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 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY, 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK.
 
 A GOLDEN GOSSIP 
 
 NEIGHBORHOOD STORY NUMBER TWO 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. A. D. T. WHITNEY 
 
 AUTHOR OF "FAITH GARTNEY S GIRLHOOD, "THE GAYWORTHYS," 
 
 THE " REAL FOLKS " SERIES, " ODD, OR EVEN," 
 
 "ASCUTNEY STREET," BTC. 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 (&e fuUcrsiDr Press, 
 1892
 
 Copyright, 1892, 
 BY ADELINE D. T. WHITNEY. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 
 Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghtou & Co.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAFTEB PAGE 
 
 I. WILD CLOVER 1 
 
 II. A GOLDEN GOSSIP S MORNING CALLS . . 21 
 
 HI. IN THE ORCHARD 38 
 
 IV. " INTRODUCE ME " .50 
 
 V. " Now YOU KNOW " 56 
 
 VI. ANOTHER INTRODUCTION 69 
 
 VII. WHEAT-SEED AND TARE-SEED . . . .77 
 
 VIII. THE POND LILY ROOM 87 
 
 IX. KEEN DEFINITIONS 98 
 
 X. FOLKS AND "CREETURS" 115 
 
 XI. SHEPAUG 134 
 
 XII. "MAY I TELL YOU SOMETHING?" . . .162 
 
 XIII. "THAT S WHAT I M A SPINSTER FOR" . . 179 
 
 XIV. AUTUMN ROSES 192 
 
 XV. BREAKS AND JOINS 198 
 
 XVI. KARMA . . 206 
 
 XVII. "You MAY, MY CHILD" 214 
 
 XVIII. HORIZONS 220 
 
 XIX. THE HAPPY HOUSETOP 227 
 
 XX. THE MOON OF HALLOWEEN .... 238 
 
 XXI. FINE WINTRY COLD 247 
 
 XXII. Two LETTERS 258 
 
 XXIII. RILL S RUBICON . 269 
 
 1694440
 
 IV CONTENTS. 
 
 XXIV. EXACTLY LIKE MBS. REXTELL . . . 279 
 
 XXV. THE TELEGRAM 288 
 
 XXVI. " THE BENEV ." 298 
 
 XXVII. MAISON DE LA SAINTE ESPERANCE . . . 302 
 
 XXVIII. NUMBER TY-Two MOUNT VERNON STREET 313 
 
 XXIX. LIFE is NEVER OVER 319 
 
 XXX. AT THE CEDARS ...... 325 
 
 XXXI. "MOTHER" 335 
 
 XXXII. CONNIE S ASTONISHMENT 341 
 
 XXXIII. " OUGHT I ? " .... 346 

 
 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 WILD CLOVER. 
 
 MR. EPHRAIM CROOKE built his house in the 
 crook of the road. 
 
 His farm lay both ways, at right angles. One 
 line of the country street runs straight down to the 
 Point, where the little Wewachet meets the She- 
 paug, and they broaden down together toward the 
 sea, where the last creep of the tide comes up and 
 there is a touch of salt in the water ; where the 
 coal and lumber barges moor at the wharf; and 
 behind are the bridge and the old village, with the 
 street of shops, and the railway station and the 
 town hall. In the other direction from Crooke 
 Corner, the highway takes its southern bend, then 
 winds and sheers off again toward the meeting 
 houses and the Centre, and beyond that to the hills 
 and pasture sides of Shepaug. 
 
 The Crooke house, in its two portions, was faced
 
 2 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 upon these lines ; its front windows looked along 
 both of them. In a sense, they squinted. In this 
 way the inmates got a squint, so to speak, at al 
 most everything that moved about, and it was an 
 invitation to the passers-by, both up and down, so 
 that the Crooke women-folk caught as in a weir 
 all that floated of news or events ; it all came in 
 with the frequent callers who made this a half-way 
 stop between the Point village and the " up-street " 
 neighborhoods. 
 
 " You always get it, good or bad," cousin Eliza 
 beth said once, with a touch of meaning that her 
 hearers, not quite comprehending, were instantly 
 suspicious of. 
 
 She was there on a visit, and a knot of droppers- 
 in had just gone, leaving a lot of conversational 
 drift stuff to be sorted over in after-discussion 
 with the kind of ruminant felicity a certain class 
 of animals is privileged to enjoy. 
 
 " It s a right-down gossip corner," Miss Eliza 
 beth had added, good-humored ly enough ; but the 
 very good-humor pointed a rebuke with its gentle 
 ness. 
 
 " Well, why should n t things gether in a cor 
 ner?" demanded Miss Sarah Crooke. " The snow 
 drifts up here, and the dead leaves, when the wind 
 blows. Why shouldn t the news? We ain t to 
 blame."
 
 WILD CLOVER. 3 
 
 " Why shouldn t you rake out and shovel up a 
 little ? " 
 
 " Cause we ain t set here on a selery to do the 
 job," shrilled old Eplu-aim from the stove side, 
 with his pipe in his mouth. 
 
 Old Ephraim was not much of a chatterbox him 
 self, but he had certain mechanical, habitual ways 
 of setting the chatter going and keeping it up 
 around him. They all knew he liked it and ex 
 pected it. It chirped him up, his wife said. 
 
 Old Mrs. Crooke knitted round after round on 
 a gray stocking, without opening her lips. She 
 did not hear it all, and besides, she "hated dif- 
 ferin an contradickshin." For that reason, and 
 because of the entertainment of the other two, the 
 gossips had their own way in her sitting - room, 
 saying this and that of everybody, even when old 
 lady Crooke did hear and knew better. " Father 
 wanted to find out what was going. He had n t 
 much to think of, and Sarah liked company. She 
 could n t get out herself ; things had to come to 
 her, and it was a poverdunce they did." That was 
 her gentle sufferance and excuse. 
 
 Sarah had a lameness in her hip ; a good deal, 
 indeed, was to be allowed for such a hindering in 
 firmity. She made up for it with the agility of 
 another little member, not meaning any harm, nor 
 ever realizing that she could travel farther, on
 
 4 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 errand good or ill, in that fashion, than she could 
 have done on her two feet. 
 
 The day came when things changed at Crooke 
 Corner. Old Ephraim died. 
 
 One sunny afternoon in April the elbow of the 
 road was filled with all sorts of carriages ; the one 
 in which no creature rides but once drawn up in 
 gloomy importance by the gate side. 
 
 The prayers were over, and the close knot of 
 men about the door was broken up. People inside 
 waited with deferent curiosity to see the mourners 
 pass. 
 
 The bearing forth was accomplished, the single 
 carriage was closed upon its occupant and crept 
 away solemnly under the maples to halt beyond, 
 while the living entered in turn their more cheerful 
 vehicles. Foot passengers, who did not expect to 
 "follow," departed slowly each way, up and down 
 the road. 
 
 Two women talked as they walked along. 
 
 " Don t seem to me f un ruls is so solumn or im- 
 provin s they used to be," said one. 
 
 " Been to so many of em," said the other ; 
 " got used to em." 
 
 " Well, I dun know. Live folks seem to get 
 the upper hand of it, nowadays, somehow. The s 
 only one dead one, you see, gainst em all ; an 
 the ve all got their minds stirrin full o somethin .
 
 WILD CLOVER. 5 
 
 Folks is live, an the times is hurryin , and they 
 don t skeercely put it aside, more 11 while the 
 prayers last, anyhow. Sometimes I kind o think 
 whether no they don t feel a little bit smart to 
 be alive, an walkin off, speshully them that s 
 pooty nigh o the same age. There they go, like 
 a parcel o bees in a meddar, every one their own 
 way, after their own honey. An there goes old 
 Iffrum Crooke, ridin away alone, toes up." 
 
 " Randy Sowle did n t mind wearin her new 
 bunnit," 
 
 " No ; did look ruther airy. But then folks 
 don t dress accordin , as they used to, not even the 
 mourners. Lizbuth Haven did n t have on a sin 
 gle stitch o real black. Black silk gown s nothin ; 
 an there was little white flowers in the black lace 
 on her bunnit." 
 
 " She s only Mis Crooke s niece. Wonder 
 what they 11 do now ! Them two women all alone 
 is pooty solitary. Don t see how they 11 manage, 
 hardly. Old Iffrum used to shuffle round an see 
 to wood, an water an milk the cows ; an I guess, 
 off n s not, wash the pans an cans. It 11 make a 
 change, more or less." 
 
 It made two changes, one of which might have 
 been easily anticipated ; the other nobody reckoned 
 on. The Crookes hired a woman and a boy, and 
 were better off than old Ephraim would ever have
 
 6 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 thought they needed to be. And Miss Elizabeth 
 Haven came to board at the Corner. 
 
 People wondered, greatly relishing- the sensation, 
 that Miss Haven should leave her beautiful city 
 rooms, where she had everything to her mind and 
 was in the middle of everything, to come out here 
 and fix up the old east wing and live a mile from 
 the cars with deaf Ma am Crooke and lame Sarah. 
 But she had her reasons, which had been maturing 
 for some time against such possibility of acting 
 upon them as might occur, and now this had oc 
 curred. She wanted country air, breath, both 
 bodily and spiritual. And she wanted to brighten 
 somebody s life, apart from associated charities, 
 which she found generalizing and depressing. Be 
 side these facts, there was another in the shape 
 of a stiident at the neighboring law-school, young 
 Putnam King, whose mother had been Grace 
 Haven, Elizabeth s beautiful sister, who died when 
 Putnam was a baby. His father had married 
 again, and there was not only a kind, sensible step 
 mother, but there had come a whole houseful of 
 young brothers and sisters, so that Putnam had not 
 devolved upon aunt Elizabeth s care or her affec 
 tion, as left destitute of either. Neither did the 
 wise lady believe in any once-removed guardian 
 ship, however tender, whjle real home ties and place 
 remained. But she loved the boy, and he loved
 
 WILD CLOVER. 7 
 
 her as boys do, with a good deal of mischief and 
 bravado covering the feeling, and some looking-for 
 of auntly indulgence mixed up with it. 
 
 In these years of his absence from home for his 
 university training, aunt Elizabeth s rooms had 
 been pleasant to go to ; and as the time went 
 on and his future course determined itself and in 
 volved his remaining in the great city, she thought 
 of how good a thing it would be to establish 
 herself a little way out of it, far enough for a 
 thorough escape, and yet where he might come to 
 her for Sundays and holidays, into the sweet air 
 clean from woods and pastures ; that this would be 
 better for him than the droppings-in in town, which 
 were no change or renewal at all. She believed 
 in baptisms, and that the truth of them was at the 
 very heart of created things. 
 
 Putnam King demurred when she told him. 
 
 " You won t like it," he said. " You don t 
 know country people. They 11 price your gowns 
 and calculate your means, and they 11 watch your 
 goings out and your comings in from this time 
 forth, forevermore." 
 
 " Putnam I " 
 
 " They will," rejoined Putnam, calmly. " They 11 
 know all your doings before they re done and all 
 your thoughts before you think em, and they 
 will mention to you any little circumstance or
 
 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 change of your own as if it might be the first you d 
 ever heard of it. You ve got a new bonnet, 
 you ve lost a tooth, have n t yer ? or, you re a 
 little grayer than you was last year, aint yer ? 
 Oh, I know. They do down at Pluxtable. I don t 
 dare to have my hair cut there. Hadger hair cut ? 
 Every man, woman and child I met observed that 
 to me one day. I fled to the garden and the 
 barn, and the hens began it. Hatcher ha cut ! 
 Hatcher ha cut ! Cher ha cut, cut, cut, hatcher 
 ha cut ! Everybody s affairs are forever in the 
 air. Everything chatters and every little chatter 
 is heard. It is the constitution of things in the 
 country. There s no good, wholesome din of 
 everybody busy at once to hush things up. Oh, 
 you 11 get tired of it. You 11 wish you were a 
 trilobite." 
 
 " You absurd boy ! But I ve a nice little room 
 for you there." 
 
 " I sha n t come." 
 
 " You will ; when you open your windows, it s 
 into big trees full of birds." 
 
 "I told you so," said Putnam. "The little 
 birds of the air that carry the matter." 
 
 " And the sunrise comes in in the morning 
 straight across from the bay." 
 
 " Yes ; everything is intrusive, and the sun and 
 the cows and the hens and the birds hustle you out
 
 WILD CLOVER. 9 
 
 of your best nap. No, aunt ; brick walls are more 
 to my morning mood, thank you." 
 
 " Well, then, I shall get rid of you." 
 
 " You 11 get rid of yourself. You 11 be pecked 
 into bits and you 11 never be able to identify the 
 pieces ; you 11 never be a consistent entity any 
 more." 
 
 " You 11 come to look after your own prophecy." 
 
 When Putnam King did come, and saw Sarah 
 Crooke and the old lady, his wonder and misdoubt 
 were at first the greater. But aunt Elizabeth s 
 rooms were like herself, more like her than ever, 
 with more space and freedom and sweetness to be ; 
 and she was there, the same beautiful, consistent 
 entity as ever. And the fact accomplished was a 
 thing fit, on that side of the house, at least. 
 
 Putnam acknowledged it, so far. " But it s only 
 a question of time," he said. " You 11 have to live 
 on yourself, even if the old maids don t eat you 
 up." He sat at the front window of Miss Haven s 
 pretty upstairs library, swinging the gray tassel of 
 her new holland blind to and fro, looking idly up 
 along the road as he spoke. 
 
 Miss Haven laughed in a very jolly way. " The 
 other old maids you mean, I suppose. But we 
 are n t all old maids. There s the minister, and 
 the doctor, and the doctor s wife and " 
 
 But Putnam had stopped swinging the win-
 
 10 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 dow tassel, and attending. He had turned away 
 slightly, leaning forward as if he saw something. 
 He drew back suddenly into the shelter of the 
 curtain. " Come here, aunt Elizabeth. Who is 
 this ? " he said. 
 
 Just beyond the front corner of the west wing, a 
 young girl stood upon the old stone wall. She had 
 come running across the orchard and the field ; her 
 hair had fallen loose and she had her hat in her 
 hand. Two other girls came along the street, 
 laughing. 
 
 " Oh, wait, Sue ! Connie, wait a minute ! I ve 
 got away, but ah ! " 
 
 " So has your hair, has n t it, and your breath? " 
 said one of the newcomers, teasingly. " Every 
 thing gets away with you. Here, give me the hat ; 
 see how you re mashing the roses ! " for the girl on 
 the wall, with her last impatient ejaculation, had 
 thrust her headgear under her elbow, where she 
 held it anyhow, struggling with a hand and a half 
 and one long pin to compress and fasten into a 
 knot again a flowing mass of bonny brown locks 
 with all the obstreperousness in them of natural 
 kinks and curls. 
 
 " There ! if it don t stay, I can t help it. I in 
 ready ! " and she was jumping down from her perch 
 upon two trim, pretty little feet, as three simulta 
 neous remarks were being made about her in the 
 old Crooke house.
 
 WILD CLOVER. 11 
 
 " That s Rill Raye," answered aunt Elizabeth. 
 " She lives on the North Road ; she s just like her 
 name, and as little to be hindered or quenched. 
 And hindering and quenching are all that is tried 
 upon her, I m afraid." 
 
 " Now what prank do you s pose that Rill 
 Raye s ready for ? " came up in Sarah Crooke s 
 sharp, accusative accents from the west-side room 
 below. Her " that " was an emphatically demon 
 strative pronoun. 
 
 " Do you know her ? Speak to her, stop her, 
 won t you ? Ask her something ! " The young 
 man in the corner who objected theoretically to 
 the sun and the birds and everything that was in 
 trusive urged his sudden, eager curiosity upon 
 aunt Elizabeth, holding himself well out of sight 
 as he besought her hurriedly. 
 
 It suited aunt Elizabeth s own further purposes, 
 and she did speak from the window. She had 
 made up her mind, before this, to be friends some 
 how with Rill Raye. 
 
 " Are you going to the Point, to the library, 
 Miss Raye ? " she asked in her peculiarly clear 
 voice that needed but slight raising to accomplish 
 any attemptable distance. " Would you take a 
 book for me ? " 
 
 "Oh, with pleasure ! " came Rill s answer. " Shall 
 I come in for it, or will you drop it down ? "
 
 12 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 " Putnam -- no, I 11 go myself," said Miss 
 Haven inside, as she took a brown-covered, red- 
 labeled volume from her round table, and has 
 tened with it to the stairs. Putnam, for some 
 momentary preference of his own, sat still without 
 remonstrance. 
 
 Miss Haven, out upon the bank, held a brief 
 colloquy with the girl. 
 
 " You said you had got away, " she began, 
 pleasantly. " Is there anything special to keep you 
 in just now ? All is well, I hope ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ; only there s always aunt Amelia, 
 and she thinks there are only two things life is good 
 for : weekdays, sew seams ; Sundays, say hymns. 
 She thinks I am a little girl ; she will never be 
 done bringing me up, and I can t help growing, 
 that s all. I always say hymns crooked, Miss 
 Haven. Is n t it funny ? " 
 
 The girls at the fence were listening. Rill 
 knew that, and it spurred her on. What would 
 have been the effect if she had known of the hid 
 den auditor upstairs, cannot be certainly asserted ; 
 but, doubtless, she had a comfortable conviction 
 that behind some of those closed blinds there 
 micrht be other attentive ears which she had no 
 
 O 
 
 objection to startle. So she went on : 
 
 "I do ; there s a tother side to most of them. 
 Perhaps it s the wrong side, but I don t know
 
 WILD CLOVER. 13 
 
 always ; it s hard to tell in some things. I turn 
 them over in my mind and hold them up to the 
 light what light there is as well as I canvas 
 aunt Amelia turns new cloth to see which is the 
 right and the wrong of it ; and presently I can t 
 tell one from the other any more than she can. 
 Do you remember How doth the little busy bee, 
 Miss Haven?" The girl looked up in Miss 
 Haven s eyes with the most childlike simplicity. 
 
 " I think I do," returned the lady with a twin 
 kling gravity. 
 
 " Well, I never got that settled yet," said Kill 
 Raye. " I always make it go this way : 
 
 That wretched little busy bee 
 
 Spoils every pleasant minute ; 
 He frets each opening flower to see 
 If there is honey in it. 
 
 He did when I was little, and he does now ; and 
 all he wants is to lug the honey off and leave 
 the poor flower without any. Why should n t a 
 flower have its pretty, innocent blow-out its own 
 way. Miss Haven ? There would n t be any honey 
 in the world if it did n t. Yes, I m coming, 
 girls. I was only explaining to Miss Haven that 
 we are meadowsweet and white clover on the ram 
 page. I 11 bring you back another book, Miss 
 Haven." 
 
 There was something very winning and gracious
 
 14 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 in Rill Raye s way of repeating the name of the 
 person to whom she spoke, if an elder ; unless, in 
 deed, it happened to be Miss Crooke or one of her 
 sort, and then it was a satire simply because of ob 
 jective absurdity. The manner was precisely the 
 same, but it was like taking off your hat to a 
 donkey or dropping a courtesy to a cow. 
 
 " You are very kind, Cyrilla. Miss Homer has 
 my list," returned Miss Haven, walking with Rill 
 the few steps across the grass-plot to the gate. 
 " May I just say something, dear? Some of the 
 sweetest flowers don t blow, they only quietly 
 bloom." 
 
 The girl s eyes had something suddenly deeper 
 in them as she looked up in Miss Haven s. 
 
 " When they grow in still, nice, sunshiny places," 
 she said, wistfully. 
 
 " They grow in their own spots where they are 
 put, and they make them beautiful. They do not 
 try to rush about or transplant themselves." 
 
 " But they reach their blossoms through the 
 fences, they must reach somewhere." 
 
 Rill had the last word ; perhaps it was wisdom 
 in Miss Haven that she left it with her. 
 
 When she came back and stopped with the book, 
 Miss Haven met her as before. But Cyrilla was 
 very quiet this time, and she looked pale. She 
 handed the volume over the gate without speaking.
 
 WILD CLOVER. 15 
 
 " Has anything- happened ? Don t you feel well ? 
 Come in a minute," the lady said, kindly. 
 
 Cyrilla shook her head. "I ve had a tooth 
 pulled, that s all," she answered, briefly, and with 
 the slight facial constraint natural to the circum 
 stance. I 11 come to-morrow, may I ? " 
 
 There was an appeal in the word. Miss Haven 
 laid her hand on Rill s with a kind pressure, " Do," 
 she said. " Come any time. This is Dropping-in 
 Corner, you know." 
 
 Rill s handkerchief lightly hid her mouth, but 
 her eyes smiled. It was a smile with a pathos in 
 it. " I m just as full of mischief and mistakes as 
 I can be," she said. " I want to be done ever so 
 much good to, but " and the flash of fun came 
 back again "I don t want to be ame/iarated ! " 
 
 " There s the making of a splendid woman in 
 that girl," said Miss Haven, coming back to Put 
 nam King in her bookroom. " She has been follow 
 ing some joke or daring to the bitter end. She 
 never started for it, I am sure." 
 
 " Started for what ? " asked Putnam. " What 
 happened to her to wilt her down so ? " 
 
 " She had a tooth pulled. Dr. Harriman is a 
 young D. D. S. just established at the Point, a 
 handsome man, a gentleman. Some nonsense of 
 those other girls, and Rill Raye has paid up the 
 cost of the frolic. I feel sure of it."
 
 18 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 pletons, the other was Miss Rill Rave. She is 
 proud and quick; she found out she was in the 
 wrong place and had the pluck to right herself. 
 One of the simpletons began. She wanted to let 
 me see her teeth, she said. She smiled, and showed 
 a very pretty row of them. I very nearly thanked 
 her, but I bowed, and waited orders. The quick 
 one I did n t know her name then saw right 
 through me, that / was seeing through, and 
 her great dark eyes flashed. The other girl, as 
 innocent as you please, put up her lip with her 
 finger. Isn t there a speck there, somewhere? 
 she wanted to know. I did n t care about playing 
 uncle Toby, but I had to look. There was a speck 
 there ; I believe she had stuck it on herself. A 
 touch with a probe point removed it. I do not 
 think you need me, I said. * Your teeth appear to 
 be in perfect order. The dark-eyed one caught 
 the emphasis, and flashed again. Is this all, 
 young ladies ? I inquired, taking in the commit 
 tee of three that had been requisite for this mighty 
 business. No, sir!" 1 came like a small bombshell 
 from Miss Raye. I wish to have a tooth taken 
 out. And before I could say Ah ! she had whipped 
 her hat off and was in the chair. The others were 
 staring. One made a little shriek. Miss Raye 
 twisted herself round. If you mean to scream, 
 said she, please go away. I don t. Well, the
 
 WILD CLOVER. 19 
 
 amount of it was, the tooth needed to come out, 
 though she had n t had the smallest intention that 
 it should, up to the instant. Then she did order 
 me : Pull it, doctor. You know it ought to be 
 done ; I was told to have it out a year ago. A 
 very slight filling would have preserved it, but it 
 was an irregularity in an otherwise fine mouth, and 
 it crowded perniciously. I did it, that s all. 
 
 " I see," returned Miss Haven. " Thank you. 
 I like to have the story from its root. You know, 
 Dr. Harriman, how a little thing gets circulated, 
 and takes character in the circulation. I live at 
 Crooke Corner ; I hear most things ; and I take 
 an interest in Rill Raye. Good-morning ; perhaps 
 you will find it in your way some time to call in 
 upon an old friend of your mother s?" 
 
 Dr. Harriman bowed, expressed his sense of the 
 privilege and his acceptance, and attended her to 
 the door, returning into his office with not a little 
 enlightenment as to the social trend of things in 
 Wewachet. 
 
 Rill Raye told her aunt Amelia the simple fact 
 that she had had the tooth drawn. She scorned 
 concealment. 
 
 Aunt Amelia uttered a sharp " H m ! " She 
 wondered how long it would have been before Rill 
 would have made up her mind to let old Dr. Grap- 
 leigh do it ; blamed her, upon sudden recollection,
 
 20 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 as the girl had expected, for going without consult 
 ing herself, or being properly accompanied ; and 
 taxed her outright with having had no real purpose 
 but to make an interesting acquaintance with the 
 new handsome young practitioner. " Of course 
 he saw through it quick enough," she said, sting- 
 ingly. " And what do you suppose he thought of 
 a girl who would do that ? " 
 
 " He thought I meant what I said, aunt Amelia ; 
 I might have got his advice, and put it off, as I did 
 Dr. Grapleigh s. I don t trouble myself at all 
 about what he thinks." 
 
 " Yes, you do. You ve done a foolish thing, and 
 you know it. It s in the tip of your head, this 
 minute. You 11 have to be ashamed of it every 
 time you see him." 
 
 It was in this sort that Miss Amelia Bonable 
 punished the young woman whom she thought sin 
 cerely she was dealing with in rare wisdom. 
 
 The tip of the head was emphasized. 
 
 " I am not ashamed, and I shall not see him," 
 the girl answered with extreme loftiness. " I do 
 not know Dr. Harriman. I do not remember him 
 in the least except that he that I employed 
 him."
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A GOLDEN GOSSIP S MORNING CALLS. 
 
 THERE was something, after all, iu Rill Raye, 
 that made her capable of learning her own life-les 
 sons. She had got one now, although she denied 
 it, even to herself ; yet she would run just as head 
 long into some other experience and invite the 
 wholesome bitterness of that. 
 
 Rill Raye kept her word. Dr. Harriman met 
 her in the street, and was about to raise his hat ; 
 his look arrested itself and his hand moved up 
 ward for the infinitesimal part of an instant and 
 for an inch of space. There gesture and expres 
 sion were checked by the unrecognition apparently 
 too serenely thorough to be a cut, upon a face that 
 neither swerved from him as it went by, nor met his 
 glance with the most involuntary consciousness. 
 If she had planned this next step with the deepest 
 coquetry, perhaps she could not have managed 
 better. 
 
 " I wonder how she got that up ? " was the doc 
 tor s mental exclamation. There was a half-smile
 
 22 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 upon his lips as he walked on, diverted and stimu 
 lated to interest by this little problem. 
 
 She had simply made up her mind that for her, 
 under present circumstances, Dr. Harriman did 
 not exist. 
 
 Meanwhile, she had been to see Miss Haven, as 
 she had desired and promised, and Miss Haven 
 had been to see her aunt Amelia. 
 
 Miss Bonable did not know what to do with the 
 girl, she said. She came to this point of confi 
 dence with Miss Haven to her own surprise ; 
 hardly perceiving that it was because Miss Haven 
 spoke kindly of Rill. When people commented 
 on her in a different sort, Miss Bonable was ready, 
 as she said, to " brussle up ; " unconscious also 
 that this was in itself more harmful than help 
 ful, as revealing a touchy sensitiveness. But when 
 Miss Haven said nice things, the simple perplex 
 ity spoke itself out, and found relief. 
 
 " She s careless, and she don t care. And she 
 will have her own way," said aunt Amelia, not in 
 tending either paradox or repetition. She meant 
 that Rill w r as idle, untidy, according to her ideas 
 of method and industry, and that she did care, em 
 phatically, to do as she pleased. 
 
 " Why, she won t mend her second-best gown till 
 the best is torn too, and as for stockings, or making 
 up anything new beforehand, why, you might as
 
 A GOLDEN GOSSIP S MORNING CALLS. 23 
 
 well talk to that kitten ! Only the other clay, I 
 bought her some real pretty summer stuff at the 
 mark-down price. Now, says I, you don t 
 really want it this season ; but why don t you go 
 to work and make it up, and lay it away for next 
 spring? Then you 11 be forehanded when the 
 warm weather comes all of a jump. And what do 
 you think she answered back ? 4 1 guess I d need 
 to be/bwrhanded, to do all you d like me to do, 
 says she. And what do I want to waste this sum 
 mer for, working for next ? Why, next summer I 
 might be a widow ! The first thing comes into 
 her head comes off her tongue, let it be whatever ! " 
 
 " She s a bright girl," said Miss Haven. 
 
 " Bright ? Yes, and smart, too, when she does 
 take hold. If it were n t mostly the things she d 
 ought to let alone. But I don t praise her ; nor let 
 her see that I laugh, if she is funny. And I don t 
 scold. The only way is to touch her pride ; she s 
 got that ; and I mortify her." Miss Bonable shook 
 out her work and set up her head, and fixed her 
 lips in a grim certainty of astute righteousness. 
 
 " Oh, you can t mean to do that ! Why, to mor 
 tify is to make dead, you know," said Miss Haven, 
 quickly, yet sweetly. " I would n t mortify any 
 body, not even a dumb creature. That does put 
 down, beyond reach." 
 
 " Well, I d know. There s got to be some dis-
 
 22 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 upon his lips as he walked on, diverted and stimu 
 lated to interest by this little problem. 
 
 She had simply made up her mind that for her, 
 under present circumstances, Dr. Harriman did 
 not exist. 
 
 Meanwhile, she had been to see Miss Haven, as 
 she had desired and promised, and Miss Haven 
 had been to see her aunt Amelia. 
 
 Miss Bonable did not know what to do with the 
 girl, she said. She came to this point of confi 
 dence with Miss Haven to her own surprise ; 
 hardly perceiving that it was because Miss Haven 
 spoke kindly of Rill. When people commented 
 on her in a different sort, Miss Bonable was ready, 
 as she said, to " brussle up ; " unconscious also 
 that this was in itself more harmful than help 
 ful, as revealing a touchy sensitiveness. But when 
 Miss Haven said nice things, the simple perplex 
 ity spoke itself out, and found relief. 
 
 " She s careless, and she don t care. And she 
 will have her own way," said aunt Amelia, not in 
 tending either paradox or repetition. She meant 
 that Rill was idle, untidy, according to her ideas 
 of method and industry, and that she did care, em 
 phatically, to do as she pleased. 
 
 " Why, she won t mend her second-best gown till 
 the best is torn too, and as for stockings, or making 
 up anything new beforehand, why, you might as
 
 A GOLDEN GOSSIP S MORNING CALLS. 23 
 
 well talk to that kitten ! Only the other day, I 
 bought her some real pretty summer stuff at the 
 mark-down price. Now, says I, you don t 
 really want it this season ; but why don t you go 
 to work and make it up, and lay it away for next 
 spring? Then you 11 be forehanded when the 
 warm weather comes all of a jump. And what do 
 you think she answered back ? 4 1 guess I d need 
 to be/cwrhanded, to do all you d like me to do, 
 says she. And what do I want to waste this sum 
 mer for, working for next ? Why, next summer I 
 might be a widow ! The first thing comes into 
 her head comes off her tongue, let it be whatever ! " 
 
 " She s a bright girl," said Miss Haven. 
 
 " Bright ? Yes, and smart, too, when she does 
 take hold. If it were n t mostly the things she d 
 ought to let alone. But I don t praise her ; nor let 
 her see that I laugh, if she is funny. And I don t 
 scold. The only way is to touch her pride ; she s 
 got that ; and I mortify her." Miss Bonable shook 
 out her work and set up her head, and fixed her 
 lips in a grim certainty of astute righteousness. 
 
 " Oh, you can t mean to do that ! Why, to mor 
 tify is to make dead, you know," said Miss Haven, 
 quickly, yet sweetly. " I would n t mortify any 
 body, not even a dumb creature. That does put 
 down, beyond reach." 
 
 " Well, I d know. There s got to be some dis-
 
 24 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 cipline. And she s eighteen years old. I can t 
 slap her, nor put her in the closet." 
 
 " We are all apt to mistake punishment for dis 
 cipline. Discipline is teaching. The Lord shows 
 us our good as well as our evil." 
 
 Miss Bonable did not say anything. This of it 
 self was a remarkable effect with her. 
 
 " Rill is a brave girl, too," Miss Haven adven 
 tured. 
 
 " Oh, you ve heard that, have you ? " Miss 
 Bonable rejoined quickly, her head going up again 
 as with a spring, and her hand, with her needle in 
 it, held arrested in high air. " I knew it would 
 travel. That s what I told her." 
 
 " You mean, I suppose, her having her tooth 
 drawn. That is only one thing. She told me that 
 herself, merely as a statement. I guessed the 
 bravery of it." 
 
 " Other folks will guess the accounting-for of 
 the bravery. There s always talk." 
 
 " Yes, there always is. Human beings take an 
 interest in each other. That is why it is well to 
 meet talk with talk, or to anticipate. I think we 
 ought to take pains to say all the best we can of 
 each other, since something is sure to be said." 
 
 " You 11 have chance enough to try that at 
 Crooke Corner," said Miss Bonable. "Perhaps 
 it 11 work, if you can get your sort of word in
 
 A GOLDEN GOSSIP S MORNING CALLS. 25 
 
 edgeways. But I guess it 11 come in kind o flat, 
 like bread-sauce without pepper or onion." 
 
 " I hope I may make good my opportunity. 
 And there are things in character, as in bread- 
 sauce, that would be intolerable by themselves, but 
 are relishing as condiments." 
 
 " I should n t wonder if some of your resates 
 might make the world taste better than it does," 
 said Miss Bonable, dropping her work and getting 
 up to see her visitor to the door, as the latter 
 moved to go. And Miss Haven knew, by the tone 
 and motion, that she was leaving a little new cour 
 age behind her, .in a spirit anxious with difficulties, 
 and hard because of anxieties. 
 
 Miss Haven went straight from Miss Bonable s 
 over to Mrs. Rospey s. There was word in the 
 village that Mrs. Rospey was left without a girl 
 again. Girls at Mrs. Rospey s were always flaring 
 up and leaving. The lady had a doubtful name 
 among her acquaintances, as " one who was always 
 changing," and a very decided and detrimental 
 one in the kitchen constituency, as " hard to get 
 along with." "You won t stay a week at Ros 
 pey s," was the common saying in the solidarity. 
 Prophecy fulfilled itself. Cause and effect acted 
 and reacted, until you could n t tell which began it. 
 Girls went to Mrs. Rospey s as with a loaded re 
 volver, all ready to fire at the first move. It was
 
 26 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 " hands up ! " from the start. Poor Mrs. Rospey 
 was helpless. Amiability itself could not save her. 
 After a brief space of relief and of Christian hope 
 that she was beginning to keep her temper and 
 should keep her girl, down came the thunderbolt 
 out of the clear sky, and the Katie or Annie of 
 the time " gave notice." The secret which the 
 mistress did not penetrate was, that, not expecting 
 to stay more than " a week at Rospey s," the in 
 cumbent was simply there in transitu ;, saving 
 board and doing her washing, making ready for a 
 place to which she had been pledged beforehand, 
 and in which she did expect to stay as long as 
 " things were agreeable." And if friends knew 
 of any thoroughly good person to fill the duties, 
 they thought it less than useless to make the sug 
 gestion in Mrs. Rospey s behalf, from the difficulty 
 of persuasion on the one side, and the difficulty 
 of knowing when she was well off on the other. 
 " You can t stop a leak with water," they said. 
 
 " What is it this time ? " was the question that 
 went about, when a fresh vacancy was reported. 
 And this time of Miss Haven s visit it had 
 been, as currently asserted, the throwing of a dish 
 cloth in the servant s face. " And you could n t 
 expect anybody to stand that," was the appended 
 comment. What might have happened first, that 
 Mrs. Rospey could n t be expected to stand, was 
 never inquired.
 
 A GOLDEN GOSSIP S MORNING CALLS. 27 
 
 One of Miss Haven s rules was " not to talk 
 round a person." She knew very well she could 
 hear the whole dishcloth story at Mrs. Clackett s, 
 or Mrs. Wisper s ; but she did not care at all about 
 the dishcloth; she was a more thorough gossip, she 
 sometimes said to Sarah Crooke, than to be inter 
 ested in what everybody knew, and had repeated 
 threadbare ; the real zest of a subject was in the 
 point imreached and hardest to get at. If she 
 could n t find out a little more than her neighbors, 
 it was n t worth while to gossip at all. When, 
 therefore, a hearsay came trickling along to her, 
 she did not drink of it with all that it might have 
 gathered on its way ; neither did she even paddle 
 in it, or stir it up, to send it further a little more 
 roiled then before. If she did anything, she fol 
 lowed it straight up to the springhead, and saw for 
 herself with what quality it started. In this case, 
 in the midst of the bubbling and boiling, she found 
 a flavor sweeter than she had even hoped. 
 
 The bereaved housekeeper was brushing down 
 her front staircase when Miss Haven rang at the 
 door. Mrs. Rospey s face brightened as she let her 
 visitor in, and led the way to a dainty little sitting- 
 room. 
 
 " I wish the I^ord would give me a new set of 
 nerves ! " she said, after making due explanation of 
 her employment and of her big morning apron.
 
 28 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 " Perhaps He will by providing a good rest for 
 the old ones," returned Miss Haven. 
 
 " Ah, you know all about it," exclaimed Mrs. Ros- 
 pey, gratefully, " and of course you know the old 
 ones stand in the way of my getting it. It seems 
 as if the Lord himself could n t make out which 
 end to begin at." 
 
 " I came to tell you of a very nice woman who is 
 just left out of a place. She never left one in her 
 life." 
 
 " She \l better not come here, then. She d 
 break her record. She. would n t stay. They 
 never do. She would n t come if she s principled 
 against leaving. 
 
 "The minute anything goes contrary, they tell 
 me they knew it would, they were warned they 
 could n t live with me, and all I want is that 
 they should do things with some sort of conscience. 
 If I liked to have the kitchen sweepings, dust and 
 ashes and bones and lemon-skins, piled up behind 
 the coal-hod, and half the breakfast thrown into 
 the scrap-pail, and the glass-towels used to wipe 
 the stove, and the napkins for oven cloths, I could 
 get along beautifully. I should be easy to live 
 with : but I should n t live easy with myself. I 
 found the last one washing out the soup-pot with a 
 doily, and I snatched it out of her hand and flung 
 it across to the kitchen table ; but it had to go past
 
 A GOLDEN GOSSIP S MOENING CALLS. 29 
 
 her on the way, and she said I threw it at her. I 
 know it was temper, and it was n t dignified ; but 
 I don t believe Moses could be dignified or 
 meek if he had to regulate such things with 
 such creatures. When he did lose his temper, he 
 smashed all the ten commandments." 
 
 Mrs. Rospey lauglied hysterically ; and then the 
 tears sprung in her eyes and trembled in her voice. 
 It was partly the understanding look in Miss Ha 
 ven s face, and the sympathy of her smile. " Why, 
 I ve prayed about it," she went on, putting her 
 hand out and laying it on her friend s ; " and then 
 I ve gone straight downstairs and found something 
 I could n t stand, and knew I ought n t to stand, 
 and I ve upset the whole calabash again." 
 
 " You are too good a housekeeper, perhaps, to be 
 easily a temper-keeper." 
 
 " Ought n t I to be a good housekeeper ? " de 
 manded Mrs. Rospey, with earnest eyes. She was 
 only thirty, yet ; and thirty is young in the intri 
 cacies of experience. 
 
 " Set one ought against another," suggested Miss 
 Haven. 
 
 " It s only double-ought, after all ; it makes it 
 just a hundred times as hard. I ought to take 
 good care of things, and I ought to be kind to peo 
 ple. I can do them separately ; but when it s peo 
 ple and things together, people that ought to help
 
 30 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 me with the things " She broke down with her 
 speech in a tangle. 
 
 " Yes ; there s that ought on the other side," 
 said Miss Haven. " Lucretia Dawse would fill it. 
 She is at Shepaug. If I come for you to-morrow 
 morning, will you drive there with me and see 
 her?" 
 
 " Yes. And I 11 tell her just what she s got to 
 put up with. For I m all nerves no\v, of the 
 wrong sort ; and I sha n t be easy-going all at once. 
 But you what did you come for to help me 
 so?" 
 
 " Oh, I only came gossiping. But I guess it was 
 an errand. We don t always know when we are 
 sent till we get there. I shall be glad if this 
 turns out a comfort." 
 
 " It has turned out a comfort," said Mrs. Ros- 
 pey. " And it s good to have somebody come gos 
 siping, and find out the sense of your affairs. It s 
 a new way." 
 
 Before Miss Haven got home that da}*, she had 
 added two more items to her budget of interior in 
 formation. 
 
 She found out that the minister s wife did not 
 spend a quarter part of that last reception present 
 in new satin covers for her parlor chairs ; but that 
 she had reseated them herself with the odd breadths 
 of an ancient damask gown out of an old family
 
 A GOLDEN GOSSIP S MORNING CALLS. 31 
 
 trunk, of exactly the rich, sober brown that her 
 eyes Ijved, and of an obsolete, honest, indestructi 
 ble stuff. 
 
 And then the good lady met Colonel Sholto, who 
 had married the pretty young widow March, riding 
 with his stepson. He sent the boy on at a canter, 
 and stopped Miss Haven to say something to her 
 about a book-club. But first he pointed after the 
 little fellow with his whip. " Takes to the saddle 
 well, does n t he ? " he said, with as much pride as 
 a real father could. 
 
 Miss Haven nodded, with a pleased look, along 
 the line of direction. "You ve made him happy 
 with a pony, then ? " she said. 
 
 " Yes. It s better than the stable yards. Jack s 
 of good stuff, but good stuff might be spoiled in 
 the handling. Do you know what he said to me at 
 the beginning of our concerns with each other?" 
 
 Colonel Sholto had not the least idea that she 
 could; his " do you know?" was merely prelimi 
 nary. Miss Haven surprised him by saying she 
 had heard something odd ; but would he please 
 tell her himself? She was fond of a good story, 
 and always liked to get the whole of it. 
 
 " What did you hear ? " 
 
 " That he marched up to you and stated that his 
 mother might have a step-husband if she wanted 
 to, but that he wouldn t be a step-boy to anybody."
 
 32 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 Colonel Sholto gave a quick, big-chested laugh. 
 " Nearly verbatim," he replied. 
 
 " What did you say ? " asked Miss Haven. 
 
 Colonel Sholto s face grew graver and very plea 
 sant as he answered : " I told him that was spirited ; 
 and good, in the best sense of it. I hoped there 
 would be no half relations with any of us ; I meant 
 to be his friend, and should want him for mine ; 
 and we must both stand up for his mother. He 
 had the quickness and honesty to take home that 
 last hint ; I could see it by his color ; but his eyes 
 gave me the right look, and well, I think we are 
 friends, Miss Haven." 
 
 " Thank you." 
 
 " I don t know why I have told you all this, 
 right here in the street ; but there was something 
 in your face that went beyond the first word, and 
 so you have it." 
 
 " Thank you," said Miss Haven again. " There 
 is always something beyond the first word. The 
 first word hardly ever satisfies me." 
 
 There was that in her response which went 
 beyond the word also. Colonel Sholto felt it, 
 and was glad they had spoken. After all, he 
 rode away, forgetting what he first had stopped 
 for. 
 
 When Elizabeth Haven got home, she took off 
 her bonnet in Sarah Crooke s parlor before going
 
 A GOLDEN GOSSIP S MORNING CALLS. 33 
 
 upstairs. She had a way of doing this ; she knew 
 that Sarah Crooke liked it. 
 
 "Well, what have you picked up?" was the 
 stereotyped query. 
 
 " Some dropped stitches," said Miss Haven. 
 " They piece out several things. Miss Bonable 
 thinks pretty well of Rill Raye, to begin with. 
 She says she s bright, and proud, and capable, 
 and self-respecting. She can always influence 
 her through her self-respect." 
 
 Miss Sarah opened her eyes wide. 
 
 " She has so much character, that it makes her 
 anxious about dealing with her just right." 
 
 " Don t say ! " interjected Miss Sarah. 
 
 " Yes ; that s just what I do say, just what I 
 wanted to have to say. It s a little more than 
 most folks know." 
 
 This view of the matter evidently struck Miss 
 Sarah, for she stopped knitting in the middle of 
 her needle, and replied nothing. 
 
 " And I ve been to Mrs. Rospey s," Miss Haven 
 went 011 ; " and the dishcloth was a damask nap 
 kin that she took away in a hurry from the girl who 
 was cleaning a kettle with it. The rest of the 
 story was of the girl s authorship ; and a sweeter, 
 tenderer little woman than Mrs. Rospey inside 
 I don t believe there is in \Vewachet. I m 
 going to send Lucretia Dawse to her. She wants
 
 34 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 somebody of her own sort. Her house is like wax 
 work. When there are birds of a feather, there 11 
 be peace in the nest." 
 
 " Well, I declare ! You do seem to have got the 
 inside track ! I never had any objections to Mar 
 tha Rospey ; but she s been awful quick-tempered 
 in her kitchen alwers." 
 
 " It s good to know the whole of a thing," said 
 Miss Haven, quietly. " And then I met Colonel 
 Sholto, riding with Jack March. He has given 
 the little fellow a pony, and he told me that 
 he and Jack made friends from the minute the 
 boy told him he would n t be step-boy to anybody. 
 Colonel Sholto said he did n t want any half re 
 lations, and I guess it s a whole one now, at any 
 rate." 
 
 " He told you all that a-horseback ! I guess 
 you follered him up pretty close. I thought you 
 was n t inquisitive." 
 
 " Oh, yes, I am ; as inquisitive as Eve, only I 
 like my information from the best authority. I 
 should n t accept the serpent s account of a thing. 
 It is remarkable how much more people know 
 about themselves sometimes than you can tell them. 
 Mrs. Pinceley s chairs are made out of her great- 
 aunt s old ironside gown ; she seated them herself, 
 and they look as if they were born so, with satin 
 skins."
 
 A GOLDEN GOSSIP S MORNING CALLS. 35 
 
 " Seems to me everything s got a satin skin, or 
 you ve new covered em. You re a dabster at 
 perticklers, anyhow." 
 
 " Cousin Sarah," said Elizabeth Haven, very 
 cordially, " you have a wonderful opportunity in 
 your life, I think. Everybody comes to you, and 
 you are interested about everybody. You could 
 generally know more than any one else ; and you 
 have a clear judgment, and chance to weigh and 
 consider. You conld set ever so many things 
 straight in Wewachet. " 
 
 " Can t make folks over. They will tattle, and 
 they like things best before they re all explained. 
 After they ve wondered awhile, they 11 take the ex 
 planation, may be. That s something new, then. 
 But they will have the new" Miss Sarah said 
 " ni-evv," and it was very effective. " I m bound 
 to say I like the ni-ew myself," she repeated, with 
 the honesty Miss Haven provoked from almost 
 everybody. 
 
 " We all like it. We re made to like it. 
 There would n t be any growing or getting on if 
 we did n t. But in the matter of talk about other 
 people, I think there are just three rules that 
 make it safe, and leave us all the interest and 
 satisfaction." 
 
 " I d be pleased to know em. I d be pleased 
 to hear of any rules that folks would be likely to
 
 86 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 talk by. You can t even keep em to dictionary 
 and grammar," said Miss Sarah Crooke. 
 
 " They are very simple," said Miss Haven. " To 
 tell the best things ; to make the best of the bad 
 things ; and to straighten the mistakes." 
 
 " That s all very pretty, and very well for you, 
 who can get about and root things out ; but I set 
 here in my corner and take what comes." 
 
 " It seems to me that is the opportunity. It 
 seems to me it is like a call," said Miss Haven, 
 in her way that went behind the word she an 
 swered. 
 
 Sarah Crooke twinkled. " Like Matthoo at the 
 resate o custom ? " she asked. 
 
 " Something so, perhaps." 
 
 " I can t build up a ni-ew world nor yet make 
 a millennium stuck here like a limpet ! " 
 
 " I don t suppose we have to think of the mil 
 lennium," Miss Haven answered ; " only of each 
 little million-millionth of the right at a time. 
 When the Lord made the mollusk He did n t say, 
 Go to work and build a continent. But every 
 little mollusk grew his shell the best and truest 
 shape he could, and lived his life out ; and the con 
 tinent gathered together, and rose under the water, 
 till the Lord s own time came, and He lifted it up 
 into the light." 
 
 " You re a good talker, and you ve got a good
 
 A GOLDEN GOSSIP S MORNING CALLS. 37 
 
 headpiece," said Sarah Crooke, as she fell to knit 
 ting again with a force that hinted a climax to the 
 conversation. Miss Haven accepted both compli 
 ment and hint with a smile, took her bonnet, and 
 went off upstairs.
 
 CHAPTEK III. 
 
 IN THE ORCHARD. 
 
 PUTNAM KING professed great delight in his 
 aunt s shrewd reformatory proceedings. " How do 
 you get along with your new School for Scandal ? " 
 he would ask, when he came out to Wewachet for 
 a Saturday to Monday stay. " It is the greatest 
 woman-movement yet. But it interferes with their 
 dearest rights, I m afraid. Does n t it take the 
 edge off life for Sarah Crooke ? " 
 
 " Now, Putnam, look here ! Sarah Crooke has 
 a fine background to her character." 
 
 " Why does she keep it in the background, I 
 wonder ! " interpolated Putnam ; but Miss Haven 
 went sturdily on. 
 
 " If you were tied to an armchair and four 
 knitting-needles, no, we will say to a pipe and a 
 newspaper, you or any man would be a 
 thousand times worse gossip than ever she was. 
 Would be ? You are now ; and your newspapers 
 are your condemnation. You men, you devourers 
 of news, to despise gossip ! when the daily columns
 
 IN THE ORCHARD. 39 
 
 don t suffice for yon, with all their biggest capitals, 
 and life is bare, unless the world comes to a partial 
 end every day to feed your voracity ! " 
 
 " Oh, that s legitimate," said Putnam, laughing. 
 " It s published news; it concerns the world, we 
 don t want it upside down, but we must know if it 
 is ; it s important. And print is open to contra 
 diction and refutation. It s responsible. It does n t 
 keep its tail in a hole, like an earthworm, ready to 
 draw back if it sees danger." 
 
 " Oh, does n t it ? Putnam King, newspaper 
 gossip is the very crown no, abyss of gossip ! 
 See here ! Did n t I read only the other day, in 
 one of your high-toned journals, a long screed on 
 one side about what the American newspaper is do 
 ing toward the bringing up of the American small 
 boy in the way he should n t go ; a virtuous, holy- 
 horror article against the stuff with which the press 
 had been bursting for days about a prize fight and 
 the fighters ; and did n t I turn over the sheet and 
 come pat upon an Associated Press report from 
 New Orleans of this same prize fight, a column 
 and a half long, with every punch and bruise of 
 every round in it ? And over the top tail in a 
 hole, to be sure just the salvo of protest in a 
 line of the heading SHAMEFUL AFFAIR ! Oh, 
 tail in a hole ! As if that line, in such enormous 
 print, were n t the very crier s bell to sell the 
 paper by ! "
 
 40 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 The good lady paused for breath, just gasping 
 for the third time, with triple-X scorn, " Tail in 
 a hole, truly ! " 
 
 Putnam King gasped with merriment. Then 
 he put on a serene, judicial air, mingled with be 
 nevolent instructiveness, and said : - 
 
 " Two different departments, auntie ! Two sep 
 arate worms. The regular Associated Press takes 
 its course ; then the editorial comes in with com 
 ments. But you re right, in a way. It s like 
 conduct and conscience. It s human warious, 
 that s all." 
 
 " It s masculine warious. Women have n t got 
 all the human nature. That s what I said. Any 
 way, the papers are n t fit to touch, and you have 
 to read them with your eyes shut. If women s talk 
 is any worse than that ! " 
 
 " Aunt Elizabeth, you re a merciful-minded per 
 son ; but when you do sit down on a thing, you sit 
 down hard ! " 
 
 " I ve got the slips. I cut them out and kept 
 them," Miss Elizabeth persisted, calmly holding 
 on to her facts. 
 
 " Never mind. Be good and change the subject. 
 Tell me something about Miss Rill Rave," said the 
 young man, audaciously. 
 
 " Won t you please give me your special defini 
 tion of gossip ? " asked Miss Haven, opening her
 
 IN THE ORCHARD. 41 
 
 eyes wide at him, and dropping her words singly 
 and slowly, with a calm sarcasm. " The thing old 
 women are prone to, and men and the newspapers 
 decline ? " 
 
 " Personal talk, I suppose, without sympathy or 
 necessity. But don t ask me to define the sym 
 pathy, or argue the necessity. Tell me about Miss 
 Raye ! " 
 
 She was here the other night to tea," Miss 
 Haven answered, curtly. 
 
