ONE WONDERFUL ROSE
 
 DUNORA
 
 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 BY 
 
 BERTHA & ARTHUR GRIFFITHS 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 RICHARD G. BADGER 
 
 THE GORHAM PRESS
 
 COPTBIGHT, 1920, BY BEBTHA J. GRIFFITHS 
 
 All Right* Reserved 
 
 Made in the United States of America 
 
 The Gorham Press. Boston, U. S. A.
 
 TO HER 
 THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED 
 
 TO HER 
 
 WHOM FOB LONG YEARS I KNEW ONLY IN MY DREAMS 
 
 TO HER 
 
 WHO BECAME THE LIGHT OF MY LIFE, WHO BANISHED DISCOURAGE- 
 MENT, GAVE HOPE, BROUGHT BIRTH TO INSPIRATION, AND 
 WHO GAVE THE FACTS, PLOT AND INCENTIVE FOB 
 THIS NOVEL WHOSE UNTIRING ZEAL AND 
 FAITHFUL HAND SUPERVISED AND 
 CORRECTED THIS WORK 
 
 TO HER 
 MY WIFE. BERTHA 
 
 2135970 '
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 "Many giants great and small 
 Stalking through the land 
 Would to earth be hurled down 
 If met by Daniel's Band. 
 
 Dare to be a Daniel, 
 Dare to stand alone, 
 Dare to have a purpose firm, 
 And dare to make it known." 
 
 And that is the purpose of One Wonderful Rose, 
 for this book is not written for the dilettante or the 
 fondled scion of luxury's contagion. A drop of ink 
 makes millions think and a preacher in the pulpit 
 is worth a dozen on vacation; therefore this abso- 
 lutely true story of man's inhumanity to man is 
 told in all its naked truth. If you do not wish to 
 know what has before this been hidden, if you 
 do not wish to know what hellhounds men can be 
 concerning an unprotected and innocent girl, if you 
 do not wish to read the story of one of the noblest 
 women who ever walked, if you do not wish to read 
 the story of one of the truest loves that ever ex- 
 isted then do not read 
 
 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTEK PAGE 
 
 I CAUSED BY A VOICE 18 
 
 II THE MORNING BREAKS 27 
 
 III THE GREAT PILOT LEADS 34 
 
 IV DUNOBA 41 
 
 V THE WAIT AND THE RE-MEETING 48 
 
 VI IN THE BEGINNING 55 
 
 VII THE WEE LASSIE 63 
 
 VIII DUNOBA 's GIRLHOOD HOME 71 
 
 IX DUNORA FINDS TRUTH 78 
 
 X THE CLOSE OF SCHOOL 85 
 
 XI WHEN "BAD" Is "WORSE" 94 
 
 XII THE GREAT AWAKENING 103 
 
 XIII THE UNSEEN STORM Ill 
 
 XIV OUT INTO THE WORLD ALONE 122 
 
 XV THE CRT OF A BROKEN HEART 129 
 
 XVI HOPELESS DATS AND A WEABT ROAD 137 
 
 XVII THE HIGHLAND PASTURE 144 
 
 XVIII THE GREAT PRESENCE 151 
 
 XIX THE HOUSE OF SILENCE 160 
 
 XX THE WEART ROAD CONTINUED 168 
 
 XXI TRIALS 176 
 
 XXII HER FIRST HOME 193 
 
 XXIII FAREWELL HELL 206 
 
 XXIV GLORY ADVANCES 215 
 
 XXV THE PROPOSAL 223 
 
 XXVI HOME 238 
 
 XXVII LOVE RULES 250
 
 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE
 
 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 CHAPTER ONE 
 
 CAUSED BY A VOICE 
 
 A TURN in the road, a step to one side, a pass- 
 ing face, a sound of a voice may be the means 
 of changing a life for time and eternity. The buy- 
 ing of a ticket, the stepping out of a car, the glance 
 of an eye, the decision taken on the spur of a mo- 
 ment may lead to consequences which no measure 
 can compute. Upon merest lift of a finger eternal 
 destinies may be decided for we are surrounded by 
 determining influences which will ripen into full 
 fruit when destiny, or you may spell it with a capi- 
 tal letter, decides that the time has come for your 
 life to be changed. 
 
 Let once a life be seeking truth, and that is 
 merely another way of spelling light, and the oppor- 
 tunity will surely come that will lead to tne foun- 
 tainhead of truth and the source of light in a de- 
 gree dependent upon the sincerity of the desire for 
 truth. And it will be one of these trivial circum- 
 stances that will prove to be the fork of the roads 
 that leads in the desired direction. 
 
 Vir Noble was restless. He was not so for a 
 13
 
 14 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 useless purpose though he thought his restlessness 
 due merely to the summer season and the human 
 longing for the great out doors. 
 
 His work in the city was at that stage where he 
 could take a vacation without worriment from a 
 business standpoint. But because he could take a 
 vacation is not a sure indication that he would take 
 one and he was not usually over-indulgent in the 
 matter of allowing himself periods of relaxation. 
 Being inclined to giving himself up to some degree 
 of mental speculation, he occasionally lost himself 
 in the mazes of thought. This was one of those 
 occasions. 
 
 There are those who merely dream, who permit 
 thought after thought to chase themselves idly 
 through the brain in a kaleidoscope of variegated 
 impulses, and who thereby derive pleasure, but they 
 are obtaining pleasure from a vacuum, for dreaming 
 is a vacuum of ideas. Vir Noble was not accus- 
 tomed to dream, but his thinking was apt to be con- 
 structive or inquisitive. The why of events, the rea- 
 sons for happenings, the purpose of conditions en- 
 gaged his thought. He was therefore a seeker after 
 light. 
 
 On this warm and unusually tranquil summer's 
 day a spirit of revolt against human conditions held 
 him. He had been reading in a news item a sordid 
 account of a nature which stirred his manhood in 
 detestation. 
 
 The whole account brought up in his mind a pic- 
 ture of man's inhumanity to man and how literally 
 rotten to the core was the social system which per- 
 mitted and really condoned the preying of the 
 strong upon the weak, which enabled unscrupulous
 
 CAUSED BY A VOICE 15 
 
 persons, because of the inequality of the division of 
 money, to take advantage of the need of others. 
 
 He expressed his thoughts in words. "Oh surely 
 somewhere on this earth there must exist a char- 
 acter, self trained, naturally noble, which has sur- 
 vived the fires of a harassed life and through its 
 own inborn strength emerged unscathed. Such a 
 life would be worth a thousand lives which had been 
 shielded from every evil wind that blows and such 
 a life could be one truly called a human diamond." 
 
 He paused, put his head in his hands as his el- 
 bows rested on his desk. Remaining silent for a 
 time, buried in thought he again spoke to himself, 
 "It is not the life brought up amid the velvets that 
 is worth while but the life which has stood four 
 square to every wind that blows and emerged swept 
 clean of dross and sham by the tempests which 
 have beaten around it. The diamond in its unpol- 
 ished state is but a lustreless stone but after the 
 hard grinding of the lapidary's wheel it becomes 
 a brilliant gem." 
 
 He turned from his reverie and took out his 
 watch. The wonderful day of nature's smiling 
 charms was drawing to a close. "I'll do it!" he 
 exclaimed. The following moments revealed 
 what he meant by his exclamation "I'll do 
 it." He took from its resting place behind 
 a heavy table his capacious travelling bag and, 
 rather strange to relate, opened two of his desk 
 drawers and drew therefrom sufficient clothes to pre- 
 pare for somewhat of a journey. Vir, during the 
 summer season, constantly kept a change of clothes 
 in his office in case he should suddenly determine to 
 take a journey.
 
 16 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 In coming to the quick decision to which he came 
 and in making the exclamation "I'll do it!" Vir 
 Noble had come to a fork in the road of life and 
 had made a decision which was to bear wonderful 
 fruit. At the time that those momentous decisions 
 come we very infrequently realize their importance. 
 
 With the hilarity of a boy in his teens Vir jumped 
 up from his task of packing his leather bag and 
 almost shouted "Hurrah! Off to the wilds of 
 Maine! What a night for a steamer trip!" 
 
 Oh surely, very surely there is somewhere a Power 
 which is very kind to people often who do not re- 
 alize that Power as well as to those who do. In an- 
 other spot not far away from where Vir Noble 
 packed his travelling necessities was an individual 
 whom the wanderlust had also seized at that time. 
 Up to that hour that life had lived ah, but let us 
 refer to that later. It were better that this life 
 unfold its richness in due season as the rose, lifted 
 on high by its stem of thorns, unfolds to the wor- 
 shipping sun a gorgeous array of petals of such con- 
 summate beauty "that Solomon in all his glory was 
 not arrayed like one of these." 
 
 Down Broad Street of the metropolis of New 
 England Vir Noble walked. At Foster's Wharf lay 
 the steamer waiting to be unleashed and start north- 
 ward on its journey to the rockbound coast of the 
 pioneer State of the North. 
 
 'Neath the north star's chilly gleaming, 
 Winter's frost and Summer's prime, 
 Ever stands thy stately emblem, 
 State of Maine, thy hardy pine.
 
 CAUSED BY A VOICE 17 
 
 On thy coasts, storm-bound and rocky, 
 Roars the wild Atlantic's might, 
 Dashing spray and hurtling sea spume 
 Greet the pole star's frosty light. 
 
 O'er thy hills and through thy forests, 
 In thy marts and on thy coasts, 
 Walk "Dirigo's" north born manhood, 
 State of Maine, thy proudest boast. 
 
 To Vir Noble the Pine Tree State strongly ap- 
 pealed. Almost invariably when the vacation or 
 relaxation spirit called he went to the forests or 
 rock bound coast of the American Lion of the 
 North. 
 
 "A ticket for Bath, please," Vir requested of the 
 purser as the boat was about to depart, "and a 
 stateroom also." "I can only give you an inside 
 room as the outside ones are all taken." "Very 
 well," replied Vir, "I came late and, of course, at 
 this season of the year I expected to find the boat 
 crowded." He found his stateroom about amid- 
 ships on the starboard side. Ah Fate, never ceas- 
 ing leader of the lives of men, did you direct such a 
 small detail as even the location of that stateroom 
 and one other? 
 
 Noble made many acquaintances, but admitted 
 only a few within the charmed circle of his inner 
 thoughts. In a crowd of the nature of that on the 
 steamer that beautiful evening he was accustomed 
 to roam around observing but not necessarily being 
 observed for he was not ostentatious. His was a 
 singularly lonely existence, for he was yet to find the 
 one who could share his real life. In a crowd he
 
 18 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 always felt more lonely than when actually alone, 
 for the crowd but emphasized his need of a real 
 mate. 
 
 Vir Noble, do you know whom that other one is 
 whom the restless spirit seized at the same time 
 that it seized you? Do you know that Fate, too, 
 led that one so that your paths should meet and 
 that that beautiful night marked by the soft kiss of 
 Summer's balmy zephyr when Old Ocean was lulled 
 to sleep by the plush gloved hand of a mid-summer 
 celestial benediction should be the time of your 
 meeting? One of the great kindnesses of Providence 
 is its habit of thrusting its pleasures upon the re- 
 cipients without previous warning. Then they 
 come as a divine blessing the realization of which 
 brings more real pleasure than the uninitiated can 
 possibly imagine. And to Vir Noble was to come 
 that night a sight which would be the gleam and 
 then the fullness of light for which his longing heart 
 yearned. Oh ! if his restless, longing heart had only 
 at that moment known what joy was in store for 
 it, what realization of hopes long deferred, what 
 reward for long waiting. 
 
 Tired of watching the people whom he saw he 
 went to his favorite place on a steamer, the extreme 
 bow. There he stood as the ocean conveyance 
 ploughed down the channel where Governor's Island 
 slipped by on the port and Nix's Mate on the star- 
 board, and then, in the yet gleaming day, the upright 
 beacons of Boston Light and Minot's Ledge, Cohas- 
 setward, showed themselves. Off to the port sat 
 ancient Marblehead nestled on the rocks over its 
 landlocked harbor entrance and ahead rose the
 
 CAUSED BY A VOICE 19 
 
 white pillar of Eastern Point light at Gloucester's 
 harbor entrance on Mother Ann. The whole scene 
 was surcharged with poetic and romantic influence. 
 Hardly a scene could have been chosen more fitting 
 for the beginning of a mighty romance. O'er Mar- 
 blehead brooded the spirit of "Massachusetts to 
 Virginia," "Skipper Ireson's Ride"; behind lay the 
 Athens of America, called not a city but "a state 
 of mind." Towering into the sky rose the shaft of 
 Bunker Hill where Webster delivered his memorable 
 oration and almost under the monument's shadow 
 lay Concord and Lexington. 
 
 Vir arose. The spell of the ocean was upon him 
 and, possibly, an unseen influence soon to be re- 
 vealed. He mounted the steps to the upper deck 
 where the canopy of the heavens was over him. He 
 walked toward the bow and a voice melted into 
 him and he stopped instantly. His heart went to 
 that voice as a child leaps to its mother. That 
 voice, that glance, were his making, yet he did not 
 then know it, but what he did know was that there 
 before him stood one who instantly put all thought 
 of other subjects or other persons from his mind 
 and who at once occupied his entire thought. And, 
 joy of joys, the girl looked up and met his gaze 
 fully and frankly. Vir Noble simply palpitated all 
 over as those wonderful eyes rested full on his, with 
 the most utter frankness he had ever witnessed in 
 human being. Oh how those eyes spoke, every good 
 and noble impulse was written in them, the possi- 
 bility of a migh-fcy love was evident therein. They 
 were big, wide orbed blue eyes with never a sugges- 
 tion of deceit or duplicity in them, with a great in-
 
 20 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 born innocence speaking from them which gripped 
 Vir's heart with a feelable gripping. 
 
 All this Vir saw in a glance which transfixed 
 his gaze. The face was the most utterly appealing 
 he had ever seen and she herself was undoubtedly 
 entirely unconscious of the fact. The habitual ex- 
 pression was extremely remarkable, remarkable for 
 many reasons of great worth. The whole effect of 
 the face was of extraordinary beauty. Plain physi- 
 cal beauty is quite common in a woman of refine- 
 ment but the beauty of this girl possessed qualities 
 much in excess of physical beauty. 
 
 Perfect beauty of feature was the physical foun- 
 dation upon which her more than handsome face 
 was created, but the beauty that rested on that 
 foundation was largely of her own making and to 
 her was the credit for it. 
 
 A frown on that countenance was surely a for- 
 eigner and should have been a total stranger. In 
 the presence of that face no true man could plan 
 anything but joy for its possessor, but the presence 
 of the lurking pathos in those glorious orbs revealed 
 the fact that much that was painful to her had 
 transpired. 
 
 And it was this almost hidden pathetic expres- 
 sion, this marvellous depicted beauty of character, 
 the generous mobile lips, the width between the eyes, 
 the gently waving hair of ardent brown, the total 
 beauty of the face that appealed mightily to Vir 
 Noble and told him that here stood a woman who 
 had fought an heroic fight and had won. 
 
 If Vir Noble had been a man of more effrontery 
 than he was he would have immediately walked to 
 the woman and spoken to her. He concluded to
 
 CAUSED BY A VOICE 21 
 
 bide a little time and see what would happen. The 
 girl sat down on a convenient steamer chair. Vir 
 noticed that she carried in her hand a silver mesh 
 purse. She placed it in her lap as she sat and, in 
 an involuntary moment, it slipped from her and 
 fell to the deck. Vir stepped up, stooped and 
 lifted the purse from the deck and placed it in her 
 outstretched hand. Her sweet, latently imploring 
 eyes had followed his movements and as he placed 
 the purse in her hand she for the first time spoke 
 directly to him. And the words were, "I thank 
 you." The words thrilled the man and he wished 
 she would not stop speaking. 
 
 "You are surely welcome," said he. Then he no- 
 ticed the silver chain attached to the purse was 
 broken. "May I not fix it for you?" he asked. "Oh, 
 I can do that myself, I thank you;" and she placed 
 the two expanded links of the silver chain between 
 her teeth preparatory to biting them together. Be- 
 fore his eyes flashed a gleam of pearly whiteness 
 which he had never seen in mouth before. "No, 
 no !" he exclaimed. "You might hurt those splen- 
 did teeth!" and he took the purse, interlocked the 
 expanded links and pressed the open ends together. 
 They were better acquainted than if a thousand 
 persons had introduced them. 
 
 He drew up a steamer chair. "May I sit beside 
 you and talk? I am alone and rather lonely." 
 "You may, I, too, am alone," she replied. They 
 sat there a time in silence and together gazed out 
 over the Summer sea which had not enough motion 
 to perceptibly move the boat from an even keel. At 
 length he broke the silence. "If I am not too in- 
 quisitive may I ask where you are going?" "You
 
 22 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 may," she replied, "and I will answer. I felt the 
 need of a change and am going to Gardiner." "May 
 I ask your name?" he interrogated. "If I may ask 
 yours," she said laughing. "You may," he assented. 
 "My name is Dunora Whitney." He repeated, 
 "Dunora Whitney, the person who named you liked 
 pretty names." "Now what is your name?" asked 
 Dunora. "I am called Vir Noble." "I can return 
 the compliment, your name is strong where mine is 
 pretty," laughed the girl. Vir's answer came in 
 verse : 
 
 "Dunora's a name that is pretty, 
 And Vir is a name that is strong, 
 And she is a girl who is witty, 
 While he is a man who is long." 
 
 The girl looked at him more fully. "I am always 
 fond of seeing people fond of poetry." Vir kept 
 silent for just a moment and then said, "Yes I am 
 very fond of poetry. It seems to me that poetry 
 is the music of literature and literature is the writ- 
 ten music of the soul, so if a person is fond of 
 poetry it signifies that they have in themselves the 
 highest kind of soul music." 
 
 The girl was looking off to sea as he was speak- 
 ing. She heard all his words and was drinking in 
 their meaning and therefore was wrapped in 
 thought. 
 
 She turned and looked at him. "I want to ask 
 you something. You have just said that fondness for 
 poetry indicates a person who has music of soul. 
 Do you think my speaking to you, a stranger, with- 
 out the formality of an introduction was out of
 
 CAUSED BY A VOICE 23 
 
 place or out of keeping with the quality of soul you 
 mention?" 
 
 Vir responded with interest. "If I hold myself in 
 respect, isn't it a fitting question for me to ask 
 myself as well as for you to ask yourself? Would 
 I have entered into conversation with you for any 
 length of time, even if we had been duly introduced, 
 unless I found you a spirit to which I needed no 
 introduction?" 
 
 This answer showed the girl the respect Vir held 
 himself in and so knew he must hold a person of her 
 sex in even higher respect. "That remark helps 
 me," said the girl with a half discernible sigh of 
 relief. 
 
 A quiet fell over them. Their spirits were be- 
 coming better acquainted. The beauty of their 
 surroundings was reflected in their inner thoughts. 
 The radiant glow of the setting sun, the balmi- 
 ness and plushlike touch of the light moving sea 
 breeze, the blinking eyes of the lighthouses begin- 
 ning to glimmer, all lent their influence to the 
 scene. 
 
 They were seated amidships on the port side away 
 from the groups of other passengers. He wondered 
 what the girl was doing in travelling alone and as 
 he was entertaining the thought she, almost as 
 though she read his thoughts, said, "You no doubt 
 wonder why I am alone. I am going to a relative's, 
 and I have gone this way before when I have wanted 
 to get away from my surroundings. I am apt to 
 rely on myself." Vir interposed, "One often wishes 
 to be alone. Let us take a little walk up forward." 
 Dunora arose and together they walked forward to- 
 ward the front of the pilot house.
 
 24 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 A light shone from an open door amidships. As 
 they approached Dunora looked through the open- 
 ing and spoke to the wireless operator. "Good 
 evening, Mr. Belverdy ; I see you have come on duty/' 
 "Yes, Miss Whitney." The girl turned toward the 
 wireless instruments and entered. Vir followed. 
 They sat down on the chairs given them by the 
 operator and Dunora introduced the two men. It 
 so happened that Noble was acquainted with the 
 mysteries of wireless operation to a degree unusual 
 to most people, for he had been actively engaged 
 as manager for a large telegraph organization. He 
 had studied into the secrets of its operation and the 
 two men vied with each other explaining the ap- 
 paratus and its operation to Dunora. "Listen!" 
 said the operator, as he was straining to catch 
 flashes of the electrical impulses travelling through 
 the ether. Dunora put the receivers to her ears and 
 could discern the sharp dashes and dots of the 
 Morse code coming from some unknown source. 
 "That is a message coming from one of two 
 British warships off to the east looking for enemy 
 ships. They are talking in code," said Belverdy. 
 "Soon you will hear the other vessel answer." True 
 enough it was not long ere the answering message 
 came. The great world war was under way and 
 the British men-o'-war were scouring Old Ocean to 
 brush off the commerce of its enemy. What a God 
 given wonder with which to flash human thoughts 
 through space itself! 
 
 The evening was so balmy that its inviting peace 
 enticed them from the glare of the electric light in 
 the cabin to continue their walk forward toward 
 the bow. As they stepped from the cabin for just
 
 CAUSED BY A VOICE 25 
 
 a moment his awkwardness caused her body to lean 
 against his. He felt his senses surge. Who was 
 this fair woman who among the world's thousands 
 whom he had seen should so instantly attract him 
 and the touch of whose body should thrill him as he 
 had never been thrilled before? As they walked 
 toward the bow Dunora remarked, "When I was on 
 this boat on a former trip one of the ship's officers 
 whom I knew kindly introduced me to the wireless 
 operator as I was anxious to learn about the wire- 
 less apparatus." 
 
 Off toward the rocky shore of Mother Ann stared 
 the two winkless eyes of the dual Thatcher's Island 
 lights which seem to look benignantly forth warning 
 vessels from the rocky coast and telling mariners 
 that no matter how wild the waves there was a shore 
 built upon a rock which neither storm nor stress 
 could disturb. And how longingly many a storm 
 tossed sailor has looked for Thatcher's lights as his 
 ship came in from the mighty ocean. 
 
 As they stood before the pilot house Dunora said, 
 "Thatcher's Island is usually my good night light, 
 for I am accustomed to retire at this point when 
 I come to Maine and I will say good night to you 
 here. I have been so used to being alone that I 
 have a habit of going to an unfrequented portion 
 of the steamer to be mistress of my own thoughts 
 before retiring." 
 
 They clasped hands. "May I see you again in 
 the morning?" asked the man. "You will have to 
 rise early if you do," laughed the girl, "for we enter 
 the Kennebec before daylight and I usually rise 
 early to see the beauties of the river." "I have to 
 get up early for we reach Bath at about four in
 
 26 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 the morning." Vir went toward the main cabin off 
 of which his stateroom was situated. In his little 
 cabin he found himself wrapped in thought of 
 Dunora.
 
 CHAPTER TWO 
 
 THE MORNING BREAKS 
 
 WEEPING endureth for the night but joy 
 cometh in the morning," says the Good Book ; 
 and many and many an earthly tear has been dried 
 by the thought of the joy which cometh as surely 
 as the morning dawns even though the weeping en- 
 dureth through the earthly night and the world's 
 weeping, to which the Bible refers, endures during 
 the night of sin in which we live. Ah, were it not 
 so what a world this would be ! 
 
 These thoughts comforted Vir as he tossed sleep- 
 less on his berth that night, for his brain simply 
 refused to rest and kept repeating the scenes of the 
 talk with the girl and ringing into his mental hear- 
 ing the oft repeated word "Dunora!" 
 
 It hurt his pride for he had thought himself mas- 
 ter of himself and the thought that a woman could 
 occupy his mental vision even for that time was an 
 unknown experience for him. He turned from one 
 side of his narrow quarters to the other and with 
 each turn to a more comfortable position, he sought 
 to rest only to have that face constantly before him 
 and to hear that name "Dunora!" 
 
 "Oh, she's only a girl!" he at last muttered in 
 disgust with himself. And then a strange thing 
 happened. An almost audible voice spoke within 
 
 27
 
 him which said "You Lie! She isn't only a girl. 
 She is more of a true woman than you have ever 
 known and you know it. Don't be a coward. Are 
 you afraid of a woman?" 
 
 He rolled over again and sighed. "You are 
 right," he spoke in answer to the voice he had cer- 
 tainly heard within him. "Vir Noble, you are in 
 for a sleepless night and a woman has caused it, 
 but you must charge it up to homage to a real 
 queen." 
 
 Oh, how long the mental weeping of that night 
 until the morning would break and the joy would 
 come in the presence of Dunora once more. Ah, 
 but there was a tinge of pain in it, for he knew he 
 must leave the boat at Bath, while she was to sail 
 further up the Kennebec. 
 
 In that summer time the dawn came early, so 
 early that he didn't think the girl would arise so 
 soon, but as he was awake there was no need of 
 remaining indoors, so he went outside in the grey 
 of the dawn. As he went from his door he looked 
 at the door of her stateroom which was across the 
 hallway from his and slightly nearer the bow. How 
 much even a wooden door may shelter. 
 
 Strange feeling to himself, he felt ill at ease and 
 like a lost person. He wandered about the boat 
 looking in every nook for the object of his thoughts, 
 longing to behold her with a longing he could hardly 
 understand since he had seen so little of her. But 
 then there came to him again the thought he had 
 experienced when he first saw her. 
 
 And then there came to him the maddening 
 thought, "How have I impressed her? I cannot 
 hope she has thought of me as I have thought of her,
 
 THE MORNING BREAKS 29 
 
 for she is a woman and naturally recedes from a 
 man and where I saw almost at once in her what I 
 have long been unconsciously seeking, she may have 
 seen very little in me to attract her." 
 
 As Vir walked on the deck where he had seen her 
 the night before he again caught a glimpse of Dun- 
 ora coming up the companionway. She looked di- 
 rectly in his direction and he was pleased to see a 
 smile illumine her features. As her form emerged 
 from the hatchway the sun, though only on the east- 
 ern horizon and hidden by the hills of Georgetown 
 Island, bathed the air with a benison of gold and 
 a special crown seemed to halo the head of Dunora. 
 In fact at all times an intangible and peculiar radi- 
 ance seemed to be around her, a radiance which ren- 
 dered her apart from the throng. 
 
 As she came onto the upper deck he went toward 
 her. "You see I did get up as early as you, Miss 
 Whitney," he laughed. "I didn't think you would," 
 said she. "There may have been a reason," he 
 added. "What was it?" she queried. "I wanted to 
 be sure I didn't miss you." Dunora only laughed. 
 
 Off to the port a reef stood out of the river at 
 low tide and many seals were resting on the rocks. 
 Although quite light the searchlight was thrown 
 on them. It kept their attention so fixed that they 
 did not plunge into the river as the great steamer 
 passed. The novel sight much interested the girl 
 and she clapped her hands in glee. It seemed very 
 good to Vir to see that this girl liked the same 
 things that he did. Both were lovers of poetry and 
 nature. 
 
 As the moments passed they sat much in silence. 
 Even at that short acquaintance there was, at least
 
 30 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 on the man's part, a feeling of rest, of almost un- 
 conscious relaxation from care. Yes, Vir was drawn 
 to this woman for many reasons. He having a na- 
 ture of depth and having passed through periods of 
 peculiar suffering, longed for a true companion. 
 
 "So you are going up the river," he said. "Yes." 
 "And I get off at Bath." She did not answer. 
 "Where did you say you were going?" he asked in 
 an unconsciously almost rude attempt to enliven 
 the conversation. "I am going to Gardiner to a 
 relative's for a rest." He hardly knew what to say 
 then unless he said what he wanted to, but didn't 
 dare to say. He thought he would try to get an 
 opening, so said, "I am sorry I am going to get 
 off at Bath." In the most innocent fashion, not in 
 the least indicating that she had any idea why he was 
 sorry for getting off at Bath, she said, "I think 
 Bath a very pretty city, why are you sorry?" He 
 jumped at the chance offered. "Because I would 
 exceedingly like to continue on to your journey's 
 end for 1 he sake of your company." 
 
 Fiddkr's Reach, where the Kennebec turns at 
 right angles in its course, was reached and Vir 
 knew tl at beyond the western turn Bath would 
 come in'o view. There he would leave her on that 
 day bu he was burning with the resolve that he 
 would go through more to see her again than he 
 would } ave gone through to have seen any other 
 girl he ever knew. But would she give him her ad- 
 dress. He trembled as he asked her. "Miss Whit- 
 ney, I am going to make an unusual request. I 
 wish to call on you and renew this acquaintance. 
 Will you please give me your address?" 
 
 The pause seemed hours before she spoke. "If
 
 THE MORNING BREAKS 31 
 
 you will give me a piece of paper I will write it 
 down." The paper was quickly produced and the 
 address written down. Here Dunora showed one 
 face of her prismatic character; whatever she de- 
 termined to do she did without thought of shame 
 or convention. 
 
 "I thank you very much for trusting me with 
 your address. When do you return home to Massa- 
 chusetts?" "In about a week I think." Vir Noble 
 thereupon resolved to go to Massachusetts also at 
 that time. 
 
 Vir clasped the hand of Dunora as the steamer 
 tied up at the wharf at Bath and said, "I shall see 
 you again soon, I trust." As he stood on the 
 wharf Dunora stood above on the deck where they 
 had conversed on the previous evening. As the 
 boat drew from the wharf and majestically turned 
 up stream she waved her hand at him and he went 
 to the inter-island steamer which was to carry him 
 to his destination. That too steamed from her dock 
 and turned into the Kennebec. Vir stood in the 
 stern looking toward the steamer carrying Dunora 
 away from him. 
 
 The trip of leisure which Vir had planned in Bos- 
 ton turned out to be a trip of thought. Every- 
 where he went the face of Dunora w r as seen and 
 her name frequently came to him unawares. Then 
 he tried to fight against it, but, strong as he was, 
 he found it of no use. If it had been a business 
 trip on which he was he would hardly have made 
 much of a success of it. Constantly he wondered 
 just where Dunora was at that moment, just what 
 she was doing, and whom she was with and if she 
 thought of him.
 
 32 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 The wooded hills and rocky sea cliffs which usu- 
 ally filled him with beauty gendered pleasure then 
 displeased him for he said, "They rise between 
 Dunora and me.'* His vacation was anything but 
 rest. It was a constant longing to see the girl. 
 
 The week came to an end and he followed Dunora 
 in his mind on her journey back to Massachusetts. 
 Secure in the possession of her address he still lin- 
 gered in Maine trying to conquer his ardent de- 
 sire. But he finally admitted that he would find 
 no peace till he found her, so he turned his course 
 toward Massachusetts also. 
 
 He could not force himself, unless with an ex- 
 treme effort, to return to Boston by steamer, for 
 the very boat which brought Dunora and him from 
 Boston was the one which went from Bath to Bos- 
 ton that night. Had he returned on that boat he 
 would have passed another sleepless night and every 
 nook and corner where Dunora had been seen by 
 him would have spoken of her with a thousand 
 clamorous tongues. 
 
 But Dunora! The girl who had so remarkably 
 wrapped herself into the very tissue of Vir's brain, 
 what of her? 
 
 As the larger steamer had swung up the broad 
 Kennebec she had gone to her stateroom to rest 
 from the momentary fatigue of arising so early and 
 then went to the bow where she enjoyed the scenery 
 and was joined by another acquaintance, and in the 
 conversation all thought of the previous evening 
 was thrust from her mind. Little did she realize 
 the impression she had made on Vir. 
 
 Dunora had been met by no one when she landed 
 at Gardiner, for in her restlessness she had gone on
 
 THE MORNING BREAKS 33 
 
 the impulse of the moment and had notified no one 
 of her coming. In fact, so sudden had been her de- 
 termination to go to Maine that she had been wit- 
 nessing a performance at a theatre the afternoon 
 previous, and while seated there had made up her 
 mind to take the trip. A relative lived on the hills 
 back of the city, and to her home she went as soon 
 as she arrived.
 
 CHAPTER THREE 
 
 THE GREAT PILOT LEADS 
 
 fTlHESE days at Gardiner were days in which 
 A Dunora raced as a thing of the woods. The 
 freedom of the open air, the strength of the hills, 
 the breadth and depth of the woods drew her irre- 
 sistibly and sweetly. She acted as one endeavor- 
 ing to forget and annul the past and other sur- 
 roundings. There was almost always an appear- 
 ance of a depth to her that seemed to be unfathom- 
 able. That was a large part of what drew Vir to 
 the girl with the longing of a tender heart to know 
 the suffering that had been in another tender heart. 
 Vir returned to Boston by train after wandering 
 about near the scene where he had left her instead 
 of remaining in one place as he intended. Every 
 day had its protracted thoughts of Dunora, and 
 he planned the return to her with great joy. The 
 arrival in Boston filled him with a feeling he had 
 never felt before. His old office, his old haunts were 
 seen by him in a new light and, at the earliest op- 
 portunity, he went to the address she had given him. 
 It was with a feeling of anticipation, of a com- 
 bination of reluctance coupled with consummate joy 
 that he wended his way toward the house where he 
 expected to see the girl of his thoughts. His hesi- 
 tation was caused by a reluctance to see her in any 
 
 34
 
 THE GREAT PILOT LEADS 85 
 
 other than those ideal surroundings in which he had 
 met the woman who already was a magnet to him. 
 Something in those dear childlike eyes of hers told 
 him that she was a true queen fit for the highest 
 honors, the loftiest home comforts. 
 
 Vir enquired his way and at length looked up at 
 a signboard and read the name she had given him 
 as the street on which she lived. He looked up and 
 down its length and scrutinized every house. Could 
 it be that really he was looking at the very street 
 of all the streets on earth, where the girl of girls 
 lived. And he stood on the corner and again his 
 sentimental nature came into play and he clothed 
 that street with the vestments of his fancy's con- 
 juring. 
 
 And as he stood there a thousand thoughts threw 
 their tranquil and tempestuous throes upon his 
 brain. Who was Dunora Whitney? He could not 
 answer that for he had not asked her. What was 
 Dunora Whitney? That question he knew he 
 would not have to ask anyone, for he felt assured 
 his own manhood would find the answer in reading 
 Dunora's true womanhood. One thing he knew of 
 her and that he could never forget and that was 
 she was all a woman should be. 
 
 Another of the multitudinous questions which 
 came to him was why the pained look he had ob- 
 served in her face, and still another, what was the 
 foundation upon which she had built her very evi- 
 dent nobility? After he had stood there dreaming 
 he slowly and deliberately walked up the street un- 
 til he stood before the house numbered with the 
 number Dunora had given him. It was an apart- 
 ment house. At last he was to see her ! He mounted
 
 86 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 the steps with a feeling akin to a whirligig's poise. 
 He glanced at the names on the bell plates. Her 
 name was not there! 
 
 In a quandary as to what to do he rang the bell 
 to the lower apartment. There was a noise within 
 as of some one stirring, and Vir's heart beat a little 
 faster because of the sound. Presently the door 
 opened and a woman stood before him. For one 
 of the very few times in his life Vir's tongue grew 
 stubborn and refused to do his bidding. At last 
 he stammered "Is Dunora Whitney in?" He would 
 not insult Dunora by asking if she lived there, even 
 though her name did not appear among the resi- 
 dents therein. She had told him she lived here, so 
 she must. 
 
 But the answer to Vir's question came from the 
 lips of the woman. "Dunora Whitney did live here 
 but she has moved away." There was a pause dur- 
 ing which Vir trembled in fear to ask the next ques- 
 tion. But it came. "Where is she now?" The 
 woman looked at Vir rather searchingly before she 
 spoke again. In that moment he felt that she was 
 hesitating whether to tell or not to tell. Thank 
 God she told! 
 
 He thanked the woman and then went to the new 
 address which was not far away. There at last was 
 the bell to ring. He pushed the button and it 
 echoed through the apartment. All at once he heard 
 a step on the stairs which he recognized. 
 
 The door opened and Dunora again stood before 
 him. A look of surprise came to her. A feeling 
 of joy came to him. "Oh, I didn't expect to see 
 you here," she exclaimed. "How did you find out 
 where I lived?" "The lady where you formerly
 
 THE GREAT PILOT LEADS 37 
 
 lived, the one downstairs told me." It was an awk- 
 ward moment, she did not ask him in, Vir was per- 
 plexed. 
 
 "Will you not come out with me a little while 
 either to-day or to-morrow?" he asked her. Dunora 
 thought a moment and replied, "I will meet you in 
 the waiting room of the North Station at two 
 o'clock to-morrow." With a joyous "Thank you," 
 Vir departed and went to his rooms. 
 
 As the hours finally dragged their minutes out 
 Vir went to the appointed place, swung one of the 
 doors and walked into the waiting room. He 
 glanced at the appointed spot and there she was. 
 And again he was glad that his estimate of her had 
 been correct. 
 
 As he approached she saw him and smiled a wel- 
 come as she stood. Together they walked the streets 
 and talked and during the afternoon he learned 
 nothing more about her than that she was keeping 
 house for a man of much maturer years. She made 
 no explanations and he asked no questions. Her 
 dignity would not allow questioning. Yet in their 
 conversation he learned a little of her youthful as- 
 sociates. Over it all was a shroud of mystery^ 
 Greater and greater grew the intense desire to get 
 beneath the surface of this girl who was beginning 
 to become wonderful to him. 
 
 After that meeting in Massachusetts they made 
 an appointment for another meeting at the same 
 place, but when Vir came she was not there. He 
 was amazed. He waited and waited but she did not 
 come. When one is beginning to become interested 
 in or in the least attached to another person and 
 they in any way fail them a wound is made. Vir
 
 38 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 felt keenly the absence of this girl. There were 
 the hurrying throngs but no Dunora. Oh, why 
 didn't she come? In later years Vir found out why 
 Dunora did not keep that appointment. The rea- 
 son was not flattering to Vir. 
 
 Dunora had not asked him in, she had not asked 
 him to call, he could not force himself on her, so 
 did not find out then why she did not come. He was 
 also unconsciously to himself then beginning to 
 throw up his defences against allowing himself to 
 become enamoured of a woman, for he knew what it 
 would mean to him if he did. But his defences were 
 of no avail, for it was to be. He felt as though 
 they would meet again even if they did not seek a 
 meeting. 
 
 Subsequent events proved two facts. They were, 
 first, that Dunora Whitney had passed through ex- 
 periences of the most trying kind for a girl on 
 earth, that she had emerged from the fires of perse- 
 cution and temptation absolutely white, unspotted 
 and unscathed; and, secondly, that Vir Noble had 
 gone through those similarly dissimilar events which 
 fitted him for an appreciation of Dunora. Suffice it 
 to say of him that from years of understanding he 
 had sought to place his faculties on the altar of hu- 
 man service. His ability lay primarily in reading 
 character and wielding the pen. Such should con- 
 sider their dower sent only for the highest use. 
 
 "I hold it a duty of one who is gifted 
 And royally dowered in all men's sight 
 To know no rest till his life is lifted 
 Wholly up to his great gift's height.
 
 THE GREAT PILOT LEADS 39 
 
 He must mould the man into rare completeness, 
 
 For gems are set only in gold refined ; 
 
 He must fashion his thoughts into perfect 
 
 sweetness 
 And cast out folly and pride from his mind. 
 
 For he who drinks from a. god's gold chalice 
 Of art or music or rhythmic song 
 Must sift from his soul the chaff of malice 
 And weed from his heart the roots of wrong. 
 
 Great gifts should be worn like a crown be- 
 fitting, 
 
 And not like gems on a beggar's hands, 
 And the toil must be constant and unremitting 
 Which lifts up the king to the crown's demand." 
 
 And, though no meeting was arranged and the 
 world is mighty and cities great, meet they did. But 
 in the meantime Vir thought and thought of Dunora 
 and began to long to see her, when one day as he was 
 walking along a street of Lynn he saw her looking 
 into a window. The same look of unhappiness was 
 on that sweet face, and it made Vir long to have 
 that little, childlike, innocent face lay on his broad 
 breast and unburden that heart. She was turned 
 away from Vir, so she did not see him until he spoke. 
 "Oh, I'm so glad to see you again," exclaimed Vir. 
 "Where are you living now?" Dunora told him 
 she was living in a nearby town. "Can't we plan 
 an outing some day this week?" he asked. "Yes, if 
 you'll write me." He told her he would and would 
 mention the place of meeting. She seemed somewhat 
 preoccupied. He asked her if she had been much in
 
 40 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 that locality and she paused ere she replied. A 
 cloud passed over her face. 
 
 "Oh yes, I have been here in the past," she as- 
 serted and she hesitated as if in reverie. Never had 
 Vir seen a face which more plainly told him that he 
 must first pay a long apprenticeship to win her con- 
 fidence and trust before he could ever get her secret. 
 He knew he wanted to pay the price of apprentice- 
 ship. He felt her young life had been battered by 
 the storms of human bestiality there was a glory 
 to her which told him that she had won in the fight.
 
 CHAPTER FOUR 
 
 DUNORA 
 
 FAR up North on Maine's green 
 stream braes, 
 In the days not long ago, 
 There was born a wee bit lassie, 
 In that land of drifted snow, 
 And the May wind softly blessed her 
 As she came from heaven down 
 And the Lord of Hosts spoke to her, 
 "Lass, I place on thee a crown." 
 
 "Blessed is he that overcometh," 
 On the sacred page is read, 
 For the crown of life He giveth, 
 That shall ransom from the dead. 
 And the Lord of Life then trained her 
 In the rough way of the cross, 
 For He knew that early pleasures 
 Meant indeed the crown's sure loss. 
 
 Then when still a toddling bairnie, 
 Mother died and father went, 
 And with cruel foster parents 
 Loveless, toil-worn years were spent. 
 And the little heart cried "Love me," 
 And the big wide eyes grew blurred, 
 As, instead of love, harsh scoldings, 
 Blames and heartless words were heard. 
 41
 
 42 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 Oh, those long nights in the attic 
 Oh, that woodbox piled so high 
 Oh, the cow brought home from pasture 
 Oh, the weary feet, the cry, 
 When alone she bore her sorrow, 
 When alone she wanted love, 
 When she did not know the morrow 
 Comes from God who is above. 
 
 Yes, the morrow sure was coming, 
 For the One who dwelt on high 
 Surely saw His chosen lassie, 
 Surely heard her wee lips cry, 
 And amid the storm's wild beating 
 Making her a queen indeed, 
 Mercifully, kindly, truly, 
 God Himself supplied her need. 
 
 But the mills of God grind slowly 
 And the guerdon yet to be 
 Shone but in the distant future, 
 Still there was the wild shore's lea, 
 Where the breakers whelmed her over, 
 Where the cold surge grasped her form, 
 Where the whirlpool and the maelstrom 
 Were the hirelings of the storm. 
 
