33665	----	[Transcriber's notes] Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers enclosed in curly braces, e.g. {99}. They have been located where page breaks occurred in the original book. Obvious spelling or typographical errors have been corrected. "Inventive" and contemporary spelling is unchanged. For example, the insertion of a space in contractions is preserved, as in "has n't". [End transcriber's notes] THE PRELIMINARIES _And Other Stories_ BY CORNELIA A. P. COMER BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY _The Riverside press Cambridge_ 1912 COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY CORNELIA A. P. COMER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED _Published September 1912_ CONTENTS THE PRELIMINARIES 1 THE LONG INHERITANCE 51 CLARISSA'S OWN CHILD 127 {1} THE PRELIMINARIES {2} {3} THE PRELIMINARIES I Young Oliver Pickersgill was in love with Peter Lannithorne's daughter. Peter Lannithorne was serving a six-year term in the penitentiary for embezzlement. It seemed to Ollie that there was only one right-minded way of looking at these basal facts of his situation. But this simple view of the matter was destined to receive several shocks in the course of his negotiations for Ruth Lannithorne's hand. I say negotiations advisedly. Most young men in love have only to secure the consent of the girl and find enough money to go to housekeeping. It is quite otherwise when you wish to marry into a royal {4} family, or to ally yourself with a criminal's daughter. The preliminaries are more complicated. Ollie thought a man ought to marry the girl he loves, and prejudices be hanged! In the deeps of his soul, he probably knew this to be the magnanimous, manly attitude, but certainly there was no condescension in his outward bearing when he asked Ruth Lannithorne to be his wife. Yet she turned on him fiercely, bristling with pride and tense with overwrought nerves. "I will never marry any one," she declared, "who does n't respect my father as I do!" If Oliver's jaw fell, it is hardly surprising. He had expected her to say she would never marry into a family where she was not welcome. He had planned to get around the natural {5} objections of his parents somehow--the details of this were vague in his mind--and then he meant to reassure her warmly, and tell her that personal merit was the only thing that counted with him or his. He may have visualized himself as wiping away her tears and gently raising her to share the safe social pedestal whereon the Pickersgills were firmly planted. The young do have these visions not infrequently. But to be asked to respect Peter Lannithorne, about whom he knew practically nothing save his present address! "I don't remember that I ever saw your father, Ruth," he faltered. "He was the best man," said the girl excitedly, "the kindest, the most indulgent--that's another thing, Ollie. I will never marry an indulgent man, nor one who will let his wife manage {6} him. If it had n't been for mother--" She broke off abruptly. Ollie tried to look sympathetic and not too intelligent. He had heard that Mrs. Lannithorne was considered difficult. "I ought n't to say it, but can't explain father unless I do. Mother nagged; she wanted more money than there was; she made him feel her illnesses, and our failings, and the overdone beefsteak, and the underdone bread,--everything that went wrong, always, was his fault. His fault--because he did n't make more money. We were on the edge of things, and she wanted to be in the middle, as she was used to being. Of course, she really has n't been well, but I think it's mostly nerves," said Ruth, with the terrible hardness of the young. "Anyhow, she might just as well have stuck {7} knives into him as to say the things she did. It hurt him--like knives. I could see him wince--and try harder--and get discouraged--and then, at last--" The girl burst into a passion of tears. Oliver tried to soothe her. Secretly he was appalled at these squalid revelations of discordant family life. The domestic affairs of the Pickersgills ran smoothly, in affluence and peace. Oliver had never listened to a nagging woman in his life. He had an idea that such phenomena were confined to the lower classes. "Don't you care for me at all, Ruth?" The girl crumpled her wet handkerchief. "Ollie, you're the most beautiful thing that ever happened except my father. He was beautiful, too; indeed, indeed, he was. I'll never {8} think differently. I can't. He tried so hard." All the latent manliness in the boy came to the surface and showed itself. "Ruth, darling, I don't want you to think differently. It's right for you to be loyal and feel as you do. You see, you know, and the world doesn't. I'll take what you say and do as you wish. You must n't think I'm on the other side. I'm not. I'm on your side, wherever that is. When the time comes I'll show you. You may trust me, Ruth." He was eager, pleading, earnest. He looked at the moment so good, so loving and sincere, that the girl, out of her darker experience of life, wondered wistfully if it were really true that Providence ever let people just live their lives out like that being good, and prosperous, and generous, advancing {9} from happiness to happiness, instead of stubbing along painfully as she felt she had done, from one bitter experience to another, learning to live by failures. It must be beautiful to learn from successes instead, as it seemed to her Oliver had done. How could any one refuse to share such a radiant life when it was offered? As for loving Oliver, that was a foregone conclusion. Still, she hesitated. "You re awfully dear and good to me, Ollie," she said. "But I want you to see father. I want you to go and talk to him about this, and know him for yourself. I know I'm asking a hard thing of you, but, truly, I believe it's best. If _he_ says it's all right for me to marry you, I will if your family want me, of course," she added as an after thought. {10} "Ought n't I to speak to your mother?" hesitated Oliver. "Oh,--mother? Yes, I suppose she'd like it," said Ruth absent-mindedly. "Mother has views about getting married, Ollie. I dare say she'll want to tell you what they are. You must n't think they're my views, though." "I'd rather hear yours, Ruth." She flashed a look at him that opened for him the heavenly deeps that lie before the young and the loving, and he had a sudden vision of their life as a long sunlit road, winding uphill, winding down, but sunlit always--because looks like that illumine any dusk. "I'll tell you my views--some day," Ruth said softly. "But first--" "First I must talk to my father, your mother, your father." Oliver checked them off on his fingers. "Three of them. Seems to me that's a lot of {11} folks to consult about a thing that does n't really concern anybody but you and me!" II After the fashion of self-absorbed youth, Oliver had never noticed Mrs. Lannithorne especially. She had been to him simply a sallow little figure in the background of Ruth's vivid young life; some one to be spoken to very politely, but otherwise of no particular moment. If his marital negotiations did nothing else for him, they were at least opening his eyes to the significance of the personalities of older people. The things Ruth said about her mother had prepared him to find that lady querulous and difficult, but essentially negligible. Face to face with Mrs. Lannithorne, he had a very {12} different impression. She received him in the upstairs sitting-room to which her semi-invalid habits usually confined her. Wrapped in a white wool shawl and lying in a long Canton lounging-chair by a sunshiny window, she put out a chilly hand in greeting, and asked the young man to be seated. Oliver, scanning her countenance, received an unexpected impression of dignity. She was thin and nervous, with big dark eyes peering out of a pale, narrow face; she might be a woman with a grievance, but he apprehended something beyond mere fretfulness in the discontent of her expression. There was suffering and thought in her face, and even when the former is exaggerated and the latter erroneous, these are impressive things. "Mrs. Lannithorne, have you any objection to letting Ruth marry me?" {13} "Mr. Pickersgill, what are your qualifications for the care of a wife and family?" Oliver hesitated. "Why, about what anybody's are, I think," he said, and was immediately conscious of the feebleness of this response. "I mean," he added, flushing to the roots of his blond hair, "that my prospects in life are fair. I am in my father's office, you know. I am to have a small share in the business next year. I need n't tell you that the firm is a good one. If you want to know about my qualifications as a lawyer why, I can refer you to people who can tell you if they think I am promising." "Do your family approve of this marriage?" "I have n't talked to them about it yet." "Have you ever saved any money {14} of your own earning, or have you any property in your own name?" Oliver thought guiltily of his bank account, which had a surprising way of proving, when balanced, to be less than he expected. "Well,--not exactly." "In other words, then, Mr. Pickersgill, you are a young and absolutely untried man; you are in your father's employ and practically at his mercy; you propose a great change in your life of which you do not know that he approves; you have no resources of your own, and you are not even sure of your earning capacity if your father's backing were withdrawn. In these circumstances you plan to double your expenses and assume the whole responsibility of another person's life, comfort, and happiness. Do you think that you have shown {15} me that your qualifications are adequate?" All this was more than a little disconcerting. Oliver was used to being accepted as old Pickersgill's only son which meant a cheerfully accorded background of eminence, ability, and comfortable wealth. It had not occurred to him to detach himself from that background and see how he looked when separated from it. He felt a little angry, and also a little ashamed of the fact that he did not bulk larger as a personage, apart from his environment. Nevertheless, he answered her question honestly. "No, Mrs. Lannithorne, I don't think that I have." She did not appear to rejoice in his discomfiture. She even seemed a little sorry for it, but she went on quietly:-- {16} "Don't think I am trying to prove that you are the most ineligible young man in the city. But it is absolutely necessary that a man should stand on his own feet, and firmly, before he undertakes to look after other lives than his own. Otherwise there is nothing but misery for the women and children who depend upon him. It is a serious business, getting married." "I begin to think it is," muttered Oliver blankly. "I don't _want_ my daughters to marry," said Mrs. Lannithorne. "The life is a thousand times harder than that of the self-supporting woman --harder work, fewer rewards, less enjoyment, less security. That is true even of an ordinarily happy marriage. And if they are not happy --oh, the bitterness of them!" She was speaking rapidly now, with {17} energy, almost with anguish. Oliver, red in the face, subdued, but eager to refute her out of the depths and heights of his inexperience, held him self rigidly still and listened. "Did you ever hear that epigram of Disraeli--that all men should marry, but no women? That is what I believe! At least, if women must marry, let others do it, not my children, not my little girls!--It is curious, but that is how we always think of them. When they are grown they are often uncongenial. My daughter Ruth does not love me deeply, nor am I greatly drawn to her now, as an individual, a personality,--but Ruth was such a dear baby! I can't bear to have her suffer." Oliver started to protest, hesitated, bit his lip, and subsided. After all, did he dare say that his wife would never {18} suffer? The woman opposite looked at him with hostile, accusing eyes, as if he incarnated in his youthful person all the futile masculinity in the world. "Do you think a woman who has suffered willingly gives her children over to the same fate?" she demanded passionately. "I wish I could make you see it for five minutes as I see it, you, young, careless, foolish. Why, you know nothing,--nothing! Listen to me. The woman who marries gives up everything: or at least jeopardizes everything: her youth, her health, her life perhaps, certainly her individuality. She acquires the permanent possibility of self-sacrifice. She does it gladly, but she does not know what she is doing. In return, is it too much to ask that she be assured a roof over her head, food to her mouth, clothes to her body? How many men marry {19} without being sure that they have even so much to offer? You yourself, of what are you sure? Is your arm strong? Is your heart loyal? Can you shelter her soul as well as her body? I know your father has money. Perhaps you can care for her creature needs, but that is n't all. For some women life is one long affront, one slow humiliation. How do I know you are not like that?" "Because I'm not, that's all!" said Oliver Pickersgill abruptly, getting to his feet. He felt badgered, baited, indignant, yet he could not tell this frail, excited woman what he thought. There were things one did n't say, although Mrs. Lannithorne seemed to ignore the fact. She went on ignoring it. "I know what you are thinking," she said, "that I would regard these matters differently if I had married {20} another man. That is not wholly true. It is because Peter Lannithorne was a good man at heart, and tried to play the man's part as well as he knew how, and because it was partly my own fault that he failed so miserably, that I have thought of it all so much. And the end of all my thinking is that I don't want my daughters to marry." Oliver was white now, and a little unsteady. He was also confused. There was the note of truth in what she said, but he felt that she said it with too much excitement, with too great facility. He had the justified masculine distrust of feminine fluency as hysterical. Nothing so presented could carry full conviction. And he felt physically bruised and battered, as if he had been beaten with actual rods instead of stinging words; but he was not yet defeated. {21} "Mrs. Lannithorne, what do you wish me to understand from all this? Do you forbid Ruth and me to marry--is that it?" She looked at him dubiously. She felt so fiercely the things she had been saying that she could not feel them continuously. She, too, was exhausted. Oliver Pickersgill had a fine head, candid eyes, a firm chin, strong capable hands. He was young, and the young know nothing, but it might be that there was the making of a man in him. If Ruth must marry, perhaps him as well as another. But she did not trust her own judgment, even of such hands, such eyes, and such a chin. Oh, if the girls would only believe her, if they would only be content to trust the wisdom she had distilled from the bitterness of life! But the young know {22} nothing, and believe only the lying voices in their own hearts! "I wish you would see Ruth's father," she said suddenly. "I am prejudiced. I ought not to have to deal with these questions. I tell you, I pray Heaven none of them may marry--ever; but, just the same, they will! Go ask Peter Lannithorne if he thinks his daughter Ruth has a fighting chance for happiness as your wife. Let him settle it. I have told you what I think. I am done." "I shall be very glad to talk with Ruth's father about the matter," said Oliver with a certain emphasis on _father_. "Perhaps he and I shall be able to understand each other better. Good morning, Mrs. Lannithorne!" {23} III Oliver Pickersgill Senior turned his swivel-chair about, bit hard on the end of his cigar, and stared at his only son. "What's that?" he said abruptly, "Say that again." Oliver Junior winced, not so much at the words as at his father's face. "I want to marry Ruth Lannithorne," he repeated steadily. There was a silence. The elder Pickersgill looked at his son long and hard from under lowered brows. Oliver had never seen his father look at him like that before: as if he were a rank outsider, some detached person whose doings were to be scrutinized coldly and critically, and judged on their merits. It is a hard hour for a beloved child when he first sees that look in {24} heretofore indulgent parental eyes. Young Oliver felt a weight at his heart, but he sat the straighter, and did not flinch before the appraising glance. "So you want to marry Peter Lannithorne's daughter, do you? Well, now, what is there in the idea of marrying a jail-bird's child that you find especially attractive?" "Of course I might say that I've seen something of business men in this town, Ross, say, and Worcester, and Jim Stone, and that, if it came to a choice between their methods and Lannithorne's, his were the squarer, for he settled up, and is paying the price besides. But I don't know that there's any use saying that. I don't want to marry any of their daughters and you wouldn't want me to. You know what Ruth Lannithorne is as well as I do. If there's a girl in town that's {25} finer-grained, or smarter, or prettier, I'd like to have you point her out! And she has a sense of honor like a man's. I don't know another girl like her in that. She knows what's fair," said the young man. Mr. Pickersgill's face relaxed a little. Oliver was making a good argument with no mushiness about it, and he had a long-settled habit of appreciating Ollie's arguments. "She knows what's fair, does she? Then what does she say about marrying you?" "She says she won't marry anybody who doesn't respect her father as she does!" At this the parent grinned a little, grimly it is true, but appreciatively. He looked past Oliver's handsome, boyish head, out of the window, and was silent for a time. When he spoke, it was gravely, not angrily. {26} "Oliver, you're young. The things I'm as sure of as two and two, you don't yet believe at all. Probably you won't believe 'em if I put them to you, but it's up to me to do it. Understand, I'm not getting angry and doing the heavy father over this. I'm just telling you how some things are in this world,--facts, like gravitation and atmospheric pressure. Ruth Lannithorne is a good girl, I don't doubt. This world is chuck full of good girls. It makes some difference which one of 'em you marry, but not nearly so much difference as you think it does. What matters, from forty on, for the rest of your life, is the kind of inheritance you've given your children. You don't know it yet, but the thing that's laid on men and women to do is to give their children as good an inheritance as they can. Take it from me that this {27} is gospel truth, can't you? Your mother and I have done the best we can for you and your sisters. You come from good stock, and by that I mean honest blood. You've got to pass it on untainted. Now--hold on!" he held up a warning hand as Oliver was about to interrupt hotly. "Wait till I'm through--and then think it over. I'm not saying that Peter Lannithorne's blood is n't as good as much that passes for untainted, or that Ruth isn't a fine girl. I'm only telling you this: when first you look into your son's face, every failing of your own will rise up to haunt you because you will wish for nothing on God's earth so much as that that boy shall have a fair show in life and be a better man than you. You will thank Heaven for every good thing you know of in your blood and in your wife's, and you will regret every {28} meanness, every weakness, that he may inherit, more than you knew it was in you to regret anything. Do you suppose when that hour comes to you that you'll want to remember his grandfather was a convict? How will you face that down?" Young Oliver's face was pale. He had never thought of things like this. He made no response for a while. At last he asked,-- "What kind of a man is Peter Lannithorne?" "Eh? What kind of--? Oh, well, as men go, there have been worse ones. You know how he came to get sent up. He speculated, and he borrowed some of another man's money without asking, for twenty-four hours, to protect his speculation. He didn't lose it, either! There's a point where his case differs from most. He pulled the thing {29} off and made enough to keep his family going in decent comfort, and he paid the other money back; but they concluded to make an example of him, so they sent him up. It was just, yes, and he said so himself. At the same time there are a great many more dishonest men out of prison than Peter Lannithorne, though he is in it. I meet 'em every day, and I ought to know. But that's not the point. As you said yourself, you don't want to marry their daughters. Heaven forbid that you should! You want to marry his daughter. And he was weak. He was tempted and fell, and got found out. He is a convict, and the taint sticks. The Lord knows why the stain of unsuccessful dishonesty should stick longer than the stain of successful dishonesty. I don't. But we know it does. That is the way things are. Why not marry where there is no taint?" {30} "Father--?" "Yes, Ollie." "Father, see here. He was weak and gave way--_once_! Are there any men in the world who have n't given way at least _once_ about something or other?--are there, father?" There was a note of anguish in the boy's voice. Perhaps he was being pushed too far. Oliver Pickersgill Senior cleared his throat, paused, and at last answered somberly,-- "God knows, Ollie. I don't. I won't say there are." "Well, then--" "See here!" his father interrupted sharply. "Of course I see your argument. I won't meet it. I shan't try. It doesn't change my mind even if it is a good argument. We'll never get anywhere, arguing along those lines. I'll propose something else. Suppose {31} you go ask Peter Lannithorne whether you shall marry his daughter or not. Yes, ask him. He knows what's what as well as the next man. Ask Peter Lannithorne what a man wants in the family of the woman he marries." There was a note of finality in the older man's voice. Ollie recognized it drearily. All roads led to Lannithorne, it seemed. He rose, oppressed with the sense that henceforward life was going to be full of unforeseen problems; that things which, from afar, looked simple, and easy, and happy, were going to prove quite otherwise. Mrs. Lannithorne had angered rather than frightened him, and he had held his own with her, but this was his very own father who was piling the load on his shoulders and filling his heart with terror of the future. What was it, after all, this adventure of the married life {32} whereof these seasoned travelers spoke so dubiously? Could it really be that it was not the divine thing it seemed when he and Ruth looked into each other's eyes? He crossed the floor dejectedly, with the step of an older man, but at the door he shook himself and looked back. "Say, dad!" "Yes, Ollie." "Everybody is so terribly depressing about this thing, it almost scares me. Aren't there really any happy times for married people, ever? You and Mrs. Lannithorne make me feel there are n't; but somehow I have a hunch that Ruth and I know best! Own up now! Are you and mother miserable? You never looked it!" His father surveyed him with an expression too wistful to be complacent. {33} Ah, those broad young shoulders that must be fitted to the yoke! Yet for what other end was their strength given them? Each man must take his turn. "It's not a soft snap. I don't know anything worth while that is. But there are compensations. You'll see what some of them are when your boys begin to grow up." IV Across Oliver's young joy fell the shadow of fear. If, as his heart told him, there was nothing to be afraid of, why were his elders thus cautious and terrified? He felt himself affected by their alarms all the more potently because his understanding of them was vague. He groped his way in fog. How much ought he to be influenced by {34} Mrs. Lannithorne's passionate protests and his father's stern warnings? He realized all at once that the admonitory attitude of age to youth is rooted deep in immortal necessity. Like most lads, he had never thought of it before save as an unpleasant parental habit. But fear changes the point of view, and Oliver had begun to be afraid. Then again, before him loomed the prospect of his interview with Peter Lannithorne. This was a very concrete unpleasantness. Hang it all! Ruth was worth any amount of trouble, but still it was a tough thing to have to go down to the state capital and seek one's future father-in-law in his present boarding-place! One oughtn't to have to plough through that particular kind of difficulty on such an errand. Dimly he felt that the path to the Most Beautiful should be rose-lined and soft to {35} the feet of the approaching bridegroom. But, apparently, that was n't the way such paths were laid out. He resented this bitterly, but he set his jaws and proceeded to make his arrangements. It was not difficult to compass the necessary interview. He knew a man who knew the warden intimately. It was quickly arranged that he was to see Peter Lannithorne in the prison library, quite by himself. Oliver dragged himself to that conference by the sheer strength of his developing will. Every fibre of his being seemed to protest and hold back. Consequently he was not in the happiest imaginable temper for important conversation. The prison library was a long, narrow room, with bookcases to the ceiling on one side and windows to the ceiling on the other. There were red {36} geraniums on brackets up the sides of the windows, and a canary's cage on a hook gave the place a false air of domesticity, contradicted by the barred sash. Beneath, there was a window-seat, and here Oliver Pickersgill awaited Lannithorne's coming. Ollie did not know what he expected the man to be like, but his irritated nerves were prepared to resent and dislike him, whatever he might prove. He held himself rigidly as he waited, and he could feel the muscles of his face setting themselves into hard lines. When the door opened and some one approached him, he rose stiffly and held out his hand like an automaton. "How do you do, Mr. Lannithorne? I am Oliver Pickersgill, and I have come--I have come--" His voice trailed off into silence, for he had raised his eyes perfunctorily {37} to Peter Lannithorne's face, and the things printed there made him forget himself and the speech he had prepared. He saw a massive head topping an insignificant figure. A fair man was Peter Lannithorne, with heavy reddish hair, a bulging forehead, and deep-set gray eyes with a light behind them. His features were irregular and unnoticeable, but the sum-total of them gave the impression of force. It was a strong face, yet you could see that it had once been a weak one. It was a tremendously human face, a face like a battle ground, scarred and seamed and lined with the stress of invisible conflicts. There was so much of struggle and thought set forth in it that one involuntarily averted one's gaze. It did not seem decent to inspect so much of the soul of a man as was shown in Peter {38} Lannithorne's countenance. Not a triumphant face at all, and yet there was peace in it. Somehow, the man had achieved something, arrived somewhere, and the record of the journey was piteous and terrible. Yet it drew the eyes in awe as much as in wonder, and in pity not at all! These things were startlingly clear to Oliver. He saw them with a vividness not to be overestimated. This was a prison. This might be a convict, but he was a man. He was a man who knew things and would share his knowledge. His wisdom was as patent as his suffering, and both stirred young Oliver's heart to its depths. His pride, his irritation, his rigidity vanished in a flash. His fears were in abeyance. Only his wonder and his will to learn were left. Lannithorne did not take the offered {39} hand, yet did not seem to ignore it. He came forward quietly and sat down on the window-seat, half turning so that he and Oliver faced each other. "Oliver Pickersgill?" he said. "Then you are Oliver Pickersgill's son." "Yes, Mr. Lannithorne. My father sent me here--my father, and Mrs. Lannithorne, and Ruth." At his daughter's name a light leaped into Peter Lannithorne's eyes that made him look even more acutely and painfully alive than before. "And what have you to do with Ruth, or her mother?" the man asked. Here it was! The great moment was facing him. Oliver caught his breath, then went straight to the point. "I want to marry your daughter, Mr. Lannithorne. We love each other very {40} much. But--I have n't quite persuaded her, and I have n't persuaded Mrs. Lannithorne and my father at all. They don't see it. They say things--all sorts of dreadful things," said the boy. "You would think they had never been young and--cared for anybody. They seem to have forgotten what it means. They try to make us afraid-- just plain afraid. How am I to suppose that they know best about Ruth and me?" Lannithorne looked across at the young man long and fixedly. Then a great kindliness came into his beaten face, and a great comprehension. Oliver, meeting his eyes, had a sudden sense of shelter, and felt his haunting fears allayed. It was absurd and incredible, but this man made him feel comfortable, yes, and eager to talk things over. {41} "They all said you would know. They sent me to you." Peter Lannithorne smiled faintly to himself. He had not left his sense of humor behind him in the outside world. "They sent you to me, did they, boy? And what did they tell you to ask me? They had different motives, I take it." "Rather! Ruth said you were the best man she had ever known, and if you said it was right for her to marry me, she would. Mrs. Lannithorne said I should ask you if you thought Ruth had a fighting chance for happiness with me. She does n't want Ruth to marry anybody, you see. My father--my father"--Oliver's voice shook with his consciousness of the cruelty of what was to follow, but he forced himself to steadiness and got the words out "said I was to ask you what a man wants in the family of the woman {42} he marries. He said you knew what was what, and I should ask you what to do." Lannithorne's face was very grave, and his troubled gaze sought the floor. Oliver, convicted of brutality and conscience-smitten, hurried on, "And now that I've seen you, I want to ask you a few things for myself, Mr. Lannithorne. I--I believe you know." The man looked up and held up an arresting hand. "Let me clear the way for you a little," he said. "It was a hard thing for you to come and seek me out in this place. I like your coming. Most young men would have refused, or came in a different spirit. I want you to understand that if in Ruth's eyes, and my wife's, and your father's, my counsel has value, it is because they think I see things as they are. And that means, first of all, that I know {43} myself for a man who committed a crime, and is paying the penalty. I am satisfied to be paying it. As I see justice, it is just. So, if I seem to wince at your necessary allusions to it, that is part of the price. I don't want you to feel that you are blundering or hurting me more than is necessary. You have got to lay the thing before me as it is." Something in the words, in the dry, patient manner, in the endurance of the man's face, touched Oliver to the quick and made him feel all manner of new things: such as a sense of the moral poise of the universe, acquiescence in its retributions, and a curious pride, akin to Ruth's own, in a man who could meet him after this fashion, in this place. "Thank you, Mr. Lannithorne," he said. "You see, it's this way, sir. Mrs. Lannithorne says--" {44} And he went on eagerly to set forth his new problems as they had been stated to him. "Well, there you have it," he concluded at last. "For myself, the things they said opened chasms and abysses. Mrs. Lannithorne seemed to think I would hurt Ruth. My father seemed to think Ruth would hurt me. Is married life something to be afraid of? When I look at Ruth, I am sure everything is all right. It may be miserable for other people, but how could it be miserable for Ruth and me?" Peter Lannithorne looked at the young man long and thoughtfully again before he answered. Oliver felt himself measured and estimated, but not found wanting. When the man spoke, it was slowly and with difficulty, as if the habit of intimate, convincing speech had been so long disused that {45} the effort was painful. The sentences seemed wrung out of him, one by one. "They have n't the point of view," he said. "It is life that is the great adventure. Not love, not marriage, not business. They are just chapters in the book. The main thing is to take the road fearlessly, to have courage to live one's life." "Courage?" Lannithorne nodded. "That is the great word. Don't you see what ails your father's point of view, and my wife's? One wants absolute security in one way for Ruth; the other wants absolute security in another way for you. And security--why, it's just the one thing a human being can't have, the thing that's the damnation of him if he gets it! The reason it is so hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven is that {46} he has that false sense of security. To demand it just disintegrates a man. I don't know why. It does." Oliver shook his head uncertainly. "I don't quite follow, sir. Ought n't one to try to be safe?" "One ought to try, yes. That is common prudence. But the point is that, whatever you do or get, you are n't after all secure. There is no such condition, and the harder you demand it, the more risk you run. So it is up to a man to take all reasonable precautions about his money, or his happiness, or his life, and trust the rest. What every man in the world is looking for is the sense of having the mastery over life. But I tell you, boy, there is only one thing that really gives it!" "And that is--?" Lannithorne hesitated perceptibly. For the thing he was about to tell this {47} undisciplined lad was his most precious possession; it was the piece of wisdom for which he had paid with the years of his life. No man parts lightly with such knowledge. "It comes," he said, with an effort, "with the knowledge of our power to endure. That's it. _You are safe only when you can stand everything that can happen to you._ Then and then only! Endurance is the measure of a man." Oliver's heart swelled within him as he listened, and his face shone, for these words found his young soul where it lived. The chasms and abysses in his path suddenly vanished, and the road lay clear again, winding uphill, winding down, but always lit for Ruth and him by the light in each other's eyes. For surely neither Ruth nor he could ever fail in courage! "Sometimes I think it is harder to {48} endure what we deserve, like me," said Lannithorne, "than what we don't. I was afraid, you see, afraid for my wife and all of them. Anyhow, take my word for it. Courage is security. There is no other kind." "Then--Ruth and I--" "Ruth is the core of my heart!" said Lannithorne thickly. "I would rather die than have her suffer more than she must. But she must take her chances like the rest. It is the law of things. If you know yourself fit for her, and feel reasonably sure you can take care of her, you have a right to trust the future. Myself, I believe there is Some One to trust it to. As for the next generation, God and the mothers look after that! You may tell your father so from me. And you may tell my wife I think there is the stuff of a man in you. And Ruth--tell Ruth--" {49} He could not finish. Oliver reached out and found his hand and wrung it hard. "I'll tell her, sir, that I feel about her father as she does! And that he approves of our venture. And I'll tell myself, always, what you've just told me. Why, it _must_ be true! You need n't be afraid I'll forget--when the time comes for remembering." Finding his way out of the prison yard a few minutes later, Oliver looked, unseeing, at the high walls that soared against the blue spring sky. He could not realize them, there was such a sense of light, air, space, in his spirit. Apparently, he was just where he had been an hour before, with all his battles still to fight, but really he knew they were already won, for his weapon had been forged and put in his hand. He left his boyhood behind him as he {50} passed that stern threshold, for the last hour had made a man of him, and a prisoner had given him the master-key that opens every door. {51} THE LONG INHERITANCE {52} {53} THE LONG INHERITANCE I My niece, Desire Withacre, wished to divorce her husband, Dr. Arnold Ackroyd,--the young Dr. Arnold, you understand,--to the end that she might marry a more interesting man. Other men than I have noticed that in these latter days we really do not behave any better than other people when it comes to certain serious issues of life, notably the marital. "We" means to me people of an heredity and a training like my own,--Americans of the old stock, with a normal Christian upbringing, who presumably inherit from their forebears a reasonable susceptibility to high ideals of living. I grew {54} up with the impression that such a birth and rearing were a kind of moral insurance against the grosser human blunders and errors. Without vanity, I certainly did "Thank the goodness and the grace That on my birth had smiled." It puzzled me for a long while, the light-hearted, careless way in which some of the younger Withacres, Greenings, Raynies, Fordhams, and so on (I name them out of many, because they are all kin to me) kicked over the traces of their family responsibilities. I could understand it in others but not in them. It was little Desire Withacre who finally illuminated the problem for me. I am about to tell what I know of Desire's fling. If it seems to be a story with an undue amount of moral, I must {55} refer the responsibility of that to Providence. The tale is of its making, not of mine. I am afraid that, to get it all clearly before you, I shall have to prose for a while about the families involved. I am Benjamin Stubbins Raynie, Desire's bachelor uncle, and almost the last of the big-nosed Raynies. My elder sister, Lucretia Stubbins Raynie, married Robert Withacre, one of the "wild Withacres" in whose blood there is a streak of genius and its revolts. The Withacres all have talent--mostly ineffectual--and keen aesthetic sensibilities. All of them can talk like angels from Heaven. By no stretch of the imagination can they be called thrifty. We considered it a very poor match for Lucretia. The Raynies are quiet people, not showy, but substantial and sensible; with a certain sentimental {56} streak out-cropping here and there, especially in the big-nosed branch; while the red-headed Raynies are the better money-makers. I know now that Lucretia secretly believed her offspring were destined to unite Withacre talent and Raynie poise. She prayed in her heart that the world might be the richer by a man child of her race who should be both gifted and sane. But her children proved to be twin girls, Judith and Desire. Queer little codgers I thought them, big-eyed, curly-headed, subdued when on exhibition. Lucretia told long stories, to which I gave slight attention, intended to prove that Judith was a marvelous example of old-head-on-young-shoulders, and that Desire, demure, elfin Desire, was a miracle of cleverness and winning ways. In view of Desire's career, I judge {57} that these maternal prepossessions were not wholly misplaced. As a small child she captivated her Uncle Greening as well as her aunt (our sister, Mary Stubbins Raynie, married Adam Greening of the well-known banking firm of Greening, Bowers & Co.). The Greenings were childless, and Desire spent much of her early life and nearly all her girlhood under Mary Greening's care and chaperonage. I confess to fondness for a bit of repartee with Desire now and then, myself. Perhaps I had my share in spoiling her. I take it a human being is spoiled when he grows up believing himself practically incapable of wrong-doing. That is what happened to Desire. Approval had followed her all of her days. How should she know, poor, petted little scrap, any thing about the predestined pitfalls of all flesh? {58} Of course the Robert Withacres were always as poor as poverty, and of course our family was always planning for and assisting them. Fortunately both the twins married early, and exceptionally well. Judith became engaged to a promising young civil engineer when visiting a school friend in Chicago. He said she reminded him of the New London girls. He was homesick, I think. At all events the engagement was speedy. But our little Desire did better than that. She witched the heart out of young Arnold Ackroyd. Do I need to explain the Ackroyds to any one? They are one of those exceptional families whose moral worth is so prominent that it even dims the lustre of their intellectual stability and their financial rating. They are so many other, better things that no one ever {59} thinks or speaks of them as "rich." And in this day and generation that is real achievement. Desire's marriage gratified me deeply, and for a wedding present I gave her the Queen Anne silver tea-set I inherited from great-aunt Abby. I believe in the Ackroyds, root and branch. They have, somehow or other, accomplished what all the rest of us are striving for. They have actually lifted an entire family connection to a plane where ability, worth, accomplishment, are matters of course. Nobody has ever heard of a useless, incompetent Ackroyd. Their consequent social preeminence, which possibly meant something to Mary Greening and which certainly counted with Desire, is merely incidental to their substantial merit. They are prominent for the rare reason that they deserve to be. They are the Real Thing. {60} Unless you happen to be in touch with them intellectually, however, this is not saying that you will always find all of them the liveliest of companions. The name connotes honor, ability, character; it does not necessarily imply humor, high spirits, the joy of life. Desire herself told me of her engagement. I don't, somehow, forget how she looked when she came to tell me about it--shy, excited, radiant. She fluttered into my office and stood at the end of my desk, looking down at me. Desire was very pretty at twenty-one, with her pointed face and big expressive eyes, her white forehead shadowed by a heap of cloudy, curling, dark hair. Palpitating with life, she looked like some kind of a marvelous human hummingbird. It did not surprise me that Arnold Ackroyd found her "All a wonder and a wild desire." {61} For all her excitement she spoke very softly. "Uncle Ben, mother wants me to tell you something. I have n't told anybody else but her." "What is it, Desire?" "I--why, Uncle Ben--I've promised to marry Arnold Ackroyd!" "Well, well," I said inadequately, "this is news!" Desire nodded wistfully. "It seems a little curious, does n't it? We're not a bit alike," she said. "But he is splendid! I'm sure I shall never meet a finer man, nor one I trust more." "Very true, Desire, and I am glad you are going to marry such a man," I observed, arising slowly to the occasion and to my feet, and offering a congratulatory hand. "Mother says it's a wonderful {62} thought for a young woman that her future is as secure as the cycle of the seasons," returned Desire, with her hand in mine, "and I suppose it is, but that is n't why I love him. Uncle Ben, he's really wonderful when you find out what he's thinking behind those quiet eyes. And then--do you know he's one of the few really meritorious persons I ever made like me. I've been afraid there was something queer about me, for freaks always take to me at once. But if Arnold Ackroyd likes me, I _must_ be all right, mustn't I? It's such a relief to be sure of it!" I took this for a touch of flippancy, having forgotten how long the young must grope and wonder, hopelessly, before they find and realize themselves. It was, I think, precisely because Arnold Ackroyd helped that vibrant temperament to feel itself resting on {63} solid ground that he became so easily paramount in Desire's life at this time. However it may have been afterward, during their brief engagement he was all things to my niece, while she to him was a creature of enchantment. I shall always maintain that they knew young love at its best. Desire was wedded with more pomp and circumstance than Lucretia and I really cared for. That was her Aunt Greening's affair. Mary Greening always did like an effect of pageantry, and was willing to pay for it. They went abroad afterwards, and I remember as significant that Desire enjoyed the Musée de Cluny more than the lectures they heard at the Sorbonne. On their return they lived in dignity and comfort. They had a couple of pretty, unusual-looking children, who were provided with a French nurse at {64} twenty months, and other educational conveniences in due season, more in accordance with the standards of Grandmamma Ackroyd than with the demands of the Withacres and Raynies. They were certainly as happy as most people. If Desire had any ungratified wishes, I never heard of them. I dined with them frequently, but now see that I knew absolutely nothing about them. I took it for granted that they would always walk, as they seemed to be doing, in ways of pleasantness and peace. It never entered my head that anybody of my own blood and a decent bringing-up could do what Desire did presently. I had a simple-minded notion that we were above it. Which brings me back to my premise. After all, we of a long inheritance of upright {65} living do not always behave better than other people. II Lucretia was first to come. The winter it all happened, I was house-bound with rheumatism and had no active part in the drama. By day I was wheeled into the little upstairs study and sat with my mind on chloroform liniment and flannels, while my family and friends came to me, bearing gifts. Sometimes they sought the house to amuse me, sometimes to relieve their minds. Lucretia's burden was heaviest, so she was first. The November morning was raw and hideous. There were flakes of snow on my sister's venerable and shabby sealskin. She laid back the {66} veil on the edge of her little black bonnet,--she had been a widow for two years,--brushed the snow from her slightly worn shopping-bag and sat down in front of the fire, pulling nervously at her gloves. Lucretia is thin, sharp-featured ivory-skinned. Her aspect is both fatigued and ardent. Nothing that Mary and I were ever able to do for her lifted in the least from her own spirit the weight of her poverty-stricken, troublous, married life; and in her outer woman she persists in retaining that aspect of carefully brushed, valiantly borne adversity which is so trying to more prosperous and would-be-helpful kin. I made a few comments on the weather, which Lucretia did not answer. Realizing suddenly that she was agitated, I became silent, hoping that {67} the quiet, comfortable room, the snapping fire, and my own inertness, would act as a sedative. It did not occur to me that any really serious matter could be afoot. I had ceased to expect that life would offer any of us anything worse than occasional physical discomfort. Having regained her composure, my sister spoke without preface. "I am in great trouble, Benjamin. Desire has made up her mind to leave her husband, and nothing I say has the slightest effect." "Good Heavens! Lucretia! What do you mean?" "Just what I say. Desire declares she isn't satisfied as Arnold Ackroyd's wife. So she proposes to put an end to the relation. I judge she intends, later, to contract another marriage, though she is n't disposed to lay stress on that point." {68} I continued to look at Lucretia wide-eyed, and possibly wide-mouthed. The things she was saying were so preposterous, so incredible, that I could not accept them. It was as if I had received a message that the full moon was not "satisfied" to climb the evening sky. "Lord! Lord! Little Desire!" I muttered. "She is a woman of thirty, Benjamin." "What does she say?" I exploded. "What is wrong in her married life? People don't do these things causelessly--not the people we are or know." "She says a great deal," returned her mother dryly. "Did you ever know a Withacre to be lacking in words, Benjamin? Desire is very fluent. I might say she is eloquent." {69} "But what does it all amount to, anyhow?" I demanded impatiently. Dazed though I was, my consciousness of being the head of the family was returning. Lucretia lifted her left hand, which was trembling, and checked off the items on her fingers. Her hands were shapely, though dark and shrunken, with swollen veins across the back. The firelight struck the worn gold of her wedding ring. "She demands a less hampered life; a more variegated self-expression; a chance to help the world in her own way; an existence that shall be a daily development; the opportunity to give perpetual stimulus and refreshment to an utterly congenial mate. Oh! I know her reasons by heart," said Lucretia. "They sound like fine things, don't they, Benjamin?" {70} "Who is the other man?" "Fortunately, none of us know him. He is a Westerner with one of those absurdly swollen fortunes. Desire would n't have thought it a wider life to marry a poorer man. Such women don't." "I wish you would n't put Desire in a class and call her such women, Lucretia," I protested irritably. My sister looked at me strangely. "You, too? Can money buy you too?" she said. She rose and steadied her trembling arms upon the low mantle. She stood, a black-clad figure, between me and the glowing hearth, looking down into the heart of the fire as she spoke. I had begun to perceive, vaguely, that here was no sister I had ever known before. In a way she was beside, or rather beyond, herself. {71} We Raynies are self-controlled people. Lucretia had always been a silent woman, keeping her emotions to her self. But they say earthquakes, vast convulsion of regions beneath the lowest seas, will sometimes force up to light of day strange flotsam from the ocean-bed. Things that the eyes of men have never seen, nor their busy minds conceived, float up to face the sun. From Lucretia's shaken soul arose such un-imagined things. Her words came forth swiftly, almost with violence. "Benjamin, my daughter proposes leaving for Reno, Nevada, next week to procure a divorce.--I'm not saying that plenty of divorces are n't justified. I know they are. Plenty of remarriages too, I make no doubt. I've lived long enough to know that extremes are always wrong, and the middle course {72} is almost always right. I will admit, if you like, that every case is a thing apart, and stands on its own merits, and that only God and a woman's conscience are the judges of what she should do. But Desire's case has no merits! "I know Arnold, and I know Desire; he is a busy man and she is an indulged woman. She might have entered into his life and interests if she had chosen; the door was as much open as it can be between a man and a woman. I don't claim it is ever easy for them to see clearly into each other's worlds. But they do it, every day. Here is Arnold working himself to death, reducing fractures and removing appendixes, and trying to make the people who swarm to him into whole and healthy men and women. That's a good way to help the world if you do it with every ounce of {73} conscience there is in you. Here is Desire, fiddling with art and literature and civics and economics, and wanting to uplift the masses with Scandinavian dramas and mediaeval art and woman suffrage. If she really wants to enrich life for others, and she says she does, why, in Heaven's name, does n't she hold up Arnold Ackroyd's hands? There is work that is worth while, and it would take more brains and ability than she owns to do it well! It is _her_ work; she chose it; she dedicated herself to it. Now she repudiates it for a whim." "How do you know it is just a whim, Lucretia?" I interrupted rather shame-facedly. "Mightn't it be--er--a very violent attachment?" Lucretia shook her head. "These women nowadays are simply crazy about themselves. Are {74} self-centred people ever capable of great passions?" I made no protest, for I had thought the same thing myself. "When they have dethroned their God and repudiated their families, what is there left to worship and work for but themselves?" she demanded grimly. "Half the women I meet are as mad for incense to their vanity as the men are mad for money." "Lucretia," I said with all the firmness I could muster, "I do not think you ought to allow yourself to take this thing in this way. It is regrettable enough without working yourself up to such a pitch of agony." She looked into the fire as if she had not heard me, and went rapidly on:-- "Sixty years ago, such things were unheard-of; forty years ago, they were a disgrace; twenty years ago, they were {75} questioned; to-day, they are accepted. And yet they say the world advances! With all my troubles, Benjamin, I am just learning why men call death gracious--and my daughter is my teacher. Desire is at the restless age. I have seen a good many women between thirty and forty try to wreck their lives and other people's. You see, the dew is gone from the flowers. They have come to the heat and burden of the day. And they don't like it." "You mean," I said, laboriously trying to follow her glancing thought in my own fashion, "that they miss the drama of early romance, and resent the fact that it has been replaced by the larger drama of responsibility and action?" "That is a fine, sonorous way of putting it," she said bitterly, "but there are more forcible ways." {76} She laughed unpleasantly. I could feel the cruel words trembling on her lips, but she checked herself. "Oh, what is the use of talking," she cried, "or of casting stones at other women? It doesn't help me to bear Desire's falling away. Benjamin, I would have known how to forgive a child who had sinned. I don't know how to forgive one who has failed like this! Desire is throwing away a life, not because it is intolerable, not because it is hard, even; but just because it has ceased to be exciting and amusing enough. But it is _her_ life that she throws away. She cannot make a new one that will be real and her very own. She says she has ceased to love. They always say that. But love comes and goes always. There is no such thing as perpetual joy. Love is the morning vision. We are meant to hide that {77} vision in our hearts and serve it on our knees. Good women know this and do it. That is what it means to be a wife. The vision is the thing we cherish and live for to the end. Desire is no cheated woman. She had young love at its best; she has her children's faces. There is such a thing as perpetual peace; life gives it to the loyally married. She might have had that, too. But she throws it all away--for novelty, for new sensations. My daughter is a wanton!" _"Lucretia!"_ The energy of my ejaculation, the sight of my surprise, brought my sister back to her normal self. She dropped into her chair again, looking wan and shocked at her own violence of expression. "You see how it is," she said humbly. "I am not fit to trust myself to talk {78} about it. I ought to apologize for my language, Benjamin,--but that is the way I feel." I had regained somewhat of my poise and my authority. "See here, Lucretia, if this thing is to be, you must n't be so bitter about it. Desire is your daughter. She belongs to us. She has always been a pretty good girl. We must n't be too hard on her now, even if she does n't conform to our ideas. Everybody must live their own lives, you know." Lucretia threw back her head; her deep-set eyes were burning, and the color suffused her face again. "No!" she said sharply. "That must they not. Decent people accept some of the conclusions of their forebears and build upon the sure foundation reared by the convictions of their own people. You say she belongs to us. That is the {79} worst of it! You childless man! Can't you guess what it would mean to bear, to nourish, to train,--to endure and endure, to love and love,--and then to have the flesh of your flesh turn on you and trample on all your sacredest things? It is the ultimate outrage. God knows whether I deserve it! God forgive me if I do!" There was silence in the room. I had nothing more to say. I recognized at last how far Lucretia in her lonely agony was beyond any trite placation of mine. After what seemed an age, she spoke. She was herself again. The violently parted waves had closed over the life of those far gray depths, and she offered her accustomed surface to my observation. "I did not sleep at all last night, Benjamin. Desire was with me during {80} the afternoon and we talked this thing out. I ought not to have seen any one so soon, but I came here with the intention of asking you to reason with her. I see it would do no good if you did. Things are as they are, and I must accept them. I will go home now. I am better off there." She rose, put down her veil, drew on her gloves, and picked up the shabby shopping-bag, quietly putting aside my hesitating protestations and suggestions of luncheon. At the door she turned and proffered a last word of extenuation for herself. "You ought to understand, for it is our blood in me that rebels. I never thought when I married a Withacre that I might bring into the world a child that wasn't _dependable_--but I might have known!" she said. {81} III Lucretia, departing, left me tremulous. The flame-like rush of her mind had scorched my consciousness; the great waves of her emotion had pounded and beaten me. I shared, and yet shrank from, her passionate apprehension of our little Desire's failure in the righteous life. For I was, and am, fond of Desire. I spent a feverish and most miserable day. There were so many unhappy things to consider! The gossip that would rack the town apparently did not concern Lucretia at all. I am hide-bound, I dare say, and choked with convention. Certainly I shrank from the notoriety that would attach itself to us when young Mrs. Arnold Ackroyd took up her residence in Reno, as a first step toward the wider life. {82} Then there was the disruption of old ties of friendship and esteem. It would be painful to lose the Ackroyds from among our intimates, yet impossible to retain them on the old footing. I already had that curious feeling of having done the united clan vicarious injury. Toward five o'clock my sister Mary, Mrs. Greening, tapped on the door. Mary Greening and I are good friends for brother and sister. As children we were chums; we abbreviated for each other the middle name we all bore, Mary calling me Stub, and I calling her Stubby. We meant this to express exceptional fraternal fealty. It was like a mystic rite that bound us together. She came in almost breezily. For a woman in late middle life Mary Greening is comely. There is at the bottom {83} of her nature an indomitable youthfulness, to which her complexion and movements bear happy witness. "Well, Stub, has Lucretia been here?" "Come and sit down, Mary. Yes, Lucretia has been here. Very much so," I answered dejectedly. Mary swept across the room almost majestically. Quite the type of a fine woman is Mary Greening, though perhaps a thought too plump. She threw back her sable stole and unfastened her braided violet coat; she prefers richly embellished garments, though they are thought garish by some of the matrons in her set. "You keep it much too warm in here," she said critically. I made a grimace. "Your hat is a little to one side, Stubby, as usual." {84} She put her hand up tentatively to the confection of fur, yellow lace, and violet orchids. "I don't think Lenore ballasts my hats properly," she said plaintively. "It can't be my fault that they slide about so. But I did n't come to talk about hats." I sighed. "No, you came to talk about Desire. Mary, how long have you known about this deplorable affair?" "Oh--ever since there has been anything to know! Desire has always talked to me more than to her mother. You know, Ben, one would n't choose Lucretia as a confidante in any kind of a heart affair." "Don't put on that worldly air with me, Mary Greening," I said crossly. "Lucretia is a little austere, but it seems to me that austerity has its {85} advantages. For instance, it keeps one out of the newspapers. Am I to infer that you sympathize with Desire?" "Not at all," she protested. "You may not believe me, but I have suffered and suffered, over this thing. I can't count the nights I have lain awake thinking about it. At first it seemed to me I simply could not have it, and I thought I was going to influence Desire. But nobody ever influences people in matters of the heart. Of course this is an affair on the highest possible plane--so I thought they might be more reasonable. But I don't observe that they are." "On the highest possible plane," I mused. "Mary, be candid with me. I would like a good woman's point of view on this. If a game of hearts ends in the courts, breaking up a home and smashing the lives concerned to {86} flinders, do you really think it matters whether that affair is on a high plane or a low one? Does it seem any better to you for being the finer variety?" "Certainly it does," returned Mary Greening promptly; "though," she added reflectively, "judged by results, I see it is illogical to feel so." She cogitated a little longer. "You put the thing too crudely. Here is the point, Ben. The Devil never makes the mistake of offering the coarser temptation to persons of taste. You couldn't have tempted Desire to break up her home with any temptation that did n't include her intellect, her spirit, and her aesthetic instincts. And when one gets up in that corner of one's nature, people like you or me or Desire are so used to regarding all the demands emanating from there as legitimate, as something to be {87} proud of, to be satisfied at almost any cost, that it takes a very clear sense of right and wrong to prevent confusion. And, nowadays, hardly anybody but old fogies and back numbers, and people who have lived the kind of life Lucretia has, possesses a clear sense of right and wrong. It has gone out." "What became of Desire's married happiness, Mary? I thought there was so much of it, and that it was of a durable variety." "Oh, it leaked away through small cracks, as happiness usually does. It is hard to explain to a man, but if Arnold were a woman, you might almost say that he nagged. He is too detailed, too exact, for Desire. If, for instance, she said in May, I believe I will have a green cloth, embroidered, for a fall suit, about the first of November, you {88} might expect Arnold to remark, I don't see that green cloth suit you said you were going to have. What made you change your mind? Desire delights to say things she does n't mean and lay plans she does n't expect to carry out, so a constant repetition of such incidents was really pretty wearing. I have seen her when she reminded me of a captive balloon in a high wind. "A woman in your position ought not to make unconsidered speeches was one of his pet remarks. He is scientific, she is temperamental--and each of them expected the other one to be born again, and born different by virtue of mutual affection and requirements. Arnold will go on wondering to the end of his life why Desire can't be more accurate, more purposeful. As if he did n't fall in love with her the {89} way she is! And then along comes the Westerner--" "Where did they meet?" "Bessie Fleming introduced them--at some silly place like Atlantic City. It was after Desire had that nervous breakdown two years ago. I know they were both in wheeled chairs at the time, and they rode up and down together, talking, like long-separated twin souls, about the theory of aesthetics and kindred matters. They did n't require diagrams to see each other's jokes, and that is always a strong tie. He was a man used to getting what he wanted, and when he became bewitched--can't you see how it would all work together? I know Lucretia thinks there is no excuse for Desire. But I see this excuse for her. None of us ever trained her to know she could n't have everything she wanted. Of course, we never {90} expected her to want anything but the finest, the highest. But she is human, and when she found a most wonderful thing in her path that she wanted more than she had ever wanted anything before--she put out her hand to take it, as she had taken other things when we were all applauding her choice. And I will do her the justice to say that I don't believe she has the faintest notion Arnold will really fight to keep the children. You see, she still thinks the world is hers." "Perhaps it is," I offered. The comfort of Mary's presence was beginning to rest and appease me, and I was a little less conscious of my aching conscience. "The Westerner--is he--is he--" "Perfectly presentable. Quite a scholar. Collects pictures. Has all kinds of notions. He and Desire are {91} ideally congenial. Very properly he is keeping himself at long distance and entirely out of it. No one but ourselves surmises that he exists. And it really is an enormous fortune. I can imagine Desire doing all kinds of interesting things with it." "Do you know what Lucretia said to me, Mary?" She shook her head. _"You, too? Can money buy you, too?"_ I quoted. "I shall never forget how Lucretia looked as she said it." "Stub--the world moves. It may be moving in the wrong direction, but if we don't move with it, we are bound to be left behind." "Mary Greening," I retorted, "do you really mean that you detect in yourself a willingness to have an unjustified divorce and a huge, vulgar {92} fortune in the family, just because they are up to date?" "Benjamin Raynie, if down at the bottom of my soul there is crawling and sneaking a microscopical acquiescence in the muddle Desire is making of life, it is probably due to the reason you mention. I am just as ashamed of it as I can be! I ought to be plunged in grief, like Lucretia. And I _am_--only--well, I want to help Desire, and I can't help her if I let myself feel like that. I suppose you'll think I'm an unmoral old thing, but I see it this way: if these affairs are going to happen in one's very own family, one might as well put them through with a high hand. I intend to stand by Desire. Of course the Ackroyds will do the same by Arnold. Desire will never be received in this town again with their consent. They are entirely in the right. But I shall {93} have to fight them for Desire's sake, just the same." "Stubby! Stubby! There is n't a particle of logic as big as a pin-head about you, and I don't approve of you at all--but I do like you tremendously!" Mary Greening rose abruptly, crossed to the window, and stood looking out for a time. Then she came back and, dropping awkwardly beside my chair, buried her convulsed and quivering face in the woolly sleeve of my jacket, while the tears dripped fast from her overflowing eyes. "Stub," she brought out jerkily, between her sudden choking sobs, "I did n't make a long face and tell Desire 'whom God hath joined'--I--I tried to appeal to her common sense. Irreligious people often do have a great deal of common sense, you know. {94} But--I am the child of our fathers, too. I wish--I _wish_ she would n't do it!" IV I certainly expected that Desire would come to me before she went away. I don't know what good I thought it would do. But we had always (or I supposed so) been such friends, this niece and I, that I could not believe she would take such an important step without an effort to gain my approval--my toleration would be more accurate. I--well, I thought she cared for my approval. But it seemed she did n't. Of course, when one came to think it over, she could hardly enjoy such an interview. No doubt she was already sore in spirit from interviews she could not shirk,--with her mother, for {95} instance, not to mention her husband. And my views on promiscuous divorce are as well known in the family as are those of South Carolina. They are simple, those views, and old-fashioned, but also, I may add, cosmic; they run about as follows: it is hard that John and Mary should be unhappy, but better their discomfort than that society should totter to a fall, since all civilization rests upon the single institution of the marriage tie. I will admit that my bachelor state doubtless helps to keep my opinions uncomplicated. When I came to think of it in the light of these convictions, it was n't remarkable that Desire stayed away. And yet the foolish old uncle in me was hurt that she did so. I felt that she ought to come and take her medicine. Did n't thirty years of affection {96} and indulgence give me some rights in her life? Perhaps Mary Greening told her how I felt. At all events, in place of a call I received a letter:-- DEAR UNCLE BEN,-- The reason I'm not coming to say good-bye to you is that I think you'll love me better if I don't. My self-control is wearing quite thin in spots, and I'm so tired of explaining myself (when there's nothing to explain except that I am doing what seems right in my own eyes) that sometimes I think I shall just die before I get started. Uncle Ben, did n't you ever long for a life that fitted you exactly,-- a life that was the flexible, soft garment of your very Self? I am laying aside a life that is somewhat cumbrous for me, and going to one that, fits me like a glove. {97} And it is n't as if my case were like other people's, or as if Arthur Markham was n't the finest of the fine. He is as good in his widely different way as Arnold is. I think myself a highly fortunate woman that two such lives are offered me to choose from--but I must choose the one that belongs to me. Temperament is destiny. I am following mine. I am doing what I wish to do. But I don't like the way people hinder me with arguments that have nothing to do with the real content of the matter. So I am saying good-bye at arm's length to the dearest old make-believe cynic of an uncle that ever lived. Because you know, Uncle Ben, that if you had me there you could n't help preaching to me, and I am tired of preaching. It does n't get one anywhere. And it does n't keep one away--from Reno, Nevada. {98} I suppose it's a queer thing to say but, really, you'll like Arthur just as well as you do Arnold--if only you can bring your mind to it! I am always, even in Nevada, Your loving niece, DESIRE. I turned this letter over curiously in my hands, half expecting it to impart to me the secret of how it was that people could think and feel as if the very universe wheeled, glittering, about them and their desires. Also, how could Desire be so guiltless of all the thousand scruples and delicacies that were her birthright? How could she exhibit such poverty of spirit, bravely and unashamed? How did it happen that she, of all people, showed herself so ignorant of the things that cannot be learned? {99} V That evening as I drowsed over the hearth after dinner, still holding Desire's letter in my hand and pondering over it, the card of young Dr. Arnold Ackroyd was brought up to me. I awoke myself with a start. An interview with Desire's husband was the last thing in the world I wanted. The feeling that I had vicariously injured the Ackroyds was still strong upon me, and I shrank childishly from facing a man whom I could not think of otherwise than as a maimed and wantonly injured creature. Feeling this, I naturally welcomed him with a mixture of embarrassment and effusion. Dr. Arnold smiled dryly, with perfect comprehension, and took his seat beside the fire in the same winged armchair that had sheltered {100} Lucretia and Mary previously. A fancy seized me that the cumbersome, comfortable piece of mahogany and old brocade might indeed be a veritable witness-seat, a Chair of Truth, that in some fashion impelled its occupant to speak out from the heart the thing he really thought. An apprehensive glance at Arnold's grave, clear-cut, sallow face reassured me. It held no threat of hysteric protest. Whatever he might say, I need not fear that he would break the inmost silence of a deeply humiliated man. "It is a matter of business that I want to see you about, Mr. Raynie," he said easily. "There is no one but you who can manage it for me." I expressed my desire to serve him. "You see, it is just this: if Desire insists upon divorcing me the enterprise must be properly financed. I {101} prefer to pay her expenses myself. I am not going to have her hard up or--depending upon any one else." "Desire would never take money from any one but Mrs. Greening or me, Ackroyd." "No--I suppose not. Still, you never can tell how these confounded modern women are going to invert things in their minds. She'd not do it unless she could make it look high-minded and self-sacrificing, of course. But I would rather she ran no risk of doing it. And, if you don't mind my saying so, I would also prefer at present that even you and Mrs. Greening kept your hands out of your pockets. You see, Desire is my wife until she ceases to be so. It is unquestionably my right to provide for her, even in Reno, if I choose. Of course, she would say that, having left my bed and {102} board, she had renounced her claim upon my bank account--that is, she would say it if she thought about the matter at all. But she is so heedless she will probably not question the source of supplies, certainly not if they come through you. Will you do me this favor, Mr. Raynie?" There was nothing for me to do but assent, but I did so a little irritably. It seemed to me at the moment that it would be excellent discipline to let the winds of heaven beat harshly upon Desire's delicately guarded head, for a short time at least. I intimated as much. Arnold Ackroyd shook his head. "It is too late for that kind of discipline to be effective," he said. "I have meant that Desire should have everything that a man can give, but there is one point I will never yield. She shall not have my children!" {103} He took out his checkbook and his pen, and, writing on his knee, filled out a check rapidly and neatly. As he handed it to me I noted that the sum was surprisingly large,-- enough for a divorce _de luxe_. "Pardon me, but are n't you overdoing your generosity, Arnold?" I suggested. He moved his shoulders very slightly, and I saw his fine, surgeon's fingers stir as though he were involuntarily washing his hands of the whole question of money. "Desire is accustomed to beauty as well as to comfort," he said. Then he dropped his head on his chest and stared gravely into the fire. "Mr. Raynie, what do the women want? What do they expect in this world, anyhow? If the sun had dropped out of the sky, it wouldn't have surprised me more than this thing has." {104} "Nor me," I confessed. "I have been wondering if I unconsciously neglected Desire? People say that sometimes causes them to fly the track. I am a busy man. I work hard in an exacting profession. But, as I understand the marriage contract, my work is a part of what I endowed her with. It is my life, myself. We are not children. One does not marry for a playmate, does one? But perhaps women do. Do you think I can have been at fault in this matter?" My only answer was an impatient snort of protest. "I supposed she desired companionship with me as I am. Certainly that was what I thought I asked of her. She has such a way of making life seem vivid and interesting that her companionship was good to have," he said. {105} Something clutched at my heart strings as I saw the look of inextinguishable longing in his eyes. "We spoiled her between us, I suspect," he said. "On our heads be it, for it is spoiled that she is. Mr. Raynie, I think of Desire as undisciplined, wayward--not as wanton.--Well, I have a dozen patients yet to see to-night. I must say good night, and thank you." As he closed the door, I spoke aloud to myself and the witness-chair. "There goes a gentleman," I said. "It seems they still exist. Confound that niece of mine!" VI After Desire departed for Reno, the winter dragged along, heavy-footed. Mary Greening heard from her often, {106} and brought me the letters. She rented a cottage in Reno, and began housekeeping bravely, but, presently, the servant question drove her temporarily to a hotel. Very shortly we saw in the papers an account of a fire in the same hotel. This was followed by a telegram from Desire to the effect that she was as right as possible, and had only suffered the loss of a few garments. A week later as I sat in my usual place, the wheeled chair by the study fire, I heard a carriage stop at my door. It was ten o'clock of a wild January night, furious with wind and snow. There were voices in the hall below; surprised ejaculations from Lena, the housemaid; at last a rap on my door, which swung inward to admit--Desire! "Will you take me in, Uncle Ben?" {107} she inquired cheerfully. "It is such a frightful night! The cabman won't try to get me to Aunt Mary. He wanted to leave me at a hotel. But this was no farther--and I wanted to talk with you, anyhow." I said the appropriate things, consumed meanwhile with wonder as to what this reappearance meant. Desire threw off her long wrap and her furs, vibrated about the room a little, then settled, like every one else, in the winged chair across the hearth, and smiled at me tremulously. "Uncle Ben, something has happened to me." "I judge it is something important, Desire." "A big thing," she said gravely. "So big I don't understand it. I can only tell you how it is." I waited quietly, but there was that {108} in her voice which made me catch my breath. She seemed to find it hard to begin. "I hated Reno," she said at last, abruptly. "The streets were so full of plump, self-satisfied blonde women, overdressed and underbred. The town was overrun with types one did n't like. It was--horrid! But it did n't concern me, so I stayed in the little house and wrote a great many letters to Aunt Mary and--Arthur Markham, and read, and amused myself as best I could. Then I lost my maids and moved to the hotel until I could arrange matters. "You heard about the fire? The hotel was a wooden building with two wings, and my room was in the wing that burned. It was all very exciting, but I got out with my valuables and most of my wardrobe tied {109} up in a sheet, and they put the fire out. "The rest of the building was unhurt, so the occupants opened their doors to the people who had been burned out. The manager asked me if I would accept the hospitality of a Mrs. Marshall, 'a very nice lady from up North!' I said I would be thankful for shelter of any description, so he took me to her door and introduced us." Desire paused reflectively. "I'd like to make it as clear as possible to you, Uncle Ben, if you don't mind my talking a lot. This Mrs. Marshall was just a girl, and very good-looking indeed in a way. She had well-cut features, a strong chin, blue eyes under dark lashes, and a great deal of vitality. So far as looks went, I might have met her anywhere. {110} "The big room was strewn with her things, for she had expected to be burned out, too; but she began to put them away at once, offering me closet room, and talking excitedly as she moved about. "The place was full of department-store luxury, if you know what I mean. Her toilet-table was loaded with silver in a pattern of flamboyant, curly cupids,--I've often wondered who bought such things,--and there were gorgeous, gaudy garments lying about. Her belongings, all but a few frocks, were expensive and tasteless to the last degree. So much extravagance and so little beauty! It seemed so strange to me that it was interesting. "She talked a good deal, showing me this and that. Her slangy speech had a certain piquancy, because she looked finer than her words. She was {111} absolutely sure of herself, and at ease. I made out that this was because she was conscious of no standards save those of money, and there, as she would have said, she could 'deliver the goods.' Were n't the evidences of her worth right under my eyes? "I talked, too, as effusively as I knew how. I tried to meet her halfway. She was evidently a perfectly well-placed and admired person in her own world. I was excited and tired and lonely. It seemed good just to speak to some one. "Presently the room was cleared, and we began to think of sleeping. I have n't forgotten a word of the conversation that followed. "'It's very good of you to take me in. I hope I shan't disturb you very much,' I said. "'Oh, I'm glad to have somebody to talk to. I think this living in Reno {112} is deadly, but it seems to be the easiest way to get results,' she answered. 'How long you been here?' "I told her. "'Well, I'm a good deal nearer my freedom than you are. Don't it seem perfectly ridiculous that when you want to shake a man you can't just _shake_ him, without all this to-do?' she said. 'It makes me so mad to think I've got to stay down here six months by myself, just to get rid of Jim Marshall! Say, what does your husband do?' "What could I say, Uncle Ben? It seemed sacrilegious to mention Arnold in that room, but I was her guest and dependent upon her for shelter and a bed. "'He is a doctor,' I said. "'That so? Jim's superintendent of a mine. Up in the mountains. It's {113} the lonesomest place you ever saw. Twenty miles from nowhere, with just a little track running down to the rail road, and nothing worth mentioning when you get there. "'Jim was awfully gone on me. Put up a spiel that he could n't live without me, and all that. That was two years ago, and I was young and tender hearted. Father had just dropped a whole bunch of money, and I thought, 'Well, if any man wants to pay my bills as bad as that, I guess I'll let him.' It looked like easy meal-tickets to me. Say! There's no such thing as a soft snap in married life. You got to work for your living, whoever he is. And I got so bored up in the mountains I did n't know what to do. Any man's a bore if you see too much of him. Jim's awful soft--wants to be babied all the time. Thought I did n't love {114} him unless I looked just so and talked just so. Jerusalem! How can you love anybody when you're a hundred miles from a matinee? People have got to have what they're used to, even if they are married, and that's a cinch. I used to go down to the city by myself once in a while to visit Jim's sister, but there was n't anything in that. She and I did n't get on. She never took me to a show once all the time I was there. These in-laws are always looking at you through a microscope. Ain't it awful? I don't claim my complexion will stand that scrutiny. Did you have any in-laws?' "'A few,' I said, thinking how Madam Ackroyd would look if she could hear this conversation. "'Well, anybody can have mine!' she said. 'Gee! How I hate to be bored! I guess I'd be up on that mountain yet {115} if it hadn't been for that. Last spring the son of the man who owns the mine took to coming up to see about the output. I had him going in forty winks. I was just amusing myself, but Jim got frightfully jealous. "See here," I says, "I ain't going to let no mining man dictate to me, see? I'll tell you that right now!" I was sore. To think he could n't let me have a bit of fun, after the stupid winter I'd put in, frying his bacon. It seemed plain selfish. So things ran along, and I got huffier and huffier. Finally, when Joe volunteered he'd like to put up for me to take this trip to Reno, I packed my suit-case and came away. It served Jim right for being such an old grouch. What'd you think? "I just opened my mouth and gasped. I could n't help it. Such callousness! "The girl looked at me queerly when {116} I did n't answer. 'What's got _you_ that you did n't stay put?' she demanded. 'Here I've had a rush of words to the mouth and told you all I know and I don't know a thing about you.' "I found my voice sufficiently to tell her my case was very different. "'Huh!' she said, 'I may n't know much, but I'm wise to this; the folks that have real reasons for a smash-up don't have to come to Reno. They mostly can get their papers on the spot. I guess we're all in the same boat out here. We're just taking what we want.' "I felt as if I had been struck with a sledge-hammer when she said that, and her eyes seemed to be boring through me like gimlets. I thought I should scream if she said another word. "'Let's talk about it in the morning,' I said, 'if you'll excuse me. I'm so tired I simply can't keep my eyes open.' {117} "That was n't true. She went to sleep almost instantly, and slept like a baby. I lay beside her, wide awake for hours. What she was, and what she said, had turned a key in my brain. A host of thoughts I didn't know I had came trooping out of some hidden room, and they marched and counter-marched across my mind all night." Desire got up and began to walk about the room restlessly in her absorption as she recalled all this. "It was wonderful, Uncle Ben. I wish I could make you understand. First of all, I recognized that what she said was absolutely true. I said to myself, Desire, you are a civilized, cultivated, mature, distinguished-looking person, well born and well reared--but what has it all done for you? It has, precisely, conducted you to Reno, Nevada. This girl beside you is {118} uncivilized, uneducated, crude, young, clearly of very common clay. And what has it all done for her but conduct her to Reno, Nevada,--where she finds you, daughter of the Pilgrims. Well met, sister!' "It was very bitter to think that of myself," said my niece, stopping by my chair. "It may sound foolish, Uncle Ben, but my friends have always insisted I was a _schöne Seele_. I, a beautiful soul! I, a soul at all! A white light that I could not shut my eyes against seemed to beat down into my brain. I saw that I was just like the girl beside me in her incredible callousness,--even like the fat, self-satisfied, blonde women I had seen in the town. Oh, those common, common people! I had thought myself as fine as silk, as tempered as steel, yes, and as pure as flame! But I, too, was a brute. {119} "I thought and thought. I thought of Arnold, Arthur, and myself; we are all proud, we are all fastidious, yet we had come to this. We had drifted on the rocks. Pride had n't saved us, nor training, nor intelligence. I had lived in and for these things, and they had not prevented my doing the commonest things like the commonest creatures. Uncle Ben, I seemed horrible to myself--I can't tell you. "More doors opened in my mind, and I began to think of you, and mother, and Aunt Mary, and of all the stories you used to tell me of the good Raynies and the bad, the weak Withacres and the strong ones, and what good fighters there were among them. And it seemed to me that I could see and feel--like the flight of wings in the dark over my head-- the passing of the struggling generations of my fathers, each one {120} achieving a little more; going from decency to good repute, and from repute to renown, keeping faith with one another and with God, from father to son. "And all at once I saw that the dignity of my race did not consist in its honors, nor even in its character, but--forever and always--in its fight for character! It was the struggle that had made us. And I had never struggled--so--I was not made. I was still unformed, shapeless,--and a cheaper thing with all my pretensions than the girl asleep beside me. "Then there came on me a great desire to be one with my own people. One life is nothing--somehow I saw it very clearly. Families build righteousness as coral insects build a reef. I felt the yearning to be built into a structure of honesty and honor. Even as I wished {121} this, I saw, in that fierce light beating down upon my brain, that there was something deep within me that forbade me to do the thing I had been planning. It lay at the core of being, dark and stern; it said _No_ to my desires. And I knew it for the strength of every _No_ my fathers ever uttered. It was my inheritance. And as I looked, it seized my will. It shook me free from my longing for Arthur, free from my impatience with Arnold, free from my wish to have my way! "So--I have come back. It was strong enough to bring me back; it is strong enough to hold me here. I don't care what happens to me after this. _I don't care._ I may not be happy, but I don't seem to want to be happy: I want to do the seemly, fitting things, the decent things. I don't care if they are stupid; I don't care if I am bored! {122} I wish just what I say. I want to be one with my race. It is they who have brought me back. They held up the torch. I let it fall. Uncle Ben, do you think it has gone out? Suppose one of my children's children should stumble and then say, 'It is not my fault. I inherited this. There was grandmamma who went her willful way so long ago!' I know my dust would shiver in the ground. I can't add any more to the weaknesses and follies that will crush them down. Having my own way costs too much when they must pay. That's it. I have n't the price. I refuse to let them pay.--Will you help me, Uncle Ben? Will you ask Arnold to let me try again? I will be good. I will be humble--almost! For I must have my children if only that I may pass this on. The thing is to abolish our complacency. Why--it's {123} what the old religionists meant when they talked about getting down in the dust before their God! It really, really, is the thing we have to do. And-- my children will never learn it here, among you, where everybody is so happy and self-satisfied. They will never learn it even from the righteous Arnold. If they know it, they will have to learn it from me-- for I am the only repentant sinner of us all! So--I have come back." Desire's words stirred me strangely. I had sometimes suspected that I allowed my modest pride of descent to feed complacency rather than effort. As she talked, I, too, saw the long procession of the valiant men and women of my race moving forward through the years; I saw how I had lightly arrogated credit to myself for their hard-won excellencies, and reckoned {124} myself a finer gentleman for the battles they had fought. Where were my battles? Where my victories? Then--I remembered that the Withacres always could talk like angels from heaven. But I looked into Desire's eyes, and that thought shriveled before the flame in them. They met mine exultantly, as steel meets steel. This was no lip eloquence. She was eager for her battles. "So," I said with wonder, "you have capitulated--to Them." "Yes--to Them. Oh, it is n't needful, Uncle Ben, that to show my kinship I should work as they did, live as plainly, think as narrowly. It is all here just the same. I am their child. I will not go against their will. Before ever I was born, they wrote their desires in my flesh. They made the blood to flow in my veins after their ways. {125} And--I am glad! For my children shall be their children.--Uncle Ben, will Arnold take me home?" I looked at Desire's glowing face that seemed afire with aspiration for the life she had tossed aside. I thought of Arnold's grave lips, steady shoulders, and longing eyes. There fell upon me a vivid sense of the wonderful ingenuity and richness of life's long processes. This diverse pair had traveled devious ways to the end that, after all their married years, they might at last be not unequally mated. My elderly heart sang a canticle of rejoicing, but my speech was circumspect. "I incline to believe that he will," I admitted. {126} {127} CLARISSA'S OWN CHILD {128} {129} CLARISSA'S OWN CHILD I It was half-past three o'clock on a Tuesday afternoon in April when Associate Professor Charleroy (of the Midwest University at Powelton) learned that he was to lose his wife and home. For April, the day was excessively hot. The mercury stood at eighty-nine degrees on the stuffy little east porch of the Charleroy home. There was no ice in the refrigerator, the house-cleaning was not finished, and the screens were not in. The discomfort of the untimely heat was very great. Clarissa Charleroy, tired, busy, and flushed of face, knew that she was nervous to the point of hysteria. This {130} condition always gave her a certain added clearness of vision and fluency of speech which her husband, with justice, had learned to dread. Indeed, she dreaded it herself. In such moods she often created for herself situations which she afterwards found irksome. She quite sincerely wished herself one of the women whom fatigue makes quiet and sodden, instead of unduly eloquent. Paul Charleroy, coming from a classroom, found his wife in the dining-room, ironing a shirt-waist. The door was open into the little kitchen beyond, where the range fire was burning industriously, and the heat poured steadily in. "I thought it would be cooler in here," Clarissa explained wearily, "but it is n't. I have to get these waists ready to wear, and a gingham dress {131} ironed for Marvel. The child is simply roasted in that woolen thing. But the starch _will_ stick to the irons!" Professor Charleroy shut the door into the kitchen. He frowned at the ironing-board, balanced on two chairs in front of the window. Small changes in the household arrangements were likely to discompose him. In his own house he was vaguely conscious always of seeking a calm which did not exist there. "Can't the washerwoman do that ironing?" he inquired. Clarissa dropped her iron and confronted him dramatically. "Doubtless--if I could afford to pay her," she responded. "As you are already aware, the salary of associate professors in the Midwest University is fourteen hundred dollars a year. When steak was a shilling a pound {132} and eggs fifteen cents a dozen and the washerwoman asked a dollar a day, one could afford to have her help longer. Now it is different." Professor Charleroy moved quietly over to the ironing-board and put the flatiron, which was still hot enough to scorch, upon its stand. Then he arranged, in a glass, the handful of daffodils he was carrying, and set them where the April sunshine fell across them. "Yes, I know it is different," he said gloomily. "But it may be different again if I can place my text-book. When we married, Clarissa, I thought your own little income would be sufficient to protect you from such economies as I knew would be most distasteful to you--but, somehow, it--it does n't seem to do it." "It goes," returned Clarissa. "I don't {133} know how it goes, but it does. I dare say I'm not a good manager. It is n't as if I dressed well, for I don't. But I would n't mind, if we could go to Chicago for a week of music and theatres in the spring. But we can't do anything but live--and _that_ is n't living! Something is wrong with the whole system of woman's work in the world. I don't know what it is, but I mean to find out. Somebody has got to do something about it." She threw back her small blonde head as she spoke, and it was as if she gave the universe and all its powers warning that she did not purpose to live indefinitely under such an ill-arranged order of things as they were maintaining. Let the universe look to itself! "I met Baumgarten of the Midwest Ice Company on the campus. He says {134} if this weather holds, he will start his ice-wagons to-morrow," suggested her husband anxiously. He had very definite reasons for wishing to divert Clarissa from consideration of all the things that are out of joint in the world. "Ice is a detail. Sometimes details do help," admitted Clarissa, fanning her blazing cheeks. "We will have Jacob come and wash the windows and put on the screens in the morning," he continued very gently. "And I will uncover the roses and rake the beds this afternoon. I should have done it last week, but no one could forsee this weather." "I'm not ready for Jacob until I have been through the closets. They must be cleaned first.--I hate to clean closets! I hate to cook, to sew, to iron, to dust, to scrub! There are women who {135} like these occupations. Let such people assume them!" "I can hear you, Clarissa, if you speak less oratorically. We are not in an audience-room," suggested her husband. Clarissa was slender, fair, and dramatic. If she was in the room you looked at her. Her Norman nose was delicately cut, her manner fastidious, but her collars were carelessly put on, and her neckties had a vaguely one-sided effect. She just escaped being pretty and precise and reliable-looking by a narrow margin, but escape she did. She was, instead, disturbing, distracting, decidedly lovable, not a little pathetic. Her face was dreamy, yet acute--the face of an enthusiast. The line of her jaw was firmly and beautifully drawn; her intellectual activity was undeniable, but philistines {136} mistrusted her conclusions at sight--and justly. "This is not a good day on which to hold an argument," she went on with dignity, ignoring her husband's sub-acid comment. "It is too easy to be uncivil when one is so uncomfortable. But I have been thinking about these matters for a long time. I have been forming my resolutions. They are not lightly taken. I was almost ready, in any event, to tell you that I had decided to renounce the domestic life." "To--?" "To renounce the domestic life," repeated Clarissa with emphasis. "Homes are an anachronism at the end of the nineteenth century, anyhow. It is time women had the courage of their convictions and sloughed off an anti-social form of habitat that dates from the Stone Age." {137} "Do you mean you would rather _board?_" Clarissa stared. "What has boarding to do with it?" she inquired rather haughtily. "I am talking about the universal problem of woman's work. One's own individual makeshifts do not affect that. But if it is ever to be solved, some woman must solve it. Men never will. Sacrifices will have to be made for it, as for other causes. There are women who are ready to make them--and I have discovered that I am one of the women." Professor Charleroy received this statement in absolute silence. "As a temporary alleviation," Clarissa went on meditatively, "families might be associated upon some group-system. The operating expenses of the individual establishments would be greatly reduced, and the surplus {138} could be applied to developing the higher life of the members of the group. It would be quite practicable, even in our present crude civilization, to arrange such groups. But of course that would be a temporary expedient. In the redeemed form of social life, it will not be necessary." "What ails you, Clarissa? Did that lecture you delivered before the Saturday Afternoon Club go to your head?" Clarissa flushed. Her club paper on "After the Home--What?" was a sensitive subject. She already had been chaffed a good deal about it. "Of course I know," she said with dignity, "that I am not a genius. I can't organize. I can't write. I'm not pretending to be in the class with Ibsen or Olive Schreiner or Sonia Kovalevsky! No, nor with the American women who are going to work {139} out their ideas. I don't believe I'd make a good social worker, either. I have n't enough patience and tenderness. But I _can_ talk. You know I can talk, Paul." Yes, he knew it. To his cost, he knew it. She had the gift of fluent, winning speech, speech with an atmosphere, a charm. Uncouth theories acquired grace on her lips, and plausible theories seemed stronger than they were. She ironed shirt-waists badly, and the starch stuck to the irons, but she could make the worse appear the better reason with deftness and dispatch. Somewhere, somehow, a coal from the sacred fire had touched her lips. You might be indignant, outraged, at her theories, but you never refused to listen while she set them forth. "I figure it this way," she continued. {140} "In all great causes, the people who can think and write need the help of the people who can talk, to disseminate their ideas, to popularize them, to get them brought home to the people who don't think and don't read, and yet have influence. That shall be my _métier_. I can do it. I can do it well. I will do it for a living wage and put my heart and soul into doing it. Without going outside a very narrow field,--say, that of parlor talks,--I can yet be a promoter of great causes. I will be a walking-delegate from the Union of the Elect! I will fight the good fight for Utopia! Why, Paul, I can make it glorious!" Her face shone with a wonderful light. Her slender, delicately rounded figure vibrated with enthusiasm. She did not see the expression on her husband's face. When great thoughts were {141} astir in Clarissa s brain, her high imperturbability, her bright serenity, were maddening. To assail them, logic was as useless as passion. She was simply in another world from this. Her husband sat down heavily. He felt an unacademic desire to box her ears. Perhaps, had he done so, there would have been no story, for like most women with erratic nerves Clarissa Charleroy had the elemental liking for a masterful man. However, her husband's Huguenot blood and scholastic training did not help him to carry out such primitive impulses toward domestic discipline. He was a man of sturdy build, with a fine head and brown eyes of the gentle, faithful kind. Conscientious, persistent, upright, he perfectly fitted that old-fashioned description our fathers loved, "a scholar and a gentleman." It {142} cannot be denied that this type is out of place in our modern life; it is especially at a disadvantage when confronted with such a modern wife as his. "Do you mean to--to _leave_ Marvel and me?" he inquired in a voice that was not as even as he could have wished. His back was toward the window. His wife could not see that he had turned white, but she did notice that he looked steadily down into the palms of his hands. She faced him with a fine composure. "I don't see that I'm much good here and I, myself, am certainly very miserable," she said. "There is so much antagonism between you and me, Paul. We think alike about so few things!" "Do you think the antagonism lies {143} between you and me--or between you and our circumstances?" inquired the professor. His voice was controlled now, but cutting. "Also, do you feel any special antagonism to Marvel? She is rather like yourself, you know." Clarissa nodded brightly. He was stunned to see that she approved this. "That's better! Do fight me, Paul! It clarifies my ideas, and I see more definitely what I want. I wish you were a good fighter. I like hard knocks!" "Good Lord! little girl, you don't mean all this nonsense--you can't. Why, it's impossible. You're my wife. I've done my best. Some day I shall do better. We shall win to peace and comfort yet--if you stand by. My text-book--" Clarissa waved a disdainful hand. Her blue eyes were liquid, wonderful. {144} "You don't seem to think of the cause, Paul! Don't you realize that _I can do good work for humanity?_ Everybody can't do that. Everybody is n't called to it. I am." Paul Charleroy let this statement pass. It hung in the air between them, unchallenged, undenounced. Possibly it was true. But, the man was wondering dumbly, what became of other men to whom this thing really happened? Did it crush them all like _this_? How did they keep up hope, decency, honor? How did they preserve their interest in the game and make life worth living afterward? Already he felt heavy upon his heart a presentiment of airless days, of tortured nights. The loneliness of it! No tenderness anywhere in life for him? No love? Then, what use to live? Humanity? Wasn't he humanity? {145} Nevertheless, when he spoke, he only said, "And Marvel? Is Marvel called to be motherless?" Clarissa's serene face clouded faintly. The question of Marvel did, indeed, puzzle even her facility. And yet she had light on that problem also. "If I really prove to be any good,--and I think I shall be a helper in a movement that is going to revolutionize the earth,"--Clarissa said gravely, "there are others to consider besides Marvel. It--why, it _may_ be, Paul that my duty is to the race! I'm not an especially good mother for Marvel at her present age--the young-animal stage of her development. All a child under twelve years needs is to be properly fed, and clothed, and taught the elementary things. It has all been standardized, and is a matter for experts, anyhow. Your sister Josephine {146} would be a better mother for her for the next few years than I. Why should I do what others can do better? When Marvel begins to _think_, it will be different. Then she will need my influence. I should like to let you have her for the next few years, and have her come to me when she is fifteen or sixteen. How would that suit you, Paul?" Her husband moved his shoulders imperceptibly, but said nothing. The thing had passed the point where rational speech, as he conceived it, was in place. If Clarissa did not see the shallowness, the sheer indecency, of discarding one's human relations as if they were old clothes, he could not make her see it. Was it only half an hour ago that he had come down the street in the spring sunshine, under the budding elms, bringing Clarissa a bunch of {147} daffodils and thinking of making a garden, and of all the dear, homely April tasks? Clarissa assumed that his silence was one of acquiescence. Sooner or later people always acquiesced. "It is really sweet of you to take it like this, Paul," she said warmly. "I never have understood why people should n't be thoroughly rational about these matters. There's no occasion for bitterness. I should like to have people say we had remained ideal friends. I shall always be as much interested in your welfare as in my own.--Yes, more. I should never dream of marrying again, myself, but in time I think it might be well for you to divorce me and do so." Her mobile face became introspective, absorbed. "Ruth Lawrence is rather too sentimental, not energetic enough for a professor's wife. And Nora Mills is heartless. I think {148} she would marry you for a home, but you must n't let her do it. There is Evelyn Ames. I think Evelyn would do. She is so gentle and reliable!" She was actually absorbed in this problem, her husband perceived to his utter amazement. He shivered with distaste. This was too grotesque. It could not be true. His wife looked at him for approval. She noted that the look of fear was gone from his dark eyes. Something unwonted, ironic, flashed there in its stead. It was neither mirth nor malice, yet approached both. He set his boyish-looking mouth firmly, and shook off his silence as one throws off a nightmare. He would meet her on her own ground, and be as indifferent as she. "Really, Clarissa, _that_ is the first sensible thing you have said this {149} afternoon," he forced himself to say.--"Why, what's this?" It was the small daughter of the house who chose this moment to emerge from under the table, clutching fast a jaded-looking doll and a handful of its belongings. Her round eyes were fear-struck and her quick glance curiously hostile, but she slipped silently from the room. Her presence there was soon forgotten by her parents--but children do not forget. Of all the incomprehensible words tossed to and fro above her head, Marvel remembered every one. II Marvel Charleroy found the letter in the box at the gate where the postman had left it. There was other mail; she glanced at the covers light-heartedly as she went toward the house. She was {150} not very familiar with her mother's handwriting and, for the moment, did not recognize it. The house was low, gray-shingled, and inviting. It had a kindly, human aspect, and though it was a modern structure built at the time of Professor Charleroy's second marriage, eleven years before, there was about it some thing of that quiet dignity we associate with age. The branches of a wide-spreading old elm swept one of its chimneys; the lawn was broad, the lilacs and syringas tall; ranks of high hollyhocks in shades of rose and wine, rising against gray lattice, shut off the kitchen gardens at the rear. The beds that bordered the paths were planted to a tangle of old-fashioned flowers, gorgeous in the July sunshine. There was a subdued gayety about the whole aspect of the sheltered, sunny place, a {151} look of warmth and home and joy, that was especially dear to Marvel Charleroy. It satisfied in her some elemental need. She preserved a vivid memory, of which she never spoke, of the box-like little house on Spring Street, her early home. She recalled that house as disorderly and uncomfortable during her mother's regime; as frigid and uncomfortable during the reign of her Aunt Josephine. She figured herself as always holding her breath, as always waiting for something, while she lived there. It was not until she was twelve (four years after Clarissa Charleroy left her husband), that Marvel, to her own childish apprehension, began to fill her lungs, began, indeed, to live. It will be inferred that the catastrophe, so clearly outlined on that April afternoon fifteen years earlier, did, in {152} fact, occur. For various reasons, it did not take place immediately. For one thing, it required time for Clarissa to put herself into touch with causes that desired to be "promoted" by her silver tongue and wistful, winning ways. Then, too, there were moments when she wavered. So long as Paul could maintain that pose, achieved with great effort, of good-natured, sarcastic scoffing at their tragedy, Clarissa herself did not believe in it wholly. Sometimes they drew very near together. A debonair, indifferent Paul who jested about her "calling" attracted her. A Paul who could demand cheerfully as he took his second cup of coffee, "Well, Clarissa, am I the Tyrant Man this morning?" was not unlikely to elicit the answer, "No, not to-day, Paul. You're just own folks to-day." But a Paul who had heard the wolf howling at the door {153} of his heart, who looked at her with eyes in which she saw fear and the shadow of a broken life, repelled her utterly. Women are reputed to be soft-hearted. Paul Charleroy, musing upon his own predicament in those days, remembered this age-long superstition with wonder. In spite of various respites, a catastrophe which is latent in a temperament will, some day, come to pass unless, of course, the owner of the temperament decides to be absolute master of himself. Nothing was further from Clarissa's thought than to recapture her married happiness by an assault on her own disposition. It is not good to linger over this portion of their story. Clarissa did, finally, take over the task of reforming as much of humanity as she could persuade to see the need of it, and she laid {154} aside the business of looking after her husband and her child. Miss Josephine Charleroy, ten years her brother's senior, and competent rather than sympathetic, assumed these discarded responsibilities. By slow degrees, Paul Charleroy's circumstances became less straitened. He did place his text-book well, and derived a considerable income therefrom; on the death of old Dr. Lettarby he succeeded to the full professorship, with the munificent salary of twenty-five hundred a year. Last of all, some time after Clarissa and he were made free of each other by legal means, he did actually marry Evelyn Ames. Thus, it will be seen, Clarissa's forecasts were fulfilled. Her notions were absolutely practicable; they really, all of them, worked, and worked well. In the long run they even worked {155} beneficently, but one prefers to attribute this to the mercy of Providence rather than to the foresight of Clarissa. Marvel Charleroy was twelve years old when her father married again, and life began for her. The little girl noted, dimly at first, then with growing wonder and appreciation, how interesting the commonplace things became under the new rule. Though her frocks were simple as ever, their adaptation to her self made it a pleasure to wear them; she seemed suddenly to have acquired a definite place in the family life, a position with duties and with compensating pleasures. Her friendships were considered, her friends noticed and welcomed. For the first time she felt herself an individual. Somebody was interested in what she did and said and thought. Her own shy young consciousness of personality was reflected {156} back to her, strengthened, and adorned. She perceived with something like awe that the girl named "Marvel" did not live only in her breast. Her father and his wife knew a Marvel whom they believed to be industrious and clever, loving and helpful. These qualities were multiplied tenfold by her perception that they were looked for from that Marvel whom the heads of the house seemed so happy to own and to cherish. The child throve. She who had wondered vaguely at the stress laid by her books upon the satisfactions of home, now tasted thirstily of that delight. And she repaid the miracle of Evelyn's tenderness with the whole of an ardent heart. To her elders, the years went fast. Suddenly, as it seemed, Marvel was a young woman with more than her fair {157} share of gifts and graces. She was exquisitely pretty, with an effective little style of her own; she made a brilliant record as a student; she had the rich endowment of easy popularity. Further, she seemed to possess, so far as slight experiments could demonstrate, that rare thing, the genuine teacher's gift. Something of her father's passion for scholarship, something of her mother's silver-lipped persuasiveness, met in the girl and mingled with certain deep convictions of her own. The practical outcome of all this was the suggestion that her Alma Mater, Midwest, would be glad to attach her to its teaching force without insisting upon an additional degree. She had spent one year abroad since her graduation, part of which was occupied in study. But, like many young Americans, she found her own {158} reflections on the Old World more stimulating than any instruction offered her there. Now she was at home, ready to begin work in September, enthusiastic, almost effervescent, with her satisfaction in the arrangement of her own little world. Coming into the shaded house, out of the blaze of the July sunshine, she dropped her father's letters on the desk in his study, and ran upstairs to read her own. It was quite an hour before she heard him calling at the foot of the stair,-- "Marvel! Come down, daughter, I want you." Something in his voice--she did not know what--gave her a thrill of apprehension. She had never heard just that tone from him before. {159} She found Professor and Mrs. Charleroy waiting for her in the living-room. Their faces were grave and troubled. Marvel's apprehensive pang mingled with a curious little resentment that her nearest and dearest could allow themselves to look thus, all on a summer morning, in this highly satisfactory world. "Daughter, I have a letter here," her father began at once, "a letter from your mother. It concerns you more than any one. The question it involves is one for you to decide. I ought not to conceal from you my belief that you will need to consider the matter very carefully." Marvel took the letter with gravity, hoping that this portentous seriousness was misplaced. This is what she read:-- MY DEAR PAUL,--You remember, of course, that when we separated, it {160} was with the understanding that Marvel was to come to me when she was fifteen or sixteen. But, as you urged, when I brought the matter up at that time, she was then just completing her preparation for college. Since she desired college training, it was certainly easier and simpler for her to have it at Midwest than elsewhere. I put aside my own preferences, because the arguments in favor of her remaining with you were weighty. But it does not seem to me just or right that I should be deprived of my daughter's society entirely, because I waived my preference as to her education. I feel that she has been deprived of my influence, and I of her companionship, already too long. As I understand it, she graduated a year ago, and has since been abroad. It seems to me this winter will be an {161} excellent time for her to come to me. I shall have an apartment in Chicago, and she will find it easy to arrange for post-graduate work if she desires. I shall be less busy than usual, for my health has given way a little under the strain of my work, and the doctor has warned me to rest as much as possible. I am looking forward with pleasure to introducing her to my friends, my life, my ideas. When will it be most convenient for her to come? I should say about the first of October. As ever, my dear Paul, Your sincere friend, CLARISSA CHARLEROY. "Well, really!" Marvel dropped the letter on the floor and turned to face her family with more than a suggestion of belligerence. {162} Her cheeks were flushed, her blue eyes burning, and her head held high with a little air that reminded her auditors swiftly and inevitably of Clarissa Charleroy's self. "Dear people, what do you look so frightened for?" she demanded. "I call it very cheeky of my mother to make such a demand of me. Does n't she realize that I'm a person with a career of my own--and that when I'm not busy with that, I have to keep my eye on you two! I have n't the slightest intention of leaving home--so you need n't look like _that!_" Marvel's little harangues usually met with instant response from her family. They were wont to brighten and become argumentative, even when they disagreed. But neither of them answered this pronouncement. Her father sat by an open window, {163} looking out upon the garden's gayety with unseeing eyes. His wife sat at an other window watching him wistfully, while Marvel faced them both from the hearth, offering her cheerful young defiance for their approval. Their silence, their gravity, startled the girl. She looked from one face to the other in quick scrutiny. What did this mean? For perhaps the first time in her life, it flashed through her mind that, after all, she knew nothing of the inner attitude of these two people, whom she greatly loved, toward the two facts which had made them all one household--her mother's divorce, namely, and her father's remarriage. The whole structure of three united, happy lives was built upon these cataclysmal facts--yet she had never asked what thought they held of them! Dignified, delicate, scrupulous, she {164} knew them both to be. Through what anguish and uncertainty might they not have passed before they clasped hands at last, making of their two hearts a shelter for her robbed, defenseless one? Her manner changed on the instant. "Dear family, you don't _want_ me to go? Surely--why--you _can't_ want me to go?" "No," said Evelyn in a low voice, "dearest, no. Certainly we don't want you to go. Only--" "But my work!" cried Marvel, passionately, answering their faces, not their words. "I want to do it so much! How can I possibly leave my work? And you, and my life here--everything!" Her father turned his face farther toward the window, looking out blindly, but Marvel caught his expression--the {165} look of one who tastes again an ancient bitterness. She did not know its full meaning, but her sympathy leaped to meet it. Evelyn Charleroy, watching her, felt a sudden stirring of pride in the girl's swift response to another's need, her quick tenderness. It was thus that Evelyn saw the life of woman--as one long opportunity for the exercise of these qualities. "Darlingest father, of course I'm not going to leave you. Still, if I were--what is mother like? What does she expect? What am I to do if I go to her?" "She is a brilliant woman," answered Professor Charleroy. "In many ways you are not unlike her, Marvel, in mental alertness and all that. As for what she expects--God knows!" The girl pursued her point. "It is n't an occupation--to be a brilliant {166} woman. I'm not quite sure, even, what she does. She lectures? She is philanthropic, or humanitarian, or something like that? Does she write?" "No," answered the professor, choosing his words with evident and conscientious care. "That is not her gift. She has the endowment of convincing speech. She has used it admirably for many admirable causes-- and quite as ably for other causes that I esteem less. But that, you understand, is my personal point of view. Her chief interest, however, has been the so-called advancement of women, and you might describe her as one of the many inconspicuous promoters of that movement. Chiefly, at present, she is holding classes, giving parlor-talks, what-not, in which she paraphrases and popularizes the ideas of her leaders. Her personality, though winning, does not {167} carry far, and she is only effective before a handful of people. Her--her conversation is possibly more convincing because it is less susceptible of close examination than the written word. But I do not wish to be unjust." "Then I take it mother is not scholarly?" asked the girl of academic training. "She is not taken seriously--by the serious," the professor admitted. "You know, Marvel, there are women who are--who are dearly enthusiastic about the future of the race, who really are not in a position to do advanced thinking about it. Of course there are others of whom I would not venture to make such an assertion, but in my judgment your mother belongs to the former class. You will form your own opinion upon the subject. Do not go to her with any bias in your mind. She {168} is sincere. Her passion for humanity is doubtless real, but it seems to me that her erratic spirit has turned it into a channel where it is ineffective. In any case she is an attractive woman. A winter with her should be interesting." His daughter eyed him gravely. There were depths of reserve in her face and voice. She had felt much, and said little, about this mother whom they were discussing thus dispassionately. Perhaps it gratified her young dignity that she was able to consider with apparent detachment the woman of whom she had thought long in secret with bitter, blinding tears. "It is, as you say, a thing to consider," she observed gently. "I may be mistaken in deciding offhand that I will not go. I'll think it over, father dear." {169} Professor Charleroy rose, visibly pulling himself together. Crossing the room, he picked up the letter Marvel had dropped and handed it to her. "I also may be mistaken," he said, "in my first feeling about the matter. Yet I think not. But we will not decide hastily." When he left the room, Marvel partly closed the door and turned to her stepmother. "Now, Evelyn, you darling, you know all this is perfectly ridiculous. Apparently I can't tell father so,--I could see I was hurting him,--but it simply is ridiculous!" "I do not feel so, Marvel," Mrs. Charleroy answered steadily. "What _right_ has she?" the girl stormed. "What right, I wish to know? To summon me like this! Didn't she throw us away, father and me, once {170} and for all? You can't recall a thing like that! Why should she think she could take me back any more than father? Influence me, indeed! She does n't know the A B C of influence! I am made--done--finished. Such as I am, she has had no hand in me. If the outcome is creditable, thanks are due to you and father and the Herr Gott. Oh, I know the things that have gone to my making! I don't talk about them much, perhaps, but I know!" Mrs. Charleroy sat very still, regarding her stepdaughter anxiously. She was a woman of the most benignant of all the elder types: slight, but strong; her brown hair parted smoothly, and brought back from a high full forehead; she had a firm chin, with a tense, sweet mouth, and large, thoughtful, gray-blue eyes. {171} "Are you quite sure you are completely finished, dear? I would n't dare affirm that of myself." "If there were no other reasons--why, even if I wanted to go," Marvel went on, "there is my work. I have accepted a position in the English department. They are depending upon me. I am ready, and there is no one to take my place." "You are mistaken there. Miss Anderson would be glad to retain the position for a year. Something has happened to her arrangements for foreign study, and I heard it intimated the other day that she regretted resigning when she did. She would be delighted to stay on. You could, I think, come back to the position next year. I believe you could arrange with Professor Axtell." "O Evelyn! Why do you wish to {172} make my going easy? Don't you see I can't bear it?" "I don't know how to say what I wish," said the elder woman wistfully. "If I remind you that after all she is your mother, I am afraid it will not mean to you what it does to me." "Certainly I think that, as between us two, the fact no longer carries obligation from me to her!" said Marvel steadily. "O Marvel! You are hard!" "No! I am just." "Justice is never so simple as that," returned Evelyn Charleroy. "But even if it were, your father--I--would rather see you merciful. It would be more like you, Marvel!" Marvel set the line of her red lips. "I do not wish to go, not even to live up to your idea of me!" "Marvel, listen to me a moment. I {173} may not be able to make you understand--but I must try. This is the thing I must make you know. The reactions upon the spirit of the ties of the flesh are, simply, the most miraculous things in all this miraculous world. I am not preaching. I am just telling you what I know. This business of being a child, a parent, a husband, a wife,--no creature can escape that net of human relationships wholly. It is there, right there, that we are knotted fast to the whole unseen order of things. What we make of those ties determines what we substantially are. Oh, if you could see it as I see it! This is the real reason, the strongest one of all, for our wishing you to go. You must not throw away the chance it is--the chance of finding out what you are to each other. You must concede something for the sake of learning that!" {174} "It is n't the mother after the flesh, but the mother after the spirit, to whom are due the great concessions!" cried the girl, "and, Evelyn, _that_ is you!" "Marvel--there is still another reason. It may appeal to you more." Evelyn Charleroy's agitated face, the tumult of her eyes, startled her stepdaughter. She could not bear disturbance of that dear serenity. "Child!--Do you suppose it was an easy thing for me to come into your father's life and take your mother's place while she still lived? There were months of doubt. There was hesitation that was agony to us both--but in the end--I came. Thus far the thing has seemed to justify itself. It has seemed to work for peace, for blessedness, to us all. I have felt no wrong, have been refused no inner sanction. {175} And yet, I tell you, I am still uncertain of my right to all that your mother threw away, and I do not, even yet, entirely defend my action in taking it! You have been our comfort, our greatest blessing, because it has seemed to be well for you. But, don't you see, if you fail us now; if we have made you selfish; if, through us, you have come to ignore that elemental tie; if you lose out of life whatever it may hold for you, we--we shall doubt our right--we shall be less sure--" The woman's voice fluttered and fell on silence suddenly. "O Evelyn!" the girl cried out in sharp distress, "don't, don't look like that! Dearest, don't dare to feel like that! There is no need! I won't be horrid! I'll do anything on earth that you and father really wish!" {176} III CHICAGO, _November fifth_. PRECIOUS FATHER AND EVELYN:-- I know all my letters thus far have been rather no-account. They were just to let you know that I was well, and interested, and getting used to things. I loath the city so that I think I must be a country mouse. Every time I go down in the Elevated, past all the grimy, slimy, hideous back buildings, something in me turns over and revolts. I want to be within reach of red leaves, and wheat-stubble, and fat quail running in the roadside grass. Did the little red and yellow chrysanthemums do well this year? How about that marigold border I planted in the kitchen garden? However, I am going to have a most instructive winter. It was crude of me {177} to think it, but because mother's friends are mostly different kinds of reformers, I expected to find them dubs and scrubs. It seems droll for people who can't live the normal human life successfully to set themselves up to say that therefore it's all wrong, and they will show us a better way to play the game. But only a few of these are that kind of reformers, and they're not dubby and scrubby at all! Some of them are just reformers from the teeth out. They're merely amusing themselves. Mother is n't playing, however. She's tremendously in earnest. Being a reformer is n't fattening. She keeps back no pound of flesh. She is so thin and tense and nervous, so obsessed with her own ideas, that it worries me some times. I feel as if I lived perpetually in the room with an electric fan. I have {178} been to her classes several times. She has a certain eager eloquence, a real appeal, that will always gain her a hearing. I wish she could keep her neckties straight, but that is a trifle. Do you remember old Mrs. Knowles saying that she loved to sit at the window and "see the people going pro and con in the street?" That is my present occupation! These people do a tremendous amount of "going pro and con" in the world of the mind. I have been hearing a vast deal of feminist discussion, owing to the appearance of some new books in that line. Can you see why, if nature has spent some thousands of years making women "anabolic, or conservers of energy," they should try to reverse the process in a decade and become even as men, who are "katabolic, or dispensers of energy," just because a stray thinker {179} supposes it would make them more interesting if they all had a business life and dispensed that energy downtown? It seems to me ill-advised to defy nature wholesale. I am willing to work for bread, or for the love of work--but not to oblige illogical theorists! I'm glad I don't have to reconcile all the different views I hear! One person will argue that woman's work in the home is so complicated and taxing that it all ought to be done for her by specialists, while she goes downtown and becomes some other kind of specialist herself. This is the school of thought to which mother belongs. One or two of its leaders are terribly clever--and mother is rapturously sure that wisdom was born with them! She is so happy to be advocating and expounding their ideas! I find this discipleship pathetic. One does n't deny that they {180} have visions,--mother has them also,--but to me their visions are not divine or beautiful. The next person will be a reactionary, and say that we are going straight to destruction because some women are thrown into industrial competition with men. A third will be sure that, because modern life with all its industrial developments outside the home has drawn many women away from home life, therefore all women ought to be thrown out of their homes in a bunch and hustle for themselves in the market-place. There's no longer anything to do at home, and if they stay there they will get fat and lazy and parasitic. I argued about this half the evening with an apple-faced youth of twenty-five who is still supported by his mother. You would have supposed, to {181} hear him, that feminine hands and feet were going to atrophy and fall off from disuse, and that we should turn into some kind of chubby white grub with mouths perpetually demanding to be fed. I don't deny that there are indolent women in the world, but I certainly never saw any parasites in the college set at Powelton. Somebody will have to "show me" before I can get up any heat of conviction on the subject! No longer anything to do at home! It has kept me so busy putting one attenuated little reformer-lady's flat to rights and training a cook for her that I have n't had a minute, yet, to see about those courses I meant to take at the University! I shall get around to them presently, I hope. Mother took the flat before I {182} arrived, and the packers brought her furniture from storage and unpacked it, and set it about according to their fancy, and cleaned up the mess and departed. We moved our trunks out the next morning. Mother went up and down and to and fro, as unsettled as the Cat that Walked. Finally she demanded of me, "Marvel, what ails this flat?" and I said, "Why, mother, the colors are all wrong and it is n't cozy." She threw up her hands in despair. "Is coziness to be the end of our living?" she demanded; and I said, "It is." You see, she can explain adorably about beauty in the home, but she had n't known any better than to leave the tinting to the kalsominer.--"Kalsomine is his business. He ought to know better than I," she said. She has such blind faith in specialists,--There {183} resulted a red dining-room, a terrible green living-room, and dark lavender bedrooms! No wonder poor little mother was miserable! Getting it put right was messy, deplorable, and expensive beyond words; but it is all nice tans now, with charming chintz draperies and chair-covers. I did the upholstering myself, and it is n't half bad. Mother does n't like ugly things, nor get them of her own free will, but she is obsessed to accept the advice of everybody who pretends to be a specialist, and they "do" her frightfully. It is one of the penalties of being a Superwoman. Getting a cook required diplomacy. It is a point of honor with mother to take meals in restaurants or buy delicatessen stuff. She was in the hospital two months with inflammation of the liver last winter, and dyspepsia makes {184} half her days hideous. If people will live on indigestible ideas, instead of home cooking, I'm afraid it's what they must expect! I freely admit that I can't combat mother's ideas, as ideas,--I'm not clever enough,--but she does n't know how to be comfortable, which is to be efficient. She is rabidly against kitchens, but arithmetic demonstrates that here, in Chicago, this winter, it will cost less, and be more healthful to have a maid for the season instead of dragging ourselves out in the snow to eat thirty-cent breakfasts and fifty-cent luncheons and seventy-five cent dinners, and pay a woman for coming to clean. I argue that, so long as the Redeemed Form of Society has n't arrived, we are n't disloyal to it by doing this! Myra Ann has learned to make Evelyn's beef-tea and mutton-broth. {185} Mother needs them badly. Then I discovered that eggs have always disagreed with her, but she went right on eating them because she thought them an "ideal food," and that if her stomach was n't sufficiently standardized to appreciate them, it ought to be! I call that heroic, if it is droll. Idiosyncrasy is something for which mother's creed makes no allowance. We now have an attractive set of eggless breakfasts.--Does all this sound like a model house keeper writing to a domestic journal? Evelyn knows I have a little right to throw bouquets at myself, for I was n't born a housekeeper--but housekeepers _can_ be made! Seems to me, if you ought to standardize an individual's diet, as mother thinks, similar arguments apply to his clothes, his features, his body, his mind, his soul. There's no logical place to {186} stop. Yet we know that diversity, not similarity, is the end nature is always seeking in evolution. Of course, if you are going to buck all the natural laws, that's different! My country brain gets tired in such a menagerie of ideas. In our own life at home, there is comfort, peace, sufficient stimulus, development; this life is exciting, but barren of something that I will call soil to grow in, because I don't know any better word. Of course it is great fun for me to come in contact with so many different kinds of minds and hear them emit their theories. Only, somehow, the theorists lack reality to me. Do I make myself clear? I hope this will give you a notion of what I'm doing and thinking, and that you'll know I'm really having a beautiful time. I miss you both {187} horribly, though. I will tell about some of the people in my next letter. I'm acting as mother's secretary just now. She really needs one, and it's interesting work. Ever and always, Your loving child, MARVEL. IV It was eleven o'clock on a mid-April morning--she never in after-life forgot the day or the hour--that Clarissa Charleroy saw to the depths of her daughter's mind. Clarissa awoke that morning with a severe neuralgia. She had given two parlor-talks the day before, and was now paying the penalty of overexertion. To lie flat was sickening, yet to rise was impossible. Marvel promptly took the case in {188} hand. The pillows were piled high; one hot-water bag was slipped under that aching spot at the back of her neck, and another placed at her chilly feet. Marvel knew that a hot bag must be covered with linen; Marvel knew that an alcohol rub changes even a neuralgic's outlook. Marvel was perfectly familiar with the latest non-depressant remedy for neuralgia, hunted up the empty box, telephoned the druggist, and had the prescription filled and ready to administer in half an hour; when she left the room it was only to reappear with a cretonne-and-mahogany tray, fresh toast, and weak tea, at the very psychological moment when the thought of food ceased to be a horror. Under these ministrations, what had promised to be an all-day siege gave way so satisfactorily that by eleven {189} o'clock Clarissa, arrayed in Marvel's blue negligée, was temporarily reposing on the lounge in the living-room, while her own room was airing. She was in that delicious, drowsy, yet stimulated, state which follows the cessation of suffering. For April, the day was unusually warm. The windows were open; the sun was pouring happily in, contending in gayety with a great jar of daffodils covering the low table at Clarissa's side. Marvel in a dull-blue house dress, white-braided, sat across the room darning a stocking, with an expression of severity. Mending was one of the domestic duties for which she had little taste. Owing to her constant activities as housekeeper and secretary for Clarissa, she had not yet begun to attend lectures at the University. Her mother, I fear, was {190} serenely blind to the implications of this fact. Clarissa, lying high among pillows, in the peace that follows pain, regarded her daughter with a profound pleasure. There was something about her--was it the length of curling lashes veiling her eyes? or the tendrils of fair hair the warm wind lifted on her forehead? or the exquisite color that came and went in her cheeks? or the slender roundness of her erect young body?--there was a something, at all events, a dearness, an interest, a charm, unlike all other girls of twenty-three! Not for the first or the second, but for the hundreth time, that winter, Clarissa was conscious of an unutterable hunger for the years she had foregone. She seldom looked at Marvel's bloom without remembering that she had no mental picture of her girlish charm, {191} her maiden magic. How was it possible to grow old without such memories to feed her withering heart upon? She must not think that the locust had eaten these years! The thought pierced her like a knife, and she put it away from her with all her might. Had she not chosen the better, though more barren, part? Had she not fought a good fight? And for this hour, at least, she was happy. Leaving Marvel's face, her gaze traveled round the room. The actual alterations were not many, yet they had produced harmony. The apartment was restful now. The very walls seemed to encompass and caress her. Perhaps it was only just, Clarissa reflected, that a woman who had poured out her years and her strength in working and planning for an obdurate world, should have, when her energy {192} was spent, some such warm and tender shelter, some equable spot all flowers and sunshine, wherein she might be tended as Marvel was tending her, so that she might gather strength to go forth to other battles. She turned her eyes again upon her daughter. Marvel, feeling the long look, glanced up. "Are you comfy? Is there anything more you want, mother?" the girl inquired. Clarissa shook her head. "No, nothing. Really, child, you are an excellent nurse. Quite a--quite a Marvel! Were you born so? Where did you get it? Not from Paul or me!" Marvel smiled faintly to herself. "Where did I get that name?" she parried. "I have often wondered about that. Father could n't, or would n't, tell me." {193} The slow, difficult color came to Clarissa's cheeks. How many years since she had recalled the naming of her daughter! "There is no secret about it," she said. "When the nurse first laid you on my arm, I saw what seemed to me such a wonder-child that I said, Every baby in the world ought to be named Marvel. Mine shall be.-- That's all. It was just a fancy. Your father wanted to name you Clarissa Josephine. Where did those daffodils come from? Did the Herr Professor send them?" Marvel nodded carelessly. This was so common a matter as to be undeserving of comment. Clarissa resumed her train of thought. What tact the girl had shown! She had slipped into her mother's life easily. At the beginning she had taken her little stand, assumed {194} her pose. "I am not a believer in your panaceas," her manner always, and her lips once or twice, had said, "but nothing human is alien to me. Pray shatter society to bits and remould it nearer to the heart's desire--if you can." Clarissa saw no reason why Marvel should not remain with her. A couple of legacies had increased her small income to the point where she might have dispensed with her irregular and uncertain earnings, had these not represented an effort that was the essence of life to her. She could even afford, for a time, the inconsistent luxury of an idle daughter; but if Marvel desired to exercise her teacher's gift, why not do so in Chicago? "How comfortable we are!" said Clarissa, drowsily and happily. "That blue dress is very becoming to you, {195} child. I believe we can't do better than to keep this flat for next winter. I wonder if we could n't arrange with Myra Ann to come back in the fall? We could pay her half-wages while we were out of town. Her cooking seems to agree with my stomach better than I dared suppose any home cooking could!" "Why, mother! You forget I am still an instructor-elect at Midwest. I must go to my work in September." Clarissa started up against her pillows and spoke with her usual vehemence and directness. "I do not wish you to go back to Midwest, Marvel. I want you to stay with me. I have had too little of my daughter's society in my life." The girl dropped her work and faced her mother. "That, mother, is hardly my fault." {196} Their glances met and crossed, rapier-like, with the words. Apprehension seized Clarissa. She did not fathom the meaning of Marvel's gaze. "Do you mean it is my fault, Marvel?" Her daughter kept silence. For almost the first time in her life, the older woman felt herself compelled to valiant self-defense. "My work has justified itself, Marvel. I am not boasting when I say that I truthfully believe the good day of release from servitude is nearer for all women because I had the courage to leave my home and go into the wilderness, preaching the coming of the Woman's Age and furthering, even though feebly, all the good causes that will help it on." Marvel still kept silence. She knew so many things to say! Was it not better to utter none of them? {197} "I wanted," continued Clarissa, "to give my mite toward making this a better world for girl-babies like you to be born into." Her face wore the deep, wistful look that marked her highest moments; this was the reason upon which in her secret soul she relied for justification--but her daughter was not touched by it at all! "Well, Marvel?" "Really, mother," said the girl crisply, driven to make answer, "don't you realize that you would never have gone in for Humanity if you had n't hated cooking?" "Why cook when I hated it?" Clarissa, up-in-arms, flashed back. "Why, indeed?--but why drag in Humanity? And why should I give up my work to stay here? I felt I ought to come--for a while--when you {198} asked it. I could see that father and Evelyn thought I ought. But now that I have put the flat in shape and trained Myra Ann,--she wants to stay with you, by the way,--things will run smoothly. I can come up occasionally to see how it goes." At this assumption that her need of her child was purely practical, something, some tangible, iron thing, seemed to strike Clarissa's heart. She could feel its impact, feel the distressful shudder along all her nerves, the explosion in her palms. She looked down at them curiously. It almost seemed to her that she would behold them shattered by the pain! She turned her eyes away and they fell upon the bowl of daffodils. Daffodils burning in an April sun. In what long-forgotten hour of stress had she once seen the flame of daffodils burn {199} bright against an April sun? Slowly her brain made the association. Ah, yes! That day she told Paul she would leave him, he had brought her daffodils.--Had _Paul_ felt like this? Clarissa--Clarissa who had never before either asked or given quarter --heard her own voice, tense with feeling, say, "Marvel, I can't let you go, not yet!" "Why, mother! I can't stay longer than June. Of all people in the world, you ought to admit that I must do my work! Of course I know you need a home as much as any one, though you never own it. That's why you have liked to have me here this winter because I could help you make one. You none of you know, you reformers! You are just air-plants. You have no roots." "It is part of the profession. 'Foxes {200} have holes--" Clarissa retorted, driven to her last defense. Marvel lifted her head, shocked at the implication. "I don't believe it is wrong to tell you what I think," she said abruptly. "You ought to know the other side, my side. Of course I'm only a girl still. I dare say there is a great deal I do not understand. But I do know about homes. The attitude of these people you admire and quote does seem to me so ridiculous! They all admit that the race lives for the child. But they say--and you follow them-- that the child can be best cared for by specialists, and the house can be left to itself, while the mothers can, and should, go out and hunt up some other specialty. It is the idea of a shirk! Loving a child is a profession in itself. You have to give your mind {201} and soul to it. I tell you I know. _I know because I was motherless!_ Can't you see that everything your specialists can do for the child is useless if you don't give it what it wants and needs the very most of all? Oh, I think some grown-ups were born grown-up. They don't seem to remember!" "Remember--remember what?" Clarissa interjected sharply. "I don't know that I can make you understand. It is such a simple, elemental thing. You either know it, or you don't. You may mother chickens in a brooder, but you must mother children in your arms. After you left, mother, for four mortal years I was the most miserable scrap on earth. I was fed and clothed and taught and cared for. I was petted, too, but it was never _right_. All the while I felt {202} myself alone. Aunt Josephine did n't count; even father did n't, then. I could not sleep for loneliness, and I used to wake far in the night, my eyes all wet with tears. I had been crying in my sleep. The universe felt desolate and vacant. Just one little girl alone in it! There was such a weight at my heart! I would cry and cry. It was an awful, constant hunger for the mother that I did n't have. So I know how it is with all children. Their hearts must be fed!" Clarissa listened, astounded. The girl stood now at the open window, breathing in the soft spring air in long-drawn, tremulous breaths. The excitement of speech was upon her. Her eyes were liquid, wonderful. And never, in all her life, had she looked so like the woman who watched her breathlessly. {203} "These are such big things," she went on, "I hardly know how to talk about them. But I have thought a great deal. I know the world must be made better, and every one must do his share. But, mother, you can't save the world in platoons. Even Christ had but twelve disciples. I'm not denying that thousands of women must work outside the home; I'm not denying that hundreds may be specially called to do work in and for the world. But the mothers are not called. They must not go, unless want drives. They have the homes to make--the part of the homes that is atmosphere. Oh, don't you know what I mean? The women who understand can make a home in a boarding-house or in foreign lodgings; in a camp on the desert or in an eyrie in the mountains. It's the feel of it! Don't you understand it at {204} all,--the warm, comforted, easeful feeling that encompasses you when you come in the door, or raise the tent-flap? Home is the thing that nourishes, that cherishes, that puts its arms about you and says, Rest here! "I know--for father and Evelyn made a home for me. Father is like me. He is lost, shipwrecked, ruined, if his heart is n't sheltered. I don't know what I think about divorces and re-marriages. It is all so perplexing. I do not know at all. But I know you broke up a home, and Evelyn made one. Whatever people do, if they can do that for a child as father and Evelyn did it for me, I should n't wonder if they are justified before gods and men!" The rapid sentences fell like hammer-strokes upon Clarissa's naked heart. She felt that she ought to be {205} defending her beliefs, but she could not take her eyes from Marvel's glowing face, and the girl went swiftly on:-- "The people that you follow--they admit the race lives for the child, that the mother must risk her life to give it life. Then, they seem to think, the sacrifice can cease. But if you know about homes, you know better. As she gives her body to be the matrix of another body, so she must give her spirit to make a shelter that shall be the matrix of another spirit. If she refuses to do this, she fails, and all her labor is in vain. It is very simple. As I see the world, the mothers must die daily all their lives. There is no other way. It is a part of life, just as bearing and birth are parts of life. No one denies that they are hard--hard--hard. But that is the glory of it! Nothing is worth while that lacks the {206} labor and the danger, the pain and the difficulty!" For once in her life Clarissa was speechless. Words would not come. The inherited weapon of her own fluency had been turned against herself. For as other women had been shaken from their old faiths and allegiances by Clarissa's gift of tongues, even so had she been shaken by her child. The girl's young cogency had struck her dumb. In the long minutes of silence that followed, Clarissa was, perhaps, more truly a mother than she had been since Marvel first lay in the circle of her arm. She saw a daughter's point of view at last. She knew which proclaimed the deeper doctrine, which was the truer prophet of humanity, her child or she. Yet when she spoke at last, it was {207} not to discourse of Humanity. Humanity was forgotten; she and her child were all. Her lips shaped, unbidden, that old, old demand of the hungry heart. "Marvel--don't you _love_ me at all?" Marvel hesitated. Her air of detachment was complete. "You never tried to make me love you, mother. Even love goes by a kind of logic. Domestic life gives you one kind of reward; public life another kind. You get the kind you choose, I take it, and no other. If you want love, you must choose the love-bringing kind," said this austere young judge. "And I've found out another thing by myself. You love ten times as much when you have served with hands and feet as well as brain. I do not know why. I only know you do. {208} If--if I love you at all, mother, it is because of the work I have done for you here--in making it like home!" Clarissa bowed her head on her hands, in a bitterness made absolute. This child of hers was her own child. What right, indeed, had she to expect self-sacrifice, tenderness, cherishing, from the flesh of her flesh? That which she had given was rendered unto her again in overflowing measure, and beholding she saw that it was just. Marvel, standing at the window in the sunshine, a little excited by her own eloquence and wondering at it still, had no conception of the havoc she had worked. Indeed, she was innocent of the knowledge that any one, least of all herself, had the power to move her mother greatly. She assumed, after the careless fashion of {209} youth, that her elders were indifferent and unemotional. Suddenly, she heard an unfamiliar and terrifying sound. Her mother was sobbing with harsh, rending sobs, tearless and terrible. Marvel turned in quick alarm and stood confused before this anguish of her own inflicting. Clarissa's very soul seemed sobbing, and her daughter did not know how to bear the sound. The girl wrung her hands helplessly. Something struck her heart and quivered down her nerves. Then, as she watched this woman, so like, yet so unlike herself, all at once--she understood! She was suffering with every painful breath her mother drew. In the heart of her heart she felt them. They two were bound together there. It was even as Evelyn had told her,--Evelyn, the beloved, whose truth had never failed her yet! The primal tie {210} that draws God to his worlds still holds the woman and her child. It was a wonder and a miracle unspeakable--but it was true. Throbbing and palpable, she felt the tie. It was as if her eyelids were anointed, and all the deep and secret things of life lay clear. Ah, she had not known the half before! How shallow and complacent she must have seemed! She dropped on her knees beside the lounge. No eloquence now! She stammered commonplace words eagerly, pitifully. "Mother dear! Mother, I didn't mean to hurt you so! I did n't know. _I did n't know!_ Don't cry! O mother dear, _don't cry!_" Clarissa lifted a drawn, woeful face, and looked straight into her daughter's eyes. I cannot tell you what she saw there of wonder and newborn {211} tenderness. But she drank of that look thirstily, as might one who had found springs of living water after a desert drought. Her own child's hand had struck her down. Yet, in her overthrow, she read in Marvel's face the sign all mothers seek. Ungentle and unmerciful the girl had been, yet gentler and more merciful than she! And by that token she knew her life not wasted utterly. For she had given to this world--this piteous world for which she had labored clumsily and ineffectually in alien ways--the best thing that the woman has to give. Offspring a little better than herself she gave to it. This child of hers, just now so hard, yet now become so pitiful, was her own child and more. Of her flesh and of her spirit had been wrought a finer thing than she. ------------------------------ _The Riverside Press_ CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS U . S . 