 " Why is it always the other night ? " demanded 
 the young man, with an absurd tone of injury. 
 
 Miss Haven found it difficult to distinguish be 
 tween his chaff and his earnest ; or rather, perhaps, 
 to find out whether the chaff covered any bit of 
 earnest she might deprecate. She had taken care 
 not to bring these two young persons together, 
 chiefly because she would not let another story be 
 begun about Rill Raye ; also because she wanted 
 to have her freely to herself for awhile. 
 
 " I do not want all my company on the same 
 night," she said. " We had a thunderstorm." 
 
 " Was that a foregone conclusion ? Part of the 
 company ? " 
 
 " Do you ask from sympathy or necessity ? " 
 
 " Both. I am really concerned for a young woman 
 who carries such meteorological conditions with 
 her, and I might guide my own arrivals by the
 
 42 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 weather bureau. Would it have been any more 
 thundery if you had had more company ? " 
 
 Aunt Elizabeth was pretty sure it was all chaff. 
 The pretense of interest was too out-thrust and ex 
 aggerated to have in it any touch of dangerous 
 reality. Here was where the limitation of her 
 judgment showed itself, and played her false. She 
 determined for a man upon feminine premises. So 
 she fell into the snare again, and gave him, as she 
 had done on other occasions, all the little piquan 
 cies and illustrations of her latest study of Hill 
 Raye. She brought the two together, all unaware, 
 much more nearly than if she had invited them to 
 tea expressly at the same time. 
 
 "Don t talk such stilted nonsense," she remon 
 strated, and forthwith launched into her little 
 story ; which, as Putnam did immediately dismiss 
 his stilted nonsense and become an unobstructive 
 listener, I will put, if you please, in my own way, 
 as a part of mine. 
 
 Miss Haven had two main principles in her sys 
 tem of social diplomacy which she was trying to 
 work out here in Wewachet, and specially with 
 Sarah Crooke. First, she believed in bringing 
 people nearer to each other. She knew how either 
 closeness or remoteness influences feeling; how a 
 certain forced isolation gives a sense of injury and 
 deprivation ; how sympathy is warped to criticism,
 
 7^ THE ORCHARD. 43 
 
 and criticism tends to cruelty. Social inaccessibil 
 ity is like that which prompts the gunner s impulse 
 to bring down the bird. The same hand which 
 pulls the trigger might tenderly nurse a frightened, 
 wounded thing that fluttered to it for help or shel 
 ter ; but the thing beyond, in its own element, 
 reachable by no direct and natural touch, is a mark 
 for eager hunting down and bringing near as prey. 
 Miss Haven often found, as her theory argued, 
 that to fetch inside of range was to save from the 
 weapon s aim. 
 
 In the second place, she reasoned and discovered 
 that one may touch the very nerve of gossipy de 
 sire, the palate of its hunger, to some nobler satisfy 
 ing by finding choicer, rarer bits than the common 
 menu furnished. So she brought home to Sarah 
 Crooke, eager and famishing in her deprived cor 
 ner, both people and things. 
 
 Instead of letting Rill Raye go by, and Sarah 
 sit wondering where she had been or whither might 
 be bound, ou what errand of madcapry, or man- 
 trapry, as would better have expressed her idea of 
 Rill s bits of fun and flirting, Miss Haven asked 
 the girl in, and kept her to tea ; letting her use her 
 bright nonsense in amusing Miss Sarah, who, with 
 all her animadversions, dearly loved to be made 
 to laugh, and with her frank gossip about herself 
 anticipate and disarm all guesswork and tattle.
 
 44 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 Not infrequently some incident called forth a brave 
 kindliness, a gentle generosity, a ready service, 
 which were in Rill s nature, and which surprised a 
 pleasure and gratitude from Sarah Crooke that 
 were, at least, next door to affection. 
 
 On this summer afternoon in question, Rill had 
 come up from the Point and stopped in to find 
 Miss Haven just returned from town, and inclined 
 to make scrap-holiday by some pleasant sort of do 
 ing nothing. " Come down into the orchard," she 
 said to Rill. " Talk to Miss Sarah, and play 
 bezique with me, and then take tea with us." 
 
 Miss Haven s steamer-chair had been carried 
 down among the apple-trees, where she had be 
 guiled cousin Sarah into a habit of sitting in the 
 pleasant weather, under the low arches of the old 
 boughs borne downward in the gracious shaping of 
 their long fruit bearing. Three or four of these 
 broad shelters were grouped in the hollow of the 
 field, where the breeze moved more softly than on 
 the land-swell ; and here each lady had chosen her 
 own customary place, apart, and yet near enough 
 for talk and companionship. Hither, now, Miss 
 Haven and Rill brought cards and lapboard. No 
 thing rested Miss Elizabeth like a simple game, she 
 said ; she could not sit still and fold her hands, 
 there was too much main force in that ; so with 
 Sarah Crooke she played cribbage, or cassino, or, 
 with Rill Rave, the more intricate bezique.
 
 IN THE ORCHARD. 45 
 
 The old lady, Sarah s mother, did not come out ; 
 she rarely left her armchair now. " She d gi en 
 up runnin outdoor," she said, " long ago ; she 
 thought Sarah was most too old a girl for such 
 capers." She was growing much more deaf, and 
 " sence Radne came, and was so kind o comfortin 
 and easy with her, she didn t seem to care for 
 change, or even visitin ." She had established 
 herself and her gray knitting- work within her little 
 " kitchen bedroom," by the window at the bed 
 head. Often her only movement was from the one 
 resting-place to the other. " Seemed someway," 
 she said, " s though she could n t rest enough." 
 Poor thing ; she had done over-hours work all her 
 life. Sarah was a good daughter ; her " beautiful 
 eye " was always turned upon her mother ; she 
 would go and sit by her the hour together, labori 
 ously repeating to her the news, and answering her 
 reiterated questions ; but doubtless it was a respite 
 to escape at intervals into the freshness and liberty 
 devised for her by cousin Elizabeth. 
 
 Miss Haven had brought a bunch of flowers 
 from Mrs. Sholto, with that lady s kind remem 
 brance for Miss Crooke. Miss Haven and Mrs. 
 Sholto had driven together from the station, and 
 the latter had made the carriage wait at her door 
 while she fetched a handful of greenhouse blooms 
 from some bowl freshly filled with them, vivid in 
 beauty from their summering in open-air borders.
 
 46 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 " My cousin will so like them," Miss Haven had 
 said with her thanks ; and then Mrs. Sholto had 
 answered graciously, " Give them to her with my 
 kind remembrance." 
 
 Sarah Crooke had taken them with a delight 
 accentuated by the unexpected personal attention. 
 " They drive by, and drive by," she had said to 
 herself often, " and never know or care that there 
 are any bodies in the plain old houses on the way, 
 or any souls in the bodies." 
 
 Now, unawares, by a simple, single act, a seal 
 or an anointing to charity was laid upon the 
 the querulous lips again, and a new individual in 
 demnity was secured against unfavoring " they 
 say s " with Sarah Crooke. She had this sterling- 
 good about her : she could not talk, or think, two 
 ways ; though either of her only two ways was suf 
 ficiently decided. Miss Haven played carefully 
 upon the right string ; she talked herself, she liked 
 to. " An old maid must chatter," she said ; " but 
 a Christian woman need not spatter." 
 
 She talked a good deal elsewhere about cousin 
 Sarah ; always " cousin ; " and people knew better 
 than they had ever done before what had got shut 
 up and hidden away by her disabilities. She 
 brought her own visitors over into Miss Sarah s 
 room, and presently they began to inquire at the 
 door for "the ladies." At first it was to please
 
 IN THE ORCHAED. 47 
 
 Miss Haven ; then it pleased themselves to see 
 how they could give pleasure to one so deprived ; 
 and the discovery of her harmlessness lent the fas 
 cination that is found in approaching some creature 
 supposed dangerous, but proving gentle. 
 
 " It s a good, still afternoon for outdoors," said 
 Miss Crooke, contentedly. Miss Haven had been 
 to the bank and the broker s for her, in the city, 
 and had brought out to her some mortgage inter 
 est, and the cash for a check, and her bank-book. 
 These Miss Sarah was looking over, as she lay 
 back easily in the long chair, with her feet upon 
 the rest under an afghan. "No wind to pester 
 these things, or the cards." 
 
 " Four kings eighty ! " called Rill, in her 
 clear young voice, triumphantly. 
 
 " And four queens," responded Miss Haven, put 
 ting up her score. 
 
 " You always have the queens, and I the kings," 
 said Kill, as they played on. " No ; ten and a 
 royal marriage ! You played right into my hand. 
 But have n t you forgotten to put up your ov/n 
 bezique ? A hundred for aces, and sixty for queens, 
 and you were two hundred and fifty : yes, you 
 ought to be at the ninety. You don t look out for 
 yourself half the time." And so the deals and the 
 game went on. 
 
 Miss Crooke had read over her papers, and
 
 48 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 counted her bank-bills, and put them back into 
 the envelope ; then she pushed all down carefully 
 into a deep, brown silk bag, whose strings she 
 drew close and tied in a knot, placing the whole 
 under her cushion ; after which, with a serene 
 mind, she listened awhile to the bezique announce 
 ments, inwardly counting up a different set of 
 figures which belonged to the comfortable little 
 investments and deposits she had been reviewing; 
 and so, gradually, fell fast asleep. 
 
 " How hot it grows ! " said Kill Raye. 
 
 " Yes ; this stillness is like a blanket : but it is 
 quite shady ; the sun has gone in." 
 
 " I should think it had ! Miss Haven, turn 
 round and look at that cloud ! " 
 
 A low, black heap was rolling steadily over from 
 the westward. A wind was behind it that would 
 come here presently. Under the trees the shadow 
 thickened fast. Every bird had hidden in some 
 leafy nook. There was not a sound nor a stir, ex 
 cept their own movement and voices. 
 
 " It will be here in three minutes. We must 
 get cousin Sarah in." 
 
 The cards were shuffled together, and dropped 
 upon the chair from which Miss Haven had hur 
 riedly arisen. 
 
 As she came to Miss Crooke s side, a swift flash 
 shot from the blackness that mounted overhead,- a
 
 7^ THE ORCHARD. 49 
 
 quivering dazzle of flame wrapped air and earth 
 in an instant s frightful illumination, and a crash 
 of thunder fell like an avalanche. 
 
 Miss Crooke, startled from sleep, afraid of 
 lightning even when under shelter, hardly able to 
 gain her feet, and wholly helpless to hasten, was 
 nearly paralyzed with the shock of terror.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 " INTRODUCE ME." 
 
 RADNE came running to the women in the or 
 chard, her apron over her head, for flimsy defense, 
 while the big raindrops drove like bullets, solid 
 and far apart, straight down among them to the 
 ground. 
 
 " Why, ain t you all crazy, I should like to 
 know ! " she ejaculated, rushing to the rescue. She 
 took Miss Crooke right up into her arms, and fled 
 staggering back with her. The others brought 
 what they could, and followed. But the brown 
 silk bag fell, forgotten for the instant in the scurry, 
 as Miss Haven seized pillow and afghau from the 
 chair. 
 
 For the first few minutes of the tempest, when 
 hail began to dash against the window panes with 
 almost shattering force, and the outside world pal 
 pitated from blaze to blackness with the rapidity 
 of some gigantic nictitation, nobody thought of any 
 little accessory thing. Yet when Miss Sarah did 
 cry out, " Oh, my money and my papers ! " the dis-
 
 "INTRODUCE ME." 51 
 
 may of the serious mischance added itself, not 
 without a touch of absurd Shakespereaii associa 
 tion, to the panic of the storm. 
 
 Cushions and wraps were tossed over and 
 shaken. The great brown silk bag was not among 
 them. " My ducats," or their representatives, no 
 where appeared. 
 
 " They 11 all be paper-mill pulp ! Oh, my gra 
 cious, what a flash ! We 11 all be killed, and 
 I sha n t have a cent o money left to live on ! " 
 
 Not one of the other women noticed that Rill 
 Raye had slipped out of the room. They all 
 stumbled against each other, and flapped things 
 in each other s faces. Before they missed the girl 
 she stood among them again, with rain-wet face and 
 locks, and garments heavily dashed with water. 
 
 " Here it is," she said quietly, and held out the 
 recovered treasure to Miss Sarah. 
 
 " The Lord and the land ! " cried that astonished 
 woman. " You ain t ben down that orchard in 
 this flame and fury ! " 
 
 " It did n t take three minutes," Rill answered 
 coolly. 
 
 Somehow their fears laid themselves down be 
 fore her bravery. They were calm and still after 
 that ; only now and again Sarah Crooke would 
 ejaculate, " Well, I m beat ! I have n t got a word 
 to say ! Rill Raye, you come and sit by me," she
 
 52 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 commanded, when they drew up at last for such a 
 repast as they could make without the agency of 
 the cooking-stove, which was approached only for 
 a hurried filling of a pitcher with boiling water 
 for their tea. They drank it without spoons, and 
 they ate short biscuit and sponge cake without 
 knives and forks, for the livid lightning still 
 streamed and pulsed, and the rain beat and thun 
 der rent with those occasional splitting sounds that 
 told of some material thing that had made a link 
 between angry sky and trembling earth. 
 
 Radne had helped Mrs. Crooke to bed. " They d 
 better all go," the old lady had said tremulously. 
 " Make em all go to bed, Radne. If the s any 
 place safe, it s feathers." Radne had closed the 
 wooden shutters in the bedroom, and brought a 
 light ; then the simple soul, hidden away and not 
 seeing the storm any longer, quieted down and fell 
 asleep. 
 
 " It s set in for a night of it. You can t get 
 home," said Sarah Crooke to Rill. The latter was 
 resuming her boots, that had been slid across the 
 kitchen floor by Radne to a drying-place beneath 
 the stove, and replaced by a big pair of flannel 
 shoes belonging to Miss Sarah. 
 
 " I must. Aunt Amelia will have been awf ully 
 frightened, and if I don t get back she won t sleep 
 a wink all niffht."
 
 "INTRODUCE ME." 53 
 
 " It can hardly last like this," said Miss Haven. 
 " And if anything can get about, the express will 
 come with my parcels from town. We can send 
 word over by Thrape." 
 
 " I can go with Thrape," said Rill, simply. 
 
 Miss Sarah Crooke had a sudden insight of how 
 it came to pass, perhaps, that this girl was apt to 
 do queer things. Methods were indifferent when 
 motive was controlling, and henceforth, she thought, 
 she would trust her for some decent sort of motive 
 in almost anything. 
 
 Rill did go home with Thrape, riding by his 
 side on the high front seat of his heavy covered 
 wagon ; the storm still flashing and growling, and 
 renewing itself suddenly at intervals. 
 
 " And she don t know but half his load is crow 
 bars and cooking-stoves. He carries everything." 
 
 Not many days later visitors came in with a new 
 story ; the ride with the young expressman, with 
 out date or explanation. Miss Crooke crushed it. 
 
 "You may just leave that right there," she said. 
 " I m knowing to the whole of it. It was Wednes 
 day night, in that thunderstorm, when neither you 
 nor I would have crossed the doorstone for a gold 
 mine. She went home from this house, to keep 
 her aunt from being scared ; and she took the only 
 way there was. When there ain t but one way, 
 and a thing s to be done, she don t stop at it, if
 
 54 .1 GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 it is over a fence. Rill Raye has got a good heart, 
 and she s clear spunk to the backbone ! " 
 
 " Well, you do surprise me, Miss Crooke. You 
 did n t use to talk in that way about Rill Raye. 
 Ain t the wind kind o got round lately ? " 
 
 "Yes, Miss Upson, it has. And you need n t 
 mind callin me a weathercock if you d like to, 
 for I presume likely I am. I ve had as pertickler 
 opportunities to judge as if I was ; and I don t 
 never insist on p intin east after it fairly blows 
 west." 
 
 Putnam King heartily enjoyed the whole story. 
 " I don t see but you ve got a plant here, for your 
 gospel-gossip manufacture," he said. " Only all 
 the raw material won t be of the Rill Raye sort, 
 exactly. A girl," he added rather slowly after a 
 pause, " who would go through fire and water for 
 an uncomfortable old aunt whom she does n t pre 
 tend to be fond of, or for a Miss Sally Crooke, 
 what would n t she do for anybody she really 
 cared for ? " 
 
 " She would go through moral fire and water. 
 She would burn and drown, inside, for them." 
 Miss Haven sacrificed a bit of grammar to her 
 hesitation in specifying gender. 
 
 Putnam King went on sketching queer outlines 
 of faces with his aunt s stylo upon her blotting-pad 
 for several minutes, without saying a word. Then
 
 "INTRODUCE ME." 55 
 
 he remarked, nonchalantly, " If you don t intro 
 duce me to Miss Itaye, aunt Elizabeth, I shall go 
 and call on Miss Bonable." 
 
 Miss Haven, dear, innocent old maid, had not 
 the least idea of what she was accomplishing ; yet 
 she could n t have done it better, so far, if she 
 had tried. 
 
 " Of course I 11 introduce you, Put," she said, 
 " whenever it happens so." 
 
 With all her simplicity as to live wires of occult 
 influence in such matters, aunt Elizabeth knew 
 very well that it would never do to make any ob 
 vious difficulty about this.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 " NOW YOU KNOW." 
 
 IT happened so very shortly after, and without 
 any intervention of aunt Elizabeth s. History re 
 peated itself. 
 
 Another summer gust came up after tea one 
 evening, when Miss Haven and Rill had settled to 
 their now regularly established game. A whirl of 
 wind tore in without warning through the open 
 window, sent the light curtain draperies streaming 
 through their looped ribbon fastenings straight 
 into the room, enveloping dangerously for a mo 
 ment the tall double-burner lamp which Rill caught 
 quickly with both hands, averting a catastrophe. 
 Their cards were swept to the floor, a growl of 
 thunder rolled round the horizon, and heavy, sep 
 arate drops of rain struck like shot upon the 
 panes and thudded upon the porch roof. 
 
 Rill snatched up scarf and hat. " That s for 
 me, again," she said. " Don t mind ; I ve got my 
 parasol." 
 
 " You d better wait," expostulated Miss Haven.
 
 "NOW YOU KNO\V." 57 
 
 " I can t ; there s no Thrape, this time, and it 
 would n t do twice, if there were. Thrape s very 
 good-looking- ; and he was very polite when he 
 handed me down, with aunt Amelia standing in 
 the doorway. She was n t impressed with simple 
 gratitude to either of us ; she s so extremely apt to 
 think there s something in it, millions of things, 
 besides me and the right one. Good-night, dear 
 Miss Haven. Please shut me out quick." And 
 she slipped through the small opening which she 
 allowed in the door, helping herself to pull it after 
 her against the increasing drive of the slanting 
 rain. Miss Haven had to return, a little dazed 
 with the sudden upshot of affairs, and pick up her 
 bezique cards. 
 
 Rill Raye stepped off the porch into the dark 
 ness, full against the broad shoulders of a man 
 standing at the foot of the two steps, furling an 
 umbrella. The girl started, sprang back, and the 
 figure turned. It was too dark for them to see 
 each other s faces ; but they were not altogether in 
 the dark, either. 
 
 " Miss Rill Raye ? " asked Putnam King, at a 
 tolerably certain venture. 
 
 " Yes ; I m like the witches, always out in a 
 storm. I must hurry. Good-evening, Mr. King." 
 
 " I can t say tliat, under the present dispensation 
 of the elements ; " and the umbrella went quickly
 
 58 .1 GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 up again, its owner leaning it over Rill s head, 
 marching along the gravel walk with her to the 
 little front gate. They were outside it and fairly 
 moving up the street before she could finish her 
 expostulation. The introduction was made ; all in 
 a minute they were quite well acquainted. Miss 
 Elizabeth s simple prudence of procrastination had 
 beautifully prepared matters. 
 
 " Is this your way? I thought my aunt told me 
 you lived on the North Road ? " 
 
 " Yes, there is a turn, presently. Brook Lane 
 zigzags across." 
 
 Inwardly, Rill was saying to herself, " This is 
 worse than Thrape. What shall I do with him 
 when we get to the door ? " 
 
 " Do you often go home alone, all this way, in 
 the evenings? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ; evenings are harmless in Wewachet. 
 Sometimes, though, I take an express wagon." 
 
 " I heard of that," Mr. King said. 
 
 If he could have told her all he had thought 
 about it since hearing, his answer would have been 
 less succinct. He held the umbrella further over 
 on the girl s side and well before her. Wind and 
 rain were in their faces, but their force had mo 
 mentarily abated. 
 
 " I don t think you are dividing things fairly," 
 remarked Rill presently, in a comical little tone of
 
 "NOW YOU KNOW." 59 
 
 aggrievement. " I have all the umbrella and you 
 have all the rain." 
 
 " It is n t easy to divide here. We 11 do better 
 farther along. How the street-lamps flicker ! " 
 
 " Yes ; and how far apart they are ! There 
 are n t any at all upon the lane ; that s why I 
 come home by lightning when it is n t moon 
 light." 
 
 " You must know the way well." 
 
 " Every step and stone of it. Mr. King," she 
 added suddenly, half stopping, " I m afraid you 11 
 get lost going back. Do let me finish alone, now. 
 The rain is really holding up." 
 
 " There will be light enough, and the rain is not 
 holding up," Putnam King answered with decision. 
 
 The lightning, sheeting suddenly the cloud-hung 
 heavens, and illuminating the tree vistas and the 
 pathway before their feet, verified his first words. 
 
 " And besides," Rill continued, as the darkness 
 covered them up again, " aunt Amelia always 
 thinks I do things on purpose." 
 
 " Don t you ? " inquired Mr. King. " I do." 
 There was a good deal of purpose in his tone at 
 this moment. 
 
 " But she supposes some other purpose." 
 
 " That often happens with many people, I find. 
 If we altered our course for that, there very soon 
 would n t be any purpose left."
 
 60 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 " Mr. King," Rill began again, " would you mind 
 leaving me at the last corner ? " 
 
 " I will mind anything you tell me that is rea 
 sonable. I will leave you as soon as I see you 
 safe." 
 
 " Thank you." 
 
 The tone had changed between the two. Rill s 
 bit of habitual daring and self - assertion had 
 dropped out of her speech, and in words and ac 
 cent she yielded to a new-found mastery. She 
 took gratefully a consent where she would ordi 
 narily have defied refusal. 
 
 The nearest corner was in full view from Miss 
 Bonable s cottage, which stood endwise upon the 
 street. When she let Cyrilla in Miss Bonable 
 stood and peered into the darkness over the girl s 
 shoulder, chin up and on tiptoe. 
 
 " What did you come on this time ? " she de 
 manded. 
 
 " These two," answered Cyrilla, showing her lit 
 tle feet, with an alternate lift of damp boots. 
 
 " And not a drop on head or shoulders, and this 
 thing has n t been opened ! " Aunt Amelia passed 
 her hand along the folded parasol. "Don t tell 
 me ! " 
 
 " I will not," answered Cyrilla, quietly, making 
 her way in past Miss Bonable, who had still stared 
 into the dark during her test manual of Rill s per 
 son and equipments.
 
 YOU KNOW. 1 61 
 
 A parting flash of the retreating shower lit the 
 air suddenly and showed a man s figure standing 
 at the turn, facing toward the cottage and lingering 
 with a watching air. 
 
 " I might have known, and I did know ! " 
 said Miss Bonable, closing the door and coming 
 back into the sitting-room. " Why can t you ever 
 tell the honest truth ? " 
 
 " You said, Don t tell me ; and the honest 
 truth is exactly what you never will believe. Aunt 
 Amelia, must I be crooked because you won t let 
 me walk plain and straight ? " 
 
 Cyrilla spoke with passion ; she contemned her 
 self and aunt Amelia at that moment. She went off 
 up to her own room and fastened herself in there. 
 
 Aunt Amelia sat down, angry and pale. She 
 crossed her hands upon her lap, let her head, still 
 erect, just touch the top of her chair-back, and her 
 eyes fix themselves in a level line across the room 
 upon nothing. It was an intense moment with 
 her. She was posing all unconscious, as we often 
 do, for the registering in a light which photo 
 graphs more than sunlight can of an instant of 
 vital experience. Her lips were dropped in a 
 curve of hopeless, resentful dejection. From un 
 der her level lids shot a swerveless look of wrathful 
 protest. She sat so for fully fifteen minutes, all 
 alone. Then she drew in the Ions; remonstrance
 
 62 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 of her gaze, lifted her prone hands, rested her 
 elbows on her lap, and dropped her face into her 
 spread fingers. 
 
 " The child I wanted to have loved so ! " the 
 words broke out through sobs. Aunt Amelia cried, 
 and cried, and cried ; and nobody knew but herself 
 and God the deep wells of her life whence rushed 
 those bitter tears. 
 
 The next day, when Miss Haven came in, she 
 was as hard as ever. Rill was out. 
 
 Miss Haven hoped Miss Raye had reached home 
 without harm. 
 
 " She was n t wet to speak of," Miss Bonable 
 answered stiffly. " I d more than half as lief she 
 would have been. I don t like these tramps, even 
 ings," she went on with a sudden, harsh frankness, 
 " if t is to your house. That was better, I thought, 
 than being off amongst the girls, and alwers coming 
 home caperin w r ith a lot. But one to herself is 
 worse, and I believe it was that dentist man, this 
 time. He stood at the corner while she came in 
 alone. Why don t he come liere if he wants to 
 see her?" 
 
 That was really funny ; but Miss Haven only 
 half smiled, for pity of aunt Amelia. She would 
 answer that question later, may be. 
 
 " Rill was alone when she left me last evening," 
 she said, gently. " She hurried away in the storm
 
 "XOW YOU KNOW." 63 
 
 lest you should be anxious ; and if any one joined 
 her afterward, I do not think it was Dr. Harriman. 
 I am pretty sure he was elsewhere." 
 
 Now, concerning Dr. Harriman s alibi, Miss 
 Haven could hardly have knowledge or proof ; it 
 only did occur to her to associate Putnam King s 
 arrival some twenty minutes or more after Rill s 
 departure, with her possible escort home. That 
 Putnam had said nothing simply gave her a little 
 more to think of in a different or further way. " I 
 think her meeting any one was purely accidental," 
 she said. 
 
 " She s dreadful liable to accidents," said Miss 
 Bonable, grimly. " And they have been dental, 
 lately," she added, strangling a smile. " As to 
 me, much she seemed to care about my being anx 
 ious after she got here ! Miss Haven, some girls 
 would walk over red-hot layvey if they could only 
 be walked with ! It is n t that I think any real 
 harm of Rill so far ; but it s the disposition. It 
 was her mother s way, and it scares me. She s in 
 her mother s tracks, and I know what they lead to." 
 
 The last sentences seemed to come from her lips 
 of themselves ; her face was strained and absent ; 
 she did not look at Miss Haven as she spoke. 
 
 " Miss Bonable ! Your own sister ! " 
 
 Then Miss Bonable did look round at her friend, 
 and met surprised, indignant, yet still pitying eyes.
 
 64 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 "She wasn t my sister," she said. "Now you 
 know ; and you know more than anybody else in 
 Wewachet, except myself. Rill never knew, and 
 I don t mean she shall. I don t know what makes 
 me tell you, only you seem as if you held out your 
 heart to me, and what s in mine goes into it. 
 You can keep it there, I suppose." 
 
 Still as grim and stiff as ever ; if she had been 
 bidding Miss Haven go about her business, she 
 could not have been more uncompromising than in 
 uttering this confidence. 
 
 " My dear Miss Bonable ! " said Elizabeth Ha 
 ven. There was no less of appeal and sympathy 
 than of astonishment, in the exclamation. The 
 open heart was still held out, and, as if she could 
 not help it, Miss Amelia poured forth further- from 
 her own. It was the bleeding of the wound, how 
 ever ; it was not with any voluntary gush of 
 warmth. 
 
 " He did marry my sister, first, instead of me. 
 We were promised ; but Esther was taking and 
 pretty, she could n t help that ; I don t suppose 
 he could help it, either. I never had her coaxing 
 ways ; I was fair-looking, and I just meant what I 
 said, that was all. It s no new story ; I ve read a 
 hundred like it ; I suppose they re happening all 
 round; but I lived mine, that s the difference. 
 When I found out what they wanted I gave her all
 
 "NOW YOU KNOW." 65 
 
 the things I had got ready and been so busy 
 about that I had not noticed sooner. I gave her 
 my wedding gown ; she d rather not have had that, 
 but I made her. If you take part, you take all, 
 I said. I would n t let her off. It wasn t Church 
 form they were married by, it was Congrega 
 tional. But I remembered one sentence in the 
 Episcopal that run through my head all the time 
 we stood before the minister : Who giveth this 
 woman to be married to this man ? I gave them 
 both to each other and it was giving away all 
 that might ever have been soft or sweet in my life. 
 I ve been just the hard old maid folks know here, 
 ever since. But there s another Amelia Bonable 
 that never had her life out fairly yet, and that has 
 got to rise up somehow in the last day and begin 
 again. Know each other? Folks ask that about 
 the next world. As if we knew the least bit what 
 to look for half the time ! It 11 generally be some 
 body else, I guess ; if we re sure of ourselves, it s 
 as much as we shall be ! " 
 
 Miss Bonable was thinking aloud some of the 
 thoughts that had filled and chafed her silent soli 
 tudes. Miss Haven did not interrupt her. 
 
 " Sometimes 1 think her conscience broke her 
 heart when she saw how altered I was, and how I 
 stayed altered. She only lived two years. And 
 then Marcus Raye was ashamed and afraid to come
 
 66 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 back to me, even like a brother. lie kept off, and 
 there was no word for me to say ; and, in a year 
 after, he married that Loraine Braitway. He 
 must have been wild ; it was a kind of making 
 away with himself. Her name was up then, for 
 her flirtings and jiltings ; and afterwards it was 
 \vorse, as bad as things can be with a woman. 
 She went off, out West somewhere, nobody knows. 
 And he turned straight the other way and went to 
 Australia. Before he went he came to me, they d 
 lived on in Maplefield, down East, where all the 
 first of it happened, and I d come here, where uncle 
 Bonable s folks used to live. Nobody in Wewachet 
 knew, when he left the child here, that it was n t 
 my sister s ; so I ve held my tongue and given her 
 the advantage. She s got a good deal of Mark in 
 her, but the thought of the mother keeps me on the 
 tenterhooks." 
 
 " Rill does n t know you ; and you do not trust 
 her." Miss Haven did not stop to put in words of 
 sympathy or admiration ; she passed without delay 
 to the point that vitally concerned the two. 
 
 "That s it ; and that is how it has to be. I m 
 glad I ve told you ; I m glad one person under 
 stands, and that it s you. It s a comfort to have 
 somebody know the other of me. I used to be 
 Amy when I was alive. You would n t think 
 so now."
 
 "NOW YOU KNOW:- 67 
 
 Miss Haven leaned toward her, took her hand 
 and kissed her. " My dear Miss Amy ! " she said. 
 Then the hard face quivered, a change ran over 
 it, the straightened cheeks took softer curves, and 
 hot tears a baptism of tenderness ran over 
 them. 
 
 " I thank you for letting me see your hidden, 
 beautiful self," Miss Haven told her, still keeping 
 the poor, feverish hand that moved restlessly in her 
 kindly clasp. 
 
 " You won t " Miss Bonable began, and then 
 lifting her eyes to her friend s, " No, I 11 not ask 
 you," she said. " You don t hear for curiosity, and 
 you won t tell for talk ! " 
 
 "No," said Miss Haven. "You have trusted 
 me, and I will be faithful ; but to be faithful, 
 might be, some time, to speak. More harm is done 
 sometimes by keeping secret than by repeating. 
 And there is one thing I shall take my first chance, 
 and every chance, to say. There is a noble woman 
 among these Wewachet people, of whom they do 
 not know the half. They shall know that they do 
 not know. I like to stimulate interest in the right 
 direction ; I like to set the best to finding out the 
 other best." 
 
 " Don t say anything to Kill." 
 
 " I shall say a great many things to Rill. She 
 shall not be cheated of her duty and her gratitude.
 
 68 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 But I shall bide my time, and you need not be 
 afraid." 
 
 Somehow, when Miss Haven left her, Miss Bon- 
 able felt as if she had only once more told her 
 story to the Lord, and got a word from Him she 
 had not had before. She was not afraid to leave 
 it so.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ANOTHER INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THERE is more than one thread to the simplest 
 yarn. It is time to show a little of Dr. Harrimau s 
 relations with our small chronicle, and of how they 
 were already affecting that gentleman. It is as 
 true of a man as of a woman, that with some really 
 fine points of character there may undeniably co 
 exist some frivolities. Dr. Harriman knew very 
 well that he was handsome and noticeable in many 
 ways, and that his coming into any new scene or 
 neighborhood was apt to make a certain sensation. 
 He was aware that young feminine eyes glanced 
 or more than glanced at him with a favoring in 
 terest, and that the possibilities of life suggested 
 themselves more or less dimly or positively, with 
 more or less of delicious wonder and speculation, 
 to the youthful feminine mind at his approach. 
 He knew that the set of his Sunday coat across his 
 shapely shoulders was an august and sacred thing 
 in the vision of these girls, whose own little mys 
 teries of fold and ribbon and trinket were managed
 
 70 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 in conscious counterpart, and meant to be sweetly, 
 if not as imposingly, impressive in their turn. 
 And Dr. Harriman was not indifferent to the 
 pleasure of being universally and instantly wel 
 come, or to the fact that words from his lips, or 
 little courtesies of course at his hands, had the deli 
 cate charm aimed at by Sam Weller in his love 
 letters. He measured words and attentions judi 
 ciously, for the most part, reserving the more for 
 the time and person that should find him in sober 
 earnest to give. He did not intend to give yet 
 awhile ; he did not mean to marry until he had 
 thoroughly and deliberately arranged for the com 
 fort of marriage. 
 
 It is perhaps a hazardous matter for the femi 
 nine pen to meddle with, the inward working of 
 little weaknesses and possible noblenesses in mas 
 culine character ; but the meanderings of motive 
 and impulse in the human heart are always human, 
 and it may be that the man or woman nature is on 
 either side as a key to the bolt which bars the se 
 crecies of the other. Coquetry in a woman is the 
 pleasure of assurance that she can cause by her 
 attraction the seeking and asking side of creation 
 to come to her feet with wish and plea ; some 
 women travel the whole round of life as the moon 
 does the firmament, drawing a tide after her which 
 Heaven knows what good it does her must
 
 ANOTHER INTRODUCTION. 71 
 
 simply ebb itself back at its unchanged, hopeless 
 distance of two hundred and forty thousand miles. 
 In a man, this self-pleasure is the complacency one 
 might fancy in the sturdier substance of the earth- 
 orb, which betrays no visible pulse or movement, 
 but which holds the moon fast in her orbit at the 
 near but maiden limit which she must not pass. 
 To leave the insufficient metaphor, some women 
 delight in little experimental evidences of what 
 they might receive if they would take it ; some men 
 in the sense of power to make serious claim if 
 they would. It is fine to think one may command 
 possession ; perhaps it is yet finer to feel that one 
 can confer sublimely, when one s mind shall be 
 quite made up to do so. On either side there may 
 be, with all preliminary small vanity, material for 
 good, honest loving and living, when the lighter 
 prelude has been played out. Meantime there re 
 main the hazards of the edge tools and the fire. 
 
 Dr. Robert Harriman was not a silly trifler ; he 
 was in earnest with his life ; but he was capable of 
 a certain surface amusement while the earnest 
 waited. In his case it had to wait, or he thought 
 so ; he was helping a younger brother through col 
 lege, and he had sustained the expense of a sister s 
 wedding outfit. His mother needed no direct help 
 from him, but he saved her these demands which 
 would have been too heavy for her. If others
 
 72 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 came, o sickness or loss, he must stand ready. He 
 could not marry yet awhile. But that the sublime 
 conferring- was in his hand he was well reminded 
 by such girls as Connie Norris ; and their open 
 wiles and candid beguilements warranted, he 
 thought, a certain degree of tolerance, or even in 
 nocently " tentative " response. With Cyrilla Raye 
 it was different. Evidently, here he must make 
 approach if he desired it ; evidently, also, it would 
 have to be with decided and significant endeavor. 
 
 She had kept her resolve to know nothing of 
 him after that heroic introduction, until an every 
 day presentation should take place in some inev 
 itable manner. Her dignity was reinforced by loy 
 alty. She had recognized Connie s preemption of 
 privilege ; with severity of honor she renounced in 
 terference with what had been assumed in the con 
 fidence of immature, effusive friendship. 
 
 She met Dr. Harriman several times before any 
 body thought of the due formalities ; the tittle- 
 tattle about her adventure had of course put the 
 matter in inference as a thing accomplished. Peo 
 ple were rather conjecturing how the acquaintance 
 would go on ; wondering at the mutual aloofness. 
 The two themselves were quietly curious as to 
 whether any acquaintance would ever be begun. 
 
 When at length one day, thrown together in a 
 call at the same house, the friend who received
 
 ANOTHER INTRODUCTION. 73 
 
 .them, embarrassed at their non-recognition, said 
 questioningly, " Dr. Harriman Miss Raye, you 
 know Dr. Harriman ? " Rill answered from a 
 remote height, with a carefully measured inclina 
 tion of her little head, " Certainly ; I know who 
 Dr. Harriman is ; but we are not acquainted 
 yet!" 
 
 " I thank you for that last little word, Miss 
 Raye ; I hope it means that you will not refuse me 
 the privilege any longer ? " and the doctor, who 
 had already risen from his chair, made Rill the 
 most charming bow, deferent, not emphasized, and 
 bent full upon her, with a certain admiring re 
 spect, the eyes which all the young womanhood of 
 Wewachet voted " splendid," and which the Irish 
 maid at the Norrises was known to have declared 
 were " jist the coaxinest two she iver seen wid a 
 man." 
 
 Miss Raye bowed, and smiled a little in return ; 
 then made some inconsequential remark such as 
 hj^phenizes conversation when it might otherwise 
 fall apart too significantly into fragments. If she 
 had been the most practiced woman of the world, 
 she could not have done it better than from her 
 quick, girlish instinct. Dr. Harriman was freshly 
 piqued to peculiar interest. 
 
 Every time they met, it was just so. Whatever 
 Rill Raye might be with other people, with Dr.
 
 74 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 Plarriman she was provoking, elusive, cool ; she 
 was pointedly out of the lists ; she left him to 
 Connie and Sue and the rest of them, who were 
 ready to tear him into little bits of social ap 
 propriation and each run off with a piece, like 
 chickens with a big, tough, tempting morsel. 
 
 Miss Haven perceived what she thought the 
 girl s judicious dignity, based upon a real indiffer 
 ence ; and so she was not afraid when the two met 
 sometimes in her library. She liked them both ; if 
 they came to understand and like each other bet- 
 ter, it would not trouble her sense of responsibil 
 ity. Since her talk with Miss Bonable, it had 
 more than once occurred to her that a safe, right 
 marriage for Cyrilla would be the only solving of 
 the problem of their troubled, mutually mistaking 
 lives. And she knew that Miss Bonable s only 
 prejudice against the doctor lay in her idea of the 
 present status of his acquaintance with her niece. 
 This once properly established, above-board, pos 
 sibly even transferred to Miss Amelia s own au 
 spices at the cottage, as she had with such naive 
 inconsistency demanded why not, there need be 
 no hindrance to whatever might truly and happily 
 come of it. 
 
 Miss Haven s thoughts did not meddle further ; 
 she was no deliberate matchmaker. Whether or 
 not the circumstance that neither Putnam King
 
 ANOTHER INTRODUCTION. 75 
 
 
 
 nor Cyrilla had mentioned to her the little occur 
 rence of their walk in the rain together, though 
 they also had now met on a footing of regular ac 
 quaintance under her own countenance, worked in 
 some recondite fashion with her to cause this lean 
 ing toward the chance of liking between Dr. Har- 
 riman and Rill as the course that the providence 
 for Rill might take, she certainly would have 
 leaned away from any suggestion arising in this 
 other quarter. It was too soon for Putnam King 
 to think of such matters. He had to take a man s 
 place in the world before he could ask a wife to 
 his side. Not that money, or the lack of it, would 
 be a difficulty ; half the property of a bachelor 
 uncle had come to him, depriving him of the spur 
 of need. This was a loss to his life, aunt Eliza 
 beth felt, which must be replaced by some other 
 energy before he could fairly or wisely accept the 
 things of life that are better after some earning 
 and striving. He was simply aside from any cal 
 culation of hers in this sort ; and undoubtedly also 
 her desire for the very best for him in every sort 
 would have led her instinctively to shrink in his 
 behalf from decision that might be premature, 
 while opportunities and comparison were yet im 
 perfect. She would not choose a silk gown for 
 herself from the very first piece ; there might be a 
 better. Dr. Harriman could do his own choosing.
 
 76 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 It is difficult for mothers and aunts to understand 
 that their own boys can. 
 
 Meanwhile, affairs were not very much compli 
 cated. The two young men had thus far rarely 
 happened to meet at Miss Haven s.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 WHEAT-SEED AND TARE- SEED. 
 
 Miss NORRIS had arranged to take lessons in 
 china painting in town during school vacation. 
 She was still, at eighteen, a pupil in one of the 
 fine seminaries for girls at the West Bay. 
 
 Dr. Harriman had a regular day for some city 
 business connected with his profession ; he always 
 went into town on Saturdays. 
 
 Cornelia Norris found Tuesday and Saturday 
 to be the only days she could appoint with her 
 teacher for her china work. 
 
 So one of the later Saturday afternoon trains 
 brought these two among other constant passen 
 gers to Wewachet, almost invariably. It was al 
 most invariable, I mean, that they found them 
 selves on the same train ; though the trips were 
 figured thickly along the time-table toward the end 
 of the day, occurring every hour until after six, 
 when there was a gap until 8.30. 
 
 Connie s lesson was over at four ; but of course 
 there were often errands, afterward. Very fre-
 
 78 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 quently a train slipped off without her, when she 
 had to buy a ticket at the last minute, or sat near 
 the sashed opening into the entrance hall, en 
 grossed with a new paper-covered volume bought at 
 the news-stand. Once in a while something had 
 been forgotten, or a parcel did not arrive; and she 
 turned her back on train and station, to go up 
 town again before the next scheduled departure. 
 Through all these vicissitudes and uncertainties 
 one must use prepositions advisedly - - it rarely 
 happened that our two friends made the Saturday 
 return separately. And since, in a common car, 
 one must have a seatmate, what more natural than 
 that they should easily drift together ? 
 
 I do not think Dr. Harriman can be blamed, 
 exactly ; it was really almost inevitable for him. 
 The nicety with which movements, observations, 
 instinctive perceptions and calculations can be 
 made, involving the right coincidences at risk of 
 the utterly wrong ones from, any least failure, is 
 something to wonder at applaudingly, and to rec 
 ognize as the working of occult power, at once 
 surer and more delicate than harsh mathematics, 
 and, so, perhaps, more particularly adapted to fem 
 inine engineering. Connie Norris scarcely ever 
 came out at a loss ; the wish of Dr. Harriman, if 
 he had one, like the heart of the husband in the 
 Proverbs of Solomon, might safely trust in her;
 
 WHEAT-SEED AND TARE SEED. 79 
 
 if he now and then played to the same purpose by 
 some slight hint or watchfulness, some lingering 
 or hastening on his own part ; if it was a pleasant 
 bit of excitement to him to find the pretty figure 
 and the bright, gladdening face at a sure point for 
 being found ; to check his steps for the expected 
 greeting, and then have hers take up, as of course, 
 their light accompaniment alongside, as with the 
 stream of outgoing passengers they went through 
 the great gates to the train-house and the track 
 platform together ; or to discover her already 
 seated with a vacant place beside her, when he 
 came half expectantly and fully expected, along 
 the car-aisle just three minutes, perhaps, after he 
 had stopped at the news-counter, and she had 
 scudded innocently on, observant, apparently, of 
 nothing but the big hands of the clock over the 
 gateway ; to be shown, as they journeyed, her last 
 lovely plaque, or exquisite quaint jug, just brought 
 safe from the firing ; if all this was put frankly 
 and cheerily in his way, why not accept it frankly 
 and cheerily also, en bon camaraderie ? None 
 the less, perhaps, he perceived her, as he had at 
 first, to be a " simpleton ; " but a simpleton can 
 be very honestly bewitching ; the openness and 
 the honesty took away something of the triviality, 
 and abated the contempt. He found it a pas 
 time to be with her ; it was also a study of char 
 acter, as far as the character went.
 
 80 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 At the same time that all this was going on, 
 there was an interest of precisely opposite sort de 
 veloping in Dr. Harriman s mind toward Cyrilla 
 Raye ; an interest piqued by reserve and difficulty 
 and the complexities of a higher individuality. 
 Cyrilla puzzled him ; and a man will go further 
 out of his way to solve a problem than he will to 
 read a plainly advertised fact. 
 
 I will not vouch for it that Cyrilla did not per 
 ceive, with a new demureness shielding her discov 
 ery, that she had stumbled, through whim, upon a 
 more effective role than all her gay abandon had 
 furnished her with before ; or that a certain tri 
 umph did not turn her first honest, withdrawing 
 pride into something of a fresh and fascinating ex 
 periment. 
 
 Almost to her own bewilderment, Rill Raye was 
 slipping into a new position in Wewachet, and be 
 gan to feel it in the air about her. " People will 
 talk," she had said once to Miss Haven s friendly 
 monitions of prudence, u and after they ve once 
 begun, you can t change the keynote you ve given 
 them. They expect something startling from me ; 
 if I were as tame as an old house-cat for ten years, 
 it would n t make any difference, there would n t 
 be anything worth mentioning in that ; they d 
 either invent something, or go back to the last 
 piece of wildness in my infancy. I shall have
 
 WHEAT-SEED AND TAEE-SEED. 81 
 
 to finish up as I ve set out, or disappoint the 
 world." 
 
 Miss Haven, with good reason, thought other 
 wise. 
 
 In fact, a different sort of strikingness in Rill s 
 performances had begun to appear. Some old 
 stories got a new moral to them, and started on a 
 fresh run. Nobody knew how it was found out, 
 but a supplement had here and there been put to 
 fragmentary narrations which both rounded out 
 and pointed them, making them good for another 
 circulation. 
 
 "That Miss Raye is a pretty girl; but she 
 makes mistakes," said one lady to another at a so 
 cial gathering where Rill was prominent. " Was n t 
 there some sauciness of hers at Lill Upson s when 
 three or four partners came to her at once for the 
 reel ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, that s an old story. She flirted her 
 fan in their faces, told them there were too many 
 of them, and she would n t dance at all ; and then 
 marched off, leaving them plantes la. Afterward, 
 for oddity and fun, she got up and danced on the 
 men s side, with a girl partner." 
 
 " But that was n t all of it," said a third person 
 standing by. " Mollie "Wythe had been sitting out, 
 forgetting, in her meek little way, that there was 
 anything possible for her to do but to look on and
 
 82 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 admire Rill Raye and the rest. Plain, awkward lit 
 tle thing, she had got used to it. Rill suddenly took 
 in the injustice of it, when all those boys stood 
 round her, asking at once, and sticking out their 
 elbow s ; she fairly pushed John Lownes s down. 
 It s a shame of you, all coming for one girl, she 
 said. Why don t you divide round ? and she 
 turned her back, and walked up to Mollie. Dance 
 this with me, she said. I 11 be gentleman. 
 They re scarce here to-night. And off they went, 
 and Mollie had her good time of the evening. Rill 
 never thought of the men s line till she got there, 
 except to show them what a gentleman should do, 
 as she said." 
 
 " It made a new conspicuousness for her though ; 
 she had her fun out of it : marching them all after 
 her up and down the room, like captives at a Ro 
 man show," said the lady who had told the tale. 
 
 " That was how it appeared, and was, as far as 
 it went. But it was n t the best of it, or what she 
 did it for. There s something in Rill Raye besides 
 audacity." 
 
 " I wish there were n t that, then," returned the 
 matron who had spoken first of all ; but her tone 
 relented. " It is n t the right style, you know ; 
 somebody ought to tell her not to have too good a 
 time." 
 
 The three speakers Mrs. Rextell, Mrs. Vance,
 
 WHEAT-SEED AND TAKE SEED. 83 
 
 and Mrs. Sliolto were of the high ladyhood of 
 Wewachet. 
 
 It was not long after this that Mrs. Rextell 
 made one of her biennial calls upon Miss Bonable, 
 and followed it by cards for that lady and her 
 niece to her large garden-party. 
 
 " No, indeed," Miss Bonable had said to Miss 
 Haven, who spoke of it, taking acceptance for 
 granted. " It s her hash party. She s had little 
 private companies all summer. Why didn t she 
 ask me to any of them, I wonder ? " 
 
 " For the same reason, I suppose, that she did 
 not ask me. I had not any little private rights." 
 
 " Poh ! Everybody knows you can go any 
 where." 
 
 " I don t admit the contrary of you." 
 
 Miss Bonable saw that she had admitted it, and 
 retreated into momentary silence. 
 
 " If you do not go, let me take Cyrilla." 
 
 Miss Bonable opened her eyes wide. " Take 
 Cyrilla ! " she ejaculated. " It s rather late in the 
 day to begin on that plan. She has taken herself 
 wherever she could get so far." 
 
 " May be that has been a mistake. I should like 
 to have her with me ? " The interrogative was a 
 petition. 
 
 "/can t hinder," said Miss Bonable, concisely. 
 
 So it was under Miss Haven s unimpeachable
 
 84 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 wing that Rill Raye went, chaperoned for the first 
 occasion in her life, to Mrs. Rextell s. 
 
 " Don t have too good a time, dear," said Miss 
 Plaven, with gentlest significance, as they drove up 
 the long, sweeping approach, on either side of 
 which, under the splendid groups of tall trees, the 
 guests, in dainty array, were already scattering 
 about upon the green velvet of the closely mown 
 grass. Had Mrs. Rextell ever suggested the 
 kindly hypothesis to Miss Elizabeth, or had Miss 
 Elizabeth herself originally started it on its way 
 that the only trouble with Rill Raye was that she 
 had too good a time, too undisguisedly ? I think it 
 had been a bit of the gospel gossip. 
 
 Miss Haven would have had her hands full to 
 day, if she thought to scatter good seed as fast as 
 the evil one would cast the tares. Everything was 
 astir and afloat, from the minute Dr. Ilarriman 
 and Connie Norris walked up the lawn, as they 
 did a few minutes after Miss Haven and Cyrilla 
 had arrived ; and certain comments reached Mrs. 
 Rextell s ears which inclined her to regret, notwith 
 standing the comprehensive intent of her neighbor 
 hood gathering her hash party that these two 
 should be there together. They had met just be 
 low the gates ; these little fortuitous circumstances 
 had fallen into a law of recurrence that seemed to 
 work now of itself, really without premeditation ;
 
 WHEAT SEED AND TAEE-SEED. 85 
 
 to the doctor it was beginning to present a diffi 
 culty ; it was becoming too invariable ; yet every 
 time lie fell for the moment into the pleasant 
 snare. 
 
 " Do you see ? Did you notice ? " passed from 
 lip to lip among certain of the observers ; and one 
 connected tale was set forth with fresh gusto by a 
 brisk little lady with an animated bunch of tall 
 rudbeckias in her hat, that bobbed and danced 
 from left to right and up and down, in the eager 
 motion of the wearer, as she addressed her speech 
 and nodded its emphasis and tossed its sneer ; 
 and from her it traveled till the lady of the manor 
 listened, displeased, to the slighter remarks con 
 veying the impression of the story into which it 
 condensed itself in the rendering of the thorough 
 bred. 
 