 Wonder child marked by her nature, 
 Strange and wild the neighbors said, 
 But they did not know the yearnings 
 Thrashed out, sobbed out on her bed. 
 All alone she lived her wee life; 
 All alone she thought her thoughts ; 
 Slowly, surely, it was coming 
 "Lo, the woman God has wrought !"
 
 DUNORA 43 
 
 For the diamond's brilliant lustre 
 Is by cruel crushings made, 
 And our golden glow of nature 
 Comes to us when sorrow weighed 
 Heavy, weighty, stern and fearsome, 
 Till the weaker tissues fled 
 And the residue was jewel, 
 Brilliant, scintillating, red. 
 
 E'en the Saviour from the heavens, 
 When He walked on earth below, 
 Trod the Via Dolorosa, 
 There His Father's love to know. 
 And when all the thorny pathway 
 Had been passed, the cross o'ercome, 
 Then the Heavenly Father raised Him, 
 Gave Him place in God's own throne. 
 
 So Dunora in her trials, 
 Thorny road and cruel rod, 
 Came, unknowing, blind, unseeing, 
 Near and nearer to her God. 
 Nearer, nearer Heavenly Father, 
 Nearer still my God to thee, 
 Even though it be the bitter 
 Pang wracked cross that raiseth me. 
 
 "There's a wideness in God's mercy 
 Like the wideness of the sea." 
 There's a sweetness in His leading, 
 Which is more than sweet can be. 
 There's a joy in His correction, 
 Joy to know that you are led, 
 There's a fullness of fruition, 
 When by heavenly manna fed.
 
 44 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 'Twas the Saviour's words of blessing, 
 "Many are called, few chosen be" 
 To the highest rank in heaven 
 In God's throne eternally. 
 Hard the road to earn the saintship, 
 Strait the way and small the gate, 
 Many called shall hear in anguish 
 "Do not enter here ! Too late !" 
 
 Yet of all that lived below here 
 The many called are few indeed, 
 And the ones the Lord thus blesses 
 Must indeed the child's heart need. 
 "Except ye be as little children" 
 Pure in heart with faith intent 
 Ye can nowise to God's Kingdom, 
 Ever have your spirits sent. 
 
 So the God of earth and heaven 
 Looking o'er the hosts of men 
 Found Dunora, helpless, childlike, 
 Knew her spirit, saw her when 
 Lone and hungry, cold and loveless, 
 Tempted by the devil's snare 
 Staunchly, fearlessly and queenly 
 Hunger, cold, oppression bare. 
 
 At the early age of fifteen 
 
 Robbed of childhood, crushed by work, 
 
 Sold into a loveless marriage, 
 
 Mockery which true men shirk. 
 
 Thus her loveless foster parents 
 
 Treat the unprotected child 
 
 Thus their "Christian" hearts direct them 
 
 Into madness, selfish, wild.
 
 DUNORA 45 
 
 Of the sins the Good Book mentions 
 
 None so vile and none so cold 
 
 As the narrow lust and greed which 
 
 Sells another's soul for gold. 
 
 And the so-called man who "made" them 
 
 "Man and wife" lied in his heart. 
 
 God be praised, you cannot mock Him 
 
 The lass has now another start. 
 
 For but misery and hunger 
 Lovelessness and yearnings wild 
 Racked the brain and wrenched the heart of 
 That poor, innocent and God loved child. 
 God be thanked, the blood of heroes 
 Through her tender veinlets ran 
 And alone, goldless and hungry 
 Out into the world she ran. 
 
 Yes, it pains my heart to tell it, 
 
 Oh I cannot tell how much, 
 
 Penniless and hungry, friendless, 
 
 Not a kindly hand to touch; 
 
 Out into Satan's realm she wandered, 
 
 Lustful eyes upon her preyed 
 
 But the spirit of her Maker 
 
 Gave her strength, her courage stayed. 
 
 Stayed her when weak from hunger 
 Staggered she along the road 
 When in every darksome corner 
 Human curs on her would load 
 Every food her body needed, 
 Every earthly need supply, 
 If she'd grovel in their vomit 
 And amid their filth would lie.
 
 46 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 Then to further crush the dross off, 
 Then to raise more by the cross 
 Suffered she the direst hunger, 
 Saw her home's, her money's loss. 
 Then bereft of all life's comforts 
 Cold and homeless forth she went 
 Like a heroine of fiction, 
 Courage stopped the aching vent. 
 
 So the black days dragged their length out, 
 
 So the bitter morning's rose, 
 
 Roomed she in the barest bedrooms 
 
 Clad in greatly mended clothes. 
 
 Trusted oft with sums of money 
 
 When for days she had not fed 
 
 Safely brought it to its owner 
 
 Hungry, famished, went to bed. 
 
 Rooming with girls far below her 
 
 Hearing oft their heartless talk, 
 
 She refrained from being of them 
 
 All alone her path did walk. 
 
 Then she did not know the reason 
 
 Then her native spirit led, 
 
 Then she did not know that God planned 
 
 To arouse her from the dead. 
 
 Then the darkest hour descended, 
 Seeming friends to devils turned; 
 All around was blackest darkness, 
 Deep despair within her burned. 
 But the darkest hour descendeth 
 Just before the morning's birth 
 And her God just then was planning 
 Greatest boon that comes to earth.
 
 DUNORA 47 
 
 So, as His own jewels can be 
 Only polished by His hand, 
 So Dunora felt the friction 
 Needful to her soul's demand. 
 And when He had finished with her, 
 Far the trials and scourgings ran 
 Then He brought her forth resplendent, 
 Gave her, head crowned, to a man. 
 
 To a man yes to the one who 
 Was to know her spirit's flower, 
 To the one for whom the Father 
 Had prepared her to that hour. 
 And when first his eyes lit on her 
 Instantly he was aware 
 That a miracle of women 
 Stood before him wondrous fair. 
 
 And the soul within him leaped forth 
 
 To its mate, though he knew not 
 
 That the girl of girls then stood there 
 
 Led by God unto that spot. 
 
 Yet there stirred within his heart's core 
 
 Impulses not felt before, 
 
 And the strangest heartfelt yearnings 
 
 Made him long to know her more.
 
 CHAPTER FIVE 
 
 THE WAIT AND THE RE-MEETING 
 
 VIR gloried in the thought that he was so soon 
 to meet her again. He sat down and wrote the 
 letter and went to look for her address and for the 
 first time remembered in his excitement of seeing 
 her again he had forgotten to ask for the address 
 to which to send the letter. Here was the worst 
 situation yet. 
 
 Forlorn were the days of waiting. Oh how could 
 he see her! Where was she? The only way that 
 he could look at it was that they would meet some- 
 how, somewhere, soon. Dunora was constantly in 
 Vir's mind. Where in the hurrying crowds was 
 she? 
 
 Vir earnestly and fervently prayed that God 
 would care for her and restore her to him at the 
 earliest fitting opportunity. It became his custom 
 to glance to right and left as he walked the streets, 
 and, when business permitted, he went into the 
 streets of the city where he had last met her hoping 
 she might be on the streets. 
 
 The time dragged by. Through Boston's streets 
 his way led him day after day and no sign of Dun- 
 ora. Yet he did not despair. One bright day he 
 hurried up Sudbury Street to Scollay Square and 
 walked up the north side of the street. Passing 
 
 48
 
 THE WAIT AND RE-MEETING 49 
 
 Cobb's Coffee House he turned to go up Tremont 
 Street and was crossing the Square when Dunora! 
 A crowd was passing at the time and he did not see 
 her until she was at his shoulder and it was only out 
 of the corner of his eye that he saw her then. She 
 had not seen him and passed into Cobb's to refresh 
 herself with a coffee drink. He followed, bought a 
 ticket for a cup of coffee, walked up to her and 
 spoke. She turned and looked at him. 
 
 Again they had been led together, and a silent 
 prayer of thanks went up to the Great White Throne 
 whence all blessings flow. Neither spoke of their 
 last meeting. From Dunora's words he could not 
 tell what her feelings were. His joy at the meeting 
 sufficiently recompensed him for what had gone be- 
 fore. "Will you come to dinner with me to-morrow 
 evening?" "Yes." 
 
 Joy ! Joy ! Joy ! He left that place of meeting 
 with joy clothing his feet. Lonely in the extreme 
 had been his life in the interim between his meeting 
 with Dunora before and at this time. He had lonely 
 rooms in a lonely part of the city, and nothing 
 savored of the homelike. His thoughts had been in 
 keeping with his surroundings. He then resolved 
 that all his energies should be exercised in holding 
 on to this girl. 
 
 As he went to his rooms that evening the old walls 
 appeared clothed with a new shade of color which 
 removed their sombreness. He had again met 
 Dunora and she was to take dinner with him on the 
 following day. He slept restlessly that night and 
 awoke anxious for the evening, and the day's work 
 dragged. 
 
 For the sake of his romantic nature he had ap-
 
 50 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 pointed a place of meeting out of doors. To hi's 
 intense delight when he approached the spot he saw 
 Dunora approaching also. 
 
 Vir took the girl to a fine up to date restaurant 
 on Tremont Street after finding out she had never 
 eaten there before. The place was beautiful with 
 its shining cut glass, white table linen, its waitresses 
 dressed neatly also in pure white. The food was 
 excellent, served as only people trained to that 
 work know how to serve food. Everything was 
 lovely but Vir's table manners. Dunora sat there 
 thinking, how can a man so learned, so used to 
 meeting people have such table manners when 
 
 "Are you going to be at leisure to-morrow after- 
 noon?" came from Vir's lips. Dunora looked up 
 nervously and answered, "I shall be at leisure." Little 
 did Vir know what her thoughts had been when he 
 asked his next question, "I should feel very much 
 favored if you will take dinner with me again to- 
 morrow, I am rather lonely and it would be an ex- 
 treme pleasure. Will you?" If he had not said he 
 was lonely it is doubtful what Dunora would have 
 said, but he did. "I am glad to go if it gives you 
 pleasure. I have always desired to give pleasure 
 to those with whom I come in contact." 
 
 This statement didn't exactly please Vir's then 
 sense of egotism. He would have liked her to say 
 that she desired to give him pleasure. After dinner 
 was over they wended their way to their places of 
 abode. 
 
 The next day they met at the same place of meet- 
 ing which surely could not be called a trysting place, 
 but had become a lodestone of increasing joy to Vir. 
 They went to another restaurant this afternoon and
 
 THE WAIT AND RE-MEETING 51 
 
 at the termination of the dinner he asked to go home 
 with her. She demurred. "It is a long way from, 
 here to my house and I had rather you would see it 
 later as it is rented by the man I kept house for. 
 I would not go there to-night only I have a dog 
 there that might not be fed if I don't feed him." 
 
 Kept house, her house rented, did he hear cor- 
 rectly? Glory! he thought to himself. He did not 
 demur, though he longed to accompany her home 
 and there was a growing and a rising feeling in him 
 of desire to protect her, for an intangible something 
 seemed to say she needed it. There was a pitiful 
 independence in her. He was learning that her in- 
 dependence and self reliance were characteristics ac- 
 quired of necessity and, seeing more deeply into the 
 girl's character than perchance he at once realized, 
 he knew her nature was far more tender and should 
 rightly be far more dependent than it was on the 
 surface. Like a mine of golden ore which gives only 
 an indication of its hidden riches by its surface 
 manifestations so was Dunora to Vir. There are 
 some people who are like gold mines, the surface in- 
 dications of which are most of what there is to them. 
 But Vir learned that Dunora was far from that 
 kind. The surface indications which she gave were 
 but a small promise of what was beneath, yet it took 
 the hardest kind of mining to uncover the hidden 
 golden treasure. 
 
 The next day they met at the same place as be- 
 fore and went to the same restaurant where he 
 wrestled vainly with a skinny fowl labeled on the 
 menu "Fried chicken." Dunora later performed 
 one of her many corrective functions with Vir by 
 letting him know how poor an exhibition he made
 
 52 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 of himself with that chicken. Following the dinner 
 they went to the Maiden Auditorium and witnessed 
 "Shore Acres." The scene of this play is at Bar 
 Harbor, Maine, and as Vir and Dunora met in the 
 State of Maine it especially appealed to them both. 
 At this performance Vir first witnessed a manifesta- 
 tion of growing trust on the part of Dunora, yet 
 he had waited and waited for it long. Involuntarily, 
 surely the girl had, at an especially rapt moment, 
 given a delightful pressure to Vir's hand. 
 
 The play, the theatre, the surroundings were all 
 forgotten in the blinding thrill of joy which over- 
 whelmed Vir Noble. There was nothing studied or 
 planned in that hand pressure and it came from a 
 heart impulse. It exalted the man, it put a new 
 halo around the girl in his sight. He held her hand 
 in his for the first time. and the holding of it sent 
 spasm after spasm of emotion over him as he sat 
 transfixed in the plush seat. Their eyes met. There 
 was a new look in the face of each. 
 
 The play which they were witnessing was one in 
 which the primal virtues were placed in contrast to 
 avarice and selfishness and honesty won. It was a 
 play of real heart interest which stirred the emo- 
 tions and when it was nearing its happy climax Vir 
 ardently longed to be amid similar honest surround- 
 ings with this remarkable girl. Again he asked her 
 if he might escort her to her suburban home, for he 
 longed to feel a protecting presence to her but she 
 asked him to permit her to go home unaccompanied. 
 With great reluctance he went to the car with her 
 and then turned to the cheerless streets and to his 
 cheerless rooms. 
 
 But was it so cheerless now? His hand which had
 
 THE WAIT AND RE-MEETING 53 
 
 seen so much hard work had been clasped by her 
 hand. His thoughts were with her and he was to see 
 her again the next day and again they were to go 
 to dinner and to the theatre. 
 
 He worked briskly with rejuvenated spirit on the 
 following day and they met and went to dinner. At 
 the Olympia Theatre at Lynn they saw a perform- 
 ance of combined moving pictures and vaudeville and 
 one of the vaudeville offerings was of a burlesque 
 nature which exhibited a series of successive gro- 
 tesque happenings which proved more and more 
 laughable as each appeared. It resulted in Vir's 
 latent sense of humor appearing in active form and 
 he enjoyed a season of merriment he had not ex- 
 perienced before for a long time indeed. Something 
 of the tension relaxed, something in the girl made 
 him relax, something from an unseen source gave 
 him merriment unalloyed. 
 
 During a lull in the performance Dunora turned 
 her great, honest, childlike eyes full upon Vir in a 
 perfectly frank, utterly innocent look which drank 
 deep of his very soul. His eyes looked full into hers 
 and as they gazed at each other thus in absolute 
 simplicity and sincerity Dunora's little hand crept 
 into Vir's more fleshy one and, instinctively, both 
 hands clasped and each hand pressed the other in a 
 clasp which spoke aloud in eloquence most vital. 
 That simple act made them indeed friends. 
 
 In this evening's entertainment Dunora had a lady 
 friend come also. But to Vir there was no one pres- 
 ent but Dunora. That evening Dunora went with 
 the lady to spend the night at her house. Many 
 subsequent nights were spent at this lady's home by 
 the girl. Gradually Vir became acquainted with
 
 54 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 Dunora's acquaintances. The word acquaintances 
 is used advisedly here, for Dunora was one of those 
 characters whose nature so towers above ordinary 
 characters as to make it impossible to have friends 
 who understand her. All her life up to this period 
 she had been universally misunderstood simply be- 
 cause no one had appealed enough to her for her to 
 show her real self. 
 
 She had admitted no one into her confidence be- 
 yond a certain point and it took time for her to 
 see that Vir was of that true sympathetic nature to 
 understand, so could win her confidence. Yet after 
 that golden hour had arrived, an hour which was 
 one of the mountain heights of Vir's life, when he 
 came to that grand realization that he had won her 
 confidence, he found that winning was only the be- 
 ginning of the knowledge of how deep her nature 
 was, how sublime its heights. F'or each new knowl- 
 edge but led to one higher up until in the dizzy alti- 
 tudes of Dunora's inner spirit he looked higher and 
 yet higher into the rarified purity of her soul. 
 
 Like only one other great truth of the universe 
 was she, and that she humanly resembled. Her 
 character and spirit were living exponents of Chris- 
 tianity, for Christianity differs from all man made 
 religions because no one can ever realize its height, 
 breadth or depth and every mountain top in it but 
 shows a higher mountain top beyond.
 
 CHAPTER SIX 
 
 IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 THERE is no comparison which can be higher. 
 Christianity thrives amid the most sterile sur- 
 roundings. So did Dunora. Christianity thrusts 
 its head up serenely above the storms of adversity. 
 So did Dunora her head. Christianity is : 
 
 "Like some tall cliff which lifts its awful form, 
 Far from the vale and midway leaves the storm, 
 Though round its base the rolling clouds are spread 
 Eternal sunshine settles on its head." 
 
 So was Dunora. Christianity shines resplendent 
 in a world of gloom. So did Dunora. Christianity 
 defies the temptations which besmirch. So did Dun- 
 ora. Christianity, amid whatever surroundings, re- 
 tains its original virtues. So did Dunora. Chris- 
 tianity grows more influential as time progresses; it 
 becomes an increasingly shining light ; it is a beacon 
 of hope, an anchor to the soul; it leavens as yeast 
 all who are susceptible to the higher influences. All 
 these was Dunora. But what of the commencement 
 of this life of Dunora's. Corroborated by many 
 witnesses and revealed by circumstance and personal 
 revelation, it presented a tale which should be more 
 useful to the world than that of any hero who 
 
 55
 
 56 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 fought on blood wet field, for the bitterest fight on 
 earth is not the fight amid the din of battle where 
 men become beside themselves with frenzy and are 
 impelled by their surging blood to deeds of fury, but 
 the sternest fight of all is such as Dunora fought 
 and the publishing of the details of that fight should 
 be an age long inspiration to those who struggle up- 
 ward against Satan, while yet Satan is permitted to 
 exist. It should be a lasting help to the beset of 
 earth to prove to them that human flesh and blood 
 can win against overwhelming odds and that the win- 
 ner will become a king or queen indeed. The fight 
 is worth all the struggle, it must precede every 
 crown. 
 
 At the tender year of two Dunora was adopted. 
 From whence and the reasons for it will appear 
 later in this story. She was totally different from 
 the people who adopted her and grew from year to 
 year adored by the neighborhood and manifestly dis- 
 liked by her foster parents whom she for several 
 years believed to be her real parents. These foster 
 parents had an own son who was everywhere favored 
 while disfavor was heaped upon the poor little life 
 of Dunora. The little lassie wondered and wondered 
 why her brother was heaped with kindness and she 
 with abuse. Her parents loaded her with work when 
 her weak little body could hardly stagger under it 
 and her starved life became in reality what had only 
 before lived in fiction in the works of the great mas- 
 ters of literature. 
 
 When hardly more than of age sufficient to talk 
 distinctly she was placed up on a raised box before 
 the kitchen sink to wash the dishes three times a 
 day for ten people, more or less. These people,
 
 IN THE BEGINNING 57 
 
 church members, went through the legal form of 
 adoption merely to get a slave. Never once did the 
 mother say, "I'll help you with those dishes so that 
 you can go out to play," but instead, "Hurry up 
 and wash those dishes and go to bed." 
 
 Night after night the dear little body went ex- 
 hausted to her attic room to cry herself to sleep. 
 She was denied kindness, denied love, denied the op- 
 portunity to play with other girls, denied any of the 
 beauties of life and beaten for absolutely excusable 
 childish offences or no offences at all. The North 
 rose in righteous anger fifty years ago and spent 
 millions in lives and money to wipe out a system of 
 slavery less hideous than was instanced in this case. 
 
 In those furtive occasions in which she could steal 
 away to enjoy the liberty God gave her and her 
 cruel parents denied, she had to devise her own means 
 of pleasure. In this her character of independence 
 was being formed which proved to be very necessary 
 in later years. A house standing near the one in 
 which her parents lived, Dunora was accustomed to 
 call back and forth to another but older girl so as 
 to compare notes as to their progress in dishes 
 washed. "How many have you to wash?" called the 
 little Dunora. "Oh, lots," came the reply. A little 
 later came, "I have washed ten. How many have 
 you?" "Eight." "Oh, I beat you," and the little 
 childish face broke into a smile, one of those rare 
 smiles which visited it and a smile caused by the 
 knowledge of surpassing another being in work ac- 
 complished. 
 
 Living her own life concealed within itself and 
 planning her own plans without consultation with 
 any one she devised strange means of entertainment.
 
 58 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 This was enforced upon her for the reason that 
 whenever she did what was usual and started to ask 
 her mother anything the conversation was always as 
 
 follows : "Mother, may I : "No you can't. 
 
 You attend to your work." 
 
 Think of it! That was the method of treatment 
 of one of the dearest bits of femininity in existence 
 and from the hands of people who called themselves 
 Christian. And this because, perchance, she was so 
 very wicked as to be an orphan and didn't know it. 
 It certainly seems at least worthy of comment that 
 church members in what is called good standing 
 should have been so little influenced by the real 
 teachings of Christ and also should have failed ut- 
 terly to understand the parable of the Good Samari- 
 tan. Suppose every inhabitant of just one little 
 village in all this earth should practice the Golden 
 Rule. It would become the most famous village on 
 earth and would be a lodestone which would attract 
 the nations of the world to it. 
 
 Wherever a life with any portion of loving im- 
 pulses in it exists let that one who has influence upon 
 it be sure to fertilize the roots of all that love and 
 in so doing they will exert a greater influence upon 
 the uplift of the world than scores of Napoleons. 
 One loving life means more to humanity than a thou- 
 sand generals, a nation of statesmen or the assembled 
 colleges of earth. Beware of stunting a young life 
 of a loving nature! 
 
 Dunora developed into an utterly winsome child. 
 She began to be adored by the neighbors in pro- 
 portion as she was abused, misunderstood and starved 
 of heart by her foster parents. As each day dawned 
 it but meant another daylight season of unremit-
 
 IN THE BEGINNING 59 
 
 ting toil for little Dunora. In addition to washing 
 the dishes for ten people, she had the floors to wash, 
 the carpets to sweep, the beds to make and the 
 woodbox to fill daily. When one piece of work was 
 done the tired little face would look up to her mother 
 and start the request for just one atom of play or 
 one little rest. The little lips would start the re- 
 quest, "Mother, may I -" "No, you can't! Keep 
 at your work. There is something more to do." 
 Inhuman as it may seem in this enlightened age and 
 in such an American state as the State of Maine 
 there actually existed such people who really did 
 heap upon the innocent head of motherless and 
 fatherless Dunora Whitney the labor which they, 
 grown people, were too lazy to do themselves and 
 who inflicted far worse things than those already 
 mentioned. 
 
 Of all crimes that can be perpetrated those 
 against womankind are the most criminal. There 
 was a time when there was a matriarchate when 
 women were the ruling sex. Then the world en- 
 joyed a season of great freedom from all the crimes 
 perpetrated since man, by physical force, took the 
 helm. The matriarchate is to be enacted again. 
 The man or woman who will in any way injure or 
 attempt to injure another woman is a criminal in- 
 deed. 
 
 At the age of five the little Dunora was sent to 
 school. Her speech was of that childish dialect 
 which gripped at the heart strings. 
 
 When she was far too young to herself take part 
 in the exercises her foster parents were invited to 
 her school to see the annual exercises at which some 
 of the older children were to speak from the plat-
 
 60 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 form. With stolid little face and big, wide eyes 
 the little Dunora watched the proceedings. There 
 was a lull in the speaking and a hesitancy on the 
 part of the next speaker to mount the platform. At 
 once Dunora stepped upon the platform, bowed and 
 said: 
 
 "Dere was a wittle berd sat on a tig. 
 
 'Twas a tunnin wittle berd dat sat on dat tig." 
 
 She won the entire school and audience. They 
 crowded up around her and mothers from the whole 
 district smothered her in kisses. A loving nature 
 always fosters love except in foster parents. How 
 could even the hearts of the parents of Dunora have 
 kept from surrender to the great big heart of love 
 in the artless, innocent child. The conquering hero, 
 for Dunora had conquered on the battle field of the 
 platform, was literally covered with flowers. 
 
 But her energy was evidenced in other directions 
 for the restless little body seized every opportunity 
 to work off her suppressed feelings. Even the crush- 
 ing weight of the labor heaped upon her in her par- 
 ents' home only served to compress her vitality and 
 not to expend it. 
 
 In some days there were periods of time when 
 she could play and her play was ingenious. Be- 
 tween the closing of school and the early coming 
 of the hour for her work for the supper for the 
 grown people the poor little soul showed her ma- 
 ternal instinct by rounding up her train of youth- 
 ful retainers who went to school with her and mak- 
 ing them go to school to her as teacher. Doorsteps 
 were the usual scene of the school sessions and also
 
 IN THE BEGINNING 61 
 
 Dunora's playhouse. This teaching was such real 
 and earnest work that her scholars were advanced 
 in the real school because of it. This is stated as a 
 mere statement, but weigh it. A mere girl of slightly 
 over five being so intelligent that at that early age 
 she voluntarily took under her teaching children of 
 her own age and caused them to skip grades. 
 
 At other times like a forest fairy she found her 
 joys in the fields and forests and her places of play 
 were in the aisles of the great church of the woods 
 where the first worship of the Almighty occurred. 
 There she learned the natural God which in later 
 years made her unaffected by the unnatural God 
 which people of various schools of belief born within 
 brick or wooden walls tried to impose upon her. 
 
 What could Dunora have seen in the great cathe- 
 dral of the forest aisles and what did she see? She 
 saw them buried deep in the white mantle of snow 
 covering every rotting leaf and dead limb with the 
 pure whiteness of perfect purity as the mantle of 
 Christ's pure righteousness covers these sinful bodies 
 of ours so they too may become white as the driven 
 snow and be presented faultless before the bar of 
 God Almighty. And, too, beneath the mantle of 
 snow, a type of the shroud of death, she beheld the 
 resurrection of the Spring and knew the unseen 
 Power which caused that resurrection. And her 
 childish heart told her that as all nature dies and is 
 resurrected so all natural things die and are resur- 
 rected and no man can take to himself any power 
 which shall in any way direct God as to what He 
 shall do with dead nature or dead natural creations. 
 If men would only read nature with natural eyes 
 and find the lessons taught there they could not be
 
 62 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 deceived by any men or body of men who took unto 
 themselves powers they did not possess and hood- 
 winked people to believe a sham. 
 
 Many other things the childish heart of Dunora 
 learned in her hours of solitude with nature. She 
 learned how God fed the birds of the air and flowers 
 of the field and trees of the forest and therefore 
 would her. She learned the lesson that out of what 
 we call the dirty earth God raised the purest flowers 
 and that therefore out of the humblest human be- 
 ginnings the Almighty can cause to grow the noblest 
 human beings. And then also she learned from see- 
 ing the polished round stones that only by friction 
 can stones, or character, become round and smooth 
 and beautiful. 
 
 As a consequence of these lessons learned at first 
 hand Dunora acquired a knowledge which made her 
 seem all the more uncanny to creed bound neighbors. 
 She also was a most natural little girl and her child- 
 ish efforts to always appear guiltless of doing what 
 often her wayward fancy made her do were very 
 funny and very winning.
 
 CHAPTER SEVEN 
 
 THE WEE LASSIE 
 
 DUNORA," and Mrs. Whitney stamped her foot 
 in anger, "didn't I tell you not to cut your 
 hair!" The wee face of the orphan girl took on a 
 wistful expression mixed with one of surprise. "Yes, 
 mama, but don't you s'pose a wittle tunnin mouse 
 just tame and bit it off when I was asleep?" Who 
 would not laugh at that childish effort? But Mrs. 
 Whitney knew not how to get ahead of that girlish 
 brain. In fact never a day passed but she was put to 
 her wit's end to know how to keep from being out- 
 witted. The reason of the absence of love between 
 Dunora and her foster parents may be partially ac- 
 counted for by one set of reasons having to do with 
 the personal character of her parents and by another 
 reasoning on account of the very first reception the 
 poor orphan lassie received when robbed of real 
 parents and cast on the world alone and oh, so 
 loving. 
 
 Into the new home the wee lass came at the tender 
 age of two years. There had been a court ruling 
 as to who should have her. Several families had de- 
 sired to bring her up. As the little girl entered 
 the new home all bewilderment and all innocence, the 
 woman who was to act in place of her dear dead 
 mother stood before her. With a heart brimming 
 
 63
 
 64 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 with love, Dunora's little arms went up to the foster 
 parent asking dumbly to be taken up and loved. 
 Her foster mother stepped back and folded her arms 
 across her chest. Dunora looked a moment in be- 
 wildered surprise, turned on her heel and went across 
 the room to play with her doll. From that moment 
 the little child saw the hopelessness of arousing love 
 in that heart. Her own love was crushed at its 
 birth by the sternness of her foster mother. 
 
 The only place in which she could give vent to 
 her overflowing spirits was in school, for she was not 
 even allowed outside of the yard to play. Two 
 teachers in the little natty grammar school of Gar- 
 diner will long remember the little girl whom they 
 loved and who was their favorite scholar. 
 
 Dunora's daily program was to arise at about 
 five, clear up the house, set the breakfast table, feed 
 the hens, pig and cow and drive the cow to pasture. 
 Then she ate breakfast, washed all the dishes, swept 
 the downstairs rooms and then made her bed. After 
 this she walked two miles to school. Subsequent 
 to the morning session she walked home and there 
 had to get her own dinner, as her mother thought it 
 hardly worth while to get anything warm for her. 
 
 Then it was two miles return to school after the 
 noon dishes were washed. This made eight miles 
 walked each day to and from school Spring and 
 Autumn. In the Winter, Dunora took a lunch which 
 she herself prepared and it was usually eaten away 
 from other pupils who brought lunches put up by 
 fond mamas. Dunora did this for fear lest the 
 scholars laugh at hers. It consisted of almost any 
 leftovers she was fortunate enough to find. How 
 quickly Dunora would have eaten even that poor
 
 THE WEE LASSIE 65 
 
 food smilingly if her mother had but shown regard 
 and kissed her each morning when starting alone for 
 school. 
 
 At school her bubbling spirits made her the quick 
 wit of the schoolroom. One day her teacher asked 
 her what she had in her lunch basket. "Grub !" re- 
 plied the child. "Dunora Whitney, answer me prop- 
 erly. You know what you should say. What have 
 you in your lunch basket?" "Victuals!" came the 
 prompt response. The scholars burst into an au- 
 dible titter. "Dunora, march out into the hallway 
 and stay there until you can tell me properly what 
 you have in your lunch box." Dunora marched in 
 military fashion to the outer hall. 
 
 A short time thereafter the teacher went out in 
 the hallway and asked the little girl if she was ready 
 to come in and stand before the school to tell in 
 proper words what she had in her lunch box. Dunora 
 replied that she was prepared to do so. 
 
 In walked teacher and pupil. The stage was set 
 for the great aqt of repentance and all the scholars 
 waited with breathless anticipation for Dunora 
 Whitney to humble herself. She stood calmly fac- 
 ing the school. "Dunora Whitney," asked the 
 teacher very solemnly, "what have you got in your 
 lunch box?" "Nothing," came the astonishing re- 
 ply. The teacher lost her poise. "Why you have 
 food in it, haven't you?" she hurriedly asked. The 
 little girl smiled. "No, I ate it in the hall." 
 
 For quite a time even extending into many weeks 
 Dunora sat in the front row of seats exactly under 
 the eye of the teacher. She was a model pupil and 
 gained the confidence of her instructor. A number 
 of boys in the rear of the room were usually occu-
 
 66 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 pied with schemes to arouse excitement and the 
 teacher was perplexed as to how to surmount the 
 difficulty. A happy thought came to her. 
 
 "Dunora !" she called one day, "Come here !' r Dun- 
 ora obeyed. "Dunora, you have been a model child. 
 I have had you here on the front seat for so long 
 a time that I have come to know you and believe you 
 are the very one I should place among those unruly 
 boys in the rear of the room so that your good ex- 
 ample may influence them to better behaviour. You 
 may come with me and take a seat there." 
 
 Dunora made no reply, but silently followed the 
 teacher to the seat assigned where she was sur- 
 rounded by the boys. Dunora had made no promises 
 and she saw a golden opportunity to raise the safety 
 valve of her bubbling spirits which were made to 
 seethe all the more violently because of their being 
 crushed down at home. 
 
 For some time after her being seated in the rear 
 of the room her influence surely subdued the boys. 
 But not for long. Snickers became audible. "What 
 are you snickering at?" demanded the teacher of 
 one of the boys. "Nuthin !" he responded, not being 
 willing to tell tales about a girl. Soon the teacher 
 would have to speak again. "Dunora, what have 
 you back of that geography?" An innocent little 
 j^ace peeped up in bewilderment and the geography 
 which had been upraised was carefully closed. 
 "Geogafy, Miss Cannon? Why nuthing." When 
 the inquisitive eyes of the teacher were withdrawn the 
 geography was reopened and the beetles, caterpillars, 
 and various kinds of bugs fell down and performed 
 again. With them Dunora had also a rag doll with 
 hair of corn silk, the doll being the work of her own
 
 THE WEE LASSIE 67 
 
 hands. The rag dolls were most laughable for they 
 were made of handkerchiefs capable of all kinds of 
 ludicrous movements. The handkerchiefs were 
 usually borrowed ones which were subsequently re- 
 turned to their owners in the form of dolls until 
 the whole school or a good portion of it had per- 
 forming mannikins. Dunora was never caught in 
 this innocent play. 
 
 Naturally a girl of so great activity was very 
 bright mentally and was one of the best little 
 speakers in the school. At every school exhibition 
 Dunora's name was prominent on the program. At 
 about this age Dunora was accustomed to go bare- 
 footed in the Summer or else be obliged to earn her 
 own hosiery. By picking blueberries with bare and 
 bramble torn legs she earned enough to buy herself 
 stockings full of open work which especially pleased 
 her and filled other children with envy. Surely thus 
 early were the hard necessities of life brought home 
 to the little girl. 
 
 In our mind's eye there may have come at this 
 time a mental picture of the scenery amid which 
 these acts were performed yet the mental idea may 
 be entirely wrong. Let us place before ourselves 
 the actual scene. 
 
 As you enter Gardiner, Maine, from the railroad 
 station and pass across Water Street which parallels 
 the Kennebec, the traveller at once begins to ascend 
 a great hill, it being a portion of that long hill 
 which extends into many Maine counties and acts as 
 a wind break for the blue river below. 
 
 A stranger is very apt to misjudge these Ken- 
 nebec river cities by forming that judgment from 
 seeing only the accessible business street which is al-
 
 68 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 most universally called Water Street. Let the 
 stranger ascend one of the streets leading directly 
 away from the river and up the paralleling hill and 
 he will discover beauties unsurpassed in New Eng- 
 land. In Gardiner you almost at once come to great 
 canopying elms. If you have not learned otherwise 
 you may think that the largest and finest elms are 
 in southern New England where the climate is 
 warmer but a journey to the north and especially to 
 Gardiner, will prove that you are wrong. 
 
 Substantial houses line these ascending streets, 
 each groomed with a neatness which denotes thrift 
 and home love and each of these homes is shaded by 
 great trees which silently speak of the foresight of 
 some previous resident long since having finished his 
 earthly_mission. 
 
 Ascending the street we have mentioned we come 
 to a little horizontal platform in the ascent where 
 a street passes off at right angles. It would seem 
 that this were provided like a landing in a flight of 
 stairs in order to give the climber a breathing spell. 
 
 Beginning the upward climb again we come to one 
 of the prettiest parks imaginable where we will be 
 very willing to rest beneath the cool shade and enjoy 
 the flitting shadows of the rustling leaves playing on 
 the greensward or ricochetting on the dimpling 
 waters of the fountain's pool. 
 
 But the journey leads beyond to the mighty but- 
 tresses of Iron Mine Hill where grows the giant pine 
 which from time immemorial has defied the stormy 
 blasts of old New England and, if the surrounding 
 panorama were seascape instead of landscape, would 
 have been the beacon by which mariners would have 
 shaped their course.
 
 THE WEE LASSIE 69 
 
 And now that same road which extends up the 
 river paralleling hill and by the park leads you out 
 into the country and soon it passes fallow farms 
 where, in Spring, the bobolink chortles to his mate 
 and, occasionally, the bald eagle soars overhead. 
 Alongside the farms the elms are replaced by great 
 maples and, at the very beginning of the habitat 
 of the maples stands the natty red brick school- 
 house where Dunora Whitney went to school. 
 
 During these early years Dunora had but one real 
 playmate among the girls. Rena was her name and 
 she lived in a farm house so near that the two could 
 speak back and forth. Occasionally the mother of 
 Rena would come over to the Whitneys and ask if 
 Dunora might come over to play. This request was 
 usually granted and there Dunora had about the 
 only joy of her childish life. Rena and she were 
 bosom friends and shared confidences. One day 
 when Dunora was calling Rena said, "Oh, Dunora, 
 just think, I am learning to iron." "Learning to 
 iron," exclaimed the astonished Dunora. "Learning! 
 Why I don't remember when I didn't know how.'* 
 She was then about eight. And it was a fact that 
 even at that age the neighbors brought in their 
 fancy ironing for her to do and paid her pennies 
 for doing it. 
 
 In Rena's great barn a big swing had been placed 
 and the two little girls swung there to their hearts 
 content. Many a day they vied with each other to 
 see which could swing higher among the rafters. And 
 then the goat. What a knowing goat it was with 
 an appetite which attacked anything and every- 
 thing, even to the girls' clothes. A little two-wheeled 
 cart had been arranged and the usual route over
 
 70 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 which the goat carried them was down the hill for 
 a certain distance to a certain spot beyond which 
 no persuasion could make him venture. In his goat- 
 ish brain there existed a seeming delusion which 
 made it very necessary to proceed no further than 
 that spot. Upon arrival at that spot he promptly 
 turned sharply to one side always spilling out the 
 occupants. As the cart was so small the two little 
 girls had difficulty in squeezing into it and when 
 they did so they made two human sandwiches with 
 very little air sandwiched between their limbs and 
 bodies. After spilling them out, always on the same 
 rock, his goatship would canter back to the hilltop 
 expecting them to follow only to be respilled.
 
 CHAPTER EIGHT 
 
 DUNORA'S GIRLHOOD HOME 
 
 THE scene of Dunora's girlhood activities on 
 Iron Mine Hill suggested anything but the 
 bloodless tragedy enacted there. In passing it of- 
 fers an opportunity, perhaps best not to pass, of re- 
 marking what a world this would be if the human 
 portion of it were always of loving natures. Love is 
 the antagonist of selfishness. Dunora's nature was 
 founded on love and she therefore could not be and 
 was not selfish. The horrors of present existence are 
 all the outcome of selfishness in individual, govern- 
 ment or corporate form. 
 
 After passing the red brick schoolhouse on the 
 road from the Gardiner railroad station, if you wish 
 to reach Dunora's girlhood home you must continue 
 in a westerly direction past more than one sunny 
 home until another street crosses at an acute angle 
 and extends easterly back over Iron Mine Hill down 
 to and across Cobbosseecontee Stream. Shortly 
 after turning to the right onto this new street you 
 will come to a white house facing north and this was 
 the home of Dunora. It is the second house on the 
 right after turning the corner. 
 
 In the corner of the yard stands a pump the 
 handle of which was often worked by Dunora's 
 youthful hands. Back of the pump and between the 
 
 71
 
 72 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 western fence and the house is the attached barn 
 with its many nooks and corners offering chances 
 for hide and seek and such games. From hence every 
 morning Dunora took the cow and thither she drove 
 her at evening. Here also her little secrets were 
 told to the never gossiping walls more kindly than 
 human ears which would not listen or understand if 
 they did listen. 
 
 The house is planned to have five rooms on the 
 first floor and five on the second. On the first floor 
 are the kitchen, dining room, sitting room, bedroom 
 and parlor and on the second floor are the front 
 bedroom, middle bedroom, bedroom under the eaves 
 where Dunora slept, bathroom and unfinished attic. 
 
 In the parlor slept Dunora's grandfather who 
 filled the room with his trunks and belongings. This 
 man was Dunora's foster father's father. One of 
 his great passions was his absolute knowledge of his 
 possession of a through trip ticket to heaven. He 
 constantly brought up this subject. At the dining 
 table one day he got excited on the subject and 
 spearing a piece of beefsteak on his fork he raised 
 it upward and exclaimed : "I am as sure of going to 
 heaven as I am of eating this piece of beefsteak !" 
 Dunora seized the beefsteak from his fork and swal- 
 lowed it. It may be added that at this writing the 
 old gentleman is yet in the land of the living, al- 
 though considerably over ninety, there seeming to 
 be reluctance on the part of the powers that be to 
 dispatch the parlor car on which he feels he is so 
 sure to travel. It surely seems that the heavenly 
 hosts are not over anxious to associate with him 
 and we may infer that his life was not good for 
 only the good die young. In fact three of his wives
 
 DUNORA'S GIRLHOOD HOME 73 
 
 died from abuse. Yet of all the family associated 
 with Dunora this old man was the only one who 
 showed any love for her. 
 
 Dunora's mother was entirely heartless as to the 
 little girl's feelings. Every dainty was saved for 
 her own son and kept from Dunora. This mother 
 would bring home oranges from the store and hide 
 them away so that Dunora would not find them, and 
 when the little girl was not near the mother would 
 bring them out and give them to her son. 
 
 Why should she be kind to the little waif on life's 
 bitter cold sea. She had committed the unforgivable 
 crime of becoming an orphan. The parents who 
 had adopted Dunora were old school Baptists. In 
 their utterly loveless faith and creed Dunora was 
 born accursed of God and predestined to damnation, 
 so why heap affection uselessly on one whom God had 
 damned? And they went down on their holy knees 
 and thanked their God that in His great mercy He 
 had ordained that only old school Baptists should 
 become God's elect and that the rest of the world He 
 had also ordained to damnation. Oh, God, how great 
 and damnable works of the devil are done in Thy 
 name. 
 
 And these people deluded themselves into the 
 belief that a God worthy of worship had foreor- 
 dained that all but old school Baptists were damned 
 to not only damnation but never ending torment 
 for absolutely no reason at all. Simply God was 
 such an inhuman beast that no human being could 
 think up a devilish enough torment with which to 
 equal the torture God would inflict for His pleasure. 
 
 In one way and another this was directly and in- 
 directly dinned into Dunora's ears and she was
 
 74 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 made to understand that no matter how good she 
 was it would make no difference with her eternal des- 
 tiny. She was born damned and she would stay 
 damned. With this entire lack of incentive to do or 
 be good is it not a miracle of God and a marvellous 
 character of Dunora that she was and is good? 
 
