IRLF 
 
 THE 
 
 ROYAL ROAD 
 
 TAKING HIA\ 
 AT HI SWORD 
 
 MARION HARLAND 
 
THE EOYAL ROAD 
 
 OR 
 
 TAKING HIM AT HIS WOKD 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD 
 
 TAKING HIM AT HIS WORD 
 
 BY 
 
 MARION HARLAND 
 
 AUTHOR OF "ALONE," "EVE S DAUGHTERS," "HIS GREAT SELF," 
 "A GALLANT FIGHT," ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH AND COMPANY 
 
 (INCORPORATED) 
 182 FIFTH AVENUE 
 
Copyright, 1894, 
 BY ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH AND COMPANY 
 
 (INCORPORATED) 
 
 Hnttaersitg Stress: 
 JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. 
 
p C <? ^ s-) 7 
 
 -> ^u ^ 
 
 >* * 
 
 TO MY BROTHER, 
 
 IN RECOGNITION OF THE STEADFAST AFFECTION THAT, 
 
 IN FIFTY YEARS OF SUNSHINE AND OF SHADOW, 
 
 HAS NEVER FAILED ME, 
 
 is ISooft is SLobmsIg 
 
 MARION HARLAND. 
 
 M124831 
 
One evening, when Luther saw a little bird perched on a 
 tree to roost there for the night, he said : 
 
 " This little bird has had its supper and now it is getting 
 ready to go to sleep here, quite secure and content, never 
 troubling itself what its food will be, or where its lodging 
 for the morrow. Like David, it abides under the shadow 
 of the Almighty. It, sits on its little twig content, and lets 
 God take care." FROM THE GERMAN. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
Hast thou, my Master, aught for me to do 
 
 To honor thee to-day ? 
 Hast thou a word of love to some poor soul 
 
 That I may say ? 
 For see ! this world that thou hast made so fair 
 
 Within its heart is sad, 
 Thousands are lonely, thousands sigh and weep ; 
 
 But few are glad. 
 
 ELIZABETH PRENTISS. 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MENDEBRAS AVENUE is not in a fashionable 
 quarter of Brooklyn. It is, however, unques 
 tionably respectable. Many of the houses are of 
 wood, evidences of a time, not many years back, 
 when the district was one of numerous villages which 
 have been overtaken and run down by the hurrying 
 city. Such neighborhoods have a bewildered look 
 and a general air of being ill at ease. So might 
 stand and gape a group of country children sur 
 prised by a bevy of city cousins, and invited to take 
 part in their games. 
 
 The region about Mendebras Avenue was especially 
 confounded when the municipality raced up to it and 
 swallowed it. Against its will, it was sliced into six 
 blocks one way, and ten the other. There were once 
 gardens there, and orchards, and commons, where 
 carpets were beaten spring and fall, and the boys 
 played ball on Saturdays. Before the march of im 
 provement, brick houses in twos and threes and fours 
 were wedged into the gardens ; streets and avenues 
 (Brooklyn is affluent in avenues) trampled the or 
 chards out of sight and memory ; each vacant lot 
 was filled with tall rows of houses, some thinly 
 faced with brown-stone, others of pressed brick in 
 
jO THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 front, cheap brick in the rear. In certain streets, 
 most of these houses had several door-bells apiece. 
 There were Nottingham lace curtains at the front 
 windows ; and the various tints of the Holland shades 
 testified to the diverse tastes of the families occupy 
 ing the several floors. The trees lining the sidewalks 
 were generally poplars, a good deal the worse for 
 years and wear, and supercilious young maples. 
 
 Trees were leafless, and the vines clinging to the 
 porches of the " old residents " leafless sticks, one 
 November night when the street-lamps struggled con 
 scientiously with a tawny fog that would bleach into 
 rain as soon as it grew a little heavier. Right in the 
 middle of a block, with a pair of new brown-stone 
 fronts crowding it on one side, and a time-blackened 
 cottage giving it elbow-room on the other, was the 
 Jeremy Taylor Memorial Church. It belonged to the 
 days when the district was a township, and had once 
 stood in the centre of its own court. Middle-aged 
 people could recollect the fine elms that shaded the 
 western windows, now darkened by the cataract of 
 the dead wall of the brown-stone front. There were 
 then tomb-stones in the quadrangle behind it, and 
 the bell in the square tower rang out resonantly 
 across green and garden. 
 
 It had rung twice on this evening, at seven and 
 again at eight o clock, it being prayer-meeting night. 
 
 The Jeremy Taylor people, as they called them 
 selves, life being too brief in a fast-growing city 
 for saying three words when two would do, were 
 regular in attendance upon church ordinances. They 
 said complacently that there were fewer " itching 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 11 
 
 ears " among them than in the majority of Brooklyn 
 congregations. A goodly number of them were from 
 New England, and " calculated" upon going to church 
 as regularly as upon crossing the Ferry in the morn 
 ing and coming home to supper at night. One pastor 
 had folded and fed them for twenty-five years. He 
 was " getting along " now, rising fifty years of 
 age, but they craved nothing younger and livelier. 
 They knew his ways, and he knew theirs. Blessed 
 is the people who is in such a case, and thrice- 
 blessed the pastor. 
 
 The chapel was behind the church, an oblong room, 
 plainly furnished with cushionless settees, a platform 
 and desk, one armchair and a melodeon. The minis 
 ter was of medium height, spare in build, and wore 
 eye-glasses. His coat was buttoned across a nar 
 row chest; and, as many New York and Brooklyn 
 preachers have a habit of doing, he cleared his throat 
 of the catarrh-breeding fog frequently while speaking. 
 Seventy-three people were present, a gratifying at 
 tendance for a wet night. 
 
 The pastor s wife was at the melodeon ; in the 
 intervals of prayer and addresses, a gas-burner back 
 of the pulpit hissed and blew alternately ; the sub 
 siding hum of the city was like the far-off roll of 
 sullen surf. The air of the chapel, hot with furnace- 
 breath, was yet humid, oppressing lungs and spirits. 
 In a distant corner, a brother had succumbed to it, 
 and snored intermittently, but under his breath, as 
 befitted place and occasion. 
 
 The text of the lecture following the preliminary 
 exercises was : 
 
12 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 " Before faith came, we were kept under the law, 
 shut up into the faith which should afterwards be 
 revealed" 
 
 The Rev. William C. Barnes constructed his dis 
 courses, major and minor, upon models received into 
 a good and honest mind more than thirty years ago 
 in Princeton Seminary, making liberal use of the 
 stock ecclesiastical phrases which orthodox Bible stu 
 dents are supposed to comprehend. The men before 
 him to-night belonged, one and all, to the mighty 
 middle-class of the community. Every man of them 
 worked for a living, and, without exception, worked 
 hard. Back of each sedate visage were experiences 
 in the battle of every-day life that would have aston 
 ished the owner s right and left hand neighbor, had 
 he revealed them. Their faces were criss-crossed by 
 lines which were as truly scars as if made by a 
 branding-iron. The women s faces were tired and 
 discontented, or tired and resigned. Under one or 
 the other of these types may be classed most of the 
 countenances of native-born United States women. 
 Of the fifty in the chapel that raw November night, 
 perhaps forty " did their own work," and probably 
 thirty-nine did it well. These are the true yoke 
 fellows who fill the settees at prayer-meetings, and 
 seldom get leisure for other evening engagements. 
 These are likewise they who do not drowse during 
 the services, even when the lecture is upon Justi 
 fication by Faith, The Perseverance of the Saints, or 
 Reprobation. They are, as a body, too weary to do 
 much thinking, and familiar platitudes glide, like 
 bland warm oil, over rasped nerves. It does them 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 13 
 
 good always to go to church, they will tell you with 
 significance imperfectly comprehended by themselves. 
 The House of God is to their soul the gate of heaven, 
 be the ministrations of His earthly servants what 
 they may. Gleams of light, sweet airs, and snatches 
 of celestial melody escape to them through gracious 
 crevices in the blessed portals. There are calming 
 influences in the voice of prayer, and refreshment in 
 the dear old hymns. 
 
 Dr. Barnes was also tired to-night. He had made 
 six pastoral calls in the afternoon, and in the morning 
 gone to Cypress Hills Cemetery behind the hearse of 
 an utter stranger whose first cousin had, ten years 
 ago, attended " the Jeremy Taylor " when she went 
 anywhere. He had, according to his custom when 
 he had an evening service, eaten no supper, spending 
 the hour given by his family to that meal in his 
 study, " thinking up " his lecture. When tired, he 
 was didactic. Jaded memory did not go afield now 
 for apt illustrations, and imagination dozed as stupidly 
 as the brother in the distant corner. There was not 
 the rise of an inch to the mile in the commonplaces 
 of his comparison of the "Old, called the Mosaic 
 Dispensation " with the " New, otherwise the Chris 
 tian." He cited passages relative to the Law from 
 the New Testament, until a hearer unversed in such 
 matters might have inferred that every apostle was 
 a member of the legal profession ; he dwelt upon the 
 impracticability of living up to the strict letter of 
 the Law, " rubbing it in," to steal a slang phrase, as 
 if every tried and tempted parishioner had not had 
 the terrible truth burned into his soul by a thousand 
 
14 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 failures ; he described Faith in neat formulas learned 
 from professors and notebooks, and exhorted the im 
 penitent all within the sound of his voice being 
 church-members in good and regular standing to 
 choose the better part, and begin the study and prac 
 tice of saving Faith before the judgment of the Law 
 overtook them. 
 
 The Rev. William C. Barnes was a good man, 
 sincere in belief and faithful in teaching, to the best 
 of his ability. But he had conducted a prayer-meeting 
 once a week for over a quarter of a century ; and 
 human nature is very human, mortal flesh very weak 
 when weary. 
 
 The prayers, of which there were four beside the 
 pastor s, were in the same key. To those who 
 " offered " them, these services were likewise an oft- 
 told tale. Had they ever heard the anecdote, each, 
 had he dared and had he been blest with a sense of 
 humor, would have plagiarized the man who was so 
 eloquent in public prayer that an admirer listened 
 at his chamber-door one night in the hope of being 
 edified by his secret devotions : 
 
 " Dear Lord," sighed the disciple, as his head 
 sank into his pillow, "Thou knowest how weary I 
 am ! Thou knowest, also, that we are on the same 
 old terms!" 
 
 " There still remain three minutes before we close 
 these exercises," said the leader s patient tones. " I 
 hope the brethren will occupy the time." 
 
 It was obviously an economic, and not a devotional, 
 instinct that drew the fourth brother to his feet to 
 enunciate a prim ascription of praise, a confession of 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 15 
 
 sins many and heinous, a thanksgiving for mercies 
 received, and a supplication for a continuance of 
 divine favor. Men of his age and religious training, 
 consciously or unconsciously, adopt the formula of 
 devotion prescribed by an eminent teacher of " pas 
 toral theology," wherein the monosyllable ACTS is 
 indicated as a sacred combination for the lock of 
 the divine treasure-chamber. 
 
 With an involuntary sigh, the patient pastor arose 
 to announce the closing hymn. The time had been 
 honestly occupied ; but in nothing that had been 
 uttered in prayer or exhortation had anybody fol 
 lowed his lead. They had danced dutifully, but not 
 to the tune he had piped. For any reference that 
 had been made to the " line of his remarks," he 
 might as well have preached, like the old English 
 clergyman of The Spectator, from " Adam, Seth, 
 Enoch." 
 
 A sense of incongruity between the words, " We 
 will conclude our services," and the perfunctory char 
 acter of the exercises from beginning to end, had 
 something to do with the sigh, and the undertone 
 of pathos in which he read one stanza of the hymn 
 he had selected : 
 
 " I need Thee every hour, 
 
 Most gracious Lord ! 
 No other voice like Thine 
 Can peace afford." 
 
 The melodeon stirred and spoke feelingly under 
 the skilful touch of the minister s wife. She was 
 the daughter of a wealthy man, had cultivated her 
 
16 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 musical talent in former days, and never allowed the 
 accomplishment to lapse into desuetude. The som 
 nolent brother in the dim corner also stirred, and, 
 mightily refreshed by his sojourn upon the Mount of 
 Privilege, stood with the rest, with the over-acted 
 aspect of wide-awakeativeness, which imposes upon 
 no one the belief that Eutychus has found edification 
 behind the drawn curtains of his eyes. Mrs. Barnes 
 raised the tune with voice as with hand, nearly all 
 of the little congregation singing with spirit, if not 
 with understanding. 
 
 At the second verse a new voice arose, with startling 
 effect, from a seat near the door. Dr. Barnes, sup 
 plying a light and original tenor to his wife s fine, 
 true soprano, faltered on a high note in momentary 
 surprise, and glanced over his glasses towards the 
 quarter whence the sound proceeded. Several other 
 heads were turned in the same direction. 
 
 A woman of thirty-five or thereabouts, dressed in 
 mourning that, without being new or fashionable, did 
 not detract from the impression of refinement con 
 veyed by her face and carriage, stood there, removed 
 from the rest of the audience by the width of two 
 empty settees. Her hands, clasped loosely upon one 
 another, lay upon the back of the seat before her; 
 her face was upraised slightly ; her eyes were wide, 
 and fixed upon a point above the pastor s head. It 
 was plain that she was removed in thought, no less 
 than in body, from human companionship. Her voice 
 was full and rich, with that indescribable vibrant 
 quality we call " carrying well ; " but it was the 
 passionate fervor of appeal, the cry of the soul in 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 17 
 
 every note, that went to the listener s ear and 
 heart : 
 
 " I need Thee every hour ! 
 
 Stay Thou near by ; 
 Temptations lose their power 
 When Thou art nigh." 
 
 It rose and swelled in the chorus like the call of 
 grieving earth to a pitying heaven : - 
 
 " I need Thee, oh, I need Thee ! 
 
 Every hour I need Thee ! 
 Oh, bless me now, my Saviour ! 
 I come to Thee." 
 
 With the thrilling echo still calling to the depths 
 of his soul, the pastor bowed his head to pronounce 
 the benediction. When he raised it, the back seat 
 was empty. 
 
 Two of the deacons were waiting for him in the 
 vestibule when he came out. After a word of greet 
 ing he inquired, with a professional interest, if either 
 of them had noticed a lady dressed in black, who sat 
 in the last seat of the chapel, quite close to the door. 
 
 u She has a remarkably fine voice, as I observed in 
 the singing of the last hymn. But my attention was 
 first drawn to her by her manner of listening to the 
 lecture. I do not think she lost one word of it," he 
 subjoined, with the frank vanity which, although not 
 confined to men of his calling, is seldom so outspoken 
 in other professions. " She has an intelligent face, 
 and one that seemed strangely familiar to me. I 
 have probably seen her in some other church when 
 I have exchanged pulpits with some of my New York 
 
 2 
 
18 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 or Brooklyn brethren. Should she come to us again, 
 we must look her up. We cannot be too attentive to 
 the stranger within our gates." 
 
 Neither of the deacons had noticed the stranger 
 until they were singing the last hymn, and neither 
 had any idea who she was. Both agreed with Dr. 
 Barnes that she had a wonderful voice, and one 
 thought she " sang like a professional." 
 
 When they turned up the street, and Dr. and Mrs. 
 Barnes down, the latter had something to say. 
 
 " I saw that woman when she came into the chapel." 
 Belonging to a more modern and less formal school 
 than her husband, she said " woman " instead of 
 " lady." Being one of the laity, she had no flattering 
 delusions upon another point. " But I don t agree 
 with you in thinking that she listened attentively to 
 the lecture. She kept her eyes on you, yet it looked 
 to me more like the polite trick of a well-bred person, 
 accustomed to appear interested in a speaker, than 
 real hearing and thinking of what one hears. She 
 has an eager, intense face, and, unless 1 am greatly 
 mistaken in her physiognomy, she is intensely mis 
 erable. I never saw a sadder gaze. Her mourning 
 is not new, so her trouble must be of some other 
 kind. I don t believe, moreover, that she is in the 
 habit of attending prayer-meetings regularly. She 
 just happened into ours, in passing. She did not 
 come in until after the second hymn, and dropped 
 into the first seat she came to. There was a hunted 
 look about her that struck me at once, and, com 
 bined with the impression that I had seen her before, 
 made me uneasy. It set me to thinking of stories I 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 19 
 
 have read of women meditating suicide who stole into 
 churches on the way to the river. I was glad that 
 you gave out that last hymn ; and her way of singing 
 it confirmed me in the idea that it was just the word 
 in season for her." 
 
 " Upon my word, Annie, you seem to have made 
 more use of your eyes than of your ears during ser 
 vice." Dr. Barnes had an excellent disposition, and 
 was loyally fond of his bright helpmeet; but one 
 or two things in this speech grated upon his ear. 
 "While I make no pretensions to being an enter 
 taining preacher, it is within the range of possibility 
 that this stranger, who, I am convinced, has heard 
 me somewhere before, may have followed my hum 
 ble remarks with more attention than you imagine 
 probable." 
 
 " My dear William ! I assure you " 
 
 " I have the floor, I believe, my love ! " with a vexed 
 little laugh and a show of extreme politeness. "I 
 was about to question if it is consistent with Chris 
 tian charity of thought as practised by men at 
 least to jump to the conclusion that every woman 
 who comes late to prayer-meeting, and has the bad 
 taste to listen intently to what is said, and to look 
 solemn after a searching, practical discourse, must, 
 of necessity, be an abandoned creature bent upon 
 self-murder." 
 
 Sensible Mrs. Barnes, a clergyman s wife of over 
 a score of years standing, recalling to mind that 
 her spouse had had a trying day and was still fast 
 ing, quickened her pace a little, and glanced up 
 solicitously. 
 
20 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 " Is that a drop of rain upon my nose ? " she cried 
 blithely. " You were sensible in not wearing your 
 new hat to-night, and I foolish in venturing out in 
 one which I cannot afford to have spoiled ; but I do 
 not care to pay too dearly for the lesson." 
 
 A favorite supper dish, kept warm over hot water 
 until he had finished the day s labors, and a cup of 
 fresh black coffee made by his wife s deft hands after 
 they got home, did their part toward restoring the 
 good man to his wonted serenity, and banishing the 
 now unwelcome image of the intelligent stranger, 
 who, after all, might have simulated rapt attention 
 to a plain talk prepared for the more spiritually- 
 minded of his own flock, who would compose his 
 audience on a wet night. 
 
 The more imaginative wife did not dismiss the 
 subject so easily from her silent thoughts. 
 
 " That woman s face haunts me," she soliloquized 
 over her mending-basket, when her husband had with 
 drawn to his study, renewed in body and spirit. " I 
 could not keep my eyes from wandering to her while 
 William was speaking. And the voice too, I could be 
 sure went with it in my mind. Poor, dear William ! " 
 here she smiled in affectionate amusement, " it was 
 thoughtless in me to rub his fur the wrong way by 
 my inconsiderate talk. I never dreamed of inti 
 mating that she was a bad woman. There was not 
 a sign of that sort of thing about her except the 
 misery in a face I seem to recollect as happy and 
 smiling/ 
 
 Half an hour afterward she tapped at her husband s 
 study door. Gentle birth and breeding had made her 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 21 
 
 punctilious in the practice of the smallest courtesies 
 of life. 
 
 She said, " I beg your pardon," when she failed to 
 catch the hurried or mumbled speech of a servant, 
 and never entered the door of a member of her family 
 without knocking. She was a comely body, with per 
 fect teeth, expressive brown eyes, and the clear bru 
 nette complexion was, like Olivia s, " ingrain." Just 
 now her face was youthful under the flush and flash 
 of excitement. 
 
 " William, dear ! I am positive that I know that 
 woman ! " was her introductory outburst, as the open 
 ing door revealed the reverend student bending over 
 his desk. 
 
 He looked up with labored mildness. 
 
 " What woman, my love ? " 
 
 " Excuse me ! What a blunderer I am ! The 
 stranger at the chapel this evening. And so will 
 you when I remind you that you were at her wed 
 ding eighteen almost nineteen years ago. Don t 
 you recollect Alice Lanier, who married that hand 
 some, fascinating, shiftless Ernest Paull ? She and 
 I were dear friends at school, and until we were both 
 of us married. I declare I have no patience with 
 myself for not recognizing her at once to-night. Yet 
 she is so sadly changed that I never thought of my 
 old friend. I saw the notice of her father s death two 
 or three years ago, and ought to have written to her. 
 There is no doubt of that. But you know how sel 
 fishly we let such opportunities slip by ; and I had 
 lost her address, and other matters crowded upon 
 me, and so I did n t do the decent and kind 
 
22 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 thing. The last I heard of her, she was living away 
 up town, near the High Bridge somewhere, and 
 New York is such a howling wilderness. There 
 must be something akin to sin in a life so busy, 
 such absorption in one s selfish interests, as to leave 
 no time and thought for others, no matter how dearly 
 we loved them once. I was very fond of Alice. She 
 was one of the cleverest, most affectionate, and alto 
 gether charming women I ever knew. It hurts me to 
 the quick of my heart to compare her face as I saw 
 it an hour ago with what it was on her wedding- 
 night." 
 
 She had run herself down at last, and sat down 
 to pant silently, while her husband availed himself of 
 the gap to insert some judicial questions. 
 
 " Shiftless and fascinating, did you call her hus 
 band ? What else do you know of him ? Were you 
 acquainted with him before their marriage ? " 
 
 "Very slightly. I never saw him after the wed 
 ding. You may recollect and you probably don t 
 that we could not attend the reception given to 
 them at her brother s, Mr. Roger Lanier s, on their 
 return from a year abroad, their bridal tour. 
 Elizabeth was just six weeks old, and I could not 
 leave her." 
 
 " Woman s chronology ! " interpolated Dr. Barnes, 
 indulgent of the weakness. " That fixed the date of 
 the marriage in your mind." 
 
 She nodded decidedly, coloring as she laughed. 
 
 " Of course it did ! Some poet has made a calendar 
 of the flowers. The mother s way of reckoning time 
 is prettier and more poetical too, to my mind, to 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 23 
 
 say nothing of its infallibility. Never dispute a date 
 determined by a baby s age. I wonder if poor Alice 
 has living children. I cannot describe to you with 
 what a shock I identified as my gay-spirited, pros 
 perous school-fellow the stranger in mourning that 
 was almost shabby, and with such a woe-worn face. 
 I felt as if I had seen a ghost. What could have 
 brought her to our chapel, or to Brooklyn at all ? 
 and out alone on such a disagreeable night, and 
 in Mendebras Avenue, of all places in Brooklyn? 
 There is a mystery about the whole affair. Then 
 the way in which she broke out in that last hymn ! 
 Her voice sings in my ears yet. William, I cannot 
 forgive myself for not recognizing her then and 
 there, The conviction is so strong upon me that she 
 is in some trouble." 
 
 " My blessed child, how you run on ! Even if the 
 to-you-mysterious stranger be your old acquaintance, 
 which, mark you, I do not admit as a certainty, 
 the incident is simple and unremarkable. For aught 
 you know, she may be living in Brooklyn, and have 
 felt some curiosity to hear the husband of her former 
 friend preach, granting that nothing else led her to 
 attend divine service. It is clear that she did not 
 recognize you, or she would have waited to speak 
 to you. Eighteen years have changed you as well as 
 herself. For the better, allow me to say, " the gen 
 uine affection that underlay the thin crust of conceit 
 fostered by parish adulation, breaking through in an 
 appreciative gleam as he surveyed the matron who 
 was ten years his junior, and looked fully fifteen 
 years younger ; " but time exacts tribute of us all. 
 
24 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 The comeliness of forty-five is not the bloom of 
 twenty." 
 
 For once the wife was unmindful of the conjugal 
 compliment. Her elbow on the arm of her chair, her 
 cheek on her hand, she was gazing into the past. 
 
 "Maybe she shrank from meeting me," she said 
 thoughtfully. " Times have evidently altered for the 
 worse with her. She was always proud. She came 
 of old Huguenot stock, and they thought a great deal 
 of family honor. There were three sisters. One lives 
 in San Francisco, another in England ; both are older 
 than Alice. The only living brother, Roger Lanier, 
 was especially fond of her. He was one of the best, 
 yet proudest, men I ever saw, a model of business 
 integrity. I see his name in the papers now and 
 then in connection with benevolent and religious enter 
 prises. He is very rich, I imagine. I should n t think 
 he would let Alice suffer for want of money." 
 
 " It is highly improbable ! " said Dr. Barnes, dryly, 
 glancing at his manuscript. It was Friday night, and 
 his first sermon for Sunday was unfinished. "Per 
 haps she is a widow." 
 
 " Oh, I think not ! It is more likely that he has 
 been unsuccessful in business. She was not in widow s 
 weeds. You asked what I know about Ernest Paull. 
 He was a banker, or a broker, or something that 
 sounded rich, and promised to make him richer. 
 Papa thought him visionary and unstable, I recollect, 
 and only hoped my friend had chosen wisely. You 
 know what that means when a man like papa says it. 
 But " starting briskly up and apologetically "I 
 won t detain you any longer. I could not help rush- 
 
THE ROYAL KOAD. 25 
 
 ing in like a whirlwind the instant the truth broke in 
 upon me. You won t sit up late, will you, darling ?" 
 
 As she passed into the hall, the monotonous drip of 
 rain upon the skylight overhead caught her ear, and 
 she drew herself together with a shrug of conscious 
 comfort, as a bird tucks his head under his wing- 
 when " the north winds do blow." Home and family 
 warmth were blessings worth being thankful for on a 
 stormy night. She went downstairs to lock up the 
 house for the night. William would not think of it 
 for hours to come. Instead of closing the front parlor 
 shutters, she lowered the gas, raised the window, and 
 looked out into the street, moved by an impulse she 
 could not define. It was, in English phrase, " a nasty 
 night," the sidewalks and round paving-stones shin 
 ing greasily under the street-gas, the rain falling in 
 hair-like streams, close and steady. Without being 
 bitterly cold, the air made her flesh crawl. The pas 
 tor s wife was not, it is superfluous to remark, a rich 
 woman ; but her nest was cosey ; her life, albeit not 
 exempt from the trials incident to the changes and 
 chances of clerical existence, was sheltered and hon 
 orable. Her William had his ways like other men ; 
 but love had piloted her among the reefs, whirlpools, 
 and shallows of these for twenty-two years, and she 
 no longer feared or was annoyed by them. She had 
 perfect trust in his sterling virtues, in the sincerity of 
 his piety, and in his love for herself. Experience had 
 taught her the marvellous art of supplementing her 
 partner s deficiencies without letting him suspect that 
 she did him this good turn, and, a more marvellous 
 thing still, without lowering her own respect for him. 
 
26 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 All this passed so rapidly through her brain that 
 she could hardly have traced the links of the chain 
 of revery. Thoughts of the three children given into 
 arms that opened in rapturous gratitude to receive 
 them as God s choicest earthly gifts; of troops of 
 friends, tried and true; of opportunities for serving 
 the Master, and her kind, overflowed her heart 
 with a sudden glow and rush. 
 
 " Dear life ! sweet life ! full life ! " she breathed 
 inarticulately, tears warming eyelids already chilled 
 by the misting rain. 
 
 A woman s figure passed between her and the street- 
 lamp nearest the minister s house. It was wrapped in 
 a long black cloak, glistening with rime. The eyes 
 looked straight forward ; the yellow light struck across 
 a face that was haggard and rigid. 
 
 " Alice ! " called Mrs. Barnes, tentatively. 
 
 The apparition was so unexpected that she could 
 scarcely credit the fidelity of her own eyes. She 
 might also, she reasoned swiftly, be mistaken in fan 
 cying that the woman was the same she had seen in 
 the chapel. Much thinking upon the incident might 
 have heated her imagination. She could have believed 
 that the figure, already quite beyond her window, fal 
 tered, and glanced from right to left. Mrs. Barnes 
 leaned over the sill, and repeated the cautious call in 
 wooing intonations : 
 
 "Alice! Alice!" 
 
 Then she ran to the front door, and opened it. The 
 street, as far as she could see up and down, was empty 
 of any living presence. The dimmed lamps and the 
 close web of rain had the night all to themselves. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
The hardness of our task lies here : that we have to 
 strive against the grievous things of life while hope 
 remains, as if they were evil, and then, when the stroke 
 has fallen, to accept them from the hand of God, and 
 doubt not they were good. J. MARTINEAU. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 ALICE PAULL had gone out that evening because 
 she could not stay in the house. She had never 
 tried to delude herself by giving the title of " home " 
 to the two-and-a-half-story frame house with a high 
 " stoop," on the humble avenue with the high-sounding 
 name, into which she had removed with her family 
 last April, yet it. was all the home they had. Neigh 
 bors and neighborhood they had none. One can, if so 
 disposed, as easily live in Brooklyn six months, or six 
 years, without knowing so much as the names of the 
 people next door to her, as in the bigger city across 
 the river. It is a common error to suppose that this 
 sort of indifferentism is confined to the rich and 
 worldly. 
 
 Without guessing at the truth, the Paulls were the 
 more effectually isolated by the impression created by 
 the household stuff transported from the vans to the 
 two-and-a-half-story house. Every article of furniture, 
 however ingeniously muffled up, was detected and 
 criticised by the denizens over the way, and on either 
 side of what figured in the real estate agent s adver 
 tisement as " that desirable cottage residence, at 363 
 Mendebras Avenue, between Post and Pillar streets, 
 and combining all the advantages of town and coun 
 try." There was not too much furniture for a small 
 
30 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 house, but the pieces were too large for the rooms and 
 altogether too handsome for the vicinity decided the 
 spectators, standing well back in their upper chambers, 
 not to be seen through the windows. Mrs. Gaze, at 
 364, settled in her mind at a glance that the big 
 carved buffet must be set in the back parlor. "It 
 could n t never no way at all be shoved into the base 
 ment dining-room, without they tore the front of the 
 house out." Mrs. Pry or, at 365, " wondered the new 
 folks next door had n t traded off that big grand piano 
 for a small upright." She " admired to see things 
 suitable, and that lumbering elephant of a thing would 
 take up the front parlor." 
 
 The crowning offence was a billiard-table, to admit 
 which a basement window had to be taken bodily from 
 the casings. It set the stamp of disreputableness 
 upon the whole establishment in the estimation of the 
 steady-goers thereabouts. Such appurtenances might 
 do for the private residences of rich New Yorkers who 
 tampered with all sorts of soul-destructive playthings, 
 but it was not what Mendebras Avenue, where so many 
 people owned their houses, was used to. 
 
 The Paulls kept but one " girl," Scotch by birth, 
 fifty years old, and an inveterate stay-in-doors, except 
 on Sunday, when she went a mile and a half, clear 
 to Williamsburgh, to attend a Scotch Presbyterian 
 Church. Thus much was gleaned by a boy who went 
 down on a street-car with her one Sunday morning, 
 and saw where she got off. She did all the marketing, 
 bringing her purchases home in a covered basket, and 
 taking in the ice at the basement door with her own 
 hands, never allowing a strange foot to cross the 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 31 
 
 threshold, and resisting all neighborly blandishments 
 looking toward chats over the back fence, and while 
 sweeping the sidewalk. Yet the tale somehow got 
 about that the new folks ate in the back parlor, the 
 billiard-table being devoted to the purpose for which 
 it was made. Mrs. Keeneyse, at 366, had " hoped 
 that it was a second-hand affair bought cheap and 
 meant to be used for a dining-table. As it was, she 
 hadn t a word more to say, except that times had 
 changed, and Mendebras Avenue was no exception to 
 the rule." 
 
 When the weather grew warmer, the secret of the 
 novel scandal was soon out at the open windows. 
 More than one passer-by on summer nights was re 
 ported to have been misled as to the respectability of 
 the neighborhood by hearing the click of the ivory 
 balls, and men s voices in merry conversation in the 
 front basement. 
 
 The family proper consisted, as was soon ascertained, 
 of father and mother, a lad of seventeen or there 
 abouts, a girl somewhat younger, two boys of ten and 
 eight, and a little girl of six. Eight souls, all told, 
 counting in the immortal part of the Scotch " girl," 
 and a close fit for No. 363. True, the father, who 
 must have been a splendid figure of a man when young, 
 was away from home for weeks at a time. They did 
 say that he travelled for a New York concern silk, 
 some thought, and others, straw goods. All the family 
 except Mrs. Paull and the Scotch girl were away in 
 July and August. Somebody nobody could specify 
 whom had said that they had swell relations who 
 owned " places " at Newport or somewhere else, and 
 
32 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 took a sight of notice of the children. The oldest boy 
 was off at boarding-school, or maybe college ; and the 
 biggest girl, she went away early Monday morning and 
 came home on Friday night, so she was most likely in a 
 school in New York. Twice, on very stormy Fridays, 
 she had been brought home in a bang-up private 
 carriage. 
 
 Taking all these drawbacks into consideration, the 
 Paulls went ill with the setting in which some reverse 
 of fortune had placed them. The sturdy, honest pride 
 of their neighbors did not revolt at the almost cer 
 tainty that the new people had once been wealthy, and 
 in circles of which they the Mendebras Avenueites 
 knew nothing except by hearsay. Nor would the 
 " bang-up " brougham have held them back from 
 "neighboring" with the pale woman in black who 
 was rarely seen beyond her doors by daylight, but 
 who had been met a mile away after dark, more than 
 once, walking fast and noticing nobody. 
 
 Brooklyn is the safest place on the globe for unes 
 corted women by day or by night ; and this Mrs. Paull 
 carried herself so like a lady born who minded her 
 own business and let other people s business alone, 
 that she would not be insulted even in New York. 
 But and the " but " was deep and broad and long 
 and high there was the billiard-table in the front 
 basement, and a something everybody felt and nobody 
 succeeded in defining, in the general air and tone of 
 the household, that deterred sober housekeepers and 
 householders from making advances to the strangers 
 in their midst. And, finally, the new folks did not 
 appear to have any regular church connection. When 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 33 
 
 the father spent Sunday at home, he sat near the front 
 windows, looking like a picture, or a nobleman on the 
 stage, in a black velvet smoking-jaeket, and read the 
 thirty-two pages of the paper while church-goers 
 trooped by, to and from their various places of wor 
 ship. In the summer months, when Mrs. Paull and 
 Elspeth held the fort, they went to church somewhere 
 every Sunday, without fail. Since the children got 
 back, the mother usually accompanied them, presum 
 ably to some place of worship, on Sunday forenoon, 
 but they went sometimes up-street, sometimes down, 
 a circumstance that pointed to spiritual tramp- 
 hood. 
 
 In Brooklyn, a church home to wit, a pew, the 
 rent of which is paid promptly, and participation in 
 Sunday-school or parish work, together with a kindly 
 desire to do good and to communicate to one s fellow- 
 Christians constitutes a passport to the hearts and 
 homes of " regular residents." It may be a primitive 
 state of society in cosmopolitan eyes, but it is apostolic 
 and Christ-like. The household of faith is not an 
 empty phrase ; the band holding together the com 
 munion of saints is strong and of pure gold. 
 
 Thus stood affairs with the Paulls in their immedi 
 ate neighborhood on the evening of the twenty-second 
 of November, the Friday preceding Thanksgiving 
 week. 
 
 Within doors, Scotch Elspeth, sitting over her tea 
 in the kitchen, heard her mistress s step in the lower 
 hall, and arose mechanically as Mrs. Paull entered. 
 The fifty-year-old girl had u gentle-folk ways " in such 
 matters. Unless deprived of the use of her lower 
 
34 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 limbs, she would as soon have thought of standing on 
 her head as of remaining seated when receiving orders 
 from an employer. The entrance of the latter was to 
 her like the drill sergeant s " Attention ! " to rank and 
 file. 
 
 Mrs. Paull was dressed for walking. She was 
 never florid ; to-night her very lips were colorless. 
 There were livid semi-circles under her eyes which 
 were dull and deep ; but her voice was even, and she 
 spoke, as always, pleasantly to the elderly servant. 
 
 u Elspeth, I have put the children to bed, and am 
 going out for a long walk. My head aches badly, and 
 the walk may do me good." 
 
 " It s very damp, ma am." 
 
 Elspeth had been an American for forty years with 
 out ridding her tongue of the North Country " burr." 
 She was secretly vain of her excellent English, firmly 
 persuaded in her own mind that nobody would ever 
 guess her nationality from her speech, whereas she 
 betrayed it in feature, voice, and accent to the least 
 observant. When excited, she lapsed into the ver 
 nacular. On this occasion, she did not quite say 
 " verra," but the y suggested the broader vowel, and 
 she rolled a pair of r s. 
 
 " I never take cold, you know, and I have my 
 waterproof. Please leave the kitchen door open that 
 you may hear the children should they awake." 
 
 " I will, ma am. Do not give yeseF ony uneasiness 
 aboot them. They 11 likely not stir till ye get back." 
 
 " Thank you. I hope they will not be troublesome." 
 
 The domestic never betrayed inquisitiveness, how 
 ever eccentric might seem the behavior of any mem- 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 35 
 
 her of the household. Her scorn of gossip extended 
 to her self-communings, yet she shook her iron-gray 
 head at the clang of the closing front door, and poured 
 out a third cup of tea with an audible sigh. 
 
 Mr. Lanier, Mrs. Paull s brother, and a trustee 
 under their father s will of her portion of the patri 
 monial estate, had spent a long time with his sister 
 that afternoon. He looked grave and preoccupied 
 when Elspeth admitted him, and to her eyes Mrs. 
 Paull had worn an unnatural aspect ever since. True, 
 she made talk with the three children over their even 
 ing meal, only cautioning Tom not to laugh too loudly, 
 for " mamma had a headache." She chatted cheer 
 fully with them on the way up to bed, too, and would 
 make Elspeth go down to supper while she undressed 
 Gladys with her own hands. 
 
 "But she s aye one to keep herseP to hersel ," 
 reflected the discreet Scotch girl. 
 
 She had almost deserved the name when she took 
 service with Mr. Lanier twenty-five years before. At 
 " Miss Alice s " marriage she had asked to be allowed 
 to go with her to her new home as chambermaid and 
 seamstress, and had followed her young lady s for 
 tunes faithfully ever since. Until after the birth of 
 Tom, the third child, she had had assistants in the 
 housework, sometimes three or four fellow-servants. 
 Then began the gradual decline in the apparent pros 
 perity of the wedded pair. There was a bad crash 
 about the time Gladys was born, five years ago, a 
 crash so loud that the world heard it. Ernest Paull s 
 business career for fifteen years had been a descend 
 ing scale : one year a hitch, another a break ; a third 
 
36 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 a drag, with wheels that creaked dryly. His father- 
 in-law had set him up in divers businesses of various 
 degrees of promise, once and again, and as everybody 
 knew, although not from him or his son, had lost 
 heavily from hitch and crash, having furnished the oil 
 for the creaking wheels. 
 
 At his death, two years prior to the date of our 
 first chapter, he had left his daughter Alice twenty- 
 five thousand dollars in real estate and stocks, but so 
 tied up by legal knots that she could not touch the 
 interest without the consent of her trustees and her 
 father s executors, while the principal was strictly 
 entailed upon her children. The purport of the tes 
 tament was unmistakable. Mr. Lanier, Sr., did not 
 mean that his son-in-law should profit directly by any 
 more of his money. 
 
 Elspeth had assuredly never been told what were 
 the provisions of the will, or why they should be 
 particularly obnoxious to " Miss Alice s " husband, 
 but a pretty accurate knowledge of the state of family 
 politics had filtered into her mind. Mr. Paull had 
 broken out several times when she was within ear-shot 
 into caustic gibes relative to his wife as a property- 
 holder, and himself as her pensioner, and, whereas, up 
 to the senior Lanier s decease, Ernest had been upon 
 apparently friendly terms with his brother-in-law, it 
 was yet more apparent now that the relations between 
 the two men were strained to the point of parting. 
 
 Once, while removing the dishes from the table, the 
 discreet hand-maiden had heard the master of the 
 house say in reply to a question from Edwin, the 
 youngest boy, 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 37 
 
 " Why don t I stay at home like other little chil 
 dren s fathers ? Because, my son, this is not my 
 home any more. It is mamma s house, and everything 
 in it belongs to her. She holds the purse-strings, and 
 your Uncle Roger tells her just how much money she 
 can have to support you and your brothers and sisters. 
 If you were older, you would understand that the 
 interest of twenty-five thousand dollars at four-and- 
 a-half per cent (your uncle does n t believe in a 
 higher rate than that) won t lodge, feed, and clothe 
 eight people. Especially, when one of the eight has 
 been brought up as the daughter of one millionnaire 
 and the sister of another. Poor papa, having spent all 
 the money he has made in the last twenty years upon 
 his wife and children, must scuffle for himself for the 
 rest of his life." 
 
 His wife s eyes had blazed indignantly at him from 
 a deathly white face, as he said it, but not a word 
 escaped her. 
 
 The scene was one of many that made Elspeth 
 return thanks morning and night that she " belonged 
 to nae mon, gentle or simple, but could gang her ain 
 gait wi nane to say, Why do ye sae ? " Her mistress s 
 economies would have enlightened her partially as to 
 the financial stress that had overtaken the family, 
 had none of these streamlets of information trickled 
 into her ears. The faithful creature had to be taken 
 into confidence so far as to be made to comprehend that 
 Mr. Paull had had heavy losses, and that since the 
 children must be educated, there was little to spare 
 for luxurious comforts, nothing for superfluities. She 
 knew what Marie, the elder daughter and her mother s 
 
38 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 intimate associate, did not seem to notice, that Mrs. 
 Paull had not bought one new article for herself since 
 she put on black for her father, that napkins and 
 table-cloths, sheets, and even towels, were darned as 
 long as the old threads would bear the new, and that 
 the children s underclothes, frocks, and jackets were 
 mute miracles of the mother s skill in repairing and 
 making over. 
 
 Mr. Paull s costume showed no sign of thoughtful 
 thrift. To be well dressed was a part of the stock-in- 
 trade of a " man on the road." He had travelled for 
 several houses in the last five years, his handsome 
 face and pleasing address going further in recom 
 mending him to employers and customers than any 
 body but himself suspected. If he ever reckoned up 
 his assets, he put these down at double their real 
 value. He had no trouble in getting a position. 
 Keeping it was another thing. In the " dull season," 
 he found recreation at the Rangeley Lakes, Les Che- 
 naux, or the Adirondacks. As a crack shot and expert 
 fly-fisherman, he had what he would have described 
 as " a national reputation," and was welcome wher 
 ever sportsmen congregated. The air of these resorts 
 and the society found there were absolutely necessary 
 for building up his health and spirits to sustain the 
 hardships of the next winter s campaign. 
 
 As he informed his wife, he made barely enough to 
 meet his few personal expenses and to pay the rent of 
 a house in which his family could live. He had no 
 home, and never expected to have one until his wife 
 should buy a six-feet-two lot for him in Greenwood. 
 There was an insurance of ten thousand dollars upon 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 39 
 
 his worthless life, he would add jocularly. Without 
 alluding to the fact that Mrs. Paull paid the yearly 
 premium upon it, he liked to jest upon the profit she 
 would derive from his death. Perhaps she might pre 
 vail upon her trustee to spare her a few dollars for a 
 slate headstone ; or one of marbleized iron would 
 make more show for less money. As to lettering, 
 there would be no sense in wasting her wealth in 
 epitaphical lies. " Here lies a failure ! " would cover 
 the whole ground, and unite truth and pathos. 
 
 He was sentimentally fond of his children, partic 
 ularly of his pretty daughter, Marie, whose resem 
 blance to himself was delicious flattery. Had he 
 spent more time with them, he would have vitiated 
 the mother s wholesome influence. As it was, with 
 all the love and respect they bore her, they were 
 inclined to pity him as the victim of circumstances, 
 and Marie to wonder that mamma did not sell houses 
 or stocks, or make some other effort to enable them 
 all to live together the year round. When a hint of 
 this veiled feeling transpired, Alice Paull held her 
 peace. What was there that she could say ? 
 
 She had never uncovered the grinning skeleton in 
 the closet of her heart even to the brother who was 
 her confidant in all else, or so much as confessed to 
 him that her husband had a fault. 
 
 He had visited her on this afternoon upon a pain 
 ful errand, and as a man of sense and feeling, had 
 done it without cruel delays. So-called preparation 
 for bad news is but so many additional turns of the 
 rack-screw. 
 
 Ernest Paull had gone abroad that morning, leav- 
 
40 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 ing a letter to be delivered to Roger Lanier after he 
 had sailed. It commissioned him to break the truth 
 to his sister. Mr. Paull had speculated with money 
 collected by him for his late employers, and lost it. 
 Since he had no private resources on which to draw 
 for reparation of the misfortune, he had but one re 
 sort, flight. 
 
 Where he obtained funds for the voyage and the 
 proposed sojourn in a foreign land, he did not see fit 
 to specify. The date of his return was, in the cir 
 cumstances, so remote and uncertain that his wife 
 would act wisely in basing no calculations upon the 
 event. She must shape her future course according 
 to her own judgment and her brother s advice. This 
 would be the easier, inasmuch as these had been the 
 rule of her faith and practice for many months. Her 
 husband, since his severe pecuniary losses set in, had 
 been such an insignificant factor in her existence that 
 his withdrawal from the scene of action would not 
 affect her seriously, except so far as it wounded the 
 Lanier pride. For himself, he had found this same 
 pride an expensive he might say a ruinous 
 luxury for a poor man. 
 
 Her marriage before her judgment was matured 
 by the influence of heredity and advice to one 
 whom she had chosen to treat as a cipher on the 
 wrong side of the unit representing her potent per 
 sonality, was the fatal blunder of her life. 
 
 " I forbear to add, of mine also, conscious as I am 
 that that would count for little in her opinion and that 
 of her counsellors. My heart is wrung to bleeding 
 by the thought of leaving my children (God bless and 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 41 
 
 keep them forever ! ). Had I been permitted to exer 
 cise the sacred privilege, I would have proved myself 
 more to them than a father in name only. As man 
 and husband, I will not interfere with their mother s 
 management of them. Sometimes I dream that in 
 the days to come, when she sees reflected in- their 
 innocent faces the lineaments of the unhappy being 
 whom she once believed that she loved, whose mis 
 fortune, not whose fault, it has been to forfeit that 
 affection, she may so far compromise with her stern 
 sense of rectitude as to let them speak of the exile 
 now and then, and affectionately. I cannot bear to 
 think that my darlings will forget me utterly. I 
 know that she will refrain from poisoning their minds 
 against me. In this I trust to her magnanimity. 
 
 " This is the sum of my requests to your sister, 
 Mr. Lanier. Knowing, as I do, how severe are her 
 ideas upon certain subjects, how relentless her preju 
 dices against every form of speculation ; that she 
 esteems all games and operations in which chance 
 has a part as inventions of the Enemy of souls, 
 I comprehend fully what degree of charity will be 
 used in computing the iniquity of this, my latest and 
 heaviest disaster." 
 
 Such was the letter placed in Alice PaulPs hands 
 by her brother with the simple preface, " My dear 
 sister, I am the bearer of disagreeable news. It is all 
 written here in your husband s hand. May our 
 Heavenly Father grant you strength to bear it and 
 to live for your children ! " 
 
 She read the four closely written pages through, 
 down to the signature, and turned back to the letter- 
 
42 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 head to see that it bore the date, " Fifth Avenue 
 Hotel, Thursday morning, November the twenty-first, 
 188-," and letting her hand with the letter fall in her 
 lap, looked down at it as at a horror that had changed 
 her to stone. 
 
 " He is a thorough villain, a hypocritical villain ! " 
 said Roger Lanier, in wrath the deeper for his enforced 
 self-control. " He knew every word he has written 
 concerning you to be a lie, deliberately planned to 
 wound in the tenderest sensibilities the best, most 
 patient, most heroic wife that was ever bestowed upon 
 one so utterly unworthy of her." 
 
 She turned the letter over in stunned bewilderment, 
 seeming to study it for further light. 
 
 " I have not been patient, brother ; I have tried to 
 do right, but I am not naturally amiable, as you 
 know. Perhaps I have never understood him ; never 
 made allowances for the temperament and education 
 that were so unlike mine." 
 
 " You have ruined your life for his sake ! " 
 
 " I gave it to him when I married him that and 
 everything else I had or hoped to have for better, 
 for worse, for richer, for poorer. " 
 
 The low, hopeless tones, the dry eyes, worst of all, 
 the wan, lightless smile that went with the words, cut 
 the listener to the heart. He burst out with an im 
 patient ejaculation. 
 
 " Alice ! I cannot, I will not have you blame your 
 self. You shall not attempt to excuse him. Have I 
 not seen the several steps of your disillusion, yet was 
 obliged to hold my tongue ? Ernest Paull has proved 
 himself a specious, utterly selfish braggart, unstable 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 43 
 
 in principle, in action in everything but evil. You 
 cannot conceal this from yourself. Why try to make 
 me think that you do ? " 
 
 She raised her eyes, blank and miserable, to his face. 
 
 " Must the children hear of this ? He is their 
 father, Roger. He loves them, and they love him. 
 Or is it inevitable that the story should be made 
 public?" 
 
 " We will do our best to hush it up. I have seen 
 the men to whom he owes the money. There will 
 be no prosecution." 
 
 She took him up on the instant. 
 
 " Because you have made good their loss ! " 
 
 " Hush ! That is neither here nor there. His 
 name is the same as yours and your children s. My 
 chief concern is your comfort and happiness. This 
 man must be a stranger to you from this time forth." 
 
 " I am his wife, Roger ! " 
 
 He started up, strode to the window, and remained 
 there, his head bent, his fingers knotted behind his 
 back, seeming to stare into the little yard where 
 Elspeth was stretching dish-towels upon the line. 
 Her stuff skirt was folded back above her knees, he 
 observed, and pinned so tightly he wondered that she 
 could walk. There were eight towels, and three were 
 patched. Elspeth had a blue cotton handkerchief tied 
 about her head like a turban. 
 
 His sister joined him, laying a timid hand upon his 
 cheek, her voice breaking as he drew her head to his 
 breast. He stroked back her hair as he would 
 his own little daughter s were he compelled to deny 
 her petition ; his brow and lips were unbent. 
 
44 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 " Roger, dear, don t be displeased with me ! I 
 think my heart is breaking with the sorrow and the 
 shame of it all. And what he says is bitter ! bitter ! 
 But he is my husband, and, as he reminds me, my 
 children s father. I vowed to forsake all others and 
 hold to him, to love, honor, and obey. Nothing can 
 release me from that obligation." 
 
 "Except except " the blood flooding his fore 
 head darkly " Alice ! sweet sister ! believe me 
 that I would not tell you if I could help it I made 
 it my business before coming here to see his em 
 ployers and others who were yet better conversant 
 with his life of late. I have long suspected that he 
 had other claims upon his means than you know of. 
 He has not gone abroad alone. I saw the entry in 
 his own handwriting in the office where he bought 
 his tickets. He registered Paul Morgan and wife, 
 Cincinnati. " 
 
 She dropped back as if struck by a bullet. Her 
 brother caught her and carried her to a sofa. She 
 had not swooned. Insensibility is a boon seldom 
 granted to women of her mould. There was a 
 minute of voiceless gasping ; her hands, groping con 
 vulsively as in the dark, found and fastened upon one 
 of her brother s. She raised it to her lips and pressed 
 it there before she said hollowly, 
 
 " If you can come over to-morrow to see me we 
 will talk of what it will be best to do. Or shall I 
 go to you ? " 
 
 This he would not allow. He would call soon after 
 breakfast. His time his means all that he had 
 or could do were at her service, 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 45 
 
 Then he asked for he knew her as few could 
 know her, 
 
 u You would like to be alone now ? " 
 
 "Don t think me ungrateful but it would be 
 better perhaps. Thank you for understanding 
 me." 
 
 She had spoken truly in telling Elspeth, three 
 hours after this interview, that her " head ached." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
How long ? How long, O Healer ? Thou dost know 
 
 It is not in me to hold still ; 
 In meekness, like Thy saintly ones, to bow, 
 
 A reed before Thy gracious will. 
 
 A SUNSET PROPHECY. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THAT man does not live he has never lived 
 who comprehends the iniquitous mystery of a 
 woman s " constitutional headache," the foe who 
 never omits an opportunity to spring upon his prey, 
 and has all seasons for his very own. Sometimes he 
 is provoked to attack by a fast ; sometimes by a 
 feast ; often by insomnia, and occasionally by too- 
 sound slumber. Now he creeps by almost impercep 
 tible inches to the acme of torture ; again, leaps, fell 
 and furious, from his lair as the sleeper awakes at 
 morning to the horrors of demoniacal possession. 
 With one victim the agonies of nausea augment the 
 pains in the head ; with another, one lobe of the brain 
 throbs with mad anguish, and the other is dull and 
 heavy as lead. A third cannot lift her head from the 
 pillow without the agonized conviction that a ball of 
 hot metal, pulsing as in a boiling kettle, rolls from 
 one side of her cranium to the other. 
 
 There is the headache that assails the base of the 
 brain and the adjacent cords of the neck, and still 
 another form which lodges in the temples, and one 
 variety, the seat of which is the frontal bone and the 
 eyeballs, making light intolerable and sight a tor 
 ment. No more excruciating form is or can be 
 experienced than that induced by mental pain, a 
 
50 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 sudden shock to nerve-centres and sensibilities. Then 
 the frightened blood retreats to the citadel-brain, and 
 will not be lured or compelled back to the clammy 
 extremities ; shivers run over the surface of the body, 
 and the congesting pores alternately contract and 
 gape, reducing the skin now to freezing coldness, anon 
 to the dry heat of fever. Delirium is a not infrequent 
 accompaniment of the last-named phase of this plague 
 of feminine flesh ; an insane disposition to talk ! talk ! 
 talk ! until exhaustion or stupor intervenes, or the 
 wild longing to escape from the place of torture, to 
 find surcease from suffering in the wilderness, in the 
 woods, in the sea anywhere, be it in the grave 
 itself, so long as unconsciousness follows flight. 
 
 Once in a while, one reads in the daily prints of an 
 unfortunate sometimes the loving and beloved 
 mother of a respectable family who leaps from an 
 upper window while suffering from nervous headache, 
 or, wandering away from her bed in the dead of night, 
 is found, after days of anxious search, in the river 
 or at the bottom of the well. Or, a healthy, happy 
 woman complains of intense pains in the head, and 
 after some hours of agony, dies in convulsions. 
 
 Ah, dear friends ! much of tragedy lurks in the 
 jests passed upon the all-convenient headache of the 
 novel heroine and the every day-woman of real life. 
 
 u Synonymous with heartache ? " Ay ! and often 
 times the synonym of the death-throe of heart and 
 brain. 
 
 Elspeth was used to her mistress s headaches, and 
 played the skilled nurse when the " constitutional " 
 malady routed the gallant will and laid the wrecked 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 51 
 
 woman low. She was used, too, to seeing her set off 
 upon the long lonely tramps, as often as not in the 
 evening, after the children were safely folded, 
 walks from which the sufferer would return languid 
 and tremulous, but able at last to sleep off the duller 
 ache that had superseded keener pangs. She surmised 
 this shrewd and reserved servitor that a business 
 talk had brought on the attack. Had she had an 
 inkling of the real condition of the thoroughbred who 
 quitted her kitchen with a level chin and firm tread, 
 she would have barricaded the front door to keep her 
 in as a countrywoman of hers had hundreds of 
 years before with her living bone and flesh. 
 
 The humid chill of the outer air was grateful to 
 the pedestrian s hot forehead. She halted at the foot 
 of her porch-steps to draw in great breaths of it. 
 The gloom of the ill-lighted streets, where gas fought 
 feebly with the falling fog, was welcome to eyes 
 strained with staring into a future peopled with 
 dreads. 
 
 She had loved her husband through indifference 
 and open neglect and active unkindness ; had served 
 him as a dog his master, after she knew there was 
 nothing to be gained by fidelity of service. Years 
 ago after long striving, at first sanguine, finally 
 desperate she had resigned all hope of winning him 
 to a higher manhood ; had tried to accept him as he 
 was and must ever remain, and to make the very best 
 of the poor remnant of her happy dream of their 
 united lives. Only He whom she besought without 
 ceasing to give her grace, wisdom, and patience, knew 
 with what ingenuity she had endeavored to cloak 
 
52 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 Ernest s faults, and to make home attractive to the 
 unsuccessful man sour with discontent, and at war 
 with fortune. 
 
 The billiard-table was put into their New York 
 house against her wishes. But when it was a fixture 
 and her husband s solace in moodiness and petulance, 
 she became his pupil, and learned to play a better 
 game than most of the boon companions he liked 
 and she dreaded to see about him. She made it 
 convenient to be much in the room when billiards 
 were played ; and in her presence there was 
 none of the betting she was confident ran high at 
 other times. She detested all games of cards, as her 
 father had before her, but Ernest encountered nowhere 
 else so clever an opponent at backgammon and chess. 
 Music was his most innocent recreation ; and she 
 devoted to her piano-practice whole hours of the day 
 which she knew she must make up by toiling late 
 into the night over her needle. His fastidious ear 
 must not be offended by slovenl} execution or false 
 notes when he took it into his head to ask for a 
 musical evening. 
 
 Love in such natures as this woman s is of a hardier 
 growth than respect. Her stubborn fealty to her 
 husband never allowed her to confess in her inmost 
 thoughts that she despised him. She was too honest 
 to pretend, in thought or in prayer, that she had 
 honored him for the last ten years. 
 
 She could have told the day and hour when respect 
 died an unnatural death. Ernest Paull was the trea 
 surer of a charitable society connected with the church 
 to which he and his wife belonged, and he had appro- 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 53 
 
 priated, to purposes of his own, funds held by him in 
 trust for the organization. He had used the money 
 for necessary expenses, he stated briefly to his wife. 
 A woman of her breeding and tastes entailed upon 
 her husband the obligation to live beyond his income. 
 He dragged a lengthening chain of debt, and expected 
 to do this while he lived ; but this five or six hundred 
 dollars maybe it had mounted up to a thousand by 
 this time must be made up in some way, and speed 
 ily, or he was ruined. To be sure, there was the 
 river, or a pistol-shot, or prussic acid, as an alternative, 
 but there might be a disagreeable degree of publicity 
 connected with that expedient. All this he uttered 
 airily between the puffs of his cigar, eying her quiz 
 zically as if curious as to the effect of the commu 
 nication upon her mind. 
 
 With strange composure, that ought to have warned 
 him of volcanic changes going on beneath the placid 
 surface, she insisted upon knowing the exact amount 
 of the defalcation. 
 
 " An ugly word to ears polite, my love ! " inter 
 rupted her husband. 
 
 " The thing is uglier. Tell me the whole truth, 
 Ernest. Of course, I must get the money if you 
 cannot." 
 
 " From your father, I suppose ? " looking up from 
 the row of figures he was at work upon. 
 
 "To whom else can I apply? I shall not tell him 
 why I want it." 
 
 " Naturally not ! " with a faint sneer. " While 
 you are tapping the parental pocket, you may as 
 well ask for two thousand as one. There are other 
 liabilities." 
 
54 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 " Will three thousand cover everything ? " 
 
 He assured her eagerly and seriously that it would 
 and more. In fact, it would set him straight with 
 the world. 
 
 When she went to her father with her request, 
 she stipulated that the money should be a loan to 
 her personally, to be deducted from whatever portion 
 he might have intended to leave her, should she 
 survive him. In indorsing the check that put the 
 whole amount into Ernest s hands, she frankly told 
 him of the condition named by herself. A glare 
 she had never seen there before flamed up in his 
 handsome eyes. 
 
 "The woman who could do such a thing as that 
 when her husband is the dupe of her sharp practice, 
 is false to her marriage vows and capable of any depth 
 of degradation," he said with incisive coolness. " Af 
 ter this, nothing you do can surprise me." 
 
 But he took the money. 
 