 " Actually, she got off the train within half a 
 minute of its starting. I put my head out of the 
 window and saw the whole. She met him at the 
 gate. There was some pretense or other, as usual ; 
 I suppose he told her there was n t time ; and then 
 they both hurried down the platform. But the 
 bell rang, and we slipped off, just as they came 
 alongside the last car. Tie could have got on, but 
 he would n t let her, and he could n t leave her ; 
 so there they were, and no train for two hours and 
 a half and evening ! "
 
 86 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 " So they went back, and sat down, and looked 
 at decorated plates, I suppose, instead of going 
 home to their suppers? " 
 
 " My dear ! waste opportunities like that and 
 go hungry? No, indeed! They went up town, 
 and had tea at Bever s, and walked about afterward 
 till train time ; she told of it herself, as a great 
 lark. I wonder they did n t stay in and go to the 
 theatre. Perhaps they will, next time." 
 
 And it may as well be mentioned here that the 
 next time the story was told, or took a fresh de 
 parture, the theatre addition was put on as an as 
 sertion ; and that so in the end it worked its way 
 round, till Dr. Harriman heard it, to his intense 
 annoyance and disgust ; the more that he per 
 ceived he had really been going too far, and that 
 he had only himself to thank for whatever mis 
 construction might accrue. 
 
 That there was a glaring inconsistency between 
 these escapades and the quieter significance of the 
 visits at Crooke Corner, aggravated both the young 
 doctor s self-dissatisfaction and his difficulties with 
 Cyrilla Raye. 
 
 Meantime, on the Rextell lawn to-day, the last- 
 named young lady was superbly inaccessible.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE POND LILY ROOM. 
 
 " You RE on a new tack, Rill," said Connie 
 Norris, coming tip to her after Rill had a third 
 time evaded a prolonged interview with the doctor, 
 whose sudden " dividing of himself round " by no 
 means pleased Miss Connie. " And you are taking 
 all the wind out of other people s sails." 
 
 " I have n t set any sails," said Rill, with the 
 brief gravity so new and so particularly becoming 
 to her. 
 
 " I wish you would, then," said Connie, frown 
 ing. " It would be fairer than the way you re 
 doing now." 
 
 Rill flashed a look at her without speaking. 
 
 Just then Dr. Harriman appeared once more, 
 escorting Miss Haven. " There is tea down there, 
 under the beeches," he said. " Would you like to 
 go for some, or shall I bring it to you here ? " 
 He addressed the three ladies, as he paused with 
 Miss Elizabeth. 
 
 " We will go down, I think," said Miss Eliza-
 
 88 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 beth. " There is more there than tea. That, one 
 can take at home, you know. We came here to 
 enjoy people." 
 
 Kill had a high color, and her eyes burned yet 
 with the light that had made Connie s blink. She 
 took Miss Haven s arm with a little private grip of 
 determination, and there was nothing left for Dr. 
 Harriman but to follow with Cornelia. 
 
 Another moving group brushed by. The breeze 
 brought back some semi-detached words spoken 
 just after it had passed. 
 
 "Engaged?" 
 
 " Or ought to be." 
 
 Rill and Miss Haven both heard it. Each won 
 dered silently whether the pulse of sound had 
 reached back to the other two. 
 
 Rill s head was an inch or two higher as she 
 walked on. She hurried Miss Haven, drawing her 
 forcibly forward, and putting an increasing dis 
 tance between the other couple and themselves. 
 This was quite practicable, for Connie Norris did 
 not hurry Dr. Harriman at all. She stopped him, 
 indeed, just beyond the outskirt of the groups 
 about the table. 
 
 " Miss Haven," said Cyrilla, in a quick, intense 
 way, " Connie is an awful goose. But they are 
 talking hatefully about her. Can t you hush it 
 up?"
 
 THE POND LILY ROOM. 89 
 
 Around one of the tables, where the eldest Miss 
 Rextell was dispensing- chocolate, had gathered an 
 admiring bevy of friends, in the midst of whom 
 she sat, a stately beauty with dark hair distractingly 
 knotted high upon the graceful head, close against 
 which shone a single aster-like flower of luminous 
 pale violet, color of the ethereal heart-flame of the 
 diamond, born of highest light. She served with 
 dainty fingers the delicious beverage topped with 
 white foam of cream on every cup, and with dazzle 
 of smile gave right and left at the same time the 
 light-whipped cream of talk, without which, at such 
 moments, conversation would seem too seriously 
 nutritive. 
 
 As Miss Haven and Cyrilla came up, some one 
 who had finished her chocolate was turning the 
 empty cup about with little airs of apprehensive 
 ecstasy, exclaiming with soft, well-trained vehe 
 mence at the rare coloring and design of the frail 
 bit of porcelain. 
 
 " And you have these things out here ! " she said. 
 " How do you dare ? What are your servants 
 made of? Anything corresponding to Dresden in 
 comparison with Delft ? " 
 
 " Hardly," said Miss Rextell, with the smile that 
 was like a summer electric flash, soft and swift, 
 that one watches eagerly for, because it is never 
 fixed for the merest space of a breath. " But now
 
 90 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 that people can all paint their own teacups, and 
 everything can be copied, one does n t seem to care 
 so anxiously do you think ? " 
 
 This was Miss Haven s chance. 
 
 " Miss Norris paints beautifully. Did you ever 
 see any of her work ? " she asked. 
 
 The momentary drop of silence befell that marks 
 some otherwise imperceptible little chasm to be 
 leaped. 
 
 Some one claimed Miss Rextell s official atten 
 tion. Then the lady next Miss Haven, not to 
 slight Miss Haven herself, responded with a touch 
 of remoteness, 
 
 " Miss Norris ? I don t think I have. Does 
 she paint for sale ? " 
 
 " Partly," returned Miss Haven, serenely. " Not 
 from need, of course ; but she makes her lessons in 
 dependent, and she has other pleasant little things 
 in her power, you know. I could tell you better if 
 she were not close by," she added, rapidly, in a low 
 ered voice. " But it was very nice of her, paying 
 a livery bill for that poor little sick dressmaker of 
 hers, for a fortnight s rides. And the things she 
 does must simply be an exquisite pleasure to do." 
 
 " Ah, indeed ? " the same lady returned, with the 
 same f ar-offness. 
 
 There was still a little chasm. The name of 
 Miss Norris had been too recently quoted in a dif-
 
 THE POND LILY ROOM. 91 
 
 ferent connection ; and there was Dr. Harriman, 
 brincrinjj her at this moment among them for her 
 
 o o o 
 
 tea. 
 
 . Miss Rextell leaped the gulf. It was the pretti 
 est leap possible. She left her chair, her soft white 
 draperies making a gracious light about her, and 
 moved gently through the way that was parted for 
 her, out upon the open lawn. 
 
 " Good evening, Miss Norris," she said to her 
 guest. " I had not seen you before. Will you 
 have chocolate ? Or, there is tea close by. Dr. 
 Harriman, please to find what Miss Norris likes. 
 The chocolate is at my table." And with one of 
 her bewildering smiles, and a word about the lovely 
 weather, and that she was so glad there could be 
 so many here, she glided back again. 
 
 " Here is a place by me, Miss Haven. Will you 
 have more sugar? One of those little cocoanut 
 puffs? I m glad you told that nice thing of Miss 
 Norris," she said, in a quiet, friendly tone. " There 
 is always more than one story to know. Don t 
 you think, Miss Haven," she went on, in a clear, 
 sweet, incisive voice, " that, after all, the chief dif 
 ference between people is their different way of 
 doing the same things ? " 
 
 All her immediate circle heard the words, and a 
 counter wave to the creep of the hostile motion in 
 these Wewachet waters was set stirring around
 
 92 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 Cornelia Norris. The drift of it touched her at 
 once ; she found herself more in the pleasant cur 
 rent. An edge opened where she stood, and she 
 was taken in by some gentle, casual recognitions, 
 when she might have remained quite outside, with 
 out having any positive rudeness to complain of. 
 
 When Miss Haven had finished her chocolate, 
 she rose and quietly made her way again toward 
 her escort. 
 
 " Dr. Harriman," she said, " will you be kind 
 enough to help me find Mrs. Rextell?" and taking 
 his offered arm, she walked away up the lawn with 
 him. 
 
 She had effected a modification and change 
 among the elements toward a more beneficent solu 
 tion. But, blessed busybody that she was, she had 
 not yet done for the day. She meant that this 
 afternoon, which threatened to be the turning-point 
 for ill, socially, in a heedless young girl s life, 
 should revert to quite an opposite accomplishment. 
 
 Joining Mrs. Rextell, she slipped into conversa 
 tion with her, leaving Dr. Harriman to such liberty 
 as he might like to take. So, presently, for a brief 
 chance, the two ladies were left apart a little. 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Rextell," said Miss Haven then, 
 " your daughter Margaret has just done such a 
 sweet and gracious thing." And she told her the 
 how and the why. "I wish I think you will do 
 another."
 
 THE POND LILY ROOM. 93 
 
 " In what fashion ? " 
 
 " Your own fashion ; you will know how. It 
 will make such a difference. There was a cloud 
 coming up for that young girl." 
 
 "I am glad Margaret behaved just so. But" 
 and the lady s fair dignity, that was shy, even in its 
 own purity, took a touch of regretful shrinking. 
 " I don t like girls to get under a cloud," she said. 
 
 " Beam out upon her, please ! Drive the cloud 
 away for this time at least. You can." 
 
 At the moment, the two young girls approached 
 up the slope, pausing a little way off when they 
 saw Miss Haven engaged with Mrs. Rextell. 
 
 " How pretty she is ! " said Mrs. Rextell, hon 
 estly. u But I like the other one s face better." 
 
 " Yes ; they are both pretty girls. And I am 
 very fond of Cyrilla Raye." 
 
 Mrs. Rextell moved forward. 
 
 " Miss Norris," she said, and there were peo 
 ple enough about to see and hear and be surprised, 
 among them the very lady of the rudbeckias, who 
 had hovered within speaking distance of Mrs. Rex- 
 tel l and her changing coterie for half an hour, with 
 out apparent reason or result, " Miss Norris, I 
 hear you are fond of art, and do pretty things in 
 color yourself. Will you come into the house with 
 me ? I should like to show you something. Miss 
 Raye, you will come too, won t you ? "
 
 94 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 And, with that way a lady can have of being oc 
 cupied with just the persons and the errand she 
 chooses, Mrs. Rextell, laying her hand on Miss Ha 
 ven s arm, led the little party indoors. 
 
 It was a distinguishment. It left people turning 
 their heads, and wondering quietly. Dr. Harriman 
 himself noticed, and was impressed. 
 
 Upstairs, through Mrs. Rextell s own beautiful 
 room, out into a corridor beyond, which connected 
 with a new wing lately added to the mansion, with 
 a pretty staircase coming up from another side, 
 they passed to a suite of dainty, small apartments 
 in a row, all fronting upon the lawn. Doors, easily 
 sliding, but as easily closed to complete separation, 
 linked and divided them within. 
 
 " I want to show you my pond lily room," the 
 hostess said, walking on to the door from the gal 
 lery in the farther end and throwing it open. 
 " "We shall hardly have time for the others now ; 
 but I would like you to see this. It is where I put 
 my very dearest, sweetest young girl friends when 
 they come to me. I made it for them. There are 
 not many to whom I give it. They are of the pond 
 lily nature themselves. I have a wild rose room be 
 side ; and a marigold chamber, and a little fernery, 
 where my older visitors who want real rest and in 
 visibility, can stay. But this " and she stood 
 aside, and let the lovely surprise speak for itself.
 
 THE POND LILY ROOM. 95 
 
 Exquisite shades of gray and green made up the 
 tone of color in the charming apartment. 
 
 The carpet was of a cool, soft water-gray, with 
 white rugs laid about upon it ; its border was a 
 deep, dull green. Walls were covered with like 
 tints, the frieze and dado giving the repeat of rest 
 ful green, broken and characterized in the dado by 
 decoration of tall, swaying reeds and grasses. 
 
 In chosen places over the low bed-head, which 
 had no canopy, and at one side above the dressing- 
 table, and again by the window, knotted above the 
 wainscot and continued down upon it in beautiful 
 drops and tassels, were twisted stems and buds and 
 blossoms of the water-lily, painted by an artist s 
 hand. There was embroidery of lilies on the 
 folded down coverlet of dark green silk. 
 
 But upon and about a large oval table with gray 
 marble slab was the masterpiece of loveliness, 
 the toilet array all daintily set forth. The porce 
 lain basin broad and deep, like a veritable little 
 lake - was of pale gray in ground color, upon 
 which wandered olive stems and dark green pads, 
 while leaning up against and over the brim were 
 buds and blossoms that one might almost fancy 
 would be astir and Afloat when the bowl should be 
 filled with water. The quaint, round-swelling, close- 
 throated jug held clusters falling out from stems 
 that seemed thrust within, and dropped the fair,
 
 96 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 white heads tipon the great curving side, two or 
 three winding the handle with loose turns and fall 
 ing with their budded tips behind. A smaller 
 pitcher had just one light knot looped round it, the 
 stem ends curling away on one side and two golden- 
 hearted open blooms hanging over upon the other. 
 Beneath the table a luxurious foot bath completed 
 the appliances, about whose oval the flowers and 
 leaves and coiling stems were actually heaped, so 
 that it would seem like dipping in beneath their 
 cool, sweet shelter to find the pool they hid. 
 
 All the hangings of the room were in green and 
 white, dusky green with olive lights, and pure, 
 creamy, ivory fairness. Dressing-table held its own 
 exquisite service of porcelain and ivory, upon which 
 here and there some echo of the same design was 
 repeated. Over all the soft, faint blue tinting of 
 the ceiling closed, like distant sky. 
 
 Cornelia Norris was in a real ecstasy. The art 
 the perfection of the execution excited her 
 with delight. She moved from one thing to 
 another, hanging over each, or glancing up and 
 down at answering touches of beauty, with an 
 eager taking in of the charm of the purpose and 
 the marvelous skill of the carrying out. Kill llaye 
 stood by, very quiet, in the midst of it all. Mrs. 
 Rextell turned to her. " You like it ? " 
 
 There were tears in the girl s eyes.
 
 THE POND LILY EOOM. 97 
 
 " I think," said Rill, " that if it were not quite a 
 pond lily nature, to be put in here would almost 
 make it so." 
 
 " That is the sweetest thing anybody has ever 
 said of it yet ! " said Mrs. Rextell. She laid her 
 hand upon Rill s shoulder with a friendly, caressing 
 touch. 
 
 " Oh, see this bud, Rill ! How the pink blushes 
 through the olive ! It is just celestial to see color 
 laid on so ! " 
 
 " One thinks of the laying on ; the other feels 
 the heart of the meaning. I like your girl best," 
 said Mrs. Rextell to Miss Haven as they went down 
 stairs.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 KEEN DEFINITIONS. 
 
 CONNIE NORRIS was beginning 1 to find her coinci 
 dences becoming less felicitous. Her story all at 
 once was running bare of occurrence. 
 
 Dr. Harriman was growing indifferent, or cau 
 tious, she could not tell which ; he was certainly a 
 little queer. He had gone into another car, one day 
 when they had taken the same train to the city. 
 She had been in the file of passengers with him at 
 the steps ; he had seen her and bowed ; then he 
 had gone across the platform to the rear carriage, 
 and when she had paused, glancing hesitatingly 
 that way herself, and had half followed, he had 
 turned, and said politely, "This is the smoker, Miss 
 Connie," and disappeared over the threshold. 
 
 Miss Haven had been very disagreeable one day. 
 " Old Meddleprate," Connie in her inward wrath 
 had called her, then and afterward. Miss Haven 
 Lad meddled, in the only way consonant with her 
 principles, by going straight to the person concerned 
 with her comment.
 
 KEEN DEFINITIONS. 99 
 
 " Miss Connie, my dear," she had said, " an old 
 woman sees things sometimes that a young one 
 does not. We hear things, too. I am going to say 
 frankly to you what I would resent for you, if I 
 heard your affairs impertinently discussed. Don t 
 you think it would be wise, perhaps, to change your 
 day for going to town ? People will remark when 
 an attractive young girl receives continued atten 
 tions, and sometimes the remarks are a little 
 unkind." 
 
 Connie had tossed her head, and said she did n t 
 see that she could help it. People went in the cars 
 every day, and her days with Miss Tintwell could 
 not be managed differently. 
 
 When Dr. Harriman took coldly to the smoker, 
 or cruelly read his evening paper, she wondered if 
 " Old Meddleprate " had been frank with him also. 
 
 Somebody had been frank with Dr. Harriman, 
 but it had not been Miss Haven. Indeed, since 
 that word " Engaged? " which had reached his ear 
 with its significance, he had begun to be a little 
 frank with himself, and to shape his behavior ac 
 cordingly. But another word had been spoken, 
 with a directness of which perhaps only one person 
 in Wewachet was exactly capable. 
 
 Rill Raye was really fond of Connie Norris, 
 though she did call her an awful goose. She felt 
 herself to blame in the matter of Dr. Harriman,
 
 100 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 that she had helped on that first wild escapade 
 which had begun the acquaintance ; and a certain 
 little guiltiness troubled her, innocent of design as 
 she knew herself to be, iu the perception that what 
 Connie called " sailing on a new tack " was draw 
 ing Dr. Harriman toward herself with some inter 
 est more evident than was manifest in all the light 
 devotedness which Connie complained was inter 
 fered with. 
 
 Rill was moved by a threefold indignation or 
 impatience ; with Connie, with the doctor, and her 
 self. So one day when she came into the library 
 at the Point, and, passing through the reading-room, 
 saw Connie and Dr. Harriman on opposite sides of 
 the same pamphlet-strewn table, she went on to the 
 desk without salutation, and was returning in the 
 same manner, her head a little higher than was 
 quite necessary, when the librarian spoke her .name 
 with a recall. 
 
 " The book you asked for has just been brought 
 in, Miss Raye," she said, as Rill returned to the 
 upper end of the room ; and in the little delay of 
 transfer and delivery, Rill caught involuntarily a 
 side glimpse of a transaction which sent her chin 
 up a slight lift higher. 
 
 Connie had written something on a slip of paper 
 and pushed it across upon a Saturday Review to 
 the doctor. The gentleman read, and answered
 
 KEEN DEFINITIONS. 101 
 
 verbally, in the low tone and few words to which 
 the rules restricted conversation. Connie pulled 
 back the book and crumpled the paper. At a 
 table close by, Rill saw glances and smiles and 
 eyebrow-creeps exchanged, and the expression of 
 her own face became unmistakable. 
 
 As she went out and drew the door behind her, 
 she was conscious of a movement, and of a step 
 following ; a moment after, Dr. Harriman was 
 beside her on the street. He gave her a plea 
 sant greeting. Rill turned and flashed that strong 
 expression full upon him. " Don t you know, 
 Dr. Harriman," she said, in her clear, unflinching 
 way, " that you are making Connie Norris talked 
 about ? " 
 
 "Am I ? " He was too much of a gentleman to 
 say more ; but in the inflection of the two words 
 there was, with unaffronted deference to herself, 
 a slight underquery " Is it all my fault ? " 
 
 " You are an honest friend, Miss Raye," he 
 said, " and a brave one ; but is n t there sure to be 
 talk in Wewachet, whatever one does or does 
 not do ? " 
 
 " It must needs be that offenses come, I sup 
 pose," Rill said to that, succinctly ; and left him 
 to supply the remainder of the quotation for him 
 self. 
 
 " I should be sorry to have you think ill of me,
 
 102 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 Miss Raye," said Dr. Harriman, when they had 
 walked again a few steps further in silence. 
 
 " The hardest thing is to have to think ill of 
 one s self," said Rill gravely ; " that is terrible." 
 
 She spoke almost impersonally ; whether in cau 
 tion, or admonition, or any exaggerated conscious 
 ness, lay her meaning, Dr. Harriman could hardly 
 judge. 
 
 " I think you cannot possibly know much of 
 what that would be," he said. 
 
 Rill looked up at him suddenly, as if out of 
 momentary abstraction. " You cannot know any 
 thing about that," she answered him. And then 
 she turned to leave him. " I have an errand for 
 my aunt," she said, at the threshold of a shop 
 door. " Good afternoon, Dr. Harriman." 
 
 It was after this that Dr. Harriman began to be 
 queer and uncertain about his railway arrange 
 ments, and to take to evening papers and the 
 smoker. 
 
 Miss Haven had not stopped with the disagree 
 able, however. She had been kind as well as 
 frank with Cornelia Norris. She had made her 
 welcome as a visitor to herself ; and Connie, not 
 withstanding her resentment and her epithets, had 
 accepted the sweet with the bitter, and availed 
 herself of what she could get. 
 
 Miss Haven began to have quiet little afternoon
 
 KEEN DEFINITIONS. 103 
 
 teas. On certain days, when her friends came in, 
 the silver teakettle was found upon her table, with 
 baskets of delicate cakes ; and people lingered in 
 pleasant pairs and knots until sometimes the not 
 very large room was full. But somehow it was 
 never a " hash party ; " the little word of being 
 usually at home on these days was only spoken to 
 a few, and they were mostly young people whom 
 Miss Haven attracted about her, and among whom 
 was a promotion of pleasant, informal intercourse 
 that made them all really better acquainted, under 
 such conditions of open limit as called for neither 
 surveillance nor criticism. Miss Haven disliked 
 very much a set form of matronizing ; it was only 
 required, she thought, when most really useless, or 
 as an endorsing of what had better not be en 
 dorsed. She thought more homelike social oppor 
 tunities ought to be arranged, and that much of 
 what is called " going into society " was a mere 
 hindering bewilderment, and no sociality at all. 
 
 Perhaps the immediate reminding motive of all 
 this was a generous interest for Dr. Harriman and 
 Connie. If there must be observation and talk 
 of them, let it be brought here, under her coun 
 tenance ; it should be diverted, at any rate, from, 
 the railway trains. If it meant anything more than 
 flirtation, let it have its fair, suitable chance, where 
 the meaning might be apparent and responsible.
 
 104 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 Miss Haven was bent upon no one thing so much 
 as that all things should be exactly right and true 
 for every one. Possibly the good lady had not 
 reckoned on the extension of Putnam King s op 
 portunities ; her " afternoons " were not the same 
 on which he had ordinarily come ; but the young 
 man s arrangements proved very flexible, and he 
 not only contrived to time himself with these new 
 privileges, but fell into the way of frequent unex 
 pected arrivals, which were rapidly establishing 
 themselves into a rule of exceptions. 
 
 Aunt Elizabeth, however, was no believer in 
 mano2uvre or control, to advance or repress. With 
 her own gentle presence and oversight, she ven 
 tured to let things take their immediate unembar 
 rassed course. The two young men were beginning 
 to know each other better, and she liked this. If 
 Putnam King were gravitating toward another 
 special attraction, it was with no nonsense of trivial 
 demonstration, but with a certain manly sobriety 
 that now and then surprised her with its contrast 
 to his ordinary gay, free, almost boyish fashions of 
 speech and bearing. And it pleased her to see 
 how the pond lily beauty grew in the sweet reserves 
 of Kill Raye, and how the new, fair dignity en 
 folded the girl with its garment of grace. The 
 elder lady looked upon her with a sense of moth 
 erly adoption which became stronger day by day,
 
 DEFINITIONS. 105 
 
 and began insensibly, I think, to offset the force 
 of that first fixed postulate of hers, that Putnam 
 King had so much in his own life to shape, and so 
 much other life to see, before lie could be drawn 
 by any charm whatever toward positive thought of 
 his future serious relations. 
 
 Dr. Harriman found in the safe limitations of 
 the intercourse now opened a happy retreat into 
 friendly courtesy from more express and com 
 promising assiduities. But Miss Connie Norris 
 was not so satisfied, as we have seen. She must 
 have conspicuous attendance. She delighted in 
 events, adventures, situations. Miss Elizabeth 
 Haven s afternoon teas would do very well just 
 now, in an interim ; she did not disdain them ; but 
 she chafed at dull proprieties and averaged plea 
 sures. She consoled herself with the anticipation 
 of gayer, freer things ; with fun at large, and the 
 chance and test of it, that were coming soon, in 
 the great yearly picnic to Shepaug. 
 
 This had been talked of one afternoon at Miss 
 Haven s. In a week or two it would come off. 
 Everybody would be there ; everybody always 
 was ; it was the last festival afield of the season. 
 
 "It is the great event of Wewachet; and there 
 is nothing so lovely as Shepaug," some one said to 
 Putnam King, taking his attendance for granted, 
 and describing to him the delights he might expect. 
 " You 11 be with us, of course, Miss Haven ? "
 
 106 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 " I am afraid not. I am to be with friends in 
 Newport at about that time." 
 
 " Oh, don t ! Come back for the day, at least. 
 You must n t miss it, and we can t miss you. We 
 want Mr. King 1 , too." 
 
 " I m not much good at a picnic," said Mr. 
 King, laughing. " They always have seemed to 
 me like Dickens s circumlocution office, a how- 
 not-to-do-it sort of institution. You can t get the 
 things you want to eat, and you can t find the peo 
 ple you want to see, and the lovely place you go 
 to is n t there ; it s all blotted out by the crowd." 
 
 " All the more reason you should go with us to 
 Shepaug. We manage things differently ; and 
 Shepaug can t be blotted out." 
 
 " I dare say ; I have great confidence in you," 
 returned Mr. King, smiling. Connie Norris came 
 up with a little rush. "Shepaug?" she cried. 
 " Oh, I would n t miss it for a farm ! No, not for 
 a copper mine, or a whole western railroad ! Dr. 
 Harriman, you have never seen Shepaug." 
 
 Dr. Harriman, taken en pa&sant, like a pawn at 
 chess, stopped perforce. 
 
 " Oh, yes, Miss Connie. I have driven there," 
 he said. 
 
 " Indeed, you can t have half seen it that way," 
 rejoined Miss Connie. " The loveliest walks and 
 climbs and views ! Why, Mr. King was objecting to
 
 KEEN DEFINITIONS. 107 
 
 the crowd. You would n t know a crowd was there, 
 except right in the middle. We all go our own 
 way, and the only trouble is which way to choose." 
 
 " Or whom to choose as fellow pilgrim," said the 
 lady who was talking with Putnam King, as Con 
 nie and the doctor moved along a little toward 
 Miss Haven and the teacups. " It is just the place 
 for a good, honest, open-air flirtation." 
 
 " Is there such a thing ? " inquired Mr. King. 
 
 " As what ? The thing, or such quality of the 
 thing?" 
 
 " What is flirtation ? " 
 
 " Really, it is very undefinable. Miss Haven, this 
 innocent young man wants to know what flirtation 
 is. Suppose we resolve ourselves into a debating 
 society and find out. Don t you know, Miss Con 
 nie?" 
 
 Connie Norris laughed. " We re in a library. 
 There s a Webster s dictionary here, somewhere, I 
 suppose," she answered, not unreadily. 
 
 " Very well, let us put it to W^ebster, then. 
 Only it will be like picking a field flower out of a 
 herbarium." 
 
 " Oh, really ! " exclaimed Putnam King. " That 
 is defining it beforehand with a coolness and fresh 
 ness. That is imputing innocence and simplicity 
 at once." 
 
 "Yes. I don t mean the cut-and-dried article,
 
 108 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 bear in mind. There is a fresh and innocent 
 sort." 
 
 " May be. If you look far enough back for it, 
 in the early and unconscious years. But I thought 
 we were speaking of men and women, of a good, 
 honest, recognized thing." 
 
 " You hold to your point with a legal exactness. 
 Well, we will concede it, I did mean that ; only 
 I spoke of young people, not case-hardened old 
 stagers." 
 
 " I see. There must be lines ; it all depends 
 upon where you draw them." 
 
 " Of course. And that is what our survey is for. 
 Dr. Harriman, won t you look? " 
 
 Dr. Harriman had no choice. The big diction 
 ary was at his elbow. 
 
 " What is it ? " asked the impatient lady the 
 moment he ceased furling the leaves. 
 
 " Playing at courtship, Mrs. Sudley," the doc 
 tor answered, clearly and unabashed. Brought to 
 bay, Dr. Harriman could face the occasion. " But 
 that is not an inside definition, I think. It is the 
 statement of a looker-on. Dr. Webster probably 
 never flirted." 
 
 A gentle, musical laugh was the rejoinder. 
 " Shall we look to you for an inner interpretation, 
 Dr. Harriman ? " and the laugh broke out, irresist 
 ibly, around him.
 
 KEEN DEFINITIONS. 109 
 
 With a perfectly composed face Dr. Harriman 
 met the assault. Connie Norris, who had shrunk 
 a little backward, was all pink and fluttering, like 
 a breeze-shaken rose. 
 
 " I should say it might be tentative acquaint 
 ance, Mrs. Sudley," Dr. Harriman replied. 
 
 " And the question is, how much of that is al 
 lowable ? " 
 
 " Precisely, I suppose." 
 
 "Mr. King, it is your turn. You raised the 
 point." 
 
 " From all that I have ever seen of the thing, I 
 should say it was a self-defeating experiment. " 
 
 " Oh, that won t do ! That is more outside. 
 You are worse than Webster." 
 
 " You could hardly expect me to try an inside 
 view, holding such a theory, Mrs. Sudley?" 
 
 " Mr. King, I prophesy for you a brilliant career 
 at the bar. But won t you explain ? " 
 
 " I think Dr. Harriman s argument, in the na 
 ture of the case, should have precedence." 
 
 " I do not know that I have undertaken any case. 
 The demand upon me seems rather of the character 
 of a subpoena," said Dr. Harriman, with careless 
 good-humor. 
 
 " Very well ; bear witness, doctor," said Mrs. 
 Sudley, gayly. " Yet, after all, it is a debate, you 
 see, not a case in court. Now don t pun ; we want 
 serious work."
 
 110 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 Perhaps Dr. Harriman was not sorry to define 
 indirectly his own position. 
 
 " Seriously, then, Mrs. Sudl%y," he said to her, 
 with an air that might carry gracefully either jest or 
 earnest, " I do not see, unless we are to rush blind 
 fold into matrimony, or adopt French customs and 
 leave arrangements to our ancestors, why we should 
 not be entitled to what I call tentative acquaint 
 ance. I don t see how we are to do without it." 
 
 " What do you call tentative acquaintance, Dr. 
 Harriman ? " questioned Putnam King. 
 
 " Why, a certain degree of intimacy ; a certain 
 amount of " lie hesitated. 
 
 " Monopoly ? " suggested Mr. King. 
 
 " Well, yes, if you put it so," replied the doctor, 
 laughing. " Some chance to try sympathies, and 
 find out character, and prove how much or how 
 little two persons may like and suit each other. 
 But if there is to be watching and outcry, and the 
 whole community either down upon them or forcing 
 their affairs to a conclusion, then I don t see 
 what becomes of the preamble to the Declaration 
 of Independence of these United States." 
 
 " Or of any united state at all," said Mrs. Sud- 
 ley, laughing. 
 
 " You punned ; I did n t," quoth the doctor. 
 
 Mrs. Sudley turned to Mr. King. " Dr. Harri 
 man has explained tentative acquaintance, she
 
 KEEN DEFINITIONS. Ill 
 
 said. " Suppose you instruct us as to how it is a 
 self-defeating experiment ? " 
 
 Putnam King was absolutely grave. His boyish 
 banter was laid aside. At this moment he seemed 
 the maturer of the two men. " I think," he said, 
 "by being a trying on of an intimacy that is not ex 
 pected necessarily to last. There isn t any real test 
 in it. It assumes what was first to be found out ; 
 leaving, as the only thing to be found out, the prob 
 able mistake. I think acquaintance needs to be 
 a slower, more mixed, process ; that people should 
 see each other in their other relations, where the 
 play of character comes out. Monopoly, through 
 a mere p-issing attraction, is n t acquaintance at 
 all. Two persons are just what they choose to seem 
 to each other, for the sake of pleasing. It. is n t a 
 fair thing, especially to a woman." 
 
 " Where is the unfairness, if it is understood as 
 tentative ? " asked Dr. Harriman. 
 
 " In that very understanding," replied Putnam 
 King. 
 
 When the little company had broken up, the two 
 young men, at Dr. Harriman s suggestion, took 
 leave together, lighted their cigars outside, and 
 walked in the twilight down toward the Point. 
 
 " How much of that was earnest, King ? " asked 
 the doctor, as they went along. 
 
 " All of it," replied Putnam King, instantly.
 
 112 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 " How much of it was meant for me ? " 
 
 " As much as belongs. As much as you 11 take. 
 As much as you need." 
 
 " Thanks. But perhaps my appropriation might 
 be in the way of somebody else getting a fair share. 
 There are girls who will flirt, my friend." 
 
 " Then I think the question of tentative acquaint 
 ance would be set aside. But I only speak for my 
 self. The girl whom I marry will be the girl who 
 won t flirt." 
 
 "The definite article is well put. There may 
 be one such girl to a half dozen square miles of 
 civilization. I m of your mind, precisely ; but the 
 world is small ; we might run against each other." 
 
 How much was meant, or understood, neither 
 knew as regarded the other. Each thought for 
 himself, however, that he had learned something. 
 
 Meanwhile, two young women who had listened 
 to the tea-table debate with more or less of self- 
 application, were recalling it with characteristically 
 different impressions. 
 
 Connie Norris drew from it a certain comfort 
 able logical inference. It gave her quite a little 
 elastic inward spring to think of the " tentative 
 acquaintance " between herself and Dr. Harriman. 
 With his definition of the thing, there must have 
 been in it something of meaning, of possible pur 
 pose. What, then, had signified the recent with-
 
 KEEN DEFINITIONS. 113 
 
 drawal ? Was it caution, or retreat ? Connie 
 wished she knew. She had been very frigid and 
 unfeeling elsewhere lately ; she had gone as far 
 that way as she safely could. She had no mind to 
 fall between two stools. Her fancy had been 
 taken with Dr. Harriman, but he might not mean 
 anything, while George Craigan did. Moreover, 
 though she might appease young Craigan with 
 surreptitious little relentings, and bring him back 
 at her pleasure to full devotion, it would be harder 
 to satisfy George Craigan, pere, if this stigma of 
 flirt got fastened upon her by too flagrant derelic 
 tion. And the approval of George Craigan, ^>ere, 
 the solid, old-fashioned, money-strong and will- 
 strong head of the family and firm, into the latter 
 of which the son had just been received, and which 
 stood upon old hereditary foundations begun away 
 back before gold and telegraphs and railroads, and 
 prosperous all the way down through all the 
 changes and magnifications of business, was an 
 essential element in the calculation. Connie Nor- 
 ris was a featherhead ; but she was not exactly a 
 fool. 
 
 Cyrilla Raye said to herself, recalling Putnam 
 King s words, which had fallen upon some newly 
 developed sensitiveness within her: "The play of 
 chanu-ter to be studied by seeing a girl in her 
 other relations. What sort of study would anybody
 
 114 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 make of me, that way, I wonder, a girl who never 
 had any real, right relations? 1 have got them 
 all to make, new, before I shall be real, before I 
 shall have fair play ; and who is going to believe 
 it of me ? Life is not fair, in this world ! We are 
 begun at the wrong end, so many of us ! But then, 
 if there is a wrong end, I suppose it is in ourselves, 
 to begin with, or we should n t be where we are. 
 What is or ever was the beginning ? Why 
 am I Kill Eaye ? "
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 FOLKS AND " CREETURS." 
 
 PUTNAM KING had arrived at Crooke Corner at 
 one of his irregular times, and had found that his 
 aunt Elizabeth was absent. 
 
 The unfailing sign of the close -drawn gray 
 shades did not escape him as he approached the 
 house ; but his step did not slacken, nor his face 
 take on any blankness. It might have been with 
 a not uncheerful sense of other possibilities that 
 he kept on his way, and without making evidence 
 of himself by any needless inquiry, went rather 
 quietly upstairs to the library and settled himself 
 to patient waiting. Why he chose a seat some 
 what retreated from the diminished light and half 
 shielded from the rest of the apartment by a large 
 picture upon an easel, may not be a relevant con 
 sideration ; the result was, however, that not long 
 after, Miss Cyrilla Raye came lightly up-stairs and 
 into the room where she had been bidden to make 
 herself welcome at all times ; and, quite uncon 
 scious of any other presence, pursued her evident
 
 116 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 errand by going directly across to the opposite 
 bookshelves, where she put up a volume she had 
 brought, and began to examine others of the same 
 set that stood in line with it. 
 
 Putnam King knew that they were certain of 
 the writings of the deep truth-searcher, Sweden- 
 bo rg. He was interested to observe how far her 
 investigations would go in this direction, and 
 whether, having had one dip into occult themes, 
 she would resolve immediately upon a second. He 
 waited until she had chosen her book, which she 
 did after slightly turning the leaves of several that 
 she took down and put back in succession. Then 
 she slipped into a cushioned chair in the east win 
 dow close by, rolling the Holland shade partly up 
 as she did so. She had committed herself to her 
 intention, opening her book and beginning at its 
 first page, when Putnam King spoke ingenuously. 
 
 " 1 won t interrupt you, Miss Raye," he said ; 
 " but it seems fair you should know I m here. 
 Now please go on with your book. I won t speak 
 again, if you don t choose. I ve got an article 
 here in the Fortnightly. " 
 
 Apparently this young man acted up to his theo 
 ries when he had the chance. 
 
 Rill had made a movement to start up ; then she 
 checked herself. 
 
 " I don t know that I shall go on," she said,
 
 FOLKS AND "CREETURS." 117 
 
 coolly. " I just wanted to make up my mind. 
 When I have done that I shall go off, thank you." 
 
 " Could I help you ? " he asked, politely, seeing 
 instantly his only possibility. What he wanted, 
 of course, was to study the play of this young 
 lady s character in relation to books. The deci 
 sions of Miss Raye would but be precipitated, he 
 was well aware, by resistance ; the making up of 
 her mind might be pleasantly, as well as wisely, 
 prolonged. He ventured forward as he spoke, and 
 glanced, as with a first notice, at the gap on the 
 shelf, and at the corresponding volume in Cyrilla s 
 hand. 
 
 " What has sent you to Swedenborg ? " he asked, 
 in kindly, curious tone. 
 
 " I don t know that I am sent," she answered. 
 " I was reading Miss Phelps, first. I went Beyond 
 the Gates, with her ; and then I tried Heaven 
 and Hell. One was an imagination ; I thought I 
 should like to see what an authority would say." 
 
 " Do you fancy those researches ? " 
 
 "I ve had just about enough of this world to 
 want to find out what any other world might be 
 like." 
 
 " And your conclusions? " 
 
 " The only thing I ve come to it is n t a con 
 clusion, nothing is, I suppose is an idea that 
 Swedenborg did nt get beyond the gates." 
 
 " How do you mean ? "
 
 118 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 " I mean the whole of it is right here, without 
 going out of this world for it. As far as I can 
 find out from the book, there is n t any more 
 Heaven than might be now, if people behaved 
 themselves ; and well, on the whole as they 
 don t, I think this is probably one of the more re 
 spectable sort of hells. People are made as com 
 fortable as they can be, and they are kept under 
 by laws and punishments. It answers to the de 
 scription exactly." 
 
 King laughed. " You are a most original inter 
 preter," he said. 
 
 " I wonder it never occurred to anybody before 
 if it did n t," Rill answered, with composure. 
 " I think I 11 take this, and see if I can make 
 anything more out of the Wisdom of the An 
 gels. She closed the book in her hand, and got 
 up to go. Evidently, she would not be beguiled 
 into forgetting that purpose. 
 
 Mr. King took another book from a higher shelf, 
 where were recent additions of fresher works. 
 " You will like this, I think," he said ; and offered 
 her Drummond s * Natural Law in the Spiritual 
 World." 
 
 "Thank you." She merely glanced at the title. 
 " I will remember it for next time," she said ; and 
 passed him with the sweetest smile of pertinacity, 
 without another word, but only a bowed good-by.
 
 FOLKS AND " CREETURS." 119 
 
 She was on the stairs. The front door closed 
 behind her. Mr. King stood still a moment ; then 
 he replaced the postponed Druuamond, caught up 
 his hat, went out through the little passage into 
 which a further door opened, and crossing from 
 that through the room devoted to his own use upon 
 his visits, descended unobserved a narrow, twisted 
 stairway, and made exit from the house into the 
 orchard behind. He thought it would be better to 
 arrive again, when he should have taken a little 
 walk. 
 
 The chestnut wood invited him, with its broad 
 leafage beginning to turn golden in some places, 
 its soft tracks leading down into deeply shaded 
 hollows where the chestnuts ended and old pines 
 sent up their columns in multiplied sweet vistas, and 
 squirrels flashed from turf to summits, and far off 
 the hermit thrush whistled a late, lonely song. 
 Between the North Road and the Corner this forest 
 bit lay wild and beautiful. 
 
 As he went along his thoughts pursued the study 
 of a character which had given them an occupation 
 of late increasingly attractive ; this occupation it 
 self, very likely, suggesting much towards the 
 shaping of his notions to definiteness as concerning 
 means and methods in that sort of observation. 
 
 " She is no flirt," he said to himself for some 
 thing like the twentieth time since he had first
 
 120 x A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 heard Rill Raye s name, and begun to compare 
 hearsay with illustration. " She disdains the com 
 mon opportunities ; or is it that finer coquetry of 
 nature which will not make them, but waits that 
 they shall be made? I wish I knew if that nicer 
 coquetry would influence her toward me, if some 
 delicate instinct of it might lie in her somewhat 
 rigorous reserves." In such wise, without set 
 words, his reflections ran. " It is a shame these 
 people should translate her by their own little mis 
 erable vocabulary ! " 
 
 That last thought did speak plain. He repeated 
 the four first words with a force that from a differ 
 ent man s mouth would have had a garnish. But 
 Putnam King did not use garnish. Instead he 
 kicked a clod that lay in his path very vigorously 
 out of his way. 
 
 " What kind of a world is she shut up into, in 
 the midst of all that is beautiful like this, and that 
 might be dear and bright to her, that she should 
 say what she did of the world just now? A fel 
 low would like to take a case like that in hand for 
 a good, strong holding up - and setting down." 
 
 There was a hint of the young lawyer in this, 
 a hint, at least, of the enthusiasm of justice which 
 ought to make a lawyer. But when a man takes 
 up in eager imagination the rights and interests of 
 a charming young woman, the cliency and counsel
 
 FOLKS AND " CREETURS." 121 
 
 he imagines are very near an identification of 
 cause. 
 
 Walking in the chestnut wood, and on down 
 into the pines, his thought, and others that belonged 
 
 * 
 
 and asserted themselves with it, grew and grouped, 
 and kept him beautiful new company. A presence 
 had come to him ; and life in this green delight 
 between two dusty roads looked lovely to him. 
 The best things in us the best that we have or 
 dream of do not need instant or continual pre 
 sentment in their outer fact. We go away with 
 a word or a glimpse, and it becomes to us, in a 
 blessed interval when nothing can contradict, a 
 whole possession and experience. If people only 
 knew how often the glimpses are best, and would 
 not foolishly thrust themselves upon each other ! 
 It was this that Putnam King had sense of in the 
 feeling that lay beneath his theories of tentative 
 acquaintance. But this spiritual tact, which is the 
 " finer coquetry," belongs to very few. So the 
 world crowds and crushes and blunts out what it 
 was meant to illustrate, less with outright showing 
 than with exquisite reserves. 
 
 Whatever it was that had worked in Cyrilla 
 Raye to put her at this unconscious advantage, it 
 had worked in the higher ranges of her nature ; 
 not at all in that region of her which had used to 
 concern itself with her gay little passing relations,
 
 122 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 and with the contingent possibilities to which they 
 might some time lead. There was none of the spec 
 ulation, or the whim, in it, that would have made 
 it a form of coquetry ; rather it was a humility 
 a self-depreciation born in her with the impres 
 sion that had come to her of fairer things. She 
 was held back from such nonsense as she might 
 have fallen into a while ago, by new realities that 
 had entered her life. Her eager, repressed affec 
 tions had poured themselves out on Miss Haven, 
 whose kindness had won her to such admiration 
 and gratitude as could satisfy themselves with no 
 thing less than growing worthy, becoming what 
 could dare to be transparent before such reading 
 and judgment as her friend s were sure to be. 
 
 This feeling in her was an absolute prophylactic 
 against any temptation to silliness where Putnam 
 King might be concerned ; even if, besides, she 
 had not experienced such a sense of sphere not 
 mere worldly, but made up of just those realities 
 which she had begun to know and long for that 
 divided her, as yet, from these persons so different 
 from any she had come in close contact with be 
 fore. 
 
 She was too busy with herself in these days to 
 play the part of mimic self, which is the experi 
 ment of vanity. She had never lost, for a moment, 
 the strange effect and inspiration of that " pond
 
 FOLKS AND " CEEETURS." 123 
 
 lily room." Its lesson had gone straight to the 
 best and truest in her. A white stateliness, a 
 sweet, delicate pride, a fearless uplifting from all 
 that was low and common into beautiful, searching 
 light, these seemed to her now the things to 
 be striven to be prayed for. She was scornful 
 of her old self when she thought about it. 
 
 And yet, there was quite the chance that through 
 this very awakening she might make a vital mis 
 take. She would long to live her idea, the more 
 that it was so fast outgrowing her present sur 
 rounding, so essentially changing herself. A 
 girl often marries as she might even die in the 
 hope of a new life that she may live more excel 
 lently. It is the next chance and change for her. 
 It is a change of worlds. 
 
 A larger judgment had before this convinced 
 Cyrilla Raye that there was nothing of meaning, 
 nothing that could last with either, perhaps, in the 
 relations between Dr. Harriman and Connie Nor- 
 ris. It was not the deep and lifelong reality that 
 it would be such treachery to interfere with or di 
 vert. Interference would not even be worth while. 
 A surer thing would finish it with Connie any 
 day ; it had flagged already to her weariness ; she 
 would not wait through much uncertainty ; she 
 would not take the trouble to be disappointed. It 
 was but a question of brief time.
 
 124 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 Cyrilla had been quick enough to perceive also 
 that if she chose to allow it, Dr. Harriman would 
 very readily displace she would not deign to 
 think of it as a transference his trifling atten 
 tions to Cornelia Norris by a more quiet and digni 
 fied approach toward herself. Her expostulation 
 with him, which had been prompted rather by a 
 care for Connie s place in general estimation than 
 by fear for her peace of mind, had resulted in sim 
 ply strengthening her in this sense of the matter. 
 
 She felt that Dr. Harriman liked to be with her ; 
 that he respected her, she had accomplished that ; 
 that he sought, at least, to become her friend. In 
 the refined, intelligent intercourse of Miss Haven s 
 chosen little circle, she knew that he appreciated 
 her ; she discerned, also, the best of him. If she 
 compared him involuntarily with Putnam King, 
 that sense of sphere interposed directly, and for 
 her own safety she shrunk back from a possible 
 preference or attraction that could only disappoint. 
 The one was within her reach, the other she might 
 not so much as question about, and she did not. 
 She did not even ask herself if there were danger. 
 She shut her eyes mentally, in pride, and walked 
 on ; only guarding herself carefully from least 
 seeming to account herself as of account with him. 
 And so, unconsciously, she was already command 
 ing him, as we and he are finding out. Rill Raye
 
 FOLKS AND " CEEETUES." 125 
 
 would be long in imagining such a thing possible. 
 Long after she might have gained that " transpar 
 ent worthiness " she had learned to covet, she 
 would still have held herself in the old scorn. Her 
 aunt Amelia had done her this terrible injustice 
 of " mortifying her ; " of " touching her pride " in 
 that deadly way which destroys a pure self-confi 
 dence. 
 
 Putnam Kinjj came back from his wood walk 
 
 O 
 
 with certain things in him grown clearer and more 
 purposeful. lie was the richer for his purposes. 
 Plis faith in life was warm and strong, grasping 
 the substance of things hoped for. 
 
 In such mood he lingered before entering the 
 house. He turned his steps around its westward 
 side, and paused when he came to an old-fashioned 
 settee-rocker that stood in a blank space against 
 the clapboards. It could not rock : it was bedded 
 in green turf and pushed close up to the building. 
 Within was Miss Sarah s sitting-room. If he passed 
 the door that opened just beyond upon the grass- 
 plot, he would be seen and hailed. Pie stopped 
 here and sat down. Presently he would go back 
 and enter the other way. He thought he would 
 have a talk with aunt Elizabeth to-night. 
 
 But aunt Elizabeth was not in yet, and he felt 
 deliriously lazy. Warm shade and softened glow 
 were all about him. Miss Crooke had set her
 
 126 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 " yard door," as she called it, open, and he could 
 hear the short creak of her rockers as she sat near 
 it and vibrated herself gently to and fro. The 
 world was in sweet humor, and he was in sweet 
 humor with the world; except with that piece or 
 aspect of it which had sent Rill Raye among Swe- 
 denborg s hells to locate her own planet. 
 
 If that strange insight of hers touched any truth, 
 there was at least this comfort in it. The " great 
 gulf fixed," was not impassable to all angel feet. 
 World interpenetrated world or might do so. 
 
 He began to see the beauty of his aunt Eliz 
 abeth s coming here. Surely she had already 
 brought some lights and airs of paradise. The 
 murk had cleared away from the round of her own 
 atmosphere ; she was making a horizon of her 
 own. Crooke Corner was becoming a little Ararat, 
 whence the evil floods were subsiding, and a sweet 
 greenness was lifting up. Sarah Crooke was learn 
 ing to look with her beautiful eye. He thought 
 that, perhaps, he would go in and see Miss Sarah, 
 presently, for a moment, before he went upstairs. 
 
 But while he sat there, a change came upon 
 Ararat. A cloud dropped over it. A surf of the 
 old, turbid deep swept in. 
 
 Miss Sarah s rockers hitched about with a heavy 
 shove. The quiet was broken by sharp, high tones 
 of voices that had only learned to speak from the
 
 FOLKS AND " CREETUKS." 127 
 
 tops of lungs or of souls ; upon Putnam King s 
 ear there jarred the thin surface cackle that he had 
 perceived to belong generically to the sort of hu 
 man creatures who seem in the great round of evo 
 lution to have latest and most imperfectly achieved 
 humanity. They enter its ranks from various lower 
 stages of approach, more or less harmful or in 
 nocent of nature ; these two whom he heard now 
 were of cruel, predatory life, by heredity and se 
 lection. 
 
 Mrs. Porbeagle and Mrs. Sharke were second- 
 cousins, in the first place. Then they were double 
 sisters-in-law, each having married the other s 
 brother. Character tendencies were strongly de 
 veloped by birth and environment. For a Sharke 
 to become a Porbeagle, and a Porbeagle a Sharke, 
 was to intensify strain in a way only adequately 
 illustrated by a doubling of force, in a high poten 
 tial electric current. 
 
 What they -did not take hold of, throw light 
 upon, decompose, scorch, shock and slay in We- 
 wachet, was simply beyond their circuit, or any 
 malignant crossing of their wires. 
 
 I am not going to accuse Mr. King by excus 
 ing him. He heard plainly enough the talk that 
 followed, and he did not rise up and go away. 
 If the women had discussed their own affairs, ho 
 would have done so at once and gladly ; or if they
 
 128 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 had not begun forthwith to deal out upon the air 
 with the freedom which premised that the air was 
 welcome to it, and might do what it would with it, 
 the report-current of Wewachet, he might have 
 felt more scruple ; as it w r as, he lingered. 
 
 I am not going to set you listening to it all with 
 him, my reader. I have changed my mind about 
 that, though I could make you hear every word 
 that was said. It is enough to have one to excuse, 
 and the Sharke and Porbeagle atmosphere is not 
 pleasant to tarry in. I would have nothing to say 
 about it at all, but that we need to know and be 
 reminded to what stratum, and to what develop 
 ment of pestiferous life, the germs fall finally that 
 are blown often through cleaner places by thought 
 less breaths that know not what they circulate. 
 Everything that fell into the Porbeagle apprehen 
 sion straightway took coarsest, or most venomous 
 form, and raised its head, presently, to poison, 
 hiss and sting. 
 