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49579	----	FRANZÖSISCHE UND ENGLISCHE SCHULBIBLIOTHEK HERAUSGEGEBEN VON OTTO E. A. DICKMANN REIHE A: PROSA BAND LXXVII ENGLISCH LEIPZIG 1904 RENGERSCHE BUCHHANDLUNG GEBHARDT & WILISCH. LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY VON FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT FÜR DEN SCHULGEBRAUCH BEARBEITET VON G. WOLPERT SIEBENTE AUFLAGE LEIPZIG 1904 RENGERSCHE BUCHHANDLUNG GEBHARDT & WILISCH. Mit gütiger Erlaubnis der Verlagshandlung _Bernhard Tauchnitz_ in Leipzig. Druck von Hugo Wilisch in Chemnitz. Vorwort zur ersten Auflage. Bei der Bearbeitung des vorliegenden Auszugs aus _Burnetts_[1] fesselndem Romane für die Schule, lag mir nach den Grundsätzen der Französischen und Englischen Schulbibliothek zunächst die Aufgabe ob, denselben so zu kürzen, daß der Inhalt des Bändchens in einem Semester bewältigt werden kann. Es wurden deshalb alle für die Entwicklung der Erzählung nicht unbedingt nötigen Teile ausgeschieden, der übrige Text aber noch soweit gekürzt, als es die Rücksicht auf die Klarheit der Schilderung und die Korrektheit des Ausdrucks zuließ. Dadurch ist es mir gelungen, das Ganze auf etwa ein Dritteil des ursprünglichen Umfanges zu beschränken, ohne jedoch den Zusammenhang zu stören und die feine Zeichnung der Charaktere der Hauptpersonen zu verwischen. Nur an einer Stelle war eine etwas gewaltsame Verschmelzung mehrerer Seiten in wenige Zeilen (S. 82, Z. 30-36) nicht zu umgehen; aber auch da erwies sich gewissenhafte Wahrung der von Burnett selbst gebrauchten Ausdrucksweise als möglich. Sachliche Anmerkungen brauchten nur in beschränktem Maße gegeben zu werden, dagegen hielt ich es für angezeigt, mit den Fußnoten nicht allzu sparsam zu sein, einmal weil verschiedene Amerikanismen (store, boss, ranch u. a.), sowie eine große Anzahl vulgärer oder familiärer Ausdrücke eine Erklärung erheischten, sodann weil gar manche Stelle des Textes für die Übersetzung in gutes Deutsch nicht ohne Schwierigkeit ist. Häufiger in der Umgangssprache erscheinende Kürzungen, wie: I'd, he'd, I'll, he'll u. a., die in den meisten Grammatiken angeführt sind, wurden als bekannt vorausgesetzt. Bei dem S. 83 vollständig abgedruckten Briefe Cedrics unterblieb der Raumersparnis halber die Wiedergabe in korrektes Englisch, soweit nicht die Rücksicht auf das Verständnis es verlangte. Möge dieses Bändchen, das für die mittleren Klassen aller Anstalten eine anregende Lektüre bieten wird, die freundliche Aufnahme finden, die dem kleinen Helden der Erzählung in der Alten wie in der Neuen Welt zu teil geworden ist. MÜNCHEN, im Januar 1894. [Fußnote 1: _Frances Hodgson Burnett_ wurde am 28. November 1849 zu Manchester geboren und kam schon sehr jung nach Amerika. Aus der Reihe der von ihr veröffentlichten Romane und Erzählungen verdienen neben »Little Lord Fauntleroy«, zuerst erschienen in St. Nicholas Magazine (1886), besonders Erwähnung: »That Lass o' Lowries«, »A Fair Barbarian«, »Through One Administration«, »Sara Crewe«, »Editha's Burglar«, »The Pretty Sister of José« und die Novellensammlung »Vagabondia«. Verschiedene derselben, auch »Little Lord«, wurden dramatisiert und mit großem Erfolge in Deutschland, Amerika und England aufgeführt.] Vorwort zur zweiten Auflage. Die günstige Aufnahme, welche diese Ausgabe des _Little Lord_ bei den Herren Fachgenossen und bei der Kritik gefunden, hat schon nach Verlauf von nicht ganz zwei Jahren eine neue Auflage nötig gemacht. In dieser ist der Text mit Ausnahme einer einzigen Stelle (S. 79, Z. 14), wo ich sinnrichtiger _a_ statt _any_ setzte, unverändert geblieben; die früheren Fußnoten sind nach der Vorschrift der Redaktion mit den sachlichen Anmerkungen verbunden, letztere einer genauen Durchsicht unterzogen und um einige vermehrt worden. MÜNCHEN, im Januar 1896. * * * * * Für die in die vierte Auflage aufgenommenen sprachlichen Erläuterungen zu S. 66. Z. 21 und S. 83, Z. 4 bin ich Herrn Prof. Dr. Thiergen zu Dank verpflichtet. MÜNCHEN, im Dezember 1898. * * * * * Die vorliegende siebente Auflage ist, wie die beiden vorhergehenden, ein unveränderter Abdruck der vierten. MÜNCHEN, im Februar 1904. Georg Wolpert, K. Professor. LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY. CHAPTER I. A GREAT SURPRISE. Cedric himself knew nothing whatever about it. It had never been even mentioned to him. He knew that his papa had been an Englishman, because his mamma had told him so; but then his papa had died when he was so little a boy that he could not remember very much about him, except that he was big, and had blue eyes and a long moustache, and that it was a splendid thing to be carried around the room on his shoulder. Since his papa's death, Cedric had found out that it was best not to talk to his mamma about him. When his father was ill, Cedric had been sent away, and when he had returned, everything was over; and his mother, who had been very ill, too, was only just beginning to sit in her chair by the window. She was pale and thin, and all the dimples had gone from her pretty face, and her eyes looked large and mournful, and she was dressed in black. He and his mamma knew very few people, and lived what might have been thought very lonely lives, although Cedric did not know it was lonely until he grew older and heard why it was they had no visitors. Then he was told that his mamma was an orphan, and quite alone in the world when his papa had married her. Their marriage brought them the ill-will of several persons. The one who was most angry of all, however, was the Captain's father, who lived in England, and was a very rich and important old nobleman, with a very bad temper, and a very violent dislike to America and Americans. He had two sons older than Captain Cedric; and it was the law that the elder of these sons should inherit the family title and estates, which were very rich and splendid; if the eldest son died the next one would be heir; so though he was a member of such a great family, there was little chance that Captain Cedric would be very rich himself. But it so happened that Nature had given to the younger son gifts which she had not bestowed upon his elder brothers. He had a beautiful face and a fine, strong, graceful figure; he had a bright smile and a sweet, gay voice; he was brave and generous, and had the kindest heart in the world, and seemed to have the power to make every one love him. But it was not so with his elder brothers; neither of them was handsome, or kind, or clever; they cared nothing for study, and wasted both time and money, and made few real friends. The old Earl, their father, was constantly disappointed and humiliated by them; his heir was no honour to his noble name. It was very bitter, the old Earl thought, that the son who was only third, should be the one who had all the gifts, and all the charms. Sometimes he almost hated the handsome young man because he seemed to have the good things which should have gone with the stately title and the magnificent estates. It was in one of his fits of petulance that he sent him off to travel in America. But after about six months, he began to feel lonely, and longed in secret to see his son again, so he wrote to Captain Cedric and ordered him home. The letter he wrote crossed on its way a letter the Captain had just written to his father telling of his love for the pretty American girl, and of his intended marriage; and when the Earl received that letter, he was furiously angry. Bad as his temper was, he had never given way to it in his life as he gave way to it when he read the Captain's letter. For an hour he raged like a tiger, and then he sat down and wrote to his son, and ordered him never to come near his old home, nor to write to his father or brothers again. The Captain was very sad when he read the letter; he was very fond of England, and he dearly loved the beautiful home where he had been born; he had even loved his ill-tempered old father; but he knew he need expect no kindness from him in the future. At first he scarcely knew what to do; he had not been brought up to work, and had no business experience, but he had courage and plenty of determination. So he sold his commission in the English army, and after some trouble found a situation in New York, and married. The change from his old life in England was very great, but he was young and happy and he hoped that hard work would do great things for him in the future. He had a small house in a quiet street, and his little boy was born there. Though he was born in so quiet and cheap a little home, it seemed as if there never had been a more fortunate baby. In the first place, he was always well, and so he never gave any one trouble; in the second place he had so sweet a temper and ways so charming that he was a pleasure to every one; and in the third place he was so beautiful to look at that he was quite a picture. When he was old enough to walk out with his nurse, he was so handsome and strong and rosy that he attracted every one's attention, and his nurse would come home and tell his mamma stories of the ladies who had stopped their carriages to look at and speak to him, and of how pleased they were when he talked to them in his cheerful little way, as if he had known them always. His greatest charm was this cheerful, fearless, quaint little way of making friends with people. As he grew older, he had a great many quaint little ways which amused and interested people greatly. He was so much of a companion for his mother that she scarcely cared for any other. They used to walk together and talk together and play together. When he was quite a little fellow he learned to read; and after that he used to lie on the hearth-rug, in the evening, and read aloud--sometimes stories, and sometimes big books such as older people read, and sometimes even the newspaper; and often at such times Mary, in the kitchen, would hear Mrs. Errol laughing with delight at the quaint things he said. Mary was very fond of him, and very proud of him, too. She had been with his mother ever since he was born; and, after his father's death, had been cook and housemaid and nurse and everything else. "Ristycratic, is it?" she would say. "It's like a young lord he looks." Cedric did not know that he looked like a young lord; he did not know what a lord was. His greatest friend was the groceryman at the corner. His name was Mr. Hobbs, and Cedric admired and respected him very much. He thought him a very rich and powerful person, he had so many things in his store--prunes and figs and oranges and biscuits,--and he had a horse and waggon. Cedric was fond of the milkman and the baker and the apple-woman, but he liked Mr. Hobbs best of all, and was on terms of such intimacy with him that he went to see him every day, and often sat with him quite a long time discussing the topics of the hour. It was quite surprising how many things they found to talk about--the Fourth of July, for instance. When they began to talk about the Fourth of July there really seemed no end to it. Mr. Hobbs had a very bad opinion of "the British," and he told the whole story of the Revolution, relating very wonderful and patriotic stories about the villainy of the enemy and the bravery of the Revolutionary heroes, and he even generously repeated part of the Declaration of Independence. Cedric was so excited that his eyes shone and he could hardly wait to eat his dinner after he went home, he was so anxious to tell his mamma. It was, perhaps, Mr. Hobbs who gave him his first interest in politics. Mr. Hobbs was fond of reading the newspapers, and so Cedric heard a great deal about what was going on in Washington; and Mr. Hobbs would tell him whether the President was doing his duty or not. When Cedric was between seven and eight years old, the very strange thing happened which made so wonderful a change in his life. It was quite curious, too, that the day it happened he had been talking to Mr. Hobbs about England and the Queen, and Mr. Hobbs had said some very severe things about the aristocracy, being specially indignant against earls and marquises. They were in the midst of their conversation, when Mary appeared. Cedric thought she had come to buy some sugar, perhaps, but she had not. She looked almost pale and as if she were excited about something. "Come home, darlint," she said; "the mistress is wantin' yez." Cedric slipped down from his stool. "Does she want me to go out with her, Mary?" he asked. "Good morning, Mr. Hobbs. I'll see you again." When he reached his own house there was a coupé standing before the door, and some one was in the little parlour talking to his mamma. Mary hurried him up stairs and put on his best summer suit of cream-coloured flannel with the red scarf around the waist, and combed out his curly locks. When he was dressed, he ran down stairs and went into the parlour. A tall, thin old gentleman with a sharp face was sitting in an arm-chair. His mother was standing near by with a pale face, and he saw that there were tears in her eyes. "Oh, Ceddie!" she cried out, and ran to her little boy and caught him in her arms and kissed him in a little frightened, troubled way. "Oh, Ceddie, darling!" The tall old gentleman rose from his chair and looked at Cedric with his sharp eyes. He rubbed his thin chin with his bony hand as he looked. He seemed not at all displeased. "And so," he said at last, slowly,--"and so this is little Lord Fauntleroy." CHAPTER II. CEDRIC'S FRIENDS. There was never a more amazed little boy than Cedric during the week that followed; there was never so strange or so unreal a week. In the first place, the story his mamma told him was a very curious one. He was obliged to hear it two or three times before he could understand it. He could not imagine what Mr. Hobbs would think of it. It began with earls; his grandpapa, whom he had never seen, was an earl; and his eldest uncle, if he had not been killed by a fall from his horse, would have been an earl, too, in time; and after his death, his other uncle would have been an earl, if he had not died suddenly, in Rome, of a fever. After that, his own papa, if he had lived, would have been an earl; but since they all had died and only Cedric was left, it appeared that _he_ was to be an earl after his grandpapa's death--and for the present he was Lord Fauntleroy. He turned quite pale when he was first told of it. "Oh! Dearest!" he said, "I should rather not be an earl. None of the boys are earls. Can't I _not_ be one?" But it seemed to be unavoidable. And when, that evening, they sat together by the open window looking out into the shabby street, he and his mother had a long talk about it. Cedric sat on his footstool, clasping one knee in his favourite attitude and wearing a bewildered little face rather red from the exertion of thinking. His grandfather had sent for him to come to England, and his mamma thought he must go. "Because," she said, looking out of the window with sorrowful eyes, "I know your papa would wish it to be so, Ceddie. I should be a selfish little mother if I did not send you. When you are a man you will see why." Ceddie shook his head mournfully. "I shall be very sorry to leave Mr. Hobbs," he said. When Mr. Havisham--who was the family lawyer of the Earl of Dorincourt, and who had been sent by him to bring Lord Fauntleroy to England--came the next day, Cedric heard many things. But, somehow, it did not console him to hear that he was to be a very rich man when he grew up, and that he would have castles here and castles there, and great parks and deep mines and grand estates and tenantry. He was troubled about his friend, Mr. Hobbs, and he went to see him at the store soon after breakfast, in great anxiety of mind. He found him reading the morning paper, and he approached him with a grave demeanour. He really felt it would be a great shock to Mr. Hobbs to hear what had befallen him, and on his way to the store he had been thinking how it would be best to break the news. "Hello!" said Mr. Hobbs. "Mornin'!" "Good-morning," said Cedric. He did not climb up on the high stool as usual, but sat down on a biscuit-box and clasped his knee, and was so silent for a few moments that Mr. Hobbs finally looked up inquiringly over the top of his newspaper. "Hello!" he said again. Cedric gathered all his strength of mind together. "Mr. Hobbs," he said, "do you remember what we were talking about yesterday morning?" "Well," replied Mr. Hobbs,--"seems to me it was England." "Yes," said Cedric; "but just when Mary came for me, you know?" Mr. Hobbs rubbed the back of his head. "We _was_ mentioning Queen Victoria and the aristocracy." "Yes," said Cedric, rather hesitatingly, "and--and earls; don't you know?" "Why, yes," returned Mr. Hobbs; "that's so!" "You said," proceeded Cedric, "that you wouldn't have them sitting 'round on your biscuit barrels." "So I did!" returned Mr. Hobbs, stoutly. "Mr. Hobbs," said Cedric, "one is sitting on this box now!" Mr. Hobbs almost jumped out of his chair. "What!" he exclaimed. "Yes," Cedric announced, with due modesty; "_I_ am one--or I am going to be. I shan't deceive you." Mr. Hobbs looked agitated. He rose up suddenly and went to look at the thermometer. "The mercury's got into your head!" he exclaimed, turning back to examine his young friend's countenance. "It _is_ a hot day! How do you feel?" He put his big hand on the little boy's hair. "Thank you," said Ceddie; "I'm all right. There is nothing the matter with my head. I'm sorry to say it's true, Mr. Hobbs. That was what Mary came to take me home for. Mr. Havisham was telling my mamma, and he is a lawyer." Mr. Hobbs sank into his chair and mopped his forehead with his handkerchief. "_One_ of us has got a sunstroke!" he exclaimed. "No," returned Cedric, "we have not. Mr. Havisham came all the way from England to tell us about it. My grandpapa sent him." Mr. Hobbs stared wildly at the innocent, serious little face before him. "Who is your grandfather?" he asked. Cedric put his hand in his pocket and carefully drew out a piece of paper, on which something was written in his own round, irregular hand. "I couldn't easily remember it, so I wrote it down on this," he said. And he read aloud slowly: "'John Arthur Molyneux Errol, Earl of Dorincourt.' That is his name, and he lives in a castle--in two or three castles, I think. And my papa, who died, was his youngest son; and I shouldn't have been a lord or an earl if my papa hadn't died; and my papa wouldn't have been an earl if his two brothers hadn't died, and my grandpapa has sent for me to come to England." Mr. Hobbs seemed to grow hotter and hotter. He mopped his forehead and breathed hard. He began to see that something very remarkable had happened. "Wha--what did you say your name was?" Mr. Hobbs inquired. "It's Cedric Errol, Lord Fauntleroy," answered Cedric. "That was what Mr. Havisham called me." "Well," said Mr. Hobbs, "I'll be--jiggered!" This was an exclamation he always used when he was very much astonished or excited. He could think of nothing else to say just at that puzzling moment. Cedric looked at Mr. Hobbs wistfully. "England is a long way off, isn't it?" he asked. "It's across the Atlantic Ocean," Mr. Hobbs answered. "That's the worst of it," said Cedric. "Perhaps I shall not see you again for a long time. I don't like to think of that, Mr. Hobbs." "The best of friends must part," said Mr. Hobbs. "Well," said Cedric, "we have been friends for a great many years, haven't we?" "Ever since you was born," Mr. Hobbs answered. "Ah," remarked Cedric, with a sigh, "I never thought I should have to be an earl then!" "You think," said Mr. Hobbs, "there's no getting out of it?" "I'm afraid not," answered Cedric. "My mamma says that my papa would wish me to do it. But if I have to be an earl, I can try to be a good one. I'm not going to be a tyrant." His conversation with Mr. Hobbs was a long and serious one. Once having got over the first shock, Mr. Hobbs endeavoured to resign himself to the situation, and before the interview was at an end he had asked a great many questions. As Cedric could answer but few of them, he endeavoured to answer them himself, and explained many things in a way which would probably have astonished Mr. Havisham, could that gentleman have heard it. But then there were many things which astonished Mr. Havisham. He had known all about the old Earl's disappointment in his elder sons and all about his fierce rage at Captain Cedric's American marriage, and he knew how he still hated the gentle little widow and would not speak of her except with bitter and cruel words. He insisted that she was only a common American girl, who had entrapped his son into marrying her because she knew he was an earl's son. The old lawyer himself had more than half believed this was all true. When he had been driven into the cheap street, and his coupé had stopped before the cheap small house, he had felt actually shocked. When Mary handed him into the small parlour he looked around it critically. It was plainly furnished but it had a home-like look; the few adornments on the walls were in good taste, and about the room were many pretty things which a woman's hand might have made. The lawyer's experience taught him to read people's characters very shrewdly, and as soon as he saw Cedric's mother he knew that the old Earl had made a great mistake in thinking her a vulgar, mercenary woman. When he first told Mrs. Errol what he had come for, she turned very pale. "Oh!" she said; "will he have to be taken away from me? We love each other so much! He is such a happiness to me! He is all I have." And her sweet young voice trembled, and the tears rushed into her eyes. "You do not know what he has been to me!" she said. The lawyer cleared his throat. "I am obliged to tell you," he said, "that the Earl of Dorincourt is not--is not very friendly toward you. He is an old man, and his prejudices are very strong. He has always especially disliked America and Americans, and was very much enraged by his son's marriage. I am sorry to be the bearer of so unpleasant a communication, but he is very fixed in his determination not to see you. His plan is that Lord Fauntleroy shall be educated under his own supervision; that he shall live with him. The Earl is attached to Dorincourt Castle, and spends a great deal of time there. Lord Fauntleroy will, therefore, be likely to live chiefly at Dorincourt. The Earl offers to you as a home, Court Lodge, which is situated pleasantly, and is not very far from the castle. He also offers you a suitable income. Lord Fauntleroy will be permitted to visit you; the only stipulation is, that you shall not visit him. You see you will not be really separated from your son." He felt a little uneasy lest she should begin to cry or make a scene. But she did not. She went to the window and stood with her face turned away for a few moments. "Captain Errol was very fond of Dorincourt," she said at last. "He loved England, and everything English. It was always a grief to him that he was parted from his home. I know he would wish, that his son should know the beautiful old places, and be brought up in such a way as would be suitable to his future position." Then she came back to the table and stood looking up at Mr. Havisham very gently. "My husband would wish it," she said. "It will be best for my little boy. I know--I am sure the Earl would not be so unkind as to try to teach him not to love me; and I know--even if he tried--that my little boy is too much like his father to be harmed. I hope, that his grandfather will love Ceddie. The little boy has a very affectionate nature; and he has always been loved." Mr. Havisham cleared his throat again. He could not quite imagine the gouty, fiery-tempered old Earl loving any one very much; but he knew that if Ceddie were at all a credit to his name, his grandfather would be proud of him. "Lord Fauntleroy will be comfortable, I am sure," he replied. "It was with a view to his happiness that the Earl desired that you should be near enough to him to see him frequently." When the door opened and the child came into the room, he recognised in an instant that here was one of the finest and handsomest little fellows he had ever seen. His beauty was something unusual. He had a strong, lithe, graceful little body and a manly little face; he was so like his father that it was really startling; he had his father's golden hair and his mother's brown eyes. They were innocently fearless eyes; he looked as if he had never feared or doubted anything in his life. "He is the best-bred-looking and handsomest little fellow I ever saw," was what Mr. Havisham thought. What he said aloud was simply, "And so this is little Lord Fauntleroy." Cedric did not know he was being observed, and he only behaved himself in his ordinary manner. He shook hands with Mr. Havisham in his friendly way when they were introduced to each other, and he answered all his questions with the unhesitating readiness with which he answered Mr. Hobbs. The next time Mr. Havisham met him, he had quite a long conversation with him--a conversation which made him smile, and rub his chin with his bony hand several times. Mrs. Errol had been called out of the parlour, and the lawyer and Cedric were left together. Mr. Havisham sat in an arm-chair on one side of the open window; on the other side was another still larger chair, and Cedric sat in that and looked at Mr. Havisham. There was a short silence after Mrs. Errol went out, and Cedric seemed to be studying Mr. Havisham, and Mr. Havisham was certainly studying Cedric. He could not make up his mind as to what an elderly gentleman should say to a little boy. But Cedric relieved him by suddenly beginning the conversation himself. "Do you know," he said, "I don't know what an earl is?" "Don't you?" said Mr. Havisham. "No," replied Ceddie. "And I think when a boy is going to be one, he ought to know. Don't you?" "Well--yes," answered Mr. Havisham, "An earl is--is a very important person." "So is a president!" put in Ceddie. "An earl," Mr. Havisham went on, "is frequently of very ancient lineage----" "What's that?" asked Ceddie. "Of very old family--extremely old." "Ah!" said Cedric, thrusting his hands deeper into his pockets. "I suppose that is the way with the apple-woman near the park. I dare say she is of ancient lin-lenage. She is so old it would surprise you how she can stand up." Mr. Havisham felt rather at a loss as he looked at his companion's innocent, serious little face. "I am afraid you did not quite understand me," he explained. "When I said 'ancient lineage' I did not mean old age; I meant that the name of such a family has been known in the world a long time; perhaps for hundreds of years persons bearing that name have been known and spoken of in the history of their country." "Like George Washington," said Ceddie. "I've heard of him ever since I was born, and he was known about long before that. Mr. Hobbs says he will never be forgotten. That's because of the Declaration of Independence, you know, and the Fourth of July. You see, he was a very brave man." "The first Earl of Dorincourt," said Mr. Havisham solemnly, "was created an earl four hundred years ago." "Well, well!" said Ceddie. "That was a long time ago! Did you tell Dearest that? It would int'rust her very much. She always likes to hear cur'us things. What else does an earl do besides being created?" "A great many of them have helped to govern England. Some of them have been brave men and have fought in great battles in the old days." "I should like to do that myself," said Cedric. "My papa was a soldier, and he was a very brave man--as brave as George Washington. Perhaps that was because he would have been an earl if he hadn't died. I am glad earls are brave. That's a great 'vantage--to be a brave man." "There is another advantage in being an earl, sometimes," said Mr. Havisham slowly. "Some earls have a great deal of money." He was curious because he wondered if his young friend knew what the power of money was. "That's a good thing to have," said Ceddie innocently. "I wish I had a great deal of money." "Do you?" said Mr. Havisham. "And why?" "Well," explained Cedric, "there are so many things a person can do with money. You see there's the apple-woman. If I were very rich I should buy her a little tent to put her stall in, and a little stove, and then I should give her a dollar every morning it rained, so that she could afford to stay at home." "Ahem!" said Mr. Havisham. "And what else would you do if you were rich?" "Oh! I'd do a great many things. Of course I should buy Dearest all sorts of beautiful things, needle-books and fans and gold thimbles and rings, and an encyclopedia, and a carriage, so that she needn't have to wait for the street-cars. And then Dick----" "Who is Dick?" asked Mr. Havisham. "Dick is a boot-black," said his young lordship, quite warming up in his interest in plans so exciting. "He is one of the nicest boot-blacks you ever knew. He stands at the corner of a street down town. I've known him for years. Once when I was very little, I was walking out with Dearest and she bought me a beautiful ball that bounced, and I was carrying it, and it bounced into the middle of the street where the carriages and horses were, and I was so disappointed, I began to cry--I was very little. Dick ran in between the horses and caught the ball for me and wiped it off with his coat and gave it to me and said; 'It's all right, young un.' So Dearest admired him very much, and so did I, and ever since then, when we go down town, we talk to him." "And what would you like to do for him?" inquired the lawyer, rubbing his chin and smiling a queer smile. "Well," said Lord Fauntleroy, settling himself in his chair with a business air; "I'd buy Jake out." "And who is Jake?" Mr. Havisham asked. "He's Dick's partner, and he is the worst partner a fellow could have! Dick says so. He isn't a credit to the business, and he isn't square. He cheats, and that makes Dick mad. So if I were rich, I'd buy Jake out and I'd get Dick some new clothes and new brushes, and start him out fair." "What would you get for yourself, if you were rich?" asked Mr. Havisham. "Lots of things!" answered Lord Fauntleroy briskly: "but first I'd give Mary some money for Bridget--that's her sister, with twelve children, and a husband out of work. And I think Mr. Hobbs would like a gold watch and chain to remember me by, and a meerschaum pipe." The door opened and Mrs. Errol came in. "I am sorry to have been obliged to leave you so long," she said to Mr. Havisham; "but a poor woman, who is in great trouble, came to see me." "This young gentleman," said Mr. Havisham, "has been telling me about some of his friends, and what he would do for them if he were rich." "Bridget is one of his friends," said Mrs. Errol; "and it is Bridget to whom I have been talking in the kitchen. She is in great trouble now because her husband has rheumatic fever." Cedric slipped down out of his big chair. "I think I'll go and see her," he said, "and ask her how he is. He's a nice man when he is well, he once made me a sword out of wood." He ran out of the room, and Mr. Havisham rose from his chair. He seemed to have something in his mind which he wished to speak of. He hesitated a moment, and then said, looking down at Mrs. Errol: "Before I left Dorincourt Castle I had an interview with the Earl, in which he gave me some instructions. He said that I must let his lordship know that the change in his life would bring him money and the pleasures children enjoy; if he expressed any wishes I was to gratify them, and to tell him that his grandfather had given him what he wished. I am aware that the Earl did not expect anything quite like this; but if it would give Lord Fauntleroy pleasure to assist this poor woman, I should feel that the Earl would be displeased if he were not gratified." "Oh!" Mrs. Errol said, "that was very kind of the Earl; Cedric will be so glad! He has always been fond of Bridget and Michael. They are quite deserving." Mr. Havisham put his thin hand in his breast pocket and drew forth a large pocket-book. There was a queer look in his keen face. The truth was, he was wondering what the Earl of Dorincourt would say when he was told what was the first wish of his grandson that had been granted. "I do not know that you have realised," he said, "that the Earl of Dorincourt is an exceedingly rich man. I think it would please him to know that Lord Fauntleroy had been indulged in any fancy. If you will call him back and allow me, I shall give him five pounds for these people." "That would be twenty-five dollars!" exclaimed Mrs. Errol. "It will seem like wealth to them. I can scarcely believe that it is true." "It is quite true," said Mr. Havisham, with his dry smile. "A great change has taken place in your son's life, a great deal of power will lie in his hands." "Oh!" cried his mother. "And he is such a little boy--a very little boy. How can I teach him to use it well? It makes me half afraid. My pretty little Ceddie!" The lawyer slightly cleared his throat. It touched his worldly, hard old heart to see the tender, timid look in her brown eyes. "I think, madam," he said, "that if I may judge from my interview with Lord Fauntleroy this morning, the next Earl of Dorincourt will think for others as well as for his noble self. He is only a child yet, but I think he may be trusted." Then his mother went for Cedric and brought him back into the parlour. His little face looked quite anxious when he came in. He was very sorry for Bridget. "Dearest said you wanted me," he said to Mr. Havisham. "I've been talking to Bridget." Mr. Havisham looked down at him a moment. He felt a little awkward and undecided. As Cedric's mother had said, he was a very little boy. "The Earl of Dorincourt----" he began, and then he glanced involuntarily at Mrs. Errol. Little Lord Fauntleroy's mother suddenly kneeled down by him and put both her tender arms around his childish body. "Ceddie," she said, "the Earl is your grandpapa, your own papa's father. He is very, very kind, and he loves you and wishes you to love him, because the sons who were his little boys are dead. He wishes you to be happy and to make other people happy. He is very rich, and he wishes you to have everything you would like to have. He told Mr. Havisham so, and gave him a great deal of money for you. You can give some to Bridget now, enough to pay her rent and buy Michael everything. Isn't that fine, Ceddie? Isn't he good?" And she kissed the child on his round cheek, where the bright colour suddenly flashed up in his excited amazement. He looked from his mother to Mr. Havisham. "Can I have it now?" he cried. "Can I give it to her this minute? She's just going." Mr. Havisham handed him the money. It was in fresh clean greenbacks and made a neat roll. Ceddie flew out of the room. "Bridget!" they heard him shout, as he tore into the kitchen. "Bridget, wait a minute! Here's some money. It's for you, and you can pay the rent. My grandpapa gave it to me. It's for you and Michael!" "Oh, Master Ceddie!" cried Bridget, in an awestricken voice. "It's twinty-foive dollars is here. Where's the mistress?" "I think I shall have to go and explain it to her," Mrs. Errol said. So she, too, went out of the room, and Mr. Havisham was left alone for a while. He went to the window and stood looking out into the street reflectively. He was thinking of the old Earl of Dorincourt, sitting in his great, splendid, gloomy library at the castle, gouty and lonely, surrounded by grandeur and luxury, but not really loved by any one, because in all his long life he had never really loved any one but himself. He could fill his castle with guests if he chose, but he knew that in secret the people who would accept his invitations were afraid of his frowning old face and sarcastic, biting speeches. Mr. Havisham knew his hard, fierce ways by heart, and he was thinking of him as he looked out of the window into the quiet, narrow street. And there rose in his mind, in sharp contrast, the picture of the cheery, handsome little fellow sitting in the big chair and telling his story of his friends, Dick and the apple-woman, in his generous, innocent, honest way. And he thought of the immense income, the beautiful, majestic estates, the wealth, and power for good or evil, which in the course of time would lie in the small, chubby hands little Lord Fauntleroy thrust so deep into his pockets. "It will make a great difference," he said to himself. "It will make a great difference." Cedric and his mother came back soon after. Cedric was in high spirits. He was glowing with enjoyment of Bridget's relief and rapture. "She cried!" he said. "She said she was crying for joy. I never saw any one cry for joy before. My grandpapa must be a very good man. I didn't know he was so good a man. It's more--more agreeable to be an earl than I thought it was. I'm almost glad--I'm almost _quite_ glad I'm going to be one." CHAPTER III. LEAVING HOME. Cedric's good opinion of the advantages of being an earl increased greatly during the next week. It seemed almost impossible for him to realise that there was scarcely anything he might wish to do which he could not do easily; in fact I think it may be said that he did not fully realise it at all. But at least he understood, after a few conversations with Mr. Havisham, that he could gratify all his nearest wishes, and he proceeded to gratify them with a simplicity and delight which caused Mr. Havisham much diversion. In the week before they sailed for England, he did many curious things. The lawyer long after remembered the morning they went down together to pay a visit to Dick, and the afternoon they so amazed the apple-woman of ancient lineage by stopping before her stall and telling her she was to have a tent, and a stove, and a shawl, and a sum of money which seemed to her quite wonderful. "For I have to go to England and be a lord," explained Cedric, sweet-temperedly. "She's a very good apple-woman," he said to Mr. Havisham as they walked away, leaving the proprietress of the stall almost gasping for breath, and not at all believing in her great fortune. "Once, when I fell down and cut my knee, she gave me an apple for nothing. I've always remembered her for it. You know you always remember people who are kind to you." It had never occurred to his honest, simple, little mind that there were people who could forget kindnesses. The interview with Dick was quite exciting. Dick had just been having a great deal of trouble with Jake, and was in low spirits when they saw him. His amazement when Cedric calmly announced that they had come to give him what seemed a very great thing to him, and would set all his troubles right, almost struck him dumb. Lord Fauntleroy's manner of announcing the object of his visit was very simple and unceremonious and the end of the matter was that Dick bought Jake out, and found himself the possessor of the business, and some new brushes and a most astonishing sign and outfit. He could not believe in his good luck any more easily than the apple-woman of ancient lineage could believe in hers. He scarcely seemed to realise anything until Cedric put out his hand to shake hands with him before going away. "Well, good-bye," he said; and though he tried to speak steadily, there was a little tremble in his voice and he winked his big brown eyes. "And I hope trade'll be good. I'm sorry I'm going away to leave you, but I wish you'd write to me, because we were always good friends. And here's where you must send your letter." And he gave him a slip of paper. "And my name isn't Cedric Errol any more; it's Lord Fauntleroy and--and good-bye, Dick." Dick winked his eyes also, and yet they looked rather moist about the lashes. "I wish ye wasn't goin' away," he said in a husky voice. Then he winked his eyes again. Then he looked at Mr. Havisham and touched his cap. "Thanky, sir, for bringin' him down here an' fur wot ye've done." Until the day of his departure, his lordship spent as much time as possible with Mr. Hobbs in the store. Gloom had settled upon Mr. Hobbs; he was much depressed in spirits. When his young friend brought to him in triumph the parting gift of a gold watch and chain, Mr. Hobbs found it difficult to acknowledge it properly. He laid the case on his stout knee, and blew his nose violently several times. "There's something written on it," said Cedric,--"inside the case. I told the man myself what to say. 'From his oldest friend, Lord Fauntleroy, to Mr. Hobbs. When this you see, remember me.' I don't want you to forget me." Mr. Hobbs blew his nose very loudly again. "I shan't forget you," he said, speaking a trifle huskily, as Dick had spoken; "nor don't you go and forget me when you get among the British aristocracy." "I shouldn't forget you, whoever I was among," answered his lordship. "I've spent my happiest hours with you; at least, some of my happiest hours. I hope you'll come to see me some time." At last all the preparations were complete; the day came when the trunks were taken to the steamer, and the hour arrived when the carriage stood at the door. Then a curious feeling of loneliness came upon the little boy. His mamma had been shut up in her room for some time; when she came down the stairs, her eyes looked large and wet, and her sweet mouth was trembling. Cedric went to her, and she bent down to him, and he put his arms around her and they kissed each other. He knew something made them both sorry, though he scarcely knew what it was; but one tender little thought rose to his lips. "We liked this little house, Dearest, didn't we?" he said. "We always will like it, won't we?" "Yes--yes," she answered in a low, sweet voice. "Yes, darling." And then they went into the carriage and Cedric sat very close to her, and as she looked back out of the window, he looked at her and stroked her hand and held it close. And then, it seemed almost directly, they were on the steamer in the midst of the wildest bustle and confusion; carriages were driving down and leaving passengers; passengers were getting into a state of excitement about baggage which had not arrived and threatened to be too late; big trunks and cases were being bumped down and dragged about; sailors were uncoiling ropes and hurrying to and fro; officers were giving orders; ladies and gentlemen and children and nurses were coming on board--some were laughing and looked gay, some were silent and sad, here and there two or three were crying and touching their eyes with their handkerchiefs. Cedric found something to interest him on every side; he looked at the piles of rope, at the furled sails, at the tall, tall masts which seemed almost to touch the hot blue sky; he began to make plans for conversing with the sailors and gaining some information on the subject of pirates. It was just at the very last, when he was leaning on the railing of the upper deck and watching the final preparations, that his attention was called to a slight bustle in one of the groups not far from him. Some one was hurriedly forcing his way through this group and coming toward him. It was a boy, with something red in his hand. It was Dick. He came up to Cedric quite breathless. "I've run all the way," he said. "I've come down to see ye off. Trade's been prime! I bought this for ye out o' what I made yesterday. Ye kin wear it when ye get among the swells. It's a hankercher." He poured it all forth as if in one sentence. A bell rang and he made a leap away before Cedric had time to speak. "Good-bye!" he panted. "Wear it when ye get among the swells." And he darted off and was gone. Cedric held the handkerchief in his hand. It was of bright red silk, ornamented with purple horse-shoes and horses' heads, he leaned forward and waved it. "Good-bye, Dick!" he shouted, lustily. "Thank you! Good-bye, Dick!" And the big steamer moved away, and the people cheered again, and Cedric's mother drew the veil over her eyes, and on the shore there was left great confusion; but Dick saw nothing save that bright, childish face and the bright hair that the sun shone on and the breeze lifted, and he heard nothing but the hearty childish voice calling "Good-bye, Dick!" as little Lord Fauntleroy steamed slowly away from the home of his birth to the unknown land of his ancestors. CHAPTER IV. IN ENGLAND. It was during the voyage that Cedric's mother told him that his home was not to be hers; and when he first understood it, his grief was so great that Mr. Havisham saw that the Earl had been wise in making the arrangements that his mother should be quite near him, and see him often; for it was very plain he could not have borne the separation otherwise. But his mother managed the little fellow so sweetly and lovingly, and made him feel that she would be so near him, that, after a while, he ceased to be oppressed by the fear of any real parting. "My house is not far from the Castle, Ceddie," she repeated each time the subject was referred to--"a very little way from yours, and you can always run in and see me every day, and you will have so many things to tell me! and we shall be so happy together! It is a beautiful place. Your papa has often told me about it. He loved it very much; and you will love it too." "I should love it better if you were there," his small lordship said, with a heavy little sigh. He could not but feel puzzled by so strange a state of affairs, which could put his "Dearest" in one house and himself in another. The fact was that Mrs. Errol had thought it better not to tell him why this plan had been made. "I should prefer he should not be told," she said to Mr. Havisham. "He would not really understand; he would only be shocked and hurt; and I feel sure that his feeling for the Earl will be a more natural and affectionate one if he does not know that his grandfather dislikes me so bitterly. It would make a barrier between them, even though Ceddie is such a child." So Cedric only knew that there was some mysterious reason for the arrangement, some reason which he was not old enough to understand, but which would be explained when he was older. He was puzzled; but after many talks with his mother, in which she placed before him the bright side of the picture, the dark side of it gradually began to fade out, though now and then Mr. Havisham saw him sitting in some queer little old-fashioned attitude, watching the sea, with a very grave face, and more than once he heard an unchildish sigh rise to his lips. The people who had been sea-sick had no sooner recovered from their sea-sickness, and come on deck to recline in their steamer-chairs and enjoy themselves, than every one seemed to know the romantic story of Little Lord Fauntleroy, and every one took an interest in the little fellow, who ran about the ship or walked with his mother or the tall, thin old lawyer, or talked to the sailors. Every one liked him, he made friends everywhere. He was ever ready to make friends. When the gentlemen walked up and down the deck, and let him walk with them, he stepped out with a manly, sturdy little tramp, and answered all their jokes with much gay enjoyment; when the ladies talked to him, there was always laughter in the group of which he was the centre; when he played with the children, there was always magnificent fun on hand. Among the sailors he had the heartiest friends; he heard miraculous stories about pirates and shipwrecks and desert islands; he learned to splice ropes and rig toy ships, and gained an amount of information concerning "tops'les" and "mains'les," quite surprising. His conversation had, indeed, quite a nautical flavour at times. It was eleven days after he had said good-bye to his friend Dick before he reached Liverpool; and it was on the night of the twelfth day that the carriage, in which he and his mother and Mr. Havisham had driven from the station, stopped before the gates of Court Lodge. Mary had come with them to attend her mistress, and she had reached the house before them. When Cedric jumped out of the carriage Mary stood in the doorway. Lord Fauntleroy sprang at her with a gay little shout. "Did you get here, Mary?" he said. "Here's Mary, Dearest." "I am glad you are here, Mary," Mrs. Errol said to her in a low voice. "It is such a comfort to me to see you. It takes the strangeness away." And she held out her little hand, which Mary squeezed encouragingly. The English servants looked with curiosity at both the boy and his mother. They had heard all sorts of rumours about them both; they knew why Mrs. Errol was to live at the lodge and her little boy at the Castle; but they did not know what sort of a little lord had come among them; they did not quite understand the character of the next Earl of Dorincourt. He pulled off his overcoat quite as if he were used to doing things for himself, and began to look about him. He looked about the broad hall, at the pictures and stags' antlers and curious things that ornamented it. They seemed curious to him because he had never seen such things before in a private house. "Dearest," he said, "this is a very pretty house, isn't it? I am glad you are going to live here. It's quite a large house." It was quite a large house compared to the one in the shabby New York street, and it was very pretty and cheerful. Mary led them into a big bright room; its ceiling was low, and the furniture was heavy and beautifully carved. There was a great tiger-skin before the fire, and an arm-chair on each side of it. A stately white cat had responded to Lord Fauntleroy's stroking and followed him down stairs, and when he threw himself down upon the rug, she curled herself up grandly beside him as if she intended to make friends. Cedric was so pleased that he put his head down by hers, and lay stroking her, not noticing what his mother and Mr. Havisham were saying. They were, indeed, speaking in a rather low tone. Mrs. Errol looked a little pale and agitated. "He need not go to-night?" she said. "He will stay with me to-night?" "Yes," answered Mr. Havisham in the same low tone; "it will not be necessary for him to go to-night. I myself will go to the Castle as soon as we have dined, and inform the Earl of our arrival." Mrs. Errol smiled faintly. "His lordship does not know all that he is taking from me," she said rather sadly. Then she looked at the lawyer. "Will you tell him, if you please," she said, "that I should rather not have the income he proposed to settle upon me. I am obliged to accept the house, and I thank him for it, because it makes it possible for me to be near my child; but I have a little money of my own and I should rather not take the other. As he dislikes me so much, I should feel a little as if I were selling Cedric to him. I am giving him up only because I love him enough to forget myself for his good, and because his father would wish it to be so." Mr. Havisham rubbed his chin. "This is very strange," he said. "He will be very angry. He won't understand it, but I will deliver your message." And then the dinner was brought in and they sat down together, the big cat taking a seat on a chair near Cedric's and purring majestically throughout the meal. When, later in the evening, Mr. Havisham presented himself at the Castle, he was taken at once to the Earl. He found him sitting by the fire in a luxurious easy-chair, his foot on a gout-stool. He looked at the lawyer sharply from under his shaggy eyebrows. "Well," he said; "well, Havisham, come back, have you? What's the news?" "Lord Fauntleroy and his mother are at Court Lodge," replied Mr. Havisham. "They bore the voyage very well and are in excellent health." The Earl made a half-impatient sound and moved his hand restlessly. "Glad to hear it," he said brusquely. "So far, so good. Make yourself comfortable. Have a glass of wine and settle down. What else?" "His lordship remains with his mother to-night. To-morrow I will bring him to the Castle." The Earl's elbow was resting on the arm of his chair; he put his hand up and shielded his eyes with it. "Well?" he said; "go on. What kind of a lad is he? I don't care about the mother; what sort of a lad is he? Healthy and well grown?" "Apparently very healthy, and quite well grown," replied the lawyer. "Straight-limbed and well enough to look at?" demanded the Earl. A very slight smile touched Mr. Havisham's thin lips. "Rather a handsome boy, I think, my lord, as boys go," he said, "though I am scarcely a judge, perhaps." There was a silence of a few moments. It was Mr. Havisham who broke it. "I have a message to deliver from Mrs. Errol," he remarked. "I don't want any of her messages!" growled his lordship; "the less I hear of her the better." "This is a rather important one," explained the lawyer. "She prefers not to accept the income you proposed to settle on her." The Earl started visibly. "What's that?" he cried out. "What's that?" Mr. Havisham repeated his words. "She says it is not necessary, and that as the relations between you are not friendly----" "Not friendly!" ejaculated my lord savagely; "I should say they were not friendly! I hate to think of her! A mercenary American! I don't wish to see her!" "My lord," said Mr. Havisham, "you can scarcely call her mercenary. She has asked for nothing. She does not accept the money you offer her." "All done for effect!" snapped his noble lordship. "She thinks I shall admire her spirit. I don't admire it! It's only American independence! I won't have her living like a beggar at my park gates. She shall have the money, whether she likes it or not!" "She won't spend it," said Mr. Havisham. "I don't care whether she spends it or not!" blustered my lord. "She shall have it sent to her. She wants to give the boy a bad opinion of me! I suppose she has poisoned his mind against me already!" "No," said Mr. Havisham. "I have another message, which will prove to you that she has not done that." "I don't want to hear it!" panted the Earl, out of breath with anger and excitement and gout. But Mr. Havisham delivered it. "She asks you not to let Lord Fauntleroy hear anything which would lead him to understand that you separate him from her because of your prejudice against her. He is very fond of her, and she is convinced that it would cause a barrier to exist between you. She has told him that he is too young to understand the reason, but shall hear it when he is older. She wishes that there should be no shadow on your first meeting." The Earl sank back into his chair. His deep-set fierce old eyes gleamed under his beetling brows. "Come, now!" he said, still breathlessly. "Come, now! You don't mean the mother hasn't told him?" "Not one word, my lord," replied the lawyer coolly. "That I can assure you. The child is prepared to believe you the most amiable and affectionate of grandparents. And as I carried out your commands in every detail, while in New York, he certainly regards you as a wonder of generosity." "He does, eh?" said the Earl. "I give you my word of honour," said Mr. Havisham, "that Lord Fauntleroy's impressions of you will depend entirely upon yourself. And if you will pardon the liberty I take in making the suggestion, I think you will succeed better with him if you take the precaution not to speak slightingly of his mother." "Pooh, pooh!" said the Earl. "The youngster's only seven years old!" "He has spent those seven years at his mother's side," returned Mr. Havisham; "and she has all his affection." CHAPTER V. AT THE CASTLE. It was late in the afternoon when the carriage containing little Lord Fauntleroy and Mr. Havisham drove up the long avenue which led to the castle. The Earl had given orders that his grandson should arrive in time to dine with him, and for some reason best known to himself, he had also ordered that the child should be sent alone into the room in which he intended to receive him. As the carriage rolled up the avenue, Lord Fauntleroy sat leaning comfortably against the luxurious cushions, and regarded the prospect with great interest. He was, in fact, interested in everything he saw. He had been interested in the carriage, with its large, splendid horses and their glittering harness; he had been interested in the tall coachman and footman, with their resplendent livery; and he had been especially interested in the coronet on the panels, and had struck up an acquaintance with the footman for the purpose of inquiring what it meant. The carriage rolled on and on between the great, beautiful trees which grew on each side of the avenue and stretched their broad swaying branches in an arch across it. Cedric had never seen such trees, they were so grand and stately, and their branches grew so low down on their huge trunks. He did not then know that Dorincourt Castle was one of the most beautiful in all England; that its park was one of the broadest and finest, and its trees and avenue almost without rivals. But he did know that it was all very beautiful. Now and then they passed places where tall ferns grew in masses, and again and again the ground was azure with the bluebells swaying in the soft breeze. Several times he started up with a laugh of delight as a rabbit leaped up from under the greenery and scudded away with a twinkle of short white tail behind it. Once a covey of partridges rose with a sudden whir and flew away, and then he shouted and clapped his hands. "It's a beautiful place, isn't it?" he said to Mr. Havisham. "I never saw such a beautiful place. It's prettier even than Central Park." He was rather puzzled by the length of time they were on their way. "How far is it?" he said, at length, "from the gate to the front door?" "It is between three and four miles," answered the lawyer. It was not long after this that they saw the castle. It rose up before them stately and beautiful and grey, the last rays of the sun casting dazzling lights on its many windows. It had turrets and battlements and towers; a great deal of ivy grew upon its walls; all the broad open space about it was laid out in terraces and lawns and beds of brilliant flowers. "It's the most beautiful place I ever saw!" said Cedric, his round face flushing with pleasure. "It reminds any one of a king's palace. I saw a picture of one once in a fairy-book." He saw the great entrance-door thrown open and many servants standing in two lines looking at him. He wondered why they were standing there, and admired their liveries very much. He did not know that they were there to do honour to the little boy to whom all this splendour would one day belong. At the head of the line of servants there stood an elderly woman in a rich plain black silk gown; she had grey hair and wore a cap. As he entered the hall she stood nearer than the rest, and the child thought from the look in her eyes that she was going to speak to him. Mr. Havisham, who held his hand, paused a moment. "This is Lord Fauntleroy, Mrs. Mellon," he said. "Lord Fauntleroy, this is Mrs. Mellon, who is the housekeeper." Cedric gave her his hand, his eyes lighting up. "Was it you who sent the cat?" he said. "I'm much obliged to you, ma'am." Mrs. Mellon's handsome old face looked very much pleased. "The cat left two beautiful kittens here," she said; "they shall be sent up to your lordship's nursery." Mr. Havisham said a few words to her in a low voice. "In the library, sir," Mrs. Mellon replied. "His lordship is to be taken there alone." * * * * * A few minutes later, the very tall footman in livery, who had escorted Cedric to the library door, opened it and announced: "Lord Fauntleroy, my Lord," in quite a majestic tone. Cedric crossed the threshold into the room. It was a very large and splendid room, with massive carven furniture in it, and shelves upon shelves of books; the furniture was so dark, and the draperies so heavy, the diamond-paned windows were so deep, and it seemed such a distance from one end of it to the other, that, since the sun had gone down, the effect of it all was rather gloomy. For a moment Cedric thought there was nobody in the room, but soon he saw that by the fire burning on the wide hearth there was a large easy-chair, and that in that chair some one was sitting--some one who did not at first turn to look at him. But he had attracted attention in one quarter at least. On the floor, by the arm-chair, lay a dog, a huge tawny mastiff, with body and limbs almost as big as a lion's; and this great creature rose majestically and slowly, and marched toward the little fellow with a heavy step. Then the person in the chair spoke. "Dougal," he called, "come back, sir." But there was no fear in little Lord Fauntleroy's heart. He put his hand on the big dog's collar and they strayed forward together, Dougal sniffing as he went. And then the Earl looked up. What Cedric saw was a large old man with shaggy white hair and eyebrows, and a nose like an eagle's beak between his deep fierce eyes. What the Earl saw was a graceful childish figure in a black velvet suit, with a lace collar, and with love-locks waving about the handsome, manly little face, whose eyes met his with a look of innocent good-fellowship. There was a sudden glow of triumph and exultation in the fiery old Earl's heart as he saw what a strong beautiful boy this grandson was, and how unhesitatingly he looked up as he stood with his hand on the big dog's neck. Cedric came quite close to him. "Are you the Earl?" he said. "I'm your grandson, you know, that Mr. Havisham brought. I'm Lord Fauntleroy." He held out his hand because he thought it must be the polite and proper thing to do even with earls. "I hope you are very well," he continued, with the utmost friendliness. "I'm very glad to see you." The Earl shook hands with him, with a curious gleam in his eyes. "Glad to see me, are you?" he said. "Yes," answered Lord Fauntleroy, "very." There was a chair near him, and he sat down on it; it was a high-backed, rather tall chair, and his feet did not touch the floor when he had settled himself in it, but he seemed to be quite comfortable as he sat there and regarded his august relative intently and modestly. "Any boy would love his grandfather," continued he, "especially one that had been as kind to him as you have been." Another queer gleam came into the old nobleman's eyes. "Oh!" he said, "I have been kind to you, have I?" "Yes," answered Lord Fauntleroy brightly; "I'm ever so much obliged to you about Bridget, and the apple-woman, and Dick!" "Bridget!" exclaimed the Earl. "Dick! The apple-woman!" "Yes," explained Cedric; "the ones you gave me all that money for--the money you told Mr. Havisham to give me if I wanted it." "Ha!" ejaculated his lordship. "That's it, is it? The money you were to spend as you liked. What did you buy with it? I should like to hear something about that." He drew his shaggy eyebrows together and looked at the child sharply. He was secretly curious to know in what way the lad had indulged himself. "Oh!" said Lord Fauntleroy, "perhaps you didn't know about Dick, and the apple-woman and Bridget. I forgot you lived such a long way off from them. They were particular friends of mine. And you see Michael had the fever----" "Who's Michael?" asked the Earl. "Michael is Bridget's husband, and they were in great trouble. And Bridget used to come to our house and cry. And the evening Mr. Havisham was there, she was in the kitchen crying because they had almost nothing to eat and couldn't pay the rent; and I went in to see her, and Mr. Havisham sent for me and he said you had given him some money for me. And I ran as fast as I could into the kitchen and gave it to Bridget; and that made it all right; and Bridget could scarcely believe her eyes. That's why I'm so obliged to you." "Oh!" said the Earl in his deep voice, "that was one of the things you did for yourself, was it? What else?" "Well, there was Dick," Cedric answered. "You'd like Dick, he's so square." This was an Americanism the Earl was not prepared for. "What does that mean?" he inquired. Lord Fauntleroy paused a moment to reflect. He was not very sure himself what it meant. "I think it means that he wouldn't cheat any one," he exclaimed; "or hit a boy who was under his size, and that he blacks people's boots very well and makes them shine as much as he can. He's a professional boot-black." "And he's one of your acquaintances, is he?" said the Earl. "He's an old friend of mine," replied his grandson. "Not quite as old as Mr. Hobbs, but quite old. He gave me a present just before the ship sailed." He put his hand into his pocket and drew forth a neatly folded red object and opened it with an air of affectionate pride. It was the red silk handkerchief with the large purple horse-shoes and heads on it. "He gave me this," said his young lordship. "I shall keep it always. You can wear it round your neck or keep it in your pocket. It's a keepsake. I put some poetry in Mr. Hobbs' watch. It was, 'When this you see, remember me.' When this I see, I shall always remember Dick." The sensation of the Right Honourable the Earl of Dorincourt could scarcely be described. He could not help seeing that the little boy took him for a friend and treated him as one, without having any doubt of him at all. It was quite plain as the little fellow sat there in his tall chair and talked in his friendly way that it had never occurred to him that this large, fierce-looking old man could be anything but kind to him, and rather pleased to see him there. And it was plain, too, that, in his childish way, he wished to please and interest his grandfather. Cross, and hard-hearted, and worldly as the old Earl was, he could not help feeling a secret and novel pleasure in this very confidence. So the old man leaned back in his chair, and led his young companion on to telling him still more of himself, and with that odd gleam in his eyes watched the little fellow as he talked. Lord Fauntleroy was quite willing to answer all his questions and chatted on in his genial little way quite composedly. He told him all about Dick, and the apple-woman, and Mr. Hobbs. In the course of the conversation, he reached the Fourth of July and the Revolution, and was just becoming enthusiastic, when dinner was announced. Cedric left his chair and went to his noble kinsman. He looked down at his gouty foot. "Would you like me to help you?" he said politely. "You could lean on me, you know. Once when Mr. Hobbs hurt his foot with a potato-barrel rolling on it, he used to lean on me." The Earl looked his valiant young relative over from head to foot. "Do you think you could do it?" he asked gruffly. "I _think_ I could," said Cedric. "I'm strong. I'm seven, you know. You could lean on your stick on one side, and on me on the other." "Well," said the Earl, "you may try." Cedric gave him his stick, and began to assist him to rise. Usually the footman did this, and was violently sworn at when his lordship had an extra twinge of gout. But this evening he did not swear, though his gouty foot gave him more twinges than one. He chose to try an experiment. He got up slowly and put his hand on the small shoulder presented to him with so much courage. Little Lord Fauntleroy made a careful step forward, looking down at the gouty foot. "Just lean on me," he said, with encouraging good cheer. "I'll walk very slowly." If the Earl had been supported by the footman he would have rested less on his stick and more on his assistant's arm. And yet it was part of his experiment to let his grandson feel his burden as no light weight. It was quite a heavy weight indeed, and after a few steps his young lordship's face grew quite hot, and his heart beat rather fast, but he braced himself sturdily. "Don't be afraid of leaning on me," he panted. "I'm all right--if--if it isn't a very long way." It was not really very far to the dining-room, but it seemed rather a long way to Cedric, before they reached the chair at the head of the table. When the hand was removed from his shoulder, and the Earl was fairly seated, Cedric took out Dick's handkerchief and wiped his forehead. "It's a warm night, isn't it?" he said. "You have been doing some rather hard work," said the Earl. "Oh, no!" said Lord Fauntleroy, "it wasn't exactly hard, but I got a little warm. A person will get warm in summer time." And he rubbed his damp curls rather vigorously with the gorgeous handkerchief. His own chair was placed at the other end of the table, opposite his grandfather's. It was a chair with arms, and intended for a much larger individual than himself; indeed, everything he had seen so far--the great rooms, with their high ceilings, the massive furniture, the big footman, the big dog, the Earl himself--were all of proportions calculated to make this little lad feel that he was very small indeed. But that did not trouble him. Notwithstanding his solitary existence the Earl chose to live in considerable state. He was fond of his dinner, and he dined in a formal style. Cedric looked at him across a glitter of splendid glass and plate, which to his unaccustomed eyes seemed quite dazzling. A stranger looking on might well have smiled at the picture--the great stately room, the big liveried servants, the bright lights, the glittering silver and glass, the fierce-looking old nobleman at the head of the table and the very small boy at the foot. Dinner was usually a very serious matter with the Earl--and it was a very serious matter with the cook, if his lordship was not pleased or had an indifferent appetite. To-day, however, his appetite seemed a trifle better than usual, perhaps because his grandson gave him something to think of. He kept looking at him across the table. He did not say very much himself, but he managed to make the boy talk. He had never imagined that he could be entertained by hearing a child talk, but Lord Fauntleroy at once puzzled and amused him. Cedric finished his dinner first, and then he leaned back in his chair and took a survey of the room. "You must be very proud of your house," he said, "it's such a beautiful house. I never saw anything so beautiful; but, of course, as I'm only seven, I haven't seen much." "And you think I must be proud of it, do you?" said the Earl. "I should think any one would be proud of it," replied Lord Fauntleroy. "I should be proud of it, if it were my house. Everything about it is beautiful." Then he paused an instant and looked across the table rather wistfully. "It's a very big house for just two people to live in, isn't it?" he said. "It is quite large enough for two," answered the Earl. "Do you find it too large?" His little lordship hesitated a moment. "I was only thinking," he said, "that if two people lived in it who were not very good companions, they might feel lonely sometimes." "Do you think I shall make a good companion?" inquired the Earl. "Yes," replied Cedric, "I think you will. Mr. Hobbs and I were great friends. He was the best friend I had except Dearest." The Earl made a quick movement of his bushy eyebrows. "Who is Dearest?" "She is my mother," said Lord Fauntleroy, in a rather low, quiet little voice. Perhaps he was a trifle tired, as his bed-time was nearing, and perhaps the feeling of weariness brought to him a vague sense of loneliness in the remembrance that to-night he was not to sleep at home, watched over by the loving eyes of that "best friend" of his. They had always been "best friends," this boy and his young mother. He could not help thinking of her, and the more he thought of her the less was he inclined to talk, and by the time the dinner was at an end the Earl saw that there was a faint shadow on his face. But Cedric bore himself with excellent courage, and when they went back to the library, though the tall footman walked on one side of his master, the Earl's hand rested on his grandson's shoulder, though not so heavily as before. When the footman left them alone, Cedric sat down upon the hearth-rug near Dougal. For a few minutes he stroked the dog's ears in silence and looked at the fire. The Earl watched him. The boy's eyes looked wistful and thoughtful, and once or twice he gave a little sigh. The Earl sat still, and kept his eyes fixed on his grandson. "Fauntleroy," he said at last, "what are you thinking of?" Fauntleroy looked up with a manful effort at a smile. "I was thinking about Dearest," he said; "and--and I think I'd better get up and walk up and down the room." He rose up, and put his hands in his small pockets, and began to walk to and fro. His eyes were very bright, and his lips were pressed together, but he kept his head up and walked firmly. Dougal moved lazily and looked at him and then stood up. He walked over to the child, and began to follow him uneasily. Fauntleroy drew one hand from his pocket and laid it on the dog's head. "He's a very nice dog," he said. "He's my friend. He knows how I feel." "How do you feel?" asked the Earl. "I never was away from my own house before," said the boy, with a troubled look in his brown eyes. "It makes a person feel a strange feeling when he has to stay all night in another person's castle instead of in his own house. But Dearest is not very far away from me. She told me to remember that--and--and I'm seven--and I can look at the picture she gave me." He put his hand in his pocket, and brought out a small violet velvet-covered case. "This is it," he said. "You see, you press this spring and it opens, and she is in there!" He had come close to the Earl's chair, and, as he drew forth the little case, he leaned against the old man's arm. "There she is," he said, as the case opened; and he looked up with a smile. The Earl knitted his brows; he did not wish to see the picture, but he looked at it in spite of himself; and there looked up at him from it such a pretty young face--a face so like the child's at his side--that it quite startled him. "I suppose you think you are very fond of her?" he said. "Yes," answered Lord Fauntleroy, in a gentle tone, and with simple directness; "I do think so, and I think it's true. You see Mr. Hobbs was my friend, and Dick and Bridget and Michael they were my friends too; but Dearest--well she is my _close_ friend, and we always tell each other everything." His young lordship slipped down upon the hearth-rug, and sat there with the picture still in his hand. The Earl did not speak again. He leaned back in his chair and watched him. A great many strange new thoughts passed through the old nobleman's mind. Dougal had stretched himself out and gone to sleep with his head on his huge paws. There was a long silence. * * * * * In about half an hour's time Mr. Havisham was ushered in. The great room was very still when he entered. The Earl was still leaning back in his chair. He moved as Mr. Havisham approached, and held up his hand in a gesture of warning--it seemed as if he had scarcely intended to make the gesture--as if it were almost involuntary. Dougal was still asleep, and close beside the great dog, sleeping also, with his curly head upon his arm, lay little Lord Fauntleroy. CHAPTER VI. THE EARL AND HIS GRANDSON. When Lord Fauntleroy wakened in the morning--he had not wakened at all when he had been carried to bed the night before,--the first sound he was conscious of were the crackling of a wood fire and the murmur of voices. He moved on his pillow, and turned over, opening his eyes. There were two women in the room. Everything was bright and cheerful with gay-flowered chintz. There was a fire on the hearth, and the sunshine was streaming in through the ivy-entwined windows. Both women came toward him, and he saw that one of them was Mrs. Mellon, the housekeeper, and the other a comfortable, middle-aged woman, with a face as kind and good-humoured as a face could be. "Good-morning, my lord," said Mrs. Mellon. "Did you sleep well?" His lordship rubbed his eyes and smiled. "Good-morning," he said. "I didn't know I was here." "You were carried up-stairs when you were asleep," said the housekeeper. "This is your bedroom, and this is Dawson, who is to take care of you." Fauntleroy sat up in bed and held out his hand to Dawson, as he had held it out to the Earl. "How do you do, ma'am?" he said. "I'm much obliged to you for coming to take care of me." "You can call her Dawson, my lord," said the housekeeper with a smile. "She is used to being called Dawson.--She will do anything you ask her to." "That I will, bless him," said Dawson, in her comforting, good-humoured voice. "He shall dress himself, and I'll stand by, ready to help him if he wants me." "Thank you," responded Lord Fauntleroy; "it's a little hard sometimes about the buttons, you know, and then I have to ask somebody." When he went into the adjoining room to take his breakfast and saw what a great room it was, and found there was another adjoining it, which Dawson told him was his also, the feeling that he was very small indeed came over him again so strongly that he confided it to Dawson, as he sat down to the table on which the pretty breakfast service was arranged. "I am a very little boy," he said rather wistfully, "to live in such a large castle, and have so many big rooms--don't you think so?" "Oh, come!" said Dawson, "you feel just a little strange at first, that's all; but you'll get over that very soon, and then you'll like it here. It's such a beautiful place, you know." "It's a very beautiful place, of course," said Fauntleroy, with a little sigh; "but I should like it better if I didn't miss Dearest so. I always had my breakfast with her in the morning, and put the sugar and cream in her tea for her, and handed her the toast. That made it very sociable, of course." "Oh, well!" answered Dawson, comfortably, "you know you can see her every day, and there's no knowing how much you'll have to tell her. Bless you! wait till you've walked about a bit and seen things--the dogs and the stables with all the horses in them. And, dear me, you haven't looked even into the very next room yet!" "What is there?" asked Fauntleroy, "Wait until you've had your breakfast, and then you shall see," said Dawson. At this he naturally began to grow curious, and he applied himself assiduously to his breakfast. "Now then," he said, slipping off his seat a few minutes later; "I've had enough. Can I go and look at it?" Dawson nodded and led the way. When she opened the door of the room, he stood upon the threshold and looked about him in amazement. He did not speak; he only put his hands in his pockets and stood there looking in. The room was a large one too, as all the rooms seemed to be, and it appeared to him more beautiful than the rest, only in a different way. The furniture was not so massive and antique as was that in the rooms he had seen down stairs; the draperies and rugs and walls were brighter; there were shelves full of books, and on the tables were numbers of toys--beautiful, ingenious things--such as he had looked at with wonder and delight through the shop windows in New York. "It looks like a boy's room," he said at last, catching his breath a little. "Who do they belong to?" "Go and look at them," said Dawson. "They belong to you!" "To me!" he cried "to me! Why do they belong to me? Who gave them to me?" And he sprang forward with a gay little shout. It seemed almost too much to be believed. "It was Grandpapa!" he said, with his eyes as bright as stars. "I know it was Grandpapa!" "Yes, it was his lordship," said Dawson. It was a tremendously exciting morning. There were so many things to be examined, so many experiments to be tried; each novelty was so absorbing that he could scarcely turn from it to look at the next. The Earl had passed a bad night and had spent the morning in his room; but at noon, after he had lunched, he sent for his grandson. Fauntleroy answered the summons at once. He came down the broad staircase with a bounding step; the Earl heard him run across the hall, and then the door opened and he came in with red cheeks and sparkling eyes. "I was waiting for you to send for me," he said. "I was ready a long time ago. I'm _ever_ so much obliged to you for all those things! I'm _ever_ so much obliged to you! I have been playing with them all the morning." "Oh!" said the Earl, "you like them, do you?" "I like them so much--well, I couldn't tell you how much!" said Fauntleroy, his face glowing with delight. "There's one that's like base-ball. I tried to teach Dawson, but she couldn't quite understand it just at first. But you know all about it, don't you?" "I'm afraid I don't," replied the Earl. "It's an American game, isn't it? Is it something like cricket?" "I never saw cricket," said Fauntleroy; "but Mr. Hobbs took me several times to see base-ball. It's a splendid game. You get so excited! Would you like me to go and get my game and show it to you? Perhaps it would amuse you and make you forget about your foot. Does your foot hurt you very much this morning?" "More than I enjoy," was the answer. "Then perhaps you couldn't forget it," said the little fellow, anxiously. "Perhaps it would bother you to be told about the game. Do you think it would amuse you, or do you think it would bother you?" "Go and get it," said the Earl. It certainly was a novel entertainment this--making a companion of a child who offered to teach him to play games, but the very novelty of it amused him. There was a smile lurking about the Earl's mouth when Cedric came back with the box containing the game in his arms, and an expression of the most eager interest on his face. "May I pull that little table over here to your chair?" he asked. "Ring for Thomas," said the Earl. "He will place it for you." "Oh, I can do it myself," answered Fauntleroy. "It's not very heavy." "Very well," replied his grandfather. The lurking smile deepened on the old man's face as he watched the little fellow's preparations; there was such an absorbed interest in them. The small table was dragged forward and placed by his chair, and the game taken from its box and arranged upon it. "It's very interesting when you once begin," said Fauntleroy. "You see, the black pegs can be your side and the white ones mine. They're men, you know, and once round the field is a home run and counts one--and these are the outs--and here is the first base and that's the second and that's the third and that's the home-base." He entered into the details of explanation with the greatest animation. He showed all the attitudes of pitcher and catcher and batter in the real game. When at last the explanations and illustrations were at an end and the game began in good earnest, the Earl still found himself entertained. His young companion was wholly absorbed; he played with all his childish heart; his gay little laughs when he made a good throw, his enthusiasm over a "home run," his impartial delight over his own good luck or his opponent's would have given a flavour to any game. If, a week before, any one had told the Earl of Dorincourt that on that particular morning he would be forgetting his gout and his bad temper in a child's game, with a curly-headed small boy for a companion, he would without doubt have made himself very unpleasant; and yet he certainly had forgotten himself when the door opened and Thomas announced a visitor. The visitor in question, who was an elderly gentleman in black, and no less a person than the clergyman of the parish, was so startled by the amazing scene which met his eye, that he almost fell back a pace, and ran some risk of colliding with Thomas. There, was, in fact, no part of his duty that the Reverend Mr. Mordaunt found so decidedly unpleasant as that part which compelled him to call upon his noble patron at the Castle. His noble patron, indeed, usually made these visits as disagreeable as it lay in his lordly power to make them. He abhorred churches and charities, and flew into violent rages when any of his tenantry took the liberty of being poor and ill and needing assistance. During all the years in which Mr. Mordaunt had been in charge of Dorincourt parish, the rector certainly did not remember having seen his lordship, of his own free will, do any one a kindness, or, under any circumstances whatever, show that he thought of any one but himself. Judge then of his amazement when, as Thomas opened the library door, his ears were greeted by a delighted ring of childish laughter. The Earl glanced around, and when he saw who it was, Mr. Mordaunt was still more surprised to see that he looked almost as if he had forgotten for the moment how unpleasant he really could make himself when he tried. "Ah!" he said in his harsh voice, but giving his hand rather graciously. "Good morning, Mordaunt. I've found a new employment, you see." He put his other hand on Cedric's shoulder--perhaps deep down in his heart there was a stir of gratified pride that it was such an heir he had to present; there was a spark of something like pleasure in his eyes as he moved the boy slightly forward. "This is the new Lord Fauntleroy," he said. "Fauntleroy, this is Mr. Mordaunt, the rector of the parish." Fauntleroy looked up at the gentleman in the clerical garments, and gave him his hand. "I am very glad to make your acquaintance, sir," he said. Mr. Mordaunt held the small hand in his a moment as he looked down at the child's face, smiling involuntarily, He liked the little fellow from that instant--as in fact people always did like him. "I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Lord Fauntleroy," said the rector. "You made a long journey to come to us. A great many people will be glad to know you made it safely." "It _was_ a long way," answered Fauntleroy; "but Dearest, my mother, was with me and I wasn't lonely. Of course you are never lonely if your mother is with you; and the ship was beautiful." "Take a chair, Mordaunt," said the Earl. Mr. Mordaunt sat down. He glanced from Fauntleroy to the Earl. "Your lordship is greatly to be congratulated," he said warmly. But the Earl plainly had no intention of showing his feelings on the subject. "He is like his father," he said rather gruffly. "Let us hope he'll conduct himself more creditably." And then he added: "Well, what is it this morning, Mordaunt? Who is in trouble now?" This was not as bad as Mr. Mordaunt had expected, but he hesitated a second before he began. "It is Higgins," he said; "Higgins of Edge Farm. He has been very unfortunate. He was ill himself last autumn, and his children had scarlet fever. He is in trouble about his rent now. Newick tells him if he doesn't pay it he must leave the place; and of course that would be a very serious matter. His wife is ill, and he came to me yesterday to beg me to see you about it, and ask you for time. He thinks if you would give him time he could catch up again." "They all think that," said the Earl, looking rather black. Fauntleroy made a movement forward. He had been standing between his grandfather and the visitor, listening with all his might. He had begun to be interested in Higgins at once. He wondered how many children there were, and if the scarlet fever had hurt them very much. His eyes were wide open and were fixed upon Mr. Mordaunt with intense interest as that gentleman went on with the conversation. "Higgins is a well-meaning man," said the rector, making an effort to strengthen his plea. "He is a bad enough tenant," replied his lordship. "And he is always behindhand, Newick tells me." "He is in great trouble now," said the rector, "He is very fond of his wife and children, and if the farm is taken from him they may literally starve. He cannot give them the nourishing things they need. Two of the children were left very low after the fever, and the doctor orders for them wine and luxuries that Higgins cannot afford." At this Fauntleroy moved a step nearer. "That was the way with Michael," he said. The Earl slightly started. "I forgot _you_!" he said. "I forgot we had a philanthropist in the room. Who was Michael?" And the gleam of queer amusement came back into the old man's deep-set eyes. "He was Bridget's husband, who had the fever," answered Fauntleroy; "and he couldn't pay the rent or buy wine and things. And you gave me that money to help him." The Earl drew his brows together into a curious frown, which somehow was scarcely grim at all. He glanced across at Mr. Mordaunt. "I don't know what sort of a landed proprietor he will make," he said. "I told Havisham the boy was to have what he wanted--and what he wanted, it seems, was money to give to beggars." "Oh! but they weren't beggars," said Fauntleroy eagerly. "Michael was a splendid bricklayer! They all worked." "Oh!" said the Earl, "they were not beggars." He bent his gaze on the boy for a few seconds in silence. "Come here," he said, at last. "What would _you_ do in this case?" It must be confessed that Mr. Mordaunt experienced for the moment a curious sensation. Being a man of great thoughtfulness, and having spent so many years on the estate of Dorincourt, he realised very strongly what power for good or evil would be given in the future to this one small boy standing there, his brown eyes wide open, his hands deep in his pockets; and the thought came to him also that a great deal of power might, perhaps, through the caprice of a proud, self-indulgent old man be given to him now, and that if his young nature were not a simple and generous one, it might be the worst thing that could happen, not only for others, but for himself. "And what would _you_ do in such a case?" demanded the Earl. Fauntleroy drew a little nearer, and laid one hand on his knee, with the most confiding air of good comradeship. "If I were very rich," he said "and not only just a little boy, I should let him stay, and give him the things for his children; but then, I am only a boy." Then, after a second's pause, in which his face brightened visibly, "_You_ can do anything, can't you?" he said. "Humph!" said my lord, staring at him. "That's your opinion, is it?" And he was not displeased either. "I mean you can give any one anything," said Fauntleroy. "Who's Newick?" "He is my agent," answered the Earl, "and some of my tenants are not over-fond of him." "Are you going to write him a letter now?" inquired Fauntleroy. "Shall I bring you the pen and ink? I can take the game off this table." It plainly had not for an instant occurred to him that Newick would be allowed to do his worst. The Earl paused a moment, still looking at him. "Can you write?" he asked. "Yes," answered Cedric, "but not very well." "Move the things from the table," commanded my lord, "and bring the pen and ink, and a sheet of paper from my desk." Mr. Mordaunt's interest began to increase. Fauntleroy did as he was told very deftly. In a few moments, the sheet of paper, the big inkstand, and the pen were ready. "There!" he said gaily, "now you can write it." "You are to write it," said the Earl. "I!" exclaimed Fauntleroy, and a flush overspread bis forehead. "Will it do if I write it? I don't always spell quite right when I haven't a dictionary and nobody tells me." "It will do," answered the Earl. "Higgins will not complain of the spelling. I'm not the philanthropist; you are. Dip your pen in the ink." Fauntleroy took up the pen and dipped it in the ink-bottle, then he arranged himself in position, leaning on the table. "Now," he inquired, "what must I say?" "You may say, 'Higgins is not to be interfered with, for the present,' and sign it 'Fauntleroy,'" said the Earl. Fauntleroy dipped his pen in the ink again, and resting his arm, began to write. It was rather a slow and serious process, but he gave his whole soul to it. After a while, however, the manuscript was complete, and he handed it to his grandfather with a smile slightly tinged with anxiety. "Do you think it will do?" he asked. The Earl looked at it, and the corners of his mouth twitched a little. "Yes," he answered; "Higgins will find it entirely satisfactory." And he handed it to Mr. Mordaunt. What Mr. Mordaunt found written was this:-- "Dear mr. Newik if you pleas mr. higins is not to be inturfeared with for the present and oblige "Yours rispecferly "Fauntleroy." "Mr. Hobbs always signed his letters that way," said Fauntleroy; "and I thought I'd better say 'please.' Is that exactly the right way to spell 'interfered'?" "It's not exactly the way it is spelled in the dictionary," answered the Earl. "I was afraid of that," said Fauntleroy. "I ought to have asked. You see, that's the way with words of more than one syllable; you have to look in the dictionary. It's always safest. I'll write it over again." And write it over again he did, making quite an imposing copy, and taking precautions in the matter of spelling by consulting the Earl himself. "Spelling is a curious thing," he said. "It's so often different from what you expect it to be. I used to think 'please' was spelled p-l-e-e-s, but it isn't, you know; and you'd think 'dear' was spelled d-e-r-e, if you didn't inquire. Sometimes it almost discourages you." When Mr. Mordaunt went away, he took the letter with him, and he took something else with him also--namely, a pleasanter feeling and a more hopeful one than he had ever carried home with him down that avenue on any previous visit he had made at Dorincourt Castle. When he was gone, Fauntleroy, who had accompanied him to the door, went back to his grandfather. "May I go to Dearest now?" he said. "I think she will be waiting for me." The Earl was silent a moment. "There is something in the stable for you to see first," he said. "Ring the bell." "If you please," said Fauntleroy, with his quick little flush, "I'm very much obliged; but I think I'd better see it to-morrow. She will be expecting me all the time." "Very well," answered the Earl. "We will order the carriage." Then he added dryly, "It's a pony." Fauntleroy drew a long breath. "A pony!" he exclaimed. "Whose pony is it?" "Yours," replied the Earl. "Mine?" cried the little fellow. "Mine--like the things up stairs?" "Yes," said his grandfather. "Would you like to see it? Shall I order it to be brought round?" Fauntleroy's cheeks grew redder and redder. "I never thought I should have a pony!" he said. "I never thought that! How glad Dearest will be. You give me _everything_, don't you?" "Do you wish to see it?" inquired the Earl. Fauntleroy drew a long breath. "I _want_ to see it," he said. "I want to see it so much I can hardly wait. But I'm afraid there isn't time." "You _must_ go and see your mother this afternoon?" asked the Earl. "You think you can't put it off?" "Why," said Fauntleroy, "she has been thinking about me all the morning, and I have been thinking about her!" "Oh!" said the Earl. "You have, have you? Ring the bell." As they drove down the avenue, under the arching trees, he was rather silent. But Fauntleroy was not. He talked about the pony. What colour was it? How big was it? What was its name? What did it like to eat best? How old was it? How early in the morning might he get up and see it? "Dearest will be so glad!" he kept saying. "She will be so much obliged to you for being so kind to me! She knows I always liked ponies so much, but we never thought I should have one." He leaned back against the cushions and regarded the Earl with rapt interest for a few minutes and in entire silence. "I think you must be the best person in the world," he burst forth at last. "You are always doing good, aren't you?--and thinking about other people. Dearest says that is the best kind of goodness; not to think about yourself, but to think about other people. That is just the way you are, isn't it?" His lordship was so dumfounded to find himself presented in such agreeable colours, that he did not know exactly what to say. Fauntleroy went on, still regarding him with admiring eyes--those great, clear, innocent eyes! "You make so many people happy," he said. "There's Michael and Bridget and their ten children, and the apple-woman, and Dick, and Mr. Hobbs, and Mr. Higgins and Mrs. Higgins and their children, and Mr. Mordaunt--because of course he was glad--and Dearest and me, about the pony and all the other things. Do you know, I've counted it up on my fingers and in my mind, and it's twenty-seven people you've been kind to. That's a good many--twenty-seven!" "And I was the person who was kind to them--was I?" said the Earl. "Why, yes, you know," answered Fauntleroy. "You made them all happy. Do you know," with some delicate hesitation, "that people are sometimes mistaken about earls when they don't know them? Mr. Hobbs was. I am going to write to him, and tell him about it." "What was Mr. Hobbs's opinion of earls?" asked his lordship. "Well, you see, the difficulty was," replied his young companion, "that he didn't know any, and he'd only read about them in books. He thought--you mustn't mind it--that they were gory tyrants; and he said he wouldn't have them hanging around his store. But if he'd known _you_, I'm sure he would have felt quite different. I shall tell him about you." "What shall you tell him?" "I shall tell him," said Fauntleroy, glowing with enthusiasm, "that you are the kindest man I ever heard of. And--and I hope when I grow up, I shall be just like you." "Just like me!" repeated his lordship, looking at the little kindling face. "_Just_ like you," said Fauntleroy, adding modestly, "if I can. Perhaps I'm not good enough but I'm going to try." The carriage rolled on down the stately avenue under the beautiful, broad-branched trees, through the spaces of green shade and lanes of golden sunlight. Fauntleroy saw again the lovely places where the ferns grew high and the bluebells swayed in the breeze; he saw the deer, standing or lying in the deep grass, turn their large startled eyes as the carriage passed, and caught glimpses of the brown rabbits as they scurried away. He heard the whirr of the partridges and the calls and songs of the birds, and it all seemed even more beautiful to him than before. All his heart was filled with pleasure and happiness in the beauty that was on every side. But the old Earl saw and heard very different things, though he was apparently looking out too. He saw a long life, in which there had been neither generous deeds nor kind thoughts; he saw years in which a man who had been young and strong and rich and powerful had used his youth and strength and wealth and power only to please himself and kill time as the days and years succeeded each other; he saw this man, when the time had been killed and old age had come, solitary and without real friends in the midst of all his splendid wealth; he saw people who disliked or feared him, and people who would flatter and cringe to him, but no one who really cared whether he lived or died, unless they had something to gain or lose by it. And the fact was, indeed, that he had never before condescended to reflect upon it at all, and he only did so now because a child had believed him better than he was. Fauntleroy thought the Earl's foot must be hurting him, his brows knitted themselves together so, as he looked out at the park; and thinking this, the considerate little fellow tried not to disturb him, and enjoyed the trees and the ferns and the deer in silence. But at last, the carriage, having passed the gates and bowled through the green lanes for a short distance, stopped. They had reached Court Lodge; and Fauntleroy was out upon the ground almost before the big footman had time to open the carriage door. The Earl wakened from his reverie with a start. "What!" he said. "Are we here?" "Yes," said Fauntleroy. "Let me give you your stick. Just lean on me when you get out." "I am not going to get out," replied his lordship brusquely. "Not--not to see Dearest?" exclaimed Fauntleroy with astonished face. "'Dearest' will excuse me," said the Earl dryly. "Go to her and tell her that not even a new pony would keep you away." "She will be disappointed," said Fauntleroy. "She will want to see you very much." "I am afraid not," was the answer. "The carriage will call for you as we come back.--Tell Jeffries to drive on, Thomas." Thomas closed the carriage door: and, after a puzzled look, Fauntleroy ran up the drive. The Earl had the opportunity--of seeing a pair of handsome, strong little legs flash over the ground with astonishing rapidity. Evidently their owner had no intention of losing any time. The carriage rolled slowly away, but his lordship did not at once lean back; he still looked out. Through a space in the trees he could see the house door; it was wide open. The little figure dashed up the steps; another figure--a little figure too, slender and young, in its black gown--ran to meet it. It seemed as if they flew together, as Fauntleroy leaped into his mother's arms, hanging about her neck and covering her sweet young face with kisses. CHAPTER VII. AT CHURCH. On the following Sunday morning, Mr. Mordaunt had a large congregation. Indeed, he could scarcely remember any Sunday on which the church had been so crowded. People appeared upon the scene who seldom did him the honour of coming to hear his sermons. There were even people from Hazelton, which was the next parish. There were hearty, sunburned farmers, stout, comfortable, apple-cheeked wives in their best bonnets and most gorgeous shawls, and half a dozen children or so to each family. The doctor's wife was there, with her four daughters. Mrs. Kimsey and Mr. Kimsey, who kept the druggist's shop, and made pills, and did up powders for everybody within ten miles, sat in their pew; Mrs. Dibble in hers, Miss Smiff, the village dressmaker, and her friend Miss Perkins, the milliner, sat in theirs; the doctor's young man was present, and the druggist's apprentice; in fact, almost every family on the country side was represented, in one way or another. In the course of the preceding week, many wonderful stories had been told of little Lord Fauntleroy. The Reverend Mr. Mordaunt had told the story of Higgins at his own dinner table, and the servant who had heard it had told it in the kitchen, and from there it had spread like wildfire. And on market-day, when Higgins had appeared in town, he had been questioned on every side, and Newick had been questioned too, and in response had shown to two or three people the note signed "Fauntleroy." And so the farmers' wives had found plenty to talk of over their tea and their shopping, and they had done the subject full justice and made the most of it. And on Sunday they had either walked to church or had been driven in their gigs by their husbands, who were perhaps a trifle curious themselves about the new little lord who was to be in time the owner of the soil. It was by no means the Earl's habit to attend church, but he chose to appear on this first Sunday--it was his whim to present himself in the huge family pew, with Fauntleroy at his side. There were many loiterers in the churchyard that morning. There were groups at the gates and in the porch, and there had been much discussion as to whether my lord would really appear or not. When this discussion was at its height, one good woman suddenly uttered an exclamation. "Eh!" she said; "that must be the mother, pretty young thing." All who heard turned and looked at the slender figure in black coming up the path. The veil was thrown back from her face and they could see how fair and sweet it was, and how the bright hair curled as softly as a child's under the little widow's cap. She was not thinking of the people about; she was thinking of Cedric, and of his visits to her, and his joy over his new pony, on which he had actually ridden to her door the day before, sitting very straight and looking very proud and happy. But soon she could not help being attracted by the fact that she was being looked at and that her arrival had created some sort of sensation. She first noticed it because an old woman in a red cloak made a bobbing curtsy to her, and then another did the same thing and said, "God bless you, my lady!" and one man after another took off his hat as she passed. For a moment she did not understand, and then she realised that it was because she was little Lord Fauntleroy's mother that they did so, and she flushed rather shyly, and smiled and bowed too and said, "Thank you" in a gentle voice to the old woman, who had blessed her. She had scarcely passed through the stone porch into the church before the great event of the day happened. The carriage from the Castle, with its handsome horses and tall liveried servants, bowled round the corner and down the green lane. "Here they come!" went from one looker-on to another. And then the carriage drew up, and Thomas stepped down and opened the door, and a little boy, dressed in black velvet, and with a splendid mop of bright waving hair, jumped out. Every man, woman, and child looked curiously upon him. "He's the Captain over again!" said those of the on-lookers who remembered his father. "He's the Captain's self, to the life!" He stood there in the sunlight looking up at the Earl, as Thomas helped that nobleman out, with the most affectionate interest that could be imagined. The instant he could help, he put out his hand and offered his shoulder as if he had been seven feet high. It was plain enough to every one that however it might be with other people, the Earl of Dorincourt struck no terror into the breast of his grandson. "Just lean on me," they heard him say. "How glad the people are to see you, and how well they all seem to know you!" "Take off your cap, Fauntleroy," said the Earl. "They are bowing to you." "To me!" cried Fauntleroy, whipping off his cap in a moment, baring his bright head to the crowd, and turning shining, puzzled eyes on them as he tried to bow to every one at once. "God bless your lordship!" said the curtsying, red-cloaked old woman who had spoken to his mother; "long life to you!" "Thank you, ma'am," said Fauntleroy. And then they went into the church, and were looked at there, on their way up the aisle to the square red-cushioned and curtained pew. When Fauntleroy was fairly seated he made two discoveries which pleased him: the first was that, across the church where he could look at her, his mother sat and smiled at him; the second, that at one end of the pew against the wall knelt two quaint figures carven in stone, facing each other as they kneeled on either side of a pillar supporting two stone missals, their hands folded as if in prayer, their dress very antique and strange. On the tablet by them was written something of which he could only read the curious words: "Here lyethe ye bodye of Gregorye Arthure Fyrst Earle of Dorincourt allsoe of Alisone Hildegarde hys wyfe." "May I whisper?" inquired his lordship, devoured by curiosity. "What is it?" said his grandfather. "Who are they?" "Some of your ancestors," answered the Earl, "who lived a few hundred years ago." "Perhaps," said Lord Fauntleroy, regarding them with respect, "perhaps I got my spelling from them." And then he proceeded to find his place in the church service. When the music began, he stood up and looked across at his mother, smiling. He was very fond of music, and his mother and he often sang together, so he joined in with the rest, his pure, sweet, high voice rising as clear as the song of a bird. He quite forgot himself in his pleasure in it. The Earl forgot himself a little too, as he sat in his curtain-shielded corner of the pew and watched the boy. His mother, as she looked at him across the church, felt a thrill pass through her heart, and a prayer rose in it too; a prayer that the pure, simple happiness of his childish soul might last, and that the strange, great fortune which had fallen to him might bring no wrong or evil with it. There were many soft anxious thoughts in her tender heart in those new days. "Oh, Ceddie!" she had said to him the evening before, as she hung over him in saying good-night, before he went away; "Oh, Ceddie, dear, I wish for your sake I was very clever and could say a great many wise things! But only be good, dear, only be brave, only be kind and true always, and then you will never hurt any one so long as you live, and you may help many, and the big world may be better because my little child was born." And on his return to the Castle, Fauntleroy had repeated her words to his grandfather. "And I thought about you when she said that," he ended; "and I told her that was the way the world was because you had lived, and I was going to try if I could be like you." "And what did she say to that?" asked his lordship, a trifle uneasily. "She said that was right, and we must always look for good in people and try to be like it." Perhaps it was this the old man remembered as he glanced through the divided folds of the red curtain of his pew to where his son's wife sat. As they came out of the church, many of those who had attended the service stood waiting to see them pass. As they neared the gate, a man who stood with his hat in his hand made a step forward and then hesitated. He was a middle-aged farmer, with a careworn face. "Well, Higgins," said the Earl. Fauntleroy turned quickly to look at him. "Oh!" he exclaimed; "is it Mr. Higgins?" "Yes," answered the Earl dryly; "and I suppose he came to take a look at his new landlord." "Yes, my lord," said the man, his sunburned face reddening. "Mr. Newick told me his young lordship was kind enough to speak for me, and I thought I'd like to say a word of thanks, if I might be allowed." Perhaps he felt some wonder when he saw what a little fellow it was who had innocently done so much for him, and who stood there looking up just as one of his own less fortunate children might have done--apparently not realising his own importance in the least. "I've a great deal to thank your lordship for," he said; "a great deal. I----" "Oh," said Fauntleroy; "I only wrote the letter. It was my grandfather who did it. But you know how he is about always being good to everybody. Is Mrs. Higgins well now?" Higgins looked a trifle taken aback. He also was somewhat startled at hearing his noble landlord presented in the character of a benevolent being, full of engaging qualities. "I--well, yes, your lordship," he stammered. "I'm glad of that," said Fauntleroy. "My grandfather was very sorry about your children having the scarlet fever, and so was I." "You see, Higgins," broke in the Earl with a fine grim smile; "you people have been mistaken in me. Lord Fauntleroy understands me. Get into the carriage, Fauntleroy." And Fauntleroy jumped in, and the carriage rolled away down the green lane, and even when it turned the corner into the high road, the Earl was still grimly smiling. CHAPTER VIII. LEARNING TO RIDE. Lord Dorincourt had occasion to wear his grim smile many a time as the days passed by. Indeed, as his acquaintance with his grandson progressed, he wore the smile so often that there were moments when it almost lost its grimness. There is no denying that before Lord Fauntleroy had appeared on the scene, the old man had been growing very tired of his loneliness and his gout and his seventy years, but when he saw the lad, fortunately for the little fellow, the secret pride of the grandfather was gratified at the outset. And then when he heard the lad talk, and saw what a well-bred little fellow he was, notwithstanding his boyish ignorance of all that his new position meant, the old Earl liked his grandson more, and actually began to find himself rather entertained. It had amused him to give into those childish hands the power to bestow a benefit on poor Higgins. Then it had gratified him to drive to church with Cedric and to see the excitement and interest caused by the arrival. My lord of Dorincourt was an arrogant old man, proud of his name, proud of his rank, and therefore proud to show the world that at last the House of Dorincourt had an heir who was worthy of the position he was to fill. The morning the new pony had been tried the Earl had been so pleased that he had almost forgotten his gout. When the groom had brought out the pretty creature, which arched its brown glossy neck and tossed its fine head in the sun, the Earl had sat at the open window of the library and had looked on while Fauntleroy took his first riding lesson. He wondered if the boy would show signs of timidity. Fauntleroy mounted in great delight. He had never been on a pony before, and he was in the highest spirits. Wilkins, the groom, led the animal by the bridle up and down before the library window. After a few minutes Fauntleroy spoke to his grandfather--watching him from the window. "Can't I go myself?" he asked; "and can't I go faster?" His lordship made a sign to Wilkins, who at the signal brought up his own horse and mounted it and took Fauntleroy's pony by the leading-rein. "Now," said the Earl, "let him trot." The next few minutes were rather exciting to the small equestrian. He found that trotting was not so easy as walking, and the faster the pony trotted, the less easy it was. "It j-jolts a g-goo-good deal--do-doesn't it?" he said to Wilkins. "D-does it j-jolt y-you?" "No, my lord," answered Wilkins. "You'll get used to it in time. Rise in your stirrups." "I'm ri-rising all the t-time," said Fauntleroy. He was both rising and falling rather uncomfortably and with many shakes and bounces. He was out of breath, but he held on with all his might, and sat as straight as he could. The Earl could see that from his window. When the riders came back within speaking distance, after they had been hidden by the trees a few minutes, Fauntleroy's hat was off, his cheeks were like poppies, and his lips were set, but he was still trotting manfully. "Stop a minute!" said his grandfather. "Where's your hat?" Wilkins touched his. "It fell off, your lordship," he said, with evident enjoyment. "Wouldn't let me stop to pick it up, my lord." "Tired?" said the Earl to Fauntleroy. "Want to get off?" "It jolts you more than you think it will," admitted his young lordship frankly. "And it tires you a little too; but I don't want to get off. I want to learn how. As soon as I've got my breath I want to go back for the hat." The cleverest person in the world, if he had undertaken to teach Fauntleroy how to please the old man who watched him, could not have taught him anything which would have succeeded better. As the pony trotted off again toward the avenue, a faint colour crept up in the fierce old face, and the eyes, under the shaggy brows, gleamed with a pleasure such as his lordship had scarcely expected to know again. And he sat and watched quite eagerly until the sound of the horses' hoofs returned. When they did come, which was after some time, they came at a faster pace. Fauntleroy's hat was still off, Wilkins was carrying it for him; his cheeks were redder than before, and his hair was flying about his ears, but he came at quite a brisk canter. "There!" he panted, as they drew up, "I c-cantered." He and Wilkins and the pony were close friends after that. Scarcely a day passed on which the country people did not see them out together, cantering gaily on the highroad or through the green lanes. The children in the cottages would run to the door to look at the proud little brown pony with the gallant little figure sitting so straight in the saddle, and the young lord would snatch off his cap and swing it at them, and shout, "Hallo! Good morning!" in a very unlordly manner, though with great heartiness. Sometimes he would stop and talk with the children, and once Wilkins came back to the Castle with a story of how Fauntleroy had insisted on dismounting near the village school, so that a boy who was lame and tired might ride home on his pony. "An' I'm blessed," said Wilkins, in telling the story at the stables,--"I'm blessed if he'd hear of anything else! He wouldn't let me get down, because he said the boy mightn't feel comfortable on a big horse. An' ses he, 'Wilkins,' ses he, 'that boy's lame and I'm not, and I want to talk to him too.' And up the lad has to get, and my lord trudges alongside of him with his hands in his pockets. And when we come to the cottage, an' the boy's mother comes out to see what's up, he whips off his cap an' ses he, 'I've brought your son home, ma'am,' ses he, 'because his leg hurt him, and I don't think that stick is enough for him to lean on; and I'm going to ask my grandfather to have a pair of crutches made for him.'" When the Earl heard the story, he was not angry, as Wilkins had been half afraid that he would be; on the contrary, he laughed outright, and called Fauntleroy up to him, and made him tell all about the matter from beginning to end, and then he laughed again. And actually, a few days later, the Dorincourt carriage stopped in the green lane before the cottage where the lame boy lived, and Fauntleroy jumped out and walked up to the door, carrying a pair of strong, light, new crutches, and presented them to Mrs. Hartle (the lame boy's name was Hartle) with these words: "My grandfather's compliments, and if you please, these are for your boy, and we hope he will get better." "I said your compliments," he explained to the Earl when he returned to the carriage. "You didn't tell me to, but I thought perhaps you forgot. That was right, wasn't it?" And the Earl laughed again, and did not say it was not. In fact, the two were becoming more intimate every day, and every day Fauntleroy's faith in his lordship's benevolence and virtue increased. He had no doubt whatever that his grandfather was the most amiable and generous of elderly gentlemen. Certainly, he himself found his wishes gratified almost before they were uttered; and such gifts and pleasures were lavished upon him, that he was sometimes almost bewildered by his own possessions. Perhaps, notwithstanding his sweet nature, he might have been somewhat spoiled by it, if it had not been for the hours he spent with his mother at Court Lodge. That "best friend" of his watched over him very closely and tenderly. The two had many long talks together, and he never went back to the Castle with her kisses on his cheeks without carrying in his heart some simple, pure words worth remembering. There was one thing, it is true, which puzzled the little fellow very much. He thought over the mystery of it much oftener than any one supposed; even his mother did not know how often he pondered on it; the Earl for a long time never suspected that he did so at all. But being quick to observe, the little boy could not help wondering why it was that his mother and grandfather never seemed to meet. He had noticed that they never did meet. And yet, every day, fruit and flowers were sent to Court Lodge from the hot-houses at the Castle. But the one virtuous action of the Earl's which had set him upon the pinnacle of perfection in Cedric's eyes, was what he had done soon after that first Sunday when Mrs. Errol had walked home from church unattended. About a week later, when Cedric was going one day to visit his mother, he found at the door, instead of the large carriage and prancing pair, a pretty little brougham and a handsome bay horse. "That is a present from you to your mother," the Earl said abruptly. "She cannot go walking about the country. She needs a carriage. The man who drives will take charge of it. It is a present from _you_." Fauntleroy's delight could but feebly express itself. He could scarcely contain himself until he reached the lodge. His mother was gathering roses in the garden. He flung himself out of the little brougham and flew to her. "Dearest!" he cried, "could you believe it? This is yours! He says it is a present from me. It is your own carriage to drive everywhere in!" He was so happy that she did not know what to say. She could not have borne to spoil his pleasure by refusing to accept the gift, even though it came from the man who chose to consider himself her enemy. She was obliged to step into the carriage, roses and all, and let herself be taken for a drive, while Fauntleroy told her stories of his grandfather's goodness and amiability. They were such innocent stories that sometimes she could not help laughing a little, and then she would draw her little boy closer to her side and kiss him, feeling glad that he could see only good in the old man who had so few friends. The very next day after that, Fauntleroy wrote to Mr. Hobbs. He wrote quite a long letter, and after the first copy was written, he brought it to his grandfather to be inspected. "Because," he said, "it's so uncertain about the spelling." These were the last lines: "I should like to see you and I wish dearest could live at the castle but I am very happy when I dont miss her too much and I love my granfarther every one does plees write soon "your afechshnet old friend "Cedric Errol. "Do you miss your mother very much?" asked the Earl when he had finished reading this. "Yes," said Fauntleroy, "I miss her all the time. And when I miss her very much, I go and look out of my window to where I see her light shine for me every night through an open place in the trees. It is a long way off, but she puts it in her window as soon as it is dark and I can see it twinkle far away, and I know what it says." "What does it say?" asked my lord. "It says, 'Good-night, God keep you all the night!'--just what she used to say when we were together. Every night she used to say that to me, and every morning she said, 'God bless you all the day!' So you see I am quite safe all the time----" "Quite, I have no doubt," said his lordship dryly. And he drew down his beetling eyebrows and looked at the little boy so fixedly and so long that Fauntleroy wondered what he could be thinking of. CHAPTER IX. THE POOR COTTAGES. The fact was, his lordship the Earl of Dorincourt thought in those days of many things of which he had never thought before, and all his thoughts were in one way or another connected with his grandson. His pride was the strongest part of his nature, and the boy gratified it at every point. Through this pride he began to find a new interest in life. He began to take pleasure in showing his heir to the world. The world had known of his disappointment in his sons; so there was an agreeable touch of triumph in exhibiting this new Lord Fauntleroy, who could disappoint no one. He made plans for his future. Sometimes in this new interest he forgot his gout, and after a while his doctor was surprised to find this noble patient's health growing better than he had expected it ever would be again. Perhaps the Earl grew better because the time did not pass so slowly for him, and he had something to think of besides his pains and infirmities. One fine morning, people were amazed to see little Lord Fauntleroy riding his pony with another companion than Wilkins. This new companion rode a tall, powerful gray horse, and was no other than the Earl himself. And in their rides together through the green lanes and pretty country roads, the two riders became more intimate than ever. And gradually the old man heard a great deal about "Dearest" and her life. As Fauntleroy trotted by the big horse he chatted gaily. There could not well have been a brighter little comrade, his nature was so happy. The Earl often was silent, listening and watching the joyous, glowing face. Sometimes he would tell his young companion to set the pony off at a gallop, and when the little fellow dashed off, sitting so straight and fearless, he would watch the boy with a gleam of pride and pleasure in his eyes; and Fauntleroy, when, after such a dash, he came back waving his cap with a laughing shout, always felt that he and his grandfather were very good friends indeed. One thing that the Earl discovered was that his son's wife did not lead an idle life. It was not long before he learned that the poor people knew her very well indeed. When there was sickness or sorrow or poverty in any house, the little brougham often stood before the door. It had not displeased the Earl to find that the mother of his heir had a beautiful young face and looked as much like a lady as if she had been a duchess, and in one way it did not displease him to know that she was popular and beloved by the poor. And yet he was often conscious of a hard, jealous pang when he saw how she filled her child's heart and how the boy clung to her as his best beloved. The old man would have desired to stand first himself and have no rival. He felt it to be almost incredible that he, who had never really loved any one in his life, should find himself growing so fond of this little fellow,--as without doubt he was. At first he had only been pleased and proud of Cedric's beauty and bravery, but there was something more than pride in his feeling now. He laughed a grim, dry laugh all to himself sometimes, when he thought how he liked to have the boy near him, how he liked to hear his voice, and how in secret he really wished to be liked and thought well of by his small grandson. It was only about a week after that ride when, after a visit to his mother, Fauntleroy came into the library with a troubled, thoughtful face. He sat down in that high-backed chair in which he had sat on the evening of his arrival, and for a while he looked at the embers on the hearth. The Earl watched him in silence, wondering what was coming. It was evident that Cedric had something on his mind. At last he looked up "Does Newick know all about the people?" he asked. "It is his business to know about them," said his lordship. "Been neglecting it--has he?" Contradictory as it may seem, there was nothing which entertained and edified him more than the little fellow's interest in his tenantry. "There is a place," said Fauntleroy, looking up at him with wide-open, horror-stricken eyes--"Dearest has seen it; it is at the other end of the village. The houses are close together, and almost falling down; you can scarcely breathe: and the people are so poor, and everything is dreadful! The rain comes in at the roof! Dearest went to see a poor woman who lived there. The tears ran down her cheeks when she told me about it!" The tears had come into his own eyes, but he smiled through them. "I told her you didn't know, and I would tell you," he said. He jumped down and came and leaned against the Earl's chair. "You can make it all right," he said, "just as you made it all right for Higgins. You always make it all right for everybody. I told her you would, and that Newick must have forgotten to tell you." The Earl looked down at the hand on his knee. Newick had not forgotten to tell him; in fact, Newick had spoken to him more than once of the desperate condition of the end of the village known as Earl's Court. Mr. Mordaunt had painted it all to him in the strongest words he could use, and his lordship had used violent language in response; and, when his gout had been at the worst, he had said that the sooner the people of Earl's Court died and were buried by the parish the better it would be--and there was an end of the matter. And yet, as he looked at the small hand on his knee, and from the small hand to the honest, earnest, frank-eyed face, he was actually ashamed both of Earl's Court and of himself. "What!" he said; "you want to make a builder of model cottages of me, do you?" And he positively put his own hand upon the childish one and stroked it. "Those must be pulled down," said Fauntleroy, with great eagerness. "Dearest says so. Let us--let us go and have them pulled down to-morrow. The people will be so glad when they see you! They'll know you have come to help them!" And his eyes shone like stars in his glowing face. The Earl rose from his chair and put his hand on the child's shoulder. "Let us go out and take our walk on the terrace," he said, with a short laugh; "and we can talk it over." And though he laughed two or three times again, as they walked to and fro on the broad stone terrace, where they walked together almost every fine evening, he seemed to be thinking of something which did not displease him, and still he kept his hand on his small companion's shoulder. CHAPTER X. THE EARL ALARMED. The truth was that Mrs. Errol had found a great many sad things in the course of her work among the poor of the little village that appeared so picturesque when it was seen from the moor-sides. Everything was not as picturesque when seen near by, as it looked from a distance. She had found idleness and poverty and ignorance where there should have been comfort and industry. And she had discovered, after a while, that Erlesboro was considered to be the worst village in that part of the country. As to Earl's Court, it was a disgrace, with its dilapidated houses and miserable, careless, sickly people. When first Mrs. Errol went to the place, it made her shudder. And a bold thought came into her wise little mother-heart. Gradually she had begun to see, as had others, that it had been her boy's good fortune to please the Earl very much, and that he would scarcely be likely to be denied anything for which he expressed a desire. "The Earl would give him anything," she said to Mr. Mordaunt. "He would indulge his every whim. Why should not that indulgence be used for the good of others? It is for me to see that this shall come to pass." She knew she could trust the kind, childish heart; so she told the little fellow the story of Earl's Court, feeling sure that he would speak of it to his grandfather, and hoping that some good results would follow. And strange as it appeared to every one, good results did follow. The fact was that the strongest power to influence the Earl was his grandson's perfect confidence in him--the fact that Cedric always believed that his grandfather was going to do what was right and generous. He could not quite make up his mind to let him discover that he had no inclination to be generous at all, and so after some reflection, he sent for Newick, and had quite a long interview with him on the subject of the Court, and it was decided that the wretched hovels should be pulled down and new houses should be built. "It is Lord Fauntleroy who insists on it," he said dryly; "he thinks it will improve the property. You can tell the tenants that it's his idea." Of course, both the country people and the town people heard of the proposed improvement. At first, many of them would not believe it; but when a small army of workmen arrived and commenced pulling down the crazy, squalid cottages, people began to understand that little Lord Fauntleroy had done them a good turn again, and that through his innocent interference the scandal of Earl's Court had at last been removed. When the cottages were being built, the lad and his grandfather used to ride over to Earl's Court together to look at them, and Fauntleroy was full of interest. He would dismount from his pony and go and make acquaintance with the workmen, asking them questions about building and bricklaying and telling them things about America. When he left them, the workmen used to talk him over among themselves, and laugh at his odd, innocent speeches; but they liked him, and liked to see him stand among them, talking away, with his hands in his pockets, his hat pushed back on his curls, and his small face full of eagerness. And they would go home and tell their wives about him, and the women would tell each other, and so it came about that almost every one talked of, or knew some story of, little Lord Fauntleroy; and gradually almost every one knew that the "wicked Earl" had found something he cared for at last--something which had touched and even warmed his hard, bitter old heart. But no one knew quite how much it had been warmed, and how day by day the old man found himself caring more and more for the child, who was the only creature that had ever trusted him. He never spoke to any one else of his feeling for Cedric; when he spoke of him to others it was always with the same grim smile. But Fauntleroy soon knew that his grandfather loved him and always liked him to be near--near to his chair if they were in the library, opposite to him at table, or by his side when he rode or drove or took his evening walk on the broad terrace. "Do you remember," Cedric said once looking up from his book as he lay on the rug, "do you remember what I said to you that first night about our being good companions? I don't think any people could be better friends than we are, do you?" "We are pretty good companions, I should say," replied his lordship. "Come here." Fauntleroy scrambled up and went to him. "Is there anything you want," the Earl asked; "anything you have not?" The little fellow's brown eyes fixed themselves on his grandfather with a rather wistful look. "Only one thing," he answered. "What is that?" inquired the Earl. Fauntleroy was silent a second. He had not thought matters over to himself so long for nothing. "What is it?" my lord repeated. Fauntleroy answered. "It is Dearest," he said. The old Earl winced a little. "But you see her almost every day," he said. "Is not that enough?" "I used to see her all the time," said Fauntleroy. "She used to kiss me when I went to sleep at night, and in the morning she was always there, and we could tell each other things without waiting." The old eyes and the young ones looked into each other through a moment of silence. Then the Earl knitted his brows. "Do you _never_ forget about your mother?" he said. "No," answered Fauntleroy, "never; and she never forgets about me. I shouldn't forget about _you_, you know, if I didn't live with you. I should think about you all the more." "Upon my word," said the Earl, after looking at him a moment longer, "I believe you would!" The jealous pang that came when the boy spoke so of his mother seemed even stronger than it had been before--it was stronger because of this old man's increasing affection for the boy. But it was not long before he had other pangs, so much harder to face that he almost forgot, for the time, he had ever hated his son's wife at all. And in a strange and startling way it happened. One evening, just before the Earl's Court cottages were completed, there was a grand dinner party at Dorincourt. There had not been such a party at the Castle for a long time. A few days before it took place, Sir Harry Lorridaile and Lady Lorridaile, who was the Earl's only sister, actually came for a visit--a thing which caused the greatest excitement in the village and set Mrs. Dibble's shop-bell tinkling madly again, because it was well known that Lady Lorridaile had only been to Dorincourt once since her marriage, thirty-five years before. She was a handsome old lady with white curls and dimpled, peachy cheeks, and she was as good as gold, but she had never approved of her brother any more than did the rest of the world, and having a strong will of her own and not being at all afraid to speak her mind frankly, she had, after several lively quarrels with his lordship, seen very little of him since her young days. Not only the poor people and farmers heard about little Lord Fauntleroy; others knew of him. He was talked about so much and there were so many stories of him--of his beauty, his sweet temper, his popularity, and his growing influence over the Earl his grandfather--that rumours of him reached the gentry at their country places and he was heard of in more than one county of England. And so by degrees Lady Lorridaile, too, heard of the child; she heard about Higgins, and the lame boy, and the cottages at Earl's Court, and a score of other things,--and she began to wish to see the little fellow. And just as she was wondering how it might be brought about, to her utter astonishment, she received a letter from her brother inviting her to come with her husband to Dorincourt. "It seems incredible!" she exclaimed. "I have heard it said that the child has worked miracles, and I begin to believe it. They say my brother adores the boy and can scarcely endure to have him out of sight. And he is so proud of him! Actually, I believe he wants to show him to us." And she accepted the invitation at once. When she reached Dorincourt Castle with Sir Harry, it was late in the afternoon, and she went to her room at once before seeing her brother. Having dressed for dinner she entered the drawing-room. The Earl was there standing near the fire and looking very tall and imposing; and at his side stood a little boy in black velvet, and a large Vandyke collar of rich lace--a little fellow whose round bright face was so handsome, and who turned upon her such beautiful, candid brown eyes, that she almost uttered an exclamation of pleasure and surprise at the sight. As she shook hands with the Earl, she called him by the name she had not used since her girl-hood. "What, Molyneux," she said, "is this the child?" "Yes, Constantia," answered the Earl, "this is the boy. Fauntleroy, this is your grand-aunt, Lady Lorridaile." "How do you do, grand-aunt?" said Fauntleroy. Lady Lorridaile put her hand on his shoulder, and after looking down into his upraised face a few seconds, kissed him warmly. "I am your Aunt Constantia," she said, "and I loved your poor papa, and you are very like him." "It makes me glad when I am told I am like him," answered Fauntleroy, "because it seems as if every one liked him,--just like Dearest, eszackly,--Aunt Constantia," (adding the two words after a second's pause). Lady Lorridaile was delighted. She bent and kissed him again, and from that moment they were warm friends. "Well, Molyneux," she said aside to the Earl afterwards, "it could not possibly be better than this!" "I think not," answered his lordship dryly. "He is a fine little fellow. We are great friends. He believes me to be the most charming and sweet-tempered of philanthropists. I will confess to you, Constantia,--as you would find it out if I did not,--that I am in some slight danger of becoming rather an old fool about him." "What does his mother think of you?" asked Lady Lorridaile, with her usual straightforwardness. "I have not asked her," answered the Earl, slightly scowling. "Well," said Lady Lorridaile, "I will be frank with you at the outset, Molyneux, and tell you I don't approve of your course, and that it is my intention to call on Mrs. Errol as soon as possible; so if you wish to quarrel with me, you had better mention it at once. What I hear of the young creature makes me quite sure that her child owes her everything. We were told even at Lorridaile Park that your poorer tenants adore her already." "They adore _him_," said the Earl, nodding towards Fauntleroy. "As to Mrs. Errol, you'll find her a pretty little woman. I'm rather in debt to her for giving some of her beauty to the boy, and you can go to see her if you like. All I ask is that she will remain at Court Lodge and that you will not ask me to go and see her," and he scowled a little again. "But he doesn't hate her as much as he used to, that is plain enough to me," her ladyship said to Sir Harry afterwards. "And he is a changed man in a measure, and, incredible as it may seem, Harry, it is my opinion that he is being made into a human being, through nothing more or less than his affection for that innocent, affectionate little fellow." The very next day she went to call upon Mrs. Errol. When she returned, she said to her brother: "Molyneux, she is the loveliest little woman I ever saw! She has a voice like a silver bell, and you may thank her for making the boy what he is. She has given him more than her beauty, and you make a great mistake in not persuading her to come and take charge of you. I shall invite her to Lorridaile." "She'll not leave the boy," replied the Earl. "I must have the boy too," said Lady Lorridaile, laughing. But she knew Fauntleroy would not be given up to her, and each day she saw more clearly how closely those two had grown to each other, and how all the proud, grim old man's ambition and hope and love centred themselves in the child, and how the warm, innocent nature returned his affection with most perfect trust and good faith. She knew, too, that the prime reason for the great dinner party was the Earl's secret desire to show the world his grandson and heir. Perhaps there was not one person who accepted the invitation without feeling some curiosity about little Lord Fauntleroy, and wondering if he would be on view. And when the time came he was on view. "The lad has good manners," said the Earl. "He will be in no one's way. He can actually answer when he's spoken to, and be silent when he is not." But he was not allowed to be silent very long. Every one had something to say to him. The fact was they wished to make him talk. The ladies petted him and asked him questions, and the men asked him questions too, and joked with him, as the men on the steamer had done when he crossed the Atlantic. But though he was talked to so much, as the Earl had said, he was in no one's way. He could be quiet and listen when others talked, and so no one found him tiresome. Mr. Havisham had been expected to arrive in the afternoon, but, strange to say, he was late. Such a thing had really never been known to happen before during all the years in which he had been a visitor at Dorincourt Castle. He was so late that the guests were on the point of rising to go in to dinner when he arrived. When he approached his host, the Earl regarded him with amazement. He looked as if he had been hurried or agitated; his dry, keen old face was actually pale. "I was detained," he said, in a low voice to the Earl, "by--an extraordinary event." It was as unlike the methodic old lawyer to be agitated by anything as it was to be late, but it was evident that he had been disturbed. At dinner he ate scarcely anything, and two or three times, when he was spoken to, he started as if his thoughts were far away. At dessert, when Fauntleroy came in, he looked at him more than once, nervously and uneasily. Fauntleroy noted the look and wondered at it. He and Mr. Havisham were on friendly terms, and they usually exchanged smiles. The lawyer seemed to have forgotten to smile that evening. He did not exactly know how the long, superb dinner ended. He sat through it as if he were in a dream, and several times he saw the Earl glance at him in surprise. But it was over at last, and the gentlemen joined the ladies in the drawing-room. They found Fauntleroy sitting on a sofa with Miss Vivian Herbert,--the great beauty of the last London season; they had been looking at some pictures, and he was thanking his companion, as the door opened. "I'm ever so much obliged to you for being so kind to me!" he was saying; "I never was at a party before, and I've enjoyed myself so much!" He had enjoyed himself so much that his eyelids began to droop. He was quite sure he was not going to sleep, but there was a large, yellow satin cushion behind him and his head sank against it, and after a while his eyelids drooped for the last time. * * * * * No sooner had the last guest left the room, than Mr. Havisham turned from his place by the fire, and stepped nearer the sofa, where he stood looking down at the sleeping occupant. "Well, Havisham," said the Earl's harsh voice behind him. "What is it? It is evident something has happened. What was the extraordinary event, if I may ask?" Mr. Havisham turned from the sofa, still rubbing his chin. "It was bad news," he answered, "distressing news, my lord--the worst of news. I am sorry to be the bearer of it." The Earl had been uneasy for some time during the evening, as he glanced at Mr. Havisham, and when he was uneasy he was always ill-tempered. "Why do you look so at the boy!" he exclaimed irritably. "You have been looking at him all the evening as if--. What has your news to do with Lord Fauntleroy?" "My lord," said Mr. Havisham, "I will waste no words. My news has everything to do with Lord Fauntleroy. And if we are to believe it--it is not Lord Fauntleroy who lies sleeping before us, but only the son of Captain Errol. And the present Lord Fauntleroy is the son of your son Bevis, and is at this moment in a lodging-house in London." The Earl clutched the arms of his chair with both his hands until the veins stood out upon them; the veins stood out on his forehead too; his fierce old face was almost livid. "What do you mean!" he cried out. "You are mad! Whose lie is this?" "If it is a lie," answered Mr. Havisham, "it is painfully like the truth. A woman came to my chambers this morning. She said your son Bevis married her six years ago in London. She showed me her marriage certificate. They quarrelled a year after the marriage, and he paid her to keep away from him. She has a son five years old. She is an American of the lower classes,--an ignorant person,--and until lately she did not fully understand what her son could claim. She consulted a lawyer, and found out that the boy was really Lord Fauntleroy and the heir to the earldom of Dorincourt; and she, of course, insists on his claims being acknowledged." The handsome, grim old face was ghastly. A bitter smile fixed itself upon it. "I should refuse to believe a word of it," he said, "if it were not such a low, scoundrelly piece of business that it becomes quite possible in connection with the name of my son Bevis. It is quite like Bevis. He was always a disgrace to us. The woman is an ignorant, vulgar person, you say?" "I am obliged to admit that she can scarcely spell her own name," answered the lawyer. "She cares for nothing but the money. She is very handsome in a coarse way, but----" The fastidious old lawyer ceased speaking and gave a sort of shudder. The veins on the old Earl's forehead stood out like purple cords. Something else stood out upon it too--cold drops of moisture. He took out his handkerchief and swept them away. His smile grew even more bitter. "And I," he said, "I objected to--to the other woman, the mother of this child" (pointing to the sleeping form on the sofa); "I refused to recognize her. And yet she could spell her own name. I suppose this is retribution." Suddenly he sprang up from his chair and began to walk up and down the room. Fierce and terrible words poured forth from his lips. His rage and hatred and cruel disappointment shook him as a storm shakes a tree. "I might have known it," he said. "They were a disgrace to me from their first hour! I hated them both; and they hated me! Bevis was the worse of the two. I will not believe this yet though! I will contend against it to the last. But it is like Bevis--it is like him!" And then he raged again and asked questions about the woman, about her proofs, and pacing the room, turned first white and then purple in his repressed fury. When at last he had learned all that was to be told, and knew the worst, Mr. Havisham looked at him with a feeling of anxiety. He looked broken and haggard and changed. His rages had always been bad for him, but this one had been worse than the rest because there had been something more than rage in it. He came slowly back to the sofa, at last, and stood near it. "If any one had told me I could be fond of a child," he said, his harsh voice low and unsteady, "I should not have believed them. I always detested children--my own more than the rest. I am fond of this one; he is fond of me" (with a bitter smile). "I am not popular; I never was. But he is fond of me. He never was afraid of me--he always trusted me. He would have filled my place better than I have filled it. I know that. He would have been an honour to the name." He bent down and stood a minute or so looking at the happy, sleeping face. He put up his hand, pushed the bright hair back from the forehead, and then turned away and rang the bell. When the footman appeared, he pointed to the sofa. "Take"--he said, and then his voice changed a little--"take Lord Fauntleroy to his room." CHAPTER XI. ANXIETY IN AMERICA. When Mr. Hobbs's young friend left him to go to Dorincourt Castle and become Lord Fauntleroy, and the grocery-man had time to realise that the Atlantic Ocean lay between himself and the small companion who had spent so many agreeable hours in his society, he began to feel very lonely indeed. At first it seemed to Mr. Hobbs that Cedric was not really far away, and would come back again; that some day he would look up from his paper and see the lad standing in the doorway, in his white suit and red stockings, and with his straw hat on the back of his head, and would hear him say in his cheerful little voice: "Hello, Mr. Hobbs! This is a hot day--isn't it?" But as the days passed on and this did not happen, Mr. Hobbs felt very dull and uneasy. He did not even enjoy his newspaper as much as he used to. He would take out his gold watch and open it and stare at the inscription; "From his oldest friend, Lord Fauntleroy, to Mr. Hobbs. When this you see, remember me." At night, when the store was closed, he would light his pipe and walk slowly along until he reached the house where Cedric had lived, on which there was a sign that read, "This House to Let"; and he would stop near it and look up and shake his head, and puff at his pipe very hard, and after a while walk mournfully back again. This went on for two or three weeks before a new idea came to him. He would go to see Dick. He smoked a great many pipes before he arrived at the conclusion, but finally he did arrive at it. He would go to see Dick. He knew all about Dick. Cedric had told him, and his idea was that perhaps Dick might be some comfort to him in the way of talking things over. So one day when Dick was very hard at work blacking a customer's boots, a short, stout man with a heavy face and a bald head, stared for two or three minutes at the bootblack's sign, which read: "Professor Dick Tipton Can't be beat." He stared at it so long that Dick began to take a lively interest in him, and when he had put the finishing touch to his customer's boots, he said: "Want a shine, sir?" The stout man came forward deliberately and put his foot on the rest. "Yes," he said. Then when Dick fell to work, the stout man looked from Dick to the sign and from the sign to Dick. "Where did you get that?" he asked. "From a friend o' mine," said Dick,--"a little feller. He was the best little feller ye ever saw. He's in England now. Gone to be one o' those lords." "Lord--Lord--" asked Mr. Hobbs, with ponderous slowness, "Lord Fauntleroy--Goin' to be Earl of Dorincourt!" Dick almost dropped his brush. "Why, boss!" he exclaimed, "d'ye know him yerself?" "I've known him," answered Mr. Hobbs, wiping his warm forehead, "ever since he was born. We were lifetime acquaintances--that's what _we_ were." It really made him feel quite agitated to speak of it. He pulled the splendid gold watch out of his pocket and opened it, and showed the inside of the case to Dick. "'When this you see, remember me,'" he read. "That was his parting keepsake to me. I'd ha' remembered him," he went on, shaking his head, "if he hadn't given me a thing. He was a companion as _any_ man would remember." It proved that they had so much to say to each other that it was not possible to say it all at one time, and so it was agreed that the next night Dick should make a visit to the store and keep Mr. Hobbs company. This was the beginning of quite a substantial friendship. When Dick went up to the store, Mr. Hobbs received him with great hospitality. He gave him a chair tilted against the door, near a barrel of apples, and after his young visitor was seated, he made a jerk at them with the hand in which he held his pipe, saying: "Help yerself." Then they read, and discussed the British aristocracy; and Mr. Hobbs smoked his pipe very hard and shook his head a great deal. He seemed to derive a great deal of comfort from Dick's visit. Before Dick went home, they had a supper in the small back room; they had biscuits and cheese and sardines, and other things out of the store, and Mr. Hobbs solemnly opened two bottles of ginger ale, and pouring out two glasses, proposed a toast. "Here's to _him_!" he said, lifting his glass, "an' may he teach 'em a lesson--earls an' markises an' dooks an' all!" After that night, the two saw each other often, and Mr. Hobbs was much more comfortable and less desolate. They read the _Penny Story Gazette_, and many other interesting things, and gained a knowledge of the habits of the nobility and gentry which would have surprised those despised classes if they had realised it. One day Mr. Hobbs made a pilgrimage to a book-store down town, for the express purpose of adding to their library. He went to a clerk and leaned over the counter to speak to him. "I want," he said, "a book about earls." "What!" exclaimed the clerk. "A book," repeated the grocery-man, "about earls." "I'm afraid," said the clerk, looking rather queer, "that we haven't what you want." "Haven't?" said Mr. Hobbs, anxiously. "Well, say markises then--or dooks." "I know of no such book," answered the clerk. Mr. Hobbs was much disturbed. He looked down on the floor,--then he looked up. "None about female earls?" he inquired. "I'm afraid not," said the clerk, with a smile. "Well," exclaimed Mr. Hobbs, "I'll be jiggered!" He was just going out of the store, when the clerk called him back and asked him if a story in which the nobility were chief characters would do. Mr. Hobbs said it would--if he could not get an entire volume devoted to earls. So the clerk sold him a book called _The Tower of London_, written by Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, and he carried it home. When Dick came they began to read it. It was a very wonderful and exciting book, and the scene was laid in the reign of the famous English queen who is called by some people Bloody Mary. And as Mr. Hobbs heard of Queen Mary's deeds and the habit she had of chopping people's heads off, putting them to the torture, and burning them alive, he became very much excited. He took his pipe out of his mouth and stared at Dick. "Why, he ain't safe!" he said. "He ain't safe! If the women folks can sit up on their thrones an' give the word for things like that to be done, who's to know what's happening to him this very minute?" "Well," said Dick, though he looked rather anxious himself; "ye see this 'ere un isn't the one that's bossin' things now. I know her name's Victory, an' this un here in the book,--her name's Mary." "So it is," said Mr. Hobbs, still mopping his forehead; "so it is,--but still it doesn't seem as if 'twas safe for him over there with those queer folks. Why, they tell me they don't keep the Fourth o' July!" He was privately uneasy for several days; and it was not until he received Fauntleroy's letter and had read it several times, both to himself and to Dick, and had also read the letter Dick got about the same time, that he became composed again. But they both found great pleasure in their letters. They read and re-read them, and talked them over and enjoyed every word of them. And they spent days over the answers they sent, and read them over almost as often as the letters they had received. One day they were sitting in the store doorway together, and Mr. Hobbs was filling his pipe, whilst Dick told him all about his life and his elder brother, who had been very good to him after their parents had died. The brother's name was Ben, and he had managed to get quite a decent place in a store. "And then," said Dick, "blest if he didn't go an' marry a gal, a regular tiger-cat. She'd tear things to pieces, when she got mad. Had a baby just like her; 'n' at last Ben went out West with a man to set up a cattle ranch." "He oughtn't to 've married," Mr. Hobbs said solemnly, as he rose to get a match. As he took the match from its box, he stopped and looked down on the counter. "Why!" he said, "if here isn't a letter! I didn't see it afore. The postman must have laid it down when I wasn't noticin', or the newspaper slipped over it." He picked it up and looked at it carefully. "It's from _him_!" he exclaimed. "That's the very one it's from!" He forgot his pipe altogether. He went back to his chair quite excited, and took his pocket-knife and opened the envelope. "I wonder what news there is this time," he said. And then he unfolded the letter and read as follows: "Dorincourt Castle. "My dear Mr. Hobbs. "I write this in a great hury becaus i have something curous to tell you i know you will be very mutch suprised my dear frend when i tel you. It is all a mistake and i am not a lord and i shall not have to be an earl there is a lady whitch was marid to my uncle bevis who is dead and she has a little boy and he is lord fauntleroy becaus that is the way it is in England and my name is Cedric Errol like it was when I was in New York and all the things will belong to the other boy i thought at first i should have to give him my pony and cart but my grandfarther says i need not my grandfarther is very sorry i am not rich now becaus when your papa is only the youngest son he is not very rich i am going to learn to work so that I can take care of dearest i have been asking Wilkins about grooming horses preaps i might be a groom or a coachman. I thort i would tell you and Dick right away becaus you would be intrusted so no more at present with love from "your old frend "Cedric Errol (Not lord Fauntleroy)." Mr. Hobbs fell back in his chair, the letter dropped on his knee, his penknife slipped to the floor, and so did the envelope. "Well!" he ejaculated, "I am jiggered!" He was so dumfounded that he actually changed his exclamation. It had always been his habit to say, "I _will_ be jiggered," but this time he said, "I _am_ jiggered." Perhaps he really _was_ jiggered. There is no knowing. "Well," said Mr. Hobbs. "It's my opinion it's all a put-up job o' the British 'ristycrats to rob him of his rights because he's an American. They're trying to rob him! that's what they're doing, and folks that have money ought to look after him." And he kept Dick with him until quite a late hour to talk it over, and when that young man left he went with him to the corner of the street; and on his way back he stopped opposite the empty house for some time, staring at the "To Let," and smoking his pipe in much disturbance of mind. CHAPTER XII. THE RIVAL CLAIMANTS. A very few days after the dinner-party at the Castle, almost everybody in England who read the newspaper at all knew the romantic story of what had happened at Dorincourt. It made a very interesting story when it was told with all the details. There was the little American boy who had been brought to England to be Lord Fauntleroy, and who was said to be so fine and handsome a little fellow, and to have already made people fond of him; there was the old Earl, his grandfather, who was so proud of his heir; there was the pretty young mother who had never been forgiven for marrying Captain Errol; and there was the strange marriage of Bevis the dead Lord Fauntleroy, and the strange wife, of whom no one knew anything, suddenly appearing with her son, and saying that he was the real Lord Fauntleroy and must have his rights. All these things were talked about and written about, and caused a tremendous sensation. And then there came the rumour that the Earl of Dorincourt was not satisfied with the turn affairs had taken, and would perhaps contest the claim by law, and the matter might end with a wonderful trial. There never had been such excitement before in the county in which Erlesboro was situated. On market-days, people stood in groups and talked and wondered what would be done; the farmers' wives invited one another to tea that they might tell one another all they had heard and all they thought and all they thought other people thought. In fact there was excitement everywhere; at the Castle, in the library, where the Earl and Mr. Havisham sat and talked; in the servants' hall, where Mr. Thomas and the butler and the other men and women servants gossiped and exclaimed at all times of the day; and in the stables, where Wilkins went about his work in a quite depressed state of mind. But in the midst of all the disturbance there was one person who was quite calm and untroubled. That person was the little Lord Fauntleroy who was said not to be Lord Fauntleroy at all. When first the Earl told him what had happened, he had sat on a stool holding on to his knee, as he so often did when he was listening to anything interesting; and by the time the story was finished, he looked quite sober. "It makes me feel very queer," he said; "it makes me--queer!" The Earl looked at the boy in silence. It made him feel queer too--queerer than he had ever felt in his whole life. And he felt more queer still when he saw that there was a troubled expression on the small face which was usually so happy. "Will they take Dearest's house away from her--and her carriage?" Cedric asked in a rather unsteady, anxious little voice. "_No!_" said the Earl decidedly--in quite a loud voice in fact. "They can take nothing from her." "Ah!" said Cedric with evident relief. "Can't they?" Then he looked up at his grandfather, and there was a wistful shade in his eyes, and they looked very big and soft. "That other boy," he said rather tremulously--"he will have to--to be your boy now--as I was--won't he?" "_No!