 The straight sheet of November fog was, to her 
 heated fancy, the canvas upon which memory pro 
 jected this and a succession of scenes, similar and 
 yet more revolting. This man, calling himself a 
 gentleman, and controlled in bodily exercise by the 
 traditions of his class, had never lifted his hand 
 against his wife, or failed in external demonstration 
 of the deference due from his sex to hers. He would 
 not, for example, have lowered himself in his own 
 eyes by passing out of a door in advance of her, or 
 by sitting while she stood ; he would not have helped 
 himself to an easy-chair when there was none for 
 her, or kissed her with his hat on, or failed to raise 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 55 
 
 it, if he met or parted with her on the street. His 
 manner to his wife was cited as an example for other 
 and less attentive husbands by their enviously admiring 
 spouses. In society he was " simply and altogether 
 charming." Society, reasoning after the superficial 
 style peculiar to itself, inferred that he must be yet 
 more charming in the bosom of his family. 
 
 An exclamation of intensest self-disgust passed her 
 lips. A boy, loitering homeward with a parcel that 
 looked like a loaf of bread under his arm, turned to 
 look at her : 
 
 " Eh ! what say ? " 
 
 Getting no reply, he stared hard at her and strolled 
 on, rattling a stick against the palings and whistling 
 a familiar hymn-tune. Brought back by the interrup 
 tion to her actual environment, Alice Paull became 
 aware that many voices near by were singing the 
 same air, 
 
 " Even me ! Even me ! 
 Let some droppings fall on me! " 
 
 She had never, to her present recollection, noticed 
 until now the plain church wedged in between its 
 neighbors on the right hand and on the left, and 
 standing further back from the street than either of 
 them, as if trying to make more room for itself. The 
 singing was in a building at the rear. She turned in 
 at the gate and walked down the narrow brick walk, 
 an insatiate soul-thirst gaining upon her. 
 
 The familiar melody was the murmur and cool- 
 sounding ripple of a forest rill to the traveller upon 
 the scorching highway. A wizened little sexton with 
 
56 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 thin white hair pushed open the inner door for her 
 silently, and motioned her to an empty seat. The 
 singing ceased as she sank wearily upon the settee 
 which was the last in the house and leaned her 
 head against the wall behind her. Every limb ached, 
 and every nerve was a tense chord upon which pain 
 smote fitfully always with force. 
 
 This was the house of God, the courts in which 
 David, in his hour of fever and thirst, longed to be a 
 doorkeeper. 
 
 " The Lord bless thee and keep thee ; send thee help 
 out of Zion and strengthen thee out of the sanctuary!" 
 
 The words must mean something, or they would not 
 be in the Bible. If she were not in perishing need of 
 help and strength, where in all the universe of the 
 all-pitiful Father was there a wretch who was in 
 extremity great enough to entitle her to claim the 
 promised succor ? 
 
 " Pass me not, O gracious Father ! 
 Sinful though my heart may be." 
 
 Was that the way the hymn ran ? Was there no balm 
 for sorrow as for sin ? These looked like good and 
 sincere people, above suspicion as to respectability. 
 She was in the right place on that back seat. 
 
 " And thou begin with shame to take the lowest 
 place." 
 
 " Grant one poor sinner more a place, 
 Among thy saints, O God of grace ! " 
 
 Not even that belonged to her of right. She had 
 never rented a pew in Brooklyn. Severe economies, 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 57 
 
 bound upon her by circumstances unsuspected by the 
 world outside of her home, had debarred her from 
 that privilege. She had told Ernest one Sunday on 
 her return from church, that she felt like a religious 
 poacher. He was in a merry, kindly mood that day, 
 or she would not have broached a subject fraught with 
 humiliation of spirit to herself. She came of church- 
 going people, who held as part of religion the obligation 
 to support the public ordinances of the church. When 
 she married Ernest Faull, he was superintendent of a 
 Sunday-school and a deacon. He resigned both of 
 these offices when he " went on the road." In four 
 years he had not darkened the door of a church, and 
 family worship was omitted when he was at home. In 
 his absence, she gathered the little ones about her 
 morning and night for Bible reading and prayers. 
 
 Had she failed in her duty to her husband in ceas 
 ing to remonstrate with him upon the duty he owed 
 to God and the church He had ordained ? Yet would 
 it have made any difference in his behavior had she 
 worried him with argument and entreaty ? 
 
 She supposed nothing made any difference in any 
 thing now. She was a deserted wife. The name 
 transmitted to her by a godly ancestry who had kept 
 it clean was likely at any hour to be breathed upon 
 by public scandal ; would, perhaps, to-morrow be 
 dragged through the filth of newspaper notoriety. 
 Perhaps her picture and Ernest s would figure in black 
 outlines all out of drawing, just below the heading 
 in fierce capitals, Embezzlement and Elopement. 
 
 Dear Father of pity ! how wretched she was, torn 
 and bleeding, and dying of thirst, soul and body ! 
 
58 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 " Who, passing through the valley of Baca, make it 
 a well ; the rain also Jilleth the pools." 
 
 That tired-looking preacher must have quoted the 
 text. It could not have come to her of itself. It had 
 no relevancy to her case, except that parching thirst 
 actually suggested water. 
 
 " As pants the hart for cooling streams, 
 When heated by the chase." 
 
 Ernest and she used to sing that together. He had a 
 glorious voice. In the lower register the tones were 
 like a bass drum ; the higher were pure and mellow. 
 
 Why did she say "had" and "were," as if he 
 were dead ? He was never more alive than at this 
 very moment. They would be well out to sea by 
 now. She wondered, dully, between the spasms of 
 pain, who " Mrs. Paul Morgan " was, and why she had 
 never suspected her existence until Roger reluctantly 
 told her that her husband had taken another wife 
 with him. There had never been anything like this 
 before in the Lanier family. They would take it 
 hard, her sisters and her sister-in-law. Maybe they 
 would blame her. The wife is always blamed in such 
 affairs. 
 
 Was she talking of herself? this woman sitting 
 among respectable Christians, and thinking such 
 things while they listened to the words of the man of 
 God ? She she Alice Paull was a repudiated 
 w if e _ disgraced forever ! Between her and the 
 sharpest blast of the world s scorn was not even the 
 thin veil of a decent pretence of social caste. Her 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 59 
 
 husband the lover of her youth (and how she had 
 loved and believed in him!), the father of her chil 
 dren had turned loose all the furies of the bottom 
 less pit upon her, and from afar, jeered at her misery. 
 
 "All Thy ivaves and Thy billows have gone over 
 me!" 
 
 " All, Lord ! not one is spared me. Out of the 
 depths ah ! Thou, who rememberest our frame, 
 knowest out of what depths I cry unto Thee ! Look 
 upon my affliction and my pain ! my affliction and my 
 pain ! my pain I " 
 
 She had not known where she was for a while, in 
 the temporary stupor that yet did not release her 
 from the sense of suffering. Her head lay against 
 the hard wall ; the heavy lids drooped until the eyes 
 were almost hidden, while the neat little prayers, well 
 put together and singularly correct in phraseology 
 and grammatical construction for a plain, middle-class 
 congregation, were addressed to the throne of grace. 
 For aught they asserted or implied, every brother 
 and, judging by association, every sister there had 
 had precisely the same temptations and the same 
 deliverances from temptations, the same sorrows, and 
 joys as like to one another as impressions stamped 
 by one and the same die. 
 
 As the rustle of consciousness that the duty of the 
 evening was done, ran through the audience with the 
 rising of the pastor to announce the last hymn, Alice 
 Paull sat upright, a movement that concealed from 
 her the face of the woman at the melodeon. A name 
 less quality in the touch upon the keys sent a faint 
 thrill to the clammy hands and feet ; as the flexible 
 
60 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 soprano, tenderly devout, took up the words of the 
 sacred song, the heart of the stranger within the 
 sacred gates was moved to longing that had in it 
 some element of hope, a wave of passionate desire, 
 bursting bounds in the strain that electrified the 
 hearers. 
 
 A wave, the undertow of which swept her out again 
 into the outer night. 
 
 She was never able to recall, and Elspeth could only 
 guess by her drenched clothing and hair, and the mire 
 clogging her boots, how long or how far she walked 
 after the service was over. She may have wandered 
 around and around in a circle, a dim sense that she 
 ought, by-and-by, to go home to her children keeping 
 her in the neighborhood of Mendebras Avenue, if hers 
 was the figure that passed her old school-fellow s win 
 dow at ten o clock. It was about eleven when the old 
 servant, keeping watch at the darkened parlor-window, 
 saw her mistress come laggingly up the steps, and 
 hastened to open the door for her. 
 
 " Ah, Elspeth ! You should not have sat up for 
 me. Are the children all right ? " 
 
 She brought out the words with an effort, taking 
 short breaths between them. While speaking, she 
 gained the stair-foot and began to go up, without 
 waiting for an answer. As she climbed, she caught 
 at the balustrade and lifted her feet with evident 
 difficulty. 
 
 " It s yesel , ma am, I should be speiring after, I m 
 thinking." 
 
 Elspeth said it behind her teeth, and followed her 
 mistress to her room at a discreet distance. She 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 61 
 
 brought forward an easy-chair, and as Mrs. Paull 
 mechanically sank into it, began to undress her as she 
 might Gladys, if the child had been caught in a 
 shower, swiftly and silently. 
 
 Mrs. Paull submitted without demur. When her 
 bonnet was removed, she let her head drop against the 
 cushioned back of the chair ; her hands were limp, 
 and cold as clay. Not a sound was heard in the room 
 but the dull "frou-frou" of the soaked garments, as 
 the servant drew them off and shook out the moisture, 
 and her stepping to and fro. When a wadded wrapper 
 was put on over the night-dress, Elspeth folded a thick 
 shawl about the lady s knees, and, sitting down upon 
 the floor, took the cold feet in her lap and chafed them 
 fast and hard. 
 
 The languid lids were partially lifted, one lax hand 
 moved toward the Scotchwoman s shoulder, but fell 
 back without reaching it. 
 
 " Faithful among the faithless found ! " said a hoarse 
 whisper. 
 
 She dozed off again, not awaking while Elspeth 
 wrapped her feet in warm flannel, laid them upon a 
 cushion, and went to the bath-room for hot water with 
 which to fill a rubber bag to put between the sheets. 
 The sealed lids did not flicker even when she was 
 lifted in a pair of strong arms and deposited in the 
 bed. 
 
 u Miss Alice ! my dear mistress ! wull ye please tak 
 a sup o this ? " 
 
 It was more the unwonted sob in the voice that 
 spoke than the call itself that reached the lethargic 
 brain. Elspeth had slipped one arm under the heavy 
 
62 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 head, and held a steaming cup in the other hand. A 
 strange smile drew the lips apart ; the patient bent 
 them to the draught, and swallowed it eagerly, as if 
 consumed by inward fever. As the servant returned 
 to the bed after setting away the empty cup, she met 
 the full gaze of eyes that had in them mysterious 
 meaning. 
 
 " Elspeth ! I heard my mother call me three times 
 to-night. I think I hope that I am going to her ! " 
 
 " It wad be nobbut yo fancy, ma am. Ye are often 
 times light o head wi th headache." 
 
 " No ! my head is a little confused now, but it was 
 clear then, quite clear. I was walking fast, and 
 certainly not thinking of her. There was nobody in 
 sight in the street, for it was raining. I heard her as 
 distinctly as I hear my own voice at this instant. She 
 called, Alice ! Alice ! Alice ! tenderly ; oh, so sweetly 
 and lovingly ! I am glad that she wants me ! " 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
There is a plan working in our lives ; and if we keep our 
 hearts quiet and our eyes open, it all works together ; and 
 if we don t, it all fights together, and goes on righting till 
 it comes right, somehow, somewhere. ANNIE KEAEY. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ON the southwest corner of Mendebras Avenue and 
 Post Street stands a yellow frame house, two 
 honest stories in height, and with a twenty-five feet 
 front. The effect of comparative height and breadth 
 is to make the old-fashioned dwelling appear " squat " 
 among the tall lean apartment-flats near to it on the 
 same side of the way, and upon the opposite corner. 
 If you survey the premises from Post Street, you will 
 see that the house is three rooms deep, and being on 
 a corner, that all the rooms must be light. 
 
 There are two bells beside the front door, the 
 Dutch stoop of which is raised but two steps from the 
 street. Above the upper bell was once nailed an 
 oblong strip of tin, painted white, lettered in blue : 
 " MARY WILLIAMS, NURSE, <fec." 
 
 The " <fcc." was her own unassisted device, and I 
 believe the idea to be original. Those who had the 
 best reasons in the world for knowing what they were 
 talking of used to say that, admirable as she was as 
 nurse, the " <fec." was the best part of her. We will 
 leave our story to define what entered into it and 
 glorified the cabalistic characters. 
 
 " &c." may have something to do with some or all 
 of the half-dozen invitations which " Nurse Williams," 
 as people in whose houses she worked professionally 
 
 5 
 
66 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 preferred to call her, using the title generally as a 
 pet name, had received to eat her Thanksgiving 
 dinner at that number of tables. She had declined 
 them all, gratefully, with the large, slow smile that 
 belonged to the " <fec." side of her, and in the round 
 gentle voice that could not have gone with any other 
 smile. It was not only that the voice was round, but 
 it was cushiony as well, never chopping or harsh, and 
 with never an edge to one of the agreeable inflections. 
 
 Nurse Williams had had a busy season thus far, 
 what with whooping-cough, malaria-dregs left over 
 from the summer, and what figured in her note-book 
 as " pneumonia," in her every-day speech as " new 
 money" (0 long). Patients and their families said 
 she had been wonderfully successful, even for her, 
 with all her cases this fall, "a sickly time," by the 
 way. She had told her pastor, Rev. Dr. Barnes, of 
 the "Jeremy Taylor," last Friday night, when he 
 expressed his pleasure at seeing her again at prayer- 
 meeting, that she " felt to praise the Lord for His 
 goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children 
 of men." 
 
 " By the time folks get to your age and mine, doc 
 tor," she had added, " that is an old story, but it is 
 one we are never tired of telling." 
 
 In her secret thoughts she had meditated " if the 
 Lord did not object to have a real rest-day treat " 
 at home on that Thursday, and to spend it after her 
 own fashion. Accordingly, she had betaken herself 
 to the butcher s, the baker s, and the green-grocer s on 
 Wednesday, and laid in sundry stores suitable to the 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 67 
 
 occasion to be honored in the observance of sixty mil 
 lions of happy people on the morrow. 
 
 Among her acquisitions were a fat turkey, " a 
 little dear ! " she had pronounced it, to the smiling 
 butcher s gratification, only a six-pounder, but it 
 would surfeit one lone woman for a week if she had 
 not known where to send what would be left over by 
 Friday morning; a pumpkin pie, with a rim of flakey 
 crust like the setting of a big gold-stone brooch ; cran 
 berries to be made into jelly that night, and to be 
 turned out, a tremulous scarlet, semi-transparent 
 mound, next day ; a can of French green peas ; two 
 oranges ; two pippins ; a bunch of black Hamburg 
 grapes ; a pound of fresh butter sent from a New 
 Jersey creamery by a former patient ; a loaf of cake 
 from another ; and from one of the " new money " 
 convalescents, a box of superb chrysanthemums, 
 Japanese, with sweeping fringes of shaded yellow, 
 cream-white, and royal purple. Generous moisture 
 suffused the pleasant gray eyes as she made ready her 
 banquet at one o clock, and sat her down to the dis 
 cussion of the same. There had been a praise service 
 in the chapel of the Jeremy Taylor at half-past nine ; 
 and she attended it in preference to the union service 
 in a grander and more fashionable church, where the 
 music was sure to be magnificent, and municipal 
 reform and political corruption would be the burden 
 of the thank-offering to the Lord of the harvest and 
 Author of peace and concord. She was at home and 
 out of her Sunday clothes by eleven o clock, and was 
 glad and yet more glad of her own nest with quietness 
 withal, as the snowfall that had lightly powdered her 
 
68 THE ROYAL ROAD 
 
 best bonnet on the way to church, and coated the 
 sidewalks an inch thick when she came out of the 
 chapel, increased in weight. 
 
 It was a damp snow, as most Brooklyn snows are, 
 hence, a beautiful, trimming the boughs with ermine, 
 and changing the tiniest twig into the semblance of 
 white coral. It muffled footfalls upon the stones, 
 the roll of carriages, and the tinkle of horse-car bells. 
 Nurse Williams s one personal extravagance was an 
 open grate fire in her sitting-room ; and she added a 
 generous lump of coal before drawing up her chair to 
 the round table set in the middle of the room. It 
 was one more visible manifestation of the gratitude 
 bubbling over the brim of her heart. 
 
 She asked a blessing aloud (she had never learned 
 to call it " a grace," being an humble soul), bowing a 
 chastened countenance over the hands joined under 
 the edge of the hot plate awaiting a help of the little 
 brown turkey. 
 
 " Our Father who art in heaven ! bless to our use 
 the food Thou hast provided for our use upon this 
 happy, happy Thanksgiving day, and may we draw 
 from it strength to do and to bear Thy holy will! 
 Have mercy upon the poor, and incline the hearts of 
 the rich to be liberal unto them, as Thou, Lord, hast 
 been to them. We ask all for our Saviour s sake. 
 Amen ! " 
 
 In secret prayer, she always said " we " and " our " 
 and " us." In rising heavenward, her thoughts and 
 sympathies broadened too much to be confined to the 
 first person singular. 
 
 It was a bountiful first person, and pity it was, and 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 69 
 
 is, that the sample should be so singular in a world 
 where man so needs bountifulness of mercy and large 
 ness of Christian charity. She was five feet four-and- 
 a-half inches in height, and weighed one hundred 
 and sixty pounds. To look at her cheeks, where 
 winter roses bloomed healthfully, the kindly mouth, 
 the well-opened gray eyes that looked straight and 
 never boldly into yours, at the plump capable hands, 
 the backs of which, together with her wrists, were 
 dimpled like a baby s, you would have agreed with 
 me that she could not, in the natural fitness of things, 
 bear any name but that of " Mary," and that the 
 honest every-dailiness of " Williams " finished it off 
 as a twilled galloon binding a substantial jacket. 
 She wore a small cap over the abundant gray hair, 
 a cap with a fluted lace border, and a bow of inch- 
 wide pink ribbon just above the somewhat wide tract 
 between the eyebrows. Her gown was of a sensible 
 shade of gray, darker than her hair. About her 
 waist, compact, albeit not small, a full white apron 
 was tied behind with broad starched strings. The 
 apron had capacious pockets, and when she was on 
 professional duty, the pockets had so much to do with 
 the " <fcc." that I should never get to the middle of 
 my narrative were I to begin to descant upon their 
 properties and uses. 
 
 That turkey should have been photographed in two 
 shades of brown, and done duty upon Thanksgiving 
 bills-of-fare as the bird of gracious plenty. Nurse 
 Williams was the very princess of caterers to people 
 of slender appetites, and patients with no appetites 
 at all ; a firm believer in " kitchen physic," as many 
 
70 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 knew to their comfort and profit. Her jellies were 
 always clear, and consistent without being tough ; 
 she made tea with boiling water, and did not let it 
 stand in the pot until it drew all the bitterness out of 
 the leaves ; she understood to perfection the art of 
 keeping the juice in chops and steaks; she knew as 
 many ways of cooking eggs as she had varieties of 
 broths ; her dry toast was never scorched, and her 
 cream-toast was a revelation of deliciousness. The 
 tiny dish a mere saucer of so-called mashed 
 potatoes, flanking the picturesque turkey upon one 
 side, had not in truth been mashed at all, but whipped 
 to a souffle with a spoonful of hot cream in which a 
 bit of butter was melted. A coffee-pot, that might, 
 for size, have belonged to a toy tea-set, was upon the 
 hob, the dry ground coffee within it warming into 
 willingness to give up all its aroma by the time the 
 boiling water should be poured in. 
 
 Nurse Williams had made but one cut into the 
 turkey when a bell rang. The knife was arrested 
 midway ; the plump hands caught the expression of 
 expectancy from lifted chin and fixed eyes. 
 
 " There now ! I do hope no poor dear creature is 
 taken bad on Thanksgiving Day ! " 
 
 By special arrangement, the little daughter of the 
 " folks downstairs " answered the nurse s bell, and 
 took in messages and notes in her absence. 
 
 A hurried run up the stairs, a stride from the 
 upper landing to the sitting-room door and a double 
 rap were followed by a burly figure overtopped by a 
 good-humored face. 
 
 " Good-day ! good-day, Nurse Williams ! Bless my 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 71 
 
 buttons, if I have n t surprised you in a regular 
 carouse, and no mistake. Hi! hi! hi!" walking 
 around the table to get a better view of what it con 
 tained. " This is what comes of being a fashionable 
 nurse with no expenses to speak of, and the right to 
 send in thumping bills nobody dares dispute. And I, 
 a poor dog of a doctor, have n t had a mouthful since 
 I was jerked violently from the breakfast-table, and 
 shall think myself well off if I get time to steal so 
 much as a drum-stick at seven o clock to-night. 
 Things are not evenly divided in this world, no, 
 not if it is Thanksgiving Day ! " 
 
 " They 11 look evener to you when you ve sat down 
 in this chair and helped me cat my dinner." 
 
 She bustled noiselessly about, setting down a 
 second plate to warm on the fender, getting knife, 
 fork, and tumbler, talking all the while in placid 
 inattention to the stream of expostulations poured 
 forth by the doctor. 
 
 " I understand now," he heard her say when he 
 desisted in comical despair, and let her push him 
 with gentle urgency into the vacant seat, " I under 
 stand perfectly now why I was let to put off my 
 dinner until one o clock when I had meant as much 
 as anything to have it at half-past twelve. A bit of 
 the stuffing, and a tiny slice of the breast ? " heaping 
 his plate. " Now, gravy ! Oh, yes ! I know that you 
 high-flyers don t dine until other people s supper- 
 time ; but you d ought to have a hot luncheon to keep 
 the snow-air out of your stomach and lungs, and you 
 can talk better while you are eating than when you 
 are empty, and be better able, when you start out 
 
72 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 again, to study what s the matter with your patients 
 and what s good for their complaints, if you are full 
 than if you are fasting. There, now ! " resuming 
 her seat with a long breath of benevolent content, 
 " this is what I call a providence ! I m never, so to 
 speak, lonesome ; but it did seem a shame, if not a sin, 
 for one lone woman to be sitting down to a genuine 
 Thanksgiving dinner on a snowy day, with never a 
 soul to speak to." 
 
 The doctor s hunger was as genuine as the excel 
 lence of the dinner. One whiff of the savory air of 
 the room had assured him on this head ; one mouth 
 ful told him that he had seldom tasted anything more 
 toothsome in his own house. Moreover, he and 
 Nurse Williams had worked together professionally 
 for a dozen years ; and he knew that the surest 
 method of getting his way with her was to let her, 
 in the first place, have hers. He could not help 
 laughing out, in his jovial fashion, now and then, at 
 the holiday adventure ; but, being a gentleman at 
 heart, he forbore to intimate how much of his 
 amusement arose from the anticipation of describing 
 to his wife over the seven o clock family dinner, where 
 there would be a dozen of his relatives and hers, 
 where and how he had lunched. 
 
 He liked to shock the pretty woman who had 
 married him after his success in his profession was 
 a foregone conclusion, and he could picture her in 
 credulity of dismay. 
 
 Out of kindness to his hostess, he refrained from 
 " talking shop " until he was sipping the best cup of 
 coffee he had tasted in twenty years. 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 73 
 
 " You have guessed, I suppose, that you are 
 wanted," he said then, dropping his tone of good- 
 humored banter. " It is a case of brain-fever, a 
 woman. An ugly case, too, I in afraid. Some 
 things point to possible pulmonary complications. 
 It seems that she had a bad headache last Friday 
 night, and tried to walk it off. You may recollect 
 that it began to rain about nine o clock ? She came 
 home wet to the skin, and slightly delirious. I was 
 called in an Saturday by her brother a Mr. Lanier, 
 of New York, who had happened to come over to see 
 her, and saw at once that she was in a bad way. Her 
 daughter, an intelligent, handy girl of sixteen, or 
 thereabouts, is at boarding-school in New York, but 
 came home on Saturday to spend Sunday, and would 
 not go back on Monday and leave her mother so ill. 
 She does her best in the sick-room, and so does an 
 elderly Scotch woman who is a sort of maid-of-all- 
 work in the family, and a capital nurse at that. But 
 there s a houseful of younger children, and all that, 
 you know ; and the time has come, as her brother and 
 I concluded this morning, when other assistance is 
 required. Can you go?" 
 
 " Right away ? " 
 
 " I m afraid I must say yes ; brain-fever is n t a 
 thing to be trifled with." 
 
 She nodded gravely. 
 
 " You re right. Is she out of her head still ? " 
 
 " Raving when she is not in a stupor. Eyes 
 glassy ; disposed to roll her head and to pick at the 
 bed-clothes. Temperature an average of one hun 
 dred and five. You know the signs. Knows nobody, 
 
74 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 and calls constantly, when awake, for her husband, 
 who is abroad, and for her mother, who is dead. 
 Came home Friday night with a story of having heard 
 her mother call her by name three times on the street. 
 Took it for a sign, and keeps referring to it." 
 
 " Such things have happened. It s a very thin cur 
 tain that hangs between us and them who have passed 
 out of our sight, and we are leaning all our weight 
 against it most of the time. T ain t surprising that it 
 should give way in spots once in a while." 
 
 " Yes, yes ! but, you see, my good sister, this 
 woman is my patient, and I don t want that curtain to 
 give way under her weight, for good and all. You 
 must help me darn those thin places you talk about 
 so coolly, out of simple humanity, if professional 
 pride don t move you. There are all those little chil 
 dren, you know, not to mention the husband." 
 
 u It s as well not to mention some husbands some 
 times," retorted the nurse, with grim pleasantry aimed 
 evidently at him. " But children can have only one 
 mother " relapsing into seriousness. " I 11 be off 
 in an hour, if that will do. As you say, this sort of 
 thing can t be fooled with, and it seems to have got 
 pretty well under way already. Where is it ? " 
 
 " Not far away. No. 363 Mendebras Avenue. The 
 name is Paull." 
 
 " I had three cases of measles at 362 last year. 
 They know that I am coining ? " 
 
 " I promised to send a trained nurse before dark. I 
 am uncommonly lucky in finding you at home, and 
 disengaged." 
 
 " Speaking after the manner of men, yes ! " 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 75 
 
 Dr. Bacon s eyes twinkled as at a challenge. He 
 stood up, brushed a few crumbs from his knee, and 
 glanced at his hat and the overcoat he had tossed 
 upon a chair. 
 
 " What ought I to say if I spoke after the manner 
 of women ? " he queried quizzically. 
 
 " Depends upon who the women are." 
 
 She was clearing away the remnants of the dinner, 
 rapidly and with surprisingly little noise for a woman 
 of her size. Plates did not clatter, glasses did not 
 ring, or silver rattle. 
 
 " You 11 excuse me going on with this work," she 
 said, apologetically. " I have n t a minute to lose, if 
 I m to be on duty before dark." 
 
 " If you were the woman, for example," pursued 
 the doctor, teasingly, " what should I say then of 
 my luck ? " 
 
 " I should say there is no such word in my dic 
 tionary ; nor in God s Word ; nor in His world 
 either, for that matter. It is His will, His wise and 
 merciful planning for our good which we call provi 
 dence that brings all things to pass. Nothing hap 
 pens by chance." 
 
 Dr. Bacon took up an argumentative position upon 
 the hearth-rug. He knew that he was wasting time 
 here, but he was loath to rush off immediately after 
 swallowing a hearty dinner; the room was cosily 
 warm ; the out-door prospect more and more disagree 
 able by contrast. He would be amused, and " laze " 
 for ten minutes more, before he took himself by the 
 shoulder and turned out into the storm. 
 
 " I ve heard you say so often enough for me to be- 
 
76 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 gin to believe it if I could elevate my opinion of 
 myself, or of any other ordinary mortal, to the point 
 of fancying that the Maker of the universe concerns 
 Himself about my hourly goings and comings." 
 
 " If you d taken the pains to make a valuable ma 
 chine, I guess you d concern yourself to look after it, 
 and see if it was running regular and smooth," inter 
 posed the nurse, quietly. 
 
 " But I have n t learned the secret of perpetual mo 
 tion, you see, and He has got it down fine. Accord 
 ing to my way of thinking, He has established general 
 laws for the government of whatever He has made ; 
 and these laws go on, acting and reacting, from year 
 to year, and from century to century. Men are born, 
 and live, and die ; keep well and get ill ; make money 
 and lose it ; are happy or miserable in obedience to 
 these general laws, just as trees put out leaves in 
 the spring and shed their leaves in the autumn. Some 
 fruit comes to perfection; and some drops to the 
 ground and decays unripe. Some men live to a good 
 old age ; and as many, who are born into the world, 
 die in infancy. We can account for the death of one 
 as well or as poorly as for the other. The indi 
 vidual man is no more in the eyes of Deity than one 
 of those snowflakes out there, that flutters from the 
 clouds to the ground to be melted as soon as the sun 
 comes out, and be soaked up by the earth." 
 
 " Yes ? " in civil reserve of her opinion. " T beg 
 your pardon, doctor, but there s a hair upon your 
 sleeve ! " 
 
 She plucked it off with a respectful thumb and fin 
 ger, and regarded it attentively, holding it between 
 her eyes and the window. 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 77 
 
 " It s a gray hair too ! " meditatively. 
 
 " Probably. There are as many of that kind as 
 there are brown upon my head and face. I look more 
 and more to myself like a gray raccoon each morning 
 when I stand before the mirror." 
 
 She was still gazing at the hair. One might have 
 detected a shade of reverence in her manner of in 
 specting it. 
 
 " He says that He has counted them all," she began, 
 musingly. " Every one in your head is a reminder of 
 the close watch He keeps over you." 
 
 Still gently, she let the hair fall upon the hearth, 
 and turned toward the window. 
 
 " I was a-pitying the sparrows just a while ago. A 
 row of em sat on my window-sill. They know when 
 I m at home as well as if they d rung the bell and 
 had their answer at the downstairs door. I keep a 
 pile of crumbs on the window-sill for them, but to-day 
 the snow had covered them up. So I swept it off 
 clean, and spread their table again for em. While 
 they were a-eating, it come to me how many city -spar 
 rows must starve if the snow lay long on the ground ; 
 and as quick as that thought popped into my faithless 
 and foolish mind, I recollected that He who made em 
 keeps account of their needs, and of every one that 
 falls to the ground, and how He has said in so many 
 words not leaving us to work out the sum for our 
 selves that we are of more value than many spar 
 rows. It s the cheapest bird in the Holy Land, so 
 I ve heard tell ; and pity knows, for all the good they 
 seem to do, or the use they are as human creatures 
 food, they are dear in America at any price. I should 
 
78 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 calculate now " - her head on one side, her eyes 
 measuring his goodly proportions, with never a glim 
 mer of a smile " that a man like you, in whose 
 hands are the issues of life and death (under the 
 Almighty) for hundreds of people every year, must be 
 worth more than fifty millions of them noisy little 
 birds." 
 
 Dr. Bacon s sides shook with his jovial laugh. 
 
 " The sparrows might think differently if you were 
 to leave the decision to them. Thank you all the 
 same, for your good opinion, arid for the Thanksgiv 
 ing sermon. I haven t been to church on Thanks 
 giving Day for thirty years, that I recollect. I should 
 probably go to sleep if I did. Your lecture has kept 
 me awake." 
 
 He moved toward the door, but stopped midway 
 to look at something hanging on the wall. 
 
 " Halloo ! You have been treating yourself to 
 some new decorations since I was here last. What is 
 it all about ? " 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
Our life is determined for us ; and it makes the mind 
 very free when we give up wishing, and only think of 
 bearing what is laid upon us, and doing what is given us 
 to do. GEORGE ELIOT. 
 
 What is meant by our neighbor, we cannot doubt ; it 
 is every one with whom we are brought into contact. 
 It is every one who is thrown across our path by the 
 changes and chances of life, he, or she, whosoever 
 it may be, whom we have any means of helping. 
 
 DEAN STANLEY. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE doctor s overcoat lay over the back of a 
 chair, where he had tossed it upon entering, 
 and immediately above it was the new frame that had 
 arrested his attention. It was a tasteful affair in 
 white-and-gold, and within it was what looked, at the 
 first glance, like a testimonial or certificate, engrossed 
 upon white vellum, with an illuminated border. 
 
 Mrs. Williams smoothed her apron with both plump 
 palms, and approached her visitor, gratification beam 
 ing from every line of her visage. 
 
 " Ah ! you may well stop to look at it. Just read 
 it aloud, won t you ? And then I 11 tell you how I 
 came by anything so nice." 
 
 Dr. Bacon settled his gold-bowed eye-glasses upon 
 his nose, and complied. He read with deliberation, 
 pausing after each verse, as if to satisfy himself that 
 he had rendered it with proper emphasis and discre 
 tion. The nurse hearkened with the eagerness of 
 one who had never listened to it before, her eyes 
 serious, her mouth smiling tenderly ; once in a while 
 a gentle nod signified her appreciation of a favorite 
 passage. 
 
 As the shepherd lifts the hurdle 
 
 Daily set about his sheep, 
 Shifts afield the wattled girdle, 
 
 Wills the flock to feed and sleep 
 6 
 
82 THE ROYAL ROAD, 
 
 Within bounds his wisdom orders, 
 Faring as his love assigns, 
 
 Pining not for richer borders, 
 Chafing not at strait confines, 
 
 So, O Father ! when the morning 
 
 Grayly steals into my room, 
 Be it promise and not warning, 
 
 Earnest of perfected bloom; 
 Of wise willing and wise giving ; 
 
 To my restless spirit say, 
 * All thou hast to learn of living 
 
 Is to do My will TO-DAY." 
 
 Yesterdays their prayers, their sinning, 
 
 Bootless cares and futile tears, 
 Thwarted end and rash beginning, 
 
 Are with Thine eternal years, 
 Tales all told, and sealed pages 
 
 Turn I steadfastly away, 
 And from out the coming ages 
 
 Reverent take the virgin day. 
 
 Grace sublime of simple trusting 
 
 Grant unto Thy servant, Lord ! 
 Without friction, without rusting, 
 
 I would take Thee at Thy word. 
 Nothing boding and naught asking 
 
 Of the dim and outer land, 
 Glad to do the tender tasking 
 
 Daily laid unto my hand. 
 
 It may be the safe surrounding 
 
 Of Thine angels banding wings 
 Shall appoint fair meads, abounding 
 
 With the dews of Baca s springs. 
 If, instead of beauty, burning 
 
 Be the measure of Thy will, 
 Let eyes made by faith discerning 
 
 See the shining ones there still. 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 83 
 
 " I am not much of a judge of poetry," remarked 
 the reader when he had finished. " But that sounds 
 pretty and pleasant. It s awfully unpractical, of 
 course, but poetry does n t set up for that as a 
 rule." 
 
 " There was one gentleman who wrote for the 
 papers, whose wife I nursed, who found a scrap of 
 paper with those verses on it, lying on my bureau, 
 and he said it was good religion, but poor poetry. 
 I cut it out of The Congregationalist in the first place, 
 and I d read it over so many times it was quite 
 threadbare when he got hold of it. I told him he d 
 maybe like it better if it had been in better shape. I 
 took such a fancy to it, not being literary enough to 
 know poetry from prose, that I got into a way of 
 singing it when I was by myself. It goes well to 
 Greenville, Nettleton, or Autumn, or any other 
 eight-by-seven tune." 
 
 " It is handsomely copied and decorated," said the 
 physician, kindly suppressing a smile. 
 
 " Is n t it ? " said the nurse. " You see, when poor 
 little Willy Barnes was so bad with the whooping- 
 cough, and the other two down, I never saw children 
 have it harder, and I was called in to help with 
 them, Willy would go to sleep in my arms to that hymn 
 sooner than to any other. And Mrs. Barnes, a-hear- 
 ing me going over it again and again, and him 
 a-begging for the sleep-song, nursie, would know 
 where I got it, and all about ifc. After the children 
 got well, and, as I needn t tell you, doctor, I just 
 could n t let my pastor s wife pay me a cent, for, as I 
 told her, I came out of her house richer and fuller 
 
84 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 in spirit than if she d given me double price for the 
 little I d done, she sent me the two little boys 
 pictures and that poem, all elegantly framed, just as 
 you see it, and the loveliest letter I ever read. I told 
 her I d ought to have a border painted around that, 
 and frame it too. 
 
 "You see" pointing " in that corner is Willy, 
 and me a-rocking him to sleep ; you d know my 
 cap and apron in Madagascar, but the rest of it is 
 altogether too good-looking for me, as I told her. 
 And over there is the shepherd a-driving his flock 
 before him, when the old grass inside the wall is all 
 eaten bare ; and the border at the bottom is the 
 hurdle. She explained about it to me, and the 
 meaning of wattled." 
 
 She stopped to laugh here. 
 
 " Would you believe it ? I had some sort of a 
 notion that it had something to do with a turkey- 
 gobbler, and kind o skipped over the word in my 
 singing and my thoughts. Not being educated is 
 a drawback sometimes. And at the top, don t you 
 see how the border is all angels wings, a-touching 
 and a-lapping one another and a-shining ? They are 
 the shining ones there still, you know. I never 
 mistrusted what Mrs. Barnes was up to when she 
 asked me to let her copy the piece I d worn into rags. 
 I was most ashamed to have her see it, but newspaper 
 won t stand much wear." 
 
 The doctor recovered himself with a start from a 
 critical inspection of the really clever etching, bright 
 ened effectively by artistic gilding and coloring. 
 
 " By Jap ! " People forgave the enigmatical adjura- 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 85 
 
 tion because he was never heard to use any other 
 under the strongest excitement. " You have made 
 me waste a good half-hour here in feasting and folly 
 when I ought to be at work. I ll see you again about 
 six o clock. I left orders with the Scotch woman that 
 would hold until then. She is a faithful creature, 
 and behaved better than could have been expected 
 when we told her we must have in another nurse. 
 She is very much attached to her mistress, and has 
 worked like ten horses since she fell ill. Yet I shall 
 feel easier when you are to the fore. 
 
 " Good-by, and thank you again for a first-rate 
 luncheon and an A. 1 sermon. As a human sparrow, 
 unless you prefer to class me with the snowflakes, 
 -I ought to he better for both." 
 
 The genial smile had not faded out when he sig 
 nalled his carriage, which was toiling up and down the 
 street, with clogged wheels and whitened horses. 
 
 " That woman is a character ! " he soliloquized, 
 after he shut himself in and was on the way to his 
 next patient. " She may be a fanatic, but she is the 
 happiest, jolliest, most useful soul I know." 
 
 Not a falling intonation or shade of expression had 
 betrayed to him her disappointment at the failure of 
 her plan for securing her " one real rest-day." The 
 deep easy-chair that had descended to her with her 
 name from her grandmother already stood midway 
 between the grate and the front windows, where the 
 light would fall over her left shoulder ; and on a stand 
 beside it that was as old as the chair, lay a well- 
 thumbed copy of " Stepping Heavenward." Mrs. 
 Barnes had introduced her husband s parishioner to 
 
86 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 the incomparable religious classic, which had straight 
 way become a chief favorite with the woman who had 
 little time for reading of any kind. She was wont 
 to speak of it as " the only novel she had ever 
 cared to read more than once." She was on the fifth 
 perusal now, and had meant to devote all the daylight 
 that remained after the dishes were washed, the white 
 cloth superseded by a red, and the hearth swept, to 
 enjoyment of pages which always helped and never 
 tired her. She had hoped, when twilight should steal 
 between her and " Stepping Heavenward," to treat 
 herself to a refreshing nap, her feet upon a footstool, 
 the fire making cheer on one side, the snow curtaining 
 out the world on the other. She had promised to 
 take tea with the friendly " folks downstairs," and at 
 ten o clock would be in bed " trying to get slept out," 
 after vigils many and wearing. 
 
 As it was, she summoned the little girl from below, 
 and sent to her mother everything left over from her 
 Thanksgiving dinner. There was no telling when 
 she would be able to sit down again at her own table. 
 At four o clock, the cozy comfortableness of the 
 " living-room "had given place to the chill formality 
 of preparation for being left u all right." The chairs 
 had retreated to the walls; the table-cover was on 
 wrongside out; the Holland shades were drawn 
 down; the still warm grate was empty ; and Nurse 
 Williams, setting her capacious satchel, packed and 
 locked, down upon the floor, knelt to commend herself 
 and the task she was entering upon to Him who feeds 
 the birds and clothes the grass of the field. As for 
 herself, as she confessed to this ever-hearing Friend, 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 87 
 
 the utmost skill she could command could not make 
 one hair white or black, or keep in the passing breath 
 for the thousandth part of a minute. She was, at her 
 best, only a willing tool in the hands of the Master- 
 Workman. All that she could do was to get it clean 
 and to offer it, with the handle held toward Him, 
 until He was ready to use it. 
 
 The snow had been shovelled from the sidewalk and 
 the steps of 363. The inhabitants of other houses on 
 the block were apparently content to await the slack 
 ening of the storm before attacking the drifts. It was 
 little past four o clock when Nurse Williams ploughed 
 sturdily through these, yet it was quite dark. The 
 street-lamps were lighted, and transmuted into a 
 golden shower the falling flakes within a radius of a 
 few feet of each. Above the doors, and through the 
 windows of the dwellings on both sides of the way, 
 yellow and ruddy lances of light stabbed the gray 
 outer glooms. Here and there, a shade had been for 
 gotten, or purposely left up by a charitable house 
 holder, willing to share his holiday cheer with the 
 wayfarer, and the nurse had a picture of an interior 
 that, in her unspoken thought, " kind o chirked her 
 up." She was thankful that other homes were bright, 
 warm, and happy, although the fire upon her hearth 
 stone had been extinguished. 
 
 Her subdued ring at the door of 363 was answered 
 promptly by a raw-boned, high-cheeked Scotchwoman 
 with gray hair and shrewd eyes. 
 
 " I am the nurse sent by Dr. Bacon. My name is 
 Williams," was the visitor s self -introduction. 
 
 Quiet tone and straightforward address were an 
 
88 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 instant recommendation. Elspeth was a true Gael in 
 her readiness to form prejudices, and her reluctance 
 to dismiss them. 
 
 "Ye are welcome, and ye can come right up, so 
 soon as ye ve had a word with Mr. Lanier, the mis 
 tress s brother." 
 
 There would be no words wasted in preliminaries 
 between these two. A gentleman appeared in the 
 doorway of the parlor while Elspeth was speaking. 
 
 " Good-evening, Mrs. Williams. You can take her 
 valise upstairs, Elspeth. She will be up in a few 
 moments. Wait for her in the upper hall." 
 
 He spoke courteously, but with authority ; his 
 refined face and bearing bespoke the gentleman ; his 
 expression was grave to sadness. 
 
 " Please step into this room," he continued, stand 
 ing back to let her precede him. " I m Mr. Lanier, 
 of New York. Mrs. Paull is my sister. Mrs. Lanier 
 - my wife is confined to the house by a severe 
 cold, or she would be here. In her absence, the re 
 sponsibility of superintending the arrangements for 
 Mrs. Paull s comfort devolves upon me." He bent a 
 scrutinizing gaze upon the matronly face, respectful 
 and interested. " I need not explain to you how use 
 less a man is in a sick-room. My sister is very dear 
 to me, and to my wife, and she is dangerously ill. 
 T wish you to spare no trouble or expense in her behalf. 
 Dr. Bacon s recommendation is security for your skill, 
 and for your discretion. I wish you, furthermore, to 
 be perfectly candid in your reports of her condition 
 from day to day. I may say, also," another and 
 longer look, " what it is well for you, as an intelli- 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 89 
 
 gent nurse, to know before going to her, that this 
 illness has been aggravated, if it was not brought on, 
 by mental anxiety. If possible, keep your patient 
 from raving, or, should she have lucid intervals, from 
 asking questions. If she will talk, promise anything 
 in reason or out of it that will pacify her. Say 
 to her, should she intimate a desire to discuss her 
 anxieties with me, that I have promised to do all in 
 my power to bring matters out right. Ask her to 
 trust me until she is strong enough to think and talk. 
 
 " Perhaps " seeming to gauge the moral force of 
 the listener by a test of his own " you have scruples 
 against deceiving or even equivocating to a delirious 
 patient ? You would not be willing to do even so 
 little an evil that a great good might be brought 
 about ? " 
 
 He looked so kind, with all his seriousness, that 
 she answered frankly, 
 
 " There is no lie ever in saying that everything 
 will come out right, sir. I 11 do my best for the poor 
 lady, and may the dear Lord of us all help me ! " 
 
 " Amen ! and thank you ! " 
 
 To her surprise, for she had set him down at 
 first sight as " a genuine high-stepper, and no mis 
 take," - - he shook hands with her and dismissed her, 
 saying that he would remain in the house until after 
 the doctor s next visit. 
 
 Elspeth was waiting, according to instructions, in 
 the upper hall, and showed the nurse to a chamber 
 where she might change her dress, designating the 
 door of the sick-room as they passed it, and telling 
 her to come in when she was ready. 
 
90 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 " And the sooner the better ! " she subjoined. 
 
 " Why do you say that ? " demanded accents, the 
 sharpness of which contrasted strangely with the 
 youthful quality of the voice. 
 
 A pretty girl, with golden hair put back carelessly 
 from her face, and blue eyes too weary and dry 
 for her years, met them upon the threshold of the 
 hall bedroom to which Mrs. Williams had been 
 directed. 
 
 " I did not go upstairs to lie down as you told me to 
 do," she went on to Elspeth, noticing the new arrival 
 only by a slight and haughty inclination of the head. 
 " I would not go out of hearing of my mother. I am 
 able and anxious to watch with her to-night, and every 
 night. I cannot see the necessity, as you and Uncle 
 Roger do, of bringing in any one else to help us. I 
 am accountable to my father for all that goes on here 
 in his absence remember ! Whatever nurse you 
 engage must not be left in ignorance as to who is the 
 master of this house." 
 
 " There is no danger of that, Miss Marie, " rejoined 
 Elspeth, with no show of temper. 
 
 Mrs. Williams slipped into the door, and the 
 serving-woman closed it upon her. Whatever col 
 loquy followed the withdrawal of the third party 
 to the little scene was unhea.rd by her. There were, 
 evidently, other complications to be dealt with than 
 pulmonary in the new case. 
 
 Dr. Bacon found her in full charge of the chamber 
 of illness at his evening visit. 
 
 " You have made your mark already, " he told her 
 when, after ten minutes spent at the bedside of the 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 91 
 
 * 
 
 patient, the nurse obeyed his summons to follow 
 him into the adjoining apartment. 
 
 He spoke in a professional undertone, nodding 
 backward at the interior visible through the -half- 
 open door. " Got all ship-shape in there, I see. 
 Close-reefed and ready for rough weather. There s 
 nothing like the touch a professional nurse gives to 
 the sick-room. Where s the daughter ? " 
 
 " Elspeth coaxed her to go to bed, I believe. I 
 only saw her for a minute when I first came. " 
 
 " Good I I had my fears that she might make things 
 a little more lively than agreeable, poor thing! She 
 is awfully cut up by her mother s illness, and has 
 an idea that everything depends upon her young 
 shoulders while the father is away. Was very tart 
 with her uncle when he told her in my hearing that 
 we must have you in. She is wonderfully bright 
 and capable, but, delirious as the mother is, the 
 daughter s worry affected her unpleasantly. There 
 are times, as you and I know, when relatives 
 especially affectionate and anxious relatives are 
 not the proper people to be about a sick person. 
 There s something exciting in the very atmosphere 
 under such circumstances. Well ! what do you 
 think of the outlook ? " 
 
 " She s a very sick woman. And I mistrust that 
 she s been ill longer than people know. She s 
 likely kept up when she ought to have been in her 
 bed. Like walking-typhoid, you know. I ve seen 
 her before. For a half-hour or so, I could n t just 
 think where. By-and-by she tried to sing, a 
 pretty poor try it was, with her hoarse voice and 
 
92 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 * 
 
 short breath, and it flashed in upon me. T was 
 last Friday night at a prayer-meeting in our lecture- 
 room, the Jeremy Taylor, you know. She got in 
 late, and there was a sort of queer look a,bout her. 
 I was right across the aisle; and I saw presently 
 that her color had all gone out, the same as the 
 flame of a candle, and she turned so pale and her 
 mouth was so drawn that, being as I am a nurse, I 
 could n t but feel that t was right to keep an eye on 
 her from time to time. I was afraid she was going 
 to drop in a faint. " 
 
 " So you watched while the others prayed ? " 
 unable to deny himself the joke. 
 
 "I watched between the prayers, sir," answered 
 the nurse, not without dignity. "I could have made 
 sure she was asleep sometimes if her hands had n t 
 squeezed one another hard, and her face twitched 
 now and then. So I was fairly taken off my feet, 
 as you may say, when the last hymn was sung, and 
 she joined in all on a sudden with a voice like an 
 angel s, a strong angel, too. Mrs. Barnes, she 
 sings most delightful, and she raised the tune, 
 there being no man there who could do it, and was 
 a-carrying of it well ; but this strange lady just took 
 it away from her, and led us all along with her, so 
 pitiful and so earnest-like that I could n t think of 
 anything but I will not let thee go, until thou 
 bless me ! The words were, I need thee every 
 hour, and, thinks I to myself, There s one that 
 means every single word she s singing. It gave 
 me quite a turn when she started up the same tune 
 awhile ago." 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 93 
 
 Dr. Bacon lent an attentive ear. 
 
 " The fever was upon her then ; there is no ques 
 tion of that. It was lucky for her I beg your 
 pardon, it was providential that she did- riot 
 wander away and get lost. 
 
 "Well, nurse! we ve got to roll up our sleeves 
 and fall to in good earnest, if we are to pull our 
 patient through. Mind and body are both against 
 us, I suspect, not counting in the author and for 
 warder and general backer of all disease, the evil 
 principle you call the devil." 
 
 Thus began, over the prostrate body of Alice Paull, 
 the hand-to-hand fight that lasted without respite 
 for ten days longer. The doctor did his part gal 
 lantly; Mr. Lanier s purse and time were at his 
 sister s service ; at his suggestion, two New York 
 medical magnates, whose very breath might be 
 reckoned as currency, so costly was every word, 
 visited the patient three times in consultation with 
 the physician in charge. 
 
 Foremost and indefatigable, the nurse fought in 
 the breach. She seemed to live without sleep, except 
 for the two hours of the forenoon when the sick 
 woman was most quiet, and Elspeth insisted on 
 sitting with her. In all that week and a half, Mrs. 
 Williams did not leave the house; never lost heart; 
 never raised her voice above its accustomed pitch, 
 or hurried her even speech by so much as a quarter- 
 breath. That hushed upper chamber was her world ; 
 and within it, she effaced herself so far as considera 
 tion of her personal ease was concerned. The one 
 created being in all the universe for her lay there, 
 
94 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 parched by fever, moaning in delirious agony, the 
 demon in possession tugging at the tense, attenuated 
 thread of her existence. 
 
 It was like the tossing of a frail boat in a storm, 
 each pitch and wrench grinding the cable upon the 
 toothed rocks of the beach. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
Ask God to give thee skill 
 
 In comfort s art, 
 
 That thou mayst consecrated be 
 
 And set apart 
 
 Unto a life of sympathy ; 
 
 For heavy is the weight of ill 
 
 In every heart, 
 
 And comforters are needed much, 
 
 Of Christ-like touch. 
 
 ANONYMOUS. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " \ T 7"HAT has become of the picture that used to 
 
 V V hang there ? " 
 
 The query, faintly but coherently uttered, called 
 the nurse to the bedside. 
 
 Mrs. Paull had slept without stirring for four 
 hours. It was a season of suspense, during which 
 nobody but Mrs. Williams was in the room. This 
 was by the doctor s express orders, which none 
 assuredly not his leal coadjutor thought of 
 gainsaying. 
 
 The house was as silent as the grave, and, although 
 it was not yet noon, shades and curtains tempered 
 the light to the dimness of evening. The woman 
 in the chair that commanded a view of the sleeper s 
 face, was as motionless as she whom she watched. 
 A score of times she hushed her own breath to listen 
 for that which was the only token of life in her 
 patient. 
 
 One of her sayings was, " It s a thousand times 
 easier, no matter how lazy you may be, to be up and 
 doing, than down and waiting." 
 
 Long practice had made waiting a part of her 
 religion. She had learned, through much tribula 
 tion and many lessons, "having done all, to stand." 
 When God said, " Be still ! " she moved not. When 
 
 7 
 
98 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 action no longer availed, she gave herself unto 
 prayer, every sense on the alert for the next word of 
 command. Resting upon her arms did not mean 
 sleeping upon them. 
 
 Her practised ear detected instantly the alteration 
 in Mrs. PaulPs voice and articulation. The languid 
 legato movement of the words was that of feeble 
 but intelligent speech. Her heart gave a great 
 bound, the hurrying blood beat upon the drums of 
 her ears, but, without rustle or flurry, she arose and 
 moved slowly forward. Mrs. Paull was gazing at 
 a vacant place upon the wall over against her bed. 
 
 "We took it away because you were ill, Mrs. 
 Paull. The less furniture there is in a sick-room 
 the better, or so the doctors say nowadays. " 
 
 Too weak to be greatly moved by surprise or curi 
 osity, the patient turned her eyes to the unfamiliar 
 
 face. 
 
 " I must have had an unusually bad headache, have 
 I not? It has taken all my strength, I think. 
 Where is Elspeth ? And why has she left you to 
 take care of me ? " 
 
 " Elspeth s busy, getting the children s dinner 
 ready, I guess. Shall I call her ? " 
 
 "Not if she is busy. She has too much to do 
 when I am unable to help her. But I am afraid 
 this is an imposition upon you - 
 
 "Not a bit of it. I m Mrs. Williams, one of your 
 neighbors ; and seeing that Elspeth did n t like to 
 leave you alone, I offered to sit with you awhile, 
 in case you might want a drink, or anything. The 
 doctor was here to-day, and left this for you to take 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 99 
 
 when you woke up. You 11 do nicely now that the 
 headache has gone off. " 
 
 She spoke in such an easy, matter-of-course way, 
 and her manner of offering the medicine was so free 
 from concern, that Mrs. Paull swallowed it without 
 remark upon the physician s visit, or his prescrip 
 tion. She closed her eyes, and dozed for twenty 
 minutes under the influence of the sedative; then 
 they opened, and the perplexities dreaded by doctors 
 and watchers under such circumstances crept darkly 
 into their depths. She was beginning to piece 
 together straggling thoughts, and to call memory to 
 her help. 
 
 " Where are the children ? " 
 
 "Gone to school as good as kittens, bless their 
 hearts! That is, the boys have. The baby was 
 carried off by Mrs. Lanier, who wanted her to spend 
 the day with her little girl. I heard something about 
 Central Park, so I think there is a frolic on foot. " 
 
 " Has anybody been ill except myself ? " 
 
 "Nobody at all. Why should they be? Head 
 aches even such bad ones as yours are not 
 catching. And you must n t think of yourself as ill 
 now. You re a bit tired and weak, and must lie 
 still and eat all the nourishing food the doctor will 
 let you have, and take all the rest the law allows. 
 You 11 be astonished to find how soon you 11 be 
 up and around. " 
 
 The homely commonplaces and the smooth, lei 
 surely enunciation of them lulled the listener tem 
 porarily. It seemed altogether proper that this 
 comfortable-looking stranger should be there and her 
 
100 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 custodian while Elspeth bustled about downstairs. 
 The blackened lips relaxed into something like a 
 smile. 
 
 " You are very kind. I am much obliged to you. " 
 
 The drowsy intonation promised well, but, as 
 before, her mind rebelled against the inertia of the 
 body. Her brows were knitted; the lids contracted 
 like those of a short-sighted person. The next 
 query showed that recollections were tardy in adjust 
 ing themselves. 
 
 "Have any letters come from Mr. Paull while I 
 was ill ? " 
 
 " I have n t heard them say. T was n t likely I 
 should, being a comparative stranger, although a 
 neighbor and a well-wisher, as all neighbors ought 
 to be, according to my way of thinking. And 
 Mendebras Avenue has the name of being real 
 sociable, especially when there s sickness or the 
 like. But there ! I always say there is n t a truer 
 word in the Bible than that a man that hath 
 friends must show himself friendly. 
 
 She had reduced the knack of talking her patients 
 to sleep to an art. But the pleasant monotone, 
 almost lengthening into a drawl, the non-exciting 
 utterances strung upon a silken string and slipped 
 along at equal distances, failed now of their usual 
 effect. 
 
 " Do you know whether or not my brother ordered 
 that picture to be taken down ? " 
 
 The nurse laughed, a good-humored gurgle of 
 innocent amusement that made her incipient double 
 chin quiver. 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 101 
 
 "I know for certain that he did n t! He does n t 
 even know that it is down. There never was a 
 kinder, lovinger, attentiver brother in all the world ; 
 that I 11 testify to. He s been over every day, so 
 they tell me, to see how you are, and if there s any 
 thing you d like to have, and all that. A great many 
 men have n t but one idea in the world about sick 
 people, and that s, What 11 they have to eat? 
 And he d give you all of Washin ton Market, and 
 Fulton thrown into the bargain, if your room would 
 hold it, and Elspeth would let you have em. But 
 he d no more to do with taking down that picture 
 than the king o the Canary Islands, wheresomever 
 they may be. T was Elspeth and me that were all 
 the time brushing up against the frame, and shoul 
 dering of it crooked, being neither of us willows, so 
 to speak, no, nor yet syllups. Soon s you get 
 strong enough to set up, you shall have it back. 
 It s only in the other room, safe s can be." 
 
 She contrived to give this monologue the effect of 
 dropping water, and had the satisfaction of seeing 
 Mrs. Paull s eyelids fall slowly and remain closed ; 
 the plait between the brows was smoothed out. 
 Another half-hour went by. Mrs. Williams was 
 immovable, a study of charity in gray stone, after 
 the realistic school, abundant in curves, and wise 
 with the tender sagacity of years. Before she dared 
 change her position, the eyes, misty with sleep, 
 opened a little way. 
 
 "Ernest wouldn t like it, I am sure," she mur 
 mured. "He gave it to me one Christmas; ten 
 years ago, maybe twelve. He hung it there, where 
 
102 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 I could see it the first thing in the morning. He 
 said it would be the spirit of love keeping 
 watch over me. " 
 
 The last syllables were barely audible. The 
 watcher did not move until the soft respiration 
 assured her that slumber had again interposed a mer 
 ciful screen between the spent nervous forces and 
 the glare of truth. 
 
 With all her natural aptitude for her calling, her 
 tact, and her skill, she was not a trained nurse. 
 That is, she had not been graduated from a " Train 
 ing School," with a diploma that gave her the right 
 to wear kerchief and coif; to snub "unprofessional," 
 and awe the families of patients. She was stout in 
 her objections to the uniform of the order, maintain 
 ing that the apparition of a hired nurse to the vision 
 of an ill and nervous person was in itself alarming. 
 She would rather be taken for what she accounted 
 herself to be the volunteer neighbor of the suf 
 ferer until the feeling of strangerhood wore off. 
 
 Without going to the length of equivocating to 
 Mrs. Paull, she had succeeded in evading her cate 
 chism as to the causes for removing the portrait. 
 It was literally true that she and Elspeth, in tend 
 ing the sick mistress and making the bed, had once 
 and again come in contact with the corners of the 
 elaborately carved and gilded frame, and that both 
 had exclaimed at the discomfort of having it there. 
 But, on the eleventh day of her illness, Mrs. Paull 
 had conceived a sudden and violent dread of the 
 handsome visage smiling down upon her. She hid 
 herself shudderingly under the bed-clothes, declaring 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 103 
 
 that the eyes hurt her, that the lips said cruel, mock 
 ing things; and, worst of all, that the face of a 
 woman sneered at her over her husband s shoulder. 
 Nor would she uncover her eyes until assured by 
 servant and nurse that the picture was no longer 
 there. 
 