 So what Mr. King heard them say and re 
 hearse here to-day, was result and deduction from 
 any slightest little remote floats of talk, that so 
 much as touched a failing or hinted a possibility 
 of error or mistake. These had materialized to 
 statement, taken positive shape in malice. From 
 poor little Mrs. Rospey s domestic tempers that 
 had become standard chronicle, and had now
 
 FOLKS AND " CREETURS." 129 
 
 passed into current report of her present slavery 
 to a mightier, if quieter, dominance in Lmcretia 
 Dawse, who, " whatever had ailed the woman in 
 her old tantrums, had got the upper hand of 
 her now;" with the dark charity of a hint that 
 they " did nt believe the ailing was anything 
 she used to keep in the cupboard," to Mrs. 
 Sholto and her stepson, the latter lately returned 
 from Europe, and the wonderful harmony between 
 the two, " quite devoted ; almost seems as if it 
 might have turned out full as suitable if she d 
 waited awhile before taking the colonel," and 
 then on, to Connie Norris and her "chasing" of 
 Dr. Harriman, the miserable, irresponsible quot 
 ing of " they says " and implications of " they 
 might says," continued. It was broken once, to 
 Putnam King s exulting delight, by an interjection 
 from Miss Sarah. 
 
 " They say ! " she repeated with exceeding 
 scorn. " Then why don t you stop saying, Harriet 
 Porbeagle ? What do you go trundling it round 
 for?" 
 
 An amazed silence followed : then it rippled 
 into speech again, begun more mildly, but soon 
 lapsing, by unconquerable tendency, into similar, 
 slightly diverted channels. And it was now that 
 it came close to Putnam King, perhaps while it 
 was meant, covertly, as a little revenge upon Miss 
 Sarah Crooke.
 
 130 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 " Rill Raye has n t turned still and stiff for 
 nothing ; she knows what she s about. She s 
 cunninger than Con Norris. It s a ring-around-a- 
 rosy, this chasing or being chased ; only depends 
 on the distance you pretend to keep, for the look 
 of the thing. Rill Raye knows how to lag back, 
 and chase too. It s a circus, anyway." 
 
 Here Miss Crooke made her little mistake. It 
 was an overdoing of her championship, whence 
 came afterward a shadow of mischief. " I don t 
 know what you mean about Rill Raye," she said, 
 " but I can tell you this : if she wanted any 
 body she d only need to take em. I know one 
 or two that I guess stands pretty near ready." 
 
 Some impatient, contemptuous sound escaped 
 Putnam King s lips ; he started up, and his heel 
 struck the ground with a stamp, grazing a soft, 
 comfortable fuzzy coil that lay hidden beneath the 
 rocker. The great gray cat sprang out with forci 
 ble syllabic remonstrance, and rushed past the open 
 door, his back arched and his tail big. 
 
 "What s that?" Mrs. Porbeagle exclaimed, 
 within. 
 
 "It s George Washington," Miss Crooke an 
 swered. " There s something round he don t like ; 
 I don t know whether it s folks or creeturs. He s 
 a very sincere cat ; he always speaks himself right 
 out."
 
 FOLKS AND " CREETURS." 131 
 
 With George Washington to cover his retreat, 
 Mr. King withdrew in good order ; but it was a pity 
 he could not have heard Miss Sarah s explanation. 
 
 The talk that he thought he would have with his 
 aunt that night resolved itself into two or three 
 brief sentences at bedtime. They had played chess 
 together, he had read aloud to her an article from 
 Scribner s ; they had spoken of half a dozen differ 
 ent things, but not till he stood up to say good 
 night did the words come that showed some flash 
 
 o 
 
 of what had been burning unspoken in him all 
 the while. 
 
 " Aunt Elizabeth, I think this world is getting 
 to be to have places in it that it is n t fit a 
 real, sweet, delicate woman should be born into. 
 They talk of climate changing ; it s more than 
 that. I believe it is what Miss Raye called it this 
 afternoon." 
 
 "What did she call it?" Miss Haven asked, 
 passing by all surprise, or inquiry of the afternoon. 
 
 " She said it was just after the description of one 
 of Swedenborg s hells." 
 
 Aunt Elizabeth was silent. She was not curious 
 for disquisition ; what she was curious for she 
 thought it quite as prudent not to ask about. 
 
 " Aunt Elizabeth, Rill Raye needs to be taken 
 care of. She needs to belong to somebody who can 
 change her world for her."
 
 132 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 " I suppose she does so belong," said Miss Ha 
 ven to that, gravely. " But we human beings need 
 to be very careful what we assume or undertake as 
 regards each other s worlds." 
 
 " Suppose a human being finds his own world 
 getting involved ? " 
 
 " Then I think the human being should be all 
 the more careful, and wait until he is pretty sure 
 of everything." 
 
 " Ah, you forget the human, though we have 
 been saying it all the time," returned Putnam, 
 laughing. But he did not say any more that night 
 of all he had thought he had to say. 
 
 Perhaps he had said enough ; and perhaps Miss 
 Elizabeth had given him the wisest and kindliest 
 answer possible. At any rate, he feared to pro 
 voke by persistence or haste a less tolerant one. 
 
 In those same evening hours, the Porbeagles 
 and the Sharkes had got together at the Hammer 
 heads (^. v., Encyc. Brit.) for a game of whist and 
 a lobster salad. In the symposium over these, it 
 was asserted, as an authentic piece of information, 
 that Rill Raye had her choice of two offers, from 
 Dr. Harriman and from young lawyer King. 
 
 " Then Dr. Harriman is a shameful jilt ! " cried 
 young Mrs. Sphyrna Hammerhead, tempestuously. 
 " And I wish somebody would just tell him so ! " 
 
 "I should n t crave the job," said her husband,
 
 FOLKS AND " CREETURS." 133 
 
 dropping his heavy under jaw with a cold, hard 
 laugh. 
 
 But the word was spoken and went on its way. 
 Of course it drifted down to the Point, eddied back 
 to Crooke Corner, and even swept around the 
 North Road, where Miss Bonable heard it. And 
 the view she took of it was not comfortable for 
 Rill Raye.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 SHEPAUG. 
 
 THE time had arrived for the picnic to Shepatig. 
 All Wewachet was full of it. The odor of prepa 
 ration was in everybody s oven or boiler. The 
 odor of anticipation was in thoughts and talk. 
 The pulse of pleasure, hope, anxiety, was in heart 
 and vein with several. It was to be a point of his 
 tory with some. Therefore we must go to Shepaug, 
 reader, whether you like picnics or not. 
 
 Dr. Harriman was going. It would be very un 
 popular to stay away. Besides which, it would not 
 mend his present matters, and he felt they were in 
 some need of mending. Something might even be 
 advanced, judiciously, toward a future, fine, " far-off 
 event" which he had begun to perceive he might 
 desire ; which he meant, gradually, to place himself 
 in a fair position to desire, and to realize, when the 
 time should come ; though he still said to himself, 
 with a steadfastness not altogether unworthy, that 
 the time might not be yet. He thought he could 
 gently smooth the way for it ; set his face, even, in
 
 SHEPA UG. 135 
 
 that direction, so that he might be first upon the 
 road. He did not suppose that any other, younger 
 man, with no actual start in the world, would be 
 in greater obvious hurry than himself. 
 
 He knew what people were saying ; he knew the 
 complications into which he had fallen ; these med 
 dling interferences would make it yet more difficult 
 for him to place things exactly as he wished they 
 should stand. For that very reason, he must take 
 some initial measures at once. He wished, at any 
 rate, to be a gentleman, to put himself into the at 
 titude of one. There should be no more flirting 
 with Connie Norris ; there could be nothing deci 
 sive elsewhere ; but he would like to explain him 
 self a little to Rill Raye. That was as far as he 
 had got in his determinations. We shall see how 
 he succeeded in carrying them out. 
 
 Connie Norris was going, as we know. Nothing 
 short of broken bones, or a serious illness, would 
 detain her. She regarded it as a crisis. It would 
 be such opportunity as must bring out whatever 
 valued opportunity, or show plainly that the value 
 was not there. She was tired of railway trains, 
 and the necessity for purpose too resolved and con 
 spicuous in its demonstration to be expected before 
 fixed rows of eyes. The free solution of a merry 
 company in the wide spaces of Shepaug would be 
 better, and would offer surer test. If nothing crys-
 
 136 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 tallized there, the fault would be in elementary 
 attraction. 
 
 Connie Norris made up her prettiest toilet, took 
 care of herself to be in her prettiest looks, and put 
 her fortune " to the touch, to win or lose it all." 
 She did not " fear her fate too much," for, in the 
 worst result, there would be George Craigan, the 
 fine old place, and " the business" of which he was 
 never tired of talking, now that he was in it and, 
 as he thought, " magna pars" It was a rather 
 nice lodgment of jackstraws to handle, undeniably. 
 Connie was fluttered a bit when she thought of it ; 
 but it was a difficulty to stimulate the delighted 
 dexterity of a thorough little flirt, which Connie 
 Norris was. If she could pick out the prize piece 
 from the pile ! And if only they would not jog- 
 gle! 
 
 She had heard the talk about Cyrilla Eaye and 
 her two offers, but it did not trouble her very 
 much. The story went too far. She knew very 
 well there had not been two offers. She did not 
 believe there would be ; Rill Raye did not know 
 how to manage matters, for all her tacks and 
 turns. She was more in love with old Miss Haven 
 than anybody else, and with making herself up 
 to old Miss Haven s standard. Connie had pene 
 tration enough to see this, from outside evidence, 
 far as she was from sympathetic understanding.
 
 SHE P AUG. 137 
 
 It only made her own little game of jackstraws 
 more exciting ; there would be the delight of puz 
 zling, and perhaps surprising, all Wewachet. She 
 was spurred, but in no whit discouraged. 
 
 Cyrilla Raye was neither satisfied nor expectant. 
 It was always herself that she quarreled with, 
 and she looked for no beautiful thing that should 
 befall her or surprise anybody. Why should any 
 such thing come which could only come by force 
 of that in her which she knew she had not ? She 
 would not care for liking that was drawn fro what 
 she was ; she did not like or approve of herself, as 
 she compared herself with the ideal growing in 
 her, and gathered from such different being. Per 
 haps before she could stand out in the light the 
 very " light of the living " in which the regard 
 she might imagine as worth while could corne to 
 her and claim her, she would have to live out all 
 her disciplinary years in such companionship as 
 might happen. She might have to content herself 
 with the less, knowing that all it could be to her 
 would be but a shadow of the greater. Was this 
 what her piece of the world was meted to her for, 
 just now and here? Was this why she was Rill 
 Raye? 
 
 She was displeased with herself for the truest 
 things she had done, because of her way of doing 
 them. Why had she been so rough and blunt with
 
 138 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 Dr. Harriman ? Why should she have taken upon 
 herself, in such outright fashion, to rebuke or set 
 him rio-ht, when there was so much to set rip ht in 
 
 o o 
 
 her own self ? It was her own self she had thought 
 of when she had said the hardest thing was self- 
 blame ; but it had not seemed or sounded so, she 
 knew. Why could she do nothing except with an 
 outbreak and extravagance ? 
 
 What had she snubbed Putnam King for, be 
 cause she did not choose to stay there talking with 
 him alone, as Connie Norris might have done ? 
 Connie Norris would at least have been sunny and 
 merry and pleasant. Why must Rill Raye, in 
 trying to reject a silliness of character, reject with 
 it all that was sweet and gracious ; casting off one 
 sort of person that she had resolved she would not 
 be, without taking- on the likeness or reality of a 
 higher sort ? Why could she not say and do 
 things as Margaret Rextell, or any girl that 
 might be invited into that pond lily room would 
 do them ? 
 
 " Why do I always take the bull by the horns, 
 with aunt Amelia, and all? " she demanded of her 
 self. "Why could n t I have been civil for a 
 minute or two with Mr. King 1 , and then walked 
 off, all the same? It was just as if I thought 
 he needed to be I wonder what he thought 
 about it ! And I don t care ! " She grew inco-
 
 SHEPA UG. 139 
 
 herent and angry, and foolishly mendacious with 
 herself. 
 
 She told herself also that slie did not care for 
 these last rumors that had got afloat, and which 
 had caused aunt Amelia to feel in duty bound to 
 " mortify " her afresh. 
 
 " A girl does n t get talked of that way, unless 
 she talks or acts herself," was what Miss Bon- 
 able had said ; and although it did not hurt Rill 
 as accusation from her aunt, it did thrust deep 
 with a misgiving of what Mr. King might think 
 if the word had reached him. But she " did not 
 care." No, she would not care for anything. 
 What was the use? A girl s life was hard, that 
 was all. And this world was well, it was not 
 heaven, certainly. 
 
 It was in this mood that she went to Shepaug. 
 
 Miss Haven was away at Newport ; and PuAam 
 King was off also. If there had been anybody 
 whom he really cared to talk to in libraries, by 
 chance Hill liaye thought he would have cared 
 to come, and find the person here, in these places 
 where to walk and talk would be so beautiful. But 
 he had gone off to Newport, or somewhere else ; 
 he disliked picnics ; and he did not care at all. He 
 was very likely offended with her, to begin with ; 
 he was not such a one as would need, or take, 
 twice snubbing. She had done her duty bravely,
 
 140 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 but she had clone it with a rudeness. Clearly, she 
 was not in the same range with what she most 
 appreciated and desired. She was just nowhere. 
 And so she had shown herself to be, and Mr. King 
 had seen it. On the top of all, had come this im 
 pertinent buzz about him. No wonder he had 
 gone to Newport, or the Adirondacks, or wherever 
 it was. 
 
 Well it made no difference. Things would 
 not have been otherwise, anyway. All she could 
 do was to keep on with what she had, and be 
 what she was able. Perhaps by the time she was 
 forty or fifty years old, she might have made her 
 own individual place, and become some sort of in 
 dividual creature that she would not be ashamed 
 of. It was not in Rill Raye to sit down and de 
 spair. She would not have done it if she had been 
 assi%ed that her theories upon the Swedenborgian 
 system were true. There were birds and sunshine, 
 clear air and running water in the world, evil place 
 though- it had got to be through human importa 
 tion. And there were human spots of excellent 
 sweetness in it yet, she knew. She might come to 
 some of them by and by, that would own her and 
 take her in. She had Miss Haven now. She was 
 sure of Miss Haven through all report ; and she 
 would not misuse her favor. But she would go to 
 see her in the mornings, she thought, for a time.
 
 SHEPAUG. 141 
 
 There were green woods and birds and sunshine 
 and bright waters at Shepaug. Very well ; then 
 Shepaug had something for her, even if all We- 
 wachet were there too. She would simply go to 
 Shepaug, for Shepaug itself, and let the pickers 
 and the nickers take care of themselves. 
 
 Putnam King stayed away from Wewachet. He 
 did not care, for his own part, for the word that 
 was running round there. But he would not sub 
 ject Rill Raye to any more observation or annoy 
 ance. He would not let her think he had had any 
 chance to hear. He would turn the tide of gossip 
 if he could. By and by he could come again. In 
 his own way, and at the right time, he could speak 
 his own word. 
 
 He accompanied his aunt to Newport, and then 
 went to join some friends for a week or two in the 
 Adirondacks. It would be his last lengthened 
 holiday for a good while. In November he was 
 to enter a law office, where the chief was among 
 the foremost in his profession, and where a young 
 man might look for advancement in his work as 
 fast as he could take it. There was business over 
 flowing into other hands, continually ; Mr. Arbi- 
 con would not have more than two regularly in 
 stalled under him at a time ; but those two, he 
 said, must be of the sort to come up alongside. 
 
 The bit of Shepaug which makes the pleasure
 
 142 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 ground to which our friends repaired, is as pretty 
 a spot and as unlike anything but itself as can be 
 found among New England hills and streams. 
 Shepaug river makes a wonderful loop around a 
 pile of ledge and its marginal wooded slope and 
 level : tracing through the meadows a sign like 
 that of the Greek Omega, or the " eye " which 
 is made for a hook to catch. It leaves almost 
 islanded enough so for it to be called Shepaug 
 Island the beautiful great green heap which 
 rears up from its watersides. The river loop is 
 flung toward Wewachet ; it doubles and redoubles 
 itself opposite, at north and south of a narrow isth 
 mus, which is little more than a broad roadway, 
 shrubbery -fringed, at once entrance and exit of the 
 drive which follows round the water line. 
 
 There are two ways of reaching Shepaug Island 
 from Wewachet : by carriage, around over one of 
 the two bridges at the North and South Mills, or 
 directly across by boat to a pretty landing on the 
 fair, outcurving hither bank. The river is wide 
 and deep here, spreading up over the Wewachet 
 meadows ; the current widens and slackens, and is 
 safe to stem. Many of the picnickers chose the 
 boating access ; but three great " barges " those 
 curiously misnamed vehicles which sail overland 
 by horse power conveyed a goodly number of 
 merry folk; and all sorts of private conveyances,
 
 SHEPAUG. 143 
 
 from landaus and victorias to modest buggies and 
 small wagonettes, complemented the further re 
 quirements, and made gay the Old West Road and 
 tlu-i Otterbury Turnpike. 
 
 For ourselves, we need take neither way ; we 
 simply wish to be there ; and with a thought- 
 spring, we may alight among the rapidly assem 
 bling groups that are finding their relations and 
 taking form and place here and there about the 
 landing - head, or deeper in the pleasant wood 
 glades ; or up, with adventurous feet, along the 
 sides and crest of the beetling ridge, upon its 
 mossy rocks and among sweet-smelling cedars. 
 
 A young party had quickly established itself 
 upon a well known jut, commanding and overlook 
 ing the lovely river bends, and uplifted into the 
 soft, sunny air so high that it seemed doubly 
 islanded, by the fair waterflow far down, and 
 by the buoyant ocean of the atmosphere. Here 
 Dr. Harriman presently found Rill Raye, Connie 
 Norris, Sue Wilder, with half a dozen other girls, 
 and an escort of young men, among whom, closely 
 attendant upon Connie Norris, was Mr. George 
 Craigan, quite faultlessly attired in summer suit 
 of gray, with a sprig of dull-green savin and its 
 bloomy clusters of gray berries in his buttonhole. 
 
 Connie Norris had given it to him, as " just 
 matching ; " and then had set him off, with pur 
 posed mischief, upon his " hobby-stilts."
 
 144 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 " I don t see how you could get away so early," 
 she had said. " What will become of things in 
 Berkshire street without you ? " 
 
 " Oh, we have got nearly settled there ; and it s 
 a grand move, I can tell you, Miss Connie. We 
 ought to have had that branch long ago. And 
 there arc other things we re thinking of not 
 quite matured as yet ; but they 11 lead to a good 
 deal by and by. We re going to manage our for 
 eign purchasing differently ; I may be abroad next 
 year," he added, lowering his voice to Connie s pri 
 vate ear, as a proper business reticence required. 
 
 " Ah, indeed ? " the girl returned carelessly. 
 " In that case, whom do you leave in your place 
 here ? I hope you find your father of consider 
 able use to you in your business, Mr. George ? " 
 She raised her tone with the question ; it was too 
 good a hit not to have an audience. 
 
 Dr. Harriman came up in time to hear it. He 
 turned a little, and lingered, postponing his greet 
 ing, while the half-restrained laugh followed which 
 recognized the shrewdness of the sarcasm. 
 
 George Craigan was less obtuse in his conceit 
 than he might have seemed. There was something 
 of an honest dignity, as well as of provoked per 
 ception, in his reply. 
 
 " My father is the business," he answered her. 
 "I am trying to be of use as fast as I can." And
 
 SHEPAUG. 145 
 
 with that, he also turned away a little. Connie 
 Norris was, for the moment, left at disadvantage. 
 But she recovered herself, with her invariable 
 light agility. 
 
 " Now that was very well put, George," she said, 
 making an easy little step and turn that brought 
 her facing him again. " I like it of you. You 
 must not mind my fun." 
 
 The calling him by his name, which she did now 
 and then with a reversion as of old habit to the 
 familiarity of their childhood, appeased him ; and 
 Connie could certainly put a witchery of coaxing 
 into her voice. But it was not altogether enough. 
 " I wish you were ever a little in earnest," he said ; 
 and then he really did turn off, speaking to Edith 
 Pinceley, and Connie could not persist. 
 
 " That was rather too bad," said Dr. Harriman 
 to Rill Raye. " The young man deserves better 
 of her." 
 
 " Perhaps he deserves better " and then Rill 
 stopped. 
 
 " Than to have anything of her ? " and Dr. Har 
 riman laughed gently. 
 
 I do not think we have any right to say," 
 returned Cyrilla. gravely, leaving Dr. Harriman 
 to Connie herself, who approached him gayly, 
 claiming him for some game they were about to 
 play.
 
 146 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 " What game is it you propose, Miss Connie ? " 
 asked the doctor. 
 
 " Candor," replied Connie, gleefully. " We re 
 to make everybody tell the truth about something, 
 once. Come ! " 
 
 Cyrilla found herself a place a little way off, not 
 quite separating herself from the others, but secur 
 ing a slight isolation under the small shadow of a 
 green cedar, into an angle of whose dividing stem 
 she leaned comfortably. The air and light were 
 very sweet about her. There was wide room, 
 above, around, away from the little noisy human 
 group which could take up but such trifling space 
 and time here, where all had been so broad and 
 still and leisurely before it came, and would be 
 again after it had gone. There w r as rest and rec 
 ompense in the perception ; she thought after all 
 it was the secret thing that made the charm even 
 to heedless people, bringing their pleasure out 
 from their house walls into this great, rich, open 
 world. 
 
 " See here ! " called Connie Norris s voice with 
 gay intrusion ; " you shall have a fair alternative. 
 You may guess a conundrum, or give a definition, 
 instead. Question and word for the whole party at 
 once. Ten minutes allowed for reflection. Here 
 are paper and pencils. Each one is to hand in a 
 written answer or be put upon the stand !
 
 SHE P AUG. 147 
 
 Listen ! Oh, first, if any duplicate answers are 
 given, unless they are the right ones, each 
 person will have to pay the forfeit." 
 
 " Then wrong guesses will be permitted to 
 count ? " 
 
 " Yes ; if they are real guesses ; if they have 
 any point." 
 
 " Who shall decide the point?" asked Dr. Har- 
 riman. 
 
 " Where there is any doubt, we will put it to the 
 vote." 
 
 " And we may define or divine whichever 
 we please ? " 
 
 " Yes ; but definitions are to be in verse." 
 
 " O h ! " 
 
 " Xow ! What was the first thing, that we know 
 of, in the history of the world ? that s the co 
 nundrum ; and, What is a dude ? that s the 
 creature to be defined." 
 
 "The first thing? the first that was made, or 
 that happened, or was done ? " 
 
 " Either, all three ; that s your business." 
 
 " I wonder what her own is in this inven 
 tion," said Dr. Harriman to Rill Raye, beside 
 whom he came and placed himself. " She will 
 forget the conditions, in laying them down for us, 
 and will fall under forfeit." 
 
 Rill thought it might be that was the purpose
 
 148 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 Dr. Harriman queried aboiit ; but she did not say 
 so. She wrote three small words upon her bit of 
 paper, folded it up, and let her thoughts wander 
 again, quite away from the game and the company 
 and Dr. Harriman, into questions of things harder 
 and wider to conjecture and define than those 
 Connie had propounded. 
 
 On his part, Dr. Harriman wrote three words 
 also ; and then, glancing at Rill, and perceiving 
 her abstraction, busied himself with another bit of 
 paper and his pencil, somewhat to his own private 
 amusement, it would appear, from the very slight 
 play of eye and lip, which nobody, however, no 
 ticed. 
 
 " Time up ! " called George Craigan, whom Con 
 nie had graciously installed as her aid-de-camp. 
 
 The scraps of paper were collected, and George 
 and Connie read them. 
 
 Rill recalled herself, and listened. All sorts of 
 small epigrams were perpetrated, some of them 
 feeble enough, of course. 
 
 "A garden party." "A delusion." "A legal ar 
 gument." " An informal lunch." " A philosophi 
 cal experiment." " An apple slump." " A mis- 
 take" " A confidence game." " A caucus." " A 
 sewing circle." " A family move." " A woman s 
 rights convention." " The Dude himself." 
 
 " Half of those won t do," remarked the doctor,
 
 SHEPA UG. 149 
 
 in another aside to Rill. " They presuppose some 
 thing else." 
 
 " They won t find that out," said Rill. " And if 
 they did, there s always something back of every 
 thing. Where would be the end ? " 
 
 "Or the beginning?" said the doctor. 
 
 " Is there any difference ? Which was presup 
 posed?" 
 
 " Ah, you go very deep, Miss Raye ! " 
 
 " I don t imagine this conundrum does. It is 
 probably something very literal. There is the 
 catch." 
 
 Rill was right. No answer was challenged ; 
 people were satisfied to be amused even slightly. 
 
 " There are two answers identical," announced 
 Miss Norris ; " Dr. Harritnan s and Rill Raye s : 
 The First Day. They must pay the forfeit. 
 And yet, they are nearest right of any. Why 
 could n t you all see ? It was simply a revolution. 
 What else could have happened first ? " 
 
 " Where is your answer, Miss Connie ? " de 
 manded the doctor. 
 
 " Oh, I knew, you see." 
 
 " Then you must do as Eve did, pay the 
 penalty of your knowledge. But perhaps you have 
 defined?" 
 
 " No, I forgot. But I will." 
 
 "Too late. Time sup."
 
 150 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 There was an acclaiming laugh, and Connie 
 accepted the position. " Very well ? " she said, 
 interrogatively, and awaited Dr. Harriman s ques 
 tion. 
 
 But Dr. Harriman turned to George Craigan. 
 " Mr. Craigan has the best right," he said. " He 
 leads the game after yourself, Miss Connie. 
 Mr. Craigan, what have you to ask Miss Nor- 
 ris?" 
 
 A smile ran round, and George Craigan blushed. 
 Connie Norris looked a trifle provoked, and Dr. 
 Harriman profoundly innocent. 
 
 " Miss Connie, what would you really like 
 best of all things? " put the catechist, with a mild 
 diffidence. 
 
 " To be wildly adored ! " answered Connie in 
 stantly. 
 
 The comical breadth with which she emphasized 
 her frank audacity brought down upon her a peal 
 of merriment, touched with applause. 
 
 " Rill Raye, what would you like best really 
 of all things ? " Connie passed the question 
 quickly on. 
 
 " I think, to be really understood," said Cyrilla, 
 gravely. 
 
 " Only another form of the same statement, pos 
 sibly," commented Dr. Harriman, sotto voce, as 
 quite involuntarily.
 
 SHEPAUG. 151 
 
 Cyrilla heard. 
 
 " Dr. Harriman, what would you like best ? " 
 continued Connie, eagerly. 
 
 "To understand and to adore," the doctor 
 answered, with most shrewd division, or combina 
 tion, as it might be taken. 
 
 The Reverend Mr. Pinceley, who had rather 
 blinked at the gay allusions to Mosaic records, 
 took it au grand serieux. 
 
 " A fine reply, Dr. Harriman," he said. "You 
 have redeemed the play." 
 
 " I do not think I meant to in your sense, 
 Mr. Pinceley," said Dr. Harriman. " I merely put 
 objectively the young ladies subjective declara 
 tions." 
 
 " No answer at all, of your own, then ! " cried 
 Connie Norris triumphantly. " Your forfeit is not 
 paid ! What " - 
 
 But the doctor was too quick for her. 
 
 " I do not think I am really at all liable," he 
 said. " I had a definition ready." 
 
 And Connie, recognizing that his first submission 
 had been quite gratuitous, and to please himself, 
 was obliged to receive his second folded paper 
 which he offered her. The flicker of disappoint 
 ment on her face, however, gave way to an irre 
 sistible smile, as she glanced over it and gayly read 
 aloud, " What is a Dude ?
 
 152 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 " If I give you an answer pat and good 
 
 Shall I win the conundrum cup ? 
 He s a fellow who s done all there is to be do-ed, 
 And is all do-ed up ! 
 
 In the shout which greeted this elucidation, the 
 doctor got up and walked off, with a leisurely in 
 difference. 
 
 Cyrilla slipped away, also, to a yet further dis 
 tance, beyond her clump of cedars, escaping the 
 merry clamor that followed, with confused proposi 
 tions for fresh diversions, and the new game that 
 was presently insisted on and decided. 
 
 She went and seated herself at the edge of the 
 green bluff, with her feet upon a shelf of rock 
 below the brink. There was something here, better 
 than the nonsense game. 
 
 She looked off upon the calmly speeding river, 
 its grand, blue curve thrown out around the bold 
 promontory with beautiful embrace, the meadow 
 and pasture lands, the houses of the various vil 
 lage neighborhoods, dotting with their many tints 
 the open spaces, or showing with gleam of white 
 and red and olive and russet, or sunshiny yellows, 
 the warm blossoming of homes among the verdure; 
 the tender sky overarching all, and seeming, as one 
 looked down and up from this mid-perch, to lift 
 more magnificently and give larger room between 
 earth and heaven ; the air, all luminous with soft
 
 SHEPAUG. 153 
 
 hazes, reflections of sweet tints from hill to hill 
 along the horizon, and the already coming glory 
 which was gathering in the westward-rolling tide 
 of sunlight. 
 
 Cyrilla thought of rooms in the Father s house, 
 made for different, happy needs and natures, 
 meant, each one, to meet and fulfill some answer 
 ing beauty and truth of life that should be fit to 
 dwell there ; some soul of rose or lily, strength 
 of oak, or healing health of pine, or generousness 
 of maple, or even sweetness of lowly, faithful 
 grasses ; all typical, all full of a commandment and 
 rebuke, as the pond lily room and the wild rose 
 chamber in that gentle woman s house had been 
 to her. 
 
 Yet up into God s air comes the smoke of strife 
 and sin ; in many a forest runs the savage beast ; 
 through tender grasses slips the serpent ! What 
 did it all mean ? What hateful power worked in 
 the world against the diviner life, perverting it to 
 evil and mischance and pain and death ? What 
 contrariety worked in her own life that it was 
 not a pure peace, an innocent joy, a rich satisfy 
 ing in the midst of all these shows and signs of 
 heaven ? 
 
 She did not know how long the time was ; she 
 was shielded from the players, who had missed and 
 called her for a moment, and then with shouts and
 
 154 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 laughter went on with their game. She was roused 
 up when it was over by a final peal of merriment 
 and a movement of the party, restless for some yet 
 new plan. 
 
 They strolled off, away from the cliff, and down 
 by a path upon the other side to the pine woods 
 where the " sweet spring" and the late violets were. 
 
 Rill did not seem to care for either in so much 
 company. She went back to the little beach and 
 the boat landing, and busied herself with her aunt 
 Amelia and the older people. Mr. Piiiceley came 
 and talked to her ; she submitted with a more do 
 cile gravity than usual, so that the good man, be 
 lieving in sudden heavenly changes, and watching 
 solicitously for them among his flock, began to have 
 gentle, kindly hope of Rill. 
 
 She missed Miss Haven. The picnic was dull ; 
 she would like best, if she could, to get away. I 
 am afraid she did not even hear all that Mr. Pince- 
 ley was saying. It may be, however, that some 
 teaching, as true and deep, was moving upon her 
 own thoughts silently, and even informed stray 
 words of the minister s, heard passively, with 
 more than he put into them. We listen to ser 
 mons so. 
 
 Later in the afternoon, when she had helped 
 Miss Bonable and Mrs. Rospey at the tables, she 
 escaped again ; she turned off from the pretty open
 
 SHEPA UG. 155 
 
 glade where the repast was set, and followed the 
 farmers cart-track down among the woods. She 
 had found her opportunity for a little solitude. 
 
 The social drift had set toward the river shore ; 
 all along the pebbly margin, below the fringes of 
 wild shrubbery, went feet and voices. Some were 
 skipping stones ; some were taking to the boats to 
 row up and down awhile ; some sat idly in the low 
 sunshine, talking, joking, anything. 
 
 Cyrilla wondered what it all amounted to. She 
 had not used to wonder in such wise. She won 
 dered at herself, most of all, what had come over 
 her. It was as if all of a sudden she had the ques 
 tions of her life to settle : why she was Cyrilla 
 Raye ; what, being Cyrilla Raye, she was to do 
 with this personality she had charge of, and which 
 it seemed so queer at once to manage and to be. 
 There was something behind everything, as she had 
 said before. What she really wanted was to under 
 stand herself. 
 
 The cart-track sloped down from a ridge spur 
 over its crisp, moss-cushioned side, where the 
 straight, thick savins lifted up their spicy bosks 
 and made little nooks between their groups, to 
 what seemed a plunge into deep, interminable 
 woods; so tall and splendid grew the columnar 
 pines, stretching their tasseled canopies overhead 
 with interlacing arms, so that the blue patches of
 
 156 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 sky gleamed through like shining inlay of turquoise 
 or lapis lazuli; and the sunlight, coming now in 
 oblique shafts from the west, struck in between 
 branch and bole and leafage with wonderful illumi 
 nation, as through the windowed arches of a great 
 cathedral side. 
 
 Close under foot, just where Rill entered the for 
 est-pile, grew in the damp hollow a broad bed of 
 low, matted, shining vines, the straight little stems 
 upholding each its cluster of glittering leaves of 
 darkest green, with finely serrated edges : the wild 
 strawberry plant that made a polished, tesselated 
 floor to this porchway of the woods. Rill gathered 
 a bunch and fastened it in the front of her gown ; 
 it lay against the soft, dull blue as the richness of 
 oak leaves shows against the tenderness of the sky. 
 She had put on a bit of the uniform of nature ; 
 somehow, it made her feel more harmonized with it 
 all. I think this innocent, natural sacrament is 
 partly what leaves and flowers are made for. 
 " These thy gifts and creatures," are all tokens 
 and signs ; the Holy Communion is in every created 
 thing. Therefore, woe to them who receive the 
 same unworthily ; who only adorn and surround 
 themselves, and so play with the husks that they 
 never find the bread ! 
 
 Rill did not go far into the wood. She knew it 
 would not reach very much farther for her, in this
 
 SHEPAUG. 157 
 
 sweet illusion of depth. She knew it would come 
 out presently in sight of the two farmhouses that 
 were upon the island. She sat down upon a hum 
 mock at the foot of a great oak which grew gra 
 ciously among the pines, and watched the tiny mo 
 tions of the growing things low down about her, 
 over which blew the soft breath of the hardly sen 
 sible air. They felt it, the merest tremble of it, 
 and bent and quivered their little blades and bells ; 
 or, perhaps, they thrilled to the touch and stir of 
 things yet tinier than themselves ; of insect life 
 that ranged in the miniature forest of their stems. 
 Anyway, as Galileo said of the planet, they moved. 
 They were alive ; and something else was all alive 
 about them. A little trickle from a hidden spring 
 ran its flashing thread in and out between. It 
 was not a brook, nor a rivulet, nor even a run ; it 
 was only a creep of a few drops at a time, on their 
 slender way to find some larger water which they 
 would find, Rill thought to herself. " I am glad 
 it is a live world, at least ! " she said, aloud. All 
 at once that question came back to her, with a 
 sweet, curious suggestion in the syllables of her 
 own name. 
 
 " Why am I Rill Raye ? " 
 
 A little trickle seeking its own larger life ; a 
 little pencil of light sent from a Heart of Light, to 
 find to do to give something, somewhere !
 
 158 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 It flashed upon her suddenly. " Why, I am 
 glad they named me Rill Raye ! " she said. " If I 
 am that, I can be content to feel my way awhile ! " 
 
 It was the first little real gospel that had come 
 to her. 
 
 Suddenly, along the path somewhere further on, 
 a child s cry sounded. A broken scream, ejacula 
 tions of terror, a shrill command of expostulating 
 fear. " No ! no ! go way ! Get out ! Leave 
 me be! Don t! Be still ! Oh h!" 
 
 Rill sprang up and hastened forward. Coming 
 around a turn among the trees, she saw, just a few 
 paces ahead, a little girl, one of the farmhouse 
 children, struggling with a strong red Irish setter, 
 which, whether in play or threatening earnest, had 
 got the better of the child, and was overpowering 
 its little strength, leaping upon and pulling her 
 down. The child pushed and screamed, and would 
 hold the creature on the ground for an instant, 
 then trying suddenly to spring from him and run. 
 away, would be caught and overset again, the dog 
 tugging with short growling barks at her clothes, 
 and nosing at her feet, his body curving and vi 
 brating from side to side, and his tail flourishing in 
 high excitement. However it began, and however 
 little it really menaced, the poor little maid was 
 completely exhausted. 
 
 Rill rushed up and seized the dog by the collar
 
 SHEPAUG. 159 
 
 with both her hands. " Now run ! " she cried to 
 the child, who with her slight remnant of strength 
 hurried off as best she might toward the open field 
 beyond which lay the farm buildings ; her small 
 face, still dilated and distorted with the pale horror, 
 turned back again now and then as she ran, upon 
 Rill, wrestling in her turn with the lithe, muscular 
 brute. 
 
 And Rill had quite enough of it. There was 
 more of the growl now than the bark, in such 
 voice as the dog could make with two hands be 
 tween his throat and collar ; and his eyes looked 
 dangerous. 
 
 How long could Rill hold on ? For to let go, 
 she did not dare. Would the little girl think to 
 send her any help ? Could she drag the creature 
 out in sight of the houses or of any one who might 
 perceive and come to her ? She shouted in her 
 turn, but no one seemed to hear. She knew the 
 picnic people were quite away, upon the other side 
 of the hill, probably just now gathering around the 
 tables for their repast. 
 
 " Oh, help ! " she cried. " Help ! " and the dog 
 sprang under her hands and rolled himself over, 
 with angry jaws uppermost. She had hard ado 
 to twist with him and keep her grasp. It was a 
 battle. There was real peril. The animal was 
 thoroughly exasperated.
 
 160 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 But strong, quick steps came crashing along the 
 woodpath, snapping the fallen stems. A man s 
 voice called out, Hold fast ! I m coming ! " and 
 Dr. Harriman, running at full speed, made a long 
 spring and stood beside her. Now a second pair of 
 hands seized the collar, and Rill s were released. 
 
 " Can you go to the house or barn and fetch a 
 piece of rope, or call somebody ? " 
 
 Rill stopped for no demur or thanks, but sped 
 over the grass, the way the child had gone. 
 
 " Common sense ! " the doctor articulated, be 
 tween his shut teeth and deep breaths, admiringly. 
 "I knew it!" 
 
 He held the dog with a grip whose force the 
 creature recognized and partially submitted to : the 
 doctor, meanwhile, dragging him along on the way 
 that Rill had taken, so far as the edge of the wood- 
 piece. Here he stopped, beside a strong young 
 ash-tree. In three minutes Rill came flying back 
 again, a tying-rein in one hand, a bit of chain in 
 the other. She had snatched the first things she 
 could lay hands upon, in the nearest barn. 
 
 " Good ! " Now slip the chain under the collar, 
 between my hands so. Can you get the strap 
 through the links at the ends ? Very well ! Dare 
 you try to hold him a minute? " 
 
 For answer, Rill put her hands in the place of 
 the doctor s, as he moved first one and then the
 
 SEEP AUG. 161 
 
 other. In half a minute more, the strap was made 
 fast round the ash trunk. Then Dr. Harriman re 
 lieved Rill again, and bade her retreat. For him 
 self, he gave the dog one strong fling off, and 
 stepped easily to Rill s side. 
 
 " Come back into the shade and rest," said he.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 "MAY I TELL YOU SOMETHING?" 
 
 A RESCUE, a defense, anything like this is a most 
 useful element in the resources of fiction ; and the 
 reason is, that it is one of the most powerfully oper 
 ating circumstances in the drawing of any two hu 
 man natures and lives together, in love or friend 
 ship. To owe something of the life, to have been 
 a protection or a saving to it, this, on either part, 
 is a magnetism developed by the act and service in 
 its two quick, mutually urgent, relativities. The 
 power and bestowal ; the grateful, glad reception, 
 these are positive and negative to each other at 
 once. 
 
 It was with a new personal consciousness and 
 recognition that Dr. Harriman and Rill walked 
 back together into the beautiful seclusion of the 
 pines, and seated themselves under the grand old 
 far-spreading oak. It was a new vitalizing point 
 in their acquaintance with each other, from w r hieh 
 might spring and unfold for them a quite new 
 course of sentiment and event.
 
 "MAY I TELL YOU SOMETHING?" 163 
 
 Kill was feeling this, in an unwonted, restful 
 confidence and a happy admiration that it was sat 
 isfying to her nature to be able to render, for full 
 cause, to her companion. Without analysis or 
 question she could, just now, be glad to think so 
 honoringly of Dr. Harriman, so peacefully of her 
 self as in a sure, brave, generous care. 
 
 Dr. Harriman was considering the new position, 
 not without a pure, manly pleasure, but as vantage 
 and opportunity also, which he was not quite de 
 termined how far to use. He was finding himself 
 to be just a little too much, perhaps, in earnest. 
 He had not meant to be in earnest quite so soon. 
 
 With the two, therefore, there was this present 
 difference : the one was moved, surprised with a 
 strange experience, off her guard ; the other was 
 moved also, but coolly critical of his emotions, and 
 carefully self-possessed. 
 
 " How came you to be here ? " Rill asked, in her 
 direct fashion, as she regained breath and quiet 
 ness, and, with the impulse to say something, 
 shrank somehow from words of thanks. She did 
 not keep back tones, however ; they were in her 
 question, they thrilled it with the quick, warm ac 
 knowledgment of what it had been to her that he 
 was here. 
 
 " As you came to be, I think, Miss Rill. It was 
 still and sweet down here, and I was drawn."
 
 164 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 " I was driven," said Rill, concisely. 
 
 "Between two forces one cannot always distin 
 guish which chiefly, or most directly, moves," said 
 Dr. Harriman. " But it is a human instinct to 
 invade a peace or pleasantness. I wonder why we 
 can hardly ever make ourselves one with it. Our 
 restlessness breaks up the very calm that it wanted. 
 We cannot get into a solitude after all." 
 
 " One human being is a population anywhere," 
 assented Kill Raye. " He can t leave his world be 
 hind him. Perhaps all we can do is to get now 
 and then into a place where other people s worlds 
 won t crowd ours. And yet, it seems as if in some 
 places our own might stop crowding. I suppose 
 that is the real why of the instinct." 
 
 " We make pictures, and try to get into them," 
 said Dr. Harriman. " That is human life." 
 
 Rill said nothing. 
 
 "When I was a boy," Dr. Harriman began 
 again, " I cried uproariously one day till I half 
 distracted my mother, like Whimpy in the song, 
 because I could n t get into a picture. I will be 
 a boy in a picture ! I declared. My mother said 
 quietly, You are a boy in a picture ; and she 
 brought a looking-glass and held it up before me. 
 She did not even ask me if I liked the boy in the 
 picture. She knew where to stop, if I did n t." 
 
 " What did you do ? " asked Rill.
 
 " MAY I TELL YOU SOMETHING?" 165 
 
 " I kicked the looking-glass, but I never kicked 
 that boy out of it. I ve remembered him ever 
 since ; and it has kept me from some impetuous 
 unreasonableness, I think. I may see the pictures 
 and want to be in them; but I do not kick nor 
 scream, and I try not to be in a hurry. I shall 
 get there some time, may be ; I mean to ; but mean 
 while, it s a shifting world, Miss Raye ; there are 
 dissolving views ! " 
 
 Rill s eyes looked intelligent ; there was a little 
 mischief in them. 
 
 " Meanwhile, one practices tableaux, perhaps ? " 
 she said. 
 
 " Possibly ; one may posture a little ; it is in 
 structive. But don t you see how fictitious all that 
 is ? One waits for the reality." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 "What was that little hard breath for, Miss 
 Raye ? " 
 
 " For the Lady of Shalott. Her mirror cracked 
 from side to side, you know ; and all because Sir 
 Lancelot rode by in a picture." 
 
 " Could Sir Lancelot help that, when he was on 
 his way to Camelot ? " 
 
 " May be not. Camelot was to blame, I sup 
 pose. It was Camelot she was forbidden. There 
 are a great many Camelots," said the young girl, 
 gravely.
 
 166 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 " I wish I could tell you " began Dr. Harri- 
 man, impulsively. lie had risen and stood over 
 her now, looking down at her with an earnestness 
 whi^h perhaps it was as well she did not at the 
 moment see. 
 
 She was apparently intent upon a cluster of little 
 wood blossoms that grew in a tuft at her side. She 
 passed her finger up their stems, that rose so dain 
 tily out from their rich, low leafage. There was a 
 curious tenderness in her touch as it stroked the 
 delicate petals upward. It was as if she felt with 
 them somewhat of their lowly, hidden, unsought 
 life. 
 
 Dr. Harriman interrupted himself, noting the 
 action which, perhaps, afforded him a timely relief 
 from an imprudence he was nearly uttering. 
 
 " You do not gather the flowers, Miss Rill ? " he 
 said, with an inflection as if he asked her why. 
 
 " No. I have n t that propensity. I think it is 
 the same which makes men shoot birds. I like 
 live flowers growing. I don t care for corpses 
 of flowers." Her eyes flashed upward at him as 
 she spoke. It was one of her quaint, queer speeches 
 which, nevertheless, she meant, while she smiled at 
 her own queerness that often seemed to surprise 
 herself when she had uttered it. 
 
 There was something irresistible in her ; in her 
 originality, her genuineness ; the sparkling up of
 
 "MAY I TELL YOU SOMETHING?" 167 
 
 the life in her, like the rush and shine of a clear 
 water-spring. It was a nature to study with de 
 light. To have a claim to study it, to sympathize 
 with it this suddenly, and not for the first time, 
 drew Dr. Harriman with a keen desire. 
 
 He sat down again, a little way off, opposite 
 her, upon an old fallen log. His feet rested in a 
 bed of wintergreen. He pulled a stem of it, and 
 rubbed the fragrant leaves in his fingers ; his arms 
 resting upon his knees as he bent forward, his 
 head down a little in a pause of thoughtfulness. 
 
 " May I tell you something of my life ? " he 
 asked Rill Raye. 
 
 Rill Raye herself was being drawn ; in spite of 
 a strange feeling that it was not a true drawing, 
 that it was only of the moment, she was yielding 
 to a new sense of liking for this man, who was 
 showing himself to her in new lights. She was 
 stirred ; she was a little frightened. What could 
 he be going to say, and why did he want to say it? 
 Did she really want to hear ? She was not sure ; 
 yet she could not speak the word to stop him. 
 
 So, with her silence for assent, Dr. Harriman be 
 gan and told her the tilings of which we already 
 know. Of what the motive had been thus far in 
 his life, and what it must be for a while longer ; of 
 his duties, that he did not mean selfishly to set 
 aside ; of hopes that a man must have, which he
 
 168 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 had not been free to indulge. He acknowledged 
 that, with these hindrances, he had been wrong, 
 perhaps, in things that she had noticed and had 
 bravely charged him with. He thanked her for her 
 true speaking ; it made an opportunity for him to 
 speak frankly in return, and he wished very much 
 that she should understand him. 
 
 " I cannot bear," he said, " that you should think 
 me a mere flirt. That is such an odious name for 
 a man. It has in it a woman s foolish vanity, and 
 a man s culpable deceit. I am not a flirt, Miss 
 Raye. I may have trifled, when trifling was all 
 that was expected, or returned ; one does feel the 
 difference, Miss Rill ; but when I am in earnest, it 
 will be if I can make her listen with a woman 
 who will not flirt." 
 
 I do not think Dr. Ilarriman deliberately bor 
 rowed his phrase from Putnam King. It had 
 struck him at the time, and it came to him now as 
 the natural word for his own meaning. We say a 
 good many things so, perhaps even without recol 
 lecting ; there is a good deal of verbal plagiarism. 
 Indeed, it makes language ; out of it proverbs 
 grow ; we do not know where they first came from. 
 But Dr. Harriman colored a little, remembering, 
 as the words came to his lips, how they had been 
 said to him. 
 
 Rill Raye had lifted up her head and was look-
 
 "MAY I TELL YOU SOMETHING?" 169 
 
 ing at him with full, clear eyes. They were eyes 
 that saw beyond the surface, as they were them 
 selves not surface eyes, but took their color and 
 their gleam from depth. Her look was of a listen 
 ing that sounded down beneath his word. It found 
 something there which he had not meant to ex 
 press to the ear, at any rate. It was not of the 
 ear s hearing. A color came into the girl s face 
 too ; not of embarrassment, or shy feeling, or any 
 timid consciousness such as he might have been 
 pleased to see there, and half dismayed to have so 
 soon evoked with but his half intent. It was a 
 rising of some womanly resentment that waited, 
 not quite certain of offense. 
 
 " I do not think you are quite frank with me, 
 even yet, Dr. Harriman," she said, with the direct 
 ness that was in her eyes. " I do not quite know 
 why you say why you need to say these things 
 to me at all." 
 
 A coquettish woman leading him on might 
 have spoken these very words ; but not as Rill 
 Raye spoke them. There was a demand in them ; 
 there was a rebuke, if he deserved it. If he had 
 known all that was moving her to say them, he 
 might not have been disconcerted as he was. But 
 how could he suspect that this Rill Raye, who had 
 learned of things that made her look back with an 
 honest self-scorn upon her own little sillinesses and
 
 170 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 mistakes of awhile ago, was not even sure that he 
 did not mean what would include herself among 
 such girls as had been willing to trifle and put 
 themselves in the way of being trifled with, girls 
 from whom he would never choose the woman he 
 should come to in manly earnest ? How could he 
 guess that through her mind was rushing at this in 
 stant the swift suspicion of his having heard the 
 miserable word of gossip that had come round to 
 her, that she might choose between two men, 
 neither of whom had given her the least sign ? 
 " Does he suppose I thought so, that perhaps 
 I said so ? " she was wondering, with a pang of 
 wrath and shame, kept down only by the strong de 
 termination to make certain before she would give 
 way to it. Why had he come near her at all with 
 his friendliness, as he unquestionably had done 
 lately more and more, if this were what he could 
 think of her ? 
 
 He had treated her as if he had learned respect 
 for her ; as if he cared for her opinion. For this 
 very reason, would he be so bitterly honest with 
 her as this ? Honest ? No ; he was not abso 
 lutely honest, as she said to him. Was he just 
 kind enough to let her know, for her own sake, 
 how he stood, while veiling his explanation with 
 the pretense of seeking to make her understand 
 what he had not intended elsewhere ?
 
 "MAY I TELL YOU SOMETHING?" 171 
 
 She waited, to be sure of this ; an instant more, 
 and the startled flush would be a scorch of indig 
 nation. He had no right ; she had done nothing 
 to give him right or provocation. She might scorn 
 herself ; but he need not scorn her. She looked 
 at him with that steady, searching demand in her 
 face. 
 
 He lost his presence of mind before it ; he was 
 self-convicted of his own unworthy half -dealing. 
 He spoke as a man who must say something, but 
 who is not ready with the thing to say, and blurts 
 forth that which he would not have said at all. 
 
 " Because, Miss Raye because I wanted you 
 to know my position. To understand that there 
 might be other things different things that I 
 could not say." 
 
 Then the eyes flashed, and the color deepened. 
 She looked as she had looked that day when she 
 had demanded and borne a pain that might buy 
 back her dignity. 
 
 " Since you thought it necessary since you 
 were under such a mistake, Dr. Harriman," she 
 said, slowly, " I am glad you did it. I am able to 
 answer you. It was not necessary at all ; and be 
 ing unnecessary, it was " 
 
 There she stopped. He had just done her a ser 
 vice ; she would not tell him that he had offered 
 her an impertinence. She must endure her obliga-
 
 172 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 tion to him ; she must thank him for that, at least. 
 Her anger took a touch of gentler pain. She had 
 begun really to like him to be glad of his esteem. 
 
 She had risen to her feet. This compelled him 
 to rise also. She held out her hand to him. " I 
 owe you for a great service," she said. " I do not 
 forget that. Perhaps you have heard the same 
 meddling story that I have ; perhaps you thought 
 I believed it. I dare say you only meant to be 
 kind, but you have been altogether mistaken, and 
 you have offended me ; if I were not offended, 
 I should deserve it all. Good-by ! " She turned 
 round, away from him, and walked down the little 
 foot-track among the leaves. 
 