_" answered the Earl--and he said it so fiercely and loudly that Cedric quite jumped. "No?" he exclaimed, in wonderment. "Won't he? I thought----" He stood up from his stool quite suddenly. "Shall I be your boy, even if I'm not going to be an earl?" he said. "Shall I be your boy, just as I was before?" And his flushed little face was all alight with eagerness. How the old Earl did look at him from head to foot, to be sure! How his great shaggy brows did draw themselves together, and how queerly his deep eyes shone under them--how very queerly! "My boy!" he said "yes, you'll be my boy as long as I live; and, by George, sometimes I feel as if you were the only boy I had ever had." Cedric's face turned red to the roots of his hair; it turned red with relief and pleasure. He put both his hands deep into his pockets and looked squarely into his noble relative's eyes. "Do you?" he said. "Well, then, I don't care about the earl part at all. I don't care whether I'm an earl or not. I thought--you see, I thought the one that was going to be the Earl would have to be your boy too, and--and I couldn't be. That was what made me feel so queer." The Earl put his hand on his shoulder and drew him nearer. "They shall take nothing from you that I can hold for you," he said, drawing his breath hard. "I won't believe yet that they can take anything from you. You were made for the place, and--well, you may fill it still. But whatever comes, you shall have all that I can give you--all!" It scarcely seemed as if he were speaking to a child, there was such determination in his face and voice; it was more as if he were making a promise to himself--and perhaps he was. He had never before known how deep a hold upon him his fondness for the boy and his pride in him had taken. He had never seen his strength and good qualities and beauty as he seemed to see them now. To his obstinate nature it seemed impossible--to give up what he had so set his heart upon. And he had determined that he would not give it up without a fierce struggle. Within a few days after she had seen Mr. Havisham, the woman who claimed to be Lady Fauntleroy presented herself at the Castle, and brought her child with her. She was sent away. The Earl would not see her, she was told by the footman at the door; his lawyer would attend to her cause. Mr. Havisham had noticed, during his interviews with her, that she was neither so clever nor so bold as she meant to be. It was as if she had not expected to meet with such opposition. "She is evidently," the lawyer said to Mrs. Errol, "a person from the lower walks of life. She is uneducated and quite unused to meeting people like ourselves on any terms of equality. She does not know what to do. Her visit to the Castle quite cowed her. She was infuriated, but she was cowed. The Earl would not receive her, but I advised him to go with me to the Dorincourt Arms, where she is staying. When she saw him enter the room, she turned white, though she flew into a rage at once, and threatened and demanded in one breath." The fact was that the Earl had stalked into the room and stood, looking like a venerable aristocratic giant, staring at the woman and not condescending a word. He let her talk and demand until she was tired, without himself uttering a word, and then he said: "You say you are my eldest son's wife. If that is true, and if the proof you offer is too much for us, the law is on your side. In that case, your boy is Lord Fauntleroy. If your claims are proved, you will be provided for. I want to see nothing either of you or the child so long as I live." And then he turned his back upon her and stalked out of the room as he had stalked into it. Not many days after that, a visitor was announced to Mrs. Errol, who was writing in her little morning room. The maid who brought the message looked rather excited. "It's the Earl hisself, ma'am!" she said in tremulous awe. When Mrs. Errol entered the drawing-room, a very tall, majestic-looking old man was standing on the tiger-skin rug. He had a handsome, grim old face, with an aquiline profile, a long white moustache, and an obstinate look. "Mrs. Errol, I believe?" he said. "Mrs. Errol," she answered. "I am the Earl of Dorincourt," he said. He paused a moment, almost unconsciously, to look into her uplifted eyes. They were so like the big, affectionate, childish eyes he had seen uplifted to his own so often every day during the last few months, that they gave him a quite curious sensation. "The boy is very like you," he said abruptly. "It has been often said so, my lord," she replied, "but I have been glad to think him like his father also." As Lady Lorridaile had told him, her voice was very sweet, and her manner was very simple and dignified. She did not seem in the least troubled by his sudden coming. "Yes," said the Earl, "he is like--my son--too." He put his hand up to his big white moustache and pulled it fiercely. "Do you know," he said, "why I have come here?" "I have seen Mr. Havisham," Mrs. Errol began, "and he has told me of the claims which have been made----" "I have come to tell you," said the Earl, "that they will be investigated and contested, if a contest can be made. I have come to tell you that the boy shall be defended with all the power of the law. His rights----" The soft voice interrupted him. "He must have nothing that is _not_ his by right, even if the law can give it to him," she said. "Unfortunately the law cannot," said the Earl. "If it could, it should. This outrageous woman and her child----" "Perhaps she cares for him as much as I care for Cedric, my lord," said little Mrs. Errol. "And if she was your eldest son's wife, her son is Lord Fauntleroy, and mine is not." "I suppose," said the Earl, "that you would much prefer that he should not be the Earl of Dorincourt?" Her fair young face flushed. "It is a very magnificent thing to be the Earl of Dorincourt, my lord," she said. "I know that, but I care most that he should be what his father was--brave and just and true always." "In striking contrast to what his grandfather was, eh?" said his lordship sardonically. "I have not had the pleasure of knowing his grandfather," replied Mrs. Errol, "but I know my little boy believes----" She stopped short a moment, looking quietly into his face, and then she added, "I know that Cedric loves you." "Would he have loved me," said the Earl dryly, "if you had told him why I did not receive you at the Castle?" "No," answered Mrs. Errol; "I think not. That was why I did not wish him to know." "Well," said my lord, brusquely, "there are few women who would not have told him." He suddenly began to walk up and down the room, pulling his great moustache more violently than ever. "Yes, he is fond of me," he said, "and I am fond of him. I can't say I ever was fond of anything before. I am fond of him. He pleased me from the first. I am an old man, and was tired of my life. He has given me something to live for. I am proud of him. I was satisfied to think of his taking his place some day as the head of the family." He came back and stood before Mrs. Errol. "I am miserable," he said. "Miserable!" He looked as if he was. Even his pride could not keep his voice steady or his hands from shaking. For a moment it almost seemed as if his deep, fierce eyes had tears in them. "Perhaps it is because I am miserable that I have come to you," he said, quite glaring down at her. "I used to hate you; I have been jealous of you. This wretched, disgraceful business has changed that. I have been an obstinate old fool, and I suppose I have treated you badly. You are like the boy and the boy is the first object in my life. I am miserable, and I came to you merely because you are like the boy, and he cares for you, and I care for him. Treat me as well as you can, for the boy's sake." He said it all in his harsh voice, and almost roughly, but somehow he seemed so broken down for the time that Mrs. Errol was touched to the heart. She got up and moved an arm-chair a little forward. "I wish you would sit down," she said in a soft, pretty, sympathetic way. "You have been so much troubled that you are very tired, and you need all your strength." It was just as new to him to be spoken to and cared for in that gentle, simple way as it was to be contradicted. He was reminded of "the boy" again, and he actually did as she asked him. Perhaps his disappointment and wretchedness were good discipline for him; if he had not been wretched he might have continued to hate her, but just at present he found her a little soothing. She had so sweet a face and voice, and a pretty dignity when she spoke or moved. Very soon, by the quiet magic of these influences, he began to feel less gloomy, and then he talked still more. "Whatever happens," he said, "the boy shall be provided for. He shall be taken care of, now and in the future." Before he went away, he glanced around the room. "Do you like the house?" he demanded. "Very much," she answered. "This is a cheerful room," he said. "May I come here again and talk this matter over?" "As often as you wish, my lord," she replied. And then he went out to his carriage and drove away, Thomas and Henry almost stricken dumb upon the box at the turn affairs had taken. CHAPTER XIII. DICK TO THE RESCUE. Of course, as soon as the story of Lord Fauntleroy and the difficulties of the Earl of Dorincourt were discussed in the English newspapers, they were discussed in the American newspapers. The story was too interesting to be passed over lightly, and it was talked of a great deal. There were so many versions of it that it would have been an edifying thing to buy all the papers and compare them. Mr. Hobbs used to read the papers until his head was in a whirl, and in the evening he and Dick would talk it all over. They found out what an important personage an Earl of Dorincourt was, and what a magnificent income he possessed, and how many estates he owned, and how stately and beautiful was the Castle in which he lived; and the more they learned the more excited they became. "Seem's like somethin' orter be done," said Mr. Hobbs. But there really was nothing they could do but each write a letter to Cedric, containing assurances of their friendship and sympathy. They wrote those letters as soon as they could after receiving the news. The very next morning, one of Dick's customers was rather surprised. He was a young lawyer just beginning practice; as poor as a very young lawyer can possibly be, but a bright, energetic young fellow, with sharp wit and a good temper. He had a shabby office near Dick's stand, and every morning Dick blacked his boots for him. That particular morning, when he put his foot on the rest, he had an illustrated paper in his hand--an enterprising paper, with pictures in it of conspicuous people and things. He had just finished looking it over, and when the last boot was polished, he handed it to the boy. "Here's a paper for you, Dick," he said. "Picture of an English castle in it and an English earl's daughter-in-law. You ought to become familiar with the nobility and gentry, Dick. Begin on the Right Honourable the Earl of Dorincourt and Lady Fauntleroy. Hello! I say, what's the matter?" The pictures he spoke of were on the front page, and Dick was staring at one of them with his eyes and mouth open, and his sharp face almost pale with excitement. He pointed to the picture, under which was written: "Mother of Claimant (Lord Fauntleroy)." It was the picture of a handsome woman, with large eyes and heavy braids of black hair wound around her head. "Her!" said Dick. "I know her better'n I know you! An' I've struck work for this mornin'." And in less than five minutes from that time he was tearing through the streets on his way to Mr. Hobbs and the corner store. Mr. Hobbs could scarcely believe the evidence of his senses when he looked across the counter and saw Dick rush in with the paper in his hand. The boy was out of breath with running; so much out of breath, in fact, that he could scarcely speak as he threw the paper down on the counter. "Look at it!" panted Dick. "Look at that woman in the picture! That's what you look at! _She_ aint no 'ristocrat, _she_ aint!" with withering scorn. "She's no lord's wife. You may eat me, if it aint Minna--_Minna!_ I'd know her anywheres, an' so'd Ben. Jest ax him." Mr. Hobbs dropped into his seat. "I knowed it was a put-up job," he said. "I knowed it; and they done it on account o' him bein' a 'Merican!" "Done it!" cried Dick, with disgust. "_She_ done it, that's who done it. I'll tell yer wot come to me, the minnit I saw her pictur. There was one o' them papers we saw had a letter in it that said somethin' 'bout her boy, an' it said he had a scar on his chin. Put them together--her 'n' that scar! Why that boy o' hers aint no more a lord than I am! It's _Ben's_ boy." Professor Dick Tipton had always been a sharp boy, and earning his living in the streets of a big city had made him still sharper. He had learned to keep his eyes open and his wits about him, and it mast be confessed he enjoyed immensely the excitement and impatience of that moment. Mr. Hobbs was almost overwhelmed by his sense of responsibility, and Dick was all alive and full of energy. He began to write a letter to Ben, and he cut out the picture and inclosed it to him, and Mr. Hobbs wrote a letter to Cedric and one to the Earl. They were in the midst of this letter-writing when a new idea came to Dick. "Say," he said, "the feller that give me the paper, he's a lawyer. Let's ax him what we'd better do. Lawyers knows it all." Mr. Hobbs was immensely impressed by this suggestion and Dick's business capacity. "That's so!" he replied. "This here calls for lawyers." And leaving the store in care of a substitute, he struggled into his coat and marched down town with Dick, and the two presented themselves with their romantic story in Mr. Harrison's office, much to that young man's astonishment. If he had not been a very young lawyer, with a very enterprising mind and a great deal of spare time on his hands, he might not have been so readily interested in what they had to say, for it all certainly sounded very wild and queer; but he chanced to want something to do very much. "And," said Mr. Hobbs, "say what your time's worth an hour and look into this thing thorough, and _I'll_ pay the damage--Silas Hobbs, corner of Blank Street, Vegetables and Groceries." "Well," said Mr. Harrison, "it will be a big thing if it turns out all right, and it will be almost as big a thing for me as for Lord Fauntleroy; and at any rate, no harm can be done by investigating. It appears there has been some dubiousness about the child. The woman contradicted herself in some of her statements about his age, and aroused suspicion. The first persons to be written to are Dick's brother and the Earl of Dorincourt's family lawyer." And actually before the sun went down, two letters had been written and sent in two different directions--one speeding out of New York harbour on a mail steamer on its way to England, and the other on a train carrying letters and passengers bound for California. And the first was addressed to T. Havisham, Esq., and the second to Benjamin Tipton. And after the store was closed that evening, Mr. Hobbs and Dick sat in the back room and talked together until midnight. CHAPTER XIV. THE EXPOSURE. It is astonishing how short a time it takes for very wonderful things to happen. It had taken only a few minutes, apparently, to change all the fortunes of the little boy dangling his red legs from the high stool in Mr. Hobbs's store, and to transform him from a small boy, living the simplest life in a quiet street, into an English nobleman, the heir to an earldom and magnificent wealth. It had taken only a few minutes, apparently, to change him from an English nobleman into a penniless little impostor, with no right to any of the splendours he had been enjoying. And, surprising as it may appear, it did not take nearly so long a time as one might have expected to alter the face of everything again and to give back to him all that he had been in danger of losing. It took the less time because, after all, the woman who had called herself Lady Fauntleroy was not nearly so clever as she was wicked; and when she had been closely pressed by Mr. Havisham's questions about her marriage and her boy, she had made one or two blunders which had caused suspicion to be awakened; and then she had lost her presence of mind and her temper, and in her excitement and anger had betrayed herself still further. There seemed no doubt that she had been married to Bevis, Lord Fauntleroy, but Mr. Havisham found out that her story of the boy's being born in a certain part of London was false; and just when they all were in the midst of the commotion caused by this discovery, there came the letter from the young lawyer in New York, and Mr. Hobbs's letters also. What an evening it was when those letters arrived, and when Mr. Havisham and the Earl sat and talked their plans over in the library! "After my first three meetings with her," said Mr. Havisham, "I began to suspect her strongly. Our best plan will be to cable at once for these two Tiptons, say nothing about them to her, and suddenly confront her with them when she is not expecting it. My opinion is that she will betray herself on the spot." And that was what actually happened. She was told nothing, but one fine morning, as she sat in her sitting-room at the inn called "The Dorincourt Arms," making some very fine plans for herself, Mr. Havisham was announced; and when he entered, he was followed by no leas than three persons--one was a sharp-faced boy and one was a big young man, and the third was the Earl of Dorincourt. She sprang to her feet and actually uttered a cry of terror. She had thought of these new-comers as being thousands of miles away, when she had ever thought of them at all, which she had scarcely done for years. She had never expected to see them again. It must be confessed that Dick grinned a little when he saw her. "Hello, Minna!" he said, The big young man--who was Ben--stood still a minute and looked at her. "Do you know her?" Mr. Havisham asked, glancing from one to the other. "Yes," said Ben. "I know her and she knows me. I can swear to her in any court, and I can bring a dozen others who will. Her father is a respectable sort of man, and he's honest enough to be ashamed of her. He'll tell you who she is, and whether she married me or not." Then he clenched his hand suddenly and turned on her. "Where's the child?" he demanded. "He's going with me! He is done with you, and so am I!" And just as he finished saying the words, the door leading into the bedroom opened a little, and the boy, probably attracted by the sound of the loud voices, looked in. He was not a handsome boy, but he had rather a nice face, and he was quite like Ben, his father, as any one could see, and there was the three-cornered scar on his chin. Ben walked up to him and took his hand, and his own was trembling. "Tom," he said to the little fellow. "I'm your father; I've come to take you away. Where's your hat?" The boy pointed to where it lay on a chair. It evidently rather pleased him to hear that he was going away. Ben took up the hat and marched to the door. "If you want me again," he said to Mr. Havisham, "you know where to find me." He walked out of the room, holding the child's hand and not looking at the woman once. She was fairly raving with fury, and the Earl was calmly gazing at her through his eyeglasses, which he had quietly placed upon his aristocratic eagle nose. "Come, come, my young woman," said Mr. Havisham. "This won't do at all. If you don't want to be locked up, you really must behave yourself." And there was something so very business-like in his tones that, probably feeling that the safest thing she could do would be to get out of the way, she gave him one savage look and dashed past him into the next room and slammed the door. "We shall have no more trouble with her," said Mr. Havisham. And he was right; for that very night she left the Dorincourt Arms and took the train to London, and was seen no more. * * * * * When the Earl left the room after the interview, he went at once to his carriage. "To Court Lodge," he said to Thomas. "To Court Lodge," said Thomas to the coachman as he mounted the box; "an' you may depend on it, things is taking a uniggspected turn." When the carriage stopped at Court Lodge, Cedric was in the drawing-room with his mother. The Earl came in without being announced. He looked an inch or so taller, and a great many years younger. His deep eyes flashed. "Where," he said, "is Lord Fauntleroy?" Mrs. Errol came forward, a flush rising to her cheek. "Is it Lord Fauntleroy?" she asked. "Is it, indeed?" The Earl put out his hand and grasped hers. "Yes," he answered, "it is." Then he put his other hand on Cedric's shoulder. "Fauntleroy," he said in his unceremonious, authoritative way, "ask your mother when she will come to us at the Castle." Fauntleroy flung his arms around his mother's neck. "To live with us!" he cried. "To live with us always!" The Earl looked at Mrs. Errol, and Mrs. Errol looked at the Earl. His lordship was entirely in earnest. He had made up his mind to waste no time in arranging this matter. He had begun to think it would suit him to make friends with his heir's mother. "Are you quite sure you want me?" said Mrs. Errol, with her soft, pretty smile. "Quite sure," he said bluntly. "We have always wanted you, but we were not exactly aware of it. We hope you will come." CHAPTER XV. HIS EIGHTH BIRTHDAY. Ben took his boy and went back to his cattle ranch in California, and he returned under very comfortable circumstances. Just before his going, Mr. Havisham had an interview with him in which the lawyer told him that the Earl of Dorincourt wished to do something for the boy who might have turned out to be Lord Fauntleroy. And so when Ben went away, he went as the prospective master of a ranch which would be almost as good as his own, and might easily become his own in time, as indeed it did in the course of a few years; and Tom, the boy, grew up on it into a fine young man and was devotedly fond of his father; and they were so successful and happy that Ben used to say that Tom made up to him for all the troubles he had ever had. But Dick and Mr. Hobbs--who had actually come over with the others to see that things were properly looked after--did not return for some time. It had been decided at the outset that the Earl would provide for Dick, and would see that he received a solid education; and Mr. Hobbs had decided that as he himself had left a reliable substitute in charge of his store, he could afford to wait to see the festivities which were to celebrate Lord Fauntleroy's eighth birthday. All the tenantry were invited, and there were to be feasting and dancing and games in the park, and bonfires and fireworks in the evening. "Just like the Fourth of July!" said Lord Fauntleroy. "It seems a pity my birthday wasn't on the Fourth, doesn't it? For then we could keep them both together." What a grand day it was when little Lord Fauntleroy's birthday arrived, and how his young lordship enjoyed it! How beautiful the park looked, filled with the thronging people dressed in their gayest and best, and with the flags flying from the tents and the top of the Castle! Nobody had stayed away who could possibly come, because everybody was really glad that little Lord Fauntleroy was to be little Lord Fauntleroy still, and some day was to be the master of everything. Every one wanted to have a look at him, and at his pretty, kind mother, who had made so many friends. What scores and scores of people there were under the trees, and in the tents, and on the lawns! Farmers and farmers' wives in their Sunday suits and bonnets and shawls; children frolicking and chasing about; and old dames in red cloaks gossiping together. At the Castle, there were ladies and gentlemen who had come to see the fun, and to congratulate the Earl, and to meet Mrs. Errol. Lady Lorridaile and Sir Harry were there, and Mr. Havisham, of course. Everybody looked after little Lord Fauntleroy. And the sun shone and the flags fluttered and the games were played and the dances danced, and as the gaieties went on and the joyous afternoon passed, his little lordship was simply radiantly happy. The whole world seemed beautiful to him. There was some one else who was happy too,--an old man, who, though he had been rich and noble all his life, had not often been very honestly happy. Perhaps, indeed, I shall tell you that I think it was because he was rather better than he had been that he was rather happier. He had not, indeed, suddenly become as good as Fauntleroy thought him; but, at least, he had begun to love something, and he had several times found a sort of pleasure in doing the kind things which the innocent, kind little heart of a child had suggested,--and that was a beginning. And every day he had been more pleased with his son's wife. He liked to hear her sweet voice and to see her sweet face; and as she sat in his arm-chair, he used to watch her and listen as he talked to her boy; and he heard loving, gentle words which were new to him, and he began to see why the little fellow who had lived in a New York side street and known grocery-men and made friends with boot-blacks, was still so well-bred and manly a little fellow that he made no one ashamed of him, even when fortune changed him into the heir to an English earldom, living in an English castle. As the old Earl of Dorincourt looked at him that day, moving about the park among the people, talking to those he knew and making his ready little bow when any one greeted him, entertaining his friends Dick and Mr. Hobbs, or standing near his mother listening to their conversation, the old nobleman was very well satisfied with him. And he had never been better satisfied than he was when they went down to the biggest tent, where the more important tenants of the Dorincourt estate were sitting down to the grand collation of the day. They were drinking toasts; and, after they had drunk the health of the Earl with much more enthusiasm than his name had ever been greeted with before, they proposed the health of "Little Lord Fauntleroy." And if there had ever been any doubt at all as to whether his lordship was popular or not, it would have been settled that instant. Such a clamour of voices and such a rattle of glasses and applause! Little Lord Fauntleroy was delighted. He stood and smiled, and made bows, and flushed rosy red with pleasure up to the roots of his bright hair. "Is it because they like me, Dearest?" he said to his mother. "Is it Dearest? I'm so glad!" And then the Earl put his hand on the child's shoulder and said to him: "Fauntleroy, say to them that you thank them for their kindness." Fauntleroy gave a glance up at him and then at his mother. "Must I?" he asked just a trifle shyly, and she smiled, and nodded. And so he made a little step forward, and everybody looked at him--such a beautiful, innocent little fellow he was, too, with his brave, trustful face!--and he spoke as loudly as he could, his childish voice ringing out quite clear and strong. "I'm ever so much obliged to you!" he said, "and--I hope you'll enjoy my birthday--because I've enjoyed it so much--and--I'm very glad I'm going to be an earl--I didn't think at first I should like it, but now I do--and I love this place so, and I think it is beautiful--and--and--and when I am an earl, I am going to try to be as good as my grandfather." And amid the shouts and clamour of applause, he stepped back with a little sigh of relief, and put his hand into the Earl's and stood close to him, smiling and leaning against his side. * * * * * And that would be the very end of my story; but I must add one curious piece of information, which is that Mr. Hobbs became so fascinated with high life and was so reluctant to leave his young friend that he actually sold his corner store in New York, and settled in the English village of Erlesboro, where he opened a shop which was patronized by the Castle and consequently was a great success. And about ten years after, when Dick, who had finished his education and was going to visit his brother in California, asked the good grocer if he did not wish to return to America, he shook his head seriously. "Not to live there," he said. "Not to live there; I want to be near _him_. It's a good enough country for them that's young an stirrin'--but there's faults in it. There's not an auntsister among 'em--nor an earl!" Anmerkungen. (Vor den Anmerkungen bezeichnen _fette_ Zahlen die _Seiten_, _magere_ die _Zeilen_.) ¶2¶, 31/32. _fits of petulance_, Zornesausbrüche. ¶3¶, 13. _he sold his commission._ Die commissions (Patente) für Offiziersstellen bis zum Oberstleutnant waren bis zum Jahre 1871 käuflich, konnten also auch verkauft werden. -- 20. _cheap_, schlicht, einfach. -- 35/36. _this ... quaint little way_, diese drollige Art und Weise. -- 38/39. _quaint little ways_, wunderliche Einfälle. ¶4¶, 3. _hearth-rug_, Teppich vor dem Kamin. Der englische Kamin ist eine offene in einer Wandvertiefung befindliche Feuerstelle; in besseren Häusern ist er mit schönen Fayenceplatten oder Marmorwandungen bekleidet, deren oberen Abschluß ein vorstehendes Kamingesims bildet. Auf diesem werden allerhand Schmuckgegenstände (Vasen, Leuchter, Uhren usw.) aufgestellt, darüber befindet sich häufig ein großer Spiegel. -- 13. _Ristycratic_ = aristocratic. -- 21. _store_ = shop, ist ein Amerikanismus. -- 27. _the topics of the hour_, die Tagesereignisse. -- 28/29. _the Fourth of July._ Am 4. Juli 1776 erfolgte die Unabhängigkeitserklärung (Declaration of Independence [Z. 36]) der dreizehn englischen Kolonien Virginia, Massachusetts, New-Hampshire, Conne(c)ticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia vom Mutterlande. Schon im Jahre vorher hatte der nordamerikanische Freiheitskampf (the Revolution [Z. 32]) mit der Schlacht bei Bunkershill (17. Juni 1775), wo die Engländer nur mit den größten Verlusten siegten, begonnen. ¶5¶, 2. _Washington_, im Distrikt Columbia, ist die Bundeshauptstadt der Vereinigten Staaten und seit 1800 Sitz der Regierung und des Kongresses. Die Stadt erhielt ihren Namen zur Erinnerung an den ersten Präsidenten und Bundesfeldherrn George Washington (1732-1799); vgl. ¶13¶, 16. -- 17. _darlint_ = darling. -- 18. _wantin'_ = wanting; _yez_ = you. -- 22. _coupé_, zweisitziger Wagen; das Wort ist französisch zu sprechen. ¶6¶, 3. _unreal_, unwahrscheinlich. ¶7¶, 14/15. _to break the news_, die Nachricht mitzuteilen. -- 16. _Hello_ = halloo! -- _Mornin'_ = morning. -- 32. _We was_ ist vulgär für we were. ¶8¶, 7. _mercury_ = heat. ¶9¶, 3. _I'll be--jiggered_, etwa: Mich soll der Kuckuck holen. Jigger ist die englische Form für chigoe, chico der Eingeborenen Westindiens, und bedeutet einen Sandfloh, der sich unter dem Nagel des Fußes eingräbt, dort Eier legt und böse Geschwüre hervorruft. -- 18. _you was_; vgl. ¶7¶, 32. ¶10¶, 10. _home like_, traulich, wohnlich. -- 27. _cleared his throat_, räusperte sich. ¶11¶, 28. _fiery-tempered_, hitzig, aufbrausend. ¶13¶, 16. _George Washington_, geb. 1732 in Virginien, ist der Begründer der Unabhängigkeit der Vereinigten Staaten. Am 3. Januar 1777 schlug er als Obergeneral der Kolonialtruppen den englischen General Cornwallis bei Princeton in New Jersey und zwang 1781 die Besatzung von New York zur Übergabe. Er war der erste Bundespräsident (1789), legte 1797 sein Amt nieder und starb 1799. -- 25. _int'rust_ = interest. -- 26. _cur'us_ = curious. -- 36. _'vantage_ = advantage. ¶14¶, 16. _street-cars_, Trambahnwagen. -- 30. _un_ = one. -- 41. _square_ = of an open, fair character, ehrlich. ¶15¶, 3. _start ... out fair_, schön ausstatten. -- 11. _meerschaum_, spr. mèer-shoum. ¶16¶, 3. _Michael_, spr. mi-kl. -- 11. _that you have realised_, ob Sie sich vergegenwärtigt haben. ¶17¶, 25. _greenbacks_ werden die Banknoten der Vereinigten Staaten nach der grünen Farbe ihrer Rückseite genannt. -- 27. _he tore_, er eilte. -- 32. _twinty-foive_ = twenty-five. -- _Where's_ = where is. ¶18¶, 17. _chubby_, rund. -- 32. _realise_; vgl. ¶16¶, 11. -- 37. _his nearest wishes_, seine Herzenswünsche. ¶19¶, 1. _he proceeded to gratify them_, er ging an ihre Befriedigung. -- 17. _cut_ = hurt. -- 30. _struck him dumb_, machte ihn sprachlos. ¶20¶, 10. _ye wasn't goin'_; vgl. ¶7¶, 32; _ye_, vulgäre Form für you. -- 13. _Thanky_ = thank you; _fur_ = for; _wot_ = what. ¶22¶, 2. _I made_ = I gained, ich verdiente. -- _kin_ = can. -- 3. _hankercher_ = handkerchief. -- 7. _he panted_, sagte er keuchend. ¶24¶, 10. _tops'les_ = topsails, Marssegel. -- _mains'les_ = mainsails, Hauptsegel. -- 11. _a nautical flavour_, einen seemännischen Anstrich. ¶25¶, 1. _stags' antlers_, Hirschgeweihe. -- 9. _shabby_, ärmlich. ¶26¶, 15. _shaggy_, buschig. -- 36. _Straight-limbed_, hat er seine geraden Glieder? ¶27¶, 9. _to settle on her_, ihr auszusetzen. -- 15. _ejaculated_, rief aus. -- 22. _snapped_, stieß heraus. -- 29. _blustered my lord_, polterte seine Lordschaft heraus. ¶28¶, 6. _deep-set_, tief liegend. -- 7. _beetling_, hier: buschig. ¶29¶, 7. _had struck up an acquaintance_, hatte sich bekannt gemacht. -- 24. _greenery_, Blätterwerk. -- 31. _Central Park_ ist der größte Park New Yorks und einer der großartigsten der Welt. Er wurde 1857 in Angriff genommen und enthält auf einer Fläche von 342 ha herrliche gärtnerische Anlagen mit großen künstlichen Teichen, einem zoologischen Garten, einem großen Museum und der 1881 vom Millionär Vanderbilt der Stadt geschenkten Nadel der Kleopatra, dem berühmten Obelisken aus Alexandria. ¶30¶, 7. _fairy-book_, Märchenbuch. -- 15. _rich_, schwer. -- _plain_, glatt. ¶31¶, 2. _diamond-paned windows_, Fenster mit Butzenscheiben. -- 18. _sir_ wird häufig dem Hunde gegenüber als drohender Zuruf gebraucht, wenn er etwas Unrechtes getan hat. -- 27. _love-locks_, lange Locke. ¶32¶, 18. _ever so much_, gar so sehr. ¶33¶, 12. _square_; vgl. ¶14¶, 41. -- 21. _professional_, von Beruf. ¶34¶, 1. _plain_, offenbar. -- 8. _worldly_, selbstsüchtig. -- 16. _genial_, munter, heiter. -- 35/36. _was violently sworn at_, bekam einen derben Fluch zu hören. -- 36/37. _when his lordship had an extra twinge of gout_, wenn die Gicht seiner Herrlichkeit einen außergewöhnlichen Schmerz bereitete. ¶35¶, 13. _he panted_; vgl. ¶22¶, 7. -- 14. _I'm all right_, ich kann es ganz gut. ¶36¶, 11. _He kept looking at him_, er blickte ihn fortgesetzt an. -- 28. _wistfully_, nachdenklich. ¶38¶, 34. _close_, innigste, vertrauteste. ¶39¶, 22. _ivy-entwined_, efeuumrankt. ¶40¶, 33. _there's no knowing_ = one can (does) not know. ¶41¶, 16. _rugs_; vgl. ¶4¶, 3. -- 22. _catching his breath a little_, schnell aufatmend. ¶42¶, 4. _ever so much_; vgl. ¶32¶, 18. -- 11. _base-ball_ ist ein amerikanisches Ballspiel für 18 Personen, 9 auf jeder Seite. [Illustration: O II L . R /:\ / : \ / : \ S / : \ / : \ / : \ / : \ III < :P. > I \ : / \ : / \ : / Y \ : / X \ : / \ : / \:/ . H C ] Es wird ein Quadrat abgesteckt, welches _diamond_ (Raute oder carreau) heißt und dessen Seiten je 90 Fuß lang sind. An den Ecken sind die _bases_ (Male), welche _home_ (Ziel) oder _home base_ _[H]_, _first base_ _[I]_, _second base_ _[II]_ und _third base_ _[III]_ heißen. Die Spieler stellen sich um das Quadrat herum auf. Hinter _H_ steht der _catcher_ (Fänger) _[C]_; der _pitcher_ (Werfer) _[P]_ steht auf der Linie _H II_ 50 Fuß von _H_ entfernt; die drei _basemen_ (Malmänner) stehen neben _I_, _II_, _III_. Der _shortstop_ _[S]_ (Aufhalter) steht zwischen _II_ und _III_. Ferner stehen noch 3 _fielders_ d. h. Mitglieder der nicht an der Reihe befindlichen Partei _R_ (right fielder), O (centre fielder), _L_ (left fielder) in einiger Entfernung hinter und auf beiden Seiten von _II_. Der _pitcher_ wirft den Ball über das _home_ dem _catcher_ zu, während ein Mann der Partei, welche in (= am Spiel) oder _at the bat_ (= am Schlagholz) ist, neben dem _home_ steht und den vom _pitcher_ geworfenen Ball, ehe er zum _catcher_ gelangt, mit seinem Schlagholz zu treffen sucht. Schlägt er denselben in die Luft und fängt ihn einer der Gegenpartei auf, bevor er zu Boden fällt, so ist der Schlagende _out_ oder _caught out_ (d. h. er muß den Schlägel einem andern Spieler seiner Partei abtreten). Fällt der geschlagene Ball außerhalb der Linien _H I_ oder _H III_ oder ihrer Verlängerung, z. B. nach _X_ oder _Y_, so ist der Schlag _foul_ (ungültig) und wird nicht gezählt, außer wenn der Ball vor dem Niederfallen aufgefangen wird, worauf der _striker_ oder _batter_ ebenfalls _out_ wird. Wird aber der Ball innerhalb der genannten Linien d. h. in den _diamond_ geschlagen, so muß der Schläger zunächst nach _I_, dann der Reihe nach über _II_ und _III_ nach _H_ zurücklaufen. Gelingt ihm dies, so wird ihm ein _run_ (Lauf) angerechnet. Wird aber der Ball von einem bei _I_ stehenden Spieler aufgefangen, bevor der Schläger dahin gelangt, oder wird dieser während seines Laufes von einem Gegner mit dem Ball berührt, so ist der Schläger _out_. Sind drei Schläger derselben Partei _out_ gemacht, so ist ein _inning_ (Reihe) vorüber und die Gegenpartei kommt an die Reihe. Das Spiel besteht aus 9 _innings_ für jede Partei, und jene Partei hat gewonnen, welche innerhalb ihrer _innings_ die meisten _runs_ gemacht hat. -- 14. _I'm afraid I don't_, ich fürchte, nein. -- 34. _There was a smile lurking_, es spielte ein Lächeln. ¶43¶, 26. _flavour_, einen besonderen Reiz. -- 28. _on that particular morning_, gerade an jenem Morgen. -- 30. _curly-headed_, lockenköpfig. -- 37/38. _he almost fell back a pace_, er prallte fast einen Schritt zurück. ¶44¶, 6. _tenantry_, Pachtleute. -- 25/26. _there was a stir of gratified pride_, es regte sich ein Gefühl befriedigten Stolzes. ¶45¶, 11. _plainly_, offenbar. -- 22. _rent_, Pachtzins. -- 27. _catch up_, sich empor arbeiten. -- 29. _black_, finster. -- 39. _to strengthen his plea_, seine Bitte zu unterstützen. ¶46¶, 5. _low_, schwach, entkräftet. -- 13. _deep-set_; vgl. ¶28¶, 6. -- 35. _he realised_; vgl. ¶16¶, 11. ¶48¶, 7. _Higgins is not to be interfered with_, gegen Higgins soll nicht eingeschritten werden. -- 17/18. _the corners of his ... a little_, es zuckte ein wenig um seine Mundwinkel. -- 25. _rispecferly_ = respectfully. -- 33. _that's the way with_, so geht es mit. ¶49¶, 6. _pleasanter_ = more pleasant (Umgangssprache). 30. _to be brought round_ = to be brought. ¶50¶, 12. _he kept saying_, sagte er immer wieder. -- 25. _dumfounded_, verblüfft (familiär). ¶51¶, 32. _startled_, erschrocken. -- 34. _they scurried away_, sie eilten davon. -- _the whirr_, das Aufstreichen. ¶52¶, 23. _bowled_, dahingerollt. -- 33. _brusquely_, kurz, barsch. ¶53¶, 6. _flash over the ground_, über den Boden hin eilen. -- 12. _dashed up_, sprang hinauf. -- 25. _apple-cheeked_, rotwangig. ¶54¶, 13. _over their ... shopping_, bei ihrem Tee und ihren Einkäufen. ¶55¶, 4. _curtsy_ = courtesy; _a bobbing curtsy_, ein schneller Knix. 22. _mop_, Büschel, Fülle. -- 26. _over again_, vom Scheitel bis zur Sohle, von oben bis unten. ¶56¶, 10. _aisle_ (spr. il), Chor. -- _red-cushioned and curtained_, mit roten Kissen und Vorhängen versehen. -- 13. _across the church_, gegenüber in der Kirche. -- 22. _lyethe_ = lies; _ye_ = the; _bodye_ = body. -- 23. _allsoe_ = also. -- 25. _devoured_, verzehrt, gequält. -- 33. _church service_, ergänze: book. Seit dem Jahre 1589 ist für die englische Staatskirche (Church of England) ein gemeinsames Gebetbuch (The Book of Common Prayer, Common Prayer Book) eingeführt. -- 40. _curtain-shielded_, durch Vorhänge geschützt, verborgen. ¶57¶, 35. _careworn_, von Kummer durchfurcht. ¶58¶, 17. _a trifle taken aback_, ein wenig verblüfft. -- 25. _broke in_, unterbrach, fiel ein. ¶59¶, 23. _arched_, bog. -- 38. _leading-rein_, Leitzügel. ¶60¶, 15. _set_, festgeschlossen. -- 22. _Want_ = do you want? ¶61¶, 3. _he panted_; vgl. ¶22¶, 7. -- 11. _snatch off_, schnell abnehmen. -- 19. _An'_ = and. -- _I'm blessed_, hol' mich der Kuckuck. -- 23. _ses_ = says. -- 25. _trudges_, schlendert. -- 28. _what's up_, was los ist, was es gibt. -- _he whips off_, er zieht schnell ab. ¶62¶, 22. _closely_, treu, sorgsam. -- 38/39. _which had set ... perfection_, welche ihn den Gipfel der Vollkommenheit hatte erreichen lassen. ¶63¶, 3. _brougham_ (sprich: broù-am oder bròom), leichter, geschlossener, zwei- oder vierrädriger Wagen, benannt nach Lord Brougham, einem berühmten Staatsmann und Redner. -- 6. _abruptly_, kurz. -- 39. _dont_ = don't. -- 40. _granfarther_ = grandfather. -- _plees_ = please. -- 41. _afechshnet_ = affectionate. ¶65¶, 18. _dashed off_, dahinjagte. -- 21. _such a dash_, solch' ein schneller Ritt. ¶66¶, 17. _on his mind_, auf dem Herzen. -- 21. _Been ... he_ = Has he been neglecting it? -- 26. _horror-stricken_, von Schrecken erfüllt. ¶69¶, 10. _crazy_, baufällig, elend. -- 21/22. _to talk him over_, über ihn zu reden. ¶70¶, 12. _scrambled up_, krabbelte in die Höhe, erhob sich langsam. ¶71¶, 12. _Sir_ ist ein Titel, welchen die Baronets und Knights (Squires) vor ihrem Vornamen führen; vgl. ¶81¶, 8. 15. _and set Mrs. Dibble's ... madly again_, und der Frau Dibble Ladenglocke immer wie toll klingeln ließ. -- 19. _dimpled peachy cheeks_, Grübchen in den frischen roten Wangen. ¶72¶, 14. _Vandyke collar_ wird ein ausgezackter Spitzenhalskragen genannt, wie man sie auf den Gemälden des niederländischen Malers Van Dyck, welcher 1461 starb, sieht. -- 33. _eszackly_ = exactly. ¶73¶, 13. _course_, Vorgehen, Handlungsweise. -- 30. _in a measure_ = in some measure, gewissermaßen. ¶74¶, 7/8. _how closely those ... to each other_, wie innige Zuneigung die beiden zueinander gefaßt hatten. ¶75¶, 5. _methodic_, steif, ruhig. -- 27. _ever so much_; vgl. ¶32¶, 18. ¶76¶, 22. _clutched_, faßte krampfhaft. -- 29. _chambers_, Schreibstube, Kanzlei. ¶77¶, 4/5. _a low, scoundrelly piece of business_, eine gemeine, schurkige Geschichte. -- 13. _fastidious_, stolz, vornehm. -- 17. _drops of moisture_, Schweißtropfen. ¶79¶, 10. _that read_, auf dem zu lesen war. -- 31. _Want a shine?_ Stiefel wichsen? -- 33. _rest_, Wichsbank. -- 35. _fell to work_, machte sich an die Arbeit. -- 40. _feller_ = fellow. ¶80¶, 7. _boss_ (o = a in all), Herr, Meister, ist ein Amerikanismus. -- _yerself_ = yourself (vulgär). -- 11. _lifetime acquaintances_, Freunde von jeher. -- 17. _ha'_ = have (vulgär). -- 28. _tilted_, gelehnt. -- 30. _he made a jerk at them with the hand_, deutete er mit der Hand auf sie. -- 40. _ginger ale_ ist ein moussierendes Getränk wie gingerbeer (Ingwerbier), welches aus gärendem Ingwer, cream-of-tartar (Schaum einer kochenden Weinsteinlösung) und Zucker mit Hefe und Wasser bereitet wird. ¶81¶, 1. _Here's to him!_ Dies auf sein Wohl! -- 2. _markises_ = marquesses. -- _dooks_ = dukes. -- 8. _the nobility and gentry_. Nobility ist der Geburtsadel (Duke, Marquess, Earl, Viscount (spr. is = i), Baron). Die Träger dieser Adelstitel sind Lords, ihre Frauen Ladies (Anrede Mylord oder your Lordship, Mylady). Der nobility steht gegenüber die _gentry_ (niederer Adel, auch Landadel vgl. ¶94¶, 10) mit den 2 Klassen der Baronets und Knights (Squires). Man rechnet jedoch zur gentry im weiteren Sinne alle gentlemen, d. h. alle Gebildeten und in vornehmer Lebensstellung Befindlichen. -- 9. _realised_ = known. -- 33. _The Tower of London_, nach welchem die Erzählung von Ainsworth betitelt ist, ist eine Gruppe von Gebäuden am nördlichen Ufer der Themse. Im Innern desselben erhebt sich der von Wilhelm dem Eroberer erbaute White Tower, welcher in früheren Zeiten als Staatsgefängnis benutzt wurde. Bis ins 14. Jahrhundert war die Burg zuweilen auch der Sitz des königlichen Hofes. -- 34. _Ainsworth_, William Harrison. geb. 1805 in Manchester, gestorben 1882, ist der erste Vertreter der Räuber- und Schauerromane in der englischen Literatur. Seine zahlreichen Romane (u. a. Crichton, Jack Sheppard, Old St. Paul's) wurden viel gelesen. -- 38. _Bloody Mary_ wurde die Königin Maria I. von England (1553-1558) wegen ihrer blutigen und grausamen Verfolgung der Protestanten genannt. ¶82¶, 3. _ain't_ = is not (vulgär). -- 8. _this 'ere un_ = this one (vulgär). -- _that's bossin'_, welche leitet, ist ein Amerikanismus; vgl. ¶80¶, 7. -- 33. _gal_ = girl (vulgär). -- 34. _'n'_ = and. -- 35/36. _to set up a cattle ranch_, um einen Viehhandel zu beginnen; vgl. ¶98¶, 2. -- 37. _'ve_ = have. ¶83¶, 1. _afore_ = before. -- 4/5. _That's ... from_, von ihm und keinem andern kommt er (der Brief). -- 14. _curous_ = curious. -- 26. _preaps_ = perhaps. -- 27. _thort_ = thought. -- 28. _right away_, sofort. -- _intrusted_ = interested. -- 39/40. _There is no knowing_, das kann man nicht wissen. -- 42. _a put-up job_, eine abgekartete Geschichte (familiär). -- _'ristycrats_; vgl. ¶4¶, 13. ¶85¶, 5. _exclaimed_, äußerten sich laut. -- 13. _holding on to his knee_, die Hände um die Kniee geschlungen. -- 15. _sober_, besonnen, ruhig. -- 37. _jumped_, aufsprang. ¶86¶, 2/3. _was all alight with eagerness_, leuchtete ganz vor Spannung. -- 9. _by George_ ist eine in der englischen aristokratischen Gesellschaft deshalb gebrauchte Beteuerungsformel, weil der heilige Ritter Georg der Patron des höchsten englischen Ordens, des von Eduard III. 1350 gestifteten Hosenbandordens (Order of the Garter), ist. -- 24. _drawing his breath hard_, mühsam atmend. -- 33. _how deep a hold upon him ... had taken_, wie tief ... Wurzel gefaßt hatten. ¶87¶, 11. _walks_, Kreise, Klassen. -- 35. _morning room_, Boudoir. -- 38. _hisself_ = himself. -- _ma'am_ = madam. ¶88¶, 8. _uplifted eyes_, auf ihn gerichteten Augen. ¶89¶, 9. _sardonically_, spöttisch. -- 39. _glaring down at her_, sie mit einem durchbohrenden Blick ansehend. ¶90¶, 16. _as it was to be_ = as it was new to him to be etc. -- 21/22. _he found her a little soothing_, er fand in ihr einigen Trost. -- 37. _almost stricken dumb_, fast sprachlos vor Erstaunen. ¶91¶, 9. _until his head was in a whirl_, bis ihm ganz wirr im Kopfe war. -- 17. _Seem's like_ = it seems as if. -- _orter_ = ought to. ¶92¶, 1. _the Right Honourable_, ist eine Bezeichnung, die den Earls, Viscounts und Barons, sowie ihren Frauen zukommt; ferner den Mitgliedern des Privy Council (des Geheimen Staatsrates) d. h. den Ministern in und außer Dienst, Erzbischöfen u. a. -- 14. _better'n_ = better than. -- 25. _aint_; vgl. ¶82¶, 3. -- 27. _You may eat me_, ich lasse mich hängen. -- 28. _anywheres_ = any where. -- _so'd_ = so would. -- _Jest ax_ = just ask. -- 31. _knowed_ = knew. -- 32. _they done it_ = they have done it. -- 33. _'Merican_ = American. -- 34. _She done_ = she has done. -- 35. _I'll tell yer wot come to me_, ich will Ihnen sagen, was mir eingefallen ist. -- 36. _minnit_ = minute. -- _pictur_ = picture. -- _o' them papers_ = of those papers. ¶93¶, 14. _feller_ = fellow. -- _give_ = gave. -- 16. _knows_ = know. -- 21. _in care of_, unter der Obhut. -- 22. _he struggled into his coat_, er schlüpfte eilig in seinen Rock. -- 27. _spare_, frei, übrig. -- 36. _a big thing_, eine wichtige Sache. ¶94¶, 10. _Esq._ = Esquire entspricht heutzutage in England dem deutschen Hochwohlgeboren und wird regelmäßig auf Adressen dem Namen eines gentleman (vgl. ¶81¶, 8) nachgesetzt, wenn nicht bei demselben schon M(iste)r oder ein Titel (Doctor, Rev. = Reverend u. a.) steht. ¶95¶, 12. _to cable_, (durch das unterseeische Kabel) telegraphieren. -- 21. _sharp faced_, mit pfiffigem Gesichte. -- 37. _I can swear to her_, ich kann beschwören, daß sie es ist. ¶96¶, 4. _He is done with you_, er ist mit dir fertig. -- 25. _fairly_ = completely. -- 34. _dashed past him_, stürzte an ihm vorbei. ¶97¶, 6. _is_ = are. -- _a uniggspected_ = an unexpected. ¶98¶, 2. _ranch_ (span. rancho, Gesellschaft, Kameradschaft) ist in Amerika gebraucht für: 1) leicht gebaute Hütte der Viehhirten, 2) Viehwirtschaft, wie hier. -- 8. _prospective_, voraussichtlich, zukünftig. -- 12/13. _was devotedly fond of_, hing mit ganzem Herzen an. -- 14. _made up to him_, entschädigte ihn. ¶99¶, 19. _was simply radiantly happy_, strahlte einfach vor Glück. ¶100¶, 20. _settled_, entschieden. -- 23. _flushed rosy red_, wurde dunkelrot. ¶101¶, 23. _that's_ = that are. -- _stirrin'_, rührig. -- 25. _auntsister_ = ancestor. Verzeichnis zu den sachlichen Anmerkungen. (Die Zahlen bezeichnen die Seiten und Zeilen im Texte, zu denen eine Anmerkung im Anhang gegeben ist.) Ainsworth 81,34 base-ball 42,11 Bloody-Mary 81,38 brougham 63,3 Central Park 29,31 church-service 56,33 commission 3,13 Esquire 94,10 Fourth of July 4,28 gentry 81,8 George, by 86,9 ginger ale 80,40 greenbacks 17,25 hearth 4,3 jiggered 9,3 nobility 81,8 ranch 98,2 Right Honourable 92,1 sir, Sir 31,18; 71,12 Tower (the) of London 81,33 Vandyke collar 72,14 Washington (Stadt) 5,2 Washington, George 13,16 Die Französische und Englische Schulbibliothek erscheint seit dem 1. Oktober 1883; sie ist eine Sammlung der besten französischen und englischen Schriftsteller vom 17. bezw. 16. Jahrhundert an bis in die neueste Zeit. Bezüglich der äußeren Ausstattung sei folgendes bemerkt: a) Die _Schrift_ entspricht _allen von medizinisch-pädagogischen Vereinen gestellten Anforderungen_; sie ist groß, scharf und deutlich lesbar wegen des richtigen Verhältnisses zwischen Höhe der großen und kleinen Buchstaben unter sich und zwischen Buchstabenhöhe und Entfernung der einzelnen Zeilen. _Selbst schwache Augen dürften lange Zeit ohne Ermüdung diese Schrift lesen können._ b) Das _Papier_ ist ein eigens hierzu angefertigter, kräftiger, nicht durchscheinender, guter Stoff von gelblicher Färbung, _die sehr wohltuend auf das Auge des Schülers wirkt_. c) Der _Einband ist biegsam und dauerhaft_. Prospekt. Die »¶Französische und Englische Schulbibliothek¶«, aufgebaut auf den Thesen der Direktoren-Versammlung in der Provinz Hannover (1882), ist den Anforderungen _der Lehrpläne und Lehraufgaben für die höheren Schulen vom Jahre 1901 genau angepaßt_. Sie bringt nicht nur die wichtigeren Schriftwerke der letzten drei bezw. vier Jahrhunderte und führt somit in die Literatur, Kultur- und Volkskunde der beiden großen Kulturvölker ein (Lehrpläne und Lehraufgaben von 1901, S. 37 u. 38), sondern sie berücksichtigt auch die _technisch-wissenschaftliche Lektüre_ und wird so _den weitgehendsten Forderungen der Gymnasien und Realanstalten_ gerecht. Folgende Grundsätze sind für die Gestaltung derselben maßgebend. 1. _Die Schulbibliothek_ bringt _Prosa_ und _Poesie_. Die _Prosa_bände enthalten den Lesestoff für je ein _Halbjahr_. Mit Ausnahme _der Lebensbeschreibungen_ berühmter Männer, welche, _ohne Beeinträchtigung des Gesamtbildes_, zweckentsprechend gekürzt erscheinen, _werden nur Teile eines Ganzen veröffentlicht, die, in sich aber eine Art Ganzes bildend_, eine hinreichende Bekanntschaft mit den Geisteswerken und deren Verfassern ermöglichen. 2. Vor _jedem_ Bande erscheint eine dem Gesichtskreis des Schülers entsprechende _Lebensbeschreibung_ des Schriftstellers sowie eine kurze Zusammenstellung _alles dessen, was zu seinem vollen Verständnis zu wissen nötig scheint_. Den _poetischen_ Bänden gehen außerdem eine _metrische_ und eine _sprachliche_ Einleitung voran, die sich streng an das betreffende Stück anlehnen. 3. Der _Text_ ist bei den _Prosaikern_ der Übersichtlichkeit halber in kürzere Kapitel geteilt. 4. Der _Rechtschreibung_ in den _französischen_ Bänden liegt die Ausgabe des _Dictionnaire de l'Académie_ von _1877_ zugrunde. 5. Die _Anmerkungen_ sind _deutsch_; sie stehen von Band _100_ an und in den neuen Auflagen früher erschienener Bände _hinter_ dem Texte. Bei Bänden, von denen auch oder nur _einsprachige Ausgaben_ (französisch bezw. englisch) erschienen sind, ist dies im Verzeichnis besonders angegeben. 6. Die sachliche _Erklärung_ bringt das _Notwendige_ ohne _gelehrtes_ Beiwerk. _Sprachliche Anmerkungen_ finden sich da, wo eine Eigenheit in der Ausdrucksweise des Schriftstellers vorliegt; die _Grammatik_ wird nur ganz _ausnahmsweise_ behandelt, wenn sich die Schwierigkeit einer Stelle durch die nicht leicht bemerkbare Unterordnung unter eine grammatische Regel heben läßt. Auf eine bestimmte Grammatik ist nicht hingewiesen. Die _Synonymik_ ist _nicht_ berücksichtigt. _Soll dieselbe ihren Zweck als formales Bildungsmittel nicht verfehlen, so muß da, wo das Verständnis des Textes und die Wahl des richtigen Ausdrucks selbst eine synonymische Aufklärung erheischen, diese gemeinschaftlich von den Schülern gesucht und unter der unmittelbaren Einwirkung des Lehrers gefunden werden._ Aus _gleichen_ Gründen ist der _Etymologie kein Platz_ eingeräumt. 7. _Übersetzungen_, die nur der _Trägheit_ des Schülers Vorschub leisten, sind ausgeschlossen. -- Die Herausgabe von _Sonderwörterbüchern_ zu einzelnen Bänden hat sich als eine _zwingende Notwendigkeit_ erwiesen; denn abgesehen davon, daß die Konkurrenzunternehmungen derartige Wörterbücher veröffentlichen, welche die Schüler _auf jeden Fall_ sich zu verschaffen wissen, sind auch an die Schriftleitung seitens zahlreicher Amtsgenossen Zuschriften gelangt, denen zufolge die namentlich für die _mittleren_ Klassen bestimmten Ausgaben nur _mit einem Wörterbuche_ in Gebrauch genommen werden können, weil _erst in den oberen Klassen_ auf die Anschaffung eines Schulwörterbuches _gedrungen_ wird. Da _jedoch die Wörterbücher den betreffenden Bänden nicht beigegeben sind, sondern erst auf Verlangen nachgeliefert werden, so bedarf es nur eines Antrages seitens der Schule, wenn das Sonderwörterbuch nicht geliefert werden soll_. 8. _Aussprachebezeichnungen_ werden hinzugefügt, wo die Schulwörterbücher den Schüler im Stiche lassen; _sie fehlen_ bei den _seltener_ vorkommenden _ausländischen Eigennamen_, weil die _gebildeten Engländer und Franzosen_ bemüht sind, _dieselben so auszusprechen, wie sie im Lande selbst ausgesprochen werden_. 9. Den _geschichtlichen_ Stoffen sind _Abbildungen_, _Karten_ und _Pläne_ beigegeben; _Verzeichnisse_ zu den Anmerkungen erleichtern das Zurechtfinden in einzelnen Bänden. -- Verlag der Rengerschen Buchhandlung in Leipzig. Im Verlage der Rengerschen Buchhandlung Gebhardt & Wilisch in Leipzig sind erschienen oder im Erscheinen begriffen: Buurmans Kurze Repetitorien für das Einjährig-Freiwilligen-Examen nebst Muster-Prüfungen. Buurmans Repetitorien behandeln in 10 Bändchen alle Prüfungsgegenstände. 1. Bändchen: Deutsch (erschienen) 2. " Lateinisch 3. " Griechisch 4. " Französisch (erschienen) 5. " Englisch " 6. " Geschichte " 7. " Geographie " 8. " Mathematik " 9. " Physik (erscheint im Mai 1904) Anhang: Prüfungsbestimmungen. Preis jedes Bändchens in Leinw. geb. 1 Mk. 50. Diese Bändchen eignen sich nicht bloß für die Stufe des Einjährigen-Examens, sondern sind auch für die höheren Prüfungen zweckmäßig zu benutzen, um sich eine bedeutende Präsenz des Wissens anzueignen. Jedes Bändchen ist einzeln im Buchhandel zu beziehen. Zum Gebrauch in höheren Schulen ist erschienen: Monumentalplan von Berlin. Herausgeg. v. R. Gebhardt. Entworfen u. gezeichnet v. J. Aescher. Größe der Zeichnung 130x170 cm. Preis des in 5 Farben gedruckten Planes: a) roh -- 4 Blätter in Mappe 8 Mk. b) auf Leinwand aufgezogen mit Ösen in Mappe 14 Mk. c) " Ringen und Stäben 15 Mk. Monumentalplan von Berlin. Auf 32x38 cm Bildfläche verkleinerte Ausgabe des Wandplanes von Berlin, in 5 Farben gedruckt, mit alphabetischem Namensverzeichnis. Mk. 0.60. Illustrated Map of London. Entworfen und herausgegeben von Ludwig E. Rolfs. Größe der Zeichnung 132x172 cm. Preis des in fünf Farben kolorierten Planes: a) roh -- 9 Blätter in Mappe 16 Mk. b) auf Leinwand aufgezogen mit Ösen in Mappe 22 Mk. c) " Ringen und Stäben 24 Mk. Gleichzeitig ist eine für die Hand des Schülers bestimmte, auf 32x42 cm verkleinerte Ausgabe dieses Planes in mehrfachem Farbendruck ausgeführt erschienen, deren Einzelpreis einschl. eines alphabet. Namensverzeichnisses 60 Pf. beträgt. Plan Pittoresque de la Ville de Paris. Entworfen und herausgegeben von Ludwig E. Rolfs. Größe der Zeichnung 132x176 cm. Preis des in fünf Farben kolorierten Planes: a) roh -- 6 Blätter in Mappe 16 Mk. b) auf Leinwand aufgezogen mit Ösen in Mappe 22 Mk. c) " Ringen und Stäben 24 Mk. Hiervon ist ebenfalls eine auf 32 x 42 cm verkleinerte, für den Gebrauch der Schüler bestimmte und in mehreren Farben gedruckte Ausgabe erschienen unter dem Titel: Plan monumental de la Ville de Paris. In Umschlag mit alphabet. Namensverzeichnis. Preis 60 Pf. Kommentar hierzu Preis brosch. 3 Mk. 70 Pf. In Ganzleinwand gebunden 4 Mk. Französische und Englische Schulbibliothek herausgegeben von Dr. Otto E. A. Dickmann, Direktor der Oberrealschule der Stadt Köln. Nach den Autoren alphabetisch geordnetes Verzeichnis der bisher erschienenen Bände. Reihe A: Prosa -- Reihe B: Poesie -- Reihe C: für Mädchenschulen. T. A.: Sammlung Französischer und Englischer Text-Ausgaben zum Schulgebrauch. Zu den mit * bezeichneten Bänden ist ein Sonderwörterbuch erschienen. Einsprachige Ausgaben (französisch bezw. englisch) siehe unter Barrau -- Conteurs -- Corneille, Le Cid -- Daudet, Tartarin -- English School Life -- Goerlich -- Monod -- Shakespeare, Coriolanus. Reihe. Band A 49. Addison, Sir Roger de Coverley. [Aus: The 0.90. Spectator.] (Professor Dr. H. Fehse.) Mit 1 Karte. T.A. *10. Aladdin or The Wonderful Lamp. 0.60. A 90. Arago, Histoire de ma Jeunesse. (Prof. Dr. O. 1.20. Klein.) A *131. Ascensions -- Voyages aériens -- Évasions. 1.30. (Prof. Dr. Wershoven.) B 22. Augier et Sandeau, Le Gendre de M. Poirier. 1.60. (Prof. Dr. J. Sarrazin.) 4. Aufl. A *72. Aymeric, Dr. J., De Leipsic à Constantinople. 1.10. Journal de route. A 20. Barante, Jeanne Darc. (Dir. Prof. Dr. K. 1.40. Mühlefeld.) 3. Aufl. Mit 2 Kärtchen und 2 Plänen. A 47. Barrau, Scènes de la Révolution française. 1.50. (Prof. Dr. B. Lengnick.) Mit 2 Plänen und 1 Karte. 4. Aufl. Dasselbe. Mit französischen Anmerkungen 1.50. C 2. Bersier, Mme, Les Myrtilles. Stufe II. (M. 0.70. Mühry.) A 142. Boissonnas, Une famille pendant la guerre 1.30. 1870/71. (Dr. Banner.) A 141. The British Isles. (Dir. Prof. J. Leitritz.) 20 3.--. Abbild. u. 1 Karte. A *97. Bruno, Francinet. (Prof. Dr. J. Sarrazin.) 2. 1.--. Aufl. A *115. Bruno, Le Tour de la France. (Dir. Prof. 1.20. Rolfs.) Mit 1 Karte. A *77. Burnett, Little Lord Fauntleroy. (Prof. G. 1.10. Wolpert.) 7. Aufl. B 10. Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. [Ausw.] 1.40. (Prof. Dr. R. Werner.) C *25. Candy, Emily J., Talk about Engl. Life or First 1.30. Days in England. Stufe IV. C 14. Carraud, Mme J., Contes. Stufe II. (Dr. Cl. 0.80. Klöpper.) A *132. Chambers's English History. Mit 1 Karte. 1.30. (Oberl. A. v. Roden.) B 26. Chants d'Écoles. (Dir. Prof. Ludw. E. Rolfs u. 1.--. Barthel Müller.) A *109. Chaucer Stories. (Dr. Cl. Klöpper.) 1.10. C 32. Christie's Old Organ or Home, Sweet Home by 0.80. Mrs. Walton. -- Daddy Darwins Dovecot by Mrs. Ewing. (A. Bückmann). C 4. Colomb, La Fille de Carilès. Stufe IV. (M. 0.90. Mühry.) 7. Aufl. A *122. Contes d'Andersen, trad. par D. Soldi. (Dir. 1.--. Prof. Dr. E. Penner.) C 40. Contes, Trois, pour les petites filles. Stufe 0.70. I. (Dr. Fr. Lotsch.) A *69. Conteurs modernes. [Jules Simon, Theuriet, 1.--. Révillon, Moret, Richebourg.] (Prof. Dr. J. Sarrazin.) 3. Aufl. Dasselbe. Mit französischen Anmerkungen 1.--. C 11. Coolidge, What Katy did at School. Stufe IV. 1.--. (Dir. A. Seedorf.) C 38. Coolidge, What Katy did. Stufe IV. (E. 0.90. Merhaut.) A *67. Coppée, Ausgew. Erzählungen. (Prof. Dr. A. 1.--. Gundlach.) 3. Aufl. C 20. Corbet-Seymour, Only a Shilling. Stufe II. (Dr. 0.70. Cl. Klöpper.) B 2. Corneille, Le Cid. (Prof. Dr. W. Mangold.) 3. 1.30. Aufl. Dasselbe. Mit französischen Anmerkungen 1.30. B 17. Corneille, Cinna. (Professor Dr. P. Schmid.) 1.--. B 21. Corneille, Horace. (Professor Dr. P. Schmid.) 1.10. A 113. Cornish, Life of Oliver Cromwell. [1 Karte.] 1.50. (Prof. Dr. Deutschbein.) C 26. Dalgleish, Life of Queen Victoria. Stufe IV. 1.30. (Dr. Cl. Klöpper.) A *27. Daudet, Ausgew. Erzählungen. (Dir. Prof. Dr. E. 1.10. Gropp.) 7. Aufl. A *56. Daudet, Tartarin de Tarascon. (Dr. J. Aymeric.) 1.20. 6. Aufl. Dasselbe. Mit französischen Anmerkungen 1.20. A *94. Daudet, Le Petit Chose. (Dr. J. Aymeric.) 3. 1.30. Aufl. A 135. Daudet, Lettres de mon moulin. (Oberl. Dr. 1.30. Hertel.) A *111. Day, The History of Little Jack.--The History 1.20. of Sandford and Merton. (Direktor Dr. Hugo Gruber.) A *75. Defoe, Robinson Crusoe. (Oberlehrer Dr. K. 1.--. Foth.) B 8. Delavigne, Louis XI. (Direktor Ph. Plattner.) 1.80. A *117. Deschaumes, Journal d'un Lycéen de 14 ans. (Dr. 1.80. R. Kron.) Mit 3 Skizzen, 1 Plan und 1 Karte. A *123. Desèze, Défense de Louis XVI. (Oberl. Dr. O. 1.10. Klein.) A *45. Dhombres et Monod, Biographies historiques. 1.--. (Oberlehrer H. Bretschneider.) 7. Aufl. A 88. Dickens, Sketches. (Dir. Prof. Dr. E. Penner.) 1.--. Mit 1 Plan. A 93. Dickens, The Cricket on the Hearth. (Oberl. B. 1.20. Röttgers.) A *95. Dickens, David Copperfield's Schooldays. (Prof. 1.20. Dr. H. Bahrs.) 3. Aufl. A 98. Dickens, A Christmas Carol. (Oberl. B. 1.10. Röttgers.) A *134. Dickmann u. Heuschen, Französisches Lesebuch. 1.80. A 2. Duruy, Histoire de France de 1560/1643. (Dir. 1.40. Prof. Dr. A. G. Meyer.) 4. Aufl. Mit 3 Kartenskizzen u. 1 Spezialkarte. A *63. Duruy, Biographies d'hommes célèbres des temps 1.20. anciens et modernes. (Oberlehrer Karl Penner.) Mit 2 Abbildungen. 3. Aufl. A *106. Duruy, Règne de Louis XIV de 1661--1715. 2. 1.80. Aufl. (Professor Dr. H. Müller.) Mit 1 Karte. A *116. Duruy, Règne de Louis XVI et la Révolution 2.--. française. (Prof. Dr. H. Müller.) Mit 1 Karte und 1 Plan. C 36. Edgeworth, Lacy Lawrence. (Oberl. Dr. Fr. 1.10. Lotsch). T.A. *9. Edgeworth, Miss, Popular Tales. 0.50. C 41. Eliot, Tom and Maggie. Stufe IV. (E. Merhaut.) A *112. English History. (Prof. Dr. Wershoven.) [4 1.40. Karten, 3 Pläne.] 2. Aufl. A 119. English Letters. (Prof. Dr. Ernst Regel.) 1.10. A *133. English School Life. (Prof. Dr. F. J. 1.30. Wershoven.) Dasselbe. Mit englischen Anmerkungen 1.30. A *43. Erckmann-Chatrian, Histoire d'un Conscrit de 1.40. 1813. [Im Auszuge]. (Dir. Prof. Dr. G. Strien.) 6. Aufl. Mit 1 Karte. A *51. Erckmann-Chatrian, Waterloo. [Im Auszuge]. (Dr. 1.40. Jos. Aymeric.) 4. Aufl. Mit 1 Karte. T.A. *5. Erzählungen, Ausgewählte (Courier, Toepffer, 0.60. Dumas, Mérimée, Souvestre). C 3. Erzählungen, Ausgew. (Mlle Cornaz, Mme Colomb, 0.80. Paul de Musset) 1903. C 19. Erzählungen, Ausgew. Aus: Voyage en France par 0.70. deux soeurs par C. Juranville et P. Berger. Stufe I. (Dr. Cl. Klöpper.). C 34. Erzählungen aus dem französischen Schulleben. 1.20. Stufe III u. IV. (Prof. Dr. F. J. Wershoven.) A 102. Erzählungen, Franz. [Souvestre, 1.--. Erckm.-Chatrian, Reybaud]. (Prof. Wolpert.) C 31. Ev.-Green, The Secret of the Old House. Stufe 1.20. III. (E. Taubenspeck.) T.A. *15. Fénelon, Aventures de Télémaque. 0.70. A 103. Figuier, Scènes et Tableaux de la Nature. (Dir. 1.30. Prof. L. E. Rolfs.) C 28. Fleuriot, Plus tard ou le jeune chef de 1.10. famille. Stufe III. (Dr. Meyer.) T.A. *4. Florian, Guillaume Tell. 0.50. A 89. Forbes, My Experiences of the War between 1.30. France and Germany. (Dr. Wilh. Heymann.) C 30. Françaises illustres. Stufe III u. IV. (Prof. 1.20. Dr. F. J. Wershoven.) A *83. La France, Anthologie géographique. (Dir. Prof. 2.20. J. Leitritz.) 2. Aufl. Mit 24 Abbildungen u. 1 Karte von Frankreich. A 52. Franklin, The Life of Franklin. (Dir. F. 1.30. Wüllenweber.) 2. Aufl. Mit 1 Karte. A 46. Frédéric le Gr., Correspond. avec Voltaire. 1.30. (Prof. Dr. Hoffmann.) A *32. Gardiner, Historical Biographies. (Prof. G. 1.10. Wolpert.) 5. Aufl. B 11. Gedichte. Auswahl englischer Gedichte. (Dir. 2.20. Prof. Dr. E. Gropp und Dir. Prof. Dr. E. Hausknecht.) 10. Aufl. 20 Bogen 8o. Dazu »Kommentar« von E. Gropp u. E. Hausknecht. 3.20. 2 Teile. Geb. B 1. Gedichte. Auswahl französ. Gedichte (Dir. Prof. 2.--. Dr. E. Gropp und Dir. Prof. Dr. E. Hausknecht.) 17 Bgn. 8o. 65.-72. Tausend. Dazu »Kommentar« v. E. Gropp u. E. Hausknecht. 2.20. 3. Aufl. Geb. A 124. Géographie de la France. (Dir. Prof. Dr. Ew. 1.10. Goerlich.) Ausgabe mit nur französischen Anmerkungen. A 129. Geography of the British Empire. (Dir. Prof. 1.10. Dr. Ew. Goerlich.) Ausgabe mit nur englischen Anmerkungen. A 17. Gibbon, History of the 1. and 4. Crusades. 1.40. (Dir. Dr. F. Hummel.) Mit 2 Plänen. C 16. Girardin, Récits de la vie réelle. Stufe IV. 0.80. (Rektor K. Zwerg.) B 30. Gobineau, Alexandre. (Prof. Dr. Völcker.) 1.10. T.A. *7. Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield. 0.70. A *96. Grimm Frères, Contes choisis. [Ausw.] (Dir. 1.--. Prof. L. E. Rolfs.) A *108. Grimm's and Hauff's Fairy Tales. (Dir. Prof. 1.10. Dr. E. Penner.) A *140. Gros, Récits d'Aventures et Expéditions au Pôle 1.10. Nord. (Oberlehrer Dr. L. Hasberg.) Mit 1 Karte. A 28. Guizot, Histoire de la Révolution d'Angleterre 1.50. de 1641-1649. (Prof. Dr. A. Althaus.) Mit 1 Karte. A 29. Guizot, Histoire de la Civilisation. [Auswahl.] 1.40. (Prof. Dr. A. Kressner.) 3. Aufl. A 50. Guizot, Washington. (Dr. Cl. Klöpper.) Mit 1 1.20. Karte. A *84. Halévy, L'Invasion. (Prof. Dr. J. Sarrazin.) M. 1.60. 3 Plänen. 3. Aufl. C 21. Hanson, Stories of King Arthur. Stufe III. (Dr. 1.--. Cl. Klöpper.) A *126. Henty, When London Burned. (Professor G. 1.50. Wolpert.) A *143. Henty, Yarns on the beach, a bundle of tales. 1.10. [Do your duty -- Surly Joe -- A Fish-Wife's Dream]. (Oberl. Dr. Eule.) A 81. d'Hérisson, Journal d'un Officier d'ordonnance. 1.50. (Dr. U. Cosack.) Mit 2 Plänen. 3. Aufl. A 139. d'Hérisson, Journal d'un Interprète en Chine. 1.30. (Prof. Dr. A. Krause.) C 29. Hope, Asc. R., Stories of Engl. Girlhood. 1.10. (Prof. Dr. J. Klapperich.) A *6. Hume, The Reign of Queen Elizabeth. (Dir. Prof. 1.30. Dr. A. Fritzsche.) 2. Aufl. Mit 1 Karte. A 15. Hume, History of Charles I. and of the 1.40. Commonwealth. (Prof. Dr. F. J. Wershoven.) Mit 1 Karte. A 22. Hume, The Foundation of English Liberty. (Prof. 1.50. Bohne.) [2 Karten.] A 4. Irving, Christmas. (Oberl. Dr. G. Tanger.) 0.90. A *38. Irving, Tales of the Alhambra. (Hofr. Dir. Dr. 1.10. Wernekke.) 3. Aufl. A 138. Irving, Bracebridge Hall or the Humorists. 1.20. (Prof. Dr. Wolpert). C 8. King Lear. -- Grace Darling by Eva Hope. -- 0.80. Some eminent Women of our times by Fawcett. -- Florence Nightingale. -- Elizabeth Fry. Stufe IV. (B. Mühry.) A 18. Lamartine, Captivité, Procès et Mort de Louis 1.30. XVI etc. (Prof. Dr. B. Lengnick.) 3. Aufl. Mit 1 Abbildung u. 2 Plänen. T.A. *2. Lamartine, Nelson. 0.50. T.A. *3. Lamartine, Christophe Colomb. 0.60. T.A. *12. Lamartine, Gutenberg et Jacquard. 0.60. A *42. Lamé-Fleury, Histoire de la Découverte de 1.20. l'Amérique. (Prof. Dr. M. Schmidt.) 7. Aufl. A *73. Lamé-Fleury, Histoire de France de 406-1328. 1.--. (Oberlehrer Dr. J. Hengesbach.) 3. Aufl. A *107. Lamé-Fleury, Histoire de France de 1328-1862. 1.40. (Oberlehrer Dr. J. Hengesbach.) Mit 1 Karte. 3. Aufl. A *12. Lanfrey, Campagne de 1806-1807. (Professor Dr. 1.50. Otto Klein.) 8. Aufl. Mit 2 Karten und 4 Plänen. A *30. Lanfrey, Campagne de 1809. (Prof. Dr. Otto 1.50. Klein.) 3. Aufl. Mit 3 Plänen. A *30. Lanfrey, Campagne de 1809. (Prof. Dr. Otto 1.50. Klein.) 3. Aufl. Mit 3 Plänen. A *114. Lectures historiques. (Prof. Dr. F. J. 1.30. Wershoven.) 2. Aufl. C 1. Le Petit Paresseux. 1er Voyage du Petit Louis 0.70. d'après Mme de Witt née Guizot. Histoire d'une Petite Fille Heureuse par Mme Bersier. Stufe I. (M. Mühry.) C 5. Little Susy's Little Servants by Prentiss. -- 0.80. Story told etc. by Bakewell. -- The True History etc. by Brunefille. -- Topo by Brunefille Stufe I. (B. Mühry.) A 91. Littré, Comment j'ai fait mon dictionnaire. 0.80. Causerie. (Prof. Dr. Imelmann.) C 35. Livre de Lecture pour les enfants de 10-12 ans. 0.70. Stufe!I. (Oberlehrer Dr. Fr. Lotsch.) A *100. London and its Environs. (Direktor Professor J. 2.50. Leitritz.) Mit 23 Abbildungen und 2 Plänen. A 7. Macaulay, State of England in 1685. (Professor 1.40. Dr. A. Kressner.) 2. Aufl. Mit 1 Plan. A 16. Macaulay, Lord Clive. (Prof. Dr. A. Kressner.) 1.20. 3. Aufl. [Karte.] A 21. Macaulay, Warren Hastings. (Prof. Dr. 1.40. Kressner.) 2. Aufl. [Karte.] A 24. Macaulay, The Duke of Monmouth. 1.30. (Kreisschulinsp. Dr. O. Werner.) 2. Aufl. Mit 1 Karte. A 137. Macaulay, James II. Descent on Ireland. (Prof. 1.30. Dr. Otto Hallbauer.) C 23. Macé, La France avant les Francs. Stufe IV. 0.80. (Rektor K. Zwerg.) C 15. de Maistre, La jeune Sibérienne. Stufe IV. 1.--. (Prof. Dr. J. Sarrazin.) C 10. Malot, H., Romain Kalbris. Stufe IV. (M. 1.10. Mühry.) Mit 1 Karte. A 144. Marbot, Retraite de la grande Armée et Bataille 1.10. de Leipzig. (Prof. Dr. Stange.) A *37. Marryat, The Children of the New Forest. (Prof. 1.40. G. Wolpert.) 3. Aufl. A 61. Marryat, Masterman Ready or the Wreck of the 1.30. Pacific. (Prof. Adolf Mager.) A 99. Marryat, The Three Cutters. (Dr. R. Miller.) 3. 0.80. Aufl. Mit 1 Karte. A *127. Marryat, The Settlers in Canada. (Kgl. 1.20. Regierungs- u. Schulrat Jos. Heuschen.) C 22. Maxime du Camp, Deux petites nouvelles. Aus: 0.80. Bons Coeurs et Braves Gens u. Mme Léonie D'Aunet, Le Spitzberg. Aus: Voyage d'une femme au Spitzberg. Stufe IV. (Dr. Cl. Klöpper.) A 65. Mérimée, Colomba. (Dir. Prof. J. Leitritz.) 2. 1.30. Aufl. A *1. Michaud, Siège d'Antioche et Prise de 1.20. Jérusalem. (Dir. Dr. F. Hummel.) 4. Aufl. Mit 3 Karten und 4 Abbild. A *10. Michaud, Moeurs et Coutumes des Croisades. 1.20. (Dir. Dr. F. Hummel.) 3. Aufl. A *13. Michaud, Influence et Résultats des Croisades. 1.10. (Dir. Dr. F. Hummel.) 2. Aufl. A *130. Michaud, Histoire de la 3me Croisade. (Prof. 1.30. Dr. O. Klein.) T.A. *1. Michaud, La Troisième Croisade. 0.60. A *35. Mignet, Histoire de la Terreur. [Aus: Histoire 1.50. de la Révolution française]. (Prof. A. Ey.) 3. Aufl. Mit 1 Plan. A 44. Mignet, Essai sur la formation territoriale et 1.30. politique de la France. (Oberlehrer Dr. A. Korell.) Mit 1 Karte. A 64. Mignet, Vie de Franklin. (Prof. H. Voss.) Mit 1 1.--. Karte. A *118. Mirabeau, Discours choisis. (Prof. Dr. O. 1.--. Klein.) Mit Bild Mirabeaus. B 4. Molière, Le Misanthrope. (Prof. Dr. W. 1.20. Mangold.) 2. Aufl. B 19. Molière, L'Avare. (Prof. Dr. W. Mangold.) 3. 1.20. Aufl. B 20. Molière, Le Bourgeois gentilhomme. (Prof. Dr. 1.20. W. Mangold.) 2. Aufl. B 24. Molière, Les Femmes savantes. (Prof. Dr. W. 1.20. Mangold.) 2. Aufl. B 28. Molière, Les Précieuses ridicules. (Prof. Dr. 0.90. W. Mangold.) A 121. Molière et le Théâtre en France. (Prof. Dr. F. 1.10. J. Wershoven.) A *92. Monod, Allemands et Français. (Direktor Dr. W. 0.90. Kirschten.) 3. Aufl. Mit 3 Kartenskizzen und 1 Karte. Dasselbe. Mit französischen Anmerkungen 0.90. A 3. Montesquieu, Considérations sur les causes de 1.30. la grandeur des Romains, etc. (Prof. Dr. B. Lengnick.) A 105. Nouvelles choisies [Cladel, Foley, Normand]. 1.10. (Prof. Dr. A. Kressner.) C 33. Oliphant Mrs., Agnes Hopetoun's School and 1.--. Holidays. -- The Experiences of a Little Girl. (E. Taubenspeck.) A *82. Paris et ses environs. (Dir. Prof. J. 2.--. Leitritz.) 3. Aufl. Mit 27 Abbildungen, 1 Karte und 1 Stadtplan. Dieser Band ist von IIb bis Ia gleich nutzbringend zu verwenden. T.A. *8. Parley, The Book of Wonders. 0.60. A 85. Passy, Le Petit Poucet du XIXe siècle G. 1.20. Stephenson et la Naissance des Chemins de Fer. (Oberl. B. Röttgers.) Mit 10 Abbild. A *101. Perrault, Contes de Fées. (Oberl. Dr. A. 1.--. Mohrbutter.) B 7. Piron, La Métromanie. (Professor Dr. A. 1.50. Kressner.) C 6. Poor Nelly. By the author of "Mr. Burke's 0.80. Nieces" etc. Stufe II. (B. Mühry.) 7.-9. Tausend. A *136. Porchat, Le berger et le proscrit. (Kgl. 1.--. Regierungs- und Schulrat J. Heuschen.) C 37. Probable sons. Stufe III. (Elisabeth Dickmann.) 1.10. T.A. *16. Prosa, Ausgew., des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts 0.90. (Mme de Sévigné, Le Sage, Montesquieu, Voltaire). T.A. *17. Prosa, Ausgew., des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts. 0.80. I. Teil. T.A. *18. Prosa, Ausgew., des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts. 0.70. II. Teil. T.A. *19. Prosa, Ausgew., des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts. 0.80. III. Teil. T.A. *20. Prosa, Ausgew., des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts. 0.80. IV. Teil. B 3. Racine, Britannicus. (Prof. Dr. B. Lengnick.) 1.--. 2. Aufl. B 6. Racine, Athalie. (Direktor Dr. F. Hummel.) 2. 1.20. Aufl. B 14. Racine, Phèdre. (Professor Dr. A. Kressner.) 2. 1.10. Aufl. A 120. Recent Travel and Adventure. Livingstone, 1.--. Stanley, Emin Pasha, Gordon, Greely, Nordenskjöld. (Prof. Dr. J. Klapperich.) 2 Karten. A 8. Reden, Ausgewählte, englischer Staatsmänner. I. 0.80. [Pitt d. Ä. u. d. J.] (Prof. Dr. J. C. A. Winkelmann.) A 23. Reden, Ausgewählte, englischer Staatsmänner. 1.10. II. [Burke: Ostind. Bill des Ch. J. Fox.] (Prof. Dr. J. C. A. Winkelmann.) A 11. Reden, Ausgewählte, französischer Kanzelredner 1.20. [Bossuet, Fléchier, Massillon]. (Professor Dr. A. Kressner.) B 18. Regnard, Le Joueur. (Oberlehrer Dr. Otto 1.30. Boerner.) A 55. Robertson, Charles V. and Francis I. from 1.20. 1521-1527. (Professor Dr. H. Bahrs.) A 86. Saintine, Picciola. (Prof. Dr. B. Lengnick.) 1.20. B 23. Sandeau, Mlle de la Seiglière. (Prof. Dr. J. 1.60. Sarrazin.) 4. Aufl. A *59. Sarcey, Le Siège de Paris. (Dr. U. Cosack.) Mit 1.50. Karte. 6. Aufl. A 9. Scott, History of France from 1328-1380. (Prof. 1.50. Dr. H. Fehse.) Mit 1 Karte und 2 Plänen. A *33. Scott, Sir William Wallace and Robert The 1.10. Bruce. [Aus: Tales of a Grandfather]. (Professor Dr. H. Fehse.) 2. Aufl. A 54. Scott, Ivanhoe. [Auszug], (Dir. Prof. Dr. E. 1.40. Penner.) 3. Aufl. A 62. Scott, Scenes from Old-Scottish Life. [Aus: The 1.10. Fair Maid of Perth]. (Professor Dr. H. Bahrs.) Mit 1 Karte. A *71. Scott, Mary Stuart. (Direktor Prof. Dr. A. 1.20. Fritzsche.) A *87. Scott, Kenilworth. [Auszug.] (Oberl. Dr. 1.20. Mohrbutter.) A *104. Scott, Quentin Durward. (Dr. Felix Pabst.) 1.50. B 25. Scott, The Lady of the Lake. (Prof. Dr. 1.20. Werner.) Mit 1 Karte. B 27. Scribe, Le Verre d'eau. (Dir. Prof. L. E. 1.10. Rolfs.) T.A. *14. Scribe et Delavigne. Le Diplomate etc. 0.60. A 41. Ségur, Napoléon á Moscou und Passage de la 1.50. Bérézina. (Dir. Prof. Dr. A. Hemme.) 5. Aufl. Mit 4 Plänen. C 7. Sewell, Anna, Black Beauty. Stufe III. (B. 0.85. Mühry.) Seymour, siehe Chaucer. B 9. Shakespeare, Macbeth. (Dir. Prof. Dr. E. 1.40. Penner.) 2. Aufl. B 15. Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar. (Dir. Prof. Dr. E. 1.30. Penner.) 2. Aufl. B 16. Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice. (Direktor 1.20. Dr. Otto E. A. Dickmann.) 2. Aufl. B 29. Shakespeare, Coriolanus. (Dir. Prof. Dr. E. 1.50. Penner.) Ausgabe mit nur englischen Anmerkungen. A 125. Shakespeare and the England of Shakespeare. 1.10. (Prof. Dr. Wershoven.) A 5. Southey, The Life of Nelson. (Prof. Dr. W. 1.50. Parow.) Mit 4 Skizzen, 1 Kärtchen und 1 Schiffsbild. 2. Aufl. A 26. Souvestre, Confessions d'un Ouvrier. (Prof. O. 1.10. Josupeit.) 2. Aufl. A *128. Souvestre, Au Coin du Feu. (Oberlehrer Dr. A. 1.10. Mohrbutter.) T.A. *13. Souvestre, Un Philosophe sous les Toits. 0.70. C 24. Sprachstoff für den Anschauungs- u. 0.80. Sprachunterricht von F. Strübing. I.B. [Bauernhof, Wald, Ernte, Herbst.] Stufe IV. (M. Altgelt.) C 27. Sprachstoff f. d. Anschauungs- u. 1.20. Sprachunterricht v. F. Strübing. II.B. [Winter, Hafen, Mühle, Gebirgsgegend.] Stufe IV. (M. Altgelt.) C 13. Spyri, Reseli aux Roses. Bastien et Franceline. 0.80. Stufe II. (Dr. Cl. Klöpper.) C 18. Stahl, Maroussia. Stufe IV. (M. Mühry.) 0.80. A 25. Swift, Gulliver's Travels. I. (Dir. Dr. F. 0.80. Hummel.) A 31. Swift, Gulliver's Travels. II. (Dir. Dr. F. 0.80. Hummel.) A *57. Taine, Les Origines de la France contemporaine. 1.20. (Prof. Dr. Otto Hoffmann.) 6. Aufl. A *76. Tales and Stories from Modern Writers. I. 1.20. Bändchen. (Prof. Dr. J. Klapperich.) 2. Aufl. A 78. Theuriet, La Princesse Verte. (Dir. Prof. L. E. 1.--. Rolfs.) A *79. Theuriet, Ausgew. Erzählungen. (Prof. Dr. A. 1.10. Gundlach.) 2. Aufl. A 80. Theuriet, Les Enchantements de la Forêt. 0.90. [Auswahl.] (Dir. Prof. Ludwig E. Rolfs.) A 19. Thierry, Histoire d'Attila. (Prof. Dr. 1.30. Wershoven.) [1 Karte.] 2. Aufl. A 63. Thierry, Guillaume le Conquérant. (Dir. Prof. 1.40. J. Leitritz.) Mit 1 Karte und 1 Schlachtenplan. A *14. Thiers, Expédition de Bonaparte en Égypte. 1.50. (Prof Dr. Otto Klein.) 6. Aufl. Mit 3 Karten. A 39. Thiers, Campagne d'Italie en 1800. (Prof. Dr. 1.50. A. Althaus.) 2. Aufl. Mit 1 Karte und 2 Plänen. C 12. Traill, Mrs., In the Forest or Pictures of Life 0.80. and Scenery in the Woods of Canada. Stufe II. (Dr. Cl. Klöpper.) A *68. Verne, Christophe Colomb. (Dr. O. Mielck.) 1.--. A 70. De Vigny, Cinq-Mars ou une Conjuration sous 1.20. Louis XIII. (Direktor Prof. Dr. G. Strien.) 2. Aufl. A *74. De Vigny, La Canne de Jonc et Le Cachet Rouge. 0.90. (Prof. Dr. Kasten.) A 58. Villemain, Hist. du Protect. de Cromwell. 1.10. (Prof. Dr. A. Gundlach.) A 34. Voltaire, Guerre de la Succession d'Espagne. 1.40. [Aus: Siècle de Louis XIV]. (Geh. Regierungsrat Prof. Dr. R. Foss.) A *40. Voltaire, Histoire de Charles XII. (Dir. Prof. 1.40. Dr. K. Mühlefeld.) 2. Aufl. Mit 1 Karte und 2 Plänen. B 5. Voltaire, Mérope. (Dr. R. Mahrenholtz.) 1.--. B 12. Voltaire, Zaïre. (Dr. R. Mahrenholtz.) 1.--. B 13. Voltaire, Tancrède. (Dr. R. Mahrenholtz.) 1.--. T.A. *6. Voltaire, Pierre le Grand. 0.60. A 66. Yonge, The Book of Golden Deeds. (Prof. G. 1.--. Wolpert.) T.A. *11. Yonge, The Book of Golden Deeds. 0.60. Anmerkungen zur Transkription Die Kapitelüberschriften, die der Buchvorlage als Seitenüberschriften beigegeben waren, wurden an die Kapitelanfänge verschoben. Verlagsanzeigen wurden am Ende des Buches vereinigt. Hervorhebungen, die im Original g e s p e r r t oder kursiv sind, wurden mit Unterstrichen wie _hier_ gekennzeichnet. Fette Schrift wurde ¶so¶ markiert. Offensichtliche Druckfehler wurden berichtigt wie hier aufgeführt (vorher/nachher): ... FRANCES HODGSONS BURNETT ... ... FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT ... [S. VI]: ... erscheinende Kürzungen, wie: I'd, he'd, I'll, h'ell u. a., ... ... erscheinende Kürzungen, wie: I'd, he'd, I'll, he'll u. a., ... [S. 49]: ... is'nt, you know; and you'd think 'dear' was spelled ... ... isn't, you know; and you'd think 'dear' was spelled ... [S. 80]: ... "Why, boss!" he exlaimed, "d'ye know him yerself?" ... ... "Why, boss!" he exclaimed, "d'ye know him yerself?" ... [S. 102]: ... 1776 erfolgte die Unabhängigkeitserklärung (Declaration of Independance ... ... 1776 erfolgte die Unabhängigkeitserklärung (Declaration of Independence ... [S. 102]: ... Massachusetts, New-Hampshire, Conne(c)ticut, Rode Island, New ... ... Massachusetts, New-Hampshire, Conne(c)ticut, Rhode Island, New ... [S. 102]: ... York, New Jersey, Pensylvania, Delaware, Maryland, South ... ... York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, South ... ... den Schülern im Stiche lassen; sie fehlen bei den ... ... den Schüler im Stiche lassen; sie fehlen bei den ... 
10540	----	MOTHER CAREY'S CHICKENS By KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN CONTENTS I. MOTHER CAREY HERSELF II. THE CHICKENS III. THE COMMON DENOMINATOR IV. THE BROKEN CIRCLE V. HOW ABOUT JULIA? VI. NANCY'S IDEA VII. "OLD BEASTS INTO NEW" VIII. THE KNIGHT OF BEULAH CASTLE IX. GILBERT'S EMBASSY X. THE CAREYS' FLITTING XI. THE SERVICE ON THE THRESHOLD XII. COUSIN ANN XIII. THE PINK OF PERFECTION XIV. WAYS AND MEANS XV. BELONGING TO BEULAH XVI. THE POST-BAG XVII. JACK OF ALL TRADES XVIII. THE HOUSE OF LORDS XIX. OLD AND NEW XX. THE PAINTED CHAMBER XXI. A FAMILY RHOMBOID XXII. CRADLE GIFTS XXIII. NEARING SHINY WALL XXIV. A LETTER FROM GERMANY XXV. "FOLLOWING THE GLEAM" XXVI. A ZOOLOGICAL FATHER XXVII. THE CAREY HOUSEWARMING XXVIII. "TIBI SPLENDET FOCUS" XXIX. "TH' ACTION FINE" XXX. THE INGLENOOK XXXI. GROOVES OF CHANGE XXXII. DOORS OF DARING XXXIII. MOTHER HAMILTON'S BIRTHDAY. XXXIV. NANCY COMES OUT XXXV. THE CRIMSON RAMBLER I MOTHER CAREY HERSELF "By and by there came along a flock of petrels, who are Mother Carey's own chickens.... They flitted along like a flock of swallows, hopping and skipping from wave to wave, lifting their little feet behind them so daintily that Tom fell in love with them at once." Nancy stopped reading and laid down the copy of "Water Babies" on the sitting-room table. "No more just now, Peter-bird," she said; "I hear mother coming." It was a cold, dreary day in late October, with an east wind and a chill of early winter in the air. The cab stood in front of Captain Carey's house, with a trunk beside the driver and a general air of expectancy on the part of neighbors at the opposite windows. Mrs. Carey came down the front stairway followed by Gilbert and Kathleen; Gilbert with his mother's small bag and travelling cloak, Kathleen with her umbrella; while little Peter flew to the foot of the stairs with a small box of sandwiches pressed to his bosom. Mrs. Carey did not wear her usual look of sweet serenity, but nothing could wholly mar the gracious dignity of her face and presence. As she came down the stairs with her quick, firm tread, her flock following her, she looked the ideal mother. Her fine height, her splendid carriage, her deep chest, her bright eye and fresh color all bespoke the happy, contented, active woman, though something in the way of transient anxiety lurked in the eyes and lips. "The carriage is too early," she said; "let us come into the sitting room for five minutes. I have said my good-byes and kissed you all a dozen times, but I shall never be done until I am out of your sight." "O mother, mother, how can we let you go!" wailed Kathleen. "Kitty! how can you!" exclaimed Nancy. "What does it matter about us when mother has the long journey and father is so ill?" "It will not be for very long,--it can't be," said Mrs. Carey wistfully. "The telegram only said 'symptoms of typhoid'; but these low fevers sometimes last a good while and are very weakening, so I may not be able to bring father back for two or three weeks; I ought to be in Fortress Monroe day after to-morrow; you must take turns in writing to me, children!" "Every single day, mother!" "Every single thing that happens." "A fat letter every morning," they promised in chorus. "If there is any real trouble remember to telegraph your Uncle Allan--did you write down his address, 11 Broad Street, New York? Don't bother him about little things, for he is not well, you know." Gilbert displayed a note-book filled with memoranda and addresses. "And in any small difficulty send for Cousin Ann," Mrs. Carey went on. "The mere thought of her coming will make me toe the mark, I can tell you that!" was Gilbert's rejoinder. "Better than any ogre or bug-a-boo, Cousin Ann is, even for Peter!" said Nancy. "And will my Peter-bird be good and make Nancy no trouble?" said his mother, lifting him to her lap for one last hug. "I'll be an angel boy pretty near all the time," he asserted between mouthfuls of apple, "or most pretty near," he added prudently, as if unwilling to promise anything superhuman in the way of behavior. As a matter of fact it required only a tolerable show of virtue for Peter to win encomiums at any time. He would brush his curly mop of hair away from his forehead, lift his eyes, part his lips, showing a row of tiny white teeth; then a dimple would appear in each cheek and a seraphic expression (wholly at variance with the facts) would overspread the baby face, whereupon the beholder--Mother Carey, his sisters, the cook or the chambermaid, everybody indeed but Cousin Ann, who could never be wheedled--would cry "Angel boy!" and kiss him. He was even kissed now, though he had done nothing at all but exist and be an enchanting personage, which is one of the injustices of a world where a large number of virtuous and well-behaved people go unkissed to their graves! "I know Joanna and Ellen will take good care of the housekeeping," continued Mrs. Carey, "and you will be in school from nine to two, so that the time won't go heavily. For the rest I make Nancy responsible. If she is young, you must remember that you are all younger still, and I trust you to her." "The last time you did it, it didn't work very well!" And Gilbert gave Nancy a sly wink to recall a little matter of family history when there had been a delinquency on somebody's part. Nancy's face crimsoned and her lips parted for a quick retort, and none too pleasant a one, apparently. Her mother intervened quietly. "We'll never speak of 'last times,' Gilly, or where would any of us be? We'll always think of 'next' times. I shall trust Nancy next time, and next time and next time, and keep on trusting till I can trust her forever!" Nancy's face lighted up with a passion of love and loyalty. She responded to the touch of her mother's faith as a harp to the favoring wind, but she said nothing; she only glowed and breathed hard and put her trembling hand about her mother's neck and under her chin. "Now it's time! One more kiss all around. Remember you are Mother Carey's own chickens! There may be gales while I am away, but you must ride over the crests of the billows as merry as so many flying fish! Good-by! Good-by! Oh, my littlest Peter-bird, how can mother leave you?" "I opened the lunch box to see what Ellen gave you, but I only broke off two teenty, weenty corners of sandwiches and one little new-moon bite out of a cookie," said Peter, creating a diversion according to his wont. Ellen and Joanna came to the front door and the children flocked down the frozen pathway to the gate after their mother, getting a touch of her wherever and whenever they could and jumping up and down between whiles to keep warm. Gilbert closed the door of the carriage, and it turned to go down the street. One window was open, and there was a last glimpse of the beloved face framed in the dark blue velvet bonnet, one last wave of a hand in a brown muff. "Oh! she is so beautiful!" sobbed Kathleen, "her bonnet is just the color of her eyes; and she was crying!" "There never was anybody like mother!" said Nancy, leaning on the gate, shivering with cold and emotion. "There never was, and there never will be! We can try and try, Kathleen, and we _must_ try, all of us; but mother wouldn't have to try; mother must have been partly born so!" II THE CHICKENS It was Captain Carey's favorite Admiral who was responsible for the phrase by which mother and children had been known for some years. The Captain (then a Lieutenant) had brought his friend home one Saturday afternoon a little earlier than had been expected, and they went to find the family in the garden. Laughter and the sound of voices led them to the summer-house, and as they parted the syringa bushes they looked through them and surprised the charming group. A throng of children like to flowers were sown About the grass beside, or climbed her knee. I looked who were that favored company. That is the way a poet would have described what the Admiral saw, and if you want to see anything truly and beautifully you must generally go to a poet. Mrs. Carey held Peter, then a crowing baby, in her lap. Gilbert was tickling Peter's chin with a buttercup, Nancy was putting a wreath of leaves on her mother's hair, and Kathleen was swinging from an apple-tree bough, her yellow curls flying. "Might I inquire what you think of that?" asked the father. "Well," the Admiral said, "mothers and children make a pretty good picture at any time, but I should say this one couldn't be 'beat.' Two for the Navy, eh?" "All four for the Navy, perhaps," laughed the young man. "Nancy has already chosen a Rear-Admiral and Kathleen a Commodore; they are modest little girls!" "They do you credit, Peter!" "I hope I've given them something,--I've tried hard enough, but they are mostly the work of the lady in the chair. Come on and say how d'ye do." Before many Saturdays the Admiral's lap had superseded all other places as a gathering ground for the little Careys, whom he called the stormy petrels. "Mother Carey," he explained to them, came from the Latin _mater cara_, this being not only his personal conviction, but one that had the backing of Brewer's "Dictionary of Phrase and Fable." "The French call them _Les Oiseaux de Notre Dame_. That means 'The Birds of our Lady,' Kitty, and they are the sailors' friends. Mother Carey sends them to warn seafarers of approaching storms and bids them go out all over the seas to show the good birds the way home. You'll have your hands full if you're going to be Mother Carey's chickens." "I'd love to show good birds the way home!" said Gilbert. "Can a naughty bird show a good bird the way home, Addy?" This bland question came from Nancy, who had a decided talent for sarcasm, considering her years. (Of course the Admiral might have stopped the children from calling him Addy, but they seemed to do it because "Admiral" was difficult, and anyway they loved him so much they simply had to take some liberties with him. Besides, although he was the greatest disciplinarian that ever walked a deck, he was so soft and flexible on land that he was perfectly ridiculous and delightful.) The day when the children were christened Mother Carey's chickens was Nancy's tenth birthday, a time when the family was striving to give her her proper name, having begun wrong with her at the outset. She was the first, you see, and the first is something of an event, take it how you will. It is obvious that at the beginning they could not address a tiny thing on a pillow as Nancy, because she was too young. She was not even alluded to at that early date as "she," but always as "it," so they called her "baby" and let it go at that. Then there was a long period when she was still too young to be called Nancy, and though, so far as age was concerned, she might properly have held on to her name of baby, she couldn't with propriety, because there was Gilbert then, and he was baby. Moreover, she gradually became so indescribably quaint and bewitching and comical and saucy that every one sought diminutives for her; nicknames, fond names, little names, and all sorts of words that tried to describe her charm (and couldn't), so there was Poppet and Smiles and Minx and Rogue and Midget and Ladybird and finally Nan and Nannie by degrees, to soberer Nancy. "Nancy is ten to-day," mused the Admiral. "Bless my soul, how time flies! You were a young Ensign, Carey, and I well remember the letter you wrote me when this little lass came into harbor! Just wait a minute; I believe the scrap of newspaper verse you enclosed has been in my wallet ever since. I always liked it." "I recall writing to you," said Mr. Carey. "As you had lent me five hundred dollars to be married on, I thought I ought to keep you posted!" "Oh, father! did you have to borrow money?" cried Kathleen. "I did, my dear. There's no disgrace in borrowing, if you pay back, and I did. Your Uncle Allan was starting in business, and I had just put my little capital in with his when I met your mother. If you had met your mother wouldn't you have wanted to marry her?" "Yes!" cried Nancy eagerly. "Fifty of her!" At which everybody laughed. "And what became of the money you put in Uncle Allan's business?" asked Gilbert with unexpected intelligence. There was a moment's embarrassment and an exchange of glances between mother and father before he replied, "Oh! that's coming back multiplied six times over, one of these days,--Allan has a very promising project on hand just now, Admiral." "Glad to hear it! A delightful fellow, and straight as a die. I only wish he could perform once in a while, instead of promising." "He will if only he keeps his health, but he's heavily handicapped there, poor chap. Well, what's the verse?" The Admiral put on his glasses, prettily assisted by Kathleen, who was on his knee and seized the opportunity to give him a French kiss when the spectacles were safely on the bridge of his nose. Whereupon he read:-- "There came to port last Sunday night The queerest little craft, Without an inch of rigging on; I looked, and looked, and laughed. "It seemed so curious that she Should cross the unknown water, And moor herself within my room-- My daughter, O my daughter! "Yet, by these presents, witness all, She's welcome fifty times, And comes consigned to Hope and Love And common metre rhymes. "She has no manifest but this; No flag floats o'er the water; She's rather new for British Lloyd's-- My daughter, O my daughter! "Ring out, wild bells--and tame ones, too; Ring out the lover's moon, Ring in the little worsted socks, Ring in the bib and spoon."[1] [Footnote 1: George W. Cable.] "Oh, Peter, how pretty!" said Mother Carey all in a glow. "You never showed it to me!" "You were too much occupied with the aforesaid 'queer little craft,' wasn't she, Nan--I mean Nancy!" and her father pinched her ear and pulled a curly lock. Nancy was a lovely creature to the eye, and she came by her good looks naturally enough. For three generations her father's family had been known as the handsome Careys, and when Lieutenant Carey chose Margaret Gilbert for his wife, he was lucky enough to win the loveliest girl in her circle. Thus it was still the handsome Careys in the time of our story, for all the children were well-favored and the general public could never decide whether Nancy or Kathleen was the belle of the family. Kathleen had fair curls, skin like a rose, and delicate features; not a blemish to mar her exquisite prettiness! All colors became her; all hats suited her hair. She was the Carey beauty so long as Nancy remained out of sight, but the moment that young person appeared Kathleen left something to be desired. Nancy piqued; Nancy sparkled; Nancy glowed; Nancy occasionally pouted and not infrequently blazed. Nancy's eyes had to be continually searched for news, both of herself and of the immediate world about her. If you did not keep looking at her every "once in so often" you couldn't keep up with the progress of events; she might flash a dozen telegrams to somebody, about something, while your head was turned away. Kathleen could be safely left unwatched for an hour or so without fear of change; her moods were less variable, her temper evener; her interest in the passing moment less keen, her absorption in the particular subject less intense. Walt Whitman might have been thinking of Nancy when he wrote:-- There was a child went forth every day And the first object he looked upon, that object he became, And that object became part of him for the day, or a certain part of the day Or for many years, or stretching cycles of years. Kathleen's nature needed to be stirred, Nancy's to be controlled, the impulse coming from within, the only way that counts in the end, though the guiding force may be applied from without. Nancy was more impulsive than industrious, more generous than wise, more plucky than prudent; she had none too much perseverance and no patience at all. Gilbert was a fiery youth of twelve, all for adventure. He kindled quickly, but did not burn long, so deeds of daring would be in his line; instantaneous ones, quickly settled, leaving the victor with a swelling chest and a feather in cap; rather an obvious feather suited Gilbert best. Peter? Oh! Peter, aged four, can be dismissed in very few words as a consummate charmer and heart-breaker. The usual elements that go to the making of a small boy were all there, but mixed with white magic. It is painful to think of the dozens of girl babies in long clothes who must have been feeling premonitory pangs when Peter was four, to think they couldn't all marry him when they grew up! III THE COMMON DENOMINATOR Three weeks had gone by since Mother Carey's departure for Fortress Monroe, and the children had mounted from one moral triumph to another. John Bunyan, looking in at the windows, might have exclaimed:-- Who would true valor see Let him come hither. It is easy to go wrong in a wicked world, but there are certain circumstances under which one is pledged to virtue; when, like a knight of the olden time, you wear your motto next your heart and fight for it,--"Death rather than defeat!" "We are able because we think we are able!" "Follow honor!" and the like. These sentiments look beautifully as class mottoes on summer graduation programmes, but some of them, apparently, disappear from circulation before cold weather sets in. It is difficult to do right, we repeat, but not when mother is away from us for the first time since we were born; not when she who is the very sun of home is shining elsewhere, and we are groping in the dim light without her, only remembering her last words and our last promises. Not difficult when we think of the eyes the color of the blue velvet bonnet, and the tears falling from them. They are hundreds of miles away, but we see them looking at us a dozen times a day and the last thing at night. Not difficult when we think of father; gay, gallant father, desperately ill and mother nursing him; father, with the kind smile and the jolly little sparkles of fun in his eyes; father, tall and broad-shouldered, splendid as the gods, in full uniform; father, so brave that if a naval battle ever did come his way, he would demolish the foe in an instant; father, with a warm strong hand clasping ours on high days and holidays, taking us on great expeditions where we see life at its best and taste incredible joys. The most quarrelsome family, if the house burns down over their heads, will stop disputing until the emergency is over and they get under a new roof. Somehow, in times of great trial, calamity, sorrow, the differences that separate people are forgotten. Isn't it rather like the process in mathematics where we reduce fractions to a common denominator? It was no time for anything but superior behavior in the Carey household; that was distinctly felt from kitchen to nursery. Ellen the cook was tidier, Joanna the second maid more amiable. Nancy, who was "responsible," rose earlier than the rest and went to bed later, after locking doors and windows that had been left unlocked since the flood. "I am responsible," she said three or four times each day, to herself, and, it is to be feared, to others! Her heavenly patience in dressing Peter every few hours without comment struck the most callous observer as admirable. Peter never remembered that he had any clothes on. He might have been a real stormy petrel, breasting the billows in his birthday suit and expecting his feathers to be dried when and how the Lord pleased. He comported himself in the presence of dust, mud, water, liquid refreshment, and sticky substances, exactly as if clean white sailor suits grew on every bush and could be renewed at pleasure. Even Gilbert was moved to spontaneous admiration and respect at the sight of Nancy's zeal. "Nobody would know you, Nancy; it is simply wonderful, and I only wish it could last," he said. Even this style of encomium was received sweetly, though there had been moments in her previous history when Nancy would have retorted in a very pointed manner. When she was "responsible," not even had he gone the length of calling Nancy an unspeakable pig, would she have said anything. She had a blissful consciousness that, had she been examined, indications of angelic wings, and not bristles, would have been discovered under her blouse. Gilbert, by the way, never suspected that the masters in his own school wondered whether he had experienced religion or was working on some sort of boyish wager. He took his two weekly reports home cautiously for fear that they might break on the way, pasted them on large pieces of paper, and framed them in elaborate red, white, and blue stars united by strips of gold paper. How Captain and Mrs. Carey laughed and cried over this characteristic message when it reached them! "Oh! they _are_ darlings," Mother Carey cried. "Of course they are," the Captain murmured feebly. "Why shouldn't they be, considering you?" "It is really just as easy to do right as wrong, Kathleen," said Nancy when the girls were going to bed one night. "Ye-es!" assented Kathleen with some reservations in her tone, for she was more judicial and logical than her sister. "But you have to keep your mind on it so, and never relax a single bit! Then it's lots easier for a few weeks than it is for long stretches!" "That's true," agreed Nancy; "it would be hard to keep it up forever. And you have to love somebody or something like fury every minute or you can't do it at all. How do the people manage that can't love like that, or haven't anybody to love?" "I don't know." said Kathleen sleepily. "I'm so worn out with being good, that every night I just say my prayers and tumble into bed exhausted. Last night I fell asleep praying, I honestly did!" "Tell that to the marines!" remarked Nancy incredulously. IV THE BROKEN CIRCLE The three weeks were running into a month now, and virtue still reigned in the Carey household. But things were different. Everybody but Peter saw the difference. Peter dwelt from morn till eve in that Land of Pure Delight which is ignorance of death. The children no longer bounded to meet the postman, but waited till Joanna brought in the mail. Steadily, daily, the letters changed in tone. First they tried to be cheerful; later on they spoke of trusting that the worst was past; then of hoping that father was holding his own. "Oh! if he was holding _all_ his own," sobbed Nancy. "If we were only there with him, helping mother!" Ellen said to Joanna one morning in the kitchen: "It's my belief the Captain's not going to get well, and I'd like to go to Newburyport to see my cousin and not be in the house when the children's told!" And Joanna said, "Shame on you not to stand by 'em in their hour of trouble!" At which Ellen quailed and confessed herself a coward. Finally came a day never to be forgotten; a day that swept all the former days clean out of memory, as a great wave engulfs all the little ones in its path; a day when, Uncle Allan being too ill to travel, Cousin Ann, of all people in the universe,--Cousin Ann came to bring the terrible news that Captain Carey was dead. Never think that Cousin Ann did not suffer and sympathize and do her rocky best to comfort; she did indeed, but she was thankful that her task was of brief duration. Mrs. Carey knew how it would be, and had planned all so that she herself could arrive not long after the blow had fallen. Peter, by his mother's orders (she had thought of everything) was at a neighbor's house, the centre of all interest, the focus of all gayety. He was too young to see the tears of his elders with any profit; baby plants grow best in sunshine. The others were huddled together in a sad group at the front window, eyes swollen, handkerchiefs rolled into drenched, pathetic little wads. Cousin Ann came in from the dining room with a tumbler and spoon in her hand. "See here, children!" she said bracingly, "you've been crying for the last twelve hours without stopping, and I don't blame you a mite. If I was the crying kind I'd do the same thing. Now do you think you've got grit enough--all three of you--to bear up for your mother's sake, when she first comes in? I've mixed you each a good dose of aromatic spirits of ammonia, and it's splendid for the nerves. Your mother must get a night's sleep somehow, and when she gets back a little of her strength you'll be the greatest comfort she has in the world. The way you're carrying on now you'll be the death of her!" It was a good idea, and the dose had courage in it. Gilbert took the first sip, Kathleen the second, and Nancy the third, and hardly had the last swallow disappeared down the poor aching throats before a carriage drove up to the gate. Some one got out and handed out Mrs. Carey whose step used to be lighter than Nancy's. A strange gentleman, oh! not a stranger, it was the dear Admiral helping mother up the path. They had been unconsciously expecting the brown muff and blue velvet bonnet, but these had vanished, like father, and all the beautiful things of the past years, and in their place was black raiment that chilled their hearts. But the black figure had flung back the veil that hid her from the longing eyes of the children, and when she raised her face it was full of the old love. She was grief-stricken and she was pale, but she was mother, and the three young things tore open the door and clasped her in their arms, sobbing, choking, whispering all sorts of tender comfort, their childish tears falling like healing dew on her poor heart. The Admiral soothed and quieted them each in turn, all but Nancy. Cousin Ann's medicine was of no avail, and strangling with sobs Nancy fled to the attic until she was strong enough to say "for mother's sake" without a quiver in her voice. Then she crept down, and as she passed her mother's room on tiptoe she looked in and saw that the chair by the window, the chair that had been vacant for a month, was filled, and that the black-clad figure was what was left to them; a strange, sad, quiet mother, who had lost part of herself somewhere,--the gay part, the cheerful part, the part that made her so piquantly and entrancingly different from other women. Nancy stole in softly and put her young smooth cheek against her mother's, quietly stroking her hair. "There are four of us to love you and take care of you," she said. "It isn't quite so bad as if there was nobody!" Mrs. Carey clasped her close. "Oh! my Nancy! my first, my oldest, God will help me, I know that, but just now I need somebody close and warm and soft; somebody with arms to hold and breath to speak and lips to kiss! I ought not to sadden you, nor lean on you, you are too young, --but I must a little, just at the first. You see, dear, you come next to father!" "Next to father!" Nancy's life was set to a new tune from that moment. Here was her spur, her creed; the incentive, the inspiration she had lacked. She did not suddenly grow older than her years, but simply, in the twinkling of an eye, came to a realization of herself, her opportunity, her privilege, her duty; the face of life had changed, and Nancy changed with it. "Do you love me next to mother?" the Admiral had asked coaxingly once when Nancy was eight and on his lap as usual. "Oh dear no!" said Nancy thoughtfully, shaking her head. "Why, that's rather a blow to me," the Admiral exclaimed, pinching an ear and pulling a curl. "I flattered myself that when I was on my best behavior I came next to mother." "It's this way, Addy dear," said Nancy, cuddling up to his waistcoat and giving a sigh of delight that there were so many nice people in the world. "It's just this way. First there's mother, and then all round mother there's a wide, wide space; and then father and you come next the space." The Admiral smiled; a grave, lovely smile that often crept into his eyes when he held Mother Carey's chickens on his knee. He kissed Nancy on the little white spot behind the ear where the brown hair curled in tiny rings like grape tendrils, soft as silk and delicate as pencil strokes. He said nothing, but his boyish dreams were in the kiss, and certain hopes of manhood that had never been realized. He was thinking that Margaret Gilbert was a fortunate and happy woman to have become Mother Carey; such a mother, too, that all about her was a wide, wide space, and next the space, the rest of the world, nearer or farther according to their merits. He wondered if motherhood ought not to be like that, and he thought if it were it would be a great help to God. V HOW ABOUT JULIA? We often speak of a family circle, but there are none too many of them. Parallel lines never meeting, squares, triangles, oblongs, and particularly those oblongs pulled askew, known as rhomboids, these and other geometrical figures abound, but circles are comparatively few. In a true family circle a father and a mother first clasp each other's hands, liking well to be thus clasped; then they stretch out a hand on either side, and these are speedily grasped by children, who hold one another firmly, and complete the ring. One child is better than nothing, a great deal better than nothing; it is at least an effort in the right direction, but the circle that ensues is not, even then, a truly nice shape. You can stand as handsomely as ever you like, but it simply won't "come round." The minute that two, three, four, five, join in, the "roundness" grows, and the merriment too, and the laughter, and the power to do things. (Responsibility and care also, but what is the use of discouraging circles when there are not enough of them anyway?) The Carey family circle had been round and complete, with love and harmony between all its component parts. In family rhomboids, for instance, mother loves the children and father does not, or father does, but does not love mother, or father and mother love each other and the children do not get their share; it is impossible to enumerate all the little geometrical peculiarities which keep a rhomboid from being a circle, but one person can just "stand out" enough to spoil the shape, or put hands behind back and refuse to join at all. About the ugliest thing in the universe is that non-joining habit! You would think that anybody, however dull, might consider his hands, and guess by the look of them that they must be made to work, and help, and take hold of somebody else's hands! Miserable, useless, flabby paws, those of the non-joiner; that he feeds and dresses himself with, and then hangs to his selfish sides, or puts behind his beastly back! When Captain Carey went on his long journey into the unknown and uncharted land, the rest of the Careys tried in vain for a few months to be still a family, and did not succeed at all. They clung as closely to one another as ever they could, but there was always a gap in the circle where father had been. Some men, silent, unresponsive, absent-minded and especially absorbed in business, might drop out and not be missed, but Captain Carey was full of vitality, warmth, and high spirits. It is strange so many men think that the possession of a child makes them a father; it does not; but it is a curious and very general misapprehension. Captain Carey was a boy with his boys, and a gallant lover with his girls; to his wife--oh! we will not even touch upon that ground; she never did, to any one or anything but her own heart! Such an one could never disappear from memory, such a loss could never be made wholly good. The only thing to do was to remember father's pride and justify it, to recall his care for mother and take his place so far as might be; the only thing for all, as the months went on, was to be what mother called the three b's,--brave, bright, and busy. To be the last was by far the easiest, for the earliest effort at economy had been the reluctant dismissal of Joanna, the chambermaid. In old-fashioned novels the devoted servant always insisted on remaining without wages, but this story concerns itself with life at a later date. Joanna wept at the thought of leaving, but she never thought of the romantic and illogical expedient of staying on without compensation. Captain Carey's salary had been five thousand dollars, or rather was to have been, for he had only attained his promotion three months before his death. There would have been an extra five hundred dollars a year when he was at sea, and on the strength of this addition to their former income he intended to increase the amount of his life insurance, but it had not yet been done when the sudden illness seized him, an illness that began so gently and innocently and terminated with such sudden and unexpected fatality. The life insurance, such as it was, must be put into the bank for emergencies. Mrs. Carey realized that that was the only proper thing to do when there were four children under fifteen to be considered. The pressing question, however, was how to keep it in the bank, and subsist on a captain's pension of thirty dollars a month. There was the ten thousand, hers and the Captain's, in Allan Carey's business, but Allan was seriously ill with nervous prostration, and no money put into his business ever had come out, even in a modified form. The Admiral was at the other end of the world, and even had he been near at hand Mrs. Carey would never have confided the family difficulties to him. She could hardly have allowed him even to tide her over her immediate pressing anxieties, remembering his invalid sister and his many responsibilities. No, the years until Gilbert was able to help, or Nancy old enough to use her talents, or the years before the money invested with Allan would bring dividends, those must be years of self-sacrifice on everybody's part; and more even than that, they must be fruitful years, in which not mere saving and economizing, but earning, would be necessary. It was only lately that Mrs. Carey had talked over matters with the three eldest children, but the present house was too expensive to be longer possible as a home, and the question of moving was a matter of general concern. Joanna had been, up to the present moment, the only economy, but alas! Joanna was but a drop in the necessary bucket. On a certain morning in March Mrs. Carey sat in her room with a letter in her lap, the children surrounding her. It was from Mr. Manson, Allan Carey's younger partner; the sort of letter that dazed her, opening up as it did so many questions of expediency, duty, and responsibility. The gist of it was this: that Allan Carey was a broken man in mind and body; that both for the climate and for treatment he was to be sent to a rest cure in the Adirondacks; that sometime or other, in Mr. Manson's opinion, the firm's investments might be profitable if kept long enough, and there was no difficulty in keeping them, for nobody in the universe wanted them at the present moment; that Allan's little daughter Julia had no source of income whatever after her father's monthly bills were paid, and that her only relative outside of the Careys, a certain Miss Ann Chadwick, had refused to admit her into her house. "Mr. Carey only asked Miss Chadwick as a last resort," wrote Mr. Manson, "for his very soul quailed at the thought of letting you, his brother's widow, suffer any more by his losses than was necessary, and he studiously refused to let you know the nature and extent of his need. Miss Chadwick's only response to his request was, that she believed in every tub standing on its own bottom, and if he had harbored the same convictions he would not have been in his present extremity. I am telling you this, my dear Mrs. Carey," the writer went on, "just to get your advice about the child. I well know that your income will not support your own children; what therefore shall we do with Julia? I am a poor young bachelor, with two sisters to support. I shall find a position, of course, and I shall never cease nursing Carey's various affairs and projects during the time of his exile, but I cannot assume an ounce more of financial responsibility." There had been quite a council over the letter, and parts of it had been read more than once by Mrs. Carey, but the children, though very sympathetic with Uncle Allan and loud in their exclamations of "Poor Julia!" had not suggested any remedy for the situation. "Well," said Mrs. Carey, folding the letter, "there seems to be but one thing for us to do." "Do you mean that you are going to have Julia come and live with us,--be one of the family?" exclaimed Gilbert. "That is what I want to discuss," she replied. "You three are the family as well as I.--Come in!" she called, for she heard the swift feet of the youngest petrel ascending the stairs. "Come in! Where is there a sweeter Peter, a fleeter Peter, a neater Peter, than ours, I should like to know, and where a better adviser for the council?" "_Neater_, mother! How _can_ you?" inquired Kathleen. "I meant neater when he is just washed and dressed," retorted Peter's mother. "Are you coming to the family council, sweet Pete?" Peter climbed on his mother's knee and answered by a vague affirmative nod, his whole mind being on the extraction of a slippery marble from a long-necked bottle. "Then be quiet, and speak only when we ask your advice," continued Mrs. Carey. "Unless I were obliged to, children, I should be sorry to go against all your wishes. I might be willing to bear my share of a burden, but more is needed than that." "I think," said Nancy suddenly, aware now of the trend of her mother's secret convictions, "I think Julia is a smug, conceited, vain, affected little pea--" Here she caught her mother's eye and suddenly she heard inside of her head or heart or conscience a chime of words. "_Next to father_!" Making a magnificent oratorical leap she finished her sentence with only a second's break,--"peacock, but if mother thinks Julia is a duty, a duty she is, and we must brace up and do her. Must we love her, mother, or can we just be good and polite to her, giving her the breast and taking the drumstick? _She_ won't ever say, '_Don't let me rob you_!' like Cousin Ann, when _she_ takes the breast!" Kathleen looked distinctly unresigned. She hated drumsticks and all that they stood for in life. She disliked the wall side of the bed, the middle seat in the carriage, the heel of the loaf, the underdone biscuit, the tail part of the fish, the scorched end of the omelet. "It will make more difference to me than anybody," she said gloomily. "Everything makes more difference to you, Kitty," remarked Gilbert. "I mean I'm always fourth when the cake plate's passed,--in everything! Now Julia'll be fourth, and I shall be fifth; it's lucky people can't tumble off the floor!" "Poor abused Kathleen!" cried Gilbert. "Well, mother, you're always right, but I can't see why you take another one into the family, when we've been saying for a week there isn't even enough for us five to live on. It looks mighty queer to put me in the public school and spend the money you save that way, on Julia!" Way down deep in her heart Mother Carey felt a pang. There was a little seed of hard self-love in Gilbert that she wanted him to dig up from the soil and get rid of before it sprouted and waxed too strong. "Julia is a Carey chicken after all, Gilbert," she said. "But she's Uncle Allan's chicken, and I'm Captain Carey's eldest son." "That's the very note I should strike if I were you," his mother responded, "only with a little different accent. What would Captain Carey's eldest son like to do for his only cousin, a little girl younger than himself,--a girl who had a very silly, unwise, unhappy mother for the first five years of her life, and who is now practically fatherless, for a time at least?" Gilbert wriggled as if in great moral discomfort, as indeed he was. "Well," he said, "I don't want to be selfish, and if the girls say yes, I'll have to fall in; but it isn't logic, all the same, to ask a sixth to share what isn't enough for five." "I agree with you there, Gilly!" smiled his mother. "The only question before the council is, does logic belong at the top, in the scale of reasons why we do certain things? If we ask Julia to come, she will have to 'fall into line,' as you say, and share the family misfortunes as best she can." "She's a regular shirk, and always was." This from Kathleen. "She would never come at all if she guessed her cousins' opinion of her, that is very certain!" remarked Mrs. Carey pointedly. "Now, mother, look me in the eye and speak the whole truth," asked Nancy. "_Do you like Julia Carey_?" Mrs. Carey laughed as she answered, "Frankly then, I do not! But," she continued, "I do not like several of the remarks that have been made at this council, yet I manage to bear them." "Of course I shan't call Julia smug and conceited to her face," asserted Nancy encouragingly. "I hope that her bosom friend Gladys Ferguson has disappeared from view. The last time Julia visited us, Kitty and I got so tired of Gladys Ferguson's dresses, her French maid, her bedroom furniture, and her travels abroad, that we wrote her name on a piece of paper, put it in a box, and buried it in the back yard the minute Julia left the house. When you write, mother, tell Julia there's a piece of breast for her, but not a mouthful of my drumstick goes to Gladys Ferguson." "The more the hungrier; better invite Gladys too," suggested Gilbert, "then we can say like that simple little kid in Wordsworth:-- "'Sisters and brother, little maid, How many may you be?' 'How many? Seven in all,' she said, And wondering looked at me!" "Then it goes on thus," laughed Nancy:-- "'And who are they? I pray you tell.' She answered, 'Seven are we; Mother with us makes five, and then There's Gladys and Julee!'" Everybody joined in the laugh then, including Peter, who was especially uproarious, and who had an idea he had made the joke himself, else why did they all kiss him? "How about Julia? What do you say, Peter?" asked his mother. "I want her. She played horse once," said Peter. The opinion that the earth revolved around his one small person was natural at the age of four, but the same idea of the universe still existed in Gilbert's mind. A boy of thirteen ought perhaps to have a clearer idea of the relative sizes of world and individual; at least that was the conviction in Mother Carey's mind. VI NANCY'S IDEA Nancy had a great many ideas, first and last. They were generally unique and interesting at least, though it is to be feared that few of them were practical. However, it was Nancy's idea to build Peter a playhouse in the plot of ground at the back of the Charlestown house, and it was she who was the architect and head carpenter. That plan had brought much happiness to Peter and much comfort to the family. It was Nancy's idea that she, Gilbert, and Kathleen should all be so equally polite to Cousin Ann Chadwick that there should be no favorite to receive an undue share of invitations to the Chadwick house. Nancy had made two visits in succession, both offered in the nature of tributes to her charms and virtues, and she did not wish a third. "If you two can't be _more_ attractive, then I'll be _less_, that's all," was her edict. "'Turn and turn about' has got to be the rule in this matter. I'm not going to wear the martyr's crown alone; it will adorn your young brows every now and then or I'll know the reason why!" It was Nancy's idea to let Joanna go, and divide her work among the various members of the family. It was also Nancy's idea that, there being no strictly masculine bit of martyrdom to give to Gilbert, he should polish the silver for his share. This was an idea that proved so unpopular with Gilbert that it was speedily relinquished. Gilbert was wonderful with tools, so wonderful that Mother Carey feared he would be a carpenter instead of the commander of a great war ship; but there seemed to be no odd jobs to offer him. There came a day when even Peter realized that life was real and life was earnest. When the floor was strewn with playthings his habit had been to stand amid the wreckage and smile, whereupon Joanna would fly and restore everything to its accustomed place. After the passing of Joanna, Mother Carey sat placidly in her chair in the nursery and Peter stood ankle deep among his toys, smiling. "Now put everything where it belongs, sweet Pete," said mother. "You do it," smiled Peter. "I am very busy darning your stockings, Peter." "I don't like to pick up, Muddy." "No, it isn't much fun, but it has to be done." Peter went over to the window and gazed at the landscape. "I dess I'll go play with Ellen," he remarked in honeyed tones. "That would be nice, after you clear away your toys and blocks." "I dess I'll play with Ellen first," suggested Peter, starting slowly towards the door. "No, we always work first and play afterwards!" said mother, going on darning. Peter felt caught in a net of irresistible and pitiless logic. "Come and help me, Muddy?" he coaxed, and as she looked up he suddenly let fly all his armory of weapons at once,--two dimples, tossing back of curls, parted lips, tiny white teeth, sweet voice. Mother Carey's impulse was to cast herself on the floor and request him simply to smile on her and she would do his lightest bidding, but controlling her secret desires she answered: "I would help if you needed me, but you don't. You're a great big boy now!" "I'm not a great big boy!" cried Peter, "I'm only a great big little boy!" "Don't waste time, sweet Pete; go to work!" "_I want Joanna_!" roared Peter with the voice of an infant bull. "So we all do. It's because she had to go that I'm darning stockings." The net tightened round Peter's defenceless body and he hurled himself against his rocking horse and dragged it brutally to a corner. Having disposed of most of his strength and temper in this operation, he put away the rest of his goods and chattels more quietly, but with streaming eyes and heaving bosom. "Splendid!" commented Mother Carey. "Joanna couldn't have done it better, and it won't be half so much work next time." Peter heard the words "next time" distinctly, and knew the grim face of Duty at last, though he was less than five. The second and far more tragic time was when he was requested to make himself ready for luncheon,--Kathleen to stand near and help "a little" if really necessary. Now Peter _au fond_ was absolutely clean. French phrases are detestable where there is any English equivalent, but in this case there is none, so I will explain to the youngest reader--who may speak only one language--that the base of Peter was always clean. He received one full bath and several partial ones in every twenty-four hours, but su-per-im-posed on this base were evidences of his eternal activities, and indeed of other people's! They were divided into three classes,--those contracted in the society of Joanna when she took him out-of-doors: such as sand, water, mud, grass stains, paint, lime, putty, or varnish; those derived from visits to his sisters at their occupations: such as ink, paints, lead pencils, paste, glue, and mucilage; those amassed in his stays with Ellen in the kitchen: sugar, molasses, spice, pudding sauce, black currants, raisins, dough, berry stains (assorted, according to season), chocolate, jelly, jam, and preserves; these deposits were not deep, but were simply dabs on the facade of Peter, and through them the eyes and soul of him shone, delicious and radiant. They could be rubbed off with a moist handkerchief if water were handy, and otherwise if it were not, and the person who rubbed always wanted for some mysterious reason to kiss him immediately afterwards, for Peter had the largest kissing acquaintance in Charlestown. When Peter had scrubbed the parts of him that showed most, and had performed what he considered his whole duty to his hair, he appeared for the first time at the family table in such a guise that if the children had not been warned they would have gone into hysterics, but he gradually grew to be proud of his toilets and careful that they should not occur too often in the same day, since it appeared to be the family opinion that he should make them himself. There was a tacit feeling, not always expressed, that Nancy, after mother, held the reins of authority, and also that she was a person of infinite resource. The Gloom-Dispeller had been her father's name for her, but he had never thought of her as a Path-Finder, a gallant adventurer into unknown and untried regions, because there had been small opportunity to test her courage or her ingenuity. Mrs. Carey often found herself leaning on Nancy nowadays; not as a dead weight, but with just the hint of need, just the suggestion of confidence, that youth and strength and buoyancy respond to so gladly. It had been decided that the house should be vacated as soon as a tenant could be found, but the "what next" had not been settled. Julia had confirmed Nancy's worst fears by accepting her aunt's offer of a home, but had requested time to make Gladys Ferguson a short visit at Palm Beach, all expenses being borne by the Parents of Gladys. This estimable lady and gentleman had no other names or titles and were never spoken of as if they had any separate existence. They had lived and loved and married and accumulated vast wealth, and borne Gladys. After that they had sunk into the background and Gladys had taken the stage. "I'm sure I'm glad she is going to the Fergusons," exclaimed Kathleen. "One month less of her!" "Yes," Nancy replied, "but she'll be much worse, more spoiled, more vain, more luxurious than before. She'll want a gold chicken breast now. We've just packed away the finger bowls; but out they'll have to come again." "Let her wash her own finger bowl a few days and she'll clamor for the simple life," said Kathleen shrewdly. "Oh, what a relief if the Fergusons would adopt Julia, just to keep Gladys company!" "Nobody would ever adopt Julia," returned Nancy. "If she was yours you couldn't help it; you'd just take her 'to the Lord in prayer,' as the Sunday-school hymn says, but you'd never go out and adopt her." Matters were in this uncertain and unsettled state when Nancy came into her mother's room one evening when the rest of the house was asleep. "I saw your light, so I knew you were reading, Muddy. I've had such a bright idea I couldn't rest." "Muddy" is not an attractive name unless you happen to know its true derivation and significance. First there was "mother dear," and as persons under fifteen are always pressed for time and uniformly breathless, this appellation was shortened to "Motherdy," and Peter being unable to struggle with that term, had abbreviated it into "Muddy." "Muddy" in itself is undistinguished and even unpleasant, but when accompanied by a close strangling hug, pats on the cheek, and ardent if somewhat sticky kisses, grows by degrees to possess delightful associations. Mother Carey enjoyed it so much from Peter that she even permitted it to be taken up by the elder children. "You mustn't have ideas after nine P.M., Nancy!" chided her mother. "Wrap the blue blanket around you and sit down with me near the fire." "You're not to say I'm romantic or unpractical," insisted Nancy, leaning against her mother's knees and looking up into her face,--"indeed, you're not to say anything of any importance till I'm all finished. I'm going to tell it in a long story, too, so as to work on your feelings and make you say yes." "Very well, I'm all ears!" "Now put on your thinking cap! Do you remember once, years and years ago, before Peter it was, that father took us on a driving trip through some dear little villages in Maine?" (The Careys never dated their happenings eighteen hundred and anything. It was always: Just before Peter, Immediately after Peter, or A Long Time after Peter, which answered all purposes.) "I remember." "It was one of Gilbert's thirsty days, and we stopped at nearly every convenient pump to give him drinks of water, and at noon we came to the loveliest wayside well with a real moss-covered bucket; do you remember?" "I remember." "And we all clambered out, and father said it was time for luncheon, and we unpacked the baskets on the greensward near a beautiful tree, and father said, 'Don't spread the table too near the house, dears, or they'll cry when they see our doughnuts!' and Kitty, who had been running about, came up and cried, 'It's an empty house; come and look!'" "I remember." "And we all went in the gate and loved every bit of it: the stone steps, the hollyhocks growing under the windows, the yellow paint and the green blinds; and father looked in the windows, and the rooms were large and sunny, and we wanted to drive the horse into the barn and stay there forever!" "I remember." "And Gilbert tore his trousers climbing on the gate, and father laid him upside down on your lap and I ran and got your work-bag and you mended the seat of his little trousers. And father looked and looked at the house and said, 'Bless its heart!' and said if he were rich he would buy the dear thing that afternoon and sleep in it that night; and asked you if you didn't wish you'd married the other man, and you said there never was another man, and you asked father if he thought on the whole that he was the poorest man in the world, and father said no, the very richest, and he kissed us all round, do you remember?" "Do I remember? O Nancy, Nancy! What do you think I am made of that I could ever forget?" "Don't cry, Muddy darling, don't! It was so beautiful, and we have so many things like that to remember." "Yes," said Mrs. Carey, "I know it. Part of my tears are grateful ones that none of you can ever recall an unloving word between your father and mother!" "The idea," said Nancy suddenly and briefly, "is to go and live in that darling house!" "Nancy! What for?" "We've got to leave this place, and where could we live on less than in that tiny village? It had a beautiful white-painted academy, don't you remember, so we could go to school there,--Kathleen and I anyway, if you could get enough money to keep Gilly at Eastover." "Of course I've thought of the country, but that far-away spot never occurred to me. What was its quaint little name,--Mizpah or Shiloh or Deborah or something like that?" "It was Beulah," said Nancy; "and father thought it exactly matched the place!" "We even named the house," recalled Mother Carey with a tearful smile. "There were vegetables growing behind it, and flowers in front, and your father suggested Garden Fore-and-Aft and I chose Happy Half-Acre, but father thought the fields that stretched back of the vegetable garden might belong to the place, and if so there would be far more than a half-acre of land." "And do you remember father said he wished we could do something to thank the house for our happy hour, and I thought of the little box of plants we had bought at a wayside nursery?" "Oh! I do indeed! I hadn't thought of it for years! Father and you planted a tiny crimson rambler at the corner of the piazza at the side." "Do you suppose it ever 'rambled,' Muddy? Because it would be ever so high now, and full of roses in summer." "I wonder!" mused Mother Carey. "Oh! it was a sweet, tranquil, restful place! I wonder how we could find out about it? It seems impossible that it should not have been rented or sold before this. Let me see, that was five years ago." "There was a nice old gentleman farther down the street, quite in the village, somebody who had known father when he was a boy." "So there was; he had a quaint little law office not much larger than Peter's playhouse. Perhaps we could find him. He was very, very old. He may not be alive, and I cannot remember his name." "Father called him 'Colonel,' I know that. Oh, how I wish dear Addy was here to help us!" "If he were he would want to help us too much! We must learn to bear our own burdens. They won't seem so strange and heavy when we are more used to them. Now go to bed, dear. We'll think of Beulah, you and I; and perhaps, as we have been all adrift, waiting for a wind to stir our sails, 'Nancy's idea' will be the thing to start us on our new voyage. Beulah means land of promise;--that's a good omen!" "And father found Beulah; and father found the house, and father blessed it and loved it and named it; that makes ever so many more good omens, more than enough to start housekeeping on," Nancy answered, kissing her mother goodnight. VII "OLD BEASTS INTO NEW" Mother Carey went to sleep that night in greater peace than she had felt for months. It had seemed to her, all these last sad weeks, as though she and her brood had been breasting stormy waters with no harbor in sight. There were friends in plenty here and there, but no kith and kin, and the problems to be settled were graver and more complex than ordinary friendship could untangle, vexed as it always was by its own problems. She had but one keen desire: to go to some quiet place where temptations for spending money would be as few as possible, and there live for three or four years, putting her heart and mind and soul on fitting the children for life. If she could keep strength enough to guide and guard, train and develop them into happy, useful, agreeable human beings,--masters of their own powers; wise and discreet enough, when years of discretion were reached, to choose right paths,--that, she conceived, was her chief task in life, and no easy one. "Happy I must contrive that they shall be," she thought, "for unhappiness and discontent are among the foxes that spoil the vines. Stupid they shall not be, while I can think of any force to stir their brains; they have ordinary intelligence, all of them, and they shall learn to use it; dull and sleepy children I can't abide. Fairly good they will be, if they are busy and happy, and clever enough to see the folly of being anything _but_ good! And so, month after month, for many years to come, I must be helping Nancy and Kathleen to be the right sort of women, and wives, and mothers, and Gilbert and Peter the proper kind of men, and husbands, and fathers. Mother Carey's chickens must be able to show the good birds the way home, as the Admiral said, and I should think they ought to be able to set a few bad birds on the right track now and then!" Well, all this would be a task to frighten and stagger many a person, but it only kindled Mrs. Carey's love and courage to a white heat. Do you remember where Kingsley's redoubtable Tom the Water Baby swims past Shiny Wall, and reaches at last Peacepool? Peacepool, where the good whales lie, waiting till Mother Carey shall send for them "to make them out of old beasts into new"? Tom swims up to the nearest whale and asks the way to Mother Carey. "There she is in the middle," says the whale, though Tom sees nothing but a glittering white peak like an iceberg. "That's Mother Carey," spouts the whale, "as you will find if you get to her. There she sits making old beasts into new all the year round." "How does she do that?" asks Tom. "That's her concern, not mine!" the whale remarks discreetly. And when Tom came nearer to the white glittering peak it took the form of something like a lovely woman sitting on a white marble throne. And from the foot of the throne, you remember, there swam away, out and out into the sea, millions of new-born creatures of more shapes and colors than man ever dreamed. And they were Mother Carey's children whom she makes all day long. Tom expected,--I am still telling you what happened to the famous water baby,--Tom expected (like some grown people who ought to know better) that he would find Mother Carey snipping, piecing, fitting, stitching, cobbling, basting, filing, planing, hammering, turning, polishing, moulding, measuring, chiselling, clipping, and so forth, as men do when they go to work to make anything. But instead of that she sat quite still with her chin upon her hand, looking down into the sea with two great blue eyes as blue as the sea itself. (As blue as our own mother's blue velvet bonnet, Kitty would have said.) Was Beulah the right place, wondered Mrs. Carey as she dropped asleep. And all night long she heard in dreams the voice of that shining little river that ran under the bridge near Beulah village; and all night long she walked in fields of buttercups and daisies, and saw the June breeze blow the tall grasses. She entered the yellow painted house and put the children to bed in the different rooms, and the instant she saw them sleeping there it became home, and her heart put out little roots that were like tendrils; but they grew so fast that by morning they held the yellow house fast and refused to let it go. She looked from its windows onto the gardens "fore and aft," and they seemed, like the rest of little Beulah village, full of sweet promise. In the back were all sorts of good things to eat growing in profusion, but modestly out of sight; and in front, where passers-by could see their beauty and sniff their fragrance, old-fashioned posies bloomed and rioted and tossed gay, perfumed heads in the sunshine. She awoke refreshed and strong and brave, not the same woman who took Nancy's idea to bed with her; for this woman's heart and hope had somehow flown from the brick house in Charlestown and had built itself a new nest in Beulah's green trees, the elms and willows that overhung the shining river. An idea of her own ran out and met Nancy's half way. Instead of going herself to spy out the land of Beulah, why not send Gilbert? It was a short, inexpensive railway journey, with no change of cars. Gilbert was nearly fourteen, and thus far seemed to have no notion of life as a difficult enterprise. No mother who respects her boy, or respects herself, can ask him flatly, "Do you intend to grow up with the idea of taking care of me; of having an eye to your sisters; or do you consider that, since I brought you into the world, I must provide both for myself and you until you are a man,--or forever and a day after, if you feel inclined to shirk your part in the affair?" Gilbert talked of his college course as confidently as he had before his father's death. It was Nancy who as the eldest seemed the head of the family, but Gilbert, only a year or so her junior, ought to grow into the head, somehow or other. The way to begin would be to give him a few delightful responsibilities, such as would appeal to his pride and sense of importance, and gradually to mingle with them certain duties of headship neither so simple nor so agreeable. Beulah would be a delightful beginning. Nancy the Pathfinder would have packed a bag and gone to Beulah on an hour's notice; found the real-estate dealer, in case there was such a metropolitan article in the village; looked up her father's old friend the Colonel with the forgotten surname; discovered the owner of the charming house, rented it, and brought back the key in triumph! But Nancy was a girl rich in courage and enterprise, while Gilbert's manliness and leadership and discretion and consideration for others needed a vigorous, decisive, continued push. If Nancy's idea was good, Mother Carey's idea matched it! To see Gilbert, valise in hand, eight dollars in pocket, leaving Charlestown on a Friday noon after school, was equal to watching Columbus depart for an unknown land. Thrilling is the only word that will properly describe it, and the group that followed his departure from the upper windows used it freely and generously. He had gone gayly downstairs and Nancy flung after him a small packet in an envelope, just as he reached the door. "There's a photograph of your mother and sisters!" she called. "In case the owner refuses to rent the house to _you_, just show him the rest of the family! And don't forget to say that the rent is exorbitant, whatever it is!" They watched him go jauntily down the street, Mother Carey with special pride in her eyes. He had on his second best suit, and it looked well on his straight slim figure. He had a gallant air, had Gilbert, and one could not truly say it was surface gallantry either; it simply did not, at present, go very deep. "No one could call him anything but a fine boy," thought the mother, "and surely the outside is a key to what is within!--His firm chin, his erect head, his bright eye, his quick tread, his air of alert self-reliance,--surely here is enough, for any mother to build on!" VIII THE KNIGHT OF BEULAH CASTLE Nancy's flushed face was glued to the window-pane until Gilbert turned the corner. He looked back, took off his cap, threw a kiss to them, and was out of sight! "Oh! how I wish _I_ could have gone!" cried Nancy. "I hope he won't forget what he went for! I hope he won't take 'No' for an answer. Oh! why wasn't I a boy!" Mrs. Carey laughed as she turned from the window. "It will be a great adventure for the man of the house, Nancy, so never mind. What would the Pathfinder have done if she had gone, instead of her brother?" "I? Oh! Millions of things!" said Nancy, pacing the sitting-room floor, her head bent a little, her hands behind her back. "I should be going to the new railway station in Boston now, and presently I should be at the little grated window asking for a return ticket to Greentown station. 'Four ten,' the man would say, and I would fling my whole eight dollars in front of the wicket to show him what manner of person I was. "Then I would pick up the naught-from-naught-is-naught, one-from-ten-is-nine, five-from-eight-is-three,--three dollars and ninety cents or thereabouts and turn away. "'Parlor car seat, Miss?' the young man would say,--a warm, worried young man in a seersucker coat, and I would answer, 'No thank you; I always go in the common car to study human nature.' That's what the Admiral says, but of course the ticket man couldn't know that the Admiral is an intimate friend of mine, and would think I said it myself. "Then I would go down the platform and take the common car for Greentown. Soon we would be off and I would ask the conductor if Greentown was the station where one could change and drive to Beulah, darling little Beulah, shiny-rivered Beulah; not breathing a word about the yellow house for fear he would jump off the train and rent it first. Then he would say he never heard of Beulah. I would look pityingly at him, but make no reply because it would be no use, and anyway I know Greentown _is_ the changing place, because I've asked three men before; but Cousin Ann always likes to make conductors acknowledge they don't know as much as she does. "Then I present a few peanuts or peppermints to a small boy, and hold an infant for a tired mother, because this is what good children do in the Sunday-school books, but I do not mingle much with the passengers because my brow is furrowed with thought and I am travelling on important business." You can well imagine that by this time Mother Carey has taken out her darning, and Kathleen her oversewing, to which she pays little attention because she so adores Nancy's tales. Peter has sat like a small statue ever since his quick ear caught the sound of a story. His eyes follow Nancy as she walks up and down improvising, and the only interruption she ever receives from her audience is Kathleen's or Mother Carey's occasional laugh at some especially ridiculous sentence. "The hours fly by like minutes," continues Nancy, stopping by the side window and twirling the curtain tassel absently. "I scan the surrounding country to see if anything compares with Beulah, and nothing does. No such river, no such trees, no such well, no such old oaken bucket, and above all no such Yellow House. All the other houses I see are but as huts compared with the Yellow House of Beulah. Soon the car door opens; a brakeman looks in and calls in a rich baritone voice, 'Greentown! Greentown! Do-not-leave-any-passles in the car!' And if you know beforehand what he is going to say you can understand him quite nicely, so I take up my bag and go down the aisle with dignity. 'Step lively, Miss!' cries the brakeman, but I do not heed him; it is not likely that a person renting country houses will move save with majesty. Alighting, I inquire if there is any conveyance for Beulah, and there is, a wagon and a white horse. I ask the driver boldly to drive me to the Colonel's office. He does not ask which Colonel, or what Colonel, he simply says, 'Colonel Foster, I s'pose,' and I say, 'Certainly.' We arrive at the office and when I introduce myself as Captain Carey's daughter I receive a glad welcome. The Colonel rings a bell and an aged beldame approaches, making a deep curtsy and offering me a beaker of milk, a crusty loaf, a few venison pasties, and a cold goose stuffed with humming birds. When I have reduced these to nothingness I ask if the yellow house on the outskirts of the village is still vacant, and the Colonel replies that it is, at which unexpected but hoped-for answer I fall into a deep swoon. When I awake the aged Colonel is bending over me, his long white goat's beard tickling my chin." (Mother Carey stops her darning now and Kathleen makes no pretence of sewing; the story is fast approaching its climax,--everybody feels that, including Peter, who hopes that he will be in it, in some guise or other, before it ends.) "'Art thou married, lady?' the aged one asks courteously, 'and if not, wilt thou be mine?'" "I tremble, because he does not seem to notice that he is eighty or ninety and I but fifteen, yet I fear if I reject him too scornfully and speedily the Yellow House will never be mine. 'Grant me a little time in which to fit myself for this great honor,' I say modestly, and a mighty good idea, too, that I got out of a book the other day; when suddenly, as I gaze upward, my suitor's white hair turns to brown, his beard drops off, his wrinkles disappear, and he stands before me a young Knight, in full armor. 'Wilt go to the yellow castle with me, sweet lady?' he asks. '_Wilt I_!' I cry in ecstasy, and we leap on the back of a charger hitched to the Colonel's horseblock. We dash down the avenue of elms and maples that line the village street, and we are at our journey's end before the Knight has had time to explain to me that he was changed into the guise of an old man by an evil sorcerer some years before, and could never return to his own person until some one appeared who wished to live in the yellow house, which is Beulah Castle. "We approach the well-known spot and the little picket gate, and the Knight lifts me from the charger's back. 'Here are house and lands, and all are yours, sweet lady, if you have a younger brother. There is treasure hidden in the ground behind the castle, and no one ever finds such things save younger brothers.' "'I have a younger brother,' I cry, '_and his name is Peter_!'" At this point in Nancy's chronicle Peter is nearly beside himself with excitement. He has been sitting on his hassock, his hands outspread upon his fat knees, his lips parted, his eyes shining. Somewhere, sometime, in Nancy's stories there is always a Peter. He lives for that moment! Nancy, stifling her laughter, goes on rapidly: "And so the Knight summons Younger Brother Peter to come, and he flies in a great air ship from Charlestown to Beulah. And when he arrives the Knight asks him to dig for the buried treasure." (Peter here turns up his sleeves to his dimpled elbows and seizes an imaginary implement.) "Peter goes to the back of the castle, and there is a beautiful garden filled with corn and beans and peas and lettuce and potatoes and beets and onions and turnips and carrots and parsnips and tomatoes and cabbages. He takes his magic spade and it leads him to the cabbages. He digs and digs, and in a moment the spade strikes metal! "'He has found the gold!' cries the Knight, and Peter speedily lifts from the ground pots and pots of ducats and florins, and gulden and doubloons." (Peter nods his head at the mention of each precious coin and then claps his hands, and hugs himself with joy, and rocks himself to and fro on the hassock, in his ecstasy at being the little god in the machine.) "Then down the village street there is the sound of hurrying horses' feet, and in a twinkling a gayly painted chariot comes into view, and in it are sitting the Queen Mother and the Crown Prince and Princess of the House of Carey. They alight; Peter meets them at the gate, a pot of gold in each hand. They enter the castle and put their umbrellas in one corner of the front hall and their rubbers in the other one, behind the door. Lady Nancibel trips up the steps after them and, turning, says graciously to her Knight, 'Would you just as soon marry somebody else? I am very much attached to my family, and they will need me dreadfully while they are getting settled.' "'I did not recall the fact that I had asked you to be mine,' courteously answers the youth. "'You did,' she responds, very much embarrassed, as she supposed of course he would remember his offer made when he was an old man with a goat's beard; 'but gladly will I forget all, if you will relinquish my hand.' "'As you please!' answers the Knight generously. 'I can deny you nothing when I remember you have brought me back my youth. Prithee, is the other lady bespoke, she of the golden hair?' "'Many have asked, but I have chosen none,' answers the Crown Princess Kitty modestly, as is her wont. "'Then you will do nicely,' says the Knight, 'since all I wish is to be son-in-law to the Queen Mother!' "'Right you are, my hearty!' cries Prince Gilbert de Carey, 'and as we much do need a hand at the silver-polishing I will gladly give my sister in marriage!' "So they all went into Beulah Castle and locked the door behind them, and there they lived in great happiness and comfort all the days of their lives, and there they died when it came their time, and they were all buried by the shores of the shining river of Beulah!" "Oh! it is perfectly splendid!" cried Kathleen. "About the best one you ever told! But do change the end a bit, Nancy dear! It's dreadful for him to marry Kitty when he chose Nancibel first. I'd like him awfully, but I don't want to take him that way!" "Well, how would this do?" and Nancy pondered a moment before going on: "'Right you are, my hearty!' cries Prince Gilbert de Carey, 'and as we do need a hand at the silver-polishing I will gladly give my sister in marriage.' "'Hold!' cries the Queen Mother. 'All is not as it should be in this coil! How can you tell,' she says, turning to the knightly stranger, 'that memory will not awake one day, and you recall the adoration you felt when you first beheld the Lady Nancibel in a deep swoon?' "The Young Knight's eyes took on a far-away look and he put his hand to his forehead. "'It comes back to me now!' he sighed. 'I did love the Lady Nancibel passionately, and I cannot think how it slipped my mind!' "'I release you willingly!' exclaimed the Crown Princess Kitty haughtily, 'for a million suitors await my nod, and thou wert never really mine!' "'But the other lady rejects me also!' responds the luckless youth, the tears flowing from his eagle eyes onto his crimson mantle. "'Wilt delay the nuptials until I am eighteen and the castle is set in order?' asks the Lady Nancibel relentingly. "'Since it must be, I do pledge thee my vow to wait,' says the Knight. 'And I do beg the fair one with the golden locks to consider the claims of my brother, not my equal perhaps, but still a gallant youth.' "'I will enter him on my waiting list as number Three Hundred and Seventeen,' responds the Crown Princess Kitty, than whom no violet could be more shy. ''Tis all he can expect and more than I should promise.' "So they all lived in the yellow castle in great happiness forever after, and were buried by the shores of the shining river of Beulah!--Does that suit you better?" "Simply lovely!" cried Kitty, "and the bit about my modesty is too funny for words!--Oh, if some of it would only happen! But I am afraid Gilbert will not stir up any fairy stories and set them going." "Some of it will happen!" exclaimed Peter. "I shall dig every single day till I find the gold-pots." "You are a pot of gold yourself, filled full and running over!" "Now, Nancy, run and write down your fairy tale while you remember it!" said Mother Carey. "It is as good an exercise as any other, and you still tell a story far better than you write it!" Nancy did this sort of improvising every now and then, and had done it from earliest childhood; and sometimes, of late, Mother Carey looked at her eldest chicken and wondered if after all she had hatched in her a bird of brighter plumage or rarer song than the rest, or a young eagle whose strong wings would bear her to a higher flight! IX GILBERT'S EMBASSY The new station had just been built in Boston, and it seemed a great enterprise to Gilbert to be threading his way through the enormous spaces, getting his information by his own wits and not asking questions like a stupid schoolboy. Like all children of naval officers, the Careys had travelled ever since their birth; still, this was Gilbert's first journey alone, and nobody was ever more conscious of the situation, nor more anxious to carry it off effectively. He entered the car, opened his bag, took out his travelling cap and his copy of "Ben Hur," then threw the bag in a lordly way into the brass rack above the seat. He opened his book, but immediately became interested in a young couple just in front of him. They were carefully dressed, even to details of hats and gloves, and they had an unmistakable air of wedding journey about them that interested the curious boy. Presently the conductor came in. Pausing in front of the groom he said, "Tickets, please"; then: "You're on the wrong train!" "Wrong train? Of course I'm not on the wrong train! You must be mistaken! The ticket agent told me to take this train." "Can't help that, sir, this train don't go to Lawrence." "It's very curious. I asked the brakeman, and two porters. Ain't this the 3.05?" "This is the 3.05." "Where does it go, then?" "Goes to Lowell. Lowell the first stop." "But I don't want to go to Lowell!" "What's the matter with Lowell? It's a good place all right!" "But I have an appointment in Lawrence at four o'clock." "I'm dretful sorry, but you'll have to keep it in Lowell, I guess!--Tickets, please!" this to a pretty girl on the opposite side from Gilbert, a pink and white, unsophisticated maiden, very much interested in the woes of the bride and groom and entirely sympathetic with the groom's helpless wrath. "On the wrong train, Miss!" said the conductor. "On the wrong train?" She spoke in a tone of anguish, getting up and catching her valise frantically. "It _can't_ be the wrong train! Isn't it the White Mountain train?" "Yes, Miss, but it don't go to North Conway; it goes to Fabyan's." "But my father _put_ me on this train and everybody _said_ it was the White Mountain train!" "So it is, Miss, but if you wanted to stop at North Conway you'd ought to have taken the 3.55, platform 8." "Put me off, then, please, and let me wait for the 3.55." "Can't do it, Miss; this is an express train; only stops at Lowell, where this gentleman is going!" (Here the conductor gave a sportive wink at the bridegroom who had an appointment in Lawrence.) The pretty girl burst into a flood of tears and turned her face despairingly to the window, while the bride talked to the groom excitedly about what they ought to have done and what they would have done had she been consulted. Gilbert could hardly conceal his enjoyment of the situation, and indeed everybody within hearing--that is, anybody who chanced to be on the right train--looked at the bride and groom and the pretty girl, and tittered audibly. "Why don't people make inquiries?" thought Gilbert superciliously. "Perhaps they have never been anywhere before, but even that's no excuse." He handed his ticket to the conductor with a broad smile, saying in an undertone, "What kind of passengers are we carrying this afternoon?" "The usual kind, I guess!