 Marie had witnessed all this with a horror-stricken 
 countenance, and followed Mrs. Williams as she 
 carried the portrait into the back chamber. When 
 it was deposited carefully upon a table, the back 
 propped by the wall, the girl threw herself upon her 
 knees in front of it, kissed the pictured face over and 
 over, and laid her cheek against it, the tears raining 
 from her eyes. 
 
 " Poor, dear papa ! It would break his heart if he 
 knew of this. Oh, Mrs. Williams, what does it all 
 mean ? Did you hear her say that he was trying to 
 drag her heart out by the roots ? He, the gentlest, 
 kindest, most affectionate of human beings, who 
 could never bear to see anything suffer ! " 
 
 " It s oftener this way than otherwise, dear, 
 when people s wits have been sent away by fever or 
 anything of that sort. It s a very common thing for 
 them to turn against the very ones they love the best. 
 Wait until your mother is herself again, and you 11 
 see that she 11 be the first one to insist upon our 
 bringing the portrait back. She will not have the 
 least recollection of what has happened to-day, and 
 we must take care that she never knows it. It would 
 grieve her more than it does you." 
 
 The demeanor of the patient upon her return to 
 consciousness fully justified this prediction, but to 
 
104 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 the nurse s surprise, she made no further reference 
 to the portrait upon her second awakening. Her 
 eyes wandered over the blank space it had once filled 
 as listlessly as over other parts of the room. 
 
 To Mrs. Williams s proposal to Elspeth that they 
 would better restore it to its place, the Scotchwoman 
 replied curtly, " Bide a wee ! When she asks for it 
 again, it wull be time eno to fetch it. " 
 
 That time did not come. Mrs. Paull asked for her 
 children, smiled faintly into their awed faces, let 
 them kiss her, and hoped, in the changed voice that 
 frightened them into decorum, that they would be 
 "good, and not give Elspeth too much trouble," 
 then wearily turned away and seemed to sleep. She 
 was composed in appearance when her brother was 
 admitted, and calmly affectionate with her sister-in- 
 law, thanking both for their kindness to the children 
 and herself, but evidently indisposed to converse 
 upon any subject whatsoever. The dull apathy that 
 had taken the place of her natural vivacity increased 
 as time passed, instead of wearing away with the 
 increase of strength. When left alone with the 
 nurse, she would lie for hours together, staring at 
 the ceiling, her wasted hands laid, one upon the 
 other, over her breast, never speaking unless directly 
 questioned, and answering in the fewest possible 
 words. But for the settled gloom of the dark eyes, 
 she might have been thought to be in a trance. 
 
 Finding and leaving her thus one afternoon, Mr. 
 Lanier signalled to Mrs. Williams to accompany him 
 when he went downstairs. 
 
 "This is an unnatural, and to me an alarming 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 105 
 
 state of things, " he said, in strong emotion. " Surely 
 something can and ought to be done to break it up. 
 Will you ask Dr. Bacon if he would like to have 
 Dr. Jaynes or Dr. Steele over again ? What does 
 he think of her ? What would you suggest ? " 
 
 She answered the last question first, a safe rule 
 when the dialogue lies between a calm person and 
 one who is laboring under powerful excitement. 
 
 "I have seen other cases, and worse, that came 
 out straight in time. There s nothing to be done 
 but to wait patiently for what good nursing and 
 tonics will do. So Dr. Bacon says, and the other 
 doctors would agree with him. High-ups must be 
 followed by low-downs, you see, before one gets to a 
 healthy everidge. Mrs. Paull has a fine constitution, 
 and then she has her children to get well for. It s 
 a good sign, her noticing them. " 
 
 "That is the doctor s opinion, you say. Do you 
 think as he does ? I would rather have the judg 
 ment of a really competent nurse than that of a 
 whole college of physicians. You have watched 
 Mrs. Paull closely now for nearly three weeks. 
 Has anything occurred to you as likely to be helpful 
 to her ? If she goes on as she is now for a week 
 longer, she will die, or become insane. " 
 
 " Shall I speak out plain, sir ? You d maybe 
 think me too free. " 
 
 " I have asked you to speak, have n t I ? Excuse 
 me if I seem irritable, but I am greatly worried by 
 all this, more than you or any one else can im 
 agine. I am tormented by the dread that my sister 
 may never rally. I see no signs of convalescence 
 
106 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 other than were perceptible a week ago, and " 
 falteringly " we have been much to each other, 
 Alice and I. Next to my wife and children, she is 
 the dearest thing alive to me. " 
 
 The honest face before him expressed sincere and 
 respectful sympathy. His soul must have been 
 moved to the depths before he could admit a stranger 
 to his confidence. She spoke simply and gravely, 
 
 " I think, Mr. Lanier, if I may be so bold, that a 
 letter or a message from her husband would do Mrs. 
 Paull more good than all the medicine in the drug 
 stores in New York and Brooklyn mixed in one 
 tonic. There s a spring broken or a band slipped 
 off the wheel somewhere, that doctors and nurses 
 have n t touched, and can t touch. If Mr. Paull 
 could arrange his business matters so as to hurry 
 home, or if he would write oftener, some men 
 are thoughtless about such things, you d soon 
 see a blessed change in her." 
 
 Something so hot and bitter burst from the lips of 
 the stately gentleman that she actually recoiled. It 
 sounded like " Despicable hound ! " but she could not 
 be sure as to the wording of the epithet, gathering 
 the purport more from his emphasis and countenance. 
 He walked up and down the parlors, went into the 
 hall, opened the front door, and stood bareheaded 
 in the frosty air for perhaps two minutes. Then he 
 came back. 
 
 " Again I must beg you to excuse me if I appear 
 unreasonably irritable. There are some things which 
 it is difficult to discuss with anybody. Family 
 secrets ought not to be shared with any one except 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 107 
 
 blood relations. And, as a family, we are disposed 
 to be reserved ; perhaps we are proud. If so, pride 
 is likely to catch a hard fall." 
 
 He had said this pacing the room restlessly. Now 
 he stopped, facing her. 
 
 " You are a widow, I believe, Mrs. Williams ? " 
 
 "No, sir. That is, not by death." 
 
 The response was so direct and unlooked-for that 
 he was abashed. Her mournful firmness had a 
 touch of the heroic. He felt convicted of wanton 
 cruelty. 
 
 " I beg a thousand pardons. I had supposed - 
 
 " Most people do, sir ! " interposing to save him 
 further embarrassment. "When asked direct, I 
 can say but the one thing, of course. But, as you 
 say, there are sore spots in every family and every 
 heart that it s best to keep well covered up. Now, 
 sir, as to Mrs. Paull, if there s anything you can 
 think of that I can do to help her " 
 
 He came to an abrupt determination. 
 
 " You are a Christian, Mrs. Williams, and a brave, 
 God-fearing, tender-hearted woman, with great re 
 finement of feeling. You are prudent, too, and, I 
 believe, discreet beyond the average of your sex. " 
 
 Excited as he was, he could not but note that she 
 listened as if he were praising somebody else than 
 herself. 
 
 "I will be frank with you throughout our discus 
 sion of this miserable business," continued Mr. 
 Lanier. "Mr. Paull will never come back to his 
 home, and my sister knows it. He has disgraced 
 his children with himself, and deserted a faithful, 
 
108 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 devoted wife. I brought this news to her on the day 
 she was taken ill. What has happened since then 
 is in consequence of what I was obliged to tell her. 
 You know the whole story now. You see what you 
 meant, without comprehending why it was, when you 
 talked of broken springs and ungeared wheels. " 
 
 She had borne herself thus far with such equa 
 nimity, and she looked so strong and steady, that he 
 was utterly unprepared to see her sit down as if her 
 knees had given way, and lifting her apron to her 
 eyes begin to sob hysterically. 
 
 " The poor dear ! the poor suffering dear ! Oh, Mr. 
 Lanier ! how can any man be so cruel ? God forgive 
 him for bringing such sorrow upon her and her 
 innocent babies ! " 
 
 Roger Lanier did not say " Amen ! " to that. His 
 face hardened, not relented, at the prayer. His eyes 
 were sternly unmerciful. 
 
 The nurse got hold of herself almost immediately. 
 
 "It isn t often I give way like that, sir," she 
 pleaded, in her quaintly respectful way. " But I ve 
 had a pretty hard strain lately, you know, and this 
 caught me by surprise. I m obliged to you for tell- 
 ing me the truth, and proud and thankful that you 
 feel to trust me to hold my tongue. What you ve 
 said makes me a grain less hopeful. I won t deny 
 that. But it will move me to great boldness in 
 carrying the dear lady and her grief to the Great 
 Physician, now that I really understand how much 
 she needs Him. There s nothing impossible with 
 Him, Mr. Lanier, and He is very pitiful and of 
 great mercy to His children. Our extremity is 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 109 
 
 His best opportunity. That s a blessed saying, - 
 most good enough to be in the Bible itself." 
 
 Elspeth, supposing her mistress to be asleep, had 
 slipped away to attend to her domestic duties^ leav 
 ing the chamber-door ajar. Mrs. Williams entered 
 soundlessly, cast a glance at the bed, and seeing the 
 occupant quiet, took a seat out of range should she 
 stir, and buried her face in her hands. 
 
 This woman, to whom she had been sent to min 
 ister, high-born and delicately nurtured, carried a 
 cross of like form and weight with hers. With 
 home and kindred and wealth at her call, she had 
 been swept out to sea by waves as rough as those 
 that had overwhelmed herself years ago ; had fallen, 
 fainting with thirst, beside the fountain of Marah. 
 Widely separated as the two might be by education 
 and social position, they were sisters in the sorest 
 sorrow that can visit a woman s heart. 
 
 God must have meant much in directing her feet to 
 this house. His ways were always wise, and always 
 full of meaning to those who cared to study them. 
 He did nothing idly, and He made no mistakes. 
 
 She whispered under her breath one of the prov 
 erbs, of which she had an exhaustless store, 
 
 " Whoso will observe the wonderful providences of 
 God, shall have wonderful providences to observe. " 
 
 She must move warily, for life and death might 
 hang upon her efforts to pour balm into that wounded 
 heart, and to raise the fallen spirit. In all the nar 
 row and critical passes through which she had been 
 mercifully guided, she had known few more perplex 
 ing than this. 
 
HO THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 " And, like a blind, conceited bat, I had it in my 
 mind to hang up that picture to-night, after she was 
 sound asleep, that her eyes might light on it the first 
 thing in the morning, as she said her husband meant 
 they should when he gave it to her. I was that 
 pleased with the idea of giving her something pleasant 
 to think of, that I could hardly wait for night to 
 come. What risky things we short-sighted creatures 
 are let to do, when we get to priding ourselves upon 
 our own smartness ! I. do declare, I ve no respect 
 for Mary Williams, if she does set herself up as a 
 nurse, etc., when I catch her in such conceited 
 ways. Talk of the mercies of the Lord being from 
 everlasting to everlasting! They ain t a circum 
 stance compared with His patience with our foolish 
 ness ! That s just everlastingest. " 
 
 A restless movement upon the bed called her to 
 her feet. The gas was low, and she raised it to a 
 cheerful flame, on perceiving through the obscurity 
 that Mrs. Paull was looking about her. 
 
 "You ve had a good sleep, ma am ! " cheerily con 
 gratulatory. "In my humble opinion, there s no 
 better time o the day for dozing than twilight. 
 Seems if t was made a-purpose for us to catch our 
 breath in after the day s work is done, and before 
 the evening shades prevail, as the hymn says. 
 Do you feel equal to sitting up in bed while you eat 
 your supper ? " 
 
 "If 1 must eat it," said the listless voice, 
 "wouldn t it be less trouble to take it as I am? 
 Less fatiguing for you and for me ? " 
 
 " Oh, as to me, no way you could contrive would 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. Ill 
 
 fatigue my tough bones and sinews. But I think 
 appetite comes easier when one is n t flat on her 
 back, as if t was n t intended that human creatures 
 should eat in that shiftless, lazy way. And, come 
 to think of it," with her jolly little gurgle, " I 
 don t know of any animal that prefers to take his 
 victuals in that position, without t is a shark. They 
 do say he has to turn over on his back before he can 
 catch holt of his prey, and that many a swimmer 
 has been saved on account of his being made that 
 way. 
 
 "There now! Is that comfortable? Don t say 
 yes, without it is entirely right. It will amuse 
 me to keep on trying till I get them so as to suit 
 you. There s as many ways of fixing pillows as 
 there are people to lie upon them. They ought to 
 fit into all the tired hollows, and support every bone, 
 and give into every joint, or they are not just as they 
 ought to be. " 
 
 "They are very comfortable, thank you." Mrs. 
 Paull lay back, with a sigh, in the downy nest ar 
 ranged by the deft hands. " What time is it ? " 
 
 "I heard the whistles blow for six a few minutes 
 ago. I thought maybe that was what woke you. " 
 
 "Only six! I thought it much later. The night 
 is all to come. " 
 
 "Time will go twice as fast when once you re up 
 and dressed," said the nurse, blithely, over her shoul 
 der, in going into the adjoining room. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
Be sure that if you do your very best in that which 
 is laid upon you daily, you will uot be left without 
 sufficient help when some mightier occasion arises. 
 
 J. N. GROU. 
 
 Why should I start at the plough of my Lord, that 
 maketh deep furrows on my soul ? I know He is no 
 idle husbandman. He purposeth a crop. 
 
 SAMUEL RUTHERFORD. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 UPON a table in the room that had been the 
 guest-chamber of the house, Mrs. Williams 
 had arranged medicines, glasses, spirit-lamp, and 
 kettle, and other appliances of her profession, and 
 the specific work she had on hand. She never 
 dropped or measured or mixed a dose in the 
 patient s sight or hearing, or arranged a tray, or cut 
 up food in her presence. Aladdin s slaves were not 
 better drilled in making an appearance all ready for 
 waiting or action, in the precise nick of time, than 
 the born New Englander, who had not known the 
 discipline of regulation "training." 
 
 To protect the polished top of the table from stain 
 or hot liquid, she had covered it with a folded news 
 paper, and this with a napkin. The latter was 
 spotted in several places, she noticed now, and 
 having administered Mrs. PaulPs tonic and lighted 
 the lamp under the vessel containing beef-tea, the 
 neat-handed attendant took the moment of leisure for 
 removing the soiled, and spreading in its place clean 
 linen. A like instinct of orderliness caused her to 
 reverse the newspaper. It was a secular sheet of 
 manifold pages, and a Sunday issue. Accordingly 
 two columns of the least conspicuous page were 
 devoted to religious intelligence and moral selec- 
 
116 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 tions. Right in the middle of one of these columns 
 was an extract headed G-ood Advice. 
 
 " If I don t need that at this identical minute, 
 good measure, shaken down, pressed together and 
 a-running over, nobody does ! " reflected the nurse, 
 and, forthwith and then and there, proceeded to make 
 it her own, standing under the gas-burner, one eye and 
 both ears attent upon the warming beef-tea. 
 
 Having gone through it twice, she picked up a 
 pair of scissors, cut out the paragraph, and tucked 
 it for future reference into her Bible, that lay on the 
 mantel. 
 
 " If that ain t a find ! " she ejaculated softly. 
 
 The contents of the sauce-pan were simmering. 
 With a look of unwonted abstraction, she poured 
 the liquid into a cup, put with it upon a tray a strip 
 of toast, and took it into the other room. When she 
 brought back the cup and plate, she could not resist 
 the temptation to read the " find " over again. 
 
 Acquire the habit of living by the minute. Take care 
 of this moment now while you have it, the next when 
 it comes, and you will not then neglect any. You can 
 live this minute without sin. Is it not so ? Do it, then. 
 Never mind what is before you. Do not sin now. When 
 each successive minute comes, do likewise. If you will 
 do this, if you will observe this simple rule, you will 
 not fail, you will not sin at all. Days are made up of 
 minutes ; if each one is sinless, the day will be so. 
 Now try this. Nothing is easier, nothing is wiser. 
 Live by the minute. Carry on your business, trade, 
 labor, study, and plan for the future by the minute. 
 Trust in God now ; do God s will now j do not offend 
 God now. Bishop Foster. 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 117 
 
 " Would n t that go straight to Mr. Stevens s 
 heart?" she said, inly, to her edified self. "I ll 
 send it to Mrs. Barnes, and when she s got her share 
 of honey out of it, I 11 mail it to him. I wonder 
 if Bishop Foster is alive or dead ? I d go far to 
 thank him for this brook by the way. It s made 
 me lift up my head and my heart. There s 
 another of the blessed ones, whose feet are set in the 
 Royal Road. Pretty soon they will be a great mul 
 titude that no man can number. To come upon this 
 right in the heart of one of them Sunday papers, is 
 like finding a pearl in a stale oyster. It s a lesson 
 in charity, too, if I take it in the right way. There s 
 some good in everything, and after this I 11 never 
 say that the Sunday paper may n t be the means of 
 saving a soul. 
 
 " The question for this one of my minutes is why 
 I was led to light upon this at this particular time, 
 when my whole soul is going out in prayer, and 
 longing to hit upon some way of comforting her. 
 Nothing happens by chance. Mr. Stevens says the 
 day is as full of guide-posts to duty as a paling fence 
 is of pickets. Is this one of them ? " 
 
 She took the cutting into the front chamber with 
 her, holding it in her left hand, while the right 
 brushed a minute crumb from the counterpane. 
 
 In her eyes, and lingering about the corners of her 
 mouth, was a happy smile. 
 
 Mrs. Paull s languid regards passed from the 
 printed slip to her attendant s face; and an instinct 
 of politeness, rather than curiosity, prompted a 
 question, 
 
118 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 "Is that something that you would like me to 
 see ? " 
 
 "I suppose you wonder why I am carrying it about 
 with me, like the woman in the Bible, with the 
 piece of silver she found by lighting the candle and 
 sweeping out the corners," she said, the happy laugh 
 mellowing yet more the voice already so soothing to 
 the ear. "I made up my mind, a great while ago, 
 that the pleasantness and misery of this world are 
 made up of many littles, and that those are the best 
 off who make much of the day and hour of small 
 things. We all know that whatever God sends has 
 a meaning, and will accomplish that whereunto it is 
 sent; and that if we keep our eyes and ears open 
 all the time, we may come to see a great deal more 
 of what He does mean than we re apt to believe, if 
 we have n t tried that plan of living. We ve fallen 
 so much into the habit of saying, What He does 
 we can t know here, but we shall know Hereafter, 
 that most of us think it is a religious duty to wait 
 for everything until that Hereafter." 
 
 " But those were Christ s own words. " 
 
 A tiny ray of satisfaction kindled at the back of 
 the nurse s eyes. 
 
 " If I can once arouse her to argue with me, it 
 will be a sign she s waking up ! " she thought. 
 
 "Yes; but He said them to Peter, and about an 
 altogether different matter, reproving the poor rash 
 fellow for over-inquisitiveness. He blames nobody 
 for considering His ways, and being guided by them. 
 Now, it seems to me, and I m sure the Bible backs 
 me up in it, not in so many words, of course, but 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 119 
 
 in the spirit of it, t seems to me that that way 
 of taking life is a good deal like a cake with all 
 the fruit settled at the bottom. T ain t nice, nor yet 
 wholesome. It s better cooking and better religion 
 to flour the raisins and citron and currants, and 
 mix em well through the batter, so they won t sink 
 into one heavy streak. " 
 
 Her prattle was so ingenuous in style, and so 
 brightly delivered, that her auditor was beguiled into 
 the reality of listening. For the first time Mrs. 
 Williams saw the perfect teeth gleam in a sponta 
 neous smile. 
 
 " And is that " - looking at the cutting "a new 
 recipe for insuring success in fruit-cake making ? " 
 
 Nurse Williams laughed outright. 
 
 " You ve no idea what a clever guess you ve made, 
 ma am ! If it would n t bore you to hear me read it, 
 you d be ready to laugh yourself, to see how exactly 
 you ve hit it. I 11 hang this banner-screen on the 
 gas-burner to keep the light from your eyes before 
 I begin." 
 
 While making arrangements for the other s com 
 fort, she twittered gently on, 
 
 " It came about in what some folks would consider 
 an odd way. The oddest things are often the most 
 natural, if we see them in the right light. I was in 
 the brownest sort of a study when I happened upon 
 this cutting. T was just as though an angel poked 
 it right under my eyes, and said, How is it that 
 you have no faith ? Here s what you need. 
 There s no doubt that such things do happen. And 
 why not, to be sure ? He gives them charge to see 
 
120 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 that we don t stub our toes in our daily walk. I 
 heard a minister say once that passage meant in the 
 language Hebrew, I think it was it was first 
 written in, Lest thou touch thy foot against a 
 very little stone. A pebble, 1 suppose, and there s 
 different sizes of pebbles. 
 
 " But here s my recipe for mixing the fruit even 
 all through the cake." 
 
 She read better than could have been expected 
 from a woman of her limited education, giving each 
 syllable due consideration, and was heedful of punc 
 tuation points. 
 
 " Some sick folks mostly men like to be 
 amused by having the newspapers read," she used 
 to say; u and children can be kept still any length of 
 time with nice little stories ; and it s surprising what 
 an effect reading the Psalms the comforting, 
 promising ones has upon nervous and low-spirited 
 invaleeds. As for the Gospels, they suit all kinds, 
 I find." 
 
 When the article was finished, she saw that Mrs. 
 Paull had turned upon her side, and slipped her 
 hand under her cheek. The gleam of the sunken 
 eyes was dimmed, not quenched. It was something 
 that she had shifted her position voluntarily, but her 
 tone was not encouraging, - 
 
 "I know just what manner of man wrote that," 
 she said, a slight flavor of scorn in the feeble voice. 
 "A pious, easy-going soul, who never had deep 
 experience of any kind. Life had gone upon velvet 
 for him, and he judged other people s trials and 
 temptations by his own." 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 121 
 
 "Do you think so?" said the nurse, looking at 
 the reverse side of the clipping, as if hoping there 
 to discover whether or not the criticism were correct. 
 " Now, I was hoping that he had studied the lesson 
 out for himself, and found it so useful that he 
 could n t help but recommend it to us, who had been 
 tried and tempted, and had suffered in the same way. 
 It reads to me like, Oh, taste and see. 
 
 She read the extract over again silently to herself 
 before resuming her talk. 
 
 "I know lots of people who have learned to live 
 by the day, and even hour; but this minute busi 
 ness is spandy new to me. And it does seem to me 
 to fit in splendid with the hairs-of-your-head and the 
 falling-sparrow and the grass-of-the-field and the 
 young-ravens-when-they-cry doctrine. " 
 
 " But nobody takes such figures of speech literally. 
 It would be childish to pretend to live in that way in 
 a practical age. An intelligent man or woman 
 must plan and provide for and dread the 
 unknown future. With at least one-half of those 
 who know the uncertainties and terrors of life, it 
 is a fearful looking- forward, a fearful looking- 
 forward ! " 
 
 The scorn was sadder, the intonations were deso 
 late. She moved uneasily among her pillows. The 
 probe had found the ball. Mrs. Williams had assisted 
 at too many operations not to understand what the 
 flinch meant. 
 
 "That fearful looking-forward is a part of the 
 doom of the impenitent," she said, quietly. "When 
 the beloved of the Lord are permitted to look ahead, 
 
122 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 they are commanded to lift their heads and look up. 
 That s the only use they have for far-sighted eyes. 
 
 " / will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence 
 cometh my help. 
 
 " i Look unto Me, and be ye saved. 
 
 " From Genesis to Revelations it is Up ! up ! 
 It s the only safe and sensible thing to do when 
 you re travelling in dizzy places, whether it s with 
 our bodily feet or in spirit. The dear Lord blind 
 folds us when the road is very dangerous, then lays 
 tight hold of our hands, and His voice not behind 
 us, but close beside us, oh, so close and so sweet! 
 says : This is the way ! Walk ye in it ! And 
 / will lead them in paths they have not known. 
 The sheep know His voice, and ask nothing better 
 than to follow Him. T would be the foolishest 
 thing in nature to try to pull off the bandage. 
 Yet that is what the best of us are apt to do." 
 
 The conversation was stayed at that for a long 
 while. Mrs. Williams took up her knitting, a 
 shawl of cream-white Saxony wool, intended, although 
 nobody but herself knew this, for a Christmas present 
 to Mrs. Paull. Her needles did not click, and the 
 fluffy fabric harmonized with her personality in 
 some mysterious way. 
 
 "I don t think I took in the full meaning of what 
 you said just now," came at last from her companion. 
 "Existence would be a tame affair if all ordered 
 their thoughts according to your rule. We might as 
 well have been born short-sighted in soul and mind. " 
 
 " T would have been more comfortable if this was 
 all the life we are to have. My eyes are uncommon 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 123 
 
 strong for a woman of fifty-three, but a year ago tins 
 month something or other ailed em. When I d 
 hold a book or my work down this way, I d see a 
 shadow of a line just above the real one. T was a 
 sort of double sight, and it bothered me no end. 
 So I went to an okkerlist. My pastor gave me a 
 letter to him. He flashed a light way down to the 
 bottom of my eyeballs, and went through all manner 
 of tests with em, and then, says he, What have you 
 been doing to strain your optic muscle ? Have you 
 been reading in bed or anything like that, when you 
 were n t in your usual health ? 
 
 "So I had to confess that, being laid up for a 
 couple of weeks with influenzy, I had read in bed 
 the whole enduring time, seeing I so seldom get a 
 chance to indulge myself that way, and being awful 
 fond of books. He said when I did that, the angle 
 of vision was n t right. So I paid for my foolishness 
 and ignorance by being unable to wear civilized 
 people s glasses, but must have a pair ground 
 slanting-like to suit the sight I d twisied from the 
 uprightness in which the Almighty had created it. 
 Now, t seems to me that s about what we do when 
 we go against God s law of spiritual sight. He 
 gives us one day at a time, and tells us to make the 
 best of it. And we are continually peeping round 
 or under or over it, in a fease to see what s coming 
 next, at an angle He never intended us to use. It s 
 no wonder we get cross-eyed and what not, and lose 
 our clear views of life, and can t see heaven straight 
 without we have gospel glasses, ground expressly to 
 suit what we ve made ourselves to be." 
 
124 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 Mrs. Paull looked unaffectedly amused, yet 
 thoughtful. 
 
 " Still you say there are people who have trained 
 themselves not to look beyond the day. How do 
 they begin the work ? " 
 
 " By receiving the kingdom of heaven and all 
 belonging to it as little children. When God says 
 a thing, they just simply believe it. That s the 
 whole secret. They believe it as babies believe in 
 their mothers, take Him at His word as Gladys 
 takes all you say for gospel truth. If you were to 
 say to her in a thunder-storm, Mamma will keep 
 you safe, dear, she d not have another fear." 
 
 " Yes, because she sees and hears me. We have 
 no guarantee that God has any especial message for 
 the individual human soul. I am still in the dark 
 as to the first lesson of your faith and practice. 
 Where do you get your certified orders ? " 
 
 "He says, When ye pray, say our Father, who 
 art in heaven, and so on. When you get to give 
 us this day, or, as the New Version puts it in the 
 margin, day by day our daily bread, stop and ask 
 yourself if He has n t some merciful reason for 
 repeating that daily idea so often. It is a kind 
 of fence He has built about to-day. 
 
 " You ve got nothing to do with what is going on 
 outside; He says to you by that form of prayer: 
 To-day is your business, and there s enough to do 
 to keep you busy. To-morrow belongs to me. 
 
 " I ve got a piece of poetry at home I 11 have 
 copied off for you some time, if you don t mind, that 
 says how from the coming ages we must reverent 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 125 
 
 take the virgin day. That 1 s the idea ! A new day, 
 a clean day, something made just purposely for 
 each of us, that nobody has ever had in all eternity 
 past until this very morning; something to be im 
 proved and enjoyed with all our heart, soul, and 
 strength, before it is sealed up and laid away with 
 all the yesterdays that have been since creation, 
 and labelled along with God s eternal years." 
 
 She wrought industriously at the creamy shawl, 
 knitting one needle out and another in, then looked 
 up smilingly, - 
 
 " I shall never forget when I first got hold of that 
 beautiful idea, and what a lovely thing the fresh 
 day seemed to me ! Not a thumb-mark, not a spot 
 or wrinkle, or any such thing. I saw a thousand 
 pleasant things to be happy for, and to wonder at, 
 as the hours went by, that I would have missed if I 
 had been thinking about what might happen to 
 morrow ; and knowing it s all I am sure of, I make 
 so much more of little things," unmindful, in her 
 enthusiasm, of the change in her tenses. " By bed 
 time, when you come to say your prayers, " mixing 
 up persons in like happy confusion, "you are 
 actually afraid of wearying the Lord, if that could 
 be (which it is n t!), with your thanksgivings. And, 
 when you lay your head upon your pillow, you fall 
 asleep like a well baby in its mother s arms. That 
 day is done with, shut and wrapped up carefully 
 and put into God s safe hands." 
 
 "Nevertheless, I should think you would find life 
 monotonous, a very tame affair, as I said just now ; 
 just the same story over and over and over to the 
 
126 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 end of time. The hope that to-morrow may bring a 
 change in their condition is all that keeps miserable 
 people from despair. " 
 
 "You would swap hope off for faith. I d better 
 say, perhaps, you would run the two into one grace. 
 What man has done, man may do again, is a 
 saying that people find no difficulty in believing. 
 What God has done in the way of goodness and 
 mercy, God will do again, and keep on doing to all 
 eternity. If He took care of me all day yesterday, 
 and ever^ other yesterday I have ever lived; and 
 forgave my sins and granted me the joy of His coun 
 tenance, and healed my sorrows, and strengthened 
 me to do His holy will, He s bound to do as much 
 for me to-day. Why, it s for to-day He promises 
 strength and grace, and our Saviour positively for 
 bids us to worry about to-morrow. Our minister s 
 wife made a real helpful talk on this subject at our 
 last woman s prayer-meeting. In it she told how 
 some good man John Newton, I think had said 
 that each day of life is like a stick of wood given us 
 to carry, and how we are promised strength to be able 
 to do it. But, he said, when we lay atop of that to 
 morrow s stick, and day after to-morrow s and next 
 week s, it s no wonder that we break down. We 
 are abusing God s long-suffering, and not keeping 
 ourselves back from presumptuous sins. He holds 
 fast to His word. The trouble is we have n t obeyed 
 orders. For, as she said, there is nowhere in 
 God s word the promise of grace for fagots. 
 
 " But there ! I ain t going to preach any longer. 
 Dr. Bacon makes lots of fun about that very thing. 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 127 
 
 He says my tongue runs like a mill-race when 1 get 
 started upon the Royal Road." 
 
 " I am not tired, except of myself and my own 
 thoughts!" 
 
 The last words escaped her unguardedly. She 
 tossed her hands out restlessly upon the coverlet. 
 
 " It is good in you to talk to me of something else. 
 It all sounds as if it ought to hold a world of com 
 fort, if we only had the key. I can understand " 
 - with a sort of sorrowful archness " why you 
 have been so patient with me all these dreary days. 
 You took me by the day. Go on with your story. 
 What is this Royal Road at which Dr. Bacon 
 laughs ? " 
 
 "That s Mr. Stevens s name for it. In the first 
 sermon I ever heard him preach, he said, as near as 
 I can recollect, - 
 
 " 4 We were told when we were little tots of children, 
 and were so foolish as to think that we could read 
 right off, without learning our A, B, C s, that there 
 is no Royal Road to learning. That is a fact there 
 is no getting around. It s just as truly a fact, and a 
 far more glorious one, that there is a Royal Road to 
 happiness. That s what all the men and women 
 that have lived for the last six thousand years have 
 been trying to find, the certain way to be happy. 
 Then he went on to describe the hundreds of ways 
 they d taken, the blood that had been shed, the 
 money that had been wasted, the hearts that had 
 been broken, the souls that had been lost in searching 
 for happiness along the wrong roads. There are as 
 many of them, he told us, as there are stars in the 
 
128 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 Milky Way, and folks are all the time opening and 
 laying out new ones. 
 
 " At last he said if we d all come again next Sun 
 day night, he d tell us how to find, and how to keep 
 in the Royal Road to happiness. And with that, 
 he gave out a hymn, and pronounced the benediction, 
 and sent us home, not knowing whether to laugh or 
 be provoked, but all of a mind about coming again 
 next Sunday night. 
 
 "He s all the time doing that sort of thing. 
 Folks call him eccentric and sensational, and 
 harder names than those; but he knows how to 
 fetch the common people. Come to look at his 
 ways, they may n t, after all, be very different from 
 what Saint Paul meant by catching his hearers by 
 guile. I should n t wonder if the scribes and Phari 
 sees brought some such railing accusations against 
 the Saviour when they found Him telling stories to 
 the multitude about Prodigal Sons and Unjust 
 Stewards and Houses built on the Sand, and Rich 
 Men and Beggars, and calling their attention to 
 lilies of the field and red sunrises. 
 
 " Well, you may be sure, we were all on hand next 
 Sunday evening, and it looked like every one of us 
 had fetched his own brother and his own sister to 
 boot. There was n t room to move, and hardly air 
 enough to breathe, with the people packed into the 
 seats and standing in the aisle. 
 
 " It s time for your drops again, I see ! They re 
 pleasanter than the last, ain t they ? " when the med 
 icine had been taken. "They re beginning to take 
 hold of you, too, I can see. Your color is better, 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 129 
 
 and strength is coming into your body. I ve faith 
 in Dr. Bacon, if he does enjoy making game of me. " 
 
 She broke off at the sound of a tap at the door. 
 
 "It s the little ones on their way to their supper," 
 she said tenderly. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
T is easy to be gentle when 
 
 Death s silence shames our clamor, 
 And easy to discern the best 
 
 Through memory s mystic glamour ; 
 But wise it were for thee and me, 
 
 Ere love is past forgiving, 
 To take the tender lesson home, 
 
 Be patient with the living ! 
 
 MARGARET E. SANGSTER. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MARIE brought in the three children. 
 It was Friday afternoon, and she had arrived 
 at four o clock to pass the Sabbath at home. After 
 sitting for half an hour with her mother, she had 
 volunteered to look after the children, wiiile Elspeth 
 was busy below-stairs. Since Mrs. Williams had 
 been put in charge of the sick-room, a sullen change 
 had gradually stolen over the girl s face and de 
 meanor, unperceived, apparently, by the mother, but 
 painful to Elspeth, and perplexing to the hired nurse. 
 From her birth this daughter had been the father s 
 favorite child. Latterly, the tie between them had 
 been the romantic element in her young life. He 
 had laughed to himself slyly sometimes, at certain 
 indications that her devotion to him went to the 
 length of being jealous of the loverly attentions he 
 liked to pay his wife when the fancy seized him to 
 act the exemplary husband. From the time the 
 child could run alone, she used to declare that she 
 intended to marry papa when she was grown. Her 
 seat was next his at table, and she was oftenest 
 selected as his companion in drive or walk. Her 
 vivacious chatter amused the world-weary man. He 
 liked to lie upon the lounge, his head in Marie s 
 lap, her fingers toying with curls from which her 
 
134 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 own had caught their sunshine, while his wife played 
 plaintive nocturnes and brilliant sonatas for his 
 delectation. Mrs. Paull did not interfere with the 
 display of injudicious favoritism. Whatever helped 
 to keep Ernest at home, and bind him to the chil 
 dren, must be for good. While Marie remained 
 dutiful and affectionate to herself, she found no fault 
 with her greater fondness for her father. It was 
 better that she should idealize him than to learn pre 
 maturely to know him for what he was. 
 
 Following what he knew would be his sister s 
 wishes on this head, Roger Lanier had told the 
 girl that troublesome business had called her father 
 abroad for an indefinite period, and enjoined upon 
 her the necessity of avoiding allusions to him in her 
 mother s presence while she remained ill. 
 
 "You are old enough to understand, Marie, that 
 there are unpleasant complications in business life, 
 and that some of these would deprive a man of his 
 good name, in the estimation of some people," he 
 added, awkwardly enough, for the fixed gaze of the 
 blue eyes challenged the correctness of his tale. 
 "I cannot enter into particulars at present. You 
 must try to believe that I am acting for the best, and 
 be very patient with your mother until she is strong 
 enough to take control of her own affairs. " 
 
 " I can be patient with her, but not with any one 
 who insinuates that my father is guilty of anything 
 that could injure his reputation if the whole truth 
 were known," Marie answered, with the haughtiness 
 of an offended princess. "Of course, I shall tell 
 the children, as you advise, that their dear papa 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 135 
 
 will not be home for a long time, just that, and 
 nothing more. And you may depend upon me never 
 to introduce his name in conversation with mamma. 
 Further than this, I promise nothing. " 
 
 Angry, compassionate, yet somewhat amused by 
 what he considered her "ridiculous high-tragedy 
 airs," the uncle next sought an interview with his 
 eldest nephew, who bore the family name and his 
 mother s face. Him he took into fuller confidence. 
 Lanier was over seventeen, a lad of singular sense 
 and discretion, and a Freshman in Yale College. 
 His uncle admitted to him, by tactful degrees, that 
 his father had misapplied trust-funds, intending, no 
 doubt, to put them back into the hands of their 
 lawful owners, when he had made his profit out 
 of them. The failure of a speculation that had 
 promised well would compel him to remain out of 
 the country until the matter could be adjusted or 
 should be forgotten. 
 
 The young face flushed darkly ; the features were 
 set hard in pain and mortification. 
 
 " Can there be no mistake, Uncle Eoger ? Have 
 you looked into the affair for yourself ? " 
 
 " My boy ! could I rest a day without going to the 
 bottom of it ? All that I have told you is unfor 
 tunately, fatally true. Your mother, I need not 
 remind so good a son as yourself, Lanier, is the 
 person most seriously affected by your father s error. 
 You are now her mainstay. Care for her as a loving, 
 sorrowing wife should be cared for. It is a sacred 
 charge. " 
 
 The most shameful part of the story was kept back 
 
136 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 from all of Ernest PaulPs children. It was not a 
 tale for young ears. 
 
 Lanier wrote daily to his mother, when she was 
 well enough to read his letters, fondly, and with 
 tenderest solicitude, striving to cheer her without 
 betraying his knowledge of the extent of her grief 
 and need. The brightest hour in the twenty -four for 
 her was that in which she received and read his love- 
 notes, yet Mrs. Williams had marvelled within her 
 self that the effect produced by them was transitory. 
 
 Mrs. Paull held out her hand to the babyest of the 
 quartette, as they tiptoed up to the bed. 
 
 " Lift her up, please, Marie ! " she said, motioning 
 to the place enclosed by her arm. 
 
 When the rosy cheek touched hers upon the pillow, 
 she asked, 
 
 "What has my little Gladys been doing this 
 afternoon ? " 
 
 Marie s attempt to catch the child s eye, unseen 
 by the mother or Gladys, did not escape Mrs. 
 Williams. 
 
 " Marie has been dressing my doll, and talking to 
 us of dear papa," chirped the baby. "I wish he 
 would come home ! " heaving a sigh. " We cried 
 two times this evening Marie and me, both for 
 him." 
 
 " We didn t!" protested the boys, stoutly, nine- 
 year-old Tom adding, " All the same, we want to see 
 him awfully. " 
 
 Mrs. Paull pressed her hand over her eyes. The 
 lower part of her face was so ghastly that the nurse 
 came to the front. 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 137 
 
 " Now, my chickens, your supper is all ready for 
 you downstairs. When I was in the kitchen awhile 
 ago, I was sure that I smelled cookies ; or it may 
 have been gingerbread. Your mother hopes to sit 
 up in her easy-chair a little while to-morrow, if we 
 don t tire her too much to-night. 1 should n t be a 
 mite surprised if she should be strong enough to 
 hold Gladys in her lap in a week. People get well 
 fast after they begin to sit up. " 
 
 She swung Gladys from the bed, and tossed her up 
 at the full length of her robust arms, kissed her 
 cheek as she set her upon the floor, and opening the 
 door, bustled the laughing party into the hall. 
 
 " If you eat a good supper and don t get your faces 
 and hands sticky, you can peep in at mamma again 
 to say Good-night, " she sent down the stairs after 
 them. 
 
 Marie darted a ray of indignant contempt at her, 
 drew up her slight figure, and from her stand at the 
 foot of the bed, surveyed her mother silently, evi 
 dently waiting for her to uncover her eyes. 
 
 " If I believed in shaking people, I should be dis 
 posed to try it on her," was the nurse s first thought, 
 superseded by a kinder second, after a glance at the 
 pale misery of the girl s face. Something must be 
 done before Mrs. Paull met the meaning gaze. She 
 began in desperate cheerfulness, 
 
 " You have no idea, Miss Marie, what a difference 
 your coming home makes to us all. I believe those 
 children begin to count the days from the time you 
 leave us on Monday morning, until you are to be 
 with us again; and I had to laugh to-day, to hear 
 
138 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 Elspeth singing, There s nae luck aboot th house, 
 while she was making up your bed." 
 
 " She did n t sing the next line, I suppose, being 
 under orders ? " struck in Marie, unexpectedly, a 
 sardonic gleam playing over her face. " Can I speak 
 to you in the other room, Mrs. Williams ? " 
 
 Mr. PaulPs portrait was there still, set carefully 
 upon the table, but in a corner out of the reach of 
 possible harm. Marie closed the inner door behind 
 them, and confronted the nurse, head up and nostrils 
 quivering. 
 
 "I am forbidden, by my uncle, Mr. Lanier, to 
 speak to my mother upon the subject that lies nearest 
 my heart," she said frigidly. "It is evident that 
 you, also, are acting under orders. Perhaps you 
 may be authorized to transact business in his absence ? 
 It is a singular state of things when a daughter, 
 who has been honored all her life long with the 
 confidence of both parents, must use a comparative 
 stranger as a medium of communication with her 
 mother. " 
 
 She became more stilted in speech as she went on, 
 bent as she was, in her girlish arrogance, upon crush 
 ing the presumptuous intruder. She completed the 
 absurdity by a wave of the hand, which, had Mrs. 
 Williams ever known Ernest Paull, would have 
 brought him to her mind. 
 
 " But let that pass. My object in asking for a few 
 minutes of your valuable time for which, I sup 
 pose, my uncle remunerates you is to inquire if I 
 may take that picture up to my own room. It is but 
 so much rubbish on this floor. Have you the liberty 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 139 
 
 to tell me if my mother has expressed any desire to 
 have it back in the old place, the place my father 
 meant it to hold when he gave it to her ? " 
 
 "Not yet, Miss Marie. She is, as you can see, 
 extremely weak and nervous; not at all herself, in 
 fact " 
 
 Another wave of the hand, intended to be majestic, 
 but merely impatient. 
 
 "I do not care to enter upon the subject of my 
 mother s nerves or notions. Mrs. Williams, Dr. 
 Bacon, and Mr. Lanier are the committee upon them. 
 I have, however, I am proud to say, some claim upon 
 my father. Will you discover, at your earliest 
 convenience, if I may be allowed the slight consola 
 tion in his absence, of having his portrait ? At least 
 until his wife s nervous system recovers tone, and 
 she can bear the sight of it. " 
 
 Mrs. Williams was the picture of unruffled benev 
 olence, unconscious of her figurative annihilation at 
 the hands of Ernest PaulPs champion. 
 
 u There can be no earthly objection to your having 
 the picture whenever you like, I am sure, my dear, 
 and hanging it wherever you think best. Next to 
 your mother s, yours is the best right. I will carry 
 it up for you while you are at supper." 
 
 "I want no supper! And I will take it up myself 
 and now, before the permission is withdrawn." 
 
 It was a bulky burden for the slender arms ; but, 
 with her unfailing tact, Mrs. Williams restrained 
 the impulse to offer assistance beyond holding the 
 door open for her to pass out with the coveted treas 
 ure. The habit of close, silent observation showed 
 
140 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 her that the girl s heart swelled and that she bit her 
 lips in mounting the stairs. 
 
 " She is game to the backbone, but she is nothing 
 but a child," she reflected, her throat swelling in 
 sympathy. " He is her idol. There s depths of 
 mercy even for the unthankful and the evil, and that 
 man may yet see the error of his ways. " 
 
 Mrs. Paull asked no questions when her custodian 
 returned. If she was cognizant of the interview, 
 and gave it a thought, she imagined that Marie had 
 wished to consult Mrs. Williams upon some matter 
 of household economy. She had fallen back into 
 her old attitude, her hands clasped below her chin, 
 her eyes resting upon the ceiling. The nurse re 
 sumed her chair and her knitting, and neither spoke 
 until the children looked in for their " Good-night " 
 kiss. 
 
 Elspeth was directly behind them. She brought 
 up half of a broiled quail, a bunch of purple hot 
 house grapes, and a cluster of La France roses, all 
 of which she set out in order upon a bedside stand. 
 
 "Mr. Lanier sent the bonnie bird; Mrs. Lanier 
 sent the grapes. The roses are from a leddy who 
 says she was at school with ye lang syne. " 
 
 The card she presented with the flowers was 
 engraved with the name of " Mrs. William C. Barnes, 
 106 Wyandotte Avenue." Upon the other side was 
 pencilled, " Have you forgotten Annie Meredith ? 
 She sends these, with dear love and prayers for your 
 speedy recovery." 
 
 " Annie Meredith ! " repeated the sick woman, 
 wonderingly. " Am I in her part of Brooklyn ? " 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 141 
 
 " Why, that s our minister s wife ! And I was 
 talking about her to you only this evening ! " cried 
 Mrs. Williams. " Here is something to give you an 
 appetite. I always insist there s no sauce like an 
 agreeable piece of news. 1 met Dr. Barnes right by 
 your door last night when I ran around to the drug 
 gist s, and stopped to tell him that I was nursing 
 you, and that you were getting on comfortably, with 
 never an idea that you knew his wife. I s pose she 
 put it all together when he got home and spoke of 
 seeing me. Ah ! but she is one of the blessed among 
 women, I can tell you ! 
 
 "You re another, Elspeth, for cooking this quail 
 to perfection. No ! " seeing Mrs. Paull about to speak, 
 "I can t answer a single question about your old 
 friend, though there s lots and lots to tell until 
 you ve done justice to your supper and to Elspeth. " 
 
 The Scotchwoman s dry smile was somewhat 
 forced. One of her nurslings was missing; and as 
 soon as she could get them out of the room, she 
 marshalled the boys, and, with Gladys in her arms, 
 mounted to the upper story. 
 
 The front chamber immediately over Mrs. PaulPs 
 was Marie s. The hall bedroom adjoining was 
 shared by Tom and Edwin; Elspeth had slept in 
 the nursery with Gladys s crib beside her bed since 
 Mrs. Paull fell ill. She undressed the child, and put 
 her to bed before looking up the absent and fasting 
 member of her flock. Marie s door was locked on 
 the inside, and half-a-dozen guarded knocks upon 
 the panels were unanswered. Elspeth stooped to 
 put her lips to the key-hole. 
 
142 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 " Me bairnie ! winria ye open to yer auld nurse ? " 
 
 Still there was an irresolute pause before the key 
 was turned, and Marie appeared, her eyes swollen 
 and cheeks discolored with crying. 
 
 " Cannot even you leave me alone, Elspeth ? I 
 would not have let anybody else in. " 
 
 "That s partly why I cam . Ye 11 be ill if ye 
 tak neither bit nor sup the night. " 
 
 " I want nothing ! I could not eat a mouthful. " 
 
 The stiff pose and defiant tone gave way before 
 the sweep of childish emotion. She threw herself 
 sobbing into the Scotchwoman s arms. 
 
 u Elspeth ! my heart is breaking for my father ! 
 Where is he ? What terrible thing has driven him 
 from home and lost him everybody s love but mine ? 
 Why am I to ask no questions, and why does my 
 mother shudder at the sound of his name as if he 
 were something evil and hateful ? He has been gone 
 over three weeks, and not a word has come from 
 him. Is he dead, and Uncle Roger will not let 
 me know ? " 
 
 u Save and bless the child ! what could put that 
 into your bit head ? No, my puir bairnie, no ! 
 never that I ve been told. Mr. Lanier, he but said 
 to me that Mr. Paull had gone over the sea to furren 
 pairts on business, and it wad likely be quite a while 
 before we d hear from him. But there s nae sic 
 thing as ye spoke of, my bonnie lassie. Not nearly 
 so close to it as she that lies downstairs, that s 
 been to the very gate of the dark valley, and is still 
 as like to gae through the one door as th ither, if 
 the truth were known. It s your mother I m on 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 143 
 
 the knees of me heart for, all the day long. Yer 
 father s a man, and healthy and strong, for all ony 
 of us ken to the contrary, and able to fend for 
 himself." 
 
 Marie raised her head from the broad shoulder, 
 and pushed herself away from the would-be comforter. 
 
 "You are like all the rest of them! He is an 
 angel on earth or in heaven ! And there is not one 
 of all those whom he has befriended, or whom he 
 loves, who cares whether he be alive or dead, but 
 only myself. But I 11 never forsake him, never! 
 never ! Do you see that ? " 
 
 She pointed to the portrait hung over against the 
 bed, as it had hung by her mother s. Upon a stand 
 below it, she had arranged her Bible and several 
 devotional books, and directly under the pictured 
 face was a vase of clouded glass, a "tear vase," 
 as it is called, with a spray of heliotrope, 
 
 "It was his favorite flower. Do you recollect 
 how he would come to me every morning for a 
 sprig from my heliotrope bush, and how he always 
 kissed me after I had pinned it upon his coat ? I 11 
 say my prayers right there, night and morning, 
 when I m at home, if the house where he is for 
 gotten and his very name blotted out can be called 
 * home. Wherever I go, he is my patron saint." 
 
 " Humph ! " Had her life depended upon her 
 silence, Elspeth could hardly have repressed the 
 homely sniff. "I m thinking ye 11 mak but a puir 
 Papist if fasting for a matter of sax hours has made 
 ye daft. It s to be hoped the mother will surely get 
 well. The children wad fare ill if they d nought 
 
144 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 but a feather-headed bit like ye to look to for clothes 
 and common sense. I ve nae time to waste chatter 
 ing an havering here aboot heliotropes and patron 
 saints, when there s a living Christian in need of 
 nursing. Ye 11 either come down to yer tea like 
 a sane body, or I ll send it to ye by the hand of Mrs. 
 Williams, and myseP step around to Dr. Bacon for 
 ye. I doobt but he 11 clap a blister on the back o 
 yer heid. Ye re not a right there or somewheers 
 else ! " 
 
 She looked, and as Marie knew, was altogether 
 capable of carrying out the threat. Dumb with 
 useless wrath, the defeated girl chose the lesser evil 
 of sitting down to the cream-toast and broiled ham 
 prepared for her by the tyrant who waited upon her 
 as if nothing had occurred to mar their friendly 
 relations. 
 
 Sentimentality, which may be defined as fatty 
 degeneration of naturally healthy sympathies, met 
 with no toleration from Elspeth. Just now she was 
 too much engrossed by actual and pressing anxieties 
 to waste thought upon imaginary or over-wrought 
 grief. 
 
 Her tone had a more hopeful ring, but care still 
 sat visibly upon her brow when she met Mr. Lanier 
 at his visit on Saturday forenoon. 
 
 "She s sitting up the day, sir," in response to his 
 queries. " She will have it that she is better, and 
 her heart is set upon having a talk with yourseP. 
 She tell t me awhile ago that there was important 
 business must be looked after, and she had put it 
 off over long a ready. I in wistful to be putting 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 145 
 
 a word into yer ear, sir, upon another matter before 
 you see her. Saving your presence, Miss Marie will 
 come to grief unless her mind is made easier the one 
 way or the other. " 
 
 In fewer words than any other of five hundred 
 women would have used, she narrated the incident 
 of the portrait. 
 
 Roger Lanier s clear-cut features were marble as 
 he listened. He had never liked Ernest Paull, when 
 the latter was at his best. At his worst, he detested 
 him as cordially as a Christian man can detest an 
 unrepentant sinner. Marie s impassioned loyalty 
 was but another trail of the serpent over the stirred 
 nest. Elspeth was not supersensitive, but she lost 
 courage to plead the cause she had in mind when she 
 began her story, at sight of his stony visage. Her 
 voice shook a little in concluding with an appeal. 
 
 "If she might but write to her father, say once 
 a month, sir, he s that, you know, sir, and unco 
 fond o her, -- t wad mak her the more content, and 
 wad, mayhap, be blest to his guid - 
 
 Discovering here that she was drifting into her 
 vernacular, and standing always in awe of her mis 
 tress s dignified kinsman, she lapsed into silence. 
 
 Mr. Lanier raised his eyes abruptly from a seem 
 ingly minute scrutiny of his patent-leather boots. 
 
 41 You have been with Mrs. Paull a long time, 
 Elspeth ? " he said mildly, although his face was 
 not softened. 
 
 "Sin five years before she was married, sir." 
 
 " You are so well acquainted with our family 
 affairs, it is but just I should take you into fulJ 
 
 10 
 
146 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 confidence now," -two odd white dents deepening 
 about the nostrils as he talked. " In my judgment, 
 it would be better if the two elder children, at least, 
 were given plainly to understand that Mr. Paull is 
 no longer to be considered their father, or their 
 mother s husband. In all human probability, he 
 will never return to America. Not to disguise an 
 ugly truth, he is passing off another woman as his 
 wife and travelling companion. I beg your pardon 
 for speaking so plainly ! " for the upright Scotch 
 woman uttered a low, horrified cry, " but it had to 
 be said. Their mother will not consent that the 
 children shall hear the facts in the case. She 
 thinks that they will gradually forget one whom they 
 never see, and whose name is seldom mentioned. 
 I have paid to his employers the money he stole, and 
 have seen to it that the wretched story did not find 
 its way into the newspapers. I stand prepared to 
 keep my sister above the chance of want, and to help 
 educate her children. All this I have written to 
 Ernest Paull. He is, I have discovered through 
 agents I have on the other side of the Atlantic, 
 living in Nice, France, under the name of 4 Mr. 
 Paul Morgan, and that he and his companion 
 are already known in that town as gambling adven 
 turers. I have furthermore notified him that if he 
 ever shows his face in this country again, I will give 
 him up to the law; as I shall, were he doubly my 
 brother-in-law. He has destroyed my sister s hap 
 piness. He shall not hang upon her life like a foul 
 growth that would draw all the strength and sweet 
 ness out of it ! " 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 147 
 
 "Does she know what yon have told me, sir ? " 
 
 The question was whispered. The rugged features 
 were wrung out of their grim impassiveness by the 
 revolting revelation. 
 
 "She does. I had to break the news to her in 
 the first place, and three days ago she sent the nurse 
 out of the room, and would know what I had heard 
 since she was struck down by that blow. I had to 
 tell her." 
 
 "The wonder is that she is n t dead outright, sir, 
 her that fairly worshipped the very print of his feet 
 in the dust. " 
 
 She raised a corner of her apron to her eyes. 
 
 " If she had not sprung from genuine Lanier stock, 
 
 - if she were one degree less spirited, she would 
 
 have died," said the brother. "As to Miss Marie, 
 
 she is an especial pet of yours, I am aware, 
 
 Elspeth, but she is her father s daughter, within 
 
 and without. All this rubbish about making a 
 
 patron saint of a man who is not worthy to black 
 
 her mother s shoes, this keeping flowers under his 
 
 portrait, and praying to it " 
 
 "Na! na! Mr. Lanier! I dinna say that; on y 
 that she was minded to kneel down before it when 
 she prayed." 
 
 In the depth of her honest distress, she could not 
 have her nursling misrepresented. 
 
 Mr. Lanier smiled in indulgent amusement. 
 
 "It amounts to about the same thing. Marie 
 would be a nice girl but for her likeness in character 
 and face to her father. She may come to something 
 better now that she will be left entirely to her 
 
148 THE ROYAL ROAD, 
 
 mother s management. But she is a Paull, and 
 must be watched carefully. I shall urge my sister 
 to-day to tell her everything, young as she is, but I 
 have little hope of succeeding in making her mother 
 see that she owes it to herself to do this. It will 
 be just like the silly little sentimentalist that Marie 
 is to nurse her fancied sorrows, and go on idolizing 
 the rascal, who would, by now, be lodged behind 
 prison bars if he had not happened to marry Alice 
 Lanier eighteen years ago, more s the pity ! It 
 would be just like Marie, I say, to add to her 
 mother s trials by disrespectful behavior and cruel 
 questions, even if she does not defy her authority 
 altogether. " 
 
 " She 11 not do that, sir. She s been too weel 
 reared, and she has too good a heart. " 
 
 He almost laughed now at the anxious deprecation 
 in word and accent. 
 
 "I am willing to hope so, if only because she is 
 your favorite, my sister s eldest daughter, and my 
 mother s namesake. All depends upon our success 
 in getting the Paull out of her nature, and the 
 Lanier in. I shall, as I remarked, try to change her 
 mother s mind with respect to the wisdom of telling 
 Lanier and Marie the truth, the whole truth, and 
 nothing but the truth. Is she ready to see me 
 now ? " 
 
 When their footsteps sounded upon the floor of the 
 upper hall, the folds of the half-drawn portiere hang 
 ing in the doorway between the parlor and dining 
 room moved, and Marie stepped into sight. 
 
 She was studying in the front parlor when Elspeth 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 149 
 
 answered the door bell the young girl had not heard. 
 At the sound of her uncle s voice, she ran behind the 
 curtain, supposing that he would, as was his custom, 
 go directly upstairs. Disappointed in this expecta 
 tion, she saw no impropriety in remaining in her 
 hiding place while the talk ran upon her mother s 
 health. He would, undoubtedly, go to see his sister 
 as soon as he had satisfied himself on this point. He 
 had not taken a seat, and the interview would be 
 brief and unimportant. When Elspeth introduced 
 her own (Marie s) name, and entered upon her 
 description of the portrait-scene, anger and shame 
 paralyzed the eavesdropper. Each instant made 
 it more difficult to discover herself; presently she 
 ceased to think of doing it. 
 
 They were conspirators, plotting against her hap 
 piness, slanderers of him whom she revered and 
 loved beyond all other created things. Self-preser 
 vation, and, yet more, jealousy for her father s 
 honor and fair fame, incited her to get all the infor 
 mation she could collect, by any means, of their 
 dastardly scheme. In asserting that she was Ernest 
 Paull s own child in character as in features, her 
 uncle had not specified among the traits they held in 
 common a vanity so sensitive that the mother had 
 often been sick at heart in recognizing the offshoot 
 of a stock too deeply rooted in the father ever to be 
 killed out. Mr. Lanier s criticisms of herself, so 
 much more disdainful than if he had revealed her 
 faults to her mother, or spoken to herself of them, 
 stung her like spatters of boiling oil. She would 
 have flouted hotly the insinuation that a large pro- 
 
150 THE ROYAL ROAD 
 
 portion of the resentment that carried her beyond 
 the bounds of reason and natural affection for the 
 mother who bore her, was not so much generous 
 indignation over her father s wrongs as the smart of 
 scarified self-esteem. 
 
 She had never been fond of her Uncle Roger, 
 reflecting, while yet a child, her father s sentiments 
 toward his upright and stately brother-in-law. As 
 she gained in age and intelligence, her father and 
 she exchanged views as to her mother s best-beloved 
 relative, and she sympathized warmly with his 
 wounded pride he named it " feeling " - when the 
 terms of her grandfather s will were known. Ernest 
 Paull was always consciously or mechanically posing 
 for effect in one character or another. As an affec 
 tionate husband, ready and glad to expend his worldly 
 substance for his family, he doubtless sometimes 
 imposed upon himself. Marie s belief in him was 
 absolute. Roger Lanier was sorely tried that day, 
 and spoke with more warmth than was habitual with 
 him, even under strong provocation. Judgment 
 and language would have been more charitable had 
 he been given more time in which to digest the 
 information sprung upon him by the serving-woman. 
 As it was, he carried a more temperate spirit into 
 his sister s presence. Before the stairhead was 
 reached he would, if appealed to, have modified the 
 sentence hastily pronounced upon a young, passion 
 ate creature, whose chief fault in his eyes was the 
 resemblance, for which she was not responsible, to 
 the man he abhorred. 
 