 "Miss Raye ! Where are you going? Do not 
 leave me like this ! Forgive me ! I did not mean 
 one word of what you think ! " 
 
 He followed her ; she paused and looked back 
 at him. 
 
 " Please, Dr. Harriman, let me go," she said. 
 " We have been long enough away from the 
 others. I wish you would go back to them. I do 
 not mean to ; I am tired. They will let me rest 
 there at the farmhouse ; then I shall go home. 
 Perhaps you will find my aunt for me and tell 
 her." 
 
 She gave him thus much of forgiveness that 
 he might do her this little service more. She
 
 "MAY I TELL YOU SOMETHING?" 173 
 
 walked on ; it was impossible that lie should persist, 
 and dog her steps. He lifted his hat with some 
 word of strong- regret, and of " another time ; " 
 then he took his way as she had bidden him, a 
 man with a quite new experience in his life. 
 
 How would she get home ? He had not asked 
 her this ; in the face of her simple determination 
 it had not occurred to him any more than if she 
 had been a creature with wings. It occurred to 
 him now ; but he dared not go back to her. He 
 might if he had not been a fool have driven 
 her home himself. His horse and phaeton were at 
 the farmhouse stables. He might have had that 
 lovely ride with her, back through the long pine 
 woods. He might have said something very dif 
 ferent from the thing he had said. She was a 
 woman worth waiting for ; a woman who would 
 have known how to wait, if it had been with, not 
 for, a man. 
 
 One of those stupidities in life had happened 
 by which the whole current of events had been 
 changed, and to his bitter loss. Could he ever, 
 by any happier chance, retrieve it? Could he? 
 Pie would. He would not question, he would make 
 chance ; he would redeem himself ; he would marry 
 Rill Raye yet. 
 
 No sooner had he disappeared among the trees, 
 and Rill, with furtive glances, had made sure of it,
 
 174 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 than she sat down again upon the nearest resting- 
 place, a stone at the wood-edge. She was in need 
 of at least a momentary repose, and the need 
 asserted itself suddenly. She was pale and ex 
 hausted, almost faint, as the tension of her spirit 
 relaxed. What she would have liked was a good 
 cry ; but she dared not take it here ; and a cry 
 can wait, though at some expense of nerve. A 
 little way off, the dog still tugged at his strong 
 fastening, and barked and growled. This did not 
 help to calm her, though she knew he could not 
 get away. Why did not the farm people hear 
 him, and come ? She began to pity the poor crea 
 ture. Things were hard in this world for all sorts 
 of struggling, halfway natures. 
 
 An easy-rolling carriage came along over the 
 turf and the pine needles of the roadway. Mrs. 
 Rextell s pretty victoria, with herself and Mrs. 
 Sholto for occupants. Rill stood up as it ap 
 proached. Mrs. Rextell leaned forward to the 
 coachman with a word, and the carriage stopped. 
 
 " My dear ! what is it ? " asked the lady. " You 
 are alone ; you look pale ; has anything hap 
 pened ? " 
 
 " I have been frightened by the dog ; Dr. Ilar- 
 riuian came and helped me, and tied him to the 
 tree. I am going to the farmhouse to tell them ; 
 then I shall go home."
 
 I TELL YOU SOMETHING?" 175 
 
 " But how ? excuse me." 
 
 " I don t know. Somebody will take me, I sup 
 pose." And then, to the remaining question in 
 Mrs. Rextell s eyes which took a shade of sur 
 prise, " aunt Amelia will know. Dr. Ilarriman 
 has gone to tell her," she said, simply. 
 
 "My dear," said Mrs. Rextell, quickly, "you 
 are not fit to stand to say another word. I will 
 tell you what to do. Keep on to the farmhouse, 
 and wait there ; I am only going to the grounds 
 for a few minutes, to speak to one or two people, 
 and leave Mrs. Sholto. I will see Miss Bonable 
 myself. Then I will come back for you, and we 
 will drive home together. Shall we ? " 
 
 "You are very kind," said Rill. "I shall be 
 glad." 
 
 Mrs. Rextell s face lighted with approving satis 
 faction. The girl had not hesitated. " Drive on, 
 Sand is," she ordered, and nodded with a smile to 
 Cyrilla, to leave whom at once was now the greater 
 kindness. " Look for Miss Bonable as you come 
 up to the party, and bring me as near to her as 
 you can," she added to her servant. " I will re 
 lieve Dr. Ilarriman of the remainder of this busi 
 ness," she thought to herself as she settled back 
 against the cushions. 
 
 The ladies overtook Dr. Harriman on the way, 
 and passed him with a polite exchange of bows.
 
 176 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 Miss Bonable was quickly found, and Mrs. Rex- 
 tell and her friend alighted. As they crossed the 
 few steps from the roadway into the little glade 
 between rocks and trees where the supper party 
 still lingered, a new thought came to Mrs. Rextell. 
 " Shall you have a spare seat ? " she asked Mrs. 
 Sholto. " How is Colonel Sholto coming ? " 
 
 " In the landau. Oh, yes ; Jack will ride ! " 
 
 Dr. Harriman came up from a cross path in 
 time to see Miss Bonable seated in the Rextell vic 
 toria, and turning out upon the drive. Mrs. Rex- 
 tell met him. " I saw Miss Raye," she told him, 
 " as I came in. I have sent Miss Bonable to her. 
 What was the matter with the dog ? " 
 
 She spoke in very friendly fashion. Dr. Harri 
 man answered her categorically. " Thank you ; 
 that was the best thing," he said. " There was 
 nothing really the matter ; the dog was frolicsome 
 and rude ; he frightened a little girl ; Miss Raye 
 went to the rescue, and she had her hands full. It 
 did become a little serious at last ; those Irish set 
 ters are uncertain, and the fellow had his temper 
 up." 
 
 " And you came along just in time ? " the lady 
 queried, pleasantly. If there were any meaning 
 in her question it did not appear, either on her 
 side, or in his reception of it. 
 
 " None too soon for Miss Rave s strength, I
 
 "MAY I TELL YOU SOMETHING?" 177 
 
 think," he answered ; and lifting his hat toward 
 his head with a deference, he replaced it, and 
 moved from her as Mrs. Sholto rejoined her friend. 
 
 There was a subdued gravity about the gentle 
 man which impressed Mrs. Rextell. " Something 
 has happened," she said to herself, while she spoke 
 a few quite other words to Mrs. Sholto. " I don t 
 believe he was frightened. I wonder if Rill Raye 
 can have refused him ! " 
 
 The victoria came round to the farmhouse door, 
 with Miss Bon able very upright in it, as if at once 
 careful of undue freedom with a borrowed splendor, 
 and none the less entirely equal to the occasion. 
 
 Rill came out, surprised. 
 
 " Well, are you ready to go home ? " Miss Bona- 
 ble inquired, with a manner of course. Rill replied 
 by entering the low vehicle. " All right," said 
 Miss Bonable to the inflexible Sandis, who sat like 
 a statue, or a cataleptic. " I don t suppose he 
 would turn round, if we were both to tumble out 
 behind," aunt Amelia remarked, in a tone with 
 drawn to the interior. This was a graciousness, as 
 taking Rill into some sympathy and companion 
 ship. The girl had expected either silence or stern 
 catechising. 
 
 But aunt Amelia did not catechise. For one 
 reason, Sandis was trained to hear with the back 
 of his ears. They rolled smoothly along through
 
 178 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 the deep, fragrant pine wood shadow, out upon the 
 North Road, and round to Brook Lane and the 
 cottage. 
 
 Miss Bonable told Sandis that she was very 
 much obliged. She might as well have told the 
 Sphinx. His impassive eyes were upon his horse s 
 ears, his profile was a fixed, stately line ; he made 
 some mysterious, magnetic sign, without sound or 
 apparent motion, and the victoria rolled away. 
 
 Perhaps the vexation of her superfluous thanks 
 was in the single sentence which she addressed to 
 Rill as they went upstairs. 
 
 " You have a faculty for getting into scrapes ; 
 and for everybody knowing it," she said. " I won 
 der what will happen next ! " 
 
 But there was no scathe nor scorn in her tone. 
 Whatever her words were, this was gentleness for 
 Miss Bonable. It had not been altogether a scrape, 
 since Mrs. Rextell had lent her countenance and 
 her carriage to the emergency. Miss Bonable 
 might not submit to hash parties, but she valued 
 private and individual attentions. 
 
 There was more than this in her forbearance, 
 however. She had not found it to be of much use 
 to scold or accuse Cyrilla, and she had learned, 
 through Miss Haven s sympathetic influence, some 
 wiser reliefs.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 " THAT S WHAT I ? M A SPINSTER FOR." 
 
 THE next day Miss Bonable was restless. She 
 would like to see Miss Haven. But that lady not 
 being at home, she called, on her way from the 
 Point, to see cousin Sarah. She not only felt 
 that she must speak to somebody herself, but she 
 foresaw there would be " talk " about this matter, 
 as about all matters, in Wewachet ; and she had 
 found out both the prairie strategy of setting a 
 fire before a fire, and the best place to do it in. 
 So she came into the southwest room with her light 
 parcels of niceties from the grocer, and her pur 
 chases from Scrimple. She laid them down beside 
 her on the sofa, and unrolled her little home packet, 
 the story of the day before. 
 
 " It would n t have happened to anybody but 
 Rill Raye ! " she ended, impatiently. 
 
 " I think s likely s not," returned Miss Crooke, 
 calmly. " The ain t many like Rill, Miss Bona 
 ble. I hope you re proud of her." 
 
 " I know you stand her friend ; and that s why
 
 180 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 I speak about it. But I don t see why she was 
 down there anyway." 
 
 " I don t see why you expect to see everything, 
 specially things that ain t there," said Miss Crooke. 
 Her sharp sententiousness was a comfort to Miss 
 Bonable, whether meant to be or not. She went 
 on with her grievance, perhaps to get more com 
 fort. 
 
 " There 11 be a buzz about it. They 11 say it 
 was a contrivance to meet Dr. Harriman." 
 
 " Or the dog," put in Miss Sarah. 
 
 Miss Bonable could not resist a smile. It was 
 a pity she ever could. When she showed her 
 beautiful, even teeth, set in their peculiar, delicate 
 oval, and her eyes relaxed their searchingness and 
 let the light through them, she was for the moment 
 a fair, sweet-faced woman, the woman she had 
 been before eye and lip grew hard. 
 
 " She 11 get talked of again, that s all ; it s her 
 way, and her luck," she said. 
 
 " There s more n one way of talkin ," said 
 Sarah Crooke, " and the more s really known 
 about some folks, the better. But don t you talk, 
 don t you buzz, Amelia Bonable ! I m pleased 
 you ve come to me with it ; but you just drop it 
 right here, and leave it, will you ? " 
 
 Miss Amelia s eyes opened wide. "I talk ! 
 about Cyrilla ! "
 
 "THAT S WHAT I If A SPINSTER FOB." 181 
 
 " Yes, you. You don t do it abroad ; it s new 
 for you to come here ; but you talk at home to 
 her and to yourself. That s where it begins. 
 That s what puts things in the air. If they re in 
 the closet, they re out on the housetop. That s 
 Scripture, and its experience. If you don t want 
 a thing to circulate, don t turn it round in your 
 own mind. It s like a tornado ; if it once gets 
 a-whirlin , it 11 start off. What worries and twists 
 in a little back corner of your own thoughts, is 
 down-street making a dust before you know it. 
 It s the rule of things. What you would n t like 
 other folks to mistrust, don t you mistrust." 
 
 Miss Bonable went home with a fresh kink in 
 her philosophy. 
 
 Miss Haven came back, a few days later, from 
 Newport, and cousin Sarah told her all about it. 
 " I declare," she said, " that woman Amelia 
 Bonable makes me feel feeble. I don t know 
 what to say to her. She ain t bad nor bad- 
 hearted ; but she endures a lot of trouble before 
 hand. If folks will set on misery s eggs, they 
 need n t complain when something hatches ! " 
 
 Miss Haven laughed. The next day she began 
 her little rounds again in Wewachet. " There is 
 always something to fetch and to carry," said the 
 barefaced newsmonger. 
 
 She made half a dozen calls ; she wanted to know
 
 182 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 everything that had happened while she had been 
 away. She gathered and distributed ; she went 
 armed and equipped from one house to the next ; 
 she became utterance and authority ; she mixed 
 herself with what she heard, and characterized it. 
 The bended bow and the voice passed on, and > it 
 was generous good-will that the message carried. 
 
 All was of interest ; all was discussed : from 
 Edith Pinceley s new gown, that she " suspected 
 was a quiet present from Mrs. Sholto, perhaps ; 
 Edith was a good deal there " to the incidents 
 and adventures at Sbepaug ; Connie Norris s sauci- 
 ness, and George Craigan s manly facing of it 
 "It will do them both good," Miss Haven said; 
 " they will understand each other yet ; there is a 
 fair making in both of them" to Rill and the 
 little farmhouse girl, the fright and the bravery, 
 and Mrs. Rextell. Dr. Harriman was slipped 
 back into a second place. " Oh, yes, he helped 
 Rill tie up the dog," was all he got of comment or 
 applause. 
 
 " Mrs. Rextell is growing very fond of Rill, 
 I think, and she has an especially great respect 
 for Miss Bonable. It is nice for them all. You 
 are such very friendly people here, Mrs. Rospey," 
 said the dear Machiavel, in her last twilight call. 
 
 " It s you that have done it. It s a neighbor 
 hood now or the beginning of one ; and it never
 
 "THAT S WHAT I M A SPINSTER FOR: 1 183 
 
 was before you came. You ve spun us together, 
 somehow." 
 
 Elizabeth Haven did not contradict ; she knew 
 it was true. "That s what I tn a spinster for," 
 she said, lightly, with the tears in her eyes ; and in 
 her heart she thanked the Lord. 
 
 She had woven her sunshine in very small 
 threads ; she was content to drop tiny, patient 
 dews of speech ; only once in a while, upon occa 
 sion, she came down here or there with some full 
 blaze of a reserved knowledge, some shower of 
 generous surprise, that made suddenly a spring 
 day and a greenness of new blades where else 
 might have been a lingering of frost and winter 
 kill. 
 
 One autumn day, later on, she was sitting with 
 Mrs. Rextell in her little conservatory parlor. A 
 wide window looked into depths of firs and larches, 
 up and down whose branching slopes ran pretty 
 cedar birds. A glass door was open upon sheltered 
 loveliness of ferns and roses, heliotropes and carna 
 tions, budding lilies. The air was full of delicate 
 fragrances, with sunbeams filtering softly through. 
 It was a fit place for two sweet, sunny-hearted 
 woman to sit and talk together. 
 
 Mrs. Sholto had just gone out. 
 
 " Is n t she lovely ? " said Mrs. Rextell, coming 
 back to her chair beside Miss Haven, after parting
 
 184 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 from her other visitor at the door. " Nobody half 
 knew her before her second marriage. How should 
 they, when hardly half of her had chance to be 
 alive? How strange it is, this taking people for 
 granted at their weak exceptions and passing dis 
 advantages, and sending them on labeled with the 
 record ! I do hate talk about one s neighbors. 
 And a little place like this is full of it." 
 
 " Not half so full as it ought to be. People 
 don t tell half the good news. If they only knew 
 what they are doing with their showing-up and 
 stigmatizing the wrong, untrue thing; the thing, 
 may be, a soul is going to the Lord with in sore 
 trouble ! It is making spectacle of mortal pain ! " 
 
 " It is worse ; it is making the mortal pain. It is 
 vivisection," said Mrs. Rextell, indignantly. 
 
 By unspoken suggestion, they went on from that 
 these two so little lower than the angels with 
 tender mention s that were healings, or inquiries 
 that sought healings. Presently, their speech turned 
 upon Rill Raye and Miss Bonable. No ; talk does 
 not turn itself ; Miss Haven turned it. 
 
 " Miss Bonable is a person one can hardly ever 
 accomplish an intention with," said Mrs. Rextell. 
 " It is a pity ; it is a hindrance to Miss Raye." 
 
 " Do you think it is so hard ? " 
 
 " Yes, usually ; if you do accomplish anything, 
 it stands by itself. You cannot begin again where
 
 "THAT S WHAT I M A SPINSTER FOjR." 185 
 
 you left off." She was thinking of Shepaug, and 
 of certain little failures afterward to follow up her 
 own advance there ; failures due, really, to Miss 
 Bonable s stern determination not to seem to ex 
 pect the ell from the inch. " She is exceedingly 
 blunt," said Mrs. Eextell. 
 
 " Exceedingly," said Miss Haven. " Therefore, 
 one must not try to get round her bluntness with 
 any ordinary or extraordinary suavity. One 
 must go very straight to the point, facing her own 
 honesty." 
 
 " Perhaps so ; and very deep, too. She is not 
 to be met on the surface. Maybe I should have 
 said one cannot accomplish with her an attention. 
 It is of no use to invite her, for instance." 
 
 No ; not as a matter of course. She says she 
 will not go to hash parties. 1 
 
 Mrs. Rextell laughed merrily. " Is that what 
 she calls my neighborhood entertainments ? It s 
 capital ! I never should have had the wit to think 
 of it. I in sure I never had the deliberate mean 
 ing in the thing ; but it is just what they are 
 and everybody s else the big, general ones. I 
 suppose it is a natural variation from first chop ! 
 I never thought what that meant before ! " 
 
 There is an indescribable delicate touch that a 
 high-bred person can give to a phrase of slang, 
 just glancing at it with piquant quotation. The
 
 186 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 words fell from Mrs. Rextell s lips with a grace of 
 dainty strangeness. 
 
 " I certainly do respect Miss Bonable," she went 
 on, brightly. " I always thought her really ex 
 cellent, but with odd, rough ways that rather turn 
 aside approach, you know. That is hard for her 
 niece. Miss Raye is charming, only, just a little 
 emphasized ? Some people seem to be printed 
 in italics ; I suppose they cannot help it ; but one 
 hardly prefers the type for a young girl ? " 
 Mrs. Rextell spoke with gentle rising inflections, 
 putting things with interrogation. 
 
 " May be not, if the type be coarse, or an ex 
 aggeration. But a uniform, delicate script, only 
 unusual for its clearness and grace, and the text 
 something worthy a special setting? " Miss Haven 
 replied with similar fine query. 
 
 " That is what you think ? I am glad, and thank 
 you. But, again, is n t there some misreading 
 there on both sides, perhaps ? Don t they 
 rather put each other in a bad light ? I wish, 
 it is because I feel, somehow, interested in both, 
 I don t know why, I wish I could understand." 
 
 " I think it would be good you should under 
 stand," said Miss Haven to that, with a sudden 
 decision. "I will tell you the whole story." 
 
 And then the golden gossip took on her what 
 only a golden gossip can, who discerns with heavenly
 
 TIL-IT S WHAT I M A SPINSTER FOR: 187 
 
 freemasonry and speaks in love. In ten minutes 
 more Mrs. Rextell knew, of this inner human his 
 tory, what the ministering spirits knew, and took it 
 into the same pure keeping. 
 
 When Miss Haven had finished, her auditor sat 
 silent a moment,- folding it away. " And that," 
 she said, presently, with a tender reverence in her 
 voice, " is " 
 
 " That is Miss Bonable," replied Miss Haven, to 
 her pause. " She is stiff and gnarled, perhaps, but 
 she is " 
 
 " She is a cedar of Lebanon," interrupted Mrs. 
 Rextell. 
 
 Miss Haven left that unanswered. 
 
 Mrs. Rextell came to the end of her dark-olive 
 wool, and searched in her basket for some soft 
 canary. " And the girl knows nothing of all this?" 
 she asked, as she joined on the beautiful contrast. 
 
 "Nothing; further than that she lost her 
 mother when she was little, and that her father 
 went away and never came back again, and so she 
 came to belong to aunt Amelia." 
 
 " And never did belong. There should not have 
 been so much hiding. At any rate she is old enough 
 now to know more." 
 
 " But how could Miss Bonable ever tell her ? 
 How could she tell her enough for her really to 
 understand ? The two things that were the signifi-
 
 188 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 cance of it all her father s fickleness and her 
 mother s shame she could not tell her those ! " 
 
 " I don t know. Perhaps not all at once, or at 
 the first. But little by little, as came natural, as 
 she would surely ask. Oh, there is always a way 
 to tell the truth ; or else it takes a way to tell itself ! 
 That child has lived in the dark, Miss Haven." 
 
 " It is a reason I have felt so why we should 
 help her up into the light." 
 
 " But the man the father ; why has he done 
 nothing at his end ? Why has he been content ? " 
 Mrs. Rextell was warmly roused. Her beautiful 
 eyes shone ; her color was fervent ; she leaned 
 toward her friend, dropping her work, a confusion 
 of soft brilliancy, upon her lap. 
 
 " I suppose he had little hope for the child of 
 such mothering ; except as he could leave her, 
 without interference, to the different one. I sup 
 pose he was discouraged, disgusted, at first ; then 
 away out there, and busy with a man s work 
 he grew indifferent, and forgot, almost. Men do ; 
 they are not like women. He never forgot his duty 
 about her, it seems, however ; he has sent money, 
 year by year, to Miss Bonable." 
 
 " More than her mere support, I wonder ? " 
 
 " I think so. Miss Bonable says he has done 
 well enough out there. She has taken care of 
 whatever came, so that it should be safe for Cyrilla
 
 "THAT S WHAT I M A SPINSTER FOB." 189 
 
 by and by. It has not been used for her sup 
 port." 
 
 " And Cyrilla has known nothing about that, 
 either, I dare say." 
 
 " There was no need yet ; Miss Bonable thought 
 better not. She gives her every six months the 
 rent of the little place at Maplefield, which Rill 
 knows she owns. That makes a fair allowance for 
 her, and affords her the experience of taking care 
 of money ; which Miss Bonable says a girl can 
 learn as well with ten dollars as with a hundred. 
 If you can hem a towel, you can hem a sheet, she 
 says." 
 
 " But it won t be fair to her, very long. She 
 ought to know what she can do in the world. 
 And why, it s keeping her out of all her birth 
 rights, Miss Haven ! She has a right to her father ; 
 to her child s love and duty; she has a right to the 
 debt of gratitude and honor she owes her aunt. It 
 ought not to go on so ! " 
 
 " I have said all that to Miss Bonable, but she 
 puts it off. What would come of it ? she asks. 
 She could not send Rill over to that other end of 
 the world ; and she could not ask Rill s father to 
 come here. I suppose those two have been sepa 
 rately and tacitly agreed that it was better to have 
 the half circumference of the earth between them." 
 
 " Is the other woman living ? "
 
 190 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 " I think Miss Bonable hardly knows. There 
 was a name among the death notices in a paper 
 once, that might have been the one she would have 
 called herself by ; but Miss Bonable never learned 
 anything more. Very possibly it was only a coin 
 cidence. What inclines me to think that Mr. Raye 
 may have kept some trace of her, and know that 
 she is still living, is the fact that he does not come 
 back." 
 
 " I see ; but suppose Miss Bonable should die? " 
 
 " She has provided that he shall know, in that 
 case. It will not be far for him then, she 
 said." 
 
 "I don t believe it is all the way round, with 
 either of them, now," said imaginative Mrs. Rextell. 
 " There are straight lines that tie the ends of the 
 widest arcs." 
 
 " Yes ; there are other axes than the one from 
 pole to pole. Lives turn upon many such." 
 
 " And Miss Bonable cannot be much above forty, 
 now. A fresh, fair woman, too when you look 
 at her in the light that belongs to her. Well, one 
 cannot meddle with that, even in wishing. But the 
 other things that father and daughter should not 
 know each other all these years ; that they should 
 be suddenly thrust together some time, perhaps, not 
 the least prepared what to make of each other ; 
 that he should be thinking of her with all the pos-
 
 "THAT S WHAT / Af A SPINSTER FOE." 191 
 
 sibility in her of that other parentage, and losing 
 sight of her as his own child ; that while she is turn 
 ing out who knows how, with such repression 
 he should not know her real sweetness and strength 
 and promise and, oh, her need ! If somebody 
 could only write to him and tell him that, Miss 
 Haven ! " 
 
 " I have written," said Miss Haven quietly.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 AUTUMN ROSES. 
 
 Miss BONABLE s white front gate swung upon its 
 hinges, and Mrs. Rextell came up the grass walk. 
 Miss Bonable saw her from an upper window. If 
 the lady had come in her carriage, I doubt if she 
 woTild have been let in. In her morning dress, 
 with a shawl and parasol, she had just walked over, 
 not like a caller, but like a neighbor. Clementhy 
 Pond was in the kitchen, scalding pickles ; Miss 
 Bonable came down the front stairs and unlatched 
 the blinds, behind which the door stood open. 
 The day was one of summer warmth. 
 
 " Thank you," said Mrs. Rextell, holding out 
 her hand. " May I came in ? " 
 
 " If you please," Miss Bonable answered, mildly, 
 with civil response of hand-greeting, but no effusion. 
 "But Cyrilla is out." 
 
 " I came to see you," replied her visitor. " It is 
 early, and I should apologize. But I wanted to be 
 sure to find you." 
 
 Miss Bonable led the way into the parlor, and
 
 AUTUMN ROSES. 193 
 
 put forward a comfortable cushioned chair, seating 
 herself on one of the prim old-fashioned six of her 
 original furnishing. She waited her guest s word, 
 her pleasure, or the errand of her visit, not offering 
 any initial remark, and leaving the undeniable 
 weather to its own demonstration. Mrs. Eextell 
 had come for something, probably, beyond the see 
 ing her in her morning gown, which was of homely 
 brown calico, while the other lady wore a fabrica 
 tion of soft silk and wool, as plain and modest as 
 need be, yet with no suggestion of any coarse or 
 common use. 
 
 Mrs. Rextell met the composure of Miss Bon- 
 able s silence with equal composure of pleasant, 
 ready speech. " I found this little wild rose in the 
 lane," she said, holding out a pink blossom with a 
 lovely carmine depth at the heart, against which 
 golden stamens rested. " See how bright it is, and 
 so curiously shaded. One does not look for roses 
 and autumn leaves together. But they are exqui 
 site in contrast," and she laid the rose s cheek 
 against the glossy bronze of a bit of bramble. 
 
 " Colors are all brighter in the fall," said Miss 
 Bonable, " even when things are blooming out of 
 season. Wild roses are queer ; they come most 
 any time, in some places." 
 
 "The goldenrod was dazzling all along," said 
 Mrs. Rextell. " But after I found this, I thought
 
 194 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 I would go home with only my one little wild rose. 
 Miss Bonable, I want to get you to come and see 
 me. I would like you to bring Miss Raye ; but 
 I want you at any rate. That is what I came to 
 say this morning. Will you take tea with me on 
 Thursday?" 
 
 " I thank you, Mrs. Rextell ; I don t believe I 
 can," answered Miss Bonable, bluntly. 
 
 " Mrs. Sholto and Miss Haven will be there, 
 only those," persisted Mrs. Rextell, sweetly. She 
 would not ask Miss Bonable and Rill quite by 
 themselves ; that, again, is only a compliment 
 where intimacy is established. You can take any 
 body in, on special basis ; that is as indiscriminate 
 as a hash party. But one or two to meet one or 
 two chosen, as these were ; this was what ex 
 pressed precisely Mrs. Rextell s intent. 
 
 " I know you don t like large companies ; one 
 never really sees people so ; they are only what 
 must be once in a while, as we have thunderstorms, 
 to restore equilibrium." 
 
 Miss Bonable colored up with sudden conscious 
 ness. But her eyes were clear and steady enough. 
 "Did Elizabeth Haven tell you that?" she de 
 manded, looking full in her interlocutor s face. 
 
 " My dear Miss Bonable what ? " 
 
 " I am sure she did. What I said about the 
 hash parties."
 
 AUTUMN HOSES. 195 
 
 Mrs. Rextell laughed ; that sweet ring of a laugh 
 that was peculiarly hers. " You were quite right. 
 It was the best thing anybody has said for ever so 
 long. But that is n t why I want you now." 
 
 " Elizabeth Haven is a tattler." 
 
 " I believe she is ; and I believe we both like her 
 the better for it. Won t you come ? " 
 
 " I m a very plain person, Mrs. Rextell. And 
 I m hard." 
 
 " You are hard to invite, certainly." She was 
 still smiling; her look was both amused and warm; 
 she was longing to draw to herself this plain, hard 
 person, in whom she found such element of worth. 
 
 " I m hard, and I in rough ; I m not like you ; 
 it s too late for me to be that now," Miss Bonable 
 said. " I might have been if things had begun 
 at the beginning. There s a sweet spot in me ; but 
 I ve had to shut myself up over it." All her face 
 had softened, quickly ; the truth of the moment 
 got spoken, as it always did with her ; and at this 
 moment it was the truth she hid for the most part 
 even from herself. Her eyes had lost their sharp 
 ness ; they were limpid and intent ; her lips took 
 that gentle curve which showed their shape of 
 youth ; the white arch of the teeth broke from be 
 tween them. 
 
 Mrs. Rextell rose from her seat, and came over 
 to her. " Some things are so rich, so precious,
 
 196 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 that they need putting in safe, hard cases," she 
 said. " The milk in the nut would be wasted, but 
 for the burr. But, when the time comes, the burr 
 opens, my dear friend ; and we gather the ripe 
 sweetness." She put out both her hands, now ; 
 the little wild rose in one of them fell to the floor. 
 " You will come and take tea with me ? " she re 
 peated. 
 
 " It is you that will, I think. Yes ; I suppose I 
 must, this time." But the two hands were taken ; 
 and a thrill came through them from the sweet 
 woman -heart whence they were stretched out, 
 that found and touched the other behind its life- 
 shell. 
 
 Mrs. Rextell was gone ; Miss Bonable stood 
 alone ; she said to herself, " I suppose I ve been a 
 fool ; I am, generally, one way or another. I 
 could n t seem to help it, though ; it was as if she 
 must know everything." 
 
 She picked up the wild rose, and carried it 
 away with her upstairs. She went to her bureau 
 drawers ; she looked up some fine old laces ; she 
 unwrapped from silver paper a little white shawl, 
 with mystic threads stitched into it upon one end ; 
 she laid these things together upon the black silk 
 dress folded long by itself below. She shut the 
 drawers, and went downstairs, with a smile half 
 pleasure, half amused self -tolerance. She took hold
 
 AUTUMN ROSES. 197 
 
 vigorously with Clementhy Pond upon the pickle- 
 work; she did up a lot of barberries and sweet 
 apples ; she scalded her spiced-currant ; the two 
 women accomplished a vast piece of housewifely 
 business that day. They stood for hours on the 
 cold brick buttery floor, wiping shelves and jars, 
 filling and ranging. It was a goodly show. 
 
 But on the Wednesday Miss Bonable was in her 
 bed, full of pain and fever. It was the beginning 
 of a long illness. The black silk, and the white 
 camel s-hair, and the old lace, lay quietly together 
 for weeks and weeks.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 BREAKS AND JOINS. 
 
 THINGS hardly ever join on, after an interrup 
 tion, to be as they were before the break. You go 
 away from home leaving- matters in a certain rela 
 tive position upon which you calculate for contin 
 uance with some postponed purpose. You come 
 back to find everything cTiasseed into fresh combi 
 nation ; some things out of question that were in 
 important bearing before ; some old hindrance non 
 existent, may be, but new difficulty and obstacle in 
 the way ; your world upheaved and tossed about ; 
 its face changed by a circumstantial earthquake. 
 In yourself, even, there are altered conditions ; you 
 need a pause before you can see where to begin 
 again ; perhaps whether you may begin at all. 
 
 When Putnam King returned to AVewachet, 
 making one of his stops there which had always 
 been brief, but the chain of whose frequency during 
 the past summer had joined them with a practical 
 continuousness, he came into some such altered sur 
 roundings, and with a very considerable difference
 
 BREAKS AND JOINS. 199 
 
 of opportunity. His time was really limited, now ; 
 the repetitions of his comings were uncertain. He 
 was expected at Huxtable for a solid family visit, 
 before he should settle down to the grind of the 
 law office. By and by this would hold him close ; 
 a great case was coming on this winter, involving 
 the looking up of documents and records, and 
 obtaining of evidence at a distance, which Mr. 
 Arbicon had signified he should depute to him. 
 These things were in the young man s mind ; they 
 would prevent, he knew, such easy, natural follow 
 ing to conclusion of his interest and association 
 here as had seemed possible a little while ago, and 
 would force the alternative of long delay and abey 
 ance or very direct and obvious action. 
 
 When he found added to all this the complete 
 shifting of centres in the little neighborhood, it was 
 as if he had been blindfolded and turned round 
 three times in the old game, and bidden suddenly 
 to go forward again, with " touch whom you may ! " 
 
 He could scarcely touch anybody. Aunt Eliza 
 beth was off half her time at the cottage on the 
 North Road ; Cyrilla was shut up there with Miss 
 Bonable. Miss Bonable had become, in her sick 
 room, the focus of attention and regard. Instead 
 of little teas in Miss Haven s library, there were 
 only momentary encounters of ones or twos in 
 Brook Lane and in the cottage parlor, or moro
 
 200 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 established visiting in the off-room upstairs, where 
 Miss Haven or Mrs. Rospey sat with Cyrilla in the 
 hours when she simply had to be within hearing 
 and call, while Miss Amelia rested. 
 
 Mrs. Rextell and Mrs. Sholto and Mrs. Vance 
 called frequently ; Brook Lane was dinted in the 
 middle with high-bred hoof-tracks, and scored mar 
 ginally with light wheel-marks, like crimped ginger 
 bread. Fruits and flowers were heaped in parlor 
 and pantry, great purple-black grapes ; golden 
 pears of name and pedigree, each laid separately, 
 like a jewel of amber, on soft white paper or fleecy 
 cotton ; roses and heliotropes and azaleas filling 
 vase and bowl ; the fragrance of them all came 
 forth and met you at the door. All this converged 
 here suddenly, and showered down around Miss 
 Amelia Bonable, and into her hard, restrained life. 
 She could not take to herself the half in food or 
 perfume or beauty ; but the loveliness and odor 
 and nourishing of it crept into her heart that had 
 been so lonely. It was a sweeter face that looked 
 up from the pillows ; it was a gentler tone and 
 gesture that answered inquiry or offering. 
 
 Dr. Harriman sent quail and pigeons ; she did 
 not half like that, but she only told Rill not to let 
 him do it again ; she was getting not to need such 
 things, and there were plenty of poor sick folks in 
 Wewachet, if he wanted to do kindness. So Rill
 
 BREAKS AND JOINS. 201 
 
 saw him when he came again, and thanked him, tell 
 ing- him that aunt Amelia said he was very good, 
 but begged him not to trouble himself for her any 
 more, as she was getting now to crave the homely, 
 substantial things that were really best for her. 
 
 Dr. Harriman took whatever there was of rebuff 
 in this with complacence ; Rill had at least been 
 obliged to see him, to bring the message. But, if 
 he gained that, it was all he gained, and the satis 
 faction did not last him long. She gave him the 
 brief word and excused herself ; and he did not see 
 her again, though he called several times. 
 
 Putnam King made his little offerings, also ; but 
 he came and went with but very unsatisfactory 
 glimpses of even his aunt Elizabeth ; and at the 
 cottage he made no attempt, of course, in the pre 
 sent state of things, to go farther than the door. 
 The whole house was upstairs ; the women-friends 
 went there ; nobody came down, and he could not 
 ask it. Then the weeks at Huxtable intervened, 
 and although he managed to run out to Wewachet 
 the very day he came up from the Cape, he only 
 found a yet more settled withdrawal and isolation 
 barring him off. The little attentions at the door, 
 of inquiry or gift, were neither needed nor plausible 
 now ; Miss Bonable was getting well ; but it was 
 the slow tediousness of creeping back from positive 
 illness to the taking up of the habits of life again ;
 
 202 A GOLDEN GOSSIP, 
 
 and Rill was almost more shut in than before. 
 This, it was to be suspected, was partly voluntary ; 
 for some reason she did not care to emerge much 
 from her seclusion ; but she was really wanted in 
 a hundred ways, and at any possible minute. Miss 
 Bonable had her little invalid occupations, her knit 
 ting, her rug work ; and Rill waited upon her with 
 all her furnishings and changes, with handling and 
 help. She read aloud to her ; she arranged her 
 tray when her food was brought up ; she made her 
 toilets for her ; these things took all her time. 
 
 If ever a young fellow fell in love, like Prince 
 Ahmed, through hearsay and from a picture, Put- 
 man King was getting bewitched in that fashion 
 with his Aldegonda, now. Aunt Elizabeth was as 
 simple and clear as a sunbeam ; she revealed that 
 which she shone upon in reflected lights ; Putnam 
 King had only to spi ing his little kodak upon her 
 with question or remark, and get a clear impression 
 of a quiet interior, with Rill Raye as central figure, 
 in her grace of steadfast self-denial, her royal 
 womanliness of ministry. He was not barred out, 
 he was admitted intimately, to privilege and un 
 derstanding ; to a growing absorption in one sweet, 
 admiring study. He was learning her now, "in 
 her natural relations ; " as he had said a man must 
 learn the woman he would care for. 
 
 And Rill Raye was unconscious. She was abid-
 
 BREAKS AND JOINS. 203 
 
 ing in that foregone conclusion that she had no 
 dear, real, beautiful, natural surroundings to be 
 known in; that hers and her use of them 
 were all against her ; that she could never be 
 known in herself, for what she was really worth, 
 by those she would care should know her. 
 
 Putnam King had gone away, had stayed away, 
 
 was never coming any more as he had come. 
 He had heard that silly, vain story which told as 
 if it must have set forth from herself, or from near 
 her, that of the two she could have her choice. 
 He had not done as the other did, " explained " 
 
 that he could not seek or marry her ! He had 
 not put her to that blush, that indignity. But he 
 had quietly dropped himself out ; there would be 
 nothing more of Putnam King in her story. There 
 never had been anything! She had not been a 
 fool, though he might be afraid of her as one. 
 
 There was nothing now for her to do but to take 
 care of aunt Amelia, and let her own dull life run 
 on. She thought it would be dull ; that it would 
 not even be tempestuous with its little bursts of 
 passion, as it had been. Partly, she did not care ; 
 and partly, she meant to be more good ; she would 
 learn patience ; that was what would have to take 
 the place of pleasure for her, all her years. 
 
 Underneath all, a little spring of hidden life 
 of possible joy that should, some time, well up
 
 204 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 from deeper than all this made itself conscious 
 in her. She did not quite forget that moment in 
 the lovely, lonely wood ; the word that had come 
 to her there : " I have called thee by thy name ; 
 thou art mine. Fear not ; I have redeemed thee." 
 
 Some One was doing 1 something with her, doubt 
 less ; if she could wait and bear, the blind trick 
 ling of her hindered life-seeking might come forth 
 from the dark rock cranny and the wilderness 
 tangle, into some fairer, open reach, and find its 
 growth and form ; the little quiver of light that 
 struggled in her might pierce its way across her 
 present darkness, and carry itself urged by the 
 great pulsing glory out of which it had been born 
 to the beauty whither it was sent. Cyrilla was 
 very thoughtful in these days ; it seemed, perhaps, 
 to Miss Bonable as if she were only quenched and 
 dulled ; as if she found things very weariful. It 
 was harder now to understand the girl than it 
 had ever been ; aunt Amelia had not thought such 
 mood as this was in her. 
 
 Upon Cyrilla s side there was a difference ; she 
 was, in one way, nearer understanding her aunt 
 than she had ever been ; though she also wondered 
 at this new phase in which she saw her. She per 
 ceived now through other eyes ; she found out what 
 Miss Bonable could be to those whom she trusted, 
 respected, was warmed to with sense of kindness.
 
 BREAKS AND JOINS. 205 
 
 " Why could she not be like that to me ? Why 
 could she not believe in me ? " Cyrilla asked 
 sadly. 
 
 A very little turn, either way, with these two, 
 now, would reveal to sweeter issues or shut up to 
 more mistrust than ever. They had been too much 
 alone together ; now, possibly, they were a little 
 in danger of some withdrawal through a lai-ger 
 friendly intercourse beyond themselves, and a too 
 far-off and objective perception of each other. " If 
 this is real, she has not been real with me," was 
 the thought of each. 
 
 At least, however, they had been lifted into a 
 fresher, safer atmosphere. They were not getting 
 the reflected judgments of a lower social stratum. 
 The " they says " or " they will says " of the 
 Sharkes and Porbeagles were not whispering to 
 their hearing or their apprehension. 
 
 If they could have lived on so a little longer, 
 if that had not happened which did happen, but 
 again if ? When it came, who shall say that it. 
 also, was not sent of loving purpose for the two 
 hearts and lives ? Nothing less, it may be, would 
 have so shown the whole truth between them ; so 
 stirred and impelled that which needed to break 
 through the old barriers, change the old currents, 
 and send a swift, strong force along the further 
 lines of their waiting lives.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 KARMA. 
 
 " WAS my father a bad man ? " 
 
 Rill asked this startling question of Miss Haven 
 one day, suddenly. They were sitting together by 
 the fire downstairs, while Miss Bonable took her 
 forenoon nap above. 
 
 " My dear ! why should you think I could know ? 
 And why do you ask ? " answered Miss Haven, 
 with astonished accent. 
 
 " Because I think aunt Amelia has told you a 
 great many things that she never would tell me ; 
 and because although I would not ask you to 
 tell me more than you feel right I think I have 
 a right to know something ; and because," she 
 went on very staidly and collectedly, " aunt Amelia 
 has said so many times to me in the old worrying 
 days, what s bred in the bone will come out in 
 the flesh. It was horrid to hear her say that, Miss 
 Haven ; it made me tremble all over with fear and 
 anger, both ; it put me down ; it dared me to say 
 another word. I never did dare ; it was always
 
 KARMA. 207 
 
 the end. She does n t say so now ; she seems dif 
 ferent. But she looks at me as if everything at 
 all nice I try to do were a surprise ; as if she 
 could n t account for it ; as if she wondered how 
 that, by any accident, were bred in me." 
 
 Rill s voice, for all its controlled quietness, just 
 broke a little. A troubled laugh, that was more 
 pathetic than a sob, made way with the last words. 
 Then she sat silent. It was a silence that de 
 manded answer. 
 
 " No, Rill ; your father never was a bad man. 
 He was not, I suppose, in some essential things, a 
 quite wise one. And because he was not wise in 
 those special things, he was not just. It was not 
 money, Rill," for Rill s eyes widened, and her lips 
 parted with a mute inquiry. " It was something 
 that came nearer. Your aunt Amelia cared for him, 
 Cyrilla ; and he ovght to have belonged to her." 
 
 "And so," said Rill, slowly, after the pause in 
 in which she took this strange thing in, " she never 
 has believed in me." She thought she had the 
 whole explanation now. 
 
 Miss Haven s hands lay on her lap with her 
 work in them. She was looking over into Rill s 
 face, with a hesitation in her own which the girl 
 did not perceive. Presently she took up her knit 
 ting-needles again, and set two or three stitches. 
 "I think we had better leave the matter there," 
 she said.
 
 208 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 Cyrilla s spirits rose almost lightly with a bound 
 of relief. She had dreaded, she knew not what ; 
 this was so commonplace, so simple ; so easy of 
 excuse, perhaps. It was very queer to think of 
 aunt Amelia so. " Was she ever pretty ? " she 
 asked. She almost asked if she had been ever 
 young. 
 
 " I think she is pretty now ; behind the hiding," 
 said Miss Haven, quaintly. 
 
 Cyrilla laughed. "And loving too," she said, 
 " behind the hardening ? " The question came to 
 her with instant hope. She put it gladly. 
 
 " Yes, you are right, Cyrilla. Sometimes a heart 
 that can love most can harden most." 
 
 " And be most suspecting ? " This was asked 
 reluctantly, but as if it need be asked. " Do you 
 suppose she was that may be with my fa 
 ther ? " 
 
 It had not escaped Miss Haven that such fact 
 might have been. Her " I do not know," was neg 
 ative admission. 
 
 " It is her way," said Cyrilla. " How she thinks 
 of everything, I can t guess ; but if you were up to 
 the worst mischief, she would be beforehand. Her 
 hands are held out in the dark ready for things to 
 run against, even when they re not there. It 
 makes you feel as if she must invent out of con 
 sciousness. But I know she is a good woman.
 
 KARMA. 209 
 
 Chiselwood gave her a word once that fitted ; I ve 
 quoted it to her since, and made her very angry, 
 when she has been pre-accusing me. It was very 
 impertinent ; because it was so pertinent ! " 
 
 " Chiselwood impertinent ! " 
 
 " Oh, no ; he was complimentary, I suppose ; it 
 was my application that was pert. How many 
 parts and turns there are to that word, Miss Ha 
 ven ! Chiselwood was putting in the new pantry 
 window. She was afraid of its giving a chance to 
 burglars ; and she had a top bolt and a bottom 
 bolt, and a wooden shutter, and an inside blind. 
 They could slip that with a knife, she said ; or, 
 they could cut that right out with a centre-bit and 
 saw ; they could feel where it was through the 
 crack, she kept suggesting. At last Chiselwood 
 laid down his screwdriver and looked up at her : I 
 think you \l make a pretty good burglar, mum, he 
 said. And then she hushed up, and walked off." 
 
 Miss Haven could but laugh. 
 
 " I in afraid it s treacherous, my telling even 
 you," said Rill. " I really do want to be true and 
 kind ; but why was I, just /, with just my faults, 
 put precisely where I am, and in contact with 
 just such others? The world is made so queer, 
 Miss Haven ; and we are born so queerly ! " 
 
 " I suppose we are born where we belong," said 
 Miss Haven simply.
 
 210 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 Rill heard her with a start. " Have you thought 
 that ? " she cried. 
 
 " Thought what, my dear? " 
 
 " That we have been before ? That we come 
 into the places we have deserved ? That it is all 
 our own natural selection ? " said Rill, with rapid 
 impulse. The utterance was out of some keen, 
 repressed thinking. 
 
 Miss Haven laid her hand over on both of 
 Rill s, that were tightly clasped across her knee. 
 " I have thought that ; and read it. It explains 
 a great deal. It is the old Buddhist doctrine of 
 Karma. But it needs a gospel to reach further. 
 It is true, at any rate, from stage to stage of tins 
 life ; we come into what our choices and acts lead 
 us to. If it should be true from life to life, if it 
 has already brought us to our birth and place in 
 this world, what then ? It is only more of it : a 
 longer illustration. The fact and law remain ; 
 and the necessity that we accept our self as our 
 piece of human work and responsibility. We have 
 each our own bit of evil to destroy, our own bit of 
 the kingdom to build. We can be brave with that 
 thought, can t we, Rill ? We can be thankful ; for 
 we can redeem and vindicate not only our own 
 lives, but lives that were before. We can prove 
 the latent nobility of fatherhood and motherhood. 
 It is the honoring of the fifth commandment.
 
 KARMA. 211 
 
 Christianity takes us up where Buddhism drops 
 us. My child!" Miss Haven said, with eager 
 tenderness, warming with her instant word that 
 she felt was also a word for the time to come 
 " my dear child ! Christ took upon himself our 
 whole fallen humanity so : to redeem and restore 
 it, even to itself ; and to show that its real father 
 hood was in God ! " Her face glowed, and tears 
 stood in her eyes. 
 
 Rill s were large and tender too ; a soft color 
 came, and her lips took a gentler, quieter curve. 
 But she said, still with a question, " Ah, dear Miss 
 Haven, it is those acts and choices ! They are 
 terrible ; they come every minute, and we make 
 so many mistakes ; and then we are in places 
 where we were not meant to be ! " 
 
 "Yes, the choice is now every minute ; now 
 is the accepted time ; now is the day of salva 
 tion. It changes and shapes for us continually. 
 But there is more than that ; there is a choice 
 beyond our own natural selection ; something is 
 chosen in us and for us, with help and hindrance. 
 We are pre-vented. God is on our side. It is his 
 own side." 
 
 " He puts us he lets us be put, or put our 
 selves in very hard places ! " 
 
 Rill spoke slowly, half reluctantly, but still as if 
 she must. She would not say so any more, but
 
 212 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 she could not yet understand why she and aunt 
 Amelia should have been set to hinder each other ; 
 why, at least, they could not have been made to 
 find each other out sooner and better. That which 
 had been given her of late made it the stranger, 
 somehow, that such had not been given before, or 
 always. 
 
 " I will tell you something beautiful," said Miss 
 Haven, " that fits just there. It only came to me 
 the other day in time for you. I have a new 
 treasure an emphasized New Testament, in 
 which the readings give the old Greek idioms and 
 order of importance in the wordings. And I found 
 this : * ./, the I was a heavy capital, as 
 many soever as I may be tenderly loving, am con 
 victing, and putting under discipline : be zealous, 
 therefore, and repent. We cannot conquer our 
 selves until we are convicted of ourselves ; we can 
 not grow warm, be zealous, and turn back, 
 until this tenderly - loving discipline compels 
 urges ivith us ! " 
 
 Rill s head took a lower bend ; the soft eyes 
 veiled themselves ; she could not say another word. 
 
 She carried that about with her for days. 
 
 " 7, as many as I may be tenderly loving, am 
 convicting, and putting under discipline." 
 
 Her whole life looked comforted to her ; it was 
 as if she saw it lying in God s hand. A hope kept
 
 KARMA. 213 
 
 breathing up into her spirit. Not a hope, so de 
 fined, for the future ; it was a hope for the past ; 
 that it had not been all wrong, all punishment. 
 She had been convicted, that she might conquer. 
 She had been let run on into fault into darkness 
 that she might desire to turn and come back 
 into the truth, the light. A noble ardor was born 
 in her ; she knew what that old word meant, 
 " be zealous." She said in her heart, " I will 
 choose and act, not for myself, but for the right. 
 Myself will be taken care of."
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 "YOU MAY, MY CHILD." 
 
 UPON this mood there came an unlooked-for 
 happening ; a gladness that surprised, and searched 
 her also ; a two-edged word of God. 
 
 Putnam King was not a helpless person ; he 
 only yielded to circumstances until he could fashion 
 other circumstances to counteract them. 
 
 One day, a little while before, the early dinner 
 at the cottage, which was prompt at this time to 
 the noonstreak on the kitchen floor, when Cle- 
 inenthy was making up some special savoriness for 
 the meal, after which would come Miss Bonable s 
 twenty-minute nap, and then her game of backgam 
 mon with Mrs. Rospey, who had promised her the 
 afternoon, a carriage rolled smoothly to the little 
 front gate. A pair of noble horses, whose spirit 
 and training showed in beautiful equilibrium with 
 every movement, brought it swiftly to its stopping- 
 place, and drew up there as cleanly and promptly 
 as they had sped along. Putnam King was on the 
 forward seat, and held the reins.
 
 "YOU MAY, MY CHILD." 215 
 
 Cyrilla came down toward the open door, over 
 the straight little staircase that nearly reached the 
 threshold. 
 
 " Has my aunt come round here yet, Miss Raye? " 
 asked the young man, across the shoulder of Miss 
 Pond, who had emerged below and appeared at the 
 entrance ; but who, finding her service superfluous, 
 and not wont to hold herself in any needless wait 
 ing, walked unperturbed away. 
 
 "No," Cyrilla answered, "Miss Haven has not 
 been here to-day." 
 
 " I thought she would be here ; I will drive over 
 to the Corner for her ; she will be ready. Miss 
 Cyrilla, will you put on your wraps meanwhile ? 
 She wishes you to go round Grayfells with her. It 
 is a lovely day. Don t mind dinner ; we must take 
 the heart of the sunshine ; we are to have a car 
 riage lunch." 
 