 And all this time the little Dunora was entirely 
 unaware that these people were no more relation 
 to her than that Mrs. Whitney was Dunora's real 
 father's sister. Dunora all the time thought that 
 Mr. and Mrs. Whitney were her real father and 
 mother and that consequently her own name was 
 really Whitney. And she wondered and wondered 
 why she was not loved. In her little mind she again 
 and again pondered and tried to decide why her 
 brother was always preferred before herself and 
 why God was such a cruel, heartless and fiendish 
 Being as to foreordain that innocent people unborn 
 should be precondemned to everlasting damnation. 
 And again and again when she was taken to church 
 the elder, as he was called, preached the brutal doc- 
 trine that only the church would be saved from the 
 world's condemnation and that the old school Bap- 
 tists were the Church. In Dunora's mind, however, 
 there was born an inherent common sense and com- 
 mon loving kindness which told her differently. In 
 her little bed at night her first prayer was, "Oh, God, 
 why did you let me be born? Why did you let me 
 be born if you were to torture me for your own 
 pleasure? Oh you can't be that kind of a God." 
 
 She knew, down deep under the cover of her sub- 
 conscious self, that her parents did not know God. 
 
 Eight miles to the south and in the city of Rich- 
 mond, Maine, lived Dunora's own brother. At the
 
 DUNORA'S GIRLHOOD HOME 75 
 
 time of Dunora's adoption by the Whitney family, 
 her brother Eugene had been adopted by a family in 
 Richmond. The two families visited each other at 
 times and Dunora was told that Eugene was her 
 cousin. Time after time the brother and sister were 
 together not knowing the closeness of their relation. 
 And, according to the laws of nature, there sprang 
 up an affection between the two which should have 
 been. "Mama," more than once said Dunora, "why 
 is it that I like Eugene so much better than I do my 
 own brother?" But the mother never told the true 
 reason. Deceit always brings its penalty and, years 
 later, it brought a terrible penalty to Mrs. Whitney. 
 
 As has been at least indicated, back of Dunora's 
 feeling that she had not been introduced to the true 
 God, there was a yearning for a God of love to take 
 the place of the God of hate. Matters that bordered 
 on the really religious interested her. At one time 
 when she was in her fifth year there was to be a 
 public baptism in a nearby pond. Dunora and 
 Eugene attended. To the little girl it was a very 
 serious matter and she was so impressed that every 
 word the minister spoke in the service engraved 
 itself upon her mind. 
 
 As they trudged back toward Iron Mine Hill there 
 was a long period of silence. Dunora was deeply 
 thinking, much disturbed, greatly impressed. They 
 capped the top of one of the rolling hills and the 
 beautiful panorama of the countryside of the State 
 of Maine spread before them. They reached home 
 without much comment on the scene they had wit- 
 nessed and then the brother and sister went to drive 
 the cows home from pasture. , Way out in the coun- 
 try, far from any house, Dunora turned toward her
 
 76 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 brother and said, "Eugene, I want to be baptized." 
 To Eugene it was a joke for a great mud puddle 
 was near and his sense of humor was highly pleased 
 at the chance to duck his "cousin" in the dirty 
 water. He was more than willing. The little girl 
 repeated to him the words he should say and he 
 baptized her in the mud puddle, exactly repeating 
 the minister's words. Was not that baptism more 
 sincere than many in gilded edifices? They re- 
 turned to the farm of Eugene's foster mother, Dun- 
 ora's Aunt Etta. She was horrified at the sight she 
 beheld. There stood the formerly clean Dunora, 
 now mud from head to foot. "What have you been 
 doing?" she asked. "Eugene baptized me," was the 
 reply. "Come in here and let me clean you up before 
 your mother sees you. Aren't you afraid your 
 mother will whip you if she sees you?" "How can 
 she whip me for being baptized?" Dear Aunt Etta 
 she was one of the chosen ones of earth. She, at 
 the time of the death of the father and mother of 
 Dunora, wished very much to have Dunora come 
 to live with her. Had Dunora done so her younger 
 years would have been surrounded and enwrapped 
 in true love and this book might never have been 
 written. But Dunora's brother Eugene was adopted 
 by Aunt Etta. 
 
 Aunt Etta was not the possessor of an over abun- 
 dant supply of this world's goods but she more than 
 made up for it by being the keeper of an abundant 
 supply of love. Dunora she loved and the girl re- 
 turned it with interest and came to her house when- 
 ever she could. Witness the return after the bap- 
 tism. Then her Aunt removed her muddy clothes 
 and washed them. The little girl sat before the fire
 
 DUNORA'S GIRLHOOD HOME 77 
 
 while Mrs. Niles dried and ironed the washed clothes. 
 When Dunora returned to her own home her mother 
 saw nothing to disclose the nature of what had 
 been done in the muddy pool beneath the canopy of 
 heaven. Aunt Etta was the haven of comfort for 
 the little girlie and gave the only evidences of 
 motherly love shown in those days. On those oc- 
 casions when the little girl was visiting at the Rich- 
 mond home Aunt Etta frequently gathered the las- 
 sie in her arms and crooned over her, patting and 
 smoothing away remembrance of her home abuse. 
 Among the delicacies produced and much enjoyed 
 were cookies from the never empty pantry and cream 
 from the well's cool depths. Mrs. Niles was the only 
 person who obtained love from Dunora in those 
 early days. 
 
 Consequently when the news was broken to the 
 eight years old girl that her Aunt had passed beyond 
 she was grief stricken. When her parents gave this 
 news to her her aunt was not only dead but buried, 
 and the poor comfort of attending the funeral was 
 heartlessly denied the child. In the years that fol- 
 lowed Dunora was thus denied the only love she had 
 ever experienced and memory was the only influence 
 in her life which could bring anything lovable. Im- 
 agine, if you can, this young and loving child with 
 her childish affections starved at their fountain 
 head in all but one direction and then have that one 
 wellspring snatched away with the additional sting 
 of her parents' act in not letting her see even the 
 dead face.
 
 DUNORA FINDS TRUTH 
 
 DUNORA WHITNEY sturdily hastened into 
 the yard from the next door neighbor. Her 
 face was gray as ashes and on her countenance was 
 a look of mingled wrath, astonishment, sorrow and 
 determination which should have been utterly foreign 
 to a girl of nine. Mr. Whitney was chopping wood 
 as she entered and looked up at her advancing form 
 and what he saw on her face made him pale too for 
 a reason he knew not why but was soon to learn. 
 
 No word of introduction was spoken, none needed. 
 
 "I hate you ! I hate you ! You said you were my 
 papa and you aren't! You lied!" The man stam- 
 mered, "Why, why, Dunora, of course I'm your 
 father! What makes you talk such nonsense? Who 
 said such a thing?" "Alice did and it's the truth!" 
 Dunora rushed by toward the house and the next 
 victim, Mrs. Whitney. But as she passed Mr. Whit- 
 ney she did not fail to hear his anathema, "I wish 
 Alice's head was under this axe!" 
 
 The maddened, outraged and infuriated girl 
 rushed into the house through the kitchen and din- 
 ing room into the sitting room regardless of bang- 
 ing doors. If ever righteous anger gleamed from 
 absolutely frank eyes it blazed from the eyes of Du- 
 nora. It was as foreign to Mrs. Whitney as is 
 
 78
 
 DUNORA FINDS TRUTH 79 
 
 righteousness to the devil. She quailed before that 
 look for she beheld a reborn child. "Now I know 
 why Ralph gets everything and I get nothing ! Now 
 I know why he goes everywhere and I stay home! 
 Now I know why I have to carry wood and he doesn't 
 have to! Oh why did you lie, lie, lie to me? Why 
 did you take me for your little girl if you were 
 going to hate me? I hate you!" Then the heart- 
 broken girl ran upstairs to her miserable bed and 
 fought it out in tears. All the remainder of that 
 day and evening and all that night Dunora re- 
 mained in her bedroom unfed, unattended and mis- 
 erable. 
 
 From the look and words of Dunora Mrs. Whitney 
 had made no reply beyond opening and shutting 
 her mouth. On her bed of misery poor Dunora re- 
 membered the bitter accumulation of the past in- 
 human years. Dunora had been a child full of 
 fancies and full of fears. She feared a flying feather. 
 When barely four the little girl was driving the cow 
 to pasture. Upon coming to the pasture bars the 
 cow waited for her to lift the wooden rails and in- 
 nocently turned her meek face toward the follow- 
 ing lassie. Dunora, terrified, ran home. Mrs. Whit- 
 ney beat her for being frightened and drove her 
 back. A kind hearted passerby saw the sobbing girl 
 and lifted the pasture bars. She much feared a 
 dead body, even of an animal. A dead hog terrified 
 her. One once hung in the barn and the little girl 
 avoided it. Her brutal father seized her in his 
 arms exclaiming, "By God, I'll teach you not to be 
 frightened of hogs !" carried her to the barn and 
 wrapped her arms about the dead hog. The poor 
 maltreated child went right into a fit and it took
 
 80 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 them three hours to bring her to consciousness. Hav- 
 ing a deadly fear of mice she awoke one morning 
 only to find a dead one placed on her pillow by some 
 one to greet her morning waking. 
 
 After that hour the little girl was a changed crea- 
 ture. Her foster parents no longer fully controlled 
 the emancipated proud spirit. 
 
 Instead of being the docile acceptor of the abuse 
 she became defiant and gave them a taste of what 
 they had for years given her in large measure. 
 When told to do her former work she purposely did 
 it poorly and right she was in doing that. She 
 purposely left soap in the dishes which Mrs. Whit- 
 ney was obliged to wash out and when told to wash 
 the floor would sometimes wash a great piece in the 
 center so as to look much worse by reason of con- 
 trast than if not touched at all. If the Whitneys 
 demurred she threatened to run away. The very 
 next day after Dunora's discovery of who were her 
 real parents she was asked to perform some work. 
 "Why do you ask me to do your work?" she ques- 
 tioned. "I am not your child." "Not my child! 
 I'll show you whether you are my child or not! I 
 have a paper which makes you my child !" The child 
 turned away with a contemptuous shrug of her 
 shoulder. "Paper! What's a paper got to do with 
 it?" 
 
 Ah, there it is! Down the most distant aisles of 
 the past of the human race comes the reverberating 
 treble of the child's first cry. And a mother's 
 agony ushers in that cry, that beginning of pos- 
 sible everlasting life. In ages remote she endured 
 her agony in the caves and among the rocks un- 
 shielded and unaided, in these times in more degen-
 
 DUN OR A FINDS TRUTH 81 
 
 erate situations, but whether among the caves or 
 in the couch of down agony it is and no mother 
 escapes it. It is God's way adulterated with the 
 devil's amendment. God made that way and Satan 
 gave the agony. But even Beelzebub, prince of 
 demons, could not cause to falter the true heroes of 
 humankind women. With full knowledge that their 
 agony was the greatest of earth women have calmly 
 faced it. Suffering this anguish they and they alone 
 produced the human race and without their self de- 
 nial and baptism of torture would not a person live 
 who lives today. The crowds in the streets ! Each 
 individual represents an agonized mother! The 
 armies and navies ! Every soldier and sailor repre- 
 sents a human female martyr! And if the tables 
 had been reversed and men had been given that 
 agony would the world have been peopled as to-day? 
 Verily not! God knew who should have the honor. 
 God knew which was His noblest creation and He 
 crowned woman with motherhood. And in these 
 modern times, when gold is not evenly divided and 
 every man clamors for it, there exist those beings 
 so base that no animal's name is base enough to 
 describe them, who prey on womankind, possessing 
 characters of skunklike odor, and with some of this 
 human garbage this book deals. 
 
 And the connection between mother and child, 
 can any paper determine that? Can any court of 
 justice or injustice hand down a much bedignified 
 document that shall determine the connection of 
 heart strings, the course of affection, the ties of 
 blood? 
 
 Ah, what a mother had been Dunora's true mother ! 
 And what a kindly hearted father had been hers!
 
 82 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 Not at the time of her discovery of the fact that 
 the Whitneys were not her true parents did 
 Dunora learn who and what her parents were and 
 the facts of her birth. 
 
 The father and mother of Dunora were married 
 for love surely. She was very loving and worshipped 
 Dunora's father. With such a woman the right 
 man can attain the heights of heaven while on earth. 
 In order to marry as she did Dunora's mother sac- 
 rificed much that is counted worth much but she 
 gained greatly in the greater goods. For true love 
 is true all. There is absolutely nothing else which 
 truly satisfies or long pleases. Dunora's father 
 was in many ways worthy of the love bestowed upon 
 him and perhaps chiefly because of the fact that he 
 possessed an over abundance of generosity. So 
 pronounced was this quality that he ever remained 
 poor because he gave freely of what he had to those 
 whom he thought needed it more. Such generosity 
 as was his was exceedingly unusual. He apparently 
 had hardly a thought of himself and would even 
 give an overcoat from his back when he did not 
 know from what place he would get another. 
 
 While in her early years, the mother of five chil- 
 dren of whom Dunora was the youngest, Dunora's 
 mother caught a cold which, in her frail health, led 
 to rapid consumption. When she knew that she 
 must go her prayer was, "Oh, God, take Dunora with 
 me also, for I cannot leave her behind to suffer at the 
 hands of others." Full well did she realize the heart- 
 lessness of the world when dealing with an unpro- 
 tected girl. But God knew that if the wish of the 
 dear mother were granted much harm would be 
 done for He knew that out of the life Dunora was
 
 DUN OR A FINDS TRUTH 83 
 
 to live would come a great object lesson of what 
 a true woman could do and which would show the 
 hollow mockery of a double standard of morality 
 and the hideous ulcer in some men's lives. But in 
 those dear wasted arms Dunora's little body was 
 wrapped in love and enfolded in those arms Dunora 
 rested as her mother's life went out of earth with 
 the spoken words, "Oh, God, take her with me ! Take 
 her with me!" 
 
 Ah, mother of Dunora, what a mother you must 
 have been! Had God answered your prayer the 
 world would never have known that a great woman 
 among women had been born and you had the honor 
 of being her mother. Had God answered your 
 prayer this book, which is written because of love 
 for what is noble in humanity, would never have 
 been written. Would that I, too, could pay homage 
 to you, mother of Dunora, whose mortal body rests 
 amid the pine clad hills of the State of Maine but 
 whose noble spirit must now be in the all loving 
 presence of Him who did not answer your prayer but 
 who did for you better than you knew. 
 
 While Dunora's mother was so ill that she could 
 not lie on a mattress because her weakness made 
 her wet one through with perspiration, Dunora was 
 born and was a strong, robust child. But it was 
 not on a bed of soft down that Dunora first saw the 
 light of day. Her mother could only lie on a bed 
 of straw and on a bed of straw Dunora was born 
 while her father was away after the doctor. So all 
 alone and unassisted her mother gave Dunora life. 
 
 This fair girl who became the mother of Dunora 
 had been the belle of all the surrounding towns. 
 Her beauty was extreme and of the Grecian type
 
 84 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 and her disposition and character corresponded with 
 her physical beauty. More than one offer of mar- 
 riage was hers from those well furnished with this 
 world's goods, but she refused to sell herself and 
 married for love. To this day Dunora does not 
 know just the spot where the body of her mother 
 lies though the cemetery is known.
 
 CHAPTER TEN 
 
 THE CLOSE OF SCHOOL, 
 
 MORE and more Dunora kept by herself after 
 learning the weighty news which had been dis- 
 closed to her. "Where have you been, Dunora?" 
 queried her foster-mother on more than one occa- 
 sion. "Oh, out in the pasture," answered the preoc- 
 cupied girl. "What were you doing out there?" 
 "Oh, just dreaming, just thinking pretty thoughts." 
 "What were they?" interrogated Mrs. Whitney. 
 "Oh, just pretty thoughts, pretty thoughts," re- 
 peated the child, and that was as near as Mrs. Whit- 
 ney ever got to the heart of her adopted daughter. 
 But out in the pasture, far from disturbing human 
 influences Dunora had built a little rustic play house 
 beneath great pine trees and there her air castles 
 were formed out of the beautiful Sowings of her 
 pure thoughts. She peopled the little house with the 
 people of whom she dreamed. The purpling glens, 
 the dark pines, the forest aisles, the rolling pastures 
 all spoke to her in symbolic language. They were 
 kinder and more considerate than she had found 
 people except Aunt Etta and they listened to all 
 her confidences and understood them for they never 
 answered back. All the pines said when she com- 
 plained of the world's bitterness was "S-o-o-o-o ! 
 S-o-o-o-o ! Y-e-e-e-s ! S-o-o-o-o-o !" 
 
 85
 
 86 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 Up against the pine's smooth bark she would 
 place her little face and say, "Just you think, pine 
 trees, I'm going to grow up some day and have a 
 real home where love is. You know I am, don't you, 
 pine tree?" And the pine trees tossed their tassel- 
 ated branches above her curly head and answered, 
 "S-o-o-o-o! S-o-o-o-o! Y-e-e-e-s! S-o-o-o-o-o-o !" 
 Their carpet of needles she played was the real 
 carpet of her home and pine cones were the miniature 
 people of that golden future of which she dreamed. 
 
 "Now, Mr. Man," she said, taking up a pine cone, 
 "you come to our party, and, Mrs. Man, you come 
 too," and she took two pine cones one slightly longer 
 than the other and named them Mr. and Mrs. Man 
 and placed them in improvised chairs beside the 
 carefully made table where the "party" was to eat 
 its banquet. And the directions she gave to the 
 rapidly arriving numbers of pine cone guests made 
 even the overshadowing trees shake with joy. 
 
 Oh those dreams ! Por hours she would lie there 
 on the pine needles with her eyes fixed immovable 
 on the heavens above which the swaying pine boughs 
 frescoed and crocheted with their pinnate tassles. 
 The screaming blue jays were but the heralds an- 
 nouncing, "Come! Come!" to the forest home of 
 Dunora. And the cawing crows were the sombre 
 hued pessimists who said, "Pshaw ! Pshaw ! Pshaw !" 
 to the whole invitation of the bluejays. And the 
 finches, wrens, warblers, nuthatches and lesser spar- 
 rows which busied themselves on bark and branch 
 and brown earth were but the welcome passers by 
 to whom an invitation to attend was given but who 
 were too busy about their own business to stop long
 
 THE CLOSE OF SCHOOL 87 
 
 but who could not pass by without a close gaze and 
 a cheery salutation. 
 
 She now lived almost entirely within herself and 
 had no confidants. Her great discovery had with- 
 drawn her within herself and created about the in- 
 ner shrine of her being a sheet of armor which her 
 foster parents never penetrated save once when her 
 mother did many years later. And when the due 
 time comes for the narration of that period it will 
 be related. Years now intervened. 
 
 Over across the Kennebec on the eastern bank is 
 situated the quiet rural community of East Pittston. 
 From that town a girl came to the school which 
 Dunora attended and the teacher introduced her to 
 Dunora and asked her to make the new comer ac- 
 quainted with the school. The process resulted in 
 the cementing of a friendship between the two which 
 lasted all through the remaining school years. The 
 two became fast chums. Every week the girls al- 
 ternated in spending a night at one of their two 
 houses. One week Dunora spent a night in East 
 Pittston and the next week the chum spent in Gar- 
 diner. The times when they were together were 
 rare times of pleasure for the two girls. They had 
 both now arrived at that age where each acquired 
 a boy sweetheart and these two also alternated in 
 their visits to Gardiner and East Pittston. 
 
 Whenever there were exercises of an entertain- 
 ment nature at the school Dunora was asked to take 
 a prominent part. Her singing voice was excellent 
 and she sang in the school choral society and all 
 song singing in the school. At her graduation in 
 June of her fifteenth year she was given a part in
 
 88 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 every chorus and every dialogue or piece where more 
 than two spoke as well as being given a piece to speak 
 alone. The whole graduation exercises had been 
 built around her as the central figure. The High 
 School had its graduation exercises at a different 
 date and they had organized a straw ride to take 
 place on the day of the Grammar School gradu- 
 ation. Dunora received an invitation to go on the 
 straw ride. 
 
 On the day of the Grammar School graduation 
 the fathers and mothers of all the attending chil- 
 dren came in full regalia and clattering teams. 
 Dunora's foster parents were, for once, proud of 
 her achievements and prominence. All was bustle 
 and anticipation, but the realization was not what 
 had been anticipated. Dunora was late. The ex- 
 ercises finally started without her, but were halted 
 because they could not proceed without her. People 
 began to fuss, then to fume. No Dunora ! Teachers 
 and principal consulted their watches and then 
 themselves, but no Dunora came. Half an hour 
 passed, then three quarters. Dunora became the 
 most talked of person in Kennebec County during 
 that time. But she utterly failed to appear and the 
 graduation exercises never were completed. A sad- 
 der and a wiser set of people left that schoolroom 
 than had entered it. 
 
 Some hours later Dunora appeared at home. She 
 had accepted the invitation to the straw ride with 
 her chum. There were so few times that Dunora 
 had had a good time that she seized that opportu- 
 nity. Perhaps underlying it all was a spirit of not 
 caring. So hard had been her treatment that there
 
 THE CLOSE OF SCHOOL 89 
 
 had been forced upon the girl a spirit of defiance 
 not natural. 
 
 The real start of Dunora's rebellion against her 
 foster parents had been the great discovery of the 
 truth concerning her real parents: But two years 
 previous to her breaking up of the graduation exer- 
 cises an act of inhuman cruelty had been done to her 
 by her foster father which thoroughly aroused an 
 open revolt and kindled into flame the smouldering 
 embers of independence. Dunora had an own cousin 
 named Ben who was about twelve years her senior. 
 This Ben was also an own cousin to Dunora's foster 
 brother Ralph. Ralph's mother, Dunora's foster 
 mother, was a sister to Dunora's real father and 
 Ben's mother was sister to Ralph's mother. 
 
 Ben was very fond of Dunora and pitied her. One 
 day when Dunora was thirteen Ben sent a letter to 
 her enclosing a dollar and asking her to spend it 
 with a girl friend in having a good time in going 
 to Hallowell, the next city to the north and ad- 
 joining Gardiner. Dunora was glad to accept and 
 went with the girl to Hallowell perfectly innocent 
 of even any wrong intention and there was none. 
 She did not even see Ben. She had never been 
 taught that it was in any way out of the usual to 
 accept money when given and if any wrong could 
 possibly have been construed out of it how could she 
 have been expected to have known it without being 
 told. This letter which Ben wrote was openly left 
 at home by Dunora and her foster father read it. 
 When she returned she was severely scolded. 
 
 Mrs. Whitney also said to her, "Why didn't you 
 tell us you were going to Hallowell?" "Well, just
 
 90 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 because I didn't, that's all. Is there anything wrong 
 in going to Hallowell with a girl?'* "Why didn't 
 you tell us that Ben sent you the money?" Mrs. 
 Whitney asked. "Why should I?" "Don't you 
 know that it is wrong to accept money from a man?" 
 The girl replied, "Know that it is wrong? Of 
 course not. Why is it?" "Well it is." "Why, 
 mother, Ben is my cousin, so is your son Ralph. If 
 Ralph gave me money you know you wouldn't think 
 it wrong and why should it be wrong for Ben to 
 give me money, for he is my cousin just the same as 
 Ralph is?" "Well it is," was all the reply Dunora 
 got. 
 
 It was the custom of Dunora's girl chum and her- 
 self to alternate in seeing each other part way home 
 from school each afternoon. The very next day 
 after the above conversation took place it was 
 Dunora's turn to see Beatrice part way home, so she 
 went with Beatrice down town and as far as the 
 Randolph bridge across the Kennebec. She returned 
 directly home from the bridge. 
 
 Her foster father met Dunora in the kitchen. A 
 scowl was on his face. "Where have you been?" he 
 demanded. "I have been down to the Randolph 
 bridge with Beatrice to see her part way home as it 
 was my turn to go with her to-day," said Dunora. 
 "You have been with Ben. You lie !" almost shrieked 
 the bully. And he reached for the iron stove poker 
 and that great, strong male actually struck the 
 poor girl to the floor with the stove poker. She 
 was knocked all but completely unconscious but was 
 sufficiently herself to shriek in agony at the suc- 
 ceeding blows. In the shortest possible time her 
 shrieks brought the neighbors to her assistance.
 
 THE CLOSE OF SCHOOL 91 
 
 When they saw that scene their rage could hardly 
 be restrained. Some one took hold of Mr. Whit- 
 ney sternly and they all told him that if he ever 
 lifted his hand against Dunora again even in the 
 slightest degree they would call in the police authori- 
 ties and have him arrested. Consequently when 
 Dunora returned from the straw ride at the time 
 of her graduation from Grammar School Mr. Whit- 
 ney did not dare do any more than scold her. 
 
 Retribution for that foul deed was late in coming 
 to Mr. Whitney but it came. Some years later he 
 died and death was not rapid in coming. The man- 
 ner of Dunora's presence in the house at that time 
 will be told later. As Mr. Whitney lay conscious 
 but dying every sound of Dunora's soft voice was 
 agony to him. Retribution had come. "Shut the 
 doors ! Shut the doors !" he called. "Don't let me 
 hear her voice! It makes great bells ring in my 
 head !" The clanging bells of retribution. 
 
 When Dunora did not appear at the graduation 
 exercises the school officials were filled with wrath. 
 Her certificate of passing into the High School and 
 her diploma to be given her upon graduation were 
 openly torn up and thrown away. She came back 
 and applied for them. Her maddened teachers told 
 her she could not have them. But she insisted. Then 
 they told her to go to the superintendent. She 
 went. The superintendent asked her what she 
 wanted. "My certificate," was the reply. He hesi- 
 tated. Then Dunora spoke directly to him. "If 
 you were a young girl my age and you had the 
 chance I had to go on that ride would you go or 
 would you stay behind and speak pieces." The 
 superintendent made no reply with words yet what
 
 92 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 he did was more eloquent for he gave her the certifi- 
 cate. 
 
 Dunora, dear, the school has closed behind you, 
 Your youthful face to see again no more, 
 
 But ere you usher out the hours of childhood, 
 
 Oh can't we pause and look through childhood's 
 door. 
 
 The fields lie fallow with their call to playing, 
 The kine with meek eyes gently low for you, 
 
 Your rustic house beneath the pines is waiting 
 For you to now begin your life anew. 
 
 Above the fleecy clouds roll on in glory, 
 The river flows in gladness to the ocean, 
 
 And every sound of nature's wild abandon, 
 Sings joy and rapture in its every motion. 
 
 Dunora, dear, you stand there on the threshold, 
 With heart as pure and guileless as the day, 
 
 By every right of earth and heaven above you, 
 Your life deserves to be as gentle May. 
 
 Your guileless trust in things unknown about you, 
 Your heart of purest gold and mind of steel, 
 
 But merit life's uncoined and richest blessing, 
 But warrant that earth's richest bliss you feel. 
 
 And as it comes to me who write these pages, 
 In vision sweet to see your dear child form, 
 
 Oh would to God it were not my hard duty, 
 To on these pages write the coming storm.
 
 THE CLOSE OF SCHOOL 93 
 
 For oh, Dunora dear, it wrings my heart strings, 
 To think of days of hell you yet did bear, 
 
 When by man's hell born and damning selfishness, 
 You every trial that comes to man did share. 
 
 And in my clouded sight I would have kept thee 
 From aught but joy's entrancing melody, 
 
 And e'en by life itself I would have saved thee, 
 From falling in life's storm's wild bitter lea. 
 
 But He who rules with sight that never faileth, 
 And knows the end from the beginning's sign, 
 
 Ruled with a kindlier hand than was suspected, 
 When by His hand He led thee down the line. 
 
 And so in humbleness I stand before thee. 
 
 Dunora, queen of women, reign indeed 
 Within my heart's remotest sacred precinct, 
 
 That I may give to you your every need. 
 
 And as the days of life flow silent o'er us, 
 May God Himself grant this my life to be, 
 
 That by His council He may wise uphold me 
 To bring earth's highest, truest joy to thee. 
 
 In weakness would I stop at this recital, 
 And let thy bitter tale remain untold, 
 
 But knowing what a help 'twill be to mortals, 
 I fain would make my hand write firm and bold. 
 
 So forth and write, hand writing to his brothers! 
 
 Expose the hell and brave the hellions' steel! 
 Strike while the iron is hot and striking 
 
 May those who skulk in darkness terror feel!
 
 CHAPTER ELEVEN 
 
 WHEN "BAD" is "WORSE" 
 
 IT was in the balmy month of June of her 
 fifteenth year that Dunora finished what was des- 
 tined to be her last official schooling. Her heart de- 
 sired a continuation of her studies in the High 
 School. All her girlish friends were either going 
 into happy homes or to High School and if for no 
 other reason than worthy emulation Dunora natur- 
 ally desired to go to one or the other. She fully 
 believed that she was to go to High School. A 
 happy home where she was she knew she could not 
 have. Up to the age of fifteen Dunora was kept 
 absolutely ignorant of physical matters relating to 
 sex. Her foster mother never mentioned such mat- 
 ters. Dunora was absolutely innocent in mind as 
 well as body. 
 
 But even thus early she had been exposed to seri- 
 ous evil. A certain woman desired to perpetrate 
 personal hellish practices on Dunora and, to further 
 her scheme, she invited the innocent girl to her house 
 where young men had been previously invited and she 
 left them together in such a way that the absolutely 
 innocent girl ran serious danger of being misled. 
 It was the hope of the female friend that her nefa- 
 rious scheme would lead to her desired end, but, thank 
 God, Dunora was too innocent and too strong of 
 
 94
 
 WHEN "BAD" IS "WORSE 33 95 
 
 character to be misled by those who cared not what 
 the destruction of a promising life meant if only 
 the passion of the hour could be satisfied. The 
 woman who attempted that act which was so hideous 
 that no name could describe it was, at last reports, 
 occupying the stratum in society in which she be- 
 longed and was the keeper of a house of ill fame in 
 Somerville. 
 
 School of the grammar grade was over for Du- 
 nora. She looked forward at last with well earned 
 joy to a summer of self-enjoyed pleasure when she 
 had done her daily work. In the eyes of all save 
 Him who sees the end from the beginning she cer- 
 tainly should have had her desire but the future 
 brought a surprise of astonishing nature. 
 
 Now that she had graduated from grammar school 
 her foster parents began more openly to show dis- 
 pleasure at her. Especially was this evident in her 
 foster father. His favorite occupation was grum- 
 bling at the inoffensive girl. She dreaded his pres- 
 ence and he shunned her when his laziness did not 
 prevent him. He cast out remarks about the cost 
 of keeping her in food and clothes and these heart- 
 less remarks cut the sensitive girl deeply. She 
 brooded over them and at night, the poor girl cried 
 herself to sleep. What a little bed of husks to be 
 the downy cushion on which so sweet a body bore its 
 bitterness ! 
 
 In these days of early summer when Dunora 
 found time unoccupied with her household drudgery 
 she quietly went away by herself and generally 
 down over the slope of Iron Mine Hill to the banks 
 of Cobbosseecontee Stream. This Indian name of 
 the stream and large lake from which it flowed was
 
 96 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 commonly abbreviated thereabouts into "Cob'seeV 
 Here hour after hour during those hours when she 
 would have been in school during session time, she 
 whiled away on the wings of thought. The broad 
 stream, clear as the crystalline lake from which it 
 flowed, was tranquil here because of its broadness 
 and white water lilies bespangled its bosom typical 
 of the absolute whiteness and equal purity of the 
 soul and body of the young Dunora. 
 
 In Dunora's mind arose rebellion against the con- 
 ditions at the place she was forced to call "home." 
 All around her she saw other girls of her age sur- 
 rounded with the beautiful surroundings which 
 should have been hers and the objects of affection of 
 fathers and mothers. And her proud spirit rightly 
 rebelled. It became increasingly apparent that her 
 foster parents did not intend to send her to High 
 School and also that especially in the eyes of her 
 foster father she was a source of irritation. All 
 alone there on the banks of Cobbosseecontee Stream 
 Dunora Whitney planned what to do with absolutely 
 no knowledge of the world. She had never been out- 
 side of Gardiner and the surrounding towns in her 
 life. She planned to endure the hell of her child- 
 hood's home no longer and to run away. 
 
 Among all the people of Gardiner she of course 
 had some friends with whom she occasionally went 
 to walk or at whose homes she called but they were 
 very few. One of her lady friends was receiving at- 
 tentions from a man from a Massachusetts city. 
 This man had a reputation for "handsomeness." Be- 
 ware of such! The true beauty, that of character, 
 is very seldom shown on an Apollolike face. The 
 man who had the greatest reputation for homeliness
 
 WHEN "BAD' 1 IS "WORSE" 97 
 
 on earth was Abraham Lincoln and in the 53d chap- 
 ter of Isaiah we read of the Saviour Himself: "He 
 hath no form nor comeliness ; and when we shall see 
 him, there is no beauty that we should desire him." 
 
 This "handsome" man had an acquaintance with 
 whom he consorted a good deal and this person was 
 about forty-five years of age. He was a factory 
 worker and his name was Boynton, William Boyn- 
 ton. Here are two characters diametrically opposed 
 the one an absolutely pure, uninformed and guile- 
 less girl of fifteen entirely ignorant of any of the 
 world except Gardiner, Richmond, Hallowell and 
 East Pittston, Maine, and the other a man of the 
 world, sinful, cunning, calculating and forty-five. 
 If two such characters ever met and the sinful 
 worked on the guileless it would be very easy to de- 
 termine which would temporarily attain what seemed 
 to be the mastery. We say temporarily advisedly. 
 
 On one day when the two girls were downtown 
 they met the two men and Dunora was introduced to 
 both of them. She thought no more of it. When 
 the two men turned away from the girls the older 
 said, "Who is that dream, the younger girl?" "Oh, 
 she lives up on Iron Mine Hill with the Whitneys." 
 "Is she their daughter?" asked the worldlywise one. 
 "No, only their adopted daughter. There is a re- 
 port that she doesn't know she isn't their girl. Say 
 it's a joke. Those folks up there just used her for 
 a good thing." "She's a peach, isn't she." "Sure 
 thing!" That closed the conversation concerning 
 Dunora. But it did not close the malicious train of 
 thought in the mind of the worldly one. Oh, thought, 
 if only some Great Power would control thee in the 
 minds of men so as to make all thoughts good, for
 
 98 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 then the entire world would be a Paradise where no 
 wrong would be ! For back of every evil deed is an 
 evil thought and back of every evil life is an evil 
 chain of thoughts and back of every evil thought is 
 an evil inclination. May we not have more than 
 a hope that there will come a time, for the world 
 was not always as it is now, when evil will forever 
 pass away? Can not One who pronounced His 
 original work "Good" make it so again? But while 
 evil yet roams as a roaring lion seeking whom it 
 may devour let the story of Dunora Whitney be an 
 inspiration which shall show that amid surroundings 
 born of the devil's most careful preparations, the 
 strongest protection is the strength of a right mind 
 and that out of the depths there is One who will 
 hear the cry of His children and will turn their 
 sorrow into joy, their seeming defeat into an ever- 
 lasting triumph. 
 
 During the intervening days, as before, Dunora 
 spent practically all of her time which would have 
 been school time in whiling away the hours on Cob- 
 bosseecontee's bank. She did not at first notice that 
 Boynton found an excuse to call on her father and 
 mother, never paying any attention to her or asking 
 about her when absent. He was too crafty. It 
 would spoil his scheme. Then Dunora was at the 
 house sometimes when he came apparently to see 
 Mr. and Mrs. Whitney. There was never an ex- 
 change of words between the two more than was 
 necessary in conversation of passing. While call- 
 ing at the Whitneys he learned what he reallv wished 
 to learn, namely, where Dunora could be found alone. 
 
 Down on Cobbosseecontee Stream Dunora planned 
 what to do. Boynton found her there. He seemed
 
 WHEN "BAD" IS "WORSE" 99 
 
 to come by accident. "What are you thinking 
 about?" he asked. "Nothing!" was the reply. "Oh, 
 yes, you are. Tell me. I'll help you." Well, I was 
 thinking of running away from home." Boynton 
 permitted a crafty smile to pass over his face unseen 
 to her. "How are you going to do it?" he asked. 
 "Oh, my brother Gene will help me and take me in 
 his home. He loves me and I love him." A look 
 of disappointment passed over Boynton's face. 
 
 "How are you going to ask him?" asked the man 
 parrying for time in which to think. "I'm going to 
 write to him. I have written to him. I've got the 
 letter here." "Let me have it and I'll put a stamp 
 on it and post it," said the man. Innocently she 
 handed it to him. Then he left her and she did not 
 see him till some days after, when again on Cobbos- 
 seecontee's banks he met her. Their conversation was 
 stiff and mostly monosyllabic on her part. Then 
 he said to her, "What will you do if your brother 
 doesn't answer you?" "I don't know. I guess I'll 
 have to run away all alone." 
 
 If her dear Aunt Etta had only been alive how 
 wise would have been the council she would have 
 given Dunora at this time. Absolutely innocent of 
 the world's evil ways, entirely innocent by nature 
 because of her own guileless character, Dunora could 
 not have entertained a suspicion against this man 
 for suspicion, that uprooter of trustful character, 
 was foreign to her. Not an atom of doubt entered 
 her mind when she gave the letter to her brother to 
 Boynton to post. 
 
 No answer coming from the letter which she wrote 
 Dunora was much troubled. Again and again she 
 spent her hours on the banks of Cobbosseecontee
 
 100 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 Stream. There was no thought in her brain of the 
 person who had promised to post the letter and 
 she could not understand why the brother who 
 loved her did not answer her appeal. Of all times 
 in her troubled life this was of all times the least 
 in which she thought her brother would fail her. 
 Boynton played the game well from the worldly 
 standpoint. But the worldly standpoint never per- 
 manently wins. 
 
 On his calls at the Iron Mine Hill home he care- 
 fully kept away from Dunora and craftily pretended 
 friendship with Mr. and Mrs. Whitney yet always 
 keeping his ears open for all that occurred. The 
 Whitneys asked him absolutely nothing about his 
 credentials. For all they knew or cared he might 
 have been a criminal by actual overt act. He might 
 have been a married man or not a married man, a 
 forger, a murderer, a gambler, a roue or what not. 
 At least one of those things he was. 
 
 Only often enough not to arouse a suspicion in 
 her mind, Boynton seemed to accidentally meet 
 Dunora principally on Cobbosseecontee Stream 
 banks. He beguiled her into going out rowing with 
 him and by deft action won Dunora's confidence. 
 With confidence pent up so long in her and denied 
 vent on the persons immediately surrounding her, it 
 was the most natural of occurrences for any seeming 
 honest person to win it. 
 
 When Boynton thought the time ripe and saw the 
 torture of mind which the lass was undergoing, he 
 again asked, "What are you going to do now that 
 your brother hasn't answered your letter?" "Oh 
 I don't know, I don't know. I just can't stand it 
 at home, I must run away. I can't be any worse off
 
 WHEN "BAD" IS "WORSE" 101 
 
 than I am here." "But you don't know what might 
 happen to you if you run away. The world is big 
 and heartless. I've got a plan for you. You know 
 I live in Massachusetts. You want to go to school 
 some more and you know your parents will not send 
 you more." Dunora interrupted. "Oh, my parents 
 just seem to hate me. I have worked terribly hard 
 for them all my life and all I have from them is 
 abuse and whippings. They give all good things to 
 Ralph and all the whippings to me. Oh, I can't stand 
 it!" "Don't stand it!" broke in Boynton. "That's 
 just the point. Show them you won't stand it!" 
 "How shall I?" asked the girl. "Listen to me. I 
 have an aunt in a city in Massachusetts named 
 Lynn. When I go back you just come along with 
 me and I'll take you to my Aunt's and leave you 
 there." 
 
 "Oh, I couldn't think of doing that ! It would be 
 very bad for me to go anywhere with a man. I 
 couldn't think of doing it." "Oh, that's all right. 
 I'll fix that all right. We will be married but it's 
 only to protect you. Just as soon as we get to 
 Lynn I will put you in my aunt's and I will have 
 the marriage annulled." 
 
 The girl was amazed beyond description. What 
 did he mean? She did not comprehend the true 
 meaning of it and did not at once reply. He waited 
 for his answer. And he did not get it at once. She 
 looked him over trying, in her innocent brain, to 
 fathom his thoughts. Then there passed through 
 her mind the stern recollection of her home and of 
 the more than apparent feeling of her foster parents 
 that she was in the way. 
 
 "Come up to the house some day. I want to ask
 
 102 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 something there," was her answer. He knew 
 enough not to say more and so he left her to her 
 thoughts after reimpressing the statement that he 
 only offered his scheme for her protection and that 
 if she would do it he would be very sure to put her 
 in his aunt's and to immediately annul the marriage. 
 
 Some days later he came to the house as usual, 
 and Dunora was there. The poor girl had no idea 
 what even temporary marriage meant or nothing 
 on earth would have tempted her. She reasoned in 
 this cold blooded fashion. "If my father and mother 
 are wanting to get rid of me so much that they will 
 do what Mr. Boynton asks, if he asks it, it may be 
 better than running away alone." 
 
 Boynton had made a good impression with the 
 Whitneys by careful cultivation of all the graces 
 he possessed and he used that to its fullest extent. 
 With the heavy hearted Dunora listening to his ask- 
 ing permission to marry her of her foster parents 
 she heard them assent. "Why, yes, if you want to," 
 they said without consulting the poor victim. 
 Dunora's heart sank like lead as she heard those 
 heartless words. The steel wall again arose and 
 within herself where should have been love came a 
 stone. 
 
 The invitations were sent out for the witnesses 
 to the nothing less than execution as would have 
 been done for a criminal. They came. Before that 
 sight of the past I shudder, my whole being revolts. 
 When the minister asked Dunora the usual questions 
 she opened not her mouth. The name of the person 
 who performed this is not mentioned but he knows 
 and so does God.
 
