thought of a great plan to explain so that -everybody will know,” said Faith. “Just wait till to-morrow night.” - - - - -CHAPTER XII. -AN EXPLANATION AND A DARE - - -The Rev. Dr. Cooper preached in Glen St. Mary the next evening and the -Presbyterian Church was crowded with people from near and far. The -Reverend Doctor was reputed to be a very eloquent speaker; and, bearing -in mind the old dictum that a minister should take his best clothes to -the city and his best sermons to the country, he delivered a very -scholarly and impressive discourse. But when the folks went home that -night it was not of Dr. Cooper’s sermon they talked. They had -completely forgotten all about it. - -Dr. Cooper had concluded with a fervent appeal, had wiped the -perspiration from his massive brow, had said “Let us pray” as he was -famed for saying it, and had duly prayed. There was a slight pause. In -Glen St. Mary church the old fashion of taking the collection after the -sermon instead of before still held—mainly because the Methodists had -adopted the new fashion first, and Miss Cornelia and Elder Clow would -not hear of following where Methodists had led. Charles Baxter and -Thomas Douglas, whose duty it was to pass the plates, were on the point -of rising to their feet. The organist had got out the music of her -anthem and the choir had cleared its throat. Suddenly Faith Meredith -rose in the manse pew, walked up to the pulpit platform, and faced the -amazed audience. - -Miss Cornelia half rose in her seat and then sat down again. Her pew -was far back and it occurred to her that whatever Faith meant to do or -say would be half done or said before she could reach her. There was no -use making the exhibition worse than it had to be. With an anguished -glance at Mrs. Dr. Blythe, and another at Deacon Warren of the -Methodist Church, Miss Cornelia resigned herself to another scandal. - -“If the child was only dressed decently itself,” she groaned in spirit. - -Faith, having spilled ink on her good dress, had serenely put on an old -one of faded pink print. A caticornered rent in the skirt had been -darned with scarlet tracing cotton and the hem had been let down, -showing a bright strip of unfaded pink around the skirt. But Faith was -not thinking of her clothes at all. She was feeling suddenly nervous. -What had seemed easy in imagination was rather hard in reality. -Confronted by all those staring questioning eyes Faith’s courage almost -failed her. The lights were so bright, the silence so awesome. She -thought she could not speak after all. But she _must_—her father _must_ -be cleared of suspicion. Only—the words would _not_ come. - -Una’s little pearl-pure face gleamed up at her beseechingly from the -manse pew. The Blythe children were lost in amazement. Back under the -gallery Faith saw the sweet graciousness of Miss Rosemary West’s smile -and the amusement of Miss Ellen’s. But none of these helped her. It was -Bertie Shakespeare Drew who saved the situation. Bertie Shakespeare sat -in the front seat of the gallery and he made a derisive face at Faith. -Faith promptly made a dreadful one back at him, and, in her anger over -being grimaced at by Bertie Shakespeare, forgot her stage fright. She -found her voice and spoke out clearly and bravely. - -“I want to explain something,” she said, “and I want to do it now -because everybody will hear it that heard the other. People are saying -that Una and I stayed home last Sunday and cleaned house instead of -going to Sunday School. Well, we did—but we didn’t mean to. We got -mixed up in the days of the week. It was all Elder Baxter’s -fault”—sensation in Baxter’s pew—“because he went and changed the -prayer-meeting to Wednesday night and then we thought Thursday was -Friday and so on till we thought Saturday was Sunday. Carl was laid up -sick and so was Aunt Martha, so they couldn’t put us right. We went to -Sunday School in all that rain on Saturday and nobody came. And then we -thought we’d clean house on Monday and stop old cats from talking about -how dirty the manse was”—general sensation all over the church—“and we -did. I shook the rugs in the Methodist graveyard because it was such a -convenient place and not because I meant to be disrespectful of the -dead. It isn’t the dead folks who have made the fuss over this—it’s the -living folks. And it isn’t right for any of you to blame my father for -this, because he was away and didn’t know, and anyhow we thought it was -Monday. He’s just the best father that ever lived in the world and we -love him with all our hearts.” - -Faith’s bravado ebbed out in a sob. She ran down the steps and flashed -out of the side door of the church. There the friendly starlit, summer -night comforted her and the ache went out of her eyes and throat. She -felt very happy. The dreadful explanation was over and everybody knew -now that her father wasn’t to blame and that she and Una were not so -wicked as to have cleaned house knowingly on Sunday. - -Inside the church people gazed blankly at each other, but Thomas -Douglas rose and walked up the aisle with a set face. _His_ duty was -clear; the collection must be taken if the skies fell. Taken it was; -the choir sang the anthem, with a dismal conviction that it fell -terribly flat, and Dr. Cooper gave out the concluding hymn and -pronounced the benediction with considerably less unction than usual. -The Reverend Doctor had a sense of humour and Faith’s performance -tickled him. Besides, John Meredith was well known in Presbyterian -circles. - -Mr. Meredith returned home the next afternoon, but before his coming -Faith contrived to scandalize Glen St. Mary again. In the reaction from -Sunday evening’s intensity and strain she was especially full of what -Miss Cornelia would have called “devilment” on Monday. This led her to -dare Walter Blythe to ride through Main Street on a pig, while she rode -another one. - -The pigs in question were two tall, lank animals, supposed to belong to -Bertie Shakespeare Drew’s father, which had been haunting the roadside -by the manse for a couple of weeks. Walter did not want to ride a pig -through Glen St. Mary, but whatever Faith Meredith dared him to do must -be done. They tore down the hill and through the village, Faith bent -double with laughter over her terrified courser, Walter crimson with -shame. They tore past the minister himself, just coming home from the -station; he, being a little less dreamy and abstracted than usual—owing -to having had a talk on the train with Miss Cornelia who always wakened -him up temporarily—noticed them, and thought he really must speak to -Faith about it and tell her that such conduct was not seemly. But he -had forgotten the trifling incident by the time he reached home. They -passed Mrs. Alec Davis, who shrieked in horror, and they passed Miss -Rosemary West who laughed and sighed. Finally, just before the pigs -swooped into Bertie Shakespeare Drew’s back yard, never to emerge -therefrom again, so great had been the shock to their nerves—Faith and -Walter jumped off, as Dr. and Mrs. Blythe drove swiftly by. - -“So that is how you bring up your boys,” said Gilbert with mock -severity. - -“Perhaps I do spoil them a little,” said Anne contritely, “but, oh, -Gilbert, when I think of my own childhood before I came to Green Gables -I haven’t the heart to be very strict. How hungry for love and fun I -was—an unloved little drudge with never a chance to play! They do have -such good times with the manse children.” - -“What about the poor pigs?” asked Gilbert. - -Anne tried to look sober and failed. - -“Do you really think it hurt them?” she said. “I don’t think anything -could hurt those animals. They’ve been the plague of the neighbourhood -this summer and the Drews _won’t_ shut them up. But I’ll talk to -Walter—if I can keep from laughing when I do it.” - -Miss Cornelia came up to Ingleside that evening to relieve her feelings -over Sunday night. To her surprise she found that Anne did not view -Faith’s performance in quite the same light as she did. - -“I thought there was something brave and pathetic in her getting up -there before that churchful of people, to confess,” she said. “You -could see she was frightened to death—yet she was bound to clear her -father. I loved her for it.” - -“Oh, of course, the poor child meant well,” sighed Miss Cornelia, “but -just the same it was a terrible thing to do, and is making more talk -than the house-cleaning on Sunday. _That_ had begun to die away, and -this has started it all up again. Rosemary West is like you—she said -last night as she left the church that it was a plucky thing for Faith -to do, but it made her feel sorry for the child, too. Miss Ellen -thought it all a good joke, and said she hadn’t had as much fun in -church for years. Of course _they_ don’t care—they are Episcopalians. -But we Presbyterians feel it. And there were so many hotel people there -that night and scores of Methodists. Mrs. Leander Crawford cried, she -felt so bad. And Mrs. Alec Davis said the little hussy ought to be -spanked.” - -“Mrs. Leander Crawford is always crying in church,” said Susan -contemptuously. “She cries over every affecting thing the minister -says. But you do not often see her name on a subscription list, Mrs. -Dr. dear. Tears come cheaper. She tried to talk to me one day about -Aunt Martha being such a dirty housekeeper; and I wanted to say, ‘Every -one knows that _you_ have been seen mixing up cakes in the kitchen -wash-pan, Mrs. Leander Crawford!’ But I did not say it, Mrs. Dr. dear, -because I have too much respect for myself to condescend to argue with -the likes of her. But I could tell worse things than _that_ of Mrs. -Leander Crawford, if I was disposed to gossip. And as for Mrs. Alec -Davis, if she had said that to me, Mrs. Dr. dear, do you know what I -would have said? I would have said, ‘I have no doubt you would like to -spank Faith, Mrs. Davis, but you will never have the chance to spank a -minister’s daughter either in this world or in that which is to come.’” - -“If poor Faith had only been decently dressed,” lamented Miss Cornelia -again, “it wouldn’t have been quite that bad. But that dress looked -dreadful, as she stood there upon the platform.” - -“It was clean, though, Mrs. Dr. dear,” said Susan. “They _are_ clean -children. They may be very heedless and reckless, Mrs. Dr. dear, and I -am not saying they are not, but they _never_ forget to wash behind -their ears.” - -“The idea of Faith forgetting what day was Sunday,” persisted Miss -Cornelia. “She will grow up just as careless and impractical as her -father, believe _me_. I suppose Carl would have known better if he -hadn’t been sick. I don’t know what was wrong with him, but I think it -very likely he had been eating those blueberries that grew in the -graveyard. No wonder they made him sick. If I was a Methodist I’d try -to keep my graveyard cleaned up at least.” - -“I am of the opinion that Carl only ate the sours that grow on the -dyke,” said Susan hopefully. “I do not think _any_ minister’s son would -eat blueberries that grew on the graves of dead people. You know it -would not be so bad, Mrs. Dr. dear, to eat things that grew on the -dyke.” - -“The worst of last night’s performance was the face Faith made made at -somebody in the congregation before she started in,” said Miss -Cornelia. “Elder Clow declares she made it at him. And _did_ you hear -that she was seen riding on a pig to-day?” - -“I saw her. Walter was with her. I gave him a little—a _very_ -little—scolding about it. He did not say much, but he gave me the -impression that it had been his idea and that Faith was not to blame.” - -“I do not not believe _that_, Mrs. Dr. dear,” cried Susan, up in arms. -“That is just Walter’s way—to take the blame on himself. But you know -as well as I do, Mrs. Dr. dear, that that blessed child would never -have thought of riding on a pig, even if he does write poetry.” - -“Oh, there’s no doubt the notion was hatched in Faith Meredith’s -brain,” said Miss Cornelia. “And I don’t say that I’m sorry that Amos -Drew’s old pigs did get their come-uppance for once. But the minister’s -daughter!” - -“_And_ the doctor’s son!” said Anne, mimicking Miss Cornelia’s tone. -Then she laughed. “Dear Miss Cornelia, they’re only little children. -And you _know_ they’ve never yet done anything bad—they’re just -heedless and impulsive—as I was myself once. They’ll grow sedate and -sober—as I’ve done.” - -Miss Cornelia laughed, too. - -“There are times, Anne dearie, when I know by your eyes that _your_ -soberness is put on like a garment and you’re really aching to do -something wild and young again. Well, I feel encouraged. Somehow, a -talk with you always does have that effect on me. Now, when I go to see -Barbara Samson, it’s just the opposite. She makes me feel that -everything’s wrong and always will be. But of course living all your -life with a man like Joe Samson wouldn’t be exactly cheering.” - -“It is a very strange thing to think that she married Joe Samson after -all her chances,” remarked Susan. “She was much sought after when she -was a girl. She used to boast to me that she had twenty-one beaus and -Mr. Pethick.” - -“What was Mr. Pethick?” - -“Well, he was a sort of hanger-on, Mrs. Dr. dear, but you could not -exactly call him a beau. He did not really have any intentions. -Twenty-one beaus—and me that never had one! But Barbara went through -the woods and picked up the crooked stick after all. And yet they say -her husband can make better baking powder biscuits than she can, and -she always gets him to make them when company comes to tea.” - -“Which reminds _me_ that I have company coming to tea to-morrow and I -must go home and set my bread,” said Miss Cornelia. “Mary said she -could set it and no doubt she could. But while I live and move and have -my being _I_ set my own bread, believe me.” - -“How is Mary getting on?” asked Anne. - -“I’ve no fault to find with Mary,” said Miss Cornelia rather gloomily. -“She’s getting some flesh on her bones and she’s clean and -respectful—though there’s more in her than _I_ can fathom. She’s a sly -puss. If you dug for a thousand years you couldn’t get to the bottom of -that child’s mind, believe _me!_ As for work, I never saw anything like -her. She _eats_ it up. Mrs. Wiley may have been cruel to her, but folks -needn’t say she made Mary work. Mary’s a born worker. Sometimes I -wonder which will wear out first—her legs or her tongue. I don’t have -enough to do to keep me out of mischief these days. I’ll be real glad -when school opens, for then I’ll have something to do again. Mary -doesn’t want to go to school, but I put my foot down and said that go -she must. I shall _not_ have the Methodists saying that I kept her out -of school while I lolled in idleness.” - - - - -CHAPTER XIII. -THE HOUSE ON THE HILL - - -There was a little unfailing spring, always icy cold and crystal pure, -in a certain birch-screened hollow of Rainbow Valley in the lower -corner near the marsh. Not a great many people knew of its existence. -The manse and Ingleside children knew, of course, as they knew -everything else about the magic valley. Occasionally they went there to -get a drink, and it figured in many of their plays as a fountain of old -romance. Anne knew of it and loved it because it somehow reminded her -of the beloved Dryad’s Bubble at Green Gables. Rosemary West knew of -it; it was her fountain of romance, too. Eighteen years ago she had sat -behind it one spring twilight and heard young Martin Crawford stammer -out a confession of fervent, boyish love. She had whispered her own -secret in return, and they had kissed and promised by the wild wood -spring. They had never stood together by it again—Martin had sailed on -his fatal voyage soon after; but to Rosemary West it was always a -sacred spot, hallowed by that immortal hour of youth and love. Whenever -she passed near it she turned aside to hold a secret tryst with an old -dream—a dream from which the pain had long gone, leaving only its -unforgettable sweetness. - -The spring was a hidden thing. You might have passed within ten feet of -it and never have suspected its existence. Two generations past a huge -old pine had fallen almost across it. Nothing was left of the tree but -its crumbling trunk out of which the ferns grew thickly, making a green -roof and a lacy screen for the water. A maple-tree grew beside it with -a curiously gnarled and twisted trunk, creeping along the ground for a -little way before shooting up into the air, and so forming a quaint -seat; and September had flung a scarf of pale smoke-blue asters around -the hollow. - -John Meredith, taking the cross-lots road through Rainbow Valley on his -way home from some pastoral visitations around the Harbour head one -evening, turned aside to drink of the little spring. Walter Blythe had -shown it to him one afternoon only a few days before, and they had had -a long talk together on the maple seat. John Meredith, under all his -shyness and aloofness, had the heart of a boy. He had been called Jack -in his youth, though nobody in Glen St. Mary would ever have believed -it. Walter and he had taken to each other and had talked unreservedly. -Mr. Meredith found his way into some sealed and sacred chambers of the -lad’s soul wherein not even Di had ever looked. They were to be chums -from that friendly hour and Walter knew that he would never be -frightened of the minister again. - -“I never believed before that it was possible to get really acquainted -with a minister,” he told his mother that night. - -John Meredith drank from his slender white hand, whose grip of steel -always surprised people who were unacquainted with it, and then sat -down on the maple seat. He was in no hurry to go home; this was a -beautiful spot and he was mentally weary after a round of rather -uninspiring conversations with many good and stupid people. The moon -was rising. Rainbow Valley was wind-haunted and star-sentinelled only -where he was, but afar from the upper end came the gay notes of -children’s laughter and voices. - -The ethereal beauty of the asters in the moonlight, the glimmer of the -little spring, the soft croon of the brook, the wavering grace of the -brackens all wove a white magic round John Meredith. He forgot -congregational worries and spiritual problems; the years slipped away -from him; he was a young divinity student again and the roses of June -were blooming red and fragrant on the dark, queenly head of his -Cecilia. He sat there and dreamed like any boy. And it was at this -propitious moment that Rosemary West stepped aside from the by-path and -stood beside him in that dangerous, spell-weaving place. John Meredith -stood up as she came in and saw her—_really_ saw her—for the first -time. - -He had met her in his church once or twice and shaken hands with her -abstractedly as he did with anyone he happened to encounter on his way -down the aisle. He had never met her elsewhere, for the Wests were -Episcopalians, with church affinities in Lowbridge, and no occasion for -calling upon them had ever arisen. Before to-night, if anyone had asked -John Meredith what Rosemary West looked like he would not have had the -slightest notion. But he was never to forget her, as she appeared to -him in the glamour of kind moonlight by the spring. - -She was certainly not in the least like Cecilia, who had always been -his ideal of womanly beauty. Cecilia had been small and dark and -vivacious—Rosemary West was tall and fair and placid, yet John Meredith -thought he had never seen so beautiful a woman. - -She was bareheaded and her golden hair—hair of a warm gold, “molasses -taffy” colour as Di Blythe had said—was pinned in sleek, close coils -over her head; she had large, tranquil, blue eyes that always seemed -full of friendliness, a high white forehead and a finely shaped face. - -Rosemary West was always called a “sweet woman.” She was so sweet that -even her high-bred, stately air had never gained for her the reputation -of being “stuck-up,” which it would inevitably have done in the case of -anyone else in Glen St. Mary. Life had taught her to be brave, to be -patient, to love, to forgive. She had watched the ship on which her -lover went sailing out of Four Winds Harbour into the sunset. But, -though she watched long, she had never seen it coming sailing back. -That vigil had taken girlhood from her eyes, yet she kept her youth to -a marvellous degree. Perhaps this was because she always seemed to -preserve that attitude of delighted surprise towards life which most of -us leave behind in childhood—an attitude which not only made Rosemary -herself seem young, but flung a pleasing illusion of youth over the -consciousness of every one who talked to her. - -John Meredith was startled by her loveliness and Rosemary was startled -by his presence. She had never thought she would find anyone by that -remote spring, least of all the recluse of Glen St. Mary manse. She -almost dropped the heavy armful of books she was carrying home from the -Glen lending library, and then, to cover her confusion, she told one of -those small fibs which even the best of women do tell at times. - -“I—I came for a drink,” she said, stammering a little, in answer to Mr. -Meredith’s grave “good evening, Miss West.” She felt that she was an -unpardonable goose and she longed to shake herself. But John Meredith -was not a vain man and he knew she would likely have been as much -startled had she met old Elder Clow in that unexpected fashion. Her -confusion put him at ease and he forgot to be shy; besides, even the -shyest of men can sometimes be quite audacious in moonlight. - -“Let me get you a cup,” he said smiling. There was a cup near by, if he -had only known it, a cracked, handleless blue cup secreted under the -maple by the Rainbow Valley children; but he did not know it, so he -stepped out to one of the birch-trees and stripped a bit of its white -skin away. Deftly he fashioned this into a three-cornered cup, filled -it from the spring, and handed it to Rosemary. - -Rosemary took it and drank every drop to punish herself for her fib, -for she was not in the least thirsty, and to drink a fairly large -cupful of water when you are not thirsty is somewhat of an ordeal. Yet -the memory of that draught was to be very pleasant to Rosemary. In -after years it seemed to her that there was something sacramental about -it. Perhaps this was because of what the minister did when she handed -him back the cup. He stooped again and filled it and drank of it -himself. It was only by accident that he put his lips just where -Rosemary had put hers, and Rosemary knew it. Nevertheless, it had a -curious significance for her. They two had drunk of the same cup. She -remembered idly that an old aunt of hers used to say that when two -people did this their after-lives would be linked in some fashion, -whether for good or ill. - -John Meredith held the cup uncertainly. He did not know what to do with -it. The logical thing would have been to toss it away, but somehow he -was disinclined to do this. Rosemary held out her hand for it. - -“Will you let me have it?” she said. “You made it so knackily. I never -saw anyone make a birch cup so since my little brother used to make -them long ago—before he died.” - -“I learned how to make them when _I_ was a boy, camping out one summer. -An old hunter taught me,” said Mr. Meredith. “Let me carry your books, -Miss West.” - -Rosemary was startled into another fib and said oh, they were not -heavy. But the minister took them from her with quite a masterful air -and they walked away together. It was the first time Rosemary had stood -by the valley spring without thinking of Martin Crawford. The mystic -tryst had been broken. - -The little by-path wound around the marsh and then struck up the long -wooded hill on the top of which Rosemary lived. Beyond, through the -trees, they could see the moonlight shining across the level summer -fields. But the little path was shadowy and narrow. Trees crowded over -it, and trees are never quite as friendly to human beings after -nightfall as they are in daylight. They wrap themselves away from us. -They whisper and plot furtively. If they reach out a hand to us it has -a hostile, tentative touch. People walking amid trees after night -always draw closer together instinctively and involuntarily, making an -alliance, physical and mental, against certain alien powers around -them. Rosemary’s dress brushed against John Meredith as they walked. -Not even an absent-minded minister, who was after all a young man -still, though he firmly believed he had outlived romance, could be -insensible to the charm of the night and the path and the companion. - -It is never quite safe to think we have done with life. When we imagine -we have finished our story fate has a trick of turning the page and -showing us yet another chapter. These two people each thought their -hearts belonged irrevocably to the past; but they both found their walk -up that hill very pleasant. Rosemary thought the Glen minister was by -no means as shy and tongue-tied as he had been represented. He seemed -to find no difficulty in talking easily and freely. Glen housewives -would have been amazed had they heard him. But then so many Glen -housewives talked only gossip and the price of eggs, and John Meredith -was not interested in either. He talked to Rosemary of books and music -and wide-world doings and something of his own history, and found that -she could understand and respond. Rosemary, it appeared, possessed a -book which Mr. Meredith had not read and wished to read. She offered to -lend it to him and when they reached the old homestead on the hill he -went in to get it. - -The house itself was an old-fashioned gray one, hung with vines, -through which the light in the sitting-room winked in friendly fashion. -It looked down the Glen, over the harbour, silvered in the moonlight, -to the sand-dunes and the moaning ocean. They walked in through a -garden that always seemed to smell of roses, even when no roses were in -bloom. There was a sisterhood of lilies at the gate and a ribbon of -asters on either side of the broad walk, and a lacery of fir trees on -the hill’s edge beyond the house. - -“You have the whole world at your doorstep here,” said John Meredith, -with a long breath. “What a view—what an outlook! At times I feel -stifled down there in the Glen. You can breathe up here.” - -“It is calm to-night,” said Rosemary laughing. “If there were a wind it -would blow your breath away. We get ‘a’ the airts the wind can blow’ up -here. This place should be called Four Winds instead of the Harbour.” - -“I like wind,” he said. “A day when there is no wind seems to me -_dead_. A windy day wakes me up.” He gave a conscious laugh. “On a calm -day I fall into day dreams. No doubt you know my reputation, Miss West. -If I cut you dead the next time we meet don’t put it down to bad -manners. Please understand that it is only abstraction and forgive -me—and speak to me.” - -They found Ellen West in the sitting room when they went in. She laid -her glasses down on the book she had been reading and looked at them in -amazement tinctured with something else. But she shook hands amiably -with Mr. Meredith and he sat down and talked to her, while Rosemary -hunted out his book. - -Ellen West was ten years older than Rosemary, and so different from her -that it was hard to believe they were sisters. She was dark and -massive, with black hair, thick, black eyebrows and eyes of the clear, -slaty blue of the gulf water in a north wind. She had a rather stern, -forbidding look, but she was in reality very jolly, with a hearty, -gurgling laugh and a deep, mellow, pleasant voice with a suggestion of -masculinity about it. She had once remarked to Rosemary that she would -really like to have a talk with that Presbyterian minister at the Glen, -to see if he could find a word to say to a woman when he was cornered. -She had her chance now and she tackled him on world politics. Miss -Ellen, who was a great reader, had been devouring a book on the Kaiser -of Germany, and she demanded Mr. Meredith’s opinion of him. - -“A dangerous man,” was his answer. - -“I believe you!” Miss Ellen nodded. “Mark my words, Mr. Meredith, that -man is going to fight somebody yet. He’s _aching_ to. He is going to -set the world on fire.” - -“If you mean that he will wantonly precipitate a great war I hardly -think so,” said Mr. Meredith. “The day has gone by for that sort of -thing.” - -“Bless you, it hasn’t,” rumbled Ellen. “The day never goes by for men -and nations to make asses of themselves and take to the fists. The -millenniun isn’t _that_ near, Mr. Meredith, and _you_ don’t think it is -any more than I do. As for this Kaiser, mark my words, he is going to -make a heap of trouble”—and Miss Ellen prodded her book emphatically -with her long finger. “Yes, if he isn’t nipped in the bud he’s going to -make trouble. _We’ll_ live to see it—you and I will live to see it, Mr. -Meredith. And who is going to nip him? England should, but she won’t. -_Who_ is going to nip him? Tell me that, Mr. Meredith.” - -Mr. Meredith couldn’t tell her, but they plunged into a discussion of -German militarism that lasted long after Rosemary had found the book. -Rosemary said nothing, but sat in a little rocker behind Ellen and -stroked an important black cat meditatively. John Meredith hunted big -game in Europe with Ellen, but he looked oftener at Rosemary than at -Ellen, and Ellen noticed it. After Rosemary had gone to the door with -him and come back Ellen rose and looked at her accusingly. - -“Rosemary West, that man has a notion of courting you.” - -Rosemary quivered. Ellen’s speech was like a blow to her. It rubbed all -the bloom off the pleasant evening. But she would not let Ellen see how -it hurt her. - -“Nonsense,” she said, and laughed, a little too carelessly. “You see a -beau for me in every bush, Ellen. Why he told me all about his wife -to-night—how much she was to him—how empty her death had left the -world.” - -“Well, that may be _his_ way of courting,” retorted Ellen. “Men have -all kinds of ways, I understand. But don’t forget your promise, -Rosemary.” - -“There is no need of my either forgetting or remembering it,” said -Rosemary, a little wearily. “_You_ forget that I’m an old maid, Ellen. -It is only your sisterly delusion that I am still young and blooming -and dangerous. Mr. Meredith merely wants to be a friend—if he wants -that much itself. He’ll forget us both long before he gets back to the -manse.” - -“I’ve no objection to your being friends with him,” conceded Ellen, -“but it musn’t go beyond friendship, remember. I’m always suspicious of -widowers. They are not given to romantic ideas about friendship. -They’re apt to mean business. As for this Presbyterian man, what do -they call him shy for? He’s not a bit shy, though he may be -absent-minded—so absent-minded that he forgot to say goodnight to _me_ -when you started to go to the door with him. He’s got brains, too. -There’s so few men round here that can talk sense to a body. I’ve -enjoyed the evening. I wouldn’t mind seeing more of him. But no -philandering, Rosemary, mind you—no philandering.” - -Rosemary was quite used to being warned by Ellen from philandering if -she so much as talked five minutes to any marriageable man under eighty -or over eighteen. She had always laughed at the warning with unfeigned -amusement. This time it did not amuse her—it irritated her a little. -Who wanted to philander? - -“Don’t be such a goose, Ellen,” she said with unaccustomed shortness as -she took her lamp. She went upstairs without saying goodnight. - -Ellen shook her head dubiously and looked at the black cat. - -“What is she so cross about, St. George?” she asked. “When you howl -you’re hit, I’ve always heard, George. But she promised, Saint—she -promised, and we Wests always keep our word. So it won’t matter if he -does want to philander, George. She promised. I won’t worry.” - -Upstairs, in her room, Rosemary sat for a long while looking out of the -window across the moonlit garden to the distant, shining harbour. She -felt vaguely upset and unsettled. She was suddenly tired of outworn -dreams. And in the garden the petals of the last red rose were -scattered by a sudden little wind. Summer was over—it was autumn. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV. -MRS. ALEC DAVIS MAKES A CALL - - -John Meredith walked slowly home. At first he thought a little about -Rosemary, but by the time he reached Rainbow Valley he had forgotten -all about her and was meditating on a point regarding German theology -which Ellen had raised. He passed through Rainbow Valley and knew it -not. The charm of Rainbow Valley had no potency against German -theology. When he reached the manse he went to his study and took down -a bulky volume in order to see which had been right, he or Ellen. He -remained immersed in its mazes until dawn, struck a new trail of -speculation and pursued it like a sleuth hound for the next week, -utterly lost to the world, his parish and his family. He read day and -night; he forgot to go to his meals when Una was not there to drag him -to them; he never thought about Rosemary or Ellen again. Old Mrs. -Marshall, over-harbour, was very ill and sent for him, but the message -lay unheeded on his desk and gathered dust. Mrs. Marshall recovered but -never forgave him. A young couple came to the manse to be married and -Mr. Meredith, with unbrushed hair, in carpet slippers and faded -dressing gown, married them. To be sure, he began by reading the -funeral service to them and got along as far as “ashes to ashes and -dust to dust” before he vaguely suspected that something was wrong. - -“Dear me,” he said absently, “that is strange—very strange.” - -The bride, who was very nervous, began to cry. The bridegroom, who was -not in the least nervous, giggled. - -“Please, sir, I think you’re burying us instead of marrying us,” he -said. - -“Excuse me,” said Mr. Meredith, as it it did not matter much. He turned -up the marriage service and got through with it, but the bride never -felt quite properly married for the rest of her life. - -He forgot his prayer-meeting again—but that did not matter, for it was -a wet night and nobody came. He might even have forgotten his Sunday -service if it had not been for Mrs. Alec Davis. Aunt Martha came in on -Saturday afternoon and told him that Mrs. Davis was in the parlour and -wanted to see him. Mr. Meredith sighed. Mrs. Davis was the only woman -in Glen St. Mary church whom he positively detested. Unfortunately, she -was also the richest, and his board of managers had warned Mr. Meredith -against offending her. Mr. Meredith seldom thought of such a worldly -matter as his stipend; but the managers were more practical. Also, they -were astute. Without mentioning money, they contrived to instil into -Mr. Meredith’s mind a conviction that he should not offend Mrs. Davis. -Otherwise, he would likely have forgotten all about her as soon as Aunt -Martha had gone out. As it was, he turned down his Ewald with a feeling -of annoyance and went across the hall to the parlour. - -Mrs. Davis was sitting on the sofa, looking about her with an air of -scornful disapproval. - -What a scandalous room! There were no curtains on the window. Mrs. -Davis did not know that Faith and Una had taken them down the day -before to use as court trains in one of their plays and had forgotten -to put them up again, but she could not have accused those windows more -fiercely if she had known. The blinds were cracked and torn. The -pictures on the walls were crooked; the rugs were awry; the vases were -full of faded flowers; the dust lay in heaps—literally in heaps. - -“What are we coming to?” Mrs. Davis asked herself, and then primmed up -her unbeautiful mouth. - -Jerry and Carl had been whooping and sliding down the banisters as she -came through the hall. They did not see her and continued whooping and -sliding, and Mrs. Davis was convinced they did it on purpose. Faith’s -pet rooster ambled through the hall, stood in the parlour doorway and -looked at her. Not liking her looks, he did not venture in. Mrs. Davis -gave a scornful sniff. A pretty manse, indeed, where roosters paraded -the halls and stared people out of countenance. - -“Shoo, there,” commanded Mrs. Davis, poking her flounced, -changeable-silk parasol at him. - -Adam shooed. He was a wise rooster and Mrs. Davis had wrung the necks -of so many roosters with her own fair hands in the course of her fifty -years that an air of the executioner seemed to hang around her. Adam -scuttled through the hall as the minister came in. - -Mr. Meredith still wore slippers and dressing gown, and his dark hair -still fell in uncared-for locks over his high brow. But he looked the -gentleman he was; and Mrs. Alec Davis, in her silk dress and beplumed -bonnet, and kid gloves and gold chain looked the vulgar, coarse-souled -woman she was. Each felt the antagonisn of the other’s personality. Mr. -Meredith shrank, but Mrs. Davis girded up her loins for the fray. She -had come to the manse to propose a certain thing to the minister and -she meant to lose no time in proposing it. She was going to do him a -favour—a great favour—and the sooner he was made aware of it the -better. She had been thinking about it all summer and had come to a -decision at last. This was all that mattered, Mrs. Davis thought. When -she decided a thing it _was_ decided. Nobody else had any say in the -matter. That had always been her attitude. When she had made her mind -up to marry Alec Davis she had married him and that was the end to it. -Alec had never known how it happened, but what odds? So in this -case—Mrs. Davis had arranged everything to her own satisfaction. Now it -only remained to inform Mr. Meredith. - -“Will you please shut that door?” said Mrs. Davis, unprimming her mouth -slightly to say it, but speaking with asperity. “I have something -important to say, and I can’t say it with that racket in the hall.” - -Mr. Meredith shut the door meekly. Then he sat down before Mrs. Davis. -He was not wholly aware of her yet. His mind was still wrestling with -Ewald’s arguments. Mrs. Davis sensed this detachment and it annoyed -her. - -“I have come to tell you, Mr. Meredith,” she said aggressively, “that I -have decided to adopt Una.” - -“To—adopt—Una!” Mr. Meredith gazed at her blankly, not understanding in -the least. - -“Yes. I’ve been thinking it over for some time. I have often thought of -adopting a child, since my husband’s death. But it seemed so hard to -get a suitable one. It is very few children I would want to take into -_my_ home. I wouldn’t think of taking a home child—some outcast of the -slums in all probability. And there is hardly ever any other child to -be got. One of the fishermen down at the harbour died last fall and -left six youngsters. They tried to get me to take one, but I soon gave -them to understand that I had no idea of adopting trash like that. -Their grandfather stole a horse. Besides, they were all boys and I -wanted a girl—a quiet, obedient girl that I could train up to be a -lady. Una will suit me exactly. She would be a nice little thing if she -was properly looked after—so different from Faith. I would never dream -of adopting Faith. But I’ll take Una and I’ll give her a good home, and -up-bringing, Mr. Meredith, and if she behaves herself I’ll leave her -all my money when I die. Not one of my own relatives shall have a cent -of it in any case, I’m determined on that. It was the idea of -aggravating them that set me to thinking of adopting a child as much as -anything in the first place. Una shall be well dressed and educated and -trained, Mr. Meredith, and I shall give her music and painting lessons -and treat her as if she was my own.” - -Mr. Meredith was wide enough awake by this time. There was a faint -flush in his pale cheek and a dangerous light in his fine dark eyes. -Was this woman, whose vulgarity and consciousness of money oozed out of -her at every pore, actually asking him to give her Una—his dear little -wistful Una with Cecilia’s own dark-blue eyes—the child whom the dying -mother had clasped to her heart after the other children had been led -weeping from the room. Cecilia had clung to her baby until the gates of -death had shut between them. She had looked over the little dark head -to her husband. - -“Take good care of her, John,” she had entreated. “She is so small—and -sensitive. The others can fight their way—but the world will hurt -_her_. Oh, John, I don’t know what you and she are going to do. You -both need me so much. But keep her close to you—keep her close to you.” - -These had been almost her last words except a few unforgettable ones -for him alone. And it was this child whom Mrs. Davis had coolly -announced her intention of taking from him. He sat up straight and -looked at Mrs. Davis. In spite of the worn dressing gown and the frayed -slippers there was something about him that made Mrs. Davis feel a -little of the old reverence for “the cloth” in which she had been -brought up. After all, there _was_ a certain divinity hedging a -minister, even a poor, unworldly, abstracted one. - -“I thank you for your kind intentions, Mrs. Davis,” said Mr. Meredith -with a gentle, final, quite awful courtesy, “but I cannot give you my -child.” - -Mrs. Davis looked blank. She had never dreamed of his refusing. - -“Why, Mr. Meredith,” she said in astonishment. “You must be cr—you -can’t mean it. You must think it over—think of all the advantages I can -give her.” - -“There is no need to think it over, Mrs. Davis. It is entirely out of -the question. All the worldly advantages it is in your power to bestow -on her could not compensate for the loss of a father’s love and care. I -thank you again—but it is not to be thought of.” - -Disappointment angered Mrs. Davis beyond the power of old habit to -control. Her broad red face turned purple and her voice trembled. - -“I thought you’d be only too glad to let me have her,” she sneered. - -“Why did you think that?” asked Mr. Meredith quietly. - -“Because nobody ever supposed you cared anything about any of your -children,” retorted Mrs. Davis contemptuously. “You neglect them -scandalously. It is the talk of the place. They aren’t fed and dressed -properly, and they’re not trained at all. They have no more manners -than a pack of wild Indians. You never think of doing your duty as a -father. You let a stray child come here among them for a fortnight and -never took any notice of her—a child that swore like a trooper I’m -told. _You_ wouldn’t have cared if they’d caught small-pox from her. -And Faith made an exhibition of herself getting up in preaching and -making that speech! And she rid a pig down the street—under your very -eyes I understand. The way they act is past belief and you never lift a -finger to stop them or try to teach them anything. And now when I offer -one of them a good home and good prospects you refuse it and insult me. -A pretty father you, to talk of loving and caring for your children!” - -“That will do, woman!” said Mr. Meredith. He stood up and looked at -Mrs. Davis with eyes that made her quail. “That will do,” he repeated. -“I desire to hear no more, Mrs. Davis. You have said too much. It may -be that I have been remiss in some respects in my duty as a parent, but -it is not for you to remind me of it in such terms as you have used. -Let us say good afternoon.” - -Mrs. Davis did not say anything half so amiable as good afternoon, but -she took her departure. As she swept past the minister a large, plump -toad, which Carl had secreted under the lounge, hopped out almost under -her feet. Mrs. Davis gave a shriek and in trying to avoid treading on -the awful thing, lost her balance and her parasol. She did not exactly -fall, but she staggered and reeled across the room in a very -undignified fashion and brought up against the door with a thud that -jarred her from head to foot. Mr. Meredith, who had not seen the toad, -wondered if she had been attacked with some kind of apoplectic or -paralytic seizure, and ran in alarm to her assistance. But Mrs. Davis, -recovering her feet, waved him back furiously. - -“Don’t you dare to touch me,” she almost shouted. “This is some more of -your children’s doings, I suppose. This is no fit place for a decent -woman. Give me my umbrella and let me go. I’ll never darken the doors -of your manse or your church again.” - -Mr. Meredith picked up the gorgeous parasol meekly enough and gave it -to her. Mrs. Davis seized it and marched out. Jerry and Carl had given -up banister sliding and were sitting on the edge of the veranda with -Faith. Unfortunately, all three were singing at the tops of their -healthy young voices “There’ll be a hot time in the old town to-night.” -Mrs. Davis believed the song was meant for her and her only. She -stopped and shook her parasol at them. - -“Your father is a fool,” she said, “and you are three young varmints -that ought to be whipped within an inch of your lives.” - -“He isn’t,” cried Faith. “We’re not,” cried the boys. But Mrs. Davis -was gone. - -“Goodness, isn’t she mad!” said Jerry. “And what is a ‘varmint’ -anyhow?” - -John Meredith paced up and down the parlour for a few minutes; then he -went back to his study and sat down. But he did not return to his -German theology. He was too grievously disturbed for that. Mrs. Davis -had wakened him up with a vengeance. _Was_ he such a remiss, careless -father as she had accused him of being? _Had_ he so scandalously -neglected the bodily and spiritual welfare of the four little -motherless creatures dependent on him? _Were_ his people talking of it -as harshly as Mrs. Davis had declared? It must be so, since Mrs. Davis -had come to ask for Una in the full and confident belief that he would -hand the child over to her as unconcernedly and gladly as one might -hand over a strayed, unwelcome kitten. And, if so, what then? - -John Meredith groaned and resumed his pacing up and down the dusty, -disordered room. What could he do? He loved his children as deeply as -any father could and he knew, past the power of Mrs. Davis or any of -her ilk, to disturb his conviction, that they loved him devotedly. But -_was_ he fit to have charge of them? He knew—none better—his weaknesses -and limitations. What was needed was a good woman’s presence and -influence and common sense. But how could that be arranged? Even were -he able to get such a housekeeper it would cut Aunt Martha to the -quick. She believed she could still do all that was meet and necessary. -He could not so hurt and insult the poor old woman who had been so kind -to him and his. How devoted she had been to Cecilia! And Cecilia had -asked him to be very considerate of Aunt Martha. To be sure, he -suddenly remembered that Aunt Martha had once hinted that he ought to -marry again. He felt she would not resent a wife as she would a -housekeeper. But that was out of the question. He did not wish to -marry—he did not and could not care for anyone. Then what could he do? -It suddenly occurred to him that he would go over to Ingleside and talk -over his difficulties with Mrs. Blythe. Mrs. Blythe was one of the few -women he never felt shy or tongue-tied with. She was always so -sympathetic and refreshing. It might be that she could suggest some -solution of his problems. And even if she could not Mr. Meredith felt -that he needed a little decent human companionship after his dose of -Mrs. Davis—something to take the taste of her out of his soul. - -He dressed hurriedly and ate his supper less abstractedly than usual. -It occurred to him that it was a poor meal. He looked at his children; -they were rosy and healthy looking enough—except Una, and she had never -been very strong even when her mother was alive. They were all laughing -and talking—certainly they seemed happy. Carl was especially happy -because he had two most beautiful spiders crawling around his supper -plate. Their voices were pleasant, their manners did not seem bad, they -were considerate of and gentle to one another. Yet Mrs. Davis had said -their behaviour was the talk of the congregation. - -As Mr. Meredith went through his gate Dr. Blythe and Mrs. Blythe drove -past on the road that led to Lowbridge. The minister’s face fell. Mrs. -Blythe was going away—there was no use in going to Ingleside. And he -craved a little companionship more than ever. As he gazed rather -hopelessly over the landscape the sunset light struck on a window of -the old West homestead on the hill. It flared out rosily like a beacon -of good hope. He suddenly remembered Rosemary and Ellen West. He -thought that he would relish some of Ellen’s pungent conversation. He -thought it would be pleasant to see Rosemary’s slow, sweet smile and -calm, heavenly blue eyes again. What did that old poem of Sir Philip -Sidney’s say?—“continual comfort in a face”—that just suited her. And -he needed comfort. Why not go and call? He remembered that Ellen had -asked him to drop in sometimes and there was Rosemary’s book to take -back—he ought to take it back before he forgot. He had an uneasy -suspicion that there were a great many books in his library which he -had borrowed at sundry times and in divers places and had forgotten to -take back. It was surely his duty to guard against that in this case. -He went back into his study, got the book, and plunged downward into -Rainbow Valley. - - - - -CHAPTER XV. -MORE GOSSIP - - -On the evening after Mrs. Myra Murray of the over-harbour section had -been buried Miss Cornelia and Mary Vance came up to Ingleside. There -were several things concerning which Miss Cornelia wished to unburden -her soul. The funeral had to be all talked over, of course. Susan and -Miss Cornelia thrashed this out between them; Anne took no part or -delight in such goulish conversations. She sat a little apart and -watched the autumnal flame of dahlias in the garden, and the dreaming, -glamorous harbour of the September sunset. Mary Vance sat beside her, -knitting meekly. Mary’s heart was down in the Rainbow Valley, whence -came sweet, distance-softened sounds of children’s laughter, but her -fingers were under Miss Cornelia’s eye. She had to knit so many rounds -of her stocking before she might go to the valley. Mary knit and held -her tongue, but used her ears. - -“I never saw a nicer looking corpse,” said Miss Cornelia judicially. -“Myra Murray was always a pretty woman—she was a Corey from Lowbridge -and the Coreys were noted for their good looks.” - -“I said to the corpse as I passed it, ‘poor woman. I hope you are as -happy as you look.’” sighed Susan. “She had not changed much. That -dress she wore was the black satin she got for her daughter’s wedding -fourteen years ago. Her Aunt told her then to keep it for her funeral, -but Myra laughed and said, ‘I may wear it to my funeral, Aunty, but I -will have a good time out of it first.’ And I may say she did. Myra -Murray was not a woman to attend her own funeral before she died. Many -a time afterwards when I saw her enjoying herself out in company I -thought to myself, ‘You are a handsome woman, Myra Murray, and that -dress becomes you, but it will likely be your shroud at last.’ And you -see my words have come true, Mrs. Marshall Elliott.” - -Susan sighed again heavily. She was enjoying herself hugely. A funeral -was really a delightful subject of conversation. - -“I always liked to meet Myra,” said Miss Cornelia. “She was always so -gay and cheerful—she made you feel better just by her handshake. Myra -always made the best of things.” - -“That is true,” asserted Susan. “Her sister-in-law told me that when -the doctor told her at last that he could do nothing for her and she -would never rise from that bed again, Myra said quite cheerfully, -‘Well, if that is so, I’m thankful the preserving is all done, and I -will not have to face the fall house-cleaning. I always liked -house-cleaning in spring,’ she says, ‘but I always hated it in the -fall. I will get clear of it this year, thank goodness.’ There are -people who would call that levity, Mrs. Marshall Elliott, and I think -her sister-in-law was a little ashamed of it. She said perhaps her -sickness had made Myra a little light-headed. But I said, ‘No, Mrs. -Murray, do not worry over it. It was just Myra’s way of looking at the -bright side.’” - -“Her sister Luella was just the opposite,” said Miss Cornelia. “There -was no bright side for Luella—there was just black and shades of gray. -For years she used always to be declaring she was going to die in a -week or so. ‘I won’t be here to burden you long,’ she would tell her -family with a groan. And if any of them ventured to talk about their -little future plans she’d groan also and say, ‘Ah, _I_ won’t be here -then.’ When I went to see her I always agreed with her and it made her -so mad that she was always quite a lot better for several days -afterwards. She has better health now but no more cheerfulness. Myra -was so different. She was always doing or saying something to make some -one feel good. Perhaps the men they married had something to do with -it. Luella’s man was a Tartar, believe _me_, while Jim Murray was -decent, as men go. He looked heart-broken to-day. It isn’t often I feel -sorry for a man at his wife’s funeral, but I did feel for Jim Murray.” - -“No wonder he looked sad. He will not get a wife like Myra again in a -hurry,” said Susan. “Maybe he will not try, since his children are all -grown up and Mirabel is able to keep house. But there is no predicting -what a widower may or may not do and I, for one, will not try.” - -“We’ll miss Myra terrible in church,” said Miss Cornelia. “She was such -a worker. Nothing ever stumped _her_. If she couldn’t get over a -difficulty she’d get around it, and if she couldn’t get around it she’d -pretend it wasn’t there—and generally it wasn’t. ‘I’ll keep a stiff -upper lip to my journey’s end,’ said she to me once. Well, she has -ended her journey.” - -“Do you think so?” asked Anne suddenly, coming back from dreamland. “I -can’t picture _her_ journey as being ended. Can _you_ think of her -sitting down and folding her hands—that eager, asking spirit of hers, -with its fine adventurous outlook? No, I think in death she just opened -a gate and went through—on—on—to new, shining adventures.” - -“Maybe—maybe,” assented Miss Cornelia. “Do you know, Anne dearie, I -never was much taken with this everlasting rest doctrine myself—though -I hope it isn’t heresy to say so. I want to bustle round in heaven the -same as here. And I hope there’ll be a celestial substitute for pies -and doughnuts—something that has to be MADE. Of course, one does get -awful tired at times—and the older you are the tireder you get. But the -very tiredest could get rested in something short of eternity, you’d -think—except, perhaps, a lazy man.” - -“When I meet Myra Murray again,” said Anne, “I want to see her coming -towards me, brisk and laughing, just as she always did here.” - -“Oh, Mrs. Dr. dear,” said Susan, in a shocked tone, “you surely do not -think that Myra will be laughing in the world to come?” - -“Why not, Susan? Do you think we will be crying there?” - -“No, no, Mrs. Dr. dear, do not misunderstand me. I do not think we -shall be either crying or laughing.” - -“What then?” - -“Well,” said Susan, driven to it, “it is my opinion, Mrs. Dr. dear, -that we shall just look solemn and holy.” - -“And do you really think, Susan,” said Anne, looking solemn enough, -“that either Myra Murray or I could look solemn and holy all the -time—_all_ the time, Susan?” - -“Well,” admitted Susan reluctantly, “I might go so far as to say that -you both would have to smile now and again, but I can never admit that -there will be laughing in heaven. The idea seems really irreverent, -Mrs. Dr. dear.” - -“Well, to come back to earth,” said Miss Cornelia, “who can we get to -take Myra’s class in Sunday School? Julia Clow has been teaching it -since Myra took ill, but she’s going to town for the winter and we’ll -have to get somebody else.” - -“I heard that Mrs. Laurie Jamieson wanted it,” said Anne. “The -Jamiesons have come to church very regularly since they moved to the -Glen from Lowbridge.” - -“New brooms!” said Miss Cornelia dubiously. “Wait till they’ve gone -regularly for a year.” - -“You cannot depend on Mrs. Jamieson a bit, Mrs. Dr. dear,” said Susan -solemnly. “She died once and when they were measuring her for her -coffin, after laying her out just beautiful, did she not go and come -back to life! Now, Mrs. Dr. dear, you know you _cannot_ depend on a -woman like that.” - -“She might turn Methodist at any moment,” said Miss Cornelia. “They -tell me they went to the Methodist Church at Lowbridge quite as often -as to the Presbyterian. I haven’t caught them at it here yet, but I -would not approve of taking Mrs. Jamieson into the Sunday School. Yet -we must not offend them. We are losing too many people, by death or bad -temper. Mrs. Alec Davis has left the church, no one knows why. She told -the managers that she would never pay another cent to Mr. Meredith’s -salary. Of course, most people say that the children offended her, but -somehow I don’t think so. I tried to pump Faith, but all I could get -out of her was that Mrs. Davis had come, seemingly in high good humour, -to see her father, and had left in an awful rage, calling them all -‘varmints!’” - -“Varmints, indeed!” said Susan furiously. “Does Mrs. Alec Davis forget -that her uncle on her mother’s side was suspected of poisoning his -wife? Not that it was ever proved, Mrs. Dr. dear, and it does not do to -believe all you hear. But if _I_ had an uncle whose wife died without -any satisfactory reason, _I_ would not go about the country calling -innocent children varmints.” - -“The point is,” said Miss Cornelia, “that Mrs. Davis paid a large -subscription, and how its loss is going to be made up is a problem. And -if she turns the other Douglases against Mr. Meredith, as she will -certainly try to do, he will just have to go.” - -“I do not think Mrs. Alec Davis is very well liked by the rest of the -clan,” said Susan. “It is not likely she will be able to influence -them.” - -“But those Douglases all hang together so. If you touch one, you touch -all. We can’t do without them, so much is certain. They pay half the -salary. They are not mean, whatever else may be said of them. Norman -Douglas used to give a hundred a year long ago before he left.” - -“What did he leave for?” asked Anne. - -“He declared a member of the session cheated him in a cow deal. He -hasn’t come to church for twenty years. His wife used to come regular -while she was alive, poor thing, but he never would let her pay -anything, except one red cent every Sunday. She felt dreadfully -humiliated. I don’t know that he was any too good a husband to her, -though she was never heard to complain. But she always had a cowed -look. Norman Douglas didn’t get the woman he wanted thirty years ago -and the Douglases never liked to put up with second best.” - -“Who was the woman he did want.” - -“Ellen West. They weren’t engaged exactly, I believe, but they went -about together for two years. And then they just broke off—nobody ever -knew why. Just some silly quarrel, I suppose. And Norman went and -married Hester Reese before his temper had time to cool—married her -just to spite Ellen, I haven’t a doubt. So like a man! Hester was a -nice little thing, but she never had much spirit and he broke what -little she had. She was too meek for Norman. He needed a woman who -could stand up to him. Ellen would have kept him in fine order and he -would have liked her all the better for it. He despised Hester, that is -the truth, just because she always gave in to him. I used to hear him -say many a time, long ago when he was a young fellow ‘Give me a spunky -woman—spunk for me every time.’ And then he went and married a girl who -couldn’t say boo to a goose—man-like. That family of Reeses were just -vegetables. They went through the motions of living, but they didn’t -_live_.” - -“Russell Reese used his first wife’s wedding-ring to marry his second,” -said Susan reminiscently. “That was _too_ economical in my opinion, -Mrs. Dr. dear. And his brother John has his own tombstone put up in the -over-harbour graveyard, with everything on it but the date of death, -and he goes and looks at it every Sunday. Most folks would not consider -that much fun, but it is plain he does. People do have such different -ideas of enjoyment. As for Norman Douglas, he is a perfect heathen. -When the last minister asked him why he never went to church he said -‘Too many ugly women there, parson—too many ugly women!’ I should like -to go to such a man, Mrs. Dr. dear, and say to him solemnly, ‘There is -a hell!’” - -“Oh, Norman doesn’t believe there is such a place,” said Miss Cornelia. -“I hope he’ll find out his mistake when he comes to die. There, Mary, -you’ve knit your three inches and you can go and play with the children -for half an hour.” - -Mary needed no second bidding. She flew to Rainbow Valley with a heart -as light as her heels, and in the course of conversation told Faith -Meredith all about Mrs. Alec Davis. - -“And Mrs. Elliott says that she’ll turn all the Douglases against your -father and then he’ll have to leave the Glen because his salary won’t -be paid,” concluded Mary. “_I_ don’t know what is to be done, honest to -goodness. If only old Norman Douglas would come back to church and pay, -it wouldn’t be so bad. But he won’t—and the Douglases will leave—and -you all will have to go.” - -Faith carried a heavy heart to bed with her that night. The thought of -leaving the Glen was unbearable. Nowhere else in the world were there -such chums as the Blythes. Her little heart had been wrung when they -had left Maywater—she had shed many bitter tears when she parted with -Maywater chums and the old manse there where her mother had lived and -died. She could not contemplate calmly the thought of such another and -harder wrench. She _couldn’t_ leave Glen St. Mary and dear Rainbow -Valley and that delicious graveyard. - -“It’s awful to be minister’s family,” groaned Faith into her pillow. -“Just as soon as you get fond of a place you are torn up by the roots. -I’ll never, never, _never_ marry a minister, no matter how nice he is.” - -Faith sat up in bed and looked out of the little vine-hung window. The -night was very still, the silence broken only by Una’s soft breathing. -Faith felt terribly alone in the world. She could see Glen St. Mary -lying under the starry blue meadows of the autumn night. Over the -valley a light shone from the girls’ room at Ingleside, and another -from Walter’s room. Faith wondered if poor Walter had toothache again. -Then she sighed, with a little passing sigh of envy of Nan and Di. They -had a mother and a settled home—_they_ were not at the mercy of people -who got angry without any reason and called you a varmint. Away beyond -the Glen, amid fields that were very quiet with sleep, another light -was burning. Faith knew it shone in the house where Norman Douglas -lived. He was reputed to sit up all hours of the night reading. Mary -had said if he could only be induced to return to the church all would -be well. And why not? Faith looked at a big, low star hanging over the -tall, pointed spruce at the gate of the Methodist Church and had an -inspiration. She knew what ought to be done and she, Faith Meredith, -would do it. She would make everything right. With a sigh of -satisfaction, she turned from the lonely, dark world and cuddled down -beside Una. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI. -TIT FOR TAT - - -With Faith, to decide was to act. She lost no time in carrying out the -idea. As soon as she came home from school the next day she left the -manse and made her way down the Glen. Walter Blythe joined her as she -passed the post office. - -“I’m going to Mrs. Elliott’s on an errand for mother,” he said. “Where -are you going, Faith?” - -“I am going somewhere on church business,” said Faith loftily. She did -not volunteer any further information and Walter felt rather snubbed. -They walked on in silence for a little while. It was a warm, windy -evening with a sweet, resinous air. Beyond the sand dunes were gray -seas, soft and beautiful. The Glen brook bore down a freight of gold -and crimson leaves, like fairy shallops. In Mr. James Reese’s buckwheat -stubble-land, with its beautiful tones of red and brown, a crow -parliament was being held, whereat solemn deliberations regarding the -welfare of crowland were in progress. Faith cruelly broke up the august -assembly by climbing up on the fence and hurling a broken rail at it. -Instantly the air was filled with flapping black wings and indignant -caws. - -“Why did you do that?” said Walter reproachfully. “They were having -such a good time.” - -“Oh, I hate crows,” said Faith airily. “The are so black and sly I feel -sure they’re hypocrites. They steal little birds’ eggs out of their -nests, you know. I saw one do it on our lawn last spring. Walter, what -makes you so pale to-day? Did you have the toothache again last night?” - -Walter shivered. - -“Yes—a raging one. I couldn’t sleep a wink—so I just paced up and down -the floor and imagined I was an early Christian martyr being tortured -at the command of Nero. That helped ever so much for a while—and then I -got so bad I couldn’t imagine anything.” - -“Did you cry?” asked Faith anxiously. - -“No—but I lay down on the floor and groaned,” admitted Walter. “Then -the girls came in and Nan put cayenne pepper in it—and that made it -worse—Di made me hold a swallow of cold water in my mouth—and I -couldn’t stand it, so they called Susan. Susan said it served me right -for sitting up in the cold garret yesterday writing poetry trash. But -she started up the kitchen fire and got me a hot-water bottle and it -stopped the toothache. As soon as I felt better I told Susan my poetry -wasn’t trash and she wasn’t any judge. And she said no, thank goodness -she was not and she did not know anything about poetry except that it -was mostly a lot of lies. Now you know, Faith, that isn’t so. That is -one reason why I like writing poetry—you can say so many things in it -that are true in poetry but wouldn’t be true in prose. I told Susan so, -but she said to stop my jawing and go to sleep before the water got -cold, or she’d leave me to see if rhyming would cure toothache, and she -hoped it would be a lesson to me.” - -“Why don’t you go to the dentist at Lowbridge and get the tooth out?” - -Walter shivered again. - -“They want me to—but I can’t. It would hurt so.” - -“Are you afraid of a little pain?” asked Faith contemptuously. - -Walter flushed. - -“It would be a _big_ pain. I hate being hurt. Father said he wouldn’t -insist on my going—he’d wait until I’d made up my own mind to go.” - -“It wouldn’t hurt as long as the toothache,” argued Faith, “You’ve had -five spells of toothache. If you’d just go and have it out there’d be -no more bad nights. _I_ had a tooth out once. I yelled for a moment, -but it was all over then—only the bleeding.” - -“The bleeding is worst of all—it’s so ugly,” cried Walter. “It just -made me sick when Jem cut his foot last summer. Susan said I looked -more like fainting than Jem did. But I couldn’t bear to see Jem hurt, -either. Somebody is always getting hurt, Faith—and it’s awful. I just -can’t _bear_ to see things hurt. It makes me just want to run—and -run—and run—till I can’t hear or see them.” - -“There’s no use making a fuss over anyone getting hurt,” said Faith, -tossing her curls. “Of course, if you’ve hurt yourself very bad, you -have to yell—and blood _is_ messy—and I don’t like seeing other people -hurt, either. But I don’t want to run—I want to go to work and help -them. Your father _has_ to hurt people lots of times to cure them. What -would they do if _he_ ran away?” - -“I didn’t say I _would_ run. I said I _wanted_ to run. That’s a -different thing. I want to help people, too. But oh, I wish there -weren’t any ugly, dreadful things in the world. I wish everything was -glad and beautiful.” - -“Well, don’t let’s think of what isn’t,” said Faith. “After all, -there’s lots of fun in being alive. You wouldn’t have toothache if you -were dead, but still, wouldn’t you lots rather be alive than dead? I -would, a hundred times. Oh, here’s Dan Reese. He’s been down to the -harbour for fish.” - -“I hate Dan Reese,” said Walter. - -“So do I. All us girls do. I’m just going to walk past and never take -the least notice of him. You watch me!” - -Faith accordingly stalked past Dan with her chin out and an expression -of scorn that bit into his soul. He turned and shouted after her. - -“Pig-girl! Pig-girl!! Pig-girl!!!” in a crescendo of insult. - -Faith walked on, seemingly oblivious. But her lip trembled slightly -with a sense of outrage. She knew she was no match for Dan Reese when -it came to an exchange of epithets. She wished Jem Blythe had been with -her instead of Walter. If Dan Reese had dared to call her a pig-girl in -Jem’s hearing, Jem would have wiped up the dust with him. But it never -occurred to Faith to expect Walter to do it, or blame him for not doing -it. Walter, she knew, never fought other boys. Neither did Charlie Clow -of the north road. The strange part was that, while she despised -Charlie for a coward, it never occurred to her to disdain Walter. It -was simply that he seemed to her an inhabitant of a world of his own, -where different traditions prevailed. Faith would as soon have expected -a starry-eyed young angel to pummel dirty, freckled Dan Reese for her -as Walter Blythe. She would not have blamed the angel and she did not -blame Walter Blythe. But she wished that sturdy Jem or Jerry had been -there and Dan’s insult continued to rankle in her soul. - -Walter was pale no longer. He had flushed crimson and his beautiful -eyes were clouded with shame and anger. He knew that he ought to have -avenged Faith. Jem would have sailed right in and made Dan eat his -words with bitter sauce. Ritchie Warren would have overwhelmed Dan with -worse “names” than Dan had called Faith. But Walter could not—simply -could not—“call names.” He knew he would get the worst of it. He could -never conceive or utter the vulgar, ribald insults of which Dan Reese -had unlimited command. And as for the trial by fist, Walter couldn’t -fight. He hated the idea. It was rough and painful—and, worst of all, -it was ugly. He never could understand Jem’s exultation in an -occasional conflict. But he wished he _could_ fight Dan Reese. He was -horribly ashamed because Faith Meredith had been insulted in his -presence and he had not tried to punish her insulter. He felt sure she -must despise him. She had not even spoken to him since Dan had called -her pig-girl. He was glad when they came to the parting of the ways. - -Faith, too, was relieved, though for a different reason. She wanted to -be alone because she suddenly felt rather nervous about her errand. -Impulse had cooled, especially since Dan had bruised her self-respect. -She must go through with it, but she no longer had enthusiasm to -sustain her. She was going to see Norman Douglas and ask him to come -back to church, and she began to be afraid of him. What had seemed so -easy and simple up at the Glen seemed very different down here. She had -heard a good deal about Norman Douglas, and she knew that even the -biggest boys in school were afraid of him. Suppose he called her -something nasty—she had heard he was given to that. Faith could not -endure being called names—they subdued her far more quickly than a -physical blow. But she would go on—Faith Meredith always went on. If -she did not her father might have to leave the Glen. - -At the end of the long lane Faith came to the house—a big, -old-fashioned one with a row of soldierly Lombardies marching past it. -On the back veranda Norman Douglas himself was sitting, reading a -newspaper. His big dog was beside him. Behind, in the kitchen, where -his housekeeper, Mrs. Wilson, was getting supper, there was a clatter -of dishes—an angry clatter, for Norman Douglas had just had a quarrel -with Mrs. Wilson, and both were in a very bad temper over it. -Consequently, when Faith stepped on the veranda and Norman Douglas -lowered his newspaper she found herself looking into the choleric eyes -of an irritated man. - -Norman Douglas was rather a fine-looking personage in his way. He had a -sweep of long red beard over his broad chest and a mane of red hair, -ungrizzled by the years, on his massive head. His high, white forehead -was unwrinkled and his blue eyes could flash still with all the fire of -his tempestuous youth. He could be very amiable when he liked, and he -could be very terrible. Poor Faith, so anxiously bent on retrieving the -situation in regard to the church, had caught him in one of his -terrible moods. - -He did not know who she was and he gazed at her with disfavour. Norman -Douglas liked girls of spirit and flame and laughter. At this moment -Faith was very pale. She was of the type to which colour means -everything. Lacking her crimson cheeks she seemed meek and even -insignificant. She looked apologetic and afraid, and the bully in -Norman Douglas’s heart stirred. - -“Who the dickens are you? And what do you want here?” he demanded in -his great resounding voice, with a fierce scowl. - -For once in her life Faith had nothing to say. She had never supposed -Norman Douglas was like _this_. She was paralyzed with terror of him. -He saw it and it made him worse. - -“What’s the matter with you?” he boomed. “You look as if you wanted to -say something and was scared to say it. What’s troubling you? Confound -it, speak up, can’t you?” - -No. Faith could not speak up. No words would come. But her lips began -to tremble. - -“For heaven’s sake, don’t cry,” shouted Norman. “I can’t stand -snivelling. If you’ve anything to