 She stood, trembling like an aspen, her palms 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 151 
 
 pressed hard upon her temples, her eyes wild, her 
 face livid from the storm that raged in her soul. 
 
 "I don t believe it! It is a lie, an abominable, 
 wicked, wicked lie ! " she hissed through locked 
 teeth. 
 
 Then, hearing Mrs. Williams coming up the 
 kitchen stairs, she dashed up to her room, bolted 
 the door, and flung herself, face downward, upon the 
 floor, clutching fiercely at the carpet until her nails 
 fastened themselves in the threads. 
 
 "Papa, papa, my wronged, insulted, persecuted 
 darling ! " she moaned. " Oh, I could kill them ! 
 I could kill them ! " 
 
 At three o clock that afternoon she entered the 
 post-office, a mile and more from her home, and 
 asked for "a French stamp." 
 
 " I beg pardon, miss ! " said the clerk. 
 
 "I want to send a letter to Nice, in France," she 
 answered, coloring as she felt that another customer 
 standing beside her tamed toward her at the words. 
 
 " Ah ! " Without explanation of her blunder, the 
 servant employed by his master, the Public, to 
 discharge his nominal duties with the slightest pos 
 sible outlay of language and courtesy, passed over a 
 five-cent stamp. 
 
 " Do you think that will take my letter all right ? " 
 faltered the novice, doubtfully. 
 
 " Take it anywhere on the globe. " 
 
 She affixed it, without further remark, laying the 
 envelope on the counter to do it, the address in 
 bold black characters, uppermost, and dropped it 
 into the slit over the letter-basket. 
 
152 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 She was overtaken at the outer door by a bright- 
 faced, dark-eyed personage, whose apparel and speech 
 bespoke the lady. 
 
 " I beg you to excuse the seeming impertinence, 
 but am I mistaken in supposing you to be Miss 
 Paull ? " 
 
 "That is my name," civilly curt. 
 
 Just now she was disposed to aggressiveness, with 
 or without provocation. 
 
 " Your voice is so like your mother s that it 
 startled me, but you have your father s face," 
 resumed the stranger. " Your mother was my school 
 mate and dear friend. I am Mrs. Barnes. I heard 
 yesterday, for the first time, and then through appar 
 ent accident, that she is living in Brooklyn, quite 
 near us, and that she is ill. I could not resist the 
 temptation to follow you when T heard you speak 
 just now, and caught a glimpse of your face. Will 
 you tell me exactly how she is to-day, and if there 
 is any way in which I can be of service to her ? " 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
For patience, when the rough winds blow ; 
 
 For patience, when our hopes are fading; 
 When visible things all backward go, 
 
 And nowhere seems the power of aiding, 
 God still enfolds thee with His viewless hand 
 And leads thee surely to the fatherland. 
 
 From the German. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 HE who knows the Pequod New Jersey of 
 to-day has but an imperfect idea of what 
 Pequod township was at the date of which I am 
 writing. 
 
 Beautiful for situation it must ever have been, 
 since the hills settled upon their foundations, and 
 the waters found their level at the foot of the range 
 of hills. Right in the centre of the valley lies a 
 lakelet, three miles in length, and less than one 
 mile in breadth at the widest part. The shores are 
 notched boldly by headlands, and curved graciously 
 by meadows, and grooved at intervals by reedy 
 creeks, and brown brisk brooks racing down from 
 the mountains to see for themselves what the greater 
 open world is like. Back of the lake, and on all 
 sides of it, are the hills, mountains, the New 
 Jersey folk call them, proving the correctness of 
 the nomenclature by reference to the map of the 
 United States, whereupon they figure as faintly out 
 lined spurs of the far-stretching Blue Ridge, which 
 forms the ribs upon the right side of our continent. 
 With over-lapping declivities, these eminences en 
 circled Pequod Lake, an Old Guard of honor. 
 
 They are friendly mountains, and socially-minded 
 toward the valley they environ. In benignant swells 
 
156 THE ROYAL KOAD. 
 
 and dips they lie against the sky, looming through 
 mists, and sinking to sleep under the stars. At the 
 date of this humble chronicle, they were the boun 
 dary of this sparse settlement bearing the same name 
 as the lake and township. 
 
 There were not more than fifteen dwellings within 
 sight of a young girl, who sat one June forenoon 
 upon the steps of a church set well toward the base 
 of the tallest wall of the amphitheatre of hills. The 
 building antedated the Revolutionary War, and, 
 although modern vandalism under the disguise of 
 improvement had done its best, or worst, to spoil it 
 by daubing with white paint bricks redbrown with 
 age, it was still a creditable specimen of colonial 
 architecture. It stood about twenty yards away 
 from the highway, " street, " by courtesy, and by 
 virtue of definite, if unpaved sidewalks. Behind the 
 church was the burying-ground, better kept than the 
 majority of rural cemeteries, and across the side- 
 street to the left the "Academy," alias the district 
 schoolhouse, the junior by fifty years of the sanc 
 tuary. The broad thoroughfare was lined with 
 spreading elms, and, sweeping by the church and the 
 white parsonage, nestled confidingly under the vener 
 able eaves, divided the church property from the 
 grandest house in the township, erected by a re 
 tired city merchant, crossed a bridge and rolled 
 along a hundred-yard level, ran over a second bridge 
 built above one of the racing brooks aforesaid, then 
 past another homestead inferior in size, and superior 
 in age to the former, and, swerving slightly to the 
 left, had an easy time of it until it gained a third 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 157 
 
 bridge, which carried it into " the village, " situated 
 nearly a measured mile from the church. A woollen 
 mill made the village, and the same corporation ran 
 " the store " and post-office. 
 
 The girl, who had let herself down wearily in the 
 shade cast by the elms upon the broad low step of 
 the church, was Marie Paull. As she took off her 
 straw hat and fanned herself with it, one could see 
 that she was slighter in figure and more ethereal of 
 visage than she had been six months before. The 
 lines of cheek and chin were fine to delicacy; the 
 blue eyes were larger and deeper ; the corners of the 
 mouth had a dispirited droop. Sanguine observers 
 foretold that she would pick up flesh when she 
 stopped growing. She had " run up like a mullein- 
 stalk or a hop-vine. By-and-by she would get all 
 her perpendicular inches, and go to work to make 
 bone and flesh." 
 
 Pessimistic well-wishers asked solicitously if there 
 were consumption in any branch of the family, and 
 "only hoped that she might weather the next three 
 years. So many girls went out, like the wick of an 
 empty lamp, between seventeen and twenty-one." 
 
 The change in her appearance, and her failure in 
 vigor and appetite, together with the hacking cough 
 that wore upon Mrs. PaulPs vital forces after she 
 was convalescent from fever, were the alleged causes 
 of the removal of the family to the country in April. 
 Roger Lanier had come into possession, in the way 
 of an exchange of property, of an old-fashioned 
 farmstead in a retired neighborhood of Northern New 
 Jersey. He offered it to his sister, rent free, for as 
 
158 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 long a time as she chose to occupy it, having, as he 
 said, no use for it himself, and preferring to put a 
 good care-taker into it to troubling himself with a 
 farmer-tenant. The location was healthy. It was, 
 by stage and railway, within two hours of New York 
 City. For some years to come, the three younger 
 children would be better off in the country. 
 
 Mrs. Paull was not hoodwinked by the dry, busL 
 ness-like details of the scheme as propounded by her 
 brother. She was too familiar with his style of 
 conferring benefits to embarrass him by voluble 
 gratitude ; but when he had gone, she secluded her 
 self in her chamber for an hour before she could 
 trust countenance or voice to make known the pur 
 port of Roger s visit to Marie. 
 
 She would consult the child, first of all, in the 
 momentous matter of a change of home. It was a 
 golden opportunity for breaking down the thickening 
 wall of reserve, of which she had become conscious 
 by the time she left her bed, and endeavored to take 
 her old place in the household. Indeed, the change 
 in the once merry, affectionate daughter, whose 
 graceful development she had watched with maternal 
 pride, was the means of awakening her from the 
 strange numbness of brain and heart considered by 
 physician and nurse the gravest symptom of her 
 malady. 
 
 Marie s very features were altering into premature 
 sedateness. She was alternately petulant and 
 moodily reserved when she was not feverishly gay, 
 and as the weeks wore on, had an air of nervous 
 expectancy unaccounted for by any clew of informa- 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 159 
 
 tion or of suspicion at the mother s command until 
 Elspeth offered one. 
 
 " The bairnie is mayhap fretting for her father, " 
 she felt constrained to say to her mistress, lest slie 
 might discover the secret by other and less gentle 
 means. " His name never passes her lips, and I m 
 thinking that s a sign she thinks of him the mair. " 
 
 Marie was in her third -story room, where she spent 
 at least two-thirds of her time when she was at home. 
 The door was locked. Elspeth could have told her 
 how common an occurrence this was, but her mother 
 was surprised when her knock was answered by the 
 turn of the key. 
 
 " Why do you lock yourself in, my love ? " she 
 asked. " I hope the children do not annoy you by 
 running in and out ? I have charged them not to 
 disturb you when you are busy with your studies. " 
 
 " Oh, no ! they are good little things, and never 
 come unless they are called. But it is cosier to sit 
 on the right side of a locked door. " 
 
 The flippant tone and studied indifference of be 
 havior continued while her mother unfolded the par 
 ticulars of the news she had brought, until, out of the 
 fulness of her gratitude, she dwelt upon her brother s 
 generosity. 
 
 " He intends, he says, to put the house in perfect 
 repair, to have a furnace built in the cellar, and a 
 bath-room in the second story, and hot and cold 
 water throughout the house. All this, he would have 
 me believe, is not contingent upon our removal to 
 Pequod, but I know better. There will not be 
 another dwelling in the region so luxuriously 
 
160 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 appointed. That is Uncle Roger s way. He dreads 
 being thanked as much as ever Mr. Jarndyce could 
 have dreaded acknowledgments. I anticipate your 
 scruples in this matter, my darling. You feel with 
 me that we are already under such heavy obligations 
 to your uncle surely the noblest, tenderest coun 
 sellor ever given to a woman in the hour of need ! 
 that you hesitate to make further draughts upon 
 his goodness." 
 
 Marie smiled sarcastically. 
 
 " On the contrary, mother, I have no scruples on 
 that score. You have read me wrong for once. 
 Uncle Roger is a pattern of truthfulness, as of 
 liberality. When he declares that he is spending 
 some thousands of the money he does not know what 
 to do with upon a new toy for his own personal grati 
 fication, without a thought of pauperizing us, we 
 are bound to believe him. As to our share in his 
 project, I cannot understand why you should go 
 through the form of consulting me. While I am a 
 minor and dependent upon you, and Uncle Roger, 
 I am at your disposal, to come or to go, or to stay, as 
 you shall decide. One place is as good as another 
 to me, since we cannot go back to New York to live. 
 I cannot dislike this country place with an Indian 
 name more than 1 dislike Brooklyn. I suppose we 
 cannot go into society anywhere. So what differ 
 ence does it make what I say or think or feel, when 
 you and Elspeth and Uncle Roger are adequate to 
 manage everything ? " 
 
 "You misjudge me and your uncle," returned Mrs. 
 Paull, with no sign of the cruel pain this reception 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 161 
 
 of her story had cost her. " If I did not believe that 
 your health would be improved by the removal to 
 higher, drier air, and by the outdoor life you could 
 enjoy in Pequod, all the other considerations you 
 have named would have no weight with me. As to 
 my advisers, we will leave our faithful Elspeth out 
 of the question entirely. She does not deserve to 
 be introduced into such a connection. While I 
 depend upon your uncle in business affairs, as he has 
 given me abundant reason for doing, 1 am strong 
 enough to trust to my own judgment in whatever 
 concerns my children and my home and theirs. You 
 ought not to require me to assure you of that." 
 
 Marie was cold and still; her eyes were downcast; 
 her lips were a straight, stubborn line. 
 
 The mother s voice changed from argument to 
 entreaty. 
 
 " What has come between us lately, my daughter ? 
 We used to be dear and intimate friends, who be 
 lieved in each other s affection, and trusted each 
 other s motives. What have I done to grieve or to 
 alienate you ? " 
 
 Another long dumb interval, growing more 
 oppressive as the seconds ticked themselves into 
 minutes upon the tiny clock upon the desk. Marie 
 had wheeled her chair around to receive her mother, 
 and sat under her father s portrait. The tear-vase, 
 with its spray of purple heliotrope, was in its place, 
 lightly perfuming the air of the room. A pale 
 purple scarf of soft silk, given to Marie at Christ 
 mas, was knotted across one corner of the gilded 
 frame. 
 
 11 
 
162 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 Suddenly the girl raised her eyes abruptly, light in 
 them that confounded her companion as they blazed 
 into hers, then passed to the portrait hanging between 
 them. 
 
 The handsome, sunny face, with the crowning curls 
 and golden chestnut mustache, and half-smile of 
 content with himself and good-will toward his 
 fellow-men that won his way everywhere, the lover 
 of Alice Lanier s gloriously happy girlhood, the 
 husband she had idolized, now the banned refugee 
 from her, and home, and native land! 
 
 Without the utterance of a syllable, the daughter 
 arraigned one parent for irreparable wrong done to 
 the other. 
 
 " You affect ignorance of your offence against me ! " 
 said feature and gesture. " Can you answer to me, 
 his child and yours, for what you have done to him ? " 
 
 For an instant Mrs. Paull was deathly white. Her 
 features were sharpened, and the dull, hopeless 
 misery was again in her eyes. The next, she rallied 
 her native powers, and her glance followed Marie s 
 to the pictured face. 
 
 " I will not pretend to misunderstand you, although 
 I could have wished that the charge had been brought 
 out in a different way. You would accuse me of 
 injustice to your father, and unkindness to you, 
 because I do not talk of him to you and the children, 
 or give you any news of him. Perhaps I have erred 
 in my silence. My brother thinks so. Had I been 
 led as blindly by him as you intimate, you would 
 have had the whole story before this; but I hoped 
 that you had faith in your mother s love. I wished 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 163 
 
 to spare you pain, and there are things which it is 
 not easy for me to say to any one. Your father 
 loved you very dearly " 
 
 "If it gives you pain to tell me that, you may 
 leave it unsaid ! " interrupted harsh, husky accents. 
 " I know it better, a thousand times better than 
 you can ever tell me. He said to me, and I would 
 believe him in opposition to all the canting uncles 
 in Christendom, he said the last time I saw him 
 that I was the dearest thing to him on earth or in 
 heaven. How that would shock Uncle Roger! I 
 never told you ; I shall never tell your brother that 
 my father came to see me that Thursday evening 
 and said Good-by to me. He expected then to go 
 to New Orleans the next day on business, business 
 that worried him exceedingly. He took me in his 
 arms and kissed rne twenty times, and asked me 
 never to believe anything his enemies might bring 
 up against him when he was not here to defend him 
 self. He had battled a long time with them, he said, 
 and they might get the better of him for a while, 
 but I was never to doubt his innocence or his love 
 for me, never ! never ! " 
 
 Her vehemence did not lessen the fond compassion 
 with which her mother looked at her defiant face. 
 
 " You say that this was on Thursday, the 21st of 
 November ? " 
 
 " It was. I came home on Saturday, my heart so 
 full of grief and wonder that I would have rushed 
 up to tell you all and cry myself quiet in your arms, 
 and found you ill. " 
 
 " He said that he was setting out for New Orleans ? " 
 
164 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 " He did. He was dressed for travelling then. " 
 
 " Yet his passage was already taken for Havre. 
 Have you ever thought to compare statement and 
 fact ? " 
 
 "No. I had his word, which was absolute truth 
 to me. Something unforeseen changed his plans. 
 I suppose you know what. His passage must it was 
 taken after he saw me. He said oh, so sadly, 
 mamma ! that you often misjudged him, and 
 undervalued his love ; that the day would come when 
 you would see that you were mistaken, and maybe 
 regret the devotion you had thrown away. He 
 longed to know that he had the love of one true 
 heart, and so came to me ; I would never desert him. 
 1 promised solemnly, my arms about his neck, his 
 dear cheek (there were tears on it, mamma !) against 
 mine, that I would always love him and believe in 
 him, and no cunning slanders that other people may 
 persuade you into crediting will ever make me break 
 my word. If he were to send for me to-morrow to 
 come to him at the ends of the earth, I would go, if 
 I had to steal the money to take me there. I would 
 rather starve with him than live in luxury upon 
 Uncle Roger s money ! " cried the child, terrible, 
 dry sobs breaking up the torrent of confession. 
 
 She sat erect, her fingers interlocked upon the 
 desk, and talked fast, blood and brain at fever heat. 
 
 "My poor, loyal darling!" With tears running 
 down her own cheeks, Mrs. Paull would have drawn 
 her child to her, but Marie eluded the embrace by 
 setting her chair further away. " My love ! do you 
 imagine that what you have said can make your 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 165 
 
 mother love you less ? If anything could draw a 
 man to his home and hold him there, it would be 
 such devotion and such faith as yours. Wherever 
 your father may be, and Marie, you must believe 
 me when I say that I have not had one line from him 
 since he wrote to your uncle on the day he sailed 
 from America, saying that he was obliged by busi 
 ness misfortunes to go abroad, wherever and 
 whatever he may be " 
 
 " He is the purest and noblest of men, always and 
 everywhere ! " 
 
 " I do not contradict it, dear. I was about to say 
 that I hope and pray he may always remember how 
 his daughter loves him. For myself, I have no 
 complaint to make in his children s ears. I have 
 insisted upon this to your uncle 
 
 " My uncle ! " broke in Marie, fiercely. " My 
 uncle, who is rich enough to rectify any business 
 misfortunes my father could have met with, with 
 out feeling it, the purse-proud Pharisee who cheats 
 him out of the first place in his wife s affections 
 
 "My daughter!" 
 
 " I mean it ; every word of it ! And drives him 
 out of the country that he may the better blacken his 
 good name. The high-bred gentleman, who stoops 
 to gossip with sympathizing servant-women over the 
 ruin he has caused. Oh, how I loathe that man s 
 very name, and his sneering smile and plausible 
 lies ! " 
 
 "Marie! shame!" 
 
 She raved on. 
 
 " Shame ! yes ! to him for saying such things, and 
 
166 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 to Elspeth for listening to him, and to you for not 
 turning both of them out of your house, instead of 
 believing their horrible slanders ! No, mother ! you 
 have complained of my reserve, and I shall leave 
 you without excuse for finding any such fault again 
 with me. I am a Paull, through and through, and 
 there is no hypocrisy in that strain. If I knew in 
 what vein of mine runs the Lanier blood, I would 
 cut it this minute, and let the false black drops out, 
 here, before the blessed angel s picture ! It would 
 be a sweet savor in his nostrils if he could know 
 that I had done it ! " 
 
 She laughed wildly, as the listener, aghast, raised 
 her hands imploringly. There was unholy triumph 
 in the mirth. In the defenceless woman before her 
 she saw the impersonation of the evil influences 
 that had ruined and exiled her father. 
 
 "$)on t stare and gasp as if you believed me crazy! 
 I have my father s head, and I can think out things 
 without Mr. Roger Lanier s assistance. I know just 
 how it all happened. My father, always generous 
 and trusting to his own hurt, wanted to borrow 
 money of his rich brother-in-law, who had prevailed 
 upon his father (and yours) to leave all your property 
 in your dear brother s hands ; and the immaculate 
 Roger would not lend him a dollar, although aware 
 how cruelly crippled were his finances, and hunted 
 him into exile. Or perhaps he was obliged to go 
 away from unmerciful creditors; and when he was 
 gone, Mr. Millionnaire Lanier, to cover up his own 
 crooked dealings and inhumanity, fabricated a story 
 which I would not believe if all the Laniers who 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 167 
 
 ever lived were to swear to it on a pile of Bibles as 
 high as the Brooklyn Bridge ! " 
 
 " God give me patience ! " murmured the unhappy 
 mother, rising so feebly that had not her child been 
 half-frenzied, she must have been moved to pity. 
 
 Instead, the perverse devil that was driving her 
 onward prompted a final thrust. She became all 
 at once apparently as cool as she had been hot. 
 
 "So, you see, mother," also rising, and assuming 
 a judicial air that pierced the wife with a new sense 
 of familiarity, so faithfully was it copied from her 
 father, "you are wasting your time and strength in 
 trying to bring me around to my dear relative s 
 ways of thinking in anything. If he has set his 
 heart upon hiding his poor relations in the country 
 where they will not disgrace him and his fine-lady 
 wife, why, he will do it. Where is the use of my 
 opposing him ? On the side of the oppressor, there 
 is power. I am amazed at discovering that he has a 
 vulnerable place left in his conscience, and can be 
 made uncomfortable by the sight of his victims. I 
 am glad that my face reminds him of the man he has 
 injured. 
 
 " We need never go all over this ground again, 
 mother, now that we have had it all out. By all 
 means, let Uncle Roger salve his conscience with fur 
 naces and water-works, and all the other luxuries he 
 may choose to put into his farmhouse. Unless my 
 father should send for me, or gives me other orders, 
 I must, for propriety s sake, live in your house until 
 I can support myself, which will be in a couple of 
 years at the farthest. I had a talk with Mrs. Marcy 
 
168 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 yesterday, in which she promised that she would 
 make a place for me in the primary department by 
 the time I am graduated." 
 
 There are but two classes of beings in civilized 
 society whom one may maltreat with a refinement 
 of barbarity without fear of reprisals. These are 
 mothers and wives. Ernest Paull had discovered for 
 himself this cardinal truth. The instinct of hered 
 ity had revealed it to his daughter, and his teachings 
 emboldened her to avail herself of it. When anger 
 had burned down, she could create sparkles among 
 the ashes by reminding herself that he was partially 
 avenged. 
 
 Decidedly, Alice Paull had enough pressing upon 
 her shoulders and spirit to drive her into her grave, 
 or into a mad-house, by April 15, the day on which 
 she turned the key for the last time in No. 363 
 Mendebras Avenue, and departed with Elspeth and 
 the two boys, Gladys being left with Mrs. Lanier, 
 - to unpack and settle her household goods in the 
 rambling homestead, red-brick in front and back, 
 rough, hewn stone at the gable ends, upon the western 
 bank of Pequod Lake. 
 
 Marie s vacation had begun a week before the long 
 walk that stranded her upon the church steps. 
 
 Elspeth would have it that she had studied herself 
 pale and thin, and built many hopes upon the system 
 of feeding and general bracing that must go into 
 effect, now that books were laid aside for two months 
 and a half. The "puir bairnie " must walk, row, 
 and drive abroad in air which the Highland-born 
 woman sniffed eagerly as "a maist as sweet and 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 169 
 
 strang " as that of her native heaths. Accordingly, 
 errands were manufactured for her by the score. 
 There were wild strawberries to be gathered, wild 
 flowers to be transplanted into the garden, and fish 
 to be caught for the table. Mrs. Paull had found in 
 the stable, upon her arrival, a stout roadster, young 
 enough to be lively and good-looking, and old enough 
 to be well-broken and safe, and a neat, light car 
 riage; and after Marie s arrival, she was elected 
 charioteer-in-chief. 
 
 She listened with a smile always joyless, some 
 times sadder than tears to the various schemes for 
 luring back light and color to her thin face. She 
 was willing to try them all, she said obediently, but 
 proposed none of her own accord, with a single 
 exception. 
 
 She walked, unbidden, every morning down the two 
 hills grading the half-mile slope lying between the 
 hillside farmhouse and the village post-office. She 
 had to-day taken quite a batch of letters with other 
 mail from the freckled hand of the social young- 
 clerk, who inquired, in giving it, if her folks kept 
 pretty well. She sorted the "mail" hastily in the 
 long porch of the " store. " 
 
 Three letters for her mother, one in Uncle 
 Roger s handwriting; one with a New York grocer s 
 letter-head upon the envelope for Elspeth; one for 
 herself from Lariier, and one other, which she tore 
 open hastily. 
 
 Four pages were covered with the fiercely pro 
 nounced chirography peculiar to some fifty thou- 
 sand-and-odd young women of the modern school, 
 
170 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 and which, until this fact is recognized, leaves one 
 unprepared for the very small beer of ladylike 
 correspondence. 
 
 Marie did not pause to read it. A glance showed 
 her that the envelope contained nothing besides this 
 epistle from Carrie Storrs, her bosom friend and 
 classmate at Mrs. Marcy s school. She tucked it 
 back into the cover, dropped it with the rest of the 
 letters, the daily paper and a magazine, into the flat 
 satchel on her arm, and instead of going home, set 
 off at a swift gait across the bridge and up the broad 
 highway beyond. It was shadeless for a quarter of 
 a mile, but the city-bred girl did not raise her para 
 sol. The air breathed freely over acres of hay- 
 meadows and corn-fields, and there were no brick 
 walls to absorb and radiate heat. 
 
 She did not heed or care whither her brisk pace 
 would take her. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
The humblest occupation has in it materials of dis 
 cipline for the highest heaven. F. W. ROBERTSON. 
 
 Dear Comforter ! Eternal Love ! 
 
 If thou wilt stay with me, 
 Of lowly thoughts and simple ways 
 
 I 11 build a nest for thee. 
 
 FABEB. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 STORRS was the one confidante of the 
 tremendous secret that Marie Paull had been 
 trying, since the middle of last December, to open 
 communication with her father. She had easily 
 convinced her friend that Ernest Paull was foully 
 maligned by his enemies, and persecuted by his 
 relations-in-law. In each of the letters Marie had 
 despatched, at first hopefully, of late desperately, 
 to "Mr. Paul Morgan, Nice, France," she had in 
 structed her father to reply under cover to Carrie, 
 whose parents were too well disciplined, according to 
 free American ethics, to inquire into their daugh 
 ter s correspondence. Not a line had rewarded her 
 filial fidelity; yet the sight of Carrie s handwrit 
 ing upon the outside of an envelope would set her 
 pulses to galloping and check her breath until 
 inspection of the contents brought a sickening revul 
 sion of feeling. 
 
 As she had walked down the hemlock-and-cedar- 
 shaded road to the post-office, twenty minutes ago, 
 the lake on one side, the woods upon the other, the 
 plunge of the waters at the lower end of the pretty 
 sheet over a thirty-feet-high dam, booming upon the 
 rocks that threshed them into clouds of fleecy spray, 
 an inspiration, as refreshing as the cool breath of 
 
174 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 the falls and the spicy incense of the evergreens, 
 had stolen into her soul. 
 
 She recalled bitterly in her wayside musings the 
 stages of her lapse from exaltation to despondency. 
 For one quarter of an hour she had permitted her 
 self to feel sure that to-day s mail would yield up 
 for her the news from a far country for which she 
 really believed she was slowly pining to death. 
 While she waited in the dark, low-browed "store," 
 redolent with soap, cheese, brown sugar and molasses, 
 new shoes, new woollen and new ginghams, 
 watching, with interest that flattered the clerk, the 
 freckled fingers that manipulated the contents of the 
 mail-bag, the hope assumed the proportions of 
 certainty. The clerk was airily arrayed in dust- 
 colored corduroy trousers and a loose linen coat of 
 indescribable hue; his hair would have been exactly 
 the color of ground ginger had it been less heavily 
 greased. It hung straight behind, and was parted 
 so low upon the left side that the comb laying out 
 the line must have grazed the hem of his prominent 
 red ear. His hands were red, too, where the 
 great brown freckles let out glimpses of the back 
 ground; his fingers were stubby, with square tips 
 and flat nails edged with black. 
 
 She noticed all these things as senses, over 
 strained by excitement, become sensitized plates for 
 the repetition of the minutest particular of environ 
 ment. She recollected that she had prayed with 
 especial fervor, at rising that morning, for the com 
 ing of the letter. For one second her fingers tingled 
 prophetically in closing upon Carrie s envelope. 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 175 
 
 It, was all over now ! As she forged up the 
 shadeless turnpike, she registered a mental vow never 
 to let herself be sanguine again in expectatipn of the 
 coveted good. It was a daily death. By the time 
 she reached the elm-shadowed portion of the road, 
 she had arrived at the conclusion that it would be 
 folly to commit any more bread to the waste of un 
 known waters. If her father had cared to hear from 
 her, why had not he, ready-witted as he was, de 
 vised some method of communication ? Could there 
 be a minute grain of truth in the version of his flight 
 so coarsely retailed by Uncle Roger to Elspeth ? 
 
 This, the first doubt of him that had ever assailed 
 her, fairly beat the breath out of her lungs, the light 
 out of her eyes. She felt herself grow sick and 
 giddy, a leaf in a whirlwind of horror and despair. 
 Then it was that she groped, rather than saw her 
 way to the broad stone step, and sank down. 
 
 She sat there so still that the phoebe-birds, whose 
 forbears had for many generations built mud nests in 
 the church tower, hopped upon the stones within 
 arm s-length of her to peck the crumbs dropped 
 yesterday by the school -children who had come 
 across from the academy at recess to eat their lunch 
 in the shade. 
 
 She sat there so long that a child, playing in the 
 parsonage garden, after staring at her, himself 
 unperceived, until his nose took the impress of the 
 two palings between which it had protruded, ran in 
 to report to his mother upon the pretty lady who had 
 gone to sleep upon the church steps. 
 
 She moved stiffly at last; her head was light; her 
 
176 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 tongue had a queer, rough taste, as if she had been 
 dosed with calisaya or quassia. Automatically she 
 fumbled in her satchel for Lanier s letter. She was 
 not nearly rested yet. When she should be she 
 must go home. It was getting on toward noon. She 
 would not think any longer. Thinking only made 
 her pain the harder to bear and did no good. For 
 six months one idea had been the centre about which 
 thought, affection, desire, and hope had revolved. 
 She had fixed her eyes upon it until, when she tried 
 to force them away, she saw nothing but whirling 
 darkness everywhere else. Yet she had resolved to 
 hope and expect no longer. In very idleness of 
 misery she would see wha,t Lanier had to say. She 
 loved her brother, but there was little sympathy 
 between them nowadays. She had not seen him 
 since Christmas, and then he was as plainly averse to 
 speaking of the altered conditions of their home as 
 even Uncle Roger could desire. All his thought 
 seemed to be centred in their mother. He had not 
 remarked upon his sister s dejection and reserve*, 
 probably he had not observed them. That was another 
 debt she owed to Uncle Roger. But he wrote enter 
 taining letters, full of college news. 
 
 Instead of drawing out a sealed envelope, she had 
 lighted again upon Carrie s. She opened it indiffer 
 ently. Carrie s affluence of spirits jarred upon her 
 friend occasionally. She carried no cross of personal 
 sorrow and others misfortunes. 
 
 The opening paragraph of the unfolded letter set 
 her teeth together as might the scratch of a pin upon 
 glass. 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 177 
 
 MY MARY-BUD, Open your pretty eyes and read 
 what a transcendently delightful, and yet comical, hap 
 pening has come to me. I cannot wait a minute longer 
 without calling upon you to admire the cleverness of your 
 usually-ever-so-rnuch-less-bright-than-yourself friend and 
 admirer. 
 
 Mr. Maynard, a friend of papa s, dined here this even 
 ing, and he and papa were speaking of the appointment 
 of " Dick Oliver " as United States Consul at Nice. Of 
 course I pricked up my ears, and when there was a gap 
 in the talk, I put in an oar. 
 
 " Papa, what are the duties of a consul ? " 
 
 " To see that national interests are protected in foreign 
 towns, Puss." 
 
 " What, for instance, could Mr. Oliver do for me if I 
 were in Nice ? " was my next advance. 
 
 " If you got into any trouble, or needed any informa 
 tion, he would help you out." 
 
 " Suppose, then, I had run away from home, and was 
 living in Nice, and calling myself Sarah Jane Johnson/ 
 and you wanted to ferret me out, could he find me for 
 you ? " 
 
 Well, they all laughed, and papa said I was a goose ; 
 but in the end I found out what I wanted to know. The 
 thing for you to do is to direct your next foreign letter 
 in care of "Mr. Eichard Hurst Oliver, U. S. Consul, 
 Nice, France," and put in it a note to Mr. Oliver, asking 
 him to see that it reaches the person to whom it is 
 addressed, etc., etc. 
 
 When both these letters are written, enclose them to 
 me, and let me mail them in New York. Country post 
 masters are the veriest gossips everywhere, and the 
 official at Pequod (horrid name ! why is n t it Avondale, 
 or Kosemont, or Cedar Gorge ?) will have it all over the 
 
 12 
 
178 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 neighborhood that " that eldest girl o the Paulls sent off 
 a furren letter to-day." Of course the reply (you 11 be 
 sure to get it now, my beauty !) will be enclosed to me. 
 
 I rush this off that you may get it by to-morrow s 
 mail. Ever and forever yours, 
 
 CARRIE. 
 
 " Excuse me, but can I be of any service to you ? " 
 
 Marie had sat motionless for ten rapturous min 
 utes, her elbows upon her knees, her forehead upon 
 her hands, tears, of which she was unconscious, 
 falling upon the letter in her lap. She flushed rosily 
 at the query, uttered in a pleasant, manly voice, her 
 startled eyes, large with happy dew, were lifted to 
 the countenance of a man in a strait-breasted black 
 coat, who had approached unheard across the turf. 
 It was a genial visage, with regular, refined features, 
 and she knew him for a clergyman before he added: 
 
 " I am Mr. Morse, the pastor of this church. My 
 wife saw you sitting here, and feared that you were 
 ill, or that you had lost your way. Will you step 
 into the parsonage and rest, or, as I am just going 
 out in my buggy, will you allow me to take you 
 home?" 
 
 Marie arose, self-possessed and ladylike. In her 
 lately-born happiness she showed at her best, and 
 she had inherited much of her father s magnetic 
 charm of manner. 
 
 " You are very kind, but I am quite rested now. 
 I have walked a little too far in the hot sun, I think. 
 I am Marie Paull, the daughter of Mrs. Paull, who 
 has taken the house on the other side of the lake. 
 She has had the pleasure of hearing you preach 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 179 
 
 several times, I think. I have just come home 
 from my school in New York." 
 
 The frank reply pleased and attracted Jiim. He 
 held out his hand, and removed his hat. 
 
 " I am happy to meet you, and esteem it a fortu 
 nate coincidence that I was just setting out to call 
 upon Mrs. Paull. Will it be convenient for her to 
 receive a visit in the forenoon ? " 
 
 " She will be glad to see you at any hour of the 
 day, Mr. Morse, and I accept gratefully the offer of a 
 seat in your carriage, if you are really going to 
 call upon my mother." 
 
 She was like the Marie Paull of bygone days in 
 the radiance and warmth of her new hope. 
 
 "A thorough little lady from crown to toe!" Mr. 
 Morse informed his wife when he went around to 
 the side-door of the parsonage for his carriage and 
 horse, Marie preferring to await his return at the 
 church. "Judging from her behavior and from the 
 mother s appearance, the family will be an acquisi 
 tion to the church and to the neighborhood. " 
 
 Mrs. Paull had held long and weighty counsel with 
 Elspeth while Marie was absent that morning. 
 
 To not more than one housewife in one hundred 
 thousand is it appointed to be served as long and 
 faithfully as this woman was by the sturdy High 
 lander. Without demur, or so much as the deepen 
 ing of a furrow in a forehead criss-crossed by years 
 of care-taking for others, she had gathered up such 
 "stuff " as she could call her own, and followed the 
 family into a region as unknown to her as the 
 promised land to Abraham. Country housekeeping 
 
180 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 was a vastly different matter then than in this era, 
 when hot and cold water, stationary tubs, bath-rooms, 
 and gasoline are insisted upon as essentials of " our 
 girls " existence, in rural districts as in the city. 
 
 Elspeth s kitchen occupied, with her chamber 
 overhead, a whole wing of the old farmstead. By 
 Mr. Lanier s orders, a modern range was set into 
 the wide fireplace, but the brick oven still yawned 
 in the wall to the right of this, and in the rafters 
 ridging the ceiling were hooks where festoons of 
 onions, dried apples, and peppers used to hang. A 
 wooden floor was laid upon the bricks worn by the 
 tread of four generations of busy Marthas, and 
 another window, let in at the back, made the room 
 lighter and sweeter. The building was substantial 
 and weather-tight; the walls of solid stone kept it 
 warm in winter and cool in summer ; a hipped Dutch 
 roof gave the upper rooms a loftier pitch than would 
 have been afforded by a story-and-a-half frontage, 
 had the decline from combing to eaves been un 
 broken. There were seven bed-chambers above- 
 stairs, and four spacious rooms on the ground-floor, 
 exclusive of the kitchen and store-closets. A dry 
 cellar underran the whole house. 
 
 The consultation between mistress and maid was 
 held in the long porch on the lakeward side. The 
 flooring of this was of brick ; white columns, small 
 and frequent, upheld the roof, and honeysuckles of 
 the old-fashioned varieties, hardy, and prodigal of 
 bloom and scent, curtained this open-air sitting- 
 room of the present inmates. Clumps of such roses 
 as our mothers loved to plant and tend, red and 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 181 
 
 white damask, and many-flowering cinnamon, now 
 a mass of pink fragrance, grew lushily upon the 
 lawn. To the left of Mrs. Paull, as she sat beside 
 her basket work-stand, were garden and orchard ; to 
 her right, a row of tall pines broke the northern 
 winds in winter. Beyond, and right in front of her, 
 were the lake and the wooded hills she was learning 
 to love, calm, restful, and full of hopeful uplifting, 
 abiding forever. 
 
 Elspeth was shelling peas into a brown bowl, 
 sitting as straight as a ramrod upon her kitchen 
 chair. The three children were at play in the 
 grove of native woods, oak, hickory, and tulip- 
 poplar, that separated the house by several hun 
 dred yards from the high road. 
 
 "I feel virtue enter into me day by day," Mrs. 
 Paull had written to her brother the night before. 
 " I am like a shipwrecked man, who, thrown upon a 
 friendly shore, sits in the shade, gathering his 
 forces, and recounting over to himself how much he 
 has for which to thank God. " 
 
 In like strain she had opened the dialogue with 
 Elspeth. Nevertheless, there were certain matters 
 that gave her serious and perplexing thought, she 
 said. 
 
 " To begin with, I cannot let Mr. Lanier do any 
 thing more for us. Under his management, my 
 income ought to support the children and myself. 
 He is rich, and he is generous to a fault ; but he has 
 a family of his own, and you will understand me 
 when I say that we cannot afford nobody can afford 
 to be paupers." 
 
182 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 Elspeth nodded in grim sympathy. She seldom 
 spoke until a case was laid fully before her. 
 
 "We cannot get along without a horse and car 
 riage, but I propose, when Lanier s vacation begins, 
 to dismiss Aleck Sands, and let my big boy learn 
 how to take care of a horse. He will have to make 
 his way in the world, and the experience will be of 
 service to him. One day s work from Aleck in each 
 week will keep the garden in order, with such weed 
 ing as Tom and Edwin must be taught to do. The 
 two cows in your hands will supply us with milk and 
 butter, and the poultry-yard will be my affair. I 
 shall enjoy the open-air life and diversion it will 
 give me. 
 
 " Elspeth ! " coming to the point of the discourse, 
 " we must, in one way or another, manage to live 
 upon nine hundred dollars a year, the children s 
 schooling and all. I know that I can depend upon 
 you to help me do it." 
 
 "Ye may." 
 
 Whatever might be the spring of her mistress s 
 earnestness, she answered her as the helm the pilot s 
 grasp. 
 
 She had, in early life, subsisted and thriven upon 
 oatmeal porridge and milk, bannocks and tough 
 cheese, and was not now to be terrified by talk of 
 hardship. 
 
 " T wull likely come hard upon Master Lanier 
 and the bit laddies for a while," she subjoined, 
 tentatively. 
 
 " Lanier will understand. He has become a man 
 in the last few months, and is not ashamed to do a 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 183 
 
 man s work. I shall keep nothing back from him. 
 I know what his answer will be." 
 
 She folded the pair of Tom s socks she had 
 mended, picked up one of Gladys s stockings, ran 
 her hand into the toe, and, detecting a thin spot, 
 threaded her needle. The rattle of the shelled peas 
 falling from Elspeth s fingers, the singing of the 
 birds in the grove, and the distant voices of the chil 
 dren made a summer song to the murmured accom 
 paniment of the breeze in the pines. Elspeth did not 
 steal so much as a glimpse at the face which, she 
 divined, took on a graver thoughtfulness before the 
 mistress spoke again. 
 
 "Nor do I intend to conceal from you why we 
 must work hard and save all we can by simple living. 
 There was a debt of three thousand dollars which 
 Mr. Paull could not pay before he went abroad. Mr. 
 Lanier paid it. While I live, the interest upon that 
 money must be met regularly by me, or by my chil 
 dren, whatever Mr. Lanier may say to the contrary. 
 My husband had no claim upon him. I have made 
 my will. It orders, that, before my property is 
 divided among my heirs, the sum of three thousand 
 dollars shall be paid to Mr. Roger Lanier, or his 
 heirs. It is a debt of honor and of conscience. " 
 
 Again Elspeth gave her confirmatory nod. 
 
 "Three thousand dollars! The interest on that 
 wad be one hunder an eighty." 
 
 " At six per cent yes. " 
 
 " Where there s a wull there s a way, barring the 
 interfairence o Providence, which ye have nae call 
 to expect. What I have on my mind now goes to 
 
184 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 show that the leaning o Providence is quite in the 
 contrairy direction." 
 
 She plunged both bony hands into the basket of 
 peas at her side, brought up a bounteous supply, 
 which she bestowed in her aproned lap, and, eyes 
 intent upon her task, proceeded to empty her budget. 
 
 She had spent a day in the city a week ago, and 
 lunched with an old friend and fellow-countrywoman 
 whose husband kept a grocery upon Sixth Avenue. 
 In conversation with him at dinner, she had learned 
 that he would pay fifteen cents apiece for half -pint 
 tumblers of currant jelly of really excellent quality, 
 and stood prepared to take all she could send to 
 market. He would pay fourteen cents per glass for 
 grape, and the same for quince jelly; twelve cents 
 for marmalade and for nice preserves; for chow- 
 chow, picklette, and good mixed pickles, a dollar a 
 gallon; twelve cents a pint for catsup and chilli 
 sauce of the best quality. 
 
 At this point of the narrative, Elspeth brought 
 from her pocket a paper on which the same long 
 headed Scot had computed the cost of jars, glasses, 
 and bottles, at wholesale, and the freight to New 
 York, delivered at the dock. He would do the 
 hauling uptown with his own wagons. 
 
 " I ve put down in me own figures the wholesale 
 price o sugar, vinegar, spice, and the like," added 
 Elspeth. "The fruit ye have on yer own land for 
 the picking. Thanks to Mr. Lanier, there s wood 
 in the shed over yonder to last a full year: so 
 there s no expense of fuel. If me figures are correct, 
 ye should clear eight cent a glass on the jellies, 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 185 
 
 eight cents on the jam, and eight on the preserves ; 
 ye can buy butter-tubs from the grocers for yer 
 pickles for fifteen cents apiece, and new ones whole 
 sale for thirty cents. Ye suld mak on a evveredge 
 from fifty to sixty cents a gallon, and eight on every 
 bottle of catsup. There s no nicer pickles in 
 America than yours, and self-praise gaes leetle 
 ways, I know, but the mither wha tached me to mak 
 marmalade wad not hae been fashed had she heard 
 that hers was on the Queen s table." 
 
 Mrs. PaulPs hands, with stocking, darning-ball, 
 and needle, had fallen upon her lap ; she stared be 
 wildered at her lieutenant, as she returned the paper 
 to her pocket and dived for another double handful 
 of peas. 
 
 " You take my breath away ! " the lady found the 
 strength to ejaculate, at length. " Do you really 
 believe that you and I could make and send enough 
 of such things to market to make it worth our while 
 to undertake the work ? With all the rest that you 
 have to do ? " 
 
 "We could put up enough in a year by working 
 three days of each week in the summer to more 
 than half-pay yer interest money," declared the 
 parent of the astounding scheme. " We d mak that 
 our work. Just as a man goes into carpentering or 
 blacksmithing or whatnot-ing, or " her mouth 
 twitching " making marmalade for his leeving. 
 I ve had a-many serious thought o late months 
 ma am. We ve passed through that that sets folks 
 wits to working. And it s come to me I don t 
 believe from the de il either that one o God s 
 
186 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 ways o helping us when we are sair put aboot, and 
 cast down in spirit, is to give us some one particular 
 thing that we must do. Not to leave us to our own 
 devices, with leeberty to pick a bit at this duty an a 
 wee bit at that, as suits our notions. 
 
 "I can t but believe the needcessity of working 
 day by day, because that one peticklar thing has to 
 be done, and done then, would do more for you than 
 all the doctors on baith sides o the sea, or even the 
 sweet air of these blessed hills. There s all the 
 differ betwixt this sort of work-a-day living, and 
 that done by most ladies, that there was betwixt 
 the ploughing done once upon a time by my twa 
 brothers. Jem had his eyne on the ground, on the 
 sky, or anywhere, and Rab took tent o one tree at 
 the other end of the field, and never took his eyne 
 off of it. One furrow was like the wriggle of a 
 snake, and the other straight as a bow-string. " 
 
 " There is a great deal of truth in what you have 
 said. The same thought has been with me often 
 lately. I have found my mind swinging back to 
 what I most wish to forget, as soon as I sit down 
 quietly to my sewing, and, now and then, when I 
 awake early in the morning, the old question comes 
 in upon my mind, Is life worth getting up for ? 
 
 She was looking across the lake at a certain obtuse 
 peak in the second range of hills. It had reminded 
 her, when she first saw it, she could not have told 
 why or how of the " Old Hoaryhead " of Jacob 
 Abbott s ever-delightful book of that name. Into 
 the midst of thoughts excited by what they had been 
 talking of, recurred to her now the proposition by 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 187 
 
 Gilbert s mother on the evening of the day in which 
 they had heard that they could not have the house 
 they had hoped to buy : - 
 
 " Cannot we do something to keep us from think 
 ing about it ? " 
 
 Gilbert had answered, "We might make maple 
 candy. " 
 
 While they were busied in the manufacture of the 
 maple candy, came the news that the home they 
 desired was to be theirs after all. 
 
 A sharp pain caught and sobered the dawning 
 smile with which she recalled the story. Nothing 
 could reverse the current of her life. Streams 
 diverted from their course by earthquakes do not 
 flow back into the old channels. The river-beds are 
 themselves riven and upheaved. 
 
 Yet Elspeth was wise in her generation. There 
 is wisdom in every age in the pursuit of a specific 
 line of labor as a balm for bruised hearts and bleed 
 ing sensibilities. " Something to take our thoughts 
 off of ourselves " is the homely phrase for the con 
 ditions in which work is most truly God s medicine 
 for his smitten ones. 
 
 "The idea gains upon me," she continued, after a 
 thoughtful pause. "We are a colony in ourselves, 
 a community with few ties to that which lies about 
 us. Why not establish an industry of our own ? be 
 a hive of working-bees, and not drones or butter 
 flies ? " 
 
 Elspeth caught at one word : 
 
 "I had thought of bees for Miss Marie, after 
 a while, when her schooling is done. There s acres 
 
188 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 of white clover, and buckwheat, and linden-trees yon 
 by the lake. If she could fasten so much as one 
 thought upon something near her home, it would 
 be mair halesome for her. Mr. Cameron had his 
 word to say aboot bees, as well as the preserves and 
 pickles. He tellt me of one man who spent twenty- 
 five dollars in hives and bees, and the very next 
 year he gathered fifteen hunder punds of honey. 
 Bees are friendly, lovin creatures, and if Miss 
 Marie wad hearken to the notion, she d tak kindly 
 to them at the end. But, it s not to be gainsaid that 
 she is a very determined lassie. " 
 
 Did the loving nurse suspect how "determined," 
 or the deadly sinking of the mother s heart at the 
 mention of the wilful child, who, of all her brood, 
 held her eyes waking into the far watches of the 
 night ? vigils in which one query was rung like a 
 warning knell through the chambers of thought, 
 " What will be the end of it all ? " Labor for a defi 
 nite and desired end might bring temporary relief 
 from the wearing burden, but the cross would settle 
 back into its place as soon as she let herself think of 
 her love for her girl, and the gulf that gaped between 
 them more widely every day. 
 
 "A determined lassie!" Her repetition of the 
 words was an inward groan. 
 
CHAPTEE XI. 
 
It is the duty of all to be firm in that which they 
 certainly know is right for them to do. 
 
 JOHN WOOLMAN. 
 
 He often acts unjustly who does not do a certain 
 thing; not only he who does a certain thing. 
 
 MARCUS ANTONINUS. 
 
 Evil, once manfully fronted, ceases to be evil. There 
 is generous battle-hope in place of dead, passive misery. 
 The evil itself has become a kind of good. 
 
 THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 MR. MORSE was a, model country pastor, whom 
 the appellation, always respectful, sometimes 
 affectionate, of "Dominie," fitted as naturally as his 
 skin. His sermons, as Mrs. Paull had already 
 discovered, would never be brilliant, or striking in 
 originality. They would never be dull, or devoid of 
 spiritual instruction. Out of the pulpit, he was 
 leader, teacher, and brother. All this his people 
 knew and appreciated, without a glimmer of a sus 
 picion that he was (for their good it is true) as very 
 an autocrat in the hill township as was ever a Leo 
 or a Gregory in his papal see. 
 
 He met Mrs. Paull, introduced by her daughter, 
 with the easy freemasonry of one who had been at 
 home in the world she had left. A reader of men, 
 rather than of books, he had many acquaintances in 
 New York, and he had kept step mentally with the 
 advanced line of workers in church and letters. Of 
 the Laniers, father and son, he had heard through 
 those who were his personal friends and theirs. He 
 asked not one word of her husband, a circumstance 
 that might be significant or unimportant. He might 
 imagine that she was a widow ; it was possible that, 
 through some of these same personal friends, he had 
 become cognizant of what she had hoped to leave 
 behind her when she had quitted the city. In either 
 
192 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 case he was a gentleman, and spared her needless 
 pain. 
 
 "You have come into a quiet, orderly, God-fearing 
 and kindly neighborhood," Mr. Morse was saying 
 when she shook herself free from the haunting 
 thought. "Primitive in their mode of living, and, 
 you may think, narrow in many ways, but should 
 you ever be in trouble, they will show themselves to 
 be made of the right stuff. I have lived among them 
 for ten years, happily, and I hope not uselessly. 
 They are a peculiar people in some respects, these 
 New Jersey farming folk. The New England yeoman 
 is not more sturdy in his independence and pride of 
 ancestry. Many of them live upon the very lands 
 granted to their forefathers by the English crown; 
 yet there was not a Tory in the Pequod Valley when 
 Washington pitched his camp upon the beetling cliff 
 you see over there. More than one bloody skirmish 
 took place upon the road on which I found this 
 young lady to-day," smiling at Marie. 
 
 He and she were friends already. Mrs. Paull 
 was surprised and gratified that the smile was 
 brightly returned, and yet more when the girl joined 
 in the talk, asking questions as to local traditions, 
 the names of their nearer neighbors, and the make 
 up of families, and engaging readily to take a class 
 in the Sunday school, should her services be needed 
 during her vacation. It was plain that she had 
 taken an unusual liking to the frank-faced clergy 
 man, and that his society, or the walk or drive, had 
 aroused her out of the morose apathy that had 
 enwrapped her for so long. 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 193 
 
 Yet when he took leave, she was flying off to her 
 own room, without word or sign to her mother. 
 
 " Marie, love, come and sit out here with me ! " 
 called the latter from the porch. " I have something 
 which I wish to talk over with you." 
 
 Feigning not to observe the partial scowl upon 
 the fair young face, she pulled a chair close to her 
 own, and motioned her daughter into it. 
 
 "Elspeth has broached an extraordinary scheme 
 to me this morning, " she went on to say. " Since 
 your co-operation will be an important factor in our 
 plans, I am impatient to see how it will impress 
 you." 
 
 Elspeth, passing from kitchen to dining-room in 
 preparation for the early country dinner, marvelled 
 secretly at the mixture of wisdom and simplicity in 
 the manner of the mother s communication. That 
 which had commended the novel undertaking to the 
 wife must be withheld from the defaulter s daughter, 
 and in the place of reimbursement of the stolen 
 funds, the hope of retrieving in some degree the 
 fallen fortunes of the family must be made much of. 
 
 "We shall never be rich, dear," said the refined 
 tones, wondrously gentle and cordial in the ear of 
 one who had seen the speaker held persistently at 
 arm s-length during the period when physical infirm 
 ity and heartache should have commended her to 
 her child s tenderest sympathy. " While we live ill 
 this retired quarter of the world we cannot expect to 
 be society people. But we can be a busy, happy, 
 self-supporting community, working harmoniously 
 together for one and the same end. There is a sort 
 
 13 
 
194 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 of Swiss Family Robinsonish flavor in the scheme 
 that makes it inviting to me. I see already, in 
 imagination, that long storeroom on the north side 
 of the dining-room filled with jars and glasses ready 
 to be shipped to market. Does n t that sound im 
 portant ? There are literally bushels of currants, 
 red, white, and black, in the garden, that will be 
 ripe in a week or so; raspberries, wild and culti 
 vated, will be ready for picking by the time the 
 strawberries are gone; the quince-hedge at the 
 bottom of the orchard is loaded with fruit, and there 
 are four large Siberian crab-trees, not to speak of 
 other apple and pear-trees oh ! and plenty of grapes 
 in the garden and woods, for jelly. The fruit on 
 this place would seem to have been a hobby with 
 the former owner. Elspeth sees a special providence 
 in this." 
 
 Her manner was the livelier for the effort she was 
 compelled to make to ignore the forbidding silence 
 with which her remarks were received, and not to 
 betray the failure in courage it caused. She was by 
 temperament, and in practice, brave beyond the aver 
 age of her sex, but she had discovered lately that she 
 was actually afraid of Marie. 
 
 In nearly every household where there are several 
 members, there is to be found almost invariably one 
 who has a Temper (with a capital T) ; as invariably, 
 this member is the object of more consideration than 
 any or all of the rest. Let temper take on what 
 guise it may, it demands, expects, and receives, 
 solicitous conciliation. The owner may be "sensi 
 tive," and her tender-heartedness express itself in 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 195 
 
 tears as softly-abundant as the flow of Sweet Afton. 
 It may choose to be classed as Moods, many, and 
 varying in intensity and duration. There is the 
 Dynamite Mood, around which friends and kindred 
 step with stockinged feet and cautious respiration. 
 It may be the Slow Combustion Mood, lurid and 
 dull, like ignited subterranean coal-beds, betrayed 
 only by a puff of smoke through an occasional 
 fissure, until, all at once, everything gives way 
 before the heat, and lives are wrecked in an abyss 
 of vindictiveness. In all phases these are Temper 
 (with a capital T) ; not necessarily the child of 
 the devil, rather like fire, a good servant, but the 
 worst of masters. Finally, I may observe that the 
 most effectual way of nursing it into masterful 
 proportions is by showing it the respect I have 
 alluded to as the practice of many Christian folk 
 who have to do with it. 
 
 In nine times out of ten, sinful temporizing with 
 Temper (with a capital T) begins when the offenders 
 are no older than our cherubic would-be tyrants. It 
 is easier, argue mistaken parents and friends, to go 
 around a hill than over it; it is easier to fill up 
 valleys than to tunnel mountains ; yet shrewd engi 
 neers drive rocks to their adamantine hearts, and run 
 their roads right through them. Peace is dear to 
 the mother s soul, but it is dearly bought by the 
 sacrifice of lawful authority and the subversion of 
 the rights of those whose claim to consideration is 
 as worthy of respect as that of the Temper s owner. 
 The chief sufferer, however, from this system of 
 amiable or cowardly truckling to the leashed wolf of 
 
196 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 the home, is he whose own the beast is. For a while 
 the creature may follow meekly at heel, or stalk with 
 red eyes and dripping tusks at his master s side, 
 ready to rend at his command. In the end, he is 
 sure to spring at his leader s throat. 
 
 Mrs. Paull was a good woman, and, as a rule, 
 judicious in the management of her children. That 
 Marie was spoiled to some extent by her father, she 
 had seen from the girl s babyhood, and that certain 
 inherited traits made her spiritual education a more 
 arduous undertaking than that of her brother. In 
 the excess of compassionate tenderness that over 
 flowed her heart in the discovery of the girl s morbid 
 wretchedness and exaggerated loyalty to her absent 
 parent, began the course of treatment which the 
 mother would have characterized as mischievous and 
 short-sighted in another. She had helped to nurse 
 discontented fancies and preposterous conceits of 
 sublime self-devotion. In constituting herself her 
 father s champion against his traducers, the daugh 
 ter had arrayed her powers against the foes in his 
 own household. Refusing blindly to credit one 
 item in her uncle s indictment of the embezzler and 
 bigamist, she virtually accused the wife of weakness, 
 or open want of fealty to her husband. In the 
 creed of the youthful judge, Ernest Paull s lightest 
 word should have outweighed any accumulation of 
 evidence brought by others. The lofty generosity 
 that made Alice Paull submit to censure of herself, 
 and accept the lowered place in her child s esteem, 
 sooner than break the idol of gilded clay which the 
 misguided votary adored as pure gold, told incal- 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 197 
 
 culably against her. The patient ingenuity of love 
 that strove to beguile the wilful mourner into 
 healthier lines of thought was misread as the mean- 
 spiritedness of a woman who knew herself to be in 
 fault, and would cast dust in the penetrating eyes of 
 her accuser. 
 
 In a word, the whole policy of forbearance with 
 the girl s perverse imaginings was the surest con 
 ceivable method of confirming her errors and vitiat 
 ing what was noble in her nature. She had grown 
 into the habit of viewing Marie Paull as the most 
 important and interesting personage in her small 
 world, which she gradually contracted by this per 
 suasion. A stubborn, fanciful, passionate child, she 
 was elevated into a heroine by self-love and the 
 mother s ill-judged indulgence. 
 
 The story is not pleasant in the telling, or in the 
 hearing. It would be more tolerable were it not the 
 repetition of the history of hundreds of other homes 
 in which the eldest daughter green in years and in 
 judgment is promoted to the dictatorship in family 
 councils. While the mother lives in the possession 
 of a moderate degree of bodily health, and such 
 intellect as the Lord has given her, and which was 
 hers when her husband endowed her with all his 
 worldly goods, her abdication in favor of the wisest, 
 discreetest, and best of daughters is violence done to 
 natural law. She is queen-regnant until death or 
 disease wrests the sceptre from her nerveless hand. 
 
 Marie sat in the chair to which her mother had 
 directed her, the sweet summer air fluttering the 
 rings of golden hair above her forehead, the goodly 
 
198 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 panorama of velvet lawn, laughing waters, and the 
 wooded heights rising toward the ineffable blue of the 
 June heavens, spread before blank eyes that saw 
 them not. The very fact that appeal was made to 
 her to ratify the scheme sketched by Elspeth and 
 seconded by her mother, settled her belief in the 
 value of her opinion, and predisposed her to dissent. 
 These two women knew themselves to be so far 
 wrong, and her so entirely right in the main question 
 at issue between her and themselves, that they were 
 afraid of her. Her word was fast becoming law in 
 the household ; her adverse vote would have the force 
 of a veto. Her mother had artfully seized upon the 
 moment when the meeting with a sensible man who 
 could appreciate a young woman of parts had, as 
 the elder woman supposed, put her into a sunny 
 humor, to spring the absurd proposition upon her. 
 It was of a piece with the transparent wheedling of 
 which she was continually the disdainful subject 
 when in her nominal home. 
 