 Hill hesitated ; she was taken unprepared ; she 
 could not quite understand. Miss Haven had said 
 nothing of this plan. But to-day was such a beau 
 tiful surprise of autumn weather ; it could not 
 have been counted on. We may say that it had 
 been counted on, and very eagerly watched for by 
 Mr. Putnam King. Such days do come, though 
 they give no notice, even away on into November ; 
 they are the golden-ripe days of the year. Now 
 that it had arrived, he had ordered his line of 
 action in such a way as to preclude defeat.
 
 216 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 Rill was lost for a moment looking at the well 
 equipped carriage and the driver who so gracefully 
 held the reins. " I wonder," she thought, " if I 
 must n t. I wonder if I may." 
 
 " Thank you. I do not know," Rill said, after 
 but a few moments perceptible hesitation. "I 
 will see. When Miss Haven comes I couhl be 
 ready in a moment, if I were to go. It would 
 be very pleasant," she added, as fearing she had 
 taken such a kindness with too scant recognition. 
 
 " It ivill be very pleasant," said Putnam King, 
 with a bright smile, and the light lif-t of the reins 
 which gave the signal to his horses. He turned 
 
 o o 
 
 them neatly between wall and wall, over the turf 
 sides, coming close to the gateway as he brought 
 them round, and leaning with a backward glance 
 toward her before he let them take their pace. 
 " We shall be here again directly," were his last 
 words ; and the carriage passed beyond the ash- 
 tree, over the soft bed of leaves, old-gold and 
 bronze, that lay heaped and strewn far out around 
 its foot. 
 
 " I wonder," Rill repeated slowly, " if I must n t. 
 I wonder if I may." 
 
 " It is only one pleasant afternoon," she 
 still deliberated, going up the stairs. " It is with 
 Miss Haven why should I refuse her? I must 
 learn not to want more than I can get ; but what
 
 "FOL T MAY, MY CHILD: 217 
 
 comes to me, why should n t I take ? I will leave it 
 to aunt Amelia," she concluded rapidly. " If she 
 makes the slightest objection, if she wants me for 
 the least thing, that shall settle it. I do want to 
 be shown ; I dont want to do all the choosing by 
 myself." 
 
 It was not a blind fate she was invoking ; in her 
 heart there was a prayer. Without looking for 
 the thing that made her fearful, without such allow 
 ing as would force directly a struggle that would 
 shame her, she began to find her choices perilous, 
 to realize in a dim way how she needed to be given 
 a " right judgment in all things," and to be " kept 
 continually" in a "holy comfort." She wanted 
 that mothering in the spirit, of which the child, in 
 its first mothering, learns the beautiful sign. 
 
 " Aunt Amelia," she said, entering the pleasant 
 south chamber where Miss Bonable, in her big, 
 white easy-chair, sat by the garden window, " Mr. 
 Putnam King has just been here, with a carriage 
 and a message from Miss Haven. They want me 
 to be ready for a drive with them, round Grayfells. 
 It will take all the afternoon. Could you spare 
 me, or had I better not go ? " 
 
 The odor of Clementhy s chicken stew was steal 
 ing up to Miss Amelia s nostrils ; her knitting- 
 work was all arranged in the wide red basket at 
 her side ; the backgammon table was out and
 
 218 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 open ; all the momentary surroundings were sub- 
 tilely propitious. But it was not altogether these ; 
 she was pleased with Cyrilla s straightforward 
 manner ; she was grateful to her ; she had some 
 half-fledged hope of her ; her real love for the girl 
 pleaded for indulgence. 
 
 " I sha n t want you," she replied. " Martha 
 Rospey is coniing, and will stay to tea. Clemen- 
 thy s got corn-muffins and sweet apples and cream. 
 I m going to knit on my quilt ; I sha n t play all 
 the time." 
 
 Aunt Amelia had a rigorous conscience, even 
 over her own invalid amusements. She was hon 
 est, also, clear through. " Martha Rospey is going 
 to bring her board, and show me Polish backgam 
 mon," she added ; "though I don t much expect I 
 shall like it." 
 
 Cyrilla took her leading with a light heart. It 
 was as if somebody, beyond, though by word of 
 aunt Amelia, had said to her lovingly, " You may, 
 my child." 
 
 She was ready at the door when the carriage 
 was driven back. Nobody could have guessed 
 from Miss Haven s manner that she had been 
 routed by her nephew from a peaceful nap, to be 
 told that she wanted to go round Gray fells with 
 Miss Raye and himself, and that Miss Rave was 
 waiting for them at the cottage. " You are not to
 
 " YOU MAY, MY CHILD." 219 
 
 mind dinner," he said, as he had said to Cyrilla. 
 u I ve got a whole basketful of deliciousness put 
 up at your Woman s Exchange." 
 
 " But look at all this," Miss Haven had said, 
 sitting up against her sofa pillow. " I was going 
 to be so busy, presently." " All this " was a con 
 fusion of ribbon-and-lace boxes and piece-baskets, 
 with an array of half a dozen charming little 
 bisque-faced dolls leaning in semicircle around the 
 deep cushion of an armchair. " I was to finish 
 some of these to-day ; the fair begins next Mon 
 day. How can I leave them ? " 
 
 "How can you leave Miss Raye and me? These 
 girls don t want matronizing," said Putnam King. 
 
 " You naughty, double-dealing boy ! " aunt Eliz 
 abeth had exclaimed. And then she had got up 
 and sent him off while she put on her other gown 
 and her bonnet. 
 
 " I am so glad you are going with us," she said 
 with veracious in consistence to Rill Raye when she 
 found her at the doorstep. 
 
 Her guile was like her gossip ; the one became 
 truth, as the other became benediction, in its ut 
 terance.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 HORIZONS. 
 
 THE broad back seat of the low carriage curved 
 forward at the ends ; the corners were perfect for 
 lounging, and it was easy for the occupant of the 
 driving-seat, by a half turn, to face either of those 
 behind. Kill took the left-hand place ; it was upon 
 the side nearest as they had drawn up. Putnam 
 King naturally kept to the right. He managed 
 the lines easily, and as easily gave half his atten 
 tion at the backward diagonal. 
 
 It was the very last day of October ; one of 
 those days that only come in the afterglow of the 
 year ; different from summer weather, different 
 from the gorgeousness of early autumn ; but tender, 
 inexpressibly, with a warmth that was like love 
 loath to leave, still, peaceful, waiting ; a kindli 
 ness of Heaven and a trustingness of earth. 
 
 The trees all but here and there a few had 
 given up their fleeting beauty of summer leafage 
 and of dazzling color ; they stood in their grace 
 and strength of gloriously arching boughs crowning
 
 HORIZONS. 221 
 
 their pillared majesty, their veiling lacework of 
 interweaving stems outlining exquisitely against 
 the blue that pressed itself into their myriad-formed 
 interstices in wonderful mosaic. The smells of 
 fruitage lingered in the air ; odors of cedar, pine 
 and fern came drifting from the woods ; as they 
 entered the forest road behind the town, they came 
 into the full deliciousness of these, upon which the 
 sun lay fervent. 
 
 The waylay first along that North Road, beyond 
 Brook Lane, running between the pines and chest 
 nuts of the Crooke domain and the wide-stretching 
 woodland on the other hand, rich in oak and beech, 
 and rising into high pasture-downs, upon which 
 stood clumps and spires of evergreens against the 
 sky. 
 
 This rise of land was the beginning of the Gray- 
 fells ; a few miles up there was a break between 
 the heightening cliffs where the road wound in and 
 through ; then it went up along the northeastwardly 
 trend again, with the fells upon the right. Far 
 over in the outskirts of Wewachet, in the sparsely- 
 built farm region, there was a turn over the ridge 
 itself, where, with a long ascending slope, the crest 
 was reached and passed. And down upon the east 
 incline you came into woods and pastures and farm- 
 fields again, through whose alternating pleasant 
 ness was gained once more, after the wide circuit,
 
 222 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 the entrance into Old Village ; and so, for our 
 friends, the coming back from Tide Point home. 
 This was the drive " around Grayfells." 
 
 " This north way round is the prettiest bit of 
 drive, I think, in all the country here," said Mr. 
 King, as they rolled noiselessly along the soft, 
 brown, natural road, untouched by the offense of 
 McAdam, and entered under the warm, spicy shade 
 of the pine woods. 
 
 " The way we seldom have a chance to go is apt 
 to seem the prettiest. This is outside our beaten 
 tracks ; we only come for pleasure. If we usually 
 had to take this road, we should think the sunshiny 
 stretch along the meadows delightful, I suppose." 
 There was a happy little thrill in Cyrilla s voice as 
 she spoke, Miss Haven leaving the reply to her. 
 
 " Yes ; there s a charm in the unusual. And in 
 the sense of special possession, too. We have this 
 all to ourselves, for the time being, as if nobody else 
 ever came this way. A common thoroughfare is a 
 dull thing. What everybody does, or has, every 
 day, we do not care for. We like to find our own 
 pathways, or to think we do ; even if they are only 
 what all the generations before have trodden out 
 for us. Life is a queer thing." 
 
 " It is lived queerly," Rill rejoined, involuntarily. 
 And then, as if she had taken more to herself than 
 she had meant to, and was getting further into
 
 HORIZONS. 223 
 
 analytics than was quite fitting for her with Put 
 nam King, while his aunt, to whom he belonged, 
 sat by, she shifted both talk and address with a 
 pretty insouciance. 
 
 " Did you know, Miss Haven, that the green 
 ridge over there has always been called Rattlesnake 
 Hill? What an ugly name, is n t it, to be fastened 
 to a beautiful spot ? " 
 
 " Yes ; but if the ugly things were fastened there, 
 it was safe, perhaps, to give it a true calling," said 
 Miss Haven. 
 
 " I in afraid there would be plenty of ugly 
 names," said Putnam King, "if we had fair warning 
 of everything in the christening. It is only now 
 and then that a thing, or a person, gets named 
 after the fact." 
 
 " But then, you see," said Rill, " the fact may 
 change, and the name stays. TJiat is n t fair. I 
 don t think there has been a rattlesnake on that 
 hill for years." 
 
 " Did they all come down into Wewaehet? " 
 
 Rill laughed. " May be they did, " she said. 
 " There have been a good many killed, I ve been 
 told. I never saw one." 
 
 " Perhaps that s your innocence. You had better 
 look out for the rattle. I think I ve heard it. 
 People may be bitten, sometimes, before they know 
 of the danger."
 
 224 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 " If you like to talk parables, why can t you find 
 pleasant ones ? " put in Miss Haven, who had yet 
 not been able herself to keep from laughing a little, 
 with Rill. " There must be plenty, I think, among 
 all these beautiful things." 
 
 " It is well, however, to have done first with the 
 rattlesnakes," said the young man, with satisfac 
 tion. 
 
 Somehow, Cyrilla felt a trouble put away from 
 her a sting removed, or fended off in this light 
 nonsense of Mr. King s. Under it he had managed 
 that she should catch some fine inference that no 
 venom had been able to poison his thought of her ; 
 no impertinence of tongues had meddled with her 
 to her harm with him. Not that she made the 
 least bit more of the inference than that; it was 
 only that he would not have so spoken had any 
 foolishness she had been afraid of had weight with 
 him against her. 
 
 She felt freed to be happy ; simply happy again 
 in the friendliness that she would be so sorry to 
 lose. She ceased to catechise herself, even in that 
 smothered self-questioning which hurts the more 
 that it covers itself, ashamed or dreading to be 
 ashamed, from direct and open thought. Her one 
 pleasant afternoon had begun with a strange and 
 sudden burst of blessed sunshine. She was so 
 buoyantly content that she could not immediately
 
 HORIZONS. 225 
 
 trouble her content again with words. She sat 
 silent, while now and then Miss Haven and her 
 nephew talked casually, with brief remarks that 
 did not grow to conversation. 
 
 Out beyond the woods they came to a certain 
 broad swell that seemed to raise itself as a centre, 
 zenith ward, whence the horizon line, broken and 
 closed in here and there by scattered forest growth, 
 fell away from the slight, beautiful uplift, leaving 
 it in nearer communion with the sky. 
 
 " Stop here a minute, Put/ said Miss Haven, 
 reaching out her hand. Mr. King reined in, gently ; 
 they came instantly to a stand. 
 
 " There ! " said Miss Haven. " Now look up. 
 Did you ever see the blue and the clouds so near ? 
 And yet we are not very high. I have noticed it 
 here, and in one other place, in cousin Sarah s 
 brook-orchard. I have walked there at twilight, 
 when there seemed a close tent of the loveliest 
 colors dropping just overhead and about me. I 
 have seemed to be right in the sunset." 
 
 " Here we are in the blue shine and the soft 
 whiteness. It is wonderful. What makes it ? " 
 
 " We are a little shut in as to our horizon, and 
 we are just a little lifted above it," said Putnam 
 King. 
 
 " Yes, that is it ! " said Miss Haven, with a joy 
 ful accent. " You have explained the correspond 
 ence. That makes it lovelier than ever."
 
 226 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 " I did n t intend any Swedenborgianism," said 
 Putnam, laughing. 
 
 " No. It was there. That is what I am glad of." 
 
 " We shall come to something wider by and by. 
 You will be glad of that, too, won t you, Miss 
 Kaye ? " 
 
 " I think I am glad of everything, in a day like 
 this," said Rill. 
 
 " Little horizons and all ? " 
 
 " Yes. A horizon is always rolling away. There 
 is no real line and end. That is something to make 
 one very happy." The ring in her voice was like 
 clear-rippling water-music. 
 
 " I like to see you thoroughly happy, Miss Rill," 
 said Putnam King.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE HAPPY HOUSETOP. 
 
 THEN they drove on again. From this point the 
 old road diverted gradually from its skirting of 
 Grayfells. It was the original thoroughfare around 
 by North Shepaug, across the further shoulder of 
 Rattlesnake Hill. The new way, over the fells, 
 branched before the curve had widened far, and 
 crossed diagonally the level space upon the right, 
 to the first reach of the eastward ascent. The two 
 tracks formed a broad-forked, slant-stemmed Y. 
 
 Through a cut in the Rattlesnake ridge was being 
 run a piece of railway ; a bit of cross section, unit 
 ing two main lines. In its progress it had come 
 through upon the old road, just beyond the fork ; 
 they were laying the track, now, at grade. Beyond, 
 it was to follow its course, northeastwardly, under 
 the diminishing slopes of Grayfells. 
 
 Putnam King had not thought of this work at 
 all ; of course he could not have known that it 
 would have reached this precise point to-day. Just 
 before they came to their own safe turn, therefore,
 
 228 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 they faced suddenly the hindrance and confusion. 
 There was something startling to equine nerve in 
 the abrupt surprise of the swarming groups, the 
 bright red shirts, the obstruction. 
 
 " Go on, boys ! " 
 
 It was but a cheery little word, uttered almost 
 quietly, with a careless rising inflection. The steady 
 hand at the same instant made itself just felt along 
 the communicating lines. It was the connecting of 
 the human nerve cool, adequate, assured with the 
 possible flutter of the animal. It was enough, and 
 it was beforehand. The beautiful beasts lifted their 
 heads and curved their backs with the perception 
 and the cheek that might have been a fright, but 
 was changed to a confidence ; and obeyed the guid 
 ance which turned them aside upon the crisp, green 
 level. The way lay safely enough along this wide, 
 turfy margin, even quite past the cumber of rails 
 and sleepers, and the bristle and motion of crow 
 bars, picks and men. The direction they were now 
 to take would lead them comfortably off from all. 
 
 They were just striking their side road from this 
 short cut over the grass, and entering the fringing 
 thicket of birches at the fell-foot, when the sound 
 of a shout and a rush arrested them. A glance 
 backward showed them an impending disaster. 
 
 Some other steed had been less sagaciously man 
 ageable, or less adroitly managed. A frightened
 
 THE HAPPY HOUSETOP. 229 
 
 horse, attached to a low, broad, heavy buggy, had 
 wheeled to the left and bolted, but been brought up 
 at the roadside, upon which it had come round in 
 its wild turn, among granite blocks strewn ancT 
 heaped upon the grass in process of the railway 
 construction. There the vehicle had been caught ; 
 it stood with one wheel raised, leaning at a fright 
 ful angle, and held fast ; the horse leaped and 
 reared frantically among the stones, coming down 
 each time against the rough corners and edges 
 which wounded and infuriated him, and at every 
 upward spring threatening to fall backward upon 
 the carriage and its occupants. 
 
 " Those men are fools ! They are only frighten 
 ing the creature more ! " said Putnam King, half 
 rising from his seat with the impulse to go and 
 help. The laborers, in their blazing attire, and 
 with their shouts and crowding, had gathered im- 
 potently around the struggling animal, unable as 
 yet to get foothold where they could cope with him, 
 or even to make close approach. 
 
 " Go, Mr. King. I can hold the reins," said 
 Rill. 
 
 She was out, as she spoke, by the low step 
 between the guards, and up with a spring to the 
 footboard of the forward seat. Putnam King 
 glanced quickly in her face, met the large, steady 
 eyes, and put the lines in her hands without a word.
 
 230 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 The next instant he had come round by the heads 
 of the horses, given them a quiet, caressing pat and 
 stroke, said in that same cheery tone of friendly 
 *rapport, "You know better, boys, don t you ? and 
 was off with the same breath over the intervening 
 bit of sward and roadway to the rescue. 
 
 The wildly excited horse had twice sprung from 
 the grasp of the men who had tried to seize and 
 hold him by the head ; had actually carried one of 
 them dangling up into the air to lose his hold as 
 he came down, and roll back among the blocks of 
 granite, scratched and terrified. 
 
 Putnam King sprang up on one of the stones 
 just forward of the reach of the dangerous fore 
 feet, and held his arms outspread. " So ! So ! " 
 he cried ; not plunging or grasping at the animal, 
 but facing him, with strong word and gesture of 
 command and reassurance. " So ! quiet 1 Who-a ! 
 good horse ! " 
 
 The extended arms, the determined, friendly eye, 
 the tone of sympathetic control, of good faith and 
 mastery, prevailed presently over even brute panic ; 
 the creature paused between his springs as if for 
 possible help. Two resolute hands met a well- 
 watched chance, and came each side upon the 
 bridle. " So ! So ! " and the horse stayed down. 
 Then one hand loosed its hold, and stroked and 
 soothed him. " Good horse ! " the kind, strong 
 voice repeated. The danger was over.
 
 THE HAPPY HOUSETOP. 231 
 
 Some of the red-shirted men had helped the 
 people from the buggy ; they were an elderly man 
 and his wife. The latter had been upon the down 
 ward side ; they lifted her over the wheels and 
 stones ; then her husband made his way, and stood 
 beside her. Plenty of hands detached the broken 
 thills and harness ; the horse was led forth, free 
 and trembling. 
 
 Mr. King took one of the cushions and carried it 
 to a comfortable place. " You had better sit down 
 and rest, madam," he said, offering her his arm. 
 
 The old gentleman was pale and dazed. He 
 looked ruefully at the disordered, dislocated group, 
 his wife with torn gown and twisted bonnet, his 
 horse with cut knees, his wrecked conveyance. 
 
 " Just wait," Putnam told them, " I will be back 
 again presently ; we will see what can be done. 
 Where were you going ? " 
 
 " To North Shepaug ; we live there," was the 
 answer from the man. 
 
 " We re the minister ; I mean he is," his wife 
 said, and laughed tremulously at her own bewildered 
 announcement. 
 
 Putnam King was back beside his own carriage. 
 
 " It is the minister and his wife from North 
 Shepaug. They are like the babes in the wood, or 
 Adam and Eve just let out into the wilderness. 
 I think I ought to go and take them home."
 
 232 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 " Of course you ought, Putnam," said aunt 
 Elizabeth, with alacrity, stepping- off the carriage 
 with the word. " Kill and I can wait here quite 
 comfortably." 
 
 " You poor old lady ! I quite forgot how uncom 
 fortable you might be with only feminine hands 
 upon the reins. You are sure you won t be afraid 
 now?" 
 
 " Not in the least. What should there be to 
 be afraid of ? " 
 
 " There is a nice little place up there at the 
 right, just off the road. I meant we should take 
 our lunch there. You and Miss Raye can begin." 
 
 " We won t touch a crumb ! " 
 
 " We won t even peep to see what crumbs there 
 are ! " The two women spoke in fugue, indig 
 nantly. 
 
 " I shall be gone less than twenty minutes, very 
 likely," said Mr. King. 
 
 They found the place he told them of, a little 
 hillside s-pace, hedged in with hemlocks spicy in 
 the sun ; the rocky shelf which made its floor 
 carpeted with crisp, short turf and pale-green, glis 
 tening moss ; these spotted and flecked with gold 
 by the fallen leaves of the delicate small birches. 
 
 " What a lovely little corner ! " said Miss Haven, 
 as they sat down and looked and smelled about 
 with delight.
 
 THE HAPPY HOUSETOP. 233 
 
 " What a lovely, wonderful corner to-day is ! " 
 said Hill Raye. 
 
 " All the corners of the earth and life are 
 in His hands," said aunt Elizabeth, simply. And 
 then, with readiest turn to the commonest pleasant 
 things of the instant, " I wonder what Put has got 
 in that big basket ! " I half think she meant a 
 further, higher suggestion. At any rate, I know 
 Rill Raye thought of the giving of the bread and 
 the great baskets full that might be waiting. 
 
 Within the twenty minutes, back came Put. 
 "They live just in the northeast corner," he said. 
 "Indeed, the minister told me that the kitchen and 
 woodshed are over the line, in Wewachet. The 
 man who lives with him, and runs the farm on 
 shares, sleeps over the woodshed, and votes in 
 Wewachet ; but the minister sleeps and pays taxes 
 and preaches and goes to town-meeting in Shepaug. 
 He does n t seem to think it matters about a house 
 divided against itself." 
 
 He chattered on as he brought out the basket, 
 and opened it. He could have chattered about 
 anything. Apparently enough, it was a lovely 
 corner in time to him also. 
 
 Without a direct word to herself, it made Rill 
 glad to see him so. Perhaps she wondered, just a 
 little, that he did not make allusion to her bold 
 holding of his horses. She did not want praise;
 
 234 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 she did not magnify her service, to her own thought ; 
 but she would have liked if he had thought it some 
 thing. Nevertheless, she was as glad, almost, as 
 she could be. 
 
 For Putnam King, he was not so foolish as to 
 waste his advantage even in a word. "What he 
 thought about it could be turned to better account 
 than in a passing thanks or even honoring comment, 
 which would have dismissed the matter with a half 
 using of its capabilities in point. He had in him 
 finer qualifications for the bar than that. 
 
 There was a good deal to comment upon with 
 satisfaction in what he called the " woman s grub." 
 " Positively," he said, " they show their sense in 
 this part of their business." 
 
 Delicate buttered rolls, delicious little chicken 
 pates ; thin, pink shavings of ham, curled up like 
 rose-leaves ; coffee, richly creamed, in a bottle ; 
 crisp wafers, only known to the "W. E., that crackle 
 delightfully in the mouth, and then melt ; great 
 grapes that crowded each other on their stems, 
 with cheeks purple-black in winy fullness ; even a 
 tiny lunch-bouquet for each person, on a napkin ; 
 these, the lifted lid and carefully exploring fingers 
 brought to light, and appetites, touched to keen 
 appreciation by the elixir of October air, did 
 thoroughly enjoy. 
 
 When, a little later, they came out upon the
 
 THE HAPPY HOUSETOP. 235 
 
 broad, bare, breeze-ancl-sun-swept top of Grayfells, 
 the rest and sweetness joined themselves to a great, 
 free revelation. The horses stopped, as if it were 
 of their own accord ; their accord was with their 
 driver ; they threw up their fine heads as if they 
 recognized with their own joy the height, the ex 
 panse ; they stood still, not just because it was 
 welcome after the steep climb, but with some pause 
 of unmistakable pleasure in what the climb had 
 gained ; their eyes gleamed, their nostrils were 
 dilated ; the splendid light, the pure, keen air, 
 seemed to fill them with all their nature could 
 take in of breath and brilliance ; at what precise 
 point their nature stopped, replete, who shall under 
 take to say? 
 
 Putnam King stood by them ; the others were 
 out of the carriage, also, upon the level, rocky 
 summit, where wheel-tracks vanished and feet trod 
 -buoyantly. 
 
 " Ah, this is the happy housetop ! " Putnam 
 King exclaimed, flinging out his arms with jubilant 
 freedom. " This is the wide place I told you of ! 
 We are rid of circumstance up here ; we are let 
 loose ; there is nothing but circumambience ! " 
 
 " What a boy you are ! " his aunt said, smiling. 
 
 " Yes ; and you are a girl ; that is just what is 
 let loose in us when we get out of things like this. 
 Is n t it good, Miss Raye ? "
 
 236 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 " I never was up here, before," Rill answered 
 slowly. Her delight was grave ; its tone was quieted 
 with its own amazement. 
 
 " I am glad of that," the young man said, as he 
 drew nearer to her. Away down, on either hand, 
 they had left it all ; they looked back npon it as 
 they had never seen it seem before. Sunshine and 
 gentle shadows were npon everything ; the villages, 
 the mills by the river, the spires, the bosks of 
 woods, the threads of highway, thin and wandering ; 
 the shining reach of the Wewachet, the winding 
 loops of the Shepaug ; the broad, united tidal 
 stream, the little bay ; in the far southeastern 
 distance, the silver glitter defining the sea-line. 
 
 Putnam pointed this out to his companions. 
 "That makes it perfect," he said. " Why do you 
 suppose it does ? Why is there nothing like the 
 sea to satisfy a landscape ? " 
 
 " It is the encompassing life," Miss Haven an 
 swered. " It is that which feeds the earth, and lies 
 all around it, without end. The power of an end 
 less life, " she repeated softly, to herself. 
 
 " Then why is there to be no more sea ? " 
 
 "Just for the reason that there is to be no more 
 sun. It will be Light and Life direct, and type- 
 less. The Lord himself will be sea and sun." 
 
 Something of the rapture of that was in the 
 time and place. It was the inspiration of the
 
 THE HAPPY HOUSETOP. 237 
 
 heights. They were silent under it. But without 
 speech, in such surroundings, the hearts of human 
 beings are held near. 
 
 They were not sure how long they had been there 
 when Miss Haven said : " The sun is getting low 
 behind us ; we had better, I think, go down." 
 
 Once more in the carriage the descent did not 
 take long. The road followed at first a natural 
 terracing, turning this way and that, from slope 
 to slope that merged one into another ; then it fell 
 rapidly through a dark forest piece, to the level ; 
 they came out upon the common way again, that 
 carried them toward the Point ; just this side of 
 Old Village, by a cross-road and a turn, they bore 
 round homeward. 
 
 They were presently at Crooke Corner ; the sun 
 was far down, westward ; the heights and their day 
 were behind them. 
 
 k I will leave you first, aunt Elizabeth ; your 
 dolly-babies need you." 
 
 " Oh, thanks ! " said aunt Elizabeth, with an 
 accent. 
 
 When they came to the door, however, Rill Raye 
 alighted, also. " I am to take two dollies home to 
 dress, you know," she said. " Good-by, Mr. King ; 
 it has been beautiful. I shall remember it all 
 winter."
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE MOON OF HALLOWEEN. 
 
 PUTNAM KING did not say good-by. " I shall 
 be back before you go home," he answered her. 
 The words conveyed a telephonic meaning to Miss 
 Haven ; they gave plainly an injunction, " keep 
 her." 
 
 The good lady did not quite know about that ; 
 she discerned purpose in Cyrilla, also. What she 
 did not allow for, after all, was the deeper foresight 
 and strategy of Putnam King. 
 
 He knew very well that Rill Raye would scarcely 
 let herself be driven home by him alone from 
 Crooke Corner, in that unnecessarily obvious way ; 
 he did not suppose she would stay long at Miss 
 Haven s, either ; she would walk off almost directly ; 
 he would rather she would be just conscious enough 
 to do that. She would almost certainly take the 
 pleasant cross-cut to the North Road, through the 
 chestnut wood. It was precisely the walk he wished 
 to take with her. 
 
 A few rods down the street he met the extra man
 
 THE MOON OF HALLOWEEN. 239 
 
 from Oates s, coming with the depot driver from the 
 3.50 train ; this, again, being a wisely preordained 
 circumstance. To him he resigned his own team, 
 and retraced his way rapidly on foot. 
 
 He was just in time to catch the glimpse he had 
 expected, of Cyrilla crossing the orchard edge to 
 the wood-lot. In the opening of the glade path 
 between the great trees, he overtook her. " I told 
 you I would be back," he said. " And this is just 
 the way I meant to take you home. The day 
 would not have been quite perfect without this. 
 One does not care to go by beaten, dusty tracks, 
 after the real highways." 
 
 It was what Cyrilla had felt ; it was the instinct 
 of her own choice, and he had divined it of her. 
 They passed on under the great arching boughs 
 into the sweet dimness of the nutwood. 
 
 " You held those horses bravely, to-day." 
 
 Cyrilla turned her face toward him in surprise. 
 She had thought that matter passed over, as a trifle 
 done with. Now he spoke of it, it looked a trifle, 
 though she had been a little glad and proud of it, 
 before. 
 
 " Why, it was not brave, at all," she said. " They 
 held themselves ; I knew they would. You trusted 
 them ; they understood that you put them on their 
 honor to be good with me." As she spoke, she 
 understood herself ; it had been just that she had 
 been proud of.
 
 240 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 " The courage was in your comprehending ; cour 
 age is only confidence in the right working of 
 things. Misgiving is what makes afraid. To 
 believe is to be brave." 
 
 They were words from him which made her heart 
 beat. Strong, fine words, out of a right, high 
 thinking. She was glad of it in him ; she was 
 glad that he would speak it so to her. 
 
 " They were such lovely horses," she said. She 
 could only put her thrill of feeling into words of 
 them. 
 
 " Yes ; they are the sort a man can establish a 
 relation with. Horses, in harness, are but an ex 
 tension of human nerves and temperament. There 
 must be sympathy ; then you can do anything. 
 Only, the human must keep just ahead of the 
 brute ; it must feel and anticipate, this is all. You 
 must expect the unexpected, and keep in touch 
 upon the lines. Then you won t be run away 
 with." 
 
 " Ah, that is true in more than driving horses ! " 
 
 " Yes : in driving one s self. Self-control is a 
 grand thing ; it gives a man a share in the govern 
 ment of the universe." The young man s head was 
 lifted, as he spoke. He was conscious of his own 
 harness in the divine order of things. 
 
 " But one does n t always have the reins in one s 
 own hands," said Rill.
 
 THE MOON OF HALLOWEEN. 241 
 
 " Not ? Not the very self-holding reins ? " 
 
 " Well, yes ; behind everything, and, after all, 
 I suppose one has. But one is driven, too ; and 
 the driving is n t always sympathetic." 
 
 " I think aunt Elizabeth would insist that it 
 was. I think she would quote something about 
 being touched with a feeling of our infirmities. 
 I suppose she would say that all driving not left to 
 us is really in such hands, Miss Raye." 
 
 Rill was silent ; he could not know what made 
 her so ; that it was the very stir in her that made 
 her still. 
 
 " I understood you, though," he said. " I 
 could n t have spoken for myself, so I had to 
 quote aunt Elizabeth. I have been restive enough 
 with some driving ; and just to see the sort of com 
 pulsion others have been under has infected me 
 with a rebellion. Yet, after all, the good words 
 are true, and worth reminding of. I would like to 
 give you the best, Miss Rill." 
 
 " But I have not made you understand me," Rill 
 broke forth. " I have been unfair. I was think 
 ing of things that are all past. I have no right to 
 speak so now, only if it could have seemed so 
 sooner I should have driven myself better. That 
 is the real trouble." She spoke the last words 
 more quietly, and with a smile. 
 
 " Don t go back, Miss Rill, for any trouble ; we
 
 242 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 are in to-day," he answered her. When he said 
 " Miss Rill," there was a singular, gentle drawing 
 near, with a restraint of waiting, in the accent ; 
 it seemed to tell her more than she dared believe. 
 His word " to-day " had a ring of triumph in it. 
 
 "Oh, to-day has been a beautiful day! " she 
 said. He had led her back into the joy of it. 
 
 " Yes ; I hope we shall have more to-days. But 
 a man must not look for beautiful days that he has 
 not earned. To-morrow, Miss Rill, I begin my 
 earning. Will you wish me well in it ? " 
 
 " I wish you well in everything, Mr. King." 
 
 " Some time I may come back and remind you 
 of your saying that." He paused slightly, and 
 then went on. " I shall be away ; I shall not see 
 you so often ; I shall be proving myself. It is 
 what I must do, first of all. I did not mean 
 money, when I spoke of earning ; I have enough 
 of that to make it needful to assert myself in other 
 things. Aunt Elizabeth is right ; I must begin a 
 man s life before I can ask of life what a man 
 wants. You have only seen me as a boy, Miss 
 Raye." He withdrew into the distance of the 
 formal name. Truly, he had great self-control 
 the thing he had declared was grand this boy ! 
 
 " I have not seen you as a boy to-day. You 
 have been doing things and saying things 
 that I shall remember shall thank you for,
 
 THE MOON OF HALLOWEEN. 243 
 
 always," Rill Raye answered him softly, yet keep 
 ing safely and carefully to the patent and acknow 
 ledged. Silence would not have been so safe ; it 
 would have seemed expectant. 
 
 She did not know what it was she was afraid, or 
 tremulously happy, to expect ; she knew it was not 
 coming now, at once, and she acted from the in 
 stinct, on her own part, to help turn it by. But 
 how different all this was from that other wood- 
 walk, that other " explanation ; " what a nobler 
 putting off ! The one put her off from an in 
 ference he was not ready yet to verify ; the other 
 this other put himself off from some hope he 
 had not earned. 
 
 " I do not mean to give up boyishness ; I hope 
 nobody will give me up because of it. The man 
 liest man I know my father is a boy at heart, 
 and openly at times, as much as I am." 
 
 Rill did not say of what that reminded her in 
 stantly, the little child in the midst, who was the 
 greatest. 
 
 " One does not care to show one s deepest, 
 always," he went on. " There are things not to be 
 spoken of to everybody ; and only sometimes to 
 anybody." 
 
 They were the things he had spoken of to her. 
 She had no answer now. 
 
 " I do not think we need to be always saying
 
 244 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 them to ourselves ; we should wear them out with 
 repetitions : we just know they are there ; that is 
 enough to build up life on, anjd life will show. 
 You wish me well, then, in my building ? " 
 
 They had come through into the clearer light. 
 They were at the end of the dim aisle of trees. He 
 stopped, and turned toward her, looking into her 
 face. He held out his hand. She put hers in it. 
 " I wish you well," she said, again, in her clear 
 voice, meeting his look with beautiful, true eyes. 
 
 " I want you to wish me well. I want you to 
 believe in me as I believe in you," he said. 
 
 They were near the cottage now ; the forest path 
 came out close to Brook Lane. He crossed with 
 her, and saw her to her door ; he stood upon the 
 threshold, and Miss Bonable came forth and met 
 them. He had a frank, courteous word for her ; 
 then he said a simple good-night to both, and went 
 away, notwithstanding that auut Amelia invited 
 him to come in to tea. 
 
 " Another time, if you ask me," he said, with a 
 charming deference. 
 
 " That s a clever young man," remarked Miss 
 Bonable, following Rill in. " Pie comes to the door. 
 T like people that come to the door and don t stay 
 behind the fences. He speaks up, and he s got 
 behavior." 
 
 Kill ran up to her room ; there was a window to
 
 THE MOON OF HALLOWEEN. 245 
 
 the east, and Brook Lane ran eastward. She saw 
 Mr. King walking down between the trees. The 
 twilight was yet golden about him ; he was going 
 to his work in the world, lie had left her here, 
 where her work was, but it was light here also. 
 
 She went down, without selfish lingering. Miss 
 Bonable was waiting for her tea. She told to her 
 and Mrs. Rospey the happy story of her day ; all 
 but the happy, hidden, intangible heart of it that 
 it was not possible to utter. She ate muffins and 
 sweet apple and cream ; she helped Clementhy 
 clear away afterward, and she washed carefully the 
 delicate old spoons and the china cups and the 
 pictured India plates ; she put all by, and then she 
 sat and read the evening paper to aunt Amelia. 
 When she had done all this it was scarcely more 
 than an hour s work, but it had a blessed lifetime 
 in it she went with Miss Bonable to her bed 
 room, and arranged her for the night. After the 
 tired head was upon the pillow that she placed pre 
 cisely for completest rest, she leaned down and 
 kissed the lips that had been so often harsh with 
 hard rebuke. " Good - night," she said. Good 
 night was in her heart for all the world. 
 
 " Good-night, Rill; you ve fixed me very nice ; 
 I in glad you ve had your treat." 
 
 That was much for aunt Amelia to have said, 
 and she had called her " Rill." A stiff " Cy-rilla "
 
 246 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 or " Rill Raye," with objurgative emphasis upon 
 the surname, were what the girl had been mostly 
 used to from her ; but aunt Amelia had grown dif 
 ferent ; everything had grown different now. 
 
 Rill went again into her own little east room, 
 away into her own new world. 
 
 " As I believe in you." 
 
 That word set her free of her old, hard past ; 
 it put her 011 probation for a strange, vague, beau 
 tiful future. That it was vague, that nothing was 
 clear and promised, she was glad ; she would not 
 have had it put before her as a certainty, for all 
 the world. She had not " earned " it yet. She, 
 too, must earn something. She must earn his 
 faith. She must earn whatever he might tell 
 her by and by. 
 
 A great, calm moon came climbing up the sky. 
 It poured its light round her, wrapping her in its 
 white veil. She sat there in a wonderful, shining 
 peace. It was the moon of Halloween.
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 FINE WINTRY COLD. 
 
 DURING the weeks that followed, Miss Bonable 
 rapidly resumed the vigor and the habits of her 
 life. She was about the domicile everywhere, 
 searching into its needs of housewifery that had 
 accumulated from delay, and setting herself and 
 Clementhy Pond and Cyrilla unmitigatingly to 
 work ; and Rill surprised her aunt with the genuine 
 readiness of her participation and help. 
 
 It was not mere conscientious obedience to an 
 other s will ; it was putting her own will to it with 
 a pleasure. All the secret Miss Bonable could 
 not know : the rousing, with a woman s hope, of 
 all the true practical woman s instinct. But she 
 began to be glad in the child, with a tremulous 
 joy, like that of one new-born in spiritual things. 
 If it would only last ! 
 
 I do not mean to say that it was Heaven all at 
 once at Brook Lane cottage, any more than it is 
 with the hopeful convert. The old peremptoriness 
 of character would now and then assert itself.
 
 248 A GOLDEN GOS8IP. 
 
 Cyrilla could not, on her part, spring at once to 
 f nil-grown thrift and judgment ; there were lapses, 
 even of industry, and consequent little jars ; but 
 there was a new atmosphere in which the tendency 
 was not to storm, but to placid weather. 
 
 Abroad, something of a social life began again, 
 and with more freedom for Rill. When the second 
 invitation came to visit Mrs. Kextell, aunt Amelia 
 said : " You go, Rill ; it s more for you than 
 me, though they re polite, and I appreciate it. I 
 ain t up to evenings out, yet ; and I m bright 
 enough to know I ain t quite up to the Rextells 
 any way. I m only glad the real stuff is in them 
 to find out real stuff in other people. You go ; 
 it 11 do you good." 
 
 Clementhy was scrupulously dispatched at the 
 close of these evenings to accompany Rill home. 
 Mrs. Rextell would have provided for that ; but 
 Miss Bonable was persistent. " If one friend sees 
 her home, another may ; it s best to understand, 
 as a rule, that it s to be Clementhy." Mrs. Rex- 
 tell perceived and approved. 
 
 Rill was growing into one of those friendships 
 which lift a girl up, in certain peculiar feminine 
 ways, even more than the larger, separate feminine 
 experience. They bring into a higher womanly 
 form the things that may, as yet, have been crude 
 in her, though fair and noble. They help her to
 
 FINE WINTRY COLD. 249 
 
 realize that which she would fain be, before the 
 asking comes to which she would give the best of 
 her possible attaining. She trims her lamp in the 
 sweet company of the other wise virgins, that when 
 the bridegroom calls she may have it burning. 
 
 There was something reverential in Kill s regard 
 for Margaret Rextell ; the kind of worship which 
 differs from external or circumstantial admiration, 
 in that it is a spiritual discernment which perhaps 
 only a woman, perhaps only a girl, and she for one 
 of her own sex, can feel. It is angel-worship. I do 
 not mean adoration ; that is only for the Highest ; 
 but from rank to rank, through spiritual degrees, 
 up to the archangels, the seven spirits round the 
 throne, the joy of worth-ship goes up and up, lift 
 ing those who are capable, and through a divine fel 
 lowship ranging them to higher and higher plane 
 and place, even beforehand. It is the golden stair ; 
 and they who reach down loving, holy hands are 
 they who sit on the thrones, under their Lord, 
 adjudging, in their order, the tribes of the blessed 
 Israel. 
 
 Hill went also to Connie Norris s. She would 
 not desert old friendship ; if good came to her from 
 farther up, why should she not share it, if she 
 could, with one not yet quite high enough to hunger 
 for it? What had made herself to hunger, save 
 the bringing near to her of what should feed her
 
 250 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 best ? She hardly thought of it so she certainly 
 did not assume a mission but she came among 
 them with a difference ; she brought a new air, not 
 of affectation, but a simple breath of life, a gracious 
 contagion of wholesomeness. 
 
 Connie asked her, and made much of her, not 
 for the gift of healing, but because she could so 
 command other presence that she wanted. Dr. 
 Harriman would come when Cyrilla could be met ; 
 Connie had found out that, and acknowledged it to 
 herself. She had acuteness to perceive that her 
 own old flirtation was over ; but she did not want 
 all the world to see it, and suddenly. She meant 
 to keep up a light social intimacy, an apparent 
 power that need not be too obviously defined, until 
 she herself might seem deliberately to have made 
 up her own mind and choice. 
 
 It was at Connie Norris s, one evening, that a lit 
 tle talk arose which Rill had after-reason to remem 
 ber. I say, " Connie Norris s" without reference to 
 the elders of the family, or any literal house owner 
 ship or authority, because for social purposes, and 
 at Connie s time and pleasure, it was not Mr. and 
 Mrs. Norris s house at all. According to the charm 
 ing construction of things in certain spheres of 
 modern life, the parents were, upon such occasions, 
 nowhere ; nowhere being, more strictly speaking, a 
 little back hall-parlor devoted to newspapers, cigars, 
 the mending-basket and the cribbage-board.
 
 FINE WINTRY COLD. 251 
 
 Connie and her set were planning some regular 
 winter sociables for dancing and theatricals ; they 
 were to be held at the village assembly rooms ; and 
 were to be made the events, the counting-points, 
 of the season for Wewachet. " You will join, of 
 course," they said to Dr. Harriman. 
 
 " Of course I shall be happy to have the privi 
 lege." the doctor answered. " But practically, I 
 cannot take part in them at first. I expect to be 
 in Canada, with my sister, for a while." 
 
 " And leave us all wailing and gnashing our 
 teeth ! " said the irrepressible Connie, not very nice 
 about a joke. 
 
 " I hope not. I hope you can spare me, both 
 socially and professionally, for the few weeks I may 
 be away." 
 
 " Where does Mrs. Stanesby live ? " 
 
 " In Ottawa." 
 
 " Oh, you will see everything ! Princess Louise 
 no, Lady Somebody, now, is n t it? Who is the 
 Governess-General ? You 11 be there for the car 
 nival ? " 
 
 " You mean Lady Macdonald," said Dr. Harri 
 man, supplying the point immediately desired to 
 this very vague acquaintance with Canadian cur 
 rent history and dignities. " Doubtless, I shall see 
 Sir John and herself in public. I do not expect 
 to visit at Earnscliffe. As to the carnival, that
 
 252 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 comes later, I think. But there is always winter 
 pleasure, sledging, tobogganing. One is sure of 
 those things." 
 
 " You 11 go tobogganing at Rideau ! They say 
 that is so perfectly gorgeous ! Winter must be 
 fine in Canada. I think I should respect it there ; 
 it means something, and holds to its intention. You 
 know what to reckon on. Our climate is simply 
 exasperating. The cold snaps are vicious, and the 
 thaws are weakly contemptible." 
 
 " It is of an uncertain temper, truly ; and per 
 haps one can bear steady cold better than freakish 
 alternations. But I cannot bear it always. I am 
 feeble enough to be glad of a thaw now and then, 
 just for consolation. If one can only be reminded 
 that a real balminess may come some time, one 
 can wait." 
 
 Dr. Harriman was dividing counters for a new 
 round game, as he spoke. He placed a little heap 
 before Rill Raye, next whom he had secured a seat. 
 He leaned a little toward her, so doing, and it 
 seemed as if his words, in that movement, fell espe 
 cially to her. But she took no notice at all. She 
 picked up her counters, one by one, carefully 
 verifying their number, and presently the game 
 went on. 
 
 There was a prize to be contested for, and cer 
 tain conditions, at each deal, put one player out.
 
 FIXE WINTEY COLD. 253 
 
 It was narrowed clown at last to Dr. Harriman and 
 Cyrilla. So long as she held cards, he played his 
 best ; if she had failed, he would have " died," I 
 believe, at the next hand. It turned out as he had 
 hoped ; they were left to finish the game against 
 each other. 
 
 Dr. . Harriman dealt. A winning card came 
 into Rill s hand. She laid the whole before him, 
 face up, upon the table, seeming to decide the re 
 sult. There was a little shout. " Rill has won ! " 
 they said. " Give it to her, Dr. Harriman." 
 
 That was what he had played for. It was a 
 pretty bangle. " May I put it on ? " he asked. 
 
 " It is not mine at all," Rill said, quietly, and 
 rose up from her seat. " That was your card, Dr. 
 Harriman. You misdealt it." 
 
 He knew what she meant, though it had not 
 been a misdeal, in count. He had more skill than 
 that. It was awkward ; what could he do with the 
 thing, if Rill would not take it? And Rill, with 
 no least emphasis of manner, had moved just far 
 enough away to be out of the scene. She was 
 speaking now, very simply, to Sue Wilder. 
 
 " You will have to keep it yourself, Miss Con 
 nie," Dr. Harriman said, holding it out to the 
 hostess. 
 
 " I will not be fettered, either," replied Connie, 
 laughing, and tossing her hands behind her, though
 
 254 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 he had not asked to put it on. " We will try for 
 it another time. It is great fun," she added. The 
 doctor bowed with a profound gravity, and laid the 
 trinket on the table. 
 
 " Even a Canadian winter has its spring, Miss 
 Raye. Do you always mean to be like this ? " 
 
 It was Dr. Harriman, who met and stopped her 
 half way on the staircase, hat in hand. She was 
 coming down to Clementhy, who waited for her 
 at the door. 
 
 "I don t know," said Rill. "I mean," she 
 went on with a resolve, and her smile was like the 
 sun on crystal "I mean to be always pleasant, if 
 I can. But I must be clear and true." 
 
 " And icy cold," said Dr. Harriman. 
 
 " I am very warm in my friendships, Dr. Har 
 riman," the girl returned. 
 
 " Then be friends with me ! It is all I ask for 
 now." 
 
 " You need not ask it. We are not unfriends. 
 Good-night. I must go down." 
 
 " May I walk to the cottage with you ? " 
 
 " I thank you. I have Clementhy. Aunt Ame 
 lia sends her because she prefers it. Good-night." 
 She held out her hand, reaching it from under the 
 warm, light white wrap that folded her head and 
 shoulders like a wreath of snow. 
 
 " I told you I could not bear continued freez-
 
 FINE WINTRY COLD. 255 
 
 ing ! " said the doctor, in an emphatic undertone, 
 as he caught the hand in his with a significant 
 strength, and turned with her upon the stairs. She 
 released it with as much decision. 
 
 " Then you should not go to Canada," she an 
 swered, lightly. 
 
 " I would go to everlasting flames for you ! 
 he muttered, looking after her as she vanished out 
 upon the porch. 
 
 But he could not stand there, upon the staircase. 
 He turned his hat in his hand, looking into it as if 
 to make certain of his own, and then went down, 
 as feet and voices came hurrying along behind him. 
 
 Putnam King was wise and brave ; he stayed 
 away from Wewachet. He meant to come once in 
 a while, but not now. He was in earnest to work ; 
 to prove himself ; to make this very first winter de 
 clare something. Then, perhaps But, mean 
 while, he would not seek to advance his claim with 
 Rill, and he certainly would not himself occupy, or 
 place her in, an equivocal position. 
 
 So the weeks went by, on into December. Miss 
 Haven went into town, to stay during the busy 
 ante-Christmas with the Rextells. She had all her 
 buying and putting up to do for the beautiful Noel- 
 tide giving. 
 
 She did not give quite like other people. It was 
 her entertaining-time, she said ; she gave no par-
 
 256 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 ties, she made no festivals ; so she remembered, 
 and complimented, and bestowed, now. Her 
 equals, and those better off, in worldly goods, she 
 complimented ; she sent dainty little remembrances, 
 which cost no great deal and were easily dis 
 patched : to the poor she gave substantially, and 
 in conscientiously large proportion ; but it was to 
 a certain sort not always most judiciously or 
 carefully or generously considered that she gave 
 with most thought and distinction. 
 
 People who could not be " besto*wed upon " at 
 other times ; to venture just the right thing with 
 whom, for their delight or want, only Christmas 
 gave gracious opportunity ; it was to them that the 
 most ingeniously adapted gifts went with the nicest 
 detail, and the keenest pleasure in the formal ar 
 rangement. Exquisitely tied-up boxes, whose very 
 tint was a harmony with their contents ; quaint 
 and curious baskets ; cases of permanent use and 
 value and ornament, these were the outside ; 
 within, the happy recipients found things each had 
 been doing without and secretly longing for, 
 beautiful pictures ; soft, rich rugs ; a whole set of 
 books by some beloved author ; a shawl ; a bit of 
 delicate household adorning ; perhaps, for an in 
 valid, some express furnishing or contrivance for 
 special comfort, or material for pleasant work ; 
 novelty of patterns, bundles of wools and silks and
 
 FINE WINTRY COLD. 257 
 
 plushes ; perhaps, to some young girl, a pretty 
 gown even, with blessed privilege of " Chryst- 
 messe " freedom ; whatever the year had brought 
 to her watchful knowledge as the thing best suited, 
 most likely to be welcomed with a joy. And all 
 this took time, and much work, beforehand. So 
 she and the Rextells, grown toward each other in 
 their heart-regard and common purposes, were to 
 gether in the city for this loveliest of carnivals, 
 these holy days before the calendar holiday. 
 
 And Rill was left, just now as to her most 
 real companionships a good deal alone.
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 TWO LETTERS. 
 
 DR. HARRIMAN had bided his time. He had 
 fully resolved what next to do, but he would choose 
 his opportunity. It had come now, when appar 
 ently there was a temporary end to interfering, su 
 perseding things. A pause and gap which might 
 show to Cyrilla Raye, as it showed to his own lim 
 ited and mistaken discernment, that nothing was 
 very permanent to her here, of interest and connec 
 tion with people whose prior places and claims were 
 elsewhere. He thought he divined astutely. He 
 wrote her a letter. 
 
 Cyrilla took it from the office one day with other 
 matters for her aunt. The first glance at the hand 
 writing startled her. It was one she did not know ; 
 a fine manly chirography. Could it be ? 
 
 But the blue stamp in the corner rebuked her 
 hasty foolishness. It was a local drop-letter. She 
 put it in her pocket with a crumple, blushing furi 
 ously all to herself for her own half thought, and 
 at the other perchance which obtruded itself, in a
 
 TWO LETTERS. 259 
 
 vexation both subjective and objective. She had 
 got to read it, she supposed. 
 
 At home, and in her own room, she drew it forth, 
 reluctantly. 
 