say, say it and have done. Great -Kitty, is the girl possessed of a dumb spirit? Don’t look at me like -that—I’m human—I haven’t got a tail! Who are you—who are you, I say?” - -Norman’s voice could have been heard at the harbour. Operations in the -kitchen were suspended. Mrs. Wilson was listening open-eared and eyed. -Norman put his huge brown hands on his knees and leaned forward, -staring into Faith’s pallid, shrinking face. He seemed to loom over her -like some evil giant out of a fairy tale. She felt as if he would eat -her up next thing, body and bones. - -“I—am—Faith—Meredith,” she said, in little more than a whisper. - -“Meredith, hey? One of the parson’s youngsters, hey? I’ve heard of -you—I’ve heard of you! Riding on pigs and breaking the Sabbath! A nice -lot! What do you want here, hey? What do you want of the old pagan, -hey? _I_ don’t ask favours of parsons—and I don’t give any. What do you -want, I say?” - -Faith wished herself a thousand miles away. She stammered out her -thought in its naked simplicity. - -“I came—to ask you—to go to church—and pay—to the salary.” - -Norman glared at her. Then he burst forth again. - -“You impudent hussy—you! Who put you up to it, jade? Who put you up to -it?” - -“Nobody,” said poor Faith. - -“That’s a lie. Don’t lie to me! Who sent you here? It wasn’t your -father—he hasn’t the smeddum of a flea—but he wouldn’t send you to do -what he dassn’t do himself. I suppose it was some of them confounded -old maids at the Glen, was it—was it, hey?” - -“No—I—I just came myself.” - -“Do you take me for a fool?” shouted Norman. - -“No—I thought you were a gentleman,” said Faith faintly, and certainly -without any thought of being sarcastic. - -Norman bounced up. - -“Mind your own business. I don’t want to hear another word from you. If -you wasn’t such a kid I’d teach you to interfere in what doesn’t -concern you. When I want parsons or pill-dosers I’ll send for them. -Till I do I’ll have no truck with them. Do you understand? Now, get -out, cheese-face.” - -Faith got out. She stumbled blindly down the steps, out of the yard -gate and into the lane. Half way up the lane her daze of fear passed -away and a reaction of tingling anger possessed her. By the time she -reached the end of the lane she was in such a furious temper as she had -never experienced before. Norman Douglas’ insults burned in her soul, -kindling a scorching flame. Go home! Not she! She would go straight -back and tell that old ogre just what she thought of him—she would show -him—oh, wouldn’t she! Cheese-face, indeed! - -Unhesitatingly she turned and walked back. The veranda was deserted and -the kitchen door shut. Faith opened the door without knocking, and went -in. Norman Douglas had just sat down at the supper table, but he still -held his newspaper. Faith walked inflexibly across the room, caught the -paper from his hand, flung it on the floor and stamped on it. Then she -faced him, with her flashing eyes and scarlet cheeks. She was such a -handsome young fury that Norman Douglas hardly recognized her. - -“What’s brought you back?” he growled, but more in bewilderment than -rage. - -Unquailingly she glared back into the angry eyes against which so few -people could hold their own. - -“I have come back to tell you exactly what I think of you,” said Faith -in clear, ringing tones. “I am not afraid of you. You are a rude, -unjust, tyrannical, disagreeable old man. Susan says you are sure to go -to hell, and I was sorry for you, but I am not now. Your wife never had -a new hat for ten years—no wonder she died. I am going to make faces at -you whenever I see you after this. Every time I am behind you you will -know what is happening. Father has a picture of the devil in a book in -his study, and I mean to go home and write your name under it. You are -an old vampire and I hope you’ll have the Scotch fiddle!” - -Faith did not know what a vampire meant any more than she knew what the -Scotch fiddle was. She had heard Susan use the expressions and gathered -from her tone that both were dire things. But Norman Douglas knew what -the latter meant at least. He had listened in absolute silence to -Faith’s tirade. When she paused for breath, with a stamp of her foot, -he suddenly burst into loud laughter. With a mighty slap of hand on -knee he exclaimed, - -“I vow you’ve got spunk, after all—I like spunk. Come, sit down—sit -down!” - -“I will not.” Faith’s eyes flashed more passionately. She thought she -was being made fun of—treated contemptuously. She would have enjoyed -another explosion of rage, but this cut deep. “I will not sit down in -your house. I am going home. But I am glad I came back here and told -you exactly what my opinion of you is.” - -“So am I—so am I,” chuckled Norman. “I like you—you’re fine—you’re -great. Such roses—such vim! Did I call her cheese-face? Why, she never -smelt a cheese. Sit down. If you’d looked like that at the first, girl! -So you’ll write my name under the devil’s picture, will you? But he’s -black, girl, he’s black—and I’m red. It won’t do—it won’t do! And you -hope I’ll have the Scotch fiddle, do you? Lord love you, girl, I had -_it_ when I was a boy. Don’t wish it on me again. Sit down—sit in. -We’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness.” - -“No, thank you,” said Faith haughtily. - -“Oh, yes, you will. Come, come now, I apologize, girl—I apologize. I -made a fool of myself and I’m sorry. Man can’t say fairer. Forget and -forgive. Shake hands, girl—shake hands. She won’t—no, she won’t! But -she must! Look-a-here, girl, if you’ll shake hands and break bread with -me I’ll pay what I used to to the salary and I’ll go to church the -first Sunday in every month and I’ll make Kitty Alec hold her jaw. I’m -the only one in the clan can do it. Is it a bargain, girl?” - -It seemed a bargain. Faith found herself shaking hands with the ogre -and then sitting at his board. Her temper was over—Faith’s tempers -never lasted very long—but its excitement still sparkled in her eyes -and crimsoned her cheeks. Norman Douglas looked at her admiringly. - -“Go, get some of your best preserves, Wilson,” he ordered, “and stop -sulking, woman, stop sulking. What if we did have a quarrel, woman? A -good squall clears the air and briskens things up. But no drizzling and -fogging afterwards—no drizzling and fogging, woman. I can’t stand that. -Temper in a woman but no tears for me. Here, girl, is some messed up -meat and potatoes for you. Begin on that. Wilson has some fancy name -for it, but I call lit macanaccady. Anything I can’t analyze in the -eating line I call macanaccady and anything wet that puzzles me I call -shallamagouslem. Wilson’s tea is shallamagouslem. I swear she makes it -out of burdocks. Don’t take any of the ungodly black liquid—here’s some -milk for you. What did you say your name was?” - -“Faith.” - -“No name that—no name that! I can’t stomach such a name. Got any -other?” - -“No, sir.” - -“Don’t like the name, don’t like it. There’s no smeddum to it. Besides, -it makes me think of my Aunt Jinny. She called her three girls Faith, -Hope, and Charity. Faith didn’t believe in anything—Hope was a born -pessimist—and Charity was a miser. You ought to be called Red Rose—you -look like one when you’re mad. _I’ll_ call you Red Rose. And you’ve -roped me into promising to go to church? But only once a month, -remember—only once a month. Come now, girl, will you let me off? I used -to pay a hundred to the salary every year and go to church. If I -promise to pay two hundred a year will you let me off going to church? -Come now!” - -“No, no, sir,” said Faith, dimpling roguishly. “I want you to go to -church, too.” - -“Well, a bargain is a bargain. I reckon I can stand it twelve times a -year. What a sensation it’ll make the first Sunday I go! And old Susan -Baker says I’m going to hell, hey? Do you believe I’ll go there—come, -now, do you?” - -“I hope not, sir,” stammered Faith in some confusion. - -“_Why_ do you hope not? Come, now, _why_ do you hope not? Give us a -reason, girl—give us a reason.” - -“It—it must be a very—uncomfortable place, sir.” - -“Uncomfortable? All depends on your taste in comfortable, girl. I’d -soon get tired of angels. Fancy old Susan in a halo, now!” - -Faith did fancy it, and it tickled her so much that she had to laugh. -Norman eyed her approvingly. - -“See the fun of it, hey? Oh, I like you—you’re great. About this church -business, now—can your father preach?” - -“He is a splendid preacher,” said loyal Faith. - -“He is, hey? I’ll see—I’ll watch out for flaws. He’d better be careful -what he says before _me_. I’ll catch him—I’ll trip him up—I’ll keep -tabs on his arguments. I’m bound to have some fun out of this church -going business. Does he ever preach hell?” - -“No—o—o—I don’t think so.” - -“Too bad. I like sermons on that subject. You tell him that if he wants -to keep me in good humour to preach a good rip-roaring sermon on hell -once every six months—and the more brimstone the better. I like ‘em -smoking. And think of all the pleasure he’d give the old maids, too. -They’d all keep looking at old Norman Douglas and thinking, ‘That’s for -you, you old reprobate. That’s what’s in store for _you!_’ I’ll give an -extra ten dollars every time you get your father to preach on hell. -Here’s Wilson and the jam. Like that, hey? _It_ isn’t macanaccady. -Taste!” - -Faith obediently swallowed the big spoonful Norman held out to her. -Luckily it _was_ good. - -“Best plum jam in the world,” said Norman, filling a large saucer and -plumping it down before her. “Glad you like it. I’ll give you a couple -of jars to take home with you. There’s nothing mean about me—never was. -The devil can’t catch me at _that_ corner, anyhow. It wasn’t my fault -that Hester didn’t have a new hat for ten years. It was her own—she -pinched on hats to save money to give yellow fellows over in China. _I_ -never gave a cent to missions in my life—never will. Never you try to -bamboozle me into that! A hundred a year to the salary and church once -a month—but no spoiling good heathens to make poor Christians! Why, -girl, they wouldn’t be fit for heaven or hell—clean spoiled for either -place—clean spoiled. Hey, Wilson, haven’t you got a smile on yet? Beats -all how you women can sulk! _I_ never sulked in my life—it’s just one -big flash and crash with me and then—pouf—the squall’s over and the sun -is out and you could eat out of my hand.” - -Norman insisted on driving Faith home after supper and he filled the -buggy up with apples, cabbages, potatoes and pumpkins and jars of jam. - -“There’s a nice little tom-pussy out in the barn. I’ll give you that -too, if you’d like it. Say the word,” he said. - -“No, thank you,” said Faith decidedly. “I don’t like cats, and besides, -I have a rooster.” - -“Listen to her. You can’t cuddle a rooster as you can a kitten. Who -ever heard of petting a rooster? Better take little Tom. I want to find -a good home for him.” - -“No. Aunt Martha has a cat and he would kill a strange kitten.” - -Norman yielded the point rather reluctantly. He gave Faith an exciting -drive home, behind his wild two-year old, and when he had let her out -at the kitchen door of the manse and dumped his cargo on the back -veranda he drove away shouting, - -“It’s only once a month—only once a month, mind!” - -Faith went up to bed, feeling a little dizzy and breathless, as if she -had just escaped from the grasp of a genial whirlwind. She was happy -and thankful. No fear now that they would have to leave the Glen and -the graveyard and Rainbow Valley. But she fell asleep troubled by a -disagreeable subconsciousness that Dan Reese had called her pig-girl -and that, having stumbled on such a congenial epithet, he would -continue to call her so whenever opportunity offered. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII. -A DOUBLE VICTORY - - -Norman Douglas came to church the first Sunday in November and made all -the sensation he desired. Mr. Meredith shook hands with him absently on -the church steps and hoped dreamily that Mrs. Douglas was well. - -“She wasn’t very well just before I buried her ten years ago, but I -reckon she has better health now,” boomed Norman, to the horror and -amusement of every one except Mr. Meredith, who was absorbed in -wondering if he had made the last head of his sermon as clear as he -might have, and hadn’t the least idea what Norman had said to him or he -to Norman. - -Norman intercepted Faith at the gate. - -“Kept my word, you see—kept my word, Red Rose. I’m free now till the -first Sunday in December. Fine sermon, girl—fine sermon. Your father -has more in his head than he carries on his face. But he contradicted -himself once—tell him he contradicted himself. And tell him I want that -brimstone sermon in December. Great way to wind up the old year—with a -taste of hell, you know. And what’s the matter with a nice tasty -discourse on heaven for New Year’s? Though it wouldn’t be half as -interesting as hell, girl—not half. Only I’d like to know what your -father thinks about heaven—he _can_ think—rarest thing in the world—a -person who can think. But he _did_ contradict himself. Ha, ha! Here’s a -question you might ask him sometime when he’s awake, girl. ‘Can God -make a stone so big He couldn’t lift it Himself?’ Don’t forget now. I -want to hear his opinion on it. I’ve stumped many a minister with that, -girl.” - -Faith was glad to escape him and run home. Dan Reese, standing among -the crowd of boys at the gate, looked at her and shaped his mouth into -“pig-girl,” but dared not utter it aloud just there. Next day in school -was a different matter. At noon recess Faith encountered Dan in the -little spruce plantation behind the school and Dan shouted once more, - -“Pig-girl! Pig-girl! _Rooster-girl!_” - -Walter Blythe suddenly rose from a mossy cushion behind a little clump -of firs where he had been reading. He was very pale, but his eyes -blazed. - -“You hold your tongue, Dan Reese!” he said. - -“Oh, hello, Miss Walter,” retorted Dan, not at all abashed. He vaulted -airily to the top of the rail fence and chanted insultingly, - -“Cowardy, cowardy-custard -Stole a pot of mustard, -Cowardy, cowardy-custard!” - -“You are a coincidence!” said Walter scornfully, turning still whiter. -He had only a very hazy idea what a coincidence was, but Dan had none -at all and thought it must be something peculiarly opprobrious. - -“Yah! Cowardy!” he yelled gain. “Your mother writes lies—lies—lies! And -Faith Meredith is a pig-girl—a—pig-girl—a pig-girl! And she’s a -rooster-girl—a rooster-girl—a rooster-girl! Yah! Cowardy—cowardy—cust—” - -Dan got no further. Walter had hurled himself across the intervening -space and knocked Dan off the fence backward with one well-directed -blow. Dan’s sudden inglorious sprawl was greeted with a burst of -laughter and a clapping of hands from Faith. Dan sprang up, purple with -rage, and began to climb the fence. But just then the school-bell rang -and Dan knew what happened to boys who were late during Mr. Hazard’s -regime. - -“We’ll fight this out,” he howled. “Cowardy!” - -“Any time you like,” said Walter. - -“Oh, no, no, Walter,” protested Faith. “Don’t fight him. _I_ don’t mind -what he says—I wouldn’t condescend to mind the like of _him_.” - -“He insulted you and he insulted my mother,” said Walter, with the same -deadly calm. “Tonight after school, Dan.” - -“I’ve got to go right home from school to pick taters after the -harrows, dad says,” answered Dan sulkily. “But to-morrow night’ll do.” - -“All right—here to-morrow night,” agreed Walter. - -“And I’ll smash your sissy-face for you,” promised Dan. - -Walter shuddered—not so much from fear of the threat as from repulsion -over the ugliness and vulgarity of it. But he held his head high and -marched into school. Faith followed in a conflict of emotions. She -hated to think of Walter fighting that little sneak, but oh, he had -been splendid! And he was going to fight for _her_—Faith Meredith—to -punish her insulter! Of course he would win—such eyes spelled victory. - -Faith’s confidence in her champion had dimmed a little by evening, -however. Walter had seemed so very quiet and dull the rest of the day -in school. - -“If it were only Jem,” she sighed to Una, as they sat on Hezekiah -Pollock’s tombstone in the graveyard. “_He_ is such a fighter—he could -finish Dan off in no time. But Walter doesn’t know much about -fighting.” - -“I’m so afraid he’ll be hurt,” sighed Una, who hated fighting and -couldn’t understand the subtle, secret exultation she divined in Faith. - -“He oughtn’t to be,” said Faith uncomfortably. “He’s every bit as big -as Dan.” - -“But Dan’s so much older,” said Una. “Why, he’s nearly a year older.” - -“Dan hasn’t done much fighting when you come to count up,” said Faith. -“I believe he’s really a coward. He didn’t think Walter would fight, or -he wouldn’t have called names before him. Oh, if you could just have -seen Walter’s face when he looked at him, Una! It made me shiver—with a -nice shiver. He looked just like Sir Galahad in that poem father read -us on Saturday.” - -“I hate the thought of them fighting and I wish it could be stopped,” -said Una. - -“Oh, it’s got to go on now,” cried Faith. “It’s a matter of honour. -Don’t you _dare_ tell anyone, Una. If you do I’ll never tell you -secrets again!” - -“I won’t tell,” agreed Una. “But I won’t stay to-morrow to watch the -fight. I’m coming right home.” - -“Oh, all right. _I_ have to be there—it would be mean not to, when -Walter is fighting for me. I’m going to tie my colours on his -arm—that’s the thing to do when he’s my knight. How lucky Mrs. Blythe -gave me that pretty blue hair-ribbon for my birthday! I’ve only worn it -twice so it will be almost new. But I wish I was sure Walter would win. -It will be so—so _humiliating_ if he doesn’t.” - -Faith would have been yet more dubious if she could have seen her -champion just then. Walter had gone home from school with all his -righteous anger at a low ebb and a very nasty feeling in its place. He -had to fight Dan Reese the next night—and he didn’t want to—he hated -the thought of it. And he kept thinking of it all the time. Not for a -minute could he get away from the thought. Would it hurt much? He was -terribly afraid that it would hurt. And would he be defeated and -shamed? - -He could not eat any supper worth speaking of. Susan had made a big -batch of his favourite monkey-faces, but he could choke only one down. -Jem ate four. Walter wondered how he could. How could _anybody_ eat? -And how could they all talk gaily as they were doing? There was mother, -with her shining eyes and pink cheeks. _She_ didn’t know her son had to -fight next day. Would she be so gay if she knew, Walter wondered -darkly. Jem had taken Susan’s picture with his new camera and the -result was passed around the table and Susan was terribly indignant -over it. - -“I am no beauty, Mrs. Dr. dear, and well I know it, and have always -known it,” she said in an aggrieved tone, “but that I am as ugly as -that picture makes me out I will never, no, never believe.” - -Jem laughed over this and Anne laughed again with him. Walter couldn’t -endure it. He got up and fled to his room. - -“That child has got something on his mind, Mrs. Dr. dear,” said Susan. -“He has et next to nothing. Do you suppose he is plotting another -poem?” - -Poor Walter was very far removed in spirit from the starry realms of -poesy just then. He propped his elbow on his open window-sill and -leaned his head drearily on his hands. - -“Come on down to the shore, Walter,” cried Jem, busting in. “The boys -are going to burn the sand-hill grass to-night. Father says we can go. -Come on.” - -At any other time Walter would have been delighted. He gloried in the -burning of the sand-hill grass. But now he flatly refused to go, and no -arguments or entreaties could move him. Disappointed Jem, who did not -care for the long dark walk to Four Winds Point alone, retreated to his -museum in the garret and buried himself in a book. He soon forgot his -disappointment, revelling with the heroes of old romance, and pausing -occasionally to picture himself a famous general, leading his troops to -victory on some great battlefield. - -Walter sat at his window until bedtime. Di crept in, hoping to be told -what was wrong, but Walter could not talk of it, even to Di. Talking of -it seemed to give it a reality from which he shrank. It was torture -enough to think of it. The crisp, withered leaves rustled on the maple -trees outside his window. The glow of rose and flame had died out of -the hollow, silvery sky, and the full moon was rising gloriously over -Rainbow Valley. Afar off, a ruddy woodfire was painting a page of glory -on the horizon beyond the hills. It was a sharp, clear evening when -far-away sounds were heard distinctly. A fox was barking across the -pond; an engine was puffing down at the Glen station; a blue-jay was -screaming madly in the maple grove; there was laughter over on the -manse lawn. How could people laugh? How could foxes and blue-jays and -engines behave as if nothing were going to happen on the morrow? - -“Oh, I wish it was over,” groaned Walter. - -He slept very little that night and had hard work choking down his -porridge in the morning. Susan _was_ rather lavish in her platefuls. -Mr. Hazard found him an unsatisfactory pupil that day. Faith Meredith’s -wits seemed to be wool-gathering, too. Dan Reese kept drawing -surreptitious pictures of girls, with pig or rooster heads, on his -slate and holding them up for all to see. The news of the coming battle -had leaked out and most of the boys and many of the girls were in the -spruce plantation when Dan and Walter sought it after school. Una had -gone home, but Faith was there, having tied her blue ribbon around -Walter’s arm. Walter was thankful that neither Jem nor Di nor Nan were -among the crowd of spectators. Somehow they had not heard of what was -in the wind and had gone home, too. Walter faced Dan quite undauntedly -now. At the last moment all his fear had vanished, but he still felt -disgust at the idea of fighting. Dan, it was noted, was really paler -under his freckles than Walter was. One of the older boys gave the word -and Dan struck Walter in the face. - -Walter reeled a little. The pain of the blow tingled through all his -sensitive frame for a moment. Then he felt pain no longer. Something, -such as he had never experienced before, seemed to roll over him like a -flood. His face flushed crimson, his eyes burned like flame. The -scholars of Glen St. Mary school had never dreamed that “Miss Walter” -could look like that. He hurled himself forward and closed with Dan -like a young wildcat. - -There were no particular rules in the fights of the Glen school boys. -It was catch-as-catch can, and get your blows in anyhow. Walter fought -with a savage fury and a joy in the struggle against which Dan could -not hold his ground. It was all over very speedily. Walter had no clear -consciousness of what he was doing until suddenly the red mist cleared -from his sight and he found himself kneeling on the body of the -prostrate Dan whose nose—oh, horror!—was spouting blood. - -“Have you had enough?” demanded Walter through his clenched teeth. - -Dan sulkily admitted that he had. - -“My mother doesn’t write lies?” - -“No.” - -“Faith Meredith isn’t a pig-girl?” - -“No.” - -“Nor a rooster-girl?” - -“No.” - -“And I’m not a coward?” - -“No.” - -Walter had intended to ask, “And you are a liar?” but pity intervened -and he did not humiliate Dan further. Besides, that blood was so -horrible. - -“You can go, then,” he said contemptuously. - -There was a loud clapping from the boys who were perched on the rail -fence, but some of the girls were crying. They were frightened. They -had seen schoolboy fights before, but nothing like Walter as he had -grappled with Dan. There had been something terrifying about him. They -thought he would kill Dan. Now that all was over they sobbed -hysterically—except Faith, who still stood tense and crimson cheeked. - -Walter did not stay for any conqueror’s meed. He sprang over the fence -and rushed down the spruce hill to Rainbow Valley. He felt none of the -victor’s joy, but he felt a certain calm satisfaction in duty done and -honour avenged—mingled with a sickish qualm when he thought of Dan’s -gory nose. It had been so ugly, and Walter hated ugliness. - -Also, he began to realize that he himself was somewhat sore and -battered up. His lip was cut and swollen and one eye felt very strange. -In Rainbow Valley he encountered Mr. Meredith, who was coming home from -an afternoon call on the Miss Wests. That reverend gentleman looked -gravely at him. - -“It seems to me that you have been fighting, Walter?” - -“Yes, sir,” said Walter, expecting a scolding. - -“What was it about?” - -“Dan Reese said my mother wrote lies and that that Faith was a -pig-girl,” answered Walter bluntly. - -“Oh—h! Then you were certainly justified, Walter.” - -“Do you think it’s right to fight, sir?” asked Walter curiously. - -“Not always—and not often—but sometimes—yes, sometimes,” said John -Meredith. “When womenkind are insulted for instance—as in your case. My -motto, Walter, is, don’t fight till you’re sure you ought to, and -_then_ put every ounce of you into it. In spite of sundry -discolorations I infer that you came off best.” - -“Yes. I made him take it all back.” - -“Very good—very good, indeed. I didn’t think you were such a fighter, -Walter.” - -“I never fought before—and I didn’t want to right up to the last—and -then,” said Walter, determined to make a clean breast of it, “I liked -it while I was at it.” - -The Rev. John’s eyes twinkled. - -“You were—a little frightened—at first?” - -“I was a whole lot frightened,” said honest Walter. “But I’m not going -to be frightened any more, sir. Being frightened of things is worse -than the things themselves. I’m going to ask father to take me over to -Lowbridge to-morrow to get my tooth out.” - -“Right again. ‘Fear is more pain than is the pain it fears.’ Do you -know who wrote that, Walter? It was Shakespeare. Was there any feeling -or emotion or experience of the human heart that that wonderful man did -not know? When you go home tell your mother I am proud of you.” - -Walter did not tell her that, however; but he told her all the rest, -and she sympathized with him and told him she was glad he had stood up -for her and Faith, and she anointed his sore spots and rubbed cologne -on his aching head. - -“Are all mothers as nice as you?” asked Walter, hugging her. “You’re -_worth_ standing up for.” - -Miss Cornelia and Susan were in the living room when Anne came -downstairs, and listened to the story with much enjoyment. Susan in -particular was highly gratified. - -“I am real glad to hear he has had a good fight, Mrs. Dr. dear. Perhaps -it may knock that poetry nonsense out of him. And I never, no, never -could bear that little viper of a Dan Reese. Will you not sit nearer to -the fire, Mrs. Marshall Elliott? These November evenings are very -chilly.” - -“Thank you, Susan, I’m not cold. I called at the manse before I came -here and got quite warm—though I had to go to the kitchen to do it, for -there was no fire anywhere else. The kitchen looked as if it had been -stirred up with a stick, believe _me_. Mr. Meredith wasn’t home. I -couldn’t find out where he was, but I have an idea that he was up at -the Wests’. Do you know, Anne dearie, they say he has been going there -frequently all the fall and people are beginning to think he is going -to see Rosemary.” - -“He would get a very charming wife if he married Rosemary,” said Anne, -piling driftwood on the fire. “She is one of the most delightful girls -I’ve ever known—truly one of the race of Joseph.” - -“Ye—s—only she is an Episcopalian,” said Miss Cornelia doubtfully. “Of -course, that is better than if she was a Methodist—but I do think Mr. -Meredith could find a good enough wife in his own denomination. -However, very likely there is nothing in it. It’s only a month ago that -I said to him, ‘You ought to marry again, Mr. Meredith.’ He looked as -shocked as if I had suggested something improper. ‘My wife is in her -grave, Mrs. Elliott,’ he said, in that gentle, saintly way of his. ‘I -suppose so,’ I said, ‘or I wouldn’t be advising you to marry again.’ -Then he looked more shocked than ever. So I doubt if there is much in -this Rosemary story. If a single minister calls twice at a house where -there is a single woman all the gossips have it he is courting her.” - -“It seems to me—if I may presume to say so—that Mr. Meredith is too shy -to go courting a second wife,” said Susan solemnly. - -“He _isn’t_ shy, believe _me_,” retorted Miss Cornelia. -“Absent-minded,—yes—but shy, no. And for all he is so abstracted and -dreamy he has a very good opinion of himself, man-like, and when he is -really awake he wouldn’t think it much of a chore to ask any woman to -have him. No, the trouble is, he’s deluding himself into believing that -his heart is buried, while all the time it’s beating away inside of him -just like anybody else’s. He may have a notion of Rosemary West and he -may not. If he has, we must make the best of it. She is a sweet girl -and a fine housekeeper, and would make a good mother for those poor, -neglected children. And,” concluded Miss Cornelia resignedly, “my own -grandmother was an Episcopalian.” - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII. -MARY BRINGS EVIL TIDINGS - - -Mary Vance, whom Mrs. Elliott had sent up to the manse on an errand, -came tripping down Rainbow Valley on her way to Ingleside where she was -to spend the afternoon with Nan and Di as a Saturday treat. Nan and Di -had been picking spruce gum with Faith and Una in the manse woods and -the four of them were now sitting on a fallen pine by the brook, all, -it must be admitted, chewing rather vigorously. The Ingleside twins -were not allowed to chew spruce gum anywhere but in the seclusion of -Rainbow Valley, but Faith and Una were unrestricted by such rules of -etiquette and cheerfully chewed it everywhere, at home and abroad, to -the very proper horror of the Glen. Faith had been chewing it in church -one day; but Jerry had realized the enormity of _that_, and had given -her such an older-brotherly scolding that she never did it again. - -“I was so hungry I just felt as if I had to chew something,” she -protested. “You know well enough what breakfast was like, Jerry -Meredith. I _couldn’t_ eat scorched porridge and my stomach just felt -so queer and empty. The gum helped a lot—and I didn’t chew _very_ hard. -I didn’t make any noise and I never cracked the gum once.” - -“You mustn’t chew gum in church, anyhow,” insisted Jerry. “Don’t let me -catch you at it again.” - -“You chewed yourself in prayer-meeting last week,” cried Faith. - -“_that’s_ different,” said Jerry loftily. “Prayer-meeting isn’t on -Sunday. Besides, I sat away at the back in a dark seat and nobody saw -me. You were sitting right up front where every one saw you. And I took -the gum out of my mouth for the last hymn and stuck it on the back of -the pew right up in front where every one saw you. Then I came away and -forgot it. I went back to get it next morning, but it was gone. I -suppose Rod Warren swiped it. And it was a dandy chew.” - -Mary Vance walked down the Valley with her head held high. She had on a -new blue velvet cap with a scarlet rosette in it, a coat of navy blue -cloth and a little squirrel-fur muff. She was very conscious of her new -clothes and very well pleased with herself. Her hair was elaborately -crimped, her face was quite plump, her cheeks rosy, her white eyes -shining. She did not look much like the forlorn and ragged waif the -Merediths had found in the old Taylor barn. Una tried not to feel -envious. Here was Mary with a new velvet cap, but she and Faith had to -wear their shabby old gray tams again this winter. Nobody ever thought -of getting them new ones and they were afraid to ask their father for -them for fear that he might be short of money and then he would feel -badly. Mary had told them once that ministers were always short of -money, and found it “awful hard” to make ends meet. Since then Faith -and Una would have gone in rags rather than ask their father for -anything if they could help it. They did not worry a great deal over -their shabbiness; but it was rather trying to see Mary Vance coming out -in such style and putting on such airs about it, too. The new squirrel -muff was really the last straw. Neither Faith nor Una had ever had a -muff, counting themselves lucky if they could compass mittens without -holes in them. Aunt Martha could not see to darn holes and though Una -tried to, she made sad cobbling. Somehow, they could not make their -greeting of Mary very cordial. But Mary did not mind or notice that; -she was not overly sensitive. She vaulted lightly to a seat on the pine -tree, and laid the offending muff on a bough. Una saw that it was lined -with shirred red satin and had red tassels. She looked down at her own -rather purple, chapped, little hands and wondered if she would ever, -_ever_ be able to put them into a muff like that. - -“Give us a chew,” said Mary companionably. Nan, Di and Faith all -produced an amber-hued knot or two from their pockets and passed them -to Mary. Una sat very still. She had four lovely big knots in the -pocket of her tight, thread-bare little jacket, but she wasn’t going to -give one of them to Mary Vance—not one Let Mary pick her own gum! -People with squirrel muffs needn’t expect to get everything in the -world. - -“Great day, isn’t it?” said Mary, swinging her legs, the better, -perhaps, to display new boots with very smart cloth tops. Una tucked -_her_ feet under her. There was a hole in the toe of one of her boots -and both laces were much knotted. But they were the best she had. Oh, -this Mary Vance! Why hadn’t they left her in the old barn? - -Una never felt badly because the Ingleside twins were better dressed -than she and Faith were. _They_ wore their pretty clothes with careless -grace and never seemed to think about them at all. Somehow, they did -not make other people feel shabby. But when Mary Vance was dressed up -she seemed fairly to exude clothes—to walk in an atmosphere of -clothes—to make everybody else feel and think clothes. Una, as she sat -there in the honey-tinted sunshine of the gracious December afternoon, -was acutely and miserably conscious of everything she had on—the faded -tam, which was yet her best, the skimpy jacket she had worn for three -winters, the holes in her skirt and her boots, the shivering -insufficiency of her poor little undergarments. Of course, Mary was -going out for a visit and she was not. But even if she had been she had -nothing better to put on and in this lay the sting. - -“Say, this is great gum. Listen to me cracking it. There ain’t any gum -spruces down at Four Winds,” said Mary. “Sometimes I just hanker after -a chew. Mrs. Elliott won’t let me chew gum if she sees me. She says it -ain’t lady-like. This lady-business puzzles me. I can’t get on to all -its kinks. Say, Una, what’s the matter with you? Cat got your tongue?” - -“No,” said Una, who could not drag her fascinated eyes from that -squirrel muff. Mary leaned past her, picked it up and thrust it into -Una’s hands. - -“Stick your paws in that for a while,” she ordered. “They look sorter -pinched. Ain’t that a dandy muff? Mrs. Elliott give it to me last week -for a birthday present. I’m to get the collar at Christmas. I heard her -telling Mr. Elliott that.” - -“Mrs. Elliott is very good to you,” said Faith. - -“You bet she is. And _I’m_ good to her, too,” retorted Mary. “I work -like a nigger to make it easy for her and have everything just as she -likes it. We was made for each other. ‘Tisn’t every one could get along -with her as well as I do. She’s pizen neat, but so am I, and so we -agree fine.” - -“I told you she would never whip you.” - -“So you did. She’s never tried to lay a finger on me and I ain’t never -told a lie to her—not one, true’s you live. She combs me down with her -tongue sometimes though, but that just slips off _me_ like water off a -duck’s back. Say, Una, why didn’t you hang on to the muff?” - -Una had put it back on the bough. - -“My hands aren’t cold, thank you,” she said stiffly. - -“Well, if you’re satisfied, _I_ am. Say, old Kitty Alec has come back -to church as meek as Moses and nobody knows why. But everybody is -saying it was Faith brought Norman Douglas out. His housekeeper says -you went there and gave him an awful tongue-lashing. Did you?” - -“I went and asked him to come to church,” said Faith uncomfortably. - -“Fancy your spunk!” said Mary admiringly. “_I_ wouldn’t have dared do -that and I’m not so slow. Mrs. Wilson says the two of you jawed -something scandalous, but you come off best and then he just turned -round and like to eat you up. Say, is your father going to preach here -to-morrow?” - -“No. He’s going to exchange with