 She meant that her face should harden as she 
 listened ; she did not know that it was likewise 
 supercilious. 
 
 "Well?" she said, as her mother ceased, with 
 what she designed as a haughty cadence, and which 
 was provokingly pert. 
 
 Elspeth stopped stock-still in the kitchen door, a 
 wrathful glare in her eyes that her petted nursling 
 had never beheld there. 
 
 The patient parent made yet another effort to 
 propitiate her auditor. 
 
 "You will, I am sure, agree with me, my love, 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 199 
 
 that we ought not to draw further upon resources 
 that are not our own. Yet our expenses cannot be 
 lessened to any considerable extent for some years 
 to come. Lanier has still three years at college, and 
 you two more at school, and while I can and shall 
 continue to teach the little ones at home for some 
 time to come, the boys must, after a while, go to 
 school. I am thankful for the prospect so unex 
 pectedly opened of adding to a non-elastic income. 
 As to what may be said of our new industry, we can 
 certainly afford to be independent of popular opinion, 
 especially in this out-of-the-way quarter of the world, 
 even if there were any reason why we should be 
 ashamed of honest labor. If I were an artist, or a 
 famous author," with a sickly attempt at playful- 
 nesSj "I should glory in exercising my talents for 
 the sake of making money. If I have a taste - 
 talent may be too dignified a word for jellies, 
 pickles, and catsups, why not improve it to the same 
 honorable end ? You recollect how Miss Dunstable, 
 in Framley Parsonage, prided herself upon the 
 fortune made by the hereditary Ointment ? We 
 will think up a telling name for our place here, and 
 have some labels lettered with it, or, perhaps, when 
 our reputation is made, may go to the length of hav 
 ing it blown in the glass. Think of it ! Who knows 
 but my name may go down to a grateful posterity 
 along with Mrs. Bundle s and Mrs. Glasse s ? " 
 
 "If that is your ambition, I hope that you will 
 use Lanier, and not Paull, " retorted Marie, in a 
 tone as offensive as the words. "As my father s 
 representative, I have the right to say that much." 
 
200 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 Observing the pale surprise in her mother s face, 
 she went on inexorably : 
 
 "You should not have asked my opinion, if you 
 did not want it, mother. I know that this whole 
 enterprise, as you call it, born, you would have me 
 believe, in the brains of Elspeth and her Scotch 
 grocer, would be abominable in his sight. How 
 ever little we may care about maintaining our posi 
 tion as ladies among those with whom we have been 
 accustomed to associate, I hold that something is 
 due to his reputation as a gentleman. He would 
 feel outraged and disgraced forever were he to hear 
 that a jam-and-pickle factory was established in his 
 house. In his name, and for his honor, I shall fight 
 the detestable plan to the end. " 
 
 " I aye thocht " came in grating accents and Els- 
 peth s broadest Scotch from the kitchen door "I 
 aye thocht, being a fule body wha fears God and 
 honors her betters, and is gr-r-ratfu to them wha 
 hae loaded her wi benefeets that it war Meester-r-r 
 Lanier s hoose wha keepit oot th rain o heaven 
 an the heat o simmer, an wull shelter their 
 bairnies an their mither frae th winter s cauld. " 
 
 Marie sprang to her feet, and wheeled upon her, 
 eyes blazing and face dark with anger. 
 
 " How dare you interfere between my mother and 
 myself ? How dare you remind me that I am obliged 
 to live under that man s roof, and to eat the bread 
 of his charity ? the man who, if you two would tell 
 the truth, is at the bottom of this degrading plan for 
 pulling my father s children down to the level of 
 factory-operatives and hucksters ! Oh, " wringing 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 201 
 
 her hands and bursting into a storm of passionate 
 tears, " if he were here, we should soon see who is 
 master, he, or Roger Lanier, whose puppets you 
 two are ! " 
 
 Mrs. Paull arose from her seat, deliberately, and 
 with calm severity. The likeness to her brother 
 was marked as she confronted the mad creature, 
 putting a firm hand upon each quivering shoulder. 
 
 "Elspeth," to the thunder-stricken servant, 
 " please leave us ! Marie, stop crying, and listen to 
 me ! Your coarse violence has forced me to say what 
 I had not intended to have pass my lips, at this, or 
 any time. But for him of whom you speak, there 
 would be no necessity for the work which I propose 
 to carry on without further consultation with you ; 
 and until you can treat your mother with something 
 like the respect due to her age and position, I forbid 
 you to mention him again in this, your uncle s 
 house. Now go to your room, and come down at 
 dinner-time in a more reasonable frame of mind." 
 
 "I am not to be treated like a child ! " sobbed the 
 insulted heroine. 
 
 "Then do not behave like one," said Mrs. Paull, 
 coolly. " Gladys, dear, it is time for your music 
 lesson." 
 
 The muffled scales and exercises run by the small 
 fingers under the gentle tuition of her mother, arose 
 through the flooring on which heroic Marie stretched 
 herself to have her cry out. When the baby sister 
 tapped at her door to say that dinner was on the 
 table, there was no response. 
 
 "She may be asleep," remarked the mistress of 
 
202 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 the house, composedly, when this report was made. 
 "We will not disturb her." 
 
 The sun had set, and supper was eaten, before the 
 young lady of the house appeared below stairs. Mrs. 
 Paull was writing at a table in the shade of the 
 honeysuckles. Marie passed her with level chin and 
 proud step, went out to the barn, thence to the poul 
 try-yard, in search of the man-of-all-work, returning 
 presently, unsuccessful. 
 
 "Aleck has gone t o the village, my dear," her 
 mother remarked pleasantly, glancing at the bulky 
 envelope in her daughter s hand. "Your letter is 
 too late for the evening mail, but Elspeth will take 
 it when she goes to the city to-morrow. " 
 
 She resumed her writing, which the discomfited 
 heroine could not help seeing was a long memo 
 randum. 
 
 Elspeth s errand was then the purchase of ma 
 chinery for the abhorrent jam-and-jelly manufacture ! 
 
 Her mother looked up again, seemingly unobservant 
 of the sodden complexion and drooping eyelids that 
 told their tale of the afternoon s experiences. 
 
 " Elspeth is keeping your supper hot for you, my 
 daughter. You would better get it now. " 
 
 With the mortifying reminiscence fresh in her 
 mind of Elspeth s summary measures upon the occa 
 sion of a former refusal to partake of the food pre 
 pared for her, Marie deemed it best to obey the 
 recommendation. After which she betook herself 
 again unchallenged to her locked chamber, and tore 
 off the envelopes of two letters to add a postscript 
 to one: 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 203 
 
 " Will you not let me come to you, darling papa ? 
 I would rather starve at your side than live anywhere 
 else away from you. And I am very, very miserable 
 here ! Nobody sympathizes with, or understands me. 
 I feel, as never before, that you are the one being 
 upon earth who ever entered into my finer feelings. 
 How well I recollect hearing you once repeat some 
 lines beginning, - 
 
 4 The frigid and unfeeling thrive the best ! 
 
 " Your little song-bird has her breast against the 
 thorn now ! " 
 
CHAPTER XII, 
 
It is not by regretting what is irreparable that true 
 work is to be done, but by making the best of what we 
 are. It is not by complaining that we have not the 
 right tools, but by using well the tools we have. 
 
 F. W. ROBERTSON. 
 
 In just that very place of His 
 Where he hath put and keepeth you, 
 God hath no other thing to do. 
 
 ADELINE D. T. WHITNEY. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 LANIER PAULL did not come home at the 
 close of the college term. He wrote, instead, 
 to communicate a proposal made by the wealthy 
 father of a classmate, that Lanier should accompany 
 his son to the family country-seat, near Keene, N. H., 
 to " coach " the lad in mathematics during the vaca 
 tion. Young Paull, although not yet nineteen, stood 
 high in his classes for scholarship and steadiness, 
 and had gained an influence over the decidedly indo 
 lent and somewhat wild boy which the father wished 
 to strengthen. For four hours work a day, and a 
 general supervision of his friend s associations and 
 pursuits, Lanier would receive two hundred and fifty 
 dollars a month, his board and lodgings. 
 
 "I cannot afford to let the offer slip through my 
 fingers, mother darling," said the letter. "Uncle 
 Roger, who came up to Commencement, agrees with 
 me, but begs me to run down to New Jersey for a 
 peep at you. As Mr. Bradley and his son leave to 
 morrow for Keene, and would like to have me go 
 with them, this cannot be, even if there were no 
 question of expense in the way and there is. We 
 are one, you and I (when were we otherwise ? ) in 
 sentiment as to further drains upon the purse of the 
 noblest, most open-hearted and open-handed man 
 
208 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 that ever lived. I am thankful for this opportunity 
 to pay my way through college next term, and to 
 relieve your dear, over-full hands of the weight. " 
 
 Until the news came, the mother had not confessed 
 to her own heart how hungrily she longed for the 
 presence of her first-born, the tall, broad-shouldered 
 fellow, who was in person and character so much 
 more the man than his years warranted. In the 
 poignancy of her disappointment at Marie s undutiful 
 behavior, she turned with fonder desire to him with 
 whom she was ever at one in thought and purpose. 
 
 The letter was received just one week after the 
 fruit-preserving industry was resolved upon. With 
 the recollection of the terrible scene with his sister 
 sore in her mind, she had determined to wait until 
 she could explain details face-to-face, before taking 
 him into her counsel. The necessity of setting it 
 down upon paper, with no opportunity of softening 
 this feature of the work and emphasizing that, was, 
 in itself, a tax upon her nerves. By return mail 
 she had a long reply, full of encouragement, and 
 admiration of the "pluckiest of all plucky women," 
 tempered by loving concern lest she should overtax 
 her bodily powers. From her brother she kept the 
 whole matter secret, as yet. Sensible and high- 
 minded as he was, she could not be sure that he 
 might not shrink from the suggestion of manual 
 labor and trading for her, and insist upon increasing 
 her income in some other way Should he suspect 
 the specific purpose for which she was to work, he 
 would undoubtedly put down the enterprise with the 
 strong hand few could resist. 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 209 
 
 So it came to pass that in the initial stages of the 
 task, Elspeth was her only coadjutor. She it was 
 who insisted upon going to the city to buy gallipots, 
 glasses, firkins, and bottles, with such groceries as 
 would be needed, driving bargains that opened her 
 mistress s eyes with amazement upon the energetic 
 thrift of the Scotch character, and stirred with 
 amusement the lines of a mouth that was forming 
 into pathetic curves sadly unlike the spirited bow of 
 earlier years. 
 
 With wise decision, for which Elspeth was not 
 prepared, Mrs. Paull assigned to Marie a stated 
 round of domestic cares, in order that her mother and 
 the tireless maid-of-all-work might have more time 
 for the duties of the season. While careful that the 
 girl should not become a household drudge, the 
 mother gave her to understand that she was respon 
 sible for the condition of her own and Gladys s 
 clothing, for the cleanliness and order of her bed 
 room and the parlor, and for the tasteful array of the 
 table at each meal. If the girl s performance of 
 the allotted duties was lifeless and perfunctory, the 
 service of a slave, who could not gainsay her task- 
 mistress, Mrs. Paull gave no sign of perceiving it. 
 Nor did she wince visibly in the sight of daughter 
 or servant, at the distant respect with which the 
 former addressed her, and the studious literalness of 
 her obedience to orders. 
 
 The little boys threw themselves eagerly into fruit- 
 gathering, each dropping daily into his savings-bank 
 the pennies paid to them for so many quarts of 
 strawberries, currants, and raspberries measured by 
 
 14 
 
210 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 Elspeth. Even the baby had her harvest and her 
 hoard. 
 
 "They say that bairnies work is more plague 
 than profit," said the serving-woman, one hot 
 July day, as she extracted from the heap of " black 
 caps " upon a broad platter, green caps and frag 
 ments of stems and leaves, indicative of juvenile 
 industry. " I dare say that s true, if all that the 
 work is worth is what grown people gain from it." 
 
 Her eyes strayed affectionately to the trio, who 
 were having an afternoon tea-party of bread and 
 butter, berries and milk, upon a flat rock in the 
 shadow of a bushy lilac. 
 
 "I m thinking, though, that they are mair content 
 for believing that they are helping along the wark 
 o the warld. I m minded, in watching them, o th 
 laddie who, when the men could not get the vessel 
 off the stocks, ran and pushed with all his wee might 
 against the hull. For, says he, I can push a 
 pound. The tale goes that the great ship slipped 
 right down into the water. All the force of the men 
 who were straining to launch her happened to fall 
 short of just that one pund. I have me doubts o 
 that pairt o th tale, but that doesn t alter the 
 moral. It s the old parable o th talents all the 
 way through. The main thing for all is the good 
 the helping does to him that gives it. If it s only 
 going through th motions, it s somehow healthy for 
 the soul. I mind when I first cam to this country, 
 and lived for a year in Quebec, I used to see the 
 garrison drilling night and morning as careful as if 
 the enemy was in sight of the walls. T was the 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 211 
 
 drill made soldiers of them mair than the fighting, 
 which, it s likely, some o them never gat. I ve 
 known lads to enlist, and live to be old men, and 
 never smell powder that had a hall at the front of it. " 
 
 Mrs. Paull s eyes followed Elspeth to the sturdy 
 urchins and their pretty little sister, the queen of 
 the feast, all as brown as buns, from the country 
 breezes, and glowing with health. 
 
 " Our children are certainly happier for thinking 
 that we cannot do without them, which is true. 
 Now that they are out of hearing, and are quiet for a 
 little while, I wish to consult you, Elspeth, about a 
 letter Mr. Morse brought to me from the post-office 
 this forenoon. He very thoughtfully stopped at the 
 store on his way up, supposing, as he said, that I 
 should not like to send Marie down the hill on such a 
 warm day. He is a kind, good neighbor and friend." 
 
 She was unfolding a double sheet, closely written. 
 
 " Mrs. Barnes would like to find a boarding-place 
 for a month, for herself and Harry. He is just 
 Gladys s age, you know. Elizabeth has gone abroad 
 with her father, and Will is at his grandmother s in 
 the neighborhood of Newburyport, Mass. Mrs. 
 Barnes thinks the mountain air will be better for 
 her, as a change from the seashore. She wishes to 
 live very quietly, somewhere near us. 
 
 " She says : I should be willing to take care of 
 my own room; and as to fare, with good country 
 bread and butter, fresh milk and eggs and vegetables, 
 we shall be satisfied, even if meats are indifferent 
 and desserts uneatable. 
 
 "I know little of farm-fare hereabouts, but that 
 
212 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 little makes me doubt if she will not find more soda- 
 biscuit than good home-made bread, or if any vege 
 tables except potatoes and cabbages are frequent 
 visitors to our neighbors tables. Yet it would be 
 an unspeakable comfort to have my dear old friend 
 near me just now for a few weeks." 
 
 " The sight o her bonnie face would be gude for sair 
 een," responded Scotch Elspeth, briefly, "We must 
 speir around a bit for a comfortable nest for her. " 
 
 The subject was not brought up again until the 
 berries were boiled into jam of jelly-like consistency, 
 sealed up in the gallipots, which Elspeth had been at 
 great pains to procure, because they " minded " 
 her of those in which the Dundee marmalade is 
 preserved, and the jars had joined the hundred-and- 
 fifty glasses of currant jelly gleaming redly upon the 
 long shelves of the store-room. 
 
 "Ten dozen of the marmalade," said Elspeth, 
 shutting the door of the treasure-chamber. "An 
 warranted to keep till the Day o Judgment, when, 
 as I tak it, though there 11 be neither jelly nor 
 jelly-making, the deeds o all men and women will 
 be made known, whether they ve done good, or 
 whether they ve done evil. There s religion in 
 jam-making, as well as in preaching and praying. 
 To scant the sugar and th time o b iling is eenee- 
 quity, according to the Auld Testament, and to th 
 New." 
 
 The jars had not been packed away until they were 
 perfectly cold. It was now nearly eight o clock. 
 The children were in their beds; Mrs. Morse had 
 come by in the afternoon to invite Marie to go home 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 213 
 
 with her, her young sister and her brother from 
 Philadelphia having arrived unexpectedly the pre 
 ceding day. Mrs. Paull gave her consent with 
 grateful alacrity. Ungracious as Marie had proved 
 herself of late, the mother-heart yearned over her 
 in unspoken pity. A week before, she had proposed 
 to the lonely girl to invite Carrie Storrs to spend 
 a month with them, a suggestion contemptuously 
 negatived. 
 
 "I should be ashamed to invite her, or any of the 
 other girls to visit me here," her nostrils curling, 
 as the odor of boiling sweets saluted them. "No! 
 tradespeople should associate with tradespeople. I 
 do not complain of my solitude. " 
 
 Nevertheless, she had gone off blithely with the 
 clergyman s wife, with whom she was always 
 friendly. The ring of the happy laugh borne back 
 to the house from the receding carriage had wan 
 dered drearily through the listener s memory ever 
 since. It was the echo of a departed joy, music 
 once as familiar as the sight of the radiant face, and 
 the strain about the mother s neck of arms that 
 never rested there now. 
 
 This thought it was, and not physical weariness, 
 that moved her to the sigh with which she sank into 
 her accustomed seat on the piazza, and looked out 
 toward the fading glories of the late sunset. 
 
 Pink and gold were changing into the purple 
 bloom of the June twilight that does not grow cold 
 until an hour before the morrow s dawn. In the 
 heart of the grove beyond the orchard the thrushes 
 prolonged their evening service ; the mountains were 
 
214 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 stretching themselves out to sleep, wrapped in robes 
 that had the rich blue of a ripe plum; the rising 
 dew was freighted with the perfume of honeysuckle 
 and cinnamon roses, thyme, bergamot, and lavender. 
 Elspeth s kitchen was " redd up " so thoroughly that 
 all traces of the day s business were purged from 
 the air. Her range shone blackly; the sweet damp 
 ness of newly scrubbed boards softened the dry heat; 
 brasses and tins glimmered through the duskiness of 
 the side most remote from the door. Comfort, 
 cleanliness, and rest abode within-doors ; without, 
 beauty and peace. As the twilight spread and 
 mounted, the young moon, a frail sickle of tender 
 light, with one brilliant planet so near and so 
 directly under the lower tip that one could have 
 fancied it pendent from it by a viewless chain, 
 appeared above the broad band of vapor, brownish- 
 dun below, dull crimson on the upper edge, that lay 
 behind the hills. 
 
 Elspeth had another simile for the crescent and 
 the star. 
 
 "A foolish body that knew naught o the ways o 
 the heavenly bodies might think the moon had 
 melted a bit, and a drop had caught on summat, 
 instead o coming all the way to the earth. " 
 
 She had donned a clean gingham (she was fond of 
 pronounced plaids) and a white apron; a starched 
 kerchief was crossed stiffly over her flat chest. Her 
 sleeves were buttoned at the wrist in token that her 
 day s work was accomplished. Except while she 
 waited at table, they had been pinned up to her 
 shoulders ever since she arose with the sun, and 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 215 
 
 revealed arms as muscular as a prize-fighter s. She 
 had taken up her stand against one of the small 
 numerous pillars upbearing the far-projecting roof, 
 her knitting in hand. She never needed to look at 
 her needles while shaping a stocking. She wore 
 none but those of her own fashioning, and kept the 
 chubby legs of the boys similarly clad up to the 
 herns of their knickerbockers. 
 
 Giving a nervous pull to the ball in her apron 
 pocket, she continued, - 
 
 "I dare say, now, ma am, that Mrs. Barnes could 
 paint all that into a braw picture." 
 
 " Hardly, I think, Elspeth. Nor could any artist. 
 Colors such as those are not to be bought." 
 
 " I m thinking that ye may be right, ma am. But 
 she could, no doobt, come as nigh to it as any of 
 them. She s a clever one, is Mrs. Barnes, and that 
 knows how to use her fingers as well as her tongue, 
 and, ye might say, her head better than either hands 
 or tongue. I wish she war here the night, ma am, 
 to help ye enjoy what ye are seeing this minute. " 
 
 " You enjoy it with me, Elspeth. " 
 
 " Not with the liking ye and the likes o ye have 
 for it, ma am. It s no good for ye to have none o 
 yer kind aboot ye. Blood is blood " (she pronounced 
 it like "good"), "and education aye opens the door 
 o the lips the one to the other, and the understanding 
 also. If Mrs. Barnes were sitting there beside ye, 
 there wad, mayhap, less be said than is spake now. 
 But ye d feel in yersel what she war thinking, and 
 she the same with you. It is n t just now that the 
 thought has taken tent o me. Mony s the time 
 
216 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 when I m fair daft wi wondering how to clear 
 some o the thorns out o yer road." 
 
 Tears seldom seen there welled to Mrs. PaulPs 
 eyes. 
 
 In no external manifestation of inward discipline 
 is the difference between vulgarity and refinement 
 more apparent than in the habit of restraining or 
 of giving way to watery grief. The weak woman 
 yields to the selfish tide if she break a tea-cup or 
 tear a gown; the underbred hireling wails aloud if 
 she has a tooth drawn, or cuts her finger. She who 
 has studied from her cradle to be mistress of herself, 
 smiles under the knife that separates bone from 
 llesh and joint from marrow. 
 
 The spray she saw her mistress brush furtively 
 from her lashes, before she smiled up at her, was a 
 token to the servant of how deep was the hold her 
 heroic fidelity had taken upon the lady s heart. 
 
 " No one has removed more thorns and stones than 
 yourself, my dear, faithful friend. God has given 
 me no stronger arm than yours to lean upon. If I 
 do not tell you this oftener, it is not that I do not 
 feel it continually, and do not thank Him upon 
 every remembrance of you. You have continued 
 with me in my temptation, Elspeth. He who knows 
 the bitterness of my trial will reward you. I never 
 can." 
 
 Across the charmed silence of the summer night 
 that lay between them solemnly placid now that 
 the thrushes had ceased their hymning struck a 
 queer muffled sound like the whirring of a snap 
 ping clock-spring. In another minute, Elspeth had 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 217 
 
 cleared her throat, spoke as usual, even a little 
 more dryly : 
 
 "I m aye awkward at threshing aboot the bush, 
 ma ain, as ye know fu well. What I ve had in me 
 mind to say since ye tellt me of Mrs. Barnes s letter 
 was to ask ye why we can t give her and the wee 
 laddie the north chamber yon, " jerking her head 
 sidewards and backwards at the same time, " and 
 let this be the farmhouse where she 11 get board. 
 She 11 not be lacking bread and the milk, the butter 
 and vegetables, and all the rest of it, in peace and 
 plenty. The laddie will be content wi ours, and 
 there s no sweeter air this side o the New Jerusalem. 
 Of that she may be sure. And for the two of ye, 
 ma am, it wad be going back to the lang syne she 
 spake of when she first sent you the box of bonnie 
 roses d ye mind ? " 
 
 She had her reward in part for the new proof of 
 unselfish devotion to her idolized mistress in the 
 animation with which the plan was discussed and 
 finally adopted. 
 
 A letter went off to Brooklyn next day. 
 
 In four days thereafter the old school-fellows slept 
 under the farmstead roof, and Harry was joyfully 
 adopted into the family of lesser folk. 
 
 From the moment she alighted from the carriage 
 that had brought her from the market-town of Ped- 
 dlington, nine miles away, and where was the nearest 
 railway station to Pequod, Mrs. Barnes was an in 
 tegral part of the modest establishment; her light, 
 swift touches infused new spirit into everything. 
 She made the boys happy by sketching them in their 
 
218 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 berrying-clothes, clever portraits that anybody 
 would have known at a glance or two. Each boy 
 rapturously identified his own berry-basket and 
 broad-brimmed straw hat, although these last were 
 exactly alike when bought at the store week before 
 last, and Tom had only since then lost the band 
 from his, while Edwin had left his on the lawn 
 one day, where a hungry calf had found it and 
 chewed a great piece out of the brim. 
 
 She was the inspiring genius of the famous picnic 
 to the Big Patch, four miles away, a common of forty 
 acres, claimed by nobody since it had settled down 
 bodily, thirty years ago, into some subterranean cave 
 or bog, and now lay six feet below the level of the 
 surrounding country, overrun with "high bush" 
 blackberries. The Morses and Paulls joined forces 
 in the expedition, Dr. and Miss Lyell, Mrs. Morse s 
 brother and sister, being still the guests of the par 
 sonage household. Two big open wagons, each one 
 drawn by a pair of horses, were packed with people 
 and baskets, great and small. Nobody was left at 
 home by the Paull party except the big mastiff 
 "Duke," who kept house all day upon the lakeward 
 porch. The whole affair was an immense success ; 
 the abundant luncheon was eaten in the shade beside 
 a running stream from which Dr. Lyell and Mr. 
 Morse drew a dozen beautiful trout just before they 
 left the Big Patch for home, and the harvesting was 
 six bushel baskets of great ripe berries, the finest any 
 of the party had ever seen. 
 
 Mrs. Barnes it was who furnished the incompar 
 able recipe for spiced blackberry cordial, which, in 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 219 
 
 the hands of a druggist recommended by her, took 
 rank with the medical profession as a specific in a 
 certain class of disorders, and had a large sale 
 throughout New York and New Jersey. She it was 
 who triumphed over Elspeth s prejudice against 
 attempting to put up blackberry jelly, because, as 
 she alleged, " it was like many folk, ower dead-sweet 
 ever to set into any shape whatever." Under Mrs. 
 Barnes s directions juice and sugar were put together 
 after the former came, boiling hot and clear, from 
 the fire, then were poured into glasses and set daily 
 in the hottest glare of the sun until firm, and luscious 
 with the aromatic spiciness brought by the fruit from 
 the wilderness where it had companied with juniper, 
 angelica, and sweet fern. 
 
 As for blackberry vinegar and jam, and the black 
 berries canned for pies, and blackberry sweet pickles, 
 and all the other ways she propounded of carrying 
 the wholesome dainty over into the winter, is not 
 their fame perpetuated in many a farmstead in the 
 Pequod Valley ? 
 
 I saw the other day, in a catalogue of small fruits, 
 the " Barnes Blackberry " in a place of honor, and 
 smiled to think how direct was its lineage from the 
 roots brought that same autumn from the Big Patch, 
 and set out by Mr. Morse in the very shadow of the 
 century- old church. The Dominie was a skilful hor 
 ticulturist, and in a few seasons brought the wild 
 fruit to a size and flavor that did honor to her for 
 whom it was named. 
 
 The Paull purse was the heavier by many dollars 
 for Mrs. Barnes s visit, and the Paull hearts lighter 
 
220 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 for the every-day ministrations of the practical " all- 
 around woman. " So far from pitying her friend for 
 the fall in her fortunes, and bewailing the necessity 
 of engaging in "business," she bade her "God 
 speed " in the cheeriest of tones, wished that every 
 woman in the land had a profession, the independ 
 ence to engage in the actual duties of the same, and 
 the skill to make her handiwork excellent in itself. 
 
 " Not appealing to the public because she chanced 
 to be born a woman, and therefore an object of 
 charity ! " protested the latter-day prophetess. 
 "When the world acknowledges that it is more 
 honorable to make capital pickles than to paint 
 pictures which are only tolerable because a woman 
 executed them ; better worthy of an intelligent 
 creature to bring bread-making to perfection than to 
 hawk poor prose and worse verse from publisher to 
 publisher ; nobler to cultivate strawberries well than 
 to go into the teacher s office for a piece of bread, 
 the real Woman s Age will be here." 
 
 For Marie, Mrs. Barnes had several new books 
 and half a dozen pieces of music, among them 
 three duets which the donor and her daughter Eliza 
 beth had practised together. They liked them so 
 well that Marie, who was a far better performer than 
 either of them, must learn them. She could play 
 them with Mrs. Barnes while the latter was at Pine- 
 hurst. (At Mrs. Paull s request the guest found a 
 name for the place before she had been there three 
 hours.) After her return to Brooklyn, Marie could 
 practise with her mother. Incited by her praise and 
 bright-heartedness, Marie aroused herself into a 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 221 
 
 passable show of interest in passing events and her 
 present. 
 
 She actually opened the piano of her own accord, 
 and played, alone and in the dark, passages from 
 oratorios and other sacred compositions on the second 
 Sunday evening of Mrs. Barnes s stay at Pinehurst. 
 Her touch was exquisite, and her rendering of the 
 numbers full of taste and feeling. 
 
 " I cannot thank you as I would for the good work 
 you have begun in her," said her mother to her 
 friend. "I have been sadly disheartened about her 
 for a long time. I seem to have lost touch with her 
 since my illness last winter. Until then, we were 
 every whit as intimate as you and Elizabeth. My 
 heart sinks in looking forward to what may be 
 the outcome of the estrangement. Estrangement! 
 Annie ! can you conceive what pain it costs a mother 
 to use that word with reference to her very own 
 child ? " 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
Build a little fence of trust 
 
 Around to-day ; 
 Fill the space with loving work, 
 
 And therein stay. 
 Look not through the sheltering bars 
 
 Upon to-morrow ; 
 God will help thee bear what comes 
 
 Of joy or sorrow. 
 
 M. F. BUTTS. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE two women were sitting upon the honey- 
 suckled porch ; Elspeth had drawn her chair 
 to the kitchen-door ; her hands were folded in Sab 
 bath quiet upon her snowy apron. 
 
 "Why do you look forward ? " said Mrs. Barnes, 
 quietly. 
 
 Mrs. Paull gave a surprised little laugh. 
 
 " Because I cannot help it. My tendency has 
 always been to borrow trouble." 
 
 "Yet I don t know an honester woman. You 
 would be wretched if you had to live upon borrowed 
 capital." 
 
 " This is altogether different. " 
 
 " Yes ; you would borrow money from your fellow- 
 men. You try to negotiate a loan of to-morrow and 
 next year from Him who has made you an ample 
 allowance for to-day, and forbidden you to anticipate 
 supplies." 
 
 " Ah-h-h ! " a light breaking in upon the speaker s 
 mind. "I had forgotten that you belong to Nurse 
 Williams s school of what the dear old soul calls 
 The Royal Readers. She began once to explain 
 their creed, but we were interrupted, and other things 
 pressed it out of my mind. As nearly as I can recall 
 it, her system of belief is predestination, simple and 
 
 15 
 
226 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 severe, the persuasion that what is to be will be, 
 no matter what we do or say. I call that downright 
 fatalism, the blind faith of the Mussulman, not the 
 rational belief of the Christian. " 
 
 " At its baldest, it is more rational than the other 
 extreme, of what is to be may not come to pass. 
 Mrs. Williams got the phrase The Royal Road 
 from Mr. Stevens, the New York evangelist of whom 
 you have heard me speak so often. I went with her 
 to his church on the evening set by him for telling 
 his congregation how to find and to keep in The 
 Royal Road to Happiness. 
 
 " What a congregation that was ! " she resumed, 
 musingly. "I had been a pastor s wife for fifteen 
 years, and thought myself fairly well versed in varie 
 ties of human nature ; but I was in a different sphere 
 from the law-and-order orbit in which I had previ 
 ously revolved. There were men and women in good 
 clothes about me, most of them evidently belonging 
 to the laboring classes ; but there were men who were 
 ragged and dirty. Shop-girls were there in cheap 
 finery and imitation jewelry, and close beside them 
 women in black stuff gowns and black shawls pinned 
 bias across their bosoms, and bonnets that were 
 meant for mourning, and cotton mitts upon hands 
 that were hardened by the wash-board. There are 
 unsuspected saints among working-women of that 
 type, and their Sunday clothes are always mourning 
 suits. Mixed in with these respectable folk were 
 others with handkerchiefs tied over their heads and 
 knotted under their chins, and gowns stiff with dirt, 
 that were falling apart by their own weight, and 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 227 
 
 faces that seemed never to have known soap, or even 
 a dry-wash, faces seamed by sin and trouble and 
 weary waiting for the good time which they were 
 sure, by now, would never come to them. Men 
 skulked in corners who, you could not help thinking, 
 would skulk into corners in Paradise from the force 
 of habit, if they ever got there, a species of human 
 fungi that shuns the light, and fattens in the dark, 
 and upon rotten things ; and bolder-faced men, who 
 stood conspicuously in the aisles, and crowded up 
 near the pulpit, at sight of whom you could n t help 
 feeling for your pocket-book, and were surprised that 
 it was still there. 
 
 " Such a mix of all classes and conditions of 
 humanity I had never beheld before ; yet there was n t 
 a policeman to be seen, and there was no confusion, 
 beyond what was inseparable from the massing of so 
 many and such various sorts of people in a limited 
 space. There was, it is true, the buzzing of whis 
 pering, and the indescribable sound of clothing rub 
 bing against the seats and against other clothing, 
 but it stopped all at once when the preacher walked 
 upon the platform. He is not tall, and he is some 
 what thick-set in figure, with a kind, honest face. 
 It beamed with benignity in looking over the motley 
 audience. Without invocation or preface, he began 
 somewhat in this fashion : 
 
 " There must be five, maybe there are six kinds 
 of politics represented here to-night, Democrats, 
 and Republicans, and Mugwumps, and Prohibition 
 ists, and Anarchists, and Home Rulists, and the 
 great party of Look-out-for-Number-One-ists. I am 
 
228 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 not here to find fault with any one of these parties. 
 Saint Paul once preached in a town where they wor 
 shipped thirty thousand gods. In fact there were so 
 many that a law had been passed against inventing 
 any more idols. But in case any of the heathen 
 gods should have been overlooked, they had put up 
 an altar with this inscription on it: "To the Un 
 known God." 
 
 " That was something like what you ward politi 
 cians would call " hedging " eh ? 
 
 "Of course everybody laughed, and there was 
 some clapping, and a cheer from one corner. He 
 got them quiet with one gesture of his uplifted hand. 
 Then he went on : - 
 
 " Saint Paul was a long-headed man, who had been 
 a lawyer before he was a preacher. Yes ! and a tent- 
 maker to boot. He paid his own salary in one town 
 by working at his trade. So he preached to this 
 idol-ridden people that this Unknown God "whom," 
 he said, "ye ignorantly worship," was the Lord whom 
 they were feeling after, and had not found. 
 
 " This brings me to what I am here to say to you 
 this evening. God, that made the world and all 
 things that are therein, He is the Lord of heaven 
 and earth, the Lord of lords and King of kings; 
 and He so loved the world, this sinful, fallen, 
 soiled, and sorrowing world of which you, my 
 brother, and you, my sister, and I who speak to you, 
 are a part, that He came, Himself, in the person 
 of His Son, to die for us! I want all of you, 
 each one here present, whether he has any ear 
 or not, any voice or none, whether he ever sang 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 229 
 
 before in his life or not, to join ine now in 
 singing, 
 
 " All hail the power of Jesus name ! " 
 
 "Alice! you never heard such singing! How 
 they kept the tune and time I do not know ; but they 
 did, and carried the hymn clear through with a rush 
 and a shout. When the old woman on my left 
 who must have been a rag-picker, if one might judge 
 by the dirt on her worsted hood and the grime on 
 her hooked fingers joined her cracked screech to 
 the rounded sweetness of dear Nurse Williams on 
 my right, in, - 
 
 Oh that with yonder sacred throng 
 
 We at His feet may fall 1 
 Join in the everlasting song, 
 And crown Him Lord of all 1 ? 
 
 I just got my face between my two hands, and cried 
 harder than I ever let any baby of mine cry. It 
 was wonderful." 
 
 She was excited in the telling. Into the eloquent 
 interval dividing the two parts of the narrative, 
 Mrs. Paull s voice stole, sweet and thrilling: 
 
 " And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great 
 multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as 
 the voice of mighty thunderings, saying : Hallelujah ! 
 for the Lord G-od Omnipotent reigneth ! and let us 
 be glad and rejoice, and give honor to Him! " 
 
 "Nurse Williams thought of that, for she whis 
 pered to me, before I dared show my face again, 
 
 " Ain t it, for all the world, like a chapter right 
 out of the Book of Revelation ? 
 
230 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 "The prayer came next. I had been afraid of 
 something approximating irreverence, but I need 
 not have feared it. It was not like other people s 
 prayers, of course, but his tone and language showed 
 that he knew in whose presence he stood. He told 
 the Lord that all of us, small and great, were seek 
 ing one and the same thing, happiness, here and 
 hereafter, and entreated Him to help the weak, 
 unworthy speaker to direct us into the right way, - 
 the plain path, the Royal Road. 
 
 " There was another hymn, Come, thou Fount of 
 every Blessing, and then he took his text : 
 
 " Your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need 
 of these things. 
 
 " Yes ! he blurted out, knows so much better 
 what things we need and how much we need them, 
 that we may well be ashamed of ourselves, fretful, 
 babyish fools that we are, for presuming to give 
 Him any information. It s sillier and more impu 
 dent than if the boy who peddles peanuts on Water 
 Street should stop Jay Gould s carriage as he is 
 hurrying up-town to deposit a cool million in the 
 bank, and give him his opinion as to the best way of 
 making money. It is not in any mortal to be as 
 disrespectful and officious to another mortal, not 
 even to king or president, as it would be for the 
 wisest saint in earth or in heaven to dictate to the 
 Almighty. Ask Him what you like, but put it in 
 spirit, if not in speech, into four words, " Thy 
 will be done ! " 
 
 " That is to say: "if what I want isn t good for 
 me, please, Lord, read my foolish prayer back 
 wards, and don t give it to me ! " 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 231 
 
 "He gave incident after incident, proving what 
 mistakes we make in praying for what God in His 
 wisdom and mercy refuses to let us have, and how 
 we blunder into wrong and dangerous ways, scream 
 ing and kicking at this bolted door, and trying to 
 pick the lock of that, and to blow the door of another 
 off the hinges, and the folly of it all, and the love 
 that saves us from the consequences of ourselves 
 (that was his phrase), and at last he got to the sure 
 prescription for securing peace of mind here and 
 blessedness hereafter. It was to throw ourselves 
 upon Christ for salvation, and let Him have us 
 entirely for His own, and to lease our time, as 
 God means and commands us to do, for one day only, 
 and to recollect that it is a lease, and that the 
 Landlord holds the insurance, pays the taxes, and 
 keeps the premises in repair. 
 
 " Trust Him with your soul, and then with the 
 life that now is. The smartest man in the world 
 cannot manage more than one day at a time, and 
 the man who lived a hundred years never owned two 
 days at once. 
 
 " You may say, "Since I cannot help myself, 
 I 11 make a virtue of necessity, and not worry about 
 to-morrow." That was the trick of fools who lived 
 three thousand years ago. " Let us eat and drink, 
 for to-morrow we die." They didn t know how 
 much that day was worth. Just as your baby would 
 as lief chuck a five-dollar gold-piece into the gutter 
 as a cent. 
 
 " A day ! oh, my brother ! take the beautiful 
 new thing into your hand and look at it ! Fresh 
 
232 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 i 
 
 from God s mint, stamped with His image and 
 superscription, His present to you, and to you alone, 
 made expressly for you, and not another like it in 
 all the universe, or in eternity, past or present. 
 Hold it with both hands, and get all the good you can 
 out of it. You may never have another day. 
 Another thing, Every day that is counted out to 
 you is registered in His Book of Remembrance, and 
 when you have had the last one, the ledger will be 
 shown to you. " Thomas Smith One New Day" 
 with the date set opposite to it, and a memorandum 
 of the condition it was in when it got back to the 
 Book. For it s bound to go back ! You can t melt 
 it down, nor tear it up, nor " sweat " it, nor burn it. 
 Whatever God makes and stamps is immortal. 
 
 "He gave us thirty minutes of such talk, and 
 nobody moved to go out. I can convey a very faint 
 idea of his style, and none of his manner of saying 
 these things. He concluded by asking each one of 
 us to begin to walk in the Royal Road the very next 
 morning. 
 
 " Monday is a tough day for it, I know, he said. 
 1 It does seem sometimes as if the devil were bound 
 for a season over Sunday, and got out of limbo with 
 a leap and a howl, like a giant maddened by Jersey 
 lightning, before honest folks are out of bed Monday 
 morning. There s all the more reason why you 
 should choke him off at the start. Now, listen ! as 
 soon as you, my sister, and his eyes seemed to 
 take in Mrs. Williams, my rag-picker, and myself, 
 wake up to-morrow, say your prayers. They 
 need not be long. A great English preacher, Row- 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 233 
 
 land Hill by name, used to say that he liked very 
 short prayers, such as are jerked out of a man when 
 sorrow or temptation grabs him all of a sudden. 
 He said they reached heaven before the devil got 
 a chance at them. You can get yours over in a 
 minute or less. " Give me this day my daily 
 bread," will do, if you mean all you say, food for 
 the soul, food for the heart, food for the mind, and, 
 last and least, food for the body. Don t sit down 
 to cry over the mistakes you made yesterday. Don t 
 pipe your eye over what you are afraid is coming 
 to-morrow. You may never see to-morrow, and if 
 you do, it will be to-day by the time it gets here ; 
 and God who has never broken a promise, and 
 never will break one promises that you shall have, 
 strength given for that day. A man told me, when I 
 was a little shaver, that all the fortune he cared to 
 have was one little pocket in which he could always 
 find a sixpence. All the fortune of time that you 
 need and this your Heavenly Father knows is 
 just one little day. 
 
 " Trim your day clean at both ends, and don t 
 waste a scrap of it. If you are a housekeeper, Mon 
 day is washing-day. You would n t mind wash 
 ing-day so much if it was n t for the thought of how 
 much longer it takes to iron than to wash clothes. 
 You ve got nothing to do with Tuesday until Tuesday 
 comes. Put it out of your mind. Say, "I won t 
 think of it! " and keep your word. You 11 be sur 
 prised to find how much more strength you 11 have 
 for to-day, if you don t fritter it away worrying over 
 to-morrow. When Tuesday comes, take hold of it, 
 
234 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 too, with a brave heart, and clean, empty hands, that 
 have none of Monday s mud sticking to them. 
 
 "But, Alice, I am talking you into the Land of 
 Nod ! I, who have scruples against evening services 
 in hot weather ! You know my tongue of old, and 
 that you have the magic art of drawing me out 
 and on." 
 
 "You cannot stop there!" said Mrs. Paull, with 
 sportive decision. " The sermon is incomplete with 
 out the application. Oh, Annie, talk is so easy and 
 so cheap ! You will think me a reprobate for say 
 ing that I distrust many people whose business it is 
 to preach and to teach religion. They all fall into 
 one rut, Do this, and live ! Do that, and die ! 
 Half of the time they say it with the professional 
 side of them, and live their own lives out just as 
 other fallible mortals live out theirs. I should like 
 to know something of your evangelist s six-days- 
 in-the-week walk and conversation. While I am 
 trenching upon irreverent talk of the profession 
 which is above every other, I may as well be frank. 
 Is his the Squeersian principle of first spelling a 
 word, and then going out and doing it ? " 
 
 Her forced lightness did not cheat her companion 
 into forgetfulness of the significant truth that Ernest 
 Paull was, for years, the popular superintendent of a 
 Sunday-school and a telling speaker in Sabbath- 
 school conventions, also a notable worker in other 
 departments of church enterprise. Her answer was 
 grave and direct : 
 
 " He does the thing before he spells it. He gives 
 away more than half his income yearly, and gives 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 235 
 
 himself wholly to what he considers the reasonable 
 service of every saved soul. His capacious lungs 
 are full of oxygen, and his bodily health is perfect, 
 notwithstandipp; the tremendous labors of a day that 
 begins at five o clock in the morning. He rises then 
 to go to a breakfast-room furnished and supported by 
 himself for tramps and newsboys. He asks God s 
 blessing upon a substantial meal, and, when it is 
 over, talks to the five or six hundred men and lads 
 there assembled of the duties and temptations of the 
 day, and of God s love and care, and of His expecta 
 tion that they will love and serve Him, and carry 
 everywhere with them the thought that God s eye is 
 upon them. His parish comprises, as he once said, 
 everybody who needs him. He is constantly on the 
 alert for the opportunity to do little deeds of kind 
 ness. Somebody has found fault with him that he 
 is always on the side of the under dog. His sym 
 pathies go out most quickly to those whose cry is, 
 4 No man careth for my soul. He would as readily 
 run up five flights of stairs to pray with a sick man 
 or woman at the top of a tenement house, as to 
 enter a church to electrify an audience with his 
 sound common sense, his all-pervading spirituality, 
 and the spirit of consecration that is manifest in 
 every word and look. It matters nothing that people 
 call him an unpractical enthusiast and a fanatic. 
 He knows that every-day practice is the very foun 
 dation of his doctrine and action. His private 
 life is the best possible commentary upon his 
 teachings." 
 
 "Elspeth!" called Mrs. Paull, over her shoulder, 
 
236 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 " move your chair out here. Mrs. Barnes is talking 
 of the Royal Road. " 
 
 Something in the aspect of the upright figure fill 
 ing up the kitchen door suggested to the mistress the 
 isolation of the follower who had forsaken all other 
 friends for her, and with it arose a misgiving lest, 
 in her own satisfaction in the society of her early 
 friend, she had left the faithful creature too much 
 to herself of late. With the instinct of true gentle 
 hood that never deserted her, Mrs. Barnes turned 
 her chair slightly towards Elspeth as she joined the 
 ladies, still at a respectful distance. 
 
 " I was about to tell Mrs. Paull how, after hearing 
 Nurse Williams s Mr. Stevens, I went home deter 
 mined to try for myself his rule of living by the 
 day. Mrs. Williams left me to my own thoughts 
 during most of the journey back to Brooklyn. She 
 saw that my mind and heart were full, and, as she 
 has told me since, contented herself with praying 
 for me. My husband was not at home, and I had 
 several hours to myself. As soon as I laid off my 
 hat, I got out my Bible. I would take nothing upon 
 man s word without appeal to the Law and the 
 Testimony. 
 
 " I had said over to myself times without number, 
 c Take no thought for to-morrow, very much as a 
 Roman Catholic wears a scapular, and a pagan a 
 charm against the Evil Eye. Now, when I sat down 
 with the one desire to take God at his word, the text 
 took on a new meaning. By the way, the Revised 
 Version puts it yet more clearly and strongly than 
 the Old. It says : 
 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 237 
 
 " Be not therefore anxious for the morrow, for the 
 morrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the 
 day is the evil thereof? 
 
 " That was the first verse I looked up. On the same 
 page I read, as if I had never seen it until then : 
 
 " Be not anxious fur your life, what ye shall eat, 
 or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, ivhat ye 
 shall put on. Behold the birds of the heaven, that they 
 sow not, neither do they reap, or gather into barns ; 
 and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not 
 of much more value than they? 
 
 " Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. 
 Ttiey toil not, neither do they spin. Yet I say unto 
 you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed 
 like one of these. 9 
 
 "I stopped there to read those last words over 
 again. All that man s wealth and wisdom and skill 
 could accomplish the tribute of Tarshish and the 
 isles, the gifts of Sheba and Seba could not array 
 this mightiest monarch of the earth like one of these 
 wild flowers. I took the little preacher in imagina 
 tion between my fingers, gazed into the glowing cup, 
 and touched the velvet petals reverently, my heart 
 well-nigh breaking with love and penitence. 
 
 " The rest followed naturally : - 
 
 " c If G-od so clothed the grass of the field, which 
 to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall 
 He not much more clothe you? 
 
 " You, Annie Barnes ! whose life He has thus far 
 crowned* with goodness and mercy; whose cup over 
 flows with blessings; you who are His dear child, 
 whose name is graven upon his hands ; you for whom 
 
238 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 Christ died that you might live and reign with Him 
 forever. By this time I was prepared for the tender 
 reproach, 
 
 " ye of little faith! 
 
 "Why, Alice Paull ! I told Him then and there 
 upon my knees, between my sobs, that I had never 
 had one atom of real faith, and asked Him to give me 
 just one more trial. Still on my knees, I turned the 
 leaves of my Testament. 
 
 " If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts 
 unto your children, how much more shall your Father 
 in heaven give good things to them that ask Him 
 
 Ui Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy- 
 laden, and I will give you rest. And ye shall find 
 rest to your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My 
 burden is light. 
 
 "That is, when He is taken utterly, simply, and 
 joyfully at His word. 
 
 " And after the miracle of the loaves and fishes, 
 really no more of a miracle than happens often 
 and often in the lives of those who are on the alert 
 to interpret his wonderful providences, 
 
 " ye of little faith! Why reason ye among your 
 selves because ye have no bread ? Do ye not perceive, 
 neither remember the five loaves of the five thousand, 
 and how many baskets ye took up ? 9 
 
 " Whoso shall humble himself as this little child 
 believe that I mean what I say, and that every jot 
 and tittle of my Word shall come to pass is the 
 greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 " All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, 
 believing, ye shall receive? 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 239 
 
 " The very hairs of your head are numbered. 
 
 " Ye are of more value than many sparrows. 
 
 " Boast not thyself of to-morrow. 
 
 " T ney that seek the Lord shall not want any good 
 thing? 
 
 " Casting all your care upon Him, for He careth 
 for you. 1 
 
 " But you and Elspeth know them all, and could 
 recall a hundred more, one and all bearing the same 
 message to the simple of heart: Trust Me to do 
 what is right and best for you, and 1 will be your 
 refuge. Underneath you are the Everlasting Arms. 
 Lie peacefully and happily within them. Reading 
 them in the new white light that streamed upon the 
 page, 1 was as one who had found great treasure. 
 
 " Marie ! dear child ! " holding out her hand as a 
 light step fell upon the floor behind her. "Mrs. 
 Morse approached me with a petition, after church 
 this morning, which she dared not prefer to you. 
 The young man who officiates as organist goes away 
 this week for a month s vacation. She says that if 
 you will take his place for that time you will gratify 
 Mr. Morse and herself, and delight the congregation. 
 I could not answer for you, of course. " 
 
 "Certainly not." 
 
 Marie spoke in a lifeless tone, and did not return 
 the pressure of the firm fingers enfolding hers. She 
 stood perfectly still, one hand on the back of Mrs. 
 Barnes s chair. The impulse that sent her to the 
 piano had exhausted itself in her long practising. 
 
 "Would you like to take the position, my love ? " 
 her mother queried. 
 
240 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 is for you to say, mother." 
 is always "mother " nowadays; never 
 
 i." 
 
 "That 
 
 It was 
 " mamma. 
 
 "I do not wish to force your inclinations. I 
 thought you might desire to oblige Mr. and Mrs. 
 Morse, who are so kind to you. " 
 
 "Very well, then. I will do it," as passively 
 as she had spoken before. 
 
 Mrs. Barnes was not easily put down. A wet 
 blanket had no appreciable effect upon her spirits; 
 nothing short of a deluge drowned her energies. 
 She pressed the small limp hand to her warm 
 cheek, smooth as a sixteen-year-old girl s. 
 
 "These same deft fingers will serve you well, 
 should you ever care to become an organist in a city 
 church. I know a woman who plays very little 
 better who gets a salary of one thousand dollars a 
 year. " 
 
 She felt an electric quiver in the fingers she 
 praised, and heard the irregular breathing that 
 went with the girl s exclamation, 
 
 " One thousand dollars ! Oh, Mrs. Barnes, do you 
 really think I could ever get half of that ? " 
 
 "Easily, should there occur a vacancy in a city 
 organ-loft. When you have left school, if you still 
 wish it, we must see about it." 
 
 Marie was mute for a minute, then spoke dream 
 ily, but with suppressed passion that startled her 
 companions : 
 
 "I wish I could earn some money ! I wish I could 
 earn five hundred dollars! It is a dreadful thing 
 to be a woman, in any circumstances. It is intol- 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 241 
 
 erable to be poor as well. Good-night, Mrs. Barnes. 
 Good-night, mother. I am tired almost to death ! " 
 
 She went off without offering to kiss either of 
 them. Elspeth arose and followed her silently. 
 Coldness and ingratitude could not weaken her 
 attachment. 
 
 " And you blame me for looking forward anxiously 
 to her future ! " sighed Mrs. Paull. " She is more 
 of an enigma to me every day. A mother should 
 know her daughter. " 
 
 " A girl of seventeen does not know herself. Yours 
 is forcing her way single-handed through the debat 
 able ground, trying to ford the current where the 
 brook and river meet. A majority of girls take to 
 misanthropy and mysticism and melancholy during 
 the transition period, catch it from one another, or 
 inhale the bacteria of that miasmatic region as they 
 caught measles and whooping-cough when babies. 
 The worst thing that could happen to Marie would 
 be to fall heiress to a million dollars to-morrow. I 
 am well content that she should not have the five 
 hundred for a year or two. Alice, darling," drop 
 ping the jesting strain, " take your first step in the 
 Royal Road by committing that precious creature 
 entirely for this one night into the hands of Him 
 who careth for her as for you. " 
 
 "I will try!" The answer was low and not 
 prompt. 
 
 "Say <I will, dear heart! That is the Bible 
 phrase. 
 
 " 1 will praise the Lord ivhile 1 have my being? 
 
 " As for me and my house , we will serve the Lord? 
 
 16 
 
242 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 " < I will abide in thy tabernacle forever? 
 
 " Therefore, will we not fear, though the earth be 
 removed, and the mountains be carried into the midst 
 of the sea: " 
 
 " I will!" 
 
 The lips of the friends met in a mute seal upon 
 the covenant. 
 
 The holy calm of the summer night rested upon 
 the waters and field and mountain, and upon the 
 troubled sea of human thought, like a Sabbath bene 
 diction. Puffs of perfume, now warm, now cool, 
 were the welcome of the pines to the visits of the 
 breezes wandering down from loftier heights by 
 way of the northern gorge through which the lake 
 escaped to the valley. 
 
 " As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so 
 the Lord -is round about His people, from henceforth, 
 even forever ! " said Mrs. Barnes, by and by. " That 
 is the oratorio of your hills. It came to me when I 
 saw the amphitheatre of the valley from the top of 
 Baldmount, on my way from Peddlington, and I 
 hear it continually. Henceforth, even forever! 
 Never off guard! There is another proof-text for 
 you." 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
Any child of God, who, in any adequate way, believes 
 that he can partake of the divine nature, knows that he 
 has strength enough for any business that looks the 
 right way ; that is, which helps to bring God s kingdom 
 into the world. If you are working with Aladdin s 
 lamp, or with Monte Cristo s treasures, you are not 
 apt to think you will fail. Far less will you think that 
 you will fail if you are working with the omnipotence of 
 the Lord God behind you. EDWARD EVERETT HALE. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 TWO years had flown since Ernest Paull passed 
 from the sight and ken of his family and the 
 friends of his better days. Since the vessel that bore 
 him, under his false name, left New York Harbor, 
 no more word or token of his existence had come to 
 his wife than if he had fallen at night into mid- 
 ocean, unseen, and never been missed by his fellow- 
 voyagers. In the business world, where he used to 
 consider himself a personage of note, he was missed 
 as little as would have been a pebble thrown into 
 a lake a hundred years ago. His disappearance had 
 created wonderfully little sensation at the time, so 
 little that his brother-in-law to whose promptness 
 and energy was due the fact that few knew of the 
 elopement, and fewer of the embezzlement until the 
 scandal was desiccated by time into odorlessness 
 smiled sometimes to himself in reflecting that the 
 queer combination we know as self-love would have 
 smarted had the criminal suspected the truth. 
 
 It would mortify many and console none of us to 
 comprehend the absolute insignificance of the human 
 unit in the sum of the ages. 
 
 Mrs. PaulPs removal from city to country helped 
 to keep the disgraceful story quiet, and her infre 
 quent appearance in scenes where she had once been 
 
246 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 prominent completed the effacement of herself and 
 her affairs from the minds of mere acquaintances. 
 Tom and Edwin, sturdy and happy in the free 
 spaciousness of the Pinehurst woods and orchard, 
 gradually ceased to think of the absent parent, whose 
 image had faded entirely from Gladys s memory. 
 Their mother was their teacher, co-worker, and play 
 mate, and the sun of the domestic system. Her 
 country neighbors nodded and smiled in cordial 
 good fellowship in meeting her upon the highway, 
 or, as happened oftener, in mountain passes, where 
 the grass grew high and flowers bloomed between the 
 wheel tracks, stepping lightly, head erect and 
 cheeks glowing, a son on each side. Sometimes 
 all three carried baskets for nuts or berries, or for 
 roots to be transplanted in the garden that was the 
 talk of the region for beauty and variety. 
 
 In church she sat in her own pew, her children 
 about her, earnest and devout, a chastened serenity 
 in eyes and upon lip that was a wonder to those who 
 had gleaned fragments of her history and pitied the 
 forsaken wife and toiling mother. Her hair had 
 gathered frost during the terrible winter of two 
 years agone, while the face, beneath the abundant 
 locks rolled back from her forehead, gained placidity 
 and almost youthful bloom. 
 
 " I know now why the hoary head is said to be a 
 crown of glory, " said Lanier, one September evening, 
 as he lay at her feet, his head in her lap. "Your 
 hair is a veritable diadem, and sheds a sort of radi 
 ance over your face, such as falls from the nimbus 
 about saints heads in the pictures of the old mas- 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 247 
 
 ters. It is mysterious, but beautiful. Yet " 
 raising a hand to the head bent above his " it 
 gives me a heartache. Mother, you are the bravest 
 woman I ever knew ! This " stroking the silvered 
 coil is the only tell-tale. " 
 
 " It is the habit of the Laniers to turn gray early 
 in life, " said Mrs. Paull, in cheerful evasion. " Since 
 this is so, I should be thankful that it is becoming. 
 I don t want to be frightful in my children s eyes. " 
 
 " That could never be, had you small-pox, compli 
 cated by leprosy. I wonder sometimes if you are as 
 happy as you look. " 
 
 " Happier often. The heart knows its deepest 
 bliss no less than its own bitterness. God has been 
 He is so loving-kind to me that I have no excuse 
 for gloomy thoughts. Every day is crowned with 
 goodness, and He never lets me doubt that all 
 my steps are ordered by Him. How could I be 
 discontented ? " 
 
 The boy lay looking into the heart of the fire built 
 of pine cones, of which a great basketful stood at 
 the corner of the hearth. The night was rainy, 
 the clouds rushing down the valley before a strong 
 northeast wind. The ceaseless moan of the pines 
 was blent with the surf-like roar of the grove of oaks 
 and hickories behind the house. Mother and son had 
 the room, dusky-red with firelight, to themselves. 
 
 Lanier s " coaching " engagement had been renewed 
 during each of the vacations that had passed since 
 his first visit to Keene. He had, nevertheless, con 
 trived to visit his mother in the September of both 
 years, besides spending two Christmases at Pine- 
 
248 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 hurst. He had arrived this afternoon upon a three 
 days furlough, and her soul basked in his presence 
 with grateful delight. 
 
 As her firstborn grew in knowledge of books and 
 of men, the tie knitting the heart of the man she 
 had gotten from the Lord to the heart of the mother 
 strengthened and shortened. He was very like her 
 in feature and manner, a resemblance peculiarly 
 striking to-night in the ruddy half-light that colored 
 both faces alike. 
 
 "He is lover, friend, and son, all in one," she had 
 said to Mrs. Barnes, in one of the impetuous bursts 
 of confidence that were rarer with her now than of 
 yore. " Pulse of my pulses, core of my heart ! " 
 
 In the close folding of his left hand in hers now, 
 the yearning fondness of the regards bent upon the 
 lineaments she thought so handsome, the ring and 
 thrill of her voice as she addressed him, one read 
 all this and more. Sometimes, while she talked of 
 him, or listened to others praise of her eldest son, 
 she blushed like a girl at mention of her lover s 
 name, and laughed at her own sweet folly. Maternal 
 love of this peculiar quality and power is seldom 
 seen in wives whose hearts rest in full satisfaction 
 in their husbands affection. God gives in this life 
 no richer compensation for disappointment in the 
 dearest hope of a woman s heart than is to be found 
 in the chivalric fondness of her sons. 
 
 " You do not weary of your Royal Road, then ? " 
 resumed Lanier, at length, smiling thoughtfully. 
 