--You're on the wrong train, sonny!" Gilbert almost leaped into the air, and committed himself by making a motion to reach down his valise. "I, on the wrong train?" he asked haughtily. "That _can't_ be so; the ticket agent told me the 3.05 was the only fast train to Greentown!" "Mebbe he thought you said Greenville; this train goes to Greenville, if that'll do you! Folks ain't used to the new station yet, and the ticket agents are all bran' new too,--guess you got hold of a tenderfoot!" "But Greenville will _not_ 'do' for me," exclaimed Gilbert. "I want to go to _Greentown_." "Well, get off at Lowell, the first stop,--you'll know when you come to it because this gentleman that wanted to go to Lawrence will get off there, and this young lady that was intendin' to go to North Conway. There'll be four of you; jest a nice party." Gilbert choked with wrath as he saw the mirth of the other passengers. "What train shall I be able to take to Greentown," he managed to call after the conductor. "Don't know, sonny! Ask the ticket agent in the Lowell deepot; he's an old hand and he'll know!" Gilbert's pride was terribly wounded, but his spirits rose a little later when he found that he would only have to wait twenty minutes in the Lowell station before a slow train for Greentown would pick him up, and that he should still reach his destination before bedtime, and need never disclose his stupidity. After all, this proved to be his only error, for everything moved smoothly from that moment, and he was as prudent and successful an ambassador as Mother Carey could have chosen. He found the Colonel, whose name was not Foster, by the way, but Wheeler; and the Colonel would not allow him to go to the Mansion House, Beulah's one small hotel, but insisted that he should be his guest. That evening he heard from the Colonel the history of the yellow house, and the next morning the Colonel drove him to the store of the man who had charge of it during the owner's absence in Europe, after which Gilbert was conducted in due form to the premises for a critical examination. The Yellow House, as Garden Fore-and-Aft seemed destined to be chiefly called, was indeed the only house of that color for ten miles square. It had belonged to the various branches of a certain family of Hamiltons for fifty years or more, but in course of time, when it fell into the hands of the Lemuel Hamiltons, it had no sort of relation to their mode of existence. One summer, a year or two before the Careys had seen it, the sons and daughters had come on from Boston and begged their father to let them put it in such order that they could take house parties of young people there for the week end. Mr. Hamilton indulgently allowed them a certain amount to be expended as they wished, and with the help of a local carpenter, they succeeded in doing several things to their own complete satisfaction, though it could not be said that they added to the value of the property. The house they regarded merely as a camping-out place, and after they had painted some bedroom floors, set up some cots, bought a kitchen stove and some pine tables and chairs, they regarded that part of the difficulty as solved; expending the rest of the money in turning the dilapidated barn into a place where they could hold high revels of various innocent sorts. The two freshman sons, two boarding-school daughters, and a married sister barely old enough to chaperon her own baby, brought parties of gay young friends with them several weeks in succession. These excursions were a great delight to the villagers, who thus enjoyed all the pleasures and excitements of a circus with none of its attendant expenses. They were of short duration, however, for Lemuel Hamilton was appointed consul to a foreign port and took his wife and daughters with him. The married sister died, and in course of time one of the sons went to China to learn tea-planting and the other established himself on a ranch in Texas. Thus the Lemuel Hamiltons were scattered far and wide, and as the Yellow House in Beulah had small value as real estate and had never played any part in their lives, it was almost forgotten as the busy years went by. "Mr. Hamilton told me four years ago, when I went up to Boston to meet him, that if I could get any rent from respectable parties I might let the house, though he wouldn't lay out a cent on repairs in order to get a tenant. But, land! there ain't no call for houses in Beulah, nor hain't been for twenty years," so Bill Harmon, the storekeeper, told Gilbert. "The house has got a tight roof and good underpinnin', and if your folks feel like payin' out a little money for paint 'n' paper you can fix it up neat's a pin. The Hamilton boys jest raised Cain out in the barn, so 't you can't keep no critters there." "We couldn't have a horse or a cow anyway," said Gilbert. "Well, it's lucky you can't. I could 'a' rented the house twice over if there'd been any barn room; but them confounded young scalawags ripped out the horse and cow stalls, cleared away the pig pen, and laid a floor they could dance on. The barn chamber 's full o' their stuff, so 't no hay can go in; altogether there ain't any nameable kind of a fool-trick them young varmints didn't play on these premises. When a farmer's lookin' for a home for his family and stock 't ain't no use to show him a dance hall. The only dancin' a Maine farmer ever does is dancin' round to git his livin' out o' the earth;--that keeps his feet flyin', fast enough." "Well," said Gilbert, "I think if you can put the rent cheap enough so that we could make the necessary repairs, I _think_ my mother would consider it." "Would you want it for more 'n this summer?" asked Mr. Harmon. "Oh! yes, we want to live here!" "_Want to live here_!" exclaimed the astonished Harmon. "Well, it's been a long time sence we heard anybody say that, eh, Colonel? "Well now, sonny" (Gilbert did wish that respect for budding manhood could be stretched a little further in this locality), "I tell you what, I ain't goin' to stick no fancy price on these premises--" "It wouldn't be any use," said Gilbert boldly. "My father has died within a year; there are four of us beside my mother, and there's a cousin, too, who is dependent on us. We have nothing but a small pension and the interest on five thousand dollars life insurance. Mother says we must go away from all our friends, live cheaply, and do our own work until Nancy, Kitty, and I grow old enough to earn something." Colonel Wheeler and Mr. Harmon both liked Gilbert Carey at sight, and as he stood there uttering his boyish confidences with great friendliness and complete candor, both men would have been glad to meet him halfway. "Well, Harmon, it seems to me we shall get some good neighbors if we can make terms with Mrs. Carey," said the Colonel. "If you'll fix a reasonable figure I'll undertake to write to Hamilton and interest him in the affair." "All right. Now, Colonel, I'd like to make a proposition right on the spot, before you, and you can advise sonny, here. You see Lem has got his taxes to pay,--they're small, of course, but they're an expense,--and he'd ought to carry a little insurance on his buildings, tho' he ain't had any up to now. On the other hand, if he can get a tenant that'll put on a few shingles and clapboards now and then, or a coat o' paint 'n' a roll o' wall paper, his premises won't go to rack 'n' ruin same's they're in danger o' doin' at the present time. Now, sonny, would your mother feel like keepin' up things a little mite if we should say sixty dollars a year rent, payable monthly or quarterly as is convenient?" Gilbert's head swam and his eyes beheld such myriads of stars that he felt it must be night instead of day. The rent of the Charlestown house was seven hundred dollars a year, and the last words of his mother had been to the effect that two hundred was the limit he must offer for the yellow house, as she did not see clearly at the moment how they could afford even that sum. "What would be your advice, Colonel?" stammered the boy. "I think sixty dollars is not exorbitant," the Colonel answered calmly (he had seen Beulah real estate fall a peg a year for twenty successive years), "though naturally you cannot pay that sum and make any extravagant repairs." "Then I will take the house," Gilbert remarked largely. "My mother left the matter of rent to my judgment, and we will pay promptly in advance. Shall I sign any papers?" "Land o' Goshen! the marks your little fist would make on a paper wouldn't cut much of a figure in a court o' law!" chuckled old Harmon. "You jest let the Colonel fix up matters with your ma." "Can I walk back, Colonel?" asked Gilbert, trying to preserve some dignity under the storekeeper's attacks. "I'd like to take some measurements and make some sketches of the rooms for my mother." "All right," the Colonel responded. "Your train doesn't go till two o'clock. I'll give you a bite of lunch and take you to the station." If Mother Carey had watched Gilbert during the next half-hour she would have been gratified, for every moment of the time he grew more and more into the likeness of the head of a family. He looked at the cellar, at the shed, at the closets and cupboards all over the house, and at the fireplaces. He "paced off" all the rooms and set down their proportions in his note-book; he even decided as to who should occupy each room, and for what purposes they should be used, his judgment in every case being thought ridiculous by the feminine portion of his family when they looked at his plans. Then he locked the doors carefully with a fine sense of ownership and strolled away with many a backward look and thought at the yellow house. At the station he sent a telegram to his mother. Nancy had secretly given him thirty-five cents when he left home. "I am hoarding for the Admiral's Christmas present," she whispered, "but it's no use, I cannot endure the suspense about the house a moment longer than is necessary. Just telegraph us yes or no, and we shall get the news four hours before your train arrives. One can die several times in four hours, and I'm going to commit one last extravagance,--at the Admiral's expense!" At three o'clock on Saturday afternoon a telegraph boy came through the gate and rang the front door bell. "You go, Kitty, I haven't the courage!" said Nancy, sitting down on the sofa heavily. A moment later the two girls and Peter (who for once didn't count) gazed at their mother breathlessly as she opened the envelope. Her face lighted as she read aloud:-- "_Victory perches on my banners. Have accomplished all I went for_. GILBERT." "Hurrah!" cried both girls. "The yellow house is the House of Carey forevermore." "Will Peter go too?" asked the youngest Carey eagerly, his nose quivering as it always did in excitement, when it became an animated question point. "I should think he would," exclaimed Kitty, clasping him in her arms. "What would the yellow house be without Peter?" "I wish Gilbert wouldn't talk about _his_ banners," said Nancy critically, as she looked at the telegram over her mother's shoulder. "They're not his banners at all, they're ours,--Carey banners; that's what they are!" Mother Carey had wished the same thing, but hoped that Nancy had not noticed the Gilbertian flaw in the telegram. X THE CAREYS' FLITTING The Charlestown house was now put immediately into the hands of several agents, for Mrs. Carey's lease had still four years to run and she was naturally anxious to escape from this financial responsibility as soon as possible. As a matter of fact only three days elapsed before she obtained a tenant, and the agent had easily secured an advance of a hundred dollars a year to the good, as Captain Carey had obtained a very favorable figure when he took the house. It was the beginning of April, and letters from Colonel Wheeler had already asked instructions about having the vegetable garden ploughed. It was finally decided that the girls should leave their spring term of school unfinished, and that the family should move to Beulah during Gilbert's Easter vacation. Mother Carey gave due reflection to the interrupted studies, but concluded that for two girls like Nancy and Kathleen the making of a new home would be more instructive and inspiring, and more fruitful in its results, than weeks of book learning. Youth delights in change, in the prospect of new scenes and fresh adventures, and as it is never troubled by any doubts as to the wisdom of its plans, the Carey children were full of vigor and energy just now. Charlestown, the old house, the daily life, all had grown sad and dreary to them since father had gone. Everything spoke of him. Even mother longed for something to lift her thought out of the past and give it wings, so that it might fly into the future and find some hope and comfort there. There was a continual bustle from morning till night, and a spirit of merriment that had long been absent. The Scotch have a much prettier word than we for all this, and what we term moving they call "flitting." The word is not only prettier, but in this instance more appropriate. It was such a buoyant, youthful affair, this Carey flitting. Light forms darted up and down the stairs and past the windows, appearing now at the back, now at the front of the house, with a picture, or a postage stamp, or a dish, or a penwiper, or a pillow, or a basket, or a spool. The chorus of "Where shall we put this, Muddy?" "Where will this go?" "May we throw this away?" would have distracted a less patient parent. When Gilbert returned from school at four, the air was filled with sounds of hammering and sawing and filing, screwing and unscrewing, and it was joy unspeakable to be obliged (or at least almost obliged) to call in clarion tones to one another, across the din and fanfare, and to compel answers in a high key. Peter took a constant succession of articles to the shed, where packing was going on, but his chief treasures were deposited in a basket at the front gate, with the idea that they would be transported as his personal baggage. The pile grew and grew: a woolly lamb, two Noah's arks, bottles and marbles innumerable, a bag of pebbles, a broken steam engine, two china nest-eggs, an orange, a banana and some walnuts, a fishing line, a trowel, a ball of string. These give an idea of the quality of Peter's effects, but not of the quantity. Ellen the cook labored loyally, for it was her last week's work with the family. She would be left behind, like Charlestown and all the old life, when Mother Carey and the stormy petrels flitted across unknown waters from one haven to another. Joanna having earlier proved utterly unromantic in her attitude, Nancy went further with Ellen and gave her an English novel called, "The Merriweathers," in which an old family servant had not only followed her employers from castle to hovel, remaining there without Wages for years, but had insisted on lending all her savings to the Mistress of the Manor. Ellen the cook had loved "The Merriweathers," saying it was about the best book that ever she had read, and Miss Nancy would like to know, always being so interested, that she (Ellen) had found a place near Joanna in Salem, where she was offered five dollars a month more than she had received with the Careys. Nancy congratulated her warmly and then, tearing "The Merriweathers" to shreds, she put them in the kitchen stove in Ellen's temporary absence. "If ever I write a book," she ejaculated, as she "stoked" the fire with Gwendolen and Reginald Merriweather, with the Mistress of the Manor, and especially with the romantic family servitor, "if ever I write a book," she repeated, with emphatic gestures, "it won't have any fibs in it;--and I suppose it will be dull," she reflected, as she remembered how she had wept when the Merriweathers' Bridget brought her savings of a hundred pounds to her mistress in a handkerchief. During these preparations for the flitting Nancy had a fresh idea every minute or two, and gained immense prestige in the family. Inspired by her eldest daughter Mrs. Carey sold her grand piano, getting an old-fashioned square one and a hundred and fifty dollars in exchange. It had been a wedding present from a good old uncle, who, if he had been still alive, would have been glad to serve his niece now that she was in difficulties. Nancy, her sleeves rolled up, her curly hair flecked with dust and cobwebs, flew down from the attic into Kathleen's room just after supper. "I have an idea!" she said in a loud whisper. "You mustn't have too many or we shan't take any interest in them," Kitty answered provokingly. "This is for your ears alone, Kitty!" "Oh! that's different. Tell me quickly." "It's an idea to get rid of the Curse of the House of Carey!" "It can't be done, Nancy; you know it can't! Even if you could think out a way, mother couldn't be made to agree." "She must never know. I would not think of mixing up a good lovely woman like mother in such an affair!" This was said so mysteriously that Kathleen almost suspected that bloodshed was included in Nancy's plan. It must be explained that when young Ensign Carey and Margaret Gilbert had been married, Cousin Ann Chadwick had presented them with four tall black and white marble mantel ornaments shaped like funeral urns; and then, feeling that she had not yet shown her approval of the match sufficiently, she purchased a large group of clay statuary entitled You Dirty Boy. The Careys had moved often, like all naval families, but even when their other goods and chattels were stored, Cousin Ann generously managed to defray the expense of sending on to them the mantel ornaments and the Dirty Boy. "I know what your home is to you," she used to say to them, "and how you must miss your ornaments. If I have chanced to give you things as unwieldy as they are handsome, I ought to see that you have them around you without trouble or expense, and I will!" So for sixteen years, save for a brief respite when the family was in the Philippines, their existence was blighted by these hated objects. Once when they had given an especially beautiful party for the Admiral, Captain Carey had carried the whole lot to the attic, but Cousin Ann arrived unexpectedly in the middle of the afternoon, and Nancy, with the aid of Gilbert and Joanna, had brought them down the back way and put them in the dining room. "You've taken the ornaments out of the parlor, I see," Cousin Ann said at the dinner table. "It's rather nice for a change, and after all, perhaps you spend as much time in this room as in any, and entertain as much company here!" Cousin Ann always had been, always would be, a frequent visitor, for she was devoted to the family in her own peculiar way; what therefore could Nancy be proposing to do with the Carey Curse? "Listen, my good girl," Nancy now said to Kathleen, after she had closed the door. "Thou dost know that the china-packer comes early to-morrow morn, and that e'en now the barrels and boxes and excelsior are bestrewing the dining room?" "Yes." "Then you and I, who have been brought up under the shadow of those funeral urns, and have seen that tidy mother scrubbing the ears of that unwilling boy ever since we were born,--you and I, or thou and I, perhaps I should say, will do a little private packing before the true packer arriveth." "Still do I not see the point, wench!" said the puzzled Kathleen, trying to model her conversation on Nancy's, though she was never thoroughly successful. "Don't call me 'wench,' because I am the mistress and you my tiring woman, but when you Watch, and assist me, at the packing, a great light will break upon you," Nancy answered "In the removal of cherished articles from Charlestown to Beulah, certain tragedies will occur, certain accidents will happen, although Cousin Ann knows that the Carey family is a well regulated one. But if there are accidents, and _there will be_, my good girl, then the authors of them will be forever unknown to all but thou and I. Wouldst prefer to pack this midnight or at cock crow, for packing is our task!" "I simply hate cock crow, and you know it," said Kathleen testily. "Why not now? Ellen and Gilbert are out and mother is rocking Peter to sleep." "Very well; come on; and step softly. It won't take long, because I have planned all in secret, well and thoroughly. Don't puff and blow like that! Mother will hear you!" "I'm excited," whispered Kathleen as they stole down the back stairs and went into the parlor for the funeral urns, which they carried silently to the dining room. These safely deposited, they took You Dirty Boy from its abominable pedestal of Mexican onyx (also Cousin Ann's gift) and staggered under its heavy weight, their natural strength being considerably sapped by suppressed laughter. Nancy chose an especially large and stout barrel. They put a little (very little) excelsior in the bottom, then a pair of dumb-bells, then a funeral urn, then a little hay, and another funeral urn, crosswise. The spaces between were carelessly filled in with Indian clubs. On these they painfully dropped You Dirty Boy, and on top of him the other pair of funeral urns, more dumbbells, and another Indian club. They had packed the barrel in the corner where it stood, so they simply laid the cover on top and threw a piece of sacking carelessly over it. The whole performance had been punctuated with such hysterical laughter from Kathleen that she was too weak to be of any real use,--she simply aided and abetted the chief conspirator. The night was not as other nights. The girls kept waking up to laugh a little, then they went to sleep, and waked again, and laughed again, and so on. Nancy composed several letters to her Cousin Ann dated from Beulah and explaining the sad accident that had occurred. As she concocted these documents between her naps she could never remember in her whole life any such night of mirth and minstrelsy, and not one pang of conscience interfered, to cloud the present joy nor dim that anticipation which is even greater. Nancy was downstairs early next morning and managed to be the one to greet the china-packers. "We filled one barrel last evening," she explained to them. "Will you please head that up before you begin work?" which one of the men obligingly did. "We'll mark all this stuff and take it down to the station this afternoon," said the head packer to Mrs. Carey. "Be careful with it, won't you?" she begged. "We are very fond of our glass and china, our clocks and all our little treasures." "You won't have any breakage so long as you deal with James Perkins & Co.!" said the packer. Nancy went back into the room for a moment to speak with the skilful, virtuous J.P. & Co. "There's no need to use any care with that corner barrel," she said carelessly. "It has nothing of value in it!" James Perkins went home in the middle of the afternoon and left his son to finish the work, and the son tagged and labelled and painted with all his might. The Dirty Boy barrel in the corner, being separated from the others, looked to him especially important, so he gave particular attention to that; pasted on it one label marked "Fragile," one "This Side Up," two "Glass with Care," and finding several "Perishables" in his pocket tied on a few of those, and removed the entire lot of boxes, crates, and barrels to the freight depot. The man who put the articles in the car was much interested in the Dirty Boy barrel. "You'd ought to have walked to Greentown and carried that one in your arms," he jeered. "What is the precious thing, anyway?" "Don't you mind what it is," responded young Perkins. "Jest you keep everybody 'n' everything from teching it! Does this lot o' stuff have to be shifted 'tween here and Greentown?" "No; not unless we git kind o' dull and turn it upside down jest for fun." "I guess you're dull consid'able often, by the way things look when you git through carryin' 'em, on this line," said Perkins, who had no opinion of the freight department of the A.&B. The answer, though not proper to record in this place, was worthy of Perkins's opponent, who had a standing grudge against the entire race of expressmen and carters who brought him boxes and barrels to handle. It always seemed to him that if they were all out of the country or dead he would have no work to do. XI THE SERVICE ON THE THRESHOLD From this point on, the flitting went easily and smoothly enough, and the transportation of the Carey family itself to Greentown, on a mild budding day in April, was nothing compared to the heavy labor that had preceded it. All the goods and chattels had been despatched a week before, so that they would be on the spot well in advance, and the actual flitting took place on a Friday, so that Gilbert would have every hour of his vacation to assist in the settling process. He had accepted an invitation to visit a school friend at Easter, saying to his mother magisterially: "I didn't suppose you'd want me round the house when you were getting things to rights; men are always in the way; so I told Fred Bascom I'd go home with him." "Home with Fred! Our only man! Sole prop of the House of Carey!" exclaimed his mother with consummate tact. "Why, Gilly dear, I shall want your advice every hour! And who will know about the planting,--for we are only 'women folks'; and who will do all the hammering and carpenter work? You are so wonderful with tools that you'll be worth all the rest of us put together!" "Oh, well, if you need me so much as that I'll go along, of course," said Gilbert, "but Fred said his mother and sisters always did this kind of thing by themselves." "'By themselves,' in Fred's family," remarked Mrs. Carey, "means a butler, footman, and plenty of money for help of every sort. And though no wonder you're fond of Fred, who is so jolly and such good company, you must have noticed how selfish he is!" "Now, mother, you've never seen Fred Bascom more than half a dozen times!" "No; and I don't remember at all what I saw in him the last five of them, for I found out everything needful the first time he came to visit us!" returned Mrs. Carey quietly. "Still, he's a likable, agreeable sort of boy." "And no doubt he'll succeed in destroying the pig in him before he grows up," said Nancy, passing through the room. "I thought it gobbled and snuffled a good deal when we last met!" Colonel Wheeler was at Greentown station when the family arrived, and drove Mrs. Carey and Peter to the Yellow House himself, while the rest followed in the depot carryall, with a trail of trunks and packages following on behind in an express wagon. It was a very early season, the roads were free from mud, the trees were budding, and the young grass showed green on all the sunny slopes. When the Careys had first seen their future home they had entered the village from the west, the Yellow House being the last one on the elm-shaded street, and quite on the outskirts of Beulah itself. Now they crossed the river below the station and drove through East Beulah, over a road unknown to any of them but Gilbert, who was the hero and instructor of the party. Soon the well-remembered house came into view, and as the two vehicles had kept one behind the other there was a general cheer. It was more beautiful even than they had remembered it; and more commodious, and more delightfully situated. The barn door was open, showing crates of furniture, and the piazza was piled high with boxes. Bill Harmon stood in the front doorway, smiling. He hoped for trade, and he was a good sort anyway. "I'd about given you up to-night," he called as he came to the gate. "Your train's half an hour late. I got tired o' waitin', so I made free to open up some o' your things for you to start housekeepin' with. I guess there won't be no supper here for you to-night." "We've got it with us," said Nancy joyously, making acquaintance in an instant. "You _are_ forehanded, ain't you! That's right!--jump, you little pint o' cider!" Bill said, holding out his arms to Peter. Peter, carrying many small things too valuable to trust to others, jumped, as suggested, and gave his new friend an unexpected shower of bumps from hard substances concealed about his person. "Land o' Goshen, you're _loaded_, hain't you?" he inquired jocosely as he set Peter down on the ground. The dazzling smile with which Peter greeted this supposed tribute converted Bill Harmon at once into a victim and slave. Little did he know, as he carelessly stood there at the wagon wheel, that he was destined to bestow upon that small boy offerings from his stock for years to come. He and Colonel Wheeler were speedily lifting things from the carryall, while the Careys walked up the pathway together, thrilling with the excitement of the moment. Nancy breathed hard, flushed, and caught her mother's hand. "O Motherdy!" she said under her breath; "it's all happening just as we dreamed it, and now that it's really here it's like--it's like--a dedication,--somehow. Gilbert, don't, dear! Let mother step over the sill first and call us into the Yellow House! I'll lock the door again and give the key to her." Mother Carey, her heart in her throat, felt anew the solemn nature of the undertaking. It broke over her in waves, fresher, stronger, now that the actual moment had arrived, than it ever had done in prospect. She took the last step upward, and standing in the doorway, trembling, said softly as she turned the key, "Come home, children! Nancy! Gilbert! Kathleen! Peter-bird!" They flocked in, all their laughter hushed by the new tone in her voice. Nancy's and Kitty's arms encircled their mother's waist. Gilbert with sudden instinct took off his hat, and Peter, looking at his elder brother wonderingly, did the same. There was a moment of silence; the kind of golden silence that is full to the brim of thoughts and prayers and memories and hopes and desires,--so full of all these and other beautiful, quiet things that it makes speech seem poor and shabby; then Mother Carey turned, and the Yellow House was blessed. Colonel Wheeler and Bill Harmon at the gate never even suspected that there had been a little service on the threshold, when they came up the pathway to see if there was anything more needed. "I set up all the bedsteads and got the mattresses on 'em," said Bill Harmon, "thinkin' the sandman would come early to-night." "I never heard of anything so kind and neighborly!" cried Mrs. Carey gratefully. "I thought we should have to go somewhere else to sleep. Is it you who keeps the village store?" "That's me!" said Bill. "Well, if you'll be good enough to come back once more to-night with a little of everything, we'll be very much obliged. We have an oil stove, tea and coffee, tinned meats, bread and fruit; what we need most is butter, eggs, milk, and flour. Gilbert, open the box of eatables, please; and, Nancy, unlock the trunk that has the bed linen in it. We little thought we should find such friends here, did we?" "I got your extension table into the dining-room," said Bill, "and tried my best to find your dishes, but I didn't make out, up to the time you got here. Mebbe you marked 'em someway so't you know which to unpack first? I was only findin' things that wan't no present use, as I guess you'll say when you see 'em on the dining table." They all followed him as he threw open the door, Nancy well in the front, as I fear was generally the case. There, on the centre of the table stood You Dirty Boy rearing his crested head in triumph, and round him like the gate posts of a mausoleum stood the four black and white marble funeral urns. Perfect and entire, without a flaw, they stood there, confronting Nancy. "It is like them to be the first to greet us!" exclaimed Mrs. Carey, with an attempt at a smile, but there was not a sound from Kathleen or Nancy. They stood rooted to the floor, gazing at the Curse of the House of Carey as if their eyes must deceive them. "You look as though you didn't expect to see them, girls!" said their mother, "but when did they ever fail us?--Do you know, I have a courage at this moment that I never felt before?--Beulah is so far from Buffalo that Cousin Ann cannot visit us often, and never without warning. I should not like to offend her or hurt her feelings, but I think we'll keep You Dirty Boy and the mantel ornaments in the attic for the present, or the barn chamber. What do you say?" Colonel Wheeler and Mr. Harmon had departed, so a shout of agreement went up from the young Careys. Nancy approached You Dirty Boy with a bloodthirsty glare in her eye. "Come along, you evil, uncanny thing!" she said. "Take hold of his other end, Gilly, and start for the barn; that's farthest away; but it's no use; he's just like that bloodstain on Lady Macbeth's hand,--he will not out! Kathleen, open the linen trunk while we're gone. We can't set the table till these curses are removed. When you've got the linen out, take a marble urn in each hand and trail them along to where we are. You can track us by a line of my tears!" They found the stairs to the barn chamber, and lifted You Dirty Boy up step by step with slow, painful effort. Kathleen ran out and put two vases on the lowest step and ran back to the house for the other pair. Gilbert and Nancy stood at the top of the stairs with You Dirty Boy between them, settling where he could be easiest reached if he had to be brought down for any occasion,--an unwelcome occasion that was certain to occur sometime in the coming years. Suddenly they heard their names called in a tragic whisper! "_Gilbert! Nancy! Quick! Cousin Ann's at the front gate_!" There was a crash! No human being, however self-contained, could have withstood the shock of that surprise; coming as it did so swiftly, so unexpectedly, and with such awful inappropriateness. Gilbert and Nancy let go of You Dirty Boy simultaneously, and he fell to the floor in two large fragments, the break occurring so happily that the mother and the washcloth were on one half, and the boy on the other,--a situation long desired by the boy, to whom the parting was most welcome! "She got off at the wrong station," panted Kathleen at the foot of the stairs, "and had to be driven five miles, or she would have got here as she planned, an hour before we did. She's come to help us settle, and says she was afraid mother would overdo. Did you drop anything? Hurry down, and I'll leave the vases here, in among the furniture; or shall I take back two of them to show that they were our first thought?--And oh! I forgot. She's brought Julia! Two more to feed, and not enough beds!" Nancy and Gilbert confronted each other. "Hide the body in the corner, Gilly," said Nancy; "and say, Gilly--" "Yes, what?" "You see he's in two pieces?" "Yes." "_What do you say to making him four, or more_?" "I say you go downstairs ahead of me and into the house, and I follow you a moment later! Close the barn door carefully behind you!--Am I understood?" "You are, Gilly! understood, and gloried in, and reverenced. My spirit will be with you when you do it, Gilly dear, though I myself will be greeting Cousin Ann and Julia!" XII COUSIN ANN Mother Carey, not wishing to make any larger number of persons uncomfortable than necessary, had asked Julia not to come to them until after the house in Beulah had been put to rights; but the Fergusons went abroad rather unexpectedly, and Mr. Ferguson tore Julia from the arms of Gladys and put her on the train with very little formality. Her meeting Cousin Ann on the way was merely one of those unpleasant coincidences with which life is filled, although it is hardly possible, usually, for two such disagreeable persons to be on the same small spot at the same precise moment. On the third morning after the Careys' arrival, however, matters assumed a more hopeful attitude, for Cousin Ann became discontented with Beulah. The weather had turned cold, and the fireplaces, so long unused, were uniformly smoky. Cousin Ann's stomach, always delicate, turned from tinned meats, eggs three times a day, and soda biscuits made by Bill Harmon's wife; likewise did it turn from nuts, apples, oranges, and bananas, on which the children thrived; so she went to the so-called hotel for her meals. Her remarks to the landlady after two dinners and one supper were of a character not to be endured by any outspoken, free-born New England woman. "I keep a hotel, and I'll give you your meals for twenty-five cents apiece so long as you eat what's set before you and hold your tongue," was the irate Mrs. Buck's ultimatum. "I'll feed you," she continued passionately, "because it's my business to put up and take in anything that's respectable; but I won't take none o' your sass!" Well, Cousin Ann's temper was up, too, by this time, and she declined on her part to take any of the landlady's "sass"; so they parted, rather to Mrs. Carey's embarrassment, as she did not wish to make enemies at the outset. That night Cousin Ann, still smarting under the memory of Mrs. Buck's snapping eyes, high color, and unbridled tongue, complained after supper that her bedstead rocked whenever she moved, and asked Gilbert if he could readjust it in some way, so that it should be as stationary as beds usually are in a normal state. He took his tool basket and went upstairs obediently, spending fifteen or twenty minutes with the much-criticised article of furniture, which he suspected of rocking merely because it couldn't bear Cousin Ann. This idea so delighted Nancy that she was obliged to retire from Gilbert's proximity, lest the family should observe her mirth and Gilbert's and impute undue importance to it. "I've done everything to the bedstead I can think of," Gilbert said, on coming downstairs. "You can see how it works to-night, Cousin Ann!" As a matter of fact it _did_ work, instead of remaining in perfect quiet as a well-bred bedstead should. When the family was sound asleep at midnight a loud crash was heard, and Cousin Ann, throwing open the door of her room, speedily informed everybody in the house that her bed had come down with her, giving her nerves a shock from which they probably would never recover. "Gilbert is far too young for the responsibilities you put upon him, Margaret," Cousin Ann exclaimed, drawing her wrapper more closely over her tall spare figure; "and if he was as old as Methuselah he would still be careless, for he was born so! All this talk about his being skilful with tools has only swollen his vanity. A boy of his age should be able to make a bedstead stay together." The whole family, including the crestfallen Gilbert, proposed various plans of relief, all except Nancy, who did not wish to meet Gilbert's glance for fear that she should have to suspect him of a new crime. Having embarked on a career of villainy under her direct instigation, he might go on of his own accord, indefinitely. She did not believe him guilty, but she preferred not to look into the matter more closely. Mother Carey's eyes searched Gilbert's, but found there no confirmation of her fears. "You needn't look at me like that, mother," said the boy. "I wouldn't be so mean as to rig up an accident for Cousin Ann, though I'd like her to have a little one every night, just for the fun of it." Cousin Ann refused to let Gilbert try again on the bedstead, and refused part of Mrs. Carey's bed, preferring to sleep on two hair mattresses laid on her bedroom floor. "They may not be comfortable," she said tersely, "but at least they will not endanger my life." The next morning's post brought business letters, and Cousin Ann feared she would have to leave Beulah, although there was work for a fortnight to come, right there, and Margaret had not strength enough to get through it alone. She thought the chimneys were full of soot, and didn't believe the kitchen stove would ever draw; she was sure that there were dead toads and frogs in the well; the house was inconvenient and always would be till water was brought into the kitchen sink; Julia seemed to have no leaning towards housework and had an appetite that she could only describe as a crime, inasmuch as the wherewithal to satisfy it had to be purchased by others; the climate was damp because of the river, and there was no proper market within eight miles; Kathleen was too delicate to live in such a place, and the move from Charlestown was an utter and absolute and entire mistake from A to Z. Then she packed her small trunk and Gilbert ran to the village on glad and winged feet to get some one to take his depressing relative to the noon train to Boston. As for Nancy, she stood in front of the parlor fireplace, and when she heard the hoot of the engine in the distance she removed the four mortuary vases from the mantelpiece and took them to the attic, while Gilbert from the upper hall was chanting a favorite old rhyme:-- "She called us names till she was tired, She called us names till we perspired, She called us names we never could spell, She called us names we never may tell. "She called us names that made us laugh, She called us names for a day and a half, She called us names till her memory failed, But finally out of our sight she sailed." "It must have been written about Cousin Ann in the first place," said Nancy, joining Kathleen in the kitchen. "Well, she's gone at last! "Now every prospect pleases, And only Julia's vile," she paraphrased from the old hymn, into Kathleen's private ear. "You oughtn't to say such things, Nancy," rebuked Kathleen. "Mother wouldn't like it." "I know it," confessed Nancy remorsefully. "I have been wicked since the moment I tried to get rid of You Dirty Boy. I don't know what's the matter with me. My blood seems to be too red, and it courses wildly through my veins, as the books say. I am going to turn over a new leaf, now that Cousin Ann's gone and our only cross is Julia!" Oh! but it is rather dreadful to think how one person can spoil the world! If only you could have seen the Yellow House after Cousin Ann went! If only you could have heard the hotel landlady exclaim as she drove past: "Well! Good riddance to bad rubbish!" The weather grew warmer outside almost at once, and Bill Harmon's son planted the garden. The fireplaces ceased to smoke and the kitchen stove drew. Colonel Wheeler suggested a new chain pump instead of the old wooden one, after which the water took a turn for the better, and before the month was ended the Yellow House began to look like home, notwithstanding Julia. As for Beulah village, after its sleep of months under deep snow-drifts it had waked into the adorable beauty of an early New England summer. It had no snow-capped mountains in the distance; no amethyst foothills to enchain the eye; no wonderful canyons and splendid rocky passes to make the tourist marvel; no length of yellow sea sands nor plash of ocean surf; no trade, no amusements, no summer visitors;--it was just a quiet, little, sunny, verdant, leafy piece of heart's content, that's what Beulah was, and Julia couldn't spoil it; indeed, the odds were, that it would sweeten Julia! That was what Mother Carey hoped when her heart had an hour's leisure to drift beyond Shiny Wall into Peacepool and consider the needs of her five children. It was generally at twilight, when she was getting Peter to sleep, that she was busiest making "old beasts into new." "People fancy that I make things, my little dear," says Mother Carey to Tom the Water Baby, "but I sit here and make them make themselves!" There was once a fairy, so the tale goes, who was so clever that she found out how to make butterflies, and she was so proud that she flew straight off to Peacepool to boast to Mother Carey of her skill. But Mother Carey laughed. "Know, silly child," she said, "that any one can make things if he will take time and trouble enough, but it is not every one who can make things make themselves." "Make things make themselves!" Mother Carey used to think in the twilight. "I suppose that is what mothers are for!" Nancy was making herself busily these days, and the offending Julia was directly responsible for such self-control and gains in general virtue as poor impetuous Nancy achieved. Kathleen was growing stronger and steadier and less self-conscious. Gilbert was doing better at school, and his letters showed more consideration and thought for the family than they had done heretofore. Even the Peter-bird was a little sweeter and more self-helpful just now, thought Mother Carey fondly, as she rocked him to sleep. He was worn out with following Natty Harmon at the plough, and succumbed quickly to the music of her good-night song and the comfort of her sheltering arms. Mother Carey had arms to carry, arms to enfold, arms to comfort and caress. She also had a fine, handsome, strong hand admirable for spanking, but she had so many invisible methods of discipline at her command that she never needed a visible spanker for Peter. "Spanking is all very well in its poor way," she used to say, "but a woman who has to fall back on it very often is sadly lacking in ingenuity." As she lifted Peter into his crib Nancy came softly in at the door with a slip of paper in her hand. She drew her mother out to the window over the front door. "Listen," she said. "Do you hear the frogs?" "I've been listening to them for the last half-hour," her mother said. "Isn't everything sweet to-night, with the soft air and the elms all feathered out, and the new moon!" "Was it ever so green before?" Nancy wondered, leaning over the window-sill by her mother's side. "Were the trees ever so lace-y? Was any river ever so clear, or any moon so yellow? I am so sorry for the city people tonight! Sometimes I think it can't be so beautiful here as it looks, mother. Sometimes I wonder if part of the beauty isn't inside of us!" said Nancy. "Part of all beauty is in the eyes that look at, it," her mother answered. "And I've been reading Mrs. Harmon's new reference Bible," Nancy continued, "and here is what it says about Beulah." She held the paper to the waning light and read: "_Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken, neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate ... but it shall be called Beulah, for the Lord delighteth in thee_. "I think father would be comforted if he could see us all in the Yellow House at Beulah!" Nancy went on softly as the two leaned out of the window together. "He was so loving, so careful of us, so afraid that anything should trouble us, that for months I couldn't think of him, even in heaven, as anything but worried. But now it seems just as if we were over the hardest time and could learn to live here in Beulah; and so he must be comforted if he can see us or think about us at all;--don't you feel like that, mother?" Yes, her mother agreed gently, and her heart was grateful and full of hope. She had lost the father of her children and the dear companion of her life, and that loss could never be made good. Still her mind acknowledged the riches she possessed in her children, so she confessed herself neither desolate nor forsaken, but something in a humble human way that the Lord could take delight in. XIII THE PINK OF PERFECTION That was the only trouble with Allan Carey's little daughter Julia, aged thirteen; she was, and always had been, the pink of perfection. As a baby she had always been exemplary, eating heartily and sleeping soundly. When she felt a pin in her flannel petticoat she deemed it discourteous to cry, because she knew that her nurse had at least tried to dress her properly. When awake, her mental machinery moved slowly and without any jerks. As to her moral machinery, the angels must have set it going at birth and planned it in such a way that it could neither stop nor go wrong. It was well meant, of course, but probably the angels who had the matter in charge were new, young, inexperienced angels, with vague ideas of human nature and inexact knowledge of God's intentions; because a child that has no capability of doing the wrong thing will hardly be able to manage a right one; not one of the big sort, anyway. At four or five years old Julia was always spoken of as "such a good little girl." Many a time had Nancy in early youth stamped her foot and cried: "Don't talk about Julia! I will not hear about Julia!" for she was always held up as a pattern of excellence. Truth to tell she bored her own mother terribly; but that is not strange, for by a curious freak of nature, Mrs. Allan Carey was as flighty and capricious and irresponsible and gay and naughty as Julia was steady, limited, narrow, conventional, and dull; but the flighty mother passed out of the Carey family life, and Julia, from the age of five onward, fell into the charge of a pious, unimaginative governess, instead of being turned out to pasture with a lot of frolicsome young human creatures; so at thirteen she had apparently settled--hard, solid, and firm--into a mould. She had smooth fair hair, pale blue eyes, thin lips, and a somewhat too plump shape for her years. She was always tidy and wore her clothes well, laying enormous stress upon their material and style, this trait in her character having been added under the fostering influence of the wealthy and fashionable Gladys Ferguson. At thirteen, when Julia joined the flock of Carey chickens, she had the air of belonging to quite another order of beings. They had been through a discipline seldom suffered by "only children." They had had to divide apples and toys, take turns at reading books, and learn generally to trot in double harness. If Nancy had a new dress at Christmas, Kathleen had a new hat in the spring. Gilbert heard the cry of "Low bridge!" very often after Kathleen appeared on the scene, and Kathleen's ears, too, grew well accustomed to the same phrase after Peter was born. "Julia never did a naughty thing in her life, nor spoke a wrong word," said her father once, proudly. "Never mind, she's only ten, and there's hope for her yet," Captain Carey had replied cheerfully; though if he had known her a little later, in her first Beulah days, he might not have been so sanguine. She seemed to have no instinct of adapting herself to the family life, standing just a little aloof and in an attitude of silent criticism. She was a trig, smug prig, Nancy said, delighting in her accidental muster of three short, hard, descriptive words. She hadn't a bit of humor, no fun, no gayety, no generous enthusiasms that carried her too far for safety or propriety. She brought with her to Beulah sheaves of school certificates, and when she showed them to Gilbert with their hundred per cent deportment and ninety-eight and seven-eighths per cent scholarship every month for years, he went out behind the barn and kicked its foundations savagely for several minutes. She was a sort of continual Sunday child, with an air of church and cold dinner and sermon-reading and hymn-singing and early bed. Nobody could fear, as for some impulsive, reckless little creature, that she would come to a bad end. Nancy said no one could imagine her as coming to anything, not even an end! "You never let mother hear you say these things, Nancy," Kathleen remarked once, "but really and truly it's just as bad to say them at all, when you know she wouldn't approve." "My present object is to be as good as gold in mother's eyes, but there I stop!" retorted Nancy cheerfully. "Pretty soon I shall get virtuous enough to go a step further and endeavor to please the angels,--not Julia's cast-iron angels, but the other angels, who understand and are patient, because they remember our frames and know that being dust we are likely to be dusty once in a while. Julia wasn't made of dust. She was made of--let me see--of skim milk and baked custard (the watery kind) and rice flour and gelatine, with a very little piece of overripe banana,--not enough to flavor, just enough to sicken. Stir this up with weak barley water without putting in a trace of salt, sugar, spice, or pepper, set it in a cool oven, take it out before it is done, and you will get Julia." Nancy was triumphant over this recipe for making Julias, only regretting that she could never show it to her mother, who, if critical, was always most appreciative. She did send it in a letter to the Admiral, off in China, and he, being "none too good for human nature's daily food," enjoyed it hugely and never scolded her at all. Julia's only conversation at this time was on matters concerning Gladys Ferguson and the Ferguson family. When you are washing dishes in the sink of the Yellow House in Beulah it is very irritating to hear of Gladys Ferguson's mother-of-pearl opera glasses, her French maid, her breakfast on a tray in bed, her diamond ring, her photograph in the Sunday "Times," her travels abroad, her proficiency in French and German. "Don't trot Gladys into the kitchen, for goodness' sake, Julia!" grumbled Nancy on a warm day. "I don't want her diamond ring in my dishwater. Wait till Sunday, when we go to the hotel for dinner in our best clothes, if you must talk about her. You don't wipe the tumblers dry, nor put them in the proper place, when your mind is full of Gladys!" "All right!" said Julia gently. "Only I hope I shall always be able to wipe dishes and keep my mind on better things at the same time. That's what Miss Tewksbury told me when she knew I had got to give up my home luxuries for a long time. 'Don't let poverty drag you down, Julia,' she said: 'keep your high thoughts and don't let them get soiled with the grime of daily living.'" It is only just to say that Nancy was not absolutely destitute of self-control and politeness, because at this moment she had a really vicious desire to wash Julia's supercilious face and neat nose with the dishcloth, fresh from the frying pan. She knew that she could not grasp those irritating "high thoughts" and apply the grime of daily living to them concretely and actually, but Julia's face was within her reach, and Nancy's fingers tingled with desire. No trace of this savage impulse appeared in her behavior, however; she rinsed the dishpan, turned it upside down in the sink, and gave the wiping towels to Julia, asking her to wring them out in hot water and hang them on the barberry bushes, according to Mrs. Carey's instructions. "It doesn't seem as if I could!" whimpered Julia. "I have always been so sensitive, and dish towels are so disgusting! They do _smell_, Nancy!" "They do," said Nancy sternly, "but they will smell worse if they are not washed! I give you the dish-wiping and take the washing, just to save your hands, but you must turn and turn about with Kathleen and me with some of the ugly, hateful things. If you were company of course we couldn't let you, but you are a member of the family. Our principal concern must be to keep mother's 'high thoughts' from grime; ours must just take their chance!" Oh! how Julia disliked Nancy at this epoch in their common history; and how cordially and vigorously the dislike was returned! Many an unhappy moment did Mother Carey have over the feud, mostly deep and silent, that went on between these two; and Gilbert's attitude was not much more hopeful. He had found a timetable or syllabus for the day's doings, over Julia's washstand. It had been framed under Miss Tewksbury's guidance, who knew Julia's unpunctuality and lack of system, and read as follows:-- _Syllabus_ Rise at 6.45. Bathe and dress. Devotional Exercises 7.15. Breakfast 7.45. Household tasks till 9. Exercise out of doors 9 to 10. Study 10 to 12. Preparations for dinner 12 to 1. Recreation 2 to 4. Study 4 to 5. Preparation for supper 5 to 6. Wholesome reading, walking, or conversation 7 to 8. Devotional exercises 9. Bed 9.30. There was nothing wrong about this; indeed, it was excellently conceived; still it appeared to Gilbert as excessively funny, and with Nancy's help he wrote another syllabus and tacked it over Julia's bureau. _Time Card_ On waking I can Pray for Gilly and Nan; Eat breakfast at seven. Or ten or eleven, Nor think when it's noon That luncheon's too soon. From twelve until one I can munch on a bun. At one or at two My dinner'll be due. At three, say, or four, I'll eat a bit more. When the clock's striking five Some mild exercise, Very brief, would be wise, Lest I lack appetite For my supper at night. Don't go to bed late, Eat a light lunch at eight, Nor forget to say prayers For my cousins downstairs. Then with conscience like mine I'll be sleeping at nine. Mrs. Carey had a sense of humor, and when the weeping Julia brought the two documents to her for consideration she had great difficulty in adjusting the matter gravely and with due sympathy for her niece. "The F-f-f-fergusons never mentioned my appetite," Julia wailed. "They were always trying to g-g-get me to eat!" "Gilbert and Nancy are a little too fond of fun, and a little too prone to chaffing," said Mrs. Carey. "They forget that you are not used to it, but I will try to make them more considerate. And don't forget, my dear, that in a large family like ours we must learn to 'live and let live.'" XIV WAYS AND MEANS It was late June, and Gilbert had returned from school, so the work of making the Yellow House attractive and convenient was to move forward at once. Up to now, the unpacking and distribution of the furniture, with the daily housework and cooking, had been all that Mrs. Carey and the girls could manage. A village Jack-of-all-trades, Mr. Ossian Popham, generally and familiarly called "Osh" Popham, had been called in to whitewash existing closets and put hooks in them; also, with Bill Harmon's consent, to make new ones here and there in handy corners. Dozens of shelves in odd spaces helped much in the tidy stowing away of household articles, bed-clothing, and stores. In the midst of this delightful and cheery setting-to-rights a letter arrived from Cousin Ann. The family was all sitting together in Mrs. Carey's room, the announced intention being to hold an important meeting of the Ways and Means Committee, the Careys being strong on ways and uniformly short on means. The arrival of the letters by the hand of Bill Harmon's boy occurred before the meeting was called to order. "May I read Cousin Ann's aloud?" asked Nancy, who had her private reasons for making the offer. "Certainly," said Mrs. Carey unsuspectingly, as she took up the inevitable stocking. "I almost wish you had all been storks instead of chickens; then you would always have held up one foot, and perhaps that stocking, at least, wouldn't have had holes in it!" "Poor Muddy! I'm learning to darn," cried Kathleen, kissing her. LONGHAMPTON, NEW JERSEY, _June 27th_. MY DEAR MARGARET [so Nancy read],--The climate of this seaside place suits me so badly that I have concluded to spend the rest of the summer with you, lightening those household tasks which will fall so heavily on your shoulders. [Groans from the whole family greeted this opening passage, and Gilbert cast himself, face down, on his mother's lounge.] It is always foggy here when it does not rain, and the cooking is very bad. The manager of the hotel is uncivil and the office clerks very rude, so that Beulah, unfortunate place of residence as I consider it, will be much preferable. I hope you are getting on well with the work on the house, although I regard your treating it as if it were your own, as the height of extravagance. You will never get back a penny you spend on it, and probably when you get it in good order Mr. Hamilton will come back from Europe and live in it himself, or take it away from you and sell it to some one else. Gilbert will be home by now, but I should not allow him to touch the woodwork, as he is too careless and unreliable. ["She'll never forget that the bed came down with her!" exclaimed Gilbert, his voice muffled by the sofa cushions.] Remember me to Julia. I hope she enjoys her food better than when I was with you. Children must eat if they would grow. [Mother Carey pricked up her ears at this point, and Gilbert raised himself on one elbow, but Nancy went on gravely.] Tell Kathleen to keep out of the sun, or wear a hat, as her complexion is not at all what it used to be. Without color and with freckles she will be an unusually plain child. [Kathleen flushed angrily and laid down her work.] Give my love to darling Nancy. What a treasure you have in your eldest, Margaret! I hope you are properly grateful for her. Such talent, such beauty, such grace, such discretion-- But here the family rose _en masse_ and descended on the reader of the spurious letter just as she had turned the first page. In the amiable scuffle that ensued, a blue slip fell from Cousin Ann's envelope and Gilbert handed it to his mother with the letter. Mrs. Carey, wiping the tears of merriment that came to her eyes in spite of her, so exactly had Nancy caught Cousin Ann's epistolary style, read the real communication, which ran as follows:-- DEAR MARGARET,--I have had you much in mind since I left you, always with great anxiety lest your strength should fail under the unexpected strain you put upon it. I had intended to give each of you a check for thirty-five dollars at Christmas to spend as you liked, but I must say I have not entire confidence in your judgment. You will be likelier far to decorate the walls of the house than to bring water into the kitchen sink. I therefore enclose you three hundred dollars and beg that you will have the well piped _at once_, and if there is any way to carry the water to the bedroom floor, do it, and let me send the extra amount involved. You will naturally have the well cleaned out anyway, but I should prefer never to know what you found in it. My only other large gift to you in the past was one of ornaments, sent, you remember, at the time of your wedding! ["We remember!" groaned the children in chorus.] I do not regret this, though my view of life, of its sorrows and perplexities, has changed somewhat, and I am more practical than I used to be. The general opinion is that in giving for a present an object of permanent beauty, your friends think of you whenever they look upon it. ["That's so!" remarked Gilbert to Nancy.] This is true, no doubt, but there are other ways of making yourself remembered, and I am willing that you should think kindly of Cousin Ann whenever you use the new pump. The second improvement I wish made with the money is the instalment of a large furnace-like stove in the cellar, which will send up a little heat, at least, into the hall and lower rooms in winter. You will probably have to get the owner's consent, and I should certainly ask for a five years' lease before expending any considerable amount of money on the premises. If there is any money left, I should suggest new sills to the back doors and those in the shed. I noticed that the present ones are very rotten, and I dare say by this time you have processions of red and black ants coming into your house. It seemed to me that I never saw so much insect life as in Beulah. Moths, caterpillars, brown-tails, slugs, spiders, June bugs, horseflies, and mosquitoes were among the pests I specially noted. The Mr. Popham who drove me to the station said that snakes also abounded in the tall grass, but I should not lay any stress on his remarks, as I never saw such manners in my life in any Christian civilized community. He asked me my age, and when I naturally made no reply, he inquired after a few minutes' silence whether I was unmarried from choice or necessity. When I refused to carry on any conversation with him he sang jovial songs so audibly that persons going along the street smiled and waved their hands to him. I tell you this because you appear to have false ideas of the people in Beulah, most of whom seemed to me either eccentric or absolutely insane. Hoping that you can endure your life there when the water smells better and you do not have to carry it from the well, I am Yours affectionately, ANN CHADWICH. "Children!" said Mrs. Carey, folding the letter and slipping the check into the envelope for safety, "your Cousin Ann is really a very good woman." "I wish her bed hadn't come down with her," said Gilbert. "We could never have afforded to get that water into the house, or had the little furnace, and I suppose, though no one of us ever thought of it, that you would have had a hard time doing the work in the winter in a cold house, and it would have been dreadful going to the pump." "Dreadful for you too, Gilly," replied Kathleen pointedly. "I shall be at school, where I can't help," said Gilbert. Mrs. Carey made no remark, as she intended the fact that there was no money for Gilbert's tuition at Eastover to sink gradually into his mind, so that he might make the painful discovery himself. His fees had fortunately been paid in advance up to the end of the summer term, so the strain on their resources had not been felt up to now. Nancy had disappeared from the room and now stood in the doorway. "I wish to remark that, having said a good many disagreeable things about Cousin Ann, and regretting them very much, I have placed the four black and white marble ornaments on my bedroom mantelpiece, there to be a perpetual reminder of my sins. You Dirty Boy is in a hundred pieces in the barn chamber, but if Cousin Ann ever comes to visit us again, I'll be the one to confess that Gilly and I were the cause of the accident." "Now take your pencil, Nancy, and see where we are in point of income, at the present moment," her mother suggested, with an approving smile. "Put down the pension of thirty dollars a month." "Down.--Three hundred and sixty dollars." "Now the hundred dollars over and above the rent of the Charlestown house." "Down; but it lasts only four years." "We may all be dead by that time." (This cheerfully from Gilbert.) "Then the interest on our insurance money. Four per cent on five thousand dollars is two hundred; I have multiplied it twenty times." "Down.--Two hundred." "Of course if anything serious happens, or any great need comes, we have the five thousand to draw upon," interpolated Gilbert. "I will draw upon that to save one of us in illness or to bury one of us," said Mrs. Carey with determination, "but I will never live out of it myself, nor permit you to. We are five,--six, while Julia is with us," she added hastily,--"and six persons will surely have rainy days coming to them. What if I should die and leave you?" "Don't, mother!" they cried in chorus, so passionately that Mrs. Carey changed the subject quickly. "How much a year does it make, Nancy?" "Three hundred and sixty plus one hundred plus two hundred equals six hundred and sixty," read Nancy. "And I call it a splendid big lump of money!" "Oh, my dear," sighed her mother with a shake of the head, "if you knew the difficulty your father and I have had to take care of ourselves and of you on five and six times that sum! We may have been a little extravagant sometimes following him about,--he was always so anxious to have us with him,--but that has been our only luxury." "We saved enough out of exchanging the grand piano to pay all the expenses down here, and all our railway fares, and everything so far, in the way of boards and nails and Osh Popham's labor," recalled Gilbert. "Yes, and we are still eating the grand piano at the end of two months, but it's about gone, isn't it, Muddy?" Nancy asked. "About gone, but it has been a great help, and our dear little old-fashioned square is just as much of a comfort.--Of course there's the tapestry and the Van Twiller landscape Uncle gave me; they may yet be sold." "Somebody'll buy the tapestry, but the Van Twiller'll go hard," and Gilbert winked at Nancy. "A picture that looks just the same upside down as the right way about won't find many buyers," was Nancy's idea. "Still it is a Van Twiller, and has a certain authentic value for all time!" "The landscapes Van Twiller painted in the dark, or when he had his blinders on, can't be worth very much," insisted Gilbert. "You remember the Admiral thought it was partridges nesting in the underbrush at twilight, and then we found Joanna had cleaned the dining room and hung the thing upside down. When it was hung the other end up neither father nor the Admiral could tell what it was; they'd lost the partridges and couldn't find anything else!" "We shall get something for it because it is a Van Twiller," said Mrs. Carey hopefully; "and the tapestry is lovely.--Now we have been doing all our own work to save money enough to make the house beautiful; yet, as Cousin Ann says, it does not belong to us and may be taken away at any moment after the year is up. We have never even seen our landlord, though Mr. Harmon has written to him. Are we foolish? What do you think, Julia?" XV BELONGING TO BEULAH The Person without a Fault had been quietly working at her embroidery, raising her head now and then to look at some extraordinary Carey, when he or she made some unusually silly or fantastic remark. "I'm not so old as Gilbert and Nancy, and I'm only a niece," she said modestly, "so I ought not to have an opinion. But I should get a maid-of-all-work at once, so that we shouldn't all be drudges as we are now; then I should not spend a single cent on the house, but just live here in hiding, as it were, till better times come and till we are old enough to go into society. You could scrimp and save for Nancy's coming out, and then for Kathleen's. Father would certainly be well long before then, and Kathleen and I could debut together!" "Who wants to 'debut' together or any other way," sniffed Nancy scornfully. "I'm coming out right here in Beulah; indeed I'm not sure but I'm out already! Mr. Bill Harmon has asked me to come to the church sociable and Mr. Popham has invited me to the Red Men's picnic at Greentown. Beulah's good for something better than a place to hide in! We'll have to save every penny at first, of course, but in three or four years Gilly and I ought to be earning something." "The trouble is, I _can't_ earn anything in college," objected Gilbert, "though I'd like to." "That will be the only way a college course can come to you now, Gilbert," his mother said quietly. "You know nothing of the expenses involved. They would have taxed our resources to the utmost if father had lived, and we had had our more than five thousand a year! You and I together must think out your problem this summer." Gilbert looked blank and walked to the window with his hands in his pockets. "I should lose all my friends, and it's hard for a fellow to make his way in the world if he has nothing to recommend him but his graduation from some God-forsaken little hole like Beulah Academy." Nancy looked as if she could scalp her brother when he alluded to her beloved village in these terms, but her mother's warning look stopped any comment. Julia took up arms for her cousin. "We ought to go without everything for the sake of sending Gilbert to college," she said. "Gladys Ferguson doesn't know a single boy who isn't going to Harvard or Yale." "If a boy of good family and good breeding cannot make friends by his own personality and his own qualities of mind and character, I should think he would better go without them," said Gilbert's mother casually. "Don't you believe in a college education, mother?" inquired Gilbert in an astonished tone. "Certainly! Why else should we have made sacrifices to send you? To begin with, it is much simpler and easier to be educated in college. You have a thousand helps and encouragements that other fellows have to get as they may. The paths are all made straight for the students. A stupid boy, or one with small industry or little originality, must have _something_ drummed into him in four years, with all the splendid teaching energy that the colleges employ. It requires a very high grade of mental and moral power to do without such helps, and it may be that you are not strong enough to succeed without them;--I do not know your possibilities yet, Gilbert, and neither do you know them yourself!" Gilbert looked rather nonplussed. "Pretty stiff, I call it!" he grumbled, "to say that if you've got brains enough you can do without college." "It is true, nevertheless. If you have brains enough, and will enough, and heart enough, you can stay here in Beulah and make the universe search you out, and drag you into the open, where men have need of you!" (Mrs. Carey's eyes shone and her cheeks glowed.) "What we all want as a family is to keep well and strong and good, in body and mind and soul; to conquer our weaknesses, to train our gifts, to harness our powers to some wished-for end, and then _pull_, with all our might. Can't my girls be fine women, fit for New York or Washington, London or Paris, because their young days were passed in Beulah? Can't my boys be anything that their brains and courage fit them for, whether they make their own associations or have them made for them? Father would never have flung the burden on your shoulders, Gilbert, but he is no longer here. You can't have the help of Yale or Harvard or Bowdoin to make a man of you, my son,--you will have to fight your own battles and win your own spurs." "Oh! mother, but you're splendid!" cried Nancy, the quick tears in her eyes. "Brace up, old Gilly, and show what the Careys can do without 'advantages.' Brace up, Kitty and Julia! We three will make Beulah Academy ring next year!" "And I don't want you to look upon Beulah as a place of hiding while adversity lasts," said Mother Carey. "We must make it home; as beautiful and complete as we can afford. One real home always makes others, I am sure of that! We will ask Mr. Harmon to write Mr. Hamilton and see if he will promise to leave us undisturbed. We cannot be happy, or prosperous, or useful, or successful, unless we can contrive to make the Yellow House a home. The river is our river; the village is our village; the people are our neighbors; Beulah belongs to us and we belong to Beulah, don't we, Peter?" Mother Carey always turned to Peter with some nonsensical appeal when her heart was full and her voice a trifle unsteady. You could bury your head in Peter's little white sailor jacket just under his chin, at which he would dimple and gurgle and chuckle and wriggle, and when you withdrew your flushed face and presented it to the public gaze all the tears would have been wiped off on Peter. So on this occasion did Mrs. Carey repeat, as she set Peter down, "Don't we belong to Beulah, dear?" "Yes, we does," he lisped, "and I'm going to work myself, pretty soon bimebye just after a while, when I'm a little more grown up, and then I'll buy the Yellow House quick." "So you shall, precious!" cried Kathleen. "I was measured on Muddy this morning, wasn't I, Muddy, and I was half way to her belt; and in Charlestown I was only a little farder up than her knees. All the time I'm growing up she's ungrowing down! She's smallering and I'm biggering." "Are you afraid your mother'll be too small, sweet Pete?" asked Mrs. Carey. "No!" this very stoutly. "Danny Harmon's mother's more'n up to the mantelpiece and I'd hate to have my mother so far away!" said Peter as he embraced Mrs. Carey's knees. Julia had said little during this long conversation, though her mind was fairly bristling with objections and negatives and different points of view, but she was always more or less awed by her Aunt Margaret, and never dared defy her opinion. She had a real admiration for her aunt's beauty and dignity and radiant presence, though it is to be feared she cared less for the qualities of character that made her personality so luminous with charm for everybody. She saw people look at her, listen to her, follow her with their eyes, comment on her appearance, her elegance, and her distinction, and all this impressed her deeply. As to Cousin Ann's present her most prominent feeling was that it would have been much better if that lady had followed her original plan of sending individual thirty-five-dollar checks. In that event she, Julia, was quite certain that hers never would have gone into a water-pipe or a door-sill. "Oh, Kathleen!" sighed Nancy as the two went into the kitchen together. "Isn't mother the most interesting 'scolder' you ever listened to? I love to hear her do it, especially when somebody else is getting it. When it's I, I grow smaller and smaller, curling myself up like a little worm. Then when she has finished I squirm to the door and wriggle out. Other mothers say: 'If you don't, I shall tell your father!' 'Do as I tell you, and ask no questions.' 'I never heard of such behavior in my life!' 'Haven't you any sense of propriety?' 'If this happens again I shall have to do something desperate.' 'Leave the room at once,' and so on; but mother sets you to thinking." "Mother doesn't really scold," Kathleen objected. "No, but she shows you how wrong you are, just the same. Did you notice how Julia _withered_ when mother said we were not to look upon Beulah as a place of hiding?" "She didn't stay withered long," Kathleen remarked. "And she said just the right thing to dear old Gilly, for Fred Bascom is filling his head with foolish notions. He needs father to set him right." "We all need father," sighed Kitty tearfully, "but somehow mother grows a little more splendid every day. I believe she's trying to fill father's place and be herself too!" XVI THE POST BAG Letter from Mr. William Harmon, storekeeper at Beulah Corner, to Hon. Lemuel Hamilton, American Consul at Breslau, Germany. Beulah, _June 27th._ Dear Lem: The folks up to your house want to lay out money on it and don't dass for fear you'll turn em out and pocket their improvements. If you haint got any better use for the propety I advise you to hold on to this bunch of tennants as they are O.K. wash goods, all wool, and a yard wide. I woodent like Mrs. Harmon _to know how I feel about the lady_, who is hansome as a picture and the children are a first class crop and no mistake. They will not lay out much at first as they are short of cash but if ever good luck comes along they will fit up the house like a pallis and your granchildren will reep the proffit. I'll look out for your interest and see they don't do nothing outlandish. They'd have hard work to beat that fool-job your boys did on the old barn, fixin it up so't nobody could keep critters in it, so no more from your old school frend BILL HARMON. P.S. We've been having a spell of turrible hot wether in Beulah. How is it with you? I never framed it up jest what kind of a job an American Counsul's was; but I guess he aint never het up with overwork! There was a piece in a Portland paper about a Counsul somewhere being fired because he set in his shirt-sleeves durin office hours. I says to Col. Wheeler if Uncle Sam could keep em all in their shirtsleeves, hustlin for dear life, it wood be all the better for him and us! BILL. Letter from Miss Nancy Carey to the Hon. Lemuel Hamilton. BEULAH, _June 27th_. DEAR MR. HAMILTON,--I am Nancy, the oldest of the Carey children, who live in your house. When father was alive, he took us on a driving trip, and we stopped and had luncheon under your big maple and fell in love with your empty house. Father (he was a Captain in the Navy and there was never anybody like him in the world!)--Father leaned over the gate and said if he was only rich he would drive the horse into the barn and buy the place that very day; and mother said it would be a beautiful spot to bring up a family. We children had wriggled under the fence, and were climbing the apple trees by that time, and we wanted to be brought up there that very minute. We all of us look back to that day as the happiest one that we can remember. Mother laughs when I talk of looking back, because I am not sixteen yet, but I think, although we did not know it, God knew that father was going to die and we were going to live in that very spot afterwards. Father asked us what we could do for the place that had been so hospitable to us, and I remembered a box of plants in the carryall, that we had bought at a wayside nursery, for the flower beds in Charlestown. "Plant something!" I said, and father thought it was a good idea and took a little crimson rambler rose bush from the box. Each of us helped make the place for it by taking a turn with the luncheon knives and spoons; then I planted the rose and father took off his hat and said, "Three cheers for the Yellow House!" and mother added, "God bless it, and the children who come to live in it!"--There is surely something strange in that, don't you think so? Then when father died last year we had to find a cheap and quiet place to live, and I remembered the Yellow House in Beulah and told mother my idea. She does not say "Bosh!" like some mothers, but if our ideas sound like anything she tries them; so she sent Gilbert to see if the house was still vacant, and when we found it was, we took it. The rent is sixty dollars a year, as I suppose Bill Harmon told you when he sent you mother's check for fifteen dollars for the first quarter. We think it is very reasonable, and do not wonder you don't like to spend anything on repairs or improvements for us, as you have to pay taxes and insurance. We hope you will have a good deal over for your own use out of our rent, as we shouldn't like to feel under obligation. If we had a million we'd spend it all on the Yellow House, because we are fond of it in the way you are fond of a person; it's not only that we want to paint it and paper it, but we would like to pat it and squeeze it. If you can't live in it yourself, even in the summer, perhaps you will be glad to know we love it so much and want to take good care of it always. What troubles us is the fear that you will take it away or sell it to somebody before Gilbert and I are grown up and have earned money enough to buy it. It was Cousin Ann that put the idea into our heads, but everybody says it is quite likely and sensible. Cousin Ann has made us a splendid present of enough money to bring the water from the well into the kitchen sink and to put a large stove like a furnace into the cellar. We would cut two registers behind the doors in the dining-room and sitting-room floors, and two little round holes in the ceilings to let the heat up into two bedrooms, if you are willing to let us do it. [Mother says that Cousin Ann is a good and generous person. It is true, and it makes us very unhappy that we cannot really love her on account of her being so fault-finding; but you, being an American Consul and travelling all over the world, must have seen somebody like her.] Mr. Harmon is writing to you, but I thought he wouldn't know so much about us as I do. We have father's pension; that is three hundred and sixty dollars a year; and one hundred dollars a year from the Charlestown house, but that only lasts for four years; and two hundred dollars a year from the interest on father's insurance. That makes six hundred and sixty dollars, which is a great deal if you haven't been used to three thousand, but does not seem to be enough for a family of six. There is the insurance money itself, too, but mother says nothing but a very dreadful need must make us touch that. You see there are four of us children, which with mother makes five, and now there is Julia, which makes six. She is Uncle Allan's only child. Uncle Allan has nervous prostration and all of mother's money. We are not poor at all, just now, on account of having exchanged the grand piano for an old-fashioned square and eating up the extra money. It is great fun, and whenever we have anything very good for supper Kathleen says, "Here goes a piano leg!" and Gilbert says, "Let's have an octave of white notes for Sunday supper, mother!" I send you a little photograph of the family taken together on your side piazza (we call it our piazza, and I hope you don't mind). I am the tallest girl, with the curly hair. Julia is sitting down in front, hemming. She said we should look so idle if somebody didn't do something, but she never really hems; and Kathleen is leaning over mother's shoulder. We all wanted to lean over mother's shoulder, but Kitty got there first. The big boy is Gilbert. He can't go to college now, as father intended, and he is very sad and depressed; but mother says he has a splendid chance to show what father's son can do without any help but his own industry and pluck. Please look carefully at the lady sitting in the chair, for it is our mother. It is only a snap shot, but you can see how beautiful she is. Her hair is very long, and the wave in it is natural. The little boy is Peter. He is the loveliest and the dearest of all of us. The second picture is of me tying up the crimson rambler. I thought you would like to see what a wonderful rose it is. I was standing in a chair, training the long branches and tacking them against the house, when a gentleman drove by with a camera in his wagon. He stopped and took the picture and sent us one, explaining that every one admired it. I happened to be wearing my yellow muslin, and I am sending you the one the gentleman colored, because it is the beautiful crimson of the rose against the yellow house that makes people admire it so. If you come to America please don't forget Beulah, because if you once saw mother you could never bear to disturb her, seeing how brave she is, living without father. Admiral Southwick, who is in China, calls us Mother Carey's chickens. They are stormy petrels, and are supposed to go out over the seas and show good birds the way home. We haven't done anything splendid yet, but we mean to when the chance comes. I haven't told anybody that I am writing this, but I wanted you to know everything about us, as you are our landlord. We could be so happy if Cousin Ann wouldn't always say we are spending money on another person's house and such a silly performance never came to any good. I enclose you a little picture cut from the wall paper we want to put on the front hall, hoping you will like it. The old paper is hanging in shreds and some of the plaster is loose, but Mr. Popham will make it all right. Mother says she feels as if he had pasted laughter and good nature on all the walls as he papered them. When you open the front door (and we hope you will, sometime, and walk right in!) how lovely it will be to look into yellow hayfields! And isn't the boatful of people coming to the haymaking, nice, with the bright shirts of the men and the women's scarlet aprons? Don't you love the white horse in the haycart, and the jolly party picnicking under the tree? Mother says just think of buying so much joy and color for twenty cents a double roll; and we children think we shall never get tired of sitting on the stairs in cold weather and making believe it is haying time. Gilbert says we are putting another grand piano leg on the walls, but we are not, for we are doing all our own cooking and dishwashing and saving the money that a cook would cost, to do lovely things for the Yellow House. Thank you, dearest Mr. Hamilton, for letting us live in it. We are very proud of the circular steps and very proud of your being an American consul. Yours affectionately, NANCY CAREY. P.S. It is June, and Beulah is so beautiful you feel like eating it with sugar and cream! We do hope that you and your children are living in as sweet a place, so that you will not miss this one so much. We know you have five, older than we are, but if there are any the right size for me to send my love to, please do it. Mother would wish to be remembered to Mrs. Hamilton, but she will never know I am writing to you. It is my first business letter. N.C. XVII JACK OF ALL TRADES Mr. Ossian (otherwise "Osh") Popham was covering the hall of the Yellow House with the hayfield paper. Bill Harmon's father had left considerable stock of one sort and another in the great unfinished attic over the store, and though much of it was worthless, and all of it was out of date, it seemed probable that it would eventually be sold to the Careys, who had the most unlimited ingenuity in making bricks without straw, when it came to house decoration. They had always moved from post to pillar and Dan to Beersheba, and had always, inside of a week, had the prettiest and most delightful habitation in the naval colony where they found themselves. Beulah itself, as well as all the surrounding country, had looked upon the golden hayfield paper and scorned it as ugly and countrified; never suspecting that, in its day, it had been made in France and cost a dollar and a half a roll. It had been imported for a governor's house, and only half of it used, so for thirty years the other half had waited for the Careys. There always are Careys and their like, and plenty of them, in every generation, so old things, if they are good, need never be discouraged. Mr. Popham never worked at his bricklaying or carpentering or cabinet making or papering by the hour, but "by the job"; and a kind Providence, intent on the welfare of the community, must have guided him in this choice of business methods, for he talked so much more than he worked, that unless householders were well-to-do, the rights of employer and employee could never have been adjusted. If they were rich no one of them would have stopped Ossian's conversation for a second. In the first place it was even better than his work, which was always good, and in the second place he would never consent to go to any one, unless he could talk as much as he liked. The Careys loved him, all but Julia, who pronounced him "common" and said Miss Tewksbury told her never to listen to anyone who said "I done it" or "I seen it." To this Nancy replied (her mother being in the garden, and she herself not yet started on a line of conduct arranged to please the angels) that Miss Tewksbury and Julia ought to have a little corner of heaven finished off for themselves; and Julia made a rude, distinct, hideous "face" at Nancy. I have always dated the beginning of Julia's final transformation from this critical moment, when the old Adam in her began to work. It was good for Nancy too, who would have trodden on Julia so long as she was an irritating but patient, well-behaved worm; but who would have to use a little care if the worm showed signs of turning. "Your tongue is like a bread knife, Nancy Carey!" Julia exclaimed passionately, after twisting her nose and mouth into terrifying and dreadful shapes. "If it wasn't that Miss Tewksbury told me ladies never were telltales, I could soon make trouble between you and your blessed mother." "No, you couldn't," said Nancy curtly, "for I'd reform sooner than let you do that!--Perhaps I did say too much, Julia, only I can't bear to have you make game of Mr. Popham when he's so funny and nice. Think of his living with nagging Mrs. Popham and his stupid daughter and son in that tiny house, and being happy as a king." "If there wasn't something wrong with him he wouldn't _be_ happy there," insisted Julia. Mr. Popham himself accounted for his contentment without insulting his intelligence. "The way I look at it," he said, "this world's all the world we'll git till we git to the next one; an' we might's well smile on it, 's frown! You git your piece o' life an' you make what you can of it;--that's the idee! Now the other day I got some nice soft wood that was prime for whittlin'; jest the right color an' grain an' all, an' I started in to make a little statue o' the Duke o' Wellington. Well, when I got to shapin' him out, I found my piece o' wood wouldn't be long enough to give him his height; so I says, 'Well, I don't care, I'll cut the Duke right down and make Napoleon Bonaparte.' I'd 'a' been all right if I'd cal'lated better, but I cut my block off too short, and I couldn't make Napoleon nohow; so I says, 'Well, Isaac Watts was an awful short man, so I guess I'll make him!' But this time my wood split right in two. Some men would 'a' been discouraged, but I wasn't, not a mite; I jest said, 'I never did fancy Ike Watts, an' there's one thing this blamed chip _will_ make, an' that's a button for the barn door!'" Osh not only whittled and papered and painted, but did anything whatsoever that needed to be done on the premises. If the pump refused to draw water, or the sink drain was stopped, or the gutters needed cleaning, or the grass had to be mowed, he was the man ordained by Providence and his own versatility to do the work. While he was papering the front hall the entire Carey family lived on the stairs between meals, fearful lest they should lose any incident, any anecdote, any story, any reminiscence that might fall from his lips. Mrs. Carey took her mending basket and sat in the doorway, within ear shot, while Peter had all the scraps of paper and a small pasting board on the steps, where he conducted his private enterprises. Osh would cut his length of paper, lay it flat on the board, and apply the wide brush up and down neatly while he began his story. Sometimes if the tale were long and interesting the paste would dry, but in that case he went over the surface again. At the precise moment of hanging, the flow of his eloquence stopped abruptly and his hearers had to wait until the piece was finished before they learned what finally became of Lyddy Brown after she drove her husband ou' doors, or of Bill Harmon's bull terrier, who set an entire community quarreling among themselves. His racy accounts of Mrs. Popham's pessimism, which had grown prodigiously from living in the house with his optimism; his anecdotes of Lallie Joy Popham, who was given to moods, having inherited portions of her father's incurable hopefulness, and fragments of her mother's ineradicable gloom,--these were of a character that made the finishing of the hall a matter of profound unimportance. "I ain't one to hurry," he would say genially; "that's the reason I won't work by the hour or by the day. We've got one 'hurrier' in the family, and that's enough for Lallie Joy 'n' me! Mis' Popham does everything right on the dot, an' Lallie Joy 'n' me git turrible sick o' seein' that dot, 'n' hevin' our 'tention drawed to it if we _don't_ see it. Mis' Bill Harmon's another 'hurrier,'--well, you jest ask Bill, that's all! She an' Mis' Popham hev been at it for fifteen years, but the village ain't ready to give out the blue ribbon yet. Last week my wife went over to Harmon's and Mis' Harmon said she was goin' to make some molasses candy that mornin'. Well, my wife hurried home, put on her molasses, made her candy, cooled it and worked it, and took some over to treat Mis' Harmon, who was jest gittin' her kittle out from under the sink!" The Careys laughed heartily at this evidence of Mrs. Popham's celerity, while Osh, as pleased as possible, gave one dab with his paste brush and went on:-- "Maria's blood was up one while, 'cause Mis' Bill Harmon always contrives to git her wash out the earliest of a Monday morning. Yesterday Maria got up 'bout daybreak (I allers tell her if she was real forehanded she'd eat her breakfast overnight), and by half past five she hed her clothes in the boiler. Jest as she was lookin' out the kitchen winder for signs o' Mis' Bill Harmon, she seen her start for her side door with a big basket. Maria was so mad then that she vowed she wouldn't be beat, so she dug for the bedroom and slat some clean sheets and piller cases out of a bureau drawer, run into the yard, and I'm blamed if she didn't get 'em over the line afore Mis' Harmon found her clothespins!" Good old Osh! He hadn't had such an audience for years, for Beulah knew all its own stories thoroughly, and although it valued them highly it did not care to hear them too often; but the Careys were absolutely fresh material, and such good, appreciative listeners! Mrs. Carey looked so handsome when she wiped the tears of enjoyment from her eyes that Osh told Bill Harmon if 't wa'n't agin the law you would want to kiss her every time she laughed. Well, the hall papering was, luckily, to be paid for, not by the hour, but by an incredibly small price per roll, and everybody was pleased. Nancy, Kathleen, and Julia sat on the stairs preparing a whiteweed and buttercup border for the spare bedroom according to a plan of Mother Carey's. It was an affair of time, as it involved the delicate cutting out of daisy garlands from a wider bordering filled with flowers of other colors, and proved a fascinating occupation. Gilbert hovered on the outskirts of the hall, doing odd jobs of one sort and another and learning bits of every trade at which Mr. Popham was expert. "If we hadn't been in such a sweat to git settled," remarked Osh with a clip of his big shears, "I really'd ought to have plastered this front entry all over! 'T wa'n't callin' for paper half's loud as 't was for plaster. Old Parson Bradley hed been a farmer afore he turned minister, and one Sunday mornin' his parish was thornin' him to pray for rain, so he says: 'Thou knowest, O Lord! it's manure this land wants, 'n' not water, but in Thy mercy send rain plenteously upon us.'" "Mr. Popham," said Gilbert, who had been patiently awaiting his opportunity, "the pieces of paper are cut for those narrow places each side of the front door. Can't I paste those on while you talk to us?" "'Course you can, handy as you be with tools! There ain't no trick to it. Most anybody can be a paperer. As Parson Bradley said when he was talkin' to a Sunday-school during a presidential campaign: 'One of you boys perhaps can be a George Washington and another may rise to be a Thomas Jefferson; any of you, the Lord knows, can be a James K. Polk!'" "I don't know much about Polk," said Gilbert. "P'raps nobody did very much, but the parson hated him like p'ison. See here, Peter, I ain't _made_ o' paste! You've used up 'bout a quart a'ready! What are you doin' out there anyway? I've heerd o' paintin' the town,--I guess you're paperin' it, ain't you?" Peter was too busy and too eager for paste to reply, the facts of the case being that while Mr. Popham held the family spellbound by his conversation, he himself was papering the outside of the house with scraps of assorted paper as high up as his short arms could reach. "There's another thing you can do, Gilbert," continued Mr. Popham. "I've mixed a pail o' that green paint same as your mother wanted, an' I've brought you a tip-top brush. The settin' room has a good nice floor; matched boards, no hummocks nor hollers,--all as flat's one of my wife's pancakes,--an' not a knot hole in it anywheres. You jest put your first coat on, brushin' lengthways o' the boards, and let it dry good. Don't let your folks go stepping on it, neither. The minute a floor's painted women folks are crazy to git int' the room. They want their black alpacky that's in the closet, an' the lookin' glass that's on the mantelpiece, or the feather duster that's hangin' on the winder, an' will you jest pass out the broom that's behind the door? The next mornin' you'll find lots o' little spots where they've tiptoed in to see if the paint's dry an' how it's goin' to look. Where I work, they most allers say it's the cat,--well! that answer may deceive some folks, but 't wouldn't me.--Don't slop your paint, Gilbert; work quick an' neat an' even; then paintin' ain't no trick 't all. Any fool, the Lord knows, can pick up that trade!--Now I guess it's about noon time, an' I'll have to be diggin' for home. Maria sets down an' looks at the clock from half past eleven on. She'll git a meal o' cold pork 'n' greens, cold string beans, gingerbread, 'n' custard pie on t' the table; then she'll stan' in the front door an' holler: 'Hurry up, Ossian! it's struck twelve more 'n two minutes ago, 'n' everything 's gittin' overdone!'" So saying he took off his overalls, seized his hat, and with a parting salute was off down the road, singing his favorite song. I can give you the words and the time, but alas! I cannot print Osh Popham's dauntless spirit and serene content, nor his cheery voice as he travelled with tolerable swiftness to meet his waiting Maria. Here comes a maid-en full of woe. Hi-dum-di-dum did-dy-i-o! Here comes a maid-en full of woe. Hi der-ry O! Here comes a maid-en full of woe, As full of woe as she can go! Hi dum did-dy i O! Hi der-ry O! XVIII THE HOUSE OF LORDS The Carey children had only found it by accident. All their errands took them down the main street to the village; to the Popham's cottage at the foot of a little lane turning towards the river, or on to the post-office and Bill Harmon's store, or to Colonel Wheeler's house and then to the railway station. One afternoon Nancy and Kathleen had walked up the road in search of pastures new, and had spied down in a distant hollow a gloomy grey house almost surrounded by cedars. A grove of poplars to the left of it only made the prospect more depressing, and if it had not been for a great sheet of water near by, floating with cow lilies and pond lilies, the whole aspect of the place would have been unspeakably dreary. Nancy asked Mr. Popham who lived in the grey house behind the cedars, and when he told them a certain Mr. Henry Lord, his two children and housekeeper, they fell into the habit of speaking of the place as the House of Lords. "You won't never see nothin' of 'em," said Mr. Popham. "Henry Lord ain't never darkened the village for years, I guess, and the young ones ain't never been to school so far; they have a teacher out from Portland Tuesdays and Fridays, and the rest o' the week they study up for him. Henry's 'bout as much of a hermit's if he lived in a hut on a mounting, an' he's bringing up the children so they'll be jest as odd's he is." "Is the mother dead?" Mrs. Carey asked. "Yes, dead these four years, an' a good job for her, too. It's an awful queer world! Not that I could make a better one! I allers say, when folks grumble, 'Now if you was given the materials, could you turn out a better world than this is? And when it come to that, what if you hed to furnish your _own_ materials, same as the Lord did! I guess you'd be put to it!'--Well, as I say, it's an awful queer world; they clap all the burglars into jail, and the murderers and the wife-beaters (I've allers thought a gentle reproof would be enough punishment for a wife-beater, 'cause he probably has a lot o' provocation that nobody knows), and the firebugs (can't think o' the right name--something like cendenaries), an' the breakers o' the peace, an' what not; an' yet the law has nothin' to say to a man like Hen Lord! He's been a college professor, but I went to school with him, darn his picter, an' I'll call him Hen whenever I git a chance, though he does declare he's a doctor." "Doctor of what?" asked Mrs. Carey. "Blamed if I know! I wouldn't trust him to doctor a sick cat." "People don't have to be doctors of medicine," interrupted Gilbert. "Grandfather was Alexander Carey, LL.D.,--Doctor of Laws, that is." Mr. Popham laid down his brush. "I swan to man!" he ejaculated. "If you don't work hard you can't keep up with the times! Doctor of Laws! Well, all I can say is they _need_ doctorin', an' I'm glad they've got round to 'em; only Hen Lord ain't the man to do 'em any good." "What has he done to make him so unpopular?" queried Mrs. Carey. "Done? He ain't done a thing he'd oughter sence he was born. He keeps the thou shalt not commandments first rate, Hen Lord does! He neglected his wife and froze her blood and frightened her to death, poor little shadder! He give up his position and shut the family up in that tomb of a house so 't he could study his books. My boy knows his boy, an' I tell you the life he leads them children is enough to make your flesh creep. When I git roun' to it I cal'late to set the house on fire some night. Mebbe I'd be lucky enough to ketch Hen too, an' if so, nobody in the village'd wear mournin'! So fur, I can't get Maria's consent to be a cendenary. She says she can't spare me long enough to go to jail; she needs me to work durin' the summer, an' in the winter time she'd hev nobody to jaw, if I was in the lockup." This information was delivered in the intervals of covering the guest chamber walls with a delightful white moire paper which Osh always alluded to as the "white maria," whether in memory of his wife's Christian name or because his French accent was not up to the mark, no one could say. Mr. Popham exaggerated nothing, but on the contrary left much unsaid in his narrative of the family at the House of Lords. Henry Lord, with the degree of Ph.D. to his credit, had been Professor of Zoology at a New England college, but had resigned his post in order to write a series of scientific text books. Always irritable, cold, indifferent, he had grown rapidly more so as years went on. Had his pale, timid wife been a rosy, plucky tyrant, things might have gone otherwise, but the only memories the two children possessed were of bitter words and reproaches on their father's side, and of tears and sad looks on their mother's part. Then the poor little shadow of a woman dropped wearily into her grave, and a certain elderly Mrs. Bangs, with grey hair and firm chin, came to keep house and do the work. A lonelier creature than Olive Lord at sixteen could hardly be imagined. She was a tiny thing for her years, with a little white oval face and peaked chin, pronounced eyebrows, beautifully arched, and a mass of tangled, untidy dark hair. Her only interests in life were her younger brother Cyril, delicate and timid, and in continual terror of his father,--and a passion for drawing and sketching that was fairly devouring in its intensity. When she was ten she "drew" the cat and the dog, the hens and chickens, and colored the sketches with the paints her mother provided. Whatever appealed to her sense of beauty was straightway transferred to paper or canvas. Then for the three years before her mother's death there had been surreptitious lessons from a Portland teacher, paid for out of Mr. Lord's house allowance; for one of his chief faults was an incredible parsimony, amounting almost to miserliness. "Something terrible will happen to Olive if she isn't taught to use her talent," Mrs. Lord pleaded to her husband. "She is wild to know how to do things. She makes effort after effort, trembling with eagerness, and when she fails to reproduce what she sees, she works herself into a frenzy of grief and disappointment." "You'd better give her lessons in self-control," Mr. Lord answered. "They are cheaper than instruction in drawing, and much more practical." So Olive lived and struggled and grew; and luckily her talent was such a passion that no circumstances could crush or extinguish it. She worked, discovering laws and making rules for herself, since she had no helpers. When she could not make a rabbit or a bird look "real" on paper, she searched in her father's books for pictures of its bones. "If I could only know what it is like _inside_, Cyril," she said, "perhaps its _outside_ wouldn't look so flat! O! Cyril, there must be some better way of doing; I just draw the outline of an animal and then I put hairs or feathers on it. They have no bodies. They couldn't run nor move; they're just pasteboard." "Why don't you do flowers and houses, Olive?" inquired Cyril solicitously. "And people paint fruit, and dead fish on platters, and pitchers of lemonade with ice in,--why don't you try things like those?" "I suppose they're easier," Olive returned with a sigh, "but who could bear to do them when there are living, breathing, moving things; things that puzzle you by looking different every minute? No, I'll keep on trying, and when you get a little older we'll run away together and live and learn things by ourselves, in some place where father can never find us!" "He wouldn't search, so don't worry," replied Cyril quietly, and the two looked at each other and knew that it was so. There, in the cedar hollow, then, lived Olive Lord, an angry, resentful, little creature weighed down by a fierce sense of injury. Her gloomy young heart was visited by frequent storms and she looked as unlovable as she was unloved. But Nancy Carey, never shy, and as eager to give herself as people always are who are born and bred in joy and love, Nancy hopped out of Mother Carey's warm nest one day, and fixing her bright eyes and sunny, hopeful glance on the lonely, frowning little neighbor, stretched out her hand in friendship. Olive's mournful black eyes met Nancy's sparkling brown ones. Her hand, so marvellously full of skill, had never held another's, and she was desperately self-conscious; but magnetism flowed from Nancy as electric currents from a battery. She drew Olive to her by some unknown force and held her fast, not realizing at the moment that she was getting as much as she gave. The first interview, purely a casual one, took place on the edge of the lily pond where Olive was sketching frogs, and where Nancy went for cat-o'-nine-tails. It proved to be a long and intimate talk, and when Mrs. Carey looked out of her bedroom window just before supper she saw, at the pasture bars, the two girls with their arms round each other and their cheeks close together. Nancy's curly chestnut crop shone in the sun, and Olive's thick black plaits looked blacker by contrast. Suddenly she flung her arms round Nancy's neck, and with a sob darted under the bars and across the fields without a backward glance. A few moments later Nancy entered her mother's room, her arms filled with treasures from the woods and fields. "Oh, Motherdy!" she cried, laying down her flowers and taking off her hat. "I've found such a friend; a real understanding friend; and it's the girl from the House of Lords. She's wonderful! More wonderful than anybody we've ever seen anywhere, and she draws better than the teacher in Charlestown! She's older than I am, but so tiny and sad and shy that she seems like a child. Oh, mother, there's always so much spare room in your heart,--for you took in Julia and yet we never felt the difference,--won't you make a place for Olive? There never was anybody needed you so much as she does,--never." Have you ever lifted a stone and seen the pale, yellow, stunted shoots of grass under it? And have you gone next day and next, and watched the little blades shoot upward, spread themselves with delight, grow green and wax strong; and finally, warm with the sun, cool with the dew, vigorous with the flow of sap in their veins, seen them wave their green tips in the breeze? That was what happened to Olive Lord when she and Cyril were drawn into a different family circle, and ran in and out of the Yellow House with the busy, eager group of Mother Carey's chickens. XIX OLD AND NEW The Yellow House had not always belonged to the Hamiltons, but had been built by a governor of the state when he retired from public office. He lived only a few years, and it then passed into the hands of Lemuel Hamilton's grandfather, who had done little or nothing in the way of remodelling the buildings. Governor Weatherby had harbored no extraordinary ambition regarding architectural excellence, for he was not a rich man; he had simply built a large, comfortable Colonial house. He desired no gardens, no luxurious stables, no fountains nor grottoes, no bathroom (for it was only the year 1810), while the old oaken bucket left nothing to be desired as a means of dispensing water to the household. He had one weakness, however, and that was a wish to make the front of the house as impressive as possible. The window over the front door was as beautiful a window as any in the county, and the doorway itself was celebrated throughout the state. It had a wonderful fan light and side lights, green blind doors outside of the white painted one with its massive brass knocker, and still more unique and impressive, it had for its approach, semi-circular stone steps instead of the usual oblong ones. The large blocks of granite had been cut so that each of the four steps should be smaller than the one below it; and when, after months of gossip and suspense, they were finally laid in place, their straight edges towards the house and their expensive curved sides to the road, a procession of curious persons in wagons, carryalls, buggies, and gigs wound their way past the premises. The governor's "circ'lar steps" brought many pilgrims down the main street of Beulah first and last, and the original Hamiltons had been very proud of them. Pride (of such simple things as stone steps) had died out of the Hamilton stock in the course of years, and the house had been so long vacant that no one but Lemuel, the Consul, remembered any of its charming features; but Ossian Popham, when he pried up and straightened the ancient landmarks, had much to say of the wonderful steps. "There's so much goin' on now-a-days," he complained, as he puffed and pried and strained, and rested in between, "that young ones won't amount to nothin', fust thing you know. My boy Digby says to me this mornin', when I asked him if he was goin' to the County Fair 'No, Pop, I ain't goin',' he says, 'it's the same old fair every year.' Land sakes! when I was a boy, 'bout once a month, in warm weather, I used to ask father if I could walk to the other end o' the village and look at the governor's circ'lar steps; that used to be the liveliest entertainment parents could think up for their young ones, an' it _was_ a heap livelier than two sermons of a Sunday, each of 'em an hour and fifteen minutes long." Digby, a lad of eighteen and master of only one trade instead of a dozen, like his father, had been deputed to paper Mother Carey's bedroom while she moved for a few days into the newly fitted guest room, which was almost too beautiful to sleep in, with its white satiny walls, its yellow and green garlands hanging from the ceiling, its yellow floor, and its old white chamber set repainted by the faithful and clever Popham. The chintz parlor, once Governor Weatherby's study, was finished too, and the whole family looked in at the doors a dozen times a day with admiring exclamations. It had six doors, opening into two entries, one small bedroom, one sitting room, one cellar, and one china closet; a passion for entrances and exits having been the whim of that generation. If the truth were known, Nancy had once lighted her candle and slipped downstairs at midnight to sit on the parlor sofa and feast her eyes on the room's loveliness. Gilbert had painted the white matting the color of a ripe cherry. Mrs. Popham had washed and ironed and fluted the old white ruffled muslin curtains from the Charlestown home, and they adorned the four windows. It was the north room, on the left as you entered the house, and would be closed during the cold winter months, so it was fitted entirely for summer use and comfort. The old-fashioned square piano looked in its element placed across one corner, with the four tall silver candlesticks and snuffer tray on the shining mahogany. All the shabbiest furniture, and the Carey furniture was mostly shabby, was covered with a cheap, gay chintz, and crimson Jacqueminot roses clambered all over the wall paper, so that the room was a cool bower of beauty. On the other side of the hall were the double parlors of the governor's time, made into a great living room. Here was Gilbert's green painted floor, smooth and glossy, with braided rugs bought from neighbors in East Beulah; here all the old-fashioned Gilbert furniture that the Careys had kept during their many wanderings; here all the quaint chairs that Mr. Bill Harmon could pick up at a small price; here were two noble fireplaces, one with a crane and iron pot filled with flowers, the other filled sometimes with sprays of green asparagus and sometimes with fragrant hemlock boughs. The paper was one in which green rushes and cat-o'-nine-tails grew on a fawn-colored ground, and anything that the Careys did not possess for the family sitting room Ossian Popham went straight home and made in his barn. He could make a barrel-chair or an hour-glass table, a box lounge and the mattress to put on top of it, or a low table for games and puzzles, or a window seat. He could polish the piano and then sit down to it and play "Those Tassels on Her Boots" or "Marching through Georgia" with great skill. He could paint bunches of gold grapes and leaves on the old-fashioned high-backed rocker, and, as soon as it was dry, could sit down in it and entertain the whole family without charging them a penny. The housewarming could not be until the later autumn, Mrs. Carey had decided, for although most of the living rooms could be finished, Cousin Ann's expensive improvements were not to be set in motion until Bill Harmon heard from Mr. Hamilton that his tenants were not to be disturbed for at least three years. The house, which was daily growing into a home, was full of the busy hum of labor from top to bottom and from morning till night, and there was hardly a moment when Mother Carey and the girls were not transporting articles of furniture through the rooms, and up and down the staircases, to see how they would look somewhere else. This, indeed, had been the diversion of their simple life for many years, and was just as delightful, in their opinion, as buying new things. Any Carey, from mother down to Peter, would spring from his chair at any moment and assist any other Carey to move a sofa, a bureau, a piano, a kitchen stove, if necessary, with the view of determining if it would add a new zest to life in a different position. Not a word has been said thus far about the Yellow House barn, the barn that the "fool Hamilton boys" (according to Bill Harmon's theories) had converted from a place of practical usefulness and possible gain, into something that would "make a cat laugh"; but it really needs a chapter to itself. You remember that Dr. Holmes says of certain majestic and dignified trees that they ought to have a Christian name, like other folks? The barn, in the same way, deserves more distinction than a paragraph, but at this moment it was being used as a storeroom and was merely awaiting its splendid destiny, quite unconscious of the future. The Hamilton boys were no doubt as extravagant and thriftless as they were insane, but the Careys sympathized with their extravagance and thriftlessness and insanity so heartily, in this particular, that they could hardly conceal their real feelings from Bill Harmon. Nothing could so have accorded with their secret desires as the "fool changes" made by the "crazy Hamilton boys"; light-hearted, irresponsible, and frivolous changes that could never have been compassed by the Careys' slender income. They had no money to purchase horse or cow or pig, and no man in the family to take care of them if purchased; so the removal of stalls and all the necessary appurtenances for the care of cattle was no source of grief or loss to them. A good floor had been laid over the old one and stained to a dark color; the ceiling, with its heavy hand-hewn beams, was almost as fine as some old oak counterpart in an English hall. Not a new board met the eye;--old weathered lumber everywhere, even to the quaint settle-shaped benches that lined the room. There was a place like an old-fashioned "tie-up" for musicians to play for a country dance, or for tableaux and charades; in fine, there would be, with the addition of Carey ideas here and there, provision for frolics and diversions of any sort. You no sooner opened the door and peeped in, though few of the Beulah villagers had ever been invited to do so by the gay young Hamiltons, than your tongue spontaneously exclaimed: "What a place for good times!" "I shall 'come out' here," Nancy announced, as the three girls stood in the centre of the floor, surrounded by bedsteads, tables, bureaus, and stoves. "Julia, you can 'debut' where you like, but I shall 'come out' here next summer!" "You'll be only seventeen; you can't come out!" objected Julia conventionally. "Not in a drawing room, perhaps, but perfectly well in a barn. Even you and Kitty, youthful as you will still be, can attend my coming out party, in a barn!" "It doesn't seem proper to think of giving entertainments when everybody knows our circumstances,--how poor we are!" Julia said rebukingly. "We are talking of next summer, my child! Who can say how rich we shall be next summer? A party could be given in this barn with mother to play the piano and Mr. Popham the fiddle. The refreshments would be incredibly weak lemonade, and I think we might 'solicit' the cake, as they do for church sociables!" Julia's pride was wounded beyond concealment at this humorously intended suggestion of Nancy's. "Of course if Aunt Margaret approves, I have nothing to say," she remarked, "but I myself would never come to any private party where refreshments were 'solicited.' The very idea is horrible." "I'm 'coming out' in the barn next summer, Muddy!" Nancy called to her mother, who just then entered the door. "If we are poorer than ever, we can take up a collection to defray the expenses; Julia and Kitty would look so attractive going about with tambourines! I want to do what I can quickly, because I see plainly I shall have to marry young in order to help the family. The heroine always does that in books; she makes a worldly marriage with a rich nobleman, in order that her sister Kitty and her cousin Julia may have a good education." "I don't know where you get your ideas, Nancy," said her mother, smiling at her nonsense. "You certainly never read half a dozen novels in your life!" "No, but Joanna used to read them by the hundred and tell me the stories; and I've heard father read aloud to you; and the older girls and the younger teachers used to discuss them at school;--oh! I know a lot about life,--as it is in books,--and I'm just waiting to see if any of it really happens!" "Digby Popham is the only rich nobleman in sight for you, Nancy!" Kitty said teasingly. "Or freckled Cyril Lord," interpolated Julia. "He looks like an unbaked pie!" This from Kitty. Nancy flushed. "He's shy and unhappy and pale, and no wonder; but he's as nice and interesting as he can be." "I can't see it," Julia said, "but he never looks at anybody, or talks to anybody but you, so it's well you like him; though you like all boys, for that matter!" "The boys return the compliment!" asserted Kitty mischievously, "while poor you and I sit in corners!" "Come, come, dears," and Mrs. Carey joined in the conversation as she picked up a pillow before returning to the house. "It's a little early for you to be talking about rich noblemen, isn't it?" Nancy followed her out of the door, saying as she thoughtfully chewed a straw, "Muddy, I do believe that when you're getting on to sixteen the rich nobleman or the fairy prince or the wonderful youngest son does cross your mind now and then!" XX THE PAINTED CHAMBER Matters were in this state of forwardness when Nancy and Kathleen looked out of the window one morning and saw Lallie Joy Popham coming down the street. She "lugged" butter and milk regularly to the Careys (lugging is her own word for the act), and helped them in many ways, for she was fairly good at any kind of housework not demanding brains. Nobody could say why some of Ossian Popham's gifts of mind and conversation had not descended to his children, but though the son was not really stupid at practical work, Lallie Joy was in a perpetual state of coma. Nancy, as has been intimated before, had a kind of tendency to reform things that appeared to her lacking in any way, and she had early seized upon the stolid Lallie Joy as a worthy object. "There she comes!" said Nancy. "She carries two quarts of milk in one hand and two pounds of butter in the other, exactly as if she was bending under the weight of a load of hay. I'll run down into the kitchen and capture her for a half hour at five cents. She can peel the potatoes first, and while they're boiling she can slice apples for sauce." "Have her chop the hash, do!" coaxed Julia for that was her special work. "The knife is dull beyond words." "Why don't you get Mr. Popham to sharpen it? It's a poor workman that complains of his tools; Columbus discovered America in an open boat," quoted Nancy, with an irritating air of wisdom. "That may be so," Julia retorted, "but Columbus would never have discovered America with that chopping-knife, I'm sure of that.--Is Lallie Joy about our age?" "I don't know. She must have been at least forty when she was born, and that would make her fifty-five now. What _do_ you suppose would wake her up? If I could only get her to stand straight, or hold her head up, or let her hair down, or close her mouth! I believe I'll stay in the kitchen and appeal to her better feelings a little this morning; I can seed the raisins for the bread pudding." Nancy sat in the Shaker rocker by the sink window with the yellow bowl in her lap. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes were bright, her lips were red, her hair was goldy-brown, her fingers flew, and a high-necked gingham apron was as becoming to her as it is to all nice girls. She was thoroughly awake, was Nancy, and there could not have been a greater contrast than that between her and the comatose Lallie Joy, who sat on a wooden chair with her feet on the side rounds. She had taken off her Turkey red sunbonnet and hung it on the chair-back, where its color violently assaulted her flaming locks. She sat wrong; she held the potato pan wrong, and the potatoes and the knife wrong. There seemed to be no sort of connection between her mind and her body. As she peeled potatoes and Nancy seeded raisins, the conversation was something like this. "How did you chance to bring the butter to-day instead of to-morrow, Lallie Joy?" "Had to dress me up to go to the store and get a new hat." "What colored trimming did you get?" "Same as old." "Don't they keep anything but magenta?" "Yes, blue." "Why didn't you try blue for a change?" "Dunno; didn't want any change, I guess." "Do you like magenta against your hair?" "Never thought o' my hair; jest thought o' my hat." "Well, you see, Lallie Joy, you can't change your hair, but you needn't wear magenta hats nor red sunbonnets. Your hair is handsome enough, if you'd only brush it right." "I guess I know all 'bout my hair and how red 't is. The boys ask me if Pop painted it." "Why do you strain it back so tight?" "Keep it out o' my eyes." "Nonsense; you needn't drag it out by the roots. Why do you tie the braids with strings?" "'Cause they hold, an' I hain't got no ribbons." "Why don't you buy some with the money you earn here?" "Savin' up for the Fourth." "Well, I have yards of old Christmas ribbons that I'll give you if you'll use them." "All right." "What do you scrub your face with, that makes those shiny knobs stick right out on your forehead and cheek bones?" "Sink soap." "Well, you shouldn't; haven't you any other?" "It's upstairs." "Aren't your legs in good working order?" Uncomprehending silence on Lallie Joy's part and then Nancy returned to the onslaught. "Don't you like to look at pretty things?" "Dunno but I do, an' dunno as I do." "Don't you love the rooms your father has finished here?" "Kind of." "Not any more than that?" "Pop thinks some of 'em's queer, an' so does Bill Harmon." Long silence, Nancy being utterly daunted. "How did you come by your name, Lallie Joy?" "Lallie's out of a book named Lallie Rook, an' I was born on the Joy steamboat line going to Boston." "Oh, I thought Joy was _Joy_!" "Joy Line's the only joy I ever heard of!" There is no knowing how long this depressing conversation would have continued if the two girls had not heard loud calls from Gilbert upstairs. Lallie Joy evinced no surprise, and went on peeling potatoes; she might have been a sister of the famous Casabianca, and she certainly could have been trusted not to flee from any burning deck, whatever the provocation. "Come and see what we've found, Digby and I!" Gilbert cried. "Come, girls; come, mother! We were stripping off the paper because Mr. Popham said there'd been so many layers on the walls it would be a good time to get to the bottom of it and have it all fresh and clean. So just now, as I was working over the mantel piece and Digby on the long wall, look in and see what we uncovered!" Mrs. Carey had come from the nursery, Kitty and Julia from the garden, and Osh Popham from the shed, and they all gazed with joy and surprise at the quaint landscapes that had been painted in water colors before the day of wall paper had come. Mr. Popham quickly took one of his tools and began on another side of the room. They worked slowly and carefully, and in an hour or two the pictures stood revealed, a little faded in color but beautifully drawn, with almost nothing of any moment missing from the scenes. "Je-roosh-y! ain't they handsome!" exclaimed Osh, standing in the middle of the room with the family surrounding him in various attitudes of ecstasy. "But they're too faded out to leave's they be, ain't they, Mis' Carey? You'll have to cover 'em up with new paper, won't you, or shall you let me put a coat of varnish on 'em?" Mrs. Carey shuddered internally. "No, Mr. Popham, we mustn't have any 'shine' on the landscapes. Yes, they are dreadfully dim and faded, but I simply cannot have them covered up!" "It would be wicked to hide them!" said Nancy. "Oh, Muddy, _is_ it our duty to write to Mr. Hamilton and tell him about them? He would certainly take the house away from us if he could see how beautiful we have made it, and now here is another lovely thing to tempt him. Could anybody give up this painted chamber if it belonged to him?" "Well, you see," said Mr. Popham assuringly, "if you want to use this painted chamber much, you've got to live in Beulah; an' Lem Hamilton ain't goin' to stop consullin' at the age o' fifty, to come here an' rust out with the rest of us;--no, siree! Nor Mis' Lem Hamilton wouldn't stop over night in this village if you give her the town drinkin' trough for a premium!" "Is she fashionable?" asked Julia. "You bet she is! She's tall an' slim an' so chuck full of airs she'd blow away if you give her a puff o' the bellers! The only time she come here she stayed just twenty-four hours, but she nearly died, we was all so 'vulgar.' She wore a white dress ruffled up to the waist, and a white Alpine hat, an' she looked exactly like the picture of Pike's Peak in my stereopticon. Mis' Popham overheard her say Beulah was full o' savages if not cannibals. 'Well,' I says to Maria, 'no matter where she goes, nobody'll ever want to eat _her_ alive!'--Look at that meetin' house over the mantel shelf, an' that grassy Common an' elm trees! 'T wa'n't no house painter done these walls!" "And look at this space between the two front windows," cried Kathleen. "See the hens and chickens and the Plymouth Rock rooster!" "And the white calf lying down under the maple; he's about the prettiest thing in the room," said Gilbert. "We must just let it be and think it out," said Mother Carey. "Don't put any new paper on, now; there's plenty to do downstairs." "I don't know 's I should particularly like to lay abed in this room," said Osh, his eyes roving about the chamber judicially. "I shouldn't hev no comfort ondressin' here, nohow; not with this mess o' live stock lookin' at me every minute, whatever I happened to be takin' off. I s'pose that rooster'd be right on to his job at sun-up! Well, he couldn't git ahead of Mis' Popham, that's one thing; so 't I shouldn't be any worse off 'n I be now! I don't get any too much good sleep as 't is! Mis' Popham makes me go to bed long afore I'm ready, so 't she can git the house shut up in good season; then 'bout 's soon's I've settled down an' bed one short nap she says, 'It's time you was up, Ossian!"' "Mother! I have an idea!" cried Nancy suddenly, as Mr. Popham took his leave and the family went out into the hall. "Do you know who could make the walls look as they used to? My dear Olive Lord!" "She's only sixteen!" objected Mrs. Carey. "But she's a natural born genius! You wait and see the things she does!" "Perhaps I could take her into town and get some suggestions or some instruction, with the proper materials," said Mrs. Carey, "and I suppose she could experiment on some small space behind the door, first?" "Nothing that Olive does would ever be put behind anybody's door," Nancy answered decisively. "I'm not old enough to know anything about painting, of course (except that good landscapes ought not to be reversible like our Van Twiller), but there's something about Olive's pictures that makes you want to touch them and love them!" So began the happiest, most wonderful, most fruitful autumn of Olive Lord's life, when she spent morning after morning in the painted chamber, refreshing its faded tints. Whoever had done the original work had done it lovingly and well, and Olive learned many a lesson while she was following the lines of the quaint houses, like those on old china, renewing the green of the feathery elms, or retracing and coloring the curious sampler trees that stood straight and stiff like sentinels in the corners of the room. XXI A FAMILY RHOMBOID The Honorable Lemuel Hamilton sat in the private office of the American Consulate in Breslau, Germany, one warm day in July. The post had been brought in half an hour before, and he had two open letters on the desk in front of him. It was only ten o'clock of a bright morning, but he looked tired and worn. He was about fifty, with slightly grey hair and smoothly shaven face. He must have been merry at one time in his life, for there were many nice little laughing-wrinkles around his eyes, but somehow these seemed to have faded out, as if they had not been used for years, and the corners of his mouth turned down to increase the look of weariness and discontent. A smile had crept over his face at his old friend Bill Harmon's spelling and penmanship, for a missive of that kind seldom came to the American Consulate. When the second letter postmarked Beulah first struck his eye, he could not imagine why he should have another correspondent in the quaintly named little village. He had read Nancy's letter twice now, and still he sat smoking and dreaming with an occasional glance at the girlish handwriting, or a twinkle of the eye at the re-reading of some particular passage. His own girls were not ready writers, and their mother generally sent their messages for them. Nancy and Kitty did not yet write nearly as well as they talked, but they contrived to express something of their own individuality in their communications, which were free and fluent, though childlike and crude. "What a nice girl this Nancy Carey must be!" thought the American Consul. "This is such a jolly, confidential, gossipy, winsome little letter! Her first 'business letter' she calls it! Alas! when she learns how, a few years later, there will be no charming little confidences; no details of family income and expenditures; no tell-tale glimpses of 'mother' and 'Julia.' I believe I should know the whole family even without this photograph!--The lady sitting in the chair, to whom the photographer's snapshot has not done justice, is worthy of Nancy's praise,--and Bill Harmon's. What a pretty, piquant, curly head Nancy has! What a gay, vivacious, alert, spirited expression. The boy is handsome and gentlemanly, but he'll have to wake up, or Nancy will be the man of the family. The girl sitting down is less attractive. She's Uncle Allan's daughter, and" (consulting the letter) "Uncle Allan has nervous prostration and all of mother's money." Here Mr. Hamilton gave vent to audible laughter for the third time in a quarter of an hour. "Nancy doesn't realize with what perfection her somewhat imperfect English states the case," he thought. "I know Uncle Allan like a book, from his resemblance to certain other unfortunate gentlemen who have nervous prostration in combination with other people's money. Let's see! I know Nancy; friendly little Nancy, about fifteen or sixteen, I should judge; I know Uncle Allan's 'Julia,' who hems in photographs, but not otherwise; I know Gilbert, who is depressed at having to make his own way; the small boy, who 'is the nicest of us all'; Kitty, who beat all the others in getting to mother's shoulder; and the mother herself, who is beautiful, and doesn't say 'Bosh' to her children's ideas, and refuses to touch the insurance money, and wants Gilbert to show what 'father's son' can do without anybody's help, and who revels in the color and joy of a yellow wall paper at twenty cents a roll! Bless their simple hearts! They mustn't pay any rent while they are bringing water into the kitchen and making expensive improvements! And what Hamilton could be persuaded to live in the yellow house? To think of any one's wanting to settle down in that little deserted spot, Beulah, where the only sound that ever strikes one's ear is Osh Popham's laugh or the tinkle of a cow bell! Oh! if my own girls would write me letters like this, letting me see how their minds are growing, how they are taking hold of life, above all what is in their hearts! Well, little Miss Nancy Carey! honest, outspoken, confidential, clever little Nancy, who calls me her 'dearest Mr. Hamilton' and thanks me for letting her live in my yellow house, you shall never be disturbed, and if you and Gilbert ever earn enough money to buy it, it shall go to you cheap! There's not one of my brood that would live in it--except Tom, perhaps--for after spending three hundred dollars, they even got tired of dancing in the barn on Saturday nights; so if it can fall into the hands of some one who will bring a blessing on it, good old Granny Hamilton will rest peacefully in her grave!" We have discoursed in another place of family circles, but it cannot be truthfully said that at any moment the Lemuel Hamiltons had ever assumed that symmetrical and harmonious shape. Still, during the first eight or ten years of their married life, when the children were young, they had at least appeared to the casual eye as, say, a rectangular parallelogram. A little later the cares and jolts of life wrenched the right angles a trifle "out of plumb," and a rhomboid was the result. Mrs. Hamilton had money of her own, but wished Lemuel to amass enough fame and position to match it. She liked a diplomatic life if her husband could be an ambassador, but she thought him strangely slow in achieving this dignity. No pleasure or pride in her husband's ability to serve his country, even in a modest position, ever crossed her mind. She had no desire to spend her valuable time in various poky Continental towns, and she had many excuses for not doing so; the proper education of her children being the chief among them. Luckily for her, good and desirable schools were generally at an easy distance from the jewellers' shops and the dressmakers' and milliners' establishments her soul loved, so while Mr. Hamilton did his daily task in Antwerp, Mrs. Hamilton resided mostly in Brussels or Paris; when he was in Zittau, in Saxony, she was in Dresden. If he were appointed to some business city she remained with him several months each year, and spent the others in a more artistic and fashionable locality. The situation was growing difficult because the children were gradually getting beyond school age, although there still remained to her the sacred duty of settling them properly in life. Agnes, her mother's favorite, was still at school, and was devoted to foreign languages, foreign manners, and foreign modes of life. Edith had grown restless and developed an uncomfortable fondness for her native land, so that she spent most of her time with her mother's relatives in New York, or in visiting school friends here or there. The boys had gone far away; Jack, the elder, to Texas, where he had lost what money his father and mother had put into his first business venture; Thomas, the younger, to China, where he was woefully lonely, but doing well in business. A really good diplomatic appointment in a large and important city would have enabled Mr. Hamilton to collect some of his scattered sons and daughters and provide them with the background for which his wife had yearned without ceasing (and very audibly) for years. But Mr. Hamilton did not get the coveted appointment, and Mrs. Hamilton did not specially care for Mr. Hamilton when he failed in securing the things she wanted. This was the time when the laughing-wrinkles began to fade away from Mr. Hamilton's eyes, just for lack of daily use; and it was then that the corners of his mouth began to turn down; and his shoulders to stoop, and his eye to grow less keen and brave, and his step less vigorous. It may be a commonplace remark, but it is not at these precise moments in life that tired, depressed men in modest positions are wafted by Uncle Sam to great and desirable heights; but to Mrs. Hamilton it appeared that her husband was simply indolent, unambitious, and unlucky; not at all that he needed to be believed in, or loved, or comforted, or helped, or braced! It might have startled her, and hurt her wifely pride, if she had seen her lonely husband drinking in little Nancy Carey's letter as if it were dew to a thirsty spirit; to see him set the photograph of the Carey group on his desk and look at it from time to time affectionately, as if he had found some new friends. It was the contentment, the hope, the unity, the pluck, the mutual love, the confidence, the ambition, of the group that touched his imagination and made his heart run out to them. "Airs from the Eden of youth awoke and stirred in his soul" as he took his pen to answer Nancy's first business communication. Having completed his letter he lighted another cigar, and leaning back in his revolving chair clasped his hands behind his head and fell into a reverie. The various diplomatic posts that might be opened to him crossed his mind in procession. If A or B or C were possible, his wife would be content, and their combined incomes might be sufficient to bring the children together, if not quite under one roof, then to points not so far separated from each other but that a speaking acquaintance might be developed. Tom was the farthest away, and he was the dearest; the only Hamilton of the lot; the only one who loved his father. Mr. Hamilton leaned forward abstractedly, and fumbling through one drawer of his desk after another succeeded in bringing out a photograph of Tom, taken at seventeen or eighteen. Then by a little extra search he found his wife in her presentation dress at a foreign court. There was no comfort or companionship in that, it was too furbelowed to be anybody's wife,--but underneath it in the same frame was one taken just after their marriage. That was too full of memories to hold much joy, but it stirred his heart, and made it beat a little; enough at any rate to show it was not dead. In the letter case in his vest pocket was an almost forgotten picture of the girls when they were children. This with the others he stood in a row in front of him, reminding himself that he did not know the subjects much more intimately than the photographers who had made their likenesses. He glanced from one family to the other and back again, several times. The Careys were handsomer, there was no doubt of that; but there was a deeper difference that eluded him. The Hamiltons were far more stylishly dressed, but they all looked a little conscious and a little discontented. That was it; the Careys were happier! There were six of them, living in the forgotten Hamilton house in a half-deserted village, on five or six hundred dollars a year, and doing their own housework, and they were happier than his own brood, spending forty or fifty times that sum. Well, they were grown up, his sons and daughters, and the only change in their lives now would come from wise or unwise marriages. No poverty-stricken sons-in-law would ever come into the family, with Mrs. Hamilton standing at the bars, he was sure of that! As for the boys, they might choose their mates in Texas or China; they might even have chosen them now, for aught he knew, though Jack was only twenty-six and Tom twenty-two. He must write to them oftener, all of them, no matter how busy and anxious he might be; especially to Tom, who was so far away. He drew a sheet of paper towards him, and having filled it, another, and yet another. Having folded and slipped it into an envelope and addressed it to Thomas Hamilton, Esq., Hong Kong, China, he was about to seal it when he stopped a moment. "I'll enclose the little Carey girl's letter," he thought. "Tom's the only one who cares a penny for the old house, and I've told him I have rented it. He's a generous boy, and he won't grudge a few dollars lost to a good cause. Besides, these Careys will increase the value of the property every year they live in it, and without them the buildings would gradually have fallen into ruins." He added a postscript to his letter, saying: "I've sent you little Miss Nancy's letter, the photograph of her tying up the rambler rose, and the family group; so that you can see exactly what influenced me to write her (and Bill Harmon) that they should be undisturbed in their tenancy, and that their repairs and improvements should be taken in lieu of rent." This done and the letters stamped, he put the photographs of his wife and children here and there on his desk and left the office. Oh! it is quite certain that Mother Carey's own chickens go out over the seas and show good birds the way home; and it is quite true, as she said, "One real home always makes another, I am sure of that!" It can even send a vision of a home across fields and forests and lakes and oceans from Beulah village to Breslau, Germany, and on to Hong Kong, China. XXII CRADLE GIFTS Mrs. Henry Lord sent out a good many invitations to the fairies for Cyril's birthday party, but Mr. Lord was at his critical point in the first volume of his text book, and forgot that he had a son. Where both parents are not interested in these little affairs, something is sure to be forgotten. Cyril's mother was weak and ill at the time, and the upshot of it was that the anger of The Fairy Who Wasn't Invited was visited on the baby Cyril in his cradle. In the revengeful spirit of that fairy who is omitted from these functions, she sent a threat instead of a blessing, and decreed that Cyril should walk in fear all the days of his life. Of course, being a fairy, she knew very well that, if Cyril, or anybody very much interested in Cyril, went to declare that there was no power whatever behind her curse, she would not be able to gratify her spite; but she knew also, being a fairy, that if Cyril got into the habit of believing himself a coward, he would end by being one, so she stood a good chance of winning, after all. Cyril, when he came into the world, had come with only half a welcome. No mother and father ever met over his cradle and looked at him together, wondering if it were "well with the child." When he was old enough to have his red-gold hair curled, and a sash tied around his baby waist, he was sometimes taken downstairs, but he always fled to his mother's or his nurse's knee when his father approached. How many times he and his little sister Olive had hidden under the stairs when father had called mother down to the study to scold her about the grocer's bill! And there was a nightmare of a memory concerning a certain birthday of father's, when mother had determined to be gay. It was just before supper. Cyril, clad in his first brief trousers, was to knock at the study door with a little purple nosegay in his hand, to show his father that the lilac had bloomed. Olive, in crimson cashmere, was to stand near, and when the door opened, present him with her own picture of the cat and her new kittens; while mother, looking so pretty, with her own gift all ready in her hand, was palpitating on the staircase to see how the plans would work. Nothing could have been worse, however, in the way of a small domestic tragedy, than the event itself when it finally came off. Cyril knocked. "What do you want?" came from within, in tones that breathed vexation at being interrupted. "Knock again!" whispered Mrs. Lord. "Father doesn't remember that it's his birthday, and he doesn't know that it's you knocking." Cyril knocked again timidly, but at the first sound of his father's irritable voice as he rose hurriedly from his desk, the boy turned and fled through the kitchen to the shed. Olive held the fort, picture in hand. "It's your birthday, father," she said. "There's a cake for supper, and here's my present." There was no love in the child's voice. Her heart, filled with passionate sympathy for Cyril, had lost all zest for its task, and she handed her gift to her father with tightly closed lips and heaving breast. "All right; I'm much obliged, but I wish you would not knock at this door when I am writing,--I've told you that before. Tell your mother I can't come to supper to-night, but to send me a tray, please!" As he closed the door Olive saw him lay the picture on a table, never looking at it as he crossed the room to one of the great book-cases that lined the walls. Mrs. Lord had by this time disappeared forlornly from the upper hall. Olive, aged ten, walked up the stairs in a state of mind ferocious in its anger. Entering her mother's room she tore the crimson ribbon from her hair and began to unbutton her dress. "I hate him! I _hate_ him!" she cried, stamping her foot. "I will never knock at his door again! I'd like to take Cyril and run away! I'll get the birthday cake and fling it into the pond; nothing shall stop me!". Then, seeing her mother's white face, she wailed, as she flung herself on the bed: "Oh, mother, mother,--why did you ever let him come to live with us? Did we _have_ to have him for a father? Couldn't you _help_ it, mother?" Mrs. Lord grew paler, put her hand to her heart, wavered, caught herself, wavered again, and fell into the great chair by the window. Her eyes closed, and Olive, frightened by the apparent effect of her words, ran down the back stairs and summoned the cook. When she returned, panting and breathless, her mother was sitting quite quietly by the window, looking out at the cedars. "It was only a sudden pain, dear! I am all well again. Nothing is really the matter, Bridget. Mr. Lord will not be down to supper; spread a tray for him, please." "I'd like to spread a tray for him at the bottom of the Red Sea; that's where he belongs!" muttered Bridget, as she descended to the kitchen to comfort Cyril. "Was it my fault, mother?" asked Olive, bending over her anxiously. Her mother drew the child's head down and leaned her own against it feebly. "No, dear," she sighed. "It's nobody's fault, unless it's mine!" "Is the pain gone?" "Quite gone, dear." Nevertheless the pain was to prove the final wrench to a heart that had been on the verge of breaking for many a year, and it was not long before Olive and Cyril were motherless. Mr. Lord did not have the slightest objection to the growing intimacy between his children and the new family in the Yellow House, so long as he was not disturbed by it, and so long as it cost him nothing. They had strict orders not to play with certain of their village acquaintances, Mr. Lord believing himself to be an aristocrat; the fact being that he was almost destitute of human sympathy, and to make a neighbor of him you would have had to begin with his grandfather and work for three generations. He had seen Nancy and Gilbert at the gates of his place, and he had passed Mrs. Carey in one of his infrequent walks to the post-office. She was not a person to pass without mental comment, and Mr. Lord instantly felt himself in the presence of an equal, an unusual fact in his experience; he would not have known a superior if he had met one ever so often! "A very fine, unusual woman," he thought. "She accounts for that handsome, manly boy. I wish he could knock some spirit into Cyril!" The process of "knocking spirit" into a boy would seem to be inconsistent with educational logic, but by very different methods, Gilbert had certainly given Cyril a trifling belief in himself, and Mother Carey was gradually winning him to some sort of self-expression by the warmth of her frequent welcomes and the delightful faculty she possessed of making him feel at ease. "Come, come!" said the petrels to the molly-mocks in "Water Babies." "This young gentleman is going to Shiny Wall. He is a plucky one to have gone so far. Give the little chap a cast over the ice-pack for Mother Carey's sake." Gilbert was delighted, in a new place, to find a boy friend of his own age, and Cyril's speedy attachment gratified his pride. Gilbert was doing well these summer months. The unceasing activity, the authority given him by his mother and sisters, his growing proficiency in all kinds of skilled labor, as he "puttered" about with Osh Popham or Bill Harmon in house and barn and garden, all this pleased his enterprising nature. Only one anxiety troubled his mother; his unresigned and mutinous attitude about exchanging popular and fashionable Eastover for Beulah Academy, which seat of learning he regarded with unutterable scorn. He knew that there was apparently no money to pay Eastover fees, but he was still child enough to feel that it could be found, somewhere, if properly searched for. He even considered the education of Captain Carey's eldest son an emergency vital enough to make it proper to dip into the precious five thousand dollars which was yielding them a part of their slender annual income. Once, when Gilbert was a little boy, he had put his shoulder out of joint, and to save time his mother took him at once to the doctor's. He was suffering, but still strong enough to walk. They had to climb a hilly street, the child moaning with pain, his mother soothing and encouraging him as they went on. Suddenly he whimpered: "Oh! if this had only happened to Ellen or Joanna or Addy or Nancy, I could have borne it _so_ much better!" There was a good deal of that small boy left in Gilbert still, and he endured best the economies that fell on the feminine members of the family. It was the very end of August, and although school opened the first Monday in September, Mrs. Carey was not certain whether Gilbert would walk into the old-fashioned, white painted academy with the despised Beulah "hayseeds," or whether he would make a scene, and authority would have to be used. "I declare, Gilly!" exclaimed Mother Carey one night, after an argument on the subject; "one would imagine the only course in life open to a boy was to prepare at Eastover and go to college afterwards! Yet you may take a list of the most famous men in America, and I dare say you will find half of them came from schools like Beulah Academy or infinitely poorer ones. I don't mean the millionaires alone. I mean the merchants and engineers and surgeons and poets and authors and statesmen. Go ahead and try to stamp your school in some way, Gilly!--don't sit down feebly and wait for it to stamp you!" This was all very well as an exhibition of spirit on Mother Carey's part, but it had been a very hard week. Gilbert was sulky; Peter had had a touch of tonsillitis; Nancy was faltering at the dishwashing and wishing she were a boy; Julia was a perfect barnacle; Kathleen had an aching tooth, and there being no dentist in the village, was applying Popham remedies,--clove-chewing, roasted raisins, and disfiguring bread poultices; Bill Harmon had received no reply from Mr. Hamilton, and when Mother Carey went to her room that evening she felt conscious of a lassitude, and a sense of anxiety, deeper than for months. As Gilbert went by to his own room, he glanced in at her door, finding it slightly ajar. She sat before her dressing table, her long hair flowing over her shoulders, her head bent over her two hands. His father's picture was in its accustomed place, and he heard her say as she looked at it: "Oh, my dear, my dear! I am so careworn, so troubled, so discouraged! Gilbert needs you, and so do I, more than tongue can tell!" The voice was so low that it was almost a whisper, but it reached Gilbert's ears, and there was a sob strangled in it that touched his heart. The boy tiptoed softly into his room and sat down on his bed in the moonlight. "Dear old Mater!" he thought. "It's no go! I've got to give up Eastover and college and all and settle down into a country bumpkin! No fellow could see his mother look like that, and speak like that, and go his own gait; he's just got to go hers!" Meantime Mrs. Carey had put out the lamp and lay quietly thinking. The last words that floated through her mind as she sank to sleep were those of a half-forgotten verse, learned, she could not say how many years before:-- You can glad your child or grieve it! You can trust it or deceive it; When all's done Beneath God's sun You can only love and leave it. XXIII NEARING SHINY WALL Another person presumably on the way to Shiny Wall and Peacepool, but putting small energy into the journey, was that mass of positively glaring virtues, Julia Carey. More than one fairy must have been forgotten when Julia's christening party came off. No heart-to-heart talk in the twilight had thus far produced any obvious effect. She had never, even when very young, experienced a desire to sit at the feet of superior wisdom, always greatly preferring a chair of her own. She seldom did wrong, in her own opinion, because the moment she entertained an idea it at once became right, her vanity serving as a pair of blinders to keep her from seeing the truth. The doctors did not permit any one to write to poor Allan Carey, so that Julia's heart could not be softened by continual communication with her invalid father, who, with Gladys Ferguson, constituted the only tribunal she was willing to recognize. Her consciousness of superiority to the conditions that surrounded her, her love of luxury, the silken selfishness with which she squirmed out of unpleasant duties, these made her an unlikable and undesirable housemate, and that these faults could exist with what Nancy called her "everlasting stained-glass attitude" made it difficult for Mother Carey to maintain a harmonious family circle. It was an outburst of Nancy's impetuous temper that Mrs. Carey had always secretly dreaded, but after all it was poor Kathleen who precipitated an unforgettable scene which left an influence behind it for many months. The morning after Mother Carey's interview with Gilbert she looked up as her door was pushed open, and beheld Julia, white and rigid with temper, standing on the threshold. "What is the matter, child?" exclaimed her aunt, laying down her work in alarm. Close behind Julia came Kathleen, her face swollen with tears, her expression full of unutterable woe. Julia's lips opened almost automatically as she said slowly and with bitter emphasis, "Aunt Margaret, is it true, as Kathleen says, that my father has all your money and some of Uncle Peter's?" Something snapped in Mother Carey! One glance at Kathleen showed only too well that she had committed the almost unpardonable sin of telling Julia what had been carefully and tenderly kept from her. Before she could answer Kathleen had swept past Julia and flung herself on the floor near her mother. "Oh, mother, I can't say anything that will ever make you understand. Julia knows, she knows in her heart, what she said that provoked me! She does nothing but grumble about the work, and how few dresses we have, and what a drudge she is, and what common neighbors we have, and how Miss Tewksbury would pity her if she knew all, and how Uncle Allan would suffer if he could see his daughter living such a life! And this morning my head ached and my tooth ached and I was cross, and all at once something leaped out of my mouth!" "Tell her what you said," urged Julia inexorably. Sobs choked Kathleen's voice. "I said--I said--oh! how can I tell it! I said, if her father hadn't lost so much of my father's and my mother's money we shouldn't have been so poor, any of us." "Kathleen, how could you!" cried her mother. If Julia wished to precipitate a tempest she had succeeded, and her face showed a certain sedate triumph. "Oh! mother! don't give me up; don't give me up!" wailed Kathleen. "It wasn't me that said it, it was somebody else that I didn't know lived inside of me. I don't expect you to forgive it or forget it, Julia, but if you'll only try, just a little bit, I'll show you how sorry I feel. I'd cut myself and make it bleed, I'd go to prison, if I could get back to where I was before I said it! Oh! what shall I do, mother, if you look at me like that again or say 'How could you!'" There was no doubting Kathleen's remorse; even Julia saw that. "Did she tell the truth, Aunt Margaret?" she repeated. "Come here, Julia, and sit by me. It is true that your Uncle Peter and I have both put money into your father's business, and it is true that he has not been able to give it back to us, and perhaps may never do so. There is just enough left to pay your poor father's living expenses, but we trust his honor; we are as sorry for him as we can be, and we love him dearly. Kathleen meant nothing but that your father has been unfortunate and we all have to abide by the consequences; but I am amazed that my daughter should have so forgotten herself as to speak of it to you!" (Renewed sobs from the prostrate Kathleen). "Especially," said Julia, "when, as Gladys Ferguson says, I haven't anybody in the world but you, to turn to in my trouble. I am a fatherless girl" (her voice quivered here), "and I am a guest in your house." Mrs. Carey's blood rose a little as she looked at poor Kitty's shaken body and streaming eyes, and Julia's unforgiving face. "You are wrong there, Julia. I fail to see why you should not take your full share of our misfortunes, and suffer as much as we, from our too small income. It is not our fault, it is not yours. You are not a privileged guest, you are one of the family. If you are fatherless just now, my children are fatherless forever; yet you have not made one single burden lighter by joining our forces. You have been an outsider, instead of putting yourself loyally into the breach, and working with us heart to heart. I welcomed you with open arms and you have made my life harder, much harder, than it was before your coming. To protect you I have had to discipline my own children continually, and all the time you were putting their tempers to quite unnecessary tests! I am not extenuating Kathleen, but I merely say you have no right to behave as you do. You are thirteen years old, quite old enough to make up your mind whether you wish to be loved by anybody or not; at present you are not!" Never had the ears of the Paragon heard such disagreeably plain speech. She was not inclined to tears, but moisture began to appear in her eyes and she looked as though a shower were imminent. Aunt Margaret was magnificent in her wrath, and though Julia feared, she admired her. Not to be loved, if that really were to be her lot, rather terrified Julia. She secretly envied Nancy's unconscious gift of drawing people to her instantly; men, women, children,--dogs and horses, for that matter. She never noticed that Nancy's heart ran out to meet everybody, and that she was overflowing with vitality and joy and sympathy; on the contrary, she considered the tribute of affection paid to Nancy as a part of Nancy's luck. Virtuous, conscientious, intelligent, and well-dressed as she felt herself to be, she emphatically did not wish to be disliked, and it was a complete surprise to her that she had not been a successful Carey chicken. "Gladys Ferguson always loved me," she expostulated after a brief silence, and there was a quiver in her voice. "Then either Gladys has a remarkable gift of loving, or else you are a different Julia in her company," remarked Mother Carey, quietly, raising Julia's astonishment and perturbation to an immeasurable height. "Now, Kathleen," continued Mother Carey, "Mrs. Godfrey has often asked you to spend a week with Elsie, and you can go to Charlestown on the afternoon train. Go away from Julia and forget everything but that you have done wrong and you must find a way to repair it. I hope Julia will learn while you are away to make it easier for you to be courteous and amiable. There is a good deal in the Bible, Julia, about the sin of causing your brother to offend. Between that sin and Kathleen's offence, there is little, in my mind, to choose!" "Yes, there is!" cried Kathleen. "I am much, much worse than Julia. Father couldn't bear to know that I had hurt Julia's feelings and hurt yours too. I was false to father, and you, and Uncle Allan, and Julia. Nothing can be said for me, _nothing_! I am so ashamed of myself that I shall never get over it in the world. Oh, Julia, could you shake hands with me, just to show me you know how I despise myself?" Julia shook hands considerably less like a slug or a limpet than usual, and something very queer and unexpected happened when her hand met poor Kitty's wet, feverish little paw and she heard the quiver in her voice. She suddenly stooped and kissed her cousin, quite without intention. Kathleen returned the salute with grateful, pathetic warmth, and then the two fell on Mother Carey's neck to be kissed and cried over for a full minute. "I'll go to the doctor and have my ugly tooth pulled out," exclaimed Kathleen, wiping her eyes. "If it hadn't been for that I never could have been so horrible!" "That would be all very well for once," answered her mother with a tired smile, "but if you pluck out a supposed offending member every time you do something wrong, I fear you will not have many left when you are an old lady!" "Mother!" said Kathleen, almost under her breath and not daring to look up, "couldn't I stay at home from Charlestown and show you and Julia, here, how sorry I am?" "Yes, let her, Aunt Margaret, and then I can have a chance to try too," pleaded Julia. Had the heavens fallen? Had the Paragon, the Pink of Propriety and Perfection, confessed a fault? Had the heart of the smug one, the prig, melted, and did she feel at last her kinship to the Carey chickens? Had she suffered a real grievance, the first amongst numberless deeds of tenderness, and having resented it like an "old beast," forgiven it like a "new" one? It certainly seemed as if Mother Carey that week were at her old trade of making things make themselves. Gilbert, Kathleen, and Julia had all fought their way under the ice-pack and were getting a glimpse of Shiny Wall. XXIV A LETTER PROM GERMANY Mother Carey walked down the village street one morning late in August, while Peter, milk pail in hand, was running by her side and making frequent excursions off the main line of travel. Beulah looked enchanting after a night of rain, and the fields were greener than they had been since haying time. Unless Mr. Hamilton were away from his consular post on a vacation somewhere on the Continent, he should have received, and answered, Bill Harmon's letter before this, she was thinking, as she looked at the quiet beauty of the scene that had so endeared itself to her in a few short months. Mrs. Popham had finished her morning's work and was already sitting at her drawing-in frame in the open doorway, making a very purple rose with a very scarlet centre. "Will you come inside, Mis' Carey?" she asked hospitably, "or do you want Lallie Joy to set you a chair on the grass, same as you had last time?" "I always prefer the grass, Mrs. Popham," smiled Mrs. Carey. "As it's the day for the fishman to come I thought we'd like an extra quart of milk for chowder." "I only hope he'll make _out_ to come," was Mrs. Popham's curt response. "If I set out to _be_ a fishman, I vow I'd _be_ one! Mr. Tubbs stays to home whenever he's hayin', or his wife's sick, or it's stormy, or the children want to go to the circus!" Mrs. Carey laughed. "That's true; but as your husband reminded me last week, when Mr. Tubbs disappointed us, his fish is always fresh-caught, and good." "Oh! of course Mr. Popham would speak up for him!" returned his wife. "I don't see myself as it makes much diff'rence whether his fish is good or bad, if he stays to home with it! Mebbe I look on the dark side a little mite; I can't hardly help it, livin' with Mr. Popham, and he so hopeful." "He keeps us all very merry at the Yellow House," Mrs. Carey ventured. "Yes, he would," remarked Mrs. Popham drily, "but you don't git it stiddy; hopefulness at meals, hopefulness evenin's, an' hopefulness nights!