Mr. Perry from Charlottetown. Father -went to town this morning and Mr. Perry is coming out to-night.” - -“I _thought_ there was something in the wind, though old Martha -wouldn’t give me any satisfaction. But I felt sure she wouldn’t have -been killing that rooster for nothing.” - -“What rooster? What do you mean?” cried Faith, turning pale. - -“_I_ don’t know what rooster. I didn’t see it. When she took the butter -Mrs. Elliott sent up she said she’d been out to the barn killing a -rooster for dinner tomorrow.” - -Faith sprang down from the pine. - -“It’s Adam—we have no other rooster—she has killed Adam.” - -“Now, don’t fly off the handle. Martha said the butcher at the Glen had -no meat this week and she had to have something and the hens were all -laying and too poor.” - -“If she has killed Adam—” Faith began to run up the hill. - -Mary shrugged her shoulders. - -“She’ll go crazy now. She was so fond of that Adam. He ought to have -been in the pot long ago—he’ll be as tough as sole leather. But _I_ -wouldn’t like to be in Martha’s shoes. Faith’s just white with rage; -Una, you’d better go after her and try to peacify her.” - -Mary had gone a few steps with the Blythe girls when Una suddenly -turned and ran after her. - -“Here’s some gum for you, Mary,” she said, with a little repentant -catch in her voice, thrusting all her four knots into Mary’s hands, -“and I’m glad you have such a pretty muff.” - -“Why, thanks,” said Mary, rather taken by surprise. To the Blythe -girls, after Una had gone, she said, “Ain’t she a queer little mite? -But I’ve always said she had a good heart.” - - - - -CHAPTER XIX. -POOR ADAM! - - -When Una got home Faith was lying face downwards on her bed, utterly -refusing to be comforted. Aunt Martha had killed Adam. He was reposing -on a platter in the pantry that very minute, trussed and dressed, -encircled by his liver and heart and gizzard. Aunt Martha heeded -Faith’s passion of grief and anger not a whit. - -“We had to have something for the strange minister’s dinner,” she said. -“You’re too big a girl to make such a fuss over an old rooster. You -knew he’d have to be killed sometime.” - -“I’ll tell father when he comes home what you’ve done,” sobbed Faith. - -“Don’t you go bothering your poor father. He has troubles enough. And -_I’m_ housekeeper here.” - -“Adam was _mine_—Mrs. Johnson gave him to me. You had no business to -touch him,” stormed Faith. - -“Don’t you get sassy now. The rooster’s killed and there’s an end of -it. I ain’t going to set no strange minister down to a dinner of cold -b’iled mutton. I was brought up to know better than that, if I have -come down in the world.” - -Faith would not go down to supper that night and she would not go to -church the next morning. But at dinner time she went to the table, her -eyes swollen with crying, her face sullen. - -The Rev. James Perry was a sleek, rubicund man, with a bristling white -moustache, bushy white eyebrows, and a shining bald head. He was -certainly not handsome and he was a very tiresome, pompous sort of -person. But if he had looked like the Archangel Michael and talked with -the tongues of men and angels Faith would still have utterly detested -him. He carved Adam up dexterously, showing off his plump white hands -and very handsome diamond ring. Also, he made jovial remarks all -through the performance. Jerry and Carl giggled, and even Una smiled -wanly, because she thought politeness demanded it. But Faith only -scowled darkly. The Rev. James thought her manners shockingly bad. -Once, when he was delivering himself of an unctuous remark to Jerry, -Faith broke in rudely with a flat contradiction. The Rev. James drew -his bushy eyebrows together at her. - -“Little girls should not interrupt,” he said, “and they should not -contradict people who know far more than they do.” - -This put Faith in a worse temper than ever. To be called “little girl” -as if she were no bigger than chubby Rilla Blythe over at Ingleside! It -was insufferable. And how that abominable Mr. Perry did eat! He even -picked poor Adam’s bones. Neither Faith nor Una would touch a mouthful, -and looked upon the boys as little better than cannibals. Faith felt -that if that awful repast did not soon come to an end she would wind it -up by throwing something at Mr. Perry’s gleaming head. Fortunately, Mr. -Perry found Aunt Martha’s leathery apple pie too much even for his -powers of mastication and the meal came to an end, after a long grace -in which Mr. Perry offered up devout thanks for the food which a kind -and beneficent Providence had provided for sustenance and temperate -pleasure. - -“God hadn’t a single thing to do with providing Adam for you,” muttered -Faith rebelliously under her breath. - -The boys gladly made their escape to outdoors, Una went to help Aunt -Martha with the dishes—though that rather grumpy old dame never -welcomed her timid assistance—and Faith betook herself to the study -where a cheerful wood fire was burning in the grate. She thought she -would thereby escape from the hated Mr. Perry, who had announced his -intention of taking a nap in his room during the afternoon. But -scarcely had Faith settled herself in a corner, with a book, when he -walked in and, standing before the fire, proceeded to survey the -disorderly study with an air of disapproval. - -“You father’s books seem to be in somewhat deplorable confusion, my -little girl,” he said severely. - -Faith darkled in her corner and said not a word. She would _not_ talk -to this—this creature. - -“You should try to put them in order,” Mr. Perry went on, playing with -his handsome watch chain and smiling patronizingly on Faith. “You are -quite old enough to attend to such duties. _My_ little daughter at home -is only ten and she is already an excellent little housekeeper and the -greatest help and comfort to her mother. She is a very sweet child. I -wish you had the privilege of her acquaintance. She could help you in -many ways. Of course, you have not had the inestimable privilege of a -good mother’s care and training. A sad lack—a very sad lack. I have -spoken more than once to your father in this connection and pointed out -his duty to him faithfully, but so far with no effect. I trust he may -awaken to a realization of his responsibility before it is too late. In -the meantime, it is your duty and privilege to endeavour to take your -sainted mother’s place. You might exercise a great influence over your -brothers and your little sister—you might be a true mother to them. I -fear that you do not think of these things as you should. My dear -child, allow me to open your eyes in regard to them.” - -Mr. Perry’s oily, complacent voice trickled on. He was in his element. -Nothing suited him better than to lay down the law, patronize and -exhort. He had no idea of stopping, and he did not stop. He stood -before the fire, his feet planted firmly on the rug, and poured out a -flood of pompous platitudes. Faith heard not a word. She was really not -listening to him at all. But she was watching his long black coat-tails -with impish delight growing in her brown eyes. Mr. Perry was standing -_very_ near the fire. His coat-tails began to scorch—his coat-tails -began to smoke. He still prosed on, wrapped up in his own eloquence. -The coat-tails smoked worse. A tiny spark flew up from the burning wood -and alighted in the middle of one. It clung and caught and spread into -a smouldering flame. Faith could restrain herself no longer and broke -into a stifled giggle. - -Mr. Perry stopped short, angered over this impertinence. Suddenly he -became conscious that a reek of burning cloth filled the room. He -whirled round and saw nothing. Then he clapped his hands to his -coat-tails and brought them around in front of him. There was already -quite a hole in one of them—and this was his new suit. Faith shook with -helpless laughter over his pose and expression. - -“Did you see my coat-tails burning?” he demanded angrily. - -“Yes, sir,” said Faith demurely. - -“Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded, glaring at her. - -“You said it wasn’t good manners to interrupt, sir,” said Faith, more -demurely still. - -“If—if I was your father, I would give you a spanking that you would -remember all your life, Miss,” said a very angry reverend gentleman, as -he stalked out of the study. The coat of Mr. Meredith’s second best -suit would not fit Mr. Perry, so he had to go to the evening service -with his singed coat-tail. But he did not walk up the aisle with his -usual consciousness of the honour he was conferring on the building. He -never would agree to an exchange of pulpits with Mr. Meredith again, -and he was barely civil to the latter when they met for a few minutes -at the station the next morning. But Faith felt a certain gloomy -satisfaction. Adam was partially avenged. - - - - -CHAPTER XX. -FAITH MAKES A FRIEND - - -Next day in school was a hard one for Faith. Mary Vance had told the -tale of Adam, and all the scholars, except the Blythes, thought it -quite a joke. The girls told Faith, between giggles, that it was too -bad, and the boys wrote sardonic notes of condolence to her. Poor Faith -went home from school feeling her very soul raw and smarting within -her. - -“I’m going over to Ingleside to have a talk with Mrs. Blythe,” she -sobbed. “_She_ won’t laugh at me, as everybody else does. I’ve just -_got_ to talk to somebody who understands how bad I feel.” - -She ran down through Rainbow Valley. Enchantment had been at work the -night before. A light snow had fallen and the powdered firs were -dreaming of a spring to come and a joy to be. The long hill beyond was -richly purple with leafless beeches. The rosy light of sunset lay over -the world like a pink kiss. Of all the airy, fairy places, full of -weird, elfin grace, Rainbow Valley that winter evening was the most -beautiful. But all its dreamlike loveliness was lost on poor, -sore-hearted little Faith. - -By the brook she came suddenly upon Rosemary West, who was sitting on -the old pine tree. She was on her way home from Ingleside, where she -had been giving the girls their music lesson. She had been lingering in -Rainbow Valley quite a little time, looking across its white beauty and -roaming some by-ways of dream. Judging from the expression of her face, -her thoughts were pleasant ones. Perhaps the faint, occasional tinkle -from the bells on the Tree Lovers brought the little lurking smile to -her lips. Or perhaps it was occasioned by the consciousness that John -Meredith seldom failed to spend Monday evening in the gray house on the -white wind-swept hill. - -Into Rosemary’s dreams burst Faith Meredith full of rebellious -bitterness. Faith stopped abruptly when she saw Miss West. She did not -know her very well—just well enough to speak to when they met. And she -did not want to see any one just then—except Mrs. Blythe. She knew her -eyes and nose were red and swollen and she hated to have a stranger -know she had been crying. - -“Good evening, Miss West,” she said uncomfortably. - -“What is the matter, Faith?” asked Rosemary gently. - -“Nothing,” said Faith rather shortly. - -“Oh!” Rosemary smiled. “You mean nothing that you can tell to -outsiders, don’t you?” - -Faith looked at Miss West with sudden interest. Here was a person who -understood things. And how pretty she was! How golden her hair was -under her plumy hat! How pink her cheeks were over her velvet coat! How -blue and companionable her eyes were! Faith felt that Miss West could -be a lovely friend—if only she were a friend instead of a stranger! - -“I—I’m going up to tell Mrs. Blythe,” said Faith. “She always -understands—she never laughs at us. I always talk things over with her. -It helps.” - -“Dear girlie, I’m sorry to have to tell you that Mrs. Blythe isn’t -home,” said Miss West, sympathetically. “She went to Avonlea to-day and -isn’t coming back till the last of the week.” - -Faith’s lip quivered. - -“Then I might as well go home again,” she said miserably. - -“I suppose so—unless you think you could bring yourself to talk it over -with me instead,” said Miss Rosemary gently. “It _is_ such a help to -talk things over. _I_ know. I don’t suppose I can be as good at -understanding as Mrs. Blythe—but I promise you that I won’t laugh.” - -“You wouldn’t laugh outside,” hesitated Faith. “But you might—inside.” - -“No, I wouldn’t laugh inside, either. Why should I? Something has hurt -you—it never amuses me to see anybody hurt, no matter what hurts them. -If you feel that you’d like to tell me what has hurt you I’ll be glad -to listen. But if you think you’d rather not—that’s all right, too, -dear.” - -Faith took another long, earnest look into Miss West’s eyes. They were -very serious—there was no laughter in them, not even far, far back. -With a little sigh she sat down on the old pine beside her new friend -and told her all about Adam and his cruel fate. - -Rosemary did not laugh or feel like laughing. She understood and -sympathized—really, she was almost as good as Mrs. Blythe—yes, quite as -good. - -“Mr. Perry is a minister, but he should have been a _butcher_,” said -Faith bitterly. “He is so fond of carving things up. He _enjoyed_ -cutting poor Adam to pieces. He just sliced into him as if he were any -common rooster.” - -“Between you and me, Faith, _I_ don’t like Mr. Perry very well myself,” -said Rosemary, laughing a little—but at Mr. Perry, not at Adam, as -Faith clearly understood. “I never did like him. I went to school with -him—he was a Glen boy, you know—and he was a most detestable little -prig even then. Oh, how we girls used to hate holding his fat, clammy -hands in the ring-around games. But we must remember, dear, that he -didn’t know that Adam had been a pet of yours. He thought he _was_ just -a common rooster. We must be just, even when we are terribly hurt.” - -“I suppose so,” admitted Faith. “But why does everybody seem to think -it funny that I should have loved Adam so much, Miss West? If it had -been a horrid old cat nobody would have thought it queer. When Lottie -Warren’s kitten had its legs cut off by the binder everybody was sorry -for her. She cried two days in school and nobody laughed at her, not -even Dan Reese. And all her chums went to the kitten’s funeral and -helped her bury it—only they couldn’t bury its poor little paws with -it, because they couldn’t find them. It was a horrid thing to have -happen, of course, but I don’t think it was as dreadful as seeing your -pet _eaten up_. Yet everybody laughs at _me_.” - -“I think it is because the name ‘rooster’ seems rather a funny one,” -said Rosemary gravely. “There _is_ something in it that is comical. -Now, ‘chicken’ is different. It doesn’t sound so funny to talk of -loving a chicken.” - -“Adam was the dearest little chicken, Miss West. He was just a little -golden ball. He would run up to me and peck out of my hand. And he was -handsome when he grew up, too—white as snow, with such a beautiful -curving white tail, though Mary Vance said it was too short. He knew -his name and always came when I called him—he was a very intelligent -rooster. And Aunt Martha had no right to kill him. He was mine. It -wasn’t fair, was it, Miss West?” - -“No, it wasn’t,” said Rosemary decidedly. “Not a bit fair. I remember I -had a pet hen when I was a little girl. She was such a pretty little -thing—all golden brown and speckly. I loved her as much as I ever loved -any pet. She was never killed—she died of old age. Mother wouldn’t have -her killed because she was my pet.” - -“If _my_ mother had been living she wouldn’t have let Adam be killed,” -said Faith. “For that matter, father wouldn’t have either, if he’d been -home and known of it. I’m _sure_ he wouldn’t, Miss West.” - -“I’m sure, too,” said Rosemary. There was a little added flush on her -face. She looked rather conscious but Faith noticed nothing. - -“Was it _very_ wicked of me not to tell Mr. Perry his coat-tails were -scorching?” she asked anxiously. - -“Oh, terribly wicked,” answered Rosemary, with dancing eyes. “But _I_ -would have been just as naughty, Faith—_I_ wouldn’t have told him they -were scorching—and I don’t believe I would ever have been a bit sorry -for my wickedness, either.” - -“Una thought I should have told him because he was a minister.” - -“Dearest, if a minister doesn’t behave as a gentleman we are not bound -to respect his coat-tails. I know _I_ would just have loved to see -Jimmy Perry’s coat-tails burning up. It must have been fun.” - -Both laughed; but Faith ended with a bitter little sigh. - -“Well, anyway, Adam is dead and I am _never_ going to love anything -again.” - -“Don’t say that, dear. We miss so much out of life if we don’t love. -The more we love the richer life is—even if it is only some little -furry or feathery pet. Would you like a canary, Faith—a little golden -bit of a canary? If you would I’ll give you one. We have two up home.” - -“Oh, I _would_ like that,” cried Faith. “I love birds. Only—would Aunt -Martha’s cat eat it? It’s so _tragic_ to have your pets eaten. I don’t -think I could endure it a second time.” - -“If you hang the cage far enough from the wall I don’t think the cat -could harm it. I’ll tell you just how to take care of it and I’ll bring -it to Ingleside for you the next time I come down.” - -To herself, Rosemary was thinking, - -“It will give every gossip in the Glen something to talk of, but I -_will_ not care. I want to comfort this poor little heart.” - -Faith was comforted. Sympathy and understanding were very sweet. She -and Miss Rosemary sat on the old pine until the twilight crept softly -down over the white valley and the evening star shone over the gray -maple grove. Faith told Rosemary all her small history and hopes, her -likes and dislikes, the ins and outs of life at the manse, the ups and -downs of school society. Finally they parted firm friends. - -Mr. Meredith was, as usual, lost in dreams when supper began that -evening, but presently a name pierced his abstraction and brought him -back to reality. Faith was telling Una of her meeting with Rosemary. - -“She is just lovely, I think,” said Faith. “Just as nice as Mrs. -Blythe—but different. I felt as if I wanted to hug her. She did hug -_me_—such a nice, velvety hug. And she called me ‘dearest.’ It -_thriled_ me. I could tell her _anything_.” - -“So you liked Miss West, Faith?” Mr. Meredith asked, with a rather odd -intonation. - -“I love her,” cried Faith. - -“Ah!” said Mr. Meredith. “Ah!” - - - - -CHAPTER XXI. -THE IMPOSSIBLE WORD - - -John Meredith walked meditatively through the clear crispness of a -winter night in Rainbow Valley. The hills beyond glistened with the -chill splendid lustre of moonlight on snow. Every little fir tree in -the long valley sang its own wild song to the harp of wind and frost. -His children and the Blythe lads and lasses were coasting down the -eastern slope and whizzing over the glassy pond. They were having a -glorious time and their gay voices and gayer laughter echoed up and -down the valley, dying away in elfin cadences among the trees. On the -right the lights of Ingleside gleamed through the maple grove with the -genial lure and invitation which seems always to glow in the beacons of -a home where we know there is love and good-cheer and a welcome for all -kin, whether of flesh or spirit. Mr. Meredith liked very well on -occasion to spend an evening arguing with the doctor by the drift wood -fire, where the famous china dogs of Ingleside kept ceaseless watch and -ward, as became deities of the hearth, but to-night he did not look -that way. Far on the western hill gleamed a paler but more alluring -star. Mr. Meredith was on his way to see Rosemary West, and he meant to -tell her something which had been slowly blossoming in his heart since -their first meeting and had sprung into full flower on the evening when -Faith had so warmly voiced her admiration for Rosemary. - -He had come to realize that he had learned to care for Rosemary. Not as -he had cared for Cecilia, of course. _That_ was entirely different. -That love of romance and dream and glamour could never, he thought, -return. But Rosemary was beautiful and sweet and dear—very dear. She -was the best of companions. He was happier in her company than he had -ever expected to be again. She would be an ideal mistress for his home, -a good mother to his children. - -During the years of his widowhood Mr. Meredith had received innumerable -hints from brother members of Presbytery and from many parishioners who -could not be suspected of any ulterior motive, as well as from some who -could, that he ought to marry again: But these hints never made any -impression on him. It was commonly thought he was never aware of them. -But he was quite acutely aware of them. And in his own occasional -visitations of common sense he knew that the common sensible thing for -him to do was to marry. But common sense was not the strong point of -John Meredith, and to choose out, deliberately and cold-bloodedly, some -“suitable” woman, as one might choose a housekeeper or a business -partner, was something he was quite incapable of doing. How he hated -that word “suitable.” It reminded him so strongly of James Perry. “A -_suit_ able woman of _suit_ able age,” that unctuous brother of the -cloth had said, in his far from subtle hint. For the moment John -Meredith had had a perfectly unbelievable desire to rush madly away and -propose marriage to the youngest, most unsuitable woman it was possible -to discover. - -Mrs. Marshall Elliott was his good friend and he liked her. But when -she had bluntly told him he should marry again he felt as if she had -torn away the veil that hung before some sacred shrine of his innermost -life, and he had been more or less afraid of her ever since. He knew -there were women in his congregation “of suitable age” who would marry -him quite readily. That fact had seeped through all his abstraction -very early in his ministry in Glen St. Mary. They were good, -substantial, uninteresting women, one or two fairly comely, the others -not exactly so and John Meredith would as soon have thought of marrying -any one of them as of hanging himself. He had some ideals to which no -seeming necessity could make him false. He could ask no woman to fill -Cecilia’s place in his home unless he could offer her at least some of -the affection and homage he had given to his girlish bride. And where, -in his limited feminine acquaintance, was such a woman to be found? - -Rosemary West had come into his life on that autumn evening bringing -with her an atmosphere in which his spirit recognized native air. -Across the gulf of strangerhood they clasped hands of friendship. He -knew her better in that ten minutes by the hidden spring than he knew -Emmeline Drew or Elizabeth Kirk or Amy Annetta Douglas in a year, or -could know them, in a century. He had fled to her for comfort when Mrs. -Alec Davis had outraged his mind and soul and had found it. Since then -he had gone often to the house on the hill, slipping through the -shadowy paths of night in Rainbow Valley so astutely that Glen gossip -could never be absolutely certain that he _did_ go to see Rosemary -West. Once or twice he had been caught in the West living room by other -visitors; that was all the Ladies’ Aid had to go by. But when Elizabeth -Kirk heard it she put away a secret hope she had allowed herself to -cherish, without a change of expression on her kind plain face, and -Emmeline Drew resolved that the next time she saw a certain old -bachelor of Lowbridge she would not snub him as she had done at a -previous meeting. Of course, if Rosemary West was out to catch the -minister she would catch him; she looked younger than she was and _men_ -thought her pretty; besides, the West girls had money! - -“It is to be hoped that he won’t be so absent-minded as to propose to -Ellen by mistake,” was the only malicious thing she allowed herself to -say to a sympathetic sister Drew. Emmeline bore no further grudge -towards Rosemary. When all was said and done, an unencumbered bachelor -was far better than a widower with four children. It had been only the -glamour of the manse that had temporarily blinded Emmeline’s eyes to -the better part. - -A sled with three shrieking occupants sped past Mr. Meredith to the -pond. Faith’s long curls streamed in the wind and her laughter rang -above that of the others. John Meredith looked after them kindly and -longingly. He was glad that his children had such chums as the -Blythes—glad that they had so wise and gay and tender a friend as Mrs. -Blythe. But they needed something more, and that something would be -supplied when he brought Rosemary West as a bride to the old manse. -There was in her a quality essentially maternal. - -It was Saturday night and he did not often go calling on Saturday -night, which was supposed to be dedicated to a thoughtful revision of -Sunday’s sermon. But he had chosen this night because he had learned -that Ellen West was going to be away and Rosemary would be alone. Often -as he had spent pleasant evenings in the house on the hill he had -never, since that first meeting at the spring, seen Rosemary alone. -Ellen had always been there. - -He did not precisely object to Ellen being there. He liked Ellen West -very much and they were the best of friends. Ellen had an almost -masculine understanding and a sense of humour which his own shy, hidden -appreciation of fun found very agreeable. He liked her interest in -politics and world events. There was no man in the Glen, not even -excepting Dr. Blythe, who had a better grasp of such things. - -“I think it is just as well to be interested in things as long as you -live,” she had said. “If you’re not, it doesn’t seem to me that there’s -much difference between the quick and the dead.” - -He liked her pleasant, deep, rumbly voice; he liked the hearty laugh -with which she always ended up some jolly and well-told story. She -never gave him digs about his children as other Glen women did; she -never bored him with local gossip; she had no malice and no pettiness. -She was always splendidly sincere. Mr. Meredith, who had picked up Miss -Cornelia’s way of classifying people, considered that Ellen belonged to -the race of Joseph. Altogether, an admirable woman for a sister-in-law. -Nevertheless, a man did not want even the most admirable of women -around when he was proposing to another woman. And Ellen was always -around. She did not insist on talking to Mr. Meredith herself all the -time. She let Rosemary have a fair share of him. Many evenings, indeed, -Ellen effaced herself almost totally, sitting back in the corner with -St. George in her lap, and letting Mr. Meredith and Rosemary talk and -sing and read books together. Sometimes they quite forgot her presence. -But if their conversation or choice of duets ever betrayed the least -tendency to what Ellen considered philandering, Ellen promptly nipped -that tendency in the bud and blotted Rosemary out for the rest of the -evening. But not even the grimmest of amiable dragons can altogether -prevent a certain subtle language of eye and smile and eloquent -silence; and so the minister’s courtship progressed after a fashion. - -But if it was ever to reach a climax that climax must come when Ellen -was away. And Ellen was so seldom away, especially in winter. She found -her own fireside the pleasantest place in the world, she vowed. Gadding -had no attraction for her. She was fond of company but she wanted it at -home. Mr. Meredith had almost been driven to the conclusion that he -must write to Rosemary what he wanted to say, when Ellen casually -announced one evening that she was going to a silver wedding next -Saturday night. She had been bridesmaid when the principals were -married. Only old guests were invited, so Rosemary was not included. -Mr. Meredith pricked up his ears a trifle and a gleam flashed into his -dreamy dark eyes. Both Ellen and Rosemary saw it; and both Ellen and -Rosemary felt, with a tingling shock, that Mr. Meredith would certainly -come up the hill next Saturday night. - -“Might as well have it over with, St. George,” Ellen sternly told the -black cat, after Mr. Meredith had gone home and Rosemary had silently -gone upstairs. “He means to ask her, St. George—I’m perfectly sure of -that. So he might as well have his chance to do it and find out he -can’t get her, George. She’d rather like to take him, Saint. I know -that—but she promised, and she’s got to keep her promise. I’m rather -sorry in some ways, St. George. I don’t know of a man I’d sooner have -for a brother-in-law if a brother-in-law was convenient. I haven’t a -thing against him, Saint—not a thing except that he won’t see and can’t -be made to see that the Kaiser is a menace to the peace of Europe. -That’s _his_ blind spot. But he’s good company and I like him. A woman -can say anything she likes to a man with a mouth like John Meredith’s -and be sure of not being misunderstood. Such a man is more precious -than rubies, Saint—and much rarer, George. But he can’t have -Rosemary—and I suppose when he finds out he can’t have her he’ll drop -us both. And we’ll miss him, Saint—we’ll miss him something scandalous, -George. But she promised, and I’ll see that she keeps her promise!” - -Ellen’s face looked almost ugly in its lowering resolution. Upstairs -Rosemary was crying into her pillow. - -So Mr. Meredith found his lady alone and looking very beautiful. -Rosemary had not made any special toilet for the occasion; she wanted -to, but she thought it would be absurd to dress up for a man you meant -to refuse. So she wore her plain dark afternoon dress and looked like a -queen in it. Her suppressed excitement coloured her face to brilliancy, -her great blue eyes were pools of light less placid than usual. - -She wished the interview were over. She had looked forward to it all -day with dread. She felt quite sure that John Meredith cared a great -deal for her after a fashion—and she felt just as sure that he did not -care for her as he had cared for his first love. She felt that her -refusal would disappoint him considerably, but she did not think it -would altogether overwhelm him. Yet she hated to make it; hated for his -sake and—Rosemary was quite honest with herself—for her own. She knew -she could have loved John Meredith if—if it had been permissible. She -knew that life would be a blank thing if, rejected as lover, he refused -longer to be a friend. She knew that she could be very happy with him -and that she could make him happy. But between her and happiness stood -the prison gate of the promise she had made to Ellen years ago. -Rosemary could not remember her father. He had died when she was only -three years old. Ellen, who had been thirteen, remembered him, but with -no special tenderness. He had been a stern, reserved man many years -older than his fair, pretty wife. Five years later their brother of -twelve died also; since his death the two girls had always lived alone -with their mother. They had never mingled very freely in the social -life of the Glen or Lowbridge, though where they went the wit and -spirit of Ellen and the sweetness and beauty of Rosemary made them -welcome guests. Both had what was called “a disappointment” in their -girlhood. The sea had not given up Rosemary’s lover; and Norman -Douglas, then a handsome, red-haired young giant, noted for wild -driving and noisy though harmless escapades, had quarrelled with Ellen -and left her in a fit of pique. - -There were not lacking candidates for both Martin’s and Norman’s -places, but none seemed to find favour in the eyes of the West girls, -who drifted slowly out of youth and bellehood without any seeming -regret. They were devoted to their mother, who was a chronic invalid. -The three had a little circle of home interests—books and pets and -flowers—which made them happy and contented. - -Mrs. West’s death, which occurred on Rosemary’s twenty-fifth birthday, -was a bitter grief to them. At first they were intolerably lonely. -Ellen, especially, continued to grieve and brood, her long, moody -musings broken only by fits of stormy, passionate weeping. The old -Lowbridge doctor told Rosemary that he feared permanent melancholy or -worse. - -Once, when Ellen had sat all day, refusing either to speak or eat, -Rosemary had flung herself on her knees by her sister’s side. - -“Oh, Ellen, you have me yet,” she said imploringly. “Am I nothing to -you? We have always loved each other so.” - -“I won’t have you always,” Ellen had said, breaking her silence with -harsh intensity. “You will marry and leave me. I shall be left all -alone. I cannot bear the thought—I _cannot_. I would rather die.” - -“I will never marry,” said Rosemary, “never, Ellen.” - -Ellen bent forward and looked searchingly into Rosemary’s eyes. - -“Will you promise me that solemnly?” she said. “Promise it on mother’s -Bible.” - -Rosemary assented at once, quite willing to humour Ellen. What did it -matter? She knew quite well she would never want to marry any one. Her -love had gone down with Martin Crawford to the deeps of the sea; and -without love she could not marry any one. So she promised readily, -though Ellen made rather a fearsome rite of it. They clasped hands over -the Bible, in their mother’s vacant room, and both vowed to each other -that they would never marry and would always live together. - -Ellen’s condition improved from that hour. She soon regained her normal -cheery poise. For ten years she and Rosemary lived in the old house -happily, undisturbed by any thought of marrying or giving in marriage. -Their promise sat very lightly on them. Ellen never failed to remind -her sister of it whenever any eligible male creature crossed their -paths, but she had never been really alarmed until John Meredith came -home that night with Rosemary. As for Rosemary, Ellen’s obsession -regarding that promise had always been a little matter of mirth to -her—until lately. Now, it was a merciless fetter, self-imposed but -never to be shaken off. Because of it to-night she must turn her face -from happiness. - -It was true that the shy, sweet, rosebud love she had given to her -boy-lover she could never give to another. But she knew now that she -could give to John Meredith a love richer and more womanly. She knew -that he touched deeps in her nature that Martin had never touched—that -had not, perhaps, been in the girl of seventeen to touch. And she must -send him away to-night—send him back to his lonely hearth and his empty -life and his heart-breaking problems, because she had promised Ellen, -ten years before, on their mother’s Bible, that she would never marry. - -John Meredith did not immediately grasp his opportunity. On the -contrary, he talked for two good hours on the least lover-like of -subjects. He even tried politics, though politics always bored -Rosemary. The later began to think that she had been altogether -mistaken, and her fears and expectations suddenly seemed to her -grotesque. She felt flat and foolish. The glow went out of her face and -the lustre out of her eyes. John Meredith had not the slightest -intention of asking her to marry him. - -And then, quite suddenly, he rose, came across the room, and standing -by her chair, he asked it. The room had grown terribly still. Even St. -George ceased to purr. Rosemary heard her own heart beating and was -sure John Meredith must hear it too. - -Now was the time for her to say no, gently but firmly. She had been -ready for days with her stilted, regretful little formula. And now the -words of it had completely vanished from her mind. She had to say -no—and she suddenly found she could not say it. It was the impossible -word. She knew now that it was not that she _could_ have loved John -Meredith, but that she _did_ love him. The thought of putting him from -her life was agony. - -She must say _something;_ she lifted her bowed golden head and asked -him stammeringly to give her a few days for—for consideration. - -John Meredith was a little surprised. He was not vainer than any man -has a right to be, but he had expected that Rosemary West would say -yes. He had been tolerably sure she cared for him. Then why this -doubt—this hesitation? She was not a school girl to be uncertain as to -her own mind. He felt an ugly shock of disappointment and dismay. But -he assented to her request with his unfailing gentle courtesy and went -away at once. - -“I will tell you in a few days,” said Rosemary, with downcast eyes and -burning face. - -When the door shut behind him she went back into the room and wrung her -hands. - - - - -CHAPTER XXII. -ST. GEORGE KNOWS ALL ABOUT IT - - -At midnight Ellen West was walking home from the Pollock silver -wedding. She had stayed a little while after the other guests had gone, -to help the gray-haired bride wash the dishes. The distance between the -two houses was not far and the road good, so that Ellen was enjoying -the walk back home in the moonlight. - -The evening had been a pleasant