 "My dear Miss Raye," it began. "I can no 
 longer bear your misunderstanding of me. I must 
 at least beg your fairer judgment, before I dare 
 ask anything beyond. I did neither you nor my 
 self justice when I talked with you that day at 
 Shepaug. I should have said more or less. That 
 I said anything was you must surely perceive 
 because there was growing so much to be said that 
 some time I should inevitably speak. It has been 
 growing ever since, through all your coldness and 
 avoidance. I love you. I loved you then, and 
 therefore I told you of my life. I wished you to 
 know what lay in my way, and that it was in the 
 way of that which I most dearly wished. If I had 
 asked you that day to wait with me for me 
 would you have waited ? I ask you now. I be 
 seech it of you with all my heart. I desire, I need 
 you, as I need my soul s salvation. Life holds no 
 thing else for me that I can work or wait for. If 
 you can quite forgive me, if you can say to me 
 some little word of hope, write me the briefest 
 answer, and I will be very glad and grateful. But 
 do not write me No. Do not put that in irrevo 
 cable black and white. If you hesitate, if you even
 
 260 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 mean refusal, now, keep it back, and leave me with 
 such hope as I had before. I will presume upon 
 nothing ; but I will never cease to endeavor to de 
 serve and win you. ROBERT HARRIMAN." 
 
 This was explicit enough. This was ardent 
 enough. It was terrible enough to a young girl 
 who had never had such a letter written to her 
 before ; never heard such words of eager desire 
 spoken ; never dreamed what they could be. 
 
 Had she drawn it upon herself ? Had there 
 been what might seem " tactics," as Connie Norris 
 had accused her? Had it been as if she would 
 have all this or nothing ? And how could she 
 answer the " No," that he begged her not to write ? 
 Must she not write, and say how impossible it was ? 
 Could she encourage, even by that silence which 
 was a mere withholding of the " no " ? 
 
 And yet, what should she say to him ? What 
 was it that made the impossibility so positive, 
 the thing he was so willing to wait for, so certainly 
 nowhere in the farthest future ever to be ready 
 for him? 
 
 All these questions rushed upon her. They sent 
 the blood in quick leaps of affright and shame and 
 resistance to her face and her fingers ends ; then 
 they caught it back again to her heart, as she sat 
 pale, quiet, only conscious of one thing, that the 
 answer, now or ever, was " No " almost fiercely, 
 "No! No!"
 
 TWO LETTERS. 261 
 
 Miss Bonable s mail had included that big en 
 velope which came to her twice a year through the 
 hands of her Boston broker ; that important pack 
 age which she always received silently, safely locked 
 away, and in consequence of which made very 
 shortly afterwards her long day s visit to the city. 
 
 She came, from the examination and careful be 
 stowal of this, into Kill s room. Rill sat still with 
 the letter on her lap. She had thrust it back into 
 the envelope. She did not know what to do with it. 
 She wished it would disappear, that she might not 
 have to touch it again, to dispose of it in any way. 
 
 " Who is your letter from, Cyrilla ? " demanded 
 her aunt, very naturally, since Cyrilla did not get 
 a great many letters. 
 
 The girl looked up bravely. " It is a note from 
 Dr. Harriman, aunt Amelia," she said. 
 
 " Him ? What does he write notes for ? What 
 does he want ? Are you going to answer it ? " 
 
 " I do not think it quite requires an answer. It 
 was to tell me something. Besides," she added, 
 " he is going away. No, I shall not write to him." 
 
 " I should hope not. I have n t any opinion of 
 Dr. Harriman, not any at all ! " 
 
 Cyrilla could not help smiling at the positive- 
 ness of the negation. " It seems to me you have, 
 auntie," she said. " And I don t think you are 
 quite fair to him. He is a gentleman."
 
 262 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 " May be. There are different sorts. He ain t 
 my sort, and he knows it. I should like to know 
 what he says to you that you don t mean to answer." 
 
 " If I did, auntie, I would tell you all about it. 
 Where were your letters from ? " 
 
 She spoke, not with the old, cool defiance, but 
 with a frank, sweet assertion of her independence. 
 Composure had returned to her, with the diversion 
 to her aunt of immediate consideration ; putting by, 
 and determining in the instant of reply to her, all 
 question of what to do as to Dr. Harriman. In 
 what she could but say to Miss Bonable s catechis 
 ing, she had answered herself. 
 
 " I don t know as it s your place to inquire," 
 Miss Bonable said to the counter question, with her 
 old curtness. 
 
 Rill had not thought of retort, or intrusion ; she 
 had simply changed the subject. Miss Bonable 
 walked out of the room with her chin up. 
 
 " Now I have offended her," said Rill to herself, 
 " and I am sure I did not mean to." Neverthe 
 less, the little side issue had been a relief. 
 
 Two days after, Miss Bonable went to town, for 
 the first time in nearly three months. She had a 
 good deal to do ; there were the safety vaiilt, and 
 the bank, and the broker, to be visited ; there 
 would have to be a long talk about investments, 
 and a settling of the fresh commissions ; then she
 
 TWO LETTERS. 263 
 
 would cro to her old friend who lived in rooms in 
 
 O 
 
 Grackle Place, and lunch and rest with her ; it 
 would be late, as usual, when she would return. 
 
 At the station, she caught sight of Dr. Harri- 
 man. He came in with Colonel Sholto. 
 
 " So you are off to Canada, I hear ? " she heard 
 the colonel say ; and Dr. Harriman answer, " Not 
 to-day ; to-morrow, possibly." 
 
 She simply thought, in the same style that she 
 might have spoken, " Humph ! A good riddance 
 enough. Should n t care if he would go to Jeru 
 salem, and stay there ! " 
 
 Why she so intensely disliked Dr. Harriman she 
 scarcely could have told ; but she was to remember 
 those two chance sentences ; they were to have 
 more significance for her to-morrow. 
 
 Rill had the day before her ; so had Clementhy 
 Pond. For dinner, Rill would find her own lunch ; 
 she always did when Miss Bonable was away. The 
 pantry held plenty ; there was always rich, sweet 
 milk ; Rill liked to take a little tray of her own 
 arranging to her room, and sit down with it, and a 
 book beside her. She was one of those persons 
 who recognize by an instinct of special comfort, 
 how we are fed in more ways than one, and how 
 pleasantly mental and bodily hunger may be ap 
 peased together. 
 
 Miss Pond was secluded in her bedroom over
 
 264 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 the kitchen. She was " hooking " a rug ; this long 
 day of liberty was a treat to her. She was cutting 
 up long strips of bright yellow flannel, and snip 
 ping them off in little rectangles, into a basket. 
 She was going to work a huge sunflower into her 
 pattern. She had never heard of Oscar Wilde ; 
 she knew nothing of the prescriptions of aesthetics ; 
 it was her own inspiration. 
 
 Miss Bonable had gone early. An hour or two 
 later one of the depot drivers, coining up for Mrs. 
 Rospey, had stopped at the cottage with letters 
 from the morning mail. One, this time, for Cle- 
 menthy Pond, and another, again, for Cyrilla. 
 With Clementhy s we have no interest, save that 
 it helped to keep her yet more strictly immured 
 and occupied, and that Cyrilla was left yet more 
 entirely to what the day might be to her. 
 
 It was a queer little letter that had come to her. 
 She turned it over with a puzzled surprise, before 
 she opened it. There was a yellow, queen s-head 
 postage-stamp, to begin with ; it had started from 
 the British Dominion, somewhere ; then it had 
 traveled, blunderingly, hither and yon, about the 
 United States, for a month at least, by various 
 dates. It was scrawled all over with strange 
 names. It had been to two or three Newmarkets 
 one away in Missouri ; to a Menasket, a Winis- 
 kit, a Nonatick ; it had "try" this, that and the
 
 TWO LETTERS. 265 
 
 other in red and black and blue crossings. At 
 last it had come to Wewachet, and Rill s hands. 
 
 She broke it open. Like some explosion from 
 an infernal machine, the thing she read in it shat 
 tered her whole life as she had known it. Rent, 
 blasted, the circumstance that had been about her, 
 all fact that she had believed of herself was torn 
 from its foundations and sent hurling 1 over her 
 head. Before her lay a chasm. Behind her was 
 impassable wreck and barrier. Nothing could be 
 as it had been, ever again. Instead, what should 
 be ? At first, in her confusion, she could hardly 
 think. 
 
 With all her difficult peculiarity, she had always 
 thought Miss Bonable a just woman. But what 
 terrible injustice was this that she had done ? 
 How had she hidden truth and separated lives ? 
 
 One thing cleared itself from the chaos of her 
 thought, she could not stay here ; she could not 
 confront aunt Amelia with this, or ask of her. How 
 could she believe anything that she might choose 
 to say about it ? Aunt Amelia had kept Rill s 
 whole real life from her all these years. She could 
 not even bear to see her again. And, another 
 thing, she must go to the writer of this letter. For 
 the writer was her mother. 
 
 She was poor ; she was ill ; she was in a little 
 " House of Mercy " hospital in Montreal, " Mai-
 
 266 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 son de Sainte Esperance." She had had years of 
 trouble and struggle ; she had been alone ; she had 
 no friends. She would not say she had been wise, 
 or good, herself ; she had been very foolish and 
 wrong. But they had never trusted her. If they 
 had if she had been happy if it had not been 
 for Miss Bonable " Amelia, your aunt," the let 
 ter said it might have been all different ; she 
 might have stayed ; she might have had the care 
 and comfort of her little child. She had been so 
 young. But they had never made allowance ; they 
 had never had patience. They had driven her off ; 
 they had taken away her little child. Amelia had 
 hated her. She had watched and suspected her, 
 always. She had loved Rill s father, who had gone 
 away to the other end of the world. He was a rich 
 man, now ; he was sending home money, she was 
 sure, to this child that Amelia had got from her ; 
 Amelia had got everything. But now the child 
 was grown, was a woman ; she could choose ; she 
 might at least come to her mother, who could not 
 come to her ; she might let her tell her story, which 
 had been kept back, or, may be, told wrong ; she 
 might let her see the little girl that she had lost so 
 long. 
 
 And there the letter ended. It asked nothing 
 but that Rill should come. But beyond that, there 
 was a claim, a care. There was money. Rill could
 
 TWO LETTERS. 267 
 
 do for her what she pleased, if this were true. 
 That was all left unsaid ; nothing had ever been 
 said till now, in this sore need and longing. 
 
 Rill could not know how that had been ; that in 
 this little way-off hospital, to the woman lying there, 
 dependent, after all her life of selfishness and error, 
 upon the ministry of these good Gray Sisters, had 
 come, by chance, among miscellaneous reading for 
 the inmates, an Australian newspaper ; that in it 
 had been mention of some new great enterprise, in 
 which leading men at Adelaide were engaged ; fore 
 most among them " the well-known house of Raye 
 & McLeod ; " with personal tribute to Marcus 
 Raye, Esq., the head of the firm, and president of 
 the new corporation. 
 
 Yes, there was undoubtedly money ; she knew 
 Marcus Raye would not neglect to provide gener 
 ously for his child ; and his child was hers. Ilinc 
 illce lacrimce ; hence this pull upon the old chord 
 of mother-love and yearning that had been slack 
 and un thrilled so long. 
 
 To Cyrilla, it was like a word out of another ex 
 istence, one that she had died from and missed 
 knowledge of. However she was to find her, what 
 ever she was to learn of her, she must go to her 
 mother. Undoubtedly, in this she was still Cy 
 rilla; the rash, wild impulsiveness of her nature 
 was asserting itself ; she would be doing but a
 
 2G8 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 half -judged thing. But who was there to help 
 her? 
 
 Miss Haven ? If she had been right there 
 but in this convulsion, this cataclysm of her life, 
 how was she to go to her? All things were chan 
 ging for her ; all things were thrown into a whirl 
 and seethe from which nothing could come out as 
 it had been. How was she to go with this to the 
 aunt of Putnam King ? The most beautiful force 
 that had entered into the world of her experience 
 was now impelling her away ; away from all that 
 could never be again. 
 
 And it was not two months yet since Halloween.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 RILL S RUBICON. 
 
 " WHATEVER it was, whoever had been to blame, 
 I had a right to know. It was my life. I had a 
 right to live it, or at least to have been ready ! " 
 Rill cried out to herself bitterly. " A father and 
 a mother at the two ends of the earth ! Oh, it was 
 cruel, it was wicked, to keep it back from me, and 
 let it come like this ! Your own sister, too, Miss 
 Bontible ! " she broke forth, with almost an ab 
 surdity of indignation, as if confronting her aunt 
 Amelia with the charge, and flinging at her the 
 hard name that thrust off kindred. " You ought 
 to have followed her ; you ought to have found 
 her, and stood by her ! You had me to help you, 
 the little child ! She would have come back for 
 me, and I should have had my mother ! You had 
 no right to keep me, and to let her go ! I never 
 can forgive you and I was just beginning to 
 think I loved you ! " 
 
 After this storm swept through and over her 
 she did not know how long it lasted ; one cannot
 
 270 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 measure a cyclone while in it she sat down, quite 
 still, for a space, and let her way show itself before 
 her. She did not try to make a plan ; she looked 
 on in a sort of blankness, while the plan made 
 itself. 
 
 She must go to Montreal. She must find, she 
 must see, this mother. " Come to the Maison de la 
 Sainte Esperance," the letter said. " It is in street 
 Larmes des Anges. Ask for Mother Marthe 
 or Sister Veronique. Tell them you belong to 
 me and I have sent for you. You need not tell 
 them everything. Only come and just say that 
 till I have talked with you. May be you don t be 
 lieve me but you will. Then you can say what you 
 like afterward." 
 
 This was the way it was written, in short periods, 
 evading clauses and commas. It was well spelled, 
 and fairly expressed, throughout, but evidently 
 not the work of one easily practiced. It was 
 signed " E. B. Raye." The woman had honest 
 right to both the initial letters, though she had 
 always been called " Loraine." Spelled out in full, 
 the Christian name was Eloraine ; one of those 
 curious fancy constructions that are found in coun 
 try town records, and in remote old graveyards. 
 But she had doubtless remembered in writing it, 
 that Miss Bonable s sister was "Esther," and had 
 shrewdly divined the ambiguity or absolute igno-
 
 E1LVS RUBICON. 271 
 
 ranee in which Cyrilla might have been left. She 
 would have come across Esther Bonable s name, 
 she guessed ; and Amelia was " aunt Amelia " to 
 her. 
 
 It was well guessed and ventured. Cyrilla knew 
 and secretly cherished the name she believed to 
 have been her mother s. " Why was n t I named 
 for my mother ? " she had startled Miss Bonable 
 once by asking. " Esther is a strong, sensible 
 name ; perhaps I should n t have been so flighty if 
 I had n t been called Cyrilla." 
 
 " You were called after your father s mother," 
 Miss Bonable had answered, shortly. " And she 
 was a stiddy, reliable woman." 
 
 There she had dropped the bar that always fell 
 across any talk of former things or relations. Si 
 lence, withdrawal, or determined change of subject, 
 ended inevitably all approach to investigation, and 
 Rill was afraid of what there might be to hear. 
 
 Now, she knew. Now, there was one thing cer 
 tain. She must go to Montreal. Nobody must 
 hinder her. Something of effort, of courage re 
 quired, gave a stimulus, if not exhilarating, at least 
 counteractive to her real trouble ; it met her tem 
 perament, always roused to whatever called for de 
 cision, daring. It was a long journey ; it was win 
 ter ; she was all alone ; she must venture every 
 thing, without advice, at once, and by herself. Per-
 
 272 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 haps a less demand would have given her less 
 determination. 
 
 She went to her little bureau drawer, that was 
 under the glass. There were fifty dollars here, of 
 her last rent. It was to have bought her a new 
 cloak and dress. Never mind that, now. She had 
 two hundred more laid by, at the New England 
 Trust Company. She could get that, and if there 
 were more, rightly belonging to her, as this letter 
 said, and as was likely if all the rest it said were 
 true, Miss Bonable would send it to her. Miss 
 Bonable was a no, she could never say again that 
 she was a just woman ; but she would not cheat in 
 money. Rill would be able to help her mother ; 
 when she had found her, they would think together 
 what to do. Something hardened up in her against 
 any other hope she had ever had. It was no use 
 looking that way ; it was like Lot s wife. She 
 would be petrified ; she would be changed into 
 utter bitterness and deadness, if she did. She 
 must just go straight on. 
 
 She brought carefully and quietly downstairs 
 into the unused north parlor, a small square trunk. 
 She carried and put into it the things she needed 
 for a journey. Clementhy came to her at lunch 
 time, or after, Rill did not know which, for she 
 had not remembered her own little tray, and her 
 book, and her quiet pasturing of mind and body, at
 
 RILL S RUBICON. 273 
 
 all. Clementhy came and said she guessed she 
 would walk over to Shepaug. She could be back 
 before Miss Bonable. Her brother-in-law would 
 fetch her home. "Very well," Rill told her. 
 "Lock your end of the house; I will lock the 
 front. I shall go down to the village." 
 
 So she did ; she wrote a note first to Miss 
 Haven, inclosing with it a little blue book and 
 a check which she drew to Miss Haven s order. 
 " She will do that for me, I know," she said. 
 
 At the post-office she had the parcel registered, 
 and mailed it ; then she bought a small can of 
 sweet biscuits and some oranges ; she did not feel 
 as if she could eat Miss Bonable s bread again ; 
 she stopped at the express office, and ordered them 
 to send up presently and take a trunk from the cot 
 tage to the station ; these things accomplished, she 
 hastened back to Brook Lane, sent off her box 
 when the man came for it, and wrote one more 
 note, a very brief one. 
 
 How she got rid of the hours that remained, she 
 hardly knew ; she waited till she heard Clementhy 
 below again, then she called to her and told her she 
 was tired and had a headache and would not come 
 down to tea. She would go to bed, she thought. 
 
 When Miss Bonable came back, Rill s bedroom 
 door was locked, and she made neither sign nor 
 sound in answer to the knock and question that
 
 274 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 were tried quietly once, and not repeated. Miss 
 Bonable was tired, herself ; it was seven o clock ; 
 it seemed a long evening already; she went to bed, 
 and the winter night and stillness fell down upon 
 them all. 
 
 It was yet in the twilight of the December morn 
 ing when Rill, with her shawl and her hand-satchel, 
 and her brown veil tied close down across her face 
 shielding from cold and observation, walked over 
 the mile of road, clean crusted with smooth-worn 
 snow. She took a train half an hour earlier than 
 was needful, that she might be less likely to meet 
 any acquaintances, and be fairly away before any 
 one at home would be stirring to miss her. She 
 found her trunk at the station, had it checked and 
 put upon the platform, and stood there by it when, 
 three minutes later, the electric signal rang, and 
 the engine came steaming around the curve from 
 Shepaug. The sun came up red over the marshes, 
 as the train slipped through the river cut, sped on 
 between the woods, and rushed out along the line 
 that shot its level, glittering parallels toward the 
 city whose roofs and spires shone presently in sight 
 upon its clustered hills, and out over the great sub 
 urban avenues. 
 
 It was morning, bringing new things every 
 where ; how new and strange to thousands of lives 
 only each of the glad or anxious or suffering thou-
 
 RILUS RUBICON. 275 
 
 sands could tell. Rill wondered if it could mean 
 as much to anybody else as to herself. To aunt 
 Amelia ? Oh, yes ! She thought of her with a 
 pang of wronged, angry tenderness ; but how could 
 she herself have done otherwise than she had done ? 
 It was aunt Amelia who was responsible ; it was 
 she who had shaped things to the issue ; the very 
 yearning and regret Rill felt sprang from that in 
 her which would not have let her stay and face 
 Miss Bonable with the reproach of her doing ; nei 
 ther could she have borne a contradiction of her 
 purpose. She must do this, and she must do it 
 alone. She must find her mother, whatever came 
 of it. 
 
 And suppose she did not find her ? Very well ; 
 that possibility had nothing to do with it ; it was 
 her duty to try. 
 
 At the Boston station she bought her ticket, got 
 her check, engaged a seat in the parlor car, and 
 had a cup of hot coffee and a roll at the cafe" ; 
 then she went into the train and found her place 
 in the Pullman. She sat there alone for some 
 minutes ; it was still early ; she leaned back in the 
 deep chair and shut her eyes ; it was her first pause 
 in the rush of needful action. She was tired ; she 
 did not wish to look at the movement about her, 
 up and down the platform ; luggage being hurried 
 by on trucks ; groups of friends, gayly talking,
 
 276 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 happy in all starting off together ; other groups 
 bidding good-by and parting. 
 
 People began to come in behind her ; she sat 
 still, and did not look around ; her chair was near 
 the front. By and by the train gave a slow, heavy 
 pull, the great wheels measured the lengths of rail 
 with separate clanks ; the engine panted ; then it 
 got easy, regular breath ; the rails were clicked off 
 faster under the smoother, swifter roll ; presently 
 their rapid-running beats pulsed the miles like 
 minutes ; the causeways and the bridges had been 
 crossed and left behind ; the State Prison and Bun 
 ker Hill Monument had wheeled away to the right ; 
 they were whizzing by the first suburban stations ; 
 they were out into the white frozen country. 
 
 Charles River was Rill s Rubicon ; she had 
 passed it. Aunt Amelia had her note by this time ; 
 she was off beyond recall. 
 
 She shut her eyes again ; she tried to shut out 
 thinking ; and she went to sleep. Poor child ! she 
 had not really rested all the night. 
 
 Somebody had taken a seat upon the opposite 
 side, a little back ; he had laid a rug and satchel 
 and his Railway Guide upon it, and had gone away 
 into the smoker. 
 
 Nearly an hour went by ; he had returned to his 
 place ; but of the little figure over across, nothing 
 was visible as it still leaned hidden, with its veiled
 
 RILL S RUBICON. 277 
 
 face turned away. Only a fold of dark bine 
 winter serge that fell to the floor from around 
 the heavy curving 1 arm of the chair, gave evidence 
 of its occupant. The two who were to be all-day 
 neighbors had not seen each other yet. 
 
 They were speeding away along the reaches of 
 the Merrimack, whose narrowing current made its 
 darkly vivid rush between the snowy ice-floes, when 
 Rill was roused by the conductor s deferent touch 
 and request for ticket. Swinging slightly round 
 upon her revolving seat, as he passed on, she put 
 up her veil and glanced across through the oppo 
 site windows upon the white slopes of hills that 
 just then shut in the valley, wondering what part 
 of the country it might be. 
 
 The gentleman upon the other side put down his 
 newspaper, as the official came to him in turn ; he 
 saw, past the shoulder of the man, the sweet, strong 
 profile suddenly thrown in view. He hurriedly 
 took back his ticket, and started to his feet. The 
 conductor moved along, and the passenger went 
 forward ; he remembered just in time to stay his 
 step from a spring, and to tone his voice from 
 others hearing. 
 
 Miss Raye ! " 
 
 Cyrilla looked quickly up ; she found herself 
 face to face with Dr. Harriman.
 
 278 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 We must leave them there ; I must tell you 
 meanwhile about Miss Bonable. 
 
 At this very moment, or nearly so, she was ring- 
 in: Mrs. Rextell s bell on Mount Vernon Street.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 EXACTLY LIKE MRS. REXTELL. 
 
 A GRAY-HAIRED, black-coated, severely respecta 
 ble servant opened the door. He was the town 
 butler ; he did not know Miss Bonable, who asked 
 to see Miss Haven. " The ladies are all out," he 
 told her. 
 
 " Then, if you please, I must come in and wait," 
 Miss Bonable said, with her usual curt decision. 
 " I am Miss Bonable, from Wewachet. I have an 
 important errand to Miss Haven." 
 
 The butler civilly threw back the door, and 
 stood aside. The servants in this house were 
 always civil. 
 
 " Will you walk into the little reception parlor, 
 Miss Bonable, and sit down ? " the man asked her ; 
 and then he went and called the lady s maid. He 
 might be civil ; but he was duly cautious, also. 
 
 Agnes was always with her mistress, here or 
 there. She knew Wewachet. Agnes came. The 
 poor lady by this time was faint with worry, effort, 
 disappointment ; she sat bolt upright against the
 
 280 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 back of a tall chair, looking as if otherwise she 
 would sway and fall. 
 
 Agnes hastened to her. " Miss Bonable," she 
 said, " you are not well. You must have something. 
 Melcombe, bring a glass of wine/ 
 
 u I came in without my breakfast," said Miss 
 Bonable, moving her lips nervously ; slie meant to 
 smile. " I was in a hurry." 
 
 " Bring a biscuit, and some cold chicken, Mel- 
 combe," added Agnes to her order. 
 
 The girl was kind, by nature and by training. 
 She was also a little fond of representing her mis 
 tress with authority, strong in the certainty of 
 what her mistress would approve. " And then you 
 must come upstairs, Miss Bonable," she said. She 
 was truly fine in her assumption of responsibility, 
 and her calm indorsement of Miss Boiiable s cor 
 rectness. Melcombe obeyed her directions, and 
 stood meekly aside. 
 
 So when Mrs. Rextell and her guest returned 
 from their morning drive and charity meeting, they 
 found Miss Bonable on the sofa in the dressing- 
 room between their sleeping-chambers ; outwardly 
 quiet, but holding herself there by main force. She 
 sprang up as they entered. 
 
 " Oh, have we waked you ? " asked Mrs. Rex- 
 tell, regretfully, and quite as if she had come home 
 expecting to find her country neighbor there asleep.
 
 EXACTLY LIKE MRS. HEX TELL. 281 
 
 " I have n t been asleep. I have been in a stun 
 these three hours," answered Miss Bonable. " A 
 terrible thing has happened, Miss Haven ; Rill 
 has gone away." 
 
 After she had spoken these words, in a kind of 
 mechanical dullness, Miss Bonable dropped herself 
 back upon the sofa, and put her hands over her 
 face. " I ain t angry ; and I can t cry," she said. 
 
 " I will leave you with her ; if I can do any 
 good, call me," whispered Mrs. Kextell gently, and 
 went into her own room, closing the door. 
 
 " I don t understand. Rill gone away ? When ? 
 where ? " asked Miss Ha veil. But first she sat 
 down by Miss Bonable, and put her hand upon her 
 friend s shoulder, leaning her own face tenderly 
 close to hers. Miss Bonable drew round, freeing 
 herself, not ungently, but as one who must hold 
 herself up alone. 
 
 " She s gone - to Canada. And Dr. Harriman s 
 gone. Now you know it all." 
 
 " My dear friend, I don t know anything ; except 
 that that cannot be true unless as two separate 
 facts. Do explain." 
 
 " It is n t separate. That explains." And she 
 pushed a paper, folded and rolled, and pinched 
 and clenched small, into Miss Haven s hand. Miss 
 Haven opened it from its many creases and read 
 this :
 
 282 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 " I am going away. I am sorry, but it cannot 
 be helped. You will guess what I have gone for. 
 If you had trusted me, if you had let me under 
 stand my own life, if you had tried to believe any 
 good of my the person I am going to, it might 
 have been different. There might never have been 
 any going away at all. I could not tell you, I 
 could not ask you, now ; it is my own concern, my 
 own decision ; it had to be. I will send you some 
 word from Montreal." 
 
 Miss Bonable gazed straight into Miss Haven s 
 face while she read ; as if through her face, into 
 her thought, she would reach to read something 
 that she had not been able of herself to find in the 
 lines. 
 
 Miss Haven lifted her eyes when she had fin 
 ished, and met the look. " What she says is true ; 
 you have not trusted her." 
 
 " Oh, I meant to ! When I had got her where 
 I could ! I was trying to bring her up to be 
 trusted ! " broke in quick exclamations from Miss 
 Bonable s lips. 
 
 " You have been too long bringing her up," 
 Miss Haven said quietly, using the very word Rill 
 had used so long ago. " Begin by trusting her 
 now." 
 
 " Now ! When it is all over ? When she has 
 gone away with that oh ! " Miss Bonable could
 
 EXACTLY LIKE MRS. REXTELL. 283 
 
 not put the final word ; she could not, after all, 
 accuse Rill in. that outright speech. 
 
 " Nothing is over. And she has not done what 
 you think." 
 
 " What else can she have done ? " 
 
 " Don t you see ? She never would have written 
 you this had it been Dr. Harriman. Dr. Harri- 
 man may have gone to Canada ; it is an unfor 
 tunate coincidence ; but I am sure that it has no 
 thing to do with Rill. She did not remember that, 
 when this came on her suddenly. Miss Bonable, 
 it is a quite different thing. Rill has heard from 
 her mother." 
 
 " Through you ? " Miss Bonable demanded 
 quickly, at that statement. 
 
 " No, my friend. I wish she had. I had not 
 told her. Mrs. Raye " 
 
 " Hush ! There is no Mrs. Raye ! " 
 
 " Rill s mother must be in Montreal. She must 
 have written." 
 
 For a minute Miss Bonable held her breath. 
 
 " Do you think that ? " she said at last. 
 
 " I do. I think it is like Rill impetuous, 
 hasty, noble to have gone right off to her." 
 
 Ao ain Miss Bonable sat silent, breathless. 
 
 o 
 
 Mrs. Rextell knocked upon her side of the dress 
 ing-room door. "May I come in?" she asked. 
 " I have a note for you. It has just been brought
 
 284 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 to me. It may explain," she added as she en 
 tered. 
 
 It was Kill s note to Miss Haven. 
 
 " I am going away," it said. " I must. Some 
 thing I never knew before a duty has come 
 to me. I will write and tell you more when I un 
 derstand more myself. I know you will believe 
 in me,, and that you will do for me what I have to 
 ask you. I shall want money, whatever really 
 belongs to me. I hardly know what that may be. 
 I shall have to leave it to you to ask ; I am sure 
 it will be all right. I send a check for what I had 
 of my very own ; it is to your order. Will you get 
 it, and send it to me in a draft, or whatever way 
 is right and regular, as soon as you have received 
 my address ? Good-by, dear Miss Haven. I am 
 sorry, sorry, for everybody. But my whole life is 
 changed, and I cannot help it." 
 
 Those last sentences were veiy full, as Miss 
 Haven read them, between the syllables. There 
 was a message in them for Miss Bonable, though 
 Rill had not been able to write her name. There 
 was something in them also that reached beyond 
 Miss Bonable, to what that excellent person, with 
 all her watchfulness, had never discerned for 
 the very reason that it was not a thing to be afraid 
 of, but a thing of good. 
 
 " It is just as 1 expected. Rill has certainly 
 heard from her mother."
 
 EXACTLY LIKE MES. REXTELL. 285 
 
 Miss Bonable s eyes grew wide in amazement, 
 turning from Miss Haven to Mrs. Rextell, as these 
 words were uttered. 
 
 " Mrs. Rextell knows. She will help us," said 
 Miss Haven, to the look. " I did tell her, long ago, 
 out of honor and love to you, Miss Bonable. I 
 ought to have told Rill ; but I waited. I have never 
 been sorry for telling too much ; it is the telling 
 too little that always does harm." 
 
 " But, Miss Haven, it is a terrible thing any way. 
 It is n t explainable. She s gone ; and he s gone ; 
 and folks will never believe. And what will be 
 come of her off there with that woman ? " 
 
 " Folks will always have to believe the truth. 
 And the truth will be that Rill has gone on a jour 
 ney, and is in the care of friends, as she ought to 
 be. 1 Ayill go to Montreal myself." 
 
 " They will think they see through that ; even 
 if you bring her home again." Poor Miss Bona 
 ble, who " would have made a pretty good burglar 
 herself," was so swift in devising malevolent possi 
 bilities. 
 
 Mrs. Rextell had been reading Rill s note, which 
 Miss Haven had put into her hand. Now she 
 spoke. 
 
 " Let me go to Montreal," she said. " Every 
 body knows I am like a bird on a perch, always 
 ready for a flitting. And why should I not invite
 
 286 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 Miss Raye to go with Margaret and me ? I do 
 invite her. We will be there with her to-morrow 
 night. Miss Bonable, you will stay here on a little 
 visit with Miss Haven, please, and just get rested 
 and quiet, until you hear from us. Then, if it 
 seems best, you can go home, and report facts. I 
 hope Miss Haven will not leave until after we 
 return. That may be very soon, you know." 
 
 Miss Haven s eyes glistened. " This is so ex 
 actly like you, that I might have expected it," she 
 said. " But we shall have to wait for the address ; 
 you can hardly set off to-morrow morning." 
 
 " Oh, well, we will just wait and see. Agnes 
 shall have us ready. And now all you have to do 
 is to cheer each other up. Don t you want to send 
 some word to Wewachet, Miss Bonable ? Let 
 your woman know you will be away a day or two 
 you and Miss Rill then she will have something 
 proper to say. Oh, it will all work beautifully; 
 things always do, when you mean right, and can 
 get just a little ahead of them ! " 
 
 Mrs. Rextell laughed. She had a gleeful way of 
 undertaking things ; a sufficient reason for under 
 taking a great deal, unexpectedly a chance to 
 help somebody always made her merry. " It 
 was so good and wise of you to tell me all about 
 it," she said to Miss Haven. " I have understood 
 you and Cyrilla for a long time, Miss Bonable,
 
 EXACTLY LIKE MRS. REXTELL. 287 
 
 better than you have understood each other ; but 
 perhaps I could n t have taken the whole right in 
 now, in a hurry." 
 
 " What will Clementhy have said already ? " 
 asked Miss Haven. 
 
 Mrs. Eextell laughed. 
 
 " Oh, I know what you are thinking of," Miss 
 Haven replied to that, serenely. " But I am not 
 inconsistent. There s a time to keep silence, and 
 a time to speak." 
 
 " She won t have said anything, except that we 
 have both gone to Boston. Clementhy Pond is 
 still. She is n t a chattering brook," said Miss 
 Bonable. 
 
 Certainly the dear lady was beginning to be 
 more comfortable in her mind. Before, then, any 
 thing else occurs to her as disastrously possible, we 
 will leave her with these good friends in Mount 
 Vernon Street, and go back to Rill on board the 
 northward-speeding train.
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE TELEGRAM. 
 
 IT had not occurred to one of these friends, 
 somehow, that Dr. Harriman and Cyrilla could pos 
 sibly have happened upon this very same train 
 together. That was spared them. They only 
 thought of the two as having gone away within 
 the same twenty-four hours, bound, by distinct 
 routes, to two different points in Canada. 
 
 The elements for another little calculation were 
 happily wanting to them also. They did not 
 reckon upon the sharp eyes of Mrs. Porbeagle 
 early at her window ; or upon the trained acute- 
 ness of Sam Porbeagle, floor-walker at one of the 
 big stores, who had gone in by the train which Rill 
 had taken ; nor upon the curiosity and comment of 
 half a dozen village folk, about the station 1 ; nor 
 the knowledge of several fellow-passengers by the 
 7.30, that Dr. Harriman had set off at that time; 
 nor upon the note of Miss Bonable s own pale face 
 and anxious look as she followed by the forenoon 
 shopping train.
 
 THE TELEGRAM. 289 
 
 Beyond all, they did not remember that it was 
 the afternoon of the Benevolent Circle at the church 
 parlors, where they would make patchwork quilts, 
 and quilt together patchwork items such as these, 
 that might be picked up of the absent, and brought 
 in ; in both pieces of work, the skill and value being 
 in the smallness of the bits that could nevertheless 
 be cleverly joined into a brilliant pattern. 
 
 Dr. Harriman, meeting Rill in this surprising 
 manner, remembered at once a dozen such possi 
 bilities. He was alive instantly to the position of 
 things, and to the aspect it might take at Old Vil 
 lage. It was to his honor that his first anxiety was 
 for Rill. Had she come from home this morning ? 
 Had she come alone ? What could possibly be her 
 errand and destination, upon this long express? 
 The first two questions he put to her. Yes ; she 
 had come alone ; from home ; she was going a 
 journey. 
 
 " Might he ask, was it far ? Miss Bona- 
 ble?"- 
 
 " Miss Bonable did not know, Dr. Harriman." 
 
 Rill made this straightforward, amazing answer, 
 with her eyes looking clearly and unafraid into his. 
 It was an assertion of absolute right and sufficient 
 reason ; with a brevity and reticence which said 
 that her purpose and her secret were her own. 
 
 " But if you will forgive me " and he took
 
 290 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 the vacant chair beside her, turning it to a conver 
 sational angle with her own. There were but few 
 passengers ; the others were all below the middle 
 of the car. " It is a strange coincidence, our being 
 here ; and are you sure you can quite manage ? 
 Might I not do something for you ? " 
 
 " It is strange," Rill said, still in that contained 
 and certain way. " I do not wonder you should 
 think so. No I thank you, Dr. Harriman I 
 need nothing done for me." 
 
 " But why ? Forgive me ! " he said again. " I 
 wish you would tell me more. I think your errand 
 must be a very serious one ; and are you sure "- 
 he finished this time what he had been on the point 
 of saying before, and had turned aside from " are 
 you sure it will be rightly understood ? " 
 
 " I never have been rightly understood ; and /, 
 oh, /have understood nothing ! " 
 
 Her measured manner broke ; she uttered the 
 words impulsively. Then she collected herself with 
 a visible withdrawal. " It is a family matter ; 
 nothing I can tell, or explain ; it is something quite 
 my own, that I never knew of before. I am going 
 to a relative, Dr. Harriman. I shall not be alone 
 when I get to Montreal." 
 
 She was going all the way, then ! They were 
 both going all the way, together. What should he 
 do with her ? How could he leave her ,to herself,
 
 THE TELEGRAM. 291 
 
 and what could her mysterious errand be ? Above 
 all, what would be imagined or believed at home ? 
 He thought of all the strange conjunctions and de 
 nouements of fiction ; of possible reality that might 
 be stranger than fiction, more hazardous to this 
 
 O 
 
 young girl than she could guess. These family 
 matters, that have been kept secret while a girl 
 was growing up ; these relatives who turn up and 
 make claim suddenly, what were they likely to 
 be, or to bring with them ? No he could not 
 leave her to herself ; but how could he take care of 
 her ? His heart beat as he thought of a way ; of 
 that for which the opportunity, the excuse, was 
 thrust before him. 
 
 He waited a little while before he spoke again. 
 Then he said, quite differently, " You did not 
 answer my letter, Miss Raye." 
 
 " Oh, do not speak of that, Dr. Harriman ! I 
 had forgotten ! " 
 
 It was perfectly true that, for the moment, after 
 the first startle and shock, in the intensity of that 
 which now occupied her, and concerning which he 
 questioned her, it had been, as it were, discharged 
 from her mind. It was such a trivial thing, com 
 paratively ; it was so far back, already, in the past 
 with which she had no more to do. 
 
 " My dear Miss Raye ! I would not for the 
 world take any rude or ungenerous advantage ;
 
 292 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 but, this wholly unpremeditated circumstance, this 
 unknown errand which I find you undertaking, 
 upon what you say yourself is a sudden, brief 
 knowledge, don t you see how it places me ? How 
 can I let you proceed alone, in what may be a diffi 
 culty, an imprudence, for you ? And yet, what am 
 I to do, that might not, in another way, make it 
 worse ? You are so clear and true and single- 
 hearted, you do not see, you do not guess, what 
 deception, or danger, may be waiting for you. Or 
 if you know more than you will tell me it may 
 be some trouble, some dread something or some 
 body whom it will be self-sacrifice for you to meet 
 and acknowledge ; there are such things ; you see 
 I don t know your family matters, as you have 
 said. If I could meet it with you, whatever it is, 
 Rill, I am ready ; I am glad ! If you will give 
 me the right to face life with you and for you 
 won t you answer me now, Rill, and say that I 
 may ? " 
 
 He leaned toward her, and spoke rapidly and 
 low ; all his best impulses were in the words and 
 shaped them ; he looked at her earnestly, with eyes 
 that might earnestly win a woman ; when he had 
 spoken he waited gravely for her answer. 
 
 She made a slight movement from him as he sat ; 
 he laid his hand upon the arm of her chair, and 
 stopped it from turning. " Do not do that," he
 
 THE TELEGRAM. 293 
 
 said, " people will see ; tell me quietly what you 
 can tell toe ; do not speak hastily ; I can be 
 patient." He leaned back in his own chair, but 
 did not take his look away from her. 
 
 Rill lifted her eyes. " You mean to be very 
 generous, and I thank you," she said. " But it is 
 utterly impossible. I think, if you are kind, you 
 will let me be by myself. It is all you can do, and 
 people will see, as you said." 
 
 " But you do not see, yourself. Must I say ? 
 It is not the argument I wish to urge ; but it has 
 force ; and we must think of it. You say Miss 
 Bonable does not know." 
 
 " I said she did not know. She does, by this 
 time." 
 
 " Everything ? " 
 
 " She can guess everything. I did not need to 
 tell her." 
 
 Dr. Harriman paused for an instant, without 
 reply, from sheer surprise. The absolute single 
 ness of purpose, failing to see that any supposition 
 aside from itself was possible, dismayed him. Then 
 he said forced to make suggestion to such inap- 
 prehensive sincerity : 
 
 " May she not stop short in her guessing ? May 
 she not be full now of a trouble which only thinks 
 of you immediately, and of what she fancies may 
 have concerned you ? Will she guess what you have
 
 294 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 kept back ? May not all Wewachet be guessing, 
 by this time or soon and guessing wrong? " 
 
 Rill remembered the words she had written, and 
 how she had stinted them. What should Miss 
 Bonable suppose ? She might know nothing about 
 Montreal, except what flashed upon her own 
 mind now. Indignant color swept up into her 
 face. She was indignant with herself, that she 
 could guess. " I cannot help it," she said, coldly, 
 while her cheeks and temples burned. 
 
 " I would not urge it," Dr. Harriman repeated ; 
 "but I think of it for you. It urges me. Because 
 the one thing I can do best to serve and pro 
 tect you, is the one thing of all the world that I 
 desire must that go against me ? I want you to 
 belong to me, Rill ; in all circumstances, forever ; 
 for the better or the worse. I will make every 
 thing better, if I can. Let it begin now ; give me 
 the power, and let your errand be mine. Let me 
 help you through it, whatever it is ; then I will 
 take 3 7 ou, my wife, to my sister, my mother. They 
 will be your mother and sister ; it will be for you 
 as it should be. They will love you ; they are 
 good women, and you will love them." 
 
 The color still burned, and even deeper ; the 
 eyes glowed ; the eyelids trembled ; but she lifted 
 them, and forced herself to look steadily at him. 
 
 " You mean that I should make true the thing
 
 THE TELEGRAM. 295 
 
 they may think of me, for fear of the thinking ? " 
 she asked, with a pure scorn, not of him, but of the 
 thing, and the fear. " No, Dr. Harrhnan ; do not 
 say any more about it. Please, will you go away 
 
 now 
 
 9" 
 
 She kept her careful manner, for the outside, her 
 bravery for the truth-speaking ; but she was trem 
 bling, he could see, beneath the composure ; under 
 the unswerving lids the tears were shining. He 
 remembered what was due, and needful ; he bowed, 
 as at casual conversation ended, and withdrew to 
 his own seat. Not by any means as giving all up, 
 and leaving her to her own mistake and its com 
 plications ; but thinking what he could possibly 
 do for her in the meanwhile that she would not let 
 him do all he might. He took no refusal, yet, for 
 himself ; he understood the fair pride with which 
 she repudiated the expedient. 
 
 By and by he came and stood quietly at the back 
 of her chair. She had faced full toward the win 
 dow, and was sitting motionless, looking forth upon 
 the white banks and the ice-margin, and the still, 
 strong current of the river. 
 
 " Miss Raye," he said ; and she half turned 
 toward him. " Can you think of anything that I 
 can do for your comfort, or your certainty in any 
 way?" 
 
 " I can think of one thing," she answered him
 
 296 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 with the most direct simplicity : " You can go back 
 to Wewachet ; then they will see that there is 
 nothing to think aboiit." She ordered him as she 
 had ordered him about the drawing of her tooth ; 
 from the necessity of the case. " You know it 
 ought to be done," was what she had told him ; 
 and this unhesitant plain speaking put the same 
 conclusiveness to him to-day. 
 
 " I did it, that was all," had been his own word 
 to Miss Haven. It was all he could afterward 
 have said of this. But there were other things to 
 think of first. " Where do you go in Montreal ? " 
 he asked her. " It will be late, you know." 
 
 " To some hotel, at first," she supposed. The 
 conductor would tell her. She would ask him to 
 see her safe. 
 
 " You had better send a telegram. I will do it 
 for you, from Concord. I will leave the train 
 there, and go back to Boston." He knew better 
 than to add in words, "I will do whatever you 
 choose and command ; I purely desire to serve you." 
 But he meant that otherwise than in mere words 
 she should discern it. 
 
 " What hotel is there ? " she asked him, with 
 ingenuous ignorance. There was the St. James, 
 he told her. Then she wrote a couple of lines upon 
 a slip of paper, and handed to him with it a dollar 
 bank-bill from her porte-monnaie. " Will that do ? " 
 she said.
 
 THE TELEGRAM. 297 
 
 " It will more than do." And he gave her care 
 fully back two silver quarters. 
 
 " I am very grateful to you, Dr. Harriman." 
 And she held out her hand to him. " Good-by." 
 
 " I shall not say good-by to you. I shall never 
 bid you good-by, Miss Raye." But he left her ; 
 and when the train slowed into the Concord station, 
 he picked up his valise, threw his coat over his arm, 
 and walked away among the crowd that swarmed 
 back and forth along the platforms. 
 
 The telegram he sent, however, was not Rill s at 
 all. It ran this way : 
 
 "Have warm room ready, and carriage at station, 
 to meet Miss Raye, of Boston, who will arrive by 
 evening train. Show every care and attention till 
 friends join her." To this dispatch he appended 
 with cool audacity the name and address, " Eliza 
 beth Putnam Haven, of Boston." 
 
 " They know all the old names, those hotel fel 
 lows," he said to himself.
 
 "THE BENEV. 
 
 HE had three hours waiting in Concord ; then he 
 took an afternoon train back to Boston, where he 
 caught the 5.30 to "Wewachet. At seven o clock 
 he called on Connie Norris. She made to him the 
 same interrogative announcement that half the 
 people he had seen on his way home had done. 
 " Why ! you went off this morning, I thought ; " to 
 which he made the same sort of answer, "I went 
 to town ; I met with a detention ; I am back again. 
 I may not go till next week. Are you sorry? Am 
 I the bad penny?" etc., etc. 
 
 Of course, Connie was delighted. " Now we 
 shall keep you till after the first sociable," she said. 
 " And it s the Benev , to-night, with charades. 
 Won t you come over with me ? " 
 
 " I shall be happy to go over with you, certainly ; 
 but I can scarcely stay for the charades. I have 
 something to do a person to see on business." 
 
 " I wish there were n t any business in the 
 world ! " quoth Connie. " Only buzziness."
 
 " THE BENEV: 299 
 
 " Business may have somewhat to do with the 
 buzziness," was the doctor s answer. 
 
 She paraded him in, making air and flutter about 
 the door of the hall as they entered. Some heads 
 were turned, and some talk was stopped. Mrs. 
 Porbeagle s voice went on, in a sort of soprano 
 lead, as the chorus softened. " Old Village was 
 pretty lively, I should think, this morning," she 
 had been saying to her inevitable group. " First, 
 Rill Raye off with a trunk, at seven o clock, for 
 nobody knows where ; then, Dr. Harriman off with 
 a valise, at 7.30, for Canada; then aunt Bonable, 
 as mum as a toad and as fidgety inside as a grass 
 hopper, on the 10.25, sitting with her back to 
 everybody, on the front edge of the front seat of 
 the front car, with her nose run out at the engine 
 to poke it along faster, and scowling at every stop. 
 And she has n t come back yet. Well ! I don t 
 know anything, and I don t mean to say anything ; 
 but it looks kind o queer and newsy, and to-be- 
 continued, don t it? I never believed much in that 
 other business. The other aunt tried for that, but 
 she did n t make it out, it seems ; he has n t been 
 seen in Wewachet this two months ; and Miss 
 Abominable was always dead set against the tooth- 
 puller. Well, he s gone, now, any way ; and she s 
 gone ; and she could n t have caught up with her 
 to see her off, that is, if she needed to start when 
 she did."
 
 300 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 Perhaps the tangle of her own unmanageable 
 personal pronouns brought her up ; or perhaps it 
 was that in the midst of their eager and irrelevant 
 prancing the partial hush fell suddenly upon the 
 room. 
 
 " There he is, this minute ! " said young Mrs. 
 Sphyrna Hammerhead, touching Mrs. Porbeagle on 
 the elbow. 
 
 "Who? Why! Dr. Harriman ? It isn t! 
 she ejaculated, brokenly, with gasps of astonish 
 ment, as the gentleman walked up the room and 
 approached her. " Really, Dr. Harriman, you re 
 like a ghost ! W r e all thought you were in Canada ! 
 Could n t get away from the Benevolent, could 
 you ? " she asked, gleaming upon him with her 
 white, large teeth. 
 
 " I suppose not, even if I were in Canada," Dr. 
 Harriman responded. " We have the poor always 
 with us ; so, I fancy, we shall always have the 
 benevolent ! No ; I did not go to-day. I was pre 
 vented." 
 
 Even that did not quite checkmate her. " I 
 wonder what it actually all does mean ! " she ex 
 claimed, sotto voce, to Sphyrna Hammerhead, as 
 he passed on. 
 
 He stayed for fifteen minutes in the rooms ; 
 drank a cup of coffee ; then when the charades 
 were going to begin, he disappeared ; took the
 
 " THE BENEV." 301 
 
 7.50 train for town, and rendered himself at Mrs. 
 Rextell s house in Mount Vernon Street, where he 
 asked to see Miss Haven, and told her all the story. 
 
 u I used your name," he said ; " the whole of it, 
 to be impressive. Now somebody must go to her. 
 If nothing else can be done, I will write to my 
 mother and sister in Ottawa. They will go down. 
 It is only a three hours run." 
 
 " Mrs. Rextell and her daughter will go to 
 morrow. We only needed the address, and the 
 certainty of her stopping in Montreal." 
 
 His errand was accomplished ; he got up to go ; 
 Miss Haven accompanied him to the door. 
 
 " You have done most wisely, most generously, 
 Dr. Harriman. Your sleep should be sweet to 
 night," she said, upon the threshold, giving him 
 her hand with warmth. He only pressed it, smiled 
 a little curiously, and with bowed leave-taking, 
 went away. 
 
 It may not be invariably after our most generous 
 deeds, however, that sleep comes most easily, or is 
 most sweet.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 MAISON DE LA SAINTE ESPERANCE. 
 
 As the day wore on, and the steady rush of the 
 train bore Rill further from home toward the 
 strange, cold north, she had time to realize the irrev- 
 ocableness of what she had done. She would not 
 change it, if she could ; but she perceived its grav 
 ity more clearly ; and it needed all her brave 
 determination to keep up against a growing sense 
 of loneliness, and a vague stir of apprehension. 
 Up through the wintry stillness of the hills, across 
 the ice-bound rivers, springing or skirting valley- 
 depths where farming villages lay quiet as little 
 cemeteries with their white-roofed barns and dwell 
 ings, and idle mill wheels dripped with great stal 
 actites into the edges of large busy towns, through 
 dreary stations where, in short pause, the scattered 
 wayfarers alighted and embarked she watched 
 the shifting scenes, and measured both outward 
 distances and the quick, strange experience of the 
 hours. Space and time confused her. Where was 
 yesterday ?
 
 MAISON DE LA SAINTE ESPERANCE. 303 
 
 As far as St. Albans she had the undisturbed 
 monotony of travel. The early dusk had long 
 fallen, and with the shadows loomed misgiving of 
 the night arrival anxiety about being met and 
 cared for. She could but be thankful for the 
 friendliness that had made probable provision for 
 all this ; and she congratulated herself that there 
 would be no trouble of any intermediate move. 
 She sat back in her chair, determined to take such 
 comfort as she could, and one thing at a time ; to 
 turn from all disquieting thought of that which 
 was done with, or might be to come. 
 
 Suddenly, the porter, who had been very civil all 
 the way, came and laid hand upon her bag and 
 wrap. " We stop here ; this car goes no farther," 
 he told her ; " I will see you to your place on the 
 other train." 
 