 " Who does, who has found it ? " 
 
 "It has been the path of peace to you, evidently, 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 249 
 
 mother dear. I suspect, nevertheless, that few are 
 willing to walk in it until more attractive avenues 
 are closed. Without hope and ambition, youth 
 would have no dreams; and what is youth without 
 dreams ? " 
 
 "Hope! ambition! do you mean that we leave 
 them behind us when we set our feet upon the King s 
 highway ? My darling, then begins the only hope 
 worthy of the name, sure and blessed, an anchor 
 that never drags. 
 
 " i For 1 am persuaded? says Paul, that neither 
 death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor 
 things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor 
 height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able 
 to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ 
 Jesus our Lord? And Shall He not also with 
 Him freely give us all things ? And again, All 
 things work together for good to them that love God, 
 who are the called according to His purpose. 
 
 "The beloved disciple, whose head rested upon 
 the Master s heart while He said His parting words 
 to his disciples, asserts, as one who knows whereof 
 he speaks, 
 
 " And this is the boldness which we have towards 
 Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, 
 He heareth us. Can hope be grounded upon a firmer 
 rock ? " 
 
 " Abstractly considered no ! All of us, who hope 
 that we are Christians, yield intellectual assent 
 to these things. The trouble is that the promises 
 seem vague, and fulfilment afar off, when the ques 
 tion is of a note to be met next week, or bread to be 
 
250 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 bought to-morrow, when there is no money in hand 
 with which to buy it. Steadfast souls women s 
 souls can fix their thoughts and concentrate their 
 energies upon to-day s tasks and interests; but what 
 of a man s duty to provide for those of his own 
 household ? " 
 
 "Provision for to-morrow may be, it often is, a 
 part of to-day s duty " 
 
 "Aha!" 
 
 " You interrupted me ! I said provision not 
 anxiety. Not to make intelligent provision for what 
 experience and common sense tell us must be met, 
 is fatuous and childish. 
 
 " Tom and Edwin had their little gardens laid out, 
 last spring, side by side, and I gave each the same 
 quantity and kind of seeds. Tom got all his in on 
 Monday; and on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and 
 Saturday, scratched open the rows to see if they were 
 sprouting and likely to come up. Edwin let his 
 alone. It is useless to say which has the better 
 show of vegetables by this time. I try to keep one 
 text continually before the eyes of my heart, And 
 having done all, to stand. Some err in stopping 
 short of doing with their might whatsoever their 
 hands find to do, not working while the day lasts. 
 The hard task for me is to stand when I see noth 
 ing else that my hands can do just now. As to next 
 week s note, make the best arrangements to meet it 
 that your judgment and ingenuity can devise; then 
 stand still, and see what great things God will work. 
 So with to-morrow s bread. Look narrowly at the 
 work laid to your hand for to-day, to see if this may 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 251 
 
 not include getting together cents enough to buy a 
 loaf for to-morrow s breakfast. Perhaps God 
 knows whether or not this is to be, and what good 
 end is to be gained by it you are to suffer protest 
 and loss of credit, and to go hungry. If so, you can 
 rest submissively in the belief which is the sub 
 stance of things hoped for that the day s strength 
 will come with the day s trial. Oh, my boy, this 
 is not a rainbow theory with me, but a tower, tried 
 and found steadfast, into which I have run and been 
 
 Lanier pressed first one, then the other, of her 
 hands to his lips. 
 
 " Precious mother ! " he murmured in strong emo 
 tion. " The sight of your practice goes leagues upon 
 leagues further to convert me than your texts and 
 your sermon. Where is there another woman who 
 would make such a bright, beneficent life out of such 
 poor material ? " 
 
 " Poor material ! Don t say that ! " a hasty terror 
 in her tone. " Not while I have my children and 
 work to do for God and man. Dear! have you 
 noticed that blasted oak on the hillside up there, 
 - just where a gap in the woods gives you the first 
 glimpse of Pinehurst, and the lake, and the moun 
 tains ? Your uncle spoke of cutting it down, but I 
 would not let him do it. It is an object-lesson to 
 me, a symbol, a likeness of myself." 
 
 "My pretty, graceful mother! that I will not 
 listen to!" 
 
 "Hush!" laughingly pulling her face away from 
 the hand he would have laid upon her mouth. " It 
 
252 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 was struck by lightning eight or ten years ago, 
 that tree, which is not so old as one might think, 
 and the bark stripped from one side. At least half 
 of the trunk is bare. All the same, it bears leaves 
 and acorns, and carries aloft a branchy crown all 
 summer long, and you ought to have seen its foliage 
 last fall. Rich purplish crimson, that, as the snows 
 and cold rains came, gathered, as it were, gray ashes 
 upon the upper surface of the leaves, before they 
 changed to a comfortable sober brown they held all 
 winter long, and until the young buds pushed them 
 off in April. The edges of the torn bark have 
 healed healthily, making a long lip against the flayed 
 trunk ; all the sap necessary for the life of the tree 
 is carried up through that strip. I have stood by 
 that tree with my hand laid upon the bark, until I 
 could be sure that I felt it throb sympathetically. " 
 
 Her voice had fallen, as she went on; the words 
 were uttered more and more slowly, until she ceased. 
 Lanier drew himself to her side, wound his arm 
 about her, and laid his head against her shoulder. 
 Verbal response was impossible, and needless. 
 
 "I told you that I saw Marie this morning," was 
 his next remark. 
 
 "Yes, and that she is looking well." 
 
 "Well and handsome. She will be a splendid 
 woman soon. She says she is quite happy with her 
 teaching and her organ. How did she get the situa 
 tion ? There would be a lively competition for the 
 vacant place in a church like St. Gudule s. " 
 
 " Your uncle has friends in the vestry, and exerted 
 his influence. This Marie must not suspect. Much 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 253 
 
 as she desired the place, she would throw it up 
 to-morrow if she guessed to whom she owes it." 
 
 " How absurd, and how shamefully ungrateful ! I 
 must talk her out of that nonsense some day. " 
 
 " Better leave the subject alone. The misguided 
 child believes honestly that she does right to be angry 
 with my brother. I imagine that one motive of her 
 perseverance in trying to get the position of music 
 teacher at Mrs. Marcy s and that of organist in St. 
 Gudule s, was the desire to free herself from obliga 
 tions to him." 
 
 "Which she can never do." 
 
 " She thinks that she can. We must leave her to 
 nurse her fancied grievance until her eyes are opened 
 by the logic of events, or until God touches her heart 
 to gentler judgment of her best friends. " 
 
 " Does she support herself entirely ? " 
 
 " She has steadily refused to accept anything from 
 me for a year. I have no idea what Mrs. Marcy 
 pays her. Her salary at St. Gudule s is- seven 
 hundred dollars, but I should not have known that 
 had not your uncle told me. She grows more 
 reserved as time goes on." 
 
 The brother set his lower jaw sternly. 
 
 " Does she visit you often ? " 
 
 " I contrive to see her at least once in ten days, 
 but her duties prevent her from coming often to us. 
 Of course she can no longer pass her Sundays at 
 home. I am afraid," she went on reluctantly, 
 " that she is inclined to be severe with herself in the 
 matter of personal expense. Mrs. Marcy told me 
 the last time I called there, while I was waiting for 
 
254 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 Marie to finish a lesson, that Miss Paull had too 
 little recreation. Except for the long walk which 
 she takes every day unless in very stormy weather, 
 she leaves the house but once during the week, and 
 that is on Friday evening to attend choir-rehearsal. 
 She declines all invitations to friends houses, and 
 to places of amusement such as most young people 
 enjoy. I mentioned this to Marie when she came 
 in and Mrs. Marcy left us. She answered that she 
 now belonged to the working classes, and had no 
 time to squander upon pleasure-taking. She dresses 
 very plainly, almost shabbily. I do not think she 
 has bought a new gown, or even hat, since she began 
 to take care of her own finances. " 
 
 " Marie miserly I " amused and incredulous. " She 
 used to be an incorrigible spendthrift. Mother" 
 as if struck by a startling thought " but no ; that 
 could hardly be ! " 
 
 "That she is pinching herself in order to send 
 money out of the country ? " Mrs. Paull spoke out the 
 suspicion he had repressed. " She would do it were 
 there occasion, or if she imagined there were. I am 
 sure that she has no foreign correspondent, or I 
 should have discovered it during the two months she 
 spent here this summer. She would hardly conceal 
 the circumstance from me, I think, even had not 
 the mail enlightened me. Indeed, had she opened 
 communication with her father, I believe that her 
 high sense of honor and of what loyalty to him 
 demanded would have driven her to me with the 
 intelligence. She is fearless in her very wilfulness. 
 Poor child ! she sees everything now through a dis- 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 255 
 
 torted medium. Ah, well ! In God s good time all 
 will be right." 
 
 Another interval of silence followed. Such are 
 unmistakable indices of perfect communion of spirit. 
 Common friendship demands the reassurance, at 
 decorous distances, of mutual regard and thought- 
 fulness. 
 
 Lanier leaned forward to pile more logs upon 
 the sinking coals, putting them on one at a time, 
 apparently interested in the consumption of each. 
 
 "Mother," without withdrawing his eyes from this 
 operation, "may I ask you one question ? " 
 
 "As many as you like, my son," steadily and 
 cheerfully. 
 
 " You told me, a while ago, that, besides paying the 
 interest to Uncle Roger, you had deposited in the 
 savings bank, last year and this, six hundred dollars. 
 At that rate you will have paid off the whole debt in 
 eight years more. Should he who laid the debt 
 upon you return to America then, - have you ever 
 thought what would be your duty or your incli 
 nation ? " 
 
 He could not see the sickly pallor the fire-glow 
 did not veil, or the sharp quiver that shook the light 
 from her eyes. He divined, through the nameless 
 sympathy welding heart to heart, that a short, fierce 
 battle against powerful odds kept her silent for the 
 instant that elapsed before her hand rested upon 
 his head. 
 
 " My darling, for months the thought never left 
 me, sleeping or waking! When I began to learn 
 how to take God at His word, and not to meddle 
 
256 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 with a future which is all His, and none of it mine, 
 I asked Him as I suppose Paul besought Him to 
 take away the thorn in his flesh to remove from 
 me the dread and the doubt and the vain planning, 
 to show me how to leave the wanderer and all per 
 taining to him in His safe, wise, loving hands. He 
 answered my prayer, not as he answered Paul, for 
 Paul was stronger than I, and could bear more, - 
 but by setting my thoughts free from that one tor 
 turing subject, that I might study and obey His will 
 in and for me in the present. Should the hour ever 
 come for decision and action, His grace will be 
 sufficient for me, His wisdom will not be withheld. 
 Until then, let the dead past bury its dead. " 
 
 While mother and son talked together that stormy 
 September night, the choir of St. Gudule s rehearsed 
 the music selected for the approaching Sabbath. 
 The new organist had been inducted into office but 
 two months before. Her youth and sex had told 
 against her in the judgment of musical critics in the 
 congregation, and with at least two of the quartette 
 choir. The correctness and brilliancy of her tech 
 nique; the taste and spirit with which she inter 
 preted the most difficult passage submitted to her, 
 broke down the prejudice of the listeners below-stairs ; 
 the almost austere gravity of her demeanor, the 
 respect with which she hearkened to suggestions, 
 and her willingness to obey them, silenced her coad 
 jutors. She was, apparently, bent upon, as the basso 
 put it, "cold business," comprehending why she 
 was there, and with no eye or ear for anything but 
 duty. 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 257 
 
 She wore to-night a black merino gown, as simply 
 fashioned as a nun s, and a close black felt hat, one 
 blue velvet bow nestling in the puffs of golden hair 
 the only touch of color in her costume. Her face, 
 unsmiling and intent, as her eyes followed the score, 
 might have belonged to a woman twice her years for 
 any sign it gave of frivolity ; there was not a tinge 
 of coquetry in her reception of the greetings of her 
 companions at her entrance, or of the encomiums 
 passed upon her execution when the rehearsal was 
 over. 
 
 "Thank you," to one, and "You are very kind," 
 to another, were spoken without a rise of color, and 
 with the least possible smile consistent with the fine 
 breeding that marked every motion and syllable. 
 
 The tenor, who was, after the usual custom of 
 tenors, young and thin, with fair hair and a sweep 
 ing mustache, did not venture upon an improvement 
 of his very slight acquaintanceship with her, but 
 got himself into his ulster and waited for the soprano 
 to pull on her rubber sandals before offering to see 
 her home. She was not very young, and not at all 
 pretty; but she was accessible, and that went for 
 much with a man who was bashful when not 
 intrenched behind a sheet of music. The basso, 
 being thicker-skinned, and a married man of forty, 
 took courage to approach the organist, as she but 
 toned her gloves, preparatory to assuming waterproof 
 and umbrella. 
 
 "I had nearly forgotten something which our 
 excellent rector asked me to pass over to you this 
 evening, Miss Paull," he said, in the rollicking 
 
 17 
 

 258 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 way which men of his calibre confound with well- 
 bred ease. "It frightens me to think what might 
 have happened had I carried it home in my pocket. 
 I dare say, now, you would never have spoken to me 
 again, maybe would have put me out in my best 
 solo next Sunday." 
 
 Marie had listened politely up to this moment, her 
 fair face composed and serious. The swift change 
 that swept over it as she saw the superscription on 
 the envelope extended by his pudgy hand, left him 
 dumb and staring. 
 
 "It was more like a flash of lightning than any 
 thing else," he said to his wife when he got home. 
 He did not even recollect whether or not she had 
 thanked him by more than a bend of the head in 
 passing him on her way to the gallery-stairs. "I 
 should n t wonder if t was from her sweetheart 
 abroad. The handwriting was a man s, and the 
 postmark some outlandish place with a foreign stamp 
 on it. " 
 
 The rain was falling fast when Marie reached the 
 street; the car which she hailed and boarded was 
 full to both platforms. In obedience to the conduc 
 tor s " Step forward there, please ! " room was made 
 for her just inside the rear door. She leaned, weak 
 and sick, against the casing, the letter clutched 
 tightly in her hand. It was addressed in her 
 father s well-remembered handwriting, to "Miss 
 Marie Roche Paull In care of Rev. Dr. Egbert 
 Lee, Rector of St. Gudule s, New York City, N. Y., 
 United States of America. " 
 
 In the ten blocks that lay between the church and 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 259 
 
 Mrs. Marcy s door, she had time to review the futile 
 attempts she had made to open communication with 
 the exile since she had posted that first letter in 
 Brooklyn to " Mr. Paul Morgan, Nice, France. " 
 
 Carrie Storrs s device of setting the United States 
 consul at Nice upon the track had elicited a civil 
 reply from Mr. Oliver s secretary, to the effect that 
 no American of the name she had given could be 
 found in Nice. An Englishman calling himself 
 " Ernest Morgan " had passed a winter there, then 
 gone on to Monte Carlo. A guarded letter of inquiry 
 to the far-famed gambling resort met with even 
 less success, no reply being returned. Baffled and 
 despairing, Marie desisted from other efforts until 
 Carrie herself went abroad, a year ago, engaging 
 not to abate her energetic attempts to find Mr. Paull 
 until she could put his address in his daughter s 
 hand. The rattle-brained, warm-hearted ally wrote 
 regularly, and at surprising length for a traveller, 
 to her whom she facetiously dubbed "Telemacha," 
 always hopefully (it is so easy and pleasant to hope 
 to all lengths when we have little at stake ourselves), 
 always to no purpose, so far as the object of her 
 search was concerned. 
 
 "If I had dared take papa into confidence, some 
 thing might have been done through the police," she 
 said to poor Marie upon her return. " But that 
 would never have done, you know." 
 
 Marie did know, as well as if her only confidante 
 had imparted the further information that once, when 
 she "wondered," tentatively, to her father, "if they 
 might not run over Mr. Paull in their travels," he 
 
260 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 retorted tartly for a good-natured and well-trained 
 American father that " nothing was less likely, or, 
 for that matter, less desirable. " 
 
 It argued a depth of devotion which was pathetic, 
 in view of the unworthiness of the object and the 
 scant food that kept it alive, that the daughter s 
 faith and love never wavered through all these 
 eventless months. She had believed that her father 
 still lived and loved her; affection and fancy hung 
 fadeless wreaths above the visage enshrined in her 
 heart of hearts, idealized him into a stainless hero, 
 an uncomplaining martyr. Her life had but one 
 purpose, to make amends to him for all he had 
 suffered, to repair with her young life the wreck his 
 enemies had made of his. It was monomania, 
 flourishing the more rankly, and striking its roots 
 more deeply, for the shade in which she kept it. 
 
 Here was her reward! Clutching the letter still 
 more tightly, she sprang from the car at Mrs. 
 Marcy s corner, ran through the rain, without rais 
 ing her umbrella, to the sidewalk, and up the 
 steps, let herself in with her latch-key, and flew up 
 two, three flights of stairs, to her room, to fall upon 
 her knees and tear open the precious missive. She 
 must read it thus for God had sent it to her at 
 last ! at last ! 
 
 " My own sweet daughter " 
 
 " I knew it ! I knew it ! oh, my darling, my noble 
 suffering angel ! " she cried aloud, kissing the words 
 over and over. "0 God! give me strength to read 
 it all ! " 
 
 It was long, although, as he said, he was uncer- 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 261 
 
 tain whether or not it would ever meet her eyes. 
 He had seen in a New York paper a notice of the 
 appointment of " Miss Marie Paull, daughter of the 
 late Ernest Paull," to the position of organist in 
 the church of St. Gudule s, Rev. Egbert Lee, D.D,, 
 rector. He had written to her before, and repeat 
 edly, letters which her silence proved to him had 
 not reached her. This was one more crumb cast 
 upon the waters. Perhaps the well-meant surveil 
 lance of her lawful guardians might extend even to 
 communications sent under cover to a stranger. 
 He prayed her, should she receive this, to tell him 
 of herself, his best beloved, of her brothers and 
 of Gladys (blessings on the baby, who must, by 
 now, have forgotten her unhappy father), and of the 
 mother, for whom he had not a word of censure. 
 
 "I, who know her Spartan integrity, her rigid 
 sense of what she believes to be duty, her steadfast 
 adherence to the road which she conceives is laid 
 out by Right, expect nothing from her clemency. 
 Believing, as she does, in the clever fabrications of 
 my persecutors, she cannot act differently. I name 
 her daily in my prayers as one of the noblest of 
 women. It is not her fault, but that of the adviser 
 who has her ear, that we are parted by half the 
 breadth of the globe. I hope that your brother, as 
 her favorite child, is the comfort and help she used 
 to prophesy he would prove. If so, she misses me no 
 longer. I am persuaded other things of you, my 
 precious child, the little Marie who promised to 
 marry papa when she should grow up, my house 
 hold fairy. 
 
262 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 " You might not care to renew that promise now, 
 could you see how gray I am, and what lines care, 
 toil, and longing have engraved in the face you once 
 loved to kiss. I have worked hard and against odds 
 in strange lands, and am poorer now than when 1 
 left my native shore. I should not like to have my 
 bonny bird see where and how I live, and how 
 shabby are my clothes. The hunger and the husks 
 are mine, but not the riotous living. The vision of 
 your innocent eyes, if nothing else, would prevent 
 that. And there is no earthly home for the exile 
 whom you, at least, will never believe to be a prod 
 igal. The knowledge of this should make the thought 
 of the rest that remaineth the sweeter. I shall see 
 you there, if never again here. " 
 
CHAPTER XY. 
 
Is that beast better that hath two or three mountains 
 to graze upon, than a little bee that feeds on dew or 
 manna, and lives upon what falls every morning from 
 the storehouse of heaven, clouds, and Providence ? 
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR. 
 
 Drop thy still dews of quietness, 
 
 Till all our strivings cease ; 
 Take from our souls the strain and stress, 
 And let our ordered lives confess 
 
 The beauty of Thy peace. 
 
 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 
 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 " V T 7AKE up, boys! and see what a white Christ- 
 V V mas we have ! " called Mrs. Paull from the 
 foot of the stairs. 
 
 She was answered by the rush windowward of 
 four naked feet upon the floor overhead, and shrill, 
 joyous outcries from two pairs of healthy lungs. 
 She opened the front door and stepped out upon the 
 porch, where Lanier s shovel and Elspeth s broom 
 were at work. It had snowed, not fast, but perse- 
 veringly, for fourteen hours. At three o clock on 
 Christmas morning the cold became too intense for 
 any further downfall. The wind did not rise with 
 the sun, nor did the thermometer. 
 
 Mrs. Paull looked out upon a smooth expanse of 
 what might have been down from a curlew s breast, 
 soft, light, and delicately dyed into the purest shade 
 of pink. The ice-chained lake was a spotless plain 
 into which the lawn sloped by imperceptible degrees ; 
 the naked branches of the deciduous trees were out 
 lined to the tiniest tip with the feathery fall ; the 
 pines bowed in dumb majesty beneath the weight of 
 royal ermine. The still, keen air was a luxury to 
 the respiratory organs, and stung faces and fingers 
 with the prick of electric needles. Every mountain 
 was a Mont Blanc against the fleckless azure of the 
 
266 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 vast hollowed firmament; from the laden roofs of a 
 dozen farmhouses arose steady columns of smoke that 
 caught the flush of the eastern horizon in clearing 
 the shadow of the hills. 
 
 " Such a white Christmas ! " repeated Mrs. Paull, 
 in an ecstasy of enjoyment. " And such a gloriously 
 beautiful happy world ! " 
 
 Lanier tossed his last shovelful of snow upon the 
 mastiff, whom ozone, or some instinctive sense of 
 unusual hilarity in the moral atmosphere, moved to 
 extraordinary yelps and bounds, and joined his 
 mother in her rapid promenade of the paved floor. 
 
 " A pink Christmas, I should call it. Your glori 
 ous world is one huge, full-blown maiden-blush 
 rose. " 
 
 "Just now, yes! In ten minutes the blush will 
 be gone. It is fading now. Why should I be re 
 minded of what the royalist said of the winter 
 funeral of Charles I. ? c And so went our white king 
 to his burial. 
 
 "A grewsome association for Christmas-day! " 
 
 "Hardly that, when one recalls what he escaped. 
 But we will have nothing but Christmas-day talk 
 to-day. Breakfast will be ready at eight, did you 
 say, Elspeth ? Mr. Lanier is ravenous already. We 
 will have luncheon, my son, at half-past twelve, 
 that you may meet Marie at the two o clock train. 
 Do you know " linking her hands upon his arm as 
 they walked "1 accept her consent to keep Christ 
 mas with us as an augury of better things ? She has 
 looked happier, and spoken more gently when I have 
 seen her lately. She sent no gifts for the tree except 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 267 
 
 a book for each of the boys, and a doll for Gladys ; 
 but you and I prize more than expensive presents the 
 signs that we are gaining back the dear, affectionate, 
 winsome Marie of long ago. In His own good time 
 all that is wrong comes right. 
 
 " * For right is right since God is God, 
 
 And right the day must win ; 
 To doubt would be disloyalty, 
 To falter would be sin. 
 
 "And there is no place in God s world on this 
 white Christmas-day see, it is all pure white now 
 for faltering or for disloyalty. " 
 
 Her eyes sparkled; her face was aglow with the 
 dry, sweet coldness of the air ; her step was as light 
 and swift as her son s. 
 
 He stooped to kiss her, and meeting her arch 
 glance, caught her around the waist, and waltzed 
 with her to the other end of the piazza. The mastiff 
 leaped and barked, Elspeth leaned on her broom 
 to chuckle, and Gladys, appearing in the door, 
 screamed with glee, and clapped her hands. 
 
 " Mamma is dancing ! Come, Nursey, and look 
 at her!" 
 
 "Was there ever another such boy!" ejaculated 
 Mrs. Paull, freeing herself at length, and putting 
 her hand to her head, breathless with mirth and 
 exercise. " I am not quite sure that my hair is on 
 my head, and my head upon my shoulders." 
 
 " There ain t many such, and more s the pity ! " 
 said Nurse Williams, from the doorway. "And 
 such mothers are even scarcer, Mr. Lanier. You 
 
268 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 are real smart to make the most of yours. You 
 can t make too much. " 
 
 She had been a guest at Pinehurst for a fortnight. 
 
 " The first out-and-out holiday I ve had in ten 
 years," she told Lanier the night before, while he 
 and she were trimming the Christmas-tree. "And 
 it has built me right over again. I ve had a right 
 tough pull of it since last August. First off, two 
 typhoids in New York, in Mr. Stevens s parish. 
 When you ve said that you may be sure they had 
 swallowed enough sewer-gas and stale vegetables 
 not to speak of decayed fruit bought cheap Saturday 
 night, on account o not keeping over Sunday to 
 give them typhoid as was typhoid. The two were in 
 the one house. Mr. Stevens he come over for me 
 on his own two feet. He couldn t trust the tele 
 graph, he said. He waited until I could rush some 
 things into my bag, and took me back with him. 
 When he s on what he calls the King s business, 
 he has no manner of patience with fuss and frills. 
 That s the name he gives to pretences of all sorts, 
 whether it s pretending to be too busy, or not well 
 enough, or not competent to roll up your sleeves, as 
 it might be, and go to work. I ve heard it said that 
 he has lettered on the inside of his watch : The 
 night cometh ! ; 
 
 "He borrowed that idea from Dr. Johnson, Nurse," 
 said Lanier, banteringly. "He had the motto 
 engraved in Greek upon his watch-case. But go 
 
 He was never better amused than when he got the 
 good soul mounted, and in full canter, upoo one of 
 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 269 
 
 her hobbies. He said she took such comfort in all 
 sides of her life that it refreshed him to listen and 
 to look. They were prime friends. 
 
 " Was he a medical or a minister doctor ? " 
 
 " Neither ; a doctor of philosophy and letters, and 
 a dictionary-maker." 
 
 "Oh!" placidly concerned. "Then I suppose he 
 had to talk Greek, poor gentleman! That Tales 
 from Shakespeare is for Master Edwin s branch, I 
 think ; Historic Boys is for Master Tom. Their 
 sister sent them, and handsome books they are. 
 Very improving, too, I guess. 
 
 "So, after the typhoids were up and round, and 
 they accounted for six solid weeks, measles set in 
 in our church. I had five children in one family, 
 one of em complicated with mumps, and the other 
 with rheumatism for quite a spell. You wouldn t 
 believe how often one disease lies in wait for another. 
 There s nothing in natur , I verily believe and 
 attest, more trying to patients and doctors than com 
 plications. It s like getting out of the woods to find 
 yourself up to the waist in a ma sh. And then 
 there was that poor young married lady that had her 
 skirts set afire with the stump of her husband s 
 cigar he had thrown down on the hearth, thinking it 
 was out, and he a-reading aloud from the newspaper 
 to her, and she braiding a smoking-jacket for him, 
 and neither of them mistrusting a thing amiss until 
 she was in a blaze. She will be lame for life, but 
 she did n t die, and he promised her never to touch 
 another cigar. He said he d had a sickener that 
 would last him for a hundred years. By the time 
 
270 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 she was able to walk about her room, I broke down 
 clean for the first time since I put out my sign that 
 I d nurse, etc. Mrs. Barnes she made me laugh 
 when she come to see me on my back with a different 
 sort of ache in every bone in my body, by saying that 
 the c and-so-f orth had been too much for me at last. 
 Such a flow of spirits as that blessed woman has ! 
 Between ourselves and the post, Mr. Lanier (though 
 what the post has to do with two people and a secret, 
 I could never make out), her it was that put your 
 mother up to dropping in upon me on the tenth of 
 December, and nothing would serve her but I must 
 bundle right up, without any more words, and come 
 up here with her. 
 
 " She made me laugh, too, and cry together. 
 
 " It s the King s business I m on, Mrs. Wil 
 liams, says she, funny, and yet solemn. Pinehurst 
 is the cup of cold water I m sent here to offer you, 
 my fellow disciple. 
 
 " It s a drink that has put new life into me. Ah, 
 Mr. Lanier, don t you fall into the way so many 
 people have specially young people who have n t 
 the sign of a scar of trouble upon the skin of their 
 hearts of talking of this world as a sink of sin, 
 and of their fellow-beings as worm-eaten by selfish 
 ness, from A to Amperzand. There s loads of 
 specked fruit lying on the grass in the Lord s 
 orchard, but it s oftentimes the sweetest that s 
 knurly, or rotten on one side. I think the time 
 will come when the Master, walking in the garden 
 in the cool of the day, will cut off for His own use 
 the good part, and throw the bad away. 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 271 
 
 " As for your mother, she s sound and ripe and 
 fine-flavored, through and through. It s an educa 
 tion in grace and faith just to be with her from day 
 to day." 
 
 The speaker was a goodly sight in herself on this 
 holiday, than which no whiter had stood in her cal 
 endar for many a long year. The wholesome fare, 
 bracing air, and cordial cheer of Pinehurst had, as 
 she said, restored her to her normal self. Her 
 cheeks had the bloom of a Spitzenberg apple; her 
 laugh was the merry gurgle her patients found irre 
 sistibly contagious; her comfortable visage was an 
 illuminated demonstration of " peace on earth, good 
 will to men." Over her gray gown was tied what 
 was surely the smoothest apron in all the world 
 where white muslin aprons are the badge of notable 
 housewifery. She had been downstairs for over an 
 hour, dusting the parlor, dressing the breakfast 
 table with ground-pine and bitter-sweet berries, and 
 in the kitchen contriving to help, without hindering, 
 Elspeth, not always an easy undertaking in another 
 woman s kitchen. 
 
 When, at half-past seven, the household assembled 
 in the parlor for prayers, she supplied a harmonious 
 contralto to the soprano in which Mrs. Paull led the 
 quaint old hymn that peals and echoes on one morn 
 ing of the year around the globe : 
 
 " While shepherds watched their flocks by night, 
 
 All seated on the ground, 
 The angel of the Lord came down 
 And glory shone around." 
 
272 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 What a Christmas-keeping that was ! From the 
 pink rising of the sun to the crimson going down 
 of the same, there was not one false note in the guile 
 less mirth of childhood, not a sharp tone in the 
 voices of their elders. Nothing went wrong. At 
 breakfast the generous rivalry of Elspeth s spongy 
 muffins and Mrs. Williams s smothered chicken 
 added zest to the discussion of both ; the clear black 
 coffee in the cups of the grown people was mantled 
 by whipped cream of like quality with that which 
 slid slowly down inside of the glasses from which 
 the children drank their milk. 
 
 Before anybody dreamed that the forenoon was 
 half gone, the luncheon was served, a luncheon 
 which the children averred was quite as much fun 
 as the Big Patch picnic: toasted bannocks and 
 yellow buttermilk and home-made cream cheese, as 
 smooth as butter, and far better than so-called 
 Neufchatel, and hot corn-bread, and wafery slices of 
 coralline ham, and doughnuts, an early meal, that 
 Lanier might set out betimes for Peddlington, which 
 Marie would reach by the one o clock train from New 
 York. She could not get away earlier on account of 
 the morning service at St. Gudule s. It was in 
 voluntary compliment to her that her little brothers, 
 and even Gladys, begged not to have the large 
 parlor where the tree stood, opened until the after 
 noon. They had hung up their stockings over 
 night, and enjoyed overhauling the fruit, bonbons, 
 and other trifles with which they were distended by 
 morning. The Tree the anniversary s Crown 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 273 
 
 and Event should not be touched, or so much as 
 looked upon, before " Sister s " arrival. 
 
 Everything went upon velvet that day. The sleek 
 roadster attached to the trim cutter, which was 
 Uncle Roger s Christmas present to his sister, actu 
 ally arched his neck, curvetted, and " stepped out " 
 with an air a thoroughbred might have emulated, 
 when Lanier got in and took up the reins. Not a 
 capful of wind had dislodged the trim coping of snow 
 from the top of the stone walls. The steady, still 
 cold had held on, although the sun shone brightly. 
 The four-inch-thick covering of the earth had not 
 melted, but settled into compactness, making the 
 sleighing excellent, without need of cutting roads in 
 any direction. As the cutter spun out of the gate, 
 " spun " was not too strong a word in the boys 
 opinion, for the gallant way in which bay Prince 
 carried off the new equipage, the dry snow spurned 
 by his hoofs hung in the air like silver dust. 
 
 " I wonder if it s too dry to make a snow-man 
 with? " speculated Mrs. Williams, squeezing a hand 
 ful in her strong fingers. 
 
 That was the inception of the famous statue of 
 Santa Claus, which was erected at the right side of 
 the piazza-step under the shelter of the porch, " ready 
 to shake hands with anybody who called," said 
 Gladys. 
 
 He was almost built when Mr. Morse drove 
 around the corner of the house, the jingle of his 
 sleigh-bells unheard in the clamor of talk and laugh 
 ter, until he was abreast of the busy group. Wrapped 
 up to their eyes, with just room between the folds of 
 
 18 
 
274 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 their comforters for the escape of clouds of eager 
 breath, with thick gloves protecting hands that would 
 else have been frosted, the boys brought and emptied 
 upon the floor basketfuls of snow. Mrs. Paull and 
 Mrs. Williams, also muffled beyond recognition but 
 for eyes and voices, acted as sculptors-in-chief. 
 Mr. Morse s companion was his Philadelphia brother- 
 in-law, Dr. Lyell, a frequent and favored visitor at 
 Pinehurst. 
 
 "Don t stop! Let us take a hand!" called the 
 pastor, gayly, as the sleigh dashed on to the stable 
 for shelter for the horse. 
 
 They were back in three minutes, and took a hand 
 with a will equal to that of the most zealous, and 
 skill that threw the best efforts of their predecessors 
 into the background. 
 
 "Mould and pose are really classic!" observed 
 Mrs. Paull, withdrawing to a suitable distance for 
 contemplation, while the boys swept up the snow 
 scattered about the base of the statue. " The Knick 
 erbocker saint is classic by now, is n t he ? " 
 
 "I flatter myself that his cloak has a togaesque 
 droop," said Dr. Lyell, his head on one side, his 
 hand funnelled artistically. " But the beard of 
 which Mr. Morse was sole architect is the master 
 piece. I wish we could borrow him as a figure 
 head for the big sleigh to-night " - was the adroit 
 introduction to a petition the two had come to 
 prefer. 
 
 The parsonage was full of frolicsome young people 
 from Philadelphia and New York, for whom the 
 Morses had planned a moonlight sleigh-ride. Would 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 275 
 
 Mrs. Paull spare her son and daughter for a few 
 hours ? The party would call for them at half- 
 past seven, and return them in safety before mid 
 night. Mrs. Morse was to matronize the affair, and 
 Mr. Morse would allow nobody but himself to act as 
 charioteer. They were to take supper at a hotel ten 
 miles away, situated in the very heart of the snow- 
 girt mountains, and renowned for excellent fare. 
 This was the programme unfolded by Mrs. Paull 
 over the Christmas dinner, served at five o clock that 
 the children might have time to digest it before bed 
 time. 
 
 Marie sat at her mother s right hand, dressed, as 
 was her custom, simply in black. No conventual 
 costume could have hidden the fact of her beauty to 
 day. Her nectarine bloom, the golden sheen of her 
 luxuriant hair, the eyes, violet-blue in color, and 
 eloquent in the expression of every fluctuation of 
 emotion, would have made a pretty, even a brilliant- 
 looking woman of her, had her features been less 
 regular. In the holiday mood in which she indulged 
 herself, she was bewitching in the sight of others as 
 well as her mother, whose prideful love as she looked 
 and listened to her wayward daughter gave watch 
 ful Mrs. Williams a heartache. 
 
 " She s taken lots of stock in that girl, in spite of 
 all that s passed," she meditated. "Up to date, it 
 is n t paying stock either ; but, there ! the love a 
 mother puts into her children is most generally to 
 be considered in the light of a permanent invest 
 ment. There s no calculating what the dividends 
 will be of shares that are below par sometimes six 
 
276 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 days in a week, and that a smile or a kind word 
 can send up on the seventh day to thribble what 
 they re worth." 
 
 Marie s eyes danced for one unguarded moment, 
 and her color was heightened at hearing of the pro 
 spective frolic, but her reply was demure. 
 
 "I should like to go if Lanier is to be one of the 
 party. Perhaps, however, mother would rather 
 have us stay at home this evening ? " 
 
 It was spoken carelessly, but the starved heart of 
 the parent responded to the slight indication of 
 regard for her wishes. 
 
 "By no means, love," she hastened to reply. "I 
 shall have you with me all day to-morrow. If I 
 were ten years younger, and had not played the 
 sculptor so hard this afternoon, I should ask for a 
 seat in the sleigh. The idea is simply enchanting." 
 
 "You would be the handsomest woman there, if 
 you went ! " said loyal Tom. 
 
 "That s so! " Edwin backed up his senior. 
 
 "And the youngest!" put in Mrs. Williams. 
 
 " And the most fascinating ! " this from Lanier. 
 
 " And the best and sweetest ! " Gladys carried on 
 the eulogy, reaching over from her chair at her 
 mother s left hand to clasp her arms behind her 
 neck. 
 
 " Certainly the richest ! " responded Mrs. Paull, 
 trying to laugh, while her eyes swam in a happy dew. 
 " When I have all my children about me, I can say 
 with all my heart that I do not envy the Baroness 
 Burdett-Coutts, or Queen Croesus, if there was 
 such a personage. " 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 277 
 
 She said the same in substance again, as, having 
 seen the big sleigh, heaped with furs and happiness, 
 drive from the door, and listened until the last 
 tinkle of the bells lost itself among the hills, she 
 heaved a satisfied sigh in returning to the fireside 
 with Mrs. Williams. 
 
 "My cup is very full to-night. The paths I have 
 not known have brought me out into a wealthy 
 place. These anniversaries are hill-tops where it is 
 lawful to rest awhile and look back over the road we 
 have travelled. Plow lovely Marie has been to-day ! 
 Don t you think so ? " 
 
 "We are not the only people of that opinion. 
 Unless I am mistaken, there s a young man of that 
 party who could give us a point or two upon the 
 subject." 
 
 Mrs. Paull had taken up a stick of wood to lay on 
 the fire. The sentence arrested her. Still holding 
 it, she looked around quickly : 
 
 "Do you mean Dr. Lyell ? " 
 
 "Just that!" 
 
 The hostess adjusted the stick carefully in its 
 place, brushed up the hearth, and pulled forward 
 two chairs, one for her companion, one for herself. 
 
 "I have never thought of such a possibility," she 
 said slowly. " She seems such a child to me." 
 
 " In her twentieth year, is n t she ? " 
 
 " She was nineteen in October. Quite too young 
 to be married." 
 
 "She looks and acts and feels like a woman of 
 twenty-five. You won t take it amiss if I say what 
 come into my head, seeing them two together ? be- 
 
278 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 fore that, in fact, for the notion popped into my 
 brain this afternoon while he was helping and talk 
 ing to you over the snow-man. I think when he 
 was holding snow in his hand to soften it enough to 
 make a nose, and you begged him not to do it. I d 
 rather Santa Glaus should have a snub nose than 
 that you should freeze your fingers, says you, in your 
 nice, motherly way. And he flashed his eyes up 
 at you so quick and grateful and aft ectionate-like, 
 just the look 1 ve noticed in other young men in 
 talking to women they wish were their mothers-in- 
 law. That set me on to watch him with Miss 
 Marie. He looked too happy to see her, and she 
 made too much of an effort to behave to him exactly 
 as she did to Mr. Morse, not to mean something out 
 of the common. Mr. Morse, he may not have under 
 stood it. Ministers are the salt of the earth, as we 
 all know, that is, the right sort are. (Salt that s 
 lost its savor ain t to be compared in trashiness 
 with the wrong kind !) But I Ve noticed a many a 
 time that most of them even the saltiest, as you 
 may say have got so into the habit of being put 
 first that they kinder squirm when they are put 
 second. Maybe it s the praise and reverence of the 
 women in the congregation that s responsible for it. 
 Maybe, again, it s being stood up above the people 
 so constant, in pulpits and upon platforms and 
 things. Anyhow, it s more than likely Mr. Morse 
 took it as quite natural that Miss Marie squeezed his 
 hand in both of hers, and said, May n t I please sit 
 up there by you ? quite as if she meant it. His wife 
 had different eyes and her own notions, so she had 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 279 
 
 a fat elderly man on the raised front seat, and snug 
 gled Miss Marie in the one just behind, out of the 
 wind, she said, and between her and Dr. Lyell. " 
 
 "Is that the notion you hoped I would not mind 
 your telling ? " asked Mrs. Paull, smiling. 
 
 She was versed in her old friend s manner of lead 
 ing up to a delicate subject. 
 
 "Well, then, it isn t, though it has a good deal 
 to do with it, when you come down to the truth. 
 This was what I was thinking of : The best way to 
 get one thing out of the mind is to fill it with 
 another thing. Ever since I knew her, Miss Marie 
 has had her head and heart taken up with one idea. 
 If this nice young gentleman, who, from what I can 
 judge, is what he ought to be, could work himself 
 into her favor why, it would be a safer and 
 happier filling up of her heart and her life than the 
 other. You 11 forgive me if I ve gone too far, Mrs. 
 Paull ? Nobody knows better than me, ma am, that 
 some wounds ought not be meddled with, even after 
 they re healed over. No matter how light they are 
 touched, they inflame, and like s not, break out 
 again. I Ve carried such a tender spot about me for 
 nine-and-twenty years." 
 
 "Forgive you, dear friend!" said Mrs. Paull s 
 mildest tone. " After all you have done for me and 
 mine, could I take exception to anything you might 
 say, even if my judgment did not tell me you are in 
 the right, as it does in this instance ? I could ask 
 no better earthly blessing for my deep-hearted girl 
 than to see her the happy wife of an honorable man, 
 be it Richard Lyell or anybody else. Pure love 
 
280 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 of a worthy object is a sovereign cure for morbid 
 ness. Next to this, I place active industry for 
 others good, something to do, and to be doing it." 
 " You are in the right there. But for my work, 
 my profession, as some call it (I don t, but we 
 mean the same thing), work that s laid right down 
 before me, and me to ask no questions, and to slight 
 nothing, day s work, cut and carved and measured 
 out, same as the tale of bricks was to the Isr elites, 
 but by another sort of overseer, I d a been in my 
 grave or in the lunatic asylum ages ago. And since 
 I ve known and walked in the Royal Road, the yoke 
 has been easy and the burden light. It s like day 
 unto day uttering speech, a-whispering one to the 
 other of the following of goodness and mercy, and 
 angels coming to minister unto me in my darkest 
 night. 
 
 * The sweet surrounding 
 Of Thine angels banding wings. 
 
 Yes, I can truly say that the songs I have had in 
 the house of my pilgrimage since I was let to under 
 stand what pilgrimage is, and the house but a mov 
 ing tent pitched each night nearer home, are 
 more and joyfuller than in the days when, as one 
 might say, my corn and my wine were increased. " 
 
 " And you, too, have had a great sorrow ? " 
 
 The question was scarcely above a whisper. 
 
 " Such a sorrow as has made every other seem 
 light to me. Hark ! they can t be back already ? " 
 
 The clash and chime of sleigh-bells were loud 
 and close at hand. With the instant apprehension 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 281 
 
 that some accident had befallen the revellers, both 
 women hastened to the outer door. 
 
 A livery-stable sleigh and a pair of horses were 
 there ; a tall man threw back the robes and alighted, 
 as the lamp-rays from the hall streamed out upon the 
 welcoming figure of Santa Glaus. 
 
CHAPTEE XVI. 
 
The Everlasting Arms ! I think of that whenever rest 
 is sweet. How the whole earth and the strength of it, 
 that is almightiness, is beneath every tired creature to 
 give it rest, holding us always ! No thought of God 
 is closer than that. ADELINE D. T. WHITNEY. 
 
 In God s world for those who are in earnest there is 
 no failure. F. W. ROBERTSON. 
 
 For him the silver ladder shall be set ; 
 
 His Saviour shall receive his latest breath j 
 He walketh to a fadeless coronet 
 
 Up through the gate of death. 
 
 ANONYMOUS. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 " TAON T be frightened, Alice!" said the unex- 
 
 -L pected visitor. "I am only a Christmas 
 trick. " 
 
 " Roger ! my blessed brother ! " was the glad out 
 cry with which the sister sprang to his arms. " This 
 is a joyful surprise ! I only needed it to make our 
 white Christmas round and perfect as a star. " 
 
 Voice and limbs tremulous with excitement, she 
 stood in the embrace of his left arm, while he gave 
 orders to the driver to put up at the village hotel 
 and come for him at nine o clock next morning. 
 His sister interrupted him : 
 
 " So soon, brother ? It has been so long since you 
 were here ! " 
 
 " I must be off in the ten o clock train, my dear 
 girl. As it is, I shall find a pile of work that has 
 rolled up like a snow-ball during my twenty-four 
 hours vacation. Halloo!" halting to survey the 
 majestic snow effigy towering higher than his head. 
 "You have a Pequod Michael Angelo, then ? " 
 
 While she explained, Mrs. Williams slipped 
 unobserved into the house. By the time he was 
 relieved of his overcoat and muffler, and installed 
 in an easy-chair before the roaring fire of hickory- 
 logs, a tap at the door heralded Elspeth and the 
 
286 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 supper-tray, Mrs. Williams following with the 
 coffee-pot. 
 
 In defiance of his remonstrances, the three waited 
 upon him as they might upon a materialized spirit 
 of Christmas. He began by protesting that he had 
 no appetite, having eaten his holiday dinner in the 
 bosom of his family at half-past five o clock, and it 
 was not yet nine, and had the reward of submission 
 to his sister s solicitations in the discovery that the 
 sharp air of the hills had enkindled and renewed 
 genuine hunger. 
 
 " Now, I shall not dare seek my pillow until mid 
 night ! " he feigned to bemoan himself, when the 
 remnants of the feast were cleared away, and Mrs. 
 Williams and Elspeth had withdrawn. "I might 
 have known that Elspeth s cookery would tempt me 
 beyond my powers of resistance. I can hardly 
 believe myself really here in body ; the lark has 
 been such a veritable impromptu. I was sipping 
 my after-dinner coffee in the library when Virginia 
 regretted to me that she had promised to take the 
 children to a Christmas frolic at her sister s, and my 
 spirit moved suddenly and mightily within me 
 toward my sister. My dear, I said, to the best and 
 most reasonable of wives, I am strongly tempted to 
 make a rush in another direction, to escape to the 
 mountains, in fact. I have not seen Alice in a 
 month, or the children in three months. Her 
 countenance cleared up on the instant, and I saw 
 that she had been afraid that I would be bored at 
 her sister s party. Genevieve is a fine woman, but 
 she is not Virginia, and I had a hankering on Christ- 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 287 
 
 mas night for my own kin and kind. So, here I 
 am." 
 
 He looked happy and comfortable in the home he 
 had made luxurious for the sister he loved. The 
 chair in which he leaned back had been his father s ; 
 the cushioned stool on which his feet rested had 
 been worked by his mother, and he was a man upon 
 whom the claims of early association were strong. 
 Amid the toils and temptations of such an existence 
 as a successful business career in America entails 
 upon him who pursues it, he had kept a clean heart 
 and pure hands, but the ceaseless grind of the mill 
 had told upon his nervous forces. His handsome 
 features were thinned into ethereal refinement; his 
 dark eyes were quick and searching; the masses of 
 brown hair pushed back from his broad forehead 
 showed a white lining at the temples. Still his was 
 a goodly and a stately presence, noble beyond com 
 parison in the sight of her whose earthly savior he 
 had proved himself in her extremest need. Her 
 eyes lingered fondly upon him; while they talked 
 her hand wandered often to his knee or arm ; once 
 he turned to press his lips to it as it rested upon his 
 shoulder. To the world, he was quiet, reserved, 
 and self-contained ; his wife and children and the 
 sister he ranked second only to his Virginia as the 
 embodiment of perfect womanhood, knew the passion^ 
 ate depths of the hidden heart. 
 
 She could not weary of telling him what full and 
 exquisite delight the unlooked-for visit had brought 
 to her, "the beautiful outgoing of a perfect day," 
 she called it. He would have all the particulars 
 
288 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 of the home-festival, an expression of profound 
 gratification stealing over his face as she spoke of 
 Marie s altered demeanor. 
 
 "To be frank with you," he owned, "had I sup 
 posed that her engagements would permit her to be 
 with you to-day, I should have hesitated before obey 
 ing the spirit-impulse I told you of. The sight of 
 me can hardly be agreeable to her, poor child ! " 
 
 Without thinking why they did it, they all called 
 the proud, self-reliant girl that when she was not 
 present to be irked by their pity. 
 
 " I have heard no better news in a month of Sun 
 days than that she is coming to herself. It is not a 
 matter of moment that she should do my motives 
 justice; it is a great satisfaction to look forward to 
 the time when she shall know you, her mother, as you 
 are, and appreciate at its true value the tender for 
 bearance displayed toward her by you when you were 
 yourself so sadly in need of all the love and sympa 
 thy your children could give you. I used to think, 
 Alice, that the workman in the stony field of the 
 world must wait until nightfall before receiving his 
 recompense. At fifty, I am beginning to learn that 
 if he be observant, he gets many an earnest, as he 
 goes along, of what the final reward will be. I 
 wish I had been on the look-out earlier. 1 have 
 missed tokens which I ought to have picked up of 
 the largesse flung to his subjects by the King in 
 passing." 
 
 " Good old Dr. George Junkin said to me once, " 
 replied his sister, " that one key to the enigma of the 
 Father s apparently severe dealings with His chil- 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 289 
 
 dren is that sin, by its very nature, must entail 
 suffering upon the transgressor ; and since there are 
 no punitive fires in the world to come for His 
 beloved, the chastening requisite for purification 
 and healthful spiritual growth must be borne here. 
 1 believe firmly that we too frequently miss the 
 benefit we might gain from what you speak of as 
 an earnest of the reserved treasure at which Saint 
 Peter hints. We make too little of every-day joys, 
 of daily deliverance, of sparkles of happiness, and 
 glimpses of beauty granted to us, not by accident, 
 but as really sent to us as the fall of manna was 
 sent to the Israelites. What wealth of spiritual 
 instruction there is in that story of the manna! He 
 that had gathered much had nothing over, and he 
 that had gathered little had no lack, provided the 
 gathering was according to the word of the Lord. It 
 was only the hoard secreted for the morrow that 
 spoiled into offensiveness." 
 
 Roger patted her shoulder, the corners of his 
 mustache twitching roguishly : 
 
 "I catch the hoof-beats of your hobby, my dear! 
 Don t rein him in on my account. I may have 
 laughed at him and at you, in a half-hearted way, 
 sometimes, but often and often, when I have lain 
 awake into the small hours, revolving this scheme 
 of adding to my store, or anticipating the dreadful 
 details of threatening losses to me, and to others 
 who trusted in my sagacity, I have bethought myself 
 of your Royal Road, and acknowledged that its ways 
 are the ways of pleasantness, and all its paths are 
 peace. If I had my life to live over again, I would 
 
 19 
 
290 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 curb imagination, and deny myself some of the 
 pleasures of anticipation for the sake of knowing 
 that peace. I would try to take God at His word, 
 and cast at least a few tons of this load of daily 
 care upon Him who careth for me. Even for me ! " 
 he added dreamily, with bowed head. "Even for 
 me!" 
 
 He passed his hand over his eyes, and roused to a 
 livelier tone. 
 
 " I do not know twelve lines of poetry in all, but 
 two of the dozen sang and hummed themselves in 
 my ears to a sleigh-bell accompaniment all the way 
 from Peddlington. They are part of an old song our 
 father liked to hear you sing : 
 
 I know Thou wilt not slight my call, 
 For Thou dost mark the sparrow s fall. 
 
 Would it awaken the children if you were to run it 
 over for me now ? " 
 
 Her answer was to arise and go to the piano Marie 
 had left open. Elspeth, hobnobbing over the kitchen 
 fire with Mrs. Williams, set the dining-room door 
 ajar that they might hear more distinctly the rich 
 vibrant notes that swelled and soared through the 
 silent chambers and empty halls: 
 
 " Rocked in the cradle of the deep, 
 I lay me down in peace to sleep ; 
 Secure I rest upon the wave, 
 For Thou, O Lord ! hast power to save. 
 I know Thou wilt not slight my call, 
 For Thou dost mark the sparrow s fall; 
 So calm I lay me down to sleep, 
 Rocked in the cradle of the deep. 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 291 
 
 " And such the trust that still were mine, 
 Though blasting winds swept o er the brine, 
 And though the tempest s fiery breath 
 Wake me from sleep to pain and death, 
 Secure in ocean s cave with thee, 
 The germ of immortality, 
 Peaceful I d lay me down to sleep 
 Rocked in the cradle of the deep." 
 
 When the singer resumed her seat, Mr. Lanier 
 laid his hand upon hers. 
 
 " Thank you ! " he said. " When we join the ever 
 lasting song, I shall lower my voice to listen for 
 yours. I think I should recognize it in the Halle 
 lujah Chorus itself. 
 
 We ve lived and loved together, 
 Through many changing years/ 
 
 sweet sister! (There go two more of my dozen!) 
 In all those years, and through all the changes they 
 have wrought, have we ever exchanged a sharp word, 
 or had a hard thought of one another ? " 
 
 " Never ! " she said earnestly. 
 
 "That is pleasant to think of while we are alive 
 upon the earth. It will be a consolation to the one 
 left behind when the other is yet more alive in the 
 house where changes never come. While I am in 
 the confessional " - with a little laugh " I may as 
 well admit that I should have been a healthier Chris 
 tian had I taken and enjoyed the snatches of rest 
 thrown into my way on the journey up-hill, instead of 
 eating and sleeping in harness, and giving up an hour 
 or so of Sunday, and more than an hour or so of 
 the time that should have been spent every night in 
 
292 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 folding the hands together in slumber, in longing 
 for eternal rest. One verse I do know by heart. I 
 should be hopelessly stupid if I did not, having 
 repeated it some hundreds of times, in the heat of 
 the day s battle, and in the night when sleep forsook 
 my eyelids : 
 
 Oh, Land of Rest, for thee I sigh 1 
 
 When will the moment come, 
 When I shall lay my armor by, 
 And be in thee at home ? 
 
 A man gets so tired ! so tired ! " 
 
 " Every buckle and strap of that same armor ought 
 to be let out," Mrs. Paull said decidedly. "Dear 
 Roger! is such incessant toil imperative at your 
 age, and in your circumstances ? Surely you have 
 accumulated enough to warrant this ? " 
 
 " That is not the question. Riches are a responsi 
 bility, no less than a care, a responsibility one 
 cannot delegate to another. For money for the 
 money s worth I would not give that," snapping 
 his fingers. " As a means of doing good, of confer 
 ring happiness, of insuring the comfort of those I 
 love ; of enhancing the prosperity of the community 
 in which I have made my fortune, its value cannot 
 be overstated. 
 
 " I did not come here to talk of money and money- 
 making, but before quitting the subject, there will 
 be a desk in my office for Lanier when he is ready to 
 take it. My elder boys being girls, it will be fifteen 
 years before Roger, Jr., will be eligible for such a 
 position. Shall we you and I live to read the 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 293 
 
 style of the firm, Lanier & Son, -do you 
 think ? " 
 
 " It is altogether probable. Our father lived to be 
 seventy-three. " 
 
 " It is a long time to look ahead ! " with a weary 
 intonation. 
 
 "Happily there is no need to do it," said the 
 sister. "The hoof-beats again! The present is 
 so affluent of mercies that I have no temptation to 
 forecast the future, further than to thank you for 
 your generous designs toward my boy. I can prom 
 ise that he will serve you faithfully, to the best of 
 his ability. He cannot serve you too well. He 
 knows and feels this." 
 
 At eleven o clock, hearing Elspeth moving about, 
 shutting up the house, her mistress called her and 
 Mrs. Williams into the sitting-room. Mr. Lanier 
 sat at the table with the Family Bible open before 
 him, reverent and dignified as befitted the patri 
 archal office. 
 
 " The steps of a good man are ordered ~by the Lord" 
 he read : " and he delight eth in His way. 
 
 " Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down : 
 for the Lord upholdeth him with His hand. 
 
 "I have been young, and now am old ; yet have 1 
 not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed legging 
 bread." 
 
 He did not finish the Psalm, closing the book upon 
 the thirty-seventh verse : - 
 
 " Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright; for 
 the end of that man is peace." 
 
 Perhaps he did not care, on Christmas night, to 
 
294 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 direct his thoughts and those of his auditors to the 
 antithetical doom of transgressors. His face was all 
 peace as the four arose from their knees after the brief 
 prayer, direct and devout, that committed the house 
 hold and all dear to it to the Father s loving care. 
 
 "Your visit is the postscript to a love-letter for us 
 all, from Him who was born in Bethlehem," said 
 Mrs. Williams, in "shaking hands with him for the 
 night. " He sent you straight ! " 
 
 " I hope so ! " reverently. " But the benefit is 
 chiefly mine. I am younger by ten years than when 
 1 left New York. Mrs. Paull has a private cellar at 
 Pinehurst where she keeps the Elixir of Life on 
 tap. You have been treated to it, I see, Mrs. 
 Williams. I am glad to see you looking so well. 
 Good-night I Christmas dreams to you, Elspeth ! " 
 
 When his sister came back to the sitting-room after 
 a conference in the hall with Elspeth, he was stand 
 ing by the hearth, examining a photograph of Marie 
 taken from the mantel. 
 
 "There is capital stuff in that girl," he said 
 kindly. "You will get a world of comfort out of 
 her yet. Wrap yourself up warmly, and take a turn 
 on the piazza before going to bed, if you are not too 
 weary. I shall sleep the better for an ozone night 
 cap." 
 
 The weather had moderated sensibly since the sun 
 went down. Plumes of pale vapor were streaming 
 up slowly from behind the hills ; about the moon, 
 round as a shield, and riding high in the zenith, was 
 flung a vast halo, glittering with faintly prismatic 
 crystals of snow. 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 295 
 
 " A far-off halo, a near-hand storm! quoted 
 Roger, drawing his sister s hand within his arm. 
 " I hope it will be snow, and not rain, as my sleigh 
 has no top. Yet a heavy snow-fall upon that which 
 is already on the ground would be no joke to a man 
 who must be in New York at eleven o clock to 
 morrow morning. And there is no telegraph-station 
 nearer than Peddlington ! " 
 
 He looked so perturbed that Mrs. Paull tendered a 
 morsel of comfort. 
 
 " Should you be snow-bound, and I don t believe 
 you will be, a day of country-rest, winter-rest, 
 would do you a world of good. I am not sure that 
 there could be a better prescription for you, and 
 other jaded men of affairs, than to be weather-locked 
 for a solid week in a country-house. It would loosen 
 the nerve tension efficaciously." 
 
 "And loosen the credit-tension yet more effectu 
 ally! No, my dear, I must stand in my office at 
 eleven-thirty to-morrow, weather or no weather. 
 Some exigencies are inexorable, and the law calling 
 a business man to his post out-Dracos Draco. 
 
 " Borrowing trouble again, you will say ! I will 
 take the present pleasure without courting to 
 morrow s shadow. I am conscious at this precise 
 instant of nothing but that I was a wonderfully 
 clever fellow to plan this frolic, and that I am more 
 than satisfied with the result of it. 
 
 "What a benignant air your snow sentinel wears 
 in the moonlight! He really startled me, as we 
 drove up to the porch; his attitude was so life-like 
 and imposing. Do you recollect Hawthorne s 
 
296 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 charming story of The Snow Image, and the scold 
 ing we got from our nurse one stormy afternoon for 
 stealing out into the back-yard to build a little girl 
 like that which the mother saw running about in the 
 garden with her daughters ? How we believed in 
 things, then! There is no fiction in Child-World. 
 There is a large hospitality in the outstretch of your 
 Santa Glaus massive arm, and his beard is a stroke 
 of genius. It would not surprise me out of my wits 
 if our venerable friend were to break loose from his 
 moorings, and fall into step with us. " 
 
 Chatting, now jestingly, now seriously, they paced 
 up and down for a good half-hour, watching the 
 rising mists gather form and opaqueness, as they 
 invaded the clear ether of the upper heavens. The 
 horizon lines were blurred, and in the extreme dis 
 tance blotted out; the moon grew wan and watery; 
 there was a nearing change in the Christmas 
 weather. Boding murmurs ran from bough to bough 
 of the ermined pines ; occasionally a deep, irregular 
 growl, like subterranean thunder, shuddered to them 
 from the ice-bound lake, the struggle for freedom 
 of imprisoned winds entrapped through some " breath 
 ing-hole " far up the gorge, and aroused to rebellion 
 by the indications of approaching warfare in the free 
 air above the dungeon. 
 