--one everlastin' stiddy stream of hopefulness! He was jest so as a boy; always lookin' on the bright side whether there was any or not. His mother 'n' father got turrible sick of it; so much sunshine in the house made a continual drouth, so old Mis' Popham used to say. For her part, she said, she liked to think that, once in a while, there was a cloud that was a first-class cloud; a thick, black cloud, clean through to the back! She was tired to death lookin' for Ossian's silver linin's! Lallie Joy's real moody like me; I s'pose it's only natural, livin' with a father who never sees anything but good, no matter which way he looks. There's two things I trust I shan't hear any more when I git to heaven,--that's 'Cheer up Maria!' an' 'It's all for the best!' As for Mr. Popham, he says any place'll be heaven to him so long as I ain't there, callin' 'Hurry up Ossian!' so we have it, back an' forth!" "It's a wonderful faculty, seeing the good in everything," sighed Mrs. Carey. "Wonderful tiresome," returned Mrs. Popham, "though I will own up it's Ossian's only fault, and he can't see his own misfortunes any clearer than he can see those of other folks. His new colt run away with him last week and stove the mowin' machine all to pieces. 'Never mind, Maria!' he says, 'it'll make fust-rate gear for a windmill!' He's out in the barn now, fussin' over it; you can hear him singin'. They was all here practicin' for the Methodist concert last, night, an' I didn't sleep a wink, the tunes kep' a-runnin' in my head so! They always git Ossian to sing 'Fly like a youthful hart or roe, over the hills where spices grow,' an' I tell him he's too old; youthful harts an' roes don't fly over the hills wearin' spectacles, I tell him, but he'll go right on singin' it till they have to carry him up on the platform in a wheeled chair!" "You go to the Congregational church, don't you, Mrs. Popham?" asked Mrs. Carey. "I've seen Lallie and Digby at Sunday-school." "Yes, Mr. Popham is a Methodist and I'm a Congregationalist, but I say let the children go where they like, so I always take them with me." Mrs. Carey was just struggling to conceal her amusement at this religious flexibility on Mrs. Popham's part, when she espied Nancy flying down the street, bareheaded, waving a bit of paper in the air. "Are you 'most ready to come home, Muddy?" she called, without coming any nearer. "Yes, quite ready, now Lallie has brought the milk. Good morning, Mrs. Popham; the children want me for some new enterprise." "You give yourself most too much to 'em," expostulated Mrs. Popham; "you don't take no vacations." "Ah, well, you see 'myself' is all I have to give them," answered Mrs. Carey, taking Peter and going to meet Nancy. "Mother," said that young person breathlessly, "I must tell you what I didn't tell at the time, for fear of troubling you. I wrote to Mr. Hamilton by the same post that Mr. Harmon did. Bill is so busy and such a poor writer I thought he wouldn't put the matter nicely at all, and I didn't want you, with all your worries, brought into it, so I wrote to the Consul myself, and kept a copy to show you exactly what I said. I have been waiting at the gate for the letters every day for a week, but this morning Gilbert happened to be there and shouted, 'A letter from Germany for you, Nancy!' So all of them are wild with curiosity; Olive and Cyril too, but I wanted you to open and read it first because it may be full of awful blows." Mrs. Carey sat down on the side of a green bank between the Pophams' corner and the Yellow House and opened the letter,--with some misgivings, it must be confessed. Nancy sat close beside her and held one edge of the wide sheets, closely filled. "Why, he has written you a volume, Nancy!" exclaimed Mrs. Carey. "It must be the complete story of his life! How long was yours to him?" "I don't remember; pretty long; because there seemed to be so much to tell, to show him how we loved the house, and why we couldn't spend Cousin Ann's money and move out in a year or two, and a lot about ourselves, to let him see we were nice and agreeable and respectable." "I'm not sure all that was strictly necessary," commented Mrs. Carey with some trepidation. This was Lemuel Hamilton's letter, dated from the office of the American Consul in Breslau, Germany. MY DEAR MISS NANCY,--As your letter to me was a purely "business" communication I suppose I ought to begin my reply: "Dear Madam, Your esteemed favor was received on the sixth inst. and contents noted," but I shall do nothing of the sort. I think you must have guessed that I have two girls of my own, for you wrote to me just as if we were sitting together side by side, like two friends, not a bit as landlord and tenant. Mother Carey's eyes twinkled. She well knew Nancy's informal epistolary style, and her facile, instantaneous friendliness! Every word in your letter interested me, pleased me, touched me. I feel that I know you all, from the dear mother who sits in the centre-- "What does he mean by that?" "I sent him a snap shot of the family." "_Nancy_! What for?" "So that he could see what we were like; so that he'd know we were fit to be lifelong tenants!" Mrs. Carey turned resignedly to the letter again. From the dear mother who sits in the centre, to the lovable little Peter who looks as if he were all that you describe him! I was about his age when I went to the Yellow House to spend a few years. Old Granny Hamilton had lived there all her life, and when my mother, who was a widow, was seized with a serious illness she took me home with her for a long visit. She was never well enough to go away, so my early childhood was passed in Beulah, and I only left the village when I was ten years old, and an orphan. "Oh, dear!" interpolated Nancy. "It seems, lately, as if nobody had both father and mother!" Granny Hamilton died soon after my mother, and I hardly know who lived in the house for the next thirty years. It was my brother's property, and a succession of families occupied it until it fell to me in my turn. I have no happy memories connected with it, so you can go ahead and make them for yourselves. My only remembrance is of the west bedroom, where my mother lived and died. "The west bedroom; that isn't the painted one; no, of course it is the one where I sleep," said Mrs. Carey. "The painted one must always have been the guest chamber." She could only move from bed to chair, and her greatest pleasure was to sit by the sunset window and look at the daisies and buttercups waving in that beautiful sloping stretch of field with the pine woods beyond. After the grass was mown, and that field was always left till the last for her sake, she used to sit there and wait for Queen Anne's lace to come up; its tall stems and delicate white wheels nodding among the grasses. "Oh! I do _like_ him!" exclaimed Nancy impetuously. "Can't you _see_ him, mother? It's so nice of him to remember that they always mowed the hayfield last for his mother's sake, and so nice of him to think of Queen Anne's lace all these years!" Now as to business, your Cousin Ann is quite right when she tells you that you ought not to put expensive improvements on another person's property lest you be disturbed in your tenancy. That sort of cousin is always right, whatever she says. Mine was not named Ann; she was Emma, but the principle is the same. "Nancy!" asked Mrs. Carey, looking away from the letter again, "did you say anything about your Cousin Ann?" "Yes, some little thing or other; for it was her money that we couldn't spend until we knew we could stay in the house. I didn't describe her, of course, to Mr. Hamilton; I just told him she was very businesslike, and yes, I remember now, I told him you said she was a very fine person; that's about all. But you see how clever he is! he just has 'instinks,' as Mr. Popham says, and you don't have to tell him much about anything." If you are intending to bring the water from the well into the house and put a large stove in the cellar to warm some of the upper rooms; if you are papering and painting inside, and keeping the place in good condition, you are preserving my property and even adding to its value; so under the circumstances I could not think of accepting any rent in money. "No rent! Not even the sixty dollars!" exclaimed Nancy. "Look; that is precisely what he says." "There never was such a dear since the world began!" cried Nancy joyously. "Oh! do read on; there's a lot more, and the last may contradict the first." Shall I tell you what more the Careys may do for me, they who have done so much already? "So much!" quoted Nancy with dramatic emphasis. "Oh, he _is_ a dear!" My son Tom, when he went down to Beulah before starting for China, visited the house and at my request put away my mother's picture safely. He is a clever boy, and instead of placing the thing in an attic where it might be injured, he tucked it away,--where do you think,--in the old brick oven of the room that is now, I suppose, your dining room. It is a capital hiding-place, for there had been no fire there for fifty years, nor ever will be again. I have other portraits of her with me, on this side of the water. Please remove the one I speak of from its wrappings and hang it over the mantel shelf in the west bedroom. "My bedroom! I shall love to have it there," said Mother Carey. Then, once a year, on my mother's birthday,--it is the fourth of July and an easy date to remember,--will my little friend Miss Nancy, or any of the other Careys, if she is absent, pick a little nosegay of daisies and buttercups (perhaps there will even be a bit of early Queen Anne's lace) and put it in a vase under my mother's picture? That shall be the annual rent paid for the Yellow House to Lemuel Hamilton by the Careys! Tears of joy sprang to the eyes of emotional Nancy. She rose to her feet and paced the greensward excitedly. "Oh, mother, I didn't think there could be another such man after knowing father and the Admiral. Isn't it all as wonderful as a fairy story?" "There's a little more; listen, dear." As to the term of your occupancy, the Careys may have the Yellow House until the day of my death, unless by some extraordinary chance my son Tom should ever want it as a summer home. "Oh, dear! there comes the dreadful 'unless'! 'My son Tom' is our only enemy, then!" said Nancy darkly. "He is in China, at all events," her mother remarked cheerfully. Tom is the only one who ever had a bit of sentiment about Beulah, and he was always unwilling that the old place should be occupied by strangers. The curious thing about the matter is that you and yours do not seem to be strangers to me and mine. Do you know, dear little Miss Nancy, what brought the tears to my eyes in your letter? The incident of your father's asking what you could do to thank the Yellow House for the happy hour it had given you on that summer day long ago, and the planting of the crimson rambler by the side of the portico. I have sent your picture tying up the rose,--and it was so charming I was loath to let it go,--with your letter, and the snap shot of the family group, all out to my son Tom in China. He will know then why I have let the house, to whom, and all the attendant circumstances. Trust him never to disturb you when he sees how you love the old place. The planting of that crimson rambler will fix Tom, for he's a romantic boy. "The planting of the rose was a heavenly inspiration if it does 'fix Tom!' We'll call Tom the Chinese Enemy. No, we'll call him the Yellow Peril," laughed Nancy in triumph. I am delighted with the sample of paper you have chosen for the front hall. "I don't see why you didn't go over to Germany yourself, Nancy, and take a trunk of samples!" cried Mrs. Carey, wiping the tears of merriment from her eyes. "I can't think what the postage on your letter must have been." "Ten cents," Nancy confessed, "but wasn't it worth it, Muddy?--Come, read the last few lines, and then we'll run all the way home to tell the others." Send me anything more, at any time, to give me an idea of the delightful things you are doing. I shall be proud if you honor me with an occasional letter. Pray give my regards to your mother, whom I envy, and all the "stormy petrels," whom I envy too. Believe me, dear Miss Nancy, Yours sincerely, LEMUEL HAMILTON. "I can't remember why I told him about Mother Carey's chickens," said Nancy reflectively. "It just seemed to come in naturally. The Yellow Peril must be rather nice, as well as his father, even if he is our enemy. That was clever of him, putting his grandmother in the brick oven!" And here Nancy laughed, and laughed again, thinking how her last remark would sound if overheard by a person unacquainted with the circumstances. "A delightful, warm, kind, friendly letter," said Mother Carey, folding it with a caressing hand. "I wish your father could have read it." "He doesn't say a word about his children," and Nancy took the sheets and scanned them again. "You evidently gave him the history of your whole family, but he confines himself to his own life." "He mentions 'my son Tom' frequently enough, but there's not a word of Mrs. Hamilton." "No, but there's no reason there should be, especially!" "If he loved her he couldn't keep her out," said Nancy shrewdly. "She just isn't in the story at all. Could any of us write a chronicle of any house we ever lived in, and leave you out?" Mrs. Carey took Nancy's outstretched hands and was pulled up from the greensward. "You have a few 'instinks' yourself, little daughter," she said with a swift pat on the rosy cheek. "Now, Peter, put your marbles in the pocket of your blue jeans, and take the milk pail from under the bushes; we must hurry or there'll be no chowder." As they neared Garden Fore-and-Aft the group of children rushed out to meet them, Kitty in advance. "The fish man didn't come," she said, "and it's long past his time, so there's no hope; but Julia and I have the dinner all planned. There wasn't enough of it to go round anyway, so we've asked Olive and Cyril to stay, and we've set the table under the great maple,--do you care?" "Not a bit; we'll have a real jollification, because Nancy has some good news to tell you!" "The dinner isn't quite appropriate for a jollification," Kitty observed anxiously. "Is the news good enough to warrant opening a jar or a can of anything?" "Open all that doth hap to be closed," cried Nancy, embracing Olive excitedly. "Light the bonfires on the encroaching hills. Set casks a-tilt, and so forth." "It's the German letter!" said Gilbert at a venture. "What is the dinner, Kitty?" Mother Carey asked. "New potatoes and string beans from the aft garden. Stale bread made into milk toast to be served as a course. Then, not that it has anything to do with the case, but just to give a style to the meal, Julia has made a salad out of the newspaper." Nancy created a diversion by swooning on the grass; a feat which had given her great fame in charades. "It was only the memory of Julia's last newspaper salad!" she murmured when the usual restoratives had been applied. "Prithee, poppet, what hast dropped into the dish to-day?" Julia was laughing too much to be wholly intelligible, but read from a scrap in her apron pocket: "'Any fruit in season, cold beans or peas, minced cucumber, English walnuts, a few cubes of cold meat left from dinner, hard boiled eggs in slices, flecks of ripe tomatoes and radishes to perfect the color scheme, a dash of onion juice, dash of paprika, dash of rich cream.' I have left out the okra, the shallot, the estragon, the tarragon, the endive, the hearts of artichoke, the Hungarian peppers and the haricot beans because we hadn't any;--do you think it will make any difference, Aunt Margaret?" "It will," said Nancy oracularly, "but all to the good." "Rather a dull salad I call it," commented Gilbert. "Lacks the snap of the last one. No mention of boned sprats, or snails in aspic, calves' foot jelly, iced humming birds, pickled edelweiss, or any of those things kept habitually in the cellars of families like ours. No dash of Jamaica ginger or Pain-killer or sloe gin or sarsaparilla to give it piquancy. Unless Julia can find a paper that gives more up-to-date advice to its country subscribers, we'll have to transfer her from the kitchen department to the woodshed." Julia's whole attitude, during this discussion of her recent culinary experiments, was indicative of the change that was slowly taking place in her point of view. The Careys had a large sense of humor, from mother down as far as Peter, who was still in the tadpole stage of it. They chaffed one another on all occasions, for the most part courteously and with entire good nature. Leigh Hunt speaks of the anxiety of certain persons to keep their minds quiet lest any motion be clumsy, and Julia's concern had been of this variety; but four or five months spent in a household where mental operations, if not deep, were incredibly quick, had made her a little more elastic. Mother Carey had always said that if Julia had any sense of humor she would discover for herself what a solemn prig she was, and mend her ways, and it seemed as if this might be true in course of time. "What'll we do with all the milk?" now demanded Peter, who had carried it all the way from the Pophams', and to whom it appeared therefore of exaggerated importance. "Angel boy!" cried Nancy, embracing him. "The only practical member of the family! What wouldst thou suggest?" "Drink it," was the terse reply. "And so't shall be, my liege! Fetch the beaker, lackey," identifying Cyril with a royal gesture. "Also crystal water from the well, which by the command of our Cousin Ann will speedily flow in a pipe within the castle walls. There are healths to be drunk this day when we assemble under the Hamilton maple, and first and most loyally the health of our American Consul at Breslau, Germany!" XXV "FOLLOWING THE GLEAM" If the summer months had brought many changes to the dwellers in the Yellow House and the House of Lords, the autumn was responsible for many more. Cousin Ann's improvements were set in motion and were promised to be in full force before cold weather set in, and the fall term at Beulah Academy had opened with six new, unexpected, and interesting students. Happily for the Careys and happily for Beulah, the old principal, a faithful but uninspired teacher, had been called to Massachusetts to fill a higher position; and only a few days before the beginning of the term, a young college man, Ralph Thurston, fresh from Bowdoin and needing experience, applied for and received the appointment. The thrill of rapture that ran like an electric current through the persons of the feminine students when they beheld Ralph Thurston for the first time,--dignified, scholarly, unmistakably the gentleman,--beheld him mount the platform in the assembly room, and knew him for their own, this can better be imagined than described! He was handsome, he was young, he had enough hair (which their principals seldom had possessed), he did not wear spectacles, he had a pleasing voice, and a manner of speaking that sent tremors of delight up and down a thirteen-year-old spine. He had a merry wit and a hearty laugh, but one had only to look at him closely to feel that he had borne burdens and that his attainments had been bought with a price. He was going to be difficult to please, and the girls of all ages drew deep breaths of anticipation and knew that they should study as never before. The vice-principal, a lady of fine attainments, was temporarily in eclipse, and such an astounding love for the classics swept through young Beulah that nobody could understand it. Ralph Thurston taught Latin and Greek himself, but parents did not at first observe the mysterious connection between cause and effect. It was all very young and artless and innocent; helpful and stimulating too, for Thurston was no budding ladies' man, but a thoroughly good fellow, manly enough to attract the boys and hold their interest. The entrance of the four Careys and two Lords into the list of students had an inspiring effect upon the whole school. So far as scholarship was concerned they were often outstripped by their country neighbors, but the Careys had seen so much of the world that they had a great deal of general culture, and the academy atmosphere was affected by it. Olive, Nancy, and Gilbert went into the highest class; Kathleen, Julia, and Cyril into the one below. The intimacy of Nancy and Olive was a romantic and ardent one. Olive had never had a real companion in her life; Nancy's friends dotted the universe wherever she had chanced to live. Olive was uncommunicative, shy, and stiff with all but a chosen few; Nancy was at ease in all assemblies. It was Nancy's sympathy and enthusiasm and warmth that attracted Olive Lord, and it was the combination of Olive's genius and her need of love, that held Nancy. Never were two human creatures more unlike in their ways of thought. Olive had lived in Beulah seven years, and knew scarcely any one because of her father's eccentricities and his indifference to the world; but had you immured Nancy in a convent she would have made a large circle of acquaintances from the window of her cell, before a month passed over her head. She had an ardent interest in her fellow creatures, and whenever they strayed from the strict path of rectitude, she was consumed with a desire to set them straight. If Olive had seen a drunken man lying in a ditch, she would scarcely have looked at him, much less inquired his name. Nancy would have sat by until he recovered himself, if possible, or found somebody to take him to his destination. As for the delightful opportunity of persuading him of his folly, she would have jumped at the chance when she was fifteen or sixteen, but as she grew older she observed a little more reticence in these delicate matters, at least when she was endeavoring to reform her elders. She had succeeded in making young Nat Harmon stop cigarette smoking, but he was privately less convinced of the error of his ways than he was bewitched by Nancy. She promised readily to wear a blue ribbon and sit on the platform in the Baptist Chapel at the Annual Meeting of the Junior Temperance League. On the eve of the affair she even would gladly have made a speech when the president begged her to do so, but the horror-stricken Olive succeeded in stopping her, and her mother firmly stood by Olive. "Oh! all right; I don't care a bit about it, Muddy," she answered nonchalantly. "Only there is something splendid about rising from a band of blue-ribboned girls and boys and addressing the multitude for a great cause." "What do you know about this great cause, Nancy dear, at your age?" "Oh, not much! but you don't have to know much if you say it loud and clear to the back settees. I've watched how it goes! It was thrilling when we gave 'Esther the Beautiful Queen' in the Town Hall; when we waved our hands and sang 'Haman! Haman! Long live Haman!' I almost fainted with joy." "It was very good; I liked it too; but perhaps if you 'faint with joy' whenever your feet touch a platform, it will be more prudent for you to keep away!" and Mother Carey laughed. "Very well, madam, your will is my law! When you see the youth of Beulah treading the broad road that leadeth to destruction, and looking on the wine when it is red in the cup, remember that you withheld my hand and voice!" Gilbert and Cyril were much together, particularly after Cyril's standing had been increased in Beulah by the news that Mr. Thurston thought him a remarkable mathematician and perhaps the leading student in his class. Cyril himself, too pale for a country boy of fourteen, narrow-shouldered, silent, and timid, took this unexpected fame with absolute terror, but Olive's pride delighted in it and she positively bloomed, in the knowledge that her brother was appreciated. She herself secretly thought books were rather a mistake when paints and brushes were at hand, and it was no wonder that she did not take high rank, seeing that she painted an hour before school, and all day Saturday, alternating her work on the guest chamber of the Yellow House with her portrait of Nancy for Mother Carey's Christmas present. Kathleen and Julia had fallen into step and were good companions. Kathleen had never forgotten her own breach of good manners and family loyalty; Julia always remembered the passion of remorse that Kathleen felt, a remorse that had colored her conduct to Julia ever since. Julia was a good plodder, and Mr. Thurston complimented her on the excellence of her Latin recitations, when he had his wits about him and could remember that she existed. He never had any difficulty in remembering Nancy. She was not, it must be confessed, especially admirable as a _verbatim et literatim_ "reciter." Sometimes she forgot entirely what the book had said on a certain topic, but she usually had some original observation of her own to offer by way of compromise. At first Mr. Thurston thought that she was trying to conceal her lack of real knowledge, and dazzle her instructor at the same time, so that he should never discover her ignorance. Later on he found where her weakness and her strength lay. She adapted, invented, modified things naturally,--embroidered all over her task, so to speak, and delivered it in somewhat different shape from the other girls. (When she was twelve she pricked her finger in sewing and made a blood-stain on the little white mull apron that she was making. The stuff was so delicate that she did not dare to attempt any cleansing process, and she was in a great hurry too, so she embroidered a green four leaf clover over the bloodstain, and all the family exclaimed, "How like Nancy!") Grammar teased Nancy, algebra and geometry routed her, horse, foot, and dragoons. No room for embroidery there! Languages delighted her, map-drawing bored her, and composition intoxicated her, although she was better at improvising than at the real task of setting down her thoughts in black and white. The class chronicles and prophecies and songs and poems would flow to her inevitably, but Kathleen would be the one who would give new grace and charm to them if she were to read them to an audience. How Beulah Academy beamed, and applauded, and wagged its head in pride on a certain day before Thanksgiving, when there were exercises in the assembly room. Olive had drawn The Landing of the Pilgrims on the largest of the blackboards, and Nancy had written a merry little story that caused great laughter and applause in the youthful audience. Gilbert had taken part in a debate and covered himself with glory, and Kathleen closed the impromptu programme by reciting Tennyson's-- O young Mariner, You from the haven Under the sea-cliff, You that are watching The gray Magician With eyes of wonder,... follow the Gleam. Great the Master, And sweet the Magic, When over the valley, In early summers, Over the mountain, On human faces, And all around me, Moving to melody Floated the Gleam. O young Mariner, Down to the haven, Call your companion, Launch your vessel And crowd your canvas, And, ere it vanishes Over the margin, After it, follow it, Follow the Gleam. Kathleen's last year's brown velveteen disclosed bronze slippers and stockings,--a novelty in Beulah,--her hair fell in such curls as Beulah had rarely beheld, and her voice was as sweet as a thrush's note; so perhaps it is not strange that the poem set a kind of fashion at the academy, and "following the gleam" became a sort of text by which to study and grow and live. Thanksgiving Day approached, and everybody was praying for a flurry of snow, just enough to give a zest to turkey and cranberry sauce. On the twentieth it suddenly occurred to Mother Carey that this typical New England feast day would be just the proper time for the housewarming, so the Lord children, the Pophams, and the Harmons were all bidden to come at seven o'clock in the evening. Great preparations ensued. Rows of Jack o' Lanterns decorated the piazza, and the Careys had fewer pumpkin pies in November than their neighbors, in consequence of their extravagant inroads upon the golden treasures of the aft garden. Inside were a few late asters and branches of evergreen, and the illumination suggested that somebody had been lending additional lamps and candles for the occasion. The original equipment of clothes possessed by the Careys on their arrival in Beulah still held good, and looked well by lamplight, so that the toilettes were fully worthy of so important a function. Olive's picture of Nancy was finished, and she announced the absolute impossibility of keeping it until Christmas, so it reached the Yellow House on Thanksgiving morning. When it was unwrapped by Nancy and displayed for the first time to the family, Mother Carey's lips parted, her eyes opened in wonder, but no words came for an instant, in the bewilderment of her mind. Olive had written the title "Young April" under the picture. Nancy stood on a bit of dandelion-dotted turf, a budding tree in the background, her arm flung over the neck of a Jersey calf. The calf had sat for his portrait long before, but Nancy had been added since May. Olive, by a clever inspiration, had turned Nancy's face away and painted her with the April breeze blowing her hair across her cheek. She was not good at painting features, her art was too crude, but somehow the real thing was there; and the likeness to Nancy, in figure, pose, and hair, was so unmistakable that her mother caught her breath. As for the calf, he, at least, was distinctly in Olive's line, and he was painted with a touch of genius. "It is better of the calf than it is of you, Nancy," said Gilbert critically. "Isn't Mr. Bossy lovely?" his sister responded amiably. "Wouldn't he put any professional beauty out of countenance? I am proud to be painted beside him! Do you like it, Muddy dear?" "Like it?" she exclaimed, "it is wonderful! It must be sent to Boston for criticism, and we must invent some way of persuading Mr. Lord to give Olive the best instruction to be had. This picture is even better than anything she has done in the painted chamber. I shouldn't wonder a bit, Nancy, if little Beulah were to be very proud of Olive in the years to come!" Nancy was transported at her mother's praise. "I felt it, I knew it! I always said Olive was a genius," she cried, clapping her hands. "Olive is 'following the gleam'! Can't you feel the wind blowing my hair and dress? Don't you see that the calf is chewing his cud and is going to move in just a minute? Olive's animals are always just going to move!--Oh, Muddy dear! when you see Olive nowadays, smiling and busy and happy, aren't you glad you stretched your wings and took her under them with the rest of us? And don't you think you could make a 'new beast' out of Mr. Henry Lord, or is he too old a beast even for Mother Carey?" XXVI A ZOOLOGICAL FATHER That was just what Mother Carey was wondering when Nancy spoke, and as the result of several hours' reflection she went out for a walk just before dusk and made her way towards The Cedars with a package under her cloak. She followed the long lane that led to the house, and knocked at the front door rather timidly. In her own good time Mrs. Bangs answered the knock and admitted Mrs. Carey into the dreariest sitting room she had ever entered. "I am Mrs. Carey from the Hamilton house," she said to Mrs. Bangs. "Will you ask Mr. Lord if he will see me for a moment?" Mrs. Bangs was stupefied at the request, for, in her time, scarcely a single caller from the village had crossed the threshold, although there had been occasional visitors from Portland or Boston. Mrs. Carey waited a few moments, silently regarding the unequalled bareness, ugliness, and cheerlessness of the room. "Olive has a sense of beauty," she thought, "and Olive is sixteen; it is Olive who ought to make this place different from what it is, and she can, unless her father is the stumbling-block in the way." At this moment the possible stumbling-block, Henry Lord, Ph.D., came in and greeted her civilly. His manner was never genial, for there was neither love in his heart nor warm blood in his veins; but he was courteous, for he was an educated fossil, of good birth and up-bringing. He had been dissecting specimens in his workroom, and he looked capable of dismembering Mother Carey; but bless your heart, she had weapons in her unseen armory that were capable of bringing confusion to his paltry apparatus!--among others a delicate, slender little sword that pierced deep on occasion. Henry Lord was of medium height; spare, clean-shaven, thin-lipped, with scanty auburn hair, high forehead, and small keen eyes, especially adapted to the microscope, though ill fitted to use in friendly conversation. "We are neighbors, Professor Lord, though we have never met," said Mrs. Carey, rising and giving him her hand. "My children know you better than I," he answered, "and I feel it very kind in you to allow them to call on you so frequently." They had lived at the Yellow House for four months save at meal times, but as their father was unaware of the number and extent of their visits Mrs. Carey thought it useless to speak of them, so she merely said: "It is a great pleasure to have them with us. My children have left many friends behind them in Massachusetts and elsewhere, and might have been lonely in Beulah; besides, I often think the larger the group (within certain limits), the better chance children have of learning how to live." "I should certainly not have permitted Olive and Cyril to attend the local academy but for your family," said Professor Lord. "These country schools never have any atmosphere of true scholarliness, and the speech and manners of both teachers and pupils are execrable." "I dare say that is often the case. If the academies could furnish such teachers as existed fifty years ago; and alas! if we parents could furnish such vigorous, determined, ambitious, self-denying pupils as used to be sent out from country homes, we should have less to complain of. Of course we are peculiarly fortunate here in Beulah." Mr. Lord looked faintly amused and infinitely superior. "I am afraid, my dear lady," he remarked, "that you have not had long enough experience to comprehend the slenderness of Mr. Philpot's mental equipment." "Oh, Mr. Philpot resigned nearly three months ago," said Mrs. Carey easily, giving Henry Lord, Ph.D., her first stab, and a look of amusement on her own behalf. "Ralph Thurston, the present principal, is a fine, unusual fellow." "Really? The children have never mentioned any change, but I regret to say I am absent-minded at meals. The death of my wife left many gaps in the life of the household." "So that you have to be mother and father in one!" (Stab two: very delicately delivered.) "I fear I am too much of a student to be called a good family man." "So I gathered." (Stab three. She wanted to provoke curiosity.) Mr. Lord looked annoyed. He knew his unpopularity, and did not wish any village gossip to reach the ears of strangers. "You, my dear madam, are capable of appreciating my devotion to my life work, which the neighbors naturally wholly misunderstand," he said. "I gathered nothing from the neighbors," responded Mrs. Carey, "but a woman has only to know children well to see at a glance what they need. You are so absorbed in authorship just now, that naturally it is a little hard for the young people; but I suppose there are breathing places, 'between books'?" "There are no breathing places between mine; there will be six volumes, and I am scarcely half through the third, although I have given seven years to the work. Still, I have an excellent housekeeper who attends to all our simple needs. My children are not fitted for society." "No, not quite." (Stab four). "That is the reason they ought to see a good deal of it, but they are very fine children and very clever." "I am glad you think so, but they certainly write bad English and have no general knowledge whatsoever." "Oh, well, that will come, doubtless, when you have more time with them." (Stab five.) "I often think such mysterious things as good speech and culture can never be learned in school. I shouldn't wonder if that were our department, Dr. Lord!" (Stab six.) "However, you will agree, modest parent as you are, that your Olive is a genius?" "I have never observed it," replied her father. "I cannot, of course, allow her to practice on any musical instrument, because my studies demand quiet, but I don't think she cares for music." "She draws and paints, however, in the most astonishing way, and she has a passionate energy, and concentration, and devotion to her work that I have never seen coupled with anything but an extraordinary talent. She is destined to go very far, in my opinion." "Not too far, I hope," remarked Mr. Lord, with an icy smile. "Olive can paint on plush and china as much as she likes, but I am not partial to 'careers' for young women." "Nor am I; save when the gift is so commanding, so obvious, that it has to be reckoned with;--but I must not delay my business any longer, nor keep you from your work. We are having a housewarming this evening at seven. Olive and Cyril are there now, helping in the preparations, and I want to know if they may stay to supper, and if you can send for them at half past nine or ten." "Certainly they may stay, though I should think your supper table could hardly stand the strain." "Where there are five already, two more make no difference, save in better appetite for all," said Mother Carey, smiling and rising. "If you will allow me to get my hat and coat I will accompany you to the main road," said Mr. Lord, going to the front hall, and then opening the door for Mrs. Carey. "Let me take your parcel, please." He did not know in the least why he said it and why he did it. The lady had interfered with his family affairs to a considerable extent, and had made several remarks that would have appeared impertinent, had they not issued from a very winsome, beautiful mouth. Mrs. Ossian Popham or Mrs. Bill Harmon would have been shown the door for saying less, yet here was Henry Lord, Ph.D., ambling down the lane by Mother Carey's side, thinking to himself what a burden she lifted from his shoulders by her unaccountable interest in his unattractive children. He was also thinking how "springy" was the lady's step in her short black dress, how brilliant the chestnut hair looked under the black felt hat, and how white the skin gleamed above the glossy lynx boa. A kind of mucilaginous fluid ran in his veins instead of blood, but Henry Lord, Ph.D., had his assailable side nevertheless, and he felt extraordinarily good natured, almost as if the third volume were finished, with public and publishers clamoring for its appearance. "I don't know where Olive could have got any such talent as you describe," he said, as they were walking along the lane. "She had some lessons long ago, I remember, and her mother used to talk of her amusing herself with pencil and paint, but I have heard nothing of it for years." "Ask to see her sketches when you are talking with her about her work some day," suggested Mother Carey. (Stab seven.) "As a matter of fact she probably gets her talent from you." "From me!" Printed letters fail to register the amazement in Professor Lord's tone. "Why not, when you consider her specialty?" "_What_ specialty?" Really, a slender sword was of no use with this man; a bludgeon was the only instrument, yet it might wound, and she only wanted to prick. Had the creature never seen Olive sketching, nor noted her choice of subjects? "She paints animals; paints nothing else, if she can help it; though she does fairly well with other things. Is it impossible that your study of zoology--your thought, your absorption for years and years, in the classification, the structure, the habits of animals--may have been stamped on your child's mind? She has an ardor equal to your own, only showing itself in a different manner. You may have passed on, in some mysterious way, your knowledge to Olive. She may have unconsciously blended it with some instinct for expression of her own, and it comes out in pictures. Look at this, Professor Lord. Olive gave it to me to-day." They stood together at the gate leading out into the road, and Mrs. Carey unwrapped the painting and poised it against the top of the gate. Olive's father looked at it for a moment and then said, "I am no judge of these things, technically or otherwise, but it certainly seems very creditable work for a girl of Olive's age." "Oh, it is surely more than that! My girl Nancy stands there in the flesh, though her face is hidden. Look at the wind blowing, look at the delightful, the enchanting calf; above all look at the title! Who in the world but a little genius could have composed that sketch, breathing youth in every inch of it,--and called it 'Young April'! Oh! Professor Lord, I am very bold, because your wife is not living, and it is women who oftenest see these budding tendencies in children; forgive me, but do cherish and develop this talent of Olive's." The eyes the color of the blue velvet bonnet were turned full upon Henry Lord, Ph.D. They swam in tears and the color came and went in her cheek; she was forty, but it was a lovely cheek still. "I will think it over," he replied with some embarrassment as he wrapped the picture again and handed it to her. "Meantime I am certainly very much obliged to you. You seem to have an uncommon knowledge of young people. May I ask if you are, or have been, a teacher?" "Oh, no!" Mrs. Carey remarked with a smile, "I am just a mother,--that's all! Good night." XXVII THE CAREY HOUSEWARMING The housewarming was at its height, and everybody agreed once in every ten minutes that it was probably the most beautiful party that had ever happened in the history of the world. Water flowed freely through Cousin Ann's expensive pipes, that had been buried so deep in their trenches that the winter frosts could not affect them. Natty Harmon tried the kitchen pump secretly several times during the evening, for the water had to run up hill all the way from the well to the kitchen sink, and he believed this to be a continual miracle that might "give out" at any moment. The stove in the cellar, always alluded to by Gilbert as the "young furnace," had not yet been used, save by way of experiment, but it was believed to be a perfect success. To-night there was no need of extra heat, and there were great ceremonies to be observed in lighting the fires on the hearthstones. They began with the one in the family sitting room; Colonel Wheeler, Ralph Thurston, Mr. and Mrs. Bill Harmon with Natty and Rufus, Mr. and Mrs. Popham with Digby and Lallie Joy, all standing in admiring groups and thrilling with delight at the order of events. Mother Carey sat by the fireplace; little Peter, fairly radiant with excitement, leaning against her knee and waiting for his own great moment, now close at hand. "_When ye come into a house, salute it; and if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it_. "_To all those who may dwell therein from generation to generation may it be a house of God, a gate of heaven_. "_For every house is builded by some man, but he that built all things is God, seeing that he giveth to every one of us life and breath and all good things_." Mother Carey spoke these words so simply and naturally, as she looked towards her neighbors one after another, with her hand resting on Peter's curly head, that they hardly knew whether to keep quiet or say Amen. "Was that the Bible, Osh?" whispered Bill Harmon. "Don't know; 'most everything she says sounds like the Bible or Shakespeare to me." In the hush that followed Mother Carey's salutation Gilbert approached with a basket over his arm, and quickly and neatly laid a little fire behind the brass andirons on the hearth. Then Nancy handed Peter a loosely bound sheaf, saying: "To light this fire I give you a torch. In it are herbs of the field for health of the body, a fern leaf for grace, a sprig of elm for peace, one of oak for strength, with evergreen to show that we live forever in the deeds we have done. To these we have added rosemary for remembrance and pansies for thoughts." Peter crouched on the hearth and lighted the fire in three places, then handed the torch to Kathleen as he crept again into his mother's lap, awed into complete silence by the influence of his own mystic rite. Kathleen waved the torch to and fro as she recited some beautiful lines written for some such purpose as that which called them together to-night. "Burn, fire, burn! Flicker, flicker, flame! Whose hand above this blaze is lifted Shall be with touch of magic gifted, To warm the hearts of chilly mortals Who stand without these open portals. The touch shall draw them to this fire, Nigher, nigher, By desire. Whoso shall stand on this hearth-stone, Flame-fanned, Shall never, never stand alone. Whose home is dark and drear and old, Whose hearth is cold, This is his own. Flicker, flicker, flicker, flame! Burn, fire, burn!"[1] [Footnote 1: Florence Converse.] Next came Olive's turn to help in the ceremonies. Ralph Thurston had found a line of Latin for them in his beloved Horace: _Tibi splendet focus_ (For you the hearth-fire shines). Olive had painted the motto on a long narrow panel of canvas, and, giving it to Mr. Popham, stood by the fireside while he deftly fitted it into the place prepared for it. The family had feared that he would tell a good story when he found himself the centre of attraction, but he was as dumb as Peter, and for the same reason. "Olive has another lovely gift for the Yellow House," said Mother Carey, rising, "and to carry out the next part of the programme we shall have to go in procession upstairs to my bedroom." "Guess there wan't many idees to give round to other folks after the Lord made _her_!" exclaimed Bill Harmon to his wife as they went through the lighted hall. Gilbert, at the head of the procession, held Mother Hamilton's picture, which had been taken from the old brick oven where "my son Tom" had hidden it. Mother Carey's bedroom, with its bouquets of field flowers on the wall paper, was gaily lighted and ready to receive the gift. Nancy stood on a chair and hung the portrait over the fireplace, saying, "We place this picture here in memory of Agatha, mother of Lemuel Hamilton, owner of the Yellow House. Underneath it we lay a posy of pressed daisies, buttercups, and Queen Anne's lace, the wild flowers she loved best." Now Olive took away a green garland covering the words "_Mater Cara_," that she had painted in brown letters just over the bricks of the fireplace. The letters were in old English text, and a riot of buttercups and grasses twined their way amongst them. "_Mater Cara_ stands for 'mother dear,'" said Nancy, "and thus this room will be full of memories of two dear mothers, an absent and a present one." Then Kathleen and Gilbert and Julia, Mother Carey and Peter bowed their heads and said in chorus: "_O Thou who dwellest in so many homes, possess thyself of this. Thou who settest the solitary in families, bless the life that is sheltered here. Grant that trust and peace and comfort may abide within, and that love and light and usefulness may go out from this house forever. Amen_." There was a moment's silence and then all the party descended the stairs to the dining room. "Ain't they the greatest?" murmured Lallie Joy, turning to her father, but he had disappeared from the group. The dining room was a blaze of glory, and great merriment ensued as they took their places at the table. Mother Carey poured coffee, Nancy chocolate, and the others helped serve the sandwiches and cake, doughnuts and tarts. "Where is Mr. Popham?" asked Nancy at the foot of the table. "We cannot be happy without Mr. Popham." At that moment the gentleman entered, bearing a huge object concealed by a piece of green felt. Approaching the dining table, he carefully placed the article in the centre and removed the cloth. It was the Dirty Boy, carefully mended! The guests naturally had no associations with the Carey Curse, and the Careys themselves were dumb with amazement and despair. "I've seen this thing layin' in the barn chamber in a thousand pieces all summer!" explained Mr. Popham radiantly. "It wan't none o' my business if the family throwed it away thinkin' it wan't no more good. Thinks I to myself, I never seen anything Osh Popham couldn't mend if he took time enough and glue enough; so I carried this little feller home in a bushel basket one night last month, an' I've spent eleven evenin's puttin' him together! I don't claim he's good 's new, 'cause he ain't; but he's consid'able better'n he was when I found him layin' in the barn chamber!" "Thank you, Mr. Popham!" said Mrs. Carey, her eyes twinkling as she looked at the laughing children. "It was kind of you to spend so much time in our behalf." "Well, I says to myself there's nothin' too good for 'em, an' when it comes Thanksgivin' I'll give 'em one thing more to be thankful for!" "Quit talkin', Pop, will yer?" whispered Digby, nudging his father. "You've kep' us from startin' to eat 'bout five minutes a'ready, an' I'm as holler as a horn!" It was as cheery, gay, festive, neighborly, and friendly a supper as ever took place in the dining room of the Yellow House, although Governor Weatherby may have had some handsomer banquets in his time. When it was over all made their way into the rosy, bowery, summer parlor. Soon another fire sparkled and snapped on the hearth, and there were songs and poems and choruses and Osh Popham's fiddle, to say nothing of the supreme event of the evening, his rendition of "Fly like a youthful hart or roe, over the hills where spices grow," to Mother Carey's accompaniment. He always slipped up his glasses during this performance and closed his eyes, but neither grey hairs nor "specs" could dim the radiant smile that made him seem about fifteen years old and the junior of both his children. Mrs. Harmon thought he sang too much, and told her husband privately that if he was a canary bird she should want to keep a table cover over his head most of the time, but he was immensely popular with the rest of his audience. Last of all the entire company gathered round the old-fashioned piano for a parting hymn. The face of the mahogany shone with delight, and why not, when it was doing everything (almost everything!) within the scope of a piano, and yet the family had enjoyed weeks of good nourishing meals on what had been saved by its exertions. Also, what rational family could mourn the loss of an irregularly shaped instrument standing on three legs and played on one corner? The tall silver candle sticks gleamed in the firelight, the silver dish of polished Baldwins blushed rosier in the glow. Mother Carey played the dear old common metre tune, and the voices rang out in Whittier's hymn. The Careys all sang like thrushes, and even Peter, holding his hymn book upside down, put in little bird notes, always on the key, whenever he caught a familiar strain. "Once more the liberal year laughs out O'er richer stores than gems or gold; Once more, with harvest-song and shout Is Nature's bloodless triumph told." "We shut our eyes, the flowers bloom on; We murmur, but the corn-ears fill; We choose the shadow, but the sun That casts it shines behind us still." "O favors every year made new! O gifts with rain and sunshine sent! The bounty overruns our due, The fulness shames our discontent." XXVIII "TIBI SPLENDET FOCUS" There was one watcher of all this, and one listener, outside of the Yellow House, that none of the party suspected, and that was Henry Lord, Ph.D. When he left Mrs. Carey at the gate at five o'clock, he went back to his own house and ordered his supper to be brought him on a tray in his study. He particularly liked this, always, as it freed him from all responsibility of serving his children, and making an occasional remark; and as a matter of fact everybody was as pleased as he when he ate alone, the occasional meals Olive and Cyril had by themselves being the only ones they ever enjoyed or digested. He studied and wrote and consulted heavy tomes, and walked up and down the room, and pulled out colored plates from portfolios, all with great satisfaction until he chanced to look at the clock when it struck ten. He had forgotten to send for the children as he had promised Mother Carey! He went out into the hall and called Mrs. Bangs in a stentorian voice. No answer. Irritated, as he always was when crossed in the slightest degree, he went downstairs and found the kitchen empty. "Her cub of a nephew has been staying to supper with her, guzzling and cramming himself at my expense," he thought, "and now she has walked home with him! It's perfect nonsense to go after a girl of sixteen and a boy of thirteen. As if they couldn't walk along a country road at ten o'clock! Still, it may look odd if some one doesn't go, and I can't lock the house till they come, anyway." He drew on his great coat, put on his cap, and started down the lane in no good humor. It was a crisp, starlight night and the ground was freezing fast. He walked along, his hands in his pockets, his head bent. As he went through the gate to the main road he glanced up. The Yellow House, a third of a mile distant, was a blaze of light! There must have been a candle or a lamp in every one of its windows, he thought. The ground rose a little where the house stood, and although it could not be seen in summer because of the dense foliage everywhere, the trees were nearly bare now. "My handsome neighbor is extravagant," he said to himself with a grim smile. "Is the illumination for Thanksgiving, I wonder? Oh, no, I remember she said the party was in the nature of a housewarming." As he went up the pathway he saw that the shades were up and no curtains drawn anywhere. The Yellow House had no intention of hiding its lights under bushels that evening, of all others; besides, there were no neighbors within a long distance. Standing on the lowest of the governor's "circ'lar steps" he could see the corner where the group stood singing, with shining faces:-- "Once more the liberal year laughs out O'er richer stores than gems or gold." Mother Carey's fine head rose nobly from her simple black dress, and her throat was as white as the deep lace collar that was her only ornament. Nancy he knew by sight, and Nancy in a crimson dress was singing her thankful heart out. Who was the dark-haired girl standing by her side, the two with arms round each other's waists,--his own Olive! He had always thought her unattractive, but her hair was smoothly braided and her eyes all aglow. Cyril stood between Gilbert and Mother Carey. Cyril, he knew, could not carry a tune to save his life, but he seemed to be opening his lips and uttering words all the same. Where was the timid eye, the "hangdog look," the shrinking manner, he so disliked in his son? Great Heavens! the boy laid his hand on Mrs. Carey's shoulder and beat time there gently with a finger, as if a mother's shoulder could be used for any nice, necessary sort of purpose. If he knocked at the door now, he thought, he should interrupt the party; which was seemingly at its height. He, Henry Lord, Ph.D., certainly had no intention of going in to join it, not with Ossian Popham and Bill Harmon as fellow guests. He made his way curiously around the outside of the house, looking in at all the windows, and by choosing various positions, seeing as much as he could of the different rooms. Finally he went up on the little back piazza, attracted by the firelight in the family sitting room. There was a noble fire, and once, while he was looking, Digby Popham stole quietly in, braced up the logs with a proprietary air, swept up the hearth, replaced the brass wire screen, and stole out again as quickly as possible, so that he might not miss too much of the party. "They seem to feel pretty much at home," thought Mr. Lord. The fire blazed higher and brighter. It lighted up certain words painted in dark green and gold on the white panel under the mantelpiece. He pressed his face quite close to the window, thinking that he must be mistaken in seeing such unconnected letters as T-i-b-i, but gradually they looked clearer to him and he read distinctly "Tibi splendet focus." "Somebody knows his Horace," thought Henry Lord, Ph.D., as he stumbled off the piazza. "'For you the hearth-fire glows,' I shan't go in; not with that crew; let them wait; and if it gets too late, somebody else will walk home with the children." "For you the hearth-fire glows." He picked his way along the side of the house to the front, every window sending out its candle gleam. "For you the hearth-fire glows." From dozens of windows the welcome shone. Its gleams and sparkles positively pursued him as he turned his face towards the road and his own dark, cheerless house. Perhaps he had better, on the whole, keep one lamp burning in the lower part after this, to show that the place was inhabited? "For you the hearth-fire glows." He had "bricked up" the fireplace in his study and put an air-tight stove in, because it was simply impossible to feed an open fire and write a book at the same time. He didn't know that you could write twice as good a book in half the time with an open fire to help you! He didn't know any single one of the myriad aids that can come to you from such cheery, unexpected sources of grace and inspiration! "For you the hearth-fire glows." Would the words never stop ringing in his ears? Perhaps, after all, it would look queer to Mrs. Carey (he cared nothing for Popham or Harmon opinion) if he left the children to get home by themselves. Perhaps-- "FOR YOU THE HEARTH-FIRE GLOWS." Henry Lord, Ph.D., ascended the steps, and plied the knocker. Digby Popham came out of the parlor and opened the front door. Everybody listened to see who was the late comer at the party. "Will you kindly tell Miss Olive and Master Cyril Lord that their father has called for them?" Mr. Lord's cold, severe voice sounded clearly in the parlor, and every word could be distinctly heard. Gilbert and Nancy were standing together, and Gilbert whispered instantly to his sister: "The old beast has actually called for Olive and Cyril!" "Hush, Gilly! He must be a 'new beast' or he wouldn't have come at all!" answered Nancy. XXIX "TH' ACTION FINE" December, January, and February passed with a speed that had something of magic in it. The Careys had known nothing heretofore of the rigors of a State o' Maine winter, but as yet they counted it all joy. They were young and hearty and merry, and the air seemed to give them all new energy. Kathleen's delicate throat gave no trouble for the first time in years; Nancy's cheeks bloomed more like roses than ever; Gilbert, growing broader shouldered and deeper chested daily, simply revelled in skating and coasting; even Julia was forced into an activity wholly alien to her nature, because it was impossible for her to keep warm unless she kept busy. Mother Carey and Peter used to look from a bedroom window of a clear cold morning and see the gay little procession start for the academy. Over the dazzling snow crust Olive and Cyril Lord would be skimming to meet the Careys, always at the same point at the same hour. There were rough red coats and capes, red mittens, squirrel caps pulled well down over curly and smooth heads; glimpses of red woolen stockings; thick shoes with rubbers over them; great parcels of books in straps. They looked like a flock of cardinal birds, Mother Carey thought, as the upturned faces, all aglow with ruddy color, smiled their morning good-bye. Gilbert had "stoked" the great stove in the cellar full of hard wood logs before he left, and Mrs. Carey and Peter had a busy morning before them with the housework. The family had risen at seven. Julia had swept and dusted; Kathleen had opened the bedroom windows, made the washstands tidy, filled the water pitchers, and changed the towels. Gilbert had carried wood and Peter kindlings, for the fires that had to be laid on the hearths here and there. Mother had cooked the plain breakfast while Nancy put the dining room in order and set the table, and at eight o'clock, when they sat down to plates piled high with slices of brown and white bread, to dishes of eggs or picked-up cod fish, or beans warmed over in the pot, with baked potatoes sometimes, and sometimes milk toast, or Nancy's famous corn muffins, no family of young bears ever displayed such appetites! On Saturday mornings there were griddle cakes and maple syrup from their own trees; for Osh Popham had shown them in the spring how to tap their maples, and collect the great pails of sap to boil down into syrup. Mother Carey and Peter made the beds after the departure of the others for school, and it was pretty to see the sturdy Peter-bird, sometimes in his coat and mittens, standing on the easiest side of the beds and helping his mother to spread the blankets and comforters smooth. His fat legs carried him up and downstairs a dozen times on errands, while his sweet piping voice was lifted in a never ending stream of genial conversation, as he told his mother what he had just done, what he was doing at the present moment, how he was doing it, and what he proposed to do in a minute or two. Then there was a lull from half past ten to half past eleven, shortened sometimes on baking days, when the Peter-bird had his lessons. The old-fashioned kitchen was clean and shining by that time. The stove glistened and the fire snapped and crackled. The sun beamed in at the sink window, doing all he could for the climate in the few hours he was permitted to be on duty in a short New England winter day. Peter sat on a cricket beside his mother's chair and clasped his "Reading without Tears" earnestly and rigidly, believing it to be the key to the universe. Oh! what an hour of happiness to Mother Carey when the boy would lift the very copy of his father's face to her own; when the well-remembered smile and the dear twinkle of the eyes in Peter's face would give her heart a stab of pain that was half joy after all, it was so full to the brim of sweet memories. In that warm still hour, when she was filling the Peter-bird's mind and soul with heavenly learning, how much she learned herself! Love poured from her, through voice and lips and eyes, and in return she drank it in thirstily from the little creature who sat there at her knee, a twig growing just as her bending hand inclined it; all the buds of his nature opening out in the mother-sunshine that surrounded him. Eleven thirty came all too soon. Then before long the kettle would begin to sing, the potatoes to bubble in the saucepan, and Mother Carey's spoon to stir the good things that had long been sizzling quietly in an iron pot. Sometimes it was bits of beef, sometimes mutton, but the result was mostly a toothsome mixture of turnips and carrots and onions in a sea of delicious gravy, with surprises of meat here and there to vary any possible monotony. Once or twice a week dumplings appeared, giving an air of excitement to the meal, and there was a delectable "poor man's stew" learned from Mrs. Popham; the ingredients being strips of parsnip, potatoes cut in quarters, a slice or two of sweet browned pork for a flavor, and a quart of rich milk, mixed with the parsnip juices into an appetizing sauce. The after part of the dinner would be a dish of baked apples with warm gingerbread, or sometimes a deep apple pandowdy, or the baked Indian pudding that was a syrupy, fragrant concoction made of corn meal and butter and molasses baked patiently in the oven for hours. Mother had the dishes to wash after she had tucked the Peter-bird under the afghan on the sitting room sofa for his daily nap, but there was never any grumbling in her heart over the weary days and the unaccustomed tasks; she was too busy "making things make themselves." If only there were a little more money! That was her chief anxiety; for the unexpected, the outside sources of income were growing fewer, and in a year's time the little hoard would be woefully small. Was she doing all that she could, she wondered, as her steps flew over the Yellow House from attic to cellar. She could play the piano and sing; she could speak three languages and read four; she had made her curtsy at two foreign courts; admiration and love had followed her ever since she could remember, and here she was, a widow at forty, living in a half-deserted New England village, making parsnip stews for her children's dinner. Well, it was a time of preparation, and its rigors and self-denials must be cheerfully faced. She ought to be thankful that she was able to get a simple dinner that her children could eat; she ought to be thankful that her beef and parsnip stews and cracker puddings and corn bread were being transmuted into blood and brawn and brain-tissue, to help the world along somewhere a little later! She ought to be grateful that it was her blessed fortune to be sending four rosy, laughing, vigorous young people down the snowy street to the white-painted academy; that it was her good luck to see four heads bending eagerly over their books around the evening lamp, and have them all turn to her for help and encouragement in the hard places. Why should she complain, so long as the stormy petrels were all working and playing in Mother Carey's water garden where they ought to be; gathering strength to fly over or dive under the ice-pack and climb Shiny Wall? There is never any gate in the wall; Tom the Water Baby had found that out for himself; so it is only the plucky ones who are able to surmount the thousand difficulties they encounter on their hazardous journey to Peacepool. How else, if they had not learned themselves, could Mother Carey's chickens go out over the seas and show good birds the way home? At such moments Mrs. Carey would look at her image in the glass and say, "No whimpering, madam! You can't have the joys of motherhood without some of its pangs! Think of your blessings, and don't be a coward!-- "Who sweeps a room as by God's laws Makes that and th' action fine." Then her eyes would turn from blue velvet to blue steel, and strength would flow into her from some divine, benignant source and transmute her into father as well as mother! Was the hearth fire kindled in the Yellow House sending its glow through the village as well as warming those who sat beside it? There were Christmas and New Year's and St. Valentine parties, and by that time Bill Harmon saw the woodpile in the Carey shed grow beautifully less. He knew the price per cord,--no man better; but he and Osh Popham winked at each other one windy February day and delivered three cords for two, knowing that measurement of wood had not been included in Mother Carey's education. Natty Harmon and Digby Popham, following examples a million per cent better than parental lectures, asked one afternoon if they shouldn't saw and chop some big logs for the fireplaces. Mrs. Carey looked at them searchingly, wondering if they could possibly guess the state of her finances, concluded they couldn't and said smilingly: "Indeed I will gladly let you saw for an hour or two if you'll come and sit by the fire on Saturday night, when we are going to play spelling games and have doughnuts and root beer." The Widow Berry, who kept academy boarders, sent in a luscious mince pie now and then, and Mrs. Popham and Mrs. Harmon brought dried apples or pumpkins, winter beets and Baldwin apples. It was little enough, they thought, when the Yellow House, so long vacant, was like a beacon light to the dull village; sending out its beams on every side. "She ain't no kind of a manager, I'm 'fraid!" said Bill Harmon. "I give her 'bout four quarts and a half of kerosene for a gallon every time she sends her can to be filled, but bless you, she ain't any the wiser! I try to give her as good measure in everything as she gives my children, but you can't keep up with her! She's like the sun, that shines on the just 'n' on the unjust. Hen Lord's young ones eat their lunch or their supper there once or twice a week, though the old skinflint's got fifty thousand dollars in the bank." "Never mind, Bill." said Osh Popham; "there's goin' to be an everlastin' evenupness somewheres! Probably God A'mighty hez his eye on that woman, and He'll see her through. The young ones are growin' up, and the teacher at the academy says they beat the devil on book learnin'! The boy'll make a smart man, pretty soon, and bring good wages home to his mother. The girls are handsome enough to pick up husbands as soon as they've fully feathered out, so it won't be long afore they're all on the up grade. I've set great store by that family from the outset, and I'm turrible glad they're goin' to fix up the house some more when it comes spring. I'm willin' to work cheap for such folks as them." "You owe 'em somethin' for listenin' to you, Osh! Seems if they moved here jest in time to hear your stories when you'd 'bout tuckered out the rest o' the village!" "It's a pity you didn't know a few more stories yourself, Bill," retorted Mr. Popham; "then you'd be asked up oftener to put on the back-log for 'em, and pop corn and roast apples and pass the evenin'. I ain't hed sech a gay winter sence I begun settin' up with Maria, twenty years ago." "She's kept you settin' up ever since, Osh!" chuckled Bill Harmon. "She has so!" agreed Osh cheerfully, "but you ain't hardly the one to twit me of it; bein' as how you've never took a long breath yourself sence you was married! But you don't ketch me complainin'! It's a poor rule that won't work both ways! Maria hurried me into poppin' the question, and hurried me into marryin' her, an' she ain't let up on me a minute sence then; but she'll railroad me into heaven the same way, you see if she don't. She'll arrive 'head o' time as usual and stan' right there at the bars till she gits Dig 'n' Lallie Joy 'n' me under cover!" "She's a good woman, an' so's my wife," remarked Bill sententiously; "an' Colonel Wheeler says good women are so rigged inside that they can't be agreeable all the time. The couple of 'em are workin' their fingers to the bone for the school teacher to-day; fixin' him up for all the world as if he was a bride. He's got the women folks o' this village kind o' mesmerized, Thurston has." "He's a first-rate teacher; nobody that ain't hed experience in the school room is fitted to jedge jest how good a teacher Ralph Thurston is, but I have, an' I know what I 'm talkin' about." "I never heard nothin' about your teachin' school, Osh." "There's a good deal about me you never heard; specially about the time afore I come to Beulah, 'cause you ain't a good hearer, Bill! I taught the most notorious school in Digby once, and taught it to a finish; I named my boy Digby after that school! You see my father an' mother was determined to give me an education, an' I wa'n't intended for it. I was a great big, strong, clumsy lunkhead, an' the only thing I could do, even in a one-horse college, was to play base ball, so they kep' me along jest for that. I never got further than the second class, an' I wouldn't 'a' got there if the Faculty hadn't 'a' promoted me jest for the looks o' the thing. Well Prof. Millard was off in the country lecturin' somewheres near Bangor an' he met a school superintendent who told him they was awful hard up for a teacher in Digby. He said they'd hed three in three weeks an' had lost two stoves besides; for the boys had fired out the teachers and broke up the stoves an' pitched 'em out the door after 'em. When Prof. Millard heard the story he says, 'I've got a young man that could teach that school; a feller named Ossian Popham.' The superintendent hed an interview with me, an' I says: 'I'll agree to teach out your nine weeks o' school for a hundred dollars, an' if I leave afore the last day I won't claim a cent!' 'That's the right sperit,' says the Supe, an' we struck a bargain then an' there. I was glad it was Saturday, so 't I could start right off while my blood was up. I got to Digby on Sunday an' found a good boardin' place. The trustees didn't examine me, an' 't was lucky for me they didn't. The last three teachers hed been splendid scholars, but that didn't save the stoves any, so they just looked at my six feet o' height, an' the muscle in my arms, an' said they'd drop in sometime durin' the month. 'Look in any time you like after the first day,' I says. 'I shall be turrible busy the first day!' "I went into the school house early Monday mornin' an' built a good fire in the new stove. When it was safe to leave it I went into the next house an' watched the scholars arrive. The lady was a widder with one great unruly boy in the school, an' she was glad to give me a winder to look out of. It was a turrible cold day, an' when 't was ten minutes to nine an' the school room was full I walked in as big as Cuffy. There was five rows of big boys an' girls in the back, all lookin' as if they was loaded for bear, an' they graded down to little ones down in front, all of 'em hitchin' to an' fro in their seats an' snickerin'. I give 'em a surprise to begin with, for I locked the door when I come in, an' put the key in my pocket, cool as a cucumber. "I never said a word, an' they never moved their eyes away from me. I took off my fur cap, then my mittens, then my overcoat, an' laid 'em in the chair behind my desk. Then my undercoat come off, then my necktie an' collar, an' by that time the big girls begun to look nervous; they 'd been used to addressin', but not undressin', in the school room. Then I wound my galluses round my waist an' tied 'em; then I says, clear an' loud:' I'm your new teacher! I'm goin' to have a hundred dollars for teachin' out this school, an' I intend to teach it out an' git my money. It's five minutes to nine. I give you just that long to tell me what you're goin' to do about it. Come on now!' I says, 'all o' you big boys, if you're comin', an' we'll settle this thing here an' now. We can't hev fights an' lessons mixed up together every day, more 'n 's necessary; better decide right now who's boss o' this school. The stove's new an' I'm new, an' we call'ate to stay here till the end o' the term!' "Well, sir, not one o' that gang stirred in their seats, an' not one of 'em yipped! I taught school in my shirt sleeves consid'able the first week, but I never hed to afterwards. I was a little mite weak on mathematics, an' the older boys an' girls hed to depend on their study books for their information,--they never got any from me,--but every scholar in that Digby school got a hundred per cent in deportment the nine weeks I taught there!" XXX THE INGLENOOK It was a wild Friday night in March, after days of blustering storms and drifting snow. Beulah was clad in royal ermine; not only clad, indeed, but nearly buried in it. The timbers of the Yellow House creaked, and the wreaths of snow blew against the windows and lodged there. King Frost was abroad, nipping toes and ears, hanging icicles on the eaves of houses, and decorating the forest trees with glittering pendants. The wind howled in the sitting room chimney, but in front of the great back-log the bed of live coals glowed red and the flames danced high, casting flickering shadows on the children's faces. It is possible to bring up a family by steam heat, and it is often necessary, but nobody can claim that it is either so simple or so delightful as by an open fire! The three cats were all nestled cosily in Nancy's lap or snuggled by her side. Mother Carey had demurred at two, and when Nancy appeared one day after school with a third, she spoke, with some firmness, of refusing it a home. "If we must economize on cats," cried Nancy passionately, "don't let's begin on this one! She doesn't look it, but she is a heroine. When the Rideout's house burned down, her kittens were in a basket by the kitchen stove. Three times she ran in through the flames and brought out a kitten in her mouth. The tip of her tail is gone, and part of an ear, and she's blind in one eye. Mr. Harmon says she's too homely to live; now what do you think?" "I think nobody pretending to be a mother could turn her back on another mother like that," said Mrs. Carey promptly. "We'll take a pint more milk, and I think you children will have to leave something in your plates now and then, you polish them until it really is indecent." To-night an impromptu meeting of the Ways and Means Committee was taking place by the sitting room fire, perhaps because the family plates had been polished to a terrifying degree that week. "Children," said Mother Carey, "we have been as economical as we knew how to be; we have worked to the limit of our strength; we have spent almost nothing on clothing, but the fact remains that we have scarcely money enough in our reserve fund to last another six months. What shall we do?" Nancy leaped to her feet, scattering cats in every direction. "Mother Carey!" she exclaimed remorsefully. "You haven't mentioned money since New Year's, and I thought we were rubbing along as usual. The bills are all paid; what's the matter?" "That is the matter!" answered Mrs. Carey with the suspicion of a tear in her laughing voice, "The bills _are_ paid, and there's too little left! We eat so much, and we burn so much wood, and so many gallons of oil'" "The back of the winter's broken, mother dear!" said Gilbert, as a terrific blast shook the blinds as a terrier would a rat. "Don't listen to that wind; it 's only a March bluff! Osh Popham says snow is the poor man's manure; he says it's going to be an early season and a grand hay crop. We'll get fifty dollars for our field." "That will be in July, and this is March," said his mother. "Still, the small reversible Van Twiller will carry us through May, with our other income. But the saving days are over, and the earning days have come, dears! I am the oldest and the biggest, I must begin." "Never!" cried Nancy. "You slave enough for us, as it is, but you shall never slave for anybody else; shall she, Gilly?" "Not if I know it!" answered Gilbert with good ringing emphasis. "Another winter I fear we must close the Yellow House and--" The rest of Mother Carey's remark was never heard, for at Nancy's given signal the four younger Careys all swooned on the floor. Nancy had secretly trained Peter so that he was the best swooner of the family, and his comical imitation of Nancy was so mirth-compelling that Mother Carey laughed and declared there was no such thing as talking seriously to children like hers. "But, Muddy dear, you weren't in earnest?" coaxed Nancy, bending her bright head over her mother's shoulder and cuddling up to her side; whereupon Gilbert gave his imitation of a jealous puppy; barking, snarling, and pushing his frowzly pate under his mother's arm to crowd Nancy from her point of vantage, to which she clung valiantly. Of course Kitty found a small vacant space on which she could festoon herself, and Peter promptly climbed on his mother's lap, so that she was covered with--fairly submerged in--children! A year ago Julia used to creep away and look at such exhibitions of family affection, with a curling lip, but to-night, at Mother Carey's outstretched hand and smothered cry of "Help, Judy!" she felt herself gathered into the heart of the laughing, boisterous group. That hand, had she but known it, was stretched out to her because only that day a letter had come, saying that Allan Carey was much worse and that his mental condition admitted of no cure. He was bright and hopeful and happy, so said Mr. Manson;--forever sounding the praises of the labor-saving device in which he had sunk his last thousands. "We can manufacture it at ten cents and sell it for ten dollars," he would say, rubbing his hands excitedly. "We can pay fifty dollars a month office rent and do a business of fifty thousand dollars a year!" "And I almost believe we could!" added Mr. Manson, "if we had faith enough and capital enough!" "Of course you know, darlings, I would never leave Beulah save for the coldest months; or only to earn a little money," said Mrs. Carey, smoothing her dress, flattening her collar, and pinning up the braids that Nancy's hugs had loosened. "I must put my mind on the problem at once," said Nancy, pacing the floor. "I've been so interested in my Virgil, so wrapped up in my rhetoric and composition, that I haven't thought of ways and means for a month, but of course we will never leave the Yellow House, and of course we must contrive to earn money enough to live in it. We must think about it every spare minute till vacation comes; then we'll have nearly four months to amass a fortune big enough to carry us through the next year. I have an idea for myself already. I was going to wait till my seventeenth birthday, but that's four months away and it's too long. I'm old enough to begin any time. I feel old enough to write my Reminiscences this minute." "You might publish your letters to the American Consul in Breslau; they'd make a book!" teased Gilbert. "Very likely I shall, silly Gilly," retorted Nancy, swinging her mane haughtily. "It isn't every girl who has a monthly letter from an Admiral in China and a Consul in Germany." "You wouldn't catch me answering the Queen of Sheba's letters or the Empress of India's," exclaimed Gilbert, whose pen was emphatically less mighty than his sword. "Hullo, you two! what are you whispering about?" he called to Kathleen and Julia, who were huddled together in a far corner of the long room, gesticulating eloquently. "We've an idea! We've an idea! We've found a way to help!" sang the two girls, pirouetting back into the circle of firelight. "We won't tell till it's all started, but it's perfectly splendid, and practical too." "And so ladylike!" added Julia triumphantly. "How much?" asked Gilbert succinctly. The girls whispered a minute or two, and appeared to be multiplying twenty-five first by fifteen, and then again by twenty. "From three dollars and seventy-five cents to four dollars and a half a week according to circumstances!" answered Kathleen proudly. "Will it take both of you?" "Yes." "All your time?" More nods and whispers and calculation. "No, indeed; only three hours a day." "Any of my time?" "Just a little." "I thought so!" said Gilbert loftily. "You always want me and my hammer or my saw; but I'll be busy on my own account; you'll have to paddle your own canoe!" "You'll be paid for what you do for us," said Julia slyly, giving Kathleen a poke, at which they both fell into laughter only possible to the very young. Then suddenly there came a knock at the front door; a stamping of feet on the circular steps, and a noise of shaking off snow. "Go to the door, Gilbert; who can that be on a night like this,--although it is only eight o'clock after all! Why, it's Mr. Thurston!" Ralph Thurston came in blushing and smiling, glad to be welcomed, fearful of intruding, afraid of showing how much he liked to be there. "Good-evening, all!" he said. "You see I couldn't wait to thank you, Mrs. Carey! No storm could keep me away to-night." "What has mother been doing, now?" asked Nancy. "Her right hand is forever busy, and she never tells her left hand a thing, so we children are always in the dark." "It was nothing much," said Mrs. Carey, pushing the young man gently into the high-backed rocker. "Mrs. Harmon, Mrs. Popham, and I simply tried to show our gratitude to Mr. Thurston for teaching our troublesome children." "How did you know it was my birthday?" asked Thurston. "Didn't you write the date in Lallie Joy's book?" "True, I did; and forgot it long ago; but I have never had my birthday noticed before, and I am twenty-four!" "It was high time, then!" said Mother Carey with her bright smile. "But what did mother do?" clamored Nancy, Kathleen and Gilbert in chorus. "She took my forlorn, cheerless room and made it into a home for me," said Thurston. "Perhaps she wanted me to stay in it a little more, and bother her less! At any rate she has created an almost possible rival to the Yellow House!" Ralph Thurston had a large, rather dreary room over Bill Harmon's store, and took his meals at the Widow Berry's, near by. He was an orphan and had no money to spend on luxuries, because all his earnings went to pay the inevitable debts incurred when a fellow is working his way through college. Mrs. Carey, with the help of the other two women, had seized upon this stormy Friday, when the teacher always took his luncheon with him to the academy, to convert Ralph's room into something comfortable and cheerful. The old, cracked, air-tight stove had been removed, and Bill Harmon had contributed a second-hand Franklin, left with him for a bad debt. It was of soapstone and had sliding doors in front, so that the blaze could be disclosed when life was very dull or discouraging. The straw matting on the floor had done very well in the autumn, but Mrs. Carey now covered the centre of the room with a bright red drugget left from the Charlestown house-furnishings, and hung the two windows with curtains of printed muslin. Ossian Popham had taken a clotheshorse and covered it with red felting, so that the screen, so evolved could be made to hide the bed and washstand. Ralph's small, rickety table had been changed for a big, roomy one of pine, hidden by the half of an old crimson piano cloth. When Osh had seen the effect of this he hurried back to his barn chamber and returned with some book shelves that he had hastily glued and riveted into shape. These he nailed to the wall and filled with books that he found in the closet, on the floor, on the foot of the bed, and standing on the long, old-fashioned mantel shelf. "Do you care partic'larly where you set, nights, Ossian?" inquired Mrs. Popham, who was now in a state of uncontrolled energy bordering on delirium. "Because your rockin' chair has a Turkey red cushion and it would look splendid in Mr. Thurston's room. You know you fiddle 'bout half the time evenin's, and you always go to bed early." "Don't mind me!" exclaimed Ossian facetiously, starting immediately for the required chair and bringing back with it two huge yellow sea shells, which he deposited on the floor at each end of the hearth rug. "How do you like 'em?" he inquired of Mrs. Carey. "Not at all," she replied promptly. "You don't?" he asked incredulously. "Well, it takes all kinds o' folks to make a world! I've been keepin' 'em fifteen years, hopin' I'd get enough more to make a border for our parlor fireplace, and now you don't take to 'em! Back they go to the barn chamber, Maria; Mis' Carey's bossin' this job, and she ain't got no taste for sea shells. Would you like an old student lamp? I found one that I can bronze up in about two minutes if Mis' Harmon can hook a shade and chimbly out of Bill's stock." They all stayed in the room until this last feat was accomplished; stayed indeed until the fire in the open stove had died down to ruddy coals. Then they pulled down the shades, lighted the lamp, gave one last admiring look, and went home. It had meant only a few hours' thought and labor, with scarcely a penny of expense, but you can judge what Ralph Thurston felt when he entered the door out of the storm outside. To him it looked like a room conjured up by some magician in a fairy tale. He fell into the rocking-chair and looked at his own fire; gazed about at the cheerful crimson glow that radiated from the dazzling drugget, in a state of puzzled ecstasy, till he caught sight of a card lying near the lamp,--"A birthday present from three mothers who value your work for their boys and girls." He knew Mrs. Carey's handwriting, so he sped to the Yellow House as soon as his supper was over, and now, in the presence of the whole family, he felt tongue-tied and wholly unable to express his gratitude. It was bed time, and the young people melted away from the fireside. "Kiss your mother good-night, sweet Pete," said Nancy, taking the reluctant cherub by the hand. "'_Hoc opus, hic labor est_,' Mr. Thurston, to get the Peter-bird upstairs when once he is down. Shake hands with your future teacher, Peter; no, you mustn't kiss him; little boys don't kiss great Latin scholars unless they are asked." Thurston laughed and lifted the gurgling Peter high in the air. "Good night, old chap!" he said "Hurry up and come to school!" "I'm 'bout ready now!" piped Peter. "I can read 'Up-up-my-boy-day-is-not-the-time-for-sleep-the-dew-will-soon-be-gone' with the book upside down,--can't I, Muddy?" "You can, my son; trot along with sister." Thurston opened the door for Nancy, and his eye followed her for a second as she mounted the stairs. She glowed like a ruby to-night in her old red cashmere. The sparkle of her eye, the gloss of her hair, the soft red of her lips, the curve and bend of her graceful young body struck even her mother anew, though she was used to her daughter's beauty. "She is growing!" thought Mrs. Carey wistfully. "I see it all at once, and soon others will be seeing it!" Alas! young Ralph Thurston had seen it for weeks past! He was not perhaps so much in love with Nancy the girl, as he was with Nancy the potential woman. Some of the glamour that surrounded the mother had fallen upon the daughter. One felt the influences that had rained upon Nancy ever since she had come into the world, One could not look at her, nor talk with her, without feeling that her mother--like a vine in the blood, as the old proverb says--was breathing, growing, budding, blossoming in her day by day. The young teacher came back to the fireplace, where Mother Carey was standing in a momentary brown study. "I've never had you alone before," he stammered, "and now is my chance to tell you what you've been to me ever since I came to Beulah." "You have helped me in my problems more than I can possibly have aided you," Mrs. Carey replied quietly. "Gilbert was so rebellious about country schools, so patronizing, so scornful of their merits, that I fully expected he would never stay at the academy of his own free will. You have converted him, and I am very grateful." "Meantime I am making a record there," said Ralph, "and I have this family to thank for it! Your children, with Olive and Cyril Lord, have set the pace for the school, and the rest are following to the best of their ability. There is not a shirk nor a dunce in the whole roll of sixty pupils! Beulah has not been so proud of its academy for thirty years, and I shall come in for the chief share in the praise. I am trying to do for Gilbert and Cyril what an elder brother would do, but I should have been powerless if I had not had this home and this fireside to inspire me!" "_Tibi splendet focus_!" quoted Mrs. Carey, pointing to Olive's inscription under the mantelpiece. "For you the hearth fire glows!" "Have I not felt it from the beginning?" asked Ralph. "I never knew my mother, Mrs. Carey, and few women have come into my life; I have been too poor and too busy to cultivate their friendship. Then I came to Beulah and you drew me into your circle; admitted an unknown, friendless fellow into your little group! It was beautiful; it was wonderful!" "What are mothers for, but to do just that, and more than all, for the motherless boys?" "Well, I may never again have the courage to say it, so just believe me when I say your influence will be the turning-point in my life. I will never, so help me God, do anything to make me unworthy to sit in this fireglow! So long as I have brains and hands to work with, I will keep striving to create another home like this when my time comes. Any girl that takes me will get a better husband because of you; any children I may be blessed with will have a better father because I have known you. Don't make any mistake, dear Mrs. Carey, your hearth fire glows a long, long distance!" Mother Carey was moved to the very heart. She leaned forward and took Ralph Thurston's young face, thin with privation and study, in her two hands. He bent his head instinctively, partly to hide the tears that had sprung to his eyes, and she kissed his forehead simply and tenderly. He was at her knees on the hearth rug in an instant; all his boyish affection laid at her feet; all his youthful chivalry kindled at the honor of her touch. And there are women in the world who do not care about being mothers! XXXI GROOVES OF CHANGE The winter passed. The snow gradually melted in the meadows and the fields, which first grew brown and then displayed patches of green here and there where the sun fell strongest. There was deep, sticky mud in the roads, and the discouraged farmers urged their horses along with the wheels of their wagons sunk to the hub in ooze. Then there were wet days, the wind ruffling the leaden surface of the river, the sound of the rain dripping from the bare tree-boughs, the smell of the wet grass and the clean, thirsty soil. Milder weather came, then blustery days, then chill damp ones, but steadily life grew, here, there, everywhere, and the ever-new miracle of the awakening earth took place once again. Sap mounted in the trees, blood coursed in the children's veins, mothers began giving herb tea and sulphur and molasses, young human nature was restless; the whole creation throbbed and sighed, and was tremulous, and had growing pains. April passed, with all its varying moods of sun and shower, and settled weather came. All the earth was gay. Land and sea Gave themselves up to jollity And with the heart of May Did every Beast keep holiday. The Carey girls had never heard of "the joy of living" as a phrase, but oh! they knew a deal about it in these first two heavenly springs in little Beulah village! The sunrise was so wonderful; the trees and grass so marvellously green; the wild flowers so beautiful! Then the river on clear days, the glimpse of the sea from Beulah's hill tops, the walks in the pine woods,--could Paradise show anything to compare? And how good the food tasted; and the books they read, how fresh, how moving, how glorious! Then when the happy day was over, sleep came without pause or effort the moment the flushed cheek touched the cool pillow. "These," Nancy reflected, quoting from her favorite Wordsworth as she dressed beside her open window, "These must be "The gifts of morn, Ere life grows noisy and slower-footed thought Can overtake the rapture of the sense. "I was fifteen and a half last spring, and now, though it is only a year ago, everything is different!" she mused. "When did it get to be different, I wonder? It never was all at once, so it must have been a little every day, so little that I hardly noticed it until just now." A young girl's heart is ever yearning for and trembling at the future. In its innocent depths the things that are to be are sometimes rustling and whispering secrets, and sometimes keeping an exquisite, haunting silence. In the midst of the mystery the solemn young creature is sighing to herself, "What am I meant for? Am I everything? Am I nothing? Must I wait till my future comes to me, or must I seek it?" This was all like the sound of a still, small voice in Nancy's mind, but it meant that she was "growing up," taking hold on life at more points than before, seeing new visions, dreaming new dreams. Kathleen and Julia seemed ridiculously young to her. She longed to advise them, but her sense of humor luckily kept her silent. Gilbert appeared crude, raw; promising, but undeveloped; she hated to think how much experience he would have to pass through before he could see existence as it really was, and as she herself saw it. Olive's older view of things, her sad, strange outlook upon life, her dislike of anything in the shape of man, her melancholy aversion to her father, all this fascinated and puzzled Nancy, whose impetuous nature ran out to every living thing, revelling in the very act of loving, so long as she did not meet rebuff. Cyril perplexed her. Silent, unresponsive, shy, she would sometimes raise her eyes from her book in school and find him gazing steadily at her like a timid deer drinking thirstily at a spring. Nancy did not like Cyril, but she pitied him and was as friendly with him, in her offhand, boyish fashion, as she was with every one. The last days of the academy term were close at hand, and the air was full of graduation exercises and white muslin and ribbon sashes. June brought two surprises to the Yellow House. One morning Kathleen burst into Nancy's room with the news: "Nancy! The Fergusons offer to adopt Judy, and she doesn't want to go. Think of that! But she's afraid to ask mother if she can stay. Let's us do it; shall we?" "I will; but of course there is not enough money to go around, Kitty, even if we all succeed in our vacation plans. Julia will never have any pretty dresses if she stays with us, and she loves pretty dresses. Why didn't the Fergusons adopt her before mother had made her over?" "Yes," chimed in Kathleen. "Then everybody would have been glad, but now we shall miss her! Think of missing Judy! We would never have believed it!" "It's like seeing how a book turns out, to watch her priggishness and smuggishness all melting away," Nancy said. "I shouldn't like to see her slip back into the old Judyisms, and neither would mother. Mother'll probably keep her, for I know Mr. Manson thinks it's only a matter of a few months before Uncle Allan dies." "And mother wouldn't want a Carey to grow up into an imitation Gladys Ferguson; but that's what Judy would be, in course of time." Julia took Mrs. Ferguson's letter herself to her Aunt Margaret, showing many signs of perturbation in her usually tranquil face. Mrs. Carey read it through carefully. "It is a very kind, generous offer, Julia. Your father cannot be consulted about it, so you must decide. You would have every luxury, and your life would be full of change and pleasure; while with us it must be, in the nature of things, busy and frugal for a long time to come." "But I am one more to feed and clothe, Aunt Margaret, and there is so little money!" "I know, but you are one more to help, after all. The days are soon coming when Nancy and Gilbert will be out in the world, helping themselves. You and Kathleen could stay with Peter and me, awaiting your turn. It doesn't look attractive in comparison with what the Fergusons offer you!" Then the gentle little rivers that had been swelling all the past year in Julia's heart, rivers of tenderness and gratitude and sympathy, suddenly overflowed their banks and, running hither and thither, softened everything with which they came in contact. Rocky places melted, barren spots waked into life, and under the impulse of a new mood that she scarcely understood Julia cried, "Oh! dear Aunt Margaret, keep me, keep me! This is home; I never want to leave it! I want to be one of Mother Carey's chickens!" The child had flung herself into the arms that never failed anybody, and with tears streaming down her cheeks made her plea. "There, there, Judy dear; you are one of us, and we could not let you go unless you were to gain something by it. If you really want to stay we shall love you all the better, and you will belong to us more than you ever did; so dry your eyes, or you will be somebody's duckling instead of my chicken!" The next surprise was a visit from Cousin Ann Chadwick, who drove up to the door one morning quite unannounced, and asked the driver of the depot wagon to bring over her two trunks immediately. "Two trunks!" groaned Gilbert. "That means the whole season!" But it meant nothing of the kind; it meant pretty white dresses for the three girls, two pairs of stockings and two of gloves for the whole family, a pattern of black silk for Mrs. Carey, and numberless small things to which the Carey wardrobe had long been a stranger. Having bestowed these offerings rather grimly, as was her wont, and having received the family's grateful acknowledgments with her usual lack of grace, she proceeded in the course of a few days to make herself far more disagreeable than had been the case on any previous visit of her life. She had never seen such dusty roads as in Beulah; so many mosquitoes and flies; such tough meat; such a lack of fruit, such talkative, over-familiar neighbors, such a dull minister, such an inattentive doctor, such extortionate tradesmen. "What shall we do with Cousin Ann!" exclaimed Mrs. Carey to Nancy in despair. "She makes us these generous presents, yet she cannot possibly have any affection for us. We accept them without any affection for her, because we hardly know how to avoid it. The whole situation is positively degrading! I have borne it for years because she was good to your father when he was a boy, but now that she has grown so much more difficult I really think I must talk openly with her." "She talked openly enough with me when I confessed that Gilbert and I had dropped and broken the Dirty Boy!" said Nancy, "and she has been very cross with me ever since." "Cousin Ann," said Mrs. Carey that afternoon on the piazza, "it is very easy to see that you do not approve of the way we live, or the way we think about things in general. Feeling as you do, I really wish you would not spend your money on us, and give us these beautiful and expensive presents. It puts me under an obligation that chafes me and makes me unhappy." "I don't disapprove of you, particularly," said Miss Chadwick. "Do I act as if I did?" "Your manner seems to suggest it." "You can't tell much by manners," replied Cousin Ann. "I think you're entirely too soft and sentimental, but we all have our faults. I don't think you have any right to feed the neighbors and burn up fuel and oil in their behalf when you haven't got enough for your own family. I think you oughtn't to have had four children, and having had them you needn't have taken another one in, though she's turned out better than I expected. But all that is none of my business, I suppose, and, wrong-headed as you are, I like you better than most folks, which isn't saying much." "But if you don't share my way of thinking, why do you keep fretting yourself to come and see us? It only annoys you." "It annoys me, but I can't help coming, somehow. I guess I hate other places and other ways worse than I do yours. You don't grudge me bed and board, I suppose?" "How could I grudge you anything when you give us so much,--so much more than we ought to accept, so much more than we can ever thank you for?" "I don't want to be thanked; you know that well enough; but there's so much demonstration in your family you can't understand anybody's keeping themselves exclusive. I don't like to fuss over people or have them fuss over me. Kissing comes as easy to you as eating, but I never could abide it. A nasty, common habit, I call it! I want to give what I like and where and when I like, and act as I'm a mind to afterwards. I don't give because I see things are needed, but because I can't spend my income unless I do give. If I could have my way I'd buy you a good house in Buffalo, right side of mine; take your beggarly little income and manage it for you; build a six-foot barbed wire fence round the lot so 't the neighbors couldn't get in and eat you out of house and home, and in a couple of years I could make something out of your family!" Mrs. Carey put down her sewing, leaned her head back against the crimson rambler, and laughed till the welkin rang. "I suppose you think I'm crazy?" Cousin Ann remarked after a moment's pause. "I don't know, Cousin Ann," said Mrs. Carey, taking up her work again. "Whatever it is, you can't help it! If you'll give up trying to understand my point of view, I won't meddle with yours!" "I suppose you won't come to Buffalo?" "No indeed, thank you, Cousin Ann!" "You'll stay here, in this benighted village, and grow old,--you that are a handsome woman of forty and might have a millionaire husband to take care of you?" "My husband had money enough to please me, and when I meet him again and show him the four children, he will be the richest man in Paradise." Cousin Ann rose. "I'm going to-morrow, and I shan't be back this year. I've taken passage on a steamer that's leaving for Liverpool next week!" "Going abroad! Alone, Cousin Ann?" "No, with a party of Cook's tourists." "What a strange idea!" exclaimed Mrs. Carey. "I don't see why; 'most everybody's been abroad. I don't expect to like the way they live over there, but if other folks can stand it, I guess I can. It'll amuse me for a spell, maybe, and if it don't, I've got money enough to break away and do as I'm a mind to." The last evening was a pleasant, friendly one, every Carey doing his or her best to avoid risky subjects and to be as agreeable as possible. Cousin Ann Chadwick left next day, and Mrs. Carey, bidding the strange creature good-bye, was almost sorry that she had ever had any arguments with her. "It will be so long before I see you again, Cousin Ann, I was on the point of kissing you,--till I remembered!" she said with a smile as she stood at the gate. "I don't know as I mind, for once," said Miss Chadwick. "If anybody's got to kiss me I'd rather it would be you than anybody!" She drove away, her two empty trunks in the back of the wagon. She sailed for Liverpool the next week and accompanied her chosen party to the cathedral towns of England. There, in a quiet corner of York Minster, as the boy choir was chanting its anthems, her heart, an organ she had never been conscious of possessing, gave one brief sudden physical pang and she passed out of what she had called life. Neither her family affairs nor the names of her relations were known, and the news of her death did not reach far-away Beulah till more than two months afterward, and with it came the knowledge that Cousin Ann Chadwick had left the income of five thousand dollars to each of the five Carey children, with five thousand to be paid in cash to Mother Carey on the settlement of the estate. XXXII DOORS OF DARING Little the Careys suspected how their fortunes were mending, during those last days of June! Had they known, they might almost have been disappointed, for the spur of need was already pricking them, and their valiant young spirits longed to be in the thick of the fray. Plans had been formed for the past week, many of them in secret, and the very next day after the close of the academy, various business projects would burst upon a waiting world. One Sunday night Mother Carey had read to the little group a poem in which there was a verse that struck on their ears with a fine spirit:-- "And all the bars at which we fret, That seem to prison and control, Are but the doors of daring set Ajar before the soul." They recited it over and over to themselves afterwards, and two or three of them wrote it down and pinned it to the wall, or tucked it in the frame of the looking glass. Olive Lord knocked at her father's study door the morning of the twenty-first of June. Walking in quietly she said, "Father, yesterday was my seventeenth birthday. Mother left me a letter to read on that day, telling me that I should have fifty dollars a month of my own when I was seventeen, Cyril to have as much when he is the same age." "If you had waited courteously and patiently for a few days you would have heard this from me," her father answered. "I couldn't be sure!" Olive replied. "You never did notice a birthday; why should you begin now?" "I have more important matters to take up my mind than the consideration of trivial dates," her father answered. "You know that very well, and you know too, that notwithstanding my absorbing labors, I have endeavored for the last few months to give more of my time to you and Cyril." "I realize that, or I should not speak to you at all," said Olive. "It is because you have shown a little interest in us lately that I consult you. I want to go at once to Boston to study painting. I will deny myself everything else, if necessary, but I will go, and I will study! It is the only life I care for, the only life I am likely to have, and I am determined to lead it." "You must see that you are too young to start out for yourself anywhere; it is simply impossible." "I shall not be alone. Mrs. Carey will find me a good home in Charlestown, with friends of hers. You trust her judgment, if no one else's." "If she is charitable enough to conduct your foolish enterprises as well as those of her own children, I have nothing to say. I have talked with her frequently, and she knows that as soon as I have finished my last volume I shall be able to take a more active interest in your affairs and Cyril's." "Then may I go?" "When I hear from the person in Charlestown, yes. There is an expedition starting for South America in a few months and I have been asked to accompany the party. If you are determined to leave home I shall be free to accept the invitation. Perhaps Mrs. Carey would allow Cyril to stay with her during my absence." "I dare say, and I advise you to go to South America by all means; you will be no farther away from your family than you have always been!" With this parting shot Olive Lord closed the study door behind her. "That girl has the most unpleasant disposition, and the sharpest tongue, I ever met in the course of my life!" said Henry Lord to himself as he turned to his task. Mother Carey's magic was working very slowly in his blood. It had roused him a little from the bottomless pit of his selfishness, but much mischief had been done on all sides, and it would be a work of time before matters could be materially mended. Olive's nature was already warped and embittered, and it would require a deal of sunshine to make a plant bloom that had been so dwarfed by neglect and indifference. Nancy's door of daring opened into an editorial office. An hour here, an hour there, when the Yellow House was asleep, had brought about a story that was on its way to a distant city. It was written, with incredible care, on one side of the paper only; it enclosed a fully stamped envelope for a reply or a return of the manuscript, and all day long Nancy, trembling between hope and despair, went about hugging her first secret to her heart. Gilbert had opened his own particular door, and if it entailed no more daring than that of Nancy's effort, it required twice the amount of self-sacrifice. He was to be, from June twenty-seventh till August twenty-seventh, Bill Harmon's post-office clerk and delivery boy, and the first that the family would know about it would be his arrival at the back door, in a linen jacket, with an order-book in his hand. Bravo, Gilly! One can see your heels disappearing over the top of Shiny Wall! The door of daring just ready to be opened by Kathleen and Julia was of a truly dramatic and unexpected character. Printed in plain letters, twenty-five circulars reposed in the folds of Julia's nightdresses in her lower bureau drawer. The last thing to be done at night and the first in the morning was the stealthy, whispered reading of one of these documents, lest even after the hundredth time, something wrong should suddenly appear to the eye or ear. They were addressed, they were stamped, and they would be posted to twenty-five families in the neighborhood on the closing day of the academy. SUMMER VACATION SCHOOL The Misses Kathleen and Julia Carey announce the opening of classes for private instruction on July 1st, from two to four o'clock daily in the Hamilton Barn. Faculty. Miss Kathleen Carey Reading & Elocution 2 P.M. Miss Julia Carey Dancing, Embroidery 2-30 P.M. Mrs. Peter Carey Vocal Music, Part Singing 3 P.M. Miss Nancy Carey Composition 4 P.M. Mr. Gilbert Carey Wood carving, Jig Sawing, Manual Training from 4 to 5 Fridays only. Terms cash. 25 cents a week. N. B. Children prepared for entrance to the academy at special prices. Meantime the Honorable Lemuel Hamilton had come to America, and was opening doors of daring at such a rate of speed that he hardly realized the extent of his own courage and what it involved. He accepted an official position of considerable honor and distinction in Washington, rented a house there, and cabled his wife and younger daughter to come over in September. He wrote his elder daughter that she might go with some friends to Honolulu if she would return for Christmas. ("It's eleven years since we had a Christmas tree," he added, "and the first thing you know we shall have lost the habit!") To his son Jack in Texas he expressed himself as so encouraged by the last business statement, which showed a decided turn for the better, that he was willing to add a thousand dollars to the capital and irrigate some more of the unimproved land on the ranch. "If Jack has really got hold out there, he can come home every two or three years," he thought. "Well, perhaps I shall succeed in getting part of them together, part of the time, if I work hard enough; all but Tom, whom I care most about! Now that everything is in train I'll take a little vacation myself, and go down to Beulah to make the acquaintance of those Careys. If I had ever contemplated returning to America I suppose I shouldn't have allowed them to settle down in the old house, still, Eleanor would never have been content to pass her summers there, so perhaps it is just as well." The Peter-bird was too young to greatly dare; still it ought perhaps to be set down that he sold three dozen marbles and a new kite to Billy Harmon that summer, and bought his mother a birthday present with the money. All Peter's "doors of daring" had hitherto opened into places from which he issued weeping, with sprained ankles, bruised hands, skinned knees or burned eyelashes. XXXIII MOTHER HAMILTON'S BIRTHDAY It was the Fourth of July; a hot, still day when one could fairly see the green peas swelling in their pods and the string beans climbing their poles like acrobats! Young Beulah had rung the church bell at midnight, cast its torpedoes to earth in the early morning, flung its fire-crackers under the horses' feet, and felt somewhat relieved of its superfluous patriotism by breakfast time. Then there was a parade of Antiques and Horribles, accompanied by the Beulah Band, which, though not as antique, was fully as horrible as anything in the procession. From that time on, the day had been somnolent, enlivened in the Carey household only by the solemn rite of paying the annual rent of the Yellow House. The votive nosegay had been carefully made up, and laid lovingly by Nancy under Mother Hamilton's portrait, in the presence not only of the entire family, but also of Osh Popham, who had called to present early radishes and peppergrass. "I'd like to go upstairs with you when you get your boquet tied up," he said, "because it's an awful hot day, an' the queer kind o' things you do 't this house allers makes my backbone cold! I never suspicioned that Lena Hamilton hed the same kind o' fantasmic notions that you folks have, but I guess it's like tenant, like landlord, in this case! Anyhow, I want to see the rent paid, if you don't mind. I wish't you'd asked that mean old sculpin of a Hen Lord over; he owns my house an' it might put a few idees into his head!" In the afternoon Nancy took her writing pad and sat on the circular steps, where it was cool. The five o'clock train from Boston whistled at the station a mile away as she gathered her white skirts daintily up and settled herself in the shadiest corner. She was unconscious of the passing time, and scarcely looked up until the rattling of wheels caught her ear. It was the station wagon stopping at the Yellow House gate, and a strange gentleman was alighting. He had an unmistakable air of the town. His clothes were not as Beulah clothes and his hat was not as Beulah hats, for it was a fine Panama with a broad sweeping brim. Nancy rose from the steps, surprise dawning first in her eyes, then wonder, then suspicion, then conviction; then two dimples appeared in her cheeks. The stranger lifted the foreign-looking hat with a smile and said, "My little friend and correspondent, Nancy Carey, I think?" "My American Consul, I do believe!" cried Nancy joyously, as she ran down the path with both hands outstretched. "Where did you come from? Why didn't you tell us beforehand? We never even heard that you were in this country! Oh! I know why you chose the Fourth of July! It's pay day, and you thought we shouldn't be ready with the rent; but it's all attended to, beautifully, this morning!" "May I send my bag to the Mansion House and stay a while with you?" asked Mr. Hamilton. "Are the rest of you at home? How are Gilbert and Kathleen and Julia and Peter? How, especially, is Mother Carey?" "What a memory you have!" exclaimed Nancy. "Take Mr. Hamilton's bag, please, Mr. Bennett, and tell them at the hotel that he won't be there until after supper." It was a pleasant hour that ensued, for Nancy had broken the ice and there was plenty of conversation. Then too, the whole house had to be shown, room by room, even to Cousin Ann's stove in the cellar and the pump in the kitchen sink. "I never saw anything like it!" exclaimed Hamilton. "It is like magic! I ought to pay you a thousand dollars on the spot! I ought to try and buy the place of you for five thousand! Why don't you go into the business of recreating houses and selling them to poor benighted creatures like me, who never realize their possibilities?" "If we show you the painted chamber will you promise not to be too unhappy?" asked Nancy. "You can't help crying with rage and grief that it is our painted chamber, not yours; but try to bear up until you get to the hotel, because mother is so soft-hearted she will be giving it back to you unless I interfere." "You must have spent money lavishly when you restored this room," said the Consul; "it is a real work of art." "Not a penny," said Mrs. Carey. "It is the work of a great friend of Nancy's, a seventeen-year-old girl, who, we expect, will make Beulah famous some day. Now will you go into your mother's room and find your way downstairs by yourself? Julia, will you show Mr. Hamilton the barn a little later, while Nancy and I get supper? Kitty must go to the Pophams' for Peter; he is spending the afternoon with them." Nancy had enough presence of mind to intercept Kitty and hiss into her ear: "Borrow a loaf of bread from Mrs. Popham, we are short; and see if you can find any way to get strawberries from Bill Harmon's; it was to have been a bread-and-milk supper on the piazza, to-night, and it must be hurriedly changed into a Consular banquet! _Verb. sap._ Fly!" Gilbert turned up a little before six o'clock and was introduced proudly by his mother as a son who had just "gone into business." "I'm Bill Harmon's summer clerk and delivery boy," he explained. "It's great fun, and I get two dollars and a half a week." Nancy and her mother worked like Trojans in the kitchen, for they agreed it was no time for economy, even if they had less to eat for a week to come. "Mr. Hamilton is just as nice as I guessed he was, when his first letter came," said Nancy. "I went upstairs to get a card for the supper menu, and he was standing by your mantelpiece with his head bent over his arms. He had the little bunch of field flowers in his hand, and I know he had been smelling them, and looking at his mother's picture, and remembering things!" What a merry supper it was, with a jug of black-eyed Susans in the centre of the table and a written bill of fare for Mr. Hamilton, "because he was a Consul," so Nancy said. Gilbert sat at the head of the table, and Mr. Hamilton thought he had never seen anything so beautiful as Mrs. Carey in her lavender challie, sitting behind the tea cups; unless it was Nancy, flushed like a rose, changing the plates and waiting on the table between courses. He had never exerted himself so much at any diplomatic dinner, and he won the hearts of the entire family before the meal was finished. "By the way, I have a letter of introduction to you all, but especially to Miss Nancy here, and I have never thought to deliver it," he said. "Who do you think sent it,--all the way from China?" "My son Tom!" exclaimed Nancy irrepressibly; "but no, he couldn't, because he doesn't know us." "The Admiral, of course!" cried Gilbert. "You are both right," Mr. Hamilton answered, drawing a letter from his coat pocket. "It is a Round Robin from the Admiral and my son Tom, who have been making acquaintance in Hong Kong. It is addressed: "FROM THE YELLOW PERIL, IN CHINA "to "THE YELLOW HOUSE, IN BEULAH, "_Greeting_!" Nancy crimsoned. "Did the Admiral tell your son Tom I called him the Yellow Peril? It was wicked of him! I did it, you know, because you wrote me that the only Hamilton who cared anything for the old house, or would ever want to live in it, was your son Tom. After that I always called him the Yellow Peril, and I suppose I mentioned it in a letter to the Admiral." "I am convinced that Nancy's mind is always empty at bedtime," said her mother, "because she tells everything in it to somebody during the day. I hope age will bring discretion, but I doubt it." "My son Tom is coming home!" said his father, with unmistakable delight in his voice. Nancy, who was passing the cake, sat down so heavily in her chair that everybody laughed. "Come, come, Miss Nancy! I can't let you make an ogre of the boy," urged Mr. Hamilton. "He is a fine fellow, and if he comes down here to look at the old place you are sure to be good friends." "Is he going back to China after his visit?" asked Mrs. Carey, who felt a fear of the young man something akin to her daughter's. "No, I am glad to say. Our family has been too widely separated for the last ten years. At first it seemed necessary, or at least convenient and desirable, and I did not think much about it. But lately it has been continually on my mind that we were leading a cheerless existence, and I am determined to arrange matters differently." Mrs. Carey remembered Ossian Popham's description of Mrs. Lemuel Hamilton and forebore to ask any questions with regard to her whereabouts, since her husband did not mention her. "You will all be in Washington then," she said, "and your son Tom with you, of course?" "Not quite so near as that," his father replied. "Tom's firm is opening a Boston office and he will be in charge of that. When do you expect the Admiral back? Tom talks of their coming together on the Bedouin, if it can be arranged." "We haven't heard lately," said Mrs. Carey; "but he should return within a month or two, should he not, Nancy? My daughter writes all the letters for the family, Mr. Hamilton, as you know by this time." "I do, to my great delight and satisfaction. Now there is one thing I have not seen yet, something about which I have a great deal of sentiment. May I smoke my cigar under the famous crimson rambler?" The sun set flaming red, behind the Beulah hills. The frogs sang in the pond by the House of Lords, and the grasshoppers chirped in the long grass of Mother Hamilton's favorite hayfield. Then the moon, round and deep-hued as a great Mandarin orange, came up into the sky from which the sun had faded, and the little group still sat on the side piazza, talking. Nothing but their age and size kept the Carey chickens out of Mr. Hamilton's lap, and Peter finally went to sleep with his head against the consul's knee. He was a "lappy" man, Nancy said next morning; and indeed there had been no one like him in the family circle for many a long month. He was tender, he was gay, he was fatherly, he was interested in all that concerned them; so no wonder that he heard all about Gilbert's plans for earning money, and Nancy's accepted story. No wonder he exclaimed at the check for ten dollars proudly exhibited in payment, and no wonder he marvelled at the Summer Vacation School in the barn, where fourteen little scholars were already enrolled under the tutelage of the Carey Faculty. "I never wanted to go to anything in my life as much as I want to go to that school!" he asserted. "If I could write a circular as enticing as that, I should be a rich man. I wish you'd let me have some new ones printed, girls, and put me down for three evening lectures; I'd do almost anything to get into that Faculty." "I wish you'd give the lectures for the benefit of the Faculty, that would be better still," said Kitty. "Nancy's coming-out party was to be in the barn this summer; that's one of the things we're earning money for; or at least we make believe that it is, because it's so much more fun to work for a party than for coal or flour or meat!" A look from Mrs. Carey prevented the children from making any further allusions to economy, and Gilbert skillfully turned the subject by giving a dramatic description of the rise and fall of The Dirty Boy, from its first appearance at his mother's wedding breakfast to its last, at the house-warming supper. After Lemuel Hamilton had gone back to the little country hotel he sat by the open window for another hour, watching the moonbeams shimmering on the river and bathing the tip of the white meeting-house steeple in a flood of light. The air was still and the fireflies were rising above the thick grass and carrying their fairy lamps into the lower branches of the feathery elms. "Haying" would begin next morning, and he would be wakened by the sharpening of scythes and the click of mowing machines. He would like to work in the Hamilton fields, he thought, knee-deep in daisies,--fields on whose grass he had not stepped since he was a boy just big enough to go behind the cart and "rake after." What an evening it had been! None of them had known it, but as a matter of fact they had all scaled Shiny Wall and had been sitting with Mother Carey in Peacepool; that was what had made everything so beautiful! Mr. Hamilton's last glimpse of the Careys had been the group at the Yellow House gate. Mrs. Carey, with her brown hair shining in the moonlight leaned against Gilbert, the girls stood beside her, their arms locked in hers, while Peter clung sleepily to her hand. "I believe they are having hard times!" he thought, "and I can't think of anything I can safely do to make things easier. Still, one cannot pity, one can only envy them! That is the sort of mother I would have made had I been Nature and given a free hand! I would have put a label on Mrs. Carey, saying: 'This is what I meant a woman to be!'" XXXIV NANCY COMES OUT Nancy's seventeenth birthday was past, and it was on the full of the August moon that she finally "came out" in the Hamilton barn. It was the barn's first public appearance too, for the villagers had not been invited to the private Saturday night dances that took place during the brief reign of the Hamilton boys and girls. Beulah was more excited about the barn than it was about Nancy, and she was quite in sympathy with this view of things, as the entire Carey family, from mother to Peter, was fairly bewitched with its new toy. Day by day it had grown more enchanting as fresh ideas occurred to one or another, and especially to Osh Popham, who lived, breathed, and had his being in the barn, and who had lavished his ingenuity and skill upon its fittings. Not a word did he vouchsafe to the general public of the extraordinary nature of these fittings, nor of the many bewildering features of the entertainment which was to take place within the almost sacred precincts. All the Carey festivities had heretofore been in the house save the one in honor of the hanging of the weather vane, which had been an out-of-door function, attended by the whole village. Now the community was all agog to disport itself in pastures new; its curiosity being further piqued by the reception of written invitations, a convention not often indulged in by Beulah. The eventful day dawned, clear and cool; a day with an air like liquid amber, that properly belonged to September,--the weather prophet really shifting it into August from pure kindness, having taken a sticky dogday out and pitchforked it into the next month. The afternoon passed in various stages of plotting, planning, and palpitation, and every girl in Beulah, of dancing age, was in her bedroom, trying her hair a new way. The excitement increased a thousand fold when it was rumored that an Admiral (whatever that might be) had arrived at the hotel and would appear at the barn in full uniform. After that, nobody's braids or puffs would go right! Nancy never needed to study Paris plates, for her hair dressed itself after a fashion set by all the Venuses and Cupids and little Loves since the world began. It curled, whether she would or no, so the only method was to part the curls and give them a twist into a coil, from which vagrant spirals fell to the white nape of her neck. Or, if she felt gay and coquettish as she did tonight, the curls were pinned high to the crown of her head and the runaways rioted here and there, touching her cheek, her ear, her neck, never ugly, wherever they ran. Nancy had a new yellow organdy made "almost to touch," and a twist of yellow ribbon in her hair. Kathleen and Julia were in the white dresses brought them by Cousin Ann, and Mrs. Carey wore her new black silk, made with a sweeping little train. Her wedding necklace of seed pearls was around her neck, and a tall comb of tortoise shell and pearls rose from the low-coiled knot of her shining hair. The family "received" in the old carriage house, and when everybody had assembled, to the number of seventy-five or eighty, the door into the barn was thrown open majestically by Gilbert, in his character as head of the house of Carey. Words fail to describe the impression made by the barn as it was introduced to the company, Nancy's debut sinking into positive insignificance beside it. Dozens of brown japanned candle-lanterns hung from the beamed ceiling, dispensing little twinkles of light here and there, while larger ones swung from harness pegs driven into the sides of the walls. The soft gray-brown of the old weathered lumber everywhere, made a lovely background for the birch-bark brackets, and the white birch-bark vases that were filled with early golden-rod, mixed with tall Queen Anne's lace and golden glow. The quaint settles surrounding the sides of the room were speedily filled by the admiring guests. Colonel Wheeler's tiny upright piano graced the platform in the "tie up." Miss Susie Bennett, the church organist, was to play it, aided now and then by Mrs. Carey or Julia. Osh Popham was to take turns on the violin with a cousin from Warren's Mills, who was reported to be the master fiddler of the county. When all was ready Mrs. Carey stood between the master fiddler and Susie Bennett, and there was a sudden hush in the room. "Friends and neighbors," she said, "we now declare the Hall of Happy Hours open for the general good of the village. If it had not been for the generosity of our landlord, Mr. Lemuel Hamilton, we could never have given you this pleasure, and had not our helpers been so many, we could never have made the place so beautiful. Before the general dancing begins there will be a double quadrille of honor, in which all those will take part who have driven a nail, papered or painted a wall, dug a spadeful of earth, or done any work in or about the Yellow House." "Three cheers for Mrs. Carey!" called Bill Harmon, and everybody complied lustily. "Three cheers for Lemuel Hamilton!" and the rafters of the barn rang with the response. Just then the Admiral changed his position to conceal the moisture that was beginning to gather in his eyes; and the sight of a personage so unspeakably magnificent in a naval uniform induced Osh Popham to cry spontaneously: "Three cheers for the Admiral! I don't know what he ever done, but he looks as if he could, all right!" at which everybody cheered and roared, and the Admiral to his great surprise made a speech, during which the telltale tears appeared so often in his eyes and in his voice, that Osh Popham concluded privately that if the naval hero ever did meet an opposing battleship he would be likelier to drown the enemy than fire into them! The double quadrille of honor passed off with much elegance, everybody not participating in it being green with envy because he was not. Mrs. Carey and the Admiral were partners; Nancy danced with Mr. Popham, Kathleen with Digby, Julia with Bill Harmon. The other couples were Mrs. Popham and Gilbert, Lallie Joy and Cyril Lord, Olive and Nat Harmon, while Mrs. Bill led out a very shy and uncomfortable gentleman who had dug the ditches for Cousin Ann's expensive pipes. Then the fun and the frolic began in earnest. The girls had been practising the old-fashioned contra dances all summer, and training the younger generation in them at the Vacation School. The old folks needed no rehearsal! If you had waked any of them in the night suddenly they could have called the changes for Speed the Plough, The Soldier's Joy, The Maid in the Pump Room, or Hull's Victory. Money Musk brought Nancy and Mr. Henry Lord on to the floor as head couple; a result attained by that young lady by every means, fair or foul, known to woman; at least a rudimentary, budding woman of seventeen summers! His coming to the party at all was regarded by Mother Carey, who had spent the whole force of her being in managing it, as nothing short of a miracle. He had accepted partly from secret admiration of his handsome neighbor, partly to show the village that he did not choose always to be a hermit crab, partly out of curiosity to see the unusual gathering. Having crawled out of his selfish shell far enough to grace the occasion, he took another step when Nancy asked him to dance. It was pretty to see her curtsey when she put the question, pretty to see the air of triumph with which she led him to the head of the line, and positively delightful to the onlookers to see Hen Lord doing right and left, ladies' chain, balance to opposite and cast off, at a girl's beck and call. He was not a bad dancer, when his sluggish blood once got into circulation; and he was considerably more limber at the end of Money Musk, considerably less like a wooden image, than at the beginning of it. In the interval between this astounding exhibition and the Rochester Schottisch which followed it, Henry Lord went up to Mrs. Carey, who was sitting in a corner a little apart from her guests for the moment. "Shall I go to South America, or shall I not?" he asked her in an undertone. "Olive seems pleasantly settled, and Cyril tells me you will consent to take him into your family for six months; still, I would like a woman's advice." Mother Carey neither responded, "I should prefer not to take the responsibility of advising you," nor "Pray do as you think best"; she simply said, in a tone she might have used to a fractious boy: "I wouldn't go, Mr. Lord! Wait till Olive and Cyril are a little older. Cyril will grow into my family instead of into his own; Olive will learn to do without you; worse yet, you will learn to do without your children. Stay at home and have Olive come back to you and her brother every week end. South America is a long distance when there are only three of you!" Prof. Lord was not satisfied with Mrs. Carey's tone. It was so maternal that he expected at any moment she might brush his hair, straighten his necktie, and beg him not to sit up too late, but his instinct told him it was the only tone he was ever likely to hear from her, and so he said reluctantly, "Very well; I confess that I really rely on your judgment, and I will decline the invitation." "I think you are right," Mrs. Carey answered, wondering if the man would ever see his duty with his own eyes, or whether he had deliberately blinded himself for life. XXXV THE CRIMSON RAMBLER While Mrs. Carey was talking with Mr. Lord, Nancy skimmed across the barn floor intent on some suddenly remembered duty, went out into the garden, and met face to face a strange young man standing by the rose trellis and looking in at the dance through the open door. He had on a conventional black dinner-coat, something never seen in Beulah, and wore a soft travelling cap. At first Nancy thought he was a friend of the visiting fiddler, but a closer look at his merry dark eyes gave her the feeling that she had seen him before, or somebody very like him. He did not wait for her to speak, but taking off his cap, put out his hand and said: "By your resemblance to a photograph in my possession I think you are the girl who planted the crimson rambler." "Are you 'my son Tom'?" asked Nancy, open astonishment in her tone. "I mean my Mr. Hamilton's son Tom?" "I am _my_ Mr. Hamilton's son Tom; or shall we say _our_ Mr. Hamilton's? Do two 'mys' make one 'our'?" "Upon my word, wonders will never cease!" exclaimed Nancy. "The Admiral said you were in Boston, but he never told us you would visit Beulah so soon!" "No, I wanted it to be a secret. I wanted to appear when the ball was at its height; the ghost of the old regime confronting the new, so to speak." "Beulah will soon be a summer resort; everybody seems to be coming here." "It's partly your fault, isn't it?" "Why, pray?" "'The Water Babies' is one of my favorite books, and I know all about Mother Carey's chickens. They go out over the seas and show good birds the way home." "Are _you_ a good bird?" asked Nancy saucily. "I'm _home_, at all events!" said Tom with an emphasis that made Nancy shiver lest the young man had come to Beulah with a view of taking up his residence in the paternal mansion. The two young people sat down on the piazza steps while the music of The Sultan's Polka floated out of the barn door. Old Mrs. Jenks was dancing with Peter, her eighty-year-old steps as fleet as his, her white side-curls bobbing to the tune. Her withered hands clasped his dimpled ones and the two seemed to be of the same age, for in the atmosphere of laughter and goodwill there would have been no place for the old in heart, and certainly Mrs. Jenks was as young as any one at the party. "I can't help dreading you, nice and amiable as you look," said Nancy candidly to Tom Hamilton; "I am so afraid you'll fall in love with the Yellow House and want it back again. Are you engaged to be married to a little-footed China doll, or anything like that?" she asked with a teasing, upward look and a disarming smile that robbed the question of any rudeness. "No, not engaged to anything or anybody, but I've a notion I shall be, soon, if all goes well! I'm getting along in years now!" "I might have known it!" sighed Nancy. "It was a prophetic instinct, my calling you the Yellow Peril." "It isn't a bit nice of you to dislike me before you know me; I didn't do that way with you!" "What do you mean?" "Why, in the first letter you ever wrote father you sent your love to any of his children that should happen to be of the right size. I chanced to be _just_ the right size, so I accepted it, gratefully; I've got it here with me to-night; no, I left it in my other coat," he said merrily, making a fictitious search through his pockets. Nancy laughed at his nonsense; she could not help it. "Will you promise to get over your foolish and wicked prejudices if I on my part promise never to take the Yellow House away from you unless you wish?" continued Tom. "Willingly," exclaimed Nancy joyously. "That's the safest promise I could make, for I would never give up living in it unless I had to. First it was father's choice, then it was mother's, now all of us seem to have built ourselves into it, as it were. I am almost afraid to care so much about anything, and I shall be so relieved if you do not turn out to be really a Yellow Peril after all!" "You are much more of a Yellow Peril yourself!" said Tom, "with that dress and that ribbon in your hair! Will you dance the next dance with me, please?" "It's The Tempest; do you know it?" "No, but I'm not so old but I may learn. I'll form myself on that wonderful person who makes jokes about the Admiral and plays the fiddle." "That's Ossian Popham, principal prop of the House of Carey!" "Lucky dog! Have you got all the props you need?" Nancy's hand was not old or strong or experienced enough to keep this strange young man in order, and just as she was meditating some blighting retort he went on:-- "Who is that altogether adorable, that unspeakably beautiful lady in black?--the one with the pearl comb that looks like a crown?" "That's mother," said Nancy, glowing. "I thought so. At least I didn't know any other way to account for her." "Why does she have to be accounted for?" asked Nancy, a little bewildered. "For the same reason that you do," said the audacious youth. "You explain your mother and your mother explains you, a little, at any rate. Where is the celebrated crimson rambler, please?" "You are sitting on it," Nancy answered tranquilly. Tom sprang away from the trellis, on which he had been half reclining. "Bless my soul!" he exclaimed. "Why didn't you tell me? I have a great affection for that rambler; it was your planting it that first made me--think favorably of you. Has it any roses on it? I can't see in this light." "It is almost out of bloom; there may be a few at the top somewhere; I'll look out my window to-morrow morning and see." "At about what hour?" "How should I know?" laughed Nancy. "Oh! you're not to be depended on!" said Tom rebukingly. "Just give me your hand a moment; step on that lowest rung of the trellis, now one step higher, please; now stretch up your right hand and pick that little cluster, do you see it?--That's right; now down, be careful, there you are, thank you! A rose in the hand is worth two in the morning." "Put it in your button hole," said Nancy. "It is the last; I gave your father one of the first a month ago." "I shall put this in my pocket book and send it to my mother in a letter," Tom replied. ("And tell her it looks just like the girl who planted it," he thought; "sweet, fragrant, spicy, graceful, vigorous, full of color.") "Now come in and meet mother," said Nancy. "The polka is over, and soon they will be 'forming on' for The Tempest." Tom Hamilton's entrance and introduction proved so interesting that it delayed the dance for a few moments. Then Osh Popham and the master fiddler tuned their violins and Mrs. Carey assisted Susie Bennett at the piano, so that there were four musicians to give fresh stimulus to the impatient feet. Tom Hamilton hardly knew whether he would rather dance with Nancy or stand at the open door and watch her as he had been doing earlier in the evening. He could not really see her now, although he was her partner, his mind was so occupied with the intricate figures, but he could feel her, in every fibre of his body, the touch of her light hand was so charged with magnetism. Somebody swung the back doors of the barn wide open. The fields, lately mown, sloped gently up to a fringe of pines darkly green against the sky. The cool night air stirred the elms, and the brilliant moon appeared in the very centre of the doorway. The beauty of the whole scene went to Tom Hamilton's head a little, but he kept his thoughts steadily on the changes as Osh Popham called them. To watch Nancy Carey dance The Tempest was a sight to stir the blood. The two head couples joined hands and came down the length of the barn four abreast; back they went in a whirl; then they balanced to the next couple, then came four hands round and ladies' chain, and presently they came down again flying, with another four behind them. The first four were Nancy and Tom, Ralph Thurston and Kathleen, the last two among the best dancers in Beulah; but while Kitty was slim and straight and graceful as a young fawn, Nancy swept down the middle of the barn floor like a flower borne by the breeze. She was Youth, Hope, Joy incarnate! She had washed the dishes that night, would wash them again in the morning, but what of that? What mattered it that the years just ahead (for aught she knew to the contrary) were full of self-denial and economy? Was she not seventeen? Anything was possible at seventeen! What if the world was to be a work-a-day world? There was music and laughter in it as well as work, and there was love in it, too, oceans of love, so why not trip and be merry and guide one's young partner safely through the difficult mazes of the dance and bring him out flushed and triumphant, to receive mother's laughing compliments? Everybody was dancing The Tempest in his or her own fashion, thought the Admiral, looking on. Mrs. Popham was grave, even gloomy from the waist up, but incredibly lively from the waist down, moving with the precision of machinery, while her partner, a bricklayer from Beulah Centre, engaged the attention of the entire company by his wonderful steps. She was fully up to time too, you may be sure, as her rival, Mrs. Bill Harmon, was opposite her in the set. Lallie Joy, clad in one of Kathleen's dresses, her hair dressed by Julia, was a daily attendant at the Vacation School, but five weeks of steady instruction had not sufficed to make her sure of ladies' grand chain. Olive moved like a shy little wild thing, with a bending head and a grace all her own, while Gilbert had great ease and distinction. There was a brief interval for ice cream, accompanied by marble cake, gold cake, silver cake, election cake, sponge cake, cup cake, citron cake, and White Mountain cake, and while it was being eaten, Susie Bennett played The Sliding Waltz, The Maiden's Prayer, and Listen to the Mocking Bird with variations; variations requiring almost supernatural celerity. "I guess there ain't many that can touch Sutey at the piano!" said Osh Popham, who sat beside the Admiral. "Have you seen anybody in the cities that could play any faster'n she can? And Jo you ever ketch her landin' on a black note when she started for a white one? I guess not!" "You are right!" replied the Admiral, "and now there seems to be a general demand for you. What are they requesting you to do,--fly?" "That's it," said Osh. "Mis' Carey, will you play for me? Maria, you can go into the carriage house if you don't want to be disgraced." "Come, my beloved, haste away, Cut short the hours of thy delay. Fly like a youthful hart or roe Over the hills where spices grow." At length the strains of the favorite old tune faded on the ears of the delighted audience. Then they had The Portland Fancy and The Irish Washerwoman and The College Hornpipe, and at last the clock in the carriage house struck midnight and the guests departed in groups of twos and threes and fours, their cheerful voices sounding far down the village street. Osh Popham stayed behind to cover the piano, put out the lanterns, close the doors and windows, and lock the barn, while Mrs. Carey and the Admiral strolled slowly along the greensward to the side door of the house. "Good-night," Osh called happily as he passed them a few minutes later. "I guess Beulah never see a party such as ourn was, this evenin'! I guess if the truth was known, the State o' Maine never did, neither! Good-night, all! Mebbe if I hurry along I can ketch up with Maria!" His quick steps brushing the grassy pathway could be heard for some minutes in the clear still air, and presently the sound of his mellow tenor came floating back:-- "Come, my beloved, haste away, Cut short the hours of thy delay. Fly like a youthful hart or roe Over the hills where spices grow." Julia had gone upstairs with the sleepy Peter-bird, who had been enjoying his first experience of late hours on the occasion of Nancy's coming out; the rest of the young folks were gathered in a group under the elms, chatting in couples,--Olive and Ralph Thurston, Kathleen and Cyril Lord, Nancy and Tom Hamilton. Then they parted, Tom Hamilton strolling to the country hotel with the young school teacher for companion, while Olive and Cyril walked across the fields to the House of Lords. It was a night in a thousand. The air was warm, clear, and breathlessly still; so still that not a leaf stirred on the trees. The sky was cloudless, and the moon, brilliant and luminous, shone as it seldom shines in a northern clime. The water was low in Beulah's shining river and it ran almost noiselessly under the bridge. While Kathleen and Julia were still unbraiding their hair, exclaiming at every twist of the hand as to the "loveliness" of the party, Nancy had kissed her mother and crept silently into bed. All night long the strains of The Tempest ran through her dreams. There was the touch of a strange hand on hers, an altogether new touch, warm and compelling. There was the gay trooping down the centre of the barn in fours,--some one by her side who had never been there before,--and a sensation entirely new and intoxicating, that whenever she met the glance of her partner's merry dark eyes she found herself at the bottom of them. Was she a child when she heard Osh Popham cry: "Take your partners for The Tempest!" and was she a woman when he called: "All promenade to seats!" She hardly knew. Beulah was a dream; the Yellow House was a dream, the dance was a dream, the partner was a dream. At one moment she was a child helping her father to plant the crimson rambler, at another she was a woman pulling a rose from the topmost branch and giving it to some one who steadied her hand on the trellis; some one who said "Thank you" and "Good-night" differently from the rest of the world. Who was the young stranger? Was he the Knight of Beulah Castle, the Overlord of the Yellow House, was he the Yellow Peril, was he a good bird to whom Mother Carey's chicken had shown the way home? Still the dream went on in bewildering circles, and Nancy kept hearing mysterious phrases spoken with a new meaning,--"Will you dance with me?" "Doesn't the House of Carey need another prop?" "Won't you give me a rose?" and above all: "You sent your love to any one of the Hamilton children who should be of the right size; I was just the right size, and I took it!" "Love couldn't be sent in a letter!" expostulated Nancy in the dream; and somebody, in the dream, always answered, "Don't be so sure! Very strange things happen when Mother Carey's messengers go out over the seas. Don't you remember how they spoke to Tom in 'The Water Babies'?--Among all the songs that came across the water one was more sweet and clear than all, for it was the song of a young girl's voice.... And what was the song that she sung?... Have patience, keep your eye single and your hands clean, and you will learn some day to sing it yourself, without needing any man to teach you!" 