 CHAPTER TWELVE 
 
 THE GREAT AWAKENING 
 
 AT that awakening which she did not yet know 
 was to be an awakening, poor Dunora was en- 
 tirely innocent of what was done and had no idea 
 other than that put in her brain by the deceiver. 
 Her life to that hour had never taken her more 
 than a few miles away from her foster parents' home 
 and she had no idea of the outside world. It would 
 be extremely difficult for any person to mentally 
 put themselves in Dunora's position. A person 
 who has even travelled to a day's journey away from 
 home has done more than Dunora had done to thai? 
 hour. Our thoughts are all associated with locality. 
 When we think of a person we always think of some 
 locality associated with that person and at any 
 moment of our lives we can summon to our mind's 
 stage the scenery from all places wherein we have 
 travelled. Try to imagine a little lass with none 
 of these mind pictures and you will fail to do so. 
 But you can readily see that her mind was one 
 entirely innocent of any realization of anything but 
 her immediate surroundings and what she had been 
 taught in school. It is dreadful to think of the 
 advantage taken of her by the man who persuaded 
 her to do as he asked under the cloak of protec- 
 tion for her for that is all she thought she was doing. 
 
 103
 
 104 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 Oh, if her eyes had only been opened at that time. 
 
 It was not long after the occurrence at the Gar- 
 diner home that Boynton said, "Now we will go down 
 to Boston on the boat and I'll take you to my 
 sister's!" "What is Boston like?" Dunora asked. 
 "Oh, you will see," he replied. In her girlish mind 
 she had no conception of a large building, much less 
 a city but she was filled with light hearted joy that 
 at last she was to be free from her foster parents 
 and under the protection of this unknown "aunt." 
 If one could only have looked into that childish, un- 
 sophisticated mind what a revelation of innocence 
 would have been discovered. 
 
 She could now openly go and not as she had 
 planned to run away and with pleasure she said 
 "Good-bye" to her parents and as her foot left the 
 threshold it began a journey marked, ah, marked 
 with hellish suffering and superb heroism. As my 
 pen reaches this point a deep seated thrill of admira- 
 tion goes over me as I mentally contemplate what 
 there lies before me to write. Dunora indeed is 
 honored among women in that God chose her as 
 worthy. 
 
 Dunora had been down the Kennebec once before 
 for Boynton had taken her once to Popham Beach 
 but on this trip she was to go out on the great 
 ocean not only of the Atlantic but of life. Ah, if 
 that boat could only have realized what precious 
 freight it was carrying that night ! There she stood 
 wide-eyed, staring, innocent, girlish and her only 
 thought was to get away from the hell she had left 
 behind. The worldly wise hand would have kept 
 from her the evil blasts that so soon blew but an 
 overruling Providence loved her and had her in
 
 THE GREAT AWAKENING 105 
 
 hand for it was His purpose to greatly use her life 
 for the benefit of others and to finally crown her 
 with a crown the only crown that fadeth not away 
 the crown of the love of God. 
 
 All was so wonderful to Dunora. She was filled 
 with myriad thoughts for she was ever a dreamer. 
 As the steamer left Popham Beach Dunora's wonder 
 made her unmindful of her immediate surroundings. 
 The little girl, never before allowed out of her yard 
 to play, except on the one previous trip to Popham 
 Beach, now began, for the first time in her life, to 
 go beyond that first trip. There beyond her was 
 the Gorgon eye of Seguin Island staring remorse- 
 lessly at her. It was night and the phantoms of a 
 vivid childish imagination peopled her brain. The 
 great glaring eye became that of some supernatural 
 being who presided over the blackness beyond. She 
 completely forgot the man Boynton, old enough to 
 be her father, and then begin all over again at in- 
 fancy and grow to fatherhood again without adding 
 a single year to those already flown over his head. 
 
 Seguin's unblinking eye fascinated her and she 
 began to entertain a phantasy of thoughts which 
 could never be portrayed but were very real. Never 
 did her fancy roam in any direction but what might 
 come to pass within the range of possibility. In- 
 tensely practical both from ancestry and because of 
 her stern life she was never an idle dreamer. Dream- 
 ing was hardly the word to use for it was not per- 
 mitting herself to drift mentally but rather, even in 
 one so young, it was constructive thinking. As they 
 passed out by Seguin onto the bosom of the broad 
 Atlantic Boynton gave her a key. "That is the 
 key to the stateroom," he said. She went there alone
 
 106 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 and prepared to retire. Soon there came a knock 
 at the door. "Who's there?" Dunora asked. "I, 
 Boynton!" "What do you want?" "Why, I want 
 to come in." There was a pause, then Dunora said, 
 "What for?" "Why, you silly little thing, I want to 
 come in to go to bed." Instantly came the rejoinder, 
 "No, indeed, you don't get in here. I never had a 
 man in my room in my life and I'm not going to 
 begin now !" Boynton raved. "Why, I'm your hus- 
 band; I have a right to come in there." "No, you 
 haven't either. You just married me to take me to 
 Boston to your sister's and you don't get in here;" 
 and she slammed the door bolt into place more 
 securely. He didn't get in no matter what he said. 
 Right here she began to harbor the thought that 
 this man appeared somewhat different from what she 
 had expected. He had talked in a way unlike his 
 former words. She admit him to the privacy of her 
 stateroom! The very idea of it enraged her and 
 sowed a little seed of distrust. 
 
 The next morning Dunora awoke to see the sight 
 of her life. There before her lay the metropolis of 
 New England in all its mightiness as seemed to her 
 eyes. She was speechless. They disembarked and 
 wandered up the streets, she utterly unable to speak. 
 At length they reached the Public Garden and there 
 she remained stationary gazing at the surrounding 
 buildings and came out of her silence. "Why do 
 they have these big, tall stores here?" she asked. 
 "Do people live way up there?" Boynton, being a 
 man of the world, laughed at her innocence. Then 
 she opened the floodgates of her questioning and 
 plied him with a cataract of interrogations. 
 
 But the tragedy of the situation is to be revealed
 
 THE GREAT AWAKENING 107 
 
 immediately. Boynton had deceived that girl into a 
 travesty of marriage when his total possessions in 
 the world were five dollars, with no business situation 
 and not a roof under which to lay his head. Just 
 think it over, reader. Yes just think it over, 
 reader. Think of what has already been shown of 
 the wonderful story of Dunora. Think of the cruel- 
 ties she already had endured and think of those 
 which have not been disclosed and which your imagi- 
 nation can conjure up. Think of the happy awaken- 
 ing Dunora had expected from her fifteen years of 
 heart longing and aching body and think of this 
 beginning of the awakening. And, last of all, think 
 of the entire innocence of the girl and the effect 
 which such a rude awakening must produce and think 
 of the inhuman suffering of mind which would be 
 caused by the realization of the truth. From the 
 other side also consider what that person has to 
 answer for who so sinned against the innocence of 
 this heart wrung girl. 
 
 Dunora was dazed by the sights of the great city. 
 Boynton led her on. "Where are you going now?" 
 the girl asked. "To Lynn," he replied. To Lynn 
 they went and Dunora asked to be taken to his sis- 
 ter's. "Not now, wait awhile," and the girl was too 
 bewildered to demur seriously. Into the old Lynn 
 railroad station they went and up into the gallery 
 to the newspaper stand. "What are you going to 
 do?" Dunora asked. "Look up a room," he replied. 
 "Why, you told me you would take me to your sis- 
 ter's when you got here ! What do you want a room 
 for when I am going to your sister's? Take me to 
 your sister's and then you can go to your home." 
 Boynton, small of stature as well as small in nature,
 
 108 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 hereupon for once spoke the truth. "I haven't any 
 home," he said. 
 
 "You haven't any home!" she repeated, stunned. 
 "No," he said. Then he added, "And I'm going to 
 hire a room and we are going there." "Mr. Boynton, 
 what do you mean?" the astonished Dunora asked. 
 "Just what I say !" he reiterated. "You married me 
 and you are going to live with me," he added. She 
 recoiled in horror. Her look was not one a real man 
 would have cared to have faced and a real man would 
 not have had to have faced any such look for a real 
 man would never have caused it. "Mr. Boynton," 
 she exclaimed, "do you mean to tell me you lied to 
 me? Do you mean to say that you lied to me? Why 
 I haven't married you really and you know it. I 
 never have been anywhere with a man in my life and 
 I only did what I did because you said you would 
 take me to your sister's and then have the marriage 
 taken back. Now I want you to keep your word. 
 I am a young girl and I expect you to protect me. 
 You told me this was for my protection and you 
 must protect me." 
 
 "You married me and you are going to live with 
 me, and that's all there is to it," Boynton exclaimed. 
 "What could you do without me. You haven't any 
 money and what could you do?" "What could I 
 do without you? Why, just what you yourself said 
 I would do. You told me you were taking me here 
 to put me in your sister's so that I could have my 
 heart's desire in going to school again. You told 
 me you would see that your sister would send me 
 to high school as I am ready to go now." 
 
 "Well, I can't take you to my sister's to-day and 
 we are married and you must come with me now."
 
 THE GREAT AWAKENING 109 
 
 "Why don't you get one place for yourself and one 
 for me, then?" she interrogated. "I can't." "You 
 can't! Why not?" He put his hand in his pocket 
 and drew out five dollars. "That is all the money I 
 have and I can't get two separate rooms with that." 
 "Well, you can get some more from what you have 
 that isn't in your pocket." "I haven't any more." 
 
 The girl looked at him in a manner which indicated 
 that she did not comprehend. Then she voiced her 
 thoughts. "I don't understand." He repeated his 
 words. "I haven't any more." "Yes, but I mean 
 you can get some more from what you have saved." 
 "I haven't saved anything," he asserted. Again her 
 puzzled look. "Do you mean to say that that is all 
 the money you own ?" He hesitated a moment and he 
 replied, "Yes." 
 
 Even then Dunora endeavored to look on the 
 bright side. "You can get more money from the 
 place where you work." He put the finishing 
 touches on the tragedy. "I haven't any work !" 
 Then the bravery of Dunora came to the front. "Go 
 and get some. If I can help you get some I will. I'll 
 be at your sister's and you can take care of your- 
 self with that money till you get some more work." 
 
 Boynton then disclosed his hand as would have 
 been said at a poker game. "I can't take you to my 
 sister's now and you have got to come with me." 
 The girl was young. She had not then fought the 
 world. She knew nothing to do but temporarily 
 accept the situation, but there was then born in her 
 mind a seed which soon would bud forth into flower 
 and the budding of which required for fertilization 
 a degree of heroism seldom seen on a cannon rocked 
 battlefield.
 
 110 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 In the gallery of the railroad station he looked 
 over the files of newspapers to find the cheapest 
 room he could find and when he saw the mention of 
 one the price of which suited him they started out 
 to find it. It was near the center of the city and 
 was an attic room ! The contrast between the coun- 
 try home she had left and the miserable hovel under 
 the eaves at which she was then looking was too 
 extreme to be pictured in words. He tried to ex- 
 cuse it, "I can't afford any other." She thought a 
 moment and then said, "When you spoke to me in 
 Gardiner and told me you would take me to your 
 sister's, you lied. And when you took me here you 
 knew how little money you had, didn't you?" He 
 made no response, for he couldn't. She insisted 
 upon another cot bed being put in the room and on 
 having a sheet hung from the ceiling to form a par- 
 tition. This was reluctantly done. She kept herself 
 entirely aloof. The room cost one dollar and a 
 half which left them three dollars and a half in 
 the world with no present means of getting more. 
 That first week had better be passed over without 
 other comment than to say that soup bones formed 
 their food and utter misery crowned every hour of 
 Dunora's existence. 
 
 Boynton did not over exert himself to find work. 
 He felt that he had Dunora in his clutches and he 
 meant to take every advantage of what he thought 
 was a fact and felt not the slightest inclination to 
 do one kindly act for her or in the least alleviate 
 her sufferings. Such was the great awakening to 
 her trip from Gardiner. Could human endurance 
 live through it? We will see.
 
 CHAPTER THIRTEEN 
 
 THE UNSEEN STOBM 
 
 It takes, perchance, the earthquake's shock 
 
 To change the stolid, stern-ribbed rock. 
 
 It takes the whelming force of gale 
 
 To make the oak-ribbed ship's sides fail. 
 
 It takes the unseen storms of life 
 
 To cut with deeper wound than knife, 
 
 And from the operation wild 
 
 Produce, at length, the perfect child. 
 
 THE hideousness of Dunora's surroundings, the 
 poverty of her situation, the terribleness of her 
 awakening, the clanging noises of the city all con- 
 spired to produce a temporary numbing effect upon 
 Dunora's mind. The effect of her previous life, the 
 numerous beatings she had needlessly received, the 
 self denials 'all had produced a rather fatalistic ten- 
 dency to steel her heart and accept situations as 
 they came. Weeks passed in this terrible situation 
 for the helpless girl and thought after thought 
 chased one another through her brain. The most 
 depressing thing in her life thus far was the final 
 knowledge that all that Boynton had promised her 
 in Gardiner were lies, that he saw an innocent and 
 helpless girl and thought he could get the better of 
 her, that he married her under the guise of protec- 
 
 111
 
 112 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 tion which he did not intend to produce, that he 
 did not intend to take her to his sister's and that 
 he never intended to send her to school. 
 
 Finally he got work in a shoe factory at seven 
 dollars a week and he spent a good portion of that. 
 Three dollars a week was the total sum on which 
 they were fed. And Dunora made that do for food. 
 Bitterly did she long for even the hell from which she 
 had come in Gardiner. 
 
 "Where were you at twelve yesterday?" asked 
 Boynton one night. "Out in the market getting 
 food." Then she resumed, "How did you know 
 I was out? You were at work." "No, I wasn't. I 
 thought I would come home to see where you were 
 and I found you out." "Yes, I do not stay in all 
 the time. I have need of going out at least some 
 both for air and to buy food." Boynton said noth- 
 ing but a queer look came over his face. There never 
 was much conversation between them for it became 
 the barest existence for Dunora and Boynton lost 
 all joy save that of seeming possession. 
 
 The next morning Boynton had a quick glancing 
 look when he came to the breakfast table. He spoke 
 only in monosyllables. As he arose to go to work 
 he took the room key from his pocket and turned 
 to Dunora. He stood near the door and shook the 
 key toward her. "I know one thing, Dunora, today." 
 And he smiled evilly. "I know that you won't go out 
 to market to-day!" And he hurried through the 
 door, thrust in the key from the outside and 
 locked it. 
 
 For a short time Dunora stood there, as her be- 
 wildered senses did not at once grasp the situation 
 for she had had no warning of his action. Then
 
 THE UNSEEN STORM 113 
 
 the full meaning of it dawned upon her and she 
 knew she was locked in till he returned at night. 
 Her first thought was to scream for assistance but 
 her second thought was to see it out and endure it, 
 and endure it she did. All day long she was alone 
 in that room with her thoughts and they began to 
 focus themselves on a certain line of action. When 
 he returned at night she made no reference to his 
 act of the morning and no word as to any dis- 
 comfort. He was denied the satisfaction which a 
 brute usually expects from the complaints of his 
 victim. Not the slightest word or gesture indicating 
 anything out of the ordinary came from Dunora's 
 lips. 
 
 Bad went to worse. If Dunora wanted a postage 
 stamp he desired to know to whom she was going to 
 write and then he would send her out with just the 
 two cents for the stamp. On one of these lone trips 
 a drunken man attempted to seize her and the fright- 
 ened girl ran back to the miserable room breathless. 
 Slowly but surely there was working in her mind a 
 method of emancipation. She was not at first con- 
 scious of its meaning. But a happening which soon 
 occurred brought matters more and more to a 
 climax. Dunora was obliged repeatedly to cook soup 
 bones and herring. On one occasion she put too 
 much salt in the soup to suit his taste and he flew 
 into a coward's rage and called the innocent little 
 
 girl a "G d son of a b !" Dunora was 
 
 stunned. Not one of her family in Gardiner had 
 she ever heard swear, much less at her. Not one of 
 the Gardiner family used tobacco either and the 
 experience just mentioned was like the cut of a 
 cruel knife. Yet she was so overwhelmed with the
 
 114 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 greatness of her crime in putting too much salt in 
 the soup that she stole away to the roof to actually 
 throw herself to the ground had she not been pre- 
 vented from so doing. What better illustration 
 could there be of the fact of her remarkable inno- 
 cence and innocent exaggeration of a mistake into 
 a heinous crime and even then the mistake was prob- 
 ably not made. 
 
 How well it also illustrates her sensitive nature 
 and this additional astounding fact that-she-had- 
 actually-rather-kill-herself-than - even - offend - the - 
 physical-taste-of-a-person-she-loathed. Could a bet- 
 ter example of genuine unselfishness be conceived. 
 I trow not. And think of the crime of cursing with 
 an oath a child like that! 
 
 Oh lassie wee, before thy humble self, 
 I fain would do a reverential act, 
 
 For I have never seen the wide world o'er, 
 Self sacrifice so surely made a fact. 
 
 I feel that all my boasted gain were naught, 
 That any virtue I could claim were dross, 
 
 That all the claims I have on being good 
 Were really simmered down to very loss. 
 
 And so thy beacon light of humbleness, 
 
 Which really proves to moral greatness be, 
 
 May always stand before me as a guide 
 'Til thy true worth is also found in me. 
 
 For, as the poet says, our lives indeed 
 
 Are not alone and solitary run 
 For echoes from our souls survive e'en death 
 
 And live while lights the day the living sun.
 
 THE UNSEEN STORM 115 
 
 So praises be to Him who dwells above, 
 
 That looking o'er the throngs of men below, 
 
 He found you worthy of His mighty love 
 
 And gave to me your real self true to know. 
 
 In the days that followed the little Dunora lived 
 hourly agony. Imagine yourself in her place. Two 
 herring for supper, a curse for grace, a frown for 
 a smile, detestation for love. Gardiner had been 
 a paradise to that. The mythical hell itself would 
 at least have had fellow pity. Sordidness, poverty, 
 ignorance, cruelty, inhumanity, jealousy, hate, hun- 
 ger of body and soul were her lot. 
 
 She grew afraid of all men. One evening she had 
 gone out to the market and, hurrying back through 
 a partially darkened street, a brutal Italian at- 
 tempted to seize her. There had been an observer 
 who hurried over to her assistance and the Italian 
 fled. "May I not see you safely home?" said the 
 protector. "Oh, no, thank you, please. I had rather 
 go alone now. You know I am afraid of you too." 
 
 Frequently Boynton said to her, "If you go out 
 of this house to-day I shall know it and you'll suffer 
 for it !" He kept her a prisoner. Young, defence- 
 less, knowing no friend, not even her foster parents 
 as such she was apparently helpless and Boynton 
 took every advantage of it. She finally was obliged 
 to work to get materials for her own clothes and 
 being insufficiently fed she more than once fainted at 
 her work. Boynton's supplying her with such a 
 small sum of money forced her to work at the first 
 place where she could get honorable work in order 
 to obtain the cheapest of raiment even. This place 
 at that time happened to be a shoe factory. One
 
 116 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 phase of .Dunora's character has not as yet been 
 separately mentioned. She was proud of spirit and 
 this came naturally from an ancestry of spirited 
 blood. Being so the sordid and bestial things 
 she endured were excessively difficult for her to en- 
 dure. An insult stabbed her to the quick, a rebuff 
 was never forgotten. She was like a tuning fork, 
 tuned to a clear pitch to which only it responds 
 and yet is jarred by the discordant sounds 
 around it. 
 
 With this pride of spirit was naturally a pride in 
 personal appearance and after her experience in 
 picking blueberries in the Highland Pasture to buy 
 open work stockings the miserable clothes she was 
 forced to wear hurt her inborn feelings much. She 
 delighted in good clothes, in ladylike appearance, in 
 tasty surroundings. 
 
 In spite of her weight of humiliation and sorrow 
 Dunora carried a smiling face and a cheery way. It 
 won her more than one friend and saved her in more 
 than one desperate situation. It lightened many 
 another burden especially in that shoe factory. All 
 day long, day after day, the lass worked at a ma- 
 chine in that Lynn factory. Tired at night she 
 went home to prepare a meal which would only 
 keep soul and body together and at the week's end 
 all her toil, all her honesty, all her effort were re- 
 paid by not enough to buy more than a cheap pair 
 of shoes or a thin cotton dress. And all this time, 
 as all over the civilized world, her employers and 
 employers of other like laborers were fattening their 
 pocketbooks merely because they had more money to 
 start with in the first place. 
 
 Occasionally, and then more frequently, the super-
 
 THE UNSEEN STORM 117 
 
 intendent of the factory passed Dunora's bench and 
 he made it a point to stop and talk with her. Little 
 by little he induced Dunora to tell her story piece by 
 piece and he read her misery and her pitiable situ- 
 ation. The innocent girl would have thought she 
 had divulged next to nothing and her actual words 
 said little but the superintendent surmised the re- 
 mainder. 
 
 Day after day little almost unnoticed kindnesses 
 were extended to Dunora by the superintendent or 
 at his order. One day at the elevator, the elevator 
 man offered to take her upstairs instead of obliging 
 her to walk up as the others did. He offered this aid 
 because Dunora was so cheery and pleasant. The 
 boss of the floor was passing by and saw Dunora 
 enter the elevator. He objected. "See here, Brown," 
 he called out, "why do you take her up. You know 
 the rules are that no employee ride on the elevator." 
 The superintendent was also passing. "Brown, you 
 take that girl up in the elevator and if I hear any 
 more objections from you, Billings, I'll fire you." 
 
 Some days later the superintendent passed Du- 
 nora's bench and said, "Come down into my office 
 at noon. I want to talk to you." At noon the little 
 girl, for little girl she was, went in wonder to the 
 office door. "Do you suppose he is going to raise 
 my wages ?" was the thought which went through her 
 brain. 
 
 As she came to the office door it was partially 
 open and through it she saw the superintendent sit- 
 ting expectantly within. She hesitated but rapped 
 softly and he at once sprang to his feet and threw 
 the door completely open with a gesture intended to 
 give the impression of chivalry. "Come in !" he said.
 
 118 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 She followed him within and hardly noticed that 
 he closed the door behind her. Pointing to a com- 
 fortable easy chair, he asked her to take a seat. He 
 did not begin his direct conversation at once. She 
 simply said "yes" and "no" as he asked preliminary 
 questions about the factory and her work there. 
 Then he turned onto other matters. "You are a 
 very good looking girl," he remarked. She looked at 
 him in mute wonder not understanding why he made 
 so personal a remark. She made no answer but 
 instantly wished she hadn't come into the office. She 
 arose. He exclaimed, "What's the trouble?" "I 
 thought you wanted to see me on business." "I do." 
 She remained standing waiting for him to disclose his 
 business. "Please sit down. There is no hurry," he re- 
 marked. "I have noticed your work. It is very well 
 done and there are few in the factory who do nearly 
 as well as you. You are fit for better things. You 
 are not in your right place here." "What do you 
 mean by that, Mr. Loring? I do not understand 
 you. I am but a young girl and I cannot under- 
 stand hidden meanings. You will have to talk 
 plainly." "I mean this. You are out of your proper 
 surroundings here. You should not work in this 
 factory. Everything is unpleasant to you here. 
 You should be in better surroundings and you can be, 
 if you will. I am inclined to help you. The place 
 you call home I have found out is a miserable make- 
 shift. 
 
 "Now I have everything you haven't. Be reason- 
 able. No one need know of this talk. It is between 
 us. I will give you everything you have dreamed 
 of if you will go away with me." 
 
 In the instant that Dunora began to surmise the
 
 THE UNSEEN STORM 119 
 
 drift of his words a moment of her dreaming came. 
 For the instant she lost her immediate surroundings 
 and a vision came. She saw, ah! so distinctly, the 
 hell she had been through, the starvings, the bare 
 rooms, the early risings, the heart wringing work, 
 the lies, the deception, the distrust, the broken vow. 
 And over against that reality came a picture of what 
 the other side would mean, pictured as only her vivid 
 imagination could do and her longing for pleasant 
 surroundings could manufacture. 
 
 All this occurred probably in only the length of 
 time psychologists tell us a dream consumes, namely, 
 two seconds. Then she came to herself. She arose 
 and her soul shone from her eyes. "Mr. Loring, I 
 did not come into this office to be insulted. I did not 
 come here to hear the basest insult that could be 
 given a woman. I supposed, I was coming into the 
 office of a man. I see I did not. You would feel 
 nicely if I went home to your wife and told her, 
 wouldn't you? Oh, yes, you can well turn pale. 
 There isn't a human being on earth as base as your 
 kind. You're not a man, you are a coward, a selfish 
 animal lower than a dog!" 
 
 She turned to go. "Stop !" he called. She turned 
 her blazing eyes on him. "You can take your choice, 
 you can either do as I say or you are discharged !" 
 She walked right up to him and fixed his now shift- 
 ing eyes full in the blaze of her staring orbs. "There 
 is no name I can think of that fits you. I am not 
 used to knowing filthy names. Oh, I was fit for a 
 better life, was I? I was out of my proper sur- 
 roundings here, was I? You were interested in my 
 case, were you, and want to help me? You show 
 it now, don't you? You show your true colors and
 
 120 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 they are the dirtiest on earth! Don't think you can 
 discharge me! Discharge one idea you have! Dis- 
 charge the idea that I would ever remain in this fac- 
 tory longer than to get my hat ! I discharge you as 
 being my superintendent !" 
 
 Hopeless, dark, hellish grew the days and where 
 she had been promised protection she found every 
 opposite of it. No man is so base as he who takes 
 advantage of a woman. The worst thing on earth 
 is taking advantage of even an evil woman and a 
 worse thing than the worst thing on earth is taking 
 advantage of a woman who has even the least pre- 
 tense to decency. Might never made right and never 
 will. Selfishness never was right and never will be. 
 
 She dreaded to see him come home at night. No 
 salutation came from either one. Worse and worse 
 grew the atmosphere. She never gave him cause for 
 any distrust or any complaint for she faithfully did 
 more than need required as her great remorse showed 
 when she was accused of having put in too much salt 
 to suit Boynton's taste. 
 
 Now these inclement storms which beat upon this 
 innocent young life all had their purpose, though 
 unseen at the time. 
 
 "It takes the unseen storms of life 
 To cut with deeper wound than knife, 
 And from the operation wild 
 Produce, at length, the perfect child." 
 
 It is a strange perversion of human nature that 
 when a person is persecuted or wronged other neigh- 
 boring persons take pleasure in joining in the perse- 
 cution. It is the rare occasion when a being openly
 
 THE UNSEEN STORM 121 
 
 takes the side of one to side with whom might be 
 unpopular. A woman living in the same house where 
 our heroine lived in the attic, lied to Boynton one 
 night and told him that Dunora had been seen walk- 
 ing on the street with a man. "So you're going to 
 play me false, girl, are you? I'll teach you to!" he 
 exclaimed and he shoved her into an empty room 
 and kept her locked therein twenty-four hours. 
 
 When shopping with her he would swear at her 
 and call her filthy names right in front of clerks 
 and onlookers. More than once people intervened 
 in her behalf. The vilest of names were the ones 
 Boynton chose to call her before crowds. Her flesh 
 fell away, her mind became terribly worried. She 
 began to age when not out of her teens. Two years 
 of this were borne by her, every day an increasing 
 agony. A girl baby came. Finally he began to beat 
 her, he kicked her down stairs just before the baby 
 was born and, longing for love, saved from suicide 
 by the Godsend of her baby, she finally brought mat- 
 ters to a head by spending one night with a girl 
 friend and the next day leaving him and passing 
 through the door out into the world without the 
 baby, whom she could not support, without a cent 
 or a friend and only the poor clothes on her back. 
 
 "And from the operation wild 
 Produce, at length, a perfect child."
 
 CHAPTER FOURTEEN 
 
 OUT INTO THE WORLD ALONE 
 
 OUT into the world alone ! Dear little Dunora, 
 it is a very brave step you have taken, for you, 
 unaided, have undertaken to beard the lion in his 
 den, to face the world where the devil rules in ninety- 
 nine hearts while God rules in one. But God is 
 watching you and God is going to rule in your dear 
 heart. 
 
 He-had-struck-her. Four small words yet a world 
 of meaning. Her wounded spirit answered not in 
 words but deeply within. She had arisen from where 
 she had been stricken, she the mother at sixteen! 
 No mother lived to protect her. All alone she had 
 arisen from the hellish blow. When he came home 
 that night Dunora had gone to a girl friend's. 
 
 The following evening Boynton came from the 
 shoe shop and found her in the room. The inno- 
 cent baby lifted its arms to its mother. The small 
 Boynton, for he was small, was not affected by the 
 sacrifice she had made for him nor by the baby's 
 prattle. "Where were you last night, you s 
 of ab !" 
 
 "Mr. Boynton, that is not my name. When you 
 call me by my right name perhaps I will answer." 
 "Perhaps you will answer!" he screamed. "You'll 
 answer now, damn you!" He looked into Dunora's 
 
 122
 
 OUT INTO THE WORLD 123 
 
 white face and a look he had never seen there before 
 calmed him suddenly. He turned to a whipped 
 whine. "Where were you, Dunora?" he asked. "You 
 do not suppose I would stay in this place after you 
 
 struck me. I went to Miss 's," mentioning her 
 
 friend's name. "You lie, you she devil !" he shouted. 
 "You were out all night with a man !" 
 
 Into Dunora's cheeks there came a quick flush. 
 There was no immediate answer made. Slowly she 
 grew rigid then the storm broke. "You miserable 
 excuse of a man, you will never have a chance to 
 speak that lie in my hearing again. It is time for 
 me to speak my mind and have my say now. For 
 all these long, bitter months and now years I have 
 endured what I have endured and I don't intend to 
 any more. Once I trusted you. You took advan- 
 tage of my innocence in Gardiner. I knew nothing 
 of the world but you and I believed in you. You 
 won my confidence for I believed you would help me 
 as you said you would. How have you kept your 
 word? What have you done for me? Nothing. 
 You have starved me, underclothed me, beaten me, 
 sworn at me, lied to me, debased me and more too 
 and I have not turned till now but now I turn. 
 When have you taken me to live at your sister's? 
 Never. When have you sent me to school as you 
 promised? Never. When have you annulled the 
 marriage which was undertaken only to make our 
 trip to Boston properly chaperoned? Never. You 
 meant to deceive me in all this and I shall be deceived 
 no longer. I am taking matters into my own hands 
 now and at last I am myself. I'll stand your abuse 
 no longer." She picked up her hat and went forth 
 into the world.
 
 124 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 Ah ! but there was a terrible wrench to leave that 
 prattling infant behind. That one fact alone proved 
 the inhumanity of her treatment much more than 
 words can. How much that is terrible do you sup- 
 pose would be necessary to tear a mother from her 
 only child? A mother from a child whose existence 
 had saved her from suicide, a child which came in 
 agony of body existing with an untold agony of 
 mind? Ah, think well of that! And do you suppose 
 that little lady went forth from that door with a 
 smile 'on her face? Ah, far from that! 
 
 The brave words she had spoken within were for- 
 gotten when no longer they were needed and the 
 most pitiful sight on any street that day was to be 
 seen at that door in the heartless city of Lynn. Oh, 
 what a pitiless blast smote the poorly clad form of 
 the little girl, far, far too young to be a mother. 
 What a sight was that! In cushioned and velvet 
 adorned rooms the children of pampered luxury re- 
 clined at ease or indulged in their selfish amusements 
 never thinking of better children less favored. And 
 who thought of the little Dunora, homeless, friend- 
 less, penniless, childless, foodless? Only He. Oh, it 
 seems like fiction and as if it couldn't be fact. It 
 seems as if such dreadful things could not have hap- 
 pened and as if this tale must be a work of an over- 
 excited imagination. But it was fact, fact, fact 
 and the little Dunora faced that fact alone and un- 
 aided. All honor to her! How many other girls, if 
 a similar situation confronted them, would have 
 burned every bridge behind them and faced an un- 
 known world alone? 
 
 Dunora lifted her face to the distant heavens as
 
 OUT INTO THE WORLD 125 
 
 she left the door of what she had called home for 
 want of a better name. She did not voice a prayer 
 for she hardly knew how but a great mother yearn- 
 ing and voiceless agony of need welled from her great 
 eyes. She did not heed the hurrying people on the 
 thoroughfare below for her mind was not on people 
 but conditions. The house in which she had lived 
 was on a side street and no one was passing as she 
 emerged on the journey that was to be so momentous. 
 Apparently no one observed her and the heart- 
 broken lass slipped into a passageway between high 
 walled houses and fell to the ground in mortal agony. 
 Before her tear brimmed eyes sped the panorama of 
 the past in all its hideousness, a sorry, sorry sight 
 for a girl as innocent, guiltless and kind as ever 
 lived. And she saw through that wooden wall she 
 had left behind her the helpless baby, born of her 
 body, conceived in her agony, sent by God to save 
 her from despair and demolition the baby her every 
 impulse cried out for, her every feeling demanded. 
 
 And all innocent of the tragedy of suffering of 
 its mother the prattling infant gurgled on. And 
 in her mind's recesses Dunora heard her infant's 
 voice and threw herself upon the ground and sobbed. 
 Pick her up in your arms of love, oh, Thou on High ! 
 For she needs You. Human help is not near her 
 and no human ear hears her as she rises, stretches 
 her yearning arms toward the house and cries 
 "Irene! Oh, Irene!" 
 
 Yet to Dunora's cry there was no response. The 
 unfeeling walls of brick and stone made no reply and 
 dumb nature was silent as her dumbness. The little 
 mother bent her head after her heart's appeal and
 
 126 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 a great sob poured out of her wounded spirit its 
 very essence. Steeling her sorrow marked face she 
 put forth her little foot and her journey upward in 
 life had begun. Against the organized powers of 
 evil and the innate gluttony and selfishness of human 
 beings, the little Dunora unknowingly pitted her- 
 self and the path she was to tread was to be one 
 never exactly so trodden by any mortal before, one 
 fraught with untold and great dangers, perils of 
 body and soul and sufferings of mind and spirit and 
 marked by a heroism which will do untold good in 
 the reading. 
 
 At the moment of leaving the house her mind had 
 not formulated any plan. Her one desire was to 
 break the environs of living hell. But now the 
 thought came, "Where shall I go?" She had been 
 so closely confined to the rooms where Boynton lived 
 that she had made few acquaintances outside and 
 she faced the world alone. She turned toward the 
 eastern section of the city and wandered, at first a 
 little aimlessly but her steps took a definite direc- 
 tion soon and after a mile or so of being alone with 
 her almost overwhelming weight of thought she came 
 to a small house on one of the great avenues of Lynn, 
 one of those extending east and west and limited 
 only by the eastern and western boundaries of the 
 municipality. She observed a sign in the window, 
 "Seamstress wanted." Then she went down town 
 again, but returned. 
 
 She passed through the little yard, went up the 
 small flight of steps and rang the clanging door- 
 bell which echoed and re-echoed through the cavern- 
 ous interior as if starting to life the ghosts of the 
 long silent past which hurried from their dusty cor-
 
 OUT INTO THE WORLD 127 
 
 ners in affright only to hurry back again and re- 
 lapse into the felt quiet of their customary ex- 
 istence. 
 
 There was a period of what seemed like very much 
 prolonged silence following the clanging of the bell. 
 Then, in a rear room, there was a movement. It 
 was that of a lady who, with spectacled eyes, had 
 been bending over some sewing and so bending and 
 working as if she were accustomed to such work. 
 Slowly she put down the spectacles and arose delib- 
 erately and somewhat reluctantly as if fatigued. 
 The poor woman was tired from prolonged work. 
 She went to the door as deliberately as she had arisen 
 and her feet fell on the carpeted floor with a cadence 
 which indicated a quiet and easy going disposition. 
 She opened the door in a businesslike manner as if 
 expecting a business call. And it was such though 
 she did not know it. As she opened the door and 
 beheld Dunora she asked, "What do you wish, little 
 girl?" "I saw a sign in your window 'Seamstress 
 wanted.' I can sew. Can I have the position?" 
 The lady smiled. "Come in, dear," she said. The 
 contrast between the last word and the ones to which 
 she had become accustomed was startling to Dunora. 
 She went in at once. "I can sew. I really can 
 sew," asserted the girl with an anxiety which showed 
 her exceeding desire to secure the position. "I've 
 had experience," she added, as if to clinch the situa- 
 tion. 
 
 The good lady smiled indulgently. "Never mind 
 about the experience," she said. "I know that you 
 will do for what I want. I will tell you a secret. 
 I saw you when you passed this house the first time. 
 I saw you look at the sign in the window. You
 
 128 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 looked so innocent and trustful that my heart went 
 out to you. Your great big eyes spoke to me. I 
 saw you turn away but something told me you would 
 return. Three girls came here, for the situation 
 after you went away but I told them all that it was 
 taken for I wanted you to have it when you returned 
 as I felt you would." 
 
 Dunora was in just the attitude of mind to have 
 such interest as this strongly appeal to her. Not 
 since her birth could she ever remember words as 
 kind even as this. Her heart went out in response as 
 much as a crushed heart could go. In this unex- 
 pected moment and when most needed she had found 
 a friend. "I thank you," was all she said, but it 
 meant volumes with her. 
 
 "Now you will not find the work hard. I will 
 teach you the trade of seamstress and you can make 
 it your trade if you care to do so. I have plenty 
 of work and will pay you six dollars a week to start 
 with." Dunora didn't stop to think how far six dol- 
 lars a week would go in providing for the need of 
 room, food and clothes, but she was filled with joy 
 at the thought of a means of supporting herself 
 and said, "I will be glad to do the work."
 
 CHAPTER FIFTEEN 
 
 THE CRY OF A BROKEN HEART 
 
 AS her wearied fingers finished their first day's 
 faithful task she had to hunt up a room in 
 which to live and her search resulted in her taking 
 a little room on the northerly side of School Street 
 in the top floor of an apartment house. Oh, that 
 room in the house on School Street ! Did its builders 
 imagine such a scene in it when they built it? No 
 indeed ! With them it was a business of dollars and 
 cents. It was also a cold blooded business of dol- 
 lars and cents to the landlady who opened the door 
 for Dunora. For Dunora it was different. 
 
 The door closed. She was alone for the first time 
 without her daughter. Ten words a mental 
 tragedy. Who can describe her feelings? Who can 
 tell the scene those four walls saw? When once the 
 door was closed, for the first night without her baby 
 Dunora lost all restraint. Nothing to be seen but 
 four silent, pitiless walls and the man who drove her 
 from the apology for a home that he had provided 
 was with her baby, the baby for which she had suf- 
 fered inhumanly, the baby that was part of her very 
 life and for which alone she had given of herself. 
 The great mother yearning came and overwhelmed 
 her in the flood of its emotion. 
 
 "Oh, Irene ! Irene !" she cried, as soon as the f oot- 
 129
 
 130 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 falls of the landlady grew indistinct on the stairs 
 below. "Oh, Irene! Irene!" was her repeated cry as 
 she threw her little body on the bed and her whole 
 frame wracked itself with her incessant sobs. The 
 tears came copiously and the spasms of her anguish 
 expressed themselves in writhings of body and writh- 
 ings of heart. Her grief was overwhelming. And 
 the clock struck nine. Each beat struck a 
 thrust into her very soul. And on went time 
 in that hellish night. Can you imagine, 
 youthful mothers, the feelings you would have if you 
 were torn from your first born thus, if since birth 
 two little arms had twined around your neck at 
 night and a little voice had said, "You seep, 
 mamma?" And mamma had pretended to be sound 
 asleep but had seen through even closed eyes the 
 little part of her own body creep up and look over 
 to see if mamma's eyes were closed. And the clock 
 tolled ten on Dunora's wide, streaming eyes. 
 
 The mattress became wetter and wetter. "Oh, 
 baby, baby," moaned the poor Dunora as she tossed 
 to another side of the tumbled bed. "Oh, baby, baby, 
 b-a-b-y! ! !" And then, "Irene. Irene!" And this 
 till eleven was struck on the church bell. 
 
 Her eyes swelled, her breast ached, the mattress 
 grew damper and damper until it actually grew 
 moist on the under side. And twelve struck on the 
 clock and reverberated through the still streets. 
 Midnight had arrived and Dunora yet sobbed and 
 sobbed and cried for "Baby ! Baby !" And, oh, the 
 void of those little arms around the mother's neck. 
 And one struck. And two struck ! Then temporary 
 exhaustion came. On the nether wall the glare from 
 the staring arc light in the street shimmered on the
 
 OUT INTO THE WORLD 131 
 
 plaster. Dunora's weary eyes beheld it for the first 
 time and, somehow, the sight fascinated her. The 
 optical illusion worked on her overwrought nerves 
 and took possession of her. She seemed fascinated 
 by the scintillations of the ever-changing light waves. 
 They journeyed over the wall as if chasing one an- 
 other along a never ending road, each one eager to 
 catch its predecessor. Her mind, exhausted, wan- 
 dered. She grew delirious from terrific strain and 
 tremendous suffering. Pitiful, pitiful was the sight. 
 And the clock tolled three. One! two! three! 
 clanged through the vacant streets and into the un- 
 hearing ears of the suffering girl. "Yes, dearie, 
 yes, mother's coming!" and she put up her arms to- 
 ward the shimmering light on the wall as, in her 
 delirium, she saw the toddling feet of the little Irene 
 trudging down that road of glory. "Just wait, 
 precious ! I'll catch you !" and she arose from the 
 drenched bed and staggered toward the lighted wall 
 with outstretched arms to clasp the Irene of the 
 vision. "Mother's coming, dear, don't fall! I'll be 
 there! Steady, dear!" and her dear outstretched 
 arms buckled to her body as she crashed against 
 the stone-like wall and fell in a heap on the floor. 
 The blow brought the tortured girl out of her 
 vagary and to her right senses. With a wide-eyed 
 stare around from where she lay in a pitiful heap she 
 gathered in her surroundings and circumstances. 
 She arose with an unsteady motion, to her feet. 
 Then her arms were thrown upward instantaneously 
 and there came from her beautiful lips a long drawn, 
 pitiful, agonized and tremulous wail like the long 
 drawn agony of a departing soul and the dear child 
 mother fell absolutely unconscious to the floor. Long
 
 132 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 her form remained there prone. The clock slowly 
 tolled four and still the form of Dunora lay on the 
 floor unconscious. Another long hour went and 
 one two three four five struck and Dunora had 
 not moved. The bird life of the city stirred, but 
 the poor girl heard not and when one two three 
 four five six clanged out and the hurrying feet 
 of the early toilers went by Dunora heard not even 
 that. Seven tolled and she lay there. Eight struck 
 with no movement on the little mother's part. There 
 came a knock at the door. Dunora heard not. It 
 was repeated but she did not answer the summons. 
 Then the door was shaken but it made no impres- 
 sion on the unconscious form of Dunora. The mes- 
 senger concluded that she was not there and went 
 away. He was the son of the seamstress for whom 
 she had gone to work the previous morning. When 
 he returned without Dunora the good lady sent her 
 daughter, for she felt that something was wrong. 
 This girl came to the door between eight and nine 
 and she knocked and the unconscious Dunora heard 
 not even then. But the girl caller was prepared for 
 eventualities and she took from her pocket a skeleton 
 key and turned the key in the lock on Dunora's 
 door. When the door was opened the sight that 
 met her gaze made her gasp with astonishment. "My 
 God !" she exclaimed with the first cry of the utterly 
 astonished. She flew to the poor, prostrate form 
 and picked the unconscious Dunora up in her arms. 
 Then she rubbed her face and breast and, as she 
 didn't arouse, the caller rushed for a tumbler of 
 water and returned to rub it on Dunora's face and 
 chest. 
 