one. Ellen, who had not been to a party -for years, found it very pleasant. All the guests had been members of -her old set and there was no intrusive youth to spoil the flavour, for -the only son of the bride and groom was far away at college and could -not be present. Norman Douglas had been there and they had met socially -for the first time in years, though she had seen him once or twice in -church that winter. Not the least sentiment was awakened in Ellen’s -heart by their meeting. She was accustomed to wonder, when she thought -about it at all, how she could ever have fancied him or felt so badly -over his sudden marriage. But she had rather liked meeting him again. -She had forgotten how bracing and stimulating he could be. No gathering -was ever stagnant when Norman Douglas was present. Everybody had been -surprised when Norman came. It was well known he never went anywhere. -The Pollocks had invited him because he had been one of the original -guests, but they never thought he would come. He had taken his second -cousin, Amy Annetta Douglas, out to supper and seemed rather attentive -to her. But Ellen sat across the table from him and had a spirited -argument with him—an argument during which all his shouting and banter -could not fluster her and in which she came off best, flooring Norman -so composedly and so completely that he was silent for ten minutes. At -the end of which time he had muttered in his ruddy beard—“spunky as -ever—spunky as ever”—and began to hector Amy Annetta, who giggled -foolishly over his sallies where Ellen would have retorted bitingly. - -Ellen thought these things over as she walked home, tasting them with -reminiscent relish. The moonlit air sparkled with frost. The snow -crisped under her feet. Below her lay the Glen with the white harbour -beyond. There was a light in the manse study. So John Meredith had gone -home. Had he asked Rosemary to marry him? And after what fashion had -she made her refusal known? Ellen felt that she would never know this, -though she was quite curious. She was sure Rosemary would never tell -her anything about it and she would not dare to ask. She must just be -content with the fact of the refusal. After all, that was the only -thing that really mattered. - -“I hope he’ll have sense enough to come back once in a while and be -friendly,” she said to herself. She disliked so much to be alone that -thinking aloud was one of her devices for circumventing unwelcome -solitude. “It’s awful never to have a man-body with some brains to talk -to once in a while. And like as not he’ll never come near the house -again. There’s Norman Douglas, too—I like that man, and I’d like to -have a good rousing argument with him now and then. But he’d never dare -come up for fear people would think he was courting me again—for fear -_I’d_ think it, too, most likely—though he’s more a stranger to me now -than John Meredith. It seems like a dream that we could ever have been -beaus. But there it is—there’s only two men in the Glen I’d ever want -to talk to—and what with gossip and this wretched love-making business -it’s not likely I’ll ever see either of them again. I could,” said -Ellen, addressing the unmoved stars with a spiteful emphasis, “I could -have made a better world myself.” - -She paused at her gate with a sudden vague feeling of alarm. There was -still a light in the living-room and to and fro across the -window-shades went the shadow of a woman walking restlessly up and -down. What was Rosemary doing up at this hour of the night? And why was -she striding about like a lunatic? - -Ellen went softly in. As she opened the hall door Rosemary came out of -the room. She was flushed and breathless. An atmosphere of stress and -passion hung about her like a garment. - -“Why aren’t you in bed, Rosemary?” demanded Ellen. - -“Come in here,” said Rosemary intensely. “I want to tell you -something.” - -Ellen composedly removed her wraps and overshoes, and followed her -sister into the warm, fire-lighted room. She stood with her hand on the -table and waited. She was looking very handsome herself, in her own -grim, black-browed style. The new black velvet dress, with its train -and V-neck, which she had made purposely for the party, became her -stately, massive figure. She wore coiled around her neck the rich heavy -necklace of amber beads which was a family heirloom. Her walk in the -frosty air had stung her cheeks into a glowing scarlet. But her -steel-blue eyes were as icy and unyielding as the sky of the winter -night. She stood waiting in a silence which Rosemary could break only -by a convulsive effort. - -“Ellen, Mr. Meredith was here this evening.” - -“Yes?” - -“And—and—he asked me to marry him.” - -“So I expected. Of course, you refused him?” - -“No.” - -“Rosemary.” Ellen clenched her hands and took an involuntary step -forward. “Do you mean to tell me that you accepted him?” - -“No—no.” - -Ellen recovered her self-command. - -“What _did_ you do then?” - -“I—I asked him to give me a few days to think it over.” - -“I hardly see why that was necessary,” said Ellen, coldly contemptuous, -“when there is only the one answer you can make him.” - -Rosemary held out her hands beseechingly. - -“Ellen,” she said desperately, “I love John Meredith—I want to be his -wife. Will you set me free from that promise?” - -“No,” said Ellen, merciless, because she was sick from fear. - -“Ellen—Ellen—” - -“Listen,” interrupted Ellen. “I did not ask you for that promise. You -offered it.” - -“I know—I know. But I did not think then that I could ever care for -anyone again.” - -“You offered it,” went on Ellen unmovably. “You promised it over our -mother’s Bible. It was more than a promise—it was an oath. Now you want -to break it.” - -“I only asked you to set me free from it, Ellen.” - -“I will not do it. A promise is a promise in my eyes. I will not do it. -Break your promise—be forsworn if you will—but it shall not be with any -assent of mine.” - -“You are very hard on me, Ellen.” - -“Hard on you! And what of me? Have you ever given a thought to what my -loneliness would be here if you left me? I could not bear it—I would go -crazy. I _cannot_ live alone. Haven’t I been a good sister to you? Have -I ever opposed any wish of yours? Haven’t I indulged you in -everything?” - -“Yes—yes.” - -“Then why do you want to leave me for this man whom you hadn’t seen a -year ago?” - -“I love him, Ellen.” - -“Love! You talk like a school miss instead of a middle-aged woman. He -doesn’t love you. He wants a housekeeper and a governess. You don’t -love him. You want to be ‘Mrs.’—you are one of those weak-minded women -who think it’s a disgrace to be ranked as an old maid. That’s all there -is to it.” - -Rosemary quivered. Ellen could not, or would not, understand. There was -no use arguing with her. - -“So you won’t release me, Ellen?” - -“No, I won’t. And I won’t talk of it again. You promised and you’ve got -to keep your word. That’s all. Go to bed. Look at the time! You’re all -romantic and worked up. To-morrow you’ll be more sensible. At any rate, -don’t let me hear any more of this nonsense. Go.” - -Rosemary went without another word, pale and spiritless. Ellen walked -stormily about the room for a few minutes, then paused before the chair -where St. George had been calmly sleeping through the whole evening. A -reluctant smile overspread her dark face. There had been only one time -in her life—the time of her mother’s death—when Ellen had not been able -to temper tragedy with comedy. Even in that long ago bitterness, when -Norman Douglas had, after a fashion, jilted her, she had laughed at -herself quite as often as she had cried. - -“I expect there’ll be some sulking, St. George. Yes, Saint, I expect we -are in for a few unpleasant foggy days. Well, we’ll weather them -through, George. We’ve dealt with foolish children before, Saint. -Rosemary’ll sulk a while—and then she’ll get over it—and all will be as -before, George. She promised—and she’s got to keep her promise. And -that’s the last word on the subject I’ll say to you or her or anyone, -Saint.” - -But Ellen lay savagely awake till morning. - -There was no sulking, however. Rosemary was pale and quiet the next -day, but beyond that Ellen could detect no difference in her. -Certainly, she seemed to bear Ellen no grudge. It was stormy, so no -mention was made of going to church. In the afternoon Rosemary shut -herself in her room and wrote a note to John Meredith. She could not -trust herself to say “no” in person. She felt quite sure that if he -suspected she was saying “no” reluctantly he would not take it for an -answer, and she could not face pleading or entreaty. She must make him -think she cared nothing at all for him and she could do that only by -letter. She wrote him the stiffest, coolest little refusal imaginable. -It was barely courteous; it certainly left no loophole of hope for the -boldest lover—and John Meredith was anything but that. He shrank into -himself, hurt and mortified, when he read Rosemary’s letter next day in -his dusty study. But under his mortification a dreadful realization -presently made itself felt. He had thought he did not love Rosemary as -deeply as he had loved Cecilia. Now, when he had lost her, he knew that -he did. She was everything to him—everything! And he must put her out -of his life completely. Even friendship was impossible now. Life -stretched before him in intolerable dreariness. He must go on—there was -his work—his children—but the heart had gone out of him. He sat alone -all that evening in his dark, cold, comfortless study with his head -bowed on his hands. Up on the hill Rosemary had a headache and went -early to bed, while Ellen remarked to St. George, purring his disdain -of foolish humankind, who did not know that a soft cushion was the only -thing that really mattered, - -“What would women do if headaches had never been invented, St. George? -But never mind, Saint. We’ll just wink the other eye for a few weeks. I -admit I don’t feel comfortable myself, George. I feel as if I had -drowned a kitten. But she promised, Saint—and she was the one to offer -it, George. Bismillah!” - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII. -THE GOOD-CONDUCT CLUB - - -A light rain had been falling all day—a little, delicate, beautiful -spring rain, that somehow seemed to hint and whisper of mayflowers and -wakening violets. The harbour and the gulf and the low-lying shore -fields had been dim with pearl-gray mists. But now in the evening the -rain had ceased and the mists had blown out to sea. Clouds sprinkled -the sky over the harbour like little fiery roses. Beyond it the hills -were dark against a spendthrift splendour of daffodil and crimson. A -great silvery evening star was watching over the bar. A brisk, dancing, -new-sprung wind was blowing up from Rainbow Valley, resinous with the -odours of fir and damp mosses. It crooned in the old spruces around the -graveyard and ruffled Faith’s splendid curls as she sat on Hezekiah -Pollock’s tombstone with her arms round Mary Vance and Una. Carl and -Jerry were sitting opposite them on another tombstone and all were -rather full of mischief after being cooped up all day. - -“The air just _shines_ to-night, doesn’t it? It’s been washed so clean, -you see,” said Faith happily. - -Mary Vance eyed her gloomily. Knowing what she knew, or fancied she -knew, Mary considered that Faith was far too light-hearted. Mary had -something on her mind to say and she meant to say it before she went -home. Mrs. Elliott had sent her up to the manse with some new-laid -eggs, and had told her not to stay longer than half an hour. The half -hour was nearly up, so Mary uncurled her cramped legs from under her -and said abruptly, - -“Never mind about the air. Just you listen to me. You manse young ones -have just got to behave yourselves better than you’ve been doing this -spring—that’s all there is to it. I just come up to-night a-purpose to -tell you so. The way people are talking about you is awful.” - -“What have we been doing now?” cried Faith in amazement, pulling her -arm away from Mary. Una’s lips trembled and her sensitive little soul -shrank within her. Mary was always so brutally frank. Jerry began to -whistle out of bravado. He meant to let Mary see he didn’t care for -_her_ tirades. Their behaviour was no business of _hers_ anyway. What -right had _she_ to lecture them on their conduct? - -“Doing now! You’re doing _all_ the time,” retorted Mary. “Just as soon -as the talk about one of your didos fades away you do something else to -start it up again. It seems to me you haven’t any idea of how manse -children ought to behave!” - -“Maybe _you_ can tell us,” said Jerry, killingly sarcastic. - -Sarcasm was quite thrown away on Mary. - -“_I_ can tell you what will happen if you don’t learn to behave -yourselves. The session will ask your father to resign. There now, -Master Jerry-know-it-all. Mrs. Alec Davis said so to Mrs. Elliott. I -heard her. I always have my ears pricked up when Mrs. Alec Davis comes -to tea. She said you were all going from bad to worse and that though -it was only what was to be expected when you had nobody to bring you -up, still the congregation couldn’t be expected to put up with it much -longer, and something would have to be done. The Methodists just laugh -and laugh at you, and that hurts the Presbyterian feelings. _She_ says -you all need a good dose of birch tonic. Lor’, if that would make folks -good _I_ oughter be a young saint. I’m not telling you this because I -want to hurt _your_ feelings. I’m sorry for you”—Mary was past mistress -of the gentle art of condescension. “_I_ understand that you haven’t -much chance, the way things are. But other people don’t make as much -allowance as _I_ do. Miss Drew says Carl had a frog in his pocket in -Sunday School last Sunday and it hopped out while she was hearing the -lesson. She says she’s going to give up the class. Why don’t you keep -your insecks home?” - -“I popped it right back in again,” said Carl. “It didn’t hurt anybody—a -poor little frog! And I wish old Jane Drew _would_ give up our class. I -hate her. Her own nephew had a dirty plug of tobacco in his pocket and -offered us fellows a chew when Elder Clow was praying. I guess that’s -worse than a frog.” - -“No, ‘cause frogs are more unexpected-like. They make more of a -sensation. ‘Sides, he wasn’t caught at it. And then that praying -competition you had last week has made a fearful scandal. Everybody is -talking about it.” - -“Why, the Blythes were in that as well as us,” cried Faith, -indignantly. “It was Nan Blythe who suggested it in the first place. -And Walter took the prize.” - -“Well, you get the credit of it any way. It wouldn’t have been so bad -if you hadn’t had it in the graveyard.” - -“I should think a graveyard was a very good place to pray in,” retorted -Jerry. - -“Deacon Hazard drove past when _you_ were praying,” said Mary, “and he -saw and heard you, with your hands folded over your stomach, and -groaning after every sentence. He thought you were making fun of -_him_.” - -“So I was,” declared unabashed Jerry. “Only I didn’t know he was going -by, of course. That was just a mean accident. _I_ wasn’t praying in -real earnest—I knew I had no chance of winning the prize. So I was just -getting what fun I could out of it. Walter Blythe can pray bully. Why, -he can pray as well as dad.” - -“Una is the only one of US who really likes praying,” said Faith -pensively. - -“Well, if praying scandalizes people so much we mustn’t do it any -more,” sighed Una. - -“Shucks, you can pray all you want to, only not in the graveyard—and -don’t make a game of it. That was what made it so bad—that, and having -a tea-party on the tombstones.” - -“We hadn’t.” - -“Well, a soap-bubble party then. You had _something_. The over-harbour -people swear you had a tea-party, but I’m willing to take your word. -And you used this tombstone as a table.” - -“Well, Martha wouldn’t let us blow bubbles in the house. She was awful -cross that day,” explained Jerry. “And this old slab made such a jolly -table.” - -“Weren’t they pretty?” cried Faith, her eyes sparkling over the -remembrance. “They reflected the trees and the hills and the harbour -like little fairy worlds, and when we shook them loose they floated -away down to Rainbow Valley.” - -“All but one and it went over and bust up on the Methodist spire,” said -Carl. - -“I’m glad we did it once, anyhow, before we found out it was wrong,” -said Faith. - -“It wouldn’t have been wrong to blow them on the lawn,” said Mary -impatiently. “Seems like I can’t knock any sense into your heads. -You’ve been told often enough you shouldn’t play in the graveyard. The -Methodists are sensitive about it.” - -“We forget,” said Faith dolefully. “And the lawn is so small—and so -caterpillary—and so full of shrubs and things. We can’t be in Rainbow -Valley all the time—and where are we to go?” - -“It’s the things you _do_ in the graveyard. It wouldn’t matter if you -just sat here and talked quiet, same as we’re doing now. Well, I don’t -know what is going to come of it all, but I _do_ know that Elder Warren -is going to speak to your pa about it. Deacon Hazard is his cousin.” - -“I wish they wouldn’t bother father about us,” said Una. - -“Well, people think he ought to bother himself about you a little more. -_I_ don’t—_I_ understand him. He’s a child in some ways himself—that’s -what he is, and needs some one to look after him as bad as you do. -Well, perhaps he’ll have some one before long, if all tales is true.” - -“What do you mean?” asked Faith. - -“Haven’t you got any idea—honest?” demanded Mary. - -“No, no. What _do_ you mean?” - -“Well, you are a lot of innocents, upon my word. Why, _every_body is -talking of it. Your pa goes to see Rosemary West. _She_ is going to be -your step-ma.” - -“I don’t believe it,” cried Una, flushing crimson. - -“Well, _I_ dunno. I just go by what folks say. _I_ don’t give it for a -fact. But it would be a good thing. Rosemary West’d make you toe the -mark if she came here, I’ll bet a cent, for all she’s so sweet and -smiley on the face of her. They’re always that way till they’ve caught -them. But you need some one to bring you up. You’re disgracing your pa -and I feel for him. I’ve always thought an awful lot of your pa ever -since that night he talked to me so nice. I’ve never said a single -swear word since, or told a lie. And I’d like to see him happy and -comfortable, with his buttons on and his meals decent, and you young -ones licked into shape, and that old cat of a Martha put in _her_ -proper place. The way she looked at the eggs I brought her to-night. ‘I -hope they’re fresh,’ says she. I just wished they _was_ rotten. But you -just mind that she gives you all one for breakfast, including your pa. -Make a fuss if she doesn’t. That was what they was sent up for—but I -don’t trust old Martha. She’s quite capable of feeding ‘em to her cat.” - -Mary’s tongue being temporarily tired, a brief silence fell over the -graveyard. The manse children did not feel like talking. They were -digesting the new and not altogether palatable ideas Mary had suggested -to them. Jerry and Carl were somewhat startled. But, after all, what -did it matter? And it wasn’t likely there was a word of truth in it. -Faith, on the whole, was pleased. Only Una was seriously upset. She -felt that she would like to get away and cry. - -“Will there be any stars in my crown?” sang the Methodist choir, -beginning to practise in the Methodist church. - -“_I_ want just three,” said Mary, whose theological knowledge had -increased notably since her residence with Mrs. Elliott. “Just -three—setting up on my head, like a corownet, a big one in the middle -and a small one each side.” - -“Are there different sizes in souls?” asked Carl. - -“Of course. Why, little babies must have smaller ones than big men. -Well, it’s getting dark and I must scoot home. Mrs. Elliott doesn’t -like me to be out after dark. Laws, when I lived with Mrs. Wiley the -dark was just the same as the daylight to me. I didn’t mind it no -more’n a gray cat. Them days seem a hundred years ago. Now, you mind -what I’ve said and try to behave yourselves, for you pa’s sake. _I’ll_ -always back you up and defend you—you can be dead sure of that. Mrs. -Elliott says she never saw the like of me for sticking up for my -friends. I was real sassy to Mrs. Alec Davis about you and Mrs. Elliott -combed me down for it afterwards. The fair Cornelia has a tongue of her -own and no mistake. But she was pleased underneath for all, ‘cause she -hates old Kitty Alec and she’s real fond of you. _I_ can see through -folks.” - -Mary sailed off, excellently well pleased with herself, leaving a -rather depressed little group behind her. - -“Mary Vance always says something that makes us feel bad when she comes -up,” said Una resentfully. - -“I wish we’d left her to starve in the old barn,” said Jerry -vindictively. - -“Oh, that’s wicked, Jerry,” rebuked Una. - -“May as well have the game as the name,” retorted unrepentant Jerry. -“If people say we’re so bad let’s _be_ bad.” - -“But not if it hurts father,” pleaded Faith. - -Jerry squirmed uncomfortably. He adored his father. Through the -unshaded study window they could see Mr. Meredith at his desk. He did -not seem to be either reading or writing. His head was in his hands and -there was something in his whole attitude that spoke of weariness and -dejection. The children suddenly felt it. - -“I dare say somebody’s been worrying him about us to-day,” said Faith. -“I wish we _could_ get along without making people talk. Oh—Jem Blythe! -How you scared me!” - -Jem Blythe had slipped into the graveyard and sat down beside the -girls. He had been prowling about Rainbow Valley and had succeeded in -finding the first little star-white cluster of arbutus for his mother. -The manse children were rather silent after his coming. Jem was -beginning to grow away from them somewhat this spring. He was studying -for the entrance examination of Queen’s Academy and stayed after school -with the older pupils for extra lessons. Also, his evenings were so -full of work that he seldom joined the others in Rainbow Valley now. He -seemed to be drifting away into grown-up land. - -“What is the matter with you all to-night?” he asked. “There’s no fun -in you.” - -“Not much,” agreed Faith dolefully. “There wouldn’t be much fun in you -either if _you_ knew you were disgracing your father and making people -talk about you.” - -“Who’s been talking about you now?” - -“Everybody—so Mary Vance says.” And Faith poured out her troubles to -sympathetic Jem. “You see,” she concluded dolefully, “we’ve nobody to -bring us up. And so we get into scrapes and people think we’re bad.” - -“Why don’t you bring yourselves up?” suggested Jem. “I’ll tell you what -to do. Form a Good-Conduct Club and punish yourselves every time you do -anything that’s not right.” - -“That’s a good idea,” said Faith, struck by it. “But,” she added -doubtfully, “things that don’t seem a bit of harm to US seem simply -dreadful to other people. How can we tell? We can’t be bothering father -all the time—and he has to be away a lot, anyhow.” - -“You could mostly tell if you stopped to think a thing over before -doing it and ask yourselves what the congregation would say about it,” -said Jem. “The trouble is you just rush into things and don’t think -them over at all. Mother says you’re all too impulsive, just as she -used to be. The Good-Conduct Club would help you to think, if you were -fair and honest about punishing yourselves when you broke the rules. -You’d have to punish in some way that really _hurt_, or it wouldn’t do -any good.” - -“Whip each other?” - -“Not exactly. You’d have to think up different ways of punishment to -suit the person. You wouldn’t punish each other—you’d punish -_yourselves_. I read all about such a club in a story-book. You try it -and see how it works.” - -“Let’s,” said Faith; and when Jem was gone they agreed they would. “If -things aren’t right we’ve just got to make them right,” said Faith, -resolutely. - -“We’ve got to be fair and square, as Jem says,” said Jerry. “This is a -club to bring ourselves up, seeing there’s nobody else to do it. -There’s no use in having many rules. Let’s just have one and any of us -that breaks it has got to be punished hard.” - -“But _how_.” - -“We’ll think that up as we go along. We’ll hold a session of the club -here in the graveyard every night and talk over what we’ve done through -the day, and if we think we’ve done anything that isn’t right or that -would disgrace dad the one that does it, or is responsible for it, must -be punished. That’s the rule. We’ll all decide on the kind of -punishment—it must be made to fit the crime, as Mr. Flagg says. And the -one that’s, guilty will be bound to carry it out and no shirking. -There’s going to be fun in this,” concluded Jerry, with a relish. - -“You suggested the soap-bubble party,” said Faith. - -“But that was before we’d formed the club,” said Jerry hastily. -“Everything starts from to-night.” - -“But what if we can’t agree on what’s right, or what the punishment -ought to be? S’pose two of us thought of one thing and two another. -There ought to be five in a club like this.” - -“We can ask Jem Blythe to be umpire. He is the squarest boy in Glen St. -Mary. But I guess we can settle our own affairs mostly. We want to keep -this as much of a secret as we can. Don’t breathe a word to Mary Vance. -She’d want to join and do the bringing up.” - -“_I_ think,” said Faith, “that there’s no use in spoiling every day by -dragging punishments in. Let’s have a punishment day.” - -“We’d better choose Saturday because there is no school to interfere,” -suggested Una. - -“And spoil the one holiday in the week,” cried Faith. “Not much! No, -let’s take Friday. That’s fish day, anyhow, and we all hate fish. We -may as well have all the disagreeable things in one day. Then other -days we can go ahead and have a good time.” - -“Nonsense,” said Jerry authoritatively. “Such a scheme wouldn’t work at -all. We’ll just punish ourselves as we go along and keep a clear slate. -Now, we all understand, don’t we? This is a Good-Conduct Club, for the -purpose of bringing ourselves up. We agree to punish ourselves for bad -conduct, and always to stop before we do anything, no matter what, and -ask ourselves if it is likely to hurt dad in any way, and any one who -shirks is to be cast out of the club and never allowed to play with the -rest of us in Rainbow Valley again. Jem Blythe to be umpire in case of -disputes. No more taking bugs to Sunday School, Carl, and no more -chewing gum in public, if you please, Miss Faith.” - -“No more making fun of elders praying or going to the Methodist prayer -meeting,” retorted Faith. - -“Why, it isn’t any harm to go to the Methodist prayer meeting,” -protested Jerry in amazement. - -“Mrs. Elliott says it is, She says manse children have no business to -go anywhere but to Presbyterian things.” - -“Darn it, I won’t give up going to the Methodist prayer meeting,” cried -Jerry. “It’s ten times more fun than ours is.” - -“You said a naughty word,” cried Faith. “_Now_, you’ve got to punish -yourself.” - -“Not till it’s all down in black and white. We’re only talking the club -over. It isn’t really formed until we’ve written it out and signed it. -There’s got to be a constitution and by-laws. And you _know_ there’s -nothing wrong in going to a prayer meeting.” - -“But it’s not only the wrong things we’re to punish ourselves for, but -anything that might hurt father.” - -“It won’t hurt anybody. You know Mrs. Elliott is cracked on the subject -of Methodists. Nobody else makes any fuss about my going. I always -behave myself. You ask Jem or Mrs. Blythe and see what they say. I’ll -abide by their opinion. I’m going for the paper now and I’ll bring out -the lantern and we’ll all sign.” - -Fifteen minutes later the document was solemnly signed on Hezekiah -Pollock’s tombstone, on the centre of which stood the smoky manse -lantern, while the children knelt around it. Mrs. Elder Clow was going -past at the moment and next day all the Glen heard that the manse -children had been having another praying competition and had wound it -up by chasing each other all over the graves with a lantern. This piece -of embroidery was probably suggested by the fact that, after the -signing and sealing was completed, Carl had taken the lantern and had -walked circumspectly to the little hollow to examine his ant-hill. The -others had gone quietly into the manse and to bed. - -“Do you think it is true that father is going to marry Miss West?” Una -had tremulously asked of Faith, after their prayers had been said. - -“I don’t know, but I’d like it,” said Faith. - -“Oh, I wouldn’t,” said Una, chokingly. “She is nice the way she is. But -Mary Vance says it changes people _altogether_ to be made stepmothers. -They get horrid cross and mean and hateful then, and turn your father -against you. She says they’re sure to do that. She never knew it to -fail in a single case.” - -“I don’t believe Miss West would _ever_ try to do that,” cried Faith. - -“Mary says _anybody_ would. She knows _all_ about stepmothers, -Faith—she says she’s seen hundreds of them—and you’ve never seen one. -Oh, Mary has told me blood-curdling things about them. She says she -knew of one who whipped her husband’s little girls on their bare -shoulders till they bled, and then shut them up in a cold, dark coal -cellar all night. She says they’re _all_ aching to do things like -that.” - -“I don’t believe Miss West would. You don’t know her as well as I do, -Una. Just think of that sweet little bird she sent me. I love it far -more even than Adam.” - -“It’s just being a stepmother changes them. Mary says they can’t help -it. I wouldn’t mind the whippings so much as having father hate us.” - -“You know nothing could make father hate us. Don’t be silly, Una. I -dare say there’s nothing to worry over. Likely if we run our club right -and bring ourselves up properly father won’t think of marrying any one. -And if he does, I _know_ Miss West will be lovely to us.” - -But Una had no such conviction and she cried herself to sleep. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV. -A CHARITABLE IMPULSE - - -For a fortnight things ran smoothly in the Good-Conduct Club. It seemed -to work admirably. Not once was Jem Blythe called in as umpire. Not -once did any of the manse children set the Glen gossips by the ears. As -for their minor peccadilloes at home, they kept sharp tabs on each -other and gamely underwent their self-imposed punishment—generally a -voluntary absence from some gay Friday night frolic in Rainbow Valley, -or a sojourn in bed on some spring evening when all young bones ached -to be out and away. Faith, for whispering in Sunday School, condemned -herself to pass a whole day without speaking a single word, unless it -was absolutely necessary, and accomplished it. It was rather -unfortunate that Mr. Baker from over-harbour should have chosen that -evening for calling at the manse, and that Faith should have happened -to go to the door. Not one word did she reply to his genial greeting, -but went silently away to call her father briefly. Mr. Baker was -slightly offended and told his wife when he went home that that the -biggest Meredith girl seemed a very shy, sulky little thing, without -manners enough to speak when she was spoken to. But nothing worse came -of it, and generally their penances did no harm to themselves or -anybody else. All of them were beginning to feel quite cocksure that -after all, it was a very easy matter to bring yourself up. - -“I guess people will soon see that we can behave ourselves properly as -well as anybody,” said Faith jubilantly. “It isn’t hard when we put our -minds to it.” - -She and Una were sitting on the Pollock tombstone. It had been a cold, -raw, wet day of spring storm and Rainbow Valley was out of the question -for girls, though the manse and the Ingleside boys were down there -fishing. The rain had held up, but the east wind blew mercilessly in -from the sea, cutting to bone and marrow. Spring was late in spite of -its early promise, and there was even yet a hard drift of old snow and -ice in the northern corner of the graveyard. Lida Marsh, who had come -up to bring the manse a mess of herring, slipped in through the gate -shivering. She belonged to the fishing village at the harbour mouth and -her father had, for thirty years, made a practice of sending a mess -from his first spring catch to the manse. He never darkened a church -door; he was a hard drinker and a reckless man, but as long as he sent -those herring up to the manse every spring, as his father had done -before him, he felt comfortably sure that his account with the Powers -That Govern was squared for the year. He would not have expected a good -mackerel catch if he had not so sent the first fruits of the season. - -Lida was a mite of ten and looked younger, because she was such a -small, wizened little creature. To-night, as she sidled boldly enough -up to the manse girls, she looked as if she had never been warm since -she was born. Her face was purple and her pale-blue, bold little eyes -were red and watery. She wore a tattered print dress and a ragged -woollen comforter, tied across her thin shoulders and under her arms. -She had walked the three miles from the harbour mouth barefooted, over -a road where there was still snow and slush and mud. Her feet and legs -were as purple as her face. But Lida did not mind this much. She was -used to being cold, and she had been going barefooted for a month -already, like all the other swarming young fry of the fishing village. -There was no self-pity in her heart as she sat down on the tombstone -and grinned cheerfully at Faith and Una. Faith and Una grinned -cheerfully back. They knew Lida slightly, having met her once or twice -the preceding summer when they had gone down the harbour with the -Blythes. - -“Hello!” said Lida, “ain’t this a fierce kind of a night? ‘T’ain’t fit -for a dog to be out, is it?” - -“Then why are you out?” asked Faith. - -“Pa made me bring you up some herring,” returned Lida. She shivered, -coughed, and stuck out her bare feet. Lida was not thinking about -herself or her feet, and was making no bid for sympathy. She held her -feet out instinctively to keep them from the wet grass around the -tombstone. But Faith and Una were instantly swamped with a wave of pity -for her. She looked so cold—so miserable. - -“Oh, why are you barefooted on such a cold night?” cried Faith. “Your -feet must be almost frozen.” - -“Pretty near,” said Lida proudly. “I tell you it was fierce walking up -that harbour road.” - -“Why didn’t you put on your shoes and stockings?” asked Una. - -“Hain’t none to put on. All I had was wore out by the time winter was -over,” said Lida indifferently. - -For a moment Faith stated in horror. This was terrible. Here was a -little girl, almost a neighbour, half frozen because she had no shoes -or stockings in this cruel spring weather. Impulsive Faith thought of -nothing but the dreadfulness of it. In a moment she was pulling off her -own shoes and stockings. - -“Here, take these and put them right on,” she said, forcing them into -the hands of the astonished Lida. “Quick now. You’ll catch your death -of cold. I’ve got others. Put them right on.” - -Lida, recovering her wits, snatched at the offered gift, with a sparkle -in her dull eyes. Sure she would put them on, and that mighty quick, -before any one appeared with authority to recall them. In a minute she -had pulled the stockings over her scrawny little legs and slipped -Faith’s shoes over her thick little ankles. - -“I’m obliged to you,” she said, “but won’t your folks be cross?” - -“No—and I don’t care if they are,” said Faith. “Do you think I could -see any one freezing to death without helping them if I could? It -wouldn’t be right, especially when my father’s a minister.” - -“Will you want them back? It’s awful cold down at the harbour -mouth—long after it’s warm up here,” said Lida slyly. - -“No, you’re to keep them, of course. That is what I meant when I gave -them. I have another pair of shoes and plenty of stockings.” - -Lida had meant to stay awhile and talk to the girls about many things. -But now she thought she had better get away before somebody came and -made her yield up her booty. So she shuffled off through the bitter -twilight, in the noiseless, shadowy way she had slipped in. As soon as -she was out of sight of the manse she sat down, took off the shoes and -stockings, and put them in her herring basket. She had no intention of -keeping them on down that dirty harbour road. They were to be kept good -for gala occasions. Not another little girl down at the harbour mouth -had such fine black cashmere stockings and such smart, almost new -shoes. Lida was furnished forth for the summer. She had no qualms in -the matter. In her eyes the manse people were quite fabulously