9507	----	Paolucci, Tonya Allen, and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders THE CORYSTON FAMILY A NOVEL BY MRS. HUMPHRY WARD ILLUSTRATED BY ELIZABETH SHIPPEN GREEN 1913 TO G.M.T. AND J.P.T. ILLUSTRATIONS "HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN CONCOCTING THIS, MOTHER?" _Frontispiece_ THE CONVERSATION DROPPED, JUST AS THE VOICE OF THE ORATOR ROSE TO HIS PERORATION AS SHE SAW MARCIA HER FACE LIT UP THIS MORNING HE FOUND HER ALL GIRLISH GENTLENESS AND APPEAL "I DO WISH I COULD HELP YOU" MARCIA WAS SINGING, IN A LOW VOICE AS SHE CAME HE SAT STILL, STUDYING HIS MOTHER'S STRONG, LINED FACE NOW SUDDENLY--HERE WAS A FRIEND--ON WHOM TO LEAN Book I LADY CORYSTON [Greek: turannon einai moria kai tonthelein.] CHAPTER I The hands of the clock on the front of the Strangers' Gallery were nearing six. The long-expected introductory speech of the Minister in charge of the new Land Bill was over, and the leader of the Opposition was on his feet. The House of Commons was full and excited. The side galleries were no less crowded than the benches below, and round the entrance-door stood a compact throng of members for whom no seats were available. With every sentence, almost, the speaker addressing the House struck from it assent or protest; cheers and counter-cheers ran through its ranks; while below the gangway a few passionate figures on either side, the freebooters of the two great parties, watched one another angrily, sitting on the very edge of their seats, like arrows drawn to the string. Within that privileged section of the Ladies' Gallery to which only the Speaker's order admits, there was no less agitation than on the floor below, though the signs of it were less evident. Some half a dozen chairs placed close against the grille were filled by dusky forms invisible, save as a dim patchwork, to the House beneath them--women with their faces pressed against the lattice-work which divided them from the Chamber, endeavoring to hear and see, in spite of all the difficulties placed in their way by a graceless Commons. Behind them stood other women, bending forward sometimes over the heads of those in front, in the feverish effort to catch the words of the speech. It was so dark in the little room that no inmate of it could be sure of the identity of any other unless she was close beside her; and it was pervaded by a constant soft _frou-frou_ of silk and satin, as persons from an inner room moved in and out, or some lady silently gave up her seat to a new-comer, or one of those in front bent over to whisper to a friend behind. The background of all seemed filled with a shadowy medley of plumed hats, from which sometimes a face emerged as a shaft of faint light from the illumined ceiling of the House struck upon it. The atmosphere was very hot, and heavy with the scent of violets, which seemed to come from a large bunch worn by a slim standing girl. In front of the girl sat a lady who was evidently absorbed in the scene below. She rarely moved, except occasionally to put up an eyeglass the better to enable her to identify some face on the Parliamentary benches, or the author of some interruption to the speaker. Meanwhile the girl held her hands upon the back of the lady's chair, and once or twice stooped to speak to her. Next to this pair, but in a corner of the gallery, and occupying what seemed to be a privileged and habitual seat, was a woman of uncouth figure and strange headgear. Since the Opposition leader had risen, her attention had wholly wandered. She yawned perpetually, and talked a great deal to a lady behind her. Once or twice her neighbor threw her an angry glance. But it was too dark for her to see it; though if she had seen it she would have paid no attention. "Lady Coryston!" said a subdued voice. The lady sitting in front of the girl turned and saw an attendant beckoning. The girl moved toward him, and returned. "What is it, Marcia?" "A note from Arthur, mamma." A slip of paper was handed to Lady Coryston, who read it in the gloom with difficulty. Then she whispered to her daughter: "He hopes to get his chance about seven; if not then, after dinner." "I really don't think I can stay so long," said the girl, plaintively. "It's dreadfully tiring." "Go when you like," said her mother, indifferently. "Send the car back for me." She resumed her intent listening just as a smart sally from the speaker below sent a tumultuous wave of cheers and counter-cheers through his audience. "He can be such a buffoon, can't he?" said the stout lady in the corner to her companion, as she yawned again. She had scarcely tried to lower her voice. Her remark was, at any rate, quite audible to her next-door neighbor, who again threw her a swift, stabbing look, of no more avail, however, than its predecessors. "Who is that lady in the corner--do you mind telling me?" The query was timidly whispered in the ear of Marcia Coryston by a veiled lady, who on the departure of some other persons had come to stand beside her. "She is Mrs. Prideaux." said Miss Coryston, stiffly. "The wife of the Prime Minister!" The voice showed emotion. Marcia Coryston looked down upon the speaker with an air that said, "A country cousin, I suppose." But she whispered, civilly enough: "Yes. She always sits in that corner. Weren't you here when he was speaking?" "No--I've not long come in." The conversation dropped, just as the voice of the orator standing on the left of the Speaker rose to his peroration. It was a peroration of considerable eloquence, subtly graduated through a rising series of rhetorical questions, till it finally culminated and broke in the ringing sentences: "Destroy the ordered hierarchy of English land, and you will sweep away a growth of centuries which would not be where it is if it did not in the main answer to the needs and reflect the character of Englishmen. Reform and develop it if you will; bring in modern knowledge to work upon it; change, expand, without breaking it; appeal to the sense of property, while enormously diffusing property; help the peasant without slaying the landlord; in other words, put aside rash, meddlesome revolution, and set yourselves to build on the ancient foundations of our country what may yet serve the new time! Then you will have an _English_, a national policy. It happens to be the Tory policy. Every principle of it is violated by the monstrous bill you have just brought in. We shall oppose it by every means and every device in our power!" [Illustration: THE CONVERSATION DROPPED, JUST AS THE VOICE OF THE ORATOR ROSE TO HIS PERORATION] The speaker sat down amid an ovation from his own side. Three men on the Liberal side jumped up, hat in hand, simultaneously. Two of them subsided at once. The third began to speak. A sigh of boredom ran through the latticed gallery above, and several persons rose and prepared to vacate their places. The lady in the corner addressed some further remarks on the subject of the speech which had just concluded to an acquaintance who came up to greet her. "Childish!--positively childish!" Lady Coryston caught the words, and as Mrs. Prideaux rose with alacrity to go into the Speaker's private house for a belated cup of tea, her Tory neighbor beckoned to her daughter Marcia to take the vacant chair. "Intolerable woman!" she said, drawing a long breath. "And they're in for years! Heaven knows what we shall all have to go through." "Horrible!" said the girl, fervently. "She always behaves like that. Yet of course she knew perfectly who you were." "Arthur will probably follow this man," murmured Lady Coryston, returning to her watch. "Go and have some tea, mother, and come back." "No. I might miss his getting up." There was silence a little. The House was thinning rapidly, and half the occupants of the Ladies' Galleries had adjourned to the tearooms on the farther side of the corridor. Marcia could now see her mother's face more distinctly as Lady Coryston sat in a brown study, not listening, evidently, to the very halting gentleman who was in possession of the House, though her eyes still roamed the fast-emptying benches. It was the face of a woman on the wrong side of fifty. The complexion was extremely fair, with gray shades in it. The eyes, pale in color but singularly imperious and direct, were sunk deep under straight brows. The nose was long, prominent, and delicately sharp in the nostril. These features, together with the long upper lip and severely cut mouth and chin, the slightly hollow cheeks and the thin containing oval of the face, set in pale and still abundant hair, made a harsh yet, on the whole, handsome impression. There was at Coryston, in the gallery, a picture of Elizabeth Tudor in her later years to which Lady Coryston had been often compared; and she, who as a rule disliked any reference to her personal appearance, did not, it was sometimes remarked, resent this particular comparison. The likeness was carried further by Lady Coryston's tall and gaunt frame; by her formidable carriage and step; and by the energy of the long-fingered hands. In dress also there was some parallel between her and the Queen of many gowns. Lady Coryston seldom wore colors, but the richest of black silks and satins and the finest of laces were pressed night and day into the service of her masterful good looks. She made her own fashions. Amid the large and befeathered hats of the day, for instance, she alone wore habitually a kind of coif made of thin black lace on her fair face, the lappets of which were fastened with a diamond close beneath her chin. For the country she invented modifications of her London dress, which, while loose and comfortable, were scarcely less stately. And whatever she wore seemed always part and parcel of her formidable self. In Marcia's eyes, her mother was a wonderful being--oppressively wonderful--whom she could never conveniently forget. Other people's mothers were, so to speak, furniture mothers. They became the chimney-corner, or the sofa; they looked well in combination, gave no trouble, and could be used for all the common purposes of life. But Lady Coryston could never be used. On the contrary, her husband--while he lived--her three sons, and her daughter, had always appeared to her in the light of so many instruments of her own ends. Those ends were not the ends of other women. But did it very much matter? Marcia would sometimes ask herself. They seemed to cause just as much friction and strife and bad blood as other people's ends. As the girl sat silent, looking down on the bald heads of a couple of Ministers on the Front Bench, she was uneasily conscious of her mother as of some charged force ready to strike. And, indeed, given the circumstances of the family, on that particular afternoon, nothing could be more certain than blows of some kind before long.... "You see Mr. Lester?" said her mother, abruptly. "I thought Arthur would get him in." Marcia's dreaminess departed. Her eyes ran keenly along the benches of the Strangers' Gallery opposite till they discovered the dark head of a man who was leaning forward on his elbows, closely attentive, apparently, to the debate. "Has he just come in?" "A minute or two ago. It means, I suppose, that Arthur told him he expected to be up about seven. When will this idiot have done!" said Lady Coryston, impatiently. But the elderly gentleman from the Highlands, to whom she thus unkindly referred, went on humming and hawing as before, while the House lumbered or fidgeted, hats well over noses and legs stretched to infinity. "Oh, there is Arthur!" cried Marcia, having just discovered her brother among the shadows under the gallery to the left. "I couldn't make him out before. One can see he's on wires." For while everybody else, after the excitement of the two opening speeches, which was now running its course through the crowded lobbies outside, had sunk into somnolence within the House itself, the fair-haired youth on whom her eyes were bent was sitting erect on the edge of his seat, papers in hand, his face turned eagerly toward the speaker on the other side of the House. His attitude gave the impression of one just about to spring to his feet. But Marcia was of opinion that he would still have to wait some time before springing. She knew the humming and hawing gentleman--had heard him often before. He was one of those plagues of debate who rise with ease and cease with difficulty. She would certainly have time to get a cup of tea and come back. So with a word to her mother she groped her way through the dark gallery across the corridor toward a tearoom. But at the door of the gallery she turned back. There through the lattice which shuts in the Ladies' Gallery, right across the House, she saw the Strangers' Gallery at the other end. The man whose head had been propped on his hands when she first discovered his presence was now sitting upright, and seemed to be looking straight at herself, though she knew well that no one in the Ladies' Gallery was really visible from any other part of the House. His face was a mere black-and-white patch in the distance. But she imagined the clear, critical eyes, their sudden frown or smile. "I wonder what _he_'ll think of Arthur's speech--and whether he's seen Coryston. I wonder whether he knows there's going to be an awful row to-night. Coryston's mad!" Coryston was her eldest brother, and she was very fond of him. But the way he had been behaving!--the way he had been defying mamma!--it was really ridiculous. What could he expect? She seemed to be talking to the distant face, defending her mother and herself with a kind of unwilling deference. "After all, do I really care what he thinks?" She turned and went her way to the tearoom. As she entered it she saw some acquaintances at the farther end, who waved their hands to her, beckoning her to join them. She hastened across the room, much observed by the way, and conscious of the eyes upon her. It was a relief to find herself among a group of chattering people. Meanwhile at the other end of the room three ladies were finishing their tea. Two of them were the wives of Liberal Ministers--by name, Mrs. Verity and Mrs. Frant. The third was already a well-known figure in London society and in the precincts of the House of Commons--the Ladies' Gallery, the Terrace, the dining-rooms--though she was but an unmarried girl of two-and-twenty. Quite apart, however, from her own qualities and claims, Enid Glenwilliam was conspicuous as the only daughter of the most vigorously hated and ardently followed man of the moment--the North Country miner's agent, who was now England's Finance Minister. "You saw who that young lady was?" said Mrs. Frant to Miss Glenwilliam. "I thought you knew her." "Marcia Coryston? I have just been introduced to her. But she isn't allowed to know me!" The laugh that accompanied the words had a pleasant childish chuckle in it. Mrs. Frant laughed also. "Girls, I suppose, have to do what they're told," she said, dryly. "But it _was_ Arthur Coryston, wasn't it, who sent you that extra order for to-day, Enid?" "Yes," laughed the girl again; "but I am quite certain he didn't tell his mother! We must really be civil and go back to hear him speak. His mother will think it magnificent, anyway. She probably wrote it for him. He's quite a nice boy--but--" She shook her head over him, softly smiling to herself. The face which smiled had no very clear title to beauty, but it was arresting and expressive, and it had beautiful points. Like the girl's figure and dress, it suggested a self-conscious, fastidious personality: egotism, with charm for its weapon. "I wonder what Lady Coryston thinks of her eldest son's performances in the papers this morning!" said lively little Mrs. Frant, throwing up hands and eyes. Mrs. Verity, a soft, faded woman, smiled responsively. "They can't be exactly dull in that family," she said. "I'm told they all talk at once; and none of them listens to a word the others say." "I think I'll bet that Lady Coryston will make Lord Coryston listen to a few remarks on that speech!" laughed Enid Glenwilliam. "Is there such a thing as _matria potestas_? I've forgotten all the Latin I learned at Cambridge, so I don't know. But if there is, that's what Lady Coryston stands for. How splendid--to stand for anything--nowadays!" The three fell into an animated discussion of the Coryston family and their characteristics. Enid Glenwilliam canvassed them all at least as freely as her neighbors. But every now and then little Mrs. Frant threw her an odd look, as much as to say, "Am I really taken in?" * * * * * Meanwhile a very substantial old lady, scarcely less deliberate and finely finished, in spite of her size, than Lady Coryston herself, had taken a chair beside her in the gallery, which was still very empty. "My dear," she said, panting a little and grasping Lady Coryston's wrist, with a plump hand on which the rings sparkled--"My dear! I came to bring you a word of sympathy." Lady Coryston looked at her coldly. "Are you speaking of Coryston?" "Naturally. The only logical result of those proceedings last night would be, of course, the guillotine at Hyde Park Corner. Coryston wants our heads! There's nothing else to be said. I took the speeches for young men's nonsense--just midsummer madness, but I find people very angry. _Your_ son! one of _us_!" "I thought the speeches very clever," said Lady Coryston. "I'm rejoiced you take it so philosophically, my dear Emilia!"--the tone was a little snappish--"I confess I thought you would have been much distressed." "What's the good of being distressed? I have known Coryston's opinions for a long time. One has to _act_--of course," the speaker added, with deliberation. "Act? I don't understand." Lady Coryston did not enlighten her. Indeed, she did not hear her. She was bending forward eagerly. The fair-haired youth on the back benches, who had been so long waiting his turn, was up at last. It was a maiden speech, and a good one, as such things go. There was enough nervousness and not too much; enough assurance and not too much. The facts and figures in it had been well arranged. A modest jest or two tripped pleasantly out; and the general remarks at the end had been well chosen from the current stock, and were not unduly prolonged. Altogether a creditable effort, much assisted by the young man's presence and manner. He had no particular good looks, indeed; his nose ascended, his chin satisfied no one; but he had been a well-known bat in the Oxford eleven of his day, and was now a Yeomanry officer; he held himself with soldierly erectness, and his slender body, cased in a becoming pale waistcoat under his tail coat, carried a well-shaped head covered with thick and tumbling hair. The House filled up a little to hear him. His father had been a member of Parliament for twenty years, and a popular member. There was some curiosity to know what his son would make of his first speech. And springing from the good feeling which always animates the House of Commons on such occasions, there was a fair amount of friendly applause from both sides when he sat down. "Features the father, and takes after the mother!" said a white-haired listener in the Strangers' Gallery to himself, as the young man ceased speaking. "She's drilled him! Well, now I suppose I must go and congratulate her." He rose from his seat and began to make his way out. In the passage outside the Gallery he overtook and recognized the man whose entrance into the House Lady Coryston and her daughter had noticed about an hour earlier. "Well, what did you think of it, Lester?" The other smiled good-humoredly. "Capital! Everybody must make a beginning. He's taken a lot of pains." "It's a beastly audience!" said Sir Wilfrid Bury, in reply. "Don't I know it! Well, I'm off to congratulate. How does the catalogue get on?" "Oh, very well. I sha'n't finish till the summer. There's a good deal still to do at Coryston. Some of the things are really too precious to move about." "How do you get on with her ladyship?" asked the old man, gaily, lowering his voice. The young man smiled discreetly. "Oh, very well. I don't see very much of her." "I suppose she's pressed you into the service--makes you help Arthur?" "I looked out a few things for his speech to-day. But he has his own secretary." "You're not staying for the rest of the debate?" "No, I'm going back to St. James's Square. I have a heap of arrears to get through." "Do they put you up there? I know it's a huge house." "Yes. I have a bedroom and sitting-room there when I want them, and my own arrangements." "Ta-ta." Sir Wilfrid nodded pleasantly, and vanished into a side passage leading to the Ladies' Gallery. The young man, Reginald Lester, to whom he had been chatting, was in some sort a protégé of his own. It was Sir Wilfrid, indeed, who had introduced him, immediately after he had won an Oxford historical fellowship, to Lady Coryston, as librarian, for the highly paid work of cataloguing a superb collection of MSS. belonging to the Corystons. A generation earlier, Lester's father had been a brother officer of Sir Wilfrid's, in days when the Lester family was still rich, and before the crashing failure of the great banking-house of the name. Meanwhile, at the other end of the House of Commons, Lady Coryston had been sitting pleasantly absorbed, watching her son, who lay now like a man relieved, lolling on the half-empty bench, chatting to a friend beside him. His voice was still in her ears: mingled with the memory of other voices from old, buried times. For more than twenty years how familiar had she been with this political scene!--these galleries and benches, crowded or listless; these opposing Cabinets--the Ins and Outs--on either side of the historic table; the glitter of the Mace at its farther end; the books, the old morocco boxes, the tops of the official wigs, the ugly light which bathed it all; the exhausted air, the dreariness, the boredom! all worth while, these last, just for the moments, the crises, the play of personalities, the conflict of giants, of which they were the inevitable conditions. There, on the second bench above the gangway on the Tory side, her husband, before he succeeded to the title, had sat through four Parliaments. And from the same point of vantage above she had watched him year after year, coming in and out, speaking occasionally, never eloquent or brilliant, but always respected; a good, worthy, steady-going fellow with whom no one had any fault to find, least of all his wife, to whom he had very easily given up the management of their common life, while he represented her political opinions in Parliament much more than his own. Until--until? Well, until in an evil hour, a great question, the only political question on which he differed and had always differed from his wife, on which he felt he _must_ speak for himself and stand on his own feet, arose to divide them. There, in that Gallery, she had sat, with rage and defeat in her heart, watching him pass along, behind the Speaker's chair, toward the wrong division lobby, his head doggedly held down, as though he knew and felt her eyes upon him, but must do his duty all the same. On this one matter he had voted against her, spoken against her, openly flouted and disavowed her. And it had broken down their whole relation, poisoned their whole life. "Women are natural tyrants," he had said to her once, bitterly--"no man could torment me as you do." And then had come his death--his swift last illness, with those tired eyes still alive in the dumb face, after speech and movement were no longer possible--eyes which were apt to close when she came near. And yet, after all--the will!--the will which all his relations and friends had taken as the final expression of his life's weakness, his miserable failure to play the man in his own household, and in which _she_, his wife, had recognized with a secret triumph his last effort to propitiate her, his last surrender to her. Everything left to her, both land and personalty, everything! save for a thousand a year to each of the children, and fifteen hundred a year to Coryston, his heir. The great Irish, the great Devonshire properties, the accumulated savings of a lifetime, they were all hers--hers absolutely. Her husband had stood last in the entail; and with a view to her own power, she had never allowed him to renew it. Coryston had been furiously angry when the terms of his father's will were revealed. She could never think without shivering of certain scenes, with Coryston in the past--of a certain other scene that was still to come. Well, it had been a duel between them; and after apparently sore defeat, she had won, so far as influence over his father was concerned. And since his father's death she had given him every chance. He had only to hold his tongue, to keep his monstrous, _sans-culotte_ opinions to himself, at least, if he could not give them up; and she would have restored him his inheritance, would have dealt with him not only justly, but generously. He had chosen; he had deliberately chosen. Well, now then it was for her--as she had said to old Lady Frensham--it was for her to reply, but not in words only. She fell back upon the thought of Arthur, Arthur, her darling; so manly, and yet so docile; so willing to be guided! Where was he, that she might praise him for his speech? She turned, searching the dark doorway with her eyes. But there was no Arthur, only the white head and smiling countenance of her old friend, Sir Wilfrid Bury, who was beckoning to her. She hurriedly bade Marcia, who had just returned to the Gallery, to keep her seat for her, and went out into the corridor to speak to him. "Well, not bad, was it? These youngsters have got the trick! I thought it capital. But I dare say you'll have all sorts of fault to find, you most exacting of women!" "No, no; it was good," she said, eagerly. "And he's improving fast." "Well then"--the wise old eyes beside her laughed kindly into hers--"be content, and don't take Coryston's escapades too hardly!" She drew back, and her long face and haughty mouth stiffened in the way he knew. "Are you coming to see me on Sunday?" she said, quietly. He took his snubbing without resentment. "I suppose so. I don't often miss, do I? Well, I hear Marcia was the beauty at the Shrewsbury House ball, and that--" he whispered something, laughing in her ear. Lady Coryston looked a little impatient. "Oh, I dare say. And if it's not he, it will be some one else. She'll marry directly. I always expected it. Well, now I must go. Have you seen Arthur?" "Mother! Hullo, Sir Wilfrid!" There was the young orator, flushed and radiant. But his mother could say very little to him, for the magnificent person in charge of the Gallery and its approaches intervened. "No talking allowed here, sir, please." Even Lady Coryston must obey. All she could add to her hurried congratulations was: "You're coming in to-night, remember, Arthur?--nine-thirty." "Yes, I've paired. I'm coming. But what on earth's up, mother?" Her lips shut closely. "Remember, nine-thirty!" She turned and went back into the darkness of the Gallery. Arthur hesitated a moment in the passage outside. Then he turned back toward the little entrance-room opposite the entrance to the ordinary Ladies' Gallery, where he found another attendant. "Is Miss Glenwilliam here?" he inquired, carelessly. "Yes, sir, in the front row, with Mrs. Verity and Mrs. Frant. Do you wish to speak to her, sir? The Gallery's pretty empty." Arthur Coryston went in. The benches sloped upward, and on the lowest one, nearest the grille, he saw the lady of his quest, and was presently bending over her. "Well," he said, flushing, "I suppose you thought it all bosh!" "Not at all! That's what you have to say. What else can you say? You did it excellently." Her lightly mocking eyes looked into his. His flush deepened. "Are you going to be at the Frenshams' dance?" he asked her, presently. "We're not invited. They're too savage with father. But we shall be at the Opera to-morrow night." His face lightened. But no more talk was possible. A Minister was up, and people were crowding back into the Gallery. He hurriedly pressed her hand and departed. CHAPTER II Lady Coryston and her daughter had made a rapid and silent meal. Marcia noticed that her mother was unusually pale, and attributed it partly to the fatigue and bad air of the House of Commons, partly to the doings of her eldest brother. What were they all going to meet for after dinner--her mother, her three brothers, and herself? They had each received a formal summons. Their mother "wished to speak to them on important business." So Arthur--evidently puzzled--had paired for the evening, and would return from the House at nine-thirty; James had written to say he would come, and Coryston had wired an hour before dinner--"Inconvenient, but will turn up." What was it all about? Some business matter clearly. Marcia knew very well that the family circumstances were abnormal. Mothers in Lady Coryston's position, when their husbands expire, generally retire to a dower-house, on a jointure; leaving their former splendors--the family mansion and the family income--behind them. They step down from their pedestal, and efface themselves; their son becomes the head of the family, and the daughter-in-law reigns in place of the wife. Nobody for many years past could ever have expected Lady Coryston to step down from anything. Although she had brought but a very modest dowry, such from earliest days had been the strength and dominance of her character, that her divine right of rule in the family had never been seriously questioned by any of her children except Coryston; although James, who had inherited money from his grandmother, was entirely independent of her, and by the help of a detached and humorous mind could often make his mother feel the stings of criticism, when others were powerless. And as for Coryston, who had become a quasi-Socialist at Cambridge, and had ever since refused to suit his opinions in the slightest degree to his mother's, his long absences abroad after taking his degree had for some years reduced the personal friction between them; and it was only since his father's death, which had occurred while he himself was in Japan, and since the terms of his father's will had been known, that Coryston had become openly and angrily hostile. Why should Coryston, a gentleman who denounced property, and was all for taxing land and landlords into the Bankruptcy Court, resent so bitterly his temporary exclusion from the family estates? Marcia could not see that there was any logical answer. If landlordism was the curse of England, why be angry that you were not asked to be a landlord? And really--of late--his behavior! Never coming to see his mother--writing the most outrageous things in support of the Government--speaking for Radical candidates in their very own county--denouncing by name some of their relations and old family friends: he had really been impossible! Meanwhile Lady Coryston gave her daughter no light on the situation. She went silently up-stairs, followed by Marcia. The girl, a slight figure in white, mounted unwillingly. The big, gloomy house oppressed her as she passed through it. The classical staircase with its stone-colored paint and its niches holding bronze urns had always appeared to her since her childhood as the very top of dreariness; and she particularly disliked the equestrian portrait of her great-grandfather by an early Victorian artist, which fronted her as she ascended, in the gallery at the top of the staircase, all the more that she had been supposed from her childhood to be like the portrait. Brought up as she had been in the belief that family and heredity are the master forces of life, she resented this teasing association with the weak, silly fellow on the ill-balanced rocking-horse whose double chin, button nose, and receding forehead not even the evident flattery of the artist had been able to disguise. Her hatred of the picture often led her to make a half-protesting pause in front of the long Chippendale mirror which hung close to it. She made it to-night. Indeed, the dim reflection in the glass might well have reassured her. Dark eyes and hair, a brunette complexion, grace, health, physical strength--she certainly owed none of these qualities or possessions to her ancestor. The face reminded one of ripe fruit--so rich was the downy bloom on the delicate cheeks, so vivid the hazel of the wide black-fringed eyes. A touch of something heavy and undecided in the lower part of the face made it perhaps less than beautiful. But any man who fell in love with her would see in this defect only the hesitancy of first youth, with its brooding prophecy of passion, of things dormant and powerful. Face and form were rich--quite unconsciously--in that magic of sex which belongs to only a minority of women, but that, a minority drawn from all ranks and occupations. Marcia Coryston believed herself to be interested in many things--in books, in the Suffrage, in the girls' debating society of which she was the secretary, in politics, and in modern poetry. In reality her whole being hung like some chained Andromeda at the edge of the sea of life, expecting Perseus. Her heart listened for him perpetually--the unknown!--yearning for his call, his command.... There were many people--witness Sir Wilfrid Bury's remark to her mother--who had already felt this magic in her. Without any conscious effort of her own she had found herself possessed, in the course of three seasons since her coming out, of a remarkable place in her own circle and set. She was surrounded by a court of young people, men and women; she received without effort all the most coveted invitations; she was watched, copied, talked about; and rumor declared that she had already refused--or made her mother refuse for her--one or more of the men whom all other mothers desired to capture. This quasi-celebrity had been achieved no one quite knew how, least of all Marcia herself. It had not, apparently, turned her head, though those who knew her best were aware of a vein of natural arrogance in her character. But in manner she remained _nonchalant_ and dreamy as before, with just those occasional leaps to the surface of passionate, or scornful, or chivalrous feeling which made her interesting. Her devotion to her mother was plain. She espoused all her mother's opinions with vehemence, and would defend her actions, in the family or out of it, through thick and thin. But there were those who wondered how long the subservience would last, supposing the girl's marriage were delayed. As to the gossip repeated by Sir Wilfrid Bury, it referred to the latest of Marcia's adventures. Her thoughts played with the matter, especially with certain incidents of the Shrewsbury House ball, as she walked slowly into the drawing-room in her mother's wake. The drawing-room seemed to her dark and airless. Taste was not the Coryston strong point, and this high, oblong room was covered with large Italian pictures, some good, some indifferent, heavily framed, and hung on wine-colored damask. A feebly false Guido Reni, "The Sacrifice of Isaac," held the center of one wall, making vehement claim to be just as well worth looking at as the famous Titian opposite. The Guido had hung there since 1820, and what was good enough for the Corystons of that date was good enough for their descendants, who were not going to admit that their ancestors were now discredited--laughed out of court--as collectors, owing to the labors of a few middle-aged intellectuals. The floor was held by a number of gilt chairs and sofas covered also in wine-colored damask, or by tables holding _objets d'art_ of the same mixed quality as the pictures. Even the flowers, the stands of splendid azaleas and early roses with which the room was lavishly adorned, hardly produced an impression of beauty. Marcia, looking slowly round her with critical eyes, thought suddenly of a bare room she knew in a Roman palace, some faded hangings in dull gold upon the walls, spaces of light and shadow on the empty matted floor, and a great branch of Judas tree in blossom lighting up a corner. The memory provoked in her a thrill of sensuous pleasure. Meanwhile Lady Coryston was walking slowly up and down, her hands behind her. She looked very thin and abnormally tall; and Marcia saw her profile, sharply white, against the darkness of the wall. A vague alarm struck through the daughter's mind. What was her mother about to say or do? Till now Marcia had rather lazily assumed that the meeting would concern some matter of family property--some selling or buying transaction--which a mother, even in the abnormally independent position Lady Coryston, might well desire to communicate to her children. There had been a family meeting in the preceding year when the Dorsetshire property had been sold under a recent Act of Parliament. Coryston wouldn't come. "I take no interest in the estates "--he had written to his mother. "They're your responsibility, not mine." And yet of course Coryston would inherit some day. That was taken for granted among them. What were Tory principles worth if they did not some time, at some stage, secure an eldest son, and an orthodox succession? Corry was still in the position of heir, when he should normally have become owner. It was very trying for him, no doubt. But exceptional women make exceptional circumstances. And they were all agreed that their mother was an exceptional woman. But whatever the business, they would hardly get through without a scene, and during the past week there had been a number of mysterious interviews with lawyers going on.... What was it all about? To distract her thoughts she struck up conversation. "Did you see Enid Glenwilliam, mother, in Palace Yard?" "I just noticed her," said Lady Coryston, indifferently. "One can't help it, she dresses so outrageously." "Oh, mother, she dresses very well! Of course nobody else could wear that kind of thing." Lady Coryston lifted her eyebrows. "That's where the ill-breeding comes in--that a young girl should make herself so conspicuous." "Well, it seems to pay," laughed Marcia. "She has tremendous success. People on our side--people you'd never think--will do anything to get her for their parties. They say she makes things go. She doesn't care what she says." "That I can quite believe! Yes--I saw she was at Shrewsbury House the other day--dining--when the Royalties were there. The daughter of that _man_!" Lady Coryston's left foot gave a sharp push to a footstool lying in her path, as though it were Glenwilliam himself. Marcia laughed. "And she's very devoted to him, too. She told some one who told me, that he was so much more interesting than any other man she knew, that she hadn't the least wish to marry! I suppose you wouldn't like it if I were to make a friend of her?" The girl's tone had a certain slight defiance in it. "Do what you like when I'm gone, my dear," said Lady Coryston, quietly. Marcia flushed, and would have replied, but for the sudden and distant sound of the hall-door bell. Lady Coryston instantly stopped her pacing and took her seat beside a table on which, as Marcia now noticed, certain large envelopes had been laid. The girl threw herself into a low chair behind her mother, conscious of a distress, a fear, she could not analyze. There was a small fire in the grate, for the May evening was chilly, but on the other side of the room a window was open to the twilight, and in a luminous sky cut by the black boughs of a plane tree, and the roofs of a tall building, Marcia saw a bright star shining. The heavy drawing-room, with its gilt furniture and its electric lights, seemed for a moment blotted out. That patch of sky suggested strange, alien, inexorable things; while all the time the sound of mounting footsteps on the stairs grew nearer. In they came, her three brothers, laughing and talking. Coryston first, then James, then Arthur. Lady Coryston rose to meet them, and they all kissed their mother. Then Coryston, with his hands on his sides, stood in front of her, examining her face with hard, amused eyes, as much as to say, "Now, then, for the scene. Let's get it over!" He was the only one of the three men who was not in evening dress. He wore, indeed, a shabby greenish-gray suit, and a flannel shirt. Marcia noticed it with indignation. "It's not respectful to mother!" she thought, angrily. "It's all very well to be a Socialist and a Bohemian. But there are decencies!" In spite, however, of the shabby suit and the flannel shirt, in spite also of the fact that he was short and very slight, while his brothers were both of them over six feet and broadly built men, there could be no doubt that, as soon as he entered, Coryston held the stage. He was one of the mercurial men who exist in order to keep the human tide in movement. Their opinions matter principally because without them the opinions of other men would not exist. Their function is to provoke. And from the time he was a babe in the nursery Coryston had fulfilled it to perfection. He himself would have told you he was simply the reaction from his mother. And indeed, although from the time he had achieved trousers their joint lives had been one scene of combat, they were no sooner in presence of each other than the strange links between them made themselves felt no less than the irreconcilable differences. Now, indeed, as, after a few bantering remarks to his mother on his recent political escapades--remarks which she took in complete silence--he settled himself in a high chair in front of her to listen to what she had to say, no subtle observer of the scene but must have perceived the likeness--through all contrast--between mother and son. Lady Coryston was tall, large-boned, thin to emaciation, imposing--a Lady Macbeth of the drawing-room. Coryston was small, delicately finished, a whimsical snippet of a man--on wires--never at ease--the piled fair hair overbalancing the face and the small, sarcastic chin. And yet the essential note of both physiognomies, of both aspects, was the same. _Will_--carried to extremes, absorbing and swallowing up the rest of the personality. Lady Coryston had handed on the disease of her own character to her son, and it was in virtue of what she had given him that she had made him her enemy. Her agitation in his presence, in spite of her proud bearing, was indeed evident, at least to Marcia. Marcia read her; had indeed been compelled to read her mother--the movements of hand and brow, the tricks of expression--from childhood up. And she detected, from various signs of nervousness, that Lady Coryston expected a rough time. She led the way to it, however, with deliberation. She took no notice of Coryston's, "Well, mother, what's up? Somebody to be tried and executed?" but, waving to him to take a particular chair, she asked the others to sit, and placed herself beside the table which held the sheets of folded foolscap. The ugly electric light from overhead fell full upon the pallid oval of her face, on her lace cap, and shimmering black dress. Only Marcia noticed that the hand which took up the foolscap shook a little. It was an old hand, delicately white, with large finger-joints. "I can't pretend to make a jest of what I'm going to say," she said, with a look at Coryston. "I wanted to speak to you all on a matter of business--not very agreeable business, but necessary. I am sure you will hear me out, and believe that I am doing my best, according to my lights, by the family--the estates--and the country." At the last slowly spoken words Lady Coryston drew herself up. Especially when she said "the country," it was as though she mentioned something peculiarly her own, something attacked which fled to her for protection. Marcia looked round on her three brothers: Coryston sunk in a big gilt chair, one leg cocked over the other, his fingers lightly crossed above his head; James with his open brow, his snub nose, his charming expression; and Arthur, who had coaxed Lady Coryston's spaniel on to his lap and was pulling his ears. He looked, she thought, bored and only half attentive. And yet she was tolerably certain that he knew no more than she did what Was going to happen. "I am quite aware," said Lady Coryston, resuming after a pause, "that in leaving his estates and the bulk of his fortune to myself your dear father did an unusual thing, and one for which many persons have blamed him--" Coryston's cocked leg descended abruptly to the ground. Marcia turned an anxious eye upon him; but nothing more happened, and the voice speaking went on: "He did it, as I believe you have all recognized, because he desired that in these difficult times, when everything is being called in question, and all our institutions, together with the ideas which support them, are in danger, I should, during my lifetime, continue to support and carry out his ideas--the ideas he and I had held in common--and should remain the guardian of all those customs and traditions on his estates which he had inherited--and in which he believed--" Coryston suddenly sat up, shook down his coat vehemently, and putting his elbows on his knees, propped his face on them, the better to observe his mother. James was fingering his watch-chain, with downcast eyes, the slightest smile on his gently twitching mouth; Arthur was measuring one ear of the spaniel against the other. "Two years," said Lady Coryston, "have now passed since your father's death. I have done my best with my trust, though of course I realize that I cannot have satisfied _all_ my children." She paused a moment. "I have not wasted any of your father's money in personal luxury--that none of you can say. The old establishment, the old ways, have been kept up--nothing more. And I have certainly _wished_"--she laid a heavy emphasis on the word--"to act for the good of all of you. You, James, have your own fortune, but I think you know that if you had wanted money at any time, for any reasonable purpose, you had only to ask for it. Marcia also has her own money; but when it comes to her marriage, I desire nothing better than to provide for her amply. And now, as to Coryston--" She turned to him, facing him magnificently, though not, as Marcia was certain, without trepidation. Coryston flung back his head with a laugh. "Ah, now we come to it!" he said. "The rest was all 'but leather and prunella.'" James murmured, "Corry--old man?" Marcia flushed angrily. "Coryston also knows very well," said Lady Coryston, coldly, "that everything he could possibly have claimed--" "Short of the estates--which were my right," put in Coryston, quietly, with an amused look. His mother went on without noticing the interruption: "--would have been his--either now or in due time--if he would only have made certain concessions--" "Sold my soul and held my tongue?--quite right!" said Coryston. "I have scores of your letters, my dear mother, to that effect." Lady Coryston slightly raised her voice, and for the first time it betrayed emotion. "If he would, in simple decent respect to his father's memory and consideration of his mother's feelings, have refrained from attacking his father's convictions--" "What!--you think he still has them--in the upper regions?" Coryston flung an audacious hand toward the ceiling. Lady Coryston grew pale. Marcia looked fiercely at her brother, and, coming to her mother's side, she took her hand. "Your brothers and sister, Coryston, will not allow you, I think, to insult your father's memory!" The voice audibly shook. Coryston sprang up impetuously and came to stand over his mother, his hands on his sides. "Now look here, mother. Let's come to business. You've been plotting something more against me, and I want to know what it is. Have you been dishing me altogether?--cutting me finally out of the estates? Is that what you mean? Let's have it!" Lady Coryston's face stiffened anew into a gray obstinacy. "I prefer, Coryston, to tell my story in my own words and in my own way--" "Yes--but please _tell_ it!" said Coryston, sharply. "Is it fair to keep us on tenter-hooks? What is that paper, for instance? Extracts, I guess, from your will--which concern me--and the rest of them"--he waved his hand toward the other three. "For God's sake let's have them, and get done with it." "I will read them, if you will sit down, Coryston." With a whimsical shake of the head Coryston returned to his chair. Lady Coryston took up the folded paper. "Coryston guessed rightly. These are the passages from my will which concern the estates. I should like to have explained before reading them, in a way as considerate to my eldest son as possible" she looked steadily at Coryston--"the reasons which have led me to take this course. But--" "No, no! Business first and pleasure afterward!" interrupted the eldest son. "Disinherit me and then pitch into me. You get at me unfairly while I'm speculating as to what's coming." "I think," said Marcia, in a tone trembling with indignation, "that Coryston is behaving abominably." But her brothers did not respond, and Coryston looked at his sister with lifted brows. "Go it, Marcia!" he said, indulgently. Lady Coryston began to read. Before she had come to the end of her first paragraph Coryston was pacing the drawing-room, twisting his lips into all sorts of shapes, as was his custom when the brain was active. And with the beginning of the second, Arthur sprang to his feet. "I say, mother!" "Let me finish?" asked Lady Coryston with a hard patience. She read to the end of the paper. And with the last words Arthur broke out: "I won't have it, mother! It's not fair on Corry. It's beastly unfair!" Lady Coryston made no reply. She sat quietly staring into Arthur's face, her hands, on which the rings sparkled, lightly clasped over the paper which lay upon her knee. James's expression was one of distress. Marcia sat dumfoundered. James approached his mother. "I think, mother, you will hardly maintain these provisions." She turned toward him. "Yes, James, I shall maintain them." Meanwhile Arthur, deeply flushed, stood running his hand through his fair hair as though in bewilderment. "I sha'n't take it, mother! I give you full warning. Whenever it comes to me I shall hand it back to Corry." "It won't come to you, except as a life interest. The estates will be in trust," said Lady Coryston. Coryston gave a loud, sudden laugh, and stood looking at his mother from a little distance. "How long have you been concocting this, mother? I suppose my last speeches have contributed?" "They have made me finally certain that your father could never have intrusted you with the estates." "How do you know? He meant me to have the property if I survived you. The letter which he left for me said as much." "He gave me absolute discretion," said Lady Coryston, firmly. "At least you have taken it!" said Coryston, with emphasis. "Now let's see how things stand." He paused, a thin, wiry figure, under the electric light, checking off the items on his fingers. "On the ground of my political opinion--you cut me out of the succession. Arthur is to have the estates. And you propose to buy me off by an immediate gift of seven thousand a year in addition to my present fortune--the whole income from the land and the tin-mines being, I understand, about ten times that; and you intend to sell certain outlying properties in order to do this. That's your proposal. Well, now, here's mine. I won't take your seven thousand a year! I will have all--all, that is, which would have normally come to me--or _nothing_!" He stood gazing intently at his mother's face, his small features sparkling. "I will have all--or nothing!" he repeated. "Of course I don't deny it for a moment, if the property had come to me I should have made all sorts of risky experiments with it. I should have cut it up into small holdings. I should have pulled down the house or made it into a county hospital." "You make it your business to wound, Coryston." "No, I simply tell you what I should have done. And I should have been _absolutely in my right_!" He brought his hand down with passion on the chair beside him. "My father had his way. In justice I--the next generation--ought to have mine. These lands were not yours. You have no moral rights over them whatever. They come from my father, and his father. There is always something to be said for property, so long as each generation is free to make its own experiments upon it. But if property is to be locked in the dead hand, so that the living can't get at it, _then_ it is what the Frenchman called it, _theft_!--or worse.... Well, I'm not going to take this quietly, I warn you. I refuse the seven thousand a year! and if I can't possess the property--well!--I'm going to a large extent to manage it!" Lady Coryston started. "Cony!" cried Marcia, passionately. "I have a responsibility toward my father's property," said Coryston, calmly. "And I intend to settle down upon it, and try and drum a few sound ideas into the minds of our farmers and laborers. Owing to my absurd title I can't stand for our parliamentary division--but I shall look out for somebody who suits me, and run him. You'll find me a nuisance, mother, I'm afraid. But you've done your best for your principles. Don't quarrel with me if I do the best for mine. Of course I know it's hard for you. You would always have liked to manage me. But I never could be managed--least of all by a woman." Lady Coryston rose from her seat. "James!--Arthur!--" The voice had regained all its strength. "You will understand, I think, that it is better for me to leave you. I do not wish that either Coryston or I should say things we should afterward find it hard to forgive. I had a public duty to do. I have performed it. Try and understand me. Good night." "You will let me come and see you to-morrow?" said James, anxiously. She made no reply. Then James and Arthur kissed her, Marcia threw an arm round her and went with her, the girl's troubled, indignant eyes holding Coryston at bay the while. As Lady Coryston approached the door her eldest son made a sudden rush and opened it for her. "Good night, mother. We'll play a great game, you and I--but we'll play fair." Lady Coryston swept past him without a word. The door closed on her and Marcia. Then Coryston turned, laughing, to his brother Arthur, and punched him in the ribs. "I say, Arthur, old boy, you talked a jolly lot of nonsense this afternoon! I slipped into the Gallery a little to hear you." Arthur grew red. "Of course it was nonsense to you!" "What did Miss Glenwilliam say to you?" "Nothing that matters to you, Corry." "Arthur, my son, you'll be in trouble, too, before you know where you are!" "Do hold your tongue, Corry!" "Why should I? I back you strongly. But you'll have to stick to her. Mother will fight you for all she's worth." "I'm no more to be managed than you, if it comes to that." "Aren't you? You're the darling, at present. I don't grudge you the estates, Arthur." "I never lifted a finger to get them," said Arthur, moodily. "And I shall find a way of getting out of them--the greater part of them, anyway. All the same, Corry, if I do--you'll have to give guarantees." "Don't you wish you may get them! Well now"--Coryston gave a great stretch--"can't we have a drink? You're the master here, Arthur. Just order it. James, did you open your mouth while mother was here? I don't remember. You looked unutterable things. But nobody could be as wise as you look. I tell you, though you are a philosopher and a man of peace, you'll have to take sides in this family row, whether you like it or not. Ah! Here's the whisky. Give us a cigar. Now then, we'll sit on this precious paper!" He took up the roll his mother had left behind her and was soon sipping and puffing in the highest good humor, while he parodied and mocked at the legal phraseology of the document which had just stripped him of seventy thousand a year. Half an hour later the brothers had dispersed, Coryston and James to their bachelor quarters, Arthur to the House of Commons. The front door was no sooner shut than a slender figure in white emerged from the shadows of the landing overhead. It was Marcia, carrying a book. She came to the balustrade and looked over into the hall below. Nothing to be heard or seen. Her brothers, she perceived, had not left the house from the drawing-room. They must have adjourned to the library, the large ground-floor room at the back. "Then Mr. Lester knows," she thought, indignantly. "Just like Corry!" And her pride revolted against the notion of her brothers discussing her mother's actions, her mother's decisions, with this stranger in the house. It was quite true that Mr. Lester had been a friend both of Arthur and of Coryston at Oxford, and that Arthur in particular was devoted to him. But that did not excuse the indiscretion, the disloyalty, of bringing him into the family counsels at such a juncture. Should she go down? She was certain she would never get to sleep after these excitements, and she wanted the second volume of _Diana of the Crossways_. Why not? It was only just eleven. None of the lights had yet been put out. Probably Mr. Lester had gone to bed. She ran down lightly, and along the passage leading to the library. As she opened the door, what had been light just before became suddenly darkness, and she heard some one moving about. "Who is that?" said a voice. "Wait a moment." A little fumbling; and then a powerful reading-lamp, standing on a desk heaped with books midway down the large room, was relit. The light flashed toward the figure at the door. "Miss Coryston! I beg your pardon! I was just knocking off work. Can I do anything for you?" The young librarian came toward her. In the illumination from the passage behind her she saw his dark Cornish face, its red-brown color, broad brow, and blue eyes. "I came for a book," said Marcia, rather hurriedly, as she entered. "I know where to find it. Please don't trouble." She went to the shelves, found her volume, and turned abruptly. The temptation which possessed her proved too strong. "I suppose my brothers have been here?" Lester's pleasant face showed a certain embarrassment. "They have only just gone--at least, Arthur and Lord Coryston. James went some time ago." Marcia threw her head back defiantly against the latticed bookcase. "I suppose Corry has been attacking my mother?" Lester hesitated; then spoke with grave sincerity: "I assure you, he did nothing of the kind. I should not have let him." He smiled. "But they've told you--he and Arthur--they've told you what's happened?" "Yes," he said, reluctantly. "I tried to stop them." "As if anything could stop Corry!" cried Marcia--"when he wants to do something he knows he oughtn't to do. And he's told you his precious plan?--of coming to settle down at Coryston--in our very pockets--in order to make mother's life a burden to her?" "A perfectly mad whim!" said Lester, smiling again. "I don't believe he'll do it." "Oh yes, he will," said Marcia; "he'll do anything that suits his ideas. He calls it following his conscience. Other people's ideas and other people's consciences don't matter a bit." Lester made no answer. His eyes were on the ground. She broke out impetuously: "You think he's been badly treated?" "I had rather not express an opinion. I have no right to one." "Mayn't women care for politics just as strongly as men?" cried the girl, as though arguing the question with herself. "I think it's _splendid_ my mother should care as she does! Corry ought to respect her for it." Lester made a pretense of gathering up some papers on his desk, by way of covering his silence. Marcia observed him, with red cheeks. "But of course you don't, you can't, feel with us, Mr. Lester. You're a Liberal." "No!" he protested mildly, raising his eyes in surprise. "I really don't agree with Coryston at all. I don't intend to label myself just yet, but if I'm anything I think I'm a Conservative." "But you think other things matter more than politics?" "Ah yes," he said, smiling, "that I do. Especially--" He stopped. "Especially--for women?" The breaking of Marcia's delightful smile answered his. "You see, I guessed what you meant to say. What things? I think I know." "Beauty--poetry--sympathy. Wouldn't you put those first?" He spoke the words shyly, looking down upon her. There was something in the mere sound of them that thrilled, that made a music in the girl's ears. She drew a long breath, and suddenly, as he raised his eyes, he saw her as a white vision, lit up, Rembrandt-like, in the darkness, by the solitary light--the lines of her young form, the delicate softness of cheek and brow, the eager eyes. She held out her hand. "Good night. I shall see what Meredith has to say about it!" She held up her volume, ran to the door, and disappeared. CHAPTER III "Her ladyship says she would like to see you, Miss, before you go." The speaker was Lady Coryston's maid. She stood just within the doorway of the room where Marcia was dressing for the Opera, delivering her message mechanically, but really absorbed in the spectacle presented by the young girl before her. Sewell was an artist in her own sphere, and secretly envious of the greater range of combination which Marcia's youth and beauty made possible for the persons who dressed her, as compared with Lady Coryston. There are all kinds of subtle variants, no doubt, in "black," such as Lady Coryston habitually wore; and the costliness of them left nothing to be desired. But when she saw Marcia clothed in a new Worth or Paquin, Sewell was sorely tempted to desert her elderly mistress and go in search of a young one. "Come in, Sewell," cried Marcia. "What do you think of it?" The woman eagerly obeyed her. Marcia's little maid, Bellows, did the honors, and the two experts, in an ecstasy, chattered the language of their craft, while Marcia, amid her shimmering white and pink, submitted good-humoredly to being pulled about and twisted round, till after endless final touches, she was at last pronounced the perfect thing. Then she ran across the passage to her mother's sitting-room. Lady Coryston had complained of illness during the day and had not been down-stairs. But Marcia's experience was that when her mother was ill she was not less, but more active than usual, and that withdrawal to her sitting-room generally meant a concentration of energy. Lady Coryston was sitting with a writing-board on her knee, and a reading-lamp beside her, lighting a table covered with correspondence. Within her reach was a deep cupboard in the wall containing estate and business letters, elaborately labeled and subdivided. A revolving bookcase near carried a number of books of reference, and at her elbow, with the paper-knife inside it, lay a copy of the _Quarterly Review_. The walls of the room were covered with books--a fine collection of county histories, and a large number of historical memoirs and biographies. In a corner, specially lit, a large bust of the late Lord Coryston conveyed to a younger generation the troubled, interrogative look which in later life had been the normal look of the original. His portrait by Holl hung over the mantelpiece, flanked on either side by water-color pictures of his sons and daughter in their childhood. There was only one comfortable chair in the room, and Lady Coryston never sat in it. She objected to flowers as being in the way; and there was not a sign anywhere of the photographs and small knick-knacks which generally belitter a woman's sitting--room. Altogether, an ugly room, but characteristic, businesslike, and not without a dignity of its own. "Mother!--why don't you rest a little?" cried Marcia, eying the black-robed figure and the long pale face, marked by very evident fatigue. "You've been writing letters or seeing people all day. How long did James stay?" "About an hour." "And Mr. Page?" Mr. Page was the agent of the main Coryston estate. "Some time. There was a great deal to settle." "Did you"--the girl fidgeted--"did you tell him about Coryston?" "Certainly. He says there is only one house in the neighborhood he could take--" "He has taken it." Marcia opened her right hand, in which she crushed a telegram. "Bellows has just brought me this." Lady Coryston opened and read it. "Have taken Knatchett for three years. Tell mother." Lady Coryston's lips stiffened. "He has lost no time. He can vex and distress us, of course. We shall have to bear it." "Vex and distress us! I should think he can!" cried Marcia. "Has James been talking to him?" "I dare say," said Lady Coryston, adding, with a slight, sarcastic laugh, "James is a little too sure of being always in the right." From which Marcia guessed that James had not only been talking to Coryston, but also remonstrating with his mother, which no doubt accounted for Lady Coryston's worn-out looks. James had more effect upon her than most people; though never quite effect enough. Marcia stood with one foot on the fender, her gaze fixed on her mother in a frowning abstraction. And suddenly Lady Coryston, lifting her eyes, realized her daughter, and the vision that she made. "You look very well, Marcia. Have I seen that dress before?" "No. I designed it last week. Ah!"--the sound of a distant gong made itself heard--"there's the motor. Well, good night, mother. Take care of yourself and do go to bed soon." She stooped to kiss her mother. "Who's going with you?" "Waggin and James. Arthur may come in. He thinks the House will be up early. And I asked Mr. Lester. But he can't come for the first part." Her mother held her sleeve and looked up, smiling. Lady Coryston's smiles were scarcely less formidable than her frowns. "You expect to see Edward Newbury?" "I dare say. They have their box, as usual." "Well!--run off and enjoy yourself. Give my love to Miss Wagstaffe." "Waggin" was waiting in the hall for Marcia. She had been Miss Coryston's governess for five years, and was now in retirement on a small income, partly supplied by a pension from Lady Coryston. It was understood that when she was wanted to act duenna, she came--at a moment's notice. And she was very willing to come. She lived in an Earl's Court lodging, and these occasional expeditions with Marcia represented for her the gilt on her modest gingerbread. She was a small, refined woman, with a figure still slender, gray hair, and a quiet face. Her dresses were years old, but she had a wonderful knack of bringing them up-to-date, and she never did Marcia any discredit. She adored Marcia, and indeed all the family. Lady Coryston called her "Miss Wagstaffe"--but to the others, sons and daughter, she was only "Waggin." There were very few things about the Coryston family she did not know; but her discretion was absolute. As she saw Marcia running down-stairs her face lit up. "My dear, what a lovely gown!--and how sweet you look!" "Don't talk nonsense, Waggin!--and put on this rose I've brought for you!" Waggin submitted while Marcia adorned her and gave various pats and pulls to her hair. "There!--you look ten years younger," said the girl, with her bright look, stepping back. "But where is James?" The butler stepped forward. "Mr. James will meet you at the Opera." "Oh, good!" murmured Marcia in her companion's ear. "Now we can croon." And croon they did through the long crowded way to Covent Garden. By the time the motor reached St. Martin's Lane, Waggin was in possession of all that had happened. She had long expected it, having shrewdly noted many signs of Lady Coryston's accumulating wrath. But now that "Corry," her dear "Corry," with whom she had fought so many a schoolroom fight in the days of his Eton jackets, was really disinherited, her concern was great. Tears stood in her kind eyes. "Poor Corry!" alternated in her mouth with "Your poor mother!" Sinner and judge appealed equally to her pity. Marcia meanwhile sat erect and fierce. "What else could he expect? Father _did_ leave the estates to mother--just because Corry had taken up such views--so that she might keep us straight." [Illustration: AS SHE SAW MARCIA HER FACE LIT UP] "But _afterward_! My dear, he is so young! And young men change." Lady Coryston's death was not, of course, to be mentioned--except with this awe and vagueness--scarcely to be thought of. But hotter revolutionists than Corry have turned Tories by forty. Waggin harped on this theme. Marcia shook her head. "He won't change. Mother did not ask it. All she asked was--for her sake and father's--that he should hold his tongue." A flush sprang to Waggin's faded cheek. "A _man_!--a grown man!" she said, wondering--"forbid him to speak out--speak freely?" Marcia looked anxiously at her companion. It was very seldom that Waggin betrayed so much heat. "I know," said the girl, gloomily--"'Your money or your life'--for I suppose it sounds like that. Corry would say his convictions are his life. But why 'a man,' Waggin?" She straightened her pretty shoulders. "I don't believe you'd mind if it were a woman. You don't believe in a _woman_ having convictions!" Waggin looked a little bewildered. "I'm old-fashioned, I suppose--but--" Marcia laughed triumphantly. "Why shouldn't Corry respect his mother's convictions? She wants to prove that women oughtn't to shrink from fighting for what they believe, even--" "Even with their sons?" said Waggin, tremulously. "Lady Coryston is so splendid--so splendid!" "Even with their sons!" cried Marcia, vehemently. "You take it for granted, Waggin, that they trample on their daughters!" Waggin protested, and slipped her thin hand into the girl's. The note of storm in Marcia's mood struck her sharply. She tried, for a moment, to change the subject. Who, she asked, was a tall, fair girl whom she had seen with Mr. Arthur, "a week ago" at the National Gallery? "I took my little niece--and suddenly I turned, and there at the end of the room were Mr. Arthur--and this lady. Such a remarkable-looking young woman!--not exactly handsome--but you couldn't possibly pass her over." "Enid Glenwilliam!" exclaimed Marcia, with a startled voice. "But of course, Waggin, they weren't alone?" "Oh no--probably not!--though--though I didn't see any one else. They seemed so full of talk--I didn't speak to Mr. Arthur. _Who_ do you say she was?" repeated Waggin, innocently. Marcia turned upon her. "The daughter of the man mother hates most in the world! It's too bad of Arthur! It's abominable! It would kill mother if she knew! I've heard things said sometimes--but I never believed them for a moment. Oh, Waggin!--you _didn't_ see them alone?" The voice changed into what was almost a wail of indignation. "Of course Enid Glenwilliam would never consider appearances for a moment. She does exactly what suits her. She never bothers about chaperons, unless she absolutely must. When she sees what she wants she takes it. But _Arthur_!" Marcia leaned back in the car, and as in the crush of the traffic they passed under a lamp Waggin saw a countenance of genuine distress. "Oh, my dear, I'm so sorry to have worried you. How stupid of me to mention it! I'm sure there's nothing in it." "I've half suspected it for the last month," said Marcia with low-toned emphasis. "But I wouldn't believe it!--I shall tell Arthur what I think of him! Though, mind you, I admire Enid Glenwilliam myself enormously; but that's quite another thing. It's as though mother were never to have any pleasure in any of us! Nothing but worry and opposition!--behind her back, too." "My dear!--it was probably nothing! Girls do just as they like nowadays, and who notices!" said Waggin, disingenuously. "And as to pleasing your mother, I know somebody who has only to put out her hand--" "To please mother--and somebody else?" said Marcia, turning toward her with perfect composure. "You're thinking of Edward Newbury?" "Who else should I be thinking of!--after all you told me last week?" "Oh yes--I like Edward Newbury"--the tone betrayed a curious irritation--"and apparently he likes me. But if he tries to make me answer him too soon I shall say No, Waggin, and there will be an end of it!" "Marcia--dearest!--don't be cruel to him!" "No--but he mustn't press me! I've given him hints--and he won't take them. I can't make up my mind, Waggin. I can't! It's not only marrying him--it's the relations. Yesterday a girl I know described a week-end to me--at Hoddon Grey. A large, smart party--evening prayers in the private chapel, _before dinner_!--nobody allowed to breakfast in bed--everybody driven off to church--and such a _fuss_ about Lent! It made me shiver. I'm not that sort, Waggin--I never shall be." And as again a stream of light from a music-hall façade poured into the carriage, Waggin was aware of a flushed, rebellious countenance, and dark eyes full of some passionate feeling, not very easy to understand. "He is at your feet, dear goose!" murmured the little gray-haired lady--"make your own conditions!" "No, no!--never. Not with Edward Newbury! He seems the softest, kindest--and underneath--_iron_! Most people are taken in. I'm not." There was silence in the car. Waggin was uneasily pondering. Nothing--she knew it--would be more acceptable to Lady Coryston than this match, though she was in no sense a scheming mother, and had never taken any special pains on Marcia's behalf. Her mind was too full of other things. Still undoubtedly this would suit her. Old family--the young man himself heir presumptive to a marquisate money--high character--everything that mortal mother could desire. And Marcia was attracted--Waggin was certain of it. The mingled feeling with which she spoke of him proved it to the hilt. And yet--let not Mr. Newbury suppose that she was to be easily run to earth! In Waggin's opinion he had his work cut out for him. Covent Garden filled from floor to ceiling with a great audience for an important "first night"--there is no sight in London, perhaps, that ministers more sharply to the lust of modern eyes and the pride of modern life. Women reign supreme in it. The whole object of it is to provide the most gorgeous setting possible, for a world of women--women old and young--their beauty or their jewels, their white necks and their gray heads; the roses that youth wears--divinely careless; or the diamonds wherewith age must make amends for lost bloom and vanished years. Marcia never entered the Coryston box, which held one of the most coveted positions on the grand tier, without a vague thrill of exultation; that instinctive, overbearing delight in the goods of Vanity Fair, which the Greek called _hubris_, and which is only vile when it outlives youth. It meant in her--"I am young--I am handsome--the world is all on my side--who shall thwart or deny me?" To wealth, indeed, Marcia rarely gave a conscious thought, although an abundance of it was implied in all her actions and attitudes of mind. It would have seemed to her, at any rate, so strange to be without it, that poverty was not so much an object of compassion as of curiosity; the poverty, for instance, of such a man as Mr. Lester. But behind this ignorance there was no hardness of heart; only a narrow inexperience. The overture had begun--in a shadowy house. But the stream of the audience was still pouring in from all sides, in spite of the indignant "Hush" of those who wanted not to lose a note of something new and difficult. Marcia sat in the front of the box, conscious of being much looked at, and raising her own opera-glass from time to time, especially to watch the filling up of two rows of chairs on the floor, just below the lower tier of boxes. It was there that Mr. Newbury had told her to look for him. James, who had joined them at the entrance of the theater and was now hanging on the music, observed her once or twice uneasily. Presently he bent over. "Marcia--you vandal!--listen!" The girl started and blushed. "I don't understand the music, James!--it's so strange and barbarous." "Well, it isn't Glück, certainly," said James, smiling. Marcia turned her face toward it. And as she did so there rose from the crash of its opening tumult, like a hovering bird in a clear space of sky, a floating song of extraordinary loveliness. It rose and fell--winds caught it--snatches of tempest overpowered it--shrieking demons rushed upon it and silenced it. But it persisted; passing finally into a processional march, through which it was still dimly, mysteriously traceable to the end. "The song of Iphigenia!" said James. And as the curtain rose, "And here are the gulfs of Aulis, and the Greek host." The opera, by a young Bavarian of genius, a follower of Strauss, who had but recently captured Munich and Berlin, was based on the great play of Euripides, freely treated by a translator who had known, a hundred and fifty years after Glück, how to make it speak, through music, to more modern ears. It was carried through without any lowering of the curtain, and the splendid story unfolded itself through a music at once sensuous and heroic, with a swiftness and a passion which had soon gripped Covent Garden. There, in a thousand ships, bound motionless by unrelenting winds, lies the allied host that is to conquer Troy and bring back the stolen Helen. But at the bidding of Artemis, whose temple crowns the coast, fierce, contrary blasts keep it prisoner in the harbor. Hellas cannot avenge itself on the Phrygian barbarians who have carried off a free Greek woman. Artemis holds back the hunters from the prey. Why? Because, as goddess of the land, she claims her toll, the toll of human blood. Agamemnon, the leader of the host, distracted by fears of revolt and of the break-up of the army, has vowed to Artemis the dearest thing he possesses. The answer is, "Your daughter!--Iphigenia!" Under pressure from the other chiefs of the host, and from the priests, the stricken father consents at last to send a letter to Clytemnestra at Argos, bidding her bring their young daughter to the camp, on the pretext that she is to become the bride of the hero Achilles. The letter is no sooner despatched than, tormented with remorse, he tries to recall it. In vain. Mother and child arrive, with the babe Orestes; the mother full of exultant joy in such a marriage, the daughter thinking only of her father, on whose neck she throws herself with fond home prattle, lifting Orestes to him to kiss, saying tender, touching things--how she has missed him--how long the time has been.... The young singer, an American, with a voice and a magic reminding many an old frequenter of Covent Garden, through all difference, of Giulia Ravogli in her prime, played this poignant scene as though the superb music in which it was clothed was her natural voice, the mere fitting breath of the soul. Marcia sat arrested. The door of the box opened softly. A young man, smiling, stood in the doorway. Marcia, looking round, flushed deeply; but in the darkness only Waggin saw it. The girl beckoned to him. He came in noiselessly, nodded to James, bowed ceremoniously to Waggin, and took a seat beside Marcia. He bent toward her, whispering, "I saw you weren't very full, and I wanted to hear this--with you." "She's good!" was all that Marcia could find to whisper in return, with a motion of her face toward the Iphigenia. "Yes--but only as part of the poem! Don't mistake it--please!--for the ordinary 'star'--business." "But she is the play!" "She is the _idea_! She is the immortal beauty that springs out of sorrow. Watch the contrast between the death she shrinks from--and the death she accepts; between the horror--and the greatness! Listen!--here is the dirge music beginning." Marcia listened--with a strange tremor of pulse. Even through the stress of the music her mind went wandering over the past weeks, and those various incidents which had marked the growth of her acquaintance with the man beside her. How long had she known him? Since Christmas only? The Newburys and the Corystons were now neighbors indeed in the country; but it was not long since his father had inherited the old house of Hoddon Grey, and of the preceding three years Edward Newbury had spent nearly two in India. They had first met at a London dinner party; and their friendship, then begun, had ripened rapidly. But it was not till the Shrewsbury House ball that a note of excitement, of uncertain or thrilled expectation, had crept into what was at first a mere pleasant companionship. She had danced with him the whole night, reckless of comment; and had been since, it seemed to her, mostly engaged in trying to avoid him. But to-night there was no avoiding him. And as his murmured yet eager comments on the opera reached her, she became more and more conscious of his feelings toward her, which were thus conveyed to her, as it were, covertly, and indirectly, through the high poetry and passion of the spectacle on which they both looked. With every stage of it Newbury was revealing himself; and exploring her. Waggin smiled to herself in the darkness of the box. James and she once exchanged glances. Marcia, to both of them, was a dim and beautiful vision, as she sat with her loosely clasped hands lying on the edge of the box, her dark head now turned toward the stage, and now toward Newbury. * * * * * The ghastly truth had been revealed; Iphigenia, within earshot, almost, of the baffled army clamoring for her blood, was clinging to her father's knees, imploring him to save her: "Tears will I bring--my only cunning--all I have! Round your knees, my father, I twine this body, which my mother bare you. Slay me not, before my time! Sweet, sweet is the light!--drive me not down into the halls of death. 'Twas I first called you father--I, your firstborn. What fault have I in Paris's sin? Oh, father, why, why did he ever come--to be my death? Turn to me--give me a look--a kiss! So that at least, in dying, I may have that to remember--if you will not heed my prayers." She takes the infant Orestes in her arms: "Brother!--you are but a tiny helper--and yet--come, weep with me!--come, pray our father not to slay your sister. Look, father, how--silently--he implores you! Have pity! Oh, light, light, dearest of all goods to men! He is mad indeed who prays for death. Better an ill living than a noble dying!" The music rose and fell like dashing waves upon a fearful coast--through one of the most agonizing scenes ever imagined by poet, ever expressed in art. Wonderful theme!--the terror-stricken anguish of the girl, little more than a child, startled suddenly from bridal dreams into this open-eyed vision of a hideous doom; the helpless remorse of the father; the misery of the mother; and behind it all the pitiless fate--the savage creed--the blood-thirst of the goddess--and the maddened army howling for its prey. Marcia covered her eyes a moment. "Horrible!" she said, shivering, "too horrible!" Newbury shook his head, smiling. "No! You'll see. She carries in her hands the fate of her race--of the Hellenic, the nobler world, threatened by the barbarian, the baser world. She dies, to live. It's the motive of all great art--all religion. Ah--here is Achilles!" There followed the strangest, pitifulest love scene. Achilles, roused to fury by the foul use made of his great name in the plot against the girl, adopts the shrinking, lovely creature as his own. She has been called his bride; she shall be his bride; and he will fight for her--die for her--if need be. And suddenly, amid the clashing horror of the story, there springs up for an instant the red flower of love. Iphigenia stands dumb in the background, while her mother wails, and Achilles, the goddess-born, puts on his armor and his golden-crested helmet. An exultant sword-song rises from the orchestra. There is a gleam of hope; and the girl, as she looks at her champion, loves him. The music sank into tenderness, flowing like a stream in summer. And the whole vast audience seemed to hold its breath. "Marvelous!" The word was Newbury's. He turned to look at his companion, and the mere energy of his feeling compelled Marcia's eyes to his. Involuntarily, she smiled an answer. But the golden moment dies!--forever. Shrieking and crashing, the vulture-forces of destruction sweep upon it. Messengers rush in, announcing blow on blow. Achilles' own Myrmidons have turned against him. Agamemnon is threatened--Achilles--Argos! The murderous cries of the army fill the distance like the roar of an uncaged beast. Iphigenia raises her head. The savage, inexorable music still surges and thunders round her. And just as Achilles is about to leave her, in order to throw himself on the spears of his own men, her trance breaks. "Mother!--we cannot fight with gods. I die!--I die! But let me die gloriously--unafraid. Hellas calls to me!--Hellas, my country. I alone can give her what she asks--fair sailing, and fair victory. You bore me for the good of Hellas--not for your own joy only, mother! Shall men brave all for women and their fatherland?--and shall one life, one little life, stand in their way? Nay! I give my self to Hellas! Slay me!--pull down the towers of Troy! This through all time shall be sung of me--this be my glory!--this, child and husband both. Hellas, through me, shall conquer. It is meet that Hellenes should rule barbarians, and not barbarians Hellenes. For they are slave-folk--and _we_ are free!" Achilles cries out in mingled adoration and despair. Now he knows her for what she is--now that he has "looked into her soul"--must he lose her?--is it all over? He pleads again that he may fight and die for her. But she puts him gently aside. "Die not for me, kind stranger. Slay no man for me! Let it be _my_ boon to save Hellas, if I may." And under her sternly sweet command he goes, telling her that he will await her beside the altar of Artemis, there to give his life for her still, if she calls to him--even at the last moment. But she, tenderly embracing her mother, and the child Orestes, forbidding all thought of vengeance, silencing all clamor of grief--she lifts the song of glorious death, as she slowly passes from view, on her way to the place of sacrifice, the Greek women chanting round her. "Hail, Hellas, Mother-land! Hail, light-giving Day--torch of Zeus!" "To another life, and an unknown fate, I go! Farewell, dear light!--farewell!" "That," said Newbury, gently, to Marcia only, as the music died away, "is the death--_she accepts_!" The tears stood in the girl's eyes. The exaltation of great passion, great poetry, had touched her; mingled strangely with the spell, the resisted spell, of youth and sex. Newbury's dark, expressive face, its proud refinement, its sensitive feeling; the growing realization in her of his strong, exacting personality; the struggle of her weaker will against an advancing master; fascination--revolt; of all these things she was conscious as they both sat drowned in the passion of applause which was swelling through the Opera House, and her eyes were still vaguely following that white figure on the stage, with the bouquets at its feet.... Bright eyes sought her own; a hand reached out, caught hers, and pressed it. She recoiled--released herself sharply. Then she saw that Edward Newbury had risen, and that at the door of the box stood Sir Wilfrid Bury. * * * * * Edward Newbury gave up his seat to Sir Wilfrid, and stood against the back of the box talking to Waggin. But she could not flatter herself he paid much attention to her remarks. Marcia could not see him; but his eyes were on her perpetually. A wonderfully handsome fellow, thought Waggin. The profile and brow perfect, the head fine, the eyes full--too full!--of consciousness, as though the personality behind burnt with too intense a flame. Waggin liked him, and was in some sort afraid of him. Never did her small talk seem to her so small as when she launched it at Edward Newbury. And yet no one among the young men of Marcia's acquaintance showed so much courtesy to Marcia's "companion." "Oh, very fine! very fine!" said Sir Wilfrid; "but I wanted a big fight--Achilles and his Myrmidons going for the other fellows--and somebody having the decency to burn the temple of that hag Artemis! I say!" He spoke, smiling, in Marcia's ear. "Your brother Arthur's in very bad company! Do you see where he is? Look at the box opposite." Marcia raised her opera-glass, and saw Enid Glenwilliam sitting in front of the box to which Sir Wilfrid pointed her. The Chancellor's daughter was bending her white neck back to talk to a man behind her, who was clearly Arthur Coryston. Behind her also, with his hands in his pockets, and showing a vast expanse of shirt-front, was a big, burly man, who stood looking out on the animated spectacle which the Opera House presented, in this interval between the opera and the ballet, with a look half contemptuous, half dreamy. It was a figure wholly out of keeping--in spite of its conformity in dress--with the splendid opera-house, and the bejeweled crowd which filled it. In some symbolic group of modern statuary, it might have stood for the Third Estate--for Democracy--Labor--personified. But it was a Third Estate, as the modern world has developed it--armed with all the weapons of the other two! "The Chancellor himself!" said Sir Wilfrid; "watching 'the little victims play'! I picture him figuring up all these smart people. 'How much can I get out of you?--and you?'" Marcia abruptly put down the glass she held, and turned to Sir Wilfrid. He was her godfather, and he had been her particular friend since the days when they used to go off together to the Zoo or the Pantomime. "Do, please, talk to Arthur!" she said, eagerly, but so as not to be heard by any one else. "Perhaps he'd listen to you. People are beginning to notice--and it's too, too dreadful. You know what mother would feel!" "I do," said Sir Wilfrid, gravely; "if that's what you mean." His eyes rested a moment on the striking figure of the Chancellor's daughter. "Certainly--I'll put in a word. But she is a very fascinating young woman, my dear!" "I know," said Marcia, helplessly, "I know." There was a pause. Then Sir Wilfrid asked: "When do you go down to Coryston?" "Just before Whitsuntide." He looked round with a smile, saw that Edward Newbury was still in the box, and whispered, mischievously: "Hoddon Grey, too, I think, will not be empty?" Marcia kept an indifferent face. "I dare say. You're coming?" Sir Wilfrid nodded. "Oh, _have_ you heard--?" She murmured to him behind her fan. Sir Wilfrid knew all their history--had been her father's most intimate friend. She gave him a rapid account of Coryston's disinheriting. The old man rose, his humorous eyes suddenly grave. "We'll talk of this--at Coryston. Ah, Newbury--I took your chair--I resign. Hullo, Lester--good evening. Heavens, there's the curtain going up. Good night!" He hurried away. Newbury moved forward, his eager look on Marcia. But she turned, smiling, to the young librarian. "You haven't seen this ballet, Mr. Lester?--Schumann's 'Carnival'? Oh, you mustn't stand so far back. We can make room, can't we?" She addressed Newbury, and before he knew what had happened, the chairs had been so manipulated that Lester sat between Marcia and Newbury, while Waggin had drawn back into the shadow. The eyes of Marcia's duenna twinkled. It pleased her that this magnificent young man, head, it was said, of the young High Church party, distinguished in many ways, and as good as he was handsome, was not to have too easy a game. Marcia had clearly lost her head a little at the Shrewsbury House ball; and was now trying to recover it. CHAPTER IV After one of those baffling fortnights of bitter wind and cold, which so often mark the beginning of an English May, when all that the spring has slowly gained since March seems to be confiscated afresh by returning winter, the weather had repented itself, the skies had cleared, and suddenly, under a flood of sunshine, there were blue-bells in the copses, cowslips in the fields, a tawny leaf breaking on the oaks, a new cheerfulness in the eyes and gait of the countryman. A plain, pleasant-looking woman sat sewing out-of-doors, in front of a small verandaed cottage, perched high on a hillside which commanded a wide view of central England. The chalk down fell beneath her into a sheath of beech woods; the line of hills, slope behind slope, ran westward to the sunset, while eastward they mounted to a wooded crest beyond which the cottage could not look. Northward, beginning some six hundred feet below the cottage, stretched a wide and varied country, dotted with villages and farms, with houses and woods, till it lost itself in the haze of a dim horizon. A man of middle age, gray-headed, spare in figure, emerged from one of the French windows of the cottage. "Marion, when did you say that you expected Enid?" "Between three and four, papa." "I don't believe Glenwilliam himself will get here at all. There will be a long Cabinet this afternoon, and another to-morrow probably--Sunday or no Sunday!" "Well then, he won't come, father," said the daughter, placidly, thrusting her hand into a sock riddled with holes, and looking at it with concern. "Annoying! I wanted him to meet Coryston--who said he would be here to tea." Miss Atherstone looked a little startled. "Will that do, father? You know Enid told me to ask Arthur Coryston, and I wrote yesterday." "Do? Why not? Because of politics? They must have got used to that in the Coryston family! Or because of the gossip that Arthur is to have the estates? But it's not his fault. I hear the two brothers are on excellent terms. They say that Arthur has warned his mother that he means to make it up to Coryston somehow." "Enid doesn't like Lord Coryston," said Miss Atherstone, slowly. "I dare say. He finds out her weak points. She has a good many. And he's not a ladies' man. Between ourselves, my dear, she poses a good deal. I never know quite where to have her, though I dandled her as a baby." "Oh, Enid's all right," said Marion Atherstone, taking a fresh needleful of brown wool. Miss Atherstone was not clever, though she lived with clever people, and her powers of expressing herself were small. Her father, a retired doctor, on the other hand, was one of the ablest Liberal organizers in the country. From his perch on the Mintern hills he commanded half the midlands, in more senses than one; knew thirty or forty constituencies by heart; was consulted in all difficulties; was better acquainted with "the pulse of the party" than its chief agent, and was never left out of count by any important Minister framing an important bill. He had first made friends with the man who was now the powerful head of English finance, when Glenwilliam was the young check-weigher of a large Staffordshire colliery; and the friendship--little known except to an inner ring--was now an important factor in English politics. Glenwilliam did nothing without consulting Atherstone, and the cottage on the hill had been the scene of many important meetings, and some decisions which would live in history. Marion Atherstone, on the other hand, though invaluable to her father, and much appreciated by his friends, took no intellectual part in his life. Brilliant creatures--men and women--came and went, to and from the cottage. Marion took stock of them, provided them with food and lodging, and did not much believe in any of them. Atherstone was a philosopher, a free-thinker, and a vegetarian. Marion read the _Church Family Times_, went diligently to church, and if she had possessed a vote, and cared enough about it to use it, would probably have voted Tory. All the same she and her father were on the best of terms and perfectly understood each other. Among the brilliant creatures, however, who came and went, there was one who had conquered her. For Enid Glenwilliam, Marion felt the profound affection that often links the plain, scrupulous, conscientious woman to some one or other of the Sirens of her sex. When Enid came to the cottage Marion became her slave and served her hand and foot. But the probability is that she saw through the Siren--what there was to see through--a good deal more sharply than her father did. Atherstone took a garden chair beside her, and lit his pipe. He had just been engaged in drafting an important Liberal manifesto. His name would probably never appear in connection with it. But that mattered nothing to him. What did vex him was that he probably would not have an opportunity of talking it over with Glenwilliam before it finally left his hands. He was pleased with it, however. The drastic, or scathing phrases of it kept running through his head. He had never felt a more thorough, a more passionate, contempt for his opponents. The Tory party must go! One more big fight, and they would smash the unclean thing. These tyrants of land, and church, and finance!--democratic England when it once got to business--and it was getting to business--would make short work of them. As he looked out over the plain he saw many things well fitted to stir the democratic pulse. There among the woods, not a mile from the base of the hills, lay the great classic pile of Coryston, where "that woman" held sway. Farther off on its hill rose Hoddon Grey, identified in this hostile mind with Church ascendancy, just as Coryston was identified with landlord ascendancy. If there were anywhere to be found a narrower pair of bigots than Lord and Lady William Newbury, or a more poisonous reactionary than their handsome and plausible son, Atherstone didn't know where to lay hands on them. One white dot in the plain, however, gave him unmixed satisfaction. He turned, laughing to his daughter. "Coryston has settled in--with a laborer and his wife to look after him. He has all sorts of ructions on his hands already." "Poor Lady Coryston!" said Marion, giving a glance at the classical cupolas emerging from the woods. "My dear--she began it. And he is quite right--he _has_ a public duty to these estates." "Couldn't he go and stir up people somewhere else? It looks so ugly." "Oh! women have got to get used to these things, if they play such strong parts as Lady Coryston. The old kid-glove days, as between men and women, are over." "Even between mothers and sons?" said Marion, dubiously. "I repeat--she began it! Monstrous, that that man should have made such a will, and that a mother should have taken advantage of it!" "Suppose she had been a Liberal," said Marion, slyly. Atherstone shrugged his shoulders--too honest to reply. He ruminated over his pipe. Presently his eyes flashed. "I hear Coryston's very servants--his man and wife--were evicted from their cottage for political reasons." "Yes, by that Radical miller who lives at Martover," said Marion. Atherstone stared. "My dear!--" "The wife told me," said Marion, calmly, rolling up her socks. "I say, I must look into that," said Atherstone, with discomposure. "It doesn't do to have such stories going round--on our side. I wonder why Coryston chose them." "I should think--because he hates that kind of thing on both sides." The slightest twinge of red might have been noticed on Miss Atherstone's cheek as she spoke. But her father did not notice it. He lifted his head to listen. "I think I hear the motor." "You look tired," said Marion to her guest. The first bout of conversation was over, and Dr. Atherstone had gone back to his letters. Enid Glenwilliam took off her hat, accepted the cushion which her hostess was pressing upon her, and lay at ease in her cane chair. "You wouldn't wonder, if you could reckon up my week!" she said, laughing. "Let's see--four dinners, three balls, two operas,--a week-end at Windsor, two bazars, three meetings, two concerts, and tea-parties galore! What do you expect but a rag!" "Don't say you don't like it!" "Oh yes, I like it. At least, if people don't ask me to things I'm insulted, and when they do--" "You're bored?" "It's you finished the sentence!--not I! And I've scarcely seen father this week except at breakfast. _That's_ bored me horribly." "What have you _really_ been doing?" "Inquisitor!--I have been amusing myself." "With Arthur Coryston?" Marion turned her large fresh-colored face and small gray eyes upon her companion. "And others! You don't imagine I confine myself to him?" "Has Lady Coryston found out yet?" "That we get on? I am sure she has never imagined that Mr. Arthur could so demean himself." "But she must find out some day." "Oh yes, I mean her to," said Miss Glenwilliam, quietly. She reached out a long hand toward Marion's cat and stroked it. Then she turned her large eyes of pale hazel set under beautiful dark brows to her companion. "You see--Lady Coryston has not only snubbed me--she has insulted father." "How?" exclaimed Marion, startled. "At Chatton House the other day. She refused to go down to dinner with him. She positively did. The table had to be rearranged, and little Lady Chatton nearly had hysterics." The girl lay looking at her friend, her large but finely cut mouth faintly smiling. But there was something dangerous in her eyes. "And one day at lunch she refused to be introduced to me. I saw it happen quite plainly. Oh, she didn't exactly mean to be insolent. But she thinks society is too tolerant--of people like father and me." "What a foolish woman!" said Marion Atherstone, rather helplessly. "Not at all! She knows quite well that my whole existence is a fight--so far as London is concerned. She wants to make the fight a little harder--that's all." "Your 'whole existence a fight,'" repeated Marion, with a touch of scorn, "after that list of parties!" "It's a good fight at present," said the girl, coolly, "and a successful one. But Lady Coryston gets all she wants without fighting. When father goes out of office I shall be nobody. _She_ will be always at the top of the tree." "I am no wiser than before as to whether you really like Arthur Coryston or not. You have heard, of course, the gossip about the estates?" "Heard?" The speaker smiled. "I know not only the gossip--but the facts--by heart! I am drowned--smothered in them. At present Arthur is the darling--the spotless one. But when she knows about me!"--Miss Glenwilliam threw up her hands. "You think she will change her mind again?" The girl took up a stalk of grass and nibbled it in laughing meditation. "Perhaps I oughtn't to risk his chances?" she said, looking sidelong. "Don't think about 'chances,'" said Marion Atherstone, indignantly--"think about whether you care for each other!" "What a _bourgeois_ point of view! Well, honestly--I don't know. Arthur Coryston is not at all clever. He has the most absurd opinions. We have only known each other a few months. If he were _very_ rich--By the way, is he coming this afternoon? And may I have a cigarette?" Marion handed cigarettes. The click of a garden gate in the distance caught her ear. "Here they are--he and Lord Coryston." Enid Glenwilliam lit her cigarette, and made no move. Her slender, long-limbed body, as it lay at ease in the deep garden chair, the pale masses of her hair, and the confident quiet face beneath it, made a charming impression of graceful repose. As Arthur Coryston reached her she held out a welcoming hand, and her eyes greeted him--a gay, significant look. Coryston, having shaken hands with Miss Atherstone, hastily approached her companion. "I didn't know you smoked," he said, abruptly, standing before her with his hands on his sides. As always, Coryston made an odd figure. His worn, ill-fitting clothes, with their bulging pockets, the grasshopper slimness of his legs and arms, the peering, glancing look of his eternally restless eyes, were all of them displeasing to Enid Glenwilliam as she surveyed him. But she answered him with a smile. "Mayn't I?" He looked down on her, frowning. "Why should women set up a new want--a new slavery--that costs money?" The color flew to her cheeks. "Why shouldn't they? Go and preach to your own sex." "No good!" He shrugged his shoulders. "But women are supposed to have consciences. And--especially--_Liberal_ women," he added, slowly, as his eyes traveled over her dress. "And pray why should Liberal women be ascetics any more than any other kind of women?" she asked him, quietly. "Why?" His voice grew suddenly loud. "Because there are thousands of people in this country perishing for lack of proper food and clothing--and it is the function of Liberals to bring it home to the other thousands." Arthur Coryston broke out indignantly: "I say, Cony, do hold your tongue! You do talk such stuff!" The young man, sitting where the whole careless grace of Miss Glenwilliam's person was delightfully visible to him, showed a countenance red with wrath. Coryston faced round upon him, transformed. His frown had disappeared in a look of radiant good humor. "Look here, Arthur, you've got the money-bags--you might leave me the talking. Has he told you what's happened?" The question was addressed to Miss Glenwilliam, while the speaker shot an indicating thumb in his brother's direction. The girl looked embarrassed, and Arthur Coryston again came to the rescue. "We've no right to thrust our family affairs upon other people, Corry," he said, resolutely. "I told you so as we walked up." "Oh, but they're so interesting," was Coryston's cool reply as he took his seat by Marion Atherstone. "I'm certain everybody here finds them so. And what on earth have I taken Knatchett for, except to blazon abroad what our dear mother has been doing?" "I wish to heaven you hadn't taken Knatchett," said Arthur, sulkily. "You regard me as a nuisance? Well, I meant to be. I'm finding out such lots of things," added Coryston, slowly, while his eyes, wandering over the plain, ceased their restlessness for a moment and became fixed and dreamy. Dr. Atherstone caught the last words as he came out from his study. He approached his guests with an amused look at Coryston. But the necessary courtesies of the situation imposed themselves. So long as Arthur Coryston was present the Tory son of his Tory mother, an Opposition M.P. for a constituency, part of which was visible from the cottage garden, and a comparative stranger to the Atherstones, it was scarcely possible to let Coryston loose. The younger brother was there--Atherstone perfectly understood--simply because Miss Glenwilliam was their guest; not for his own _beaux yeux_ or his daughter's. But having ventured on to hostile ground, for a fair lady's sake, he might look to being kindly treated. Arthur, on his side, however, played his part badly. He rose indeed to greet Atherstone--whom he barely knew, and was accustomed to regard as a pestilent agitator--with the indifferent good breeding that all young Englishmen of the classes have at command; he was ready to talk of the view and the weather, and to discuss various local topics. But it was increasingly evident that he felt himself on false ground; lured there, moreover, by feelings he could hardly suppose were unsuspected by his hosts. Enid Glenwilliam watched him with secret but sympathetic laughter; and presently came to his aid. She rose from her seat. "It's a little hot here, Marion. Shall I have time to show Mr. Coryston the view from the wood-path before tea?" Marion assented. And the two tall figures strolled away across a little field toward a hanging wood on the edge of the hill. "Will she have him?" said Coryston to Marion Atherstone, looking after the departing figures. The question was disconcertingly frank. Marion laughed and colored. "I haven't the slightest idea." "Because there'll be the deuce to pay if she does," said Coryston, nursing his knees, and bubbling with amusement. "My unfortunate mother will have to make another will. What the lawyers have made out of her already!" "There would be no reconciling her to the notion of such a marriage?" asked Atherstone, after a moment. "'If my son takes to him a wife of the daughters of Heth, what good shall my life be unto me?'" quoted Coryston, laughing. "Good gracious, how handy the Bible comes in--for most things! I expect you're an infidel, and don't know." He looked up curiously at Atherstone. A shade of annoyance crossed Atherstone's finely marked face. "I was the son of a Presbyterian minister," he said, shortly. "But to return. After all, you know, Radicals and Tories do still intermarry! It hasn't quite come to that!" "No, but it's coming to that!" cried Coryston, bringing his hand down in a slap on the tea-table. "And women like my mother are determined it shall come to it. They want to see this country divided up into two hostile camps--fighting it out--blood and thunder, and devilries galore. Ay, and"--he brought his face eagerly, triumphantly, close to Atherstone's--"so do you, too--at bottom." The doctor drew back. "I want politics to be realities, if that's what you mean," he said, coldly. "But the peaceful methods of democracy are enough for me. Well, Lord Coryston, you say you've been finding out a lot of things in these few weeks you've been settled here. What sort?" Coryston turned an odd, deliberate look at his questioner. "Yes, I'm after a lot of game--in the Liberal preserves just as much as the Tory. There isn't a pin to choose between you! Now, look here!" He checked the items off on his fingers. "My mother's been refusing land for a Baptist chapel. Half the village Baptist--lots of land handy--she won't let 'em have a yard. Well, we're having meetings every week, we're sending her resolutions every week, which she puts in the waste-paper basket. And on Sundays they rig up a tent on that bit of common ground at the park gates, and sing hymns at her when she goes to church. That's No. 1. No. 2--My mother's been letting Page--her agent--evict a jolly decent fellow called Price, a smith, who's been distributing Liberal leaflets in some of the villages. All sorts of other reasons given, of course--but that's the truth. Well, I sat on Page's doorstep for two or three days--no good. Now I'm knocking up a shop and a furnace, and all the rest of the togs wanted, for Price, in my back yard at Knatchett. And we've made him Liberal agent for the village. I can tell you he's going it! That's No. 2. No. 3--There's a slight difficulty with the hunt I needn't trouble you with. We've given 'em warning we're going to kill foxes wherever we can get 'em. They've been just gorging chickens this last year--nasty beasts! That don't matter much, however. No. 4--Ah-ha!"--he rubbed his hands--"I'm on the track of that old hypocrite, Burton of Martover--" "Burton! one of the best men in the country!" cried Atherstone, indignantly. "You're quite mistaken, Lord Coryston!" "Am I!" cried Coryston, with equal indignation--"not a bit of it. Talking Liberalism through his nose at all the meetings round here, and then doing a thing--Look here! He turned that man and his wife--Potifer's his name--who are now looking after me--out of their cottage and their bit of land--why, do you think?--because _the man voted for Arthur_! Why shouldn't he vote for Arthur? Arthur kissed his baby. Of course he voted for Arthur. He thought Arthur was 'a real nice gentleman'--so did his wife. Why shouldn't he vote for Arthur? Nobody wanted to kiss Burton's baby. Hang him! You know this kind of thing must be put a stop to!" And, getting up, Coryston stamped up and down furiously, his small face aflame. Atherstone watched him in silence. This strange settlement of Lady Coryston's disinherited son--socialist and revolutionist--as a kind of watchman, in the very midst of the Coryston estates, at his mother's very gates, might not after all turn out so well as the democrats of the neighborhood had anticipated. The man was too queer--too flighty. "Wait a bit! I think some of your judgments may be too hasty, Lord Coryston. There's a deal to learn in this neighborhood--the Hoddon Grey estate, for instance--" Coryston threw up his hands. "The Newburys--my word, the Newburys! 'Too bright and good'--aren't they?--'for human nature's daily food.' Such churches--and schools--and villages! All the little boys patterns--and all the little girls saints. Everybody singing in choirs--and belonging to confraternities--and carrying banners. 'By the pricking of my thumbs' when I see a Newbury I feel that a mere fraction divides me from the criminal class. And I tell you, I've heard a story about that estate"--the odd figure paused beside the tea-table and rapped it vigorously for emphasis--"that's worse than any other villainy I've yet come across. You know what I mean. Betts and his wife!" He paused, scrutinizing the faces of Atherstone and Marion with his glittering eyes. Atherstone nodded gravely. He and Marion both knew the story. The neighborhood indeed was ringing with it. On the one hand it involved the pitiful tale of a divorced woman; on the other the unbending religious convictions of the Newbury family. There was hot championship on both sides; but on the whole the Newbury family was at the moment unpopular in their own county, because of the affair. And Edward Newbury in particular was thought to have behaved with harshness. Coryston sat down to discuss the matter with his companions, showing a white heat of feeling. "The religious tyrant," he vowed, "is the most hideous of all tyrants!" Marion said little. Her grave look followed her guest's vehement talk; but she scarcely betrayed her own point of view. The doctor, of course, was as angry as Coryston. Presently Atherstone was summoned into the house, and then Coryston said, abruptly: "My mother likes that fellow--Newbury. My sister likes him. From what I hear he might become my brother-in-law. He sha'n't--before Marcia knows this story!" Marion looked a little embarrassed, and certainly disapproving. "He has very warm friends down here," she said, slowly; "people who admire him enormously." "So had Torquemada!" cried Coryston. "What does that prove? Look here!"--he put both elbows on the table, and looked sharply into Marion's plain and troubled countenance--"don't you agree with me?" "I don't know whether I do or not--I don't know enough about it." "You mustn't," he said, eagerly--"you mustn't disagree with me!" Then, after a pause, "Do you know that I'm always hearing about you, Miss Atherstone, down in those villages?" Marion blushed furiously, then laughed. "I can't imagine why." "Oh yes, you can. I hate charity--generally. It's a beastly mess. But the things you do--are human things. Look here, if you ever want any help, anything that a fellow with not much coin, but with a pair of strong arms and a decent headpiece, can do, you come to me. Do you see?" Marion smiled and thanked him. Coryston rose. "I must go. Sha'n't wait for Arthur. He seems to be better employed. But--I should like to come up here pretty often, Miss Atherstone, and talk to you. I shouldn't wonder if I agreed with you more than I do with your father. Do you see any objection?" He stood leaning on the back of a chair, looking at her with his queer simplicity. She smiled back. "Not the least. Come when you like." He nodded, and without any further farewell, or any conventional message to her father, he strode away down the garden, whistling. Marion was left alone. Her face, the face of a woman of thirty-five, relaxed; a little rose-leaf pink crept into the cheeks. This was the fourth or fifth time that she had met Lord Coryston, and each time they had seemed to understand each other a little better. She put aside all foolish notions. But life was certainly more interesting than it had been. * * * * * Coryston had been gone some time, when at last his brother and Miss Glenwilliam emerged from the wood. The tea-table was now spread in the shade, and they approached it. Marion tried to show nothing of the curiosity she felt. That Arthur Coryston was in no mood for ordinary conversation at least was clear. He refused her proffered cup, and almost immediately took his leave. Enid subsided again into her long chair, and Atherstone and Marion waited upon her. She had an animated, excited look, the reflection, no doubt, of the conversation which had taken place in the wood. But when Marion and she were left alone it was a long time before she disclosed anything. At last, when the golden May light was beginning to fade from the hill, she sat up suddenly. "I don't think I can, Marion; I don't think I _can_!" "Can what?" "Marry that man, my dear!" She bent forward and took her friend's hands in hers. "Do you know what I was thinking of all the time he talked?--and he's a very nice boy--and I like him very much. I was thinking of my father!" She threw her head back proudly. Marion looked at her in some perplexity. "I was thinking of my father," she repeated. "My father is the greatest man I know. And I'm not only his daughter. I'm his friend. He has no one but me since my mother died. He tells me everything, and I understand him. Why should I marry a man like that, when I have my father! And yet of course he touches me--Arthur Coryston--and some day I shall want a home--and children--like other people. And there is the money, if his mother didn't strip him of it for marrying me! And there's the famous name, and the family, and the prestige. Oh yes, I see all that. It attracts me enormously. I'm no ascetic, as Coryston has discovered. And yet when I think of going from my father to that man--from my father's ideas to Arthur's ideas--it's as though some one thrust me into a cave, and rolled a stone on me. I should beat myself dead, trying to get out! I told him I couldn't make up my mind yet--for a long, long time." "Was that kind?" said Marion, gently. "Well, he seemed to like it better than a final No," laughed the girl, but rather drearily. "Marion! you don't know, nobody can know but me, what a man my father is!" And sitting erect she looked absently at the plain, the clear hardness of her eyes melting to a passionate tenderness. It was to Marion as though the rugged figure of the Chancellor overshadowed them; just as, at that moment, in the political sense, it overshadowed England. CHAPTER V Lady Coryston's quarters at Coryston Place were not quite so devoid of all the lighter touches as her London sitting-room. The view from the windows, of the formal garden outside, with its rows of white statues, leading to a winding lake, and parklike slopes beyond it, was certainly cheerful. Coryston particularly disliked it, and had many ribald things to say about the statues, which in his mad undergraduate days he had more than once adorned with caps of liberty, pipes, mustaches, and similar impertinences. But most people were attracted by the hard brightness of the outlook; and of light and sunshine--on sunny days--there was, at any rate, no lack. Marcia had recently chosen a new chintz for the chairs and sofas, and one small group of photographs, on a table beside the fireplace, were allowed to remind the spectator that the owner of the room had once been a young mother, with a maternal pride in a bunch of fine children. Here were Coryston, aged nine, on pony-back, pompously showing off; James, dreamily affable, already a personage at seven; Arthur, fondling a cricket-bat, with a stiff mouth, hastily closed--by order--on its natural grin; and Marcia, frowning and pouting, in fancy dress as "The Strawberry Girl," just emerging, it seemed, from one battle-royal with her nurse, and about to plunge into another. Lady Coryston had just entered the room. She was alone, and she carried a pile of letters, which she put down on the central writing-table. Then she went to one of the windows, which on this May day was open, and stood, looking out, one long mittened hand resting vaguely on the table that held the photographs. A commanding figure! She was in black, carrying her only ornament, an embossed silver girdle and chatelaine, the gift of her husband in their first year of marriage. As she paused, motionless, in the clear sunshine, her great height and her great thinness and flatness brought out with emphasis the masculine carriage of the shoulders and the strong markings of the face. In this moment of solitude, however, the mistress of Coryston Place and of the great domain on which she looked, allowed herself an expression which was scarcely that of an autocrat--at any rate of an autocrat at ease. She was thinking of Coryston; and Coryston was giving her a good deal to think about. Of course she had expected annoyance; but scarcely such annoyance as Coryston, it seemed, was now bent on causing her. At bottom, she had always reckoned on her position as mother and woman. Coryston might threaten, but that he should actually carry out such iniquities as he was now engaged on, had been--she owned it--beyond her calculations. For she had come down to find the whole neighborhood in a ferment, and many pleasant illusions, in the shelter of which she had walked for years, both before and since her husband's death, questioned, at least, and cracking, if not shattered. That the Corystons were model landlords, that they enjoyed a feudal popularity among their tenants and laborers, was for Lady Coryston one of the axioms on which life was based. She despised people who starved their estates, let their repairs go, and squeezed the last farthing out of their tenants. Nor had she any sympathy with people who owned insanitary cottages. It had been her fond belief that she at least possessed none. And now here was Coryston, her eldest son, camped in the very midst of her property, not as her friend and support, but as her enemy and critic; poking his nose into every corner of the estates, taken in by every ridiculous complaint, preaching Socialism at full blast to the laborers, and Land Acts to the farmers, stirring up the Nonconformists to such antics as the Baptists had lately been playing on Sundays at her gates; discovering bad cottages, where none were known to exist; and, in general, holding up his mother to blame and criticism, which, as Lady Coryston most truly, sincerely, indignantly felt, was wholly undeserved. This then was the "game" that Coryston had warned her of. He was actually playing it; though she had never believed for one moment that he would ever do so. How was she to meet it? With firmness, no doubt, and dignity. As to the firmness she had no fears; it was the dignity she was anxious about. Lady Coryston was a woman of conscience; although no doubt she had long ago harnessed her will to her conscience, which revolved--sometimes heavily--in the rear. Still there the conscience was, and periodically she had to take account of it. Periodically, it made her uncomfortable on the subject of her eldest son. Periodically, it forced her to ask herself--as in this reverie by the window--"How is it that, bit by bit, and year by year, he and I have drifted to this pass? Who began it? Is it in any sense my fault?" How was it, in the first place, that neither she nor his father had ever had any real influence over this incorrigible spirit; that even in Corry's childish days, when his parents had him at their mercy, they might punish, and thwart, and distress him, but could never really conquer him? Lady Coryston could recall struggles with her son, whether at home or at school, which turned her sick to think of. Corry--for instance--at his preparatory school, taking a loathing to his head master, demanding to be withdrawn, and stubbornly refusing to say why; the master's authority upheld by Corry's parents; vindictive punishment; followed by sudden illness on the boy's part in the midst of the commotion, and his return home, white-faced, silent, indomitable. It made her shiver to remember how he had refused to be nursed by her or by any one but the old housekeeper at Coryston; how for weeks he had scarcely spoken to his father or mother. Then had come the lad's justification--a hideous cruelty charge against the head master; and on a quasi-apology from his father, Corry had consented to forgive his parents. And again--at Cambridge--another recollection clutched at memory; Corry, taking up the case of a youth who had been sent down, according to him, unjustly--furious attacks on the college authorities--rioting in college--ending of course in the summary sending down of Coryston also. She and his father in their annoyance and disappointment had refused to listen to his explanations, to let him defend himself indeed at all. His mother could see still Corry's strange hostile look at her, on his first arrival at home, as much as to say, "Nothing to expect from _you_!" She could still hear the hall door closing behind him as he went off on wanderings abroad and in the East for what proved to be an absence of three years. Yet there were some things she could remember on the other side, dating also from Corry's Cambridge years. When her old father died, one Easter vacation, and she, who was deeply attached to him, had arrived at Coryston after the funeral, worn out by misery and grief, there, suddenly, were Corry's arms open to her, and his--almost timid--kiss on her cheek. The thought of those few weeks when he had been so tender to her, and she had been too tired and sad for anything except to lie still and accept the kindness of her husband and sons, was embittered to her by the remembrance of all the fierce jars which had come after; but, at the moment, they were halcyon days. As she thought of them now beside the open window, she was suddenly aware of a catch in the throat, which she must instantly restrain. It was really too late for any such melting between herself and Corry! As to the scene which had taken place in the drawing-room of the St. James's Square house on Coryston's hurried return home after his father's death, and the explanation to him of the terms of his father's will, she had expected it, and had prepared for it. But it had been none the less a terrible experience. The fierceness of Corry's anger had been indeed quietly expressed--he had evidently schooled himself; but the words and phrases used by him had bitten into her mind. His wrath had taken the form of a long summing up of the relations between himself and her since his boyhood, of a final scornful attack on her supposed "principles," and a denunciation of her love of power--unjustified, unwarranted power--as the cause of all the unhappiness in their family life. He had not said it in so many words, but she knew very well that what he meant was "You have refused to be the normal woman, and you have neither mind enough nor knowledge enough to justify you. You have sacrificed everything to politics, and you don't understand a single political problem. You have ruined your own life and ours for a barren intellectualism, and it will leave you in the end a lonely and unhappy woman." Well, well, she had borne with him--she had not broken with him, after all that. She would have found a dozen ways of improving his position, of giving him back his inheritance, if he had shown the smallest disposition to meet her, to compromise with her. But he had gone from extravagance to extravagance, from outrage to outrage. And finally she had gathered up all her strength and struck, for the family traditions, for the party's, the country's interests. And of course she had been right--she had been abundantly right. Drawing herself unconsciously erect, she looked out over the wide Coryston domain, the undulations of the great estate as it stretched northward to the hills. Politics! She had been in politics from her childhood; she had been absorbed in them through all her married life; and now, in her later years, she was fairly consumed by the passion of them, by the determination to win and conquer. Not for herself!--so at least her thoughts, judged in her own cause, vehemently insisted; not for any personal motive whatever, but to save the country from the break-up of all that made England great, from the incursions of a venomous rabble, bent on destroying the upper class, the landed system, the aristocracy, the Church, the Crown. Woman as she was, she would fight revolution to the last; they should find her body by the wall, when and if the fortress of the old English life went down. _Glenwilliam_!--in that name all her hatreds were summed up. For there had arisen, during these latter years, a man of the people, to lead what Lady Coryston called the "revolution"--a man who had suffered cruelties, so it was said, at the hands of the capitalist and employing class; who, as a young miner, blacklisted because of the part he had taken in a successful strike, had gone, cap in hand, to mine after mine, begging vainly for work, his wife and child tramping beside him. The first wife and her child had perished, so the legend ran, at any rate, of hardship and sheer lack of food. That insolent conspicuous girl who was now the mistress of his house was the daughter of a second wife, a middle-class woman, married when he was already in Parliament, and possessed of a small competence which had been the foundation of her husband's political position. On that modest sum he had held his ground; and upon it, while England was being stirred from end to end by his demagogue's gift, he had built up a personal independence and a formidable power which had enabled him to bargain almost on equal terms with the two great parties. "We refused to pay his price," was the way in which Lady Coryston was accustomed to put it, "so the Liberals bought him--_dear_!" And he was now exacting from that luckless party the very uttermost farthing! Destruction of the Church; conscription, with a view, no doubt, to turning a workman-led army, in case of need, upon the possessing class; persecution of the landed interests; criminally heavy taxation--these were Apollyon's weapons. And against such things even a weak woman must turn to bay--must fight even her own heart, in the interests of her country. "Did I choose my post in life for myself?--its duties, its responsibilities? It was as much given to me as a soldier's place in the line of battle! Am I to shirk it because I am a woman? The women have no more right to run away than the men--vote or no vote! Haven't we eyes to see this ruin that's coming, and minds to baffle it with? If I make Corry rich?--and help thereby to throw England to the dogs? Am I to give him what he says he hates--land and money--to use for what _I_ hate--and what his father hated? Just because he is my son--my flesh and blood? He would scorn the plea himself--he has scorned it all his life. Then let him respect his mother--when she does the same." But meanwhile the "game," as Coryston was playing it?--what was to be done as to this episode and that? She sat down to her writing-table, still busily thinking, and reminding herself that her agent Mr. Page was to come and see her at twelve. She had hoped to get some counsel and help out of Arthur, now that the House was up for a fortnight. But Arthur had really been very inconsiderate and tiresome so far. He had arrived so late for dinner on the Saturday that there had been no time for talk, especially as there was a large party in the house. On Sunday he had taken a motor, and had been away all day, paying--he said--some constituency visits. And now this morning with the earliest train he was off to London, though there was really no occasion for him whatever to go up there. He seemed rather unlike himself. His mother wondered if he was ill. And she fell into some indignant reflections on the stuffy atmosphere and bad lighting of the House of Commons. But ever since he knew that he was to have the estates his manner seemed to have changed; not certainly in the direction of triumph or satisfaction. On the contrary, he had once or twice said irritably to his mother that the will was ridiculous and ought not to stand. She had been obliged to make it clear to him that the matter was _not_ to be discussed. Suddenly, as she sat there, distress seized her at the bare thought of any shadow between herself and Arthur--Arthur, her darling, who was upholding his father's principles and hers in Parliament with so much zeal and good feeling; who had never all his life--till these latter weeks--given her so much as a cross word. Yet now that she could no longer chase the thought quite away, she admitted, more and more frankly, that she was anxious. Was he in any money difficulties? She must get James to find out. In love? She smiled. There were very few maidens in England, whatever their pretensions, who would be likely to refuse Arthur Coryston. Let him only throw the handkerchief, and his mother would soon do the rest. And indeed it was high time he set up house for himself. There is a restlessness in a man which means--marriage; and a mother soon becomes aware of it. * * * * * Recalling her thoughts to the letters before her, Lady Coryston perceived among them a note from Lady William Newbury asking her and Marcia to spend a week-end at Hoddon Grey. Lady Coryston rather wearily reflected that she must no doubt accept. That young man was clearly in pursuit of Marcia. What Marcia's own views were, her mother had not yet discovered. She seemed sometimes glad to see him; sometimes entirely indifferent; and Lady Coryston thought she had observed that her daughter's vacillations tried Edward Newbury's pride sorely, at times. But it would end in a match--it was pretty certain to end in a match. Marcia was only testing her power over a strong-willed man, who would capture her in the end. That being so, Lady Coryston acknowledged that the necessary tiresome preliminaries must be gone through. She hastily scrawled a note of acceptance, without any of the fond imaginings that would have accompanied the act in the ordinary mother. Like all imperious women she disliked staying in other people's houses, where she could not arrange her hours. And she had a particularly resentful memory of a visit which she had paid with her husband to Lord and Lady William Newbury when they were renting a house in Surrey, before they had inherited Hoddon Grey, and while Marcia was still in the schoolroom. Never in her life had she been so ordered about. The strict rules of the house had seemed to her intolerable. She was a martinet herself, and inclined to pay all due attention to the observances of religion; but they must be her own observances, or at least approved by her. To be expected to follow other people's observances set her aflame. To make such a fuss, also, about your religion seemed to her indecorous and absurd. She remembered with a satisfaction which was half ashamed, that she--who was always down at home to a half-past-eight breakfast, and was accustomed to walk a mile to church--had insisted on breakfasting in her own room, on Sunday, under the Newburys' roof, and had quite enjoyed Lady William's surprised looks when they met at luncheon. Well, now the thing had to be done again--for the settling of Marcia. Whether the atmosphere of the family or the house would suit Marcia, her mother did not inquire. In the matters of birth and money, nothing could be more appropriate. Lady Coryston, however, was mostly concerned in getting it through quickly, lest it should stand in the way of things more important. She was fond of Marcia; but her daughter occupied, in truth, only the fringe of her thoughts. However, she duly put up her letter, and was addressing the envelope, when the door opened to admit the head agent of the estate, Mr. Frederick Page. Mr. Page was, in Lady Coryston's eyes, a prince of agents. Up till now she had trusted him entirely, and had been more largely governed by his advice than her pride of rule would ever have allowed her to confess. Especially had she found reason to be grateful to him for the large amount of money he had lately been able to provide her with from the savings of the Coryston estates, for political purposes. Lady Coryston was one of the largest subscribers to the party funds in the kingdom; the coming election demanded an exceptional effort, and Page's economies had made it almost easy. She greeted him with a peculiarly gracious smile, remembering perhaps the letter of thanks she had received only the day before from the party headquarters. The agent was still a young man, not much over forty, ruddy, good-looking, inclined to be plump, and possessed of a manner calculated to win the confidence of any employer. He looked the pink of discretion and capacity, and Lady Coryston had never discovered in him the smallest flaw with regard to any of the orthodoxies she required, political or religious. He was a widower, with two girls, who had often been allowed to play with Marcia. It was clear to Lady Coryston's eyes at once that Mr. Page was much disturbed and upset. She had expected it, of course. She herself was disturbed and upset. But she had perhaps hoped that he would reassure her--make light of the situation. He did nothing of the kind. On the contrary, the effects of an encounter he had just had with Lord Coryston himself in the village street, before entering the park, were plainly visible in the agent's bearing. He plunged at once into the subject. "I fear, Lady Coryston, there is great trouble brewing on this estate!" "You will stop it," she said, confidently; "you always have stopped it before--you and I together." He shook his head. "Ah, but--you see what makes the difference!" "That Coryston is my son?--and has always been regarded as my heir? Certainly that makes a difference," she admitted, unwillingly. "But his proceedings will soon disgust people--will soon recoil on himself!" Page looked up to see her pale profile, with its marked hollows in cheek and temple, outlined on the white paneling of the room like some strong, hawkish face of the Renaissance. But, in awe of her as he always was, she seemed to him a foolish woman. Why had she driven matters to this extremity? He poured out his budget of troubles. All the smoldering discontent which had always existed on the estate had been set alight by Lord Coryston. He was trying to form a union among the laborers, and the farmers were up in arms. He was rousing the dissenters against the Church school of the estate. He was even threatening an inquiry into the state of some of his mother's cottages. Lady Coryston interrupted. Her voice showed annoyance. "I thought, Mr. Page, there were no insanitary cottages on this property!" Page hemmed and hawed. He had not the courage to say that if a landowner insists on spending the reserve fund of an estate on politics, the estate suffers. He had found Lady Coryston large sums for the party war-chest; but only a fool could expect him to build new cottages, and keep up a high level of improvements, at the same time. "I am doing what I can," he said, hurriedly. "There are certain things that must be done. I have given orders." "My son seems to have caught us napping," said Lady Coryston, rather grimly. The agent passed the remark by. He inquired whether her ladyship was still determined to refuse land for the Baptist chapel. "Certainly! The minister they propose is a most mischievous person, I have no intention whatever of extending his influence." Page acquiesced. He himself would have made the Baptists happy with a half an acre, long since, and so, in his belief, scotched a hornet's nest. But he had never breathed any suggestion of the kind to Lady Coryston. "I have done my best--believe me--to stop the Sunday disturbances," he said, "but in vain. They are chiefly got up, however, by people from a distance. Purely political!" "Of course. I am not to be intimidated by them," said Lady Coryston, firmly. The agent's inner mind let loose a thought to the effect that the increasing influence of women in politics did not seem to be likely to lead to peaceable living. But he merely remarked: "I much regret that Lord Coryston should have addressed them himself last Sunday. I ventured to tell his lordship so when I met him just now in the village." Lady Coryston stiffened on her chair. "He defended himself?" "Hotly. And I was to tell you that with your leave he will call on you himself this afternoon about the affair." "My house is always open to my son," said Lady Coryston, quietly. But Page perceived the tremor of battle that ran through her. "As to his support of that blacksmith from Ling, whom he is actually setting up in business at Knatchett itself--the man is turning out a perfect firebrand!--distributing Socialist leaflets over the whole neighborhood--getting up a quarrel between some of the parents here in this very village and our schoolmaster, about the punishment of a child--perfectly legitimate!--everything in order!--and enrolling more members of Mr. Glenwilliam's new Land League--within a stone's-throw of this house!--than I like to think of. I won't answer for this village, Lady Coryston, at the next election, if Lord Coryston goes on with these proceedings!" Lady Coryston frowned. She was not accustomed to be addressed in so pessimistic a tone, and the mere mention of her arch-enemy--Glenwilliam--had put defiance into her. With some dryness, she preached energy, watchfulness, and a hopeful mind. The agent grasped the situation with the quickness born of long acquaintance with her, and adroitly shifted his ground. He remarked that at any rate Lord Coryston was making things uncomfortable all round; and he described with gusto the raids upon some of the Radical employers and small cottage-owners of the district, in the name of political liberty and decent housing, by which Coryston had been lately bewildering the Radical mind. Lady Coryston laughed; but was perhaps more annoyed than amused. To be brought down to the same level with Radical millers and grocers--and by her own son--was no consolation to a proud spirit. "If our cottages can be reasonably attacked, they must be put in order, and at once," she said, with dignity. "You, Mr. Page, are my eyes and ears. I have been accustomed to trust you." The agent accepted the implied reproach with outward meekness, and an inward resolve to put Lady Coryston on a much stricter financial regime for the future. A long conversation followed, at the end of which Mr. Page rose, with the remark: "Your ladyship will be sorry to hear that Mr. Glenwilliam is to speak at Martover next month,--and that it is already rumored Lord Coryston will be in the chair." He had kept this bombshell to the last, and for various reasons he closely watched its effect. Lady Coryston paled. "We will have a Tory meeting here the same night, and my son Arthur shall speak," she said, with vivacity. Some odd thoughts arose in the mind of Mr. Page as he met the angry fire in the speaker's look. "By all means. By the way, I did not know Mr. Arthur was acquainted with those strange people the Atherstones?" he said, in a tone of easy interrogation, looking for his hat. Lady Coryston was a little surprised by the remark. "I suppose an M.P. must be acquainted with everybody--to some extent," she said, smiling. "I know very well what his opinion of Mr. Atherstone is." "Naturally," said Page, also smiling. "Well, good-by, Lady Coryston. I hope when you see Lord Coryston this afternoon you will be able to persuade him to give up some of these extravagances." "I have no power with him," she said, sharply. "Why did you give up what you had?" thought the agent, as he took his departure. His long experience of Lady Coryston, able as she was, and as he admitted her to be, in many respects, had in the end only increased in him a secret contempt for women, inbred in all but a minority of men. They seemed to him to have so little power of "playing the game"--the old, old game of success that men understand so well; through compromise, cunning, give and take, shrewd and prudent dealing. A kind of heady blundering, when caution and a few lies would have done all that was wanted--it was this he charged them with--Lady Coryston especially. And as to that nice but rather stupid fellow Arthur, what on earth could he be doing at the Atherstones'? Had he--Page--come by chance on a secret,--dramatic and lamentable!--when, on the preceding Saturday, as he was passing along the skirts of the wood bounding the Atherstones' little property, on his way to one of the Coryston hill-farms, he had perceived in the distance--himself masked by a thin curtain of trees--two persons in the wood-path, in intimate or agitated conversation. They were Arthur Coryston and Miss Glenwilliam. He recognized the lady at once, had several times seen her on the platform when her father spoke at meetings, and the frequent presence of the Glenwilliams at the Atherstones' cottage was well known to the neighborhood. By George!--if that _did_ mean anything! CHAPTER VI Meanwhile on this May morning Marcia was reading in the park, not far from a footpath--a right of way--leading from the village to the high road running east and west along the northern boundary of the Coryston property. Round her the slopes were white with hawthorn under a thunderous sky of blue and piled white cloud. The dappled forms of deer glanced through the twisted hawthorn stems, and at her feet a trout-stream, entrancingly clear and clean, slipped by over its chalk bottom--the gray-green weeds swaying under the slight push of the water. There was a mist of blossom, and everywhere the fragrance of a bountiful earth, young once more. Marcia, it must be confessed, was only pretending to read. She had some reason to think that Edward Newbury might present himself at Coryston for lunch that day. If so, and if he walked from Hoddon Grey--and, unlike most young men of his age, he was a great walker, even when there was no question of grouse or golf--he would naturally take this path. Some strong mingled impulse had placed her there, on his road. The attraction for her of his presence, his smile, his character was irresistibly increasing. There were many days when she was restless and the world was empty till he came. And yet there were other days when she was quite cold to him; when the thought of giving her life into his hands made her cry "impossible"; when it seemed to her, as she had said to Waggin, that she rather feared than loved him. Edward Newbury indeed belonged to a type not common in our upper class, yet always represented there, and in its main characteristics to be traced back at least to the days of Laud and the Neoplatonists. It is a spiritual, a mystical type, developed under English aristocratic conditions and shaped by them. Newbury had been brought up in a home steeped in high Anglican tradition. His grandfather, old Lord Broadstone, had been one of the first and keenest supporters of the Oxford movement, a friend of Pusey, Keble, and Newman, and later on of Liddon, Church, and Wilberforce. The boy had grown up in a religious hothouse; his father, Lord William, had been accustomed in his youth to make periodical pilgrimages to Christchurch as one of Pusey's "penitents," and his house became in later life a rallying-point for the High Anglican party in all its emergencies. Edward himself, as the result of an intense travail of mind, had abandoned habitual confession as he came to manhood, but he would not for the world have missed the week of "retreat" he spent every year, with other Anglican laymen, under the roof of the most spiritual of Anglican bishops. He was a joyous, confident, devoted son of the English church; a man governed by the most definite and rigid beliefs, held with a pure intensity of feeling, and impervious to any sort of Modernism. At the same time his handsome person, his ardent and amiable temper, his poetic and musical tastes, made him a very general favorite even in the most miscellaneous society. The enthusiastic Christian was also a popular man of the world; and the esoteric elements in his character, though perfectly well known to all who were in any degree his intimates, were jealously hidden from the multitude, who welcomed him as a good-looking fellow and an agreeable companion. He had been four years in the Guards, and some years in India, as private secretary to his uncle, the Viceroy. He was a good shot, a passionate dancer, a keen musician; and that mysterious note in him of the unbending and the inexorable only made him--in general--the more attractive both to men and women, as it became apparent to them. Men scoffed at him, yet without ever despising him. Perhaps the time was coming when, as character hardened, and the glamour of youth dropped away, many men might hate him. Men like Coryston and Atherstone were beginning indeed to be bitterly hostile. But these were possibilities which were only just emerging. Marcia was well aware of Newbury's distinction; and secretly very proud of his homage. But rebellion in her was still active. When, however, she asked herself, with that instinct for self-analysis bred in the woman of to-day by the plays she sees, and half the tales she reads--"Why is it he likes me?"--the half-sarcastic reply would still suggest itself--"No doubt just because I am so shapeless and so formless--because I don't know myself what I want or what I mean to be. He thinks he'll form me--he'll save my soul. Shall he?" A footstep on the path made her look up, annoyed that she could not control a sudden burning of the cheek. But the figure she expected was not there. "Coryston!" she cried. Her brother approached her. He seemed to be reciting verse, and she thought she caught some words from a Shelley chorus which she knew, because he had made her learn it when she was a child in the schoolroom. He threw himself down beside her. "Well?" Brother and sister had only met twice since Coryston's settlement at Knatchett--once in the village street, and once when Marcia had invaded his bachelor quarters at Knatchett. On that occasion she had discharged upon him all the sarcasm and remonstrance of which she was capable. But she only succeeded in reminding herself of a bullfight of which she had once seen part at San Sebastian. Her shafts stuck glittering in the bull's hide, but the bull barely shook himself. There he stood--good-humored, and pawing. To-day also Coryston seemed to be in high spirits. Marcia, on the other hand, gave him a look half troubled, half hostile. "Corry!--I wanted to speak to you. Are you really going to see mother this afternoon?" "Certainly. I met Page in the village half an hour ago and asked him to announce me." "I don't want to talk any more about all the dreadful things you've been doing," said Marcia, with sisterly dignity. "I know it wouldn't be any good. But there's one thing I must say. I do beg of you, Corry, not to say a word to mamma about--about Arthur and Enid Glenwilliam. I know you were at the Atherstones on Saturday!" The anxiety in the girl's face seemed to give a softer shade to its strong beauty. She went on, appealingly: "Arthur's told me a lot. He's quite mad. I've argued--and argued with him--but it's no good. He doesn't care for anything--Parliament, mamma, the estates, anything--in comparison with that girl. At present she's playing with him, and he's getting desperate. But I'm simply in _terror_ about mamma!" Corry whistled. "My dear, she'll have to know some time. As you say, he's in it, head over ears. No use your trying to pull him back!" "It'll kill her!" cried Marcia, passionately; "what's left of her, after you've done!" Coryston lifted his eyebrows and looked long and curiously at his sister. Then he slowly got up from the grass and took a seat beside her. "Look here, Marcia, do you think--do you honestly think--that I'm the aggressor in this family row?" "Oh, I don't know--I don't know what to think!" Marcia covered her face with her hands. "It's all so miserable!--" she went on, in a muffled voice. "And this Glenwilliam thing has come so suddenly! Why, he hardly knew her, when he made that speech in the House six weeks ago! And now he's simply demented! Corry, you must go and argue with him--you _must_! Persuade him to give her up!" She laid her hand on his arm imploringly. Coryston sat silent, but his eyes laughed a little. "I don't believe in her," he said at last, abruptly. "If I did, I'd back Arthur up through thick and thin!" "_Corry_!--how on earth can Arthur be happy if he marries her--how can he live in that set--the son-in-law of _that man_! He'll have to give up his seat--nobody here would ever vote for him again. His friends would cut him--" "Oh come, come, my dear, we're not as bad as that!" said Coryston, impatiently. But Marcia wailed on: "And it isn't as if he had ideas and theories--like you--" "Not a principle to his back!--I know," said Coryston, cheerfully. "I tell you again, I'd not dissuade him; on the contrary, I'd shove him into it!--if she were the right sort. But she's not. She's ruined by the luxury she's been living in. I believe--if you ask me--that she'd accept Arthur for his money--but that she doesn't care one brass farthing about him. Why should she?" "Corry!" "He's a fool, my dear, though a jolly one--and she's not been accustomed to living with fools. She's got wits as sharp as gimlets. Well, well"--he got up from the seat--"can't talk any more now. Now what is it exactly you want me to do? I repeat--I'm coming to see mother this afternoon." "Don't let her guess anything. Don't tell her anything. She's a little worried about Arthur already. But we must stop the madness before she knows anything. Promise!" "Very well. For the present--I'm mum." "And talk to him!--tell him it'll ruin him!" "I don't mind--from my own point of view," said Coryston, surveying her with his hands on his sides. Then suddenly his face changed. A cloud overshadowed it. He gave her a queer, cold look. "Perhaps I have something to ask you," he said, slowly. "What?" The tone showed her startled. "Let _me_ come and talk to _you_ about that man whom all the world says you're going to marry!" She stared at him, struck dumb for the moment by the fierceness of his voice and expression. Then she said, indignantly: "What do you mean, Corry!" "You are deceived in him. You can't marry him!" he said, passionately. "At least let me talk to you." She rose and stood facing him, her hands behind her, her dark face as full of energy and will as his own. "You are thinking of the story of Mrs. Betts. I know it." "Not as I should tell it!" A moving figure in a distant field caught her attention. She made a great effort to master her excitement. "You may tell me what you like. But I warn you I shall ask _him_ for his version, too." Corry's expression changed. The tension relaxed. "That's only fair," he said, indifferently. Then, perceiving the advancing man: "Ah, I see!--here he is. I'm off. It's a bargain. I say nothing to mother--and do my best to make Arthur hang himself. And I have it out with you--my small sister!--when we next meet." He paused, looking at her, and in his strangely penetrating eyes there dawned, suddenly, the rare expression that Marcia remembered--as of a grave yet angry tenderness. Then he turned away, walking fast, and was soon invisible among the light shadows of a beech avenue, just in leaf. Marcia was left behind, breathing quick, to watch the approach of Edward Newbury. * * * * * As soon as he perceived Marcia under the shade of the hawthorns Newbury quickened his pace, and he had soon thrown himself, out of breath, on the grass beside her. "What a heavenly spot!--and what a morning! How nice of you to let me find you! I was hoping Lady Coryston would give me lunch." Radiant, he raised his eyes to her, as he lay propped on his elbows, the spring sun, slipping through the thin blossom-laden branches overhead, dappling his bronzed face. Marcia flushed a little--an added beauty. As she sat there in a white hat and dress, canopied by the white trees, and lit by a warm reflected light, she stirred in Newbury's senses once more a thrilling delight made all the keener perhaps by the misgiving, the doubts which invariably accompanied it. She could be so gracious; and she could be so dumb and inaccessible. Again and again he had been on the point of declaring himself during the last few weeks, and again and again he had drawn back, afraid lest the decisive word from him should draw the decisive word from her, and it should be a word of denial. Better--better infinitely--these doubts and checks, than a certainty which would divide him from her. This morning indeed he found her all girlish gentleness and appeal. And it made his own task easier. For he also had matters on his mind. But she anticipated him. "I want to talk to you about Corry--my brother!" she said, bending toward him. [Illustration: THIS MORNING HE FOUND HER ALL GIRLISH GENTLENESS AND APPEAL] There was a child in Marcia, and she could evoke it when she pleased. She evoked it now. The young man before her hungered, straightway, to put out his arms to her--gathering her to him caressingly as one does with the child that clings and confides. But instead he merely smiled at her with his bright conscious eyes. "I, too, want to talk to you about Coryston," he said, nodding. "We know he's behaving dreadfully--abominably!" laughed Marcia, but with a puckered brow. "Mr. Lester tells me there was a great attack on Lord and Lady William yesterday in the Martover paper. Mother hasn't seen it yet--and I don't want to read it--" "Don't!" said Newbury, smiling. "But mother will be so ashamed, unhappy, when she knows! So am I. But I wanted to explain. We suffer just as much. He's stirring up the whole place against mother. And now that he's begun to attack you, I thought perhaps that if you and I--" "Took counsel! Excellent!" "We might perhaps think of some way of stopping it." "He's much more acutely angry with us at present than with anything your mother does," said Newbury, gravely! "Has he told you?" "No, but--he means to," said the girl, hesitating. "It is not unfair I think I should anticipate him. You will have his version afterward. I got an extraordinary letter from him this morning. It is strange that he cannot see we also plead justice and right for what we do--that if we satisfied his conscience we should wound our own." He rose from the grass as he spoke, and took a seat on a stone a little way from her. And as she looked at him Marcia had a strange, sudden feeling that here was quite another man from the wooer who had just been lying on the grass at her feet. _This_ was the man of whom she had said to Waggin--"he seems the softest, kindest!--and underneath--_iron_!" A shade of some habitual sternness had crept over the features. A noble sternness, however; and it had begun to stir in her, intermittently, the thrill of an answering humility. "It is difficult for me--perhaps impossible--to tell you all the story," he said, after a pause, "but I will try and tell it shortly--in its broad outlines." "I have heard some of it." "So I supposed. But let me tell it in order--so far as I can. It concerns a man whom a few weeks ago we all regarded--my father and mother--myself--as one of our best friends. You know how keen my father is about experimenting with the land? Well, when we set up our experimental farm here ten years ago we made this man--John Betts--the head of it. He has been my father's right hand--and he has done splendidly--made the farm, indeed, and himself, famous. And he seemed to be one with us in other respects." He paused a moment, looked keenly into her face, and then said, gravely and simply: "We looked upon him as a deeply religious man. My mother could not say enough of his influence on the estate. He took a large men's class on Sundays. He was a regular communicant; he helped our clergyman splendidly. And especially"--here again the speaker hesitated a moment. But he resumed with a gentle seriousness--"he helped us in all our attempts to make the people here live straight--like Christians--not like animals. My mother has very strict rules--she won't allow any one in our cottages who has lost their character. I know it sounds harsh. It isn't so--it's merciful. The villages were in a terrible state when we came--as to morals. I can't of course explain to you--but our priest appealed to us--we had to make changes--and my father and mother bravely faced unpopularity--" He looked at her steadily, while his face changed, and the sudden red of some quick emotion invaded it. "You know we are unpopular!" "Yes," said Marcia, slowly, his perfect sincerity forbidding anything else in her. "Especially"--there was a touch of scorn in the full voice--"owing to the attacks on my father and mother of that Liberal agitator--that man Atherstone--who lives in that cottage on the hill--your mother knows all about him. He has spread innumerable stories about us ever since we came to live here. He is a free-thinker and a republican--we are church people and Tories. He thinks that every man--or woman--is a law unto themselves. We think--but you know what we think!" He smiled at her. "Well--to return to Betts. This is May. Last August he had an attack of influenza, and went off to North Wales, to the sea, to recruit. He was away much longer than any one expected, and after about six weeks he wrote to my father to say that he should return to Hoddon Grey--with a wife. He had found a lady at Colwyn Bay, whom he had known as a girl. She was a widow, had just lost her father, with whom she lived, and was very miserable and forlorn. I need not say we all wrote the most friendly letters. She came, a frail, delicate creature, with one child. My mother did all she could for her, but was much baffled by her reserve and shrinking. Then--bit by bit--through some extraordinary chances and coincidences--I needn't go through it all--the true story came out." He looked away for a moment over the reaches of the park, evidently considering with himself what he could tell, and how far. "I can only tell you the bare facts," he said, at last. "Mrs. Betts was divorced by her first husband. She ran away with a man who was in his employment, and lived with him for two years. He never married her, and after two years he deserted her. She has had a wretched life since--with her child. Then Betts came along, whom she had known long ago. She threw herself on his pity. She is very attractive--he lost his head--and married her. Well now, what were we to do?" "They _are_ married?" said Marcia. "Certainly--by the law. But it is a law which matters nothing to us!" The voice had taken to itself a full challenging note. Marcia looked up. "Because--you think--divorce is wrong?" "Because--'What God has joined together let no man put asunder!'" "But there are exceptions in the New Testament?" The peach bloom on Marcia's cheek deepened as she bent over the daisy chain she was idly making. "Doubtful ones! The dissolution of marriage may itself be an open question. But, for all churchmen, the remarriage of divorced persons--and trebly, when it is asked for by the person whose sin caused the divorce!