 Then slowly the great suffering eyes rolled open
 
 OUT INTO THE WORLD 133 
 
 and stared blankly at the girl who held her propped 
 up in her arms. She did not speak. She did not 
 understand. "Dunora ! Dunora ! Don't you know 
 me?" spoke the girl. Finally Dunora found words. 
 "Where am I?" she asked. 
 
 "Never mind where you are, dear, now. You'll 
 come with me soon where we will care for you." And 
 she put Dunora, whose rumpled clothes bespoke the 
 night of horror she had spent, on the bed. Finally, 
 after she had been cared for and soothed enough, the 
 girl took Dunora out and gave her a hot dinner. It 
 was the first respectable meal she had eaten for 
 many, many weeks. 
 
 When she arrived at her place of work it was 
 with swollen eyes and puffed cheeks and every other 
 sign of her fearful night. She was woefully weak 
 but took up her task with the bravery which always 
 characterized her. That afternoon, late, great joy 
 came to her for she went to the place where Irene 
 boarded and clasped her in her arms. Did that 
 night just passed come up in her mind? Did the 
 contrast between that night and having Irene in 
 her arms come up in her mind? 
 
 Irene was a most endearing child. Dunora was 
 accustomed to sleep beside her crib and early in the 
 mornings the little girl would peek up over the iron 
 rail at her apparently sleeping mother and then 
 slowly creep over the rail onto the bed and behind 
 Dunora where she would cuddle down saying, "I 
 know I'se naughty but I wants my mamma." Then 
 invariably the little hand crept over the body of her 
 mother and rested lovingly around her neck. And 
 with a mother so lonely, so denied the lovely and 
 enjoyable things of life can any one else appreciate
 
 134 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 how fully that youthful mother thrilled with that 
 touch. 
 
 "Oh, Irene, Irene! Mamma never even knew how 
 much she loved you till last night. Dear little girlie," 
 and here she recrushed her in her arms, "you will 
 never know what mamma suffered last night and I 
 want you never to know. Oh, Irene, Irene, how 
 mamma does love you, oh, how mamma does love 
 you!" And the poor little mother buried her head 
 in the bosom of her first born. 
 
 And the little lass, innocent of knowledge, laughed 
 a childish laugh of guileless simplicity and utter 
 mother love. 
 
 Two weeks went by and each day when not ex- 
 hausted with work the Dunora who spurned all for 
 honor's sake saw Irene at her place of boarding. 
 With what delirium of anticipation she toiled with 
 tired fingers through the long hours of work looking 
 forward to the hour of meeting. The poor Dunora 
 as well as working at learning the trade of dress- 
 making for the pittance for which she worked also 
 worked for her meals. Consequently from complete 
 exhaustion she did not see Irene every day. About 
 two weeks after the night of horror she called at 
 Irene's house as usual. Irene always came to the door 
 when her mother called. This time she didn't, but the 
 lady of the house came instead. "Where is Irene?" 
 asked Dunora. "She isn't here," was the reply. 
 "When is she coming back?" asked the astonished 
 girl. "She isn't coming back. Her father took her 
 away two days ago." 
 
 The stricken girl slowly staggered. A deadly 
 pallor spread over her features as she reeled, a pal- 
 lor deadlier than ever seen there before. Into her
 
 OUT INTO THE WORLD 185 
 
 inmost soul was sinking the awful bitterness of the 
 situation and it was sinking swiftly and to the very 
 bottom. All this transpired quite instantaneously 
 as the girl reeled from the deadly blow. Then, be- 
 fore Irene's landlady could really grasp the situa- 
 tion or seize Dunora, she fell senseless to the piazza. 
 And it was a deadly senselessness, not an ordinary 
 faint. Surely it was the giving up of all but life. 
 Every effort was made to restore the poor girl to 
 consciousness but each effort and the combined ef- 
 forts were of no avail. Her heart beat in the faint- 
 est of manners but she was all but dead. Tenderly 
 those who had come to her assistance lifted her un- 
 conscious form and carried her to her room on 
 School Street. No assistance they could summon 
 succeeded in arousing her from her coma. Soon 
 she grew delirious and raved of "Irene! Irene!" 
 simply repeating the name of her child in a tone 
 which would melt the heart of the most stony. And 
 hour after hour she repeated that heartbroken cry 
 in the hour after hour lasting unconsciousness. 
 Finally food was given her by hypodermic method 
 and forced feeding through the mouth. And the 
 hours of unconsciousness dragged into further hours 
 of coma and the hours of coma dragged into the 
 night and the succeeding day of that almost imper- 
 ceptible breathing, that hardly distinguishable heart 
 flutter and oh that almost never ceasing cry of 
 "Irene ! I-I-I-r-e-e-n-e ! Oh, Irene !" Nero in all his 
 callousness, the very personification of utter heart- 
 lessness, could not have withstood that constant re- 
 iteration of the wail of a mother's lacerated heart. 
 The next day she failed to rally, and the next and 
 the next and a week elapsed and she was yet un-
 
 136 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 conscious. Two weeks passed with no sign of life 
 except the intermittent breathing and then the third 
 week began and it ended with Dunora still uncon- 
 scious. 
 
 Could any person have suffered more ?
 
 CHAPTER SIXTEEN 
 
 HOPELESS DAYS AND A WEARY EOAD 
 
 THE terrible days of strain for the watchers 
 at Dunora's bedside drew to twenty-one in 
 number. Our language, although the master lan- 
 guage of earth and a compound of all the best in 
 other languages, does not possess in all its varied 
 vocabulary words which will truly describe the ter- 
 rific blow the news had been to Dunora. To have 
 caused a fainting spell of a few minutes' extent would 
 not have been extraordinary but to even have the 
 unconsciousness extend over one hour was most ex- 
 traordinary, very extraordinary, indeed. When that 
 hour lengthened into a forenoon it was worthy to 
 attract wide attention but when the stricken girl 
 was oblivious of her surroundings for twenty-four 
 hours it is doubtful if a similar occurrence had ever 
 taken place on earth. Multiply that twenty-four 
 hours by twenty-one and the astonishing result of 
 five hundred and four hours is obtained. And for 
 more than five hundred and four hours Dunora was 
 unconscious as a result of the information given her 
 by that landlady. 
 
 As the first day of the fourth week began to dawn 
 only her girl room-mate was left of those who had 
 watched. The remainder had proved unfaithful to 
 the opportunity to serve one of the most deserving 
 
 137
 
 138 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 of God's human creatures. But the room-mate 
 proved faithful to the task of affection. Slowly the 
 darkness of the long night of unconsciousness and the 
 mists of sweet oblivion passed from the dear girl and 
 gradually those great frank eyes opened to what? 
 To a merely bare room, to one penniless faithful 
 watcher, to a lost position at the dressmaker's, to 
 an empty pocket book and gnawing hunger. 
 
 "Where where am I?" Dunora asked. "Right 
 where you are safe, dear," answered the room-mate. 
 "Who am I?" queried the bewildered girl in a 
 second utterance. "Your own dear self. Now go 
 to sleep, dear, you are tired," and her unconscious- 
 ness had worn on her so that she fell into a natural 
 sleep which the watcher assisted by remaining per- 
 fectly quiet. 
 
 Quite a time thereafter Dunora awoke. She, at 
 first, seemed to have no recollection of the act which 
 had caused her awful loss of life's functions. It is 
 certain that her room-mate, Olive, did not assist her 
 in remembering the past and it is also certain that 
 Olive did all in her power to turn her mind from 
 any chance remembrance of what had occurred. 
 Olive truly deserves more than a passing reference. 
 Nature had endowed her with no large measure of 
 physical attractiveness, yet it is a quite frequent 
 act of Nature to make a homely exterior be but the 
 earthen framework which supports an interior of 
 sterling worth. Such was Olive. Years later 
 Dunora was enabled to repay her in part, but such 
 deeds of human kindness can never be fully repaid 
 on this earth. It is such acts which make the wheels 
 of existence run far more smoothly, it is such acts 
 that take the sordidness out of a sordid world.
 
 HOPELESS DAYS 139 
 
 As soon as Dunora awoke from her sleep she 
 said "Olive, I am hungry." Over Olive's face a pecu- 
 liar expression flitted and there was a momentary 
 hesitation. "All right, dear," she responded, and 
 went to a cubby hole from which she took two dough- 
 nuts and brought them to Dunora. "I do not think 
 you should eat much at first. Your stomach is a 
 little weak and you have been having a little time in 
 which it didn't act well." "Didn't act well! What 
 do you mean ?" Olive had said too much and hastily 
 beat a retreat. "Oh, you know I meant that your 
 stomach has been weak as you know." "Oh !" said 
 the now satisfied Dunora. 
 
 She ate the doughnuts with relish. "Oh, Olive, I 
 am so hungry. Do you suppose more food would 
 hurt me?" Olive grimaced for she didn't wish to 
 even evade the truth. "I do not think it would be 
 best for you to eat more now," she replied. Dunora, 
 when she had eaten, fell to dreaming day dreams. 
 She was fortunately kept from realization of the 
 past three weeks before. Providence blesses in ways 
 at times when it also purifies from dross by seeming 
 severe methods. 
 
 Olive sat looking at her day dreaming and so 
 blessedly unconscious of the weeks of unconscious- 
 ness through which she had been. Again stupor 
 overtook Dunora, for it is not suddenly that the full 
 awakening comes from such a stupor. Olive did 
 not in the least disturb the convalescing girl and 
 only thanked fortune that Dunora was coming on 
 nicely from her long oblivion. And she also dreaded 
 the awakening to full understanding. By subter- 
 fuge she had evaded the direct statement that the 
 doughnuts were all that was in the room in the na-
 
 ture of food and that her pocket book was chiefly 
 remarkable for being empty, or nearly so, and the 
 state of Dunora's finances she was able to determine 
 only by guesswork. The situation required diplo- 
 matic action on the part of Olive. 
 
 While Dunora was sleeping she examined the ac- 
 tual condition of the contents of her pocket book 
 and found that her worldly possessions amounted 
 to the royal sum of seventy-five cents. She really 
 knew what she had before she looked, but looking 
 again might tend to increase the size of the purse's 
 contents by optical illusion. Yet no such illusion 
 took place. The cold hard sum of severity-five cents 
 was the total sum obtainable and she had lost her 
 position through faithfulness to Dunora and she 
 knew that Dunora had lost her situation with the 
 seamstress because of her long period of nervous 
 illness. But Dunora was delightfully unconscious 
 of these facts as yet and Olive intended that she 
 should remain so as long as possible. 
 
 As seventy^-five cents was the total sum from 
 which she could feed both till she got a new position, 
 Olive determined on a new strategy. Going to the 
 table she wrote a note as follows: 
 
 "Dunora dear 
 
 As you are sleeping so nicely I have just gone 
 to the baker's for some food and will be right back. 
 I only write this in case you wake up in the next few 
 minutes before I return. 
 
 Olive." 
 
 Then she hurried to the baker's. Her planned 
 strategy bothered her. She hesitated as she ap-
 
 HOPELESS DAYS 141 
 
 preached the shop and paused irresolutely at the 
 door. There were other people in the shop when 
 she entered and that pleased her. It gave her de- 
 lay in which she could muster her scattered wits. 
 She let every person in the store have their wants 
 supplied before she approached the proprietor. He 
 was a matter-of-fact man which means he had little 
 of enduring sentiment and much of fleeting matter. 
 
 "Please, sir" and the kind girl hesitated "may 
 I have a loaf of bread and a dozen doughnuts?" 
 "Sure!" replied the matter-of-fact baker. "But 
 wait, mister. I have a friend in my room who is 
 ill and has been for three weeks and I have watched 
 over her. Both of us have lost our positions because 
 she has been sick and we haven't any money hardly. 
 I have less than a dollar and I don't know how 
 much she has got for she is too sick for me to ask. 
 I will soon find work and I am honest. Will you 
 please let me charge that bread and those dough- 
 nuts and I'll surely pay you as soon as I can?" 
 
 The matter-of-fact baker looked at her with a 
 steely glance. "Do you take this for a charitable 
 institution? We extend no charity here. I am in 
 this business for money, money, and this isn't a 
 Christian institution !" 
 
 Olive recoiled from the words as a woman would 
 recoil from a blow. The words stunned her and she 
 took a little time to recover her poise. Then, in 
 strong contrast to the man her gentle womanliness 
 asserted itself. "If you were doing business in a 
 little more Christian manner perhaps you would 
 learn that it would be money in your pocket finally. 
 I thank you for your kindness of heart." And she 
 walked out of the door.
 
 142 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 Turning to another store she paid for what she 
 wanted and thus lessened her store of money. Then 
 she hastened back to the room and found Dunora 
 lying awake and waiting. "Hungry, girlie?" Olive 
 asked. "Very!" Dunora replied. "Well, I have a 
 big dinner here," and she smiled. "I have roast tur- 
 key and cranberry sauce, mashed potato and plurn 
 pudding with hard sauce, all sweet as honey, and 
 and I have lots of other things !" And she smiled 
 a wan smile. It was a very wan smile, very wan 
 indeed. Dunora could hardly grasp the news, she 
 wasn't used to such. Olive thought a sudden burst 
 of joy would rouse her from her lethargy, even 
 though she would have to tell her the bitter truth 
 all too soon. 
 
 Dunora, in a most pitiful way, put forth a white 
 hand for the expected food and did not utter a word. 
 Words were difficult to utter then. Olive gave to 
 her a slice of bread buttered with a very thin appli- 
 cation of long saved butter. Dunora took it, looked 
 at it, then spoke. "You didn't mention bread," she 
 said. "Oh," replied Olive, "you know that bread is 
 always put on as a first course and prepares the way 
 for the other food. It is best to eat bread first." 
 
 Dunora ate ravenously. Olive gave her a second 
 slice of buttered bread and Dunora was so hungry 
 that she didn't mention the bread or remark its ap- 
 pearance the second time and the second slice was 
 eaten with the gusto with which the first had been 
 rendered fit for digestion. Drowsiness from a par- 
 tially satisfied condition of the stomach began to 
 show itself in Dunora's face and when the following 
 doughnut was partially eaten her hand fell at her 
 side and again she slept unaware of the moneyless
 
 HOPELESS DAYS 143 
 
 situation they faced and the void in the larder. 
 Would that she might restfully sleep until some 
 magic wand swung over her and performed the 
 miracle of giving plenty.
 
 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 
 
 THE HIGHLAND PASTURE 
 
 THERE on that far looking hill in Gardiner, 
 Maine, is that highland pasture made sacred 
 by myriad footfalls of the weary feet of the child 
 Dunora. And those girlish feet seldom, if ever, were 
 clad in any covering but walked over the bruising 
 stubble with many an ache and leaving many a mark 
 of the purest of blood. 
 
 A rugged grass plot divides West Street from 
 the pasture's ragged stone wall which would have 
 made a right angle with its apex pointing toward 
 the house of Dunora's foster parents, had not some 
 inhabitant of Gardiner, long since joined to those 
 in the silent halls of death, opened that angle by 
 tearing through the stones there and thus formed a 
 gateway to the pasture. 
 
 Consequently, as the traveller came from the 
 house of Dunora's former residence, he would pass 
 through this opening in a northeasterly direction 
 right into this highland grazing ground. The pas- 
 ture strikes off in a masterful manner as if to throw 
 its rock and earth uplands across Cobbosseecontee 
 Stream but loses its courage at the last moment and 
 slopes gradually to meet the kiss of the waters. 
 
 Along its West Street border seven young oaks 
 144
 
 THE HIGHLAND PASTURE 145 
 
 rear their blast defying heads to the howling north- 
 easters which sweep down upon them in winter with 
 the full force of the unimpeded tempest. Then two 
 of the more graceful maples lift their Diana-like 
 limbs as if to apologize for the roughness of their 
 sturdy neighbors even in so wild a spot. Just be- 
 yond the maples five ghostly white birches gleam 
 in their purity as if standing there as mighty senti- 
 nels to keep the midnight road mariner off the reef 
 of the stone wall. 
 
 The westerly edge of the rugged pasture is 
 shielded from any disturbing element by a sturdy 
 wood where the pine, hemlock, spruce, fir, birch, 
 oak and maple grow. Trespassing upon the sanc- 
 tity of the pasture, the outposts of the forest have 
 boldly taken their advanced stand and advanced their 
 picket lines. But right here the battle begins, for 
 the sweet fern does not permit the young growth to 
 have its own way in its endeavor to possess the pas- 
 ture but from its lesser height seems to say, "Look 
 here, I'll leave it to the judgment of the public. Here 
 you trees are trying to grasp everything here and 
 what pay do you give to the people for doing so? 
 It takes years for you to amount to anything and 
 then you are only good when you are cut down. But 
 look at me. Why I grow up in a season and you 
 can't uproot me except with a great effort and all 
 the time I live I give out such a sweet odor that I 
 am called the sweet fern. So you see the pasture 
 should belong to me." But the forest never answers 
 a word but just grows and grows and grows. 
 
 Woe betide the person who tries to meander 
 through that pasture for the tentacles of the young
 
 146 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 growth whip him in the face, the pine boughs brush 
 his eyes and the sweet fern clings to his limbs with 
 a tenacity which permits no denying. 
 
 Continuing through the clinging fern in a north- 
 easterly direction you come to a stone wall sur- 
 mounted by a barbed wire fence, rusted with age, 
 which pretends to prevent passage to the orchard be- 
 yond. On the distant hills beyond Cobbosseecontee 
 Stream the rolling slopes are covered with thriving 
 Baldwin apple orchards of young and vigorous 
 growth and prosperous and well painted farm houses 
 sit there. Had Dunora been brought up in one of 
 those dwellings this wonderful life would never have 
 been lived and this book never written. But it was 
 otherwise ordained and so the youthful Dunora daily 
 drove the cow through the stile and out into what 
 the forest left of the pasture and there, at night, the 
 little girl searched through the forest paths for her 
 bovine charge fearing the leap of imaginary lynx or 
 panther. Ah, those fears of childhood, how real they 
 are! How you can feel the claws of the wild beast 
 sink into your back as it leaps from every limb un- 
 der which you pass. And each crack of rotting 
 twig or creak of swaying limb sends every nerve 
 tingling to its extremity. And how great the cruelty 
 of sending a little girl out to seek a wandering beast 
 in a forest at nightfall. 
 
 Just where the pasture gives up the attempt to 
 pontoon Cobbosseecontee with its massive weight it 
 makes a little hollow, seemingly drawing down to 
 take breath from another attempt at proceeding to 
 meet the opposite hills. In this hollow a clear stream 
 flows and to cross it one must either wet their feet 
 or clamber over the lichen covered stone wall. Then,
 
 THE HIGHLAND PASTURE 147 
 
 with a last despairing effort to rear its head the 
 pasture gives up the fight and slopes rapidly to- 
 ward the river, clothing its face in forest growth to 
 hide the shame of its defeat. 
 
 Here the partridge drums to his mate when Spring 
 bursts its bands and the high hole yarrups from his 
 tree top and the hyla trebles to the evening air. 
 While all was thus in the joy of Springtime, and 
 the apple blossoms were in their glory in the adja- 
 cent orchard, the boat from Boston, the before-men- 
 tioned "City of Bangor," drew into the dock at Gar- 
 diner and there alighted therefrom a girl. She no- 
 ticed no one, but, intent on continuing her journey, 
 started directly toward Water Street and, looking 
 neither to right nor left, walked up the right hand 
 side of Water Street until it met the lower end of 
 West Street near the bridge over Cobbosseecontee 
 Stream. Turning to the left she began to climb the 
 lesser hills which rose in succession to the higher emi- 
 nence of Iron Mine Hill which is crowned by our 
 highland pasture. 
 
 The territory seemed very familiar to her and 
 she ascended the long climb with a setness of pur- 
 pose which bespoke a destination beyond, which she 
 sought with no uncertainty. Yet finally she did 
 hesitate as wayside scenes more and more attracted 
 her. At the beginning of the orchard, then in the 
 full glory of its bloom, she paused. Turning to the 
 northeast and the orchard clad hills beyond Cob- 
 bosseecontee she gazed long and meditatively in that 
 direction and her breast rose and fell with the inflow 
 and outgo of deep breathing. Who can tell what her 
 thoughts were at that time? Who can tell why she 
 lingered there longer than for the time necessary
 
 148 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 for her rest from the ascent? And the throw back 
 which she gave to her shoulders indicated a throw- 
 ing off of some weight which had been acquired else- 
 where and a breathing there again of the free air of 
 heaven. A deep sigh of relaxation came from her 
 as she stood there and she seemed lost in looking at 
 the scene as if memories were associated with that 
 vista. 
 
 Then, with a renewing of purpose, she again be- 
 gan climbing the hill and passed the two or three 
 closely gathered country homes which cling to the 
 hill just as you approach its summit and just as 
 you leave the orchard and come to the stone wall, 
 the birches, the maples and the oaks which fringe 
 the highland pasture. 
 
 Here she stopped again and remained longer and 
 her thoughts were evidently deeper. Her eyes 
 roamed over every inch of the pasture that was 
 visible and a look which was hard to read came over 
 her face. Pain was in that look as well as reminis- 
 cence, and a man of inquisitive nature would have 
 liked to have known the reason therefor. 
 
 Then she turned toward the stone wall and the 
 entrance through it and stopped in it, again survey- 
 ing the pasture. Then, satisfied with her scanning 
 of the scene, she turned abruptly toward the more 
 westerly of two homes, the one we have described 
 before. Three winters had clothed those pine clad 
 hills in snow, three summers had dressed the trees 
 in green and three springs had glorified the scenery 
 with their halos of apple blossoms since that girl 
 had walked that road. A summons from the house 
 which she was approaching had brought the girl 
 from the metropolis of New England and the sum-
 
 THE HIGHLAND PASTURE 149 
 
 mons was one of the commanding summons of life. 
 The Dark Angel was hovering near that highland 
 home by the highland pasture. 
 
 The girl had written that she was coming and 
 expected a welcome. She came to the house and saw 
 no one near or within. At the kitchen door she hesi- 
 tated. And well she might for there came to her 
 mind her last words when she had crossed that 
 threshold three years before. They were spoken to 
 the thoughtless two who lived there and the words 
 were wrung from a crushed heart "I'll never cross 
 this threshold again unless sickness or death calls 
 me !" And they had called. 
 
 The kitchen door was open. In that honest 
 country people leave their homes for hours at a 
 time with doors unlocked. But there is an excep- 
 tion to this, for front doors are always locked and 
 seldom opened, for passage to and from the interior 
 is almost always through the kitchen door. 
 
 The girl walked through the yielding door and 
 into the kitchen. There was no one there but the 
 fire was burning and food was cooking on the range. 
 So they had not gone for any length of time and 
 she waited. But it was very strange to her for she 
 had been summoned for sickness and no one was even 
 sick enough to remain in the house. So the girl sat 
 down in a chair and waited for some one to return. 
 
 A half hour later a carriage could be heard rat- 
 tling up West Street and the subdued sound of the 
 voices of the two occupants. As they approached 
 the words became audible. The girl in the chair in 
 the kitchen turned pale as she heard one of those 
 voices. Three eventful years before she had heard 
 that voice in scolding tones and it was the difference
 
 150 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 in the tone of that voice that had made the girl 
 turn pale. Three years before it had been harsh 
 and aggressive but now it was soft, crushed and 
 weak. 
 
 As the carriage drove into the yard the woman 
 of the frail voice again addressed the man, "Oh, dear, 
 what can be the matter? One thing she always did 
 and that was to keep her word. She said she would 
 come for sickness when she left and when she knew 
 I was sick she wrote she would come and on that 
 boat, and now she isn't here. Oh, I have suffered so 
 much it seems as if I could not stand more." 
 
 The girl in the chair in the kitchen arose, trem- 
 bling. The pallor on her face continued. The man 
 alighted from the carriage and assisted the frail 
 woman to the ground. She was woefully weak and 
 emaciated and, from her rugged frame, evidently the 
 wreck of her former self. 
 
 She walked to the step, ascended it to the kitchen 
 threshold, opened the door, looked within and in- 
 stantly put her hand to her heart. There was a deep 
 indrawing of breath and she then exclaimed in tones 
 that can never be reproduced: "Dunora! ! !"
 
 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 
 
 THE GREAT PRESENCE 
 
 DUNORA'S eyes slowly grew wider than their 
 usual wideness. She could hardly believe it. 
 Was it true? Was that emaciated woman stand- 
 ing there really she? It surely was, and in verifica- 
 tion of it Dunora exclaimed, "Mother !" And the 
 elder woman's wealth of feeling, pent up for the years 
 of drought, overcame her broken down resistance 
 and, at last, the greater sentiment prevailed. She 
 swept across the floor to the girl by the chair, threw 
 her arms around Dunora and pressed her to her 
 breast. And the floodgates burst. It was she whom, 
 at last, the great sentiment had conquered. 
 
 In every life, without exception, there comes that 
 period when the glaring attractions of lurid earth 
 lose the sham attraction they once held and when 
 the eternal truths come home to the inner heart. 
 "Truth crushed to earth shall rise again." It is usu- 
 ally in the evening of a long life that the sombre 
 calm precedes the Great Change, for it is a great 
 change even though some say it is but the passing 
 from one room into another. No mariner has ever 
 brought back a report from that unseen haven and 
 no earth born eye has ever measured its eternal pano- 
 rama. Nature is kind when it provides a hush just 
 preceding the ushering into the New Day. 
 
 151
 
 152 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 Dunora had left her adopted mother three years 
 before in the best of health, stout, aggressive, robust. 
 Now she was little more than a living skeleton with 
 hardly strength enough to stand alone. The most 
 careless of observers would have seen that some 
 great worry had brought her low and that the Dark 
 Angel had singled out the hilltop home in Gardiner, 
 Maine, for a visit. And then one of those rare oc- 
 casions would come in which the front door of that 
 home would be opened and one would emerge for the 
 last time. 
 
 As Dunora had gazed at her only-known mother 
 standing there framed in the door she had instantly 
 realized the truth and immediately the two hearts 
 met. That one appearance of her mother, that piti- 
 ful testimony to her suffering broke down all re- 
 serve and the bitterness of the past in Dunora's 
 heart for in that weak figure standing there she 
 read the one great word "R-e-p-e-n-t-a-n-c-e." 
 
 "Repentance," the third best attribute in our 
 characters. The greatest is love ; the next greatest 
 is an axiom of love and is truth and the third best is 
 regret for not acting in a truthful and loving man- 
 ner and that attribute is the attribute of repentance. 
 Repentance is the forerunner of improvement and 
 the first step which the Almighty requires for re- 
 birth is repentance. Without it there is no progress 
 possible. A misstep which is not followed by re- 
 pentance is surely followed by a repetition of the 
 misstep and, as the world is organized on infallible 
 rules which bring disaster if not followed, missteps 
 surely spell disaster. How long we take to learn 
 that lesson, that like breeds like; that hate breeds 
 hate and the breeding of hate means the birth of
 
 THE GREAT PRESENCE 158 
 
 death that love breeds love and the breeding of love 
 means the birth of life. 
 
 When Dunora had left her Gardiner home three 
 years before she had, unknowingly, carried her 
 mother's heart with her. As the door closed with 
 its memorable crash behind the world entering Dun- 
 ora with that crash had broken some band in Mrs. 
 Whitney's heart. Foolish, foolish pride had been 
 the Satan produced barrier which prevented Mrs. 
 Whitney from rising at once and calling to the poor 
 girl going over the brow of the hill by the highland 
 pasture. 
 
 When the shades of that first night fell with 
 Dunora out somewhere in the cold world alone Mrs. 
 Whitney suffered torments. Not till then did she 
 know how dear Dunora really was to her heart, but 
 every hour of that night she lay awake and prayed 
 and prayed to her God that He would forgive her 
 and put His protecting arm under the form of the 
 lone lassie. And He, who seeth all things, answered 
 that prayer. 
 
 Let those to whom the words of "Oh, Where is 
 My Wandering Boy To-night," come home, try to 
 realize Mrs. Whitney's feelings as she came at last 
 to a knowledge of her own shortcomings and that 
 even she with all her unwise bitter feelings could not 
 fail to fall in love with the lovable Dunora and that 
 she had done so. Try to think of the torture which 
 that at last awakened woman had endured when she 
 knew that her harshness and that of her husband 
 had driven from the protection of home the daughter 
 of her love. 
 
 With all the vehemence with which she had hated 
 and abused Dunora she then came to love her. Day
 
 154 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 after day went by and no word came from the lass 
 who had gone over the brow of the hill by the high- 
 land pasture. Night after night drew on in their 
 repeating blacknesses and hour after hour wore on 
 in their interminable horror. Retribution ! R-E-T- 
 R-I-B-U-T-I-ON ! ! ! Retribution! Retribution! 
 Retribution! Retribution! rang in her repentant 
 ears. In her agony she again and again cried to 
 God for mercy, but R-e-t-r-i-b-u-t-i-o-n ! rang in her 
 ears from the otherwise unanswering walls. No mat- 
 ter how much we repent an unlovely act we will not 
 escape retribution. No matter how soon or how 
 much hate turns to love retribution for hate will 
 surely follow. 
 
 Her husband, not so reformed as herself, tried 
 to influence her to forget her newly realized love; 
 he scoffed at her, told her she was giving herself 
 up to foolishness, advised her to bury her thoughts 
 in her work and turn to anything but love and re- 
 gret. 
 
 But the unfeeling words fell upon unhearing ears 
 and her spoken word was all of Dunora and longing 
 to have her return to the embraces that would then 
 take the place of the chastisements. Day by day, 
 as the hourly agony drew out into terrible lengths, 
 Mrs. Whitney began to slowly fail and fade. Her 
 weight had been excessive on the day on which 
 Dunora had crossed the threshold but it began to 
 lessen, lessen, lessen. Her husband saw her fade 
 away before his eyes and at last even he grew 
 alarmed. It began to affect him. Only one person 
 in all the world did he really love according to his 
 ability and that person was Mrs. Whitney. He was 
 more dependent on her than he realized and then a
 
 THE GEE AT PRESENCE 155 
 
 greater realization of that fact came to him than 
 ever before in his life. His work suffered and 
 Dunora's absence began to break down the family. 
 
 How severely Mrs. Whitney chided herself for 
 not appreciating Dunora in those years when she 
 had been in the home. As great as had been 
 the lack of appreciation then, so great was the full- 
 ness of appreciation when she had gone. Love is 
 both a creating and a destroying force. When it is 
 rightly exercised it is creative, when it is abused it 
 is destructive. Of all the forces of earth love is the 
 most jealous of its rights. It will not endure the 
 least trifling with its sacred prerogatives. Retribu- 
 tion and remorse are its two destructive agents and 
 they destroy utterly unless fullhearted repentance 
 comes and they sometimes destroy even then. 
 
 So love realized too late because previously 
 crushed out by selfishness required a fearful retribu- 
 tion of Mrs. Whitney. It required the most fearful 
 penalty it could command. It required her life it- 
 self. And because of her waning strength and the 
 felt approach of the Dark Messenger, Dunora had 
 been sent for because they knew she would keep her 
 promise. 
 
 But, oh! the realization of that meeting. The 
 breaking down of barriers and the birth of visible 
 love. As the older woman swept the younger into 
 her arms both burst into tears. Each put her 
 head on the other's breast. Dunora's choked ut- 
 terance, reiterated, "Mother! Mother!" and Mrs. 
 Whitney voiced her feelings in repeated utterances of 
 "Dunora !" "Dunora !" 
 
 After long years of a crushed girlhood, beginning 
 when Mrs. Whitney had repulsed Dunora's infant
 
 156 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 offer of love, Dunora at last, in that one look at the 
 pitiful figure of the skeleton of her former robust 
 mother, knew love of her. That sight and the tale 
 it told brought forgiveness for all the bitter years 
 that had gone before and Mrs. Whitney knew it. 
 Greatly had Mrs. Whitney sinned, greatly she had 
 paid for her sin and let it be added that any who 
 contemplate sinning thus will as surely pay the 
 penalty. 
 
 The two parties, Mr. and Mrs. Whitney for one 
 and Dunora for the other, had missed each other 
 because Dunora came up one road from the steam- 
 boat dock while the Whitneys went down another. 
 For two weeks Dunora remained at the Gardiner 
 home and they were two weeks of love and care for 
 her mother. The two were inseparable and the poor 
 weak mother tried to make up for the years of bit- 
 terness. Dunora and she slept together and it was 
 heart-rending to see the endeavors of Mrs. Whitney 
 to avoid any unnecessary efforts on Dunora's part. 
 
 She would lie awake and Dunora would discover 
 that her sleep was sham. "Mother, dear, why aren't 
 you sleeping?" "Oh, Dunora, I was afraid you would 
 think I might die in your arms." "Mother, if you 
 ever say that again I will just lay you across my 
 knee and spank you. You know I can do it too." 
 And she smiled a wan smile as she remembered the 
 woman who was three years before and the woman 
 who was now. The woman who was three years be- 
 fore weighed over one hundred pounds more than 
 the woman who was now. Such had been her suf- 
 fering. 
 
 "You know, mother, you are so small now that I 
 can make you mind me and you must do so. Now
 
 THE GREAT PRESENCE 157 
 
 you mind me and go to sleep." And the delighted 
 Mrs. Whitney smiled and slept. 
 
 Each day was a blessing to them both. Each day 
 was but a constant endeavor for either one or the 
 other to try to outdo the other in deeds of kindness 
 and little acts of consideration. It was a veritable 
 love feast which feverishly attempted to make up 
 for the bygone years of drought. More than once 
 Mrs. Whitney said, "Oh, Dunora, I do not see why 
 I never realized what a dear daughter I had with 
 me when you were here. I cannot understand what 
 blinded my eyes to what a dear daughter you were. 
 How you could have lived so long with me and I 
 never realizing your worth is hard to understand. 
 The way I have suffered in your absence is surely 
 proof to you of how I have come to know you as you 
 are. Oh, Dunora, if I only could have loved you in 
 the past as I do now I would have been such a happy 
 woman and you would have been a happy girl. And 
 oh, how much better I would have treated you. Every 
 blow I ever struck you when I whipped you is now a 
 constant blow at my heart. Every dainty I gave 
 to my son and not to you only creates in me now 
 a never satisfied desire. I am being dearly paid for 
 every wrong I ever did you. Oh, that I never had 
 needed the pay! The sight of you now and the 
 sound of your voice is just giving me new life and 
 strength. Oh, Dunora, I love you so now that it 
 makes up for all the lack of love before." 
 
 The two weeks which Dunora was to stay before 
 she went back to get Irene were golden in the ex- 
 treme to the girl who had at last found love where 
 she had for years looked for it in vain. Had she 
 found it before, her whole life's history would have
 
 158 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 been changed. But now she knew the necessity of 
 her being near her mother who was so desperately 
 ill. In order to stay longer she had to go to get 
 Irene, and so at the end of the two weeks she pre- 
 pared to take the boat to Massachusetts and her 
 child. 
 
 As the time of parting drew near Mrs. Whitney 
 would not let Dunora out of her sight. She hung 
 on her every word, inflection and gesture and kissed 
 her and kissed her and again kissed her at the door, 
 that same door out of which the poor girl had gone 
 under such different circumstances three years be- 
 fore. "I'll be back in just a very few days, mother, 
 dear, so don't worry for soon I'll be coming up this 
 hill again and I'll come to bring you joy. And, 
 mother, know that your Dunora loves you deeply 
 and forgives you for anything you may have done. 
 I forgive you freely because you are sorry and above 
 all because you love me at last. Oh, mother, if you 
 only had loved me before !" 
 
 As Dunora went over the brow of Iron Mine 
 Hill Mrs. Whitney stood in the door waving her 
 hand. When her hand fell to her side from the wav- 
 ing she instantly placed it to her heart and reeled. 
 Her husband caught her in his arms. The look on 
 her face alarmed him and he sent at once for the 
 doctor, but the doctor was not needed for the serv- 
 ices of the Great Physician were all that were given 
 at that hour. Gently they put her on her bed and 
 she cried for "Dunora ! Dunora !" The case was 
 desperate, and, as soon as it was so realized, a mes- 
 senger was hurried after the Boston bound girl to 
 see if by any chance the departure of the boat had 
 been delayed. But it had sailed and the messenger
 
 THE GREAT PRESENCE 159 
 
 returned, but not before another messenger had 
 rapped at the door, the messenger of death. Worn 
 down by the three years of retribution and repent- 
 ance the dear woman could not endure even the tem- 
 porary absence of Dunora and so Mrs. Whitney 
 never saw Dunora reascend by the highland pasture 
 for when Dunora returned Mrs. Whitney had been 
 ushered into the Great Presence.
 
 CHAPTER NINETEEN 
 
 THE HOUSE OF SILENCE 
 
 T TNAWARE of the tragedy which had taken 
 vJ place in the home by the highland pasture, 
 Dunora sailed down the blue and winding Kennebec 
 with her thoughts centered about the mother whom 
 at last she loved. And above the pulsing steamer 
 on which the young mother was speeding, the bald 
 eagle soared, the king of birds, in a setting of ma- 
 jestic scenery. 
 
 Unblessed by love before and stirred to her 
 depths by its fires Mrs. Whitney had been unable 
 to endure even a short separation from the object 
 of her love. And the angel of death had taken that 
 moment of lowest vitality in which to overwhelm the 
 flickering spark of life. 
 
 Mrs. Whitney had lived a life in accordance with 
 her belief in God. Her God was expressed in terms 
 as told to Dunora in the days gone by when the las- 
 sie had been told that she was born to damnation 
 and foreordained to torment because not of her 
 foster mother's cruel belief. 
 
 Apparently the Almighty had used Dunora as the 
 means of awakening in Mrs. Whitney a knowledge 
 that God is really love. And the poor woman had 
 become a martyr to that knowledge. 
 
 When they had placed the emaciated form of what 
 160
 
 THE HOUSE OF SILENCE 161 
 
 had once been the robust Mrs. Whitney in the bed 
 from which she would never arise alive, the family 
 gathered around her realized that her earthly career 
 was at an end. She had no illness of the body. For 
 three years she had been sick with no illness phy- 
 sicians could diagnose and beside which the ablest 
 practitioner would have sat with folded, baffled 
 hands. It was a disease of the heart's holy of holies 
 which only one medicine would reach, and that medi- 
 cine was in human form and was named Dunora. 
 And Dunora even for those few days, was far away 
 from the bonnie highland pasture and the wayside 
 home where love dwelt. 
 
 In those sombre seasons of life when only the 
 eternal verities have any weight there is brought to 
 our reasoning, if unselfish, the knowledge that if a 
 person has lived up to the light that has been given 
 them, even though that light is much inferior to the 
 light given others, the person so living will in no 
 wise lose their reward. Many a saint has gone to 
 the eternal crown in the Dark Ages when Bibles 
 were possessed by but few and the requirements of 
 saintship unknown. But to those to whom the re- 
 quirements have been made known that much of ful- 
 fillment is required. And to those thus trying, even 
 though the person led may not know it, the words 
 of the enthralling hymn are nevertheless true 
 
 "He leadeth me, oh blessed thought, 
 Oh words with heavenly comfort fraught, 
 By waters still, o'er troubled sea, 
 Still 'tis God's hand that leadeth me." 
 
 The dear woman tossed on her bed. She moaned 
 "Dunora! Dunora!" The tearful and helpless
 
 162 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 watchers beheld the scene in dire distress because of 
 their very helplessness. Husband and son, the lat- 
 ter owing his very life to the mother before him, 
 were agonized, but the dear woman on the bed was 
 not so. Again she was with the daughter she loved. 
 She turned over in bed and folded her arms about 
 the imaginary Dunora. And speech clear, distinct 
 and sweet came to her. "Yes, dear," she said, 
 "mother knows you are afraid to go out in the pas- 
 ture to get the cow. It is dark dark, but there's 
 nothing to fear. Mother-will-go-for-you." And then 
 came a pause. Every head in that room of those 
 kneeling beside the martyr's bed was bowed in awe, 
 for they knew they were in the very presence of the 
 Great King, who with His greatness, is the tenderest 
 of all. 
 
 The stricken woman rose to a sitting posture. 
 She threw her arais out in a rhapsody of joy. The 
 furrows of care and hard work fled from her brow. 
 "Oh, Dunora," she exclaimed, "the pasture isn't 
 dark. It is all light and white and beautiful 
 beautiful! ! !" and with a great sigh of infinite re- 
 lief, the realization of great joy and the entering 
 into perfect rest the dear woman fell back upon the 
 pillows and overhead there was the unheard rush- 
 ing of unseen wings. 
 
 So went Dunora's mother and it cannot be said 
 that she went to other than victory. Even at that 
 hour there was a leading. 
 
 "And when my task on earth is done, 
 When by Thy grace the victory's won, 
 E'en death's cold wave I will not flee, 
 Since God through Jordan leadeth me."
 
 THE HOUSE OF SILENCE 163 
 
 A day after Dunora arrived in Boston came the 
 letter bearing the news. In the parlor in Gardiner 
 lay the mortal remains of Mrs. Whitney silently 
 awaiting the return of Dunora and that return was 
 made by the grief stricken girl as fast as the next 
 train could carry her. She hired a carriage at the 
 station and hurried the driver up Iron Mine Hill 
 faster than he had ever driven before. 
 
 When she reached the house she entered the kitchen 
 door and, speaking in low tones to those she 
 saw within, passed at once to the parlor where the 
 silent form lay. Upon what happened within that 
 room the mantle of sacredness draws a shielding cur- 
 tain. The thoughts that went through the girl's 
 brain would have made very interesting insight into 
 the inner recesses of the human soul under conditions 
 very much unlike those ever met with in ordinary 
 life. After all the years of her girlhood spent in 
 a loveless atmosphere she had at last seen love arise 
 triumphant in the heart which had for years denied 
 it admittance. She had seen that love not only be- 
 come an ordinary love but an overwhelming love, 
 such a love that the absence of the object of its 
 adoration had brought her mother down from com- 
 plete health to the verge of the Valley of the Shadow 
 and then, when Dunora was but temporarily ab- 
 sent, had seen her enter that Port from which no 
 mariner returns. 
 