rich, -and no doubt those girls had slathers of shoes and stockings. Then Lida -ran down to the Glen village and played for an hour with the boys -before Mr. Flagg’s store, splashing about in a pool of slush with the -maddest of them, until Mrs. Elliott came along and bade her begone -home. - -“I don’t think, Faith, that you should have done that,” said Una, a -little reproachfully, after Lida had gone. “You’ll have to wear your -good boots every day now and they’ll soon scuff out.” - -“I don’t care,” cried Faith, still in the fine glow of having done a -kindness to a fellow creature. “It isn’t fair that I should have two -pairs of shoes and poor little Lida Marsh not have any. _Now_ we both -have a pair. You know perfectly well, Una, that father said in his -sermon last Sunday that there was no real happiness in getting or -having—only in giving. And it’s true. I feel _far_ happier now than I -ever did in my whole life before. Just think of Lida walking home this -very minute with her poor little feet all nice and warm and comfy.” - -“You know you haven’t another pair of black cashmere stockings,” said -Una. “Your other pair were so full of holes that Aunt Martha said she -couldn’t darn them any more and she cut the legs up for stove dusters. -You’ve nothing but those two pairs of striped stockings you hate so.” - -All the glow and uplift went out of Faith. Her gladness collapsed like -a pricked balloon. She sat for a few dismal minutes in silence, facing -the consequences of her rash act. - -“Oh, Una, I never thought of that,” she said dolefully. “I didn’t stop -to think at all.” - -The striped stockings were thick, heavy, coarse, ribbed stockings of -blue and red which Aunt Martha had knit for Faith in the winter. They -were undoubtedly hideous. Faith loathed them as she had never loathed -anything before. Wear them she certainly would not. They were still -unworn in her bureau drawer. - -“You’ll have to wear the striped stockings after this,” said Una. “Just -think how the boys in school will laugh at you. You know how they laugh -at Mamie Warren for her striped stockings and call her barber pole and -yours are far worse.” - -“I won’t wear them,” said Faith. “I’ll go barefooted first, cold as it -is.” - -“You can’t go barefooted to church to-morrow. Think what people would -say.” - -“Then I’ll stay home.” - -“You can’t. You know very well Aunt Martha will make you go.” - -Faith did know this. The one thing on which Aunt Martha troubled -herself to insist was that they must all go to church, rain or shine. -How they were dressed, or if they were dressed at all, never concerned -her. But go they must. That was how Aunt Martha had been brought up -seventy years ago, and that was how she meant to bring them up. - -“Haven’t you got a pair you can lend me, Una?” said poor Faith -piteously. - -Una shook her head. “No, you know I only have the one black pair. And -they’re so tight I can hardly get them on. They wouldn’t go on you. -Neither would my gray ones. Besides, the legs of _them_ are all darned -_and_ darned.” - -“I won’t wear those striped stockings,” said Faith stubbornly. “The -feel of them is even worse than the looks. They make me feel as if my -legs were as big as barrels and they’re so _scratchy_.” - -“Well, I don’t know what you’re going to do.” - -“If father was home I’d go and ask him to get me a new pair before the -store closes. But he won’t be home till too late. I’ll ask him -Monday—and I won’t go to church tomorrow. I’ll pretend I’m sick and -Aunt Martha’ll _have_ to let me stay home.” - -“That would be acting a lie, Faith,” cried Una. “You _can’t_ do that. -You know it would be dreadful. What would father say if he knew? Don’t -you remember how he talked to us after mother died and told us we must -always be _true_, no matter what else we failed in. He said we must -never tell or act a lie—he said he’d _trust_ us not to. You _can’t_ do -it, Faith. Just wear the striped stockings. It’ll only be for once. -Nobody will notice them in church. It isn’t like school. And your new -brown dress is so long they won’t show much. Wasn’t it lucky Aunt -Martha made it big, so you’d have room to grow in it, for all you hated -it so when she finished it?” - -“I won’t wear those stockings,” repeated Faith. She uncoiled her bare, -white legs from the tombstone and deliberately walked through the wet, -cold grass to the bank of snow. Setting her teeth, she stepped upon it -and stood there. - -“What are you doing?” cried Una aghast. “You’ll catch your death of -cold, Faith Meredith.” - -“I’m trying to,” answered Faith. “I hope I’ll catch a fearful cold and -be _awful_ sick to-morrow. Then I won’t be acting a lie. I’m going to -stand here as long as I can bear it.” - -“But, Faith, you might really die. You might get pneumonia. Please, -Faith don’t. Let’s go into the house and get _something_ for your feet. -Oh, here’s Jerry. I’m so thankful. Jerry, _make_ Faith get off that -snow. Look at her feet.” - -“Holy cats! Faith, what _are_ you doing?” demanded Jerry. “Are you -crazy?” - -“No. Go away!” snapped Faith. - -“Then are you punishing yourself for something? It isn’t right, if you -are. You’ll be sick.” - -“I want to be sick. I’m not punishing myself. Go away.” - -“Where’s her shoes and stockings?” asked Jerry of Una. - -“She gave them to Lida Marsh.” - -“Lida Marsh? What for?” - -“Because Lida had none—and her feet were so cold. And now she wants to -be sick so that she won’t have to go to church to-morrow and wear her -striped stockings. But, Jerry, she may die.” - -“Faith,” said Jerry, “get off that ice-bank or I’ll pull you off.” - -“Pull away,” dared Faith. - -Jerry sprang at her and caught her arms. He pulled one way and Faith -pulled another. Una ran behind Faith and pushed. Faith stormed at Jerry -to leave her alone. Jerry stormed back at her not to be a dizzy idiot; -and Una cried. They made no end of noise and they were close to the -road fence of the graveyard. Henry Warren and his wife drove by and -heard and saw them. Very soon the Glen heard that the manse children -had been having an awful fight in the graveyard and using most improper -language. Meanwhile, Faith had allowed herself to be pulled off the ice -because her feet were aching so sharply that she was ready to get off -any way. They all went in amiably and went to bed. Faith slept like a -cherub and woke in the morning without a trace of a cold. She felt that -she couldn’t feign sickness and act a lie, after remembering that -long-ago talk with her father. But she was still as fully determined as -ever that she would not wear those abominable stockings to church. - - - - -CHAPTER XXV. -ANOTHER SCANDAL AND ANOTHER “EXPLANATION” - - -Faith went early to Sunday School and was seated in the corner of her -class pew before any one came. Therefore, the dreadful truth did not -burst upon any one until Faith left the class pew near the door to walk -up to the manse pew after Sunday School. The church was already half -filled and all who were sitting near the aisle saw that the minister’s -daughter had boots on but no stockings! - -Faith’s new brown dress, which Aunt Martha had made from an ancient -pattern, was absurdly long for her, but even so it did not meet her -boot-tops. Two good inches of bare white leg showed plainly. - -Faith and Carl sat alone in the manse pew. Jerry had gone into the -gallery to sit with a chum and the Blythe girls had taken Una with -them. The Meredith children were given to “sitting all over the church” -in this fashion and a great many people thought it very improper. The -gallery especially, where irresponsible lads congregated and were known -to whisper and suspected of chewing tobacco during service, was no -place, for a son of the manse. But Jerry hated the manse pew at the -very top of the church, under the eyes of Elder Clow and his family. He -escaped from it whenever he could. - -Carl, absorbed in watching a spider spinning its web at the window, did -not notice Faith’s legs. She walked home with her father after church -and he never noticed them. She got on the hated striped stockings -before Jerry and Una arrived, so that for the time being none of the -occupants of the manse knew what she had done. But nobody else in Glen -St. Mary was ignorant of it. The few who had not seen soon heard. -Nothing else was talked of on the way home from church. Mrs. Alec Davis -said it was only what she expected, and the next thing you would see -some of those young ones coming to church with no clothes on at all. -The president of the Ladies’ Aid decided that she would bring the -matter up at the next Aid meeting, and suggest that they wait in a body -on the minister and protest. Miss Cornelia said that she, for her part, -gave up. There was no use worrying over the manse fry any longer. Even -Mrs. Dr. Blythe felt a little shocked, though she attributed the -occurrence solely to Faith’s forgetfulness. Susan could not immediately -begin knitting stockings for Faith because it was Sunday, but she had -one set up before any one else was out of bed at Ingleside the next -morning. - -“You need not tell me anything but that it was old Martha’s fault, Mrs. -Dr. dear.” she told Anne. “I suppose that poor little child had no -decent stockings to wear. I suppose every stocking she had was in -holes, as you know very well they generally are. And _I_ think, Mrs. -Dr. dear, that the Ladies’ Aid would be better employed in knitting -some for them than in fighting over the new carpet for the pulpit -platform. _I_ am not a Ladies’ Aider, but I shall knit Faith two pairs -of stockings, out of this nice black yarn, as fast as my fingers can -move and that you may tie to. Never shall I forget my sensations, Mrs. -Dr. dear, when I saw a minister’s child walking up the aisle of our -church with no stockings on. I really did not know what way to look.” - -“And the church was just full of Methodists yesterday, too,” groaned -Miss Cornelia, who had come up to the Glen to do some shopping and run -into Ingleside to talk the affair over. “I don’t know how it is, but -just as sure as those manse children do something especially awful the -church is sure to be crowded with Methodists. I thought Mrs. Deacon -Hazard’s eyes would drop out of her head. When she came out of church -she said, ‘Well, that exhibition was no more than decent. I do pity the -Presbyterians.’ And we just had to _take_ it. There was nothing one -could say.” - -“There was something _I_ could have said, Mrs. Dr. dear, if I had heard -her,” said Susan grimly. “I would have said, for one thing, that in my -opinion clean bare legs were quite as decent as holes. And I would have -said, for another, that the Presbyterians did not feel greatly in need -of pity seeing that they had a minister who could _preach_ and the -Methodists had _not_. I could have squelched Mrs. Deacon Hazard, Mrs. -Dr dear, and that you may tie to.” - -“I wish Mr. Meredith didn’t preach quite so well and looked after his -family a little better,” retorted Miss Cornelia. “He could at least -glance over his children before they went to church and see that they -were quite properly clothed. I’m tired making excuses for him, believe -_me_.” - -Meanwhile, Faith’s soul was being harrowed up in Rainbow Valley. Mary -Vance was there and, as usual, in a lecturing mood. She gave Faith to -understand that she had disgraced herself and her father beyond -redemption and that she, Mary Vance, was done with her. “Everybody” was -talking, and “everybody” said the same thing. - -“I simply feel that I can’t associate with you any longer,” she -concluded. - -“_We_ are going to associate with her then,” cried Nan Blythe. Nan -secretly thought Faith _had_ done a awful thing, but she wasn’t going -to let Mary Vance run matters in this high-handed fashion. “And if -_you_ are not you needn’t come any more to Rainbow Valley, _Miss_ -Vance.” - -Nan and Di both put their arms around Faith and glared defiance at -Mary. The latter suddenly crumpled up, sat down on a stump and began to -cry. - -“It ain’t that I don’t want to,” she wailed. “But if I keep in with -Faith people’ll be saying I put her up to doing things. Some are saying -it now, true’s you live. I can’t afford to have such things said of me, -now that I’m in a respectable place and trying to be a lady. And _I_ -never went bare-legged in church in my toughest days. I’d never have -thought of doing such a thing. But that hateful old Kitty Alec says -Faith has never been the same girl since that time I stayed in the -manse. She says Cornelia Elliott will live to rue the day she took me -in. It hurts my feelings, I tell you. But it’s Mr. Meredith I’m really -worried over.” - -“I think you needn’t worry about him,” said Di scornfully. “It isn’t -likely necessary. Now, Faith darling, stop crying and tell us why you -did it.” - -Faith explained tearfully. The Blythe girls sympathized with her, and -even Mary Vance agreed that it was a hard position to be in. But Jerry, -on whom the thing came like a thunderbolt, refused to be placated. So -_this_ was what some mysterious hints he had got in school that day -meant! He marched Faith and Una home without ceremony, and the -Good-Conduct Club held an immediate session in the graveyard to sit in -judgment on Faith’s case. - -“I don’t see that it was any harm,” said Faith defiantly. “Not _much_ -of my legs showed. It wasn’t _wrong_ and it didn’t hurt anybody.” - -“It will hurt Dad. You _know_ it will. You know people blame him -whenever we do anything queer.” - -“I didn’t think of that,” muttered Faith. - -“That’s just the trouble. You didn’t think and you _should_ have -thought. That’s what our Club is for—to bring us up and _make_ us -think. We promised we’d always stop and think before doing things. You -didn’t and you’ve got to be punished, Faith—and real hard, too. You’ll -wear those striped stockings to school for a week for punishment.” - -“Oh, Jerry, won’t a day do—two days? Not a whole week!” - -“Yes, a whole week,” said inexorable Jerry. “It is fair—ask Jem Blythe -if it isn’t.” - -Faith felt she would rather submit then ask Jem Blythe about such a -matter. She was beginning to realize that her offence was a quite -shameful one. - -“I’ll do it, then,” she muttered, a little sulkily. - -“You’re getting off easy,” said, Jerry severely. “And no matter how we -punish you it won’t help father. People will always think you just did -it for mischief, and they’ll blame father for not stopping it. We can -never explain it to everybody.” - -This aspect of the case weighed on Faith’s mind. Her own condemnation -she could bear, but it tortured her that her father should be blamed. -If people knew the true facts of the case they would not blame him. But -how could she make them known to all the world? Getting up in church, -as she had once done, and explaining the matter was out of the -question. Faith had heard from Mary Vance how the congregation had -looked upon that performance and realized that she must not repeat it. -Faith worried over the problem for half a week. Then she had an -inspiration and promptly acted upon it. She spent that evening in the -garret, with a lamp and an exercise book, writing busily, with flushed -cheeks and shining eyes. It was the very thing! How clever she was to -have thought of it! It would put everything right and explain -everything and yet cause no scandal. It was eleven o’clock when she had -finished to her satisfaction and crept down to bed, dreadfully tired, -but perfectly happy. - -In a few days the little weekly published in the Glen under the name of -_The Journal_ came out as usual, and the Glen had another sensation. A -letter signed “Faith Meredith” occupied a prominent place on the front -page and ran as follows:— - -“TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: - -“I want to explain to everybody how it was I came to go to church -without stockings on, so that everybody will know that father was not -to blame one bit for it, and the old gossips need not say he is, -because it is not true. I gave my only pair of black stockings to Lida -Marsh, because she hadn’t any and her poor little feet were awful cold -and I was so sorry for her. No child ought to have to go without shoes -and stockings in a Christian community before the snow is all gone, and -I think the W. F. M. S. ought to have given her stockings. Of course, I -know they are sending things to the little heathen children, and that -is all right and a kind thing to do. But the little heathen children -have lots more warm weather than we have, and I think the women of our -church ought to look after Lida and not leave it all to me. When I gave -her my stockings I forgot they were the only black pair I had without -holes, but I am glad I did give them to her, because my conscience -would have been uncomfortable if I hadn’t. When she had gone away, -looking so proud and happy, the poor little thing, I remembered that -all I had to wear were the horrid red and blue things Aunt Martha knit -last winter for me out of some yarn that Mrs. Joseph Burr of Upper Glen -sent us. It was dreadfully coarse yarn and all knots, and I never saw -any of Mrs. Burr’s own children wearing things made of such yarn. But -Mary Vance says Mrs. Burr gives the minister stuff that she can’t use -or eat herself, and thinks it ought to go as part of the salary her -husband signed to pay, but never does. - -“I just couldn’t bear to wear those hateful stockings. They were so -ugly and rough and felt so scratchy. Everybody would have made fun of -me. I thought at first I’d pretend to be sick and not go to church next -day, but I decided I couldn’t do that, because it would be acting a -lie, and father told us after mother died that was something we must -never, never do. It is just as bad to act a lie as to tell one, though -I know some people, right here in the Glen, who act them, and never -seem to feel a bit bad about it. I will not mention any names, but I -know who they are and so does father. - -“Then I tried my best to catch cold and really be sick by standing on -the snowbank in the Methodist graveyard with my bare feet until Jerry -pulled me off. But it didn’t hurt me a bit and so I couldn’t get out of -going to church. So I just decided I would put my boots on and go that -way. I can’t see why it was so wrong and I was so careful to wash my -legs just as clean as my face, but, anyway, father wasn’t to blame for -it. He was in the study thinking of his sermon and other heavenly -things, and I kept out of his way before I went to Sunday School. -Father does not look at people’s legs in church, so of course he did -not notice mine, but all the gossips did and talked about it, and that -is why I am writing this letter to the _Journal_ to explain. I suppose -I did very wrong, since everybody says so, and I am sorry and I am -wearing those awful stockings to punish myself, although father bought -me two nice new black pairs as soon as Mr. Flagg’s store opened on -Monday morning. But it was all my fault, and if people blame father for -it after they read this they are not Christians and so I do not mind -what they say. - -“There is another thing I want to explain about before I stop. Mary -Vance told me that Mr. Evan Boyd is blaming the Lew Baxters for -stealing potatoes out of his field last fall. They did not touch his -potatoes. They are very poor, but they are honest. It was us did -it—Jerry and Carl and I. Una was not with us at the time. We never -thought it was stealing. We just wanted a few potatoes to cook over a -fire in Rainbow Valley one evening to eat with our fried trout. Mr. -Boyd’s field was the nearest, just between the valley and the village, -so we climbed over his fence and pulled up some stalks. The potatoes -were awful small, because Mr. Boyd did not put enough fertilizer on -them and we had to pull up a lot of stalks before we got enough, and -then they were not much bigger than marbles. Walter and Di Blythe -helped us eat them, but they did not come along until we had them -cooked and did not know where we got them, so they were not to blame at -all, only us. We didn’t mean any harm, but if it was stealing we are -very sorry and we will pay Mr. Boyd for them if he will wait until we -grow up. We never have any money now because we are not big enough to -earn any, and Aunt Martha says it takes every cent of poor father’s -salary, even when it is paid up regularly—and it isn’t often—to run -this house. But Mr. Boyd must not blame the Lew Baxters any more, when -they were quite innocent, and give them a bad name. - -“Yours respectfully, -“FAITH MEREDITH.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXVI. -MISS CORNELIA GETS A NEW POINT OF VIEW - - -“Susan, after I’m dead I’m going to come back to earth every time when -the daffodils blow in this garden,” said Anne rapturously. “Nobody may -see me, but I’ll be here. If anybody is in the garden at the time—I -_think_ I’ll come on an evening just like this, but it _might_ be just -at dawn—a lovely, pale-pinky spring dawn—they’ll just see the daffodils -nodding wildly as if an extra gust of wind had blown past them, but it -will be _I_.” - -“Indeed, Mrs. Dr. dear, you will not be thinking of flaunting worldly -things like daffies after you are dead,” said Susan. “And I do _not_ -believe in ghosts, seen or unseen.” - -“Oh, Susan, I shall not be a ghost! That has such a horrible sound. I -shall just be _me_. And I shall run around in the twilight, whether it -is morn or eve, and see all the spots I love. Do you remember how badly -I felt when I left our little House of Dreams, Susan? I thought I could -never love Ingleside so well. But I do. I love every inch of the ground -and every stick and stone on it.” - -“I am rather fond of the place myself,” said Susan, who would have died -if she had been removed from it, “but we must not set our affections -too much on earthly things, Mrs. Dr. dear. There are such things as -fires and earthquakes. We should always be prepared. The Tom -MacAllisters over-harbour were burned out three nights ago. Some say -Tom MacAllister set the house on fire himself to get the insurance. -That may or may not be. But I advise the doctor to have our chimneys -seen to at once. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. But I -see Mrs. Marshall Elliott coming in at the gate, looking as if she had -been sent for and couldn’t go.” - -“Anne dearie, have you seen the _Journal_ to-day?” - -Miss Cornelia’s voice was trembling, partly from emotion, partly from -the fact that she had hurried up from the store too fast and lost her -breath. - -Anne bent over the daffodils to hide a smile. She and Gilbert had -laughed heartily and heartlessly over the front page of the _Journal_ -that day, but she knew that to dear Miss Cornelia it was almost a -tragedy, and she must not wound her feelings by any display of levity. - -“Isn’t it dreadful? What _is_ to be done?” asked Miss Cornelia -despairingly. Miss Cornelia had vowed that she was done with worrying -over the pranks of the manse children, but she went on worrying just -the same. - -Anne led the way to the veranda, where Susan was knitting, with Shirley -and Rilla conning their primers on either side. Susan was already on -her second pair of stockings for Faith. Susan never worried over poor -humanity. She did what in her lay for its betterment and serenely left -the rest to the Higher Powers. - -“Cornelia Elliott thinks she was born to run this world, Mrs. Dr. -dear,” she had once said to Anne, “and so she is always in a stew over -something. I have never thought _I_ was, and so I go calmly along. Not -but what it has sometimes occurred to me that things might be run a -little better than they are. But it is not for us poor worms to nourish -such thoughts. They only make us uncomfortable and do not get us -anywhere.” - -“I don’t see that anything can be done—now—” said Anne, pulling out a -nice, cushiony chair for Miss Cornelia. “But how in the world did Mr. -Vickers allow that letter to be printed? Surely he should have known -better.” - -“Why, he’s away, Anne dearie—he’s been away to New Brunswick for a -week. And that young scalawag of a Joe Vickers is editing the _Journal_ -in his absence. Of course, Mr. Vickers would never have put it in, even -if he is a Methodist, but Joe would just think it a good joke. As you -say, I don’t suppose there is anything to be done now, only live it -down. But if I ever get Joe Vickers cornered somewhere I’ll give him a -talking to he won’t forget in a hurry. I wanted Marshall to stop our -subscription to the _Journal_ instantly, but he only laughed and said -that to-day’s issue was the only one that had had anything readable in -it for a year. Marshall never will take anything seriously—just like a -man. Fortunately, Evan Boyd is like that, too. He takes it as a joke -and is laughing all over the place about it. And he’s another -Methodist! As for Mrs. Burr of Upper Glen, of course she will be -furious and they will leave the church. Not that it will be a great -loss from any point of view. The Methodists are quite welcome to -_them_.” - -“It serves Mrs. Burr right,” said Susan, who had an old feud with the -lady in question and had been hugely tickled over the reference to her -in Faith’s letter. “She will find that she will not be able to cheat -the Methodist parson out of _his_ salary with bad yarn.” - -“The worst of it is, there’s not much hope of things getting any -better,” said Miss Cornelia gloomily. “As long as Mr. Meredith was -going to see Rosemary West I did hope the manse would soon have a -proper mistress. But that is all off. I suppose she wouldn’t have him -on account of the children—at least, everybody seems to think so.” - -“I do not believe that he ever asked her,” said Susan, who could not -conceive of any one refusing a minister. - -“Well, nobody knows anything about _that_. But one thing is certain, he -doesn’t go there any longer. And Rosemary didn’t look well all the -spring. I hope her visit to Kingsport will do her good. She’s been gone -for a month and will stay another month, I understand. I can’t remember -when Rosemary was away from home before. She and Ellen could never bear -to be parted. But I understand Ellen insisted on her going this time. -And meanwhile Ellen and Norman Douglas are warming up the old soup.” - -“Is that really so?” asked Anne, laughing. “I heard a rumour of it, but -I hardly believed it.” - -“Believe it! You may believe it all right, Anne, dearie. Nobody is in -ignorance of it. Norman Douglas never left anybody in doubt as to his -intentions in regard to anything. He always did his courting before the -public. He told Marshall that he hadn’t thought about Ellen for years, -but the first time he went to church last fall he saw her and fell in -love with her all over again. He said he’d clean forgot how handsome -she was. He hadn’t seen her for twenty years, if you can believe it. Of -course he never went to church, and Ellen never went anywhere else -round here. Oh, we all know what Norman means, but what Ellen means is -a different matter. I shan’t take it upon me to predict whether it will -be a match or not.” - -“He jilted her once—but it seems that does not count with some people, -Mrs. Dr. dear,” Susan remarked rather acidly. - -“He jilted her in a fit of temper and repented it all his life,” said -Miss Cornelia. “That is different from a cold-blooded jilting. For my -part, I never detested Norman as some folks do. He could never -over-crow _me_. I _do_ wonder what started him coming to church. I have -never been able to believe Mrs. Wilsons’s story that Faith Meredith -went there and bullied him into it. I’ve always intended to ask Faith -herself, but I’ve never happened to think of it just when I saw her. -What influence could _she_ have over Norman Douglas? He was in the -store when I left, bellowing with laughter over that scandalous letter. -You could have heard him at Four Winds Point. ‘The greatest girl in the -world,’ he was shouting. ‘She’s that full of spunk she’s bursting with -it. And all the old grannies want to tame her, darn them. But they’ll -never be able to do it—never! They might as well try to drown a fish. -Boyd, see that you put more fertilizer on your potatoes next year. Ho, -ho, ho!’ And then he laughed till the roof shook.” - -“Mr. Douglas pays well to the salary, at least,” remarked Susan. - -“Oh, Norman isn’t mean in some ways. He’d give a thousand without -blinking a lash, and roar like a Bull of Bashan if he had to pay five -cents too much for anything. Besides, he likes Mr. Meredith’s sermons, -and Norman Douglas was always willing to shell out if he got his brains -tickled up. There is no more Christianity about him than there is about -a black, naked heathen in Africa and never will be. But he’s clever and -well read and he judges sermons as he would lectures. Anyhow, it’s well -he backs up Mr. Meredith and the children as he does, for they’ll need -friends more than ever after this. I am tired of making excuses for -them, believe _me_.” - -“Do you know, dear Miss Cornelia,” said Anne seriously, “I think we -have all been making too many excuses. It is very foolish and we ought -to stop it. I am going to tell you what I’d _like_ to do. I shan’t do -it, of course”—Anne had noted a glint of alarm in Susan’s eye—“it would -be too unconventional, and we must be conventional or die, after we -reach what is supposed to be a dignified age. But I’d _like_ to do it. -I’d like to call a meeting of the Ladies Aid and W.M.S. and the Girls -Sewing Society, and include in the audience all and any Methodists who -have been criticizing the Merediths—although I do think if we -Presbyterians stopped criticizing and excusing we would find that other -denominations would trouble themselves very little about our manse -folks. I would say to them, ‘Dear Christian friends’—with marked -emphasis on ‘Christian’—I have something to say to you and I want to -say it good and hard, that you may take it home and repeat it to your -families. You Methodists need not pity us, and we Presbyterians need -not pity ourselves. We are not going to do it any more. And we are -going to say, boldly and truthfully, to all critics and sympathizers, -‘We are _proud_ of our minister and his family. Mr. Meredith is the -best preacher Glen St. Mary church ever had. Moreover, he is a sincere, -earnest teacher of truth and Christian charity. He is a faithful -friend, a judicious pastor in all essentials, and a refined, scholarly, -well-bred man. His family are worthy of him. Gerald Meredith is the -cleverest pupil in the Glen school, and Mr. Hazard says that he is -destined to a brilliant career. He is a manly, honourable, truthful -little fellow. Faith Meredith is a beauty, and as inspiring and -original as she is beautiful. There is nothing commonplace about her. -All the other girls in the Glen put together haven’t the vim, and wit, -and joyousness and ‘spunk’ she has. She has not an enemy in the world. -Every one who knows her loves her. Of how many, children or grown-ups, -can that be said? Una Meredith is sweetness personified. She will make -a most lovable woman. Carl Meredith, with his love for ants and frogs -and spiders, will some day be a naturalist whom all Canada—nay, all the -world, will delight to honour. Do you know of any other family in the -Glen, or out of it, of whom all these things can be said? Away with -shamefaced excuses and apologies. We _rejoice_ in our minister and his -splendid boys and girls!” - -Anne stopped, partly because she was out of breath after her vehement -speech and partly because she could not trust herself to speak further -in view of Miss Cornelia’s face. That good lady was staring helplessly -at Anne, apparently engulfed in billows of new ideas. But she came up -with a gasp and struck out for shore gallantly. - -“Anne Blythe, I wish you _would_ call that meeting and say just that! -You’ve made me ashamed of myself, for one, and far be it from me to -refuse to admit it. _Of course_, that is how we should have -talked—especially to the Methodists. And it’s every word of it -true—every word. We’ve just been shutting our eyes to the big -worth-while things and squinting them on the little things that don’t -really matter a pin’s worth. Oh, Anne dearie, I can see a thing when -it’s hammered into my head. No more apologizing for Cornelia Marshall! -_I_ shall hold _my_ head up after this, believe _me_—though I _may_ -talk things over with you as usual just to relieve my feelings if the -Merediths do any more startling stunts. Even that letter I felt so bad -about—why, it’s only a good joke after all, as Norman says. Not many -girls would have been cute enough to think of writing it—and all -punctuated so nicely and not one word misspelled. Just let me hear any -Methodist say one word about it—though all the same I’ll never forgive -Joe Vickers—believe _me!_ Where are the rest of your small fry -to-night?” - -“Walter and the twins are in Rainbow Valley. Jem is studying in the -garret.” - -“They are all crazy about Rainbow Valley. Mary Vance thinks it’s the -only place in the world. She’d be off up here every evening if I’d let -her. But I don’t encourage her in gadding. Besides, I miss the creature -when she isn’t around, Anne dearie. I never thought I’d get so fond of -her. Not but what I see her faults and try to correct them. But she has -never said one saucy word to me since she came to my house and she is a -_great_ help—for when all is said and done, Anne dearie, I am not so -young as I once was, and there is no sense denying it. I was fifty-nine -my last birthday. I don’t _feel_ it, but there is no gainsaying the -Family Bible.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXVII. -A SACRED CONCERT - - -In spite of Miss Cornelia’s new point of view she could not help -feeling a little disturbed over the next performance of the manse -children. In public she carried off the situation splendidly, saying to -all the gossips the substance of what Anne had said in daffodil time, -and saying it so pointedly and forcibly that her hearers found -themselves feeling rather foolish and began to think that, after all, -they were making too much of a childish prank. But in private Miss -Cornelia allowed herself the relief of bemoaning it to Anne. - -“Anne dearie, they had a _concert in the graveyard_ last Thursday -evening, while the Methodist prayer meeting was going on. There they -sat, on Hezekiah Pollock’s tombstone, and sang for a solid hour. Of -course, I understand it was mostly hymns they sang, and it wouldn’t -have been quite so bad if they’d done nothing else. But I’m told they -finished up with _Polly Wolly Doodle_ at full length—and that just when -Deacon Baxter was praying.” - -“I was there that night,” said Susan, “and, although I did not say -anything about it to you, Mrs. Dr. dear, I could not help thinking that -it was a great pity they picked that particular evening. It was truly -blood-curdling to hear them sitting there in that abode of the dead, -shouting that frivolous song at the tops of their lungs.” - -“I don’t know what _you_ were doing in a Methodist prayer meeting,” -said Miss Cornelia acidly. - -“I have never found that Methodism was catching,” retorted Susan -stiffly. “And, as I was going to say when I was interrupted, badly as I -felt, I did _not_ give in to the Methodists. When Mrs. Deacon Baxter -said, as we came out, ‘What a disgraceful exhibition!’ _I_ said, -looking her fairly in the eye, ‘They are all beautiful singers, and -none of _your_ choir, Mrs. Baxter, ever bother themselves coming out to -your prayer meeting, it seems. Their voices appear to be in tune only -on Sundays!’ She was quite meek and I felt that I had snubbed her -properly. But I could have done it much more thoroughly, Mrs. Dr. dear, -if only they had left out _Polly Wolly Doodle_. It is truly terrible to -think of that being sung in a graveyard.” - -“Some of those dead folks sang _Polly Wolly Doodle_ when they were -living, Susan. Perhaps they like to hear it yet,” suggested Gilbert. - -Miss Cornelia looked at him reproachfully and made up her mind that, on -some future occasion, she would hint to Anne that the doctor should be -admonished not to say such things. They might injure his practice. -People might get it into their heads that he wasn’t orthodox. To be -sure, Marshall said even worse things habitually, but then _he_ was not -a public man. - -“I understand that their father was in his study all the time, with his -windows open, but never noticed them at all. Of course, he was lost in -a book as usual. But I spoke to him about it yesterday, when he -called.” - -“How could you dare, Mrs. Marshall Elliott?” asked Susan rebukingly. - -“Dare! It’s time somebody dared something. Why, they say he knows -nothing about that letter of Faith’s to the _journal_ because nobody -liked to mention it to him. He never looks at a _journal_ of course. -But I thought he ought to know of this to prevent any such performances -in future. He said he would ‘discuss it with them.’ But of course he’d -never think of it again after he got out of our gate. That man has no -sense of humour, Anne, believe _me_. He preached last Sunday on ‘How to -Bring up Children.’ A beautiful sermon it was, too—and everybody in -church thinking ‘what a pity you can’t practise what you preach.’” - -Miss Cornelia did Mr. Meredith an injustice in thinking he would soon -forget what she had told him. He went home much disturbed and when the -children came from Rainbow Valley that night, at a much later hour than -they should have been prowling in it, he called them into his study. - -They went in, somewhat awed. It was such an unusual thing for their -father to do. What could he be going to say to them? They racked their -memories for any recent transgression of sufficient importance, but -could not recall any. Carl had spilled a saucerful of jam on Mrs. Peter -Flagg’s silk dress two evenings before, when, at Aunt Martha’s -invitation, she had stayed to supper. But Mr. Meredith had not noticed -it, and Mrs. Flagg, who was a kindly soul, had made no fuss. Besides, -Carl had been punished by having to wear Una’s dress all the rest of -the evening. - -Una suddenly thought that perhaps her father meant to tell them that he -was going to marry Miss West. Her heart began to beat violently and her -legs trembled. Then she saw that Mr. Meredith looked very stern and -sorrowful. No, it could not be that. - -“Children,” said Mr. Meredith, “I have heard something that has pained -me very much. Is it true that you sat out in the graveyard all last -Thursday evening and sang ribald songs while a prayer meeting was being -held in the Methodist church?” - -“Great Caesar, Dad, we forgot all about it being their prayer meeting -night,” exclaimed Jerry in dismay. - -“Then it is true—you did do this thing?” - -“Why, Dad, I don’t know what you mean by ribald songs. We sang hymns—it -was a sacred concert, you know. What harm was that? I tell you we never -thought about it’s being Methodist prayer meeting night. They used to -have their meeting Tuesday nights and since they’ve changed to -Thursdays it’s hard to remember.” - -“Did you sing nothing but hymns?” - -“Why,” said Jerry, turning red, “we _did_ sing _Polly Wolly Doodle_ at -the last. Faith said, ‘Let’s have something cheerful to wind up with.’ -But we didn’t mean any harm, Father—truly we didn’t.” - -“The concert was my idea, Father,” said Faith, afraid that Mr. Meredith -might blame Jerry too much. “You know the Methodists themselves had a -sacred concert in their church three Sunday nights ago. I thought it -would be good fun to get one up in imitation of it. Only they had -prayers at theirs, and we left that part out, because we heard that -people thought it awful for us to pray in a graveyard. _You_ were -sitting in here all the time,” she added, “and never said a word to -us.” - -“I did not notice what you were doing. That is no excuse for me, of -course. I am more to blame than you—I realize that. But why did you -sing that foolish song at the end?” - -“We didn’t think,” muttered Jerry, feeling that it was a very lame -excuse, seeing that he had lectured Faith so strongly in the -Good-Conduct Club sessions for her lack of thought. “We’re sorry, -Father—truly, we are. Pitch into us hard—we deserve a regular combing -down.” - -But Mr. Meredith did no combing down or pitching into. He sat down and -gathered his small culprits close to him and talked a little to them, -tenderly and wisely. They were overcome with remorse and shame, and -felt that they could never be so silly and thoughtless again. - -“We’ve just got to punish ourselves good and hard for this,” whispered -Jerry as they crept upstairs. “We’ll have a session of the Club first -thing tomorrow and decide how we’ll do it. I never saw father so cut -up. But I wish to goodness the Methodists would stick to one night for -their prayer meeting and not wander all over the week.” - -“Anyhow, I’m glad it wasn’t what I was afraid it was,” murmured Una to -herself. - -Behind them, in the study, Mr. Meredith had sat down at his desk and -buried his face in his arms. - -“God help me!” he said. “I’m a poor sort of father. Oh, Rosemary! If -you had only cared!” - - - - -CHAPTER XXVIII. -A FAST DAY - - -The Good-Conduct Club had a special session the next morning before -school. After various suggestions, it was decided that a fast day would -be an appropriate punishment. - -“We won’t eat a single thing for a whole day,” said Jerry. “I’m kind of -curious to see what fasting is like, anyhow. This will be a good chance -to find out.” - -“What day will we choose for it?” asked Una, who thought it would be -quite an easy punishment and rather wondered that Jerry and Faith had -not devised something harder. - -“Let’s pick Monday,” said Faith. “We mostly have a pretty _filling_ -dinner on Sundays, and Mondays meals never amount to much anyhow.” - -“But that’s just the point,” exclaimed Jerry. “We mustn’t take the -easiest day to fast, but the hardest—and that’s Sunday, because, as you -say, we mostly have roast beef that day instead of cold ditto. It -wouldn’t be much punishment to fast from ditto. Let’s take next Sunday. -It will be a good day, for father is going to exchange for the morning -service with the Upper Lowbridge minister. Father will be away till -evening. If Aunt Martha wonders what’s got into us, we’ll tell her -right up that we’re fasting for the good of our souls, and it is in the -Bible and she is not to interfere, and I guess she won’t.” - -Aunt Martha did not. She merely said in her fretful mumbling way, “What -foolishness are you young rips up to now?” and thought no more about -it. Mr. Meredith had gone away early in the morning before any one was -up. He went without his breakfast, too, but that was, of course, of -common occurrence. Half of the time he forgot it and there was no one -to remind him of it. Breakfast—Aunt Martha’s breakfast—was not a hard -meal to miss. Even the hungry “young rips” did not feel it any great -deprivation to abstain from the “lumpy porridge and blue milk” which -had aroused the scorn of Mary Vance. But it was different at dinner -time. They were furiously hungry then, and the odor of roast beef which -pervaded the manse, and which was wholly delightful in spite of the -fact that the roast beef was badly underdone, was almost more than they -could stand. In desperation they rushed to the graveyard where they -couldn’t smell it. But Una could not keep her eyes from the dining room -window, through which the Upper Lowbridge minister could be seen, -placidly eating. - -“If I could only have just a weeny, teeny piece,” she sighed. - -“Now, you stop that,” commanded Jerry. “Of course it’s hard—but that’s -the punishment of it. I could eat a graven image this very minute, but -am I complaining? Let’s think of something else. We’ve just got to rise -above our stomachs.” - -At supper time they did not feel the pangs of hunger which they had -suffered earlier in the day. - -“I suppose we’re getting used to it,” said Faith. “I feel an awfully -queer all-gone sort of feeling, but I can’t say I’m hungry.” - -“My head is funny,” said Una. “It goes round and round sometimes.” - -But she went gamely to church with the others. If Mr. Meredith had not -been so wholly wrapped up in and carried away with his subject he might -have noticed the pale little face and hollow eyes in the manse pew -beneath. But he noticed nothing and his sermon was something longer -than usual. Then, just before he gave out the final hymn, Una Meredith -tumbled off the seat of the manse pew and lay in a dead faint on the -floor. - -Mrs. Elder Clow was the first to reach her. She caught the thin little -body from the arms of white-faced, terrified Faith and carried it into -the vestry. Mr. Meredith forgot the hymn and everything else and rushed -madly after her. The congregation dismissed itself as best it could. - -“Oh, Mrs. Clow,” gasped Faith, “is Una dead? Have we killed her?” - -“What is the matter with my child?” demanded the pale father. - -“She has just fainted, I think,” said Mrs. Clow. “Oh, here’s the -doctor, thank goodness.” - -Gilbert did not find it a very easy thing to bring Una back to -consciousness. He worked over her for a long time before her eyes -opened. Then he carried her over to the manse, followed by Faith, -sobbing hysterically in her relief. - -“She is just hungry, you know—she didn’t eat a thing to-day—none of us -did—we were all fasting.” - -“Fasting!” said Mr. Meredith, and “Fasting?” said the doctor. - -“Yes—to punish ourselves for singing _Polly Wolly_ in the graveyard,” -said Faith. - -“My child, I don’t want you to punish yourselves for that,” said Mr. -Meredith in distress. “I gave you your little scolding—and you were all -penitent—and I forgave you.” - -“Yes, but we had to be punished,” explained Faith. “It’s our rule—in -our Good-Conduct Club, you know—if we do anything wrong, or anything -that is likely to hurt father in the congregation, we _have_ to punish -ourselves. We are bringing ourselves up, you know, because there is -nobody to do it.” - -Mr. Meredith groaned, but the doctor got up from Una’s side with an air -of relief. - -“Then this child simply fainted from lack of food and all she needs is -a good square meal,” he said. “Mrs. Clow, will you be kind enough to -see she gets it? And I think from Faith’s story that they all would be -the better for something to eat, or we shall have more faintings.” - -“I suppose we shouldn’t have made Una fast,” said Faith remorsefully. -“When I think of it, only Jerry and I should have been punished. _We_ -got up the concert and we were the oldest.” - -“I sang _Polly Wolly_ just the same as the rest of you,” said Una’s -weak little voice, “so I had to be punished, too.” - -Mrs. Clow came with a glass of milk, Faith and Jerry and Carl sneaked -off to the pantry, and John Meredith went into his study, where he sat -in the darkness for a long time, alone with his bitter thoughts. So his -children were bringing themselves up because there was “nobody to do -it”—struggling along amid their little perplexities without a hand to -guide or a voice to counsel. Faith’s innocently uttered phrase rankled -in her father’s mind like a barbed shaft. There was “nobody” to look -after them—to comfort their little souls and care for their little -bodies. How frail Una had looked, lying there on the vestry sofa in -that long faint! How thin were her tiny hands, how pallid her little -face! She looked as if she might slip away from him in a breath—sweet -little Una, of whom Cecilia had begged him to take such special care. -Since his wife’s death he had not felt such an agony of dread as when -he had hung over his little girl in her unconsciousness. He must do -something—but what? Should he ask Elizabeth Kirk to marry him? She was -a good woman—she would be kind to his children. He might bring himself -to do it if it were not for his love for Rosemary West. But until he -had crushed that out he could not seek another woman in marriage. And -he could not crush it out—he had tried and he could not. Rosemary had -been in church that evening, for the first time since her return from -Kingsport. He had caught a glimpse of her face in the back of the -crowded church, just as he had finished his sermon. His heart had given -a fierce throb. He sat while the choir sang the “collection piece,” -with his bent head and tingling pulses. He had not seen her since the -evening upon which he had asked her to marry him. When he had risen to -give out the hymn his hands were trembling and his pale face was -flushed. Then Una’s fainting spell had banished everything from his -mind for a time. Now, in the darkness and solitude of the study it -rushed back. Rosemary was the only woman in the world for him. It was -of no use for him to think of marrying any other. He could not commit -such a sacrilege even for his children’s sake. He must take up his -burden alone—he must try to be a better, a more watchful father—he must -tell his children not to be afraid to come to him with all their little -problems. Then he lighted his lamp and took up a bulky new book which -was setting the theological world by the ears. He would read just one -chapter to compose his mind. Five minutes later he was lost to the -world and the troubles of the world. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIX. -A WEIRD TALE - - -On an early June evening Rainbow Valley was an entirely delightful -place and the children felt it to be so, as they sat in the open glade -where the bells rang elfishly on the Tree Lovers, and the White Lady -shook her green tresses. The wind was laughing and whistling about them -like a leal, glad-hearted comrade. The young ferns were spicy in the -hollow. The wild cherry trees scattered over the valley, among the dark -firs, were mistily white. The robins were whistling over in the maples -behind Ingleside. Beyond, on the slopes of the Glen, were blossoming -orchards, sweet and mystic and wonderful, veiled in dusk. It was -spring, and young things _must_ be glad in spring. Everybody was glad -in Rainbow Valley that evening—until Mary Vance froze their blood with -the story of Henry Warren’s ghost. - -Jem was not there. Jem spent his evenings now studying for his entrance -examination in the Ingleside garret. Jerry was down near the pond, -trouting. Walter had been reading Longfellow’s sea poems to the others -and they were steeped in the beauty and mystery of the ships. Then they -talked of what they would do when they were grown up—where they would -travel—the far, fair shores they would see. Nan and Di meant to go to -Europe. Walter longed for the Nile moaning past its Egyptian sands, and -a glimpse of the sphinx. Faith opined rather dismally that she supposed -she would have to be a missionary—old Mrs. Taylor told her she ought to -be—and then she would at least see India or China, those mysterious -lands of the Orient. Carl’s heart was set on African jungles. Una said -nothing. She thought she would just like to stay at home. It was -prettier here than anywhere else. It would be dreadful when they were -all grown up and had to scatter over the world. The very idea made Una -feel lonesome and homesick. But the others dreamed on delightedly until -Mary Vance arrived and vanished poesy and dreams at one fell swoop. - -“Laws, but I’m out of puff,” she exclaimed. “I’ve run down that hill -like sixty. I got an awful scare up there at the old Bailey place.” - -“What frightened you?” asked Di. - -“I dunno. I was poking about under them lilacs in the old garden, -trying to see if there was any lilies-of-the-valley out yet. It was -dark as a pocket there—and all at once I seen something stirring and -rustling round at the other side of the garden, in those cherry bushes. -It was _white_. I tell you I didn’t stop for a second look. I flew over -the dyke quicker than quick. I was sure it was Henry Warren’s ghost.” - -“Who was Henry Warren?” asked Di. - -“And why should he have a ghost?” asked Nan. - -“Laws, did you never hear the story? And you brought up in the Glen. -Well, wait a minute till I get by breath all back and I’ll tell you.” - -Walter shivered delightsomely. He loved ghost stories. Their mystery, -their dramatic climaxes, their eeriness gave him a fearful, exquisite -pleasure. Longfellow instantly grew tame and commonplace. He threw the -book aside and stretched himself out, propped upon his elbows to listen -whole-heartedly, fixing his great luminous eyes on Mary’s face. Mary -wished he wouldn’t look at her so. She felt she could make a better job -of the ghost story if Walter were not looking at her. She could put on -several frills and invent a few artistic details to enhance the horror. -As it was, she had to stick to the bare truth—or what had been told her -for the truth. - -“Well,” she began, “you know old Tom Bailey and his wife used to live -in that house up there thirty years ago. He was an awful old rip, they -say, and his wife wasn’t much better. They’d no children of their own, -but a sister of old Tom’s died and left a little boy—this Henry -Warren—and they took him. He was about twelve when he came to them, and -kind of undersized and delicate. They say Tom and his wife used him -awful from the start—whipped him and starved him. Folks said they -wanted him to die so’s they could get the little bit of money his -mother had left for him. Henry didn’t die right off, but he begun -having fits—epileps, they called ‘em—and he grew up kind of simple, -till he was about eighteen. His uncle used to thrash him in that garden -up there ‘cause it was back of the house where no one could see him. -But folks could hear, and they say it was awful sometimes hearing poor -Henry plead with his uncle not to kill him. But nobody dared interfere -‘cause old Tom was such a reprobate he’d have been sure to get square -with ‘em some way. He burned the barns of a man at Harbour Head who -offended him. At last Henry died and his uncle and aunt give out he -died in one of his fits and that was all anybody ever knowed, but -everybody said Tom had just up and killed him for keeps at last. And it -wasn’t long till it got around that Henry _walked_. That old garden was -_ha’nted_. He was heard there at nights, moaning and crying. Old Tom -and his wife got out—went out West and never came back. The place got -such a bad name nobody’d buy or rent it. That’s why it’s all gone to -ruin. That was thirty years ago, but Henry Warren’s ghost ha’nts it -yet.” - -“Do you believe that?” asked Nan scornfully. “_I_ don’t.” - -“Well, _good_ people have seen him—and heard him.” retorted Mary. “They -say he appears and grovels on the ground and holds you by the legs and -gibbers and moans like he did when he was alive. I thought of that as -soon as I seen that white thing in the bushes and thought if it caught -me like that and moaned I’d drop down dead on the spot. So I cut and -run. It _mightn’t_ have been his ghost, but I wasn’t going to take any -chances with a ha’nt.” - -“It was likely old Mrs. Stimson’s white calf,” laughed Di. “It pastures -in that garden—I’ve seen it.” - -“Maybe so. But _I’m_ not going home through the Bailey garden any more. -Here’s Jerry with a big string of trout and it’s my turn to cook them. -Jem and Jerry both say I’m the best cook in the Glen. And Cornelia told -me I could bring up this batch of cookies. I all but dropped them when -I saw Henry’s ghost.” - -Jerry hooted when he heard the ghost story—which Mary repeated as she -fried the fish, touching it up a trifle or so, since Walter had gone to -help Faith to set the table. It made no impression on Jerry, but Faith -and Una and Carl had been secretly much frightened, though they would -never have given in to it. It was all right as long as the others were -with them in the valley: but when the feast was over and the shadows -fell they quaked with remembrance. Jerry went up to Ingleside with the -Blythes to see Jem about something, and Mary Vance went around that way -home. So Faith and Una and Carl had to go back to the manse alone. They -walked very close together and gave the old Bailey garden a wide berth. -They did not believe that it was haunted, of course, but they would not -go near it for all that. - - - - -CHAPTER XXX. -THE GHOST ON THE DYKE - - -Somehow, Faith and Carl and Una could not shake off the hold which the -story of Henry Warren’s ghost had taken upon their imaginations. They -had never believed in ghosts. Ghost tales they had heard a-plenty—Mary -Vance had told some far more blood-curdling than this; but those tales -were all of places and people and spooks far away and unknown. After -the first half-awful, half-pleasant thrill of awe and terror they -thought of them no more. But this story came home to them. The old -Bailey garden was almost at their very door—almost in their beloved -Rainbow Valley. They had passed and repassed it constantly; they had -hunted for flowers in it; they had made short cuts through it when they -wished to go straight from the village to the valley. But never again! -After the night when Mary Vance told them its gruesome tale they would -not have gone through or near it on pain of death. Death! What was -death compared to the unearthly possibility of falling into the -clutches of Henry Warren’s grovelling ghost? - -One warm July evening the three of them were sitting under the Tree -Lovers, feeling a little lonely. Nobody else had come near the valley -that evening. Jem Blythe was away in Charlottetown, writing on his -entrance examinations. Jerry and Walter Blythe were off for a sail on -the harbour with old Captain Crawford. Nan and Di and Rilla and Shirley -had gone down the harbour road to visit Kenneth and Persis Ford, who -had come with their parents for a flying visit to the little old House -of Dreams. Nan had asked Faith to go with them, but Faith had declined. -She would never have admitted it, but she felt a little secret jealousy -of Persis Ford, concerning whose wonderful beauty and city glamour she -had heard a great deal. No, she wasn’t going to go down there and play -second fiddle to anybody. She and Una took their story books to Rainbow -Valley and read, while Carl investigated bugs along the banks of the -brook, and all three were happy until they suddenly realized that it -was twilight and that the old Bailey garden was uncomfortably near by. -Carl came and sat down close to the girls. They all wished they had -gone home a little sooner, but nobody said anything. - -Great, velvety, purple clouds heaped up in the west and spread over the -valley. There was no wind and everything was suddenly, strangely, -dreadfully still. The marsh was full of thousands of fire-flies. Surely -some fairy parliament was being convened that night. Altogether, -Rainbow Valley was not a canny place just then. - -Faith looked fearfully up the valley to the old Bailey garden. Then, if -anybody’s blood ever did freeze, Faith Meredith’s certainly froze at -that moment. The eyes of Carl and Una followed her entranced gaze and -chills began gallopading up and down their spines also. For there, -under the big tamarack tree on the tumble-down, grass-grown dyke of the -Bailey garden, was something white—shapelessly white in the gathering -gloom. The three Merediths sat and gazed as if turned to stone. - -“It’s—it’s the—calf,” whispered Una at last. - -“It’s—too—big—for the calf,” whispered Faith. Her mouth and lips were -so dry she could hardly articulate the words. - -Suddenly Carl gasped, - -“It’s coming here.” - -The girls gave one last agonized glance. Yes, it was creeping down over -the dyke, as no calf ever did or could creep. Reason fled before -sudden, over-mastering panic. For the moment every one of the trio was -firmly convinced that what they saw was Henry Warren’s ghost. Carl -sprang to his feet and bolted blindly. With a simultaneous shriek the -girls followed him. Like mad creatures they tore up the hill, across -the road and into the manse. They had left Aunt Martha sewing in the -kitchen. She was not there. They rushed to the study. It was dark and -tenantless. As with one impulse, they swung around and made for -Ingleside—but not across Rainbow Valley. Down the hill and through the -Glen street they flew on the wings of their wild terror, Carl in the -lead, Una bringing up the rear. Nobody tried to stop them, though -everybody who saw them wondered what fresh devilment those manse -youngsters were up to now. But at the gate of Ingleside they ran into -Rosemary West, who had just been in for a moment to return some -borrowed books. - -She saw their ghastly faces and staring eyes. She realized that their -poor little souls were wrung with some awful and real fear, whatever -its cause. She caught Carl with one arm and Faith with the other. Una -stumbled against her and held on desperately. - -“Children, dear, what has happened?” she said. “What has frightened -you?” - -“Henry Warren’s ghost,” answered Carl, through his chattering teeth. - -“Henry—Warren’s—ghost!” said amazed Rosemary, who had never heard the -story. - -“Yes,” sobbed Faith hysterically. “It’s there—on the Bailey dyke—we saw -it—and it started to—chase us.” - -Rosemary herded the three distracted creatures to the Ingleside -veranda. Gilbert and Anne were both away, having also gone to the House -of Dreams, but Susan appeared in the doorway, gaunt and practical and -unghostlike. - -“What is all this rumpus about?” she inquired. - -Again the children gasped out their awful tale, while Rosemary held -them close to her and soothed them with wordless comfort. - -“Likely it was an owl,” said Susan, unstirred. - -An owl! The Meredith children never had any opinion of Susan’s -intelligence after that! - -“It was bigger than a million owls,” said Carl, sobbing—oh, how ashamed -Carl was of that sobbing in after days—“and it—it _grovelled_ just as -Mary said—and it was crawling down over the dyke to get at us. Do owls -_crawl?_” - -Rosemary looked at Susan. - -“They must have seen something to frighten them so,” she said. - -“I will go and see,” said Susan coolly. “Now, children, calm -yourselves. Whatever you have seen, it was not a ghost. As for poor -Henry Warren, I feel sure he would be only too glad to rest quietly in -his peaceful grave once he got there. No fear of _him_ venturing back, -and that you may tie to. If you can make them see reason, Miss West, I -will find out the truth of the matter.” - -Susan departed for Rainbow Valley, valiantly grasping a pitchfork which -she found leaning against the back fence where the doctor had been -working in his little hay-field. A pitchfork might not be of much use -against “ha’nts,” but it was a comforting sort of weapon. There was -nothing to be seen in Rainbow Valley when Susan reached it. No white -visitants appeared to be lurking in the shadowy, tangled old Bailey -garden. Susan marched boldly through it and beyond it, and rapped with -her pitchfork on the door of the little cottage on the other side, -where Mrs. Stimson lived with her two daughters. - -Back at Ingleside Rosemary had succeeded in calming the children. They -still sobbed a little from shock, but they were beginning to feel a -lurking and salutary suspicion that they had made dreadful geese of -themselves. This suspicion became a certainty when Susan finally -returned. - -“I have found out what your ghost was,” she said, with a grim smile, -sitting down on a rocker and fanning herself. “Old Mrs. Stimson has had -a pair of factory cotton sheets bleaching in the Bailey garden for a -week. She spread them on the dyke under the tamarack tree because the -grass was clean and short there. This evening she went out to take them -in. She had her knitting in her hands so she hung the sheets over her -shoulders by way of carrying them. And then she must have dropped one -of her needles and find it she could not and has not yet. But she went -down on her knees and crept about to hunt for it, and she was at that -when she heard awful yells down in the valley and saw the three -children tearing up the hill past her. She thought they had been bit by -something and it gave her poor old heart such a turn that she could not -move or speak, but just crouched there till they disappeared. Then she -staggered back home and they have been applying stimulants to her ever -since, and her heart is in a terrible condition and she says she will -not get over this fright all summer.” - -The Merediths sat, crimson with a shame that even Rosemary’s -understanding sympathy could not remove. They sneaked off home, met -Jerry at the manse gate and made remorseful confession. A session of -the Good-Conduct Club was arranged for next morning. - -“Wasn’t Miss West sweet to us to-night?” whispered Faith in bed. - -“Yes,” admitted Una. “It is such a pity it changes people so much to be -made stepmothers.” - -“I don’t believe it does,” said Faith loyally. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXI. -CARL DOES PENANCE - - -“I don’t see why we should be punished at all,” said Faith, rather -sulkily. “We didn’t do anything wrong. We couldn’t help being -frightened. And it won’t do father any harm. It was just an accident.” - -“You were cowards,” said Jerry with judicial scorn, “and you gave way -to your cowardice. That is why you should be punished. Everybody will -laugh at you about this, and that is a disgrace to the family.” - -“If you knew how awful the whole thing was,” said Faith with a shiver, -“you would think we had been punished enough already. I wouldn’t go -through it again for anything in the whole world.” - -“I believe you’d have run yourself if you’d been there,” muttered Carl. - -“From an old woman in a cotton sheet,” mocked Jerry. “Ho, ho, ho!” - -“It didn’t look a bit like an old woman,” cried Faith. “It was just a -great, big, white thing crawling about in the grass just as Mary Vance -said Henry Warren did. It’s all very fine for you to laugh, Jerry -Meredith, but you’d have laughed on the other side of your mouth if -you’d been there. And how are we to be punished? _I_ don’t think it’s -fair, but let’s know what we have to do, Judge Meredith!” - -“The way I look at it,” said Jerry, frowning, “is that Carl was the -most to blame. He bolted first, as I understand it. Besides, he was a -boy, so he should have stood his ground to protect you girls, whatever -the danger was. You know that, Carl, don’t you?” - -“I s’pose so,” growled Carl shamefacedly. - -“Very well. This is to be your punishment. To-night you’ll sit on Mr. -Hezekiah Pollock’s tombstone in the graveyard alone, until twelve -o’clock.” - -Carl gave a little shudder. The graveyard was not so very far from the -old Bailey garden. It would be a trying ordeal, but Carl was anxious to -wipe out his disgrace and prove that he was not a coward after all. - -“All right,” he said sturdily. “But how’ll I know when it is twelve?” - -“The study windows are open and you’ll hear the clock striking. And -mind you that you are not to budge out of that graveyard until the last -stroke. As for you girls, you’ve got to go without jam at supper for a -week.” - -Faith and Una looked rather blank. They were inclined to think that -even Carl’s comparatively short though sharp agony was lighter -punishment than this long drawn-out ordeal. A whole week of soggy bread -without the saving grace of jam! But no shirking was permitted in the -club. The girls accepted their lot with such philosophy as they could -summon up. - -That night they all went to bed at nine, except Carl, who was already -keeping vigil on the tombstone. Una slipped in to bid him good night. -Her tender heart was wrung with sympathy. - -“Oh, Carl, are you much scared?” she whispered. - -“Not a bit,” said Carl airily. - -“I won’t sleep a wink till after twelve,” said Una. “If you get -lonesome just look up at our window and remember that I’m inside, -awake, and thinking about you. That will be a little company, won’t -it?” - -“I’ll be all right. Don’t you worry about me,” said Carl. - -But in spite of his dauntless words Carl was a pretty lonely boy when -the lights went out in the manse. He had hoped his father would be in -the study as he so often was. He would not feel alone then. But that -night Mr. Meredith had been summoned to the fishing village at the -harbour mouth to see a dying man. He would not likely be back until -after midnight. Carl must dree his weird alone. - -A Glen man went past carrying a lantern. The mysterious shadows caused -by the lantern-light went hurtling madly over the graveyard like a -dance of demons or witches. Then they passed and darkness fell again. -One by one the lights in the Glen went out. It was a very dark night, -with a cloudy sky, and a raw east wind that was cold in spite of the -calendar. Far away on the horizon was the low dim lustre of the -Charlottetown lights. The wind wailed and sighed in the old fir-trees. -Mr. Alec Davis’ tall monument gleamed whitely through the gloom. The -willow beside it tossed long, writhing arms spectrally. At times, the -gyrations of its boughs made it seem as if the monument were moving, -too. - -Carl curled himself up on the tombstone with his legs tucked under him. -It wasn’t precisely pleasant to hang them over the edge of the stone. -Just suppose—just suppose—bony hands should reach up out of Mr. -Pollock’s grave under it and clutch him by the ankles. That had been -one of Mary Vance’s cheerful speculations one time when they had all -been sitting there. It returned to haunt Carl now. He didn’t believe -those things; he didn’t even really believe in Henry Warren’s ghost. As -for Mr. Pollock, he had been dead sixty years, so it wasn’t likely he -cared who sat on his tombstone now. But there is something very strange -and terrible in being awake when all the rest of the world is asleep. -You are alone then with nothing but your own feeble personality to pit -against the mighty principalities and powers of darkness. Carl was only -ten and the dead were all around him—and he wished, oh, he wished that -the clock would strike twelve. Would it _never_ strike twelve? Surely -Aunt Martha must have forgotten to wind it. - -And then it struck eleven—only eleven! He must stay yet another hour in -that grim place. If only there were a few friendly stars to be seen! -The darkness was so thick it seemed to press against his face. There -was a sound as of stealthy passing footsteps all over the graveyard. -Carl shivered, partly with prickling terror, partly with real cold. - -Then it began to rain—a chill, penetrating drizzle. Carl’s thin little -cotton blouse and shirt were soon wet through. He felt chilled to the -bone. He forgot mental terrors in his physical discomfort. But he must -stay there till twelve—he was punishing himself and he was on his -honour. Nothing had been said about rain—but it did not make any -difference. When the study clock finally struck twelve a drenched -little figure crept stiffly down off Mr. Pollock’s tombstone, made its -way into the manse and upstairs to bed. Carl’s teeth were chattering. -He thought he would never get warm again. - -He was warm enough when morning came. Jerry gave one startled look at -his crimson face and then rushed to call his father. Mr. Meredith came -hurriedly, his own face ivory white from the pallor of his long night -vigil by a death bed. He had not got home until daylight. He bent over -his little lad anxiously. - -“Carl, are you sick?” he said. - -“That—tombstone—over here,” said Carl, “it’s—moving—about—it’s -coming—at—me—keep it—away—please.” - -Mr. Meredith rushed to the telephone. In ten minutes Dr. Blythe was at -the manse. Half an hour later a wire was sent to town for a trained -nurse, and all the Glen knew that Carl Meredith was very ill with -pneumonia and that Dr. Blythe had been seen to shake his head. - -Gilbert shook his head more than once in the fortnight that followed. -Carl developed double pneumonia. There was one night when Mr. Meredith -paced his study floor, and Faith and Una huddled in their bedroom and -cried, and Jerry, wild with remorse, refused to budge from the floor of -the hall outside Carl’s door. Dr. Blythe and the nurse never left the -bedside. They fought death gallantly until the red dawn and they won -the victory. Carl rallied and passed the crisis in safety. The news was -phoned about the waiting Glen and people found out how much they really -loved their minister and his children. - -“I haven’t had one decent night’s sleep since I heard the child was -sick,” Miss Cornelia told Anne, “and Mary Vance has cried until those -queer eyes of hers looked like burnt holes in a blanket. Is it true -that Carl got pneumonia from straying out in the graveyard that wet -night for a dare?” - -“No. He was staying there to punish himself for cowardice in that -affair of the Warren ghost. It seems they have a club for bringing -themselves up, and they punish themselves when they do wrong. Jerry -told Mr. Meredith all about it.” - -“The poor little souls,” said Miss Cornelia. - -Carl got better rapidly, for the congregation took enough nourishing -things to the manse to furnish forth a hospital. Norman Douglas drove -up every evening with a dozen fresh eggs and a jar of Jersey cream. -Sometimes he stayed an hour and bellowed arguments on predestination -with Mr. Meredith in the study; oftener he drove on up to the hill that -overlooked the Glen. - -When Carl was able to go again to Rainbow Valley they had a special -feast in his honour and the doctor came down and helped them with the -fireworks. Mary Vance was there, too, but she did not tell any ghost -stories. Miss Cornelia had given her a talking on that subject which -Mary would not forget in a hurry. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXII. -TWO STUBBORN PEOPLE - - -Rosemary West, on her way home from a music lesson at Ingleside, turned -aside to the hidden spring in Rainbow Valley. She had not been there -all summer; the beautiful little spot had no longer any allurement for -her. The spirit of her young lover never came to the tryst now; and the -memories connected with John Meredith were too painful and poignant. -But she had happened to glance backward up the valley and had seen -Norman Douglas vaulting as airily as a stripling over the old stone -dyke of the Bailey garden and thought he was on his way up the hill. If -he overtook her she would have to walk home with him and she was not -going to do that. So she slipped at once behind the maples of the -spring, hoping he had not seen her and would pass on. - -But Norman had seen her and, what was more, was in pursuit of her. He -had been wanting for some time to have talk with Rosemary, but she had -always, so it seemed, avoided him. Rosemary had never, at any time, -liked Norman Douglas very well. His bluster, his temper, his noisy -hilarity, had always antagonized her. Long ago she had often wondered -how Ellen could possibly be attracted to him. Norman Douglas was -perfectly aware of her dislike and he chuckled over it. It never -worried Norman if people did not like him. It did not even make him -dislike them in return, for he took it as a kind of extorted -compliment. He thought Rosemary a fine girl, and he meant to be an -excellent, generous brother-in-law to her. But before he could be her -brother-in-law he had to have a talk with her, so, having seen her -leaving Ingleside as he stood in the doorway of a Glen store, he had -straightway plunged into the valley to overtake her. - -Rosemary was sitting pensively on the maple seat where John Meredith -had been sitting on that evening nearly a year ago. The tiny spring -shimmered and dimpled under its fringe of ferns. Ruby-red gleams of -sunset fell through the arching boughs. A tall clump of perfect asters -grew at her side. The little spot was as dreamy and witching and -evasive as any retreat of fairies and dryads in ancient forests. Into -it Norman Douglas bounced, scattering and annihilating its charm in a -moment. His personality seemed to swallow the place up. There was -simply nothing there but Norman Douglas, big, red-bearded, complacent. - -“Good evening,” said Rosemary coldly, standing up. - -“‘Evening, girl. Sit down again—sit down again. I want to have a talk -with you. Bless the girl, what’s she looking at me like that for? I -don’t want to eat you—I’ve had my supper. Sit down and be civil.” - -“I can hear what you have to say quite as well here,” said Rosemary. - -“So you can, girl, if you use your ears. I only wanted you to be -comfortable. You look so durned uncomfortable, standing there. Well, -_I’ll_ sit anyway.” - -Norman accordingly sat down in the very place John Meredith had once -sat. The contrast was so ludicrous that Rosemary was afraid she would -go off into a peal of hysterical laughter over it. Norman cast his hat -aside, placed his huge, red hands on his knees, and looked up at her -with his eyes a-twinkle. - -“Come, girl, don’t be so stiff,” he said, ingratiatingly. When he liked -he could be very ingratiating. “Let’s have a reasonable, sensible, -friendly chat. There’s something I want to ask you. Ellen says she -won’t, so it’s up to me to do it.” - -Rosemary looked down at the spring, which seemed to have shrunk to the -size of a dewdrop. Norman gazed at her in despair. - -“Durn it all, you might help a fellow out a bit,” he burst forth. - -“What is it you want me to help you say?” asked Rosemary scornfully. - -“You know as well as I do, girl. Don’t be putting on your tragedy airs. -No wonder Ellen was scared to ask you. Look here, girl, Ellen and I -want to marry each other. That’s plain English, isn’t it? Got that? And -Ellen says she can’t unless you give her back some tom-fool promise she -made. Come now, will you do it? Will you do it?” - -“Yes,” said Rosemary. - -Norman bounced up and seized her reluctant hand. - -“Good! I knew you would—I told Ellen you would. I knew it would only -take a minute. Now, girl, you go home and tell Ellen, and we’ll have a -wedding in a fortnight and you’ll come and live with us. We shan’t -leave you to roost on that hill-top like a lonely crow—don’t you worry. -I know you hate me, but, Lord, it’ll be great fun living with some one -that hates me. Life’ll have some spice in it after this. Ellen will -roast me and you’ll freeze me. I won’t have a dull moment.” - -Rosemary did not condescend to tell him that nothing would ever induce -her to live in his house. She let him go striding back to the Glen, -oozing delight and complacency, and she walked slowly up the hill home. -She had known this was coming ever since she had returned from -Kingsport, and found Norman Douglas established as a frequent evening -caller. His name was never mentioned between her and Ellen, but the -very avoidance of it was significant. It was not in Rosemary’s nature -to feel bitter, or she would have felt very bitter. She was coldly -civil to Norman, and she made no difference in any way with Ellen. But -Ellen had not found much comfort in her second courtship. - -She was in the garden, attended by St. George, when Rosemary came home. -The two sisters met in the dahlia walk. St. George sat down on the -gravel walk between them and folded his glossy black tail gracefully -around his white paws, with all the indifference of a well-fed, -well-bred, well-groomed cat. - -“Did you ever see such dahlias?” demanded Ellen proudly. “They are just -the finest we’ve ever had.” - -Rosemary had never cared for dahlias. Their presence in the garden was -her concession to Ellen’s taste. She noticed one huge mottled one of -crimson and yellow that lorded it over all the others. - -“That dahlia,” she said, pointing to it, “is exactly like Norman -Douglas. It might easily be his twin brother.” - -Ellen’s dark-browed face flushed. She admired the dahlia in question, -but she knew Rosemary did not, and that no compliment was intended. But -she dared not resent Rosemary’s speech—poor Ellen dared not resent -anything just then. And it was the first time Rosemary had ever -mentioned Norman’s name to her. She felt that this portended something. - -“I met Norman Douglas in the valley,” said Rosemary, looking straight -at her sister, “and he told me you and he wanted to be married—if I -would give you permission.” - -“Yes? What did you say?” asked Ellen, trying to speak naturally and -off-handedly, and failing completely. She could not meet Rosemary’s -eyes. She looked down at St. George’s sleek back and felt horribly -afraid. Rosemary had either said she would or she wouldn’t. If she -would Ellen would feel so ashamed and remorseful that she would be a -very uncomfortable bride-elect; and if she wouldn’t—well, Ellen had -once learned to live without Norman Douglas, but she had forgotten the -lesson and felt that she could never learn it again. - -“I said that as far as I was concerned you were at full liberty to -marry each other as soon as you liked,” said Rosemary. - -“Thank you,” said Ellen, still looking at St. George. - -Rosemary’s face softened. - -“I hope you’ll be happy, Ellen,” she said gently. - -“Oh, Rosemary,” Ellen looked up in distress, “I’m so ashamed—I don’t -deserve it—after all I said to you—” - -“We won’t speak about that,” said Rosemary hurriedly and decidedly. - -“But—but,” persisted Ellen, “you are free now, too—and it’s not too -late—John Meredith—” - -“Ellen West!” Rosemary had a little spark of temper under all her -sweetness and it flashed forth now in her blue eyes. “Have you quite -lost your senses in _every_ respect? Do you suppose for an instant that -_I_ am going to go to John Meredith and say meekly, ‘Please, sir, I’ve -changed my mind and please, sir, I hope you haven’t changed yours.’ Is -that what you want me to do?” - -“No—no—but a little—encouragement—he would come back—” - -“Never. He despises me—and rightly. No more of this, Ellen. I bear you -no grudge—marry whom you like. But no meddling in my affairs.” - -“Then you must come and live with me,” said Ellen. “I shall not leave -you here alone.” - -“Do you really think that I would go and live in Norman Douglas’s -house?” - -“Why not?” cried Ellen, half angrily, despite her humiliation. - -Rosemary began to laugh. - -“Ellen, I thought you had a sense of humour. Can you see me doing it?” - -“I don’t see why you wouldn’t. His house is big enough—you’d have your -share of it to yourself—he wouldn’t interfere.” - -“Ellen, the thing is not to be thought of. Don’t bring this up again.” - -“Then,” said Ellen coldly, and determinedly, “I shall not marry him. I -shall not leave you here alone. That is all there is to be said about -it.” - -“Nonsense, Ellen.” - -“It is not nonsense. It is my firm decision. It would be absurd for you -to think of living here by yourself—a mile from any other house. If you -won’t come with me I’ll stay with you. Now, we won’t argue the matter, -so don’t try.” - -“I shall leave Norman to do the arguing,” said Rosemary. - -“_I’ll_ deal with Norman. I can manage _him_. I would never have asked -you to give me back my promise—never—but I had to tell Norman why I -couldn’t marry him and he said _he_ would ask you. I couldn’t prevent -him. You need not suppose you are the only person in the world who -possesses self-respect. I never dreamed of marrying and leaving you -here alone. And you’ll find I can be as determined as yourself.” - -Rosemary turned away and went into the house, with a shrug of her -shoulders. Ellen looked down at St. George, who had never blinked an -eyelash or stirred a whisker during the whole interview. - -“St. George, this world would be a dull place without the men, I’ll -admit, but I’m almost tempted to wish there wasn’t one of ‘em in it. -Look at the trouble and bother they’ve made right here, George—torn our -happy old life completely up by the roots, Saint. John Meredith began -it and Norman Douglas has finished it. And now both of them have to go -into limbo. Norman is the only man I ever met who agrees with me that -the Kaiser of Germany is the most dangerous creature alive on this -earth—and I can’t marry this sensible person because my sister is -stubborn and I’m stubborner. Mark my words, St. George, the minister -would come back if she raised her little finger. But she won’t -George—she’ll never do it—she won’t even crook it—and I don’t dare -meddle, Saint. I won’t sulk, George; Rosemary didn’t sulk, so I’m -determined I won’t either, Saint; Norman will tear up the turf, but the -long and short of it is, St. George, that all of us old fools must just -stop thinking of marrying. Well, well, ‘despair is a free man, hope is -a slave,’ Saint. So now come into the house, George, and I’ll solace -you with a saucerful of cream. Then there will be one happy and -contented creature on this hill at least.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXXIII. -CARL IS—NOT—WHIPPED - - -“There is something I think I ought to tell you,” said Mary Vance -mysteriously. - -She and Faith and Una were walking arm in arm through the village, -having foregathered at Mr. Flagg’s store. Una and Faith exchanged looks -which said, “_Now_ something disagreeable is coming.” When Mary Vance -thought she ought to tell them things there was seldom much pleasure in -the hearing. They often wondered why they kept on liking Mary Vance—for -like her they did, in spite of everything. To be sure, she was -generally a stimulating and agreeable companion. If only she would not -have those convictions that it was her duty to tell them things! - -“Do you know that Rosemary West won’t marry your pa because she thinks -you are such a wild lot? She’s afraid she couldn’t bring you up right -and so she turned him down.” - -Una’s heart thrilled with secret exultation. She was very glad to hear -that Miss West would not marry her father. But Faith was rather -disappointed. - -“How do you know?” she asked. - -“Oh, everybody’s saying it. I heard Mrs. Elliott talking it over with -Mrs. Doctor. They thought I was too far away to hear, but I’ve got ears -like a cat’s. Mrs. Elliott said she hadn’t a doubt that Rosemary was -afraid to try stepmothering you because you’d got such a reputation. -Your pa never goes up the hill now. Neither does Norman Douglas. Folks -say Ellen has jilted him just to get square with him for jilting her -ages ago. But Norman is going about declaring he’ll get her yet. And I -think you ought to know you’ve spoiled your pa’s match and _I_ think -it’s a pity, for he’s bound to marry somebody before long, and Rosemary -West would have been the best wife _I_ know of for him.” - -“You told me all stepmothers were cruel and wicked,” said Una. - -“Oh—well,” said Mary rather confusedly, “they’re mostly awful cranky, I -know. But Rosemary West couldn’t be very mean to any one. I tell you if -your pa turns round and marries Emmeline Drew you’ll wish you’d behaved -yourselves better and not frightened Rosemary out of it. It’s awful -that you’ve got such a reputation that no decent woman’ll marry your pa -on account of you. Of course, _I_ know that half the yarns that are -told about you ain’t true. But give a dog a bad name. Why, some folks -are saying that it was Jerry and Carl that threw the stones through -Mrs. Stimson’s window the other night when it was really them two Boyd -boys. But I’m afraid it was Carl that put the eel in old Mrs. Carr’s -buggy, though I said at first I wouldn’t believe it until I’d better -proof than old Kitty Alec’s word. I told Mrs. Elliott so right to her -face.” - -“What did Carl do?” cried Faith. - -“Well, they say—now, mind, I’m only telling you what people say—so -there’s no use in your blaming me for it—that Carl and a lot of other -boys were fishing eels over the bridge one evening last week. Mrs. Carr -drove past in that old rattletrap buggy of hers with the open back. And -Carl he just up and threw a big eel into the back. When poor old Mrs. -Carr was driving up the hill by Ingleside that eel came squirming out -between her feet. She thought it was a snake and she just give one -awful screech and stood up and jumped clean over the wheels. The horse -bolted, but it went home and no damage was done. But Mrs. Carr jarred -her legs most terrible, and has had nervous spasms ever since whenever -she thinks of the eel. Say, it was a rotten trick to play on the poor -old soul. She’s a decent body, if she is as queer as Dick’s hat band.” - -Faith and Una looked at each other again. This was a matter for the -Good-Conduct Club. They would not talk it over with Mary. - -“There goes your pa,” said Mary as Mr. Meredith passed them, “and never -seeing us no more’n if we weren’t here. Well, I’m getting so’s I don’t -mind it. But there are folks who do.” - -Mr. Meredith had not seen them, but he was not walking along in his -usual dreamy and abstracted fashion. He strode up the hill in agitation -and distress. Mrs. Alec Davis had just told him the story of Carl and -the eel. She had been very indignant about it. Old Mrs. Carr was her -third cousin. Mr. Meredith was more than indignant. He was hurt and -shocked. He had not thought Carl would do anything like this. He was -not inclined to be hard on pranks of heedlessness or forgetfulness, but -_this_ was different. _This_ had a nasty tang in it. When he reached -home he found Carl on the lawn, patiently studying the habits and -customs of a colony of wasps. Calling him into the study Mr. Meredith -confronted him, with a sterner face than any of his children had ever -seen before, and asked him if the story were true. - -“Yes,” said Carl, flushing, but meeting his father’s eyes bravely. - -Mr. Meredith groaned. He had hoped that there had been at least -exaggeration. - -“Tell me the whole matter,” he said. - -“The boys were fishing for eels over the bridge,” said Carl. “Link Drew -had caught a whopper—I mean an awful big one—the biggest eel I ever -saw. He caught it right at the start and it had been lying in his -basket a long time, still as still. I thought it was dead, honest I -did. Then old Mrs. Carr drove over the bridge and she called us all -young varmints and told us to go home. And we hadn’t said a word to -her, father, truly. So when she drove back again, after going to the -store, the boys dared me to put Link’s eel in her buggy. I thought it -was so dead it couldn’t hurt her and I threw it in. Then the eel came -to life on the hill and we heard her scream and saw her jump out. I was -awful sorry. That’s all, father.” - -It was not quite as bad as Mr. Meredith had feared, but it was quite -bad enough. “I must punish you, Carl,” he said sorrowfully. - -“Yes, I know, father.” - -“I—I must whip you.” - -Carl winced. He had never been whipped. Then, seeing how badly his -father felt, he said cheerfully, - -“All right, father.” - -Mr. Meredith misunderstood his cheerfulness and thought him insensible. -He told Carl to come to the study after supper, and when the boy had -gone out he flung himself into his chair and groaned again. He dreaded -the evening sevenfold more than Carl did. The poor minister did not -even know what he should whip his boy with. What was used to whip boys? -Rods? Canes? No, that would be too brutal. A timber switch, then? And -he, John Meredith, must hie him to the woods and cut one. It was an -abominable thought. Then a picture presented itself unbidden to his -mind. He saw Mrs. Carr’s wizened, nut-cracker little face at the -appearance of that reviving eel—he saw her sailing witch-like over the -buggy wheels. Before he could prevent himself the minister laughed. -Then he was angry with himself and angrier still with Carl. He would -get that switch at once—and it must not be too limber, after all. - -Carl was talking the matter over in the graveyard with Faith and Una, -who had just come home. They were horrified at the idea of his being -whipped—and by father, who had never done such a thing! But they agreed -soberly that it was just. - -“You know it was a dreadful thing to do,” sighed Faith. “And you never -owned up in the club.” - -“I forgot,” said Carl. “Besides, I didn’t think any harm came of it. I -didn’t know she jarred her legs. But I’m to be whipped and that will -make things square.” - -“Will it hurt—very much?” said Una, slipping her hand into Carl’s. - -“Oh, not so much, I guess,” said Carl gamely. “Anyhow, I’m not going to -cry, no matter how much it hurts. It would make father feel so bad, if -I did. He’s all cut up now. I wish I could whip myself hard enough and -save him doing it.” - -After supper, at which Carl had eaten little and Mr. Meredith nothing -at all, both went silently into the study. The switch lay on the table. -Mr. Meredith had had a bad time getting a switch to suit him. He cut -one, then felt it was too slender. Carl had done a really indefensible -thing. Then he cut another—it was far too thick. After all, Carl had -thought the eel was dead. The third one suited him better; but as he -picked it up from the table it seemed very thick and heavy—more like a -stick than a switch. - -“Hold out your hand,” he said to Carl. - -Carl threw back his head and held out his hand unflinchingly. But he -was not very old and he could not quite keep a little fear out of his -eyes. Mr. Meredith looked down into those eyes—why, they were Cecilia’s -eyes—her very eyes—and in them was the selfsame expression he had once -seen in Cecilia’s eyes when she had come to him to tell him something -she had been a little afraid to tell him. Here were her eyes in Carl’s -little, white face—and six weeks ago he had thought, through one -endless, terrible night, that his little lad was dying. - -John Meredith threw down the switch. - -“Go,” he said, “I cannot whip you.” - -Carl fled to the graveyard, feeling that the look on his father’s face -was worse than any whipping. - -“Is it over so soon?” asked Faith. She and Una had been holding hands -and setting teeth on the Pollock tombstone. - -“He—he didn’t whip me at all,” said Carl with a sob, “and—I wish he -had—and he’s in there, feeling just awful.” - -Una slipped away. Her heart yearned to comfort her father. As -noiselessly as a little gray mouse she opened the study door and crept -in. The room was dark with twilight. Her father was sitting at his -desk. His back was towards her—his head was in his hands. He was -talking to himself—broken, anguished words—but Una heard—heard and -understood, with the sudden illumination that comes to sensitive, -unmothered children. As silently as she had come in she slipped out and -closed the door. John Meredith went on talking out his pain in what he -deemed his undisturbed solitude. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXIV. -UNA VISITS THE HILL - - -Una went upstairs. Carl and Faith were already on their way through the -early moonlight to Rainbow Valley, having heard therefrom the elfin -lilt of Jerry’s jews-harp and having guessed that the Blythes were -there and fun afoot. Una had no wish to go. She sought her own room -first where she sat down on her bed and had a little cry. She did not -want anybody to come in her dear mother’s place. She did not want a -stepmother who would hate her and make her father hate her. But father -was so desperately unhappy—and if she could do any anything to make him -happier she _must_ do it. There was only one thing she could do—and she -had known the moment she had left the study that she must do it. But it -was a very hard thing to do. - -After Una cried her heart out she wiped her eyes and went to the spare -room. It was dark and rather musty, for the blind had not been drawn up -nor the window opened for a long time. Aunt Martha was no fresh-air -fiend. But as nobody ever thought of shutting a door in the manse this -did not matter so much, save when some unfortunate minister came to -stay all night and was compelled to breathe the spare room atmosphere. - -There was a closet in the spare room and far back in the closet a gray -silk dress was hanging. Una went into the closet and shut the door, -went down on her knees and pressed her face against the soft silken -folds. It had been her mother’s wedding-dress. It was still full of a -sweet, faint, haunting perfume, like lingering love. Una always felt -very close to her mother there—as if she were kneeling at her feet with -head in her lap. She went there once in a long while when life was -_too_ hard. - -“Mother,” she whispered to the gray silk gown, “_I_ will never forget -you, mother, and I’ll _always_ love you best. But I have to do it, -mother, because father is so very unhappy. I know you wouldn’t want him -to be unhappy. And I will be very good to her, mother, and try to love -her, even if she is like Mary Vance said stepmothers always were.” - -Una carried some fine, spiritual strength away from her secret shrine. -She slept peacefully that night with the tear stains still glistening -on her sweet, serious, little face. - -The next afternoon she put on her best dress and hat. They were shabby -enough. Every other little girl in the Glen had new clothes that summer -except Faith and Una. Mary Vance had a lovely dress of white -embroidered lawn, with scarlet silk sash and shoulder bows. But to-day -Una did not mind her shabbiness. She only wanted to be very neat. She -washed her face carefully. She brushed her black hair until it was as -smooth as satin. She tied her shoelaces carefully, having first sewed -up two runs in her one pair of good stockings. She would have liked to -black her shoes, but she could not find any blacking. Finally, she -slipped away from the manse, down through Rainbow Valley, up through -the whispering woods, and out to the road that ran past the house on -the hill. It was quite a long walk and Una was tired and warm when she -got there. - -She saw Rosemary West sitting under a tree in the garden and stole past -the dahlia beds to her. Rosemary had a book in her lap, but she was -gazing afar across the harbour and her thoughts were sorrowful enough. -Life had not been pleasant lately in the house on the hill. Ellen had -not sulked—Ellen had been a brick. But things can be felt that are -never said and at times the silence between the two women was -intolerably eloquent. All the many familiar things that had once made -life sweet had a flavour of bitterness now. Norman Douglas made -periodical irruptions also, bullying and coaxing Ellen by turns. It -would end, Rosemary believed, by his dragging Ellen off with him some -day, and Rosemary felt that she would be almost glad when it happened. -Existence would be horribly lonely then, but it would be no longer -charged with dynamite. - -She was roused from her unpleasant reverie by a timid little touch on -her shoulder. Turning, she saw Una Meredith. - -“Why, Una, dear, did you walk up here in all this heat?” - -“Yes,” said Una, “I came to—I came to—” - -But she found it very hard to say what she had come to do. Her voice -failed—her eyes filled with tears. - -“Why, Una, little girl, what is the trouble? Don’t be afraid to tell -me.” - -Rosemary put her arm around the thin little form and drew the child -close to her. Her eyes were very beautiful—her touch so tender that Una -found courage. - -“I came—to ask you—to marry father,” she gasped. - -Rosemary was silent for a moment from sheer dumbfounderment. She stared -at Una blankly. - -“Oh, don’t be angry, please, dear Miss West,” said Una, pleadingly. -“You see, everybody is saying that you wouldn’t marry father because we -are so bad. He is _very_ unhappy about it. So I thought I would come -and tell you that we are never bad _on purpose_. And if you will only -marry father we will all try to be good and do just what you tell us. -I’m _sure_ you won’t have any trouble with us. _Please_, Miss West.” - -Rosemary had been thinking rapidly. Gossiping surmise, she saw, had put -this mistaken idea into Una’s mind. She must be perfectly frank and -sincere with the child. - -“Una, dear,” she said softly. “It isn’t because of you poor little -souls that I cannot be your father’s wife. I never thought of such a -thing. You are not bad—I never supposed you were. There—there was -another reason altogether, Una.” - -“Don’t you like father?” asked Una, lifting reproachful eyes. “Oh, Miss -West, you don’t know how nice he is. I’m sure he’d make you a _good_ -husband.” - -Even in the midst of her perplexity and distress Rosemary couldn’t help -a twisted, little smile. - -“Oh, don’t laugh, Miss West,” Una cried passionately. “Father feels -_dreadful_ about it.” - -“I think you’re mistaken, dear,” said Rosemary. - -“I’m not. I’m _sure_ I’m not. Oh, Miss West, father was going to whip -Carl yesterday—Carl had been naughty—and father couldn’t do it because -you see he had no _practice_ in whipping. So when Carl came out and -told us father felt so bad, I slipped into the study to see if I could -help him—he _likes_ me to comfort him, Miss West—and he didn’t hear me -come in and I heard what he was saying. I’ll tell you, Miss West, if -you’ll let me whisper it in your ear.” - -Una whispered earnestly. Rosemary’s face turned crimson. So John -Meredith still cared. _He_ hadn’t changed his mind. And he must care -intensely if he had said that—care more than she had ever supposed he -did. She sat still for a moment, stroking Una’s hair. Then she said, - -“Will you take a little letter from me to your father, Una?” - -“Oh, are you going to marry him, Miss West?” asked Una eagerly. - -“Perhaps—if he really wants me to,” said Rosemary, blushing again. - -“I’m glad—I’m glad,” said Una bravely. Then she looked up, with -quivering lips. “Oh, Miss West, you won’t turn father against us—you -won’t make him hate us, will you?” she said beseechingly. - -Rosemary stared again. - -“Una Meredith! Do you think I would do such a thing? Whatever put such -an idea into your head?” - -“Mary Vance said stepmothers were all like that—and that they all hated -their stepchildren and made their father hate them—she said they just -couldn’t help it—just being stepmothers made them like that”— - -“You poor child! And yet you came up here and asked me to marry your -father because you wanted to make him happy? You’re a darling—a -heroine—as Ellen would say, you’re a brick. Now listen to me, very -closely, dearest. Mary Vance is a silly little girl who doesn’t know -very much and she is dreadfully mistaken about some things. I would -never dream of trying to turn your father against you. I would love you -all dearly. I don’t want to take your own mother’s place—she must -always have that in your hearts. But neither have I any intention of -being a stepmother. I want to be your friend and helper and _chum_. -Don’t you think that would be nice, Una—if you and Faith and Carl and -Jerry could just think of me as a good jolly chum—a big older sister?” - -“Oh, it would be lovely,” cried Una, with a transfigured face. She -flung her arms impulsively round Rosemary’s neck. She was so happy that -she felt as if she could fly on wings. - -“Do the others—do Faith and the boys have the same idea you had about -stepmothers?” - -“No. Faith never believed Mary Vance. I was dreadfully foolish to -believe her, either. Faith loves you already—she has loved you ever -since poor Adam was eaten. And Jerry and Carl will think it is jolly. -Oh, Miss West, when you come to live with us, will you—could you—teach -me to cook—a little—and sew—and—and—and do things? I don’t know -anything. I won’t be much trouble—I’ll try to learn fast.” - -“Darling, I’ll teach you and help you all I can. Now, you won’t say a -word to anybody about this, will you—not even to Faith, until your -father himself tells you you may? And you’ll stay and have tea with -me?” - -“Oh, thank you—but—but—I think I’d rather go right back and take the -letter to father,” faltered Una. “You see, he’ll be glad that much -_sooner_, Miss West.” - -“I see,” said Rosemary. She went to the house, wrote a note and gave it -to Una. When that small damsel had run off, a palpitating bundle of -happiness, Rosemary went to Ellen, who was shelling peas on the back -porch. - -“Ellen,” she said, “Una Meredith has just been here to ask me to marry -her father.” - -Ellen looked up and read her sister’s face. - -“And you’re going to?” she said. - -“It’s quite likely.” - -Ellen went on shelling peas for a few minutes. Then she suddenly put -her hands up to her own face. There were tears in her black-browed -eyes. - -“I—I hope we’ll all be happy,” she said between a sob and a laugh. - -Down at the manse Una Meredith, warm, rosy, triumphant, marched boldly -into her father’s study and laid a letter on the desk before him. His -pale face flushed as he saw the clear, fine handwriting he knew so -well. He opened the letter. It was very short—but he shed twenty years -as he read it. Rosemary asked him if he could meet her that evening at -sunset by the spring in Rainbow Valley. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXV. -“LET THE PIPER COME” - - -“And so,” said Miss Cornelia, “the double wedding is to be sometime -about the middle of this month.” - -There was a faint chill in the air of the early September evening, so -Anne had lighted her ever ready fire of driftwood in the big living -room, and she and Miss Cornelia basked in its fairy flicker. - -“It is so delightful—especially in regard to Mr. Meredith and -Rosemary,” said Anne. “I’m as happy in the thought of it, as I was when -I was getting married myself. I felt exactly like a bride again last -evening when I was up on the hill seeing Rosemary’s trousseau.” - -“They tell me her things are fine enough for a princess,” said Susan -from a shadowy corner where she was cuddling her brown boy. “I have -been invited up to see them also and I intend to go some evening. I -understand that Rosemary is to wear white silk and a veil, but Ellen is -to be married in navy blue. I have no doubt, Mrs. Dr. dear, that that -is very sensible of her, but for my own part I have always felt that if -I were ever married _I_ would prefer the white and the veil, as being -more bride-like.” - -A vision of Susan in “white and a veil” presented itself before Anne’s -inner vision and was almost too much for her. - -“As for Mr. Meredith,” said Miss Cornelia, “even his engagement has -made a different man of him. He isn’t half so dreamy and absent-minded, -believe me. I was so relieved when I heard that he had decided to close -the manse and let the children visit round while he was away on his -honeymoon. If he had left them and old Aunt Martha there alone for a -month I should have expected to wake every morning and see the place -burned down.” - -“Aunt Martha and Jerry are coming here,” said Anne. “Carl is going to -Elder Clow’s. I haven’t heard where the girls are going.” - -“Oh, I’m going to take them,” said Miss Cornelia. “Of course, I was -glad to, but Mary would have given me no peace till I asked them any -way. The Ladies’ Aid is going to clean the manse from top to bottom -before the bride and groom come back, and Norman Douglas has arranged -to fill the cellar with vegetables. Nobody ever saw or heard anything -quite like Norman Douglas these days, believe _me_. He’s so tickled -that he’s going to marry Ellen West after wanting her all his life. If -_I_ was Ellen—but then, I’m not, and if she is satisfied I can very -well be. I heard her say years ago when she was a schoolgirl that she -didn’t want a tame puppy for a husband. There’s nothing tame about -Norman, believe _me_.” - -The sun was setting over Rainbow Valley. The pond was wearing a -wonderful tissue of purple and gold and green and crimson. A faint blue -haze rested on the eastern hill, over which a great, pale, round moon -was just floating up like a silver bubble. - -They were all there, squatted in the little open glade—Faith and Una, -Jerry and Carl, Jem and Walter, Nan and Di, and Mary Vance. They had -been having a special celebration, for it would be Jem’s last evening -in Rainbow Valley. On the morrow he would leave for Charlottetown to -attend Queen’s Academy. Their charmed circle would be broken; and, in -spite of the jollity of their little festival, there was a hint of -sorrow in every gay young heart. - -“See—there is a great golden palace over there in the sunset,” said -Walter, pointing. “Look at the shining tower—and the crimson banners -streaming from them. Perhaps a conqueror is riding home from battle—and -they are hanging them out to do honour to him.” - -“Oh, I wish we had the old days back again,” exclaimed Jem. “I’d love -to be a soldier—a great, triumphant general. I’d give _everything_ to -see a big battle.” - -Well, Jem was to be a soldier and see a greater battle than had ever -been fought in the world; but that was as yet far in the future; and -the mother, whose first-born son he was, was wont to look on her boys -and thank God that the “brave days of old,” which Jem longed for, were -gone for ever, and that never would it be necessary for the sons of -Canada to ride forth to battle “for the ashes of their fathers and the -temples of their gods.” - -The shadow of the Great Conflict had not yet made felt any forerunner -of its chill. The lads who were to fight, and perhaps fall, on the -fields of France and Flanders, Gallipoli and Palestine, were still -roguish schoolboys with a fair life in prospect before them: the girls -whose hearts were to be wrung were yet fair little maidens a-star with -hopes and dreams. - -Slowly the banners of the sunset city gave up their crimson and gold; -slowly the conqueror’s pageant faded out. Twilight crept over the -valley and the little group grew silent. Walter had been reading again -that day in his beloved book of myths and he remembered how he had once -fancied the Pied Piper coming down the valley on an evening just like -this. - -He began to speak dreamily, partly because he wanted to thrill his -companions a little, partly because something apart from him seemed to -be speaking through his lips. - -“The Piper is coming nearer,” he said, “he is nearer than he was that -evening I saw him before. His long, shadowy cloak is blowing around -him. He pipes—he pipes—and we must follow—Jem and Carl and Jerry and -I—round and round the world. Listen—listen—can’t you hear his wild -music?” - -The girls shivered. - -“You know you’re only pretending,” protested Mary Vance, “and I wish -you wouldn’t. You make it too real. I hate that old Piper of yours.” - -But Jem sprang up with a gay laugh. He stood up on a little hillock, -tall and splendid, with his open brow and his fearless eyes. There were -thousands like him all over the land of the maple. - -“Let the Piper come and welcome,” he cried, waving his hand. “_I’ll_ -follow him gladly round and round the world.” - -THE END - - - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RAINBOW VALLEY *** - -***** This file should be named 5343-0.txt or 5343-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - https://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/4/5343/ - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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