--is an absolutely closed one!" Marcia's mind was in a ferment. But her girlish senses were keenly alive to the presence beside her--the clean-cut classical face, the spiritual beauty of the eyes. Yet something in her shivered. "Suppose she was very unhappy with her first husband?" "Law cannot be based on hard cases. It is made to help the great multitude of suffering, sinning men and women through their lives." He paused a little, and then said, "Our Lord 'knew what was in man.'" The low tone in which the last words were spoken affected Marcia deeply, not so much as an appeal to religion, for her own temperament was not religious, as because they revealed the inner mystical life of the man beside her. She was suddenly filled again with a strange pride that he should have singled her out--to love her. But the rise of feeling was quickly followed by recoil. She looked up eagerly. "If I had been very miserable--had made a hideous mistake--and knew it--and somebody came along and offered to make me happy--give me a home--and care for me--I couldn't and I shouldn't resist!" "You would," he said, simply, "if God gave you strength." Nothing so intimate had yet been said between them. There was silence. That old, old connection between the passion of religion--which is in truth a great romanticism--and the passion of sex, made itself felt; but in its most poetic form. Marcia was thrillingly conscious of the debate in herself--of the voice which said, "Teach me, govern me, love me--be my adored master and friend!" and the voice which replied, "I should be his slave--I will not!" At last she said: "You have dismissed Mr. Betts?" He sighed. "He is going in a month. My father offered all we could. If--Mrs. Betts"--the words came out with effort--"would have separated from him we should have amply provided for her and her child. The Cloan Sisters would have watched over her. She could have lived near them, and Betts could have seen her from time to time--" "They refused?" "Absolutely. Betts wrote my father the fiercest letters. They were married, he said, married legally and honestly--and that was an end of it. As to Mrs. Betts's former history, no one had the smallest right to pry into it. He defied my father to dismiss him. My father--on his principles--had no choice but to do so. So then--your brother came on the scene!" "Of course--he was furious?" "What right has he to be furious?" said Newbury, quietly. "His principles may be what he pleases. But he must allow us ours. This is a free country." A certain haughtiness behind the gentle manner was very perceptible. Marcia kindled for her brother. "I suppose Corry would say, if the Church ruled us--as you wish--England wouldn't be free!" "That's his view. We have ours. No doubt he has the present majority with him. But why attack us personally--call us names--because of what we believe?" He spoke with vivacity, with wounded feeling. Marcia melted. "But every one knows," she murmured, "that Corry is mad--quite mad." And suddenly, impulsively, she put out her hand. "Don't blame us!" He took the hand in both his own, bent over and kissed it. "Don't let him set you against us!" She smiled and shook her head. Then by way of extricating herself and him from the moment of emotion--by way of preventing its going any further--she sprang to her feet. "Mother will be waiting lunch for us." They walked back to the house together, discussing as they went Coryston's whole campaign. Newbury's sympathy with her mother was as balm to Marcia; insensibly she rewarded him, both by an open and charming mood, and also by a docility, a readiness to listen to the Newbury view of life which she had never yet shown. The May day, meanwhile, murmured and gleamed around them. The spring wind like a riotous life leaped and rustled in the new leaf of the oaks and beeches; the sky seemed to be leaning mistily to earth; and there were strange, wild lights on the water and the grass, as though, invisible, the train of Dionysius or Apollo swept through the land. Meanwhile the relation between the young man and the girl ripened apace. Marcia's resistance faltered within her; and to Newbury the walk was enchantment. Finally they agreed to leave the task of remonstrating with Coryston to Sir Wilfrid Bury, who was expected the following day, and was an old friend of both families. "Corry likes him," said Marcia. "He says, 'Give me either a firebrand or a cynic!' He has no use for other sorts of people. And perhaps Sir Wilfrid will help us, too--with Arthur." Her look darkened. "Arthur?" said Newbury, startled. "What's wrong with Arthur?" Marcia hurriedly told him. He looked amazed and shocked. "Oh, that can't be allowed. We must protect your mother--and persuade Arthur. Let me do what I can. He and I are old pals." Marcia was only too glad to be helped. It had begun to seem to her, in spite of the rush of her London gaieties, and the brilliance of her London successes, that she had been very lonely at home for a long time, and here, in this strong man, were warmth and shelter. * * * * * Luncheon passed gaily, and Lady Coryston perceived, or thought she perceived, that Marcia's affairs were marching briskly toward their destined end. Newbury took his leave immediately afterward, saying to Lady Coryston, "So we expect you--next Sunday?" The slight emphasis he laid on the words, the pressure on her hand seemed to reveal to her the hope in the young man's mind. Well!--the sooner, the better. Afterward Lady Coryston paid some calls in the village, and, coming home through a stately series of walled gardens ablaze with spring flowers, she gave some directions for a new herbaceous border. Then she returned to the house to await her son. Marcia meanwhile had gone to the station to meet Sir Wilfrid Bury. Coryston duly arrived, a more disreputable figure than usual--bedraggled with rain, his shabby trousers tucked into his boots, and his cap festooned with fishing-flies; for the afternoon had turned showery, and Coryston had been pursuing the only sport which appealed to him in the trout-stream of the park. Before he did so he had formally asked leave of the agent, and had been formally granted it. He and Lady Coryston were closeted together for nearly an hour. Had any one been sitting in the adjoining room they would have heard, save on two occasions when the raised voices clashed together, but little variation in the tones of the combatants. When the conference broke up and Coryston departed Lady Coryston was left alone for a little while. She sat motionless in her chair beside her writing-table. Animation and color faded slowly from her features; and before her trance of thought was broken by the arrival of a servant announcing that Sir Wilfrid Bury had arrived, one who knew her well would have been startled by certain subtle changes in her aspect. Coryston, meanwhile, made his way to the great library in the north wing, looking for Lester. He found the young librarian at his desk, with a fifteenth-century MS. before him, which he was describing and cataloguing. The beautiful pages sparkling with color and gold were held open by glass weights, and the young man's face, as he bent over his task, showed the happy abstraction of the scholar. All around him rose the latticed walls of the library, holding on one side a collection of MSS., on the other of early printed books, well known to learned Europe. Wandering gleams from the showery sky outside lit up the faded richness of the room, the pale brown and yellows of the books, the sharp black and white of the old engravings hanging among them. The windows were wide open, and occasionally a westerly gust would blow in upon the floor petals from a fruit tree in blossom just outside. Coryston came in, looking rather flushed and excited, and took a seat on the edge of the table where Lester was working, his hands in his pockets. "What a blessed place!" he said, glancing round him. Lester looked up and smiled absently. "Not bad?" Silence a moment. Then Coryston said, with sudden vehemence: "Don't you go into politics, Lester!" "No fear, old man. But what's up, now? You seem to have been ragging a good deal." "I've been 'following the gleam,'" said Coryston, with a sarcastic mouth. "Or to put it in another way--there's a hot coal in me that makes me do certain things. I dignify it by calling it a sense of justice. What is it? I don't know. I say, Lester, are you a Suffragist?" "Haven't made up my mind." "I am--theoretically. But upon my word--politics plays the deuce with women. And sometimes I think that women will play the deuce with politics." "You mean they're so unmeasured?" said Lester, cautiously. Coryston shook his head vaguely, staring at the floor, but presently broke out: "I say, Lester, if we can't find generosity, tenderness, an open mind--among women--where the devil are we going to find them?" He stood up. "And politics kills all that kind of thing." "'Physician, heal thyself,'" laughed Lester. "Ah, but it's our _business_!'"--Coryston smote the table beside him--"our dusty, d--d business. We've got somehow to push and harry and drive this beastly world into some sort of decency. But the women!--oughtn't they to be in the shrine--tending the mystic fire? What if the fire goes out--if the heart of the nation dies?" Lester's blue-gray eyes looked up quietly. There was sympathy in them, but he said nothing. Coryston tramped half-way to the library door, then turned back. "My mother's quite a good woman," he said, abruptly. "There are no great scandals on this estate--it's better managed than most. But because of this poison of politics, no one can call their souls their own. If she'd let them live their own lives they'd adore her." "The trade-unions are just the same." "I believe you!" said Coryston. "Freedom's a lost art in England--from Parliament downward. Well, well--Good-by!" "Coryston!" "Yes?" Lord Coryston paused with his hand on the door. "Don't take the chair for Glenwilliam?" "By George, I will!" Coryston's eyes flamed. And going out he noisily shut the door. * * * * * Lester was left to his work. But his mood had been diverted, and he presently found that he was wasting time. He walked to the window, and stood there gazing at the bright flower-beds in the formal garden, the fountain plashing in its center, the low hills and woods that closed the horizon, the villages with their church-towers, piercing the shelter of the woods. May had drawn over the whole her first veils of green. The English perfection, the English mellowness, was everywhere; the spring breathings in the air came scented with the young leaf of trees that had been planted before Blenheim was fought. Suddenly across the farther end of the garden passed a girlish figure in white. Lester's pulses ran. It was Marcia. He saw her but seldom, and that generally at a distance. But sometimes she would come, in her pretty, friendly way, to chat to him about his work, and turn over his manuscripts. "She has the same feeling about me that nice women have about their dogs and cats. They are conscious of them, sorry for them; they don't like them to feel themselves neglected. So she comes to see me every now and then--lest I should think myself forgotten. Her conscience pricks her for people less prosperous than herself. I see it quite plainly. But she would be angry if I were to tell her so!" CHAPTER VII It was a breezy June afternoon, with the young summer at its freshest and lustiest. Lord and Lady William Newbury were strolling in the garden at Hoddon Grey. The long low line of the house rose behind them--an attractive house and an old one, but with no architectural features to speak of, except a high-pitched mossy roof, a picturesque series of dormer-windows, and a high gable and small lantern cupola at the farther end which marked the private chapel. The house was evidently roomy, but built for comfort, not display; the garden with its spreading slopes and knolls was simple and old-fashioned, in keeping thereby with the general aspect of the two people who were walking up and down the front lawn together. Lord William Newbury was a man of sixty-five, tall and slenderly built. His pale hazel eyes, dreamily kind, were the prominent feature of his face; he had very thin flat cheeks, and his white hair--he was walking bareheaded--was blown back from a brow which, like the delicate mouth, was still young, almost boyish. Sweetness and a rather weak refinement--a stranger would probably have summed up his first impressions of Lord William, drawn from his bodily presence, in some such words. But the stranger who did so would have been singularly wide of the mark. His wife beside him looked even frailer and slighter than he. A small and mouse-like woman, dressed in gray clothes of the simplest and plainest make, and wearing a shady garden hat; her keen black eyes in her shriveled face gave that clear promise of strong character in which her husband's aspect, at first sight, was lacking. But Lady William knew her place. She was the most submissive and the most docile of wives; and on no other terms would life have been either possible or happy in her husband's company. They were discussing, with some eagerness, the approaching arrival of their week-end guests--Lady Coryston and Marcia, the new dean of a neighboring cathedral, an ex-Cabinet Minister and an Oxford professor. But the talk, however it circled, had a way of returning to Marcia. It was evident that she held the field. "It is so strange that I have scarcely seen her!" Lady William was saying in a tone which was not without its note of complaint. "I hope dear Edward has not been too hasty in his choice. As for you, William, I don't believe you would know her again, if you were to see her without her mother." "Oh yes, I should. Her mother introduced her to me at the Archbishop's party, and I talked to her a little. A very handsome young woman. I remember thinking her talk rather too theatrical." "About theaters, you mean," sighed Lady William. "Well, that's the way with all the young people. The fuss people make about actors and actresses is perfectly ridiculous." "I remember she talked to me enthusiastically about Madame Froment," said Lord William, in a tone of reminiscence. "I asked her whether she knew that Madame Froment had a scandalous story, and was not fit acquaintance for a young girl. And she opened her eyes at me, as though I had propounded something absurd. 'One doesn't inquire about that!' she said--quite indignantly, I assure you! 'but only whether she can _act_.' It was curious--and rather disquieting--to see so much decision--self-assertion--in so young a woman." "Oh, well, Edward will change all that." Lady William's voice was gently confident. "He assures me that she has excellent principles--a fine character really, though quite undeveloped. He thinks she will be readily guided by one she loves." "I hope so, for Edward's sake--for he is very much in love. I trust he is not letting inclination run away with him. So much--to all of us--depends on his marriage!" Lord William, frowning a little, paused a moment in his walk and turned his eyes to the house. Hoddon Grey had only become his personal property some three years before this date; but ever since his boyhood it had been associated for him with hallowed images and recollections. It had been the dower-house of his widowed mother, and after her death his brother, a widower with one crippled son, had owned it for nearly a quarter of a century. Both father and son had belonged to the straitest sect of Anglo-Catholicism; their tender devotion to each other had touched with beauty the austerity and seclusion of their lives. Yet at times Hoddon Grey had sheltered large gatherings--gatherings of the high Puseyite party in the English Church, both lay and clerical. Pusey himself had preached in the chapel; Liddon with the Italianate profile--orator and ascetic--might have been seen strolling under the trees where Lord and Lady William were strolling now; Manning, hatchet-faced, jealous and self-conscious, had made fugitive appearances there; even the great Newman himself, in his extreme old age, had once rested there on a journey, and given his Cardinal's blessing to the sons of one of his former comrades in the Oxford movement. Every stone in the house, every alley in the garden, was sacred in Lord William's eyes. To most men the house they love represents either the dignity and pride of family, or else successful money-making, and the pleasure of indulged tastes. But to Lord William Newbury the house of Hoddon Grey stood as the symbol of a spiritual campaign in which his forebears, himself, and his son were all equally enrolled--the endless, unrelenting campaign of the Church against the world, the Christian against the unbeliever. ... His wife broke in upon his reverie. "Are you going to say anything about Lord Coryston's letter, William?" Lord William started. "Say anything to his mother? Certainly not, Albinia!" He straightened his shoulders. "It is my intention to take no notice of it whatever." "You have not even acknowledged it?" she asked, timidly. "A line--in the third person." "Edward thinks Lady Coryston most unwise--" "So she is--most unwise!" cried Lord William, warmly. "Coryston has every right to complain of her." "You think she has done wrong?" "Certainly. A woman has no right to do such things--whatever her son may be. For a woman to take upon herself the sole direction and disposal of such properties as the Coryston properties is to step outside the bounds of her sex; it is to claim something which a woman ought not to claim--something altogether monstrous and unnatural!" Lord William's thin features had flushed under a sudden rush of feeling. His wife could not help the sudden thought, "But if we had had an infidel or agnostic son?" Aloud she said, "You don't think his being such a Radical, so dreadfully extreme and revolutionary, justifies her?" "Not at all! That was God's will--the cross she had to bear. She interferes with the course of Providence--presumptuously interferes with it--doing evil that what she conceives to be good may come. A woman must persuade men by gentleness--not govern them by force. If she attempts that she is usurping what does not--what never can--belong to her." The churchman had momentarily disappeared in the indignant stickler for male prerogative and the time-honored laws of English inheritance. Lady William acquiesced in silence. She, too, strongly disapproved of Lady Coryston's action toward her eldest son, abominable as Coryston's opinions were. Women, like minorities, must suffer; and she was glad to have her husband's word for it that it is not their business to correct or coerce their eldest sons, on the ground of political opinions, however grievous those opinions may be. "I trust that Lady Coryston will not open on this subject to me," said Lord William, after a pause. "I am never good at concealing my opinions for politeness' sake. And of course I hold that Coryston is just as much in the wrong as she. And mad to boot! No sane man could have written the letter I received last week?" "Do you think he will do what he threatens?" "What--get up a subscription for Mr. and Mrs. Betts, and settle them somewhere here? I dare say! We can't help it. We can only follow our consciences." Lord William held himself erect. At that moment no one could have thought of "sweetness" in connection with the old man's delicately white features. Every word fell from him with a quiet and steely deliberation. His wife walked beside him a little longer. Then she left him and went into the house to see that all the last preparations for the guests were made; gathering on her way a bunch of early roses from a bed near the house. She walked slowly through the guestrooms on the garden front, looking at everything with a critical eye. The furniture of the rooms was shabby and plain. It had been scarcely changed at all since 1832, when Lord William's widowed mother had come to live at Hoddon Grey. But everything smelt of lavender and much cleaning. The windows were open to the June air, and the house seemed pervaded by the cooing of doves from the lime walk outside; a sound which did but emphasize the quiet of the house and garden. At the end of the garden front Lady William entered a room which had a newer and fresher appearance than the rest. The walls were white; a little rosebud chintz curtained the windows and the bed. White rugs made the hearth and the dressing-table gay, and there was a muslin bedspread lined with pink and tied with knots of pink ribbon. Lady William stood and looked at it with an intense and secret pleasure. She had been allowed to "do it up" the preceding summer, out of her own money, on which, in all her life, she had never signed a check; and she had given orders that Miss Coryston was to be put into it. Going to the dressing-table, she took from the vase there the formal three sprigs of azalea which the housemaid had arranged, and replaced them by the roses. Her small, wrinkled hands lingered upon them. She was putting them there for the girl Edward loved--who was probably to be his wife. A great tenderness filled her heart. When she left the room, she rapidly descended a staircase just beyond it, and found herself in the vestibule of the chapel. Pushing the chapel doors open, she made her way in. The rich glooms and scents of the beautiful still place closed upon her. Kneeling before the altar, still laden with Whitsun flowers, and under the large crucifix that hung above it, she prayed for her son, that he might worthily uphold the heritage of his father, that he might be happy in his wife, and blessed with children.... * * * * * An hour later the drawing-room and the lawns of Hoddon Grey were alive with tea and talk. Lady Coryston, superbly tall, in trailing black, was strolling with Lord William. Sir Wilfrid, the ex-Minister Sir Louis Ford, the Dean, and the Chaplain of the house were chatting and smoking round the deserted tea-table, while Lady William and the Oxford Professor poked among the flower-beds, exchanging confidences on phloxes and delphiniums. In the distance, under the lime avenue, now in its first pale leaf, two young figures paced to and fro. They were Newbury and Marcia. Sir Wilfrid had just thrown himself back in his chair, looking round him with a sigh of satisfaction. "Hoddon Grey makes me feel good! Not a common effect of country-houses!" "Enjoy them while you may!" laughed Sir Louis Ford. "Glenwilliam is after them." "Glenwilliam!" exclaimed the Dean. "I saw him at the station, with his handsome but rather strange-looking daughter. What's he doing here?" "Hatching mischief with a political friend of his--a 'fidus Achates'--who lives near here," said the Chaplain, Mr. Perry, in a deep and rather melancholy tone. "From the bills I saw posted up in Martover as we came through"--Sir Louis Ford lowered his voice--"I gathered the amazing fact that Coryston--_Coryston_!--is going to take the chair at a meeting where Glenwilliam speaks some way on in next month." Sir Wilfrid shrugged his shoulders, with a warning glance at the stately form of Coryston's mother in the distance. "Too bad to discuss!" he said, shortly. A slight smile played round the Dean's flexible mouth. He was a new-comer, and much more of an Erastian than Lord William approved. He had been invited, not for pleasure, but for tactics; that the Newburys might find out what line he was going to take in the politics of the diocese. "We were never told," said the Dean, "that a _woman's_ foes were to be those of her own household!" The Chaplain frowned. "Lord Coryston is making enemies in all directions," he said, hastily. "I understand that a letter Lord William received from him last week was perfectly outrageous." "What about?" asked Sir Louis. "A divorce case--a very painful one--on which we have found it necessary to take a strong line." The speaker, who was largely made and gaunt, with grizzled hair and spectacles, spoke with a surprising energy. The Dean looked puzzled. "What had Lord Coryston to do with it?" "What indeed?--except that he is out for picking up any grievances he can." "Who are the parties?" The Chaplain told the story. "They didn't ask anybody to marry them in church, did they?" asked the Dean. "Not that I know of." The Dean said nothing, but as he lay back in his chair, his hands behind his head, his expression was rather hostile than acquiescent. * * * * * Meanwhile, under the lime walk the golden evening insensibly heightened the pleasure of Newbury and Marcia in each other's society. For the sunny fusion of earth and air glorified not only field and wood, but the human beings walking in them. Nature seemed to be adapting herself to them--shedding a mystic blessing on their path. Both indeed were conscious of a secret excitement. They felt the approach of some great moment, as though a pageant or presence were about to enter. For the first time, Marcia's will was in abeyance. She was scarcely ecstatically happy; on the far horizon of life she seemed to be conscious of storm-clouds, of things threatening and unexplored. And yet she was in love; she was thrilled both physically and spiritually by the man beside her; with a certain helplessness, she confessed in him a being stronger and nobler than herself; the humility, the self-surrender of passion was rising in her, like the sap in the spring tree, and she trembled under it. Newbury too had grown a little pale and silent. But when his eyes met hers there was that in them under which her own wavered. "Come and see the flowers in the wood," he said, softly, and leading the way, he took her out of range of those observers in the garden; deep into a noble beech wood that rose out of the garden, climbing through a sea of wild hyacinths to a hilltop. A mossy path offered itself, winding through the blue. And round them closed the great beech trees, in a marvel of young green, sparkling and quivering under the shafts of light that struck through the wood. The air was balm. And the low music of the wood-pigeons seemed to be there for them only; a chorus of earth's creatures, wooing them to earth's festival. Unconsciously, in the deep heart of the wood, their footsteps slackened. She heard her name breathed. "Marcia!" She turned, submissive, and saw him looking down upon her with adoring tenderness, his lips gravely smiling. "Yes!" She raised her eyes to his, all her ripe beauty one flush. He put his arms round her, whispering: "Marcia! will you come to me--will you be my wife?" She leaned against him in a trance of happiness, hiding her face, yet not so that his lips could not find hers. So this was love?--the supreme of life? They stood so in silence a little. Then, still holding her, he drew her within the low feathering branches of a giant tree, where was a fallen log. He placed her on it, and himself beside her. "How wonderful that you should love me, that you should let me love you!" he said, with passionate emotion. "Oh, Marcia, am I worthy--shall I make you happy?" "That is for me to ask!" Her mouth was trembling now, and the tears were in her eyes. "I'm not nearly as good as you, Edward. I shall often make you angry with me." "Angry!" He laughed in scorn. "Could any one, ever, be angry with you, Marcia! Darling, I want you to help me so! We'll help each other--to live as we ought to live. Isn't God good? Isn't life wonderful?" She pressed his hand for answer. But the intensity of his joy, as she read it in his eyes, had in it--for her--and for the moment--just a shade of painfulness. It seemed to claim something from her that she could not quite give--or that she might not be able to give. Some secret force in her cried out in protest. But the slight shrinking passed almost immediately. She threw off her hat, and lifted her beautiful brow to him in a smiling silence. He drew her to him again, and as she felt the pressure of his arm about her, heart and soul yielded utterly. She was just the young girl, loving and beloved. "Do your father and mother really approve?" she asked at last as she disengaged herself, and her hands went up to her hot cheeks, and then to her hair, to smooth it back into something like order. "Let us go and see." He raised her joyously to her feet. She looked at him a little wistfully. "I'm rather afraid of them, Edward. You must tell them not to expect too much. And I shall always--want to be myself." "Darling! what else could they, could any one want for you--or for me!" The tone showed him a little startled, perhaps stung, by her words. And he added, with a sudden flush: "Of course I know what Coryston will say to you. He seems to think us all hypocrites and tyrants. Well--you will judge. I won't defend my father and mother. You will soon know them. You will see what their lives are." He spoke with feeling. She put her hand in his, responding. "You'll write to Corry--won't you? He's a dreadful thorn in all our sides; and yet--" Her eyes filled with tears. "You love him?" he said, gently. "That's enough for me." "Even if he's rude and violent?" she pleaded. "Do you think I can't keep my temper--when it's _your_ brother? Try me." He clasped her hand warm and close in his strong fingers. And as she moved through the young green of the woodland he saw her as a spirit of delight, the dark masses of her hair, her white dress and all her slender grace flecked by the evening sun. These were moments, he knew, that could never come again; that are unique in a man's history. He tried to hold and taste them as they passed; tormented, like all lovers, by what seems, in such crises, to be the bitter inadequacy and shallowness of human feeling. They took a more round-about path home than that which had brought them into the wood, and at one point it led them through a clearing from which there was a wide view of undulating ground scattered with houses here and there. One house, a pleasant white-walled dwelling, stood conspicuously forward amid copses a couple of fields away. Its garden surrounded by a sunk fence could be seen, and the figure of a lady walking in it. Marcia stopped to look. "What a charming place! Who lives there?" Newbury's eyes followed hers. He hesitated a moment. "That is the model farm." "Mr. Betts's farm?" "Yes. Can you manage that stile?" Marcia tripped over it, scorning his help. But her thoughts were busy with the distant figure. Mrs. Betts, no doubt; the cause of all the trouble and talk in the neighborhood, and the occasion of Corry's outrageous letter to Lord William. "I think I ought to tell you," she said, stopping, with a look of perplexity, "that Corry is sure to come and talk to me--about that story. I don't think I can prevent him." "Won't you hand him on to me? It is really not a story for your ears." He spoke gravely. "I'm afraid Cony would call that shirking. I--I think perhaps I had better have it out with him--myself. I remember all you said to me!" "I only want to save you." His expression was troubled, but not without a certain touch of sternness that she perceived. He changed the subject immediately, and they walked on rapidly toward the garden. Lady William first perceived them--perceived, too, that they were hand in hand. She broke off her chat with Sir Wilfrid Bury under the limes, and rising in sudden agitation she hurried across the lawn to her husband. The Dean and Sir Louis Ford had been discussing Woman Suffrage over their cigarettes, and Sir Louis, who was a stout opponent, had just delivered himself of the frivolous remark--in answer to some plea of the Dean's on behalf of further powers for the female sex: "Oh, no doubt, somewhere between the Harem and the Woolsack, it will be necessary to draw the line!"--when they too caught sight of the advancing figures. The Dean's eyebrows went up. A smile, most humorous and human, played over his round cheeks and button mouth. "Have they drawn it? Looks like it!" he said, under his breath. "Eh!--what?" Sir Louis, the most incorrigible of elderly gossips, eagerly put up his eyeglass. "Do you suspect anything?" Five persons were presently gathered in the library, and Marcia was sitting with her hand in Lady William's. Everybody except Lady Coryston was in a happy agitation, and trying to conceal it. Even Lord William, who was not without his doubts and qualms, was deeply moved, and betrayed a certain moisture in his eyes, as he concluded his old world speech of welcome and blessing to his son's betrothed. Only Lady Coryston preserved an unbroken composure. She was indeed quite satisfied. She had kissed her daughter and given her consent without the smallest demur, and she had conveyed both to Newbury and his father in a few significant words that Marcia's portion would be worthy of their two families. But the day's event was already thrust aside by her burning desire to get hold of Sir Louis Ford before dinner, and to extract from him the latest and most confidential information that a member of the Opposition could bestow as to the possible date for the next general election. Marcia's affair was thoroughly nice and straightforward--just indeed what she had expected. But there would be plenty of time to talk about it after the Hoddon Grey visit was over; whereas Sir Louis was a rare bird not often to be caught. "My dear," said Lord William in his wife's ear, "Perry must be informed of this. There must be some mention of it in our service to-night." She assented. Newbury, however, who was standing near, caught the remark, and looked rather doubtfully at the speaker. "You think so, father?" "Certainly, my dear son, certainly." Neither Marcia nor her mother heard. Newbury approached his betrothed, but perceived that there was no chance of a private word with her. For by this time other guests had been summoned to receive the great announcement, and a general flutter of laughter and congratulations was filling the room. The Dean, who had had his turn with Marcia, and was now turning over books, looked at her keenly from time to time. "A face," he thought, "of much character, promising developments. Will she fit herself to this medieval household? What will they make of her?" Sir Louis, after paying his respects and expressing his good wishes to the betrothed pair, had been resolutely captured by Lady Coryston. Lord William had disappeared. Suddenly into the talk and laughter there struck the sound of a loud and deep-toned bell. Lady William stood up with alacrity. "Dear me!--is it really chapel-time? Lady Coryston, will you come?" Marcia's mother, her face stiffening, rose unwillingly. "What are we supposed to do?" asked the Dean, addressing Newbury. "We have evensong in chapel at seven," said Newbury. "My father set up the custom many years ago. It gathers us all together better than evening prayer after dinner." His tone was simple and matter-of-fact. He turned radiantly to Marcia, and took her hand again. She followed him in some bewilderment, and he led her through the broad corridor which gave access to the chapel. "Rather unusual, this, isn't it?" said Sir Louis Ford to Lady Coryston as they brought up the rear. His face expressed a certain restrained amusement. If there was a convinced agnostic in the kingdom it was he. But unlike the woman at his side he could always take a philosophical interest in the religious customs of his neighbors. "Most unusual!" was the emphatic reply. But there was no help for it. Lady Coryston followed, willy-nilly. Marcia, meanwhile, was only conscious of Newbury. As they entered the chapel together she saw his face transfigured. A mystical "recollection," shutting him away completely from the outside world, sweeping like a sunlit cloud even between himself and her, possessed it. She felt suddenly forsaken--altogether remote from him. But he led her on, and presently they were kneeling together under a great crucifix of primitive Italian work, while through the dusk of the May evening gleamed the lamps of the chapel, and there arose on all sides of her a murmur of voices repeating the Confession. Marcia was aware of many servants and retainers; and she could see the soldierly form of Lord William kneeling in the distance, with Lady William beside him. The chapel seemed to her large and splendid. It was covered with painting and mosaic; and she felt the sharp contrast between it and the simple bareness of the house to which it was attached. "What does all this mean?" she seemed to be asking herself. "What does it mean for _me_? Can I play my part in it?" What had become of that early antagonism and revolt which she had expressed to "Waggin"? It had not protected her in the least from Newbury's growing ascendancy! She was indeed astonished at her own pliancy! In how short a time had she allowed Newbury's spell upon her to drive her earlier vague fears of his surroundings and traditions out of her mind! And now it returned upon her intensified--that cold, indefinite fear, creeping through love and joy. She turned again to look beseechingly at Newbury. But it seemed to her that she was forgotten. His eyes were on the altar--absorbed. And presently, aghast, she heard her own name! In the midst of the General Thanksgiving, at the point where mention may be made of individual cases, the Chaplain suddenly paused to give thanks in a voice that possessed a natural and slightly disagreeable tremor, for the "happy betrothal of Edward Newbury and Marcia Coryston." An audible stir and thrill ran through the chapel, subsiding at once into a gulf of intense silence. Marcia bowed her head with the rest; but her cheeks burned, and not only with a natural shyness. The eyes of all these kneeling figures seemed to be upon her, and she shrank under them. "I ought to have been asked," she thought, resentfully. "I ought to have been asked!" When they left the chapel, Newbury, pale and smiling, bent over her appealingly. "Darling!--you didn't mind?" She quickly withdrew her hand from his. "Don't you dine at half past eight? I really must go and dress." And she hurried away, without waiting for him to guide her through the unknown house. Breathlessly she ran up-stairs and found her room. The sight of her maid moving about, of the lights on the dressing-table, of the roses, and her dress laid out upon the bed, brought her sudden and unspeakable relief. The color came back to her cheeks, she began to chatter to her maid about everything and nothing--laughing at any trifle, and yet feeling every now and then inclined to cry. Her maid dressed her in pale pink and told her plainly when the last hook was fastened and the last string tied that she had never looked better. "But won't you put on these roses, miss?" She pointed to the bunch that Lady William had gathered. Marcia pinned them into her belt, and stood a moment looking at her reflection in the glass. Not in mere girlish vanity! Something much stronger and profounder entered in. She seemed to be measuring her resources against some hostile force--to be saying to herself: "Which of us is to yield? Perhaps not I!" * * * * * Yet as soon as Marcia entered the drawing-room, rather late, to find all the party assembled, the tension of her mood dropped, thawed by the sheer kindness and good will of the people round her. Lord William was resplendent in a button-hole and new dress-clothes; Lady William had put on her best gown and some family jewels that never saw the light except on great occasions; and when Marcia entered, the friendly affectionate looks that greeted her on all sides set her blushing once more, and shamed away the hobgoblins that had been haunting her. She was taken in to dinner by Lord William and treated as a queen. The table in the long, low dining-room shone with flowers and some fine old silver which the white-haired butler had hurriedly produced from the family store. Beside Marcia's plate lay a bunch of lilies-of-the-valley which the no less ancient head gardener had gathered and tied with a true-lover's knot, in the interval between chapel and dinner. And opposite to her sat the man she was to marry, composed and gay, careful to spare his betrothed embarrassment, ready to talk politics with Sir Louis Ford and cathedral music with the Dean; yet, through it all, so radiantly and transparently happy that his father and mother, at any rate, could not look at him without melting memories of their own youth, which sometimes, and for a moment, made talk difficult. After dinner Sir Wilfrid Bury found Lady Coryston in a secluded corner, deep in the evening papers which had just arrived. He sat down beside her. "Well, how are you feeling?" "If we could but revive the duel!" said Lady Coryston, looking up with eyes aflame. "Gracious! For what and whom? Do you want to shoot your future son-in-law for taking her from you?" "Who--Marcia? Nonsense!" said Lady Coryston, impatiently. "I was talking of this last speech of Glenwilliam's, attacking us landlords. If the duel still existed he would either never have made it or he would have been shot within twenty-four hours!" "Hang Glenwilliam!" Sir Wilfrid's tone was brusque. "I want to talk about Marcia!" Lady Coryston turned slowly round upon him. "What's wrong with Marcia? I see nothing to talk about." "Wrong! You unnatural woman! I want to know what you feel about it. Do you really like the young man? Do you think he's good enough for her?" "Certainly I like him. A very well disposed fellow. I hope he'll manage her properly. But if you want to know what I think of his family"--she dropped her voice--"I can only say that although their virtues no doubt are legion, the atmosphere of this house is to me positively stifling. You feel it as you cross the threshold. It is an atmosphere of sheer tyranny! What on earth do they mean by bundling us into chapel like that?" "Tyranny! _You_ call it tyranny!" Sir Wilfrid's eyes danced. "Certainly," said Lady Coryston, stiffly. "What else should I call it? One's soul is not one's own." Sir Wilfrid settled down on the sofa beside her, and devoted himself to drawing her out. Satan rebuking sin was a spectacle of which he never tired, and the situation was the more amusing because he happened to have spent the morning in remonstrating with her--to no purpose whatever--on the manner in which she was treating her eldest son. CHAPTER VIII While these events were happening at Hoddon Grey, Reginald Lester was passing a solitary Sunday at Coryston, until the afternoon, at least, when visitors appeared. To be left to himself, the solitary inhabitant, save for the servants, of the great classical pile; to be able to wander about it as he liked, free to speculate on its pictures and engravings; to rummage the immense collection of china in the basement rooms which no one but himself ever looked at; to examine some new corner of the muniment-room, and to ponder the strange and gruesome collection of death-masks, made by Coryston's grandfather, and now ranged in one of the annexes of the library--gave him endless entertainment. He was a born student, in whom the antiquarian instincts would perhaps ultimately overpower the poetic and literary tastes which were now so strong in him; and on Sunday, when he put aside his catalogue, the miscellaneous possessions of an historic house represented for him a happy hunting-ground through which he was never tired of raiding. But on Sunday, also, he generally gave some time to writing the journal of the preceding week. He had begun it in the hopes of attaining thereby a more flexible and literary style than the methods of his daily research allowed, and with various Stevensonian ambitions dinning in his head. Why should he not make himself a _writer_, like other people? But the criticisms of books, the records of political or literary conversation, with which the parchment-bound volume had been filled for some time, had been gradually giving place to something quite different, and it had become more necessary than ever that the book should be carefully locked when done with, and put away in his most private drawer. For instance: "What is happening, or what has probably already happened, yesterday or to-day, at Hoddon Grey? It is very easy to guess. N. has been gaining ground steadily ever since he has been able to see her away from the distracting influences of London. What is impressive and unusual in his character has room to show itself; and there are no rival forces. And yet--I doubt very much whether it would answer his purpose that she should see much of his home. She will never endure any home of her own run on the same lines; for at bottom she is a pagan, with the splendid pagan virtues, of honor, fairness, loyalty, pity, but incapable by temperament of those particular emotions on which the life of Hoddon Grey is based. Humility, to her, is a word and a quality for which she has no use; and I am sure that she has never been sorry for her 'sins,' in the religious sense, though often, it seems to me, her dear life just swings hour by hour between the two poles of impulse and remorse. She passionately wants something and must get it; and then she is consumed with fear lest in the getting it she should have injured or trampled on some one else. "Of late she has come in here--to the library--much more frequently. I am sure she feels that I care deeply what happens to her; and I sometimes am presumptuous enough to think that she wishes me to understand and approve her. "It has grown up inevitably--this affair; but N. little realizes how dangerous his position is. Up to a certain point the ascetic element in him and his philosophy will attract her--will draw the moth to the candle. All strong-willed characters among women are attracted by the austere, the ascetic powers in men. The history of all religious movements is there to prove it. But there are tremendous currents in our modern life making against such men as Newbury--their ideals and traditions. And to one or other of those currents it always seems to me that she is committed. She does not know it--does not dream, perhaps, whither she is being carried; but all the same there are 'murmurs and scents' from 'the infinite sea' of free knowledge and experiment which play upon her, and will never play upon Newbury. "Coryston will make a great effort to upset the engagement--if it is an engagement; that I can see. He thinks himself justified, on the ground that she will be committing herself to an inhuman and antisocial view of life; and he will work upon her through this painful Betts case. I wonder if he will succeed. Is he really any more tolerant than his mother? And can toleration in the active-spirited be ever anything more than approximate? 'When I speak of toleration I mean not tolerated Popery,' said Milton. Lady Coryston can't tolerate her son, and Coryston can't tolerate Newbury. Yet all three must somehow live together and make a world. Doesn't that throw some light on the ideal function of women? Not voting--not direct party-fighting--but the creation of a spiritual atmosphere in which the nation may do its best, and may be insensibly urged to do its best, in fresh, spontaneous ways, like a plant flowering in a happy climate--isn't that what women might do for us?--instead of taking up with all the old-fashioned, disappointing, political machinery, that men have found out? Meanwhile Lady Coryston of course wants all the women of her sort to vote, but doesn't see how it is to be done without letting in the women of all and any sort--to vote against her. "I have about half done my cataloguing, and have been writing some letters to Germany this morning with a view to settling on some university work there for the winter. A big book on the rise and fall of Burgundy suggests itself to me; and already I hug the thought of it. Lady Coryston has paid me well for this job, and I shall be able to do what I like for a year, and give mother and Janie some of the jam and frills of life. And who knows if I sha'n't after all be able to make my living out of what I like best? If I only could _write_! The world seems to be waiting for the historian that can write. "But meanwhile I shall always be glad of this year with the Corystons. How much longer will this rich, leisurely, aristocratic class with all its still surviving power and privileges exist among us? It is something that obviously is in process of transmutation and decay; though in a country like England the process will be a very slow one. Personally I greatly prefer this landlord stratum to the top stratum of the trading and manufacturing world. There are buried seeds in it, often of rare and splendid kinds, which any crisis brings to life--as in the Boer war; and the mere cult of family and inheritance implies, after all, something valuable in a world that has lately grown so poor in all cults. "Mother and daughter here show what is going on. Lady Coryston is just the full-blown _tyrannus_. She has no doubt whatever about her right to rule, and she rules for all she's worth. At the same time she knows that Demos has the last word, and she spends her time in the old see-saw between threats and cajolery. The old vicar here has told me astonishing tales of her--how she turned her own sister out-of-doors and never spoke to her afterward because she married a man who ratted to the Liberals, and the wife went with him; how her own husband dreaded her if he ever happened to differ from her politically, and a sort of armed neutrality between her and Coryston was all that could be hoped for at the best of times. "The poor people here--or most of them--are used to her, and in a way respect her. They take her as inevitable--like the rent or the east wind; and when she sends them coal and blankets, and builds village halls for them, they think they might be worse off. On the other hand, I don't see that Coryston makes much way among them. They think his behavior to his mother unseemly; and if they were he, they would use all his advantages without winking. At the same time, there is a younger generation growing up in the village and on the farms--not so much there, however!--which is going to give Lady Coryston trouble. Coryston puzzles and excites them. But they, too, often look askance; they wonder what he, personally, is going to get out of his campaign. "And then--Marcia? For in this book, this locked book, may I not call her by her name? Well, she is certainly no prophetess among these countryfolk. She takes up no regular duties among the poor, as the women of her family have probably always done. She is not at her ease with them; nor they with her. When she tries to make friends with them she is like a ship teased with veering winds, and glad to shrink back into harbor. And yet when something does really touch her--when something makes her _feel_--that curious indecision in her nature hardens into something irresistible. There was a half-witted girl in the village, ill-treated and enslaved by a miserly old aunt. Miss Coryston happened to hear of it from her maid, who was a relation of the girl. She went and bearded the aunt, and took the girl away bodily in her pony-cart. The scene in the cottage garden--Marcia with her arm round the poor beaten and starved creature, very pale, but keeping her head, and the old virago shrieking at her heels--must have been worth seeing. And there is an old man--a decrepit old road-mender, whose sight was injured in a shooting accident. She likes his racy talk, and she never forgets his Christmas present or his birthday, and often drops in to tea with him and his old wife. But that's because it amuses her. She goes to see them for precisely the same reasons that she would pay a call in Mayfair; and it's inspiriting to see how they guess, and how they like it. You perceive that she is shrinking all the time from the assumptions on which her mother's life is based, refusing to make them her own, and yet she doesn't know what to put in their place. Does Coryston, either? "But the tragic figure--the tragic possibility--in all this family _galère_ at the present moment, of course, is Arthur. I know, because of our old Cambridge friendship--quite against my will--a good deal about the adventure into which he has somehow slipped; and one can only feel that any day may bring the storm. His letter to me yesterday shows that he is persecuting the lady with entreaties, that she is holding him off, and that what Lady Coryston may do when she knows will greatly affect what the young lady will do. I don't believe for one moment that she will marry a penniless A. She has endless opportunities, and, I am told, many proposals--" The journal at this point was abruptly closed and locked away. For the writer of it, who was sitting at an open window of the library, became aware of the entrance of a motor into the forecourt of the house. Arthur Coryston was sitting in it. When he perceived Lester at the window he waved to the librarian, and jumping from the car as it drew up at the front door, he came across the court to a side door, which gave access to the library staircase. As he entered the room Lester was disagreeably struck by his aspect. It was that of a man who has slept ill and drunk unwisely. His dress was careless, his eyes haggard, and all the weaknesses of the face seemed to have leaped to view, amid the general relaxation of _tenue_ and dignity. He came up to the chair at which Lester was writing, and flung himself frowning into a chair beside it. "I hear mother and Marcia are away?" "They have gone to Hoddon Grey for the Sunday. Didn't you know?" "Oh yes, I knew. I suppose I knew. Mother wrote something," said the young man, impatiently. "But I have had other things to think about." Lester glanced at him, but without speaking. Arthur rose from his seat, thrust his hands into his pockets, and began to pace the polished floor of the library. The florid, Georgian decoration of ceiling and walls, and the busts of placid gentlemen with curling wigs which stood at intervals among the glass cases, wore an air of trivial or fatuous repose beside the hunted young fellow walking up and down. Lester resolutely forbore to cross-examine him. But at last the walk came to an abrupt stop. "Here's the last straw, Lester! Have you heard what mother wants me to do? There's to be a big Tory meeting here in a month--mother's arranged it all--not a word to me with your leave, or by your leave!--and I'm to speak at it and blackguard Glenwilliam! I have her letter this morning. I'm not allowed a look in, I tell you! I'm not consulted in the least. I'll bet mother's had the bills printed already!" "A reply, of course, to the Martover meeting?" "I dare say. D--n the Martover meeting! But what _taste_!--two brothers slanging at each other--almost in the same parish. I declare women have no taste!--not a ha'porth. But I won't do it--and mother, just for once, will have to give in." He sat down again and took the cigarette which Lester handed him--no doubt with soothing intentions. And indeed his state of excitement and agitation appeared nothing less than pitiable to the friend who remembered the self-complacent young orator, the budding legislator of early April. "You are afraid of being misunderstood?" "If I attack her father, as mother wishes me to attack him," said the young man, with emphasis, looking up, "Enid Glenwilliam will never speak to me again. She makes that quite plain." "She ought to be too clever!" said Lester, with vivacity. "Can't she discriminate between the politician and the private friend?" Arthur shook his head. "Other people may. She doesn't. If I get up in public and call Glenwilliam a thief and a robber--and what else can I call him, with mother looking on?--there'll be an end of my chances for good and all. She's _fanatical_ about her father! She's pulled me up once or twice already about him. I tell you--it's rather fine, Lester!--upon my soul, it is!" And with a countenance suddenly softening and eyes shining, Arthur turned his still boyish looks upon his friend. "I can quite believe it. They're a very interesting pair.... But--I confess I'm thinking of Lady Coryston. What explanation can you possibly give? Are you prepared to take her into your confidence?" "I don't know whether I'm prepared or not. Whatever happens I'm between the devil and the deep sea. If I tell her, she'll break with me; and if I don't tell her, it won't be long before she guesses for herself!" There was a pause, broken at last by Lester, whose blue eyes had shown him meanwhile deep in reflection. He bent forward. "Look here, Arthur!--can't you make a last effort, and get free?" His companion threw him a queer resentful look, but Lester persisted: "You know what I think. You won't make each other happy. You belong to two worlds which won't and can't mix. Her friends can never be your friends nor your friends hers. You think that doesn't matter now, because you're in love. But it does matter--and it'll tell more and more every year." "Don't I know it?" cried Arthur. "She despises us all. She looks upon us all--I mean, us people, with land and money and big houses--just as so much grist to her father's mill, so many fat cattle for him to slaughter." "And yet you love her!" "Of course I do! I can't make you understand, Lester! She doesn't speechify about these things--she never speechifies to me, at least. She mocks at her own side--just as much as ours. But it's her father she worships--and everything that he says and thinks. She adores him--she'd go to the stake for him any day. And if you want to be a friend of hers, lay a finger on him, and you'll see! Of course it's mad--I know that. But I'd rather marry her mad than any other woman sane!" "All the same you _could_ break it off," persisted Lester. "Of course I could. I could hang--or poison--or shoot myself, I suppose, if it comes to that. It would be much the same thing. If I do have to give her up, I shall cut the whole business--Parliament--estates--everything!" The quarter-decking began again; and Lester waited patiently on a slowly subsiding frenzy. At last he put a question. "What are your chances?" "With her? I don't know. She encourages me one day, and snubs me the next. But one thing I do know. If I attend that meeting, and make the sort of speech I should have made three months ago without turning a hair--and if I don't make it, mother will know the reason why!--it's all up with me." "Why don't you apply to Coryston?" "What--to give up the other meeting? He's very likely to climb down, isn't he?--with his damned revolutionary nonsense. He warned us all that he was coming down here to make mischief--and, by Jove, he's doing it!" "I say, who's taking my name in vain?" said a high-pitched voice. Lester turned to the doorway, and beheld a protruding head, with glittering greenish eyes, alive with laughter. Coryston slowly emerged, and closed the door behind him. "Arthur, my boy, what's up now?" Arthur paused, looked at him angrily, but was too sore and sulky to reply. Lester mildly summarized the situation. Coryston whistled. Then he deposited the butterfly-net and tin case he had been carrying, accepted a cigarette, and hoisting himself onto the corner of a heavy wooden pedestal which held the periwigged bust of an eighteenth-century Coryston, he flung an arm affectionately round the bust's neck, and sat cross-legged, smoking and pondering. "Bar the meeting for a bit," he said at last, addressing his brother; "we'll come back to it. But meeting or no meeting, I don't see any way out for you, Arthur--upon my soul, I don't!" "No one ever supposed you would!" cried Arthur. "Here's your dilemma," pursued Coryston, good-humoredly. "If you engage yourself to her, mother will cut off the supplies. And if mother cuts off the supplies, Miss Glenwilliam won't have you." "You think everybody but yourself, Corry, mercenary pigs!" "What do _you_ think? Do you see Miss Glenwilliam pursuing love in a garret--a genteel garret--on a thousand a year? For her father, perhaps!--but for nobody else! Her clothes alone would cost a third of it." No reply, except a furious glance. Coryston began to look perturbed. He descended from his perch, and approaching the still pacing Arthur, he took his arm--an attention to which the younger brother barely submitted. "Look here, old boy? Am I becoming a beast? Are you sure of her? Is it serious?" "Sure of her? Good God--if I were!" He walked to a window near, and stood looking out, so that his face could not be seen by his companions, his hands in his pockets. Coryston's eyebrows went up; the eyes beneath them showed a genuine concern. Refusing a further pull at Lester's cigarettes, he took a pipe out of his pocket, lit it, and puffed away in a brown study. The figure at the window remained motionless. Lester felt the situation too delicate for an outsider's interference, and made a feint of returning to his work. Presently it seemed that Coryston made up his mind. "Well," he said, slowly, "all right. I'll cut my meeting. I can get Atherstone to take the chair, and make some excuse. But I really don't know that it'll help you much. There's already an announcement of your meeting in the Martover paper yesterday--" "_No_!" Arthur faced round upon his brother, his cheeks blazing. "Perfectly true. Mother's taken time by the forelock. I have no doubt she has already written your speech." "What on earth can I do?" He stood in helpless despair. "Have a row!" said Coryston, laughing. "A good row and stick to it! Tell mother you won't be treated so--that you're a man, not a school-boy--that you prefer, with many thanks, to write your own speeches--_et cetera_. Play the independence card for all you're worth. It _may_ get you out of the mess." Arthur's countenance began to clear. "I'm to make it appear a bargain--between you and me? I asked you to give up your show, and you--" "Oh, any lies you like," said Coryston, placidly. "But as I've already warned you, it won't help you long." "One gains a bit of time," said the young lover, in a tone of depression. "What's the good of it? In a year's time Glenwilliam will still be Glenwilliam--and mother mother. Of course you know you'll break her heart--and that kind of thing. Marcia made me promise to put that before you. So I do. It's perfectly true; though I don't know that I am the person to press it! But then mother and I have always disagreed--whereas _you_ have been the model son." Angry melancholy swooped once more upon Arthur. "What the deuce have women to do with politics! Why can't they leave the rotten things to us? Life won't be worth living if they go on like this!" "'_Life_,'" echoed Coryston, with amused contempt. "Your life? Just try offering your billet--with all its little worries thrown in--to the next fellow you meet in the street--and see what happens!" But the man in Arthur rebelled. He faced his brother. "If you think that I wouldn't give up this whole show to-morrow"--he waved his hand toward the marble forecourt outside, now glistening in the sun--"for--for Enid--you never made a greater mistake in your life, Corry!" There was a bitter and passionate accent in the voice which carried conviction. Coryston's expression changed. "Unfortunately, it wouldn't help you with--with Enid--to give it up," he said, quietly. "Miss Glenwilliam, as I read her--I don't mean anything in the least offensive--has a very just and accurate idea of the value of money." A sort of impatient groan was the only reply. But Lester raised his head from his book. "Why don't you see what Miss Coryston can do?" he asked, looking from one to the other. "Marcia?" cried Coryston, springing up. "By the way, what are mother and Marcia after, this Sunday? Do you suppose that business is all settled by now?" He flung out a finger vaguely in the direction of Hoddon Grey. And as he spoke all the softness which had gradually penetrated his conversation with Arthur through all his banter, disappeared. His aspect became in a moment hard and threatening. "Don't discuss it with me, Coryston," said Lester, rather sharply. "Your sister wouldn't like it. I only mentioned her name to suggest that she might influence your mother in Arthur's case." He rose, and began to put up his papers as he spoke. "I know that! All the same, why shouldn't we talk about her? Aren't you a friend?--her friend?--our friend?--everybody's friend?" said Coryston, peremptorily. "Look here!--if Marcia's really going to marry Newbury!"--he brought his hand down vehemently on Lester's table--"there'll be another family row. Nothing in the world will prevent my putting the Betts' case before Marcia! I have already warned her that I mean to have it out with her, and I have advised Mrs. Betts to write to her. If she can make Newbury hear reason--well and good. If she can't--or if she doesn't see the thing as she ought, herself--well!--we shall know where we are!" "Look here, Corry," said Arthur, remonstrating, "Edward Newbury's an awfully good chap. Don't you go making mischief!" "Rather hard on your sister, isn't it?"--the voice was Lester's--"to plunge her into such a business, at such a time!" "If she's happy, let her make a thank-offering!" said the inexorable Coryston. "Life won't spare her its facts--why should we? Arthur!--come and walk home with me!" Arthur demurred, stipulated that he should not be expected to be civil to any of Coryston's Socialist lodgers--and finally let himself be carried off. Lester was left once more to the quiet of the library. "'I have advised Mrs. Betts to write to her!'" What a shame! Why should a girl in her first love-dream be harassed with such a problem--be brought face to face with such "old, unhappy, far-off things"? He felt a fierce indignation with Coryston. And as he again sat solitary by the window, he lost himself in visualizations of what was or might be going on that summer afternoon at Hoddon Grey. He knew the old house--for Lord William had once or twice courteously invited the Coryston librarian to examine such small treasures as he himself possessed. He could see Marcia in its paneled rooms and on its old lawns--Marcia and Newbury. Gradually his head dropped on his hands. The sun crept along the library floor in patches of orange and purple, as it struck through the lozenges of old painted glass which bordered the windows. No sound except the cooing of doves, and the note of a distant cuckoo from the river meadows. He did his best to play the cynic with himself. He told himself that such painful longings and jealous revolts as he was conscious of are among the growing-pains of life, and must be borne, and gradually forgotten. He had his career to think of--and his mother and sister, whom he loved. Some day he too would marry and set up house and beget children, framing his life on the simple strenuous lines made necessary by the family misfortunes. It would have been easier, perhaps, to despise wealth, if he and his had never possessed it, and if his lack of it were not the first and sufficient barrier which divided him from Marcia Coryston. But his nature was sound and sane; it looked life in the face--its gifts and its denials, and those stern joys which the mere wrestle with experience brings to the fighting spirit. He had soon reconquered cheerfulness; and when Arthur returned, he submitted to be talked to for hours on that young man's tangled affairs, handling the youth with that mixture of sympathy and satire which both soothed and teased the sentimentalists who chose to confide in him. * * * * * Next morning Marcia and her mother returned from Hoddon Grey in excellent time. Lady Coryston never lingered over week-ends. Generally the first train on Monday morning saw her depart. In this case she was obliged to give an hour to business talk--as to settlements and so forth--with Lord William, on Monday morning. But when that was over she stepped into her motor with all possible speed. "What a Sunday!" she said, languidly throwing herself back, with half-closed eyes, as they emerged from the park. Then remembering herself: "But you, my dear, have been happy! And of course they are excellent people--quite excellent." Marcia sat beside her flushed and rather constrained. She had of course never expected her mother to behave like ordinary mothers on the occasion of a daughter's betrothal. She took her insignificance, the absence of any soft emotion, quite calmly. All the same she had her grievance. "If only Edward and you--and everybody would not be in such a dreadful hurry!" she said, protesting. "Seven weeks, my dear child, is enough for any trousseau. And what have you to wait for? It will suit me too, much best. If we put it off till the autumn I should be terribly busy--absolutely taken up--with Arthur's election. Sir Louis Ford tells me they cannot possibly stave off going to the country longer than November. And of course this time I shall have not only the usual Liberal gang--I shall have Coryston to fight!" "I know. It's appalling!" cried Marcia. "Can't we get him to go away?" Then she looked at her mother uneasily. "I do wish, mother, you hadn't put that notice of Arthur's meeting into the _Witness_ without consulting him. Why, you didn't even ask him, before you settled it all! Aren't you afraid of his cutting up rough?" "Not in the least! Arthur always expects me to settle those things for him. As soon as Coryston had taken that outrageous step, it was imperative that Arthur should speak in his own village. We can't have people's minds in doubt as to what _he_ thinks of Glenwilliam, with an election only five months off. I have written to him, of course, fully--without a word of reply! What he has been doing these last weeks I can't imagine!" Marcia fell into a frowning silence. She knew, alack! a great deal more than she wished to know of what Arthur had been doing. Oh, she hoped Coryston had been able to talk to him--to persuade him! Edward too had promised to see him--immediately. Surely between them they would make him hear reason, before any suspicion reached their mother? The usual pile of letters awaited Lady Coryston and Marcia on their arrival at home. But before opening hers, Lady Coryston turned to the butler. "Is Mr. Arthur here?" "Yes, my lady. He is out now, but he left word he would be in for luncheon." Lady Coryston's face lit up. Marcia did not hear the question or the answer. She was absorbed in a letter which she happened to have opened first. She read it hastily, with growing astonishment. Then, still holding it, she was hurrying away to her own sitting-room when the butler intercepted her. "There's a young lady, miss, who wants to see you. I took her to your sitting-room. She said she came from the dressmaker--something you had ordered--very particular." "Something I had ordered?" said Marcia, mystified. "I don't know anything about it." She ran up-stairs, still thinking of the letter in her hand. "I won't see her!" she said to herself, vehemently, "without Edward's leave. He has a right now to say what I shall do. It is different with Coryston. He may argue with me--and with Edward--if he pleases. But Mrs. Betts herself! No--that's too much!" Her cheeks flushed angrily. She threw open the door of her sitting-room. Some one sitting stiffly on the edge of a chair rose as she entered. To her amazement Marcia perceived a slender woman--a lady--a complete stranger to her, standing in her own private sitting-room, awaiting her arrival. A woman in rather slipshod artistic dress, with hands clasped theatrically, and tears on her cheeks. "Who are you?" said Marcia, drawing back. Book II MARCIA "To make you me how much so e'er I try, You will be always you, and I be I." CHAPTER IX "Miss Coryston, I have done a dreadful thing," said a trembling voice. "I--I have deceived your servants--told them lies--that I might get to see you. But I implore you, let me speak to you!--don't send me away!" Marcia Coryston looked in amazement at the shrinking, childish creature, standing suppliant before her, and repeated: "I have not an idea who you are. Please tell me your name." "My name--is Alice Betts," said the other, after a momentary hesitation. "Oh, perhaps you don't know anything about me. But yet--I think you must; because--because there has been so much talk!" "Mrs. Betts?" said Marcia, slowly. Her eyes perused the other's face, which reddened deeply under the girl's scrutiny. Marcia, in her pale pink dress and hat, simple, but fresh and perfectly appointed, with her general aspect of young bloom and strength, seemed to take her place naturally against--one might almost say, as an effluence from--the background of bright June foliage, which could be seen through the open windows of the room; while Mrs. Betts, tumbled, powdered, and through all the juvenility of her attire--arms bare to the elbow and throat half uncovered, short skirts and shell necklace,--betraying her thirty-five years, belonged quite plainly to the used, autumnal category of her sex. "Haven't you heard of me?" she resumed, plaintively. "I thought--Lord Coryston--" She paused, her eyes cast down. "Oh yes," said Marcia, mechanically. "You have seen my brother? Please sit down." Mrs. Betts sat down, with a long sigh, still not venturing to look up. Instead she pressed her handkerchief to her eyes; beginning to speak in a broken, sobbing voice. "If you can't help us, Miss Coryston, I--I don't know what we shall do--my poor husband and I. We heard last night--that at the chapel service--oh! my husband used to read the lessons there for years and years, and now he never goes:--but he heard from one of his men, who was there, about your engagement to Mr. Newbury--and how Mr. Perry gave it out. I am so _ashamed_, Miss Coryston, to be speaking of your private affairs!--I don't know how to excuse myself--" She looked up humbly. She had large blue eyes in a round fair-complexioned face, and the lids fluttered as though just keeping back the tears. "Please go on," said Marcia, coldly, quivering with excitement and annoyance. But she had been bred to self-control, and she betrayed nothing. "And then--well then"--Mrs. Betts covered her face with her hands a moment, removing them with another long and miserable sigh--"my husband and I consulted--and we thought I might come to you and beg you, Miss Coryston, to plead for us--with Mr. Newbury and Lord William! You will be very happy, Miss Coryston--and we--we are so miserable!" Mrs. Betts raised her eyes again, and this time the tears escaped, ran lightly over her cheek, and fell on her blue silk dress. Marcia, who had placed herself on a chair near, felt uncomfortably touched. "I am sure nobody wishes to be unkind to you," she said, with embarrassment. Mrs. Betts bent forward eagerly. "Then you have heard? You know that John is to be turned out of his farm unless he will give me up?" But a quieter manner would have served her better. The answer came stiffly: "I cannot discuss Lord William's affairs." "Oh dear, oh dear, what am I to do?" cried Mrs. Betts under her breath, turning her eyes from side to side like a hunted thing, and twisting a rag of a handkerchief in her small right hand. Then, suddenly, she broke into vehemence: "You ought to listen to me!--it is cruel--heartless, if you don't listen! You are going to be happy--and rich--to have everything you can possibly wish for on this earth. How can you--how _can_ you refuse--to help anybody as wretched as I am!" The small, chubby face and slight figure had assumed a certain tragic force. The impression indeed was of some one absolutely at bay, at the bitter end of their resources, and therefore reckless as to what might be thought of them. And yet there was still the slight theatrical touch, as though the speaker observed herself, even in violence. Marcia, troubled, intimidated, watched her in silence a few moments and then said: "How can I possibly help you, Mrs. Betts? You shouldn't have come to me--you shouldn't, indeed. I don't know your story, and if I did I shouldn't understand it. Why didn't you ask to see my mother?" "Lady Coryston would never look at the likes of me!" cried Mrs. Betts. "No, Miss Coryston! I know it's selfish, perhaps--but it's just because you're so young--and so--so happy--that I came to you. You don't know my story--and I can't tell it you--" The speaker covered her face a moment. "I'm not a good woman, Miss Coryston. I never pretended to be. But I've had an awfully hard time--awfully hard! You see," she went on, hurriedly, as though afraid Marcia would stop her, "you see--I was married when I was only seventeen to an old husband. My mother made me--she was dying--and she wanted to be sure I had a home. And he turned against me after a few months. It was a horrible, horrible business. I couldn't tell you what I suffered--I wouldn't for the world. He shut me up, he half starved me, he struck me, and abused me. Then"--she turned her head away and spoke in a choked, rapid voice--"there was another man--he taught me music, and--I was only a child, Miss Coryston--just eighteen. He made me believe he loved me--and I had never had kind things said to me before. It seemed like heaven--and one day--I went off with him--down to a seaside place, and there we stayed. It was wicked. I suppose I ought to have borne up against my life, but I couldn't--there! I couldn't. And so--then my husband divorced me--and for ten years I lived with my old father. The other man--deserted me. I soon found him out. I don't think he meant to be cruel to me. But his people got hold of him. They wouldn't let him marry me. So there I was left, with--with my child." Mrs. Betts threw a shrinking look at Marcia. The girl flushed suddenly and deeply, but said nothing. Mrs. Betts resumed. "And I just lived on somehow--with my father--who was a hard man. He hated me for what I'd done; he was always nagging and reproving me. But I couldn't earn money and be independent--though I tried once or twice. I'm not strong--and I'm not clever; and there was the child. So he just had to keep me--and it was bitter--for him and for me. Well, then, last August he was dying, and we went to Colwyn Bay for him, and took a little lodging. And one day on the sands I saw--John Betts--after fifteen years. When I was twenty--he wanted to marry me, but we'd never met since. He came up to me--and oh!--I was glad to see him! We walked along the shore, and I told him everything. Well--he was sorry for me!--and father died--and I hadn't a penny. For what father left only just paid his debts. And I had no prospects in the world, and no one to help me or my boy. So, then, Mr. Betts offered to marry me. He knew all about my divorce--he had seen it in the newspapers years ago. I didn't deceive him--not one little bit. But he knew what Lord William would think. Only it didn't seem to matter, really, to any one but him and me. I was free--and I wasn't going to bring any more disgrace on anybody." She paused forlornly. In the strong June light, all the lost youth in the small face, its premature withering and coarsening, the traces of rouge and powder, the naturally straight hair tormented into ugly waves, came cruelly into sight. So, too, did the holes in the dirty white gloves, and some rents in the draggled but elaborate dress. Marcia could not help noticing and wondering. The wife of John Betts could not be so very poor! Suddenly her unwelcome visitor looked up. "Miss Coryston!--if they take John's farm away, everything that he cares for, everything that he's built up all these years, because of me, I'll kill myself! You tell Mr. Newbury that!" The little shabby creature had in a moment dropped her shabbiness. Her slight frame stiffened as she sat; the passion in the blue eyes which sought Marcia's was sincere and threatening. Marcia, startled, could only say again in a vaguely troubled voice: "I am sure nobody wants to harm Mr. Betts, and indeed, indeed, you oughtn't to talk to me like this, Mrs. Betts. I am very sorry for you, but I can't do anything. I would be most improper if I tried to interfere." "Why?" cried Mrs. Betts, indignantly. "Aren't women in this world to help each other? I know that Lord Coryston has spoken to you and that he means to speak to you. Surely, surely Mr. Newbury will listen to you!--and Lord William will listen to Mr. Edward. You know what they want? Oh, it's too cruel!" She wrung her hands in despair. "They say if we'll separate, if he promises--that I shall be no more his wife--but just a friend henceforward--if we meet a few times in the year, like ordinary friends--then John may keep his farm. And they want me to go and live near a Sisterhood and work for the Sisters--and send the boy to school. Just think what that looks like to me! John and I have found each other after all these years. I have got some one to help me, at last, to make me a better woman"--sobs rose again in the speaker's throat--"some one to love me--and now I must part from him--or else his life will be ruined! You know, Miss Coryston, there's no other place in England like John's place. He's been trying experiments there for years and years with new seeds, and made soils--and all sorts of ways of growing fruit--oh, I don't understand much about it--I'm not clever--but I know he could never do the same things anywhere else--not unless you gave him another life. He'll do it--he'll go--for my sake. But it'll break his heart. And why _should_ he go? What's the reason--the _justice_ of it?" [Illustration: "I DO WISH I COULD HELP YOU"] Mrs. Betts rose, and with her hands on her sides and the tears on her cheeks she bent over Marcia, gasping, in a kind of frenzy. There was no acting now. The girl of twenty-two was deeply, painfully moved. She put out her hands gently, and drew Mrs. Betts down again to the sofa beside her. "I'm dreadfully sorry for you! I do wish I could help you. But you know what Lord and Lady William think, what Mr. Newbury thinks about divorced people marrying again. You know--how they've set a standard all their lives--for their people here. How can they go against all they've ever preached? You must see their point of view, too. You must think of their feelings. They hate--I'm sure they hate--making any one unhappy. But if one of the chief people on the estate does this, and they think it wicked, how--" "Ah!" cried Mrs. Betts, eagerly interrupting. "But now please, _please_, Miss Coryston, listen! This is what I want, what I beg you to say to Mr. Newbury! I can't give John up--and he'll never give me up. But I'll go away--I'll go to a little cottage John has--it was his mother's, in Charnwood Forest--far away from everybody. Nobody here will ever know! And John will come to see me, whenever he can, whenever his work will let him. He will come over in the motor--he's always running about the country--nobody would ever notice. It might be said we'd separated--so we should have separated--as far as spending our lives together goes. But I should sometimes--sometimes--have my John!--for my own--my very own--and he would sometimes have me!" Sobs came tearing through, and, bowing her face upon the sofa, Mrs. Betts shook from head to foot. Marcia sat silent, but strangely conscious of new horizons of feeling--of a deepening life. This was the first time she had ever come across such an experience, touched so nearly on passions and sins which had hitherto been to her as stage phantoms moving in a far distance. The girl of to-day, whatever class she belongs to, is no longer, indeed, reared in the conventional innocence of the mid-Victorian moment--a moment differing wholly from that immediately before it, no less than from those which have come after it. The manners, the plays, the talk of our generation attack such an innocence at every turn. But in place of an indirect and hearsay knowledge, here, in this humble, shabby instance, was, for the first time, the real stuff--the real, miserable thing, in flesh and blood. That was new to her. And, in a flash of memory and association, there passed through her mind the vision of the Opera House blazing with lights--Iphigenia on the stage, wailing at her father's knees in an agony of terror and despair, and Newbury's voice: "_This_ is the death she shrinks from--" And again, as the beautiful form, erect and calm once more, swept stately to its doom: "And this--is the death she _accepts_!" Newbury's face, as he spoke, was before her, quietly smiling, its handsome features alive with an exaltation which had both chilled and fascinated the girl looking at him. As she remembered it the thought arose--"_he_ would accept any martyrdom for himself, in defense of what he believes and loves--and _therefore_ he will inflict it inexorably on others. But that's the point! For oneself, yes--but for others who suffer and don't believe!--suffer horribly!" A look of resolution came into the young face. She tried to rouse Mrs. Betts. "Please don't cry so!" she said, in distress. "I see what you mean. I'll try and put it to Mr. Newbury. Nobody here, you think, need know anything about you? They'd suppose you'd separated? Mr. Betts would live here, and you would live somewhere else. That's what you mean, isn't it? That's all anybody need know?" Mrs. Betts raised herself. "That's it. Of course, you see, we might have pretended to accept Lord William's conditions, and then have deceived him. But my husband wouldn't do that. He simply doesn't admit that anybody else here has any right to interfere with our private affairs. But he won't tell lies to Lord William and Mr. Edward. If they won't, they won't!" She sat up, drearily controlling herself, and began to smooth back her hair and put her hat straight. But in the middle of it she caught Marcia's hand: "Miss Coryston! you're going to marry Mr. Newbury--because you love him. If I lose John who will ever give me a kind word--a kind look again? I thought at last--I'd found--a little love. Even bad people"--her voice broke--"may rejoice in that, mayn't they? Christ didn't forbid them that." Her piteous look hung on her companion. The tears sprang to Marcia's eyes. Yet her temperament did not tend to easy weeping; and at the root of her mind in this very moment were feelings of repulsion and of doubt, mingled with impressions of pity. But the hours at Hoddon Grey had been hours of deep and transforming emotion; they had left her a more sensitive and responsive human being. "I'll do what I can," she said, with slow emphasis. "I promise you that I'll speak to Mr. Newbury." Mrs. Betts gave her effusive thanks which somehow jarred on Marcia; she was glad when they were over and Mrs. Betts rose to go. That her tearful and disheveled aspect might escape the servants Marcia took her down a side staircase of the vast house, and piloted her through some garden paths. Then the girl herself, returning, opened a gate into a wood, where an undergrowth of wild roses was just breaking into flower, and was soon pacing a mossy path out of sight and sound of the house. She found herself in a strange confusion of mind. She still saw the small tear-stained face, the dingy finery, the tormented hair; the story she had just heard was still sounding in her ears. But what really held her was the question: "Can I move Edward? What will he say to me?" And in the stillness of the wood all the incidents of their Sunday together came back upon her, and she stood breathless and amazed at the change which had passed over her life. Was it really she, Marcia Coryston, who had been drawn into that atmosphere of happy and impassioned religion?--drawn with a hand so gentle yet so irresistible? She had been most tenderly treated by them all, even by that pious martinet, Lord William. And yet, how was it that the general impression was that for the first time in her life she had been "dealt with," disciplined, molded, by those who had a much clearer idea than she herself had of what she was to do and where she was to go? Out of her mother's company she had been hitherto accustomed to be the center of her own young world; to find her wishes, opinions, prejudices eagerly asked for, and deferentially received. And she knew herself naturally wilful, conceited, keen to have her own way. But at Hoddon Grey, even in the most intimate and beautiful moments of the first love scenes between herself and Newbury, she had seemed to be entering upon--moving--in a world where almost nothing was left free for her to judge; where what she thought mattered very little, because it was taken for granted that she would ultimately think as Hoddon Grey thought; would be cherished, indeed, as the latest and dearest captive of the Hoddon Grey system and the Hoddon Grey beliefs. And she had begun already to know the exquisite, the intoxicating joys of self-surrender. Every hour had revealed to her something more of Newbury's lofty and singular character. The books and occupations amid which his home life was passed, the letters of his Oxford friends to him, and his to them; one letter in particular, from his chiefest and dearest friend, congratulating him on his engagement, which had arrived that morning--these things had been for Marcia so many steps in a new land, under new stars. The mixture in the man she was to marry, of gaiety, of an overflowing enjoyment of life, expressing itself often in an endless childish joking--with mystical sternness; the eager pursuit of beauty in art and literature, coupled with an unbending insistence on authority, on the Church's law, whether in doctrine or conduct, together with an absolute refusal to make any kind of terms with any sort of "Modernisms," so far at least as they affected the high Anglican ideal of faith and practice--in relation to these facts of Newbury's temperament and life she was still standing bewildered, half yielding and half combative. That she was loved, she knew--knew it through every vein and pulse. Newbury's delight in her, his tender worship of her, seemed to enwrap and encompass her. Now as she sat hidden amid the June trees, trembling under the stress of recollection, she felt herself enskied, exalted by such love. What could he see in her?--what was there in her--to deserve it? And yet--and yet! Some penetrating instinct to which in this moment of solitude, of unwilling reflection, she could not help but listen, told her that the very soul of him was not hers; that the deepest foundation of his life was no human affection, but the rapture, the compelling vision of a mystical faith. And that rapture she could never share; she knew herself; it was not in her. One moment she could have cried out in despair over her own limitations and disabilities. The next she was jealous; on fire. Jealous!--that was the real, sadly human truth; jealous, as women have always been, of the faith, or the art, or the friendship, which threatens their hold upon the lover. And there stole upon her as she sat musing, the old, old temptation--the temptation of Psyche--to test and try this man, who was to bring her into bondage, before the bonds were yet quite set. She was honestly touched by Mrs. Betts's story. To her, in her first softness of love, it seemed intolerably hard and odious that two people who clung to each other should be forcibly torn apart; two people whom no law, but only an ecclesiastical scruple condemned. Surely Edward would accept, and persuade his father to accept, the compromise which the husband and wife suggested. If Mrs. Betts withdrew from the scene, from the estate, would not this satisfy everybody? What further scandal could there be? She went on arguing it with herself, but all the time the real, deepest motive at work was not so much sympathy, as a kind of excited restlessness--curiosity. She saw herself pleading with Edward, breaking down his resistance, winning her cause, and then, instead of triumphing, flinging herself into his arms, to ask pardon for daring to fight him. The happy tears blinded her, and fell unheeded until a mocking reaction dried them. "Oh, what a fool!--what a fool!" And running through the wood she came out into the sunshine at its farther end--a blaze of sun upon the lake, its swans, its stone-rimmed islands, and statuary, on the gray-white front of the pillared and porticoed house, stretching interminably. The flowers shone in the stiff beds; a rain of blossom drifted through the air. Everything glittered and sparkled. It was Corinthian, pretentious, artificial; but as Marcia hurried up the broad middle walk between the queer gods and goddesses, whom some pupil of Bernini's had manufactured in Rome for a Coryston of the eighteenth century, she was in love with the scene, which in general she disliked; in love with the summer, in love above all with the quick life of her own mind and body.... There were persons talking in her mother's sitting-room--Sir Wilfrid, Arthur, and Coryston--she perceived them through the open windows. The sight of Arthur suddenly sobered her, and diverted her thoughts. For if Newbury now held the chief place in her mind, her mother still reigned there. She--Marcia--must be on the spot to protect her mother!--in case protection were wanted, and Coryston and Sir Wilfrid had not succeeded yet in bringing that mad fellow to his senses. Ah! but they had all a new helper and counselor now--in Edward. Let Coryston abuse him to her, if he dared! She would know how to defend him. She hurried on. Simultaneously, from the garden door of the library a figure emerged, a man with some books under his arm. She recognized Lester, and a rush of something which was partly shyness and partly a delicious pride came over her, to delay her steps. They met under the wide open colonnade which carried the first story of the house. Lester came toward her smiling and flushed. "I've just heard," he said. "I do congratulate you. It's splendid!" She gave him her hand; and he thought as he looked at her how happiness had beautified and transformed her. All that was imperfect in the face seemed to have fallen into harmony; and her dark bloom had never been so lovely. "Yes, I'm very happy. He'll keep me in order! At least he'll try." Her eyes danced. "Everybody seems extremely pleased," he said, walking at her side, and not indeed knowing what to say. "Except Coryston," replied Marcia, calmly. "I shall have a bad time with him." "Stand up to him!" he laughed. "His bark is worse than his bite--Ah!--" A sudden sound of vehement voices overhead--Lady Coryston's voice and Arthur's clashing--startled them both. "Oh, I must go!" cried Marcia, frowning and paling. "Thank you--thank you so much. Good-by." And she ran into the house. Lester remained rooted in the shadows of the colonnade for a minute or two, looking after her, with a set, abstracted face. Then the sound of the altercation overhead smote him too with alarm. He moved quickly away lest through the open windows he might catch what was said. CHAPTER X Marcia entered her mother's sitting-room in the midst of what seemed a babel of voices. James Coryston, indeed, who was sitting in a corner of the room while Coryston and Sir Wilfrid Bury argued across him, was not contributing to it. He was watching his mother, and she on the other side of the room was talking rapidly to her son Arthur, who could evidently hardly control himself sufficiently to listen to her. As Marcia came in she heard Arthur say in a loud voice: "Your attitude, mother, is perfectly unreasonable, and I will not submit to be dictated to like this!" Marcia, staying her foot half-way across the room, looked at her youngest brother in amazement. Was this rough-mannered, rough-voiced man, Arthur?--the tame house-brother, and docile son of their normal life? What was happening to them all? Lady Coryston broke out: "I repeat--you propose to me, Arthur, a bargain which is no bargain!--" "A quid without a quo?" interrupted Coryston, who had suddenly dropped his argument with Sir Wilfrid, and had thrown himself on a sofa near his mother and Arthur. Lady Coryston took no notice of him. She continued to address her youngest-born. "What Coryston may do--now--after all that has passed is to me a matter of merely secondary importance. When I first saw the notice of the Martover meeting it was a shock to me--I admit it. But since then he has done so many other things--he has struck at me in so many other ways--he has so publicly and scandalously outraged family feeling, and political decency--" "I really haven't," said Coryston, mildly. "I haven't--if this was a free country." Lady Coryston flashed a sudden superb look at him and resumed: "--that I really don't care what Coryston does. He has done his worst. I can't suffer any greater insult than he has already put upon me--" Coryston shook his head, mutely protesting. He seized a pen from a table near, and began to bite and strip it with an absent face. "But _you_, Arthur!" his mother went on with angry emphasis, "have still a character to lose or gain. As I have said, it doesn't now matter vitally to me whether Coryston is in the chair or not--I regard him as merely Glenwilliam's cat's-paw--but if _you_ let this meeting at Martover pass, you will have weakened your position in this constituency, you will have disheartened your supporters, you will have played the coward--and you will have left your mother disgracefully in the lurch--though that latter point I can see doesn't move you at all!" James and Sir Wilfrid Bury came anxiously to join the group. Sir Wilfrid approached the still standing and distressed Marcia. Drawing her hand within his arm, he patted it kindly. "We can't persuade your mother, my dear. Suppose you try." "Mother, you can't insist on Arthur's going through with the meeting if he doesn't wish to!" said Marcia, with animation. "Do let him give it up! It would be so easy to postpone it." Lady Coryston turned upon her. "Everything is easy in your eyes, no doubt, Marcia, except that he should do his duty, and spare my feelings! As a matter of fact you know perfectly well that Arthur has always allowed me to arrange these things for him." "I don't mean, mother, to do so in future!" said Arthur, resolutely turning upon her. "You _must_ leave me to manage my own life and my own affairs." Lady Coryston's features quivered in her long bony face. As she sat near the window, on a high chair, fully illumined, in a black velvet dress, long-waisted, and with a kind of stand-up ruffle at the throat, she was amazingly Queen Bess. James, who was always conscious of the likeness, could almost have expected her to rise and say in the famous words of the Queen to Cecil--"Little man, little man, your father durst not have said 'must' to me!" But instead she threw her son a look of furious contempt, with the words: "You have been glad enough of my help, Arthur, in the past; you have never been able indeed to do without it. I am under no illusions as to your Parliamentary abilities--unaided." "Mother!--" cried Marcia and James simultaneously. Coryston shrugged his shoulders. Arthur, breaking from Sir Wilfrid's restraining hand, approached his mother. His face was inflamed with anger, his eyes bloodshot. "You like to say these cruel things, mother. We have all put up with them long enough. My father put up with them long enough. I intend to think for myself in future. I don't think of Glenwilliam as you do. I know him--and I know his daughter." The last words were spoken with a special emphasis. A movement of alarm--in Marcia's case, of terror--ran through all the spectators. Sir Wilfrid caught the speaker by the arm, but was impatiently shaken off. Lady Coryston met her son's eyes with equal passion. "An intriguer--an unscrupulous intriguer--like himself!" said Lady Coryston, with cutting emphasis. Arthur's flush turned to pallor. Coryston, springing up, raised a warning hand. "Take care, old fellow!" Marcia and James came forward. But Arthur thrust them aside. "Mother and I have got to settle this!" He came to lean over her, looking into her face. "I advise you to be careful, mother, of what you say!" There was a dreadful pause. Then he lifted himself and said, with folded arms, slowly, still looking hard at Lady Coryston: "I am--in love--with the lady to whom you refer in that unjustifiable manner. I wish to marry her--and I am doing my best to persuade her to marry me. _Now_ you understand perhaps why I didn't wish to attack her father at this particular juncture." "Arthur!" Marcia threw herself upon her brother, to lead him away. Coryston, meanwhile, with lifted brows and the prominent greenish eyes beneath them starting out of his head, never ceased to observe his mother. There was trouble--and a sudden softness--in his look. Silence reigned, for a few painful moments. The eyes of the two combatants were on each other. The change in Lady Coryston's aspect was something quite different from what is ordinarily described as "turning pale." It represented rather the instinctive and immediate rally of the whole human personality in the presence of danger more deadly than any it has yet encountered. It was the gray rally of strength, not the pallor of fear. She laughed--as she passed her handkerchief over her lips--so Marcia thought afterward--to hide their trembling. "I thank you for your frankness, Arthur. You will hardly expect me to wish you success in such a love affair, or to further your suit. But your confession--your astonishing confession--does at least supply some reason for your extraordinary behavior. For the present--_for the present_"--she spoke slowly--"I cease to press you to speak at this meeting which has been announced. It can at any rate be postponed. As to the other and graver matter, we will discuss it later--and in private. I must take time to think it over." She rose. James came forward. "May I come with you, mother?" She frowned a little. "Not now, James, not now. I must write some letters immediately, with regard to the meeting." And without another look at any of her children, she walked proudly through the room. Sir Wilfrid threw the door open for her, and murmured something in her ear--no doubt an offer of consultation. But she only shook her head; and he closed the door. Then while Arthur, his hands on his hips, walked restlessly up and down, and Coryston, lying back on the sofa, stared at the ceiling, Marcia, James, and Sir Wilfrid looked at each other in a common dismay. Sir Wilfrid spoke first: "Are we really, Arthur, to take the statement you have just made seriously?" Arthur turned impatiently. "Do I look like joking?" "I wish you did," said Sir Wilfrid, dryly. "It would be a comfort to us." "Luckily mother doesn't believe a word of it!" The voice was Coryston's, directed apparently at the Adam decoration of the ceiling. Arthur stood still. "What do you mean?" "No offense. I dare say she believed _you_. But the notion strikes her as too grotesque to be bothered about." "She may be right there," said Arthur, gloomily, resuming his walk. "Whether she is or not, she'll take good care, my boy, that nothing comes of it," was Coryston's murmured comment. But the words were lost in his mustache. He turned to look at James, who was standing at the open window gazing into the garden. Something in his brother's meditative back seemed to annoy him. He aimed at it with a crumpled envelope he held in his hand, and hit it. James turned with a start. "Look here, James--this isn't Hegel--and it isn't Lotze--and it isn't Bergson--it's life. Haven't you got a remark to contribute?" James's blue eyes showed no resentment. "I'm very sorry for you all," he said, quietly, "especially for mother." "Why?" "Because she's the oldest. We've got the future. She hasn't." The color rushed to Marcia's face. She looked gratefully at her brother. Sir Wilfrid's gray head nodded agreement. "Hm!" said Coryston, "I don't see that. At least, of course it has a certain truth. But it doesn't present itself to me as a ground for sparing the older generation. In fact"--he sprang to his feet--"present company--present family excepted--we're being ruined--stick stock ruined--by the elder generation! They're in our way everywhere! Why don't they withdraw--and let _us_ take the stage? We know more than they. We're further evolved--we're better informed. And they will insist on pitting their years against our brains all over the field. I tell you the world can't get on like this. Something will have to be done. We're choked up with the older generation." "Yes, for those who have no reverence--and no pity!" said Marcia. The low intensity of her voice brought the looks of all three brothers upon her in some evident surprise. None of them had yet ceased to regard their sister as a child, with opinions not worth speculating about. Coryston flushed, involuntarily. "My withers are unwrung," he said, not without bravado. "You don't understand, my dear. Do I want to do the elder generation any damage? Not at all! But it is time the elder generation withdrew to the chimney-corner and gave us our rights! You think that ungrateful--disrespectful? Good heavens! What do we _care_ about the people, our contemporaries, with whom we are always fighting and scuffling in what we are pleased to call _action_? The people who matter to us are the people who rest us--and calm us--and bind up our wounds. If instead of finding a woman to argue and wrestle with I had found just a mother here, knitting by the fire"--he threw out a hand toward Lady Coryston's empty chair--"with time to smile and think and jest--with no ax to grind--and no opinions to push--do you think I shouldn't have been at her feet--her slave, her adorer? Besides, the older generation have ground their axes, and pushed their opinions, long enough--they have had thirty years of it! We should be the dancers now, and they the wall-flowers. And they won't play the game!" "Don't pretend that you and your mother could ever have played any game--together--Corry," said Sir Wilfrid, sharply. Coryston looked at him queerly, good-humoredly. "One might argue till doomsday--I agree--as to which of us said 'won't play' first. But there it is. It's our turn. And you elders won't give it us. Now mother's going to try a little tyranny on Arthur--having made a mess of me. What's the sense of it? It's _we_ who have the youth--_we_ who have the power--_we_ who know more than our elders simply because we were born thirty years later! Let the old submit, and we'll cushion the world for them, and play them out of it with march-music! But they _will_ fight us--and they can't win!" His hands on his sides, Coryston stood confronting them all, his eyes glittering. "What stuff you do talk, Coryston!" said Arthur, half angrily, half contemptuously. "What good does it do to anybody?" And he resumed his restless walk. "All flung, too, at a man of peace like me," said the white-haired Sir Wilfrid, with his quiet smile. "It takes all sorts, my dear Corry, to play the game of a generation--old and young. However, the situation is too acute for moralizing. Arthur, are you open to any sort of advice from an old friend?" "Yes," said Arthur, unwillingly, "if I weren't so jolly sure what it would be." "Don't be so sure. Come and take me a turn in the lime avenue before lunch." The two disappeared. James followed them. Marcia, full of disquiet, was going off to find Lady Coryston when Coryston stopped her. "I say, Marcia--it's true--isn't it? You're engaged to Newbury?" She turned proudly, confronting him. "I am." "I'm not going to congratulate you!" he said, vehemently. "I've got a deal to say to you. Will you allow me to say it?" "Whenever you like," said Marcia, indifferently. Coryston perched himself on the edge of a table beside her, looking down upon her, his hands thrust into his pockets. "How much do you know of this Betts business?" he asked her, abruptly. "A good deal--considering you sent Mrs. Betts to see me this morning!" "Oh, she came, did she? Well, do you see any common sense, any justice, any Christianity in forcing that woman to leave her husband--in flinging her out to the wolves again, just as she has got into shelter?" "In Edward's view, Mr. Betts is not her husband," said Marcia, defiantly. "You seem to forget that fact." "'Edward's view'?" repeated Coryston, impatiently. "My dear, what's Edward got to do with it? He's not the law of the land. Let him follow his own law if he likes. But to tear up other people's lives by the roots, in the name of some private particular species of law that you believe in and they don't, is really too much--at this time of day. You ought to stop it, Marcia!--and you must!" "Who's tyrannizing now?" said Marcia. "Haven't other people as good a right to live their beliefs as you?" "Yes, so long as they don't destroy other people in the process. Even I am not anarchist enough for that." "Well," said Marcia, coolly, "the Newburys are making it disagreeable for Mr. and Mrs. Betts because they disapprove of them. And what else are you doing with mamma?" She threw a triumphant look at her brother. "Stuff and nonsense!" cried Coryston, jumping up. "The weakest 'score' I ever heard. Don't you know the difference between the things that are vital and the things that are superficial--between fighting opinions, and _destroying a life_, between tilting and boxing, however roughly--and _murdering_?" He looked at her fiercely. "Who talks of murdering!" The tone was scornful. "I do! If the Newburys drive those two apart they will have a murder of souls on their conscience. And if you talked to that woman this morning you know it as well as I!" Marcia faltered a little. "They could still meet as friends." "Yes, under the eyes of holy women!--spying lest any impropriety occur! That's the proposal, I understand. Of all the vile and cold-blooded suggestions!--" And restraining himself with the utmost difficulty, as one might hang on to the curb of a bolting horse, Coryston stamped up and down the room, till speech was once more possible. Then he came to an abrupt pause before his sister. "Are you really in love with this man, Marcia?" So challenged, Marcia did not deign to answer. She merely looked up at Coryston, motionless, faintly smiling. He took his answer, dazzled at the same time by her emerging and developing beauty. "Well, if you do love him," he said, slowly, "and he loves you, _make_ him have pity! Those two, also, love each other. That woman is a poor common little thing. She was a poor common little actress with no talent, before her first husband married her--she's a common little actress now, even when she feels most deeply. You probably saw it, and it repelled you. _You_ can afford, you see, to keep a fine taste, and fastidious feelings! But if you tear her from that man, you kill all that's good in her--you ruin all her miserable chances. That man's raising her. Bit by bit he'll stamp his own character into hers--because she loves him. And Betts himself, a great, silent, hard man, who has once in his life done a splendid thing!--forgotten himself head over ears for a woman--and is now doing his level best to make a good job of her--you Christians are going to reward him first by breaking his heart, and tearing his life-work to pieces!--God!--I wish your Master were here to tell you what He'd think of it!" "You're not His only interpreter!" cried Marcia, breathing quickly. "It's in His name that Edward and his father are acting. You daren't say--you daren't _think_--that it's for mere authority's sake--mere domination's sake!" Coryston eyed her in silence a little. "No use in arguing this thing on its merits," he said, curtly, at last. "You don't know enough about it, and Newbury and I shouldn't have a single premise in common. But I just warn you and him--it's a ticklish game playing with a pair of human lives like these. They are sensitive, excitable people--I don't threaten--I only say--_take care_!" "'Game,' 'play'--what silly words to use about such men as Edward and his father, in such a matter!" said Marcia as she rose, breathing contempt. "I shall talk to Edward--I promised Mrs. Betts. But I suppose, Corry, it's no good saying, to begin with, that when you talk of tyranny, you seem to _me_ at any rate, the best tyrant of the lot." The girl stood with her head thrown back, challenging her brother, her whole slender form poised for battle. Coryston shook his head. "Nonsense! I play the gadfly--to all the tyrants." "_A tyrant_," repeated his sister, steadily. "And an unkind wretch into the bargain! I was engaged--yesterday--and have you said one nice, brotherly word to me?" Her lips trembled. Coryston turned away. "You are giving yourself to the forces of reaction," he said, between his teeth, "the forces that are everywhere fighting liberty--whether in the individual--or the State. Only, unfortunately "--he turned with a smile, the sudden gaiety of which fairly startled his sister--"as far as matrimony is concerned, I seem to be doing precisely the same thing myself." "Corry! what on earth do you mean?" "Ah! wouldn't you like to know? Perhaps you will some day," said Coryston, with a provoking look. "Where's my hat?" He looked round him for the battered article that served him for head-gear. "Well, good-by, Marcia. If you can pull this thing off with your young man, I'm your servant and his. I'd even grovel to Lord William. The letter I wrote him was a pretty stiff document, I admit. If not--" "Well, if not?" "War!" was the short reply, as her brother made for the door. Then suddenly he came back to say: "Keep an eye on mother. As far as Arthur's concerned--she's dangerous. She hasn't the smallest intention of letting him marry that girl. And here too it'll be a case of meddling with forces you don't understand. Keep me informed." "Yes--if you promise to help him--and her--to break it off," said Marcia, firmly. Coryston slowly shook his head; and went. Meanwhile Lady Coryston, having shaken off all companions, had betaken herself for greater privacy to a solitary walk. She desired to see neither children nor friends nor servants till she had made up her mind what she was going to do. As generally happened with her in the bad moments of life, the revelation of what threatened her had steeled and nerved her to a surprising degree. Her stately indoor dress had been exchanged for a short tweed gown, and, as she walked briskly along, her white hair framed in the drawn hood of black silk which she wore habitually on country walks, she had still a wonderful air of youth, and indeed she had never felt herself more vigorous, more alert. Occasionally a strange sense of subterranean peril made itself felt in the upper regions of the mind, caused by something she never stopped to analyze. It was not without kinship with the feeling of the gambler who has been lucky too long, and knows that the next stroke may--probably will--end it, and bring down the poised ruin. But it made no difference whatever to the gradual forging of her plan and the clearness of her resolve. So now she understood all that during the two preceding months had increasingly perplexed her. Arthur had been laid hands on by the temptress just before his maiden speech in Parliament, and had done no good ever since. At the time when his mother had inflicted a social stigma as public as she could make it on a Minister who in her eyes deserved impeachment, by refusing to go through even the ordinary conventions of allowing him to arm her down to dinner and take his seat beside her at a large London party, Arthur was courting the daughter of the criminal; and the daughter was no doubt looking forward with glee to the moment of her equally public triumph over his mother. Lady Coryston remembered the large mocking eyes of Enid Glenwilliam, as seen amid the shadows of a dark drawing-room, about a fortnight later than the dinner-party, when with a consistency which seemed to her natural, and also from a wish to spare the girl's feelings, she had declined to be introduced, at the suggestion of another blundering hostess, to Glenwilliam's daughter. And all the time--all the time--the handsome, repellent creature was holding Arthur's life and Arthur's career in the hollow of her hand! Well, she would not hold them so for long. Lady Coryston said to herself that she perfectly understood what Miss Glenwilliam was after. The circumstances of Coryston's disinheritance were now well known to many people; the prospects of the younger son were understood. The Glenwilliams were poor; the prospects of the party doubtful; the girl ambitious. To lay hands on the Coryston estates and the position which a Coryston marriage could give the daughter of the Yorkshire check-weigher--the temptation had only to be stated to be realized. And, no doubt, in addition, there would be the sweetness--for such persons as the Glenwilliams--of a planned and successful revenge. Well, the scheme was simple; but the remedy was simple also. The Martover meeting was still rather more than three weeks off. But she understood from Page that after it the Chancellor and his daughter were to spend the week-end at the cottage on the hill, belonging to that odious person, Dr. Atherstone. A note sent on their arrival would prepare the way for an interview, and an interview that could not be refused. No time was to be lost, unless Arthur's political prospects were to be completely and irretrievably ruined. The mere whisper of such a courtship, in the embittered state of politics, would be quite enough to lose him his seat--to destroy that slender balance of votes on the right side, which the country districts supplied, to neutralize the sour radicalism of the small towns in his division. She reached a rising ground in the park, where was a seat under a fine oak, commanding a view. The green slopes below her ran westward to a wide sky steeped toward the horizon in all conceivable shades of lilac and pearl, with here and there in the upper heaven lakes of blue and towering thunder-clouds brooding over them, prophesying storm. She looked out over her domain, in which, up to a short time before, her writ, so to speak, had run, like that of a king. And now all sense of confidence, of security, was gone. There on the hillside was the white patch of Knatchett--the old farmhouse, where Coryston had settled himself. It showed to her disturbed mind like the patch of leaven which, scarcely visible at first, will grow and grow "till the whole is leavened." A leaven of struggle and revolt. And only her woman's strength to fight it. Suddenly--a tremor of great weakness came upon her. Arthur, her dearest! It had been comparatively easy to fight Coryston. When had she not fought him? But Arthur! She thought of all the happy times she had had with him--electioneering for him, preparing his speeches, watching his first steps in the House of Commons. The years before her, her coming old age, seemed all at once to have passed into a gray eclipse; and some difficult tears forced their way. Had she, after all, mismanaged her life? Were prophecies to which she had always refused to listen--she seemed to hear them in her dead husband's voice!--coming true? She fell into a great and lonely anguish of mind; while the westerly light burned on the broidery of white hawthorns spread over the green spaces below, and on the loops and turns of the little brimming trout-stream that ran so merrily through the park. But she never wavered for one moment as to her determination to see Enid Glenwilliam after the Martover meeting; nor did the question of Arthur's personal happiness enter for one moment into her calculations. CHAPTER XI The breakfast gong had just sounded at Hoddon Grey. The hour was a quarter to nine. Prayers in the chapel were over, and Lord and Lady Newbury, at either end of the table, spectacles on nose, were opening and reading their letters. "Where is Edward?" said Lady William, looking round. "My dear!" Lord William's tone was mildly reproachful. "Of course--I forgot for a moment!" And on Lady William's delicately withered cheek there appeared a slight flush. For it was their wedding-day, and never yet, since his earliest childhood, had their only son, their only child, failed, either personally or by deputy, to present his mother with a bunch of June roses on the morning of this June anniversary. While he was in India the custom was remitted to the old head gardener, who always received, however, from the absent son the appropriate letter or message to be attached to the flowers. And one of the most vivid memories Lady William retained of her son's boyhood showed her the half-open door of an inn bedroom at Domodossola, and Edward's handsome face--the face of a lad of eleven--looking in, eyes shining, white teeth grinning, as he held aloft in triumph the great bunch of carnations and roses for which the little fellow had scoured the sleepy town in the early hours. They had taken him abroad for the first time, during a break between his preparatory school and Eton, when he was convalescing from a dangerous attack of measles; and Lady William could never forget the charm of the boy's companionship, his eager docility and sweetness, his delight in the Catholic churches and services, his ready friendships with the country-folk, with the coachman who drove them, and the _sagrestani_ who led them through dim chapels and gleaming monuments. But when indeed had he not been their delight and treasure from his youth up till now? And though in the interest of a long letter from her Bishop to whom she was devoted, Lady William had momentarily forgotten the date, this wedding-day was, in truth, touched, for both parents, with a special consecration and tenderness, since it was the first since Edward's own betrothal. And there beside Lady William's plate lay a large jeweler's case, worn and old-fashioned, whereof the appearance was intimately connected both with the old facts and the new. Meanwhile, a rainy morning, in which, however, there was a hidden sunlight, threw a mild illumination into the Hoddon Grey dining-room, upon the sparely provided breakfast-table, the somewhat austere line of family portraits on the gray wall, the Chippendale chairs shining with the hand-polish of generations, the Empire clock of black and ormolu on the chimney-piece and on the little tan spitz, sitting up with wagging tail and asking eyes, on Lady William's left. Neither she nor her husband ever took more than--or anything else than--an egg with their coffee and toast. They secretly despised people who ate heavy breakfasts, and the extra allowance made for Edward's young appetite, or for guests, was never more than frugal. Sir Wilfrid Bury, who was a hearty eater, was accustomed to say of the Hoddon Grey fare that it deprived the Hoddon Grey fasts--which were kept according to the strict laws of the Church--of any merit whatever. It left you nothing to give up. Nevertheless, this little morning scene at Hoddon Grey possessed, for the sensitive eye, a peculiar charm. The spaces of the somewhat empty room matched the bareness of the white linen, the few flowers standing separately here and there upon it, and the few pieces of old silver. The absence of any loose abundance of food or gear, the frugal refined note, were of course symbolic of the life lived in the house. The Newburys were rich. Their beautifully housed, and beautifully kept estate, with its nobly adorned churches, its public halls and institutions, proclaimed the fact; but in their own private sphere it was ignored as much as possible. "Here he is!" exclaimed Lady William, turning to the door with something of a flutter. "Oh, Edward, they are lovely!" Her son laid the dewy bunch beside her plate and then kissed his mother affectionately. "Many happy returns!--and you, father! Hullo--mother, you've got a secret--you're blushing! What's up?" And still holding Lady William by the arm, he looked smilingly from her to the jeweler's case on the table. "They must be reset, dear; but they're fine." Lady William opened the case, and pushed it toward him. It contained a necklace and pendant, two bracelets, and a stomacher brooch of diamonds and sapphire--magnificent stones in a heavy gold setting, whereof the Early Victorianism cried aloud. The set had been much admired in the great exhibition of 1851, where indeed it had been bought by Lady William's father as a present to his wife. Secretly Lady William still thought it superb; but she was quite aware that no young woman would wear it. Edward looked at it with amusement. "The stones are gorgeous. When Cartier's had a go at it, it'll be something like! I can remember your wearing it, mother, at Court, when I was a small child. And you're going to give it to Marcia?" He kissed her again. "Take it, dear, and ask her how she'd like them set," said his mother, happily, putting the box into his hand; after which he was allowed to sit down to his breakfast. Lord William meanwhile had taken no notice of the little incident of the jewels. He was deep in a letter which seemed to have distracted his attention entirely from his son and to be causing him distress. When he had finished it he pushed it away and sat gazing before him as though still held by the recollection of it. "I never knew a more sad, a more difficult case," he said, presently, speaking, it seemed, to himself. Edward turned with a start. "Another letter, father?" Lord William pushed it over to him. Newbury read it, and as he did so, in his younger face there appeared the same expression as in his father's; a kind of grave sadness, in which there was no trace of indecision, though much of trouble. Lady William asked no question, though in the course of her little pecking meal, she threw some anxious glances at her husband and son. They preserved a strict silence at table on the subject of the letter; but as soon as breakfast was over, Lord William made a sign to his son, and they went out into the garden together, walking away from the house. "You know we can't do this, Edward!" said Lord William, with energy, as soon as they were in solitude. Edward's eyes assented. His father resumed, impetuously: "How can I go on in close relations with a man--my right hand in the estate--almost more than my agent--associated with all the church institutions and charities--a communicant--secretary of the communicant's guild!--our friend and helper in all our religious business--who has been the head and front of the campaign against immorality in this village--responsible, with us, for many decisions that must have seemed harsh to poor things in trouble--who yet now proposes, himself, to maintain what we can only regard--what everybody on this estate has been taught to regard--as an immoral connection with a married woman! Of course I understand his plea. The thing is not to be done openly. The so-called wife is to move away; nothing more is to be seen of her here; but the supposed marriage is to continue, and they will meet as often as his business here makes it possible. Meanwhile his powers and duties on this estate are to be as before. I say the proposal is monstrous! It would falsify our whole life here,--and make it one ugly hypocrisy!" There was silence a little. Then Newbury asked: "You of course made it plain once more--in your letter yesterday--that there would be no harshness--that as far as money went--" "I told him he could have _whatever_ was necessary! We wished to force no man's conscience; but we could not do violence to our own. If they decided to remain together--then he and we must part; but we would make it perfectly easy for them to go elsewhere--in England or the colonies. If they separate, and she will accept the arrangements we propose for her--then he remains here, our trusted friend and right hand as before." "It is, of course, the wrench of giving up the farm--" Lord William raised his hands in protesting distress. "Perfectly true, of course, that he's given the best years of his life to it!--that he's got all sorts of experiments on hand--that he can never build up exactly the same sort of thing elsewhere--that the farm is the apple of his eye. It's absolutely true--every word of it! But then, why did he take this desperate step!--without consulting any of his friends! It's no responsibility of ours!" The blanched and delicate face of the old man showed the grief, the wound to personal affection he did not venture to let himself express, mingled with a rocklike steadiness of will. "You have heard from the Cloan Sisters?" "Last night. Nothing could be kinder. There is a little house close by the Sisterhood where she and the boy could live. They would give her work, and watch over her, like the angels they are,--and the boy could go to a day school. But they won't hear of it--they won't listen to it for a moment; and now--you see--they've put their own alternative plan before us, in this letter. He said to me, yesterday, that she was not religious by temperament--that she wouldn't understand the Sisters--nor they her--that she would be certain to rebel against their rules and regulations--and then all the old temptations would return. 'I have taken her life upon me,' he said, 'and I can't give her up. She is mine, and mine she will remain.' It was terribly touching. I could only say that I was no judge of his conscience, and never pretended to be; but that he could only remain here on our terms." "The letter is curiously excitable--hardly legible even--very unlike Betts," said Newbury, turning it over thoughtfully. "That's another complication. He's not himself. That attack of illness has somehow weakened him. I can't reason with him as I used to do." The father and son walked on in anxious cogitation, till Newbury observed a footman coming with a note. "From Coryston Place, sir. Waiting an answer." Newbury read it first with eagerness, then with a clouded brow. "Ask the servant to tell Miss Coryston I shall be with them for luncheon." When the footman was out of earshot, Newbury turned to his father, his face showing the quick feeling behind. "Did you know that Mr. and Mrs. Betts are trying to get at Marcia?" "No! I thought Coryston might be endeavoring to influence her. That fellow's absolutely reckless! But what can she have to do with the Bettses themselves? Really, the questions that young women concern themselves with to-day!" cried Lord William, not without vehemence. "Marcia must surely trust you and your judgment in such a matter." Newbury flushed. "I'm certain--she will," he said, rather slowly, his eyes on the ground. "But Mrs. Betts has been to see her." "A great impertinence! A most improper proceeding!" said Lord William, hotly. "Is that what her note says? My dear Edward, you must go over and beg Marcia to let this matter _alone_! It is not for her to be troubled with at all. She must really leave it to us." The wandlike old man straightened his white head a trifle haughtily. * * * * * A couple of hours later Newbury set out to walk to Coryston. The day was sultry, and June in all its power ruled the countryside. The hawthorns were fading; the gorse was over; but the grass and the young wheat were rushing up, the wild roses threw their garlands on every hedge, and the Coryston trout-stream, beside which Newbury walked, brimming as it was, on its chalk bed, would soon be almost masked from sight by the lush growths which overhung its narrow stream, twisting silverly through the meadows. The sensitive mind and conscience of a man, alive, through the long discipline of religion, to many kinds of obligation, were, at this moment, far from happy, even with this flaming June about him, and the beloved brought nearer by every step. The thought of Marcia, the recollection of her face, the expectation of her kiss, thrilled indeed in his veins. He was not yet thirty, and the forces of his life were still rising. He had never felt his manhood so vigorous, nor his hopes so high. Nevertheless he was haunted--pursued--by the thought of those two miserable persons, over whom he and his father held, it seemed, a power they had certainly never sought, and hated to exercise. Yet how disobey the Church!--and how ignore the plain words of her Lord--"_He that marrieth her that is put away committeth adultery_'"? "Marriage is for Christians indissoluble. It bears the sacramental stamp. It is the image, the outward and visible sign of that most awful and most sacred union between Christ and the soul. To break the church's law concerning it, and to help others to break it, is--for Christians--to _sin_. To acquiesce in it, to be a partner to the dissolution of marriage for such reasons as Mrs. Betts had to furnish, was to injure not only the Christian church, but the human society, and, in the case of people with a high social trust, to betray that trust." These were the ideas, the ideas of his family, and his church, which held him inexorably. He saw no escape from them. Yet he suffered from the enforcement of them, suffered truly and sincerely, even in the dawn of his own young happiness. What could he do to persuade the two offenders to the only right course!--or if that were impossible, to help them to take up life again where he and his would not be responsible for what they did or accomplices in their wrong-doing? Presently, to shorten his road, he left the park, and took to a lane outside it. And here he suddenly perceived that he was on the borders of the experimental farm, that great glory of the estate, famous in the annals of English country life before John Betts had ever seen it, but doubly famous during the twenty years that he had been in charge of it. There was the thirty-acre field like one vast chessboard, made up of small green plots; where wheat was being constantly tempted and tried with new soils and new foods; and farmers from both the old and new worlds would come eagerly to watch and learn. There were the sheds where wheat was grown, not in open ground, but in pots under shelter; there was the long range of buildings devoted to cattle, and all the problems of food; there was the new chemical laboratory which his father had built for John Betts; and there in the distance was the pretty dwelling-house which now sheltered the woman from whose presence on the estate all the trouble had arisen. A trouble which had been greatly aggravated by Coryston's presence on the scene. Newbury, for all that his heart was full of Marcia, was none the less sorely indignant with her brother, eager to have it out with him, and to fling back his charges in his face. Suddenly, a form appeared behind a gate flanked by high hedges. Newbury recognized John Betts. A tall, broad-shouldered man, with slightly grizzled hair, a countenance tanned and seamed by long exposure, and pale-blue spectacled eyes, opened the gate and stepped into the road. "I saw you coming, Mr. Edward, and thought I should like a word with you." "By all means," said Newbury, offering his hand. But Betts took no notice of it. They moved on together--a striking pair: the younger man, with his high, narrow brow and strong though slender build, bearing himself with the unconscious air of authority, given by the military life, and in this case also, no doubt, by the influence of birth and tradition; as fine a specimen of the English ruling class at its moral and physical best, as any student of our social life would be likely to discover; and beside him a figure round whom the earth-life in its primitive strength seemed to be still clinging, though the great brain of the man had long since made him its master and catechist, and not, like the ordinary man of the fields, farmer or laborer, its slave. He, too, was typical of his class, of that large modern class of the new countryman, armed by science and a precise knowledge, which has been developed from the primitive artists of the world--plowman, reaper, herdsman; who understood nothing and discovered everything. A strong, taciturn, slightly slouching fellow; vouched for by the quiet blue eyes, and their honest look; at this moment, however, clouded by a frown of distress. And between the two men there lay the memory of years of kindly intercourse--friendship, loyalty, just dealing. "Your father will have got a letter from me this morning, Mr. Edward," began Betts, abruptly. "He did. I left him writing to you." The young man's voice was singularly gentle, even deferential. "You read it, I presume?" Newbury made a sign of assent. "Is there any hope for us, Mr. Edward?" Betts turned to look into his companion's face. A slight tremor in the normally firm lips betrayed the agitation behind the question. Newbury's troubled eyes answered him. "You don't know what it costs us--not to be able to meet you--in that way!" "You think the arrangement we now propose--would still compromise you?" "How could we?" pleaded the younger man, with very evident pain. "We should be aiding and abetting--what we believe to be wrong--conniving at it indeed; while we led people--deliberately--to believe what was false." "Then it is still your ultimatum--that we must separate?" "If you remain here, in our service--our representative. But if you would only allow us to make the liberal provision we would like to make for you--elsewhere!" Betts was silent a little; then he broke out, looking round him. "I have been twenty years at the head of that farm. I have worked for it night and day. It's been my life. Other men have worked for their wives and children. I've worked for the farm. There are experiments going on there--you know it, Mr. Edward--that have been going on for years. They're working out now--coming to something--I've earned that reward. How can I begin anywhere else? Besides, I'm flagging. I'm not the man I was. The best of me has gone into that farm." He raised his arm to point. "And now, you're going to drive me from it." "Oh, Betts--why did you--why _did_ you!" cried Newbury, in a sudden rush of grief. The other turned. "Because--a woman came--and clung to me! Mr. Edward, when you were a boy I saw you once take up a wounded leveret in the fields--a tiny thing. You made yourself kill it for mercy's sake--and then you sat down and cried over it--for the thought of all it had suffered. Well, my wife--she _is_ my wife too!--is to me like that wounded thing. Only I've given her _life_!--and he that takes her from me will kill her." "And the actual words of our Blessed Lord, Betts, matter nothing to you?" Newbury spoke with a sudden yet controlled passion. "I have heard you quote them often. You seemed to believe and feel with us. You signed a petition we all sent to the Bishop only last year." "That seems so long ago, Mr. Edward,--so long ago. I've been through a lot since--a lot--" repeated Betts, absently, as though his mind had suddenly escaped from the conversation into some dream of its own. Then he came to a stop. "Well, good morning to you, sir--good morning. There's something doing in the laboratory I must be looking after." "Let me come and talk to you to-night, Betts! We have some notion of a Canadian opening that might attract you. You know the great Government farm near Ottawa? Why not allow my father to write to the Director--" Betts interrupted. "Come when you like, Mr. Edward. Thank you kindly. But--it's no good--no good." The voice dropped. With a slight gesture of farewell, Betts walked away. Newbury went on his road, a prey to very great disturbance of mind. The patience--humbleness even--of Betts's manner struck a pang to the young man's heart. The farm director was generally a man of bluff, outspoken address, quick-tempered, and not at all accustomed to mince his words. What Newbury perceived was a man only half persuaded by his own position; determined to cling to it, yet unable to justify it, because, in truth, the ideas put up against him by Newbury and his father were the ideas on which a large section of his own life had been based. It is not for nothing that a man is for years a devout communicant, and in touch thereby with all the circle of beliefs on which Catholicism, whether of the Roman or Anglican sort, depends. The white towers of Coryston appeared among the trees. His steps quickened. Would she come to meet him? Then his mind filled with repugnance. _Must_ he discuss this melancholy business again with her--with Marcia? How could he? It was not right!--not seemly! He thought with horror of the interview between her and Mrs. Betts--his stainless Marcia, and that little besmirched woman, of whose life between the dissolution of her first marriage, and her meeting with Betts, the Newburys knew more than they wished to know, more, they believed, than Betts himself knew. And the whole June day protested with him--its beauty, the clean radiance of the woods, the limpid flashing of the stream.... He hurried on. Ah, there she was!--a fluttering vision through the new-leafed trees. The wood was deep--spectators none. She came to his arms, and lightly clasped her own round his neck, hiding her face.... When they moved on together, hand in hand, Marcia, instinctively putting off what must be painful, spoke first of the domestic scene of the day before--of Arthur and her mother--and the revelation sprung upon them all. "You remember how _terrified_ I was--lest mother should know? And she's taken it so calmly!" She told the story. Lady Coryston, it seemed, had canceled all the arrangements for the Coryston meeting, and spoke no more of it. She was cool and distant, indeed, toward Arthur, but only those who knew her well would perhaps have noticed it. And he, on his side, having gained his point, had been showing himself particularly amiable; had gone off that morning to pay political visits in the division; and was doing his duty in the afternoon by captaining the village cricket team in their Whitsuntide match. But next week, of course, he would be in London again for the reassembling of Parliament, and hanging about the Glenwilliams' house, as before. "They're not engaged?" "Oh dear, no! Coryston doesn't believe _she_ means it seriously at all. He also thinks that mother is plotting something." "When can I see Coryston?" Newbury turned to her with a rather forced smile. "You know, darling, he'll have to get used to me as a brother!" "He says he wants to see you--to--to have it out with you," said Marcia, awkwardly. Then with a sudden movement, she clasped both her hands round Newbury's arm. "Edward!--do--_do_ make us all happy!" He looked down on the liquid eyes, the fresh young face raised appealingly to his. "How can I make you happy?" He lifted one hand and kissed it. "You darling!--what can I do?" But as he spoke he knew what she meant and dreaded the coming moment. That she should ask anything in these magical days that he could not at once lay at her feet!--she, who had promised him herself! "_Please_--let Mr. Betts stay--please, Edward! Oh, I was so sorry for her yesterday!" "We are all so sorry for her," he said, after a pause. "My father and mother will do all they can." "Then you _will_ let him stay?" Her white brow dropped caressingly against him. "Of course!--if he will only accept my father's conditions," he said, unwillingly, hating to see her bright look darkening. She straightened herself. "If they separate, you mean?" "I'm afraid that's what they ought to do." "But it would break their hearts." He threw her a sudden flashing look, as though a sword gleamed. "It would make amends." "For what they have done? But they don't feel like that!" she pleaded, her color rising. "They think themselves properly married, and that no one has a right to interfere with them. And when the law says so too, Edward?--Won't everybody think it _very_ hard?" "Yes, we shall be blamed," he said, quietly. "But don't you see, dearest, that, if they stay, we seem to condone the marriage, to say that it doesn't matter,--what they have done?--when in truth it seems to us a black offense--" "Against what--or whom?" she asked, wondering. The answer came unflinchingly: "Against our Lord--and His Church." The revolt within showed itself in her shining eyes. "Ought we to set up these standards for other people? And they don't ask to stay _here_!--at least she doesn't. That's what Mrs. Betts came to say to me--" Marcia threw herself into an eager recapitulation of Mrs. Betts's arguments. Her innocence, her ignorance, her power of feeling, and her instinctive claim to have her own way and get what she wanted,--were all perceptible in her pleading. Newbury listened with discomfort and distress--not yielding, however, by the fraction of an inch, as she soon discovered. When she came to an abrupt pause, the wounded pride of a foreseen rebuff dawning in her face, Newbury broke out: "Darling, I _can't_ discuss it with you! Won't you trust me--Won't you believe that neither father nor I would cause these poor things one moment's pain--if we could help it?" Marcia drew away from him. He divined the hurt in her as she began twisting and untwisting a ribbon from her belt, while her lip trembled. "I can't understand," she said, frowning--"I can't!" "I know you can't. But won't you trust me? Dearest, you're going to trust me with your whole life? Won't you?" He took her in his arms, bending his handsome head to hers, pleading with her in murmured words and caresses. And again she was conquered, she gave way; not without a galling consciousness of being refused, but thrilled all the same by the very fact that her lover could refuse her, in these first moments of their love. It brought home to her once more that touch of inaccessible strength, of mysterious command in Newbury, which from the beginning had both teased and won her. But it was on her conscience at least to repeat to him what Coryston had said. She released herself to do it. "Coryston said, Edward, I was to tell you to 'take care.' He has seen Mr. and Mrs. Betts, and he says they are very excitable people--and very much in love. He can't tell what might happen." Newbury's face stiffened. "I think I know them as well as Coryston. We will take every care, dearest. And as for thinking of it--why, it's hardly ever out of my mind--except when I'm with you! It hangs over me from morn till night." Then at last she let the subject be dismissed; and they loitered home through the woods, drawing into their young veins the scents and hues of the June day. They were at that stage in love, when love has everything to learn, and learns it through ways as old and sweet as life. Each lover is discovering the other, and over the process, Nature, with her own ends in view, throws the eternal glamour. Yet before they reached the house the "sweet bells" in Marcia's consciousness were once more jangling. There could be nothing but pleasure, indeed, in confessing how each was first attracted to the other; in clearing up the little misunderstandings of courtship; in planning for the future--the honeymoon--their London house--the rooms at Hoddon Grey that were to be refurnished for them. Lady William's jewels emerged from Newbury's pocket, and Marcia blazed with them, there and then, under the trees. They laughed together at the ugly setting, and planned a new one. But then a mention by Newbury of the Oxford friend who was to be his "best man" set him talking of the group of men who had been till now the leading influence in his life--friends made at Oxford, and belonging all of them to that younger High Church party of which he seemed to be the leader. Of two of them especially he talked with eager affection; one, an overworked High Churchman, with a parish in South London; another who belonged to a "Community," the Community of the Ascension, and was soon to go out to a mission-station in a very lonely and plague-stricken part of India. And gradually, as he talked, Marcia fell silent. The persons he was speaking of, and the ideas they represented, were quite strange to her; although, as a matter of mere information, she knew of course that such people and such institutions existed. She was touched at first, then chilled, and if the truth be told--bored. It was with such topics, as with the Hoddon Grey view of the Betts case. Something in her could not understand. She guided him deftly back to music, to the opera, to the night of Iphigenia. No jarring there! Each mind kindled the other, in a common delight. Presently they swung along, hand in hand, laughing, quoting, reminding each other of this fine thing, and that. Newbury was a considerable musician; Marcia was accustomed to be thought so. There was a new and singular joy in feeling herself but a novice and ignoramus beside him. "How much you know!"--and then, shyly--"You must teach me!" With the inevitable male retort--"Teach you!--when you look at me like that!" It was a golden hour. Yet when Marcia went to take off her hat before luncheon, and stood absently before the glass in a flush of happiness, it was as though suddenly a door opened behind her, and two sad and ghostly figures entered the room of life, pricking her with sharp remorse for having forgotten them. And when she rejoined Newbury down-stairs, it seemed to her, from his silent and subdued manner, that something of the same kind had happened also to him. * * * * * "You haven't tackled Coryston yet?" said Sir Wilfrid, as he and Newbury walked back toward Hoddon Grey in the late afternoon, leaving Marcia and Lady Coryston in the clutches of a dressmaker, who had filled the drawing-room with a gleaming show of "English silks," that being Lady Coryston's special and peremptory command for the _trousseau_. "No. He hasn't even vouchsafed me a letter." Newbury laughed; but Sir Wilfrid perceived the hurt feeling which mingled with the laugh. "Absurd fellow!" said Sir Wilfrid. "His proceedings here amuse me a good deal--but they naturally annoy his mother. You have heard of the business with the Baptists?" Newbury had seen some account of it in the local paper. "Well now they've got their land--through Coryston. There always was a square piece in the very middle of the village--an _enclave_ belonging to an old maid, the daughter of a man who was a former butler of the Corystons, generations ago. She had migrated to Edinburgh, but Coryston has found her, got at her, and made her sell it--finding, I believe, the greater part of the money. It won't be long before he'll be laying the foundation-stone of the new Bethel--under his mother's nose." "A truly kind and filial thing to do!" said the young High Churchman, flushing. Sir Wilfrid eyed him slyly. "Moral--don't keep a conscience--political or ecclesiastical. There's nothing but mischief comes of it. And, for Heaven's sake, don't be a posthumous villain!" "What's that?" "A man who makes an unjust will, and leaves everything to his wife," said Sir Wilfrid, calmly. "It's played the deuce in this family, and will go on doing it." Whereupon the late Lord Coryston's executor produced an outline of the family history--up to date--for the benefit of Lady Coryston's future son-in-law. Newbury, who was always singularly ignorant of the town gossip on such matters, received it with amazement. Nothing could be more unlike the strictly traditional ways which governed his own family in matters of money and inheritance. "So Arthur inherits everything!" "Hm--does he?" said Sir Wilfrid. "But I thought--" "Wait and see, my dear fellow, wait and see. He will only marry Miss Glenwilliam over his mother's body--and if he does marry her he may whistle for the estates." "Then James will have them?" said Newbury, smiling. "Why not Marcia? She has as good a chance as anybody." "I hope not!" Newbury's tone showed a genuine discomfort. "What is Lady Coryston doing?" "About the Glenwilliam affair? Ah!--what isn't she doing?" said Sir Wilfrid, significantly. "All the same, she lies low." As he spoke, his eyes fell upon the hillside and on the white cottage of the Atherstones emerging from the wood. He pointed. "They will be there on Sunday fortnight--after the Martover meeting." "Who? The Glenwilliams?" Sir Wilfrid nodded. "And I am of opinion that something will happen. When two highly inflammable bodies approach each other, something generally does happen." CHAPTER XII The weeks that followed offered no particular A event, but were none the less important to this history. Coryston was called off to an election in the north, where he made a series of speeches which perhaps in the end annoyed the Labor candidate he was supporting as much as the Tory he was attacking. For, generally reckoned a Socialist by friends and opponents alike, he preached openly, on this occasion, that Socialism was absurd, and none but fools would upset kings and cabinets, to be governed by committees. And on one of his spare evenings he wrote a letter to Edward Newbury, loftily accepting him as a brother-in-law--on conditions. "I see no reason," he wrote, "why you and I should not be good friends--if only I can induce you to take the line of common humanity in this pitiful case, which, as you know, has set our whole neighborhood aflame. Your _opinions_ on divorce don't matter, of course, to me--nor mine to you. But there are cruelties of which all men are judges. And if you must--because of your opinions--commit yourself to one of them--why then, whether you marry Marcia or no, you and I can't be friends. It would be mere hypocrisy to suppose it. And I tell you quite frankly that I shall do my best to influence Marcia. There seem to me to be one or two ways out of the business, that would at any rate relieve you of any active connivance with what you hold to be immorality. I have dealt with them in my letter to your father. But if you stand on your present fiat--"Separate--or go--" well, then you and I'll come to blows--Marcia or no Marcia. And I warn you that Marcia is at bottom a humanist--in the new sense--like me." To which Newbury promptly replied: "My dear Coryston--I am quite prepared to discuss the Betts case with you, whenever you return, and we can meet. But we cannot discuss it to any useful purpose, unless you are prepared to allow me, before we begin, the same freedom of opinion that you claim for yourself. It is no good ruling out opinion--or rather conviction--and supposing that we can agree, apart from conviction, on what is cruelty in this case, and what isn't. The omitted point is vital. I find it difficult to write about Marcia--perhaps because my heart and mind are so full of her. All I can say is that the happiness she has brought me by consenting to be my wife must necessarily affect all I think and feel. And to begin with, it makes me very keen to understand and be friends with those she loves. She is very much attached to you--though much troubled often, as of course you know, by the line you have taken down here.... Let me know when you return--that I may come over to Knatchett. We can be brothers, can't we?--even though we look at life so differently." But to this Coryston, who had gone on to a Labor Congress in Scotland, made no reply. The June days passed on, bringing the "high midsummer pomps." Every day Newbury and Marcia met, and the Betts case was scarcely mentioned between them after Newbury had been able to tell her that Lord William in London had got from some Canadian magnates who happened to be there, a cordial and even enthusiastic promise of employment for John Betts, in connection with a Government experiment in Alberta. An opening was ready; the Newburys guaranteed all expenses; and at last Betts himself seemed to be reconciled to the prospect of emigration, being now, as always, determined to stick to his marriage. Nobody wished to hurry him; he was considering the whole proposal; and in a week or two Newbury quite hoped that matters might be arranged. Meanwhile, though the pride of the Newburys concealed the fact as much as possible, not only from Marcia but from each other, the dilemma on the horns of which John and Alice Betts had found themselves impaled, was being eagerly, even passionately discussed through the whole district. The supporters of the Newburys were many, for there were scores of persons on the Newbury estates who heartily sympathized with their point of view; but on the whole the defenders of the Betts marriage were more. The affair got into the newspapers, and a lecturer representing the "Rational Marriage Union" appeared from London, and addressed large and attentive audiences in the little towns. After one of these lectures, Newbury returning home at night from Coryston was pelted with stones and clods by men posted behind a hedge. He was only slightly hurt, and when Marcia tried to speak of it, his smile of frank contempt put the matter by. She could only be thankful that Coryston was still away. For Lady Coryston, meanwhile, the Betts case scarcely existed. When it did come up, she would say impatiently that in her opinion such private matters were best left to the people concerned to settle; and it was evident that to her the High Anglican view of divorce was, like the inconvenient piety of Hoddon Grey, a thing of superfluity. But Marcia knew very well that her mother had no mind to give to such a trifle--or to anything, indeed--her own marriage not excepted--but Arthur's disclosure, and Arthur's intentions. What her mother's plans were she could not discover. They lingered on at Coryston when, with the wedding so close in view, it would have been natural that they should return at once to London for shopping; and Marcia observed that her mother seemed to be more closely absorbed in politics than ever, while less attentive, perhaps, than usual to the affairs of the estate and the village. A poster announcing the Martover meeting was lying about in her sitting-room, and from a fragment of conversation overheard between her mother and Mr. Page, the agent, it seemed that Lady Coryston had been making elaborate inquiries as to those queer people, the Atherstones, with whom the Glenwilliams were to stay for the meeting. Was her mother afraid that Arthur would do something silly and public when they came down! Not the least likely! He had plenty of opportunities in London, with no local opinion, and no mother to worry him. Yet when Parliament reassembled, and Arthur, with an offhand good-by to his mother, went back to his duties, Marcia in vain suggested to Lady Coryston that they also should return to St. James's Square, partly to keep an eye on the backslider, partly with a view to "fittings," Lady Coryston curtly replied, that Marcia might have a motor whenever she pleased, to take her up to town, but that she herself meant for another fortnight to stay at Coryston. Marcia, much puzzled, could only write to James to beg him to play watch-dog; well aware, however, that if Arthur chose to press the pace, James could do nothing whatever to stop him. On the day before the Glenwilliam meeting Lady Coryston, who had gone out westward through the park, was returning by motor from the direction of Martover, and reached her own big and prosperous village of Coryston Major about seven o'clock. She had been holding conference with a number of persons in the old borough of Martover, persons who might be trusted to turn a Radical meeting into a howling inferno, if the smallest chink of opportunity were given them; and she was conscious of a good afternoon's work. As she sat majestically erect in the corner of the motor, her brain was alive with plans. A passion of political--and personal--hatred charged every vein. She was tired, but she would not admit it. On the contrary, not a day passed that she did not say to herself that she was in the prime of life, that the best of her work as a party woman was still to do, and that even if Arthur did fail her--incredible defection!