 For a second time Dunora had become motherless 
 and in a year she was again to become an orphan 
 for Mr. Whitney survived but that time. Consid- 
 ered from Dunora's standpoint at what worse time 
 could Mrs. Whitney have passed away? Had she 
 lived with her love for Dunora what a host of sun-
 
 164 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 beams she could have put into the girl's barren life. 
 
 The death of her foster mother meant far more to 
 Dunora than appeared on the surface. It robbed 
 her of her right, of her inborn right, the right of 
 every boy and every girl to a loving mother. And, 
 deeper yet, it may be asked who causes this persis- 
 tent robbing of parents from children? The same 
 one who deceived Eve in the Garden of Eden when 
 he said unto her "Ye shall not surely die." The 
 whole groaning creation, waiting for deliverance 
 from the effects of that lie, only too sadly testifies 
 to the truth that Jehovah told and to the lie with 
 which "the dragon, that old serpent, which is the 
 Devil, and Satan" deceived the mother of mankind 
 and, through her, the world. 
 
 All these six thousand years of the Devil's deceit 
 has the penalty of death, the penalty of that lie, been 
 paid and the deeper meaning which Mrs. Whitney's 
 death had for Dunora was that Satan was her own 
 particular enemy, that he robbed her of her own 
 dear mother and, after years of abuse when at last 
 her foster mother was reborn by love, Satan, at the 
 very hour when Dunora needed her foster mother 
 most, robbed the girl of her also. 
 
 So the Adversary of all good, all happiness, all 
 life, in his usual sneaking and dirty manner, went 
 behind the back of this innocent sufferer and tore 
 her heart strings to the limit of endurance. At his 
 foul door can be laid every evil that attacked her, 
 and many and various were the devices by which 
 the fiend endeavored to encompass her downfall, but 
 the devil far from knows all things, and he made a 
 great piece of mis judgment when he put his atten-
 
 THE HOUSE OF SILENCE 165 
 
 tion on Dunora, for he tried to encompass the down- 
 fall of 
 
 One Wonderful Rose 
 
 and he absolutely failed. 
 
 If he failed with her he can fail with others. So 
 take courage, tempted ones: you can win and not 
 only win but be a hero and the winner of a crown 
 from the hands of Him who upheld Dunora. 
 
 " 'Blessed is he that overcometh,' 
 
 On the sacred page is read, 
 For the crown of life He giveth 
 
 That shall ransom from the dead. 
 And the Lord of Life then trained her 
 
 In the rough way of the cross, 
 For He knew that early pleasures 
 
 Meant, indeed, the crown's sure loss." 
 
 Dunora, after the funeral of her loved mother had 
 taken place and she had seen the falling of the first 
 night with now her two mothers beneath the sod, 
 did not care to remain long in the Gardiner home 
 now additionally associated with the loved and lost 
 mother of her girlhood days. Conversation was not 
 engaged in much above the lowest tones in the Whit- 
 ney home after the funeral, and, for the day or so in 
 which Dunora remained to assist in whatever way 
 she could with the stricken son and husband, she 
 was as much alone as possible. 
 
 The highland pasture and the redolent woods, 
 the majestic hills and rolling fields called her and 
 who can say that additional and sterling anchor-
 
 166 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 ages to her already staunch and true character were 
 not laid in those rambles alone with her thoughts. 
 
 Every room in the old home spoke the name of 
 her departed mother; every board in the floor of 
 every room cried out her name. Everywhere were 
 the signs of her presence and the mark of the work 
 of her dear hands. The kitchen, where for years 
 as a faithful wife she had prepared the meals to 
 sustain her husband in his work but brought back 
 her form. The bedroom where she slept, the sit- 
 ting room where she sewed, the dining room with 
 floor worn by her feet all spoke of her. 
 
 But far above the speaking of those inanimate 
 walls was the not-to-be-denied declaration of the 
 last three years of her earthly life. Those three 
 years of contrition crowned the years of storm 
 which preceded with a halo of glory. The shadows 
 of her stormy life fled away into what is always the 
 fairest time of day, whether it be the solar day or 
 the day of life, and that is the sunset. Then the 
 Divine Architect in voiceless words speaks of the 
 majesty of His love daily. As the sun proceeds on 
 his western journey to light other lands, God paints 
 in the evening sky a glorious, never repeating picture 
 which staggers human imagination and baffles all 
 human effort to in any way effectively repeat or 
 mimic. And invariably the rays of light in the sun- 
 set sky shoot upward in the form of the diverging 
 radii of a celestial crown. 
 
 So with Mrs. Whitney, her martyr's crown became 
 a crown of glory lighted by all the lights and colors 
 which glow around the sunset of a life of love. 
 Surely, if Dunora could forgive, we should. And 
 let us not forget that grave on the hilltop in Gar-
 
 THE HOUSE OF SILENCE 167 
 
 diner in the State of Maine where Dunora's dear 
 mother sleeps awaiting the glad morning of earth's 
 new birth when He who once stood at the grave of 
 the dead Lazarus and gave life to his lifeless clay, 
 shall again, but in far louder tones, ring forth the 
 glad summons to the sleeping ones of earth: 
 "Come forth !"
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY 
 
 THE WEARY ROAD CONTINUED 
 
 AS Dunora slept in that desolate room in Lynn 
 following the eating of the two slices of bread 
 and the part of a doughnut, Olive sat trying to 
 devise means of easing the sad news of an empty 
 larder and moneyless purse as well as lost situa- 
 tions. 
 
 Dunora shortly awoke. She was sadly in need 
 of food and medical attendance, but where were they 
 to come from. "Oh, Olive," she said, "I am so weak. 
 Am I sick?" "Well, you have been having quite a 
 sleep, and that will make you feel weak, anyway. 
 After people sleep a long time they feel weak before 
 
 they " and here Olive caught herself just in 
 
 time for she was going to say, "before they eat." 
 So she added, "before they sleep a little more." 
 "Oh !" exclaimed Dunora, "have I got to sleep more 
 to feel stronger? I feel too weak to sleep or to lie 
 awake, either. I don't know what to do." There 
 was a momentary pause in her speech, then she 
 added the words Olive dreaded to hear. "But I am 
 so hungry." 
 
 Hunger unsatisfied, the incentive to crime or the 
 foundation to that heroic struggle without which 
 true manhood or womanhood cannot exist. To sat- 
 isfy hunger or gluttony mankind does all its crime. 
 
 168
 
 WEARY ROAD CONTINUED 169 
 
 A universally proportionately fed world would be 
 a world of peace and good will to men. 
 
 Olive made no response to Dunora's half wail of 
 hunger. She hoped she might not hear it repeated, 
 but her hope was dashed to the ground, for right on 
 the heels of Dunora's first declaration came its sis- 
 ter: "Olive, I am so hungry!" 
 
 Olive had to reply. "I haven't much here just 
 now, dearie. If you will please eat just what I give 
 you we will get more soon, and I think that not 
 eating much is best for you just now. I'll give you 
 some more good bread in thick slices, and you know 
 bread is called the staff of life." She cut off more 
 from the loaf and Dunora ate it with the sauce of 
 hunger. Then came the recollection of the past 
 act on the piazza of Irene's home. 
 
 A shade of varied feeling went over Dunora's 
 countenance as that recollection came to her and 
 she grew pale. "Olive," she called, "where is Irene?" 
 Poor Olive dreaded every word that Dunora spoke. 
 She did not know what would come next, and how 
 to answer was a problem. When this question came 
 she knew how to answer at once, however. She ran 
 at once to the bed on which Dunora lay. 
 
 Falling on her knees by the bedside Olive took 
 Dunora's poor face in her hands and kissed her 
 forehead repeatedly. "Poor little girlie," she said, 
 "I didn't want you to ask me that question. I 
 hoped you would think of something else. But I 
 shall not try to tell anything but truth, and that is 
 best for you to hear. I do not know where she is, 
 but I know surely that she is safe. No harm will 
 come to her, dear, and so you just be a heroine and 
 bite your lip and know that the one who has done
 
 170 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 this cowardly deed will be paid for it in full pay- 
 ment and that for every coward's act he has done 
 to you he will be repaid fourfold." 
 
 "Give me my clothes !" demanded Dunora. Olive 
 looked astonished at the girl and made no effort to 
 rise. "Give me my clothes !" again demanded 
 Dunora. Olive did so as Dunora arose. "What are 
 you going to do?'* queried Olive. Dunora gave her 
 a look which Olive never understood because she 
 had never been a mother. But before that look she 
 quailed, she knew not why. Before that look she 
 dared not speak. 
 
 Dunora arose unsteadily and clothed herself, 
 Olive assisting her. There was not a word inter- 
 changed between them. Dunora had a look of de- 
 termination on her face which disturbed Olive. Olive 
 went toward the door. As soon as Dunora had fully 
 dressed she went toward the door. Olive stood in 
 her way and spread her arms across the closed exit. 
 "Stand aside!" demanded the little mother. "Stand 
 aside, Olive!" But in Olive there was the blood of 
 wisdom also. 
 
 She looked directly into Dunora's flashing eyes. 
 "Dunora, dear," she said sweetly, "please calm your- 
 self. You know I will do anything I can for you, 
 and you know I will not ask you to do anything 
 I do not know is for your interest. Dunora, don't 
 go through this door. I am here. I am your friend. 
 Outside is danger for you now and no good." "But 
 I want Irene; I want Irene!" cried the distracted 
 girl. "Dunora, dear, I repeat that I don't know 
 where Irene is, but I know she is all right. You. 
 must try to control yourself. This inhuman act 
 will do no good to the one who did it, but it will
 
 WEARY ROAD CONTINUED 171 
 
 end in much greater happiness for you. But be 
 brave, my dear, be brave. I've known you long 
 enough to know that you have it in you, and now 
 show it!" 
 
 The head of the poor Dunora went low. "Oh, 
 Olive, how can I be brave in the face of Irene's being 
 taken away? How can I be brave when all my 
 being calls out for her? I am her mother! Is there 
 no punishment for the man who wins the confidence 
 of an innocent girl only to break her heart? Is 
 it she who is to bear the punishment for being inno- 
 cent ? Is innocence a crime to be punished ?" 
 
 Olive put her hands on Dunora's shoulder. "Go 
 back and lie down, dear," she said. "We must think 
 some way out of this. We can't do anything now 
 but just think a way out." She hesitated a moment 
 then thought that by giving Dunora something else 
 to think about the thought of Irene would be pushed 
 from her mind. 
 
 "Dunora, you have been very ill. You have been 
 in that bed three weeks !" She waited to see the 
 effect of her words, and the effect was what she 
 expected. "Three weeks ! Three weeks in this bed !" 
 "Yes." "I have been in this bed three weeks and 
 have known nothing about it!" "Yes, dear." Du- 
 nora looked aghast. "Why, Olive, I have never 
 doubted you before, but surely you must be mis- 
 taken when you say that I have been here three 
 weeks. You must be mistaken." "Dunora, I wish 
 it was true that I was mistaken, but it is only too 
 true. You had suffered so that the cruel blow that 
 was struck you caused you to lose consciousness, 
 and you have been unconscious for every day of that 
 three weeks." "Olive!" was all she could exclaim.
 
 172 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 "So you see, dear," and here she came to the sub- 
 ject which she hoped would occupy chief place in 
 Dunora's mind, "we have both lost our situations, 
 for, of course, they couldn't hold them open for 
 us all that time." "Why, Olive, why did you lose 
 your situation? You didn't need to do it. You 
 could have worked. You were not sick." "No, I 
 couldn't work. Do you suppose I would have left 
 you?" Dunora smiled wanly. "No, Olive; I know 
 you wouldn't desert me." 
 
 "Well, my dear, because we have lost our situ- 
 ations we have also lost most of our money, and 
 that is why I gave you doughnuts and bread. That's 
 all we have." Dunora even that early in life was 
 developing a character of independence. It became 
 a buttress of her salvation. In such a young girl 
 what she did at that time was remarkable. Most 
 girls would have been prostrated with the weight 
 of sorrow which Dunora already upheld, to say 
 nothing of this additional burden, but Dunora was 
 not of that kind. She got right out of bed. 
 
 "Olive, how much money have you got?" "Oh, I 
 have some," was the reply, for she intended evasion, 
 not daring to tell the absolute truth. "Well take 
 one cent and go out and get a newspaper and we 
 will see if we can find an advertisement we can 
 answer." Olive arose and went out. In a short 
 time she returned with a paper. Together they 
 scanned the "Help Wanted" column. 
 
 "Here it is !" exclaimed the delighted Dunora. 
 Both pair of eyes glued themselves to the printing, 
 and both pairs of eyes saw the following: "Wanted 
 a seamstress not afraid of work. Dressmaking 
 will be taught the applicant who is hired."
 
 WEARY ROAD CONTINUED 173 
 
 "Hurrah!" almost shouted Dunora. "Here we 
 have it! Work, hard work. I must have it! I 
 must have it! I must have it or I'll just break! 
 Now, I'll run right to the address and try hard to 
 get the work." She went toward the door, but Olive 
 seized her coat and held her back. "You need 
 something more to eat before you go," she said. "Oh, 
 I can't ! I can't !" cried Dunora, as she went through 
 the door and hurried down to the street. 
 
 In passing let us look at the figure of the girl as 
 she went down the stairs and emerged onto School 
 Street. Her coat was the epitome of neatness and 
 the personification of economy. What would have 
 been rags on another were most carefully sewed 
 rags in Dunora's clothes, but the long wear on the 
 coat could not be concealed. Her shoes were so 
 worn that the holes through the bottoms of each sole 
 were covered with cardboard. Her other clothes 
 were similarly worn. 
 
 Onto Union Street and toward the east she 
 turned and hastened to the door of the house, the 
 number of which had been given in the paper. A 
 very pleasant lady opened the door in response to 
 Dunora's ring. "Please, madam, I saw in the paper 
 that you wanted a seamstress who was not afraid of 
 work. I have taken lessons in dressmaking and I'm 
 not at all afraid of work, and I do need money. 
 Please, may I have the position?" 
 
 Over the face of the good lady there came a puz- 
 zled and then a pained expression. She looked at 
 Dunora kindly and saw too plainly the girl's need. 
 Then she spoke words which evidently pained her. 
 "My dear, just a moment before you came I hired 
 another girl for the position."
 
 174 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 No money, no food, no work! Dunora turned 
 sadly from the door without a word and slowly 
 wended her unsteady way back to the room and 
 Olive. As she entered Olive knew the result of her 
 trip before she told it, but she said: "Position's 
 gone !" Olive was not blessed with beauty of face, but 
 she was with beauty of character, and she wouldn't 
 know defeat. "Well, dear, we didn't look at all the 
 advertisements. Let's take the paper and look for 
 some more help wanted." So they took up the paper 
 and looked all through the column. There was 
 nothing in the column which met their requirements. 
 Olive at last was discouraged. For a moment she 
 sat in dumb despair. 
 
 Suddenly there was the sound of footsteps on the 
 stairs, and a knock came at the door. Olive opened 
 it. A young woman stood there. "Does the young 
 lady who applied at Mrs. Randolph's for a position 
 as seamstress live here?" "Yes indeed!" exclaimed 
 the radiant Olive, delighted she knew not why. Du- 
 nora advanced to the young lady and said : "I am the 
 one who wanted the position." The stranger smiled. 
 "Mrs. Randolph sent me to follow you and I 
 almost lost your way. She wants me to ask you to 
 come back to see her." "Do you know why?" Dunora 
 asked. "Yes, I know why, but I prefer that she 
 should tell you." 
 
 Together they went down the stairs and onto the 
 street, and together they threaded their way through 
 the idle crowds toward the quieter street on which 
 Mrs. Randolph lived. The usual bums ogled them 
 from the street corners. When they arrived at the 
 house they were ushered within by the good lady, 
 who at once took Dunora into the parlor. "My
 
 WEARY ROAD CONTINUED 175 
 
 dear," she said, "I took a liking to you at once when 
 you came here a short time ago. I told you the 
 truth when I said that I had hired another girl just 
 before you came, but I have discharged her, for I 
 want you, for I know you will be the best girl for 
 the place. Now, my dear, I am going to hire you, 
 and so you stay right here and go to work." 
 
 "Oh, I am so glad ! We did need it." This latter 
 was spoken before she thought.
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE 
 
 TRIALS 
 
 NOW the first thing I'll ask you to do for me is 
 to go downtown and do some shopping for me. 
 I'll give you the directions and the money, and I 
 am sure you can do as I ask." The good lady then 
 gave her twenty-five dollars in cash together with 
 the directions, and Dunora went out onto the street 
 the possessor of twenty-five dollars and a hunger 
 developed by two days' diet on five cents' worth of 
 doughnuts. 
 
 Oh, if she had only known what Dunora had just 
 passed through and also the terrible pangs of 
 hunger that gnawed at her vitals and said to her 
 repeatedly: "Take just five cents! It's worth more 
 than that to do this errand. Take a quarter, for 
 she'll give you more than that when you get back, 
 and you have a right to it now. You are starving 
 and self -preservation is the first law of nature. Just 
 tell her the truth, tell her you haven't eaten any- 
 thing for two days but three doughnuts." She held 
 the twenty-five dollars up in her hand. The amount 
 had been given her in one dollar bills and it looked 
 a mountain of money to that country-bred girl not 
 far from out of her teens. She went behind a build- 
 ing and then counted the whole twenty-five bills, one 
 at a time one two three four five six 
 
 176
 
 TRIALS 177 
 
 seven, and so on till the number reached twenty-one 
 twenty-two twenty-three twenty-four twenty- 
 five. And that was a very big number of single 
 units for her. And twenty-five dollars was the 
 largest sum of money she had held in her hand to 
 that time. 
 
 "Oh, be sensible; you're starving. Self-defence 
 is the first thing to consider. Take just one dollar, 
 she'll never miss one dollar out of all that pile. 
 She will not count the change, perhaps, anyway. 
 Take a chance. She was a brute to send you down- 
 town with all that money when you had had an 
 empty stomach. You have a right to it." Then as 
 the girl still held the money close the Tempter con- 
 tinued. "Borrow some. Tell her how hungry you 
 are and that you'll pay back the money." Ah, how 
 real and wrenching these temptations were. Then 
 came a final one. "Take the whole twenty-five dol- 
 lars and hide it and tell her that you lost it." So 
 Satan uses his wiles, but they were in vain against 
 this heroic girl. She stood these tests and returned 
 with the goods desired and the exact change. Mrs. 
 Randolph expressed no surprise that she returned 
 with the money intact. 
 
 Mrs. Randolph continued: "Here are ten cents 
 which you spent for carfare." Dunora was stupe- 
 fied. It was three days till pay day and that ten 
 cents represented all the two girls would have till 
 Saturday night for food. It was fairly late in the 
 day when this occurred, and Dunora made no com- 
 ment, but went to work with an empty stomach and 
 aching heart. 
 
 At the day's close Dunora sallied forth on her 
 hungry road. She reached the room and Olive was
 
 178 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 awaiting her. "I got the place," was all she said 
 at first, and Olive could get no other word out of 
 her till she was ready to speak further. Then she 
 simply put the ten cents on the bed with the laconic 
 remark: "That is all the money we have for food 
 till Saturday night." Olive grew curious, naturally. 
 "What do you mean by saying you got the position 
 and then have so little money." "The lady hired me 
 because she had discharged the other girl. The first 
 thing she did was to put twenty-five dollars in real 
 bills in my hand and sent me down to do some shop- 
 ping for her. I walked to save carfare because I 
 didn't have it, and when I got back she gave me this 
 ten cents which she supposed I had spent for carfare. 
 That is all we have till I get my pay Saturday 
 night." 
 
 "That isn't very encouraging in the food line, is 
 it?" "No, it isn't, but I have work, and that is 
 almost everything. We only have to wait till Sat- 
 urday, and then we can at least get a good meal." 
 "Oh, but till Saturday night what shall we do?" at 
 length wailed Olive. "We will make what we can 
 get with ten cents do," was the instant reply. "What 
 can we get with it?" "I know, but there is no use 
 getting any till morning. We will have to go to 
 bed without anything tonight, but we can eat in the 
 morning." Olive at once said, "We have something. 
 I have one slice of bread which I have hoarded. Let's 
 divide." They did, and then went to bed, each with 
 the half slice of bread in lieu of a repast. 
 
 In the morning Dunora took Olive by the hand 
 and together they went to a bakery. Dunora bought 
 five cents worth of raised doughnuts, which appealed 
 to her because of size. The two girls lived on these
 
 TRIALS 179 
 
 doughnuts for a day and a half. In the meantime 
 Dunora worked all day at sewing. Friday noon the 
 remaining five cents were spent for more raised 
 doughnuts, and these were all they ate till Dunora's 
 salary came Saturday afternoon. As she had only 
 worked half a week, she received but half the weekly 
 salary, three dollars. This then was their total 
 sum on which to maintain themselves for the com- 
 ing week unless something unforeseen happened, and 
 that something didn't happen. 
 
 That very Saturday, however, Olive secured work 
 in a shoe factory. Nevertheless, the three dollars 
 had to suffice till pay day at the end of the week. 
 Suppose, reader, your income limited to three dol- 
 lars for a week, which money you divided with an- 
 other and out of your dollar and a half provided 
 every need of life. And this, too, when at least Olive 
 knew that on nearly every street corner lurked a 
 human dog who would provide a good meal for the 
 dog's price. 
 
 Behind the darkest cloud the sun shines, and it 
 shone behind the cloud of Dunora's experiences at 
 that time. One day in that week of hunger there 
 came a letter to Dunora in an unknown handwriting. 
 With curious fingers she opened it and read these 
 words: "EVERETT, MASS., 
 
 , 19 
 
 "Dear Dunora 
 
 "You may never have heard of me, but I have 
 heard of you, and I have found where you are. I 
 am your aunt, and I am lonely and I want you to 
 come over to see me. 
 
 "Lovingly, 
 
 "AUNT JUNE."
 
 180 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 Dunora had never heard of her, but she went to 
 see her that evening and spent ten precious cents to 
 get there. She found the address and saw that it 
 was a house of more than the ordinary pretence, 
 and also one that was of the more expensive kind. 
 With much curiosity she rang the bell. Who has not 
 experienced that tremor of feeling as they have gone 
 to a strange house in answer to an invitation and 
 have rung the bell and waited for the first sound 
 within? Who shall it be who comes to the door? 
 What will be your impression and what will be 
 theirs ? 
 
 There was a sound within and soon the door 
 opened and a woman stood before her, small, slight, 
 not easy to read. "Is this Aunt June?" queried the 
 girl. "Why, Dunora, I hadn't an idea you would 
 be so handsome! Come right in! I'm just as glad 
 to see you as I can be. Why, you know I heard of 
 you by accident, and I heard you were in trouble, 
 and I said to myself that I had a big home here 
 and lived in it all by myself and it would be a 
 great pleasure to me to have a young girl with me, 
 and most of all, you. And so I didn't say a word to 
 any one, but I just had found out your address and 
 I wrote you the letter I am very glad you received." 
 And she went on in her torrent of words with hardly 
 a breath between, and not giving Dunora an oppor- 
 tunity to make any remark of her own. "Are you 
 hungry? Of course you are. How foolish of me 
 to ask that question. I rather felt that you would 
 come to-night in answer to my letter, and I had a 
 hot supper all prepared for you, and if you'll follow 
 me to the dining room we will eat." 
 
 Here, as her Aunt arose to go to the dining room,
 
 TRIALS 181 
 
 Dunora had her first chance to speak. "Aunt June," 
 she said, "I cannot eat with you unless you will do 
 something else for me. I came from a room where 
 I have a room-mate, Olive. She has not had a very 
 good time, and she has been very, very good to me. 
 She is hungry and hasn't had anything to eat but 
 a couple of doughnuts for quite a time. I couldn't 
 possibly eat and let her go hungry. If you will put 
 up for her a dinner just like the one you put up 
 for me why then I'll eat mine." 
 
 "Well, you are a generous girl!'* exclaimed the 
 aunt. "Of course I will." "You don't call that 
 being generous do you? I don't. I call it just plain 
 duty. I'd be very, very bad if I didn't do it. Olive 
 watched by my bedside for three whole weeks when I 
 didn't know a thing. She shared with me everything 
 she had; she gave me money in buying food when I 
 was unconscious, and she gave me good advice from 
 her very heart, and I'd be the most ungrateful per- 
 son living if I didn't do all I could for her. She 
 has work next week, or I wouldn't even stop here now 
 to eat this dinner." 
 
 "Dunora, you certainly are an unusual girl. Let 
 us go to dinner now, and we will talk later." As 
 Dunora sat in the parlor as they were talking she 
 noticed the elaborate furnishings there. The dining 
 room was as elegantly furnished, and all of that 
 home which she had seen was but the actual reality 
 of her long continued dreams. And to her thoughts 
 came : "Oh, if I could only live in a house like this." 
 
 What a repast was put before the famished girl. 
 Onto the table were brought roast beef, squash, tur- 
 nip, parsnip, potatoes, spinach, salad, and for des- 
 sert, plum pudding. Although in the last stages of
 
 182 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 hunger Dunora controlled herself and ate like a 
 lady, a habit which always distinguished her. Her 
 aunt remarked it. "Dunora, where did you get your 
 beautiful table manners?" "By watching other 
 people and using my common sense and doing only 
 those acts at the table which I thought would offend 
 people the least." "Certainly an unusual girl,** re- 
 peated the aunt. 
 
 At the close of the meal Aunt June said, "Now, 
 Dunora, as I said when you first came, I am all 
 alone here and want you to come and live with me 
 and you can do work enough around the house to be 
 at ease in your mind about staying here. You 
 will come, I am sure, for I want your companionship. 
 Will you come?" 
 
 "Why surely, Aunt June. But first let us put 
 up Olive's meal, for I cannot keep that poor dear 
 waiting longer. I'll get my things and come back 
 to-morrow. I hope you will like me and that I will 
 like you." Shortly they were putting the final 
 touches to Olive's dinner, and Dunora's Aunt gave 
 her a little bag in which to take it over to Olive. 
 Then she went to the room where Olive awaited. 
 
 The news of the coming change was sad news to 
 Olive, for it meant that they must seek separate 
 ways, and Olive had grown to be very fond of 
 Dunora. But Olive had a good situation in the 
 shoe factory, and Dunora had what looked to be 
 a home. The dinner made that evening more than 
 pleasant. 
 
 The next day, according to her promise, Dunora 
 came back to Everett and to her Aunt June's. It 
 seemed more like a dream than a reality to the girl.
 
 TRIALS 183 
 
 Aunt June came to the door quickly and smiled 
 at the small amount of clothes Dunora brought in 
 the bag which had been loaned her the day before. 
 "You seem just like a sunbeam coming into the 
 house, Dunora. This house has been cloudy with 
 loneliness for a long, long time, and you are very 
 welcome. Come up and let me show you your room." 
 Dunora followed up the velvety stairs to the sec- 
 ond story, where, in the front of the house on the 
 tree-shaded street, was a large room with pleasant 
 bay window. It was very appealingly furnished. 
 "This is our guest chamber and it is to be yours. 
 But you know you are not a guest here, but just 
 belong here." 
 
 "Oh, Aunt June, I just can't understand it all. 
 I just can't understand why all this good fortune 
 came to me just now when I needed it most. I can't 
 help thinking of the contrast between this and what 
 I just came from in Lynn. I don't know why I de- 
 serve it or how you heard of me or why you asked 
 me here when you found out where I was." 
 
 "Oh," laughed Aunt June, "I not only found out 
 where you were, but I saw you before you came here. 
 I liked your looks very much." 
 
 "But it all seems so strange to me." "Don't let 
 it seem strange. It's natural enough. As I said, 
 you can busy yourself around the house enough to 
 keep your mind occupied. Then you can read, and 
 when you feel tired of that we will go into Boston 
 to the theater." 
 
 "Oh, Aunt June, you are planning only for my 
 happiness, and you mustn't do that. I hope I am 
 not selfish and I couldn't be happy unless I was
 
 184 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 doing something for you, too." "You'll find enough 
 to do for me from time to time. Don't worry about 
 that." 
 
 Content with the assurance of that, Dunora soon 
 made herself at home in her strange new dwelling 
 place, which she could not quite understand. She 1 
 endeavored to keep herself as much in the back- 
 ground as possible and not to intrude herself upon 
 her new-found aunt any more than possible. 
 
 But her aunt didn't seem to easily be denied 
 Dunora's presence. When the girl was alone in her 
 room for any length of time, invariably Aunt June 
 wandered up the stairs and found an excuse for 
 entering. On these occasions she usually sat up 
 very close to the girl. Down in the parlor where 
 Dunora would sit in order to indulge in her dreams 
 of joy, Aunt June would follow her also and sit down 
 beside her and cuddle up close. 
 
 "Oh, you are so beautiful," she would say. "I 
 just love to be near you." Dunora couldn't quite 
 understand her, and waited to see more of what her 
 aunt would do. But the days went on as merry as 
 could be, and the previously starved girl grew full 
 fleshed and strong under the influence of the abun- 
 dant and regular food. 
 
 After she had been there several weeks Aunt June 
 came to her one day and said : "Do you know, dear, 
 I have gotten into a bad habit recently. I am not 
 sleeping well. I get to thinking of you and get 
 lonely. Sometimes I have been tempted in the middle 
 of the night to crawl in beside you, for I know that 
 if I could only be beside you I could sleep. Would 
 you care very much if I did?" 
 
 "Why, Aunt June," instantly replied the lass, "if
 
 TRIALS 185 
 
 you ever feel that way, and that you could sleep bet- 
 ter by coming in with me, why do so." "Thank you !" 
 said Aunt June, and did not speak further of it. 
 They both went to the theaters in Boston frequently. 
 In the times in which Aunt June came to bed with 
 her she talked confidentially. Finally she grew very 
 confidential and, in her own words, one night told 
 Dunora that she had a man visitor at night when 
 Dunora was asleep. 
 
 Dunora had noticed a piece from a man's attire 
 in the lower hall once and had wondered. But her 
 aunt's statement was the most amazing she had 
 heard. It was the last thing she ever would have 
 thought of with relation to her aunt. Dunora was 
 so wonderstruck at the time the subject was men- 
 tioned that she made no answer to the words. In 
 fact what answer could she make? 
 
 But soon the matter came to a climax. A day or 
 two later Aunt June met Dunora in the parlor. She 
 came and sat beside the girl. "Oh, I'm glad to see 
 you. Hope you are feeling well. I want to talk 
 to you." She moved up close to Dunora and spoke 
 softly. "Do you know I'm really getting jealous 
 of you. My friend was speaking of you last night 
 and he said he had a man friend who had seen you 
 and was very much smitten with you. What do you 
 think of that?" 
 
 Dunora's answer was quick and to the point. "I 
 don't think much of it if he is a friend of the 
 man who comes here to see you, Aunt June." Aunt 
 June didn't expect that answer, but Dunora was 
 always doing the unexpected to those who tried to 
 find wrong in her. Aunt June overlooked the slur 
 and tried to calm the rising waters.
 
 186 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 "Dunora, you foolish little girl, you are too good. 
 This man I mentioned is influential and can do a 
 lot for you, and he is so smitten with you that he 
 simply wants to come to see you as my friend comes 
 to see me." 
 
 Dunora had arisen as her aunt spoke, and the ris- 
 ing fire shone in her eyes. "Stop right there, Aunt 
 June ! Now I know why you have been so good to 
 me. I knew it was a dream! hollow! hollow! I 
 couldn't understand what you did for me! Now I 
 do! You tried to oil the way for this dirty work, 
 but you didn't succeed! You say your man is in- 
 fluential and that I am too good. All such men are 
 influential among their kind, which is the lowest on 
 earth. Oh, they care for the women, they do ! I've 
 met a number of them, and they're all alike! You 
 see them ogling girls on every corner, forgetting that 
 a girl gave them life. They never think high asc 
 any one's head, and they live like so much human 
 rot and die forgotten, and the only good they ever 
 do is to die and rot into fertilizer! I am too good, 
 am I? Yes, I am. I am too good for association 
 with worse than brutes ! And I'm too good to stay 
 in this house any longer! I'm too good for you, 
 and you know it ! I've long suspected you and now 
 I've found you out! I'll run upstairs and get my 
 things and leave this fine house with covering of 
 filth, and I'll go back to my bare rooms again with 
 joy and oh, I'm just ashamed of you. I'm ashamed 
 of you ! Don't you ever tell any one that you're 
 my aunt, for you're not! Thank God there isn't a 
 drop of blood relation between us ! You're not my 
 aunt. You are only so by adoption, thank God for 
 that!"
 
 TRIALS 187 
 
 And she flung out of the room, tore upstairs to 
 her room and gathered her things together and went 
 without another word. Where are there other girls 
 who would accept the coldness of the world under 
 such circumstances instead of a home with all the 
 comforts if a moral lassitude were indulged in at 
 times. God grant the number of such to increase in 
 leaps and bounds. Moral heroism is as far above 
 physical heroism as the east is removed from the 
 west. 
 
 Alone Dunora found a place in a hairdresser's. 
 Here her pleasant ways, in spite of her heart break- 
 ing for a knowledge of the whereabouts of her child, 
 won many new customers for her employer. The 
 lady who employed her was a true friend, and the 
 poor girl at last tasted more of the milk of human 
 kindness of which she was sorely in need. In this 
 hairdresser's shop she felt the satisfaction of work 
 well done, and its reward, and all went as pleasant 
 as a rosy day until the hairdresser made up her 
 mind to move to another town, and Dunora was 
 again thrown out of work, but with a trifle of money 
 saved and a heart more rejuvenated. 
 
 She made some nice girl friends about this time, 
 and for the few days she was out of work she was 
 accustomed to walk around with one of them try- 
 ing to find other work and looking in store windows 
 to see the goods displayed and wondering how it 
 would seem to really have money enough to own 
 them themselves. And looking at the passing auto- 
 mobiles they wondered how it would seem to really 
 ride in one. While they were looking at them pass- 
 ing two well-dressed men drew up to the curb in one 
 in front of them.
 
 188 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 "Excuse us, please, but do you know a couple of 
 girls who want work? We are looking for two to 
 work in our store, and we thought you might know 
 the girls we wanted." There was hesitation on the 
 part of the girls for a moment, then one of them 
 replied. "We are looking for work ourselves." "Is 
 that so!" said the spokesman of the two men. "Per- 
 haps you'll be the very girls we want. Our store is 
 in Reading. Jump into the auto and we'll take you 
 over to the store and you can see if you like it." 
 
 Here were their hopes realized at last ! Here was 
 their chance to get a ride in a real automobile, and 
 here was the chance to get work. Without further 
 thought they hastened through the open door of the 
 touring car. Swiftly through the streets of Lynn 
 the car carried them, and soon they were going on 
 the Newburyport turnpike speeding toward Salem. 
 The two men kept their own council and talked al- 
 most entirely to themselves. The girls were too 
 much occupied with their own thoughts and their 
 own excitement over the prospect of work to pay 
 much attention to the men. Furthermore, not know- 
 ing the men they were reluctant to speak to them at 
 all. 
 
 Through Town House Square, Salem, they passed, 
 and out toward the Danvers hills by estuaries of 
 old ocean and dells of terrestrial nature. Then 
 they branched off in the direction of Reading, and 
 the farms grew larger and larger and houses fewer 
 and fewer. Copses of woodland came at frequent 
 intervals, and then larger stretches of forest. The 
 rolling hills came more frequently and larger, and 
 though in Essex County, Massachusetts, which is the 
 most thickly populated county in the sixth State in
 
 TRIALS 189 
 
 population in the Union, they soon came to such a 
 long stretch of woodland that even from a hilltop 
 which they reached no human habitation could be 
 seen as far as the eye had unobstructed vision. 
 
 Here on a sudden, the men stopped the auto- 
 mobile and at once they came round to the side of 
 the car, opened the door and one of them said : "Let's 
 get out here a while." The girls, having no reason 
 for distrust, stepped out. As soon as they did so 
 the men stepped right to them, smiled with the know- 
 ing smile of those who have accomplished some evil 
 design, and said : "Now we've got you where we want 
 you! You don't get back from here till we get our 
 satisfaction ! There's no one near here to help you 
 so you might as well make the best of it and" they 
 didn't get any farther than that with Dunora. The 
 other girl began to beg but Dunora struck her on 
 the back, said : "Brace up !" and turned to the men 
 with, "So, you dirty cowards, that's the way you 
 help girls to get work is it? You skunks, you think 
 you'll get the better of us, do you? I've got the 
 number of your car and so don't you lay a finger on 
 us or you'll hear from it in two ways you don't 
 expect!" She pulled a huge hatpin from her hat, 
 held it as an offensive weapon and said : "You touch 
 one of us and I'll drive this into you !" 
 
 One of the men then said: "All right! We will 
 drive on and leave you here and you can find your 
 way back the best way you can." No word was 
 spoken by Dunora in reply. But in an instant there 
 was a quick motion on her part, an upraised arm 
 which then swept downward rapidly, and its down- 
 ward sweep was followed by a loud report and the 
 hiss of escaping air. In that instant she had stabbed
 
 190 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 her heavy hat pin through the side of the rear tire 
 and it had blown out. "Now I think you'll take us 
 back," was all Dunora said. 
 
 "By God!" exclaimed the ringleader, "now see 
 what you've done!" "And you see it, too!" declared 
 Dunora. "And you also see that you will not go off 
 and leave us here. You can't move a yard till you 
 get help, and we two girls will wait here and see that 
 the automobile doesn't run away while you two men 
 walk back over the road to get something to mend 
 the hole in your tire." 
 
 The men changed front at this. The one who ap- 
 peared the more talkative of the two laughed with 
 a better laugh than he had indulged in that day. He 
 spoke to Dunora and paid no attention to the other 
 girl. "My girl," said he, "I am very glad to meet 
 a self-respecting woman. I have been a dog and 
 you have behaved like a true woman that you are. 
 It may be quite a time before we can fix this, but 
 when it is fixed we will gladly give you a ride back to 
 Lynn." And they did. And those two men thought 
 differently of women after that ride to the lonely 
 woods near Reading. 
 
 And Dunora was again out of work. When penni- 
 less she was obliged to go without food, but upon 
 her buying some meals in a Chinese restaurant one of 
 the Chinese proprietors observed her. This Chinaman 
 was a father and had a little daughter to whom the 
 heart-hungry Dunora took a fancy. The wily Ori- 
 ental surmised that Dunora was not overburdened 
 with money, and he told her she could be trusted for 
 any meals when she needed them and was out of 
 funds. She, thinking it the kindness any American
 
 TRIALS 191 
 
 gentleman would extend to a refined woman in need, 
 accepted the offer in that spirit. Once or twice she 
 permitted the trust to be extended, but paid the 
 bills upon coming into funds again. She noticed the 
 Chinese father seemed to stay around on the occa- 
 sions when she came in, but suspected nothing. 
 
 One day she came in late to dinner when there 
 was no one else eating in any of the booths so preva- 
 lent in Chinese restaurants. After she had eaten 
 part of her meal the Chinaman came into the booth 
 and sat down opposite her. He smiled his oily, 
 meaningless smile. Lifting up his finger he showed 
 a ring he had which he, like the rest of his race, 
 had gotten by living on the lowest and cheapest form 
 of food, and in the lowest and cheapest way. "You 
 like rings?" he asked. "All girls like rings," was 
 the reply. "I want to give you a ring," was the 
 astonishing rejoinder. "What do you mean?" asked 
 the nonplussed girl. The Chinaman leaned across 
 the table and lowered his voice. "I got a big 
 diamond ring, a great big diamond ring, worth much. 
 I give it to you if you stay with me one night." 
 
 The expressionless face of the Oriental showed 
 nothing but its usual stolid sensuality. Dunora 
 arose and looked him in the face with a look no 
 American would have cared to have faced. "So that 
 is why you gave me credit for my meals, is it? That 
 is what you thought of my character. You thought 
 you could buy my soul with a diamond ring? I 
 suppose your race thinks that money is all there is 
 in the world and that you can buy anything with 
 it. But, you cur, you can't buy womanhood, and if 
 I ever hear of your saying anything like this to any
 
 192 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 other decent woman I'll report you to those who 
 know what to do to such as you. Go to your Chinese 
 wife, you Chinese beast !" And she walked out. 
 
 At about this time Dunora experienced a time of 
 great financial stress again. She was obliged to 
 move from even her very poor room to one that cost 
 even less. But she faced the situation bravely and 
 did not murmur when money grew scanty and, even 
 with her fastidious nature she was obliged to go 
 into ill-kept quarters. 
 
 But when she did so she didn't realize what she 
 was entering. She had made the acquaintance of 
 a girl about whom she knew little, and this girl told 
 her of a house where she could get a room at a figure 
 which was very reasonable. 
 
 Dunora found other girls there, and soon noticed 
 the roughness of their talk. But she did not at 
 first find out their character, as she was outdoors 
 all day looking for work, and at night, completely 
 exhausted, she went to her room and almost at once 
 to sleep. The girls began dropping into her room 
 and, out of the fellow feeling in their hearts, they 
 gave her some food. 
 
 Soon she found them to be girls whom the lust 
 of men had condemned to the streets. They tempted 
 her to become one of them. They promised her food 
 and clothes. Her answer was to leave the place 
 without money. A merciful providence assisted her 
 in finding work that day.
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO 
 
 HER FIRST HOME 
 
 MONTHS passed in which Dunora drowned her 
 thoughts as much as possible in work or in 
 seeking it when a situation in which she was em- 
 ployed ceased offering employment. But all the 
 time there was gnawing at her heart the mother's 
 yearnings for her child. Exercise sufficient mentality 
 to imagine, as near as you can if you are a woman 
 what you would have felt under circumstances like 
 those narrated if you had been robbed of your only 
 child in such a fashion and knew not where she was 
 or whether the child of your flesh was dead or alive, 
 as weary month followed weary month. Think over 
 those three weeks, twenty-one days of unconscious- 
 ness after Dunora fell prone at the door where the 
 landlady told her the words she spoke. 
 
 It would seem that at this time it was decreed 
 that she had suffered enough of roofless days and 
 nights and periods of starvation. She made many 
 girl friends and, necessarily, some men friends. One 
 day while she was in a room with a few of her girl 
 friends a man, many years her senior, was there 
 calling. Dunora's frank face always attracted at- 
 tention. This man, whose head was quite gray 
 and very bald on top had lost his wife and was liv- 
 ing an aimless existence on an income partly in- 
 
 193
 
 194 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 herited and partly coming from other sources then 
 unknown save to himself and those immediately con- 
 cerned in its acquisition. Dunora and her unusual 
 ways aroused his curiosity and interest, and he made 
 inquiry concerning her from some of the people in 
 the room. 
 