 Without time for question she had to follow him, 
 half blindly, through a dimly lighted space from 
 crowded track to track, into a very ordinary and 
 ill-contrasting car indeed. It was half full, and 
 filling up, with men ; whatever might be the reason 
 or occasion, they seemed all of one stamp, a 
 common and disorderly set ; a great jabbering of 
 Canadian patois was growing clamorous around 
 her ; and as she took the seat offered her, she 
 shrank with sudden dismay at perceiving that there 
 was actually no other feminine occupant of the 
 whole carriage.
 
 304 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 " Oh, what shall I do ? " she exclaimed, invol 
 untarily, to her escort. 
 
 " You will be quite safe," was the answer. " It 
 is all right. I expect I may run down on this train 
 myself. I 11 look out for you at the door of the 
 car when we arrive." With that, he left her. 
 Whether this was a sudden determination, induced 
 by a promise to Dr. Harriman which that gentle 
 man had made well worth while, or to what pecu 
 liar railway arrangements all these strange circum 
 stances were due, I will not undertake to say, and 
 Cyrilla did not conjecture. 
 
 It seemed a great while before the train started ; 
 something was evidently out of the usual course ; 
 when they did move, the boisterous passengers 
 settled into their seats, and she breathed for a time 
 more quietly. She was just reassuring herself in 
 a comparative confidence, when all at once a crash 
 just behind her startled her half way to her feet. 
 Splintered glass and drops of coal oil fell around 
 her ; over there, two seats off, the conductor and a 
 passenger were in an angry tussle ; every man in 
 the car was up, and hurrying to the point of ex 
 citement ; all but one old, gray-haired Frenchman, 
 far down toward the front. 
 
 " Oh, let me pass ! " cried Cyrilla, to those im 
 mediately obstructing her ; and made her way 
 forward to a place behind the one quiet person.
 
 MAISON DE LA SAINTE ESPEEANCE. 
 
 He turned to her kindly, as she took her seat. 
 " Have no fear, mademoiselle," he said to her. 
 " But what is it that has happened there?" 
 
 She began in reply, " I hardly know. I only 
 saw " when the word was, as it were, snatched 
 from her by a rough voice over her shoulder. 
 
 " Oh, you saw, did you ? " 
 
 Startled, and with sudden foreboding, as the 
 thought flashed swiftly upon her of a police court, 
 evidence, she knew not what, " Nothing at all, 
 sir ! " she answered, with a very determined brev 
 ity, and relapsed into a rigid silence, but not for a 
 Ions; time into a real calmness. 
 
 o 
 
 Alone, among such strange fellow - travelers, 
 the deep night wearing on, into what had she 
 plunged herself ? What next might befall to ter 
 rify or endanger her ? The gray head before her 
 was her only comfort. 
 
 The hours went by in keen endurance ; it was 
 very late. The train was overdue ; they had lost 
 some time earlier, beside the long delay at St. 
 Albans ; bells were clanging for eleven o clock 
 when they steamed into the murky station-house at 
 Montreal. 
 
 Happily and unexpectedly, the porter kept his 
 word ; she drew a great breath of thankfulness as 
 his hand reached up to help her at the car-steps. 
 
 He went with her through the train-house ; found
 
 306 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 the badged driver from the St. James ; stayed by 
 her through the scramble of the formal, hurried 
 passing of inspection. Then, a moment more, and 
 she was out in the brave, moonlighted air, in an 
 open sledge heaped well with furry robes. 
 
 A large, square, corner room, with three great 
 windows and a blazing fire, awaited her ; ready 
 service was offered her ; a tray, with supper, was 
 brought. She ate and drank, as in some queer 
 phase of a dream, and went to bed. 
 
 Early after breakfast the next morning, she 
 asked for a carriage to be called. 
 
 " Maison de la Sainte Esperance Larmes des 
 Anges Street," she said to the driver, who looked 
 down from his box with an odd expression of not 
 surely understanding. 
 
 " Larmes des Anges Street ! " repeated with 
 authority the hall servant who had obsequiously 
 attended Cyrilla to the carriage door. He had 
 quenched the hackman, but he turned himself to 
 cast a curious glance after the departing equipage, 
 as he went up the broad steps ; and walked straight 
 into the hotel office. 
 
 Narrow, steeply sloping, roughly paved streets ; 
 crooked turn ; the fair, open squares left far behind ; 
 mere rims of sidewalk ; old, old houses of all irreg 
 ular heights and shapes ; crowded sheds, and bits 
 of squalid yard-room ; dirty children, swarming and
 
 MAISON DE LA 8AINTE ESPEBANCE. 307 
 
 staring ; women s heads, with flapping, broad-frilled 
 caps, thrust forward from doorways, where show 
 was made with stumps of brooms of sweeping off 
 entrances ; pails of darksome water thrown out 
 here and there for final service in rinsing down the 
 brick walks to the gutters ; everything gave evi 
 dence to Cyrilla that she was coming down among 
 the dregs of life over which bright cities build 
 themselves and are gay. 
 
 A quieter turn, at last, into a kind of court, 
 where a stinted plot, fenced in, held a few scant 
 trees in the midst ; a high-recessed doorway, to 
 which a narrow flight of steps led up ; muslin half- 
 blinds at the window ; a tin plate, neatly painted, 
 " Maison de la Sainte Espcrance." 
 
 Cyrilla s heart beat as she rang the bell ; a 
 portress, in lay-sister s gai b, answered it ; Cyrilla 
 asked for Mere Marthe. The Mother was ill. For 
 Sceur Veronique ; Soeur Veronique was in retreat. 
 
 " Oh, but I must see some one ! " Cyrilla cried, 
 persistent. " I was sent for ; it is urgent. I have 
 a friend here, ill ; she is her name is Raye." 
 
 " O h, it is, then, the poor penitent ! She died, 
 three weeks ago. But I will tell the Mother. 
 Enter, mademoiselle ; rest here." 
 
 She showed the young girl into a bai e, little 
 room ; it had for furnishing a wooden table, and 
 four wooden chairs ; some prints of the Virgin, and
 
 308 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 a saint or two, upon the walls ; a yellow cat lying 
 on a window-ledge, blinking great golden eyes. 
 
 Presently, a Sister appeared at the doorway. 
 
 " Come," she said, and laid her fingers on her 
 lips, as Rill approached. " One does not speak in 
 the corridors," she said, softly ; then turned and led 
 the way. 
 
 Several houses had been thrown into one estab 
 lishment ; there were dark passages, steps up and 
 down ; one long flight, and a long, narrow gallery, 
 with closed doors on each side ; then an end room, 
 with a pleasant window looking over open spaces, 
 and the sun shining in. 
 
 An elderly woman, in the gray gown, with knotted 
 girdle, the white linen cap and bands, and a large 
 rosary at her side, sat in a plain wooden armchair, 
 made more comfortable at the back with a folded 
 gray blanket. 
 
 " Approach, my child. It is that I have rheu 
 matism. Seat yourself here." And she motioned 
 to a chair placed beside her. 
 
 Cyrilla came near with a courteous movement of 
 salutation. But she delayed nothing for any possi 
 ble peculiar etiquette of the place, or any strange 
 ness of the circumstances. She went straight to 
 her errand. 
 
 " I am here," she said, " to make inquiry about 
 some one Mrs. Raye who has been ill here."
 
 MAISON DE LA SAJNTE ESP&RANCE. 309 
 
 " It was not the name she called herself when 
 she first arrived. But that matters not. We 
 found it, afterwards, among some things. She 
 died ; she was penitent ; she received the consolation 
 of the church ; she expected some one." 
 
 " She expected me." 
 
 " If not, the little box was to be sent. I have 
 guarded it." Mother Marthe laid her finger upon 
 a small bell beside her, on the table. Kill reached 
 forward her own hand. 
 
 " If you please wait ! Of what did she re 
 pent?" 
 
 " My child, it was of all her life ! " 
 
 Rill grew paler and paler. " What was all her 
 life? " she demanded. " I must know." 
 
 " Poor little one ! but it is that which you cannot 
 know. Indeed, it was the life of the blessed Saint 
 Mary Magdalene, before she came to the Christ ! " 
 
 " My mother ! " 
 
 The brief sentences before had been in French. 
 These two words broke forth in Rill s own tongue. 
 She covered her face. The good Mother leaned 
 toward her, and laid a kind hand on her head. 
 She spoke to her with gentle, religious words. " It 
 is absolved. We pray for her. Solace yourself. 
 The Holy Magdalene takes part with her. They 
 are together at the feet of Christ." 
 
 " I never knew it ; all these years ! It was a 
 wickedness."
 
 310 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 " It was God s will. You were not meant to 
 know ; you have been kept safe." 
 
 " Safe ! And why have I been meant to know 
 too late ! " Her words were bitter. 
 
 " That also is God s will. It is for cause of 
 some other thing in your life, perhaps, that you do 
 not know yet, even. Nothing is too late." The 
 Mother touched her bell. The Sister who had led 
 Rill hither, entered. 
 
 " The little box," said Mother Marthe. 
 
 It was a shabby, old-fashioned thing, of paste 
 board and painted velvet. Inside were a few trink 
 ets : a chain of coral, a mosaic pin, with the 
 pity ! a white lily for design ; a wedding ring ; 
 a creased, worn paper folded into a small square, 
 the name " Kill " written upon it in ink faded to a 
 rusty faintness. Cyrilla opened it, as one forced. 
 It held a round, soft, yellow lock of a child s hair. 
 She had kept that, all through ! The ring was 
 marked inside " M. R. to E. B." There was a 
 date of twenty years before. 
 
 Cyrilla laid all back, silently. There was no 
 doubt, now. She stood up, with the queer little 
 box in her hand. " I must go," she said. "There 
 is nothing to do here. I must get back." She 
 could not say u home." I must find out where 
 home is to be," she thought, vaguely. 
 
 " I ought to thank you," she roused to say. " I
 
 MAISON DE LA SAINTE ESPEEANCE. 311 
 
 owe you very much. I will write to you. I will 
 send something for your House of Hope. Good- 
 by!" 
 
 The Mother looked at her wistfully ; murmured 
 some invocation of blessing, but perceived no more 
 that she could do ; and Rill, moving mechanically, 
 followed the silent Sister who waited to lead her 
 out. She got to the street again, as one walking 
 with dull effort in a dream ; reentered the carriage, 
 and was driven back to the St. James. 
 
 She found her way in, and up to her room, 
 alone ; no obsequious attention met her ; but pres 
 ently a clerk came to her door, and asked her when 
 she expected the friends who were to arrive, and 
 what rooms they would require. 
 
 " I expect no friends." 
 
 The two looked at each other in mutual surprise. 
 
 " I shall take the afternoon train for Boston." 
 
 The man bowed slightly, and went away. In a 
 moment a maid came and asked her, with scant 
 deference, if she would mind having her trunk 
 taken down to another room, since she was to leave 
 directly. This would be wanted, if she pleased. 
 
 She was put into a dim little one-windowed 
 place, opening upon the court. She went to the 
 dining-room at the lunch hour, and tried to eat, for 
 she felt faint and ill. Then she had to wait two 
 hours and a half alone, in the dim little room.
 
 312 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 At half past four she was at the station. She 
 put herself on board the train, and found her 
 number in the sleeping-car. She begged the porter 
 to make up her berth as soon as possible ; but for 
 some time longer the seats were needed, and it was 
 eight o clock before she could lie down to rest. 
 A thick, soft snow had been falling for two hours, 
 but she did not know of that. 
 
 Meanwhile, another Boston telegram had been 
 received at the St. James, and the spacious, cheer 
 ful corner room, and one adjoining, en suite, were 
 being prepared in reserve for Mrs. and Miss Rex- 
 tell, to arrive to-night.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 NUMBER TY-TWO MOUNT VERNON STREET. 
 
 CYRILLA could not sleep. The best she could do 
 was to hold herself outwardly still, and let the 
 night go over her. The car was full. She lay and 
 thought how strange the isolation of human crea 
 tures is. 
 
 Here were some twoscore souls, in close com 
 munity and limit ; in their present circumstance 
 the same, yet utterly disintegrant ; knowing, ask 
 ing, caring nothing of each other s lives ; certain 
 to fly apart on divergent lines the moment their 
 common point was reached. Would it be like that 
 in the Kingdom of Heaven ? Would nobody in 
 that multitude ask how it fared with any other, or 
 seek to touch a sympathy, or render a help ? Hu 
 manity was a queer thing. If it were not for small 
 personal link and place, it would be a huge in 
 sanity. 
 
 And where, now, were her own link and place ? 
 
 She had had so little to hold by ; yet, by that 
 little, she had seemed to be a part of something
 
 314 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 larger ; she had neighborhood and a life. Now, 
 she had broken away from all. She had not aunt 
 Amelia ; she could not have her any more. How 
 could she forgive her for that other life cast adrift 
 and never searched for ? For the robbing of it, 
 that had been the taking and keeping of herself, 
 in ignorance ? She belonged to no one. The 
 unreal past was swept away. With it had gone a 
 beautiful half dream of a future. She could not 
 look at that. She hid the eyes of her thought, and 
 thrust it from her. 
 
 She must go somewhere when she reached Bos 
 ton. Where, and with what account of herself ? 
 She was a detached particle. She had no relation 
 with the world. She was an atom against a uni 
 verse. 
 
 Pier head ached, her thoughts grew wandering. 
 "Was she going to be ill ? 
 
 The train stopped. At some station, of course. 
 It would go on in a minute. But a great many 
 minutes went by, and she began to wonder. There 
 were quick footsteps through the car ; a lantern 
 flashed back and forth. She parted her curtains 
 and looked out. Other faces were looking out 
 also. 
 
 " Halloo ! What s this ? " a man asked of a 
 brakeman, who hurried through. 
 
 " Breakdown, just ahead. Freight train. En-
 
 NUMBER TV TWO MOUNT VERNON ST. 815 
 
 gine and three cars half way down to the river, in 
 the mud." 
 
 " Where are we ? " somebody else took up the 
 inquiry, further on. 
 
 " Two or three miles from White River Junc 
 tion." And the door at the farther end slammed 
 a period to the words. 
 
 Rill reached her watch out into the light. The 
 hands pointed to half past one. She lay back and 
 tried to be quiet. There were voices and confused 
 movements for a while, a busy passing to and fro 
 outside ; then it grew still. The trouble and the 
 work were far ahead ; here, there was nothing to 
 do but wait. Waiting and listening, she fell into 
 a half sleep, and hours went by. 
 
 The dull gray morning came, and found them 
 there. Five hours lost. They crept slowly toward 
 White River Junction at just the time when they 
 were scheduled due at their journey s end. 
 
 Rill had eaten nothing since her slight lunch the 
 day before. She had one orange and two or three 
 little biscuits in her bag. People were asking and 
 answering questions about the probable start, and 
 concerning breakfast. Everything was in confu 
 sion ; tracks crowded ; they stopped far outside 
 the station. Trains up and down were blocked ; 
 theirs must wait for the regular morning express 
 from St. Albans, and go down with that. Break-
 
 316 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 fast might be had at a farmhouse up yonder hill. 
 The snow was falling fast ; it was many inches 
 deep already. Rill followed a party of the pas 
 sengers from the ear, and out upon the track side. 
 If she could only go and get something hot. She 
 was faint for food, and her throat was dry and 
 aching. But her feet began to be damp directly, 
 and it was a long way up the untrodden hill. Some 
 men came back who had been to the farmhouse. 
 " Not much of anything there," she heard them 
 say. " Pretty hard truck, what there is of it." 
 She turned back and climbed into the car. The 
 berths were folded away, and the seats arranged. 
 She must rest as best she could, and it was so hard 
 to sit up ! She ate her orange, but the biscuits 
 were dry and irritating. How long would it be, 
 and how should she hold out ? 
 
 " St. Albans train due here at twelve. We 11 
 get to Boston at half past six, if we have all the 
 luck there s left." That was what some one said 
 presently, who came in behind her. Rill leaned 
 back her head and shut her eyes. The tears filled 
 their lids. " You poor thing ! " she said to herself, 
 pityingly. " No one knows ; and for that reason 
 you have got to keep up ! " So she instantly re 
 buked and compelled herself. 
 
 She held out in her determination not to go back 
 to Wewachet. Indeed, she would scarcely be able
 
 NUMBER TY-TWO MOUNT VEENON ST. 317 
 
 to do so now, upon her late arrival. What then ? 
 A hotel ? She recoiled from the idea ; she had ex 
 perienced enough in that sort. And if she should 
 be unable, once in bed, to be up again to-morrow ! 
 Would they let her have a room at the Christian 
 Association ? She thought so ; that was what it 
 was for, a resource in such emergencies. Yet, 
 again, if she should be ill? And truly she was ill 
 enough already. 
 
 She gave up, at last, on one point. She went 
 into the telegraph office before they left White 
 River, and sent a message to Miss Haven. " On 
 my way to Boston. Train delayed. Arrive 6.30. 
 Please meet and advise me." 
 
 Miss Haven was in town ; Mr. King was not. 
 Miss Haven would see her safe ; afterward she 
 could think what to do. 
 
 Miss Haven had had an earlier dispatch. The 
 wires had been lively along the line. While Rill 
 grew more and more ill and troubled as the train 
 made its slow, hindered progress, all order un 
 hinged, stations blocked with waiting cars, engines 
 snorting on all the sidings, reckoning changing 
 hour by hour the august Melcombe had been up 
 and down between the railroad offices and Beacon 
 Hill, watching and reporting the successive delays 
 of belated No. 50. 
 
 When at last, at half past ten, poor Rill mus-
 
 318 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 tered her remaining strength to pick up shawl and 
 bag-, and stumble forth upon the platform of the 
 Pullman, half blinded by a weak dizziness be 
 wildered with rush and stun she distinguished 
 nothing ; she only kept fast hold of one intention 
 and rehearsed order " To the Christian Associa 
 tion ; " and when kind arms were put about her, 
 and some deferent hand took wrap and satchel 
 from her, she saw nothing of the gray-haired, 
 distinguished serving-man, and barely recognized 
 Miss Haven s tender voice. " Will you take me 
 to the Young Women s Christian Association ? " 
 was all she said. 
 
 " Poor child ! of course I will. I 11 see you 
 safe." 
 
 And the dear, prevaricating woman, as she al 
 most lifted Rill into the carriage, said exoneratively 
 in her own mind, " Christian Association ! Wher 
 ever else there may be one in Boston, I know 
 
 there s one at number ty-two Mount Vernon 
 
 Street ! "
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 LIFE IS NEVER OVER. 
 
 MRS. REXTELL and Margaret returned the next 
 day. A fresh illustration of the difficult problems 
 of hotel keeping had enlarged the already wide ex 
 perience of the clerk of the St. James. Mrs. Rex- 
 tell had made her first inquiry as she was being 
 ushered to the corner room, and had sent down 
 instant word that the heavy trunks need not be 
 brought upstairs. " Since Miss Raye is not here, 
 we shall leave in the morning," she said. 
 
 And a few minutes after, she had rung her bell 
 and dispatched the telegram which Miss Haven 
 had received at breakfast. 
 
 The next afternoon, without having seen Cyrilla, 
 Miss Bonable went home. " I in neither nurse nor 
 patient," she said. " I have n t the pi-ivilege of 
 the sick-room, and I can t stay here, outside." 
 
 " Dear Miss Bonable, she could n t bear it now. 
 But it will all come right." So Miss Haven took 
 her down to the train and bade her good-by. 
 
 Miss Bonable said her own sentence over in her
 
 320 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 mind, as Rill had conned to herself against her 
 
 O 
 
 bewilderment that inquiry for the Christian Asso 
 ciation. " She s with the Rextells in Boston. 
 They ve all been off on some sort of a jaunt. I 
 stopped with Miss Haven while they were away." 
 
 She said it to half a dozen people before she got 
 to Wewachet and Brook Lane ; and nothing but 
 that, or some slight variation of its wording, could 
 be gotten out of her. When one or two adventur 
 ously pushed the inquiry " Where ? " she answered 
 them, " Oh, I don t know ; up country somewhere, 
 to see the snow ; " and then nipped her own arm 
 secretly, inside her muff, or trod vindictively upon 
 one tender foot with the boot-heel of her other, for 
 the evasion. 
 
 At the cottage, Clementhy Pond opened the door. 
 
 " She s in Boston with the Rextells. They ve 
 been off I stopped with Miss Haven she 11 
 be back, there, let me go upstairs ! " 
 
 The day following was Sunday. Miss Amelia 
 went to church. She put on her handsome new 
 winter suit that Cyrilla and Miss Haven had per 
 suaded her into buying. They had persuaded her 
 into several things of late. 
 
 People said Miss Bonable had grown handsome 
 since her illness. She had been growing handsome 
 as such women do who are not beauties in their 
 youth, but who have the soul of beauty in them
 
 LIFE IS NEVER OVER. 321 
 
 for twenty years, only she would never let it ap 
 pear. To-day, she would show a brave outside ; 
 nobody should guess her trouble, or the anxious 
 pain with which she waited, while she faced the 
 wondering little worshiping world of Wewachet 
 in her sealskin cloak and her brown plush bonnet 
 with the cluster of poppy-buds above the brim, 
 and her soft hair, that yet matched the plush and 
 seal where the light bronzed them, gently crimped 
 below. The hair was parted she despised a bang 
 but it lay in softening waves and little escaping 
 curly tips about her brow. " I 11 act easy-minded," 
 she said, "at any rate." 
 
 So she met her acquaintances in the porch and 
 aisle, and on the street, and said her say as the 
 minister had said his text ; a thing chosen before 
 hand. I am afraid she forgot the text while she 
 remembered her own lesson, and rung the little 
 changes on it after she had heard the sermon. 
 
 At home again, Clementhy met her with a note, 
 and a bunch of roses. A man had brought them 
 from the Rextell place, she said. The note had 
 been sent from Boston, soon after breakfast. 
 
 " We think Cyrilla in no present danger, but she 
 needs entire quiet and great care. You shall know 
 from day to day. Trust me with her for a little 
 while ; try to be patient. You have borne so 
 much ; bear yet a little more ; it must all come 
 right. E. P. H."
 
 322 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 " And there s a gentleman in the parlor ; he 
 called Friday. I did n t tell you sooner, for I 
 kind o thought you might as well have one thing 
 to a time," said Clementhy Pond. 
 
 The two women had come into the little sitting- 
 room. Clementhy had lighted the laid fire in the 
 north parlor fireplace, and shut the door upon the 
 visitor there. Miss Bonable would be back " im- 
 mejutly after church," she had told him. 
 
 Clementhy retired to her kitchen, and to the 
 plump chicken she was basting so delicately brown 
 for dinner. Amelia Bonable crossed the hall and 
 opened the parlor door. She had the roses, tea- 
 pink and buff and creamy-white, in her hands. 
 
 A tall, broad, fine-countenanced man, in unex 
 ceptional dress worn with an accustomed ease, 
 stood facing her. Deep, handsome, hazel -gray 
 eyes looked out upon her from under brows bent 
 level with an habitually keen, perceptive intelli 
 gence. Two strong hands were reached forward 
 to her, as their owner made two quick, decisive 
 steps to meet her. The roses all fell, sweet and 
 scattered, on the floor. 
 
 " Amy ! " 
 
 " Mark ! " 
 
 So, after the sixteen years, they met again. 
 With a great flood of color rushing over her face 
 and sweeping swiftly back, she clung to the grasp
 
 LIFE IS NEVER OVER. 323 
 
 of his hands, and cried out, her voice sharp with 
 sudden release of pain, her lesson still struggling, 
 mechanically, with more spontaneous words, 
 " Oh, Mark ! She is in Boston. She s been away. 
 A little jaunt " she laughed with a tearful 
 catch, and the truth broke forth. " Mark ! Mark ! 
 She s been alone to Canada ! Loraine wrote 
 to her. She s come back sick, and I can t be with 
 hsr. She won t forgive me, for she don t know! 
 And I was hard with her, for I was so afraid ! " 
 
 " Loraine ! " ejaculated the man, with a stern 
 emphasis, seizing but one point in the interjected 
 statement. 
 
 " Loraine is dead." She said that slowly. He 
 had let go her hands. 
 
 A great light rose up strangely in Mark Raye s 
 face. It was not a flash, a joy, an exultation : it 
 was a solemn sunrise. He did not say a word ; 
 but his eyes looked down, with that deep glow 
 in them, and sought Amelia s. She lifted hers, 
 softly ; they were young and sweet, as they filled 
 with the shining that came from his. He did not 
 touch her ; he did not speak ; they stood quiet and 
 awed, as under some supreme announcement and 
 benediction. 
 
 Then, presently, he stooped down at her feet. 
 " You have dropped all your roses ; " and saying 
 that, began to gather them together. She waited
 
 824 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 till lie stood up and put them in her hands. " I 
 wish I could do that with all that has dropped out 
 of your life," he said. 
 
 " Oh, Mark ! " she answered, " I have been 
 wicked. I have felt as if I were somebody that 
 had died. I have talked about when I was 
 alive. And life is never over ! " 
 
 " Never more than just begun, Amy ! " 
 
 Nothing plainer than that was said ; but angels 
 speech could not be plainer. 
 
 They ate their Sunday dinner together ; and 
 Clementhy went about serving them in a kind of 
 homely rapture that came of an instinct of some 
 wonderful, heavenly thing, she knew not what. 
 " It was like carrying round the Sacrament ! " she 
 said to herself in the kitchen while she washed the 
 dishes. 
 
 Afterward, they talked much of Cyrilla. " If 
 she will only get well, and understand, and forgive 
 me," Amelia said. 
 
 " She will have to forgive you. She will have 
 to forgive us both together." 
 
 " I have watched her, and kept her down ; I was 
 looking out always for the Braitvvay in her ; and 
 all the time she has been clear Raye ! "
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 AT THE CEDARS. 
 
 IT was many days before Cyrilla could be al 
 lowed to enter into details on her own part, or re 
 ceive any detailed information, such as Miss Haven 
 was reserving only for the first right moment, or 
 such as present events were making ready for her 
 hearing. 
 
 Even in Wewachet it had not become known 
 that Miss Bonable had been visited by a strange 
 guest ; far less had any idea drifted into its atmos 
 phere that there was on the earth any one who 
 might appear there with such surprise and sig 
 nificance. Mr. Raye had a few* days business in 
 New York ; and had wisely gone away to do it. 
 
 It had been hard to persuade Cyrilla to rest easy 
 in the kind keeping of the Rextells. In those first 
 hours, she had told Miss Haven, with bitter pain, 
 the bare facts, which Miss Bonable had thus had it 
 in her power to announce to Marcus Raye ; then, 
 with only the often-urged entreaty to be put some 
 where, to have a place found for her where she
 
 326 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 could with a clear right stay, and the protest that 
 she belonged to nobody now, and could let nobody 
 be mixed up with her any more, she relapsed into 
 a kind of passive reticence, and lay hour after hour 
 in a mere weakness and forced endurance. Miss 
 Bonable s name agitated her dangerously. " She 
 meant right by me, and I ought to remember it. 
 But she did wrong wrong ! How could she give 
 her sister up I " 
 
 " Perhaps there are things in the whole story 
 that you do not know ; what you have to do now is 
 to get strong, and to let us help you. Then the 
 meaning of all this, and your own part and duty, 
 may appear." 
 
 Miss Haven spoke with a grave, tender author 
 ity. It reminded Rill of Mother Marthe s word, 
 " Because of some other thing in your life that 
 you do not know of yet, perhaps, this has been let 
 come to you so late." It was all a distressful 
 puzzle ; she could see nothing clear ; she had not 
 light enough to believe by. 
 
 Yet her strong, young physical powers asserted 
 themselves; in ten days she was able to be up; 
 and then Mrs. Kextell said, " We will all go to 
 Wewachet and keep Christmas. After that, we 
 will make plans." 
 
 Mrs. Rextell always carried all her own way. 
 Even if one meant finally to contradict her, one
 
 AT THE CEDARS. 327 
 
 had to be swept a little distance first by the cur 
 rent of her vigorous, kindly intent. Cyrilla had 
 at last yielded herself as one simply befriended in 
 a need, to the care given to her illness ; inwardly, 
 she set herself in a stern new attitude to these 
 friends who had become so dear. She could not 
 be of them any more, she, the daughter of a Mag 
 dalen. It was even in this very spirit of utter 
 humbling that she accepted kindness from them as 
 pure favor, for a while. She confessed herself an 
 object of the gentle charity that sought out such 
 and benefited them. But she meant to be very 
 proud to loneliness in her own way, by and 
 by! 
 
 Rill absolutely resisted the Wewachet plan at 
 first. " I am able to go somewhere else," she said. 
 " I do not belong with you." 
 
 Miss Haven passed that over. She only asked 
 her, " What level, then, do you propose to seek ? " 
 and to that, Hill could say nothing. 
 
 " But how can I go so near Miss Bonable, not 
 meaning to go home to her ? I do not wish " 
 
 " To hurt, or to insult her. No, indeed. Rill, 
 I can but assure you of one thing. If you do not 
 let yourself be guided in this, you will find that 
 you ou" ht to have done so. You are in a dark 
 
 / O 
 
 place. Give me your hand, and I will lead you 
 out. I will show you where you are, which is what
 
 328 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 you do not know. But your eyes will not bear all 
 the light at once. Believe me." 
 
 Kill misunderstood her strangely. She remem 
 bered that other word, " Believe in me, as I believe 
 in you." For fear of the very betrayal that resist 
 ance would be, she reserved her protest. It did not 
 matter much. If she could not escape, she could 
 face and settle the crises of her unhappy circum 
 stance. In all their talks, no word had been 
 spoken of Putnam King. He was away, upon 
 those professional errands ; he had been out to 
 Duluth, and down to St. Louis, across to Washing 
 ton, back to Boston, and away to Washington 
 again with Mr. Arbicon. In the midst of his work 
 he found unwonted time to write to aunt Elizabeth, 
 tell her of his doings, and ask the news of Wewa- 
 chet. How much or how little, therefore, he might 
 know of befallings there, rested with the golden 
 gossip ; and she assumed it to be quite her own 
 business. 
 
 They went out to " The Cedars." It was a mile 
 away from Wewachet village, and half as far, in 
 another direction, from Brook Lane. Perhaps no 
 body need know. 
 
 The large low house was warmed and lighted. 
 One beautiful mullioned window shone with amber 
 and crimson panes, like a flash of jewels. 
 
 Mrs. Jollis met them, smiling, at the door.
 
 AT THE CEDARS. 329 
 
 "Miss Raye is tired," Mrs. Rextell said. "We 
 will go right upstairs, and you may send tea to my 
 dressing-room." 
 
 Resist as she might, endure as she must, Rill 
 could but feel the graciousness of such home bring 
 ing, such putting of her in the carefully considered 
 place. After the tea, she was shown quietly to her 
 sleeping chamber. Mrs. Rextell kissed her at the 
 door. " I will leave you by yourself, dear child," 
 she said. " But Agnes shall look in by and by, to 
 see if you need anything." 
 
 How patient they were with her, in her with 
 drawn, renouncing mood ! She turned, and went 
 into the softly lighted apartment. It was the 
 pond lily room. 
 
 No word that could have been spoken would 
 have said it to her like that. " It is where I put 
 my very dearest, sweetest young girl friends." 
 
 And all about her, plainly manifest, shone even 
 fairer sign and message, which she could not ig 
 nore or refuse. In the " beauty of the lilies " it 
 was hieroglyphed ; no matter from what dark ooze 
 the stems might spring ; they, blooming into the 
 sun, looked up pure white. Rill took the blessed 
 comforting for more than herself ; was it not the 
 possible soul-blossoming of penitence ? None the 
 less, the lily carries up its memory into the sun ; it 
 is chained beneath the waters ; it must abide in a
 
 330 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 meek solitude ; it can only lift itself and breathe 
 its sweetness into Heaven. 
 
 The next morning Rill and Miss Haven sat to 
 gether. " Dear Miss Haven," said Rill, " how long 
 before you mean to lead me out, and show me the 
 way ? I cannot stay here, in the House Beautiful, 
 you know." She spoke gently, and with the 
 shadow of a smile ; yet with the same resolute 
 placing of herself in her new attitude, of one on a 
 separate, different, practical plane. 
 
 " Dear Rill, how long do you mean to hold out 
 against Miss Bonable ? " 
 
 " It is not a question of holding out. I cannot 
 help it that I have no place with her." The stern 
 ness had come over the young face again. 
 
 " Rill ! If you let this thing harden in your 
 heart, you will grow harder than ever she did. 
 For in her hardness there has been no resent 
 ment." 
 
 " Perhaps I may. That, too, may be a part of 
 my inheritance with the cause for the resentment 
 added." She spoke with a deliberate coldness. 
 
 " Cyrilla ! This must be broken up ! I must 
 tell you. You are strong enough to bear it now. 
 You can inherit nothing from Miss Bonable. You 
 have no right even to her faults. You never had 
 a claim upon her. Her love everything she has 
 given you has been free gift."
 
 AT THE CEDARS. 331 
 
 " I know I had no claim. I did not belong to 
 her. I belonged to my father and my mother. 
 She was only my aunt." 
 
 " She was only your father s first wife s sister. 
 Your mother was no kin to her at all." 
 
 " Miss Haven ! " Every bit of color had gone 
 out of Cyrilla s face. 
 
 " She never wanted you to know." 
 
 Cyrilla had leaned forward while Miss Haven 
 had been speaking, her hands clasped tightly across 
 her knees ; her expression had grown fixed, intent. 
 Now it seemed as if she were hypnotized in the 
 attitude. She remained motionless, breathless, for 
 a minute or more. The minute felt long to them 
 both. Then a gentle wave of color returned to the 
 pale face ; the eyes lighted and softened with an 
 expression that gave itself instantly to a remem 
 brance of great kindness ; and the hands reached 
 out humbly to Miss Haven, as Cyrilla stood up, a 
 certain hard-used dignity retained in her erectness. 
 " You are very good. I am glad I know something, 
 at last. It was time. I must go away, and think," 
 she said. 
 
 " Think as your thoughts are led, dear child," 
 Miss Haven answered her ; and Rill passed on into 
 the pond lily room. 
 
 There it came over her, with its full significance 
 and bearing ; with the new doubt and question also.
 
 332 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 Where were her proud protest and resentment, 
 in which she had been so strong ? Where was 
 her great injury, that she was never to forgive ? 
 Where was her independence, e^en, in which she 
 could break loose old bonds and go away into such 
 new life as she should choose ? 
 
 " She has cared for me all these years, and I was 
 nothing to her ! " Her honest heart said this, and 
 shamed her. " Atn I even sure that all my all 
 the other said, was true ? This was falsified ; 
 why not that ? Is there any one else on all the 
 earth to whom I do belong ? Is there any likeli 
 hood that I can claim, or take, the least thing that 
 way? If there were anything, is it not all due to 
 her, Miss Bonable ? Am I not due, myself, to 
 her ? And yet, if I am helpless now, how, for that 
 very reason, can I go back ? " It was all a seethe 
 of torturing perplexity. 
 
 But at last it came to her, the one plain, first 
 step. " I must go and ask her to forgive me I 
 who thought I could not forgive her and I must 
 own my great debt to her, and thank her as if 
 any thanking could go back, and take all up, and 
 make acknowledgement! And then I may go 
 away, and earn my bread." 
 
 She came back into Miss Haven s room ; she 
 had put on her cloak and bonnet, and her warm 
 furs. The weight of the clothing oppressed her ;
 
 AT THE CEDARS. 333 
 
 she was yet so weak. She caught her breath 
 shortly, and a strange, trembling fatigue came into 
 her limbs. 
 
 Miss Haven looked up with an exclamation: 
 " Rill ! What can you possibly mean to do ? " 
 
 " I mean to go to the cottage. I mean to go 
 down on my knees to Miss Bonable, and beg her 
 pardon. Then I don t know yet what I mean 
 to do." 
 
 " But you cannot walk. Mrs. Rextell Mar 
 garet we might have the carriage. I will take 
 you." 
 
 " I will not go in anybody s carriage. I will not 
 be taken. I will get there, somehow." Even as 
 she spoke she dropped into a chair. " I shall be 
 all right presently," she said. " Or perhaps 
 if they would send for Gates ; I would go in the 
 depot carriage ; may be I must do that." 
 
 " Now, Rill, you are acting hastily ; yon are in 
 an extreme again. You must let us judge for you, 
 and help you. Let me go with you ; you are unfit 
 to be alone." 
 
 " I am not fit " burst from Rill s lips ; and 
 then the lips quivered, and she gathered back her 
 willful resolution against absolute break-down. " If 
 you will come with me in Oates s carriage to the 
 end of the lane and let me go in alone from 
 there," she said. So Gates was telephoned for.
 
 334 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 " You are quite right to go ; and you shall go as 
 you please," Mrs. Rextell said. " And you shall 
 come back or you shall stay there as you 
 please, then." The very slight emphasis upon the 
 alternative marked confidence in Cyrilla s complete 
 reparation, and its natural method. 
 
 Cyrilla only said, gravely, "I have no right 
 there."
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 " MOTHER." 
 
 " You will not come again, Mark, till Cyrilla 
 knows. It would not be fair." That was what 
 Amy Bonable had said to Marcus Raye at the end 
 of his first visit. 
 
 " I will come when you send for me. I shall be 
 at Young s Hotel. How soon will you tell her ? " 
 
 " As soon as I can see her. If she does not come 
 here I shall go to her." 
 
 And that was the way it happened that when 
 Cyrilla left Miss Haven in the carriage at the en 
 trance to Brook Lane, and began with slow, diffi 
 cult steps the walk toward Miss Bonable s door, 
 that person herself came at a brisk, determined 
 pace around the winding turn across the little 
 bridge, and met the prodigal. 
 
 "Child!" 
 
 " Miss Bonable ! " 
 
 " Don t say a word, here in the street ! You 
 are perfectly white. You are n t fit to be out. 
 Oh, Rill ! There, hush up ; come back home ! "
 
 336 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 and a strong arm was reached out, and a hand 
 grasped Rill s arm to help and lift her, and then 
 would not stop there, but by sudden impulse put it 
 self around the girl, and Rill was drawn close to the 
 warm support of aunt Amelia s furred shoulder. 
 
 Miss Haven ordered her driver on to Crooke 
 Corner. 
 
 Within the cottage, a bright pine-wood fire 
 burned in the sitting-room. Miss Bonable pulled 
 a cushioned chair to the hearth and set Rill in it. 
 " You re not to say a word till you ve had a 
 tumbler of hot wine whey. And then I ve got 
 to talk to you. 
 
 To make sure of her purpose, Miss Bonable 
 whisked from the room, and went to prepare the 
 wine whey herself. But when she came back, 
 Rill was on a low hassock at the chair-foot. She 
 put back the glass with a gentle, imploring motion. 
 
 " Sit here, please ; and let me speak first. I 
 could not swallow unless I did. I have been so 
 wrong. I have been so ignorant. I am so ashamed 
 and sorry. I have come to tell you so. I want 
 you to forgive me, and do what you like with me. 
 Only I wish I could pay back something of all I 
 owe. I would like to be your servant." 
 
 What became of the glass of whey for the mo 
 ment, I am not sure ; I think Miss Bonable set it 
 down on the hearth. She seated herself upon the
 
 "MOTHER." 337 
 
 rug before Rill, a little lower yet than the low cush 
 ion. " Rill, I want you to forgive me," she said. 
 " You don t quite know all what for. I was going 
 to you to tell you. You must forgive everybody. 
 We must begin again. Things are all broken up ; 
 a whole piece of my life has dropped right out, and 
 there is nothing left of it but you. You must stay ; 
 the rest of it is cast into the sea." 
 
 Her eyes were lifted up to Rill s ; they were 
 large and dark and soft as Rill had never 
 seen them before ; the tears were brimming them. 
 
 " Dear how young you look ! How sweet you 
 are ! " cried Rill, gazing at the miracle of the 
 woman gone back across that hard, abolished piece 
 of her life to the lovely time and self that had been 
 before. Rill had paused for a name, before she 
 could speak at all ; then that " dear " came and 
 uttered itself. The two put their arms about each 
 other s neck, and kissed each other. 
 
 There is nothing so tender as repentance. To 
 be forgiven is to love ; more than with no need 
 of repentance. That is why God lets wrong and 
 mistake be possible to us ; that this most blessed 
 thing may be possible also. 
 
 After that, the long story of explanation could 
 .wait a little. Somehow, they both knew, and it 
 was scarcely needed. Miss Bonable made Cyrilla 
 drink the wine whey.
 
 338 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 " Now, can you bear to hear a new, strange 
 thing? It is what I have got to tell you, before it 
 comes and tells itself. Cyrilla, your father has 
 come back. He is waiting to know that he can see 
 you. Pie will be here to-night." 
 
 Cyrilla looked in the sweet, changed face, and 
 divined what had so transfigured it. It was a 
 human heart that had come to its own again ; as 
 out of age and pain and separation hearts enter 
 paradise. 
 
 When Miss Haven came back from Crooke Cor 
 ner and stopped at the cottage, Miss Bonable met 
 her at the door. " Will you send this down to the 
 noon mail, sure ? It is all right," she said. And 
 again Miss Haven drove away. 
 
 Cyrilla was sent up to her own little east room 
 to sleep and rest. The afternoon wore quietly 
 away : the early sunset came, and the east room 
 was dim, with only reflected lights. But far over 
 toward the new sunrising that would be to-morrow, 
 was the rosy glow in which to-day went down. 
 
 In the twilight she arose and ordered her dress 
 and her hair. How strange it was to be going 
 down to aunt Amelia ? What name should she 
 call Miss Bonable by, now ? It must be a name 
 of love, and not of cold constraint ; but it could 
 not be she did not wish it to be the name she 
 had known her by through all their misknowing.
 
 "MOTHER." 339 
 
 While she stood and thought of this, she heard 
 the door open, and the firm entering tread of a man. 
 
 There were low voices down beneath, in the little 
 sitting-room. She could hear the fresh fire crackle 
 in the chimney. Her father was there ; she must 
 go to him to them. 
 
 Slowly she passed down the stairway. It was 
 not a thing to hurry to, eagerly ; it was a strange, 
 solemn meeting and making known ; when she 
 opened the door, the two figures stood there by the 
 hearth, waiting. Both turned ; the man s hands 
 were held out. " Are you my little daughter ? " 
 he said. 
 
 Cyrilla came up with a shy womanly dignity in 
 her face ; she had been deprived of her " little- 
 daughter "-hood ; she could not go right back into 
 that. " I suppose so," she said, pathetically, put 
 ting her own hands in his. " But oh, I ought to 
 have known you all these years ! " 
 
 " You must forgive us both. We thought of 
 you. It seemed the best. There were many things 
 that could not be quite explained ; there were 
 things to guard you from." 
 
 " I know. And I have been hard to guard. But, 
 indeed, I was not so much to be afraid of." 
 
 " That was my mistake," said Miss Bonable. 
 " And I am sorry. But you shall know everything 
 now that you have a right to."
 
 340 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 " I do know. And I think we will put it all 
 away." 
 
 Marcus Raye looked at the girl as she spoke, 
 with a wondering pleasure in his heart, at her 
 sweet, frank nobleness. " You are like my mother, 
 Rill," he said. 
 
 " But you don t know all. And it should not 
 be kept back a minute longer. Mark, tell her." 
 Miss Bonable came to Marcus Raye s side as she 
 spoke, and put one hand in his, while she laid the 
 other on Cyrilla s shoulder. 
 
 Cyrilla lifted her eyes quickly, and flashed a look 
 at each as they stood there. "It does n t need tell 
 ing," she said. "It is good. I am glad, I am 
 glad " and her voice took a tender, happy ring 
 in it " that I shall have a real, true name to call 
 you by, Mother ! " 
 
 In that instant she gave all. Miss Bonable let 
 go the father s hand, and folded her arms about 
 the daughter, and held her close. 
 
 " Will you go to the other side of the world with 
 us, Rill ? " asked Mr. Raye, a minute later. 
 
 " I will go with you, if it is beyond the world ! "
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 CONNIE S ASTONISHMENT. 
 
 THE coming home of a rich Australian father to 
 a girl who had not been supposed to have any fa 
 ther at all, was a great windfall to Wewachet. It 
 was much more than a windfall ; it was the drop 
 ping into their midst of a wonderful, magnificent 
 aerolite. They gathered round the great phenome 
 non with all their little hammers. They tried to 
 chip it here and there ; to get off crumbs and cor 
 ners, that should seem to multiply its contents and 
 significance. But they did not get at the heart of 
 it, with all their tapping ; until Miss Haven was 
 duly authorized to disclose it in such a way as she 
 pleased. 
 
 Connie Norris came over, one day, to Crooke 
 Corner. She had something on her mind. She had 
 promised George Craigan to give him a clear, 
 final answer that evening. Somehow, she felt as 
 if Miss Haven could help her ; could counsel her, 
 or give her light. Miss Haven held the threads of 
 things in Wewachet. Perhaps she could say some-
 
 342 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 thing to her, even indirectly, which would settle 
 her mind upon contingent and still anxious points. 
 
 She found Dr. Harriman there. Would this 
 help or hinder ? She began to think how she 
 could approach her matter without a too plain 
 speaking. It was a chance, undoubtedly. Over 
 Miss Haven s shoulder she could hint a need, a 
 worry, that might make oblique appeal to Dr. 
 Harriman. 
 
 But Miss Haven had her news to tell. She had 
 already given it to the doctor. " Do you know 
 there is an engagement out ? " she asked Cornelia. 
 
 " No, where ? " responded Connie, quickly ; 
 the mistrust striking her that her own decision 
 might, Wewachet-fashion, have been forestalled. 
 She did not pause to consider that it would not 
 have been Miss Haven s fashion to force the ac 
 knowledgment in this way. 
 
 " In Brook Lane," said Miss Haven, smiling ; 
 and Connie saw what she thought a conscious an 
 swering smile upon Dr. Harriman s face. She did 
 not consider the fashion of this announcement, 
 either. Nothing is inconsistent to an intense pre 
 possession. 
 
 " I am sure," she said hastily, " I hope every 
 body will be very happy. I ought to hope so, for 
 I am in the category myself. I came to tell you " 
 the sudden adaptation of her errand slipped into
 
 CONNIE S ASTONISHMENT. 343 
 
 a fib "I am going to be married to Mr. George 
 Craigan." 
 
 Instantly they both shook hands with her, offer 
 ing hearty congratulations. Her little victory was 
 over. The defeat remained. 
 
 " But I have not told you," said Miss Haven, 
 when they had given due time and words to the 
 interpolated tidings. "You will like to know. It 
 is a beautiful old story. It is Mr. Raye who is to 
 marry Miss Bonable. They cared for each other 
 a great while ago, but it was given up. Rill is 
 very happy." 
 
 Connie did her best ; she was as much astonished 
 as she need be ; the quality of her astonishment 
 was only fully known to herself. 
 
 She had committed herself. That evening she 
 gave her answer to George Craigan. She took her 
 satisfactions, such as they were, as such brides do. 
 
 " I mean to be married in church," she told Sue 
 Wilder. " It s a great deal better fun. And 
 I m going to Washington. I shall see Mrs. 
 Cleveland. You know they say I look like her. 
 Mr. Craigan is going to build for us. And, oh, 
 Sue ! I. mean to have such a lovely morning- 
 room ! " 
 
 " I hope you find Mr. George Craigan of use to 
 you in your plans," said Sue, with sudden sarcasm. 
 
 Connie stared. " What do you mean ? " she
 
 344 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 cried. She understood the allusion well enough, 
 but she could not comprehend it from Sue Wilder. 
 
 Sue was simply disenchanted and indignant. 
 She had put heart and faith in her friend s other 
 romance. She had thought George Craigan was 
 the " obstacle." She had meekly admired and 
 idealized as she was bid. Now this was too much. 
 
 There was something to be and to come, both in 
 and for Sue Wilder, better than following in the 
 wake of Connie Norris s fantasies and flirtations. 
 
 " Sue has grown into Susan," Rill said of her 
 afterward, upon an occasion. " And Susan is sweet 
 and sober, and strong and womanly." 
 
 It was long afterward, when much in circum 
 stance and event had taken fixed and accepted 
 place. She said it to Dr. Harriman, the strength 
 of whose finer character had asserted itself in the 
 rare achievement of gradually replacing a disap 
 pointed selfishness of love with a high generosity 
 of friendship. 
 
 Rill Raye had revealed him to himself. She had 
 given him better than her love. The magnanimity 
 in him, that she had compelled by her confident 
 demand, discovered itself to him as a capacity from 
 which it was a gladness to act, whatever, like the 
 swift athletes of old, he might have to cast away 
 in the noble urgency of pressing onward to his 
 higher mark.
 
 CONNIE S ASTONISHMENT. 345 
 
 The reader may, if she pleases, construct a pos 
 sible side sequel from this influence and bearing, 
 which my story has not space for. I will neither 
 affirm nor overthrow her conclusion. It shall be 
 as she likes best. 
 
 Miss Haven began to think she had undertaken 
 a good deal. Now, she had Putnam King upon 
 her hands. She wrote to him every word of what 
 had happened. Of course, Putnam came, at the 
 earliest practicable moment, to "Wewachet. 
 
 " It is not possible she will do that ! " he ex 
 claimed, when aunt Elizabeth told him of the plan 
 of going to Adelaide. For the moment, he almost 
 beiieved that he had believed in a delusion. 
 
 " I told you she would burn and drown, in her 
 own heart, for those she cared for. It is high sac 
 rifice. So high, that it is glad. It is for you, as 
 much as for them. If she thinks of anything else, 
 she believes that it would wrong you." 
 
 " There is simply but one thing to be done, and 
 I shall go straight and do it." 
 
 " Go to her father, then ; it is your only 
 chance."
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 "OUGHT I?" 
 
 "You ask a great deal of me," said Marcus 
 Raye. " But I will tell her. I will even urge the 
 cause. It will need urging, for her scruples of 
 right, and her sense of present dut} r , will be strong. 
 I have known Rill but a little while, but I know 
 her well enough to be sure that the more her o*\vn 
 wish pleads for you, the more she will refuse." 
 
 " I must leave it with you now," said Putnam 
 King. " But I shall not leave it with you finally. 
 I shall speak for myself." 
 
 " Very good," said Marcus Raye. " I can even 
 hope you may succeed." And he gave the young 
 man a well-pleased smile, and a hearty grasp of 
 the hand. 
 
 " We shall have to give her up," the father said 
 to his promised wife. " We shall have to do more ; 
 we must even push her out of the new nest." 
 
 Rill said her determined nay, at the first word. 
 It was so determined, that it was easy to see it was 
 against herself.
 
 "OUGHT I?" 347 
 
 " You have no right, if you care for him. If 
 you have entered into his life, you belong there, 
 and must stay." 
 
 " But, father, even if all the rest were right 
 and easy, how could I ? It is hard to say it to 
 you, but I am her child. Ought I to hold my 
 self " she could not utter the rest. 
 
 Then Marcus Raye spoke out of the depth of 
 his full-grown, manly nature. " You are the child 
 of humanity. Its possibilities are all in you. 
 They have come through many channels. No one 
 can trace all his own antecedents. She when 
 she was your mother with whatever faults, was 
 at her brightest and sweetest. She was gay and 
 loving. You are like her in that. You are born 
 of the best of her. Her sin was weakness ; you 
 are strong. Live for your mother, Rill ; live out 
 the other nature of her, from which she took the 
 mistaken turn. She is turned back to it now, we 
 will believe. And you are my child, Rill ; and so, 
 my mother s, who was the grandest woman I ever 
 knew." 
 
 " No one but my father could have persuaded 
 me. No, not you, Putnam. I should have re 
 sisted you for the love of you. Nothing could 
 have assured me but being his child. If he had 
 not come home, nothing would have been mended."
 
 348 A GOLDEN GOSSIP. 
 
 And nobody knew the hand the Golden Gossip 
 had had in that. 
 
 Beautiful upon the hard places of the earth are 
 the feet of one who bringeth good tidings; who 
 publisheth peace.
 
 of .fiction 
 
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