--she, alone, would fight to the end, and leave her mark, so far as a voteless woman of great possessions might, upon the country and its fortunes. Yet the thought of Arthur was very bitter to her, and the expectation of the scene which--within forty-eight hours--she was deliberately preparing for herself. She meant to win her battle,--did not for one moment admit the possibility of losing it. But that her son would make her suffer for it she foresaw, and though she would not allow them to come into the open, there were dim fears and misgivings in the corners of her mind which made life disagreeable. It was a fine summer evening, bright but cool. The streets of Coryston were full of people, and Lady Coryston distributed a suzerain's greetings as she passed along. Presently, at a spot ahead of her, she perceived a large crowd, and the motor slowed down. "What's the matter, Patterson?" she asked of her chauffeur. "Layin' a stone--or somethin'--my lady," said the chauffeur in a puzzled voice. "Laying a stone?" she repeated, wondering. Then, as the crowd parted before the motor, she caught sight of a piece of orchard ground which only that morning had been still hidden behind the high moss-grown palings which had screened it for a generation. Now the palings had been removed sufficiently to allow a broad passage through, and the crowd outside was but an overflow from the crowd within. Lady Coryston perceived a platform with several black-coated persons in white ties, a small elderly lady, and half a dozen chairs upon it. At one end of the platform a large notice-board had apparently just been reared, for a couple of men were still at work on its supports. The board exhibited the words--"Site of the new Baptist Chapel for Coryston Major. All contributions to the building fund thankfully received." There was no stone to be seen, grass and trees indeed were still untouched, but a public meeting was clearly proceeding, and in the chair, behind a small table, was a slight, fair-haired man, gesticulating with vigor. Lady Coryston recognized her eldest son. "Drive on, Patterson!" she said, furiously. "I can't, my lady--they're too thick." By this time the motor had reached the center of the gathering which filled the road, and the persons composing it had recognized Lady Coryston. A movement ran through the crowd; faces turned toward the motor, and then toward the platform; from the mother--back to the son. The faces seemed to have but one smile, conscious, sly, a little alarmed. And as the motor finally stopped--the chauffeur having no stomach for manslaughter--in front of the breach in the railings, the persons on the platform saw it, and understood what was the matter with the audience. Coryston paused in his speech. There was a breathless moment. Then, stepping in front of the table, to the edge of the platform, he raised his voice: "We scarcely expected, my friends, to see my mother, Lady Coryston, among us this evening. Lady Coryston has as good a right to her opinion as any of us have to ours. She has disapproved of this enterprise till now. She did not perhaps think there were so many Baptists--big and little Baptists--in Coryston--" he swept his hand round the audience with its fringe of babies. "May we not hope that her presence to-night means that she has changed her mind--that she will not only support us--but that she will even send a check to the Building Fund! Three cheers for Lady Coryston!" He pointed to the notice-board, his fair hair blown wildly back from his boyish brow, and queer thin lips; and raising his hand, he started the first "Hip!--hip--" "Go on, Patterson," cried Lady Coryston again, knocking sharply at the front windows of the open landaulette. The crowd cheered and laughed, in good-humored triumph; the chauffeur hooted violently, and those nearest the motor fled with shrieks and jeers; Lady Coryston sat in pale endurance. At last the way was clear, and the motor shot forward. Coryston stepped back to the table and resumed his speech as though nothing had happened. "Infamous! Outrageous!" The words formed themselves on Lady Coryston's angry lips. So the plot in which she had always refused to believe had actually been carried through! That woman on the platform was no doubt the butler's daughter, the miserly spinster who had guarded her Naboth's vineyard against all purchasers for twenty years. Coryston had squared her, and in a few months the Baptist Chapel his mother had staved off till now, would be flaunting it in the village. And this was Coryston's doing. What taste--what feeling! A mother!--to be so treated! By the time she reached her own sitting-room, Lady Coryston was very near a womanish weeping. She sat silently there awhile, in the falling dusk, forcing back her self-control, making herself think of the next day, the arrival of the Glenwilliams, and how she would need all her strength and a clear head to go through with what she meant to do--more important, that, than this trumpery business in the village! A sound of footsteps roused her from her thoughts, and she perceived Marcia outside, coming back through the trees to the house. Marcia was singing in a low voice as she came. She had taken off her hat, which swung in her left hand, and her dark curls blew about her charming face. The evening light seemed to halo and caress her; and her mother thought--"she has just parted from Edward!" A kind of jealousy of her daughter for one strange moment possessed her--jealousy of youth and love and opening life. She felt herself thwarted and forgotten; her sons were all against her, and her daughter had no need of her. The memory of her own courting days came back upon her, a rare experience!--and she was conscious of a dull longing for the husband who had humored her every wish--save one; had been proud of her cleverness, and indolently glad of her activity. Yet when she thought of him, it was to see him as he lay on his death-bed, during those long last hours of obstinate silence, when his soul gave no sign to hers, before the end. [Illustration: MARCIA WAS SINGING, IN A LOW VOICE AS SHE CAME] Marcia's state and Marcia's feelings, meanwhile, were by no means so simple as her mother imagined. She was absorbed, indeed, by the interest and excitement of her engagement. She could never forget Newbury; his influence mingled with every action and thought of her day; and it was much more than an influence of sex and passion. They had hardly indeed been engaged a few days, before Marcia had instinctively come to look upon their love as a kind of huge and fascinating adventure. Where would it lead?--how would it work out? She was conscious always of the same conflicting impulses of submission and revolt; the same alternations of trust and resentment. In order not to be crushed by the strength of his character, she had brought up against him from the very beginning the weapons of her young beauty, carrying out what she had dimly conceived, even on the first day of their betrothal. The wonder of that perpetual contrast, between the natural sweetness of his temperament and the sternness with which he controlled and disciplined his life, never ceased to affect her. His fierce judgment of opinions--his bitter judgment, often, of men--repelled and angered her. She rose in revolt, protesting; only to be made to feel that in such bitterness, or such fierceness, there was nothing personal whatever. He was but a soldier under orders, mysterious orders; moved by forces she only faintly perceived. Once or twice, during the fortnight, it was as though a breath of something infinitely icy and remote blew across their relation; nor was it till, some years afterward, she read Madame Perrier's life of her brother, Blaise Pascal, that she understood in some small degree what it had meant. And just as some great physical and mental demand may bring out undreamt-of powers in a man or woman, so with the moral and spiritual demand made by such a personality as Newbury. Marcia rose in stature as she tried to meet it. She was braced, exalted. Her usual egotisms and arrogancies fell away ashamed. She breathed a diviner air, and life ran, hour by hour, with a wonderful intensity, though always haunted by a sense of danger she could not explain. Newbury's claim upon her indeed was soon revealed as the claim of lover, master, friend, in one; his love infused something testing and breathless into every hour of every day they were together. On the actual day of the Martover meeting Marcia was left alone at Coryston. Newbury had gone--reluctantly for once--to a diocesan meeting on the farther side of the county. Lady Coryston, whose restlessness was evident, had driven to inspect a new farm some miles off, and was to take informal dinner on her way back with her agent, Mr. Page, and his wife--a house in which she might reckon on the latest gossip about the Chancellor's visit, and the great meeting for which special trains were being run from town, and strangers were pouring into the district. Marcia spent the day in writing letters of thanks for wedding presents, and sheets of instructions to Waggin, who had been commandeered long before this, and was now hard at work in town on the preparations for the wedding; sorely hampered the while by Lady Coryston's absence from the scene. Then, after giving some last thoughts to her actual wedding-dress, the bride-elect wandered into the rose-garden and strolled about aimlessly gathering, till her hands were full of blooms, her thoughts meanwhile running like a mill-race over the immediate past and the immediate future. This one day's separation from Newbury had had a curious effect. She had missed him sharply; yet at the same time she had been conscious of a sort of relief from strain, a slackening of the mental and moral muscles, which had been strangely welcome. Presently she saw Lester coming from the house, holding up a note. "I came to bring you this. It seems to want an answer." He approached her, his eyes betraying the pleasure awakened by the sight of her among the roses, in her delicate white dress, under the evening sky. He had scarcely seen her of late, and in her happiness and preoccupation she seemed at last to have practically forgotten his presence in the house. She opened the note, and as she read it Lester was dismayed to see a look of consternation blotting the brightness from her face. "I must have the small motor--at once! Can you order it for me?" "Certainly. You want it directly?" "Directly. Please hurry them!" And dropping the roses, without a thought, on the ground, and gathering up her white skirts, she ran toward one of the side doors of the façade which led to her room. Lester lifted the fragrant mass of flowers she had left scattered on the grass, and carried them in. What could be the matter? He saw to the motor's coming round, and when a few minutes later he had placed her in it, cloaked and veiled, he asked her anxiously if he could not do anything to help her, and what he should say to Lady Coryston on her return. "I have left a note for my mother. Please tell Sir Wilfrid I sha'n't be here for dinner. No--thank you!--thank you! I must go myself!" Then, to the chauffeur--"Redcross Farm!--as quick as you can!" Lester was left wondering. Some new development of the Betts trouble? After a few minutes' thought he went toward the smoking-room in search of Sir Wilfrid Bury. Meanwhile Marcia was speeding through the summer country, where the hay harvest was beginning and the fields were still full of folk. The day had been thunderously fine, with threats of change. Broad streaks of light and shadow lay on the shorn grass; children were tumbling in the swaths, and a cheerful murmur of voices rose on the evening air. But Marcia could only think of the note she still held in her hand. "Can you come and see me? to-night--at once. Don't bring anybody. I am alarmed about my husband. Mr. Edward is away till to-morrow.--ALICE BETTS." This sudden appeal to her had produced in Marcia a profound intensity of feeling. She thought of Coryston's "Take care!"--and trembled. Edward would not be home till the following day. She must act alone--help alone. The thought braced her will. Her mother would be no use--but she wished she had thought of asking Sir Wilfrid to come with her.... The car turned into the field lane leading to the farm. The wind had strengthened, and during all the latter part of her drive heavy clouds had been rising from the west, and massing themselves round the declining sun. The quality of the light had changed, and the air had grown colder. "Looks like a storm, miss," said the young chauffeur, a lad just promoted to driving, and the son of the Coryston head gardener. As he spoke, a man came out of a range of buildings on the farther side of a field and paused to look at the motor. He was carrying something in his arms--Marcia thought, a lamb. The sight of the lady in the car seemed to excite his astonishment, but after a moment or two's observation he turned abruptly round the corner of the building behind him and disappeared. "That's the place, miss, where they try all the new foods," the chauffeur continued, eagerly,--"and that's Mr. Betts. He's just wonderful with the beasts." "You know the farm, Jackson?" "Oh, father's great friends with Mr. Betts," said the youth, proudly. "And I've often come over with him of a Sunday. Mr. Betts is a very nice gentleman. He'll show you everything." At which point, however, with a conscious look, and a blush, the young man fell silent. Marcia wondered how much he knew. Probably not much less than she did, considering the agitation in the neighborhood. They motored slowly toward the farm-house, an old building with modern additions and a small garden round it, standing rather nakedly on the edge of the famous checkered field, a patchwork quilt of green, yellow, and brown, which Marcia had often passed on her drives without understanding in the least what it meant. About a stone's-throw from the front door rose a substantial one-storied building, and, seeing Miss Coryston glance at it curiously, Jackson was again eager to explain: "That's the laboratory, miss--His lordship built that six years ago. And last year there was a big meeting here. Father and I come over to the speeches--and they gave Mr. Betts a gold medal--and there was an American gentleman who spoke--and he said as how this place of Mr. Betts--next to that place, Harpenden way--Rothamsted, I think they call it--was most 'ighly thought of in the States--and Mr. Betts had done fine. And that's the cattle-station over there, miss, where they fattens 'em, and weighs 'em. And down there's the drainage field where they gathers all the water that's been through the crops, when they've manured 'em--and the mangel field--and--" "Mind that gate, Jackson," said Marcia. The youth silenced, looked to his steering, and brought the motor up safely to the door of the farm. A rather draggled maid-servant answered Marcia's ring, examined her furtively, and showed her into the little drawing-room. Marcia stood at the window, looking out. She saw the motor disappearing toward the garage which she understood was to be found somewhere on the premises. The storm was drawing nearer; the rising grounds to the west were in black shadow--but on the fields and scattered buildings in front, wild gleams were striking now here, now there. How trim everything was!--how solid and prosperous. The great cattle-shed on the one hand--the sheep-station on the other, with its pens and hurdles--the fine stone-built laboratory--the fields stretching to the distance. She turned to the room in which she stood. Nothing trim or solid there! A foundation indeed of simple things, the chairs and tables of a bachelor's room, over which a tawdry taste had gone rioting. Draperies of "art" muslin; photographs in profusion--of ladies in very low dresses and affected poses, with names and affectionate messages written across the corners;--a multitude of dingy knick-knacks; above the mantelpiece a large colored photograph of Mrs. Betts herself as Ariel; clothes lying about; muddy shoes; the remains of a meal: Marcia looked at the medley with quick repulsion, the wave of feeling dropping. The door opened. A small figure in a black dress entered softly, closed the door behind her, and stood looking at Miss Coryston. Marcia was at first bewildered. She had only seen Mrs. Betts once before, in her outdoor things, and the impression left had been of a red-eyed, disheveled, excitable woman, dressed in shabby finery, the sort of person who would naturally possess such a sitting-room as that in which they stood. And here was a woman austerely simple in dress and calm in manner! The black gown, without an ornament of any kind, showed the still lovely curves of the slight body, and the whiteness of the arms and hands. The face was quiet, of a dead pallor; the hair gathered loosely together and held in place by a couple of combs, was predominantly gray, and there had been no effort this time to disguise the bareness of the temples, or the fresh signs of age graven round eyes and lips. For the first time the quick sense of the girl perceived that Mrs. Betts was or had been a beautiful woman. By what dramatic instinct did she thus present herself for this interview? A wretched actress on the boards, did she yet possess some subtle perception which came into play at this crisis of her own personal life? "It was very kind of you to come, Miss Coryston." She pushed forward a chair. "Won't you sit down? I'm ashamed of this room. I apologize for it." She looked round it with a gesture of weary disgust, and then at Marcia, who stood in flushed agitation, the heavy cloak she had worn in the motor falling back from her shoulders and her white dress, the blue motor veil framing the brilliance of her eyes and cheeks. "I musn't sit down, thank you--I can't stay long," said the girl, hurriedly. "Will you tell me why you sent for me? I came at once. But my mother, when she comes home, will wonder where I am." Without answering immediately, Mrs. Betts moved to the window, and looked out into the darkening landscape, and the trees already bending to the gusts which precede the storm. "Did you see my husband as you came?" she asked, turning slightly. "Yes. He was carrying something. He saw me, but I don't think he knew who I was." "He never came home last night at all," said Mrs. Betts, looking away again out of the window. "He wandered about the fields and the sheds all night. I looked out just as it was getting light, and saw him walking about among the wheat plots, sometimes stopping to look, and sometimes making a note in his pocket-book, as he does when he's going his rounds. And at four o'clock, when I looked again, he was coming out of the cattle-shed, with something in his hand, which he took into the laboratory. I saw him unlock the door of the laboratory and I bent out of my window, and tried to call him. But he never looked my way, and he stayed there till the sun was up. Then I saw him again outside, and I went out and brought him in. But he wouldn't take any rest even then. He went into the office and began to write. I took him some tea, and then--" The speaker's white face quivered for the first time. She came to Marcia and laid both hands on the girl's arm. "He told me he was losing his memory and his mind. He thought he had never quite got over his illness before he went to Colwyn Bay--and now it was this trouble which had done for him. He had told Mr. Edward he would go to Canada--but he knew he never should. They wouldn't want a man so broken up. He could never begin any new work--his life was all in this place. So then--" The tears began quietly to overflow the large blue eyes looking into Marcia's. Mrs. Betts took no notice of them. They fell on the bosom of her dress; and presently Marcia timidly put up her own handkerchief, and wiped them away, unheeded. "So then I told him I had better go. I had brought him nothing but trouble, and I wasn't worth it. He was angry with me for saying it. I should never leave him--never--he said--but I must go away then because he had letters to write. And I was just going, when he came after me, and--and--he took me in his arms and carried me up-stairs and laid me on the bed and covered me up warmly. Then he stayed a little while at the foot of the bed looking at me, and saying queer things to himself--and at last he went down-stairs.... All day he has been out and about the farm. He has never spoken to me. The men say he's so strange--they don't like to leave him alone--but he drives them away when they go to speak to him. And when he didn't come in all day, I sat down and wrote to you--" She paused, mechanically running her little hand up and down the front of Marcia's cloak. "I don't know anybody here. John's lots of friends--but they're not my friends--and even when they're sorry for us--they know--what I've done--and they don't want to have much to do with me. You said you'd speak for us to Mr. Edward--and I know you did--Mr. Edward told John so. You've been kinder to me than any one else here. So I just wanted to tell _you_--what I'm going to do. I'm going away--I'm going right away. John won't know, nobody'll know where I'm gone. But I want you to tell Mr. Newbury--and get him and Lord William to be kind to John--as they used to be. He'll get over it--by and by!" Then, straightening herself, she drew herself away. "I'm not going to the Sisterhood!" she said, defiantly. "I'd sooner die! You may tell Mr. Newbury I'll live my own life--and I've got my boy. John won't find me--I'll take care of that. But if I'm not fit for decent people to touch--there's plenty like me. I'll not cringe to anybody--I'll go where I'm welcome. So now you understand, don't you--what I wanted to ask you?" "No indeed I don't," cried Marcia, in distress. "And you won't--you sha'n't do anything so mad! Please--please, be patient!--I'll go again to Mr. Newbury. I shall see him to-morrow!" Mrs. Betts shook her head. "No use--no use. It's the only thing to do for me to take myself off. And no one can stop it. If you were to tell John now, just what I've said, it wouldn't make any difference. He couldn't stop me. I'm going!--that's settled. But _he_ sha'n't go. He's got to take up his work here again. And Mr. Edward must persuade him--and look after him--and watch him. What's their religion good for, if it can't do that? Oh, how I _hate_ their religion!" Her eyes lit up with passion; whatever touch of acting there might have been in her monologue till now, this rang fiercely true: "Haven't I good reason?" Her hands clenched at the words. "It's that which has come between us, as well as the farm. Since he's been back here, it's the old ideas that have got hold of him again. He thinks he's in mortal sin--he thinks he's damned--and yet he won't--he can't give me up. My poor old John!--We were so happy those few weeks!--why couldn't they leave us alone!--That hard old man, Lord William!--and Mr. Edward--who's got you--and everything he wants besides in the world! There--now I suppose you'll turn against me too!" She stood superbly at bay, her little body drawn up against the wall, her head thrown back. To her own dismay, Marcia found herself sobbing--against her will. "I'm not against you. Indeed--indeed--I'm not against you! You'll see. I'll go again to Mr. Newbury--I promise you! He's not hard--he's not cruel--he's not!..." "Hush!" said Mrs. Berts, suddenly, springing forward--"there he is!" And trembling all over, she pointed to the figure of her husband, standing just outside the window and looking in upon them. Thunder had been rumbling round the house during the whole of this scene, and now the rain had begun. It beat on the bare grizzled head of John Betts, and upon his weather-beaten cheeks and short beard. His expression sent a shudder through Marcia. He seemed to be looking at them--and yet not conscious of them; his tired eyes met hers, and made no sign. With a slight puzzled gesture he turned away, back into the pelting rain, his shoulders bent, his step faltering and slow. "Oh! go after him!" said Marcia, imploringly. "Don't trouble about me! I'll find the motor. Go! Take my cloak!" She would have wrapped it round Mrs. Betts and pushed her to the door. But the woman stopped her. "No good. He wouldn't listen to me. I'll get one of the men to bring him in. And the servant'll go for your motor." She went out of the room to give the order, and came back. Then as she saw Marcia under the storm light, standing in the middle of the room, and struggling with her tears, she suddenly fell on her knees beside the girl, embracing her dress, with stifled sobs and inarticulate words of thanks. "Make them do something for John. It doesn't matter about me. Let them comfort John. Then I'll forgive them." CHAPTER XIII Marion Atherstone sat sewing in the cottage garden. Uncertain weather had left the grass wet, and she had carried her work-table into the shelter of a small summer-house, whence the whole plain, drawn in purple and blue on the pale grounding of its chalk soil, could be seen--east, west, and north. Serried ranks, line above line, of purplish cloud girded the horizon, each circle of the great amphitheater rising from its shadowy foundations into pearly white and shining gray, while the topmost series of all soared in snowy majesty upon a sea of blue, above the far-spread woods and fields. From these hills, the Dane in his high clearings had looked out upon the unbroken forests below, and John Hampden had ridden down with his yeomen to find death at Chalgrove Field. Marion was an Englishwoman to the core; and not ill-read. From this post of hers, she knew a hundred landmarks, churches, towns, hills, which spoke significantly of Englishmen and their doings. But one white patch, in particular, on an upland not three miles from the base of the hills, drew back her eyes and thoughts perpetually. The patch was Knatchett, and she was thinking of Lord Coryston. She had not seen him for a fortnight; though a stout packet of his letters lay within, in a drawer reserved to things she valued; but she was much afraid that, as usual, he had been the center of stormy scenes in the north, and had come back embittered in spirit. And now, since he had returned, there had been this defiance of Lady Coryston, and this planting of the Baptist flag under the very tower of the old church of Coryston Major. Marion Atherstone shook her head over it, in spite of the humorous account of the defeat of Lady Coryston which her father had given to the Chancellor, at their little dinner of the night before; and those deep laughs which had shaken the ample girth of Glenwilliam. ... Ah!--the blind was going up. Marion had her eyes on a particular window in the little house to her right. It was the window of Enid Glenwilliam's room. Though the church clock below had struck eleven, and the bell for morning service had ceased to ring, Miss Glenwilliam was not yet out of bed. Marion had stayed at home from church that she might enjoy her friend's society, and the friend had only just been called. Well, it was Enid's way; and after all, who could wonder? The excitement of that huge meeting of the night before was still tingling even in Marion's quiet Conservative veins. She had not been carried away by Glenwilliam's eloquence at all; she had thought him a wonderful, tawdry, false man of genius, not unlikely to bring himself and England to ruin. All the same, he must be an exhausting man for a daughter to live with; and a daughter who adored him. She did not grudge Enid her rest. Ah, there was the little gate opening! Somehow she had expected the opener--though he had disappeared abruptly from the meeting the night before, and had given no promise that he would come. Coryston walked up the garden path, looking about him suspiciously. At sight of Marion he took off his cap; she gave him her hand, and he sat down beside her. "Nobody else about? What a blessing!" She looked at him with mild reproach. "My father and the Chancellor are gone for a walk. Enid is not yet down." "Why? She is perfectly well. If she were a workman's wife and had to get up at six o'clock, get his breakfast and wash the children, it would do her a world of good." "How do you know? You are always judging people, and it helps nothing." "Yes, it does. One must form opinions--or burst. I can tell you, I judged Glenwilliam last night, as I sat listening to him." "Father thought it hardly one of his best speeches," said Marion, cautiously. "Sheer wallowing claptrap, wasn't it! I was ashamed of him, and sick of Liberalism, as I sat there. I'll go and join the Primrose League." Marion lifted her blue eyes and laughed--with her finger on her lip. "Hush! She might hear." She pointed to the half-open window on the first floor. "And a good thing too," growled Coryston. "She adores him--and makes him worse. Why can't he _work_ at these things--or why can't his secretaries prime him decently! He makes blunders that would disgrace an undergraduate--and doesn't care a rap--so long as a hall-full of fools cheer him." "You usen't to talk like this!" "No--because I had illusions," was the sharp reply. "Glenwilliam was one of them. Land!--what does he know about land?--what does a miner--who won't learn!--know about farming? Why, that man--that fellow, John Betts"--he pointed to the Hoddon Grey woods on the edge of the plain--"whom the Newburys are driving out of his job, because he picked a woman out of the dirt--just like these Christians!--John Betts knows more about land in his little finger than Glenwilliam's whole body! Yet, if you saw them together, you'd see Glenwilliam patronizing and browbeating him, and Betts not allowed a look in. I'm sick of it! I'm off to Canada with Betts." Marion looked up. "I thought it was to be the Primrose League." "You like catching me out," said Coryston, grimly. "But I assure you I'm pretty downhearted." "You expect too much," said Marion, softly, distressed as she spoke, to notice his frayed collar and cuffs, and the tear in his coat pocket. "And," she added, firmly, "you should make Mrs. Potifer mend your coat." "She's another disillusion. She's idle and dirty. And Potifer never does a stroke of work if he can help it. Moral--don't bother your head about martyrs. There's generally some excellent reason for martyrizing them." He broke off--looking at her with a clouded brow. "Marion!" She turned with a start, the color flooding her plain, pleasant face. "Yes, Lord Coryston!" "If you're so critical of my clothes, why don't you come and look after them and me?" She gasped--then recovered herself. "I've never been asked," she said, quietly. "Asked! Haven't you been scolding and advising me for weeks? Is there a detail of my private or public life that you don't meddle with--as it pleases you? Half a dozen times a day when I'm with you, you make me feel myself a fool or a brute. And then I go home and write you abject letters--and apologize--and explain. Do you think I'd do it for any other woman in the world? Do you dare to say you don't know what it means?" He brought his threatening face closer to hers, his blue eyes one fiery accusation. Marion resumed her work, her lip twitching. "I didn't know I was both a busybody--and a Pharisee!" "Hypocrite!" he said, with energy. His hand leaped out and captured hers. But she withdrew it. "My dear friend--if you wish to resume this conversation--it must be at another time. I haven't been able to tell you before, I didn't know it myself till late last night, when Enid told me. Your mother--Lady Coryston--will be here in half an hour--to see Enid." He stared. "My mother! So _that's_ what she's been up to!" "She seems to have asked Enid some days ago for an interview. My father's taken Mr. Glenwilliam out of the way, and I shall disappear shortly." "And what the deuce is going to happen?" Marion replied that she had no idea. Enid had certainly been seeing a great deal of Arthur Coryston; London, her father reported, was full of talk; and Miss Atherstone thought that from his manner the Chancellor knew very well what was going on. "And can't stick it?" cried Coryston, his eyes shining. "Glenwilliam has his faults, but I don't believe he'll want Arthur for a son-in-law--even with the estates. And of course he has no chance of getting both Arthur and the estates." "Because of your mother?" Coryston nodded. "So there's another strong man--a real big 'un!--dependent, like Arthur and me--on the whim of a woman. It'll do Glenwilliam nothing but good. He belongs to a class that's too fond of beating its wives. Well, well--so my mother's coming!" He glanced round the little house and garden. "Look here!" He bent forward peremptorily. "You'll see that Miss Glenwilliam treats her decently?" Marion's expression showed a certain bewilderment. "I wouldn't trust that girl!" Coryston went on, with vehemence. "She's got something cruel in her eyes." "Cruel! Why, Lady Coryston's coming--" "To trample on her? Of course. I know that. But any fool can see that the game will be Miss Glenwilliam's. She'll have my mother in a cleft stick. I'm not sure I oughtn't to be somewhere about. Well, well. I'll march. When shall we 'resume the conversation,' as you put it?" He looked at her, smiling. Marion colored again, and her nervous movement upset the work-basket; balls of cotton and wool rolled upon the grass. "Oh!" She bent to pick them up. "Don't touch them!" cried Coryston. She obeyed instantly, while, on hands and knees, he gathered them up and placed them in her hand. "Would you like to upset them again? Do, if you like. I'll pick them up." His eyes mocked her tenderly, and before she could reply he had seized her disengaged hand and kissed it. Then he stood up. "Now I'm going. Good-by." "How much mischief will you get into to-day?" she asked, in a rather stifled voice. "It's Sunday--so there isn't so much chance as usual. First item." He checked them on his fingers. "Go to Redcross Farm, see Betts, and--if necessary--have a jolly row with Edward Newbury--or his papa. Second, Blow up Price--my domestic blacksmith--you know!--the socialist apostle I rescued from my mother's clutches and set up at Patchett, forge and all--blow him up sky-high, for evicting a widow woman in a cottage left him by his brother, with every circumstance of barbarity. There's a parable called, I believe, 'The Unjust Servant,' which I intend to rub into him. Item, No. 3, Pitch into the gentleman who turned out the man who voted for Arthur--the Radical miller--Martover gent--who's coming to see me at three this afternoon, to ask what the deuce I mean by spreading reports about him. Shall have a ripping time with him!" "Why, he's one of the Baptists who were on the platform with you yesterday." Marion pointed to the local paper lying on the grass. "Don't care. Don't like Baptists, except when they're downtrodden." A vicious kick given to a stone on the lawn emphasized the remark. "Well, good-by. Shall look in at Coryston this afternoon to see if there's anything left of my mother." And off he went whistling. As he did so, the head and profile of a young lady richly adorned with red-gold hair might have been seen in the upper window. The owner of it was looking after Coryston. "Why didn't you make him stay?" said Enid Glenwilliam, composedly, as she came out upon the lawn and took a seat on the grass in front of the summer-house. "On the contrary, I sent him away." "By telling him whom we were expecting? Was it news to him?" "Entirely. He hoped you would treat Lady Coryston kindly." Then, with a sudden movement, Marion looked up from her mending, and her eyes--challenging, a little stern,--struck full on her companion. Enid laughed, and, settling herself into the garden chair, she straightened and smoothed the folds of her dress, which was of a pale-blue crape and suited her tall fairness and brilliance to perfection. "That's good! I shouldn't have minded his staying at all." "You promised to see Lady Coryston alone--and she has a right to it," said Marion, with emphasis. "Has she? I wonder if she has a right to anything?" said Enid Glenwilliam, absently, and lifting a stalk of grass, she began to chew it in silence while her gaze wandered over the view. "Have you at all made up your mind, Enid, what you are going to say?" "How can I, till I know what _she's_ going to say?" laughed Miss Glenwilliam, teasingly. "But of course you know perfectly well." "Is it so plain that no Conservative mother could endure me? But I admit it's not very likely Lady Coryston could. She is the living, distilled essence of Conservative mothers. The question is, mightn't she have to put up with me?" "I do not believe you care for Arthur Coryston," said Marion, with slow decision, "and if you don't care for him you ought not to marry him." "Oh, but you forget a lot of things!" was the cool reply. "You simplify a deal too much." "Are you any nearer caring for him--really--than you were six weeks ago?" "He's a very--nice--dear fellow." The girl's face softened. "And it would be even sweeter to dish the pack of fortune-hunting mothers who are after him, now, than it was six weeks ago." "Enid!" "Can't help it, dear. I'm made like that. I see all the ugly shabby little sides of it--the 'scores' I should make, the snubs I should have to put up with, the tricks Lady Coryston would certainly play on us. How I should love fighting her! In six months Arthur would be my father's private secretary." "You would despise him if he were!" "Yes, I suppose I should. But it would be I who would write his speeches for him then--and they'd make Lady Coryston sit up! Ah! didn't you hear something?" A distant humming on the hill leading to the house became audible. Marion Atherstone rose. "It sounds like a motor. You'll have the garden quite to yourselves. I'll see that nobody interrupts you." Enid nodded. But before Marion had gone half across the lawn she came quickly back again. "Remember, Enid," her voice pleaded, "his mother's devoted to him. Don't make a quarrel between them--unless you must." Enid smiled, and lightly kissed the face bending over her. "Did Lord Coryston tell you to say that?" Marion departed, silenced. Enid Glenwilliam waited. While the humming noise drew nearer she lifted the local paper from the ground and looked eagerly at the account of the Martover meeting. The paper was a Radical paper, and it had blossomed into its biggest head-lines for the Chancellor. "Chancellor goes for the Landlords," "Crushing attack," "Tories writhe under it," "Frantic applause." She put it down, half contemptuous, half pleased. She had grown accustomed to the mouthings of party politics, and could not do without them. But her brain was not taken in by them. "Father was not so good as usual last night," she said to herself. "But nobody else would have been half so good!" she added, with a fierce protectiveness. And in that spirit she rose to meet the stately lady in black, whom the Atherstones' maid-servant was showing across the garden. "Miss Glenwilliam, I believe?" Lady Coryston paused and put up her eyeglass. Enid Glenwilliam advanced, holding out her hand. "How do you do, Lady Coryston?" The tone was gay, even amused. Lady Coryston realized at once she was being scanned by a very sharp pair of eyes, and that their owner was, or seemed to be, in no sort of embarrassment. The first advantage, indeed, had been gained by the younger woman. Lady Coryston had approached her with the formality of a stranger. Enid Glenwilliam's easy greetings suggested that they had already met in many drawing-rooms. Miss Glenwilliam offered a seat. "Are you afraid of the grass? We could easily go indoors." "Thank you. This does very well. It was very kind of you to say you would see me." "I was delighted--of course." There was a moment's pause. The two women observed each other. Lady Coryston had taken Marion's chair, and sat erect upon it. Her face, with its large and still handsome features, its prominent eyes and determined mouth, was well framed in a black hat, of which the lace strings were tied under her chin. Her flowing dress and scarf of some thin black material, delicately embroidered with jet, were arranged, as usual, with a view to the only effect she ever cared to make--the effect of the great lady, in command--clearly--of all possible resources, while far too well bred to indulge in display or ostentation. Enid Glenwilliam's blood had quickened, in spite of her apparent ease. She had taken up an ostrich-feather fan--a traditional weapon of the sex--and waved it slowly to and fro, while she waited for her visitor to speak. "Miss Glenwilliam," began Lady Coryston, "you must no doubt have thought it a strange step that I should ask you for this conversation?" The tone of this sentence was slightly interrogative, and the girl on the grass nodded gravely. "But I confess it seemed to me the best and most straightforward thing to do. I am accustomed to go to the point, when a matter has become serious; and I hate shilly-shallying. You, we all know, are very clever, and have much experience of the world. You will, I am sure, prefer that I should be frank." "Certainly," smiled Enid, "if I only knew what the matter was!" Lady Coryston's tone became a trifle colder. "That I should have thought was obvious. You have been seeing a great deal of my son, Miss Glenwilliam; your--your friendship with him has been very conspicuous of late; and I have it from himself that he is in love with you, and either has asked you, or will ask you, to marry him." "He has asked me several times," said the girl, quietly. Then, suddenly, she laughed. "I came away with my father this week-end, that I might, if possible, prevent his asking me again." "Then you have refused him?" The voice was indiscreetly eager. "So far." "So far? May I ask--does that mean that you yourself are still undecided?" "I have as yet said nothing final to him." Lady Coryston paused a few seconds, to consider the look presented to her, and then said, with emphasis: "If that is so, it is fortunate that we are able to have this talk--at this moment. For I wish, before you take any final decision, to lay before you what the view of my son's family must inevitably be of such a marriage." "The view of Lord Coryston and yourself?" said Miss Glenwilliam, in her most girlish voice. "My son Coryston and I have at present no interests in common," was Lady Coryston's slightly tart reply. "That, I should have thought, considering his public utterances, and the part which I have always taken in politics, was sufficiently evident." Her companion, without speaking, bent over the sticks of the fan, which her long fingers were engaged in straightening. "No! When I speak of the family," resumed Lady Coryston, "I must for the present, unfortunately, look upon myself as the only sure guardian of its traditions; but that I intend to be--while I live. And I can only regard a marriage between my son and yourself as undesirable--not only for my son--but first and foremost, Miss Glenwilliam, for yourself." "And why?" Laying down the fan upon her knee, the young lady now applied her nimble fingers to smoothing the white and curling tips of the feathers. The color rushed into Lady Coryston's lightly wrinkled cheeks. "Because it rarely or never answers that persons from such different worlds, holding such different opinions, and with such different antecedents, should marry," she said, firmly. "Because I could not welcome you as a daughter--and because a marriage with you would disastrously affect the prospects of my son." "I wonder what you mean by 'such different worlds,'" said Miss Glenwilliam, with what seemed an innocent astonishment. "Arthur and I always go to the same dances." Lady Coryston's flush deepened angrily. She had some difficulty in keeping her voice in order. "I think you understand what I mean. I don't wish to be the least rude." "Of course not. But--is it my birth, or my poverty, that you most dislike?" "Poverty has nothing to do with it--nothing at all. I have never considered money in connection with Arthur's marriage, and never shall." "Because you have so much of it?" Lifting her broad, white brow from the fan on her knee, Enid turned the astonishing eyes beneath it on the lady in black sitting beside her. And for the first time the lady in black was conscious of the malice lurking in the soft voice of the speaker. "That, perhaps, would be your way of explaining it. In any case, I repeat, money has nothing to do with the present case. But, Miss Glenwilliam, my son belongs to a family that has fought for its convictions." At this the younger lady shot a satiric glance at the elder, which for the moment interrupted a carefully prepared sentence. Enid was thinking of a casual remark of her father's made that morning at breakfast: "Oh yes, the Corystons are an old family. They were Whigs as long as there were any bones to pick on that side. Then Pitt bought the first Lord Coryston--in his earliest batch of peers--with the title and a fat post--something to do with the navy. That was the foundation of their money--then came the Welsh coal--et cetera." But she kept her recollections to herself. Lady Coryston went on: "We have stood for generations for certain principles. We are proud of them. My husband died in them. I have devoted my life to them. They are the principles of the Conservative party. Our eldest son, as of course you know, departed from them. My dear husband did not flinch; and instead of leaving the estates to Coryston, he left them to me--as trustee for the political faith he believed in; that faith of which your father has been--excuse my frankness, it is really best for us both--and is now--the principal enemy! I then had to decide, when I was left a widow, to whom the estates were to go on my death. Painful as it was, I decided that my trust did not allow me to leave them to Coryston. I made Arthur my heir three months ago." "How very interesting!" said the listener, behind the fan. Lady Coryston could not see her face. "But it is only fair to him and to you," Arthur's mother continued, with increased deliberation, "that I should say frankly, now that this crisis has arisen, that if you and Arthur marry, it is impossible that Arthur should inherit his father's estates. A fresh disposition of them will have to be made." Enid Glenwilliam dropped the fan and looked up. Her color had gone. "Because--Lady Coryston--I am my father's daughter?" "Because you would bring into our family principles wholly at variance with our traditions--and I should be false to my trust if I allowed it." The conscious dignity of pose and voice fitted the solemnity of these final words. There was a slight pause. "Then--if Arthur married me--he would be a pauper?" said the girl, bending forward. "He has a thousand a year." "That's very disturbing! I shall have to consider everything again." Lady Coryston moved nervously. "I don't understand you." "What I _couldn't_ have done, Lady Coryston--would have been to come into Arthur's family as in any way dependent on his mother!" The girl's eyes shone. Lady Coryston had also paled. "I couldn't of course expect that you would have any friendly feeling toward me," she said, after a moment. "No--you couldn't--you couldn't indeed!" Enid Glenwilliam sprang up, entered the summer-house, and stood over her visitor, lightly leaning forward, her hands supporting her on a rustic table that stood between them, her breath fluttering. "Yes--perhaps now I could marry him--perhaps now I could!" she repeated. "So long as I wasn't your dependent--so long as we had a free life of our own--and knew exactly where we stood, with nothing to fear or to hope--the situation might be faced. We might hope, too--father and I--to bring _our_ ideas and _our_ principles to bear upon Arthur. I believe he would adopt them. He has never had any ideas of his own. You have made him take yours! But of course it seems inconceivable to you that we should set any store by _our_ principles. You think all I want is money. Well, I am like anybody else. I know the value of money. I like money and luxury, and pretty things. I have been sorely tempted to let Arthur marry me as he has once or twice proposed, at the nearest registry office, and present you next day with the _fait accompli_--to take or leave. I believe you would have surrendered to the _fait accompli_--yes, I believe you would! Arthur was convinced that, after sulking a little, you would forgive him. Well, but then--I looked forward--to the months--or years--in which I should be courting--flattering--propitiating you--giving up my own ideas, perhaps, to take yours--turning my back on my father--on my old friends--on my party--for _money_! Oh yes, I should be quite capable of it. At least, I dare say I should. And I just funked it! I had the grace--the conscience--to funk it. I apologize for the slang--I can't express it any other way. And now you come and say: 'Engage yourself to him--and I'll disinherit him _at once_. That makes the thing look clean and square!--that tempts the devil in one, or the angel--I don't know which. I like Arthur. I should get a great many social advantages by marrying him, whatever you may do or say; and a thousand a year to me looks a great deal more than it does to you. But then, you see, my father began life as a pit-boy--Yes, I think it might be done!" The speaker raised herself to her full height, and stood with her hands behind her, gazing at Lady Coryston. In the eyes of that poor lady the Chancellor's daughter had suddenly assumed the aspect of some glittering, avenging fate. At last Lady Coryston understood something of the power, the spell, there was in this girl for whom her son had deserted her; at last she perceived, despairingly perceived, her strange beauty. The long thin mouth, now breathing scorn, the short chin, and prominent cheekbones denied Enid Glenwilliam any conventional right indeed to that great word. But the loveliness of the eyes and hair, of the dark brows, sustaining the broad and delicate forehead, the pale rose and white of the skin, the setting of the head, her wonderful tallness and slenderness, these, instinct as the whole woman was, at the moment, with a passion of defiance, made of her a dazzling and formidable creature. Lady Coryston beheld her father in her; she seemed to feel the touch, the terror of Glenwilliam. Bewilderment and unaccustomed weakness overtook Lady Coryston. It was some moments before, under the girl's threatening eyes, she could speak at all. Then she said, with difficulty: "You may marry my son, Miss Glenwilliam--but you do not love him! That is perfectly plain. You are prepared none the less, apparently, to wreck his happiness and mine, in order--" "I don't love him? Ah! that's another story altogether! Do I love him? I don't know. Honestly, I don't know. I don't believe I am as capable of falling in love as other girls are--or say they are. I like him, and get on with him--and I might marry him; I might--have--married him," she repeated, slowly, "partly to have the sweetness, Lady Coryston, of punishing you for the slight you offered my father!--and partly for other things. But you see--now I come to think of it--there is some one else to be considered--" The girl dropped into a chair, and looked across the table at her visitor, with a sudden change of mood and voice. "You say you won't have it, Lady Coryston. Well, that doesn't decide it for me--and it wouldn't decide it for Arthur. But there's some one else won't have it." A pause. Miss Glenwilliam took up the fan again and played with it--considering. "My father came to my room last night," she said, at last, "in order to speak to me about it. 'Enid,' he said, 'don't marry that man! He's a good enough fellow--but he'll drive a wedge into our life. We can't find a use for him--you and I. He'll divide us, my girl--and it isn't worth it--you don't love him!' And we had a long talk--and at last I told him--I wouldn't--I _wouldn't_! So you see, Lady Coryston, if I don't marry your son, it's not because you object--but because my father--whom you insulted--doesn't wish me to enter your family--doesn't approve of a marriage with your son--and has persuaded me against it." Lady Coryston stared into the face of the speaker, and quailed before the flash of something primitive and savage in the eyes that met her own. Under the sting of it, however, she found a first natural and moving word, as she slowly rose from her seat. "You love your father, Miss Glenwilliam. You might remember that I, too, love my son--and there was never a rough word between us till he knew you." She wavered a little, gathering up her dress. And the girl perceived that she had grown deadly white, and was suddenly ashamed of her own vehemence. She too rose. "I'm sorry, Lady Coryston. I've been a brute. But when I think of my father, and those who hate him, I see red. I had no business to say some of the things I have said. But it's no good apologizing. Let me, however, just say this: Please be careful, Lady Coryston, about your son. He's in love with me--and I'm very, _very_ sorry for him. Let me write to him first--before you speak to him. I'll write--as kindly as I can. But I warn you--it'll hurt him--and he may visit it on you--for all I can say. When will he be at Coryston?" "To-night." "I will send a letter over to-morrow morning. Is your car waiting?" They moved across the lawn together, not speaking a word. Lady Coryston entered the car. Enid Glenwilliam made her a low bow, almost a curtsey, which the elder lady acknowledged; and the car started. Enid came back to the summer-house, sat down by the table, and buried her face in her hands. After a little while a hurried step was heard approaching the summer-house. She looked up and saw her father. The Chancellor's burly form filled up the door of the little house. His dark, gipsy face looked down with amusement upon his daughter. "Well, Enid, how did you get through? Did she trample on you--did she scratch and spit? I wager she got as good as she gave? Why, what's the matter, my girl? Are you upset?" Enid got up, struggling for composure. "I--I behaved like a perfect fiend." "Did you?" The Chancellor's laughter filled the summer-house. "The old harridan! At last somebody has told her the truth. The idea of her breaking in upon you here!--to threaten you, I suppose, with all sorts of pains and penalties, if you married her precious son. You gave her what for. Why, Enid, what's the matter--don't be a fool, my dear! You don't regret him?" "No." He put his arm tenderly round her, and she leaned against him. Suddenly she drew herself up and kissed him. "I shall never marry, father. It's you and I, isn't it, against the world?" "Half the world," said Glenwilliam, laughing. "There's a jolly big half on our side, my dear, and lots of good fellows in it for you to marry." He looked at her with proud affection. She shook her head, slipped her hand in his, and they walked back to the house together. CHAPTER XIV The state of mind in which Lady Coryston drove home from the Atherstones' cottage would have seemed to most people unreasonable. She had obtained--apparently--everything for which she had set out, and yet there she was, smarting and bruised through all her being, like one who has suffered intolerable humiliation and defeat. A woman of her type and class is so well sheltered as a rule from the roughnesses of life, so accustomed to the deference of their neighbors, that to be handled as Enid Glenwilliam had handled her victim, destroys for the time nerve and self-respect. Lady Coryston felt as if she had been physically as well as morally beaten, and could not get over it. She sat, white and shaken, in the darkness of a closed motor, the prey to strange terrors. She would not see Arthur that night! He was only to return late, and she would not risk it. She must have a night's rest, indeed, before grappling with him. She was not herself, and the violence of that extraordinary girl had upset her. Conscious of a very rapid pulse, she remembered for a moment, unwillingly, certain warnings that her doctor had given her before she left town--"You are overtaxing yourself, Lady Coryston--and you badly want a rest." Pure nonsense! She came of a long-lived stock, persons of sound hearts and lungs, who never coddled themselves. All the same, she shrank physically, instinctively, from the thought of any further emotion or excitement that day--till she had had a good night. She now remembered that she had had practically no sleep the preceding night. Indeed, ever since the angry scene with Arthur a fortnight before, she had been conscious of bodily and mental strain. Which perhaps accounted for the feeling of irritation with which she perceived the figure of her daughter standing on the steps of Coryston House beside Sir Wilfrid Bury. Marcia had come to her that morning with some tiresome story about the Newburys and the divorced woman Mrs. Betts. How could she think of such things, when her mind was full of Arthur? Girls really should be more considerate. The car drew up at the steps, and Marcia and Sir Wilfrid awaited it. Even preoccupied as she was, Lady Coryston could not help noticing that Marcia was subdued and silent. She asked her mother no questions, and after helping Lady Coryston to alight, she went quickly into the house. It vaguely crossed the mother's mind that her daughter was depressed or annoyed--perhaps with her? But she could not stop to think about it. Sir Wilfrid, however, followed Lady Coryston into the drawing-room. "What have you been doing?" he asked her, smiling, taking the liberty of an old friend and co-executor. "I think I guess!" She looked at him somberly. "She won't marry him! But not a word to Arthur, please--not a word!--till I give you leave. I have gone through--a great deal." Her look of weakness and exhaustion did indeed strike him painfully. He put out his hand and pressed hers. "Well, so far, so good," he said, gravely. "It must be a great relief to your mind." Then in another and a lower tone he added, "Poor old boy!" Lady Coryston made no reply except to say that she must get ready for luncheon. She left the room just as Sir Wilfrid perceived a rider on a bay horse approaching through the park, and recognized Edward Newbury. "Handsome fellow!" he thought, as he watched him from the window; "and sits his horse uncommonly well. Why doesn't that girl fly to meet him? They used to in my days." But Newbury dismounted with only a footman to receive him, and Marcia did not appear till the gong had rung for luncheon. Sir Wilfrid's social powers were severely taxed to keep that meal going. Lady Coryston sat almost entirely silent and ate nothing. Marcia too ate little and talked less. Newbury indeed had arrived in radiant spirits, bringing a flamboyant account of Marcia's trousseau which he had extracted from a weekly paper, and prepared to tease her thereon. But he could scarcely get the smallest rise out of her, and presently he, too, fell silent, throwing uneasy glances at her from time to time. Her black hair and eyes were more than usually striking, by contrast with a very simple and unadorned white dress; but for beauty, her face required animation; it could be all but plain in moments of languor or abstraction; and Sir Wilfrid marveled that a girl's secret instinct did not save her from presenting herself so unattractively to her lover. Newbury, it appeared, had spent the preceding night in what Sir Wilfrid obstinately called a "monkery"--_alias_ the house of an Anglican brotherhood or Community--the Community of the Ascension, of which Newbury's great friend, Father Brierly, was Superior. In requital for Newbury's teasing of Marcia, Sir Wilfrid would have liked to tease Newbury a little on the subject of the "monkery." But Newbury most dexterously evaded him. He would laugh, but not at the hosts he had just quitted; and through all his bantering good temper there could be felt the throb of some deep feeling which was not allowed to express itself. "Damned queer eyes!" was Bury's inward comment, as he happened once to observe Newbury's face during a pause of silence. "Half in a dream all the time--even when the fellow's looking at his sweetheart." After luncheon Marcia made a sign, and she and Newbury slipped away. They wandered out beyond the lake into a big wood, where great pools of pink willow-herb, in its open spaces, caught the light as it struck through the gray trunks of the beeches. Newbury found a seat for Marcia on a fallen trunk, and threw himself beside her. The world seemed to have been all washed by the thunder-storm of the night before; the odors of grass, earth, and fern were steaming out into the summer air. The wood was alive with the hum of innumerable insects, which had become audible and dominant with the gradual silencing of the birds. In the half-cut hay-fields the machines stood at rest; rarely, an interlaced couple could be dimly seen for a moment on some distant footpath of the park; sometimes a partridge called or a jay screamed; otherwise a Sabbath stillness--as it seemed to Marcia, a Sabbath dreariness--held the scene. Newbury put up his arms, drew her down to him, and kissed her passionately. She yielded; but it was more yielding than response; and again he was conscious of misgiving as at luncheon. "Darling!--is there anything wrong--anything that troubles you?" he said, anxiously. "Do you think I've forgotten you for one moment, while I've been away?" "Yes; while you were asleep." She smiled shyly, while her fingers caressed his. "Wrong--quite wrong! I dreamed of you both nights. And oh, dearest, I thought of you last night." "Where--when?" Her voice was low--a little embarrassed. "In chapel--the chapel at Blackmount--at Benediction." She looked puzzled. "What is Benediction?" "A most beautiful service, though of late origin--which, like fools, we have let the Romans monopolize. The Bishops bar it, but in private chapels like our own, or Blackmount, they can't interfere. To me, yesterday evening"--his voice fell--"it was like the gate of heaven. I longed to have you there." She made no reply. Her brow knitted a little. He went on: "Of course a great deal of what is done at places like Blackmount is not recognized--yet. To some of the services--to Benediction for instance--the public is not admitted. But the brothers keep every rule--of the strictest observance. I was present last night at the recitation of the Night Office--most touching--most solemn! And--my darling!"--he pressed her hand while his face lit up--"I want to ask you--though I hardly dare. Would you give me--would you give me the greatest joy you could give me, before our marriage? Father Brierly--my old friend--would give us both Communion, on the morning of our wedding--in the little chapel of the Brotherhood, in Red Street, Soho--just us two alone. Would it be too much for you, too tiring?" His voice was tenderness itself. "I would come for you at half past seven--nobody but your mother would know. And then afterward--afterward!--we will go through with the great ceremony--and the crowds--and the bridesmaids. Your mother tells me it's to be Henry the Seventh's chapel--isn't it? But first, we shall have received our Lord, we two alone, into our hearts--to feed upon Him, forever!" There was silence. He had spoken with an imploring gentleness and humility, yet nevertheless with a tender confidence which did not escape the listener. And again a sudden terror seized on Marcia--as though behind the lover, she perceived something priestly, directive, compelling--something that threatened her very self. She drew herself back. "Edward!--ought you--to take things for granted about me--like this?" His face, with its "illuminated," exalted look, scarcely changed. "I don't take anything for granted, dearest. I only put it before you. I talked it over with Brierly--he sent you a message--" "But I don't know him!" cried Marcia. "And I don't know that I want to know him. I'm not sure I think as you do, Edward. You assume that I do--but indeed--indeed--my mind is often in confusion--great confusion--I don't know what to think--about many things." "The Church decides for us, darling--that is the great comfort--the great strength." "But what Church? Everybody chooses his own, it seems to me! And you know that that Roman priest who was at Hoddon Grey the other day thinks you just as much in the wrong as--well, as he'd think me!--_me_, even!" She gave a little tremulous laugh. Then, with a quick movement she sat erect. Her great, dark eyes fixed him eagerly. "And Edward, I've got something so different, so very different to talk to you about! I've been so unhappy--all night, all to-day. I've been pining for you to come--and then afraid what you'd say--" She broke off, her lips parting eagerly, her look searching his. And this time, as she watched him, she saw his features stiffen, as though a suspicion, a foreboding ran through him. She hurried on. "I went over to see Mrs. Betts, yesterday, Edward. She sent for me. And I found her half mad--in despair! I just persuaded her to wait till I'd seen you. But perhaps you've seen her--to-day?" She hung on his answer. "Indeed, no." The chill, the alteration in his tone were evident. "I left Blackmount this morning, after matins, motored home, just saw my father and mother for a moment--heard nothing--and rode on here as fast as I could. What is there fresh, dearest? I thought that painful business was settled. And I confess I feel very indignant with Mrs. Betts for dragging you--insisting upon dragging you--into it!" "How could she help it? She's no friends, Edward! People are very sorry for him--but they fight shy of her. I dare say it's right--I dare say she's deserved it--I don't want to know. But oh it's so miserable--so pitiable! She's _going_!--she's made up her mind to that--she's going. That's what she wanted to tell me--and asked that I should tell you." "She could do nothing better for herself, or him," said Newbury, firmly. "But she's not going, in the way you proposed! Oh no. She's going to slip away--to hide! He's not to know where she is--and she implores you to keep him here--to comfort him--and watch over him." "Which of course we should do." The quiet, determined voice sent a shiver through Marcia. She caught Newbury's hand in hers, and held it close. "Yes, but Edward!--listen!--it would kill them both. His mind seems to be giving way. I got a letter from her again this morning, inclosing one from their doctor. And she--she says if she does go, if decent people turn her out, she'll just go back to people like herself--who'll be kind to her. Nothing will induce her to go to the Cloan Sisters." "She must, of course, be the judge of that," said Newbury, coldly. "But you can't allow it!--you _can't_!--the poor, poor things!" cried Marcia. "I saw him too, Edward--I shall never forget it!" And with a growing excitement she gave a full account of her visit to the farm, of her conversation with Mrs. Betts, of that gray, grief-stricken face at the window. "He's fifty-two. How can he start again? He's just torn between his work--and her. And if she goes away and hides from him, it'll be the last straw. He believes he saved her from a bad life--and now he'll think that he's only made things worse. And he's ill--his brain's had a shake. Edward--dear Edward!--let them stay!--for my sake, let them stay!" All her soul was in her eyes. She had never been more winning--more lovely. She placed her hands on his shoulders as he sat beside her, and leaned her soft cheek against his. "Do you mean--let them stay on at the Farm?" he asked, after a pause, putting his arms round her. "Couldn't they? They could live so quietly. She would hardly ever leave the house--and so long as he does his work--his scientific work--need anything else trouble you? Need you have any other relations with them at all? Wouldn't everybody understand--wouldn't everybody know you'd done it for pity?" Again a pause. Then he said, with evident difficulty: "Dear Marcia--do you ever think of my father in this?" "Oh, mayn't I go!--and _beg_ Lord William--" "Ah, but wait a minute. I was going to say--My father's an old man. This has hit him hard. It's aged him a good deal. He trusted Betts implicitly, as he would himself. And now--in addition--you want him to do something that he feels to be wrong." "But Edward, they _are_ married! Isn't it a tyranny"--she brought the word out bravely--"when it causes so much suffering!--to insist on more than the law does?" "For us there is but one law--the law of Christ!" And then, as a flash of something like anger passed through his face, he added, with an accent of stern conviction: "For us they are _not_ married--and we should be conniving at an offense and a scandal, if we accepted them as married persons. Oh, dear Marcia, why do you make me say these things? I _can't_ discuss them with you!" he repeated, in a most real distress. She raised herself, and moved a little further from him. A passionate hopelessness--not without resentment--was rising in her. "Then you won't try to persuade your father--even for my sake, Edward?" He made no reply. She saw his lip tremble, but she knew it was only because he could not bear to put into words the refusal behind. The silence continued. Marcia, raising her head, looked away into the green vistas of the wood, while the tears gathered slowly in her eyes. He watched her, in a trouble no less deep. At last she said--in a low, lingering voice: "And I--I couldn't marry--and be happy--with the thought always--of what had happened to them--and how--you couldn't give me--what I asked. I have been thinking it out for hours and hours. I'm afraid, Edward--we--we've made a great mistake!" She drew her hand away, and looked at him, very pale and trembling, yet with something new--and resolute--in her aspect. "Marcia!" It was a sound of dismay. "Oh! it was my fault!"--and she clasped her hands in a gesture at once childish and piteous--"I somehow knew from the beginning that you thought me different from what I am. It was quite natural. You're much older than I, and of course--of course--you thought that if--if I loved you--I'd be guided by you--and think as you wish. But Edward, you see I've had to live by myself--and think for myself--more than other girls--because mother was always busy with other things--that didn't concern me--that I didn't care about--and I was left alone--and had to puzzle out a lot of things that I never talked about. I'm obstinate--I'm proud. I must believe for myself--and not because some one else does. I don't know where I shall come out. And that's the strange thing! Before we were engaged, I didn't know I had a mind!" She smiled at him pitifully through her tears. "And ever since we've been engaged--this few weeks--I've been doing nothing but think and think--and all the time it's been carrying me away from you. And now this trouble. I _couldn't_"--she clenched her hand with a passionate gesture--"I _couldn't_ do what you're doing. It would kill me. You seem to be obeying something outside--which you're quite sure of. But if _I_ drove those two people to despair, because I thought something was wrong that they thought right, I should never have any happiness in my heart--my _own heart_--again. Love seems to me everything!--being kind--not giving pain. And for you there's something greater--what the Church says--what the Bible says. And I could never see that. I could never agree. I could never submit. And we should be miserable. You'd think I was wicked--and I--well!"--she panted a little, trying for her words--"there are ugly--violent--feelings in me sometimes. I couldn't hate _you_--but--Edward--just now--I felt I could hate--what you believe!" The sudden change in his look smote her to the heart. She held out her hands, imploring. "Forgive me! Oh, do forgive me!" During her outburst he had risen, and was now leaning against a young tree beside her, looking down upon her--white and motionless. He had made no effort to take her hands, and they dropped upon her knee. "This is terrible!" he said, as though to himself, and half-consciously--"terrible!" "But indeed--indeed--it's best." Her voice, which was little more than a whisper, was broken by a sob. She buried her face in the hands he had left untaken. The minutes seemed endless till he spoke again; and then it was with a composure which seemed to her like the momentary quiet that may come--the sudden furling of the winds--in the very midst of tempest. She divined the tempest, in this man of profound and concentrated feeling; but she had not dared to watch it. "Marcia--is it really true? Couldn't I make you happy? Couldn't I lead you to look at things as I do? As you say, I am older, I have had more time to think and learn. If you love me, wouldn't it be right, that--I should influence you?" "It might be," she said, sadly. "But it wouldn't happen. I know more of myself--now. This has made me know myself--as I never did. I should wound and distress you. And to struggle with you would make me hard--and bad." Another silence. But for both it was one of those silences when the mind, as it were, reaps at one stroke a whole harvest of ideas and images which, all unconsciously to itself, were standing ready to be reaped; the silences, more active far than speech, which determine life. At the end of it, he came to sit beside her. "Then we must give it up--we must give it up. I bless you for the happiness you gave me--this little while. I pray God to bless you--now and forever." Sobbing, she lifted her face to him, and he kissed her for the last time. She slipped off her engagement ring and gave it to him. He looked at it with a sad smile, pressed his lips to it, and then stooping down, he took a stick lying by the log, and scooped out a deep hole in the mossy, fibrous earth. Into it he dropped the ring, covering it again with all the leafy "rubble and wreck" of the wood. He covered his eyes for a moment, and rose. "Let me take you home. I will write to Lady Coryston to-night." They walked silently through the wood, and to the house. Never, in her whole life, had Marcia felt so unhappy. And yet, already, she recognized what she had done as both inevitable and past recall. They parted, just with a lingering look into each other's eyes, and a piteous murmur from her: "I'm sorry!--oh, I'm _sorry_!" At the moment when Marcia and Newbury were crossing the formal garden on the west front of the house, one of two persons in Lady Coryston's sitting-room observed them. These persons were--strange to say--Lady Coryston and her eldest son. Lady Coryston, after luncheon, had felt so seriously unwell that she had retired to her sitting-room, with strict injunctions that she must be left alone. Sir Wilfrid and Lester started on a Sunday walk; Marcia and Newbury had disappeared. The house, through all its innumerable rooms and corridors, sank into deep silence. Lady Coryston was lying on her sofa, with closed eyes. All the incidents of her conversation with Enid Glenwilliam were running perpetually through her mind--the girl's gestures and tones--above all the words of her final warning. After all it was not she--his mother--who had done it. Without her it would have happened all the same. She found herself constantly putting up this plea, as though in recurrent gusts of fear. Fear of whom?--of Arthur? What absurdity! Her proud spirit rebelled. And yet she knew that she was listening--listening in dread--for a footstep in the house. That again was absurd. Arthur was staying with friends on the further side of the country, and was to leave them after dinner by motor. He could not be home till close on midnight; and there would be no chance of her seeing him--unless she sent for him--till the following morning, after the arrival of the letter. _Then_--she must face him. But still the footstep haunted her imagination, and the remembrance of him as he had stood, light and buoyant, on the floor of the House of Commons, making his maiden speech. In April--and this was July. Had that infatuation begun even then, which had robbed her of her dearest--her Benjamin? She fell into a restless sleep after a while, and woke suddenly, in alarm. There was somebody approaching her room--evidently on tiptoe. Some one knocking--very gently. She sat up, trembling. "Come in!" The door opened--and there was Coryston. She fell back on her cushions, astonished and annoyed. "I said I was not to be disturbed, Coryston." He paused on the threshold. "Am I disturbing you? Wouldn't you like me to read to you--or something?" His tone was so gentle that she was disarmed--though still annoyed. "Come in. I may perhaps point out that it's a long time since you've come to see me like this, Coryston." "Yes. Never mind. What shall I read?" She pointed to a number of the _Quarterly_ that was lying open, and to an article on "The later years of Disraeli." Coryston winced. He knew the man who had written it, and detested him. But he sat down beside her, and began immediately to read. To both of them his reading was a defense against conversation, and yet to both of them, after a little while, it was pleasant. Presently indeed he saw that it had soothed her and that in spite of her efforts to keep awake she had fallen fitfully asleep again. He let the book drop, and sat still, studying his mother's strong, lined face in its setting of gray hair. There was something in her temporary quiescence and helplessness that touched him; and it was clear to him that in these last few months she had aged considerably. As he watched, a melancholy softness--as of one who sees deeper than usual into the human spectacle--invaded and transformed his whole expression; his thin body relaxed; his hands dropped at his side. The dead quiet of the house also oppressed him--like a voice--an omen. He knew that she had seen Enid Glenwilliam that morning. A little note from Marion Atherstone that afternoon spoke anxiety and sympathy. "Enid confesses she was violent. I am afraid it was a painful scene." And now there was Arthur to be faced--who would never believe, of course, but that his mother had done it. A movement in the garden outside diverted his attention. He looked up and saw two figures--Marcia and Newbury. A sight which roused in him afresh--on the instant--all his fiercest animosities. That fellow!--and his creed! That old hide-bound inquisitor, his father! Well!--he peered at them--has she got anything whatever out of young Tartuffe? Not she! He knew the breed. He rose discreetly, so as not to wake Lady Coryston, and standing by the window, he watched them across the garden, and saw their parting. Something in their demeanor struck him. "Not demonstrative anyway," he said to himself, with a queer satisfaction. He sat down again, and tossing the _Quarterly_ away, he took up a volume of Browning. But he scarcely read a line. His mind was really possessed by the Betts' story, and by the measures that might be taken--Marcia or no Marcia!--to rouse the country-side against the Newburys, and force them to bow to public opinion in the matter of this tragedy. He himself had seen the two people concerned, again, that morning--a miserable sight! Neither of them had said anything further to him of their plans. Only Mrs. Betts had talked incoherently of "waiting to hear from Miss Coryston." Poor soul!--she might wait. [Illustration: HE SAT STILL, STUDYING HIS MOTHER'S STRONG, LINED FACE] Twenty minutes passed, and then he too heard a footfall in the passage outside, and the swish of a dress. Marcia! He opened the door. "Don't come in. Mother's asleep." Marcia stared at him in amazement. Then she stepped past him, and stood on the threshold surveying her mother. Her pathetic look conveyed the instinctive appeal of the young girl turning in the crisis of her life to her natural friend, her natural comforter. And it remained unanswered. She turned and beckoned to Coryston. "Come with me--a moment." They went noiselessly down the staircase leading from Lady Coryston's wing, into a room which had been their schoolroom as children, on the ground floor. Marcia laid a hand on her brother's arm. "Coryston--I was coming to speak to mother. I have broken off my engagement." "Thank the Lord!" cried Coryston, taken wholly aback. "Thank the Lord!" He would have kissed her in his relief and enthusiasm. But Marcia stepped back from him. Her pale face showed a passionate resentment. "Don't speak about him, Corry! Don't say another word about him. You never understood him, and I'm not going to discuss him with you. I couldn't bear it. What's wrong with mother?" "She's knocked over--by that girl, Enid Glenwilliam. She saw her this morning." He described the situation. Marcia showed but a languid interest. "Poor mother!" she said, absently. "Then I won't bother her with my affairs--till to-morrow. Don't tell her anything, Corry. Good-by." "I say, Marcia--old woman--don't be so fierce with me. You took me by surprise--" he muttered, uncomfortably. "Oh, it doesn't matter. Nobody in this world--seems to be able to understand anybody else--or make allowances for anybody else. Good-by." Coryston had long since departed. Lady Coryston had gone to bed, seeing no one, and pleading headache. Marcia, too, had deserted Sir Wilfrid and Lester after dinner, leaving Sir Wilfrid to the liveliest and dismalest misgivings as to what might have been happening further to the Coryston family on this most inexplicable and embarrassing day. Marcia was sitting in her room by the open window. She had been writing a long letter to Newbury, pouring out her soul to him. All that she had been too young and immature to say to him face to face, she had tried to say to him in these closely written and blotted pages. To write them had brought relief, but also exhaustion of mind and body. The summer night was sultry and very still. Above a bank of purple cloud, she looked into depths of fathomless azure, star-sprinkled, with a light in the southeast prophesying moonrise. Dark shapes of woods--the distant sound of the little trout-stream, where it ran over a weir--a few notes of birds--were the only sounds; otherwise the soul was alone with itself. Once indeed she heard a sudden burst of voices far overhead, and a girl's merry laugh. One of the young servants no doubt--on the top floor. How remote!--and yet how near. And far away over those trees was Newbury, smarting under the blow she had given him--suffering--suffering. That poor woman, too, weeping out her last night, perhaps, beside her husband. What could she do for her--how could she help her? Marcia sat there hour after hour, now lost in her own grief, now in that of others; realizing through pain, through agonized sympathy, the energy of a fuller life. She went to bed, and to sleep--for a few hours--toward morning. She was roused by her maid, who came in with a white face of horror. "Oh, miss!" "What is the matter?" Marcia sat up in bed. Was her mother ill?--dead? The girl stammered out her ghastly news. Briggs the head gardener had just brought it. The head foreman at Redcross Farm going his rounds in the early hours, had perceived a light burning in the laboratory. The door was locked, but on forcing his way in, he had come suddenly on a spectacle of horror. John Betts was sitting--dead--in his chair, with a bullet wound in the temple; Mrs. Betts was on a stool beside him, leaning against his knee. She must have found him dead, have taken up the revolver, as it had dropped from his hand, and after an interval, long or short, have deliberately unfastened her dress--The bullet had passed through her heart, and death had been a matter of seconds. On the table was lying a scrap of paper on which were the words in John Betts's handwriting: "Mad--forgive." And beside it a little twisted note, addressed to "Miss Marcia Coryston." The foreman had given it to Briggs. Her maid placed it in Marcia's hands. She tried to read it, but failed. The girl beside her saw her slip back, fainting, on her pillows. CHAPTER XV It was the old housekeeper at Coryston, one Mrs. Drew, who had been the presiding spirit of the house in all its domestic aspects for some thirty years, who came at the summons of Marcia's frightened maid, and helped the girl to revive her mistress, without alarming Lady Coryston. And before the news could reach her mother in other ways, Marcia herself went in to tell her what she must know. Lady Coryston had had a bad night, and was sitting up in bed gazing straight before her, her gaunt hands lying listlessly on a pile of letters she had not yet opened. When Marcia came in, a white ghost, still shivering under nervous shock, her mother looked at her in sudden dismay. She sprang forward in bed. "What!--Marcia!--have you seen Arthur?" Marcia shook her head. "It's not Arthur, mother!" And standing rigid beside her mother's bed, she told her news, so far as those piteous deaths at Redcross Farm were concerned. Of her own position, and of the scene which had passed between herself and Newbury the preceding day, she said not a word. On the facts presented to her, Lady Coryston was first bewildered, then irritated. Why on earth should Marcia take this morbid and extravagant interest in the affairs of such people? They were not even tenants of the Coryston estates! It was monstrous that she should have taken them up at all, and most audacious and unbecoming that she should have tried to intercede for them with the Newburys, as she understood, from her daughter's hardly coherent story, had been the case. And now, she supposed, as Marcia had actually been so foolish, so headstrong, as to go herself--without permission either from her mother or her betrothed--to see these two people at the farm, the very day before this horrible thing happened, she might have to appear at the inquest. Most improper and annoying! However, she scarcely expressed her disapproval aloud with her usual trenchancy. In the first place, Marcia's tremulous state made it difficult. In the next, she was herself so far from normal that she could not, after the first few minutes, keep her attention fixed upon the matter at all. She began abruptly to question Marcia as to whether she had seen Arthur the night before--or that morning? "I had gone up-stairs before he arrived last night--and this morning he's not yet down," said the girl, perfunctorily, as though she only answered the question with her lips, without attaching any real meaning to it. Then her mother's aspect, which on her entrance she had scarcely noticed, struck her with a sudden and added distress. "You don't look well, mother. Don't come down to-day." "I shall certainly come down by luncheon-time," said Lady Coryston, sharply. "Tell Arthur that I wish to have some conversation with him before he goes back to London. And as for you, Marcia, the best thing you can do is to go and rest for a time, and then to explain all you have been doing to Edward. I must say I think you will have a great deal to explain. And I shall scold Bellows and Mrs. Drew for letting you hear such a horrible thing at all--without coming to me first." "Mother!" cried Marcia, in a kind of despair. "Aren't you--aren't you sorry for those two people?--and don't you understand that I--I hoped I might have helped them?" At last she began to weep. The tears ran down her cheeks. Lady Coryston frowned. "Certainly, I'm sorry. But--the fact is, Marcia--I can't stand any extra strain this morning. We'll talk about it again when you're more composed. Now go and lie down." She closed her eyes, looking so gray and old that Marcia, seized with a new compunction, could only obey her at once. But on the threshold she was called back. "If any messenger arrives with a letter for Arthur--tell them down-stairs to let me know." "Yes, mother." As soon, however, as she had closed the door Marcia's tired mind immediately dismissed the subject of Arthur, even of her mother. The tumult of anguish returned upon her in which she had stood ever since she had come back from her faint to the bitter consciousness of a world--an awful world--where people can die of misery for lack of pity, for lack of help, and yet within a stone's-throw of those who yearned to give them both. She went back to her room, finished her dressing mechanically, wrote a short letter, blotting it with tears, and then went tottering down-stairs. In the central hall, a vast pillared space, crowded with statuary and flowers, where the men of the house were accustomed to smoke and read the newspapers after breakfast, she perceived Reginald Lester sitting alone. He sprang up at sight of her, came to her, took her hands, looked into her face, and then stooped and kissed her fingers, respectfully, ardently; with such an action as a brother might have used to a much younger sister. She showed no surprise. She simply lifted her eyes to him, like a miserable child--saying under her breath: "You know--I saw them--the night before last?" "I know. It has been a fearful shock. Is there anything I can do for you?" For he saw she had a letter in her hand. "Please tell them to send this letter. And then--come back. I'll go to the library." She went blindly along the passages to the library, hearing and flying from the voices of Sir Wilfrid and Arthur in the dining-room as she passed. When Lester returned, he saw her standing by his desk, lost in an abstraction of grief. But she roused herself at sight of him, and asked for any further news there might be. Lester, who had been suffering from a sprained wrist, had that morning seen the same doctor who had been called in on the discovery of the tragedy. "It must all have happened within an hour. His sister, who had come to stay with them, says that John Betts had seemed rather brighter in the evening, and his wife rather less in terror. She spoke very warmly to her sister-in-law of your having come to see her, and said she had promised you to wait a little before she took any step. Then he went out to the laboratory, and there, it is supposed, he was overcome by a fit of acute depression--the revolver was in his drawer--he scrawled the two words that were found--and you know the rest. Two people on the farm heard the shot--but it was taken as fired by the night watcher in a field beyond, which was full of young pheasants. About midnight Mrs. Betts went out to bring him in--her sister-in-law having gone up to bed. She never came back again--no one heard a sound--and they were not discovered till the morning. How long she was alone with him before she killed herself cannot even be guessed." Marcia's trembling fingers fumbled at the bosom of her dress. She drew out a crumpled paper, and pushed it toward him. He read: "Good-by, dear Miss Coryston. He sits so still--not much injured. I have often seen him look so. My John--my John--I can't stay behind. Will you please do something for my boy? John--John--if only we hadn't met again--" It ended incoherently in blots and smudges. "You poor child!" said Lester, involuntarily, as he looked up from the letter. It was a word of sudden compassion wrested from him by the sight of Marcia's intolerable pain. He brought forward one of the deep library chairs, and made her sit in it, and as he bent over her his sympathy drew from her piteous little cries and stifled moans which he met with answering words of comfort. All consciousness of sex dropped away; the sharp-chinned face, the blue, black-fringed eyes, behind their spectacles, the noble brow under its pile of strong grizzled hair:--she saw them all as an embodied tenderness--courage and help made visible--a courage and help on which she gradually laid hold. She could not stop to ask herself how it was that, in this moment of shock and misery, she fell so naturally into this attitude of trust toward one with whom she had never yet set up any relation but that of a passing friendship. She only knew that there was comfort in his voice, his look, in his understanding of her suffering, in the reticence with which he handled it. She had lived beside him in the same house for months without ever really knowing him. Now suddenly--here was a friend--on whom to lean. But she could not speak to him of Newbury, though it was the thought of Newbury that was burning her heart. She did mention Coryston, only to say with energy: "I don't want to see him yet--not _yet_!" Lester could only guess at her meaning, and would not have probed her for the world. But after a little she braced herself, gave him a grateful, shrinking look, and, rising, she went in search of Sir Wilfrid and Arthur. Only Sir Wilfrid was in the hall when she reentered it. He had just dismissed a local reporter who had got wind of Miss Coryston's visit to the farm, and had rushed over to Coryston, in the hope of seeing her. "My dear child!" He hurried to meet her. "You look a perfect wreck! How _abominable_ that you should be mixed up with this thing!" "I couldn't help it," she said, vaguely, turning away at once from the discussion of it. "Where is Arthur? Mother wanted me to give him a message." [Illustration: NOW SUDDENLY--HERE WAS A FRIEND--ON WHOM TO LEAN] Sir Wilfrid looked uneasy. "He was here till just now. But he is in a curious state of mind. He thinks of nothing but one thing--and one person. He arrived late last night, and it is my belief that he hardly went to bed. And he is just hanging on the arrival of a letter--" "From Enid Glenwilliam?" "Evidently. I tried to get him to realize this horrible affair--the part the Newburys had played in it--the effect on you--since that poor creature appealed to you. But no--not a bit of it! He seems to have neither eyes nor ears--But here he is!" Sir Wilfrid and Marcia stepped apart. Arthur came into the hall from the library entrance. Marcia saw that he was much flushed, and that his face wore a hard, determined look, curiously at variance with its young features and receding chin. "Hullo, Marcia! Beastly business, this you've been getting into. Think, my dear, you'd have done much better to keep out of it--especially as you and Newbury didn't agree. I've just seen Coryston in the park--he confessed he'd set you on--and that you and Newbury had quarreled over it. _He's_ perfectly mad about it, of course. That you might expect. I say--mother is late!" He looked round the hall imperiously. Marcia, supporting herself on a chair, met his eyes, and made no reply. Yet she dimly remembered that her mother had asked her to give him some message. "Arthur, remember that your sister's had a great shock!" said Sir Wilfrid, sternly. "I know that! Sorry for you, Marcia--awfully--but I expect you'll have to appear at the inquest--don't see how you can get out of it. You should have thought twice about going there--when Newbury didn't want you to. And what's this they say about a letter?" His tone had the peremptory ring natural to many young men of his stamp, in dealing with their inferiors, or--until love has tamed them--with women; but it came strangely from the good-tempered and easy-going Arthur. Marcia's hand closed instinctively on the bosom of her dress, where the letter was. "Mrs. Betts wrote me a letter," she said, slowly. "You'd better let me see it. Sir Wilfrid and I can advise you." He held out an authoritative hand. Marcia made no movement, and the hand dropped. "Oh, well, if you're going to take no one's advice but your own, I suppose you must gang your own gait!" said her brother, impatiently. "But if you're a sensible girl you'll make it up with Newbury and let him keep you out of it as much as possible. Betts was always a cranky fellow. I'm sorry for the little woman, though." And walking away to a distant window at the far end of the hall, whence all the front approaches to the house could be seen, he stood drumming on the glass and fixedly looking out. Sir Wilfrid, with an angry ejaculation, approached Marcia. "My dear, your brother isn't himself!--else he could never have spoken so unkindly. Will you show me that letter? It will, of course, have to go to the police." She held it out to him obediently. Sir Wilfrid read it. He blew his nose, and walked away for a minute. When he returned, it was to say, with lips that twitched a little in his smooth-shaven actor's face: "Most touching! If one could only have known! But dear Marcia, I hope it's not true--I hope to God, it's not true!--that you've quarreled with Newbury?" Marcia was standing with her head thrown back against the high marble mantelpiece. The lids drooped over her eyes. "I don't know," she said, in a faint voice. "I don't know. Oh no, not _quarreled_--" Sir Wilfrid looked at her with a fatherly concern; took her limp hand and pressed it. "Stand by him, dear, stand by him! He'll suffer enough from this--without losing you." Marcia did not answer. Lester had returned to the hall, and he and Bury then got from her, as gently as possible, a full account of her two interviews with Mrs. Betts. Lester wrote it down, and Marcia signed it. The object of the two men was to make the police authorities acquainted with such testimony as Marcia had to give, while sparing her if possible an appearance at the inquest. While Lester was writing, Sir Wilfrid threw occasional scathing glances toward the distant Arthur, who seemed to be alternately pacing up and down and reading the newspapers. But the young man showed no signs whatever of doing or suggesting anything further to help his sister. Sir Wilfrid perceived at once how Marcia's narrative might be turned against the Newburys, round whom the hostile feeling of a whole neighborhood was probably at that moment rising into fury. Was there ever a more odious, a more untoward situation! But he could not be certain that Marcia understood it so. He failed, indeed, altogether, to decipher her mind toward Newbury; or to get at the truth of what had happened between them. She sat, very pale, and piteously composed; answering the questions they put to her, and sometimes, though rarely, unable to control a sob, which seemed to force its way unconsciously. At the end of their cross-examination, when Sir Wilfrid was ready to start for Martover, the police headquarters for the district, she rose, and said she would go back to her room. "Do, do, dear child!" Bury threw a fatherly arm round her, and went with her to the foot of the stairs. "Go and rest--sleep if you can." As Marcia moved away there was a sudden sound at the end of the hall. Arthur had run hurriedly toward the door leading to the outer vestibule. He opened it and disappeared. Through the high-arched windows to the left, a boy on a bicycle could be seen descending the long central avenue leading to the fore-court. It was just noon. The great clock set in the center of the eastern façade had chimed the hour, and as its strokes died away on the midsummer air Marcia was conscious, as her mother had been the preceding afternoon, of an abnormal stillness round her. She was in her sitting-room, trying to write a letter to Mrs. Betts's sister about the boy mentioned in his mother's last words. He was not at the farm, thank God!--that she knew. His stepfather had sent him at Easter to a good preparatory school. It seemed to help her to be doing this last poor service to the dead woman. And yet in truth she scarcely knew what she was writing. Her mind was torn between two contending imaginations--the thought of Mrs. Betts, sitting beside her dead husband, and waiting for the moment of her own death; and the thought of Newbury. Alternately she saw the laboratory at night--the shelves of labeled bottles and jars--the tables and chemical apparatus--the electric light burning--and in the chair the dead man, with the bowed figure against his knee:--and then--Newbury--in his sitting-room, amid the books and portraits of his college years--the crucifix over the mantelpiece--the beautiful drawings of Einsiedeln--of Assisi. Her heart cried out to him. It had cried out to him in her letter. The thought of the agony he must be suffering tortured her. Did he blame himself? Did he remember how she had implored him to "take care"? Or was it all still plain to him that he had done right? She found herself praying with all her strength that he might still feel he could have done no other, and that what had happened, because of his action, had been God's will, and not merely man's mistake. She longed--sometimes--to throw her arms round him, and comfort him. Yet there was no passion in her longing. All that young rising of the blood seemed to have been killed in her. But she would never draw back from what she had offered him--never. She would go to him, and stand by him--as Sir Wilfrid had said--if he wanted her. The gong rang for luncheon. Marcia rose unwillingly; but she was still more unwilling to make her feelings the talk of the household. As she neared the dining-room she saw her mother approaching from the opposite side of the house. Lady Coryston walked feebly, and her appearance shocked her daughter. "Mother!--do let me send for Bryan!" she pleaded, as they met--blaming herself sharply the while for her own absorption and inaction during the morning hours. "You don't look a bit fit to be up." Lady Coryston replied in a tone which forbade discussion that she was quite well, and had no need whatever of Dr. Bryan's attendance. Then she turned to the butler, and inquired if Mr. Arthur was in the house. "His motor came round, my lady, about twelve o'clock. I have not seen him since." The lunch passed almost in complete silence between the two ladies. Lady Coryston was informed that Sir Wilfrid and Lester had gone to Martover in connection with Marcia's share in the events at Redcross Farm. "They hope I needn't appear," said Marcia, dully. "I should rather think not!" Lady Coryston's indignant tone seemed to assume that English legal institutions were made merely to suit the convenience of the Coryston family. Marcia had enough of Coryston in her to perceive it. But she said nothing. As they entered the drawing-room after luncheon she remembered--with a start. "Mother--I forgot!--I'm so sorry--I dare say it was nothing. But I think a letter came for Arthur just before twelve--a letter he was expecting. At least I saw a messenger-boy come down the avenue. Arthur ran out to meet him. Then I went up-stairs, and I haven't seen him since." Lady Coryston had turned whiter than before. She groped for a chair near and seated herself, before she recovered sufficient self-possession to question her daughter as to the precise moment of the messenger's appearance, the direction from which he arrived, and so forth. But Marcia knew no more, and could tell no more. Nor could she summon up any curiosity about her brother, possessed and absorbed as her mind was by other thoughts and images. But in a vague, anxious way she felt for her mother; and if Lady Coryston had spoken Marcia would have responded. And Lady Coryston would have liked to speak, first of all to scold Marcia for forgetting her message, and then to confide in her--insignificant as the daughter's part in the mother's real life and thoughts had always been. But she felt physically incapable of bearing the emotion which might spring out upon her from such a conversation. It was as though she possessed--and knew she possessed--a certain measured strength; just enough--and no more--to enable her to go through a conversation which _must_ be faced. She had better not waste it beforehand. Sometimes it occurred to her that her feeling toward this coming interview was wholly morbid and unnatural. How many worse things had she faced in her time! But reasoning on it did not help her--only silence and endurance. After resting a little in the drawing-room she went up to her sitting-room again, refusing Marcia's company. "Won't you let me come and make you comfortable?--if you're going to rest, you'll want a shawl and some pillows," said the girl, as she stood at the foot of the staircase, wistfully looking after her. But Lady Coryston shook her head. "Thank you--I don't want anything." * * * * * So--for Marcia--there was nothing to be done with these weary hours--but wait and think and weep! She went back to her own sitting-room, and lingeringly put Newbury's letters together, in a packet, which she sealed; in case--well, in case--nothing came of her letter of the morning. They had been engaged not quite a month. Although they had met almost every day, yet there were many letters from him; letters of which she felt anew the power and beauty as she reread them. Yet from that power and beauty, the natural expression of his character, she stood further off now than when she had first known him. The mystery indeed in which her nascent love had wrapped him had dropped away. She knew him better, she respected him infinitely; and all the time--strangely, inexplicably--love had been, not growing, but withering. Meanwhile, into all her thoughts about herself and Newbury there rushed at recurrent intervals the memory, the overwhelming memory, of her last sight of John and Alice Betts. That gray face in the summer dusk, beyond the window, haunted her; and the memory of those arms which had clung about her waist. Was there a beyond?--where were they?--those poor ghosts! All the riddles of the eternal Sphinx leaped upon Marcia--riddles at last made real. Twenty-four hours ago, two brains, two hearts, alive, furiously alive, with human sorrow and human revolt. And now? Had that infinitely pitiful Christ in whom Newbury believed, received the two tormented souls?--were they comforted--purged--absolved? Had they simply ceased to be--to feel--to suffer? Or did some stern doom await them--still--after all the suffering here? A shudder ran through the girl, evoking by reaction the memory of immortal words--"_Her sins which are many are forgiven; for she loved much_." She fed herself on the divine saying; repressing with all her strength the skeptical, pessimistic impulses that were perhaps natural to her temperament, forcing herself, as it were, for their sakes, to hope and to believe. Again, as the afternoon wore away, she was weighed down by the surrounding silence. No one in the main pile of building but her mother and herself. Not a sound, but the striking of the great gilt clock outside. From her own room she could see the side windows of her mother's sitting-room; and once she thought she perceived the stately figure passing across them. But otherwise Lady Coryston made no sign; and her daughter dared not go to her without permission. Why did no letter come for her, no reply? She sat at her open windows for a time, watching the front approaches, and looking out into a drizzling rain which veiled the afternoon. When it ceased she went out--restlessly--to the East Wood--the wood where they had broken it off. She lay down with her face against the log--a prone white figure, among the fern. The buried ring--almost within reach of her hand--seemed to call to her like a living thing. No!--let it rest. If it was God's will that she should go back to Edward, she would make him a good wife. But her fear, her shrinking, was all there still. She prayed; but she did not know for what. Meanwhile at Redcross Farm, the Coroner was holding his inquiry. The facts were simple, the public sympathy and horror profound. Newbury and Lord William had given their evidence amid a deep and, in many quarters, hostile silence. The old man, parchment-pale, but of an unshaken dignity, gave a full account of the efforts--many and vain--that had been made both by himself and his son to find Betts congenial work in another sphere and to persuade him to accept it. "We had nothing to do with his conscience, or with his private affairs--in themselves. All we asked was that we should not be called on to recognize a marriage which in our eyes was not a marriage. Everything that we could have done consistently with that position, my son and I may honestly say we have done." Sir Wilfrid Bury was called, to verify Marcia's written statement, and Mrs. Betts's letter was handed to the Coroner, who broke down in reading it. Coryston, who was sitting on the opposite side of the room, watched the countenances of the two Newburys while it was being read, with a frowning attention. When the evidence was over, and the jury had retired, Edward Newbury took his father to the carriage which was waiting. The old man, so thin and straight, from his small head and narrow shoulders to his childishly small feet, leaned upon his son's arm, and apparently saw nothing around him. A mostly silent throng lined the lane leading to the farm. Half-way stood the man who had come down to lecture on "Rational Marriage," surrounded by a group of Martover Socialists. From them rose a few hisses and groans as the Newburys passed. But other groups represented the Church Confraternities and clubs of the Newbury estate. Among them heads were quietly bared as the old man went by, or hands were silently held out. Even a stranger would have realized that the scene represented the meeting of two opposing currents of thought and life. Newbury placed his father in the carriage, which drove off. He then went back himself to wait for the verdict. As he approached the door of the laboratory in which the inquiry had been held, Coryston emerged. Newbury flushed and stopped him. Coryston received it as though it had been the challenge of an enemy. He stepped back, straightening himself fiercely. Newbury began: "Will you take a message from me to your sister?" A man opened the door in front a little way. "Mr. Edward, the jury are coming back." The two men went in; Coryston listened with a sarcastic mouth to the conventional verdict of "unsound mind" which drapes impartially so many forms of human ill. And again he found himself in the lane with Newbury beside him. "One more lie," he said, violently, "to a jury's credit!" Newbury looked up. It was astonishing what a mask he could make of his face, normally so charged--over-charged--with expression. "What else could it have been? But this is no time or place for us to discuss our differences, Coryston--" "Why not!" cried Coryston, who had turned a dead white. "'Our differences,' as you call them, have led to _that_!" He turned and flung out a thin arm toward the annex to the laboratory, where the bodies were lying. "It is time, I think, that reasonable men should come to some understanding about 'differences' that can slay and madden a pair of poor hunted souls, as these have been slain!" "'Hunted?' What do you mean?" said Newbury, sternly, while his dark eyes took fire. "Hunted by the Christian conscience!--that it might lie comfortable o' nights," was the scornful reply. Newbury said nothing for a few moments. They emerged on the main road, crossed it, and entered the Hoddon Grey park. Here they were alone, out of sight of the crowd returning from the inquest to the neighboring village. As they stepped into one of the green rides of the park they perceived a motorcar descending the private road which crossed it a hundred yards away. A man was driving it at a furious pace, and Coryston clearly recognized his brother Arthur. He was driving toward Coryston. Up to the moment when the news of the farm tragedy had reached him that morning, Coryston's mind had been very full of what seemed to him the impending storm between his mother and Arthur. Since then he had never thought of it, and the sight of his brother rushing past, making for Coryston, no doubt, from some unknown point, excited but a moment's recollection, lost at once in the emotion which held him. Newbury struck in, however, before he could express it further; in the same dry and carefully governed voice as before. "You are Marcia's brother, Coryston. Yesterday morning she and I were still engaged to be married. Yesterday afternoon we broke it off--although--since then--I have received two letters from her--" He paused a moment, but soon resumed, with fresh composure. "Those letters I shall answer to-night. By that time--perhaps--I shall know better--what my future life will be." "Perhaps!" Coryston repeated, roughly. "But I have no claim to know, nor do I want to know!" Newbury gave him a look of wonder. "I thought you were out for justice--and freedom of conscience?" he said, slowly. "Is the Christian conscience--alone--excepted? Freedom for every one else--but none for us?" "Precisely! Because your freedom means other men's slavery!" Coryston panted out the words. "You can't have your freedom! It's too costly in human life. Everywhere Europe has found that out. The freedom you Catholics--Anglican or Roman--want, is anti-social. We sha'n't give it you!" "You will have to give it us," said Newbury, calmly, "because in putting us down--which of course you could do with ease--you would destroy all that you yourselves value in civilization. It would be the same with us, if we had the upper hand, as you have now. Neither of us can destroy the other. We stand face to face--we shall stand face to face--while the world lasts." Coryston broke into passionate contradiction. Society, he was confident, would, in the long run, put down Catholicism, of all sorts, by law. "Life is hard enough, the devil knows! We can't afford--we simply can't afford--to let you make it harder by these damned traditions! I appeal to those two dead people! They did what _you_ thought wrong, and your conscience judged and sentenced them. But who made you a judge and divider over them? Who asked you to be the dispenser for them of blessing and cursing?" Newbury stood still. "No good, Coryston, your raving like this! There is one question that cuts the knot--that decides where you stand--and where I stand. You don't believe there has ever been any living word from God to man--any lifting of the eternal veil. We do! We say the heavens _have_ opened--a God _has_ walked this earth! Everything else follows from that." "Including the deaths of John Betts and his wife!" said Coryston, with bitter contempt. "A God suffers and bleeds, for that! No!--for us, if there is a God, He speaks in love--in love only--in love supremely--such love as those two poor things had for each other!" After which they walked along in silence for some time. Each had said the last word of his own creed. Presently they reached a footpath from which the house at Hoddon Grey could be reached. Newbury paused. "Here, Coryston, we part--and we may never meet again." He raised his heavy eyes to his companion. All passion had died from his face, which in its pale sorrow was more beautiful than Coryston had ever seen it. "Do you think," he said, with deliberate gentleness, "that I feel nothing--that life can ever be the same for me again--after this? It has been to me a sign-post in the dark--written in letters of flame--and blood. It tells me where to go--and I obey." He paused, looking, as it seemed, through Coryston, at things beyond. And Coryston was aware of a strange and sudden awe in himself which silenced him. But Newbury recalled his thoughts. He spoke next in his ordinary tone. "Please, tell--Marcia--that all arrangements have been made for Mr. Betts's boy, with the relatives' consent. She need have no anxiety about him. And all I have to say to her for her letter--her blessed letter--I will say to-night." He walked away, and was soon lost to sight among the trees. CHAPTER XVI Coryston walked back to Knatchett at a furious pace, jumped on his bicycle, and went off to find Marion Atherstone--the only person with whom he could trust himself at the moment. He more than suspected that Marcia in a fit of sentimental folly would relent toward Newbury in distress--and even his rashness shrank from the possibility of a quarrel which might separate him from his sister for good. But liberate his soul he must; and he thirsted for a listener with whom to curse bigots up and down. In Marion's mild company, strangely enough, the most vigorous cursing, whether of men or institutions, had always in the end calming results. To Marion, however, led by a sure instinct, he went. Meanwhile the motor which passed Newbury and Coryston in the park had sped to its goal. It had already carried Arthur Coryston over half the county. That morning he had been told at the Atherstones' cottage, on his breathless arrival there, just before luncheon, that while the Chancellor had returned to town, Miss Glenwilliam had motored to a friend's house, some twenty miles north, and was not going back to London till the evening. Arthur Coryston at once pursued her. Sorely against her will, he had forced the lady to an interview, and in the blind rage of his utter defeat and discomfiture, he left her again in hot quest of that explanation with his mother which Enid Glenwilliam had honestly--and vainly--tried to prevent. Lady Coryston meanwhile was bewildered by his absence. During the lonely hours when Marcia, from a distance, had once caught sight of her crossing an open window in her sitting-room, she had not been able to settle to any occupation, still less to rest. She tried to write out the Agenda of an important Primrose League meeting over which she was to preside; to put together some notes of her speech. In vain. A strange heaviness weighed upon her. The only stimulus that worked--and that only for a time--was a fierce attack on Glenwilliam in one of the morning papers. She read it hungrily; but it brought on acute headache, which reduced her to idleness and closed eyes. After a while she roused herself to pull down a blind against a teasing invasion of sun, and in doing so she perceived a slim, white figure hurrying away from the house, through the bright-colored mazes of the Italian garden. Marcia! She remembered vaguely that Marcia had come to her that morning in trouble about what? She could not remember. It had seemed to her of importance. At last, about half an hour after she had seen Marcia disappear in the shrubbery paths leading to the East Wood, Lady Coryston, startled by a sound from the fore-court, sat suddenly erect on her sofa. A motor? She rose, and going to a little mirror on the wall, she straightened the lace coiffure she habitually wore. In doing so she was struck--dismayed even--by her own aspect. "When this is all over, Marcia and I perhaps might go abroad for a week or two," she thought. A swift step approaching--a peremptory knock at the door. "Come in!" Arthur entered, and with his back against the door stood surveying his mother. She waited for him to speak, expecting violence. For some moments--in vain. Except in so far as his quick-breathing silence, his look of dry, hollow-eyed exasperation spoke--more piercingly than words. "Well, Arthur," she said, at last, "I have been expecting you for some time." "I have been trying to put the mischief you have done me straight," he said, between his teeth. "I have done you no mischief that I know of. Won't you come and sit down quietly--and talk the whole matter over? You can't imagine that I desire anything but your good!" His laugh seemed to give her physical pain. "Couldn't you take to desiring something else, mother, than my 'good' as you call it? Because, I tell you plainly, it don't suit my book. You have been meddling in my affairs!--just as you have always meddled in them, for matter of that! But this time you've done it with a vengeance--you've done it _damnably_!" He struck his hand upon a table near. "What right had you"--he approached her threateningly--"what earthly right had you to go and see Enid Glenwilliam yesterday, just simply that you might spoil my chances with her! Who gave you leave?" He flung the questions at her. "I had every right," said Lady Coryston, calmly. "I am your mother--I have done everything for you--you owe your whole position to me. You were ruining yourself by a mad fancy. I was bound to take care that Miss Glenwilliam should not accept you without knowing all the facts. But--actually--as it happens--she had made up her mind--before we met." "So she says!--and I don't believe a word of it--_not--one--word_! She wanted to make me less mad with you. She's like you, mother, she thinks she can manage everybody. So she tried to cram me--that it was Glenwilliam persuaded her against me. Rot! If you hadn't gone and meddled, if you hadn't treated her like dirt--if you hadn't threatened to spoil my prospects, and told her you'd never receive her--if you hadn't put her back up in a hundred ways--she'd have married me. It's you--you--_you_--that have done it!" He threw himself on a chair in front of her, his hands on his knees, staring at her. His aspect as of a man disorganized and undone by baffled passion, repelled and disgusted her. Was this her Arthur?--her perfect gentleman--her gay, courteous, well-behaved darling--whose mingled docility and good breeding had, so far, suited both her affection and her love of rule so well? The deep under-sense of disaster which had held her all day, returned upon her in ten-fold strength. But she fronted him bravely. "You are, as it happens, entirely wrong, Arthur. It's not I who have done it--but Miss Glenwilliam's own good sense--or her father's. Of course I confess frankly that I should have done my best--that I did, if you like, do my best, to prevent your marriage with Miss Glenwilliam. And as for right, who else had a right, if not I? Was it not most unkind, most undutiful on your part!"--her tone was a tone of battle--"was it not an outrage on your father's memory--that you should even entertain the notion of such a connection? To bring the daughter of that man into this family!--after all we have done--and suffered--for our principles--it's you, who ought to ask _my_ pardon, Arthur, and not I yours! Times without number, you have agreed with me in despising people who have behaved as if politics were a mere game--a trifle that didn't matter. You have told me often, that things were getting too hot; you couldn't be friends in private, with people you hated in public; people you looked upon as robbers and cheats. And then--_then_--you go and let this infatuation run away with you--you forget all your principles--you forget your mother, and all you owe her--and you go and ask this girl to marry you--whose father is our personal and political enemy--a political adventurer who is trying to pull down and destroy everything that you and I hold sacred--or ought to hold sacred!" "For goodness' sake, mother, don't make a political speech!" He turned upon her with angry contempt. "That kind of thing does all very well to spout at an election--but it won't do between you and me. I _don't_ hate Glenwilliam--_there_! The estates--and the property--and all we hold sacred, as you call it--will last my time--and his. And I jolly well don't care what happens afterward. _He's_ not going to do us much harm. England's a deal tougher proposition than he thinks. It's you women who get up such a hullabaloo--I declare you make politics a perfect devilry! But then"--he shrugged his shoulders fiercely--"I'm not going to waste time in arguing. I just came to tell you _what I intend to do_; and then I'm going up to town. I've ordered the motor for seven o'clock." Lady Coryston had risen, and stood, with one hand on the mantelpiece, looking down upon her son. "I shall be glad indeed to hear what you intend to do, Arthur. I see you have missed two or three important divisions lately." He burst out: "And they won't be the last either, by a good way. I'm going to chuck it, mother! And if you don't like it--you can blame yourself!" "What do you mean?" He hesitated a moment--then spoke deliberately. "I intend to leave Parliament after this session. I do! I'm sick of it. A friend of mine has got a ranch forty miles from Buenos Ayres. He wants me to go in with him--and I think I'll try it. I want something to distract my mind from these troubles." Lady Coryston's eyes blazed in her gray-white face, which not even her strong will could keep from trembling. "So this, Arthur, is the reward you propose for all that has been done for you!--for the time, the thought, the money that has been showered upon you--" He looked at her from under his eyebrows, unmoved. "I should have remembered all that, mother, if you--Look here! Have you ever let me, in anything--for one day, one hour--call my soul my own--since I went into Parliament? It's true I deceived you about Enid. I was literally _afraid_ to tell you--there! You've brought me to that! And when a man's afraid of a woman--it somehow makes a jelly of him--altogether. It was partly what made me run after Enid--at first--that I was doing something independent of you--something you would hate, if you knew. Beastly of me, I know!--but there it was. And then you arranged that meeting here, without so much as giving me a word's notice!--you told Page _before you told me_. And when I kicked--and told you about Enid--did you ever come afterward and talk to me nicely about her?--did you ever, even, consider for one moment what I told you?--that I was in love with her?--dead gone on her? Even if I was rude to you that day when you dragged it out of me, most mothers, I think, would have been sorry for a fellow--" His voice suddenly broke; but he instantly recovered himself. "Instead of that, mother--you only thought of how you could thwart and checkmate me--how you could get _your_ way--and force me to give up mine. It was _abominable_ of you to go and see Enid, without a word to me!--it was _abominable_ to plot and plan behind my back, and then to force yourself on her and insult her to her face! Do you think a girl of any spirit whatever would put herself in your clutches after that? No!--she didn't want to come it too hard on you--that's her way!--so she made up some tale about Glenwilliam. But it's as plain as the nose in your face! You've ruined me!--you've ruined me!" He began to walk furiously up and down, beside himself again with rage and pain. Lady Coryston dropped into a chair. Her large, blanched face expressed a passion that even at this supreme moment, and under the sense of doom that was closing on her, she could not restrain. "It is not I who have ruined you, Arthur--as you put it--though of course you're not ruined at all!--but your own wanton self-will. Are you really so lost to all decency--all affection--that you can speak to your mother like this?" He turned and paused--to throw her an ugly look. "Well--I don't know that I'm more of a brute than other men--but it's no good talking about affection to me--after this. Yes, I suppose you've been fond of me, mother, in your way--and I suppose I've been fond of you. But the fact is, as I told you before, I've stood in _fear_ of you!--all my life--and lots of things you thought I did because I was fond of you, I did because I was a coward--a disgusting coward!--who ought to have been kicked. And that's the truth! Why, ever since I was a small kid--" And standing before her, with his hands on his sides, all his pleasant face disfigured by anger and the desire to wound, he poured out upon her a flood of recollections of his childhood and youth. Beneath the bitterness and the shock of it, even Lady Coryston presently flinched. This kind of language, though never in such brutal terms, she had heard from Corry once or twice. But, Arthur!--She put up a trembling hand. "That's enough, Arthur! We had better stop this conversation. I have done the best I could for you--always." "Why didn't you _love_ us!" he cried, striking a chair beside him for emphasis. "Why didn't you _love_ us! It was always politics--politics! Somebody to be attacked--somebody to be scored off--somebody to be squared. And a lot of stupid talk that bored us all! My poor father was as sick of it often as we were. He had enough of it out of doors. Damn politics for women, I say--damn them!" Lady Coryston raised her hand. "_Go_, Arthur! This is enough." He drew a long breath. "Upon my soul, I think it is. We'd better not excite each other any more. I'll speak to Sir Wilfrid, mother, before I go, and ask him to report various things to you, which I have to say. And I shall go and see the Whips to-night. Of course I don't want to do the party any harm. If there is a general election in the autumn, all that need happen is that I sha'n't stand again. And as to the estates"--he hesitated--"as to the estates, mother, do as you like. Upon my word I think you'd better give them back to Coryston! A certain amount of money is all I shall want." "Go!" said Lady Coryston again, still pointing. He stood a moment, fiddling with some ornaments on a table near him, then caught up his hat with a laugh--and still eying her askance, he walked to the door, opened it, and disappeared; though he closed it so uncertainly that Lady Coryston, until, after what seemed an interval, she heard his footsteps receding, could not be sure that he was really gone. But he was gone; and all the plans and hopes of her later life lay in ashes about her. She sat motionless. After half an hour she heard the sound of a motor being driven away from the front of the house. Through the evening air, too, she caught distant voices--which soon ceased. She rang presently for her maid, and said she would dine in her room, because of a bad headache. Marcia came, but was not admitted. Sir Wilfrid Bury asked if he might see her, just for a few minutes. A message referred him to the next morning. Dinner came and went down untouched. Whenever she was ill, Lady Coryston's ways were solitary and ungracious. She hated being "fussed over." So that no one dared force themselves upon her. Only, between ten and eleven, Marcia again came to the door, knocked gently, and was told to go away. Her mother would be all right in the morning. The girl reluctantly obeyed. The state of terrible tension in which Lady Coryston passed that night had no witness. It could only be guessed at, by Marcia, in particular, to whom it fell afterward to take charge of her mother's papers and personal affairs. Lady Coryston had apparently gathered all Arthur's, letters to her together, from the very first to the very latest, tied them up neatly, and laid them in the drawer which held those of her dead husband. She had begun to write a letter to Coryston, but when found, it was incoherent, and could not be understood. She had removed the early photographs of Arthur from her table, and a larger, recent one of the young M.P., taken in London for the constituency, which was on her mantelpiece, and had placed them both face downward in the same drawer with the letters. And then, when she had found it impossible to write what she wished to write, she seemed to have gone back to her arm-chair, taking with her two or three of Arthur's Eton reports--by what instinct had she chosen them out from the piles of letters!--and a psalter she often used. But by a mere accident, a sinister trick of fate, when she was found, the book lay open under her hand at one of those imprecatory psalms at which Christendom has at last learned to shudder. Only a few days before, Sir Wilfrid Bury had laughed at her--as only he might--for her "Old Testament tone" toward her enemies, and had quoted this very psalm. Her helpless fingers touched it. But the night was a night of vigil for others also. Coryston, who could not sleep, spent the greater part of it first in writing to Marion Atherstone, and then in composing a slashing attack upon the High Church party for its attitude toward the divorce laws of the country, and the proposals recently made for their reform. "How much longer are we going to allow these black-coated gentlemen to despise and trample on the laws under which the rest of us are content to live!--or to use the rights and powers of property for the bare purpose of pressing their tyrannies and their superstitions on other people?" Meanwhile, in the beautiful chapel of Hoddon Grey, Edward Newbury, worn out with the intolerable distress of the preceding forty-eight hours, and yet incapable of sleep, sat or knelt through long stretches of the night. The chapel was dark but for one light. Over the altar there burnt a lamp, and behind it could be seen, from the chair, where he knelt, the silk veil of the tabernacle. Reservation had been permitted for years in the Hoddon Grey chapel, and the fact had interwoven itself with the deepest life of the household, eclipsing and dulling the other religious practices of Anglicanism, just as the strong plant in a hedgerow drives out or sterilizes the rest. There, in Newbury's passionate belief, the Master of the House kept watch, or slept, above the altar, as once above the Galilean waves. For him, the "advanced" Anglican, as for any Catholic of the Roman faith, the doctrine of the Mass was the central doctrine of all religion, and that intimate and personal adoration to which it leads, was the governing power of life. The self-torturing anguish which he had suffered ever since the news of the two suicides had reached him could only endure itself in this sacred presence; and it was there he had taken refuge under the earlier blow of the breach with Marcia. The night was very still--a night of soft showers, broken by intervals of starlight. Gradually as the darkness thinned toward dawn, the figures, stoled and winged and crowned, of the painted windows, came dimly forth, and long rays of pale light crept over the marble steps and floor, upon the flowers on the altar and the crucifix above it. The dawn flowed in silently and coldly; the birds stirred faintly; and the white mists on the lawn and fields outside made their way through the open windows, and dimmed the glow of color on the walls and in the apse. In those melancholy and yet ardent hours Edward Newbury reached the utmost heights of religious affirmation, and the extreme of personal renunciation. It became clear to a mind attuned for such thoughts, that, by severing him from Marcia, and, at the same time, and by the same stroke, imposing upon him at least some fraction of responsibility--a fraction which his honesty could not deny--for the deaths of John and Alice Betts, God had called him, Edward Newbury, in a way not to be mistaken and not to be refused. His life was henceforth forfeit--forfeit to his Lord. Henceforth, let him make of it a willing sacrifice, an expiatory oblation, perpetually renewed, and offered in perpetual union with the Divine Victim, for their souls and his own. The ideas of the Conventual house in which he had so lately spent hours of intense religious happiness closed upon him and possessed him. He was not to marry. He was reserved for the higher counsels, the Counsels of Perfection. The face and talk of his friend Brierly, who was so soon going to his dangerous and solitary post in Southern India, haunted his mind, and at last seemed to show him a way out of his darkness. His poor father and mother! But he never doubted for one moment that they would give him up, that they would let him follow his conscience. By the time the sun was fairly up, the storm of religious feeling had died down in Newbury. He had taken his resolve, but he was incapable of any further emotion concerning it. On the other hand, his heart was alive to the thought of Marcia, and of that letter she had sent him. Dear, generous Marcia! Once more he would write to her--once more! "DEAREST MARCIA,--I may call you so, I think, for the last time, and at this turning-point of both our lives. I may never see you again; or if we do meet, you will have become so strange to me that you will wonder in what other and distant life it was that we loved each other. I think you did love me for a little while, and I do bless and thank you that you let me know you--and love you. And I bless you above all for the thought of consolation and pity you had toward me, even yesterday, in those terrible hours--when you offered to come back to me and help me, as though our bond had never been broken. "No, dear Marcia!--I saw the truth in your face yesterday. I could not make you happy. I should set jarring a discord in your life for which it was never meant. You did right, absolutely right, to separate yourself from one whose inmost and irrevocable convictions repelled and shocked you. I may be narrow and cold; but I am not narrow enough--or cold enough!--to let you give yourself back to one you cannot truly love--or trust. But that you offered it, because you were sorry for me, and that you would have carried it out, firmly, your dear hand clenched, as it were, on the compact--that warms my heart--that I shall have, as a precious memory, to carry into the far-off life that I foresee. "I cannot write much about the terrible thing at Redcross Farm. Your great pity for me implies that you think me--and my father--in some way and in some degree, responsible. Perhaps we are--I do not wish to shirk the truth. If so, it is as soldiers under orders are responsible for the hurt and damage they may cause, in their King's war--as much, and as little. At least, so far as the main matter is concerned. That I might have been--that I ought to have been--infinitely more loving, wiser, stronger to help them--that I know--that I shall feel as long as I live. And it is a feeling which will determine all my future life. "You remember what I told you of Father Brierly and the Community of the Ascension? As soon as I can leave my father and mother--they are at present in deep distress--I shall probably go to the Community House in Lancashire for a time. My present intention is to take orders, and perhaps to join Brierly eventually in mission work. My father and mother are splendid! They and I shall be separated perhaps in this world, but in that mysterious other world which lies all about us even now, and which is revealed to us in the Sacraments, we shall meet at last, and forever--if we are faithful. "Good-by--God be with you--God give you every good thing in this present time--love, children, friends--and, 'in the world to come, life everlasting.'" * * * * * About the hour when the letter was finished, when the July sun was already high over the dewy new-shorn fields, Coryston, after an hour's sleep in his chair, and a bath, left Knatchett to walk to Coryston. He was oppressed by some vague dread which would not let him rest. In the strong excitements and animosities of the preceding day he had forgotten his mother. But the memory of her face on the sofa during that Sunday reading had come back upon him with unpleasant force. It had been always so with him in life. She no sooner relapsed into the woman than he became a son. Only the experience had been rare! He crossed the Hoddon Grey park, and then walked through _a_ mile of the Coryston demesne, till he reached the lake and saw beyond it the Italian garden, with its statues glittering in the early sun--and the long marble front of the house, with its rococo ornament, and its fine pillared loggia. "What the deuce are _we_ going to do with these places!" he asked himself in petulant despair. "And to think that Arthur won't be allowed to sell it, or turn it to any useful purpose whatever!" He skirted the lake, and began to mount the steps, and flagged paths of the formal garden. Suddenly as he approached the garden front he saw that two windows of his mother's sitting-room were open, and that some one--a figure in black--was sitting in a high-backed arm-chair beside one of them. His mother!--up?--at seven o'clock in the morning? Yet was it his mother? He came nearer. The figure was motionless--the head thrown back, the eyes invisible from where he stood. Something in the form, the attitude--its stillness and strangeness in the morning light--struck him with horror. He rushed to the garden door, found it open, dashed up the stairs, and into his mother's room. "Mother!" Lady Coryston neither moved nor spoke. But as he came up to her, he saw that she was alive--that her eyes opened and perceived him. Nothing else in her lived or moved. And as he knelt down by her, and took her tenderly in his arms, she relapsed into the unconscious state from which his entrance had momentarily roused her. * * * * * What else there is to tell had best be told quickly. Lady Coryston lived for some eight months after this seizure. She partially recovered from the first stroke, and all the organization of the great house, and all the thought of her children circled round the tragic death-in-life into which she had fallen. Arthur had come rushing back to Coryston after the catastrophe, restored by it, like a stream which has wandered in flood, to the older and natural channels of life. Bitter remorse for his conduct to his mother, and a sharp resentment of Enid Glenwilliam's conduct toward himself, acted wholesomely. He took up his normal occupations again, in Parliament and on the estates, and talked no more of Buenos Ayres. But whether his mother's darkened mind ever forgave him it would be difficult to say. She rarely noticed him, and when she spoke it was generally for Coryston. Her dependence upon her eldest son became a touching and poignant thing, deepening the souls of both. Coryston came to live at Coryston, and between his love for Marion Atherstone, and his nursing of his mother, was more truly happy for a time than his character had ever yet allowed him to be. The din of battle, political and religious, penetrated no more within a house where death came closer day by day, and where weakness and suffering had at last united these differing men and women in a common interest of profoundest pity. Lady Coryston became strangely dear to her children before she left them forever, and the last faint words she spoke, on that winter morning when she died, were for Coryston, who had her hand in his. "Corry--Corry darling"--and as he came closer--"Corry, who was my firstborn!" On the night of Lady Coryston's death Reginald Lester wrote: "Coryston has just taken me in to see his mother. She lies in a frowning rest which does not--as death so often does--make any break with our memories of her when alive. Attitude and expression are characteristic. She is the strong woman still, conscious of immense power; and, if that shut mouth could speak, and if health were given back to her, ready no doubt still to use it tyrannously. There is no weakening and no repentance in the face; and I like it better so. Nor did she ever really reverse, though she modified, the exclusion of Coryston from the inheritance. She was able during an interval of comparative betterment about Christmas-time, to make an alteration in her will, and the alteration was no mere surrender to what one sees to have been, at bottom, her invincible affection for Coryston. She has still left Arthur the estates for life, but with remainder to Coryston's son, should he have one, and she has made Coryston a trustee together with Sir Wilfrid Bury. This will mean practically a division between the brothers--to which Arthur has already pledged himself, so he tells me--but with no power to Coryston to make such radical changes as would destroy the family tradition, at least without Arthur's consent and Sir Wilfrid's. But Coryston will have plenty of money and plenty of land wherewith to experiment, and no doubt we shall see some strange things. "Thus she kept her flag flying to the end, so far as the enfeebled brain allowed. Yet the fact was that her state of dependence on her children during her illness, and their goodness to her, did in truth evoke another woman with new perceptions, superposed, as it were, upon the old. And there, I think, came in her touch of greatness--which one could not have expected. She was capable at any rate of _this_ surrender; not going back upon the old--but just accepting the new. Her life might have petered out in bitterness and irritation, leaving an odious memory. It became a source of infinite sweetness, just because her children found out--to their immense surprise--that she _could_ let herself be loved; and they threw themselves with eagerness on the chance she gave them. "She dies in time--one of the last of a generation which will soon have passed, leaving only a procession of ghosts on a vanishing road. She had no doubts about her place and prerogative in the world, no qualms about her rights to use them as she pleased. Coryston also has no doubts--or few. As to individuals he is perpetually disillusioned; as to causes he is as obstinate as his mother. And independently of the Glenwilliam affair, that is why, I think, in the end she preferred Coryston to Arthur, who will 'muddle through,' not knowing whither, like the majority of his kind. "Marcia!--in her black dress, beside her mother, looking down upon her--with that yearning look!--But--not a word! There are things too sacred for these pages." * * * * * During the months of Lady Coryston's illness, indeed, Reginald Lester entered, through stages scarcely perceived by himself and them, upon a new relation toward the Coryston family. He became the increasingly intimate friend and counselor of the Coryston brothers, and of Marcia, no less--but in a fresh and profounder sense. He shared much of the estate business with Mr. Page; he reconciled as best he could the jarring views of Coryston and Arthur; he started on the reorganization of the great Library, in which, so far, he had only dealt with a fraction of its possessions. And every day he was Marcia's companion, in things intimate and moving, no less than in the practical or commonplace affairs of ordinary life. It was he who read poetry with her, or played accompaniments to her songs, in the hours of relief from her nursing; it was he who watched and understood her; who guided and yet adored her. His love for her was never betrayed; but it gradually became, without her knowing it, the condition of her life. And when Lady Coryston died, in the February following her stroke, and Marcia, who was worn out, went abroad with Waggin for a few weeks' rest, the correspondence which passed between her and Lester during the earlier days of her absence, by the more complete and deliberate utterance which it permitted between them, did at last reveal to the girl the depths of her own heart. During her travels various things happened. One chilly afternoon, late in March, when a light powdering of snow lay on the northern slopes of the hills, Coryston went up to the cottage in the hopes of finding Marion Atherstone alone. There had been a quiet understanding between them all the winter, more or less known to the Coryston family, but all talk of marriage had been silenced by the condition of Lady Coryston, who indeed never knew such schemes were in the air. About six weeks, however, after his mother's death, Coryston's natural _fougue_ suggested to him that he was being trifled with. He burst into the little sitting-room where Marion was just making tea, and sat down, scowling, on the further side of the hearth. "What is the matter?" Marion asked, mildly. During the winter a beautifying change seemed to have passed upon Atherstone's daughter. She was younger, better looking, better dressed; yet keeping always the touch of homeliness, of smiling common-sense, which had first attracted a man in secret rebellion against his own rhetoric and other people's. "You are treating me abominably!" said Coryston, with vehemence. "How? My conscience is as sound as a bell!" Wherewith, laughing, she handed him his cup of tea. "All bells aren't sound. Some are flawed," was the prompt reply. "I have asked you twice this week to tell me when you will be good enough to marry me, and you haven't said a single word in reply." Marion was silent a little; then she looked up, as Andromache looked at Hector--with a laugh, yet with something else fluttering behind. "Let's ask ourselves once more, Herbert--is it really a wise thing to do?" Nobody else since his father died had ever called Coryston by his Christian name; which was perhaps why Marion Atherstone took a peculiar pleasure in using it. Coryston had mostly forgotten that he possessed such a name, but from her he liked it. "What on earth do you mean by that?" "In the first place, Herbert, I was never intended by nature to be a peeress." He sprang up furiously. "I never heard a more snobbish remark! All that you are asked is to be my wife." She shook her head. "We can't make a world for ourselves only. Then there's--father." "Well, what about him?" "You don't get on very well," she said, with a sigh. Coryston controlled himself with difficulty. "For your father, the Liberal party is mostly Jahve--the hope of the children of light. For me the Liberal party is mostly Dagon--either made a god of by Philistines, or groveling before a stronger God--Mammon. But that don't matter. I can behave myself." Marion bent over her work. "Can't I behave myself?" he repeated, threateningly, as he moved nearer her. She looked up at last. "Suppose you get bored with me--as you have with the Liberal party?" "But never with liberty," he said, ardently. "Suppose you come to see the seamy side of me--as you do of everybody?" "I don't invent seamy sides--where none exist," he said, looking peremptorily into her eyes. "I'm not clever, Herbert--and I think I'm a Tory." "Heavens, what do I care? You're the woman I happen to love." "And I intend to go to church." "Edward Newbury's kind of church?" he asked her, uneasily. She shook her head. "No. I'm an Evangelical." "Thank the Lord! So am I," he said, fervently. She laughed. "It's true," he insisted. "Peace on earth--goodwill to men--that I can understand. So that's settled. Now then--a fortnight next Wednesday?" "No, no!" she said, in alarm, "certainly not. Wait a minute, Herbert! Where are you going to live, and what are you going to do?" "I'm taking over the Dorset estates. Lots to do on them, and not much money. Arthur washes his hands of them. There's an old farm where we can live. In six months I shall have quarreled with all the neighbors, and life will be worth living again." She lifted her eyebrows. "A charming prospect for your wife!" "Certainly. You'll have the life you were born for. You'll go round after me--whitewashing the scandals I cause--or if you like to put it sentimentally--binding up the wounds I make. But if I'm anything I'm a sociologist, and my business is to make experiments. They will no doubt be as futile as those I have been making here." "And where shall I come in?" "You'll be training up the boy--who'll profit by the experiments." "The boy?" "The boy--our boy--who's to have the estates," said Coryston, without a moment's hesitation. Marion flushed, and pulled her work to her again. Coryston dropped on his knees beside her, and asked her pardon with eyes whereof the male audacity had passed into a steady and shining tenderness. When Coryston returned that night to the big house, he found his brothers Arthur and James arrived for the week-end. Arthur was full of Parliamentary gossip--"battles of kites and crows," of which Coryston was generally intolerant. But on this occasion he took it silently, and Arthur rambled on. James sat mildly beaming, with finger-tips joined, and the look of one on the verge of a confidence. But he talked, after all--when Arthur paused--only of music and the opera, and as his brothers were not musical, he soon came to an end, and Arthur held the stage. They were gathered in the smoking-room on the ground or garden floor, a room hung with pictures of race-horses, and saddened by various family busts that had not been thought good enough for the library. Outside, the March wind rattled through trees as yet untouched by the spring, and lashed a shivering water round the fountain nymphs. "Whoever could have dreamed they would have held on till now!" said Arthur, in reply to a perfunctory remark from James. Coryston looked up from a reverie. "Who? The Government? Lord!--what does it matter? Look here, you chaps--I heard some news in Martover just now. Lord William Newbury died last night--heart failure--expected for the last fortnight." Arthur received the news with the lively professional interest that one landowner feels in another, and tied a knot in his handkerchief to remind himself to ask Page when the funeral was to be, as the Member for the division must of course attend it. James said, thoughtfully: "Edward, I saw, was ordained last week. And my letter from Marcia this morning tells me she expects to see him in Rome, on his way to India. Poor Lady William will be very much alone!" "If you make a solitude and call it religion, what can you expect?" said Coryston, sharply. His face had darkened at the Newburys' name. As always, it had evoked the memory of two piteous graves. Then, as he got up from his chair, he said to Arthur: "I've fixed it up. Marion and I shall get married next month." The brothers looked a little embarrassed, though not at all surprised. Corry's attachment to this plain, sensible lady, of moderate opinions, had indeed astonished them enormously when they first became aware of it; but they were now used to it. "All right, Corry!" said Arthur, slapping his brother on the back. "The best chance of keeping you out of a madhouse! And a very nice woman! You don't expect me to chum with her father?" "Not unless you wish to learn a thing or two--which was never your strong point," said Coryston, dodging a roll of some Parliamentary paper or other, which Arthur aimed at him. He turned to James. "Well, James, aren't you going to congratulate me?--And why don't you do it yourself?" "Of course I congratulate you," said James, hastily. "Most sincerely!" But his expression--half agitated, half smiling--betrayed emotions so far beyond the needs of the situation, that Coryston gave him a puzzled glance. James indeed opened his mouth as though to speak. Then a bright, pink color overspread his whole countenance from brow to chin; his lips shut and he fell back in his chair. Presently he went away, and could be heard playing Bach on the organ in the central hall. He returned to London the same evening carrying a cargo of philosophical books, from the library, and a number of novels, though as a rule he never read novels. The next morning, in a letter to Coryston, he announced his engagement to a girl of nineteen, an orphan, and a pupil at the Royal College of Music. She was the daughter of his Cambridge tutor--penniless, pretty, and musical. He had paid her fees it seemed for several years, and the effect on him of her charming mezzo-soprano voice, at a recent concert given by the College, had settled the matter. The philosopher in love, who had been too shy to tell his brothers _viva voce_, was quite free of tongue in writing; and Coryston and Arthur, though they laughed, were glad that "old James" had found the courage to be happy. Coryston remarked to Arthur that it now remained for him to keep up the blue blood of the family. "Or Marcia," said Arthur, evading the personal reference. "Marcia?" Coryston threw his brother an amused, significant look, and said nothing for a moment. But presently he dropped out: "Lester writes that he'll be in Rome next week looking after that Borghese manuscript. He doesn't expect to get back here till May." For Lester had now been absent from Coryston some three or four weeks, traveling on matters connected with the library. Arthur made no comment, but stood awhile by the window in a brown-study, twisting his lip, and frowning slightly. His nondescript features and boyish manner scarcely allowed him at any time to play the magnate with success. But his position as master of Coryston Place, the great family house with its pompous tradition, and the long influence of his mother, had by now asserted, or reasserted themselves; though fighting still with the sore memory of Enid Glenwilliam. Was he going to allow his sister to marry out of her rank--even though the lover were the best fellow in the world? A man may marry whom he will, and the family is only secondarily affected. But a woman is absorbed by the family of her husband. He finally shrugged his shoulders over it. "Marcia is as stiff-necked as Coryston," he said to himself, "if it comes to that." * * * * * April followed. Amid a crowded Rome, alive with flowers and fountains under a life-giving sun, Marcia Coryston became sharply conscious again of the color and beauty interwoven with mere living, for the sane and sound among men. Edward Newbury passed through on his way to Brindisi and Southern India; and she saw him for an hour; an interview short and restrained, but not to be forgotten by either of the two persons concerned. When it was over Marcia shed a few secret tears--tears of painful sympathy, of an admiration, which was half pity; and then threw herself once more with--as it were--a gasp of renewed welcome, into the dear, kind, many-hued world on which Edward Newbury had turned his back. Presently Lester arrived. He became her constant companion through the inexhaustible spectacle of Rome; and she could watch him among the students who were his fellows, modest or learned as they, yet marked out from most of them by the signs he bore--signs well known by now to her--of a poetic and eager spirit, always and everywhere in quest of the human--of man himself, laughing or suffering, behind his works. The golden days passed by; the blue and white anemones bloomed and died in the Alban woods; the English crowd that comes for Easter arrived and departed; and soon Marcia herself must go home, carrying with her the passionate yet expectant feeling of a child, tired out with happy days, and dreaming of more to come. These were private and personal affairs. But in March a catastrophe happened which shook the mind of England, and profoundly altered the course of politics. An American yacht with Glenwilliam on board was overtaken off the Needles by a sudden and terrific storm, and went down, without a survivor, and with nothing but some floating wreckage to tell the tale. The Chancellor's daughter was left alone and poor. The passionate sympathy and admiration which her father's party had felt for himself was in some measure transferred to his daughter. But to the amazement of many persons, she refused with scorn any pecuniary help, living on a small income, and trying her hand, with some prospect of success, at literature. About six weeks after her father's death Arthur Coryston found her out and again asked her to marry him. It is probable there was some struggle in her mind, but in the end she refused. "You are a kind, true fellow!" she said to him, gratefully, "but it wouldn't do--it wouldn't do!" And then with a darkening of her strong face: "There is only one thing I can do for _him_ now--to serve his causes! And you don't care for one of them! No--no! Good-by!--Good-by!" At last, in May, Marcia came back again to live--as she supposed--at Coryston with Arthur, and do her duty by her own people. A wonderful spring was abroad in the land. The gorse on the slopes of the hills was a marvel, and when the hawthorns came out beside it, or flung their bloom along the hedgerows and the streams; when far and near the cuckoo's voice made the new world of blossom and growth articulate; when furtive birds slipped joyously to and fro between the nests above and a teeming earth below; when the west winds veering between south and north, and driving the great white clouds before them, made, every day, a new marvel of the sky--Marcia would often hold her breath and know within herself the growth of an answering and a heavenly spring. Lester finished his scholar's errands in Rome and Naples, and returned to Coryston in the middle week of May, in order to complete his work there. He found much more to do than he supposed; he found his friends, Coryston and Arthur, eager to capture and keep him; he found in every field and wood the kindling beauty of the year; he found Marcia!--and a bewildering though still shy message in her dark eyes. Through what doubts and scruples, through what stages of unfolding confidence and growing joy their minds passed, and to what end it all moved on, let those imagine, to whom the purest and deepest of human emotions has ever spoken, or is speaking now.