 There was considerable harmless hilarity there, 
 and in the course of it this man came to be intro- 
 duced, and then talked with her. He told her that 
 he had furniture in storage with which he had fur- 
 nished an apartment when he had a wife. He added 
 that he had been seeking a chance to have some one 
 keep house for him again, as he was dissatisfied 
 with living in the way in which he was and if she 
 would be his housekeeper he would give her a home 
 and food and a fixed salary. He added that he 
 was so much older than she that it would be all right 
 to make such an arrangement. Dunora said : "What 
 you are asking is most unusual. I do not know 
 about you or how much I could trust you if I did as 
 you suggest. I am very fond of cooking but I have 
 a matter on my mind which would make me unfit 
 to do my best." The man replied that he had en- 
 quired about her and had found out about the loss 
 of her daughter, and that if she would keep house 
 for him he would assist her in finding Irene. 
 
 To the heartbroken mother there was only one sac- 
 rifice she would not make to accomplish the finding 
 of Irene. And when the possibility of finding her 
 came in such pleasant guise it made the offer more 
 than appealing. But she told the man whose name 
 was Walter Burrill, that she could not decide at 
 that time. 
 
 She thought it all out and came to the conclusion
 
 HER FIRST HOME 195 
 
 that she would accept the situation until she found 
 she couldn't trust him, so she told him, the following 
 day, that she would accept the position. Accord- 
 ingly he sent her to hunt a flat, and she found one 
 to his liking and the furniture was moved in. The 
 arrangement was purely of business, he furnished the 
 flat and food in the rough and she, with her really 
 great ability in that direction, cooked and made the 
 flat a home. They had practically nothing to do 
 with each other except in this business way, he going 
 his way and she hers. And so although under the 
 same roof neither knew when the other went out or 
 when either one was out the other did not know 
 when the outsider was to be expected. Their friends 
 were totally different, their ways totally different, 
 their ages totally different, but Dunora had a home 
 where, for a time, her reserve was respected and she 
 was not interfered with in her privacy. But that 
 did not last. Burrill had a past with which Dunora 
 was not acquainted when the arrangement was made. 
 It began to crop out. One day he came home in- 
 toxicated, but Dunora had been prepared by pre- 
 vious developments, and it was not the shock to her 
 that it might otherwise have been. But it drew her 
 farther and farther away from any association with 
 him except of purely business nature. They were 
 living in Everett then, in an apartment house where 
 lived many families. One poor woman, sick and 
 abused by her husband, saw Dunora's predicament 
 and was truly a friend in need. Worse and worse 
 grew Burrill's periods of intoxication, and Dunora 
 kept out of the flat at one or another of her girl 
 friends for even days at a time when he was away 
 with convivial friends. At this time he began to
 
 196 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 make advances toward her of an amatory nature. 
 These, inasmuch as they were not rough, were turned 
 aside in a ladylike manner by Dunora. 
 
 So it continued for quite a time, and Dunora saw 
 a disruption inevitable. Think over the predica- 
 ment of the girl at this time. A home had been 
 offered her and protection. It was heaven to find 
 a roof over her head. She had behaved herself as 
 a lady. The most blameworthy act she had ever 
 done was an occasional exhibition of righteous tem- 
 per, and she had protected him in more than one 
 way and often. Then the roof was falling through 
 no fault of hers, and the arrangement ended as will 
 be seen shortly. 
 
 Just at this time of especial trial and especial 
 need Vir Noble appeared on the scene. The re- 
 meeting in Scollay Square, Boston, has already been 
 recounted, and the increasing thrills as, at frequent 
 intervals, Dunora blessed Vir with her presence. Be- 
 tween periods of time preceding this occurrence, the 
 child marriage of Dunora had been annulled. At 
 this time Vir knew not of any of the circumstances 
 of this. 
 
 As that meeting took place in Scollay Square 
 truly 
 
 The soul within him leaped forth 
 
 To its mate, though he knew not 
 That the girl of girls then stood there 
 
 Led by God unto that spot. 
 Yet there stirred within his heart's core 
 
 Impulses not felt before, 
 And the strongest heartfelt yearning 
 
 Made him long to know her more.
 
 HER FIRST HOME 197 
 
 During the time in which Dunora had been con- 
 tinuing the arrangement with Burrill she had, be- 
 cause of his growing intoxication, come to the point 
 of breaking though she had done her best to try 
 to break him of his dissoluteness. At every possible 
 occasion Vir tried to be with her, and meeting her 
 became of the first importance in his mind. 
 
 One evening, after one of their dinners together, 
 he again asked her if he might not see her to her 
 suburban home. "Not to-night, Mr. Burrill may be 
 home and I do not want him to see you just now. I 
 may need you later." "I may need you later" it* 
 rang in Vir's ears like celestial music. It was the 
 very first time that this girl of girls had ever ex- 
 pressed the least dependence on him and no strong 
 man can harden his heart to the dependence of a 
 woman. It is one of the sweet things of earth. Vir's 
 blood surged through his veins. She dependent for 
 the least thing on him ! Glorious ! Glorious ! But, 
 oh, how he longed to go to her home with her. He 
 knew, he doubly knew, that the frail body was carry- 
 ing a burden of which her lips did not speak. His 
 heart went out to her without a thought of himself, 
 for he utterly yearned to put his arm of protection 
 around her in a literal as well as a figurative sense. 
 Why should she be called upon to carry this burden 
 alone? She was in an extremely nervous state, and 
 at times when she was standing still he beheld her 
 hand shake like a leaf for long periods of time. Only 
 a great nervous strain could account for that, and 
 Vir longed to know its cause and assist in the cure. 
 
 When Dunora told him he might not see her to 
 her house that evening but that she might need him 
 later, he swallowed a great lump of chagrin and
 
 swelled with the joy of being of possible assistance. 
 So with great reluctance he made no direct reply to 
 her statement, but he pressed the question of coming 
 out to see her home as soon as possible. Dunora 
 hesitated a moment and then said, "I will do this. 
 We will go to supper again to-morrow night and 
 after supper you may go out with me as far as my 
 house and, if Burrill is not there, you may come in." 
 
 Vir had to exercise an appreciable amount of self- 
 restraint not to say something about this Burrill. 
 He knew enough of men of the world and especially 
 of such as had a reputation akin to Burrill's to know 
 that no good would come of a continuance of the 
 Burrill arrangement, yet he respected Dunora to 
 the extent that he waited for her to say something 
 before he added his thoughts. 
 
 The next evening after their supper Vir enjoyed 
 the rapture of assisting her to the car in the sub- 
 way at Scollay Square. On the hour's ride to the 
 suburb where her house was situated they spoke in 
 low tones, and she gave him one of her first confi- 
 dences. "I have had trouble with Mr. Burrill, seri- 
 ous trouble, and I have ordered him out of my 
 house." Vir almost forgot himself so that he nearly 
 shouted, "Hurrah!" But he restrained his joy to 
 subdued tones. The girl continued. "As you know, 
 I bought the house only about a month ago, and 
 he has been renting it from me. In this way I have 
 an income from it, but income or no income, I have 
 suffered all I shall at his hands, and I have given 
 him notice to go." Here Vir interrupted. "Why 
 don't you order him out right off? It is your 
 house." "I cannot, for he has paid in advance, and 
 he has two weeks more, but if he doesn't go then I
 
 HER FIRST HOME 199 
 
 shall take means to force him out." The determina- 
 tion with which she spoke those words showed full 
 well the firmness of the purpose behind them. Vir 
 looked at her with silent admiration. To break 
 through that independence and become depended on 
 by Dunora was a prize worthy the mightiest of 
 struggles. And again Vir gritted his teeth for the 
 fight for her love. Again and again Vir saw that 
 his own years of bitterness could be crowned with 
 God's greatest earthly gift if he could only win 
 Dunora's love. Ah, but it was not his for the ask- 
 ing. Only could he win it by a long process during 
 which he must show himself not only a man but one 
 exhibiting qualities of manhood coming up to Du- 
 nora's standard which was made unusually high 
 because of her previous association with the hard 
 and cruel things of life. 
 
 They came to the suburb where was Dunora's 
 house. Alighting from the car which did not go 
 within sight of her home, they walked till she said: 
 "We will come in sight of my bungalow as soon as 
 we pass this next house. Then we can see if Bur- 
 rill is there." They passed the house mentioned and 
 across the field, and over near some open woods stood 
 a house which Vir could only indistinctly see because 
 of the lateness of the hour. In the upper rear 
 windows a light shone. A man's head appeared in 
 one of the two windows. "There he is looking for 
 me. 1*11 run across the field and I'll see you in about 
 ten minutes right here. I'll feed my dog and then 
 come back, and I'll spend the night at my girl 
 friend's house. You can go with me to her door. 
 She lives in Everett." 
 
 Into the darkness of the field he saw the form so
 
 200 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 dear to liim go. Around the corner of the bungalow 
 he saw her turn as she came into the light reflected 
 from the upstairs window. Then he heard the 
 heavy door shut and with it felt a pain in his heart. 
 The moments during which she was within the house 
 were hours to Vir. But at length, after he had 
 seen the lights flash on downstairs, he heard the 
 door reopen and saw her come toward him around 
 the bungalow's corner and disappear again into the 
 intervening darkness. As out of the darkness of his 
 bitter life the sunbeam of Dunora had come, so out 
 of the darkness which then intervened the dear 
 Dunora was to burst. 
 
 As she came into the light up the little hillock his 
 face beamed with joy, and he exclaimed: "Oh, I'm 
 so glad to see you. It seemed a year that you were 
 in that house." "Did it?" enquired the girl as if she 
 didn't know. Together they took the car for Mai- 
 den, and in Maiden Square changed cars for Everett. 
 There was an intangible something existing then be- 
 tween them which drew them nearer together. It 
 was both her need and his need. Their conversation 
 was on pleasant subjects, and even laughter came. 
 Dearly did he like to see it on her lips. They came 
 to the street near Everett Square where her friend 
 lived, and passed down it to the little cottage house. 
 The friend came to the door and all three stood 
 there and talked. It was an hour of great pleasure 
 to Vir. Finally Dunora's friend passed within and 
 Dunora and Vir stood close together by the little 
 cottage door. "Well, I must go within," she said. 
 But she didn't move. A look came over her face he 
 had not seen before, but he read a new passage in 
 his life. Oh, but the glow of ripening love, the gleam
 
 HER FIRST HOME 201 
 
 of heart warmth, the heat of the fire of Cupid's pas- 
 sion which raged through him! 
 
 Softly he tiptoed from that little yard, and as he 
 stood in the gateway he turned and looked back at 
 the cottage which contained the form of her so dear 
 to him. The four walls spoke not, yet within them 
 was life to him. As* he turned down the street he 
 strode a better man with a higher purpose and a 
 newer resolve to conquer in order to win her and, 
 above all, to conquer for her sake. 
 
 They met the next day again. They went to the 
 theater and to supper, and again the subject of her 
 home came up in the conversation. "Sunday I am 
 going to invite you to call and see my house if 
 Burrill isn't in. I'll go out there about ten thirty 
 and you come at eleven. Come down the street to- 
 ward the house, and I'll be in the bay window. If 
 he isn't there I'll shake my head 'Yes' for you to 
 come to the door, but if I shake it 'No' it will mean 
 that he is in. In that case pass by on the street and 
 go around the square and I'll meet you at the cor- 
 ner where you stood that night when you first saw 
 the bungalow." 
 
 Sunday came on lagging hours. The forenoon 
 seemed endless until the hour arrived for him to 
 start, and by speediest car he arrived at the Ave- 
 nue on which the bungalow was situated. Up it 
 he went for the first time in his life with the bungalow 
 full in his view. In the darkness he had 
 not discerned the nature of the bungalow, which 
 appeared in the daylight a thing of beauty. 
 It was entirely of stucco with red fireproof roofing 
 and the whole dainty appearance gave one the im- 
 pression that the builder was of artistic eye. Just
 
 202 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 beyond was an oak crowned hill, where wild birds 
 sang, and its parlor windows looked out on open oak 
 and pine woods rising to rocky, fern-clad emi- 
 nences. 
 
 As Vir approached, all atremble, he beheld Du- 
 nora's face and form in the bay window. Which 
 way would she nod? For a moment he felt like the 
 gladiators in the ancient Roman Coliseum when, de- 
 feated and waiting for the verdict of the blood- 
 thirsty populace, they waited the thumb^ down 
 w ich meant death or the thumbs up which meant 
 In >. But even if Burrill was within Vir knew that 
 h r lj stay there was but for a little time longer. As 
 Dunora smiled on Vir she nodded "No" and pointed 
 toward the kitchen indicating that Burrill was there, 
 so he passed by without changing his expression. 
 Continuing through the woodland on either side he 
 turned around the square and came to the place of 
 meeting, and Dunora was there awaiting him. 
 
 "You may wonder why I have not wanted you to 
 see Mr. Burrill. The reason is that I dislike him so 
 much that I do not want to dishonor you by meeting 
 him." In this indirect way did Vir learn more of 
 what her estimation of him then was. Not by direct 
 statement, but by inference, all the more sweet, did 
 Vir proceed in his knowledge of how he stood in 
 Dunora's mind. 
 
 A few days later Dunora and Vir went to the 
 Auditorium in Lynn and witnessed a performance 
 of "Shore Acres." Its State of Maine locale brought 
 pleasure to them both. As they sat there prepara- 
 tory to gathering up their wrappings and going out 
 to her home, at the door of which he was to leave 
 her, he could not help the thought that he wished he
 
 HER FIRST HOME 203 
 
 did not have to leave her at the door, but that by 
 right of love, by right of holy love, by right of fel- 
 low ownership and by right of protection he might 
 enter that bungalow door. Strange enough, that 
 very wish was to have its fulfillment, in part, that 
 very night. 
 
 The performance ceased, and they filed out with 
 the crowd, waiting for their car at the very door of 
 the theater. When they got on the car it was well 
 filled except forward on the right-hand side. The 
 very first seat was unoccupied, also the longitudinal 
 seat in front of it. They did not notice that the 
 car stopped at the next white post and that among 
 others a man got on also. While they were engaged 
 in conversation this man passed forward in the car 
 and sat down directly in front of them on the long 
 seat. 
 
 "That is Burrill. He saw us get on and he is 
 after you," said Dunora in subdued voice. As a mat- 
 ter of form Dunora introduced the younger to the 
 older man. Vir, as a matter of form also, said: "I 
 am glad to meet you, Mr. Burrill." Burrill glowered 
 at him for a moment without speaking. Then he 
 gutturaled : "Well, I'm not glad to meet you, young 
 man !" 
 
 Inwardly Vir smiled, for nothing would have dis- 
 pleased him more than to have had Burrill glad to 
 meet him. Burrill was so open in showing his hos- 
 tility that it was amusing. He sat there for a time 
 scowling at them as if desiring to eat Vir alive, but 
 Vir, having had some experiences in life, was far 
 from disconcerted, and returned his frown with a 
 smile. Not progressing easily along the highway of 
 browbeating, Burrill got uneasy. He began to get
 
 ill at ease in Vir's company and fidgeted back and 
 forth on the plush seat. 
 
 Finally he leaned toward Dunora and said, rather 
 huskily: "I'll go back to Lynn and get a bunch of 
 the fellows and come over to the house in an auto- 
 mobile." He then got off the car. There came a 
 look on Dunora's face which pained Vir. He read in 
 it suppressed anxiety. But before he had a chance 
 to frame a question Dunora spoke: 
 
 "Burrill is going back to Lynn to gather up a 
 crowd of loafers at the saloons to come out to my 
 house to cause trouble." She paused as if hesitat- 
 ing to say what was in her mind. Then she added: 
 "A few weeks ago he did the same thing. He was 
 drunk and he got a crowd of his human wrecks piled 
 into an automobile and they drove up to my house 
 when I was all alone in it. As he was paying rent 
 and had a key he let them all in, and I was alone 
 with six intoxicated men whom he had induced to 
 make trouble for me. I was in the kitchen at the 
 time, and they all staggered in there led by a saloon- 
 keeper named Leavitt. He was so full of rum bravery 
 that he began to tell me what he was going to do 
 to myself and my house. 
 
 " 'Oho, my fine lady,' brawled Leavitt, 'we've got 
 you now where we want you ! You, with all your fine 
 manners! What good will they do you now!' And 
 he laughed the laugh of the brute beast he was. 
 'No one will see us here ! Oh, so pure and good ! ' 
 By God, we'll fix that!' and he made a rush for me. 
 My brain had been working rapidly while he spoke 
 and assistance came unexpectedly. I had my back 
 to the pantry, and by some providential happening 
 my great carving knife was within my reach. I
 
 HER FIRST HOME 205 
 
 grasped it and held it aloft. He, coward that he 
 was, stopped instantly. 'Leavitt, you dog, if you 
 come one step nearer I'll bury this in you !' He re- 
 coiled. 'Now get out of my house quick ! Go to 
 your poor wife, you brute !' And the crowd tumbled 
 over themselves in getting into that automobile." 
 
 As Vir listened to this tale he shuddered at 
 the possibilities had those drunken beasts been 
 dealing with a less determined girl than Dunora. 
 Then he said : "God be thanked that you were as 
 brave as you were. I can't think of it without shud- 
 dering. I'm going to ask you to let me come out 
 to your house to-night. To the dickens with the 
 conventionalities. You are in danger, and I'd be 
 no man if I didn't try to protect you." 
 
 Dunora replied in calm voice: "Oh, you needn't 
 come. I'm all right. I have dealt with him and his 
 crowd before, and I can do it again. He may bring 
 out a new pack to-night."
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE 
 
 FAREWELL HELL 
 
 VIR'S jaw stiffened, though not perceptibly to an 
 onlooker. "Dunora," he said, "I'm going to go 
 out to your house with you, and that's all there is 
 to it." "Oh, don't be foolish, Vir. Just ride on to 
 Boston to your room and I'll get off at the Avenue 
 and go to the house and I'll be all right. You need 
 your sleep and it will take you a long time to get 
 to your room anyway. You just keep on the car 
 and I'll quickly get to the house and go to bed." 
 
 "Dunora Whitney, I'm far more determined to 
 go with you than you are not to have me, so do not 
 waste words as I am coming to your house even if 
 you lock me out, and I have to stay outside." They 
 were arriving at the Avenue as they were speaking, 
 and both alighted from the car and started up the 
 dark Avenue. Dunora blithely said: "Since you are 
 so considerate I will not lock you out, but you can 
 come right in and sit down in the parlor." Vir 
 laughed. "Dunora, we did not think that I would 
 see your house for the first time under such circum- 
 stances. It will make the house doubly precious to 
 enter it first in the role of a protector." 
 
 They came to the greensward in front of the bun- 
 galow, and in the slight glow of the distant street 
 incandescent lamp he again beheld at close quarters 
 
 206
 
 FAREWELL HELL 207 
 
 the beautiful stucco cottage. They mounted the 
 steps to the piazza and he stood on a floor of the 
 house at last. Dunora fitted her key to the lock, 
 she stepped within, touched a button and the interior 
 was flooded with light. He stepped within also, the 
 door was closed and he had the inestimable pleas- 
 ure of being with her in her own home. 
 
 She carried him through it, showed him the vari- 
 ous rooms, the tidy kitchen and pantry save for the 
 signs of Burrill's debauchery since she had been 
 there. Vir was impressed with the great care and 
 neatness with which Dunora had arranged every 
 article which came under her supervision. The 
 house was well furnished, but lacked that indefinable 
 quality which changes a house into a home. 
 
 There was a strained feeling as they waited there, 
 for both sat in the parlor facing each other from 
 opposite corners of the room and awaiting develop- 
 ments. Hour after hour dragged by as they sat 
 there with lights on and curtains raised so that any 
 one outside might see all within. Nine, ten, eleven, 
 twelve, one, two struck and no sign of any one, al- 
 though every sound outside was construed to be the 
 crowd coming. 
 
 At length Vir said, "It doesn't look as if we were 
 to be honored by a call to-night. We have been up 
 nearly all night to-night, so what do you say to 
 making a night of it and going outside now and tak- 
 ing a walk to wake us up." 
 
 Dunora suggested that they go to Lynn, to which 
 suggestion Vir objected, as it was six miles, and no 
 cars were going at that early hour. "Let us walk 
 then," said the girl. "Well, if you feel like it, we 
 will and we will find some restaurant open and will
 
 208 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 get some food and coffee to brace us up. Bunill 
 must have lost courage or become too intoxicated." 
 
 They started out together, and Vir suggested, 
 "Possibly Burrill came near your bungalow and, 
 seeing both of us through the windows, concluded not 
 to enter." They walked down to the main avenue 
 and saw no one. On the main avenue to East Sau- 
 gus they walked without seeing a living being. As 
 they walked down Lincoln Avenue, East Saugus, an 
 officious young policeman followed them a block and, 
 as they stopped at a corner, caught up with them. 
 He said to Vir: "Say, what are you doing out here 
 at this time of night?" 
 
 The question surely provoked a satirical answer, 
 and Vir thought of saying: "We are somnambulists," 
 but for fear of the effect of that word on so intelli- 
 gent an executive he refrained lest he be accused 
 of assaulting an officer. The answer given was to 
 the effect that they were indulging in the dangerous 
 pastime of walking from her house to Lynn for the 
 reason that they couldn't ride, there being nothing 
 on which to ride. 
 
 It was a long six miles, but a joyful one, at least 
 for Vir, for he was alone with the girl of his heart. 
 Soon the environs of Lynn came, and then the shoe 
 factories, the Common, City Hall Square, Market 
 Street, Munroe Street and Central Square. There 
 they found the Waldorf Lunch open and refreshed 
 themselves both by resting and eating. 
 
 "Isn't Burrill's month up in a week now?" asked 
 Vir. "Yes." "Has he made a move to get out?" 
 "Not any. I shall not return to the house till I 
 have the keys he now has, and if he is not out in a 
 few days, I'll have a lawyer see to it."
 
 FAREWELL HELL 209 
 
 "I propose this, little girl. You are very tired 
 and have been under considerable worry and care. 
 You need rest. I'll go with you to your lady 
 friend's in Everett, and you go in there, pull 
 the curtains down and go to sleep, forgetting every- 
 thing." "But if I do that what will you do?" asked 
 Dunora. "I'll go up to my room, try to sleep for 
 an hour and then I'll feel all made anew. Now will 
 you do it?" "Yes, thank you, I will." They took 
 the early electrics a little later in the morning and 
 went to Chelsea Square where they changed for the 
 Everett cars, and Vir left her at the cottage door 
 again. Then he hurried to the city and to his room 
 where he soon tumbled beneath the bed clothes and 
 all but fell asleep. 
 
 They had agreed to meet again the next afternoon, 
 and he was to call for her at the cottage door. Be- 
 fore the appointed hour he was there and before the 
 appointed hour she saw him from within and she 
 came out. "Let's go to a moving picture theater 
 and forget all excitement," he suggested, and she 
 smilingly assented with: "That is just what I should 
 like to do." So to a theater near at hand they 
 went. 
 
 Two or three days more passed, during which they 
 met daily, each day lessening the stay of Burrill in 
 the house of Dunora. On the third day after going 
 to the theater Dunora told Vir that she might have 
 need of him again before the week was out. Finally 
 the last day on which Burrill could stay in the 
 house came. Dunora found out by inquiry that he 
 was still there. 
 
 During quite a time past Dunora had clung to 
 the hope that Burrill would not act so inhumanely as
 
 210 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 to cause her to even cease to consider him a friend. 
 Because of this thought she had endured some de- 
 privations she /would not otherwise have endured, 
 such as that scene in which Leavitt was the chief 
 brute, for Burrill had helped her to find Irene some- 
 time since. Consequently she hoped he wouldn't be- 
 come as bad as he did become, but now that he had 
 she was determined to get him out of her house 
 forever. 
 
 On this last day to which he had paid rent Dun- 
 ora and Vir met by appointment, and Dunora said, 
 "Vir, I want you to come out to the town with me. 
 I'm going to get Burrill out of that house." Dun- 
 ora's lady friend was with her. "We will all three 
 go out," added Dunora. In an hour they were there 
 and went in sight of the house and saw that Bur- 
 rill was there. 
 
 Dunora had a strange and unusual independence 
 with which Vir learned not to interfere. Often he 
 just ached to do things according to his own will 
 and not hers, but in deference to her he yielded his 
 will. In spite of the education and experience he 
 had he became willing to admit that in many things 
 Dunora's judgment was superior. It hurt his pride 
 to admit this, but he had to if he would be honest 
 with himself. In the case just then Dunora led him 
 to do just the opposite to what he would have done 
 himself. 
 
 He would have gone down to the house with 
 Dunora as her protector, that was his place to be, 
 but Dunora would not listen to it this time. "If you 
 had not stopped off at the house with me that night 
 I would have had nothing more to do with you. I 
 tried to get you to go on in the car, but I am very
 
 FAREWELL HELL 211 
 
 glad you didn't. But to-day is different. I will 
 take my lady friend with me and it is broad day- 
 light. Burrill is alone, and even if he wanted to he 
 wouldn't dare to try to do anything when I had a 
 witness with me. We two will go down and I'll just 
 formally demand him to leave. If he doesn't I'll 
 need you to do something for me." 
 
 Dunora and Mrs. Fuller ascended the steps to 
 Dunora's bungalow and Dunora inserted her key 
 and unlocked the door. Through the open door at 
 the rear of the hall they looked into the kitchen and 
 saw Burrill sitting there, legs crossed, scowling, 
 with the stub of a cigar in his mouth. When he saw 
 Mrs. Fuller he scowled the more deeply. He arose 
 and came toward them. Dunora's face was a study. 
 Mrs. Fuller had seen Burrill several times before, 
 and her opinion of him was not high, neither was 
 his of her. 
 
 "Mr. Burrill," said Dunora, in that low, soft voice 
 that would be a blessing in a sick room as it was 
 in every day life, "I have more than once asked you 
 to vacate this house which is mine, and you know me 
 well enough to know that the time for idling about 
 my request is past. You paid rent in advance or I 
 would have had you out of here before this, but now 
 the time has arrived when your rent no longer is in 
 advance. I demand these premises to-day!" 
 
 Burrill gutturaled: "I see you have brought your 
 friend. What is it, do you want a witness?" 
 "Possibly. But what I do want is for you to leave 
 at once and I intend to have you do it. Now once 
 more I demand these premises !" 
 
 "Aw, come into the parlor and get rid of your 
 friend, I want to talk to you alone. I'm not going
 
 212 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 to discuss my affairs before any one else !" exclaimed 
 Burrill. "If you want to discuss anything with me 
 you're going to discuss it right here," said Dunora, 
 with a look about her eyes and mouth which he knew 
 how to interpret. 
 
 Then he put on a hurt tone. "Oh, Dunora, be 
 sensible. Think what I've done for you and what I 
 can do for you. You've got this house on your 
 hands and you want me to get out now when it's 
 winter. You can't rent it again this winter, and 
 you can't afford to lose the rent on it." He put 
 his hand in his pocket and drew out a roll of bills. 
 "Here's the rent three months in advance. Come, 
 be sensible." 
 
 Dunora's alert mind had the happy faculty of 
 being able to picture all sides of a question at once. 
 She saw the home this man had furnished, how he 
 had helped her in a number of ways and had kept 
 the house in food. She saw the possibility of an 
 empty house on her hands in winter and the addi- 
 tional financial burden it would be. Vividly before 
 her eyes in that moment succeeding his flashing the 
 roll of bills came what it would mean to her to do 
 as she purposed to do. On the one hand was that 
 house, the first roof over her head which she could 
 call her own, well furnished, heated, supplied with 
 food and the rent paid. Every week there would 
 be a salary coming to her, and she would not need. 
 But if she insisted on his going it meant that that 
 roof then over her head must be denied her. It 
 meant that after a long time of sufficiency of money 
 and food she must again face want and hunger, and 
 that she must again go to work, if she could find any. 
 It meant she must go to a hired room. And in addi-
 
 FAREWELL HELL 213 
 
 tion to supporting herself again in the heartless 
 world she must face the additional burden of pay- 
 ing monthly on an empty house. 
 
 "Come," he repeated, "here are three months in 
 advance !" "Mr. Burrill, I am not parading before 
 my friend the misery through which you have put me, 
 making me the nervous invalid I am. You know how 
 I have clung to a hopeless situation hoping you 
 would reform. You know I have never done you a 
 wrong. In return you bring out your drunken 
 friends to insult and try to injure me. Only recently 
 did I learn where you got your income. I have told 
 no one, but you know me too well to think that I 
 would ever accept another dollar from you. I am 
 not here to bandy words. I order you to leave this 
 house!" 
 
 Burrill flew into a rage. "By God!" he yelled, 
 "it's a good thing you brought your witness with you 
 or I'd knock your head off! Damn you! You 
 think you'll get me out of this house, do you? Well, 
 you won't !" 
 
 Dunora made no sign of emotion, but turned to 
 Mrs. Fuller and said, "Come with me !" They walked 
 out and went to Vir. 
 
 With the impatience of a panther at bay, Vir 
 Noble waited for the return of the two. Soon they 
 came. Dunora was very calm. "You should have 
 seen him. He was very angry That's why I didn't 
 want you to come, for he would have flown into a 
 passion. As it was he refused to leave and said, 'It's 
 a good thing you brought this girl with you, for I'd 
 just like to break you to pieces.' 
 
 "Now, Vir, I want you to telephone the constable 
 of this town for me and ask him to meet me at the
 
 214 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 house in fifteen minutes. We will wait here till about 
 that time, and then walk down together." Vir tele- 
 phoned, and the constable replied that he would be 
 there at the time mentioned. They went down when 
 the time came, and Dunora and the constable went to 
 the house and rang the bell. Burrill came to the 
 door and the constable displayed his authority and 
 demanded his vacating. Burrill replied: "You go 
 
 to !" With that they grappled and rolled onto 
 
 the piazza, where the constable mastered him. He 
 was carried into court and there put out on bail with 
 the words that if he was seen near that house again 
 his bail would be considered forfeited. The neigh- 
 bors were all notified to telephone in if Burrill was 
 seen in that locality again. Thus was the exit of 
 Burrill.
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR 
 
 GLORY ADVANCES 
 
 UP in his lonely room in Boston where he was 
 accustomed to spend his idle hours in writing 
 Vir sat subsequent to the occurrence just mentioned. 
 He was buried in thought, and it is safe to say that 
 that thought centered about Dunora. On a sudden 
 the telephone bell above his head rang. Who could 
 be telephoning to him there? No one ever did be- 
 fore. 
 
 He arose, pushed aside his chair, stepped to the 
 telephone and called, "Hullo ! Hullo !" "Is that you, 
 Vir?" came over the wire in a voice he instantly rec- 
 ognized. Hallelujah! It was Dunora! Instantly 
 that room received a flood of light radiated from 
 even the voice of Dunora. How often he had tossed 
 on that bed oblivious of his surroundings and mind- 
 ful only of Dunora. At this time when the voice of 
 Dunora made inquiry if that was Vir he responded 
 with gladness, "Yes." 
 
 There was a little hesitation before she spoke 
 again. "Vir, I am over in Everett in the cottage 
 where you have been to the door. My friend and I 
 are all alone. Mrs. Fuller's husband isn't here, and 
 you know I am not very fond of him. I'm lonely, and 
 you may come over if you wish. Will you?" 
 
 Would he? He surely would. He forgot himself 
 215
 
 216 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 and answered: "You bet I will!" He hung up the 
 receiver with emphasis and rushed downstairs and 
 ran to the elevated railroad station in such haste 
 that passersby turned and looked. But he cared 
 not for what others thought of him, he was going to 
 Dunora, and that is all of which he thought. 
 
 After climbing the stairs to the elevated railroad 
 platform it seemed that a Washington Street train 
 would never come. Finally it did, and then it 
 seemed to creep through the tunnel and even slower 
 to the Charlestown bridge where, of course, the draw 
 was open and, of course, it was open a long time. 
 The soliloquys of Vir would have made interesting 
 reading. 
 
 At length even the draw closed and the train went 
 on to Sullivan Square, where there was another wait 
 for a surface car, and another crowd through which 
 to push. But even such delayed journeys have their 
 happy ending, and Vir arrived at the desired street 
 and came to Mrs. Fuller's cottage, and oh, joy 
 Dunora opened the door. 
 
 "What made you so long? You didn't seem in a 
 hurry to get here/' stated Dunora. Vir, confused as 
 he was, told an untruth which he didn't mean as such. 
 He should have stated that the train was delayed, 
 but instead he blurted out: "Oh, I stopped to get a 
 little dinner." Possibly it may be said to his shame 
 that he did not desire Dunora to know that he hur- 
 ried on all but wings to get where he knew the glory 
 of his life would advance. 
 
 They went into the parlor of the little cottage 
 and there Vir was alone with the girl of his heart 
 and alone where they were not under the stress of 
 anticipated strife. Already Vir was more than
 
 GLORY ADVANCES 217 
 
 shown how much he, the man who had worked for 
 everything he had attained, was becoming dependent 
 upon this girl of heroic nature for the bringing to 
 life and upbuilding of many qualities in him the ex- 
 istence of which he had only dreamed. No clinging 
 parasite of a vine was this girl, no sapper of the 
 blood of ambition and all desire to struggle upward. 
 
 And as Vir saw very plainly that she was one who 
 would require only the best in him he began to fear 
 her. But this is not as blameworthy as it seems. 
 He feared only lest he fail to come up to her stand- 
 ard and lest, failing to do so, he should grow to put 
 out on her his deepest love for that would mean his 
 very self. And if once that love wound its tentacles 
 around Dunora he knew that she would have in her 
 absolute possession the power to make him all that 
 it was possible to make of him or the power to throw 
 him to the direct opposite. Knowing this, therefore, 
 he began to fear her. He feared to let go the re- 
 straint on love. 
 
 Oh, what a joy as he sat in that little parlor! 
 Dunora drew up a great chair beside him and they 
 talked freer than ever before. In the restaurants 
 or in the theaters there is a restraint and on the 
 streets thoughtful conversation is not easy. He 
 grasped her hand with an added fervor, she looked 
 into his eyes with a closeness never reached before. 
 
 There are times when speech is a profanation, 
 when silence speaks. As long as Vir lives that hour 
 in the cottage at Everett will live also. Being tired 
 of sitting they arose and walked to the center of the 
 room. There they stood and their bodies touched. 
 At once over Vir there swept a wave of unbridled 
 emotion. His self restraint all but broke and he al-
 
 218 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 most clasped her in his arms and crushed her to his 
 breast which longed to harbor her. 
 
 The remainder of that hour so happy for Vir was, 
 on his part, surely a struggle not to go over the brink 
 of restraint. His lonely life at last finding its mate 
 and that mate far from knowing it made it a very 
 difficult matter not to overdo. So many years had 
 seen self repression that with happiness in his grasp 
 he longed to close his hand on it. 
 
 She was coy. She dangled him as a fish on a line 
 and he just loved to hold her in his vision. What 
 talking they did was mostly irrelevant to any defi- 
 nite purpose at first. Mrs. Fuller busied herself 
 about the kitchen so that if they wished to keep their 
 conversation private they might do so. As their 
 talking progressed Vir asked her what she planned 
 to do. She was receiving no income from her house 
 now and its monthly expenses were accruing just 
 the same. He surmised that her income was not 
 excessive. 
 
 "I hardly know my plans now. I have no great 
 responsibilities so can do some things which I could 
 not if I had those I had formerly. I suppose I will 
 hire a room somewhere until I rent my house, but I 
 confess I do not want to rent it. It is the first roof 
 I ever had over my head which I could call my own 
 and I very much dislike the idea of giving it up for 
 another to occupy. But I don't see anything else 
 to do." "I have a suggestion," said Vir. "I have 
 nothing to work for except an indefinite selfish fu- 
 ture. Any future planned entirely by one's self is 
 selfish no matter how lofty the plans. Those plans 
 must necessarily be thought of in connection with 
 one's individual future. I want to plan for another.
 
 GLORY ADVANCES 219 
 
 It will broaden me and I can well afford to be broad- 
 ened. It will also give me an added incentive to work 
 and that means success. In plain words I hope you 
 will let me keep the expenses of that house paid until 
 some other means of doing it appears. I can at 
 least pay the expenses till it is again occupied." 
 
 "Why, Vir, why did you ask me that? You knew 
 I wouldn't say 'Yes,' or even entertain such a 
 thought. There is no telling what good fortune may 
 come to me soon and in the meantime I will keep it 
 running. Even if I wanted to it would be difficult to 
 rent it at this season. I cannot endure the thought 
 of any one else living in that house." It may be 
 added that Vir could not endure any other thought 
 than their both living therein, but the time was not 
 then ripe. Oh, that it had been ! 
 
 The girl added, "To-morrow I will have to go out 
 to it to see what it looks like after the former occu- 
 pant left. If you wish to you may go out with me." 
 "With exceeding pleasure," said Noble. Then in the 
 quiet of that little room where the sanctity of her 
 presence was Vir inwardly resolved to make every ef- 
 fort to rise to the requirements which this noble girl 
 set before herself as the prerequisites of manhood. 
 
 The next day, early in the forenoon, they met 
 again and went to her bungalow. For the first time 
 they entered it with no cloud in the nearby sky and 
 their hearts were light. But what a sight met their 
 gaze as they opened the door and went within. The 
 house was absolutely bare, even Dunora's desk, for- 
 merly in the corner of the parlor, was gone. All 
 that remained were the four bare walls to each room. 
 But the downstairs floors were far from bare. The 
 earmarks of debauchery were in many places.
 
 220 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 In front of the once tidy fireplace in the parlor 
 were scores of burnt matches, and in the middle of 
 that parlor floor was a great burned spot where 
 some ruffian, untouched by the sanctity of that 
 blessed institution home, had cast a lighted match. It 
 was only by God's providence and not because of the 
 brute's forethought that that dear house did not 
 have a conflagration. So much do human dogs 
 think of a woman of honor who put her money into 
 a home instead of riotous living. "Cast not your 
 pearls before swine." 
 
 All through the lower part of the house beer, 
 whiskey and gin bottles were scattered and another 
 burning match had been cast on the hardwood kit- 
 chen floor. Outside one of the kitchen windows the 
 cement side of the house was stained where food had 
 been emptied. 
 
 In the cellar was another sight for broken liquor 
 bottles were in various places and in one part was 
 Dunora's desk, the only piece of furniture belonging 
 to her which had been in the house, broken to pieces 
 by an axe, a favor shown by Burrill and his pals to 
 the struggling girl. Certainly liquor is a great 
 promoter of the milk of human kindness. 
 
 As they were in the cellar surveying the wreckage 
 there came to Vir's mind the words of the Master 
 of men, and Vir, looking into the eyes of Dunora 
 and sweeping his arm in a gesture over the scene on 
 the cellar floor remarked, "By their fruits ye shall 
 know them." 
 
 Then they both proceeded to clean the house from 
 the upper story to the cellar. Every nook and cor- 
 ner, every cranny and crevice, every crack and ori- 
 fice was brushed and cleaned with a neatness and
 
 GLORY ADVANCES 221 
 
 thoroughness which bespoke their interest in that 
 bungalow and their desire to erase from it every sign 
 of the former occupancy. 
 
 Vir carefully picked up every burned match and 
 every piece of the burned wood which fell off from 
 the matches. The assiduity with which he swept up 
 every particle of those wooden igniters revealed his 
 dislike for the character who had lived there. While 
 they were engaged in cleaning Vir had the first op- 
 portunity to observe how Dunora worked and it 
 was both a pleasant and an unpleasant revelation 
 to him. It was pleasant as it showed her to be an 
 indefatigable worker and unpleasant because he 
 feared lest she work so hard as to injure herself. 
 
 "Dunora, I never saw such a worker as you are 
 in all my life. You went at the cleaning of this house 
 just as I noticed you have gone at other matters, 
 as if you really meant it and forgot everything else 
 at the time." 
 
 "Let's enjoy looking over the house, as it is now 
 clean," laughed Dunora, evading his remark. 
 
 And this is what Vir saw. As he entered he came 
 into a cosy hall with hardwood floor and ample stairs 
 rising spirally to the second floor. These were all 
 finished in hardwood as well. To the left of the 
 dainty hall opened a door into the sunlit parlor and 
 in the inner corner of the parlor was a fireplace. A 
 bay window on the southern side of the house re- 
 vealed a view of distant hill and pleasant field at the 
 farther end of which were other houses. The front 
 window in that parlor gave an entrancing view of 
 open woods rising to gently sloping heights. 
 
 Through a broad double door one entered the din- 
 ing room with plate-rail and china closet and ample
 
 222 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 light from windows opening toward the south and 
 west. Then the cosiest of kitchens opened from the 
 northern side of the dining room and connected the 
 dining room and front hall. A pantry where every 
 inch was made practical extended from the western 
 end of the kitchen, and beside it was the back hall 
 opening onto a sunny western porch. 
 
 Up the spiral stairs were the upper hall, bath 
 room and bed rooms where, through some window, 
 the sun could shine all day. It was a house of sun, 
 a house where shadows had been, but where the sun 
 was rapidly pushing all shadows away. Its wide and 
 hospitable windows spread their breadth in invit- 
 ing the sun's rays within and seemed to smile upward 
 as the sun kissed them. The glory of the lamp of 
 nature bathed it by day and the glory of the silvery 
 moon laved its head by night. Glory shone around 
 and through it and glory advanced thereby.
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE 
 
 THE PROPOSAL 
 
 "C1NTRANCED with the beauty of her home and 
 J_J with the views of nature surrounding, Vir for a 
 moment lapsed into pleasant thought. The indirect 
 influence of the ceasing of the previous tension also 
 had its quieting effect upon him. They were both 
 in the sunlit dining room at the time. 
 
 Within his breast surged the ardent fire of a pas- 
 sionate love. This he had never yet revealed to her 
 by any word. Through his mind at the time sped 
 the panorama of the years, the biting storms of a 
 lonely and misread life, the thrilling experiences of 
 a life of struggle. And associated with that pas- 
 sionate love came the refining feelings of a great 
 longing for the cessation of that selfish contest and 
 a renewing of the struggle of life for the sake of one 
 more worthy. Oh, the years through which he had 
 yearned for the girl now before him! Oh, the mid- 
 night hours spent in dreaming of her as his eyes were 
 wide and staring into the future! And the castles 
 in Spain he had built around her before he knew her 
 and now that he knew her those castles in Spain had 
 become real castles with a glory far exceeding that 
 surrounding his former castles in the air. 
 