 The visitor expressed no further solicitude as to 
 the chances of detention in his homeward journey. 
 The clear shining of his holiday mood continued 
 throughout the walk and talk. 
 
 Mrs. Paull paused for a last look at the outer scene 
 before entering the house. 
 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 297 
 
 " Our white Christmas is over ! " she said regret 
 fully. " There goes the stroke of twelve ! Ah, well ! 
 we have enjoyed every blessed minute of it. From 
 early morn to dewy eve, it has been without spot or 
 wrinkle or any such thing. We give it back to God 
 as pure as when we received it from His hand. 
 
 " And so went our white king to his burial ! " 
 
 Her brother looked at her in surprised inquiry. 
 
 "You spoke of a ringing in your ears or brain of 
 a certain snatch of a song. That sentence has 
 haunted me all day. I read it in an account of the 
 execution of Charles L, written, as you may know, 
 by a devoted royalist. The snow fell upon his bier 
 as they carried it to the vault ; when it got there, the 
 black velvet was as white as wool. And so went 
 our white king to his burial, are the concluding 
 words of the narrative. That they should pursue 
 me to-day is an absurd and, so far as I can judge, 
 a causeless haunting, although I do not deny that I 
 am a Stuart-lover. Now your lines are beautiful, 
 comforting, and always apt." 
 
 Her brother hummed them in putting together the 
 brands on the hearth, and piling on stout logs that 
 would be ablaze by the time Lanier and Marie 
 returned : 
 
 " I know Thou wilt not slight my call, 
 For Thou dost mark the sparrow s fall." 
 
 "I don t know that I care to get away from my 
 4 haunting. I could lay nothing pleasanter to heart. 
 And the inevitable association of Ye are of more 
 value than many sparrows is a soft pillow for tern- 
 
298 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 pies a-throb with the cares of this world and the 
 deceitfulness of riches. 
 
 "Good-night, my Evangel! God bless and keep 
 you, and give you many, many more white days ! " 
 
 Mrs. Paull caught up his haunting rhyme, going 
 over words and tune musingly, a smile upon her lip, 
 as she laid off her dress, put on a wrapper, and went 
 back to the parlor-fire. She stirred the bed of 
 scarlet coals, lay back in her father s chair, her 
 feet upon the embroidered stool, and thought her 
 own happy thoughts until the merry-makers found 
 her there, fully awake to the interest of the story of 
 their drive and entertainment. 
 
 Marie kissed her of her own accord outside of her 
 mother s chamber-door. 
 
 " You are too good to me, mamma ! I wish I were 
 a better child to you ! " 
 
 " All dear and lovely things have come to me this 
 Christmas-tide ! " murmured the mother, as she laid 
 her head on the pillow, and heard the toll of one 
 from the hall-clock. 
 
 She was falling asleep when the hymning of a dis 
 tant choir seemed to bring to her the fragment of 
 the "old song our father loved to hear you sing." 
 She could have fancied that she heard her brother s 
 voice in the celestial music : 
 
 " I know Thou wilt not slight my call, 
 For Thou dost mark the sparrow s fall." 
 
 She sat up, startled and but partially awake ; then 
 smiled and sank back among the pillows. 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 299 
 
 " Dear, dear old Roger ! No wonder that I dream 
 of him ! " 
 
 The stillness of night and slumber enwrapped 
 dreaming household and landscape. Except that the 
 mourning pines responded fitfully to the captive 
 winds under the ice, and that long brooding breath 
 ings stirred the unclothed limbs of oaks and hicko 
 ries, nothing moved in the solemn amphitheatre 
 within the rampart of the hills, until, at four o clock, 
 the snow began to fall. 
 
 Great flakes drifted straight earthward, and 
 caught upon and clung to the trees, floating down 
 and down, slow and large, until the nearest hills 
 were invisible behind the wavering white veil. The 
 trees ceased their sighing under the increasing 
 weight of damp snow; the mysterious groans be 
 neath the ice were muffled out of hearing; the earth, 
 that had slept while the moon shone, lay dead in her 
 misty shroud. 
 
 Over her, morning broke dimly and reluctantly. 
 Everything in the landscape had suffered a snow- 
 change; fences were buried out of sight, and all 
 traces of highways were obliterated ; the lake was 
 no more level than the meadow beyond it; one half 
 of the benignant snow-image presented to view a 
 misshapen obelisk, majestic still in disfigurement. 
 On the northward and lakeward sides of the dwell 
 ing there were embankments of snow against the 
 foundation, darkening the cellar, and upon the roof 
 pediments and turrets never built there by mortal 
 architecture, and white " pointings " of bricks and 
 stones that were not there yesterday. On one end 
 
300 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 and the front, the gray dawn could not penetrate the 
 snow-incrusted windows, and the red shine of the 
 newly-kindled fires showed murky from without, 
 even after the inmates were up and stirring to make 
 all ready for Uncle Roger s early breakfast. 
 
 The panes of the south-chamber casements were 
 clear. Facing that which looked toward the east, 
 as one who watched to see the day break and the 
 shadows flee away, with a smile that was not expec 
 tation, but fulness of satisfaction upon his lips, lay 
 a pale sleeper who would not arise with the rest at 
 the call of the new day. 
 
 " And so went our white king to his burial ! " 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
Like a blind spinner in the sun 
 
 I tread my days ; 
 I know that all the threads will run 
 
 Appointed ways. 
 
 I know each day will bring its task, 
 And being blind no more I ask. 
 
 I do not know the use or name 
 
 Of that I spin ; 
 I only know that some one came 
 
 And laid within 
 
 My hand the thread, and said, " Since you 
 Are blind, but one thing you can do." 
 
 H. H. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 ROGER LANIER S loving thoughtfulness for the 
 sister thrown so sadly upon his generosity and 
 protection, and whom he had cherished fondly to the 
 end, was further exemplified in his will. 
 
 The property bequeathed to her by their father, 
 and judiciously invested by the son, was committed 
 to the care of his fellow and surviving trustee, who 
 was also his business partner. For himself, he 
 devised to Alice Paull, and her children after her, 
 Pinehurst, with garden, orchard, and woodlands 
 adjacent; in all, thirty acres; ten thousand dollars 
 for her own use in fee simple, and two thousand to 
 each of her five children, Lanier s and Marie s 
 legacies to be paid to them at once, those of the 
 younger children to accumulate under their mother s 
 management, until each should reach his or her 
 majority. There was a long list of minor bequests, 
 including one hundred dollars apiece to Mary Wil 
 liams and Elspeth Boyd. 
 
 He had forgotten nobody whom want or worth had 
 brought to his notice. From the grave in which 
 they laid, that white Christmas week, all of him 
 that could die, he continued to exert the beneficent 
 influence that had been an essential part of his 
 nature. Being dead, he yet spoke of the divine 
 
304 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 lavishness learned at the feet of Him who gave His 
 all for an unloving world. 
 
 Above that grave there arose in due time a stately 
 obelisk, bearing upon one side of the base the last 
 text upon which his living eyes had rested, and which 
 his reverent tongue had uttered : 
 
 " Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, 
 For the end of that man is peace." 
 
 Upon the obelisk, and beneath the brief record 
 of his name and age, were the lines: 
 
 " I know Thou wilt not slight my call, 
 For Thou dost mark the sparrow s fall." 
 
 " He has fallen as he would have wished, with 
 his full armor on," -wife and sister said to one 
 another. "For him the exchange is all gain. For 
 us " 
 
 Words failed them there. Apart, and in her own 
 home, each gathered her children under her wings, 
 and, looking upon their helplessness, braced body 
 and spirit to do a woman s part in her shattered life. 
 
 Upon the peaceful household of Pinehurst, the 
 bereavement had fallen with terrible suddenness and 
 weight. Mrs. Paull had herself gone to knock at 
 her brother s door in season to awaken him for his 
 breakfast and journey, and receiving no reply, 
 entered, supposing that he had arisen and gone 
 downstairs to make observations as to the depth of 
 the snow-fall, and calculate the chances of reaching 
 the city in time to keep his engagement. 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 305 
 
 When the numbness of the first shock passed 
 before returning and poignant sentiency, nurse, son, 
 and servant were alarmed for her health and reason. 
 The exquisitely tender and vivid memories of 
 Roger s latest words and looks, of the graceful play 
 of fun and fancy that had enlivened the sweet counsel 
 they had held together on that never-to-be-forgotten 
 night; the full and affectionate confidence he had 
 poured out upon her, his "Evangel," -added 
 keenest regret to natural grief at the loss of the 
 strong staff of her worse-than-widowhood. 
 
 For ten hours after she had found her brother 
 asleep, with the frozen sweetness of the smile that 
 visits mortal lineaments but once, upon the finely 
 moulded face, not a single tear softened eyes that 
 were perilously bright; the flush of cheek and lips 
 reminded Elspeth and Mrs. Williams of the earlier 
 stage of the illness that had once nearly wrecked life 
 and mind. Relief came strangely and unexpectedly. 
 
 Owing to the heavy fall of snow, not only the high 
 way to Peddlington was blocked up, but the railway 
 from that town to New York was not cleared for 
 passenger-trains before the afternoon, and Mrs. 
 Lanier did not reach Pinehurst until after dark. As 
 the distant sound of sleigh-bells warned Mrs. Paull 
 of her approach, she came out upon the piazza to 
 receive her sister-in-law, and espied the fallen bulk 
 of the snow image, hurriedly toppled over by the 
 shovels that had removed the drifts, and now prone 
 and unconsidered among the heaps thrown up in cut 
 ting a path to the carriage-drive. The arm, out 
 stretched in welcome or benediction, was gone, and 
 
 20 
 
306 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 the lower limbs were confused with the surrounding 
 masses ; but trunk and head were distinguishable in 
 the moonlight, and the indefinable expression of 
 majestic calm the effigy had worn while upright. 
 
 " It would not surprise me out of my wits if our 
 venerable friend there were to break loose from his 
 moorings, and fall into step with us. " 
 
 The gay laugh that went with the pleasantry rang 
 anew in her ear, and the manly tones that were 
 henceforth to be but an echo for all time. 
 
 " It is nothing but snow, and it has outlasted him ! " 
 she cried out, and lapsed into wild weeping in her 
 son s arms. 
 
 "Thank God!" said Dr. Lyell, aside to his 
 brother-in-law. "The worst is over!" 
 
 The two men, with Mrs. Morse, had been at the 
 house, or attending to business connected with the 
 sad event all day. They accompanied the remains 
 to the city, and were present at the funeral and 
 burial, quiet, unobtrusive, and efficient, such 
 friends and neighbors as prosperity seldom develops. 
 The day of the interment was one 4>f fierce tempest, 
 an ice-storm long remembered by those who were 
 exposed to it. By request of the widow and sister 
 of the deceased, Mr. Morse offered the prayer of 
 committal at the grave, standing bare-headed during 
 the brief service, and driving back to town in his wet 
 clothes. 
 
 The next afflictive news brought to the mourners 
 in the lakeside homestead was of his severe, and 
 soon, his dangerous illness. Four weeks suspension 
 between his bed and the tomb left him the spectre of 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 307 
 
 his hale and comely self. As soon as he could 
 travel, his brother-in-law asked leave of absence for 
 him of the church, which was instantly granted, 
 and early in February he sailed under Dr. Lyell s 
 care for the south of France. 
 
 All had come to pass with terrifying swiftness, 
 when one recalls the jocund spirits of the parsonage 
 and Pinehurst households on the Christmas after 
 noon, removed into the far past in the imaginations 
 of the participants in the innocent revelry. It re 
 quired no common exercise of will to readjust domes 
 tic machinery, and to lay again a firm hand upon 
 the guiding lever. 
 
 As Mrs. Morse drove through the wood separating 
 the Pinehurst house from the highway, one bleak 
 March afternoon, she awoke abruptly to the convic 
 tion that, into the intercourse of the past few weeks 
 which had ripened warm friendliness into intimacy, 
 she had received rather than imparted hopeful cour 
 age. She had fallen into the habit of repairing to 
 Mrs. Paull when she was lonely or despondent 
 because of her husband s absence and ill-health; 
 when an expected letter did not arrive; when a 
 parishioner was captious, or over-sensitive, or there 
 was sickness in her nursery, and she never went 
 away unsatisfied. She was ingenuous with herself 
 as well as impulsive with her friends, and, her eyes 
 once opened, she did not spare self-rebuke. 
 
 "One might suppose that I was deserted and 
 bereaved, and not she ! " jerking the reins upon the 
 unoffending horse. "I have taken everything, and 
 given nothing. I have talked of myself and my 
 
308 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 concerns like a selfish baby, and she has listened 
 like a sympathizing angel. Just let me get a chance 
 to turn the tables once, and won t I try to stand 
 better in my own opinion ? " 
 
 Not a human creature was in sight when she drew 
 up at the lakeward front, and although the blinds 
 were open, the dwelling had to her fancy a lonely 
 aspect, enhanced by the trim order of grounds and 
 out-houses which generally relieved the isolation of 
 the location. She was about to tie her horse to the 
 hitching-post at the right of the house, when a door 
 opened in the barn, and a red-haired Scotchman, 
 who had been employed upon the place for a year or 
 more, issued from it. 
 
 " Is Mrs. Paull at home, Robert ? " 
 
 "Na; and she s not, ma am. I m just back from 
 driving her to Peddlington, her and the wee 
 missie. " 
 
 " Then " began the visitor, disappointed. 
 
 " Wull ye be sae glide as to walk in, ma am ? " 
 said Elspeth, from behind her. "Robert! ye 11 look 
 after the beast. My mistress left a word for ye, if 
 ye suld call, as she thocht like ye might. Wull ye 
 step into the parlor, if ye please, ma am ? " 
 
 "Let me come right into the kitchen where you 
 were sitting, Elspeth," suiting movement to 
 word. " I am always delighted to get a peep at it. 
 Nobody s else kitchen is so neat and cheerful, and 
 indeed so pretty, now that your geraniums are in 
 bloom. How do you coax them to blossom all the 
 time ? This is more like a greenhouse than a kitchen. 
 And, I declare, your roses are in bud ! " 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 309 
 
 An odd agitation in the woman s demeanor 
 prompted her to talk on, to give Elspeth a chance 
 to resume her usual manner. 
 
 " Robert says that Mrs. Paull has gone to Peddling- 
 ton and taken Gladys with her. Will she come home 
 on the stage, or stay all night in New York ? " 
 
 Elspeth tossed her apron over her head and sobbed 
 chokingly, still standing bolt upright in the middle of 
 the floor. 
 
 " What has happened ? Is there any bad news ? 
 Tell me, quick ! " demanded Mrs. Morse, her heart 
 sinking desperately low. " Oh, do try to speak! " 
 
 " Bad news, ma am ! There could hardly be waur 
 for us a ! It s nane that wull mak ye more than 
 middlin sorry ! " faltered the handmaiden, between 
 the gulps that essayed to swallow her emotion. " She 
 bade me not to keep back the truth frae ye, who aye 
 lo ed the misguided lassie weel,and hae proven yerseP 
 the true friend to us in a our adversity." 
 
 Mrs. Morse whitened under an awful foreboding. 
 
 " You cannot be talking about Marie. She is not 
 dead ? " 
 
 " Mayhap it wad be better for us and for herseP an 
 she war ! " hopelessly Gaelic in the sloughs of her 
 distress. " She s gane, Mrs? Morse ! gane awa to 
 join herseP to him ! God forgie me ! but I could 
 wish he had sunken to the bottom o th seas when 
 he crossed them himseP, before, like the eerie de il he 
 is, he temptit me bairnie wha I nursed \ these arms 
 when she waur but ane hour auld to follow him ! " 
 
 Mrs. Morse felt the cold sweat ooze out upon lips 
 and forehead. 
 
310 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 " Elspeth, what are you saying ? I cannot I will 
 not believe that Marie has eloped ! she would not run 
 away from home and friends to join any man alive. 
 There is some frightful mistake in all this." 
 
 " It s heaven s ain truth, ma am ! " said Elspeth. 
 " If the mistress had na carried awa wi her to show 
 to Mrs. Lanier, the bit letter that cam by the day s 
 mail frae th puir childie hersel , I could read it oot 
 to ye unner her ain hand and seal. Sae shakey and 
 scratchet-like, Mrs. Morse, I could guess she war 
 greeting sair the while she wrote it. I had it in me 
 hand, whilst 1 could read it twice over, and I mind 
 weel how it ran. That wha sinks far in the heart by 
 way o th een, aye lingers there lang. 
 
 " It war maistly like this she wrote : DEAR MITHER, 
 My feyther is ill in Paw (did e er a Christian 
 hear o sic an ill-begotten name for a toun ?). < Verra 
 ill, and mayhap like to dee. I hae been in correspond 
 ence wi him sin last September. He is puir and 
 an invaleed, wi naebody to care for, or be wi , him. 
 In his last letter just received the whilk I eenclose 
 - ye wull see that he hae little or nae hope o getting 
 weel. I hae plenty o money to tak care o him while 
 he is alive, wha wi my Uncle Roger s legacy and the 
 bit I hae contrivit to sve thae two years. 
 
 " Did ye ever hear the like o that, Mrs. Morse ? 
 She will hae fair starrved hersel to put by siller for 
 that de il!" sputtering with the vain effort to think 
 up another and as forcible, if less hackneyed, epithet. 
 
 " Poor dear child ! Go on ! what else did she 
 say?" 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 311 
 
 " That she had kenned a th while that he wad 
 need her ; that he had na askit her to come to him ; 
 that he war in nae eemmedeeate danger, and that the 
 medical man thought if he could get to Algeria, he 
 might e en recover. She kenned better than that, she 
 said. Her feyther was trying to deceive her to keep 
 her mind easy. 
 
 " At the last she set down this postscript : Mother, 
 ye 11 forgie me when ye recklect how ye ance lo ed 
 him yerseF. I hae lo ed him allers, me dear, noble 
 feyther ! sae noble and sae unhappy ! Ane day ye 
 wull be conveenced of his eennocence, and wull bless 
 me because I did no leave him to dee alane amang 
 strangers. Kees the children for me, and beg Lanier 
 not to be fashed wi me. And at the verra fut o th 
 page, Love to Elspeth. She maunna scold me. 
 
 Her voice went to pieces again in the surf of her 
 sobs. 
 
 Mrs. Morse sat miserable and helpless for a minute, 
 then a ray darted upon her mind. 
 
 " Was the name of the place where Mr. Paull is, 
 Pan? "she asked eagerly. " Why, my husband and 
 brother are going there so a letter from Mr. Morse, 
 received to-day, tells me. They will look him up." 
 
 The fire in Elspeth s eyes dried the tears. 
 
 " Deed, ma am, I ve me doobts if he s ever been 
 there, or ill at all. I Ve kenned him twenty year an 
 mair, an the times he tellt th truth war mair seldom 
 than th times he leed, an kenned he war leeing. 
 All he wants is to get mair siller frae the innocent 
 baby. In the smooth, fause letter frae him slippet 
 into hers, he speaks of money she s sent him, and 
 
312 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 that it saved him frae starving, and gat him meedical 
 attendance, an that the sight o it aye gared him 
 greet ah ! ma am, is it ony wonder I lose me wuts 
 an me bonriie Engleesh in thinkin o my sweet, head - 
 strong bairnie in the hands o thot mon, and his 
 maister, the de il, only kens in what manner o com 
 pany beside ? " 
 
 " It is all very sad very terrible ! " assented the 
 listener, forced to collect her senses by the frenzied 
 state of the whilom phlegmatic Scotchwoman. u But 
 Mrs. Paull may get to New York in time to stop her. 
 When was she to sail ? " 
 
 " Yesterday. Mrs. Paull will gae straight to her 
 sister-in-law, arid the two will try to find by what 
 steamer she s gane. They can do naught ilse. I 11 
 carry the mither s face wi me down to me grave. 
 T was like one wha had gat her death-call. An 
 never a bitter word or look ! Only, * Elspeth, ye 11 
 not tell the boys what s gane wrang ? I 11 leave 
 them at hame. I maun tak the dochter he s left to 
 me with me to her aunt s. God will strengthen me 
 for this day, also. There maun be summat far agley 
 in the warld, Mrs. Morse, when sic a mon can mar the 
 life o sic a woman." 
 
 " I cannot but hope that Mr. Morse can be of some 
 service to her, and to our poor little Marie," said the 
 pastor s wife, consolingly. " I will write to him to 
 night, and the letter will go out by Saturday s 
 steamer. Whether her father is at Pau or not (the 
 word was spelled P-a-u, was n t it ?), Marie will go 
 straight there, expecting to find him. What a wild, 
 imprudent idea it was, flying off to the ends of the 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 313 
 
 earth alone ! A young, pretty girl, who has never 
 been a hundred miles from home ! " 
 
 " She was aye as brave as brawss, her mitlier s 
 ain bairn for speerit, and wha wad gae through fire 
 an water for love s sake. A nee he gets hold o her, 
 he 11 ne er let her gang till every bit and bittock o 
 her hard-got siller is in his pouch. God forgie me, a 
 sinner, Mrs. Morse ! but when I think o it, I could 
 stop his fausse breath wi me twa auld hands, if he 
 stood here before me ! " 
 
 Mrs. Morse was a peaceable Christian woman, yet 
 she did not look horrified at the bloodthirsty out 
 burst. She asked quietly, 
 
 " Where are Tom and Edwin ? " 
 
 " In their play-shop in th attic, happy as kings, wi 
 never a thocht o what s come to their sister, an th 
 mither s heart-break." 
 
 " Let me take them home with me for the night 
 until their mother comes back. My boys will be 
 overjoyed to have them, and you will be more com 
 fortable to have them away while you are so 
 unhappy." 
 
 She bore the two lads off with her, delighted on 
 their parts with the prospect of the visit, leaving 
 Elspeth to nurse her grief and wrath, or to reason 
 and pray herself into a gentler mood. There was 
 literally nothing for her hands to do until it should 
 be time to set about getting supper for Robert and 
 herself. It was but four o clock when Mrs. Morse 
 departed ; the house was in perfect order ; the kitchen, 
 her especial domain, was speckless and shining from 
 the polished floor to the copper boiler to the left of 
 
314 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 the range, and the row of tins gracing the shelf above 
 the dresser. Moreover, for perhaps the first time 
 since she was a woman grown, she had no heart to 
 work. All the inherited savagery of her Gaelic blood 
 was in a ferment. The stern integrity and uncom 
 promising judgment of her Covenant forbears were 
 arrayed with her love for her stolen nursling and 
 fealty to her beloved mistress against the author of 
 this latest and foulest wrong to an unoffending house 
 hold. She had never really believed in Ernest Paull, 
 even when he won the unquestioning devotion of 
 Alice Lanier s heart, yet in all her years of service 
 in his family, she had held her peace as to this, her 
 private opinion. Now she felt as if her soul were 
 swollen blackly with the accumulated distrust and 
 dislike of twenty-five years. He was the impersona 
 tion of all the sorrow that had followed her mistress, 
 until, but for divine grace and the gallant champion 
 ship of him who was now no more, she must have 
 been hounded into her grave. At the thought of 
 Roger Lanier, an odd constriction closed upon the 
 faithful heart ; two tears forced themselves from her 
 hot eyes. 
 
 " If he war here, this wad na a come aboot ! " she 
 muttered. " It mak s me fair mad to think his money, 
 that he meant suld be a peace-offering to the blind, 
 doited bairn, suld fa into sic dirty hands ! " 
 
 A loud ring at the door-bell aroused her. She was 
 sitting in the chimney-corner facing the windows 
 that opened upon the piazza. When Mrs. Morse went 
 away, the cautious care-taker had locked the main 
 entrance door, leading into the hall, and the two par- 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 315 
 
 lors upon the left and right of this. Never a tramp 
 had been seen about the place, but the canny Scot 
 always made provision for the unexpected. Glancing 
 from the window nearest her, and seeing no vehicle 
 in the carriage-drive, she decided to answer the 
 appellant by way of the kitchen door. 
 
 Opening it, and stepping beyond the threshold to 
 get a better view of the visitor, she saw a well-dressed 
 man standing with his back to the door at which he 
 had rung. He faced the lake, and looked about him 
 with apparent interest in the landscape or premises ; 
 his profile was turned to Elspeth ; one hand, cast 
 carelessly behind him, was gloved ; the other held a 
 cane, and was bare. 
 
 Elspeth believed, when she came to look back upon 
 the scene and interview, that she recognized this 
 ungloved hand and the easy grace of his attitude 
 before she knew the face to be Ernest PaulPs. 
 
 He had not heard her open the kitchen door. The 
 March wind was blustering, and the pines made loud 
 moan in his ears. When, drawn perhaps by the 
 steady glare of her angry eyes, he looked toward her, 
 she had shut herself out with him, and, her heels 
 upon the sill of the stout door, had the mien of one 
 defending a fortress. 
 
 He walked quickly down the piazza, his feet ring 
 ing upon the brick pavement. She recollected his 
 gait so well ! the slight roll that never degenerated 
 into a swagger, and a springy rise upon the toes, 
 the carriage of a man who thought well of himself, 
 and was used to being thought well of by the world. 
 
316 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 In nearing her, he changed the cane into his left 
 hand, and held out the bare right. 
 
 " Ah, Elspeth ! how do you do ? " 
 
 She folded her arms so tightly that nothing but her 
 own will or a crowbar could have undone them ; her 
 stare was stony, yet lurid, like the " slag" of a smelt- 
 ing-pot; her mouth was a grim, straight line that 
 gave her the physiognomy of a North American 
 Indian. She neither budged nor spoke. 
 
 " Why, Elspeth ! my good woman ! " with a laugh 
 of friendly patronage, " am I so changed that you do 
 not know me ? " 
 
 " I ken ye weel, mair s the peety." 
 
 Her voice rasped like the sharpening of a saw. 
 
 He laughed again, less good-humoredly, and with 
 a scornful cadence, and spoke like one who had no 
 disposition to dally with whims. 
 
 " Where is your mistress ? " 
 
 " She s awa frae her hame. Where is me mis- 
 thress s dochter?" 
 
 " See here, Elspeth ! You cannot impose upon me 
 with any of your high-tragedy airs. We know one 
 another of old, and I am less inclined to submit to 
 impertinence now than then. I asked civilly more 
 civilly than you deserve to be treated where Mrs. 
 Paull is." 
 
 " And I asked for Miss Marie, that ye Ve tolled 
 frae hame and freends and nateeve land to follow ye 
 to th eends of th airth, and ye here in free and een- 
 lichtend America, while she s gane to speir after ye 
 in a place where ye ve niver set a fute, for a I ken." 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 317 
 
 His change of color was perceptible through the 
 bronze of a recent sea-voyage. 
 
 " What under heaven are you talking about ? " he 
 interrogated harshly. 
 
 " Just wha I hae tellt to ye ! that my mistress, wha 
 used to be yer wife before yer prefairred Jeezebeel 
 to Esther," stingingly acrimonious, " hae gane to 
 th ceety for tidings o her child, wha sailit yestreen 
 to tend ye on yer seeck-bed and mayhap to receive 
 yer last breath (Heaven save and keep us frae sic 
 awfu prevairication and lees !), ye having fuled the 
 puir blind lassie s haid wi sic stuff o yer pooverty 
 and seeckness as micht turn the stummick o a cast- 
 iron pot ! " 
 
 " Do you really mean " coming a step nearer, 
 and speaking hurriedly " that the silly child sailed 
 yesterday for France, hoping to see me there ? Why 
 did her mother allow it ? Was there no one to stop 
 her ? This is abominable ! " 
 
 " Ye have used the reet word for ance ! If me 
 releegion allowed me to put in a harder, I wad fleen 
 it at ye. And the abomination is at yer door, the sin 
 upon yer heid, where th puneeshment will be too in 
 the Day when He maketh eenqueeseetion for the blood 
 o hearts and o souls." 
 
 " Hold your tongue, woman ! You say that Mrs. 
 Paull is in town ? Where ? " 
 
 Elspeth was mute. 
 
 " Can t you understand English ? Speak ! " 
 
 No response. 
 
 "I ll make you answer!" Beside himself with 
 anxiety and suspense, he put out his hand as if to 
 take her by the shoulder. 
 
318 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 Without shrinking so much as a hair s breadth 
 away from him, she drew herself up to her full 
 height, until she towered above him ; her eyes glowed 
 dangerously. 
 
 " Lay th weight o yer cowardly finger upo me, 
 and I 11 stretch ye at me feet, ye fausse carle ! YQ 
 bade me haud me tongue ! and I hae baud it. I 11 
 rend it oot by th root before I 11 tell ye where me 
 mistress is. What are ye to her ? What is she to ye, 
 wha desairted her and deesgraced the bairns she had 
 borne to ye, and wad hae let them starve had it na 
 been for him wha made ye afraid to veesit America 
 unteel his body war unner th sod, and his speerit in 
 heaven, where the likes o ye wull be lang in meeting 
 him, while there s a God o justeece to rule th airth 
 and th heavens ! If ye hae ane grain o good in ye, 
 gae ye back to the far countree where ye hae been 
 spending that poor lassie s substance in reeotous leev- 
 ing, and send her hame again ! " 
 
 " When will Mrs. Paull be at home ? " as if he had 
 not heard a word of denunciation or counsel. 
 
 " I dinna ken. If I did, ye wad be nane the wiser." 
 
 " Where are the children ? " 
 
 " They re nane o them within." 
 
 " Did they go with their mother ? " 
 
 Obstinate silence again. 
 
 " Elspeth ! " persuasively. 
 
 Not a syllable. 
 
 He walked up the piazza, close to the wall of the 
 house, eying the closed shutters sharply in passing, 
 his hands behind his back, turned at the far end, and 
 came directly up to her, with the mien of a man will- 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 319 
 
 ing to reason, yet resolved to end a debate by strin 
 gent action. 
 
 " You must comprehend, Elspeth, being an unusually 
 sensible woman, that you cannot keep up this sort of 
 thing with me. The children are mine, and I can get 
 out a writ that will give them to me. If you go too 
 far, I will do it. No power on earth can hinder me. 
 It is as well that your mistress should know this. If 
 she is in New York, I advise you to communicate with 
 her at once and inform her as to my intentions. If, 
 as I more than suspect, she is in this house," - 
 stepping back to survey the upper windows, and rais 
 ing his voice, " you may tell her that I will call 
 again in a week for her answer." 
 
 Misled by Elspeth s immobility and down-dropt 
 eyes, he went on more threateningly, 
 
 " In point of fact, I have the right, legal and moral, 
 to search the premises for myself. You certainly 
 have not the right to prevent me." 
 
 " I 11 tak it, then ! Ye 11 enter this door over my 
 deid body. And suld ye try it, a skreel from me wad 
 fetch a lang-legged laddie from yon barn, wha d think 
 na mair o tossing ye, neck and crop, oot into the loch 
 over there, than if ye were a rnad dog. I may not 
 ken muckle o th la , but I ken wha hae the stranger 
 body o twa men, an ye are nae Goliath o Garth ! " 
 
 " You run a great risk," returned Mr. Paull, with 
 affected coolness. " I have warned you. Upon your 
 head be the consequences. I have crossed the ocean 
 to see my wife and to claim my children and I shall 
 do both. You may deliver my message to Mrs. Paull, 
 or not, as you like. It makes no difference to me." 
 
320 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 He sauntered deliberately off the porch and along 
 the drive to the road leading to the highway, striking 
 at stones and fallen leaves with his cane, in an idle, 
 lounging fashion. Between tree-trunks and naked 
 branches Elspeth saw him get into a buggy in which 
 sat another man, and the two drove away together. 
 
 She was left in victorious possession of the field. 
 
 For how long ? 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
Be not deceived; God is not mocked; whatsoever a 
 man soweth that shall he also reap. SAINT PAUL. 
 
 A pitiful thing the gift to-day 
 That is dross, and nothing worth. 
 
 Though if it had come but yesterday, 
 It had brimmed with sweet the earth. 
 
 M. E. SANGSTER. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 IN one particular, at least, Elspeth s skepticism with 
 regard to the statements made by her former 
 master was, in a measure, unjust. 
 
 The man who strode moodily through the Pinehurst 
 Woods on that blustering March afternoon was not 
 in robust health. Had her excitement suffered her to 
 use her eyes as faithfully as was her custom, she 
 must have observed that he was thinner than when 
 she saw him last, and that a peculiar hollowing of the 
 chest caused him to stoop slightly in walking. He 
 breathed fast, and not regularly, after swinging him 
 self up into the hired carriage awaiting him ; leaned 
 back, slouched his hat over his brows, and remained 
 silent until he alighted at the railway station at 
 Peddlington. 
 
 He was bitterly chagrined at the result of his expe 
 dition. Just two weeks before, he had picked up a 
 copy of a New York paper two months old, in a bar 
 ber s shop in Monte Carlo. The paper contained 
 what purported to be an abstract of the will of the 
 late Roger Lanier, wherein his estate was estimated 
 at over two million dollars. In the list of legacies was 
 one of thirty thousand dollars and a handsome coun 
 try-seat in New Jersey to his sister, Mrs. Paull, and 
 two thousand dollars to each of her five children. 
 
324 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 Marie had written briefly in her weekly letter, of 
 her uncle s death, brevity her father was incapable 
 of attributing to her remorseful disinclination to dwell 
 upon the event. She had not alluded to the will at 
 all, and the news was momentous to the exile. The 
 tidings of Roger Lanier s decease could not be other 
 wise than welcome. So far as Ernest Paull had ascer 
 tained, his brother-in-law was the only person, except, 
 perhaps, his former employer, who was acquainted 
 with all the particulars of his dishonorable flight from 
 America. A better man than he to whom it was 
 addressed, would have found it difficult to forgive the 
 letter that followed him to Nice. The writer had 
 wasted no words in giving the refugee to understand 
 that his expatriation was perpetual. 
 
 " I have refunded the stolen money," he wrote tersely. 
 " I did this to save my sister s name from open dis 
 grace. Should you attempt to return to this country, 
 or in any manner annoy her or her children, you will 
 be given up to justice. The sum you stole was put into 
 the hands of your late employers with this distinct 
 understanding. They will prosecute you without 
 mercy. Your crime is not condoned by their accept 
 ance of what they consider, in such an event, 4 hush- 
 money/ to be returned to me. If, as I have reason to 
 believe, you added forgery to theft, the prosecution 
 would be a yet graver affair." 
 
 The gate of return to home, country, and a show 
 of respectability was double-locked and barred. He 
 had no resource but to live by his wits. When Mr. 
 and Mrs. Paul Morgan became notorious as card- 
 sharpers in one place, they removed to another, and 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 325 
 
 assumed another alias, until his partner wearied of 
 the precarious existence and of him, and left him to 
 speculate alone. It would have been surprising in 
 these circumstances had poor Marie s piteous epistles 
 reached him. With all his keen watch of New York 
 papers, he never saw one line relative to him or his 
 family, until his eyes lighted upon the notice of his 
 daughter s appointment as organist in St. Gudule s. 
 His letter to her was a cast into the water that proved 
 unexpectedly profitable. Her answer enclosed a bill 
 of exchange for one hundred dollars, and she had sent 
 him two hundred since without intimating that the 
 amount represented self-denial on her part that was 
 actual hardship. He had played unscrupulously upon 
 her passionate attachment to the parent idealized by 
 memory and imagination. The child evidently had 
 resources and a fat private purse. To whom was her 
 tribute due, if not to him ? 
 
 The letter containing the grievous story of his 
 invalidism, and the physician s recommendation of 
 Algeria as the one hope of saving his life, was a 
 mixed tissue of truth and deceit. He was feebly con 
 valescent from a seizure of what the English doctor, 
 summoned hastily to the gambling hell in which he 
 fell ill, pronounced a menace of " angina pectoris." 
 
 " You have been living at the pace that kills, my 
 friend," he warned the patient. " Pull up, or you will 
 make short work of the rest of the way." 
 
 Without the remotest intention of tempting his 
 young daughter to come to him, he had written in his 
 best style that he had been nigh unto the gates of 
 death, and could not obey the doctor s advice for 
 
326 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 want of means. He calculated upon the receipt of 
 another and a larger check than the previous remit 
 tances, and was counting the days before it could 
 reach him, when the paragraph in the old journal gave 
 a new phase to life and expectation. 
 
 That his enemy was dead had meant something in 
 the line of fortunate possibilities for him. He had 
 little fear of prosecution or disgraceful publicity from 
 the men he had robbed, now that their inflexible 
 prompter was out of the way, yet he felt but a slight 
 drawing homeward. Marie s money would go farther 
 on this side of the ocean. In New York he must 
 work, or feign to work for a living, and he loved for 
 eign Bohemianism better than domestic respectability. 
 
 Thirty thousand dollars, added to the sum settled 
 upon Alice by her father, would bring a tolerable in 
 come, even in America, when one had a roof over her 
 head. He would go home and get his share of the 
 goods provided. He was positive, with his knowledge 
 of his wife s character, that she would not turn him 
 from her door. If he had sinned against her, he had 
 expiated his transgression by living from hand to 
 mouth, and by enforced separation from his children. 
 His eyes watered at the latter thought. His was an 
 affectionate, shallow nature, and such make a specious 
 show to the world and to themselves. In the light of 
 his interesting discovery, his love for the darlings of 
 his fireside approximated heart-hunger. He con 
 vinced himself that impatience to clasp them once 
 more to his bosom impelled him to risk his fate upon 
 one audacious venture. With the superstition com 
 mon to weak natures, he resolved to hazard the rem- 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 327 
 
 nant of Marie s last remittance at rouge-et-noir that 
 night. If he won, he would on the morrow buy a 
 ticket to New York. If he lost, he could not go, 
 therefore, Destiny had decreed a different lot for him. 
 He won four times the sum he laid upon the table. 
 
 His first call, after landing in New York, was at 
 Mrs. Marcy s fashionable Boarding and Day School 
 for Young Ladies. His inquiry for Miss Paull was 
 answered by the information that she was not in, and 
 that the footman could not say when she would be. 
 She had been called out of town by the illness of a 
 friend. He " believed it was her mother." 
 
 " Can I see Mrs. Marcy ? " asked the stranger. 
 
 " Mrs. Marcy is not at home." 
 
 " One of the teachers, then. I must know where 
 to find Miss Paull." 
 
 With dexterity acquired by foreign practice, he 
 slipped a dollar into the man s hand, and was forth 
 with ushered into a reception room. To him pres 
 ently descended an under-teacher, hurried and fagged, 
 who knew nothing beyond what Mrs. Marcy had 
 dropped incidentally in her hearing ; namely, that a 
 substitute must be found for Miss Paull, who had 
 been summoned to the sick-bed of a relative. 
 
 "I asked no questions," added the drudge, who 
 looked too tired to be inquisitive. " But, knowing 
 that Miss Paull s family reside in New Jersey, I took 
 it for granted that she had gone there." 
 
 She was not especially interested in her fellow- 
 teacher, or chronic fatigue made her unobservant, else 
 she might have noted the striking resemblance be 
 tween the inquirer and the absent girl. The footman 
 
828 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 had made better use of his opportunities, for, at 
 luncheon, he reported in the kitchen his impression 
 that the disappointed visitor was Miss PaulPs uncle 
 from abroad, who had probably come to America to 
 give her a fortune. " He was a genuine swell and a 
 perfect gentleman, and enough like Miss Marie to be 
 her father forty times over." 
 
 With the dazed sensation of a dreamer, who must 
 awake presently and find himself at home in bed, 
 Ernest Paull trod the once-familiar streets without 
 seeing a friend he knew, or being recognized by any 
 one. He had landed early in the morning, and had 
 time to dine at his hotel before taking an afternoon 
 train to Pequod. 
 
 The aspect of Pinehurst pleased him more than he 
 had expected. It was a cosey corner in which to re 
 cover strength, and to be rehabilitated by degrees 
 from the effect of circumstances. During the drive 
 from Peddlington he had speculated as to the possible 
 seriousness of his wife s illness, if she were the ailing 
 relative. A sensation-lover inborn, he arranged a 
 tableau of reconciliation in the sick-chamber per 
 haps, even, at the death-bed of an otherwise exem 
 plary woman, who had lent too ready an ear to the 
 worldly maxims of a designing brother. Should Alice 
 die, would it be found that her brother s bequest was 
 hers in fee-simple ? or would it be ungenerously lodged 
 with trustees, or entailed upon the heirs of her body ? 
 In any event, he could depend upon his sweet Marie s 
 disposition toward him. It might perhaps be as well 
 in the mind of Providence if the noble girl were 
 to become the head of the household. He could be 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 329 
 
 very comfortable in the country until next winter, 
 with little Marie to cater for and nurse him. 
 
 This conclusion was prominent in his thoughts, as, 
 turning to contemplate the wing of the picturesque 
 colonial homestead, he met Elspeth s blazing eye. 
 
 The dialogue with her was the kick of the dreamer 
 to the basket of Amaschar. Even while he vapored 
 to her of his rights and his determination to maintain 
 them, he was aware that she must discover, ere long, 
 the absurdity of his position. Roger Lanier was 
 dead ; but his wife, a woman of much force of charac 
 ter, was fondly attached to her sister-in-law, and 
 rather than allow her to be imposed upon by the re 
 turned husband, was quite capable of enforcing his 
 warning to the banished man. His only hope lay in 
 her unwillingness to make public a page of family his 
 tory that might wound her pride. He wished, when 
 it was too late, that he had forced an entrance into 
 the house which was morally his own. If Alice were 
 really there and ill, Marie s place was at her bedside. 
 
 Unless and subsequent reflection made him more 
 and more fearful of this the story of her departure 
 for France were true, and not a fabrication of the 
 Scotch virago. He had never known Elspeth to tell 
 a lie ; he had known her to be truthful to her own 
 disadvantage. Her excitement was unfeigned, and 
 what would arise from the loss of one of the children 
 she had brought up. 
 
 His heart stood still in the horror of the admitted 
 probability. Next to himself, he cared more for his 
 eldest daughter than for any other living thing. He 
 comprehended far better than untravelled Elspeth 
 
330 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 could divine, what must be the position of a beautiful 
 young girl, alone and unsophisticated, who should set 
 on foot in Pau, unaided and bewildered, inquiries con 
 cerning " Mr. James Ellis," the name he had worn there 
 for a few months, and to which Marie had addressed 
 several letters, one of which contained a bill of ex 
 change. He was not utterly depraved. Few men 
 are. Bohemianized to the core though he was, cal 
 lous in sensibilities and conscience as only such a 
 career as his had been abroad can make a human 
 creature who once yielded outward obedience to moral 
 principles, he would rather have resigned the hope 
 of future pecuniary aid from his daughter than intro 
 duce her into the scenes that had known him most 
 intimately of late. He had not scrupled to rob his 
 child ; he would not demoralize her even in thought. 
 America and the parental roof were the places for 
 girls. 
 
 The more he thought of the awful possibilities con 
 tingent upon what he stigmatized as " a mad, roman 
 tic escapade," the more the horror grew. He drank 
 heavily as bedtime drew near, to court sleep and 
 respite from the visions multiplying and looming be 
 fore his imagination. At midnight he arose from an 
 uneasy pillow to dose himself with an opiate pre 
 scribed by the English physician. He had hardly lain 
 down before terrible pain seized him with tiger-like 
 fierceness. He knew the teeth and grip of his enemy. 
 It was part of the price that he paid for " the pace 
 that kills." After repeated attempts to rise, the dread 
 of dying in agony alone nerved him to a mighty 
 effort. He rolled from the bed, and, by partly drag- 
 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 331 
 
 ging, partly rolling himself across the room, reached 
 the bell, pulled himself up to it, rang and rang, then 
 fell upon the floor. 
 
 Three days of unspeakable suffering had elapsed 
 when he left his chamber, haggard and feeble, as 
 from as many weeks of illness. When pain and alter 
 nating stupor let him think during this confinement, 
 his mind ran with feverish persistence upon one 
 topic. 
 
 Marie, on the sea, a friendless wanderer, landing 
 at a foreign port with no one to welcome or care for 
 her, distraught and terrified amid the pushing, curious 
 crowds of the popular resort where she had hoped to 
 find him. Always she was a sacrifice to filial devo 
 tion. Sometimes he was angry at the unworldly reck 
 lessness with which she had thrown up her position 
 in the school and probably in the church, to fly to 
 him. Oftener he could have dashed his head against 
 the wall in mad regret for his overstrained appeal 
 to her love and compassion that had resulted so 
 calamitously. 
 
 Calamitously to him, alone, suffering, and nearly 
 penniless in a city where his nearest of blood would 
 repudiate, or, at best, merely tolerate him ! He had 
 blundered atrociously in letting temper get the better 
 of discretion when provoked by Elspeth s insolence. 
 Whatever relentings might, under favorable circum 
 stances, have visited his wife s heart, he had antago 
 nized her by threatening to deprive her of her chil 
 dren. Empty as she might know the menace to be 
 after his wilful desertion of his family and two years 
 of silence, she would accept the gasconade as a token 
 
332 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 that he was prepared for war rather than for peace. 
 He had put her on her guard and presumably on her 
 mettle, and he knew the quality of the Lanier spirit. 
 Twice he wrote to her ; once in the doughty strain of 
 an injured man, demanding an interview and oppor 
 tunity for explanation. The letter lay on his table all 
 night, was re-read in the morning, and burned. It 
 offended his taste, and was undiplomatic. The second 
 was studiously incoherent, and sincere only so far as 
 he represented himself as distracted at the rash step 
 taken by their daughter. His florid appeals to the 
 love his wife had once professed for him, his protes 
 tations of remorseful tenderness and entreaties to be 
 received back into some measure of regard as the 
 lover of her youth and father of her children, were 
 so strained and artificial as to disgust himself before 
 the message was completed. 
 
 ^He could imagine how Alice would look while read 
 ing it. She was a true Lanier in her lofty disdain of 
 sham sentiment. He had never been afraid of her in 
 the old times. He quailed at the idea of meeting her 
 clear, honest eyes now that she knew him for what 
 he was, forger, thief, liar, and bigamist. Roger 
 Lanier had frankly applied all of these titles to him 
 in the scathing letter addressed to " Mr. Paul Morgan, 
 Nice, France." Marie had written respectfully of her 
 mother, but with no affectation of concealment of her 
 uncle s influence over his sister. " Uncle Roger has 
 settled mother and the children in one of his country- 
 houses, which he has spared no money or pains in 
 making comfortable, and is advisor-general in every 
 thing that concerns the household." " He and I are 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 333 
 
 distantly polite to each other," said another letter. 
 u While he is your enemy, he can never be my friend, 
 and this he has been made to understand more than 
 once. All the same, I cannot question his attachment 
 to mother and to Lanier." 
 
 On the sixth day after the attack that had stolen 
 so much of his strength and energy, Ernest Paull 
 paid his week s board, and had exactly one dollar and 
 thirty cents left in the world. The doctor s fees had 
 been unexpectedly large, and illness in a city hotel is 
 a costly indulgence. Under the spur of the discovery, 
 he made up his mind abruptly to call upon Roger 
 Lanier s widow. 
 
 Putting upon the errand the face which he imagined 
 it would be dressed in by conscious innocence, he sent 
 up a card upon which he had pencilled his real name. 
 
 Mrs. Lanier came down at once ; a handsome woman, 
 doubly dignified by widow s weeds ; collected and seri 
 ous in demeanor, and so utterly free from discompos 
 ure of any kind that he was instantly aware of her 
 knowledge of what Elspeth could tell. 
 
 Her next action, after acknowledging his respectful 
 salutation by a silent bend of the head, defined their 
 relative position. She remained standing in an easy, 
 expectant attitude by a table near the front windows 
 of the drawing-room, thus compelling him to remain 
 upon his feet. He had retained his hat, and not re 
 moved his overcoat, and felt awkwardly isolated in 
 the exact middle of the apartment. A tax-gatherer 
 or a plumber would have had more gracious audience. 
 Supersensitive to trifles, he appreciated her advantage 
 and his loss at the outset. 
 
334 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 His manner, under the trying circumstances, was 
 self-respectful and deferential, without a symptom of 
 embarrassment. 
 
 " I have called, Mrs. Lanier, upon confidential and 
 personal, that is, family, affairs. Can we talk in 
 some less public place?" 
 
 " It is my wish to hear what you have to say 
 here, Mr. Paull. Our interview will be, of necessity, 
 short." 
 
 Polished ice would have been as fur compared with 
 her accents ; her eyes were steady. 
 
 He had known this woman from her childhood and 
 his ; as his sister-in-law, he had jested familiarly with 
 her, had been wont to kiss her at meeting and at 
 parting. His head whirled, and a pang shot from the 
 left to the right lung like a fiery needle. He must 
 be master of himself, at any rate, while here. 
 
 " I take your meaning, madam, and will be as brief 
 as is compatible with the gravity of my communica 
 tion. I have been extremely ill since my unfortunate 
 visit to Pequod, or I should have seen you before. 
 I learned then, to my astonishment and regret, that 
 my daughter Marie had sailed for France to rejoin 
 me , an extraordinary step which I should have 
 opposed strenuously had I anticipated it. It is my 
 earnest desire to repair, as far as may be, the indirect 
 injury I have done the poor child in writing somewhat 
 freely of the precarious state of my health, thereby 
 inducing her most unintentionally, as I solemnly 
 declare to come to me. I wish to sail by to-mor 
 row s steamer to Havre ; proceed thence to Pau, and 
 bring her back to her mother and her home. It is 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 335 
 
 the least that I can do and I am grieved to say 
 the utmost." 
 
 "It is unnecessary to put yourself to so much 
 trouble, Mr. Paull. We have sent a cable despatch 
 to friends on the other side to meet my niece upon 
 her arrival at Havre and send her, under a suitable 
 escort, back to New York. You may be quite easy 
 with regard to her." 
 
 A movement, slight but expressive, intimated her 
 impression that, his business having been despatched, 
 he would take his leave. Words would not have been 
 a more explicit dismissal. The blood rushed impetu 
 ously to his pale face ; the tremor in his voice, if 
 artistic, was genuine, albeit his ejaculation was more 
 rhetorical than devout. 
 
 "Thank God! I have suffered untold agonies in 
 reflecting upon the possible consequences of my child s 
 rash generosity. You have taken an intolerable 
 burden from my heart. I will detain you but a min 
 ute longer : Virginia ! Mrs. Lanier ! is there no mercy 
 in the heart of a good woman for a penitent sinner ? " 
 
 Another gesture, more decided and expressive than 
 the former, arrested him on the word. The cold 
 severity of her gaze did not change. 
 
 " I must decline to discuss abstract subjects with 
 Mr. Paull," she said pointedly. 
 
 He raised his head haughtily. 
 
 " I might have known what measure of Christian 
 charity I should meet with in this house. I was a 
 fool to hope for anything else. I came here with a 
 heart full of sorrowful and loving thoughts, the 
 broken and contrite spirit which pietists despise. 
 
336 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 I am hungry for news of my wife and little ones ; I am 
 ruined in health and a beggar ; and you, who could 
 tell me all I long to know, you, who profess to 
 follow in the footsteps of Him who called sinners to 
 repentance, sneer at me in my extremity, trample 
 me under your feet with cold cruelty that reminds 
 me whose pupil you are. I should have known better 
 than to expect one crumb from any table in Roger 
 Lanier s house. He hated me while he lived. I might 
 have comprehended that, as his wife and a Christian, 
 you must meet confession and petition with holy 
 insult." 
 
 Furious as he appeared, angry as he really was, he 
 had put the harangue together cleverly until his men 
 tion of her husband s name. She lifted the hand that 
 had rested lightly upon the table ; chill civility was 
 exchanged for severity as frigid. 
 
 " You have set your action in entering this house 
 in the proper light by your last sentence. I have 
 only, in closing this interview, to express my regret 
 at having granted it." 
 
 She moved toward the bell. 
 
 " You need not summon your footman to put me 
 into the street," he said with biting emphasis. " To 
 be driven off the premises of the elect twice in one 
 week should convert even such a reprobate as I. 
 Whatever becomes of the ruin the Laniers have made 
 of what was once a man, the Creator of us all if 
 you will admit that He had a hand in my make-up 
 knows where the responsibility will rest 
 
 The rapid patter of small feet sounded on the 
 stairs ; two little girls appeared in the arched doorway. 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 337 
 
 " Mamma ! " twittered the taller of the two, " may 
 Gladys and I - Oh ! I beg pardon ! " as she per 
 ceived that her mother was not alone. 
 
 Her black frock showed her to be a daughter of the 
 house ; the golden silk of her companion s curls, her 
 limpid blue eyes and delicate features, were Marie s 
 and her father s. 
 
 He took one eager step toward her. Mrs. Lanier 
 interposed her stately figure, and spoke with mild 
 decision : 
 
 " Alice, dear, I am engaged, as you see. Take your 
 cousin into the library, and shut the door when you 
 go in. I will be there in a moment." 
 
 She was disappointed if she had anticipated a 
 further scene. The wretched man walked directly 
 to the front door, laid his hand on the lock, and 
 glanced back. 
 
 " Is her mother here too ? " he asked. 
 " She is not." 
 
 He stumbled on the stone steps, and caught at the 
 railing to save himself. A man who was passing, 
 after a quick glance at the handsome house he was 
 leaving, and a keener at himself, stopped and came 
 back. 
 
 " Excuse me, sir, but are you ill ? Is there any 
 thing I can do for you ? " 
 
 A hot oath flew from PaulPs lips. " What business 
 is that of yours ? Do I look like a tramp ? " 
 
 "Not a bit! not a bit!" rejoined the would-be 
 helper, jocularly. I beg your pardon ! The man 
 
 who needs me is my neighbor. If you don t you re 
 
 not ! Good-afternoon." 
 
 22 
 
338 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 It was afternoon by now. People who had homes, 
 and liberty to return to them, clogged all the uptown 
 avenues of travel ; the sea-air bit at him at every cross- 
 street, raw with salt, and numbing to flesh and bone. 
 Down these shorter streets he had glimpses of the 
 west, where the sun was going down and staining the 
 river-fogs a dingy red. This would be one of the 
 nights when it was wise to take the bridge-route to 
 Brooklyn instead of the ferry. 
 
 The thought of Brooklyn strayed again into his 
 mind, three hours later, as he emerged from a place 
 he used to frequent when the exchequer was low. It 
 was well down-town, and he had had a hot supper 
 there for thirty-five cents, several drinks at the bar, 
 and the chance to gamble with the remaining half- 
 dollar. The man who won it, laughed brutally in 
 handing back eight cents. 
 
 " Three for the bridge and five for the street-car ! " 
 He was drunker than Paull, and disposed to be liberal. 
 " You belong over the river, don t you ? I won t give 
 the New York cops a chance to run you in." 
 
 Paull pocketed the coins, and passed into the street. 
 The fog was foul in that quarter, leaving a taint of 
 oily uncleanness upon the tongue. Brooklyn would 
 be sweeter, to breathe, and was a cheaper place 
 to live in. He would go over and " prospect " this 
 very night. He must leave that first-class hotel. He 
 would go back after he had secured lodgings over the 
 river, and get his trunk. It was full of handsome 
 clothing. A man in his profession could not afford 
 to be shabby. 
 
 Apparent prosperity was a part of his capital. Still 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 339 
 
 he must look up a Brooklyn pawnbroker to-morrow, 
 and " hock " a few things. He must have food and 
 shelter until he could turn himself. He lived in 
 Brooklyn once or his family did. He would go to 
 Brooklyn by all means. After all might not Alice 
 have kept her town-house ? It was not likely that she 
 lived all the year round in that beastly country hole. 
 A cunning gleam lit his watery eyes. She was prob 
 ably there now in hiding. He laughed outright at 
 the thought of how he would circumvent Virginia 
 Lanier, the cold-blooded snake ! 
 
 His thoughts were getting hazy. American drinks 
 were " heady." 
 
 He had walked very far, and was tired in legs and 
 head. At 363 Mendebras Avenue they answered 
 rudely his civil inquiries for Mrs. Paull. 
 
 " No such person had ever lived there so far as 
 they knew." 
 
 He decided to walk back to New York ; that is, if he 
 could " run" the ferry. He had had a watch when 
 he called at Mrs. Lanier s. He recollected looking 
 at it in a saloon on the Brooklyn side of the bridge. 
 A saloon with scarlet curtains at the windows, and 
 frescos on the inner walls. A band was playing 
 "Razzle Dazzle;" and girls with pointed bangs and 
 red cheeks were waiting upon men who sat with their 
 hats on, and drank beer and cocktails, and smoked 
 strong cigars. He had his watch then, and no small 
 change to pay for his drinks. He mentioned this to 
 the bar-keeper, and promised to call in to-morrow, 
 early, and settle. The bar-keeper or somebody else 
 had said that was " all right." He had his watch 
 
340 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 in his hand then, and did not recollect putting it back 
 into his pocket when he got into the street. He 
 would call at that saloon the first thing in the morn 
 ing, and see if he had left it on the counter. 
 
 This was a nasty night, and Brooklyn had the 
 beastliest climate on the globe, catarrhal, consump 
 tive, neuralgic. That must be neuralgia that stabbed 
 him to the heart every few minutes. The beefsteak 
 he had for supper was as tough as sole-leather. 
 
 Ten knives instead of one were struck into his 
 chest, and a red-hot iron band seemed to crush in his 
 lungs. With a despairing groan, he sank down upon 
 a door-step, tearing at his clothes to loosen the awful 
 pressure. 
 
CHAPTER XIX, 
 
Definite work is not always that which is cut and 
 squared for us, but that which conies as a claim upon 
 the conscience, whether it is nursing in a hospital or 
 hemming a handkerchief. E. M. SEWALL. 
 
 Christ in His heavenly garden walks all day, 
 And calls to souls upon the world s highway, 
 Wearied with trifles, maimed and sick with sin ; 
 Christ by the gate stands, and invites them in. 
 
 F. T. PALGRAVE. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 " T AM sadly afraid thafc Marie has not been quite 
 -*- candid in this affair," said Mrs. Barnes, with a 
 look of real concern. " I am very fond of that child, 
 with all her faults. She has a heart as deep as a 
 well, and generous impulses. The very devotion to 
 her wretched father, which has warped one side of 
 her nature, springs from a worthy root. But I cannot 
 excuse her for telling her mother that she has been 
 in correspondence with him since last September, and 
 leaving her to infer that she had not written to or 
 heard from him until then. Why, the first time I 
 ever met her was in the post-office in Fulton Street, 
 when she was asking for a stamp that would take a 
 letter to Nice, in France. She stamped it as it lay on 
 the counter ; and in the casual way in which one sees 
 such things, I observed that it was addressed to Mr. 
 Paul Morgan. That was one of his aliases, you 
 know. I should never have thought of the incident 
 again had not her voice sounded so like her mother s 
 that I looked at her, and followed her out to ask if 
 her name were Paull. When Mrs. Paull told me yes 
 terday that her husband had been known abroad as 
 4 Mr. Paul Morgan, it all flashed upon me. Of course, 
 I said nothing to her of the meeting and the letter. 
 
344 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 She has sorrow enough without it. But I wish 1 
 wish Marie had not said that ! " 
 
 Mrs. Williams shook her head dolorously. 
 