 All this went through his mind with the pulsing 
 waves of his mighty passion for his very efforts to 
 
 223
 
 224 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 hold it in check but dammed it up till it rose over 
 the obstruction and poured in a wild torrent at last 
 free. And in its wild rushing over the dam of previ- 
 ous restraint Vir Noble was himself swept. 
 
 He turned. Dunora stood at the window and at 
 just that time she was in the attitude to remove even 
 the sand riffs that might impede the rushing of that 
 deluge. Her eyes were fixed and filled with that far- 
 away, pained look which had gripped his heart be- 
 fore. Very obviously, in the time in which Vir had 
 experienced his flood of passionate thought, Dunora 
 had flown away on the wings of reverie. 
 
 Speech came to Vir in a mellow, rich and sweet 
 tone which he had never heard his voice give forth 
 before. He was to stand before that noble woman 
 in his true attitude at last, in the attitude of a pas- 
 sionate lover, of a reverential and humble adorer. 
 
 "Dunora!" 
 
 With a start, caused by her coming out of her 
 reverie, Dunora turned toward Vir and though her 
 thoughts had been far flung she had heard and had 
 comprehended that mellow, rich and sweet resonance 
 in his speech. Therefore she advanced toward him 
 with the sweetest smile that, seemingly, ever basked 
 upon the face of woman. That smile of blessing 
 gave him courage. It grasped, as it were, his hand 
 and led his faltering steps up over the mountain of 
 his own unworthiness which loomed in dizzy heights 
 between himself and her. It shone upon him in utter 
 frankness and priceless trust. 
 
 In that moment as she advanced toward him he 
 overpoweringly comprehended what he was about to 
 do. He was about to ask her a question upon which 
 more hung than upon any other question his lips
 
 THE PROPOSAL 225 
 
 could ever frame on earth. It was a question he 
 had never framed before, and therefore one that 
 had never been asked by him of any other woman. 
 But ask it he must and those trusting eyes backed 
 up by that previous look of pain impelled him on- 
 ward in addition to his heart's passion. 
 
 "Dunora !" 
 
 "What is it, Vir?" 
 
 "Oh, Dunora, I cannot keep it in longer! Oh, 
 haven't you seen it? Haven't you felt it? It mas- 
 ters me ! Dunora I love you. I confess I have 
 fought against it, but its very insistency proves its 
 truth. I love you! I adore the ground you walk 
 on, the air you breathe. I reverence the roof that 
 protects you and, oh, Dunora, with all the passion 
 of my being, with all the strength within me I pray 
 with beseeching words to become your real protector, 
 to work for you and because of you. I love you ! I 
 love you !" He threw back his head and his eyes 
 flashed the absolute sincerity of his soul. 
 
 "Will you be my wife?" 
 
 The look of surprise which began to dawn on 
 Dunora's dear face as soon as the meaning of Vir's 
 impassioned words appeared, soon broadened and, a 
 moment after he had asked her the momentous ques- 
 tion she came right to him, held him direct in her 
 gaze and said, "Why, Vir, you have surprised me. I 
 hadn't thought of your looking at our friendship 
 in that way." In that instant Vir knew that though 
 his heart was filled with love the sacred fire was not 
 thus with her. She continued, "You have asked me 
 the most precious question you could ask me and I 
 will answer you fully but not now. We will go back 
 to my room and you can leave me there to-night and
 
 226 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 come out there to-morrow forenoon and I will give 
 you your answer.'* 
 
 A feeling of sacredness came over them both and 
 conversation was not much indulged in on the re- 
 turn journey to Dunora's room. With Vir great 
 wonder strove to obtain the mastery over great un- 
 certainty. At the cottage house Vir said, "Good 
 night," with trembling lips and she, out of the good- 
 ness of her heart, held his hand long in her tender 
 grasp. He went to Boston and she to her room 
 to be alone. 
 
 Alone to think. That was certainly not strange, 
 one always thinks, but the object of those thoughts. 
 A proposal, why that is not strange either. What 
 girl over fifteen hasn't thought over a proposal? But 
 one from this man. Dunora was thinking about Vir 
 and what he had asked her to become. His wife. 
 She had heard several men say almost those same 
 words before. Her answer had always been, no. 
 Why did she hesitate to say no this time? Dunora 
 knew not. 
 
 This girl, who had cared for herself since early 
 womanhood, who had lived almost always alone, con- 
 fiding in no one, was lonely. Who knows that dread- 
 ful feeling, tearing of the heart, making that heart 
 harder and colder. If you have not you cannot 
 know why Dunora was thinking so very much about 
 what Vir had said. A strong, young, good looking, 
 educated and perhaps talented man had offered to 
 care for her, was anxious to, deemed it an honor. 
 Who had ever wanted to just care for and love her 
 before ? No one. What would life with this man mean 
 to this lonely girl? She dared not think. All these 
 questions were asked of herself.
 
 THE PROPOSAL 227 
 
 What did she know of him? What she saw. A 
 man, tall and as straight as an arrow, powerful and 
 strong. He had not what would be called a hand- 
 some face, but a face that one instantly trusted for 
 its honesty; the beautiful, large, frank brown eyes 
 compelled you to trust. Firm, almost stern, were 
 the lines about his mouth, chin as determined as our 
 Puritan ancestors. The face even when most deter- 
 mined was like sunshine, the eyes were so filled with 
 laughter. An excellent disposition, but not perfect. 
 
 Dunora was looking for perfection. She knew 
 little of the Bible so knew not that perfection does 
 not belong to this world. 
 
 In some ways Vir seemed selfish to her. That she 
 always despised in any one. He seemed too con- 
 ceited as though he expected to get just what he 
 asked for, even her. Were these thoughts just a 
 shadow of her lonely, hateful life? If these faults 
 were not there would she say yes to Vir? 
 
 A picture of that horrible marriage of that happy 
 school girl of fifteen came before her eyes, she shud- 
 dered. Her face became lined with pain. She looked 
 years older. They seemed too deep to ever come 
 off. What spirit within was strong, great enough 
 to carry those lines away? 
 
 Another picture, a beautiful one, a baby girl with 
 golden curls. A face one could mistake for a stray 
 sunbeam came before her eyes. How strangely that 
 face looked like the face of Dunora. A tear fell, an- 
 other, another, a flood of them, the gathering storm 
 had burst in all its fury. The calm came, the lines 
 disappeared like magic. Dunora knew her answer 
 to Vir Noble, the most priceless question an hon- 
 orable man can ask a good woman.
 
 228 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 Those two words, "until death," uttered so long 
 ago, by that minister, had sunken into her very soul. 
 
 But she must explain to Vir. Their friendship 
 made that necessary. Could she give up happi- 
 ness, could she take happiness away from him, could 
 she look at those honest brown eyes and explain? 
 Yes, she must. She believed in duty, and never did, 
 and never would turn away from duty as she saw 
 it no matter how painful the task. 
 
 Vir went to his room and speedily went to sleep 
 with pleasant dreams of Dunora. His was the in- 
 ward feeling that she would not refuse the offer. 
 Even if she did not love him he felt that she would 
 not refuse him. What little he knew of her lonely 
 life and what he actually knew of her need of a home 
 and a protector persuaded him to think this. Fur- 
 thermore he had a rather good opinion of himself, 
 he felt that in offering himself to her he had greatly 
 honored her, for he had waited many years, and had 
 never made that offer to another and he had al- 
 ways endeavored to conduct his life as a man should. 
 Consequently it was with light and airy step that he 
 went to the cottage in Everett. 
 
 Dunora opened the door as he came into the yard 
 and on her face was a look of kindliness which all the 
 more swelled Vir's sense of egotism. Inwardly he 
 rejoiced that he had at last spoken the words upon 
 which so much depended and which his assurance 
 told him had been favorably received. 
 
 He had always held Dunora in such reverence that 
 the usual method of love making had not been the 
 one with Vir. Continually a sense of his unfitness 
 had held him back until at last the bursting over 
 of the dam had brought with its flood the thoughts
 
 THE PROPOSAL 229 
 
 of relief and assurance. As they entered Vir looked 
 at Dunora more closely and then noticed dark lines 
 under her eyes. Mrs. Fuller had gone and the two 
 were alone in the cottage to talk to their heart's con- 
 tent uninterrupted by listening ears. 
 
 As they went into the little parlor Vir grasped 
 both her hands and he looked full at her. For a 
 moment her great, frank eyes fell but then they 
 lifted. "Vir, dear, I told you that you would have 
 your answer now. You shall. It has to be no." 
 She disengaged one hand, reached behind her to the 
 table and drew therefrom a framed picture. She 
 held it out toward him without a word. Vir gazed 
 at the picture of a little girl. 
 
 He started, gazed at it more fixedly. Around the 
 little head curls hung and the sweet child face was 
 but a representation of what Dunora might have 
 been as a child. "What a charming picture of you 
 as a child. But what does that have to do with the 
 answer? How long ago was that taken?" 
 
 A look indescribable came over Dunora's face. 
 For a moment she hesitated, then said slowly, "It 
 was taken three years ago !" Vir looked at her non- 
 plused. Then he gathered his faculties. "Why, 
 the little girl looks remarkably like you. She surely 
 is a relative." Again Dunora hesitated. Then she 
 spoke firmly. "She is a relative. She is my 
 daughter." 
 
 A fly hitting against Vir Noble in its flight would 
 have knocked him to the floor. There is no state- 
 ment which she could possibly have made which 
 would have dumbfounded him more. In all his life 
 he had not received such a staggering statement 
 from the lips of any human being. "She is my
 
 230 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 daughter." Yes, he had heard aright. Not a word 
 came to him to say. A very thunderbolt had smitten 
 him. 
 
 She saw the look of wonder and of mystification 
 pass over his face and she cleared the latter feeling 
 by uttering four words. "I have been married. My 
 name is not Whitney but Boynton, but so few people 
 know that I have been married that I go by my for- 
 mer name." 
 
 Up to that moment Vir Noble had no more idea 
 that that young girl had been married than he 
 would have had of permitting an own daughter of 
 his to have done so at such a tender age as he reas- 
 oned she must have been to have had a daughter of 
 the age shown in the picture added to the three years 
 since it was taken. The statement completely be- 
 reft him of his reasoning faculties. He could do 
 nothing but suffer a whirl of imaginings to whirli- 
 gig through his brain. 
 
 In the instant after the dear girl had made the 
 double declaration Vir's hand had gone to his fore- 
 head in the attitude a man takes when suddenly 
 struck by an overwhelming piece of news. As his 
 hand was over his eyes before his mental vision at 
 last came the explanation for at least part of that 
 pained and far away expression he had seen de- 
 picted on her features. 
 
 Dunora came to him with womankind's tender 
 mercy. She knew the severity of the blow she had 
 struck but she had struck it because she desired to 
 do so. She prayed in her heart that it might not be 
 a blow but she knew full well that it would be. She 
 had been asked the most momentous question which 
 could possibly be asked her and her sense of duty
 
 THE PROPOSAL 231 
 
 made her make a full and frank answer and this 
 was part of it. 
 
 As she touched Vir with her body she put her 
 hands on his shoulders and softly said, "Vir, dear, 
 come to the sofa and we will sit down and I will ex- 
 plain. I will tell you what has never crossed my 
 lips before." They sat on the cushioned sofa. For 
 just a moment Dunora sat buried in thought. How 
 should she begin? Surely from the very beginning. 
 
 And from her earliest infancy she told the story 
 of her adoption and all that came thereafter in the 
 home in Gardiner, of her school days, her pranks, 
 her deprivations, her self denials, her loveless ex- 
 istence finally to arrive at the time of the hideous 
 travesty caused by her foster parents* heartlessness. 
 "Oh, Vir," she exclaimed in the agony of remem- 
 brance, "just think of it. I met that man on July 
 fourth, and in August was married to him. And I 
 was only fifteen years of age, a little country girl 
 with love crushed out of me and entirely ignorant 
 of things of the world and utterly unknowing any- 
 thing at all of the meaning of marriage in even one 
 of its relations. 
 
 "Oh, Vir, how could it have happened? May God 
 forgive them as I do, but even though He might for- 
 give them He did not remove the penalty. They 
 suffered it. Why, if that man had come to my father 
 and asked him for my father's horse for nothing, 
 my father would have kicked him out of the house, 
 but when he asked for me for nothing they smiled 
 on him with pleasure and gave me, a human being, to 
 this unknown person three times my age. 
 
 "He might have had a wife then. They didn't ask 
 him. He might have just come out of prison. They
 
 232 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 didn't ask him. He might have been a murderer, a 
 thief, a forger, an immoral and diseased worldling. 
 They didn't ask him." And then her little body 
 bent and she sobbed. 
 
 Vir, during this recital, had listened spellbound. 
 He had grasped every word as a pickerel grasps his 
 food. But when the head of Dunora fell Vir just 
 let all restraint go and put his arm around her for 
 the first time in his life and drew her to him and Vir 
 felt the sobs grow less and less. 
 
 He spoke not, but as the exquisite sensation of 
 having her so close to him thrilled him there went 
 through his mind the thought of the great honor she 
 had conferred upon him and the great agony it must 
 have been to her in thus baring her very soul. After 
 they had thus remained in silence quite a time each 
 engaged in thought, Vir spoke. 
 
 "Dunora, what has that to do with the question 
 I asked you yesterday? What you have told me but 
 draws me the more closely to you, and, surely, you 
 are not married to that person now?" 
 
 Through her inflamed eyes Dunora looked into 
 his. "No, I am not married now ; but, Vir, I do not 
 love you. Love is of slow growth. I value you as 
 a friend above all others, but I do not love you." 
 What had transpired had subdued Vir. His as- 
 surance had fled quite a time since. Dunora, ex- 
 hausted by the recital of her heart's woe, arose. He 
 also did and the girl said, "Vir, dear, I must ask 
 to be excused now and go to my room and rest." 
 She paused. "Vir," she added, "do not feel badly 
 at what I have said." Again she paused. She 
 straightened momentarily and lifted her head so as 
 to throw up her Grecian chin, "Vir be a man!"
 
 THE PROPOSAL 233 
 
 Low he bent his head. Slowly he lifted her little 
 hand and kissed it. She passed through the door 
 and went up the stairs. He gathered his outer gar- 
 ments and went to the front door where, to his aston- 
 ishment, he met Mrs. Fuller entering. 
 
 "How do you do, Vir?" she said. Then looking 
 around and seeing that Dunora was not present she 
 said in lower tones, "Dunora tells me that you asked 
 her to become your wife and that she was to give 
 you your answer to-day. I hope it was a favorable 
 one." "It was not," replied Vir, and he then ex- 
 cused himself and went out through the little yard. 
 
 Vir went to his office much more slowly than he 
 had come from Boston and a much wiser man pos- 
 sessing a lesser supply of egotism. He had much 
 to think over and no business was done by him that 
 day. The last few hours had been the greatest 
 shock to his self esteem he had ever experienced. 
 He had been with Dunora on many little recrea- 
 tions for a long time, he had disclosed to her many 
 things about himself which he surely thought would 
 impress her favorably. Many of his acts for the 
 past weeks had been such as to naturally cause her 
 to depend upon him to a more or less degree and 
 that dependence should breed trust and affection 
 under normal conditions. 
 
 But Vir Noble had much to learn about himself 
 that was not pleasing to his vanity and this great 
 shock was the first earthquake which caused part 
 of the walls of his castle of content to fall in ruins. 
 As never before he began to search himself. And 
 he did this honestly. This wonderful woman had re- 
 fused the greatest offer he could make to her and 
 refused it because she did not love him.
 
 234 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 That night when he went to his rooms, now all 
 the more lonely, he humbled himself in prayer. He 
 poured out his heart before the mercy seat, the only 
 place where he could pour it out, and he asked that 
 he be shown his faults and be given the courage to 
 overcome them. And the night was one never to be 
 forgotten. 
 
 As soon as he deemed it expedient on the follow- 
 ing day Vir called at the cottage in Everett and 
 again was with the girl of his love, again to take 
 up the struggle which was shown to be needed by 
 her parting words of the day before : "Vir be a 
 man !" They started anew with no reference to the 
 great question asked by Vir and just discussed by 
 them both. Each had spoken, each understood. 
 
 But even that day, the very following one after 
 they had spoken, Vir noticed a deepening of the 
 black lines under Dunora's eyes. It worried him 
 much. Sleeplessness had been the dear girl's por- 
 tion for the words of Vir and his love for her were 
 not matters this honest and true girl had taken in 
 any other way than with their deepest meaning. 
 And they meant very much to her. 
 
 As often as business permitted and very often 
 when business did not permit, Vir came to the little 
 cottage in Everett to be with Dunora. Many were 
 the occasions on which they went to various restau- 
 rants together, and frequently to the theaters, where 
 Vir sought by every reasonable means to lessen those 
 dark lines under her eyes, but to no avail. Thinner 
 and thinner she got, more hollow grew her cheeks 
 and more nervous she became. 
 
 Soon after their talk in which Dunora let out the 
 secret of her heart Vir came to the cottage and
 
 THE PROPOSAL 235 
 
 found with Dunora a. little sunny haired girl, blue 
 eyed, laughing, rosy and dear. It was Irene. How 
 soon his heart went out to the little lass ! How soon 
 she had a firm hold on his heartstrings! She was 
 a wonder child to him, part of the girl he loved, the 
 rosy, beautiful flower that blossomed from her for- 
 mer pain. 
 
 And on their little trips together to nearby places 
 Irene frequently went with them. Upon these oc- 
 casions he saw the wee lassie under many conditions 
 which would be trying to a child's heart, but he 
 never saw her show temper or selfishness or say once 
 to her mother "I won't !" In spite of the fact that 
 she was away from her mother so much at boarding 
 school she was the most perfectly behaved child Vir 
 had ever known and this spoke volumes for the 
 mother who had trained her under such trying con- 
 ditions and with such a load on her heart. And be- 
 cause of Irene's own worth she took deep and deeper 
 hold upon Vir. 
 
 In some of the days that came Dunora told little 
 tales about her disposition and the little girl's faith 
 and unselfishness. "Irene was sick with the scarlet 
 fever once and her thoughts were continually of me 
 and not of herself. I overheard her praying once 
 and her prayer was, 'Dear God, please make me 
 well soon, for my mamma hasn't got much money and 
 can't pay doctor's bills.* At another time Irene 
 was talking to some women and remarked, 'When I 
 grow up I want to be like my mamma.' Upon being 
 asked her reason she replied, 'Because she is so 
 good/ " 
 
 In spite of every effort on Vir's part Dunora did 
 not recover from her nervous attacks or from her
 
 236 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 worried, anxious appearance. How fervently he be- 
 sought Him upon the Great White Throne to free 
 her from her affliction in His own good way. Dunora 
 lived during the weeks intervening till Spring at Mrs. 
 Fuller's. Mrs. Fuller was a friend to both and in 
 the long hours of the nights in which she was alone 
 with Dunora she talked much of Vir and turned 
 Dunora's mind more and more in his direction. 
 Dunora, in self defense, offered objections to him 
 and Mrs. Fuller spoke in his behalf. And all the 
 time also there was working on Dunora's well poised 
 mind the evident effort on Vir's part to be more 
 such as she desired. 
 
 Higher and higher arose the sun as the weeks 
 progressed and Boston's streets long since had lost 
 their sparsely scattered snow mounds. The great 
 pulse of nature began to throb as the life blood 
 of its resurrection began to course through the veins 
 of old earth. The bluebird floated down from the 
 March skies bearing on his back the blue of the 
 heavens to wed with the brown of the earth on his 
 breast. And among those who strongly felt the call 
 of nature and the balmy Spring were Dunora and 
 Vir. In it they saw the end of the cold and dreary 
 winter, the coming of warmth and growth. 
 
 Naturally the mincls of both went to the cement 
 bungalow which seemed to call them with its alluring 
 persuasion and more than once they went to it. The 
 frost had melted from their blood and the vigor of 
 the new born warmth of nature flowed therein. They 
 talked less and less of personal subjects, possibly 
 because they thought more of them. The flowing sap 
 of Spring turns human hearts to love and more and
 
 THE PROPOSAL 237 
 
 more the heart of Vir with difficulty held its love in 
 restraint. 
 
 That dining room in her bungalow brought all 
 the more vividly to his mind the scene when in that 
 room he had declared his love.
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX 
 
 HOME 
 
 O'er earth's wild oceans have I sailed 
 
 In search of earthly bliss; 
 On field and plain, through wood and main, 
 
 I've sought for pleasure's kiss. 
 
 In marts of men where worldlings crowd, 
 
 I've searched a cure for pain ; 
 In college academic halls 
 
 I've looked for it in vain. 
 
 But ah ! Thank God ! I've found at last 
 Where bliss and pleasure roam; 
 
 'Tis in that thricely hallowed spot 
 Which we call home, sweet home. 
 
 DUNORA !" Again they were in that dining room. 
 Again the mellow, sweet and rich resonance in 
 
 Vir's passionate voice. She turned toward him with a 
 different expression on her face from that which 
 had been visible there so many months before. Now 
 she knew him better, understood him more. "Oh, 
 Dunora, I must speak! I cannot remain silent 
 longer! I must ask to be your protector! I love 
 you, dear, with every throb which gives me life! 
 There is nothing in me which does not tremble to the 
 
 238
 
 HOME 239 
 
 very thought of you! I have kept silent all these 
 months and it is not within my power to do so longer. 
 There is nothing visible, nothing thinkable but you ! 
 Dunora, again I ask you, Will you be my wife?" 
 
 He stood before her thrilled with the vehemence 
 of his utterance and the passion of his soul. The 
 fire of an intense love shone from his eyes and lighted 
 his face. He, for once, was radiant. He was all 
 anticipation for his answer. Gone forever was his 
 former assurance. He was sure of nothing now but 
 that he loved her with all the intensity of his be- 
 ing. He spoke humbly, as a beggar. 
 
 Dunora bent her dear curl crowned head just the 
 smallest trifle with that unconscious coquetry which 
 is one of the diadems on the crown of womanhood. 
 And then she looked at him a little bewildered and 
 astonished. The poor girl was not well and she had 
 not expected this outburst then. And she looked 
 up and down at the form of the big strong man who 
 had asked to be her protector. As she looked at 
 him standing there she realized the depth of his de- 
 votion and she knew that in him she could trust. 
 Other thoughts went through her mind at that mo- 
 ment of rapid mental panorama and among them 
 was his love for her child. Then there came that 
 sweet relaxation of the stress of struggle to shoul- 
 ders made stronger to bear it. "Vir," she softly 
 said, "I will." 
 
 Just two words. Just the sweetest words which 
 ever fell on Vir Noble's ears. Just the crown put 
 on his life's struggle. Just giving to him the woman 
 of all women, the most priceless gift that Almighty 
 God could give. That was all. Ah, yes, that was 
 all. "I will." Oh, hallowed words, sacred hour. As
 
 240 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 those two words fell on his listening ears, as he heard 
 the words for which his very soul had yearned for all 
 those long drawn out months his emotions swept 
 through him with overwhelming force. 
 
 With a glad cry of rapturous joy Vir threw his 
 arms around her and drew her to his breast. He 
 couldn't help it but the tears came. And he was 
 not ashamed. And the precious face was lifted to 
 him and he kissed her and kissed her. "Oh, girlie! 
 girlie!" he cried. And he could say nothing else 
 just then, for he was too full of emotion to frame it 
 into speech. 
 
 He put his arm around her and they went into 
 the parlor and sat down on the floor near the cheer- 
 ful open fire. They did those irrelevant acts which 
 happen at those times for both were overrun with 
 a whirlwind of thoughts. "Oh, girlie ! girlie !" he ex- 
 claimed again and drew her, oh, so close to him. "Oh, 
 I'm so happy, so happy! God bless you, dear! I 
 don't deserve it ! But, by the Eternal, my every ef- 
 fort will be to more and more deserve it ! Oh, Dunora, 
 I love you so that I can never, never express it! 
 Words would fail me!" The dear girl looked into 
 his face with, for the first time, a look of utter de- 
 pendence and said, "Vir, dear, I am giving you my 
 all. I wouldn't if I had not known that I could 
 trust you. You are the only man I ever knew whom 
 I would trust." 
 
 He attempted to speak again but she put her 
 hand over his lips and said, "Nothing more on that 
 subject now, dear. You know actions speak louder 
 than words and we do not want too much sentiment 
 at once. Let's sit right here before this open fire 
 and plan ahead a little." "And the first thing to
 
 HOME 241 
 
 plan about is our wedding. When will we be mar- 
 ried?" broke in Vir. "Oh, you great big boy!" 
 laughed the girl, "there you go blundering the first 
 thing. There are lots of things to think of beside 
 thinking of our wedding. Here is our home. We 
 must think of that. It is entirely bare and must be 
 furnished with rugs, furniture for kitchen, dining 
 room, parlor, hall and bedrooms beside table ware, 
 cooking utensils, coal, towels, bed linen and a lot 
 of other articles I don't think of now. And then 
 there are the running expenses which are not small. 
 Now how about the wedding?" And she laughed. 
 "To-morrow at nine in the forenoon," affirmed Vir. 
 
 "Why not make it two hours from now?" she re- 
 joined with a smile. "My dear, you are a little sud- 
 den. You know it is the lady's prerogative to name 
 the date." "And your rights shall not be trespassed 
 upon," Vir declared. Sitting there, she resting her 
 head upon his breast, they planned what kind of 
 furniture they wanted for the different rooms and 
 Vir found that her ideas singularly fitted into his 
 own. To think that at last his dream had become 
 a reality, that this wonder woman, this moral hero- 
 ine, this self-reliant, successful fighter for principle 
 was to become his wife and that that cosy roof was 
 to shield them from the storms without and was to 
 be their home. 
 
 In both instances it was to be the first real home 
 that had ever spread its roof over either one of their 
 heads. In their happiness before the open fire they 
 forgot their physical needs until the hour grew late 
 in. the afternoon. "Dearie, let us go to Lynn and 
 have a dinner worthy of the occasion." And the 
 dinner that followed was made worthy by happiness.
 
 242 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 The next day while Vir was at work Dunora 
 selected the furniture for the home. He had some 
 furniture stored and so did she, but they desired 
 nothing in any way to remind them of the old and 
 so bought entirely new. And shortly thereafter the 
 furniture was moved into the little home, and, upon 
 Dunora's invitation, Vir went out and saw it as she 
 had arranged it. What a difference between that 
 bare house before and the warmed and furnished 
 home then! 
 
 As they sat on the soft cushioned couch Dunora 
 said, "Vir, dear, I have a pleasant surprise for you?" 
 "What is it, sweetheart?" "I have set the date for 
 our marriage." 
 
 "Joy! Joy!" exclaimed Vir. And right there they 
 talked and planned in a way not to be made public. 
 No prying eye or listening ear should profane the 
 sanctity of the thoughts of these two. 
 
 Quietly, amid beautiful natural surroundings, re- 
 moved from the tawdry glare of foppish show, they 
 were married. 
 
 They returned to open the now trebly valuable 
 home and start life together determined to live lives 
 that should be worth while and to seek happiness 
 from its only source. 
 
 Several weeks of great happiness went by. Each 
 morning Vir went to his labors after kissing the wife 
 of his heart and waving his hand to her as he turned 
 the corner where he took the car. Each night she 
 was waiting at the window to see him come across 
 the field. What a bright reward to his day's toil to 
 see that shining face at the window when he turned 
 the corner. Dear, faithful wife, working through 
 the long hours of the day that everything might be
 
 HOME 243 
 
 warm and homelike and the dinner might be the best 
 possible when her husband came from his work at 
 night. 
 
 Vir's business had paid him but poorly some 
 months previous to this and in the prosperity which 
 followed he had wisely put aside a little sum for use 
 in a possible rainy day. They had not been married 
 long before that rainy day unexpectedly came. De- 
 spite Vir's best efforts his income continued to de- 
 crease and then decrease more. They sat up nights 
 talking about it and devising ways to make the busi- 
 ness at least increase to the normal. With the 
 energy of despair Vir worked but it seemed that no 
 one wanted what he had to sell. 
 
 One day he came home feeling quite discouraged 
 over the outlook. "Sweetheart, my best efforts seem 
 to be of little avail. I have been working faithfully. 
 You know that. But it has come to this. We must 
 draw on our little nest egg and trust to hard work 
 and a change of fortune." But the change of for- 
 tune didn't come and the nest egg dwindled and 
 dwindled. Finally they came to that point where 
 they cut their food supply and then cut it again. 
 And that heroic woman never murmured, never com- 
 plained, never said, "I told you so." 
 
 What different food she had eaten. Only in her 
 days of long ago had she been brought to hunger, 
 but now she took meat from the daily menu and 
 then tea and toast formed the breakfast. Vir was 
 covered with shame, but his shame seemed to get him 
 deeper into the depths. Fate seemed to will thus at 
 that time and it brought out another priceless 
 quality in Dunora's character. Day after day, 
 hour after hour the heroic girl listened to the ticking
 
 244 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 of that brazen voiced clock in the kitchen counting 
 off the hours in a nearly foodless house. And in all 
 that time Vir Noble never heard a word of com- 
 plaint from her. Vir suffered cruelly too, but he was 
 out on the streets where the edge of it was taken 
 off, not alone with a merciless ticking clock. 
 
 Each night he thought he could bring home the 
 needed money, but day after day passed and it only 
 came in driblets. Dunora could have run a charge 
 account at a grocer's and could have obtained food 
 to be paid for later but she was of too heroic a na- 
 ture. She would not contract a bill till she saw 
 ahead the means of paying it. Compare this with 
 the City of Dreadful Debt, New York, where thou- 
 sands dress in ermines, ride in expensive motor cars, 
 dine at costly hotels and never own one dollar's worth 
 of what they use and are never sued because to sue 
 them would hurt the creditor's business. Compare 
 this with those who mortgage their houses and leave 
 the grocers' and butchers' bills unpaid that they 
 may buy automobiles in which to carry their worth- 
 less persons. And then build a monument of respect 
 to Dunora who asks none. 
 
 And the dear wife's faithfulness was rewarded, for 
 at length the tide turned, good fortune came, the 
 money came in and she had won. She had won 
 more than she thought for solemnly, within himself, 
 Vir Noble had taken oath that even outside of his 
 marriage vow he would protect that woman from 
 even a suggestion of an evil wind to the last ounce 
 of strength and the last drop of blood in his body. 
 
 Even after their marriage Vir saw with increas- 
 ing anxiety the continuance of Dunora's illness. 
 Though he begged her to remain in bed in the morn-
 
 HOME 245 
 
 ing and though he knew it would almost surely be 
 her salvation to do so, he never could induce her to 
 remain in bed much after daylight for her previ- 
 ously overwrought nerves would not permit her to 
 lie at ease at all during daylight. In the evening 
 when he returned from work the greatest present 
 she could have given him would have been for her 
 to have told him that she had rested during some 
 part of the day. But never did that happy word 
 come. 
 
 Instead he would find that she had swept every 
 rug, washed every hardwood floor, cleaned the cel- 
 lar, dusted the house from top to bottom, gotten 
 out the silverware and polished it and in addition to 
 that had prepared and cooked her own meals and a 
 big dinner for him. Her nerves drove her onward. 
 
 And in addition to this she seldom retained food 
 long after she had eaten it. It wrenched the very 
 core of Vir to see her suffer so, but in this he could 
 personally do little beyond removing every worry 
 and making the path smooth. He hired a maid for 
 her and then he was rejoiced to see that she let this 
 maid do an increasing amount of the work. And 
 he also observed how perfectly Dunora managed. 
 
 Sick as she was and especially when she was so 
 nervously ill, Vir could readily see that he had not 
 fully won her real love. Irene she loved with more 
 than a mother's devotion, but the man could not won- 
 der that under the conditions her bruised heart had 
 not entirely healed. And he steadfastly endeavored 
 to find ways to more and more heal those old wounds 
 and thereby enable her to put out the love he knew 
 was in her. 
 
 She was utterly unselfish and never did he catch
 
 246 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 her in a thought in which she did not consider him 
 first. If she bought a very small quantity of candy 
 for herself when she was out she always brought 
 home half to Vir. Even if she desired an orange 
 while outdoors she always bought two that she 
 might bring home one to Vir. 
 
 In addition to this, her dainty fingers, never quiet, 
 would engage in embroidery and crochet work and, 
 in the evenings, he would sit for a long time and 
 watch her deft fingers manipulate the needle so as 
 to produce mysterious beauties of lace. What a 
 surpassingly beautiful contrast to the life he had 
 lived. Is there any political office, any gift within 
 the gift of men which brings joy like this? He would 
 not have exchanged that home and scene for the 
 compounded rewards of all the world. 
 
 Yet he had much to learn of women's ways and 
 women's hearts. Virgil knew worldly women only 
 when he wrote, "Femina semper mutabile est," for 
 real woman is not changeable. She is the most 
 steadfast of the sexes. Her staunchness is superior 
 to man's. But in her moods she is changeable. 
 Moods are superficial. Vir had yet much to learn 
 about Dunora. He was guilty of one of the most 
 blameworthy sins, that of thoughtlessness. 
 
 Day after day he returned home to find his faith- 
 ful wife awaiting him. But at moments of relaxa- 
 tion he would observe her with that far away look in 
 her eyes and on one or two occasions as she sat at 
 the table with him she would faint and he only pre- 
 served her from falling by catching her as she lost 
 control of herself. These far away looks and faint- 
 ing spells she explained by merely saying, "I don't 
 feel well."
 
 HOME 247 
 
 One day he returned home and found the house 
 empty. No sign of Dunora anywhere, yet on the 
 kitchen table was a note characteristic of the girl. 
 "Dear- 
 Had to go to Lynn. Don't worry. Sweetheart." 
 
 What did it mean? He didn't know. At first he 
 was puzzled. But a great, gnawing uncertainty, a 
 growing of fear began to prey upon him. 
 
 "Dear- 
 Had to go to Lynn. Don't worry. 
 
 Sweetheart." 
 
 He read it and read it and then read it. Its very 
 uncertainty and indefiniteness laughed at him. It 
 mocked him, derided him, struck him. What did 
 she mean by doing that? He hadn't the slightest 
 idea. He read it again and tried to read between 
 the lines, but its few words admitted of no subtle in- 
 terpretation. There was no deriving any meaning 
 from them than that conveyed on the surface. Just 
 a few words, yet what did they impart. "Don't 
 worry." Those two words had ineffable sweetness. 
 
 Vir knew that Dunora fully realized how he was 
 even ill at ease if she were only in the next room, 
 that he could hardly bear her out of his sight. She 
 also knew how fully he trusted her and that any word 
 from her was taken as truth itself by him. There- 
 fore she knew when she wrote those words, "Don't 
 worry," that he would endeavor not to worry with all 
 the power of endeavor in him. Kindness in her dic- 
 tated those two words. But what a deep, mysteri- 
 ous being she was. 
 
 Hour after hour dragged by and no Dunora. He
 
 248 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 began to pace the floor, then rush from the kitchen 
 through the dining room and parlor to the hall 
 and back to the kitchen, journeying and re journey- 
 ing over that circle. Then he stood at some one of 
 the windows as each half hourly car came and looked 
 with longing eyes to see if she got off the car. But 
 car after car came and hour after hour sped and 
 she did not return. Then he resumed pacing his 
 rounds with his breath beginning to come in gasps. 
 "Surely she'll come soon! Surely she'll come soon!" 
 he kept repeating to himself in excited exclamation. 
 But she didn't. There then followed more pacing 
 to and fro while he had wrung from him the words 
 "Oh, God! Oh, God!" And darkness fell. 
 
 Oh, the horrors of that supperless, sleepless night ! 
 Every hour was a year, every half hourly car a cata- 
 clysm. Where was the wife of his heart? Where 
 was his very soul, the earthly expression of all his 
 best with her superiority superimposed thereon? Oh, 
 why would not the All Seeing One speak and tell 
 him? The eye of the Omnipotent beheld Dunora at 
 that hour and why not Vir's eyes ? But, thank God, 
 there came to the distracted mind of the lover hus- 
 band the words which Dunora had written "Don't 
 worry." And strange and terrible as the season was 
 he stubbornly fought worry. The night ended and 
 the day came and it brought no Dunora. 
 
 Then he got into telephonic communication with 
 Mrs. Fuller and told her what had happened. She 
 was much astonished but also told him not to worry. 
 She told him she would go to all Dunora's friends 
 whom she knew and try to find her. They agreed to 
 meet that evening when she would report the result 
 of her search.
 
 HOME 249 
 
 They met in the evening and Mrs. Fuller had 
 found no trace of Dunora. Nevertheless she re- 
 peated her advice to Vir not to worry, but worry 
 he did. Day after day came and went, the first week 
 passed while Vir suffered inhumanly. Gray hairs 
 appeared on his head for the first time in his life. 
 The second week began and ended. Vir was all but 
 beside himself. 
 
 At the very end of the second week Vir went into 
 his office a sadder and thinner man. The telephone 
 rang and listlessly he picked up the receiver. He 
 heard Mrs. Fuller's voice and her words took the 
 very breath from his body. "Come out to Everett 
 quickly to my house. Dunora is here and wants you. 
 Don't be surprised if she doesn't look well, for she 
 has been in a hospital." 
 
 Vir hung up the receiver with a slam and rushed 
 for a means of conveyance in which to proceed to 
 Everett in the quickest time possible. He reached 
 the house, flung open the door, rushed within and 
 there sat Dunora.
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN 
 
 LOVE RULES 
 
 rpHERE sat Dunora! The feeling which went 
 A over Vir was such as he had never experienced 
 before in his entire life. A flood of questions came 
 to his mind. A cloud of mist rolled its convolutions 
 before his eyes but he brushed it aside. Dunora sat 
 not in the parlor where they had met the first time 
 in that house but she was in a chair in the dining 
 room. And Vir's heart felt a great pressure of pain 
 as he saw how pale his dear wife was. 
 
 He rushed to her side, fell upon his knees. 
 "Dunora Dunora, I don't ask where you have been, 
 I trust you too much for that, but why did you leave 
 me, girlie? It almost killed me, I have been crazed 
 with fear for you. You are not well, tell me why 
 you went." 
 
 Dunora looked at him, her blue eyes sparkling 
 with the fire of suppressed feeling and pain. Her 
 mouth opened and all the walls of restraint broke 
 down. "Vir, how can I love you? You think you 
 are almost perfect, that you have no faults. You 
 are conceited, I hate it. You are not a gentleman, 
 you have no manners, you don't know how to eat 
 properly. You are the most selfish man I ever 
 knew. When I do nice things for you, you only 
 take them for granted as calmly as though I should 
 
 250
 
 LOVE RULES 251 
 
 do them. Perhaps I should do them, but I would 
 like sometimes to know you liked them. At times I 
 despised you for all these acts. Being so very 
 sensitive they hurt much. I couldn't endure those 
 hurts any longer so ran away to a hospital where I 
 could rest and think." And then the tears came. 
 How tears sometimes carry away our sorrows with 
 them. 
 
 For the first time since the girl began to speak 
 she looked directly at her husband. He was looking 
 into her face with a look of surprised horror upon 
 his face. Her eyes strayed over him and they rested 
 upon the top of his head. What did they see gray 
 hairs? Surely not, Vir's hair was almost black. 
 But, yes, they were gray hairs. Then her eyes looked 
 more closely at his face. Oh, the lines of pain there. 
 A tender look came into those eyes now. Vir saw 
 and fell to the floor with a half dry sob. 
 
 She knelt on the floor beside him, put her hand 
 that he loved so well, upon those gray hairs, and 
 the man knew he was forgiven all his faults. He 
 also knew that now this woman truly loved him, 
 loved him when he had looked so very black to her. 
 Yes, that was surely love. 
 
 Vir arose and drew Dunora into his arms. "Dear, 
 I never knew. No one ever told me before. Can 
 you ever forgive?" He waited to hear her say 
 "Yes." She did. "Dunora girlie, never will you 
 find any more such terrible mistakes in my be- 
 havior again. My whole life shall be spent trying 
 to make amends for those horrible weeks you lived 
 through and trying to make you happy. I will not 
 ask you to come home until I have overcome my 
 faults. And then you will come, will you not, dear?'*
 
 252 ONE WONDERFUL ROSE 
 
 "My husband, we are going home now this very 
 moment. You overcame your largest fault when 
 you admitted you had faults. Maybe they were not 
 really so bad as I thought them. Anyway, I love 
 you, I am sure of that now, so I want you anyway. 
 Come !" 
 
 The man kissed her with a rapture with which 
 he had never kissed her before. He saw a light as 
 of heaven come upon that dear face that had seen 
 so many trials. He knew love had won and it seemed 
 as though great weights had fallen from him. Only 
 the gray hairs remained the witness to what he had 
 suffered without his beacon. 
 
 Ah, little cot in Boston's suburbs, what a new 
 glamor now haloes you ! Two people now enter your 
 welcoming doors, two people who have fought a good 
 fight and have won the great prize of love enduring! 
 Two happy hearts now seek safe anchorage after 
 they have been long tossed on the angry billows 
 of the ocean of human existence. And over this nest 
 these two seek the blessing of Him who has promised 
 that bye and bye "every man shall sit under his own 
 vine and fig tree and none shall molest." 
 
 And over that little cot the seasons roll their 
 ripening harvests. The summer in all its passion of 
 blood arrives and blesses hill and dale, field and 
 forest. The joyous birds sing love from twig and 
 bough, the gaily feathered swallows twitter and sail 
 in heaven's blue canopy. 
 
 Then the Autumn arrives with its cheering, fire- 
 side days, its riot of color on the trees, its nutty 
 flavor on the breeze. The harvests find safe refuge 
 in the barns and all nature gathers her children un- 
 der the protection of her ample and motherly wings
 
 LOVE RULES 253 
 
 and safely snuggles them in warm home and harbor 
 against the approaching season. 
 
 And then Mother Earth is reclothed. Her dress 
 of green in the summer has changed to the soberer 
 brown of the Autumn. Yet her suit of brown soon 
 changes to robes of spotless white. And as the 
 purity of God's own love clothes in symbol field and 
 forest, the New Year is born. The New Year? Yes. 
 And also, while the echo of the bells of New Year's 
 gladness was yet reverberating down the blue vault 
 of heaven, there came to the two in the cot of love 
 a greater gladness in the form of another Vir, a tiny, 
 helpless gift from God, a little Vir.
 
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