 " I can t see through it nor, for the matter of that, 
 far into it. I d have said, if asked, that while the 
 child is headstrong and high-strung to that extent that 
 when her blood is up, I Ve thought to myself that I d 
 as lief strike matches on a powder-keg all day as live 
 in the house with her, there is n t an atom of deceit 
 in her. She s too outspoken for her own comfort 
 and that of other people. If she has circumvented 
 the truth this time, it s the outcropping of the father s 
 blood in her. Her teeth are set on edge, and sharp 
 ened to make mince-meat of facts, because such sour 
 grapes have been the chief of his diet, as Mother 
 Goose says, for all these years." 
 
 " He has much to answer for, if only for the wrong 
 done to this one child." 
 
 " You may say it. I declare for it, Mrs. Barnes, 
 when I get to studying over what depends upon the 
 way fathers and mothers behave and think and feel, 
 1 think that if I had children to raise, I d begin to 
 preach to them of their responsibility as parents by 
 the time they could say, Now I lay me. " 
 
 " One poor wife, who labored prayerfully to bring 
 up her children in the right way, is reaping a woful 
 harvest of her husband s sowing," returned Mrs. 
 Barnes, sadly. " And here comes trouble upon trouble 
 in his return to America. It was a bold thing to 
 do, and yet, as it now appears, safe enough. Roger 
 Lanier was the only man to be feared, and he knew 
 it. But for her heroic faith, and her practice of 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 345 
 
 trusting God, in deed as well as in theory, to care for 
 the interests she commits to Him, she must have gone 
 wild over Ernest Paull s cowardly threat to claim the 
 custody of the children. Of course, as Dr. Barnes 
 says, it was all talk, intended to frighten women and 
 children, but it shows the temper and spirit of the 
 man." 
 
 " Where are the poor babies now ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Morse has the two boys still. She carried 
 them off with her on a visit to her mother in Philadel 
 phia the day after Mr. Paull was in Pequod. Elspeth 
 went to the parsonage and told her all about it, then 
 took the nine-o clock train to New York, with a letter 
 from Mrs. Morse to Mrs. Paull in her pocket, suggesting 
 the very best thing to be done in the circumstances, 
 a cablegram to Mr. Morse. He answered Mrs. Paull 
 within six hours after the despatch left New York : 
 Will care for your bird. r 
 
 " Is n t that like Mr. Morse ? Who knows don t 
 laugh and tell me again that I have a keen nose for 
 providence but would n t it be a providence if this 
 wild-goose chase of the dear child s should be the 
 means of drawing her and Dr. Lyell nearer together ? 
 If ever a girl needed a steady, kind, right-minded 
 husband, she does." 
 
 " I wish I could hope for such an ending to her 
 mad folly. From what I have heard of Dr. Lyell, he 
 considers the price of a discreet woman above rubies. 
 Mrs. Lanier very considerately added to the despatch, 
 Her father is here. Otherwise, no entreaties or 
 commands would have brought Marie home." 
 
 " Gladys is still with Mrs. Lanier, you say?" 
 
346 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 " She is. The poor mother went back to Pinehurst 
 alone three days ago. I spent yesterday arid last 
 night with her. She is brave and trustful, but worn 
 to a mere shadow by these latest trials. It was bad 
 enough to learn that her daughter had gone off alone 
 to such a man as we know her father to be. It was 
 worse, if possible, to think pf her landing, unprotected 
 and friendless, in a foreign country. But the hardest 
 effort of faith is to believe that good can come of 
 the appearance in the home given her by her brother 
 (where she has toiled so nobly to defray her husband s 
 debt to that brother), of this bad-tempered, vindictive, 
 broken-down adventurer, whom she cannot present to 
 her boys as their father. If he had returned penitent 
 and decent, I believe I am sure that she would 
 have received him. Her views of the might of the 
 marriage-contract are exceedingly and righteously 
 strict. As it is, so far as we can see, nothing but 
 misery and disgrace can come of it. The Royal 
 Road " a smile breaking through the cloud " is 
 the only way that is not hedged up for my afflicted 
 friend." 
 
 "That never is hedged up, His Holy Name be 
 praised ! " responded Mrs. Williams, devoutly. " It 
 is the highway where the redeemed of the Lord can 
 always walk. She finds the burden of this dark 
 day as much as she can bear with all the help she 
 can get." 
 
 " It is all she can carry. I told her so, and she 
 answered, Unless the Father should see fit to add 
 to it. Then He would have to increase the sup 
 ply of daily grace. I am living up to my allowance. 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 347 
 
 You can think how she would say it, and smile in 
 saying it. As for me, i caught myself listening by 
 day and by night for that man s step upon the porch. 
 If a shadow passed the window where we were at 
 work, I started with the fear that he might be there 
 armed with a search-warrant, or a writ of habeas 
 corpus, or determined to see and talk with her. 
 
 "As for our brave Elspeth," - Mrs. Barnes s love 
 of fun getting the better of her sympathy in an actual 
 laugh, " she stalks about the place like a grenadier, 
 eyes alert, and ears pricked up, and nostrils quivering, 
 ready for battle. I have my suspicions that she feeds 
 that big dog upon raw meat to make him savage. I 
 know that she keeps him chained by the kitchen-door 
 all day, and that he patrols the premises all night. I 
 used to hear his heavy feet marching up and down 
 the piazza, and once an hour making the rounds of 
 the house. Even Robert had a watchful look I had 
 not believed him capable of. Up to ten o clock to-day, 
 nothing more had been heard of Paull than if Elspeth 
 had throttled him, and thrust him under the rotten ice 
 which is beginning to float down the lake. My hus 
 band does not like the looks of this. He thinks that 
 Paull is planning some ugly surprise that will annoy, 
 if it does not terrify his wife, such as spying out the 
 children s hiding-places, and trying to seize them. 1 
 think that he is waiting to get legal advice, or, what 
 is more likely, hoping to wear out Alice s spirit by a 
 mysterious silence. There is nothing harder to bear 
 than a vague dread. I believe him to be capable of 
 anything," added the whole-souled little woman, who, 
 like most warm lovers, was a good hater. 
 
348 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 " If I had any opinion on the subject which I 
 don t presume to have," Nurse Williams announced, 
 folding up her knitting, preparatory to going home, 
 " it would be that he has taken vessel and gone back 
 where he came from, to see if he can get hold of his 
 daughter. He s maybe uneasy about her, knowing 
 the ways of foreign parts as he does, and that women 
 can t go kiting round there alone especially when 
 they are young and pretty as they can over here 
 (and particularly, as I will and must always say, in 
 Brooklyn !), and he must have some natural feeling 
 for the poor child. Leastways he knows that she is 
 the best card in his hand. 
 
 u Will you listen to me using gambling talk in my 
 old age when I don t know queens from spades, nor 
 hearts from jacks ? It must be the talking and think 
 ing so much about a man who s made his living that 
 way. There s more things that s catching than 
 measles and cholera. You 11 let me know if you ve 
 any further news of them all ? They are in my mind 
 and prayers all the time I m awake." 
 
 She had run in for an hour that evening expressly 
 to inquire as to the case of her Pinehurst friends, 
 and she carried them upon her great heart in her 
 homeward walk. The weather was much colder than 
 when she went into her pastor s house. The salt 
 yellow fogs were rolling seaward before a brisk 
 nor wester; the stars blinked frostily overhead. 
 
 " March will die like a roaring lion ! " soliloquized 
 the good soul, " stepping out " at a rate of speed dis- 
 porportioned to her years and weight. " His teeth 
 are sharp too ! " 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 349 
 
 The nor wester was a young gale when she faced 
 it, bullying all weaker things after the manner of 
 March winds, capricious, and no respecter of persons. 
 Substantial as was her build, she had to duck her 
 head, and shoulder the blast sidelong in crossing the 
 streets. Thus advancing, she brought herself into 
 contact with a stout man at the junction of the 
 Avenue with Post Street. Both staggered, and he 
 seized her arm to save her from falling, with 
 
 " I beg your pardon, madam ! " 
 
 " If it ain t Mr. Stevens ! " cried she, with what 
 breath the gale and shock had spared to her. 
 
 The home missionary laughed, a right round, 
 jovial laugh that must have come all the way from 
 his heels. 
 
 " This is one of the things people who know no 
 better call 4 wonderful ! " he said jollily. " Such things 
 as are all the time happening to me and to anybody 
 who is on the lookout for them. I am on my way to 
 your house. Just got off the car at the corner 
 below." 
 
 " King s business ? " 
 
 " That s as you look at it. Busy ? " 
 
 u Just home from a bilious-remittent yesterday, 
 and pretty well rested out last night. Why ! what s 
 this?" 
 
 Mr. Stevens said " Halloo ! " and both halted at 
 the bottom of the steps leading up to the sign of 
 " Mary Williams, Nurse, <fcc." A man crouched there, 
 doubled up until his forehead rested on his knees, 
 not as the practised eye of the two spectators at 
 once discerned in the limp attitude of the drunkard, 
 
350 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 but tense with physical anguish. Mr. Stevens took 
 him gently by the shoulder. He moaned, arid tried 
 to raise himself. The light of the street-lamp showed 
 a face like chalk, made keen and old by extremity 
 of pain. 
 
 " Aha ! " escaped the missionary. 
 
 He let go of the shoulder, and beckoned the nurse 
 a few steps apart. 
 
 " I ve seen tins man before to-day. He swore at 
 me then. That brings him fairly within the category 
 of them that curse and despitefully use you. So 
 my duty is to bless him. Can you take him in for an 
 hour or so ? He has a convulsion of some sort, and 
 ought to be attended to at once." 
 
 " I 11 see if the men-folks downstairs are at home. 
 They can help you up to my sitting-room with him," 
 mounting the steps hastily. 
 
 The u men-folks," a father and grown son, will 
 ingly lent a hand in the charitable deed. Whatever 
 Mrs. Williams ordained respecting sick people was 
 law and gospel to them. The three men got the 
 groaning and almost unconscious sufferer up to the 
 second floor, and laid him upon the lounge under the 
 illustrated poem, Mrs. Williams s pride. At her next 
 behest the son ran off for Dr. Bacon. 
 
 " It s angina pectoris ! " said Mr. Stevens, presently, 
 watching the fierce spasms. 
 
 " We used to call it breast-pang, " said the nurse, 
 in the same guarded key. u There s few worse things 
 that the human body can endure. He s been drink 
 ing hard too. Maybe to try to quiet the pain, poor fel 
 low ! I ve known people to mistake it for cramp in the 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 351 
 
 stomach in the first stages. He looks like a gentle 
 man." 
 
 The missionary nodded, his grave, pitying regards 
 upon the convulsed features. Used as he was to wit 
 nessing every form of suffering, he appreciated that 
 this was an extraordinary case, and that the peril was 
 imminent. Hot fomentations were applied to his 
 chest, and hot water-bags to his feet, without mitiga 
 tion of the symptoms. It was a tedious half-hour 
 that rolled by before the bustle of the physician s 
 arrival was heard upon the stairs. For the next hour 
 little was said in the room besides the quick, authori 
 tative directions of the chief in command, and the 
 queries of the subordinates. 
 
 In that time medicines were brought in ; a folding- 
 bed was lowered and made up, the sufferer undressed 
 and laid within it, apparently unconscious of every 
 thing except the intolerable torture of his mysterious 
 malady. It was twelve o clock when his groans 
 ceased, and he lay in the stupor induced by anodynes 
 and exhaustion. 
 
 Dr. Bacon picked up the coat he had taken off the 
 better to handle the writhing man, and whistled. 
 
 " By Jap ! that was a near thing. I thought he 
 was off a dozen times. Who and what is he ? and 
 how came you two in charge of this private hospital ? " 
 
 " He was taken upon my steps," said Mrs. Williams. 
 
 " And you took him in. You may be thankful if 
 he does n t turn the tables. Such impulsive charity 
 is pious, but poor policy, so far as the life that now 
 is goes. What do you know of our patient, Mr. 
 Stevens ? " 
 
352 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 " He is a traveller on the Jericho road, and my 
 neighbor. The priest and the Levite had probably 
 had their look and their say about him, but they were 
 out of sight before we came up." 
 
 The doctor s eyes twinkled with merry malice. 
 
 " S-o-o ! a pair of good Samaritans, eh ? The sacred 
 drama is likely to cost you more than a pocketful of 
 tuppences, and more time than you calculated upon. 
 He can t be moved to-night, or to-morrow, without 
 endangering his life, which is n t worth taking odds 
 upon, in any event. You ve got a white elephant on 
 your hands, my good sister. My advice (unprofes 
 sional) is that you examine his clothing for some clew 
 to his identity. If he has friends, they ought to be 
 informed as to what has happened." 
 
 The search was futile. Not a letter, or so much as 
 a handkerchief, was in the pockets, and none of the 
 garments were marked. 
 
 The doctor whistled again. 
 
 " That saying about the Jericho road was n t amiss. 
 Our uncertain man has certainly fallen among thieves, 
 and thieves without honor at that." 
 
 The smile he turned upon the hostess was a broad 
 grin of mischievous satisfaction. 
 
 " Here s a station on the Royal Road for you ! Not 
 having taken a ticket on that line myself, I humbly 
 propose that you bundle him out of this to the hos 
 pital the minute I can say with any degree of truth 
 fulness that he is n t likely to die on the way. If he 
 dies here, there will be a newspaper inquest, and 
 there s no telling what amount of talk and fuss." 
 
 " That s for to-morrow to decide, not you, nor 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 353 
 
 yet me ; " rejoined the nurse, composedly. " But this 
 much I do say, until it s safe to move him, here he 
 stays ! A human life is a human life, and I have n t 
 lived to be fifty-seven years old to be scared by news 
 paper powder. They are mostly blank cartridges." 
 
 " Oh, I know you of old ! No matter whom you 
 are dealing with, you always write yourself down as 
 4 No. 2. See here, my friend, for I am your friend, 
 whether you are foolish or sensible, this man is not 
 one of your kind. There is n t a sign of the disciple 
 about him. We doctors see enough of the side of life 
 the knots are on, to make us keen in these matters. 
 He s a genteel tough - - that s what he is and 
 just off of a hard tear. Don t set your heart upon 
 nursing him into a sheep. He s an out-and-out goat. 
 I don t say you re to put him into the street to-night, 
 but I 11 look in to-morrow with a hospital permit in 
 my pocket, and an elastic conscience in my manly 
 bosom. 
 
 "Did you ever behold a more obstinate counte 
 nance in your born days ? " pointing to Mrs. Williams, 
 who was quietly setting the disordered room into its 
 accustomed condition. " She s a respectable woman, 
 with a professional reputation to maintain, and it 
 really won t do for her to be housing stragglers in 
 this promiscuous manner. She ought, in the first 
 place, to have sent off post-haste for an ambulance 
 and shipped him to the hospital." 
 
 " Or station-house," put in Mr Stevens, smiling 
 quietly. " There were probably none on the turnpike 
 to Jericho, or the priest and Levitc would have 
 thought of one. The Royal Road I heard you speak 
 
 23 
 
354 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 of just now is lined with Houses of Mercy and Ready 
 Reliefs, and so on. That comes of living in the nine 
 teenth century, I suppose." 
 
 The doctor was not disconcerted. 
 
 "As to charity, real charity, I believe in it as 
 truly as any man. But these works of supererogation 
 are outside of my province and comprehension. I 
 dare affirm for I know you and respect your prin 
 ciples that five out of every ten cases of so-called 
 distress you relieve, prove, when you come to look 
 into them, to have been frauds, or, at least, exag 
 gerated for the purpose of working up your sympa 
 thies to the alms-point. There is a continual pull 
 upon your nervous forces and purse-strings, and for 
 what ? To further pauperize paupers, to instruct 
 designing scamps in hypocrisy and cunning, and 
 deplete good men s pockets. Am I right ? " 
 
 " Better that ninety-nine guilty men go free than 
 that one innocent man should be punished," quoted 
 Mr. Stevens. " My conscience is easier for not taking 
 the chance against the innocent one. As to the un 
 worthy whom I feed and clothe, believing that I am 
 obeying the Master s precept to provide for the des 
 titute, what follows the action performed in this 
 spirit is none of my business. It is done unto God, 
 not unto man." 
 
 Dr. Bacon shrugged his shoulders and spread out 
 his hands. 
 
 " And it is none of my business, you might say, to 
 dictate to whom you are to give and when and how. 
 Only, I beg you to believe that I am sincerely interested 
 in our excellent Mrs. Williams, and I don t fancy the 
 contract she has on her hands just now." 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 355 
 
 He moved toward the bed. The conversation had 
 been held in the sub-tones trained nurses understand 
 (or ought to understand) how to use, audible only to 
 the interlocutor and free from the sibilations that 
 arouse a sleeper more readily than a loud call. 
 
 The man lay like one dead, but for his low, labored 
 respiration, the ground swell after the storm. His 
 face was livid, the cheeks had fallen in ; his jaw hung 
 loosely. 
 
 "Send for me should the pain return," said the 
 doctor, in leaving his side. " Should you find him 
 sinking, don t call me up. It would be over before I 
 could get here. It is touch-and-go with him for the 
 next few hours." 
 
 Mr. Stevens took his departure half an hour later. 
 He had left a sick man in New York to whom he 
 had meant to send Mrs. Williams. He must secure 
 another nurse before he could go to his own home. 
 
 " I will look in upon you to-morrow forenoon," was 
 his parting promise. " Keep up a brave heart, my sis 
 ter and may the Sleepless Eye watch with you ! " 
 
 He had made his call, and Dr. Bacon his, before 
 the patient gave any sign that he knew where he was 
 or indeed that he was at all. It was then the recur 
 rence of the horrible grip upon his chest that aroused 
 him from the protracted stupor. The paroxysm was 
 slighter and briefer than the former, and when it was 
 relieved, he moved and spoke with comparative ease. 
 Another long night of lethargic slumber succeeded, 
 and the Sabbath day dawned brightly. 
 
 "Treacherous, but delicious," Dr. Bacon pronounced 
 the weather. " Nice, while it lasts, and profitable to 
 
356 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 the profession when it is over. I wish you could get 
 a mouthful of the outer air before the storm it is 
 breeding comes." 
 
 For answer, she looked at him across the stranger s 
 pillow. 
 
 " Oh, I suppose so ! " he retorted crossly. " I feel 
 like shaking you, all the same ! " 
 
 The patient seemed unobservant of the by-play, 
 although he was rational and fully awake, replying 
 coherently and in well-chosen terms to the physi 
 cian s questions as to his physical condition. He 
 suffered little actual pain, he said, but there were 
 moments of distressing prostration when his heart 
 stopped beating for a moment, and resumed action with 
 difficulty. He supposed that, with returning strength, 
 this sensation would pass away. He thanked the 
 doctor for his kindly attentions, and complimented 
 him, briefly but courteously, upon his skill. 
 
 " I was more dangerously ill from the same cause 
 in February. I am not alarmed as to the final 
 result." 
 
 After the doctor had gone, Mrs. Williams was 
 slightly confused by the unexpected query : " Why 
 did he want to shake you ? " 
 
 " Pshaw ! you must n t mind Dr. Bacon s non 
 sense. He and I have worked together so many years 
 that he says pretty much whatever comes into his 
 head. Will you take your broth now ? " 
 
 He complied, said " Thank you ! " as she laid his 
 head again on the pillow, and was so still she would 
 have believed him drowsy, but for the wide gaze of 
 the eyes straight forward into vacancy. 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 357 
 
 " You and Dr. Bacon consider me extremely ill, 
 do you not ? " he asked, at length, without apparent 
 emotion. u You may be nearer right than I." 
 
 " Nobody can suffer as you do, without becoming 
 seriously ill, sir. There s always more or less danger 
 in such attacks. I am very thankful to see you so 
 much easier." 
 
 " You do not say 4 better, I observe ! Why are 
 you taking care of me ? " 
 
 " You fell ill at my door at ten o clock at night. 
 What could a Christian woman do but see that you 
 did not die there ? Then, too, I am a professional 
 nurse, and there seemed to be a providence in it." 
 
 In the next interval of silence between them, the 
 church-bell began to chime for the morning service ; 
 that of the Jeremy Taylor Memorial sonorous and 
 clear, because close at hand. Mrs. Williams s head 
 was reverently inclined as the final toll sounded the 
 call to worship in the sanctuary of her love ; believ 
 ing herself unnoticed by her lodger, she folded her 
 hands and joined in spirit in the invocation which she 
 knew was said at that minute over the congregation 
 bowed in prayer. 
 
 " It is Sunday, is it not ? " came from her com 
 panion presently. 
 
 " Yes, and a beautiful Sabbath, sir. I m always 
 grateful for a lovely Lord s Day." 
 
 " You were praying just now. Did you pray for 
 me?" 
 
 " Yes. I have been praying constantly for you all 
 the morning and yesterday and night before." 
 
 "Thank you!" 
 
358 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 The weak voice she could have fancied was weaker 
 every time she listened to it, spoke again after a long 
 pause. 
 
 " Are you not in the habit of reading your Bible on 
 Sundays when you do not go to church ? " 
 
 " Always." She arose with alacrity, and took the 
 well-worn Book from its cushioned stand. " If you 
 don t mind I should like to look over a Psalm, 
 or a bit of the Gospels. They hearten a body up 
 amazingly." 
 
 He waited until she settled her eye-glasses and 
 opened her Bible. 
 
 " Would it weary you to read a few verses aloud ? " 
 
 "Not at all." She would not display too much 
 eagerness lest he should shrink back into the shell 
 of polite reserve. " Have you any choice, sir ? " 
 
 The answer was not prompt, and was enunciated 
 lingeringly, indescribable pathos in the last inflec 
 tions : 
 
 " If you please the story of the thief on the 
 Cross ! " 
 
 He lay perfectly still while the pleasant voice, 
 solemn with the weight of pious awe, rendered the 
 tale : - 
 
 " And when they came unto the place which is called 
 The skull, there they crucified Him, and the malefac 
 tors, one on the right hand and the other on the left. 
 
 " And Jesus said, Father, forgive them ; for they 
 know not what they do? And parting His garments 
 among them, they cast lots. 
 
 " And the people stood beholding. And the rulers 
 also scoffed at Him, saying, He saved others ; let 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 359 
 
 Him save Himself, if this is the Christ of Crod, His 
 chosen. 9 
 
 " And the soldiers also mocked Him, coming to Him, 
 offering Him vinegar, and saying, If Thou art the 
 King of the Jews, save Thyself! 
 
 " And there was also a superscription over Him, 
 This is the King of the Jews 
 
 " And one of the malefactors which were hanged 
 railed on Him, saying, Art not Thou the Christ f 
 save Thyself and us. 
 
 " But the other answered, and rebuking him said, 
 4 Dost thou not even fear Crod, seeing thou art in the 
 same condemnation? And we indeed justly ; for we 
 receive the due reward of our deeds : but this man hath 
 done nothing amiss. 
 
 " And he said, Jesus ! remember me when Thou 
 comest into Thy kingdom 
 
 " And He said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, 
 To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise 
 
 The reverent accents ceased, and there was a still 
 ness that might be felt. The sunken eyes appeared 
 to gaze upon a pencil of sunshine slipping stealthily 
 along the wall; the lips murmured no thanks; Mrs. 
 Williams crossed the room with her soundless step 
 to lay the Bible upon its pillow. 
 
 " I remember, " she said softly, to herself as much 
 as to the possible auditor, " hearing an old preacher 
 say once that we had one such story given to us in 
 God s Word, that none might despair, and only one, 
 that none might presume. You may have heard 
 too, sir, of John Wesley s answer to the lady who 
 told him that there was no hope of her salvation; 
 
360 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 she felt herself to be a lost sinner. I am glad of 
 that, madam, says Mr. Wesley, very glad of it. 
 4 How can you say so ? says she, quite horrified. 
 6 Because I read in my Bible that Christ came to 
 seek and to save that which is lost. That anecdote 
 has been a comfort to many a poor soul, I don t 
 doubt. It has helped me more than once, I know, 
 when I got down in my mind." 
 
 He shifted his position to bring her within eye- 
 range. 
 
 " Do you believe, then Where did you get that 
 picture ? " 
 
 A fine cabinet photograph of Mrs. Paull stood 
 upon a miniature easel on the low mantel-shelf, a 
 second and broader sun-ray lying athwart it. 
 
 As the nurse afterward related the incident, a 
 light as bright broke in upon her mind ; her heart 
 beat suffocatingly; odd zigzags of flame hindered 
 her vision. Professional caution and tact did not 
 fail her, however. 
 
 "There, now!" in her creamiest legato; "I don t 
 wonder it catches your eye. That s a lovely lady I 
 nursed through brain fever a little over two years 
 ago. She s had lots of trouble and sorrow, 
 enough to kill most women, but she has been won 
 derfully supported through it all. 1 set a deal of 
 store by her, and she knows that so well, she gave 
 me her picture last Christmas. Maybe you d like 
 to look at it nearer, sir ? " 
 
 He snatched rather than accepted it from her, 
 grasped it with both shaking hands, his eyes kind 
 ling hungrily. Eyes and fingers seemed as if they 
 would never let it go. 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 361 
 
 " Excuse me for a minute, please ! " said Mrs. 
 Williams, the "&c.," in entire command of speech 
 and action. " I must see how that beef-tea is get 
 ting on in the kitchen. " 
 
 When out of his sight she fell upon her knees : 
 
 "Dear Lord ! give me light enough for the next 
 step ! Thou, who canst save to the uttermost, have 
 mercy upon this wandering soul ! " 
 
 A strange, choking cry a horrid rattling sound 
 made her fly into the outer room. Ernest Paull 
 had raised himself upon his elbow ; his right hand 
 plucked convulsively at his breast; his eyes, wild 
 and imploring, besought help which mortal skill 
 could not render. 
 
 The struggle was fearfully brief. Even as she 
 raised him in her arms that air might enter the 
 closing lungs, his frame relaxed ; with one last effort 
 he lifted his wife s picture to his lips, and the life 
 fluttered forth. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
What could I do, blessed Guide and Master, 
 
 Other than this ? 
 Still to go on, as now, not slower, faster, 
 
 Nor fear to miss 
 The road, although so very long it be, 
 
 While led by Thee. 
 Step after step, feeling Thee close beside me, 
 
 Although unseen ; 
 
 Through thorns, through flowers, whether the tempest 
 hide Thee, 
 
 Or heavens serene, 
 Assured Thy faithfulness cannot betray, 
 
 Nor love decay. 
 
 SUSAN COOLIDGE. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 months after Ernest Paull s death, 
 his widow and eldest son drove one moonlight 
 evening down to the village post-office for the late 
 mail. There were two mails a day in Pequod now, 
 and a railroad in building on the other side of the 
 lake from Pinehurst. The old Dutch neighborhood 
 was waking up to the appreciation of the conse 
 quence, real and prospective, of a mountain retreat 
 within an hour by rail of the metropolis. "The 
 store " had arisen a story in the world, and had a 
 brand-new coat of paint that glistened under the full 
 moon. There was a smarter look about the knot of 
 village loafers gathered upon the porch and steps, 
 some smoking, some whittling. 
 
 While Mrs. Paull waited in the buggy for her 
 son s return from the interior of the building, she 
 heard them talk of factory work, crops, and general 
 rural news. They were neither worse nor better 
 than the average of men and lads who frequent the 
 country store; but, as the idle chit-chat went on, the 
 lady was disagreeably impressed by the bovine drawl, 
 the slovenly dialect, and low range of ideas of men 
 who had passed their lives in a community where 
 church-going was respectable, and schooling was, by 
 law, obligatory. She had striven unostentatiously 
 
366 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 to do missionary work among these people, recogniz 
 ing, at the outset, what many as earnest never per 
 ceive, and thereby fail in their ministry to those 
 they would lift to higher levels; to wit, that the 
 native-born American, no matter what his birth, 
 station, or means, is never a peasant, and ignores 
 resentfully the existence of such a class on this side 
 of the Atlantic. She had discovered other things 
 that pained and surprised her far more than the 
 suspicious spirit of independence that, if rightly 
 directed, leads to the right sort of self-respect. 
 The tone of every-day morality among the "village 
 people " was not a whit higher than in the slum- 
 miest quarters of the so-considered wicked city. 
 The men and boys, with lamentably few exceptions, 
 drank bad liquor, smoked and chewed vile tobacco, 
 and that incessantly, gamed and swore freely. The 
 women were coarse and bold in their demeanor, and 
 notoriously lax in principle. It was not uncommon 
 for girls of thirteen to marry boys but a few years 
 older ; wife-beating was a frequent occurrence, and a 
 more common sight was husband and wife drinking 
 together, while their children, ragged, barefoot, and 
 dirty, learned profanity and vice in the public roads. 
 There were three churches in sight of the " Cross 
 road store," and pastors and Sunday-school teachers 
 who sought to draw in learners and co-workers. 
 The common people stood aloof and on the defensive. 
 Aided by Marie and Mrs. Morse, Mrs. Paull had 
 established a sewing and cooking class which met 
 twice a week in a house in the village. Not a 
 woman or girl would have walked the half-mile to 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 367 
 
 Pinehurst to bo taught anything. The attitude 
 conscious and habitual of the "native-born" igno 
 ramus is patronage of those who would help him to 
 rise. Women washed and scrubbed for their better- 
 to-do neighbors with the air of conferring a favor, 
 receiving payment for the same with supercilious 
 toleration irresistibly funny to those who had too 
 much sense to let it irritate them. If it pleased 
 Mrs. Paull to teach the children to sew, and to give 
 them the aprons and frocks they made ; to invite the 
 wives of the operatives to help her play cook two 
 afternoons in the week, and to let them carry home 
 the food they prepared, they let her have her way, 
 some good-humoredly, some contemptuously, none 
 gratefully. The same state of feeling prevailed 
 with respect to the Bible class held on Wednesday 
 night in the new "hall" over the store. When they 
 felt like it, they came ; when they did not feel like 
 it, they stayed away. 
 
 The field was not encouraging. She had con 
 fessed this to Lanier on the drive down : 
 
 " I do not lose heart, simply because 1 know that 
 I owe a duty to my neighbor, and that I am trying 
 to fulfil it to the best of my light and knowledge. 
 It is the * duty that lies nearest my hand. Hence 
 it is God s will that I should do it. As Mr. Stevens 
 says, what comes of it is none of my business. 
 Each of us is a soldier in the ranks. When the 
 Commander says, Come, or Go, Do this, or 
 Do that, we have no choice but to obey. Human 
 nature in Pequod is Water-Street human nature. 
 The rural district is not Arcadia, but it is good for 
 
368 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 me to find here what Byron coveted when he began 
 the study of German, something craggy to break 
 his mind upon. I have learned long ago, that 
 merely sentimental Christianity cannot labor effec 
 tively in a severely practical world, where dirt and 
 poverty go hand-in-hand, and those who are in the 
 direst need of moral and spiritual help are the most 
 averse to receiving such help. " 
 
 "A clear case of i I will be drowned ! Nobody 
 shall help me ? " 
 
 " Exactly ! Fortunately there is One who sees the 
 end from the beginning, and appoints to each day 
 its tender tasking. 
 
 She had bowed pleasantly to the group of loungers 
 when the buggy drew up at the store, and Lanier 
 had lifted his hat. The men nodded, not a hand 
 moving to the brim of hat or cap. Then they had 
 gone on talking, rather more loudly than before, to 
 prove how uncowed they were by a refined presence. 
 
 Mrs. Paull comprehended the drift of all this by 
 this time, and did not feel indignant or wounded by 
 behavior that would have offended her sense of fit 
 ness had the boorishness manifested itself in men of 
 a different stamp. She noted, instead, with silent 
 gratification, that not an oath was uttered in her 
 hearing, or an unclean word. The mind, free 
 from carking preoccupation in the morrow, discerns 
 and gets all the sweetness out of such grains of 
 comfort. 
 
 The end of the upper story, inhabited by the store 
 keeper s family, was lighted, and a window was open 
 in one room, the evening being bland. Presently 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 369 
 
 somebody the wife or daughter of the proprietor 
 began to play upon a melodeon. 
 
 She did not play even mechanically well, tripping 
 once in a while over a key, and hurrying or retarding 
 the time according to a system of her own; the 
 instrument wheezed asthmatically when certain keys 
 were pressed; and twice in one tune, which was 
 unfamiliar to the performer, the wind gave out 
 through her forgetfulness of the duty her foot owed 
 to the pedal. 
 
 But when a woman s and a man s voice arose in 
 a hymn-tune, the hum of talk upon the porch ceased. 
 Not a man moved while the sacred song went on. 
 It was taken, of course, from a Moody and Sankey 
 collection. Nos. 1, 2, and 3 of " Gospel Hymns " 
 are to be found in every farm or village house, as 
 surely as churn and sewing-machine. 
 
 In the windless night they heard every word. 
 The heart of one listener was a harp, with each 
 chord tense and a-thrill in response to the remem 
 bered strain : 
 
 " I need Thee every hour, 
 
 Most gracious Lord 1 
 No tender voice like Thine 
 Can peace afford." 
 
 Several voices among the lower group joined in 
 the refrain very softly, not to disturb the musicians 
 above stairs : 
 
 " I need Thee, oh, I need Thee ! 
 Every hour 1 need Thee. 
 Oh, bless me now, my Saviour ! 
 I come to Thee ! " 
 
 24 
 
370 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 It was the " cry of the human" of every degree. 
 
 Lanier was in his seat by his mother while the 
 first verse was in singing. He did not touch the 
 reins until the last repetition of the chorus died 
 away, and neither of the two spoke before the top of 
 the first hill was reached. The road skirted the 
 edge of the lake, which was full from the autumnal 
 rains. The head of water pouring over the dam 
 raised a deep-toned shout, which was taken up by 
 the listening hills. Clouds of spray were rising 
 from the rocks, glittering like diamond-dust, and 
 beading with pearls the outermost boughs of the 
 hemlock wood on the other side of the rocky way. 
 Just where the lake gathered itself into a smooth 
 sheet for the plunge, a thicket of witch-hazel was 
 studded with numberless blooms. The hills dreamed 
 upon the horizon ; the stars pale, but constant, held 
 to their courses in the gray-blue canopy of a world 
 at rest. 
 
 "It will be four years next month !" Mrs. Paull 
 mused aloud. "That hymn brought it all back so 
 vividly that for a moment I thought I could not bear 
 it. I held still, and the pain passed, as all pains 
 must pass by His grace. 
 
 "My boy ! never distrust Him ! Paul meant 
 much when he told his neophytes that he would 
 have them without carefulness. It was the echo 
 of the Master s will." 
 
 " I saw something to-day that made me wish that 
 you were with me," answered Lanier. The accord 
 between their spirits was perfected with the passing 
 of years. " Close by the Peddlington station, right 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 371 
 
 in the thick of wheels, horses, and people, within six 
 feet of the rails where locomotives were drilling up 
 and down, were two sparrows picking up scattered 
 grain that had fallen from freight car or wagon. 
 The chippiest, chirpiest pair of busybodies you can 
 imagine, so happy over their 4 find that they chat 
 tered as they ate. I stood still for fully five minutes 
 to watch them. It was a sermon in song and 
 feathers. The roar of traffic and the jargon of 
 voices went for less than nothing to the wise midgets. 
 God had put their dinner such a big dinner ! just 
 there, and they took it, asking no questions." 
 
 "The dear little types !" smiled the mother, ten 
 derly. "I never see one without wishing he knew 
 how honored he is, far above the other birds of 
 the air. How careless of me not to notice that you 
 are cumbered with all these letters and papers, and 
 have to hold the reins besides ! We have a lordly 
 mail ! Let me take it ! " 
 
 "The heaviest, and it goes without saying the 
 most important, part is for Marie, including the 
 usual corpulent envelope from Philadelphia. The 
 postal service of Pequod will be lighter after Novem 
 ber fifteenth. I am to be best man, she tells me. 
 You must advise me what to get for a wedding- 
 present. Lanier & Co. must have had the event in 
 view when they raised my salary the first of the 
 month. You will miss our bonnie girl." 
 
 "More than I could have believed possible two 
 years ago. The shock that awaited her upon her 
 return from what we all considered an ill-starred 
 voyage, threw her back into her mother s arms, and 
 
372 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 I have kept her there. Her friends are very good to 
 her. Her Aunt Virginia has given her all her linen, 
 and Mrs. Barnes is embroidering her initials upon 
 each piece, stitching love into every letter, as she 
 says, in her graceful way. I shall not let Mrs. 
 Williams leave us until after the wedding. I shall 
 convince her that we cannot get ready for it without 
 her help. That is true as far as it goes, but she 
 ought to have the change and rest." 
 
 " Has she been ill ? I was actually appalled at 
 the alteration in her when I met her at the station 
 this afternoon. She must have lost fifty pounds of 
 flesh since I saw her in July. But for her voice and 
 laugh I should hardly have known her. I asked her 
 through what mill of self-sacrifice she had been put 
 ting herself lately. " 
 
 Mrs. Paull uttered an exclamation of regret, then 
 checking it midway, asked with interest, 
 
 " What did she say ? " 
 
 " That she was no fonder of peas in her shoes and 
 hair-cloth shirts than other folks. For her part, 
 she thought the most dangerous part of spiritual 
 vanity was that people felt in making martyrs of 
 themselves. It s a great honor to be a martyr 
 when God calls you to the stake, or to the gallows, 
 she went on to improve the occasion by remarking ; 
 but a great piece of presumption when one grabs 
 at the martyr s crown before it is offered to him. 
 Even our Lord passed through the midst of them 
 that wanted to throw Him off the hill on which 
 Nazareth was built. The very city in which He was 
 brought up, too ! What a Bible scholar she is ! " 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 373 
 
 " What a noble, plucky Christian heroine she is ! " 
 said Mrs. Paull, much moved. "No martyr ever 
 went to the torture more unflinchingly than she has 
 walked the cruel stones of her appointed pathway 
 of life. 
 
 " Drive slowly, dear ! I must tell you a sad, true 
 story before we reach home. You should hear it, 
 that you may not wound our dear friend by thought 
 less questions. She would never allow you to sus 
 pect it if she did, but she has borne so much that we 
 must shield her in every possible way. Mrs. Barnes 
 told me the sorrowful tale last week when she was 
 here. She said that Mrs. Williams wished me to 
 hear it, but could not trust herself as yet to talk 
 of it. 
 
 " She was married at twenty to a smart young 
 fellow, a machinist by trade, and in a good busi 
 ness. Within six months she knew that he was a 
 drunkard, a confirmed sot. He had loved liquor 
 ever since he was a boy, as his father had before 
 him, so he told her. On her death-bed his mother 
 had begged him to promise her that he would never 
 touch another drop, and he had vowed upon her Bible 
 that he would not. This was a year before his 
 marriage, and before he met Mary Johnson, who 
 became his wife. He was good-looking, Mrs. Barnes 
 says, with a kind heart and sweet temper, one of the 
 most lovable of men when sober, and industrious 
 and ambitious. A few glasses of the accursed stuff 
 converted him into a demon, quarrelsome, violent, 
 and cruel. His wife kept the knowledge of his 
 besetting sin to herself as long as she could, hoping 
 
374 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 with all the strength of her sanguine nature to bring 
 about his reform. When one fall after another 
 would have discouraged any other woman, she clung 
 to the belief that the good in him would get the 
 upper hand of the evil. 
 
 " c He never said a cross word to me when he was 
 himself, she told Mrs. Barnes ; and when the crazy 
 fit was over, he was fairly broken-hearted for what 
 had happened. Many s the time I ve known him 
 spend half the night praying, with his Bible open 
 before him, when he felt the terrible thirst coming 
 on him. It was like a sly devil creeping up to him, 
 and then, all at once, seizing him and carrying him 
 off. I know now they say it is a disease, and to be 
 treated like a disease, and not as a crime. Maybe 
 so, but I call it being possessed by devils, some 
 times by one, sometimes by a whole legion of them, 
 as many as entered into the swine. It makes 
 swine of some men; it made a wild beast of my 
 husband. His eyes would get deeper set in his 
 head, with red fire burning down in them, his fore 
 head was lower and ridged down to his eyebrows, 
 and you would n t have known the voice for his, that 
 was almost like a woman s for gentleness when he 
 was right. 
 
 "Stop here, my son ! I never weary of that 
 picture set in the opening between these trees. " 
 
 They were upon the upper slope of the hill on 
 which the homestead was built. The lights from 
 the windows twinkled through the thinned foliage ; 
 below the house and lawn, the lake spread, an irregu 
 lar sheet of silver-gray, shading into black where 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 375 
 
 the banks were high. The blasted oak to which the 
 mother had compared herself formed one side of the 
 view; the shadow of the branchy crown projected 
 upon the white road. The air was fragrant with the 
 odor of fallen hickory leaves, and pulsated with dis 
 tant music. Marie was at the piano, her glorious 
 voice carrying far through the placid night. 
 
 " It is not the time or the place for a tragic story, " 
 resumed Mrs. Paull. " We will get it over quickly. 
 They had been married several years, and had two 
 children, a boy and a girl. Times were hard with 
 them, in consequence of the husband s habits, and 
 Mary was obliged to go out sewing by the day to 
 help support the family. When she did this, her 
 sister, a girl of eighteen, used to stay with and take 
 care of the children. Williams came home one 
 noon, while his wife was absent, drunk and raving. 
 It is supposed that his sister-in-law, who was spirited 
 and fearless, reproached him with his condition; 
 or she may have interfered to protect the little ones 
 from their father s violence. The neighbors heard 
 her scream, and ran to her help, too late to save 
 her. He had killed her and the children with an 
 axe, and was raging about the room, cutting up the 
 furniture with it. 
 
 "We read of similar deeds every week, but the 
 revolting details and all the attendant horrors mean 
 comparatively nothing to us, who hear of them afar 
 off. Think of this happening to a woman like our 
 dear Nurse Williams, a clean-lived, God-fearing 
 wife and mother ! " 
 
 " Mother ! are you quite sure it is true ? " 
 
376 THE ROYAL ROAD. 
 
 "Dr. Barnes was her pastor then, as now. He was 
 sent for to break the news to her. She fainted 
 when the full force of the calamity fell upon her. 
 Her first inquiry upon reviving was for her husband. 
 
 " Drink murdered them, not he ! she said. 
 When he comes to himself, he will not recollect 
 anything he has done. He must be watched, or he 
 will take his own life when he finds it out. He has 
 the lovingest heart ever put into a man s bosom. 
 
 " The thought that he would be tried for the triple 
 murder seemed not to occur to her. She was in the 
 court-room when he was sentenced to imprisonment 
 for life. For thirty years she has visited him regu 
 larly, once a month, and written to him whenever 
 she was allowed to send a letter. He died a fort 
 night ago. By the favor of the penitentiary officials, 
 who were acquainted with his history, she was ap 
 pointed his nurse in the prison hospital, and had 
 been with him for a month when the end came. 
 
 " When Mrs. Barnes wrote to me how sadly shaken 
 the noble woman was, I insisted that she should pay 
 us a visit, writing directly to Mrs. Williams. Her 
 presence ought to bring a blessing to any house. I 
 covet the privilege of helping to mete out to her the 
 measure she has given into other bosoms. 
 
 "Not a word of this to Marie, or .to the children ! 
 I knew I could count upon your sympathy and co 
 operation. " 
 
 They drove slowly and silently through the gate 
 and wood and around to the front door. Marie had 
 left the piano, and was watching for them and 
 the mail upon the porch. A glance in at the 
 
THE ROYAL ROAD. 377 
 
 kitchen window showed Tom and Edwin measuring 
 the chestnuts gathered that day into a great basket, 
 under Elspeth s approving inspection, and the mother 
 passed through sitting-room and hall to her own 
 chamber. The sound of voices met her on the thresh 
 old. The door was not fast and she pushed it 
 aside noiselessly. 
 
 Mrs. Williams sat by the fire with Gladys a 
 slight weight for her years in her arms. The 
 child was wrapped in a dressing-gown; the golden 
 head rested confidingly upon her friend s shoulder. 
 
 "There s one more verse," she pleaded. "I used 
 to think it the nicest of all. Don t you remember, 
 when I was a wee bit of a girl, I was never satisfied 
 if you did not sing it clear through? You can t 
 cheat me now, dear old nursie ! " 
 
 With her cheek less plump and rosy than in 
 the times of which her favorite reminded her- 
 nestled among the flossy curls, the shining of a 
 great peace in her eyes, the nurse finished her 
 song: 
 
 " It may be the sweet surrounding 
 
 Of Thine angels banding wings 
 May define fair meads, abounding 
 
 In the dew from Baca s springs. 
 If, instead of beauty, burning 
 
 Be the measure of Thy will, 
 May eyes, made by faith discerning, 
 
 See the shining ones there still." 
 
 FINIS. 
 
WHOLESOME READING. 
 
 HOW THEY KEPT THE FAITH. A Tale of the Huguenots 
 of Languedoc. By GRACE RAYMOND. i2mo, cloth. 
 $1.50. 
 
 " We have rarely met with an attempt to reproduce a past epoch, so 
 true to historical fact and firm in its grasp of the inner springs of 
 action, as this tale as to how the Huguenots kept the faith in the time 
 of Louis XIV. and the Dragonnades. The story is wrought out skil 
 fully and naturally, the different characters stand out boldly on the can 
 vas, the adherents of the Reformed faith, from principles of honor 
 and heredity, are well contrasted with those whose attachment rested 
 on conviction and conscience, and it is made plain that only a living 
 faith in Christ, a power stronger than man s, could hold one steadfast 
 under the stress of such tests as believers in those days had to endure. 
 
 " It must needs be that the story should abound in scenes which stir 
 the blood with indignation and move the heart to pity, else it would not 
 be true to history ; but needlessly harrowing details are avoided, there 
 are rifts of light in the clouds, and the end is one of chastened joy and 
 peace. There is about the whole book an air of reality of truth to 
 life which raises it much above the average novel or historical study, 
 and bespeaks literary skill of a very high order. The novel ought to at 
 tain a wide popularity and increase the growing reputation of the 
 gifted author." 
 
 LEAH OF JERUSALEM, A Story of the Time of Paul. By 
 EDWARD PAYSON BERRY. 12010, 388 pages. 
 Cloth. $1.25. 
 
 A literary lady who read the manuscript says : " The style is strong; 
 the story of intense interest ; the atmosphere of the period well caught. 
 I like the book better than any of the kind I have read except Ben-Hur." 
 
 " This is a very finely written story of the earliest days of Christi 
 anity, which is sure to give the reader a great deal of useful information 
 concerning Jewish and Roman life and customs. It opens with the 
 boyhood of St. Paul, which is described in a brief chapter. The second 
 chapter introduces the heroine, Leah, at a date some twenty years later, 
 who is cured of a fever by St. Stephen. The first martyrdom quickly 
 follows, with Saul, now a young Jewish Rabbi, standing by. The life 
 of the great Apostle is then mainly followed to its end in Rome, the sad 
 experiences of Leah and her lover, who is St. Luke, being woven into 
 the narrative. It is a sweet, pure, and strong story, which will do 
 much in the way of quickening religious feeling in all who read it." 
 Providence Journal. 
 
 AN OLD CHRONICLE OF LEIGHTON. By SARAH S. HAMER. 
 
 1 2mo, cloth, illustrated. $1.50. 
 
 " This is an interesting and well-written story of English life and 
 character in the early part of the present century. The characters 
 are well drawn and the incidents have about them all the flavor of the 
 olden time. The writer has a pleasant, sprightly style which will at 
 once win upon the reader, and there is not a dull page to be found be 
 tween the covers of her book. We commend it to our readers as a book 
 above the average." The Christian at Work. 
 
 Published by ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY (Incorporated), 
 
 182 Fifth Avenue, New York. 
 % Sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt of price. 
 
THE CHILD OF THE PRECINCT. A Story by SARAH 
 DOUDNEY. With four illustrations. I2mo, cloth. 
 $1.50. 
 
 " Here is a beautiful English story, the scene laid partly in the city 
 and partly in the country. This Child of the Precinct is a sweet- 
 faced orphan girl who, finding her way back, when days are dark, to 
 her old friends and acquaintances is adopted into their circle and 
 becomes a part of their life. How bright and winsome a part she 
 plays is well told, and the sentiment that appears is of a pleasing and 
 wholesome sort." The Standard. 
 
 "The book is full of incident, is healthy and moral in tone, and 
 depicts the trials of a young girl, first with an invalid mother, then an 
 orphan. It shows her good judgment, and heroism, and womanly 
 character. Altogether it is a very readable book, and one that will be 
 an acceptable present." Journal and Messenger. 
 
 GODIVA DURLEIGH. A Story by SARAH DOUDNEY. 
 
 With four illustrations. I2mo, cloth. $1.50. 
 11 A good, pure, bright, and well-written book by an English writer 
 who is well known. Godiva Durleigh, the only daughter and sole com 
 panion of her father, a philanthropist of no little note, who spent his 
 life and gave it for the rescue of several small children from their brutal 
 father, and thereby he received his death-blow. Godiva, stunned by 
 the loss of her father and companion, and alone in the world, save 
 an uncle and three cousins, to whose care her father committed her. 
 Sad and lonely were the days this lovely character spent in uncon 
 genial surroundings, stung by the taunts of her jealous cousins ; she 
 was thrown upon her own resources, until an accident occurred to one 
 of the cousins which nearly sapped her life ; then it was that Godiva 
 became all in all to every member of the family. For years he; 1 
 lover s life and her own drifted apart, but after many vicissitudes kind 
 fate brought them together. But the book will have to be read to find 
 out her end and that of many other characters in this book." Southern 
 Churchman. 
 
 THE ONLY WAY OUT. By LEANDER S. KEYSER. i6mo, 
 cloth. $ 1 .00. 
 
 The purpose of the author is to present a faithful portrait of the 
 honest doubter ; to describe his experiences, perplexities, and mental 
 phases in general, and to point out the only way of escape from doubt. 
 He believes that there are many earnest and intelligent young men and 
 women in our colleges and elsewhere who honestly doubt the Divine 
 authority of the Bible, and who would gladly welcome the truth if they 
 were persuaded that it is to be found. Such persons will find many 
 of their perplexities depicted in the story, while their objections are 
 dealt with as fairly and thoroughly as possible. Other sceptics, not 
 so sincere, may yet be benefited if the truth is presented to them in the 
 proper manner. There is more fact than fiction in the spiritual ex 
 periences delineated; for the author has only described a land through 
 which he himself has travelled, and is, therefore, familiar with the 
 trials of the journey. The morally depleting influence of doubt, the in 
 adequacy of modern materialism to satisfy the higher rational needs 
 of the soul, and the gradual descent of the sceptic into pessimism and 
 despair, are also described. 
 
 Published by ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY (Incorporated), 
 
 182 Fifth Avenue, New York. 
 +*+ Sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt of price. 
 
STUBBLE OR WHEAT ? A Story of more Lives than One. 
 
 By S. BAYARD DOD. i6mo, cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 
 
 25 cents. 
 
 A dramatic and original story, the purpose of which is to face the 
 tide of pessimism that is sweeping through our literature, and ask men 
 to listen to both sides of the question. It is a domestic story, showing 
 the outcome of a life modelled on the pessimistic philosophy; and how, 
 under ordinary circumstances, an earnest nature will be led who adop .a 
 this as the guiding influence of his life ; the inevitable trend cf its 
 teachings. The principal character is a man who deliberately and 
 carefully allows his better life to be destroyed by a corroding disbelief 
 in all things good, true, and beautiful, and the story of whose careet 
 is carried on through school and college and after graduation. In 
 contrast are other lives in the same circumstances grandly overcoming 
 difficulties, and growing stronger and gladder. The characters are 
 finely differentiated, and each one bears the stamp of a distinct per 
 sonality. The exhibition of the pessimist s theory, contrasted with that 
 of a sound Christian philosophy, suggests the answer to the question 
 of the title : Which makes of life a field of barren stubble, and which a 
 harvest of ripened grain ? 
 
 STORIES BY SOPHY WINTHROP WEITZEL 
 
 Faith and Patience ; or, THE HARRINGTON GIRLS. i6mo, 
 
 cloth. Illustrated. $1.00. 
 
 "The/<?/*te, graceful proportions, and fair, chaste apparel of this 
 little book, will delight a critical eye. It appears outwardly to be de 
 signed especially to carry captive the hearts of juvenile readers ; but 
 inwardly it is adapted to please every cultivated mind. The story is not 
 pretentious either in subject or dimensions, but it is very neatly told, 
 and in both matter and manner will give abundant satisfaction." 
 New York Tribune. 
 
 Renee of France, Duchess of Ferrara. i2mo, cloth, $ 1 .00. 
 
 * The terrible trials to which devout souls were subjected in attempt 
 ing to escape from the toils of the mother-church in the first century 
 of the Lutheran Reformation, and especially of one born in a royal 
 family, as was the Princess Renee, the daughter of Louis XII., are 
 vividly presented in this volume." Christian Weekly. 
 
 "An appreciative woman s efforts to do justice to another woman, 
 whose modest post in history has not attracted the attention her char 
 acter merits." Troy Times. 
 
 Sister and Saint. A Sketch of the Life of Jacqueline 
 Pascal. i2mo, cloth. $1.00. 
 
 " There is an indescribable charm in each of the several characters 
 here pictured, and the story as a whole will come like a refreshing in 
 fluence into the hot and hurried life of this nineteenth century. It 
 opens up a field new to most readers, and everybody will find it pleas 
 ant." Churchman. 
 
 " The book, besides being a charming story, is a valuable review of 
 the religious life of the period." Christian Union. 
 
 Published by ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY (Incorporated), 
 182 Fifth Avenue, New York. 
 
 *** Sent by mall, post-paid, on receipt of price. 
 
STORIES BY MARGARET M. ROBERTSON. 
 
 By a Way She Knew Not. The Story of Allison Bain. 
 I2mo, cloth. $1.50. 
 
 A pleasing story of Scotch life among humble people, somewhat 
 unusual in outline, and containing strongly drawn representations of 
 character. The descriptions of the simple, honest life in the little town 
 of Nethermuir make genre pictures of uncommon merit, and one is 
 not likely to straightway forget the household at the manse, or the 
 school-mistress and her pupils. A religious tone which pervades the 
 book adds dignity to the story, while it in no way weakens the perfect 
 art of the whole. 
 
 Eunice. A domestic Story of New England Life. With 
 12 illustrations. I2mo. $1.50. 
 
 A domestic story of New England persons and life, which sets 
 forth vividly some of the trials which, although they occur to people 
 everywhere, yet will be recognized by all New-Englanders as in a real 
 sense characteristic of New England. The problems to be faced are 
 outlined strongly, the religious spirit of the book is good, and is united 
 with a story of real power. 
 
 Janet s Love and Service. i2mo, cloth. $1.50. 
 
 " It is rarely that we read a story which gives us so much satisfaction 
 and so little cause of complaint. It is the story of just such a life as has 
 occurred again and again in the past, and will occur again and again in 
 the future. In form and style and method of treatment the volume is as 
 
 simple as it is select It is rather genial than witty or humorous, 
 
 and it will be a satisfaction to know that there is a public who prefer 
 this romance of real life to that of the cheap fire and sheet-iron thunder 
 to be found in many modern novels." Harper s Magazine. 
 
 THE STARLING. A Scotch Story. By NORMAN MACLEOD. 
 Paper, 30 cents. 
 
 " A Scottish tale rich in humor, of absorbing interest, sufficiently 
 instructive, and altogether edifying. Dr. Macleod is more apt in de 
 lineation of Scottish character than George MacDonald/and he never 
 proses ; there is nothing the reader wants to skip." The Occident. 
 
 THE OLD LIEUTENANT ANO HIS SON. By NORMAN 
 
 MACLEOD. Paper, 30 cents. 
 
 " A charming story, told in the author s most winning way. Dr. 
 Macleod needs no introduction to the reader." 
 
 Published by ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY (Incorporated) 
 
 182 Fifth Avenue, New York. 
 ** Sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt of price. 
 
Stories by Elizabeth Prentiss. 
 
 Stepping Heavenward. Printed from new Stereo 
 type Plates in 1880, and enhanced by a brief sketch of 
 the author. Cloth, 12mo, 430 pages, $1.00; paper, 
 25 cents. 
 
 It is the story of the Life of Faith, with the charm of naturalness and 
 human sympathy. This makes it acceptable as well as pure, strong, 
 and helpful. New York Observer. 
 
 Pemaquid. A story of Old Times in New England. 
 Cloth. I2mo. 370 pages. $1.00. 
 
 We regard it as one of her best books. The Evangelist. 
 
 The Home at Greylock. I2mo. Cloth. 338 
 
 pages. $1.00. 
 
 As wholesome as it is entertaining, and conveys many instructive 
 lessons in its graceful and flowing narrative. Christian Intelligencer. 
 
 Urbane and His Friends. Cloth. I2mo. 287 
 pages. Enlarged edition. Sl.oo. 
 
 Full of kindly and genial counsel, marked by great tenderness and 
 simplicity of spirit, and very earnest and helpful. Boston Journal. 
 
 Aunt Jane s Hero. Cloth. I2mo. 300 pages. 
 $1.00. 
 
 " Aunt Jane s Hero " is so like people we meet, that we are anxious 
 to have them read the book, in order to profit by its teachings. We like 
 it and believe others will. The Advance. 
 
 The Flower of the Family. A Book for Girls. 
 Cloth. I6mo. 400 pages. $1.00. 
 
 " It aims to exact trivial home duty, by showing how such duty, pur- 
 formed in the fear of God and the love of Christ, may lead upward and 
 onward through present self-denial to the highest usefulness, peace, and 
 
 New York : ANSON D, F, KANDOLPH 00. (Incorporated), 
 
 182 FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
A GIRL S WINTER IN INDIA 
 
 By MARY THORNE CARPENTER. 
 12 Full-page illustrations. i2mo, ornamental cloth. $1.50. 
 
 A GRAPHIC book by an American girl who spent last winter in India and 
 Ceylon, and had the entree to the Viceroy s entertainments and the Indian 
 Zenanas. Her descriptions of the country and objects of unusual interest, as well 
 as of life and character, cover a rather unusual range of observation, preceded by 
 a record of a three weeks voyage on a P. and O. steamer, with a donkey ride at 
 Port Said, and an exceptional experience on the camels at Aden. 
 
 Three weeks were spent on the Island of Ceylon, and included a trip to the 
 Kandian Mountains, the pleasure retreat of the English officials. Thence to Bom 
 bay, and on to Allahabad, with an Indian servant, whose original qualities were 
 alike striking and ingenious. There is a vivid description of the Hindu Melah 
 festivals on the banks of the Junna River, and of hundreds of holy Fakirs gathered 
 there, with an account of the medical missions and the Christian schools. At 
 Calcutta she saw the intense Oriental atmosphere heightened by the visit of the 
 Russian Czarovitch, and at the grand ball, the high water-mark of Eastern mag 
 nificence, when the Rajahs and Indian princes appeared in the native costumes, 
 bedecked with brilliant jewels. 
 
 In the descriptive bits of real life at Delhi, there is a characterization of mer 
 cantile life, and the peculiar methods of the native trading with foreigners. The 
 wonderful ruins, the matchless Jumna Musjid, the imperial palaces, carved lace- 
 work screens, the marble mosques, etc., all are portrayed in graphic terms. 
 From Delhi, an excursion was made to the Kootub, a unique monument of 
 fluted sandstone of Arabic design. 
 
 Jeypore was a marked contrast to all previous sights. Here is a pink and 
 white city. Elephants, caparisoned as in the Arabian Nights, tread softly in the 
 streets ; there are peculiar street scenes and customs, and the atmosphere is that 
 of an intensified East. The traveller took an elephant ride to Amber and the 
 deserted palace of the Rajputs. The mountain roadways were lined with white 
 mosques, and shrines overgrown with dense creepers, through which darted wild 
 peacocks and chattering monkeys. 
 
 ffew York: ANSON D, F, KANDOLPH & 00, (Incorporated), 
 
 182 FIFTH AVENUE. 
 Sent post-paid on receipt of price. 
 
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